Rob Lowe

My guest today is actor, filmmaker and podcast host Rob Low. You may know him from The West Wing and Saint Elmo's Fire by the Way iconic show and movie, but today Rob is the star of Fox's nine one one Lone Star and host of Literally with Rob Low. This is just me with Rob Low. Let's get into it. Hi,

Yes, I'm so. I'm so interested to know you did my podcast Literally and you were great. I had a great talk with you. What was the reaction on your end?

The reaction was great. But like I said, from different people that I don't you know, you're always marketing to the same audience because they're your audience. And so that's why, that's why the model of podcasts and doing different types of things and having different people on yours does really work because different like random like David Lasher who was Vinnie from Blossom, was like I listened to you on Rob Blows. I'm like what, Like it was just so

Well it's well, that's I love hearing that, and I It's It's true, isn't it?

Like it is always interesting.

To me when we are out giving interviews or selling.

A product or movie or TV or whatever.

Who is watching or listening to what? It's endlessly fascinating to me.

Yeah. I mean, I really do think that if I'm not a person who likes unsolicited advice or visits, but if I were that person, and I feel like if I knocked on your door, you'd be like, hey, come on in. I feel like we're friends now.

So I'm already feeling bad that you didn't say, Hey, I'm in Santa Barbara, let's get coffee.

I think I message on Instagram, but I don't know if you got it.

I forget if, like you know my Instagram.

I it's like I'm not as good as following the comments maybe as I should be.

Yeah, No, I don't believe me. I mean I went with my daughter. We stayed at Calamy Goes Ranch and Malibu and then drove for the day.

What's it like to stay there?

So Mark Gervitz is a power comedy manager who lives in Malibi, like deep Malibu. There's Malibu and then there's like deeper Malibu. And I was going to an event at his house to see Adam Sandler and a bunch of people, and I wanted to have a staycation versus stay in La where you're going to transact and you're going to be in the business of show and I didn't want. I wanted to be on a vacation and feel like I could go to the beach. And Malibu

It when I was a kid, when I was in junior high that everybody went to summer camp at Kalamigos Ranch. Yeah.

Oh, it's been different things.

It's been a proper ranch and that it's been defunct and then it's been revitalized.

But it's I've never stayed there.

So then we went to your town, and I love You're in Santa I love that town of Santa Barbara. I've been to Monacito and we did that, but like that street in Santa Barbara with all those pianos on, it was amazing.

I know, right, they've shut since COVID, they shut down State Street and it's now like a you know, a plaza, walking plaza. It's Those are two of my favorite places in Alibu, and Montecito and Santa Barbara three of my favorite, I should say.

Likewise, Okay, so I've done a little bit of reading about you and I had always peripherally gotten a sense of you, like I knew you married a makeup artist or your makeup artist, and I was sadly jealous at the time, and I was just thinking like, why her not me? And I didn't even know you, So that was this good reason why we didn't know each other. So you got We talked on your podcasts about this

Yeah, I was.

I was born in Charlottesville, where my dad was had just graduated from law school, and then they, my mother and my dad moved to Dayton and that's where I had my childhood. My proper you know, from six months old to twelve was in Dayton. So I got a real Midwestern childhood. And then my mom and dad divorced and we ended up in directly from Dayton to Point Doom in Malibu, which was like going to Mars.

Wow, that's a Fred Hayman from Georgio, Beverly Hills. I planned and organized his wedding and so that was my first experience at Point Doom.

Yeah.

Point Doom is there's Malibu and then there's Point Doom. It's a whole different vibe very and my great obsession is I want to do a movie or miniseries or book about what life was like in Malibu but on Point Doom, in particular in the mid to late seventies, because it was.

Not wait so hold on, I was staying when you went down to the left was Paradise Cove And then to the Point Doom is not in Malibu. It's like its own thing.

No, it's a part of Malibu, but it's it's it's because it's a point Okay, it's it's its own neighborhood. It's it's you know, it's not on the pch like everything else is. And uh, it's it's just a weird I don't know if it's the Indian Shoemash mojo there, but it's both really exciting and interesting and really dark and weird all at the same time.

Is are there are there reservations there? No?

But it's okay, But it's all real shoemash you know, the original you know, people of the area.

It's it's very viby in that way. Lots of arrowheads and history.

What high school did you go to There.

Was no high school in Malibu then there is now, and we had to take the bus twenty two miles to Santa Monica to go to high school.

So you went to Santa Monica High School. Wow, okay, so you really But I mean, starting at twelve, you kind of really are a California boy and you really never left that sphere, Like you're not that far from there now. I mean, you're in that vibe too. There's a Malibu vibe, and I feel like Santa Barbara is like a Malibu adjacent vibe, having spent that weekend wanting to go that way versus go the other way into La.

Yeah, for sure.

And again when Malibu when I moved there, it was not a show business enclave it is now. There was a time, you know, I would say in the early eighties when the studio executives and the agents.

All moved out there.

But when I grew up there, it's what Santa Barbara and Montecito were when I moved up here, which is super rural. People ride their horses down the street. Wow, not a company town. You get all walks of life when you like, you know, if I'm coaching Little League I'm you know, there's the dad's work in every line of work you could imagine, and they're not all in show business. So it's it's just I'm attracted to a little bit of more diversity of thought and of experience.

And moving your kids to Santa Barbara when they were at an age where things are more influential. That was obviously intentional. Is that because of your Midwestern roots, like you just wanted to feel some version of that.

Yeah, I wanted. I wanted them to be able to be outside a lot.

I wanted I wanted, you know, up here we could we could go to the beach, maybe take a hike, go to the zoo, and go to a movie. We could do that all in one day up here and in la As, you know, that's you could do one of them right in a day. And if you're in Malibu you can really.

Only do one of them.

And where's your wife from.

She's a born and bred valley girl.

She's a valley girl, Okay.

And Vally, they're very she is a valley girl, you know, Hollywood.

She grew up in both areas.

So you dragged her.

I dragged her, Oh, I dragged her.

She dragged her.

Yeah, she was not having it.

I had a real vision though, of I mean, every once in a while I have a I have a vision of what I want to do, not all the time, but every once in a while, and I really was like, this is really right for us, and I mean it's one of the smartest things that we ever did as a family, was was was move up here both I mean in terms of our lifestyle, what it did for our relationships, for our marriage, for our kids, and financially, As it turns out, more than anything, I've done better

That's what I was. The next question I was gonna ask is did you invest in? You invest early?

Yep?

I did years ago yep, and Monacito became only just continued to become more attractive.

And then between.

People being able to work from home, the rise of Zoom, the experience of COVID and a big hotel opening up the Miramar that brought people from all over the world to see it, and Megan and Harry moving in, all of those things turned Monacito into another version of the Hamptons, which it never was.

You said last time, and I spoke to you that you don't. I don't think you consider yourself a very good business person?

Or do you?

Or do you?

It depends. I definitely consider myself a business person, for sure.

You do, so, okay, yeah, for sure, Like you are thinking business first, You're marketing your business, You're you have a chessboard that you're working in your mind.

I mean, it doesn't supersede my creative but I like to think that I can get them both to exist equally within me and neither one is a detriment to the other.

And who So when you started making money acting, you started investing or that was just you buying your personal property, Like what was your business trajectory it was?

It was really just buying the personal property, really and then you know, selling it and you know, doing well and moving up the ladder, and then selling that and doing well and then starting to invest in other areas of real estate, which is really and I got to give my wife credit.

She has really been the impetus.

Behind that, behind the investing in other real estate.

In real estate period. She's got an.

Amazing, amazing sniffer for.

Real estate, the vision of what something could be yes insane.

Yeah, we're just insane.

I love that and I've done that personally a lot, and it was almost unintentional. But during the pandemic, I flipped three places and I never I was thinking about you talking about your personal real estate for people who

Yeah, and for us, the straight investment real estate is new ish.

And you know we we we weren't flippers, and I don't we're not.

Our homes are our homes and we live in them.

And but we've just had those those things where people have said, you know, we'd like to buy it, and you name the price, and I go, you know what I'm gonna At the end of the day, I'm still an actor for hire. I sort of a fiduciary responsibility to my family to to say yes to this. But it's not like I'm I ever build any home to.

Flip it, right, I understand, but your but your wife is probably thinking of things being somewhat not neutral. But I think people think about that in design too. You know, you're not putting like crocodile walls because you never know what could happen if someone knocks on the door.

Oh yeah, Willison, for sure.

And I think it's one of the reasons we have been able to do what we do is when we we just found a big, an amazing piece of property. It's a legacy property, been around since eighteen seventy seven. And when you have something like that, you have to build something on it that's equal to the property.

And if you don't, then you're actually taking money off the table. So it's a weird thing.

You're going to spend more, but you're actually making more than if you you know, you know what I mean it's like, yes, you got if you've.

Got to, you got to.

If you're gonna do it, you're gonna do it.

Yeah, exactly, you gotta do it right.

Yeah, I live on a house it's seventeen forty three on a property with an apple orchard, and like I don't mess around with the original wood in the house or like I just I you have to honor it. This is what you're saying. You're honoring. You're not gonna like spec house it up on eighteen hundred's property. So you've done well, You've made money and in show business

Well?

First of all, you know it's all relative. Even what is rich, right is relative? You know, Mark Cuban's got more money than you.

I do.

No, But but even the gay he still doesn't want really really really asshole spoiled kids. So he's harder for him because he's flying on a private plane. We're flying first class. So like at your level, I guess you know, And.

Well, first of all, I think my kids, if you ask them, they legitimately would not consider themselves.

Rich.

Legit, that's not in the ethos, Like they know they have this trust fund or they know that when I know people like this, I've worked with people like who know that when their dad or mom kicks the bucket or when grandpa kicks the bucket, they're coming into you know, a lot of money. They and they you know, it's always out there in their lives. Obviously, that's not my family. I think that they grew up thinking and having certainly the experience of being not any different than a lot

Oh interesting, okay, right right.

Because you know, you can be worth four billion dollars and you can walk into a restaurant and nobody knows who you are, and you can be worth, you know, four hundred thousand dollars and walk into a restaurant and it stops dead in its tracks. So it's a funny. It's a funny thing. So I really think there's the how do you deal with with money? And then there's how do you deal with being in a family that is in the public eye?

And are you just are you insular you're not out that much? Or you live in a place where no one cares? And you know, what's it like when you're with them in La Do they care? Do they What is that like in your house? Fame? And is your wife annoyed by it?

Well, the thing is the one of the reasons I consciously moved out of LA was I didn't want my kids growing up, you know, around paparazzi and and and and where the currency of the realm is your fame, and that just is what it is in La There's no way to skin that cat.

When I grew up in.

Malibu, there were there were horses at the hitching posts at the market. They're gone and they're replaced with paparazzi, staking people out, which wasn't there. So I tried I recreated it, and so they just didn't. They'd come home and go Dad. They'd visit a friend in Melibou.

Dad. They had a screening room. We watched a movie there and Jim Carrey came over and they're talking like they're from you know, Ohio, right, you know, and and that, and I was like, yeah, that's good. They should be.

They should you have stars in their eyes like that and feel that way. And you know, my other my son, who is the actor, didn't start out that way. He started out as a a stem cell scientist and went to Stanford and then came out and decided he wanted to be an actor and a writer.

And of course I was that was not a happy day for me. I was like, I had a molecular biologist an actor.

My daughter kind of acts like when she went from this public school to this private school, she acted like she was sort of on scholarship. She was like, oh my god, mom, they give free art supplies and she was so excited. And I think that's because, you know, just because I buy things that I want or I worked hard to get all this, it doesn't mean it's a free for all, and I have all these rules that you know, if you really want something, you have to give something up or you have to work for it.

For sure, entitled spoiled. You know, it happens, It can happen to it can happen to kids anywhere.

Yeah, really it really absolutely.

Entitlement is I think the worst, the worst element of it. But I also think that they take their cues from their parents. And you know, I work my ass.

Off and and so yeah, so.

Does Cheryl Oh. I mean she, I mean she literally this week flew to Washington for her jewelry business, came home last night, flew to Arizona and came home and she's out there on the floor selling Neiman Marcus, doing her thing.

It's like she's have to do that no, but yeah, and have you ever like, was there? It's my turn in your relationship because it's been very much about you and your career. Was there. It's my turn after her, you know, helping you raise the kids and all that. Or it's just always been an ebb and flow.

It's always been that way. I mean, one of the reasons I married her was she had this and remains. She has the strongest work ethic of anybody I've ever known. And that's saying something because mine is strong. And so whether it's raising the raising the kids, or starting a makeup line, or or building the homes that we have, or the or then she had, she also has from time to time built for other people.

She always has always worked, she will always work.

Interesting and so your work ethic comes from your upbringing and your family, right.

Yeah, But part of it I think is listen, I think part of its genetic because my mom was sort of very artsy and not really a worker. My dad is eighty four and still goes into the office, uh you know, uh practices law. My grandpa, who is very close to my mom's side, just a eighth grade education, you know, it became the first millionaire in his city, you know, so it's it's kind of I think it's kind of in the DNA a little bit.

Maybe, So you were always working your ass off, like you're working as hard as you were when you were younger, Like you were always this way.

Paper routes, you know, bus boy. I mean, I did get fired from every job that I had that wasn't around show business because I'm not really cut out for the real world, Bethany.

But but you're cut out for show business, and well, I guess real estate, you're cut out for non traditional business.

Yes, I am. I designed first of all. I had designed my entire life to try to not deal with math. And you know, listen.

That I'm really good on the other side of my brain and I've I've really learned a lot about I can get by with numbers, obviously, because you have to if you're going to be in any kind of a business. But I avoid it. It's not my jam.

I don't like it. I appreciate people who do.

I'm very much a creative person with a you know what It's like people say, do you sing? It's like I'm an actor who sings, which is very different than being a singer.

Who acts or a singer.

M h. And it's that way that way with business. I am a storyteller, entertainer, producer, director who also is in business.

Right right right when you were partying, how could you have that same work ethic or you were just partying and then you would wake up and you would just be hurting a little bit. You always had the same work ethic, just exhausted a little stripped.

Exactly when I'm out of you know, dan seteria at the Hampton's till you know, four o'clock in the morning and I got to get up to shoot Masquerade, you just you suck it up and.

Go, yeah, yeah, I gets that.

You know. Also it's a little bit of like you emulate your idols, and you know, my idols today are really really different than they were then.

But then you know, it.

Was like Jack Nicholson Man, he's out partying on he's at the Roxy, you know, the shades on at two am, and then he's on the set of the Witches of east Wick, Man's Courtside of the Laker Games. It lives up in Mohuland, and he's got seventeen girlfriends. Man.

Yeah, like that was what I thought was cool.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, in many ways, I don't. The younger generation. I worry about them, but not in that way. I think they're more evolved in wanting to feel good and drinking macha and asai, and whether it all works or not, I don't know. But they're aware of like well being in balance where we were not. But I'm the same as you. It's a prose play, hurt model, tough.

Shit one to one Honda, same with my same with my wife. Same and and you know little and John Ohen, my my acting son. Uh, you know, he's he's very open about it. He's also sober, and he was the same. He was like pros play hurt right, work hard, play hard.

Yeah, but yeah, but now it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be so exhausting. It's okay to feel good. So sobriety is a major, major role in.

Your career and in our family's life, for sure major. I wouldn't have anything without it, really what it is is, I think it would have been just the law of diminishing returns, and I would have been like the frog that slowly gets boiled alive in.

The in the in the in the water.

As you incrementally you know, can't feel it, and just yeah, that would have been me with my you know, personal life and career.

Like death by a thousand paper cuts. It was just like, yeah, well that's Was it really hard to quit everything or was it? Like they're different, They're fifty shades of addiction. I've taken classes on it. And some people our bingers. Some people are just always in their life. They call it a French type alcoholic, and some people really hit rock. So what was your relationship to substances?

Mine was, I was kind of a periodic, they would say. And so you're, you know, you're up at Charlie Sheen's pool and you got your coronas and you're you're working out.

At the gym.

You's being tough, and then you have a couple of coronas and then the next thing you know, you're you know, you're you're you're looking for the blow or whatever, maybe because it's nighttime and you go out to and then you're chasing girls around and you're it's like you're twenty you're nineteen, twenty twenty one years old.

And and that was.

Sort of the vibe for me, and I just at a certain point realized that I was never going to have the life I wanted continuing that. And so when I was ready, I went to Sierra Tucson and and it was the best thing I ever did.

And I actually loved being in rehab. I loved it. I learned so much. I was always a pleasure to have in class.

In school, I was in the front. I'm in the front row raising my hand. That was always me. And I was the same in rehab. And I learned a ton And you know, you know, by the grace of God, I've never had to slip. I've never had to go back. I got from the minute I got sober, I've stayed sober. I was thirty three years ago.

Because you work your ass off, so you work your ass But is it is it a struggle now or it's just is what it is?

Right, it's in my DNA, it's being you know, having the ism is a struggle because it's like whack a mole. Yeah, like every decade there's I realized that it's morphed into something else that I need to look at and like, right now, this is going to sound insane, but I know it's driven from the same thing. It's waking up at midnight and going, you know what, you need to go to the kitchen and binge on some hogindaws.

It's noise. The noise is in a different area. Now.

Yeah, you know, some people it's gambling. Some people it's sex. Some people it's uh workaholism. Yeah, some people it's overtraining. I mean it yeah, never goes away. It just moves and just hopefully it moves into stuff that's less and less harmful and easier and easier to deal with.

Mine is organizing and getting rid of. It's obsessive. It's it's insane. I mean, it's that that's mine.

Are you a collector or getting get rid of.

I'm not a hoarder at all, but I Freud would have a field day with me walking into this accidental influencer business and everybody sending me everything, and so there's a curiosity about it. And also I like to purchase. I'm a purchaser of certain things that I do collect, and then I just get overwhelmed by that we really don't need so much and why is this all here? And I just wanted to you know, But it's definitely not a hoarders. I have the most organized, the macular

Yeah, No, it's good. I like it.

Yeah, it's a good one. It's not. It's like working at It's good because I could come into your house and organize it and you'd be so happy.

It's so funny you say that, because again, one of the things about my wife that I remember, you know, and I was actively dating big time and she was among the people that I was seeing, and she came over and organized my coffee table, the books on my coffee table. As long as I live, no one else done that.

That's nice.

No one else's never done that.

That's hilarious. Well, your marriage is a big part of your identity too, and you seem to be pretty good at it. No marriage is perfect, But I'm asking if like, you've had serious bumps to make us all feel better about our miserable lives, or have you not?

And this is one of the reasons why, you know, to the extent that I ever hesitate to talk about it. The temptation is that, oh, well, it must be perfect, and well, sure, anybody can be married for thirty three years if it's perfect and there aren't any struggles or you know, and that's not the case.

I mean, it just isn't, you know.

Every it's it's no different than a long career. If you are in a long marriage or if you're in a long career, by definition, you're going to have those fallow periods because nothing in life remains the same. Nothing nothing, nothing, nothing, stock market, business relationships, they all have their ups and downs. And I think the difference is both in careers and marriages, is how you react when they're down.

And that's an amazing point.

And that's the difference. That is literally the difference in a long career, short career, or a long marriage or a short marriage is what do you do?

Do you run? Do you blame? Can you live in acceptance? Can you change?

Can the other person change? Can you forgive? Can you take responsibility all of those things, and a lot of people can't do any of them.

It's a great point. And do you lean in and be like all right, let's let's work this thing through, or like you.

Said, we work hard.

Listen, we do marriage therapy even when we don't quote unquote need it.

You want to lock the door so you don't get robbed.

So yeah, and it's like it's like you too, it's to you send your car and to get tuned up.

So true, it's such a that's a great that's such a that's that's that's really a great note. And so you've had some serious roadblocks, like you've been canceled in a time when people didn't even get canceled. And I've thought about not even since meeting you, I've thought about that in my life. I don't know why that. I don't believe that would even be on the board for cancelation as long like things hit differently back then, and

I would say that that's pretty accurate. I would say that there are two things that I think that that add to it a little more context. One is I actually think that in many ways, my ill fated appearance on the Academy Awards.

Did as much damage.

I was asked to open the Academy Awards and to do a song with snow White, and it felt like a really good idea at.

The time, and it was a terrible idea.

It was a badly conceived It was supposed to be silly, and people hated it. And then I think it Then post all of that, I got sober, went away to rehab, got serious with my wife, got married, moved out of LA.

Started having kids.

So I was, I mean, I'm sure it was a sort of a mutual decision in terms of Hollywood and.

Me, Like I was.

I look, I spent the eighties dealing work, building my career, and I spent the nineties building myself.

Wow. So you so it was the bestest thing that ever happened to.

You in ways not in ways, It was the best thing that ever happened to me, full stop.

Do you feel like you were so like it was it was almost like a self fulfilling prophecy to fail. You feel like you were reckless and like kind of looking for something you were looking for a while to hit.

One hundred percent.

No, I absolutely remember feeling like, like, you know, it's it's it's it's the uh, the criminal that that once wants to be arrested.

Stop.

Wow. So so you were you You weren't like, oh fuck, my career is over because you take that kind of make that kind of change. Did you have a backup plan or did you know you have enough control over who you are and that you're robblow and that you can come back when you decide, Because most people like you said, if someone knocks on the door, you're going to sell your house. If you go away, you could be obsolete in the entertainment industry.

I never thought about it in that way.

And then I because all I was thinking about at the time when I was getting sober was it's time for me. I'm getting I'm doing this for me. I'm not doing it for my career. I'm not doing it for public consumption. I'm not doing it to stay together with my then girlfriend Cheryl, who became my wife. I was doing it for me and it was probably the first thing that I ever really did just for me ever, and it was all I could think about. It required everything and anything else that bubbled up around.

It, like what about my career? What about it? I was like, don't care, right well, let the chips fall where they may. Who knows I'm.

Doing It's funny. Matthew McConaughey made a similar I don't know if you read his book green Light, but he made a similar decision about like I'm not taking these like shirtless drom coms, and he stood tight. He just knew there was a moment when he had to do something, and that was my moment, was leaving the housewives. As ridiculous as that sounds, it was millions of dollars, and it was you know, my business manager said, or my someone said, trees grow high, they don't grow high to

But we'll also to hear to hear the voice inside of them and honor that. Yes, you have to be courageous on top of that to do it.

What age was that at that you that you did that twenty six That was young to be making those kind of big boy decisions to be like getting going and going to rehabit, getting married.

That was you?

You peaked early?

Well, you know, I I had a lot of life. I had more life experience than the average twenty six yearl that's for sure. I'd been more, done more, seen more, learned more. And but yes, looking back on it, it's younger than any of my kids are now.

Yeah, totally.

And I look back on it and go, what the hell?

So, Lauren Michael's once said to me at dinner he was talking about somebody else on SNL or something. It wasn't about me, but I just never forget it. He said, you have to make an exit to be able to make an entrance.

It's such a great It's one of my favorite laurenisms.

The last two questions I have people have given me one piece of advice, like I don't fix them, I fix me, or every day we check in once a day. These things that I sometimes say, oh god, well I don't do that, Like what is your thing that you guys do that seems simple to you but would help other people in relationships?

Well, there's two things. The number one thing is, let's hope you've chosen right to begin with.

Because.

Really the die is cast with who you choose, because, as you allude to in the advice, you can't change another person.

Changing yourself is hard.

It's like Cheryl and I are simpotico on so many things, money, politics, where we want to go on vacations. Uniforms are not uniforms in schools.

I mean you name it.

Not name the list of from the from the banal to the really intense. And I am going to be on the exact same page with her all the time. Now we happen to disagree on something very important to me. Comedy.

Cheryl Lowe does not understand comedy.

She doesn't and what do you mean she doesn't understand common like she does? She not think you were funny because I know couples that were one person's funny and the other person doesn't think they're funny. Does she think you're funny?

She's smart enough to know that other people think I'm funny. See, yes, no she doesn't. She's a horrible laugh for me. She's a black hole.

Oh in my one man shows, and it's a it's a running joke amongst our friends and family.

So like, by the way, for some people, that would be a barrier to entry.

One hundred percent. I'm a comedy snob. And would you think she is? She funny?

No? See? Wow, here's another thing.

And I've had I had, I had one girlfriend in particular. All we did was laugh. It was fucking amazing. But you know what, it's it's fine, It's it's she would have been, by the way, a terrible wife and a terrible life partner, right, you know.

She just doesn't like Bruce Springsteen and her music.

I feel like I can feel the pot smoke in the air when I listen to the music.

That's my fiance, Paul. It's say, it's like fish and Grateful Dead. Yeah, and it's funny. But the music, the music and the comedy those aren't what I call in a book that I wrote called I Suck at relationships. So you don't have to fundamental differences. I believe you can't have fundamental differences by and large, like the things that were you know, just like you said, the way you parent money, things like that, like values, core values.

Ooh, I think the rose continues to be the rose, which is I.

For whatever reason, I have been able to plant my flag in the comedy world and the drama world, and I also have not been pigeonholed in that I can do funny commercials for Direct TV, and I can do a serious drama in the West End in London, and I can produce and do a game show.

I can.

I kind of get to do whatever. I can write best selling books, I can. I could kind of do whatever I think is interesting and that I'm going to learn from without it bumping people, when people saying what the hell and people accepting it. So to me, that's the that's if there's a rose, that's the rose and the thorn.

Probably.

I mean, I'm such an optimist it's hard for me to even think of what the thorn is, I don't know. I think the thorn is more systemic, and I think the thorn is just that the business is so much harder than it's ever been.

It's it's it's harder on every level.

And you work hard because it's just who you are. You're not necessarily working towards something like you're just always setting new goals and you just like to work. It's the journey.

It's it's for sure the journey.

I mean, I think the minute you thinking go, ah, well I've done it, or well i've really I don't. I never allow myself to I feel exactly the same as I did at the beginning of my career. Other than I also will allow myself to look back and see how far I've come.

We're the same age. I think you got a second wind because I got a second wind. Like sometimes you think maybe it's a little exhausting and I want to rest a little, and I maybe near done. And I don't know if that's like self defense or something, you know what, any self protection. But I've caught a big wind and it feels good. And I think it's this age. You know, it's like not a midlife crisis. It's just like a reinvigoration and really fine tuning, like sharpening the

Yeah.

The other thing is I don't. I definitely experience and and and and life has gotten me to a place where I also really know where I'm valuable and what my value is.

I'm not.

I'm not suffering fools anymore anymore. I really did, and and I know even though I'm super diverse and what I'm interested in, I also know my lane, if.

That makes any sense.

Yeah, I kind of a counterintuitive, but but but I really know, like where what moves the needle for me.

Well that's kind of what I mean. You don't need to fuck around and waste time, like you know what you're supposed to do. You'll take chances if you're inspired. But like it's a quality versus quantity model. Yeah, I love it. I love meeting you, talking to you and knowing you and versa. Really, so we're friends now. And when I'm in Santa Barbara, I'm coming over.

Yeah, I'll show you. I'll show you the real estate. I mean we need, yes, you need, as they say, a footprint over here.

I think, yes, I do. I love it. My daughter loves it. So so amazing talking to you. Thank you for having me on your show, and thank you for coming online. And give my love to your family.

I will. And this is great. It was. It was so fun to be a guest.

It's different for you.

Oh my god, it's this is this is the best.

I mean, you're a good guest. You're a very good guest.

Oh good. Yeah, I haven't lost it by being a host for so long.

Now.

No, you're a very good host and you're a very good guest. So that's awesome. Yeah, really good. That's why I wanted to talk forever. You're just a very good guests. So thank you for talking to me.

Thank you. It's great being here.

I was on Rob Low's podcast and I really liked him. He's a good talker, he's a good listener. He's evolved, he is emotionally intelligent, he is a hard worker, he's very inspirational, and I really really enjoyed doing his podcast. And I'm honored and humbled that he wanted to do mine, you know, as a result of that conversation, because I do think that sometimes people think I'm just some nitwit reality star, and there are just some times that people