Justin Long

thought you just ran to the library just now. I'll be one minute, Hang on, where's my library card? We edited out I was actually sitting here for forty five minutes, justin take a nap. I'll be right back. Hello, I'm Mini driver and welcome to many Questions. I've always loved priest questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But with so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to expand on anything.

So I took the format of Proof's questionnaire and adapted what I think are seven of the most important questions you could ever ask someone they are when and where were you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? What would be

your last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that has grown out of a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more we begin to see what makes us similar and what makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable people who I am honored and humbled to have had a chance to engage with. My guest today is the actor and podcaster

Justin Long. We've known each other oh long time, but the reality that we have remained utter nerds about acting and movies has not really changed in all that time. Justin asks brilliant questions because I think he is a deeply curious human being and has the kind of intellectual acuity that's put to great use as an actor, but

it's probably wasted on it. Also, I went on his podcast Life Is Short with Justin Long and we talked for a really long time and it was incredibly entertaining, but it also made me think about a lot of things for a very long time afterwards. The episode is out on July, and then when he came on my podcast, this podcast, he was equally as generous and considered and hilarious. Okay, Lorry, I'm going to start asking you questions, so you better just get ready. I'm ready. I haven't looked at them.

That could be a disclaimer in case I'm stumbling to No, don't worry about that. She stumbled through it. It's going to be on my headstand. It's a good question. Okay. Well, so now I have to ask you that what would be written on your team stone Well, well, you know, actually it comes up a lot on the podcast I do um and it's always life is short with justin long thank you. Yes, I should have done that. That's a professional podcaster. I should have It's only been two years.

You're not to plug my own ship. It would come up at the end because I would say, what type of legacy do you want to leave behind? What do you hope people remember? But it would come on the heels of this, like lightning round their uniform questions, and it always through the guests, and not necessarily in a

good way. When you go through the you know, what's your favorite movie, and you your favorite fruits and all this stuff, and then it would get to this kind of nebulous question about being remembered, and I love it. It's like, what's your favorite snack? Watch, favorite movie? And now I want you to contemplate. Yeah, your existence. I know it was always like, oh, people were pretty game about it, but it was like I could see it throwing,

really throwing them. I mean, obviously I saw written on a tombstone that I then went and found where it came from because it was so beautiful and I knew it must have been part of something else. And it's the last lines of this poem to be held by a woman called Linda Hogan. And on the tombstone it said, waiting for the healing after the storm which has been our life. Wow, Oh my god, how much that says

and how much is left to the imagination about that life. Wow, it's the most beautiful poem stand laurels is and I'm probably gonna bastardize it, but it says something like he brought joy to the world that he loved so much. Oh, it's so sweet. There's one in Key West. It just says I told you I was sick. And I think

about that one often because it leaves behind. I mean, it is the highest degree of permanence I can imagine, and that for centuries, people who see that will just assume that whoever's under that rock was cheeky and had a good sense of humor. You know. I like that. Where and when were you happiest? You know what? Honestly, I had a moment recently, about a month ago in Arkansas. I was taking a drive with a friend and we

were kind of following signs. We kept finding all these really interesting or funny, bizarre signs, literal signs on the side of the road, above a storefront graffitied somewhere. I just felt very connected to this person, and I felt

very free and safe. And we had been laughing so much, and it was our day off and we were shooting this thing, and it it was we had a day off, and the sky it was just beautiful, and I was thinking about my grandma, who passed away recently a lot, and she had given me a sign that she was okay and had passed, And so I think that it was that day. It was May fourth, that might not be interesting, but it was. It was profound to me. No, no, no, no, of course it is. I mean we talked a little

bit about this when I did your podcast. But the looking for signs, we seek out those people who have gone because oh, sweet little human brains so desperately need to physicalize them because we're still here in this reality. But I'm a big believer in signs. I thought at first you might mean you were following road signs, but then the signs actually turned into signs. No, not not. In fact, we were lost. We had gotten lost, and we turned off our GPS, and uh, there's a real

purity to not knowing. Sometimes it made us more connected, and it made us more aware and present to the surroundings, which included, as it turns out, these like really not always that bizarre signs. Like for example, we found one for like piglets for sale on the side of the road, and we looked at each other and like piglets in this big farm, sprawling farmhouse, and we said, should we are we should we go? Should we go? And we're like, well, yeah, we just kept like going and we met this the

most beautiful pig pigs. Well, we did meet the pigs, several pigs. I like that you just followed the things that you saw. Yes, I always want signs on the freeway. Whenever it's like, you know, put your seatbelt on. I'm always hoping that it's secret you going to say, you know, sell everything and buy a boat. Oh that's funny. Yeah, I know, very specific to you, exactly driver, any person in the fucking one. Yes, well, yours could be it could be like driver, beware, you know that's true. What

is the quality you least like about yourself? There are several I'm trying to pick just one. I am, well, I'm quite scattered. I'm quite um. I guess the easy clinical way out would be to say I'm a d D. Maybe listeners can tell already that I'm it's hard for me to focus in work. That can be a problem, obviously, although weirdly when i'm when I have it. That's this is why I'd love to mow the lawn or I love tasks like that. I of like manual labor tap

because there's a clarity to it. There's a clear agenda, you know. I find comfort in that knowing that, Okay, this amount of grass needs to be cut and this is how you cut it, and there's something very satisfying about that. I couldn't agree more. I think it makes you feel safe as well, because it's somehow there are boundaries created around time, so you know that for this period,

you know exactly what you're doing. It's white like being an actor is just such a monstrous free fall when you don't know where the next job is coming from. It unless you're one of you know, sort of a handful of actor. Maybe you're in that handful. I'm certainly not. No, no, I know exactly, but I totally understand why you knowing I am going to mow the lawn now. It's both satisfying and safe feeling. In fact, I heard Julie Roberts

say once on a radio show or something. She said, the best time for an actor is the time between when you know you've got a job and the time that job starts. Oh that's that's not agree more. Where you're just you're following, not worried, and you're excited. Yes, yes, there's a security. Your feet are planted. It's definitive. There's something definitive totally. What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love

for you. First of all. At the heart of every great relationship, I think is just a real sense of enjoyment. There's you really fucking just like being around somebody, and there's a mutual curiosity about one another, you know. I think that's That's something that I only recently came to appreciate, how how much you want to know things about about

a person. It's usually in movies, sadly, I mean, I don't know what that says about the relationships I've had, but you know, I have like wonderful others and parents, but it's it's in the movies where this is I think one of the reasons I love movies, where you know, you get to you get to witness. This is going to sound very pretentious, but I think of like the platonic forms, you know, like there's a form of relationship that is perfect, and we're all aspiring to that form.

Every relationship aspires to that and nothing and only in movies can it really be perfect, because it ends it's so true. I mean, the aspiration to me perfect here is mired by compromise. But in the in the films, I was too jealous of Madeline Stowe to really embrace her in the Last the Mohicans. But like for me, the way that dandey Lewis talks to her under the Waterfall, I will find you no matter what happens. So long I just I mean, I'm sure she's a very nice person.

But oh my god, that should have been me. I think that about Daniel day Lewis should have been me. That was my part. It should have been under the waterfall. Yeah, oh my god, people be so mad. God that might be when it comes to like romance and relationship. That might be the perfect scene. There's there's a desperation, yes, to end up in the woods with the person who is the last of his kind. You're joking and make little babies all day and like hunt sign me up.

The stakes couldn't be higher, stakes can be not not to compare myself to that scene or but I said that recently to someone like I need you to and it was mutual. I hope that. But that the idea that like, don't just be I mean we say it all the time to loved ones, be safe, but it's that it's that not as heightened. But he says, the word occurred, no matter what, stay alive, no matter what occurred alive no matter what, you will fold you. Oh my god, I just don't die, Like stay here, you

know that's really beautiful. I know, be here, don't go in your life. Can you tell me about something that grew out of a personal disaster. Yes, I had a had an experience where I was some kid held against my will and I had smoked what I thought was weird. It turned out to be something else, something really debilitating and scary. It was scary, and I jumped out of a car to get away, and I was like, run over.

You jumped out of the car to get away. Like, first of all, good job being super high being able to jump out of the car. But then did you also that you managed to unlock the door and get out, and then you got hit by another car when you jumped out? No, no, no, because what happens when you chumped out of a car. It was it was It wasn't going, it wasn't speeding down. It was going like an hour around streets. It was three in the morning, so there weren't really cars. But I saw head it's

coming and I I opened the door. Uh, and I and when you jump out of a car, for those of a few of you who haven't done it. You don't land on your feet, you know, unless you're like Spider Man. I've rolled and one of the wheels rolled over my leg, and so I really obviously sucked up my leg, but but I was able to move, I was able to get up on it. I did nothing broken, which is miraculous. The doctor the next day was like, well, it's probably because you bought. You were so messed up.

You know, your body is not tight um or whatever this is. So this experience happened, very frightening thing. But out of that I thought about it often, and obviously it affected me, and here I am, fourteen years later later talking about it. But it helped me appreciate boundaries and the way I moved through the world. I was very trusting of people, which is not to say I'm jaded and cynical now, but I think it just it gave me an appreciation for boundaries and protecting my own

time and space. And I had a tremendous amount of guilt. I have a lot of guilt about things. I think I waste a lot of time. Why do you feel guilty that I did it? Out of guilt? It was the guys. This is part of the long story. But but the guys that wanted me to smoke, they had approached me at a bar. I had been there at the bar a couple of nights earlier with a friend and I have to tell his name, this name dropping, but I have to say it was. It was Steve Boushemy.

And only because Steve gets so much attention, you know, from people, that they had to kind of put us in a back room because he's so recognizable. And so we had we were like kind of in this room off to the side, and it was like it was just like a pubby type place, Irish pub. And a couple of days later, I was back at the bar and these two guys locals approached me and said, the

funk man, you said you wanted weed. And when we came back to get it, like you were in some some like v I p areas somewhere we couldn't and we went all the way to get and I said, you know, and oh, I'm so sorry, and I bought them shots, you know, like to make up for it. And throughout the night they come over to me and the friends I was with and they would oh, this this Hollywood guy. He's a Hollywood guy and they and my thing at that point was like I just want

everything to be normal. I just want And that led to them being like, well, you're not going to smoke with us? Oh my good god. Oh yeah yeah, I'll have some Oh yeah, yeah, I just love You're just so sweet, like you know, oh, you're not going to smoke with us? Oh no, sure, I don't want to offend you said, you know you're smoking. They're like weird Catchaman like Crystal with it was PCPs, I think. But they took me to their apartment. We were all going to go to a Cassino. I mean, I got wrapped

up in these guys. And look, I'm not blaming. It's not on them. You know, I have agency and so much of what compelled me and that in that night, that kind of like scary night was was guilt wanting to please and it's ego. I mean, it really is ego wanting to be liked. I know, it wanted to be like yeah, I think so many women that I know would understand that the conversations that we've had about the things that you do just because you don't want people to not like you. We've been called I oh,

she's such a bit. So much when you don't do the thing that people want you to do, that it becomes so tiresome and so toxic that you just end up doing the thing that you don't want to do just to feel like you're not being bad. It's it's awful. It's a fragile part of being human though, it really is. I know it's something I want to work on. I have a friend who's so good at it, is so honest and and knows how to and is not as concerned with what people think. Love. I'm so glad you

didn't end up as somebody's coat. You know, I'd be a terrible coat. I mean I'm glad for them too. I wouldn't make a good coat. Okay, So what question would you most like answered? What? Yeah? I mean like for it's what happens afterwards. I think that's the easy one for me. What happens to us? What do you

think happens? I change is all the time, depending on what, depending on people I've lost and things that I've experienced, any sort of mystical moments I've had, I'll go from full doubt to skeptical to to I believe in something, to something very concrete, you know. I but I don't know because I grew up Catholic, and the one comforting thing about that was, you know, there was a structure to it in terms of the afterlife. There was a heaven and a hell. And I remember leaving in a

purgatory that to me was the clear structure. It was like this three levels, you know, and St. Peter was at the gates. I mean, I believed all that stuff. And you know, over the years and as you've discovered things that changes. There's certain things that like make me feel it's just so different about existence and the existence of aliens, for example. I mean, I don't know how

Christians and religious people will reconcile that. How does extreme extreme religion make room for aliens doing what we come from, where you come from is where we're going, pre birth and post life. I am probably the least qualified, but I I you're qualified because you're alive, right, But that's the thing about being alive. And I love watching the

nature programs. I love watching anything about animals, and I think there's something there's such a harshness, there's such a harsh reality when you watch those things I always think of. There's that Tennis and nature is read and tooth and claw. And I was watching this show about the gelopagus and they were talking about one of those kind of sea coastal birds. It was the most savage thing I think i'd ever seen. Where were the mother at lays two eggs and when they hatch the lesser of the two,

one of them gets pushed out. God, I'm sorry if this must be a real bummer, if anyone's still listening, Uh, this is a real bum But but it struck me. I mean it was like, That's why I say it's fluid the way I think about this, because like I can't reconcile there being a god, you know when when I watch things like that, that the harshness of that, and and that maybe that's just what distances. There's a weird beauty in it. In the death there is this

Wordsworth quote is my favorite quote on nature. Nature never did betray the heart that loved her, And I don't know, getting pushed out of a nest like that shore feels like a bit of a betrayal to me. But we also remember we put a lot of this human emotion. We attach that to these things that happen in nature. Whereas I think I do believe in God, but I just don't think he she it. I think it's energetic, and it just set in motion this kind of experiment.

And you don't interfere with experiments, you know, when I've been out in the field and wanted to interfere in situations with animals, like to save an animal but that you know is about to be an attack, and they're like, no, no, no, you have to let that happen. And you can't save the dying animal. You have to let it be part of the chain. My dad is a philosophy professor, medieval philosophy, and and a lot of that is really obviously outdated now. But I loved a quintas is you he leaved in.

I think he caught it the teleological argument for the existence of God, which is the design of everything. The design of this world is so perfect that that it had to have been it had to have been created by something, It had to have had a hand of Yeah, and I think that's sometimes in nature. Yeah, I agree. It's definitely where I feel most alive and most connected and most understanding of this journey that we don't know why it starts, we don't know why it ends, or

like what if there's a point to it. But I do know that when I'm in nature, it makes complete sense of it, and it's like, oh, I'm I'm here and I'm part of this. Yes, yes, well you're talking about ego. I think that's is what fails us, is our idea that it's meant to be more important. You know, it's like when like human beings. I think I said this the other day to someone on this show, but

it bears repeating. You know how when people talk about being reincarnated and like no one's ever like you know, a like no one's ever like a mute servant that they're the pharaoh. You know, I was had made into the queen. Why don't think so? Maybe you were like a lizard in Egypt? Like why you know, we know how arrogant we aggrandized the whole experience, because I think that's part of our trying to make sense of it. We have to give it as and graces. Otherwise what

are we tether to? And the only thing I've ever felt tethered to, apart from the people that brought me into this world is nature. I understand my position in this world when I'm in the ocean. I understand it when I'm walking through fields or in a river. Right, it's the arrogance. Well, that's the fear. That's I think where a lot of my fear of death comes from, because I'm holding onto ego. It's the I can't leave. I mean, to its extreme, it is this, It is

I'm the center of the world. The world exists because of me. I am. My existence is everything. We are the center of your world. You are you are the force of the center of your experience. But the goal is to be mindful to the point where you're you're I guess just separating ego. And I think that's maybe what happens if we're in nature, we're having those experiences in natures, is that we have an understanding that we're part of something much bigger. Yeah, I hope that that

is dying is death. I hope that that is feeling, the feeling that one feels when one is part of something that is so clearly energetic and evolving and beautiful and joyful. Right, And I hope there's a comfort in that that's That's the other fear of death is that I'll fight it. Oh god, there's a there's a beautiful scene in Saving Private Reign where he Adam Goldberg is being stabbed the spoiler alert. I think about that a lot because the person doing it, the soldier. I think,

to the German soldier is almost like rocking him. Is there. It's tender, Oh my god, and there's guilt and there's sadness from the person doing the killing. It's something so like profound about that scene. He's like lulling him to sleep, He's trying to comfort him as he's killing him. That's fucking that's deep, really deep. Yea, so deep. So but by the way it is, I don't know. I think

watching my mother die it wasn't frightening. It was like it really was like watching someone being born into something else. I keep thinking about it, and I do know for sure that that is not me trying to qualify her being gone. I do know that that was the deep, profound instinct that I think is connected to all the stuff that isn't human. It was a knowing, it was an absolute knowing that this was this was the ending of something in the beginning of something else, and it

felt deeply that way, not consciously. It's really beautiful. Thanks Pet. So last question my friend, Okay, so what would be your last male? Oh? Boy, I like this one. This is this is fun except for the last part. What dessert? Oh no, that you're is your last male? Yeah? Yeah? So it's is it like an execution situytion? Well, here's the thing. I mean, I feel like that's up to you.

That's what most people think of. But maybe it's you know, you're in your dotage, and maybe it's like whatever delicious food you want, it just has to be pure because you know you've got no teeth. Well, because it could be your last meal, like before you get on a spaceship to move to you know, the new colony on Mars. Okay, I like that context better. But I was talking to Darius Rucker, who was Hoodie from Hoodie the Blowfish, and he's so lovely. I hung out with him one time.

He's awesome. He really is genuinely down to earth or some hang. He really is oh rich truly, and so he said we were talking about not last meals, but just whether or not he's had blowfish. It was poisonous. Well it is, it is, but I forget the percentage, but like maybe less, but it's so it's a real risk to eat it. It really would be your last meal, wouldn't it if you ate that. That's what Darius. That's what Darius said. He said, we were joking about that.

I said, you know, I said, Darius, you should wait for your last meal to have it to like, you know, and to try it. Roll the dice, because at that point, like whatever if if you got a bad piece, roll the dice. Darius. Also in terms of like final moments, final things and like funny reminder of your existence, it would be so fucking ironic if Hoodie from hooting the blowfish, died from eating blowfish, it would be amazing. It would

be such like a gift to the world. And he last he was like, oh my god, I bet he did. Oh yeah, oh my gosh. I'd like to try blowfish, and I'd like to if if it's a bad piece and I'm dying, I'd like to blame it on Hoodie. And that has my last words because I think about last words offen too, like what are your last words going to be? You know? If God forbid a meteor, like something just out of nowhere, you're hit by a bus.

After you said something really like stupid, like oh, you know what, I used to like speriment gum the best, but I think cinnamon might be better. And then just like like done, and then someone would have to whoever you were with, would have to tell you loved ones and you know they're grieving loved ones by that. What was the last thing you said? And it was like, uh, you know, it was something fucking mundane, like really dumb and innocuous, like I wish they would remake alf you

know which I do. Actually, I wish they would remake out. I've had too much coffee. I'm sorry. Um my last meal? You know what would be? It would be it would be soup dumplings. They're called Jolong Bows soup dumplings from my favorite dumpling place, which is in New York. It's

an excellent dumpling house. What else, And then maybe some kind of like oh, carvel ice cream fudge not fudge you the way, Oh my god, no no, because there's too much fudge, and other I would want like like a more pure I used to work at Carvels, so I know what they have that, you know, the dip

the ice the cone with a dip and it hardens. Um. I used to make a thing where where I would it was just vanilla ice cream and I would take some of that dip and sprinkle it in with almonds and like mix it so that when it hardened, it was just like flaky layers of chocolate with the almonds.

And it was so fucking good. And I haven't had it since I was, you know, a teenager, and it was such a great summer, and so it would remind me of a time, which might not be smart to to, you know, remember a good time in your existence right before it's over. But that's what I would do. I think good memories and and my and my mother's spaghetti and meatballs. I would have. It would be a big meal. It would be hardy. I'd also feel like rose and I'd be like, wow, maybe it's time. It's time to

go now, it's put me out of my misery. It's funny. We talked about that before, about not wanting to remember how beautiful your life was at the end, because I guess the thought that it would make you so sad and unable to let go. But I don't. I don't agree.

I don't agree because I think that looking back at that grace and that beauty and being in that place when you die, I think it must be some kind of like happy trampoline that vaults you into the next adventure, as opposed to something that tethers you and keeps you here. It makes you sad. I hope. So that's a nice, much nicer thought. Well you can have it, okay, I'm taking it. I'm taking your positivity. So your last meal blowfish dumplings, spaghetti ice cream. I like that last meal.

That's good. I'll have that with you. By the way, I hope Carvel, I hope Carvel gives me some sort of gift certificate for this free are the advertisement. This is, by the way, by the way, when you come to England, I strongly suggest that you buy a frozen dessert from any supermarket called a von Etta and it's gonna it's going to speak to what you just described. Okay, all right, and you're trying to get some free of Vonetta products.

I see, very shrewd, mini, Yeah, very shrewd. And I simply cannot thank you enough because you're You're so funny and you do run so deep. It's lovely and I'm very grateful that you came on the show. I love doing this, Minie. I'm so glad you're doing this too. And that to sound kind of sounding, don't you know how enriching it can be. Yeah, you're so good at it. Well back at you. Thank you. Though life is short with Justin Long is out on Wondering and I will

be on the show July twenty. Justin also co wrote and directed Lady of the Manner with his brother Christian, and that will be out on September. Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby by Minni Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman, Executive

produced by Me Minni Driver. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescador, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver