"Peter Berg"

Speaker 1 AutoTrader is powered by Auto Intelligence. Their tools sync with your exact budget and preferences to tailor the entire car shopping experience to you.

Speaker 1 Want a pink mid-size SUV with 22-inch rims and a V8? They got it. Nothing's too specific.

Speaker 1 Find your dream car at the right price in no time because AutoTrader, powered by Auto Intelligence, puts you in control of the whole experience from search to close it's the totally you way to buy a car visit auto trader.com to find your perfect ride

Speaker 1 nobody wants to spend the holiday season clicking from one site to the next to get their hands on the best brands But who knew Walmart has the top brands we all love?

Speaker 1 Like the big names that your friends and family actually want and all in one place. Nespresso, Nespresso, Nintendo, Apple, you name it.
Get the brands everyone loves at prices you'll love at Walmart.

Speaker 1 Who knew? Go to walmart.com or download the app to get all your gifts this season.

Speaker 1 For resources and to support those affected by the California wildfires, go to smartlist.com slash wildfires.

Speaker 1 Hey guys, I just want to say welcome to all our our fans overseas.

Speaker 1 I don't think they're. I don't think, well, hang on a second.
I don't think we've ever done a welcome to our overseas fans. Wherever you are, I know we get a lot of listeners, and this is not a bit.

Speaker 1 We get a lot of listeners in Iran.

Speaker 1 And I will say we do have a huge listenership there. We have some listeners in Germany.
We have some French listeners. Bonjour Sava.
UK.

Speaker 1 UK for sure. Australia.
Well, Canada's not over NEC, but look at them. Okay, sorry.
And

Speaker 1 certainly the people, our friends down in Australia, down under, we have a lot of fans down there.

Speaker 1 Where are you?

Speaker 1 A lot of fans in Brazil, the home of the Brazilian. And so, just to all of our fans, welcome to Smartless.
Smartless.

Speaker 1 Smart

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 Smart

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 2 Yeah, God, that was.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's barely with us. Stupid Sean didn't know we had a record today.
What did we interrupt, Sean? Were you in the middle of toasting Pop-Tart?

Speaker 1 No, I wish. I still have my things in, my trays in.

Speaker 3 Is that Invisalign?

Speaker 1 Or is it just a bite? Is it like a bite stick? No, I have one more tray to go.

Speaker 1 And then what? What are you working towards? Perfect teeth when they lay you in the coffin?

Speaker 1 Is that what it is? Why'd you choose to do it in the last third of your life?

Speaker 1 They were pretty jacked. They were getting real jacked.

Speaker 3 No, they really weren't. You're just running out of shit to fuck with.

Speaker 1 Well, this is true. This is true.
No, I panicked. I had a whole other thing, and then I just got the text.
I was like, oh my, there's no worse. It's like getting a text

Speaker 1 saying.

Speaker 1 We're sleeping through your alarm clock. Absolutely.
Or getting a text that says, where are you at? You're on your way? Well,

Speaker 3 what do you guys do? What do you guys do? How do you guys not miss appointments on a day? I usually don't.

Speaker 3 But why? Why do you not miss them? Is it because you look at your little calendar app the night before or morning of?

Speaker 1 Night before. Night before, yeah.
Night before. Night before.
And I get an email the night before as well from people I work with that say, here's what you got coming up tomorrow.

Speaker 1 I do a week. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 3 You're getting an email from people you work with

Speaker 3 that they send. So this is from your executive assistants.

Speaker 1 From sweet, from sweet Liz.

Speaker 3 And then she sends me, hey, boss, boss man, here's what's coming up for you tomorrow.

Speaker 1 Doesn't doesn't, I don't make her talk to me like that. I'm not like you.
She sends me an email

Speaker 1 Sunday night. I get week at a glance.
Oh, nice. And she does

Speaker 1 like it's a TV show. Yeah.
I get week at a glance, and she sort of says, This is what's coming up in the next week. And sometimes, even if it's a busy month, she'll be like, This is what you're doing.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but you can't do that yourself.

Speaker 1 I kind of do that too. Hashtag relatable.

Speaker 1 I could do it myself. By the way, you're the call my assistant guy.
I never say that.

Speaker 1 Who says that? You do.

Speaker 3 I look at my own calendar. She'll put stuff on my calendar, but I will give myself a week at a glance.

Speaker 1 You'll say talk.

Speaker 1 Talk to the assistants. You say that.
I've heard you say it a million times. Listen, I love you.

Speaker 1 There are very few people who love you more than I do. I love you a lot.
Sean.

Speaker 1 But you're made up of, you're nothing but blind spots.

Speaker 3 Sean, do you have, Sean?

Speaker 2 Do you have any?

Speaker 1 Sean laughed at at it too. Sean, he looks like a distance.

Speaker 3 Do you have an assistant, Sean?

Speaker 1 I do, yes. It helps my life.
Do you not know whose assistant? Hang on, JB.

Speaker 3 No, I don't. How do you not? Why do I not?

Speaker 1 Because I know this and I know Bloom. Yeah, I'm not sure.
Wait, what's his or her name? Nick.

Speaker 3 Nick.

Speaker 1 Why have I never met Nick or ever heard of Nick?

Speaker 1 Because you're not, this is what I'm saying, because you're living in a blind spot, bro. Hey,

Speaker 3 Wayne, keep your voice down.

Speaker 3 I'd love it if your name was Wayne.

Speaker 1 I know it. Wade.
Only thing better would be Wade. If my name was Wayne.

Speaker 3 I had a buddy named Wade, Wade Wilson.

Speaker 1 Wade, what's been, Sean? How you been doing? Are you okay? I'm great. I'm just, I'm, I'm still frazzled about being late.
You're frazzled, but how are you in general? Oh, well, thanks for asking.

Speaker 1 I'm really good. Are you? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why, something no, I couldn't tell the other night. Like, I just, I

Speaker 1 feel like

Speaker 1 it's a very, um, nothing to do with what's going on in the, I don't mean like sort of no, I just mean that, like, in general, it's a weird time I for me it's kind of a weird time I woke up yesterday with and I don't get this a lot I had like general anxiety about I could I don't know I couldn't explain it low grade yeah kind of low grade and I couldn't I couldn't shake it and I don't know and I'm and I'm not really

Speaker 1 made that way in the sense that like I'm I feel really lucky that I think I've mentioned this before Downey once said nobody wakes up in the morning morning happier to be themselves than you.

Speaker 1 And it's sort of true. That's kind of true, yeah.
But I do.

Speaker 3 But you're not bright enough to be concerned about things.

Speaker 1 I think so. I think that's probably true.

Speaker 3 It thinks it has a lot of intelligence to really see all the problems that could come your way.

Speaker 1 I think that's true.

Speaker 1 Or it's just that everything's worked out.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 it's one of the two. But we had a wonderful conversation on Saturday around the table.
I love that. We had a really good conversation

Speaker 1 with our friend Danny Dees, whom we all love and adore.

Speaker 1 But, you know, sometimes, so I think that the contrast when I'm not feeling great is so, is, I, I really feel it because usually you're 72 and breezy. Yeah, yeah.
And I, it was weird, man.

Speaker 1 And I kind of took all day and I was like, um,

Speaker 1 and I'm just trying to, I don't know. I was, I was looking to redirect all day.
I was like, what am I going to do? And how about today? Did you wake up back to it today?

Speaker 1 Yeah, a little bit better today. A little bit better.

Speaker 3 Can I tell you what it was? Because I had the same thing yesterday.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It was the sugar.

Speaker 1 You think so? It's sugar. I saw that.
That's interesting. It's fucking, we had that big fat fucking carrot cake.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And God, was it good? And I was a disaster yesterday.

Speaker 1 Really? But it was Will's cheat day and everybody had a little piece of cake. And cheat meal.
Not cheat me. Cheat meal.
Cheat meal. Sorry.

Speaker 1 And everybody got served a little piece of cake and Will got served two, like two pieces of cake and five things of ice cream. And

Speaker 1 I said, how many people are you cheating for? Exactly. Or how many people are you cheating on? You did, but did you notice this week that

Speaker 1 I ate mine? I only had one piece of cake and then I had a few scoops of ice cream, which I brought with me like a psycho.

Speaker 3 You brought fucking chocolate sauce with you.

Speaker 1 No, that was Jen's. That was at her house.

Speaker 3 But this isn't a cheat day. You're impregnating people as well, I guess.

Speaker 3 It's not just, you know.

Speaker 1 But do you remember two weeks ago? Do you remember two weeks ago

Speaker 1 when our friend, when I went to have a second piece, and she looked at me and she was like, honey, do you really want to do that?

Speaker 1 She shamed me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 You guys just need to get married and get it over with.

Speaker 1 I know. This week,

Speaker 1 she saw me look at her like she'd had like three bites, tiny bites of her cake, and she pushed it towards me. And I thought it was a really kind of thing.

Speaker 1 I saw that. And then I kind of got sad.
I was like, Why didn't you push it toward me? I know.

Speaker 3 Because you don't look as much like a trash can.

Speaker 1 A little bit. Well, I think that,

Speaker 1 Shawnee, this is my vision of you: is that you're like, I'm only having one piece, and then you kept going into the kitchen

Speaker 1 stuff. That is correct.
Stuff. And silence and shame.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so yeah, so we're feeling good today, though, right? We're all back to it. That's interesting about the sugar thing, though, Jay.
I want to talk about that.

Speaker 1 The sugar thing is good. And you know what the other thing is? My new hack, and maybe I've talked about this.

Speaker 1 I tried to call a few people and talk to a few people and ask them how they were doing. And that was really helpful.
Oh, that's good. Yeah, that really, really helped.

Speaker 1 And get out of your own head a little bit. Did you not have my right number?

Speaker 3 You might not have my right number.

Speaker 1 I knew how you were doing, okay?

Speaker 1 which i just seen you nine hours before we all know how you were doing okay i'm cold this morning it's lovely we love you

Speaker 3 i love you and i love our next guest guys today we have a fella who's been a part of our lives for a long time.

Speaker 3 He's been delivering films and TV shows as a director and as an actor for about 35 years.

Speaker 3 He's a huge part of the entertainment business, but keeps well out of the spotlight. As a director, he can deliver some of the most hilarious moments on screen or the most brutal and disturbing.

Speaker 3 As an actor, he can do the same. He loves football, his son, and Ari Emmanuel, not necessarily in that order.
I love him, his movies, and his ability to send hilarious gifts in that order.

Speaker 1 Folks, it's America's Pete Berg. Come on out, Wii.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Wowie, wowie.

Speaker 3 Did I get that right? Is that the order? Is your love for football, Emmett, and Ari, is that the bright order?

Speaker 2 It's my son.

Speaker 2 It's my son, RA football, I would have to say.

Speaker 1 But they're all up there, dude. They're all up there.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's cool. It's so nice to meet you.

Speaker 2 It's a pleasure to meet you. Will, sorry to hear about the anxiety.
I agree with Bateman. It's definitely the sugar's not helping.

Speaker 3 No. And you're very smart about that stuff, right?

Speaker 1 Pete, you should know I've been off the sugar for a few months, but I have one cheat meal every seven days as per my.

Speaker 3 That's why it's affecting you a lot. Yeah, probably because your body's so cleaned out.

Speaker 3 but does does sugar have to be part of the cheat meal can't you just eat you know pizza or something like bacon yeah have bacon i think it's i think it's that and everything else i probably i probably should i i think that it's just well but like like all any of us uh sort of uh uh folks in recovery uh we miss the sweet we miss we miss the sugar of alcohol and i think it's you know for a long time uh for some reason cigarettes curbed that uh curbed it for me for a while and then when that went away uh like now and then yeah then the coke because it looks like sugar yeah um stevia helps me out stevia helps me out

Speaker 3 pete you're good with you're good with you're good with look at you guys you're trim man you look

Speaker 1 always look so good if you took that tarp off right now you'd see somebody that could beat your ass on that pretty handily i know he could never runs a boxing gym i do i've known i've known pete pete you and i have known each other very loosely for years i i've said hi to you many times and i wish it was more than just a hi.

Speaker 2 It's always been in passing. And, Sean, I don't believe we've met, but it's a pleasure to meet you also.

Speaker 1 This is correct. We have not met, and it is a pleasure to meet you too, Peter.
I'm a big fan.

Speaker 3 Pete, tell me about, tell me about, tell me about the boxing while we're here.

Speaker 3 This is,

Speaker 3 it's been a steady escalation of commitment from you,

Speaker 3 not just in training, but then like now you're now you're co-owning a gym.

Speaker 3 Help.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so

Speaker 2 about 15 15 years ago, I was thinking about maybe a side hobby, and

Speaker 2 people were asking me if I wanted to go in on a restaurant or maybe a bar. And to me, that just seemed like a horrible idea for many reasons.
Just like one, talk about like all blind spot.

Speaker 2 I had enough of, because I'm like you, I have a lot of blind spots, but there was, I sensed that that would be a bad move for me to open a bar, be part of that.

Speaker 2 And at the time, I was boxing at a club that Bob Dylan owns in Santa Monica. And

Speaker 2 the trainer of the gym got into a beef with Bob, which is a whole great story in itself.

Speaker 2 Getting into beefs with Bob Dylan, which like there's a whole side of Bob Dylan around the boxing gym.

Speaker 1 You know, hit you with a guitar.

Speaker 2 You know, you're really annoying me today.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 if you don't do something, I'm going to get physical on you.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 we used to spar Bob, but you could never hit.

Speaker 2 You weren't really allowed to hit him back. And he would pop you.
Bob Dylan had a sharp jab. And it was supposed to be like, but you couldn't hit him back.
And so I took a few shots from Bob.

Speaker 2 But Dylan got in a fight with the

Speaker 2 then head trainer and fired him. And Gary Shandling, who's a good friend of mine, was also training at that gym.

Speaker 2 And Gary came to me and said, Pete, why don't we take this trainer and start our own gym?

Speaker 2 And I said, okay, it seemed like a better, more interesting experience than opening a bar. And so Gary and I backed this gentleman, started our own gym,

Speaker 2 and the gentleman who we

Speaker 2 hired ended up leaving. We had some problems with him.
And then Gary died,

Speaker 2 R.I.P. Gary Shandling, who I love so much, and left me alone with the boxing gym.
And it has been one of the stupidest things that I have ever done in my life.

Speaker 1 Bar

Speaker 2 fucking none.

Speaker 1 Wait, why?

Speaker 1 What's the next do not open?

Speaker 3 Sounds like such an easy thing to run.

Speaker 1 Low overhead, there's no maintenance. There's nothing.
Hey, clean these towels. You know what?

Speaker 1 Two things, actually, technically three things. One thing is

Speaker 1 people say that I got a lot of blind spots, but I don't see them. The other thing is this

Speaker 1 is my son, who's 16, the last year and a half, he's gotten into boxing, and he's boxing at another gym that I'm not going to name, but he's going twice.

Speaker 1 And now he just said to me last night, Dad, can I start going three times a week? And he boxes with this guy, which is really cool.

Speaker 1 And I was thinking, like, I'd love to get him out to your gym maybe and get him in there and get another one.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Churchill Boxing Club in Santa Monica, come on down. It's a great gym.
Great.

Speaker 1 We're going to get a nice boon. But here's what I want to say: is a little sideline because I do want to finish the boxing theme is.

Speaker 1 We haven't spent enough time. I feel like we've been delinquent on this podcast.
We haven't spent enough time talking about and giving credence to Gary Shandling.

Speaker 1 Because he was one of, talking about a heavyweight, to use the analogy. This guy was an unbelievable.
He's the reason I got HBO.

Speaker 1 Because, Pete, you knew him. I didn't know the guy, but what an influence he had on what we consider to be comedy now in a lot of ways.
Gary Shandling, actors, writers, format?

Speaker 3 What was he like?

Speaker 1 What was he like?

Speaker 2 So, I mean,

Speaker 2 I got to see both sides of Gary. I saw him as a comic titan and

Speaker 2 a very entrenched member of our industry.

Speaker 2 And that's how most people knew Gary. The boxing gym is actually a fascinating culture.
Our gym is meant to be a pretty traditional boxing gym with pro fighters.

Speaker 2 So we would have a lot of Russians, South Americans, we had folks from Japan, we had Chinese fighters, and these were young men who would come to LA, rarely spoke much English, were not at all connected, and Gary took a deep interest in their lives.

Speaker 2 And I would come into the gym and Gary would be sitting with, you know, a couple of kids from Argentina talking about boxing and talking about life and had this incredible connection.

Speaker 2 And when Gary passed away, there was a huge memorial. I don't know if any of you guys went to it, you know, a couple thousand people.

Speaker 2 You know, everyone in Hollywood went to Gary's memorial service.

Speaker 2 And then the next day we had a service for him at the gym. And there were, you know, a couple of hundred people who knew Gary only as G from the gym.
And they had no idea that he was famous.

Speaker 2 They had no idea that he had this other life.

Speaker 2 They just thought he was a really sweet guy who cared about them. And he really did.

Speaker 2 And so that was a side of Gary. He absolutely loved boxing.
He loved Bob Dylan and loved fighting with Bob Dylan.

Speaker 1 I'd love to see that pay-per-view. Such a funny image.

Speaker 2 Gary tried to do a talk show where

Speaker 2 he would fight you three rounds in the ring. And as soon as those three rounds were over, you would collapse

Speaker 2 and he'd do an interview. He would do the interview after you'd been punching the shit out of each other.
And he only did one

Speaker 1 with Alec. With Alec.

Speaker 2 With Alec Baldwin.

Speaker 2 And I was there for it. And they both, I think, had heart attacks, literally mini heart attacks.

Speaker 2 And at the end of the third round, Baldwin was laying on his side and Gary was laying on his stomach and they were wheezing. It was like,

Speaker 2 and Gary was trying to ask him questions.

Speaker 1 How'd you get started, Alex?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and Baldwin was just like, I think I really need some water.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, guys,

Speaker 1 you're both, it never aired. Did you shoot it? We did.
I've seen it, Peter. And it got kind of real too in the in the when they were fighting too right they were getting the shit out of each other

Speaker 2 Gary Gary was deceptively, you know effective as a boxer and I think Alec didn't quite know what he was in for so it started and Alec thought it was gonna be kind of fun and Shanley just started face punching him over and over and over.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it got weirdly real and like it was uncomfortable

Speaker 2 Pete you got to show us this you shot it uh I Gary shot it, so we could maybe dig it up. But it was priceless, but I was literally concerned that they were both having heart attacks.

Speaker 2 And I got them to stop and drink water. And then, you know, it was one of those, it was a deep level of exhaustion.
It just wasn't going away.

Speaker 1 It's just like an icebreaker before an interview.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just to put everybody at ease.

Speaker 1 And we will be right back.

Speaker 4 Say hello to the all-new Alexa Plus and see how Alexa can do so much more for you. Need last-minute concert tickets? Craving your favorite restaurant? Just sit back, relax, and talk naturally.

Speaker 4 Alexa's on it. It remembers what you love, anticipates what you need, and makes it all happen.

Speaker 4 Whether you're using Echo, Fire TV, or any compatible device, Alexa Plus brings thousands of possibilities to life. Ready whenever inspiration strikes.
Amazon.com/slash new Alexa.

Speaker 1 Some like it hot, but for most, a little spice goes a long way.

Speaker 1 Doritos Golden Sriracha flavored tortilla chips are the perfectly balanced blend of yellow and green srirachas for a chip that's tangy and sweet with just the right amount of heat.

Speaker 1 Doritos Golden Sriracha are spicy, but not too spicy because Doritos knows bold flavor doesn't have to mean just heat. Try Dorito's Golden Sriracha for yourself.

Speaker 1 Look for them wherever Doritos are sold or find a store near you at Doritos.com. Doritos for the bold.

Speaker 1 250 years ago, a promise was made to connect families and friends near and far. And during the holidays, that promise is more important than ever.

Speaker 1 That's why USPS is building a better network to meet your needs with timely deliveries, easy and affordable ways to ship, and everything you need to make your season full of holiday cheer.

Speaker 1 Their purpose is delivering your peace of mind, knowing your love will arrive, bringing joy to all. The United States Postal Service.
Learn more at usps.com slash holidays.

Speaker 1 And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 Pete, I do want to go back, though. I want to get back into

Speaker 1 how you became who you are, which is, as Jason said in the intro, I mean, you're an incredible filmmaker and actor, and you haven't acted as much in the last few years as you used to.

Speaker 1 But you started as an actor.

Speaker 1 And Jason, you probably feel a lot of connection to what Pete does because he was able to kind of go from an actor who was in a lot of stuff and people wanted and become a director yourself, which I know is a trajectory that

Speaker 1 you're sort of on.

Speaker 1 Pete, talk a little bit about that, like about being an actor who's auditioning for jobs, then an actor who's in demand, and then turning that into or having the vision or having, what talk about what it was that inspired you to become a director, et cetera.

Speaker 2 So I think one of the

Speaker 2 light bulb moments for me that got me really starting to think about directing, which was something I'd always thought about, and I think Jason always had too, and it was something we used to talk about when we were working together.

Speaker 2 I remember on the set of Hancock in particular, you talking about filmmaking and me kind of sensing that you were going to move in this direction.

Speaker 2 But for me, I was an actor on Chicago Hope, which was a pretty successful medical drama. And we went up against ER every Thursday night at 10 o'clock, and they beat us every Thursday night.

Speaker 2 But we were still getting, you know, 23 million people watching us, which we thought was just horrible because we were coming in second.

Speaker 2 And that was horrible. But looking back on it, obviously it wasn't.
But I was getting kind of famous as this doctor, Dr. Billy Cronk on Chicago Hope.
And, you know, thank you.

Speaker 2 And, you know, when you back then in particular got TV famous, you were pretty famous. So wherever I went, people were like, hey, Billy, how you doing, Billy?

Speaker 1 How's Diane?

Speaker 2 My wife on the show. And hey, Billy, how's the? And I'm like, okay, I'm not fucking Billy.
My name's Pete. And at a certain point, I started...

Speaker 2 sensing that if I wasn't careful, my legacy was going to be Dr. Billy Cronk, the TV doctor.

Speaker 2 And I was on a plane flying from LA to JFK, and I was sitting in my seat and people were walking by me and a man stopped and he said hey billy

Speaker 2 and i said uh my name's not billy he goes hey billy my wife has this rash what do you think show them the rash and she pulled up her shirt and stuck her elbow which had a really bad rash on it in my face and i'm just sitting there staring at this rash and they're smiling at me and all other people on the plane are all kind of like hey billy what do you think the rash is?

Speaker 1 And I'm like, that's it. I'm not doing this anymore.

Speaker 2 And I started, you know, writing and I wrote a movie, Very Bad Things, which was my first film. And

Speaker 2 that, you know, was something that once I got a taste of that and figured out that I could do it,

Speaker 2 I never really look back. And I do love acting, but I was not going to be Billy Cronk for the rest of my career.

Speaker 1 But what was that thing that made you, were you scared to be like, I can't believe I can, I'm going to try to do this. Like, how did you get over the fear? Because you had a real career as an actor.

Speaker 1 Like, so you got to make a leap a little bit and go like, all right, I'm going to do this.

Speaker 2 So I was flying to New York to act when the rash.

Speaker 1 The same guy was on that plane and said, I have a different rash.

Speaker 2 And the reason I was on that plane where I was presented with The Rash was I was flying to New York to be in a movie called Copland. I was going to act in it.

Speaker 2 And that was Stallone and De Niro. And Stallone had put weight on and was going to, you know, try and win an Oscar.
And this was Harvey Weinstein producing it in the height of his power.

Speaker 2 And Ray Leoda and Harvey Keitel and all these big stars were in the film. And I had a small part in it.

Speaker 3 Stallone directed that too, right?

Speaker 1 No, James Mangold directed it.

Speaker 2 Rodin directed it. And I was one of the cops and most of my scenes were in this like bar and I would just sit around waiting for my one line.

Speaker 2 So Stallone would talk and De Niro would talk and then finally it'd be my line, and I'd be like, Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 And then, and I was like, Me and Kingdom.

Speaker 1 No, you had a great, you were phenomenal. No, Jason, turn left.
No, no, no, Jason, by the way, sidebar, sidebar. Jason had one of my favorite lines ever delivered in the film, and you know what it is.

Speaker 1 He was like, Hey, driver, are you late for something?

Speaker 1 Remember that? You guys are cruising along the desert? Fuck, I love that.

Speaker 3 I'm a dabby, scared out of my mind.

Speaker 2 But I was on the set of

Speaker 2 Copland just watching everything happen. And there was this young director, James Mangold, and I was watching him.
And he was arguing with Stallone and getting into all this creative stuff with

Speaker 2 De Niro and Rayleigh. And it was just like he was alive.
He had this energy coming out of him. And I was sitting there waiting for my line.
And I'm like, and I finally at lunch, I walked up to him.

Speaker 2 I didn't really know him. I said, hey, man, can I ask you a question? I said, yo, what's up? He said, I said, how do I get your job?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 How do I get your job?

Speaker 3 You want to work 60 minutes an hour, not just 10.

Speaker 2 And he said, you got to write.

Speaker 2 And I

Speaker 2 said, okay, well, how do you do that? He goes, well, do you know how to write? I go, yeah. He goes, well, do you have an idea? I said, kind of.

Speaker 2 He said, well, what I do is I use note cards and I outline my, and so then I, when I get all my cards, then I've got the idea, then I start writing the scenes.

Speaker 2 And so I went back to my hotel and I was staying in the Essex house in New York. You know that hotel? Sure.

Speaker 1 It has a big,

Speaker 2 beautiful park views, right?

Speaker 2 I had the shittiest room in the hotel. I had the back, tiny little room in the back of the hotel that looked out over an alley.

Speaker 2 And I went home and I went to the drugstore, I got note cards, I got pen, and

Speaker 2 I started... writing the note cards and outlining the script.
But I had a really small room and

Speaker 2 I had the note cards kind of all over the room and I'd go to work I'd come back and more note cards and I had this whole crazy system and one day I came back and the note cards had all been moved and cleaned up and I'm like who did this And they told me it was Manuela, the housekeeper.

Speaker 2 So I found Manuela. I'm Manuela, you can't do this.
I'm writing a movie. And she's like, what?

Speaker 2 And I told her about these guys who go to Vegas and accidentally kill a hooker and then have to chop her up.

Speaker 1 And she's like, oh, my God, then what happens?

Speaker 2 And Manuela helped me write the script because I would bounce it all off of her.

Speaker 1 That's so good.

Speaker 2 And I had the script up all throughout the room. It was on all the walls.
So I was like living in it. One day I came back and I went to go in the room and the key didn't work.

Speaker 2 And I went down and they said, Mr. Berg, we have a problem.
We had to move your room. And I'm like, holy shit.
They took me up to the top floor. I went to turn to where the shitty rooms were.

Speaker 2 They go, no, you're this way to where the good rooms were. Walked me down into the park suite.

Speaker 2 And I walk in this beautiful suite, and the staff at the Essex house had cleared out the walls and put my script up on the walls.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 And they said, Manuela told us what you're doing. We wish you the best of luck.
Here's your script. That's amazing.
And that, that moment really changed everything for me.

Speaker 1 And I never knew that.

Speaker 1 Dude, that's incredible.

Speaker 1 That's so fucking incredible. What a great story about humanity and people and belief and all that kind of.

Speaker 1 Also, I like to think that Manuela, before she knew it was a screenplay, she was nervous because she had all these cards about going to Vegas and killing the hooker.

Speaker 1 She's like, I got a serial killer here. This guy is.

Speaker 3 Well, Pete,

Speaker 3 how did you take your,

Speaker 3 you know, you're very, you've got a very, your taste, your sensibility, your personality is very,

Speaker 3 you know, seasoned and no bullshit. And, you know, there's no real artifice to you, which I just fucking love.

Speaker 3 And yet, and you've somehow managed to take that and mold it into an actual visual aesthetic, too.

Speaker 3 Where did that come from? Like the style of your films, the way in which they're shot, the way in which they're cut, the actors you hire, the things you ask them to do and not to do. Like,

Speaker 3 how is that shaped?

Speaker 2 I mean, the things that I think that I do that tend to work the best, like if it's Friday Night Lights or The Kingdom or Deepwater Horizon or Patriots Day.

Speaker 2 These are films that I do a tremendous amount of research on. You know, I'm kind of a psycho about that.

Speaker 2 I'm in Tel Aviv right now, and last night we had a missile attack that was pretty amazing and somewhat terrifying. And I've always been someone who likes to see things for myself.

Speaker 2 And that generally translates to my writing. And I try to have as deep of an almost anthropological or almost journalistic understanding of my world.

Speaker 2 So, you know, I went to Saudi Arabia a long time ago before we did the kingdom and you know lived there for three weeks and got as much of an understanding as I could about of that culture.

Speaker 2 And once I kind of feel like I've done that work and I understand the world, when I did Lone Survivor, I went to Iraq and embedded with the Navy SEAL platoon for a month on the border of Syria.

Speaker 2 And that helped me make a better film.

Speaker 2 And that helps me in theory communicate with

Speaker 2 someone like when we were doing the

Speaker 2 scene in the kingdom where they were going to cut your head off.

Speaker 2 I've tried to have a proximity, certainly never to that kind of level of violence, but to at least understand as best as I can

Speaker 2 what these

Speaker 2 executions were looking like and how they might have gone down.

Speaker 2 And that, I think, could help me help you reach an appropriate level of terror and a willingness to fight which you did so well in that which I found fascinating and I've had so many people talk about that scene and how Jason Bateman this sweet funny guy went fucking psycho to save himself and and that really comes from the research and so then you're looking for a level of authenticity that then just naturally lends itself to let's say a handheld camera, desaturated color, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3 Like, so all of these things,

Speaker 3 you're engineering it from a very organic place. You're not kind of going backwards into an aesthetic.
Correct. You're just going, yeah.

Speaker 2 And, you know, when I was acting on Chicago Hope back in those days, I learned so much because we were doing 28 episodes a season and we would have 28 different directors coming in.

Speaker 2 And I learned so much. And a lot of these directors were,

Speaker 2 you know, they tried to have feature careers and they were a bit older and they were angry and they were trying to prove that they were Tarantino or Scorsese and they would just spend so much time setting up shots and doing all this stuff.

Speaker 2 And we as actors would sit around waiting for all this equipment. And I'm like, what the fuck are we doing here? Like, I want to act.

Speaker 2 I want to, I want to be, feel free to, to, to, you know, not be beholden to the, you know, and you guys have all seen it, the machinery of filmmaking where

Speaker 2 cranes and dollies and lighting and hair, and makeup, and every, it seems like it, it impacts everything other than the actual acting.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 And so, Pete Stylist said, yeah, multiple cameras, handheld cameras going at the same time.

Speaker 3 And when they run out, shooting on film, when they'd run out of film, the AC would just put the camera on the ground, reload it, put another magazine of film on top of the camera while the other two are still rolling.

Speaker 3 And while we're resetting back to the top of the scene, like

Speaker 3 takes over and over and over again without ever cutting, just reloading the cameras quietly.

Speaker 2 I remember when we were rehearsing

Speaker 2 Hancock, remember we would have all those crazy rehearsals with Will and Charlize. Soundstage with Akeba.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And when I first met Charlize, she came up to me because Jason and I had worked together and I knew Will and I think Will had heard a little bit about my style of work.

Speaker 2 And Charlize said, you know, Pete, I understand. I've talked to Jason.
I know how you like to do this kind of wild thing and move around lots of cameras. Just so you know, I don't work that way.

Speaker 2 I need a certain amount of, you know, of organization and there has to be a system where I can, and I'm like, Charlize, no problem. I got you.
We'll do it. We'll cut and we'll reset and do it.

Speaker 2 And then like the first day I was working with Jason and we were just going off and Will was into it. And I would cut for Charlize.

Speaker 2 And in about an hour, she came up to me and she said, you know, that thing you're doing with Jason?

Speaker 1 Do that to me. And I want that too.
Pete, I was thinking about you the other day. I was down in Fort Worth, Texas, not a bit.
And I was,

Speaker 1 truly, and I was doing this thing. I was working with Taylor Sheridan, and he was a great guy.
And

Speaker 1 so I was staying at this hotel. And,

Speaker 1 you know, it was the fall. And I hear, I'm in my hotel room, and I'm trying to go over my shit that I'm working on.
And I keep hearing this like,

Speaker 1 like, what the fuck is like, is my phone on? And I keep looking around the room. The TV is not on.

Speaker 1 I go out and the thing and I look out and I can just see over the treetops in the distance this stadium. And I fucking look it up on my phone and it's a fucking Texas high school football game.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. And the stadium is packed and I could hear the fans and I can hear the announcement.
I was like, holy shit. It was Friday fucking night lights, man.

Speaker 1 Like it was incredible.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.
How'd that, how did that, how did, so for, for, for the listener,

Speaker 3 yeah,

Speaker 3 Pete brought us Friday Night Lights the film and then shepherded the television series to us as well by doing

Speaker 3 what, the, the, the pilot, probably the first couple and EP'd the whole thing, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 You're, you're, uh, the writer, your second cousin to the writer, perhaps?

Speaker 2 Yes, Buzz Bessinger is my second cousin.

Speaker 3 Was that helpful in it finding its way to you or

Speaker 3 did it happen without that?

Speaker 2 It was. You know,

Speaker 2 I had followed the book and read the book and Buzz used to

Speaker 2 push me to try and make it. At the time, I actually didn't really have the juice.
There were a lot of filmmakers that wanted it, and Brian Grazier controlled it.

Speaker 2 And I would call Brian and just sort of check in with him. And I knew they were going through a list of some pretty top-tier directors.

Speaker 2 And Brian was always nice. And he was pretty honest, saying, maybe we'll get...
get to you. And

Speaker 2 two directors, one fell out and one brian got annoyed with and fired and he called me and he said okay dude it's yours uh and that that was an incredible experience and you know when i when i was doing friday night lights i went and i was i think i was 41 at the time flew down to texas and moved into a high school, this school, Austin Westlake.

Speaker 2 And I stayed with a football player's family, let me live in his house.

Speaker 2 And I lived on a futon in Koyani, who was a wide receiver for Austin West like an 18 year old who's probably either 17 or 18 at the time I and I went to high school with him every day and I went to football practice and lived with this team and it was really an amazing experience that's really cool and that's why it feels so real and authentic and just just the way in which you just shot the the

Speaker 3 the sport as well.

Speaker 3 What was your, did you play a lot of football growing up?

Speaker 2 I played high school football, but I tried to, I wanted to be a quarterback. My ego was like, yeah, I'm going to to be a quarterback, and I was horrible.

Speaker 2 So for three years, I tried to play quarterback

Speaker 2 very unsuccessfully. And my senior year in high school, my coach moved me to a defensive end.

Speaker 2 And I really realized I should have done that all along because I liked hitting people, and I didn't have the pressure.

Speaker 2 I would get too anxious and couldn't remember the plays and just had some horrible disasters. as quarterback.
But when I finally moved to defense,

Speaker 2 you know, I developed a real love for the game. But, you know, the book is about so much more than football.
And I think that's why the show

Speaker 2 has worked so well. It's really just, you know,

Speaker 2 you're a huge sports fan, Jason.

Speaker 2 I know how much baseball means to you, right?

Speaker 1 I remember when I was a kid,

Speaker 1 I played football when I was really young. And I remember my mom telling me to go to this guy's house to get fitted for the equipment.

Speaker 1 And so I did it, and he gave me the mouth guard to fit my mouth.

Speaker 1 And the only good thing from the whole experience was that it tasted like mint. It was like minty flavored.
I was like, oh, maybe I could do this because it tastes so good.

Speaker 1 That was the extent of my happiness. Go ahead, Will.

Speaker 1 Well, I just, I don't know where to start.

Speaker 1 Honestly, that's so funny.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's so much. It's true.
I was like, oh, maybe there's a silver lining here.

Speaker 1 Part of it's funny. Part of it's funny, and then part of it's just a nothing story.
That is nothing.

Speaker 2 And disturbing.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 Pete,

Speaker 1 I'm sure that all your films have,

Speaker 1 you mentioned a few of them, like have

Speaker 1 a place in your heart or in your life where you look back and they represented a thing or and I'm sure you learned a lot from them.

Speaker 1 Was there one of your films that really for you transported you and kind of

Speaker 1 not like, hey, I figured it out, but more like,

Speaker 1 and again, not even necessarily your favorite, but something you just just like you learned a lot from

Speaker 1 that was like a turning point film for you.

Speaker 2 I mean, there was a moment when I was, you know,

Speaker 2 sometimes I answer that question, and I mean it by saying,

Speaker 2 you never set out to make a shitty movie. No filmmaker does.
And we all understand how hard it is to make a good film. And sometimes they're good, and sometimes they absolutely suck.

Speaker 3 It's so hard to just make a movie that doesn't suck.

Speaker 1 Not a good one. Just one that doesn't suck.
It's so hard. Exactly.
I don't think people appreciate that actually

Speaker 2 you know and people don't

Speaker 2 it's it's not their responsibility to appreciate it it's on us and you know i've had people just say god your movies that movie sucked and i'm like okay fair enough

Speaker 1 i mean really thanks man

Speaker 1 appreciate that didn't didn't that wasn't my goal i assure you so it's usually in the boston area by the way that you get that fuck you dude that fucking sucked huh for real for real yeah and and uh

Speaker 2 they don't but yeah boston's very direct but you you know you do i do love everything I've done, and I find, you know, that these are things that I try as hard as I can, and hopefully the result is good.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I do have connections to every film I've done. There was a moment when I was making Friday Night Lights, the movie.

Speaker 2 Where we were going to film a scene. There's a coin toss scene.
That's a big dramatic scene where all these schools have to decide who's going to be in the playoffs. And we had been

Speaker 2 scheduled for three nights to film this scene. It was a big scene.

Speaker 2 You know, 100 extras, Billy Bob Thornton, all the principals were there, and it was a complicated scene.

Speaker 2 And this was when I was starting to find a style with multiple cameras and what Jason was talking about. Just keep moving and don't cut and shoot and do a...

Speaker 2 So we had three nights scheduled to shoot it. And we got up there and rehearsed it for a couple of hours.
And I had the cameras going and we shot it in about two hours. And we cut.

Speaker 2 And I'm like looking at Eric Hefron, who was my first AD, and you've worked with him, Jason. And he's looking at me, and I'm like,

Speaker 2 do we have this scene? And he's like, I think we do. And this was two hours.
We had three nights to shoot this scene.

Speaker 2 And we're standing there and the DP comes over.

Speaker 1 He's like, what just happened?

Speaker 2 I go, I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 And the script supervisor was all confused because he couldn't make sense of any of it. And I go, I think we've got it.
And then the producer came over. He's like, you can't do this.

Speaker 2 I'm going to get in so much trouble.

Speaker 2 And I realized then that

Speaker 2 I was able to work in a way that I didn't realize was possible. And the actors loved it and it came out great and I loved it and the studio saved a shitload of money.

Speaker 2 And that became for me

Speaker 2 kind of

Speaker 2 a personal sort of realization that there are not as many rules as we think there should be.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 2 You know, I think the Success of Your Guys podcast is another example of that. You You know, like, really? Like, this

Speaker 1 happens.

Speaker 1 Go forward.

Speaker 2 You just did it, and you followed no rules, and you followed your hearts, and you have this incredible relationship with each other, and people responded to it.

Speaker 2 And I think that those are the kinds of signals or signs that I look for as I kind of chug through my life.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you know what else is great about

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 particular specific style too, is that it's super reliant on the team. You know, those camera operators and focus pullers,

Speaker 3 you can't get to them in between action and cut.

Speaker 3 And they've got to be making decisions in the moment, watching and listening to the scene, making composition work, et cetera, et cetera, tagging certain things that they didn't get in the last take.

Speaker 3 And it's all that sort of teamwork that maybe is an exciting comparison for you to sports.

Speaker 3 and to what you appreciate with your fellow linemen as opposed to perhaps the quarterback route you could have taken where it's just like, oh, I'm the star and who cares who's blocking for me?

Speaker 3 I just need to, you know, you got more in the trenches and you potentially became more of a crew guy than a cast guy

Speaker 3 that you may have stayed had you gone the quarterback route or maybe just stayed

Speaker 3 as an actor.

Speaker 3 I don't know. I'm just, I'm such a big, I just love it.

Speaker 1 Well, I think also everybody's probably really present, right? Pete? Like everybody's

Speaker 1 everybody's listening. Everybody's in it.
There's no chance to fuck off and get on your phone or whatever. You got to be.

Speaker 2 It becomes kind of like a bit like theater or a live experience.

Speaker 2 I've had a lot of actors say like they've gone into some sort of creative blackout while we're doing it, and they don't remember exactly what happened.

Speaker 2 And I've experienced that. I used to do theater and I loved it.

Speaker 2 And I'm sure you guys have felt that before where, you know, it's.

Speaker 1 Sean went to Tony last year.

Speaker 2 I know you did, Sean. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 Did you ever find that? Goodbye, goodbye Oscar?

Speaker 2 Did you ever find that? That's a good night. You must have gotten into that flow state on stage where you're just in it and you don't necessarily remember it.
You're not thinking about it.

Speaker 1 That's so true. From the second you start pacing backstage waiting for your entrance,

Speaker 1 right? You're somewhere else a little bit.

Speaker 1 And then the second you step on, you're like, oh, there's just a couple shows here and there where you have your markers where as you're talking in like a monologue or something, you go, from this point on, I have about 25 more minutes.

Speaker 1 Then I get to go home and eat pizza. And so, you know, you start having those markers.
Yeah, most of the time you're in it. Yeah, most of the time you don't have a choice but to be in it, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 Today's episode is sponsored by Ashley. They don't just sell incredible furniture, they're also making an impact in vulnerable communities.
Here's a tough fact.

Speaker 1 Over 7 million kids are affected by the welfare system, and over 368,000 are currently in foster care.

Speaker 1 So together with Ashley and SiriusXM, we made a donation to four others, an organization working to end the child welfare crisis in America.

Speaker 1 You know, partnering with Ashley in our live show, first of all, they just made our set look really good.

Speaker 1 They made us really comfortable and they kind of made us look legit because otherwise it would have been, you know, milk crates and,

Speaker 1 you know, cardboard boxes.

Speaker 1 And Ashley made it look like a real kind of looked like a living room made it really comfortable made our guest John Mayer really comfortable and then he thought that maybe we're professional we're not just a bunch of clowns to be honest there was a point where I got so comfortable I forgot that I was in front of an audience I was sitting back on that nice Ashley couch and I was just hanging out with my buds in my living room anyway Ashley offers timeless well-crafted furniture with white glove delivery right to your door visit your local ashley store or head to ashley.com to find your style

Speaker 1 Over the years, Blue Apron has shipped more than 530 million meal kits. Meet the new Blue Apron now with no subscription.
We're living in an era of subscription overload.

Speaker 1 For the first time, customers can shop Blue Apron a la carte, ordering what they want, when they want, with no subscription required. I love lasagna!

Speaker 1 Discover new low-prep recipes and pre-made meals that let you get good food on the table in a pinch.

Speaker 1 With more than 100 weekly meals, which is more than double their previous menu, and 75% of them customizable, customers now have more choice than ever.

Speaker 1 And with Dish by Blue Apron, you can get pre-made meals that don't cut corners on quality. And spaghetti!

Speaker 1 Try delicious, nutritious with at least 20 grams of protein and ready in as little as five minutes. Really anything pasta!

Speaker 1 Try the new Blue Apron today and get 40% off your first two orders at blueapron.com with code smartlist40. Terms and conditions apply.
Visit blueapron.com slash terms for more.

Speaker 1 Life is full of choices like deciding whether to try that new food trend, which celebrity story to believe, or if the latest show is worth a stream or a skip.

Speaker 1 At State Farm, their goal is to help you make decisions that you feel good about. And when it comes to choosing coverage, you can feel the same.

Speaker 1 The State Farm Personal Price Plan can help you create an affordable price when you choose to bundle home and auto insurance. You have options to choose from to help best fit your needs.

Speaker 1 It's about giving flexibility, offering coverage that makes sense, and supporting smart decisions for both today and tomorrow. So planning ahead feels easier and empowering.

Speaker 1 Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Speaker 1 Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer.
Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

Speaker 1 And back to the show.

Speaker 3 Now, Pete, I want to talk to you about potentially one of the most challenging periods in your career going through the work experience with Justin Thoreau on leftovers.

Speaker 3 How did you manage to just keep your head up, go forward, and say they're not all going to be like you?

Speaker 1 I did see that he managed to work in a shirt. He went tarps off in a running scene in the pilot, which probably was his call.

Speaker 3 Well, and fucking Thoreau stole your sleeveless look.

Speaker 1 You know, Pete's got a great war cry, basically, physical work war cry.

Speaker 3 He'll take, he'll grab his short sleeves, he'll pull them up over the top of his shoulder cap and turn his t-shirts into, you know, shirtless.

Speaker 1 Every day, whereas, you know, Justin just cuts off the sleeves.

Speaker 3 But Pete's actually got a move there that creates the sleeveless look, and it gets everyone fired up.

Speaker 2 You know, when we were getting ready to cast leftovers,

Speaker 2 Damon Lindelof, who is a genius,

Speaker 2 you know, was telling me,

Speaker 2 you know, I was directing a pilot and he wanted me to do kind of what I wanted to do. And he certainly wasn't giving me mandates, but he really was encouraging me to meet with Justin Thoreau.

Speaker 2 And I met with him and I couldn't figure him out. I'd never seen anything like that.

Speaker 1 You thought it was a bit.

Speaker 3 You thought Damon was having a laugh.

Speaker 1 He can't figure himself out. So I mean,

Speaker 2 and you know, the tattoos, and I've never seen someone with less body fat. There's just no one.
He's so ripped and so intense. And I was like,

Speaker 2 I didn't get it. And then I met, and Damon's like, he wants to meet you again.
And we met again.

Speaker 1 And I.

Speaker 2 I still didn't totally get it, but he covered his sleeves. He wore a shirt.

Speaker 1 So I didn't have to, the tattoos.

Speaker 2 And then we met a third time.

Speaker 2 And I guess

Speaker 2 he wore me down a little bit.

Speaker 1 And he was so determined to play this role.

Speaker 2 And I have to say, once he showed up on set, that guy is legit.

Speaker 2 He did such a great job. He covered the tattoos.
He got his haircut looking because I didn't buy him as a Midwestern cop.

Speaker 2 I was having trouble seeing that. And he really transformed himself.

Speaker 3 That show is so fucking.

Speaker 1 He looks like a West Village. Like, he's just kind of like a downtown New York dandy, that guy.
So, like, he doesn't, you know what I mean? Like, you can't even see a dandy. No, he doesn't.

Speaker 1 You can't, you can't even see him above 23rd Street. So, forget it.

Speaker 2 He's your downtown guy for sure, but he's a real actor. And, you know,

Speaker 3 he really is. And that show.
Such a good writer.

Speaker 1 Pete, that show is so good.

Speaker 3 You and Damon, and then

Speaker 3 what Mimi Leader did afterwards. Mimi did a great acting going, like, it's just fucking beautiful.

Speaker 3 You know, Max Richter's music. I mean, it's just.

Speaker 3 and you make you, but you made all those decisions setting that show up with the way it looked, the way it sounded, who's in it, where we're shooting it, what the crew is, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 3 And so thank you for that

Speaker 3 among all the other things you set up. I just love your taste.

Speaker 1 I was thinking about what you were saying. I'm kind of going back a little bit, but I've had the same frustration about...

Speaker 1 And I love hearing about your style, Pete, because there is nothing.

Speaker 1 I think it's even the hardest thing to do is to make a funny film because there's generally no flow on set and you're turning around and you're

Speaker 1 doing all this kind of shit. And there's nothing less fun than trying to make a comedy film.
They're really fucking tough to do. And because the system is set up, it's set against you.

Speaker 1 And that's why often really funny films that break out are films that are small films that come out of nowhere because they don't have the budget to fuck around and to have a big company move and all this shit.

Speaker 1 It's just young people who are like just grabbing cameras, throwing cameras on their shoulders and getting it. Two or three, you know, two cameras, handheld, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 And that immediacy is what you need in comedy. And it just doesn't exist in a bigger format.

Speaker 2 I saw Sean Baker's film, his new film, Anora.

Speaker 1 Have you guys seen it? It's incredible.

Speaker 2 No, that's the hardest I've laughed in a movie in quite a while.

Speaker 1 Great. And Will, too.

Speaker 2 Did you see it, Sean?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I saw it. Yeah.
What's the film?

Speaker 1 Anora. Anora.
Oh, we were just talking about it. I haven't seen it yet yet.
You got to check that out. I mean,

Speaker 2 when that dude is in the courtroom and the judge throws him out and he starts objecting like he's part of the legal defense team, I just haven't laughed that hard.

Speaker 2 And to your point, Will, it's just, you know, I'm a big fan of Sean Baker and

Speaker 1 it's just loose, wild.

Speaker 2 You don't know

Speaker 2 who these people are that are in the cast.

Speaker 1 I remember seeing Rushmore in the theater when it first came out and feeling like, fuck, this is fucking great.

Speaker 3 Because there wasn't no winking.

Speaker 1 There's no, well, there's no, yeah, and there was no pre, there's no pretense. It was just that they came out.

Speaker 1 Obviously, they had Bill Murray, but you got the sense that these guys were young and they didn't know what they were doing and they were going to try shit and they weren't part of the system yet.

Speaker 3 Now, Pete, where you, you being an actor,

Speaker 3 how does your

Speaker 3 do you have more patience or less patience with actors as a director?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 I recognize, I think I have less patience at times. And I value,

Speaker 2 I have so much more respect for actors who really come to bring it, who are really there to work and who are smart and who are thinking. I just worked with Betty Gilpin.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you guys have met Betty Gilpin.

Speaker 2 She's in something I just did, American Prime Evil, and she's just a wonderful, wonderful artist.

Speaker 3 Which, by the way, Amanda saw

Speaker 3 my wife

Speaker 3 over the past couple of weeks. I don't know, she sneaks off and she watches shit while I'm busy doing dumb shit.

Speaker 3 She says, it's so incredible, Pete. You guys, this,

Speaker 3 what's it called again? American Pevovevieval.

Speaker 2 It's called American Primeval, and it's

Speaker 2 a very violent, very violent show.

Speaker 3 She says,

Speaker 3 and you guys both know Amanda very well. And Pete, you know her bit.

Speaker 3 She does not give it up. She will not shut up about this.

Speaker 2 Appreciate that, Amanda.

Speaker 3 She's fantastic, she says.

Speaker 2 But to your question,

Speaker 2 I recognize if I've made a mistake in casting, and sometimes you do, and usually it's smaller roles, but sometimes it's not.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to say I'm not, I won't mention Amanda.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 I get frustrated with myself for allowing myself to put someone in a situation that they're just not not right for.

Speaker 2 And I've had moments where I want to get angry with actors and just say, you know, give line readings or just yell at them or... Be better.
Yeah, just do it fucking better.

Speaker 1 Do something.

Speaker 2 But that unfortunately is not an effective strategy at all.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 I've learned enough to know that,

Speaker 2 you know, generally in editing, you can fix things. And oftentimes I've worked with, I've directed actors who I thought were really kind of shitting the bed.

Speaker 2 And later in editing, I found that they weren't.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 in general, I find that, you know, getting, as I've gotten older, like when I did my first movie, Very Bad Things,

Speaker 2 I was so insecure and confused. And I had Cameron Diaz and Christian Slater at the height of his career and I was making a movie.

Speaker 2 If you walked up to me and said, good morning, I would respond with, go fuck yourself.

Speaker 2 What the fuck does that mean?

Speaker 1 So much stress. What does that mean?

Speaker 3 Have you seen it lately? I just saw the first thing I've directed, and it did not hold up. I mean, I used to think it was so great.

Speaker 1 It was called Bad Words. Bad words.
And there were parts of it, I was like, watching it with my kid the other day. I'm like, what the fuck was I thinking there?

Speaker 3 Anyway, there was a lot that I liked, but still. Have you seen very bad things lately? Does it hold up?

Speaker 2 Not lately, but I've watched it. And, you know, it's like I said earlier,

Speaker 2 I am not happy about how unhappy I was making that film. I was just a seething ball of confusion and rage every day.
And thank Cameron Diaz for being so sweet.

Speaker 2 She would pull me into her trailer and she would watch Uncle Buck in between takes, and just I'd walk by her trailer, I'd hear this laughter, and it would be Cameron Diaz watching Uncle Buck.

Speaker 2 And she'd be like, Pete, just come and watch Uncle Buck for a little bit and calm down. And I would just sit there trembling, watching Uncle Buck, and Cameron's laughter calm me down.

Speaker 1 She was such an angel to me. That's so fucking, by the way, one of the great line readings of all time, Uncle Buck, is John Candy when he's talking to the principal and she's got the wort on her nose.

Speaker 1 And he interrupts himself like eight times because he keeps saying,

Speaker 1 worty nose, warty nose. No, wort on the nose.
No, what? And it's one of the great line readings of all time.

Speaker 3 Pete, before we let you go, tell us what drew you to American Primeval?

Speaker 3 This is a show.

Speaker 1 I wait to see it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 This is a show that is coming out

Speaker 3 January 9th, I want to say.

Speaker 1 Does that sound right? Yes, sir. Yes.

Speaker 2 January 9th on Netflix, yes.

Speaker 3 January 9th on Netflix.

Speaker 3 What about it drew you to it?

Speaker 3 What part of it now that you're done with it do you like the most?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so

Speaker 2 I'd always wanted to explore the Western world. And I say the Western world because it's not a traditional Western.

Speaker 2 There was a a movie called Jeremiah Johnson that Robert Redford did a long time ago where he played a mountain man or he played a city man who came to the mountains to try and find gold and he became a mountain man and he developed a relationship with the Native Americans out there and it was just a really

Speaker 2 formative movie for me as a kid. My parents took me and I always wanted to do something like that.
And Mark L.

Speaker 2 Smith, who's a friend of mine who wrote The Revenant, and I were talking and I'm like, what if we did something in this world?

Speaker 2 And we started, and my goal was I wanted to go out into the elements. I didn't want to shoot in sound stages.
I wanted to challenge.

Speaker 2 So we ended up with this six-part series that's about a very violent period in American history in 1857 where the Mormons were just starting to have an army and Brigham Young was very violent and they were trying to hold out in Utah.

Speaker 2 The army was coming after them. Multiple Native American tribes were fighting and I thought this would be a really interesting environment to set a story.
It was a very, very violent time

Speaker 2 in a very violent history, which is American history, in a very violent global history, which is planet Earth. And we wanted to explore man's innate desire and inability to not kill each other.

Speaker 2 And we thought that that was just something

Speaker 2 living in this world today where obviously violence is on the rise.

Speaker 2 And it might not all be sugar that got you anxious like these are these are rough times you know and this is something we wanted to explore

Speaker 2 And I think one of the biggest takeaways for me, and this isn't necessarily the sexiest takeaway, but learning about Brigham Young and the history of the Mormon church and how persecuted they were.

Speaker 2 And they were run out of New York and then they were run out of Georgia. And Joseph Smith, the leader, took them up to Illinois to try and create this Nauvoo, this place where they could live.

Speaker 2 And Joseph Smith was killed and Brigham Young fled across the country on foot with 2,000 of his followers and ended up in what was a godforsaken land, Salt Lake City at the time.

Speaker 2 And he said, well, we'll stay here. This is the place.
No one will ever come for us here. And he started growing the religion and the U.S.
military started coming for him.

Speaker 2 And the Mormons were a very cunning and at times violent organization. And one of the things I'm very happy with is actor Kim Coates, who plays Brigham Young.

Speaker 2 He was in Sons of Anarchy and thought I was joking when I cast him as Brigham Young, just a great actor. And learning about that aspect of it was something that for me was just really...

Speaker 2 personally quite interesting. And getting to know the great Betty Gilpin, who does such a good job in our show.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what Amanda said. And Taylor Kitch, your

Speaker 2 love with all my heart.

Speaker 1 Collaborator, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, man. Yeah, he's a great actor.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well,

Speaker 3 I'm fucking thrilled for you. I'm just excited we get more Pete Berg stuff.
Hopefully, you're there in Tel Aviv researching something that's going to be awesome to see one day.

Speaker 3 I won't even ask you about it.

Speaker 1 I know I've been thinking the whole time. I'm like, what is he doing? I know, exactly.

Speaker 3 But I miss you, buddy.

Speaker 3 Hurry back. Let's all hang out.

Speaker 3 Let's go watch Will's Kid go box over at your gym.

Speaker 2 Bring him in anytime. Or, Sean, if you feel like hitting something, come on in.

Speaker 1 I've got some people busy.

Speaker 1 Oh, are you kidding me right after this? He's going to hit the fridge. Listen.

Speaker 1 Cheat day. Cheat day.
Cheat day. Every day.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Pete. Nice to meet you, Pete.
Love you.

Speaker 3 See you soon, I hope, pal. Thanks.

Speaker 2 Congratulations on everything, fellas. Keep up the good work.
You're making people really happy, and we need that.

Speaker 1 No, thank you. Thank you, Pal.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Thanks. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 I'm excited.

Speaker 1 That was great, Jay. I'm excited for his show, American Prime Minister.
He was wild when he came out. I never met him.
I think he's

Speaker 3 just a guy. Such a great filmmaker.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no doubt.

Speaker 3 He's a really, really good filmmaker. And, you know,

Speaker 3 and he doesn't throw that in the public's face

Speaker 3 or the industry's face. Like, he's

Speaker 1 low profile. You're right.
Yeah, low profile.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 he's just making stuff. Yeah, exactly.
And every once in a while, stuff will show up and you'll go, oh, fuck, man, is this fantastic? Nothing ever sucks about what he does.

Speaker 1 And Jason, you were fantastic in the kingdom.

Speaker 1 So good. Jason, you were

Speaker 1 so good. You were so good.

Speaker 3 I remember loving that movie.

Speaker 1 I love that movie. It was fucking great.
Yeah, it was Gary. It was like one of those rare ones that was like all

Speaker 1 so great. I'm telling you, that line reading, I saw it in the theater with Kraz, with Krasinski.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we did. We saw it in New York.
And you delivered that line reading. Are you fucking late?

Speaker 1 Are you late? No doubt.

Speaker 1 It's so

Speaker 1 fucking good.

Speaker 3 I can't wait.

Speaker 1 That's called American Primeval. American Primeval, correct?

Speaker 1 Sometime in January, go on the Netflix.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, and

Speaker 1 the reflux. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Sean, I don't see you looking off to your piano.

Speaker 1 This is a fun day. Dude, I wasn't prepared.
I wasn't prepared.

Speaker 3 You're not prepared.

Speaker 1 That's why. I'm nervous.
So we're going to stall a little bit while you pull.

Speaker 3 Look at now. I see him looking around all the different windows trying to show

Speaker 3 possible buys.

Speaker 1 Why did I have

Speaker 1 possible buys possible buys um yeah i got plenty of them uh let's see

Speaker 1 uh so

Speaker 1 um you know uh

Speaker 1 you know what scotty where's the where's the thing

Speaker 1 that that whole thing with gary shandling yeah the whole boxing thing with oh yeah

Speaker 1 that was really funny that was a story that i was really blown away

Speaker 1 by buying

Speaker 1 okay the problem with that is is that it's so close. It's so on the nose that to be honest, for me,

Speaker 1 I just don't. Bye.

Speaker 1 That will work.

Speaker 3 That will work. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 So like two half ones make a full.

Speaker 1 Smart

Speaker 1 less.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Rob Armjarv, Bennett Barbicoe, and Michael Grantary.

Speaker 1 Smart, less.

Speaker 5 For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

Speaker 5 Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

Speaker 5 Trimphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

Speaker 5 If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Trimphaya, proper training is required.

Speaker 5 Trimphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

Speaker 5 Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis.

Speaker 5 Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Explore what's possible.
Ask your doctor about Tremphaya today.

Speaker 5 Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit tremphayaradio.com.

Speaker 1 You know those moments when you're trying to work through a complex problem and you can't stop until you've found the answer?

Speaker 1 That's where Claude comes in, the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough.

Speaker 1 Whether you're planning something big, researching a topic you're curious about, or just trying to work through a problem, Claude matches your level of curiosity.

Speaker 1 Try Claude for free at claude.ai slash smartless and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.