Jesse Eisenberg (Live in Austin, TX)

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Speaker 3 Woody, Woody, your researchers.

Speaker 4 So, dude, you think I'm just going to come in here unprepared like some schmo?

Speaker 1 Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. Today's episode is a little special.
Woody and I got together at the Alamo Draft House here in Austin, Texas for our very first live podcast.

Speaker 1 It's part of an event for Woody's new movie, Now You See Me, Now You Don't. Our guest is Jesse Eisenberg.

Speaker 1 He's an actor, writer, director, and playwright who you know from such films as The Social Network, The Zombieland Films.

Speaker 1 He also wrote, directed, and acted in A Real Pain, an amazing film, and much more. Their new movie, Now You See Me, Now You Don't, is in theaters November 14th.
So let's get into it.

Speaker 1 Here's our live podcast with Jesse Eisenberg.

Speaker 5 I'm so honored to be on your show. Thank you so much for having me.
Good. That was good.
And adding this kind of

Speaker 5 unnerving live element too

Speaker 5 to make me feel really comfortable.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I just I can't see you even doing an interview much less a live interview that I can't picture myself doing anything and then sometimes during the day things happen, and then at the end of the day, I think, yeah, I shouldn't have done any of that stuff.

Speaker 1 Well, I hope this isn't one of those.

Speaker 1 I hope those aren't one of this is not one of those.

Speaker 5 Oh, it will be, but that's it's a nightly problem for me. But I'm so thrilled to be on your show

Speaker 5 and so nice to finally meet you.

Speaker 1 You too.

Speaker 1 I've been sitting here thinking, you have, you both write plays.

Speaker 1 Big contradiction. That makes sense.
When you look at Jesse, this doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 Thank you, I think. No, just visually.

Speaker 1 Just visually. Yeah, no.
Can you? Oh, here we go.

Speaker 1 Dude, do you...

Speaker 4 I've seen four. I think you've written five plays.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Is that right? Yeah, you're like

Speaker 4 four of them, and they're phenomenal, phenomenal writing, phenomenal. direction.
Every one of them I thought was sensational.

Speaker 5 Oh, thank you so much. I've seen your plays, and

Speaker 5 the most impressive thing I've ever seen in a movie theater is a live movie that you wrote, directed, acted in, and filmed live. And it was beamed to Bloomington, Indiana, where I saw it.

Speaker 5 That was the most incredible thing anybody that I know personally in the arts has ever accomplished.

Speaker 1 In the streets of London.

Speaker 5 It was the most unbelievable thing. If you have not seen Lost in London, watched.

Speaker 5 It's the most incredible achievement.

Speaker 5 Anybody I know has ever done.

Speaker 1 It's unbelievable. I still can't believe that you pulled it off.

Speaker 4 I don't know how you turn my compliment to you into this boomerang to you.

Speaker 1 Deflection, deflection, you're trying to create a deflection of ourselves. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 I'll talk you through my compliments.

Speaker 5 He won't play.

Speaker 4 He won't take in a single compliment.

Speaker 4 We're going to compliment him.

Speaker 1 He won't take it. Oh, you're fine.
What do you do with acknowledgement? It is tricky for everybody.

Speaker 1 How do you handle

Speaker 1 acknowledgement? What happens to you when people praise you?

Speaker 5 Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 5 I find like our profession over-praises and asks

Speaker 5 for not so much effort. So

Speaker 5 I've developed a kind of guilty conscience about that.

Speaker 5 You know, almost everybody in my life works so much harder than me and no one knows who they are or what they do or stops them on the street to tell them that they liked something they did 10 years ago.

Speaker 5 So I don't feel worthy of any acknowledgement. It seems always silly to me.
But I do understand that people want to talk to me in public because they've seen me in something.

Speaker 5 And so there's the feeling, I want to talk to that person. I've seen them in something.

Speaker 5 And so they have to say a nice thing because otherwise you can't just go up and say, hi, I've seen your face in a thing and I want to look at your face now.

Speaker 5 And so the thing they end up saying to you is, hey, you're really good at whatever thing. Because it's a polite way to

Speaker 5 meet a stranger. And so that's how I think of it.
That people just want to see somebody they've seen on television in the flesh. And so they say a nice thing to them.

Speaker 5 Do I think everybody who comes up to me like has thought about, you know, I really like what that person's contributing.

Speaker 5 I don't think that crosses people's minds as much as they just want to have a little interaction with somebody they've seen on TV and it's very sweet for me and it makes me feel nice and they feel nice.

Speaker 5 But I don't take it as anything like a compliment, you know, like

Speaker 5 you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 I don't.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 anyone here who

Speaker 1 feels complimentary

Speaker 1 for two hours afterward, and if you have any nice things to say. Oh, oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 One more thing, because I'm leaning somewhere with this. You both don't do social media, right? You don't have a phone.
You wouldn't even, do you know what social media is? Social.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 1 You don't, though, do you? No, I don't.

Speaker 4 No, I don't do social media. But I didn't know that you didn't do social media, although it does kind of make sense to me.

Speaker 5 I barely do social.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 5 Social media, no. No, I'm like, you know, I'm terrified of what people already know about me in the world.
I don't, you know, I try to limit.

Speaker 1 No, yeah.

Speaker 5 Also, I, I, knowing me, I would say something stupid on the first day and I would be canceled from society.

Speaker 5 I would say something that seemed so innocuous to me and is the most offensive thing in the world just because I'm an idiot.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And you guys have worked four times together, right? The two? Five.

Speaker 1 Five times, yeah.

Speaker 5 We did a TV show of

Speaker 5 All in the Family. All in the Family.

Speaker 1 Okay, good. We did a really good.
No, Jimmy didn't do that one.

Speaker 5 That's right. No, that's right.
But it was a great episode.

Speaker 1 Amazing. It was cool.
Your dear friend didn't see it. I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 No, that's okay.

Speaker 4 You got shit to do, man.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 It was just the most riveting half hour of television.

Speaker 1 I mean, it was live. It's

Speaker 4 something a lot of people took the time to do.

Speaker 1 Okay, so here's substantive. Yeah.
Here's what I've been leading up to.

Speaker 1 You guys have done so much. I've been the leading up to, Phil.
I'm leading up to this.

Speaker 1 So you have so many similarities. You behave the same way in many situations.

Speaker 1 I've just been trying, ever since I heard we were going to be doing this, to picture what it was like for you the first time you smoked marijuana with Woody.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it was at a screen test for a movie. No, first of all,

Speaker 5 No, I met him at a screen test for Zombieland. That's where I met him.
And I remember just...

Speaker 5 It's a weird...

Speaker 5 You know.

Speaker 5 Thank you. I remember staring at him.

Speaker 5 I was so distracted because we're supposed to be sitting in a car together. So they placed us like he was here and I was here and I was auditioning.
I was so nervous.

Speaker 5 It was in Los Angeles and everything. And I remember thinking, whoa, he's thin.
I just remember looking over and I was like, I got to say my line, but I also want to just make sure he's thin.

Speaker 5 Because I kept looking over. I was like, wow, you were so fit.
I don't know why that was the thing that struck me. And so funny.
So, so funny.

Speaker 5 Because, you know, when you watch a funny actor in a movie, you don't know if they're funny. And a lot of times they're not necessarily funny, but he is like a genius improviser.

Speaker 5 And so part of the nature of that movie was a little like loose. And so we were doing that.

Speaker 5 And I was like, oh my God, he's unbelievably quick, which is not something that you always get, even by an actor who's super funny in movies.

Speaker 5 And then first time we smoked weed together,

Speaker 5 actually, I think I probably do remember, maybe, I think you dropped me off at my hotel in Valdosta, Georgia.

Speaker 5 We were shooting the first two weeks of the movie in Valdosta, Georgia. And Woody, I think, drove me in a Prius to my hotel, and he was living in a house there.
And I think, yeah, I think that was it.

Speaker 5 But I,

Speaker 5 yeah, I think that was it. And

Speaker 5 I remember thinking like, oh, I should have like a frat boy feeling about Woody Harrelson.

Speaker 5 And I didn't. I was just like, what a nice guy dropping me off at my hotel.

Speaker 5 And then I think I told my friend, and my friend had that frat boy thing, like, whoa, dude, it's like meeting Michael Jordan on the back, you know.

Speaker 1 And I was like, ah, it didn't feel that way, man.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 it was like I kissed a cheerleader. And then my friends were like, and I was like, no, it's really love, you know?

Speaker 5 Like, don't make it base.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and like, we're seeing each other again, you know, so don't make it it awkward. And if I introduce you to her, just be cool.

Speaker 1 Don't be like,

Speaker 5 I love your cheering, and I'm a big fan of the team.

Speaker 1 Just be cool.

Speaker 5 Because we might actually wind up married, and then it'll be awkward for you

Speaker 5 that you acted like such a dope when you met her.

Speaker 5 So it was like that.

Speaker 4 God, I love that cheerleader analogy, dude.

Speaker 1 That kind of hit home. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 4 But, you know, it's interesting because you say, you know,

Speaker 4 I'm not one of those people trained to always bring it back to the movie, but to bring it back to Now You See Me, Now You Don't.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 4 You say that this is your favorite character, Daniel Atlas.

Speaker 5 Yeah, by like a million times.

Speaker 4 You know, it really is a character. It is so different from you because he's the most confident guy.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 4 You're always troubled and doubtful. He's like just pure confidence confidence

Speaker 4 and brash and tough. Yeah.
And all those things you're not.

Speaker 5 He's like, he's attractive and he cleans up well. You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 Handsome, handsome. I forgot to mention.
Nice to his friends and everything.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's a departure. But I don't, yeah,

Speaker 5 this to me is like the most mentally healthy thing I could do. You know, I don't know about you guys, but part of me wanted to get into acting because I felt just personally embarrassed to be myself.

Speaker 5 And acting allowed me, I think for a lot of actors, it allows you to kind of step outside yourself briefly or whatever.

Speaker 5 And like, I haven't had a lot of that because a lot of times I'm playing people who are like kind of depressive or troubled or anxious.

Speaker 5 But this movie is doing the thing that I, in some ways, got into it for, you know, so I can like get outside who I really am. And like,

Speaker 5 you know, and I just love it so much. Do you guys have those feelings, those similar feelings? Of, oh, this part allows me to do this thing I like more about myself than my actual self.

Speaker 1 Daddy? Woodrow. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Yeah,

Speaker 1 I think that

Speaker 1 the last like 15 years or so that I have been able to, whatever it is I'm going through in life at that age,

Speaker 1 miraculously kind of find a piece that fits that character. And then it really pleases me because I don't have to pretend like bored to death.

Speaker 1 I was turning 16. It was like, hey, hey, don't leave me behind, younger folks.
I still want to play. Whatever it is you're doing, cut me in.
Please, don't leave me out. And that was the character.
And

Speaker 1 now at my age, it's like,

Speaker 1 could you help me across the street, characters, which

Speaker 1 seemed fair. But yeah, I like, it's not like it's therap,

Speaker 1 well, it is kind of therapeutic, but it's,

Speaker 1 yeah, that's my story. I seem to find things whatever phase I'm going through in life.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 What do you you have? Have you had a character that you felt like I wish I was this person more than who I am?

Speaker 4 I don't, this isn't a direct,

Speaker 4 I'm not saying yes to this character I would like to be, but when I played Larry Flint,

Speaker 4 I felt much more confident, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 4 And I felt like I would try, you know, I got arrested immediately, you know, because of

Speaker 4 protesting things and things that

Speaker 4 it kind of helped things in my, that were minimal in my nature become more pronounced. And

Speaker 4 I wouldn't want to be a pornographer.

Speaker 1 Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 4 I don't believe in pornography. I just want to I want to be clear.

Speaker 5 You don't believe in like the democratization of it, right?

Speaker 1 Like where everybody gets to see it.

Speaker 4 It should be for the special few. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Right, right.

Speaker 4 Wait, but did you, you mean you became like more of a public activist after that movie yeah that's so interesting wow for causes that you had already been part of and feeling though right yeah well when i what i'd i'd give money to or i'd support but i never thought oh you know become an activist climb the golden gate bridge i never would have done that kind of thing without having played that part You know, it made me say, well, you know, it's okay to get arrested for something you believe in.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 4 Wow, that's so interesting. And now I'm back to, I don't think I'd want to get arrested.

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

Speaker 4 You know, you're the kind of guy. Like, you have

Speaker 4 that home that you support in

Speaker 4 Bloomington

Speaker 4 for women who've been abused and such. Yes.

Speaker 5 What's that called? Oh, yeah, it's called the Middle Way House. It's like a domestic violence shelter in Indiana, and my mother-in-law ran it for 35 years.

Speaker 5 So, you know, my wife and I, I volunteered there for years, and my wife's been working there since she's a kid.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And that's so cool.

Speaker 1 You do that, man. Yeah, and it's great.
You really give back.

Speaker 5 Oh, and what's great about it is just that Larry Flint transitioned to the domestic violence shelter.

Speaker 4 I say, I wanted to get all the way out from under

Speaker 1 Larry Flint.

Speaker 4 Well, that doesn't sound good either, but

Speaker 1 you get over into it.

Speaker 5 Oh, you're talking about like activism and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was mainly through, you know, my wife was raised to like be an activist. Like, you know, my wife was raised by activists.

Speaker 5 So she was raised to like,

Speaker 5 you know,

Speaker 5 if you're not doing something to help a cause during the day, your life doesn't have real, you know, meaning. And so I, and, you know, I'm in the arts and got into movies when I was younger.
And so,

Speaker 1 you know, I feel a little, what is it called?

Speaker 5 A little, you know, behind her, you know, in terms of like,

Speaker 5 you know, doing that kind of work.

Speaker 1 But didn't, didn't you come from that in your family? No, no, no. My parents are academics.

Speaker 5 My dad's a teacher. My mom's a teacher.
But my mom was a birthday party clown when I was younger.

Speaker 5 So she did like children's birthday parties. So kind of entertainment, but in a local New Jersey, you know, she was doing birthday parties and stuff.
But no, they're great people, great people.

Speaker 5 But they're not like activists, not, you know, nice people.

Speaker 1 And my mom would get pulled over.

Speaker 4 She'd be in her clown outfit, the cop and be like, what?

Speaker 5 That's exactly right. Yeah, she was she was she was like a nervous driver and she's driving from parties to parties and all this stuff to you know on the weekends.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and she would get pulled over and you know, never never get a ticket um

Speaker 5 yeah i have a joke but i'm not going to say it but um please but it's so funny it feels like you should come on man don't be a tease this is an open warm accepting texas crowd yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

Speaker 5 but anyway yeah she was dressed as a clown so she didn't get you know a ticket um i have such a good joke but i would i want to do if i could meet everybody after with no cameras and all this stuff i think oh is this one of those get canceled jokes no no no no no it's just so it's so niche

Speaker 1 Hey, I promise you, because we do have control of editing the podcast. I promise, word of honor, we're here, that we will cut it.

Speaker 5 Every single person here has a telephone.

Speaker 4 He's making a good case. Good point.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's like social media, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah. No,

Speaker 5 I keep everything indoors. So anyway, what are we talking about? Okay, turned into my mom getting a ticket.

Speaker 1 So, okay.

Speaker 5 I never thought I'd say this, but can we go back to Larry Flint?

Speaker 1 No, almost, almost. And you brought this up the other day on a talk show, and we mentioned it.
But so

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 one time you've said that, you know, your wife is doing everything good, and you're not, or however you phrased it, but in life.

Speaker 1 But you are scheduled to donate one of your kidneys anonymously in

Speaker 4 a month and a half.

Speaker 5 Yeah, exactly. December 16th.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.
Are we soaking that in, you know?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Can I ask the chain of events or thoughts that led up to that?

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 So for me, what happened was like I was listening to a podcast like 12 years ago, and it was, they were doing an interview with somebody who was part of this effective altruist movement.

Speaker 5 These are people who are like, it was like a philosophy and the kind of face of the company became face of the philosophy became this guy, Sam Bankman-Fried.

Speaker 5 So the philosophy kind of like died with him. You know, he's the guy who was arrested for this Ponzi scheme of a, you know.
So anyway, of crypto, you know, currency or whatever.

Speaker 5 But nonetheless, they had some really great ideas. One of their ideas is like, you know, we can live without

Speaker 5 both kidneys. We can live without actually, you can donate half your liver.
Anybody can donate half their liver and your liver will grow back and you live a full, healthy life.

Speaker 5 Same with donating a kidney. And when I was listening to it, it just seemed like a no-brainer.
Like to me, it just seemed like,

Speaker 5 oh, yeah, oh, that's something we should all just be doing.

Speaker 5 I didn't think of it as like

Speaker 5 important thing.

Speaker 5 So I called, it was like be the match or something. They send you a little vial, you spit in it.
And so if your saliva matches somebody, they call you. And my saliva, I guess, never matched anybody.

Speaker 5 And then I was talking to a doctor friend, like, I don't know, in the summer, and I was like, you know, I've been wanting to do this.

Speaker 5 She's a doctor, you know, so I was asking her, like, you know, I've always wanted to do this, but they never called me. And she was like, go across town to NYU.
I live in New York City.

Speaker 5 She's like, it's the best. you know, best hospital in the world for this kind of thing.
So I got, so I called him the next day, and day after that I was in getting blood tests and everything.

Speaker 5 And it's like, I appreciate you complimenting me for it or lauding me, but it's really like, it's such a minimal thing. It's such a minimal thing.
You're in the hospital for two days.

Speaker 5 It's a laparoscopic procedure, and it genuinely will save lives, and your health is totally fine.

Speaker 1 I'm not trying to fan you and make you

Speaker 1 whatever. I'm really not.

Speaker 1 It is.

Speaker 4 I do find it amazing.

Speaker 1 Did your wife, yeah. Did your wife, family, mother, how does everyone feel? They're all thumbs up?

Speaker 5 Yes, because

Speaker 5 there's a voucher program.

Speaker 5 So the way the kidney registry works now is like, you know, if you could make a list of all the people that you would have given a kidney to if they had needed it, and they'll be now at the top of the list.

Speaker 5 So normally a wait for a kidney is like five to seven years. Okay, but if you donate a kidney and you put those, you put certain names on that voucher list.
So my family is going on the voucher list.

Speaker 5 So my kid needs a kidney. He'll be top of the list.
Won't Won't have to wait for any years. You see what I'm saying? So,

Speaker 5 this is, yeah, so everybody's happy with it. Because, really, the thing I think a lot of people are hesitant about is not the surgery.
Surgery is not that big a deal.

Speaker 5 It's not living with one kid, it's not big a deal. But I think it's like thinking, God, if my kids need a kidney, I'm not going to be able to give it to them.

Speaker 5 But the way the registry has developed this process is so that they can be.

Speaker 1 Well, it's brilliant. And

Speaker 1 I'm trying to circle around to your acting because what you are,

Speaker 1 sorry, my thought is you're intensely real, Jesse. Your acting is intensely real.
You're writing and your action in life is intensely real. And you're very

Speaker 4 shame, do you, Woody?

Speaker 1 Are you holding in?

Speaker 4 I can't imagine doing what you're doing. Like to give up a kidney.
Now, I know you say you're fine with one kidney, right? Like,

Speaker 4 I would trade you livers right now.

Speaker 1 Like, I would do that.

Speaker 4 And I know, because you don't drink like, you know, me. Yeah, yeah.
So that would be, like, for me, a good thing.

Speaker 4 But I can't imagine, like, other than, you know, probably righteous bucks for a kidney.

Speaker 1 Wait, you're the healthiest person I know.

Speaker 4 That's a bad joke. What?

Speaker 5 You're the healthiest person I know.

Speaker 1 Oh, really?

Speaker 5 You're the healthiest person. Yes.

Speaker 1 You're like a comically healthy person.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but what about the marijuana and alcohol?

Speaker 5 I'm taking all of that into account. I've seen you eat.

Speaker 5 I mean, you know how he eats. You know, Woody's the healthiest person I know.

Speaker 1 Whenever I see him, I pretend that today

Speaker 1 I'm eating that way, too. Right, right.
Literally.

Speaker 1 You'd be so proud.

Speaker 1 He had humas,

Speaker 4 and I'm like, you mean just today? Yeah, just today. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I got to go on his diet.

Speaker 5 When we were doing Zombieland, he had, you know, somebody was making his food, and it was like unbelievable. I come from actually a vegetarian family.
My family's vegetarian, but I'm not.

Speaker 5 And when I was eating that food,

Speaker 5 it made it fun. It made it great because it was amazing food.

Speaker 1 Oh, good.

Speaker 5 Yeah. You've managed to like, you know, find a way to do it that as like an outsider of your diet is like not compromised.

Speaker 1 Oh, cool.

Speaker 1 Were you more regular?

Speaker 4 Were there any

Speaker 1 positives?

Speaker 5 I gotta check my diary from those times, but

Speaker 1 it's not so much a diary.

Speaker 5 It's just stuff like that. It's just, you know, morning, noon, and night, just taking into consideration that kind of stuff.
And just to see if there are any patterns I should be concerned about.

Speaker 5 So I'll check.

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Speaker 6 Who knew?

Speaker 1 Yes. More about the movie.
More about the movie.

Speaker 1 You're about to watch it, so. Oh, yeah.
But I don't want to spoil anything. But you had new cast members.
How was that? Was that fun?

Speaker 1 You had... Yeah, they were great.

Speaker 5 Yeah. You know, it's the kind of thing that, like, you know, so, you know, Woody and I have been in three movies, and so we're like what now

Speaker 5 three of these movies exactly so we had developed a great ensemble uh Dave Franco Isla Fisher and Lizzie Kaplan was in the second one

Speaker 5 and uh it's a great team I mean it's the most fun group of people you can see

Speaker 5 fun you laugh all day long I mean it's amazing like we have such a good time and so you know the concept of this was of this movie was like you know these three younger you know magicians come in we recruit them for this big trick you know and you know so of course it's like, you know, something that could go terribly wrong.

Speaker 5 You know, mainly I was just concerned they're not going to get great actors because, you know, you think like, I don't know if they're getting like young people, they wanted to be poppy and cool.

Speaker 5 But they hired like three amazing actors. Like,

Speaker 5 you know,

Speaker 5 I felt we got lucky. Like they're all really good, really quick, really talented.
They all take it seriously in their own way. So it was not like

Speaker 5 anything I was worried about. And so it was great and felt really natural.
I had like a few days of of scenes with them before like the other cast got in there.

Speaker 5 And I remember just thinking, oh, this is great. Everybody's going to work out well.
And it did. And the movie's really special.

Speaker 5 It's directed by our old friend Ruben Fleischer, who did both Zombieland movies. Woody did Venom with him.
I did 30 Minutes or Less with him. So we've worked with him a lot.

Speaker 5 And he's an amazing shooter, like visually, amazing, very inventive, but loves comedy and loves actors so much. Like, does not consider himself a funny person.

Speaker 5 He's like an appreciator of comedy, which is a really sweet thing for a director.

Speaker 1 Did you guys work with people because you were doing stuff that you didn't naturally know how to do? I'm assuming, some of the sleight of hand.

Speaker 1 And did you get trained for a while before the first one or this one?

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, I did more like sleight of hand stuff. Woody was amazing.
Woody worked with Keith Berry. Do you remember that? Remember from the first movie? Do you want to talk about that at all?

Speaker 5 It was a pretty interesting collaboration.

Speaker 4 I was a mentalist, and

Speaker 4 he taught me some.

Speaker 4 I guess you could.

Speaker 4 I I don't know. I tried hypnosis.

Speaker 1 We tried it.

Speaker 4 It's very hard to pull off because you don't know if the person's faking it.

Speaker 5 Is that part of hypnotism? Is that kind of knowing that people will go with it because of the environment they're in?

Speaker 4 Well, the hypnotism is when your conscious mind kind of gets subdued and drops down, and then your unconscious mind takes over. So that's how there's a certain suggestibility.

Speaker 4 You can say to someone to do,

Speaker 4 walk like a rhino, make noise. You can just get them to do crazy shit.
And

Speaker 4 so,

Speaker 1 yeah. Well,

Speaker 4 I tried it a little. I found it kind of,

Speaker 4 I found that I got nervous right at the key part when you want to go sleep.

Speaker 5 You mean

Speaker 5 as a person receiving hypnotism or giving?

Speaker 4 Giving.

Speaker 5 Giving. Why'd you get nervous?

Speaker 1 Well, you know, like,

Speaker 4 once you do that sleep thing, it's a big...

Speaker 4 Yeah. You know, it's a move.
You know, you grab them by the hair. Sleep.

Speaker 4 And then

Speaker 4 when you open your eyes, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 5 Did you partly get nervous because you felt uncomfortable manipulating people?

Speaker 1 No, not no, no.

Speaker 5 Definitely not, definitely not. No, do you know what I mean? Did you feel nervous because you're like putting somebody in a weird...
thing?

Speaker 5 Because I'll just say, for me, if you don't want to answer it, like for doing magic now, for me and learning it, I feel very uncomfortable when people ask me, How'd you do that?

Speaker 5 I feel uncomfortable not telling them. I don't like keeping that.
It makes me feel you do tell them.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I suppose to tell people how you do the traditional,

Speaker 1 so what is that?

Speaker 4 I know, but if you just tell everybody willy-nilly, pretty soon,

Speaker 4 it's not magic anymore.

Speaker 5 What is it?

Speaker 1 It's just

Speaker 1 manipulation.

Speaker 1 Trade secrets.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he showed me a card trick on the way over and

Speaker 1 would not tell me even the beginning of how to do it.

Speaker 1 Can we talk later? Do you know the same card? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 He'll tell you for sure.

Speaker 4 He'll tell anybody here. It don't matter.
Yeah. Exactly.
Every trick in this movie, he'll tell you how.

Speaker 5 Well, some stuff I don't know. Like,

Speaker 5 no, and a lot of times the guys who are our magic teachers won't tell me, probably because they know what I'll do with it.

Speaker 5 I just feel so strange. You're like talking to somebody, you know.

Speaker 5 It's not like our other jobs. Like, when people ask you, you do an interview

Speaker 5 for a thing that you act in, and they ask you, how'd you think of it? You give an honest answer.

Speaker 5 You're like, oh, I was on, you know, I thought of my, you know, brother and the relationship I had with him, and it kind of

Speaker 5 was similar to this relationship and that. And you give a real thing.
I find it strange, you know, to do another performance for some people, and they say, How'd you do it?

Speaker 1 And you're like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I can't tell you. Yeah.

Speaker 5 It feels strange. I feel I'm withholding in a bad way.

Speaker 1 Well, you're a good person.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 4 He's a great person.

Speaker 1 Aw, thanks.

Speaker 4 You know, I don't mention this much, but

Speaker 4 when he auditioned for Zombieland,

Speaker 4 it was very clear that he was the guy to play this part. There was no question.

Speaker 4 But you know how studios are. So the studio thought this other guy who became famous in this rather silly commercial should be the guy because he's known through this silly commercial, right?

Speaker 4 So I had to call and beg, please,

Speaker 1 this is the guy.

Speaker 4 And remember, I told you this. And then she was like, you know what?

Speaker 4 If you feel this passionately, then okay and then uh then i got a call from the guys saying

Speaker 4 you know that you were in ruben and uh gavin and they were like he's in

Speaker 1 i didn't say anything i was just thank you so much for no reason not a kidney but you know so nice it was what's that not a it's not a kidney but he gave you

Speaker 1 a career that's

Speaker 4 it's it's as close as i'll get to the kidney

Speaker 5 yeah uh to an organ it's definitely yeah it's like a nail um no i thank you so much. That was so nice of you.
And I mean, I know you didn't do like as a favor. But I did.

Speaker 4 No, I did it because it made the movie way better.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 No, no, you did. What's that one great thing you said, one of your improv things? You say,

Speaker 4 one and done.

Speaker 4 That's what I say.

Speaker 1 Well, I said it once. Yeah.

Speaker 1 When it happened.

Speaker 4 And now I've heard that so many times. Have you guys heard like one and done? You know, that came from this guy.

Speaker 5 You know what happened?

Speaker 5 i never told this story publicly actually but i mean or privately um i've just thought about it so and

Speaker 5 um

Speaker 5 what happened was so we did this audition scene to get in for me to get into the movie of course the one i was telling about that my screen test we did this audition scene and it's a really well-written scene uh ret rees paul wernick um they did some writing on this movie too great writers and everything really well written scene especially for like a action-y kind of movie very funny good wordplay everything and so we did this scene in the audition it was my scene i memorized memorized it up and down.

Speaker 5 I'm on an airplane going to Los Angeles for the screen test. So I got this scene in my head

Speaker 5 so, so, you know, so embedded in my brain. And we get to set to do the scene.
And I had, for the very first time, a true nervous breakdown. And the way my nervous breakdown manifested was I shut down.

Speaker 5 And so the camera goes on me. And

Speaker 5 camera goes on Woody's side. And he's...
you know, exactly what you'd imagine. He's hysterically funny.
He's loose. He's interesting.
And everything.

Speaker 5 Camera turns around on me, and I'm young, but I'm kind of aware of camera angles now. I know this is my turn.
You know what I mean? When I first started acting, I didn't know what my turn was.

Speaker 5 I don't know what the camera's seeing. Now I know this is like my turn to do this scene that I had been doing for now eight months, whatever, right, since the auditions.
And I shut down.

Speaker 5 And it was the most terrifying thing that's happened to me on a set ever in my life. I've never had that feeling on stage or a movie set again.
It's that terrifying.

Speaker 1 Frozen, shut down. Frozen.

Speaker 5 And I am just sitting there,

Speaker 5 and I'm realizing whatever I do with my face right now is going to be in a movie. And so if I close my eyes now, that's in a movie.
And if I say this word like that,

Speaker 5 that's in a movie. And it was just this complete self-aware, out-of-body, awful, the opposite of being loose and everything.

Speaker 5 And so the camera's on me, and I panicked, and I couldn't say the lines from the scene. And it was a great written scene.

Speaker 5 And I started just saying random, jokey bullshit because I was panicking that every time I would say a line from the scene, it would come out weirdly because I was so self-conscious.

Speaker 5 And so I have like

Speaker 5 improvisations in that scene that are just out of a pure and utter terror.

Speaker 1 And I, you know, I talked to my therapist about it.

Speaker 5 You know, I'm like, because one of the things I think about all the time is, because I'm doing a play now in New York, I have stage fright.

Speaker 5 What I always talk to the therapist about it is that one time in zombie land, something went terribly wrong and I was able to get through it. You know, this is my story of like, it's okay.

Speaker 5 I can, I couldn't be, you know, it couldn't be as bad as that time in zombie land and I got through it then so it's become in some ways like a staple of my psychological life this scene and the line you just said it just came out of pure anxiety and I'm lucky that what happens to me when I'm nervous is some adrenaline thing

Speaker 5 Yeah, some adrenaline thing comes on and I and I save myself in a weird way

Speaker 4 I get panic before before I start a movie every time and I can't sleep the night before the wife is right there. She can attest.

Speaker 1 I'm just like, I'm moving around. I can't.

Speaker 4 And I but then after the first day of shooting, then I start to mellow, and by the second, it's just everything's rolling, you know.

Speaker 5 Even in a movie like this, a third.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Well, probably less so with this, just because I know you guys so well.

Speaker 4 But I still get nervous before the first day.

Speaker 1 I manifest the illnesses that Mary very sweetly goes, I know you do that every time. You'll be fine.
No, this is arthritis, big capital A.

Speaker 1 I know, I know. Wait, what do you mean?

Speaker 1 I have ailments that will make it impossible for me to work. Oh.
With my fear.

Speaker 5 You mean like you have psychosomatic arthritis?

Speaker 1 Yes. I was fearful last night thinking about this.
I wake up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I'm excited because somehow I've gotten past that.

Speaker 4 I thought you were saying I wake up and I have herpes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. He knew that I was thinking.

Speaker 1 Really, you both went to socially

Speaker 1 transmitted diseases. That's where you went? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I go. I've lost my mind.

Speaker 1 Arthritis. That's all.
That's the only place I go.

Speaker 1 You know, I have this other part of it.

Speaker 5 Now that we're talking about this,

Speaker 5 if I'm doing a play and I can't get sick, like and I'm really panicked. I really get panicked about being sick when I'm doing a show.

Speaker 5 If I'm listening to a podcast, which I do all the time, and somebody has a cold on the podcast, I cannot listen to it.

Speaker 5 If somebody is a little nasal on the thing, I turn it off.

Speaker 1 I'm so paranoid about getting sick that if I hear somebody talk who's sick, I have to walk away or shut it off. How are you when you direct? Because you're an amazing director.

Speaker 4 Audio germs. I'm sorry, Director Germany.

Speaker 1 No, sorry, sorry.

Speaker 1 Sorry. I do apologize.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I do say sorry a lot, don't you? No, you do. Thank you for that.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry that you. Anyway.

Speaker 1 So directing, all of your little insecurities or fears or this, do they vanish because you're the answer man? You're the guy who has the no?

Speaker 5 A little bit. Yeah, I find like the more busy I am, the more okay I am.
You know, it's so funny because like the movies, so I did, like, now you see me three is like a big movie. It's a spectacle.

Speaker 5 It means a lot of waiting in your trailer and then going to set and maybe only having one line. And, you know, I love these movies, as I said, more than anything in my life.

Speaker 5 But But there's some times where like you're waiting in a trailer for three hours to say one line, like, guys, we got to go.

Speaker 5 And because you have that inflated amount of time, you're like in the trailer going like, guys, we got to go. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Guys, we got to go. No.

Speaker 5 Because you just have like more time than is needed.

Speaker 5 And I find when I'm like, the movie I did right before, now you see me, now you don't. This movie was like a movie I was acting, writing, directing in.
And

Speaker 5 I didn't have any time to think like, oh, you know, know, what are we doing today? You know, you're just kind of on it all the time. You're thinking about weather and

Speaker 5 the actors' makeup person is coming in from the States.

Speaker 5 And if they're not going to make their flight because it's raining in Denver, you know, you're thinking about all this stuff that has nothing to do with your own anxieties.

Speaker 5 And I find that just better for me.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 One might get the impression you have some anxiety about things.

Speaker 4 So, but I wanted to say a real pain is to me, it's just a masterwork.

Speaker 4 And I, you know, I know there's times where people complain how they got robbed, but I really felt like you not only should have been nominated for best picture, you should have won best picture.

Speaker 4 I thought that was just a masterwork.

Speaker 1 Oh, thanks a lot. So great.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's very exciting.

Speaker 4 And you and Karen together, I mean, just amazing, dude.

Speaker 1 Thanks a lot. That's so nice.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and so I

Speaker 4 bet I read and I didn't realize this that you

Speaker 4 were gonna do that movie

Speaker 4 it's Serge of the B some other

Speaker 1 city.

Speaker 4 You weren't gonna do it at Auschwitz and you saw an ad or something.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 You mean instead of Poland? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Oh yeah, I was gonna do the movie in Mongolia like because I had been to Mongolia and I stayed in like a yurt on top of a mountain just backpacking with my wife, you know, and it was so cool looking.

Speaker 5 And I was like, it'd be amazing to shoot a movie here.

Speaker 5 It's just such a fascinating place. And so I had, so I had written a short story about these two guys who go to, you know, Mongolia and they have this experience on a, on a yurt farm.

Speaker 5 And it's their third friend had turned it into like this kind of, you know, very like Western

Speaker 5 resort thing. And, you know, one of the,

Speaker 5 you know, characters, the two friends, one of them goes crazy, upset that their friend sold out. Anyway, so I was like, you know, maybe 30 pages into that script and it just wasn't working.

Speaker 5 And I like didn't know enough about Mongolian life. You know, I was there for like a week.
I couldn't.

Speaker 5 And then I saw an ad online, as you suggested, yeah, and it was like, the ad online was Auschwitz Tours with lunch. It said, said Auschwitz Tours, and then in parentheses, with lunch.

Speaker 5 Yeah, let me finish.

Speaker 5 That kind of ad, you know what I mean? And so like, so I clicked on that thing and I was like, oh, I see why this ad came up on my thing. It was very tailor-made for me.

Speaker 5 It was like, don't worry, you can see all the sad things, but you'll be comfortable, which is like my MO. And

Speaker 5 then I changed it from Mongolia to like a Holocaust tour. And I knew I'm fascinated by that history, obviously.
And my family comes from Poland, so it became much more

Speaker 5 flowing out of me to write.

Speaker 4 And the house you filmed in at the end was your family's house until 39.

Speaker 3 Exactly. Woody, Woody, your research.

Speaker 4 You think I'm just going to come in here unprepared like some schmo?

Speaker 1 One mistake. I wasn't sure.

Speaker 1 I wasn't sure.

Speaker 1 No, that's so sweet.

Speaker 5 Yeah, basically.

Speaker 1 That's true, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 5 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so my family lived in this small town and this small house.
And it was weird when we were doing location scouting for this movie.

Speaker 5 It was unlike anything else I've ever done because all the locations were not only in the script, but like were real places, you know.

Speaker 5 And so it was this fascinating experience of just trying to get access to all of these places, you know, a concentration camp, my family's house, small towns, monuments, you know, because,

Speaker 5 you know, because I was not writing thinking maybe this will be a movie. You know, you're just kind of writing thinking you could do anything, as most writers do.
You know, like, we could do anything.

Speaker 5 And then you

Speaker 5 come to terms with some practical

Speaker 5 situations. But nonetheless, yeah, so that was my family's house.
I was given like a key to the city and everything. It was really sweet.

Speaker 5 And, you know, the history is so horrible, you know, like what happened, obviously, to the Jews in this particular place and all over Poland and Europe.

Speaker 5 But it was a really kind of warm, almost

Speaker 5 reconciliatory feeling.

Speaker 4 And And so you became a Polish citizen.

Speaker 5 Yeah, then I got actual Polish citizenry ship. Yep.
Yeah, I became a Polish citizen.

Speaker 4 From the president.

Speaker 5 Yeah, the president who is outgoing, he's not in power anymore. So towards the end of his term, he, you know,

Speaker 5 in order to get Polish citizenship, you either have to show very strong blood ties, like your parents moved from there, or you're working there for a decade, you speak the language and you pay taxes there.

Speaker 5 Or there's like this third route, which is basically just like a governmental pardon, a presidential exception, I think it's called, which they give out to a few people.

Speaker 5 And because I had made this movie that showed Poland in a nice light, which was my goal,

Speaker 5 even though talking about the history, that was not good there,

Speaker 5 you know, they appreciated it. And I kind of lobbied a little bit for myself, saying I really want to

Speaker 5 reconnect to my family's history. You know, I thought about it in this way.
Like, my family's been in New York since like 1918 for the most part, for the most part.

Speaker 5 And yet we think of ourselves as very, very American. You know, like a lot of Americans who've been here a short time, you think of yourselves as American and nothing else.

Speaker 5 And then when I was there in Poland, I realized, God, we'd been here a lot longer. And it's so strange that we just have no connection in any way.

Speaker 5 And of course, the history and

Speaker 5 how the connection ended is why, you know. But still, so I felt this kind of deep connection and a desire to reconnect.

Speaker 4 And was Banner there with you?

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, yeah. My kid got citizenship.
Oh, yeah. My kid was in the movie playing my kid in the movie.

Speaker 5 My scene was cut, but not because of them. They did a good job, but just

Speaker 4 got to hurt your kid, you know, like, hey, I was in it, remember? And then... Yeah, it was weird.

Speaker 5 It was the one scene like everybody agreed was not good, but from a script perspective. And so we just reshot it.
So this movie used to open where I'm saying goodbye to my family.

Speaker 5 And everybody was like, you have this cool, interesting movie.

Speaker 5 framed with the most unoriginal scene I've ever seen, which is, you know, guy packing up. Okay, I'm going to Poland now to see my cousin, you know, just like bullshit, expository nonsense.

Speaker 5 And so everybody said to cut it, but everybody agreed my child was adorable

Speaker 1 in it.

Speaker 4 And do you and Banner still get along?

Speaker 5 You know, listen, the movie's been out, it's been kind of digested by the public, and we're back to kind of speaking, you know, not one-on-one, but we'll have somebody there.

Speaker 5 And normally it'll be like over a puzzle or a game, you know, something that we can talk about. That's not the issue.

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Speaker 1 jesse you're magnificent you really are oh you are buddy thanks you are be around love you man do you want to take some q a questions

Speaker 1 let's do some q a hey just just uh be loud because we can't run up there with mics but if anyone has some questions holler.

Speaker 1 Will there be a Zombieland 3?

Speaker 1 Zombieland 3.

Speaker 4 I heard that the movie before has to be a big success in order to do a sequel.

Speaker 5 Really? It's not just if the people who acted in it liked it.

Speaker 1 I wish.

Speaker 5 I know.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Super fun.

Speaker 5 Yeah, people love those movies. I think the second one, I think they probably...

Speaker 5 Maybe expected it to be more popular.

Speaker 5 Maybe? Is that right?

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 1 You did?

Speaker 4 I expected it. Yeah.

Speaker 5 But it's like a beloved movie, but for some reason, I don't know. Yeah, it's not as popular as whatever the bigger thing is.
Like, you know, Venom.

Speaker 5 It doesn't compare to a tenth of Venom in terms of popularity, but it's beloved.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Strange, right?

Speaker 1 I guess.

Speaker 5 Don't people tell you they love Zombieland so much when they meet you?

Speaker 1 All the time. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, me. Zombieland and Now You See Me are the two movies people come up to me for all the time.
They love it, love it, love it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
But, oh, thanks. You're okay?

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 4 Something in there felt weird, but yeah, you know, you're right. It's cool.

Speaker 5 Wait, what felt weird?

Speaker 1 I thought we're commiserating.

Speaker 4 Just the fact that we had a movie that didn't, you know.

Speaker 5 No, it was still popular, but it was not like.

Speaker 5 You know, because Ruben and you had just unlike Venom, which was like the most popular movie of the year before.

Speaker 5 Right. That's why I bring it up.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 5 is this bad to talk about?

Speaker 4 Something in there felt.

Speaker 1 I've been joining anything that he's in that didn't quite do well, it just lifts my spirits. Oh, but it because

Speaker 1 when he is in something and

Speaker 1 it's good and he's nominated,

Speaker 1 my little rebellion is I watch it on my cell phone.

Speaker 1 That's hysterical. Yeah.
That's hysterical. And if he rebellions, I put it on my Apple.

Speaker 5 That's a real great way to stick it to him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That must kill him.

Speaker 1 It kills me. Yeah, yeah.
Every time. Question.

Speaker 5 Woody.

Speaker 5 Woody, I have a son with Down syndrome, and I want to thank you for Champions. It's a great film.

Speaker 1 Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 4 Is he up there with you?

Speaker 4 He's not with me.

Speaker 4 Well, tell him hello for me.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 4 Did he see Champions? He has seen it, yes.

Speaker 5 And he's a big basketball player.

Speaker 1 He's 18. He loves to play basketball.
Oh, great, great.

Speaker 4 How did you end up choosing that role?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 4 a friend, you know, gave me the script, and

Speaker 4 I was like, wow,

Speaker 1 this is so cool.

Speaker 4 But, you know, then, you know, before I was going to shoot, I talked to Bobby Fairley like the night before, and Bobby's like, okay, now some of these guys might have a little trouble with the, you know,

Speaker 4 what'll happen is if it's not going according to the script, we'll just throw out the script.

Speaker 4 And it just filled me with terror. You know, but I like to improvise, but then I suddenly did, it was just delving into the unknown.
And then I went,

Speaker 4 at first day, I fell in love with these guys. There's like 10 characters.
This movie champions, if you haven't seen it, it's a wonderful movie. But anyway, we got along so great, everybody.

Speaker 4 Just the coolest people.

Speaker 1 Thank you. So, yeah.

Speaker 4 Tell them hi. Absolutely.
Thank you. Got a question.

Speaker 4 For

Speaker 4 all three of you, could you talk about your creative process, your writing process?

Speaker 8 Jesse mentioned you were inspired to write something, didn't feel like it was right, but had another inspiration.

Speaker 8 But do you say, I'm going to go take some time off and write something, or boom, it hits you? And then how do you know to stop and maybe change? Or, wow, this is really good. Let me continue.

Speaker 4 Before you answer this question,

Speaker 4 I just wanted to say that Jesse, you know, we'll go do a movie and we'll work for several months and then I'll have like at the end of it an impaired liver or something but he's written a screenplay or a play

Speaker 4 you know he's actually always productive it amazes me I mean I don't know with banner are you able to write it like you used to or you know like you get up at six o'clock with banner and yeah how does that modify things and can you in a almost in a better way like now I have to like really focus so like you know my wife and kid like taking vacations and I don't so like they're going to Dominican Republic and over Christmas.

Speaker 5 So I'm, you know, I'm going to take like three weeks and write my next movie. So yeah, that's kind of how I work.

Speaker 5 And I've been thinking about it for like four years and I, it takes place in Guatemala and I just went there last month.

Speaker 5 So I've been like working on it, but I need to spend like three weeks just at the library doing it. So that's kind of how I how I've planned my life.

Speaker 5 So having a kid has kind of helped me focus me, you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 Because normally I would just like, if you have all the time in the world, and as actors, like even very, very successful actors, like you have six months of the year off a lot of times, you know, it's just my brain turns to mush you know so I stay active and I try to focus it focus my time because I'm trying to write from a place of like almost not stream of consciousness like that but almost like momentum rather than like taking three weeks to think about the next thing that happens I want it to all kind of flow out because it's usually better that way thank you for asking

Speaker 5 yeah

Speaker 5 what about you can I ask what do you like when like first of all I've been in first of all you got to do another live I mean it's it's so insane and so brilliant.

Speaker 5 But, like, do you ever think, like, yeah, let me just take like these two months, you know, and do like another, you know, Lost in London type?

Speaker 4 I do. I do want to do

Speaker 4 another live film, but I was thinking to do it in

Speaker 4 Denmark.

Speaker 5 Oh, my God. Of course.
The one. Yes, I know all about it.

Speaker 1 Did I? I told you. Yes, of course.
I know all about it.

Speaker 1 Are you a card owner in his houseboat?

Speaker 5 No, I don't have a stake in that boat, do you?

Speaker 1 Conan does.

Speaker 5 I know that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And about 20 other people.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Seriously.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, Dan.

Speaker 3 I'm getting a hard time about this.

Speaker 4 The wifey won't let me get a houseboat anyway, so you guys should get a houseboat.

Speaker 5 Don't you hate it, Wen?

Speaker 1 Still consider it.

Speaker 5 A wife won't let you get a houseboat?

Speaker 4 I'm telling you, a houseboat in Copenhagen. I mean, it's...

Speaker 1 By the way, when you say wifey, you're not hearing wifey. You're not getting Laura Louie, who is magnificent, astounding.

Speaker 4 The wifey, too, right there.

Speaker 1 Where are you? The reason why

Speaker 1 he can walk and talk is because of Laura. Anyway,

Speaker 1 back to Wifey. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 Oh, was it me?

Speaker 1 You're going to do one. Well, I was thinking of doing one.
It was an amazing idea. I remember now.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we'll see what happens. And then a couple nights ago, you know,

Speaker 4 I was up in the middle of the night, and so was Laura. And then

Speaker 4 I told her about this other idea that came to me in a dream, which was also a pretty cool idea for a live film.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I kind of liked the idea of a live film, although after I did it, I felt like I'll never do this again.
It was tragic for my health, and I couldn't sleep. And it was.

Speaker 1 Do people who haven't seen it understand that

Speaker 1 there are cameras waiting for you in tax cabs when you get, I mean, right? No, it was one camera did the whole thing. Who got into the cab with you? Oh my god, I didn't realize that.
Yeah, sorry.

Speaker 5 Woody wrote, directed, and starred in a movie that was live streamed to theaters. It's never been done before.
It was, I, it's, I can't even believe the technology exists, let alone the artistry.

Speaker 5 Like, and so, um, so I was in Indiana watching a movie he was making in London in the middle of the night. It was like, I don't know, a seven o'clock show for me or something.

Speaker 5 It's the most unbelievable thing. And it's an amazing movie.
Like, if it was just a regular movie, it would be amazing.

Speaker 1 Thanks, man.

Speaker 4 Yeah. You've always been the most supportive about that.

Speaker 1 Oh, you got to encourage.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you got to do another.

Speaker 1 Anyway.

Speaker 1 Any other? Yeah. Right here in front.

Speaker 1 First off, Justice for Zombieland 2.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 1 I believe I came to like three times in theaters. No joke.
Really?

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 5 Call your Congress person, you know. Thank you.

Speaker 5 But for Bessie, I would love to know how you kind kind of get over your anxiety,

Speaker 9 you know, in general, but also, you know, when you are kind of put on a stage and when you're anxious leading up to it, do you have any tips and tricks for people like myself?

Speaker 5 Are you an actor?

Speaker 1 Is that what you're asking about?

Speaker 5 Or just an anxiety person?

Speaker 9 Trying to present more.

Speaker 5 Just to present in public. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Interesting.

Speaker 5 Because I was going to give two different thoughts. If you're an actor, I would say like, what I do is like, if I have like an anxiety thing or something, I put it on the character.

Speaker 5 You're like, the character is having this feeling, you know, or something. Ted and I were talking about that earlier in the last play you did.
You know, a character is feeling this.

Speaker 5 So that can be a helpful. But

Speaker 5 in terms of just like a general thing and then trying to present in public, I don't know. You just seemed like the most normal person.
You asked a nice question. You were funny.

Speaker 5 You had a joke about something we said.

Speaker 5 It's much better

Speaker 5 you than a person who's polished and you feel like is trying trying to sell you snake oil and is suspicious and

Speaker 5 you know

Speaker 5 you know what I mean? Like, um, so what you have, I don't know you well, I'm looking at you through a seat here, but like

Speaker 5 what you have is so much more important and special than, I don't know, putting on something that wouldn't feel natural to you.

Speaker 1 You're a funny person.

Speaker 5 I know you 20 seconds and you made a funny joke. So um I guess maybe think more highly of yourself.

Speaker 1 Wow. Wow, well done.

Speaker 4 Well done.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he's giving a kidney away.

Speaker 1 But not to her, you know.

Speaker 5 Well, maybe, maybe.

Speaker 1 Sorry. Scratch that.

Speaker 1 Exactly more.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right there.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 9 This is a light-hearted one.

Speaker 9 The card and chip scene from the Now You See Me 2, I think, is one of the best from any of the movies, but I'm curious what your favorite trick or scene is from any of the Now You Seen movies.

Speaker 4 That's the scene.

Speaker 5 So, you know, she's talking about the passing the card, the computer chip in the second movie. Oh, yeah, yeah.
That was amazing, wasn't it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was really cool. That was really cool.

Speaker 5 Including that thing you did at the end, which I don't even know.

Speaker 5 What's the last thing you do in it? It's like you throw it and ricochets off the floor.

Speaker 1 Is that what happens? Yes.

Speaker 5 I think at the same, Bobby knows, at the same time, it bounces off the floor.

Speaker 1 Bobby.

Speaker 4 Our producer, who also produced this.

Speaker 5 Wait, you throw the card and bounce the card off the floor at the same time as somebody's putting metal through it.

Speaker 1 Her fur coat. Yes.

Speaker 5 Amazing.

Speaker 1 You were very good at it, Woody, by the way. Excellent.

Speaker 5 That scene was amazing. What you're about to see is even more nerve-wracking for us, which was there is a scene in this movie where all the characters are doing a trick to each other.

Speaker 5 And it's kind of like a one-upsmanship kind of scene. And we did it in one shot, which means no cutting, which means if you're like the first one.

Speaker 4 But you can't mess it up.

Speaker 1 You can't mess it up.

Speaker 5 You had something at the end of the first half.

Speaker 1 Yeah, mine was just a little five-card little memory.

Speaker 5 I remember thinking you had the toughest job because you actually had to do like a full trick where the rest of us were kind of doing like parts of things.

Speaker 5 And you had like a real, you had like an actual show on you.

Speaker 4 No, I thought yours was much harder.

Speaker 5 My thing, I had a little thing to Dom in the beginning. The best part of the trick, though, is there's a quick change.
Isla Fisher, she does a quick change.

Speaker 5 If you don't know what a quick change is in magic, it's to me it's like the most impressive thing that magicians do, which is, you know, you're wearing something and instantaneously it changes to something else.

Speaker 5 There's like this French quick change artist who could do like 25 full outfits. I'm talking like going from a mini skirt to like a full fur coat.
She's amazing.

Speaker 5 And so there's a quick change in that scene. That's my favorite part of it.

Speaker 4 And it's a real quick quick change. It really does happen.

Speaker 5 Everything we did was real. And so that was an awesome scene.

Speaker 5 Nerve-wracking for us just because you don't want to be the one to screw it up because then we got to start all the way from the beginning.

Speaker 4 But it was great. It was fun when someone would screw it up and we'd just kind of playfully in a nudge them.

Speaker 3 Exactly.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Not for the person who screwed it up, but yeah.

Speaker 5 I do remember for us it was fun. Yeah.

Speaker 4 When was the one? Justice was doing the three thing and then he had a little trouble.

Speaker 1 Justice

Speaker 1 was not Justice's fault. It was a wire in the table.
I agree with you.

Speaker 5 Yeah, but that was the one that would normally catch.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, I'm not judging. Not at all.

Speaker 1 Not at all. Not at all.
Well, you're about to see it. And

Speaker 1 I've been told that we should let you watch the movie, which is

Speaker 1 kind of like a great review. Thank you all.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you, Jesse.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Jesse.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Jesse Eisenberg, the Alamo Draft House, and our fans for being such a great audience. Now You See Me, Now You Don't is in theaters November 14th.

Speaker 1 Can't tell you how much fun I had sitting down with my buddy. That's it for this week.
Special thanks to Team Coco. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone you love.

Speaker 1 Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and maybe give us a great rating and a review on Apple Podcasts if you're in the mood.

Speaker 1 If you like watching your podcasts, all our full-length episodes are on YouTube. Visit youtube.com/slash teamcoco.

Speaker 1 See you next time, where everybody knows your name.

Speaker 10 You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Liao.

Speaker 10 Our executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Fedurovich is our supervising producer.
Engineering and Mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Speaker 10 Research by Alyssa Grahl, talent booking by Paula Davis and Jane Batista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Yen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne.

Speaker 11 There are millions of podcasts out there, and you've chosen this one. Whether you're a regular or just here on a whim, it's what you have chosen to listen to.

Speaker 11 With Yoto, your kids can have the same choice. Yoto is a screen-free, ad-free audio player.
With hundreds of Yoto cards, there are stories, music, and podcasts like this one, but for kids.

Speaker 11 Just slot a card into the player and let the adventure begin. Check out Yotoplay.com.

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