#2440 - Matt Damon & Ben Affleck

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. That's wild. I went in because I came in from... I am, I think I was living at the time, and I went in and... And I'm sitting in the waiting room and it was like on a Sunday because I was like, I'm only in town for you. And Stan was like, I'll come into the office. I'm like, thank you so much. I had to have a filling or whatever I needed. It was kind of an emergency. So I'm sitting in the thing.

And I'm not getting called in, but the ladies just... No, no, there's not even a receptionist. And Stan comes out with his mask. No, the first thing I hear is... pig fucker fucking fucking pig fucker and I'm like what is happening in there it's in the other room and Stan comes in with his maxine he goes he goes

Sorry, he goes, I'll be with you soon. He goes, I got Hunter in the chair. And he goes back. And I hear, listen to Hunter Thompson swear for like 15 minutes. I'm like, this is amazing. And then Stan goes, okay, come on back. And Hunter's kind of getting out. And he goes, oh, you're sitting down with this guy? He's a fucking assassin. And then he goes, and he's got this jug of clear fluid.

And he's like, you're going to need a sip of this. And I'm like, oh my God, this is fucking Hunter S. Thompson's moonshot. I'm like, this is fucking amazing. I'm talking to this dude for 30 seconds and I'm getting a sip. And it was like. 10 in the morning on a Sunday. Yeah. He was halfway through the jug. Pure catch fire. Where was this? In Beverly Hills. Yeah.

Yeah, Brentwood. Yeah, Brentwood was Stan's office. Oh, my God. That's amazing. It really was amazing. So I had probably a total of seven minutes with him, and it was like I could not have been a better seven minutes. That's incredible.

I went to the Woody Creek Tavern just to go there because I know he used to go there. Yeah. And, like, you could, like, feel him in the building. You know, there's all the pictures in the walls. It's a cool little place. Yeah, I mean, those books, the fucking Hell's Angels and, you know, Fear and Loathing. It's some of the best writing.

I just fucking, like, he really had his own voice, Rum Diary, spectacular, you know? It was, like, really descriptive and punchy and fucking interesting and fucked up. And he also just lived that life. Fear and loathing changed my life. Like, reading that book was like... What the fuck? Like, what is this guy doing? There's grown men out there. Balding, grown men with spectacles running around with them. There's lizards in the fucking lounge. You guys are listening. He's going to die.

trip bag filled with acid like what the fuck are you doing that and it's great shit it's like you fucking feel like you're on the adventure with him you know yeah No, it's interesting to watch the evolution of his writing, too. I read Hell's Angels, and it's very different. He's kind of restrained. For that, I think it was edgy sort of for the time. Yeah.

beaten, chain-whipped, and stomped by the Angels, and that was really edgy. And by the time they got into what, it was Fear of Loving in 72 or something like that, he was just out there. Yeah, he was gone. He found his voice. He did find his voice. He was supposed to be covering a race. For like Sports Illustrated. That's a fear and loathing when I read a book about I fucking lost my mind. Great. It's great, Hunter. We'll take it.

Well, hey, it's very nice to meet you guys. I've met you before, but very nice to meet you. It's a pleasure, man. Thank you very much. I love the fucking movie. Thank you. The rip is great. Thank you. It's really good. It's so original, and it's so different. And it's, you know, it's like I love those kind of movies. but it's not like any one that I've ever seen before. Really solid movie. Thanks, dude. Thank you. It was awesome.

So much better than you hating it. The interviews where they're like, so I saw the movie. Anyway, how you guys been? We've had a lot of those, the press junkets where they come in and the first thing that you know, the movie sucks. If they don't ask you anything about the movie, they come in and they go, so how you been?

You know, and you're like, oh, shit, this is going to be bad. Is it weird? Like, the transformation of the film industry seems like a lot of it is moving towards these big streaming movies now. Absolutely. I mean, look. it's because where most people have gone to watch them. Used to be the only place you'd go see.

movies in the 40s like every american with the movie every week basically but it was because it was that or watch the cows walk by you know that was the only and then tv comes around it's little and you see these little cereals but you know what happened was now this is why that's totally changed the whole thing because you have 300 million people 330 whatever is watching you know netflix

And it's a lot harder to get people to go into the movies. There's also YouTube. There's also TikTok. There's also my kids. It's hard to get them excited about a movie. Yeah. That's what we had. Yeah, that was our... teen years where just every weekend we're at the movies. Yeah.

There's just no question about it. You were going to go and usually not get into one because there were too many people and then you just see what else is playing and go to that. Well, it seems like it was kind of slipping away because so many people were watching streaming already and then COVID came around and everyone was locked down and no one was going to...

movie theater, and then it just set in. I had this drama that was coming out right when COVID hit. I really liked the movie, performance movie, an alcoholic guy who's a kid. A guy whose kid dies and becomes an alcoholic. It's a dark movie, but I...

I loved it. And I could tell, like, we're fucked. No one's going to go to the theater, see this movie. And it wasn't even that streaming really blew up, of course, during COVID. So, you know, look, they rushed it onto streaming. People actually saw it.

I was like, all things being equal, I'd like people to see it, you know, and it's not like... My dad had an 11-inch black-and-white TV, and that's what was TV viewing now. It's like $200. You've got a fucking 65-inch flat screen and good sound. So, of course, people are willing to. And then streamers also started making great shows. You have adolescence. I don't know if you saw them.

I think that's one of the best things ever done. I haven't seen it a lot. It's unbelievable. What is it? Oh, my God. I don't want to spoil too much of it. It's only four episodes. They're all one shot. They're all one shot. Each episode is one entire shot. Whoa. I talked to the director about it. The cast took, I think, a week to rehearse each one and then a week to shoot it. And so they do it twice a day. It's the full hour.

they would choreograph the entire thing. And then the acting is great. But that's, I mean, just dismiss that. You could even call it a gimmick. It's not in this case. The performances and the writing and what it's about, it's as good as anything you'll see. It's phenomenal. What is it on? Netflix. It's not even an anomaly. There's Baby Rangers, there's fucking Succession, there's Game of Thrones, Ozarks, you know.

It's just like, okay, well, they're doing great shit out there. It's not like the sort of implied thing before was like, yeah, well, TV's not as good.

Not as interesting. When we started, there was a different... Like George Clooney, for instance, there was a big thing. He very famously became this superstar on ER. That show, 40 million people a week were watching that show. It was the biggest thing, right?

because there were only a few channels to tune into, and that show was the biggest one. And George never renegotiated his contract. He wanted to work in movies, and it was like, you can't go from TV to movies. Very few people can do it. And he really... strategically and kind of patiently like he joked that on the last episode he was on anthony edwards you know his co-star was making a million bucks for the episode and he was making you know

20 grand or whatever his deal was. Like, he could have renegotiated, but he would have had to give more years. The point was, that's how bad he wanted to get off TV and do movies. That's how bad he wanted to get off the biggest TV show in the world.

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off your first purchase of a website or domain. Well, it was a giant difference in quality. It was also the breaking it up for commercials. Right. It was just a different experience. It couldn't be, you know, there's all these rules. You can't say this, you can't do that, you can't swear.

Again, of violence and nudity, all the things people want to see in movies, you know. And then... and also it wasn't it wasn't as interesting and then now that's a tether to these schedules and all the stuff or as you get this shit like you don't have a schedule and and you can take a bunch of risks so and that started happening and then it was kind of like

well, this all is just as good, if not better, than what's in the movies. Well, then movies started to move towards more IP. Because it was hard to get people to come to the movies, everyone got scared and thought, well, it has to be a sequel or a superhero movie. And so an interesting little movie.

kind of in the 90s when we kind of came onto the scene you know there were a lot of really good independent movies that were being made there was there was you know it was a really great time to be making movies people were they were making daring movies and and and then everyone one just got way more conservative because it's huge like the business is so different theatrically and streaming because to put out a movie theatrically you have to put so much more money behind it

to publicize. You're trying to get everybody... You're basically spending about what the budget was to make it to advertise it. And you get 50% of the theatrical... Yeah, because you split it with the movie house, right? So a $25 million movie to break even, you've got to make $100 million. And you've got to get everybody to not only know about the movie, but to show up like that Friday night, like that specific time, you know, for that specific movie. And to cut through all the noise that...

people are contending with. It just becomes about risk and nobody wants to take the risk so they don't want to make something new because it's such an investment and we're going to lose our fucking money.

And the streamers have stepped into that and like, you know, you didn't have to have a star. You could try something more interesting or didn't have to be a superhero movie, whatever it was. And also, I think it's like, you know, frankly, like people my age, like.

it's first of all it's expensive right you take your whole family it's a hundred dollars you're on a streaming service twenty dollars a month you can watch all you want so you can't be cavalier about like you're just going to price it however the you want and expect everyone to like be indifferent to that and then you know also

You know, the idea of, like, for me, you know, there's a lot of stuff. I make that decision. Like, do I want to see The Odyssey on a big screen? Fucking definitely. I went to a theater to just watch the trailer for that movie. And, you know, at one battle after another, I wanted to go see in the theater. But there's movies where people...

that I really like and respect where, yeah, and I got a good system and shit, but I'm like, look, I'll watch, and I might get tired, or I won't pause it and take a piss, or the kids, you know, whatever it is. That's conducive to my lifestyle. And most people's lifestyle. I think most people are, yeah. But there is the experience of seeing it with a bunch of other people. You see an awesome movie with a bunch of other people. It's like a shared experience. 100%. I always like an attention.

Way more attention. Like when I went to see One Battle on IMAX, like, you know, that feeling, there's nothing like that feeling. I took, you know, two of my kids and two of my nephews and my wife and we all went and it was just, it was like, and you're in with.

You know, a bunch of strangers, people in your community, and you're having this experience together. I always say it's more like going to church. Like you show up at an appointed time. You know what I mean? It doesn't wait for you. Versus...

The experience of watching at home, I think, you know, you're watching in a room, the lights are on, other shit's going on, the kids are running around, the dogs are running around, whatever it is. You know what I mean? It's just a very different level of attention that you're willing to...

or that you're able to give to it and that has a big effect and it also ends up having an effect or is starting to have an effect on how you make movies like for instance netflix um you know standard way to make an action movie

that we learned was you know you usually have like three set pieces one in the first act one in the second one in the third and you know you kind of they kind of ramp up and the big one with all the explosions and you spend most of your money on that one in the third act that's your kind of finale And now they're like, can we get a big one in the first five minutes? We want people to stay tuned in. And it wouldn't be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue.

people are on their phones while they're watching you know what i mean and so then it's going to really start to infringe on Creatively. Yeah, how we're telling the story. Yeah, but then you look at our lessons, it didn't do any of that. It didn't do any of that. It was fucking great. You know what I mean? So I think it's dark, too. It's tragic and intense. It's like, guy who finds out these kids accused of murder, and it's like, you know.

And there's long shots in the back of their head. They get in the car. Nobody says anything. I think there are those... I wish that were... It feels more like the exception. It's so... masterfully made that it feels a little more like the except I hope it's not my feeling is just that it demonstrates that you don't need to do any of that shit to get people you know what I mean like and I think you know yes

You know, like, look, hey, the town had the action thing in the beginning of the first five minutes. You know what I mean? Like, it's a common trick that you would go, like, let me grab him and get him invested. It's like the movies that start with the hero hanging from the cliff. And now we're going to flash back to the beginning. how they got there. You know, I always feel like a, you know...

Complaining about it makes me feel like one of these guys was like, when I was a boy, like you always want to freeze the culture at the time when you, I don't know, felt more like, you know, we didn't used to have these phones. The fuck are all these phones? And everyone's looking at their phone. I get it. Yes, it's true. Also, it's like.

supply and demand. People want to look at their phone. They can look at TikTok. They want, you know, they're going to do that. I think what you can do is make shit the best you can. Make it really good and, you know.

People can still go to the movies. It's not like, I think we have this idea that it's like an existential threat. Everything that comes along is gonna destroy everything. Instead of like, What history suggests is that there's, like, marginal encroachments, things shift. Yep, as television came along, there was less theater going. And that's still going to happen. And people are still going to go to the movies because of what you said. Like, it feels like a cool thing to do.

I'm going to go see The Odyssey, I guarantee you, in a theater, no matter what. Fewer of them. You could argue that's because I have more choice or whatever it is. It's hard to fight supply and demand. That's the trick, right? If people want to watch a bunch of stuff at home because they invested in TVs and cost us money, they will. So, okay.

But the upside of that is, like, I can try to do something, hopefully, that's like, that actually doesn't need to, you know, have the most urgency to get you to come to the theater with your family that's a little more experimental or risk-taking or whatever in that way.

Well, you got to adapt. I mean, there's no way you're going to change people's viewing habits now. I mean, what percentage of Netflix is actually watched on phones? It's got to be pretty high, which is insane. Even watching on a laptop for me is kind of like... Kind of sucks. Yeah, it sucks.

joke that i like to make with every director i work with like when they're really puzzling over a shot or really grinding out something i go you know it's not gonna look as good on the phone just everyone gets angry

That's going to look great. This fucking big. But keep fucking around and lighting that. It is weird, though, the concern for the algorithm, like making sure that people watch. Like, look, we've got data that shows within the first five minutes when this happens, they tune out. So it's like my buddy, Tony.

Cliff he's got kill Tony and now it's on Netflix and so they're giving him notes now and they can give him like yeah but they're not telling what to do but they're saying like this is when people are tuning out and so Let's – just so you have that data, now decide how you want to edit things. It's like – slippery slope. It is because the – it's like the bar for – walking out of a movie theater is a lot higher than from just changing the channel. Right. Right. And oftentimes, you know, you.

directors will want to make a movie that is challenging and upsetting. And I remember Terry Kinney, my friend, great actor, and he told me about the experience of seeing Taxi Driver in New York for the first time. right, in 76 or whenever it came out, and he said,

What I remember is not only the movie, but I remember standing at the back because I had got up. I got up out of my seat and I went, but I couldn't bring myself to leave because I was so invested. But I was because I was standing at the back by the door watching the movie. And he goes.

there were two other people standing next to me who were doing the same thing. Just because they were disturbed? Because the movie was disturbing them so much. Wow. Which is not a bad thing, right? Right. So had that been on Netflix or Amazon, you know, if somebody says, oh, I'm disturbed, and they turn, and they change. the channel yeah like that doesn't mean you shouldn't make taxi driver right that's true like the investment of going to a place is much greater

Yeah, and one of the values of that is that you could look at movies from the 70s. The first act was 25, 30 minutes. Right. You know, the verdict, for instance, is a great movie. It takes a long time to get going. Look at the deer hunter. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's...

And, and you're right. Like what you're saying, the threshold for walkout is real. Like any scene, like, ah, I want to watch naked alone. Like whatever, you know, you flip the fucking, so you're, you are battling that. And you know, I watched Lamont's the other night. Steve McQueen and there's no one talks for like five minutes. There's no talking It's just a bunch of stuff getting done. Just a bunch of people doing things and it's like

wow, you could make a difference. You could let it air out back then. Yeah. They had a different respect for what it was. Like you were telling a story and you're going to let it air out. Well, they also knew where their audience was. They were in a theater. Part of it was they wanted to come there. I mean, the great story I like is the first time they debuted a movie. Guys with a projector in a room full of people. It was a movie of...

of a train pulling into the station. So they put the reel up and they did demonstrate and they showed the people and everybody missed it because they were turned around staring at the projector. Because they never fucking seen anything like that. You know, it's like the technology's upstaging. But, like, you come for an event, come for a thing, we're all going to be here, that's part of it. It's, I don't know, there's competing arguments. So you can think, well...

What do you get to do? And some people just go ahead and fuck it. Like Jim Cameron's Avatar. I'm going to make my three hour movie and people are going to come. And great. You know what I mean? And people say, oh, well, you can't have a three hour movie.

And he's like, well, I'm Jim Cameron, and I've actually got the number one and two in movies. I think I got this. He goes ahead and does it. History's full of people who got told a bunch of conventional wisdom and were like, yeah, but we're going to do something different. And as it turns out,

Like, that's actually what people want, too, is not for you to just repeat the other shit that's been done before or worked before. This episode is brought to you by Visible. Have you heard of Visible? It's the one line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot for $25 a month. Taxes and fees included all on Verizon's 5G network. It's the ultimate wireless hack to save money and still get. great coverage and a reliable connection.

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One of the things I read that I thought was really fucking cool is you guys set it up so that if this film performs well, the entire crew gets bonuses. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, hopefully it's successful. It's a fucking great movie, man. It's a fun movie. But it's good, but it's not like... you know, fucking we're saints or philanthropists. Like, it's completely self-serving, in my opinion. Because in order to do the job well...

Everybody who's working on it has to be really invested and give a shit about the result, not their paycheck only. And sometimes you wear the crew that just happen to be great anyway, even though they don't really have to care about it. And they do. And what we saw was like.

That makes your movie better. And then there's just the thing of, like, the business is changing. You see these strikes and work stops and all these fucking questions. In order for this, I think, to survive and to be, you know, a good middle class fucking artist.

you know, artisanal craftsman job. We've got 1,200 people that, you know, need to have reliable jobs. And part of the negotiations is always like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're all going to get fucked. Like, we have no participation. Like, used to working on movies and tapping stuff. actors too, where you go, oh, we all invested. It was really hard and we fucking put in the extra effort. Somebody else walked away.

with all the success. And my theory with Matt was we were like, how about where, let's say, okay, it's just fairness, right? If this thing actually blows up and does really well, you should benefit from that. People have been, you know, kind of given sort of promises of participation back and haven't.

Come true. This is like everyone got their rates. Everyone got their hourly. No one cut anything. This is just an exercise in actually proving that it's not bullshit. That if there's success, you'll get some extra. A little success, a little extra, a little more. A little more. But also, like you said, because it's fair. It's fair. And in success, the people who made the movie should...

you know, should participate in that. And also with this one, which was important to us, you know, they delineate above the line and below the line, right? Like above the line being like us, the director and the producers. And below the line being kind of the more blue-collar.

side of our industry and and like painters Gransman camera people yeah everybody else the drivers on and so we just wanted we we and believe like when we started this company we were like look you know we know who makes our movie better

Right. It's not it's like they've this has kind of been mispriced the whole time. Like the economics have been wrong. Like when there's a when there's a big success, everybody who had a hand on it. Because you see a great director that people rely on or an actor that's considered bankable. They're all going.

okay, I need all my people with me. Yeah, every great director I've worked with, and I've worked with a lot of them, they have their regular crew members that ride or die with these people. Because, I mean, and you said it to me when we were starting the company, you were like,

You know, those department heads, you know, who are each handling like, you know, cinematography, you know, your camera department, you know, your grip department, your electric, like all these, this, those people are ultimately the people who make the movie good. Like they make a...

demonstrable difference in how good your movie is. And imagine once you get a good flow with a great crew, you got the band. There's no need to bring in new band members. Let's do this again. And then you have the situation where they all are filmmakers to it. Everybody knows what we're trying to do. So like then what makes it, you know, you're trying to get something special, something interesting, something fucking magical in some moment.

You have to like if people are tight or they're bent out of shape or, you know, fucks up the environment. People aren't relaxed. Actors can't do their best work. And that does make a difference between something that's. good, average, great, whatever. And I think that if you say, like, you know, it makes cognitive sense to people, but if you look around, like, Colin Anderson, camera operator, right? Not the cinematographer, but...

I would tell you, I think he's the greatest camera operator there is in Hollywood. And if you want evidence that he shot Marty Supreme, he was a camera operator in one battle after another. You know, you look at his resume and you're like, oh, that's interesting. These are all fucking great movies. Now, is he personally?

responsible for all of it no because it's a collaborative medium there is no like you can be a painter and paint by yourself you can be a novelist and do that sing write music you can't do this job alone like there are a lot of people that go into it You know, even when I realized, like, Matt was the lead in the last movie I did air that I directed. Having somebody so fucking good in your movie who also...

Shows up, does his job, is friendly, isn't fucking around or playing games or being weird. Like, that sets this tone. Everybody else kind of goes, okay, what's Damon like? Oh. We're taking it seriously, but nobody's going to be a dick. We're all going to do our job. We're not going to take ourselves too seriously, but we're going to take the job really seriously. And immediately, everybody kind of snaps into that. That trickle-down effect goes across the whole thing.

And I think the best thing that I know how to do as a director is just create an environment where people feel like they show up. People like me. They're rooting for me. I can fucking embarrass myself and be bad. And it's not going to be in the movie. And it was going to make me feel self-conscious. And I'm listened to my ideas. Yeah. And if I have something to offer, they're going to go, oh, that's a good idea. You know what I mean? And.

That's kind of the trick in my view. And then you're depending on the gifts of all these people, every single one of them. You know, guys was, you know, some woman's assistant. Prop master is coming up with like the stuff that, you know, Phil Knight found, you know, his waffle from the shoe. They found it on eBay. Like that's an extra mile.

You know what I mean? If you make people feel like it matters and you give a shit and that they're contributing and, oh, cool, let's do a close-up of that. That's really fucking cool. They'll die for you. They'll go all the way and it changes the whole dynamic. you bonus them you know it's not just all you know it's it's there's an actual like codified bonus structure to say like we

This is the way of recognizing that shit, right? It's like in your paycheck, too. It's not just bullshit. That's very real. And you guys developed this? Kudos to you guys for addressing this, first of all, and recognizing it and having that attitude because it's so important and so easy for big movie stars. is to just think about themselves and their own career. Well, we're communists, Joe. We're from Cambridge. Keep the car running! No, but each deal has had this kind of...

Each deal that we've done so far has been different because we've made deals with different studios and platforms and stuff like that. And it just involved us basically retroactively going, hey. we came in under, we did a great job, there's extra money, here you go. This is the first time that we were able to actually create like a schedule where it's like, because, and by the way, we wouldn't have been able to do that without Netflix going, okay, cool.

You think you can make this work? We'll give you a shot. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to do it. So we had to say, look, we're not asking you to take a cut. But, you know, if we can and we can tell you if the movie is watched as many hours in the first 90 days as like this movie, A, that you all know what it is, then that's, you know, 20 percent of your salary, let's say. Right. I mean, you should take a hit. So it's like, yeah, you make.

more money your bonus is more it's all just pegged to where you're at just because that was the most fair idea we'd come up with. So they gave us like five different levels, right? Like the first couple we, hopefully we can hit and maybe the third, maybe we get, and then it got to like the fifth level. It's kind of like single, double, triple, home run. Home run, fucking grand slam.

fifth one was 110% of all Netflix viewers or something like that. So it's everybody who has a Netflix account watches it and then like 10% of them watch it again. And we were like... No, it's like K-pop demon. But that's what happened. We were laughing and then K-pop demon hunters came along.

and actually did that. That's the first movie that's ever... Jesus. Well, I think a lot of autistic kids watch that over and over and over and over again. I haven't seen it, but I mean, somebody's watching it over and over again. Oh, yeah. Dude, people love it. I mean... It's, you know.

The value of it is because before this, one of the big things and everybody's fighting over in the strike is like, well, share your... There used to be residuals, right? And residuals, and it was only for SAG and a few other things, but it was like, and you knew if you had a line in the movie and there would be a certain number... like at the box office, we're going to get another.

2,000 bucks. And that was a big deal. You get that check in the mail and like, okay, I can pay the rent for another month and I can do that shit. But then there was this like sort of ill, what constitutes success? Because streamer doesn't actually sell another ticket if you watch that movie, right?

It's hard to tell, well, why did you sign up for this service, right? So for a while, everyone's looking at the first thing that you looked at when you subscribed to somebody. Okay, you're going to go buy Hulu. What did you watch first? The bear. Well, the bear must be...

creating value for us but it's you can't assign a strict numerical value to it because it's like a box office where you can go well you know Oppenheimer is a billion dollars or whatever and you know that's another billion dollars on our balance sheet because streamers

are doing a subscription model, you know? That's, you know, whether it's like a gym membership where in the fucking, you know, first of the year, you're like, I'm going to work out again. I'm going to buy that annual membership. And you go twice or you go to the gym every single day, you're paying the same amount.

Also, the weird thing is with streaming, when you're opening up Netflix, it's not like you're going to the movie theater and there's seven movies playing. You're opening up Netflix and you have an unlimited option list. It's insane how much content you could waste the rest of your life sitting in front of Netflix and then die and have, you know, millions of hours more to listen to or watch. You're right. Like when we'd start researching that and built our own.

data to pull people and examine all this stuff it's it's actually all the library stuff that people are watching all the time if you said like the new stuff is theoretically what what keeps people with the subscription or whatever but in terms of like volume of time i think it doesn't come from them but it looks a lot like you know we're gonna watch like

Orange is the New Black and the episode of Suits and the old Seinfeld and Friends and, you know, Cupcake Wars. You know, that's because Americans watch six hours of TV a day, right? That's crazy. And then the other six hours, they're on their phone. How does anything get done? How does anything get done? When you started to make this film, what is the process? How did you guys agree on it? Did you guys have it written first?

was Joe so before you knew you were going to Netflix with it yeah yeah yeah he came to us with the script and we've known Joe for a really he did a movie his first movie was called NARC I don't know if you ever saw yeah so we met him way back this 25 years ago or

Something like that. And so we met him back then. And Ben did a movie of his in 2004, I think. And so we've known Joe for a really long time and kind of been in touch with him over the years. And he just sent this to us. And we read it and we thought it was great. and bought it for the company. And then we started talking to Joe about how he wanted to do it, and he suggested that we actually do the movie. And we were like, yeah, why don't we do it? It seems...

It's basically because we liked it. Part of it's like we're not trying to just do our movies. We want to be, you know, doing movies with all these people that we like and respect. And then, you know, the way we sort of set it up is such that to try to get like... historically, the way it's worked is like, you know, a studio will own a...

an IP or a script or whatever and then you cut and they'll say okay we want you to do it okay well how much well how much did you get for the last one right and you go then what's the budget and then that's how they assign a value to it right but like my belief was well

especially when these streams are coming into the market and chasing stuff, is like, this movie may be worth more. It may be worth less. And that, like, we're all just subject to that. So we'll try to get the best price for it, and we'll all share it, you know, pro rata.

And essentially, that was the same process. We've done eight, I guess, movies or so now. And we took it out, and people wanted it. And then one of the things that was really appealing about Netflix was that they were open to this.

this idea that we've been trying to institutionalize. I was like, okay, great. That's really meaningful because ideally it becomes a template that other people go, hey, we want to do that thing. And then we go, oh, here's the paperwork. Yeah, that's the thing. A lot of people say that they...

would want to do it but it now now the template exists so it's like plug and play so if you if you're not full of shit and you really do mean that then guess what just take this and and it also is going to let you you know, I hope, like manage the risk. In other words, the argument you always have is like, well, shit, we got to invest all this money in the movie. So you can't have your protagonist be too objectionable. That's too edgy or can't be R-rated because it costs this much.

I get it, right? You're going to put all your money into it. You don't want to... money to fucking disappear. You want to make money? Okay. So when we wrote the first movie, Good Will Hunting, it was like, we knew that had to be a cheap movie. People talking in rooms to each other because no one's going to put a bunch of money into a movie. Into a movie with us. Two assholes that no one heard of.

So it was like, okay, what can we do that's interesting and try to keep it as inexpensive as possible so that we can make the argument that someone should make the movie? That same logic like carries through every time you're asking somebody to invest in something. So what I'd like to have happen is to say, OK, now that we know there's a reliable system where we understand that like in success will actually benefit, we can.

lower, you know, the price up front for you so that you can have a low fucking barrier to entry so that you can take the risk so that we can do something really interesting that's an original idea, that's a, you know, that's an Abraham or a Sinners or a Marty Supreme or whatever it is.

And then if it's successful, we're not still sitting here like assholes where, you know, you guys walk off with all the money. And you can have that happen in an ongoing way so that you can make more. This episode is brought to you by the movie Shelter.

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was centered around AI and what AI is going to do to the business. Where do you feel is going to be the biggest problem with AI? Is it going to be with people's likenesses? Because there's a lot of that where they want to use extra. and own their digital rights forever, essentially be able to recreate them in any kind of film. But then there's also, you're going to have films that are written by artificial intelligence. You're going to have scenes that don't involve people.

It gets weird, right? It gets really weird, but there's actually an area of expertise for him. Yeah, we've been spending time looking at this. My belief is sort of like, what's going to happen with electricity? Well, a lot of shit's going to happen with electricity. Some of it's going to be good. Some of it's going to change stuff. Some of it's going to be like, you know, this is going to be, you know, shit that kills a bunch of people. Like, it's opening a door that you can't.

um you know say well talk about in a kind of a blanket way but i think with what i see is that for example if you try to get chat gbt or claude or gemini to write you something it's really shitty and it's shitty because By its nature, it goes to the mean, to the average.

And it's not reliable. And it's, I mean, I just can't even stand to see what it writes. Now, it's a useful tool if you're a writer and you're going, ah, what's the thing? I'm trying to set something up where somebody sends someone a letter, but it's delayed two days and gets, and it can keep. you some examples of that I actually don't think it's very likely that it can it's going to be able to write anything meaningful or and in particular

that it's going to be making movies from whole cloth like Tilly Norwood. That's bullshit. I don't think that's going to happen. I think it actually turns out the technology is not progressing in exactly the same way they sort of presented it. And really what it is is going to be a tool. Just like sort of visual facts. And yeah, it needs to have language around it. You need to protect your name and likeness.

You can do that. You can watermark it. Those laws already exist. I can't sell your fucking picture for money. I can't. You can sue me, period. I might have the ability to draw you, to make you in a very realistic way, but that's already against the law.

And the unions are going to, the guilds are going to manage this where it's like, okay, look, if this is a tool that actually helps us, for example, we don't have to go to the North Pole, right? We can shoot the scene here in our parkas and, you know, whatever it is.

but then make it appear very realistically as if we're in the North Pole, it's going to save us a lot of money, a lot of time. We're going to focus on the performances and not be freezing our ass off out there and running back inside. That's useful. Just like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn used to be driving their car and there's a wind blowing a painting behind them and it looked goofy. Now, you know, people use a lot of computer generated stuff.

And some of it is going to replace just that. Like instead of 500 guys in Singapore, you know, making $2 an hour to render all the graphics for a superhero movie, there's going to be able to do that a lot easier. There's already laws around and guild guidelines around like how many union extras you have to use. But also we've been tiling extras like there weren't a million.

orcs and Middle Earth. You know what I mean? There aren't Invictus. There weren't all those people in the stadium. That's something we've been doing. It kind of feels to me like... The thing we were talking about earlier, where there's a lot more fear because we have the sense that's existential dread. It's going to wipe everything out. But that actually runs counter, in my view, to what history seems to show, which is, A, adoption is slow. It's incremental.

I think a lot of that rhetoric comes from people who are trying to justify valuations around companies where they go, we're going to change everything. In two years, there's going to be no more work. Well, the reason they're saying that is because they need to ascribe...

evaluation for investment that can warrant the capex spend they're going to make on these data centers with the argument that like oh you know as soon as we do the next model it's going to scale up can be three times as good except that actually chat gp5 about 25% better than ChatGPT4 and costs about four times as much in the way of electricity and data. So those nice things, it's like plateauing. The early AI...

The line went up very steeply. And it's now sort of leveling off. I think it's because, and yes, it'll get better, but it's going to be really expensive to get better. And a lot of people were like, fuck this. We want your HGBT4 because it turned out like the vast majority of people.

who use AI are using it as companion bots to chat with at night. There's no work, there's no productivity, there's no value to it. I would argue there's also not a lot of social value to getting people to... like focus on an AI friend who's telling you that you're great and listening to everything you say and being sycophantic.

But that's sort of a side issue. I think for this particular purpose, like the way I see the technology and what it's good at and what it's not, it's going to be good at filling in all the places that are expensive and burdensome and they make it harder to do it. And it's always going to rely fundamentally on the human artistic.

aspects of it well i think the more it becomes ubiquitous the more people are going to appreciate real things that are made by real people you know like you're you still appreciate a handmade table you know you're gonna appreciate like did you see

The Beast and Me, Claire Danes? Yeah. No, I didn't. Fucking great. Yeah, I heard it was great. That lady. Woo. That was terrific. When she's in a scene, you're just like, Jesus Christ. Great, great actress. Like her fucking lips are quivering. Like you believe everything that she's saying. But you're right. People want that. You can't fake that. I'll say like I did this interview.

with Dwayne Johnson, because, you know, when people are in these awards things, they sometimes have other actors interview them, you know, and I did this interview with Dwayne, and I asked him, there's this scene in The Smashing Machine. Where where he's overdosed on drugs and his buddy comes to see him in the hospital. Yeah, and and it really

walloped me, this scene. I thought it was so great. And I asked him, and I was just like, can you just tell me about this scene? Did Benny Safdie directed it? Did Benny write this? Write that. Did you work on that scene with them? He goes, no, we actually worked on it together. And I go, well, how did that scene come to be? And Dwayne goes, well, my father was an alcoholic. And I don't remember if he said substance abuser or alcoholic.

I didn't know the man, I don't want to impugn him, but he had a substance issue, whatever it was. He goes, and when he would talk to me, you know, that's how he... would defend himself he was almost a bargaining thing because there's a thing when this guy comes to him he's overdosed and

Dwayne's amazing in this scene. He's going like, yeah, isn't it crazy? And then I woke up, I mean, I could hear him, but I couldn't really hear him. And you see him, and he's kind of tap dancing. And his friend finally kind of holds his feet to the fire. And at that moment, Dwayne... literally starts to burst into tears and just pulls the hospital sheet up over his head.

And it's like and it's and it's I mean, it's just it was I'm not doing it justice if you haven't. I mean, I know you've seen it. But he said, yeah. So he explains that about his father. And then he goes. And when my mom was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer, I was with her when the oncologist came in, and she was lying in the hospital bed. And when he gave her the news, she pulled the sheet up over her head. And I looked at her, and she just looked like a little...

like a little kid, you know? And I was like, all right. Like, so that, right, is two traumatic events from this guy's life, right, from his life experience. And the actor in him, right, sees this scene, goes into his memory, pulls these two things out, understands that they're appropriate for this scene and he can marry them together in the scene. And then he goes and performs it that way.

A dude walking in off the road, goes to the movies, sees this, understands somehow that it's fucking real. I didn't know why. That's why I wanted to ask him, how did that scene come to be? genuinely didn't know and made me tear up and you know like that is There's no fucking AI that can do that. It's a whole lot more than photorealistic images. You could have an AI understand Dwayne's face and move his face into different... No fucking thing could ever do that.

of real life experiences relayed. That is a completely human. That is an artist. That's a piece of art. Yes. That comes out of a lived human experience. That movie gave me so much anxiety. There's moments where Emily Blunt is arguing. She's so fucking good in that movie.

I really said, I think that's the best she's ever been. We live in the same building in New York. She's a very dear friend of mine. And I was like, I really think that's the best she's ever been. And then I blurted that out to Chris Nolan. And he kind of stopped and looked at me like, he didn't say it, but he was kind of like, she's pretty fucking good in my movie, too. Well, she's great, period. She's great, period. But there's something about that.

Well, I knew Mark. I knew Mark from... I met Mark in 97 when he was fighting in the UFC. So I knew the whole journey of him. And I was so happy for Dwayne because it was a film where instead of being this... fucking superhero blockbuster hulk of a man he gets to be that but be a great actor and you know you can't really get a person to look like that

To express emotions and express and he was Mark Kerr. I know. If you know Mark, I mean it was fucking great acting. I completely forgot it was him and somebody who had seen it before told me that was going to happen. And I was like, all right, we'll see.

And it was like from the second it started. It didn't get the credit it deserved in terms of like the amount of people that went to see it. But I think overall in time, people appreciate it. That's what people go back to. Because it's a movie about MMA. So a lot of. people are like, I don't want to see a movie about a bunch of fucking meatheads, but it's not. It's just a movie that happens to be around MMA, but it's a great movie.

The scenes are fucking fantastic. The acting is so good. And even the fight scenes, they're so realistic, man. It's really like I saw all those fights. They've recreated those fights. about as good as you can get. And just his crazy struggle. And you know the story behind the documentary, The Smashing Machine? No.

So the smashing machine was made when Mark was at the height of his powers and pride. And he was the most terrifying guy in the world. He was 265 pounds of solid muscle just blowing through people. Didn't even look like a human being. Everyone was terrified of him. No one knew he was a drug addict.

No one knew. And he spiraled out as they were filming and he let them film him. Let them film him shooting up. Let them film him like bringing this giant bag of pills with him and all this shit everywhere and just. Completely falling apart while they were supposed to be capturing this hero movie of the greatest fighter in the world He's falling apart like live in front of the documentary. It was fucking amazing documentary

I got to see it. It's really good. But I was so happy that they put it in a film. And I was so happy that it gave Dwayne a vehicle to show what he's really capable of. Because he's so limited by a lot of just the parameters of the roles that he was in. Yeah, and by, like, galactic success, too, right? I mean, it's he had to and will continue to have to push for that, right? Because it's what he wants.

And not because what they're going to continue to want him to do is the thing that mints them money. Yeah, but I suspect that his experience and feeling about... this movie from the conversations i've had with him yeah this this is this is this has changed him yeah Well, I mean, it's like this thing that these superhero guys have to do where it's like something has to change because otherwise you're going to be.

boxed yeah and with a guy that looks like that it's so easy to put him in that box and so you see him now he's thinner he's lost a lot of weight like Dave Bautista went through a very similar thing too right he wanted to be he wanted to have more range wanted to have you know

more opportunities to do exciting and different challenging things. Well, I think also coming from where he came from, right? It's like you talk about going from TV to movies in the old days. Try coming from wrestling to like the biggest movie star in the world, right? It's incredible that he did that, and now he's in this place where he's got this leverage because he's so beloved that he can kind of tailor the...

tailor what he wants from here on out. It's hard to bring the audience with you. You're like, no, no, no, I know you like this thing, but let me show you something else. It's sort of like you go to the concert, the band wants to play the new songs, play the fucking hits, you know? You know, he's always in a little gilded cage. All right, fucking satisfaction. Yeah. No, I love the song, too.

You know my acoustic thing that I did? Yeah, I went to see the Stones when they were here in town, and there was a few songs they played that were like new songs. Oh, really? You see the audience is like, okay, okay. Go get a beer. Get the other one. Yeah, that's... Well, I mean, but every artist, I guess, has to make that choice, and he's made it.

And it was an amazing vehicle, too, because he still kept that superhuman, hulkish frame, but also showed, like, God, there's, like, amazing depth there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing that's, I think... especially because it's collaborative, it happens to other people. That's what movies do that other shit doesn't do, which is just create like you feel for people. It's empathy. It's all made up, right? That's not him. It's all an illusion. It's all bullshit.

But if you do it really well with like, you know, somebody that seems to really be feeling something like all of a sudden, I think what it does, it touches like these things in ourselves. You know, it has that same effect that Dwayne went through of articulating to you about like. these moments that were kind of burned into his memory, then really the best movies are kind of almost blank screens that we project our own fucking like, oh yeah.

my father died or i went through this with my kid or i'm i feel alone and and and miserable and and here's this like hopeful moment that someone has to go maybe i can Maybe I can do something. You know, they inspire you, they touch you, they move you, and it's the thing to go for. The other thing is, you know...

is to tell a lighter story, to go through the more typical sort of tropes of it all. Either way, you're in somebody else's perspective for a few hours, and hopefully it breeds compassion. Well, when it's done right, there's a magic to it where you forget that it's happened.

and you're there. And the most amazing trick is when it's done by famous people. You know, I was talking to Ethan Hawke about this. There's a scene with him and Kevin Bacon in that movie with Julia Roberts about the end of the world. I forget the name, right? Right, right, right. Tomorrow. Tomorrow something. People will find it. It's a great fucking movie. But there's this scene where he's talking to Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon's got a gun to him.

it's so i know that's kevin bacon i know that's ethan hawk it doesn't matter like you're locked in you're locked in you're like oh like that's the magic and and he was like but i'm locked in too like that's It's like a hypnosis. It's like everybody is in the scene in a very bizarre way. Like you have the lines, but you're living it. And that's either done or it's not done. And when it's not done...

You could tell someone's kind of just performative. You feel it when you're watching. Yes. If it does that thing and it pulls you in, then it's happening. That's the magic of film. And sometimes you trick people, I guess, but for the most part... For the most part, you don't. If you're feeling it and you just really... happening yeah it's much more like other human beings recognize human beings experiencing real shit yes they they it's like these mirror neurons like i know what

Sorrow looks like yeah without having the fucking I can't break it down for you or I even you know you we all know kind of what like oh He's a little anxious right now, or did I maybe offend him or see you know all these little things and when some like in the rare moments when big feelings or the things happen.

you feel it too you know and you usually like an example is this is an old saying about like you know actors try to cry people try not to cry like because when you're really experiencing that shit you don't want people to see it you want to hide it you want to no I'm okay I'm fine you know it's like I want to pull the

But the other thing that's really interesting from our side of doing it, because he and I have talked about this a lot, and I've always said publicly, great actors are good enough for both of you. Like when you're in a scene with a great actor, that thing that Ethan's talking about, that hypnosis or whatever you want to call it, that energy, that place where you go, right? They're bringing you right with it. It's like a fucking tractor beam. They will suck you right in with them.

like as quickly as you look into their eyes and you're like, you're like just there. And it's like riding the easiest wave you've ever ridden in your life. You know, it can be the hardest thing in the world and it can be the easiest thing in the world.

When you're with a great actor, it's just, if the scene's a good scene. Yeah, this is a real paradox. All the stuff that I'm the most proud of, the weird thing about this is it felt very easy at the time. And the shit where you're banging your head against a wall and trying to get blood from a stone and killing yourself and the whole thing, and it just...

and ends up fucking feeling empty. And the thing about the stuff that I'm proud of is my insecurity is like, it should be harder than this, right? Are we working hard enough? And learn to kind of just trust that. It feels good, let's just keep going.

Well, there's some scenes in this movie, without giving too much away, where there's conflict between you two guys that seems so real. And that's even harder to recreate, because you guys are good friends. And you're making the movie together, and you've got this scene where you're acting in this...

with the conflict with the two of you guys in the movie. But it's very fucking real. The reason that it was real, I like that scene. The reason it works, I think, is because he's coming at me and he really needs to know something.

And I'm completely blanking him. Like, I'm just, he's going, you gotta tell me what's going on, man. He's like, it's awesome. Like, what is the thing? And I'm just, like, literally kind of blanking him in this bizarre way, which... like was really frustrating him in real life because he, he was, because that feeling of like,

it's fucking tell me dude it's you and me like and he finally goes he screams out i don't trust you right now that's a fucking problem right which is like what you would say to an old friend like what are you doing man like what what what are you doing like Tell me the fucking betrayal is that... Lie to me or tell me the truth. Lie to me or tell me the truth. Don't fuck me and step outside our whole relationship and all of a sudden act like... Give me this weird look of just like, I don't know.

You know, like, and so we were doing the scene. It was really fucking pissing him off. I could see him getting like... The one line that wasn't written that I saw that I didn't remember doing was, I would have never fucked you like this. I would have never fucked you like this, yeah. Which I didn't even remember saying. I like that. Keep that thing. I wouldn't have fucked you. And I thought, I was like, what is he...

And I still watched the playback. It was one of those rare moments, again, it was like where... It was that thing of you doing all the work by not doing anything, which I didn't expect that to be the choice that you made. And it just was confusing and felt like just, you know, leaving you out in the fucking cold. I think the only thing I could rely on is like...

I wouldn't do this to you. In those moments where you're ad-libbing a line, where a line comes, is it just that feels like that's what you say? It's just kind of like he couldn't stop from saying it. But you have to be working with somebody that makes that okay. You know what I mean? Because the part of your brain that will govern you or tell you something's not okay, will step in if it's sort of like...

You know, listen, I expect you to fucking do this box. And there's directors and writers who really do really care about every word precisely. And, you know, and that's how they do it. And that's fine. That can be great, too. For me. I find it becomes more interesting and sometimes better stuff happens if you actually feel like you don't have to say any of the lines. I don't have to say any of the lines in this scene.

then I'll tend to say the ones that feel right. But it's that fake thing that never happens in life, which is I'm never sitting here talking to you and think, what's my next line? What am I supposed to say and how should I say that? And it's not about the lines ever. It's not about the words. It's about what's the scene about? What's happening in the scene? It's one of the reasons why Curb Your Enthusiasm is so great. Yeah.

Larry David just gives you a place to get to. Yeah. Kind of a loose agenda of what's going to happen. And then films a bunch of stuff and everybody figures it out. Yeah. And a lot of times that shows about... The awkward shit when people are missing each other and not sure of themselves and a little embarrassed. Fucking genius show. It really is. And people talk like we're talking. Like you occasionally talk over each other. There's a stumble. There's no one. Like what?

What the fuck are you talking about? There's weirdness. Because what's also happening is that forces you to really listen. Right. And that is that is the hardest thing to kind of learn for young actors, I think, is is it's really all about listening. And like I did a bunch of movies with Paul Greengrass and that's how he works where he where you just know the agenda going in.

You know some basic things that you know what your guy needs going in. Like I was playing a chief warrant officer and I had to go through a door and there was a guy and I needed to interrogate him.

And this is what I needed to know from him. I needed to secure the house with my guys, and I needed to get to this guy. We needed to make sure everybody here was secure. And he put me with a bunch of real combat veterans. And we fucking went in and, you know, they're the experts. Which is another thing that does your job for you. It's just being around the real people. Joe putting the cops from Miami, you know, on these parts.

It just, like by osmosis, you feel more legitimate. The thing feels more authentic to the audience. You don't know why, because you don't know what the fucking culture is of the tactical narcotics team in Miami. But when you see the real guys, you're like, yeah, that seems right. Miami is a perfect place to have it, too. Well, it's also specific to this because it's based on this real tactical narcotics team in Miami.

And the guy who ran that, this guy, Chris Cassiano, is Joe's friend, and he's the guy that my character's based on. So Chris was Chris. We went we wrote along with Chris down there. We went with that team and watched them operate and then hung out with them. And then they came up and they were, you know, all in the movie. And Chris was around as a technical advisor the whole time. So any question like.

Little details. All right, how do I go through this door? What do I do? What do you do here? What's the protocol here? All of that stuff was kind of overseen by him so that it was how they really do it. that whole fucking town is so did you ever see cocaine cowboys yes the entire fucking graduating class of the police academy one year either wound up murdered or in jail that's what happens all of a sudden you push so much fucking money into something oh yeah and it's like

Like, before they even kind of figured out, like, you know, and there wasn't even a lot of stigma. It was like, ah, cocaine, whatever. It's kind of rich guys, fun, drug. But, you know, it was just some statistic about, like, you know, the amount of money in the banks. in Miami was like the same as the rest of the country? More banks per capita in Miami than anywhere else in the country. Because they were just laundering money. And they got away with it.

They literally got away with it. Have you ever flown over Bimini? No. So if you ever fly over Bimini, there are all these Cessnas. underwater all these planes like around the island. Because what they used to do, Bimini is like the closest, it's 50 miles off the coast of Florida. They would come in with a plane full of drugs and just crash the plane into the water.

They would land it. On purpose? On purpose. Because there's no runway on Bimini. It's like, fuck it, we're going to dump the plane. They would have ten cigarette boats, like a flotilla of boats, waiting. They would crash the plane. They'd offload the drugs as the plane was sinking, right? And then they'd put it— The Coast Guard figures that they're always coming for them. That's why they have 10 boats. They throw the drugs into one of the boats, and they got a one out of ten chance of making it.

They just scatter. And the Coast Guard goes after one of them and hopes they get the right one. And Nott is just like, no, I was just taking a cruise tonight. What's the problem, officer? But the planes are still all... The water's so clear you can see it. How many fucking planes? Oh, wow. That's crazy. How many fucking planes are out there? I flew over probably 20 years ago, but I mean, there's...

I don't know how long. But if you think of probably the cost of one of those little Cessnas probably wasn't... I mean, with the amount of drugs they were moving on. Yeah, there you go. Fucking wild. They're kind of landing where it's sort of shallow. Yeah, they land and it's like five to ten feet of water. And they land at whatever, 55 knots.

You just try to... The water looks nice, too. Like, yeah, sure. Wow. It won't be comfortable, but, I mean, Sully landed a 737 or whatever it was. Right. Yeah. Fucking wild. What a crazy part of our culture. that that happened. The whole cocaine run during the 80s in particular, like Miami Vice, all that shit. It shaped the entire country. For sure. Oh, yeah.

I just remember that one guy in that documentary who was like, I think he was from Boston, and he was like the pilot, and he had figured out the route, and he was like, man. We could have gotten away with this forever. Somebody talked and he knew that's the only way we would have been caught. He was clearly really smart. A ton of guys did too. There's a whole lot of people out there that were like, yeah, we had a nice... run. That's why I got eight houses. Oh, yeah. That's one of the...

real crimes that people got away with was bringing cocaine into this country. There's a lot of people that got very wealthy, including banks, which is just really crazy. Banks with jewelry companies. There was more Jaguar dealerships in Miami than everywhere else in the country.

He was like, doesn't pay to ask questions. So, yep, I guess a lot of people like our cars here. You don't say all cash, sure. Yeah, we can make you a deal, sure. How many backyards in Miami still to this day have bags just buried somewhere that nobody knows? It's probably worth just checking. When you buy a house in Miami, just dig the yard up. Well, at least find out who owned it before you. Oh, he's a pilot. Get a truck. Get a tractor. It's time to dig up the backyard.

I mean, one of those guys in the films had millions of dollars just buried in his backyard. They had nowhere to put it. They were making so much money. They just had to bury it places. That's fucking crazy. Well, it's why it's the perfect backdrop for the film, you know, because, you know, that...

The situation that the cops, without giving away too much of the plot, but the situation that the cops are dealing with is a very real situation. I mean, so many DEA agents turn dirty. So many cops turn dirty. It's because it just can get confronted. So much temptation. Yes. Like you take these people. You know, you got like six, seven people. They fucking work for a living. They have the same bullshit they have to deal with. And there's $20 million.

And it makes for a great drama, too, even with the performances. Because all of a sudden, somebody's thinking like, OK. How are they going to react? Who would be the first person to say, I'm going to have to turn this all in? And getting to play that shit. And for me also, I like, without being sanctimonious or preachy, because I really think movies...

We're talking about what they do well. What they do very poorly is deliver messages or lectures. As soon as you get into that thing, the audience is like, I'm going to go to church for that or fucking school. I don't need that shit here. But I like that what was underneath it is like, this is a fucking hard job. And that there's a lot of value, like these characters, the ones that are trying to do their job are trying to get through the day.

And just at the end of the day, have done their job like they said they were going to do, adhere to the fucking ethics that they're supposed to, and at the end of the day, be able to sleep at night and believe there's some value in not fucking stealing the money or flipping somebody over. You know what I mean? And doing all that.

shit and that's the win the win doesn't have to be get away with the bag of money or fucking you know saves the world from uh you know the evil scientist laser beam or whatever it's like the end of the day if you can live with yourself and say look you know i acquitted myself according to what the expectations were and what am i true to my word and i i think there's so like that's a

I don't know. That affected me. I found that kind of moving. And you can't do it if you create, like, to credit to Joe's script, like, just two-dimensional characters. Oh, I'm the hero. I'm the villain. Or this person would never do that. They all have to be real people. Like, you would be subject to, like...

Temptation and money just represents whatever that thing is you think you want or that's going to make your life better. You know, it's something different to everybody. But, you know, especially when you're like you're facing like, you know, the custody thing or the, you know. relative or or whatever it is that's it's a real thing nobody's immune to to to that kind of temptation you know sometimes i think it's cavalier to be like oh well you're dirty you're not putting people in a very

tough situation a lot of times, particularly if they're feeling like undervalued. Like the woman in the scene where Catalina's like, I get fucking pissed, I get yelled at, I get shit on, you know what I mean? Like I'm out here grinding every fucking day. You know, it's... It's a lot to ask, and I think it's worth kind of making that heroic without sort of...

indicating too much. No, it's really well written because there's no suspension of disbelief moments. And that's hard to do in a big blockbuster action movie. There's always one moment in a movie where you're like, what? How did he do that? You guys don't have any of those. There's none of that. I loved it. I loved it. I loved that aspect of it, too, where it felt like all of it was like I believed it. I believed it.

and that's really a credit to joe and his like taste and that's why we really thought like this guy knew how to make narc he kind of obviously understood this world and understood that it has to above all it has to feel real And that's why he was open to like, okay, whatever happens, you throw in a line, maybe it's good. Can't get your feeling hurt if it's not, you know, but like you got to be able to take that shot and we're all down.

You know, trying to spend time with people. I mean, I kind of feel for these cops, a bunch of actors to send on you, and they're like, what kind of sweatshirt is that? It was like that Michael J. Fox, James Woods movie. Remember that movie? I forget what it was called, but he's Michael J. Fox is an actor.

following around James Woods. He's studying him for a character, and James Woods is a real, like, detective, and he's just like, get this guy away from me. I kept thinking of that. What kind of hair gel you use? Yeah, exactly. All these questions, you know.

But they were very tolerant of us, which was nice and really, really helpful. Because it's always details. It's always details. It's like how fastidiously do you... kind of mine for those details because I've always been convinced that like an audience it's like you were saying they don't analyze why they don't believe something they feel it they just don't believe it and it's usually because

those details are you you don't get those and that's the only thing like i'm not great at imagining something let's invent this everything that i've done like that i that i like is been a result of something I found in research. Like for the town, I went down and just went through the...

you know, all the prisons, you know, out there in Massachusetts, federal prisons, state prisons, and sat down and talked to guys who robbed trucks and banks. And, you know, kind of sometimes, you know, you want to know, and then sat down with the FBI guys and was like, what are they like? And the great-

shit you know for me is that you know and i'm in like uh i'm in like wet walpole or i'm at the prison deadham or whatever and i'm to some guy said like After talking for two hours, you know, I was like, is anything just fucking weird ever happened or fucked up anything you remember?

I was like, yeah, one time, you know, we were coming out of this thing. We robbed this truck. And, you know, we had the mask. We got the switch car. We drove around the corner and whatever. We pull up. We get out with fucking guns, the mask, the whole thing. And we look over.

And it's this cop sitting there doing construction duty. And I was like, right then, he didn't even tell me a story. I was like, oh, shit. I was like, what happened? He goes, no. He looked at us. We looked at him. He looked the other way.

And I was like, really? He goes, yeah. He didn't want to end up on the wall at the VFW. These guys with full automatic weapons, masks on, switching cars. I was like, all right, I'm putting that in the movie. And it's a great moment in the town, like in the movie. Because, you know, they all jump out of the things. Yeah, I remember that scene. And then, oh, yeah, here it is. Yeah, exactly. It's great. And it's this awkward. They just stop. And this dude, he sees them. They see them.

He's like, fuck, we're gonna have to kill this guy. Nope. He turns away. Okay. Wow. It's such a great, but that's straight from research. I always loved that story. And then the line is here. He put it here. It was a great line. It was such a simple explanation for what do you think he did and why.

And that's exactly what it would have been. Like, that guy, next day's picture would have been up in the wall at the VFW. Yeah. You know, and he knew it, and everybody knew it. He said he didn't want to do it like that. You know, that was... And that kind of stuff is, I don't know, it's very human calculations and interactions and a very extreme version of it. But it also doesn't have, sometimes it's not dramatic at all. You know, it's like, yeah, that was an easy decision.

And the guy never says anything when I didn't say anything, you know? And kind of can't really blame him, you know? Yeah.

The Town was a great fucking movie, too, man. And I knew a lot of people like that, you know, from boxing gyms and stuff. I knew a guy who was a hitman for Whitey Bulger. I knew a guy who was a friend of a brother of mine who went to jail for that. for murder, for killing people.

What town did you grow up in? I lived in Newton. You did? Yeah, I grew up in, I lived in Jamaica Plain for a little while. I lived in Newton, but I spent a lot of time in Boston because I was fighting. I was mostly training, and so I was around a lot of these very shady characters. who were in the fighting world, and a lot of them had backgrounds in crime. One of the guys that I trained with, he went to jail for a little while, and then he got arrested because a guy got killed.

And they broke every bone in his body with a hammer and kept injecting it with cocaine to keep him awake while they were doing it. And then they cut his hands off and cut his head off. And this guy that I used to train with got arrested for that. Jesus. Yeah, he didn't wind up going to jail for that. He's dead now, but he was somehow or another at least peripherally involved. Yeah, well, I didn't do any fighting, but I went around and...

found a lot. One of the things about being an actor is people will talk to you, which is a fucking amazing gift. Even if somebody's like, oh yeah, I killed guys. They'll just come out and it's kind of the rules all of a sudden don't apply. These guys in the prison, what the fuck?

Are they going to talk? You know what I mean? But they're like interested in it for whatever. And, you know, so you avail yourself of that. And then I had like, you know, we had people around that movie who everybody knew. Yeah, he did that job. He never got arrested. And so people meet and talk to them. And it's interesting because it's such a good lesson for doing this job, which is that they're never how you...

Think they're supposed to be like the murderer person right right, you know There's always something a little I remember one guy was supposed to be like this really violent kind of loose cannon fucking Guy who was supposedly had done all this shit stabbed and killed two people, Faneuil Hall, and shot these guys in a robbery.

And he like shows up with his polo shirt kind of tucked in, you know, he's like, how's it going? You know, just like, I never would have fucking put this guy on killing four people. You know what I mean? Yeah, have a good time. So I love that one movie. And you're just thinking, fuck, man, like. This is why, and it's a really good lesson for like, you know, we tend to read a script and okay, this guy's the tough guy and he's going to be the, it's like you work with like.

I had the fucking, the opportunity to train with these Delta guys. Like, you know, it's the most elite special forces combat fucking... operators in the world. I mean, I suppose the SEALs will take exception to that, but just numerically, right? I think there's been less than 900 guys ever in the history of Delta. You meet him.

And they're not the biggest guys. They're not the toughest guys. They're not trying to fucking be hard. And, you know, they're the most relaxed, at ease. And, you know, I found myself just being like, can I just ask, what do you think makes somebody... like qualify for the the delta force like what's a good delta operator it's like ah you know problem solving

Problem solving? The guy goes, yeah, it's probably like your job. I was like, no, let me tell you something. It's really not like my job. I appreciate it. Very big fucking difference. He's like, yeah, you solve problems. I give him no shot to kill me. See, that's the thing. But that was the closest insight I got to, which was, I've always kind of thought this about guys like Brady or something. There's guys that just don't get tight.

And that they are kind of able to problem solve when the problem is like, well, that helicopter's crashed and we're 200 miles inside Afghanistan and we're outnumbered fucking six to one. How do you think we should get home? Like just having your wits about you to make that calculation. by the way you're in a fucking gunfight and things you know I'm sure that does make because those are the people where I'd be in a fucking panic and I have no idea what to do and you get

attracted to the person who seems to have a, like, hey, it's good. We're going to be okay. Everybody get your shit. We're going over here. You'll just follow that guy. You know what I mean? Yeah. But it's not always the most...

Maybe it's just because they're so confident. They're not like, I don't need to prove that I can kick anybody's ass. I don't even get in fights. I have a weapon. It surprises me how those kinds of... like extraordinary experiences and people or extraordinary people don't always manifest themselves and

How they show up. Right, we have caricatures in our head of what these tough people are like. Well, you see that about MMA fighters. There's a lot of MMA fighters. You meet them. They're like the sweetest, nicest, friendliest people in the world. I remember going to one of the events. in LA I think it was at Staples and I was backstage and was talking to one of like the lawyers for the UFC about we were talking about Conor McGregor and he was telling me a great story about him

And this guy walks up and he's in like chinos, like khaki pants and like a blue button up, like, you know, kind of business shirt with spectacles. And he's very small. And I kind of don't really regard him. And I'm still hearing this story. And then Patrick goes, Matt, do you know Henry? And I turn and it's Henry Cejudo. And I'm like, this fucking guy. could wreck me right now. Absolutely fucking destroy me. And he...

And he is the guy that some dummy would try to pick on. Yeah, right. You know what I mean? He's not carrying himself. He just is the thing, you know? You find out a little...

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Unfortunately, yeah. Well, they don't have to prove themselves, right? They do it all the time. The same with Delta Force guys. This idea that this outwardly brash, tough guy, usually that kind of machismo and... That's bullshit. You're using that because you're insecure. The secure people are very calm and genuinely very friendly. Really nice. Yeah, that's been my experience. Yeah, it's crazy, right? You would think beautiful, too. I've kind of like...

What a great guy. And you feel like, that's nice of you to be so sweet to me because obviously you don't have to be. I'll just give you my watch if you wanted that. Yeah. No, it is a fascinating thing. It's like we have these ideas in our head.

caricatures, you know, of what a tough man is, what a good woman is, what a this is, what a that is. And I think one of the beautiful things about film when a film is really good is you see these complex characters and it sort of like reformulates in your mind. like what a person actually is yeah it's seeing all kinds of different people yeah you know and and yeah yeah I completely agree I mean look the fundamental like challenge I think in life and is like it's like to find some

Humility, which means actually thinking you might be wrong about the shit that you're pretty sure about. And it means that like you kind of have to assume somebody else might have a point. You know, it's not like. just writing everybody else off who disagrees with you because, fuck him, he's an asshole. You know, like those are things that actually take work to get to.

Because the first instinct, because you just defend your idea or whatever, it's easier is to just... That it's a zero-sum game somehow. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that two competing ideas can't exist. Or that somebody can't be a good person. And believe it, right, right. Like, if you can decide, you can disagree, we don't believe, I don't know, what about this, what about that? But once you find yourself relying on like, well, I need to like zero out this person's humanity in order to defend my idea.

I think that's a pretty good indicator that there's something wrong with the way you're thinking. Because it can't be that you're right about everything and everyone else is bad who disagrees with you. I think that was one of the most interesting things about The Sopranos. is that the main character, the guy that you loved, was a fucking murderer. Yeah. He would murder his friends. He was a...

a complete mobster and a thug, but you really loved him. You loved the shit out of that guy. You cared about it. It was so complicated. I'm rewatching it. It was my daughter right now. And Jimmy was so good at doing the part that you found yourself being like, I don't know, I think he probably has to kill him now. Yeah.

That's also a great actor. There's a very famous story about Marlon Brando when he did Streetcar Named Desire. And Tennessee Williams, who wrote it, like... freaked out because he was making Stanley Kowalski he was making people empathize with Stanley Kowalski and Tennessee Williams was like but I wrote him as a brute he's this he was like a two-dimensional brute who just came in

beat up his wife and was supposed to be this kind of dark looming force over the play. But Brando was like, no, he's a human being and I'm going to play him like a fucking human being. And it changed the play.

But Williams in all of his writings... That so much more reflects life in the real world. Yeah, exactly. Everybody's the hero of their story. Everyone has the reasons for why they're doing it. And people don't set out to be like, I'm just going to hurt someone or dominate the world. You think, well, I got to protect what I have. It's like...

And, you know, not to bring it back to this movie, but it's like what I liked about Rip was it was kind of the slippery slope. You know, the first time you take a little money. And then, well, you know, I got to cover that. I don't want to go to jail. I didn't know my reason why I did that. But now I've told a lie. Now I got to cover that thing. And now you have guys who both live by this code that's very, hey, you protect the people who are with you and you got to have this fucking.

And so now is to be very similar. like by that kind of slippery slope of ultimately find themselves you know well they kill one another uh because and it's really not i don't i don't believe in that one choice turn it's like more how do you find yourself you dig yourself in a fucking hole because you're just covering up the let trying to fix the last problem that's arisen you know and everybody thinks

is of course the roots for themselves, is like empathize with themselves. That's what we have to be concerned with, ourselves, our needs, our families, our basic shit. It's hard to expect people to go like, all right, and what about, you know? like what they think. And I, and I think that's, I think it's a, it's a much more honest evaluation of people and it allows for like complexity and forgiveness and fucking all the shit that's.

sort of beautiful about people like rather than this notion of like well we're going to be binary good or bad perfect or not whatever and any infraction then it's like permanently stains you Right, that's like what we were talking about earlier about people that have been canceled. You know, that this idea that...

one thing you said or one thing you did and now we're going to exaggerate that to the fullest extent and cast you out of civilization for life. In perpetuity, yeah. It's fucking crazy. Yeah. Because I bet some of those people would have preferred to go to jail for 18 months or whatever and then come out and say, no, but I paid my debt.

Like, we're done. Like, can we be done? The thing about that, you know, getting kind of excoriated publicly like that, it just never ends. And it's the first thing that... You know, it just...

will follow you to the grave, I think. It's also this problem that people have with people that are in the public eye. They have this, like, desire to chop them down, always. You know, and anybody that stumbles in the public eye, they want to destroy their life. And they want to just pile on. And you're not...

there with them you don't feel the empathy you're not talking to they're not a human being it's just text on a screen right it's just like kind of like I was saying like that kind of sixth grade instinct to be like oh he's in trouble you know there's this you know human like

we have dark fucked up instincts too sometimes to like isolate people or get joy out of someone else's they're in trouble because maybe because part of it's saying hey it's not me you know so if you point the finger everyone's looking over there we feel safer you know right But it's like, yeah, and to take any forgiveness out of it.

you know, is a really fucked up thing because then it makes it impossible, A, to actually go, all right, yeah, I did that, fuck shit, that was wrong, I get it, you know, because it doesn't matter. Once you've said you've done it, you become like an outcast, and I don't think anybody... wants to think you know like you're the sum total of who you are is your worst moment right you know it's sort of like

You know, I think you want to be judged just as whether you're capable of doing something good or something beautiful. It's not to say to forget, you know, there's people that just over and over and over and they're doing horrible shit, don't care. I get it. No one's trying to like absolve that.

you remove the ability to sort of forgive people or look at them in a complicated way, or else it's kind of become one of those things that's like, let's get one of ours or one of them, the instinct to get a team, tribal oriented, and it just becomes a sport. Yeah, yeah.

It's also like, who wants to live in a world with no forgiveness and redemption? That's crazy. That's just denying the very nature of human beings. And that people do things that they regret. And then they become better people because of it.

Some of the people I would rely on the most, like trust my kids with the most, have done shit that they really regret. And, you know, what's, yeah, objectively wrong. And other people have been like, I shit, I did that. I fuck it. Whether it's like addiction, I got myself down this fuck. and right did this i did this they're able to go i did it i'm sorry it's real i shouldn't have done it it was wrong

Actually, those people can become someone that's very trustworthy. Yeah. Because you're like, this motherfucker will say if they've done something. They'll actually look at their own behavior. They'll acknowledge it. And then you feel good and you feel much versus someone who tells you like, I always get it right. It's about evolution, right? And in our own personal evolution, and we're all on our own path towards that. The idea of attacking someone, it's like... Oh, so you.

You ace the test, like put your pencil down, like you nailed being human. You're done. If you did nail being human, that's not possible because you forgot about the part about forgiveness. You haven't nailed it by definition.

They're throwing stones. It's most of the people that I find, especially when there's someone that's publicly in trouble for something, most of the people that I know that have attacked people have a lot of questionable shit in their past. And it's almost like they're trying to hide that by going on the attack. That's the thing.

my finger it's like who's gonna be yeah oh he's a good guy Ben's a good guy he's calling them out yeah exactly you know but meanwhile you know if you like

Yeah. It's like you were telling me to see Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out movie. Oh, it's great. And I watched it. I really liked it. I thought it was a really interesting, like... you know i'm not a religious guy i don't like that's you know and yeah i'm aware of all the like okay you know there's the religion then there's people who's rational i thought it was a really beautiful movie about like what's the role of grace

in life you know yeah and and a really honest examination of that like sitting doesn't side by side with yeah okay you don't believe that but like And it's not about whether you're going to argue over fucking evolution. It's about how graceful are you in your life? How much fucking dignity can you afford other people? And are you willing to recognize and see that there's maybe something bigger?

than yourself and that there's a reason to to like to try to sort of be to find that grace to get better you know yeah it was really beautiful and kind of rare and uh really surprised i was really surprised too i i kind of put it on and not you know not not I loved it. Yeah, I loved it too. I think it's one of the best of the three. Yeah, it was my favorite of the three. Those are great. Daniel Craig is great in that role.

He's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, God goes from James Bond to that. And so many other things as well. Josh O'Connor, who played the priest, because I first saw him on The Crown. The Crown, yeah. I liked him a lot. Man, what a... an actor he is.

Really, really good. How much film do you guys consume? Do you spend a lot of time watching films? I mean, do you consider it? Well, with the company, it depends. There's a lot. Like, if we're working, we're watching cuts after cuts and going to the editing room. Like, there's a lot of kind of work around.

all the stuff that we have going that eats into a lot of time. Mostly trying to keep up with what people are doing. My issue is really that... like we've kind of developed this pattern where all these sort of movies that come out and are more interesting and very like they're all jammed out at the last fucking month of the year and so all of a sudden you're trying to race you got homework yeah right i got really lucky like uh recently my son you know 13 society wants to like

watch movies, you know? And I give him shit. I'm like, what are you fucking, we always look on TikTok and shit. Like, let's watch a movie. And, you know, he's kind of blowing me off and rolling his eyes. And he's like, you know, I mean, if you're a dad, you're kind of an asshole fundamentally. Like, come on, you don't know what's going on. You know what I mean?

He told me one time, he was like, Dad, I said, let's watch this movie. I played him the trailer. I can't remember what the movie was. It was a good movie, and the trailer was good. He just looks at it and goes, you know what you guys ought to do? You guys ought to work with some of the TikTok editors.

I was just like, wow. I went and told the editors. I told Billy and Chris. I was like, guys, I got news for you. But now he's like, all right, let's watch. Like, what are some movies I should watch? You got Letterboxd. You got into that thing. You know, it's like.

So I said, okay, what are the great movies? I'll give you a list. I start giving them a list. They started watching them. And so, I mean, this is like heaven for me. So it's like, okay, what are you watching? King of Comedy. Like last week I watched Baxter Driver, King of Comedy, all these Scorsese movies. And it really was like, oh, man, because in my mind, I'm like, sure, I've seen that movie. I know. I watched him again. It was like.

I realized how much better they were than I even could appreciate when I watched it when I was younger. And it really, and it was just the most beautiful fucking experience for me to watch my son, like, taking an interest in it. You know, the older two have always been a little better.

but like, yeah, dad, no, great. Hey, you guys want to come to the premiere? No, not really. You guys want to come to the set? No, I'm good. Well, it's just too much familiarity, you know? You grow up with a dad who's a movie star, just like, meh. The kid's got to, and I get it, you've got to be your own person.

do your thing they have all their own shit and I get you know I never even so I never expected it from my son and I don't know that he's gonna you know and I wouldn't want to lean on him like hey get into the family business most of the time it's just like you know we go to like basketball games baseball all that type of stuff and um but it but this was a really that was like i was like so joyful you know what i mean i sit there and watch movies with my my kid

I was like, this doesn't get better. This is the happiest I may ever be in my whole life. You know, right here, watch this movement. And he's like, well, he's telling me what he thinks. You know, it's just like, honestly, the rest of it, you can fucking keep it. That's awesome. That's the best. Well, it's great that you guys still love film. It hasn't become just a job. It hasn't become a thing that you do, that you really enjoy it and love it.

yeah it was never a job i mean it really like it was it was like the an absolute dream from the time we were kids we did high school theater together you know like that's crazy it was like we're lucky to get it and lucky to The whole idea that you could even, the goal is to make a living. To not have to be like, well, I'm an actor, you know, slash a waiter, contractor, dental assistant, whatever the fuck it is. Like, actually, I can earn money. And we always figured, like...

I don't need that much, especially if we now have kids. Yeah. You know, okay, we can make a living or it's, you know, maybe it's fucking going to be dinner theater or maybe it's going to be right. Maybe it's going to be. There'll be a job somewhere that we can find where we can do this and keep doing it. Yeah.

Well, there's something that I mean, I love when people love things. I spend time on YouTube watching people like. fix watches you know like i don't know why but i i love when people make furniture i love i love watching people do things that they really love that they're invested in i think we all have that thing in us where we see someone who's got a passion for something

someone who really loves it. And that's what everybody really wants in life, to be lost in the thing you love, to have a purpose. Yeah. And it's beautiful. I agree. Watching someone else with true purpose. Yeah. It's hypnotic. It reminds me of Joe versus the Volcano. Do you like luggage, sir? He's like, luggage is the central preoccupation of my life. Guy's a luggage salesman and he fucking loves bags. He loves nothing more than luggage. And it's the greatest scene.

Tom Hanks about that when I did Saving Private Ryan. I was like, can you tell me about that scene? Because we love this scene so much. And he named the actor who's a Broadway actor, I guess, the guy. He came in, he worked for like one day in this scene. And he's so good in that movie. And then at the very end, he's showing them all the lugs.

And Tom Hanks has unlimited money to spend. He thinks he's dying. And so he basically goes like, well, what's the... best luggage and he goes well if you know and he opens if i had the means sir and he opens up this thing and there's this trunk and it's like this music plays and he opens it and tom hanks is like I'll take two of them. And he goes, may you live to be a thousand years old. This is the greatest day of his life. That's amazing. You guys have been in some fucking bangers, man.

Saving Private Ryan, that opening film, the storming of the beach. Unbelievable. That might be the most realistic depiction of war that's ever been made. So I remember reading the script and there was all this dialogue, all this stuff that was written. And I came late because I'm only in the...

He shot it chronologically, and I'm only in the last act of the movie, basically. And he told me on set... i was saying how did i go how did it go the beginning of the you know there's that all that dialogue with them on the boat coming in and and stephen goes he just goes i cut i cut All of that out. He goes, no talking for the first 27 minutes of this movie. Whoa. And that was when I was like, oh my God, this movie is going to be fucking unbelievable.

I think Tom says, like, I'll see you on the beach or something. You know, guys are puking. Look at the man next to you. He's not going to live to you. That was the script, right? Remember that? It was look at the man next to you. He won't live. He's going to die. Two out of three of you are going to die.

to your left look to your right and feel bad for those two sons of bitches because they're not going to make it you know it was stuff like that and steve was just like nope no no these guys are puking they're it's like the things up you just hear you know and it's just like and then just boom and you're into it and

Also, they did this incredible, like cinema changing. Open the shutter. Open the shutter all the way. It took all the motion blur. It skipped the bleach process in developing the film. And I don't know if they're going to 22 or 22.

frames anywhere in there maybe but I just remember maybe it's just the open shutters just it just means that instead of like the motion blur is what makes something that like moves across the frame quickly if you look at each frame It's like a blurred thing, and when you roll those at 24 frames, it gives you the illusion that it moves across fluidly.

And if you basically open the shutter up so you get much more light, each frame takes a super sharp picture. And when you run those together, like the piece of dust goes... And so the mortar explosions are going, and you get that feeling that you're adrenalized and you're seeing, you know what I mean? And it's just, and nobody had ever done it.

He's just a master of the thing. He understood how to use the tools and combined with a great idea. That's just masterful. That's just how you do it. There's nobody who directs movies who doesn't go, ah, it's Spielberg. That's how you do it.

this is like you say one of those things a guy that's passionate and also you know caring about something you know it's con that that with that much passion is kind of connected to greatness yeah and it's i think why we love to see that whether you know sports you know fighting or whatever it is there's something that makes you kind of

love being alive and also love that person when you go fuck like when you see Michael Jordan like there was that whole movie that we did airs really all about like what does it mean to be great and how does it like touch everybody and change everybody and make people want

to fucking improve their own lives because somebody's just better at that thing than anybody else in the world. It's transfixing. I mean, I find that really... fascinating like I you know people who are great at something and the mystery of like well what is that like and what does that do to your life and how did you get that way and what does it take you know and what's the cost because to truly be great at something you have to kind of almost abandon everything

I've seen that in various ways, like in that kind of just empirical personal study. I haven't seen anybody who I think like qualifies for that who didn't also seem to be really suffering.

A hundred percent. You know, and you're like, damn, you should be so happy. You're the greatest. You know, interviewers always go, how do you feel right now? And there's that sense that, like, it's never finished or it's never enough or they can't enjoy it or they're carried. It's a line we put in here where it's like.

And you have to be that thing. You have to be that thing. You know, like it's a kind of a bird too, in a way. 100%. And I just see that. And that's why we want these heroes and people who are great to, I don't know, you know. flourish and have their life and have it all enhanced. There's all this tragedy and all this stuff that happens too.

Yeah, that's like you said, there seems to be a real cost. Well, there's always a massive cost in personal relationships because there's no way you have the time for other things. And the obsession that you have to be the best at something, you have to abandon almost.

all your concern for everything else you have to have this single-minded focus and that comes with a cost for the rest of your life because you damage relationships you feel like a piece of shit and you see that up close and like that's not admirable right no you don't give a fuck about

anybody else no i do i just care about this more you know it's like so imagine that you're making the sacrifices and it's causing this episode is brought to you by simply safe the world can be scary sometimes i mean Take the news, for example. It feels like we hear about something outrageous happening.

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at tecovas.com slash rogan and get 10% off when you sign up for email and texts. That's T-E-C-O-V-A-S dot com slash rogan. injury to people and you know it and you don't want to hurt them but you can't help it and you're getting rewarded for it you know it's

It's complicated, yeah. It's crazy because you inspire all these people that don't know you and you ruin all your relationships. Right, right, right. Maybe that's why I say don't meet your heroes. There's something to it, man. There really is.

But it's just we all grow from it. There's a fuel to watching greatness. There's a thing that hits you and lights you up where you want to do more. You want to be better. Whatever it is that you can do, whatever it is you do. do you become more with whether it's a great game a winning touchdown whether it's a great film yeah a great song yeah yeah it lights you up and it's the fuel that we all live off of that consumes that like we consume to make our culture move forward.

You know, there's like a sacrificial element to it. The people that do it and we all feed off of it. And it feels like, well, that's the person that doesn't get enough out of it. Right. Right. But in great filming, how many lives have been changed by decisions made after. of great films like when I was a kid I think I was like seven or eight or something when Rocky came out and I

I saw it and immediately ran around the block. I've never run in my life. I was eating raw eggs. I'm like, this is going to change my life. There's things that happen when you see something truly great that it makes you want to be better. as a human being. I remember where I was when I saw Denzel Washington play Malcolm X. Went to the movie, watched that movie, and I remember leaving, I don't know, I was 19 or something, thinking, I want to be a better man.

I thought that in my mind because of what I had seen this actor do. That was the only real conscious thought I had, but I remember having it and kind of being surprised by it. And it does. That shit can, you know, it's really touched me. You know, a lot of fucking people's work. And that's why you get that, like...

You know, you see people and you want to let them know, you know what I mean? And tell them. I always think people come to me, oh, I love that movie. I always feel like, ah, you don't have to say that. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. It makes me kind of uncomfortable, and I don't ever, like... put myself in with those figures who I think are like, oh, but there's these these towering giants who have done this, you know, I don't know. It's.

It's, it's, it's, it's, I finally kind of arrived to a place where I was like, it was uncomfortable. Oh, I saw Google hunting. It made me want to. go out to Hollywood and write a script, and I think, oh, shit, I don't know how to go. You know what I mean? Like, you all right, man? At a certain point, I figure, okay, you know what, whatever it is, like, great. Well, it's the cost of your fame, you know, that you have to...

there's going to be a bunch of people that are going to come up to you and want to say those things to you. And wanting them to say those things to you is the opposite of the mindset that you need to make those things. Right, exactly. Which is so counterintuitive.

You think, like, once you become really successful and you make a bunch of great things, it's going to be awesome having all these people come up to you. Like, no, no, no. I'm doing something else right now. And I can't be all wrapped up in the fact that I'm changing your fucking life. And also, I can't be satisfied or take any... I can't fucking join that because I don't think I'm good enough. I need to fucking, you know what I mean? Right, never satisfy. You can't. And that's the...

the darkness of trying to do something great. You'll never be satisfied. You see it in a lot of the fighters, the same kind of thing, the great, great fighters. Well, also, fighters have a very small window of greatness. There's only like a certain amount of years where you can burn the RPMs.

at the red line. And then eventually the knees go, the back goes, you start earlier than other sports. It must be. Yes, I think so. Because like Tom Brady is still elite. I bet he could probably play football right now. I bet he, you know, how old is Tom now? 40s. Seven or eight now, probably. I bet he could still play.

Yeah, I mean, but that's a very specific skill position and the way he played it. Right, but running back, no. Right, right. Cornerback. The elite levels of MMA, especially with USADA testing and now... drug-free sport testing, when they are making sure that people aren't on testosterone and growth hormone and all these different things, like you have nine years. You have nine years at peak performance.

That's legitimate. How long has Jon Jones been going? Jon Jones is a freak of all freaks. Because Jon Jones beat Daniel Cormier when he was on coke. That was one of the funny things he said in the... press conference for the rematch daniel was talking shit he goes i beat you when i was on coke I mean, he was getting arrested. He was partying. When he fought Gustafson, he beat Gustafson, and he didn't train at all. I talked to his trainer. He's like, he didn't even show up at the gym.

never there. He was never training. He could just show up and beat everybody's ass. I saw a thing on my Instagram feed of a fighter and I don't know who it was but he was a heavyweight and... he goes i had the chance to spar with john jones to work with john jones and he goes i

You know, I knew about it months ahead of time. He goes, I got every my nutrition. Everything was absolutely flawless. I got, you know, my sleep. Everything was on. He goes, I show up at the gym that morning. He goes to me and five other guys. He goes, he comes in.

I think he went to sleep at four in the morning or something. He was out all night. And he goes, he ran through all six of us. That's my buddy, Brendan Schaub. Is that who it was? Okay, yeah. It was the funniest story. And he goes, and then I just knew. There's levels. That's a level. But imagine being that elite and realizing there's another level. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Brendan was a top 10 heavyweight, and John wasn't even a heavyweight. John was a light heavyweight.

It was a lower weight class, and he just beat everybody's ass. And he said this was his warm-up. I mean, he has a unique aptitude for MMA, but also he had two brothers that were super. Yeah, I played for the page and Arthur. Yeah, and so these guys are super athletes and

So they're beating the shit out of each other all the time. So they're like constantly in competition with elite athletes from the time he was a child. So he was just so tuned into competition and he was so intelligent. Like his fight. IQ was above and beyond everyone's. And he would study tape meticulously. Well, that spinning kick that he did, where he said he...

And I think he thanked his Taekwondo coach, and he said he had been working on this one specific kick from both sides because of something he saw on the tape. And he got it off and hit this guy so... Hard. Not even on his liver side. He hit him on the other side. And you see it shudder through his entire, like, organ structure. Yeah, his heel was deep into his body cavity. Like, all the way up to his fucking spine. It was so gnarly. Yeah. But he had...

But he just practiced this one specific... And he even said, he goes, it is a devastating shot. There's not a human being who could take that. No, it's like getting hit by a car. Yeah. But getting hit by a car in one spot is your body. You know what I mean? The size of a foot. The size of a 13 foot. Oh, yeah, here it is. Watch this. He sets him up. Boom! It's just...

It's like, yeah, no, it's over, it's over, it's over. And this is John moving up to heavyweight because light heavyweight wasn't a challenge anymore. He decided to become a two-division champion. I mean, John was a freak. You see it rumble through. And by the way, that was almost a little bit glancing because he caught him with a bent leg. Right, right. It wasn't even fully extended, which, you know.

was even more devastating. But John realized that as a heavyweight, he didn't have the power that he had at light heavyweight. And so he said the most powerful kick is a spinning back kick. So I'm just going to work on that kick over and over again because that's the one tool that I have that can knock a heavyweight out with one.

Okay, that's just not just the physicals if he's also like a genius He's also like He's the most meticulous when it comes to game planning and study He will not take a short notice fight even a guy that he could fucking beat Any day of the week. You can wake him up at 3 o'clock in the morning. He can fuck that guy up. He will not take that fight unless he gets a full training camp to prepare for that fight.

Well, it's just, you know, greatness. But John's troubled. You know, John's been arrested a bunch of times and DUIs and all kinds of crazy shit. And he's, you know, he's a wild fella. And, you know, in that pursuit of greatness, I'm sure has cost him. a lot of shit in his personal life. But, you know, when he knocks D-Pay out and then did the Trump dance in front of the whole world, for that moment, he's on top of the world, you know? But then, again, it's like the same thing.

As soon as you get back, what's next? There's another challenge. It doesn't matter how many people love you now. It's not good enough. There's someone else looming. You got to beat this guy.

That seems like a kind of an agonizing thing to both have the complete compulsion to have to get to the next level and the next level keeps fucking moving the goalposts. I'll never forget... I interviewed Matt Hughes after he lost to BJ Penn. He lost the welterweight title to BJ Penn. And I'm interviewing him inside the octagon. He said, I'm going to be honest with you. It was actually a relief.

And he goes, the pressure of being the champion and having someone chasing you for so ever in the whole world, chasing you. He goes, I'm going to be on. I thought it was an incredibly brave moment for a guy to say that who is, you know, just this fucking. amazing human being, this warrior, to say, I just got to be honest, it's a relief. Losing my title feels like a relief. And I was like, wow. That is so...

so brave to be that honest in front of the way. Cause everybody's like, you just got your ass kicked. It's like, I'm, this is a relief. I, you know, I took a burden off my back. I'll be back. I'm going to regroup. But I needed that. I needed to just.

to step off the fucking top of the hill for a little while. Get a breath. Jesus Christ. You've got to be, like, a great, actually, relief to be able to say something like that. It's kind of a gift. Instead of feeling like you've got to hide it or pretend it and go, yeah, I'm not in relief. It's like it was a lot to carry, you know?

the thing about fighting is everything you try to hide gets exposed. You're exposed completely during camp because they're doing these, these round, will they take like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, smoke up. They're taking like, you know, five guys and they're rotating them in with you. So you're doing five rounds with fresh guys. So you got one guy who is fucking warmed up getting, you know.

getting ready for you and then you're fucking out of breath and they'll give you a 30 second break instead of a minute and then they're throwing in these monsters and you know you're exposed you're you're getting beat in training you're getting smothered in training you're you're exhausted

You know, you're always reaching your limits because the only way to surpass those limits is to hit them. You've got to hit them, and then they've got to figure out where their limit is. Okay, next week we're going to do one extra round. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. We're going to do more strength and conditioning. We're going to push you past where. your capacity is right now. So you're always breaking.

You're always at the point where you can do no more because it's the only way to – and you can only maintain that. Like the condition that they get in when they step into the octagon, it's not possible to maintain that. No, right, right, right. You can only get to – You have to aim at that one moment. yeah you have to peak and then if you fuck up and overtrain which a lot of those guys do just because they're such savages they never want to leave the gym

then they don't peak right. And then they come in and they're exhausted. They didn't recover properly. And then in between rounds, they're too tired and they can't go out for the next round. They're too beat up. That happens too. I imagine that level of exhaustion has to be just insane when you overtrain. Oh, God. In an actual championship. And you realize there's no, you can't.

bounce back and this guy is fucking blasting your legs with kicks and hitting you with punches and you can't get out of the way anymore. Who was it? Was it Khabib who said that they should just do 25 minutes? A lot of people said that.

I mean, that's a... Songs are playing? What's going on? I must have just hit my fucking technology. The Teske brothers playing in my pocket. That's hilarious. Sorry about that. Well, Hoist Gracie always said that. That was how he fought in the early days. They just straight 25 minutes. He was like, look, if we're on the ground, I don't want them to stand back up again and go in between rounds. And he goes, I need time to cook them.

That's what he would say. Yeah. I mean, that's what jiu-jitsu is all about. Jiu-jitsu is all about staying one step ahead of you until you become exhausted, and then they eventually finish you. Like a boa constriction. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the real. But, you know, there's this balance of, like, making it interesting for people to watch. I've been a proponent of.

no stand-ups don't ever stand anybody up when a guy takes you down like you get an advantage at the beginning of the round anyway because a striker gets to be standing up when you didn't earn it yeah so you should never get stood up in a fight I don't care if the guy's doing nothing if he's holding you down and you can't get up that's how it should be

it's more realistic but it's the balance of it being a sport people want to watch yeah making it because people get when people grab someone to take them to the ground nothing people go boo you hear the audience and then the referee gets a little motivated and he stands people up and i'm always like

ah, don't stand him up. I never thought of it that way, that the beginning of the round starts to the advantage of the strategy. Always, always, always. You're in a position you didn't earn. You never got back up. I think they should put him right back to where they were at the end of the round. It's not one fight, it's not five fights. So if you start it standing up at the beginning of each round, that's a new fight. Yeah, right.

In a way. What you're pitching, how quickly would the UFC go out of business? Real quick. 30 seconds, they're on the ground, and then it's 24 and a half minutes. Dude, I'm a terrible businessman. I would give the fighters more money. I would fuck up the whole business model. I would get rid of the cage. I would have them all fight in a basketball court.

put mats on the ground in the basketball court. I don't think you should have a cage. I think the cage gets in the way. It becomes a way to get back up because you press your back up against the cage. You use it to stand back up again, and you're in the middle of the center of a mat. It's very difficult to get back up. And that's realistic.

Right. You know, you're using a foreign object to help you perform. Yeah, right. Yeah. But, you know, there's the whole macho thing about people fighting in a cage and it's like they lock you in there. Yeah. It's just. But, I mean, in terms of – like inspirational performances and things that you when you see like the human spirit elevated to the the highest possible place when two very skilled men or women are fighting in a cage where they prepared for this

for three fucking months. And then the referee's like, are you ready? Are you ready? Let's go. And it's like that moment. It's not like anything else in all sports. I think that's the moment that people show up for. Yeah. Because they build the intensity. It's the same with the old Tyson fights or whatever. Oh, yeah. Now it's going to happen. Yeah. And you can't help but have that feeling.

And yes, some fights end up being disappointing, whatever, but that moment is always there. Well, Tyson was a crazy example of what we were talking about with greatness because you could dedicate your whole life. You could fucking get up in the morning at the right time.

all the right foods you could do all the right training but then you see that fucking guy you're like oh no there's nothing I can do I have no chance you know if I look at him too he had just a look in his eye he was one of the only fighters where you just the other guy was scared. Usually they at least hold themselves together where they come off like, oh, I don't know, this guy looks pretty tough.

Guys would fight Tyson and just would start and they'd feel that moment too. Oh shit, they're letting this tiger out and here he comes. And it was like... Well, we're old enough to remember when he was in his prime and those fights were like executions. He didn't want to pay for the pay-per-view because he was so fast. I swear, I mean...

I mean, Jamie might be able to prove me wrong, but I'm pretty sure that they cut to Alex Stewart and they cut to his wife and she was crying. And this is when they're coming to the center of the ring. But by the way, for good reason, like this man might kill my husband.

Right. You know what I mean? We're certainly going to beat the fuck out of him. And she knows it. And the world knows it. And the guys were ready to quit. Remember that dude, Hurricane or whatever? White kid who fought him? Pete McNeely? Yeah, his guy couldn't wait to throw the towel in. He had it ready. You know what I mean?

I need to go, all right, that's it. The bell rings. He picks up the table. You got one job. Save your guy's life. You know what I mean? McNeely's fucked up now, too. When you hear him talk, it's rough. It's rough to hear. Oh, really? Yeah, I saw him get interviewed recently. That's the dark side of the sport, of MMA.

fighting you know you talk like i had johnny knoxville on here yesterday and johnny knoxville was knocked unconscious 16 times yeah that's what i said and i'm like holy shit man and he seems normal like he doesn't seem like he's got brain Now, when you're talking to guys and you know they have brain damage, they're slurring their words and they're still fighting. Their words all mumble together like you have no idea how much they're struggling. And they're going to be struggling.

a downhill slope for the rest of their life. It's not going to get better. It's going to get way worse. Because the real brain damage occurs like 10 years after the injuries. That's what it really sets in. It just keeps getting worse. I mean, there's some therapies that they can do now. They do, and Knoxville did some of it, like this magnetic therapy that they do that re-stimulates neuron growth. And oddly enough, mushrooms, like psilocybin has been shown to regenerate.

cure a whole bunch of shit. I know. Well, probably always has. All of a sudden, they're acknowledging it. Well, one of the things that's opening the doors for them to acknowledge it is soldiers. Because it's always been kind of like a left-wing thing. be into psychedelics but all these soldiers are coming back with ptsd and drug addiction and a lot of cte from you know

bombs blowing up and IEDs and concussions. And the only thing that's helping them is psychedelics. So it's kind of like in Texas, former governor Rick Perry has started the Ibogaine initiative. So they're using Ibogaine to help all of these different soldiers.

which is ironically the drug that Hunter S. Thompson claimed Ed Muskie was on when he was running for president. Oh, really? Yeah, remember when he sank Ed Muskie's? What is Ibogaine? It's from the aboga tree, and it is a psychedelic that is in no way...

It is a very difficult experience. It's not fun for anybody. It's like a 24-hour trip. I haven't done it, but my friends that have done it say that it's basically like you see your entire life play out before you. You see where... all your problems come from you see where all of your emotional hitches are yeah and

With addictions, it has an 80%, I think it's 84%. With one treatment, they quit whatever they're hooked on. What? Not only that, it rewires the brain. So the physical pathways to addiction, like someone who's addicted to opiate. gone completely severed so you literally don't have a physical addiction to opiates anymore so with one treatment 80 plus percent of people that's incredible with two treatments it's in the 90s that's amazing it's amazing and it's been illegal

You know, since like 1970 in this country, the sweeping psychedelics. Rick Perry has like a clinic or whatever. Well, Rick Perry, because he's worked with soldiers and because he's worked with a lot of veterans that, you know, and he's a very compassionate and intelligent man. He realized like, OK.

maybe I'm wrong about all this psychedelic stuff. And so he started getting behind this Ibogaine initiative. They passed it in Texas and now they're doing it with soldiers and they're going to do it with police officers. And I mean, police officers experience more PTSD. good friend who was a cop in Austin and he said and he was also in the military and he said what I saw in the military was nothing compared to what I saw as a police officer really because I was seeing

death and violence on a daily basis. He goes, when you're deployed, he goes, yeah, you're going to see some horrible shit, but you're going to see some horrible shit mixed in, you know, over a course of time where, you know, you go out and things go live. He goes like...

Every day. Every day you're going directly to somebody who's having the worst moment of their life. And every day you're pulling someone over and they might shoot you. Like you have no idea. You're pulling up to tinted windows. You don't know what the fuck is going on. You're running the plate. The license is...

expired you have no idea who's who's in the car you don't you don't know anything and you've seen all the videos we've all seen videos of cops getting shot down like when they're pulling over a car we've all seen it and so these guys are living with this fucking ptsd all the time

And then they have to live in real life. They're supposed to go home and they're supposed to just be a normal dad and a normal neighbor. And their fucking head is just a hurricane of chaos. And Ibogaine has been very beneficial for those people to just sort of. come down and try to find the root of all this stuff and get them off pills and get them on the straight. That's great. It's amazing. I don't know why we got into mushrooms. Well, Ibogaine. Because...

During the presidential elections, he started spreading these rumors. And it's in the documentary. What is that documentary? Is it Fear and Loathing? Gonzo. Gonzo, that's right. In that documentary, Gonzo, he talks about it, so he's getting interviewed by Dick Cavett. And he goes, yeah, there was a rumor running around that Ed Muskie was on Ibogaine, and I knew about it because...

Started that rumor The guy completely cracked so like this guy was like a front-runner for the president and he fucking completely cracked because everybody thought that he was on drugs because hunter s thompson was just running around like saying there's brazilian witch doctors who are coming in to treat this guy it's crazy that's great they were like and hunter would know But it's crazy that he chose Ibogaine, too, because Ibogaine is like...

it's not a recreational drug and it's not a drug of addiction. It's literally a drug that stops addiction. No, but he was the guy that would have the full, the whole book's full of these esoteric drugs you've never heard of that he mentions in a really casual way. Yeah, of course, four of us stopped to get Ibogaine.

at the one gas station that sold it between needles and nothing. Yeah, sure. No, of course you do. But it does help people that have brain damage as well. It's supposed to, like... cause some sort of neuro regeneration. There's stuff out there that can help people but a large percentage of these fighters are silently suffering and we don't ever hear about it.

They say like it's supposed to be that it's like the argument is is because it's you know, they're not using a glove like that football supposed to be where I mean, wasn't that the sort of rationale that like.

you were going to have less impact in boxing because the boxing gloves. No, but remember, it's like the sub-concussive blows. It's not necessarily the one-shot knocking you out as much as the repeated kind of like small... like a little bit of brain I'm sure that's like they're all bad for you you know what I mean like a version of knocks to the head are not a good thing to be avoided yeah

Well, it's also what you take in training, too. We're only considering what happens during a fight. If a guy has 40, 50 MMA fights, that's 40. How many rounds does he have right in the gym? Oh, training camp is fucking brutal. And depending upon how intelligent your camp is.

Like some people are really smart and they'll spar where they're not hitting each other hard. And then maybe one day of the week they go live, but you do a trusted, you know, they're, they're very close to you. These are people that you care about and love. So they're not going to try to hurt you on purpose.

not like sometimes you're in a hostile gym and you know you got to spar with people you don't even know they're from other countries you have a big name they're trying to take you out you know it's um but the the amount of damage these guys take me I don't know if football's better or worse. The thing about football is... the big impacts are way worse. Because when you've got a 300-pound super athlete that's fucking full tilt. All the way from across the field.

Boom! Running start. Yeah. You're getting hit by a truck. And that, but that doesn't, it's not targeted necessarily at your head. So it's like, what? What is better and what is worse? You know, boxing's bad. You know, it's like you have less options. MMA's slightly better because especially if you're a grappler, you can take guys down and you can beat them up on the ground. But it's ultimately... You're paying a price. Make a fucking living. Yeah. Sure.

But for that glory, for that one moment when they win and the fucking 16,000 people are on their feet screaming, there's probably no drug like that that could ever reproduce it. And those guys chase that high for their entire life. And then after it's over, they feel oddly detached. Right. And nothing ever rises to that level again. Right. You can make films until you're 100 years old. You can make great films forever. You can do the thing that you love forever. They have a little window.

A little window of greatness. That's the really tough thing about being an athlete. We were talking to Pete Sampras that time we met Sampras years ago. And he was like, we were probably, I don't know how, we were 30, he was 32 or something like that. And he was kind of, we were like, oh my God, you know, he had all these fucking, you know, wins and grand slams. And he had a kind of vaguely like, yeah, he was like, yeah, you guys look, I'm about to retire.

it's i'm finished and we're you know young guys we're you know just getting started you know what i mean like we're also the thing is you get better at your job the more you do it yeah you know and so it's that thing with the athlete yeah i was having this conversation the other day it's like you have all the physical skills at the beginning but you become a better

better at your sport as your skills are declining. The body just doesn't want to do it anymore. You've got to just become Greg Maddox and compensate with all the tricks and location. And that's why that drama of the aging athlete is so powerful. Do we still have it in me? Can I still do it? Is what I've learned enough to compensate for what I've lost?

you know well there's an interesting story about Vitor Belfort so Vitor Belfort was he won the UFC heavyweight tournament when he was 19 years old that was like the first event I ever worked at in 1997 I mean he was like One of the all-time greats, for sure. But as he was getting into his 30s, he was starting to decline. Then the UFC allowed fighters to use testosterone replacement therapy.

Boy, did he fucking use it. I don't know what his levels were, but they were like superhuman levels. And there was a moment in time. For a few years, well, they allowed him to use testosterone therapy. And people refer to it as the TRT Vitor years because he was fucking terrifying because he has the mind of a veteran. Incredible amount of experience. But now his body.

is moving like a 25-year-old. And so he was just annihilating people, just lighting people on fire. So they're not allowed to use testosterone? No, they can't use anything. No. How about peptides? Can they use peptides? Nope. Nope, not even peptides. They're trying to take that and reform that.

There's a lot of ignorance about peptides, what they actually do. I mean, all it's allowing you to do is soft tissue injuries, heal quicker and optimize your body's ability to produce hormones. So instead of adding exogenous hormones, you're allowing your body to produce them more naturally. And it just makes you more healthy.

For a very unhealthy job where you're getting hurt all the time, it's going to be better for the sport, better for the athletes to allow them to all use it. And it's also – there's no long-term damage that's going to do like steroids where it shuts down your endocrine system. So I hope they reform it. But the idea was that there's so many fucking loopholes and so many people cheat.

Big camps used to hire scientists. So they had a scientist on staff that was not only... What did he do? Yeah, exactly. Not only procuring stuff that... that would slip by the test because there's like you know the balco stuff with barry bob the clear clear there's there's stuff probably right now

that people are using that's slipping through. And there's a lot of experts that have, like, one of the things is animal-derived testosterone. So testosterone, they use a carbon isotope test, I think, I believe that's what they use, to figure out where the...

testosterone came from so if your testosterone is like at a very high level they test all your other ratios they go well no it all seems likely he's just he's an outlier he just has naturally high testosterone but testosterone that you get from like synthetic testosterone is derived from a wild yam.

Believe it or not. Really? Yes. It's not animal-derived testosterone. So the composite of it varies when they run the tests on it, and they can determine. They can determine that it's yam-based testosterone. It's exogenous, not endogenous. It's a yam, and they're fighting. It's not happening.

can figure out a way to, and there's a lot of proof of concept to this, can they figure out a way to extract testosterone from animal sources? Bull testosterone? Something like that. Well, the taurine. They used to inject Hitler with taurine. You know, Hitler was like a fucking guinea pig for this one doctor who tried a bunch of shit on him. And one of the things they did was, like, inject him with bull testicles and stuff to try to keep him virile. Yeah, but...

But there probably are athletes right now that are using some shit that they haven't figured out yet. Give them any loopholes at all. They're like, no, no, no. Fucking no loopholes. No IVs. No nothing. No IVs. No IVs. Vitamins and. Right. But the problem with IVs is you can mask testosterone and mask. steroids by over flooding the body with liquids. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then when you piss... So the ratio is hot because you add more water. Yes, you would just fill them up with...

saline, and then when they go to piss, like, nope, clean. Look at the ratio. Because it's like so much water is being processed through the body that it doesn't have time to show the testosterone. So there's a way to mask it, especially with things that you would add to the IV.

So there's no – you can't – it's only food and approved supplements through like really high-level labs like Thorne, like Thorne supplements where it's third-party tested. So they don't – they can't do anything. But for a while – They let him do it. And those TRT Vitor days were my favorite fights to watch. Did they stop doing fighting because they thought it was like advantaging certain people or shit happened that they're like, this is fucked up? Well, look at the difference. That's TRT Vitor.

left and that's him on the right when they made him get off of it. Look at the difference. Jesus. I mean, that's fucking stunning. On the left though, dude. That motherfucker was terrifying. When Luke Rockhold fought him, he told me, he goes, dude, when I stood next to him at the fucking weigh-ins, he had muscles on his teeth. He goes, this fucking dude was so jacked. He was so scared. I was like, what the fuck is he on? Because he knew he was on something. It's just, it's cheating.

It really is because you can jack your levels way above a normal human beings because that's what a lot of guys— There was a few fighters that were pulled from cards because, like, say if a really high level is like 1,100, they were testing like 1,800. 1900 they were like

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people that have never lived before. They were like a science project. They had different species. And they were insane confidence. Insane confidence. Because they were essentially like a raging gorilla. They were just insanely confident. And it's just so fire. up. They couldn't wait to smash somebody because they were just fucking maniacal. They were a berserker. So it's not a person anymore. Now you're a science project. There are rare outliers like Tyson when he was in his prime.

physical specimens and like that's part of the game but that's God you know that's nature this is not you know Balco labs and so They won't allow him to do anything anymore. And that's why. It's because too many... And Vitor was one of the guys that tested way over the line. And then they just decided... But that's what they're going to do. If you say it's legal, they're just going to take as much as possible. Some of those good, more is better.

And you know, yeah, if you say you did one CC a week, they're like I heard five and these guys are just training five times a day and they never get tired and they recover like that So and then they never have to worry about soft tissue injuries because they heal like you're a fucking sick You know, you just...

Your body just like— You're like fucking Wolverine. Yeah. Oh, yeah, man. Well, that's the thing about peptides, too, the Wolverine stack. BP-157 and TB-500. I don't know if you ever get injured. If you ever get injured, get immediately on BP-157 and TB-500.

I didn't hear about TB-500. What's that one? Thymosin Beta 500. Oh, yes. In conjunction with BPC-157, it is a fucking phenomenal stack. And it just really helps injuries. I didn't know they called it the Wolverine stack. That's what they call it, the Wolverine stack. For healing? Yeah.

I was talking to a pro football player who pulled his hamstring. He's like, dude, I shot that shit right into my hamstring for two weeks and I was right back on the field. I was like, that's nuts. I go, what is a normal rehab? He goes, three months.

He goes, in two weeks, I was back on the field. I go, what the fuck? He goes, I don't know how bad the injury was. He goes, but to me, it's like, fuck. I pulled my hamstring. I'm fucked now for X amount of days. He goes, and two weeks later, I was playing full tilt.

I'm like, that's nuts. And going right into the area of the injury. Right into it. Some people think you don't have to do that. They think it's systemic, so you just stick it in your fat on your side. But he's like, no. And most athletes will tell you the best benefit is local. shoot it locally into the area.

And it just has... Like cortisone or whatever. What is the... Yeah, cortisone. But cortisone just masks it. That numbs it or whatever. Not only that, it has a tendency, if you do it too many times, to weaken tendons. Yeah. Yeah, and so it could actually exacerbate... the problem because it takes away the pain. It takes away the pain but...

I mean, you know, then there's the enhanced games that are coming out in Vegas this year. I know. My friend had that idea a long time ago. He was like, you should just do the drug Olympics for cash. He goes, do it in Vegas for cash. And then the enhanced games. They're doing it. I sent them a day. I was like, they're doing it.

Yeah. I'm down. Let's see what a human being can do. That's what I think. I mean, look, when Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa and those guys were cracking out home runs, it was one of the most exciting times of baseball. It was pretty exciting.

That's why they didn't do anything. Right. They knew it wasn't a fucking mystery to anybody. Right. But Avery's tuning in. Look at the Bash brothers. Right. Baseball on a strike. You know, they almost fucking destroyed that league. And then people started watching. Yeah, they brought it back. And then Bonds is like, well.

these two fucking guys are hitting this many home runs. I'm the best player in baseball, which he was. And when he did it, it lights out. You know what I mean? He had a year where he only swung and missed 26 times.

162 games. Three and a half at-bats a game. Only swung and missed. I mean, that's just... you know and yeah mcguire get like just like move his wrist to get the ball out of the park and it was like it was fun to watch and when people say like steroids don't make you a better athlete oh they don't maybe don't make you a better yeah yeah but if you're a fucking barry if you're already an

elite athlete. If you let John Jones do all the juice he wants, he'd be fighting until he's 50 and fucking people up. If you say, John, we've really come to our senses. This sport's all about excitement. I want to give the people what they want. Let's People make informed choices based on their own discretion. Welcome back. Welcome back. Then John looks like Vitor in that picture. He'd be undefeated. By the way, John beat Vitor when Vitor was in his prime. And Vitor caught John in a full...

arm bar, totally locked his arm out, hyperextended it, popped it, went backwards. You can see the video of it. His elbow is going that way. He wouldn't tap and then beat him in the next round. With one arm. Yep. One arm. Fuck his arm was fucked for like a year after that Yeah

Yeah. Give that man some steroids. Let's see what he can do. Steroids. Let him be the king of the world. Yeah. The dream team. It's like, you know, the first time the pros went to the Olympics, whatever, the year 92. Oh, yeah. It won every game by 70 points. Yeah. It wasn't close, but it was.

Hell of a lot of fun. It was fun to watch. Well, the argument for that made sense, though, because, like, these other people are being compensated in their countries. Oh, yeah. I had no problem. And then, by the way, now it's got more. That last Olympic championship, that was a great game against France. That was fabulous, you know? I mean, yeah, they're going to...

wreck some smaller countries and stuff but okay that you're playing pros they're playing pros the whole definition of amateurism has gotten a little bit like you know yes it's it's it's like people find like a convenient definition of it according to what's their you see in college sports

is changing and stuff like look i got no problem if you're going to apply the rules evenly but sometimes when it feels like it's just an excuse to like for the ncaa to make a billion dollars off the tv deal i'm like no no you guys you're getting you're getting education right it's like a little bit like yeah you know education you guys make a lot

of money because people want to see Nebraska play. It's exploitation. Yeah, and I'm glad they've changed that with college sports because these guys are the reason why you're filling up the seats, and they deserve that money. Not even one of them is going to be in the NFL.

You know what I mean? Some of them, that's their window to make that fucking money. You know what I mean? Like, it's hard. It's hard. And the risk of catastrophic injury is always there. It's constant. Constant, yeah. And the metrics, it's like, what is it? two two and a half year career or something yeah depending on your position but

I mean, it's such a long sense. That seems just fair and obvious. You can pay a kid to flip a cheeseburger out of college, but not to, like, you know, come on. Well, that's the great thing about doing something where you're not relying on your body, like acting. Yeah. You could kind of do it for a while. ever you know keep going until you lose it you know it's really yeah it's great and it's got its own competitive aspect and it's a lot of course but

Like, okay, great. If you get a really bet on yourself and then the expectation is, well, I got to do something that's interesting enough that people want to watch it. Well, that's the proposition. How do you guys decide?

like, on projects that you choose? Like, I'm sure you have so many options now. Like, what makes you say, this is what I'm going to spend the next six months doing? It's really, I mean, there are a bunch of different factors. Like, the director is... being the most important one but if you read a script and like we've read so many thousands and thousands of scripts and written so many scripts and worked on so many movies that if we read something and it

It's that thing we were talking about earlier. You know, you get that kind of emotional, something happens when you read it. You go, okay, well, then you pay attention to it, maybe read it again, go, wait a minute. you know if it if it moves you in that in that way then you know ultimately the big decision is saying yes because because you're going to spend the last point over which you have

Total control. Right. And then you're in. Then you're in. And you're in whether it's good or bad. I mean, I've been on those movies where I knew a month into a six-month shoot that, like, this is not going to work. And that is the fucking worst. What is that like? It's the worst. I came to think of that. They're going to shoot us all when it comes out. It's all bad. It's going to be 80, 16 hours.

days in a row and then a post-production period that's going to be pretty fraught and then it's going to come out and we're going to get fucking crazy.

And then you're going to have to sell it. You're going to have to walk the fucking plank and sit down with access. You know what I mean? Like, so, saw the movie. How important is that stuff still today?

Like the press stuff. Is that still important? It is. I don't know to what degree each specific thing is. It's kind of ironic because we were talking about coming on this show today. I remember we were saying, I was like, doing this show, it would be more meaningful than the rest of the shit we do.

aggregate to promote this movie. Like, we spent this whole week in New York doing, you know, I don't know how many interviews, you know, the quick ones with all the outlets. 105-minute interviews, all the evening shows, the day shows. Yeah, all that stuff. And this just... given how many people listen to the show.

will be more meaningful we think i mean that's our we were speculating historically right if you look at it that's it because they've changed to like all of it feels kind of produced and forced and advertised and and people have become resistant to anything that

feels kind of like a gimmick and a shtick, and you go on and you do your song and dance, and they say the thing, it looks great, and nobody cares. Like, they're looking to go, either because somebody they know says it's interesting, or somebody that they, is trusted, and a trusted person is in, like you said, your feed, right?

it's your friend or your your cousin or or they affix that to somebody which has become a more rare thing like who's a like a legitimate neutral arbiter right who i can't predict what they're going to say before i go there there are a few of those fewer and fewer of those people in the world even those are proliferation of more and more voices And it's kind of paradoxical, like...

The form of entertainment is getting shorter and shorter and shorter. So you're like a seven second, you know, we're an advertising company. We do most of the spots that we release, like 15 second spots, six second spots for social, the ones most people see. And then there's this one form.

which is like long form discussions that are whatever, two hours long. And the amazing thing to me is, you know, in a world where it seems like you can't get people to pay attention more than, you know, a few seconds, there's a kind of a hunger for that. So there's like...

this form and that's why you see these are getting more popular obviously have this massive audience and it's and it's kind of flying in the face of the whole other trend and i think and i don't know that it probably has something to do with like Who do I think is authentic? And am I actually willing to extend...

My two hours of my time to sit there and listen through and that an argument that people probably do appreciate and understand conversations that have context and nuance and where there's like a back and forth. They're just much more selective.

about who they're willing to kind of give that sort of voice to in their life it's also the voice of the public too because when people start talking about things online and things go viral online and people just start like saying how great they love the film or how great this album is or something like that it just takes off organic now and that has more more weight than anything right you feel like somebody else who obviously has no

dog in the fight is go hey this is great you should see it i'm the same thing if i hear somebody tell me like you know who i respect hey you got to see that thing that means more to me than anything right because i believe that and so if the closer you can get to that which is why i think the act

of a like telling the same you know like telling the same like story about you should go see the movie to a bunch of people with a certain like limited reach it's just it's just not that efficient but you have to because it's like well we sat down with our own And you kind of do that ostensibly because it means a little bit more in that market. But I think ultimately it's like more and more people realize they're being sold to. See through the...

fucking act and this sort of bullshit. They recognize that... You know, you go out and sell every movie, you know what I mean? The good and the bad. And then we got to decide, well, which one and who can you count on? Well, it's mostly going to be that like the word of mouth, your friend. And now you can see that person in your media experience, you know.

Yeah. And I think it's also we know that when you're sitting down with extra or they say, like, that's just their job to sit down with people. They're not doing it because they want to. Right. You know, it's like. They got told, go talk to that person. And we got told, go talk to them. So they go do the ritual, and they say the thing they say, and we say the thing we say.

And everyone goes home and says we did our job. That's the benefit of an independent podcast is that like with me, I don't talk to anybody I don't want to talk to. It's just like I literally do the whole thing on my phone. I go, oh, yeah, that sounds cool. And that's it. But like that.

I think means a lot. At least this person is making this choice. And I've listened to it a bunch, and I actually find myself agreeing with it a lot of the time, so all right, I'll give it a shot. I think also this format, at least I know why it...

Why I started listening to podcasts was because in the world, like the divisive kind, the way everybody was talking, these sound bites and all this shit, and it was just like the ability to just listen. human beings talk often who had different points of view but like had a civil conversation was like was such a welcome thing you know given the kind of the hysterical kind of you know uh frenzy of of of of divisiveness that's kind of it just feels it's just like you know

It's like if I open my phone and look at the news, it's like, fuck. It's like put it down. It's like I feel my cortisol level go up. And to actually hear people, listen to people I know I don't agree with, but listen to them and just – Just think about it. You know what I mean? Approach life with a little bit of humility. Hold on to what you believe, obviously, but keep listening.

It's also there's not a lot of opportunities in the real world to have long conversations with people. So people are kind of starving for that. I know. Isn't it funny that this has become the shared cultural, like, we listen to that podcast and then actually experience that. And also, why don't people trust the media? Well, because the media doesn't do that, because they compress it, and because the truth, it's money.

Because actually doing that is not with money. It's just ratings and the perceived idea that, like, well, if you simplify it or you position it one way or you engender outrage, that's simple. Or just, you know, pure one-sided ideas that are... that are simple. But the news...

used to be the idea was, look, here's the FCC. We're going to let these networks broadcast their shows and make money on it. But here's the deal. You got to give an hour of that and lose money on that hour to tell the news and try to tell it objectively. Then it started to be, no, you got to make money for that hour, too. And if you're going to make money, that's a different incentive than tell the truth or reporters or any of those things. And people try to.

hybridize them, but at the end of the day, you're a more successful reporter if more people watch you because advertisers pay more, and then they're doing the same thing, looking at their data, what are people watching, what kinds of stories. And I think this is simple answers because you're just making it into a profit game. Those incentives are not aligned with just trying to get down to like even reporting basic facts.

Yeah, it was a weird time. It's like we have more access to information than ever before, but so much of it is just horseshit. Yeah. You know, it's hard to stay balanced. And I think that's why it's good to listen to the people just talk. And then you recognize the flaws in their thinking. You feel ego. You feel deception, bullshit.

It's true. People will reveal themselves. We actually don't need that many editorialists to be constantly telling us what to think and how to think. People actually have pretty good instincts. If someone's bullshitting, eventually they'll kind of hang themselves. Like you said, you'll get that vibe.

after a while he kind of started repeating his shtick and I kind of didn't really talk about what I was wondering about and You form your own. That's like forming your own judgment. Pete Buttigieg actually talked about that being dangerous on podcasts. He's like, because you go on there and you have your points, but you'll get revealed.

Over the course of a few hours, you can only stick to these lines. Yeah, you can only be talking points and bullshit. And then what happens is people just... There was an art to look at how great they're communicating. They stick to the message and they do their points.

Okay, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, but any longer than that, it just starts to look like a fucking robot on, you know, and like I said, what we need to follow through with, you know, like, yeah, no, I saw you do the same hand gesture and the same bit with that, but I'm... Sometimes you find out they're full of shit just by having them talk about other things.

You know, like, tell me, do you like cooking? You know, like, just like, and then you just see, like, some concocted... They're thinking, what makes me look good about cooking? Exactly! Well, I'll tell you what, because what would the focus group say? That's exactly it! Do I cook or do I not? Does that make me feminine or does it make me open to cultural? Yeah. What do you like to cook, man? I don't cook. Well, that's the other thing about people that are online too much is they're so...

concerned with other people's opinions, that they don't have enough time to formulate their own. They're just so concerned with how people are going to perceive everything you say that you're like handcuffed. You're like terrified to misspeak. Right, right. I think that in general is a real fucking danger. I mean, we were talking the other day, we were saying about one of the benefits of getting older and doing this for a long time is...

You realize, like, nobody really gives a shit as much about you as you thought. You know, you just kind of, nobody gives a fuck. Nobody remembers. You spend your 20s and 30s thinking, like, this is really important. And then you realize no one fucking cares. I'm not going to come off. What's going to be? No one actually cares. It's not that big a deal. Nobody.

Most people are mostly worried about themselves and their life. Yeah. Yeah, there's this illusion that they pay a passing moment of attention or it's in some story or something. It's like, you're fucking staring at it because it's about you. Right. You know, you said that about me. Nobody else really cares. And if they do, they're usually fucked up. Like something's wrong. Why are you concentrating on this other person's life? You're probably trying to ignore your own bullshit.

Well, listen, man, your movie's fucking awesome. I've loved so much of you. your films over the years. So it's been really cool to be able to have you guys in here and talk about this. It's been great. Thanks for having us. Two very normal, nice movie stars. You guys are cool as fuck. Give us a couple more hours. Yeah, exactly. I enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed the rip. It's fucking great. Everybody, go see it. It's great. I loved it. Thank you. Thanks for being here. It's a pleasure. Bye, everybody.