#2280 - Peter Berg

Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Those black rifle coffins, are we up? All right, we're rolling.
Those are a lot. Is this too much? They're delicious.
Am I making a rookie mistake? No, I love them. They're too good though.
There's a lot of sugar in them. They're trying to make one with no sugar.
They're pretty close. But right now, that's got a ton of sugar in it.
But damn, it's good. Yeah, they taste good.
We did the full thing today, dude. Thanks for the workout.
My pleasure. It was fun.
Thanks for the workout. You're a beast.
For anyone that doesn't know, you are a fucking beast. And I suspected you would be.
That's why I wanted to work out. And I was smart enough, and I told you right away I'm not going to keep up with you.
But, man, you go hard. You did a lot of the things, though.
You did all the stuff, you know, and stuff that you'd never done before, like windmills. Yeah, those windmills were like you could really get in trouble with the windmill.
Yeah. For people that don't know what that is.
You certainly can with heavy weight. Yeah.
It's something, but all those things like the pushups and bodyweight squats, it's all just you have to build to it. I love the way you warm up, you know, because I'm the same way.
I do a long warm up every day. And my buddy Ari got me into it and just try and stretch absolutely everything.
And I was telling you, I got thrown off a horse in Africa a month ago. And when I was in the process of getting thrown off and I was like in the middle of the air and I'm about to come down and I'm like, oh, shit, this is going to be a problem.
And I thought about those warmups and I landed and rolled and didn't hurt myself. So I think those are really smart.
Yeah. If we could just appreciate when your body works well without having to be injured, it would be so nice.
Right. Because you really only think about your, God, I hope my body heals.
When you get injured, if you get fucked up, then you think, God, I can't wait to get healthy again. But if you just appreciate, and the best way to appreciate your body working well is to keep it working well yeah man just to work on it like stretch out work out lift weights get some cardio in do the stuff that's uncomfortable like stretching i like that you started off your workout with a nice long stretch we had a good stretch yeah and a good ice bath man yours is colder than mine that blue cube is brutal because it's always running.
It's like a flowing river. Yeah.
That's hard. Great.
It was a great way to start. Appreciate it.
Yeah, it gets you fired up, man. And also, like we were saying, your workout's done.
Your day can – you're free. You don't have to think about doing it.
Just get it out of the way early. You're good.
Well, and the sauna and the way you approach – the way I think you approach all of it is kind of a meditation. And I know that that's probably really an important part of your creative process.
It is a mind when I'm writing or directing to be able to have that time alone. And it's a moving meditation.
And I think one of the secrets to your success, in my opinion, is that you know how to take that time for yourself. Lock in, focus, get mentally and physically ready because it's not easy to do what you do every day and to be this present.
So I respect it so much. Well, thank you very much.
Well, obviously I'm a huge fan of what you do. And fucking American Prime Humble is so good, dude.
Thank you, man. I feel like you made it just for me.
I've been waiting for a realistic Wild West series like that forever. And that is, I'll just say it right now, that's the best one that's ever been made.
Oh, thank you. It's the best representation of the Wild West that's ever been made.
It's so good, dude. It's so brutal.
My episode one did she yeah I can't because we wonder we watch shows before we go to bed And we're in the middle of severance, which is excellent. Yeah, really good show and severance is you know I mean there's some brutal moments, but it's it's just really complicated.
It's really engaging You've got got to pay very close attention. Yeah, really good show.

And then I said,

hey, baby,

we've got to watch

American Primeval.

I go,

Peter's coming on.

Please sit and watch with me.

It was a couple weeks ago.

The first episode,

she's like,

Jesus Christ,

what the fuck are you doing to me?

It's like 10 o'clock at night.

I've got to go to bed.

I can't like,

people are getting tomahawked

in the fucking head

and I've got to go to sleep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I have to call her or send her flowers or anything, I will.
bed yeah i can't like people getting tomahawked in the fucking head and i gotta go to sleep yeah

yeah uh if i have to call her or send her flowers or anything i will i've had to send a few people flowers and give them like uh massages and stuff like therapy uh treatments because it's traumatized because you did it right that's why because you did it right you did it like it really was It was a fucking barbaric time in a barbaric place.

And it's it really was it was a fucking barbaric time in a barbaric place and it's never really been other than 1883 taylor sheridan's series which is also excellent excellent excellent he did a fantastic job and uh how crazy is it that like faith hill and um what's the other guy's name tim. Tim McGraw.
They're fucking great actors. Sure.
Tim was in Friday Night Lights. Do you remember him in the movie? He played the father, like the mean alcoholic father who used to beat up his kid.
And Tim was great in Friday Night Lights. Tim's a very good actor.
Isn't that crazy? Yeah. That someone who's a great singer can all just slide into this other thing and be amazing at it? He's an artist.
I mean, he's a really deep-thinking, deep-feeling artist. Yeah, clearly.
And Taylor Sheridan has a knack for getting great performances out of people like McGraw. Or did you see Jerry Jones, his cameo in Landman, which I think is the best cameo ever? Have you seen that yet? What episode is it on? I'm not sure because I don't know each episode, but he's got, Sheridan has a sequence where Jerry Jones basically playing himself just tells the story of how he got into business and how he started up and it's just beautifully done.
Sheridan's very good at getting people to to to do cameos and pulling it out of them i think that that show was like billy bob thornton was built for that show it's like he was born for it yeah that he's that's his perfect role he's so goddamn good in that and landman yeah landman he's so god i mean he's been good in a million things but in landman it's like you just believe he's that guy. Yeah, man.
You just believe. But American Primeval, back to that.
What inspired you to do such a realistic interpretation of that time period? So do you remember a movie called Jeremiah Johnson? Yes. Did you ever see that with Robert Redford? Yeah, yeah, yeah, a long time ago.
So Redford plays this city man who goes out west looking for gold and ends up sort of stuck somewhere around Montana and is trying to survive out there. When the Indians first find him, he's so inept.
He's trying to catch a fish in a frozen river with his hands. I mean, he's completely inept that they don't even waste an arrow on him.
They don't kill him. And by the end of the film, he's a warrior, and he's learned how to survive, and he marries a Native American woman, and his wife gets killed, and he goes on a vengeance spree and kills a whole bunch of people and ends up getting this incredible respect from the Native Americans.
And my dad took me to see Jeremiah Johnson, and that movie always stuck with me. And I'm good friends with Taylor Sheridan, and we work together a lot, and I obviously know everything he's doing.
And I kind of wanted to see if I could play in that space. But, you know, he's doing it so well and so specifically.
I kind of thought, well, what if I just did something that was really about the survival? And I like to call it inch-by-inch filmmaking, where you think about how hard it would have been just to go 50 feet and take a piss and how there might have been 15 different things that could have killed you on the way to taking that piss.

Instead of just jumping through those 50 things, let's really try and stretch it out. And try and show people and capture the brutality of moment-to-moment living back in that part of America in the 1850s.

And you're used to doing films.

So what is the process like transitioning from something that's two or three hours to something that's long form you have all this time and multiple episodes to lay out the story but you're doing it with the quality of an excellent film everything starts with good health that's why ag1 is a great addition to any morning routine and why I've partnered with them for so long. One scoop, once a day, simple research-backed and designed to support your whole body health.
And it actually tastes great. You can forget juggling multiple pills and supplements.
AG1 is a more in-one solution that combines a multivitamin, superior B-complex, a blend of superfoods, and more. And more importantly, Ag1 prioritizes using nutrients that are already in their bioactive form so your body can use them easily.
Just mix it with cold water and you're set. No hassle.
No guesswork. It's never too late to create a new healthy habit for 2025.
So try AG1 for yourself. And right now, AG1 is offering new customers a free $76 gift when you subscribe.
You'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drinkag1.com slash Joe Rogan.
That's drinkag1.com slash Joe Rogan. Check it out.
Yeah, it was a massive job. You know, a movie, a big movie is generally like 85 day shoot.
American Primeval was 145 day shoot. And I had one of my ideas and with Markel Smith, who wrote the episodes and was very talented, was let's not shoot in sound stages.
Let's not make parking lots look like forests, but let's go up into the mountains. And in this case, we went up onto some different Indian reservations in New Mexico.
And we're like, let's really go out there for 145 days. Let's do it.
You know, we were talking, this was all prior to us going out and actually doing it. And it's kind of like, be careful what you ask for.
It's like, you're actually really fucking on the mountain for 145 days. And there's lightning storms and snow storms and wind storms.
And we had rattlesnakes everywhere. And we had to have all these dudes going around pulling the snakes out of the rocks.
And stuntmen breaking ribs. Joe Schilling was with us every day.
I think we killed Joe five times. Thanks, Joe.
I saw Tate Fletcher. I was telling you, too, episode two.
We only killed Tate once, but thanks, Tate, for that.

I love that dude.

But these stuntmen were so tough and, you know, breaking bones and all kinds of horrible things. But the creative experience of getting to do basically six movies at once, you know, because I directed all of them.
and being able to go that deep in characters

and to be able to bring in elements like Brigham Young and the Mormon religion

and have big themes circling around just very visceral, violent moments as a filmmaker is fucking awesome. And it's different, you know, because it's not directing an episode of a television show is its own experience, but that's very quick.
Directing a movie is really, really wonderful and very obviously creatively demanding. But that's this is six movies all at once.
Yeah. And having to keep that in my head and kind of figure out how to keep myself functioning and not wasting energy.
And, you know, I built a gym in my house in New Mexico

with an ice bath and a sauna and I'd get up at four every morning and just have that time for

myself to keep myself fit and you know mentally and physically ready to to to go at it because

when you're I'm sorry to interrupt you but when you're in the mineral project and you're doing

your workouts and you're so are you just like constantly going over the show in your head

Yeah, I mean, I try to – I do go over it, but in more of an abstract way. I'm a bit of an improvisational filmmaker, meaning I don't like to have everything super planned out.
I think kind of the way you conduct your podcast, you have some ideas, and then you just sort of allow whatever happens to happen. And I know what I'm going to do that day.
So, you know, particularly with American Primeval, because, you know, we had so many big battles and stunts and, you know, kind of dangerous, complex filmmaking that there has to be some plan. But even within that, I try to loosely think about what I want to do and then get out there and let the actors kind of start doing what they do and see what kind of creative vibe gets going.
And a lot of the cameramen, you know, I just shoot handheld cameras, So we have a lot of flexibility with how we can work and capture. And my feeling is rather than plan it all out, go out there knowing kind of what you want to accomplish, but allow kind of creativity, allow that kind of divine magic to enter the process, which can kind of be freaky for like my bosses at Netflix because they're spending a whole lot of money.
And they're like, what are we doing today? And I'm like, I don't really know what we're doing today, but we're going to do something. But I've done it.
Well, they're pretty good at staying out of the way, aren't they? They actually are fantastic about it. And, you know, I have to give, you know, my boss, there's a woman named Bella Bajara at Netflix who and people talk a lot of shit about Netflix.
I'm not one of them. I mean, they're giving so many people so much work.
And, you know, once you convince them that you have a vision, they let you do it. And she was great.
And she let me do it and um you know it's interesting because there was a scene in um in the second episode of american primeval where uh a native american cuts the throats of five women spoiler alert sorry spoiler alert i guess sort of there there's a lot other bad things that happen but there is right? And, you know, Netflix is a very busy company. They're making a lot of stuff.
And we were deep in the edit process. And I got a call from Bella, the boss, my boss.
And she's like, I want to see this show. And I'm like, well, it's your show, so please come in.
And, you know, it's hard for her to keep track of all the shows and all the scripts. And I was impressed that she even wanted to come in.
And so she came in to the edit room, and she's like, I'm going to watch one episode. It's kind of a big deal.
She's a very influential person in our world. And so it's me and Hugo, the editor, and Bella comes in, and we're showing her the first episode.
And we're just sitting in this kind kind of dark screening room and I have no idea what she's going to say or do.

And it's pretty violent.

And it ends and she goes, I want to see another one.

And I'm like, OK, we'll start playing the second episode.

And we're getting right to the moment where, spoiler alert, these women are about to have their throats cut.

And I'm starting to have a full fucking panic attack because I'm pretty sure that she doesn't know what's coming up, right? And Hugo, the editor, is kind of looking at me like, should I stop it? And I really didn't know what to do. And we get to the moment where this event happens.
And my body heat was literally rising. I'm ready for her to, fire me and take the show and i know and the scene happens and the girls get their throats cut and she says stop and we stop and she goes peter i can sense you're concerned about my reaction let me tell you something i'm here for this violence i'm not afraid of this violence as long as you make it emotional and connect me to the emotion.

Do it.

And I'm not afraid of this violence. As long as you make it emotional and connect me to the emotion, do it.
And I'm like, thank you, Bella. And she left and she allowed us to explore the kind of grit and intensity that people have reacted to.
And I tip my hat to her for that. You know, it's it's not you need that kind of support to get something like American Primeval made today because it's not, you know, it's not your grandmother's Western.
No, it's critical that you do it that way, because if people want to really know what that was like, if you read the historical accounts of what happened, that's what happened.

For sure.

It happened that way.

And, you know, it was horrific.

One of the things that a lot of people have talked about, and I had the LDS Church issued a statement sort of critiquing the show and critiquing me, which I appreciate and I understand why members of the Mormon community would be offended by the portrayal of Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which was the event that we use as kind of our inciting incident for the first episode, which was a real massacre that the Mormons committed on a group of pioneers who were heading out west, or a Mormon militia with some Paiute Indians attacked and murdered about 140 men, women, and children. And we present that in the film.
And we present Brigham Young in the film. And many Mormons, it's interesting to start reading all the debate about it, but a lot of Mormons were saying, yeah, this is exactly what happened.
And this is a part of our history. And no other Mormons, particularly the seniors in Salt Lake City, were saying, this is not what happened.
This is not fair. But what I find interesting about the Mormon church and about kind of how we present it is I've had a lot of people come to me and go, dude, I never knew the Mormons were such savages.
So gangster. They were fucking gangster.
Brigham Young was, in my opinion, a gangster, a survivor, a warrior. And for anyone who follows Mormon history, you know, they started in upstate New York with this young kid, Joseph Smith, who found these tablets and basically rewrote the Bible and started getting this following.
And then they moved to Missouri and they got popular. And then there was an extermination order and it was kill all the Mormons.
So they fled to Illinois and tried to survive up there at this place called Nauvoo that was going to be their peaceful place to live. And Joseph Smith was murdered and they were run out of Illinois.
And Brigham Young led these dudes, men and women, on foot across the plains in the winter to Salt Lake Valley, which was this desolate wasteland. And he said, oh, we'll stay here.
They'll never come for us here. And they started coming.
And Brigham Young basically said, fuck it. We're not taking it anymore.
He built his own army, the Nauvoo Legion. And he said, we're staying here.
We won't mess with you. But if you come after us, we will fight.
And that point, I think, is interesting. And I think Brigham Young, who survived longer than all of them.
And if you go to Salt Lake City, he did a pretty good job. Right? That's a big city, man.
It's a great city. And I don't know.
I respect the Mormon religion. I respect Brigham Young.
And I feel like we make him look like a gangster in American Primeval. And I don't know.
This episode is brought to you by Paramount+. Your next family crime saga obsession is coming this March to Paramount+.
Mobland, an explosive new series from the underworld of Guy Ritchie stars Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. Go inside the Harrigan crime family who will stop at nothing to ensure they come out on top in a war that threatens to topple empires and destroy lives.
Don't miss the new episode of Mobland, now streaming on Paramount+. This episode is brought to you by the Farmer's Dog.
We all want to do the best for our dogs, but there's a lot of mixed messaging out there, especially around dog food. Take kibble, for example.
You'd have to do a lot of digging to learn that kibble is actually ultra-processed. They put the words like premium on their bag next to pictures of real ingredients, but food doesn't end up as burnt-down pellets without extreme processing.
For decades, it was the default dog food, but not anymore. The farmer's dog is healthy food made with real meat and vegetables by people who care about what goes into your dog's body.
The recipes are developed by board-certified nutritionists to be complete and balanced, and their food is made to the same safety standards as human food. It's lightly cooked to retain vital nutrients, and then it's pre-portioned to suit your dog's needs.
So try the Farmer's Dog today and get 50% off your first box of healthy, freshly made food plus free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com slash rogan, tap the banner, or visit this episode's page to learn more.
The offer is for new customers only. A survivor, and I respect that.
Well, this is the reality of historical figures. You're talking about a different time in the world, and it was a particularly barbaric time.
And if you wanted to survive, this is what you had to do. And we're not talking about the United States in 2025.
We're talking about the Wild West. And you're talking about a persecuted group of religious people like if you want to survive you want your children to survive like you gotta fight you gotta take up arms that's just how it is like you know the story about the mormons in mexico right to remind me well uh there's mormon sects in mexico that moved there when they made uh Polygamy And this was a homeboy from Massachusetts, Mitt Romney.
His family is from Mexico. His father was born in Mexico and his father could never be president because he wasn't born in America.
And he was born here in America, ran for president, the whole deal, became governor of Massachusetts. But there's still these huge groups in Mexico that are armed to the fucking tits because they're always constantly battling with the cartel.
And there was a series of murders a few years back where a woman and children like family were slaughtered. and there was some confusion as to whether or not the cartel targeted them or whether it was a case of mistaken identity or what happened but you know there there's been documentaries about them they're fucking they live in armed compounds the mormons in mexico so it's a similar sort of a situation with them in mexico now what i mean the the polygamy was a thing.
And, you know, we do touch upon that a bit in Primeval. I think Brigham Young had 40 odd wives.
Nice. How do you fucking keep up with two? I don't know.
I don't understand how someone could have two wives. That's a whole nother conversation.
I mean, I have a friend who lives in Saudi Arabia. And a long time ago, I was in Saudi Arabia doing some work.
And I'd asked him, because in Saudi, you can have multiple wives, Saudi men. And I'd asked him about that and sort of like, wow, that's amazing, multiple wives.
That's so cool. And we were leaving.
We were leaving Riyadh airport and he was walking with me and there was a man in front of us and he was holding like five suitcases and he could barely walk. And there were four women around him and kids everywhere.
And he just looked like he was about to collapse and fall face forward on the ground at the airport in Riyadh. And my friend looked at me and said,

Pete, this is the reality of what having five wives looks like on the ground if you want to see what it really feels like. So to think about Brigham Young having 45 wives, okay, good luck, I guess.
Right? Yeah. But that that was one of the issues, the polygamy that people that were non-Mormons back in 1850s were using to attack the religion.
And, you know, that was something that was the polygamy has obviously been since outlawed and the church has cut itself off from that policy. But, you know, the Mormons were—the whole idea that this kid, Joseph Smith, I believe he was a young teenager.
Fourteen. Fourteen.
Yeah. When he and his buddy walked into these woods in like 18—late 1830s, right? It think it was 1820.
When did he find, when did Joseph Smith supposedly find these golden tablets? I believe it was but either way. 56 wives.
Brigham Young had 56. There's a photo of you.
16 he forgot about. I didn't want to oversell it so I understood it.
I kind of knew it was in the 50s. He had 56 wives.
46 kids, only 46 kids made it to adulthood. That's part of why.
Oh, wow. Only 46.
He's basically Genghis Khan of Utah. 1823, he was visited by an angel who directed a Mojave Berry book.
1823? and how old was he like 14 14 so but so this kid at 14 and comes out of the woods and says the angel came and told me that the bible's almost right but it's not quite right so i'm going to rewrite it which he did the book of mormon and look at where we are teddy it was not that long ago right and and in the course of Mormon, and look at where we are today. It was not that long ago, right? And in the course of that journey from Joseph Smith coming out of the woods to where we are today with Brigham Young University and the beautiful city of Salt Lake City, Utah, there was a lot of bloodshed.
And Joseph Smith was murdered. Brigham Young fought.
And another interesting theory that isn't proven, but I believe it holds, is what saved the Mormons. Because in 1857, when you had the Mormon Wars, Brigham Young was fighting President Buchanan and when the military was coming after him in 1857, and he was holed up and prepared to fight in Salt Lake City, and Buchanan wanted him out.
And then right around 1858, 1859, a little thing called the Civil War popped off. And the entire focus of the U.S.
military was not on Brigham Young and Utah, but it was on fighting the Civil War, the Utah church was able, and Brigham Young was able to grow the Mormon church and survive and thrive. And he was able to politically negotiate a place in the government so that by the time the Civil War ended, Brigham Young was deeply entrenched and was able to lead the Mormon church to the great power that it is today.
I think if the Civil War hadn't occurred, there would be no Mormonism in the United States. Wow.
That's crazy. What a fortuitous turn of events.
And I'm going to probably get ripped on for that one, but I believe it's supportable. Yeah, you're going to get ripped for everything.
That's okay. That's just how it is.

Mormons are the nicest people.

My next-door neighbors used to be Mormons.

They're the nicest fucking people. I agree.

I completely agree.

They're so nice.

I know a ton of Mormons because I know a bunch of people in Utah.

And Salt Lake City.

Utah is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful state.

Salt Lake City is a cool city.

And I'm down with the Sundance Film Festival.

So I'm down with the whole state.

Yeah.

No, I visit me. Dylan Trey Parker did that musical.
They took out a full page ad in the playbook. So they're like, if you want to know more about Mormonism, come visit, like find out the real thing.
So instead of protesting and suing and attacking them and they just took out a fucking ad. So when I was doing, I think that shows incredible character.
For sure. For sure.
Because that fucking, you've seen the Book of Mormon, right? Yes, I have. Hilarious.
Yeah. And pretty brutal.
And they're like, well, if you like to find out more about Mormonism. Yeah, I can't figure out.
Like, when I was doing my research for American Primeval, I went to Salt Lake City and the Mormon church gave me a tour. And, you know, I told them what the film was about and that the Mountain Meadows Massacre was in the book.
I was going to be in our show. And they took me to the theater.
Have you ever been to the theater, the Mormon theater in Salt Lake City? No. Holds like 20,000 people.
It is the most beautiful, incredible theater where they have weekly events and

meetings. They took me in there and there's

a huge pipe organ.

I had a private concert with

their organist. Yeah, it's that.

Whoa, look at that place.

I sat by myself

in the center of that

theater and you see the pipe organs.

They gave

me a private concert

and then they took me

into the museum and showed me the history of the Mormon church. And I told them about the Meadows Massacre, which I've taken heat for in the show.
And at the end of the tour, there's a bookstore in the museum, the Mormon Museum in Salt Lake, and the book Mountain Meadows Massacre by this guy Turley was there. And I'm like, I want to buy this book.
I read the book and I'm like, oh, for sure we're putting this story in our film. And it was for sale in the Mormon bookstore.
And I met with the author, Turley, who then took me to the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. And he had written the book with the support of the Mormon church to get their side of the story out.
Did you film at the actual site? No, we didn't. The actual site was in Utah.
But I went and toured it. So you filmed in New Mexico? Yeah, we filmed everything on different reservations around Santa Fe.

But if you go to the site of the Mormon Meadows Massacre in Utah, the Mormons have built a big memorial there honoring 130 pioneers from Arkansas who were killed there.

And the Mormons have owned this event, and they were very willing to talk about it which is kind of like them buying a full page ad in a book of mormon right right they're like you know we know you're going to make a film about the more the meadows massacre that's probably going to be inflammatory in some ways however come visit us we want to meet you we want to show. We want to play music for you.
And I had an incredible time with the Mormons that were involved with us doing the research for Primeval. This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog.
I've been asking dog-owning friends what they feed their dogs, and most of them are surprised by the question. And I get it.
For decades, kibble was the only option. But as humans have been eating healthier, companies like the Farmer's Dog started feeding dogs healthier too.
Because when your dog eats freshly made, human-grade food, owners notice a bunch of positive changes, including weight loss and higher energy levels, basically happier dogs. Did you know that overweight dogs can live an average of 2.5 years less? And did you know that 60% of dogs are overweight? So when my friends say, I just feed my dog kibble or whatever, I tell them, no, you got to think about this one.
You have to try the farmer's dog because no one, dog or human, should be eating highly processed food for every meal. So try The Farmer's Dog today and get 50% off your first box of healthy, freshly made food plus free shipping.
Just go to thefarmersdog.com slash Rogan. Tap the banner or visit this episode's page to learn more.
The offer is for new customers only. So what is the backlash, though? If they've admitted that this massacre took place and it's part of the historical record, the book is for sale in this Mormon theater, what is the backlash? The biggest single issue, if you get into the weeds, and I think it's an interesting point of debate, is whether or not Brigham Young knew and authorized this massacre.
And the way the massacre played out in real life was different how we did it in the film. In the film, we did it in, you know, one swell move, like it just happens.
And, you know, we filmed it in one shot and it's, you know, pretty intense, visceral, very fast events. And and then it's over.
In reality, this wagon train was surrounded by the Mormon militia, the Navajo Legion,

and some of these Native Americans, and it went on for about four or five days.

And the Mormons dressed up as Native Americans.

This is where it gets kind of—some Mormons aren't thrilled that we pointed out the fact

that they were trying to put the blame on the Native Americans.

So they literally, Mormons dressed up as Indians to confuse the pioneers and in case there were survivors to say, oh, it wasn't Mormons. It was the Native Americans that did this.
So they don't love that. But what the Mormons claim or some in the Mormon church claim is that during the three or four days that the siege took place before the actual massacre, and the details of the massacre are really fucked up because the Mormons pretended they were accepting a surrender.
So they went in with white flags and they said, OK, the men walk this way, the women and children. We're going to walk you to safety because the Indians are going to kill you.
Mormons said we're here to save you. So they started walking them out.
And then on someone's signal, they just killed everyone. Really bad.
But the issue of whether Brigham Young knew about it or didn't know about it, we imply that he knew about it. We never say that he authorized it, but we imply that he did know about it.
And what many of the defenders of Brigham Young will say is that there was a letter written where Brigham Young said, do not harm these pioneers. Don't kill them.
But the letter was sent by horse while the massacre, while the event was already occurring. So I've had people say he knew that that letter wasn't going to make it there in time.

He was covering himself. Oh, hey, I wrote a letter.
I knew I couldn't get there in time, but I wrote a letter, so there's plausible deniability. No one knows.
It's hard to believe if you really start getting into this, and obviously I did. I know it's not on the top of everyone's list of things to give a fuck about.
But it's really hard for me to believe that in 1857, a group of Brigham Young soldiers would act unilaterally on their own and commit a crime that's horrible without somebody approving it. It's hard for me to imagine.
So that's the single issue that tends to, you know, if I do, and i really try not to like um my girlfriends turned me on to reddit i never even really knew what it was oh my god like i don't like what like like reddit is fucking crazy yeah um i was talking to uh you know jack carr right you know and he's uh getting into, you know, making movies and he's doing all this cool stuff at the Terminalist. And I think he's a great guy.
And he was talking to me about reviews because it was the first time he was ever getting reviewed. Right.
And, you know, any filmmaker who says they don't read the reviews is lying. OK.
They're just fucking and they we do read reviews and we care and they hurt you know and and he's like i guess he's gotten you know read something he didn't like on um the terminalist and he's just called me he's like how do you handle this shit i want to kill this i can't he's freaking out and i'm i mean i'm not he wasn't really freaking out that bad but he was pissed and I'm like Jack you know welcome to the world of you know what we do you people are gonna are gonna talk I'm like I'm like you don't understand what like before reddit and and comments and all the things back when we first put movies out man there were three that mattered. Like when I first started making movies, there was this guy Kenneth Turan in the L.A.
Times. There was Janet Maslin in the New York Times.
And then there was Siskel and Ebert, right? Thumbs up. And like they had so much power, right? So you'd make a movie and you'd spend tens of millions of dollars and you put your heart and soul.
And, you know, like we never try to make bad movies. Right.
Like that's that's never the goal. We're always like, you know, we want to win something.
It's hard to make a good movie. But you put all your your heart and soul into these movies.
And then it's fucking three critics that control your fate. Right.
was telling car about um you know my first movie was called very bad things it was about this bachelor party that goes haywire that's a great movie appreciate it thank you i love it so that movie got hands down the worst review ever given to a movie in the history of film reviews please don't pull it up right now. But feel free, anyone listening, Kenneth Turan's review of my film, Very Bad Things in the Los Angeles Times.
Okay. I read this review.
I literally vomit. Like people talk about vomiting.
I don't know if you've ever vomited when something bad happens. I puked.
I went into like shock. I'm like, he tried to destroy my career and he like it was and so i'm telling jack and i'm going pull it up right now pull it up and he starts reading it and he's like oh my god oh my god i go don't fucking tell me about bad reviews, okay?

Because I got the worst. And Kenneth Turan, who, like, after I'd gotten that review, I was in a bar at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles getting drunk with a couple of my friends.
And Kenneth Turan was in the bar. And I got up and started moving towards him.
Like, I was in a blackout rage. And my friend Joe and Mike Mendelsohn held me back because I was going to get him, you know? And for three films after that, Kenneth Turan, he just had it out for me, this guy.
Hated me. And finally on, I believe it was either Friday Night Lights or Lone Survivor, he reluctantly gave me a good review.
But it was more like a broken clock is right twice a day. But nowadays, as I said to Jack, it's like, okay, the crazy thing about if you are focusing on how your work is being perceived and it matters and it does matter.
Like I say, anyone who says it doesn't, I think, is kind of lying. Don't you think it matters more about the audience than about the critics? 100%.
My perspective on critics is that no one wants to be a critic. Generally, they wanted to be creative, but they're not good enough to contribute.
For sure. They don't have anything to contribute.
And they're using a different standard that doesn't really apply to just like the working

human being.

Right.

It just wants to be entertained.

And that's why I said to Jack, I go, dude, like, you know, we have rotten tomatoes, right?

Which is a way of, you know, critics, if you get 61% good, you get a fresh tomato.

If not, you're, you know, you've got a rotten tomato and that, that sucks. Okay.
I've got a rotten tomato. That sucks.
Oh, I got a fresh tomato. Oh, that's great.
But now they have the audience score right next to the critic score. And that's the one that I said, Jack, don't look at the critics.
Look at what your audience is saying. And that's when, you know, I learned about Reddit and all that stuff.
And I'm like, fuck the critics. I'm down with this Reddit shit because you get such interesting conversations.
Yes. And they're much more thoughtful, I think.
And they've taken away the power, you know, and I'm not shitting on critics. I get it.
You want to be a critic? Whatever, you know.

I do like the quote about critics and life doesn't go to the critic.

It's the man in the arena.

I like that quote and I believe in that.

And I've used that to justify my mood when I get a bad review.

I'll just read the man in the arena over and over until I feel good.

Is that Theodore Roosevelt?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a great quote.

Great quote.

Fantastic quote.

And it's true.

Thank you. But love of a guy like Dana is the doer of it all.
The guy who just says, I don't care what the critic says. I'm going this way.
I am fucking going this way. And if I win and you're with me on the ride, you're part of me.
If I lose and you're still with me, you're my friend. If not, I don't give a fuck.
I'm going to do it again. And I have so much respect for that.
And I'll tell you another interesting thing about my business. It always surprises me how real it is.
But when you make something a movie or you do something whether it's American premiere of almost anything I've done and I don't know if you've ever experienced this you know you put yourself on the line so intensely and and you'll believe in it with your heart and your soul and you go for it. And as it's getting ready to come out,

there's this weird thing that happens where everybody separates from you. And you're the one that's kind of, now you're about to be judged.
It's going to be determined to be successful or a failure. And it's going to get reviewed.
And everyone's kind of like, good luck, Pete. good luck and i could like like the the day or two before it comes out all the people like and and this is when you know who's got your back okay because there's a few you look around and like wait well all these people were with me for this journey and i'm all by my fucking where where'd everybody go and it's you know you know, like my sister, my best friend, Ari, my dog, my son.
There's a few people who are really right there. And then when it comes out and it works, man, you have a lot of friends.
And that's, you know, just one of the things that you have to do in this business. And it's why the critics fuck them.
And it's why Dana and people like that, you, who do create it and build it and make it. And it's real.
You definitely need feedback because you definitely need to know if you're on the right track. But you can get lost in feedback.
You can get lost in positive feedback, too. You can get lost in people approving you.
You can get drunk in it. I don't read anything.
I don't read anything about me. No red-edged ever? Nothing.
I don't read anything. I just – I get it.
like sometimes i'm good sometimes i'm not as good that's i get it i do my best that's all i can do and i feel like if you're really self-critical which i am and you're you're objective and you analyze yourself and you and you're brutally honest if you're brutally honest about what you've done and how it is. Could you have done it better? Did you cut corners? And if you don't, if you don't cut corners and if you do your best and you really prepare, that's all you can do.
You just do your very best. And if you haven't done your best, that's when the critics really sting.
If you know that you kind of slacked off or you weren't focused or there's something that was wrong with what you did. Or you did it for the money.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That can often.
Yes. I agree with that.
To do it for the money is a real one. I mean, that's the downfall of Robert De Niro.
Yeah. Right.
He needs money for divorces. He's got marital problems.
And so I spend a lot of money and he starts doing these fantasy movies with Michelle Pfeiffer. And it's like bizarre shit where he's like you're like what is robert de niro one of the greatest actors of all time doing in these fucking goofy ass movies yeah you get extended i agree with you that like what i always say is i do a lot of research for my films and you know have went to iraq with navy seal platoon and lived on an oil rig and went back to high school for Friday Night Lights and I found that if I went to Iraq with Navy SEAL platoon and lived on an oil rig and went back to high school for Friday Night Lights.
And I found that whenever I put that work in and I put that research in, and I really – with the exception of Very Bad Things, which was a fantasy about a bachelor party gone haywire, which Kenneth Duren didn't like. It did hurt me.
It did, that review, but I was younger. But if I do stay true to my instincts and my passion and I follow it, A, the work seems to connect much, much better.
And I don't feel if somebody doesn't like it or wants to talk about it or debate it, okay. It doesn't hurt me.
Yeah, that's experience, right? I think so, yeah. Yeah.
And any time I've done a job for the money, and there have been a couple, it's backfired horrifically. And the money was never worth it.
Right. The reviews did sting worse.
Because you agreed with them. Yeah, they were right.
I was lazy. I didn't give a fuck.
I was, you know, I cared. I still, I didn't phone it in, but I wasn't locked in.
Right. That's the difference, right? Yeah.
And I think one of the reasons that you don't have to read your shit is because you know you're locked in. You just are.
And that's why you're connecting and locking in. And I say it to filmmakers now because kids are so confused, young kids that want to become filmmakers, you know, that they think they're going to work hard and they're going to make these movies and they're going to put their heart and soul into them and people are going to watch them and then they go on and they see tick tock videos that are getting you know 400 million likes and someone's just you know live streaming them like making toast like they're like wait a minute what the fuck is happening and i say look all you can do is control your passion your your work, your discipline, and believe in something and put the work in.
And I believe that the results, you know, will take care of themselves. But it's weird, you know, for filmmakers today and to try and figure out what's going to penetrate and what's not going to penetrate and yeah I remember when uh when I did that that series about uh opioids painkiller and you know that pretty heavy issue and we worked really hard on that and I was very very proud of it and you know we came out number one on Netflix and we were number one for like six seven days around the world.
And on the eighth day, we were number two. And the number one show was a documentary made on cell phone footage about the Johnny Depp Amber Heard divorce trial where people were just in the parking lots.
And that was the number one show on Netflix in the world. And I'm like, whoa, wow.
Like, you know, they probably made that for $25,000. It's that.
And everything is sort of there's this great parody now. And it's confusing.
But I'm like, dude, you just have to work harder. And if you're not telling the truth, you're going to have a harder time.
You can't be in the business of getting the most attention because human beings are easily distracted, easily amused. We like a lot of things that have zero quality.
And just because we're watching it doesn't mean it resonates with us. Just because you're watching the Amber Heard trial doesn't mean it's changing the way you feel about things, really entertaining and not just entertaining you but stimulating you in a way like wow like that was a fucking masterful piece of cinema yeah yeah you know there's there's a difference you know and yeah there's going to be a bunch of people that just watch people unbox cell phones or eat octopus you know there's like there's weird videos that get a lot of likes but you're not in the business of attention.
You're in the business of art. And, um, I feel like when it comes to paying attention to comments and critics, I feel like if you're locked in and if you're doing your best, if you don't, if you're one of those people that don't need to be checked on, some people need to be checked on.
Some people get off the rails,

they get a little full of themselves and they need a little something to just

like set them back.

You need someone to say that one sucked.

You're like,

God damn it.

And then you work harder.

But,

but if you're working as hard as you can,

this is my advice that I give comedians when it comes to comments and things

like that.

And negativity,

you only have so much attention and think of your of your attention as if it was a number. Like you have 100 units of attention.
Now, if you're spending 30 units paying attention to comments and negative articles and criticism, that's 30 units you can't use for something that you love. And then also, it probably bleeds into your thoughts when you're doing those things that you do love, particularly like devastating negative reviews and comments and things that are like really hurt you, that hurt your feelings.
Take a lot of numbers. Yeah.
Takes a lot of numbers. It's just bandwidth.
You're robbing yourself of your ability to do the things that you love. You're robbing yourself of your ability to pay attention to your family, your ability to contact your friends and reach out and to be present.
Because you're thinking, oh my God, I can't believe he hated my movie. Oh my God, I can't believe I bombed.
Oh my God, I can't believe this podcast sucked whatever it is you you're robbing yourself you can only do your best and if you're doing if you're not doing your best you probably need those comments you need something to wake you the fuck up and get locked in but if you're locked in you don't want it you should know i know if i talk too much i know if i much. I know.
And I'll drive home. I'm like, I hate it.
You don't need to be reminded of that. I don't need it.
I fucking hate me. I'm my number one critic.
So I don't pay attention. And this is something that I had to figure out over the years.
But when I knocked it down to a formula of attention bandwidth, that's when I really understood it. Because I'm like, okay, the times, even distractions, like the times that I'm spending just scrolling through Instagram and looking at nonsense, like that hour is a valuable hour to me.
I could have been doing like real good things with that hour where I feel good about it or I get nothing just just distraction just nothing which is fine sometimes if you're on a fucking airplane or something they got nothing to do like who cares is it really ever find you think I think it's okay sometimes barely barely as a comedian I think there's a value in having your thumb on the pulse of culture and even the chaotic you know fucking unboxing videos and food and stupid shit and people just sticking their ass out right and insta hose like there's there's a value in keeping your thumb on it you just have to know when your thumb's getting burnt i don't think there's a value in insta hose i don't i don't i actually don't and i've i've gotten pretty This episode is brought to you by Tecova's If you know one thing that's a must for me, ladies and gentlemen It's a pair of boots that won't let me down no matter what I only have one pair of cowboy boots They are Tecova's Every pair of Tecova's boots is handcrafted With over 200 meticulous steps for broken in comfort right out of the box. So whether

it's a long day or a big night, your Tecovas are built to last and impress. And right now you can get 10% off at tecovas.com slash Rogan when you sign up for email and text.
That's 10% off at T-E-C-O-V-A-S dot com slash rogan. This episode is brought to you by Intuit TurboTax.
One thing I've learned from doing this podcast is the value of having real experts around. Whether it's someone breaking down complex science, health, or even philosophy, having the right people makes all the difference.
That's exactly what TurboTax does for your taxes. Because now taxes is matching with a TurboTax live expert for your unique tax situation.
Your expert is backed by cutting edge technology that cross checks millions of data points for absolute accuracy. And while they work on your taxes, you can get real time updates on their progress progress and get the most money back.
All while you go about your day, which means less stress for you and the best possible outcome for your return. It's 2025.
It's time to file like it. Now, this is taxes.
Intuit TurboTax. Get an expert now at TurboTax.com.
I've got it like just removing that from my life, but it was challenging. Yeah.
The boxing, okay, yeah, people putting shit in boxes, maybe eating asparagus, I guess. I do enjoy cooking videos.
I think there's value in that. I love watching chefs prepare food.
Where do you stand on, and this is something I talk to a lot of writers and filmmakers about,

like just being quiet is really important. And being, for me, the most creative experiences I've ever had have come far away from any stimulation, from any controlled thinking from allowing ideas to come, to have like the divine spirit, the angels that are creativity, that require a certain amount of quiet and space for those to emerge, at least for me they do.
And I try to make space because I so agree with the bandwidth and you're right. But more than anything, just turning it all off can be so inspiring for me creatively.
Yeah, one of the most disappointing things that I've ever done, some of the most disappointing things, is when I sit down from my computer to write and I wind up looking at my phone. And I just scroll and bullshit.
I start writing but I'm distracted and I get an email or a text message comes through I'm like oh yeah I'll text him and I'm just distracting myself and then I realized like after an hour and a half's gone I just fucking wasted an hour and a half that I could have written something that could have been a new brilliant bit it could have been a new thing that I'm really excited about. Instead, I just fucked off.

Yeah, so my creative process, like I just wrote a script that'll be my next film, and I wrote it in a very locked-in zone. I try to find a way of locking myself into a pattern when I'm writing, But it involves, the key for me is getting up about 4.45 at the latest, but usually right around, I'm crazy about it, so I'll set my alarm for 5.45 to the same song every morning that wakes me up.
This script was Van Morrison, and from, I will go right, I'll take a piss, and then I'll get a cup of coffee, and then I'll go right to my writing room with no phone, no stimulation, nothing until I put in usually about two and a half to three hours of just pure mental focus. No distraction, no conversation, no news, no phone, no nothing.
Why do you like to do it in the morning? Because I think when you actually like studying writers and their writing habits, I believe that if you've had a good sleep, a sober sleep, and an intention sleep, meaning you go to bed with some plan of what you want to write tomorrow. So I'm making a film about Marines.
I want to write the landing at Okinawa in World War II, which is part of the story. I know I'm going to write the

actual landing scene. I go to bed with that intention.
I might even write that intention

down. You wake up, your mind is like at its most fertile.
It's like a calm pond, you know,

like a mountain pond that's absolutely flat and glass and reflective and beautiful. And in the morning, it's at its most calm, your mind.
And then I believe that every bit of stimulation you put into it is like a pebble or a rock being dropped into that water until the water starts getting all churned. And that's what happens to our minds by, you'clock in the morning.
If you've been plugged in and communicating, your mind is just a fucking feral, boiling cauldron of acid. This is how I think of it.
So I like early morning, super calm. I can find the ideas.
And I tend to, if I lock in like that, I write at a high level and kind of to your point about like critic proof. I know it's good because I know it came from the deepest place I have.
And it's like, well, okay, if you don't like that, then you don't like me. Sorry.
Which is fine. Yeah, I can handle that.
But like, I know that, you know, versus, you know, writing a little bit here, working a little bit there, and then going out to lunch, and then sitting in a cafe, and, and, you know, our coffee shop, and kind of writing, but being on the phone, I just don't think that's deep work. And I, I, I have noticed that like rappers and a lot of people in the hip hop community.
I've been working on a documentary about Rihanna for quite a while and spent a lot of time with her in the studio. And it's amazing the hours that hip hop performers, you know musicians, and rappers keep,

because they're going into the studio at 2 o'clock in the morning and working till 1 in the afternoon and then sleeping all day.

And that nighttime, and I've talked to her about it,

she's just extremely creative late at night,

almost for me the exact opposite.

But do you like to work creatively at night?

Yeah.

Can you write comedy at night?

Yeah, I write when I get home.

Wow.

Yeah, so what I do is I do shows and then I come home and everyone's asleep. My whole house is asleep, so it's quiet.
And you can access? Yeah, because my mind is really stimulated because I just performed, you know. And, you know, I just maybe I've had a drink or two and I sit in front of the computer and I just start thinking.
Really? Yeah, I just start thinking. I just try to freestyle with thoughts.
And the way I write is I just I have a topic and I just start with just essentially an essay and not an essay that I think anybody's going to read. An essay is just like my thoughts, just rambling thoughts.
And then maybe I'll rewrite a paragraph, but I'll keep the same paragraph above it to reference.

And then I'll rewrite it again in a different way. But like what kind of subject?

Anything, whatever it is, technology, how it's affecting our lives and what our future is going to be like.

And then I'll sit down with that and think about the pros and cons.

Hasn't every society faced this? Would you want to go back and live in the caveman days again? No, definitely not. Would you want, do you want to live in a time with no penicillin? No, no, no, no, no.
Like, so how much technology is too much technology? And I'll just start writing. And out of that, I'll get a bit out of that.
I mean, not always maybe one out of 10 times something's useful.

Like there's a lot of times I'm just throwing shit against the wall.

But the key is throw a lot of shit.

You have to throw a lot of things.

You know, Hemingway famously said, my friend Ari Shafiri has this on his laptop.

It says, the first draft of everything is shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've heard it.

It's such a great quote.

And it just sits on his laptop, and I love it.

I love that.

It's so true.

And I just write.

I just write.

But when you're writing, because I was just watching you as you were speaking,

you were looking up at the sky for an idea.

Do you think about your writing intellectually?

Okay, I'm thinking this thought. Okay, I'm going to write it it down or are your hands on the keyboard and you're just channeling it's both you know sometimes just sitting there thinking about it before I write or in the middle of writing like is this right am I correct is this how I'm looking at this or am I trying to force this and then I also write on a computer that is not connected to any apps.

It doesn't have anything on it.

The only thing it has on it is it has – it's a ThinkPad.

So it has a –

So you can't distract yourself.

Right.

I am allowed to Google things to find out if something is correct.

That's it.

There's – I've never – I don't go to websites.

I don't look at it.

This laptop is just for writing.

It's connected to the internet, which is a tricky thing.

But there's a rule.

So my home computer, there's no rules. I might watch YouTube videos.
I might fucking watch a little Netflix. It's, you know, IMAX, so it's a big screen.
I might do all kinds of stuff on that computer. But when I'm writing, my laptop is writing and so there's there's i don't allow myself there's no tiktok there's no instagram there's no nothing i don't ever look at anything else i just write and i use the browser the i use fucking bing which is like who searches shit on bing but you could you know it's good enough to find out what's real and what's not real.
That's the only time I use it. That's it.
And do you experience euphoria when you're writing on occasion? Do you blow your mind? Well, you know, these ideas are not, they're coming from fucking the ether. They're coming from somewhere.
I know that creativity is an individual thing and it varies. But for me, my best ideas seem to come out of nowhere.
It's like, I don't even know if they're my ideas. They're coming from some place.
And this is the concept of the muse, right? Like the muse is bestowing upon you these beautiful gifts of creativity. Steven Pressfield.
Yes. Yes.
The War of Art. Amazing book.
I've got a stack of them out there. Yeah.
I love him. He's a big inspiration to me.
He's incredible. And he's just a brilliant guy.
But that's where it's at. It's just like setting this table, showing up, and then trying to pull these things from this other dimension, just wherever the fuck they're coming from.
And then I get these little nuggets and then trying to pull these things from this other dimension just wherever the fuck they're coming from and then i get these little nuggets and then the nuggets i transfer to my phone i i feel bad for people who never get to experience that yeah you know i i keep a a necklace uh with with a dog tag and a quote from a william blake poem and he said And he said that has always just helped me quite a bit. And it's, the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful and exalted things.
And I remember the first time I got to experience the power of writing and something, it was like literally a religious experience. I don't know what happened.
I kind of blacked out. I lost track of time.
And I wrote eight pages. And I looked at it.
I'm like, I don't know where this came from. And I read it.
And I blew my mind. And I felt like I was having almost a religious experience.
And that quote, when I read it, the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful things. The creation, being creative and being able to please God through creativity or have a religious, a mystical experience that's not drug-induced through your power of your creativity.
I think it's the greatest thing in the world. And it kind of saved my life because if I hadn't found writing and filmmaking, I don't know what I would have done.
I wouldn't have been. I mean, I don't know.
Well, that's why it's for you because it feels so real and so powerful that without it you feel like your life would be lost. Yeah, man.
Yeah. Isn't that amazing? That's an amazing thing to find as a human being.
If you can find something that you love so much that you can't imagine life without it, like that you would be lost. Can I tell you about it's sort of a non sequitur, but I did want to I did want to mention and it sort of related to something I love because I love boxing, and I own a boxing gym in Los Angeles, which was hands down the stupidest thing I ever decided to do in my life.
It would be cool to have a boxing gym and manage boxers. No, don't.
Don't. It's awful.
I mean, I love the fighters and have so much empathy. But one of my fighters, Chris Van Heerden, his girlfriend is a girl named Ksenia Carolina, who I think I told you a little bit about earlier when we were working out.
And this is just a fucked up story. She's a 28-year-old American Russian citizen who made a $51 donation to a Ukrainian charity.
She went home a year ago to visit her family in Russia, and Putin got her. And she's in prison now for 12 years.
And her name's- What was the charity? The charity was a Ukrainian charity based in America for Ukraine that she thought was going give give money to children that had been hurt by the war in Ukraine. It's all very researchable.
So she got put on a list? She got somehow – she's a dual citizen. She's an American citizen and a Russian.
She went to visit her parents a year ago in Russia. And on her, somehow the Russians were able to figure out like if anyone with any Russian citizenship, even if it's dual, makes donations to certain charities, they get flagged.
So she came in, got to her parents' house, was called to the police station the next day, came in and they arrested her uh and and said you donated 51 you're this is treason and she's now almost a year into a 12-year sentence so um president trump has been super cool dana white has been um helping um just trying to get like, you know, it's so it's such a crazy chess game. Right.
That that, you know, someone like and I hope things go really well between us and Putin. And I think Trump's doing some great things and I'm glad we're talking.
But the way they do business is different and they will grab somebody, you know, and they they've done it to Brittany Greiner, and they just released this guy, Fogle, who they had gotten for smoking weed. If they can get you and hold you and use you as a bargaining chip, they will.
And we don't do that. It's one of the things that the U.S.
doesn't do. But you end up having to make these kind of crazy swaps.
It's all about swapping, right? So they get Ksenia and, well, who do we have that's going to, you know, get Putin to say, oh, right, yeah, I'm going to let her out. Right, we release that arms deal.
Yeah, but the people that we have are like pretty serious criminals. The merchant of death.
The merchant of death for a basketball player smoking weed. It's crazy.
But, you know, if you love Brittany Griner, like, or know, like I know Ksenian, my, you know, good friend is engaged to her and he's in hell. And it's like, we need someone to trade, you know? And, and so it's not going to feel right for, you know, people, we're going to have to trade someone that's done some pretty bad things to get this girl out of prison.
And that's the game that these guys are playing. And it's not a game that you ever, ever want to get involved in.
And I wish I hadn't, but I have. And, you know, Ksenia is a beautiful girl and she's in a really bad way and she doesn't deserve it.
And it's so true that we don't do that in America because there's a lot of Russians that fight in the UFC. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.
Sometimes speed is a huge asset, like in the ring or on the field. Being quicker than your opponent could be the difference between winning and losing.
In the world of business, it could be the difference between finding or missing out on your next great hire. Luckily, you can speed up the hiring process with ZipRecruiter.
Their new ZipIntro feature can help you meet several interested, qualified candidates at once, kind of like speed dating. And right now, you can try ZipIntro for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan.
Zip Intro works fast to find the people you need. You can literally post your job today and start talking to candidates in back-to-back calls tomorrow.
It's that fast. And best of all, this feature does a lot of the legwork for you.
It finds you top talent for your role and schedules those calls. All you need to do is pick a time.
Enjoy the benefits of speed hiring with Zip Intro only from Zip Recruiter. Rated the number one hiring site based on G2.
Try Zip Intro for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. Again, that's Ziprecruiter.com slash rogan.
Zip intro. Post jobs today.
Talk to qualified candidates tomorrow. This episode is brought to you by Call of Duty.
All right. Call of Duty, Warzone fans, it's happening.
The moment we've been waiting for, Verdansk is back on April 3rd. Yep, you heard me right.
The iconic map, the one that started it all, is making its epic return. I'm talking superstore chaos, rooftop snipers at the hospital, the madness at prison, all of it.
Starting April 3rd, you can drop back in, relive the mayhem, and feel the adrenaline rush that you've been missing. Whether you're a war zone vet or a newbie, it's your chance to drop in to Verdansk.
New gameplay updates, Verdansk era weaponry, all the classics, all the chaos. So call up the squad, load up, and get ready for those heart racing moments that you've been missing.
Verdansk on april 3rd don't miss it this is going to be wild download call of duty war zone for free and i'll see you in verdansk rated m for mature i get booed no one even cares they love them especially when they're really good people get excited khabib is is sure i mean we don, we don't do it. And that's, you know, we take, America takes a lot of shit, and I don't know, maybe, you know, what we deserve and what we don't, but we don't do that.
We don't detain 28-year-old, you know, ballerinas for smoking weed and throw them in prison for 15 years, 20 years. We don't take people and say, well, you donated $50 to a charity that we're not aligned with.
We're throwing you in prison for 20 years. It's true.
Wow. Yeah, so it's – but, yeah, owning a boxing gym and – Well, you were telling me about how when you met Canelo and Canelo came to your gym to train.
I thought that was almost worth owning a boxing gym.

Yeah, well, Canelo saved my gym.

Canelo, I sparred with Canelo.

Did I ever tell you that?

Oh, Jesus.

On my birthday.

I hope he was nice to you.

I was flying.

I had landed in L.A. and I had a few drinks on the plane.

I wasn't drunk, but I wasn't sober.

Walked into the gym. Canelo was training for, he was in camp.
I don't remember for which fight. I walked in.
I announced it was my birthday and I wanted rounds. Okay? And I wanted rounds.
And Eddie and Chepo. You called it on yourself? Oh, I called him.
I go, it's my birthday and I want some fucking rounds. No, no.
And he just kind of stared at me. No, no, no.
And I ran up ran up didn't warm up got my stuff on pedro wrapped me up i put my gloves on i waited till one sparring partner was out i go me and to canelo's credit he only threw one punch okay i went two rounds with him he threw one punch at the end of the second round but it was a jab in the way it landed i've never been hit like this he locked my jaw and my whole neck cracked

he locked my jaw down it was a perfect jab and he threw it maybe i don't 20 it was just this one

perfectly placed jab um but i did spar two rounds with canelo uh and and i i can say that

I'm not sure. One perfectly placed jab.
But I did spar two rounds with Canelo. And I can say that, honestly.
He went extremely easy on me. That's very nice of him.
But, yeah, I mean, it was cool because I got to see his whole journey when he came into our gym. And he was just starting.
And I think he was fighting a guy named Lopez. And he was just this little redhead skinny kid.
And to see his progression, you know, he's one of like the only good stories in boxing. If you ask me, like name two good boxing stories.
I'd be like, well, I think Alvarez is a pretty good story. He's, you know, stayed with his trainers.
He. He carries himself well.
He's made a lot of money. Okay, that's one.
And two is, there is no two. Well, Floyd Mayweather is a pretty good story.
Yeah, all right. All right.
All right. I'll give you Floyd Mayweather.
You're right. You're right.
Yeah, 50 and O, all his faculties, still making millions, doing excamations. Just bought all the real estate in New York.
Okay, you're right. I'll give you Floyd.
For some reason, it's always hard for me to put—you're right. Floyd is— I got another one.
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay.
Current? Yeah. Sugar Ray Leonard.
No, Andre Ward. Andre Ward, Olympic gold medalist, two-division world champion, retires undefeated, brilliant analyst.
They offer him millions of dollars to go and fight Canelo after he's retired. He says, I think I can serve boxing more as a commentator.
I will give you Andre Ward, but I would submit that nobody knows who he is. Oh, every boxing fan.
Box fans of course yeah but i mean he never right he didn't achieve superstar status he never he never crossed over yeah but but yes and i don't think sugar a leonard is necessarily the great example either because he saved his money though he took a lot of fights that he shouldn't have taken later in his career like like against Terry Norris and those kind of fights. I just put him in a slight, like, a positive story just because I've been to his house.
He's rich. He's still, you know, sharp.
That's good. He's handsome and he's well-spoken and he didn't take his brain.
Right. He didn't take his brain.
The stories of, you know, like working class boxing gyms like Churchill Box and my gym in L.A., which I technically don't own anymore because it just was turning into such a headache. If you could see the day in, day out trials and tribulations that these fighters go through.
Oh, yeah. And you know it from UFC.
I think that boxers have it like harder. I think.
I can't prove this. But boxing is a more dysfunctional state than UFC, mainly because of Dana and the fact that Dana's been able to monopolize it and that there's a system that you're a huge part of that makes sense and that there's good people involved at the top and on broadcasting and all of it.
Boxing has none of that. And so it's this broken, dysfunctional mess that is just begging for someone, hopefully Dana, to come in and organize.
Yeah, they are talking about doing that. And Turkey Al-Sheik, who is running Riyadh season, has done a phenomenal job of putting together these incredible fights.
He's basically just said there's a lot of resistance getting these top fighters to fight each other. What's the resistance? They want to maximize their earning potential by staying undefeated and avoiding the really tough challenge.
Just give the money now yeah and he's having all these fighters fight these dangerous fights and it's incredible for boxing do you think that that there's a way for dana and ufc to work with him yes i mean they're talking about doing that how would that go do you think what would it look like well i mean he obviously has uh obviously has an excellent relationship with them because, you know,

Riyadh's season helped promote the big event at the Sphere, which was an insane venue. So cool, right?

Have you fucking been to an experience there?

I haven't been there, but I watched the UFC fight.

It's the greatest.

You weren't there.

I wasn't there.

It's the greatest venue in the history of anything.

But it doesn't overpower the experience? I don't know, man. It didn't overpower the fights.
The fights were insane. They were so good.
But it was like the arena itself is so spectacular. I would say go to see any band there you possibly can.
Go to see anyone there. It's so good.
The graphics are so mind-boggling. It's like you're on a drug.
It's like you like you're having a psychedelic experience I mean the moment I walked into it. I was like you gotta be fucking kidding me It's so actually there's a video of me like the I made a video I wanted to film the my very first reaction the very first time I walked into it It's it blew me away.
What kind of drugs? What kind of drug would you compare it to? It's like a you in a different dimension. Like a mushroom? Like a DMT? It's so...
This is actually me walking in. Give me some volume.
This is my first time ever being inside this sphere. This is it.
Holy shit.

I think I'm having this. And this is just...
Holy shit. They're just practicing and doing rehearsals of all the graphics packages.
This isn't even... The audience is even in yet.
This is insane. Oh, wow.
And this is nothing compared to when they had the graphic packages running. And, I mean, it was unbelievable.
It's just the amount of money that it cost to put on a show there, though. Do you think that, like, is it going to be profitable? Like, how do you make that money back? I's i don't know how much did it cost i think the ufc spent something like 25 million dollars over a normal budget for a for an event an event but i was just like like if you pay i think it was dolan it was uh the madison square garden folks that they put that deal together and i just i'm like well okay it holds many? 35,000? I don't think it's even that much.
It's not that big. Someone spent a lot of money on that screen, right? That's a lot of technology.
Yeah. So you thought that Turkey, he did a great job.
But was Turkey involved in the UFC fight? He was involved in Riyadh season. It was a part of part of the sphere event it was co-promoted by riad season so in in theory dana could work with him in some way and start that's the plan and they own ring magazine now so the reason why that's significant is the ring magazine belt is one of the only belts that has kind of been it's there's a bunch of different organizations that are sanctioning bodies is the WBO the WBC the IBF there's all these different it's very fractured right but ring magazine as always been like Roy Jones jr.
was the ring magazine middleweight champion the world the ring magazine super middleweight champion the world like that's the gold standard is ring magazine so there would be one belt and court in this right if they can do that and then overpower everything else with money and then really put the compelling fights like did you watch this past weekend arthur bitter biv and dimitri bivall what a fucking fight yes probably the greatest slight heavyweight fight of all time incredible Bivol trains in our gym, by the way. Does he really? Churchill boxing.
The hardest punch I've ever seen anyone throw in my life was in our gym. David Benavidez was sparring Bivol.
Whoa! And Bivol, and David Benavidez is a great fighter, but Bivol caught him and dropped him with a jab.

Whoa.

In sparring.

Whoa.

In sparring.

Bivol, an incredible fighter.

Amazing.

So is Benavidez, by the way.

So they both are.

Those are actually two guys that I feel like could do it right.

But just having so much trouble getting a recognition that they deserve.

I mean, Bivol.

Well, Benavidez has been chasing Canelo forever.

Won't fight him.

Yeah, for a good reason. Won't fight him.
That's a hard fight. That's a hard fight.
And you want that fight? Well, you got to get paid. Yeah, you got to get paid.
But I'm hoping that with Riyadh's season... Turkey would make that fight.
Right, because he signed a multi-fight deal with Canelo for $400 million. I think it's a five-fight deal for $400 million.
I think that's what's been reported. I don't if that's accurate i mean but but terence crawford's the first one which is that really is that really happening is the crawford canelo fight happening yes it's happening so what was going to happen was terrence uh was canelo apparently had made a deal with jake paul to fight jake paul ridiculous ridiculous but I bet it was for a significant amount of money.
Still ridiculous. Yeah, but fun.
I'd watch it. Look, Jake Paul wants to test himself against actual not just world champion, but one of the greatest of all time.
He would be, if Canelo really fought and it wasn't fixed, Jake Paul would not survive 45 seconds. I don't know about that.
I think it would take a few rounds. Really? Yeah.
First of all, Jake is a lot bigger. Jake's a lot bigger.
But what weight would they fight? Well, I don't think Jake is getting anywhere lower than 205 pounds. He's a huge guy.
So Canelo would let him fight at 205? I think that would be the case. I think Canelo, when he got to 175, when he was fighting light heavyweight, and he still fluctuates between 68 and 75, I feel like he probably weighs 190 when he's walking around.
So he would probably weigh 190, and Jake would weigh over 200. They would probably fight either at cruiserweight or they would fight at heavyweight.
But didn't Tommy Fury take Jake Paul? No, he beat beat him but it was a very good fight it was a very good fight that's what i'm saying but tommy fury versus compared to canelo right different levels different levels yeah no doubt look who's favored for sure the greatest of all time i mean one of the greatest boxers of all time in canelo avras he's the favorite but i'd like to see what happens it'd be crazy i i'd like a little freak show every now and as far as like would you like to see i like a lot of freak show like if jake fall wants to fight for the title i would like to see him beat top contenders in the light heavyweight division or whatever division he chooses to compete at and then eventually fight for a title yeah but are the fights even real like the tyson fight like i saw video breakdowns of tyson not throwing punches early on in that fight i don't know if you've watched any of those videos where like he's there's a like a left hook is a hundred percent available tyson on you know in training 99 percent of time releases that punch and he held up like do you think that that was a real fight? It looked like sparring to me. That's what it looked like to me.
But with an arrangement beforehand? I wouldn't want to speculate because I haven't talked to anybody about it. But my educated assessment.
Agreed. Yes.
Agreed. It looked like sparring.
It didn't look like a fight. And you think if Canelo and Jake Paul agreed to do it? I don't think that would be that.
I think that would be a fight. That would be a fight.
Like a sanctioned real non-international? It would have to be a fight. I don't think Canelo Alvarez is making any agreements where he's not going to knock you out.
Well, he's not taking the fight though, right? Well, this is what happened. So they had this agreement and Jake Paul actually told me about the agreement when I met him at the inauguration.
We were talking it and I was like, holy shit It hadn't been announced yet. I was like, that's crazy.
And then Turkey came along and said fuck all that Let me throw some money at you and said stop with all this bullshit You need to be fighting the greatest fighters in the world right now You need to be fighting Benavidez you need to fight Terrence Crawford so Terrence Crawford is. And a lot of- Second.
Second on the list, according to reports. I thought they pushed it.
Oh, who's first on the list now? He's supposed to fight Crawford in September, and they're going to have him fight Cinco de Mayo weekend. Against like a no-name, right? Skull.
William Skull. S-C-U-L-L.
That's why I was asking. They're on the title from Strip Canelo last year, or unnamed.
Do they have a date for Canelo Crawford? September 13 September 13th, supposedly? But yeah, see, that's kind of crazy that they're going to have another fight beforehand. But it does give Crawford time to bulk up.
So Crawford got on the scale the other day. He's 185 pounds.
Really? Yes. And he's doing deadlifts.
He was doing deadlifts with 450 pounds. Crawford is a strong dude.
I'm going to put Crawford in another success story of boxing. I'm totally just contradicting myself.
Now I'm remembering. You're right.
He's the, I love the guy. He's fantastic.
I know you've had him on, right? He's so, a couple of times. He's so good.
And he's the best switch hitter in the game. Maybe the best switch hitter since Marvin Hagler.
Yeah. Yeah.
He's phenomenal. Yeah.
And he's so intelligent like his his boxing is so clever. He sets traps

How old is he 36 I believe Canelo's like 30 So Crawford is 37 how old is Canelo I think he's 35 34 35 He's still in his prime what's crazy is fucking better be of his 40 and went 12 hard rounds where they never slowed down once yeah that's because people like you are getting us all in crazy shape these guys are living forever you're like teaching us the way to do that very likely terrence crawford faces fighter with 90 ko rate after canelo says de la. Who would that be? That's what I was looking at.
What weight class would that be? After. So he must have fought a, oh.
That's such a boxing headline, isn't it? Like 90% chance. Virgil Ortiz Jr.
Okay, Virgil Ortiz Jr. is a savage.
That would be a phenomenal fight. That would be an absolutely phenomenal fight.
Yeah. Yeah.
After that, though. Well, I saw his fight with Madrimov, who's very difficult, who Crawford struggled a little bit with too, but beat, and Virgil walked him down.
He was battering him towards the last rounds. Why has Oscar De La Hoya offered an opinion on who Crawford would fight? Oscar De La Hoya is not Crawford's manager, is he? I don't believe so.
No, I don't think he has anything to do with it. Do you watch— Oscar seems like he's a little off the rails these days.
Do you watch— Okay, for sure. I mean, God love him.
He's having a good time. Do you watch his clap? Like, okay, I know social media, I said don't scroll and certainly like Insta hoes are bad.
My favorite Instagram account is Oscar De La Hoya on his clap back Thursdays. And then he rips into Eddie Hearn basically.
And it's deranged. It's absolutely deranged, but it's funny.
And Oscar clearly doesn't care. He does, like to your point earlier, he does not give a fuck.
And he just rips apart anyone and everyone. And he does this thing every Thursday called, I think it's called Clap Back Thursdays.
And that's my secret guilty pleasure. My secret guilty pleasure is watched him dance around with a thong on.
Oh, that was... He's out of his fucking mind.
The best. That was the best.
With his fake abs. It's a hell of a drug cocaine.
It's a hell of a drug cocaine. Down, down, down.
Down, down. Yeah, but I mean, he's...
I mean, I like to say we've all been there. I haven't been there.
I haven't been there. No.
I haven't been here. I haven't put the fishnets on.
I've been here, but I haven't been there. Yeah.
And, you know, like, I do respect him. Oscar was a great fighter.
Phenomenal fighter. Phenomenal fighter.
But, I mean, come on now. It's like Oscar De La Hoya and all that's coming with him and eddie hearn who i i also like quite a bit and then you've got um al hayman and bob arum you know is and is well into his 90s and it's just going it's it's chaos yeah and and that's the problem is that they're represented by different promoters and it's very difficult for people to co-promote very difficult for people to decide decide who's the A side, who's the B side.
You get ridiculous deals where this fighter wants 75%, the other fighter wants 25%. They have to figure out whether or not they can make this happen, and the fighter's like, fuck that, I want it 50-50, and then the promoters get involved, and they don't want you to fight that guy, fight the number one mandatory contender, and then some great fights never take place, or they take place too late, like Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.
They fought too late. I mean, if that fight could have been arranged by Riyadh's season, they probably would have caught them both in their prime, and it would have been chaos.
Yeah, Manny, he was done before that ever started. Yeah, and he also had a blown shoulder going into the fight.
Yeah. He needed shoulder surgery

before the fight even started.

Ready to win real money this March Mania tourney?

Rack up big cash prizes with DraftKings Pick 6.

And when it comes to massive payouts,

DraftKings dunks all over the competition.

Turn your March Mania knowledge into cash today.

New players get $50 in Pick 6 credits instantly with just a $5 entry.

Download the DraftKings Pick 6 app now

and use code ROGEN.

That's code ROGEN.

For new customers to play $5,

get $50 in Pick 6 credits.

Better payouts, bigger wins,

only with Pick 6 from DraftKings.

The crown is yours.

Gambling problem?

Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Help is available for problem gambling.
Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org in Connecticut. Must be 18 and over.
Age and eligibility restrictions vary by jurisdiction. Pick six not available everywhere, including New York and Ontario.
Void were prohibited. One per new customer.
Bonus awarded as non-withdrawable pick six credits that expire in 14 days. Limited time offer.
See terms at pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. This episode is brought to you by Fast Growing Trees.
If you want to know what you're putting into your body, growing your own food is a great place to start. But listen, you don't have to start your garden alone.
Did you know Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the U.S. with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers? They have all the plants your dream yard needs.
Fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, and so much more. Whatever plants you're interested in, Fast Growing Trees has you covered.
Find the perfect fit for your climate and space. Plus, get support from trained plant experts on call to help you plan your landscape, choose the right plants, and learn how to care for them.
Great if you don't have the greenest of thumbs. And their Alive and Thrive guarantee ensures your plants arrive happy and healthy.
This spring, they have the

best deals for your yard up to half off on select plants and other deals. And listeners of our show get 15% off their first purchase when using the code JRE at checkout.
That's an additional 15% off at fastgrowingtrees.com using the code JRE at checkout. Fastgrowingtrees.com slash JRE.
Now's the perfect time to plant. Use JRE to save today.
Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply.
Yeah. Have you, I have a little regret that I never had a professional fight.
And I was just in Mexico. And my driver started talking about boxing.
And my driver told me his son was a pro fighter and that if I wanted to – and he told me how much it would cost, I could come have a professional fight. And his son would let me win the fight.
But it would be a sanctioned fight and I would have a box rec score of 1-0 or 0-1. I mean, I could have not paid the money and taken the loss, but at least I would have had it.
And I did think about it for like about, I don't know, maybe a minute. And I decided not to do it because like you and I were talking, like, I just can't take getting hit in the head anymore.
Um, and you know, when I was younger and I had the gym, I would, I would spar more. Um, you know, and Canelo, I sparred and that was controlled, but I sparred Cam, Cam Newton once, you know, the football player who's six foot five and he was was in the gym and he wanted to work.
And I'm like, well, let's spar and we'll just, you know, spar light. And he wasn't a boxer.
And I have, you know, basic defensive boxing skills. But I'm like, well, just let's work, Cam.
And he's like, OK. And we started, you know, kind of sparring a bit.
And he didn't really know what he was doing. But he's a very, very physical specimen.
And I lightly kind of jabbed at his face and maybe hit the gloves. And he just went insane and started punching me across the ring.
And I'm just like flashes of white. I lost all feeling in my hands.
And then I didn't, I didn't spar any other athletes until Steve Nash came into our gym, the basketball player. And he wasn't his biggest cabinet.
So I'm like, well, all right, I'll spar with Steve Nash. And he doesn't know how to box, so we'll just gentlemen spar.
So we're sparring a bit. And I hit him.
And I underestimate how fucking athletic he is. He just fucking cracks me hard with a solid right.
And my hands go numb. I see nothing.
And then I'm like, that's what I'm done. And then Saquon Barkley comes into our gym.
Do you know who Israel Barkley was? A pro fighter. His uncle had an incredible career as a pro fighter.
Is that Iran Barkley? I'm sorry. My bad.
Iran Barkley. Thank you.
Wow, that was a political slip. Israel Barkley.
Oh, shit. Sorry, everybody.
Thank you, Joe. Iran Barkley.
Do you know who Iran Barkley is? Sure. Okay, good.
So that was Saquon Barkley's uncle, right? Did you know that? No, I didn't know that. Yeah, that was his uncle.
So Saquon comes into our gym, and I'm like, oh, I'm going to spar up. And I'm like, no, I'm not.
I'm not going to fuck with this guy. After Cam Newton and Steve Nash, Saquon Barkley is a fucking stud, right? Like, this guy's like Mike Tyson, but bigger, just his body type.
So I'm like, well, I'll hold mitts for him. I just want to see.
And that guy could fight like his uncle, I ran Barkley. Legend.
Legend. Taught him.
And he started throwing punches and Saquon Barkley could move and counter and had balance and head movement. I'm like, dude, if you had instead of playing football gotten into this at 12, 13, I'm assuming that your brain stayed on, you would have been one of the great heavyweights of all time.
He could, Saquon could box. Wow.
But I learned. I thought about taking the fight in Mexico, and I decided.
Don't do it. Would you ever? No.
Hell no, right? No. No, not now.
I'm 57. There's no way I'm fighting anybody now.
Dude, you're in shape. I did agree to fight Wesley Snipes like 20 years ago.
What happened? Well, you remember what happened with him with taxes? Yeah, of course. He went to jail, right? Yeah.
So I think they were trying to figure out a way to make money to try to pay the government off. And the UFC, they contacted, well, this guy, Campbell McLaren, who was one of the original producers of the first UFC before Zufa bought it.
He knew me because I worked for him at the time. I was the post-fighter in 1997 and 1998 and that's that was when i first started working for the ufc i remember i started again as a commentator in 2001 so in 19 you know 97 when i knew him he knew that i did martial arts he knew i was obsessed with this and then so he contacts me like i guess it was like 2004 or five or something like that somewhere around then and he says This is gonna sound crazy, but Wesley Snipes wants to have a UFC fight And he wanted to fight Jean-Claude Van Damme and we didn't think that that would be compelling And so we offered some other names and we said what about Joe Rogan and he said yes And I said well, what do you mean like when are we talking about like how because I've been training I was brown belt in jiu-jitsu and I'd been training kickboxing still I was regularly training and so I would have to really ramp everything he was kind of a martial arts guy right he's a martial artist but I don't think he's ever had a fight and I don't think he has any ground game and that's a giant problem no and You would have gotten a hold of but also i was a national i mean i i competed nationally in taekwondo for five six years traveled around the country like and i had three kickboxing fights i was a good stand-up fighter like and i i can kick very hard i'm very good and even then then i was even better because i was in my 30s so what happened he didn't want to do it you just said as you would have killed him as time went on I think he kind of understood that it was a bad idea I think initially he thought he probably who knows it could have been fucking chemically fueled these these conversations with the desire to have it was chemically fooled and then he sobered up but I trained every day I trained for six months I was kickboxing with Rob came in in the morning and I was doing jujitsu at night.
I was fucking Prepping for the Wesley's fight or just didn't we were in negotiation So the first negotiation was 50 50 they were gonna split it 50 50 this not blah blah blah and I said, okay great and then A couple weeks went by I had lawyers involved the whole thing and then it was like Wesley wants 60 40 And that but this time I'd already invested so much time training I go, okay, I just give it to him I'm like, I'm gonna fuck this guy up. I go just give it to him Just give it to him and then it got to point where just give me a half a million dollars I don't care what you give Wesley I go give me a half million dollars.
We go and we agreed on that I said I don't care what you give him just give it to him I'm gonna I'm going to fucking strangle this guy I'm gonna get a hold of them and there's not gonna be a goddamn thing he can do about it I was convinced and I was like it was Wesley but it was so engrossing like it took up all my energy and my time right like one I my mind shifted into like what it was when I was younger and I was fighting it was wild it was weird like I became like a different person for like a like almost a year so like when you hear the name Wesley Snipes now I have no animosity there's not like a little part of your brain that still flips no no no no no no no no no nice I think he a smart thing. I think he did a smart thing by not doing it.
It's just so interesting. And, and, uh, the, the idea that you got to experience a version of what it feels like to prepare to fight someone.
Yeah. People just don't get it.
Right. Well, I'd fought a bunch of times, you know, and, and when I was younger, I mean, it had been more than 10 years since my last fight but i knew what it was like i knew the experience i knew what training and preparing was right like and i also knew that like i was a like legitimate brown belt in jiu-jitsu i've been training jiu-jitsu for a long but it was like i think he had had this idea that he was going to be able to hit me when i was trying to take him down.
I was like, dude, I would fucking happily stand up. Do you think the Zuckerberg-Musk was ever real? Was it ever even slightly real? I don't know.
That to me is the most silly. Could you ask him, please? Zuckerberg is legit.
He trains hard. He trains with legit guys.
He trains all the time. He's very smart and very obsessed by it.
And he's like legitimately training

He's significantly smaller than Elon Elon's a big guy

But that only goes so far especially if you don't have any endurance

But does Elon what what do you think Elon's fighting skill strategy would be like?

But he took karate when he was younger. So would he come karate? I don't know

I don't think it was ever gonna happen

I mean I was entertaining it because I think it would be fun if it did happen and Elon said he would do

Thank you. took karate when he was younger so would he come karate i don't know i don't think it was ever gonna happen i mean i was entertaining it because i think it would be fun if it did happen and elon said he would do it and zuckerberg said he would do it but like how can i don't know how the guy tweets as much as he does how the fuck could you train for a fight i mean how do you how do you run spacex and tesla and the department of government efficiency Starlink.
Joe, he's your friend.

You know him better than we do. How the fuck does he do it? I don't know how he does it and I'm his friend.
I don't know how he does it. I don't understand it.
I've never seen anybody who knows how to manage time better than that guy. Yeah.
And he also has like 100 kids. Like I don't fucking get it.
He's a different type of human i i just love the idea of people that don't ever fight having to suddenly have a fight right just like like you know because people have never fought but suddenly get themselves and yeah okay here's another secret don't like a moment i do scroll i look for street fights with people who don't know how to fight. Or drunk people fighting is funny too.
But like, you know, okay, Elon and Zucker, Mark, you know, are going to fight. Okay, let's say it's going to really happen.
They both train, but they're not fighters. So however much they train, they're still running their other businesses.
Now the fight starts. And for about 20 seconds, they're going to have some tactics that their trainers have been and then it's all going to go out the fucking window.
It won't go out the window with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg's a real martial artist.
But has he ever really fought? Yes, he's had jiu-jitsu matches. He hasn't fought a kickboxing match but he does a lot of sparring.
So he could do a two minute or a three minute run. 100%.
No doubt. Yeah, no doubt.
And also, he's very disciplined. And stay true to his...
What style of fighting? Well, he trains in jiu-jitsu, but he also trains in mixed martial arts. So he does Muay Thai.
He does everything. He's really obsessed with it.
And he has been for years. Okay, so...
He's a legitimate martial artist. Elon's going to come out.
And Elon's running SpaceX, and he's got to dodge. And now he's going to take some time and focus on the fight.
He's not going to do it. Now, he's a legitimate martial artist.
Elon's going to come out, and Elon's running SpaceX, and he's got to dodge, and now he's going to take some time and focus on the fight. He's not going to do it.

No.

There's no way he has the time.

If you want to really prepare properly, you train twice a day, and you have to have recovery in between.

So you have to get massages.

You have to do red light therapy.

You have to do everything, especially if you're at his age, and you have to take hormones.

You have to be on the ball. You have to take peptides.
You have to. You have to really watch your nutrition.
You have to really make sure you get enough sleep. All those things are out the window.
He's not doing any of those things. He doesn't have the time to do any of those things.
No, so it would have to be like a demonstration where they agree to how it's going to go. But even then, there's no way he could be in condition for it.
Yeah. There's no way.
And so he did train with some of my friends. He trained with Lex Friedman.
I think he trained with George St. Pierre as well.
So I think he realized early on... His cardio wasn't going to get him there.
His cardio is non-existent. What is harder on cardio than boxing slash UFC, do you think? I always say boxing, people don't understand how exhausting 40 seconds of sparring is.
Like, and I've never fought UFC. I've always felt that boxing, for some reason, is actually harder on the cardio.
I'm sure I'm wrong. I'm sure I'm wrong.
Yeah, definitely wrong. Wrestling is the hardest.
Wrestling is number one. But what else compares in terms of cardio and physical demanding to wrestling, UFC, boxing? Maybe ultra running.
Maybe really crazy things where guys have to run like 300 miles. But they don't have the anaerobic kind of exhaustion.
Soccer. Soccer takes incredible conditioning.
Incredible conditioning. Those guys are unbelievably fit.
Have you ever followed Aussie Rules Football? Yes. So, you know, I'm doing my next films about a football game that some Marines played in World War II.
And we're filming it in Australia. It's called the Mosquito Bowl.
And in the middle of a true story about this football game that was played on Guadalcanal before the Battle of Okinawa. But these Marines all played it.
These Marines were good college football stars. And then they all died in the Battle of Okinawa.
It's an intense story. But we need to film this tackle football game.
There was supposed to be a touch game. And the Marines ended up playing tackle.
And legend has it that it was the most violent football game ever played. And so we got to film a tackle football game in Australia, which is we're going to make the film.
And like stuntmen are tough, but like playing tackle football, you know, is a fucking painful thing to do. Right.
Imagine, you know, even like Turkey Bowl touch football games on Thanksgiving, like people are in the hospital. So I was just in Australia and I had the idea that, well, like Aussie rules football.
It's perfect. We'll just take a bunch of these guys and teach them how to play tackle football and they'll really do it.
So I just went to an Aussie rules football practice in Brisbane Australia and those fucking dudes are tough they are tough if you ever just watch like the highlight reels of Aussie I mean the notepads full smash and I put that I mean These are the guys we're going to use to play. Oh, my God.
These fucking collisions. Oh, Jesus.
I think these are the toughest athletes. I think this is how they should play regular football.
I do, too. I really feel like the pads are bullshit.
But the only way you can play American-style football is with pads. Because the collisions that these guys have, your career would be cut short.
Look at this guy. Look at him.
Oh, out cold. He's done.
Stiff. Look at this.
Look at the hitting. It's just fucking nuts.
And I'm sure a lot of head-to-head collisions, too. So I went to a practice of one of these teams, just got back, and I brought in American football.
And I'm like, do you guys have any idea and they're like zero i'm like come on you you you sort of have to know something and they're like zero so i really i get they just know nothing like how much of cricket do you know zero okay if you if i had a gun to your head and said one rule of cricket Could you do it? No. Could you do it? No, you couldn't.
No, no, no.

Cricket?

Do you understand? It's got to stay in, I think. I've seen it try to throw it back in.
Stay in to what? The ball has to stay in to what? The pitch. We don't know shit.
Do you understand how fucking popular cricket is? Gigantic. Like, bigger than football.
Huge. Go to India or Sri Lanka.
I mean, like, these people go nuts. So, in Australia, they have 100,000 people stadiums for Aussie World's football.
So, I go, and I'm like, you know, I'm meeting these guys, and these guys, I think, are big stars. I don't know them, but, you know, this is a major Aussie World's football team, and I got the football, and they don't know it, so I lined them up, up 11 against 11 and I'm teeth.
And they're really kind of starting to get into it. And they're lined up center guards, tackles and court.
And I'm like, all right, so what do you think? They're like, yeah, we don't like it. I go, let me, let me help.
Tell me what this does for you. All right.
You're the center in your, if you were doing this in American football, you'd be making six to $7 million a year. You're the tackle on blindside.
You're making $40 million a year protecting Patrick Mahomes. Okay, you're Patrick Mahomes, and I'm telling them how much money they would make because these guys make no money.
Right. There's no money in it.
Which is crazy. Crazy.
And then they have, do you know, tall poppy syndrome? Have you heard of this? Yes. There's no ego.
Like these guys, they're huge. You know, they're members of these super successful teams, but they don't have the ego of American athletes.
And they don't get the attention. And it's tall poppy syndrome.
They're culturally, you know, conditioned to not brag and to not boast and to be humble.

And I don't know.

They like to see people get knocked down when they get too big. Yeah, for sure.
That's tall poppy syndrome. The tall poppy gets its head cut off so they stay humble, which I kind of thought was kind of cool.
You know, just realizing that I was hanging out with the captain of an Aussie rules team.

And I had dinner with the captain of the um oh uh the the new zealand all blacks the the rugby team and this guy um this was a little while ago a couple of years ago this guy in america i mean you know the all blacks like the most team and, and the most humble dude ever. And you go to a restaurant and nobody bothers him.
He, you know, no security, no nothing. We don't, that would never exist here.
But seeing how hard these dudes hit and trained made me think, well, maybe they're working at the level of athleticism that fighters are working at. I mean, that's a hard fucking sport.
It seems like it, especially if you watch that video. Like, that's unbelievably grueling.
The difference between fighting and anything else is that there's no one there to assist you. There's no other teammates.
There's no rules. There's no timeouts.
You know, you have round breaks. But fighting is very individual.

And if you didn't prepare properly and your opponent did, you're fucked.

If he's better than you and he's more skilled and he's got better genetics and better training and he comes from a better background and he's more technical, you're fucked.

You know, it's a crazy sport where you're literally putting your health on the line every time you spar.

Let me ask you this question. And this is something I don't talk about.
But it's another secret theory that I have. Okay.
Just between you and me. I feel like, and I've seen a lot of boxers train.
And I've seen a lot of great trainers. Eddie and Chepo are great trainers.
Abel Sanchez is a great trainer. Pedro Nema from my gym.
Lots of great trainers out there. And I've watched entire camps where trainers, like if I'm your trainer, I figure out, okay, this is our opponent.
These are going to be our tactics. We're going to do a lot of jabbing with overhand rights.
And we're going to take our head offline consistently. We're going counter this way we're going to and every and i've really watched this and paid a lot of attention to it and this is i'm not in any way shitting on trainers but i'm kind of at making your point about how alone fighters are i see all this training and i watch it and i understand the strategies and the tactics and the second fight starts, none of it has any relationship to how the fight goes down.
All the strategy is rarely employed and it becomes this moment where a fighter has to adjust and adapt and improvise incredibly. And yeah, the conditioning matters a lot, but I often think that like the training doesn't do shit the trainers are they can help you get your head right and get yourself in a warrior's mindset and i do respect that but tactics sometimes i think that they're like am i wrong yeah okay yeah definitely wrong all right yeah the highest level, it's the most important thing.
Okay, but do not... At the highest level, like at a Terrence Crawford level, tactics are everything.
But he just does it. Yeah, he just does it, but it's also because he spent so much time working on the fundamentals and the technique and the movements and counters and positioning, and he understands boxing so comprehensively.
He knows where the punches are coming from. He knows where he's going to be vulnerable to get hit.
He knows when he's not. For sure.
He knows when he has to take a risk, and to give one, he has to take one. But how much of that, like his trainer, Boheim, I might be saying, I know him, I know his trainer.
Just like Eddie and Chepo, who's got to have Canelo, they have lots of other fighters. But like Eddie and Chepo have never had another Canelo Alvarez, including all of his brothers.
And I'm like, okay, how much of it is just God-given talent like Terrence Crawford has that's then trained by trainers versus how much credit does a trainer get?

A trainer gets some credit, but a trainer with a bad fighter is never going to create a world champion.

You have to be an extraordinary individual to be a championship-level fighter, no doubt. And then there are some championship-level, they have emerged from gyms that don't have any championships, like Marvin Hager, one of the greatest of all time.
He came out of the Petronelli brothers gym. They weren't known for having like a giant stable of multiple world champions.
Who is the, who are the top, who are in your opinion, the best UFC trainers? Well, there's quite a few. There's quite a few.
There's some really elite trainers out there, and I don't want to miss anybody. But Firas Zahabi is probably one of my favorites.
Because he's very, very intelligent and very analytical. And he does a fantastic job also of breaking down fights, both before the fight and after the fight, and telling you like what tactics Didn't work and why they didn't work and what went wrong in the fight and what was very effective He's just a brilliant human being and also just so Intelligent right about the way he makes his fighters prepare and he trained George St.
Pierre who's one of the greatest if not the greatest of all time

so there's him um there's uh greg jackson and mike winklejohn from uh jackson winklejohn in albuquerque which is phenomenal gym that's where john jones came from multiple world champions have come from that that gym those guys are phenomenal john crouch in arizona he's phenomenal there's just so many

fucking like top of the food

chain guys and how much how much of that skill is and if it's it's all equal I get it but how much of that skill that makes a great UFC trainer is okay if I'm your trainer and I'm getting you ready for a fight we're gonna study your opponent I'm gonna to your opponent's strengths, his weaknesses, his tendencies, his tells, and I'm your trainer and I'm getting you ready for a fight, I'm going to study your opponent. I'm going to study your opponent's strengths, his weaknesses, his tendencies, his tells.

And I'm going to train you in relationship to that and be right.

So you can anticipate where there's going to be an opportunity and take it. This episode is brought to you by TikTok.
7.5 million U.S. businesses, from restaurants to mechanic shops to real estate firms, rely on TikTok to grow.
Together, they employ more than 28 million people. Because when small businesses thrive, communities do too.
Small businesses thrive on TikTok. Learn more at tiktokeconomicimpact.com.
This episode is brought to you by simply safe. Humans are creatures of habit.
We like our routines. They help us stay on top of our goals and bring a sense of comfort and familiarity.
Like maybe you spend every morning at the gym, then you shower, have a cup of coffee, listen to an episode of your favorite podcast, and then you head off to work. It's familiar and expected.
What we don't like is the unexpected because that can mean a whole load of problems. And luckily for you guys, I know something that can help.
Simply Safe. It's easy to work into any routine and it can help you prepare for and even prevent some of the worst life has to offer.
There's a reason I continue to partner with these guys because they offer a badass security system for your home with no long-term contracts or outrageous cancellation fees. They even have plans that start at around a dollar a day.
Another thing I like is how thorough they are. SimpliSafe's Active Guard Outdoor Protection uses a combination of AI-powered cameras and live professional monitoring agents to keep your home and your family safe.
If they detect anything suspicious, they can act right away using spotlights, talking to loiterers, or even calling the police. Enhance your routine and get peace of mind with SimpliSafe.
Get 50% off your new SimpliSafe system with professional monitoring, plus your first month free at simplisafe.com slash Rogan. That's simplisafe.com slash Rogan for 50% off and your first month free.
There's no safe like SimpliSafe. How much of it is that and how effective is that versus how much of it is, Joe, I got to keep you fucking ready for anything.
I got to keep you in shape. I got to keep you mentally good.
I got to remove distractions. And I got to be like your father, your uncle, your brother, and everything else in between.
You know what I mean? Yeah, I think there's both. But I think for some fighters, every fighter has a different approach.
John Jones is famous for studying tape and devising game plans and strategies that are based on what he sees about his opponent's tendencies. Yeah, yeah.
And that's how he caught Daniel Cormier with that left high kick. He knew that Daniel dips to the right.
Yeah. And Daniel even called it out before that.

You think you're going to hit me with that head kick?

And he actually did hit him in the fight because Daniel had a tendency.

And John exploited that tendency.

And he does that with everybody.

He's famous for not just doing that but also not taking fights on last-minute notice.

Like he's had some opponents fall out and the UFC offers him an alternative opponent in a short period of time. And he says, no, I didn't train for that fighter.
He goes, I'm the greatest of all time for a reason. And that reason is I'm fully prepared for every fight.
I'm not going to take a fight against someone who I'm not fully prepared for. And has he had the same coach his entire career? Yes, yes.
So that's a real- That's Jackson Winklejohn. He's been with them forever.
And that's an incredible pairing. Well, it's incredible.
Jackson, in particular, is fantastic at devising strategies to deal with opponents. And he trained Holly Holm when she knocked out Ronda Rousey.
No, I was there. They are...
You were in Australia for that? That was in Australia. No, I wasn't there.
I watched it. I was there.
I felt like I was it. And then it was shocking.
That was crazy. That was a crazy fight.
But they trained her. Were you there? Yes.
Shocked, right? Oh, it was incredible. Yeah.
But Holly was good, man. She's a multiple-time world champion in boxing and in kickboxing.
She was a very, very legit striker. You were surprised.
Yeah, it was shocking. But it was also, like, good.
She was really fucking good. And when she landed that head kick.
Yeah, yeah. Holy shit.
I remember Rhonda's face, just the shock on her face. Yeah.
And she just, it was, yeah, that was, I literally felt like I was there because it was a piercing moment. But they knew that Rhonda had a very specific entry that she used to try to take people down.
And they avoided that every single time. Kept her out.
They circled away. They fought off Rhonda's takedown attempts and kept the fight standing.
And that flustered her. Yeah.
Well, it was just more effective. And so it really depends on the athlete.
Like I said, if you get a person that falls apart in the heat of the moment and just throws it all out the window and starts brawling yeah well then your training has kind of gone to waste and then they're relying on instincts and hopefully skill but if you have a really good fighter and a really good trainer then you get a mike tyson what was her trainer edmund or ronda's trainer um uh i can't remember his name um uh but i wonder whether he under prepared her for that right i don't know i mean she was very stretched then when that was going on because she was doing movies and she was a superstar and she was like constantly being courted but you know you know she did a movie for me i'm part of that problem oh really what was that it was mile 22 but she had kind of retired by then this was after her this was after the fight yeah i think that the distractions when you're a superstar are huge and if you give in to all those distractions you say yes to everything yeah and you have agents that want you to be and you think like you're so confident you could do anything anyway you I don't give a fuck. I'll beat everybody.
And that's how every champion feels. Sometimes I think about like what I've seen with coaches.
And, you know, I do appreciate a coach. And I've just seen different success stories in different ways that coaches have really impacted fighters.
But I think about like why don't life coaches life coaches work better? And like, I wouldn't mind having a coach that would be like, Pete, here's our enemy, here's our opponents. And like, I actually had a therapist for a while who actually, when I first started seeing him, his name's Barry, and he's a great guy.
And I love him. But, you know, so much of my relationship with him was unpacking my shit you know my parents and my trauma and my fears and all this stuff and and for years barry would you know talk to me about my dreams and all this stuff and and like the dreams that i had that night not my goals and then i started realizing well okay i feel like i've talked my mom and my grandma and my grandparents and every fucking thing that bad that's ever happened to me.
And, and like, Barry, what if we'd start talking strategy? Like, could you coach me? And he started coaching me a bit. And I found that like, with my business decisions, my creativity decisions, like, like, you're so disciplined, you know, like, I don't know.
Do you ever think like why don't life coaches work better? And if you had someone like John Jones Coach in your life every fucking day, would it be better? I think for a lot of people, yes. Yeah, if you could find someone who could devise a strategy that you could follow and you could help because it's a collaboration, you know, you could collaborate with this person and go, yeah, there's definitely value in that, but you could also be your own coach.
Yeah, but you can, so many people can't, right? Like, don't people ask you or I don't know, they ask me for, you know, advice and how do you do it? And I'm like, well, you know, you got to go to bed, you got to get up early, you've got to have self motivation, you have to not make stupid mistakes. And you know, sometimes what you don't do that helps more than what you do.
And I, I, I'm aware of people struggling to figure out, like more than ever, especially with all this perceived success through social media and the glorification of billionaires and all this stuff. Everyone's like, I'm not happy where I am and I want.
And I'm like, well, are you following these basic rules? Like the basic rules that I believe you follow. You, Joe, follow.
And people seem to have so much trouble getting on a program. Well, you have to pay attention to the people that are successful.
Like, what are they doing? And without doubt, everyone who is really successful and has longevity has discipline. And discipline is maybe number one.
Discipline is showing up with a desire to improve and work hard every day. What do you think the source of your discipline is? Martial arts for sure.
100% learning when I was young that focus and, and, and drive and attention to detail and, and, and obsession leads you to get excellent at something. And there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
The more time I put in, the more I trained, the better I got. The more I was really locked in and focused, the better I performed.
And I learned that at a young age. I learned that as a kid.
And so I developed discipline when I was very young. But so thousands of young people, at what age did you start martial arts? I started fighting when I was 15.
Okay, but you started fighting? When did you start training? I started training when I was like 14. I took my first karate classes when I was 14.
That's actually older than I would have thought. But like so many thousands of kids take boxing classes or lessons for mixed martial arts or whatever,

and they don't find the level of discipline that you were able to find, right?

Yeah, it's not for everybody.

But what made you able, what made you, like, was it your parents?

Was it insecurity?

Was it someone that gave you shit when you were eight that made you be like,

fuck it, I'm going to learn this shit and I'm going to master it?

Well, when I first started doing it, I just wanted to figure out how to fight. And I was very lucky that I found a gym that was filled with incredible fighters.
They were very high level. One of the guys, my friend John Lee, was a national champion and he was like a mentor to me.
And I was a white belt and he was a black belt and competing in the world cup at the time that's when I met him and you know he just took a liking to me and helped me out a lot so white belts you're a complete beginner but I got a black belt in two years I was obsessed I trained every day of the week I had a key to the gym and I could work out anytime I wanted because my instructor at some point in time realized that I had potential and made a deal with me and offered me, um, I could teach classes. And if I taught classes and I taught private lessons, like teaching beginners, like when they first come into, you have to take a certain amount of beginner classes, private lessons before you're allowed to enter into the group class.
So I would teach people from the very beginning. And, um, so because of that, uh, I was able to be at the gym all day long and, and whenever I wanted to be there, I could be there.
And I also from teaching really broke down technique, which is the most important thing to like, if you have bad technique, even if you're like a good fighter, you have flaws in your, you can get pretty far with bad technique if you're just tough. Eventually you get caught.
It's just not – you're not going to be the best. The best have excellent technique, like without doubt, especially when it comes to martial arts.
Kicking and jiu-jitsu, like technique is everything. Technique and drive and training and focus.
And I realized early on, like I thought I was a loser. And until I started doing martial arts and getting really good at martial arts.
I'm like, oh, I'm not a loser Like I'm really good at this like I have a propensity to it. I have a genetic Propensity I have like very good.
I'm fast. I hit really hard and I really loved it.
I love getting better I love the fear of it, too. being terrified I love the overcoming the fear of competition it was so fucking scary it was like it was like religious for you that wasn't it was like a much a massive experience it was so religious that my girlfriend at the time wanted to fuck in the gym because I had the keys and I wouldn't have sex with her there I'm like no why no.
It's a sacred space. You can't fuck in the church.
Even when no one was there, I would bow. That might have been a mistake.
You should have fucked her. I fucked her plenty.
All right. So we're keeping it.
But like, okay, so I think that's so interesting to trace the origin story of your fuse being ignited because people look at you and they're like, okay, that dude is fucking on. He's in it.
Um, I've had people tell me that I'm in it. Um, you know, some of our friends, mutual friends are in it.
You know, when you're in it, you know, when you're in it, most people can't find that. Well, they don't have the thing, whatever it is.
Like, not everybody's going to be great at everything. They're just not.
Some people just don't have the discipline, the desire. They don't have the willpower to push through when they're tired.
They don't have the willpower to show up when they're feeling tired and lazy or when they're uninspired. You have to learn that.
And you have to have to learn that through like if you want to get great

There's only one pathway. There's only one pathway.
It's hard work and discipline

There's no other way and you might not get there still because if you're a hard work and you have discipline

But you're you're competing against Mike Tyson. He also had timing.
Yeah

He also has hard work and discipline but superior genetics and superior training

Hypnotized from the time he was 13. You're fucked.
Yeah, you're fucked. Yeah, he also has hard work and discipline, but superior genetics and superior training.
Hypnotized from the time he was 13. You're fucked.
You're fucked. Yeah, I can remember when Canelo Alvarez first came into my gym.
And he was young. He was just starting to have a rep.
Everything about that guy reeked of exceptionalism. The way he put his bag down, the way he took his shoes out, right? The way he drank his water.
Every rep, every, you know, when he started to stretch, every single stretch felt intentional as fuck. Him starting to just lightly warm up on a heavy bag felt he was absolutely exceptional.
And I try to tell other fighters in our gym and other people in general that, like, you don't understand. It's not something, you know, you see other pro fighters.
I've seen a lot of them come to our gym and they're talking to people and they're joking around. And they're sort of, you know, taking a moment or two off.
And then you look at all of them and these are good fighters i mean these are pro fighters but they're not exceptional and they

don't have that intention and when i would see canelo alvarez or certain elite uh crawford's

done media days at our gym they from the moment they walk in everything about them the way they

take their sweatshirt off and fold it up and put it down yeah that dude's a world fucking champion has nothing to do with the fighting the way their their hands they hold their hands out when they're getting taped it's almost like every breath from the moment they walk in to walk out is so fucking exceptional and i look at all these other fighters fighters and go, no, you don't understand. He's got something you don't have.
And you can still lose with all that because you might be competing against a guy who has a slightly better strategy and maybe he's better at one thing that sets you off. Yeah.
And you want to beat that guy? Well, you got to work even harder. You got to go back and figure out what you did wrong.
You got to figure out where your flaws are and improve upon them. Whether it's an endurance issue, whether it's a technique and strategy issue, whether it's pacing, whatever it is.
Floyd never lost, right? And I do, I have, I totally agree with you what you said earlier, that Floyd deserves. That's a great story.
I just, for some reason, have in my life over the years sometimes hated on him a little bit. For a variety of reasons, mainly because of how defensive he was.
Now I know how great he is. But I do sometimes look for inspiration in random places.
And if I'm feeling like I need a reminder of what excellence is, I'll watch training videos from Vegas with Floyd. Just him and his uncle or his dad just doing the mitts, doing these like 15-minute rounds.
Just so smooth and effortless. And what does he say? Hard work, easy work, hard work.
I can't remember what his phrase is, but the beauty of, like, Mayweather training in a gym, and I just find that so interesting to look for people who are exceptional. It's a long road, man.
It's a long road. You're making a mountain one layer of paint at a time, and you're competing against other people that are doing the exact same thing.
And if less you set yourself apart from the pack, unless you're a guy like Marvin Hagler that goes to Cape Cod and trains in the winter, runs on the fucking sand. Unless you're that guy that like pushes it past everybody else, you're not going to be exceptional.
And it's a it's a fucking struggle. That's why some fighters, they reach a certain level of success and they sort of slack off a lot of people thought canelo was doing that when he started playing golf all the time like they're like oh he's not completely focused anymore he's and maybe this is why he doesn't want to fight benavidez might be might be a little true it also might be a money thing it might be like look i'll fight that guy but i know is.
And I want $200 million for that fight. How about just like how hard it is to stay hungry when your refrigerator is that fucking full? Oh, yeah.
Like you're Canelo Alvarez. You're a good looking dude.
You have a beautiful wife. You've got this hacienda in Mexico that like Pablo Escobar would have killed for with the stallions and the cars.
And you got to go fucking deal with david benavidez right like like that's like when you know rocky when he had to go fight i can't remember who and he's all right clubber lang yeah go fight clubber lang rich yeah like okay canelo however i fight you poor but now i gotta fight you rich right i gotta wake up for like oh haggler always say it's very difficult to wake up in the morning when you're sleeping in silk sheets. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, and I do think about that also.
I have people asking me like, we started talking about making American Prime Viejo. That was 145 days up on a mountain and standing on ice with clamp on your shoes because we're on ski mountains and there's fucking wind and it's fucking miserable.
And I'm like, people are like, why are you doing this shit? I'm like, because I fucking love it. I love it.
But they're like, but we could like you know i got a boat we're gonna go into the

mediterranean i'm like no i'm gonna be up on the mountain yeah and like staying hungry is a um

i don't know but it all depends on what your motivation is if your motivation is just get

wealthy and then once you reach that point now you're fucked because now you don't have this

motivation anymore if your motivation is the big house and the big cars and all that bullshit, but if your motivation is excellence, you can maintain that motivation no matter what your financial state is. Forever, right? It's an unlimited source.
I mean, that's the necklace I wear. Pleasing to God is a creation of beautiful things.
That's what it says on your necklace? Yeah. The only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful and exalted things.
It's that quote. That's perfect.
It reminds me, dude, like, okay, I don't, I'll enjoy, like, you want to take me to a fancy Michelin restaurant here in Austin? Okay. You want to take me to Guero's and fucking have some ribs? Okay.
Like, I don't care. And, I mean, I appreciate it.
Right, but it's not your primary motivation. No fucking no.
Your primary motivation is not to show up at the big party and have everybody kiss your ass. No, it's creation.
The creation of great art. Correct.
Yeah. And if you're a fighter, it's the same thing.
It's like to be excellent, to be unstoppable, to be the best of the best. And if you have that motivation, you can maintain that with wealth wealth you can still get hungry to be Canelo and come out and fight David

Benavidez but it's obviously very hard to do which is why most fighters don't

maintain it once they achieve wealth who's the best who's the best like I

think Tom Brady is a great example of like someone that was able to just yes

like reignite the fucking beast yes Kobe Bryant I guess you know yes but like

Like,

Thank you. like someone that was able to just like reignite the fucking beast.
Yes. Kobe Bryant, I guess, you know, yes.

But like fighters or people that you know that,

I just think it's interesting to think about.

It's a different thing though.

Sports and fighting are a different thing because.

You don't play boxing?

Yeah, you don't play it.

It's like you could decide that you're going to still maintain

a very high level of basketball and you want to just be excellent, but no one's kicking you in the legs You know no one's taking you down strangling you who's the is George St Pierre that's been able to like who is it John Jones that in your mind is like curious in that they were able to With a full fridge and comfortable sheets just keep fucking but john jones is exceptional because john jones beat a lot of guys when he wasn't training there was times in his life where he was fucking off and partying all the time and still beating the best guys in the world that was like the the when he had that press conference with daniel cormier he goes i beat you when i was doing coke coke yeah that's such an insult what's a worse than something that I was doing I was high on fucking eight balls and I beat your ass well John talked to me about it he said I used to when I was younger I used to give myself an excuse so I would party really hard like a week before the fight which you should never do and it's like well if I lose you know maybe it's because I partied But he doesn't he doesn't do that now now he thoroughly prepares And he went through a time when he was the light heavyweight champion when he was kind of like playing with his food because he was just so much better than everybody else He wasn't he wasn't threatened by people So he wasn't putting on the performances that he did when he was younger like when he won the title against Shogun he Lost some of that motivation but then gained it later in life when he went through a bunch of legal struggles a lot of problems and realized like this could all be taken away from me I gotta get back to what made me great and then you know won the heavyweight title defended against the greatest and Stipe Miocic and you know now he's the heavyweight champion of the UFC what do you think think he's been fighting he's how many on the title in what like 2008 when did what year did john jones win the title which is just that's insane fucking crazy and he's 40 no he's in now 30s he's 36 he's the youngest ever uh champion in the ufc he won the title at 22 years 2011. Okay.
So he has been a world champion for 14 years. That is unheard of.
But so he has to be the greatest fighter in the history of the UFC, greater than George St. Pierre.
I mean, right? I think on paper, for sure. I think the problem with that is, like, who did he fight versus who did George St.
Pierre fight? Who did Khabib fight versus who did George St. Pierre? It's like, who did Mighty Mouse fight versus who did Anderson Silva fight? Who do you put number one based on those metrics? Well, out of just the sheer longevity and the accomplishments, I say John Jones.
But I could see the argument for Mighty Mouse being the best martial artist I've ever seen. I think he's the best expression of martial arts talent and technique that I've ever seen.
But then George St. Pierre is right up there too.
And George St. Pierre was multiple division world champion.
He won the welterweight title, then he won the middleweight title. And then he came back after four years off and beat Michael Bisping for the middleweight title.
He's in the argument too. I just think there's a real problem with saying the number one of all time, the greatest of all time.
But if you were going to give it to somebody, I would say give it to John. When you think about John and how he's been able to do it for this long and go through these highs and lows and get it.
I mean, fighting and doing blow, that's fucking... Well, he's that talented.
He was that good. He's an intelligent psychopath.
But what's in there to what we're talking about? What's driving that motherfucker? I don't know. You can't manufacture that.
You either are that guy or you are not that guy. So that's pure nature.
It's a lot of things things it's how he grew up he has two savage brothers both of them are nfl players superior athletes they beat each other up all the time i'm sure yeah you know it's like you're in a competitive environment from the time you're young you have incredible genetics on top of that then you go to a place like jackson winklejohn that is superior training with world-class sparring partners, world-class

coaches, world-class recovery, training facilities, technique, strategy, all the above. It's like, you need a perfect storm to be a real, true, all-time great.
Do you think that, because sometimes I think that having a, being fucked up can work to your advantage and having having addictive tendencies and being able to harness addictive tendencies into something as violent and to be able to apply those to a sport versus just being, well, I'm a well-adjusted human being with no addictive tendencies, not a lot of trauma. I'm going to fight you.
Oh, fight you. Oh no, I'm a fucking beast that grew up in a fight.
And like Mike Tyson grew up, I don't understand if you grew up inside or outside, dealt with fucking ignited torments, drug addictions, violence, and I will kill. And, and I, I guess, uh, be that's always interesting to look at how well adjusted people do versus people that have real trauma when it gets fucking brutal I think there's some real value to being out of your fucking mind I do I really do and I think some of the greatest artists some of the greatest athletes some of the the greatest accomplishments were achieved By people that were out of their fucking mind and just had pushed it to a level to a level and into an area that other people weren't willing to go and that's how they became the best of the best and you don't get to be a Michael Jordan unless you're out of your fucking mind or maybe an Elon Musk I don't know I don't know if right yeah similar in that regard.
It's not a normal person that chooses to take on four or five jobs like that. No.
And then runs the Department of Government Efficiency. Like, who is that? And very few people are willing to put in that kind of work or have that desire to do anything like that.
It has to be real. You can't be forcing it because if you're forcing it and it's like, oh, God, this is like, I don't really want to do this.
Well, there's someone out there that wants to do that. They're going to get better.
They're going to be better you can't be forcing it because if you're forcing it and it's like oh god this is like i don't really want to do this well there's someone out there that wants to do that they're going to get better they're going to be better at it they're obsessed they're all in you have to be all in and when fighters aren't all in anymore that's the worst stage of their career it's horrifying and and you know i say that about people ask me about me my job or how do i get a job working in Hollywood I want to make movies

I'm like well are you sure

you want to do this

because like you're not going to have an office

you're not going to have a boss you're not going to have someone

saying hey Joe get up time to get up

and you're going to have to be totally

self motivated you're going to

have to deal with

yeah like

reviews I feel what you're saying there

but you're going to be judged

you're going to be only as good as your last job

Thank you. going to have to deal with and yeah like reviews i i feel what you're saying there but you're going to be judged you're going to be only as good as your last job you have no fucking job security and you know you're going to be up at four in the morning in some mountain filming someone cutting someone's fucking head off having no idea whether you're like on the right path or the wrong you You got to be a little fucking crazy.
Yeah.

You have to be crazy to think that you can do it.

Right.

Because most people don't get a chance to do that.

Delusional thinking.

You have to be able to be delusional.

Well, I don't even think it's delusional. My business a little bit.

You have to be willing to go through everything that it takes to get there.

And that is not an easy road.

And it's not an easy road to be a great filmmaker. It's not an easy road to be a great filmmaker It's not an easy road to be a great athlete no matter what you're doing to be a great author You have to be willing to go down that road and it is a long road with trials and tribulations and errors and and successes and you have to learn from your successes and learn from your failures and Not everybody has their shit together enough to pursue a path consistently for a long enough period of time that you achieve greatness.
Yeah. Or, and having the combination of having your shit together and being fucked up because it's gotta be, you gotta be crazy, but you gotta be able to functionally crazy.
But I always say delusional thinking because I, I made the point to, to people asking me about my job. I'm like, well, okay, think about it this way.
You have to have the ability to look someone in the eye. So if I'm a young filmmaker and you're the head of a studio, I have to look you in the eye and say, hey, Joe, here's the deal.
I need $135 million. dollars.
I'm going to make up a story about a bunch of cowboys and Indians fighting in a mountain. I'm going to bring all these people up there.
I'm going to film it and move people around and I'm going to edit it all together. And I'm going to, for your $130 million, I'm going to build this thing.
I'm going to make it all, put music on it and edit it and make it all. I'm going to put it out into the world.
And people are going to stop doing what they're doing. And they're going to watch it.
And they're going to love it. And it's going to bring you value.
But why is it delusional if other people have done it? Because everyone that's done it is a little delusional. Because it just doesn't.
You're right. It's not totally delusional.
But it's a little bit of magical thinking. Maybe take the word delusional out of it and be like, you know, like, the idea of magical thinking? That, like, oh, no, I can do something that doesn't quite make sense.
It's not like, oh, I'm going to make this table. I'm going to measure it and cut it and nail it and attach it to a frame.
And no, it's like I'm going to I've got this abstract vision that I'm going to measure it and cut it and nail it and attach it to a frame and no it's like i'm gonna i've got this abstract vision that i'm going to attempt to put together in a way that costs somebody a lot of money and yet i'm going to aspire to touch people's hearts and souls with this it's just a weird way to think it is but i love it but but it obviously works like it can't be deluded like there's a lot of bad movies out there yeah that's true there's a lot of bad everything there's a lot of bad books you know but is it delusional to want to write a book no it's been done forever you know it's just like filmmaking is fairly recent you know what my history you know what my dad told me when I told him I was going to Hollywood to learn how to make movies?

What? So my dad was a business guy

and I loved my dad very much

but he, right when I was getting ready

to come to Hollywood, he said, Pete, I've

secured you a job at

Lehman Brothers. You're going to work on a desk

and you're going to learn about finance.

It's done.

And I had studied theater in college

which was making my dad very anxious

because I was starting to get into making these little

movies and all this stuff. And I'm like

Thank you. it's done and i had studied theater in college which was making my dad very anxious because i was starting to get into making these little movies and all this stuff and i'm like i'm in

la and i'm getting ready to move to la and he stopped me he's we're not moving to la i've got

you a job uh this guy barry frank who's a friend of my dad's who knew someone at lehman brothers

and and i think they're out of business now by the way big money company and i'm like dad i'm

not doing it he's like what do you mean i go dad i'm not he said you're really gonna go no

Thank you. someone at Lehman Brothers and I think they're out of business now by the way, big money company and I'm like, Dad, I'm not doing it.
He's like, what do you mean? I go, Dad, I'm not. He said, you're really going to go to fucking bullshit Hollywood? I go, I am.
He goes, you're not. I go, I am.
He said, okay, I'll tell you what. Good luck out there.
You know what's going to happen? You're going to end up making them gay pornos. Imagine That's the only thing that can happen if it goes wrong.
You make gay pornos. Gay pornos.
That's hysterical. And he's staring me in the eye and he's not fucking kidding.
That's so fucking funny. And I'm like, Dad, I'm not.
And I fucking left. And in the back of my mind for the last 30 fucking years has been that warning.
Don't do gay portos. Be careful.
You better fucking work. But it's not magical thinking.
But to my dad, the idea that you were his, you know, because I had no artists in my family. a business guy he was like mad men advertising worked for gray advertising like jiff peanut butter and shit like the account guy he had to go get the jiff peanut butter guys drunk twice a week and that was his job you know but the idea that wow you can make a career in the arts yeah people do it but most people don't fuck with that most people don't make it yeah don't fuck with it but that's just because it's hard yeah if it was easy everybody would do it it was easy everybody'd have their own fucking movie everybody'd be making movies everybody had their own fucking podcast if it was easy to have a podcast my favorite everybody does i think everybody does what gavin newson just started one yeah well the second one well you're right you're right but so like well like so this is the other thing right that i i think is so interesting and it's true with podcasts what i tell people who like come to hollywood and they're like i don't understand this business i'm what do i do what do i do i'm like fuck off let me tell you something there's no barrier of entry for my business or podcasting meaning anybody in the world can move to la you have to be in la number and be in austin and be like i'm an actor i'm an actress i'm a writer i'm a director i'm a producer i'm a podcaster any motherfucker you don't need a degree get on an airplane and look to the left when you're getting on.
Like, can anyone fly a fucking plane? If your toilet is fucking backed up and you need it fixed, can you just pull anyone off the street? Or does a plumber have to have a fucking degree, right? Right. Like, but we want to exist.
This is where I say magical thinking. You want to thrive in a job where all you're doing is talking, Joe.
You're just talking. Anyone can fuck.
Everyone has a mouth and two ears. But you're doing it on a different fucking level.
That's magical thinking in a way. Well, if I set out and said I one day want to be the biggest podcaster on earth, that's magical thinking i didn't you just followed your instincts and who was your first one the guy you were telling me brian redband my buddy brian yeah we just started out with snowflakes falling from the screen and we did it on a webcam we were just being silly and we just did it all for fun but people move to la or get into my business thinking i'm gonna smash it yes like they're not that's a little bit delusional thinking delusional yeah like i always hear to people or aspirational because it's it's delusionally aspirational yes like because i'm like dude if if if like you come you want to work in still call it hollywood even though it's not really Hollywood anymore, which is so decentralized.
But it's fucking show business, motherfucker. It's money and art smashing together in this very bizarre way.
And you've got to get so good at art that the money people trust you. Yeah.
And you've got to know how to play the money game. Even when they trust you, you still have to know how to play it.
Even if you're, you know, Tarantino or Christopher Nolan, or you still have to understand, you know, for the most part, that there's financial parameters. And you have to be able to accept that and play that because you're playing in a serious game.
Like our bosses, they don't give a fuck. They're all publicly held now.
And they're looking at stock prices. And I say to people, bro, if you just want to be like an artist and just pure and think about like, oh, I just, you know, like you actually were when you were doing your podcast.
Like I kind of was when I was in Minnesota making little movies and doing all this idiotic shit that got my dad to say, oh, you're going to make gay porn, you fucking idiot. But this little phase of, oh, isn't I was in Minnesota and St.
Paul in this small school. And I'm like, I just fucking love this shit.
Just like your first podcast. I just loved it.
But I'm like, I i tell people if you just want to be an artist go write plays in oklahoma city and just stay over out there but if you want to like step into this arena like it's tricky you know well you have to be all in and you have to realize that this is a very high failure rate and yeah even all in just like, just like fighting, you still might not make it. You might not make it.
Yeah. I mean, acting is the best example of that.
I mean, we talked about Tim McGraw being amazing. How many amazing actors out there that don't act? There's a lot.
There's a lot of people that can act. You can take them and they can figure out how to do it.
It's a weird skill that some people either have or don't have. Some people have the ability.
You can definitely get better at it. There's definitely people that train very hard, and there's method acting, and there's all sorts of different strategies.
But the reality is there are a small number of roles and a large number of people. And they're auditioning for these things.
And if you don't get into one, you probably won't get another. And it might be five, 10, 15 years, you've had no success and you don't know what the fuck to do.
And you can quit or you can do what Billy Bob Thornton is and you make Sling Blade. Right? And then all of a sudden, boom, he takes off.
Well, that's what the reason I got into directing was I was trying to act and I was having mixed success. And I was getting very scared that, you know, you could prepare for an audition for five days.
And I know everything. And I'm ready.
And I'm all in. And I go in.
And I get 30 seconds of the director's time. And you find out, like, oh, you look like the dude that the director's girlfriend cheated on him.
And he's like, you were dead before it started. And I was on this TV show tv show chicago hope it was a hospital drama and i was kind of getting a little famous i played a tv doctor billy cronk and people would kept calling me billy whenever i walked down the street like hey billy what's up billy billy billy and i'm like oh my fucking god this is going to be my legacy is being this tv fucking doctor billy and i I was on an airplane going from L.A.
to New York. And I'm sitting there and this guy walks by me and he stops.
He goes, hey, Billy. And I'm like, my name is not Billy.
My wife has this rash. Show him the rash.
And she pulls up her shirt and she's got this fucking rash. And she's sticking it in my face.
He's like, Billy, what's the rash? And the other people on the plane are like, what's the rash? And I'm like, fuck this shit. I'm like, I've been busting my ass.
I'm barely making it as an actor and people are showing me their rash. I'm like, I gotta fucking do my own sling blade.
And I did very bad things and still got the worst review ever in the history of reviews. I love that career it was a good movie man you know what you know what's that critic but you know what saved me so i get the the horrible review i throw up and i'm literally in on death's fucking door like i'm done i have no career i get a phone call at night from a uh woman named uh Her name is Kelly Chapman Myers.
She was married to Ron Meyer, who used to run Universal. And she's like, he was a huge fucking guy, Ron Meyer.
He was a big, big mogul in our business. And I could hear these guys laughing.
And she's like, Pete, Pete, I'm on the boat with Ron and Steven and David Spielberg and David Geffen. Oh, wow.
And we're watching your movie. And they're laughing like little fucking frat boys.
And the fucking, Ron Meyer gets the phone and he's like, this is fucking great. And I'm holding the review of Kenneth Turan.
Like, I just got it. And I'm like, what? Hold on.
Spielberg. This movie's fucking great.
It's great. And I'm like, let's go.
That's awesome. Yeah, so they said.
Well, they were right. And the critic was wrong.
I appreciate it. But I think a lot of those critics probably wanted to beat you.
And they didn't get the chance and they failed. And they got this job and then they shit on everything.
And you got to be able to take the hits. Yeah.
And I took the hit, you know, like. It strengthens you.

It strengthens your resolve.

What is it?

Get knocked down seven, get up eight.

Like, I believe in that. Like, if it's just all good all the time.

I think you get knocked down seven, you get up seven.

I think you have to get up seven.

No, you knock down seven.

No, you get knocked down seven.

Seven times you get up.

You get up for the eighth time.

No, seven times. You get knocked down the seventh time, you get up.
You get up for the eighth time. No, seven times.
You get knocked down the seventh time. It's a phrase.
It's a phrase. The phrase sucks.
Get knocked down seven, get up seven, or get knocked down seven, get up. Well, whoever made the phrase, they're wrong.
No, because you start. Every time you get knocked down, you get up.
That's one time. Right, but if you start up and get knocked down, one, one.
Yep. You're one ahead of getting up because you started up.
No. No, you one you get up one you get knocked down two fall down seven get up eight yeah they're retarded so you're you're saying that denzel was in japanese proverb yeah that's great that's great but so you're saying this is wrong yeah every time you get knocked down you get up you can't get up if you haven't been knocked down that's stupid if you get knocked down seven times you get up seven times period it's like math man you're making well it's just they're just delusion this is just like so this is this is just like pump you up talk that doesn't make any sense so this has been misclosure you can climb any mountain no you can't there's certain mountains you're not gonna climb shut the fuck up this is stupid i believe i can fly well you fucking can't r kelly jump off Jump off a building.
See what happens. You can't fly.
Okay? You get knocked down seven, you get up seven times. Because otherwise, there's no way to get up when you're already up.
Did you hear that? Right? Am I right? I don't know what you're saying, but I also like, you have to get up the first time to get up. That's what I'm saying.
No, no, no. You don't get credit for fucking.
You don't start up. You don't get credit for not getting knocked down and getting up.
That's stupid. But you don't start up.
Yes, you do. You start standing up.
You get knocked down. Now you're up.
You get knocked down once. You get up once.
Yeah, but then you've been up. You have to get knocked down to get up.
You have to start. But you start up.
Nonsense. You don't get extra credit for fucking standing up.
But getting in the ring. you have to have courage.
You get knocked down. The challenge is getting knocked down.
You fight. You don't get credit for thinking you're going to fight.
You have to actually do it. When you actually do it and you get knocked down, you get up.
You get knocked down once, you get up once. You get knocked down seven times, you get up seven fucking times.
You can't get up eight times. What I like about what you're saying is it's just like, oh, I can climb any mountain.
No, you fucking can't. Yeah.
Like, get knocked down, get up. Who fucking gives a shit? Just get up.
Get up. Like, that's the kind of advice I'm a fan of.
It's like, life not fair you're gonna you're gonna come into the whatever if you want really to have success you're gonna see people that work less that have luck or you know connections or who fucking soar past you and it won't be fair deal with it yeah fucking deal with it well you can't compare yourself you know that's the great quote comparison is the thief of joy you can't compare yourself you can look to other people for inspiration have you always felt that have you always been that way like back in the day when fear factor days when before you were joe like you are now were you competitive were you i wasn't competitive with other tv shows you were own game. Well, Fear Factor wasn't an example because that was just a job.
Fear Factor was I didn't want to work with actors anymore. What about doing stand-up? You were doing stand-up then? Yeah, but stand-up was just a thing that I loved to do and I did it.
I mean, certainly compared myself to other people that were doing better than me. Like, wow, why are they doing better than me? Why are they more successful? Why do they sell out everywhere and I don't? Yeah.
But then eventually I caught up.

You know, you just keep working.

That's all it is. All it is is like keep improving and working.
And if you don't have the desire to keep improving and working, you should get out because you're in the wrong business. Because there's going to be a bunch of people that do have that desire.
And if you want to live a life of mediocrity and half-assedness and just fucking kind of showing up and doing the bare minimum, like, what kind of a fucking life is that? That's not fun. That's not exciting.
That's not stimulating. But some people don't have drive.
They don't have this desire. You can't make a championship fighter out of someone who doesn't like working out.
Like, you can's not gonna happen Like you have to have something inside you a calling to whatever you do and for you It is filmmaking you have a calling to this thing. It's a passion project.
It's love. It's art.
It's intensity It's to discipline and focus and you're trying to make the best fucking thing you can make and if you you're not doing that, you shouldn't be doing what you're doing.

Or you need a come to Jesus moment. You need a refocusing.
You need something that like Pressfield had where he realized he was kind of like 40 years old and like half-assing his life. He turned it around.
And he talks about how he turned it around by deciding that he's a professional. And amazing career since then, right, which is kind of spectacular.
For anyone that doesn know steven pressfield and they're like they want to do anything like writing sports podcast that motherfucker has laid it out and i'm not a big fan of like self-help tell me shit like the war of art that that dude in my opinion and i think yours that's the real deal yeah it's a guidebook. It's a guidebook for creativity and discipline and becoming a professional.
And he really laid it out. And he laid it out also with his own personal examples of failure, which I think are very important.
You need to know that this struggle that you're experiencing when you feel like you're fucking up, everybody has that. Nobody is just like gung-ho, the best of the best right out of the gate.
You learn, you improve. It's a long, slow journey.
It takes a lot of fucking work. And if you're not interested in doing that, well, you better find something else.
And there's a lot of people that aren't interested in that. A lot of people just want to do a job where they make some money, and then at the end of the day, they can go play video games, hang out with their kids.
That's great. There's nothing wrong with that.
There's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to do something that's extraordinary, that's very hard, it's going to take extraordinary effort.
It's going to take extraordinary discipline and willpower and it's going to take objectivity. You're going to have to have introspection.
It's going to be a lot of things. You're going to have a lot of soul searching.
And you still might fucking get your ass kicked. Still might get your ass kicked.
Yeah, but that's why when people do succeed and someone can put together something like American Primeval, it's so fantastic because we know how hard it is to do. It's not easy.
Are you going to apologize to your wife for me or do I have to? She's used to watching. She fucking freaked out in Nosferatu too.

She hated that too. You have to watch that movie,

The Climax,

that I was talking about.

I'm not going to watch that with her.

No, no, no.

Definitely don't watch it with her.

So The Climax,

tell everybody,

you were telling me about it

in the gym.

Last night,

I watched this film

called The Climax.

It's made by this French director

who's made something really fucked up. Gasper No, his name is.
He's from, my son made me watch this film. And this guy's made some really fucked up films, and I don't recommend them if you have any sensitivity, because this guy is the hardest filmmaker out there right now

in my opinion like these are fucking intense movies they're one called irreversible did one called enter the void and they're about drugs and death and sex and they're very experiential so you feel like you're um yeah so this is it this is the climax and it's about these dancers who accidentally drink a bunch of fucking LSD.

And this is it. This is the climax.
And it's about these dancers who accidentally drink a bunch of fucking LSD. And this is the hardest film I think I've ever seen in my life.
And you feel like you are on a very, very, very bad LSD trip. Is this in subtitles? Yeah, it's French.
It's French, but it's language is almost irrelevant. But if you want to, I don't recommend LSD for, because I'm not a doctor and I think it's a very dangerous.
And I've done LSD and I've had some pretty intense experiences on it. But this is a brilliantly deranged trip into, you know, have you ever had a bad trip, like a really bad trip? Not really.
So I haven't either. And I've done, you know, some of the DMT and the 5MEO and, you know, mushrooms.
I've had powerful experiences, but I did have one bad experience on LSD the first time I ever took it. And none of us had ever taken it before.
So we didn't feel it. So we took another hit thinking that.
So we all basically were a bunch of high school kids in New York City trying to go to a Santana concert. And we just started fucking tripping out.
And it was scary. It was actually really, really scary.
This movie is experientially, it becomes, and this is something that is one of my strategies when I'm making movies is I don't want my movie to be a part a spectator sport I don't want you watching it I want you participating I want to try and grab you by the throat and make you watch and be like come on bro watch put the fucking down. I want to own your heart and your mind and your pulse while you're watching my films.

That's just a goal.

Sometimes I do better than others, but that's always the goal.

I don't want you kind of sitting back watching.

This motherfucker, Gaspar Noe, he takes you into it in a way that a lot of people will hate it. Is he the guy that speaks to you the most right now? No, I don't.
I mean, there's a part of me like, so I'm getting ready to make a film called Mosquito Bowl, this war movie. And these young kids went through, I don't know if you know, the Pacific Theater campaign and what the battles of Tarawa and Guadalcanal and Okinawa, these were hellacious, awful fucking violent fights.
And the Japanese wouldn't surrender and they believed in Emperor Horihito so they would fight to the death. You know, bonsai charges and seppuku, they would kill themselves before they would be taken prisoner.
And in World War II you had these young American kids who, in our movie, were college football players who Pearl Harbor hits, and they immediately joined the military, and they have to go fight these fucking horrific battles, like just people's throats getting blown out and torturing and killing and suicides from the locals. suicide and and so to, one of my goals with this next film is I want to try, because there's been a lot of good war films, just like there have been a lot of good Westerns, and I always said, well, I never got to make one, so I want to try and make a Western.
That was American Primeval. There's been a lot of great war films, great war films, but I never got to make one.
So my take is to try and bring people into the experience of which you have you have made war films and World War II oh okay so you're right I made I made Lone Survivor but I never made a World War II film um and there have been a lot of great ones you know from Private Ryan to Hexar Ridge Private Ryan was probably the first one that was realistic though right yeah I mean that that opening scene that opening scene. Yeah.
Holy fucking shit. Which is like why Steve, for anyone, like you ask me who I look up to, Steven Spielberg.
He is so far and ahead the goat of my business to think that the guy who did fucking Jurassic Park and E.T., God love both. Close Encounters.
Then is like, oh, you know, and Spielberg was always like the good boy of the, because it was like he was growing up with like Coppola and Scorsese and Michael Mann, and these guys were like fucking. Gritty.
Yeah, they were just fucking hard partying motherfuckers. Right.
You know, hard drinking, hard drugging, hard fucking filmmakers. And Steven was like the good, goody good kid, right? Like, well, little Steven, he's got to go home soon.
Put the, wait, keep the girls in the garage. Steven's still here.
And then Steven's like, oh, really? And then he makes, you know, Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List. And these, like, he goes, oh, really? You don't think that I know how to do war? Saving Private Ryan was like another fucking level.
Another level. So to answer your question, Spielberg's who I look up to still the most.
And I think he's on a whole other level based on the scope of his work. But Gaspar Noe, if I'm thinking about the thing I got out of watching this film that I would try and use in my own way for for mosquito ball for a war movie is the idea that you want to try and take the audience into what it would have been like to try and get on that fucking beach and you know in the case of my film there was a battle of Tarawa and they were trying to get ashore but they fucked up the tides so they came in and the tides were too low.
So those landing craft all got stuck on the tides, on the coral reef. And they started getting bombed by the Japanese who were hiding in the caves.
And they brought their big guns out. So these kids were getting blown up before they even got to the fucking beach.
They were getting killed. And their best friends or body best friends or body parts are floating in the fucking oceans.
And there's sharks, and there's giant surf waves,

and they're getting rocked before they've ever even got. So I'm like, okay, well,

how do I want to show that? What? Like, and I look at a movie like Climax, and I'm like, all right,

different horror, bad acid, bad LSD. But my but my god you're like i had to stop watching it and i knew i was coming in here today and i'm starting to have an anxiety attack because i want to get sleep to do you know to talk to you and i'm watching this movie and i'm all worked up because he's taken me into the experience and he does his movie the Void is about DMT.
And he takes you into the experience of DMT. So for anyone who doesn't ever want to experience things that you've touched and I've touched, you can watch his movies and you can be like, whoa, I'm getting that feeling.
And that's a real accomplishment for a filmmaker. And it's immersive.
So watch it. But don't let your wife.
I'll definitely watch it. Do not.
I don't want the shit. She won't.
I don't want her. Don't worry.
She's not going to. It is not for everyone.
I can't talk her into watching anything that she doesn't want to watch. She only watched American Primeval because I told her it was going to be really awesome.
And she loves Yellowstone in 1883. But there was like.
We're violent. It's fucking violent.
Well, it's also it's that time period. I think we do have we do have a bit of a problem culturally because a lot of the films that were created in the early days about the Wild West were very glossy.
They were very whitewashed. It wasn't an accurate representation of what actually went down.
You know, film in the 1960s and 70s in particular when it covered that subject like spaghetti westerns, you know, great films, but it just never really quite captured the reality reality i don't think filmmaking was really ready for that experience because i think the the settling of the west and making their way across the plains in particular and dealing with the comanche and the plains indians like it is one of the most brutal experiences in human history they couldn couldn't look at it in film back then. There's no way.
People have asked, well, when I was making it, is there going to be sex in the film? Like Isaac and Sarah, are they going to fall in love? Are they going to have sex? I'm like, can you imagine what they would have smelt like? Just think about just odor from head to toe. There's no way these people were going to have sex.
There's no way they were going to smell each other or taste each other in any fucking way. And that was like, you know, when we were putting it together and we're writing it and, you know, Mark, and we're like, well, should they have sex? And we're like, there's no fucking way.
Just that alone would have been. It's amazing to me that people did have sex.
That world wanted to fuck each other. Like, get the fuck away from me.
Yeah, they barely washed back then. And they never brushed their teeth.
And making their way across the country. I mean, you're months on end.
Same clothes. No sanitation.
Women didn't. There were no tampons.
Right. There's no toilet paper.
They didn't have Japanese toilets to blow water up your ass and you can fucking dry yourself. This was a messy fucking world and they were not going to make and i wanted to do a scene where where uh taylor uh taylor sure taylor kitch's character has to shit and he's constipated and and he's got to use sticks to help him get it out because that we had read about that about that was how you had to shit because you were constipated all the time so you would have to stick wood up your ass and probe and break it up and force it out and we we had that scene written um and i i called that one off but by the way taylor kitch is fucking great he's a beast that scene in the first episode when they first meet him and he has to take off his clothes and he's changing and you see the scars all over his body.
Like, holy shit. He's really good in that show.
He's really fucking good. Taylor is such a great guy and a great actor and, you know, like really proven because he had some big fucking misses.
One of them was my film Battleship, which I'm proud of. I love all my movies, but I kind of made him do that film and he was didn't quite work and he kind of had some other misses, but he stayed true to himself and has built an incredible career.
And that's a guy who truly does, like, he used to live here, and now this city got too big for him, so now he's way up in the crazy hills of Montana just tracking wolves with cameras all day long. Really? Like, I looked at some of your pictures out in the lobby of the wolves.
Like, he sends me pictures all the time. He's just so true to himself in that way.
That's awesome. But yeah, he plays a bad man.
He plays it so well. I think this is his best work ever.
I mean he's been in a bunch of phenomenal projects. But this is his best.
It's so good, dude. I appreciate it.
You should really be proud of it. Thank you,'s because it's it's not just really good it's really good about a very unique time when you have this convergence of american you know this this emergence of these settlers trying to make their way across this country and dealing with the indians and it's just, it's just phenomenal.
I mean, it's a crazy time in human history and a very brief time. If you really think about the impact that the West has had on American culture, we think about Wild West, every kid grew up playing cowboys and Indians.
Like this is a time that was a very short window. It was only a couple hundred years.
And it really changed the entire world. Because the successful settling of this country by the Europeans changed everything.
The establishment of America changed everything. And the only way it was going to happen was you got to get through the Indians indians so we're doing the next one on uh this is a this is a um announcement yeah the next american primeval is going to be on uh general custer yeah man and we're going to focus on a period short period of time leading up to little bighorn and how when you know because he is a very misunderstood character from American history.
And I'm sure you know a bit. Are you a Custer fan? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, he was a fucking beast. And he was a, you know, warrior in the Civil War who was leading in the front of the cavalry.
He started cavalry charges. And I'm like, can you imagine being in a cavalry charge, fucking like fucking 500 guys on your side 500 of mine and we're just galloping full fucking speed at each other and just fucking smashing and he would just and he just kept doing it all through the civil war and was just a badass the war ends and he's a warrior with like he starts losing his mind because he doesn't know what to do with himself so they send him out west to deal with the indian problem so have you thought about multiple versions of american primeval with different characters throughout history yeah so the goal would be to do um like what one thing was cool about american primeval and reactions people like whoa i didn't know that about brigham young i didn't know this are like, whoa, I didn't know that about Brigham Young.

I didn't know this about Jim Bridger.

I didn't understand.

Right.

And so you get something that works. Hopefully, it's, you know, entertaining, cool fucking show that's just fucking awesome.
But you're also like, oh, wow, I'm going to fucking learn about the country. Right.
So I like the idea of taking moments in American history, not necessarily all about the West, although Custer is something that Mark L. Smith and I are both kind of obsessed with.
And there's so much cool shit around the story of General Custer and Crazy Horse and building a fictional story around those characters and having some great actor play Custer. are exciting.
But I could see doing the third one on something like the Attica Prison Riot, which has always obsessed me. And if you followed that, there's an incredible book by Tom Wicker, who was a journalist called A Time to Die, that dissects that event.
Because I like events. You know, like I'm good with events.
If you give me a contained event over a short period of time and I can tell that story and it's emotional and visceral, that's, and Attica was fucking wild and how it started and how it escalated and the players involved in the negotiating to try and calm it down and the corrupt governor Rockefeller who wouldn't negotiate because he don't want to appear weak. And then finally it just goes off and everyone's dead.
And it was a great look at the American prison system, racism, negotiations, religion because the Black Panthers were in there and the Muslim Brotherhood. just.
So I like the idea of taking moments in American history that are probably pretty fucking violent and sort of presenting them and being like, wow, this is thrilling and deeply entertaining. But I never knew that.
And this is like in with Attica. Oh, this might get me to think a little bit about prison reform and the state of incarcerated American men today in America.
Because that story of Attica is deeply rooted in like abuse of prisoners all over America. Have you done anything on that? I mean incarceration.
Well, I have done some shows with Josh Dubin, who used to work with The Innocent Project. And now Ike Perlmutter.
And because of the show, we've gotten a lot of people actually that were wrongfully accused, released. The prison system is a fucking disaster.
It's fucked. It's a fucking disaster.

I mean, look, going back to Ksenia, this girl who's now in a fucking working prison camp in Siberia. Like we have fucked up prisons.
Russia, South America. Can you imagine being in a Venezuelan prison right now? and so

I like the idea

and America has its own

unique flavor

of fucking hell

within Mark, can you imagine being in a Venezuelan prison right now? And so I like the idea. And America has its own unique flavor of fucking hell within prisons.
Not to make light of prison, right, and I'm not, but I actually had an idea a while ago for a show that I wanted to do, like Survivor or Fear Factor,

take three guys, like take the three of us in this room right now, three fucking tough, badass American men, all right? And put three, yeah, there's three of us in here. In my mind, you are.
That's over, John. You're a fucking legend.
You're a legend, Jamie. You're a fucking legend, Jamie.
But you put each man in a maximum security prison somewhere in the world, like the worst. So you're in Thailand.
Jamie's in Venezuela. Oh, God.
And I'm in Russia. Okay? I'm in this one.
And you go in by yourself, right? And you just are put in the general population. And the deal is you can get out anytime you want.
You just have to say the code word, blue vase. And the warden knows and the prison knows.
But nobody's telling, nobody knows. Everyone thinks you're a prisoner.
Whoever stays in the longest gets $10 million. And you have no idea when the other guys have gotten out.
So like right you could stay in for five fucking years and me and jamie got out in three minutes oh and but just like how you would survive prison and what a horror prison is today and so that took me down a rabbit hole of i see maybe doing it as a film but um it'd be a good. Yeah, like Squid Games.
Did you ever see the movie Brubaker with Robert Redford? Yeah, yeah. Which true story about a warden of a new prison who went in undercover as a prisoner to see what was going on.
But I think to do something like Attica, something like we're going to do Custer next. But if you have any good ones, man, send them over.
I will. All right, buddy.
Well, hey, brother. Thank you very much for being here.
I appreciate you very much. You're a fucking beast.
Your work is amazing. Thanks for the workout this morning.
My pleasure. It was fun.
I was so pumped when you wanted to do it. I was like, yeah, let's go.
I appreciate it. It was fun.
Thank you, Jamie. American Prime Evil, right now on Netflix.

Can't recommend it enough.

Absolutely fantastic.

Peter Berg, you're the fucking man.

You too, buddy. There it is.

Damn.

All right.

Goodbye, everybody.