Jonah Hill

and Quinn Tarantino. They couldn't be more different to me. Describe the difference. I was in Jango and Chained. I was in like one scene. So I felt it was you were like a paint color in his painting. And like you are red. Come in and be red in this corner of the painting. And as an actor, which is why I don't act a ton, that is not what I do. I am like, you're this person, go.

And let's see what happens. And Marty is like when I say when I've the most I've ever learned from Marty is he's my hero and lucky to get to ask him questions, like I get to ask you questions, it et cetera. He creates this space where the plumbing is so intact, where the infrastructure is so intact that when you walk onto the stage, you can do anything.

And it is supporting what the actor wants to do and will creatively, if they want to take it to a place is still with it, he will guide you within the movie itself. So I've never felt such freedom and then sort of like just rigidity. But I love Quentin Tarantino's movies as much as I love Marty's movies. It has nothing to do with the work itself. Quinn Tarantino once upon a time in Hollywood I thought

It's one of the greatest movies I've ever seen in my life. Same here. I think it is one of the most exquisite, incredible movies. I think Leo's performance is unrivaled and now he was so brilliant. I just think Once Upon a Time Hollywood is a complete masterpiece.

It's just what I found was the process was different. That's the last movie I saw in a theater. Yeah, at the time I called it the last movie. Yeah. Because it felt at that time like all movies were going away and and that was like, you know, it had real movie stars and a real director that you went to go see their movie'cause they're the director.

What's Judd like as a director? Apotow? Yeah. He's awesome. I mean, God, I haven't worked with Judd in so long, but we're very close as as friends and he put me on. I mean, dude, he put me in super bad. End of story. Him and Seth Nevin, I owe forever. They they put me in the movie Super Bad, which like completely launched. And how did that happen?

I was younger, very improvisational, very open, very much wanting to mind your experiences in life for the piece itself and like is just a awesome guy. He's taught myself and a lot of other people how to make these kind of comedy movies. And I'm forever grateful for that.

I went to like the Harvard on steroids of making comedy movies when I was nineteen, you know. Would you say you've learned from all of the experience as an actor? On what to do as a director? Yeah. I think you learn a tremendous amount. Most of all on how to talk to actors.

But really in directing you're you're running a company, you know, it's just running a c a mini company that dissolves after a year. So The biggest thing is like as producers, like at Strong Baby, we all I'm always like I was in the hotel business for fifteen years and I opened my own hotel. I know how to make the sheets nice. I know how people should be treated. I know how the food should be like. You know, if I'm asking like, you know, Scorsese to come for a few days.

I'm like, you're gonna get treated nice, the set's gonna run smoothly, your time won't be wasted, you'll be respected, you know, like it's a first class experience. And I I believe a lot of the things I was bummed on was productions themselves. And we really work hard to make our productions great. Tell me about working with the Cone Brothers.

Very much like Quentin, I would put them in that category of like you are the color red. in this painting. It's like Alfred Hitchcock as well. Kubrick, super exacting, super like they have the painting in their head. And they're fucking brilliant. They made Lebowski full stop. We never have to say anything ever again. They are geni and and fun hangs and funny guys. Yeah. But I didn't find myself

adding a ton. Like I wasn't like I w they were just like, please sit right here, say this, et cetera. Well, I think this goes to you saying You see yourself primarily as a writer, not as an actor. Yeah. And even as an actor, which I do see myself as an actor too, my foundation of acting is writing. Yeah. Whether I'm saying new words or not.

What was Todd Phillips like? Awesome. How would you describe that experience? I would say a mix of the two, very exacting and very open to improvisation. And I I look back on that experience. I was in a way different place in life. It was a hectic shoot. It was a hard shoot. But Todd's a very, very brilliant director. There's no surprise that he's had so much ginormous success. And he's made some of the best comedies ever.

Old school is is to me his like crown jewel. I think old school would go up with any classic Bill Murray, like, you know, of that era, any Borat, whatever your thing is. old school is the only movie to this day I've ever seen in the theaters, walked out in New York City when I was eighteen, walked out and then walked back in and saw it again. Wow. The only movie to this day. I said, I gotta see that again right now.

I read that you watch movies over and over often. Often. And and I'm gonna go back to Todd for one sec. You know, he's a very interesting character in movies because he'll like He's such a punk. You know, his first movie is about Gigi Allen. It's one of the best docs ever. And you could see even Joker 2 is so punk. It's almost like he wanted to be like burn it down to have to rebuild it or something.

He made Joker and it was this crazy success with Joaquin and they they did such a great job and then it's like the other one was almost like a middle finger in a sense to it all. And then now he's gonna like like I just can't wait to see what he does next. Unbelievable. Just with my first time.

magazine interview, but it was for interview. Yeah. And Scorsese interviewed me for interview. So Gus was kind enough to shoot the photos. Oh, great. And we've remained very close. We're producing a movie that he's directing at Strong Baby, which is an incredible movie. On my DGA certificate, you need three people to sign.

And mine were Spike Jones, Bennett Miller, and Gus Manzett. Amazing. And so Gus is very near and dear to my heart. And he acts in my next movie, Cutoff. Oh, cool. How would you describe his strengths as a director? No idea. It is the most mysterious I cannot tell you that anyone who works with him adores him. It's like

I have no idea. He's a man of such few words. Oh, it's such a hard thing to get him to say almost anything. It's just m vibe and magic and it's almost like quietness in his energy till it becomes something. I have no idea how to describe what Gus Van Zt's directing skill is, but I will tell you that it's probably the best performance I've ever given in a movie, in my opinion. And no one saw it and he is brilliant. Would you say stylistically he's different than everybody else?

He I don't know what he does. And you worked with him and you don't know what he does. He doesn't talk that much. Did that give you a sense of freedom or did it make you self-conscious in that I don't know what's happening? You feel Safe because it's Gus Van Zant. That's the way I'd put it. If he wasn't Gus Van Zant, I'm sure me and Joaquin would have been freaking out.

And we would joke. We're like, Oh cool, Gus had like nothing to say today. Yeah. You know? And then he'd be like me'd make fun of him and he'd be like, Oh, that's very funny. You know, like So maybe for a whole day he might not say much. Walk in, hey Tona. How are you? Good Gus. How are you? Good, good. Okay. Action, do the take do the scene. Walk up to him. Walking wheels up to him in the wheelchair. Go again. Yeah, go get one go again. That's good.

Almost like nut, like you're like that. And then there's a great director I worked with, Bennett Miller, who's a genius, who did Moneyball. And his style is almost confusion till something great happens. He sometimes confused the shit out of me where he's so smart and he's t I don't under really follow what he's talking about a lot of the time.

And then somehow he would confuse you into some master. She's a chess player. So I feel like he had everything chessed out and it was more like chess to him. How much do you know about the backstory of the making of the movie Moneyball? Everything. Okay, so it was a book, Michael Lewis's book, bestseller. Mm-hmm. And it's a nonfiction book. And if you read the book, it wasn't obvious. How to make a movie out of that? My dad didn't believe me.

'Cause he loved the book and he's like, What do you mean? Like what are you gonna do? It doesn't seem like you could make that a movie. I don't know how they did. I was there for it and it was amazing to watch. I mean it's tell you how they did, but Bennett's a you know, there's no one out there that doesn't know that Bennett's not a true genius.

He's so brilliant. And what he did with that movie is amazing. And how he utilized two great writers and Aaron Sorkin and and Steve Zalian and kind of used their you know, collaged their work and the work I did with Brad and and the m Brad and I did so much fun. hanging and time with Bennett to talk about this stuff. And Brad was just so his vision and he I think he has a real authorship over that movie too. Uh deserves one.

How'd you get into surfing? Friends, different friends, Mike D, Spike. very influential in me doing TM. Mike D's like an uncle. He's like Uncle Mike, you know? He's like Uncle Mike to my kids. He he really got me into surfing and TM. So those are the two two biggest two f that year writing the Beastie Boys movie. Oh, so I was writing the Beastie Boys movie with

Adam and Mike, and I produced the Beastie Boys dock that Spike directed. So I was working on that. So we spent a whole year together. And he finally convinced me to go surfing. And once I started surfing, he was like, You really need to do TM. And both have in the past seven years I've

made a massive difference in my life. Uh no social media for the past four or five years and really limited internet. Really, really limited internet. How's that changed you? I'd say it's the biggest change that I've had. I cringe when I think about when I was on social media as far as like what I posted and the amount of gratification I wanted. It's kind of what the movie outcome is about. In a large way, we all do it. We all want people to love us and like us and whatever.

And I cringe as at a almost middle-aged man. I was posting like fit pics of myself, like in outfits or whatever, for validation. And, you know. I'm not wrapped up in the constant I don't see twenty bajillion images a day, good or bad. I don't see the hate or love. I don't see the millions of opinions a day. I get to think about what my opinions are. so much of the bad parts of creativity are when you're trying to keep up with the Joneses.

And when I left social media I stopped thinking, outcome isn't a movie where you're like, what are they doing? I should be doing outcome. Outcome is what you make when you're you just think, What should I be making? Yeah. And so It's freed me really creatively to like just be with my family, my thoughts. And just kind of like, what am I about? What am I into? You know, not what is culture into at this moment and what should I be doing? And what should people think of me?

And what should I think of myself? I just meet people and I have no idea what their social media presence is like. So I just know what they're like based on us talking. Seems more real. I think it's the healthiest thing you could do, but I also have a lot of empathy that a lot of people for their jobs have to use it.

And if I had it and had to use it, I would be naughty sometimes and I'd get caught in that a lot like a lot of people do. And so the movie is largely about What would happen if we just focused on our interaction? Like what would happen if we just Your day starts at 8 a.m. or 7 a.m. and then you go to bed at nine a at nine PM. What do you do? Did you pick up the phone and call?

The person you should call, the older guy that you should call that's like a like a father to you? Or did you just doom scroll?

I used to have a list of like positive actions. At my time where I was trying to change my mindset the most, I had two whiteboards in my kitchen. One said gratitude list, it was ten things, and one was positive action. So one positive action could be calling mom. Is this like seven years ago? Yeah, this was like around that time. It was great to see it. It was great to see that I had done ten nice things for other people by the end of the day. Where did you get the idea to do that?

Well, Stutz talks a lot about grateful flow. So gratitude l grateful flow is a mini in your head tool that it does a gratitude list. The gratitude list and not where it was an idea I m I had. No one told me to do it. I just, you know. A lot of people I know make gratitude lists, but the positive actions one really helped because

You know, so much of the problem with like not moving forward in life is beating yourself up or like the negative thoughts you have. And I'm really good about catching them now, probably from like seven years of tools. And knowing that they don't serve me, they hurt me and everyone around me if I'm beating myself up. So catching a negative thought, fucking changing the channel and going to get on your feet and do something for somebody else.

And kids are the best because what makes you feel better than wiping your kids ass? I mean, I I know that sounds crazy, but I feel like I'm a good person. He'd have poop in his butt if I didn't take it out. Like, you know, like talk about a person who needs your help, you know, or taking him to Sky Zone, watching him laugh and be like, this is like.

I'm getting to do shit for him that makes his life better. It makes sense. When you go with him to Sky Zone, do you jump on the trampolines as well? Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. I love Sky Zone. Dynes and I's friend from elementary school invented Sky Zone. Shout out Jeff Platt.

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Do you have uh brothers and sisters? I have a brother who passed away about seven, eight years ago, which was probably the impetus of why I started to see studs. Or around when I started seeing studs. I miss my brother. I think about him all the time. I was driving here and going, damn, I wish he he's very proud of me right now. He showed me hip hop. He showed me who you were. Like how sick, dude? How sick is that? Older brother. Older brother Jordan. Yeah. And so like to me

I have those moments and I and I think about him and I talk to him and I go like how cool is this man? We're going to sit with Rick Rubin right now. Uh-huh. And then he has two kids, Josh and Charlie, who I kinda helped raise after.

And that was also the biggest moment in the change of my life. I really I didn't actually bring that up, but it's like I was a lot more responsible for them. So I had to get my act together. I see. And they are now eighteen and sixteen and I've like helped them become Men, you know, and I'm so proud of them. I love these guys. And he lives on through them and they're amazing boys. Do you feel like he lives on through them or through you?

them. I think he was most proud of them and I think he sorry. I think he I think he's so proud of him. Yeah, I think he's very proud of his kids. They're fucking awesome kids. You know, they're something to be proud of. And Matt and I grew up together and we're like brothers, you know. She's my Matt's my brother. And Uncle Mike's like a brother and Spike and all those guys they've all they've all I'm embarrassed. Sorry. I have a lot of brothers.

And then my little sister Beanie is um Just so fucking awesome. Our relationship has changed so much, you know? She's a very strong person. And it's kind of always been the boss. She was sixteen years younger than my brother and ten years younger than me. So she's always been like our boss. And then she's, you know, married with an incredible wife and and um has her own booming career that has, you know, had nothing to do with mine, just her own talent and like

We've had to go through all the things that siblings go through and the differences of opinions and little fights here and there, but where we've landed is a place where like we can totally be ourselves and be there for each other. And it's like I urge siblings to do that. Yeah. It's work. It's like a marriage in a sense too, you know.

She thinks I'm a moron, which is fair. And I think she's too uptight, which is fair. And like, you know It's worth the effort like it is with your partner or your friends or your business partners with siblings to do the work because they might not always be there.

I'm gonna read to you a quote from the new movie. Cool. Not everything is one thing. I mean everything in this conversation. Just because the cameras are rolling doesn't mean it's not real. Just because it's performative doesn't mean it's not the truth. Tell me about that. I love you, Rick. Yeah, you see the things I want you to see.

So Reef's mom played by Susan Lucci brilliantly in the film, c shout out to Ellen Lewis, our casting director. She's a brilliant, the maybe the greatest of all time. Cast good fellas, etcetera. She had the idea to cast Susan Lucci, which was an astonishing choice. And Susan was brilliant. So Reef's mom, Keanu's mom, he has to go make an amends to, but she will only receive the amends on camera. during an episode of Real Housewives at Beverly Hills which she is a cast member of

He has to appear on a reality show to make amends to his mouth. And you don't realize if he starts his amends and then you re she asks him to take that again, meaning say that again. Because the label of her drink wasn't facing camera and she's got to get her beak wet with her sponsorships. So yeah, this is probably the most heady scene and concept, but one I love the most in the movie, which is

things can be many different things, right? You know, the scene is long and goes many different directions in a way that I'm really proud of and her her and Keanu's performance both are brilliant. Keanu gives such a quiet, beautiful performance in that scene. But he didn't respect her choice to be on that show and views her as lower. She won't even accept his amends unless it's monetized. She used his fame for her own.

benefit and then she goes on to remind him how she left her marriage and her husband at nineteen for him for his dream. and moved out to LA, stayed at the Oakwood apartments and nineteen years old, no supportive family, left her husband, which ended up ending their relationship. also he could live his dream because he was obsessed with it. He would

Not just asked for it, not just begging for it, but she says, tantrums, days-long tantrums. And you can imagine what this 19-year-old woman was going through with this five-year-old who was relentless. And she says that quote. And he goes, what are apologies? Are they for you? Are they for me? Like who were they for?

What are they for? And I just think it's such an awesome thing because we so quickly want to say things are good and bad, or they're real or they're not, or they're whatever, but they're a lot of shit. And there's good and bad to both, and there's lies and truths to both, and there's falseness and genuineness in both. I could say this to you and want to monetize it, but I could still mean it.

I could say something in the most private, intimate setting and not mean it. And yeah, I love that scene. I love that scene. I think it's probably the most important scene in the movie. And it taught me a lot through writing. It really messes with your perception because our first instinct is this is the most shallow thing we've ever seen. And then she says something like that.

And it's profound. I'm so happy you felt that way. Thank you. Yeah, I mean that's just sick. That's a real rug pull out moment for the audience. The last thing on earth you're expecting from Susan Luci playing a real housewives mom. is like depth. Yeah, it all makes sense. It's amazing.

You know it's a funny, a funny person in my life. a great person in my life is Ari Emanuel. Yeah. I've worked with him in different capacities. He's my agent. And I've been surprised at how people view Ari because there have been many times in my life where the most profound thing I had heard like all year on a deep, deep h emotional level.

They've come from him. Yeah. You know, a guy who's pegged as, you know, in a superficial industry, the most superficial job in the most superficial industry and just cares about deals and this and business. Some of the most insanely profound life advice in really heavy moments have come from him.

And so I think he's a big inspiration in this movie in that within Hollywood and all of its falseness and all of its this and it's that, there is real depth and real people that populate it as well. But the film is a parody.

about Hollywood and fame, would you say it's wildly amplified from reality or is it closer to reality than we might know? Not at all. I don't think it is. Farther than you think. I think it is It's not amplified. I think it it honestly, there are things that are real that are way too broad to fit in the movie. That would feel too broad to fit in the movie. And even some of the stuff I put in feels too broad to people. As outrageous as the movie is, it's representative. Yeah.

Absolutely. Can you think of any example in your life of something that happened where you just couldn't believe it happened because it was just so outrageous? Is there one year comfortable shit? Dude, college dropout came out before I was famous, okay? Before I was like in movies and shit. I probably was the biggest con and the biggest Kanye fan is was whatever you want to say of his art of anyone in the world.

If you want to talk about surreal, Kanye West went on a Jew hating tour and then Instagram that I'm the reason he actually loves Jews. If you want to say something is too big to be real, that is an example of. Like what it's from outer space. The whole thing is completely from outer space. Yeah. But now

that I get to live a true quote unquote normal life. Like I really get to live a normal ass life. I am so grateful for. It used to be like how crazy are all these outlandish things that are happening when you're in your 20s and stuff and all this. stuff with movies and stuff happens. And now I live like I don't live in a mansion when I'm not shooting. the whole job is writing and editing, which is I can walk from my my house

From breakfast with my family, drop my son off at preschool is next to my office. I go to my office, I edit or write for nine to five, come home, walk on the beach with the fam, eat some dinner. Get the bath ready, wipe the butt. Eat some high chew strawberry flavored candy, which I shouldn't have, and then s hit the sack, start it over the next day, six AM with Blippy and Baba. You know? And I'm like

How blessed am I? I just feel blessed that I get to have a family. I feel blessed that I get to feel that kind of love. I feel so blessed to be a dad. I feel so blessed that. As a person foremost, but as a comedian second, or of comedic voice, let's say as a writer second, I get to go from being Bart to Homer. Yeah. You know? And so I'm really excited for this new era of my work.

as I am with my life. Did you always want to be a dad? Yeah. I just didn't know if I'd be able to do it. The movie stuts, the personal part for my end of stuts when the movie had to become personal for me, was my fear of not being able to pull off having kids or a family or if I was always gonna be too like working or in my own shit to do it. Yeah. And I think by the time we were mixing it or locked it, we were pregnant.

Congratulations. Thanks, dude. Yeah. It's almost like the film had to be an art project that got you to the place that you really wanted to be. I mean I think about that a lot, obviously. A lot of artists will say the same thing. Clearly, my medium is movies, though Shirley Stutz in mid 90s came from a very personal place.

More so, you know, outcome and cutoff. The all my movies will be personal, but abstractly those two were personal. Do you talk about going to your writing room for the day? In either writing or editing. Uh-huh. My office, yeah. Describe

what that process looks like. Are you by yourself or you with somebody? It changes from movie to movie, you know, so it's not always the same. But like right now I'm editing cutoff, right? So I'm on in my office by myself on a system called Evercast, which is awesome, which is like a better Zoom for editing movies where we all can control things.

And my editor is at Warner Brothers. Her team has a whole office there working on the stuff that we give the team to do. While me, her, and our producer, Amanda Adelson, and my assistant Kat Aguilar are all on Evercast. But I love that place. That's my Shanghra Law, but it's just one little room. When you're not editing, but writing, let's say it's the beginning of a project, what does that look like?

The beginning of a project? It's falling in love. You have these ideas, you have millions of ideas. Everything for me originally when it's just me is run out of my notes section. So ideas, like let's say for cutoff, the original idea there was I had worked with Jennifer Lawrence. on Don't Look Up. And I was like, Jen and I are so funny together. And more so, Jen is so f more funny than I've ever seen her be in a movie. I wanna make a movie where we both get to kill equally hard.

but it's not like a romantic movie. So the way I thought to do that would to be like brother and sister. So I thought of us as siblings, then twins, then Rich, obnoxious twins that get cut off in their mid forties and have to go to the valley with zero dollars per year and have no idea how to tie their shoes.

It's something that inspires it and the story can come from there. It's not really it's like the the players, the the artists or the feeling or the the idea or whatever. Does it often have to do with the people or nothing? People, I love these people. So it didn't end up being Jen. She couldn't do the movie because she was having a baby. And so it ended up being Kristen Wig, who I'm over the moon about, who's the funniest person on the planet.

So it ended up being Jen starting this idea and then it She had nothing to do with the movie except giving me the idea. Yeah. Just by loving her. And then so

What the idea is you have three or four you're kind of batting around like premises or like what they could be, right? Let's say like Beastie Boys movie. Cut off outcome. And then whatever one you can't stop thinking about and you can't stop writing notes in your right note section about. You know, you'll have a note section for each one. Everything runs out of my note section. So if I can't stop thinking of ideas for one, or it's just like you one day you just go, Oh.

I don't care about anything else. Do you only do this when you're in the writing room or 24-7? All the time. I'm present with my family and I work on it and I'm not always perfect at it. But ideas come all the time and you know them.

Yeah. And I have to say to everyone around me, like also because I hate that I'm on my phone, but my notes section is on my phone. So sometimes I'm writing in my notes section and it looks like I could just be fucking around on my phone. And a lot of I say to everyone, a lot of my job is staring at a wall. So it may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm thinking about this thing.

for years on end the same thing. And then the other cool part I want to say that that's not just creative is if let's say I become obsessed with the idea and I go, this is it, I'm in love. I then take it to Dynes and we strategize and Ari and Ricky Arn our manager and we strategize. Is this a movie that we could get made with who? What is the infrastructure of that movie? And then we have to decide.

whether we're gonna go forward based on can this actually be the next two years of our life pragmatically. So we have to formulate the business plan can be as creative, but if like let's say it's something so

off the wall with no stars or anything. We have to go. I still may do it like studs. Yeah. No one was banging down my door to make studs. Yeah. And I'll go fuck it. I'll eat it and lose a bunch of money for a few years because I have to. But we make that decision together, Matt and I. L M N.

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How is it working with Adam McKay? Amazing. Had you worked with him before? I hadn't. Adam McKay's a total hero of mine. The man made step brothers, he should be knighted in every country. You know, McKay and Will Farrell, their work together is like Matt and Trey level to me. The holy trilogy, like their first three, like Anchorman, Talladega, Stepbrothers. I have a stepbrothers tattoo. Where'd you get your first tattoo? First tattoo was Nanny Rules, my grandma.

But all I want to say about McKay is he's goaded. He's goaded. And we got to work together during COVID. So it wasn't like really, it was all we made that movie right in the middle of beginning of COVID, like like the height of it. So we were all separated. It wasn't a great movie-making experience because COVID was so fucked. But like I I love Adam McKay and I think Step Brothers is probably the you know, could be the funniest movie ever made. Tell me about your parents.

Rich and Sharon, they're awesome. You know, they're parents. They have their flaws and their their great attributes. But now that I am a parent, I uh think they're a lot greater than I would have giv I would have given them shit and Now that I am a parent, I'm like, oh my gosh, are my kids gonna say that I suck to a therapist and make a movie about it? You know, like fuck this shit. I wiped your ass. And I like call them all the time and just say thanks and I'm sorry. You know, because I'm like

you guys were like twenty whatever, you know, I'm forty two making mistakes. You know, you're twenty something making mistakes and you wiped my ass, you know? So like How dare I not I just don't you have no perspective till you What's their relationship like? They're like classic bickering old Jewish couple. They've been together since

they were like teenagers. Literally, Long Island Jews been together since they were teenagers. I'll probably see them after this. Tell me about your relationship with Seth Rogan. I love Seth. I'm so happy for Seth and Evan and their

crazy success with the studio. Like it's so cool to watch them have this new realm of success too. It feels like a new big chapter for them. I mean I owe those guys everything. They gave me s they wrote Super Bad and they let me play the guy at Super Bad, which I would have been something in comedy. But they, you know, they gave me the opportunity of a lifetime.

You know, and I love them. And I I make an effort with them to like still try and go to dinner with everybody. I I I'm the annoying one because I'm the schmaltiest one now where I was the most probably out to lunch. that like I'm more like I'm more like, guys, we really should all get dinner and like, you know, like see how everybody's doing and like we had a really great dinner recently that was like hours long and just laughing and Making fun of our parents and and everything.

You just knew as the shit. It was the best script I've ever read to this day. They worked on it for ten years and Judd infused so much like emotion into it, I think, or inspired them to do that. They had just worked on it for so you know, when you work on something for ten years, it doesn't get made. And they never gave up. And so it just got better and better. And we were making knocked up.

And then like I was able to read it and stuff. I did a table read where I played a different character, Joe Lutruglio's character, the guy gets hit by the car, and then we're like real teenagers playing the like kids. So everyone thought I was too old. But

I just knew. I was like, if I get this movie, like, it's a game changer. And I knew the movie was gonna be successful because it was so funny. It was like Seth and Evan had just it was really their writing, you know, and then Michael Michael Sarah is just I can't talk about my career and my life without talking about Michael. He's one of my best friends to this day.

He's such a beautiful friend and he's just the funniest person. Him and Kristen Winger are the two funniest people in the movie. Do you ever ruin a scene by laughing? Me? Yeah. Yes, all the time.

All the time. It's just too funny. Yeah, it cracks me up. Like it's now that I'm directing too, I'm the worst. I'll be in the scene directing it and I'll break a tape. You know?'Cause I'm like I'm like I'm also like laughing at the absurd I'm like I'm sometimes I'm like directing a scene, I'm in it and I'm like I'll fucking talk directing Keanu Reeves, but I'm in it and I've bald and I look like an insane person and like you know sometimes I'll just crack up at like the absurdity of life.

But I break scenes all the time. I incur I don't encourage it if it's like false or something, but like, goddamn, there's no problem with having a good time. How is acting in a drama different than acting in a comedy?

I've only done like a couple like real where there were no it wasn't both or something, you know, or or Was Moneyball the first dramatic role? I think I'd won before that. Now as I'm older, there's not much difference to it. I if you all viewed as one thing, I'd have to get cast now in a drama I wasn't directing. Yeah.

That's the way the only way I could answer that question. You know, I've done like Ira, there's a g there's a I think there's one knockout dramatic scene with me and Keanu's characters, not because of me, but'cause of Keanu and the person who plays my son in the movie. And that's a I think a dramatic scene I'm very proud of. And There was no d you know, it's difference. It's just honoring what that is. Have you ever been acting in a scene and get so lost in it that you forget it's a movie?

Yeah. Yes. Feels like it's really happening. Yes. The best one by far is acting with Joaquin. I say acting with Joaquin is like being directed by Scorsese. I'll say acting with Joaquin and Leo is like the same level of like quality, like four seasons of acting, four seasons of being directed is by Marty. When you act with those guys, it's like as if it's real. And Joaquin's style

Is more like mine where it's more like convincing yourself kind of stuff. Not like I'm as good of an actor as him, but like Leo's just such a uh trained, talented actor. He could talk about normal life and then he'll action and he'll do the best acting you've ever seen. Whereas Joaquin, is more like me. I have to kinda like think about it all day if I'm acting in a movie and I have to like do pretend that something sad's about to happen.

So those scenes we had together in the Gus Van Tamp movie, I could really forget I was there. And really access emotion and I'll always thank him for that. It was the best acting experience in my life. There's one scene in particular and I cried because I cried today. And it's funny, I don't cry very often. I cried during that scene and it was real. And that was the only time that's ever happened to me. Like I've cried in scenes and s been supposed to.

But it was because it was like and not because I was accessing my own life. Was it in the script that you were supposed to cry or you just cried because that's what happened? I cried just because that's what happened. And it was because you were taken over. Taken over by like what I was supposed to be feeling as this person. Yeah. And that had never happened to me and hasn't happened to me since.

And you think it was because of how convincing they were? I think it's because Joaquin sets the table for you to allow yourself to feel that and he's doing that. Yeah.

And then you gotta give all credit to Gus. I don't think I can't describe what he does, but Gus does something to create an environment where that happens. Yeah, Gus doesn't say anything, but that happens. He's doing something that's making that happening and it's the director that's doing that, along with your other actor, you know?

Was the Phil Stutz documentary the last thing that you put out? The last thing that I put out was the Stutz documentary and then right after a movie called You People that Kenya Barris directed. And I didn't do press. So that's when I stopped doing press was like when those two came out. And the main reason was I really didn't want to do press for Phil's movies. You know, I love the movie studz. Like I'm upset. That sounds so bad to Phil. I didn't want to capitalize on a movie that.

was designed to help other people. I didn't wanna have to get a pat on the back or not a pat on the back. I did it for a very pure reason and I just wanted to go out there and help the people who're supposed to help and not have to talk about it or like make it like I was getting clout from it or something. How did the idea to make it come?

The idea to make studs came. I couldn't figure out what my second movie was. Best piece of that, I was talking to actually talking to Marty the other day about how I will never be in a position where a movie locks and I don't know what my next movie is. I will never do that ever again. Cause after mid-90s, it was all I worked on for years. And then it locked and I had no idea what I was going to do. And so

I was creatively like I was directing a lot of music videos and commercials. I was writing a Beastie Boys movie with Adam and Mike. because I thought, okay, well, people liked mid-90s and I got offered all these movies to direct. And luckily I knew Mike and Adam and the book had just come out. And Spike Jones was going to produce it. And Spike, I think, vouched for me as kind of being the person that should direct the movie.

And I adapted it with Mike and Adam, which was an incredible year, but we ultimately I realized you don't, you don't write the Bob Dylan movie with Bob Dylan. Bom dealing can't be there while you're writing it. And you know Adam. Adam is like, that didn't fucking happen. Because you want to make the best movie and they want to tell the story.

heroes and like I never want to bum them out and and and and it was the one of the best years of my life. I got to spend a year with Adam and Mike writing like I it was one of the most like how this is a gold standard experience. I wouldn't trade the time, but I had no idea when that movie didn't go. I had no idea what I was going to do.

So I was just kind of creatively like, what am I gonna you know, w if you make movies and you're lucky enough to do this, and especially if you don't have a family yet.

you pour everything into it. So when you're left with nothing to pour stuff into, you're confused. So my friend Joaquin Phoenix who introduced me to Phil Stuff. funny person to have introduced you to your therapist. He's like, Hey, I've been doing some interviews with Phil and I wanna make something, blah, blah, blah and he kinda was talking to me about it in a way where he wasn't sure about what he was making or what it was gonna be and

And he had seen mid-90s and it was a big proponent of that movie. And he was kind of in the conversation, I felt like he was asking me to do it. Unlike anyone you've ever met. Yeah. So stuh. You meet him and you kinda you enter his space and it is like a dojo. It's got like you know, you see it in the movie, it's like it It's got power to it and it like your first talk with him, you kind of leave being like I'm about if I choose to, I'm about to go on like a really significant journey.

which sounds kind of woo-woo or whatever, but you're like kind of you meet someone you go, you know what, if I if I go do this, it's gonna be an important thing that I go do. And it was. It helped me a lot. And in in a lot along with a lot of other things.

But I go back and forth about that movie a lot of whether it was smart to make it. Tell me your thoughts about that. I felt the reason for making it was as simple as this. This is what I told Netflix when I pitched it. I want to make a movie about the tool.

Right. That shows the tools. So if you're a kid that doesn't have a lot of money and your parents, let's say, won't let you do therapy and it's stigmatized or you need to watch it in private or you can't afford to go get it. If you have a Netflix account or access to one, you can privately watch. this movie that will give you therapeutic tools to help your life, where you can do it without shame, you can do it without money. And if you're in like a third world country, like

Whatever. And then the full circle to that was I went surfing in El Salvador and all the kids were yelling studs at me. And my friend had translated it was because they had all loved studs and they had all watched it and they were like 10, 11 years old. That's amazing. It was epic. It was the whole reason I did it.

Being vulnerable for me is not hard, right? Like during that movie, I wasn't on camera originally and then I injected myself into it. And Joaquin was a big part of why I did that. And as a producer, he was like, you know, it feels weird that you're not You know, talking about your own stuff alongside this stuff. And for the movie, it was the absolute right thing to do. I'm really proud of the film itself. I'm proud of

really proud of how great Phil feels about it. It's great and it's not like any other documentary. And I really appreciate that. And I've gotten that response from a lot of people I admire and a lot of people but I do feel I was, I would say in a sense, punished for being so vulnerable, or like people calling it self serving, or that I think I'm some sort of evolved person and I'm not or you had kids shouting stuts at you. Yeah. And I guess neither of them actually really at the end of the day

drive why I'd make something. I have to make something because I have to make it and I had to make that and I did. But what I'm saying was it was it wasn't as comfortable of an aftermath for me as some of the movies. It's also beautiful filmmaking. It's really original. Thank you. And I think it was probably the hardest movie I'll ever make. Yeah. Not everybody's ready to see it at a particular time.

Yeah, I guess maybe the people that were hard on me were people that don't want to look at that stuff or face that stuff. And maybe some people's reactions were that. But I will say I know Phil is so happy and I wanted to honor Phil. And I know a lot of people who have come up to me and said that they it's helped them and a lot of people who are studying to become therapists that they they show it at school. Yeah.

And I was like, damn, that is cool. There's no other therapist like Phil Stutz. No. He's truly one of a kind. He is one of a kind. Even for letting me do that, you know, but his insight to things without having the answers himself. are what make him able to me able to receive advice from him. meeting you had with him did he do a drawing? Yep. Right away. Yeah. Yeah. I can probably tell you what it was. It must have been

the shadow, something about the shadow. Cause we went over the shadow in the first meeting, and that was like mind blowing to me. I had done therapy my whole adult life.

that was more just me kind of sitting and bitching in the therapist about me like and then this fucking guy cut me off and I'm pissed about that, you know, like whatever. It was the first guy he kinda broke down like, here's why you may feel this way and like how you spoke to yourself and were spoken to when you're younger, maybe like

plays out a lot in this stuff and just mind blowing stuff that I had never heard put in a funny and digestible way, which is why I thought, Oh, this could really work as a film. How many different projects are you developing?

I don't know, 30, something around there. And it could be anything from a Grateful Dead movie that we're producing that I won't be in or won't direct. I'm also the director of my movies. So when it's One of my movies If that's what's in production, I have to keep my eye mostly on that. Can you imagine directing a movie that you're not in? Yeah, totally.

Is that the dream? Well, mid nineties I wasn't in. So my first movie I wasn't in. And I've directed a bunch of commercials and music videos that I wasn't in. So during that ten year period I really wanted to not be someone who just wanted to be a writer or director. I I'd been writing big movies since I was young. So that was nothing new. Like I'd written on the Jump Street movies and like, you know, I all the movies I've been in as a funny actor.

All writing and ideas are they come from well they come from whatever you believe they come from. I think we're like an Where do you believe they come from? I think we're an open channel and if you're open ideas come to you through some sort of whatever you believe in. And what I believe is that I don't come up with anything, that I'm lucky enough to be like a vessel, that these mostly comedic ideas come through. And I feel so lucky.

that the high that I get from this, besides solving a Rubik's Cube of really hard work, is a moment of creative a creative joke or idea comes from whatever channel is open. How lucky are we that we get to be in the room when that happens? It's a miracle when it happens. And it's the greatest feeling besides. hanging out with your k your son. Yeah. So totally, totally addictive. Totally addictive. Yeah. And it's it's just as gratifying to me when the plumbing starts to work.

That's why I like the boring laying pipe of the job also because the craftsman aspect. Yeah, because a great joke or a great idea, you know, a really cool paint color isn't shit if the wall falls down. You know, or the toilets overflow. You know, you gotta do all the like homework we I call it, like all the homework of it in between those blasts of creative like moments. are now very gratifying to me too, more than gratifying. I like cherish them and I love that I get to be a part of that.

What was the initial seed idea for the new movie? The first thought was I was paying attention to what was going on with people with a huge form of entertainment becoming a celebrity getting in trouble for something. And I was watching like we all were, all this happening, and I thought who's the person that we'd all be the most bummed got in trouble for something? And the answer was Keanu Ree.

So I was like, God, everyone loves Keanu Reeves. No one would everyone would be so bummed if he was like an axe murderer or something, right? And that was all I had. And I was like, I want to make a movie where Keanu's like a movie star, like a beloved movie star. And he gets a call from his crazy crisis lawyer, Ira, played by me. And he just goes, there's a video. And that was the initial idea.

And you feel the panic in Keanu Reeves and and to Keanu's credit, I called him and that was all I had. And he came over to my house in Malibu. where I used to live and I pitched him that and he said, go write it. I'm in. And he never wavered from me from that day forward. And that was like three years ago. That's why he's the guy you'd be so bummed to hear he did something bad, because he's that guy. He's that great of a human being. And he's um

He's just an amazing guy. I've never met somebody so hardworking, so dedicated. And it was trippy for me because my first movie my first two movies, one was about like a bunch of skater kids that weren't actors, and then the other one was about Phil Stutz, my therapist. So I hadn't directed movie stars. You know, so it was like my first camera test of outcome. It was like Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Martin Scorsese. Like I was like, wow, I'm directing like

a big Hollywood movie. And then this next one is the same way with a bunch of stars. And it's like I kind of started implementing stars into the movie or are iconic figures that I I love into the movies. And It's become a whole new level of mixing like more the documentary style or more like visceral style of things I was making earlier on to also incorporating all the big Hollywood movies I love and my joy of those into my work now.

Do you feel like the best work always feels like a documentary, regardless of whether it is or not? That's such a complex answer because now i everything's different. Every single thing is different. Like some things cannot feel real in a great way. Some things can feel super real. You know, you kind of always want like the emotion to be real, maybe, even if it's outlandish. Like my newer movie, the one called Cutoff.

is with me and Kristen Wig and we play two moronic heirs that get cut off in their mid forties by their rich parents, played by Bet Midler and Nathan Lane. Wow. And it's more like Preston Sturges or the jerk. You know, it's like it's it's total screwball comedy. But even in that I'm finding as I'm editing it, I'm like, wow, when I screen it or when I watch it, I go, you do want some emotion to really hang this on, even if it's absurd.

But I used to just view movie making as it should be as real as possible. And then I think of movies like a movie I always come back to that I love. You know, my favorite director is Mike Nichols. And The Birdcage is a movie that I thought a lot about for outcome and I think about a lot of my own filmmaking now, which is There's things that feel so unreal about that movie, but the emotions are super, super real.

So maybe an emotional documentary, but not always in its like fixtures. Does it have to feel like a dog? The new movie is definitely emotional and the premise is funny, but the actual interactions are really heavy. Yes. From the beginning did you know it was gonna be as emotional as it turned out? No.

The best advice I've gotten from Mr. Scorsese was uh we had dinner with him like before we started and he's in the movie and he just said, Always listen to the movie. Just always listen to the movie. It's telling you everything. Don't be rigid. He's great in the movie. He I know it's funny to say'cause he's Martin Scorsese, but he he really is phenomenal in the movie. His performance is heartbreaking.

He really gives a beautiful performance. I can't believe I directed a beautiful performance by Maurice Corsesi, but here we are. And you know, when he saw the movie and and told me what he thought, that was a pretty special moment for me. But no, I I wanted it to be more of a Comedy with a capital C. Yeah. And I gotta give it up to Apple. They're a great company to make movies at because they they loved what it was becoming.

They saw it was becoming more of like Pro you know, maybe more in the Jim Brooks or Mike Nichols direction and they They didn't say walk towards it. They said run towards it. We'd way rather make a movie that's funny and moving than a movie that's just funny. And I was so grateful that they supported us in that because it was different than what I even wrote.

And what we even shot, you know, in a lot of ways. Because it's a comedic premise. The premise is essentially he has this video come out that's gonna come out, that's fearful of it coming out.

and his crisis lawyer played by me, Ira. Makes him go make amends to everybody, apologize to everybody in his life that he hurt, but not to be a better person, but to find out who's extorting him. Which is a very funny, dark dark, funny premise. Was always the premise of the movie. So he'd go on this amen's journey, but i in no way to like enlighten himself, just for really like

self-serving reasons. And each one of those apologies when I started like almost writing them to shoot, because there's the writing you write as a script, and then there's the writing you write to shoot. The truth of it was that Keanu's character reefed. Had to be surprised. about what they were hurt from by his behavior. That that each one had to be like a rug pulled out from under him. He's apologizing for one thing, but that's not even the thing they're upset about.

It's like you're so far off from being healthy that you can't even pinpoint the thing you did wrong. What?

you know, it starts with Marty's character who's his childhood manager, this guy who works out of a bowling alley. How do you come up with the idea of it being out of a bowling alley? At a bowling alley? Yeah. In the valley there's this this pins, which is like a a bowling alley that was around even growing up in LA when we were young.

It's near the Oakwood apartments, which is where like the child actors you know, I I've seen documentaries and of course I'm an actress, so you know all about this stuff. There's this place called the Oakwood apartments where all kids move with a dream with their moms or dads or go out to California to try and get on a show or get on a Nickelodeon show or something. And it's like these apartments.

And there's guys that kind of scout the apartments. And, you know, the character Richie Red Rodriguez, who Marty from Marty plays. He's like this schlocky guy who signs kids and some of them turn out to be fucking Johnny Depp and some of them turn out to be, you know, no nothing of note, you know, or major note. But he knows his inevitability.

It's more like the ph philosophical character is the guy who knows if he does his job right, you leave him. He says it. He says it, yeah. And that's kind of like if I do my job right. You leave me. He goes, I know that. You know, I don't want to act out the scene, but it's beautiful. And the way Marty does it is beautiful. And he's like, he goes, I know what the fuck I am.

And there's a lot of roles in life. It wasn't just about, you know, the movie's not about Hollywood. It's about people we encounter on our journeys who you know are temporary. And maybe you are that person who's temporary for someone. Like I always remember when I was growing up, one of my first girlfriends and she was so beautiful and so smart, even at the time.

I was like, you know, like I'm temporary until you meet someone that you will like fall for because you're so wonderful. So we've all been on both sides of that. You know, do we discard those people? So the message a lot of it is like it's okay that that is their function. But they don't have to be discarded and and in fact like, you know, my big thing is like it's so hard for me to call.

like my dad or studs. You know, like people who are like father figure, you know, that whole thing is like it's like so hard to just pick up the phone and just say like how are you doing? It's really hard. I don't know if it is for everybody, but it's like or when my grandparents were alive, you know, you'd go visit your grand, I'd go visit my grandma and I'd always like, gotta go visit nanny. And I and I loved her. It wasn't like you don't love them. It's just

I don't know, you know, do you know what I'm talking about? I do. It's just that effort it takes to do something you know is great for you and them, but you don't do it a lot and years fly by sometimes, you know? You usually don't realize it until it's too late. Until it's too late. And so that was about realizing now to appreciate

the people you should be calling and going to check in on. Do you think that came from your work with Phil Stuck? I think a lot of things come from my work with Phil S, but that one in particular, he's a figure like that for me, that's like a, you know, fatherly uncle figure, or my own dad who I'm love and I'm close with. But sometimes I just don't pick up the phone enough to say like how are you doing? Do you know anyone who's gone on an immense tour?

I know plenty of people who have. Yeah. Tell me about the conversations you've had with them. This was a comedic version because it is a tour. It is like tour dates, you know? He's so um Yeah, he's checking them off. He's so focused on self preservation that he makes it almost like a checklist job. Yeah. But I found in most cases that I've heard about that It's usually from a less sinister place than that. And just apologies when you get to them.

In the opening scene of the movie, our lovable hero is shown as two-faced. Did you do that to humanize him or to vilify him? So the whole movie is about social media. From the beginning to the end. It's a story based in Hollywood, but it is about how even your twelve-year-old niece has turned into a middle-aged, scorched, lifelong movie star. Because Everyone, because of social media, is judged 20 times a day.

about everything that they wear, do, or say. The main point of the movie is that like, you know, my nephews I started to see have the same paranoia that I would have as a famous person. about being liked on a grand scale and how we can value that which is truly impossible. over the opinions of the three people you actually sp are around.

And so when I say a new outlook, I only give a fuck what Dynes, who's sitting right here, you know, my friends, my colleagues, we're like family at Strong Baby. And the people I live with, my family, I have to say about me. Because it is an impossible lifelong crippling road to nowhere. But as human beings, we all, of course, care so deeply about what people think about us, know us, or not.

And so the movie is about that. And so what I wanted to show right away was a guy. I was just trying to throw you curveballs where you couldn't peg him down. He's nice. He is a movie star. He's humble. He's not humble. He's laid back and casual. But all he does is care about what you're thinking about him in the the most uncasual manner ever.

And it was an exciting opening for me because it, you know, it reminded me of those kind of great There's one okay, so so Keanu, there's one scene in parenthood. I'm obsessed with. I love the movie Parenthood, but Keanu kind of is where he's going off on Martha Plimpton and um Diane Weast and he's kind of kind of like off the rails yelling at them kind of in it. And I was like, I wanna make a movie with with that guy.

You know,'cause like he's always so cool. He is cool. He's always so like John Wick and stuff. I was like, I want to see a guy who's like you you can't emotionally peg down and he's not in control of his emotions. So that opening kind of reflects a guy who is just a mess. He's just a mess. He has no idea who he is. He has no identity.

through talking to these people that he's hurt, I think he's learning his identity's an asshole. And then hopefully by the end you learn how how do we take some small steps to not be an asshole. Yeah. Is Keanu's character

in the movie more based on the real Keanu Reeves or is he more based on the real Jonah Hill? Neither. Neither. Made up character. Yeah, totally made up character. I I I mean I'm not like a Tom Cruise type figure like Reef Hawk is, I would say. I'm more of a Don Rickles a uh uh Sancho Ponze's character, but I I

There's things I relate to about all the characters in my movies for sure. You know, this is my third movie, but you know, third and fourth movie really as you'll see. Like I love and relate to all of them. You know, I can surely relate to parts of reef, but like I'm in no way like w if if like my

family met like when they see the movie they don't go like, wow, that's Jonah, you know, like and it's not Keanu, from what I've found. The one funny anecdote I will say about that though part is is that'cause the character does have anxiety, which I've you know had in my life. Keanu did not understand what or how to portray anxiety. He hadn't felt it.

in a sense that he understood. So he experienced it in life but didn't know how to portray it because he never had to portray it. Oh, he's never experienced anxiety. That was the essence of what I got. Now, if I'm wrong, I will immediately take this back.

something I'd go, that's called anxiet like that's called anxiety. That sounds like a great conversation. It it was, it was. And in every conversation with him was great because I go like what you're w why is he s like freaking out, you know, about what like someone You know, and he's like, This person really would do this? And I go, Yeah. You know, like you always used to hear all these stories about Larry David and like like j like

Jason Alexander would go like, you know how Nobody would do this. Nobody would do this and go, I did that. And and as well, I'm very much not reef, but I I would do a lowest th I would care in that way or spin out about the smallest thing and and you know it's So I loved working with him. I mean there's a million reasons I loved working with him. I loved working with everybody. Everybody in this movie was just unbelievable. And the making of the movie was unbelievable.

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How do you think fame changes a person? It's like fatherhood. It's like before and after. It's like that day and the day before and the day after. You could buy a newspaper on the day you became a parent and the day you became famous and it's like that kind of black and white. You then have to reprogram yourself. You know, at least from my experience. I can't speak on anybody else's experience. Mine was like

Didn't want to admit it changes your life, it does. And then you gotta like hopefully catch yourself and be like, you gotta rebuild from like square one. Figure out who you are now. Just what it is all about. From the first square step from waking up in the morning till going to bed. And if you're lucky enough to have that insight and time or tenacity to do that, then you're blessed. When you're doing an acting role.

How much preparation do you do? It's all writing. It might as well it's all even if I'm acting, it's basically like writing a book on that person. Is it always about the language or is it something else? No, I say writing a book about that person, meaning what music they listen to, what books they've read, what clothes they wear. I see. It's like if you're writing the book, he wears this. If you're writing the book, you go, he wears this.

casual beach outfit because he lives by the ocean and he likes to relax. And what does that say about him and and this and that? And I haven't acted just straight acted in a long time. I'm looking forward to like Just acting. You know, if if a role came up it would be really fun. But in the meantime, we're on such a role making these movies that I'm acting in and directing. It kind of all's become one thing. I guess that's the way I would put it. The real answer to that is it's all

acting, writing, direct so I say it's all writing, when I make these movies it's all encompassing. It's like the whole family's involved, all of our friends are involved. It's like it's like and then playing Ira, let's say an outcome

It's all just as much as being the writer or the director. Do you remember what Iris' first line in the movie is? Do I have shit on my face? Is that it still or was that an old line? No, that's it. Yeah, he had bagel on his he had cream cheese on his face. And I love that as an opening line which was

He has cream cheese on his face. He says, Do I have shit on my face? It gives us a lot of information right out of the box. Ira's a character I'm I'm uh his top he's top five, if not top three for me that I've ever played. I I love Ira. I fucking love Ira man. His job is kind of based on the icons of that job, like a Marty Singer or people like that who are like historically, you know.

If you killed someone you would call if you were in that position, right? So I thought it was a great comedic character because he's a guy with no judgment. A guy like that has no judgment. So the media I wanted to play that character because I was like, Wow, imagine a guy who by principle can't judge anybody else, right? His whole livelihood falls apart if he brings an ounce of judgment. So if you sat here, you're his client and you say,

I I killed someone. He has to go, okay. And he has to just get to the facts of it and where we're at and why and what happened and where are we with it. Before, you know, he doesn't go like what the fuck? And so I thought there's inherently someone so funny comedically with a darkly comedic lack of judgment. And ultimately he ends up being a surprisingly the thing I'm most proud of the movie does this. I read like a miniature part of the movie is the movie does this where you think it's this.

thing and it's kind of shallow or whatever and then it ends up being surprisingly deep. And I think Ira's the best version of that'cause he's the easiest character to peg as just a quote unquote bad person. by what he does and who his clients are and what how he lives his life. But when you start to peel back the onion, you start to see layers of a guy those things can be true what he does or it can be deplorable, but like

you start to see him as a human being and thought he was fucking hilarious and outlandish. And as outlandish as I could play him, it wouldn't come close to the real life people that are like this.

What was the first movie you were ever cast in? IHeart Huckabee's directed by David O. Russell. How did that happen? That happened because I knew the Hoffman family. It was Dustin Hoffman's family. their kids. Jake is one of my great friends to this day. They're all amazing. The whole family's amazing. And I was starting to do like kind of I wouldn't call it stand up traditionally. I was starting to do these kind of like

plays, one man shows that could kinda like almost spoken word kind of thing. Where would you do those? In New York City at a bar called Black and White. They have a open mic every Sunday night. And they kinda started becoming popular and then at the same time I started making these prank call CDs. that I would pass around to friends and how long would your set be in those days?

Uh like an open mic. It could be anything. They were so cool because it was like honestly, I think it was like a spoken word, like poetry kind of night. Really great people, Crispy T and Johnny T, really awesome guys. I was eighteen. I shouldn't have been allowed in the bar. And

You know, I would think of the most outlandish Premise. I could think of and it would be more like storytelling, one man show storytelling kind of Would you write it before you got on stage or would you write it on stage? So the cool part that was cool is it would happen every Sunday night. I would start Monday and have to perform Sunday. Like being on a weekly TV show. Exactly. So whatever you perform is gone and you're left with nothing. So you've got to find a premise.

And the crowd was like people laugh. Yeah, they'd crack up. Great. And you know what's funny is I like got this moment where I was all kind of like self-serious and like wasn't into comedy and stuff. And it was all rooted in just like not knowing who I was and stuff. And the second

I got happy in life. You know, the second I like had my first kid and was happy and like smiling, all I wanted to do was be funny. And all I wanted to do my whole life was make my friends laugh. You know? So it has been like the greatest couple years, like three years, four years of making these movies with my friends, with my family. Being funny because if I could think of the best memories in my life, they're sitting like this with loved ones cracking up.

That's it. That's like the thing. So when we do that on set and it's me and Dynes, and we're at work, and our families are visiting us at work. and we're all cracking up making something, I'm like, this is like next level fulfillment. Are you as funny when it's not work just in life? I mean I'm the last person you should ask that question because I'm not qu I'm w Dines, what do you think? He's like, uh no Fifth Amendment, dude. I think it's pretty obvious that yeah.

I think it's extends into real life. It's not a performative thing. It depends if who you ask. I'll tell you this. I love it more personally. Like if we were at dinner and I was just in a good mood and our kids were there. And I was like, I would be getting more joy out it out of it than the people laughing. And how cool is that, man? You know, making your kids laugh. Fuck me, dude. Making my son laugh. Like getting him with a bit and seeing him become funny at almost three.

You know? It's amazing. It's psychotic. It's mind melding. It's better than any uh no accomplishment even should be called an accomplishment than watching your kid tell a joke and have it be funny. It'll be like when he catches his first wave or like

I see him do an incredibly kind gesture for someone, you know? It's like this feeling that's like supersedes it. But when you mix comedy in with that, because comedy's taken all these different forms in my life over all these years. When did you first fall in love with comedy?

I don't even know, man. It's one of those things like If there was skateboarding or comedy involved in it, from the first moment I can remember ingesting like culture. I needed to know and understand every and then later it was rap music, you know, if rap was in a movie. You know, like if a if a famous rapper was in a movie and they played a rap song in a movie, I'd all of a sudden have to know everything about that movie. It was always through the reference of movies. I was a clown.

I was a jester. If you ask my parents or Matt and I've been friends since we were like three or four. So, like, I know my mom'cause my mom tells my son'cause I I she tells him, Your dad was always funny and You know, would there be like comedians that you would love that you would imitate? Yeah, I would do Richard Pryor, Nettie Murphy.

Later the Sandler albums, I would like perform the songs for like you know the you could tell who's gonna try and be a comedian in like Jewish culture is the person who performs it all the family shit. You know, because like I would be performing.

at every family function. It's like there was no stage or like there shouldn't be a venue. It shouldn't be a venue. But I feel like a lot of my friends like Andy Sandberg or, you know, people I came up with, it's like they were funny and would perform for the family.

You think it was about getting acceptance in the family? I think it's a million things. That's why I say my my relationship to humor could be like five books. Because it's like there's times where it's represented something evil to me. There's times it's represented like Why do you guys just want me to be funny in my darker phases or you know, like I'm more than that. You know? And then ultimately I'm like, no, this is like the most golden light.

that I was given to love, like it is the most like maybe the most important thing that ever was given to me was comedy and laughter because it's like Dude, when you're like ninety, you can't have sex, you can't surf, you can't like you can't do your hobbies really, but you can laugh. Mel Brooks is still funny. I had lunch with Mel Brooks and Norman Lear, may he rest. Like, you know, I was friends with Norman. close to them when he passed. He's a hundred and one.

Guy was still cracking me up. Amazing. Making jokes, killing a dinner at 101 years old. His mind was blown by YouTube, which mine is too, by the way. But he could think of any comedy act he ever saw in his life and show me it from like 1940s. And I love these guys. I love all the old timers. I love getting close to them because you know, like no one can take being funny if your mind's still intact. No one can take being funny away from you. And the spirit that

That brings people. But the truth of is it brings me joy. Why do you think most comedies today are not funny?

I think that's a harsh critique. What's the last comedy film you saw that made you laugh like crazy? So again, there's the probably starker reality to it. Uh the I because My main mission of this is to make comedy movies. not bring them back because they're not gone, but okay, they're gone. And then I'm being I'm being allowed to make edgy comedy movies in a climate where people are not allowing many people to make mainstream

comedy movies and I'm very grateful for it. And with that responsibility, I will say culturally, it is hard to make jokes in the past, let's say like six or seven years up into the last like one or two years because a joke can be misconstrued and you can get into a lot of trouble. Right? That is obviously true. You can make a joke that offends someone. Why is that different than it's been in the past? Because the consequences were different.

I was even thinking about Seth and Evan, who made, you know, they made the interview about Kim Jong-un and look at the consequences to their movie. That's a comedy about North Korea and the consequences. What were the consequences? A global hack and like a lot of people lost their jobs and like people went crazy and all everyone's emails got leaked and

You know, Michael Lynn just released a book that I saw him on Good Morning America today about, you know, who was greenlit that movie, was talking about the biggest mistake of his career was greenlighting that movie because of the fallout that happened, right? So that's the consequences of a comedy. Charlie Chaplin can uh, you know, release The Dictator or whatever, you know. It was edgy and it was like maybe scary or maybe pushing some buttons or Lenny Bruce would push buttons or whatever.

I look at that North Korea. Fuck the cultural, like, you know, right, left, whatever, all those people going crazy. Like, I'm talking about like even the fact that like North Korea took that movie so seriously that they did something that could have, you know, was essentially an act of war that could have gotten people like a war started, you know, based on Seth and Evans farce, right? So Stakes got bigger.

But actually, fuck that. The real reason is they aren't making money like they used to. So like the real truth of it is is that when I came up with Judd and everybody and Seth, our movies made a lot of money. You knew your your comedy's probably gonna open to twenty million dollars if like Judd's name was on it or I was in it or Seth was in it or you know, and it was like a good ass time for or you know, Ben and Vince and the dudes right above me, like Ben, Vince, Owen.

Doc crowd, you know, Will Farrell, like they were minting money, dude. But Will couldn't get Anchorman made. I didn't know that. Will couldn't get Anchor Man made, but then look what that kicks off, right? Right now is the perfect time to be making comedies. Whether, you know, look Well there's a void. Yeah. And I I wanna be the guy you come to to make you laugh with films. And at Strong Baby, we wanna make funny movies.

We want to make responsibly budgeted, funny movies because 14-year-olds have nothing to laugh at, as does everybody else. And I think comedy got shifted to TV. Comedy be kind of can became dramedy, which is kind of what outcome is. And so I'm guilty of that too, of emotional comedies, right? you know, the bear becomes what people consider a comedy, which I love the bear and Chris is a great friend of ours, friend of strong baby, amazing dude. I wouldn't say it's a a laugh out loud comedy.

Just like, you know, outcome has a lot more serious elements to it. Cut off, the next movie I'm making is more like an L O L, the jerk. These are morons, laugh at them. And I miss that. I really, really miss that. And so I'm having a blast making that too. When did you first meet Judd?

I first met Judd through Allison Jones, the casting director. I was a young actor, like eighteen or nineteen, and and had you been in anything yet? Yeah, I'd been in IHART Huckabee's The David O. Russell movie, which is a funny first movie to be in because if you know the history of that movie, it's like don't tell me. There was all these videos that leaked of him like kind of scre David O screaming at like Lily Tomlin and everybody, like kinda notoriously.

outbursting at them. And I love David. I've seen him a lot since then. It was kind of a famous movie where the director kind of yelled at everybody. So for to be 18 and be the first set that you ever were on, I was like, yes, this is crazy. On the set. Did you feel like anything was weird or uncomfortable or not at all? I was like, this is what directors are like?

You know, I was like, this is unlike any other job on the planet. I didn't like love the yelling and stuff, but I was like, it's kind of crazy that the creativity Like there's no like grown up here really. Now there are a lot work environments are a lot different onsets. I think you can run a very respectful environment and make a good movie. Do you think that the outbursts led to something that you got to see on screen that was of value? I would say no in that case. Mm-hmm.

You know, in that case, just seeing it up close, I wouldn't say it added to the creativity. First thing Phil Stutz said to me was, You're not a good artist because you're fucked up. You're a good artist in spite of being fucked up. And so, yeah, I think I know artists that self sabotage is a big part of their process. But like Stutz said, I think if they were healthy and still doing their process, it'd be great because they're great. Yeah. what do you think

I think so. You never see it be like a tool in the toolbox really. No. But I think there are some people who don't know how to express themselves very well and it comes out of a frustration of not being able to explain what they want. Well where it comes from is like, cool, that and a buck fifty will get you on the bus. It's the ultimate be behavior that matters, right? Yeah.

I don't know. What I find about these work environments that's interesting is like it is a creative environment, especially an environment like we say on our sets now, like we are making jokes. about every person who interviews for the job. Like we are making jokes about things that could very make anyone uncomfortable. It is a comedy movie that is part of the nature of the work. And I am a writer, I'm writing the whole time.

So I'm writing at the monitors, I'm writing while I'm in character, I'm writing while I'm out of character and Everyone that we work with respects that and they tell us they love it and they're laughing and they keep coming back, you know? You ever get pushback where like you'll say, try this and it's like, no, that's too far, I won't do that.

Yeah, Kia Keanu. Kiana the'cause I I have a microphone, so I've a what they call a god mic, which is funny for the megalomania of directors, but they it it's called a god mic. So I'm behind the monitors and and if like let's say Cameron Diaz and Kian Keanu are doing a scene or Marty and I'm pitching lines. So I'm I'm writing

Oh, is that coming through a speaker or into an earpiece? Yes. And you ask their permission first. Like you don't you don't just spring that on. You have the actor has to be totally comfortable with it. No, the whole

soundstage can hear it. So I'll go, okay, so they oh that's great. He said that. Now you say back to him, say this and he says that and then that. And then okay, cool. And and it's a process we refine in rehearsal. So no one's like it's not sprung on anybody. Yeah. And if the actor doesn't like that, they need to be in character, then of course that's not done.

But everyone seems to love it. And then Keanu, what would happen was sometimes I'm so in love with what he's doing and writing new jokes. By the ninth joke he goes, Jonah, okay, okay. Cause he's just he's just it's just cause he knows I won't stop. Yeah. I'm having the time in my life. Like if I think something's funny, I'm chasing that like a like a hound.

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What's something about the movie business that nobody knows? that it is an industry filled with so many, so many people who work in it. And A lot of amazing people that work really hard at a job that's really hard. I'm not talking about acting or directing. I'm talking about

if you're like, you know, a grip or something. There's sometimes fifty or a hundred people on a set. Yeah, and if you're a grip, you may not be getting paid the most and you may be working long fucking hours and you have to love movies and care. to do it and you're living paycheck to paycheck and at its best it's a beautiful industry.

that I've seen a lot of people experience great joy. And but it is getting harder and harder for a lot of people to uh have good livelihoods and stay in California, which is a bummer.

How different are you than the characters you play? Well it played a lot of different people. you know, probably most classic like set from Superbad, like my comedic character, let's say, like the comedic actor that you love, let's say. You know, there's like the classic Adam Sandler character. My classic comedic character would be like the loud, foul-mouthed, you know, guy like Wolf of Wall Street or Superbad or something, right? So I can be loud and foul-mouthed, but I'm

I I don't know. Those are like caricatures of a person, I guess. Like maybe like tr comedic traits. So I could have those. I could also be quiet. I could also be like bajillion different things. I guess the main thing is even as a public figure of like how you got to know me, I think we're always changing and are and are kind of growing and evolving, hopefully. So I guess this conversation is what I'm like now. Yeah. What are you reading habits?

I listened to tons of books. I'm trying to be better about reading physical books because I think it's good for your brain. And I completely abandoned it. So I'm a voracious reader in quotes, but really listener. So I consume a lot of books, but through audio. People's lives. biographies, books about people. I love books about the entertainment business. I love like

The book I'm reading now, which is a physical copy, is Preston Sturgis' biography. I love the lives of people that made the art that I like. You could put me there all day and listen to a book and I'd be happy. Tell me about your musical taste. I love music. It's obviously, well not obviously, but it's very eclectic. From what to what?

classical to Trojan Records to hip hop to you know, like I was thinking about today about Trojan Records and that's my favorite label and and it's all over the place. in the best way, but it's just like it's like a movie. Like I don't care about what genre a movie is. I care about like whether it hits, if it like makes you feel something great. How do you use music in writing or character development?

Everything. I write everything to music. Like I have to have a playlist for the project. So the the second thing that happens after the notes section, when it becomes a real project with Matt and I, I start the playlist. So the outcome playlist is like the playlist what the movie sounds like or is it about the people? Well, there's two that become one. There's the master playlist, which is anything like

Could be vibe of the movie, any one of the characters, like the master outcome playlist. It could be like, this reminds me of the tone. This reminds me of this character. This reminds me of this moment. This joke. This transition. Would you ever think of them as needle drops in the movie or no? Then it becomes

the ones that make it into the movie. And what I always find more fascinating are not the ones that make it into the movie, but the ones that surround the ones that make it into the movie. I love listening to those after I'm done with a movie. Yeah. Because those needle drops serve the the movie and the story. The other ones served like ethereal things. So I love reminding myself what that you'll sometimes get a song on there and you'll go,

Why the fuck is two live crew on here? You know, like you're just like Oh,'cause this moment Ira gets out of the car, he gets out bombastically, and I wanted to feel like, Hey, we want some pussy You know, like I just want and you're like, that's just one little moment that I would never have to describe to somebody, but for me

it kept me going in a moment where this is all just in my head. In dramatic roles, do you have to force yourself not to be funny? No. I've learned as I've gotten older If I were to do it now, like let's say someone were to approach me and I really wanted to do a dramatic role, I would

have more of a sense of humor in between like like while making it. I I refuse to allow the experience to be hell at this point in my life. When you're an actor, do you think of your job as making the director happy or doing what's best for the character you're playing?

I was the epitome of like pissy teenager before I became a director, actor, where like I thought I knew best, all this stuff. And it was like I was in my own movie and all this stuff that I've definitely a pot made a lot of apologies for. And now your your job is really to serve the vision of what

what the director's doing. And it's the respectful thing to do. And I I'll never make that mistake again. Can you leave the characters on the set when you leave or do they sometimes work their way into your life.

I didn't know how to do that. If I ever were to get a part in a movie that required deep acting, which I purposely haven't done, especially with my family, because I didn't know how to do that, I would bring it home. Like I would not know how to like kind of exit it. Because I don't have formal training like that. I would get training on how to like leave the character at work.

out of respect to the people I live with. I would never so I've never done that to them nor Nor would I. And and so if it were to be asked of me, I would be responsible and hire a professional to kind of like give me tools to sign out of the you know, I I've heard Emma Stone tell me about like signing out of a character at the end of the day or something like that. That's a cool idea. Mm-hmm. Like she literally

I want to speak for her, but she told me she signs out. Well, it's a physical ritual and when you ritualize anything, it tends to stick in a different way. It's not just an idea. It's like the positive actions list being on a board instead of just in your head. Oh, I thought of that. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Tell me something you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young.

I didn't believe that happiness was just like calm and contentness. I believe that it was exciting and at like a fever pitch and at a hundred miles per hour.

And as an adult, I believe fun to be at a turtle's pace. How has your taste changed over the course of your life? Change is constantly like your evolution of everything. Some things remain permanents, but change is constantly. And I'm less ingestive now. I don't intake as much stuff as I used to all of the time. I got like 30 minutes on probably on YouTube once the kids asleep.

You know, like I used to have time to watch and listen and read and for the projects that don't start with you, how do you choose?

I just haven't in a long time. It's been over uh uh don't look up would be the last one. And how did you choose to do that? Okay. It's mostly director, you know. I'd say direct it's a director's medium and like Adam McKay, you don't have to say anything else. Yeah. Like that one was like Leo and Adam McKay asked me to do it. And I was like, I want to work with both of those guys. Yeah. How different is your performance from take to take?

I gas out after two takes. Really? Yeah. I do two takes and they are probably thirty minute takes where they go all over the place. I don't know what you mean thirty minute takes. Sorry. Okay. So I shoot, except for my first movie, I shoot on digital, which means a film canister ends after like a few minutes, like probably like 10 minutes, and they have to like reload it. Or like eleven or twelve minutes, I think. You could shoot for hours on a digital camera.

Because it's a card. I guess when I say another take, I mean doing the same card again. I don't mean reloading the camera. So what I mean by that is this. Now because of digital, I can do it differently. Let's put it that way. If the movie shot on film, I do it differently. But I give my best two takes are my first two takes. And you probably wouldn't use anything after. Really? Yeah. Whereas like Brad Pitt takes like ten takes to like get to his good stuff.

from what I remember and like famously. In the two takes you said they're long takes. I don't know what that means. So then when it goes to digital it becomes a different thing, meaning that I improvise so much and change the things. So what I do is like on a on a digital take,'cause it can last forever. I'll do two takes that could be like 40 minutes long because I'll restart myself.

I'll try different lines, I'll go off in a different direction and then take it back. You consider that all part of the first take. Because it still goes from the beginning, middle and end of the scene. I see. So when I tell the actors like I don't care if you change my words around, here's what how it starts, here's what happens in the middle, here's the events of the scene and here's the end.

So in within that beginning, middle, and end, it's probably two 40 minute takes and then we're off of me. Instead of like Keanu would do like very exacting takes of unless I was shouting new jokes out at him, that would be the exact duration of the page count essentially. And he would do probably like you know, standard is like five, six takes, you know. But I do mostly like really couple takes.

A couple of takes, but what you're talking about is very different than anyone I've heard talk about. Performances. I think if you asked people who work with me, yeah, they would tell you I have a unorthodox way of doing it that is heavily improvisational and what they would call improvisational.

I might have written forty of those alts. Yeah. So they're not improvisational to me because I came in with them. I just didn't implement them the screenplay because they would make the page count go crazy. Then the studio would call you and say, Wow, do you have 10 extra pages today? That's kind of more like Pragmatic stuff, right? But like yeah.

I I love that about it and I I love to me that's why the Crohn brothers are like, Get the fuck out of here They're like, We're better writers than you. Stop trying to like say uh different shit and I'm like, Oh sorry, I just this is what I do. You know, like I'm not saying it's better, I'm just saying it's just in my process. Yeah. Of course. If there was gonna be

More takes, would it typically come from you requesting more, or would it come from the director saying, Please do it again? As an actor. Either or I usually do my two takes and I probably don't ask for anything else. Like I honestly can't wait to do it again because I I it's been so long.

It's been five years and I'm a different such a different person. We all are fucked for five years, you know. So I'm like, man, I can't wait to see what it's like what they ask for. Tell me about shooting in sixteen millimeter film.

It was awesome for that film. My big like film nerd, like A24, like cinema nerd kind of thing is like I don't like that people just love like film stocks or whatever. It's like, does it serve the movie? For mid-90s, we wanted it to feel like you found an older movie. So Super 16 was like the best format that we after testing a lot that felt like a mix of escape video and an old movie.

and decline of Western Civilization was shot on that, which was like a huge visual reference for that movie. So like that worked great for mid nineties, but would be terrible for outcome. But I loved it. I loved everything about mid nineties was like

There's nothing like your first time. Like I I ran into Ethan Cohen the night before I started shooting mid nineties at a restaurant. Yeah. And I said, I'm I'm gonna s direct my first movie. It was after I worked for them. I'm like, if you give me any advice, he goes, Let me eat my dinner and I'll think of something good to tell you. And he comes over at the end and he says, I was so nervous when we were making blood simple. I wish I could have enjoyed it.

More. You know, he's like just try and enjoy every day. And then I saw him after and he was like, Well and I was like, No, too stressed. But now I look back on it and I'm like, Oh Good advice. Best rose colored glasses of Yeah, but The advice is impossible. Yeah. Because the same reason that gets you the position of directing a movie should make you unable to enjoy it as much as you should. Understood. You always know when something is funny.

Yes, I know when I find something funny. I'm surprised w in the process of making movies, you are constantly surprised at when you test you know, we test our movies a lot, Matt and I. So like A joke you've quoted and made rap sweatshirts out of the joke, quoting the joke, bombs at the test screen, and you cut it out. Wow.

You think is gonna be like the thing that everyone's quoting, like you put a when I say like you make a rap split with like a quote of that joke and then you go to the first test screening and At Burbank AMC, they tell you it wasn't that fucking funny. Tell me about test screenings in general. They're amazing. Test screenings are incredible. How soon do you do it in the process? So again, I'm very unorthodox. I test early, early and often. So usually I test

Five weeks into a director's cut, which is in the film's infancy. You know, that's that's the infancy of a film's post, right? So you have ten weeks to do a director's cut for the DGA, but then you have months after with the studio, friends and family getting notes or whatever. But legally ten weeks you have your director's cut. So five weeks into my director's cut, I test in front of a test screening. to get ahead of what my headline problems are.

and to really get ahead of what the audience might not understand. And not to change it based on necessarily that they may not like something that I may like and I I have to then fight for how that can live as opposed to taking it out. So I love that problem. I love it. And that's been around since like Charlie Chaplin. Like some of the comments you get.

It's like off with their heads. It's like the joke gets a laugh or it doesn't. And if you really want to be bullish, you're like, I know this is funny. There's a reason I'm me and the reason I get to make comedies. Well, you know what? You haven't set it up properly. You haven't set the table for them to laugh. So it's almost always in the setup. Yes. And so like

I'm obsessed. It's all big puzzle. It's so fun. I'll test the movie five weeks and get my nuts kicked in and my teeth kicked in. You want to kill yourself. You're like, you're like, this is I'm a failure. I've I've ruined it. And then you get one day in like bed, like one night where I'm like a total bitch to be around and then the next day

like everyone a strong baby comes into the office and we're like, what was good? How do we support what's good? And how do we build on what's good? And it's such You know, this is our like third movie I've directed at Strong Baby Stutz Outcoming Now Cutoff, but it's like It is so the process is the reward. Being in the bunker with everyone when you're like, you need to like help something get better. And then to really take that something not working, not as a failure.

But that the test screening is a gift. It tells you exactly what needs the love. Yeah, it's an opportunity to see what's not clear. It's like crowdsourcing an answer. Yes. Cause I can play a movie to Spike and Mike and a whole industry crowd. And they get a lot more than someone who, you know, is not from LA or New York or works in entertainment, you know? And it's it's an amazing tool to get an audience's reaction to things.

When something is funny to you, do you always know why? I could articulate to you why I found it funny. I think that's a gift I have is to say why I find something funny. But then sometimes things are just so funny about life, like, you know, having a kid teaches you like they do something that's so unexplainable, that's hilarious. And then you'd be a fool to try and even

waste your time describing. I often will because I like the analytics of comedy, but like you can in intellectualize this stuff all day, but my two year old's funnier than you are. He is. I bet. Not you, meaning like, you know, he's better than any of us at any given time, you know. Of course. And he's probably not trying. Now he's starting to try, which is even more incredible because I'm watching him like a sponge.

learning when to get out on a joke, when to, you know, like he's almost three, he's about to be three, and so he can like He can tell like I'll like I'll say like you said it once. Get out of there.

Do you know the famous Albert Brooks story? No. With Rob Reiner, may he rest in peace, whereas Rob told me this story that Albert killed so hard at a party one time in the 70s. They were all at a social event party. And Albert just killed from the jump, like was just killing, like socially just murdering. And he's like, he leaves. Like right away.

He's like he leaves and then the phone rings and they're like someone for Rob's like Rob it's for you and it was Albert and he's like I left my keys up there you gotta bring them out to me and he's like he's like come back and get him he's like I just killed so hard I had to get the fuck out of there there's no way I'm going back in there

That's so funny. There's a Seinfeld episode about that. No, leaving on a high note. Yeah. Well, it's not overstaying your welcome. There's a lot to be said for it. How is LA now different than the LA you grew up in?

Night and day. How? Well, night and day. Not night and day. Let's say dusk to afternoon. It's like it's like the coolest parts about it was that I could go skate downtown or see a punk show or something. And then sneak into the man on the moon premiere, which I did on my sixteenth birthday. And so like where I met Rodney. Wow. Where I met Rodney, which is one of my favorite stories ever. Yeah. I could tell as a side, which is

Because we were making the Rodney biopick. We were producing it. We had developed it with Terrence Winter, who wrote Wolf of Wall Street at Strong Baby, and we couldn't end up figuring it out. And I wanted to play Rodney and we were producing it. That'd be amazing. I'd still love to play Rodney, honestly. That's kind of something on my bucket list.

So I'm sixteen years old, I sneak into the main on the moon for you with my buddy Mark and We're in the back trying to wait for someone to open an exit door so we can go in through the back and A limo pulls up and it's Rodney in a suit with no shoes or socks on and his wife, who's incredible, and a six-pack of Mickey's bombers, and I'm like, Rodney!

You're my favorite man. Like you're the king. You're the fucking king. And he's like, oh wait. And it was my birthday. And so he was like, what are you doing? I'm like, we're trying to sneak in. He's like, I'll sneak you guys in. Hey. And then he he sneaks us in. He gives us both of us one of his Mickey's grenades. And he sneaks us into the man on the moon premiere. Incredible.

Coolest fucking thing ever, man. Like I'll never obviously never forget it, but I have a d a Danger Fields ashtray in my office. From the comedy club. With the drawing. Yeah. That's okay. With the cartoon. What are your favorite documentaries? God, how much time do you have? That's pretty much all. I mean, it's like you love documentaries.

Just everything. Yeah. I mean, I love the movie Dig. I think Dig has stuck with me a long time. That movie really got me like just somehow how that story's told and and the band, the one band being like credible. but not famous and the other being famous but not as credible. It's just like this Shakespearean parable that's told through these characters that are so and Anton's just such an interesting character from Brian Jonestown Massacre.

with the most one of the greatest like main characters of all time. the guy who will never be as fucked up and harmful to himself, but will never be as great. As him and is like, holy shit, that movie cut me deep. Yeah. She made another great movie, Andy, um, called We Live in Public, which we would try to develop a strong baby into a narrative feature, which is incredible movie you should watch.

But all day I mean the decline of Western civilization docks are huge for me. I love your doc about Shangri-La. I love that I've seen that. Any doc about like the Geffen doc? Any doc about them like business or art or how art or business is made and or process docs, you know. Um I just I just fucking I eat it up, man. I eat it up. Tell me about watching movies over and over again. If a movie is amazing, I don't get sick of it. What do you get from the repeat?

I try and learn how it was made and how decisions were made. I'll t I won't name the movie, but a movie that could or is gonna win best or you know, one of the ones for Best Picture this year. Great movie. On cutoff, we have to rethink our beginnings. And we're rethinking it now in the edit. And I watched this movie for the first time. I hadn't seen it this movie. And I watched a beginning.

And I texted my editor,'cause we have the same sound mixer as this movie, and I said, Did you see this movie? And she goes, Yeah. And I go, I guarantee you, people didn't understand understand it and they had to redo this opening. And she texted the sound engineer and he assured me I was right. So I like How things are made.

For problem solving? For setting the table for the audience, whether it be for characters or the story or the tone, there was some little preamble that was additionally made to help set the table. for the audience to immediately lock into the movie. And I saw it and the first before I was even done, I texted my editor, guarantee you they did this. And I was right. Yeah. So for me, it's just like a deeper understanding of how movies are made, how good movies are made, how bad movies are made.

and all the decisions and fixes it takes to get there. Because now that I'm realizing this is my fourth movie, it's not about decisions, it's about fixing and creating new decisions to support the decisions that work. Tetragrammatin is a podcast. Tetragrammatin is a website. Tetragrammatin is a whole world of knowledge. What may fall within the sphere of tetragramata? Tetragrammatin. Sacred geometry. Tetragrammatin. The avant-garde. Tetragrammatin. Generative art. Tetragrammatin.

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