Record-Breaking Signings, March Madness Mayhem & A Severance Waffle Party with Ben Stiller | Ep 130

Speaker 1 Thank you to our sponsor, Peloton.

Speaker 2 Check out what the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus can do, powered by Peloton IQ. The movement tracking camera counts your reps and even corrects your form in real time.

Speaker 1 It's like having a personal coach right there with you. That's pretty smart.
And I heard the screen does this like smooth swivel thing.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Go from running to strength training with one spin of the screen.
No awkward transitions.

Speaker 1 Peloton IQ creates personalized workout plans and provides intelligent strength coaching so you can keep challenging yourself and making progress.

Speaker 2 These new features help you plan and execute so you can show up, get after it, and hit goals without overthinking it.

Speaker 1 That's just that sounds efficient. Whether you're just starting your fitness journey or already crushing it, this helps you train smarter and more efficiently.

Speaker 2 Crush your goals and go the extra mile. Explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at onepeloton.com.

Speaker 1 Thank you to our partner, Boarshead. Ooh, a little meat.

Speaker 2 The end of the season is in full swing, and you know what that means. Time to eat meat.

Speaker 1 Millions of fans are turning their homes into game day headquarters every weekend.

Speaker 2 Gosh, and whether you're hosting a watch party at home or tailgating before a big game, you gotta feed the crowd.

Speaker 1 You gotta feed the crowd. That's where Boar's Head comes in the clutch.
Yes. Their platters are literally a game changer.
We're talking premium meats, cheeses, dips, and more.

Speaker 1 What's your go-to deli platter, Jason?

Speaker 7 I mean, any of them.

Speaker 2 Dude, anything that combines crackers, meat, cheese, and mustard, it doesn't matter what kind it is. You got Pepper Jack.
You got Provolone.

Speaker 2 You got cheddar.

Speaker 6 You got beer cheese.

Speaker 2 You got salami. You got kilbasa.

Speaker 1 There you go.

Speaker 2 Don't be all archy with me. Ritz crackers.
Maybe you could do some of those like whole grain thick boys that are around. Those are kind of nice too.

Speaker 2 If you want to be kind of different, you go with like a wheat thin. If you really want to elevate your game day spread and score big with your entire home gating, that's tailgating at home.

Speaker 2 Visit your local Boarshead Deli. They'll hook you up with a ready-made platter.

Speaker 1 Ooh.

Speaker 2 Or you can build on your own.

Speaker 7 There you go.

Speaker 1 Either way, you're upgrading your game day with some serious flavor. Boarshead, committed to craft since 1905.
How about it?

Speaker 7 It's just a great name, too.

Speaker 1 Over 100. Yeah, you know what you're getting.

Speaker 2 Boar's Head.

Speaker 8 This is a real good story about Drew, a real United Airlines customer.

Speaker 9 After almost four years of treatments, I was finally cancer-free. My mom's like, Where do you want to go to celebrate? I'm like, Let's go somewhere tropical.

Speaker 9 And then pilot hopped on the intercom and started talking about me. And I was like, What is going on here?

Speaker 11 My wife beats cancer too, and I wanted to celebrate his special moment.

Speaker 8 That's Bill, a real United pilot.

Speaker 11 We brought him drinks and donuts. We all signed a card.

Speaker 9 I was smiling ear to ear. Best flight ever for sure.

Speaker 11 That's how good leads the way.

Speaker 2 It's my favorite scene in the movie. How you doing, Tony? How you doing, little Tony?

Speaker 1 Bad? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, everything's falling down around me. There's nothing I can do about it.

Speaker 12 I'm sorry, I don't want to do your best. No, no, do it.
Please, please.

Speaker 1 Yeah, everything's falling down around me. There's nothing I can do about it.

Speaker 1 Well, you know,

Speaker 1 whose fault is it?

Speaker 1 Your fault.

Speaker 1 It's not my fault. It's their fault.
That's right. It's their fault.
It's their fault. You have failed.

Speaker 1 Let's do this thing.

Speaker 4 Welcome back to New Heights, ladies and gentlemen, a wondery show produced by Wave Sports and Entertainment and brought to you by Nike. When the world says you can't win, Nike says, so win.

Speaker 4 We're your hosts. I'm Travis.
This is my big brother, Jason.

Speaker 4 Out of the University of Cincinnati. Unfortunately, the natty didn't make it in the fucking bracket, man.

Speaker 3 But still proud of the gang.

Speaker 2 Is the other bracket still a thing? They still do the second tier bracket.

Speaker 1 The NIT? Yeah.

Speaker 1 The second tier bracket? You're fucking hilarious.

Speaker 2 What am I?

Speaker 1 I'm just being honest.

Speaker 2 What else is it? I don't know.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 No, I think they do.

Speaker 1 You're still doing the losers bracket?

Speaker 4 Dude, I used to hate that when we were little in like baseball, like travel baseball, if you didn't make it into like the final four or something, you went to a losers bracket just so you could play on Sundays.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 4 I'm not trying to be in this fucking losers bracket. Fucking losers.

Speaker 1 Pretty sure that's how everybody feels in the NIT.

Speaker 4 Subscribe on YouTube, where Wondering Plus, wherever you get your podcast, follow the show on all social media at New Heights Show with 1s for fun clips throughout the week.

Speaker 4 Jason, tell the people what we got coming up.

Speaker 2 Oh, we got an incredible episode for you guys. First of all,

Speaker 2 we're going to look into some of the biggest news around the NFL, including free agency, which is pretty much the only news happening right now in the NFL.

Speaker 2 We're also going to kick off our first ever New Heights March Madness Bracket challenge that's right you guys will be playing

Speaker 2 new heights golden cup that's right the winner is going to receive this 14 karat golden cup look at that that thing's pretty how why is jason the only one that has one of these wow we got a bunch of them do you want one can i have one jason why are you asking them sent to your house i don't control these ones.

Speaker 1 I want a fucking golden cup.

Speaker 2 Who's in charge of the

Speaker 4 everybody just sends all the trophies to Jason? you get the Stanley Cup, the Larry O'Brien, the fucking New Heights Cup?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know who controls the Golden Cup shipments, but we can get you a Golden Cup.

Speaker 2 We also are going to be getting the winner of our March Madness Bracket Challenge Gold Cup.

Speaker 2 I think there's going to be two Gold Cups. There's going to be a Gold Cup for the men's NCAA bracket and a gold cup for the women's NCAA bracket, but we'll get into that in a second.

Speaker 2 We've also got an amazing conversation with the one, the only.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 The Audi of Ben Stiller is coming on our podcast.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 2 The The director of the hit show Severance is coming on New Heights to talk about that, among all of his other career accolades that we enjoyed growing up and since then.

Speaker 2 We talk about heavyweights, Tropic Thunder,

Speaker 2 pretty much everything that you'd want to know from Ben Stiller. We're going to get into it.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 Also, happy St. Patrick's Day for those of you that weren't here at the top of the show, tune in a little bit late.
It is Monday, so we are filming this on St. Patrick's Day,

Speaker 2 although it will be releasing, I guess, while you're watching this, it's Wednesday. Let's Let's get it started, Trap.

Speaker 4 Let's get it going, baby.

Speaker 2 Time for new news.

Speaker 1 New news.

Speaker 2 New news is brought to you by American Express.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, let's get to the biggest piece of new news, which is that we are, once again, an award-winning podcast. That's right.
We are the iHeartRadio 2025 Best Sports Podcast Award winners.

Speaker 2 Thanks a lot, iHeart.

Speaker 1 Yay, baby.

Speaker 2 And most of all, thank you to all United Two Percenters for tuning in each week

Speaker 2 and giving us to win this award. This award is really just a representation of all you people that tune in each week to listen to us, two idiots, talk about nonsense.

Speaker 1 So, thank you for tuning in.

Speaker 2 We sure love doing this podcast. And

Speaker 2 the only reason we're able to do it is because all you guys listening. So, very much appreciate it.

Speaker 2 And it's an honor, iHeart,

Speaker 2 to receive this award on behalf of the 92%ers who make this podcast happen, as well as

Speaker 2 our amazing production crew, wondery wave everyone involved and actually making this thing watchable well done guys so yeah let's move on to some free agency news what do you think trav yeah let's dive into it big dog all righty first week an nfl free agency in the books again this is being recorded monday so if something were to happen perhaps tuesday or even wednesday when the show comes out we will not be talking about it in this show and really it's wednesday at about 1230 so something because that or this is monday a lot of this is monday 1230 eastern So there could be something that happens later today that we don't want to know about.

Speaker 2 But either way, to date, there have been some interesting things.

Speaker 2 We have a fan question about free agency from Jenna XKC. I think that's Jenna at KC.
Okay, so I've wondered this. Do players not go to their new teams and tell their old teams plans?

Speaker 2 Like, how does that work? Actually, is there a rule or just common knowledge to respect the situation and nothing is discussed?

Speaker 2 I don't know if there's a rule that you're not allowed to disclose information, but I can tell you that everyone does disclose.

Speaker 1 And this is absolutely something that happens in the NFL, Jenna.

Speaker 2 Yes. Actually, a lot of the times you will see teams sign practice squad players one to two weeks before they play an opponent for this very reason.
They want to get code words.

Speaker 2 They want to get information on no huddle plays, coverage signals. All of these things are being tried to figure out keywords that are set at the line.

Speaker 2 There's always information that they're trying to get out of players that have been in other organizations.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I don't know if it gets to this to the point of like you're sharing all your notes that you took.

Speaker 2 It probably does, it probably does get to this. I bet guys will bring in binders.

Speaker 4 I've never seen it to that point.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I've never seen any of it, to be honest with you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this all happens behind closed doors or something like that, where like a coach or the player is going to meet with somebody.

Speaker 2 I've talked to certain guys on other teams, like, hey, like, I noticed that you do this blitz. Like, what happens?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 is there a tell when you guys are doing this game or there? Nine times out of ten, it's not that useful. What the defensive player is trying to give me.

Speaker 4 I will say this: I was playing, uh, I was playing, I forget who it was, and I think Chase Daniel was on the sideline. I think it was Chicago.
We might have been playing in Chicago.

Speaker 4 Nagy was there, maybe

Speaker 4 Tyler Brave might have been on the sideline as well. I'm trying to remember who it was that called it out, but

Speaker 4 either Alex Smith or

Speaker 4 or Pat Mahomes was up at the line of scrimmage and he signaled a quick route to me, like a hot route to me, essentially,

Speaker 4 or verbally said something to me to tell me to break off my route differently. And on the sideline, I see both of the quarterbacks screaming what that route was going to be.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 And I'm just, in my head, I'm like, God, you son of a.

Speaker 1 Son of a fuck.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I think it was preseason, but at the same time, like you're, you're going to do whatever you have to do to win in your current situation.

Speaker 4 And if that's, you know, finding a tick here and there from your previous situation and helping out your teammates in that regard, you're going to fucking do it, man.

Speaker 4 And I don't think there's any like bush leagues. Like, I don't think it's like going behind someone's back or doing it like

Speaker 4 in a like, I don't know. I don't think it's wrong.

Speaker 4 If you hand over the entire playbook,

Speaker 4 I I think that's a little weird.

Speaker 4 But if you're just talking ball and you're trying to give your guys a heads up on like an audible or something like that, I think that's all fair game.

Speaker 2 I think stuff that happens, I think I'm with you, Trev. Stuff that happens at the line of scrimmage, verbiage, signals, all of that stuff is usually fair game.
That does happen in the NFL.

Speaker 2 Good question. And glad we got into it.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 We also got some Cowboys Twitter fighting. Love when people fight on Twitter.
Just out in the open. It's the best, isn't it? DeMarcus Lawrence signs with Seattle.

Speaker 2 Shits on Dallas on his way out the door.

Speaker 7 Nice.

Speaker 2 He's just kind of being honest. Clearly, a little bit unhappy with the way things ended.
I believe he was quoted as saying, Dallas is my home.

Speaker 2 My kids are in Dallas. My family's in Dallas.

Speaker 1 But I know for sure I'm not going to win a Super Bowl in Dallas. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Strong words. Strong words.
I mean, I think he's just being honest, but Micah Parsons clearly didn't appreciate that. This is what rejection and envy look like.
This is some clown shit.

Speaker 1 Perfect, perfect.

Speaker 2 That's a good way to respond.

Speaker 2 Demarcus Lords. Calling me a clown won't change the fact that I told the truth.
Maybe if you spent less time tweeting and more time winning, I wouldn't have left.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's

Speaker 4 the old Twitter beef. Let me get you going.

Speaker 2 What is the point of fighting on Twitter? Like, just out in the open for everybody to see.

Speaker 4 Well, you know, Jason, you're a professional.

Speaker 2 nobody fights on twitter right it's like when we were in high school and the kids would pull the fire alarm just so they could go out in the street and fight in front of all the students you remember that

Speaker 4 in front of the entire city yeah cleveland heights is on cedar and lee two of the biggest streets on the east side of cleveland you guys could just go fight you don't need to do this

Speaker 2 i need an audience i need i want everybody to see me whoop present

Speaker 4 and they they would do it in the middle of the street.

Speaker 1 Not just a street, Cedar.

Speaker 2 Like the biggest, like one of the biggest ways into downtown Cleveland is just completely blocked out. It got so bad they had to put the cops at the intersection.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 No, it was stopping traffic.

Speaker 4 People were trying to just, you know, do their cars

Speaker 1 daily errands. Cars lined up blocks down, trying to

Speaker 1 do things.

Speaker 4 4,000 kids out front watching a fight unfold in the middle of Cedar Road.

Speaker 4 Gosh, man. And then we just go across the street over to Wendy's and get a frosty incident.

Speaker 2 Well, then they stopped.

Speaker 2 Then they had to close Wendy's to they wouldn't let kids walk into the Wendy's. You had to go through the drive-through.
Oh, better times. Better times.
Love Cleveland Heights.

Speaker 4 Gotta love the Heights, baby. Gotta love the Heights.
We got a breaking contract news. We got some news in the contract world.
The Bengals have fucking unloaded the Brinks trucks.

Speaker 1 Love it.

Speaker 4 And have signed both Jamar Chase and T. Higgins.
So four-year deals. Jamar getting $161 with $112 guaranteed,

Speaker 4 making him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history. And then T.
Higgins getting $115 mil respectfully

Speaker 4 and his first two years guaranteed, fully guaranteed.

Speaker 2 Good for the Bengal.

Speaker 2 And I did not think they were going to be able to keep both these guys, and they're paying a hefty price tag to do it.

Speaker 4 For those who are wondering, yes, Joe Burrow making $55 million per year, Jamar Chase making just over $40 million and T. Higgins making close to $30 million.
That's over $125 million

Speaker 4 per year in new money on just three offensive players. When you say it like that,

Speaker 1 that is fucking,

Speaker 4 it's bonkers.

Speaker 4 I'm not going to say it shouldn't be done. It's just never been done.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but all of these things, there's there's going to be a never-been-done in a year or two years after this. The salary cap keeps going up.
I think people don't realize often how much

Speaker 2 the contracts continue to go up for players over time. When I first got into the league, league minimum was $375,000.
That's still a lot of money. Now it's over $700,000 is league minimum.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 The average per year for the highest paid centers when I was getting my first deal done, my third year in the league, was like $6 million a year. Now the average of all the top centers is over 12.

Speaker 2 So in 10 years, it's doubled. Newsflash, this is going to get broken in another year or two, just on how the silary cap keeps going.

Speaker 4 I've never heard of this much of the salary cap being allocated to three offensive players.

Speaker 2 The Cowboys did it with CeeDee Lamb, Dak Prescott, and

Speaker 2 they're going to do it with Micah Parsons.

Speaker 4 Three offensive players.

Speaker 2 Okay, three offensive players. Sorry.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, the Eagles got to be pretty dang close with A.J. Brown.

Speaker 2 Devontae Smith is going to be up for a contract soon, and Jalen Hurts, get ready to see that one, or they're going to let Devontae Smith go. I don't think that's happening.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Devontae Smith isn't making 50 mil.

Speaker 2 You don't think Devontae is going to get close to what T. Higgins is making?

Speaker 2 The only reason AJ isn't making 55 is because AJ got redone a couple years ago or last year.

Speaker 1 I hear you. All right.

Speaker 4 He's still only making 30.

Speaker 2 They're going to be up again here in another year or two, and I bet it gets close to this.

Speaker 1 We'll find out.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we're going to find out. I don't think they stay.

Speaker 2 It all happens like this, dude. I'm telling you.
This is only going to,

Speaker 2 I bet this very metric gets broken within three years.

Speaker 4 I bet you it never gets close that 125 mil per year.

Speaker 1 To three offensive players.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 4 And that percentage of what the cap is right now. Well, we don't know.

Speaker 2 Percentage. Well, and this is another thing.

Speaker 4 We'll never be just three players ever.

Speaker 2 Well, and this is another thing that I would like to stipulate. We don't even know what the percentage is for this year.

Speaker 2 These are the numbers of this arbitrary tweet that Brandon and Jake have decided to put into average per years.

Speaker 2 Nobody right here knows what they're actually being accounted for for the cap. Nobody knows what the cash is.

Speaker 1 Nobody knows what the guarantee is.

Speaker 4 Somebody can figure that out.

Speaker 1 It's all.

Speaker 1 And I think that I can.

Speaker 4 And I hear what you're saying. I'm just saying that.

Speaker 2 All I'm saying is there's there's a huge disservice to the NFL, free agency.

Speaker 2 It pisses me off so much listening to all of these people just say the average per year is this when all they did is divide the total money by three.

Speaker 2 Look at this. Look at this.
By extending Jamar Chase Teams, the Bengals will actually lower both players' cap hits this season. Okay.
So this is my whole point.

Speaker 2 People have no fucking clue what these numbers mean, and they just launch into these arbitrary things of like how much money.

Speaker 1 Anyways, just saying.

Speaker 2 Don't be misguided, people.

Speaker 4 You got me. You got me.
It sounds pretty ridiculous, but you got me.

Speaker 2 I really do. And Trav, we've talked about this.
I think it'd be good to bring on somebody who really understands the salary cap and all, because I want to know it.

Speaker 2 I want to hear like what all these structures mean because I was talking to somebody the other day and they said it's all about cash and like how much eventually that cash comes due and whatever you're paying, but there's ways to manipulate it, and it gets manipulated in signing bonus, in roster bonuses.

Speaker 2 Every team does it. Some teams have more cash to divvy out up front.

Speaker 2 I don't really know all the ins and outs of it, but I would love to have somebody on to explain to me, you, and the 92%ers what all these numbers mean. Should we do an NFL salary cap

Speaker 4 educational episode, Or should we go and find somebody else?

Speaker 2 Or should we just have a fun conversation with a former player and just dick around like always?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 You guys let us know if you guys want to learn this stuff.

Speaker 1 All right, cool.

Speaker 2 All righty, last bit of new news. Shout out Kyle Frazier, the kid who puked working out with Aaron Donald, but still finished a workout.

Speaker 2 According to him, he tweeted referencing the social clip that we released about Aaron Donald and him working out.

Speaker 2 He said, definitely a workout I'll never forget, but you forget the part where I got back and finished.

Speaker 1 Ooh.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's what I'm fucking talking about, big dog.
I love that Kyle. That boy Kyle.

Speaker 2 Apparently, this guy's got a freaking place college football now.

Speaker 1 It's pretty awesome. Where's he at? I don't know.

Speaker 2 Brandon, do we have that information? Georgia Southern playing college football down there.

Speaker 1 That's hot.

Speaker 2 Tell you what, I don't want to be in a Georgia Southern training camp. That's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 I'll be puking a lot.

Speaker 4 Nice. Well, he had some experience about fighting through the pukage.

Speaker 4 What, Kyle?

Speaker 2 And that does it for new news.

Speaker 4 Brought to you by American Express.

Speaker 1 Yeah, baby.

Speaker 5 Wait, so Reese's color is orange, and the Oreo cookie was invented in 1912.

Speaker 5 This one's been in the vault waiting for its moment.

Speaker 10 Reese's Oreo. The biggest drop since, well,

Speaker 14 the WNBA playoffs are in full swing, and Tommy Alter's The Young Man in the Three brings you closer to the game.

Speaker 14 Get complete WMBA playoff coverage as Tommy sits down with the game's biggest stars and delivers unmatched analysis. The Young Man in the Three's WNBA playoff coverage is presented by Quest Nutrition.

Speaker 14 From irresistibly crunchy protein chips to rich chocolatey protein bars, these treats make giving in feel so good. Quest, big on protein, low on sugar, huge on flavor.

Speaker 14 Shop Quest on Amazon at amazon.com/slash Quest Nutrition and enjoy all the WMBA action on the Young Men and the Three wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 10 Why choose a sleep number smart bed?

Speaker 8 Can I make my site softer?

Speaker 12 Can I make my site firmer?

Speaker 1 Can we sleep cooler?

Speaker 10 Sleep number does that, cools up to eight times faster, and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting.

Speaker 13 Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night.

Speaker 10 It's our Black Friday sale, recharged this season with a bundle of of cozy, soothing comfort. Now only $17.99 for our C2 mattress and base plus free premium delivery.

Speaker 10 Prices higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Check it out at a sleep number store or sleepbumber.com today.

Speaker 4 I think it's time to check out this interview you guys have been waiting for.

Speaker 2 Let's do it. Just so you know, this interview was taped before

Speaker 2 episode nine came out. of Severance.
So

Speaker 2 we won't have anything from the most recent episode, but we do have some nice talking points and show references, as well as a whole lot of other Ben Stiller anecdotes in this episode.

Speaker 2 So, you're going to want to watch this.

Speaker 1 Enjoy.

Speaker 2 Our guest today is from New York City.

Speaker 1 He's a 12-time Teen Choice Award, 13-time MTV Mewie Award, MTV Generational Award, and Emmy winner.

Speaker 2 You know him from Heavyweight, Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, Dodgeball, Neither Parents, and now the executive producer and director of Apple TV's hit show Severance. Please welcome to New Heights, Mr.

Speaker 1 Ben Stiller.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks.

Speaker 2 Welcome to this.

Speaker 1 So, Ben, I appreciate you jumping on.

Speaker 7 It was great to be with you guys.

Speaker 2 It is so hard to figure out these intros when you have as much of a, like,

Speaker 2 as much of an inventory of just hit movies.

Speaker 12 Those are some pretty heavy awards credits there.

Speaker 1 This was toned down.

Speaker 1 This is like pretty big ones.

Speaker 12 I'm not screwing around there. It's great.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 You guys are doing good with this podcast. You're You're having fun?

Speaker 1 Oh, for sure. Yeah.
We started this thing up just trying to get our

Speaker 1 brotherhood out there. A lot of people see us as complete opposites, but you get us in a room, you'll see we're a lot more similar than what we are.

Speaker 12 And you're a little bit older. What's the age though?

Speaker 1 Two years. Two years.
Almost exactly.

Speaker 2 October 5th, November 5th.

Speaker 12 All right. I'm November 30th.

Speaker 1 Scorpio.

Speaker 2 We just talked about we're big astrology guys.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. No?

Speaker 12 Yeah, I don't understand the astrology thing because it's like you have your sun sign, but then there's the rising sign and the moon and it can write.

Speaker 1 You got like really three signs or something like that.

Speaker 12 And I don't know. And how does it really, I mean, let's not get into it.

Speaker 12 My sister is really into it.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I guess we can move on from astrology and move over to, we are going to give a, at some point we will talk about severance.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we got to.

Speaker 2 So we might have some, so if you're, when we get to that section, we'll give you a warning because we don't want to ruin anything. The show is absolutely fantastic and there's tons of things going on.

Speaker 2 We don't want to spoil anything for anybody who might be just getting into it or isn't all the way caught up.

Speaker 2 But before we get into that, we're going to talk about your first bit of cinematic excellence, which maybe it's not, but it's definitely the one that sticks with us the most.

Speaker 2 And we quote nonstop, which is heavyweights.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Did you know, first of all, before I said the movie, did you know I was going to say heavyweights?

Speaker 12 I had seen, I think I saw you had like a Percus Power show.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Shout out to Brett V.

Speaker 12 And I'd heard some, you know, rumblings that you guys were into it, which was pretty cool. Oh, into it.

Speaker 1 It was my life.

Speaker 1 Listen, I was a heavyweight growing up. Jason, he didn't get fat until he went to office.
We switched places. We switched places growing up.
So Jason is more newly founded into it.

Speaker 12 So seriously, you were dealing with weight issues.

Speaker 1 It was just chubby. I think I was just, yeah, I was dealing with my love for honey buns.
I think that's what I was kind of dealing with more.

Speaker 1 But no, I saw heavyweights and was like, oh, man, Camp Hope is like... If there's a camp out there like that, I want to go to it.
Just kids that can be fat together and hide candy in their beds. And

Speaker 1 the kids that never like really lived up to the excellence of their brother and just the expectations that their parents set for themselves. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 1 are you kidding the blob?

Speaker 1 It was a go-kart.

Speaker 1 Like, that was everything a kid wanted to do it.

Speaker 12 It was sort of, yeah, like a dream camp. But then, you know, this guy comes in who has never really dealt with children before.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's one of the funniest intros.

Speaker 12 It was really fun to do. We had a great time.
I mean, I remember the summer shooting the movie very well. We shot it down in near Asheville, North Carolina.

Speaker 12 I'm still buddies with the guy who was my trainer when I was doing the movie, Mickey Marino. Shout out to Mickey,

Speaker 12 who's down in East Hendersonville. Yeah, it was just, but like, yeah, today, uh, first of all, the fact that that was a Disney movie is it is it is kind of crazy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that that was I chuckle at it every time I see Disney across the top.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a, it's an edgy Disney movie for sure.

Speaker 12 It's not Little Mermaid, you know, it's this and and I don't even think they were aware of it at the time. It was a different time, right? It was pre

Speaker 12 social media.

Speaker 12 I think there was less of a sort of a moment-to-moment awareness of, you know, if you're doing something right or wrong and all that. So it was, you know, and Judd Apatau

Speaker 12 was producing it. Judd and I were friends and had been working together on a show we had done and had gotten canceled.
And I had gone and directed a movie, my first movie.

Speaker 12 And he said, hey, we're going to go down. Steve Brill is the director, really funny guy.
We're going to go down to Asheville and do this fun, you know, this camp comedy.

Speaker 12 You could play this like mean guy who, you know, is mean to these kids who are overweight.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 12 it seemed fun and funny.

Speaker 1 In, I'm in. Yeah, it's right there.

Speaker 12 And it was like, and it happens to be Disney, whatever. And I think they went off and they made the movie and Disney looked at it and was like,

Speaker 1 this isn't quite, you know, this isn't down the middle for the Disney brand.

Speaker 12 And they kind of put it out there or whatever. And then that was it.
You must have seen it on video, right?

Speaker 1 Oh, 100%.

Speaker 12 A few years after it came out or something.

Speaker 1 Because it's 30 years old. Exactly.

Speaker 12 Yeah. But then it's happening.

Speaker 1 It's later in the 90s for sure.

Speaker 12 But yeah, it never would have gotten made today.

Speaker 1 Why do you say that?

Speaker 12 I think just because

Speaker 12 the character is being so mean to these kids who are dealing with weight issues that I don't think

Speaker 12 you think that's getting off the drawing board.

Speaker 2 I understand, but I feel like the movie also inspired more people that were overweight.

Speaker 2 Like it really ends up being something that most of the people that I knew that were overweight or it was like a healthy relationship with that at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 I do agree that Tony was not the nicest to the kids.

Speaker 12 No, I think Tony is dealing with his own weight issues.

Speaker 1 Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 Very clear.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 his own feelings towards his parents and also that he's a kid who never, he never interacted with other kids. And, you know, he wants to be famous.
And, you know, I feel for Tony.

Speaker 12 I feel like he's the most sympathetic character.

Speaker 1 Where did he, where did Tony come? Like, where did you find him? Is there any inspiration?

Speaker 12 There was a little bit of Tony Robbins in there. Okay.

Speaker 1 Tony Robbins, the motivational guy,

Speaker 12 just in terms of the voice and how he talks

Speaker 12 and his kind of weird sort of like, he, you know, Tony Robbins had this thing where he could sort of like, yeah, he could kind of like hypnotize you with his eyes.

Speaker 1 And I don't know, man.

Speaker 12 And then we just sort of like played around. And it's funny, like, cause I look back at clips.
I saw a clip like behind the scenes on it. And I was like, God, we were so young back then, too.

Speaker 12 And just like kind of just doing it. You know what I mean? And just kind of going for it.
And you don't really think about it that much. And the kids were so much fun.

Speaker 12 And it was, you know, kind of like every day we were just in my, my folks were in it playing my parents.

Speaker 12 We had, we had, just had, had the best time.

Speaker 2 Don't let somebody sign your checks.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, don't let it. Best advice I ever got.

Speaker 2 So I guess. How much of that movie was of Tony was being scripted? And how much of that is you off the cuff?

Speaker 1 Just ripping it. Yeah.

Speaker 12 I don't remember. I think like we were, we were improvising all the time.
Um, it's sort of, I feel like there were some improv moments there.

Speaker 12 Uh, I think, like, that little moment where uh, Tony goes and talks to himself when he's weighing the kids.

Speaker 2 Somebody brought this up. It's my favorite scene in the music.

Speaker 1 Are you doing a Tony? Are you doing it, Tony? Bad? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Why are you? Well, everything's falling down around me. There's nothing I can do about it.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, I don't want to do your best.

Speaker 2 Yeah, everything's falling down around me.

Speaker 1 There's nothing I can do about it.

Speaker 1 Well, you know,

Speaker 1 whose fault is it?

Speaker 1 It's not my fault. It's their fault.
That's right. It's their fault.
It's their fault. You have failed.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 12 The thing that's kind of funny to me about that scene is it was improvised.

Speaker 12 But you know, if you've ever been in therapy or gone to therapy, that's, you know, a lot of people talk about talking to your inner child

Speaker 12 and finding your inner child and connecting with your inner child.

Speaker 12 And over the years, I have, I have been in a therapy session where the therapist says, like, you should go, like, let's talk to your inner child.

Speaker 12 And I literally feel like I'm just doing a scene from heavyweights to do in therapy.

Speaker 12 So I always feel like it's just, this is kind of silly because I've literally done this in a movie where it actually made sense that Tony was able to talk himself into understanding that he is not the problem.

Speaker 12 They are the problem.

Speaker 7 And he helped himself.

Speaker 12 So in a way, it's a very healthy connection that he's having, you know, with himself.

Speaker 7 100%.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 2 Maybe not with the kids, but

Speaker 1 no.

Speaker 12 And I think, you know, the kids also, like, you know, let's face it, the kids were cheating they should have been

Speaker 1 way to re-evaluate this movie

Speaker 1 they were the problem they were the one

Speaker 1 come on yeah you've hustled you go to a camp where you want to lose weight you got to play by the rules right it's like you guys show up at training camp right if you're not going to put the work in right nobody's going to be able to force you to do it right you got to have the mindset yeah i definitely go to chick-fil-a during camp though i'm not going to lie i don't go to the meal room

Speaker 2 i know some guys that are probably hidden some stuff in their beds so it is kind of like being a camp when you you go to church.

Speaker 1 Oh, 100%. It's a little bit like 100%.

Speaker 2 Well, he still goes away for camp.

Speaker 1 So most teams don't go, like, we just don't go away anymore. I'm living in a dorm room.
Yeah. Cement wall, white cement brick walls.
You get a single or a double?

Speaker 1 They actually put the double together. Two singles together to make.
That's why I mean two singles together. So I mean, it's kind of, it's a bit of like a

Speaker 1 experience like back in time.

Speaker 12 And I'm not like a super football guy, but I know you guys plays. You have to like learn all the plays at training camp, and then those can be the plays for the rest of the season.

Speaker 1 For the majority of it, yeah. You learn like the base installs so that everybody can get brought up to speed.

Speaker 1 And from there, you still create plays based off of the team that you're playing and what they've been doing. You try and scheme them up week by week.
So

Speaker 1 the playbook definitely expands after training camp, but for the most part, you get all the verbiage and all the you get the understanding of like formations and stuff.

Speaker 1 And then from there, all the plays kind of just get is it different every year?

Speaker 12 Like the coach will come in with a new, yeah.

Speaker 1 I joke about Coach Reed coming in with like a index like stack like this big, just like a rubber band around him. You just see plays drawn up on them, and he's just like, I got some good stuff, guys.

Speaker 2 But there is, there is a lot of carryover.

Speaker 2 The majority of your staples still stay the same. And the way the football coaches do, they have to teach it to all the new guys as well.

Speaker 2 So especially when you've been there for a long time, you start from square one in the offseason and during training camp.

Speaker 2 So at two different times of the year, you'll learn what we call this gap, what we call this technique, what we call this play in every minor deep. So he's had Inside Zone installed to him.

Speaker 1 I could go up there over 35 times.

Speaker 7 You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 what is inside zone? Inside Zone is when you give it to the running back at a more steep angle downhill. He reads the front side B gap to the backside A gap.

Speaker 1 Reads the really, they're trying to run it towards a three technique to where we can get a double team up to the Mike Backer. Hopefully you're yeah, no, no, no, I knew that.

Speaker 12 I was just saying

Speaker 12 for this kind of inside zone, yeah.

Speaker 1 For me, I'm typically on the back side of the inside zone, and you double back, you definitely double back every time to the there we go.

Speaker 1 There's always a double back with a 70. There we go.

Speaker 12 It's incredibly complicated, isn't it?

Speaker 2 I think it's incomplete. Or is it?

Speaker 1 I mean, we're still football players.

Speaker 1 It's not rocket science.

Speaker 2 Listen to a lot of football players talk.

Speaker 1 It's not that complicated. No, no, but honestly,

Speaker 12 I did once when we were doing Zoolander 2, Aaron Rodgers came to Italy and complicated man.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's a guy that knows a lot.

Speaker 12 But I asked him like, okay, you know, how do you do that on the line when you're having to make those split-second decisions? And he said, like, it's really not.

Speaker 12 It's not as like complicated as they make it sound on TV. And I was like, yeah, but you're Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 1 So it's probably true.

Speaker 12 It's a little bit, but it sounds like the same thing you're saying, which is kind of like you guys just have it. For so many years, instinctually, you know it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of carryover. You learn it over and over again, so it becomes second nature, especially the verbiage aspect of it.

Speaker 1 Aaron is another level of the intellectual ability for the game, right?

Speaker 2 Uh, so obviously it's very much easier for him than a lot of other guys.

Speaker 2 But I do think that at the end of the day, a lot of there's carryover, the plays, um, you've run them a long time now, whether you start in college or high school or high school or even before that.

Speaker 2 So you, you tend to retain all that knowledge. So it sounds complex to somebody who doesn't understand it, but I mean, a lot of it's just common sense.

Speaker 2 Like if you're running a play where there's too many guys to run a play, it's like, yeah, we shouldn't run the ball over here.

Speaker 1 Right. Let's go run the ball over here.

Speaker 2 It's like numbers and leverage ultimately come down to like what makes up football.

Speaker 12 And surprise of it, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's a huge aspect of it. Catching the defense off guard, not being predictable.

Speaker 12 Can I ask you one other question about football?

Speaker 1 Are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 I love this.

Speaker 12 This is one. No, this is as a fan, it's the pain aspect.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 12 As we watch numbed out, watching our TV sets being entertained all across America and the world, you guys are just like smashing into each other and you just take it for granted as an audience member.

Speaker 12 But when you really look at it,

Speaker 1 but like, what is, I mean, like, what is the reality of that in a game?

Speaker 12 Because, you know, you see it when you see the play where a guy gets twisted around and you see a, God forbid, an awful, you know, brain plant, and you're like, oh my God, this is horrific.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 12 But first of all, like, what does that feel like? And second of all, could a normal human being and you know guy like me

Speaker 1 why I'm posing it. It's the only one way to find out.
No, no, no.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you could be, but Tony Perkins could definitely get that on that team.

Speaker 1 He has the insecurities necessary to achieve his football genes. Yeah.

Speaker 12 But like seriously, like

Speaker 12 what is the level of like what's happening there?

Speaker 1 Well, I like like, especially when you get the ball, it's like you're like, you're, you ever seen the bird scooters that go like 15, 17 miles an hour and you're just kind of flying around town.

Speaker 1 It's like riding one of those and then jumping off. And, and it's just like you take little collisions like that throughout the day, and it's just fun.
It's fun.

Speaker 1 And I feel like when you have pads on and you have the excitement of like the team and everything, you don't really think of like the camaraderie of the team and doing something for a bigger purpose other than yourself.

Speaker 1 Like you find like fun in competing with guys doing this.

Speaker 1 And I, um, I don't know. I think when I, when I, when I was playing quarterback growing up, I didn't really have that much love for it.

Speaker 1 But once I moved to tight end, obviously my skill set was more suited for that, but I had more fun catching the ball and like kind of enjoying those moments where I could be physical.

Speaker 1 I could, I could kind of like hit a guy because you don't get to just walk down the street and blindside a guy, right? You get to have fun

Speaker 1 assaulting somebody.

Speaker 1 It's encouraged. Yeah, it's encouraged.
So it's like, you don't really think of it as like pain.

Speaker 1 Although you do feel the discomfort after a game and after like a season, you feel the wear and tear for sure.

Speaker 12 But there's, so the adrenaline is.

Speaker 2 I was about to to say, in the middle of a game, the adrenaline is so intense. You'll feel a little bit of pain, but it's not something that's going to be like that.

Speaker 1 But you're like not down the line.

Speaker 12 You're just every play.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Yeah. Look at this guy.
I don't have any joy.

Speaker 2 You see this guy's neck? What's wrong with it?

Speaker 1 It's pretty thick. It's barely there.
Oh, I hurt. Yeah.
That is just. Oh,

Speaker 1 you're showing off right now?

Speaker 12 Well, I also think about the concentration that it takes to catch the ball, knowing there's a guy coming.

Speaker 1 I think that's more intimidating than anything. I have some fun with it.

Speaker 1 I like to make them think that I don't know he's coming. Okay.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 1 I reverse it on them. Yeah.
But I'm also known for like not even running my route.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 1 I always like to keep it second game. Keep the surprise.
That's right. Keep the surprise.

Speaker 2 Did you ever want to play football?

Speaker 12 You know, I grew up in New York on the upper west side of Manhattan, not in a sports-oriented environment. I used to love to play basketball.

Speaker 1 Nice. You've had some pretty iconic basketball scenes.

Speaker 12 Yeah, yeah. I love basketball, but I didn't have the height or the, you know, I'm Jewish.
I can't jump.

Speaker 1 We're just not allowed.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I mean, so I wasn't like in that kind of environment, small Upper West Side, a private school, didn't even have a football team, had a basketball team. I didn't make the basketball team.

Speaker 12 I think 14 kids tried out and 12 kids made it and I didn't make it.

Speaker 12 But

Speaker 12 it's okay.

Speaker 1 I've been cutting out. I've never been cut before too.
Jason's never been cut.

Speaker 3 He doesn't understand this. I've never been cut.

Speaker 12 But then I, you know, Owen Wilson's a buddy of mine and he played sports growing up, and he always said I could have been like a little scat back type of guy.

Speaker 2 Do you think you could get a yard in the NFL?

Speaker 12 I could not. No, but I literally wonder what would happen if I could survive a play.

Speaker 1 Well, I think we could get you a yard. The only could get you a yard.
I think so. You got enough athletic.
You guys couldn't get Jets just a yard.

Speaker 1 After that yard, I don't know what's happening.

Speaker 1 If I'm behind you,

Speaker 1 all right, man. Tush-push with me.

Speaker 1 I was about to say. That's a for sure yard.

Speaker 1 It's got to secure the snap.

Speaker 1 We would probably like tush-push me, just pick me up and throw me into the engine. Tush-throw me

Speaker 1 over the top. Just turn Ben into the football.

Speaker 1 We might have just invented it. We're a new version of the tush.
Just a different

Speaker 12 stiller tush-push. Okay.

Speaker 2 So we talked about heavyweights. You said it couldn't be made today.

Speaker 1 Well, it could.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I don't think it would be made by Disney today.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean?

Speaker 12 But it could be made independently. Sure.
If somebody wanted to go out and do it.

Speaker 1 Bob Iger's not backing that.

Speaker 1 I don't know, man. We should go and see.
See what he should do.

Speaker 2 Yeah. What about Tropic Thunder?

Speaker 12 Tropic Thunder, yeah, I've been asked this question before. You know, I think it would have a tougher time getting made today for sure.

Speaker 12 Thank you so much. Yeah, just because, first of all, like, you know, big comedies with big budgets like that aren't really being made as much,

Speaker 12 if at all. And Tropic Thunder did, you know, have some pretty edgy elements to it at the time.

Speaker 1 Edgy is a great.

Speaker 1 But did anybody complain? I don't ever remember anybody complaining. Oh, but really?

Speaker 1 Never mind. I'm going to go back over a year.
No, no, no, no, no, no. You didn't think that

Speaker 1 a bubble.

Speaker 12 But in a different way, it was again, this is what is it, 15 years ago or something? It was 2008 or something.

Speaker 12 It was like a different sort of reaction to things that wasn't as in the moment and as much of a kind of a waterfall of you know reaction immediately.

Speaker 12 Yeah, no, I mean, my character that I played, uh, Tug was, you know, playing this character of Simple Jack. That was, you know,

Speaker 12 that got some blowback

Speaker 12 from people.

Speaker 12 I showed the movie to the NAACP in LA

Speaker 12 before

Speaker 12 we released the movie because of Robert's character.

Speaker 12 And to me, the joke of the movie always was that these actors are trying to do anything they can to win an award and be taken seriously.

Speaker 12 So to me, that was why it was always clear to me that's the joke of the movie. And I think people who get the movie get that.

Speaker 12 But we, you know, you definitely want to get a sense of how people are reacting to it. So, you know, we did, we, but that's what comedy is.
You got to take chances, you got to put it out there.

Speaker 12 And yeah, we got a little bit of blowback.

Speaker 12 But as long as you're clear, you know, where the joke is and that you're clear about your intention, you can, you know, then I think you can hear criticism and it can be valid, but you, you know, where you're coming from, you can stand by it, which I do.

Speaker 12 I still stand by the movie. And

Speaker 12 I would hope that we can make another Tropic Fun home.

Speaker 2 So good.

Speaker 2 I tried to show it to my kids.

Speaker 2 My oldest is five.

Speaker 1 Jeez. All right.
I wasn't trying to show it to him.

Speaker 2 I was just putting it on.

Speaker 1 And the girls walked into the room.

Speaker 1 What was it? Jacob Brandon. It was not good.
It was during the Tuck had just lost his hands.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. It was early on.

Speaker 2 Intestines are all over the place.

Speaker 2 I forget Kylie's exactly. Do you remember what Kylie said other than turn this off right now?

Speaker 1 You'll be getting the therapy bill from your kids in about 15 years.

Speaker 2 Do you have a favorite comedy movie you've made?

Speaker 12 Oh, that I've made. I mean, Tropic Thunder for me was like one of the most fun experiences just because we were all together.
It was such an amazing cast

Speaker 12 just to be with those guys. And it was an idea that I had had from back in like 1987.

Speaker 12 And then we finally made the movie in 2007. So it literally had been sort of gestating that long.
So to actually be making it was sort of surreal that we were finally doing it.

Speaker 12 So for me, that experience was one of my favorites.

Speaker 12 And yeah, but like,

Speaker 12 you know,

Speaker 12 doing Meet the Parents with Robert De Niro will always be an incredibly exciting thing that happened, you know, to just, and kind of surreal because I just love him so much. Yeah.

Speaker 12 And yeah, and then getting to, yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's, it's every time you're in it, it's always different.

Speaker 12 I don't know if you guys are like this when you're, you know, when you're doing your thing, but like you're in it.

Speaker 12 And it's sometimes it's hard to appreciate it when you're in it because you have to be focusing on what you're rolling yeah yeah i'm right there with you i don't know because they always say like football players or even any athletes say like go out there and have fun is that is that a real thing what i feel like i play my best when i'm out there just enjoying the moments with the guys and it's 100

Speaker 1 i don't like to kind of look at things as it's complete or like i'm i'm more in the moment trying to think about the next play trying to think about the next like way we're going to attack them how i'm going to handle this situation and think about that then i am like man

Speaker 2 this is sweet i do think though that's why they tell you to have fun because it's so easy to lose track of the fact that we're all playing a game and this should be fun right you get bogged down on where you're at and trying to remember the play or the moment what's it down in distance all these things you lose track of the fact that like If you guys are genuinely enjoying being out there and having fun, there's an enthusiasm and an energy that permeates and makes everybody usually perform better.

Speaker 2 And I think that's one thing that I watched Trav. I've always been like,

Speaker 2 for some reason, it always looks like he brings that out on the field. And there's certain guys that have a tendency.
You just watch a game and people gravitate towards them.

Speaker 2 It makes them feel like they're kids again.

Speaker 2 And as a player, where for me, I oftentimes wasn't that, I always appreciated playing with those guys because it made me feel like I was playing in the backyard by buddies again.

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And even though we're in front of this huge stadium or whatever.

Speaker 12 Right. And you see the joy that you have when, like, I mean, obviously, end zone celebrations or just when first down or something like that.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12 But I think, you know, that enjoyment of connecting with your teammates and

Speaker 12 doing the work in the moment and like it working when you like, you know, complete a play that works. I have that same appreciation when I'm working on a movie that the enjoyment of the process.

Speaker 12 Heck yeah. And actually for me, that's my favorite part of all of this

Speaker 12 is being in process with something or sitting in the editing room and cutting together a sequence, putting some music on it and feeling it come together. That to me is the best.

Speaker 12 And that is important, I think, to have that appreciation of the process because, you know, with a movie or something like that, it comes out and then people either like it or they don't like it.

Speaker 12 And you have no control over that,

Speaker 12 right? It's just going out into the world, but the process is what you experienced and what you, you know, what you own.

Speaker 12 And so you have to enjoy that because the rest of it is sort of then you're at the whim of like, you know, what people thought. And that's,

Speaker 12 by the way, that's like trial and error for me over the years.

Speaker 1 Oh, 100%.

Speaker 1 I've learned that throughout the course of my career. I came in wanting to have all the stats, wanting to have all the acknowledgement of he's a great player.
And

Speaker 1 I mean, I've been fortunate to like get a lot of those stats and have successful years and win Super Bowls.

Speaker 1 But at the same time, when I'm like kind of like in it, like I find more love building that piece than I am just kind of looking back like, oh man, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 Like it was more just just like the feeling of doing it with him in the moment that just like really, that's where it's most enjoyable for me.

Speaker 12 I actually remember when we were doing Tropic Thunder talking to Robert Downey about it because at that point, I think he had just done Ironman, but he it hadn't come out yet.

Speaker 12 You know, and he had this interesting trajectory to his career where, you know, he had a lot of acclaim and he went through a lot of challenges.

Speaker 12 And then, you know, and then Iron Man came out and kind of like revitalized his career. Yeah.

Speaker 12 But as an actor, he's always been like one of the best actors actors ever.

Speaker 12 And I remember talking to him when we were doing the movie about this sense of sort of like we've worked, you and

Speaker 12 you and I, we've all worked really hard over the years because this is, you know, we'd already been doing it for whatever, like 25 years probably or whatever.

Speaker 12 And so the enjoyment of knowing that you put in a lot of work and then having a freedom to then go and put something out there and try things and do your thing with a sense of.

Speaker 1 Oh, man, that had to be such a relief to just be able to cut it loose like that.

Speaker 12 Yeah, an appreciation of that. Say, like, yeah, I have put this work in.
And it's not like an ego thing. It's more like, hey, okay, we're here and we've done this a lot.

Speaker 12 And it's what you were saying about putting those work in on those plays your whole life. Then you kind of can go out there and let go in a way and appreciate the fun of that too, right?

Speaker 12 While you still are locked in and trying to do something new and hit the next, you know, level. And I think that's an important thing in the process to appreciate.

Speaker 1 You fucking hit it, dude, because that movie is classic.

Speaker 1 How did you get Tom Cruise to jump in on this, dude?

Speaker 2 I mean, the star-studded.

Speaker 12 This is a crazy one. I mean, Tom and I knew each other a little bit because we had done, you know, I'd been a fan my whole life,

Speaker 12 you know, just watching his movies forever. And I'd met him a few times over the years.
And we did a little short for the MTV Movie Awards.

Speaker 12 This is like 25 years ago, I think, because I was on my honeymoon. We came back from our honeymoon in Australia to do this thing with Tom where I was a stuntman.

Speaker 1 I pretended to be a little bit more. Oh, yeah.
I remember that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 12 submission possible too. And we had so much fun doing that.
And then a few years.

Speaker 1 You could use your own sentences.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 12 It was so fun and weird doing that. And then, you know, we stayed in touch.
And this was, again, a few years go by. And

Speaker 1 actually,

Speaker 12 we'd been talking about trying to figure out something to do, but, you know, hadn't figured it out. And then I was working on the Tropic Thunder script.

Speaker 12 and I had actually done a home movie for my wife for her birthday that was a takeoff on the show 24. And it was called 17 or 17 minutes long.

Speaker 12 And it starred my brother-in-law, Brian Taylor, who happens to be here today.

Speaker 1 Shout out to Brian. Shout out to Brian.

Speaker 12 Brian is the worst actor ever.

Speaker 1 Which can also be really good at times. Yeah.

Speaker 12 They're an alarm company in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He's not a professional actor.
So the fun of the joke was, let's put him in a movie with like real actors.

Speaker 12 And he was obsessed with Tom's speech from a few good men. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12 You know, or the, or the, the Jack Nicholson speech from a few good men that he gives to Tom Cruise where he says, you know, you can't handle the truth, right?

Speaker 12 I said, Tom, we're doing this home movie for Christine. Would you maybe come and do like a scene in it where my brother-in-law is going to recite the Jack Nicholson speech to you?

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 12 he said, yes.

Speaker 2 And there's video evidence.

Speaker 12 Yes, there is video evidence. And he came down and he was so professional and like it blew my mind.
He was so good. And Brian did the speech to him.
And then

Speaker 12 we had so much fun doing that that the Tropic Thunder came up. I called him.
I said, look, let's maybe, are you interested in this movie? And he looked at me and he said, you know,

Speaker 12 you make fun of the actors. You make fun of, you know, everybody and the agents and all that.
But you don't make fun of the studio heads. You should have a studio head.
So it was his idea. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 That character. What?

Speaker 12 That character did not exist before he suggested it.

Speaker 1 I feel like it is such an important thing.

Speaker 12 And then it became such an important part of the story. And this was three months before we started shooting the movie.
And we rewrote Justin Thoreau and I were working on it, Eton Cohen.

Speaker 12 And Justin and I rewrote these scenes and put them in. And then Tom said, also, I feel like I want to dance in the movie.
I just want to dance.

Speaker 1 So this was purely like total instinct. I have a bodysuit on.

Speaker 12 And then we did a makeup test and go crazy. Yeah.
And we put him in the makeup and we and he started dancing in the makeup test and we gave him some Diet Cokes to crush. And then we put,

Speaker 1 and then I think I put Get Back by Ludacris in the makeup test.

Speaker 12 And I was like, this could be really fun.

Speaker 1 So good. So good.

Speaker 12 And yeah, he came in and just, yeah, so it was, it was pretty, pretty crazy how that happened.

Speaker 2 That's awesome. That is crazy.

Speaker 1 How did Brian do in his speech?

Speaker 12 Brian, well, he was perfectly bad, as he should have been.

Speaker 1 God damn, that's good stuff. I got to to ask you more about your basketball love or your sports love.
So you were at the Oscars not too long ago getting hype about the Knicks win.

Speaker 1 Let's go. Not sure if it was even an important game.
It was just like, you watch every game like that?

Speaker 12 I do watch every game.

Speaker 1 Nice. I do, yeah.

Speaker 12 I'm, you know, the last few years, look, my whole life I've been a Knicks fan.

Speaker 12 Last few years have been pretty exciting because there's been so many years in the wilderness, especially like the last like 10 years before this. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 I watch, I try to watch every game, and I now have realized I have to actually put the games into my schedule, even if I'm not going to them, just to watch them on the catch them, not like plan a dinner

Speaker 1 because I start to resent when I'm at dinner.

Speaker 12 Yeah, so I knew that the game was happening during the Oscars, and then I, but I was focused on doing the thing at the Oscars. And then like, once it was done, I was leaving.

Speaker 12 And after I'd done my thing, I was going back to my hotel and I realized, oh my God, the Knicks game is on.

Speaker 12 So then I like checked it because I hadn't checked it the whole day or or even been aware of it as much, to be honest. I wasn't, I, but I knew it was happening.
And then I saw the Knicks had won.

Speaker 12 I was like, oh, this is great. I just finished my baby Oscars in the Knicks won.
I'm happy.

Speaker 1 Knicks win.

Speaker 12 Yeah. And then I guess somebody picked up the fact that I have been like,

Speaker 1 you're backstage right there.

Speaker 12 But I mean, I genuinely do, you know, I went to the Lakers game where Brunson got injured. And,

Speaker 12 you know, I genuinely love going to the games. I feel like.

Speaker 1 I've always told myself I want to go to a game in Madison Square Garden.

Speaker 1 It was actually a big reason why we went to or i went to cincinnati just because the big east championship is in the garden i've always imagined the garden as like obviously the mecca but it is like the top of like the basketball culture where it gets rotted no i haven't been to a game yet oh okay and i've been telling myself i'm gonna go when the knicks are good and it's rocking and it's just been like you have to come to a game i know why why don't you come to a game i'm gonna i'll tell you what the calves meet the uh Knicks in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Because that thing, I want it to be like the, I don't know if it's like that every single game, but I know when it's an important game, that thing is like

Speaker 1 honestly, like you can see it on TV when it comes to it.

Speaker 12 Honestly, when any game, if it's a good game, it goes crazy. Like, it's just so intense.

Speaker 12 But, you know, the playoffs, there's like nothing, like when they beat Philadelphia in the playoffs last season. Oh, yeah.
And Dante DiVincenzo hit that shot.

Speaker 12 I don't know if you've ever heard that play, but like, it was just, it was, I never felt anything like it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Me and Jason talk about it all the time.

Speaker 1 There's no better ticket in sports than courtside at an NBA game. There's nothing better, right? It's so close.
You're so, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2 That was the first time I ever, I went back. Travis had courtside tickets at the Cavs for the second half of the season every year.

Speaker 1 When the Brown was there. Yeah, when the Browns.
So I haven't been able to get there.

Speaker 2 He lets me borrow a couple of the tickets. I go there, and that was my first time realizing, oh, my God, these guys are like.

Speaker 1 So much better athletes than football players.

Speaker 2 They are moving so fast.

Speaker 1 So springs on their feet. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It was just in the size. Yeah.
Like, I think it's easy.

Speaker 12 It's harder when you're brought back from it to really realize how big an athletic you don't yeah for sure for sure but when you're on the court it's like oh that guy is high yeah yeah yeah for sure i mean even just seeing lebron in person you know like i was watching the other night I mean, it's just, he's just so big and he's so strong.

Speaker 12 And he gets the ball. And all of a sudden, it's just like the tension level goes up and the defender gets up on whoever it is because it's like LeBron's got the ball.

Speaker 12 And he's like, he can impose his will still.

Speaker 1 And he's 40 years old doing it. This is insane.

Speaker 2 It's a spin move in a dunk. And I was like, I've never seen that dunk in my life.

Speaker 12 No, yeah, it's very impressive.

Speaker 2 Would you rather win an Academy Award or Knicks win the NA championship?

Speaker 12 I don't know. I mean, I think the Knicks, I,

Speaker 12 you know, realistically, I think the Knicks winning a championship

Speaker 1 is in the cards. All right.
All right. So I'm definitely down for that.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 But if I was for, like, if I was forced, like, definitely, and I've heard Jon sturt was asked this question and he said nicks too so i'm not gonna not say next all right but i also feel like i i really think like at the end of the day if i knew that i had the choice i would give it to the knicks because i knew at least i had the choice yeah in this weird this weird this weird not

Speaker 1 real situation

Speaker 1 but it means a lot to a lot of people too like it's like you're it's like i don't care yeah the nicks winning a champion like it's so it's still a little bit like it seems a little bit like oh my god i can't imagine that that but yeah we're just starting to feel like it but then always something happens where yeah no yeah i mean i mean cleveland was there for forever too so i get it cleveland is having an incredible oh i'm fired up yeah incredible we're just talking about it jason's kind of like here right now with basketball yeah and i'm just like dude just watching me i gotta get back jonovan mitchell is a new york guy too yeah he's just incredible stuff yeah so and they they've got a great thing going on see we kind of got on the basketball kick i got to talk about one of my favorite scenes that you directed in Cable Guy with Jim Carrey,

Speaker 1 him coming into the gym. The basketball? Yes, the basketball scene with him coming into the gym.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you understand. You had everybody trying to jump off of their friend's back to dunk the basketball.
And I just remember it never working.

Speaker 7 It's not like in the movie, he was like a trampoline.

Speaker 1 Like, I was like, oh my gosh, if I could do that. Like, I was, I thought that was a little bit heavier.
I was always like twice the size of all my friends. And I was like, dude, just get on all fours.

Speaker 1 I'm going to jump over your plate.

Speaker 12 It really makes no sense at all.

Speaker 1 That move. But it was so funny.

Speaker 12 I remember we, I don't, we had, well, we were like, you know, like Jim, we wanted to come up with like some insane set piece where Jim would just be, you know, the just the biggest kind of asshole guy who comes in to play a pickup basketball game.

Speaker 12 Yeah. And Jack Black, I guess, is like, he's, like, he runs up on Jack Black.
But I remember we put like an Apple box or something next to Jack.

Speaker 12 It was very low-tech, there was no like, like if we did it today, there would be like CG and it would be like, yeah, it probably it was just a very like kind of like uh simplistic way of doing where he's like on an apple box right behind him when he jumps up.

Speaker 12 Um, but then, yeah, and then he shatters the backboard,

Speaker 12 but we had such a good time making that movie. And Matthew Brodark is so funny in it, and yeah, um, yeah, and Jim is just insane.
Have you ever had him on the podcast? He's so

Speaker 1 funny, he's so funny.

Speaker 12 I mean, he's like one of those guys who'll just do something to make you laugh and then he'll just keep doing it until you stop laughing.

Speaker 12 You know, it was fun to just be working with him at that moment where he was just sort of like willing to take any chance and just do whatever he thought could be funny.

Speaker 12 And we were just having a great time together.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah. We kind of touched on it before.
In terms of writing for

Speaker 1 yourself or for guys that kind of just have like those instincts of like

Speaker 1 improv, how much of it is hard as a director to control that, to try and keep, keep the script, the script?

Speaker 1 How much do you juggle with that as a director?

Speaker 12 I did a movie once, Mystery Men, and

Speaker 1 that video. Oh, it was.
I just did it. Yeah, just one time back then.

Speaker 1 I forgot about that movie. It was not a block.
It was not a block poster at the time.

Speaker 12 But one of the actors was not as into improv.

Speaker 1 A lot of the other actors were, and we were kind of figuring it as we went along.

Speaker 12 And that ended up sometimes being a thing.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Where that actor would want to just like, hey, can we do it?

Speaker 1 Can we just do what we planned?

Speaker 12 And by the way, a great actor, just it wasn't his process as much.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So you'd be surprised. You do it on the football field, too.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
This is a kid.

Speaker 1 You go to a big time improv.

Speaker 12 Does the coach get mad or not?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Sometimes

Speaker 1 you get that, you get that look, he gives you the eyebrow. Look,

Speaker 1 then he gets happy. Never do that again when it works.

Speaker 1 He's happy when it works.

Speaker 1 I'll come to the side and just decide. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 Don't ever do that again.

Speaker 1 Got it.

Speaker 12 He's got a good commercial career going, too.

Speaker 7 Yes, he does.

Speaker 1 He's a Hollywood guy right there. You know what I mean? He gets it.
He gets the entertainment aspect of it.

Speaker 1 He's killing it.

Speaker 2 Speaking of severance, it is time that we put this disclaimer out.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 We're at the point of the show where we're going to talk about severance, folks.

Speaker 1 We're going to do it in a segment called We Gotta Ask.

Speaker 2 You don't have to answer, which I think there's going to be a lot of these you probably aren't going to answer. Basically, we're going to ask you a bunch of questions.
You tell us

Speaker 2 what you think of it. You can tell us the fuck off whatever you want.
Okay. And since you've been a great guest, we're going to get to this section while having our very own waffle party.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 So, what was the inspiration behind the waffle party?

Speaker 12 This is a Dan Erickson who wrote the pilot and is the creator of the show. And we've been working on it together over the years.
He has a brilliant mind.

Speaker 12 And waffle party being something, I don't know where that came from in his mind as

Speaker 1 the celebration,

Speaker 1 the reward, when you get to a certain point. It's not a pizza party.
It's a waffle party. These might be a little raspberry.

Speaker 12 For a long time, in season one, you know, we didn't know what

Speaker 12 the waffle party actually was. Eventually, we defined it in the, like, I guess like the second to last episode.
But it was fun to think about like, what is a waffle party? What's the metaphor?

Speaker 1 What is the, you know, what does that mean? What does it mean?

Speaker 12 Well, I mean, I think it's more than just waffles is what I feel.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 12 It's like, what would be the best reward you could have if you're working in this place every day and you don't get to leave? And, you know, you're a human being. And so, somewhat party aspect.

Speaker 12 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, I love it.
I'm about to start having waffle parties all the time now. Wow.
With no underlining.

Speaker 2 Great. Wow.
It was just so funny because it felt like childlike.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 These are grown adults who are subjected to, in some way, slave labor as guinea.

Speaker 12 Well, they're kind of like kids because they've only had consciousness for a short amount of time. Right.
And they don't really have any freedom.

Speaker 12 And they're told, yeah, a waffle party is like the best thing.

Speaker 1 This is it.

Speaker 12 These are good, though.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to butter it up just a little bit.

Speaker 12 Are waffles on your training camp menu?

Speaker 1 I'll tell you what, there was a waffle

Speaker 2 next to Lehigh Valley, where we had training camp back when it was remote. That was our Chick-fil-A.

Speaker 1 That's where we would go.

Speaker 1 No, a lot of the shots in Severus, we're talking about symmetry. That's, I mean, the opening episode, everything is just so like,

Speaker 1 I just feel like it was so thought out and the colors that you chose, the building blows my mind. Is that a real, how much was it?

Speaker 1 Was of it was like a studio set, and how much of it was like an actual building that you guys found? Because the inside of that building was so big. The shots seemed so massive, and it seems so epic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that building is a real building.

Speaker 12 It's and it is huge.

Speaker 12 It even is bigger in real life when you go there than it feels on, I think, when you see it on the show because it's, it's just ceilings are so freaking it's in new jersey it's in holmedal new jersey and uh it's um it was uh

Speaker 12 it's now like kind of like an office complex and a mall but it used to be the head of bell uh with the the headquarters of bell labs okay and they they developed the transistor chip there i think in the 60s So it's pretty, that's why the water tower there has that interesting shape where it kind of looks like a transistor.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 when we found it, Jessica Lee Gagne, who's our cinematographer, we were Googling stuff and she found this place.

Speaker 12 And we looked at it from above and it looked like this giant sort of like, almost like an egg shape with this, or the building was there.

Speaker 12 And then the parking lot was like an egg-shaped oval around it. And we're like, this is so crazy, this view and this shape.
And then we went there and it was just gigantic and kind of empty.

Speaker 12 So, and nobody had filmed anything there.

Speaker 12 That was the, that's, so when you're making movies and you find a location, you get so excited when you find a really cool location that nobody's ever filmed at because you don't want to have something that's been in another movie.

Speaker 12 And so, when we found that, that was the first thing we found. And then we designed the sets and all the interiors and everything are on soundstages that we shot up in the Bronx.

Speaker 12 But that was like the design sort of

Speaker 12 the first sort of inspiration for the rest of the show.

Speaker 12 And it was a guy named Ero Saarinen, who's an architect in the 50s who made that building.

Speaker 1 Did you always imagine the characters having that fun kind of comedy banter?

Speaker 12 Or like, because it's such a, it's a a very serious show or at least it feels very like no you're right though like in the the when i read the script that dan wrote it was a pilot he wrote a spec pilot on his own that he brought to our company when i read that banter it it reminded me of shows i love like the office or parks and wreck this back and forth thing that they had and what was so fascinating to me was oh these guys are like doing this kind of funny office humor uh but yet they don't know who they are, why they're there, what they're doing.

Speaker 1 So good.

Speaker 12 Yeah, they don't know anything. It's like, so that's like this weird sort of Twilight Zone aspect to it.
And it's very surreal and kind of

Speaker 12 abstract in a way. Like, well, what is going on here? So that humor and that office workplace thing is actually, for me, always been sort of the core of what the show is.

Speaker 12 And then it's definitely developed into

Speaker 12 what it is. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 Are you surprised by the fan base the show has built up?

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 2 I do not want to take away from the waffles. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That raspberry butter,

Speaker 1 sweet chicken, strawberry butter. I haven't had a waffle in

Speaker 1 i think since we shot the waffle i was about to say i'm gonna jump in there

Speaker 12 we had these waffles and i was like i gotta have a taste of one of those waffles and that was like three years ago for old time's sake yeah it's crazy because we were off the air for three years oh i remember yeah and it was incredibly infuriating as a fan of the show well i appreciate that you were a fan from the first season because a lot of people didn't discover it until now i told so many people have you guys seen this show on apple tv several like it was like all i could think about Thanks.

Speaker 2 And you did a great job of leaving on that cliffhanger with Mark at the Birthing Cavern.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 12 he's at Kevin and Rickens. He's like, she's alive.

Speaker 1 And the,

Speaker 2 and I'm like, when is this next episode going to come out? When is the next season?

Speaker 12 I know.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 12 When we got hit with the strike, there was a writer as an actor strike. And it took us a little bit of a while to kind of like regroup after that.

Speaker 12 And the show, I think we shot for 186 days on season two. Yes.
So there's a lot of shooting and editing. And editing takes a while.

Speaker 12 But thank goodness that the audience was like, was there when we came back on and I mean, it almost built the suspense up even more.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I think we just kept talking about it.

Speaker 12 Yeah. And the challenge was just to get people who hadn't seen the show to watch the first season.
So Apple did a really good job, I think, of getting the word out.

Speaker 12 And we, you know, did as much press as we could. But also three years later, Apple TV Plus is actually a different.

Speaker 12 It's a different situation there now because they have more viewers too. Because when we started out, we were one of the first shows.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Talking about kind of doing some promo for it, was the art museum set up? Was it even at an art museum? It was like a pop-up like office setup. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Is that like the weirdest promo you've ever done for a show?

Speaker 12 Yeah, that was really crazy. We set up the office cubicle in a glass cube in Grand Central Station.

Speaker 1 That's where it was, Grand Central Station.

Speaker 12 And it was an idea that they had. And Adam Scott said, well, if the actors, the real actors can go in there and do it.
And the fact that they were willing to go in there.

Speaker 12 And I said, they have to do it for like at least three hours because like it just has to be enough time that people can be walking by and just go, what's that?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 12 Oh my God. People going home from work.
Like, wait a minute. Like people who knew the show, people who didn't know the show.
And of course, people started filming with their phones and stuff.

Speaker 12 And it became, it did become a viral thing. And that, I think, ended up probably getting more attention than if we had just done a premiere.

Speaker 12 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And because it was so organic.
And it was so much fun to watch them just in this cube because the actors just started improvising.

Speaker 1 I was going going to say, was there a script?

Speaker 1 Were they even like told to talk about or even, could they even be heard?

Speaker 12 They couldn't be heard. So they knew that.
So they had that freedom and they knew that they were going to be in character. So they were actually doing, you know, Dylan and Mark.
Yes.

Speaker 12 And Patricia came in as Miss Cobel and she started throwing stuff at Adam and made him stand in the corner. And there's just like so many funny moments.

Speaker 12 But I knew as actors, I knew they were just going to sort of fall into it because it's like what you do. So like, it's like for them, it's like, okay, this is like a performance art piece.

Speaker 12 And they had so much fun with it. And I was just like watching, taking pictures.
And yeah, it was, it was awesome.

Speaker 2 What's it like directing something as complicated in some ways

Speaker 2 meticulous as severance?

Speaker 12 I mean, it just becomes, you know, I've been directing for like a lot for most of my life, I guess. And I love it so much.
It's such a collaborative experience.

Speaker 12 You're working with cinematographers, you know, the production designer, costume designer, actors, editor, all these people. it's a group effort.

Speaker 12 And I just, I love the process, what we were talking about earlier.

Speaker 12 So for something like this, when you have everybody who's sort of like focused on this vision that Dan laid out in his script, everybody's working sort of like towards the same goal. And

Speaker 12 you want to get people to just be as creative as possible and work with people who you want to bring as much of their own

Speaker 12 personal sort of inspiration to it.

Speaker 12 So I think that's like a big part of it. And then it's become, become, it's basically been my full-time job for the last five years and I've loved it.

Speaker 12 It's just, you go to work every day, you know, and you have your, you know, whatever scene you're going to approach. I think acting is, is harder, honestly.

Speaker 12 You know, when you have to get in front of a camera and like show up in the morning and do an emotional scene where you're going to break down crying in your car or whatever it is, that's, you know, that's challenging.

Speaker 12 Heck yeah. As a director, you can come set up the camera, try to help the actor as much as possible, create an environment, but they have to do that thing.

Speaker 12 And so for me, using that part of my brain as a director, I really enjoy because in a way, I feel like, you know, every day I kind of know what I'm, I'm, I'm going to be doing acting stresses me out a little more because, you know, it's like, oh shit, I have that scene today where I have to pull that up.

Speaker 12 And that, and I really admire, it made me, it's made me admire actors so much more as a director, just working with them, you know, because I just see when you're doing both, because a lot of over the years I did it, I acted and directed in a lot of movies I made.

Speaker 12 When you're really just directing, I think you can just focus on what you're doing, be there for the other actors more, and be connected to the crew and sort of adjust things.

Speaker 12 And I love the process of it. And by the way, I just have to say we have other great directors.
Jessica Lee Gagnier, our cinematographer, directed our episode seven that just came out.

Speaker 1 I have some cool shots in this. Like, I'm just blown away by some of these.

Speaker 12 We have amazing people working on the show.

Speaker 1 Rebecca Harmony Clavelle.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but she was.

Speaker 2 Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 2 That was, I don't know if anybody saw that portion of it coming because there wasn't a lot of hints to that.

Speaker 12 Oh, to her going back to her.

Speaker 1 yeah, yeah, I don't know what we, but yeah,

Speaker 1 what is, I don't know, I feel like there's more questions now than there were before, exactly. But that's how that's kind of the fun of it.

Speaker 1 And I can only imagine how fun that is trying to keep that question in the air, like the underlying meaning of everything and the theories.

Speaker 1 Have you heard of any like fan theories that you're like, ooh, that's a good one. Didn't even think of that.

Speaker 12 Yeah, there are, there's so many on this show. People, and people put out, there's so much fan art and fan edits and

Speaker 12 theorizing and podcasts about it that i don't i try not to get into a lot of that yeah i try not to because we have to focus on what we want it to be

Speaker 12 but of course you hear ideas that are like really interesting yeah and you go oh yeah that could actually be something but you don't want it to really influence like what we're doing But yet you are aware of the audience.

Speaker 12 You want the audience to enjoy the show.

Speaker 12 But everybody seems to have a different way into the show, too, and different things that they love the Mark Helly relationship. They love the Mark Jemmer relationship.

Speaker 12 They love Miss Cabell or Milchik.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 12 what's what's interesting is you make the show. We made the season.
We basically locked the season and finished in, I'd say, like September, October.

Speaker 12 And it was doing some mixing and visual effects stuff through the fall, but it's done.

Speaker 12 So, you know, as you're watching people react in real time, it's not like, you know, like, oh, you're watching a sports team where you go, you know, they really should have this guy play that position.

Speaker 12 You can't make any changes.

Speaker 1 It's all

Speaker 1 set in stone.

Speaker 12 So I'm watching people react and they go, oh, this episode was the best episode. Or I really didn't like that episode.
Or I wonder what's going to happen, you you know, or they should do this or that.

Speaker 12 And I'm like, well, it's just, it is what it's going to be.

Speaker 12 Next week is going to come out. You're going to find out.

Speaker 2 I mean, that has been something like, especially

Speaker 2 you go knee deep in the theories each week. Yeah.
And it's fun to watch. Oh, well, that didn't end up panning out.

Speaker 1 Now we're on to the next theory. Exactly.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 And so we know what it is and like what we've done for the season. And I'm just watching in real time because it's not a binge show too.
It's coming out week to week.

Speaker 12 So that's very different too, as opposed to, you know, if you're watching something where you can watch every single episode, people can then go like, oh, oh, that frustrated me, I'm gonna watch the next episode, and I get the answer I wanted.

Speaker 12 But here, you get people for like a whole week going, like, oh, you know, that's it's gonna go this way, is it gonna go that way, or that frustrated me. So it plays out differently.

Speaker 12 Then I think once the show's out in a couple of weeks, then people will be able to binge the whole thing, and that'll be a different experience for them watching it too.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I have two people, three people who I show the show to when we're in process, which is my wife, my son, and my daughter.

Speaker 1 Nice, so they just get the family, yeah. So they have all the answers.

Speaker 12 Well, they see it as like, I'll show them a rough cut.

Speaker 1 Oh, Brian, too.

Speaker 12 Brian showed it, right? Yeah. And so I'll get feedback from them, but you can't show everybody the whole series.

Speaker 12 So you can only pick a few people who you go, okay, do you want to watch cuts as we go along? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's going to be exciting.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Talking about some characters,

Speaker 1 Adam Scott.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 1 Absolutely kills it.

Speaker 12 He's amazing.

Speaker 1 Was he always kind of the first choice? I don't want to bring that.

Speaker 1 He was always the first choice for you?

Speaker 12 He was always the first choice for me from the second I read the pilot script that Dan gave me. And

Speaker 12 I think Dan had been thinking about him too. And I reached out to him immediately.
And then

Speaker 12 Apple had some other ideas about

Speaker 12 casting it. And I was very firm, like I really felt Adam was the guy.
And Adam luckily stuck with it and stuck through with me and

Speaker 12 ended up

Speaker 12 doing it. And I'm so happy because I couldn't.

Speaker 12 And again, for that same reason of like the office workplace comedy vibe that he brings, but I also know he has this deeper thing underneath. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12 And to watch him really embrace that over the course of making the show and even just the way he approached playing Audi Mark and Innie Mark, his voice, his physicality, it's all so different, you know, and he really works so hard to do that.

Speaker 12 And he's also like this crazy, like robot actor guy who can do anything. Like he, and I mean that in a good way, because like you say robot actor,

Speaker 12 but like he is so specific and so precision in terms of being able to make an adjustment. Yeah.
You know, like he can make an adjustment that's sort of just like a,

Speaker 12 you know, a thing where, like, you know, if you could just like lean a little to the right because the camera sees this behind you and still do the moment or, you know, just, he's, he's amazing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 All of the actors are fantastic.

Speaker 12 Yeah. And John Taturo and Irvine.
Never worked with him before. And he's just an intense, great guy.

Speaker 2 The outdoor episode with the Cat Skills.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That moment with Heli.

Speaker 2 And speaking of like, even Helly and Helena,

Speaker 2 the facial expression changed.

Speaker 1 You know, Britt this year. Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 This year, Britt having to play Helena and Helly.

Speaker 12 And again, the same thing Adam has been doing. But these actors are thinking about the characters so deeply

Speaker 12 that they always come in with so many great ideas. And I really listen to them

Speaker 12 even

Speaker 12 just on story level, you know, just tone, everything.

Speaker 12 They understand it so well.

Speaker 12 So, you know, we'll be talking about an idea for a scene and Adam will say, like, you know, I don't know if that really feels like severance to me, you know, and it's hard to define it sometimes, but it's that kind of thing.

Speaker 12 Also, when you're trying to push the boundary a little bit and take some chances, like we've done in season two, you know, you're trying to define, like, okay, does this still feel like the show?

Speaker 12 And I think when you trust your actors and you know that they have a sense of who they are in the show, you know, I really rely on that a lot.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, let's ask the biggest question to me. Would you get severed?

Speaker 12 Would I get severed?

Speaker 2 You have potentially more information for where this goes.

Speaker 1 I personally, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 12 The idea of it does not seem like a great idea.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of control you're giving up. Yeah.

Speaker 12 I feel like, you know, yeah. So for me, it's no, because like, I want to remember, I want to experience my life, the life that I have left to live, right? Because like we're here for not so long.

Speaker 12 Like, I want to feel it all. Yeah.
I feel like there's so many metaphors for severance in life, though, right? In terms of how we suppress or cut off, you know,

Speaker 1 whether or not

Speaker 12 exactly. And I feel like, you know, people do that in all different sorts of ways.
And I've, you know, and I probably do that in my life in a lot of different ways.

Speaker 2 And I had a great text from a really good buddy of mine who played in the NFL, also served for the United States Army.

Speaker 2 He said, you won't accomplish anything worth having in life unless it was hard getting it.

Speaker 2 And it's kind of like, you know, I feel like severance, a lot of the themes are like, and it seems where it's going is being severed from all of these painful, traumatic things, but you lose sight of the fact that these painful, traumatic things are part of living life and they're necessary to have.

Speaker 2 And it's, it's undoubtedly no answer for that reason.

Speaker 12 But yeah, I think that's very much about what the show is. You know, like this, it's this life,

Speaker 12 you know, pain is such a big part of our experience. And of course, there's that duality thing of like, well, you can't have, you know,

Speaker 12 pain

Speaker 12 and enjoying life. You know, these things are separate, right? Yeah.
Pleasure and pain, but like you can't have pleasure without pain.

Speaker 2 What is pleasure without pain?

Speaker 12 Yeah. What is it, Jason?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 12 Please tell me.

Speaker 1 I believed you when you said that.

Speaker 2 Is Kobell officially a character we're rooting for now?

Speaker 1 Or is this still a part of the show?

Speaker 2 I mean, that's the fun.

Speaker 12 Again, I think that's the fun of the show is that you have people like Milchik and Kobell

Speaker 12 and Helena and, you know, all these people that you don't quite know. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 And I like that she's always kind of had her own severed version of, even though she's not severed, that she, you know, that she's Ms.

Speaker 12 Selvig and playing his, you know, she's kind of imagining a life as a normal person, too, when she's living next door to Mark.

Speaker 12 So, yeah, the duality thing is a big part of

Speaker 12 the characters. And I think that's fun for the audience to sit in, you know.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 Can I ask you one more? Is Irv, is there more to the Irv and Burt relationship that hasn't been, I'm assuming yes.

Speaker 1 Okay. I'm assuming.

Speaker 1 I don't want to push you.

Speaker 2 I really don't.

Speaker 12 When is this thing going to be on?

Speaker 2 It'll be on the day the last or the week the last episode comes up. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 We will have answers by Wednesday. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Yes. All shall be revealed.

Speaker 1 Okay. Fair.

Speaker 1 That is good. That is good.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because it feels, I mean, well, I feel like where we are. The elevator painting with the Gemma episode all of a sudden reveals more like, oh, there's another floor to this that.

Speaker 1 All right. All right.
I'll stop. I'll stop.

Speaker 1 I'll stop. I'll stop.
I'll stop. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Listen, I'm telling you, I'm all over the space.

Speaker 1 I can't tell you.

Speaker 12 I have the spoiler thing, but I'll be.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 12 I just had an idea, but I'll tell you about it later.

Speaker 2 Okay, because I will tune in regardless.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, are we going to have to wait for three years for season three to come out?

Speaker 12 No, no, the plan is not.

Speaker 1 Definitely not. Let's go.

Speaker 12 Yeah, no, the plan is not. And hopefully we'll be announcing what the plan is very soon.
That will not be that.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 1 Well, I'll be at Grand Central Station for it.

Speaker 1 Let's go sit in a cube together and see what happens. Don't you thread me with a good time.
I'm just going to have it courtside at the Knicks game.

Speaker 12 By the way, I went to a Knicks game with Taylor. She was there, like, this was like 10 years ago.
And I was there with my son. And she literally, we FaceTimed my daughter, who's a huge 50.

Speaker 12 She's 23 now.

Speaker 12 And we had the best time. She was incredible.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I appreciate that. I think the same thing.
So that's perfect. Yeah.
You're right. And maybe we can get Taylor to another Knicks game.
Yeah. Well, this is the time.

Speaker 12 You should definitely come, though, if you want to go. I mean, I can hook that up.

Speaker 1 Say no more. Say no more.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you would need help getting it done.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's always a little smoother when you get

Speaker 1 it.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, let's do it.
Come on.

Speaker 1 I'm in, dude. Dude, thank you so much.
Thanks, man. It's so great talking to you, bro.

Speaker 3 I am.

Speaker 1 This is a dream come true, man. You've been one of the idols of everyone from the 90s growing up and all the amazing movies you did.

Speaker 1 But now it's just so cool to, you know, see that you're every bit of a great dude as you are a great actor and director.

Speaker 12 Thanks, man.

Speaker 12 Well, it's fun for us, you know, as like talking like i was talking like the sand like we were working on oh yeah happy gilmore and you know it's it's a kick because like you guys like when you were kids watching this stuff and that it resonated and and we enjoyed watching you guys do your thing that's yeah super cool i can't wait to see what hal's got in store for us happy

Speaker 1 I can't wait, dude. Well, thanks again, brother, man.
Thanks, man.

Speaker 12 Yeah, great talking to you.

Speaker 2 Great talking to you.

Speaker 1 Thanks for the waffles. Nice.
Great waffle party. My first one.

Speaker 1 Look forward to that.

Speaker 2 Next time we'll have a cantaloupe with your face on it.

Speaker 1 You say

Speaker 1 watermelon.

Speaker 8 Ladies, is everyone trying to fix their health concerns with unproven gummies and tricks? Well, thank goodness, low libido has a real clinically proven treatment.

Speaker 8 Lolbido can be so frustrating, but there is a treatment called Addi, ADDYI. Addy is the first and only FDA-approved pill proven to boost sexual desire in certain premenopausal women.
Isn't that great?

Speaker 8 A clinically proven option for your low libido that comes from a doctor, not a gas station. Learn more at Addy.com and take charge of your sexual health with a treatment that's backed by science.

Speaker 8 Remember, that's Addy. A-D-D-Y.com.

Speaker 8 Addy, or flobanserin, is for premenopausal women with acquired generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder, HSDD, who have not had problems with low sexual desire in the past, who have low sexual desire no matter the type of sexual activity, the situation, or the sexual partner.

Speaker 8 The low sexual desire is troubling to them and is not due to a medical or mental health problem, problems in the relationship, or a medicine or other drug use.

Speaker 8 Addy is not for use in men or to enhance sexual performance.

Speaker 8 Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is increased if you drink one to two standard alcoholic drinks close in time to your Addi dose.

Speaker 8 Wait at least two hours after drinking before taking Addy at bedtime.

Speaker 8 Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is also increased if you take certain prescriptions, over-the-counter or herbal medications, or have liver problems.

Speaker 8 Low blood pressure and fainting can happen when you take Addi, even if you don't drink alcohol or take other medicines. Do not take if you are are allergic to any of the ingredients in Addi.

Speaker 8 Allergic reactions may include hives, itching, or trouble breathing. Sleepiness, sometimes serious, can occur.

Speaker 8 Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, tiredness, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, and dry mouth.

Speaker 8 See full PI and medication guide, including boxed warning at Addi.com/slash PI or call 844-PinkPill.

Speaker 1 Addie!

Speaker 8 That's Addie, A-D-D-YI.com.

Speaker 13 At Raising Canes, we're hyper-focused on being the best at what we do and getting it right every time.

Speaker 15 Hook to order chicken fingers, cane sauce, crinkle cut fries, coleslaw, Texas toast, iced tea and lemonade.

Speaker 5 It's our one love.

Speaker 13 But is the hype real?

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's real good.

Speaker 13 Raisin Canes Chicken Fingers, one love.

Speaker 15 Next time, order with our app or online.

Speaker 7 With Multi-View from Xfinity, you can watch up to four football games at once, which can lead to some tough choices.

Speaker 2 French toast nibblers or breakfast nachos.

Speaker 14 Actually, I was thinking about heading out only because I want to beat the traffic.

Speaker 7 The best part of the sleepovers the next time.

Speaker 1 It's going to throw the games on. Bobby Big Wheels.

Speaker 2 I mean, how can you call yourself a sports fan without Xfinity? We got the multi-view, best college and pro games all in one place.

Speaker 1 I'm not going anywhere.

Speaker 7 This is how football was meant to be watched. Xfinity.
Imagine that.

Speaker 6 Restrictions apply. Multi-view requires Xfinity 4K capable TV box.

Speaker 2 Yeah, thanks for stopping by, Ben Stiller.

Speaker 1 How about that?

Speaker 4 Man, what a guy, man. There's just some people that it's just, it's fun as hell to talk to.
And the whole time you're talking to them, you're like, I can't believe I'm talking to fucking

Speaker 1 Ben Stiller.

Speaker 2 It's amazing.

Speaker 4 Dude, I love how he brought up Mystery Men right at the end there.

Speaker 2 I forgot all about that movie. I even told him.
I forgot you did that.

Speaker 2 But that was a funny movie.

Speaker 4 It's on cable TV a lot more than

Speaker 4 you would expect.

Speaker 4 I'll just be searching the guide on

Speaker 4 a cable network and I'll come across Mystery Men every now and then and just fucking press press. I'll just click.

Speaker 2 You know, it was this isn't a Ben Stiller movie, but whenever I think of like the superhero movies, the ones that are like off the beaten trail, like it's like

Speaker 2 clearly, they were like kind of poking fun at the superhero movies. What's the one? Is it Mr.
Blank Man? What's the one with

Speaker 1 Doug? Do you know what you're not talking about?

Speaker 2 That's my favorite superhero movie of all time.

Speaker 4 I'm sorry to the Wayne's brother, dude. Yeah, I'm sorry to segue out of Blank Man was fucking hilarious.

Speaker 2 Dude, that movie is fucking amazing.

Speaker 2 Now, that's one.

Speaker 4 That's one I'd have to rewatch.

Speaker 2 I know we're on Ben Stiller. I know we're on Ben Stiller.

Speaker 4 I'd have to re-watch Blank Man. I haven't seen that one in fucking forever.

Speaker 2 What's Blank Man on Rotten Tomatoes?

Speaker 4 Oh, it's got to be through the roof.

Speaker 1 12%

Speaker 2 critic review.

Speaker 4 It's only funny because I didn't expect it to have a high

Speaker 4 Rotten Tomato review, but still a classic.

Speaker 2 I don't care what the critics say. That movie's fucking great.

Speaker 4 Undeniable classic.

Speaker 2 Oh, anyways, Mystery Men, great movie. Ben Steeler's the best.
All righty, let's get into some March Madness.

Speaker 4 The March Madness brackets brought to you by Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Speaker 4 That's a Kelsey favorite right there. I definitely did get my Reese's backpacks and my Reese's varsity jacket.
I am not in Kansas City, though, right now.

Speaker 2 I really like the

Speaker 2 seasonal Reese's cups that are the egg version.

Speaker 2 Oh, I don't like white chocolate.

Speaker 1 I love these.

Speaker 3 These. Oh, no.
These.

Speaker 1 There they are. There they are.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Any of the, they're a little bit thicker, a little bit more protein, a little more peanut butter to chocolate ratio.

Speaker 3 Have you tried these? Have you tried these?

Speaker 1 I sprinkled them. I haven't.
I didn't see that one in there. I got to try that one out.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 4 If there was a bracket of Reese's, Jason, what's in your final four?

Speaker 2 Final four of Reese's. Everybody keeps saying, like, why do they say Reese's? I was like, I don't know, guys.
That's why we that's how we fucking say it. I don't know which one.

Speaker 4 This is how I've always said it.

Speaker 2 Everybody knows what we're talking about, so can we stop acting like it's that big of a deal?

Speaker 1 Yes, just because we have an accent.

Speaker 4 Reese's that I'm saying it.

Speaker 1 I'm not sorry.

Speaker 2 I'm not sorry at all.

Speaker 2 Obviously, original Reese's Peanut Butter Cups have to be in it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think they're the number one and they win it.

Speaker 2 I don't think they win it. Reese's pieces,

Speaker 2 or as we would call it reese's pieces the reese's piece

Speaker 2 reese's do not sleep on reese's piece i like reeese's pieces better i love reefy's pieces i like reeese's pieces and like ice cream and i can't just do them just straight up you're out of your mind go eat some reese's peasies you'll i know exactly i know exactly i'm in my mind and my mind is telling me that's not how i want to enjoy my my reese's piece I mean, it's great as an additive as well, but it's also great on its own.

Speaker 2 They're fantastic. Reese's Peasies.
Fast Break, you putting that up there? No.

Speaker 2 no take five is take five a reese's i think it is right yeah but i'm just not up there take five is great you guys are out of your mind if you're not putting i'm not saying i'm it's not it's not a business

Speaker 2 product i think it got switched i think reese's bought it yeah reese's i think it's

Speaker 4 now yeah now but that's just because they own the market It literally says Reese's take five.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I'm putting Reese's take five in my top four because the take five is fantastic.
You're out of your mind if you don't have it up there.

Speaker 4 You put Reese's.

Speaker 3 So Reese's take five.

Speaker 7 You're right. You're correct.

Speaker 3 I'm just going off what the nice people at Reese's sent me as a document.

Speaker 1 God damn it. Jesus.
I know my Reese's.

Speaker 2 I know my Reese's.

Speaker 3 Have you said eggs yet? Have you said eggs yet?

Speaker 2 Not yet. That was going to be my fourth one.

Speaker 1 All right, all right.

Speaker 2 I was going to say Reese's eggs, not like the actual egg. I'm talking about like the

Speaker 1 Reese's cup.

Speaker 4 The one thing you ate the most of Reese's was Reese's puffs.

Speaker 1 So you have to put Reese's puffs in there. You ate,

Speaker 4 that was the only cereal you ate, Jason.

Speaker 7 No, you're right.

Speaker 2 I did not, in my brain, I did not equate Reese's

Speaker 2 peanut butter puffs as the candy bracket, but I think you didn't say it was a candy bracket.

Speaker 1 You're right.

Speaker 2 We said it's a Reese's bracket. So I think you're right.
All right. So I got Reese's original, Reese's PCs, take five, and Reese's peanut butter puffs.

Speaker 2 Dang, but I would like the specialty holiday Reese's.

Speaker 1 The egg is nostalgic and it's the best.

Speaker 2 The egg or the Christmas tree, any of that stuff where it's like a new, because it becomes a little bit thicker, and I just like the ratio better.

Speaker 2 But I can't take out the original, and I'm definitely not taking out. I guess I'll take out take five.
Gosh, I like to take five, though.

Speaker 1 Back to basketball.

Speaker 4 March Madness is coming up, man. Us sports fans, we love filling out these brackets, baby.
And as we said last week, we're doing it for the first time ever.

Speaker 1 New Heights Bracket Challenge. That's right.

Speaker 4 It is brought to you by Reese's or Reese's for those who want to fucking get mad at us. The men's bracket deadline is this Thursday, March 20th at noon Eastern.

Speaker 4 And the women's bracket deadline is Friday, March 21st at 11.30 Eastern. I don't know why we didn't just make them both the same time on two different days, but fill those fuckers out.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Have some fun, ladies and gents.

Speaker 4 I think we've limited it to one person per bracket or one bracket per person. So this isn't just you fill out 100 brackets and

Speaker 2 improve your odds. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, improve the odds. Yeah.
Just put in fucking one bracket, guys. Don't be weirdos.
Jason, have you filled out your bracket yet?

Speaker 2 I have not yet.

Speaker 1 Good. Well, you have till Thursday.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I got time, but I would like to go over it.

Speaker 1 Do we have a bracket?

Speaker 4 Yeah, we got some brackets. How do you make your picks since you don't watch any college basketball?

Speaker 2 Well, as you know, playoffs always come down to the same things. Like, it's all, you know, taking care of the basketball.

Speaker 2 You got to like, you know, how well you operate end-of-game situation, two-minute drill. Like this is what it comes down to in playoff basketball.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 you're going turnover margin.

Speaker 2 I go physicality.

Speaker 1 All right. Toughness.
Height.

Speaker 2 Physicality.

Speaker 1 Toughness.

Speaker 4 You look at the height of the roster.

Speaker 2 Like, I already know where's Michigan State at? Where's Michigan State? I'm putting them all the way through to the Final Four.

Speaker 1 I don't even need to see where they're at. I don't even need to see.

Speaker 2 Because I know Tom Islow is going to have those guys playing hard and physical. I saw that they aren't the best three-point shooting team.
So I was like, they're in.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 2 all college basketball wants now is to fucking shoot these three-pointers. And

Speaker 2 Tom Islow is going to come. They're going to be undercutting their legs.
Like, dude, you know how you stop a three-point shooting team? You foul the fuck out of them on that first three-pointer.

Speaker 2 Yeah, give them a couple free throws. It's going to throw off the rhythm and it's going to make him nervous every time you come out there.

Speaker 4 Right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's a good, yeah.

Speaker 2 You got to make these guys pay. You

Speaker 1 will

Speaker 4 pose your will on finesse players.

Speaker 2 So, don't let these small shooting guards beat you in the tournament. I'll physical the fuck out of these dudes.

Speaker 4 Jason, you're the

Speaker 4 three-point equivalent to an offensive lineman, though.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's what you might think.

Speaker 1 I'm not, though.

Speaker 2 I am the

Speaker 2 undersized center.

Speaker 1 I'm the Dennis Rodman of offensive line football that's right

Speaker 2 i'm the uh

Speaker 2 i'm the draymond green of offensive line

Speaker 2 nice michigan state yeah that's right i'm not the biggest guy

Speaker 2 but i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna get in a mentor that's cold nice

Speaker 2 capacity and i'm gonna impose my will on you in a weird way jaymon green who else we got we got a bunch uh all right so this is the east east okay so obviously duke yeah i mean Well, you got the four play-in games, too.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 can't forget about those.

Speaker 2 I never worry about the play-in games.

Speaker 2 If you got to make it into the tournament on a play-in game, I'm not interested.

Speaker 1 Go back up,

Speaker 2 go back up. We'll get the start of the East.

Speaker 1 The

Speaker 4 East 11 seeds.

Speaker 1 They're not just the worst seeds.

Speaker 2 There's got to be a play-in. You're out.

Speaker 1 I'm not talking to you. There shouldn't even be play-in games.

Speaker 2 All the play-ins get eliminated in my bracket round one

Speaker 2 after they get in.

Speaker 4 Well, Texas and Xavier might have something to say about that.

Speaker 1 Damn it, Texas is in there.

Speaker 2 I like Texas a lot. Fuck.

Speaker 1 Well, rules are rules. Rules are rules.
I don't make them.

Speaker 2 They just are what they are. Texas is out in round one.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 We got Duke against American. Doesn't even have a logo in there.
It's just a game.

Speaker 1 This is a play-in game.

Speaker 4 That's why there's a play-in game, Jason.

Speaker 2 All right. I don't even need to see who they're playing in.
Duke's advancing.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 4 It's all matchups. I'm going to have to fill out a bracket and figure it out.
But I will make sure that you guys know I'm a big fan of the SEC games or SEC teams.

Speaker 2 We're doing it right now, Travis.

Speaker 1 No, we're not.

Speaker 2 That's what this is.

Speaker 4 No, this is us just kind of going over our bracket from here.

Speaker 4 I'm telling you who I like in these. I'm not going to tell you exactly who I have in coming out, though.

Speaker 1 Okay, fine. All right.

Speaker 4 I'm not going to let you fucking just copy my bracket. Jason, because you know nothing.

Speaker 1 I don't want to copy your bracket.

Speaker 2 I know more about mentality and physicality, and that's all that comes down. Basketball is all about physicality.

Speaker 4 Well, just physicality, Florida is one of the most is one of the biggest teams in Canada.

Speaker 1 So we're picking Florida. Florida's working out of the Florida's back.
The Gators back,

Speaker 2 Memphis,

Speaker 2 Colorado State.

Speaker 4 Memphis is solid.

Speaker 4 I think

Speaker 1 TERPs. Ooh.

Speaker 4 So this is the West has one of my favorite teams in the NCAA right now, and that's Drake.

Speaker 1 Drake?

Speaker 4 Drake University. Yeah, Drake is.

Speaker 4 They have a fun story.

Speaker 4 Their coach is

Speaker 4 and really four or at least four of their players are from Division II.

Speaker 1 I think it was Northwest Missouri. That's a fun story.
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 4 Northwest Missouri State.

Speaker 2 The coach brought them all with him?

Speaker 4 Yeah, they had a lot of transfers when the Drake coach from last year went to West Virginia. A lot of the players that were on that team kind of went on their own or did their own thing.

Speaker 4 And then the new head coach was looking for players to bring in. So he brought in his D2 guys and a couple guys from Wyoming.
They got some guys that can play.

Speaker 4 Although I think Missouri is a really good team. That's going to be a tough game for them.

Speaker 1 I got a lot of,

Speaker 4 that's like my Cinderella team.

Speaker 1 They're also older. I'm rooting for them.

Speaker 2 They're also older for a lot of the better teams in NCAA. Is that correct? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And then on top of that, if they're watching Texas Tech, I know Patty Mahomes is going to love hearing this. If they can stay healthy, if they can, I think they got a fucking great coach.

Speaker 4 They got great players, a lot of athletes. They could make a run at it.

Speaker 2 What about them Jayhawks down there? They're usually pretty good.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Hunter Dickinson. I think, you know, Kansas, Bill Self, they're always going to be a team that

Speaker 4 you got to account for, man.

Speaker 4 They could pull it together and make a run

Speaker 4 against anybody. So you got to keep them in mind.

Speaker 2 Illinois, Kentucky versus Troy, UCLA, Utah State, Tennessee.

Speaker 1 Wooford.

Speaker 1 Wooford.

Speaker 4 Yeah, dude, you'd love this. Wooford has a guy that shoots the ball, shoots free throws underhand.

Speaker 2 No way.

Speaker 1 I knew you were going to love this.

Speaker 2 I mean, I love that, but for that alone, I'm picking Tennessee.

Speaker 1 They're getting too,

Speaker 2 they're being too, they're going against the trend too hard for me to deal with them.

Speaker 2 They've gone, they're a little bit too gimmicky. Got to pick Tennessee in that matchup.

Speaker 1 Oh, man, you're hilarious, dude.

Speaker 2 Texas AM versus Yale.

Speaker 2 Listen, as a rule, I might almost fill out my bracket

Speaker 2 based on GPA. If a team has a higher GPA, I'm picking them to lose.

Speaker 1 And I might do that all the way through to the championship game.

Speaker 4 Jason, we know that GPAs don't reflect actual intelligence.

Speaker 1 Oh, no,

Speaker 2 I think GPAs reflect athleticism. And typically speaking,

Speaker 2 it takes, listen, if you're too smart,

Speaker 2 you're too hesitant to do stupid things. And you have to be willing to do stupid things.

Speaker 1 You have to be willing.

Speaker 1 You got to be willing to take a risk and take a chance and do something new. You got to be stupid.
There's no way that guy's doing that. There's no way that guy's doing that.

Speaker 1 There's no way that guy's going to try that movie.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God, that shit just worked.

Speaker 1 What the fuck?

Speaker 4 And that's, I mean, that's how I got to the NFL. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm picking Texas AM versus them Silver Spoon fucks at Yale.

Speaker 1 That was so uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 What is Yale's

Speaker 2 mascot? Is it just like a pencil?

Speaker 4 The Yale 2%.

Speaker 2 The Yale Bears?

Speaker 1 I think it's a bulldog. What is a Yale? It's a Bulldog.
Bulldog.

Speaker 2 Handsome Dan. Georgia.
Handsome Dan. All right.
Texas A ⁇ M. That's enough shitting on Yale.
All right. Texas AM.

Speaker 1 What's this song called?

Speaker 2 They're going to be just fine. I think those Yale people are going to be just fine.
Yeah. Okay.
Old Miss. Iowa State Lipscomb.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go with Iowa St. Lipscomb, baby.

Speaker 4 Lipscomb.

Speaker 4 Iowa State is sneaky. They're the ones that kick the barricades out of the Big 12 tournament.

Speaker 2 I tell you what, I always fill up my bracket based on what school I think would win in a fight. Like, if I think Iowa State would beat Lipscomb, I'm going to go Iowa State.

Speaker 4 In a fight?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just think

Speaker 2 at the end of the day, the mentality of the university rubs off on the mentality of the team a lot of the times. And I just like the mentality approach because I don't know shit about basketball.

Speaker 1 So that's my only thing I can go off of.

Speaker 2 Marquette versus New Mexico. New Mexico is that's a tough one because New Mexico is probably pretty squirrely.
Strikes me as a squirrely group. Marquette strikes me as...

Speaker 4 Marquette's got one of the best basketball players in the country.

Speaker 2 Marquette strikes me as a little bit of the silver spoon-ness. Where's Marquette at?

Speaker 4 Chicago, I believe.

Speaker 2 Chicago?

Speaker 1 No, no, no.

Speaker 4 Is it? It's outside of Chicago, right? Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 Wisconsin? It's close. Wisconsin.
It's close.

Speaker 4 I don't know why I said Chicago.

Speaker 2 All right. I kind of respect Marquette throughout Wisconsin.

Speaker 4 One of our favorite actors ever went to Marquette.

Speaker 1 Played rugby there.

Speaker 2 Denzel Washington?

Speaker 4 The answer is Chris Farley.

Speaker 2 Oh shit, shit. I should have known that one.

Speaker 1 I should have known that one.

Speaker 4 Now I got to know where did Denzel go?

Speaker 1 Where did Delzel? I don't think he played rugby, though. I'm pretty sure.
He definitely did.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 3 Denzel went to Fordham.

Speaker 1 Fordham.

Speaker 2 Fordham is Patriot League.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. That's fucking

Speaker 1 hilarious.

Speaker 4 I know.

Speaker 1 This is so fucking funny.

Speaker 4 He was a hooper at Fordham. He was a hooper.
He didn't play rugby.

Speaker 1 He was a hooper. He's a basketball player.

Speaker 2 I don't know. That pinky says he played football.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you've seen that pinky.

Speaker 4 Wait, so Jason, we've only talked about the men's bracket. Do you use the same metric system to figure out who's going to win the women's bracket? Like, do you just look at

Speaker 1 who would win the brawl?

Speaker 2 Oh, wow. I haven't thought about it that way.
No, I don't use the same metric. Women's, I just go with,

Speaker 2 I just put UConn as the winner every single year.

Speaker 4 I don't know if they're the same anymore.

Speaker 2 I put UConn as the winner every single year, and that'll be until Gino retires. And then I just go based on overall team height average.

Speaker 1 Whoever's the taller team, then I just fill it out that way.

Speaker 4 You're fucking hilarious. I haven't even, I haven't peeked at the women's as much.
Where's K-State? I know they won the Big 12. Nice.
They're up there.

Speaker 1 Five seed? Solid, solid five-seed.

Speaker 4 We do know that Juju Watkins is at the top of her game. Texas is, goddamn,

Speaker 1 their their number one seed.

Speaker 4 I think it's kind of fair to say

Speaker 4 the number one seeds are.

Speaker 2 I feel like there's less upsets in the women's bracket usually than there are in like the men's bracket. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 4 I think it's fair to say, at least for the number one seeds, you don't see the number one seeds get kicked as much as you do in the men's brackets.

Speaker 2 In my extensive knowledge of both men's basketball and women's NCAA brackets, I like to make broad sweeping generalizations.

Speaker 4 Yeah, can't forget South Carolina. They've been at the top for quite a while now.
They're kind of like the Yukon of the modern day. They have a lot of talent there year in, year out.

Speaker 2 Who's the tallest team

Speaker 2 women's college basketball?

Speaker 3 Jason, this is supposed to be 45 minutes.

Speaker 1 He did 20 years.

Speaker 2 Well, there's no single team in women's college basketball. Duke and Florida State are often cited as having some of the tallest players.

Speaker 1 Both teams average

Speaker 1 isn't even six, seven and a half.

Speaker 2 While there is no definitive tallest team in women's college basketball, Duke and Florida State are often cited as having some of the tallest players.

Speaker 2 Both teams averaging around seven, six, and seven,

Speaker 2 six foot, seven and a half per player. Putting Duke and Florida State, where are they at? Those are my top two teams in women's college basketball outside of UConn.

Speaker 6 Where the fuck is Duke? I think they're a two-seed.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Duke's two-seed.

Speaker 1 Oh, they're one seed in my bracket.

Speaker 3 Okay, great. Who's your other team? Florida State?

Speaker 1 Florida State.

Speaker 2 Dude, I feel really good about this.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 4 Jason's going with height.

Speaker 6 I'm going to pick the stars.

Speaker 1 I'm putting GJ in the final four.

Speaker 4 I'm going to pick the stars as well.

Speaker 6 I'm picking the stars.

Speaker 3 There's like five or six real bona fide stars in that women's bracket.

Speaker 12 I'm going to go ahead and slide them on forward.

Speaker 2 They're going to be a star until they meet that height. I'll let you know that right now.

Speaker 2 Get that shot swatted. No, my bad.
Jiuju's going to go in for that leg. Page will be just fine.

Speaker 3 Page is going to be just fine.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 4 All right. Now, that does it for March Madness Bracket Challenge.
Brought to you by Reese's or Reese's, whatever one you want to call it. Winning never tasted so good.

Speaker 4 Whether you're watching the games or filling out your brackets, feed your fandom with Reese's This March Madness. Hey, whoa.

Speaker 4 Again, to enter, go to the link in the description of the episode, fill out your bracket, and you could win a New Heights Golden Cup. Man, who knows?

Speaker 4 Maybe I can fucking win one or get one one of these days.

Speaker 4 And it will be filled with Reese's peanut butter cups.

Speaker 2 Mine's filled with playing cards.

Speaker 4 I think they threw in some Reese's eggs, too. Who knows?

Speaker 3 Maybe you'll get some puffs, some Reese's PCs.

Speaker 4 But yeah, make sure you guys fill those brackets out. Men's bracket again, Thursday by noon.
Women's bracket Friday by 11.30 all Eastern time. Yeah, good luck to the crew, to the 92%ers.

Speaker 2 That wraps up another episode of New Heights. Thank you to Ben Stiller.

Speaker 2 Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube to the New Heights channel and follow New Heights on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 2 Please go check out our incredible guest episodes from last week, Matthew Stafford and Jason Sedeikis.

Speaker 2 You can also listen to new episodes of New Heights early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 4 Once again, New Heights, a Wonder Show produced by Wave Sports and Entertainment, and brought to you by Nike. When the world says you can't win, Nike says, so win.

Speaker 4 Follow the show on all social media at New Heights Show with 1F for fun clips throughout the week. Ben Stiller, thank you, dude.
That was a fucking blast.

Speaker 4 Thanks to our production and crew for making us all look great like we actually know what we're doing and to the 92 percenters we'll see you guys next week appreciate you tuning in

Speaker 15 Mom and dad, mom and mom, dad and dad, whatever, parents, are you about to spend five hours in the car with your beloved kids this holiday season? Driving to old Granny's house?

Speaker 13 I'm setting the scene, I'm picturing screaming, fighting, back-to-back hours of the K-pop Demon Hunter soundtrack on repeat.

Speaker 13 Well, when your ears start to bleed, I have the perfect thing to keep you from rolling out of that moving vehicle.

Speaker 15 Something for the whole family. He's filled with laughs.
He's filled with rage. The OG Green Gronk, give it up for me, James Austin Johnson, as the Grinch.

Speaker 15 And like any insufferable influencer these days, I'm bringing my crew of lesser talented friends along for the ride with A-list guests like Gronk, Mark Hamill, and the Jonas Brothers, whoever they are.

Speaker 15 There's a little bit of something for everyone.

Speaker 13 Listen to Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.