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Matt Damon is a Academy Award-winning actor, writer, producer. His latest film, “The Rip,” premieres January 16 on Netflix.https://www.netflix.com/title/81915745
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Ben Affleck is a Academy Award-winning actor, writer, producer. His latest film, “The Rip,” premieres January 16 on Netflix.https://www.netflix.com/title/81915745
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Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary: A Novel
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
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Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
That's wild.
I went in because I came in from Miami, I think I was living at the time, and I
went
in and I'm sitting in the waiting room and it was like on a Sunday because I
was like
I'm only in town for you and Stan was like I'll come into the office.
I'm like thank you so much, I had to have a filling or whatever I needed.
It's kind of an emergency.
So I'm sitting in the thing and I'm not getting called in, but the ladies just,
no, no, there's
not even a receptionist.
And Stan comes out with his mask going, no, the first thing I hear is pig fucker,
fucking
fucking pig fucker.
And I'm like what is happening in there?
It's in the other room.
And Stan comes in with his mask and he goes, sorry, he goes I'll be with you
soon.
He goes, I got Hunter in the chair.
And he goes back and I hear, listen to Hunter Thompson swear for like 15
minutes.
I'm like, this is amazing.
And then Stan goes, okay, come on back.
And Hunter's kind of getting out and he goes, oh, you're sitting down with this
guy.
He's a fucking assassin.
And then he goes and he's got this jug of clear, uh, of clear fluid.
And he's like, you're going to need a sip of this.
And I'm like, oh my God, this is fucking Hunter S. Thompson's moonshot.
I'm like, this is fucking amazing.
I'm like, I've talked to this dude for 30 seconds and I'm getting a sip.
And like, and it was like 10 in the morning on a Sunday.
Was it?
Yeah.
He was halfway through the jug.
It was just pure, pure fucking like, yeah.
Where was this?
In Beverly Hills.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brentwood.
Yeah.
Brentwood was Stan's office.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
That's amazing.
It really was amazing.
It was, it was.
And I, so I had probably a total of seven minutes, you know, with him.
And it was like, I, I, it could, I could not have been a better seven minutes.
That's incredible.
I went to the Woody Creek Tavern just to go there.
Cause I know he used to go there.
Yeah.
And like, you could like feel him in the building.
You know, there's all the pictures in the walls.
It's a cool little place.
I mean, those books, fucking Hell's Angels and, and, you know, Fear and Loathing.
It's some of the best writing.
I just fucking like, he really had his own voice.
Rum Diary.
He was spectacular.
You know, it was like really descriptive.
And punchy and fucking interesting and fucked up.
And he also just lived that life.
It was like.
Fear and Loathing changed my life.
Like reading that book was like, what the fuck?
Like, what is this guy doing?
There's grown men out there.
Balding, grown men with spectacles running around with them.
I think there's lizards in the fucking lounge.
Like, you guys are listening.
He's got a day trip bag filled with acid.
Like, what the fuck are you doing, man?
That was, and it's great shit.
It's like, you fucking feel like you're on the adventure with him, you know?
Yeah.
No, it's a, it's, it's interesting to watch the evolution of his writing, too.
You know, like, I read Hell's Angels and it's like very different, you know,
but it's.
Yeah, it's early when he's kind of restrained and he was quite like.
For that, I think it was edgy sort of for the time.
Yeah.
Like, oh, you're going to get beat and chain whipped and stomped by the angels.
And that was really edgy.
And by the time they got into what, it was Fear and Loathing in 72 or something
like
that, you know, he was just out there.
Yeah, he was gone.
He found his voice.
He did find his voice.
He was supposed to be covering a race for, like, Sports Illustrated.
That's a Fear and Loathing when I read a book about I fucking lost my mind.
Great.
It's great, Hunter.
We'll take it.
Well, hey, it's very nice to meet you guys.
I met you before, but very nice to meet you.
It's a pleasure, man.
Thank you very much.
And I love the fucking movie.
Thank you.
The rip is great.
Thank you.
It's really good.
It's so original and it's so different.
And it's, you know, it's like I love those kind of movies, but it's not like
any one that
I've ever seen before.
Really solid movie.
Thanks, dude.
Thank you.
It was awesome.
So much better than you hating it in us.
The interviews where they're like, so I saw the movie.
Anyway, how you guys been?
We've had a lot of those, the press junkets where they come in and the first
thing that
you know the movie sucks if they don't ask you anything about the movie.
They come in and they go, so how you been?
You know, and you're like, oh shit, this is going to be bad.
Is it weird?
Like the transformation of the film industry seems to like a lot of it is
moving towards
these big streaming movies now.
Absolutely.
I mean, look, it's because where most people have gone to watch them.
Yeah.
Like it used to be the only place you'd go see movies in the forties.
Like every American went to the movie every week, basically.
But it was because it was that or watch the cows walk by, you know, that was
the only.
And then TV comes around and it's little and you see these little serials.
But, you know, what happened was now, this is why it's totally changed the
whole thing
because you have 300 million people, 330, whatever it is, watching, you know,
Netflix.
And it's a lot harder to get people to go into the movies.
There's also YouTube.
There's also TikTok.
There's also my kids.
Like, it's hard to get them excited about a movie.
Yeah.
Because that's what we had.
I mean, yeah, that was our, I mean, our teen years were just every weekend we're
at the movies.
Yeah.
There's just no question about it.
You were going to go and usually not get into one because there were too many
people.
And then you just see what else is playing and go to that.
Well, it seems like it was kind of slipping away because so many people were
watching streaming already.
And then COVID came around and everyone was locked down and no one was going to
the movie theater.
And then it just set in.
I had this, like, drama that was coming out, like, right when COVID hit.
I really liked the movie, performance movie.
It's an alcoholic guy who's kid.
A kid guy whose kid dies and becomes an alcoholic.
It's a dark movie.
But I loved it.
And I could tell, like, we're fucked.
No one's going to go to the theater, see this movie.
And it wasn't even that streaming really blew up, you know, of course, during
COVID.
So, you know, look, they rushed it onto streaming.
People actually saw it.
I was like, look, all things being equal, I'd like people to see it, you know.
And it's not like my dad had an 11-inch black and white TV.
And that's what was TV viewing.
No, it's like $200.
You've got a fucking 65-inch flat screen, like, and good sound.
So, of course, people are willing to.
And then streamers also started making great shows.
You have Adolescence.
I don't know if you saw them.
I think that's one of the best things ever done.
I haven't seen Adolescence.
It's unbelievable.
What is it?
Oh, my God.
I don't want to spoil too much of it.
It's only four episodes.
They're all one shot.
They're all one shot.
Each episode is one entire shot.
Whoa.
So the cast, they took a, I think, I talked to the director about it.
The cast took, I think, a week to rehearse each one and then a week to shoot it.
And so they do it twice a day.
It's the full hour they would choreograph the entire thing.
It's a feat on itself.
Yeah, it's really.
And then the acting is great.
But that's, I mean, just dismiss that.
You could even call it a gimmick.
It's not in this case.
But the performances and the writing and what it's about, it's as good as
anything you'll see.
It's phenomenal.
What is it on?
Netflix.
Netflix, yeah.
You know, you have like, it's not, it's not even an anomaly.
There's Baby Rangers, there's fucking Succession, there's Game of Thrones, Ozarks.
You know, it's just like, okay, well, they're doing great shit out there.
It's not like the sort of implied thing before was like, yeah, well, TV's not
as good, not as interesting.
It's a serial.
When we started, it was, there was a different, I mean, like George Clooney,
for instance, like there was a big thing.
You know, he very famously, you know, became this superstar on ER.
That show, 40 million people a week were watching that show.
It was the biggest thing, right?
Because there were only a few channels to tune into and that show was the
biggest one.
And George never renegotiated his contract.
He wanted to work in movies.
And it was like, you can't go from TV to movie.
It's a very hard, very few people can do it.
And he really strategically and kind of patiently, like, he joked that on the
last episode he was on,
Anthony Edwards, you know, his co-star was making a million bucks for the
episode.
And he was making, you know, 20 grand or whatever his deal was.
Like, he could have renegotiated, but he would have had to give more years.
The point was, that's how bad he wanted to get off TV and get movies.
That's how bad he wanted to get off the biggest TV show in the world.
Because there was such a big kind of level change between features and TV.
Well, it was a giant difference in quality.
It was also the breaking it up for commercials.
Right.
It was just a different experience.
It couldn't be, you know, there's all these rules.
Like, you can't say this, you can't do that, you can't swear.
You know, all the kind of violence and nudity, all the things people want to
see in movies, you know.
And then, and also it wasn't, it wasn't as interesting.
And then now that's a tether to these schedules and all that stuff.
Whereas you get this shit, like, you don't have a schedule and, and you can
take a bunch of risks.
So, and that started happening.
And then it was kind of like, well, this all is just as good, if not better
than what's in the movies.
Well, then movies started to move towards more IP.
Right.
Because it was hard to get people to come to the movies.
Everyone got scared and thought, well, you have to, it has to be a sequel or a
superhero movie to justify being a theater.
And so an interesting little movie, kind of in the 90s, when we kind of came
onto the scene, you know, there were a lot of really good independent movies
that were being made.
There was, there was, you know, it was a really great time to be making movies.
People were, they were making daring movies.
And, and, and then everyone just got way more conservative because it's huge.
Like the business is so different theatrically and streaming because to put out
a movie theatrically,
you have to put so much more money behind it to publicize.
Like you're trying to get everybody.
You're basically spending about what the budget was to make it to advertise it.
Because you got 50% of the theatrical.
Yeah.
Because you split it with the, the, the movie house, right?
Through the exhibitor.
So a $25 million movie to break even, you got to make a hundred million dollars.
And so, and you got to get everybody to not only know about the movie, but to
show up like that Friday night,
like that specific time, you know, for that specific movie.
And so did, and to cut through all the noise that people are contending with.
You know, it just becomes about risk and nobody wants to take the risk.
So they don't want to make something new because it's such an investment.
We're going to lose our fucking money.
And the streamers have stepped into that.
And like, you know, you don't have to have a star.
You could try something more interesting or didn't have to be a superhero movie,
whatever it was.
And also I think it's like, you know, frankly, like people my age, like it's,
first of all, it's expensive, right?
You take your old family, it's a hundred dollars.
You're on a streaming service, $20 a month.
You can watch all you want.
So you can't be cavalier about like, you're just going to price it however the
fuck you want and expect everyone to like be indifferent to that.
And then, you know, also, you know, the idea of like, for me, you know, there's
a lot of stuff.
I make that decision.
Like, do I want to see The Odyssey on a big screen?
Fucking definitely.
I went to a theater to just watch the trailer for that movie.
And, you know, did I, one battle after another, I wanted to go see in the
theater.
But there's movies with people that I really like and respect where, yeah, and
I got a good system and shit.
But I'm like, look, I'll watch it and I might get tired or I won't pause it and
take a piss or the kids, you know, whatever it is.
That's conducive to my lifestyle, you know, and so I even see a few.
I think most people are, yeah.
But there is the experience of seeing it with a bunch of other people.
You see an awesome movie with a bunch of other people.
It's like a shared experience.
A hundred percent.
I always like an attention.
Way more attention.
Like when I went to see one battle on IMAX, like, you know, that feeling, there's
nothing like that feeling.
I took, you know, two of my kids and two of my nephews and my wife and we all
went.
And it was just, it was like, and you're in with, you know, a bunch of
strangers, the people in your community, and you're having this experience
together.
I always say it's more like going to church.
Like you show up at an appointed time.
You know what I mean?
It doesn't wait for you.
It's, you know, versus the experience of watching at home, I think, you know,
you're watching in a room.
The lights are on.
Other shit's going on.
The kids are running around.
The dogs are running around.
Whatever it is.
You know what I mean?
It's just a very different level of attention that you're willing to, or that
you're able to give to it.
And that has a big effect.
And it also ends up having an effect or is starting to have an effect on how
you make movies.
Like, for instance, Netflix, you know, standard way to make an action movie
that we learned was, you know, you usually have like three set pieces.
One in the first act, one in the second, one in the third.
And, you know, they kind of ramp up.
And the big one with all the explosions, and you spend most of your money on
that one in the third act.
That's your kind of finale.
And now they're, you know, they're like, can we get a big one in the first five
minutes to get somebody, you know, we want people to stay tuned in.
And Ken, and, you know, it wouldn't be terrible if you reiterated the plot
three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while
they're watching, you know what I mean?
Oh, no.
And so then it's going to really start to infringe on how we're telling the
story.
Then you look at our lessons, but it didn't do any of that.
It didn't do any of that.
It was fucking great.
You know what I mean?
So I think it's, and it's dark, too.
It's tragic and intense.
It's like a guy who finds out these kids accused of murder, and it's like, you
know, and there's long shots in the back of their head.
They get in the car.
Nobody says anything.
I think there are those, look, these ideas.
I wish that were, that feels more like the exception.
It's so masterfully made that it feels a little more like the exception.
I hope it's not.
My feeling is just that it demonstrates that you don't need to do any of that
shit to get people, you know what I mean?
Like, and I think, you know, yes, you know, like, look, hey, the town had the
action thing in the beginning of the first five minutes.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's a common trick that you would go, like, let me grab him and get him
invested.
It's like the movies that start with the hero hanging from the cliff, and now
we're going to flash back to the beginning and tell you how they got there.
It's, you know, I always feel like, you know, complaining about it makes me
feel like one of these guys was like, when I was a boy.
Like, you always want to freeze the culture at the time when you, I don't know,
felt more like, you know, we didn't used to have these phones.
The fuck are all these phones?
And everybody's looking at their phones.
I get it.
Yes, it's true.
Also, it's like supply and demand.
People want to look at their phone.
They can look at TikTok.
They want, you know, they're going to do that.
I think what you can do is make shit the best you can.
Make it really good.
And, you know, people can still go to the movies.
It's not like, I think we have this idea that's like an existential threat.
Everything that comes along is going to destroy everything.
Instead of, like, what history suggests is that there's, like, marginal encroachments.
Things shift.
Yep, as television came along, there was less theater going.
And that's still going to happen.
And people are still going to go to the movies because of what you said.
Like, it feels like a cool thing to do.
I'm going to go see The Odyssey, I guarantee you, in a theater, you know, no
matter what.
There's fewer of them.
I mean, you could argue that's because I have more choice or whatever it is.
It's hard to fight supply and demand.
That's the trick, right?
If people want to watch a bunch of stuff at home because they invested in TVs
and cost us money, they will.
So, okay.
But the upside of that is, like, I can try to do something.
Hopefully that's, like, that actually doesn't need to, you know, have the most
urgency to get you to come to the theater with your family.
That's a little more experimental or risk-taking or whatever in that way.
Well, you've got to adapt.
I mean, there's no way you're going to change people's viewing habits now.
I mean, what percentage of Netflix is actually watched on phones?
It's got to be pretty high, which is insane.
Yeah.
Even watching on a laptop, for me, is kind of like, kind of sucks, you know?
Yeah, it sucks.
That's a joke that I like to make with every director I work with.
Like, when they're really puzzling over a shot or really grinding out something,
I go, you know, it's not going to look as good on the phone.
It's just everyone gets angry.
It takes the weight out of their fucking sails, you know?
No, that's going to look great this fucking big.
But keep fucking around and lighting that.
It is weird, though, the concern for the algorithm, like, making sure that
people watch.
Like, look, we've got data that shows within the first five minutes when this
happens, they tune out.
So, like, my buddy Tony Hinchcliffe, you know, he's got Kill Tony, and now it's
on Netflix.
And so they're giving him notes now.
And they can give him, like, but they're not telling him what to do, but they're
saying, like, this is when people are tuning out.
And so let's, you know, just so you have that data, now decide how you want to
edit things.
It's like, oh.
Yeah.
Slippery slope.
Well, it is because it's like the bar for walking out of a movie theater is a
lot higher than from just changing the channel.
Right.
And oftentimes, you know, directors will want to make a movie that is
challenging and upsetting.
And I remember Terry Kinney, my friend, great actor, and he told me about the
experience of seeing Taxi Driver in New York for the first time, right, in 76
or whenever it came out.
And he said, what I remember is not only the movie, but I remember standing at
the back because I had got up, I got up out of my seat, and I went, but I
couldn't bring myself to leave because I was so invested.
But I was so, he goes, I was standing at the back by the door watching the
movie, and he goes, and there were two other people standing next to me who
were doing the same thing.
Just because they were disturbed?
Because the movie was disturbing them so much.
Wow.
Which is not a bad thing, right?
So had that been on Netflix or Amazon, you know, if somebody says, oh, I'm
disturbed, and they change the channel, like, that doesn't mean you shouldn't
make Taxi Driver.
Right.
That's true.
Like, the investment of going to a place is much greater.
Yeah, and one of the values of that is that you could look at movies from the
70s, the first act was 25, 30 minutes.
Right.
You know, the verdict, for instance, is a great movie.
It takes a long time to get going.
Look at the Deer Hunter.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's...
And you're right.
Like, what you're saying, the threshold for Walkout is real, like, any scene,
like, ah, I want to watch Naked.
You know, you flip the fucking...
So you're, you are battling that, and, you know, it's...
I watched Le Mans the other night, Steve McQueen, and there's no one talks for,
like, five minutes.
There's no talking.
It's just a bunch of stuff getting done.
Yeah.
Just a bunch of people doing things, and it's like, wow, you could make a
difference.
You could let it air out back then.
Yeah.
It was, they had a different respect for what it was.
Like, you were telling a story, and you're going to let it air out.
Well, they also knew where their audience was.
Yeah.
They were in a theater that they...
Yeah, part of it was they wanted to come there.
I mean, the great story I like is the first time they, they debuted a movie,
guys, with a, with a projector in a room full of people.
It was a, it was a movie of a train pulling into the station.
So they put the reel up, and they did demonstrate, and they showed the people,
and everybody missed it, because they were turned around staring at the
projector.
They never fucking seen anything like that.
You know, it's like, the technology's upstaging, but, like, you come for an
event, come for a thing.
We're all going to be here.
That's part of it.
It's, I don't know.
There's competing arguments.
So you can think, well, what do you get to do?
And some people just go ahead and fuck it.
Like, Jim Cameron's the avatar.
I'm going to make my three-hour movie, and people are going to come, and great.
You know what I mean?
And people say, oh, well, you can't have a three-hour movie.
And he's like, well, I'm Jim Cameron, and I've actually got the number one and
two in, you know, movies.
I think I got this.
He goes ahead and does it.
You know, there's, history's full of people who got told a bunch of
conventional wisdom, and were like, yeah, but we're going to do something
different.
And as it turns out, like, that's actually what people want, too, is not for
you to just repeat the other shit that's been done before or worked before.
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One of the things I read that I thought was really fucking cool is you guys set
it up so that if this film performs well, the entire crew gets bonuses.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Hopefully it's successful.
I think it's going to be a shit house if it doesn't.
It's a fucking great movie, man.
It's a fun movie.
But it's good.
But it's not like, you know, fucking we're saints or philanthropists.
Like it's completely self-serving in my opinion.
Because in order to do the job well, everybody who's working on it has to be
really invested and give a shit about the result.
Not their paycheck only.
And sometimes you wear the crew that just happen to be great anyway, even
though they don't really have to care about it.
And they do.
And what we saw was like that makes your movie better.
And then there's just the thing of like the business is changing.
You see these strikes and work stops and all these fucking questions.
In order for this, I think, to survive and to be, you know, a good middle class
fucking artist, you know, artisanal craftsman job, we've got 1,200 people that,
you know, need to have reliable jobs.
And part of the negotiations is always like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're all
going to get fucked.
Like we have no participation.
Like you used to work on movies and it happens to actors too where you go, oh,
we all invested.
It was really hard and we fucking put in the extra effort.
Somebody else walked away with all the success.
And, you know, my theory was with Matt was we were like, how about where let's
say, okay, it's just fairness, right?
If this thing actually blows up and does really well, you should benefit from
that.
People have been, you know, kind of given sort of promises of participation
back and haven't come true.
This is like everyone got their rates.
Everyone got their hourly.
No one cut anything.
This is just an exercise in actually proving that it's not bullshit, that if
there's success, you'll get some extra.
A little success, a little extra.
A little more, a little more.
But also, like you said, because it's fair, you know, and in success, the
people who made the movie should, you know, should participate in that.
And also with this one, which was important to us, there's, you know, they delineate
above the line and below the line, right?
Like above the line being like us, the director and the producers.
And below the line being kind of the more blue-collar side of our industry.
Like painters, Grinsman, camera vehicles.
Everybody else, drivers.
And so we just wanted, we, and believe, like when we started this company, we
were like, look, you know, we know who makes our movie better, right?
It's not, it's, like they've, this has kind of been mispriced the whole time.
Like the economics have been wrong.
Like when there's a, when there's a big success, everybody who had a hand on it.
Because you see a great director that people rely on or an actor that's
considered bankable.
They're all going, okay, I need all my people with me.
Yeah, every great director I've worked with, and I've worked with a lot of them,
they have their regular crew members.
Right.
That they, that ride or die with these people.
Right.
Because, I mean, and you said it to me when we were starting the company.
You were like, you know, those department heads, you know, who are each
handling like, you know, cinematography, you know, your camera department, you
know, your grip department, your electric, like all.
These, this, those people are ultimately the people who make the movie good.
Like they make a demonstrable difference in how good your movie is.
And imagine once you get a good flow with a great crew.
Exactly.
Like you got the band.
Yeah.
Like there's no need to bring in new band members.
Let's, let's do this again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because they, and then like you have the situation where they all are
filmmakers too.
Everybody knows what we're trying to do.
So like then what makes it, you know, you're trying to get something special,
something interesting, something fucking magical in some moment.
You have to like, if people are tight or they're bent out of shape or, you know,
it fucks up the environment.
People aren't relaxed.
Actors can't do their best work.
And that does make a difference between something that's good, average, great,
whatever.
And I think that if you say like, you know, it makes cognitive sense to people.
But if you look around like, what's the example, Colin Anderson, camera
operator, right?
He's not the cinematographer, but I would tell you he's, I think he's the
greatest camera operator there is in Hollywood.
And if you want evidence that he shot Marty Supreme, he was a camera operator
in one battle after another.
You know, he's, you look at his resume and you're like, oh, that's interesting.
These are all fucking great movies.
Now, is he personally responsible for all of it?
No, because it's a collaborative medium.
There is no, like, you can be a painter and paint by yourself.
You can be a novelist and do that, sing, write music.
You can't do this job alone.
Like, there are a lot of people that go into it.
You know, even when I realized, like, Matt was the lead in the last movie I did,
Air, that I directed.
Having somebody so fucking good in your movie who also shows up, does his job,
is friendly, isn't fucking around or playing games or being weird.
Like, that sets this tone.
Everybody else kind of goes, okay, what's Damon like?
Oh, I see.
We're taking it seriously, but nobody's going to be a dick.
We're all going to do our job.
We're not going to take ourselves too seriously, but we're going to take the
job really seriously.
And immediately, everybody kind of snaps into that.
That trickle-down effect goes across the whole thing.
And I think the best thing that I know how to do as a director is just create
an environment where people feel like they show up.
People like me.
They're rooting for me.
I can fucking embarrass myself and be bad.
And it's not going to be in the movie.
And it's going to make me feel self-conscious.
I'm listened to.
My ideas are listened to.
Yeah, and if I have something to offer, they're going to go, oh, that's a good
idea.
You know what I mean?
And that's kind of the trick, in my view.
And then you're depending on the gifts of all these people, every single one of
them.
You know, guys was, you know, some woman's assistant prop master is coming up
with, like, the stuff that, you know, Phil Knight found, you know, his waffle
from the shoe.
They found it on eBay.
Like, that's an extra mile.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And if you make people feel like it matters and you give a shit and that they're
contributing and, oh, cool, let's do a close-up of that.
That's really fucking cool.
They'll die for you.
They'll go all the way.
And it changes the whole dynamic.
And if you bonus them, you know, it's not just all, you know, it's, it's, it's,
it's, there's an actual, like, codified bonus structure to say, like, we, you
know.
This is the way of recognizing that shit, right?
Yeah.
And it's, like, in your paycheck, too.
It's not just bullshit.
And you guys developed this?
Is this, so this is something that you, like, kudos to you guys for addressing
this, first of all, and recognizing it and having that attitude because it's so
important and it's so easy for big movie stars to just think about themselves
and their own career.
Well, we're communists, Joe.
We're from Cambridge.
Keep the car running.
No, no, but, but, but each, each deal has had this kind of, each deal that we've
done so far has been different because we've made deals with, you know,
different studios.
And platforms and stuff like that.
And it just involved us basically retroactively going, hey, we came in under,
we did a great job, there's extra money, here you go.
This is the first time that we were able to, to actually create, like, a
schedule where it's, like, because, and by the way, we wouldn't have been able
to do that without Netflix going, okay, cool.
You think you can make this work?
Is this, we'll give you a shot.
Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to do it.
So we had to say, look, we're not asking you to take a cut, but, you know, if,
if we, we can, and we can tell you, if the movie is watched as many hours in
the first 90 days as, like,
this movie A, that you all know what it is, then that's, you know, 20% of your
salary, let's say, right?
I mean, you should take a hit.
So it's, like, yeah, you make more money, your bonus is more, it's all just pegged
to where you're at, just because that was the most fair idea we'd come up with.
So they gave us, like, five different levels, right?
Like, the first couple we, hopefully, we can hit, and maybe the third, maybe we
get, and then it got to, like, the fifth level.
It sounded like single, double, triple, home run.
Home run, fucking Grand Slam.
The fifth one was 110% of all Netflix viewers, or something like that.
So it's everybody who has a Netflix account watches it, and then, like, 10% of
them watch it again.
And we were like, we...
No, it's like K-pop Demon.
This is the biggest K-pop Demon.
But that's what happened.
We were laughing, and then K-pop Demon Hunters came along and actually did that.
That's the first movie that's ever...
Jesus.
Yeah.
Well, I think a lot of autistic kids watch that over and over and over and over
again.
I haven't seen it, but, I mean, somebody's watching it over and over again.
Yeah, dude, people love it.
I mean, it's, you know, the value of it is that, because before this, one of
the big things
and everybody's fighting over in the strike is, like, we'll share your...
There used to be residuals, right?
And residuals, and it was only for SAG and a few other things, but it was like,
and you
knew if you had a line in the movie, and there would be a certain number, like,
at the box
office, well, you're going to get another 2,000 bucks.
And that was a big deal.
You'd get that check in the mail, and, like, okay, I could pay the rent for
another month
that I could do that shit.
But then there was this, like, sort of ill, what constitutes success?
Because streamer doesn't actually sell another ticket if you watch that movie,
right?
Right.
And it's hard to tell, well, why did you sign up for this service, right?
So, for a while, everyone's looking at, the first thing that you looked at when
you subscribed
to somebody, okay, you're going to go buy Hulu?
What did you watch first?
The bear.
Well, the bear must be creating value for us.
But you can't assign a strict numerical value to it, because it's like a box
office where
you can go, well, you know, Oppenheimer is a billion dollars or whatever, and,
you know,
that's another billion dollars on our balance sheet, because streamers are
doing a subscription
model, you know?
And it's, you know, whether it's like a gym membership, or in the fucking, you
know, first
of the year, you're like, I'm going to work out again, I'm going to buy that
annual membership,
and you go twice, or you go to the gym every single day, you're paying the same
amount.
Also, the weird thing is with streaming, when you're opening up Netflix, it's
not like you're
going to the movie theater, and there's seven movies playing.
You're opening up Netflix, and you have an unlimited option list.
It's insane how much content.
You could waste the rest of your life sitting in front of Netflix, and then die,
and have,
you know, millions of hours more to listen to, or watch.
You're right.
Like, when we'd start researching that, and built our own data to pull people,
and examine
all this stuff, it's actually all the library stuff that people are watching
all the time.
If you said, like, the new stuff is theoretically what keeps people with the
subscription or whatever,
but in terms of, like, volume of time, I think, and doesn't come from them, but
it looks a
lot like, you know, we're going to watch, like, Orange is the New Black, and
the episode of
Suits, and the old Seinfeld, and Friends, and, you know, Cupcake Wars, or, you
know, that's
what's, because Americans watch six hours of TV a day, right?
That's crazy.
And then the other six hours, they're on their phone.
How does anything get done?
How does anything get done?
When you started to make this film, like, what is the process?
Like, how did you guys agree on it?
Like, what, did you guys have it written first?
Joe, yeah, Joe.
Before you knew you were going to Netflix with it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He came to us with the script, and we've known Joe for a really, he did a movie,
his
first movie was called Nark.
I don't know if you ever saw it.
Yeah, that's a great movie, yeah.
So we met him way back this, 25 years ago, or something like that, and so we
met him back
then, and Ben did a movie of his in 2004, I think.
And so we've known Joe for a really long time, and kind of been in touch with
him over the
years, and he just sent this to us.
And we read it, and we thought it was great, and bought it for the company, and
then we
started talking to Joe about, you know, how he saw it, you know, how he wanted
to do it,
and he suggested that we actually do the movie.
And we were like, yeah, why don't we do it?
It seems...
It was basically because we liked it.
We liked it, yeah.
And part of it's like, we're not trying to just do our movies.
So we want to be, you know, doing movies with all the people that we like,
respect, and
then, you know, the way we sort of set it up is such that to try to get, like,
historically,
the way it's worked is, like, you know, a studio will own an IB or a script or
whatever, and
then they'll say, okay, we want you to do it.
Okay, well, how much did you get for the last one, right?
And you go, well, then what's the budget?
And then that's how they assign a value to it, right?
But, like, my belief was, well, especially when these streamers are, like,
coming into
the market and chasing stuff, is, like, this movie may be worth more.
It may be worth less.
And that, like, we're all just subject to that.
So we'll try to get the best price for it, and we'll all share it, you know,
pro rata.
And essentially, that was the same process.
We've done eight, I guess, movies or so now.
And we took it out, and, you know, people wanted it.
And then one of the things that was really appealing about Netflix was that
they were open
to this idea that we've been trying to institutionalize, and it was like, okay,
great.
That's really meaningful, because ideally, it becomes a template that other
people go,
hey, we want to do that thing, you know?
And then they go, oh, here's the paperwork.
Yeah, that's the thing.
Like, a lot of people say that they would want to do it, but now the template
exists.
So it's like plug and play.
So if you're not full of shit and you really do mean that, then guess what?
Just take this and don't do it.
And it also is going to let you, you know, I hope, like, manage the risk.
In other words, the argument you always have is like, well, shit, we've got to
invest all
this money in the movie, so you can't have your protagonist be too objectionable,
that's
too edgy, or can't be R-rated because it costs this money.
I get it, right?
You're going to put all your money into it.
You don't want money to fucking disappear.
You want to make money.
Okay.
So, like, when we wrote the first movie, Good Will Hunting, it was like, we
knew that
had to be a cheap movie.
People talking in rooms to each other because no one's going to put a bunch of
money into
a movie.
Into a movie with us.
Two assholes that no one heard of.
So, it was like, okay, what can we do that's interesting and try to keep it as
inexpensive
as possible so that we can make the argument that someone should make the movie?
That same logic, like, carries through every time you're asking somebody to
invest in something.
So, what I'd like to have happen is to say, okay, now that we know there's a
reliable
system where we understand that, like, in success, we'll actually benefit, we
can lower, you
know, the price up front for you so that you can have a low fucking barrier to
entry so
that you can take the risk so that we can do something really interesting that's
an original
idea that's a, you know, that's an Abinam or a Sinners or a Marty Supreme or
whatever it
is.
And then, if it's successful, we're not still sitting here like assholes where,
you know,
you guys walk off with all the money.
And you can have that happen in an ongoing way so that you can make more
interesting stuff.
A lot of the stuff that was going on with strikes was centered around AI and
what AI is going
to do to the business.
Like, where do you feel is going to be, like, the biggest problem with AI?
Is it going to be with people's likenesses?
Because there's a lot of that where they want to use extras and own their
digital rights
forever, essentially be able to recreate them in any kind of film.
But then there's also, you're going to have films that are written by
artificial intelligence.
You're going to have scenes that don't involve people.
And it gets weird, right?
It gets really weird, but there's actually an area of expertise for him.
Yeah, we've been spending time looking at this.
Like, my belief is sort of like, what's going to happen with electricity?
Well, a lot of shit's going to happen with electricity.
Some of it's going to be good.
Some of it's going to change stuff.
Some of it's going to be, like, you know, this is going to be, you know, shit
that kills
a bunch of people.
Like, it's opening a door that you can't, you know, say, well, talk about in a
kind
of a blanket way.
But I think with what I see is, for example, if you try to get ChatGPT or Claude
or Gemini
to write you something, it's really shitty.
And it's shitty because by its nature, it goes to the mean, to the average.
And it's not reliable.
And it's, I mean, I just can't even stand to see what it writes.
Now, it's a useful tool if you're a writer and you're going, ah, what's the
thing?
I'm trying to set something up or somebody sends someone a letter, but it's
delayed two
days and gets, and it can give you some examples of that.
I actually don't think it's very likely that it can, it's going to be able to
write anything
meaningful.
Or, and in particular, that it's going to be making movies, like, from whole
cloth, like
Tilly Norwood.
Like, that's bullshit.
I don't think that's going to happen.
I think it's not, I think it actually, it turns out the technology is not
progressing
in exactly the same way they sort of presented it.
And really what it is, it's going to be a tool, just like sort of visual facts.
And yeah, it needs to have language around it.
You need to protect your name and likeness.
You can do that.
You can watermark it.
Your, those laws already exist.
You can't, I can't sell your fucking picture for money.
I can't, you can sue me, period.
I might have the ability to draw you, to make you in a very realistic way, but
that's already
against the law.
And the unions are going to, I think the guilds are going to manage this where
it's like,
okay, look, if this is a tool that actually helps us, for example, we don't
have to go
to the North Pole, right?
We can shoot the scene here in our parkas and, you know, whatever it is, and,
but then
make it appear very realistically as if we're in the North Pole, it'll save us
a lot of
money, a lot of time.
We're going to focus on the performances and not be freezing our ass off out
there and running
back inside.
That's useful.
Just like Spencer Tracy and Catherine Hepburn used to be like driving their car
and there's a
wind blowing a painting behind them and look goofy and, you know, now, you know,
in computer
generated, people use a lot of computer generated stuff and some of it is going
to replace just
that.
Like instead of a 500 guys in Singapore, you know, making $2 an hour to, to
render all
the graphics for a superhero movie, there's going to be able to do that a lot
easier.
There's already laws around and guild guidelines around like how many union
extras you have to
use.
But also we've been tiling extras.
Like there weren't a million orcs in Middle Earth.
You know what I mean?
There weren't an Invictus.
There weren't all those people in the stadium.
Like that's something we've been doing.
It kind of feels to me like the thing we were talking about earlier where there's
a lot more
fear because we have the sense that's existential dread.
It's going to wipe everything out.
But that actually runs counter in my view to what history seems to show, which
is a adoption
is slow.
It's incremental.
I think a lot of that rhetoric comes from people who are trying to justify valuations
around companies where they go, we're going to change everything.
In two years, there's going to be no more work.
Well, the reason they're saying that is because they need to ascribe a
valuation for investment
that can warrant the capex spend they're going to make on these data centers
with the argument
that like, oh, you know, as soon as we do the next model, it's going to scale
up three
times as good, except that actually chat GPT-5, about 25% better than chat GPT-4
and costs
about four times as much in the way of electricity and data.
So those nice things that it's like plateauing, the early AI, the line went up
very steeply and
it's now sort of leveling off.
I think it's because, and yes, it'll get better, but it's going to be really
expensive to get
better. And a lot of people were like, fuck this. We want you at GPT-4 because
it turned out like
the vast majority of people who use AI are using it to like, as like companion
bots to chat with at
night. And so there's no work, there's no productivity, there's no value to it.
I would
argue there's also not a lot of social value to getting people to like focus on
an AI friend
who's, you know, telling you that you're great and listening to everything you
say and being
sycophantic. That's sort of a side issue. I think for this particular purpose,
like the
way I see the technology and what it's good at and what it's not, it's going to
be good
at filling in all the places that are expensive and burdensome and then they
get harder to
do it. And it's always going to rely fundamentally on the human artistic
aspects of it.
Well, I think the more it becomes ubiquitous, the more people are going to
appreciate real
things that are made by real people, you know, like you're, you still
appreciate a handmade
table, you know, you're, you're going to appreciate it. Like, did you see, um,
uh, the beast in
me, Claire Danes? Yeah. No, I didn't. I didn't. Yeah. I heard it was great.
That lady. Woo.
Yeah. Terrific. Woo. When she's in a scene, you're just like, Jesus Christ.
Great, great.
Like you, like her fucking lips are quivering. Like you believe everything that
she's saying.
But you're right. People want that. You can't, you can't fake that.
Right. I'll say like, I, I did this interview with, uh, with Dwayne Johnson.
Cause they, you
know, they, when people are in these awards things, they sometimes have other
actors interview
them, you know? And I did this interview with Dwayne and, and, and I asked him,
there's this
scene in the smashing machine where, where he's overdosed on drugs and his
buddy comes to
see him in the hospital. Yeah. And, and it really walloped me this scene. I
thought it was
so great. And, and I asked him and I was just like, can you just tell me about
this
scene? Like did Benny, Benny Safdie directed it? Did Benny write, there's write
that. Did
you work on that scene with them? Did you, he goes, no, we, we actually worked
on it together.
And I go, well, how did that scene come to be? And Dwayne goes, well, my father
was an
alcoholic and I don't remember if he said substance abuser, alcoholic, but I
didn't know the man.
I don't want to impugn him, but, but he had, he had a substance issue, whatever
it was.
He goes, and, and when he would talk to me, uh, you know, that's how he would
defend
himself. He was almost a bargaining thing. Cause there's a thing when this guy
comes to him,
he's overdosed and Dwayne's amazing in the scene. He's, he's going like, he's
going like,
yeah, isn't it crazy? And then I woke up and I mean, I could hear him, but I
couldn't really
hear him. And you see him and he's kind of tap dancing and his friend finally
kind of holds
his feet to the fire. And at that moment, Dwayne literally starts to burst into
tears and just
pulls the hospital sheet up over his head. And it's like, and it's, and it's, I
mean, it just,
it was, I'm not doing it justice if you haven't, I mean, I know you've seen it,
but, um, he said,
yeah. So he explains that about his father. And then he goes, and, and, uh,
when my mom was diagnosed
with stage three lung cancer, I was with her when the oncologist came in and
she was lying in the
hospital bed. And when he gave her the news, she pulled the sheet up over her
head and I looked at
her and she just looked like a little, like a little kid, you know? And I was
like, all right,
like, so that, right, is two traumatic events from this guy's life, right? From
his life experience.
And the actor in him, right? Sees this scene, goes into his memory, pulls these
two things out,
understands that they're appropriate for this scene and he can marry them
together in the scene.
And then he goes and performs it that way. And a dude walking in off the road,
goes to the movies,
sees this, understands somehow that it's fucking real. I didn't know why. That's
why I wanted to
ask him, how did that scene come to be? I genuinely didn't know. And made me
tear up and, you know,
like that is, there's no fucking AI that can do that. No, it's the whole lot
more than
photo realistic images. Yeah. You, you could, you could, you could have an AI
understand Dwayne's
face and move his face into different, no fucking thing could ever do that. The
complications of real
life experiences relayed. That is a completely human. That is, that is an
artist. That's a
piece of art. Yes. That comes out of a lived human experience. That movie gave
me so much
anxiety. There's moments where Emily Blunt is arguing with Emily Blunt. She's
so good. I said,
I really said, I, I'd be like that. I think, I think that's the best she's ever
been. I love,
you know, we live in the same building in New York. She's like a very dear
friend of mine. And I,
and I, I, I was like, I really think that's the best she's ever been. And then
I said,
and then I blurted that out to Chris Nolan and, and he kind of stopped and
looked at me like,
he didn't say it, but he was kind of like, she's pretty fucking good in my
movie too.
Well, she's a great period. She's a great period. She's a great period. But
there's something
about that. Well, I knew Mark. I knew Mark from, I met Mark in 97 when he was
fighting in the UFC.
So I knew the whole journey of him. And I was so happy for Dwayne because it
was a film where
instead of being this fucking superhero, blockbuster Hulk of a man, he gets to
be that, but be a great
actor. And you know, you can't really get a person to look like that, to
express emotions and express
and, and he was Mark Kerr. If you know Mark, I mean, it was fucking great. I
completely forgot it
was him. And somebody who had seen it before told me that was going to happen.
And I was like,
all right, we'll see. And it was like, from the second it started, it didn't
get the credit it
deserved in terms of like the amount of people that went to see it. But I think
overall in time,
people will appreciate it. Yeah, that's what people will go back to and look at
and talk
about it. Because it's a movie about MMA. So a lot of people are like, I don't
want to
see a movie about a bunch of fucking meatheads, but it's not. It's just a movie
that happens
to be around MMA, but it's a great movie. The scenes are fucking fantastic. The
acting is
so good. And the right, and even the fight scenes, they're so realistic, man.
It's really
like they, I've saw all those fights. They've recreated those fights about as
good as you
can get. And just his crazy struggle. And you know, the story behind the
documentary, the
smashing machine. No. So the smashing machine was made when Mark was at the
height of his
powers and pride. And he was the most terrifying guy in the world. He was 265
pounds of solid
muscle, just blowing through people. Didn't even look like a human being.
Everyone was terrified.
No one knew he was a drug addict. No one knew. And he spiraled out as they were
filming. And
he let them film him. Let them film him shooting up. Let them film him like
bringing this giant
bag of pills with him and all this shit everywhere and just completely falling
apart. While they
were supposed to be capturing this hero movie of the greatest fighter in the
world, he's falling
apart like live in front of the documentary. It was fucking amazing documentary.
I got to
see it. It's really good. But I was so happy that they put it in a film. And I
was so happy
that it gave Dwayne a vehicle to show what he's really capable of because he's
so limited by
a lot of just the parameters of the roles that he was in.
Yeah. And by, and by like galactic success. Yes. Right. I mean, it's, it's, it's,
it's,
he, he has, he had to, and will continue to have to push for that. Right.
Because it's what
he wants. Yeah. And not because what, because what, what they're going to
continue to want him
to do is, you know, the thing that, that, that mints them money. Yeah. But I
suspect that his
experience and feeling about this movie from the conversations I've had with
him. Yeah. This,
this is, this is, this has changed him. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like this
thing that these
superhero guys have to do where it's like something has to change because
otherwise you're going to be
boxed. Yeah. And with a guy that looks like that, it's so easy to put him in
that box. And so you see
him now, he's thinner. He's lost a lot of weight. Like Dave Bautista went
through a very similar
thing too. Right. He wanted to be, he wanted to have more range, wanted to have,
you know,
more opportunities to do exciting and different challenging things. Well, I
think also coming
from where he came from, right. It's like, you talk about going from TV to
movies in the old days,
try coming from wrestling to like the biggest movie star in the world. Right.
It's very, it's like,
it's incredible that he did that. And now he's in this place where he's got
this leverage as,
because he's so beloved and, you know, that, that he can kind of tailor the,
tailor what he wants from, from here on out. It's hard to bring the audience
with you and you're like,
no, no, no. I know you like this thing, but let me, let me show you something
else. You know,
it's sort of like you go to the concert, the band wants to play the new songs,
play the fucking hits,
you know, he's always a little gilded gaze. All right, fuck it. Satisfaction.
Yeah. No, I love the song too. You know, my, my acoustic thing that I did.
Yeah. I went to see the stones and when they were here in town and there was a
few songs they played
that were like new songs. Oh really?
I see the audience is like, okay, okay.
Go get a beer.
Okay. Get the other one. Yeah. That's what I mean, but you know, every artist,
I guess has to make that choice and he's made it. And,
and it was amazing vehicle too. Cause he still kept that superhuman hulkish
frame and then,
but also showed like, God, there's like amazing depth there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And that's the thing that's, I think, especially cause it's a, it's
collaborative.
It happens to other people. That's what movies do that other shit doesn't do,
which is just create like you feel for people. It's empathy. It's all made up,
right?
That's not him. It's the old, it's all an illusion. It's all bullshit.
But if you do it really well with like, you know,
somebody that seems to really be feeling something like all of a sudden,
I think what it does, it touches like these things in ourselves. You know,
it has that same effect that Dwayne went through of articulating to you about
like
these moments that were kind of burned into his memory.
Then really the best movies are kind of almost blank screens that we project
our own
fucking like, Oh yeah, I, my, my father died or I went through this with my kid
or
I'm fucking, I feel fucking alone and, and, and, and miserable. And here's this
like
hopeful moment that someone has to go, maybe I can, maybe I can do something.
You know,
they inspire you, they touch you, they move you. And it's the thing to go for
it. The other thing is,
you know, it's a, is to, to tell a lighter story, to go through the more
typical sort of tropes of
it all. And it's a, either way you're in somebody else's perspective for a few
hours and
hopefully it breeds compassion. Well, when it's done right, there's a magic to
it where you forget
that it's happening and you're there. When, and the most amazing trick is when
it's done by famous
people. You know, I was talking to Ethan Hawke about this is that there's a
scene with him and Kevin
Bacon when, in that movie with Julia Roberts about the end of the world. I
forget the name, right?
Tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Tomorrow something. Yeah. People find it, but it's a
great, great fucking movie,
but there's this scene where he's trying to get, he's talking to Kevin Bacon.
Kevin Bacon's got a gun to
him and it's so fuck. I know that's Kevin Bacon. I know that's Ethan Hawke. It
doesn't matter. Like
you're fucking locked in. You're locked in. You're like, Oh shit. I get, that's
the magic. And, and he was
like, but I'm locked in too. Like that's, it's like a hypnosis. It's like
everybody is,
in the scene in a very bizarre way. Like you, you have the lines, but you're
living it. And so,
and that's either done or it's not done. And when it's not done, you could tell
someone's kind of
just performative. You feel it when you're watching. Yes. If it does that thing
and it pulls you in,
then it's happening. That's the magic of film. And sometimes you trick people,
I guess,
but for the most part, for the most part, you don't. If you're feeling it and
you just really
happening, it's much more like other human beings recognize that.
human beings experiencing real shit. Yes. They, they, they really mirror
neurons. Like I know what
sorrow looks like without having to fucking, I can't break it down for you. Or
I even, you know,
you, we all know kind of what, like, Oh, he's a little anxious right now. Or
did I maybe offend
him or, you know, all these little things. And when some, like in the rare
moments, when these big
feelings or the things happen, you feel it too, you know? And you usually like
an example is,
this is an old saying about like, uh, you know, actors try to cry. People try
not to cry. Like,
because when you're really experiencing that shit, you don't want people to see
it. You want to hide
it. You want to know, I'm okay. I'm fine. You know, it's like, you want to pull
the sheet up.
Yeah. Yeah. But the other thing that's really interesting from, from our side
of doing it,
because he and I've talked about this a lot is, and I've always said publicly,
like great actors are
good enough for both of you. Like when you're in a scene with a great actor,
that thing that Ethan's
talking about, that hypnosis or whatever you want to call it, that energy, that,
that place where you
go, right. They're bringing you right with it. It's like a fucking tractor beam.
They will suck you
right in with them. And like, as quickly as you look into their eyes and you're
like, you're like
just there. And it's like, and it's not like, it's like riding the easiest wave
you've ever
ridden in your life. You know, it can be the hardest thing in the world and it
can be the easiest thing
in the world. When you're with a great actor, it just, it's just, if the scenes.
Yeah. That's
a real paradox is like all this stuff that I'm the most proud of. The weird
thing about us has felt
very easy at the time and the shit where you're banging your head against the
wall trying to get
blood from a stone and killing yourself and all the thing. And it just, it ends
up fucking feeling
empty. And the thing about the stuff that I'm proud of is my insecurity is like,
should be harder than
this. Right. Are we, are we like, we work hard enough or we get, you know, and
learn to kind of
just trust that guy. It feels good. Let's just keep going. You know? Well,
there's some scenes in this
movie without giving too much away where there's conflict between you two guys.
It seems so real
and that's even harder to recreate because you guys are good friends and you're
making the movie
together and you've got this scene where you're acting in this and with the
conflict with the two
of you guys, the movie, but it's very fucking real. The reason that it was real
is that I like that
scene. The reason it's, it works, I think is because he's coming at me and he's,
he really needs to
know something and I'm completely blanking him. Like I'm just, he's going, you
got to tell me what's
going on, man. He's like, it's awesome. Like what, what is going, what is the
thing? And I'm,
and I'm just like literally kind of blanking him in this bizarre way, which,
which like was really
frustrating him in real life because he, he was, that feeling of like, it's
fucking tell me, dude,
it's you. And be like, and he finally goes, he screams out, I don't trust you
right now. That's a
fucking problem. Right. Which is like what you would say to an old friend, like,
what are you doing,
man? Like what, what, what are you doing? Like, are you like the betrayal? Tell
me the fucking,
the betrayal is that. Lie to me or tell me the truth. Lie to me or tell me the
truth. Don't fuck me and
like step outside our whole relationship and all of a sudden just act like, you
know. Give me this
weird look of just like, I don't know, you know, like, and so we were doing the
scene. It was really
fucking pissing him off. I could see him like getting like. The one line that
wasn't written that I saw,
I didn't remember doing was I would have never fucked you like this. I would
have never fucked you like
this. Yeah. Which I didn't even remember saying, I like that. Keep that thing.
I wouldn't have fucked
you. And I was, I thought, I was like, what is he? I thought, what did I just,
you know, and I still
watched the playback. It was in those rare moments. Again, it was like where it
was that thing of you
doing all the work by, by not doing anything, which I didn't expect that to be
the choice that you
made. And it just was confusing. And it felt like just, you know, leaving you
out in the fucking
cold. I mean, the only thing I could rely on is like, I, you know, I, I would,
I wouldn't do this
to you. So do you have in those moments where you're, you're ad-libbing a line
where a line
comes, is it just, just that feels like that's what you say? Yeah. It's just
kind of like he
couldn't stop from saying it. Right. You know, but you have to be working with
somebody that makes
that okay. You know what I mean? Cause the part of your brain that will like
govern you or tell you
something's not okay, whatever. We'll, we'll step in if it's sort of like, you
know, listen, I expect
you to fucking do this box. And there's, there's directors and writers who
really do really care
about every word precisely. And that, you know, and that's, that's how they do
it. And that's fine.
And that can be great too. For me, like it, I find it's, it becomes more
interesting and sometimes
better stuff happens. If you actually feel like you don't have to say any of
the lines, I don't say any
of the lines in the scene, then I'll tend to say the ones that feel right. But
it, but like,
it's that, it's that fake thing that never happens in life, which is I'm never
sitting
here talking to you and think, what's my next line? What am I supposed to say?
And how should
I say that? And it's not about the lines ever. It's not about the words about
what's hap,
what's the scene about what's happening in the scene? It's one of the reasons
why curb,
curb your enthusiasm is so great. Cause Larry David just gives you a place to
get to.
Yeah. Like you got a minute, kind of a loose agenda of what's going to happen.
And then films, a bunch of stuff and everybody figures it out. Yeah. And a lot
of times that
shows about the awkward shit in between when people are missing each other or
not sure of
themselves and a little embarrassed and genius show. It really is. And, and,
and people talk
like we're talking, like you occasionally talk over each other. There's a
stumble. There's no one
no, like what, what, what the fuck are you talking? There's weirdness. Well,
because what's also
happening is that forces you to really listen. Right. And that is, that is the
hardest thing to
kind of learn for young actors. I think is, is it's really all about listening.
And like I did
a bunch of movies with Paul Greengrass and that's how he works where he, where
you just know the agenda
going in, you know, some basic things that you, you know, what your guy needs
going in. Like I was
playing a chief warrant officer and I had to go through a door and there was a
guy and I needed
to interrogate him. And I, this is what I needed to know from him. I needed to
secure the house with
my guys and I needed to get to this guy. We needed to make sure everybody here
was secure. So, and it
just, and they, and he put me with a bunch of real combat veterans and we
fucking went in and,
you know, there are the experts. Which is another thing that does your job for
you. It's just
being around the real people. Joe putting the cops from Miami, you know, all in
these parts. And
it, it just like by osmosis, you feel more legitimate. The thing feels more
authentic
to the audience. You don't know why, because you don't know what the, how, what
the fucking
culture is of the tactical narcotics team in Miami. But when you see the real
guys, you
kind of, Oh, you're like, yeah, that seems right.
Miami is a perfect place to have it too.
Well, it's also specific to this because it's based on this real tactical narcotics
team
in Miami. And, and, and the guy who ran that, this guy, Chris Cassiano is Joe's
friend. And he's the
guy that my character is based on. So Chris was Chris, we went, you know, we
wrote along with Chris
down there. We went with that team and watched them operate and then hung out
with them. And then
they came up and they were, you know, all in the movie. And Chris was around as
a technical advisor
the whole time. So any question, like little details, all right, how do I go
through this
door? What do I do? What do you do here? What's the, what's the protocol here?
What, you know,
all of that stuff was kind of overseen by him so that it, so that it was how
they really do it.
That whole fucking town is so, did you ever see cocaine cowboys?
Yes.
The entire fucking graduating class of the police academy one year, either
wound up murdered or
in jail. That's what happens. All of a sudden you push so much fucking money
into something.
And it's like, before they even kind of figured out, like, you know, and it was,
there wasn't
even a lot of stigma. It was like, ah, cocaine, whatever. It's kind of rich
guys, fun, drug.
But, you know, it was just some statistic about like, you know, the amount of
money in the
banks in Miami was like the same as the rest of the country.
More banks per capita in Miami than anywhere else in the country.
Right.
Because they were just laundering money.
Right.
And they got away with it. They literally got away with it.
Have you ever flown over Bimini, you know?
No.
So, so if you fly over, ever fly over Bimini, there are all these like Cessnas
underwater,
all these planes like around the island. Because what they used to do, Bimini
is like the closest,
it's 50 miles off the coast of Florida. They would, they would come in with a
plane full of drugs
and just crash the plane into the water. They would land it.
On purpose?
On purpose. Because there's no runway on Bimini. There's no, it's like, fuck it,
we're going to dump the plane in the water and bring it out.
They would have 10 cigarette boats, like a flotilla of boats waiting. They
would crash
the plane. They'd offload the drugs as the plane was sinking. Right. And, and
then they'd
put it, they'd put it, they'd put it, the coast guard like figures that they're
always
coming for them. That's why they have 10 boats. They throw the drugs into one
of the boats
and they got a one out of 10 chance of making it. They just scatter.
And that, and the coast guard goes after one of them and hopes they get the
right one and
not, it's just like, no, it's just taking a cruise tonight. What's the problem,
officer?
Wow.
But the planes are still all submerged. Like you could, the water's so clear
you could see.
How many fucking, oh wow.
Oh, there you go.
That's crazy. How many fucking planes are out there?
I flew over it probably 20 years ago, but I mean, there's, yeah.
That wasn't a, I don't know how long, I mean, but if you think of probably the
cost of one
of those little Cessnas probably wasn't, I mean, with the amount of drugs they
were moving
on.
Yeah, there you go.
It was fucking wild.
That's right. They're kind of landing where it's sort of shallow.
Yeah, they land and it's like five to 10 feet of water. And what do they, they
land
at whatever, 55 knots. So you just try to, it looks nice too. Like, yeah, sure.
Wow.
It won't be comfortable, but I mean, Sully landed at 737 or whatever it was.
Right. Yeah. Fucking wild. What a crazy part of our culture that that happened.
Yeah.
That the, the, the whole cocaine run during the eighties in particular, like
Miami Vice,
all that shit. Like it's like, it shaped the entire country.
For sure.
Oh yeah.
I just remember that one guy in that documentary who was like, I think he was
from Boston and
he was like the pilot and he had figured out the route and he was like, man,
like we could
have gotten away with this forever.
It was somebody talked and he knew that's the only way we would have been
caught. He was
like, I had it all. He was clearly really smart.
A ton of guys did too. You know what I mean? There's a whole lot of people out
there that
were like, yeah, we had a nice run back in the eighties. That's why I got eight
houses.
It was like, Oh yeah. That's one of the real crimes that people got away with
was bringing
cocaine into this country. There's a lot of people that got very wealthy,
including banks,
which is just really crazy.
Banks or the jewelry companies.
Oh yeah.
There was like more Jaguar dealerships in Miami than ever in the country. And
he was like,
doesn't pay to ask questions. So yeah, I guess a lot of people like our cars
here.
You don't say all cash. Sure.
Yeah. We can make you a deal. Sure.
How many backyards in Miami still to this day have bags just buried somewhere
that nobody
knows about?
It's probably worth just checking.
When you buy a house in Miami, just dig the yard up.
Well, at least find out who owned it before you. Oh, he's a pilot.
Get a truck. Get a tractor. It's time to dig up the backyard. I mean, one of
those guys
in the films had millions of dollars just buried in his backyard. They had
nowhere to put
it. They were making so much money. They just had to bury it places.
That's fucking crazy.
Well, it's why it's a perfect backdrop for the film, you know, because, you
know, that
the situation that the cops, without giving away too much of the plot, but the
situation
that the cops are dealing with is a very real situation. I mean, so many DEA
agents turn
dirty. So many cops turn dirty. It's because it just can get confronted.
There's so much temptation.
Yes.
Like you take these people, you know, you got like six, seven people, they
fucking work
for a living. They have the same bullshit they have to deal with. And there's $20
million,
you know, and it's, I mean, it makes for a great like drama too, even like the,
you know,
with the performances. Cause all of a sudden somebody's thinking like, okay,
how are they
going to react? You know, who's the first person to say, you know, I'm going to
have
to turn this all in, you know, and, and like getting to play that shit. And for
me also,
I like, you know, without being, you know, sanctimonious or preachy, cause I
really think
movies, we're talking about like what they do well, what they do very poorly is
deliver
messages or lecture. As soon as you get into that thing, the audience is like,
I, you know,
I'm going to go to church for that or fucking school. I don't need that shit
here. Um, but
I liked that. What was underneath it is like, this is a fucking hard job. And,
and that there's
a lot of, like, there's a lot of value. Like the, these characters, the ones
that are trying
to do their job are trying to get through the day. And just at the end of the
day have
done their job. Like they said they were going to do, you know, adhere to the
fucking ethics
that they're supposed to. And at the end of the day, be able to sleep at night
and believe
there's some value in not fucking stealing the money or flipping somebody over,
you know
what I mean? And doing all that shit. And that's the win. The win doesn't have
to be get away
with the bag of money or fucking, you know, saves the world from, uh, you know,
the evil
scientist laser beam or whatever. It's like the end of the day, if you can
fucking live
with yourself and say, look, you know, I quitted myself according to what the
fucking expectations
were and what am I true to my word. And I, I think there's so like, that's a, I
don't
know that, that affected me. I found that kind of moving and, and you can't do
it. If
you create like, if it is to credit to Joe script, like just two dimensional
characters,
I'm the hero, I'm the villain, or this person would never do that. They don't
have to be
real people. Like it would be subject to like temptation and money just
represents
whatever that thing is you think you want, or that's going to make your life
better.
You're, you know, it's something different to everybody, but you know, and
especially when
you're like, you're facing like real, you know, the custody thing or the, you
know, the
sick relative or, or whatever it is, that's, it's a real thing. Nobody's immune
to, to, to
that kind of temptation. You know, sometimes I think it's cavalier to be like,
oh, well,
you're dirty or you're not putting people in a very tough situation. A lot of
times, particularly
if they're feeling like undervalued, like the woman, the scene where Catalina
is like, I get
fucking pissed. I get yelled at. I get shit on. You know what I mean? Like I'm
out here
grinding every fucking day. You know, it's a, it's a lot to, it's a lot to ask.
And I think
it's, it's worth kind of making that, you know, heroic without sort of
indicating too much.
No, it's really well written because there's no suspension of disbelief moments.
It's a, it's a,
and that's hard to do in a big blockbuster action movie. There's always one
movie moment in a movie
where we were like, what, how do you do that? You guys don't have any of those.
There's none of that.
And I loved it. I loved it. I loved that, that aspect of it too, where it felt
like all of it
was like, I believed it. I believed it. And that's really a credit to Joe and
his like taste. And
that's why we really thought like, this guy knew how to make narc. He kind of
obviously understood
this world and understood that it has to, above all, it has to feel real. And
that's why he was open
to like, okay, whatever happens, you throw in a line, maybe it's good. Can't
get your feeling hurt
if it's not, you know, but like, you got to be able to take that shot. And we're
all down,
you know, trying to spend time with people. I mean, I kind of feel for these
cops, a bunch of actors
to send on you. And they're like, what, what kind of sweatshirt is that? You
know, it was like
that Michael J. Fox, James Woods movie. Remember that movie? Wait, when he, I
forget what it was
called, but he's Michael J. Fox is an actor following around James Woods. He's
studying him for a
character and James Woods is a real like detective. And he's just like, get
this guy away from me.
I kept thinking of that. Kind of hair gel. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Like all
these questions,
you know, but they were very tolerant of us, which was, which was nice. And,
and, and, and really,
really helpful, you know, because it's all, it's always details. It's always
details. It's like,
how fastidiously do you, do you kind of mind for those details? Cause I've, I've
always been
convinced that like an audience, it's like you were saying, they don't analyze
why they
don't believe something. They feel it. They just don't believe it. And it's
usually because
those details are, you, you don't get those. And that's the only thing, like, I'm
not great
at imagining something. Let's invent this. Everything that I've done, like that
I, that
I like has been a result of something I found in research. Like for the town, I
went down and
just went through the, you know, all the prisons, you know, out there,
Massachusetts, federal
prisons, state prisons and sat down and talked to guys who robbed trucks and
banks. And,
you know, kind of sometimes, you know, you want to know, and then sat down with
the FBI
guys and was like, what are they like? And the great shit, you know, for me is
that, you
know, and I'm in like, uh, I'm in like wet wall pole or I'm in the prison dead,
I'm
or whatever. And I'm to some guy said, like, after talking for two hours, you
know, I was
like, is anything just fucking weird ever happened or fucked up? Anything you
remember?
Like, I was like, yeah, one time, uh, you know, we were coming out of this
thing. We
robbed this truck and, you know, we, we had the mask, we got the switch car, we
drove around
the corner and whatever. We pull up, we get out fucking guns, the mask, whole
thing. And
we look over and it's this cop sitting there doing construction duty. And I was
like, right
then he tell me a story. I was like, oh shit. I was like, what happened? He
goes, no, he
looked at us. We looked at him. He looked the other way. And I was like, really?
He goes,
yeah. He didn't want to end up on the wall at the VFW.
These guys with full automatic weapons, masks on, switching cars.
I was like, all right, I'm putting that in the movie.
And it's, it's in the, it's a great moment in the town, like in the movie.
Cause you know,
Renner, they all jump out of the things and they, and then, and he, oh yeah,
here it is.
Yeah, exactly. It was like, it's great. And it's this awkward, they just stop.
And this
dude, he sees them. They see him. He's like, oh fuck, we have to kill this guy.
Nope. He turns away.
Okay. Wow.
It's such a great, but that's straight from research. I always loved that story.
Um, and
then he, and then the line is here that he put it here.
And one on and up at the wall at the VFW. Yeah. It was a great, you know, it's
a great line.
It was such a simple explanation for what, why do you think he, what do you
think he did?
You know, and why? Like, and that's exactly what it would have been like that
guy next day's
picture would have been up in the wall at the VFW. Yeah. You know, and he knew
it and everybody
knew it. He said he didn't want to do it like that. You know, that was, and
that kind of
stuff is, uh, I don't know. It's very human, human calculations and interact. I
mean, it's
a very extreme version of it, but it also doesn't have, sometimes it's not
dramatic at all.
You know, it's like, yeah, that was an easy decision. And then the guy never
says anything.
No, I didn't say anything, you know, and kind of can't really blame him, you
know?
Yeah. The Town was a great fucking movie too, man. And I knew a lot of people
like that,
you know, from boxing gyms and stuff. I knew a guy who was a hit man for Whitey
Bulger.
Really?
I knew a guy who was a friend of a brother of mine who went to jail for that,
for murder,
for killing people. Yeah.
What town did you grow up in?
I lived in Newton.
You did?
Yeah. I grew up in, I lived in Jamaica Plain for a little while. I lived in
Newton, but I spent a lot
of time in Boston because I was fighting. It was mostly training. And so I was
around a lot of these
like very shady characters who were in the fighting world. And a lot of them
had backgrounds in crime.
One of the guys that I went to, that I trained with, he went to jail for a
little while and then
he got arrested because a guy got killed and they broke every bone in his body
with a hammer
and kept injecting it with cocaine to keep him awake while they were doing it.
And then they cut
his hands off and cut his head off. And this guy that I used to train with got
arrested for that.
Jesus.
Yeah. He didn't wind up going to jail for that. He's dead now, but he was
somehow or another,
at least peripherally involved.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I didn't do any fighting, but I went around and found a lot of
things. One of the things
about being, you know, being an actor is people will talk to you, you know,
which is a fucking
amazing gift. Even if somebody's like, oh yeah, I killed guys, you know, they'll
just come out and
like, it's kind of the rules all of a sudden don't apply. Like these guys in
the prison, what the fuck
are they going to talk? You know what I mean? But they're like interested in it
for whatever. And,
you know, so, so you avail yourself of that. And, and then I had like, you know,
we had people
around that movie who everybody knew. Yeah, he did that job. He never got
arrested. And
so like, yeah, people, you know, meet, you know, and, and, and talk to him. And
it's
interesting because the, such a good lesson for, for doing this job, which is
that they're
never how you think they're supposed to be like the murderer person. Right.
Right. You
know, there's always something a little, I remember one guy was supposed to be
like
this really violent kind of loose cannon fucking guy who was supposedly had
done all this
shit, stabbed and killed two people, Faneuil Hall and shot these guys in a, in
a robbery.
And he like shows up with his polo shirt, kind of tucked in, you know, he's
like, how's it
going? You know, just like, I never would have fucking put this guy on killing
four people.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Have a good time. So I love that one movie. And you're
just
thinking, fuck man, like this is why it, it's a really good lesson for like,
you know, we
tend to read a script and okay, this guy's the tough guy and he's going to be
the, it's
like you work with like, I had the fucking like the opportunity to train with
these Delta
guys. Like, you know, it's the most elite special forces combat fucking
operators in the world.
I mean, I suppose the SEALs will take exception to that, but what just numerically,
right?
I think there's been less than 900 guys ever in the history of Delta. You meet
them and they're
not the biggest guys. They're not the toughest guys. They're not trying to
fucking be hard.
And, you know, they're the most relaxed at ease. And it, you know, I found
myself just
being like, finally, I was like, what, can I just ask you, what do you think
makes somebody
like qualify for the Delta force? Like, what's a good Delta operator? It's like,
ah, you know,
problem solving, problem solving. The guy goes, yeah, it's probably like your
job. I was like,
no, let me tell you something. No, it's really not like my job. I appreciate it.
Very big
fucking difference. He's like, ah, you solve problems. I get him. No, he's
trying to kill
me. But that, that was the closest insight I got to, which was, I've always
kind of thought
this about like a guys like, like Brady or something. There's guys that just
don't get
tight and that they are, they are kind of able to problem solve when the
problem is like, well,
that helicopter has crashed and we're 200 miles inside Afghanistan and we're
outnumbered
fucking six to one. How do you think we should get home? Like just having your
wits about you
to make that calculation while, by the way, you're in a fucking gunfight and
things, you
know, I'm sure that does make, cause those are the people where it was, I'd be
in a
fucking panic and not have no idea what to do. And you get like attracted to
the person
who, who's like, seems to have a like, Hey, I'm it's good. We're going to be
okay. Everybody
get your shit. We're going over here. You'll just follow that guy. You know
what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, but it's a good, it's not always the most, maybe it's just
cause
they're so confident. They're not like, I don't like, I don't need to prove
that I can kick
anybody's. I don't even get in fights. Like I have a weapon, you know what I
mean? It's
just, uh, it always, it surprises me what it, how those kinds of like
extraordinary experiences
and people or extraordinary people don't always manifest themselves in how they
show up.
Right. We have caricatures ahead of what like these tough people are like. Well,
you see
that about MMA fighters. Like there's a lot of MMA fighters. You meet them.
They're like the
sweetest, nicest, friendliest people in the world. I remember going to one of
the events
in LA, I think it was at Staples and, and I was backstage and, and was talking
to, uh,
one of like the lawyers for the UFC about it. We were talking about Conor McGregor
and he
was telling me a great story about him. And this guy walks up and he's in a
like chinos,
like khaki pants and like a blue button up, like, you know, kind of business
shirt with
spectacles and he's very small and I kind of don't really regard him. And I'm
still hearing
this story. And then Patrick goes, Matt, do you know Henry? And I turn and it's
Henry Cejudo
and I'm like, this fucking guy could wreck me right now. Like absolutely
fucking destroy
me. And he, and he is the guy that some dummy would try to pick on. You know
what I mean?
Like he does not, he's not carrying himself. Like he's, he just is the thing,
you know?
And find out a little bit too late. Yeah. Don't find that one out late. Yeah.
Yeah. A lot of
guys do, unfortunately. Yeah. That's a, it's a, well, they don't have to prove
themselves,
right? They do it all the time. The same was Delta Force guys. Like this idea
that this like
outwardly brash, tough guy, usually that kind of machismo and that's bullshit.
That's you're,
you're using that cause you're insecure and the secure people are very calm and,
and genuinely
very friendly. Really nice. Yeah. That's been my experience. Yeah. It's crazy.
Right.
It was kind of beautiful too. You know, I've kind of like, what a great guy.
And you feel
like that's nice of you to be so, so sweet to me. Cause you obviously you don't
have to
be right. I'll just give you my watch if you want to. Yeah. No, it's, it is a
fascinating
thing. It's like, we have these ideas in our head, these caricatures, you know,
of what,
what a tough man is, what a good woman is, what a this is, what a that is. And
as I think
one of the beautiful things about film, when a film is really good is you see
these complex
characters and it's sort of like reformulates in your mind, like what a person
actually is.
Yeah. It's seeing all kinds of different people. Yeah. You know, and, and yeah,
yeah. I
I mean, look, the fundamental like challenge I think in life and is like, it's
like to find
some humility, which means actually thinking you might be wrong about the shit
that you're
pretty sure about. And it means that like, you kind of have to assume somebody
else might
have a point, you know, it's not like just writing everybody else off who disagrees
with you because
you're like, fuck him. He's stupid. He's an asshole. You know, like those are
things that
actually take work to get to because the, the first instinct, cause you just
defend your idea
or whatever. It's easier is to just that it's a zero sum. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
That, that two
competing ideas can't exist. Well, that somebody can't be a good person. And,
and believe it. Right.
Like if you decide it's okay, you disagree. We don't believe it. So we're, I
don't know what
about this? What about that? But once you find yourself relying on like, well,
I need to
like zero out this person's humanity in order to defend my idea. I think that's
a pretty good
indicator that like, there's something wrong with the way you're thinking, like,
because
it can't be that you're right about everything and everyone else is bad who
disagrees with you.
I think that was one of the most interesting things about the Sopranos is that
the main
character, the guy that you loved was a fucking murderer. Yeah. He was like,
who would murder
his friends. He was a complete mobster and a thug, but you really loved him. Loved
the
shit out of that guy. Yeah, cared about him. It was so complicated. I'm rewatching
it with
my daughter right now. And Jimmy was so good at doing the part that you found
yourself being
like, I don't know, I think you probably has to kill him now. Yeah. But that's
also, that's
also great, a great actor. Like there's a very famous story about Marlon Brando
when he
did Streetcar Named Desire and Tennessee Williams, who wrote it like freaked
out because he was
making Stanley Kowalski. He was making people empathize with Stanley Kowalski
and Tennessee
Williams was like, but I wrote him as a brute. He's this, he was like a two
dimensional brute
who just came and beat up his wife and, you know, and, and was just, and was
supposed to
be this kind of dark looming force over the play. But Brando was like, no, he's
a human
being. And I'm going to play him like a fucking human being. And, and it
changed the, the play.
But, but Williams, in all of his writings life in the real world, everybody's
the hero of their
story. Everyone has the reasons for why they're doing it. And people don't set
out to be like,
I'm just going to hurt someone or dominate the world. Like you think, well, I
got to protect
what I had. It's like, you know, I'm not bringing it back to this movie, but it's
like,
what I liked about Rip was, it was kind of the slippery slope, you know, the
first time you take a
little money and then, well, you know, I got to cover that. I don't want to go
to jail. I think
my reason why I did that, but now I've told a lie. Now I got to cover that
thing. And now you have
guys who both live by this code. That's very, Hey, you protect the people who
are with you and you
got to have this fucking. And so now it was to be a very similar, like by that
kind of slippery slope
of ultimately find themselves, you know, well, they killed one another, uh,
because it's really not,
I don't, I don't believe in that one choice term. It's like more, how do you
find yourself? You dig
yourself in a fucking hole. Cause you're just covering up the left, trying to
fix the last
problem that's arisen, you know? And everybody thinks is of course the roots
for themselves is
like empathize with themselves as that's what we have to be concerned with
ourselves, our needs,
our families, our basic shit. It's a hard to expect people to go like, all
right. And, and,
and what about, you know, like what they think. And I, and I think that's, I
think it's a, it's a much
more honest evaluation of people and it allows for like complexity and
forgiveness and fucking all the
shit that's sort of beautiful about people, like rather than this notion of
like, well, we're going
to be binary, good or bad, perfect or not, whatever. And any infraction, then
it's like permanently stains
you.
Right. Right. That was like what we were talking about earlier about people
that have
been canceled, you know, that, that this idea that one thing you said or one
thing you did,
and now we're going to exaggerate that to the fullest extent and cast you out
of civilization
in perpetuity. Yeah. It's fucking crazy. And yeah, I would, because, because I
bet some of those
people would have preferred to go to jail for 18 months or whatever to, and,
and, and then come out
and say, no, but I, that we can't, I paid my debt. Like we're done. Like, can
we be done?
Like the, the, the thing about, about that, you know, getting kind of excoriated
publicly like that,
it's just, it just never ends. And it's, and it's the first thing that, you
know, it's just,
it just will follow you to the grave, I think.
Well, it's also this problem that people have with people that are in the
public eye and they
have this like desire to chop them down always, you know, and anybody that stumbles
in the public eye,
they want to destroy their life and they want to just pile on and you're not
there with them.
You don't feel the empathy. You're not talking to, they're not a human being.
It's just text on a
screen. Right.
Yeah. It's just like, kind of like I was saying, like that kind of sixth grade
instinct to be like,
Oh, he's in trouble. You know, there's this, you know, human, like we have dark,
fucked up instincts too, sometimes to like isolate people or get joy out of
someone else's.
They're in trouble. Cause me, because part of it's saying, Hey, it's not me,
you know? So
if you can point the finger, everyone's looking over there, we feel safer, you
know? Right.
But it's, it's like, yeah. And to, to, to take any forgiveness out of it, you
know, is a really
fucked up thing because then it makes it impossible a to actually go, all right.
Yeah. I did that.
Fuck shit. That was wrong. I get it. You know, because it doesn't matter. Once
you've said you've
done it, you've, you become like an outcast. And I don't think anybody wants to
think, you know,
that you're the sum total of who you are is your worst moment. Right.
You know, it's sort of like the, you know, you know, I think you want to be
judged just as well.
Are you capable of doing something good or something beautiful? It's not to say
to forget,
you know, there's people that just over and over and over and they're doing
horrible shit.
Don't care. Right.
I get it. No one's trying to like absolve that, but you remove the ability to
sort of forgive
people or look at them in a complicated way or else it's kind of one, become
those things. It's like
get one of ours or one of them, the instinct to get like a team tribal oriented
and it just becomes a
sport. Yeah. Yeah. It's also like, who wants to live in a world with no
forgiveness and redemption?
Right. That's crazy. Like that's just denying the very nature of human beings
and that people do
things that they regret and they do. And then they become better people because
of it. And
some of the people I would rely on the most, like trust my kids with the most
have done shit that
they, that they really regret. And you know, what's yeah, objectively wrong.
And other people have been
like, I shit, I did that. I fuck it. Whether it's like addiction, I got myself
down this fucking right.
Did this, I did this. They're able to go, I did it. I'm sorry. It's real. I
shouldn't have done it.
It was wrong that actually that those people can become someone that's very
trustworthy.
Yeah. Cause you're like, this motherfucker will say if they've done something,
they'll actually
look at their own behavior. They'll acknowledge it. And then you, you feel, you
feel good and
you feel much versus someone who tells you like, I'm, I'm, I'm, no, I got all,
I always get it right.
Everything's perfect. Well, it's like, it's all, it's about evolution. Right.
And, and, and, and in our
own personal evolution and we're all in our, on our own path towards that, like
the, the idea of attacking
someone is like, Oh, so you, you aced the test, like put your pencil down, like
you nailed being human.
Yeah, exactly. You're done.
Oh yeah. If you did nail being human, that's not possible because you forgot
about the part
about forgiveness. Yeah.
Which is a giant part.
You haven't nailed it by definition if you're out there throwing stones.
It's most of the people that I find, especially when there's someone that's
publicly in trouble
for something. Most of the people that I know that have attacked people have a
lot of questionable
shit in their past. And it's almost like they're trying to hide that by going
on the attack.
That's the thing. Like if I can point my finger, it's like, no one's going to
be.
Yeah. Oh, he's a good guy. Ben's a good guy. He's calling them out.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. But meanwhile, you know.
And yeah, if you like, like, yeah, it's like you, you tell me to see, uh, wake
up dead man,
the knives out, the third night.
Oh, it's great.
And I watched it. I really liked it. I thought it was a really interesting,
like, you know,
I'm not a religious guy. I don't like that's, you know, and yeah, I'm aware of
all the like,
okay, you know, there's the religion, then there's people who are supposed to
be rational.
I thought it was a really beautiful movie about like, what's the role of grace
in life,
you know, and, and the really honest examination of that, like sitting doesn't
side by side with,
yeah, okay, you don't believe that. But like, and you know, saying, it's not
about like,
whether you're going to argue over fucking evolution. It's about like, how
graceful are
you in your life? You know, how much fucking dignity can you afford other
people? I know you want to
recognize and see that there's maybe something bigger than yourself and that
there's a reason to,
to like, uh, to try to sort of be, to find that grace, to get better, you know,
it was really beautiful and kind of rare and, uh, really surprised.
I was really surprised too. I kind of put it on and not, you know, not, not
thinking I liked it.
I mean, yeah, I, I, I loved it. Yeah.
Yeah. I loved it too. I think it's one of the best of the three.
It's, uh, yeah, it was my favorite of the three.
Those are great. Uh, Daniel Craig is great in that role.
He's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guy goes from James Bond to that and so many other things as well.
So it was Josh O'Connor that, who played the priest.
Cause I first saw him on, uh, on, uh, The Crown.
The Crown, yeah. I liked him a lot.
I fucking, man, what an actor he is. Really, really good.
How much film do you guys consume? Do you, do you spend a lot of time watching
films?
I mean, do you consider it?
It depends.
There's a lot, like if we're working, we're watching cuts after cuts and going
to the editing
room. Like there's a lot of kind of work around all the stuff that we have
going that, that,
that eats into a lot of time.
Mostly trying to keep up with what people are doing.
My issue is really that like, we've kind of developed this pattern where all
these sort
of movies that come out and are more interesting and very, like they're all jammed
out at the
last fucking month of the year. And so all of a sudden you're trying to race to
all these movies.
Yeah. Right.
I got really lucky. Like, uh, recently my son, you know, 13 society, he wants
to like,
watch movies, you know, and I like give him shit. Like, what are you fucking
doing?
Always looking at Tik TOK and shit. Like, let's watch a movie. And you know,
he's kind of blowing me off and rolling his eyes. And he's like, you know, I
mean,
if you're a dad, you're kind of an asshole. Fun to me. Like, come on.
Right.
You don't know what's going on. You know what I mean? Like he told me one time
he was like, dad,
I said, look, let's watch this movie. I played in the trailer. It was, it was,
it was, I can't remember what the movie was. It was a good movie. And the
trailer was good.
He just looks at it and goes, you know what you guys ought to do? You guys
ought to work
with some of the Tik TOK editors.
I was just like, wow.
I went and told the editors, I told Billy and Chris back there. I was like,
guys,
I got news for you. But, but now he's like, all right, let's watch. Like,
what are some movies I should watch? You got ladder box. You got into that
thing. You know,
it's like, so I was like, so I said, okay, what are the great movies? I'll give
you a list.
I started giving them a list. They started watching them. And so, I mean,
this is like heaven for me. So it's like, okay, what are you watching? King of
comedy.
Like last week, I watched the taxi driver, King of all these Scorsese movies.
And it really was
like, oh man, I, I, cause in my mind, I'm like, sure. I've seen that movie. I
know I watched them
again. It was like seeing, I realized how much better they were than I even
could appreciate when
I watched it when I was younger. And it really, and it was just the most
beautiful fucking experience
for me to watch my son, like taking an interest in the, this is the, you know,
the older two have
always been a little bit like, yeah, dad, no great. But no, you guys want to
come to the premiere?
No, not really. You guys want to come to the set? No, I'm good. You know, it's
just too much
familiarity. You know, you grow up with a dad as a movie star, just like, yeah,
the kids got in.
And I get it. You got to be your own person, do your thing to have all their
own shit. And I get,
you know, I, I never even, so I never expected it from my son. And I don't know
that he's going to,
you know, and I wouldn't want to lean on him like, Hey, get into the family
business.
Um, most of the time it's just like, you know, we go to like basketball games,
baseball, you know, all that type of stuff. And, um, but it, but this was a
really,
that was like, I was like, so joyful. You know what I mean? I sit there and
watch movies with my,
my kid. I was like, this doesn't get better. This is the happiest I may ever be
in my whole life.
You know, right here, watch this movement. And he's like, well, he's telling me
what he thinks,
you know, it's just like, like, honestly, the rest of it, you can fucking keep
it.
Yeah. That's awesome. That's the best. Well, it's great that you guys still
love film,
you know, that it's, it hasn't become just a job. It hasn't become a thing that
you do that you really
enjoy it and love it. Yeah. It was never a job. I mean, it really, like we, it
was, it was like the,
an absolute dream from the time we were kids. We did fucking high school
theater together,
you know, like that's crazy. Um, it was like, we're lucky to get it and lucky
to the whole idea
that you could even, the goal is like to make a living that not have to be like,
well, I'm an
actor, you know, slash a waiter, contractor, dental assistant, whatever the
fuck it is, you know,
like actually I can earn money. I can. And we always figured like, I don't need
that much,
especially if we didn't have kids, you know, okay, we can make a living or it's,
you know,
maybe it's fucking going to be dinner theater or maybe it's going to be right.
Maybe it's
going to be, there'll be a job somewhere that we can find where we can do this
and keep doing it.
Yeah. Well, there's something that I mean, I love when people love things. I, I
spend time on YouTube
watching people like, uh, fix watches, you know, like, I don't know why, but I,
I love when people
make furniture. I love, I love watching people do things that they really love
that they're invested
in. I think we all have that thing in us where we see someone who's got a
passion for something,
someone who really loves it. And that's what everybody really wants in life to
be lost in the thing you
love to have a purpose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even watching someone else with
true purpose.
Very hypnotic. It reminds me of Joe versus the volcano where he goes in to buy
luggage. Do you like
luggage, sir? And he's like, uh, he was luggage is the central preoccupation of
my life.
Guy's a luggage salesman and he fucking loves. He loves nothing more than
luggage.
And like, and it's the greatest scene. I asked Tom Hanks about that when I did
Saving Private Ryan,
I was like, can you tell me about that scene? Cause we love this scene so much.
And he go,
and he named the actor as a Broadway actor, I guess the guy he came in,
he worked for like one day in the scene and he's so good in that movie. And
then at the very end,
he's showing him all the luggage and Tom Hanks has unlimited money to spend. He
thinks he's dying.
And so he basically goes like, well, what's the best luggage? And he goes, well,
you know,
and he opens the, if I had the means, sir, and he opens up this thing and there's
this trunk and
it's like this music plays and he opens it. And Tom Hanks is like, I'll take
two of them.
And he goes, may you live to be a thousand years old.
This is the greatest day of his life.
Oh my God.
That's amazing. You guys have been in some fucking bangers, man.
Saving Private Ryan, that opening film, the storming of the beach.
Unbelievable.
That might be the, the most realistic depiction of war that's ever been made.
So I remember reading the script and there was all this dialogue, all this
stuff that was written.
And I came late cause I'm only in the, he shot it chronologically and I'm only
in the last,
you know, the last act of the movie basically.
And, and, uh, and he told me on set, I was saying, how did I go?
How did it go? The beginning of the, you know,
there's that all that dialogue with them on the boat coming in and, and Stephen
goes,
he just goes, I cut, I cut all of that out.
He goes, he goes, no talking for the first 27 minutes of this movie. Whoa.
And that was when I was like, oh my God, this movie is going to be fucking
unbelievable.
I think Tom says like, I'll see you on the beach or something. He's screaming,
you know,
guys are puking.
Look at the man next to you. He's not going to live through it.
That was the script, right? Remember that? It was, it was, look at the man next
to you.
He won't live. He's going to die.
He's like, two out of three of you are going to die. So look to your left, look
to your right
and feel bad for those two sons of bitches. Cause they're not going to make it.
You know, it was stuff like that. And Stephen was just like, nope, no, no,
these guys are puking.
They're, it's like the things up that you just hear, you know, and it's just
like,
and then just boom. And you're into it. And also they did this incredible, like,
like cinema changing. Yeah.
Open the shutter, open the shutter all the way, skip the, the bleach process in
developing the film.
I don't, and I don't know if they're going to 22 or 23 frames anywhere in there,
maybe, but I, I just
remember, maybe it's just the open shutters. Just pop, pop, pop, pop.
But when you remember that, it just means that instead of like the motion blur
is what makes
something that like moves across the frame quickly. If you look at each frame,
it's like a blurred
thing. And when you roll those at 24 frames, it gives you this, the illusion
that it moves
across fluidly. And if you basically open the shutter up, so you get much more
light,
each frame takes a super sharp picture. And when you run those together, like
the piece of dust goes,
and so the mortar explosions are going, and it, and you get that feeling that
you're
adrenalized and you're seeing, you know what I mean? And it's just, and nobody
had ever done it.
And the master of the thing understood how to use the tools and combined with a
great idea. And it's,
that's just masterful. Like, that's just how you do it. There's nobody who
directs movies who doesn't go,
well, it's Spielberg, you know, that's, that's how you do it. That's, uh, this
is like you say,
one of those things, a guy that's passionate and also, you know, caring about
something,
you know, it's con that, that it's with that much passion is kind of connected
to greatness.
Yeah. And it's, I think why we love to see that whether, you know, sports,
fucking, you know, fighting or whatever it is, there's something that makes you
kind of
love being alive and also love that, that person where you go, fuck, like when
you
see Michael Jordan, like there was that whole movie that we did airs really all
about, like,
what does it mean to be great? And how does it like touch everybody and change
everybody and make
people want to fucking improve their own lives? Because somebody is just better
at that thing
than anybody else in the world. Yeah.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's transfixing, you know, I mean, I find that really
fascinating. Like I, you know,
people who are great at something and the mystery of like, well, what is that
like? And what does that
do to your life? And how did you get that way? And what does it take, you know?
And what's the cost? Because to truly be great at something, you have to kind
of almost abandon
everything. I've seen that in various ways, like in that kind of just empirical
personal study,
I haven't seen anybody who I think like qualifies for that, who didn't also
seem to be really
suffering, you know, and you're like, damn, you should be so happy. You're the
greatest. You've been,
and the, you know, interviewers always, how do you feel right now? And there's
that sense that like,
either it's never finished or it's never enough or they can't enjoy it or they're
carried. It's a
line we put in air where it's like, and you have to be that thing. You have to
be that thing.
You know, like it's a kind of a bird of two in a way. 100%.
And I just see that. And that's why we, we want these heroes and people who are
great to,
I don't know, you know, flourish, have their life and have it all enhanced.
Like there's all this
tragedy and all this stuff that happens too. And I, I, it's yeah, it's just
like you said,
there seems to be a real cost. Well, there's always a massive cost in personal
relationships
because there's no way you have the time for other things and the obsession
that you have to be the
best at something. You have to abandon almost all your concern for everything
else. You have to have
this single-minded focus and that comes with a cost for the rest of your life
because you damage
relationships. You feel like a piece of shit. And you see that up close and
like, that's not admirable.
Right. Yeah. You don't give a fuck about anybody else. No, I do. I just care
about this more.
Yeah. You know, it's like, so imagine that you're making the sacrifices and it's
causing injury to
people and you know it and you don't want to hurt them, but you can't help it.
And you're getting
rewarded for it. You know, it's, it's complicated. Yeah. It's, it's crazy
because you inspire all
these people that don't know you and you ruin all your relationships. Right,
right, right.
That's right. Maybe that's why I say don't meet your heroes. Yeah, exactly.
There's something to
it, man. There really is. But it's just, we all grow from it. There's a fuel to
watching greatness.
There's a thing that, that hits you and lights you up where you want to do more.
You want to be
better. You want to, whatever it is that you can do, whatever it is you do do,
you become more,
whether it's a great game, a winning touchdown, whether it's a great film, a
great song. Yeah.
Yeah. It lights you up and it's the fuel that we all live off of that consumes
the,
like we consume to make our culture move forward. Yeah. You know, there's like
a sacrificial element
to it. The people that do it and we all feed off of it, you know, and it feels
like, well,
that's the person that doesn't get enough out of it. Right. Right. But in great
filming,
how many lives have been changed by decisions made after great films? Like when
I was a kid,
I think I was like seven or eight or something when Rocky came out and I, I saw
it and immediately ran
around the block. I've never run in my life. I was like, I was eating raw eggs.
Right. I was like,
I'm like, this is going to change my life. Like it, it, there's things that
happen when you see
something truly great, that it makes you want to be better as a human being. It
makes you want to be.
I remember where I was when I saw Denzel Washington play Malcolm X. Watch that
movie. I remember
leaving. I'm at almost 19. I'm thinking, I want to be a better man. I thought
that in my mind,
you know, because of what I had seen this actor do and this before and the way,
you know,
that was the only real conscious thought I had, but I remember having it and,
and kind of being
surprised by it, you know, and it does it, it, that shit can, you know, it's
really touched me,
you know, a lot of fucking people's work. And, and that's why you get that.
Like,
you know, you, you, you see people and you want to let them know, you know what
I mean? And tell
them. And, um, I, I always think people come to go, Oh, I love that movie. I
always feel like,
ah, you don't have to say that. You know what I mean? It makes me kind of
uncomfortable. And I,
I don't ever like put myself in with those figures who I think are like, Oh,
but there's
these, these towering giants who have done this, you know, I don't know. It's,
uh,
it's, it's, it's, it's, I finally kind of arrived to a place where it was like,
there was a couple of people who said, Oh, I saw Gobble hunting. It made me
want to
go out to Hollywood and write a script. And I think, Oh shit, I don't know how
to go.
You know what I mean? Like, sorry, man. Like,
at a certain point I figured, okay, you know what, whatever it is, like, great.
That's the thing that the cost of your fame, you know, that you have to, there's
going to be a bunch of
people that are going to come up to you and they want to say those things to
you. And like wanting them to say those
things to you is the opposite of the mindset that you need to make those things,
which is,
it's so counterintuitive. You think like, once you become really successful,
you make a bunch of
great things. It's going to be awesome having all these people come up to you
like, no, no, no,
I'm doing something else right now. And I can't be all wrapped up in the fact
that I'm changing
your fucking life. And also I can't be satisfied or take any fucking joy in
that because I don't think
I'm good enough. Yeah. I need to fucking, you know what I mean?
Right. Never satisfied. Yeah. You can't. And that's the, the darkness of trying
to do something
great. You'll never be satisfied.
You see it in a lot of the fighters, the same kind of thing, the great, great
fighters.
Well, also fighters have a very small window of greatness. There's a, there's
only like a certain
amount of years where you can burn the RPMs at the red line. And then
eventually the knees go,
the back goes, you start. Is it earlier than other sports? It must be.
Yes. I think so. Because like Tom Brady is still elite. I bet he could probably
play football right
now. I bet he, you know, what, how old's Tom now? He's probably 47 or eight now
probably.
Yeah. I bet he could still play. Yeah. I mean, but that's a, yeah. I mean,
that's a very specific skill position and the way he played it, he, you know,
right. But running back,
no. Right. Right. Right. But at the elite levels of MMA, especially with USADA
testing and,
you know, and now, uh, drug free sport testing when they are making sure that
people aren't on
testosterone and growth hormone and all these different things, like you have
nine years,
you have nine years at peak performance. That's legitimate. How long has John
Jones been going?
John Jones is a freak of all freaks. Cause John Jones beat Daniel Cormier when
he was on Coke.
That was one of the funny things he said in the, uh, in the press conference
for the rematch,
Daniel was talking shit. He goes, I beat you when I was on Coke.
I mean, he was getting arrested. He was partying for when he fought, uh, Gustafson,
he beat Gustafson and he didn't train at all. I talked to his trainer. He's
like,
he didn't even show up at the gym. He was fucking never there. He was never
training.
He could just show up and beat everybody's ass.
I saw a thing, uh, on my Instagram feed of a fighter and I, I don't know who it
was,
but he was a heavyweight and he goes, I had the chance to spar with John Jones
to work with John
Jones. And he goes, I, you know, I, I knew about it months ahead of time. He
goes, I got every,
my nutrition, everything was absolutely flawless. I got all, you know, my sleep,
everything was on.
He goes, I show up at the gym that morning. He goes, it's me and five other
guys. He goes,
he comes in, I think he went to sleep at four in the morning or something. He
was out all night
and he goes, he ran through all six of us. That's my buddy, Brendan Schaub.
Is that who it was? Okay. Yeah. It was the funniest story. I was like,
and he goes, and then I just knew, you know, like, that's a, that's a level,
like, but imagine being
that elite and, and realizing there's another level. Yeah. Oh yeah. Brendan was
a top 10 heavyweight
and John wasn't even a heavyweight. John was a light heavyweight. It was a
lower weight class
and he just beat everybody's ass. And he said, this is his warmup.
Just kidding. Just fuck everybody up. I mean, he has a unique aptitude for MMA,
but also he had two
brothers that were super athletes. Yeah. Played for the Patriots. And Arthur.
Yeah. And so these guys
are super athletes. And so they're beating the shit out of each other all the
time. So they're like
constantly in competition with elite athletes from the time he was a child. So
he was just so tuned into
competition and he was so intelligent. Like his fight IQ was above and beyond
everyone's and he would
study tape meticulously. Well, that, that, that spinning kick that he did to
that, where he,
where he said he, and I think he thanked his Taekwondo coach and he said he had
been working on this one
specific kick from both sides because of something he saw on the tape. And he,
and he got it off and hit
this guy so hard, not even on, not even on his liver side. He hit him on the
other side and you
see it shutter through his entire like organ structure. Yeah. His heel was deep
into his body
cavity. Like all the way up to his fucking spine. Yeah. And, but he had, but he,
he, he just practiced
this, this one specific, and he was like, and he even said, he goes, it is a
devastating shot. Like
there's not a human being who could take that. No, it's like getting hit by a
car. Yeah. Because
when you, but getting hit by a car in one spot, you know what I mean? The size
of a foot, the size of
a 13 foot. Oh yeah. Here it is. Watch this. He sets him up. Boom. It's just, it's
like, yeah,
no, it's over. It's over. It's over. It's over. And this is John moving up to
heavyweight because
light heavyweight wasn't a challenge anymore. He decided to become a two
division champion. I mean,
John was a freak. You see it rumble through. Yeah. And by the way, that was
almost a little
bit glancing because he caught him with a bent leg. Right. Right. It wasn't
even fully extended,
which, you know, was even more devastating, but John realized that as a heavyweight,
he didn't
have the power that he had at light heavyweight. And so he said the most
powerful kick is a spinning
back kick. So I'm just going to work on that kick over and over again, because
that's the one tool
that I have that can knock a heavyweight out with one shot. Wow. Okay. That's
just,
it's not just the physicals. He's also like a genius. Well, he's also like, he's
the most
meticulous when it comes to game planning and study. He will not take a short
notice fight.
Even a guy that he could fucking beat any day of the week, you can wake him up
at three o'clock in
the morning. He can fuck that guy up. He will not take that fight unless he
gets a full training camp
to prepare for that fight. Well, it's just, you know, greatness, but John's
troubled, you know,
John's been arrested a bunch of times and DUIs and all kinds of crazy shit. And
he's, you know,
he's a wild fella. And, you know, in that pursuit of greatness, I'm sure has
cost him a lot of
shit in his personal life. But, you know, when he knocks Deepay out and then
did the Trump dance
in front of the whole world, like for that moment, he's on top of the world,
you know, but then again,
it's like the same thing. You're, as soon as you get back, like what's next?
You know, there's,
there's another challenge. It doesn't matter how many, how many people love you
now. Like it's not
good enough. There's someone else looming. You got to beat this guy. That seems
like a kind of an
agonizing thing to both have the like complete compulsion to have to get to the
next level. And
the next level keeps fucking moving the goalposts. I'll never forget. Um, I
interviewed Matt Hughes
after he lost to BJ Penn, he lost the welterweight title to BJ Penn and I'm
interviewing him inside
the octagon. He said, I'm going to be honest with you. It was actually a relief.
And he goes,
the pressure of being the champion and having someone chasing you for so ever
in the whole
world, chasing you. He goes, I'm going to be, I thought it was an incredibly
brave moment for
a guy to say that who is, you know, just this fucking amazing human being, this
warrior to say,
I just got to be honest. It's a relief. Losing my title feels like a relief.
And I was like,
wow, like that, that is so, so brave to be that honest in front of the, because
everybody's like,
you just got your ass kicked. It's like, I'm, this is a relief. I, you know, I
took a burden off
my back. I'll be back. I'm going to regroup, but I needed that. I needed to
just step off the
fucking top of the hill for a little while. Jesus Christ.
You got to be like a great, actually relief to be able to say something like
that. It's kind
of a gift instead of feeling like you got to hide or pretend it and go, yeah,
it's like it was a lot
to carry. And I, you know, well, the thing about fighting is everything you try
to hide gets exposed.
You're exposed completely during camp because they're doing these, these round,
well, they take like,
yeah, yeah, smoke up. They're taking like, you know, five guys and they're
rotating them in with you.
So you're doing five rounds with fresh guys. Jesus.
So you got one guy who is fucking warmed up getting, you know, getting ready
for you. And then you're
fucking out of breath and they'll give you a 30 second break instead of a
minute. And then they're
throwing in these monsters and you know, you're exposed. You're, you're getting
beat in training.
You're getting smothered in training. You're, you're exhausted. You know, you're
always reaching
your limits because the only way to surpass those limits is to hit them. You
got to hit them and then
they got to figure out where their limit is. And okay, next week, we're going
to do one extra round.
We're going to do this. We're going to do that. We're going to do more strength
and conditioning.
We're going to push you past wherever your capacity is right now. So you're
always breaking.
You're always, you're always at the point where you can do no more because it's
the only way to,
and you can only maintain that. Like the condition that they get in when they
step into the octagon,
it's not possible to maintain that.
No, right, right. You can only get to it. You have to aim at that one moment
and yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. You have to peak. And then if you fuck up and overtrain, which a lot of
those guys do just
because they're such savages and they never want to leave the gym, then they
don't peak right. And
then they come in and they're exhausted and they didn't recover properly. And
then in between rounds,
they're too tired and they can't go out for the next round. They're too beat up.
That happens too.
I imagine that level of exhaustion has to be just insane when you overtrain.
Oh God.
In an actual championship.
And you realized you're, you, there's no, you can't bounce back and this guy is
fucking blasting
your legs with kicks and hitting you with punches and you can't get out of the
way anymore.
Do you think, who was it? Was it Khabib who said that they, they, they should
just do 25 minutes.
Oh, a lot of people said that. That, I mean, that's a, what?
Is there songs that are playing? What's going on?
A little theme song going there.
I must've just hit my fucking technology.
The Teske brothers playing in my pocket.
That's hilarious.
Um, sorry about that.
Well, Hoist Gracie always said that. Like that was how he fought in the early
days.
They just straight 25 minutes.
Because he was like, look, he goes, uh, if we're on the ground, he goes,
I don't want them to stand back up again and go in between rounds. And he goes,
I need time to cook them.
That's what he'd say. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's what jujitsu is all about. Jujitsu is all about staying one step
ahead of you
until you become exhausted and the, you know, and then they eventually finish
you.
Like a, like a, you're just fucking constricted.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it's the real, that's, but you know, there's this balance of like
making it
interesting for this, for people to watch.
I, I've been a proponent of no standups. Don't ever stand anybody up. When a
guy takes you down,
like you get an advantage at the beginning of the round anyway, because a striker
gets to be
standing up when you didn't earn it. Yeah.
So you should never get stood up in a fight. I don't care if the guy's doing
nothing. If he's
holding you down and you can't get up, that's how it should be. So it's more
realistic, but
it's the balance of it being a sport. People want to watch.
Yeah. Making it because people get, when people grab someone and take them to
the ground,
nothing happened. People go, boo. You hear it in the audience. And then
the referee gets a little motivated and he stands people up. And I'm always
like, ah, don't stand them up.
I never thought of it that way. That the beginning of the round starts it to
the advantage of the
always, always, always. You're, you're in a position you didn't earn. You never
got back up. You know,
I think they should put them right back to where they were at the end of the
round because it's one
fight. It's not five fights. Right. So if you started standing up at the
beginning of each round,
that's a new fight. Yeah. Right. In a way.
Though what you're pitching, like how quickly would the UFC go out of business?
Real quick.
30 seconds, they're on the ground and then it's 24 and a half minutes.
Dude, I'm a terrible businessman. I would give the fighters more money. I would
fuck up the whole
business model. I would, uh, I would get rid of the cage. I would have them all
fight in the
basketball court and just put mats on the ground in the basketball court. I don't
think you should
have a cage. I think the cage gets in the way, becomes a way to get back up
because you press
your back up against the cage. You can use it to stand back up again. And you're
in the middle
of the center of a mat. It's very difficult to get back up. And that's
realistic. Right.
You know, you're using a foreign object to help you perform. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
But
you know, there's the whole macho thing about people fighting in a cage and it's
like,
they lock you in there and clink, cage match. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, uh, but I
mean, in terms of
like inspirational performances and things that you, when you see like the
human
spirit elevated to the, the, the highest possible place, when two very skilled
men or women are
fighting in a cage where they prepared for this for three fucking months. And
then, you know,
the referee's like, are you ready? Are you ready? Let's go. And it's like that
moment like is,
it's not, not like anything else in all sports. I think that's the moment that
like people show up
for it because they build the intensity. It's the same with like the old Tyson
fights or whatever.
Oh yeah. Now it's gonna happen. Yeah. And there's, there, you can't help but
have that feeling once it,
you know, and yeah, some fights end up being disappointing, whatever, but they're,
that moment is always there. Well, Tyson was a crazy example of what we were
talking about with
greatness because like you could dedicate your whole life. You could fucking
get up in the morning at the
right time. You could eat all the right foods. You could do all the right
training. But then you see
that fucking guy like, Oh no, there's nothing I can do. I have no chance. You
know, by looking at him too,
he had the look in his eye. It was one of the only fighters where you just see
the other guy was scared.
Yeah. Usually they at least hold himself together where they come off like, Oh,
I don't know.
This guy looks pretty tough. Guys would fight Tyson and just would start and
they'd feel that moment too.
Oh shit. They're letting this tiger out. And here he comes. And it was like,
well,
we're old enough to remember when he was in his prime and those fights were
like executions.
You didn't want to pay. I remember when he fought Alex Stewart. I swear. I mean,
I mean,
Jamie might be able to prove me wrong, but I'm pretty sure that they cut to
Alex Stewart and they
cut to his wife and she was crying. And this is when they're coming to the
center of the ring.
But by the way, for good reason, like this man might kill my husband. Right.
You know what I mean?
Like we certainly going to beat the fuck out of them. And she knows it. And the
world knows it.
And the guys were ready to quit. Remember that dude, Hurricane or whatever,
white kid who fought him.
He's McNeely. His guy couldn't wait to throw the towel in. He had it ready.
Like, you know, he was ready to go. All right. That's it. That's good.
The bell rings. He picks up the towel. You got one job to save your guy's life.
You know what I mean? McNeely's fucked up now too. When you hear him talk, it's
rough.
It's rough to hear. Oh, really? Yeah. I saw him get interviewed recently.
That's the dark side of the sport of MMA and of fighting. You know, you talk
like I had Johnny Knoxville
on here yesterday and Johnny Knoxville was knocked unconscious 16 times. Yeah.
That's what I said.
And I'm like, holy shit, man. And he seems normal. Like he doesn't seem like he's
got brain damage.
Now, when you're talking to guys and you know they have brain damage, they're
slurring their words and
they're still fighting and their words all mumble together. Like you have no
idea how much they're
struggling. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and they'll, they're going to be struggling in a
downhill slope for the
rest of their life. It's not going to get better. It's going to get way worse
because the real brain
damage occurs like 10 years after the injuries. That's what it really sets in.
Really? It starts,
like just keeps asking. It just keeps getting worse. I mean, there's some
therapies that they can do now.
There's like they, they do in Knoxville did some of it, like this magnetic
therapy that they do that
re-stimulates neuron growth and, and oddly enough, mushrooms like psilocybin
has been shown to regenerate.
Mushrooms all of a sudden cure a whole bunch of shit. I know. Well, probably
always has.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, all of a sudden they acknowledging it. Yeah.
Well, one of the things that's opening the doors for them to acknowledge it is
soldiers,
because it's always been kind of like a left wing thing to be into psychedelics.
But all these
soldiers are coming back with PTSD and drug addiction and a lot of CTE from,
you know,
bombs blowing up and IEDs and concussions. And the only thing that's helping
them is psychedelics.
So it's kind of like in Texas, uh, former governor Rick Perry has started the
Ibogaine initiative.
So they're using Ibogaine to help all of these different soldiers, which is
ironically the drug
that Hunter S. Thompson claimed Ed Muskie was on when he was running for
president.
Oh, really? Yeah. Remember when he sank Ed Muskie?
What is Ibogaine? It's from the iboga tree. And it is a psychedelic that is in
no way recreational.
It is a very difficult experience. It's not fun for anybody. It's like a 24
hour trip.
I haven't done it, but my friends that have done it say that it's basically
like you see
your entire life play out before you. You see where all your problems come from.
You see where all of
your emotional hitches are. Yeah. And with addictions, it has an 80% 80, I
think it's 84% with one
treatment, they quit whatever they're hooked on. Not only that rewires the
brain. So the physical
pathways to addiction, like someone stick to opiates gone, completely severed.
So you literally don't
have a physical addiction to opiates anymore. So with one treatment, 80 plus
percent of people.
That's incredible. With two treatments, it's in the 90s.
That's amazing. It's amazing. And it's been illegal, you know, since like 1970
in this country,
the sweeping psychedelics. You said Rick Perry has like a clinic or whatever.
Well, Rick Perry, um, because he's worked with soldiers and because he's worked
with a lot of
veterans that, you know, and he's a very compassionate and intelligent man. He
realized like, okay,
maybe I'm wrong about all this psychedelic stuff. And so he started getting
behind this Ibogaine
initiative. They passed it in Texas and now they're doing it with soldiers and
they're going to do it
with police officers. And I mean, police officers experienced more PTSD. Like I
have a good friend
who was a cop in Austin and he said, and he was also in the military and he
said, what I saw in the
military was nothing compared to what I saw as a police officer. He goes, I was
seeing death and
violence on a daily basis. He goes, when you're deployed, he goes, yeah, you're
going to see some
horrible shit, but you're going to see some horrible shit mixed in, you know,
over a course of time
where, you know, you go out and things go live because like every day, every
day, you're going
directly to somebody who's having the worst moment of their life. And every day
you're pulling someone
over and they might shoot you. Like you have no idea. You're, you're pulling up
to, uh, tinted windows.
You don't know what the fuck is going on. You're running the plate. The, the
license is expired.
You have no idea who's, who's in the car. You don't, you don't know anything.
And you've seen all the videos.
We've all seen videos of cops getting shot down. Like when they're pulling over
a car,
we've all seen it. And so these guys are living with this fucking PTSD all the
time.
And then they have to live in real life. They, they're supposed to go home and
they're supposed
to just be a normal dad and a normal neighbor. And their fucking head is just a
hurricane of chaos.
Yeah. And Ibogaine has been very beneficial for those people to just,
just sort of come down and, and try to find the root of all this stuff and, and
get them off pills and, and get them on the
straight. That's great. Wow.
That's amazing. I don't know why we got on the mushrooms. Well, Ibogaine
because, uh,
during the, during the presidential elections, he, he started spreading these
rumors and it's in the,
the documentary. Uh, I get, what is it, that documentary? Is it fear and loathing?
Gonzo. Gonzo. That's right. In that documentary, Gonzo, he talks about it. So
he's getting interviewed by
Dick Cavett and he goes, uh, he goes, yeah, he goes, there was a, a rumor
running around that, uh,
Ed Muskie was on Ibogaine and I knew about it because, uh, I started that rumor.
What he made the guy, I told it to him.
So the guy completely cracked. So like this guy was like a front runner for the
president.
And he fucking completely cracked because everybody thought that he was on
drugs.
Cause Hunter S Thompson was just running around like saying there's these
Brazilian witch doctors
who are coming in to treat this guy. It's crazy shit.
That's great.
And they were like, and Hunter would know.
Yeah.
But it's crazy that he chose Ibogaine too, because Ibogaine is like,
it's not a recreational drug and it's not a drug of addiction. It's literally a
drug that stops addiction.
He was the guy that would have the full, the whole books full of these drugs
you've never heard of.
Yeah.
That he mentioned in a really casual way.
Yeah.
Of course, four of us stopped to get Ibogaine at the one gas station that sold
it between needles and nothing.
Yeah, sure. No, of course you do.
Yeah.
But it does help people that have a brain damage as well.
It's supposed to like cause some sort of neuro regeneration.
There's stuff out there that can help people, but a large percentage of these
fighters are silently suffering.
And we don't ever hear about it.
They say like, it's supposed to be that it's like the argument is, is because
it's, you know,
they're not using a glove like that football supposed to be where I mean,
wasn't that the sort of rationale that like you were going to have less impact
in boxing because they're the boxing gloves?
No, but it's remember this all, it's like the sub concussive blows.
It's like, it's not necessarily the, the, the one shot knocking you out as much
as the repeated kind of like small,
like little bit of brain.
I'm sure that's like, they're all bad for you.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And like a version of knocks to the head or not a good thing to be avoided.
Well, it's also what you take in training too.
We're only considering what happens during a fight.
If a guy has 40, 50 MMA fights, that's 40.
How many rounds does he have right in the gym?
In training.
Oh, training camp is fucking brutal.
And depending upon how intelligent your camp is, like some people are really
smart and they'll spar
where they're not hitting each other hard.
And then maybe one day of the week they go live, but you do it with trusted,
you know, they're,
they're very close to you.
These are people that you care about and love.
So they're not going to try to hurt you on purpose, but sometimes not like
sometimes you're in a hostile
gym and you know, you got to spar with people.
You don't even know they're from other countries.
You have a big name.
They're trying to take you out.
You know, it's, um, but the, the amount of damage these guys take, I mean,
I don't know if football's better or worse.
They're all, but the thing about football is the big impacts are way worse.
Because when you've got a 300 pound super athlete.
Yeah.
That's fucking full tilt all the way from across the field.
Yeah.
Boom.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like running start.
Yeah.
You're getting hit by a truck and that, but that doesn't, it's, it's not
targeted necessarily
at your head.
So it's like, what, what is better and what is worse?
You know, boxing's bad.
You know, it's like you have less options.
MMA is slightly better because if, especially if you're a grappler, you can
take guys down
and you can beat them up on the ground, but it's ultimately you're paying a
price.
A hell of a tough way to make a fucking living.
Yeah.
I'm sure.
But for that glory, for that one moment when they win and the fucking 16,000
people are
on their feet screaming, there's probably no drug like that that could ever
reproduce
it.
And those guys chase that high for their entire life.
And then after it's over, they, you know, they feel oddly detached.
Right.
And nothing ever rises to that level again.
Right.
You can make films until you're a hundred years old, you know?
You can make great films forever.
You can do the thing that you love forever.
They have a little window, a little window of greatness.
That's the really tough thing about being an athlete.
Like I-
We were talking to Pete Sampras that time we met Sampras some years ago.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he was like, we were probably, I don't know how, we were 30, he was 32 or
something
like that.
Yeah, yeah.
And he was kind of, we were like, oh my God.
You know, he had all these fucking, you know, wins and grand slams.
And he had a kind of vaguely like, yeah, he was like, yeah, you guys look, I'm
about
to retire.
It's, I'm finished.
And we were, you know, young guys.
We were just getting started.
You know what I mean?
Like we're, and also the thing is you get better at your job, the more you do
it.
Yeah.
You know, and so it's that thing with the athlete.
I was having this conversation the other day.
It's like, you have all the physical skills at the beginning, but you become a
better,
you know, better at your sport.
Yeah.
You know, as your skills are declining.
The body just doesn't want to do it anymore.
Yeah.
You've got to just come, it's like become Greg Maddox, you know, and compensate
with all
the tricks and location.
And, but like, and that's why that drama of like the aging athlete is so
powerful.
We still have, it's like, oh, do we still have it in me?
Can I still do it?
How long, you know, is what I've learned enough to compensate for what I've
lost, you know?
Well, there's an interesting story about Vitor Belfort.
So Vitor Belfort was, he won the UFC heavyweight tournament when he was 19
years old.
That was like the first event I ever worked at in 1997.
I mean, he was like one of the all time greats for sure.
But as he was getting into his thirties, he was starting to decline.
Then the UFC allowed fighters to use testosterone replacement therapy.
And boy, did he fucking use it.
I don't know what his levels were, but they were like superhuman levels.
And there was a moment in time for a few years where they allowed him to use
testosterone therapy
and people refer to it as the TRT Vitor years, because he was fucking
terrifying.
Because he has the mind of a veteran, an incredible amount of experience.
But now his body is moving like a 25 year old.
And so he was just annihilating people, just lighting people on fire.
So they're not allowed to use testosterone?
No, they can't use anything.
No, no.
How about peptides?
Can they use peptides?
Nope, nope, not even peptides.
They're trying to take that and reform that.
But there's a lot of ignorance about peptides, what they actually do.
I mean, all it's allowing you to do is soft tissue injuries, heal quicker,
and optimize your body's ability to produce hormones.
So instead of adding exogenous hormones, you're allowing your body to produce
them more
naturally and it just makes you more healthy.
For a very unhealthy job and where you're, you know, you're getting hurt all
the time,
it's going to be better for the sport, better for the athletes to allow them to
all use it.
And it's also, there's no long-term damage that's going to do like steroids,
where it shuts down your endocrine system.
So I hope they reform it.
But the idea was that there's so many fucking loopholes and so many people
cheat.
Big camps used to hire scientists.
So they had a scientist on staff that was not only-
What did he do?
Yeah, exactly.
Not only procuring stuff that would slip by the test, because there's like, you
know,
the BALCO stuff with Barry Bob, the Clear.
Yeah, the Clear, yeah.
There's stuff probably right now that people are using that's slipping through.
And there's a lot of experts that have, like, one of the things is animal-derived
testosterone.
So testosterone, one of the, they use a carbon isotope test, I think,
I believe that's what they use, to figure out where the testosterone came from.
So if your testosterone is like at a very high level, they test all your other
ratios,
they go, well, no, it all seems likely.
Consistent.
He's just, he's an outlier.
He just has naturally high testosterone.
But testosterone that you get from, like, synthetic testosterone is derived
from a wild yam,
believe it or not.
Really?
Yeah, it's not animal-derived testosterone.
So the composite of it varies when they run the tests on it and they can
determine-
They can determine that it's a yam-based testosterone.
It's exogenous, not endogenous.
It's the yam and they're fighting, it's not him.
But if they can figure out a way to, and there's a lot of proof of concept to
this,
can they figure out a way to extract testosterone from animal sources?
Bull testosterone.
Something like that.
Well, the taurine, they used to inject Hitler with taurine.
You know, Hitler was like a fucking guinea pig for this one doctor who tried a
bunch of
shit on him.
And one of the things they did was, like, inject him with bull testicles and
stuff to try to keep
him virile.
Yeah, but there probably are athletes right now that are using some shit that
they haven't
figured out yet.
So to give them any loopholes at all, they're like, no, no, no, fucking no loopholes.
No IVs, no nothing.
No IVs, like vitamins and-
Right, but the problem with IVs is you can mask testosterone and mask steroids
by over flooding the body with liquids.
Oh, I see.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the ratio is hot because you add more water.
Yes, you would just fill them up with saline and then when they go to piss,
like, nope, clean.
Not much.
Look at the ratio.
Because it's like so much water is being processed through the body that it
doesn't have time to
show the testosterone.
So there's a way to mask it, especially with, like, things that you would add
to the IV.
So there's no, you can, it's only food and approved supplements through, like,
really high-level
labs like Thorne, like Thorne supplements where it's third-party tested.
So they don't, they can't do anything.
But for a while, they let them do it.
And, uh, those TRT Vitor days are my favorite fights to watch.
Did they stop doing fighting because they thought it was, like,
advantaging certain people?
Or they should happen that they're like, this is fucked up?
Well, they, like, look at the difference.
That's TRT Vitor on the left and that's him on the right when they made him get
off of it.
Look at the difference.
Jesus.
I mean, that's fucking stunning.
On the left, though, dude, that motherfucker was terrifying.
When Luke Rockhold fought him, he told me, he goes, dude,
when I stood next to him at the fucking weigh-ins, he had muscles on his teeth.
He goes, this fucking dude was so jacked.
He was so scared.
I was like, what the fuck is he on?
Because he knew he was on something.
It's just, it's cheating.
It really is.
Because you can jack your levels way above a normal human beings.
Because that's what a lot of guys, there was a few fighters that were pulled
from cards.
Because, like, say if a really high level is like 1100, they were testing like
1800, 1900.
They were like people that have never lived before.
Right, right.
They were like a science project.
A different species.
And they were insane confidence.
This person was mostly testosterone.
Insane confidence.
Because they were essentially like a raging gorilla.
Yeah, right.
They were just insanely confident.
And just, it's just so fired up.
Like they couldn't wait to smash somebody.
Because they were just fucking maniacal.
They were a berserker.
You know, so you, it's not a person anymore.
Right.
Now you're a science project.
It's not, you know, there are rare outliers who, like Tyson, when he was in his
prime,
his rare physical specimens.
And like, that's part of the game.
But that's God.
You know, that's nature.
This is not, you know, Balco Labs.
Right.
And so they won't allow him to do anything anymore.
And that's why.
It's because too many.
And Vitor was one of the guys that tested like way over the line.
And then they just decided.
Guys are pushing it.
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
But that's what they're going to do.
Yeah.
If you say, okay.
If you say it's legal, they're just going to take as much as possible.
Some of those good, more is better.
And you know.
Yeah.
If you say, oh, you did one CC a week.
They're like, I heard five.
I heard five CCs.
And these guys are just training five times a day.
And they never get tired.
And they recover like that.
And they never have to worry about soft tissue injuries.
Because they heal like you're a fucking six-year-old.
Right.
You know, you just.
Your body just like.
You're like fucking Wolverine.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, man.
Well, that's the thing about peptides too.
The Wolverine stack.
BP-157 and TB-500.
I don't know if you ever get injured.
If you ever get injured, get immediately on BP-157 and TB-500.
I didn't hear about TB-500.
What's that one?
Thymosin-Beta-500.
Oh, yes.
In conjunction with BPC-157, it is a fucking phenomenal stack.
And it just really helps injuries.
I didn't know they called it the Wolverine stack.
That's what they call it.
The Wolverine stack.
For healing?
Yeah.
Because you fucking heal incredibly well.
Like you like it quickly.
I was talking to a pro football player.
He pulled his hamstring.
He's like, dude, I shot that shit right into my hamstring for two weeks.
And I was right back on the field.
Wow.
I was like, that's nuts.
Yeah.
I go, what is a normal rehab?
He goes, three months.
He goes, in two weeks, I was back on the field.
I go, what the fuck?
He goes, I don't know how bad the injury was.
He goes, but to me, it's like, fuck.
I pulled my hamstring.
I'm fucked now for X amount of days.
He goes, and two weeks later, I was playing full tilt.
Wow.
I'm like, that's nuts.
And going right into the area of the injury.
Right into it.
Some people think you don't have to do that.
They think it's systemic, so you just stick it in your fat on your side.
But he's like, no.
And most athletes will tell you the best benefit is local.
Shoot it locally into the area.
And it just has-
Like cortisone or whatever.
What is the-
Yeah, cortisone.
But cortisone just masks it.
That numbs it or whatever, yeah.
Not only that, it has a tendency, if you do it too many times, to weaken tendons.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it could actually exacerbate the problem because it takes away the pain.
It's like an emergency measure.
Right.
Yeah.
It takes away the pain, but I mean, you know, then there's the enhanced games
that are coming
out in Vegas this year where they're like-
I know.
My friend had that idea a long time ago.
He was like, you should just do the drug Olympics for cash.
He goes, do it in Vegas for cash.
And then the enhanced games.
Yeah.
They're doing it.
I sent him a telly.
I was like, they're doing it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's just like-
I'm down.
I love-
Let's see what a human being can do.
Yeah.
That's what I think.
I mean, look.
When Barry Bonds and, you know, Sammy Sosa and those guys were cracking out
home runs,
it was one of the most exciting times in baseball.
Yeah, yeah.
It was pretty exciting.
That's why they didn't do anything.
Right.
They knew it wasn't a fucking mystery to anybody.
Right.
But Avery's tuning in.
Look at the Bash brothers.
Right.
They played baseball on a strike.
You know, they almost fucking destroyed that league and then people started
watching.
Yeah, they brought it back.
Because guys were hitting home runs.
Yeah, yeah.
And then Bonds is like, well, these two fucking guys are hitting this many home
runs.
I'm the best player in baseball, which he was.
Yep.
And when he did it, it lights out.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
He had a year where he only swung and missed 26 times.
162 games, three and a half at-bats a game.
Only swung and missed when he's, I mean, that's just, you know, and yeah,
McGuire would get like, just like move his wrist to get the ball out of the
park.
And it was like, yeah, it was fun to watch.
And when people say like steroids don't make you a better athlete.
Oh, they don't, maybe don't make you a better athlete.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But if you're a fucking Barry Bonds.
If you're already an elite athlete.
Yeah.
If you let John Jones do all the juice he wants.
Oh my God.
He'd be fighting until he's 50 and fucking people up.
And if you just say, John, we've really come to our senses.
Like this sport's all about excitement.
I want to give the people what they want and give people,
let people make informed choices based on their own discretion.
Oh, it's like that.
Welcome back.
Welcome back.
Then all of a sudden John looks like Vitor in that picture.
He'd be undefeated.
By the way, John beat Vitor when Vitor was in his prime.
And Vitor caught John in a full arm bar, totally locked his arm out,
hyperextended it, popped it, went backwards.
You can see the video of it.
His elbow is going that way.
He wouldn't tap and then beat him in the next round.
With one arm.
Yep.
One arm.
Fuck.
His arm was fucked for like a year after that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Give that man some steroids.
Let's see what he can do.
With steroids.
Let him be the king of the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a dream team.
It's like, you know, the first time the, the, the, the pros went to the
Olympics,
whatever the years.
Oh, yeah.
It was so fun.
They won every game by 70 points.
Yeah.
It wasn't close, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.
It was fun to watch.
Well, the argument for that made sense though, because like these other people
are being compensated
in their countries.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I had no problem.
And then by the way, now it's got more, that last Olympic championship was,
that was
a great game against France.
Yeah.
That was fabulous.
You know?
I mean, yeah, they, they're, they're, they're going to wreck some smaller
countries and stuff,
but okay.
Hey, that you're playing pros, they're playing pros, no definition of amateurism
has gotten
a little bit like, you know, it's, it's, it's like the people find like a
convenient definition
of it according to what's there.
Oh, you see in college sports is changing and stuff like, look, I got no
problem if you're
going to apply the rules evenly, but sometimes when it feels like it's just an
excuse to like
for the NCAA to make a billion dollars off the TV deal, I'm like, no, no, no,
you guys,
you're getting, you're getting education.
Right.
It's like a little bit like, yeah, you know, education.
You guys make a lot of money because people want to see Nebraska play.
It's exploitation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm glad they've changed that with college sports because these guys are
the reason why
you're filling up the seats and they, they deserve that money.
And not even one of them is going to be in the NFL.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Some of them, that's their window to make that fucking money.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Like it's hard.
It's hard.
And the risk of catastrophic injury is always there.
It's constant.
Constant.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and, and the, the, the metrics for the, it's like, what is it?
A two, two and a half year career or something really on average.
Yeah.
Depending on your position, but I mean, it's, it's such a long sense.
That seems just fair and obvious that you can pay a kid to flip a cheeseburger
out of
college, but not to like, you know, come on.
Well, that's the great thing about doing something where you're not relying on
your body, like
acting.
Yeah.
You can, you can kind of do it forever, you know?
Keep going until you lose it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
It's really, yeah, it's great.
And it's got its own competitive aspect and it's a lot, you know, but like,
okay, great.
If it's, if you get a really better yourself and then the expectation is, well,
I got to
do something that's interesting enough that people want to watch it.
Well, that's the proposition.
How do you guys decide like on projects that you, you choose?
Like, I'm sure you have so many options now.
Like what, what makes you say, this is what I'm going to spend the next six
months doing?
It's really, I mean, there are a bunch of different factors, like, like the
director
is being the most important one, but, but if you read a script and, and like,
we've read
so many thousands and thousands of scripts and written so many scripts and
worked on so
many movies that, that if, if we read something and it, and it, it's that thing
we were talking
about earlier, you know, you get that, get that kind of emotional, something
happens when
you read it, you go, okay, well then you, then you pay attention to it, maybe
read it
again, go, wait a minute, you know, if it, if it, if it moves you in that, in
that way,
then, you know, ultimately the big decision is saying yes, because, because you're
going
to spend the last point of which you have total control, you know, and then you're
in, then
you're in and, and you're, and you're in whether it's good or bad.
I mean, I've been on those movies where I knew, you know, a month into a six
month shoot
that like, this is not going to work.
And that, that is, that is the fucking worst.
What is that like?
It's, it's, it is, I, I, I came to think of that.
It happened to me.
You're going to shoot us all when it comes out.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's like, it's all bad.
It's like, it's, it's going to be, it's going to be 80, 16 hour days in a row.
And then, uh, a post-production period that's going to be pretty fraught.
And then it's going to come out and we're going to get fucking crushed.
And then you're going to have to sell it.
You're going to have to walk the fucking plank and sit down with access.
You know what I mean?
Like, so, saw the movie.
How important is that stuff still today?
Like the press stuff.
Is that still important?
It is.
I don't know to what degree each specific thing is.
I mean.
It's kind of ironic because we were talking about coming on this show today.
I remember saying, I was like, we were saying this show.
This is probably more meaningful than the rest of the shit we do in aggregate
to promote this movie.
Like we spent this whole week in New York doing, you know, I don't know how
many interviews, you know, the, the quick ones with all the outlets.
A hundred and five minute interviews.
Yeah.
All the, the, the evening shows, the day shows.
Yeah.
All that stuff.
And, and this, just given how many people listen to the show will be more
meaningful.
We think, I mean, that's our, we were speculating.
Historically, right.
If you look at it, that's because they've changed to like, all of it feels kind
of produced and forced and advertised and, and people have become resistant to
anything that feels kind of like a gimmick and a shtick.
And you go on and you do your song and dance and they say the thing, it looks
great.
And nobody cares.
Like they're looking to go either because somebody they know says it's
interesting or somebody that they is trusted.
And a trusted person is in like your, like you said, your feed, right.
And it's your friend or your, your cousin or it's, or they affix that to
somebody, which has become a more rare thing.
Like who's a, like a legitimate neutral arbiter, right.
Who I can't predict what they're going to say before I go there.
There are a few of those fewer and fewer of those people in the world.
Even those are proliferation of more and more voices.
And I, it's kind of paradoxical.
Like the form of entertainment is getting shorter and shorter and shorter.
So you're like a seven second, you know, we're an advertising company.
We do most of the spots that we release, like 15 second spots, six second spots
for social, the ones that most people see.
And then there's this one form, which is like long form discussions that are
whatever, two hours long.
And the amazing thing to me is, you know, in a world where it seems like you
can't get people to pay attention more than, you know, a few seconds, there's a
kind of a hunger for that.
So there's like this form.
And that's why you see these are getting more popular.
Obviously you have this massive audience and it's, and it's kind of flying in
the face of the whole other trend.
And I think, and I don't know, that it probably has something to do with like,
who do I think is authentic?
And am I actually going to willing to extend my two hours of my time to sit
there and listen through?
And that an argument that people probably do appreciate and understand
conversations that have context and nuance and where there's like a back and
forth.
They're just much more selective about who they're willing to kind of give that
sort of voice to in their life.
It's also the voice of the public too, because when people start talking about
things online and things go viral online and people just start like saying how
great they love the film or how great this album is or something like that.
It just takes off organically now.
And that has more, more weight than anything.
If you feel like somebody else who obviously has no dog in the fight is going,
hey, this is great.
You should see it.
I'm the same thing.
If I hear somebody tell me like, you know, who I respect, yeah, you got to see
that thing.
That means more to me than anything.
Right.
Because I believe that.
And so if the closer you can get to that, which is why I think the act of, A,
like telling the same, you know, like telling the same story about you should
go see the movie to a bunch of people with a certain like limited reach, it's
just not that efficient.
But you have to because it's like, well, we sat down with our own and talked
about the movie, you know, and you kind of do that ostensibly because it means
a little bit more in that market.
But I think ultimately it's like more and more people see, realize they're
being sold to, see through the fucking act and this sort of bullshit of it.
They recognize that, you know, you go out and sell every movie, you know what I
mean, the good and the bad.
And then we got to decide, well, which one and who can you count on?
Well, it's mostly going to be that like the word of mouth, your friend.
And now you can see that person in your media experience, you know?
Yeah.
And I think it's also we know that when you're sitting down with extra or this
thing, like that's just their job to sit down with people.
They're not doing it because they want to.
You know, it's like.
They got told, go talk to that person.
And we got told, go talk to them.
Exactly.
So they go do the ritual.
Yeah.
And they say the thing they say and we say the thing we say.
And everyone goes home and says we did our job.
That's the benefit of an independent podcast is that like with me, I don't talk
to anybody I don't want to talk to.
It's just like I literally do the whole thing on my phone.
I go, oh, yeah, that sounds cool.
And that's it.
But like that, I think, means a lot.
At least this person is making this choice.
And I've listened to it a bunch and I actually find myself agreeing with it a
lot of the time.
So, all right, I'll give it a shot.
You know, it's exactly.
I think also like this format, like at least I know why I started listening to
podcasts was because
in the world, like the divisive kind of the way everybody was talking, these
sound bites and all this shit.
And it was just like the ability to just listen to human beings talk often who
had different points of view,
but like had a civil conversation.
Yeah.
It was like was such a welcome thing, you know, given the given the kind of the
hysterical kind of, you know,
frenzy of divisiveness that's kind of it just feels it's just like, you know,
it's like if I open my phone and look at the news,
I think it's like, fuck.
Yeah.
It's like put it down.
It's just it's like I feel my cortisol level go up.
And to actually hear people, listen to people I know I don't agree with, but
listen to them and just and just think about it.
You know what I mean?
I mean, approach life with a little bit of humility, not hold on to what you
believe, obviously, but but but keep listening.
It's also there's not a lot of opportunities in the real world to have long
conversations with people.
So people are kind of starving for that.
I know.
Yeah.
It's funny that this has become the shared cultural.
Yeah.
We'll listen to that podcast and then actually experience that because and also
people.
Why don't people trust the media?
Well, because the media doesn't do that because they compress it.
And because the truth is money, because actually doing that's not with money.
It's just ratings and the perceived idea that like, well, if you simplify it or
you you position it one way or that you engender outrage,
that's simple or just, you know, pure one sided ideas that are that are simple,
you know, but the news used to be the idea was, look, here's the FCC.
We're going to let these networks broadcast their shows and make money on it.
But here's the deal.
You got to give an hour of that and lose money on that hour to tell the news
and try to tell it objectively.
Then it started to be, no, you got to make money for that hour, too.
And if you're going to make money, that's a different incentive than tell the
truth or reporters or any of those things.
And people try to hybridize them.
But at the end of the day, you're a more successful reporter if more people
watch you because advertisers pay more.
And then they're doing the same thing, looking at their data, you know, what
are people watching, what kinds of stories.
And I think it's a simple answer because you're just making it into a profit
game.
Those incentives are not aligned with just trying to get down to, like, even
reporting basic facts.
Yeah, it's a weird time.
It's like we have more access to information than ever before, but so much of
it is just horseshit.
Yeah.
You know, it's hard to stay balanced.
Yeah.
And I think that's why it's good to, like, listen to the people just talk.
Yeah.
And then you recognize, like, the flaws in their thinking.
You feel ego.
You feel deception, bullshit.
It's true.
People will reveal themselves.
Like, we actually don't need that many editorialists to be constantly telling
us what to think and how to think.
Because people actually have pretty good instincts.
You know, if someone's bullshitting, you'll eventually kind of hang themselves.
Like you said, you'll get that vibe.
After a while, he kind of started repeating his shtick, and I kind of didn't
really talk about what I was wondering about.
And you form your own.
That's like forming your own judgment.
Pete Buttigieg actually talked about that being dangerous on podcasts.
He's like, because you go on there and you have your points, but you'll get
revealed over the course of a few hours.
Like, you can only stick to these lines.
Yeah, you can only be talking points and bullshit.
And then what happens is people just, like, there was an art to, like, look at
how great they're communicating.
They stick to the message, and they do their points.
Okay, 30 seconds, 60 seconds.
But any longer than that, it just starts to look like a fucking robot on, you
know.
And like I said, what we need to follow through with, you know, like, yeah, no,
I saw you do the same hand gesture and the same bit with that.
But I'm, you know.
Sometimes you find out they're full of shit just by having them talk about
other things.
You know, like, tell me, do you like cooking?
You know, like, just like, and then you just see, like, some concocted.
They're thinking, what makes me look good about cooking?
Exactly.
Well, I'll tell you what, because I love the focus group saying.
That's exactly it.
Do I cook or do I not?
Does that make me feminine or does it make me open to cultural?
You know, it's just like, what do you like to cook, man?
I don't cook, you know.
Well, that's the other thing about people that are online too much is they're
so concerned with other people's opinions that they don't have enough time to
formulate their own.
They're just so concerned with how people are going to perceive everything you
say that you're, like, handcuffed.
You're, like, terrified to misspeak.
Right, right.
I think that in general is a real fucking danger.
I mean, we were talking the other day, we were saying about, like, one of the
benefits of getting older and doing this for a long time is you realize, like,
nobody really gives a shit as much about you as you do.
You know, you just kind of, nobody gives a fuck.
Nobody remembers.
You spend your 20s and 30s thinking, like, this is really important, and then
you realize no one fucking cares.
I'm not going to come off.
What's going to be?
No one actually cares.
It's not that big a deal.
Most people are mostly worrying about themselves and their life.
Yeah, there's this illusion that they pay a passing moment of attention or it's
in some story.
It's, like, you're fucking staring at it because it's about you.
Right.
You know, you said that about me.
Nobody else really fucking cares.
Nobody cares.
Yeah.
And if they do, they're usually fucked up.
Like, something's wrong.
Why are you concentrating on this other person's life?
It's really mad about you.
You're probably trying to ignore your own bullshit.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, listen, man, your movie's fucking awesome.
I've loved so much of your films over the years, so it's been really cool to be
able to have
you guys in here and talk about this.
It's been great.
It's been fun.
Thank you very much.
Two very normal, nice movie stars.
You guys are cool as fuck.
Give us a couple more hours, man.
Yeah, exactly.
I enjoyed it, and I really enjoyed the rip.
It's fucking great, and everybody, go see it.
It's great.
I loved it.
Thank you.
Thanks for being here.
All right.
It's a pleasure.
Bye, everybody.
Bye, everybody.