13 views
•
2 months ago
0
0
Share
Save
Audio
1 appearance
Ethan Hawke is an actor, filmmaker, and author. He recently starred in the film “Blue Moon,” available on major streaming platforms and in select theaters, and the FX series “The Lowdown,” available for streaming on HULU. https://bluemoonfilm.com/home/ www.fxnetworks.com/shows/the-lowdown https://linktr.ee/ethanhawke
Show all
Jeff Bridges & Bernie Glassman, The Dude and the Zen Master
Oliver Benjamin, The Tao of the Dude: Awesome Insights of Deep Dudes from Lao Tzu to Lebowski
Willie Nelson with Turk Pipkin, The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart
5 views
•
2 months ago
6 views
•
2 months ago
5 views
•
2 months ago
Show all
Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
Ethan Hawke.
Nice to meet you.
Great to meet you, man.
It's weird when you've seen someone in so many fucking movies and then you meet
him in real life.
Like, okay, just a regular person.
Right there.
Yeah, staring me in the face.
Right there.
He just took a leak.
Yeah.
Dude, you've been in some fucking banger movies, man.
It's like, you've had an incredible career.
Yeah.
Pull that sucker, pull that microphone.
Pull it towards me?
Yeah.
All right, very good.
Yeah, it's been a long, strange trip.
It's been a wild one, huh?
Yeah.
When did you start acting?
How old were you?
All right.
So, I'm like 12 years old.
I don't have a winter sport.
My mother doesn't know what to do with me.
And my next door neighbor, he lived like four houses down.
He took an acting class at the Paul Robeson Center of Performing Arts.
And so, my mother signed me up so that I could get picked up by his mom, you
know, taken to acting class in the winter and get dropped off, you know, and be
at home.
And I went there and this head of a local theater company came by to teach an
improv seminar kind of thing.
I mean, I'm 12 years old, right?
And afterwards, in the parking lot, he said, hey, you want to be in a play?
I said, what do you mean?
He says, I got a part of a guy who's a knight.
He gets to, you get to have a sword.
And I said, well, I have any lines?
He said, you'll have one line.
I said, all right, cool.
And I asked my mom and she said, do I have to pay?
You know, and I said, I don't think so.
I think they're going to pay me.
So, I went and I did this play and it was George Bernard Shaw's St. Joan at the
McCarter Theater in New Jersey.
That was a real play.
Yeah, it was a proper play.
And it was an incredible experience, to be honest with you, because my parents
hated their jobs.
You know, they would go to work and their life happened on the periphery of
their employment.
You know, my mom would take the train to New York and so she wouldn't get home
until 7.30, something she would leave.
And she was just miserable at work, I mean.
And I went to this rehearsal and everyone was having, they were talking about
whether or not God existed.
They were talking about what they believed in.
They would dress up in these crazy outfits.
And then we did the play and they got a standing ovation.
And it was, it was so much fun.
And it was the first time I saw, I was like, you could do this for a living?
You know, a lot of the actors aren't people you've heard of or anything like
that, but they were real actors and they loved their job.
And the rehearsal room was so kind of thrilling, watching them figure out where
people should stand and when, what was important and what was the scene about
and what was the theme of the play and how could this scene fit in with the
larger context.
And, um, and I just decided that's what I wanted to do.
And a lot of kids want to act, so that doesn't mean very much.
But I, through this other friend of mine, I started hearing about open casting
calls in New York.
And I asked my mom if I could go on some of these big auditions.
And again, she said, does, is it going to cost me any money?
She said, if I paid for my own train fare, I could go to these auditions.
And so I took some Polaroids and, uh, went on a few of these big auditions and
I got one of them.
And it was for this big, in 1984, it was a $30 million movie directed by the
guy who had just done Gremlins, right?
Joe Dante.
And I thought I was a made man.
I mean, it was just, it was, it was absolutely incredible to be sucked out of
suburban America and brought to L.A.
My first scene partner was River Phoenix.
And all of a sudden, I'm in L.A.
And, you know, my mom couldn't quit her job or anything.
So my mom had a really turbulent relationship with her mother, but her mother,
her mother and she didn't really know each other.
And so her mother said she'd be my guardian.
And my mom designed this as a way to maybe have a family healing.
But my grandmother was, um, a piece of work.
And, uh, we lived together in Koreatown.
That's what they called it.
And, um, it was wild.
And she, I remember we drove into the Paramount Studios.
You know, you can picture it, the image from The Godfather and you had the big
gates.
And my grandmother had always wanted to be a movie star.
Wow.
You know, and she had, she was from here.
She's from Austin, Texas.
Well, really Fort Worth.
But, you know, she would talk about going to see Gone with the Wind at the
Paramount here in Austin, you know.
And she would, she would watch Gone with the Wind, you know, three times a week.
Uh, and she had dreamed of being a movie star.
And I remember we were in a big van driving me to set the first day.
And we went through the gates of Paramount opening up.
And she was smoking an Eve cigarette in the van, of course.
It's 1984.
And she's just like, you know, my first time in Hollywood as a fucking guardian,
you know.
And, uh, and so the whole child actor thing is, was a trip.
And I finished the movie and there's a lot of drama, um, involved in that if I
was to complete that story.
But I finished it.
The movie was a big turkey.
How old were you at the time?
14.
River and I were both 14.
We, uh, yeah, yeah.
But see, we looked so young in that picture, right?
But you got to understand, you know, when you're that age, you think you're
dying to be 18, dying to be 16.
We went out, River and I stole a pack of Camel cigarettes because we both
wanted to be like James Dean.
And, um, uh, and we had a, we had a lot of fun.
Um, that's the truth.
But the movie came out and I remember River and I going to the bathroom at the
premiere and, um, we'd grown a lot from the time we shot the movie to the time
it came out.
And nobody in the bathroom really recognized us.
And they were all talking about what a turkey the movie was, how terrible it
was.
And I remember just looking in the eyes and like, it wasn't the narrative we
thought, you know, we, we'd bought into the dream that, you know, we were going
to be whatever teen icon we were thinking of at the time.
And, um, and it died a quick and salty death, my dream.
And then I went back to high school and put away my dream of being an actor.
It seemed like it was this isolated, uh, almost like choose your own adventure
book or something, uh, where I got to see what Hollywood was like, but then
have it denied.
And it, it kind of like putting your hand in a flame.
It was not a good feeling when it was over.
And then, you know, four years or so went by and I graduated high school and I
was off at college.
And I heard about these auditions from a movie called Dead Poets Society and I
hated college.
I was miserable.
And I thought I'll take the bus in and I'll go on one of these open casting
calls again.
And, and if I get the part, uh, this is what I decided.
If I get the part, I'll, I'll do that.
And if I don't get the part, I'll join the Merchant Marines and be like Jack
London.
That was my fantasy at the time.
I remember, I remember calling my sister and saying, all right, there's seven
parts.
This is how dumb I was.
I was like, there's seven parts.
If I don't get one of those, I must suck, you know?
So it's not true at all, but I ended up getting one of them and, um, and I
dropped out of college.
I mentioned that the success of Dead Poets Society sent me, you know, it was
like a trajectory of, it shot me down a different course of water than I was on
before.
It's probably a much better path than the first film being successful and you
become a child star.
I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that first experience.
First of all, if for no other reason than in the success of Dead Poets Society,
I didn't take it seriously at all.
I didn't even realize that the movie was successful until a couple of years
later because I had so braced myself for failure, you know, perception of
failure anyway.
Because of the first experience?
Yeah, because everybody's saying, oh, the movie's so great.
I'm like, yeah, they said this last time.
It doesn't mean anything, you know?
And, um, so it kind of taught me at a really young age about to ask yourself
why you're doing something, you know, like, are you doing it for the result of
what happens?
Are you doing it to do it?
And I, by coming back to acting a few years later, I was just fully braced for
it not to go well and it was still going to be worth it.
And, and so I think I, it gave me a slight bit of ballast to handle the success
of Dead Poets.
You went into it for the enjoyment of doing it rather than thinking you were
going to be a star.
I just hadn't, yeah, I had no expectations, but I was certain I wasn't going to
be a star.
I was positive of it.
I saw it as a way to make some money and maybe learn about writing and learn
about film.
A way to get out of college.
Now, what happened is when I got there, I met all these other young men who
were in love with acting.
And that, I started watching movies with them and talking about movies with
them and seeing the light in their eyes.
And we'd go to set and there was Robin Williams.
You know, we had Peter Weir who had just directed Witness, one of my favorite
movies of all time at that point.
And he was a master.
I mean, he was not a lightweight human being.
He was a heavyweight human being.
And he would lead rehearsals and he would talk about acting and performance in
a way that I hadn't, well, you know, I heard people talk about it that way when
we were doing St. Joan.
When I was doing the, like, he talked about it like we were making art and like
we were on a mission beyond success or failure.
And it was, it was an invitation to a lifestyle, a life commitment.
And what I didn't realize at the time, that's what that movie's about, too.
You know, so the movie itself is a guided meditation on carpe diem, right?
It's a meditation on gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world.
You know, this is the kind of stuff that I was getting inundated with in
rehearsal.
And so that was, I didn't, I wouldn't have told you that on the day I wrapped
Dead Poets Society that my life had changed.
But looking back, it had.
It had planted the seeds.
Yeah.
I was thinking, I've never met a person who became famous at 14 who came out of
it okay.
I'm, of yet to.
I heard Jodie Foster School.
I've never met anybody that became famous very young.
I read every interview she does for exactly that reason.
I have, it's, it's so difficult.
I tell parents all the time, like, children acting is a wonderful thing.
Put them in the school play.
It's so good for them.
Get them singing lessons.
It's so good for them.
Sing in the church choir.
It's so good for them.
But to be a professional actor at a young age is, it's dangerous and in
extremely insidious ways that are very, very hard to perceive when it's
happening.
That's a great way to put it.
Yeah, it's, it, I think it completely impedes your developmental process.
The way I liken it to is, like, concrete.
When you make concrete, there's a bunch of very specific ingredients.
You put them with very specific mixture.
Like, you have to have this amount of water, that amount of sand, this amount
of rocks, all this.
If it's off, it's never fixed.
You can't add water after it's cured.
It's done.
It's fucked forever.
This is bad concrete now.
And this is what happens to a lot of young human beings that become famous,
whether it's through acting or singing.
Yeah, and it's not just fame.
That analogy works for all walks of life, really.
You know, if you have a really, something really traumatic happens in childhood,
it's very hard to recover.
It's a tremendous amount of work to recover.
And I agree with you.
Like, I think celebrity is like, it's like a tiny drop of mercury.
It's poison.
It's poison for your brain.
Now, if you're mature, you can handle it.
And if you get it in slow, like, I got it in slow increments.
Dead Poets Society happened, I had a little taste of fame, but I wasn't, nobody
knew my name.
I was that kid from Dead Poets Society.
Oh, look at him.
And I got it in slow, I got to develop, what do you call it?
When you get a little bit of poison, like a resistance to it.
And it came so slowly for me.
I even think about people, I remember the weekend Pretty Woman came out two
days before,
no one had ever heard of Julia Roberts.
Two days afterwards, she's the most famous woman in America.
I think that's a huge thing to absorb.
I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
And I know that my personality couldn't have handled it.
I've worked hard to handle it as poorly or well as I have, you know?
Yeah.
It's, I think you going back to school and living a normal life for, you know,
five, six years or whatever it was before you left college.
That's, I just think that's critical.
That's the developmental process of the normal maturation of a person.
When they go through adolescence, teenage years, into college, young adult,
then you can kind of handle things.
And then maybe you're also fortunate that, like you said, Dead Poets Society,
not, you know, you didn't get too huge from it.
You just got some, some juice, a little bit of juice.
A little bit of confidence.
Yeah.
That was a nice, you know, it's like.
Something's happening.
Something's happening.
But then I had the years after that, though, you know, I have to give some, a
shout out to my mom, who was just so devastated that I dropped out of college.
I mean, she just couldn't stop crying about it, you know, and it filled me with
a desire to show her that I was taking responsibility for my own education,
which is what I said I would do.
And so I started a theater company and I, I worked really hard at a lot of
different things, writing and reading and thinking and mostly with this theater
company where I met a lot of young people who were interested in what I was
doing, but we weren't paid any money.
And we worked our asses off and we built sets and we, you know, it was fun.
I don't want to lie.
We had a great time, but it was a college experience that I gave myself through
this theater company.
And that changed me because I met a lot of people who were really excellent at
what I do that weren't making a lot of money.
I met a lot of people who loved it as much as I do, who weren't getting their
picture taken, who weren't being told they were special.
I knew how gifted they were.
I could understand.
I had a little bit of balance and a little bit of humility to go along with the
superficial elements of, of my chosen field.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Do you ever think about like what would have happened if that guy didn't invite
you to do that play when you were 12?
It's kind of crazy how there's these pivotal moments in your life.
You know, he just died.
Nagel Jackson was his name and he's, he was a great theater director.
I mean, I don't know if you feel this way.
I, I don't know what.
I have the sense often, and I know this sounds really dopey to say, but I
sometimes have a sense of a guardian angel of some kind of, why did this guy
talk to me in the parking lot?
And why was he such a kind, decent human being?
Um, throughout my life, I have had opportunities presented to me and I had
enough intuition and enough intelligence maybe to follow it.
But I do think about, I think about it all the time, uh, all the ways that are
imperceptible in the Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday that they happen, but
where your life is kind of guided.
Um, and it doesn't really feel by your own doing.
Yeah.
I know it sounds wacky to say, but I believe it too.
I mean, I don't publicly profess it as the definite reason why everything
happens, but there's a bunch of, I think most people.
That have gotten anywhere in life.
There's moments in their life.
Like, how did that happen?
Like, what, why did this feel like it was a, a destined path?
Like, why, why was I compelled to try this?
What was the, what was the thought behind that?
And what, am I being guided?
Is there, is fate real?
I wonder how other people feel, but I do think one of the keys.
I think that probably everybody has a path that is there for them.
And the trick about knowing yourself, the value in taking time to like, be
still with yourself and you listen to yourself, you know, that there's an
expression, the voice of our spirit is extremely gentle.
Uh, and it's, it's difficult to hear it.
It's quiet.
Yeah.
But if you can hear it, that thing, intuition, that thing, the path idea of a
guardian angel would have, you can see what's happening around you if you're in
touch with yourself.
And if you're not in touch with yourself, you keep tripping on the same, you're
not seeing the angles and the roads that might be available to you.
So I do think that part of the trick is taking time to actually get to know
yourself so that you can see the light when it appears.
Because I bet you everybody has it.
I bet they do too.
I bet there's also a real factor in recognizing the misery of your mother's
life, what she was doing, where she didn't take these chances.
She didn't, she had responsibility.
She was, yeah, but can I tell you something funny about that?
Yeah.
This type of the year when life ramps up and demands more of your energy, more
work, more plans with family and friends and holiday travel all while it's
getting darker and colder out, you can let it all drain your juice or you can
get out ahead of it with AG1.
AG1 is a daily health drink that can help you stay one scoop ahead of all the
energy drains coming your way this season.
Because the superfoods and B vitamins in every scoop of AG1 support steady
energy production without the crash.
In fact, just shaking up one scoop of AG1 in water covers your multivitamin,
your pre and probiotics, antioxidants, superfoods, and more.
It's one simple step to start your day ahead of anything that might come your
way.
And that's why I've partnered with them for years.
And when you need energy support, AG1 delivers with superfoods and with B
vitamins that help convert nutrients into energy for vigor and vitality.
Subscribe today to get this clinically backed formula in the flavor of your
choice.
Tropical, citrus, berry, or original to help you stay one scoop ahead.
AG1 has a special offer today.
If you head to drinkag1.com slash Joe Rogan, you'll get the welcome kit, a
morning person hat, a bottle of vitamin D3 K2, and an AG1 flavor sampler for
free with your first subscription.
That's over $100 in free gifts.
Just head over to drinkag1.com slash Joe Rogan or visit the link in the
description to get started.
So she was 18 when I was born, right?
So that's tough.
You don't really have a childhood, right?
Right.
But in her mid-40s, she took it.
She joined the Peace Corps in her mid-40s.
Once I was okay, and it was right around the time my oldest, Maya, was born.
Are you a single child?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think I was a big part of her on her brain a lot, worrying.
It was a big, is this kid going to be all right?
Is this kid going to be all right?
It makes a lot of noise in your head, you know?
Sure.
And I was all right.
And she looked around, and I remember her saying that, you know, if an accident
happened today, when they do happen, and I died, I would be extremely
disappointed in myself.
She was probably, I don't know, 46 or something when she said this, younger
than I am now.
And she said, I don't want to be disappointed in my life.
So she joined the Peace Corps, which she wasn't all that impressed with, but
they sent her to Romania, and she fell in love with Romania, and she fell in
love with the people there.
And she got obsessed with the racism against the gypsy culture, the Roma
culture, I'm supposed to call it.
And it reminded her a lot of growing up here in the 60s and the racism she saw
as a young girl.
And she just decided to do something about it.
And she spent 25 years there, and she got thousands of kids into school who
wouldn't have gone to school.
She just recently retired back to Fort Worth.
And she's a different woman than the woman I grew up with, which is, I think, a
remarkable story.
I love both the women, the woman now and the woman I grew up with.
I don't want to paint some portrait that she was miserable.
She had so much – she just was miserable at work.
Right.
You know, she was not a miserable person to be with.
Right.
The opposite.
And she kept that fire in herself alive enough to, when the window presented
itself, she took it, and she took it hard.
I mean, she disappeared for a quarter of a century to Romania.
It was a young woman born in Fort Worth, right?
And that's a wild thing to do.
And she made a huge impact, and I'm extremely proud of her and proud of the
work that she's done, and so is everybody who knows her.
And now she's in Fort Worth doing her thing and has a different sense of
herself because she followed her own intuition and her own path.
It's just she had to deal with the responsibility of raising a child for a long
time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, that develops a different kind of character, too.
You know, the character of a woman trying to raise a child and also a boy, you
know.
I have all daughters.
You do?
Yeah.
I have three daughters and one boy, yeah.
Yeah, all my friends who are boys are like, dude, it is so much harder.
It's just that you're just trying to keep them from burning the house down.
Yeah, it was a pain.
Of course.
It was a huge pain.
And if you're a single child, you know.
But she must have gotten some inspiration from your path, from your choices,
from the fact that you went for it.
You'd have to ask her.
I think she had in her own way went for it because everybody told her not to
have a baby and she wanted to.
And she didn't want to run with the pack.
Now, she didn't.
I don't think when you're 18, you don't understand the ramifications of the
decision of having a child.
Right.
You know, how, you know, permanent.
You know, I remember she told me when Maya was born, well, congratulations, you
now have something to worry about the rest of your life.
You know.
Yeah, I think it's a gift, though.
I mean, I certainly think it changes you as a human being.
In my case, the most positive ways possible.
I could imagine being a single mother, though, it's a much more difficult
position to be in.
And there's a lot of pressure on women, you know.
Sure.
You know, if you work, you're a bad mother.
If you're just a stay-at-home mom, you're not a good, strong woman.
You know, I mean, they're damned if they do.
They're damned if they don't.
That's the position they get put in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
All those experiences.
When, as an actor, I mean, one of the more fascinating things to me about
watching people is how they can assume different identities.
Like, and how critical is it to have had so many different people in your life
and different life experiences to draw from, to try to understand things
through their eyes?
If you're a regular person running through, if you're a stockbroker, you're
running through the world thinking like a stockbroker.
You're not thinking, what would it be like to be a janitor?
Like, what is it like to be this guy who's trying to raise a family and he's
got a drug dealer in his neighborhood that's causing problems and your life is
this constant state of drama?
Like, you're drawing from all these different experiences.
So having had, like, not, I mean, I wouldn't say it's, your life was
complicated, but it sounds like you have a really good mom.
But complicated, like, and not necessarily that stable in that way.
You're young and you're, you know, you're trying this thing out and you're
going off to Hollywood and then you're coming back and going to college.
Like, having all these different bizarre interactions with people and life
experiences.
How much do you draw upon that when you're trying to, like, create a character?
Well, that's a really big question.
It is.
Well, so I have to break it into parts.
It started getting bigger as I was asking.
Yeah, yeah, because it's kind of two parts.
But the first part about drawing on a character is touching on my favorite
aspect of my life and my job.
Most people, if you're an actuary, you're an actuary.
You think in numbers, you think in this, this is, and it's your job.
You have to.
Yeah.
You know you.
I have, I got to play a World War II vet.
I got taken out to basic training.
I got to read World War II veterans journals over and over again.
I got to wear the clothes they wore.
I was working on that movie for a few months, reading all kinds of books,
watching documentaries about that.
Then that movie's over.
Moving on.
Now I'm going to get cast as a L.A. cop.
Going to do ride-arounds through Los Angeles in the backseat of a cop car right
when the crash unit thing was happening.
And I'm thinking like a cop.
And I'm not, it's not, it's even, it's different than being a journalist and
writing about it.
I'm really trying to imagine being them.
And I'm not looking at it from a judgmental point of view.
I don't have an agenda about whether they're a good person or a bad person or
whether this army sergeant should have made that decision or that one.
I'm thinking, well, why did he make it?
Why did he make it?
Why did he do that?
Yeah.
Right.
I play a jazz musician, a drug addict.
Right.
I'm not sitting there judging him with a bad person.
You know what I'm saying?
Why do you do it?
You know, it's, it's a painkiller.
Why is he taking it?
Where's this music come from?
Why is it so important to him?
Why does he practice 12 hours a day?
What is that about?
You know, you, all these characters are these invitations to, A, expand your
own sense of what identity means.
Like, what is, who is Joe Rogan, right?
And who Joe Rogan is with his mom is a little different than he's watching the
Super Bowl with his best friends.
Who Joe Rogan is at 40 is different than he is at 20.
We, we have inside of us so many aspects to ourselves.
You know, when you're, we're in, in love, you, you change.
When you see your child for the first time, you change your, your, your biology,
your chemicals start to shift a little bit.
If you're in a violent situation, you know, the, your molecular structure alters
a little bit and you start to realize that that's not you and that's not you
and that's not you.
They're all you.
And, and, and that's what performing is like.
And you start to, um, see society and see yourself and see a, a continuity that
is really kind of exciting.
I've had, if you don't get ruined by, oh, breaking your arm, patting yourself
on the back or something like that.
I've met a bunch of older actors who've lived really interesting lives that I've
learned.
It's like I, I once had dinner with Vanessa Redgrave, this old English actress.
And she, she spent her life doing Shakespeare and Chekhov and Beckett and
Tennessee Williams.
She spent her life with some of the greatest minds of the last 50 years.
And she carries that with her.
Um, she's powerfully intelligent, powerfully humble woman.
And it's, it's like being next to somebody you really admire, you know, a
master craftsman.
It doesn't matter what the craft is when they, when you take it to a high level,
it has a lot to teach you.
So anyway, that was a multi-part question.
The other thing that part of your question is how did I stay balanced?
And a lot of it had to do with my father who, um, has, he doesn't care about
celebrity, doesn't particularly think it's very interesting and, um, not in a
judgmental way.
He really cares about integrity and whether you're a good person and whether
you tell the truth.
And it doesn't, it's not that interesting to him how much money you make.
Um, that's not where his value system is placed on whether he's naturally
suspicious of people who want too much attention.
He's naturally suspicious of that in me, which was good for me.
That's a good suspicion.
It's a healthy suspicion.
Yeah.
He had, was very realistic about the chances I had of making a profession out
of this.
That's not a bad thing.
You know, everybody says, it's so great to tell people to follow your dreams.
And it is important to follow your dreams, but it's also important to be
realistic and have a plan and take care of yourself.
And, um, when you say you're going to do something to do it, to show up when
you're asked to tell the truth, all these things that, so whenever things would
start to go well, I had this person in my life that's very important to me who
doesn't place a value on anything superficial.
And when we talked about why it's so hard to meet young people in this
profession who make it, what starts to happen, regardless of how good or not
good your parents are or something, your circle can get infiltrated with a lot
of people trying to make money off you.
And, um, and that's dangerous because they don't care about you.
Yeah, that is an issue.
There's an issue of people trying to get you to take work that you really
shouldn't take just because they're going to get a percentage of it.
Or it's going to be good for you in the next three years, but they don't have
your long term, you know, what is going to be good for the 65 year old version
of you.
Right.
You know, is this, like you said, yeah, if I could have, if I could have
decided my life, Explorers would have been a huge hit.
It would have been E.T. big.
And you know what?
I wouldn't be here on this talk show today.
You know, so I don't want to be in charge of my whole life in that way.
You know, you.
Maybe you would, but it'd be different.
You'd be coming out of rehab.
Oh, for sure.
It'd be a Charlie Sheen story.
Yeah, dude, I'd be on Marriage 18.
Who, by the way, was a fantastic guy to talk to.
I bet he was.
Yeah, I listened to it.
It was fantastic.
Wonderful guy, like a sweetheart of a guy.
A guy who went through the exact opposite of what I'm saying is good for you.
If you survive.
Yeah.
Anything is a learning tool.
Right.
Right.
I mean, some of you, you must have this.
Some of the wisest people I know have been through the 12 step program.
Yes.
And so addiction and misery can be an unbelievable teacher.
If you can, if you pull yourself out of it.
If you survive.
If you survive.
It's not, I wouldn't wish it for my children.
It's not a dare I want them to take.
Oh, hey, one path to wisdom.
Heroin.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of my friends died from it, but a couple of them are really wise from it.
Read a book, okay?
Right.
I remember, it's funny, even as you said, I remember when I was about 24,
starting to get successful,
I met my friend Richard Linklater.
And we were hanging out in New York and we met this really cool, this guy we
really admired,
fancy pants writer, really badass.
You know, you kind of just, and we were smoking cigarettes.
Well, Rick wasn't, of course.
But we were shooting pool and this guy said to me, you know what, you're almost
interesting.
He said to me, you know, what you got to do is you got to go down to Mexico and
disappear
for a couple of years.
You know, live life a little bit, then you'll be somebody.
And the guy finally, when the night we were walking home with Rick, Rick said,
let me tell
you what you don't need to do.
What do you need to do?
Read some William Burroughs.
That might be a good idea.
Read some Hunter S. Thompson.
Skip the addiction path.
Yeah.
You don't have to go to Mexico.
You don't have to do it.
You know, you don't need to.
That's not the path to wisdom.
Right.
You know, it has worked for a handful of people.
But most of us, you know, I keep coming back in this conversation to Jodie
Foster, I read
her interviews because I admire her because I know what she's survived.
Right.
But she's wicked smart.
Yes.
You know, you don't want to place your bet that you're as smart as she is.
Yeah, she's smart and also wise.
That's the odd thing of someone who's in, like, how old was she in Taxi Driver?
I don't know, 12, 14.
Crazy.
I know.
Crazy.
And it's a very bizarre movie for a young child to be sexualized in this very
weird, psychotic
movie.
But what she took from it was this great mentor in Martin Scorsese.
And she kind of understood she was making art.
That's where the wisdom comes in.
She's just naturally, precociously wise that way.
That she didn't get hung up on the seedy aspects or the sexuality aspects of it.
She got hung up on, who is this guy Martin Scorsese?
What is he doing?
What is this movie saying?
How could I be a part of that?
You know?
And that's how I think she survived.
But I don't know the woman, so I shouldn't speak.
Yeah, I don't know her either, but I do admire her when I hear her talk.
Yeah, me too.
And that's why I always bring her up as the lone example that I've ever come
across of
someone who's been through childhood stardom that seems to be, like, very well
put together.
Yeah, and she's still really good at her job.
Yeah.
I know.
Right, right.
She didn't become a caricature.
That, to me, is really exciting.
You know, see, if you're me, you're like, I look at Jeff Bridges a lot, too.
See, like, when Dead Poets Society came out, I remember I went on this long
talk with myself.
I was like, it was like sunrise, and I'd been up all night, and it was New York,
and I was
about 19 or something, and I was just thinking about who had gone through this
that I actually
admire, when I look at them and I admire.
And Jeff Bridges had starred in The Last Picture Show, which was one of my
favorite movies.
And he was amazing at it.
And he just slowly got better and better and better and better.
And I was like, all right, so it can be done.
You know, this, you know, he's got an amazing wife.
He's really super into Buddhism.
I started getting like, what is it?
He's really into photography.
Like, he takes, I mean, I don't know him either, right?
So I'm just, I'm talking like a fan here.
It's not, I don't know these people.
But I watched him from afar.
I was like, okay, this race can be won.
And I've always fought.
I remember I was so happy.
He won the Academy Award for True Grit, I guess it was.
And I was like, damn, what a long, slow burn he had.
And he just keeps getting better and more interesting.
He comes out with these weird little books I love, and I read them.
He writes books?
Yeah, he has this book with his, like, he has a mentor in Buddhism, and they
kind of wrote a book together about the Tao of the Dude or something like that.
But it's actually, you know, I don't know if you've read the Tao of Willy.
I love all these kind of, to the left versions of, sometimes I find it hard to
read the, I want to read what Willy thinks about the Dampada more than I want
to read the Dampada myself.
Yeah, there it is.
Yeah.
The Dude and the Zen Master.
It's a great book, by the way.
He has a mantra in it that I just love, which is, row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily.
Life is but a dream.
And he talks about how valuable that song has been to him.
I'm probably misquoting, but it meant a lot to me.
And it's just like, one step at a time.
One step at a time.
Keep a smile on your face.
You know, don't forget it's all a dream.
You know, it's like, it's a great mantra.
It is, and it's always great to have someone who has gone through it all and
has come out fascinating, interesting, and wise.
So you go, oh, it can be done.
Did you ever meet Chris Christopherson?
No.
He was cool.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Well, my secret fantasy is your job.
You know, I wrote a profile on Chris, I don't know, 15 years ago now for
Rolling Stone magazine.
And I made a documentary about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
And I just finished a documentary about Merle Haggard.
And I really enjoy studying other people.
And, but Chris, you know, his, his life stories, you know, I mean, he was in
the military and then he gave up everything, became a songwriter.
And it's kind of like, imagine if, you know, the equivalent is like the point
of, height of his career.
It's like imagining if Brad Pitt had also written a number one single for Amy
Winehouse.
You know what I mean?
I mean, I mean, you know, he wrote me and Bobby McGee for Janis Joplin.
He did?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
And he was, you know, a helicopter pilot and he wrote songs for Johnny Cash and
he was acting in Sam Peckinpah movies.
He was in Blade.
Yeah, he was in Blade, but he was a real, he's a Rhodes Scholar and a boxer.
You would like this guy.
He would be right up your alley.
A real free thinker and didn't trap himself in any way of thinking and really
fought for individual rights.
And he was a great, great guy.
I got to interview him and he, he actually starred in my first movie I directed
too.
So I got to know him.
What was that?
So movie called Chelsea Walls, I don't necessarily recommend you watch it.
You can if you want to.
I learned a lot making it.
I like it a lot, but I was learning, you know, I was learning a lot, but Chris,
Chris was in it and he was amazing.
Yeah.
Having known people like that is so beneficial in your life that they, they're
not just like inspirational.
It's like a mental fuel, a type of, a type of nutrient almost.
It's like having a person that you know exists, that's been through something,
has come out amazing and is so not tied down to anyone's specific identity, has
varied interests, pursues them all with passion.
Having mentors.
Yes.
It's like, it's like, you know, how are you going to be a samurai if you don't
know a samurai?
Right.
You know, and you got to see the way they tie their shoes.
You got to see the way they make dinner.
You don't just got to see the fancy sword play.
That stuff is hard earned.
And so I'm not scared of that.
You know, you don't, you don't have to hero worship people.
You don't have to turn them into deities.
They're human beings.
But when you get to experience and see that people like, oh, you don't have to
lie.
I knew a guy once who didn't lie.
You know, you don't have to back down when somebody says that.
I watched a person not back.
You can be a good parent.
You can have your parent, your children say, I love my dad.
It's not going to come easy, but it can be done.
And, and so I like heroes.
I have no, I like, I also like seeing older people.
You know, there's not, not the fixation on the 23 year old James Dean.
You know, but a fixation on, you know, the 72 year old Chris Christopherson,
you know,
you know, pick whoever yours are.
There's, you know, Muhammad Ali.
I mean, there's so many amazing people that you can say like, wow, life was not
always a
picnic for them.
How did they handle it?
And then you cannot be, you know, too upset when life's not a picnic for you.
You can just ask yourself, how did you handle it?
Yeah.
I don't think there's anything wrong with really appreciating people.
That concern of hero worship is legitimate because I think there are some
people that
will take a person and change who they are and make them not just extraordinary,
but not
even human.
Yeah.
That's a mistake.
It is a mistake, but it doesn't mean you can't love and deeply appreciate who
they actually
are flaws and all because that's what we all are.
And when someone is extraordinary and they have gone through so much or they
have expressed
so much and they do resonate with you so much, that's a valuable person and you
should treat
them like they're a valuable person.
It's not necessarily hero worship.
It's just appreciation.
Yeah.
Like I'll tell you, I don't know why it just flashed through my brain and when
I was making
this film, Chelsea Wallace, you have to understand like digital video, it just
came out.
This movie, The Celebration, this Danish film, amazing movie, Thomas Vinterberg
directed it.
And it just kind of changed the rules.
The camera was cheap.
Like movies were always so expensive to make.
And now you could just, and I was like, all right, I want, I made this movie
for $100,000
in 2000.
And I was like, all right, we're just going to play with this new camera.
And I talked Chris Christofferson into being, he was my hero and he can't, he
agreed to do
it.
I couldn't believe it.
You know, he shows up on the set and I had this elaborate shot I had planned.
I'd found this apartment that was me.
I hope this isn't boring, but I think it's, it's a funny story.
So it's my first day with Chris and I'm really trying to impress him.
Like I've, I've ripped this shot off from this French film I've seen.
It's amazing.
You're going to come into, you're going to, he, his character orders a bottle
of whiskey
and the guy delivers a bottle of whiskey to the room.
And in my idea, from this apartment, you could walk from the living room into
the bedroom and
from the bedroom to the bathroom and then out of the bathroom into the kitchen.
And then the kitchen opened back up into the living room.
It was one of those New York city square apartments in the Chelsea hotel, right?
And I showed him this path I wanted him to take and he was going to turn on the
lights
in this room and he was going to put on a cowboy hat while he's talking on the
phone.
He's going to look in the mirror and point the thing and he's going to walk in
the bathroom
and flick that light on and then slam the mirror shut and then walk out and
then sit down
in the kitchen right where he was, pop open the whiskey and pour himself a
glass, right
as he says the last line of the monologue.
And he looks at me and he goes, are you an alcoholic?
And I was like, uh, no, no, not really.
No.
He goes, I'm an alcoholic.
I said, oh, okay.
His character's name was Bud.
He says, Bud's an alcoholic.
I'm like, yeah.
He goes, so you mean to tell me I order a bottle of whiskey?
I'm about to fall off the wagon and I don't open the fucker until I walk
through this room,
turn on a light, try on a cowboy hat, flip on a light, slam a mirror and then
sit down.
I was like, well, I think it would be a great shot.
And he's like, Ethan, there is no way in hell that I can remember all those
lines and do
all that that you're asking me.
That shot will never work.
So what I think is Bud's an alcoholic and he's going to get his bottle.
He's going to open it and I'm going to sit down, say my monologue and drink my
whiskey.
Okay, great.
Let's do that.
There's also the terror of someone you deeply admire not liking your idea.
Yeah, which is your whole body just shrivels up, you know.
You didn't see the Godard film.
I don't give a shit about the Godard film.
There's no way I'm going to remember those lines.
But then to finish it, I'll say when he wrapped the movie, he was getting, he
said his goodbyes
and everything.
He was getting in the elevator to leave and I ran out and I said to him, I said,
hey, listen,
you know, you've given so much this whole project and I know that.
But, you know, this whole crew's working for free, right?
And could I beg you, would you come in and sing one song for us, just like,
just for the
crew, for me?
Is there any way you'd do that?
And he said, yeah, you got a guitar.
I said, I do, I do.
So he sat down and he proceeded to tell this elaborate story that I'm sure he's
told a
thousand times, but it was such a gift.
The room, he sat and told a story about how he met Janice Joplin in the
elevator of this
very building.
And we, and she fucked me about four minutes later.
And I played her this song and he's playing, you know, busted flat in Baton
Rouge, waiting
for a train.
I was feeling about his fate.
Right.
In the whole crew, everybody's crying.
Everybody's so happy.
I mean, he was just, he was that giving, you know, to, to everybody and
understood what
it would mean to this group of young artists, you know?
And so, but he wasn't perfect.
He was a real dude with real issues and, you know, and I loved him.
Yeah, he was, I mean, you think about what he did and all the different songs
that he
performed and movies he was in and different things that he did.
That was an extraordinary life.
Yeah.
I'll stop in one second.
But for some of you, yeah, I think you'll love this.
Apparently the legend, Johnny Cash used to say that, you know, that song Sunday
morning
coming down.
I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head.
That didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast, it wasn't bad.
So I had one more for dessert.
Great song.
Okay, so Johnny Cash had a number one single out of this song and Johnny Cash
would tell
the story how Chris was flying helicopters offshore oil and he landed in Johnny
Cash's front yard
with a beer in one hand and the song in the other on his helicopter and said,
damn it, you
got to listen to my song.
And I listened to it and went straight to number one.
That's the story that, you know, Cash would tell.
And I asked Chris about it and he said, have you ever flown a such and such
chopper?
And I said, no, I haven't.
He goes, there ain't no way in hell you can fly that thing with beer in one
hand and a
cassette in the other.
He said, that story, I don't know where he came up with that story.
He's just trying to help out my career and make a legend out of me too.
But no, no, I just, I sent it to him via airmail.
For a person that watches movies, I've done a small amount of acting, but I'm
not good
at it.
For a person who watches movies, there's a thing that happens like a hypnosis
when someone
is a really good actor, where they become that person.
And even though I know it's Ethan Hawke, I know it's fill in the blank, Daniel
Day-Lewis.
I know, I know who it is, but it's not them at this moment.
They're so good that they've convinced me that they're this other person.
What is that?
Because there are moments where I see a good actor and I say, I don't believe
them.
I don't, I think they're phoning it in.
They're saying it the right way, but there's just something in the air.
There's a missing connection.
And it is the key to a great movie.
The key to a great movie is everybody has to be in that fucking weird zone,
that weird zone
where you become a different person.
You used the essential word in your first sentence, which is hypnosis.
I mean, I've spent my life studying what you just talked about.
And when you're acting with Denzel Washington, the power and strength and
completeness of his imagination is hypnotizing.
And it's an invitation to join him.
And a great film is a collective imaginative experience.
When you watch The Godfather, you're not fucking thinking about Al Pacino or
James Conner.
You think about Michael and Sonny and Tom and, you know, Vito.
I remember I watched The Godfather.
I felt like I'd see those guys at the Knick game tomorrow.
That's how much, you're not thinking about the music.
You're not thinking about the shots.
You know, it's all one thing.
All these disparate elements turn into one fist.
You cannot do it alone.
But the best people I've worked with, it's like, the easiest example to show,
like, for anybody, when you go to a concert, every now and then it happens, the
performer hypnotizes you.
And you disappear.
Yeah.
You're inside those songs.
Yeah.
You know, you're not talking about those songs.
You're not looking at them.
You're not listening.
You are inside the song.
You're inside a dream.
And bad acting for me is glib.
Bad acting is commenting on the song.
Bad acting is slightly, the feeling you're talking about is when somebody's
slightly outside of it.
It's very, very hard to do.
And a lot of people study it and work on it.
And voice and speech is a huge, I mean, this stuff is very, it's way more
interesting to me than it would be to our audience here today.
But it's like all these elements of what creates hypnosis.
If I, if you were, if we're talking about the violin, there are ways to
practice the violin.
And I'm not going to make somebody a virtuoso, but I can, if I'm an expert
violin, help you be better.
And I think the same is true for acting.
Acting is an art form.
It's beautiful.
It's some weird collage of where performance and writing and all these elements,
music, all, it's all a part of it.
And when it's happening, it's all effortless.
And there's a lot of work you can do to inch it to being easier and to inch
your scene partner into being easier in the ways that they can help you.
And there's ways that they can ruin it.
They can break the dream.
But when it's good, it is like diving into a dream.
And it's a feeling that I got for the first time when I was 18 years old,
acting in Dead Poets Society.
And it is a feeling that it was seconds long.
I mean, it was not much, but a feeling of disappearing.
And that's the irony I always feel about acting is that, you know, people think
about actors and they see these pictures on the red carpet or something.
They think that's what acting is, you know.
What it really is, it's a life that's completely antithetical to that of trying
to disappear.
It feels like the celebration of the self, the celebration of the personality.
But when you're doing a scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman, you know, it's not
Phil that's talking to you.
You know, it's like, you know, in the cartoon when the eyes go all squirrely.
And then all of a sudden, I'm not me.
And if I've done my work right, all of a sudden I'm saying what's coming out of
my mouth is what I prepared.
What's coming out of my pocket is what I prepared.
The way I'm moving is what I'm prepared.
And I'm not thinking about it.
It's like watching a great athlete.
When a great athlete makes a behind-the-back pass to the guy at the perfect
second, he's not thinking, oh, I've got a cool idea.
I'm going to throw it behind my back and I'll catch him right as he's in stride.
It's years of practice that have let them know that I know where he is because
where else would he be?
Right.
You know, and things that are at first difficult become easy.
And then you can even get better from there and get better from there.
But that's the difference.
People talk about, you know, I love Daniel Day-Lewis, too.
I think he's kind of the high-water mark of my trade.
And, you know, you hear these stories about what he does and people say, well,
is that what you're supposed to do?
And the thing about when people say method acting is they really don't
fundamentally understand what the method is.
The method is an invitation to find out for yourself what will unlock your
imagination.
And that might be going hungry for two weeks.
That might be sleeping in a jail cell.
It might be reading 25 books about it.
It might be wearing a weird headpiece.
It's not a rule.
It's about how to unlock what's in here and bring it forward.
That's what the greats do.
And find that zone.
This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats.
Every football season, the same thing happens.
The game somehow makes everyone really hungry.
Quarterback scrambles, clearly a sign.
It's time for breakfast burritos.
Turnovers, suddenly.
Dessert at 2 p.m.
Doesn't sound so crazy.
And wing formations, well, those can only mean buffalo wings, as if they're
ever not in play.
Even the goal posts start looking suspiciously like french fries.
It's almost like football is sending the message to eat more food.
The good news, Uber Eats makes those cravings easy to satisfy with game day
deals all season long.
From wings and pizza to chips and drinks, even last minute grocery runs.
You'll find savings on all your favorites delivered straight to your door.
Order now on Uber Eats.
And when you're watching a movie, it does the exact same feeling like I'm there
with you.
Whatever you're experiencing when you are in that zone and you really are that
person, I'm not just saying, oh, he really is that person.
I'm with you.
I'm with you in the moment.
I feel your anxiety.
The scene in the – goddammit, I forget the name of it.
The film you did with Julia Roberts, the dystopian end of civilization movie.
Yeah, exactly.
Now that you said it, it went out of my head, too.
It's a great movie.
All the Teslas crash.
Yeah, with Mahershala Ali and I.
Leave the world behind.
Leave the world behind.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That's embarrassing for me.
I'm supposed to know.
But when you said you couldn't remember it, then all of a sudden it went out of
my head.
It's less embarrassing for me now that you didn't remember it.
Because I was like, shit, I've got to remember the name.
The scene where you go up to the guy's house and he pulls a gun on you.
Yeah.
I'm right there with you.
I'm like, oh, shit.
It was a great scene.
It was a –
Kevin Bacon, yeah.
Phenomenal performance because I fucking believed you.
I believed him.
I believed you.
I believed it was happening.
And I was like, oh, shit.
It was, oh, shit.
It wasn't like, oh, these guys are acting.
That's Kevin Bacon.
That scene is exactly what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
Because that's Mahershala Ali, Kevin Bacon, and myself in a very well-written
scene.
And those two guys are so easy to act with.
They are so –
It is so easy to disappear with them.
We did that scene over and over and over again, 15,000 different ways, and blah,
blah, blah.
And it was always – I always loved it.
And, you know, I did –
I had a temper tantrum that day on set.
But I – because your body –
You're winding your body up in such a way that it's like an emotional currency
or something.
You have this thing you're going to spend, but you have – your body doesn't
know it's fake.
And if you do it right, you trick your body into believing that I'm begging for
my child's life.
I'm not acting.
I'm begging Kevin Bacon for my child's life.
And he's going to decide whether or not my child gets to live.
Right?
And if you can get that going, shit starts to happen to you.
Right?
Things you don't plan.
And if Kevin is good, which he is, and Mahershala is good, then they're doing
the same thing.
Right?
If he gives me this thing that I need, he's putting his wife at risk.
He's not going to do it.
I don't care about your kid.
You know?
And then Mahershala's got his character in his head.
And then all of a sudden, people are actually behaving.
They're not reciting lines.
They're not – it's like I did one of my earlier movies with a wolf.
Right?
It was the best acting teacher I ever had, this wolf.
Because there was this movie called White Fang.
Right?
Little Disney kids movie.
Right?
But it was a great teacher.
Because I had to do these scenes with this half-breed wolf.
And if I'm – if you're the wolf, right?
And we're doing a scene together.
And what I'm really thinking about is the camera.
You know?
The wolf turns around and looks at the camera.
Mmm.
You know?
You know – when you meet somebody and you know they're self-conscious.
Right?
You know, why is she so tense?
You don't – you just – we're nonverbal.
We can communicate with each other.
Animals pick up on it instantly.
If I'm actually talking to the dog, the wolf, if I'm actually in – if I'm
present with this animal, the animal interacts with me.
You know?
Mmm.
And –
Especially a wolf.
Especially a wolf.
Yeah.
Damn thing bit me.
There it is.
Bit me that day.
Did it really?
Yeah.
Hard?
Yeah.
Why'd it bite you?
All right.
This is one of the best days of filming in my life.
No kidding.
All right?
Which is that amazing animal trainer.
Clint Rao was his name.
And we wanted to – it was a scene where I'm getting the wolf to trust me.
And it's going to eat out of my hand for the first time.
And so Clint had this amazing idea.
It's like, what if – you could see even from that shot how far – that's a
long lens, that thing.
They put me on a little tiny island where two – you know, like some – two
rivers, fork.
And so there's a little island of land right there.
And so we put – see this wolf surrounded by water, right?
And I – this is flame.
This isn't the animal that I knew really well.
But the way to get it to look like it is we have to not know each other.
And I spent all day out there with this wolf.
And whenever the camera started thinking I might have a chance of getting to
pet him, they would start rolling.
And I just talked to the wolf and I'd walk around and play.
And I just had to try to be real with him.
And he started to like me.
I'll show – it's not boring.
And this – I'm getting close because he's starting to like me.
We've been playing a lot.
And he comes over and – okay, you'll see – you'll see him bite me if you
want.
But amazing, amazing animal.
But the point I'm trying to say is I – I sat out there for 11 hours with this
starving wolf.
Right?
Trying to get him to eat.
Ready, ready, and –
Ouch!
Okay?
That wasn't that bad.
It wasn't that bad.
Well, it bled, Joe.
Did it really?
Yeah.
Sharp teeth.
But it didn't look like he was trying to hurt you.
No, no, he wasn't.
That's what I mean.
He wasn't.
He was – and so – and by the end of the day, check this out, man.
I mean, it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.
I know it's a corny kids movie or whatever.
But –
But it's a real wolf and he doesn't know he's acting.
Yeah, and he doesn't know he's acting.
Yeah.
Right?
And so I got to be real.
And – I mean, I wept when that dog died, you know.
Because – and I think about that scene when I'm doing anything, you know,
about being present.
Right, and that's a –
If I'm trying to get the shot, the dog is not going to eat out of my hand.
If I actually want to say, hey, yo, you can trust me.
Right.
You know, I'd have to give up for hours, you know, and just sit there and –
we didn't have a phone.
I'd just sit there and whittle or something and walk over there, toss rocks for
a little bit until he got – you know.
It was such a fascinating experience.
Wow.
Well, that's – yeah, you can't act, right?
Because he's going to know.
And you never can.
You never can.
You never can.
You never can.
Yeah.
And one of the things about, you know, there's a handful – Laurie Metcalf
comes to the line, Denzel Washington, Sally Hawkins, Laura Linney.
There's a handful.
I mean, I could – a bunch of them.
Philip Seymour Hoffman.
There's a lot of great actors I've worked with in my life.
And what's so wonderful about them is if you start acting, what are you doing?
It's just this kind of sense.
Why?
Yeah.
Something smells weird.
Right.
Phil is the best at it.
Because it wasn't – it wouldn't just be about you.
Phil was amazing.
You'd sit down to do a scene with him, and he'd be running it and stuff, and he'd
just – what is it?
Something smells bad.
What is it?
Is it you or is it me?
I don't know, man.
Is the cup – is the cup wrong?
Should I be sitting over there?
What smells wrong?
Something's fake.
What is it?
What's fake?
Pace it up.
Let's try pacing it up.
He said, nah, that's not it.
Still bad.
All right.
Let me try this.
And then, boom, the next day he'd scream at you or something.
And everything would shift.
And, you know, the smell would change in the room.
Yeah.
And it was like he – it's like we're just shaking out what is self-conscious.
Something is self-conscious here.
Somebody's posing.
Is it me?
Is it you?
Is it the fucking prop?
Is the table wrong?
I don't believe this scene.
And what it means is when you're watching the movie, you, the paying audience,
aren't going to be able to disappear.
Something – you know, haven't you ever seen – you see a movie sometime and
you're like, why is she wearing that red jacket?
Who thought that was a good idea?
And all you're thinking about is a red jacket.
It's just wrong.
I don't know why it's wrong, but everybody knows it.
It's like hitting the wrong note.
I don't necessarily notice with clothes because I'm not very clothes-conscious.
But I do notice what you're saying about self-consciousness, and I don't
understand what it is.
It's like this untouchable, unweighable, unmeasurable element that just exists.
And we know it.
We know it's real.
Don't you feel it in here?
Yeah.
When somebody's being phony with you?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, 100%.
Somebody has a big agenda about what they want to accomplish on your show or
something like that.
Oh, for sure.
Especially political people or people that have some sort of a controversial
technology that really probably should be regulated.
I think what we're going to be able to do is amazing things for humanity.
And they get that tone in their voice.
That Charlie Brown, wah, wah, wah voice.
Well, there's just an air of bullshit, and I don't know what that is.
But it exists in acting.
It certainly exists in comedy, too.
I always say that when I watch a great comic on stage, they take me on a ride.
Like, I let them think for me.
I'm sitting down.
Think for me.
You're thinking for me.
And when someone's thinking for you, it's just like you're free to explore
their mind.
And if they're self-conscious, you'll feel it.
Like, I see someone tense.
Like, I have a club, a comedy club in town.
And when new people audition there or perform there, you fucking feel the
nerves.
You feel the nerves.
And I'm always like, just give them a few minutes, let them shake it out.
Just let them shake that.
It's so hard when so much is on the line to not be self-conscious, to be
present.
But you're smart to give them space.
That's always what I feel.
Just give me space.
Give me space.
Give me space to be bad.
Yeah.
I need space to be bad.
And it's kind of like in basketball, you've got to touch the ball.
Let me touch the ball.
Let me make the list of it.
Well, we've all been bad.
So it doesn't mean he can't be good.
When I see someone on stage and they're self-conscious and clunky, I'm like,
this is a process.
This is not like a rocket that when you screw in the last rivets, you're ready
to light the fuse.
I love watching an actor I admire be bad.
I love it.
I love it.
Because it's not a science.
Right.
It's not a science.
Sometimes you've got to take a shot and sometimes you miss.
Well, and sometimes you're going through a divorce or you've got a fucking drug
problem.
Or the director's an asshole.
Or they change the script the other day.
Or you hate the DP.
The producer's a douchebag.
But I always tell my kids who are really interested in my profession or any
young actor is like, I call that permission to fail.
I don't give anybody.
I don't have permission to fail.
I don't care if you don't like the first AD.
I don't care if you don't like this.
Cannot give them that ability.
I still fail.
I'm not saying that.
But I don't want to seed it.
But that takes time.
I spent the first 15 years of my career saying I didn't do a good job because
that guy was a jerk.
Or I didn't do a good job because they changed the script.
Or I didn't do a good job because of this, that, and the other thing.
Then you see people, like back to our hero thing, you know, then you see people
who are really good and they don't, they don't, Robert De Niro doesn't give
somebody the ability to screw up his work day.
They don't have that power.
They don't have that power.
They don't have that power.
He takes responsibility for that power.
Is that a learned thing?
Or is that, you could certainly learn some of it from watching other people,
but is that just an experience thing?
I think it's the right manifestation of confidence, right?
Young people have to fake confidence.
They just have to.
When you watch a young person in your club, they've got to fake it.
Of course, they're going to have to burn through their nerves.
They're going to have to.
But once you have experience, you can have real confidence because you've
fought this battle before.
I know, I have a certain, if I'm overwhelmed with, if my nervous system is at
war with myself, I have a certain process.
I can, I've walked these woods before, you know, I know why I'm lost and I know
what I need to do.
And it doesn't mean I'll always work through it, but I'm much more likely to
than I was 20 years ago.
Yeah.
It's knowing that it's this process, when you watch younger people do it, do
you ever, like, are you ever working with a young person and it's not clicking
somehow and you're trying to figure out how to help them?
Like, is there a thing you can say to them?
Is there, can you just do it by example only?
Well, example's the best.
The best teacher's example.
Unasked for advice is never heard from.
The problem with young people is they don't often ask for advice.
Right.
They think they're trying so hard to pretend like they know everything that
they feel like to ask advice is.
I kind of feel like that's a generalization, though, because I do know a lot of
young people that do ask advice.
All right.
Well, one of the, my, my thing is I can't, I cannot believe the amount of young
people who show up on set with their phone.
Oh, yeah.
And what you were saying about hypnosis, let me tell you what's a destroyer of
collective imagination.
Yeah.
Is our phones.
I was reading an article today, and I think it was psychology today, about a
study that they've done recently on the impact of social media on cognitive
function for children.
And that it's just fucking nuking their brain.
How old are your kids?
I have a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old and a 28-year-old.
So what is your, like, because my wife and I go through this all the time.
They want it so bad.
And you, as a parent, you want them to be happy.
And all their friends have Instagram.
I know it destroys my brain.
Yeah.
How could it not hurt theirs?
I find my own powers of concentration are suffering.
I'll be reading a book, which I used to do all the time, and every 10 pages I
take a break to look at my phone.
What's happening?
Why am I doing this?
Right.
You know, what?
So, but they want it so bad.
Yeah.
And I want them to be, how do you handle that?
I do not put restrictions on my children's use of social media, but we do have
discussions about it.
Because I think it is an inexorable part of modern society, and I think there
is a social ostracization that comes from eliminating social media, telling
your kid they can't have a phone.
I see it in other kids.
I don't think that's the solution.
My daughter is loving you right now.
Ha!
She is just like, see, because she says, let me be, teach me to be responsible
for it myself.
Yes.
Help me do that.
That's what I believe.
And, you know, when we were thinking about what restrictions we were going to
do, we went on this walk with this really good friend of mine.
Richard Linklater is an amazing person, and they tried to, my daughters hit him
up of what he thinks.
He said, I don't know, all I know is that the most important thing is to be
your own best friend, and that this is a slight obstacle to it, that boredom,
boredom and sitting still with yourself is a membrane you kind of have to pass
through.
And if you can make best friends with yourself, then your best friend is always
with you.
And so that's been my solution, too, is to say, all right, let's all, there
aren't limitations, but let's all sit down and look at, I'll show you how much
I looked at it.
How much did you look at it?
How are we doing?
Do you feel, is it helping?
Is it hurting?
Because what you're a thousand percent right about is it's part of the social
structure of their lives.
Yeah.
And to isolate them from it is to, has, has, you can't pretend that doesn't
have negative side effects.
Well, one of my children, well, both of my children, my young children are very
disciplined, and one of them just opted out, just decided she's not going to
get on social media anymore.
And she got this app, and this is, nobody forced her to do this.
She got this app that locks you out, and it shows you how many days you've been
off of Instagram, sort of, sort of incentivize you, you know, to stay off of it.
You know, the last time she checked, she'd been off, like, 99 days or something
like that.
No Instagram, no nothing.
But it is addictive.
And, but there's a lot of things in life that are addictive.
And so the question is, like, how addictive is it?
Like, what is calling you to get nothing?
Because that's what you get.
You get nothing.
You get these, like, tiny dopamine hits, like, staring at something for a few
seconds, like, that's provocative, or that's crazy.
Like, why is he saying that?
Or why is that happening?
Oh, my God, they're going to die.
You know, like, what?
I have this terrible text thread between me and my friend Tom Segura where we
send each other the absolute worst things that we find online every day.
Like, every day it's a guy getting run over by a train, car accidents, gunshots,
South American assassinations.
It's just all, every day, it's all the worst things you could possibly find on
the internet.
There's no good in that, you know?
We do that to fuck with each other because it's kind of funny because he's a
comedian, too, and we just fuck with each other.
It's just, like, silly.
Like, oh, boy.
Like, he sends me things and I send him things.
But for the most part, I get nothing.
It's mostly nothing.
Occasionally.
I say it's like, as a, I make this excuse, like, as a comic, oh, I need to be
up on the zeitgeist.
I need to be paying attention to what people are paying attention to.
But you kind of get it anyway.
You kind of get it anyway just through life, and it's better that way because
then you only get the real significant things.
You don't get the, you don't have to sift through everything.
It's like you have a filter.
Society acts as your filter to get you the most pertinent information.
But I think leading by example with kids is the best way with everything.
My kids are both very disciplined.
They get a lot of things done, and they work really hard, which I'm very proud
of.
They're also really nice, which I'm also very proud of.
I think that's like the hardest fucking thing to do is just be nice, to be a
kind person.
The worst thing for kindness is social media.
Children in particular are so fucking mean to each other on social media.
They're so mean to each other in comments, and they talk about how one of their
friends is getting bullied,
and this person is doing this, and they're leaving comments on this, and from a
rival high school, and a this and a that.
But I also think that that process of understanding that this, there is this
bizarre social interaction that's not real,
that is a part of life, and that you have to develop a resilience to this.
Getting tough is important.
Like I think one of the, one of the things kids are experiencing now is what I
experienced with the first blush of celebrity.
I mean, you want to talk about negative comments, try being an actor.
Everybody's got an opinion about what a fake you are, what a phony you are,
this sucks about you, this is dumb, this is what you're like.
You know, it's, I have lost unbelievable, ridiculous amount of hours to, my
mother will send me a really nice review of something, something positive about
me, right?
I'll look at it, and my brain goes, what are the comments?
Nasty.
I mean, just the nastiest things, and you can't believe that some, but I don't
want to, you know, give it too much time, but I actually think it really makes
you stronger to realize, of course people don't like you.
Over time, it will make you stronger.
It's fine, they don't like you.
Guess what?
Half the people, every party you went to didn't like you, okay?
But they're also not thinking very much about you.
They're thinking about themselves.
And you start to realize that this is just people talking at the barbershop.
People have been gossiping their whole, throughout the history of mankind.
Now you can read it if you want, but it has no venom in it.
It's not real.
And the sooner you learn that other people's opinions don't have to affect you,
I think the better off you are.
So in that way, eh, it hurt me.
I've seen it happen to actors, especially if you're doing stage.
I'm sure with comics, when you're doing a play, and you have to do it every
night, and you start reading a lot of bad things that people say about you,
it is demolishing to your confidence.
You know, I mean, I had this actor, a friend of mine, we shared a dressing room,
and one day he came in, and he was great in the show.
And he came in, and just his whole energy was dark.
I was like, yeah, right?
He was like, I went down the rabbit hole last night.
I just read what people are saying about me on the internet.
And everybody thinks I'm terrible in this play.
And I'm like, they don't like your character.
You know, like, people are not so brilliant, you know?
There's no geniuses out there chiming in on what a jerk you are at three in the
morning.
Right.
Okay?
Right.
So you don't have to take it seriously.
But, you know, it took him weeks to get his mojo back.
Because he would step out on stage just imagining this chorus of hate.
I had the exact same conversation last night with a famous comedian friend of
mine.
Really?
I won't say his name.
But he went down a Reddit rabbit hole the other night.
I don't do it anymore.
I don't do it.
He goes, I fucked up, and I went down this rabbit hole.
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
No good comes from it.
And he was like, they fucking hate me.
I go, no, no, no.
They hate themselves.
They hate everything.
There's no, like, Michael Jordan's not leaving Reddit comments.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Like, these aren't winners.
These are fucking people that are not doing what they want to be doing.
And they want to hate on everybody that's out there.
That's out there in the public eye.
And some of it is valid.
You know, the really, the scary hate is when you get hate, like, from Quentin
Tarantino,
where he's going off on that guy from Dano.
But, you know, that's a great lesson.
It is, actually.
There's a great lesson.
You know what?
I don't think Paul Dano ever knew that so many people loved him.
Right.
Here's the thing, out of nowhere.
Because so many people defended him.
Yeah.
Right, right, right.
Out of nowhere.
Paul Dano's just going about his life.
He's got to wake up one morning and find out this director's just went off on
him and saying
these hateful things.
But anybody that knows Quentin knows he just talks, talks, talks, talks, talks,
talks,
talks, right?
Anybody that knows Paul knows he's a great world-class human being.
And, you know, and all this love for Paul's coming out.
And it's a great lesson in that.
You don't have to worry about the negativity that people send your way.
You don't have to worry about it at all.
Even from one of the greatest actors or one of the greatest directors of all
time.
Yeah, yeah, it's okay.
And guess what?
Every, you know, I'm positive, positive.
There are great directors that think I suck.
I'm positive.
Quentin at least says the, you know, he just says whatever comes into his mind.
I remember once I met, I met some director, I won't say his name, at a bar.
It was a dive bar in New York.
I said, but he's a really famous big shot director.
He's sitting there and he'd just seen my most recent movie.
He's like, you know, you were pretty good in that one.
And in the comment was, the subtitle underneath it was, I have hated you for 27
years.
That's, it was so clear, you know.
The hypnosis came through.
Yeah.
I mean, it was so clear.
I was like, wow, wow.
Well, no wonder you've never offered me a movie.
And directors have opinions, right?
They have super strong opinions.
What do they have a strong opinions about?
Acting.
And, you know, he's talking about the movie he would have directed.
Okay.
He's not talking about Paul Dano.
He's talking about something else.
Like you said about the thing, they're talking about themselves.
Obviously, whenever anybody says something hateful, they're talking about
themselves.
100%.
That's who they're talking.
And the punchline to this whole thing is, you know, I've worked with Paul a
couple different times and I love the guy.
And I'm so happy for him.
Immediately, every other comment everywhere, somebody's saying something great
about Paul Dano.
Yeah, the majority, the vast majority of comments were really positive about
him.
And I went and re-watched the scene because of it.
He was fucking great in it.
Oh, he's a great actor.
I thought he played a great, like that guy.
It's not up for debate.
It's, you know, it's not up for debate.
I'm sure if you were alone drinking with Steven Spielberg, he'd shock you with
some opinion.
You know, he hates Orson Welles or something like that.
You know what I mean?
I mean, we wouldn't be a good director if he wasn't opinionated.
Of course.
You know, it doesn't mean he's the truth.
Of course.
It's just the opening up your vulnerability to the masses in the most trivial
and flippant ways of commenting,
which is like leaving a comment on a YouTube video or something like that.
It's just not wise.
It's not good.
Especially if you actually let it get into your psyche and you take it in as
real.
Because we are designed to recognize threats, danger, negativity, because it's
important.
Sorry to cut you off.
No, go ahead.
But that's the truth.
Yeah.
The reason why it hurts me when it comes is exactly what you...
I'm worried they're going to take my career away.
I love what I do.
If I do a big movie and I really work hard and the New York Times or the L.A.
Times says he sucks,
I don't really care about that critic's opinion.
Yeah.
I care.
Is this going to stop me from doing what I love?
Because I know it's fragile.
I know that there are a million talented people.
Right?
Yeah.
I know that.
I know that I'm lucky.
I know that I'm fortunate.
So it is scary.
It is a threat.
Right?
I mean, but it is...
But you got to get tough.
I'm sorry I cut you off and I didn't really have a good point.
No, no.
It's fine.
But you know what I mean?
Yeah, you do.
And I mean, I don't want to be cruel, but also, this is how I feel.
Critics in particular, I do not think they want to be critics.
And I feel like most people who become critics become critics because they don't
have anything
to contribute.
They're not great writers or they never developed the ability to be a great
writer or they never
pursued it or whatever it is.
They don't.
They're not great actors.
They're just criticizing.
Criticizing, like criticizing from Quentin Tarantino is a very different thing
than a criticism
that comes from a person that's just a critic.
And I remember I had this, there was this moment when Fear Factor came out.
Like Fear Factor is a fucking completely idiotic show.
It's just, that's all it is, is just escapism.
It's chaos.
People doing stupid shit for money.
This is crazy.
This is nuts.
Oh my God.
Are they really going to do this?
Ah!
And maybe you get something out of the end, like that guy pulled it out or she
did it.
She didn't want to do it.
She faced the snakes.
Yeah, but it's really, usually like the end thing is like something physical.
But Fear Factor came out right after 9-11.
That's when it came out.
And one of the criticisms was, do you really think America needs to be facing
fear after
we just experienced September 11th terrorist attack?
And I got this question in an interview and, you know, my perspective on Fear Factor
in
the beginning was, I'm only doing this because I think it's going to get
canceled.
I'm like, I'll get some material out of this.
I'm like, they're going to stick dogs on people and make them eat animal dicks.
I'm in.
I'm like, this is going to get canceled in like fucking three weeks and I'm
going to have
a bit on how fucking stupid this show was.
And it wound up doing like 168 episodes.
It was ridiculous.
And I said, and I got upset in this interview.
I go, that's just ridiculous.
Like they were questioning me whether or not America needs to be scared after 9-11.
I'm like, it's not fucking scary.
And I'm like, what are you talking?
You're making something into something it's not just so that you can write an
article.
This is nonsense.
And I go, that kind of criticism is the type of criticism from a person where I'm
not interested
in your opinion.
I don't think you're a particularly unique thinker and you're saying something
that's nonsense.
It's nonsense.
It's a stupid show.
I'll tell you it's a stupid show and it's my fucking show.
I don't care.
It's just entertainment.
That's all it is.
And I think the people that write this are writing this in that way because you
don't
have anything to contribute.
And I met that person at a party.
There was one of those, you know, they have like, if you're on a television
show, they
have those NBC things where you go and it's like, there's all these different
reporters
and all the actors from all the shows are there.
And the guy was like, you know, I got to tell you, that really pissed me off.
I go, why?
Because it's accurate.
I go, what pissed you off?
I go, you say horrible, hurtful things about all these different people and the
course of
their career is dependent upon your opinions to a certain extent.
You could shape other people's narratives about who this actor is, about who
this person is.
And you just do it because you don't have anything else to contribute.
And so when I said you don't have anything else to contribute, that hurt your
feelings.
That's why it pissed you off.
It didn't piss you off because I wasn't accurate.
And we had this like weird moment, you know, where he was like taken into
consideration what
I was saying.
And he was like, okay.
And I go, I'm not a bad guy.
I don't think you're a bad guy.
But you have to realize there's weight to your words.
And I realized there's weight to my words.
That's why I lashed out like that.
I think this is stupid.
I'll tell you this show is stupid.
It's a stupid show.
We're not making fucking Shakespeare in the park, bro.
We're making people like lying up, coughing, filled with rats.
It's retarded.
But it's okay.
It's okay to have dumb shit.
It's okay to have burgers.
It's okay to have, you know, filet mignon in a fine restaurant.
Absolutely.
All these things are okay.
Like, but call it what it is.
If you want to say it's a dumb show, I'm right there with you.
But if you want to say like, this is bad for America because America just got
attacked by
and it's called fear fact.
Like, shut up.
Just shut up.
And I just think he didn't like the fact that I was willing.
That you were criticizing him?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I was willing to do what he does to him without fear because I had
already checked
out of acting.
I did five years on news radio and I decided I'm done acting.
I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.
I only did it for money in the first place.
I never wanted to be an actor.
The only reason why I ever got on a, I got on a sitcom with zero acting
experience.
Zero.
I mean, I had none.
How did it go?
I did, I did MTV half hour comedy hour, which was this comedy show that used to
be on MTV.
I did like a 10 minute set and I got a development deal.
I was like, what?
Like all of a sudden they gave me money.
I was poor my whole life.
And then all of a sudden I had $150,000.
I'm like, this is crazy.
I have money?
Like it was nuts.
And my manager actually thought I had a gambling problem because I was spending
so much money.
And he was like, what are you spending money?
I'm like eating lobster every night.
I was so dumb.
I thought I was just going to run out and then I go back to being poor again.
But all of a sudden I'm on this show and I'm acting and I realized at the end
of five years,
it was a wonderful job with an amazing, incredible group of talented people,
but I don't want to do it again.
It's not my thing.
I don't like it.
So when Fear Factor came up, I'm like, ooh, this is a way to make a lot of
money without doing anything that's acting.
Okay, I'll do it.
And so dealing with these people that I'd seen the impact of their words on all
the people that I worked with,
like we used to sit around, you know, you have the table reads and then people
would start reading Variety
and they'd start reading The Hollywood Reporter and all this different thing.
And they would all be super bummed out.
And I would call it the devil's rag.
So I'd go there, oh, you guys are reading the devil's rag again?
I go, fucking throw that away.
It was like the early versions of don't read the comments.
I go, you guys are reading the devil's rag.
Don't fucking read that because then they would be all bummed out.
Like, oh, they think we suck.
Like, no, they suck.
We're trying to make a good sitcom.
Let's just try harder.
The best way to not make a good sitcom is to read shitty things about you.
Definitely.
That's the surest fire way.
You're going to go in and be really bummed out.
And this constant process of dealing with other people's opinions and
especially negative opinions
from people that you don't really like in the first place.
They're not happy people.
It's such a poison for your mind.
Well, and that's why we're talking about the same thing with the internet is
figuring out a way to give it no space in your mind.
Because, you know, people are going to do what they're going to do and you're
not in charge of them.
And that's what I feel like when you absorb too much of that hate and take it
on yourself, you're forgetting that somebody writes something hateful about
somebody else, whether it's Quentin or whether it's this person or that person
or whatever.
Most people hear it and think, wow, I wonder why he said that.
What's wrong with him?
Right.
They don't think something.
Right.
So a lot of times I might take really personally something that somebody hateful
writes about me, but it's not like the world believes it.
Right.
The world has people.
Michael Jordan, who's not writing comments, might come across that and think,
God, that writer's an asshole.
That's what he's saying.
He's not thinking you're an asshole or I, you know.
Right.
If you're not saying something substantive, other people have a brain in their
head and they know it.
And so you can just ignore, I feel you can just ignore it.
I've never gained anything except perhaps the value of a thick skin from all
that.
The value of a thick skin is important, though.
And there's some value to being hurt, to taking it in and then realize it's
dangerous to take it in.
And you must know, like with your show, I imagine, I don't really understand
really how this works, but there's people who finance it and distribute it.
There's people you have to work with and they all have opinions.
And like I'm doing this show right now, The Lowdown, with FX, right?
It's the first time I've ever done a television show.
And I'm having a great experience with it.
But you have to figure out you're working with a lot of different people.
You got FX has got their opinions about how the show is and they're going to
distribute it on Hulu and they're owned by Disney and everybody.
And you have to learn how to take criticism, go all right, and also how to
stand up for yourself when you know your aim is true.
And you have to be humble enough to tell the difference because anybody who
thinks they're always right is an asshole.
Right.
So sometimes you need their help and you have things to be taught.
And sometimes you have to stand up for yourself and say, this is the kind of
art I want to make and I'm living and dying on this.
But actually what you're saying actually could help me do what I'm doing.
And the same thing with directors, if you can't, when you were talking about
advice for young people, the first thing that popped in my head is something
one of my first directors said to me, which was, he said, I was 21, I was doing
my first, I was making my Broadway debut.
And this director said, what have you done?
And I said, well, I did Explorers, you know, when I was a kid.
And I did this movie, Dead Poets Society, and I acted in this school play.
I played Tom in Glass Menagerie my senior year.
And, you know, and this director looked at me and said, so you've done nothing.
And I took offense at that.
You know, I said, I have done some things.
He said, I need you to say, I've done nothing.
I need you to say, I don't know.
And if you can say, I don't know, I can teach you.
And if you can't say, I don't know, then I really can't teach you.
And it was, my 21-year-old ego, like, was just buckling.
You know, I do know what I do, I do know what I'm doing.
And he said, you've never been on Broadway before.
You've never done Chekhov before.
And you can't say, I don't know what I'm doing.
You know, I said, I can't say that.
I don't know what I'm doing.
See, it's not that hard.
You know, because if you can say that.
I remember this, like, the first time going out surfing.
Like, somebody's trying to teach me how to surfing.
I was, like, 16.
I kept saying, I know how to do it.
I know how to do it.
I didn't know how to do it.
But I couldn't, my ego couldn't buck.
And if you can get to that Zen tabula rasa's no place, the beginner's mind.
See, now at 55, I always say, I don't know what I'm doing.
It's so easy for me to say it, you know.
It is so easy.
You know, one lifetime is not enough to know what you're doing.
There are so many more rooms.
There's so many more layers, you know.
And so that's the advice I have for young people starting with it, is to be
humble.
And admit, because you've done a handful of things, doesn't mean you know what
you're doing.
And even though I might have even had some success, I didn't know why it was
successful.
Right.
You know.
That's a great, the beginner's mind is a great point to start.
Because even if you're really good at something, like, say, you're a good piano
player and you want to learn how to play tennis, you start from a beginner's
mind.
You have to.
And if you go into that tennis lesson going, do you know how fucking good I am
at piano?
Like, don't talk to me like that.
Like, no, you don't know how to play tennis.
Let me show you how to play tennis.
Like, everyone is a beginner at a thing they don't know.
And to take on as many things as you don't know as possible to keep that
beginner's mind is actually immensely beneficial for your ego, for your objectivity,
for everything.
For everything, you could see it with somebody like you who's had a lot of
transitions in your life about different career paths and different things that
you're, that's always forcing you into a beginner's mind.
And that's, I think, I've done the same thing to myself.
You know, like, what keeps me excited is like, all right, God, I don't know.
I'm going to write a graphic novel.
I'm going to work with this guy, Greg Ruth.
He's a brilliant illustrator.
I'm going to make a graphic novel.
Now, I've never done that before.
I have no idea how a graphic novel works.
I know I've loved them my whole life, but I've never made one.
Greg has, right?
We work together.
He teach them.
Sterling Harjo with the show The Lowdown.
Boom.
I've never done a show.
He made Reservation Dogs.
He's done this.
I don't know this landscape.
And I love that feeling because I don't lose all the value of the things I do
know about.
It's all there for me.
It's all there for me.
I don't have to announce it all for everybody.
It's not going anywhere.
But if I can orient myself into learning, I like making these documentaries
because I'm not a professional documentarian.
But what's weird about it is if I do that and I get in this real kind of open
space and then I come back to acting, that beginner's mind channel is open.
And I'm available to learn something from somebody else that maybe I might.
Because one of the things I thought when I was young is I thought there was a
right way to be an actor.
And I was obsessed with somebody doing it wrong.
This director is a fucking moron and he's ruining my work, you know.
And then slowly I really realized it's just so obvious there isn't a right way
to make art.
There are successful ways and unsuccessful ways.
But I wanted everybody to be Peter Weir.
That's what I wanted.
Peter Weir had made Dead Poets Society and that's what rehearsal is supposed to
be like.
That's what the set is supposed to be like.
That's how you're supposed to talk to other people.
I didn't know my mentor was a card-carrying, awesome human being.
And I was having unrealistic expectations about other people on their path.
They haven't done all that Peter's done.
They don't know it all.
And I just, it would anger me that they weren't, you know.
And then if you can get in a kind of a more open mind, then you can really
listen to people
and absorb where they're at in their journey.
And you're not going to change them, you know.
You're not, this idea that, you know, especially in a film shoot three minutes,
you're not going to change the way they think, you know.
You've got to try to do your thing, lead by example, you know,
and try to let them not negatively impact you.
But maybe you can be open and learn something from them.
And then that whole beginner's mindset is just immensely beneficial.
Like you were saying how you carry it over to your acting.
I would recommend that with anybody who does anything.
Find another thing that you're not good at at all and get into that
because that will help you with the thing that you're good at.
And haven't you ever noticed, like, I took, it happens so often that it's funny.
Like, I take my son out to teach him how to shoot, right?
First skeet thing, you just blast it right out of the air.
Second one, blast it right out of the air, right?
You know, you teach somebody to shoot a bow or something.
First air they fly, hits the target.
Then they don't have to target again.
You know, you start thinking too much.
Right.
You know, I hear, I don't know anything about golf,
but I hear the same thing that's true with golf.
Young people are often great actors.
It's adolescence and life that makes it harder to get back to that childlike
place.
You know, and so I think I've even been talking to my wife a lot about,
I want to start trying to take piano lessons just to do something I've never
done
because I know it rattles my brain and makes my brain see things differently.
Take a new language on, learn how to play chess, do something.
Yeah.
It's hugely beneficial to be a beginner.
I think a person that only does one thing,
there's something very valuable in that too,
but do one thing, immerse yourself in that one thing and do it the best you can.
It's true.
It's true.
You know, the term kaizen,
it's a Japanese term for refining something over and over and over and over
again for decades
until you absolutely have it perfected.
And I believe in that entirely,
but I also believe that to master a craft,
you have to apprentice three or four.
That it's good for like,
I'm an actor and I'm going to die an actor and this is what I'm going to do.
And I have met older actors who are amazing,
who I know I'm not as good as.
And it kind of thrills me.
It thrills me.
There's little nuances of conversation that I don't quite understand yet,
but I know that they do and I know that they're right
and I want to understand more deeply.
And I just feel that,
I don't know, I lost my train of thought about that.
I don't know, I just totally, my computer just shut down
and I forgot what I was talking about.
It's okay.
I think more people need,
I think the problem is when you're really good at something,
you find identity in it.
Oh, that's what I was saying.
I know I want to excel at this one craft,
but I know that when I direct something,
when I write something,
if I make a graphic novel, a documentary,
I'm learning about things that are adjacent to my specialty.
And by doing that,
when I go to set and I'm talking to a writer,
I know how hard he worked on the script.
I'm not going to willy-nilly change his lines
because I'm not in the mood
or I don't like the way my hair looks or something like that.
I'm not going to do that.
I have respect for what he did.
And because I have that respect,
I can offer him my thoughts.
And we can probably get involved
in a really mutually beneficial conversation
because I've directed.
I don't look at some director and think,
well, like I did when I was younger,
he's stopping me.
I'm thinking, I know this guy's sweat this.
I know this guy picked this location for a reason.
I know this guy has a tenuous relationship
with a cinematographer.
I know the producers are breathing down his neck.
I know he's got a lot of headaches.
I'm going to help him.
And I'm going to try to find an app.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So these ancillary,
I do want to have a specialty.
But I do think learning the piano
might help me be a better actor.
Like I don't know why.
I don't know the logic behind it.
I think in particular in acting that would be true
because acting is you becoming someone else
who's in life.
And life involves a lot of different aspects.
There's a lot of different things
that go on in a human being's mind.
The more you can introduce to your mind,
the more that would help you become
a variety of different people
that you're performing as.
See, I mean, wouldn't it be phenomenal?
It'd be very weird.
But like, so you and I have been talking.
And I would venture to say,
we're doing pretty well.
Three quarters of the time,
we're completely immersed
in what we're talking about.
And then my brain,
why my computer shut down
is I start thinking about this actor
that I love, Richard Easton.
And I start thinking about
how I'm still not as good as he is.
And he's not even famous, right?
And then I couldn't remember
what I was going to say.
Yeah.
Right?
And you're talking to me about your kids
or something.
There's no way your mind doesn't drift
to something going on in your life.
And mine does too, right?
And so that's what real life is like.
And the actor's job
is to figure out the text
and have the text be so clear
and in there
that then you can figure out
all the other wavelengths.
You know,
when you're watching somebody great,
there's all these other wavelengths
that are happening.
They have nothing,
they,
it's not that they have nothing
to do with the script,
but it's like,
it's like the difference
between a sketch
and an oil painting.
You know,
the script is kind of
a beautiful sketch
and the actor's job,
director's job,
production designers,
we're turning that
into an oil painting.
And so anyway,
I'm just saying,
wouldn't it,
if I could put a subtitle
under everything
we're really thinking
while we're talking,
how different would it be
and how much more
would I learn about you
if I knew what,
you know,
what your guy's relationship
is really like?
Does he get on your nerves?
Do you hate it?
You know,
that he wears a black cap?
Do you wish he'd wear the red one?
Do you know,
you know,
you know what I'm saying?
I gotta do so much about,
when I'm in your space,
so much I don't know
about what's going on today
and what you guys
are doing later today
or how you cut the show
or what's important
to you about the show.
Well,
I forget about things
I'm talking about
all the time
because I'm trying
to lock into
the other person's brain
and sometimes I forget
what I want to say
because I'm trying to like,
I'm trying to think like you.
I'm trying to like
completely be in the moment
and think like you.
That's what I try to do.
When I'm doing,
when I'm having a conversation
with a person,
I try to be as
completely locked in
as possible.
So much so
that sometimes
I forget people's names
that I know really well.
I forget all kinds of things.
That's cool.
Because I'm not thinking
about anything else
other than
what that person's thinking
and saying
and trying to like
decipher it
and trying to like,
trying to like,
you know,
guide the conversation
in some sort of
an interesting way.
But I forget
all kinds of things.
I'll forget
important people's
phone numbers,
birthdays.
I don't remember anything.
Like so many times
I'll ask Jamie a question
like,
who is that fucking guy?
What is his fucking name?
And then I can't believe
I can't remember.
It's because I'm not there.
I'm lost
in what this person is saying.
So I have to like
sit down
and open up my files
and go,
oh,
there's all the information again.
But I'm not there.
So I can't do that.
So I gotta go,
let me go back to my desk
and I'll open up my files
and now I have my information.
But when I'm talking to you,
I'm not at my desk.
That's what it's like
for me to have a great role.
My brain
disappears
into that other psyche.
And I can kind of
do some of the normal stuff
of life,
drive my kids to school
and do some things.
But this part of me
is floating over here
imagining,
was this the right way to,
how should I wear the jacket?
Oh,
would he drive a car?
What kind of car would he drive?
Is that the right car?
Is that the right,
like,
you know,
and just my imagination
when it's really cooking
takes me away.
My favorite things about it
is I don't think about my phone.
I don't think about the emails
I didn't return.
I didn't think about
whether I forgot
so-and-so's birthday.
For this period of time,
this job is so important to me
that I'm willing to say
nothing else matters.
But doing as good as I can
in this moment.
Obviously,
it's going to matter again
when I leave the dressing room
and when I do this.
Obviously,
I'm trying to be a good adult
and father and husband
and citizen
and all that stuff.
But it gives me a space
where everything else
can disappear.
Everything else.
And that's what's so fun
about a big ensemble movie.
People may like the movie
or not like the movie,
but I did this remake
of Magnificent Seven,
right?
And when you have a big cast
and everybody's in period costume,
you know,
and everybody's on their horse
and your jacket's from 1876
and their shirt is from,
you know,
from the Civil War
or something like that.
And it's all real
and there's these old taverns built
and there's dogs on the set
and horses peeing.
You know what I mean?
It's all so real.
And my life is gone.
Yes.
And I'm just goodnight Robichaux.
Yeah.
And I've got to worry
about how many bullets
I have left in my thing.
And it's back to hypnosis.
And it's a wonderful relaxation.
And that's the strange thing about it
is it's like,
you know when you're a kid
and you first look at the stars
or the ocean or something
and you feel powerfully
your own insignificance.
And your intellectual brain
would think that that would feel bad.
Oh, if somebody told you,
hey, you're insignificant,
that feels bad.
But when you look at the stars,
it feels great.
Yeah.
And it's the same feeling of like,
why would disappearing
feels so good?
I did when I was young,
I did this play with Steve Zahn,
great actor.
Have you had Steve on your show?
No.
Oh, he's a genius
and he's so funny.
We were doing a play together
and I would say to him,
tonight's show went really good.
Did you think it went well?
Yeah, I thought it went really well.
And then the next night I come back,
tonight sucked.
Didn't it suck?
I thought it went really well.
You always think it goes really well.
He goes,
I never remember.
And the truth is,
he's so zen.
He's so in the moment,
what you're talking about
when you do comedy
or when you do your interviews.
He is so present
that he honestly doesn't remember.
And that's the trick
because he doesn't have
this huge opinion.
Yeah.
Because the opinion gets
in your way all the time.
Yes.
It really can.
Yeah.
And I think the ultimate
in the moment
for a person
that doesn't have a craft
or a thing
is staring at the stars
because you realize
you are a part of everything
and you are in this
infinite soup of existence
that all of your troubles
and it seems so insignificant
in comparison to the vastness
of what's in front of you.
And that lets your shoulders lighten up.
Yeah.
And then you can handle
what you can handle.
I've talked about this before,
but I'll tell you.
When I was younger,
when my oldest daughter was,
I think she was only
like five or six,
we went to the Keck Observatory
in Hawaii.
And I don't know
if you've ever been there.
It's on the Big Island.
But they told us,
it's like an hour and a half drive.
They told us,
when you're driving up there,
go, you know,
you're going to go to the top
and hopefully
there won't be any clouds
so you get a clear vision
of the sky.
So as we're driving up,
it's all these fucking clouds.
I'm like, oh, this sucks.
This is going to suck.
We're driving all this.
We're not going to see any stars.
We drive through the clouds
because it's really high
and you get up to the top
and you're above the clouds.
And we got out of the car
and my fucking jaw dropped.
It was nuts.
It was the craziest image.
And I've been there
three times since,
never recreated it.
There's always been cloud cover
that's higher up.
I just caught it
the first time I went there
at the absolute perfect.
It changed my life.
It changed my perspective
on the universe itself
because it felt like I was,
it felt psychedelic.
It felt like I was in a spaceship,
like a convertible spaceship
and I was looking
through the windshield
and we were flying
through the cosmos
and there was an impossible
amount of stars in the sky.
There wasn't a spot in the sky
that wasn't filled with stars.
The Milky Way was clear as day.
It was fucking bananas.
That's what it looked like.
You didn't feel
like you were on a spaceship.
You are on one.
You're on an organic spaceship.
And you realized it.
Yeah.
Look at that.
That's it?
Well, that's what it kind of looks like
but it was actually
even more profound than that.
But that is the Keck Observatory.
You know when I was telling you
about White Fang,
my experience with it?
So I was out there,
so this is 1989, right?
I'm in Haines, Alaska.
It's about 100 miles north of Juneau.
There's no internet.
The mail comes once a week on Monday.
If it's bad weather,
the mail doesn't come
until the next week, right?
I'm there for six months.
Nineteen years old.
There's nobody to talk to.
I mean, there's no co-star.
Wait, the only 19-year-old there?
Listen, the guy who was the production,
you know, the production manager
or whatever,
he was hyper AA, right?
And there's one bar in town
and he told the manager
if I was seen in there,
he would shut it down.
There was nowhere else to go.
What a dick.
I was like,
I told the guy,
I said, look,
I'm not going to drink.
I got to, like,
the stuntmen are hanging in there.
All the other actors
are hanging out in there
and I had nothing to do
because I couldn't go
in the one freaking bar, right?
And for the first three months
I was there,
it was always dark, right?
And then the second three months
it was always light
and it was just,
but anyway,
the point is,
I went on this long walk
and I saw the Aurora Borealis
by myself, you know?
And I'd see it night after night.
So I'd just see the sky rippling
and it was like
what you're talking about.
It was like,
it actually made me laugh.
Wow.
You know,
it just seemed,
it was funny.
It was like the cosmos
was teasing you going,
oh, you think all this is real?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was like,
I do,
I do think it matters
whether White Fang
is a good movie
and then I just giggle,
you know?
And I was like,
oh,
you have no idea
what's going on
and it was,
it was some,
like you're taught,
something you don't unsee.
Yes.
You know,
I still have over my desk,
I have a little postcard
from Haynes, Alaska
and it still comes to me
in my dreams
all the time.
I'm back there.
Wow.
I think we're being robbed of that
because of cities.
Light pollution
has robbed us
of what I think
all of our ancestors
always inherently observed.
When nighttime came around,
everybody realized,
well,
you're,
you're a part
of the infinite cosmos
and there's magic
to the universe,
which is why
there were so many people,
you know,
hundreds,
if not thousands
of years ago
that had these
whimsical tales
and these ideas
of the importance
of life and existence
when they're in the most
brutal moments
of history.
They're in the most
brutal moments
of life,
life or death,
hunter-gatherers,
warring tribes,
but yet at night
you're presented
with this
impossible majesty
of the cosmos
above your head
every night.
Now,
today,
we have fucking
social media.
This is your sun.
This is your star.
You're staring
at a stupid fucking screen
and when you look up
you just see nothing
but blackness
because there's
all these city skyscrapers
and all these streetlights.
So why wouldn't you look at your phone?
Exactly.
It's blinded out
the one thing
that is like
one of the most important
humbling,
like grounding experiences,
peering at the cosmos.
Isn't it weird?
It's so hard
to be in a bad mood
when you're looking
at the stars.
It's so hard
to be in a bad mood
when you're riding a bicycle
and you feel the wind
in your head.
It's funny.
It's such a simple
little thing,
a stupid little invention,
this bicycle.
But you get in
and you're riding around
and it's very hard
to stay in a bad mood
if you spend two hours
on a bicycle.
Yeah.
And there's so many
things like that
that we rob ourselves of.
You know,
I don't know,
even,
like I find
when I'm in nature
exercise,
when I run,
outside
and I'm running
through the trees
and I see a hawk
and I see the wind
blowing through
and I pass a farm
with sheep
and I,
it's like,
I come back
from a long run
high
and I feel
like I like myself.
and in the city,
I go to the gym
and I got
on one thing
highlights
of all my sports teams
that I love
and they're blinking up
and down
and then I got
the world is ending
on all the news channels
blinking up and down
and I got guys
who are in better shape
than me walking by
and girls who are super hot
walking by
that I'm trying not to look at
and be a good person
and I walk out
of the damn gym
and I hate myself.
You know what I mean?
I mean,
I've got some exercise
but it wasn't
I longed for the country
and I longed,
but anyway.
It's certainly
a different experience.
Yeah.
Doing it outside
is certainly
Is that too much information?
No.
That's us.
That's me.
That's everybody
and, you know,
and the thing is
like the gym
wants to keep you occupied
because then you'll
show up more often.
It won't be incredibly boring
if you go to a dank dungeon
of a gym
with nothing on the walls
other than a small mirror
that's covered
with other people's spit,
you know?
Do you think that's
what we all liked
in Rocky
when he like goes
out to the barn?
Especially in Rocky 4
when he goes to Siberia.
That's the one I'm thinking of.
Siberia?
That's the one I'm thinking
when the barn is freezing out
and it's just him
and the tree.
He's carrying the log.
Yeah, it's hilarious.
Yeah, well,
we like the idea
and I was going to
bring that up earlier
when you were talking
about immersing yourself
in a role
and preparing for a thing
is one of the more
romantic things to me
about fighting
when I know that
like this past weekend
there was a big UFC
when a fighter
goes into a camp
they go off somewhere.
They leave their family behind.
and often for like
two months at a time
and they just completely
immerse themselves
in preparation
for this one thing
that's going to happen.
And every little thing
that distracts you
robs you away
from the potential
of that one
possible majestic performance.
That one career-defining performance
which they're all chasing after.
and for a championship level fighter
it's like
the immense pressure
and then
this thing
this
you call it romantic
because it is kind of romantic
this romantic
task.
Oh, it's dedication
to excellence.
Yes.
full dedication.
Full, complete dedication.
The way that
you're even talking about
trying to do your interviews
you're trying to do your comedy
you're trying to be insane
but to have something so
I mean I envy that
when I read about fighters
and the dedication
I really
kind of long for that experience
that idea of going away
and I think there's something about
I've always
I don't know if you think this
but I've
whenever I pass by a monastery
a convent
or some of these
people
who are dedicated
to their spiritual calling
so completely
that they've isolated out
all the noise of life
Yeah.
I'm like
I'm really glad they exist
I'm glad
in the same way I feel about fighters
I feel like
I mean with fighters
I really envy it
because I
we all would like
to test ourselves
how
how much
could I dedicate myself
how could I
could I go
to the next level
how far
could I go
and I think that
oh
just
singularity of focus
it feels really good
and there is something
I think
I love stories
about fighters
and for just that
just
and the fact that
it all rests
on these
X amount of minutes
Yeah
and chaos
and just
What was it like?
Was it like watching?
Fighting
No
Oh fighting?
Terrifying
Yeah
Did you ever
would you ever get to a place
would you ever get to a place
where you're walking into the ring
and you weren't afraid?
No
If I did
I didn't perform well
There was a few times
I was overconfident
and I didn't perform well
because I tricked myself
into not being scared
so because I wasn't scared
because I didn't like being nervous
so I tricked myself
into thinking
I'm so good
I don't have to be nervous
and that I'd fought so many times
like the problem is complacency
so if
I probably
when I was competing
I probably had
somewhere in the neighborhood
of a hundred fights
in martial arts
and so
I did nothing but that
from age 15 to 21
just traveled around the country
and
there was times
where I did it so much
that I was not nervous
and then I would go there
and I wouldn't fight well
and then I would go
why is I
why did I miss opportunities
even if I won
I was like hypercritical
even if I won
I just didn't like
I got hit when I shouldn't
have got hit
like something was off
I didn't perform that well
and I realized
somewhere along the line
I think
right around
I was like
probably 19 or 20
when I really started
to figure it out
I was like
oh you have to be scared
that thing that you're
you don't like
that's critical
it's critical to your performance
because it keeps you on edge
you have to be nervous
you have to be
Mike Tyson talked about it
there's a fantastic video
of Mike Tyson
from his documentary
where he's talking
about his mindset
leading to him
getting into the ring
and that you know
he he talks about
see if you can find that Jamie
it's fucking excellent
because this was
Mike Tyson
when he was Mike Tyson
when he was the most
terrifying heavyweight boxer
that ever walked
the face of the earth
there was a period of time
over like two or three years
where I don't think
anybody has ever
come close to Mike Tyson
I know that's true
he was
just supreme
he was so good
and so different
than anybody before him
but it was also his mindset
he's a great scholar
of history
you know
I had a fantastic conversation
with him about Genghis Khan
and when we started
talking about it
he knew Genghis Khan's
real name
his real name was Temujin
he knew his history
he's such an interesting person
I love to watch
all his interviews
he knew that Genghis Khan's
mother had been kidnapped
by
on her wedding day
been kidnapped
by a rival man
and taken away
and impregnated
and the man that she was
supposed to marry
she never saw again
and then that Genghis Khan
was born
with a blood clot
in his hand
he was holding on
to a blood clot
as he was a young boy
and it was like a sign
that he was going to be
a great conqueror
and a warrior
but listen to this
I might have supreme confidence
but I'm scared to death
I'm totally afraid
I'm afraid of everything
I'm afraid of losing
I'm afraid of being humiliated
the closer I get to the ring
the more confidence I get
the closer
the more confidence I get
all during my training
I've been afraid of this man
the closer I get to the ring
I'm more confident
once I'm in the ring
I'm a god
no one can beat me
that's an abbreviated version of it
it's different in the film
it's like a little bit more
drawn out
somebody edited that down
for Instagram
but it's this thing
where you would think
how could that guy be afraid
how is he afraid
he's Mike Tyson
and this was Mike Tyson
in his prime
but you have to be afraid
you've got to be nervous
if you're not nervous
you're not going to perform well
well it makes me think about
earlier in our conversation
when I was talking about
oh
you know when I think about
when I was young
and I'd be really nervous
and pretending I wasn't nervous
and that was the problem
and that
now
I said to you
I still experience it
I just know what to do
yeah
you remember like
when we were talking like that
what I was
what I know what to do
is not to pretend
that I'm not nervous
right
it's as simple as that
when he's saying
I'm afraid
that's very powerful
it's kind of the same
a different spin
on what I'm saying about
it's okay to say
I don't know
yeah
you know
I am afraid
and there's
there's a great
Sarah Bernhardt story
about this young actress
comes up to Sarah Bernhardt
she's this great actress
from the previous
you know
a long time ago
but this
before Sarah Bernhardt
was about to go on stage
this young actress
asked her to sign her program
Sarah Bernhardt
to get it
and her hands were shaking
and this young actress said
why are your hands shaking
and she was
I'm nervous
and the young person said
I'm never nervous
when I act
Sarah Bernhardt
when you know what you're doing
you will be
and
that's great
and it's a part of
like what you're talking about
with your fighting
knowing
that
there's nothing wrong
with anxiety
and with nerves
they can be your friend
they are there
they are here
to warn you
prepare you
make you train
a little harder
make you think
a little sharper
treating it like
I'm embarrassed
I'm ashamed
of being nervous
you know
Bill Russell
apparently would like
be sick to his stomach
before every game
this is the most winning
basketball player in history
he was still
and that's why
he won so much
you know
you have to care
you have to care
and then strangely
what that
Tyson clip gets at
if you can say that
the closer you get
to game moment
now you're not pretending
and you realize
oh
for me
it's just a scene
it's just a play
it's just a thing
I can handle
this is
you remember that
Jaguar Paul
in Apocalypto
when he has that moment
he's running through the woods
and he's so afraid
and he realizes
this is my forest
you know
he's like
I don't have to be afraid
in my forest
you know
I'll fight these guys
I'm going to stop running
it's a great moment
in that movie
and I feel that way
when before I'm doing something
this last movie I did
Blue Moon
really really challenging part
I had so much confidence
when we were talking
about making the movie
and all of a sudden
it was green lit
and so
but like
when I flew to the location
and I saw the set
and I was like
oh
it was the weekend
before we started
I got so nervous
I got sick
you know
I woke up
in the middle of the night
just in pools of sweat
and
my body was just
like going
Ethan
this is gonna
are you ready
are you ready
you know
and I would wake up
I had to get up
so early to go to work
I'd wake up
an hour and a half before
I was supposed
like
I gotta go over
these lines again
I gotta go over this
how is this character walking
what is he doing
what is he saying
is this part ready
is this thing ready
do they know what they're doing
on that shot
is the cigars ready
all the things
what are the things
that are gonna be
that screw today up
how much can I see the day
so that none of these things
that might screw it up
are gonna screw it up
and so
I kinda know what he means
when it comes to
you've passed through the fire
so when it comes to fighting
well he's either gonna
win or lose
it's gonna be okay
but
you know
there's something powerful
that anxiety
can be a great friend
his mentor
Custamato
who was also a hypnotist
he hypnotized him
yes
he was a psychologist
that I did not know
yeah
he's a completely
fascinating guy
he started hypnotizing
Mike when he was 13
one of the things
that he told Mike
he said
fear is like a fire
it can cook your food
or it can burn
your house down
yeah
it depends on
how you control it
I feel the same way
about money
I feel the same way
about ego
yeah
it can be the fuel
of a healthy life
but it has to be
um
gardened
has to be managed
really well
and it's sadly
daily
yeah
daily
it's not like you
I'm sure we're both
old enough to know
it's not like you have
some breakthrough
when you're 33
I've had breakthroughs
I feel like
oh I get it
I get it
I get it
and then the next day
you don't get it
it's gone
you know
and it happens to you
over and over again
and I
that's life
I think
yes
that is life
yeah
and that's
that's great
for young people
to hear
because they think
that there's gonna
come a point in time
where they made it
where there's no fear
and I'm here to tell you
you don't want that
you don't want it
it's never gonna come
and even if it did come
you don't want it
it'll rob you
of the exciting
part of life
you ever hear that
Jim Carrey bit
always makes you laugh
he's like
he wins the Golden Globe
and he goes to bed at night
he goes like
gosh I'm a Golden Globe winner
what if I could be
a two time
Golden Globe winner
what if I could be
a three
you know the brain
yeah yeah yeah
brain always wants more
always
it's just
it can't stop
that's why billionaires
still work
yeah
yeah
yeah
why are they so miserable
because it's just
chasing numbers
you're chasing numbers
one of the things about
in the rooms
that I've been in
with a lot of money
compared to the rooms
I've been in
where there isn't
a lot of money
if you compare
the laughter
right
yeah
it's no contest
well there's so much
pressure involved
in that kind of way
so why would you want
a house with no laughter
you know
I don't think
they have options
at that point
I think they're so
locked into what they do
and it gets so competitive
yeah
they get
I've seen guys like that
who get so happy
about a deal going right
that's what
it's fascinating to me
I mean it's like
wow
I didn't
because the inverse
is true
if that makes you
so happy
what happens
if you lose
that million
to bucks
or whatever
20 million
and it makes you happy
for a brief amount
of time
because the reality
once you're wealthy
everything else
my friend Brian
said something to me
a long time ago
the only amount
of money you want
is where you can
go to a restaurant
and not worry
what the bill costs
everything else
is bullshit
well I liken it to
what happens
if you get
in a fender bender
you know
I don't want
to get in a fender bender
and have
a lot of trouble
right
like I want that
to be taken care of
right
you don't
you don't want
to not be able
to pay your rent
because you got
enough of a fender bender
you don't want
your kid not to get
their medicine
because you got
a fender bender
you know
like you need
to have room
a cushion
a little padding
to like
I've never
there's no
vacation
an expensive vacation
with my kids
is not better
than any vacation
with my kids
right
right
right
right
you know
a romantic
same thing
yeah
you know
you can spend
a fortune
on a romantic
weekend
it's not as
great as it is
to get stuck
in a car
when it's
a blizzard out
right
and you listen
to a great record
and she looks
beautiful
and says
something funny
and you both
laugh
that's
you can't
buy that
right
and
and
and
but there's
this feeling
like you could
well our society
puts so much
emphasis
on ultimate
success
like
who's the
richest man
in the world
well do you think
the richest man
in the world
is happier
than the
30th richest
man in the world
they're all
rich as fuck
like everything
is available
to them
it's all nonsense
after that
after a certain
point
like what are
you doing
why are you
still working
why are you
still chasing
zeros
and ones
like what is
the point
and what are
you chasing
me
yeah
I don't
I don't think
I'm chasing
anything
I try not
to be
I just enjoy
what I do
I try to
I don't relate
to it
because that's
what led me
to the question
I'm like
what am I
chasing
you know
what I'm
chasing
what I said
earlier
like I
the last
thing I shot
we had a
couple moments
of grace
you know
just weird
I can tell
I can tell
the crew
is losing
their lunch
and everybody
is so happy
with the take
that we got
and it's kind
of moving
and oh
it was perfect
and the light
came to the
window at the
right time
and then
Peter Dinklage
said this
hysterical thing
and he wasn't
supposed to say
it but it
worked out
perfect
because then
the other
actress
then she
responded
in that way
and then
my hat
fell off
and everybody
and it's
just
it's high
and I drive
home
and I want
to tell
everybody
and I can't
wait for the
world to see
it
you know
I am chasing
that like
could that
happen again
yeah
you know
but it's not
something I
control
it's not
something
that
it's a feeling
I'm chasing
but it's a
tangible thing
it's not
status or
money
it's
you're
chasing
you're
doing
you know
for lack
of a better
word
art
you know
and art
has a sort
of a pretentious
air to it
a lot of
people
you know
there's
there's
certain words
that have
been sort
of co-opted
but the
art of
creation
the art
of doing
something
you would
never
I mean
I know
you're
exactly
right
it happens
to me
all the time
and it
bothers me
that what
what people
think is
pretentious
and what
people
if I say
to you
you know
I really
want to
make
a hundred
million
dollars
nobody
says
I'm
pretentious
right
right
if I say
you know
I'd really
like to
make something
to make
something
beautiful
that really
moves people
what a
pretentious
ass
right
why is it
what I was
going to say
well you go
first
sincerity
it's sincerity
because some
people say
that and they
don't mean it
and that's
most of the
people that
say that
that's the
problem
that's true
what I was
going to say
is like
if you're
you say
15 14
your daughter
your youngest
15
yeah
if you came
home today
and she
had made
this crazy
collage
and it was
combining
pictures of her
friends from
high school
and this
beautiful
watercolor
that she
did around
it
and she
sprinkled glue
on it
and dropped
sparkles
on it
and put
it in a
weird
wood frame
that her
mother had
given her
that she
like
and she
said
isn't it
beautiful
dad
you
would you
ever say
that's
pretentious
of course
not
of course
not
but the
goal
when somebody
says the
word art
to me
I don't
hear
pretentious
I hear
the
solar
system
I hear
like human
creativity
inside of
us
man
it is
inside
me
and it's
inside
you
and when
I see
a great
movie
or when
I hear
Jimi Hendrix
rip a killer
solo
then my whole
body vibrates
oh hey we're
alive
you know when
Johnny Cash
comes out with a
sound you've
never heard
before
when it's a
great rap
song
you're like
I gotta hear
that again
I feel my
heartbeat
with that
that's
art
it's not
pretentious
it's
real
and so
I feel that
way very
strongly
that makes
me want
to go
to set
and that
makes me
not care
whether the
movie makes
a billion
dollars
or makes
two cents
there's a
great
one of the
great old
English actor
Paul Schofield
I'm gonna
destroy this
quote but it
was in his
obituary
and he was in
this great movie
when I was a
kid
man for all
seasons
and he was
in Redford's
quiz show
and he was
a great
English actor
and when he
died in his
obituary
there was an
interview with him
he said you
were performing
King Lear
at your
local church
why weren't
you doing
it on the
west end
you know
because you
were healthy
enough
they were
asking why
are you
doing
he was
doing a
play
at a
local
church
near me
he said
I really
like walking
to work
and I
realized that
I really
have always
only performed
for whoever
it was
that made
me
and I can
do that
anywhere
I can do
it on
Broadway
I can do
it in a
Robert Redford
movie and I
can do it
in my
local
theater
it's the
same
action
and it's
taken me a
lifetime to
realize that
it doesn't
I just love
to do it
and he's like
and I'd like
to walk
to work
so I'm
not going
to the
west end
and I
thought I
love this
guy
yeah
well that
is real
purity
yeah
when you're
you're not
chasing any
prestige
you're only
doing it
for the
thing
and I
bet
there are
people that
he loved
there
of course
other people
you're doing
it for
yeah
of course
yeah
and it's
probably
more purity
to it
knowing that
it's not
going to be
reviewed in the
New York
Times
it's like
you're doing
something that
you're only
doing it
for the
love of
it
and if
you want
to be
if you want
to play
pro ball
you know
there's
certain
things
you know
if you're
you know
that
Augie the
great
he used to
coach for
UT
baseball
his great
thing that he'd
say that
why he didn't
coach the
Yankees
or the
Red Sox
because he won
five NCAA
championships
so the problem
is with
pro ball
the object of
the game
is to win
and in
college sports
my job
is to develop
young men
and if I do
that right
we will
win
but it's
I like
the priority
and I feel
like if the
priority is my
own development
you know
then more
times than not
something good
will happen
if my priority
is to win
make cash
be a big
shot
blah blah blah
I've kind
of lost
why you
should play
the game
and the trick
for me
is well
I do want
to be a
professional actor
I like
I like
being relevant
I like
making relevant
art
I like
talking to
people
and communicating
with people
so you have
to figure out
that balance
of like
alright
this is how
I pay
my bills
this is
you know
what
facilitates
all my
whole life
so I have
to
be a little
attentive
to the
professional
part of
my brain
and not
let it
diminish
the kid
in me
you know
and to
keep them
both
in some
kind of
balance
and that's
for me
been my
adult life
the term
developing
men
or developing
people
developing
young
people
my
martial arts
instructor
when I was
a young
boy
there was
like
a pamphlet
that they
had
released
explaining
what the
classes
were all
about
and in
it
one of
the quotes
that always
stuck
with me
forever
is
martial arts
or a
vehicle
for
developing
your
human
potential
so is
acting
so is
anything
so is
playing chess
so is
playing music
so is
carpentry
if you do it
right
everything
everything
Miyamoto Musashi
the famous
samurai
had a great
quote
once you
understand
the way
broadly
you can
see it
in all
things
yeah
Zen and
the art
of motorcycle
maintenance
that's the
same idea
yeah
the real
beauty of it
all is
concentrating
on
the
development
of the
thing
and in
that thing
you will
grow as
a human
and that's
the thing
when we're
talking about
boxing or
fighting or
acting or
whatever
the thing
about the
100%
focus
is it
it's kind
of
by shedding
everything
there's a
discipline to
that
about seeing
all the
little details
I find
for example
in acting
they always
talk about
this
is he
a good
listener
like one
of the
things
like are
you responding
naturally
like a human
being
can you
listen
and in the
art of teaching
myself about
acting about
how to be
present with
my scene
partner
I've learned
how to be
present with
you
with my
kids
when I'm
at a baseball
game with my
friends
right
right
actually
meaning
I'm taking
the same
idea
that
if
you
train
to do
a fight
well
and you
really
feel
what
excellence
at that
level
is like
you can
feel it
in other
things
it can
translate
you know
what sloppy
thinking
is
if you've
been relaxed
while you're
doing something
hard
you know
what it's
like when
you're tense
because you're
not having
that feeling
that you had
in that fight
where you were
really great
I've done
performances
where it
goes up
all by itself
and it's
an amazing
feeling
and a lot
of work
and preparation
is to go
into that
feeling
of disappearing
but now
I know
when it's
not happening
and it
doesn't mean
I can
make it
happen
but at least
an awareness
that it's
not happening
is a great
starting place
to go
why is it
not happening
right
something
smells
something
smells
like
yeah
I want
to talk
to you
about
because
Jamie
brought
this up
yesterday
Denzel
Washington
when you're
doing
training
day
like
so much
apparently
Jamie was saying
of the dialogue
that you guys
had was
completely
improvised
by Denzel
he is
an astonishing
and it's
like
yes
the short
answer to
your question
is
it was
we would
be doing
ride-arounds
you know
in the back
of these cop
cars
watching these
arrests
or talking
to some
of these
people
who really
lived
the life
that we
were doing
and they
would say
something
really funny
you know
and I
would just
see
Denzel
like glance
at me
and I
realized
oh shit
that just
went in
the computer
you know
and then
it would
come out
you know
in a scene
two months
later
that line
that that
guy said
exactly
it would
come out
it was
a great
script
I don't
want to
David
wrote
it's
a phenomenal
script
I mean
when I
read that
script
I wanted
that part
so badly
Denzel's
one of my
favorite actors
he is probably
my favorite
actor
I think
you know
Malcolm X
and Raging Bull
are two
towering
maybe Nicholson
and One Flew
the Cuckoo's Nest
like Liv is
like the three
great performances
of my lifetime
but his
he's always
listening
always listening
talking
asking
thinking
curious
so present
so commanding
and if
you
take responsibility
for your own
work
you can
you can have
a great experience
and if you
don't
he'll run
you over
like I heard
like King Kong
ain't got shit
on me
that was all
just completely
improvised
so it's like
towards the
last day
of the shoot
and um
I had been
when people say
improvised
they think
oh just some
magic
lightning bolt
happened
it's months
of work
it was improvised
he's just supposed
to yell
fuck you
or something
as I'm walking
away
and this
monologue
flew out of
his mouth
you know
y'all
gonna be playing
for the
Pelican Bay
All Stars
this is
my neighborhood
y'all just
live here
King Kong
ain't got
nothing on me
just all
this stuff
and it was
it was the
last day of
shooting
or third
to last day
or something
and it was
all his prep
just
this is
here's
here's a line
that didn't
make the movie
here's another
line that didn't
make the movie
here's another
thing I wanted
to say
here's another
thing
and he just
started
throwing them
all out there
and I
shit you not
man
the shots
it's on me
I'm walking
out of the
you know
walking away
from me
screaming
all this
stuff
and that's
when I say
I'm chasing
the feeling
like that's
one of the
I mean
to just be
there that
day
you know
to watch
you know
a great
somebody's
somebody's
working on
a different
level
than everybody
else
you know
he's
you know
he makes
all of us
look like
we're mastering
checkers
you know
and he's
but to be
there and be
part of the
magic
and I knew
where I'd
I'd heard him
audition some
of those lines
other places
you know
we'd run lines
together
and he'd
try this
thing
he was
he was
amazing
amazing
that's what
I mean
about the
power of his
imagination
he was
Alonso
and anything
that he would
pick up
or hear
would go
into the
computer
and then
it would
he would
look for
the ways
that it
could help
the script
look
look for
ways
you know
he wasn't
you know
he wasn't
putting
selfishly
tearing the
sail up
to make
it about
him
he was
always
looking
to help
I even
remember
he came
to the
set
the day
I have
the scene
that he's
not in
with the
the Cholo
gang
you know
and they're
we're playing
cards
and you know
you read
your shit
pushed in
that scene
you know
where they
put me
in the
bathtub
and Denzel
came to
set
and he
watched the
scene
and he was
like damn
I'm like
what
this is gonna
be the best
scene in the
movie
and I'm not
in it
hate this
scene
it was funny
he walked
away
but it was
very gracious
I mean he was
all in
that movie
yeah
that's awesome
that's awesome
Ethan thank you
very much man
this is a really
fun conversation
I really enjoyed
it
I'm really glad
you had me
thank you
and thank you
for all the
movies man
if you can't
tell it's been
my pleasure
thank you
it's been mine
as well
thank you
bye everybody
bye bye bye