Rose Byrne

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Speaker 1 Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Hi. Today we have one of my all-time favorite actors.

Speaker 1 I've been singing her praises for a long time now.

Speaker 2 She's so good.

Speaker 1 Because she does this thing that very few people can do, which is is perfect comedian, perfect dramatic actor.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Rose Byrne. She's a powerhouse.
She is an Emmy-nominated actor and producer. Platonic, currently on Apple Plus.

Speaker 1 Neighbors, Insidious, Bridesmaids.

Speaker 1 She has a new movie in theaters now called If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You. It's a great title.
And of course, she's from Australia, which is just endlessly charming. I find that endlessly charming.

Speaker 2 As you'll hear, she's reluctant reluctant to tall poppy, but we try to get her there.

Speaker 1 I think we made a little progress by the end. We may be.
And she was not reminiscent at all of that AI that would not count to a million.

Speaker 2 No, she was nothing like her.

Speaker 1 Nothing like her, that Australian woman. Also, we have Armchair Anonymous prompts.

Speaker 2 Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 So make sure if people, people are sometimes confused. How do I get on Armchair Anonymous? Which is on Fridays, which is many people's favorite show.

Speaker 2 Check it out if you don't have it. It really is.
People love it.

Speaker 1 Here's what you do. You go to our website and you submit your story.

Speaker 2 ArmchairExpertPod.com. So here are the prompts.

Speaker 1 Tell us about an unexpected orgasm. This is a repeat.

Speaker 1 We had a lot of luck with the first one.

Speaker 2 We did. Let's hope.
But guys, don't lie.

Speaker 1 Don't lie. That goes for all of these prompts.
Don't lie.

Speaker 2 But mainly that one.

Speaker 1 Tell us about a dental disaster. Ooh, get ready for pain.
Aaron Cacolin. He's dealing with some right now.

Speaker 1 Tell us about a Thanksgiving disaster.

Speaker 1 Remember, grandma caught on fire? Yeah. It might have been Christmas, but it wasn't.

Speaker 2 I think it was Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 Tell us about a nightmare holiday experience. Skiwi.
Skioe. Unexpected orgasm, dental disaster, Thanksgiving disaster, and a nightmare holiday experience.
Please enjoy Roseburn.

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Speaker 1 Hi, how are you? Good to see you.

Speaker 1 I don't think that I've seen you since we did the movie going down memory lane. And I was like, I feel like that was probably.
And how good is your memory of that? That would have been Toronto, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And then I remember running into you at Jen Carpenter's wedding.
Oh, wow. Yeah, which was

Speaker 1 like about nine years ago because go by the kids, like how old they are. Oh, yeah.
So that was about nine years ago. And you had one of your little daughters.

Speaker 1 I had a little girl who had refused to put her dress on. So we showed up as it was ending.

Speaker 2 Oh, that was the Asheville wedding then.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 And they came down the aisle. I was saying, we watched them.
I was like, well, fucking, we blew all the way here.

Speaker 2 We missed them. No.

Speaker 1 The wedding was like a laid-back vibe. Yeah, they were great.
It was really lovely. That was really, really sweet.
And you just did Charlie Shane, I heard. Oh, he did.
This is going to be very dull.

Speaker 1 Very, very dull. Just lower the expectations.

Speaker 2 Sometimes we do have two people in a day.

Speaker 1 Film the most extreme one.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we had a sex expert on, she was incredible.

Speaker 2 Yes, and she taught us,

Speaker 2 she taught us how to squirt.

Speaker 1 Oh, what?

Speaker 2 Yes, it was full-on. Then she leaves, and then an hour later, we have a guy who is imprisoned in Russia for four years.

Speaker 1 Untrumped up charges.

Speaker 1 I was like, wow, this is a big show. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Sometimes we get crazy days like that.

Speaker 1 Do you ever join Bobby on things where you're just hanging while he has to do all the bullshit? No.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 When I think about it, two actors, it's just a juggling act of

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 two little kids, seven and nine. And how old are your girls now? 10 and 12.
Wow. Are you in between worlds? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. My nine is getting a little.
Some testosterone's arriving. Yeah.
It's just the social conditioning, right? Of the peers and the friends and all this thing.

Speaker 1 But I was like, gosh, he's still so little. Yeah, Yeah, over and over.
But your partner is kind of a ball, no? I've never met him, but he seems like a bit of a bull.

Speaker 1 You've never met him. I've never met him.
No. So you might get some bull energy.
And these names are very bull-like names. Rocco.

Speaker 2 Oh, I love that.

Speaker 1 Bobby's just a big love.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. He's Cuban.
It's the masculinity, but very big heart. Such a big softy.
But I think his roles, what do you call it? Belie him or no? They

Speaker 1 betray him, maybe? Because he gets cast in these parts that are like very alpha and stuff. Oh, I love how you say alpha.
Alpha.

Speaker 1 How do you pronounce it? Alpha.

Speaker 1 Alpha. Like Alpha Betta.
What's her name in Wicked? Alphaba. Alphaba.
When is the sequel, guys? When's it coming? Thanksgiving, right?

Speaker 1 Thanksgiving. The girls must be pumped.
My family went so off the deep end. We had Wicked Christmas.
Did you? We didn't do that. No.

Speaker 1 That we did not do.

Speaker 2 Wicked Christmas. It was themed.

Speaker 1 The entire house was green. It was Wicked Christmas.
Wow.

Speaker 2 And that's Kristen. The kids love it, but Kristen

Speaker 1 really. She went to six or seven screens.
She went to the sing-alongs. That's her thing.
Well, she's a musical theater actress, though. She is.
Right. So this is her.

Speaker 1 And I think she coveted that role when she was younger. That's a different world.
Can you sing? No. God.
No.

Speaker 1 Are you being modest?

Speaker 1 I'm not.

Speaker 1 I'm not being modest. No, and I think it's such a gift.
It's like if someone can speak several languages or they can sing opera, I think it's like they're a secret agent. You can also do that.

Speaker 1 It's such a skill. Yeah.
When people say like, would you want to fly? Would you want to be invisible?

Speaker 1 I say really high on the list, probably just below flying, would be if I could open my throat and Adele came out. I have to imagine that feels so cool.
I know.

Speaker 1 Your whole body resonates with the feeling.

Speaker 2 Can you get that same buzz we get from hearing?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I think.
Really? Yes, because it's a jump off the deep end commitment. It's, I'm going to go full throttle.
I'm going to let it fucking rip.

Speaker 1 And then you hear, oh my God, I'm right on pitch and tone. And I nailed it.
Yes, it has to feel like the perfect golf swing.

Speaker 2 It probably feels good. She can't hear it the way we hear it.

Speaker 1 I don't think she listens to it and it feels as good as it feels to us. I love how we're just like, we know how she feels.
Not anything easier.

Speaker 1 We do know a fat. But maybe she's been here.

Speaker 2 I don't know. No, not yet.

Speaker 1 Oh, remember when she had the surgery on her? Can you imagine being the doctor?

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 That's a great point. We don't have enough compassion for that doctor.
You're right.

Speaker 1 Let's just circle back to that, right? She was probably shitting bricks, that doctor. Like, literally.

Speaker 2 Good job with that, she.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to lie to you. I thought he, and I said, no, I'm going to say she.
I had to think about it. It's good.
Sometimes we have to think. We do.
You know?

Speaker 1 Sometimes we got to step over bad architecture. And how do you guys know each other? What's your story? Go ahead, Mike.
No, you can go ahead. No, I tell it all the time.

Speaker 2 I started out as a babysitter for Kristen and Dax 10 years.

Speaker 1 Friendship circle. She was in our adjacent friendship.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's more to it. I was in an adjacent friend circle.

Speaker 2 Like I met them at random parties parties and stuff very very very superficially and i was acting i was trying to act and i did an episode of kristen's show house of lies where i played her assistant and she was like oh i know you i recognize you yeah and i was like yeah and also i make money by babysitting so they just had their first kid and i was like if you ever need a babysitter so then after that she called me so i started date night babysitting then they brought me on full-time babysitting

Speaker 2 exactly they had their second my soulmate here's where it would be a brag for you so i'll I'll take over.

Speaker 1 So then we started noticing, like, oh, UCB, oh, really funny, great texter, really good writer. And then she started working with, that's a good clue.
It is. I locked it.
It's true.

Speaker 1 And some people don't put it. It's such a reveal.
Now, this is where I do wish I was younger in dating because I could do this. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 were you single at all at any point during texting? You've been together 13 years ago. We've been together 13 years.

Speaker 2 So, yeah.

Speaker 1 I remember Blackberry days. Kristen and I were on the T-Mobile sidekick.

Speaker 1 The full, we got full fucking typewriter. How long have you guys been together? Over 18.
Really? But I did. Whoever were the texts, actually.

Speaker 1 If you hear her tell the story, she'll say, I saw her somewhere. I saw her somewhere.
We had a mutual friend. I got her number.
And my first text to her was, Hey, it's Dex. We met at Shauna's party.

Speaker 1 I violated your privacy. Shauna, that's right.
I know Shauna. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I said, I violated your privacy and gotten your number. How do you feel about that?

Speaker 1 And then she was like, oh, that's a good start. Cute.
So you saw her talent and then started working with Kristen kind of full-time.

Speaker 2 Once Delta went to preschool and they were like, oh, what do we do with her now?

Speaker 1 We like her, but what do we do? I can't care to sit here and watch TV.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. I mean, you could have.
That would have been nice and generous, but you didn't.

Speaker 1 So then

Speaker 2 I became Kristen's assistant then. And that's when I started writing a bunch of stuff for her.

Speaker 2 And she was like, oh, and then I started writing all her commercials and we kind of became creative partners. And then I left her because we decided to do this.

Speaker 1 How did this idea?

Speaker 2 He wanted to do a podcast because he loved doing podcasts, as he said earlier.

Speaker 1 Also, we were both listening to cereal and we had different takeaways from it. And we would often debate in the kitchen about ad nonsense or not.

Speaker 1 And we just debated nonstop. I was like, yeah, this is a gray dynamic.
Yep. You had a good chemistry.
So then this started and it took off in this very unexpected way.

Speaker 1 At one point, she had to go like, we got to do this thing.

Speaker 2 And this job became bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. You and Kristen, are you on speaking terms or no? We just got back to you.

Speaker 1 I'm glad things are okay.

Speaker 2 Thank God she's the most generous

Speaker 2 person on earth and she also wants the best for everyone. So she, you know, she was very graceful about it.

Speaker 1 She's like a nice lady. Yeah, I know.
She's a little bit of a nice lady. She's a little bit of a nice lady.
And she was quite graceful.

Speaker 1 I can't put too fine of a point on that because they were so intertwined at that point. Oh, wow.
Oh, our brains are very,

Speaker 1 she wrote her monologue. I mean, she really relied on her.
I still show up. Does she have a new you?

Speaker 2 She does have a beautiful new meme.

Speaker 1 She did did it in Monica.

Speaker 2 She did it again. You love this.

Speaker 1 The longer we can talk.

Speaker 1 Don't think I'm a fucking daddy. He's a daddy.
I'm sorry. Charlie Shane.

Speaker 2 No, we know. We know.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Very Timothy Olafant.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 Again, this is

Speaker 1 too.

Speaker 2 We had him on the show.

Speaker 1 He was the best.

Speaker 2 But he also kept asking me about cheerleading.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And eventually I had to say, okay, I got to put a flag on this.
I'm going to let you ask that last question. And then we are going to talk about you.
I want to thank you for the backstory.

Speaker 1 I was genuinely. Do you feel more grounded

Speaker 1 oriented just oriented

Speaker 1 that's a better way

Speaker 1 i was relieved to see that i did see this percolate up in a lot of different interviews that you've done where you kind of are pretty honest about

Speaker 1 the fear level regardless of the amount of success on paper how can you not have that but it's really reassuring because

Speaker 1 Minimally, put your fear over here for one second. You'd have to acknowledge this on paper.
You've had a fucking gangbuster career. Oh, yeah.
I am so grateful. I've had such good luck.

Speaker 1 This is a hard business. This is one of the more successful careers you could ever have.
And the notion that you're still fearful is very comforting.

Speaker 1 This business is littered with extraordinary talented people who have not had luck or had timing. I cannot take anything for granted.
Melissa McCarthy had worked for a decade.

Speaker 1 You do from Gramblings, right? And she was working. It's not like it was not a bad career.
She was hiding in plain sight and such a good actress. Obviously, this comedic fucking bullet.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so that kind of stuff is happening all the time. There's people like Melissa McCarthy who, if not for bridesmaids.

Speaker 1 If not for Paul Feig and Kristen, it's interesting the artists like Mike White, Jennifer Coolidge, too. Like, again, had an incredible career, obviously so revered, such an uncontainable presence.

Speaker 1 But he was like, I want to write for you and champion for her, according to what I've read.

Speaker 1 But to your point, it's like takes these minds like a Mike White or a Paul Feig or someone who can harness that and give that person a shot. And that's out of our hands.

Speaker 1 There's so little agency in our careers. No, I have so many friends who graduated from drama school who whatever reason.
Yeah, I was rejected from every drama school.

Speaker 2 Wow, really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's so random. Can I ask that? So I learned that and I thought that was really strange.

Speaker 1 You started acting at eight. Theater classes.
Yeah. And you're in a suburb of Sydney.
How far out? 20 minutes from the city. Okay.
You're the youngest of four. Two older sisters, one older brother.

Speaker 1 Yep. You're a ham in the family or not? Yeah, the youngest.

Speaker 2 You get away with murder.

Speaker 1 Well, like your parents are tired. By the time it's number four, like, what are you doing? Yeah.
But yeah, you start acting at eight, and then you're in your first movie at 15, right? 12, actually.

Speaker 1 There was a casting agent that was looking at kids in my little class and yeah, I got this part. And then two series.

Speaker 1 I did a soap opera in Australia when I was 15 and that was great training, actually. I don't know if you ever did a soap, but it's technically amazing.
The training.

Speaker 1 Because you do 100 pages a day, right? That's what's amazing. So much stuff.
And soaps in Australia are different from American. They're half an hour and they're hugely popular in the UK.

Speaker 1 Carly Minogue was on a soap opera. That was huge in Australia.
Margot Robbie was on a soap opera. It was really popular in Australia.
Heath was on a wine.

Speaker 1 You worked with him on one. I worked with him on a film, but it's a great training ground.
I have great friends who are on shows back home.

Speaker 1 So I did one that was very short-lived, but technically it's incredible because you work so hard, you move so fast, thrown into press, thrown into all that nonsense too, which at a young age can be, I mean, you see it, it's littered with kids who don't make it.

Speaker 1 This was in Australia, so it's much more of a bubble and it's a smaller pond. Whereas here, it's obviously way more exposure.
And all the eyes are on you. America's the content leader of the world.

Speaker 1 Better that you say that than us, but okay, well, I'm glad it it was said.

Speaker 1 I just made that statement. But it's true.
You know, it's way more exposure if you're doing that here. In a way, Australia is much more sheltered and protected.

Speaker 1 But what confuses me is at the point you start auditioning for these kind of prestigious acting schools, this is now post-high school.

Speaker 1 Yeah, finished high school, started at uni, and then started to audition for all the acting schools. So how on earth was it not relevant that you were already like a very working actor with momentum?

Speaker 1 It's two very separate camps. Acting schools in Australia are way more interested in theater and your skill around that.
Like Shakespeare-y kind of. Yeah, it felt way more unattainable.

Speaker 1 Acting schools felt out of my league.

Speaker 2 But do you think they were punishing you for having success? I think they were jealous. That happens sometimes with theaters and theater schools.
They really don't like on-screen performers.

Speaker 1 Look, I would wonder now, because the majority of work for an actor to make a living. is unfortunately not in the theater.
It's just not.

Speaker 1 It's just not. If you're going to live in New York or LA, you can't financially survive, especially if you have a family.

Speaker 1 So I wonder now, obviously I'm so old now, I've got no idea, but if they take that into consideration at these schools, that back then it was way more snobby.

Speaker 1 So my other thing that makes no sense is why did you even go to uni? My parents, they were like, got to go to uni, got to keep your brain working. And I studied English literature and gender studies.

Speaker 1 I didn't finish my degree, but I went to Sydney Uni, which is a gorgeous campus. It's a bit like Hogwarts, beautiful old sandstone buildings.

Speaker 1 I did half my degree and then I started getting more jobs and I ended up like, I'll finish it online. I never did and I wish I had.
You so do you. Do you though? I don't get this.
I do.

Speaker 1 You don't believe it. They don't buy it.

Speaker 2 It's hard. It's hard to have something half done.

Speaker 2 That's like it's always going to be sort of hanging.

Speaker 1 Just that sense of accomplishment that I finished it. That's fine, but it's like you were blessed, which almost none of us are.

Speaker 1 You were blessed with actually knowing what you wanted to do from a young age. And so anything other than that thing doesn't make any sense to me.

Speaker 1 And why there would be any guilt or shame around like, oh, I didn't go get a degree. It's like, well, yeah, you weren't trying to become a professor.

Speaker 1 I think, but because I started so young, there was a part of me that was like, do I just like this because I liked it when I was little? Or do I still like this? Okay.

Speaker 1 The opportunity to study and what a privilege to be able to do that. And I really liked university.
I loved the independence of it. Oh, it's very fun.
Yeah, it's so fun.

Speaker 1 It's a different culture here, though, because in Australia, you don't go away. I lived at home.
Most people don't travel to go to college.

Speaker 1 But we do another thing where we go overseas for six months after you finish school.

Speaker 1 You'll work and save money, which is a bit of an australian tradition and then you go and travel for six months and you like live in london and you work in a pub and then you travel around europe and you go backpacking but i think we're so far away in australia so you have to travel so where did you go i went to italy i went all around italy i went to london did you have an italian lover i wish

Speaker 1 unfortunately i did not wish that

Speaker 1 we all wish that we'd had that

Speaker 1 okay you're working a bunch in australia it's going very well well enough to drop out of uni i I know there are a couple American movies. There's Ghost with Matt Dillon.

Speaker 1 Oh my God, that's such a deep cut. Ghost.

Speaker 1 Well, it had a few different titles. At one point, it was called Beneath the Banyan Trees, but I think the name changed.
City of Ghosts. Thank you.
Oh, City of Ghosts. So that's 2002.

Speaker 1 So you would have been 23? A kid.

Speaker 1 And so that's an American movie. How did you get that movie? He was auditioning.
It was an Australian backpacker. So he was looking at Aussies, honestly.
It was a very international cast.

Speaker 1 Gerard Depadieux was in it. Robert Duval.
And it was set in Cambodia. Wow.
Which he has a relationship with Matt. Dylan did at the time.
And so we shot in Phnom Penh. It was incredible.

Speaker 1 I was in Phnom Penh for like six weeks. Wow, I can see the poster now.
It didn't connect at all, but he's like in Angkor Water. He's one of these monument things.

Speaker 1 I went to Angkor Water. Oh, is it spectacular? It's incredible.
It's like when I went to Uluru, which is this sacred site in Australia in the Northern Territory.

Speaker 1 It's that feeling of spiritual awakening. I'd love to have a spiritual practice.
I think it's so wonderful. But it's one of those places where you are taken over.

Speaker 1 And I mean, this was many, many years ago I went, but it's beautiful. We had that in Sedona where we had to concede.
Okay, yeah, I think there's some vortexes.

Speaker 1 You know, this whole Sedona, Arizona is supposed to be a vortex. And I'm like, I didn't know that.
Vortex vortex.

Speaker 2 It really is so beautiful.

Speaker 1 But we were there and we're like, yeah, man, something is happening here. That is like ankle what? Because mom was an atheist, but dad, and you are agnostic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Australia, it's definitely not the same relationship with religion as it is here. Oh, yeah.
Which is.

Speaker 1 Very, very different than something I'm still understanding.

Speaker 1 It's wild that the people I've met over the years and their relationship with their practices or religion, a lot of people in recovery from a religious practice or very extreme religious families.

Speaker 1 Well, there's a bazillion culti-type religions here.

Speaker 2 There, is it just less of a thing in general?

Speaker 1 It is. Obviously, there is a history of it, but it's less fundamental than it is here, for sure.

Speaker 1 But growing up, my parents didn't practice any religion, but they sent me to scripture, which is like a Sunday school at my school, but it wasn't on a Sunday. It was on a Friday.

Speaker 1 That's such a boring story. In any case, but they said to me, it'll be educational and you can decide.
Oh,

Speaker 1 you can decide what you think. Then you were like, huh, where are the women in this story? Oh, there's none.
Okay. I think I'm going to move on.

Speaker 1 I just remember harassing the poor man, going like, but if there's a God, why do people kill each other? Or why do people not have food? What's God's life? Why is it so unfair here? Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 Like, what's the deal? And the poor priest or whoever he was trying to talk to this 10-year-old girl. Were you guys brought up anything? Can I ask quickly? Of course.

Speaker 2 Technically, my parents are Hindu, but they're not practicing.

Speaker 2 Actually, the older my parents are like, my dad now will go to the temple every month, but it wasn't a thing we did really when I was young. So I didn't know much about it.

Speaker 1 One of my grandparents, when I was visiting them on the weekend, baptized me Southern Baptist, and then the other set of grandparents baptized me in a Catholic church independently without any permission from either parent.

Speaker 1 Amazing. And neither stuck.
Although I did prefer the Southern Baptist vibe because there was a picnic after every Sunday. That's our fun.
That was great. Great food.

Speaker 1 Southern Baptist's pretty hot cold, though. There's all these pockets within Baptists.
There's Southern Baptists. You You know, there's Pentecostal.

Speaker 2 Methodist church. I'm from Georgia.
And so there's just certain streets where it's all churches. It's all different kinds.
There's Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic. There's so many.

Speaker 1 Our friend Hannah moved to Nashville and her parents were going to visit and they're very religious. And I said, you know, you guys should do a church crawl.
Because there's literally so many.

Speaker 1 You can really do a church crawl.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It is wild that shooting in Atlanta.
And outside of Georgia base camp.

Speaker 1 You're always eating in a church. But growing up in Australia, no, it wasn't part of my childhood.
And I started acting so early. I didn't really do sports.
That was my thing.

Speaker 1 So does that movie, though, City of Goes, had you, A, always been like, well, we got to get there ultimately? Or the opportunity presented itself and then you followed it? It was the content.

Speaker 1 Because you said the content capital of

Speaker 2 Bollywood. Oh, that's the content.

Speaker 1 I traveled through India and I went to a Bollywood film and it was incredible. It was one line for men to see the movie, one line for women lining up, and then one line for tourists.
Wow.

Speaker 1 And what area was packed? I think we were in Jaipur. I will never forget it.
I was like, if this many people could see an Australian film, we would have the richest.

Speaker 1 There is a great history of rich cinema in Australia, but this was unbelievable.

Speaker 2 It was three hours long.

Speaker 1 There was a half an hour break in the middle. Yeah.
When you need one. Everybody's talking the whole time.
Oh, the whole movie. Everybody's talking.
It's all in Hindi. I don't know what's happening.

Speaker 1 The people next to me are so nice. They're explaining it to me.
I'm like, what are you talking about? It was the most joyous communal. I'll never forget it.

Speaker 1 Anyway, we should acknowledge the content coming out of Folly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I did my hat to them. Had you traveled here ever as a kid? I'd been to New York at 18 with my family.
We took a trip. I had never been to L.A.

Speaker 1 And then I did a film with Heath Ledger when we were 18. We were just kids.
Did you just fall in love with him? He was such a charmer. Did you ever

Speaker 1 spend time with him? He was a generous guy and such a talent and could have gone so many ways. We were close when we were 18, 19.
We did a film together and it went went to Sundance.

Speaker 1 He was such a great example of an artist that he was always getting off at these TV shows when we were starting out. And he was really like, I don't want to do that.

Speaker 1 I don't want to just be a heartthrob. They gave to him on a silver platter after that night movie.
They're like, hey, do you want to be sexy and make. 10 million a movie?

Speaker 1 At that age, it's really hard.

Speaker 1 I didn't have that confidence to be like, okay, I'll just not do TV. I do.
I was 20. But I really wanted to work internationally and wanted to have those ambitions, but by no means knew how.

Speaker 1 Really, it's true heath i came over here i stayed with him a bunch of times and he was so sweet he'd get me into audition for his things i got an agent that was exciting and i started auditioning and spending time in la and then i went back to australia and worked more there and then i never heard from the agent again oh really oh boy but i still see her around oh that's a trouble here

Speaker 1 i was tiptoeing around this the other day in a fact check we went to the night before party which we haven't been to in i don't know 15 years the mmm's party yeah the night before the party i think they do one too for the oscars

Speaker 1 wow And the second we walked in, I'm like, oh, I remember this. You bump into endless representatives that you no longer work with.
That is very, very awkward. And this is the party.
So fun.

Speaker 1 What a fun party. What a great party.
And then you see a lot of people you're friends with. Fuck out of here.

Speaker 1 You see people that you're friends with, but you can't talk to each other because too many people are right. And you're like, yeah, this is a disaster.
That was definitely part of my journey.

Speaker 1 And then I worked more back at home. And then I got a part in a movie called Wicker Park.
And that was this film with Diane Krueger and Josh Hartnett. Yes.
And Matthew Lillard.

Speaker 1 I said everybody. I said everybody's names.
Good job. Did you love Lillard? Such a sweetheart.
Isn't he the funnest person? She had a tiny baby then who's probably now

Speaker 1 27-year-old young woman, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 Other than the film with Matt, that was my first American job. Woo! I said it, guys.
I got it right. I said it.

Speaker 1 And you went straight to New York? No, then after that, I lived in London. I didn't want to live in L.A.
I liked London better. My sister was living there.
We bought a house and lived in London.

Speaker 1 So I was there for two years. I loved that.
I don't know if you've spent time there. Yeah, we love it.
Yeah, I love it. And then I booked damages, and that's when I moved to New York.

Speaker 1 We were enormous. Were you really? Enormous.
I'm going to tell you the degree to which we were fans of damages. Please share with me.

Speaker 2 Are you going to say the thing? Because it's still a thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm going to say it. Oh, boy.
So, Kristen does a movie with Ted Danzen. Neither of us know him yet.
It's up in Alaska. So we go up to Alaska, a lot of dinners together.

Speaker 1 And we're sitting with Ted at dinner. We say, we are bonkers for damages.
And he's like, really? And I said, oh my God. Do you know what we are at this hotel as?

Speaker 1 Which we had been for a couple of years at that point. We check in everywhere as Holly and Arthur Frobisher.

Speaker 1 Wow, that is a fan.

Speaker 1 That is a fan. We took all of them.
Wow. We made that our identity.
Oh, my God. That was your pseudonym.
Yes. I'm so flattered.
I'm so flattered.

Speaker 1 We came out the same year as Mad Men. It was that chapter of prestige.
I mean, the Sopranos had set the bar. Yeah, but it'd been a little bit.

Speaker 1 At that time, we thought only HBO could do that. You and Mad Men were the two who were just like, oh, shit, Cable's going to do this.
And then Breaking Bad was soon after that.

Speaker 1 And then now we're obviously

Speaker 1 years later. It's like, that's where you see drama is really on TV.
Let's be honest. It's gotten way better than movies.
It's hard not to discuss that.

Speaker 1 There were three good movies a year, and I can name like 600 episodes of TV that were brilliant. That's a good way to put it.
Were you hesitant to sign up for a TV show?

Speaker 1 Because you had your foot so firmly in the door in the feature world. The material was so good.
Working with Glenn was like a masterclass. But signing that contract.
Seven years, they have even

Speaker 1 that was a conversation I had with myself. But it's funny when you look back, right? And it was just like, wow, look how far it's been since that show.
And I feel very proud of the show.

Speaker 1 And I'm so glad you saw it. That's so cute.
And a user is just.

Speaker 1 We had the most incredible support. Ted is so brilliant.

Speaker 2 He's so against type.

Speaker 1 Yes, he is. This robust show.
Yes. He's this sleazy, maniacal

Speaker 1 fire and like so funny. Anyway, they were brilliant with their casting.
We had William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, we had some incredible people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Are you a people pleaser? I feel like you are a people pleaser.

Speaker 1 Of course, I am.

Speaker 1 I'm a people. I'm an Australian.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I'm the colonies, guys.

Speaker 2 Oh, you're a tall poppy situation. Don't brag.

Speaker 1 Keep your boots on. But you're allowed to be a tall poppy.
Unfortunately, you're a tall poppy. You have to take that back immediately.
Immediately. I'll be cancelled.
Please don't make that.

Speaker 1 Please, please. We need to lean in to your lead.
Please take that back. I'm going to come out with it right now.
It's going to wait.

Speaker 1 We would go, gosh. Yeah, this is it.
It's making me so nervous.

Speaker 2 Good lord. We are tall poppies and we own it.

Speaker 1 Open books. It's too exhausting to not be.
I love it. It's just fucking.

Speaker 2 You can keep too much to yourself. It's exhausting.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true. That's why I'm tired.

Speaker 1 I'm tired, guys. I'm on a podcast tour.
I'm very tired. And Rose, for whose sake? It's a mycellular level of keeping.

Speaker 2 Yours is at least cultural.

Speaker 1 I'm leaning on that. But no, I interrupted you.
What were were you going to say? What I was going to say, this will be hard for you to hear, but I have said it on here

Speaker 1 many times.

Speaker 1 I really would put you and Walton Goggins in the exact same category, which is

Speaker 1 I don't think I've seen two people that can be that good at drama and that good at comedy at the level you both are. It's astounding.
I already loved you from damages.

Speaker 1 But then when I saw, it had to be probably neighbors.

Speaker 1 I had seen you in Bridesman. Well, I saw her in Bridesmaid.
She was great. Melissa had the stuff.
I'm very much the street person. She's the street street person.

Speaker 1 Neighbors.

Speaker 1 Neighbors, you had a loose rhythm and confidence that I just hadn't seen yet. And I was like, get the fuck out.
She can do comedy like this. And then I've thought that a dozen more times since then.

Speaker 1 It's so impressive. Thank you.
I told you and my wife. My wife can do it.
I was going to say I would put your wife in that category. I would too.
And she's also incredibly disarming.

Speaker 1 I've only met her once, but she's so funny and immediately put me at ease.

Speaker 2 In In a way that we're really not, did we?

Speaker 1 She was so, so funny. Yes.
Yes. She's incredibly funny.
Funny people aren't necessarily funny actors. Funny actors aren't necessarily funny people.
And usually comedians are actually very serious.

Speaker 1 Yes. Which I've learned over the years.
You never know. That's my point.
That's such a sweet thing to say. I'm very flattered.

Speaker 2 Everyone we've had on who's worked with you, which is a lot of people at this point, you always come up and it's always an absolute love fest about you.

Speaker 2 It is. Everyone loves working with you.

Speaker 1 Can we jump to neighbors? Because A, A, how aware of it are you? You have to be. And then B, how do you explain it? And then C, how quickly did you notice it?

Speaker 1 You and Seth have this crazy symbiotic rhythm. It's so fun.
How quickly into like meeting him and starting to work with him did you go? There's some magic floating around. Chemistry is so weird.

Speaker 1 How do you know? How do you describe it? Obviously, we're so different, but we sort of work the same way in that we're really into the work. We're kind of private people.

Speaker 1 He's an open book in many ways. He is and he isn't.
I think it's a little bit of a trick. Yeah.
He's a trick.

Speaker 1 I've told him, I'm like, you're someone who I think I could get close to, but I know I can't get close to you. And I don't know what to do with that.
Because I'm the opposite.

Speaker 1 It's making Jacks' brain. And there's something, I think that there's a similarity about that with us.
And we see it in each other. And I feel very relaxed with him, particularly when we're working.

Speaker 1 We just have such an ease. And he's a gentle guy.
And that's where I. find our place, I guess.
I don't know. It's a very funny thing because on paper, you'd be like, how do these?

Speaker 1 And this is so corny. And I say it all the time, but he's Canadian.
And there's something about that too, that I think we have some sort of similarity in the Commonwealth.

Speaker 1 It's just a little bit different. But I feel really grateful to have that relationship with him when you get to work with someone again and again and again.
It's a lovely, creative conversation.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.

Speaker 1 If you dare. This message is brought to you by Apple Pay.

Speaker 2 Dax, can you believe it's already fall? This year's flown by.

Speaker 1 I know, right? But fall is my jam. Remember that farmer's market we hit up last weekend?

Speaker 2 Yes, all those vendors with their yummy apple ciders and the big pumpkins. I love big pumpkins.

Speaker 1 Artisanal apple cider, don't forget. And the smell of fresh baked goods, heaven.
But here's what blew my mind. So many vendors accepted Apple Pay.

Speaker 2 It was so convenient. I love Apple Pay.

Speaker 2 Everywhere I saw the contactless symbol, I just double-clicked the side button on my phone to bring up my card and then just a quick little face ID scan, tap, boom. So easy.

Speaker 1 Apple Pay has been my MVP this season to buy festive fall treats and drinks.

Speaker 2 And you know I'm on a mission to find the best fall themed latte in town.

Speaker 1 You know this. I do know that.
How's it going? That maple one you were telling me about sounded pretty insane.

Speaker 2 It was so good. And get this.
You can also use Apple Pay at lots of cafes. No fumbling for your wallet.
Just double-click, tap, and sip.

Speaker 1 It works at millions of places anywhere you see the contactless symbol in stores or see the Apple Pay button online and in apps.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Making it easier to enjoy all the fall goodness.

Speaker 1 Speaking of which, I'm totally set for Halloween. Apple Pay made it a breeze to purchase the perfect decorations online right from my iPhone.

Speaker 1 I just tap the Apple Pay button at checkout, double-click to authenticate, and boom, payment complete. No long checkout forms, no fuss.

Speaker 2 Fall festivities have never been more fun or easy.

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Speaker 1 We are supported by JCPenney.

Speaker 2 You know what's even better than getting compliments on your holiday outfit?

Speaker 1 Getting compliments on your holiday outfit that you got for way less than anyone would guess.

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I just hit up JCPenney for some holiday party looks. And let me tell you, the quality and style are great.

Speaker 2 I got this really gorgeous velvet blazer that everyone thinks was designer, but it's not, but it really looks luxe.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But you're sitting there like, oh, this JCPenney.

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And it's not just clothes. Their home stuff is perfect for hosting.

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Speaker 1 We are supported by Peloton. You know how life gets especially chaotic this time of year? Work, kids, trying to remember what day it is.

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Speaker 1 We get support from AG1.

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Speaker 1 You know, we had back-to-back Halloween, then I traveled to Palm Springs, hosted a birthday party, came back, and my first thought was like, like, oh, I got to totally recharge.

Speaker 1 Went straight to the AG1. Head to drinkag1.com slash stacks to get a free welcome kit with an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2.

Speaker 1 When you first subscribe, that's drinkag1.com/slash stacks.

Speaker 1 When you get that, neither party has the leverage to continue that just because they enjoyed it or they would choose to. My friend Joy Bryant and I.
Oh, I love Joy. How is she? She's so good.

Speaker 1 Please give her a good one. She's so fucking good.
She's such a gorgeous, lovely lady. Yeah.
And we had six years together. We're just the comfort level is just so off the charts.

Speaker 1 We're brother and sister in such a wonderful way. But like, I can't choose to go do five more things with Joy, nor can she choose to go do five more things with me.
So there's gift upon gift.

Speaker 1 That's a privilege that Seth and I, and that's due to Nick Stoller. Yeah, we love Nick Stoller.
We love this opportunity for these projects that have happened for us is so much because of Nick.

Speaker 1 And now his wife Francesca with Platonic creating this show. And that was my idea to approach Seth.
And I was like, I'm not sure if he wants to do this. I don't know.
This is a show. It's a big thing.

Speaker 1 You want to sign on and

Speaker 1 stop your contract? No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 But he did. I'm like, thanks, buddy.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 how much of y'all's rapport on screen is scripted and how much is improv? Like, what percentage is playful? off-the-cuff stuff? Seth's really loose. There is a script, absolutely.

Speaker 1 And there's obviously points you have to hit and stuff. It's hard to explain as an actor, right? It's a very different job when you're doing an improv job than really specifically scripted role.

Speaker 1 And it's not something everyone's done. And it's something I've really learned baptism by fire when I did get him to the Greek.
It was very much like, oh, okay. Try to catch up.

Speaker 1 I didn't go to Groundlings. I didn't go to UCB.
I didn't do any of that stuff. So it's not a trained thing that I have.
So figuring that out was definitely learning a different muscle.

Speaker 1 And it always takes me a minute to find it again. And I don't know if I'm particularly good at it, but I will try.
I mean, it's so ephemeral, that talent. It can be really bad.
Oh, it can be so bad.

Speaker 1 It can be the worst thing.

Speaker 1 What I was going to add is I think there's a ton of misconception within improv, which is I think actors who don't understand it and have had not any training, they think improv is non-sequiturs or they think improv is just, I say something different.

Speaker 1 But the art of it is, of course, moving the story to the same place the script had moved it to. It's got to be original and off the cuff, but you still have to be very much on story.

Speaker 1 And I think that's the next layer of the talent. So my hunch is you actually probably backed into it, which is you probably have great understanding of the story and point of the scene.

Speaker 1 And then the new unwritten stuff came after that. I definitely always come from a perspective of like, who's the person? The traditional,

Speaker 1 you know, sort of parameters of an actress or actor. Sex have to be high.
It's not saying fart.

Speaker 2 That's why you're better off because you care about acting than you're improvising in character. A lot of comedians just want to be funny.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they want to say something outrageous.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and get a laugh on set. And it's like, that isn't helpful.

Speaker 1 But isn't it wonderful? I so enjoy when you see a comedian doing something dramatic. What's your example you're thinking of? So Bobby's good friends with Bill Burr.
And Bill was on Broadway recently.

Speaker 1 Blan Gary Clan.

Speaker 1 Did you see it? No. There's great comedy in the play, but it's a David Mammet play.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Fucking rubber.
And he just killed it. Wow.

Speaker 2 That's awesome. I would have liked to have seen that.

Speaker 1 It's harder to get a deeply, deeply dramatic actor who we all revere to then do a wildly comedic performance.

Speaker 1 I'm going to say it. Comedy is way harder.
I don't give a fuck what anyone says. No, no, no, I agree.
Why do you think it's harder? There's no help.

Speaker 1 There is tons of help available if you're doing drama.

Speaker 1 If I just sit dead still and I give you absolutely nothing and you push the camera in on me slowly and you score it perfectly, you will fill in all the blanks of what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 The lighting is at your disposal. The music's at your disposal.
The person who's acting off screen, who you're benefiting from, you fill in so much blanks with drama.

Speaker 1 Comedy is math that you get the equation right or you don't. There's no cheating it.
And when you see people try to cheat it by scoring goofy music under it, it's dreadful.

Speaker 1 It's like offensive, right? If you try to use the tools that are available to drama in comedy, it's dreadful. So it is just technically much harder to land.
I love that.

Speaker 1 So you should be prouder of your comedic chumps is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 No, you'd be proud of everything you'd be a type of thing.

Speaker 1 I don't think you'd be proud of anything.

Speaker 1 Problematic. I feel like comedy is so subjective.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 We can all agree on what he said.

Speaker 2 Well, that is true.

Speaker 1 We can kind of pretty much agree. That's a great point.
But can we all agree on what he's funny? No.

Speaker 2 Also, timing is kind of like what we were talking about singing earlier. It is a gift.
It can be taught to an extent.

Speaker 2 And the way singing can be taught to an extent, you can't teach it because I feel like timing is about unpredictability. So you can't teach that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's just a rhythm that exists in your head or not. I know.
And it's wild when I've worked with Kristen Wig or a Maya Rudolph or Melissa, who's like the Michael Jordans. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 These performances. And it's effortless.
Yeah. I don't even know if they know it's effortless.

Speaker 1 Yeah, then we get into the really interesting psychology that's quite pervasive among comedians that you end up successful. It's easy.
And there's a guilt and shame about the fact that it's easy.

Speaker 1 But of course it's easy because you've been practicing since you were a little kid how to do this thing. And then this guilt.
Now I got to do Shakespeare.

Speaker 1 There's a whole racket, I think, that goes along with success.

Speaker 1 And then I wonder if there's a lack of respect for how hard it is. Poehler just blasted off recently about this, and I appreciate it.
She's like, fuck reviewers.

Speaker 1 Fuck all reviewers who refuse to give any credit to comedy. Fuck the Academy Awards.
And then so true. She did.
That's so punk. I love that.
And it's so true. It's like, how dare you?

Speaker 1 Why is it considered less than? Yeah. And then also, who gives a shit if anything's acknowledged?

Speaker 1 I know, I know, I know. I just want to talk about 2011.
And especially now that I have a sense of your anxiety.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about? What are you talking about? I want to talk about 2011.

Speaker 1 2011. By the way, all I'm looking at is the Elson twins up there behind me.

Speaker 2 Aren't they calming?

Speaker 1 They're very cool. I feel so cozy in their huge coats and their cool hair.

Speaker 2 They probably cause anxiety because they're so cool.

Speaker 1 That's a Photoshop photo. Just so you can see it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, obviously. I'm not with them.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Yeah, I had a huge thought they were with.

Speaker 1 That was real. I'm not.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I digress. Go back.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. Sorry.
Okay, good.

Speaker 1 You're doing quite well up to 2011. No complaints.
It's going very, very well. But in 2011, you make a million-dollar movie that makes $97 million, Insidious.
Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 You just minimally have to go like, fuck, that was lucky. We made a million-dollar movie that made $100 million.
James Wand directing it, who has gone on to huge movies, different genres.

Speaker 1 That was shot in 22 days for $8.50. That's sponkers.
2011, you're in Bridesmaids. It becomes the biggest grossing R-rated comedy ever.
Impossible. This is the same year.
This thing makes $280 million.

Speaker 1 That's wild. I forgot it was in the same time period.
2011. X-Men first class.
$350 million movie.

Speaker 1 How are you computing? Like, we've been trotting along, it's been improving a little bit.

Speaker 1 And now all of a sudden, in this one year, everything I've touched has just been something you could write a story about. How were you computing that? Did you get superstitious about it?

Speaker 1 I definitely have superstition. And I think I still do talking about it.
You're afraid to even. You know what I mean? I do.
I have an innate, I have superstition around the process.

Speaker 1 And with this business you have a moment the moment will go away but that was a chapter and hearing about it's like a core memory of wow that was an extraordinary chapter and you don't know you have no control about how it will be received or how it will go particularly something like bridesmaids shooting it and thinking yeah we were like this is crazy you know we didn't know we were like this is unusual because i'm with so many actresses this is so funny and i love these women and i was so naive i had no idea that that's all i would be talking about too was like women are funny i was like what

Speaker 1 I have to talk about that? I just have to do it. What do you mean?

Speaker 2 Opened up so many weird things. It was so weird.

Speaker 1 It was like we were a group of dolphins. I was like, what's happening? I know.
I grew up watching Julia Louis Dreyfus and I didn't know any different. I think if you were on the

Speaker 1 my bad. I just

Speaker 1 squirted too much nicotine. Have some matcha.
Wow. So you'd squirt the nicotine.
I do both. Yeah.
He has mints. Mints.
A lot of delivery systems. Thank God.

Speaker 1 I think on the outside, people would assume I'm going to take another drink. Take your time.
Yeah, no, please. Take a moment.
Take a moment. No, we lose the room at 3:15.
Oh, God.

Speaker 1 So there's another podcast starts. Not ours, but someone else's.

Speaker 2 I know, just kidding. Just kidding.

Speaker 1 Don't scare her.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of anxiety.

Speaker 1 She's scarable.

Speaker 1 I'm also gullible. I fully thought that whole, I was like, we're having a whole scenario with you guys at like a fashion dinner or like a mongolo.
I'm budgeting her exotic life.

Speaker 1 Did you do that or did somebody do that for you?

Speaker 2 Rob did it for me because for Christmas, he got me that sweater, but it didn't arrive.

Speaker 2 So he gave this to me as like a placeholder and then this is actually the better present is this a sweater from the row it is i know yeah you know did you think i was really cool you're like oh my god she's cool she hangs out with the olson what else did you know

Speaker 1 i know elevated lux like like what are you talking about wow look at that i know that's out of my league what else could one conclude

Speaker 1 i know isn't that what i'm supposed to do

Speaker 1 my integrity was like i must correct this i think she has just gone on a journey and that's not very nice to me

Speaker 2 I want to gain some cool points, whether I earn them or not.

Speaker 1 Well, no, I think you want to earn them. I know.

Speaker 1 I think from the outside, their guess would be: hey, if I had a year where all these movies hit, I'd be dancing around my apartment.

Speaker 1 And my hunch is that that wasn't how you processed the whole thing. Or were you dancing around your apartment? That's a really good question.
You know what?

Speaker 1 I didn't think I was, but as I get older, I'm like, you should dance around apartment. You should dance around the fucking apartment because what are we here for? Like that.
Celebrate. Enjoy.

Speaker 1 And it's not going to get taken from you because you enjoy it. Exactly.
And even if it does still enjoy it. You know what I mean? Like, what's the point in not enjoying it? And I did have fun.

Speaker 1 It's such a fun ride with bridesmaids. That was obviously so beloved.
But I need to dance around the apartment more. And we all do.
But you feel like you can always lose it. That's the logical error.

Speaker 1 You can't lose it. It happened.
It happened. But you can kind of lose it there.
Can you? You can lose it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it depends on how you define it, I guess. And how do you define it? I'm going to ask a nosy question that you're going going to fucking hate.
Oh, Monica. But you did.

Speaker 1 You've done four of these insidious. Good lord.
The first one was made for a million bugs, made 97. The second one.
was made for $5 million and made $166 million.

Speaker 1 The third one was made for $10 and made $167 million. The last one, almost $200 million.
Wow, that's amazing. Please tell me you've got a juicy piece of this pie.

Speaker 1 Are you just getting like this movie's coming? You're like, oh, we're getting into a movie.

Speaker 2 That wouldn't be a financial question.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. This is not what I expected.
How uncomfortable are you? I didn't mind this.

Speaker 1 I'm so deeply uncomfortable. And offended? I'm so deeply uncomfortable.
Please don't be offended.

Speaker 2 I mean, obviously, we know you probably don't want to talk about money, but how do you feel about money?

Speaker 1 Can you tell? I would love to talk about money. You couldn't even say money.

Speaker 1 M-word.

Speaker 1 Do you...

Speaker 2 How should I say it? Does financial safety matter to you?

Speaker 1 Of course. Once you have a family.
Are you kidding? Okay. We're talking about the theater, right? And you had a modest household.
Mama's an administrator at school and and daddy. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 A bunch of kids. I got a job really early.
I worked at an Indian restaurant. Nice.

Speaker 2 Curry World. Oh, we appreciate it.

Speaker 1 Darling Street and Balmain. And then I worked at Baker's Delight.
I loved it. I loved earning money.
I loved going to work. I loved the performative nature of being at a restaurant.

Speaker 1 And they say what I've read about, particularly raising boys, is it's good for them to have a job as a teenager. It's a really important thing.
I had so many.

Speaker 1 Go see the principal, get a work permit so I could work at the restaurant at 12. Whole thing, yeah.
To tassel corn and agriculture at 14. I loved my jobs.

Speaker 1 Which she could be asking and you could make it relative which is financial insecurity is I think top fear for me. Where it's a sickness.
Absolutely a real thing.

Speaker 1 And people have it to varying degrees.

Speaker 2 Tip into it being all-consuming. And I guess I wonder on the scale, like where you sort of land.

Speaker 1 I think I have a healthy, like we do not live a lavish life. I am not a wildly lavish person, but what memories do you want for your kids?

Speaker 1 The core things that I grew up, what I remember is a great holiday and a tiny beach house. Those things are the things that I feel are the most valuable.
And you and Bobby are aligned. We are.

Speaker 1 I think you have to be. Well, to a degree, I mean, you have to figure it out.
What kind of life are we raising for these kids? What are the values?

Speaker 1 Do you have the same thing that Dax is chatting about? No.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 yes,

Speaker 1 it's realistic. Well, and minds is unrealistic.

Speaker 2 It all changes as you get more. That's the truth.
I am so financially safe, but the more you have, the more you get, and then the more you need. It shouldn't be that way.

Speaker 2 You should be able to remove yourself and be like, I don't need anything. I'm good.

Speaker 1 Like Warren Warren Buffett have one house. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 What's the psychology behind that? Well, what I like about it for him was it does demonstrate that you would think he was in all that for the money, and he wasn't.

Speaker 1 He was in it for the game, and I can research further, and I can see value where other people can't. And that that was really what drove him.
And that's kind of admirable.

Speaker 1 And being better at it than other people. He actually didn't want any of the shit.
That's wild, isn't it? And then what does he do with? He's giving it all away. He pledged it to the Gates Foundation.

Speaker 1 Although I do think he took some of it back, but that's a side note.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think he said, like, my kids will get some. They're not getting that much.

Speaker 1 The rest goes away to Peepsy. I mean, that amount of wealth to me is a nightmare.
Terrible for families. It's a lot.
It breaks people up. Yeah, it's like succession.

Speaker 1 I'll argue it is correlation and not causation. So I think what you're seeing a lot with these very wealthy families.
is they were not present parents at all.

Speaker 1 They had nannies raising their children and they worked endlessly to accumulate that. That was their main obsession.
I'm not certain that the wealth is what caused it. Again, it's very correlated.

Speaker 1 But what I see in a lot of these families that end up with a lot of wealth is much bigger, deeper problems going on in the parenting.

Speaker 2 But then there's like infighting between siblings that can happen when there's money that's going to get divvied out. It can be crazy.

Speaker 2 We had a huge lottery here, a billion-dollar lottery a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if you remember

Speaker 1 that.

Speaker 1 It was nationally. It was the mega because the Texan won it.

Speaker 2 Some states, i don't think all states were a part of and i was talking to my parents about this my dad was like i would never want to win a billion dollars he said that sounds miserable everyone is gonna want something from you everyone's gonna know it's you and i was like oh my god

Speaker 1 did you say what if you're completely anonymous i did i said you don't have to he's like they'll find out and then they'll want something from you that is true i think that's a tell of that you cannot escape your childhood so i bet where he grew up in kerala if you were the the town billionaire, whatever the equivalent of that was, I bet he witnessed that that's actually dangerous.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true. I mean, everyone would agree, right? The more money you amass, the more

Speaker 1 problems.

Speaker 1 Some people say. It's not not true.
It's not

Speaker 1 true. The more things you get, the more things you got to manage.

Speaker 2 And there's expectation. If you aren't giving it, then you're selfish.
There is a lot that comes with it.

Speaker 1 I remember watching a great documentary about happiness once and they were saying a certain amount of money can really help.

Speaker 1 and then a certain amount can change so much the quality of your life and your mental health and your physical, all those sorts of things. But beyond that, it doesn't change.

Speaker 1 It starts to diminish for a while. It's a while and then it diminishes.

Speaker 1 And that was fascinating because it's not what we're sold.

Speaker 1 And the discrepancy of wealth is just horrific around the world, obviously, which is a whole other conversation, but that is pretty unsettling and awful. And it's just getting worse.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're about to talk about your movie, but I compiled this list and it took me a long time. So I am going to make you listen to it.
Did you see the movie? Yeah, I watched it last time. You did?

Speaker 1 I did. Oh my god, did you get it? What do you mean, get it? Like, did you feel like I can't wait to talk about it? Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 Great, but not before you hear this list. Oh, god.
I sincerely don't know that anyone has this list. This is a list of your co-stars.
Oh, cool. Fun game:

Speaker 1 Heath Ledger, Natalie Portman, Matt Dillon, Dennis Hopper, Brad Pitt, Nick Cage, Peter O'Toole, Snoop Dogg, Killian Murphy, Glenn Close, Kristen Wigg, Melissa McCarthy, James McEvoy, Michael Fastbender, Kevin Bacon, Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Vince Vaughan, Owen Wilson, Seth Rogan, Zach Efron, Susan Sarandon, Jude Law, Adam Driver, Jane Fonda, Jason Bateman, Tina Fake, Ethan Hawke.

Speaker 1 That's a bonker. Do you ever go like, I can't believe how many of these people I got to work with? That is a bonker's list.
Can I take it with me? Yes, it's insane.

Speaker 1 I've never had someone say it out loud and write it. And I left people out.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 1 I mean, Snoop, that's a cool one.

Speaker 2 You know, I've also worked with Snoop. What did you do with Snoop? I did a...

Speaker 2 No, it was a Burger King commercial.

Speaker 1 Even better. So, yeah.
Fabulous.

Speaker 1 It wasn't lovely.

Speaker 2 He is very, very good.

Speaker 1 He was so laid back. So fun.
He was great. When you smoke a quarter pound of weed today, you can be pretty chill.
Turns out. It's a benefit.
The trailer was just like a cloud around it.

Speaker 1 It was pretty funny. Yeah, like, I bet it would be hard for you to look back.
I think if I just listen to movies you were in, you're like, oh, yeah, but I do them in the night, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 But you must be able to listen to that list and go like, my Lord, what an incredible ride I got to have. I do.
When you hear it out loud like that, it is wild. And then to remember too, like, oh, yes,

Speaker 1 you know all these people. Yeah.
And like, I had that great scene and we had a wonderful conversation. I mean, you could have forgotten some of these.
There's so many.

Speaker 1 You could have like forgot you were with Brad Pitt.

Speaker 1 That's only a pretty memorable one. No, that's a crazy, unpredictable list of people.
I only put two of them in bold. Actually, I put three, but we already talked about it.
Which are the ones in bold?

Speaker 1 Nick Cage is like my great obsession in life. Oh, really? Has he been on the show? No.
I've written so many letters. I'm just so obsessed with him.
Yeah. Can you tell me what the experience was like?

Speaker 1 He's a true eccentric. We went to an animal farm and got to hold an eagle.
He was working out at midnight in his trailer, you know, like all those incredible things.

Speaker 1 We were doing a press conference for the movie, like a pretty rote, typical, boring thing. And he leant over to me and said, I'm going to try to do this whole thing without saying I or me.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's cool. There we go.

Speaker 1 That's great. He's a living art installation.
And he did. He was like, when one believes that one is

Speaker 1 so great. He's having the last laugh.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, I hope he comes on. Yeah, me too.
Me too. The only other name I put in bold is Ethan Hawk.
And for the reason that

Speaker 1 I admire him in such a specific way. A, he's incredible.
We've had him on. He's such a philosopher.
Oh, he's just such a storyteller. He's very close with Bobby.
Oh, he is. Yeah, that's really close.

Speaker 1 And again, Ethan could have gone so many ways. He was a pinner out of dead poets and he could have gone so many ways.
And he's a true artist.

Speaker 1 That takes such drive and such belief, similar to Heath, like, I'm not going to sign the seven-year. He's done theater.
He loves the theater as his church, like Bobby. Like, he's that guy.

Speaker 1 And I was so lucky to work with him. And what's acting with him?

Speaker 1 Like, did you get that feeling where, like, oh, I'm so planted so funny the dynamic in that film was very specific but he's a true collaborator so it was like endless creative conversation about this and he's an open book he's really candid he lives for the art and he's inspiring it's easy to get cynical and it's easy to get lazy and he's just so the opposite of all of that stuff he's just on fire and i've seen him at these festivals you know he has blue moon coming out which bobby's in as well rick lick later's one of his latest films and incredible storied history together the two of them.

Speaker 1 And so every time I see Ethan, I'm just like, I'm home.

Speaker 2 That's beautiful.

Speaker 1 Okay. If I had legs, I would kick you.
That comes out October 10th. I watched it a couple nights ago and it's grueling.

Speaker 1 It's horrible. It asks a lot.
It's pretty radical. Yeah.
And I admire you. And I'm curious how you decide to leave the fun world and throw yourself so deeply into that.

Speaker 2 And I'm really curious about, you asked Dax, did you get it?

Speaker 1 I'm waiting to hear his take. He said grueling so far.

Speaker 1 I wonder if I got it. Whatever you had is right.
Whatever speaks to your doesn't speak to you. I reject that in this case.
This is a writer-director. She has obviously a real,

Speaker 1 I don't know if it's her experience, but she has an experience to display or let you inside of or some feeling mentally that you're going to experience.

Speaker 1 So I do think it's actually quite specific, as opposed to a lot of movies. Yeah, where I could say like what was in the box in pulp fiction.
I don't know, is it the fucking Ten Commandments or not?

Speaker 1 That's up for me to decide. But this is like, well, let's set it up as much as we can.
It's probably a hard one for you to promote. Well, it's funny because it's not set up for the audience.

Speaker 1 You are dropped into a

Speaker 1 crisis, a madness, and the tension does not stop. It is a relentless experience.
And it's purely from the perspective of this woman. You're almost the only person we see in the movie.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And it is a fever dream. You're not sure what's real.
It sort of defies genre. There is some horror.
I laughed. I think it's funny.
There is some gallows humor.

Speaker 1 There is a valve relief throughout the film for the audience. But you're a mother and you have a child that is sick.
Yes. She has some illness.

Speaker 1 We're not quite certain, but it does involve a feeding tube. And she has weight objectives.
She has to hit a certain weight before it. She's discharged from this program.
Yes. Yes.

Speaker 1 And she won't comply as kids don't. You can't get her to eat and gain weight.
And you're kind of stuck in this purgatory. And you're unraveling in many, many ways.

Speaker 1 You have a terrible relationship with your husband and my therapist. He's vomitous.
Conan's her therapist.

Speaker 2 Oh, amazing.

Speaker 1 It's very fun to watch him act. I enjoyed that quite a bit.

Speaker 1 And you have these interesting parallels between the way you are inappropriate with your therapist and you yourself are a therapist and your patients are quite inappropriate with you.

Speaker 1 And yet you don't seem to see the parallels between any of this. She can't see anything.
She can't see her child. The audience doesn't see the child.

Speaker 1 It's someone in a crisis and it's someone who's a caretaker more than a mother. I feel the film is about that in many ways.

Speaker 1 She's not in that role as a mother anymore and she speaks about that like this isn't what I want. This isn't what it's supposed to be.

Speaker 1 And everyone's been a caretaker, whether it's for a friend or a spouse or an animal or a parent and that feeling of drowning under the pressure of that. That was the exact word I use.

Speaker 1 I was like, I felt like I was watching you drown for a very, very long time. It's a radical movie and it's kind of punk rock to be.
It's very bold.

Speaker 1 Things about being a mother people don't want to talk about. There's a lot of shame around any mother if you talk about disappointment or fear.
So that's what I think it's about.

Speaker 1 I think it is an extremely heightened metaphor for the impossible pressures that are on modern mothers. See, there you go.
There's your take. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But why it makes it hard for me to watch is I'm sure it's hard for you to watch.
The notion of talking to my children the way that you talk to your kid. I hate it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I fucking hate it. It's deeply uncomfortable.
It is. And I imagine one of my little girls getting that source of comfort in a situation like that.
And I'm irate.

Speaker 1 So in that way, the movie's extremely powerful because I'm having very intense strong reaction. It asks a lot.
It's a radical kind of take on this stuff.

Speaker 1 And this is a tradition of seeing a woman break down. We've seen it before, the great Jenna Rollins.
But I'm just saying, this is a tradition of storytelling, a trope.

Speaker 1 But this is through a female storyteller. This is through a female director writer.
And that is so wild and radical. We just haven't seen it that much.

Speaker 1 And truly from that perspective, literally through the lens of that.

Speaker 2 So it's interesting to hear how people feel and respond about it.

Speaker 1 How do you come to be involved? You get the script at some point. And what is on the page of this movie?

Speaker 1 My agent is very discerning, and she's only written a few times where she's like, you need to read this. I devoured it, and it was like fire.
This hot piece of paper was just ripping through.

Speaker 1 And there was great symmetry in the script. What is happening in front of Linda in many ways is happening.
How do I put this?

Speaker 1 there's metaphors that are happening in her life that she can't see that are also happening in her work that are happening in her relationship that are happening in her home it skirts around existential stuff which is great and something i'm drawn to as a viewer and depression what also is very clear to me is you get yourself into such a hole that objectivity escapes you and that's the thing you need the most and the disease itself is what makes that impossible.

Speaker 1 Like the cruelty of that spiral. And she's trying to escape.
You know, it's bad bad choices, bad decisions, and this constant need of trying to escape.

Speaker 1 But when I saw the film, I obviously knew the language Mary was using when we were filming it. The camera was extremely close.
I was like,

Speaker 1 okay.

Speaker 1 On the first day, I was like, are you going to be that close?

Speaker 1 I am.

Speaker 1 But the visual storytelling is so arresting. And I'm still figuring out the movie.
There's so much ambiguity in the movie. There's so many questions asked and no answers.

Speaker 1 And I felt like that, for me, as as a viewer, something I'm still trying to figure out, which is really cool. Did you enjoy it? I loved it.
I played it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's my question. Oh, I loved it.
What a gift. What an opportunity.
It was a high wire act of figuring it out every day. We had five or six weeks, just Mary and I at her kitchen table talking.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. About every line of dialogue, every piece of punctuation.
Like rehearsing for a play, you know, you skipped and just talking. And without that, I would have felt untethered.

Speaker 1 And it was shot in 26 days. It's not a big movie.
It's an ambitious movie.

Speaker 1 There's these crazy sequences in it, like with the hamster, the hole falling, the sequence at the beach, all this very practical stuff. There was no CGI.
Yeah, you got to figure out how to shoot that.

Speaker 1 She pushed the whole thing up. But do you suffer personally? I don't take it home.
I have two little kids. I am not interested in...
They're not interested. Yeah.
If I'm having a hard day,

Speaker 1 nor should they be. And it's like, you know, we just talked about the giving tree.
I have problems with that. Yes, it's a heartbreaking book.
We just broke it down for way too long.

Speaker 1 Fact check.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we did.

Speaker 1 Do you think it's like a wildly misogynistic book?

Speaker 2 We think the tree is the mom.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think the tree is the mom. I think it's totally

Speaker 1 heartbreaking. He is selfish.
He's abusive. He destroys her.
And also,

Speaker 1 this is the point I was trying to push on Monica, that's parenting. And you don't care.
I don't want anything back. Take my limbs.
Take my legs.

Speaker 1 I'm happy if I push you over the finish line while I have you. So weirdly, it is heartbreaking, but also that's parenting.
And that's great because I'm not a victim in the parenting.

Speaker 1 I received it, and now I'll get to do it.

Speaker 1 And if you think of the tree as a mom who genuinely gets joy out of caring for and providing for and taking care of, in that way, it's not as bad as it's a heartbreaking book.

Speaker 1 I just read to my kids last night, that's why we're talking about it. And I'm like, Yeah, this book is a saddest book.
I hate this book. But I'm like, but also, I don't feel that way about parenting.

Speaker 2 If it's a kid and a mom, whether the parent feels like it's okay,

Speaker 2 it's also just not okay. Like take, take, take, take, taking and not giving.
It was parasitic. Exactly.
So yeah.

Speaker 1 Problematic. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I will revisit that. But can you relate to what I'm saying about how...
If you were to evaluate a friendship by that book, that would be a terrible friendship.

Speaker 1 And I would never have a friend that was a one-way street that I gave. Or a marriage.

Speaker 1 These relationships are conditional on treatment and respect. And you're not staying with that friendship or that marriage.
They have to be symbiotic. Of course, there are conditions.

Speaker 1 But with the child, it's a whole different framework, which is interesting.

Speaker 1 And if you maybe make it that physical and literal, it points out how extreme the situation is. But also, that might be what's so beautiful about the situation.
I will read it.

Speaker 1 It's a complicated book. We're discovering it might be more complicated.

Speaker 2 We decided we want to invite Shell Silverstein to the

Speaker 2 pod when we do our ghost podcast.

Speaker 1 When we find a medium. Yeah.
Yeah. We're going to need a really good medium.
And we have questions questions to ask him about the two. Wouldn't that be fantastic, right? Oh my God.

Speaker 1 Bring a medium here. The notion that you willingly went through this is, like I said, it's really admirable.
I didn't want to fuck it up. And it is a personal story to Mary Bronstein.

Speaker 1 I felt like it was such a wildly unconventional, extraordinary thing. Enormously brave to acknowledge that whole side of someone.

Speaker 2 Especially of mothers. That's a scary thing.

Speaker 1 And I have an undercut in the movie. What's that mean? An undercut.
A buzz cut. Okay, I like that.
I like that. Oh, wow.
Did you like that? Well, can you give me some credit that I shaved my hair?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 1 That is why. You don't even know what you just walked into.
I have been begging Monica for eight years to shave the side of her hair.

Speaker 1 We have that in the movie.

Speaker 1 I'm like, you have such red hair.

Speaker 1 You have gorgeous hair. Your hair is like Vidal Saudi.
Can you imagine how good

Speaker 1 this level of grow-in would look in black?

Speaker 1 I can't do it. She thinks she can't.
And I accept that if it weren't because I think she thinks thinks she can't pull it off. And that I refuse.

Speaker 2 It's not that I can't pull it off. It is not me.
It's not my personality.

Speaker 1 You're limiting yourself. We don't know what you are.

Speaker 2 I'm fine with it not being my personality.

Speaker 1 You're the one that wants me to have a new personality. No.
I have a friend who has it here with a tattoo. Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 2 But it's probably that person's personality.

Speaker 1 It is. It is.
Yeah. Yeah.
It is. But sometimes you can wear it from the outside in and you can discover, like, oh, what's new?

Speaker 1 You know, when you're figuring out the character and you're like, or the person, exactly. Okay, fine.
you can write a script and cast it oh that could be how it

Speaker 1 i need to be able to pick my co-stars like i need to be like who are you guys maybe like i get the best of the best and i gotta sell finance it's gonna cost me a lot of time and money too

Speaker 1 oh i gotta tell you one funny thing so i was cutting monica's hair on air I cut hair. He does a good hair.

Speaker 2 You do cutting hair.

Speaker 1 I have not had my hair cut by anyone but me in three years. Do you do Kristen's hair? I have done Kristen's hair.
I've done her mother's hair.

Speaker 1 And so I was giving Monica a a trim before she took a trip. And I had secretly in my back pocket, I put my clippers.
And she was sitting in that chair. And I was like working on her thing.

Speaker 1 And then I just started up the clipper.

Speaker 2 Pretty, he was a trick.

Speaker 1 He was like, nine. Okay.

Speaker 1 Not okay.

Speaker 2 For us anxious girls.

Speaker 1 It was scary.

Speaker 2 Were you like, fuck, do I really want to shave my head?

Speaker 1 That was my idea. I was like, something's missing.
Yeah, that was a good thing.

Speaker 1 Did you love how you looked in it? Cause it's a cool look. She looks busted.
She looks really busted in the movie.

Speaker 2 Because she's losing it.

Speaker 1 Someone who's given up. Also, it is a sign of, it can be a sign of real depression.
Oh, my God. I mean, I remember having a therapist who looked like they'd given up.

Speaker 2 Oh, God, that is not a good sign.

Speaker 1 And we didn't last long, but she had given up. She had quit.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's not who you want to be therapizing you.

Speaker 1 I'm sure we've all had therapy in this room, and it is a rich examination of that, particularly with the Conan character in mind, because it's at the bitter end of a relationship with a therapist when they're both deeply misbehaving and not doing their jobs properly.

Speaker 1 They're not doing the work. A lot of transference going on.
Lots of transference. Just the notion, you're telling him about a dream you had about him.

Speaker 1 And I was like, I can't imagine saying to my therapist. So, hey, I had this dream about you and you kissed me.

Speaker 1 And then your patient says the exact same thing to you.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's the same thing.

Speaker 1 No one's doing therapy right in this building. But the reveal is great.
It's a lot of twists and turns. Well, listen, I wish it followed the same trajectory of insidious.
May this 100x the budget.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh. Yeah.
That'd be great. I wish you

Speaker 1 a ton of luck. You're so brave.
And once again, proving the point I made earlier, my God, can you do it all?

Speaker 1 You're just like devastatingly good and heartbreaking and fucked up.

Speaker 1 Get me out of here.

Speaker 1 And then you're simultaneously being funny and wonderful on Plutonic.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're so sweet. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 in the home chair. Finally, I got to come here and chat it up.
Well, thank you, Rose.

Speaker 1 Thanks for supporting the movie. Yes, of course.
I wish you luck. Everyone, see it October 10th.
Find it in a theater near you. Yes.
Go see it live.

Speaker 1 I imagine the experience in the theater will be a little bit like our movie last year that was intense like that. Substance.
Oh.

Speaker 1 Did you see substance in a theater?

Speaker 1 It's funny. You can be in them, but you can't.
The gore. It was very.

Speaker 2 Oh, gosh, for me, I'm creepy crawling.

Speaker 1 It was intense.

Speaker 2 It's so funny, though.

Speaker 1 It is very punk rock, that movie. It's wild.
Thank you, Sky.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert,

Speaker 1 if you dare.

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Speaker 1 He's an arm care expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Think God Monica's here.
She's gonna let him have the facts.

Speaker 1 Hi. Hi.

Speaker 2 First and foremost.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 2 want to say it was so heartwarming. All the Jennifer Aniston comments.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 We're so heartwarming. And especially because,

Speaker 2 so I feel like I should say this because people are probably going to be upset.

Speaker 2 I do look at the first few comments because those are people I know.

Speaker 2 And I do feel, and it's nothing,

Speaker 2 nothing against people who are strangers.

Speaker 1 Well, you can't trust them.

Speaker 2 No, I just, I just don't want to be like swayed in any way by strangers' opinions, good or bad. But the people in my life, I do feel like I want to, you know, connect with or whatever.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 1 So. Also, heaven forbid Jen commented.

Speaker 2 Heavens.

Speaker 1 Not forbid, but heaven willing. Heavens pray.

Speaker 1 Heaven willing.

Speaker 1 Jasper's prayers.

Speaker 1 That should be a sane. Oh, Jasper's Prayers.
Jasper's? Jasper's. Who's Jasper?

Speaker 1 I don't know. Jasper

Speaker 1 Daniels. Jasper Newton Daniels was Jack Daniels' real name.
Oh, wow. I think it's a name, Jasper.
Sure.

Speaker 2 I didn't know if that was a person you were referring to.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. I don't think I've ever met a Jasper, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 Me, that's... But what did I just say?

Speaker 1 Jasper?

Speaker 2 Jasper's Prayers.

Speaker 1 Jasper's Prayers. Like, that should mean something great, fortuitous.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, anyway,

Speaker 2 a bunch of people really came out of the woodwork.

Speaker 1 Oh, in your friend group?

Speaker 2 And in people I knew in high school and stuff. And it was really sweet because they

Speaker 2 were around for the height of my friend's addiction. And so that was so cute because they were like, Monica,

Speaker 1 I, I can't believe this for you. SpaceTime fabric is torn.

Speaker 2 Yes. And like, someone from my

Speaker 2 improv group, my UCB improv group was like, I had, we would practice in my apartment.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 she was like, I have the images, the image of your box set like burned into my memory. I was like, ah, how sweet.

Speaker 1 But if there's a comment that said,

Speaker 1 guess I was wrong about Dairy Queen, cry face, cry face, cry face.

Speaker 1 What? What?

Speaker 1 The guy? Jasper. Jasper? Yeah.
And then crying faces.

Speaker 2 You want us to feel bad?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 You think he meant it for real?

Speaker 1 No, he's

Speaker 1 it's a regret.

Speaker 1 Oh. He's like, I guess I was wrong about Dairy Queen.
Cry face, cry face, cry face.

Speaker 1 He was wrong. I could have been.

Speaker 1 I mean, he's literally wrong and he was metaphorically wrong and

Speaker 1 objectively wrong. That's right.
And emotionally and spiritually wrong. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Spiritually right. I don't.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 You got to throw one right in there.

Speaker 2 I don't want him to hold that.

Speaker 1 My comments on that episode were solely about you. I mean, God bless Jen Aniston, but she didn't get a lot of feedback.

Speaker 1 Jasper's prayers for Jen Aniston. Someone did write, a shoke's just showing off now.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 1 Oh, you saw that?

Speaker 2 No, but he is.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's just showing off now.

Speaker 2 Oh, my dad.

Speaker 1 I hope it's not his grand finale. Dax!

Speaker 1 Monica!

Speaker 2 Don't, for real, don't say that.

Speaker 1 Wait, hold on. Let's be clear about what you think I'm saying.
He's going to die? No.

Speaker 1 The Sim's going to be over in that. I guess in that way, we're all going to die, but it'll live long.
Oh, Christ.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 I've been feeling a lot of anxiety.

Speaker 1 You're real on edge.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know why. I feel even like, I feel Jinxy saying this,

Speaker 2 but I think obviously I'm sure it was just because his sister just passed away. Oh, that I'm like, I just feel anxious about him.
Yes.

Speaker 1 But he's a good, he was a good 14, 16 years younger than his sister. Like 12 or 11.
Your dad's almost.

Speaker 2 My dad's 70.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's 70. Wasn't she 84 or 84? One or two.

Speaker 2 We don't really know anyone's real ages. That's okay.

Speaker 1 The India didn't. They didn't.
Yeah, it wasn't for them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, um.

Speaker 1 Well.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I'm just a little anxious about him, you know? Yeah. And then I called them on Sunday to chit-chat.

Speaker 1 Have a little check-in chit-chat.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we check in on Sundays.

Speaker 1 Sundays check-in.

Speaker 2 And they were watching

Speaker 2 some documentary or something. Ooh, pin in that.
Okay. Okay, they're watching some documentary.

Speaker 1 And like. I think it's earmark, but go ahead.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Pin in it. That means stop, right? Put a pin in it.
I want to say what I want to say.

Speaker 1 Now, now,

Speaker 2 there's one side of the couch that has a chaise.

Speaker 2 It's a small couch. The living room is

Speaker 2 kind of weirdly shaped. So it only.
It kind of is this size.

Speaker 1 It only accommodates a couch of that size.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so one side has a chaise. and my mom always gets that side.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, she's going to be doing her YouTube channel. Yes, she does.
She has a whole set.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she needs it. Her dad doesn't need all that space.

Speaker 2 Well, okay, then they're watching TV together and he's like, he looks so uncomfortable on that couch. And it makes me so sad.

Speaker 1 I don't think he is. I think you're projecting.
I think he's he would get himself comfortable. He's a very smart man.

Speaker 2 He doesn't know what comfort is.

Speaker 1 I don't think he knows what it's like to be comfortable. You have a really dynamic assessment of your father.
He's like, you like infantilize him at some time. And he's a dad.
Of course. He's a dad.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.
He like knows everything. And yeah, he does.
He doesn't know what comfort is.

Speaker 2 No, it's okay. He doesn't because he's like, I don't care about, he just.

Speaker 2 It's like, as you said, you said this once about dads. Like you're starting to understand like dads just start to like,

Speaker 2 they just like be quiet and they deal with it. They deal.
They don't speak up. They don't say I'm uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 Right. So that's what's happening.
I'd argue that your dad is comfortable in that scenario.

Speaker 2 Well, his body looks uncomfortable to me and disinterested.

Speaker 1 That's because he's not lifting.

Speaker 1 That's because he's not lifting.

Speaker 2 He's not lifting.

Speaker 1 I know. You mean if he started lifting, his posture would take over and he would,

Speaker 1 his form would be a little different.

Speaker 2 No, okay.

Speaker 2 Well, also when i was when i'm home and sometimes i've sat there yeah it's not okay maybe this is a better this was a better way to start it objectively it's not a comfortable spot on the couch at all because there's this like other little pillow to kind of put your feet on and it's like not good now why aren't you buying them a couch for christmas i i keep saying let's get a new couch but there's not a good couch for that space in this modern era with ai if you put in the dimensions of the current couch, yeah, and say, I want a couch at this dimensions and this price range, I bet it'd find you an answer in one second.

Speaker 2 Okay, my mom's gonna be mad at you about this because she's like, I've looked, I've done it, but she's a human.

Speaker 1 I can only look so good.

Speaker 2 No, it's because, like, the angle of the living room is strange. Like, you walk in,

Speaker 2 you can't really have a jazz on both sides.

Speaker 1 You're making it seem like this living room is somehow like 22 square feet in shape, like a peanut shell or something.

Speaker 2 It is shaped really strange. Why?

Speaker 1 Why? Because there's a stairwell in the middle of something. Well,

Speaker 2 there are stairs, but also.

Speaker 1 Could you have him send a pickover of this

Speaker 1 layout? We'll post it. Have him get on the couch, too.

Speaker 1 I want to see your dad in this position and see if I agree that he's uncomfortable. I'm glad you're bringing up dads.
My wife is out of town. Yes.
For the week. And

Speaker 1 it's an inordinately busy week with the kids and the schedules. Oh.

Speaker 1 We have

Speaker 1 Lincoln has play rehearsal at night. Great.
Delta has.

Speaker 1 Delta's up and joined a volleyball team. Oh.

Speaker 1 Yep. So she had her first practice on Monday night.

Speaker 1 And then last night, Lincoln, her rehearsal tonight, her first game.

Speaker 1 Her first practice was Monday. Her first game is tonight.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. that's too fast.
That's not enough practice.

Speaker 1 It's very quick. We've got two different projects that are due at school.

Speaker 2 I saw one on the table. It was so cute.

Speaker 1 Yes, like the whole chain of food chain in the tropical food chain. Yes, yes.
And then Lincoln has this crazy sewing project. Oh, cool.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's all cool if you're not the only adult at the house.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so, like, like, Monday night,

Speaker 1 Delta goes, what is that? Yeah, Delta goes, are you going to get up and make us breakfast? And I go, no, I'll be journaling and meditating. Oh, shit.
Okay. You can make your breakfast.

Speaker 1 Mind you, she makes dinner and lunch when she wants it.

Speaker 2 She makes breakfast a lot.

Speaker 1 Kristen, especially if she's about to go out of town,

Speaker 1 she'll really get up early and put on a show. Oh.
I get it. Okay.

Speaker 1 Pancakes and stuff. Yum.
I know. So I can't really imagine this childhood that these guys are.

Speaker 2 I know. I want that.

Speaker 1 So I'm like,

Speaker 1 girl, you know how to make toast, oatmeal, cereal, eggs. They can cook eggs.
I'm like, you know, you know how to make breakfast.

Speaker 2 But she wants to do her hair and get ready and then come and sit in the breakfast is ready, of course.

Speaker 1 But this girl gets up so early, she got time for all of it. All right.
So, anyways,

Speaker 1 it was the way she accepted it

Speaker 1 that I felt. No, she was like really kind of

Speaker 1 generous about it. Oh.

Speaker 1 that I then felt bad.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So then I did wake up really early. Today.
Yesterday morning. Oh, okay.
And I make, because Monday night, she said, are you going to make breakfast tomorrow? I was like, no. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But then the way she likes, okay. And then I felt bad.
So then I did wake up and I made eggs for everyone. That's great.
It's great. It's really great.
And

Speaker 1 so last night I was like, I can't.

Speaker 1 Something's got to give. Something's got to give in this scenario.
So I did a pre-order from Starbucks. I really endorse it.

Speaker 2 Nice, yes. Okay, by the way, pin and something's got to give.

Speaker 1 Okay, right. And we have another existing earmark, or is that the same one? Because you said put a pin in it a minute ago.

Speaker 2 Oh, and now I already forgot. Damn it.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I just kind of splurged and I put in an order. I know the refreshers they like, and then they like the pesto.
This sounds like an ad. It's not an ad.
I wish it's insane.

Speaker 2 They're not a sponsor, but yeah, because the egg bites are great.

Speaker 1 So I got four of those bad dogs. Yeah.
Got myself kind of a fancy coffee.

Speaker 1 It was great. Other than I will say this, there, you know, there's often paparazzi in front of my gate.
Uh-huh. And there's probably a 2 million photos of me getting postmates.

Speaker 1 Of course, they don't sell one of these photos. No one wants to see this.

Speaker 2 Food delivery. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I scrambled outside. It did occur to me.
I like grabbed this Starby's at seven in the morning. And I was wearing a very thin

Speaker 1 pajama bottom and a tank top. And I was like, as the gates were opening, I was like, oh, this, this is not the wardrobe for a paparazzi.
Unless I want the entire world to see my penis. Okay.

Speaker 1 So.

Speaker 2 So keep your eyes peeled, I guess.

Speaker 1 There was not a paparazzi. Luckily, but I just was like, oh, I didn't think this through as it was too late.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And then you were upset because you were like, oh, like, I can't even

Speaker 1 get my.

Speaker 2 I wasn't upset.

Speaker 1 I just was like, you got, I got to have a better game plan if I repeat this move tomorrow morning, which I'm likely to do. Okay.

Speaker 1 And then, so a busy busy busy messy messy messy that's from frosty the snowman oh um so anyways i i hit the by the time i was i took the girls to the in-and-out last night uh-huh and on the ride there at 5 p.m

Speaker 1 i said to them i said lincoln you might have to take the steering wheel i think i'm gonna fall asleep wow i was so tired at 5

Speaker 1 p.m interesting but then i stayed we stayed up naturally till i don't know 9 30 fell asleep. And I was so tired.
Then Monica, 3 a.m.,

Speaker 1 wakey, wakey.

Speaker 1 Put my grant book on tape back on.

Speaker 1 Fall back asleep 30 minutes later. I do that three times.
It's fine. 4.40.
I'm like, what's we're doing at?

Speaker 1 So again, I got up at 4.40 this morning. Oh, wow.
And then I did get a lot of writing done. Oh, that was good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was. That was good.
That was really good.

Speaker 2 Did you use the time to make breakfast?

Speaker 1 Well, I had already put in the Starbucks.

Speaker 2 Oh, God, you could.

Speaker 1 So I didn't end up needing to do that as Murphy's Law would have it. Sure.

Speaker 1 But whatever. It was coming, and I was going to accept it.
Okay. And I needed the caffeine.

Speaker 2 I understand. When my dad, when my mom would be sick, was sick

Speaker 2 or have a sickness or something, and my dad was in charge. We would have Subway for every meal.

Speaker 1 Sure. Did you like it?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
But also, it was like, oh, God.

Speaker 2 When is she going to be better? Like, oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 2 Speaking of that, I'm reading a book called The Wedding People, and there was a line in there that said something about people who wake up at 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 What did it say?

Speaker 2 And I meant to

Speaker 2 dog ear,

Speaker 2 dog ear, another word we could use instead of pin or

Speaker 1 earmark.

Speaker 2 Okay. And I didn't.
Okay. It's in my bag.
I'm tempted to go look really quick.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Go ahead.

Speaker 2 I'm just curious if I can.

Speaker 1 I may be asleep when you return, but that's okay.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.

Speaker 1 If you dare.

Speaker 1 We are supported by Empower.

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Speaker 1 Well, because I'm sleeping about five hours a night, and then I'm doing the job of two parents.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but why don't you nap while there's school? I know, but we didn't have anything yesterday.

Speaker 1 I have stuff walled the wall yesterday.

Speaker 2 What'd you have?

Speaker 1 Well, one thing was incredible. I took a bike, my first buddy bike ride with Nate.
Okay. He got a bicycle, which is so exciting.
And we went up to the observatory. Fun.
And then we had breakfast.

Speaker 1 So that doesn't really count. But then I edited two episodes of the show.
I wrote my opening. Of

Speaker 1 mom's car. Mom's car.
Oh. And then I wrote my opening for an MC job I have.

Speaker 1 And then the kids were home from school.

Speaker 1 On that note, I do just want to say

Speaker 1 the Breeze episode came out

Speaker 1 so good.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. And I'm so happy about it.

Speaker 1 I'm really, really happy about it. I'm happy mostly because she liked it and her mom liked it.
And that's a a big release. That's huge.
And then the arm cherries really, really love Brie. No shocker.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But that just makes me so happy. If you haven't heard that episode of Mom's Car, I recommend it.
It's so good.

Speaker 2 All right. Well, it's something about people who wake up at 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 Now, in your mind, can you see what side of the page it's on and where, roughly?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Isn't that weird? Like, that is how my brain works. I don't want to go so far as to say a photographic memory, but I do know where anything I remember is physically situated on the page.

Speaker 2 I think it's on this side.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 But I'm not finding it.

Speaker 1 So. Can you believe that guy that Rain Man was based on who reads books all day long at the Salt Lake City

Speaker 1 library that he reads both pages at the same time with two different eyes?

Speaker 1 Can you imagine? Oh, I thought you found it.

Speaker 2 Oh, no. I thought I was trying to do it.

Speaker 1 No, it can't be done.

Speaker 2 It can be if that guy can. Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right. Trade-offs.
Maybe one day i'll find it but it's like it was like it was a very interesting point what is it it's called the wedding people okay

Speaker 2 um pin in something's gotta give

Speaker 2 okay okay i watched it that movie something's gotta give with diane keaton and jack nicholson oh yes yes i just i guess I mean, this is a horrible thing to say because, you know, I love rom-coms so much.

Speaker 1 It's a Nancy Myers.

Speaker 2 Yes, the the Nancy Myers movie. And I love rom-coms and I love Nancy Myers.
And I can't, but I was like, I haven't seen it.

Speaker 2 So Diane Keaton sadly has passed away. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Former co-star of mine. Really? Yeah, I did a movie.
It's called Smother With Her. Wow.

Speaker 2 Well, I love her. And

Speaker 2 so I decided to watch it, but I think I hadn't watched it because I was like, oh, that's that like old person rom-com.

Speaker 2 You know, and I was like young and

Speaker 1 Keanu and Favreau in it. Yeah.
yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And Amanda Pete, maybe. Yep, she's in it as well.
Wow, you know it well. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And anywho, I

Speaker 2 loved it.

Speaker 2 She, she's so good. And like, she's just doing a rom-com and it's so

Speaker 2 believable. It's so believable and heartfelt.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 I loved it. I love it.
Wait, wasn't it? Was um, was it Greg Kinnear also? No, that's

Speaker 1 the other one. The other one one I love.
And the dog Trudeau.

Speaker 2 Trudell, Trudeau. And Helton Hunt.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 What is it called? All's Well,

Speaker 1 All in. As good as it gets.
As good as it gets. And what's the other one?

Speaker 2 Something's got to give.

Speaker 1 Something's got to give.

Speaker 1 This is insane. And Nicholson's in both movies.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay. This is part of.

Speaker 1 And he has little bacon treats for the Brussels Griffon. Yes.

Speaker 2 It's complicated, is another one. So that was a fun thing I did.
I left a party to watch it.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Let's see. I had,

Speaker 2 I went to the movies by myself this weekend, which is a fun thing to do.

Speaker 1 It is. I like it fun to do.
I enjoy that.

Speaker 2 I saw after the hunt the Julia Roberts Iowa Debris Andrew Garfield movie.

Speaker 1 Oh, I have not heard of that.

Speaker 2 It's by the director of Challengers.

Speaker 1 Oh, your favorite.

Speaker 2 My favorite. And

Speaker 2 call me by your name. And i'm still

Speaker 2 processing so i'm not gonna give an uh a score i'm not gonna give a score i'm not gonna talk we don't really even do that do we

Speaker 1 yes does he makes in real life oh yeah no no no

Speaker 1 no no no

Speaker 2 but yeah i don't i don't need to talk about the movie but i will say there were people

Speaker 2 it to i guess to be fair it was during the trailers but there were multiple people in the theater that were talking at full volume

Speaker 2 and i was so.

Speaker 1 Where did you see the movie?

Speaker 2 The Americana.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it was at 12 o'clock.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 PM.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And they were talking at full volume. And I was like,

Speaker 2 I was like doing this for the listener, just like looking around like a.

Speaker 1 Hoping to shame someone, like catch their eyes.

Speaker 2 But more like looking to see someone, other, somebody else be also looking like, what the fuck is happening?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And then I thought, is this because of streaming?

Speaker 2 Is this because people don't know how to be in a theater anymore and be around other people and respect that other people don't want to hear what you're saying?

Speaker 1 No, I think it really has a lot to do with where you see the movie, personally.

Speaker 2 Really? The Americana is so nice.

Speaker 1 I'll say, yes, there's a rash of insanity happening. We were at our trip to In-N-Out yesterday.
This guy was watching on his phone

Speaker 1 at In-N-Out. Yeah, I've seen it on a TV show or the news or something like as loud loud as possible.
I know. Coughing, he could have only had tuberculosis.

Speaker 1 I'm looking in, because, you know, at that In-N-Out, you can be seated right next to somebody, but you're not at their table. Like, they've got those two tops like stacked in.

Speaker 1 And we just kept as a family, we kept going like, this guy just doesn't give a flying fuck. He's like,

Speaker 1 watching TV. And I'm looking at this poor woman next to him who's up seven inches from this guy's face.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I had to make my like CBT. I had to make, I had to start distracting myself because I started getting so sheriffy.

Speaker 2 Right. Exactly.
I'm like, this is insane.

Speaker 1 He's ruining this poor woman's thing. He's ruining those people right next to him.
No one's saying anything. Yeah.
He's just allowed to ruin everyone's meal. I know.

Speaker 1 That they all stood in line for an eternity to enjoy. And I'm like, yo, I'm going to say something.
And then I'm like, I'm not going to because Lincoln will hate that. Yes, good.

Speaker 1 So however much I'll be saving their discomfort, I'll be creating my own discomfort. But it is so hard for me to watch that.
That is how I felt. I was like,

Speaker 2 what, what, should I say something? I don't think at a movie theater, you should expect to have to deal with people speaking at full volume.

Speaker 2 Like that is not, to be, to be fair, once the movie started, that did stop. Okay, great.
So I guess they thought like, but they're not.

Speaker 1 I'm not willing to say that full statement because when I lived in Detroit and I'd go to the movies in Detroit, everyone there talks the whole movie and they love it. Like they don't mind at all.

Speaker 1 Like that's what's culturally happening and they're all happy as hell. So I'm like, who am I to say how they're supposed to be watching? How anyone's supposed to be watching a movie?

Speaker 2 Well, at a movie theater, literally,

Speaker 2 it. it tells you to be quiet.

Speaker 1 I know, I know.

Speaker 2 So that's a rule. That's an etiquette rule.
Sure, maybe there's there's some theaters where people are like, no, this is a theater where everyone talks or something.

Speaker 2 And that's, that's not the Americana. I go to the Americana all the time.
This isn't that. Yeah.
And it was like, I, you know, I was kind of doing a little bit of like

Speaker 2 notice me and notice that I'm uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Right.
A little pass aggress. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Passive aggression. Blame me.
I was trying to get the guy's eye contact.

Speaker 1 He was coughing, but I couldn't compete with the news program he was watching and all the coughing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they were.

Speaker 1 The lettuce that was shooting out of his mouth. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Similarly, they were too deep in their worlds to recognize that other people don't want to be involved in your conversation.

Speaker 2 And then I felt bad because I'm like, because then they were just laughing really loud.

Speaker 1 And I was like,

Speaker 2 yeah, but I was annoyed.

Speaker 1 Now I am somewhere between them and you when it comes to trailers.

Speaker 2 See,

Speaker 1 I came to see another, one battle after another. Yeah.
If I'm seeing some terrible trailer for a movie I'm never going to see, I'd certainly rather be talking to Nate. Dax.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's not true.

Speaker 1 The movie hasn't started. I would never.

Speaker 2 It's about other people. It's about other people.
Yeah. This really.

Speaker 1 But what if they talk during the commercials before the trailers?

Speaker 2 That's fine, but still not at full volume. Like, I, I guess, so I was realizing this.
I was like, oh my God.

Speaker 2 That obviously we know I have injustice stuff, but I think it's very specifically triggered when it's people

Speaker 1 who

Speaker 2 think

Speaker 2 they're the only people on earth. Like people who are not aware that other people.

Speaker 1 That's very unattractive. I agree with you.
I agree with you. We already know what your thing is in this situation because

Speaker 1 we've already talked a lot about it, which is what I think what's really getting triggered is. You always felt like you had to do everything right or you'd be excluded.

Speaker 1 So when you see someone have total public disregard making a spectacle of themselves and they're not even afraid of getting excommunicated

Speaker 2 i think that's what's in the mix that we've already talked about in the past no that's not it that's not what's happening here here i'm watch i am enjoying the trailers yeah you love them i love trailers all trailers No, but I was enjoying a bunch of these.

Speaker 2 And then I was like, I kept getting like jolted out because of these dum-dums. And I was was like,

Speaker 2 it's a very much like, how dare you think your time or your enjoyment is more important than mine? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you prioritize your experience over everyone else.

Speaker 2 And that's so shitty.

Speaker 1 Selfish.

Speaker 2 Then it's so selfish. Yes.
Selfish is really,

Speaker 2 that hurts, that, that annoys me. And also, but then I had to think because I do like to be thoughtful and self-aware.

Speaker 2 And I was like, is it possible I do this? But I'm not, I don't know it because I don't see movies by myself very much. Like, I'm obviously so hyper-aware because I'm by myself.
Yes.

Speaker 2 And so I really had to think, like, maybe do it.

Speaker 1 Like, you just might have been laughing during this time. I was wondering.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I feel actually pretty certain that I don't speak at full volume. Maybe I would laugh harder with other people there.

Speaker 1 You would love living in Japan. Okay.

Speaker 1 Because that's where the absolute social

Speaker 1 contract

Speaker 1 is thoughtfulness to the people around you above yourself.

Speaker 2 It doesn't have to be above yourself. That's like such, to me, that's a misconception.

Speaker 1 It's like in order,

Speaker 2 in order to

Speaker 2 like, I have to sacrifice. It's not a sacrifice to just whisper.

Speaker 1 Right, right, right, right.

Speaker 2 You know, like they could have talked. I'm not saying they had to be like silent and in a little bubble.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But they, they needed to have some awareness that,

Speaker 1 I mean, am I wrong? I don't think I'm wrong. Am I wrong?

Speaker 1 You know, Chris, I always say this: we go, Am I right?

Speaker 1 Am I wrong?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Am I right? Am I?

Speaker 1 Am I wrong?

Speaker 2 Yeah. So I don't know.
I just, that was tricky for me.

Speaker 2 Then, as soon as the movie was over, one of the person, one of the people, ran out so fast, I think she had to tonka.

Speaker 2 And I was like, that is

Speaker 1 karma.

Speaker 1 That was was karma. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What if I had the ability, like my superpower was to make people have diarrhea?

Speaker 1 Oh, and you could look at them, like in Wednesday, the kid with the snake hair, it turned you to stone.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Medicine. Yeah.
If you could, like, you are, you had to cover your hair, but when you took your headband off and they saw your hair, it would just squirt out. Diarrhea, yeah.

Speaker 2 But the painful kind.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah. Moaning.

Speaker 1 Anyway, I have no opinion whether it's right or wrong. Okay.

Speaker 2 I just think you

Speaker 2 would. I just feel like you just said you agree.

Speaker 1 I'm telling you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But. So, yeah, it drives me nuts.
The guy was coughing and shooting food all over the table while his TV was. I don't know.
That drove me nuts for sure.

Speaker 1 I know for me,

Speaker 1 the goal is, oh, who suffered?

Speaker 1 I did. Not the guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I suffered because I was uncomfortable and agitated. Right.
And so I do know my goal in life is to not let that kind of stuff affect me.

Speaker 1 That is my ultimate goal because I'll be, I'm the only one that pays the price. The guy doesn't care.
He doesn't know that I was agitated and distracted by all this coughing.

Speaker 1 So all I've done is I've made myself suffer. We just had an expert that's semi.

Speaker 1 similar had a similar oh let them oh yeah yeah yeah i'm like why is this this ringing a bell? But I do know the path to me having the nicest time on earth is to not be affected by that.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's just a truth I know for myself. Right.

Speaker 1 So I aspire to accept the world as it is, unless someone's getting hurt. I do, I do want to get involved if someone's getting hurt.

Speaker 1 But I do think the happiest version of my life is one where I'm not annoyed and agitated by other people. Sure.
For me.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, that doesn't sit well with you, does it? something something about that feels thorny yeah it does

Speaker 2 but i i mean i

Speaker 2 feel like it's a surrender that you're accepting bad behavior no it's not like i sat through the whole movie and i was like

Speaker 2 but even while it's happening i know but like i guess to me that's i'm not choosing it oh no i think it happens quite organically yeah agitation yeah agitation happens organically and then you can try your best to let it go and then when they start screaming again it's coming back like is anyone screaming fire

Speaker 1 i don't know because they say that's illegal they say in a theater yes it is illegal

Speaker 2 um i mean i'm i'm mixed on this because i agree that you should not let other people's you know you should being annoyed is not a good feeling if you can let it go great but i also understand if someone's doing something like um obnoxious obnoxious

Speaker 2 you're not an island of you are amongst others so like you are, and you're right, and you'd win in court.

Speaker 1 The point is, if you got to work backwards from reality, can I control that? Do I have any say over it?

Speaker 1 If I can control it and change it, if I have that power, then I should care and I should do something.

Speaker 1 But if I assess that I can't do anything about it, then I know my quickest route to relief is to just accept this is how life is in this movie theater.

Speaker 2 No, but I guess that maybe that's part of the agitation is like, should I say something?

Speaker 2 In fact, there is the option to change it. It's, excuse me, guys, do you mind keeping it down?

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 2 I could have, I think.

Speaker 1 You could have, but it sounded like there were a lot of people, right? You couldn't have gone through the whole thing.

Speaker 2 It was mainly these two people. Oh, it was.
Yeah. I mean, but then I think they were having a contagion effect because then some other people were coming.

Speaker 1 Were they treating you or you in any other way? Were they like boys that seemed rowdy? It was a man and and a woman. It was a man and a woman.

Speaker 2 I would guess around my age. Like, I want to be clear.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying anything wrong. Do you hear that? Yeah.
Okay. And I'm not judging you one iota.

Speaker 2 I know, but do you think I should have maybe said something? I do think potentially that is the cause of what's like,

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's one thing if you're in a position where you really cannot control anything, then you're like, okay.

Speaker 1 Okay, now here's another thought. Okay.

Speaker 1 This is basically what you're always telling me to do which is almost impossible for me to do okay you said it was tuesday in the middle of the afternoon no sunday okay how packed was the theater not at all so you could have got up and moved away from them no no i was not close to them oh how far away were they i they

Speaker 2 also the theater was small i don't think that movie is doing well um so

Speaker 2 there there literally would have been nowhere in the theater to go without being that's what i'm saying about how loud it was this is not like i I was sitting next to them and they were just being loud.

Speaker 2 They were being obnoxious.

Speaker 2 And I did think,

Speaker 2 should I leave the movies? Like that really crossed my mind. Like

Speaker 2 how much am I going to take of this before I decide like I got to go? I can't handle this. But then that made me so sad.

Speaker 2 It's like I made this whole plan to see this movie by my little self because all my friends are out of town

Speaker 1 and no one wants to hang out with me.

Speaker 2 And I guess I have to hang out with me and I have to be my own best friend. So I'm going to take myself to the movies.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be my own best friend.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to take myself to the movies.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You want to spoil? You want to spoil myself? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I did. I got a sport.

Speaker 1 You're going to wear something pretty.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Do you think this could be my own karma now that we're talking this through? Because I got a hot chocolate at the Starbucks ding, ding, ding, at um, I almost said Baskin Robbins, Barnes and Noble.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Nothing.

Speaker 1 I love that.

Speaker 2 I love Barnes and Noble and I love that hot chocolate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I had a little bit of whipped cream.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 It's so rare. I used to get that all the time.

Speaker 1 The whipped cream in your hot chocolate?

Speaker 2 No, the hot chocolate, that hot chocolate. I used to get it all the time.
And then, you know, I've grown up and I don't get it anymore.

Speaker 2 But I thought, I'm going to indulge. I'm taking myself on a date.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And so I got it. But the thing is, you're not allowed to bring it outside drinks.
I've learned this the hard way at the Americana.

Speaker 2 So I put it in my purse. I smuggled it in.

Speaker 1 So great. This is this is great.

Speaker 1 So so your thing was like loud things, hearing all that chatter and you couldn't, someone else would be bent, so bent out of shape that you brought something in when it clearly said not to bring any food.

Speaker 1 And now I bring outside food all the time. I smuggle it in.
I want caffeine-free Diet Coke. They don't sell caffeine-free, put it in my pockets.

Speaker 1 For some other person,

Speaker 1 their big thing is, well, I'd like to bring too. Maybe I want to bring a full ham sandwich in here.

Speaker 1 but okay but i follow the rules in this right so we just have to acknowledge that like we're also doing things that somehow would make people mad because okay i want to push back on that okay my bringing in the hot chocolate only affects me i'm glad you did by the way Well, no, because they smell it.

Speaker 1 They'd be like, no, I don't want to smell hot chocolate. That's why they have a rule.
Okay, first of all. No, but don't you think easily you can imagine someone who's like, you're not supposed to.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes, I imagine that person.

Speaker 2 But I'm saying to me, there is a hard and fast rule and difference in that one is impeding on other people's experience. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And again, if these two people want to talk through the entire movie and I can't hear it, I don't care about that. I don't care that they're talking.

Speaker 2 I care that I can't engage in my experience because of them.

Speaker 2 And the hot chaga just smells great.

Speaker 1 I figured out a way, though. Do you want to hear how? Okay.

Speaker 1 You you can spill it i spilt it in my purse oh sorry so again it only it only affected me right but um you could spill their hot chocolate which you weren't supposed to bring in and then the next showing someone could sit in the seat you're in they'd be like oh the floor is sticky probably because someone brought a big sugary drink in here and it says you're not supposed to bring a sugary drink in here

Speaker 2 okay you're you're really grasping at structure i don't think i am

Speaker 2 because they sell slushies there it's not about it's not because you can't eat or drink in the theater. It's because they want you to buy the stuff in the theater.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, I know. So there could still be a spill, regardless.

Speaker 2 And here's the other thing about me, Monica. Yeah.
If I spilled hot chocolate everywhere, I would clean it up.

Speaker 1 You brought a mop with you?

Speaker 2 No, I would go get the paper towels.

Speaker 1 That's not going to cut it. You need water and a mop because of the sugar.

Speaker 1 I mean, same as someone spills a Coca-Cola that they bought. I concede to that.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 You're always trying to fight me.

Speaker 1 No, I'm not.

Speaker 2 No, I'm kidding. I know.
I know you're not.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to do what the guests we had on, which is like, let them, let me.

Speaker 1 I'm attempting to

Speaker 1 apply that strategy to this problem you have.

Speaker 2 What I went to when they were behaving in this manner is, do I say something? And then I didn't. Then I was probably letting, I was probably like, why am I not saying anything if this is bad?

Speaker 2 You know, so that's my own problem.

Speaker 2 Maybe, but, but then that, but then there's this like,

Speaker 2 who am I to tell them?

Speaker 2 But I think I am just a human on earth who could be like, can you please keep it down?

Speaker 1 What if they go, sorry, we're utilitarian. You're one person.
We're two people.

Speaker 2 I'd be like,

Speaker 1 you're like, have you been, have you been listening to my podcast? Where do you go? I didn't expect you to be so smart. Ew, I would definitely not talk.

Speaker 2 If I had an interaction with them that was bad,

Speaker 2 if I did approach them, I would leave.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, I was going to say, so this happened to me.
You may have remembered this story with Brie and her friend and some dude I never met.

Speaker 1 And the guy in front of me, a gangbanger, took a phone call. Yeah.
He was on this phone call so loud. And I just was trying, trying, trying.
And finally, I said, hey, can I say hi? Right.

Speaker 1 And he goes, what? And I go, walk in, I'm part of this fucking conversation. So can I have the phone and say hi?

Speaker 1 So now I go outside, as you recall, I don't realize he's there with five other guys. I don't know why they're all spread out in the theater at the AMC City walk.
And I walk out into the lobby.

Speaker 1 And yeah, now there's, now I'm out there with six dudes and I'm going to get killed. And there's a security guard making $1 an hour who's also 21 years old and 100 pounds.
He's got a walkie-talkie.

Speaker 1 That's my only hope. Thank God they start talking to him.
I go back in the theater. And yeah, then I sit down.
I'm like, okay, here are my options. I got to go in the lobby and I got to call Scotty.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I got to, I got to get together five friends to come up to this movie theater. Yeah.
So that it's a fair fight when I leave. Or we got to leave mid-movie, which is what we did.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So like in that case, I learned a real hard lesson.

Speaker 2 I know, but

Speaker 2 again, I'm going to have to push back.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 What you did is so

Speaker 1 different

Speaker 1 than what

Speaker 2 I might have even done, which is politely say, hey, excuse me, I'm really sorry, but do you guys mind keeping it down? That's how it would have gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And that is not this, that's not provoking.

Speaker 1 My hunch is, though, if you had done that and they complied when you walked back to your seat, I think you would have regretted it.

Speaker 1 I think you would have sat down and been like, I didn't need to do that. I know.

Speaker 2 That's why I didn't do it.

Speaker 1 I think you made the right call. Cause I don't think when we do that, I don't think ultimately.

Speaker 1 What we do is we sit down and we go, we should have let that go.

Speaker 1 So you should be happy. You did the right thing.
But did I? Because like,

Speaker 1 you wanted to.

Speaker 1 You couldn't hear you or the movie or the trailer.

Speaker 2 No, they were also there by themselves. They also took themselves on a date.
But no. But also, circling back, what happens to me is I start thinking, why is this happening?

Speaker 2 So that's why I said, I think maybe streaming is the cause of this. Like, have we as a society moved away from knowing how to be in the movie theater?

Speaker 1 I'm 50 people been talking in trailers the whole, my whole ride.

Speaker 2 It was agreed.

Speaker 2 Anywhere I lived in Detroit, you were allowed to talk the entire film okay well i i've been to the theaters a lot too and i'm 38 i'm not young i i just thought the way this was happening and maybe the age demographic of these people

Speaker 2 i was thinking like something feels like

Speaker 1 wrong

Speaker 2 because they don't even they don't they're not thinking anything about this yeah like they think it's totally fine and i they do think think they think they're in, they're in their own bubble.

Speaker 2 And it's like, you remember you came to the movie theater and there's other people here. But I think they thought they were on their couch.

Speaker 1 I've also been a bad person at the movies. I'm just remembering.
Okay. Because Nate and I used to go to movies all the time.
And if a movie was a real stinker, like a really bad movie.

Speaker 1 We had a kind of routine. This is how you would signal is you would try to sit back in your seat and get out of your whole shirt.
Oh, right.

Speaker 1 Without them noticing and then lean forward like you're gonna watch the movie a little closer. And then Nate realizes, Oh,

Speaker 1 Nex has his shirt off. Either one of us would do this, yeah, and it was so fun.

Speaker 1 And then it became like you'd walk like you were gonna go get popcorn with your shirt off, you know. So, I did, I've done a lot of

Speaker 2 I was about to say actually, that's would be fine because that's not affecting other people. But then the walking is not okay, that's distracting.

Speaker 1 The lead, it is, is, it was distracting because it would make me laugh extremely hard.

Speaker 1 If I was watching a film and I just out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nate lean forward and I noticed he didn't have a shirt on in the movie.

Speaker 1 I would laugh pretty hard, and it might not be a funny scene.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, I don't like that.

Speaker 1 So, my apologies to anyone that was with next to Nate and I.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's do some facts. Okay,

Speaker 2 so we talked about Wicked for a second, and you said alphaba. No, you asked what the woman's woman,

Speaker 1 the name, the character.

Speaker 2 I mean, she is a woman.

Speaker 1 The witch.

Speaker 2 Right. Is she, are we allowed to say she's a woman?

Speaker 1 She's a witchy woman. Witchy woman.
Interesting.

Speaker 2 Anyway, and you asked her name and I said Alphaba.

Speaker 1 But really quick. Yeah.
Witch woman is redundant.

Speaker 2 Hey!

Speaker 1 It is.

Speaker 1 We don't ever refer to men as

Speaker 1 yeah, you'd be a wizard. So we don't need to say which woman

Speaker 1 someone in wica is gonna be mad there's probably a male wicca witch but i'm talking

Speaker 1 that's a woman so it's just redundant to say witch woman it actually sounds like you're saying wit w-h-i-c-h which win of which one of these women no wit

Speaker 1 i don't know I think when you say which, it's implicit.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know if I like that, and I got to think about it. Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Alphaba

Speaker 2 is not her name. I said Alphaba.

Speaker 1 It's Alphaba. L-E-L.

Speaker 2 E-L. And I said A-L.
That was embarrassing.

Speaker 1 I thought it was Alphaba too.

Speaker 2 Alphaba. The new movie is coming out soon, very soon.

Speaker 1 Yeah, TikTok. Wow.

Speaker 1 Okay. I'd like to have Ariana Grande on.

Speaker 2 I would too, because we had Alphaba slash Cynthia Arrivo on last time.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to Halloween as Ferrariana Grande. That's right.
So I just feel like all the, I'm making as much of a commitment as I can to woo her. Yeah, that'd be great.

Speaker 2 Okay. Now,

Speaker 2 Australia's relationship to religion, she was like, is different from here. So then I looked it up.

Speaker 2 Most religious countries. Saudi Arabia, number one.
Sure.

Speaker 1 Just as we would expect.

Speaker 2 Number two, Israel.

Speaker 2 Three,

Speaker 2 Iran.

Speaker 1 Four, India. Oh.

Speaker 2 Five, United Arab Emirates.

Speaker 1 UAE. Six, Egypt.

Speaker 1 Seven, Qatar.

Speaker 1 Qatar. I know.

Speaker 2 I don't know what to say. You didn't say either.
Eight, Jordan.

Speaker 2 Nine, Turkey. Ten, Oman.
Eleven.

Speaker 1 How many can I do?

Speaker 1 Okay, I'm going to scroll down. You just basically say the Middle East plus India in this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and Israel.

Speaker 1 That's Middle East. Israel number two.

Speaker 2 Oh, kind of count that as separate. Thailand's on here is number 23.

Speaker 2 Mexico is 25. That makes sense.

Speaker 1 Yeah, where's the U.S.?

Speaker 2 I know I'm looking.

Speaker 1 I would have thought we would be way up higher.

Speaker 2 I haven't got there yet.

Speaker 2 I'm at 50.

Speaker 2 I mean, we have a lot of

Speaker 2 agnostic and

Speaker 1 but when you look up what percentage of Americans believe in

Speaker 1 basically Jesus

Speaker 1 or some Judeo-Christian, it's super high, like in the 80s percent, I think.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 It's 69 right now.

Speaker 1 Number 69, perverse. Yep.
Do you mind if I ask? Sure.

Speaker 1 What percentage of Americans believe in God?

Speaker 1 What percentage of Americans believe in God? 83% of U.S. adults believe in God.

Speaker 2 Jesus or God?

Speaker 1 Well, we got to say God because we have

Speaker 1 Muslims. We have Christians.
Well, that's. But if I let's see how you're, let's ask

Speaker 1 France. Okay.

Speaker 1 What percentage of people in France believe in God? 44%.

Speaker 1 So 44 versus 81 was like twice as many people here.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's true.

Speaker 2 But I guess just on the scale, there's a lot more.

Speaker 1 Must be in the 90s and all those things.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Yeah.
Okay. What did Polar say recently about comedy? She said, every single year at the Oscars, everybody gets blanked, said the 50-year-old.

Speaker 1 It must be fucked.

Speaker 2 I guess. Oh, I don't know if that's a word people use.

Speaker 1 I can't imagine Poehler saying blanked. She'd say fucked.

Speaker 2 Well, it says it's some hot bullshit.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 interesting.

Speaker 2 Because comedy is not easy. That's what she said.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's true. That's true.

Speaker 2 She's right. Yep.

Speaker 1 Warren Buffett

Speaker 2 did pledge the majority of his fortune to be donated to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with four other family foundations.

Speaker 2 He made a public pledge in 2006 to give away the bulk of his wealth and has been making large annual donations.

Speaker 1 Good boy.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It says, he has stated that the Gates Foundation will not receive any money after his death.
The remainder of his estate will be distributed to his family's foundations.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 All right. Okay.
The box, you said the what's in the box in pulp fiction. When you said what's in the box, I was like, you thought of seven.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Um, because it's a briefcase.
Case.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I don't know what's in it.

Speaker 1 No one does. I know.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Someone said that one of the rumors is the Ten Commandments.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was some one of them is Marcel's, Marcelus Wallace's soul. Oh.
Uh-huh. Wow.

Speaker 2 Glowings. I thought you were going to say Marcel

Speaker 2 the seashell.

Speaker 1 Seashell. No.

Speaker 1 Or sell the shell. Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right. Well, that's it.

Speaker 1 That was all for facts. Light on facts.

Speaker 2 Pretty light on facts.

Speaker 1 That's okay. We like it sometimes.
Light on facts.

Speaker 2 You get what you get, and you don't get upset.

Speaker 1 That's right. That's the same.
All right. Love you.

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Speaker 4 Mom and dad, uh, mom and mom, dad and dad, whatever, parents, are you about to spend five hours in the car with your beloved kids this holiday season? Driving to old Granny's house?

Speaker 4 I'm setting the scene. I'm picturing screaming, fighting, back-to-back hours of the K-pop demon hunter soundtrack on repeat.

Speaker 4 Well, when your ears start to bleed, I have the perfect thing to keep you from rolling out of that moving vehicle. Something for the whole family.
He's filled with laughs. He's filled with rage.

Speaker 4 The OG Green Grunt give it up for me, James Austin Johnson, as the Grinch.

Speaker 4 And like any insufferable influencer these days, I'm bringing my crew of lesser talented friends along for the ride with A-list guests like Gronk, Mark Hamill, and the Jonas Brothers, whoever they are.

Speaker 4 There's a little bit of something for everyone. Listen to Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.