Joel Edgerton

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Speaker 1 Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dak Shepard.
I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi.
Today we have a very handsome and rugged, yet sensitive and sweet man. Yeah.
Joel Edgerton. Yes.

Speaker 1 God, he was a delight.

Speaker 2 He really was. This was, I didn't know much about Joel, and so I was really happy that we got to know him.
And his project is incredible.

Speaker 1 It is. So, of course, you know him from Loving, Warrior, The Gift, Bright, Dark Matter, but he has,

Speaker 1 you know, I don't go out on a limb.

Speaker 1 I don't. I'm telling you right now, this is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen.
It's just sat with me

Speaker 1 since I've saw it. I keep thinking about it.
Train Dreams, which is out on Netflix on the 21st, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 It is actually, you know, it's a great movie to see right before Thanksgiving because it gives you so much gratitude for the abundance we live in and have no gratitude for and take for granted because it's just a very simple story about someone in 1917.

Speaker 1 And man, it was fucking hard.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, yes, Joel Edgerton, he's great. I also want to say that my heart is broken for Clito and his family and my friends, the Kimmels.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 boy, that's such a bummer. And I send all my love to everyone.
Me too. Yeah.

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Speaker 2 Welcome.

Speaker 1 Where should I see? Right there. But you look very cute in this outfit.
You look very relaxed, playful. Yeah, beach vibes.

Speaker 1 Let me see your watch really quick. I like these.
Oh, I brought on a S dials of it all.

Speaker 3 My wife bought this for me.

Speaker 3 It probably hasn't been well. Gorgeous.
It was made in the year I was born.

Speaker 2 That's cute.

Speaker 1 74.

Speaker 3 74. So it's a very old watch.
I love old. Like, I was in Budapest and I bought a bunch of old watches from markets.
I thought I wanted to go and get a really fancy, expensive watch.

Speaker 3 And I did, and I barely wear it. And the watches I love are these watches I got for like 50 bucks.

Speaker 1 These Budapest watches.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like World War II kind of

Speaker 3 old German and Russian watches.

Speaker 1 I have one very nice watch too, and I don't wear it ever. Why don't you wear yours?

Speaker 3 I feel like it makes me seem like a show-off. Uh-huh.
I was in Tokyo for two days. Someone had told me you could get really good deals on really fancy watches.

Speaker 3 And so I went shopping for a watch and I got it. I bought it a handful of times, but I do feel like I'm a bit of a show-off when I'm self-conscious.

Speaker 2 Paul Poppy.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but one of the things I do is I do a lot of my shopping on other men.

Speaker 3 I literally, I'll see something someone's wearing and I'm like, I think I know where that's from, double RL.

Speaker 1 Good job. Oh my God.
Really good work. Wait, does this predate your wife? And Monica, I was going to save this because you'll be so excited, but his wife is the editor-in-chief at Australia Vogue.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 Incredible.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and my clothing games definitely upped.

Speaker 1 You got it.

Speaker 3 As I punched above my weight, my clothing then punched above my weight.

Speaker 1 Wow, so you really nailed this. And I'm going to tell you, I saw it on Instagram, promoted to me.
They know what I like. And I found my way to this like two months ago.

Speaker 1 So I certainly would not have known this was double R a couple months ago.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Why are you I just happen to have seen that shirt and I know this.
Do you own it?

Speaker 3 No, I don't own it. Did it pique your interest?

Speaker 1 Did you think about it?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I did like it.

Speaker 1 Are you going to get it now? I feel like I should give it to you. Oh, a shirt off your back.
Yeah, I kind of do.

Speaker 3 You know, years ago, I met a producer on a film and he said to me that when he was a kid,

Speaker 3 His mom dressed him for his first day of school in a three-piece suit.

Speaker 3 And he went to school. And I'll start the story by saying he kept asking me what I was wearing.
And he asked if he could have a look at the tag.

Speaker 3 And three days after one of these moments, he turned up on set wearing the jacket that I had bought and that I'd been wearing three days earlier. And then he told me the story.

Speaker 3 His mum addressed him in a three-piece suit for school. All the kids teased him.

Speaker 3 And he went home crying. And his mum, the kids would tease me about my suit.
She said, well, you go to school tomorrow. And look at what all the other kids are wearing.

Speaker 3 And then come home and tell me and we'll go shopping for you. Oh, that was sweet of her.
And that was when he was like five, six years old.

Speaker 3 And ever since then, what he does is he walks around to other men and he's like, what is this? And looks at the tag. Yeah, yeah.
And then he goes shopping. And I was like, that's kind of what I do.

Speaker 3 I look at what people and watches is one of them.

Speaker 2 I hope your wife watches this because I think she will appreciate my outfit.

Speaker 3 Of course.

Speaker 1 Like Joel knew about me, she'll know right away from you.

Speaker 3 And you'll know if my wife likes or doesn't like your outfit. And I'll tell you why.
I'm not sure when I left to come here because she was the last person I saw.

Speaker 3 And I ran into the room to grab something. And she looked at me and I was like, I wonder if I'm going to get an appraisal or not.
I can tell by a micro expression. And sometimes I'll walk in.

Speaker 3 And if my arms go out, it's basically like, what do you think? And then I get a look. And depending on the look, sometimes I'm already taking the outfit off.

Speaker 1 Can you do the look? You're a good actor. Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 3 Super slight disapproval.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But she's got great taste. Hopefully that extends to her choice and husbands.

Speaker 1 Good. I was going to ask this very far at the end after I had warmed you up and gained your trust.
But I am curious how you guys knew each other since the 90s, but you didn't get together until 2018.

Speaker 3 There's like 48 people in Australia

Speaker 3 who know each other. She used to work at a magazine, Harper's Bazaar.
And I'm talking about the late 90s.

Speaker 3 And I was a young actor and I just remember meeting her, but I knew a lot of people at the time. And then we we just saw each other in social circles for years.

Speaker 3 And then, in the sort of five or six years before we got together, she'd become very close friends with my brother and his wife. So, we knew each other super well as friends.

Speaker 1 But, were there not vibes throughout any of those different encounters? Like, were you doing the secret life of us when you met when she was at Harper's? Were you like already on TV?

Speaker 3 I don't know that anyone would have looked at my hairstyle during The Secret Life of Us and gone, there's a cat.

Speaker 1 That's the guy.

Speaker 3 That plume of fake blonde hair.

Speaker 3 The interesting thing was

Speaker 3 I had gone through, and I won't go too much into this, but I gone through a string of relationships, complicated ones, some of them. And she was in a very solid relationship for a long time.

Speaker 3 Okay, okay, that explains that. And so quite often at these dinners, I was being ripped apart by my brother and his wife.
They were very judgy about me and my approach to relationships.

Speaker 1 And I'm sure they had some good points.

Speaker 3 That's a good point.

Speaker 3 But I will say in hindsight, I often look back on those relationships and go, you have to make sure that you acknowledge that it takes two to tango.

Speaker 3 You know, you can't just blame someone else for being terrible to you, although there is one.

Speaker 3 There was a character assassination. There was a pot shot or two taken at me at most of those dinners.

Speaker 1 By Nash, your brother.

Speaker 3 Yeah, just in general. And I think quietly in the background, people like to talk about other people when they're not around.
Sure, sure. Yeah, it's very fun.
It all came from a place of caring.

Speaker 3 I think they wanted the best for me. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Also, there's this great thing about about siblings siblings tell you exactly what's going oh you have shit in your teeth oh you look fucking ugly in that jacket like there's no threat of leaving so the honesty's off the chart and my brother's an incredible touchstone of honesty for me when it comes to work anything he'll tell me straight i know for a fact that there were two people when christine became single were like hey do you ever think joel and her answer i probably can't even repeat on this podcast but when my mom mentioned it at some point she's like no way great i'd love to hear that because of your reputation from these dinners yeah but look i don't think my reputation was too bad i think it was more the fact that i was a guy in my mid 40s who just hadn't quite settled down and to be honest in fairness to me my passion for work and the journeys that it takes you on geographically travel yeah yeah i think a lot of people were interested in actors and go wow it's so exciting and we know it's really not that glamorous and then once they get close to you or involving you, they're like, all right, you're going where for how long?

Speaker 3 Yeah. So you're not really a reliable source of continuity.
And it puts people in a vulnerable position to be a passenger in someone else's life.

Speaker 1 Yes, I don't want to be a passenger.

Speaker 3 No, I love being a plus one, though. I really enjoy going places to support Christine.
And when she's there to support me, I appreciate it. I'm constantly sensitive to how weird it all is.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 She's so cool about those worlds in general, even though she lives in the world of fashion. But it's got similar, you know, it intersects in its own way enough for her to understand.

Speaker 3 And what I love most of all,

Speaker 3 whenever I've invited her to set, mainly because I want the kids to come, like on train journeys, I got to ride on a horse and cart. She's like, can you bring the kids to set?

Speaker 3 The last thing in the world she wants to do, not because she's not supportive, but she doesn't want to be that person hanging around on a set where she's just someone standing there not doing anything.

Speaker 1 What I was going to say, she has demonstrated that she is is an industrious, focused human being.

Speaker 1 And to stand there and be useless for eight hours is a rough feeling when you are generally of use to people.

Speaker 3 And I think what sort of made our relationship work in the early days, too, was the realization that she'd barely watched anything I'd ever been involved in.

Speaker 1 So she has great taste.

Speaker 1 So it's married.

Speaker 1 Really good.

Speaker 3 I had become aware over the years.

Speaker 3 I remember the first time anyone ever walked over to me in a bar and was like really interested to talk to me and the realization that the only reason she'd done it is because she'd seen me on television, that she had an idea of who I was and a fascination with who I was without even knowing me at all.

Speaker 3 Whereas I love when people are disinterested, it becomes even-keeled and good and our relationship works for a hundred reasons and that's one of them.

Speaker 1 Monica has the same thing as you and I don't get it. Okay, yeah, some gal at the bar saw you and something and loved you, so she appreciates the thing you do.

Speaker 1 And she comes over for one reason, but you have your own swag and charisma and value. And so who cares if that's how the door got opened?

Speaker 1 Unless you have some crazy fear of I'm going to really be a disappointment, let the person down. Who gives a flying fuck why someone enters the picture? This is Monica's issue, too.

Speaker 1 You guys can gang up on me. Yeah.
Can you guys put together a cohesive reason why that's an issue that someone is aware of you before they meet you?

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, it's hard to articulate.

Speaker 1 It's a trust issue, right? It's like there's a built-in mistrust.

Speaker 3 It's the more that I sort of mistrust somebody who is taken with the allure of you because they have an idea that fame is something special or that notoriety or a profile or whatever you would call it.

Speaker 1 Okay, great. So now we're parsing it out.
Yeah, that's an issue. If someone wants to be in the spotlight, but let's say you and I, did you see her? Yeah.
Joaquin.

Speaker 1 Joaquin, but even Scarlett Johansson, unseen. Afterwards, I'm like, I'm in love with that robot too.
I understand exactly why he feels that way.

Speaker 1 Or after seeing her her and name the movie when I was younger. And if I saw her at the bar, I definitely want to go chat with her.
And then she'll either really live up to my thing or she won't.

Speaker 2 But she can't. That's the problem.
She is Scarlet.

Speaker 1 She might exceed it.

Speaker 2 You have your own relationship with her in your head. That's a fantasy.
That's like the best case scenario. No real human can live up to that.
And so it is a disappointment.

Speaker 3 Oh, this whole idea too of never meet your heroes is an interesting one. But you know who really kind of gets me excited? And this is separate from gender or attraction.

Speaker 3 Actors have never really been the thing that got me jittery. Sports people.

Speaker 1 There we go. Athletes.

Speaker 3 I met a bunch of old school famous tennis players and I remember getting nervous. This is a weird one.

Speaker 3 I don't know if anyone out there will know this one, but I was obsessed when I grew up in Dural with, of all things, pole vaulting. I used to cut down a sapling.

Speaker 1 You wanted to be a pole vault.

Speaker 3 I wanted to be a pole vault. Because it was right around the time of the 84 Olympics, California Olympics.
Put elastic between two trees, get a sapling, drag my mattress out into the lawn.

Speaker 1 Okay. Tiny bullseye for you.
Yeah. A mattress.

Speaker 1 You better speak that fucking way in there.

Speaker 3 And Sergei Bubka was the greatest pole vaulter of all time. He'd never won a gold medal, but he won the world championships and he held the world record.

Speaker 3 I met him when I was 32 years old and got to shake his hand. He's only about my height.
Oh, really? But he has the hands of like Andre the Giant.

Speaker 3 It was like he'd stiff someone else's hands on it.

Speaker 1 I I was like, I don't want to even hold that thing. Oh my God.

Speaker 3 That was probably the most starstruck I'd ever been.

Speaker 2 I was obsessed with the Romanian gymnasts.

Speaker 3 I met Nadia Komeni.

Speaker 2 You did?

Speaker 3 I met Martine and Navratilov. These people got me far more excited than anybody I'd ever met before.

Speaker 1 Okay, this is juicy.

Speaker 1 No movie star.

Speaker 3 What do you mean? No movie star.

Speaker 1 Not a single movie star did you get like butterfly-y feeling.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I've got a man crush on Javier Bardem.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, who does that?

Speaker 3 Can I tell you an amazing Javier Bardem story? Yeah, please, please. So when I met him, I went to Madrid.
I was on a road trip with my brother and my good friend Spencer.

Speaker 3 We stopped in, and Natalie Portman was shooting with Javier, and we knew Natalie from Star Wars. So we go and meet them in a bar.
I'm introduced to Javier.

Speaker 3 At the end of the night, we're leaving this bar, and this girl is leaving the bar, and she's clearly very inebriated.

Speaker 3 And this man put his arm around her shoulder, and Javier asked the guy, do you know this girl?

Speaker 3 And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm just walking home.
And Javier said, well, with all respect, we're going to walk with you and make sure that she gets home safe.

Speaker 3 And so all of us walked with Javier because we're like, this dude is amazing.

Speaker 3 Even having the thought and the inclination to protect this girl. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And the guy was being honest, but Javier just was making sure.

Speaker 1 Yeah, double check.

Speaker 3 And we would have walked about a kilometer winding through these streets of Madrid to make sure this girl got home home safe and I remember just thinking this guy has character unbelievable yeah yeah yeah I love him that's a great story and he's already so sexy I know you sprinkle that on top and he's a protector oh my dream there are people like him that I really really admire but that almost sounds like you admire his character more than you admire him as this flashy actor yeah I remember when I met Sylvester Stallone you know you talk about childhood dreams my favorite actors when I was growing up as a kid were Harrison Ford most of the movies were about guys guys with muscle.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. So Arnold and Sylvester.
And I remember doing one of those weird roundtable things with a bunch of actors. And I've never seen so many already successful actors get so giggly

Speaker 3 when Sylvester Stallone walked in the room. They were all like, oh, everyone was shaking.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 The power of that guy.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. I'm obsessed with muscles, and I don't know how I could have grown up in the 80s.

Speaker 3 You've got muscles. I just cuddled you on the way in.

Speaker 1 I have more free time now so I can develop my muscles. But yeah, it all starts with, dude, I saw Conan the Barbarian at a drive-in when I was probably eight.
And I was like, what the fuck is this?

Speaker 1 I didn't have those magazines. I've never been on TV.
I'm like, this is crazy. That's a real person.
Yeah. I loved it.
Did you love Road Warrior? I mean, you're in Australia.

Speaker 1 My brother and I were obsessed with Road Warrior.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we called it Mad Max. First one was just called Mad Max.

Speaker 1 Road Warriors got colorful and over the top. Mad Max is like a straight, good movie.
Road Warrior is more of a fun comic book.

Speaker 3 Oh, the second one, you mean? Yes. Yeah, Mad Max 3.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there's Mad Max, and then there's Road Warrior, and then there's the now ones.

Speaker 3 Now, if you've seen the Tina Turner one, Mad Max 3 beyond the

Speaker 1 Thunderdome. We don't need another hero.

Speaker 1 The fact that she worked Thunderdome into a song and it was a hit is almost impossible.

Speaker 3 Her outfit in that with a chainmail. Oh, yeah, Mad Master.

Speaker 1 Master Blaster and Blaster.

Speaker 1 The little guy sat on the big guy's shoulders.

Speaker 3 There's something so incredible about re-watching that film now, now, which I saw it again, maybe about three months ago. Oh, really? Because I remember thinking, okay, the first one's very austere.

Speaker 3 Second one just gets crazy with the whole kind of like, what's that great line of Mel's where he's talking about there's only one man who could drive that truck out here. You know,

Speaker 3 where there's the whole full-on road chase, which is more reminiscent of the new ones. Yes.
But Beyond Thunderdome just went. kind of crazier and it was a little kitsch.

Speaker 3 And then re-watching it is kind of extraordinary. There's the whole Boeing 747 that's crashed and the wild children that are kind of living out there.
But that film is amazing.

Speaker 3 George and Baz Luhrmann, for Australian filmmakers, are the two guys. They dream big.

Speaker 1 Enormous. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Because most Australian films live in this sort of $2 to $5 million market. Yeah, there's not the market.

Speaker 1 to fund big spectacles.

Speaker 3 No, these guys are seeing the world as their canvas. Baz is making Gatsby in Sydney.
He made Elvis in the Gold Coast and that's his new playground.

Speaker 3 So he uses Australian technicians, Australian actors, peppered throughout.

Speaker 3 But Cress is big worlds and does it in Australia. And George, for the most part, does the same thing.

Speaker 1 The Blu-ray of Road Warrior, the second film, has a little dock on it. And I don't know if you've watched it, but it's spectacular.
You'll remember the huge semi-crash at the end.

Speaker 1 They told the stunt performer who did that crash, you need to prep for surgery before

Speaker 1 so this dude had done a full prep for surgery in anticipation of getting airlifted to a fucking hospital just you need to ties yourself then do the stuff

Speaker 3 you've seen the one where the guy clips his ankles he just brings his legs on the clipped his ankles here both ankles but the break happened up here They broke both femurs after tapping both ankles.

Speaker 3 The guy that did that did stunts on a short film.

Speaker 3 When I first started out, I used to do short films for the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, where actors from drama school would go and get to be in these short films.

Speaker 3 And the stunt team turned up and it was the guy that had done that stunt.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 His name was Grant.

Speaker 3 And his two sons had become stunt men. The week or two before, he'd had a light plane crash with one of his sons in it.
It was one of those things where you sit and it's just a propeller above you.

Speaker 3 And he and his son had had a crash. And so that had happened.
His other son had broken his leg doing an absale from the Harbor Bridge. And so the stunt team turned up.

Speaker 3 they're all part of the same family.

Speaker 1 They all had broken bones and they were all trying to drag a crash man.

Speaker 3 And my brother was doubling me in that, which has doubled me in so many things, but it was just funny watching the stunt team

Speaker 3 and go, you're already broken. One of the most terrifying things I've ever seen is my brother getting painted up with fire gel to do a full body burn.
And the weirdest thing, I've seen it three times.

Speaker 3 And one of them was on a really weird Western that we made in Santa Fe that myself and another guy helped rewrite. It was a very complicated film that fell apart and then found its way back up.

Speaker 3 And one of the rewrites we'd done was that all these guys get burnt in this situation. And my brother then got a job on it.
So I realized like I had written this scene.

Speaker 2 Oh, God.

Speaker 3 And now my brother was like, yeah, I'll do that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm sitting there watching him getting painted by these people.

Speaker 3 And stunk guys, for all the craziness you think that they engage in, they're incredibly good physics brain thinkers, a lot of them, in terms of the dynamics, rheumatics, and they really care about each other.

Speaker 3 And the quietness that descended as they were painting him and making sure that it didn't go beyond a certain point, talking about how long and what the process and who was going to bring the fire blanket.

Speaker 3 And I remember just being terrified. I would have felt culpable.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's a good thought process for all of us directors to think about when we're asking people to do stuff like what if my brother was doing this? Do I have the same opinion about this?

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, mean, that's a whole interesting conversation about the pursuit of creating life is more important than fiction, taking care of each other on a set.

Speaker 3 It's amazing how much people suddenly kickbollock scramble on a set. And we all know the big stories that have made the headlines about people losing their lives or becoming brain damaged.

Speaker 3 And I had a cinematographer recently in Chicago and there's this big scream and the wind was kicking up.

Speaker 3 And he just kind of kicked off in this really assertive way and said, we don't need to be doing this. And everyone first was like, Well, is this guy getting all curmudgeonly?

Speaker 3 And then all of a sudden, you realize I think you've been involved in a situation before where someone got hurt. And everyone then was like, Good for you.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 3 no one needs to have something for you.

Speaker 1 It's very hard, Javier Bondem.

Speaker 2 What do we think it is about

Speaker 2 men and women, but we got to be realistic, mainly men being very attracted to stunts.

Speaker 1 It's rates of passage.

Speaker 3 I'm fascinated by this. And when my blood boils, when I see red, you know, those sort of cliche expressions.
But my inclination is to be very peaceful.

Speaker 3 And I like to think I could handle myself in a fight, but I feel the inclination sometimes. I always shy away from it.
But I'm really interested in the world we live in now where.

Speaker 3 There's sort of almost this line we don't cross. We're all part of society.
We like to be civilized. And we know that to step over that line means we do something that's uncivilized.

Speaker 3 But it's crazy watching what I call like middle-class rage in the car. Yeah, we look at these very safe lives.

Speaker 3 So fight or flight gets triggered by the most benign things, being late to a meeting or somebody cutting you off in the traffic. Road rage is a big thing.

Speaker 3 And indignation of what happens with humans lining up to do things at a fun park or at a shop. Suddenly they're all kicking off and the trigger is loaded up

Speaker 3 by compression of financial situation, marital, whatever's loading the bow. And then someone hits the hair trigger and it kicks off.

Speaker 3 And it's like this primal rage that exists, particularly in a lot of men who don't know how to manage it. And it's almost like a blindness comes over them with this sort of feeling.

Speaker 3 I'm fascinated by it. I love thinking about it, but it's a weird thing.

Speaker 1 I think we have tons of vestigial stuff that we have no application for anymore. We were wired to overeat because food was scarce.
We were wired to do a lot of stuff that we no longer do.

Speaker 1 And that's why sports is a thing. That's why, like, all these different activities we have are our ways of engaging in that wiring in a safe, socially acceptable way.

Speaker 1 But that's what's clearly driving it. You can imagine a species that doesn't even like sports.
Like, if they didn't have any of that.

Speaker 2 I mean, there's a lot of ways to look at sports. Sports is also community, which we know.
we need as social animals too. There's so many things, but like a car jumping another car is so specific.

Speaker 2 And all of you guys love it. Yeah,

Speaker 2 I just don't get it.

Speaker 3 I'm going to say something relatively controversial.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's your really.

Speaker 3 I mean, I see myself as a fairly undude kind of dude. Never wanted to drive cars fast.
Okay. I don't have a particular sport on fast enough.
I love all sport.

Speaker 3 I love watching it, but I'm not obsessing over a particular team. There's a few dude boxes I don't feel like I tick and don't really need to tick.
Yeah, yeah. There's some that I do.

Speaker 3 I actually haven't taken it. I don't know if there's a dude test.

Speaker 1 I have it. I'll go with you on your way out when I give you this shirt.

Speaker 2 Before you came in, Dak said, oh, Joel is so masculine. Yeah.
I was like, really? And it's just interesting to see, like, Amelia, that we are starting to talk about some things that are masculine.

Speaker 3 But what is masculinity is a really good question. My idea of masculinity used to be Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Speaker 3 My movie diet was all about dudes that could break your limbs and kick you in the face, you know, roundhouse kick you and all. all that.

Speaker 3 But the idea of sensitivity mixed within masculinity and talking about the kinds of performances I like from men. And Russell Crowe is a good example.
He's such a kind of alpha male.

Speaker 3 He's such a brute force. And yet there's a tenderness to be able to watch the child inside the man.
Because I think as bearded as we can all get, as masculine, we're still a child, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did you watch Chimp Empire? No, I haven't. No.
That's great. But yes, you're nailing.

Speaker 1 The thing that made that not just a fun rubbernecky look at chimps warring was they follow the alpha male a ton and you come to realize like the alpha male is not allowed to groom anyone he only gets groomed he's not allowed to get the hors d'oeuvres off of each other's heads no it's just how they're signaling status so he only gets groomed and he has to be fierce at all times there's two males that are trying to actively kill him and then they have these troop-on-troop wars three times in this movie and he's got to be first one in and they're outnumbered and that's his role and then the weird thing that alpha male chimps will do is they'll take on orphans.

Speaker 1 There'll be an orphan baby and no one will claim it. And this alpha male will claim it.
And he spends his whole time just grooming and being so kind and

Speaker 1 thing. And I was like, that's the heartbreak of this role.
It's like he wants to groom and be emotional and be tender and nurture. And his role just doesn't allow for it.

Speaker 3 I think that's the deficit of old school masculinity is tenderness.

Speaker 3 And this is why I think masculinity continues on through generations of being stoic and non-verbal and inexpressive is because you take your cues from the person above you.

Speaker 3 The moment that breaks, the moment you feel the tenderness from a male figure in your life, I think it sets better cues.

Speaker 3 And I'm fascinated now that I've got two kids and they're twins and one's a girl and one's a boy. And not to make it about men in particular, but how do you groom your children for the world?

Speaker 3 I mean, how do you build them up to be better people?

Speaker 1 Would you agree? I was trying to equip them for the real world and build in the aspirational version of what we should become. It's like you can't turn them out into the world completely naive.

Speaker 1 There's some reality you're working within and you're also trying to push it forward. But I don't think it's like black or white.
It's like you're trying to thread this needle.

Speaker 1 I want them to be better than me. And also, I don't want them to get hurt their whole life.

Speaker 3 Yeah, my son said to me the other day, this kid had said, you're not a very good Spider-Man. He goes, I'm going to web him

Speaker 3 so he's got beef with another four-year-old he's i'm gonna web him i said hold on jack first of all why don't you tell him how you feel about the fact

Speaker 3 that he discredited your validity as spider-man yeah yeah and then if he regrets it i've told him the definition of the word regret and then give him a chance if he still says you're not a very good spider-man then consider webbing him and he goes yeah i'm gonna web his legs his body and his eyeballs

Speaker 1 And then my daughter just started cackling. Wow.

Speaker 3 So if you see a webbed kid around LA, you'll know I did it.

Speaker 1 You'll know that he did not heed your advice. But to the masculine thing, your older brother Nash, a year and a half older than you.

Speaker 1 He's a stunty. Was he a fucking stud? Did you idolize him? What was your guys'

Speaker 1 dynamic as kids?

Speaker 3 We were kind of mild studs growing up together. We weren't full studs.
You know, we weren't ticking all those boxes. But he was a daredevil in the true sense.

Speaker 3 Before he he plugged into the idea that he could become a stuntman he was literally doing things for free to entertain people like do you dare me to try and jump that fence that's definitely going to trip me over and make me lose a lot of skin off my face you know like yeah nash we dare you he would put himself up to do these things yeah yeah he jumped out of a moving train to not be late for a basketball game and then wasn't allowed to play because he was losing so much blood when he ran to the course

Speaker 3 he had about 12 abrasions and it was right around the time they had decided that you can't play sport while you bleed.

Speaker 1 While you're actively bleeding.

Speaker 3 He literally jumped out of a train that was moving about 60 kilometers an hour.

Speaker 1 And did you feel inclined to match him? No. Or was he just so wild that it was like, that's his lane?

Speaker 3 Yeah, he one time also got out of a... driving car just to show that he could run alongside it while the car was also driving.
Sure, sure. Which didn't end well.

Speaker 3 He sort of taught me to abseil and rock climb and things as he started getting into the world of stunts.

Speaker 3 He was fearless, you know, and he's able to flick that switch of going, all right, I know my human brain is telling me this is very dangerous, but the camera's rolling and there's a lot of pressure on me and everyone's watching, so I better just do it, but do it safely.

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Speaker 1 Pet parent guilt is unavoidable.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like when you left one of your dogs when you went traveling, you probably had guilt.

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But yeah, because you're only human, there's hills. Science does more.

Speaker 1 Find the right food at hillspet.com/slash stacks.

Speaker 3 And he was a brilliant physicist, actually.

Speaker 3 He was on his way to doing electrical engineering at university and really smokescreened my way into drama school by saying, hey, mom and dad, I'm going to be a stuntman.

Speaker 1 And they were like, what?

Speaker 3 And then meanwhile, I just slipped into drama school without any sort of concern at all.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 He developed land. Is that what he did?

Speaker 3 My dad still is a property developer. At the time, we grew up.
My dad was starting a law firm. He looked like a hippie in a suit.
He had really long hair and a really shaggy mustache.

Speaker 3 And he started a law firm in a town 20 minutes from where we live.

Speaker 1 Was he a lawyer? Yeah. Oh,

Speaker 1 he's a property developer.

Speaker 3 But he had a lot of lawyer and then he actually retired at the age of 40 from his law firm, kept topping up his law degree each year. I think he still does it and he still can practice law.

Speaker 3 But he realized he was just doing contracts for everybody else. It's like, why not just do the contract law for myself and make more money being a property developer?

Speaker 1 You said once in an interview that you wanted his attention. Still do.

Speaker 3 And I think I still will, lo and behold, after he's gone.

Speaker 1 Was he unavailable? Was he busy? He was busy. Okay, or was it hard for him to express that kind of thing?

Speaker 3 My father is incredibly astute and sentimental and has a very beautiful softness to him and a massive heart. He can appear quite stoic.
He can also be very funny.

Speaker 3 And he was a real performer when it came to it. He always had a microphone in his hand.

Speaker 3 If people wanted my father to make a speech about things, gift of the gab, if you could call it that, was incredible. He's just a real raconteur.

Speaker 3 And I think he's the one, even though he wasn't in the profession of storytelling, was the reason my brother and I maybe chip off that block as a way of kind of my dad was a performer.

Speaker 1 Does he get an enormous bang out of watching you guys perform for a living?

Speaker 3 Yeah, and look, as sometimes the difference between mums and dads, an essay of words from my mum, the same thing can be communicated with just a touch of my my shoulder from my dad.

Speaker 3 I have to say occasionally I feel guilty about the fact that the way I view these relationships is like, I've got my mum, she's my biggest fan.

Speaker 3 And it's just the child of me because when I was a kid, I was always around my mum and my brother, but my dad was trying to make a life for the family. And as a kid, you don't understand economics.

Speaker 3 So I was like, got to be good at sport because he'll turn up at sporting events. Turns out I wasn't that good at sport.
I was always very middling at everything.

Speaker 3 If I did a play, he would come because you can't not come to your kids' play.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you really got to show up for those.

Speaker 3 That sort of became the start of it for me. I do feel this weird and unnecessary need to feel the pride of my dad, even though I have it in spades.

Speaker 3 It's like an engine that will constantly refuel itself no matter what I say to it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Your brother, maybe too.
Maybe that's part of the daredevil element. Like if I'm doing these crazy things, he's going to have to look.

Speaker 3 It's interesting how two siblings can grow up with the same series of events with just one year's difference and interpret things very differently. I'm always fascinated by that.

Speaker 3 And I think my brother's engine is sometimes defiance,

Speaker 3 whereas mine might be the craving of like, look at me, look what I can do. Yeah, yeah, approve.
My brother's was always, how could I ruffle his feathers a little bit?

Speaker 3 And I don't think he's actively thinking that way. It's all those subconscious stuff.
But my brother and my father are so similar in many ways that they clash.

Speaker 3 I remember some really drag out arguments on family holidays. I remember my brother and I making some late night stupid music video when we were late teenagers.
We got a hold of the video camera.

Speaker 3 We were doing him in Rhapsody or something like this and dressing up and pretending to play guitars on baseball bats and stuff. And my dad came down in his bathrobe.

Speaker 3 He's like, you know, your grandmother's sleeping underneath this. And he just started yelling at us.
And my brother just turned the volume down and the video camera is still playing.

Speaker 3 My dad's in the background yelling at him. And then as dad's yelling at him, Nash turns the camera and keeps mouthing the words of the song.

Speaker 3 And then dad leaves. My brother couldn't help but say something, which brings him back.
He liked antagonizing a little bit.

Speaker 3 And not to say anything bad about my bro, I just think that he's one of those people who likes to, like you said, do you dare me to do this?

Speaker 3 I think there's something beautiful about my brother that goes, if you think I can't do something, I'm going to show you that I can do it.

Speaker 3 And he taught himself everything. how to be a filmmaker, how to edit, how to direct.
No school.

Speaker 1 I'm curious when this would have happened because you and Bateman worked together on Smoking Aces. Did you guys become friends then?

Speaker 3 We didn't really, and not because I love Jason Bateman, but we didn't really. It was the gift on the same stuff, the gift.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so it must have been around the time you guys were doing the gift. You wrote it and you were directing it, and Bateman was in it.

Speaker 1 It had to have been him that showed me this short that your brother made. Spider-Man, I'm remembering this correctly.
It's like all set in a car. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And there's like this crazy lock-off overlap shot, which is like so fucking startling. Yeah.
And it was kind of innovative at the time I saw it.

Speaker 1 And Bateman's like, Joel's brother made this. And I was like, oh, the brother is fucking clever as hell.

Speaker 3 My brother's the reason I became a filmmaker. I would write an act.
He was a stunk guy and then he became an editor and a director. We call him the film bully.

Speaker 3 As in, like, if you came to him and said, I've got this idea for a movie, he would just keep bullying you until you made it.

Speaker 3 He'd encourage you to go, stop talking about it, just set a date, start doing it. Rather than than discourage me from stepping on his turf, he was like, you got to go do it.

Speaker 3 He can do the most extraordinary things with no money because we never had money.

Speaker 3 There's a great short film he made called Lucky where he wakes up in the trunk of a car, breaks his way out of the trunk of the car and realizes no one is driving the car and the car is going about 100 kilometers an hour down a desert road and he has to break into the car to stop the car.

Speaker 3 Oh, wow. It's a two and a half minute short film.
So here's what happened on the day they realized he wanted a shot 360 degrees around the car to show that no one was driving it.

Speaker 3 Now nowadays you could just go and get a Waymo, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 They couldn't work out how to get the stunk guy hidden in the car. They tried him lying on the ground.
They tried him just sort of lying there with the radio.

Speaker 3 And eventually Nash goes, cut the car seat out, rip the foam off it.

Speaker 3 and build the car seat around Tony, the stunk guy.

Speaker 3 And you watch that film now, and there's an entire moving shot around the entire car. And you're like, no one's driving it while Nash is on the roof trying to climb his way in.

Speaker 3 And it was just Tony with two eye holes in the

Speaker 1 car like this.

Speaker 3 If you did that properly by scrubbing it out in post, that would have cost thousands and thousands of dollars. Nash is that guy.
He's a problem solver. He's an analyst.

Speaker 3 And he has what I think Spielberg has, which is a balanced left and right brain, creative brain business brain, creative brain science brain.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, wow.
Okay, I want to touch on your career a couple places. One is, how do we go from TV in Australia? And you won for that show.

Speaker 3 Secret Life of Us.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you won an AACTA award. You were recognized, obviously.
How do you go from there to Star Wars?

Speaker 3 That's pure luck. I see career as sort of a combination of hard work, whatever you can provide on a talent level, plus some occasional bumping into good luck.

Speaker 3 George Lucas came down to Sydney and he wanted to make two of his films there.

Speaker 3 And the unions are basically like, well, you got to use some Australian actors.

Speaker 3 I just happen to have also the luck of, you could imagine the physiognomy of the right sort of resemblance to a young Phil Brown who played Uncle Owen. And I got the job.

Speaker 3 That was the thing that allowed me to come to LA for the first time.

Speaker 1 Now, what was your demeanor like? Because you do that Star Wars, and then three years later, I guess you come into another one with George.

Speaker 1 And I guess I forgot he directed those two immediate ones after the first three. What was your relationship with him on the first one versus the second one? Had you come in with more confidence?

Speaker 3 Episode three, I'm in for like a minute, and I was part of a reshoot section because I had been off shooting King Arthur in Ireland.

Speaker 3 The weirdest thing is, I got to go to Skywalker Ranch, stayed in the Kurosawa room, and I shot one day, and there was sort of a conveyor belt of pickup shots being done.

Speaker 3 So I'm in a green room, not much bigger than this. Chewbacca and his son are in there.

Speaker 1 Who? Chewbacca. Chewbacca.
Chewbacca. Chewbacca and his son.

Speaker 3 They're about to go in and do their pickup. So I walk in this room and there's

Speaker 3 Chewbacca and his son just sitting there waiting for their shot. And then I was in there.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 3 but on the first one, I was so nervous. I had the most incredible time.

Speaker 3 This weird moment where we're in Tanisia and George was in his tent about 400 yards away because they're doing a big wide shot and they were down low in the Uncle Owen kind of underground house.

Speaker 3 And I was coming out to meet Anakin and I had been working on the droids and I had a moisture farmer's screwdriver.

Speaker 3 I was like, oh, just to bring it into the real world, I should just maybe have a rag that I'm wiping my hands before I shake his hand. I hadn't done many movies.

Speaker 3 I was like, I probably should ask George if that's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I asked Nay Dev, I said, oh, could I speak to George? And I went, yo, I want to speak to George.

Speaker 3 And then I realized he was going to have to walk 400 yards or 200 yards. So I was like, I better go meet him up there.
Tried to get halfway. Fumbled my words.

Speaker 3 And I was was thinking, you know, in the rag, and what do you think? And he just goes, sure.

Speaker 1 And then walked away. I was like,

Speaker 3 helped him get his steps in, though.

Speaker 1 But in rapid order, you start your career in kind of a unique way. And I don't want to say start, you've been working for a while, but in movies, you're in shit with pretty heavy hitters right away.

Speaker 1 Clive's a fucking animal, right? Clive Owen. Clive Owen.
Yeah. How are you doing around that?

Speaker 3 For the most part, I've been like Scotty Pippen, played support to some incredible actors, and it felt like a very safe place to be.

Speaker 1 Do you think being a little brother helps in that situation?

Speaker 3 I'd never thought about it, but it's pretty extraordinary for you to say that because I think it does.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know how to. find your moment to shine, but to service this older creature in your

Speaker 1 life.

Speaker 3 And also the pleasure of learning from getting a front row seat with someone that you really look up to and knowing to use the analogy of tennis that your game gets better if you play with someone better than you or more experienced than you so I've always had this pleasure of working alongside really interesting people and knowing that the whole thing wasn't sitting on my shoulders and had a pretty fun time doing it because oftentimes also there's supporting characters I love some of my characters when I look back.

Speaker 3 I love working on Black Mass. I love working in Loving.
I loved working on Gatsby.

Speaker 1 Well, those were the ones I was going to list. It's like you got Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio all within the first like six movies you do.
And Clive.

Speaker 1 These are like some fucking heavyweight champs.

Speaker 3 Weirdly, I felt like I was going to go into those experiences and be so riddled with anxiety.

Speaker 3 You know, I get anxiety about other stuff, but weirdly when I work,

Speaker 3 it's like that part of my brain turns off. I just really embrace the experience rather than going, oh no, they're going to think I'm really terrible.
That hum is always going on.

Speaker 3 But between action and cut, I don't feel any anxiety at all.

Speaker 3 It reminds me when I work on movies sometimes nowadays, sometimes bring someone who's there for the day or a background artist to go, just deliver this drink to the table.

Speaker 3 And you see their hands shaking.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 3 This is a stressful theme.

Speaker 1 It is. The less you have to do, the harder it is.
Yeah, I think. Yes.

Speaker 3 I mean, which is kind of all those actors that are like Navy SEALs who just drop in for the mission of a couple of days, nail the tone, and then drop the mic and say goodbye.

Speaker 3 I have so much admiration for them.

Speaker 1 You do Warrior with Tom Hardy. Yeah.
This is a little bit pre-Tom Hardy, before we all know kind of how extraordinary. Yeah, really kind of revelatory.

Speaker 3 Before I worked with Tom, one of the only things I'd seen him in was Bronson.

Speaker 1 Yeah, what a fucking movie. I was like, who is this dude?

Speaker 3 He's fucking fantastic.

Speaker 1 Very choppersque.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but in its own way.

Speaker 1 For sure. But it's weird.
That genre somehow has given rise to a few of our really powerful fucking Eric Bona and that. You're like, okay, who's this guy?

Speaker 3 I know, man. That performance is extraordinary.
I just did a movie in Australia where I really tuned things up to 11. I call it.
I played a prisoner with a full set of steel teeth. Yes.

Speaker 3 You know, it's like the opposite of what goes on in this movie, Train Dreams. One of the joys of acting is being able to go, all right, what is the canvas we're painting here?

Speaker 3 And how bright a color do I need to make myself? Yeah, yeah. How do I live in this world in the right way? But Bronson and Chopper are these sort of larger-than-life characters.

Speaker 3 It's wonderful to watch actors do that and not see the artifice. Chopper really disappeared.
I mean, Eric really disappeared in that role.

Speaker 1 Tom, in it's like over the top and subtle at the same time, which is kind of impossible.

Speaker 3 I call it the Nicholas Cage and certain performances of his where he goes so big,

Speaker 3 but it comes from a place of honesty.

Speaker 1 He's somehow grounded

Speaker 1 everywhere he's at. He's an artist.

Speaker 2 But that's why it's grounded in reality because it is who he is.

Speaker 1 It's authentic to him. Yeah.
It is who he is.

Speaker 2 That level.

Speaker 3 He's raising Arizona and all it's like incredible performances.

Speaker 3 But yeah, look, Warrior was an extraordinary experience it was definitely also a reminder to myself not to doubt myself in terms of the approach somehow i was like i'm 34 i'm too old for this

Speaker 3 how did you get in shape for that was it crazy we trained for three months in a fight gym we had to be there at seven in the morning or we'd get in trouble i was never late so i don't know what in trouble meant okay in trouble from gavin or someone else from the whole fight crew oh sure okay yeah and then we'd go and eat lunch all together and then come back and lift weights in the the afternoon.

Speaker 3 And that went on for three months.

Speaker 1 Did you love that period? I loved it. Yeah, that kind of discipline feels very good, doesn't it?

Speaker 3 And it felt like it reminded me that some jobs you can fake and some jobs you can't.

Speaker 3 And it's really good to try and find the 10,000 hours of familiarity so that you can concentrate on the relationships within the film rather than turning up on the day going also like, oh, how do I punch a person while also looking sad?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 That was such an extraordinary experience. Gavin O'Connor, the director, taught me a really valuable rule as a director.

Speaker 3 And I'm always observing directors when I'm working, is that he treated every single scene, even the most interstitial scene, as the most important scene in the movie.

Speaker 3 And I remember thinking, oh, that's really interesting. Cause actors often we go, okay, these four scenes are the big ones.

Speaker 1 Even for your fight scenes, you're like, okay, I got to be on my diet for those four days leading up to that scene. Like a lot of it has to be mapped out.

Speaker 3 There's a scene with Frank Grillo and I just before I'm about to fight for the first first time in the big tournament.

Speaker 3 And it was written as one eighth of a page, just the guy coming in and going, five minutes, guys.

Speaker 3 And Gavin just sent the whole crew away and he goes, all right, let's make this scene worthy of being in the movie.

Speaker 3 And it talked about it. And I was like, oh, this is cool.
This guy's seeing every single frame as important as every other frame.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1 I want to talk about train dreams. So I watched it last night.
I have to watch a lot of stuff because we have a lot of actors. It's been a minute since a movie got me this much.

Speaker 1 I watched it i loved it and then i just have not stopped thinking about it and then i came in and told my wife the whole plot and i just have been ruminating on so many things about it and then as i'm researching i'm realizing that the director this clint bentley had co-written sing sing which was another movie that had this kind of similar beauty to it that movie is kind of extraordinary and unorthodox in so many ways how patient it is yeah so let's set it up well the first year we're given is 1917, but you're at that point probably 30 years old.

Speaker 1 But your character showed up in a town as an orphan and just kind of stumbled along until he found employment in logging and in bridge erection working for the railroad.

Speaker 1 And it's just a very simple, quiet, slow existence.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's a celebration, I think, of an ordinary life.

Speaker 1 Yes, in the most heartbreaking and tragic and impactful way. I cried several times during it.
You're outside in these forests. Were you shooting in Idaho?

Speaker 3 We were shooting outside of Spokane, right near the border of Idaho. And it's just beautiful.

Speaker 1 There's enormous trees and the severity of life then is so present, right? The fact that you guys are logging, you're cutting down these enormous trees with the fucking saw that is like this.

Speaker 1 And the notion that you're doing that 12 hours a day and living out there

Speaker 1 is so brutal.

Speaker 3 It was an incredible environment to shoot in. And weirdly, you look at this film, it's a period film, and it's based on Dennis Johnson's novella of the same name, Train Dreams.

Speaker 3 You've got these themes or these sort of incidences in it

Speaker 3 that feel so relevant to today. It's this sort of idea that the world is moving too fast for these people.

Speaker 3 Technology is these people harvesting the earth for these sort of trees, not knowing what the outcome of that is going to be.

Speaker 3 The kind of misuse and mistreatment of immigrant workers being sort of torn away or or kind of thrown off bridges for very little reason.

Speaker 1 The expendability of all of you

Speaker 3 present.

Speaker 3 But also this idea, I think, which is interesting to me, it's like, I'm a husband and I'm in love and I have two little kids and being a dad is the most epic thing that ever happened to me so far in my life.

Speaker 3 And the ideas within the film of some of the darker moments of losing the people that you care most about. These things are so Shakespearean in our own lives.

Speaker 3 And yet I don't know that we often look at our own own lives and realize how big they are, how full they can be, and how many peaks and troughs exist within them.

Speaker 3 Because we're wired to watch movies and go, we're going to watch movies about astronauts and generals.

Speaker 3 But to go to the cinema and see a reflection, even though it's about a logger, we're going, I know what that feels like. And in this film, as you're a dad, too, this is my greatest fear.
Of course.

Speaker 3 And so when I told my wife, who doesn't love to go to places like Spokane,

Speaker 3 the whole family when her work swells around places like New York and London, but she gets when I care about something.

Speaker 3 And I tried to tell her the story of what happens in the movie and I get, I'm going to get it now. When I get to the point about stuff that happens to my character, I couldn't keep talking.

Speaker 3 And she's like, all right, I guess we're going to Spokane.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's crazy.

Speaker 1 You meet Felicity Jones. Yeah.
What's her character's name? Oh, Gladys. You have a simple life.
In fact, again, you're so masculine and rugged in it.

Speaker 1 And I believe you have been working in this logging industry. You pull that off so believably.

Speaker 1 And the baked-in architecture, I'm expecting is like this man who's so strong and capable will eventually stand up to somebody and beat the shit out of somebody and be heroic in some moment.

Speaker 1 And I love that. No, that's not really life.
You observe a lot of stuff that you wish you kind of could prevent and you don't have the gumption or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 You just kind of witness a lot of sadness and heartache and that you don't rise to any occasion. You just kind of go, Wow, okay, that's the world, I guess.
This is the reality of planet Earth.

Speaker 1 That guy got thrown off a bridge, okay?

Speaker 3 Yeah, now I feel guilty.

Speaker 1 But this love story is captured so beautifully between you and Gladys, and then you have this little girl, and she's just heartbreaking. That little kid was so fucking good, okay.

Speaker 3 What was she? Three, she was like two and a half. They were twins, you know, when you go in the movie sets, because they could only work for a Mary Kate Mash.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, they might be future designers of uh great clothing,

Speaker 3 they might an empire coming.

Speaker 1 We should invest in them now. Like, even contact.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 We had twins, and one was disinterested in everything, and the other was very playful. So Clinton would be like, which one do we get for which scene?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 That's fun. My best friend works at Netflix.
She's on the Train Dreams campaign, and she fought so hard for it. She saw it at Sundance.
She came back. She was like, this movie.

Speaker 2 is so unbelievably good. It's the best movie I've seen in a long time.
And she fought fought to be on it and she helped create the trailer and stuff. But she's been talking about it ever since.

Speaker 2 She is such a fan.

Speaker 3 It breaks people open in a good way in the sense that I think movies are a really great place to get some emotion out of yourself by reflecting things in someone else's life.

Speaker 3 But also, I think it's also good to be reminded of people that you've lost. or joys that you've experienced in life.
And Robert's whole life, it's not a Western that's about revenge or retribution.

Speaker 3 It's about the world punching him in the stomach and him finding a way of getting back up and the kindness of strangers to help rebuild us, like the forestry growing after a fire.

Speaker 3 And I find it very moving and very personal.

Speaker 3 And for all of the Gatsby's and black masses I've ever been involved in, where I think my whole pursuit has been, how can I make people believe that I'm somebody I'm not?

Speaker 3 And I've always been terrified about being myself on screen.

Speaker 1 Well, I was going to also add, you have almost no dialogue in this movie. Yeah.
And we become so reliant on expressing how we feel through words that really it's going to have to be in your eyes.

Speaker 1 Was that scary at all? Or did you look forward to that?

Speaker 3 I sort of looked forward to it. I'd been through the experience of making this movie with Ruth Nager that Jeff Nichols had directed called Loving.

Speaker 3 And my character in that, funny, was a real life character, Richard Loving, and he barely said a word. I mean, he was interviewed numerous times.
His wife would do the talking. He was so inarticulate.

Speaker 3 Jeff, in the first week i always go up to a director in the first couple of days and go look do not be afraid to tell me where i'm steering this thing wrong i have no ego just help me out here and jeff's like i have one note for you i want to understand you less

Speaker 3 less he gave me very few words to say which was in suiting with who richard loving was and i felt like that sort of set the table for me for train dreams of trusting that If you think the right things and so much of what Robert experiences, I'm not a logger, obviously, but I I fret about how to marry life and work.

Speaker 3 I am a man that's in love. I am a person that cares more about my kids than anything else in the world.
So if you think those things, they'll be there for the camera.

Speaker 3 And the challenge for me was that Robert is less expressive than me. So making sure that with the harder stuff in the film, I just knew how to keep a lid on it.

Speaker 3 Because normally when I go to work, I'm like, geez, I hope I can do this scene. You know, particularly those ones you worry about, the emotional things.
You go, oh, can I do this today?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And isn't it funny as soon as you give yourself the fear that I might have too much emotion and the emotion is like overly available? It's such a mind trick.

Speaker 3 I think it was David Mammet, who sort of has lots of wonderful things to say about his opinions on actors, whether you agree with him or not. Some of them are really wonderful.

Speaker 3 He has this wonderful thing where he talks about actors when they have to cry on screen.

Speaker 3 He's like, the problem with actors when they cry on screen is that their ego gets so excited when they get there

Speaker 3 that they're sort of clicking their heels or patting themselves on on the back.

Speaker 1 They're not smiling while they're crying.

Speaker 3 So they're trying to cry too much. And then while they're celebrating themselves, it's the opposite of the feeling they should be having.

Speaker 1 So this oscillating, like, I'm crying, you know, guys, nobody shouldn't be happy about it.

Speaker 3 I kind of felt like this was a good chance to do for me what I've often admired in some actors, which is watching that performance. I feel like I know you.

Speaker 3 The only way you can really do that in my mind is go, do you really connect with it? How well connected can you be to the material? And then just sort of open your chest up in some way.

Speaker 3 There's a moment in the film when my character expresses some first kind of showing of real grief about something bad that's happened.

Speaker 3 And the first thing he says afterwards is, I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me.

Speaker 3 And that really typifies to me a lot of men that I've known in my life are very stoic. That if they get upset, they would leave the room lest anybody saw them.

Speaker 1 It also captures, and this is oddly a very big ding, ding, ding to how we started this conversation, which is they capture really well the awkwardness between men.

Speaker 1 Men are very awkward around each other. If they don't come with a pair or they don't feel bolstered by something, you put eight strangers in the woods and it's like none of them want to talk.

Speaker 1 And whoever does talks gets kind of blasted. And if they talk, they're crazy.
All that stuff feels very authentic. And I remember a lot of those situations.

Speaker 3 That's really interesting that you say that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like you would have put eight women in that forest together. They would have known everything about each other and they would have been like great friends.

Speaker 3 but you put these men in this situation they're just like they don't know what the to do yeah it's like the intimacy is so scary i was saying to one of my buddies recently i said isn't it interesting men don't get together and brush each other's hair right right you guys are missing out it feels so good yeah but we're scared of intimacy with each other there's no world where Apart from maybe my brother or something, like the buddy comes around to stay the night, then I'm like, no, one of us is sleeping on the floor.

Speaker 3 It was a king-size bed, you know?

Speaker 1 We're not brushing each other's hair and it's fear of intimacy well specifically it's a fear of being called gay from when we were younger i don't know how it was in australia but in detroit

Speaker 1 you lived all day in fear of who was going to call you gay

Speaker 3 you just reminded me of crazy i was at bondo beach my really good friend damien and i were at the north end of bondo beach in summer it's packed we're up near this boat ramp He's got a bad spine and every now and then he's like, can you crack my back?

Speaker 3 But he's wearing this really tight speedo and he's a very fit, sort of tanned Italian Australian guy.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh, there's a lot of people around here.

Speaker 3 I was like, yeah, all right, fucking all you gotta

Speaker 1 bang you over myself. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 I can crack your back. Fine.

Speaker 3 And so I wrap my arms around him and he's all oiled up with that tropical aura, which makes it hard.

Speaker 1 So I grab him.

Speaker 3 And I finally get a purchase on his elbows. And I lift him up and I hear crack, crack, crack.
And it's like, great. And I drop him down.

Speaker 3 And then I look to my left and there's a row of about 20 teenagers just sitting there with their arms crossed staring at us but i suddenly weirdly felt embarrassed for myself i'm like what the fuck should i feel embarrassed for myself i'm cracking damien's back i'm helping my buddy be more athletic i'm an unqualified chiropractor go

Speaker 1 yeah it's just in there it's a name and yeah it's because it happens to you you get called these names non-stop when you're a little kid but also

Speaker 1 who cares bro yeah i do sleep with my best friend in the same bed. You do brush.
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 He brushed your hair today.

Speaker 1 Dude, we snuggled when we were younger. We're both straight, didn't have dads around.
We're like, yeah, I need some male affection.

Speaker 1 Let's go for it. But I think that was very fucking unique where I'm from.

Speaker 2 You probably weren't telling people.

Speaker 1 No, we didn't go to school and be like, oh, we had the best. We watched Ray's Arizona.
We kind of were snuggling. My mom asked me on the side, like, you know, if you guys are gay, you can tell me.

Speaker 1 Like, even my mom had to say,

Speaker 1 this is welcome. But if she walked in and you and Callie were brushing each other's hair, it wouldn't even cross her mind you're lesbians.

Speaker 2 No, no, it would not. Do you watch Couples Therapy? Have you ever watched that show? Oh, it's a fantastic show.

Speaker 1 It's a reality show.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but with a real therapist who's amazing.

Speaker 3 And real people put themselves on the slab that you talked about.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 3 They don't have that pixie lighted face in the FBI voice. No, they're there.

Speaker 1 They're there. From sizing themselves.

Speaker 2 And there was this one couple and this one man who had this huge secret. He was carrying this huge secret the whole season.
He like wouldn't share it, wouldn't share it.

Speaker 2 Finally, he shares that in college, his friends saw him looking at male porn. Run.
And it was like this

Speaker 2 incident was chipping away at his soul.

Speaker 3 Like it had grown into a grain moss inside of him or something.

Speaker 2 Yes. And I'm like, that's the secret.
For me as a woman, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 But it's an immediate ejection. It's an ostracizing from all males in your world.
You're like a man without a country.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it made me feel very, very compassionate and sad for men. I'm like, that one thing has caused this man to go on this trajectory has that kind of pressure put on yourself.
Yes, it's so unfair.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I hope it's lessening. It feels like it is.
But I feel like I came up in peak.

Speaker 3 It also depends. Like you got the map of the world behind you.
I'm sure you could just point anywhere and go, safe, unsafe.

Speaker 3 Like as in safe to kind of be openly whoever you want to be, whatever that is, or not fear certain things.

Speaker 3 I know that we like to think in LA and New York and Sydney, you could be whoever you are and your choices, or the color of your skin is fine, or your gender preferences are fine, or your personal pronouns are fine.

Speaker 1 Literally.

Speaker 3 10 miles down the road, you'd be keeping a secret.

Speaker 3 I went to, when I was making this film, Boy Raised, which is about gay conversion therapy i went to arkansas with my assistant david who is he's no longer my assistant now he's a director in his own right and doing incredibly well but david's gay he and his husband just made a movie together but david turned up at the hotel in the morning we're about to go to church to go to this church in arkansas 200 kilometers down the road from the harbor of the kkk he said to me do i look too gay should i change my clothes yeah and i started going, yeah, maybe.

Speaker 3 And I was like, you know what? Fuck it, no. But he was afraid walking into the church

Speaker 3 that there were people carrying guns. It was an overblown fear, but it also was tethered to something real.

Speaker 3 So stepping into that zone after a few hours flight from LA where life is totally free and fine at night, but then cut to whatever years later after that movie when

Speaker 3 all rights and freedoms and general acceptance of things, it becomes okay

Speaker 3 to march all progress backwards almost to the point where we feel like we should re-release boy raised or do a new cut of the film or get all the old footage that we never put in the film and release it in somewhere because things have gotten worse since then yeah

Speaker 1 stay tuned for more armchair expert

Speaker 1 if you dare

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Speaker 1 Well, the other thing about the movie that has really resonated with me, and I think in some ways it should be required viewing for everyone in 2025:

Speaker 1 there's something so depressing about the fact that in 1917,

Speaker 1 just getting food and having clothes for you and your wife and your baby was the struggle. And you worked so hard and had to be away from them for so long to provide that.

Speaker 1 And then in your lifetime, you see a man land on the moon, which is crazy.

Speaker 1 You know, to go from that to no electrification, saws to chainsaws to steam-powered steam tractors to a man landing on the moon is almost inconceivable for someone to witness. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But the notion that we transferred into abundance, maybe there was a couple weeks where people were satiated and felt grateful, but I'm so shook when I see that movie of

Speaker 1 how unsafe we all feel and how much we all still pine for things.

Speaker 1 And it's like, oh, wow, we live in total abundance and that we can eat whenever we want and shelter is pretty obtainable and clothes are pretty cheap. That was the struggle for 200,000 years.

Speaker 1 Homo sapiens were here. And then within five minutes, it's literally about, do you have phone 12 or 13? It's a crisis.
It's so depressing and so human. Like, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 When you watch this movie and you think, how could we have problems when the abundance has arrived?

Speaker 3 There's a moment where my character stares at a chainsaw in the movie and he can't seem to get it to work. And it's like me thinking about, do I download chat GPT or not?

Speaker 3 I still haven't done. The one time I played with it on another friend's phone, he goes, look, just type something you want to see.

Speaker 3 And I was like, I want to see a dog giving a lecture in the 1950s in a university hall. I don't know why I chose that.
Sure.

Speaker 3 And then I changed the type of dog and it blew my mind enough to make it terrifying for me to go, I'm not ready for this, but I know I have to engage.

Speaker 3 But I remember the first time I pointed a video camera at my grandmother and she froze because she was like, well, this is a photograph.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 Like, no, you're allowed to move. Just thinking about her generation, which is my character in the film, is like the telephone.
And she started her life without electricity.

Speaker 3 And then you're right, it would have blown her mind the pace of things. Now, look at us.

Speaker 1 My very favorite thing about the early years of the video camera, when you watch anyone's early home videos, for some reason, everyone thought they needed to narrate what you were already seeing.

Speaker 1 Here's Jenny opening her present. That's so true.
She got a present from Grandma. Jenny, let's see the present.
Oh, it's

Speaker 1 like every time I see it, I'm like, why did we think we were seeing it? I don't think we really realized yet that they would be seeing it. We use it as an audio recorder.
That's it.

Speaker 1 Okay, here's Glenn on his dude.

Speaker 1 Wave, this is Glenn. Yeah, fuck.
Yeah, we know it's Glenn. He's your son in this home video.
We can see it.

Speaker 1 Okay, going into the study now. Yeah, it's the study, dad.

Speaker 3 I still have this old video of me being a goalkeeper on my soccer match when I was like six years old.

Speaker 3 I saved the goal and then the striker from the other team, he comes up, tries to kick the ball while I'm holding it. I got winded.

Speaker 1 Like I knocked the wind out of you?

Speaker 3 Yeah, and I'm just lying on the ground.

Speaker 1 It's so scary when you're looking at it.

Speaker 3 And my dad, who's probably holding the camera, is like, you know, like a refrigerator on his shoulder.

Speaker 3 And you can just hear his voice yelling, get up, Joel.

Speaker 1 Get up.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Well, okay.
The line in the movie that just fucking sent me was on that spring day when he had misplaced a sense of up and down. He knew finally that he was connected to it all.

Speaker 1 And I was like, yes.

Speaker 1 Dude, that's one of the best lines I've ever.

Speaker 3 There's something about the wisdom in the movie. One of the things that you can pull out of it is this idea that at the end of the day, it's all been worth it or it's all okay.

Speaker 3 And that Robert, as a character, for all of the things that he's gone through, is reconciled to something that there's a comfort in all of it.

Speaker 3 And I do believe that occasionally, when I do stop doom scrolling or something pulls me out into my own sense of self and retrospect,

Speaker 3 is looking at the snapshots of life. In some way, there's a journey, or every now and then, there's a fractured memory of life from any period of your life.

Speaker 3 Or even talking today with you, I have images in my head of times with my brother and my father. And life is beautiful.
And life is not going to all be beautiful.

Speaker 3 Every now and then you get brought to your knees,

Speaker 3 but that's all of us. And I spoke to this lady last night and we were talking about kindness.

Speaker 3 Just when a stranger does something generous, and particularly after the fires in California, which sort of resonant in train dreams, I talked to her about kindness, which I've experienced many times in my life where I'm like somebody selflessly does something so simple, but it means the world to you in some way that helps you bring yourself back into the world.

Speaker 3 And she just sort of broke open because she was talking about just the strange little things that popped up from people after the fires. Suddenly open the front door and there's food.

Speaker 3 there for her and her family and someone sent some clothes for her kids. And I believe at the core of us as kids, until we're corrupted, that we are actually wired to look after each other.

Speaker 3 Even if we're not family, we don't really want to hurt each other. I like to think that's our core human value.

Speaker 3 And I think we'd like to see that reflected in its own way in stories as well, because we know there's a lot of awfulness. out there.

Speaker 3 And the awfulness is within us in the wrong situation like we talked about. Our rage is always there, but I think our beauty and our love is also there.

Speaker 1 And I can be compassionate to our rage because at the very core of all rage is deep, deep fear. Yeah.
We get scared a lot.

Speaker 3 I agree with you. I think that's what motivates rage is fear, protectiveness, and mistrust.
And it's a culture that leads us to that. I also feel, I'm getting back to you, Ape.

Speaker 1 Chimp Empire.

Speaker 3 Don't you think that most alpha males are actually just sort of fearful people hiding in plain sight too? It's like the fear of having to emulate or project or be something that may be deep down.

Speaker 3 No one feels like they're a superhero and unbreakable.

Speaker 1 I think we all hate alphaness in some way because we see it as like, oh, this person has to be the ruler. But for me, it's like, no, no, I'm paying attention.

Speaker 1 There's lots of fucking threats and no one else seems to be and I need to get involved.

Speaker 3 I noticed this with a lot of people I met during Warrior who were fighters.

Speaker 3 The people I thought were the real alphas were the kind of quietly stoic guys who didn't puff themselves up, didn't presume to kind of cajole people or kind of push people around.

Speaker 3 The ones who didn't brag about themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was the ones just to the right who kind of puffed themselves up a little bit.

Speaker 3 It was like, you're almost alpha, but you got to remind us how alpha you are, which means you're no longer alpha to me. Exactly.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Those quietly people you look at and go, I want to walk down an alleyway with you.

Speaker 1 My experience with that, which was so crystal clear, was doing two different USO tours in Afghanistan and hanging out with all the enlisted dudes and then going to the special forces camp a few different times and going like, oh, this is crazy.

Speaker 1 These guys are so calm. There's no machismo.
No one's flexing because they're the real operators and they don't need to let anyone know because they know. I was like, oh yeah, this is something.

Speaker 3 Dude, there was a funny moment. Talk about different people's skill sets and what makes you feel comfortable or uncomfortable on Zero Dark 30.

Speaker 3 Catherine Bigelow asked one of the real ex-dev group Navy SEAL guys, beautiful guy. He said, in this scene, we want to

Speaker 3 walk the perimeter with the canine. I'd like you to say this line on the radio, basically, he's like on the comms.
He had to say something like perimeter clear.

Speaker 3 Same guy two days earlier had told me about a mission where they had parachuted in in the middle of the night

Speaker 3 carrying a big oil drum. that had been gerryrigged, basically filled up with weapons.
So two guys parachuting holding this barrel.

Speaker 3 land in the ocean, frog suits, swim up to this thing where these pirates are taken over the ship, and they'd go in there, kill all the pirates, and save the hostages. And they did it.

Speaker 3 It went smoothly and successfully. And two days later, Catherine's like, Can you say one line of dialogue in the movie? And he suddenly starts tearing.

Speaker 1 He gets terrified. And he's like,

Speaker 3 He's like, I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out.

Speaker 1 I'm like, Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 But you'll parachute in the middle of the night.

Speaker 1 It goes to show how asymmetric fear is and how rooted in nothing it is. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 And it's how individual it is.

Speaker 1 It's just so arbitrary. It's like, here's a guy who will parachute in and board a pirate ship.

Speaker 3 I just couldn't believe. That's hilarious.
Okay. Everything he told me about the story, there was a thousand reasons why that was really actually terrifying to me.

Speaker 3 He's like, one line of dialogue. Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He was shaking.

Speaker 1 Well, it illustrates that fear of death is just one of the fears, and that could be low on your thing. And then fear of humiliation could be a a 30.

Speaker 3 maybe if catherine had catched it this way so first of all you got to walk in there kill a dude yeah say this line of dialogue then you kill another dude

Speaker 1 i think a murder sandwich i can do this well joel this has been a blast i really really love that movie i really hope everyone sees it it's beautiful and it really forces you because of the pacing it's so slow it makes you kind of slow down and it does make you take stock of the things that have true value in your life which is a rare feeling to have when watching a movie.

Speaker 1 I'm mostly watching Mission Impossible. Like, I got to learn how to fucking parkour.

Speaker 1 I need to get out of a situation.

Speaker 3 I always think this, like, you know, you see these kids doing these crazy Instagram videos now of like these real asymmetric gymnastic things and new ways of training.

Speaker 3 And parkour was one of them back 15, 20 years ago. I was like, if I was a young person now, I'd be into all of this stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm nervous I'd be dead because I'd also want to be a hero on the videos.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was in the narrating phase of video cameras.

Speaker 3 Well, you guys have an incredible following on your podcast, but I'd be worried if I was just starting as a young person on Instagram and that I'd get wrapped up in how many followers I have.

Speaker 1 Of course, you would.

Speaker 3 The cycle of that depression would be huge. And I worry about

Speaker 3 all that stuff, the engagement of social media. It feels like smartphones ruin.
My productivity.

Speaker 3 I should just turn the thing off and just make stories up instead of watching other people fall off a building.

Speaker 1 I was swimming with my daughter last night and she had shadowed at my older daughter's school for the day. So it was like her first taste of what it'll be like at this new school.

Speaker 1 She's in a class and she has nothing to do because they're teaching on some subject. And they just handed her a ton of paper.
She's telling me how many things she drew.

Speaker 1 She's like, I drew this and then I drew a picture of that and then I drew.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh yeah, when you were in class, you're bored out of your mind. I did more fucking drawing in high school than I've ever drawn since.
More note passing.

Speaker 1 I'm drawing, I'm writing, because I'm bored. Yeah.
And I hate being there. Coloring.
And that's what it's robbed us of.

Speaker 3 I found a drawing that my friend Chris Howard and I drew in science class when we were in, I think it was grade eight.

Speaker 3 And we were designing and really actually designing for the future, but we were designing a nuclear bunker.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 But it was on science paper, you know that grid paper. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it had a tunnel to a grocery store and had a tunnel to a brewery.

Speaker 3 But it was definitely a dude bunker because then there was a room to

Speaker 3 and it was very rudimentary. It was early days.
It wasn't like proper tech.

Speaker 1 And it was an overhead schematic. You were seeing overheads.

Speaker 3 It was like looking at an ant's nest, you know, like tunnel here in a box. And then there was one room, which I assume was just like our harem.

Speaker 1 Because it was just

Speaker 3 stick figures of girls with like...

Speaker 1 Long hair. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 This is the girls' room and this is the grocery store.

Speaker 3 And then we had a helicopter pad ready ready for when the atmosphere was going to be right again.

Speaker 1 Sure, sure.

Speaker 3 We were certain, and at different times in my life, I've been certain.

Speaker 3 And now, particularly after watching House of Dynamite, I'm like, yeah, we're always inches away from me needing to go back to my bunker design.

Speaker 1 I've got rid of the girl room for sure, though.

Speaker 3 I'm good without the girl room. I'm gonna make it a playroom for the kids.

Speaker 2 Maybe turn that into a school or something.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 there was no educational facility. That's a good point.

Speaker 1 Everyone knew what they needed to know already.

Speaker 1 What have we got to teach the world?

Speaker 3 If the world's ended with nuclear power, then we're all dummies anyway.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we know everything we need to know already. All right.
Well, Train Dreams is in theaters on November 7th, and then it is on Netflix for all to consume November 21st. I hope everyone watches it.

Speaker 1 It's great. And, Joel, I hope we get to have you on again.
This is so fun. Thanks, man.

Speaker 3 This is great.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned for the facts, Jack, so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 2 it wasn't up there. What was it?

Speaker 1 Your makeup wasn't?

Speaker 2 Yeah, my foundation.

Speaker 2 I am annoyed.

Speaker 2 Don't make fun of me. I was supposed to put makeup on, and then my makeup was stolen.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it seems unlikely. I don't want to not believe her, but it does seem unlikely.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know. I keep a little bag of makeup upstairs.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And there was some in there, but not the foundation, the important part.

Speaker 1 Now, Bobby Brown is against foundation.

Speaker 2 No, she just, she's into a natural look. Okay.
So she wouldn't probably want like cakey foundation. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Her foundation was the first foundation I ever used. It was a stick.

Speaker 1 I'm glad to hear that's the truth because you told her that in the interview. And if I found out now.

Speaker 2 You think I would lie about that?

Speaker 1 I'm going to flatter her, maybe.

Speaker 1 It'd be a kind gesture. I don't do that.
You don't do kind gestures at the expense of the truth. That's right.
I do occasionally. Like, you like my new shirt? Yeah.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 You always say that to me. You said that the other day about my shoes.
Yep, I saw. I said, do you like my shoes? And you said.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can't trust me. I'll just be, I'll give you the playbook.
Yeah. You can't trust me if you ask me.
But if I unsolicited mention that I like your.

Speaker 1 sweater or something, that's genuine. Ask me what I think of your boots.

Speaker 2 Do you like these?

Speaker 1 But you know, like, hey, do you like my new boots? Because there's always some enthusiasm.

Speaker 2 Oh, hey, I just got these new boots. Do you like them?

Speaker 1 No. I mean, that's devastating, right? Look at you, even in an acting exercise, it hit you.

Speaker 2 I don't, I right, yeah, I didn't like that game.

Speaker 1 I know, but do you see the point it proved?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think you just say, like, yeah, yeah, what you're right is a lot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, boots.

Speaker 2 Why don't you like these? For real? Do you like them or not?

Speaker 1 No, they just have nothing. I said, pick anything.

Speaker 2 But now I'm asking for real. Do you like them?

Speaker 1 They're great.

Speaker 2 Are you serious?

Speaker 1 They're not bad and they're not. I wouldn't turn my head at them.
They're not. They're neutral, which is a win.
Wow. When failure's on the table, neutral is a win.

Speaker 1 You hate it because it's silver metal.

Speaker 2 It's also not. These are gold metal shoes.
It's like the judge was

Speaker 2 not qualified and I should have been.

Speaker 1 See, now you're attacking me. And there's all the more reason to just lie.
Ask me again. Ask me again.
Do you like my boots?

Speaker 1 I was just thinking, those are the greatest boots I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you'd be right.

Speaker 1 And then when you go, I like you.

Speaker 1 You're my friend.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm having a bad morning.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's okay. Let's talk about it.

Speaker 2 My makeup got stolen. One.

Speaker 1 Well, two. First of all, I saw you.
I don't like my boots. Hold on, hold on, hold on.
I saw you before your makeup was, quote, stolen. Yeah.
And you're already feeling a little melancholy.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm annoyed is what it is.

Speaker 1 It's not even melancholy. I'm melancholy.
You're annoyed. You're melancholy? No, look, it was the way you did.
I'm not trying to trump your

Speaker 2 annoyance.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I just got some annoying news.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you've been annoyed. Your house is going to take longer than you thought.

Speaker 2 I just feel defeated. Okay.

Speaker 2 And my parents are supposed to come. You know, my parents are always supposed to come and they can never come.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So my dad's retiring and he wants to come.

Speaker 1 Yeah, now he can't.

Speaker 2 Now he has to keep working.

Speaker 1 Now he's going to work until his last days.

Speaker 2 He has to work until my house is ready.

Speaker 2 That was the contract he made.

Speaker 1 With his employer?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was weird. It was unconventional.

Speaker 1 Give me as long as it takes for my houses, my house is my daughter's house to be completed.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and they were like, Oh, God, he's gonna then be out of here in a year.

Speaker 1 No, they're building the house in LA. You got a long time, you can start

Speaker 2 another decade. It's okay, I'll be over it in like an hour when we're done with this

Speaker 1 back check

Speaker 1 after we're done,

Speaker 1 we're done with work. I'll be done,

Speaker 2 um, yeah, but anyway, it's fine. Um, some Some happy things are

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 the other day, you know, well, it's also been raining, but, but

Speaker 2 I've done well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you've weathered the storm, as we might say.

Speaker 2 I have leaned into the cozy nature of the rain.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 It's so fun. I've made the decision to enjoy it.

Speaker 1 Oh, good.

Speaker 2 And I was walking.

Speaker 1 back to the car

Speaker 2 with Jess a couple days ago and it was raining a little bit like sprinkling and from far away in the distance we hear this little voice and she said you guys okay in the rain

Speaker 2 and she got a little closer and she had her umbrella and she was with a man

Speaker 2 presumably her dad but there's not no way for me to know that you didn't have access to a DNA test she was so spunky

Speaker 2 and we were like yeah we're okay are you and she was was like, yeah, he's making me carry this.

Speaker 1 Oh, she was complaining about it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she didn't want to carry the umbrella.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 And I said, oh, yeah, but you look cute. Nice.
And she, she said, yeah, I got these glasses today. They came in the mail.

Speaker 1 Oh, and she ordered them. Yeah.
Oh, wow. They came in the mail.

Speaker 2 And then, and then I felt, okay, then I felt bad. So she took them.
I was like, oh my gosh, I love them so much. And she took them off and she was trying to clean them.
Sure.

Speaker 2 And I was like, yeah, give them a little cleaning. And then the dad was like, no,

Speaker 2 no, remember, you're not supposed to do that unless. And I was like, I don't remember what he said.
They obviously had a rule about maybe she's broken some glasses before.

Speaker 1 Or maybe she wipes them compulsively.

Speaker 2 Maybe. I don't know.

Speaker 1 It sounds like it. The first thing he says, nice glasses, you're like, yeah, let's spiff these up.

Speaker 2 But he didn't like that. And I felt bad because I encouraged it.

Speaker 1 Sure, sure, sure.

Speaker 2 And then I was mad at him because I was like, just let her. We're having a conversation.

Speaker 2 She just wants to clean her glasses. It's fine.

Speaker 1 This is the tension of parenting. You're like, what?

Speaker 1 What are habits I need to point out that need broken? And who gives a fuck?

Speaker 2 If he is a parent or not, we don't know. But anyway, she put them back on and, you know, she was chit-chatting with us.
And I said, what's your name? And she said, A,

Speaker 1 B,

Speaker 1 B, B, B,

Speaker 1 B,

Speaker 1 Y.

Speaker 1 No, Abby with four B's.

Speaker 2 So, and then I said, Abby. And then Jess was, you know, like, Abba, B, B, B.
And then the dad under his breath said, there's too many bees.

Speaker 1 But what he was actually referring to is there was bees in a tree up ahead. Yeah.
Does it seem like they would like each other?

Speaker 2 I felt like he was an overwhelmed dad. Okay.
I think we said, like, what are you guys doing? And they're like, we're just on a walk around, you know, like get some.

Speaker 2 I think he was, he was saying, get some energy out.

Speaker 1 Oh, but he, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 And so I think like she.

Speaker 1 She's a handful.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because she's so special. Yeah.
And it was, you know, then then we left we said bye to abby yeah yeah baby

Speaker 2 yeah and and i was like oh my god what a special person yeah and i was like but yeah i guess if you're in charge of that person that's hard sure

Speaker 2 double-edged sword

Speaker 2 so sparkly i have a couple of those i know you guys okay in the rain

Speaker 1 from so far away it was she heard someone say that at some point

Speaker 1 oh that's a thing to say i should say that at some point.

Speaker 1 The opportunity presented itself.

Speaker 2 She was so cute and she had like the cutest hair.

Speaker 1 Dude,

Speaker 2 anyway, I really liked her, Abby.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.

Speaker 1 If you dare.

Speaker 1 This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. The website for Armchair Expert, I was too afraid to try.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to build it. I didn't think I had had the skill set.
But Rob got on there. He made the most beautiful website for us.
And he said it was incredibly easy.

Speaker 1 You do not have to be tech savvy.

Speaker 2 They have a really cool feature. It's called the Blueprint AI feature.
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Speaker 1 Speaking of cute, yeah, I took my number one girl.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 I have two number one girls, but I want to be able to say number one girl. But I have two number one girls.
Okay, I just, all right, yeah. Um,

Speaker 1 um,

Speaker 1 I want to say something.

Speaker 2 I know, but just like if one of them heard that, they wouldn't lie. I'm just 100%.

Speaker 1 No, that's why I said I have two number one girls.

Speaker 2 No one likes to hear that.

Speaker 1 Well, I do. That's unfortunate for them, but I have two number one girls.
Okay. And I took the younger of the two number one girls to Sabrina Carpenter on Sunday.
Yes. Oh,

Speaker 1 I'm like, um,

Speaker 1 I can't describe the feeling.

Speaker 2 I feel like I, I, I like know it.

Speaker 1 Do you know? Yeah, I do. It's like love sick.

Speaker 1 I'm love sick.

Speaker 2 It's so overwhelming.

Speaker 1 It's overwhelming and I'm love sick. I can't believe

Speaker 1 that I got to

Speaker 1 be with her when she was at her first concert of someone she loved and watching her dance and scream and sing along and wave the phone over her head with the light on and clapping on cube be alive

Speaker 2 oh

Speaker 1 yeah oh oh so much yeah and then now i'm stuck this very junior high of me in high school i'm stuck on don't smile the sabrina song yeah you're listening to it a lot over and over again all day long for i guess four or five days now because i started listening even before we went

Speaker 1 and then I listen to the song when I look at the pictures of us at the concert and then I get really emotional and so yeah I feel like I'm in junior high and I'm just overwhelmed with feelings of love yeah

Speaker 1 and they're kind of original and new and it's very very nice yeah and I'm quick to tell myself when I buy a donut for $20 to avoid the line So I'm going to tell you, I did do the full merch line.

Speaker 1 As soon as we walked into Staples, I hate calling it crypto. That's the dumbest name for, and also what crypto? Just generally speaking, crypto? It's crypto.com.
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 That makes more sense.

Speaker 1 I liked Staples. It was called Staples, Staples Center, not even Staples Arena.
Yeah. I liked it.

Speaker 2 I'm sure you did.

Speaker 1 Because you could always say to your wife or your partner, like, I got to run up to Staples. And you're not lying if you go to a Lakers game.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's about deception.

Speaker 1 Well, they might think that you're going to get school supplies or office supplies. Yeah.
And no one, like, let's put it this way.

Speaker 1 If someone says they got to go to Staples, you're like, oh, yeah, sorry, you got to do that. It's not, you're not going to Neiman Marcus to go shopping for fun.

Speaker 1 You are there for utility items and it's a chore. Yeah.
So you go like, oh, I got to run to Staples. And then you go see the Lakers play.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And then you come home and your partner is like, first of all, where?

Speaker 2 Where have you been?

Speaker 1 Why did it take that long? Where have you been? And where's all the items?

Speaker 2 What'd you get?

Speaker 1 And you go, what do do you mean?

Speaker 1 I went to the Lakers game.

Speaker 2 What? You said you were going to Staples.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's Staples Center. Out.
Out. I said I'm going to Staples.

Speaker 2 You're a deceptive beast.

Speaker 1 No, I'm not. I said I'm going to Staples and I went to Staples.
Now, let's try this again.

Speaker 1 All right. I'll see.
I'm heading over to crypto.

Speaker 2 Wait, you're going to invest in crypto?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Wait, no, we need to talk about that. We have.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 1 You're going to invest in crypto.com?

Speaker 2 Okay. Okay.
So you go to

Speaker 1 Staples

Speaker 1 and, you know, we got to walk a while to our section. So we walk through about a half of the arena or whatever.
And there's a couple different merch stations. Yeah.
And fuck, dude, you know, you know.

Speaker 1 I know. You know, you're at these concerts.

Speaker 2 These lines are in.

Speaker 1 Hundreds of people, right?

Speaker 2 Oh, thousands.

Speaker 1 And it's like winding back and forth. And you're not even quite sure where one enters this line.
Yeah. And I clocked it and I was like, oh, boy, let's see if she's going to ask for some merch.

Speaker 1 Of course.

Speaker 2 And then, um, you can't go and not get merch.

Speaker 1 So I got, I got misled. It said, doors open 5:30, show starts at 7.
Yeah. That doesn't mean Sabrina starts at 7.
Sure. Okay.
So we sit in the seats. We're pretty early.
Place pretty empty. Just us.

Speaker 1 And then I think

Speaker 1 she doesn't even ask. I go, should we go hop in that merch line? And she's like, Yeah.
I think she may be even surprised I'm willing to sit.

Speaker 1 So we went, and guess what? A couple things about the merch lines. They're not bad.

Speaker 1 They move. A lot of people watching and they move.
They go quicker than you think they're going to go. And it wasn't bad at all.

Speaker 1 And we took turns, each of us going to the bathroom and keeping our place in line.

Speaker 1 It all worked out. And I'm just remembering I got merch.

Speaker 1 Okay, go ahead. I got a shirt.
I should have worn it. You should.
I'll wear it in the future. Okay, wear it.

Speaker 2 Did you get a sweatshirt or a t-shirt? T-shirt, t-shirt.

Speaker 1 Cute. I have so many sweatshirts.

Speaker 1 Sure, but you could always use more uh i really at this point i can't like i was looking i hang mine on hooks and i was like we got it just this morning hang yours on hooks we got

Speaker 1 facts so some are on i'm disappointed

Speaker 1 yeah we got cute merch we got snacks we dance

Speaker 1 we got um around the hot dogs Hers had macaroni and cheese on the hot dogs. Oh, dang.
Yeah, go staples. Go crypto.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 then we got some chicken tenders because we were there for 15 hours.

Speaker 1 Because she didn't start till nine.

Speaker 2 Right. But I'm glad you got in the line.
I'm surprised. Like, you have to get in that line so quick because it goes.
It sells out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, we were starting to watch. That's the anxiety of being in the line because you're watching them like remove the tote bag from it.
I know.

Speaker 1 And then you're like, well, hold on, there's six more stations. So like someone really wanted that tote bag.
Did they have to go get in that other?

Speaker 2 And then that will also sell out.

Speaker 1 The tote was popular, apparently. Wow.
Or they didn't make a lot. That's my guess.
They didn't think they were going to sell as many as they did.

Speaker 2 Okay. Speaking of our merch, people really bought stuff, and we're so excited

Speaker 2 for everybody to match us.

Speaker 2 And we're so happy you guys like it.

Speaker 1 I'm excited for the people to receive it and feel the quality. Feel the quality.
Rub it all over your body and then cover your body with it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, do.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 you

Speaker 2 will have it by the holidays.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's so good.

Speaker 2 We don't have any tote bags.

Speaker 1 We don't have tote bags so don't worry they won't sell out yeah um okay now the show yeah was spectacular great i've now i guess between last year and this year i saw taylor and then i saw sabrina yeah and they're much different performers obviously yeah but i was kind of like really fascinated with what i think lane she has staked out Okay.

Speaker 1 Have you ever seen her live? No. No.
Well, it's great. The set's incredible.
There's all kinds of different dancers. It's wonderful.

Speaker 1 And then she often is like in between songs and she can just sit and kind of stare at the camera and stare, like look around and do all this stuff.

Speaker 1 And I was like, wow, this woman's, she's so confident. Yeah, right.
Like, she's so calm and confident.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's cheeky. That's her style.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And just so crazy confident.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So it was being filmed.
So maybe it's also going to be a movie, too. They're all making these movies.
It'd be silly not to.

Speaker 1 They already have the cameras going to put it on the big, huge screen. Yeah.
But, anyways, it's so, it didn't start till nine. Right before she went on, Delti was on my shoulder falling asleep.
Yes.

Speaker 1 It's hard for these little ones at these concerts. They're a long time.
It's tiring. Yeah.
And we'd already been there for three and a half hours, I think, at that point when the show started. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Boy, she sprang right away. Good.
Danced around. How long was the set?

Speaker 2 Like Sabrina?

Speaker 1 About two hours-ish. Oh, we had a really tricky call to make.
We were given some lanyards. after we were already in our seat.

Speaker 1 A nice gentleman, Max, came and gave us some lanyards so that we could go to the friends and family area after the show.

Speaker 3 And I was like, oh, wow.

Speaker 1 We might, she might come into there.

Speaker 1 Like, we might meet her. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And mind you, it's already like, it's late.

Speaker 1 And I say to Delta, I'm like, okay, so we have these passes.

Speaker 1 You know, maybe, I don't know, don't get your expectations too high, but maybe we'll, we'll actually meet her. And you want to go? And she's like, Oh my god, yeah, right.

Speaker 1 So we go in there and we're in there for a while, 20 minutes. And I'm kind of looking around, like, there's a lot of people for her to wander into here.

Speaker 1 Okay, there were some snacks, we had more snacks.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think this time I had cheese sticks. I don't need chicken tender as a hot dog, and there's marinara.
Oh, yeah, yeah, that whole spring.

Speaker 2 Maybe mozzarella sticks. What'd I say? Cheese sticks.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. They were mozzarella brand cheese.

Speaker 2 Okay, because to me, a cheese cheese stick is a string cheese. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And a

Speaker 2 mozzarella stick is a breaded mozzarella stick. Breaded cheese with the marinara.

Speaker 1 That's exactly what it was. Yum.

Speaker 2 I love mozzarella sticks.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, you would have loved these.
They were tiny. They were like cocktail wiener size.
Oh, wow. So you kind of pop them like.
Yeah. Yeah.
And pop them. Like an app.

Speaker 1 So we were in there for about 20, and I just started thinking,

Speaker 1 there's no chance in hell she's coming into this room. Okay.
You know? So I said to Delta, I don't, you know, I don't think this is her. There's too many people in here for her to come through.

Speaker 1 And she's like, Yeah,

Speaker 1 I was pretty proud of her. She, she, she seemed to accept that outcome.
Okay.

Speaker 1 If I were her, I might have been fighting for like, yeah, you know, please, let's just stay and wait and see.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like if I wanna see Billie Idol her age, if the notion that Billie Idol might have come out, I probably would have stuck around to the last person left, just in case.

Speaker 2 Yeah, same.

Speaker 1 But yeah, so we did not get home till midnight on a school night. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Who did she arrest? Isn't she arresting people at the

Speaker 1 cuffs on somebody for being too hot? We couldn't see from our side of the stage. They were on the opposite side of the stage.
I saw brown hair. Oh, cool.
That's good. They didn't give it to a blonde.

Speaker 2 She arrested, I think she arrested Anne Hathaway once.

Speaker 1 She did. Yeah.
Yeah. It was Dakota and Ellie Fanning.
Oh, Dakota. That's who she arrested on Sunday? Yeah, the 16th, right? Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, she arrests famous people.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's why I said Anne Hathaway. Dakota and Elle.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Now you got your. are they both blonde? Mm-hmm.
Maybe she arrested a brunette too.

Speaker 1 I'm surprised I didn't see him on that. They didn't pop him on the dish.

Speaker 2 I am surprised about that. Maybe you were in the potty.

Speaker 1 No, I did not go to the potty during the show.

Speaker 2 Oh, well, it seems like you missed a lot because it was not brown hair. Unless one of them has dyed their hair.

Speaker 1 For a roll. For a roll.

Speaker 2 Oh, blonde. Both very blonde.
So that's who they.

Speaker 1 Okay, yeah, we're on the very opposite side of that. Right.
Can you, Rob, can you rotate the camera around so you can see Delpha?

Speaker 1 That looks like a Jumbotron, though.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it does appear that they're on the Jumbotron. I guess we were looking at stage.
Anyways, who cares?

Speaker 1 Point is, we had a riot. We had a riot.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Fun times.

Speaker 2 Fun times galore.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Love it.
Should we do some facts? Sure.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay. Facts.

Speaker 1 I'm glad that's not one of our routines where we stay in sync because people

Speaker 1 three, two, one. Facts.

Speaker 2 Maybe people would like it because then they could do it too.

Speaker 1 I don't, I think they would like it three times. Yeah.
But like on time 100,

Speaker 1 oh my God. You guys stop doing that.
Let's do it one more time. Three, two, one.
Facts.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's already repugnant.

Speaker 2 I think we should get to do it three times a year.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 So that was one? No, it would start next year. Okay.
Okay. Now,

Speaker 2 one thing about Train Dreams, we did talk about it for a second, but it's Callie's movie, Callie's on the show.

Speaker 1 She directed it. She wrote it.
She did exactly it. She produced it.

Speaker 2 Yes. No, she didn't, but she has been talking about this movie all year and is

Speaker 2 on

Speaker 2 the team at Netflix, the marketing team for this movie. And she had told me once the tat, like a tagline, then I couldn't remember and I couldn't couldn't find it, but it's, I texted her.

Speaker 2 You don't have to do big things to live a big life.

Speaker 1 That's nice. And I thought that was lovely.

Speaker 2 There's also one that's internal. So I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say it.
Oh, okay. So I'm not saying it.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 1 Thanks for the T's. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 anyway, so

Speaker 2 see the movie.

Speaker 1 See it.

Speaker 2 See the movie. Now.

Speaker 1 Three, two, one.

Speaker 1 Fast.

Speaker 2 I almost forgot what it was.

Speaker 1 You forgot your line. It's one word.

Speaker 2 Those are the hardest ones to remember.

Speaker 1 We always talk about that.

Speaker 1 I think it came up in this episode. I think it did.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay. There really aren't many at all other than Callie's tagline.

Speaker 1 Again, Callie Road directed. Okay.
What fell? Well, just my Ember mug isn't keeping it warm. And I wondered, is that thing even plugged in? Is what I wondered.
Shit.

Speaker 1 And then I explored because I have impulse control issues because I might be ADHD, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 I, God, I just had this conversation with someone, and we've had it before, and I just hate when people self-diagnose.

Speaker 1 I hate it. But can I tell you, my like, you got to honor this, which is Gabor Mate said to me, have you ever been diagnosed?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 1 If there were, there was a clue.

Speaker 2 It doesn't mean you're diagnosed, though. He probably just was like, maybe you have it, but that doesn't mean you do.

Speaker 1 I think he was like, oh, this motherfucker is ADHD. Yeah, I don't need the diet.
Well, that's fine if I don't.

Speaker 1 What I'll say is when I look at the symptoms of it, it's hard to deny that I have many of those symptoms.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but to me, the diagnosis is when it's problematic. Like just having qualities, like I just had this fight with somebody, not fight, conversation.

Speaker 2 No, it really wasn't, but I was just like, they told me that someone we knew mutually was diagnosed as on the spectrum. Okay.
And I was like, okay.

Speaker 2 Or maybe they weren't diagnosed, but like said they were on the spectrum. I don't know.
But I was like, I know this person. They're They're not.

Speaker 2 They're not like getting in the way of anything they're trying to accomplish.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 I do feel that it's not fair to people who are definitively on the spectrum to say like, I'm quirky. So I'm on the spectrum.

Speaker 1 I understand that. I understand that it feels disrespectful to people that have a pathological version that is a disorder that is standing in the the way of their life.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like, but what I would say is you're evaluating someone very late into it. So I did have, I was disruptive in the classroom.
I was getting thrown up. I had impulse control issues.

Speaker 1 I, there were tons of times I got terrible fucking grades. You're like, I had downside.
I was just reading this one aspect of it.

Speaker 1 It's like, what happens in a debate for someone with ADHD is immediately amygdala is engaged right out of the gates. And then on top of that, they have done,

Speaker 1 they've measured the dopamine levels of ADHD people when they're engaged in a debate. And you're getting a ton of dopamine and serotonin.
So, it is fueling on your,

Speaker 1 you get pleasure out of fighting, right? Like, they've observed this in their, in the brain.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, well, you know, yeah, that definitely described me when I was younger. And over years, in the same way, like, I don't not have dyslexia now that I can read just fine.
It's like I had it.

Speaker 1 It was really problematic. I eventually gathered tools and now I'm fine with it.
I think that could also be the case, right? Like I could

Speaker 1 have had a lot of challenges with ADHD that we didn't know those were that. But over time, I learned to work with them.

Speaker 2 I just, but it could also just be your personality.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And again, it's all.
It's a trauma that causes this.

Speaker 1 And it's all very arbitrary.

Speaker 1 It's a spectrum. You can have ADHD at an 11 and you can have it at a 1.

Speaker 2 But then to me, I'm like, then it's just we all have it. And then where are you on this?

Speaker 1 I don't think that's fair.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Even if you want to call it personality types, let's call it personality types. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So there's a personality type, which is like shy and not impulse control and not enjoying debate and fights and not an over-inflated sense of injustice and not.

Speaker 1 fidgety trying to do nine things at once and you can't brush your teeth. Like, fine.
So I have that personality type. It doesn't need to be a disorder, but I do have a bucket of overlapping symptoms.

Speaker 2 Sure. We have overlapping symptoms with so many things and that creates a personality.
And I think some time, you know, it's like what you, you used to say a lot about like calling people racist.

Speaker 2 He's like, you're like, we can't call this person racist when there's a KKK.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 1 And I, I, you know, you're having that issue with it. Yeah.
I think a lot, and this isn't your issue.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of people's issue with it is what they think is I'm asking for sympathy or compassion. And I'm not because they're like, you don't deserve sympathy.
That person can't even go to work.

Speaker 1 But I'm not saying it because I want sympathy. I'm saying now that I know all these characteristics about it, I'm certainly checking yes on a lot of those biases.
It's not a detriment to me right now.

Speaker 1 It's, it's, it's power. Now,

Speaker 1 you know, there are things that I struggle with, I think, harder than other people struggle with.

Speaker 2 Everyone has things they struggle with that other people don't. Like that's, but I don't think that's, I don't think those are

Speaker 2 disorders. I think those are personalities that like, we all have strengths and we all have weaknesses.
And like, you know, I, I, and it is,

Speaker 2 because it's like dyslexia, dyslexia you have. You've tested into twice.
Yeah. You see, you see letters mixed up.

Speaker 1 Like, I can't see them. I don't even know what it is.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So the point is you have that yeah i think if someone is like i have dyslexia like it's hard for me to read so i hear this a ton i can't tell you how many people tell me they have dyslexia it happens it happens a few times a week

Speaker 1 i personally don't go like well have you been evaluated like who evaluated you do you go to school was it in college i

Speaker 1 Don't care. I know.
What they're telling me is it's hard for them to read.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's fine. But then if everyone has dyslexia,

Speaker 2 then it does make it harder for people who have dyslexia to get seen as really having it, to get the extra time on the test, to do, like if everyone just has it.

Speaker 1 But I don't think it does because you can't just say, I have dyslexia to get extra time on your test. You do have to do what I did at UCLA, which is like go through weeks of testing.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I don't think anyone with dyslexia is being penalized that everyone's using it kind of colloquially. This is the thing with people with OCD.

Speaker 1 They're really pissed that people with OCDP are claiming to have OCD. That's fine.
And they have a right to. And I'm not mad at them for that.

Speaker 1 I, as someone with dyslexia, I don't care that people are saying they're dyslexic.

Speaker 2 Right. That's fine.
I'm just saying I don't want it to affect people who, you know, are non-verbal autistic

Speaker 2 because, you know,

Speaker 2 someone has like a cork and is like, I'm neurodivergent too. I'm like, well,

Speaker 2 there's just such variety.

Speaker 1 I totally agree with you. All of this pretends that there's this large majority of our population that is, quote, normal.
Right. That's what I mean.

Speaker 1 You are neuroatypical or neurodivergent from this group. So what I agree, what I think is true is that this group doesn't exist.
Yeah, this group is everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 They all have all kinds of things.

Speaker 1 That part I agree with you on.

Speaker 1 But the.

Speaker 1 irritation over people doing it, I don't care. It's like a semantic thing, and maybe they are, and maybe they aren't.
What's important to me, I think, unless they're looking for sympathy,

Speaker 1 which I have no tolerance for, as you know.

Speaker 1 But if they're just trying to explain themselves to me, and there's now some new words available that kind of seem to condense the thing they're trying to relay about themselves to me, that's okay.

Speaker 2 I guess. I mean, it's one thing to me if they're using the symptoms to describe it, but to say, like, I have this

Speaker 2 is, is like,

Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 2 Anyway, anywho. Um, how big were Andre the Giant's hands?

Speaker 1 This is a big thing too with people like gluten-free. They get so, they're like,

Speaker 1 do you have celiacs? Like, were you tested for celiac?

Speaker 2 Well, but that again, but okay, again,

Speaker 2 like Callie has it. Yeah.
She has celiac. Yeah.
So when she tells the person at the server, she says, is it gluten-free? And they're like, yeah.

Speaker 2 She's like, okay, but she has to say, but I have celiac. So can you please really double check and make sure? And then they're like, oh, yeah, I'll check.

Speaker 2 So it is a little bit of a thing that everyone's like, I'm gluten-free.

Speaker 1 This is all really funny, right? Because like I'm on the other side and it drives me insane. Cause I asked, do you have gluten-free bread? And they go, do you have an allergy? Yeah, they need to know.

Speaker 1 And they do need to know. It just gets so serious right away.
Like they're not going to sell me something, right? Like they're, now they're afraid they're going to get sued. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I'll be like, no, no, no. Yeah.
So I'm like, no, no, I don't have an allergy. Are you sure? I'm like, no, no, I just, now it's like, well, I have, what am I going to say?

Speaker 1 I have psoriatic arthritis. That if there is a bunch of gluten, my joints might hurt.
I'm not going to go into anaphylactic shock and I won't get Crohn's over it. So, no, it's not that big of a deal.

Speaker 1 Right. Relative to Callie.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I think you, yeah, yeah.
But I understand

Speaker 2 why they have to be careful, probably because so many people just are like, I'm gluten-free.

Speaker 1 People sue a lot. They said it was gluten-free and they got sick sick and then they

Speaker 2 can be really dangerous for some people and others are like, my tummy hurts. Yeah.
It's like, that's not the same. Right.
So I do think checking is good.

Speaker 2 And yeah, and she, we always, like, just so you know, it's an allergy. It's the real thing.
And then they always say, like, let me double check. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 So anyway, it's just.

Speaker 1 Life's crazy. I think this is very common, though.
I think, like, what you and I are talking about, everyone talks about. I think

Speaker 2 people. I think they're all going to talk about it now that we talked about it.

Speaker 2 Okay. How big were Andre the Giants hands?

Speaker 1 Hold on, hold on. Hold on.

Speaker 1 I just like, it's good to remember we're constantly on the same side of arguments with just simply a little bit different ingredients, right?

Speaker 1 So like the way you're up, you get annoyed by that. I have been annoyed with you when you've said, I have cancer or whatever, you know, the things you announced you have medically.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, you haven't gone to the doctor and been diagnosed. Right.
And I get really upset at you. I want you to like, don't think that you have that

Speaker 1 until you've gone and they've told you. So I'm acknowledging I've been on the opposite side of this argument.
I'm just trying to acknowledge that.

Speaker 2 But I'm joking. If I've

Speaker 2 so far, if I've said I have cancer, which by the way, I don't think I have because that actually would scare me to you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't think I do that.

Speaker 1 But you have thought you had a lot of different things.

Speaker 2 I've thought I've had things, but I'm not serious if I'm like, I have a tumor. Like, I know, if I really thought I did, I would, of course, go get it checked out.

Speaker 2 So that's me being like hyperbolic and like, it's a funny thing.

Speaker 1 But apparently it's not. No, you remember that I've been upset with you saying you have things.

Speaker 2 I know, but yeah, you do sometimes because I'm like, oh, my like back hurts.

Speaker 1 And it does.

Speaker 1 I think I have blank.

Speaker 2 Or be like, I, it's either period or I have like a kidney thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And then, yeah, you're like, you need to get it looked at.

Speaker 1 And I'm, I'm already like, I'm not going to own that I've been on your side of this argument we just had, this chat we just had.

Speaker 2 I know, but I, I think it's a little different because I'm not claiming to have a pathology. What's funny is, and I do think this is interesting.

Speaker 2 Me and you did feel the same way about ADHD at one point. You used to think this.

Speaker 1 I still think

Speaker 1 that ADHD has taken over social media. Now we all think we have it.

Speaker 2 And you even said there was a specific person that said they had it and you were like so annoyed by it

Speaker 2 as I was too.

Speaker 2 And now you think you have it and you're doing the same thing this rest.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I am. So I think that's funny.

Speaker 1 I am, yeah. And I don't think anyone needs to feel bad for me or I have a handicap.
No. Yeah.
I just think I have a ton of the things on the list. Sure.

Speaker 2 It's a great personality.

Speaker 1 But again, we're making an arbitrary distinction between a personality and a disorder.

Speaker 2 And a pathology. Yeah, that's my whole point.

Speaker 1 But again, Brazil is talking about how someone is.

Speaker 2 We are, but there's medication and stuff.

Speaker 1 There's some line we go, okay, so

Speaker 1 you're, you're getting a C. Like there is, right? They're drawing a line and they're going to decide on this side of the line is a pathology.
On this side, it's not.

Speaker 1 And that's just decided by people.

Speaker 2 Doctors should be, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But it's not a test.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 It's like depression. Discovering in your DNA, here's the loci for this condition.
It's still a diagnosis that is arbitrary in nature.

Speaker 2 I just think it should be

Speaker 2 a, you should be diagnosed if it requires change,

Speaker 2 different, like medicine,

Speaker 2 you know, whatever. I mean, I guess this is sort of back to that awesome guest we had on who was talking about overdiagnosis.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, from England.

Speaker 1 She was great.

Speaker 2 How big were were Andre the Giant's hands?

Speaker 2 This is the third time I've said it.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 16 inches long from wrist to fingertip.

Speaker 1 From wrist to fingertip. Boy, I wish I had a tape measure.

Speaker 1 I mean, imagine a full ruler. Well, how about this? My shoes is 12 inches.
Okay, so that's like a ruler. So we're going to here.

Speaker 1 First of all, what if just that was

Speaker 1 how you know?

Speaker 1 Now we're going to go four inches past that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Holy smokes.

Speaker 2 Enormous. This immense size allowed him to bomb a basketball with ease and made him comparable in size to a silverback gorilla.
Okay.

Speaker 2 The only other fact is that we talk about AI and he wanted to see a dog giving a lecture. Like he asked.

Speaker 1 Oh, but he had designed.

Speaker 2 He designed that. And when I was at Charlie's house for the Dodgers game,

Speaker 2 he has an app on his phone. I guess it's in like development.

Speaker 2 And he took a, like, we put it in front of my face. Yeah.
And I just turned right and left. And then I just said three numbers.
That was it. Yeah.
And then he said,

Speaker 2 have Monica running on a beach and yelling at a dog. No.

Speaker 1 And it's so

Speaker 2 good. It is.

Speaker 1 Yes. Oh my godness.

Speaker 2 And then he was doing a lot of those, like me complaining at a restaurant. And I was like, you could really take me out.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Maybe it'll swing in the other way because if you can't trust

Speaker 2 if that's real, then it's just nothing matters.

Speaker 1 Yeah. No holds barred.
Yeah. You can always just go as AI.
I was AI.

Speaker 2 It wasn't me.

Speaker 1 AI crashed my car drunk driving. I had nothing.

Speaker 2 It wasn't me. It was a hologram.
They're that good.

Speaker 1 All right. That's it.
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Speaker 1 Guess what?

Speaker 4 It's Mel Robbins. I'm popping in here taking out my own ad.
Holy cow, Dax, Monica, and I, I don't want this conversation to end, and I'm so glad you're here with us.

Speaker 4 And the other thing, I can't believe, Dax loves the Let Them Theory. He can't stop talking about it.
I hope you're loving listening as much as I love having you here.

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