Seth Rogen Returns Again

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Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.
Experts on expert. We have an unconventional expert today.
But when you hear him talk, you will know he is an expert. Peek behind the curtain.
He was going to be a Monday. Sure.
Because obviously he would be a Monday. But then it got really interesting.
We got into a lot of filmmaking stuff. And it was so cool that it was like, no, you know what? You were editing.
Yep. And you text me, what if we moved Seth to Thursday? And I said, no.
You have bad

ideas. Fuck you.
You're a piece

of shit. I hate you.
Don't ever

think again. Click.

And then I forgot about it and then you did it anyways.

I just did it. And now we're here.
Yeah.

Seth Rogen is an actor.

He's a comedian.

He is a filmmaker. He is a

martial arts star. Yeah.

Remember when he was a kid in Canada, he was all about that karate. Superbad, this is the end.
Knocked up. Neighbors.
Pineapple Express. And a new series that I, it'll be obvious in the episode.
Truly, I love this show. I'm still dying to see it.
Oh, it's so impressive. It's so funny and impressive.
And the plot is like a freight train. It's called The Studio and it's on Apple TV, March 26th.
So please, I couldn't recommend it enough. I lump him in with Chelsea Handler of people in this industry who are extremely generous.
They say yes all the time

if you ask a favor.

I don't think people really know that about him,

but he is.

I think he's just a lover of it.

You know, like there's haters.

Yeah.

There's jealous people.

He's a lover.

Yeah, he's a nice guy.

He loves projects.

He pops up in things.

He just loves the whole world.

We like Seth.

Yeah.

I like when the good guys win.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

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Oh, do you want to know what happened? I already informed him about the robbery. It's related.
Okay. Was there another robbery? There's been a second robbery.
A follow-up robbery. They missed some shit.
They forgot a few things. You know what's weird? That is the only thing that bothers me.
I can accept that the stuff got stolen. It's the notion like, well, are they going to come back? It was very easy.
They had a good time. Yeah.
Things went well. That's what's driving me a little bonkers.
And they know we're going to obviously replace the cameras. We have to.
It's just a never-ending camera replenishment. They open a camera shop down the corner, sells the same 12 cameras.
I'd be delighted to buy them off. Just broker a deal with them.
Seriously. Like the mafia.
I'm willing to pay them $500 a month to just stay away. Pay them camera protection.
Yeah. But when I have anxiety, I cut my hair compulsively.
And I was like, oh, I have a lot of time. I'm going to really get in front of the mirror and then I'm going to start trimming my hair.
And I got lost in it. And then I thought, I should just glance at them.
I'm sure I got 10 minutes left. I was like, four minutes after.
I was in a state of flow, I guess. You need a rule.
Maybe no cutting before an interview. I know.
I just, I thought it was going to be three snips as I always do. It was too good.
What's your thing that you'll most lose sense of time doing? Is it the pottery? I would say I'm annoyingly conscious of time all the time. Sometimes when I'm filming, I kind of lose track of time, but I also usually have my eye on the clock because there's an amount of time we have to do shit.
But pottery sometimes, watching reality TV, sometimes I'll watch enough of that that I just kind of zone out. Here's another thing I fucked up.
I was like, I have so much time. I'll cut my hair.
I'm also going to bring a fan down and I'm going to bring an ashtray for our guest. Oh, yeah.
It's okay. Are you sure? Yes.
Okay. We love that you smoked weed.
Yeah, that was fun for us. That was fun for us, but it did lead us astray.
This room is small also. I've now done these types of things where I make people really stoned.
And then I'll see them months later and be like, I was so fucked up that I apologize and everyone feels bad about it. Well, that's what happened.
You did it. And we were like, that was great.
Nothing happened. And then Wiz Khalifa.
Is that his roach? Yeah. Yeah.
And I was like, hey, feel free to smoke. He probably smokes at a different rate than I do.
Exactly. He did five back to back over the course of an hour and a half.
And there was a point where I was like, I'm a little lost. And I looked over at Monica and Monica was like this.
And I looked at Robin. He wasn't even looking at the board.
He's just sitting on his chair. I was like, oh, I've hung out with him a few times.
And every time I'm like, this guy smokes a lot. Yeah, it's kind of impressive because he was fine.
Yeah, he's fine. That man doesn't have anxiety.
Who's the Muhammad Ali of it? Of smoking weed? Yeah, like, OK, so you were around him and you're like, oh, boy. Snoop Dogg.
I mean, there's no debating. I was on Howard Sturdwitz with him and me and him smoked a bunch of weed.
And then afterwards, he invited me to like his which was like a tiny little room and we smoked so much weed and it was one of the first times from just smoking weed i had to like cancel my entire rest of the day's stuff and i was just like i can't fucking do anything and then i just sat in my parked car for like 90 minutes as i slowly regained my faculties snoops the best though there's no point in that for you though where for you, though, where you're at all nervous, right? You're just like, okay, here we are. No.
Okay. I would say eating weed, though.
Some of the most unpleasantly high times I've had in my whole life, and this is a life of doing many drugs, eating weed is the thing that can tweak me out where I'm just like, oh, I've gone too far. Yeah, you can go south on you.
Yeah, because it's not pleasant. These other drugs have like a pleasant cushion.
That's the point of them. That's the point of them.
It'll bolster itself with the pleasant effects of the drugs, but eating weed can just go down and there's no bolstering. It's like you're free falling without a parachute.
It's fun to hear you're afraid of that a little bit. A little bit.
Isn't it like comforting? We love fears. Yes.
We love vulnerable boys. I've said that a few times where I've been so high eating it.
I was like, how could this be more powerful than crack and psychedelics? And the duration is very up in the air. It's a real bummer.
Yeah. I've done way too many shrooms.
Even that's not that bad in comparison to way too much. Cause there's at least like a catharsis.
No catharsis comes from eating too much weed. I think it's like, I should never fucking eat weed again.
Shrooms. You're like, I should do this differently.
I should do that. This was a rough trip, but it got intense for a while, but at least I came out of it with some sort of insider.
Yeah, you might dissolve your ego and learn some stuff about yourself. There's like a sense of accomplishment afterwards.
There's no sense of accomplishment that comes with eating way too much weed food. You don't feel proud of yourself at all.
So you'll never do it? No, I'll do it all the time. Of course.
What I do is I drink weed a lot now. There's weed beverages that are fantastic and they have a much more moderate amount.
Like a five milligram? Yeah, three or five. That I get down with.
My favorite thing, I want to say you were doing Stern where you had smoked a bunch of weed doing Stern but then you were co-hosting with Hoda? Yeah, you got hammered too yes i got drunk with them very early in the morning because they drink kathleen hoda they would drink yeah i could not believe it like i thought it was like a shtick you hear like frank sinatra had apple juice in that glass and it's one of those times where you're like oh a glass of wine holds almost a bottle of wine they just give you like A full glass of wine at like 8.30 in the morning. Oh my God.

How did it?

And I was like, wow. holds almost a bottle of wine.
They just give you like a full glass of wine at like 8.30 in the morning.

Oh my God.

And they're pounding it.

And I was like, wow, this is legit.

They are drunk on television every morning.

What a hack.

What a great way to live.

Yeah.

People love it.

I know.

I really am envious of that experience.

I didn't drink in the morning until I did.

And then I had to quit.

But there were times throughout the year where you did drink in the morning. Camping, church, St.
Patrick's Day. Wake up, get out of bed.
Brunch. Sometimes a good brunch.
I love brunch. And it's a special feeling to have the whole day ahead of you.
Yes. Wine tasting.
I'm glad I never ruined drinking. As I was having a martini the other night, I was marveling at it.
I've kept this relatively under control. Yeah, that's how I feel.
I'll have like two drinks and that's it. I'm not great at moderation, so I'm impressed with myself.
Yeah. As I'm doing it, I'm like, look at you, man.
Two martinis and call it in a night. I have that same inflated pride about not having a gambling addiction because I'm like everything I've ever touched, if I like it, I do it too much, but I can gamble.
I did it Saturday. Chris and I were in Vegas for like nine hours.
I'm like, let's gamble. Did 40 minutes.
Very normal. Gambling is one of the worst.
It's an addiction where you're just burning your money. He's losing your life.
Literally not even figuratively. At least drug addiction.
There's moments you're like, this is fucking great. I'm on heroin.
There's some escape. Rob, who's your favorite guest? The chef we love.
Right. Troy Oh, yeah.
Do you know him? Yeah, I met him. I was on, Jon Favreau had like a cooking show many years ago.
We were on it together. Well, he had gambling addiction and he really shared with us.
And I'll say the added fucking burn of that addiction, aside from drugs, is there is this notion you can get even. For me, like day three of a crack run, if I thought, oh, I could smoke two rocks and it'll erase what I did.
Go back in time. Yes, it has that promise.
That's worse. I'm in deep shit.
I've lost the house, but I could fix it all with this addiction. The right hit will make my brain chemistry know how to solve all these problems.
Look, I get no pleasure from gambling. I don't gamble.
Not even sitting at a a blackjack table and tapping into the Sinatra thing of it all. I'm always afraid I'm going to get yelled at and I'm not doing the right thing and that they're going to get mad at me at the table.
That fear overpowers any pleasure I get from it. I'll stand around and watch my friends gamble.
What if you went with a buddy who was kind of good at it and he just was like, you hit a 16. I've done that.
I've got with my friends who are like I'll be very instructive protect that I just feel like a fucking idiot. Yeah exactly.
Like Fred whispering in my fucking ear what to do. I feel like a child.
He's gambling by proxy. It's not fun either being puppeted by your friend at the blackjack table.
We both have money. You too.
Don't leave yourself out. You're built miles across the street.
Everyone's got money in the room. So you can't tell yourself, oh, it's because I need it.
There has to be something else sort of happening. Someone's just telling you what to do.
It's not like, oh, I have a skill. Well, that's kind of my struggle.
I was just explaining. Someone else was on the trip who was a big, big, big, big girl.
Your struggle. You should write a book called that.
My struggle. My struggle.
Mine come. It's a sticky title.
It is. It did well.
It did very well. You can't say it didn't work.
You could argue it was a powerful book. You can say a lot of things about him, but to say his book was not effective.
It was sticky. Oh my goodness.
God. Well, yeah, there's a dude on the trip who really gambles.
And I was saying to him, I'm in this nether world where I used to gamble with a thousand dollars in the bank and I would gamble a hundred, which was a tenth of my net worth. And if I won 200, I literally went up 30%.
It was real life. It changed my life.
That's bad. And now I'm not willing to go gamble $10,000.
No, exactly. That's crazy.
The best time I ever had a casino was Danny McBride got married many years ago in Palm Springs and we all went to a casino afterwards. I was with Adam McKay and Chris Henchy, who's a comedy writer.
And the best storyteller alive. Yes, and he's so funny.
And they did a thing at the blackjack table that was the funniest thing I've ever seen, where they sat down separately pretending not to know what to know. What McKay kept doing would be He would hand Chris objects and Chris said he was a magician and a sleight of hand magician and he would keep pretending to steal things from Adam McKay.
Oh my God. And it was only for the benefit of the dealer and the three other people who happened to be sitting at the table.
And McKay would be like, I bet you're not that good. And then he'd be like, then how did I get your shoe? And everyone would be like, that's incredible.
And I'd be like, that was lucky. Well, then how did I get your wristwatch? And it went on a very long time.
That's a great thing. It was actually one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
And it's so pure. It was pure for four people and nobody else.
What are you watching? What shows are you obsessed with? I've been loving Severance. It's amazing.
Walk me through the experience of watching it. Do you watch it? Yes.
Obsessed. We've seen the whole thing because like your show, we got screened.
But I haven't seen the last episode. I mean, I started it when it started.
I'm a huge fan of Ben Stiller. And I've known him since I was 16 years old.
And a lot of people I worked with when I was first starting had worked on the Ben Stiller show. And Ben was on Freaks and Geeks.
And the DP who shot Freaks and Geeks had shot the movie that Ben was the star of. He was someone I just looked up to immensely.
And he was a writer and director and he did all the things that I wanted to do. And he acted and he was so funny.
I've always just been a fan of his. And so when I heard he was directing a new show, I watched it right away.
I know Adam Scott for a long time. He's the best.
And it's incredible. And every time I see Ben, I gush over it because I really think, and it's sort of the complete opposite of what we have tried to do with our show, but precision and comedy are hard things to marry.
And I'd say almost like a sterile level of precision. Stanley Kubrick did it very well in Dr.
Strangelove, but very few people have actually done it effectively since that, I would argue. And there are things that are pretty funny with that style, but I think Severin's a very funny show.
And too. Yeah.
And the story's amazing. I love the mystery.
I watched Lost, which was a real bummer ultimately, because I don't feel like it added up to the experience. And this feels like it's giving me the Lost energy and I have faith that it does add up.
I'm optimistic as well. I also loved watching Lost and I do often in my head think, was it worth it? It's a good philosophical question.
Is it worth a great journey if the ending sucks? Yeah. It's like a new riddle.
There is no destination. Yes, exactly.
It's a journey worth taking without a destination. And I am glad I did it ultimately because all our friends, we get together, we watch it.
It was so fun, but it was a real bummer. We did not love the ending very much.
And so I am getting a similar vibe with Severance where it does feel like a mystery everyone's trying to unpack reveal everyone's excited to see what comes next a lot of people i know watch it so it's nice to talk about it but the style of it is unbelievable most things that are like frame fucked within an inch when you're acting for the camera only so precise you could tell they're pouring over every millisecond of the show and usually again those things suck the comedy out of things and this does not do that at all yeah like wes anderson can have that kind of meticulous world and comedy he's literally probably the only other person to like really do it like that do you like righteous gemstones i've never watched any righteous i'm waiting for it to end and then i'm gonna watch all that's fair so you plow through. It's like a treat I've left.
I actually watched the first episode. I was like, I love this so much that I don't want to have a staggered viewing experience.
That is similar, actually. It's also shot so beautifully.
Well, you saw the pilot, right? Yes. Danny directed the pilot.
This fucking tracking casino style shots with the money. Yeah, those guys are great.
And those guys are some of the first guys I worked with that really wanted their comedies to look a certain way. Well, they were film school people.
Exactly. And Judd, the people that I was making movies with, were not like that.
It was very much performance capture oriented. Since then, everyone's style has evolved.
But at the time, it was cross coverage. That's it.
If it doesn't look great, who cares? All that matters is we're capturing the joke. In the defense of everyone, that was the first full embracing of improv all the time.
Fully, yes. So you couldn't afford to miss someone's reaction.
No, no, no, no. And that's what people liked, and it was working, and it was very alive.
Then I remember seeing Foot Fist Sway, and I made Observe Report with Jody Hill. All of a sudden, I was like, oh, there's shots in this movie.
I was like, whoa, this is fucking crazy. The whole other way to work.
And then I watched a lot of reality TV. As you said, that's your anxiety release.
Exactly. White Lotus.
I don't watch White Lotus. I could see you on White Lotus.
Fingers crossed. Saying it here.
Exactly. I watched your wife's show.
I thought that was great. Okay, great.
What a kiss, right? Yeah. Handsy kiss.
Handsy. It's all about those hands.
I was watching with my evan aaron weekly since sixth grade and we're in texas on someone's couch we're staying at someone's house and we decide to watch the show it had been out for maybe a week or two you were playing it like hard to get no i had been really busy and i was actually excited because i was now available to watch it and we were sitting on a couch couch with a very tiny love seat. And that kiss happened.
And I was like, oh, my God, that's the best kiss I've ever seen on television. He goes, has she ever kissed you like that? I'm like, no.
Aaron goes, I don't know who I want to kiss more, him or her. I'm like, same.
It was a powerful moment. Can you remove yourself? Leighton and Adam are talking about this, too.
She's like, when I watch the show, I don't see him. I can't really do that.
Every time I watch Kristen, I see her. Right.
So your buddy's making out. Yeah.
It depends. I sometimes have a hard time watching people I know in things.
Sometimes it takes me a few viewings to desensitize myself, especially if it's someone I know and they're doing a real character. Sometimes that throws me for a of course they're like smoking cigarettes and they've never smoked things like that but then i start to love it i always think of like jonah and wolf of wall street is like so good and so funny and i think it maybe took me a minute where i was just like what is going on here and then i was just like oh no it's one of the funniest performances ever at times it takes me a minute to wrap my head around lauren has acted in things where she's made out with people.
And how do you feel when that happens? I get it because I also know when I'm doing it that I don't actually feel like I've kissed the people that I've kissed in movies. Not one? Not for real.
Yeah. I for sure have not.
I maybe never had one real moment ever on or off screen in any moment ever. Because you're in your head you want it to look a certain way.
You have to be aware. Mine that I'll say in public is I had watched Friday Night Lights.
Oh, no. I loved Lila Garrity.
And then all of a sudden on Parenthood, she becomes my love interest. I'm like, I'm going to get to kiss Lila Garrity.
I'm going to drop out a character for those moments. I'm going to drop back in character.
Crosby hat on, put sex on. You've heard the stories, right, of actors who've really had sex, right? You kind of collect these stories.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were very bummed out to find, we had Halle Berry on.
Dax asked. Oh, there's that rumor of her and Bailey Buffett on the staircase.
Absolutely not. Were they on a stair? They were on the couch.
Maybe I'm conflating. Staircase is something else.
You talked about staircase. That was Thomas Crown Affair.
Or maybe History crown affair or maybe history of violence i'm thinking of another very convincing sex scene perhaps on a staircase i just have a encyclopedic knowledge staircase fucking the fact check is just going to be a list of staircase one of my funniest moments with my oldest daughter thus far that has happened in the 12 years is i was like thomas crown affair i love that movie that snappy snappy scene with the bowler hat. She's going to love this.
And I showed it to her when she was probably like eight and we're watching and I'm like, oh, I forgot about this fucking scene on the staircase with Renee Russo and Brosnan. And it's just going on forever.
And I'm like, I wonder if she's going to say anything. And then she just goes, do people really do that? And I go have sex.
And she goes on the staircase and we go no it's actually never happened but in movies people are constantly they can't get up to the bedroom they can't even make it up too hardy for the extra 20 feet oh i want to add two there's a couple things you've said in the previous two interviews that really, really stuck with me. That's crazy.
I mean, I think about them often. I never expect anyone to think of anything I ever have said.
It was really aspirational. Like someone were talking about business managers or this or that.
And you said, like, I don't know if they've stolen from me. I mean, I hope they have.
you actually said out loud I hope they have and I think it's half a joke

and actually half insanely aspirational to not be so attached to it. No, I still am like that.
I'm a prime target for serious robbery and embezzlement. I've decided everything.
You send me a docusite, I will send it back. I hope they have because I still have enough.
No scrutiny. I have never read a DocuSign in my life.
But it is aspirational. What I guess I've seen over time, and I'm just so not like this, money is a thing people really hoard and have a lot of pride in the money itself.
I'm so guilty. And they want to turn their money into more money and love how much money their money is making them and how profitable their money's money is.
And that is just like not how I think. I have no desire for my money to itself be out there working for me.
It's an employee. I don't view my money as lazy.
I don't think of it like that at all. And I get how people do it.
Are you like that? I am. You love your money to make more money.
It's a thing people like. Mine's just a fear.
What are you afraid of? That you're going to run out of money? Yes, yes. That's not a fear I have.
I'm afraid I'm going to die with too much money. That is my fear.
You don't have children. I don't have children.
And I'm afraid I'm going to die and be like, I'm going to have a fucking place on the beach. I'm going to die.
I don't want to die with $10 million in the bank that I could have spent doing fun, alive things. A jet to Paris on a whim.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
I'm going to look back and you would never do that, right? I could have been jetting this whole time. I also have that fear.
I'm so nuts about it and I'm such a hoarder and then I'm going to die and I'm going to be like, all I see now is a bunch of trips I could have taken to Paris. Exactly.
Yes. That's more of the fear that I live off of.
So I was single mom. Money was tight.
We were panicked about it. You guys weren't fucking rolling in cash.
Not at all. But was there no fear around it in the house? I actually remember as a young person being very concerned about the amount of money we had.
And a lot of my friends had way more money. Yeah, you also went to school where there was some hats.
I went to a school that was way across town from where I live. So I essentially was surrounded by much richer people than me.
And so it was something that I remember being worried about, but then I just, I mean, at a very young age, I started making pretty good money. And I remember being like 18 and my dad being like, in the last two years, you made more money than I have in my entire life put together.
Basically, he lived this long off that amount of money. I'm sure I can live.
And I think not having kids, I would imagine people seem to want to leave their kids money, I guess, which is, I guess, a good thing to do. And that's complicated in and of itself.
I'll tell you this much. I went into this going like, no, no, you don't give your kids money.
It ruins them and they need to be hungry and work and blah, blah, blah. I started feeling a little guilty.
It's like, if I didn't get shit when I grew up, that'd be fine. All of our family vacations were in a van eating caramels and we slept in the van.
I unfortunately have given them a lifestyle that they're going to feel it. It's too late.
Yeah, you can't go back. Oh, you can't go back from that.
It's going to jump off a cliff. And I'm like, well, that wasn't very fair to them either.
No, exactly. So now what's the ethical thing I do? I don't know.
Had I raised them like shit pigs like I was raised, then I would be like, cool. Yeah.
Had you just started like that? Yes. You had like another little house on this property that was bad.
Yes. Oh my God.
That'd be hilarious. And we went on vacation and they didn't.
Yeah. You keep the bad house.
And then when they get out of college and they can't go on vacation, I'm like, yeah, that's normal. But now the realization, like you might not travel for 13 years.
Yeah, that's a hard. It's kind of crazy.
Yeah, you can't go back. I don't know.
I still kind of think it's a good idea. To not give them anything.
Give them some amount, but not too much. Spend it all.
Do you want to go to Paris tonight? Yeah, exactly. I was in a Beastie Boys video many, many years ago.
And one of the things I remember is they were showing me pictures or something on one of their phones. They had recently gone to Paris and there was all these pictures of them in an incredibly expensive menswear shop just in like ridiculous matching outfits.
And they were like, oh, yeah, every time we go to a foreign country like this, we all go buy funny matching tuxedos and stuff like that. And I was like, that's a good thing to do with your money.
You'll never regret buying matching tuxedos with your three friends with top hats and canes and tails and going out on the town. You'll never regret that.
If you're rich, that's the thing that is good to spend your money doing. I'm struggling with this currently very much.
How much money your money's money should be making you? Yeah, mainly that. No, just kids versus feeling very free.
I really, really like feeling very. Are you a married person? I'm not married and I don't have children.
I literally have nothing except that house I'm building for me only. That's great.
I mean, it does feel great actually, but then I'm like, oh, am I going to regret it later? Is it going to feel empty later? I mean, there's just so much that I struggle with. I like being able to go on vacation and do it up.
Fly first class, stay in the hotel. And not worried if you're fucking your kid up.
Exactly. I'm also very scared of that too.
Oh yeah. When I was young, we'd do these press tours and I'd be on like a private jet going to do press with a nine-year-old.
And I'd just be like, this child is going to have a hard time coming back to Earth from all this. It's harder than I anticipated, which is, well, I worked my whole life so I could fly first class.
They're too young. I got to be with them.
So what the fuck am I going to do? I'm going to sit back in the exit row next to the toilet. No.
That feels unfair to me. It is unfair to you.
It's unfair to everybody. No one should have to do that.
I re-listened to the second interview. I want to publicly apologize.
I was coming really hard at you about kids. And then I've censored other remarks you've made.
And I certainly was a part of the problem. Oh, no, you were pushing.
I never did articulate what I was going for in that. I've never felt you needed to apologize for the record.
Well, it was pretty full court press. The real essence of it was, is I was like, you would be such a fun dad for me.
Sometimes you see people and you go like, that would be a very fun dad. He has the spirit to be a dad.
Ultimately, I think I was just trying to give you a compliment that you would be such a fun dad. Thank you.
Being a good parent is nowhere on our list of reasons whether or not we would or would not have children. I assume we'd be good parents.
I know people who are so much fucking stupider who are good parents. Seriously.
I do think I would be a good parent, but I just don't think I want to be a parent. Yeah, I love it.
I heard you say something recently and I was like, yeah, yeah, that's fucking ideal for him and I should have shut up. It was in the press recently.
Him basically just saying that we're having a great fucking time and I don't feel like I've missed out. And everything's groovy.
Paraphrasing. Things are good.
This is a random question, but I think maybe because of our guest that came out today, which was Nikki Glaser. And we went through this whole thing where she had made some jokes about me and I was very, very sensitive.
Yeah, yeah. What did she say? No, it was great.
Everything's great. On the show or out in the world? She was going was gonna make it in the golden globes and i had found out that it was too hard for the golden globes i was like oh no and then during the whole monologue it was just one of those cameras was on us and i was just waiting to have to fake some positive reaction to being shit on and then so she didn't tell it there but then she told on stern the next morning but then i purposely didn't want to hear it because i thought i'd made up these fucking jokes that were so mean to me and I was kind of just devastated.
And then I heard the joke. It wasn't bad at all.
And I was like, what a waste of my time. Then we had her on.
We talked about it. It was so fun.
But I think because she was the guest today and I posted and I was just reliving that whole thing. I was curious.
Are you sensitive? Like I'm so sensitive. Yes, I am sensitive to people making jokes about me for sure.
It's really hard,, right? Especially it's comedians I like. Yeah.
It's happened a few times. Like, when we made the interview, we kind of became open season because we were, like, the news.
To remind people, North Korea hacked Sony. North Korea hacked Sony.
In the wake of your film. It almost started a war.
It was the biggest act of industrial espionage in history, I believe. It's kind of cool you were a part of that.
That's a cool deathbed. It is.
Saying like, oh yeah, I fucked up world relations for a minute. Yeah, geopolitics.
You're like, I'm powerful. Well, that's another good lesson.
You can hit the bullseye too effectively at times. There was comedians that I like making jokes about us in the movie.
Whenever they would make jokes that the movie sucked, that I just didn't like. Because that's all I care about.
But again, you get over it and it's happened again. You've been obviously invited to all these rows.
Yes. Have you ever gone to one? Yeah.
Nothing of those has ever really insulted me. I have like a pretty thick skin about because I also make jokes about other people all the time, especially in our movies.
We make a lot of jokes about people. And I've had people come to me and been like, that wasn't great.
Being in a theater full of people, having them laugh hysterically at a joke, making fun of me. Like I've received direct text messages from people being like, why would you do this? And I'm like, yeah, I get it.
I'm sorry. And I've gotten better.
I have been in some situations recently where I was going to make jokes about certain people and certain things and had the foresight to ask the people beforehand as to whether or not they felt as though this would be in poor taste. And when it was told to me in no uncertain terms that it would in fact be in poor taste, I was happy to not do the joke.
And I know enough about myself now to know that I'm drawn in a bad way to the joke I shouldn't be making sometimes. And I get a kick out of saying the thing that I know I probably shouldn't.
And it's not even always the funniest. Sometimes it's very personal.
Sometimes it's just something I know I shouldn't necessarily be saying. I used to be much more inclined to do it.
And because I think I wanted to show I would do it or I didn't care or I thought it was just funny that I was treading into these waters that even if the average person didn't think they were taboo, like I knew in my head, I was like, oh, this is fucked up. It's like you're answering the calling to the commitment to comedy.
Like in that moment, you elevate it. Yep, I actually thought it was funnier.
It's not even always funnier. It's just like a thing that I know I shouldn't be saying.
It's a slippery slope. This is terribly corny, but hurt people hurt people.
There is some reality. And we even had fun talking with Nikki.
It's like the bottom line is I'm really sensitive. And because I'm really sensitive

and insecure, I'm great at seeing other people's sensitivities and insecurities. It's like you

almost have to be a little wounded to even know what to do. Or sometimes you've just tread into

an area where you are fodder for comedy, whether you like it or not. That's what it felt like with the interviewer.
This is such a big story. You have to make a joke about it.
And I just got that. People wouldn't be doing their job.
Exactly. Like you'd feel as though you were ignoring a big thing that was happening if you didn't do it.
And in those moments are the feelings of a few more important than like addressing the elephant that all sees in the room. Like Diddy.

I mean, it's not going to happen now that those jokes aren't going to pop up at the shows and stuff.

You're just like waiting for it. I know.

And all I'm thinking is how does Diddy feel?

I know.

I'm pretty worried about it.

Poor guy.

All I'm thinking is I'm watching this stuff.

This guy has to watch these jokes.

He's probably sensitive too.

For all of his improprieties, he never really made fun of people.

He didn't even earn this.

He didn't deserve it. That's not what his bag was.
He wasn't out there shitting on other people. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
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quince.com slash Dax. Before we get to the studio, I just want to say, I love the boys so much.
And I love Gen V so much. Oh, that's so nice.
How much time does that whole thing take up? I want it to go forever. I know, it'd be great.
They're doing the last season now. Oh, they are.
Yes. But they're doing another show.
We've slowly become the thing we are making fun of, which is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So we are doing another show that's like a prequel about the formation of Vought set in World War II with Soldier Boy and those characters.
But it's a funny thing with the boys where me and Evan, it's a very well-run show. And the guy, Eric Kripke, who runs the show does such a good job that it makes it that it does not occupy very much of my time or energy.
We were very involved in the very beginning of the show. We like cast the show and kind of designed a lot of the uniforms.
I'd imagine you were taking all of your cultural capital and power at the studio to allow that tone to exist and be that bold. And then once that was achieved and rewarded, you could step away.
Well, it was also Amazon. It was a good moment for us.
We found ourselves at a place who was like looking for its identity in some ways. They didn't have like a flagship show.
And so they kind of didn't know what it was. The people who are running it changed over in the midst of the time we were doing it.
So I actually think we kind of just got lucky. No one had any reason to tell us no, basically.
They actually really believed in it. And our pitch was very clear.
People want the R-rated version of superheroes. Well, but maybe the X-rated.
Very much so. In a world that was like so inundated with superheroes, people will get such catharsis to see what this would kind of be like in real life and how gruesome it would be and how gross it would be.
And I remember that was the thing we would always say in the pitch is just your whole

life.

You've seen Superman shoot lasers out of his eyes.

You've never once seen how grotesque the effects of that would be on like an actual

human's body.

6,000 degrees.

Exactly.

And that was like a thing.

We were just like, that is what the show is.

They really don't fight us very much on stuff on that show.

From a content standpoint, I'm amazed at what they let us get away with. The reason I love it so much, and Chris and I will say this all the time, mid-sequence, we're like, I can't believe it's on television.
I mean, the appeal is I can't believe it's on television. Yeah, and that's like our favorite tone.
And that's like a thing we've always chased. It's a thing I was actually just talking to my wife about.
I actually think there's something about Barry was a defining moment. I can always speak personally, but I do think it was a moment where I saw things in a movie where I was like, I didn't think you could show that.
Putting cum in her hair. I always think of the first thing where you see his nuts and dick stuck in the zipper.
It's so funny because you're just like, they don't show that. And the joke is they're not showing it.
And it was still one of the funniest scenes ever, even though they aren't showing it. And then they show it.
And it was one of those things where you're looking around in the theater at the people around you, strangers. And you're just like, are we fucking seeing this? Like, is this real? Are we actually in a theater where this is happening? We've seen throughout the years when our movies are functioning the best, that is a moment we've been able to elicit from a crowd.
And that's like a thing me and Evan are always referencing. It's not like laughter and it's not cheering.
It's disbelief that people were allowed to do this thing. And that also somehow it's actually serving the overall story and the movie and the comedy.
That's like the dragon we're chasing a lot of the time when the audience is just like, are we fucking seeing this? And yeah, with the boys based on a comic. And it was one of the first things me and evan read we were just like i can't believe someone even drew this okay so the comics are is the comics are even more hardcore oh they are i would say anything we toned it down honestly and made it more comedic the comics are a little less comedic and are a little just dark and violent and gross we added a a slightly more human, you know, like it's a little over the top with the blood and the popping of the human heads, which I think adds comedy to it.
Yeah, definitely. It's so much fun to work on.
I have a weird question. Were you attracted to dangerous things when you were young? Well, he's a karate master.
Yeah, sort of. Well, that's controlled danger.
I mean, like that type of danger. I played rugby.
I wasn't adverse to danger and adrenaline. As I've gotten older, I'm very adverse to physical danger, just injury in any way.
Because of the Todd Phillips thing? Yeah, your comedy is dangerous. What you were just describing is the shock and awe and disbelief of, oh my God, we're going to do this this is bringing people along on a dangerous ride comedically, which always is the funniest, really.
It is all in service of the audience. As a fan of movies, I've felt these moments where I'm like, oh, they're fucking going for you.
Your novelty meter goes up like, oh, I'm going to actually see something new and original. Exactly.
Did you watch The Substance? I love that movie. It was so good.
And that was one of those times, honestly, recently, where I was like, holy fucking shit. I know Coralie a little bit and I think she's a genius.
Her first film, Revenge, is very, very good. I don't know if you've seen it.
I haven't. I haven't recommended it.
It's another 10 out of 10 movie. But in a movie that already showed me it's willing to go as far as anything, I never thought it would go this far.
I loved it. It's almost more rewarding, I think, the older you get because it gets harder to do that to you.
So yeah, I was sitting in the substance going like, here we go, man. I'm 18 again.
I feel like I was watching like Dead Alive or an old Sam Raimi movie or something like that where you're just like, oh my God. Yeah, those were movies we loved.
Dead Alive, which is one of Peter Jackson's first movies, is this grotesque kind of horror zombie movie that is so gross. And me and Evan would watch it and just be like, oh my God, this is what we're looking much.
This is the stuff right here. And Evil Dead and Army of Darkness and those movies, they're so gross and funny.
It's amazing the two of you have been able to continue together. And Evan's had kids.
Yeah. So they have them.
It's really amazing. Yeah.
Okay, so before you came in, it was told to me that you were hopeful I would watch all 10 episodes of the studio. It's always hopeful i go man i love them but this is a tall order that's five hours i normally have to watch someone's movie or i watch an episode or two they're half hours they're half hours yeah but i'm like man i gotta watch the whole series so of course i go into it with a little like oh fingers crossed from the bottom of my heart and sincerely, I have probably told 40 people already.
Oh, that's so nice. How much I fucking love it.
I watched two by myself. And then I said to Kristen, you've got to go watch these two and catch up because we're going now for the next five nights.
We're doing this show. And then so she too is obsessed.
I just plowed through it and I loved it. And I'm so glad I had all 10, to to be honest but i don't know what part of your dick to start sucking first i want to tease the tip a little bit the shaft is calling my name why i do this holy fuck i think the first thing i want to say is this cinematic accomplishment i did not see it coming and it's so fucking impressive let's go premise first just because I want to get to the one or so bad, but hit me with the premise of the studio.
It exists in a world where there's just kind of one other studio in Hollywood. There's like Universal and Netflix and Columbia and then there's Continental Studios, which in our world was founded a hundred years ago.
And it's in our Hollywood as we know it, except there's one other fictional studio and every other movie exists. And there's the movies that studio has made basically and in the pilot my character who's worked at the studio for decades and has always wanted to run the studio and who loves films more than anything finds himself to be the head of the studio and it's really based on our dealings with studios we've been producing a very long time and writing a long time and honestly this one sentence that was said to us by an executive many years ago was the kernel of the whole ideas.
We were getting notes on something and he goes, you know, I got into this job because I love movies and now it's my job to ruin them. And we were like, and that's honestly something we've seen a lot.
We've befriended a lot of executives over the year. We worked with great executives.
Catherine O'Hara seems a little archetype of Amy Pascal a little bit. Inspired by her role in our lives, especially as like a mentor and someone who taught us a lot.
I adore her. Oh, she's the best.
She watched the whole show. She was very nervous about it, but she loved it.
Wait, Amy. Amy Pascal used to run Columbia Sony.
And was sort of unceremoniously ousted. And unfairly.
Yes, sort of in the wake of the interview. I would be lying if I was emails came out responsible for it all happening which adds a layer to it all wow okay but since then she's become a very successful producer and it's a much better job but it's a hard transition which is something we deal with in the show and can we talk for one second because for years the president of the studio was a threatening figure for me It was who I would have to really bowl over and impress in a pitch to get them to buy it.
And then to get it greenlit was its own fiasco and so hard. And so I just had this weird relationship.
And then over the years, I've been able to step back. I imagine we feel the same way, which is might be the worst job in all of Hollywood.
Yes, exactly. Anything you do could get you fired.
So it's a constant dance of how much responsibility or ownership do I take over any given thing? Because you want to be associated with successes and not associated with failures. But you don't know which one is going to be which.
There's countless movies that everyone wrote off as bombs that become huge hits and vice versa. Things that everyone's betting on is a huge hit that becomes a bomb.
And also art and commerce are obviously big themes in Hollywood and in our lives, I would imagine. And they are truly the inflection point of those things.
And they really are the people who every day are faced with the choice of, do I support creativity or do I mitigate risk and bet on commerce? These two actors, I don't even want. No one agrees they're good, but they're going to secure me X amount for them.
They have 50 million followers. Exactly.
Or you make the dumber version of the movie and the smarter version. And it's a very fear and panic based job.
Because you could actually lose your job at any moment. I've known people that run movie studios for like six months.
18 months. Yeah, they're gone.
They're never even there to see their movies come out. No, or they don't do anything.
That's actually a strategy. A lot of people take is to do nothing.
So you can't be blamed for it. A lot of people's strategies are to come in and to try to not make movies.
It's just an all fear run job. I started getting really empathetic and sympathetic.
These people I used to kind of hate or was scared of now. I'm like, oh my God.
It's like hard to fully villainize them once you get to know them. So it was during the pandemic.
I rewatched the Larry Sanders show, which was one of my favorite shows ever when I was young. And I was just like, it'd be fun to do something kind of like this.
What's my version of this type of character who's constantly at odds with what he wants to do and what his job is making him do. He wants to make art.
He wishes he was Robert Evans in Robert Evans' time. Yeah.
No one is anymore. But a lot of studio heads are like that still currently.
It's sad, really. It is.
It's a bummer of a job. It's really sad, but it's funny.
It's like inherently was very comedic to us. We would constantly just see these people in these situations where we're just like, thank God this is them because it's so fucked up up and a lot of it is also they just want famous people to like them and they just want directors to like them and they want writers to like them and the writers and directors and actors just want something such a transactional relationship at best they like you because you're giving them things and at worst they don't because you're not or they just think you're a fucking idiot.

And a lot of them just want to be like if there's that group of people at the party talking, that's the filmmakers.

They just want to be invited into that group.

Well, the show starts with Seth's character, Matt.

You're visiting set for the first time and Pete Berg's directing.

I don't even think I've put it other than I've been directing a movie and the president stopped by and I'm just panicked. I don't want him there because I'm afraid I'm going to do a bad job in front of him.
I really underestimated how rough it is for the studio. They often don't want you there and I think that is palpable to them as well.
They just want to be there. They've killed themselves for 30 years to get this job and then they show up at their movie that they're financing and no one wants them there.
It's really sad. But you make yourself the joke of the whole movie, which is fantastic.
Back to the sensitivity thing and who you can make fun of. I think it's very fair because you're the one who's probably most embarrassing in all these situations.
Oh, for sure. And it really is tapping into my own fears.
I am a producer now. I produce more things than I act in or write.
I am often in the position where I'm like, am I making these things worse or better? Are people happy when I show up or are they bummed out when I show up? It's hard to know. It is hard to know.
And a lot of the stuff that I wanted to write about and put into the show was my own feelings of insecurity, just as someone who at times we are the people who decide which movies are getting made and which ones aren't. And we're betting on people and not other people.
And we're casting people and not other people. And it really is that fear that I'm ultimately mitigating risk as opposed to nurturing.
It's weird to be on one side of the line and transition to the other side. Identity wise.
That conflict is really something about like the character that I thought was very funny and interesting. I've put so much more work into this than anything i've done in a very long time it seems so yeah and so i really knew i wanted to be a character that i thought i could perform in a funny way but also you're very really spoke to my own your struggle you can say it my struggle book coming soon look for the german translation but yeah so all those things were really the reason that we made the show.
So you get this job, but you make this Faustian deal right out of the gates with the chairman, Bryan Cranston. He basically says, like, I will give you this fucking job if and only if you get on board with making this exciting new franchise, Kool-Aid.
Yeah. Oh.
And he's like, oh my fucking God, a fucking movie on Kool-Aid? Which isn't even that nuts. It's not crazy at all.
It's like just enough to be something. It's like one degree, stupid earth.
Probably would make a great movie the more I watch the show. Well, what's funny is in the show, we come up with like a plot for the Kool-Aid movie and we really put a lot of thought into it.
It's funny, I watched The Bear and I really like it. And that was something I would say a lot as we were making the show is like as seriously as they take cooking is as seriously as we have to take filmmaking.
We can't pretend that something would happen that wouldn't. And we can't present the audience with an idea that we are telling them people would be excited about.
But in the back of your head, you know, they wouldn't make that fucking movie or that cast wouldn't be exciting or you wouldn't be nervous talking to this person. It has to feel real also.
OK, so that's the premise. Ike Barinholtz is one rung under Seth's character.
Yeah. And fucking we just couldn't love Ike more.
Catherine Hahn is the head of marketing. These are all our favorite people.
She's so funny. What a monster she is.
She's so fucking talented. Oh, my God.
I never really worked with her. I did like a live reading with her once a few years ago and I just

always been a fan of hers. It's funny because in the script originally, that character was sort of

like the straight person, the smartest in the room, the most buttoned up. And then she came in

and was like, no, but also was like, that's not who the heads of publicity are. They know everyone.

They're kind of in on influencer culture. They're so online.
Want to be the hippest in every single thing. These archetypes are pretty consistent through all the studios.
They really are. Building up to the show, we interviewed almost every person who runs a studio in Hollywood, almost every person who runs marketing for a studio in Hollywood, people who used to run studios.
One of actually the resounding feelings from the marketing people was that they view themselves as more creative than the executives. They're like, we actually make stuff.
They do. We actually create things.
We're making commercials, content. We're thinking of posters.
We're thinking of little ads. These guys are just sitting in rooms, fucking giving notes and shit like that.
I'm sitting in front of an editing machine. They're the arbiters of good ideas and we are the creators of good ideas.
And so that was like a really funny dynamic. They have extreme ownership.
They're incredibly confident, a lot of them, which is also like the dichotomy. A lot of the executives are sort of like me.
They're kind of like nebushy Jewish people who are feigning confidence at best, but the marketing people come from sales. They have like a whole different energy.
To defend them for a minute, because that other job is so terrible. They have nothing to do with what gets made.
They actually are on the green light committee at some of the studios. That's true.
But most often they are handed a movie. They're tasked with make everyone in America.
Well, they could have directly been overruled is what happens a lot. Often they will have said, we should not make this movie.
We cannot sell it. And then they're like, uh, guess what we did anyway.
And if it fails, you're the one who's going to get fired. They got to polish a lot of turds.
Yes, for sure. That was just a very funny dynamic to add into the show.
And Catherine O'Hare is on the show. Catherine O'Hare, Canadian, fellow Canadian, legend, icon.
She's just so fucking perfect and everything. Okay.
The episode that I have to imagine you feel proudest of, I can't stop talking about is episode two. It's called The One-er.
That was a tough one. I don't want to give too much away, but I also want to whet people's appetite because it's an incredible accomplishment.
The episode's called The One-er. It starts with you and Ike driving to visit set.
We already know people do not want you to visit set and the stakes couldn't be higher because Sarah Pauly is directing a movie and they're getting a shot at magic hour, which means you have this tiny window of 40 minutes of good light. And then the shot's going to be the camera and it's going to do a one-er.
We're never going to cut. It has to be perfect.
And you guys decide to visit in that moment. Tell people what a one-er is.
It's a continuous shot. Like the most famous one, is like the one in Goodfellas where they start outside the Copacabana and they go through the kitchen and they weave their way through and they drop the table and the comedian starts.
There's no cuts. No cuts.
One long uninterrupted. And everything has to be done perfectly.
You can't fuck up once. There's no coverage for it.
It's a full commitment. The very famous one in Hit and Run.
Yeah. Very famous.
It's probably the second most famous one. But by the way, when you commit to one and it works, the fucking exhilaration beats anything you can do on a set.
Because it's a team sport. Everyone has to hit everything perfectly.
A lot of moving parts. Really cool.
They're very hard. And the show's so menace.
Also, they're acknowledging what masturbation a runner is. How no one notices how it's just for the filmmakers to get off on their own technique.
Yes. I've even heard stories about people having the existing record on the monitor that they're trying to beat.
That's funny. Yes, yes, yes.
Okay, so what's fucking impossible is the episode is also a one-er. In real life, the episode itself is a one-er about a one-er, and then all the things that are being laid out in the episode are just so fucking satisfyingly woven into the conclusion.
The whole episode is a one-er? Yeah. Well, in the whole show, every scene is a one-er on the whole show.
There's a few episodes where it's maybe only four or five shots throughout the whole thing. For 30 minutes.
That is really impressive. But also, not only are they choreographing their own one-er, which is the episode, but there's also a real-life one-er happening in the show.
Jesus Christ! It is so mind-scrambling. It's an insane accomplishment.
Thank you. It was really hard.
It's not just the one-er. It's the layers of payoff.
It's magic. Oh my God.
Holy shit. Did you direct it? Yeah, we directed the whole show.
We wrote the show knowing it would be one-ers. It wasn't like a thing we just decided when we showed up.
And for that episode especially, we had to really block basically the entire episode and the days leading up to it, but not with the actors. So like me and Evan, who I direct with and the writers, we only had access to this house for like two days before we started shooting it.
And so as they were rigging the house, we just would walk through it and really try to block it. What we would do is we could only actually shoot for a rounded hour a day because of the light.
So we could only shoot between 5 and 6 p.m. basically.
So everyone would show up in the morning and we would rehearse whatever that day's chunk was. And they were eight or nine minute chunks.
There's very little trickery in that episode. Oh, yeah, yeah.
It seemed like you had three cuts. Yeah, exactly.
There's like three or four cuts total in the whole thing. Which you can't tell.
They're stitched beautifully. Chris and I, we were even arguing.
I'm like, probably there was a hood mount on the car that was somehow easily detached. Yeah, that's exactly what it was.
Oh, thank God. I just won one argument.
We would do visual effects to erase rigging. That's like a trick we would do a few times.
That's what Chris said. Well, it'd be on the hood.
There's a lot of sleight of hand involved. This is a cinephile's fucking whack-off session.
Yeah, exactly. Like, we were geeking out.
It was so fun for us. It was just like the opposite of how we were always brought up making movies.
It was always about two cameras, improv. We'll figure it out editorially later.
We were like, what if we do the exact opposite? And we are painting ourselves into this corner that we cannot paint ourselves out of. Because there's 15 actors in that episode that all have lines.
If one person forgets their line nine minutes into a take, it's back to the car. Oh, the Golden Globes one was the hardest because of the amount of people.
That has a lot of long shots in it, but there's also 400 extras in every single scene. So my question about that episode is, did you guys piggyback on when the show was actually? No, we created our own Golden Globes.
That's another episode we shot at four days because we couldn't have that room for very long. And we had to load in and load out in the same week.
But no, we threw the Golden Globe. No, it's a full Golden Globe.
So that shows has to be functioning as a real Golden Globe show in the background. Oh yeah, we had to cast so many people and the choreography of it was unbelievably complicated.
But it's funny because as we were doing it, we're like, I don't even know if the average person will be able to articulate what is happening here the energy of it i think is what we were excited about well okay so another achievement of the show is you have fucking plot a lot of comedies really don't have plot they don't have an engine and these fucking episodes every one of them are so stressful the tension is thriving throughout the whole show And that's because of the oners. Yeah.
It's because you're never cutting. And I think it's also because it never settles into a rhythm of cutting back.
There's no breathing between two people. We were always like the tone should be stress and panic.
It is. And there's only a stories in the episode, which I think was also conducive to that type of storytelling is we're never cutting between you set up my story and I'm doing this thing and you set up Mike's story and he's doing this thing.
The stories are all singular. And so that also helps with the singular camera and the singular style of being in the room with the characters from like a writing standpoint.
You know, it's funny. I did these table reads.
It's actually where I met Catherine Hahn for the Netflix is a joke festival a few years ago. We did a live reading of Seinfeld scripts.
Oh, I remember this. I was Jerry and Aziz Ansari was George and Jack Black was Kramer and Catherine Hahn was.
Oh my God. And I feel like in reading them, it was like the Rosetta Stone or something like that.
It's all the structure math and it's not even the jokes. It's the order of the scenes and the raising of the stakes.
That to me is what I would want to do with a show. It's like true situational comedy.
And then also the score, you have this like chaotic jazz and that's fucking nerving you up to no end. It's like never rhythmic.
That's what we'd always tell the composer. We're just like, never have it settle into a rhythm.
Whenever it feels rhythmic, it would get boring. Always make it a little off and uneasy.
It really is stressful. So driving home the night of the episode, The One-er, did you get a burst of elation? I was pretty happy.
You could also watch it the next day. You don't have to wait for an editor to assemble it.
Yeah, exactly. I was honestly really nervous about how we were shooting the show.
And I would talk to my wife, Lauren, a lot about it. And I talked to Evan a lot about it.
The first few weeks, especially, I was just like, are we fucking up? Are we making a mistake? Are we so up our own fucking asses with this that we're just sacrificing comedy? That was my real fear. I was like, are we making it less funny in service of this style? And I kept being like, no, I really think we thought of this because it would be additive to the tone and the comedy.
And then I saw it cut together and I was like, thank fucking God. And I was so excited about it.
So happy by it. And yeah, when we finished the Wonder episode, I was really happy.
And Sarah Pauly is someone I've known a very long time. I was in a movie she directed 15 years ago or something like that.
And she's such a funny person and such a funny actor. Go was one of mine and Evan's favorite movies.
It was inspirational to us. It's wild and frenetic.
Exactly. I think Pineapple Express is very inspired by Go and Dawn of the Dead.
I was just always a huge fan of hers. And then I worked with her and I'm just like, she's one of the funniest fucking people I've ever been around.
But again, you have a non-actor in this kind of high stakes situation where she's going to have to hit all of her beats really well. And she like nailed it.
She couldn't have been funnier. Yeah, that was the thing with the show.
We have a lot of non-actors on this show, filmmakers, writers, directors. That was another fear I had where it's like we're taking these non-actors and essentially asking them to do like the hardest thing.
Now you got to be a part of this seven minute scene. Yeah, a play.
If you literally say one word wrong, we have to start over. And we got to have minute reset.
Sometimes, yeah. Literally, we got to get back in the car.
No, this is so stressful. Try back up the block.
You're breaking shit all the time. I'll try a pick.
I'm falling. There's thumps in the show.
Oh my God. So what you were saying, you did become like a real team effort.
And those are also my least favorite moments on sets often is just you're sitting on an Apple box. The crew guys are on their phone because it's just, okay, now it's this shot.
Now it's this shot. One out of 200 people feel like they're working.
And that's kind of the person who's on camera. Then I've been in some movies.
I got to be in a Steven Spielberg movie and he had these very elaborate shots sometimes where it was like, oh no, it's all going to play in this one shot. And I would just see how the whole crew would come together and be so psyched about it.
You're right. People rarely all do their job at the same time.
Exactly. It's why people like doing theater because it's everyone coming together.
And in this, even if you had two lines in the scene, it was so fun. You didn't feel like you were just window dressing or just waiting for your part.
You were a part of a huge scene. And that was another reason that it was partially procedurally alluring to us.
Yes. So I think there's a lot of ways you can be a good director.
I really, I think, have grown a better understanding of what is needed to accomplish these things and how much time it'll actually take and how much preparation it will actually take. And so we're very prepared and it would get very discouraging at times, the shooting style, where we would joke often that until sometimes like the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth take of these long sequences, it's just not even fucking close.
And we would be looking at each other being like, is this the one that like we can't do? And sometimes it's just the camera has to like latch on to the car and the fucking magnet keeps fritzing out. We're relying on technology to do what we want that isn't as reliable as you would hope it is sometimes.
And sometimes it's just an actor keeps like missing the thing or tripping over the thing. Can you imagine if you fucked up your line twice? No.
I feel comfortable saying this because he's my dear friend, but David Krummholtz is in a few episodes of the show. And there's a very complicated sequence of me entering the Golden Globes.
It literally starts in the limo and then then I walk the whole red carpet. And I walk through the whole.
He's got a two joke. He's got to hit you with.
Exactly. And then I walk through the ballroom.
I'm interacting with a bunch of people throughout it. Adam Scottson and Ike and O'Hara and all these people.
And the last moment is me and Krumholtz. And it's like a three line exchange.
And there's 500 extras, cars, limos, all this shit. And he's just got nine minutes sitting in a chair waiting to fuck up his line.
But he's probably going to tell. Exactly.
More and more nervous. He sees the machine like coming towards him.
He's like, he might be holding his side somewhere. Yes.
You like see a train rolling down the tracks. And I will say God bless him because I would tell the actors, look, if you genuinely think you've thought of something that is better than what we've written or additive and it comes to you in the moment, I want you to do it because I don't want it to be too rigid and I want it to feel alive.
But just know if it's not good, it's fucked up everything. Workshop it in the makeup trailer.
I'm trusting you to gauge in your own head whether or not you think i will think it's good enough oh my god to warrant this risk you're taking and dave several times was just improvising stuff and even he would do it we would cut and he would just look at my face and be like i should have said that he is one of my favorites and he's spectacular in your show he's so good on the show he's one's one of the best. And then he nailed it.
I think some of our moments are some of the best moments of the show. And we would put him in it more after that because it is so alive.
And you do feel like I don't quite know what he's going to do. And at its worst, the show in the earlier takes, that was always to me the scary zone is we would start to get it, but it would just feel sort of rigid because everyone was too focused on hitting the mark and the timing and the camera point in the wrong place.
And that's why it's good to have agents of chaos like Dave in there. Yeah.
In some ways, just can't say the lines the same way twice. And Han was like that too.
She would just say other stuff and you could see there's like a moment where everyone's like, oh no, is this going to cause a major problem? But then that becomes its own fun thing for you to play with, right? Very much so. You're scared the whole time.
Your character's always scared. Actually stressed out.
Actually, like quite on edge that we're not going to get it. Oh, there's something so kids in a playground about it.
That's what was also fun about it. It's like, it is how kids film things.
You just point the camera at who's talking and you walk around and that's it.

And so there is that energy.

It did feel a lot like that.

It's a cool way to keep yourself interested after year 30.

It's like you got to do something to wake yourself up a little bit.

No, definitely.

I'm afraid of the next show you do.

Yeah, exactly.

Underwater.

What are we going to do?

You know what I heard is impossible?

It's underwater.

It's all in space.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by ZipRecruiter.
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At 24, I lost my narrative, or rather it was stolen from me. And the Monica Lewinsky that my friends and family knew was usurped by false narratives, callous jokes, and politics.
I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately you triumph in finding it again.
So I think listeners can expect me to be chatting with folks, both recognizable and unrecognizable names, about the way that people have navigated roads to triumph. My hope is that people will finish an episode of reclaiming and feel like they filled their tank up.
They connected with the people that I'm talking to

and leave with maybe some nuggets that help them feel a little more hopeful.

Follow Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Reclaiming early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus

in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Me and Evan, we kept saying as we were doing it, we're like, this is one of the most creatively invigorating things we've done since we made Superbad.
How long did it take you from start to finish writing it and then shooting it and finishing it? I was shooting The Fablemans when I first thought of it. So that was two and a half years ago or something like that.
And then it maybe took six months for us to start writing it. And then I think it took like a year of writing because we wrote the whole show basically.
And then we shot the whole show. So not that long, actually, like on the grand scale of things.
No, with how intricate it is and how well done it is, amount of time would not have shocked me yeah okay i hope you're able to do this so the fucking appearances are one after another like martin scorsese's in it steve buscemi ron howard's in it charlie's thrones and zach afren's olivia wilde's in it ice cubes in it it never stops and when i, I'm so happy for you. Because to me, that is this crazy reflection of what you've built.
You can call Martin Scorsese and he'll show up and do your thing. Call his manager.
Ultimately, he has to say yes. I've never met Martin Scorsese before.
There's a lot of accomplishments on display. There's the technical accomplishment.
There's the writing. There's the life story of you and Evan.
But also there's the goodwill. Yes.
What you've built goodwill wise. Really, it's all there.
Part of my whole thesis in general is to try to over deliver. I don't take any success for granted.
When we made this the end and all these things, we were just like, give people more than they're expecting. Don't tell them it's Hollywood and then have a few people and try to sell that as Hollywood.
So that was something for us that was very important is we were like, if it's going to be about Hollywood, you have to believe that these are the people a studio head would be excited by, intimidated by, wanting to impress, wanting to befriend the actual people who are in movies and we're not trying to tell you, yeah, this guy's in a movie. This is the Tom Cruise of this show.
Exactly. We really didn't want to do that.
And Larry Sanders, again, was a thing that was hugely inspirational for that. Because as a kid, I remember Sean Penn's on it and Jim Carrey's on it and Tom Petty's on it and Elvis Costello's on it and all these great comedians and actors are on it.
And I was like, that's part of the fun of it. They got them.
And it feels real as a result. There's so many that Kristen said to me mid episode.
Do you ever start feeling offended you're not in something? The whole time we're just like, I just hope this is easier. She's also an acting robot.
She would have killed those waters. She's built for a water.
Also, we didn't want to only do people that we know and that we work with and they're kind of like associated with us. So it was kind of a mix of people that we didn't even know that well.
Do you have a relationship with Scorsese? I met him once for two seconds before this. It was a cold call.
We really tried to make the roles good. Honestly, that was like a big part of it was even if you had one joke, we wanted it to be like a great moment and to not feel like you're just kind of there.
And they're not just like extras in the scene. Everyone has to have a moment that they can really sink their teeth into.
But it was really hard. And we spent a ton of time rewriting the scripts for people.
They want it to be good. And once they commit to it, they're like, OK, what if I do this? It was always very welcome.
Everyone that came had some leverage. Everyone has leverage.
You want them to think it's funny. And that's the other thing is we're always just like, we want you to be excited about this.
Like, we don't want you to feel like you're doing us a favor. We want you to feel like you're getting to do a thing that you think is cool.
It was by far one of the biggest challenges of the show was to get all these people and to schedule it and to not let them down, honestly. Did you find to direct these huge people were you like oh fuck i gotta tell yes i have to tell martin scorsese what it was different talking to the actors is the thing i struggle with most as a director and it's also because i'm an actor in the scenes and some actors just don't like to be directed by the other actors me and olivia wilde were talking about me and evan would kind of do like a good cop bad cops thing i would be in the scenes and be like great perfect and then I'd go to Evan and be like tell her to slow down she's not hitting her mark she's not saying the sign properly and she actually was the only one that clued into it but it's really hard I had to do a thing with Michael Peña and I didn't figure this out until like two weeks into shooting because we're in every single scene together and I'm directing it and about two weeks in it occurred to me he doesn't hear me give myself a note all he hears is me say something to him so like two weeks in i go i need you to know after these takes i go like that was too slow i gotta speed it up i give myself notes and then i come to you i just want you to know i don't think i'm doing it perfectly i'm berating myself and then i go on to you i would have a hard time doing it alone having a partner makes it much easier i think in a lot of ways because they got to be a little suspicious like how the fuck do you know what happened he's inside the scene with me i I think that to you.
I would have a hard time doing it alone. Having a partner makes it much easier, I think, in a lot of ways.
Because they got to be a little suspicious. Like, how the fuck does he know what happened? He's inside the scene with me.
A thing that would happen is the people I was in the scenes with could tell what I just was dropped out of. Because I was also very aware where the camera was and what it was capturing at all times.
So there'd be times I would just see like, oh, the camera guy, he just missed it. You started talking too soon.
So that's easy to call cut on. But I think the thing that would be hard, how on earth did you manage when someone did a shitty delivery of a line, minute one of a five minute one? Or did you go like, oh, I'll just go through to the end or will I just be brave right now and say cut? It depends what take it was.
Because also you got to navigate just not bumming people out. Yes.
And that's something me and Evan talked a lot about. And that's something we actually learned a lot of improvisational comedy is it's a fine line between directing improv and just shutting people down.
Sometimes we would let people go on these runs for 10 minutes where we're just like, this isn't going to be in the fucking movie. But like, they seem to really think it's funny.
We'll get 10 other good things out of them today because we didn't tell them this. And so that was math that would happen in our heads.
Sometimes it was a hard reset. I would stop early because I would just know like, oh, once this happens, it's going into a new zone.
But that was something we were constantly navigating. Well, this is the most I've ever talked about a show when someone was promoting a show, but I have still yet a couple more questions.
Great. One is the other thing that I became hyper aware of is your own aesthetic, or at least what I think is your aesthetic, is really on fire.
Every single house we go to is an architectural masterpiece. I complimented Seth's outfit when he got here.
It's very nice. Are those Bottega shoes? They are.
Yes, yes, very nice. He's like a little style boy.
You can do that when you don't have kids. You can spend all your money on clothes.
Couches and clothes. It's a thing I'm sort of making fun of myself with.
I like all that stuff. Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes. And then, of course, for me, I got hyper-focused on all the cars.
So every episode, Matt Remick is driving a different 60s. Oh, my God.
A different old car. There's an MG.
Then there's an old Merc. Then he's in a 53 Vette.
You don't have a car thing, though, do you? I do like old cars. I don't have like a collection of old cars.
Do you have any old cars? I have a Carmen Ghia. That's perfect for you.
Yes. Yeah.
And I have a Studebaker Lark. Not the one in the show, but I have one like that one that we drive in the Wonder.
Have you ever ride an Avante? Yeah, those are amazing. I like those.
Oh, I'll add to the complexity. He's driving these old fucking 70-year-old cars that are all stick shifts up, even in the Warner episode.
Getting in the driveway for real. I'm starting to think, he's got his hands full.
He's directing this thing. I'm just driving that car.
And I'm driving so fast in that episode. Ike was so scared the whole time we were doing it.
And you have a look on your face when you drive. I started clocking it.
You almost like lick your lips as you're navigating. There's a giant fucking camera.
You can't see. I can't see.
You're in an irreplaceable car. If you fuck it up, you're down for the day.
It's what we made. This is the end, honestly.
We were designing the house for the movie to be set in. And at first, the joke was like, it's a douchey over the top, overly stylish house.
And by the end, I was just like, oh no, I just made my dream house. Yes, yes.
You're like Nancy Meyers in this way. It worked in both ways though.
To the average viewer, it was a douchey over the top house. And to me, it was my dream house.
And so that philosophy carried through. Me and Evan joked about a lot.
A lot of my memories in Hollywood are being in beautiful places with beautifully dressed people screaming at each other about the stupidest shit ever. And that was like an energy we wanted to capture.
It's glamorous and it's institutional and it's been here for decades and great architects have built these homes that people live in and they're these beautiful homes. And then you're in there just like screaming at each other about like how much of the guy's balls you can show in the movie.
Amy Pascal, this like gorgeous architectural house and the studios are very beautiful. Is this real? No, we built that completely.
Okay, I got really angry because we're watching it. And you seem to be on Warner Brothers for lots of this show.
And there's a Frank Lloyd Wright building. In the show, the ideas that Frank Lloyd Wright designed the main offices.
In the Mayan period. Yeah, exactly.
It's like Mayan revival. So I was like, I fucking worked on that lot for two years and I missed it.
There's a Frank Lloyd Wright building. I was angry.
I was beating myself up for having missed that. So that's entirely fabricated.
Entirely fake. Thank God.
Because I could see where it was positioned and I was like, it's where the Warner Brothers is. Yeah, you kind of buy into it.
It's like, oh yeah, I could see that. It was part of the idea of making it seem like old and monumental a lot of these studios are gorgeous the paramount offices are beautiful the columbia offices are these like art deco marvels so much artistic thought went into the building and then inside they're making decisions of all time they're so bucking against any creative freedom as they're standing in these like cathedrals of cinema that people were given free reign to make beautiful but i'm just a huge architecture fan and i love franklade right buildings in la especially and they are all this mine revival but there's a great documentary about franklade right and it talks about how all of his buildings in los angeles are essentially uninhabitable because he had suffered like a terrible family tragedy before he came to la and they are all very tomb like this one right down the street the uh black dolllly house yeah exactly constantly being renovated they have like a sarcophagus-esque vibe to them and to us that was a funny work environment for a lot of reasons because it feels very old and it feels like we're trying to uphold this days that have gone by institution we're like encased in this tomb basically a big cement blob but it's also kind of beautiful and all the houses in the show are John Lautner houses, who is a student of Frank Lloyd Wright.
A lot of his houses are in movies. In Lethal Weapon 2, the Garcia house is a John Lautner house.
So yeah, we also like this idea that it was an architect whose work is in film. And a lot of the music in the show is from other movies.
Chinatown. Yeah, we use the Chinatown score.
We use the long goodbye music. I also started adding up your budget as I was watching.
I was like, yeah, he got a nice. It was pretty good.
This show. This show's not a cheap show.
Just keep buying those iPhones. Exactly, right? I always ask this when we have people on who are in creative partnerships where one person's more of the face.
How were the face? And same with Ike and Dave. Has there ever been tension there? No.
He doesn't give a fuck. It occurred to me on this interview, Monica, I was like, it's time the next time Seth's here, get Evan in here.
Yeah, would he be up for that? Totally. I was like, is this our starting to feel immoral for us to not include Evan? Whenever I'm on Howard Stern, he's also fascinated with Evan and he's always like, what is his deal? The fact that Evan has no desire to be in front of the camera, I think is an instrumental

part of our dynamic and that he is not jealous.

If anything, he's like, I'm so glad I don't have to do all the stuff that I have to do

as the performer in the things.

Because sometimes that gets tricky.

We had also Phineas with Billy, obviously.

I was like, how are you guys doing it in a way that, but some people just don't care. But it's also reflective of us personally.
Well, yeah, of course I do. Of course I find it interesting.
Because it's not that easy for us. It's a little more complicated, I think.
I know so many partnerships that have broken up over the years and more than haven't, actually. I know a lot of teams that have split up.
We had a therapist actually say to us we were producing a show. Things are getting real hairy for a second there.
She looked at us and she said, you guys are in the Beatles. Look what you guys get to do and what you make.
Don't break up. Don't fuck it up.
That's really great. Thank you for saying that out loud.
Yes, that's true. It's true, but when you're in it, you can feel like, I'm not getting this recognition.
I'm not getting this. I could see for Evan or Dave or for Phineas, like, no one knows what I'm doing.
Maybe they don't. But it's interesting because Phineas doesn't have that.
Some people have it. He knows damn well what he's doing.
Yeah, Evan too. He doesn't care at all.
He does get a lot of credit for a lot of stuff. I'm sure he's got a really nice house.
He'll probably leave his kids some money. Exactly.
Well, Phineas said something really interesting. He said, actually, I get attention, but it matters that Billy gives me the recognition.
If she wasn't doing it, then yeah, I'd have a problem with it. If within the partnership, there wasn't that acknowledgement.
Definitely. I feel very fortunate about it.
And it's not lost on us. We recognize it.
We are like, isn't it great that we still like each other and we still work together well. And his life is very different than mine in many ways.
And we've found ways to navigate that. You know, he has kids and I act sometimes.
We both have things that pull us away from just writing and directing together, but we've never really had any issue. I feel very lucky about it.
It's very fortunate. Okay.
Last question in the show, you're acknowledging the real context of our industry, which is like movies are harder and harder to get to make money. It's just gotten more stressful.
They make less movies, less of them work. The whole thing's terrifying.
You perfectly pivoted into TV. And and i wonder do you consciously do that or did it just accidentally happen when i look at a lot of your peers you somehow went perfectly into doing virtually what you were doing in movies and tv it was sort of conscious i think what's good is we are also able to keep making movies just in a different way than we did before yeah but like making a 30 million dollar comedy that's going $120.
That's just off the table. Ninja Turtles to us is a movie that we can write that's like a high school comedy that is really fun and we love it.
But in order to make that movie now, it has to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah.
And it's a lot of ideas that we would put into any movie, but it's just like, oh. Or Barbie for me.
That's a comedy. That's a straight up comedy.
I think we've always been realistic as to what the market wants and can bear. We may knock it up and super bad, but very quickly we were like, we got to add machine guns and car chases to this shit or it's going to start to feel the same.
And after that, we're like, oh, we got to add like demons and monsters and meta celebrity in order for this to feel new and relevant. I don't know if we've ever spent that much time lamenting the trends and instead have tried to really see what is working and work through that.
So with television, that for sure was like a conscious thing. We're like, oh, now you can do shit in television.
That used to be the stuff we did in movies. It's different, but it's kind of the same.
Yeah, now on the other side of all of it, and as much as I lamented the disappearance of all that, and I suffered, I've made movies that didn't work in this fucking era. I also recognize I am so glad The Boys isn't a movie.
Yeah. So on the other side of it, have you found making TV is just as fun or even more? I mean, we had so much fun with this show.
I've always been able to really wrap my head around writing movies. And I actually think writing TV and movies are very different, as is evidenced by the fact that there are brilliant TV writers who write terrible movies and brilliant movie writers who make terrible TV shows.
They are not the same skill set. And I actually did always find I struggled to be a meaningful contributor on a lot of our TV shows because I think the thing that I had a hard time wrapping my head around was this seven hour movie idea.

And then with the studio,

one of the big revelations for me

was like, no,

it is not a serialized show.

It's very episodic.

Oh, I can actually really wrap my head

around one 30 minute movie,

basically something

with a beginning, middle

and a setup and a payoff.

That's the thing

that is exciting about television

is you can sort of create

your own type of narrative

and they're just much more open to risk. I mean, in the 80s, maybe this would have been a movie in the 70s, but this was conceived of for TV, knowing this is not at all the type of thing that they would make into a movie, but this is exactly the kind of thing that they would make into a well-budgeted TV show.
But we still have movie ideas. We are working on movies and we would like to keep making movies, but we just try to be realistic.
I saw one of them days with Kiki Palmer and SZA. Yeah.
And it was fucking hilarious and it did well. R-rated comedy.
I saw it in the full theater and I was like, it works. It can still work.
I just saw Judd give an interview where he was saying like, if The Hangover came out today, it would fucking annihilate. I think it's a trend.
I do think it ebbs and flows. There are moments where all seems lost.
And then Barbie comes out. And then a movie comes out where you're like, oh no, like people are into this stuff.
But also I'm watching Fall Guy and I'm like, this movie is flawless. It's got everything you would ever want.
This thing should make half a billion dollars. It's just too expensive.
That's the thing you have to be smart about also. And that's the thing we've always tried to really consider is you have to be realistic about what your movie costs and what you're asking of people.
You know, if I was making was essentially a romantic comedy, I would not spend 80, 90, a hundred million dollars on it. I'd spend like 20, 30 million dollars on it.
That's always been part of our philosophy, but we're never as existential about it, I feel like, as some people get. Because I think I've personally seen these trends ebb and flow just throughout the time I've been here.
You know, and like Sandler makes movies that are on Netflix, but they're great. And people love them.
And if I was out to dinner with Aziz and we just were talking about comedy and the waitress was there. And she's like, who's the best comedian alive right now? Adam Sandler.
Without skipping a second. She said it or you guys? She said it.
She said it. We were like we don't get an obligatory nod.
We're right in front of you. Those things give me hope.
People still like these things. People always will want a comedy movie.
Just the system has crumbled a little bit. When I was younger you could write a funny, they would buy it and then cast it.
That doesn't happen very much anymore. Now they want you to have everyone attached, but actors don't want to get attached.
Kind of rightfully so, because you're exposing yourself. And if you attach yourself to a thing and no one buys it, then you could feel as though that's a knock on your career.
You don't have any capital. Exactly.
But also, that shouldn't be the system. The studio should just buy into the idea of it.
Buy this crib if they like it. And trust me, once that movie exists and is going to be made, you will be able to cast it.
Actors who are great, who know it's a real thing, who aren't exposing themselves and their name instead of studios doing what they should do, which is buy and develop films and then decide which ones to make and then cast them and hire directors and make them. That system has gone away a little bit.
And I think that's out of just pure terror and risk mitigation and panic and all the stuff that is in the show. And it's people thinking that that will give them a more sure bet, but it's also negating the entire system that's in place of like executives developing ideas that are hopefully good and working with talent that is hopefully good well i love it man i'm so glad that i got to see all that's so nice i feel very lucky it comes out on march 26th on apple plus and it's spectacular this is number three, and I can't wait for number four.

We'll get Evan in here.

Yeah.

We have space.

You do.

Yes.

Tell him there's a seat waiting for him.

All right.

Well, thanks for coming in.

Thanks for having me.

That was great.

Hi there.

This is Hermian Permian.

If you like that, you're going to love the fact check with Miss Monica.

Oh.

Okay.

Oh!

Oh my gosh.

You're excited because you're getting a boat today.

Not today, but...

Oh, you're getting a boat.

By the time this is out.

It's Christmas for this little boy and he's so excited. For the gearhead, I'm going to have my first pontoon boat.
You're very excited. It's gorgeous.
I can't. Monica, the leaps that have been made in the pontoon world.
Wow. I could bore you for hours.
Then, see, Sim. Why? Because by the time you got your boat, it's the best.
It's much better. Don't look at me like that.
Oh, I got you. I thought you were saying by the time I get it, like I receive it tomorrow.
But yes, by the time I got in the market for, yes, there was a huge leap forward. Let me hit you with some of the feature.
Okay, let's hear it. Pontoon.
I grew up on a pontoon boat. Dave Barton, my sweet stepdad, he had himself a pontoon boat.
Two steel pontoons on the bottom. What is a pontoon? A pontoon's a big steel...
Rod. What would I say? Pontoon.
I mean, I don't know what other word to use. If you could picture a kayak.
Okay. But completely sealed and it's stainless steel.
Oh, okay. Or aluminum.
And you have two in the water and then there's a flat deck. So it doesn't have like a hull.
It's not made out of fiberglass like a normal boat. It's just got these two pontoons and then a big flat deck on top.
They're ideal for maximum passengers. Right.
But what I got is called a tri-tune, Monica. They've added a third pontoon in the middle of the boat.
It's very buoyant. And then it has these little runners on the side that actually lifted out of the water at speed.
So less drag. Barton's pontoon, which this was standard.
You generally have like a 50 horsepower Johnson outboard motor. That sounds lovely.
And you'd go, it could maybe go 13 miles an hour. Oh, that sounds great.
I thought you just said 50 miles. With a tailwind.
That's Barton's boat. But now we're up to tri-tune with the elevation.
Mine has a 400-horsepower V10 on the back. So eight times the amount of motor that Barton's.
So how fast is it going to go? I think it'll go about 55 miles an hour. I thought you just said his went 50 miles an hour.
15, 13. That's why I got you.
With a tailwind. One, five, not five, zero.
It sounded like 50. Full ski rig on it so I can pull skiers, tubers, everything you used to want a speedboat for is available on this with 13 passengers.
Wow. Oh, money.
The sound system is off the charts. We're going to be dancing on this motherfucker.
That's really fun. Oh.
Bo culture is. I'm new to it.
You're not new to it. Well, I'm not new to it, but as an owner.
Sure. Sure.
Shout out Ken Kennedy. He's my.
He's my brains. I'm like, I'm getting a pontoon.
He's like, well, you need. These are the two brands.
Then he found one. He's like, this one's pretty perfect.
So you got to get the easy top. I'm going to have one more thing that'll bore everyone to tears.
The pain of owning a boat. Anyone who owns one will know.
We can't talk about the negative. I'm going to.
The worst part of owning a boat is that when you're done driving it, you have to take the cover and put it back over so that the cabin's completely covered. And there's all these snaps and it never fits right.

And it's like a fucking 15-minute ordeal every time you get off the boat.

So then you get lazy and you go, I'm going back out in a couple hours.

I'm not going to put the cover on.

And then you don't put the cover on.

And then the interior of the boat just gets destroyed and you're slowly destroying this

boat.

It's the big problem with owning a boat.

Mine has an easy cover.

Monica, it's a remote control.

So when we're driving, I have three options, Bimini. I can have the front of the boat in shade, the back fully exposed to sun, if that's your jam.
The back fully shaded in the front, open to sun, bathing. Or full open, so total shade.
And then when I get back, I hit a button. The whole fucking top drops down and seals the whole top as if I put the cover on and snapped it with a button.
That's really privileged. It's so privileged.
And it didn't exist five years ago. Exactly.
I waited just long enough to get into this pontoon game. I think one of the best things in life is to have experts in your life.
I mean, this is, I guess, what we've accumulated over the past seven years. It's part of the joy.
You get experts in your life in different areas. So you always have some.
I mean, you don't like asking for help, but I love asking for help. And I like asking the smartest, best, most knowledgeable person for help.
Yeah. So it's just accumulating a mass of people who are the best.
Saves you a lot of time. So much.
In fact, last night, I reached out to someone, an expert, a medical expert. Oh.
that we met here in this job for help with an important question. Perimenopause question? No.
Okay. But I am going to text Mary Claire.
Something did come up that I was like, ooh, I need to ask her about that. How receptive were they? Extremely.
Ah. Nicest.
Okay, I guess I'll say it. I wonder if I should say it.
Yeah. I think I can.
So I was listening to, nobody's listening, right, Elizabeth and Andy. Elizabeth was telling a story about her taking her son to urgent care.
The doctor comes in, and the description of the doctor is very unsettling. Okay.
Extremely. Beard, eye patch, and a hook? I think would be better.
Okay. I mean, I've been watching a lot of The Pit and ER.
Yeah, and ER. So I'm in this.
I'm like, I know what's going on. Yes.
He has a drug problem. Okay, sure.
I really do think so. Oh, okay.
He was like over his scrubs wearing this like puffy vest. It was all stained.
Oh, fuck. And then he was wearing a mask.
His mask was stained. Oh, Jesus.
And then he was like incoherent. Okay.
CTE. Probably.
Yeah. So anyway, she is telling this story.
And I was like, oh, my God. And so I texted her and I said, Elizabeth, you need to report him.
Oh, report him. Yeah.
That's probably right. I just think, because she obviously has the ability to say like, I'm going to get my kid out of here and I'm going to take him to another doctor.
But a lot of people there don't. Yeah.
And they're just going to have to take this doctor at face value. And so I texted Elizabeth.
I said, I really, not to scare you, but I think you need to report this. I'm watching ER and like it's bad.
Yeah, and also the pit. And Chicago Hope.
Oh my God, something so excited happened. I thought I was done with the pit.
Like I thought it was over and it's not. It's ongoing? Yes.
Oh my gosh. So then I got to watch another episode.
Oh, congratulations. Thank you.
I was so excited. Anyway, so I DM'd a old guest of ours and said, what do I do if, yeah, is there a way to report? He helped me.
He gave me some resources. Oh, good.
So I sent them to Elizabeth. We'll see.
TBD. Speaking of ER.
Yeah, you were. Continue.
When you're the one speaking of it, you can just continue speaking of it. I wasn't speaking of it.
It came up so naturally. Literally, but what have I said? Speaking of pontoon boats.
Okay, so speaking of ER. Guess who was on? I posted about this.
Oh, Dr. Adam.
Dr. Adam.
Dr. Adam Scott.
Dr. Adam Scott.
He was a little patient in there. He was only in like the very beginning of the episode.
Was he great, of course? Of course he's great. But he's so young.
And I was staring and I was like, is that Adam? He had a neck brace on and he was being brought in. So it was kind of hard to tell.
Yeah. And so I had to wait till the credits to double check and it was him.
And then you did a freeze frame and a photo and a post. Of course.
Yeah, naturally. He's a friend of the pod.
Gotta promote his episode of ER. Yeah.
And in the episode before that, another friend of the pod, Bradley Whitford. Saddest episode of top three saddest episodes of ER total.
Okay. Ding, ding, ding.
Bradley Whitford was on an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that they were watching yesterday. Oh! That show is way, way funnier than I had guessed it was.
It's quite, quite, quite funny. It's a very good show.
Mike Schur. He doesn't fuck up.
No. Speaking of Mike Schur.
Speaking of ER. Speaking of Mike Schur.
I was watching ER last night. Have you guys seen the show Adolescence that's on Netflix? Oh, so it keeps getting recommended to me.
Have you watched it? I've seen half of it. It's all oners also.
It's one hour oners. And isn't it like really intense?

It's about a boy that, like 13 year old boy that stabs a little girl.

And it's his dad like dealing with it.

Yes, I've heard.

There's all these articles that say it's flawless.

Okay, I'm going to do it.

Maybe when I'm driving the bus home, I'll plow through the whole season. It seems a little intense to watch while you're driving.
Four episodes only. Oh, it's only four episodes.
Hour long. Okay.
So that'll get me 280 miles. Why don't you just watch it tonight? Because I have to get in the car at 5 a.m.
tomorrow to go to the airport. So I'm not going to watch anything tonight.
Why don't you just try? Okay. I'll watch it tonight.
Okay. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
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Okay. Okay.
Let's get serious. Let's get serious.
Seth Rogen. Yeah, she's so serious.
I love Seth Rogen. Me too.
Okay, now, does History of Violence have staircase sex? Yes. Top 10 movies that have stair sex.
Oh, okay, great. Now, I think it's worth us revisiting.
You did bring up that you'd rather have sex on a unicycle than on the stairs. Absolutely.
And not only would I rather, it's a personal goal. You want to.
Once I thought of it. Yeah.
I would love that. Yeah.
Talk about a high wire act. I mean, the stakes would be so high.
If everyone reached orgasm in that dynamic, I bet it would be explosive because you'd be scared you're going to fall and get a concussion. Okay, I just feel like you wouldn't be able to fully let yourself go.
That's the challenge. Okay, yeah.
History of violence. Close enough to touch.
Never heard of it. A woman in the mirror.
X deal. I know, I am worried they're points.
I'm worried about that, but I don't know. Spanish fly.
Okay, let's talk about Spanish fly. Okay, teach us about Spanish fly because I didn't know what it was.
You didn't know what Spanish fly was. And you taught me.
And Spanish fly, and again, there's got to be very, very clear about this. This was not, this is an urban legend.
Yeah, it's not real. All growing up, I knew about Spanish fly.
And it wasn't a drug that would knock women out so you could rape them. Let's just be very clear.
It's, it was, it was not, um, it's not roofie. This was a magic pill you would give girls that would make them super horny and they would find you irresistible.
Yeah. It's more like a witchy thing.
Yeah. Like a love spell and probably still some deception.
But anyways, that's a, yeah, that's a urban legend that there's a pill. And then the other one that I was always told growing up, most of my brother told me this, is that actors to prevent getting erections took saltpeter.

And I don't know if saltpeter is real and it really does prevent you from getting an erection.

Rob, will you do a perfunctory search of saltpeter?

Tassium nitrate, component of gunpowder.

Gunpowder? It's been used to prevent blowing of hard cheeses. Prevented from what? Blowing up hard cheeses? Blowing of hard cheeses.
What makes hard cheese soft? Let me search erections. Do saltpeter's erections.
The belief that saltpeter can suppress erections is a myth. There's no scientific evidence.
So good. I said it was the equivalent is saltpeter.
This is like Marilyn Manson's ribs. Okay.
But this is worth noting that we were doing an episode of Armchair Anonymous yesterday. And it had occurred to me that I had had sex in a stairwell.
Exactly. And last time we fought, we fought about this because you thought it was crazy that I said, I think I would rather, I would definitely rather have sex on the stairs than a unicycle.
And then you thought that was crazy. And then it turns out you've done it.
Well, hold on. I don't think you would because you have to imagine how painful it is to have three thin points of contact on your body.
So your own weight on these three very hard, tiny points of contact, then someone else's weight and thrusting on you. It would be insanely painful.
I would expect the guy to kind of prop themselves up also on the stairs. So they're not slant.
They're not like whole body weight is on mine. I think you'd be surprised at how good I am at lying on the stairs.
I would be quite surprised because I don't know how you get around the fact that you have these three points of contact. Better, huge improvement.
But anyway, someone said, well, I bet a lot of people have had sex in stairwells. And then I realized, oh, I had done that.
Yeah. What a blessing.
One of the real blessings of my life. No, don't say that.
Yes. No, don't say that.
You have children. One of, not the blessing of my life.
One of how many? I've had hundreds of blessings in my life. And this is one of them.
Okay.

I was gambling in Las Vegas at the Luxor Casino in my 20s.

And I met a very attractive woman from Australia.

Oh, my God.

Yes.

And after a couple hours of flirting and drinking at the blackjack table, we excused ourselves. Her request.
Her request. Spanish fly? Led me.
Did you? No. Are you sure? Saltpeter.
Wow. Led me to the staircase at the Luxor, the stairwell, which is a very weird staircase because it's diagonal.
That's right. Diagon alley.
Diagonagon Alley. Diagon Alley.
It is a pyramid shape. Yes, so the staircase is going up like an MC Escher situation.
But again, that was not on the stairs. That was like more leaning over one of the railings.
Sure. Listen, what if you had taken Saltpeter and she had taken Spanish Fly? That's a match made in hell.
That's a bad match. That's the worst.
That was me on Cope, to be fully honest with you. Oh, God.
Yeah. Everyone's horny, and then I can't perform.
That's so weird that then you loved that drug, because you loved having sex. I told you that's when, I mean, there were numerous times where I had to acknowledge what a problem it had become.
But yes, there was a moment where I was at a bar and I decided, I told the dude like, oh, get the guy and let's get an eight ball.

And there was a girl there that liked me.

And I was like, this is something.

You would rather do that drug than have sex with this attractive person.

And I previously that would have thought there was nothing I would want to do more than have sex with an attractive person. And you'd rather poop in the bed.
Say what? You're just, you're like grabbing, you're grabbing from everywhere. Speaking of ER.
So... No, you did poop in the bed once.
That's not, that's not relevant to this conversation. Well, you were on coke.
Yes, an excessive amount. So that's my point.
Yeah. Anywho, I'm glad for you that you had sex in the stairwell.
Me too. Me too.
One of the blessings. But.
There's blessings all around if you keep your eyes open. I guess that's right.
If she remembers me and she's hearing this, thank you so much. What a great memory.
No? No, yeah. I just had like a very prudish judgment.

Oh, cool.

What was it about?

Just sex?

No, it was just like, I don't think she's okay.

Oh my God, Monica.

I know.

I'm sorry you asked and I wanted to be honest.

Blood shaming.

No, I know.

That's why.

I'm glad you're owning it.

I said it was a prudish judgment. Yeah.
And it's not necessarily true, but. You can imagine how.
What if you had killed her? What? What? I was a nice boy. You know.
Right. I don't think murderers, like that's not how it works with murderers.
They're not like, you know what? I'm going to go gambling. If I meet someone who wants to fuck in the stairwell, I might murder them.
I don't think that's how it works. No, that's not how it works.
They're there knowing they're going to be charming and Ted Bundy. I don't even think murderers are gambling and having fun and getting drunk.
No, they are to lure. They're in their grandma's underpants.
No, not Ted Bundy. Like Brad Pitt said in Seven.
Oh, yeah. Not Ted Bundy.
He was hot and out and about. He was in a cast hanging out by cars, acting like he couldn't get his crutches or something.
Whatever. He was still playing it.
He was still luring. He was playing a victim and luring people.
You don't think anyone's been lured? Please. That's what roofing, that's what a lot of roofing

is at bars.

What?

Okay, we're talking about,

no, we're talking,

we're talking about killers.

Yeah.

And we're talking about roofing.

Well, rapists.

And we're talking about

me playing blackjack in Vegas.

No, I'm saying, okay,

I'm saying that

just because you're having fun

in a bar and you're fun

doesn't mean you're safe. Well, I was, though.
I know. I'm not talking about you anymore.
Okay. Okay.
I'm not talking about you. Okay.
You're just saying there could be someone drinking at the blackjack table who's a killer. Yeah, or a rapist.
And then they're using that method to meet people that they'll kill. Or rape.
Right. And they'll be on all the Vegas cameras with a ton of documentation.
You're going to get in so much trouble for this. And a lot of documentation that they were talking to their victim.
It'd be a really dumb serial killer to get their victims in a Vegas casino because it's so filmed. Okay.
Well, I just. You want to be out in the woods in a parking lot with a cast on.
No. A lot of...
No. They act like they're going to hook up with someone and then they rape them or kill them.
This is common. Okay.
So my point is, I just don't know if she's still with us. I think she is.
She was really a ghoul, smart... I'm sure she was.
But you can imagine how neatly it filed into my whole thing about Anglos, right?

Because the only other really time that that had happened in such an aggressive manner was when I was in 10th grade.

The aforementioned snowboard trip story with my friend from Manchester.

Right.

That was in a stairwell too?

No, but it was an English gal.

And now I had an Australian gal.

I was like, something's going on with these gals.

They're very assertive. Right, right, right.
Yeah, it funneled nicely into my stereotype. Right.
Okay. Oh, my God.
The next movie is Impulse. The Thomas Crown Affair.
Oh, there we go. That's my favorite.
Serve the People, Misty, The Room. Okay, so I have heard of three of those 10 movies.
Yeah, me too. Okay, existing record for a one-er.
Several movies have been filmed to appear as if they are shot in one continuous, uninterrupted take, including 1917, Birdman, Children of Men, Silent House. Okay, now hold on, I'm going to pull up another article here.
Okay. Goodfellas.
Yeah. That's three minutes.
Feels so much longer. Yeah.
Well, it was early days of Wunners. Creed, four minutes.
Atonement, five and a half minutes. Children of Men, six minutes.

1917, eight minutes.

Extraction, 12 minutes.

Birdman, 15 minutes.

Now we're talking.

Gravity, 17 minutes.

We're climbing.

Boiling Point, 92 minutes.

Is Boiling Point a John Woo movie?

Nope. It's Stephen Graham from Adolescence, isn't it? No.
He's the lead in it. That's so sim.
But a London restaurant. Oh, my God.
I'm cutting that. You said I'm cutting that.
Too scared I'm cutting it. It's too much.
Russian arc, 96 minutes. Wow.
They're so rewarding when you are directing one and everything goes right. Nothing really feels like that.
Stunt, like when a stunt goes right, that's a really, like the hardest I've ever celebrated was in chips. When my friend drove a Humvee through a motorhome and drove it right through the center of it and broke it in half and made it through the other side at full speed as explosions were going off and i was on the sixth street bridge and i screamed with elation like you can't imagine a little highlight of another blessing of my life a lot of stunt people in your movie yeah and chips yeah Chips? Yeah.
Oh, yeah, the whole fucking movie.

There's like a hundred people listening.

Stunts.

So many stunts.

I'm listed as a stunt performer for Michael Peña.

That's, you did brown face?

I did all the driving in his getaway car scene.

That's appropriation.

I didn't do brown face.

I just went to a tanning,

spray tanning

and went too far.

Okay, that's it for Seth.

We love Seth.

Oh God, we love him.

I can't wait for number four.

Me too.

Bye.

Bye.

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