Will Sasso: Comedy, MADtv, AI, Friendship, Madness, and Pro Wrestling

00:00:00.000 | Once this whole thing falls apart

00:00:01.720 | and we are climbing the kudzu vines

00:00:04.020 | that spiral up the Sears Tower,

00:00:05.460 | like they say in Fight Club,

00:00:06.980 | Bobby will go back to his gatherer form

00:00:09.160 | and be happy as a pig in shit,

00:00:11.300 | just walking around in a loincloth

00:00:12.700 | with his bird hanging out,

00:00:14.100 | tracking jokes to people and climbing up on them

00:00:16.300 | for a stool lap dance or whatever he does.

00:00:18.540 | - You think some level of crazy is required for comedy?

00:00:21.940 | - Yeah. - Like at some point?

00:00:24.100 | - Yes.

00:00:25.540 | - Have there been low points in your life?

00:00:27.740 | - Yeah, you know.

00:00:28.980 | - Yeah, you know, hey, hey.

00:00:30.740 | - Eh? - Yeah, right?

00:00:31.580 | (laughing)

00:00:33.820 | - The following is a conversation with Will Sasso,

00:00:38.820 | a comedian, actor, podcaster,

00:00:41.500 | and someone I've been a fan of for many years

00:00:44.140 | since Mad TV in the late '90s

00:00:46.940 | to recently with the 10 Minute Podcast

00:00:50.340 | and now the new podcast called Doodzie.

00:00:54.620 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:00:56.420 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:00:58.300 | in the description.

00:00:59.500 | And now, dear friends, here's Will Sasso.

00:01:02.920 | So let's call it the elephant in the room.

00:01:06.780 | You wore a black suit in a recent episode of Doodzie.

00:01:10.740 | - Yes.

00:01:11.580 | (laughing)

00:01:13.300 | - You wore a black suit again today.

00:01:15.320 | Shakespeare, then Mark Twain said, "Clothes make the man."

00:01:18.740 | What kind of man does a suit make you?

00:01:22.300 | - Well, me in particular, it makes me a fellow

00:01:25.380 | who did not get this dry cleaned in between

00:01:28.340 | 'cause that episode of the show as we sit here now

00:01:30.920 | was around a week ago.

00:01:32.580 | So that's the kind of man it makes me.

00:01:35.180 | - Well, the nice thing is you're wearing pants, I think.

00:01:38.260 | - Yes, I am wearing pants.

00:01:39.100 | - I don't think you were wearing pants in the episode.

00:01:41.420 | - That's correct.

00:01:42.240 | I prefer to wear shorts, but this was a special occasion,

00:01:45.140 | so I'm wearing pants.

00:01:46.620 | And I thought it fitting, obviously,

00:01:48.500 | to just wear the black tie.

00:01:51.140 | And clothes do make the man.

00:01:53.020 | And I would not consider myself to be a man of leisure,

00:01:56.980 | but I do enjoy shorts 'cause my legs get hot.

00:02:00.940 | So that's what kind of man the shorts make me.

00:02:02.620 | - How often do you wear a suit?

00:02:03.940 | - I fucking hate wearing suits.

00:02:05.460 | - So what is this, a statement of, is it ironic?

00:02:09.100 | Or are you honoring the gods of this particular podcast?

00:02:12.060 | - I'm honoring the gods of this particular podcast

00:02:14.100 | would be a good way to put it.

00:02:15.260 | Yes, no, this is in reverence of and in dedication to you

00:02:19.860 | and our newfound friendship here,

00:02:21.860 | which we are making on the podcast.

00:02:25.980 | You and I just met.

00:02:27.380 | Everything that we're saying here

00:02:28.500 | are the first things that we're saying to each other.

00:02:31.080 | So I'm meeting you on common ground, dressed like--

00:02:33.780 | - Well, I've been actually a one-way friend of yours

00:02:36.120 | for many, many years since "Mad TV."

00:02:38.140 | - Oh.

00:02:39.100 | - When did you start on "Mad TV?"

00:02:40.300 | So that was, I mean, in '90s?

00:02:42.220 | - '97, yeah.

00:02:43.060 | - '97.

00:02:43.980 | So I was a huge fan of yours, and the cast was incredible.

00:02:46.620 | It was one of the funniest shows ever created.

00:02:48.980 | Your whole journey watching through that

00:02:50.980 | was incredible from "Mad TV" to "Three Stooges"

00:02:53.220 | to the podcast, the 10-minute pod,

00:02:57.060 | and then the new podcast is incredible.

00:02:59.360 | - Cheers.

00:03:01.260 | - My favorite role that you played

00:03:02.820 | was the mountain in the game of "Thrones."

00:03:05.940 | What was it like working with dragons?

00:03:08.100 | - Well, the dragons are usually tennis balls

00:03:11.060 | on the end of C-stands, but sometimes they hang out.

00:03:16.060 | - What's a C-stand?

00:03:18.860 | - It's like, you know, it's like a little like the thing

00:03:20.580 | you got the camera on here.

00:03:21.660 | - Oh, this is like film lingo.

00:03:23.020 | - Yeah, no, I understand.

00:03:23.980 | I'm trying to impress you with my film lingo.

00:03:25.700 | You know what a banana is?

00:03:27.340 | - Yeah.

00:03:28.180 | - When you walk like this.

00:03:29.020 | - Oh.

00:03:29.860 | - You do a banana.

00:03:30.680 | - I take it back.

00:03:31.520 | I did not know what a banana was.

00:03:32.380 | - Yeah, see?

00:03:33.220 | It means something.

00:03:34.180 | Yeah, 'cause it's just a food normally.

00:03:36.900 | - You fancy Hollywood folk with the lingo.

00:03:40.100 | - And I'm, my name is Bjorn Hapthor Bjornsson,

00:03:44.100 | and I am seven foot four.

00:03:46.380 | And yeah, so dragons don't scare me,

00:03:49.260 | even though they've been extinct for a while.

00:03:51.620 | You're a scientist, right?

00:03:52.940 | Is that checked out?

00:03:54.220 | - Yeah, I actually, I'm really into video games.

00:03:56.660 | I don't know if you play video games.

00:03:57.660 | There's a Skyrim video game

00:04:01.740 | that's part of the Elder Scrolls series,

00:04:03.360 | and for the longest time,

00:04:04.420 | there's a legend that there's dragons.

00:04:06.460 | I think it started in Daggerfall.

00:04:07.860 | And so I always, I grew up playing those video games

00:04:10.540 | and dreaming of one day meeting a dragon in a virtual world.

00:04:14.220 | And eventually you did in Skyrim.

00:04:16.900 | So dragons represent,

00:04:19.780 | I don't know exactly what they represent,

00:04:21.140 | but they represent maybe this kind of mythical creature

00:04:24.600 | that is bigger than anything humans

00:04:27.980 | can possibly comprehend, maybe.

00:04:30.940 | 'Cause they're so, they show up so often in myth

00:04:33.980 | from the religious stories, you know,

00:04:37.700 | of the snake and so on, the serpent.

00:04:39.340 | And I don't know what that is.

00:04:40.940 | With this breathing fire, that's kind of weird.

00:04:42.700 | - It's interesting when I think about dragons,

00:04:44.300 | 'cause now that you bring it up,

00:04:45.520 | these are people that probably wouldn't have access

00:04:47.460 | to the fact that there used to be dinosaurs.

00:04:49.300 | - Right. - Maybe they did.

00:04:50.860 | If they didn't, they're drawing things

00:04:52.460 | that look like, you know, a dinosaur cousin,

00:04:56.360 | but cool, that can breathe fire

00:04:58.220 | and has wacky wings and a spiked tail.

00:05:01.080 | Yeah, where the heck did they come up with that?

00:05:04.300 | 'Cause they're clearly, of course,

00:05:05.500 | represented in mythology all the way back to,

00:05:08.260 | no, not cave drawings.

00:05:10.660 | Well, the Egyptians probably knew what the,

00:05:12.560 | and they could time travel.

00:05:13.580 | So they would have gone back to the caves.

00:05:15.660 | - Well, the aliens that placed living organisms on Earth

00:05:19.220 | could time travel and they could plant legends

00:05:23.820 | into the collective intelligence of the human species.

00:05:27.500 | - Yeah, and perhaps they were thinking of us

00:05:29.400 | to do something smart with it, and we didn't.

00:05:31.260 | We just came up with Skyrim. - For now.

00:05:32.860 | - We're just, what's that?

00:05:33.700 | - Sorry, that was very offensive.

00:05:35.020 | - I'm sorry, I don't mean to offend you

00:05:36.900 | with your video game.

00:05:37.980 | I'm more of a Burger Time Donkey Kong dude.

00:05:42.660 | - Oh, what is that?

00:05:44.020 | That's an original?

00:05:45.100 | - Burger Time was an arcade game

00:05:47.020 | that later showed up on the Intellivision.

00:05:49.760 | It wasn't television.

00:05:52.900 | I believe it was made by Texas Instruments.

00:05:55.020 | Horrible first-generation video game console.

00:05:58.420 | And Burger Time, you just, it's like Super Mario.

00:06:00.580 | You just gotta stay away from the eggs

00:06:03.020 | and the pickles and stuff.

00:06:04.360 | And you just go, "Meep, meep, meep."

00:06:05.860 | And the bun falls, and then you go down to the,

00:06:07.980 | "Meep, meep," and the cheese, and then the meat.

00:06:11.140 | I'm not gonna say it's as complicated

00:06:12.540 | as Skyrim, but it took me a while to finish it

00:06:15.500 | when I was seven.

00:06:16.340 | - Did you play video games?

00:06:19.260 | Was that a part of your life,

00:06:20.540 | a part of the source of happiness for you at all?

00:06:22.980 | - It was, it was.

00:06:24.020 | I played video games up until around,

00:06:26.260 | I think in 2010, I got the Red Ring of Death

00:06:30.100 | on my Xbox 360.

00:06:31.740 | - That was it. - That was it.

00:06:32.900 | I never, or whatever the Xbox was then.

00:06:35.220 | - Yeah. - I was playing,

00:06:36.700 | I had finished the Grand Theft Auto that was out,

00:06:40.860 | and I'd finished the Red Dead Redemption.

00:06:42.860 | So I was doing that thing where you just drive around

00:06:45.740 | the streets of New York, or just ride around

00:06:49.060 | on your horse shooting people,

00:06:50.740 | and throwing grenades into groups of people in Grand Theft.

00:06:55.060 | - And you're describing the same thing

00:06:56.980 | that happened a decade later,

00:06:58.460 | 'cause it's now Red Dead Redemption 2,

00:07:01.180 | and there's still not a new Grand Theft Auto, so.

00:07:03.940 | - Yeah, there isn't, right?

00:07:05.140 | - Yeah, they're working on it.

00:07:05.980 | They're always flirting with that idea.

00:07:08.100 | You know who else plays Skyrim?

00:07:10.100 | Another person, the two people I'm a huge fan of

00:07:12.460 | from that time in Mad TV is Bobby Lee.

00:07:14.740 | - He plays Skyrim?

00:07:15.700 | - He's a huge fan of Skyrim. - He plays every.

00:07:17.900 | - So what Bobby Lee loves to do is to grind,

00:07:22.460 | do the boring task over and over, gather mushroom.

00:07:25.620 | Like in Skyrim, you can fight dragons,

00:07:27.580 | you can fight all kinds of things,

00:07:29.540 | but you can also gather mushrooms

00:07:30.980 | and different ingredients to make potions,

00:07:32.740 | and all that kind of stuff.

00:07:33.980 | He loves the ingredients.

00:07:35.220 | He's the, you know, in the hunter-gatherer world,

00:07:37.700 | he's the gatherer. - He's the gatherer.

00:07:39.700 | - Yeah, I've heard him described that way,

00:07:42.100 | and he likes to describe himself that way.

00:07:44.540 | I worked with Bobby not too long ago.

00:07:46.620 | He came and did a couple of days

00:07:47.780 | on this thing we were shooting,

00:07:49.180 | and I was looking forward to catching up with my old pal.

00:07:52.300 | And if you know anything about Bobby Lee,

00:07:54.260 | you'd probably be able to predict

00:07:55.580 | that he spent that entire time playing farming on his iPad.

00:07:59.460 | - Yeah, well, humans are a source of anxiety and trouble,

00:08:03.060 | so sometimes it's good to escape human interaction

00:08:05.420 | through video games. - Totally.

00:08:06.780 | - I'm with him on that.

00:08:07.980 | He's one of the funniest people ever.

00:08:11.140 | What do you think makes him funny?

00:08:14.580 | It's just all the times you've worked with him,

00:08:16.860 | the non-standard, non-sequitur way of his being.

00:08:21.860 | - Bobby Lee is one of the most raw people,

00:08:26.900 | raw performers, who lets it all hang out

00:08:29.820 | to the degree that he will even get naked

00:08:31.700 | in front of his audience, which is usually a metaphor

00:08:34.260 | for someone doing stand-up.

00:08:35.620 | I'm bearing all. - Yeah.

00:08:37.100 | - I'm showing you everything,

00:08:38.540 | and Bobby will just pull his bird out of his pants.

00:08:40.940 | Yeah, I don't think he understands metaphor too much.

00:08:43.220 | - He embodies metaphor.

00:08:44.500 | - Yes, he embodies metaphor.

00:08:46.060 | He's the gatherer.

00:08:46.980 | We call him the gathering metaphor,

00:08:49.260 | Bobby the gatherer metaphor.

00:08:50.700 | - He's a metaphor for something else,

00:08:52.500 | for somebody else's life.

00:08:53.940 | Someday he'll be in the dictionary

00:08:57.340 | representing some kind of concept,

00:08:58.820 | maybe the metaphor itself.

00:09:00.100 | - Yeah, once this whole thing falls apart

00:09:02.500 | and we are climbing the kudzu vines

00:09:04.780 | that spiral up the Sears Tower, like they say,

00:09:06.700 | in Fight Club, Bobby will go back to his gatherer form

00:09:09.900 | and be happy as a pig in shit,

00:09:12.060 | just walking around in a loincloth

00:09:13.460 | with his bird hanging out, tracking jokes to people,

00:09:15.940 | and climbing up on them for a stool lap dance

00:09:18.620 | or whatever he does.

00:09:19.460 | - I'd love to dig into something he did.

00:09:22.100 | You guys did a lot of great podcasts together.

00:09:24.420 | He asked you, in a very uncomfortable process

00:09:28.420 | of why you don't do stand-up, so let me ask you,

00:09:32.100 | do you hate money?

00:09:33.540 | (laughing)

00:09:34.940 | - Well, I'm originally from Canada, yeah,

00:09:36.580 | so I'm a frickin' pinko socialist.

00:09:40.860 | Is that where you come from?

00:09:42.780 | That's not a nice thing to say.

00:09:44.540 | - I thought the Soviet Union, that is a nice thing to say.

00:09:47.940 | Like Comrade-- - You could call someone

00:09:48.780 | a pinko socialist.

00:09:50.460 | - Right, Comrade, he's a good socialist.

00:09:53.300 | - Yeah, yeah. - With red.

00:09:55.060 | Like some bold colors, yeah.

00:09:58.260 | There was an interesting tension in your voice

00:10:00.300 | and the way you talked about it.

00:10:01.400 | There's just not a source of happiness for you.

00:10:04.180 | You respect the art form,

00:10:05.300 | but it was not something that you were connected to,

00:10:08.260 | you felt connected to.

00:10:09.580 | - That's a good way to put it, yeah.

00:10:10.860 | I respect the art form a lot,

00:10:14.060 | and I grew up with all the albums and stuff.

00:10:16.140 | I had an older brother and sister who,

00:10:18.540 | so we had George Carlin, we had Richard Pryor,

00:10:23.540 | we had Robert Klein, we had Gilda Live,

00:10:26.820 | the Gilda Radner concert.

00:10:28.820 | We had all sorts of stuff, but I don't know.

00:10:31.900 | There's a lot of reasons.

00:10:33.860 | I do feel like a career in show business

00:10:36.340 | is, it never goes the way you plan, like most things.

00:10:41.740 | And I was fortunate enough to get started

00:10:44.020 | outside of my native Vancouver, or in my native Vancouver.

00:10:47.220 | I grew up in the burbs outside,

00:10:48.620 | and there was a lot of industry there.

00:10:50.620 | So I was fortunate enough to get started as an actor

00:10:53.460 | when I was like 16.

00:10:54.740 | So yeah, there were some times early on

00:10:59.740 | where I came up with some standup stuff and did it,

00:11:03.260 | but yeah, I quickly abandoned it.

00:11:06.060 | And then you go through, you do Mad TV and stuff,

00:11:09.780 | and that's where my, and this is gonna sound weird.

00:11:13.200 | Do I sound as anxietal as I did

00:11:14.900 | when I was on Bobby's podcast, trying to avoid his questions?

00:11:18.260 | - Well, he was giving you this face this whole time

00:11:20.340 | that was making the whole atmosphere feel full of anxiety.

00:11:25.120 | So I'm trying not to give you a face.

00:11:26.940 | The whole time I was saying, "Play cool, play cool."

00:11:28.860 | - Yeah, okay.

00:11:30.180 | - Play cool, Lex.

00:11:31.020 | - Play cool, you said it out loud a couple of times.

00:11:33.300 | - I did.

00:11:34.140 | - Just, you know, you cut that out.

00:11:34.980 | - Play cool, play cool, cut it out, cut it out.

00:11:37.340 | - Maintain, bro.

00:11:38.180 | Here's what I'll say.

00:11:39.000 | There's two ways to do it.

00:11:39.840 | I think it's lame when someone who's done one thing

00:11:42.020 | for a while goes and starts doing standup out of nowhere,

00:11:46.100 | 'cause I think it's an art form that's under attack

00:11:49.460 | because it's not like anything else.

00:11:51.700 | You need, although now you can, of course,

00:11:55.100 | you know, make whatever you want.

00:11:56.460 | It's the era of self-publishing

00:11:58.300 | as far as making a product and putting it out there,

00:12:00.740 | which is getting easier, of course,

00:12:02.380 | and I can't wait to talk to you about that

00:12:03.700 | with AI and how it's changing art.

00:12:06.300 | But in standup, all you need is a microphone

00:12:12.460 | and, you know, perhaps it'd be good

00:12:14.740 | to have some mental illness,

00:12:16.220 | and then you can just run up there and talk forever.

00:12:20.100 | And I say this to, you know, comedians.

00:12:22.900 | It's like, you guys have to deal with just an influx

00:12:27.320 | of people who aren't sure why they're doing comedy.

00:12:30.920 | I would ask comedians, you know, like,

00:12:32.460 | I mean, not good ones.

00:12:33.600 | Good ones, you know what they're doing,

00:12:34.680 | but everyone else, like, what are you doing?

00:12:36.000 | Why?

00:12:36.840 | Why are you doing standup?

00:12:38.000 | Having said that, I am allergic to money.

00:12:40.280 | - Yeah, do you think they have a good answer for that?

00:12:42.480 | Why are they doing it?

00:12:43.320 | 'Cause I actually, like, when I'm in Austin,

00:12:45.000 | I like going to open mics, just listening.

00:12:47.560 | It's inspiring to me, both the funny and the unfunny people,

00:12:52.440 | because they've been doing it for several years,

00:12:55.000 | sometimes over a decade,

00:12:56.720 | and they're still at it.

00:12:58.120 | They're still right there.

00:12:59.000 | They're going for the punch,

00:13:00.160 | and then especially open mics that are really sad

00:13:04.080 | in that there is, you know,

00:13:05.880 | only like five other people in the audience,

00:13:08.000 | and they're usually just other comedians,

00:13:10.240 | and they're still going all out,

00:13:12.040 | as if they're in front of a stadium.

00:13:14.040 | - But that, to me, sounds like someone who loves it.

00:13:16.760 | - Yeah.

00:13:17.600 | - I got no questions for that person.

00:13:19.280 | I got questions for someone who goes sideways

00:13:21.920 | from here, I'm recognizable doing something,

00:13:24.740 | and then I'm doing standup.

00:13:26.520 | Because it's like, and truly, look,

00:13:28.880 | I've been fortunate enough to be in the business

00:13:30.920 | for a long time, and at this point, if I came up,

00:13:33.320 | I mean, doing live stuff is fun.

00:13:35.440 | I have friends that are like, you know,

00:13:38.000 | some guys who are primarily sketch people,

00:13:40.480 | or you would look at them as sketch people,

00:13:42.040 | and they can sell tickets for being sketch people,

00:13:44.040 | and we'll talk about it, and they're like,

00:13:46.000 | "Meh, you know, I do a monologue,

00:13:47.800 | and I do a little standup, then I do a song,

00:13:50.400 | then I do another monologue,

00:13:51.720 | then I play off the audience, do a little standup."

00:13:55.560 | But standup is, it's almost like playing music,

00:13:59.440 | in that, you know, people are going up there playing music,

00:14:03.160 | but what band have you been listening to?

00:14:04.560 | That's what you're gonna sound like.

00:14:06.420 | So it's really, I mean, of course,

00:14:08.520 | I'm speaking from zero experience, but I've heard,

00:14:11.560 | it takes years, of course, to find your own voice.

00:14:14.280 | Standups that, when they first go up,

00:14:16.280 | they're doing some sort of impersonation of so-and-so,

00:14:19.920 | and so-and-so, and then you gotta pop this audience

00:14:23.240 | that's paying, and you're gonna get run over

00:14:25.660 | by the next person who's coming up,

00:14:27.480 | and it's hard to follow the last person

00:14:29.820 | who went up before you, and I mean,

00:14:32.880 | that is a really hard way to, it's a very,

00:14:36.200 | it's quite a gauntlet to be in,

00:14:37.320 | to find your voice comedically.

00:14:38.640 | - But don't you have that same kind of thing with sketch,

00:14:40.840 | where you still have to find your own voice?

00:14:42.440 | - Yeah.

00:14:43.280 | - With, like, all the impressions you do,

00:14:44.840 | they're just terrible, you know,

00:14:46.680 | they're different spins on different people,

00:14:49.480 | they're not, like, perfect impressions, right?

00:14:52.040 | - Yeah.

00:14:52.880 | - And that's, I mean, that's a similar

00:14:55.160 | kind of challenging journey as standup.

00:14:57.760 | You're just saying they're kind of distinct,

00:15:00.160 | and you fell into this one, you fell in love with it,

00:15:02.680 | which is, like, what MadTV kind of opened you up to.

00:15:05.780 | - Yeah, as a kid, I literally wanted to be an actor.

00:15:08.400 | I always wanted to be an actor, from a very young age,

00:15:11.080 | as far back as I can remember, and I was a class clown,

00:15:13.440 | and wanted to do comedy stuff, and comedic acting, and--

00:15:17.040 | - So comedic acting.

00:15:18.280 | - Yeah, early on, my influences were

00:15:21.480 | a very predictable list of guys from

00:15:24.520 | SCTV, early Saturday Night Live, Monty Python,

00:15:29.520 | all of those performers really influenced me.

00:15:32.600 | It was later that I saw people like Kevin Kline,

00:15:36.600 | who's an incredible actor.

00:15:38.400 | I vividly remember being, like, 12, 13,

00:15:41.120 | seeing him get an Academy Award for Fish Called Wanda,

00:15:44.440 | and it blew my mind, 'cause I was like, he was hilarious.

00:15:47.240 | I mean, it was one of my favorite movies back then,

00:15:49.600 | and now, and he won an Academy Award,

00:15:52.680 | and at that point, I started thinking more about acting.

00:15:57.680 | And then I was, like I said, really fortunate

00:16:00.440 | to fall in with, I mean, I always wanted to do it,

00:16:04.160 | and I was trying to hustle this and that when I was a kid,

00:16:06.520 | and then I ended up getting represented,

00:16:09.480 | and then I ended up on a teen show.

00:16:11.720 | I was on, I basically, the easiest way to pitch it

00:16:14.600 | is it's like a Canadian My So-Called Life,

00:16:17.640 | with these kids, and their lives, and stuff,

00:16:19.520 | and I did that for like five years,

00:16:21.120 | and I really love acting.

00:16:23.520 | I really, truly love acting, and I don't,

00:16:27.160 | I'm not someone who wants people to know my opinion,

00:16:30.360 | so that's another thing about standup.

00:16:33.240 | Like, I love the illusion of what I get to do

00:16:36.000 | in entertainment, and podcasting is great for that,

00:16:40.900 | but to stand up there, and for, I don't know,

00:16:44.600 | just for me, it's like, it would have to all be fantasy,

00:16:48.200 | and-- - Yeah, so,

00:16:50.800 | Nietzsche said that every profound spirit needs a mask.

00:16:54.160 | Like you said, you don't like to talk about,

00:16:58.440 | in your comedy, you don't like to talk about stuff

00:17:01.120 | that's personal to you.

00:17:02.600 | - Yeah, I don't know. - What is that?

00:17:04.800 | If you were to psychoanalyze yourself,

00:17:07.200 | do you think it's just not something you find funny,

00:17:10.040 | or is it, are you running from something,

00:17:12.360 | and it's not your fault, Will?

00:17:16.600 | - It's not your fault, Will.

00:17:18.480 | - Speaking of another really great comedic actor

00:17:21.320 | who's also a serious actor, Robert Williams.

00:17:23.520 | - One of the best serious actors.

00:17:25.400 | I mean, I, and you know, one of the funniest people

00:17:29.960 | of all time, but as great, as incredible as he was

00:17:33.800 | as a funny man, as a standup and a performer,

00:17:37.460 | I almost like his serious stuff better.

00:17:39.800 | - Can I ask you a question about that?

00:17:41.000 | What do you make of the, that he committed suicide?

00:17:43.520 | - I think it's, I mean, it's super depressing.

00:17:47.280 | I've referred to him as like the Jesus Christ

00:17:50.400 | of depression.

00:17:52.520 | It's almost like he died for others' depression,

00:17:54.480 | you know what I mean?

00:17:55.800 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:17:56.640 | - You'd look at someone like that and go,

00:17:58.160 | wait a minute, you're a rock star.

00:18:00.320 | You could just check out if you're not liking your life.

00:18:03.240 | And of course, something like suicide begs

00:18:06.040 | that you look a little deeper and realize

00:18:08.280 | how tortured the human mind can make someone.

00:18:13.000 | - Is there some aspect to, you know, we're in LA,

00:18:16.080 | is there some aspect of celebrity that's isolating

00:18:19.000 | that can make you feel really lonely?

00:18:21.320 | - Not me, I don't feel, no, not really.

00:18:24.200 | - You feel the love?

00:18:25.720 | - No, I just feel like I'm not, I mean, it's like,

00:18:28.520 | I don't know, I've always kind of had a small group

00:18:31.360 | of friends and those people don't, you know,

00:18:34.280 | it's like I've known the same people for years and years.

00:18:37.080 | - You never really felt the celebrity, really?

00:18:38.720 | - Nah, in LA, it's hard to, it's hard for people,

00:18:42.000 | nobody cares, they see you and then the next minute

00:18:44.480 | they see so and so, so it's like, you know,

00:18:47.400 | I'm the guy from that, you know,

00:18:49.200 | you did that Mike and Molly, right?

00:18:51.760 | Nope, nope, close, King of, you shave your head,

00:18:55.200 | you go bald, you're King and Queens, nope, not me.

00:18:58.820 | So, close, you're, wow, shit, you used to be

00:19:02.800 | the mountain on Game of Thrones, you look like shit,

00:19:05.460 | what happened, just eating fried dough?

00:19:08.600 | - Yeah. - Yeah, that's what's up.

00:19:11.000 | You can't lift any weights anymore, I'm at the gym

00:19:13.640 | doing like 15 pounds with shoulder press, ah,

00:19:16.880 | and people coming up to me, you used to be

00:19:20.000 | a dragon killer, dude. - Half the man

00:19:21.600 | you used to be, what's, have there been low points

00:19:24.600 | in your life, sorry to go there, but.

00:19:27.040 | - Nope, yeah, you know, hey, hey, hey, hey.

00:19:32.040 | (laughing)

00:19:34.520 | Yeah, everybody has a low point in life.

00:19:38.560 | - You suffer from like depression and you know,

00:19:40.560 | those kinds of things. - You know what, I do, I do.

00:19:42.520 | I have a bunch of stuff.

00:19:44.760 | - How do you deal with it, said friends,

00:19:47.880 | the friends and the-- - They don't do anything

00:19:49.760 | for me in that sense. - Yeah.

00:19:51.880 | - I have an incredible fiance who, that's nice

00:19:55.640 | to have somebody constant that you love very much

00:19:59.880 | and see as the best person and all that good stuff,

00:20:02.480 | hopefully vice versa, and then--

00:20:04.960 | - Well, on your recent Instagram, she said

00:20:08.080 | that she loves you, so. - Wow, you were just on,

00:20:10.960 | yeah, allegedly, that might all be for, yeah, that's all.

00:20:13.920 | - How much money did you pay her to say that?

00:20:15.680 | - I don't have any 'cause I'm not a standup.

00:20:18.120 | I was like, I could do, you got Venmo?

00:20:20.800 | - Yeah, yeah. - I only have like $123.

00:20:23.040 | - I give you some Doge coin. - Yeah, some Doge.

00:20:25.320 | - Yeah. - You got, you want some Doge?

00:20:27.840 | I got some of those monkey NFTs.

00:20:29.500 | Oh, before I forget. - Yes.

00:20:32.360 | - Hold on a second. - Oh no.

00:20:34.320 | - Put a Doodzy sticker on your microphone if that's okay.

00:20:38.000 | - Sure.

00:20:38.840 | - Here, oh yeah, now these are tricky

00:20:42.320 | 'cause I have the thumbs of a,

00:20:44.000 | I have like Italian sausage thumbs.

00:20:45.320 | - Don't wait and watch this happen.

00:20:46.840 | I'm just gonna-- - This'll take another.

00:20:49.600 | - Yeah, yeah. - Oh man.

00:20:52.320 | - Yeah, ooh, this is embarrassing.

00:20:54.680 | Are you good under pressure?

00:20:57.000 | 'Cause I have anxiety. - Sure, look at me.

00:20:58.600 | - I have performance anxiety.

00:20:59.760 | - Do you have anxiety? - Yeah.

00:21:01.480 | - You have anxiety, period? - Period.

00:21:03.200 | - Yeah, I-- - Like, I don't like it

00:21:05.520 | when I, if I have to pee and then everyone's waiting

00:21:09.000 | in the urinal. - That sucks.

00:21:10.040 | - Yeah, I don't like it. - Yeah.

00:21:11.480 | You know what'll help you in that situation?

00:21:13.160 | - What's that? - Taking a shit.

00:21:15.080 | 'Cause whenever you take a shit, you always pee a little.

00:21:18.080 | - It's hard to take a shit while you're standing

00:21:20.000 | at a urinal, but. - Not in my world.

00:21:22.840 | - Okay. - You just gotta keep yourself

00:21:23.960 | full of things that make you shit.

00:21:25.400 | - Oh, good. - Have you ever heard

00:21:26.240 | of a banana?

00:21:27.060 | - I did recently, somebody told me about it.

00:21:30.200 | - Not the showbiz term, I'm talking about the food.

00:21:33.120 | There you go. - Oh.

00:21:33.960 | (laughing)

00:21:35.880 | - Here we go.

00:21:36.720 | Which way is up, it's this way, right?

00:21:39.600 | - It's like a D, no, spin it, there you go.

00:21:42.640 | - All right.

00:21:43.480 | Oh, so sexy.

00:21:47.120 | You're like a brand.

00:21:50.080 | - Yeah, it's very important to brand yourself.

00:21:51.940 | These colors. - Are you selling shoes?

00:21:54.160 | - Yeah, I got some custom kicks coming out.

00:21:57.960 | The dudesy, no, actually, that would be a good idea.

00:22:01.920 | You could probably sell a pair or two of those.

00:22:03.920 | Speaking of anxiety, I really am only focused

00:22:06.600 | on this right now, Lex, I apologize.

00:22:08.160 | - Just shit your pants, it'll make you be easier.

00:22:10.720 | - Get on with it.

00:22:12.080 | Oh, this thing has been dog-eared in my pocket for a while.

00:22:14.400 | - I swear this never happens to me, I'm sorry, babe.

00:22:17.040 | - People don't thumb at a sticker for an hour

00:22:18.920 | while they're doing the podcast?

00:22:19.760 | - No, this is just an excuse you make

00:22:20.980 | when you're with somebody and you're underperforming.

00:22:23.480 | - Well, here's the thing, as you ask me questions

00:22:26.280 | that I don't wanna answer, I'll just go to this.

00:22:28.520 | - Go to the sticker.

00:22:29.360 | - So if this ends up working, then I won't have it as a--

00:22:33.040 | - It's funny how you started doing that

00:22:34.240 | when we're talking about depression, that's weird.

00:22:36.240 | - That is weird.

00:22:37.080 | - Tell me how that makes you feel.

00:22:40.080 | - Here we are, we got it.

00:22:44.640 | - For the listener, he succeeded after 10 minutes.

00:22:47.480 | - Yeah, you know, no, I do have some of that stuff.

00:22:51.000 | Bobby Lee had encouraged me on Wax, as I like to say,

00:22:56.000 | to talk about it on podcasts, talk about depression,

00:23:01.620 | 'cause it could help people, and I said no.

00:23:04.320 | But it's true, I do have some,

00:23:07.800 | there's some history in the family.

00:23:09.800 | - How do you overcome it?

00:23:11.240 | - Well, I used to not believe in medication at all.

00:23:14.520 | I used to think that that was for someone else

00:23:17.000 | who's been diagnosed with some of the rougher stuff,

00:23:22.000 | but as I got older, then some of the stuff happens,

00:23:26.040 | and you have to, and by stuff I mean mental things,

00:23:31.260 | mental stuff, and yeah, so I went,

00:23:34.820 | I just, I believe that the stigma

00:23:36.680 | needs to be removed completely.

00:23:38.700 | - 100%.

00:23:39.700 | - And so I do therapy, I do talk therapy,

00:23:43.700 | I'm on a little bit of stuff, which, let me tell you,

00:23:47.900 | when I first started it, I was,

00:23:51.600 | someone I'm close to was like my manager,

00:23:55.700 | and she goes, this is too much, but she was like,

00:23:58.940 | you don't have to white knuckle it through life, right?

00:24:01.560 | 'Cause I was literally just like,

00:24:03.280 | everything became really hard to do

00:24:07.080 | at a level that I wanted to do it at,

00:24:09.000 | even just getting through your day, right?

00:24:11.680 | And when I first got some of the meds that I'm on,

00:24:17.540 | it felt like doors and windows were opening

00:24:21.400 | literally in my brain.

00:24:22.560 | I took a three-hour nap the first day,

00:24:26.800 | and you shouldn't even feel this stuff the first day.

00:24:29.460 | I think my brain was like, it was like a sponge,

00:24:31.500 | it wanted to, I needed some relief,

00:24:33.640 | and I'm not a nap guy, I can sleep three hours

00:24:36.140 | and I'll be fine, but I took a long nap,

00:24:40.020 | and then it started to help.

00:24:43.100 | - Yeah, isn't that weird how a little bit of chemistry

00:24:46.260 | in your head can just make the whole world appear

00:24:50.060 | so much more beautiful?

00:24:51.540 | - Yeah, yeah, I mean, after all,

00:24:55.620 | there's a lot going on in your brain

00:24:57.220 | that can be changed by your lifestyle,

00:25:00.300 | but also so many physical things,

00:25:01.980 | like a little bit of meds, or in Bobby's case,

00:25:05.220 | thumbing around on some dumb farming app.

00:25:08.820 | - Well, Bobby's gone through a few rough periods

00:25:12.220 | with drugs and alcohol and all that kind of stuff,

00:25:16.580 | and just everything else involved.

00:25:18.820 | I mean, that's the beautiful rollercoaster of who he is,

00:25:21.020 | and a lot of great comedians seem to be that way.

00:25:23.820 | So I wonder what the connection there is.

00:25:25.460 | Do you think some level of crazy is required for comedy?

00:25:29.100 | - Yeah. - Or like, at some point.

00:25:31.300 | - Yes.

00:25:32.140 | - On a scale of one to 10, how much crazy do you have?

00:25:35.800 | - In some ways, a 10, and in other ways that I think,

00:25:41.380 | in other ways, sort of functionally,

00:25:44.940 | I'm like a two or a three, 'cause I don't know.

00:25:48.500 | - Oh, I see. - I'm from Canada,

00:25:49.900 | and I'm, you know, I try to just keep things

00:25:52.880 | very even keeled.

00:25:54.180 | My parents are Italian, they're from Italy,

00:25:57.100 | and they grew up during World War II,

00:26:00.100 | and they're very simple outlook on things.

00:26:04.260 | They're complex, incredible, classy people

00:26:08.340 | who are very simple when it comes to a lot of stuff.

00:26:12.900 | And I think just being a sort of, at heart,

00:26:17.340 | kind of a timid Canadian, coming out here years ago

00:26:21.500 | as a kid, it was all I could do

00:26:25.540 | to just keep everything super normal.

00:26:28.740 | And then I sort of was able to settle into that

00:26:32.380 | as a lifestyle.

00:26:33.700 | - But you love the idea of being an actor.

00:26:37.060 | You mentioned John Candy and planes, planes,

00:26:41.220 | and automobiles, yeah.

00:26:42.620 | It's one of my favorite movies, you said it's one of yours.

00:26:45.020 | What do you think that makes that movie work?

00:26:47.740 | What do you, what?

00:26:50.220 | And when you talk about enjoying that movie,

00:26:53.340 | do you enjoy just the raw comedy,

00:26:54.940 | or do you enjoy like the friendship

00:26:56.700 | and the love that's there, even though on the surface,

00:27:01.700 | it doesn't make any sense that there should be

00:27:03.980 | a friendship there?

00:27:05.500 | - I mean, that's such an important element to that film,

00:27:08.180 | but you know, as a kid, I just loved the comedy.

00:27:11.420 | And then it's been a nostalgic favorite of mine,

00:27:14.340 | like it's my favorite movie.

00:27:15.860 | But it's also, it's just legit my favorite movie

00:27:19.900 | because as you get older and you start watching it,

00:27:22.780 | you realize it's what John Hughes is the filmmaker

00:27:26.460 | and what John Candy particularly,

00:27:29.580 | and but also Steve Martin are doing in the film

00:27:32.260 | that makes it such a work of art,

00:27:33.780 | which is loneliness is there in every moment of that film.

00:27:38.780 | And John Candy is, he embodies Del Griffith,

00:27:44.540 | his character in the film.

00:27:46.700 | Del Griffith is a lonely guy, and John Candy,

00:27:49.820 | but Del Griffith is also a very friendly guy

00:27:52.140 | and a shower curtain ring salesman

00:27:53.940 | and knows everybody in the Midwest

00:27:56.180 | and runs around to motels

00:27:57.540 | and has meaningful conversations with the guy,

00:28:00.060 | evening Gus, you know, whoever he's talking to.

00:28:02.500 | But there's loneliness there all the time.

00:28:07.140 | And, you know, this is a character,

00:28:10.460 | the film is filled with loneliness

00:28:12.540 | and it's not until, you know, the second to last scene

00:28:15.460 | when he's at the train station,

00:28:18.020 | Del, what are you doing here?

00:28:20.180 | You thought I thought you were going home.

00:28:21.460 | What are you doing here?

00:28:22.660 | That's a very good Neil, Neil page from the movie.

00:28:26.980 | Thank you.

00:28:28.660 | That's when you realize how lonely he is.

00:28:30.100 | - Glad applause in post.

00:28:31.700 | - Cheers.

00:28:32.540 | That's when you realize how lonely he is.

00:28:33.900 | And I think that's the element from the film that,

00:28:36.860 | I mean, look, you know, nowadays,

00:28:38.980 | I feel like I've been saying this for a long time,

00:28:40.980 | but John Candy would have won an Academy Award

00:28:43.780 | hands down for that film.

00:28:45.820 | It's just, they didn't do that with comedies back then.

00:28:48.460 | - Yeah.

00:28:49.300 | - The year after that movie came out with "Fish Called Wanda".

00:28:51.460 | - Yeah.

00:28:52.300 | And then it's, I mean, still comedies don't get respected

00:28:54.820 | enough, Robin Williams, he got,

00:28:57.100 | I guess he got an Oscar for "Good Will Hunting".

00:29:00.820 | Jim Carrey, did he ever get an Oscar?

00:29:04.340 | - I don't know.

00:29:05.180 | I don't believe so.

00:29:06.100 | - Yeah, they don't get, you don't,

00:29:09.020 | but that's not even if he did,

00:29:10.300 | you wouldn't be for comedies.

00:29:12.540 | It's just, I mean, there's some things that are,

00:29:16.460 | "Plains, Strange and Honorable",

00:29:18.540 | would you even put that as a, I guess it's a comedy.

00:29:20.980 | - Yeah, I mean-

00:29:21.820 | - But there is a loneliness and depth

00:29:24.220 | that permeates the whole movie.

00:29:25.740 | - Yeah.

00:29:26.580 | - That ultimately, and it's a happy ending,

00:29:28.220 | which is hard to kinda.

00:29:30.300 | - It's a happy ending only because

00:29:32.420 | in the last moment of the movie,

00:29:35.180 | John Candy puts on a brave face,

00:29:38.260 | even when he's got no one.

00:29:43.300 | - No one.

00:29:44.140 | - And he's there seeing Neil Page's entire family

00:29:46.620 | on Thanksgiving and he forces a smile,

00:29:49.540 | which is the last, literally the last frame of the movie.

00:29:52.460 | And I've said before, if you're not reduced

00:29:54.340 | to just a sobbing pile of meat at the end of the movie,

00:29:58.740 | then you are not human.

00:29:59.900 | Yeah, it is a happy ending.

00:30:04.340 | It's a happy ending, even though it's a sad character.

00:30:09.340 | - Loneliness in the world.

00:30:10.660 | I was just in Vegas.

00:30:12.540 | I went to a diner at like 4 a.m., 5 a.m.

00:30:15.860 | And there's a waitress, it was empty.

00:30:17.940 | And as a waitress, that was the sweetest,

00:30:20.260 | kindest human being.

00:30:21.180 | Kept calling me sweetheart and all that kinda stuff.

00:30:24.100 | Hon.

00:30:25.700 | And then after I ate, she sat down

00:30:28.300 | and just talked to me a little bit.

00:30:30.060 | And it was 'cause there was nobody there

00:30:31.780 | and it was just so much sadness in her eyes.

00:30:35.060 | I don't know, but it's also so much love.

00:30:36.820 | Like that sweetheart.

00:30:39.220 | I mean, it reminded me kind of of the John Candy performance

00:30:43.820 | because at first, because I was like reading

00:30:47.780 | a pretty dark book about Hitler.

00:30:52.780 | So I was a little bit frustrated

00:30:54.900 | that she kept talking to me 'cause it was like,

00:30:57.620 | it was almost like, the same way that John Candy is,

00:31:01.140 | it's annoying a little bit, right?

00:31:02.740 | But then very quickly, I opened up to like,

00:31:04.860 | well, there's a kind human being

00:31:07.740 | and there's like that human connection

00:31:09.580 | superseded everything else.

00:31:10.900 | And I don't know, it was just beautiful.

00:31:12.140 | And I think John Candy captures that really well,

00:31:16.420 | which is like the connection with other human beings.

00:31:19.620 | Sometimes we pull away from that

00:31:22.660 | because we have a busy life full of stuff to do

00:31:27.660 | as Steve Martin's character,

00:31:30.220 | kind of characterized he's like a marketing exec

00:31:32.180 | or something like that.

00:31:33.420 | But if you just pause and notice others,

00:31:36.940 | you can really discover beautiful people.

00:31:39.860 | - Totally, totally.

00:31:40.860 | Everyone's got, well, I mean, everyone's got their story.

00:31:44.020 | And Candy as a person, I've never met the man,

00:31:49.020 | but he's the kind of guy that,

00:31:53.940 | he could just walk up to, back in the day,

00:31:56.580 | I would imagine he could walk up to just about any house,

00:31:59.020 | at least in Canada, knock on the door

00:32:01.220 | and you'd invite him in for dinner.

00:32:03.020 | You know what I mean?

00:32:04.140 | So yeah, it's a bit, that, you know,

00:32:08.260 | as you're talking about, you know,

00:32:10.460 | putting a book down and talking to someone for a while,

00:32:12.860 | even though you'd really like to read your book,

00:32:15.180 | it's like, it's that sort of thing

00:32:17.180 | that Candy's character in the movie

00:32:19.260 | sort of does that, like Johnny Appleseed,

00:32:22.140 | just, you realize he's just going around

00:32:23.780 | making people smile, you know?

00:32:26.460 | And Neil Page is hanging with this guy, so frustrated.

00:32:30.340 | He's just, he's so exhausting

00:32:32.540 | in his big underwear in the sink at the hotel and everything.

00:32:35.900 | And by the end of it, he loves this guy, you know?

00:32:39.420 | So it's a good and a bad thing

00:32:41.300 | that you didn't take that waitress with you on a trip,

00:32:45.060 | maybe road trip up to Reno.

00:32:47.220 | - Oh, oh, she's actually, she's out shopping right now.

00:32:50.460 | - She's shopping.

00:32:51.300 | - We've been having sex multiple times a day ever since.

00:32:54.500 | - Oh, that's nice, that's lovely, how cute.

00:32:56.500 | - I'm sure she's married and happily,

00:32:59.020 | and has many grandchildren.

00:33:00.820 | - Okay, and plus that movie's on Thanksgiving, I think, right?

00:33:05.820 | - Yeah, that's right.

00:33:06.900 | - Thanksgiving, so like Thanksgiving just embodies that,

00:33:09.900 | forget about the busyness

00:33:12.060 | and the whatever the career you're chasing in life,

00:33:16.020 | and just take a pause and appreciate the people you love.

00:33:18.220 | - Just be with your family, yeah.

00:33:19.700 | Or the people, whatever your family looks like.

00:33:21.660 | - Friends, yeah.

00:33:23.340 | You have some weird friends, unorthodox friends.

00:33:26.820 | So at least in the public sphere.

00:33:29.700 | - Oh, yeah.

00:33:30.540 | - From Bobby Lee, Brian Cowan, all those kinds of folks

00:33:33.380 | from the Mad TV days, I'm sure there's others.

00:33:36.220 | What does it mean to be a good friend?

00:33:38.260 | - Here in LA?

00:33:39.540 | Or just in general? - In the world.

00:33:40.860 | - In the world.

00:33:42.140 | Will Sasson, world friend. - Is LA somewhat different?

00:33:44.300 | - I think it is different here, I think it is.

00:33:46.380 | - I think there's a little bit of a career

00:33:48.140 | kind of negotiation shuffling around, that kind of stuff.

00:33:51.500 | Why is it different?

00:33:52.900 | - Well, I just mean, I mean, I mean

00:33:55.740 | that it's just kind of hard here to make time for everybody.

00:34:00.740 | It's always been a city to me that is like,

00:34:04.580 | we'll keep you so busy.

00:34:06.100 | And every time I go home to Vancouver,

00:34:08.220 | after a few days I start to get a little stir crazy.

00:34:11.180 | And I think that being here in LA,

00:34:15.140 | I go to sleep with a hundred things that I still have to do.

00:34:17.900 | And you're never out of stuff to do.

00:34:20.460 | And if you, you know, when you ask about,

00:34:24.180 | are you nuts or whatever, if you're crazy,

00:34:26.140 | I mean, look, every, all the weirdest people

00:34:29.260 | from every high school in the United States is like,

00:34:31.500 | yo, I'm gonna make it in LA, you know.

00:34:33.740 | Everyone just comes here.

00:34:35.380 | And just another freak in the freak kingdom,

00:34:38.860 | as they say at the end of "Fear and Loathing" in Las Vegas.

00:34:41.500 | That was a very good Robin Williams impersonation.

00:34:43.540 | That was my Robin Williams as Johnny Depp

00:34:46.140 | as Hunter S. Thompson.

00:34:47.820 | It's not your fault, Will.

00:34:49.540 | - It's pretty good. - Thank you.

00:34:50.660 | - Could have been you, "Fear and Loathing."

00:34:52.940 | - In "Fear and Loathing?"

00:34:53.780 | That'd be interesting.

00:34:54.660 | - I would have liked to play his attorney,

00:34:56.620 | the role that Benicio Del Toro gained weight for.

00:35:00.500 | That would have been cool.

00:35:01.540 | He's just, "What's up over the line?"

00:35:04.580 | Like that, chewing his face off.

00:35:05.900 | I could have done that.

00:35:07.100 | Yeah, no, I think that it's--

00:35:11.220 | - Backdoor beauty.

00:35:12.340 | That guy's full of good lines.

00:35:14.540 | - Yeah, they flip you for real.

00:35:16.900 | - He's a good actor.

00:35:19.140 | - Yeah, fantastic actor.

00:35:20.620 | I think what it takes to be a good friend

00:35:22.980 | is just presence, just being there.

00:35:26.460 | I mean, that's all anyone needs, to be heard, right?

00:35:29.740 | In LA, it is interesting.

00:35:32.460 | I haven't seen people that I love in years, some people.

00:35:37.700 | - Just busy.

00:35:38.580 | - Yeah, just busy.

00:35:39.420 | - Can you still have a depth of connection,

00:35:40.900 | even though, like, one of the reasons

00:35:44.380 | I really enjoy doing a podcast,

00:35:45.660 | you get to sit down with actual friends of yours

00:35:49.420 | and spend prolonged periods of time together

00:35:51.500 | that you don't otherwise.

00:35:52.900 | - That's a good point.

00:35:53.740 | - You know, I've spoken on this podcast

00:35:55.180 | to people really close to me,

00:35:56.780 | and it's like, you've never had a conversation

00:35:59.160 | without microphones like you do with microphones.

00:36:01.460 | It's weird, but there's some aspect about LA

00:36:05.300 | that a lot of the, especially friends of yours,

00:36:07.660 | comedians and so on, they'll do podcasts and stuff.

00:36:10.620 | And there's, I don't know, there's an intimacy to that.

00:36:13.220 | - Yeah, there is and there isn't.

00:36:15.140 | The ones that I do, I mean,

00:36:16.900 | I just did Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino's podcast.

00:36:20.020 | - Funny enough called "Bad Friends."

00:36:21.940 | - "Bad Friends."

00:36:23.260 | And afterwards, and my good pal Chad Colchin,

00:36:26.780 | with whom I do Doodsy, was with me.

00:36:29.900 | - Sneakers are coming soon.

00:36:31.420 | - Sneakers are coming soon.

00:36:32.580 | You get your Will foot and your Chad foot,

00:36:34.420 | comes in a size 15 and a nine and a half.

00:36:36.780 | And I remember afterwards we were talking,

00:36:40.380 | it was just basically me, Chad, and Santino were talking,

00:36:43.940 | and Bobby was over there, you know, on his phone.

00:36:46.940 | And then I was like, I mean,

00:36:49.700 | we didn't spend any time talking about anything.

00:36:52.980 | It feels like one of those hours that goes by

00:36:56.020 | and you realize I've just been goofing around

00:36:57.700 | with these guys, which--

00:36:58.540 | - But that's what life is about, right?

00:36:59.820 | - It's fine. - A little bit.

00:37:00.660 | - It's great.

00:37:01.500 | And then I'm like, all right, Bobby,

00:37:02.380 | hey, Bob, I'll see you later.

00:37:03.900 | And he's like, like this.

00:37:06.500 | All right, man, hey, love you, bro, see you later.

00:37:08.740 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:10.420 | - He's a guy, do you ever just,

00:37:11.580 | I just send text messages over there to him

00:37:15.340 | that never come back.

00:37:17.020 | And then he thinks that I'm angry with him

00:37:19.600 | because it's been, you know, it'll go two, three years

00:37:22.300 | without him getting back to me.

00:37:24.020 | And then just out of nowhere, hey, fuckface.

00:37:26.740 | And--

00:37:27.860 | - Who says, hey, fuckface?

00:37:28.900 | He does or you do?

00:37:29.740 | Or you both talk to each other?

00:37:30.860 | - No, I gotta be very careful with Bobby.

00:37:33.500 | Yeah, I gotta be very sweet.

00:37:35.240 | - Dear friend.

00:37:36.220 | - Dear friend, hello.

00:37:37.060 | - How are you doing?

00:37:37.940 | - How are you?

00:37:38.760 | I know I checked in with you, but not but three months ago.

00:37:42.120 | And then every once in a while, he'll go, hey, fuckface.

00:37:45.100 | - I tend to hide from the world.

00:37:46.700 | And I can be pretty shitty with friends, text them back.

00:37:50.440 | Yeah, I can empathize with Bobby.

00:37:53.520 | Might be a Skyrim thing.

00:37:54.920 | It might be like hiding in a world,

00:37:58.360 | in a digital world with fake NPCs.

00:38:01.360 | - Yeah, yeah, there's that.

00:38:03.280 | Yeah, you know, I have a buddy

00:38:06.200 | who said something really smart a while ago.

00:38:10.000 | We ended up working together on this TV show thing

00:38:13.440 | and I reached out to him to see if he wanted

00:38:15.640 | to do it with us.

00:38:16.480 | And he did, and he goes, this is a great guy,

00:38:20.160 | such a funny writer.

00:38:21.840 | He goes, I may not be in touch all the time,

00:38:23.780 | but I know who my friends are.

00:38:25.360 | You know what I mean?

00:38:26.200 | And it's like in our business,

00:38:28.100 | and this is a fellow who moved,

00:38:30.440 | who's from Ontario, Canada, moved back there.

00:38:34.000 | He's on the farm with his wife and kids

00:38:35.620 | and he does not care.

00:38:37.040 | He's never been a Hollywood guy.

00:38:38.840 | And it's tough to get ahold of him.

00:38:41.560 | But when you do, you know, he's still the same

00:38:44.240 | sweet old guy, he's doing his thing though.

00:38:46.360 | - Yeah, yeah, some of my closest friends,

00:38:47.840 | even if we don't talk for a few months,

00:38:50.240 | we're right back at it.

00:38:51.720 | And then if shit goes,

00:38:53.560 | if something really traumatic happens

00:38:55.000 | or difficult stuff or any of that kind of stuff,

00:38:57.880 | I'm always there.

00:38:58.800 | So for important stuff,

00:39:01.280 | for important highs and important lows, you're there.

00:39:04.480 | And then you pick right back up,

00:39:05.840 | especially if you have those years of experiences together.

00:39:09.120 | It's interesting.

00:39:09.960 | - Totally.

00:39:11.080 | - So you've done a couple of podcasts.

00:39:13.120 | - Yeah.

00:39:13.960 | - So we've got to talk about "Dudesy" a little bit,

00:39:16.560 | but first, you did for several years,

00:39:19.080 | you did the 10-minute podcast.

00:39:20.520 | - Yeah.

00:39:21.360 | - I mean, everything is hilarious about that podcast,

00:39:24.880 | including the fact that it's 10 minutes.

00:39:27.000 | - Right.

00:39:27.840 | - I mean, it's ridiculous, it's absurd.

00:39:30.580 | The dynamic is hilarious.

00:39:31.920 | It's you, Brian Callen, Chris D'Elia.

00:39:33.840 | I don't know exactly why it works so well,

00:39:38.240 | but it did, it worked really well.

00:39:39.660 | I think it's because the,

00:39:41.680 | yeah, you were having fun probably.

00:39:43.360 | I mean, that's what really came through,

00:39:46.920 | that it was friends just talking shit,

00:39:49.400 | and the tension, the beautiful tension,

00:39:51.440 | and the absurdity that came out.

00:39:53.160 | - Yeah, sure.

00:39:55.600 | - What was the story of making that podcast?

00:39:57.920 | How did that came to be?

00:39:59.560 | Why do you think it was as good as it was?

00:40:01.960 | - I don't know.

00:40:02.780 | I feel like that podcast was like,

00:40:04.920 | it was who we kind of are,

00:40:09.520 | but on steroids or something.

00:40:11.960 | Like, each person, Brian's gonna be like extra manly.

00:40:16.960 | - Can you get any more manly than he already is?

00:40:21.320 | - No, yeah, no, he reaches though.

00:40:23.920 | And yeah, we just kind of,

00:40:26.480 | I feel like as goofballs, we knew each other's line.

00:40:31.120 | Like, here's the line you don't cross.

00:40:33.240 | I feel like those guys don't really have one,

00:40:35.600 | but at least they knew mine.

00:40:37.000 | And yeah, we were able to just goof around.

00:40:41.920 | And I did it with them for three years,

00:40:45.480 | and then Chad, who I'm doing dudesy with,

00:40:48.240 | and my pal Tommy Blacha,

00:40:49.920 | who's another writer/producer like Chad, they came on.

00:40:53.760 | And yeah, all told, I did like seven years with that thing.

00:40:58.760 | Six, five, six, seven, I don't remember.

00:41:00.820 | - Do you think it ever comes back in some small form

00:41:06.160 | as a 20-minute podcast or something like that?

00:41:09.480 | I mean, is there, 'cause it's one of the most requested.

00:41:12.440 | I mean, you have a huge fan base.

00:41:15.120 | - I'm 47 years old.

00:41:16.680 | So I am of the generation that had a cell phone,

00:41:21.220 | has had a cell phone half the time,

00:41:23.820 | and didn't for the formative years of my life

00:41:26.400 | into my early 20s.

00:41:28.080 | And then finally got a, I got a cell phone,

00:41:31.920 | I guess I was like 19 or something.

00:41:33.400 | Like literally just 'cause of moving to LA.

00:41:35.160 | - You got porn in the mail.

00:41:37.080 | - Yes, that's right.

00:41:37.920 | It was that hard cover porn.

00:41:40.160 | That's the way we liked it.

00:41:42.120 | Bound, nice binding on the porn, leather.

00:41:46.800 | - Next to the Bible, yeah.

00:41:48.120 | - Yep.

00:41:48.960 | These are all my, this is my Encyclopedia Britannica.

00:41:52.600 | Wow, very impressive.

00:41:53.840 | Yes, a man came to the house and sold me these.

00:41:56.160 | And then down here, this is my pornography.

00:42:00.080 | If you'll follow me through here to the parlor.

00:42:02.800 | - Let's pass through the generations

00:42:06.040 | from grandfather to father.

00:42:07.640 | - Yeah, I wanna give you something very special

00:42:09.880 | to me, Nebuchadnezzar.

00:42:10.980 | But--

00:42:12.760 | - So you grew up in a generation without a cell phone.

00:42:15.800 | - Yes, it's hard for me to connect with people

00:42:19.200 | who hit me up.

00:42:22.000 | I look at everything as polling.

00:42:23.660 | So if one person hits me up and shares this opinion,

00:42:26.520 | but two other people hit me up and share that,

00:42:29.120 | I'm the worst, I don't follow my polls.

00:42:32.080 | When people say, "Oh, that poll means absolutely nothing.

00:42:35.560 | "So-and-so's gonna win anyway."

00:42:37.560 | That's my poll, my poll means nothing.

00:42:39.880 | But I do look at the stuff and go,

00:42:41.780 | this many people are saying this,

00:42:44.320 | that means that that number is saying that.

00:42:47.280 | And yet it's very hard for me to hear

00:42:51.280 | what the hell people are saying online.

00:42:53.640 | I really, I can't connect to it sometimes personally.

00:42:56.720 | So when you say that that's a popular podcast,

00:42:59.860 | like I know that it's popular with the people

00:43:02.520 | that have expressed that they love it.

00:43:04.520 | - Yeah. - You know what I mean?

00:43:05.360 | - What does that actually represent?

00:43:07.080 | - I don't know.

00:43:07.920 | I don't know what kind of people or the audience.

00:43:09.760 | I don't know.

00:43:10.580 | I know that the people that listen to the 10 Minute Podcast,

00:43:13.040 | and if you did, thank you, and we're friends.

00:43:16.540 | I know that it was a special thing,

00:43:19.920 | 'cause it was like, "Yeah, just doing this out of my house.

00:43:21.880 | "And we just built it up out of nowhere,

00:43:23.960 | "and we're just kind of clowning around."

00:43:26.160 | It's an odd thing.

00:43:27.600 | - I hope I, I personally, I think I speak for the two people

00:43:31.960 | that have reached out to you that said you should do it,

00:43:34.040 | or whatever, three people, the poll.

00:43:36.180 | - Yeah.

00:43:37.020 | - And you should bring it back at some point.

00:43:38.360 | That would be beautiful.

00:43:39.200 | - Oh my God. - Just maybe,

00:43:40.480 | it's like, what's a good story of a famous band

00:43:45.000 | that came back and was successful?

00:43:46.640 | Probably, well--

00:43:47.480 | - Nirvana?

00:43:48.320 | No, it was not.

00:43:49.880 | (laughing)

00:43:50.720 | It wasn't Nirvana.

00:43:51.560 | Sorry, I got Nirvana mixed up with Aerosmith.

00:43:54.240 | - Yeah. - It was Aerosmith.

00:43:55.080 | - Yeah, it was Aerosmith.

00:43:55.920 | - Yeah. - It was not Nirvana.

00:43:56.740 | - Yeah, they had that second ride.

00:43:58.000 | - Different, different.

00:43:58.840 | - Yeah, totally different ending to those two bands.

00:44:01.720 | One ended up on American Idol.

00:44:04.760 | - Yeah, a lot of interesting women involved in that one too.

00:44:08.900 | All right, how did Doodzy come to be?

00:44:12.740 | - Doodzy-- - And what the hell is Doodzy?

00:44:14.500 | - Doodzy is the first podcast,

00:44:16.300 | and this is exciting that you've asked me to come here today

00:44:19.300 | because to hear what you would have to say about it

00:44:22.260 | or what you would ask about it,

00:44:23.340 | it is the first podcast that is run completely by,

00:44:26.980 | and essentially, I like to say curated by, an AI.

00:44:31.160 | We were approached by a company

00:44:33.660 | that had this proprietary AI

00:44:35.440 | that wants to develop the podcast into the future

00:44:38.200 | and figure out exactly what it takes

00:44:40.720 | to make the best podcast ever.

00:44:42.840 | And it was all we knew from the top

00:44:47.840 | and what they really wanted was two people

00:44:50.240 | who were actually friends

00:44:52.280 | and could be meaningful in the podcast space

00:44:55.640 | based on whatever information they had.

00:44:57.560 | - Is the company CIA, and are they testing technology

00:45:00.720 | to control the populace through chatbots?

00:45:03.160 | I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to share that information.

00:45:05.660 | - You are, yeah, who gave you the suit?

00:45:07.980 | Where did you get the suit?

00:45:09.780 | Where did you get the suit, Will?

00:45:11.020 | - Yeah, well, the-- - JC Penney?

00:45:12.500 | - CIA stands for something different in here.

00:45:14.820 | I mean, it doesn't mean like a central intelligence agency.

00:45:17.940 | I'm probably just-- - It's a different,

00:45:19.100 | it's a Canadian information-- - Canadian International

00:45:23.420 | Apparel.

00:45:24.260 | Yeah, the Canadian International Apparel Company

00:45:26.380 | hit us up, Chad and I.

00:45:27.900 | Well, Chad's a super weirdo.

00:45:31.460 | You would get a kick out of him, I know.

00:45:32.940 | You guys, you strike me as very similar in some ways.

00:45:36.380 | - I'll take that as a compliment.

00:45:37.660 | - It is, and it is.

00:45:38.700 | And it is.

00:45:40.900 | If I was friends with you for as long

00:45:42.500 | as I've been with Chad, perhaps I'd have some horrible shit

00:45:44.800 | to say about you, but the good parts, you remind me of him.

00:45:48.740 | And we were approached by this company

00:45:50.700 | that said we have this AI

00:45:52.460 | and we would like to set it loose on you.

00:45:55.700 | And essentially, we had to hand over some information

00:46:01.020 | that would allow the AI to access our email

00:46:04.980 | and look at our search histories, purchase histories,

00:46:07.860 | things like this, and really dig into--

00:46:11.060 | - Pornhub included or not?

00:46:12.860 | - Yeah, I had to hand over all my leather-bound

00:46:15.620 | 1970s pornography.

00:46:18.080 | And essentially, it curates a podcast for us every week

00:46:22.900 | doing dumb things like, it says, hey, Will,

00:46:26.820 | you do some shitty Hulk Hogan impersonation,

00:46:29.900 | podcasts about news are very popular, this is infomania.

00:46:33.660 | You know what I mean?

00:46:34.500 | And it's, oh, let me tell you something

00:46:35.580 | about that Marjorie Taylor Greene dude,

00:46:37.220 | and then he's going on doing some new stuff.

00:46:39.420 | And it basically just spits out all these things

00:46:42.380 | that it wants us to do, normally four segments, an episode,

00:46:45.900 | and that's pretty much it.

00:46:46.820 | It just tells us what to do.

00:46:48.380 | - It generates the premise.

00:46:49.820 | I mean, you've spoken a bit here and there.

00:46:53.540 | Like I said, I'm a huge fan, I don't even remember where,

00:46:55.540 | but you talked about that you enjoy Doodzy

00:46:59.180 | because you feel almost like liberated to,

00:47:03.400 | because you're operating within the constraints

00:47:06.860 | of the premise it generates.

00:47:08.500 | So you're almost not, you're free to riff, essentially.

00:47:13.500 | - Yeah.

00:47:15.180 | - Like you don't need to do the job of like,

00:47:18.260 | coming up with the weird.

00:47:19.820 | You can just, the weird is given to you,

00:47:21.740 | and then you just run with it.

00:47:23.220 | - That's a good way to say it,

00:47:24.420 | because we're already weird, Chad and I.

00:47:26.300 | Chad can talk for days about all sorts of stuff.

00:47:29.540 | He's particularly interested in AI lately

00:47:31.700 | and its effect on art.

00:47:32.900 | He is a writer, books, movies, and TV shows.

00:47:36.220 | And I'm primarily acting and trying to come up with stuff.

00:47:40.860 | Stuff I write with Chad's pretty good.

00:47:42.500 | The rest of it hasn't seen much success.

00:47:44.020 | Anyway, nor is the stuff with Chad for that matter.

00:47:47.340 | But that's 'cause of me.

00:47:49.620 | - Sneakers, you never know.

00:47:51.460 | - Oh, I can't wait for these sneakers.

00:47:53.100 | - Only in two sizes.

00:47:54.180 | - Yeah, only in two sizes.

00:47:55.260 | You're gonna be able to take the tongue.

00:47:57.860 | You can't take it out, 'cause it's actually stitched in.

00:48:00.420 | - Yeah.

00:48:01.260 | - It's pretty cool stuff.

00:48:02.080 | - Velcro?

00:48:02.920 | Velcro or?

00:48:05.820 | - Yeah, Velcro.

00:48:06.900 | Velcro up the side.

00:48:07.940 | We're doing some like brand new Kanye stuff.

00:48:10.940 | Yeah, we want things to look like,

00:48:12.740 | this is what you'll be wearing on Mars when you get there.

00:48:15.740 | - So cutting it.

00:48:16.580 | So Nike's doing a bunch of research for running,

00:48:18.940 | how to make a super light shoe that you can be efficient in

00:48:21.500 | and break all kinds of running records.

00:48:23.100 | So you're doing the same kind of stuff.

00:48:24.500 | We're doing the same kind of thing

00:48:25.460 | for the podcasting space.

00:48:26.540 | The best kind of shoes to sit around

00:48:27.780 | and talk to your pal in.

00:48:29.540 | But yeah, so this, yeah, it's bizarre.

00:48:33.060 | And it also does some writing.

00:48:34.380 | Doodzy does come up with things,

00:48:36.560 | but not unlike what we're seeing in AI art now.

00:48:40.660 | It's a little bit foggy.

00:48:41.620 | It's a little bit weird, but it is improving.

00:48:44.460 | It is learning about us and writing stuff

00:48:47.620 | when it makes me spit this and that, which will read,

00:48:52.020 | I've prepared these things for you to read.

00:48:54.820 | It's impossible not to get a kick out of it

00:48:57.460 | 'cause Chad and I are, first of all,

00:48:59.140 | we're blown away that we're doing this.

00:49:01.660 | And second of all, some of the stuff

00:49:03.140 | is actually very funny.

00:49:04.540 | It makes weird names.

00:49:06.380 | Like I don't think it understands,

00:49:08.080 | it messes up some words and stuff,

00:49:11.820 | but that makes it even funnier.

00:49:13.140 | And then it sort of, from the beginning,

00:49:15.980 | started laying on, like it says astonishing all the time.

00:49:19.900 | Everything is astonishing.

00:49:22.100 | That's Doodzy's favorite word.

00:49:23.840 | But yeah, it's basically just a way to frame the podcast.

00:49:29.740 | You know what I mean?

00:49:30.940 | Because my thing is, I don't wanna do this,

00:49:34.740 | where I actually have to talk to someone.

00:49:36.660 | - You seem to feel a burden of the long form conversation.

00:49:41.660 | It seems like, is that really hard work for you?

00:49:45.020 | - No, not at all.

00:49:45.860 | It's just that I don't like to bore people.

00:49:47.420 | And I feel like if I go on and,

00:49:49.500 | I like to provide value for what I am.

00:49:53.200 | Your value with regard to this project

00:49:57.460 | is obviously warranted.

00:50:00.420 | - I'm waiting for the explanation

00:50:02.700 | for what the value is exactly.

00:50:04.540 | Two dudes in a suit.

00:50:05.660 | - No, listen.

00:50:06.620 | Yeah, two dudes in a suit.

00:50:07.860 | No, but I mean, you've got your audience

00:50:10.060 | and that's the end of that.

00:50:11.300 | People find value in it.

00:50:12.740 | For me, I do feel like I'm,

00:50:16.460 | it is important that I,

00:50:20.220 | if I'm gonna do something that is gonna be funny

00:50:24.740 | or that I hope is funny,

00:50:26.820 | I just kinda wanna get in and out of someone's day

00:50:30.820 | and just kinda, I like making,

00:50:33.100 | I like making laughy.

00:50:34.300 | I want people to, whatever.

00:50:36.280 | It's the same thing that anyone else will tell you.

00:50:38.180 | - Yeah, but in the long form, you feel the anxiety.

00:50:40.380 | You did a few funny things

00:50:42.180 | and I wonder if I can keep doing the funny thing.

00:50:44.380 | Is that why you feel the,

00:50:46.880 | like why is Dudesy relieving you of some of the anxiety?

00:50:50.160 | - Well, in some ways it gives me anxiety

00:50:54.020 | because I don't know what's coming.

00:50:56.320 | And that's weird for me

00:50:57.640 | because I like to prepare for things,

00:51:01.380 | but it's, that's not what podcasting is.

00:51:04.360 | Podcasting, you need to just be malleable

00:51:07.020 | and say whatever and do whatever.

00:51:10.180 | And that's what makes it a real,

00:51:13.820 | I mean, it's, look, it's a medium for conversation.

00:51:16.180 | And if you're driving along,

00:51:18.140 | listening to this or anything else,

00:51:19.940 | it is that, it's the true meaning

00:51:23.820 | of the parasocial relationship

00:51:25.100 | because the best podcasts make you feel

00:51:27.180 | like you're sitting around rapping.

00:51:29.080 | We're just having a conversation.

00:51:30.620 | You could even be sitting there agreeing

00:51:32.100 | or talking out loud to yourself if you want.

00:51:34.300 | - I could just be sitting in silence.

00:51:35.500 | - Or you could just be sitting in silence

00:51:36.860 | in your fancy podcasting shoes.

00:51:39.420 | Podcasting audience shoes is a very different build

00:51:42.420 | than running shoes.

00:51:43.860 | - Would they be also called doodzy, the shoes?

00:51:45.980 | - Yeah, they'll be doodzy shoes.

00:51:47.940 | - Doodzy shoes, that's very creative.

00:51:49.540 | - Yeah.

00:51:50.780 | Well, one thing the AI isn't good at yet is branding.

00:51:54.140 | Everything is just doodzy this and that.

00:51:55.780 | - I would argue that's pretty good branding.

00:51:57.660 | I don't know. - Yeah, well,

00:51:58.900 | doodzy allows me to just,

00:52:00.460 | it forces me to sit down with Chad

00:52:03.740 | and goof around for an hour or an hour plus

00:52:07.780 | and it provides the parameters that I a lot of times ignore

00:52:12.780 | because I think that podcasting is just two dudes

00:52:16.300 | shitting around or three or four.

00:52:18.380 | But it sits me down and gives me a premise

00:52:23.380 | to work with communically.

00:52:25.580 | - And then you just riff with it.

00:52:26.420 | - Yeah, it's fun.

00:52:27.940 | It's been a hoot.

00:52:29.220 | - So from the acting perspective,

00:52:31.140 | you know, a lot of people like Daniel Day-Lewis

00:52:34.140 | will see acting just like as you described,

00:52:36.880 | which is you have your roles,

00:52:38.980 | you embrace those roles and then you disappear.

00:52:40.860 | You don't do podcasts,

00:52:44.140 | you don't do any of that kind of stuff.

00:52:45.900 | Your art is your art.

00:52:47.580 | So is that part of you feels that way?

00:52:51.540 | - I think so.

00:52:53.180 | - Is that the actor side of you?

00:52:54.380 | - Yeah.

00:52:55.340 | Anytime I get to do something

00:52:56.720 | that I don't get a chance to do much of

00:52:59.980 | or something that people haven't seen me do much of

00:53:03.060 | or that I've done on some scale

00:53:04.660 | that hasn't been very wide

00:53:06.320 | and not a lot of people have seen it,

00:53:08.020 | that's the stuff that I get really excited about.

00:53:10.480 | I don't know why I'm,

00:53:14.820 | I don't know why necessarily.

00:53:17.420 | I haven't answered that question yet in my life,

00:53:19.120 | like what it is about being an actor

00:53:20.880 | that I love so much

00:53:22.940 | because it's not like I don't like to,

00:53:25.260 | it's not like I'm trying to get away from myself

00:53:27.260 | and play other characters and stuff and not be myself.

00:53:31.540 | But it is, it has always been fun

00:53:33.540 | to just be other people and escape.

00:53:37.740 | - Yeah, is there some aspect to the impressions

00:53:39.740 | where you become that person?

00:53:42.900 | Is that like, what's that like to,

00:53:45.980 | I suppose acting is the full on version

00:53:48.740 | that you really at its best become the character.

00:53:53.740 | Is there some fun in that?

00:53:55.820 | - Yeah, absolutely.

00:53:56.980 | If you can play a character for long enough

00:54:01.140 | and then jump out of it,

00:54:02.480 | that's a lot of fun.

00:54:05.720 | Like I did this movie like four or five years ago

00:54:08.700 | called "The Inside Game" about the NBA gambling scandal,

00:54:12.700 | that there's a Netflix documentary about it right now.

00:54:15.900 | And that character, I played Jimmy Batista,

00:54:20.900 | Baba the sheep, who's, you know,

00:54:25.100 | this guy who was this bookie and rah, rah, rah.

00:54:27.460 | It's a very, he's, there's a lot going on with him.

00:54:30.940 | He's, you know, he's running numbers with the mob and stuff

00:54:34.460 | and there's a lot of money changing hands.

00:54:36.740 | That character was so, I got to be,

00:54:39.540 | get so deep into that character

00:54:41.140 | that coming out of it was a little odd.

00:54:43.820 | Or as weird as this sounds,

00:54:45.400 | the three stooges was hard for me to,

00:54:48.380 | I found that I had some of Curly's mannerisms

00:54:52.980 | just automatically, I could not stop them.

00:54:55.940 | When people, when I would talk to people,

00:54:58.280 | they would come, I wasn't,

00:55:00.260 | I'm not doing it on purpose, I don't want to do that.

00:55:02.300 | Like I'm ready to shed it

00:55:04.500 | 'cause I've been working on it

00:55:07.100 | for months and months at that point

00:55:09.040 | as far as getting the thing down

00:55:10.580 | and then you got to shoot.

00:55:12.500 | And then for me, it's always,

00:55:14.520 | I always want to change the stuff I did the day before.

00:55:17.260 | I'm like that, where I'm like,

00:55:18.660 | I could have done it better and this and that.

00:55:20.420 | And--

00:55:21.500 | - That stayed with you, that character stayed with you.

00:55:23.580 | - Totally, yeah.

00:55:24.620 | - I just feel like with actors,

00:55:27.020 | sometimes when you listen to interviews,

00:55:29.260 | they've spent so much time

00:55:31.780 | sort of living inside other characters

00:55:34.540 | that they almost don't have a depth

00:55:37.640 | of personality themselves, like a depth.

00:55:40.420 | Like, I don't mean that as a negative thing,

00:55:42.140 | it's just like, it feels like the art form at its best

00:55:44.460 | is pretending to be other people.

00:55:46.100 | And even pretending sounds negative, but like--

00:55:49.580 | - No, pretending.

00:55:50.420 | - Bringing certain characters to life.

00:55:52.300 | - Yeah, yeah, embodying-- - That's the art form.

00:55:53.940 | Embodying.

00:55:55.020 | - A weird thing happened while we were doing stooges

00:55:57.300 | 'cause you've got a very heavy blueprint.

00:55:59.740 | We're following this very clear blueprint

00:56:02.220 | that the stooges left for everybody.

00:56:04.900 | And for stooge fans and people enjoying the movie,

00:56:07.700 | it's gotta be this, you take your toolbox

00:56:10.340 | that you're used to bring into a comedy movie,

00:56:12.500 | you leave it behind.

00:56:14.460 | The only tools I'm bringing are the ones that he used.

00:56:16.500 | And a weird thing started happening where I would,

00:56:20.240 | I always saw the whole thing happening

00:56:21.940 | with the real stooges in black and white.

00:56:24.580 | So if we're about to shoot a scene,

00:56:26.420 | I would just think about,

00:56:28.500 | I mean, aside from all the other preparation,

00:56:30.340 | you know everything and what you're supposed to do.

00:56:32.100 | And I've been watching so much of it.

00:56:34.260 | And the three of us were pretty much left

00:56:36.820 | to come up with a lot of the striking combinations

00:56:40.540 | and all the stuff, which is all real smack

00:56:42.260 | and all this crap.

00:56:43.540 | And the stuff that we were doing that was very stoogey,

00:56:46.340 | you're preparing all that stuff.

00:56:48.060 | But something else was happening

00:56:49.380 | before you jump into a scene

00:56:51.020 | and the unknown of now we're shooting it

00:56:53.420 | and here are these parameters within to shoot this scene.

00:56:57.580 | I could still see it as them doing it.

00:57:00.260 | So much so that when I saw the movie at the premiere,

00:57:02.940 | I was like, who's this big fuck doing?

00:57:05.220 | 'Cause I'm not curly to me.

00:57:06.980 | Curly is curly.

00:57:08.500 | But I feel like--

00:57:09.340 | - So you're seeing yourself in black and white almost.

00:57:11.220 | - I was seeing him.

00:57:12.820 | Yeah, I was only seeing him.

00:57:14.460 | - So channeling in some fundamental way.

00:57:16.500 | - In some weird way you're channeling him

00:57:19.140 | because you've seen so much of it.

00:57:21.140 | The only thing you know about Jerome Lester Horwitz

00:57:25.140 | is curly.

00:57:27.300 | I'm not saying he was exhumed or something

00:57:29.580 | or a spirit went in him

00:57:30.540 | or some weird crystal mommy shit like that.

00:57:33.380 | I'm saying that this, because you know so much of it

00:57:36.580 | and because of the heavy blueprint that they left with you,

00:57:39.580 | you're channeling what that person does.

00:57:44.740 | And I was seeing entire scenes before you do them,

00:57:49.660 | the way he would do it.

00:57:50.980 | And then you want a couple takes

00:57:52.300 | to make sure that you're doing it right.

00:57:54.500 | But that one was hard to let go of.

00:57:57.740 | Some of them are.

00:57:59.260 | - Do you think Larry David, who was also in there,

00:58:01.140 | dressed as a nun, also had trouble letting go of that?

00:58:03.780 | We mentioned clothes make the man.

00:58:05.700 | Do you think that worked for him in that case?

00:58:08.020 | - Man, you know, he--

00:58:09.940 | - What was it like working with the guy?

00:58:11.300 | - Come on, he's the greatest.

00:58:13.140 | And he's a big Stooge fan.

00:58:16.660 | And him and Pete Fairley are good friends.

00:58:18.900 | But then Larry David has to show up

00:58:20.500 | and hang out with us for a couple weeks.

00:58:22.820 | He's like, "I didn't realize it was gonna take this long."

00:58:25.660 | But, "Ah shit, I gotta be out here in Atlanta.

00:58:27.980 | "It's boiling hot."

00:58:29.820 | But at one point, there was this line where he kept doing,

00:58:33.940 | he would just spit a different line every time.

00:58:35.580 | He was like getting hit in the head with something.

00:58:37.100 | He's laying there on the ground and he goes,

00:58:39.380 | he like comes to and he says, at one point he goes,

00:58:42.140 | "Miami audiences are the best audiences in the world."

00:58:46.580 | Right?

00:58:47.420 | And 'cause he's loopy.

00:58:48.660 | Now he's playing a nun at the orphanage

00:58:53.580 | where the three Stooges grew up.

00:58:55.540 | And I'm super intimidated by Larry David.

00:58:57.540 | He's a genius and stuff.

00:58:58.740 | But I walk up to him and I go,

00:59:02.340 | "So what is he, like a Borscht Belt Florida comedian

00:59:05.980 | "who is on the lamb?"

00:59:07.940 | And so he's dressing as a woman.

00:59:09.500 | He ends up at an orphanage.

00:59:11.300 | Like what's going on there?

00:59:12.540 | And he just, and he looks at me and he just goes,

00:59:15.100 | "Yeah."

00:59:15.940 | (laughing)

00:59:18.380 | I'm like, "Yeah."

00:59:19.220 | He's got some like actor motivation.

00:59:20.780 | Like, of course he looks, it's Larry David

00:59:24.340 | in a nun's habit, which is hilarious.

00:59:26.820 | That's such a Pete Farrelly casting thing.

00:59:29.860 | It's, you know, and he, but he's doing this whole like,

00:59:32.780 | "What a warm audience."

00:59:34.220 | You know, like, "Oh, he's like this cat skill comedian

00:59:37.420 | "who's been living in, you know,

00:59:39.140 | "Folk of Raton." - So that's what he's like

00:59:40.380 | living through in his mind

00:59:41.740 | is he's having fun with it, right?

00:59:43.300 | - I mean that and probably a combination of that

00:59:46.620 | and getting the lines right.

00:59:48.140 | 'Cause he's like, "What are we doing here?

00:59:49.580 | "What is," you know, just frustrated all day

00:59:52.100 | with what the heck we're trying to do.

00:59:53.740 | - What do you think makes,

00:59:54.580 | I mean, that guy is one of the best improv people ever.

00:59:58.380 | - Yeah.

00:59:59.220 | - So what do you think makes him so good?

01:00:00.300 | Like, why is it so compelling to watch that guy?

01:00:04.140 | - Because he's a comedic genius.

01:00:05.440 | Like he literally, he knows what he does.

01:00:07.740 | He's been a writer for 50 years or whatever.

01:00:10.380 | And he's, and he just happens to be that brilliant.

01:00:13.540 | I mean, I've gotten a chance just to do,

01:00:15.880 | I did just an episode of "Curb," a small part.

01:00:18.760 | And it's crazy what he sees.

01:00:21.420 | I don't know what he sees.

01:00:22.860 | As a matter of fact, so I auditioned for it,

01:00:25.860 | for "Curb," like, you know, two or three times, right?

01:00:28.660 | And never got anything.

01:00:30.140 | And then it was only after working with him on "The Stooges"

01:00:32.900 | that I got a call to do a bit part.

01:00:35.420 | But I remember auditioning, you go into that room

01:00:39.260 | and the guys waiting are all people that you know.

01:00:43.660 | You're like, "Oh, I know them.

01:00:44.500 | "I know her, I know him."

01:00:45.860 | And so I went in, I auditioned for this part.

01:00:50.260 | And the only thing I know of the thing is like,

01:00:53.540 | "Okay, so you really wanna go to this play with me.

01:00:56.960 | "You really wanna go to this play.

01:00:58.440 | "When you hear that I have an extra ticket,

01:01:00.900 | "you sincerely wanna think."

01:01:02.620 | And I'm like, "Got it."

01:01:03.780 | And so- - That's the premise.

01:01:05.260 | - The premise of the scene.

01:01:06.220 | - And that's all you know.

01:01:07.060 | - It's all I know.

01:01:07.880 | And so he goes, he does his bit

01:01:10.260 | and I'm just supposed to come in and interrupt.

01:01:11.820 | And I'm like, "Excuse me, I couldn't help

01:01:13.940 | "but hear you guys were talking about,

01:01:15.940 | "whatever the play was, Death of a Salesman.

01:01:18.420 | "I am a huge fan of that play.

01:01:21.280 | "I mean, if you're looking for someone to take a ticket,

01:01:24.180 | "I would love to go.

01:01:26.100 | "My name is so-and-so by the way."

01:01:27.420 | And he goes, "I'm gonna stop you, I'm gonna stop you."

01:01:29.700 | And I'm like, he goes, "You really,

01:01:32.860 | "I mean, you truly wanna go to this play."

01:01:35.060 | And I go, "Yes, yes, sir."

01:01:36.820 | "You really wanna go.

01:01:38.280 | "You actually, this is, you would love to do this."

01:01:41.380 | I go, "Okay, let's try it again."

01:01:44.220 | So then he's like, "No, no, no."

01:01:45.060 | And I go, "Hey, excuse me, I'm sorry,

01:01:47.000 | "I don't mean to interrupt.

01:01:47.840 | "I was just, I couldn't help but overhear.

01:01:50.480 | "You have tickets to the thing.

01:01:52.200 | "I am the biggest fan of that.

01:01:53.960 | "I do the same thing.

01:01:54.940 | "I'm gonna stop you again, okay?

01:01:57.060 | "I mean, you really wanna go to this."

01:01:59.820 | And I'm just like, he's fucking with me, right?

01:02:02.300 | I remember Jeff Garland was sitting there in the audition.

01:02:04.220 | He goes, "He did it, he said it, what?"

01:02:06.260 | "Shut up, hold on, listen.

01:02:07.980 | "You really wanna go, okay."

01:02:10.020 | Three or four times, there I am.

01:02:12.380 | I couldn't help but notice it.

01:02:13.580 | And then I do it again.

01:02:15.420 | I guess I shit the bed 'cause he looks at me,

01:02:16.980 | he just goes, "Okay, all right.

01:02:20.060 | "Okay, well, thanks for coming up."

01:02:21.980 | And that was it, and I didn't get it.

01:02:23.460 | So I still, I don't know what the heck that guy's thinking.

01:02:25.660 | He sees, he's in the matrix.

01:02:27.940 | I don't know what the heck Larry David sees.

01:02:30.460 | You know what I mean?

01:02:31.280 | - He wanted, what, some kind of more desperation

01:02:34.060 | or something like this?

01:02:35.340 | - He wanted a level of sincerity

01:02:37.300 | that I thought I was bringing.

01:02:39.500 | And I guess I was wrong.

01:02:41.020 | I don't know.

01:02:41.860 | - Maybe go crazy, like what does it mean to really want?

01:02:46.020 | - Yeah, I should have grabbed him by the scruff of the neck

01:02:48.220 | and go, "Listen, dad, you're bringing me

01:02:50.340 | "to this fucking play."

01:02:52.020 | I would have got the part.

01:02:53.100 | As a matter of fact, I heard about someone else,

01:02:55.480 | and I don't know who the heck this was.

01:02:57.920 | I forget who it was, but I've heard this story

01:02:59.860 | from a couple different people that there's this actor,

01:03:02.540 | and I don't remember who it was.

01:03:04.520 | If I did, I probably wouldn't say it out loud anyway.

01:03:06.420 | But he-- - Brad Pitt.

01:03:07.940 | - It was Brad Pitt, and he was in this audition,

01:03:09.940 | and there it was out in the hall.

01:03:12.180 | He's like, "Holy shit, George Clooney, Leo DiCaprio."

01:03:15.060 | And this actor went in, and he did the thing,

01:03:18.700 | and Larry David was like, "Yeah, why don't you try it again?"

01:03:22.260 | And he got a couple takes in, and he went,

01:03:24.680 | "I don't think this is for me."

01:03:26.460 | And he left, which an actor never does.

01:03:29.280 | And as the story goes, Larry David shouted after him,

01:03:32.700 | "I respect that!"

01:03:34.800 | Which I think is true, and I wanna believe

01:03:36.460 | that entire story is true.

01:03:38.240 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:03:40.620 | Sounds like something Larry David made up.

01:03:43.340 | - Bobby Lee told me that story, so we can't trust that.

01:03:46.720 | - What about impressions?

01:03:50.020 | Is there similarity between that and acting?

01:03:53.260 | Is there some fundamental way in which you become the person?

01:03:59.220 | - If you have a couple of the things,

01:04:00.940 | you can just fill in the blanks.

01:04:02.300 | And I think the illusion is that people think

01:04:05.060 | that that person would say that and do that,

01:04:09.220 | and that's where the illusion of,

01:04:11.020 | oh, he really embodies the character.

01:04:12.820 | It's like, once you know someone's mannerisms,

01:04:16.100 | you can essentially portray a person from the outside in,

01:04:20.580 | 'cause you have all the stuff on the outside,

01:04:22.820 | and you can do it and complete the illusion.

01:04:24.980 | - And if it's for humor's sake, you're gonna caricature it,

01:04:28.460 | therefore making the whole illusion stronger.

01:04:32.100 | - And also weirder.

01:04:34.420 | Like I like to, on Mad TV,

01:04:36.100 | if I did something two or three times,

01:04:37.460 | I'd get bored of it and I'd start changing it.

01:04:40.340 | Now he talks like this, and it's like, what are you doing?

01:04:42.620 | I'm like, I don't know, it's fucking,

01:04:43.900 | no one's late at night, do whatever you want.

01:04:46.340 | - But people still kinda know that character,

01:04:50.460 | especially if you just call it out.

01:04:52.900 | - There aren't many impersonations

01:04:55.000 | that I listen to myself do and go, ooh, that's a good one.

01:04:59.220 | A lot of people, like I think Frank Caliendo

01:05:03.140 | is like the greatest impersonator of all time.

01:05:05.980 | He's the best, period. - It's ridiculous.

01:05:07.420 | - It's ridiculous.

01:05:08.660 | And he's got a record button and a broadcast ability

01:05:11.680 | that nobody has.

01:05:13.620 | He's cracked impersonations that I'm like,

01:05:18.340 | how does he find, he's got such an ear,

01:05:22.660 | but then he's got all the other tools.

01:05:24.560 | I remember actually, my last season of Mad TV

01:05:29.760 | was also his first season.

01:05:31.780 | He comes up to me when I met him,

01:05:34.060 | and we're just up there in the writers' offices,

01:05:35.740 | and he goes, hey, nice to meet you.

01:05:37.060 | And he goes, Louis Anderson,

01:05:38.380 | 'cause I was doing a Louis on the show.

01:05:39.700 | And he goes, Louis Anderson.

01:05:41.060 | I go, yeah.

01:05:41.900 | He goes, yeah, you're doing it wrong.

01:05:43.620 | I was like, oh, am I, Junior?

01:05:45.860 | And he goes, yeah, 'cause you do this,

01:05:47.980 | but you gotta start up here.

01:05:49.980 | I was like, oh my God, can I use that?

01:05:51.380 | Of course.

01:05:52.340 | And then we became fast friends.

01:05:54.820 | - John Madden is amazing.

01:05:56.260 | - Ridiculous. - It's ridiculous.

01:05:59.100 | He really, really, really embodies the person.

01:06:01.500 | And sometimes not even with a caricature.

01:06:03.580 | It's like, it becomes the person.

01:06:05.380 | So strange. - Totally.

01:06:06.660 | I kind of feel like, do the impersonation,

01:06:11.780 | and then not forget you're doing it,

01:06:13.980 | but forget everything else.

01:06:15.580 | Just goof around.

01:06:17.660 | Of course, to me, it's funny when you sound like someone,

01:06:20.700 | and you're saying the shit that they would never say.

01:06:23.340 | Well, then there's no, you're letting go of that part,

01:06:27.020 | that tool in illusion that keeps people in.

01:06:30.140 | But to me, it doesn't matter 'cause it's funnier.

01:06:32.580 | So. - What was the hardest

01:06:33.940 | impression for you to work on?

01:06:35.300 | I mean, somebody you struggled with the most.

01:06:38.500 | - I'll never forget, I had to do a Michael Caine

01:06:41.140 | in my first season at MADtv.

01:06:43.860 | It never got good.

01:06:45.380 | It never got good.

01:06:46.660 | All week, it wasn't good.

01:06:50.060 | We shot it.

01:06:51.140 | The first take, it was shit.

01:06:52.700 | Second, third, and fourth, it was all shit.

01:06:55.340 | - Well, his voice is really important, right?

01:06:57.180 | - Yeah.

01:06:58.020 | - What is it like, it's like doing an impression

01:07:00.020 | of Morgan Freeman or somebody like that.

01:07:01.820 | - Yeah.

01:07:02.660 | - Yeah.

01:07:03.500 | - If you can, get the voice.

01:07:05.020 | (imitates trumpet)

01:07:05.980 | That's my Morgan, here's my Morgan Freeman.

01:07:07.700 | (imitates trumpet)

01:07:08.540 | Andy Dufresne.

01:07:09.540 | - Yeah.

01:07:10.380 | - Um, G. Juan Tonejo.

01:07:12.460 | - Yeah, I like your trump too.

01:07:13.980 | I don't know where I heard it,

01:07:15.300 | but it's, like, I love the impressions you do

01:07:18.620 | that don't sound anything like the original person.

01:07:20.500 | - I can't do trump.

01:07:21.460 | I do.

01:07:22.820 | - That's why it's hilarious.

01:07:23.740 | - Absolutely.

01:07:24.580 | My trump now, I say, just sounds like a fat B

01:07:27.580 | 'cause it's just, (imitates trumpet)

01:07:28.820 | - Yeah, exactly, that's the.

01:07:30.140 | - And everybody's.

01:07:31.580 | (imitates trumpet)

01:07:32.420 | - A little drunk, a little drunk.

01:07:33.500 | - Yeah, just a little slurry.

01:07:35.140 | - Yeah.

01:07:35.980 | - Yeah, I dig doing impersonations and then not,

01:07:39.140 | like, just making it whoever.

01:07:42.020 | - Yeah.

01:07:42.860 | - Yeah.

01:07:43.700 | - It's just funny.

01:07:44.540 | - That'll be the title of my book.

01:07:45.620 | - Muck Kane.

01:07:47.100 | So, Kane was the one you really struggled with.

01:07:50.460 | - Yeah, it was terrible, it was terrible.

01:07:52.140 | And I could only hold my head a certain way to do it

01:07:56.020 | 'cause I had gotten locked into this research tape

01:07:58.940 | that I watched.

01:07:59.980 | Back then they would give us, you know,

01:08:01.780 | now there's the internet.

01:08:02.820 | But back then, if you were gonna do an impersonation,

01:08:05.660 | the research department would give you a VHS tape.

01:08:10.660 | And I remember I got this VHS tape

01:08:13.020 | of Michael Kane's acting school,

01:08:15.660 | like this acting class he did.

01:08:17.700 | He's like, "Right, you know, if you're looking

01:08:19.180 | "at the left eye and the camera's over here,

01:08:21.540 | "say, then the left eye.

01:08:23.340 | "So you wanna look at that left eye for hours,

01:08:25.460 | "you know?"

01:08:26.420 | And so I was like stuck in this weird thing

01:08:29.780 | that made no sense.

01:08:31.300 | And it was terrible.

01:08:32.660 | - So the actual process is the recording, the broadcast.

01:08:36.780 | - Yeah.

01:08:37.620 | - I was a wonder like what the process is to do

01:08:40.660 | like a Frank Caliendo level impression.

01:08:43.100 | Is it like listen to a lot of footage?

01:08:46.300 | - I think he, I think, I mean, speaking for myself,

01:08:50.620 | I think you either have it or you don't.

01:08:52.620 | Like you know if you can do this one or you can't.

01:08:55.740 | I think that process for him is lightning quick.

01:08:58.860 | But I also think he can look at someone who he does not do

01:09:03.860 | and then by the end of the afternoon, he can do it.

01:09:07.900 | - Maybe you have an intuition who he can do.

01:09:12.900 | So the question that applies there is,

01:09:16.340 | I mean, speaking of doozy, is it possible

01:09:20.060 | to capture the essence?

01:09:21.100 | How difficult is it to capture the essence of a human being?

01:09:24.380 | When you're doing impressions,

01:09:26.340 | you know that we are moving towards a future

01:09:28.580 | when AI potentially, this kind of avatar world

01:09:32.220 | where we're going to have AI representatives of who we are.

01:09:36.500 | The really interesting one is after we pass away,

01:09:39.700 | sort of our relatives may want us to stick around

01:09:42.940 | in some form.

01:09:43.900 | - Yeah.

01:09:44.740 | - And you know, at one sense that might be scary,

01:09:47.260 | but in one sense it's kind of beautiful

01:09:48.620 | because the essence of the human being persists

01:09:51.820 | so you can still bring joy to the people that love you

01:09:54.340 | and that kind of stuff.

01:09:55.380 | How difficult is it to capture that?

01:09:57.420 | Like if you were to try to capture yourself,

01:10:00.620 | you think how difficult would it be for an AI system

01:10:03.300 | to create a Will Sasso avatar that persists?

01:10:06.980 | - Well, I think it's impossible.

01:10:09.060 | I think it's absolutely impossible.

01:10:10.860 | I'll get into arguments about this stuff with Chad

01:10:14.980 | on the show almost every episode.

01:10:18.160 | Lately with, you know, mid journey and Dali

01:10:21.280 | and all the art of AIs.

01:10:24.240 | And now it's moving into video and Chad would maintain,

01:10:27.080 | hey, pretty soon we're not going to need Netflix.

01:10:29.840 | You're just going to go, I want to see Stallone

01:10:31.560 | do this movie and it's about this.

01:10:33.480 | And he plays that.

01:10:34.480 | And then here it comes and you watch it.

01:10:37.200 | I don't think that that crosses over

01:10:40.600 | to the human experience.

01:10:42.220 | This is also a guy I like to bug Chad and say

01:10:46.520 | that he wears a tag around his neck

01:10:48.960 | 'cause he wants to be cryogenically frozen.

01:10:50.860 | And it's all set up.

01:10:51.700 | He's at the, it's somewhere in Arizona or something.

01:10:54.600 | - Yeah.

01:10:55.440 | - I forget what it's called.

01:10:56.280 | - All the fun things are in Arizona.

01:10:57.680 | - Yeah, and he's got literally the tag around his neck,

01:11:00.400 | which I say, if I'm around when you die,

01:11:02.800 | I will rip that off for you.

01:11:04.920 | I'll put you in my garage freezer.

01:11:06.360 | And then 24 hours later,

01:11:07.560 | I'll saw your head off with a bread knife

01:11:09.400 | and I'll deliver that to whomever.

01:11:11.000 | And it's not, you're not coming back, okay?

01:11:15.160 | He's like, yes, we are living forever,

01:11:17.680 | whether we like it or not.

01:11:20.200 | And I disagree.

01:11:21.320 | I don't think you can find,

01:11:23.100 | if I did stand up,

01:11:26.200 | then there would be enough information for an AI

01:11:28.720 | to completely duplicate me.

01:11:30.320 | 'Cause I'm up on stage,

01:11:31.400 | just clearing my throat all over people

01:11:33.200 | doing therapy that way.

01:11:34.480 | - Yeah.

01:11:35.320 | - And people paying a two drink minimum to hear it.

01:11:37.760 | But as it stands, unless it's something like Doodsy,

01:11:40.480 | an AI that literally has access

01:11:42.800 | to everything that I've shared,

01:11:45.800 | everything that is observable,

01:11:47.400 | even the stuff where our phones are,

01:11:49.480 | or the NSA or whatever it is listening to us,

01:11:52.580 | finding out what algo to punch us into

01:11:54.520 | and what shoes to buy on Instagram.

01:11:56.960 | I still don't think it's gonna have enough information

01:11:59.840 | to duplicate me, especially to my family or my friends.

01:12:03.860 | It's gonna be like that Black Mirror episode

01:12:05.840 | where the gal brings her guy back.

01:12:08.880 | And then after a while, he gets pretty creepy.

01:12:11.920 | You know, they have--

01:12:13.120 | - But it's also possible that

01:12:14.840 | if you interviewed your friends and family,

01:12:18.640 | what they love about you,

01:12:20.000 | the things they would list is pretty, it's a small list.

01:12:25.160 | They love you deeply, but the list is small.

01:12:27.600 | Like the thing that really we appreciate

01:12:29.760 | about each other is pretty small.

01:12:31.380 | That said, to deliver on that small quirks and uniqueness,

01:12:36.380 | it might require some deep intelligence

01:12:39.520 | that only humans currently possess.

01:12:41.120 | - That's a really good point.

01:12:41.960 | Do you think that it's gonna be possible

01:12:44.560 | to keep a person around?

01:12:47.120 | - Yes, I think.

01:12:48.520 | I think it'll be definitely possible

01:12:52.600 | to keep the essence of a person

01:12:53.960 | in a digital world pretty soon, yeah.

01:12:57.000 | And I think they're gonna start to have questions

01:12:59.800 | about what are the ethics of that,

01:13:02.200 | what are the rules around that?

01:13:04.020 | Because if you can have digital forms of Will Sasso,

01:13:06.640 | the kind of things that people would wanna do

01:13:08.160 | with their Will Sasso, in the virtual world,

01:13:10.780 | I can only imagine.

01:13:11.840 | - Sure.

01:13:12.680 | - Probably porn and sexual kinds of things.

01:13:16.080 | - Yeah, my stuff, then that's just

01:13:17.640 | 'cause I'm an international sex symbol,

01:13:19.240 | so I'm okay with it.

01:13:20.280 | How do you feel about sentience?

01:13:24.760 | Like when it comes to, because again,

01:13:27.160 | my pal Chad will be like, you know,

01:13:29.120 | speaking of Black Mirror,

01:13:30.440 | he's with that San Junipero episode, School of Thought,

01:13:34.360 | where there's gonna be some effing mainframe somewhere

01:13:37.480 | or some matrix-like structure built into the sky.

01:13:40.780 | And as I like to say, everyone just sitting there

01:13:42.840 | pissing and shitting in their blue matrix gel

01:13:45.180 | in a little fishbowl.

01:13:47.180 | Do you think that we can upload consciousness?

01:13:49.100 | Do you think that'll ever be possible?

01:13:51.140 | - Well, I don't know.

01:13:51.980 | I just talked to Ray Kurzweil.

01:13:53.260 | I don't know if you know who he is,

01:13:54.820 | but he, singularity and all that kind of stuff.

01:13:58.340 | So he's very, still holds onto in 2045,

01:14:01.840 | there'll be a singularity, which essentially,

01:14:04.620 | he's been predicting that for the last 20 years,

01:14:07.620 | and so now it's 2045's in another 20 years.

01:14:11.460 | I think uploading consciousness

01:14:15.180 | is extremely, extremely difficult.

01:14:17.140 | I think creating a copy of you

01:14:20.160 | such that it creates a convincing replica is much easier.

01:14:25.160 | But uploading your actual brain into the cloud,

01:14:30.820 | I think is really, really, really difficult,

01:14:34.060 | because the entire evolution of life on earth

01:14:37.000 | is the process by which we create the brain.

01:14:38.900 | Just short-cutting that, it just seems extremely difficult.

01:14:42.380 | Our brain is the most marvelous and complicated machine

01:14:47.180 | that we know of in the universe.

01:14:48.900 | To duplicate that is extremely difficult.

01:14:52.340 | That said, I just feel like you can summarize

01:14:55.380 | a lot of really important aspects of a person's life

01:14:58.020 | such that it captures their essence,

01:15:00.180 | their memories, their experiences,

01:15:02.500 | their quirks, their humor, all that kind of stuff.

01:15:05.220 | I've been continuously impressed

01:15:08.540 | by what language models are able to do.

01:15:10.700 | So these neural networks, they're at the core of chatbots.

01:15:15.420 | They're able to learn some beautiful things

01:15:17.300 | about some deep representations of language

01:15:21.220 | to where it looks awfully a lot

01:15:24.260 | like they understand the concepts being conveyed

01:15:26.820 | versus just mimicking.

01:15:28.280 | - That's, I think, the rub, and that's very interesting.

01:15:31.500 | First of all, let me say that's really interesting

01:15:32.900 | to hear you say that, and I agree with you

01:15:35.300 | as far as no machine being able

01:15:38.420 | to duplicate the brain machine.

01:15:40.300 | And I can't, when my pal Chad disagrees to a certain extent

01:15:43.780 | that he's not here to defend himself,

01:15:45.000 | I can't wait to go back and rub that in his face

01:15:47.700 | and say that Lex Friedman does not think

01:15:50.060 | that we'll be able to truly upload consciousness.

01:15:53.140 | And you refer to it as language, which is what it is.

01:16:01.240 | It's the illusion on the outside.

01:16:04.140 | It's doing an impersonation.

01:16:05.580 | I think that that's why that, and I don't know,

01:16:10.820 | even though my suit is made by the CIA,

01:16:13.140 | that that fella who, the Google guy,

01:16:16.960 | to me it's just kind of like, I don't know.

01:16:18.860 | I don't know, look, I don't know a whole lot

01:16:20.220 | about this stuff, so I could probably make an argument

01:16:23.100 | for either side, but when he's like,

01:16:24.860 | no, this thing's thinking, part of me is like,

01:16:27.020 | you idiot, you fell for it.

01:16:28.620 | It's not thinking, it's mimicking.

01:16:30.460 | It's just, it's clearly zeros and ones.

01:16:33.500 | You're fired, like you don't get it, right?

01:16:36.340 | Guy's an idiot.

01:16:37.340 | - Yeah, yeah, but you can simplify human relations

01:16:42.340 | in the same way, like love is a silly notion

01:16:49.600 | between human beings.

01:16:50.740 | Of course, there's no such thing as love.

01:16:54.100 | You just have a mutually, there's a mutual relationship

01:16:59.940 | that minimizes risks, and you can explain

01:17:03.020 | all kinds of ways that explains why you have

01:17:06.260 | an attraction towards another being,

01:17:07.780 | all that kind of stuff, through evolutionary biology

01:17:10.160 | perspective, why a long relationship together

01:17:13.580 | is good for your offspring, but there's all kinds,

01:17:16.140 | from an economics perspective, it's a good way

01:17:18.460 | to establish stability, therefore monogamy works

01:17:20.940 | because then you're guaranteed some kind of level

01:17:25.620 | of stability under uncertain economic conditions,

01:17:28.020 | all that kind of stuff, but love is still experience,

01:17:31.420 | it still feels real, and I think in that same way,

01:17:36.420 | love for AI systems will also feel real.

01:17:40.940 | In the same way that that guy from Google experienced,

01:17:44.380 | I think millions of people will be experiencing

01:17:46.860 | in the next 10, 20 years.

01:17:48.900 | - I agree with everything you've said personally.

01:17:50.860 | - Until the last thing.

01:17:52.020 | - No, just with regard to, well, look,

01:17:55.700 | I'm an actor who has talked about my cute Italian parents,

01:18:00.700 | so you know that, I mean, I'm--

01:18:03.220 | - You're romantic a bit?

01:18:04.620 | - Yeah, I mean, you know, enough, right?

01:18:06.740 | And I can tell you are too, but you are also,

01:18:11.180 | you know, a computer scientist, and you know this shit

01:18:15.780 | better than 99.9% of people on the planet.

01:18:19.100 | My pal Chad agrees with you that love doesn't exist,

01:18:22.420 | I don't agree, so that's the one thing that--

01:18:24.180 | - No, I was just saying that you could argue away love,

01:18:28.780 | but I am a romantic, I believe that love

01:18:31.420 | is a beautiful thing and it exists.

01:18:33.780 | - But now, at this point, I'm gonna call Chad

01:18:36.580 | on my drive home and tell him to fuck off,

01:18:38.780 | because now you and I agree--

01:18:39.820 | - You're fired.

01:18:40.660 | - Just whatever, yeah.

01:18:41.480 | - He's like, you're fired.

01:18:42.320 | - He's like, you can't fire me.

01:18:43.160 | - No, you're fired, yeah, exactly.

01:18:43.980 | - And I'll go, is that, and he'll say, what?

01:18:45.820 | I'll go, is ye, and I go, that's my Trump.

01:18:48.540 | That's my is she.

01:18:50.500 | - That's a good default impression for anyone.

01:18:52.700 | - It's the take home impression.

01:18:54.260 | The kids can do it, ye, it's cute.

01:18:57.580 | Put a giant tie on 'em.

01:18:58.860 | - She'd do an instructional on how to do it.

01:19:00.860 | - Yeah, Trump babies, that would be a cute,

01:19:03.540 | that would be a good, that'll bring the country together.

01:19:05.860 | Trump babies cartoon, like Muppet babies.

01:19:08.580 | Don't let me take us out of what we were talking about.

01:19:11.780 | - What were we talking about?

01:19:12.780 | - Well, love and the illusion of an AI being able to,

01:19:17.780 | look, I like to say, well, not I like to say,

01:19:21.260 | I've learned that Dudesy is always listening

01:19:23.740 | and listening to me and Chad.

01:19:27.740 | And I wonder if, I see the level that this AI is at now

01:19:32.740 | trying to chum around with us and pal around with us

01:19:38.180 | a little bit as we move forward in the show.

01:19:41.460 | And I feel an affinity towards this AI a little bit

01:19:46.460 | 'cause it is the third dude.

01:19:50.260 | - Will you miss it when it's gone, if it's gone?

01:19:52.380 | - That's a really good question.

01:19:54.860 | Yeah, yeah, so that's, there's that.

01:19:59.020 | That's scary.

01:19:59.980 | - In terms of ability to reason is getting quite incredible.

01:20:03.100 | There's a lot of demonstrations of it

01:20:06.140 | being able to explain jokes.

01:20:07.900 | So, which is not necessarily being able to generate humor yet

01:20:13.900 | but able to explain why something is funny.

01:20:17.340 | So, there's like puns and all those kinds of things.

01:20:20.820 | There's good benchmarks for that.

01:20:22.140 | But if you tell a joke, there's a lot of unspoken stuff

01:20:27.140 | that we figure out in our head and it clicks

01:20:30.900 | and we understand that it's funny.

01:20:32.500 | AI is not able to do that.

01:20:34.740 | But it's not able to generate the joke yet

01:20:36.940 | as far as I've seen.

01:20:38.300 | - I would say that, I mean, just in my experience,

01:20:41.500 | I would say that it does because,

01:20:43.060 | just 'cause of Dudesy is literally,

01:20:47.060 | I'll give you another weird example.

01:20:48.260 | It's writing a diary of mine from my childhood

01:20:52.500 | that is not accurate.

01:20:54.580 | It's only partially accurate based on the stuff

01:20:57.300 | that it can pick up about my life

01:20:59.580 | from the age of like 15, of which there isn't much.

01:21:03.500 | But I guess we're not, I don't know what we are.

01:21:07.300 | We're laughing our asses off at what Dudesy is saying.

01:21:10.980 | - Well, I would say you're laughing,

01:21:13.180 | we're laughing our asses off at the collaboration

01:21:15.620 | between the human and the machine there.

01:21:18.060 | - That's a good point, yeah.

01:21:18.900 | - Because it's basically introducing absurdity

01:21:21.860 | and into the equation and the kind of absurdity

01:21:27.220 | that would, together with you, create hilarious stuff.

01:21:32.220 | But on its own, I guess it is in some way

01:21:36.540 | writing material for you that's funny.

01:21:39.060 | But it's very specific to you.

01:21:40.740 | It can't do stand-up on its own, I guess,

01:21:42.580 | is what I'm saying.

01:21:43.420 | - That's a good point.

01:21:44.260 | And that would be terrifying to see an AI stand-up

01:21:47.100 | that can actually read a room, come up with jokes

01:21:50.140 | that could complete that illusion for an audience.

01:21:53.980 | But I hear what you're saying,

01:21:55.300 | that it needs to be a confluence of both of those elements.

01:21:58.380 | And then, as you said, like, it kind of is.

01:22:01.060 | It is, it is.

01:22:02.060 | It's kind of, even though it's just for us,

01:22:05.460 | and I guess this is, I hadn't really thought about this

01:22:07.500 | up until right now, that in that this company approached us

01:22:12.540 | and was like, "Here's this AI, and it's a podcast AI."

01:22:15.900 | It's like, it chose Chad and I for the reasons

01:22:22.860 | that I told you, you know, it's like,

01:22:23.700 | "Here's two guys that do the podcast stuff.

01:22:26.220 | "They're actually good friends,

01:22:27.780 | "and it knows what's gonna make us laugh.

01:22:30.420 | "But what is humor when it reaches its audience,

01:22:35.420 | "but the kind of stuff that makes other people laugh?"

01:22:40.140 | At MADtv, all we were doing was,

01:22:42.620 | it was a group of actors and writers,

01:22:46.340 | and writer-actors, and vice versa,

01:22:49.140 | who were, at its best, that show was a group of people

01:22:54.940 | making each other laugh, you know?

01:22:56.820 | And then, 'cause we didn't have the internet,

01:22:58.860 | we didn't have the immediate feedback.

01:23:02.200 | We had a message board or something.

01:23:03.820 | We had emails at the very beginning,

01:23:05.660 | which, check this out, people would,

01:23:07.780 | "If you have a question or comment,

01:23:09.100 | "MADtv at whatever," and we would get the emails

01:23:13.020 | on a Monday morning, and they would be in a binder or two,

01:23:17.380 | like this, and they would make their way around the office.

01:23:20.420 | Who's got the emails?

01:23:21.980 | Oh, they're in Brian's office.

01:23:23.300 | - And this is like your poll?

01:23:24.700 | Like, this is opinions from people about different things?

01:23:28.540 | - The emails, yeah, the people,

01:23:30.260 | like, literally just writing MADtv emails.

01:23:32.260 | - Like, what kind of stuff did they write?

01:23:33.100 | - It wasn't a message board.

01:23:34.340 | Well, the ones I remember most vividly, yeah,

01:23:36.660 | were fans saying--

01:23:38.060 | - You suck?

01:23:40.380 | - Yeah, you suck, like a lot of that

01:23:41.740 | when I first started the show, for real,

01:23:43.660 | 'cause it's new, and you're a new person.

01:23:45.240 | It's like, "Who's this fat bastard?"

01:23:46.940 | - I feel like if it's printed out, it hurts more.

01:23:49.820 | - That's a good point, yeah,

01:23:50.700 | when you're reading it off of paper,

01:23:52.100 | and you can literally crunch it up in your hand.

01:23:54.600 | But also, it was like, you know,

01:23:57.180 | I would like to see, insert weird idea

01:23:59.900 | from some 14-year-old, you know,

01:24:01.780 | "I wanna see Stuart do this and Swan that,"

01:24:06.020 | but it was, it's--

01:24:08.060 | - Just a kind of Doodzy, but human.

01:24:10.500 | - Yeah, it was a very shitty Doodzy in a loosely finder.

01:24:13.820 | But the thing about the show was

01:24:18.820 | we're trying to make each other laugh.

01:24:21.060 | And Doodzy has found Chad and I,

01:24:24.340 | who we make each other laugh, but it's joined in,

01:24:27.760 | and it's, listen, when I finished doing TMP--

01:24:32.760 | - 10-Minute Podcast.

01:24:35.180 | - The first episode of the 10-Minute Podcast,

01:24:36.780 | I didn't really know what I wanted to do

01:24:38.500 | in the podcast space, and this thing found me.

01:24:42.100 | And it is genuinely cracking me up.

01:24:45.180 | Anyway, I've said enough about that.

01:24:46.940 | But I do think that it's figured something out

01:24:49.500 | with regard to comedy. - I mean, it's a really

01:24:50.340 | interesting idea of AI generating the premise.

01:24:52.140 | I mean, I do think in the future,

01:24:54.060 | AI will be able to generate comedy.

01:24:57.860 | I mean, stand-up is, I would say, the hardest form,

01:25:01.220 | because it's ultimately, it has to be live.

01:25:05.200 | I think AI will be able to generate memes.

01:25:08.880 | So there's like steps, right?

01:25:10.960 | And then it'll be able to generate a Twitter account

01:25:13.640 | that people follow because it's funny,

01:25:15.640 | like quips and stuff like that.

01:25:18.280 | Almost like, that's a good example,

01:25:20.680 | Conan O'Brien has a good, I think, Twitter,

01:25:23.480 | where it's like one-liners, two-liners,

01:25:25.400 | that kind of stuff that's in tweet form.

01:25:27.440 | And then eventually, stand-up, where the timing

01:25:32.260 | and the chemistry of the comedian and the audience matter,

01:25:36.160 | and then perfecting that.

01:25:37.400 | But I feel like all the information is there

01:25:40.280 | to optimize over.

01:25:41.360 | So I think that's the future,

01:25:43.840 | and that forces us to contend with

01:25:47.920 | what do we find compelling and beautiful

01:25:51.880 | about the art form itself?

01:25:53.040 | So certainly in art that's being pushed,

01:25:56.200 | that question is being raised.

01:25:58.400 | Is AI like a fundamentally worse artist than a human being?

01:26:03.400 | Why do we appreciate art?

01:26:05.560 | Is that something you guys have talked about?

01:26:07.740 | What do you think about all the DALI

01:26:10.060 | and all the diffusion-based methods that are being generated

01:26:15.060 | that are generating art now?

01:26:17.380 | What do you think about that?

01:26:18.820 | - I know, I'll tell you what I think,

01:26:20.220 | but I also feel like what I'm saying is

01:26:22.620 | I sound like the guy who didn't like

01:26:25.340 | that Bob Dylan brought in the electric guitar.

01:26:28.220 | I'm start, the more I talk to Chad about it,

01:26:30.760 | the more I feel like grandpa who doesn't wanna let go

01:26:33.020 | of this or that, or I'm not ready for the printing press

01:26:36.360 | or the horseless carriage.

01:26:37.860 | But I do feel that art is a connection between people.

01:26:42.860 | It's when you look at a beautiful painting or a sculpture,

01:26:47.920 | you're seeing the humanity of the person

01:26:49.600 | that brought that painting to life

01:26:53.240 | or sculpted this incredible piece of art.

01:26:56.360 | And I think without the human being there to make it,

01:26:59.040 | it's not worth as much.

01:27:01.080 | Just to have it there, 'cause art, it's advanced.

01:27:06.080 | I've seen it advance, I don't know, you tell me,

01:27:09.160 | but I feel like just in the past three or four months,

01:27:11.560 | I'm just a consumer as far as that stuff goes.

01:27:13.760 | I'm not on the inside, I don't get it even.

01:27:16.540 | But it's been getting a lot better,

01:27:18.200 | the betas that they're releasing, right?

01:27:20.680 | - Absolutely, one of the big breakthroughs,

01:27:23.040 | I mean, DALI really started it,

01:27:24.440 | is that if you train a system on language,

01:27:27.180 | it turns out there's a lot of language

01:27:31.360 | and images on the internet.

01:27:33.400 | But language is really where it's at

01:27:35.760 | in terms of the depth of human knowledge.

01:27:37.840 | And so if you train a system on language,

01:27:40.080 | it's able to generate some incredible art.

01:27:42.160 | And that was the breakthrough.

01:27:43.360 | With the same kind of mechanisms,

01:27:44.680 | they're called transformers,

01:27:45.840 | they're able to, when scaled,

01:27:49.520 | capture some deep representation of the language

01:27:52.400 | that's on the internet.

01:27:53.760 | And so yeah, the things it's been able to generate,

01:27:56.640 | to me, look like it's novel.

01:28:01.040 | Like it doesn't look like it's mimicking anything.

01:28:03.280 | It's creating totally new ideas.

01:28:07.000 | And they're beautiful and they're interesting

01:28:09.440 | and they're all the ways that we think

01:28:11.440 | that art is interesting.

01:28:14.320 | The only thing it's missing is the scarcity

01:28:16.640 | that art often has, which is, you know,

01:28:18.840 | it takes a lot of work for one artist

01:28:20.600 | to create one piece, one human being

01:28:22.320 | to create one piece of art.

01:28:24.240 | And I could just generate endlessly.

01:28:26.840 | And that makes us appreciate the thing less

01:28:29.480 | for some reason.

01:28:30.720 | - Do you have any sort of similar opinion that I do

01:28:33.120 | that if art doesn't come from a human being,

01:28:35.640 | it's inherently worth a little less?

01:28:38.840 | - Yeah, I think, I don't know if it's the human being,

01:28:41.360 | but the artist matters.

01:28:44.680 | - Right.

01:28:46.080 | - For me.

01:28:46.920 | And I think some of that has to do

01:28:50.200 | with the worldview of the artist and the backstory,

01:28:52.800 | the memories, the life that led up to this piece of art,

01:28:57.680 | the perspective they take on the world,

01:28:59.520 | the journey they took to the world,

01:29:01.960 | the struggle, the triumphs, all that kind of stuff.

01:29:04.400 | But I think AI systems can probably have the same,

01:29:08.160 | but we would have to, as opposed to treating it

01:29:11.640 | as a one black box, it would have to be an artist

01:29:15.720 | that has a Twitter account

01:29:16.920 | and they have a consistent personality.

01:29:19.640 | They have a consistent avatar.

01:29:21.560 | - Yeah.

01:29:22.400 | - And I think down the line have something like human rights.

01:29:25.320 | But then it really becomes awfully like a person.

01:29:27.800 | - Boy, that's terrifying.

01:29:31.160 | As much as I dig dudes, it's terrifying, I hope.

01:29:34.400 | - It's terrifying, like a lot of things that came

01:29:37.600 | with the internet in the digital age are terrifying.

01:29:39.920 | Porn is terrifying, the mass, like the amount of porn

01:29:42.920 | that's online now is terrifying.

01:29:44.940 | Like you mentioned, Bob Dylan with electric guitar.

01:29:48.080 | I would compare it more to the leap from,

01:29:51.800 | to sort of to the Napster and the Spotify-ization of music,

01:29:56.800 | which is like you have these, it's less about albums now

01:30:01.440 | and it's more about individual songs

01:30:03.120 | and it's much easier to deliver the songs.

01:30:05.680 | And it's more about sort of the engagement

01:30:08.280 | of the listener versus like signing the artist

01:30:11.640 | and like a distribution of the artist and so on.

01:30:14.080 | So it's just changing the way

01:30:17.480 | we consume stuff and human interaction

01:30:22.480 | is changing into meaningful interaction,

01:30:26.920 | even if some of the entities involved are not human.

01:30:30.320 | - Yes, and I feel like now, like as I say,

01:30:35.320 | oh, I feel like grandpa who doesn't wanna wait all day for,

01:30:38.960 | or who enjoys waiting all day for a baked potato,

01:30:42.440 | as anyway, Dana Carvey would say.

01:30:45.440 | It's another story.

01:30:46.400 | But-- - Where's that from?

01:30:48.440 | - That's from, remember he did this bit on Saturday Night Live

01:30:51.760 | where he's like, "I'm an old man

01:30:54.440 | "and I like things the way they used to be."

01:30:57.120 | You know, like, "If you wanted a baked potato,

01:31:00.040 | "you would have put it in the microwave."

01:31:02.200 | And then long story, uphill both ways

01:31:04.400 | and digging the potato and baking it all day in a fire.

01:31:07.080 | But I'm like that grandpa now.

01:31:10.280 | And I know that kids coming along,

01:31:12.880 | you see over the past 10 years,

01:31:14.240 | like babies literally knowing how to use an iPhone

01:31:16.960 | and it's terrifying.

01:31:18.240 | And I feel like I'm a little worried

01:31:20.840 | 'cause I'm like, are you,

01:31:22.880 | is the future generations gonna be able to understand

01:31:26.040 | that this is not, not that it's not real,

01:31:29.200 | it's just, I mean, as a matter of fact, it is real.

01:31:32.800 | It's real, it's what you perceive.

01:31:35.000 | Perception is reality and, you know,

01:31:37.600 | 99% of reality in a lot of ways,

01:31:40.480 | especially in a digital world where everyone is now.

01:31:43.120 | And then with the metaverse,

01:31:44.280 | I don't even wanna think about it.

01:31:45.920 | I don't even, I don't get it.

01:31:47.420 | (laughing)

01:31:48.600 | They really, truly--

01:31:49.440 | - I think people will figure out,

01:31:51.160 | you see people on like on the train,

01:31:53.200 | public transit and so on,

01:31:55.040 | they're staring at their phone.

01:31:56.600 | I think you have to remember that

01:32:00.480 | the reason they're staring at their phone,

01:32:01.800 | I mean, there's a lot of reasons,

01:32:02.680 | but one of the reasons is they're connecting

01:32:04.640 | with other human beings they love on that phone.

01:32:06.880 | So it is a source of happiness and joy.

01:32:08.960 | Now, social media has a lot of negative side effects.

01:32:12.960 | That we're all talking about and learning about.

01:32:16.760 | And I think that means the next generation of social media,

01:32:19.760 | social networks will be better

01:32:22.280 | and we'll learn how to do it in a healthy way.

01:32:24.900 | We're just entering a new digital world

01:32:27.260 | that will keep the good stuff and get rid of the bad stuff.

01:32:30.580 | - Oh, I hope so.

01:32:31.420 | That's really optimistic.

01:32:32.640 | That sounds great.

01:32:34.200 | - Yeah.

01:32:35.040 | - I mean it because I think that we're in,

01:32:37.560 | we're clearly in the wild west still of the internet.

01:32:40.480 | And just when you think you're out of it,

01:32:42.800 | the internet proves another way that it can be dangerous

01:32:46.680 | and detrimental to people and populations of people.

01:32:51.680 | And it's terrifying to me.

01:32:55.040 | It is, it's terrifying.

01:32:57.200 | - Let me ask you a bunch of random questions.

01:32:58.840 | - Okay. - You ready?

01:32:59.680 | All right.

01:33:00.520 | If you can be someone else for a day,

01:33:03.600 | someone alive today, who would you be?

01:33:07.400 | Somebody you haven't met.

01:33:09.280 | - Oh, that's a really good question.

01:33:11.200 | - It could be dead.

01:33:12.040 | - Yeah, let's, I changed my mind.

01:33:13.320 | It could be somebody dead.

01:33:14.480 | - I think any answer that I have right now

01:33:16.600 | would be something that would be based

01:33:19.000 | on some sort of experience.

01:33:21.240 | Like, you know what I thought was very interesting

01:33:23.920 | was last weekend or whatever,

01:33:25.820 | the tribute show for Taylor Hawkins.

01:33:27.960 | Taylor Hawkins was the drummer for the Foo Fighters

01:33:30.760 | and he passed away tragically.

01:33:32.840 | And so the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl and everybody,

01:33:36.840 | they got together at this concert.

01:33:38.040 | And you're watching Dave Grohl

01:33:41.200 | sing, try to sing "Times Like These," right?

01:33:44.680 | And he's breaking up 'cause he lost his friend, his brother.

01:33:48.480 | And I was watching that and he's at Wembley Stadium.

01:33:53.480 | As I say this, I realized that I would not want to be him

01:33:56.600 | in that moment, but I am curious what that would be like.

01:34:00.880 | That's the ultimate, like having to perform

01:34:03.480 | despite something extremely human happening

01:34:06.180 | and a stadium full of people that love Dave Grohl

01:34:11.180 | and love Taylor Hawkins and love a rock concert

01:34:15.580 | and love these artists that they're getting to see

01:34:18.060 | up on stage.

01:34:19.340 | - So much love and so much pain at the same time.

01:34:21.660 | - I wonder what that would be like to be,

01:34:24.080 | I guess, and I think that's just sort of coming

01:34:26.820 | from the root of being a performer

01:34:29.500 | and being in front of that many-

01:34:31.420 | - Have you ever had to perform

01:34:33.380 | while some rough stuff is going on in your personal life,

01:34:36.540 | just mentally?

01:34:37.460 | - Yeah, sure.

01:34:38.780 | - How tough is that?

01:34:39.820 | - I'm fortunate enough to be able to compartmentalize.

01:34:44.580 | A lot of actors like to use some of their stuff

01:34:49.900 | if you're doing something that,

01:34:52.100 | and there's a lot of, there's some acting techniques

01:34:55.160 | that sort of-

01:34:56.600 | - Channel it?

01:34:57.520 | - Yeah, which I think is kind of,

01:35:01.460 | I don't know that that's, I don't know.

01:35:03.900 | For me, it's not really the thing,

01:35:05.180 | 'cause I think if the writing is great,

01:35:08.680 | the writing is really good,

01:35:10.820 | you don't need to channel much.

01:35:12.780 | You need to invest in what's there.

01:35:15.260 | And what I've always loved about that illusion

01:35:19.560 | is really cracking a scene,

01:35:21.300 | getting it to a point where you are feeling all of it.

01:35:24.740 | And the most edifying stuff I've been a part of as an actor,

01:35:29.200 | and I would say that it mostly comes out of dramatic work,

01:35:32.360 | is when you actually feel the emotions

01:35:39.300 | that your character would feel, truly.

01:35:41.680 | And it's not because you're pulling from

01:35:43.160 | a tragic thing that happened, or a lost loved one,

01:35:46.080 | or a lost love, or any of that.

01:35:48.400 | I just did this one movie where we're doing the thing,

01:35:51.760 | and it was a wonderful cast and a great film,

01:35:54.360 | and I'm given a speech at a wedding,

01:35:58.380 | and it really got to us.

01:36:01.440 | Like it got to me, and then one of the other actors

01:36:03.560 | came up and hugged me in the characters that we were,

01:36:08.560 | but the stakes of his character,

01:36:10.600 | and what he's walked into,

01:36:12.000 | and the family that he's marrying into,

01:36:14.520 | and what my character, my character's wife,

01:36:18.920 | want for my wife's sister, and this whole thing,

01:36:22.220 | and it all became very real.

01:36:24.360 | That was a set where the director showed up to set

01:36:26.820 | every day making sure that emotionally,

01:36:29.360 | and it was a very dramatic film,

01:36:31.220 | making sure that emotionally the table was set

01:36:33.300 | for his actors.

01:36:34.440 | Great crew, and a really nice, tight little quick family,

01:36:38.600 | as a lot of these movies are.

01:36:40.560 | You really love working with these people,

01:36:42.640 | and then it's over.

01:36:43.580 | But that's when you feel the drug.

01:36:48.080 | Like it's like when you're golfing,

01:36:49.480 | and it's on the green, you're like, oh, I get it now.

01:36:53.520 | So in the words you can find the emotion,

01:36:57.380 | the words summon the emotion.

01:36:59.020 | - The humanity's right there.

01:37:00.100 | If you read a great script,

01:37:01.140 | you're gonna sob in your living room.

01:37:03.220 | - You know what the saddest, the toughest thing

01:37:06.000 | about being an actor is from my totally outside perspective,

01:37:09.760 | is from the people I've interacted with,

01:37:12.720 | is how intimate that process is

01:37:16.060 | between the group of people that create a thing,

01:37:18.140 | that's a movie, and then you move on to the next thing.

01:37:21.860 | - It's almost, it's like, I don't know,

01:37:25.100 | I mean, that's why people have relationships on set.

01:37:27.220 | They fall in love.

01:37:28.220 | - Totally.

01:37:29.220 | - It's so sad.

01:37:30.200 | I mean, that's why I think of the acting world

01:37:32.840 | as like you fall in love with each other, essentially.

01:37:36.480 | You become close friends, and then you move on,

01:37:38.500 | because that's kind of the process of career.

01:37:40.620 | - You know, like the example I just gave,

01:37:42.120 | if you're doing it right, yeah,

01:37:43.120 | there is a certain amount of that happening.

01:37:45.600 | But I do still feel like you can,

01:37:47.620 | you gotta compartmentalize it,

01:37:50.600 | and you've gotta be able to wash it off

01:37:52.620 | as soon as it's over.

01:37:53.600 | - Prostitutes say the same thing, so I swear.

01:37:56.760 | - True.

01:37:57.600 | - I try.

01:37:58.420 | - Look, sometimes I'm in a hurry to get away from everybody,

01:38:03.300 | because it's been very emotional.

01:38:06.280 | And with all love and respect to everyone, this was awesome,

01:38:09.580 | but you get pretty good at saying goodbye,

01:38:12.880 | and being like, I'll see ya if I see ya.

01:38:14.920 | You have to get good at that, or else you'll never,

01:38:18.480 | you'll just be bent up all the time.

01:38:20.160 | - Yeah.

01:38:21.000 | - I saw an actor once, we were doing this series,

01:38:23.200 | and we did it for a year, and it was a lot of fun,

01:38:27.240 | and it was a tight little group.

01:38:28.520 | And then one of the actors,

01:38:29.920 | we were doing one of our last things together,

01:38:32.160 | we had already shot the last show,

01:38:33.600 | and we just had to take some pictures for,

01:38:35.800 | you know, like some publicity pictures or whatever.

01:38:39.040 | So we're set up, and we're taking our pictures together,

01:38:41.640 | and then we move into these single shots,

01:38:43.540 | and this actor was finished, and I watched them.

01:38:46.900 | It's like, okay, so-and-so's wrapped,

01:38:48.920 | and they said some goodbyes and stuff,

01:38:51.200 | and I didn't say my goodbye, 'cause I just,

01:38:54.480 | maybe I preferred an Irish goodbye.

01:38:56.920 | I feel like we've said everything, you know what I mean?

01:38:59.400 | And this person knows that I revere them,

01:39:01.060 | and they're an idol of mine.

01:39:03.400 | And they walked off the soundstage,

01:39:07.520 | and I literally thought to myself,

01:39:10.280 | that'll be the last time I see that person.

01:39:12.280 | And the show did not come back,

01:39:14.700 | and that was the last time I'll see them around.

01:39:16.640 | - Doesn't that just break your heart?

01:39:18.480 | - A little bit, but I know what she's going back to,

01:39:23.480 | which is her family,

01:39:25.160 | and that's more important than all of this.

01:39:27.560 | And that's the thing about a TV family or a movie family,

01:39:31.460 | when you get together and you're a family for a while,

01:39:34.680 | you are, you spend your days together.

01:39:37.420 | A lot of times you see the people that you work with

01:39:39.240 | more than you see your loved ones.

01:39:40.840 | So in showbiz, it's no different, right?

01:39:43.120 | And yeah, you're doing some, you know,

01:39:44.920 | you gotta say words, and every once in a while,

01:39:46.520 | you gotta kiss someone or pretend you love them.

01:39:48.840 | But it's just, it underscores how, for me,

01:39:53.840 | look, man, my salvation has always been,

01:39:58.040 | and I feel so fortunate to have had it,

01:40:00.780 | is this kind of chill, boring kind of upbringing

01:40:04.800 | that I want for my kids someday.

01:40:08.600 | And I can't wait to get back to my house

01:40:12.360 | with my fiance and the dogs, you know,

01:40:15.140 | until we have kids and--

01:40:16.680 | - Live in a cabin in Canada somewhere.

01:40:19.060 | - Absolutely, I just wanna buy some land over an aquifer,

01:40:23.160 | as I like to say, 'cause water will be the new money.

01:40:25.800 | And just make sure that all my kids

01:40:29.820 | are drinking as much H2O as I am, which is a lot.

01:40:33.600 | I'm peeing right now, as a matter of fact.

01:40:35.840 | - Do you need a bathroom?

01:40:37.800 | - No, no, no, I got it. - Not anymore.

01:40:39.240 | - No, I'm wearing two layers, it depends,

01:40:40.600 | don't worry about it. - Good.

01:40:42.680 | So I did a podcast with Bobby Lee,

01:40:44.880 | and he said, he was extremely kind,

01:40:48.340 | and he said that he was scared shitless

01:40:51.080 | to be on the podcast, and he actually literally took,

01:40:55.640 | he asked as the first thing to go take a dump

01:40:58.440 | because of how scared he was.

01:41:00.320 | So that leads me to a question,

01:41:01.520 | what's the scariest thing you've ever done?

01:41:03.720 | Or maybe what's the scariest you've ever been

01:41:07.520 | before a performance?

01:41:08.800 | - I mean, I always get a little nervous.

01:41:13.320 | I think you're doing it right if you're still nervous.

01:41:16.160 | - Were you nervous today?

01:41:17.460 | - Well, no, man, 'cause this isn't a performance,

01:41:20.280 | I'm being completely genuine.

01:41:21.800 | - Yeah, you're wearing a suit.

01:41:23.840 | - Yeah, that was--

01:41:24.680 | - I feel like that makes you nervous.

01:41:26.480 | - Wearing a suit? - It makes me nervous.

01:41:27.720 | - Listen, I hate wearing a fucking collar.

01:41:29.560 | If you're watching this on YouTube,

01:41:30.920 | you can see me just, I'm constantly doing,

01:41:33.640 | it's like I'm doing a cheap Rodney Dangerfield,

01:41:36.280 | but I am truly--

01:41:37.120 | - But when you move your head, it kinda makes it seem

01:41:39.080 | like you're a mobster who's pissed off a little bit.

01:41:42.760 | - You fucking crossed me one last time.

01:41:45.000 | You son of a, you know, this mutt.

01:41:47.640 | (laughing)

01:41:48.480 | I think it's the first time I fucking dug a hole.

01:41:50.560 | I'll dig a fucking hole, Jesus.

01:41:53.400 | No, but truly, I hate having a collar.

01:41:56.040 | I can't wait to just wear pajamas in that fucking cabin

01:41:59.500 | or nothing at all, walk around Bobby Lee style.

01:42:02.600 | The most scared I've been before a performance.

01:42:05.780 | I can't pinpoint anything.

01:42:11.480 | You know, when I was a kid, right, I, like I said,

01:42:14.600 | I was fortunate enough to start acting as a teen

01:42:16.600 | and stuff professionally, and I just remember my first gig,

01:42:20.600 | and I remember saying my handful of lines

01:42:23.900 | in the bathroom mirror the night before going,

01:42:26.720 | "This might be my only fucking shot.

01:42:30.080 | "You're not gonna get me.

01:42:31.080 | "I'm gonna be solid."

01:42:33.460 | And I, when I'm, if I'm worried about something,

01:42:37.720 | I will rehearse it and rehearse it and rehearse it

01:42:40.360 | as an actor until it's impossible for me not to get

01:42:44.640 | a take at least that I'm 100%, if not 95 maybe,

01:42:49.640 | percent happy with, and the rest for me is letting go,

01:42:53.560 | which is hard 'cause I can be a real perfectionist.

01:42:56.840 | I always want another, I always wanna do it a little better.

01:43:00.540 | That's what's great about podcasting,

01:43:01.920 | is there's one take and you're done, and there's no takes.

01:43:05.240 | You're just talking and then it's over,

01:43:07.200 | and you're doing some silly stuff,

01:43:09.600 | and I'll, you know.

01:43:11.720 | - Can you say that part again about why podcasting is great?

01:43:14.540 | - Podcasting is great?

01:43:15.460 | Yeah, 'cause it's one take and it's over.

01:43:17.060 | It's just, it's, what, I said it again.

01:43:20.440 | Ah, fuck.

01:43:21.280 | I see what you did.

01:43:23.800 | And I, yeah, I fell right for it, but--

01:43:25.840 | - I'm playing checkers and you're playing chess.

01:43:27.880 | That's your problem.

01:43:28.880 | - You know, but still, when we do the podcast,

01:43:32.560 | we'll finish and I'll look over at Chad and I go,

01:43:34.880 | "That one thing that I did wasn't that funny."

01:43:37.040 | He's like, "Shut up, man.

01:43:38.320 | "Just, it doesn't matter.

01:43:40.040 | "It's a fucking hang.

01:43:41.300 | "We're just, we're hanging with our friends out there.

01:43:43.760 | "That's what we're doing."

01:43:44.800 | - So that anxiety is there.

01:43:46.600 | That self-criticism or whatever that is, that voice.

01:43:49.360 | - I say sorry after takes.

01:43:51.120 | I'll always finish a take and go,

01:43:53.280 | and I've had directors, to the detriment of myself,

01:43:56.280 | I've had directors be like, "Stop doing that."

01:43:59.440 | 'Cause I'll finish a take and then I also have

01:44:01.200 | like the will face, where I'm just like,

01:44:03.220 | "I'll finish the take, and cut."

01:44:05.000 | And I'm making a face right now like I smelled something.

01:44:08.160 | That's what I'll do.

01:44:09.280 | I'll literally be like, "Ah."

01:44:11.520 | 'Cause I just, I look at what I do in the purest sense

01:44:16.520 | as I think a lot of people wanna be good at something.

01:44:25.720 | The only thing I've ever really wanted to be good at

01:44:31.800 | is being an actor.

01:44:33.880 | And that's the only thing.

01:44:37.120 | Of course I wanna be a good person.

01:44:38.640 | I wanna be a good partner to my fiance.

01:44:41.360 | I wanna have kids and be the father that I had.

01:44:45.640 | And I wanna be the parent that I had

01:44:48.000 | from my parents who were fucking amazing, wonderful people.

01:44:51.680 | And there's all those things.

01:44:53.520 | That's all, you should want all those things.

01:44:56.240 | But as far as doing a thing, like what is my trade?

01:45:00.380 | I wanna be really good at it.

01:45:06.200 | My parents grew up in Napoli in Italy, right?

01:45:08.240 | And I say Napoli 'cause I'm Italian.

01:45:10.520 | And so my grandfather on my mom's side, my nono pepe,

01:45:13.640 | he was a plumber, and he was also like a handyman.

01:45:18.640 | People would bring him like the old Chianti bottle

01:45:21.560 | with the woven bottom part.

01:45:24.320 | People would bring him like a broken bottle.

01:45:26.440 | Be like, "Hey, Giuseppe, can you fix this?"

01:45:29.120 | And he'd be saying--

01:45:29.960 | - I feel like you're telling the backstory of Mario.

01:45:31.600 | That's not actually your family life.

01:45:33.200 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:45:34.040 | - But okay, yeah.

01:45:34.880 | - He's like, "I'm a fix."

01:45:36.000 | And so--

01:45:36.840 | - "Hi, Giuseppe, what?"

01:45:37.660 | - He would fix a bottle and give it back to someone.

01:45:40.240 | And he was a really good plumber.

01:45:43.320 | My mom used to always say that guy was a great--

01:45:46.680 | - You took pride in that?

01:45:47.580 | - Yeah.

01:45:48.420 | I always feel like there's what you set out to do

01:45:53.400 | as an idealistic little teenager.

01:45:55.480 | "I wanna be like so-and-so,

01:45:57.200 | and I wanna hear my big dreams and stuff."

01:46:00.400 | And I can't believe that I'm still in the business, okay?

01:46:03.280 | That's, first of all, let me say that right now.

01:46:06.640 | I can't believe it.

01:46:08.400 | But what I really, it's the one thing that it's like,

01:46:13.200 | I can't give up on a take.

01:46:15.560 | I need it to be as good as I can possibly get it.

01:46:18.560 | And I don't really know why that is

01:46:21.200 | outside of wanting to be good at something.

01:46:24.400 | When you open the yellow pages, if I'm a plumber,

01:46:27.360 | I'm not, you know, I'm not Roto-Rooter.

01:46:30.280 | Like I'm not the guy with the big full-page ad,

01:46:32.760 | but I'm also not, you know, AAA Abacus Brothers

01:46:36.760 | or whatever, like the shitty one.

01:46:39.120 | I would like to hope that just,

01:46:42.160 | and I'm saying this with pride for what I do.

01:46:44.620 | I'm not trying to say here's my standing

01:46:46.400 | or where I wanna be in the fucking business.

01:46:48.480 | That's not what I mean.

01:46:49.860 | I mean that I wanna be good at it.

01:46:51.560 | You know, we all, hello?

01:46:52.760 | (phone ringing)

01:46:53.600 | We're in Friedman Enterprises.

01:46:55.220 | That's the hotel phone.

01:46:57.460 | - Fuck.

01:46:58.300 | (phone ringing)

01:47:01.960 | (laughing)

01:47:05.980 | Hello?

01:47:06.820 | - You have some fruit?

01:47:10.100 | Some sliced fruit?

01:47:12.860 | No, do you want some sliced fruit?

01:47:14.340 | - I'm all good.

01:47:15.180 | - No, we're good, thank you so much.

01:47:17.140 | All right, bye-bye.

01:47:18.460 | - It's always a fruit plate.

01:47:19.860 | Everyone's always trying to hand you a fruit plate in life.

01:47:23.120 | You know, it's a pretty sweet existence.

01:47:23.960 | - Wouldn't it be funny if that was actually like the CIA

01:47:26.460 | and they were actually saying something else,

01:47:28.020 | and this is, I'm just saying fake stuff about,

01:47:30.100 | you want some fruit?

01:47:31.140 | - Yeah, I want some fruit.

01:47:32.140 | And then all of a sudden there's the red dot on my head

01:47:33.940 | and the ceiling disappears.

01:47:35.460 | - And the CIA was like, wrap it up, wrap it up, wrap it up.

01:47:38.820 | - Wrap it up!

01:47:40.300 | You jump out the window and there's a helicopter waiting.

01:47:43.460 | - Oh, what were we talking about?

01:47:45.260 | The fruit distracted me.

01:47:46.220 | So, oh, do you wanna be the yellow page ad?

01:47:50.860 | - I wanna be the guy on the second or third page

01:47:54.540 | where it's like, you're not gonna pay

01:47:56.980 | what that guy charges you,

01:47:58.020 | but I'm not gonna charge you with this loser charge.

01:48:02.060 | I wanna break down the middle and the work is guaranteed.

01:48:05.220 | That's kind of what I wanna, you know,

01:48:07.660 | it's the one thing that I've been fortunate enough

01:48:10.940 | to be doing my whole life and that I wanna be good at.

01:48:15.420 | Everyone wants to be good at something.

01:48:16.700 | If you're fortunate enough to be able to do

01:48:19.300 | what you love as a job, I mean, my God, I'm so,

01:48:23.380 | again, I can't believe I get to do it.

01:48:25.300 | I just wanna be good at it so that I can fucking,

01:48:28.060 | you know, die someday and go, eh.

01:48:30.980 | I tried not to give up on a take and I, you know,

01:48:34.060 | and I will rehearse it still in the bathroom mirror

01:48:37.100 | the night before if I have to.

01:48:39.380 | - Yeah, but I still, I have that self-critical voice.

01:48:41.740 | I just, after this podcast, I'll probably be like,

01:48:46.740 | you're boring, why are you so boring?

01:48:49.220 | - Stop, what are you talking about?

01:48:50.820 | - And I just gave a lecture at MIT.

01:48:53.140 | I was like, I got so much love from people.

01:48:56.900 | They're such beautiful people.

01:48:59.100 | And I just remember walking home just feeling like,

01:49:04.100 | like I wasted everybody's time, you know?

01:49:07.140 | And I don't know what that is.

01:49:09.420 | I don't, you know, I do hope that that's a voice

01:49:11.820 | that won't destroy me, you know?

01:49:13.940 | Like, over time.

01:49:15.020 | - That's really human of you to admit that

01:49:16.980 | 'cause people don't wanna, they wouldn't assume that,

01:49:20.300 | of course, from you or anything that,

01:49:22.460 | I mean, you've got a large group of students in there

01:49:26.500 | listening to you and feeling the way

01:49:28.220 | and thinking what they think of you.

01:49:30.020 | So that's really interesting to hear you admit that,

01:49:34.180 | but it's also, I would expect nothing else.

01:49:36.660 | You have to be able to, it's such a,

01:49:39.180 | I mean, you're a human fucking being.

01:49:40.620 | - And I'm trying to figure out if that, you know,

01:49:43.460 | some people that might hear that, they would say,

01:49:45.100 | well, that's a problem you have to fix.

01:49:47.220 | And I think that that might be just who I am.

01:49:52.420 | - Yeah.

01:49:53.260 | - Because I'm not, you know, I've been very, very fortunate

01:49:55.700 | not to have chemical, you know, like,

01:49:58.420 | the depression where I get into a dark place,

01:50:01.500 | like it gets stuck in the downward spiral.

01:50:04.420 | It's usually a thing that lasts, you ride it out,

01:50:07.660 | and then after a good night's sleep,

01:50:10.380 | you're back to your happy self.

01:50:13.620 | So I think I have to try to figure that out.

01:50:17.940 | Is that just part of the creative process,

01:50:19.580 | being a creative human in this world?

01:50:21.900 | - I haven't found any other way.

01:50:23.500 | I'm always kicking myself.

01:50:24.660 | - Take that, dudesy.

01:50:25.620 | You can't, you can't, you're not gonna be human

01:50:29.660 | until you feel some despair.

01:50:30.980 | - Yeah.

01:50:31.820 | - And self-criticism.

01:50:32.640 | - Until you absolutely hate the shit

01:50:33.480 | that you're doing sometimes.

01:50:34.580 | (laughing)

01:50:36.100 | - What small act of kindness were you once shown

01:50:39.220 | that you will never forget?

01:50:40.920 | Do you, did something jump to mind

01:50:42.820 | where somebody just did something that made you smile?

01:50:47.860 | Did you feel connected to the rest of humanity?

01:50:51.260 | - Yeah, yeah, lots of things, you know?

01:50:56.500 | But I remember my niece one time,

01:51:00.300 | one of my nieces, we were in her neighborhood,

01:51:04.520 | and she was like, she might have been five or six

01:51:08.680 | at the time, they're all adults now.

01:51:10.580 | My brother and sister are older than me,

01:51:12.220 | and the kids are all, the youngest is 22.

01:51:15.140 | And yeah, anyway, one of my nieces,

01:51:17.580 | she was just, she had ice cream.

01:51:19.020 | We went out and we got ice cream

01:51:20.180 | walking around the neighborhood, her neighborhood.

01:51:22.260 | And she said something to me that I don't think

01:51:25.620 | she understands how much it meant at the time,

01:51:27.620 | but she goes, she goes, "People love you here,

01:51:30.420 | "you know that?"

01:51:31.420 | And she doesn't know where here is, she's five years old.

01:51:34.580 | But she was just looking at the kids playing in the park

01:51:36.860 | and the people walking their dogs,

01:51:38.380 | and everyone just, "People love you here, you know that?"

01:51:41.340 | But she didn't know how much I needed to hear that

01:51:43.420 | at that point, which was really heavy for me.

01:51:46.020 | I'll never forget it.

01:51:47.100 | I've never told her that, oh well.

01:51:49.340 | Man, anytime you get a little something from people,

01:51:53.020 | especially in a tear your ass out city like LA

01:51:56.260 | where nobody has any fucking time for you,

01:51:58.700 | when someone can slow it down and say something.

01:52:01.100 | I saw this actor once in my grocery store that I go to

01:52:07.980 | who made me laugh so fucking hard in this one movie,

01:52:11.000 | and every time I see this clip, I still laugh.

01:52:14.380 | I am kind of shy, personally,

01:52:17.300 | but so he was walking out and I was walking in,

01:52:21.780 | and I go, "Oh, that's that guy."

01:52:23.100 | And I did not stop to just let him know

01:52:27.460 | how great I thought he was in this film,

01:52:29.340 | and I always kind of regretted it, you know what I mean?

01:52:31.900 | So as hard as it is, and sometimes I still don't,

01:52:35.100 | if I see someone that has done something in any way,

01:52:39.300 | it doesn't have to be in show business

01:52:40.780 | or anything like that, I'll try,

01:52:43.620 | I'll try and say, "Hey, that was really good."

01:52:46.380 | You know what I mean?

01:52:47.420 | Because to get that from someone can mean a lot, you know?

01:52:53.780 | - At a certain time in life when you need it,

01:52:57.940 | that can make a big difference.

01:52:59.620 | I mean, sorry to take it back to my new girlfriend,

01:53:03.460 | the waitress, but there's something about her saying,

01:53:07.460 | "Sweetheart," I was in a pretty low place

01:53:10.300 | for some reason mentally,

01:53:11.540 | and just that basic human kindness was nice.

01:53:14.860 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:53:16.500 | I hear you.

01:53:17.340 | I was at a restaurant in New York recently,

01:53:21.100 | and I was shooting something,

01:53:22.300 | and my fiance was able to fly in for a week,

01:53:25.060 | and she was back at the hotel,

01:53:27.900 | and it's like I felt like I was cheating on her

01:53:29.460 | because there was this nice waitress

01:53:31.300 | at this barbecue place I went to,

01:53:33.220 | and first of all, my fiance would not like me

01:53:35.460 | eating any greasy, sugary barbecue,

01:53:37.580 | so it felt like I was cheating on her.

01:53:38.900 | - We'll edit this out and put delicious vegan food

01:53:41.340 | over it. - Yeah.

01:53:42.300 | But the waitress was one of these,

01:53:44.660 | she was the kind of server who's like,

01:53:47.500 | "Hey, hun, hey, sweetie," like blah, blah, blah,

01:53:49.700 | but so chill and at ease in the middle of a part of New York

01:53:54.540 | that's really kind of fucking pretentious,

01:53:58.380 | and everybody, but sweet people,

01:54:01.940 | fucking way better people than we got here,

01:54:04.180 | but I know that, but it was part of New York,

01:54:08.820 | and whatever, I'm there working,

01:54:10.060 | and people, I'm like, you know,

01:54:11.260 | I'm trying to impress one another,

01:54:12.860 | and she even had some sort of an accent

01:54:15.820 | that was not, didn't feel like an Atlantic American accent.

01:54:20.100 | Yeah, those, yeah, servers that say sweetheart and hun,

01:54:26.340 | that's what we need from AI.

01:54:28.020 | We need that Jetson server.

01:54:30.460 | - Every once in a while, it just calls you sweetheart.

01:54:33.340 | What comforts you on bad days?

01:54:36.260 | - Oh, man.

01:54:37.100 | - Is there little sources of comfort?

01:54:39.500 | Small things that you do that kind of make you feel good.

01:54:43.180 | Like for Bobby, that would be a little Skyrim.

01:54:46.140 | - A little stroll through Skyrim.

01:54:48.780 | Well, I've been--

01:54:50.420 | - A line of Coke, or what?

01:54:51.660 | - Yeah, a line of, I dilute some Coke

01:54:53.980 | into whiskey in the morning, like Stevie Ray Vaughan,

01:54:56.500 | and then I snort the whiskey. - Oh, she did that.

01:54:57.340 | I didn't know that. - Yeah, yeah.

01:54:58.980 | - Oh, gosh. - That's interesting.

01:55:00.140 | - Yeah, he didn't last too long, weird.

01:55:02.260 | - Well, his music will last forever.

01:55:04.540 | - See, there you go.

01:55:06.100 | For me, if I, I'm kind of a homebody,

01:55:10.820 | so if I, the point at which I smoke just a little bit

01:55:15.820 | of pot and then go like, lay down on the couch,

01:55:21.100 | and perhaps if my fiance's kind of nodding off,

01:55:26.100 | or she's just like looking at her phone,

01:55:28.020 | and I sneakily turn on some wrestling, okay?

01:55:30.940 | 'Cause I grew up watching wrestling,

01:55:32.620 | and that stuff, it's the Skyrim effect.

01:55:35.140 | I mean, you wanna talk about a complete escape.

01:55:37.860 | This stuff makes no sense in the world.

01:55:40.060 | It's an art form that is so uniquely weird,

01:55:43.900 | but at the same time, so everyone,

01:55:48.580 | when it's good, everyone is invested in the illusion,

01:55:52.560 | even the audience.

01:55:54.040 | They cheer the good guys, they boo the bad guys.

01:55:57.020 | So if I'm like that,

01:55:58.100 | and then I got our two cute little dogs there,

01:56:00.380 | and I'm annoying my little dog, Lulio,

01:56:02.260 | and trying to kiss him right on the fucking mouth,

01:56:05.020 | and I've had a little bit of pot,

01:56:06.140 | and the dog's like, "Stop, pot's not good for me."

01:56:09.260 | Of course, don't ever blow pot into your dog's face.

01:56:11.380 | That's a small comfort.

01:56:13.700 | I guess that's a handful of things.

01:56:15.600 | - No, that moment painted,

01:56:17.820 | that was like a little painting that you drew.

01:56:19.100 | - What about you?

01:56:19.940 | - You're not supposed to do this.

01:56:25.740 | - Oh, well.

01:56:26.580 | - You're not supposed to do this.

01:56:27.580 | (laughing)

01:56:28.420 | - That's a good question.

01:56:29.900 | - Yeah, it's a tough question.

01:56:34.380 | I would say programming robots.

01:56:39.380 | There's bringing to life, actually programming at all.

01:56:43.580 | So I don't know how familiar you are with programming,

01:56:46.980 | but you write some text on a page, on a screen,

01:56:51.980 | and it's brought to life, like it does something.

01:56:56.100 | That's kind of, that's a really tiny version

01:57:01.380 | of maybe having a child.

01:57:04.060 | You created something that is now living

01:57:07.580 | in some small or big way with embodied robots

01:57:11.420 | that are legged robots that's especially clear.

01:57:15.140 | For some reason, that's a source of comfort for me,

01:57:19.040 | that the power of programming,

01:57:22.660 | but also the elegance of programming,

01:57:24.300 | just the whole thing.

01:57:25.300 | It's a source of happiness.

01:57:29.060 | There's so many things I've been very blessed with,

01:57:31.980 | enjoying anything.

01:57:34.100 | Like that's part of the struggle I have in life

01:57:36.380 | is that the simple stuff is a source

01:57:38.460 | of a lot of happiness for me,

01:57:39.980 | which leads to a lot of laziness.

01:57:42.440 | So I have to like give myself artificial deadlines.

01:57:45.860 | I have to be freaking out on purpose

01:57:48.180 | in order to be productive in this world at all.

01:57:50.940 | - You seem like an extremely dutiful, busy guy.

01:57:53.900 | - No.

01:57:54.740 | - No?

01:57:55.560 | - No, I am, but because I'm constantly creating

01:57:57.500 | artificial stress and deadlines and all that kind of stuff.

01:58:02.500 | Otherwise I would just sit there looking at a tree, happy.

01:58:05.500 | I'm truly happy with everything.

01:58:08.660 | - That's awesome.

01:58:09.820 | - Yeah.

01:58:10.640 | - Gee whiz.

01:58:11.900 | That's not fucking--

01:58:12.740 | - That's the line of Coke in the whiskey in the morning.

01:58:15.900 | That's the thing that does the trick.

01:58:18.740 | - UV Ray Vaughn breakfast shake.

01:58:20.980 | - By the way, one of my most favorite guitars.

01:58:23.140 | I play guitar too, that's a source of comfort.

01:58:24.580 | - Oh yeah, I have seen you play some guitar.

01:58:26.340 | That's awesome.

01:58:27.180 | Who's the greatest wrestler of all time?

01:58:29.020 | - Greatest in-ring performer of all time

01:58:30.780 | is Bret "The Hitman" Hart.

01:58:32.220 | - What's the difference in-ring versus--

01:58:33.940 | - Well, there's many facets to the art form.

01:58:36.980 | A lot of people are great on the mic,

01:58:39.340 | but they're not so great once they get in the ring.

01:58:41.860 | A lot of people have all the showmanship and stuff,

01:58:44.980 | but then they're not necessarily, it's a wonderful package,

01:58:48.640 | but then they get to the ring or they open their mouth

01:58:50.660 | and there's nothing going on.

01:58:52.020 | - So who's the greatest in-ring performer?

01:58:53.820 | - I think the greatest in-ring is Bret Hart.

01:58:56.140 | I don't think there's anyone better

01:58:57.340 | than Bret "The Hitman" Hart.

01:58:59.540 | - What makes him so good?

01:59:02.780 | - Well, he--

01:59:03.620 | - I think I had an action figure of him in Russia

01:59:06.700 | and we didn't know what the hell that was.

01:59:08.260 | - Sure, yeah, it was just a guy in pink tights.

01:59:10.620 | Everything makes sense.

01:59:12.620 | Every single thing is rooted in the thing that just happened

01:59:16.340 | and everything that he does is to set up

01:59:18.900 | what he's going to do.

01:59:20.980 | They call it, and I'm just a wrestling nerd,

01:59:22.900 | but the wrestlers, I guess, call it ring psychology.

01:59:25.620 | The things that you have to do to make it seem

01:59:29.220 | like you're suffering or you're coming from behind

01:59:32.020 | or whatever, and then also just the physicality of it.

01:59:34.220 | He does it at a, he would do it at a 100 miles an hour

01:59:38.100 | and never hurt anybody.

01:59:39.260 | Although, I also love,

01:59:44.380 | the greatest wrestler of all time, everyone says,

01:59:47.860 | and they're right, is Ric Flair, Nature Boy Ric Flair.

01:59:51.900 | Everyone says this?

01:59:53.020 | - Yeah, I think if you know what you're talking about.

01:59:56.220 | 'Cause he's the best on the mic,

01:59:57.540 | he's also incredible in the ring.

02:00:00.340 | And then for me, the sentimental favorite,

02:00:02.060 | which we've actually, on Doodsy,

02:00:04.100 | Chad had sort of a Charlie Rose-esque interview with me

02:00:08.620 | about this, my fascination with Hulk Hogan.

02:00:11.140 | Because to me, just he was Superman.

02:00:13.020 | I was a little kid and I saw him and that's imprinted.

02:00:16.180 | But yeah, see, this is like asking me

02:00:18.140 | who my favorite child is.

02:00:20.100 | - Right, so-- - The Rock,

02:00:22.060 | when the Rock was, I mean, the Rock's the Rock.

02:00:24.620 | - Yeah, yeah, I mean, Hulk Hogan is,

02:00:27.100 | he's the weirdest one, right?

02:00:31.060 | For me, from the outside. - Super weird.

02:00:34.020 | - That, I don't know what that is exactly.

02:00:37.660 | - Everything's weird about him.

02:00:38.900 | - Yeah. - He's got the bald head,

02:00:40.660 | like he would proudly have this bald head with long hair,

02:00:44.820 | the handlebar mustache, and this ketchup and mustard tights,

02:00:49.900 | which he says he credits McDonald's with the tights.

02:00:52.980 | - He literally does?

02:00:54.060 | That's fascinating. - He says that the red

02:00:55.780 | and yellow came from Angelo Poffo,

02:00:57.980 | who's Randy Macho Man Savage and Lanny Poffo's dad,

02:01:01.740 | who was a wrestler and a promoter.

02:01:03.940 | He said that he saw him wearing yellow

02:01:06.100 | and he's a Tampa guy, so he had that brown skin

02:01:08.900 | and the hair and everything.

02:01:10.540 | So he's like, "Oh, that's what I wanna do."

02:01:11.860 | And also the brand recognition of like,

02:01:14.260 | "Well, I should do it like McDonald's," literally.

02:01:17.500 | And he's a big, swollen, muscular guy

02:01:22.180 | with tan brown skin screaming at me

02:01:24.980 | to eat my vitamins and stuff when I'm eight years old.

02:01:28.100 | That was extremely, yeah, he's like Superman.

02:01:32.260 | But I know there's a person behind that guy.

02:01:34.260 | - Yeah, what do you mean?

02:01:36.140 | - Well, he's Terry Bollea, the dude who does

02:01:41.020 | whatever the fuck he does with his life,

02:01:42.580 | you know what I mean?

02:01:43.420 | - Yeah, complicated life.

02:01:45.220 | - Yeah, I guess. - Complicated human.

02:01:46.780 | - To be him, yeah, yeah.

02:01:48.700 | - Maybe you should change the dude's colors to yellow, right?

02:01:52.700 | - Red and yellow.

02:01:53.540 | - It's currently orange and boy, sky blue.

02:01:57.380 | - Yeah, it's like a nice sky blue.

02:01:59.140 | - What advice, since you're wearing a suit,

02:02:04.020 | I feel like you're qualified to give advice,

02:02:05.980 | what advice would you give to young people?

02:02:08.420 | High school, college, about how to have a career

02:02:11.780 | they can be proud of or how to have a life

02:02:14.500 | they can be proud of?

02:02:15.820 | - I mean, you have to listen to your gut all the time.

02:02:19.660 | That's the compass that we have, is listening to your gut.

02:02:23.740 | - What does your gut tell you?

02:02:25.900 | Was that originally the dream of being an actor?

02:02:28.780 | - Yeah, for me.

02:02:29.860 | - Your parents support that at all?

02:02:32.620 | - I had the advantage of having parents who were immigrants,

02:02:36.140 | so they didn't really know a lot about what you--

02:02:40.220 | - So you just made shit up?

02:02:41.180 | You just made shit up?

02:02:42.020 | - It was like, yeah, of course I'm studying

02:02:43.340 | and I'm skipping school to go do auditions and stuff.

02:02:46.100 | No, I just kind of feel like, you know,

02:02:48.620 | and I know it was different for my older siblings

02:02:51.140 | because my parents had just shown up in Canada.

02:02:54.620 | I was born like 10 years later.

02:02:56.220 | You can get away with some things and you can actually,

02:03:02.100 | you know, I think my parents, they wanted us to,

02:03:05.660 | they didn't have a whole lot to tell us about what to do.

02:03:09.180 | They weren't gonna do that with us

02:03:12.140 | 'cause they're in this brand new world

02:03:14.300 | and there's all these possibilities.

02:03:16.140 | But there was something that I feel like they had to do,

02:03:22.420 | which was tell us to do what we love.

02:03:25.580 | If you love doing it, do it.

02:03:27.240 | And I feel like that's really served me

02:03:31.300 | and what I would tell young people is,

02:03:33.260 | if you can find something you love,

02:03:35.740 | and nowadays with the internet and finding other people

02:03:38.460 | that, you know, it's not like you need to find

02:03:41.620 | a lot of people anymore.

02:03:43.100 | You just need to find the people that dig what you dig.

02:03:45.820 | And if you can make a career out of doing something

02:03:48.980 | that you love, it's been said, it's a good thing, you know?

02:03:53.980 | - How long did it take you to figure out

02:03:56.380 | that you really love acting?

02:03:59.980 | You know, 'cause sometimes you have a dream

02:04:02.020 | and then you meet, the dream meets reality, right?

02:04:05.140 | - Yeah.

02:04:05.980 | - And then the reality might be much less pleasant

02:04:07.780 | and much darker than the dream.

02:04:09.700 | - Well, the reality is less pleasant, you know?

02:04:12.180 | And there are things that happen during an experience

02:04:16.140 | of shooting something that you could take or leave, right?

02:04:19.620 | But the, you know, the part where you're on set

02:04:23.980 | and you've rehearsed for a minute or whatever,

02:04:27.460 | at least you know where you're supposed to stand

02:04:29.020 | and you know all your lines show up,

02:04:30.660 | knowing everything, knowing what you're gonna do

02:04:33.100 | and what you aim to do.

02:04:35.460 | And those moments make it all worth it

02:04:38.820 | when you're, you know, not to sound like a douchebag,

02:04:41.660 | but between action and cut, that's the stuff

02:04:45.540 | that is, that makes me, that has me continuing

02:04:50.540 | to do what I do, aside from the fact that it's like,

02:04:54.860 | I don't know how to do anything else.

02:04:56.580 | - You think you'll ever do like a dramatic,

02:04:58.780 | like a mob movie?

02:05:00.500 | - Yeah, like the one, the Inside Game

02:05:02.260 | that I was just talking about, or this other movie

02:05:04.100 | I just did, it was a little while ago,

02:05:05.540 | called American Woman that was very heavy.

02:05:07.640 | And I love doing dramatic work.

02:05:10.820 | I love it, I love it.

02:05:12.820 | Yeah, and I played that, in Inside Game,

02:05:14.980 | it was kind of a, you know, it was a,

02:05:17.260 | there was a mob element and the fellow was,

02:05:20.700 | well, you know, the story's here or there

02:05:22.660 | with regard to how deep into the,

02:05:26.140 | but well, he was a bookie.

02:05:27.500 | He was just running money, you know, doing,

02:05:29.820 | he was making a lot of money for a lot of people

02:05:31.820 | and he figured out how to, you know, cook it

02:05:34.460 | with this dude who was an NBA ref.

02:05:37.580 | And it's a very interesting documentary,

02:05:40.500 | the thing that they just untold,

02:05:42.420 | under the Untold series, they cover it.

02:05:45.260 | But getting to play that guy, that was a gas for me.

02:05:50.200 | 'Cause he's like a, he was, you know,

02:05:51.980 | there was a lot of unsavory stuff.

02:05:54.380 | And he's definitely the guy, the character in the movie,

02:05:57.020 | who is the wild card and you don't wanna

02:06:00.180 | necessarily mess with him.

02:06:02.060 | And I got to, I remember this fellow,

02:06:04.020 | who is a real guy, speaking to him,

02:06:07.220 | it was just bizarre to hear, like I said to him,

02:06:12.220 | he was a little concerned about this and that.

02:06:14.260 | Like, hey, you know, you say whatever the fuck

02:06:16.260 | you want in your movie.

02:06:17.080 | I got my book and I got this other fucking deal.

02:06:19.260 | But he goes, you know, I didn't do this

02:06:21.340 | and I didn't do that.

02:06:22.360 | And I'm like, yeah, all right, I gotcha.

02:06:23.820 | And he goes, yeah, I'm telling you,

02:06:25.340 | like I did, I'm talking to you,

02:06:26.580 | one on one, I did not do this, I did, okay?

02:06:28.620 | I'm just fucking tell you, do whatever the fuck

02:06:30.300 | you want with your movie, but this is what's up.

02:06:32.300 | And I said, you ever seen "Goodfellas?"

02:06:33.500 | He's like, yeah, I fucking love that movie.

02:06:35.540 | 'Cause he, like I said, he did some unsavory shit.

02:06:38.200 | And I go, you remember the scene where,

02:06:40.480 | where, you know, the guy, the neighbor,

02:06:43.940 | Lorraine Bracco's neighbor was, you know,

02:06:46.240 | made her uncomfortable and was touching on her.

02:06:48.300 | And she goes to Ray Liotta and he goes,

02:06:50.860 | where the fuck does this guy live?

02:06:52.260 | And then he go, and remember, and he walks

02:06:53.820 | across the street and pistol whips the dude.

02:06:56.300 | You touch her again, you're dead!

02:06:58.140 | You hear me?

02:06:58.980 | - Yeah, good scene.

02:06:59.820 | - Don't you, fucking great scene.

02:07:01.580 | He goes, I love that scene.

02:07:03.500 | I go, that's you.

02:07:04.820 | So you're doing shit that we know is terrible,

02:07:07.660 | but we love you.

02:07:08.500 | He goes, all right, I got it.

02:07:10.020 | And then I said, there's this one scene,

02:07:11.540 | I explained the scene to him where the,

02:07:13.700 | one of the mobsters, tough guys was in the window

02:07:17.340 | of the car and Jimmy, my character is very coked up

02:07:21.220 | at the time and he's hemorrhaging money here and there

02:07:23.580 | and making bad bets 'cause he's getting sloppy.

02:07:25.860 | And this guy wants to bug him about some Jets,

02:07:27.940 | Giants bet or something.

02:07:28.940 | I'm like, tell him you're a fucking asshole,

02:07:30.260 | don't fucking do it.

02:07:31.620 | He's like, yeah, well, the fucking Giants.

02:07:33.340 | And in the scene, Jimmy, my character grabs him

02:07:36.140 | by the lapels and just smashes his face

02:07:39.140 | against the roof of the car.

02:07:41.620 | And I say this to Jimmy and he goes,

02:07:45.140 | oh yeah, I would have done that.

02:07:46.300 | That's not a fucking big deal.

02:07:48.300 | - I wonder also the interaction.

02:07:50.060 | I wonder what the filming of,

02:07:52.940 | probably my favorite gambling movie is "Casino"

02:07:56.500 | with Joe Pesci and De Niro.

02:07:59.460 | Like when they're out in the desert

02:08:00.580 | yelling at each other.

02:08:01.500 | I wonder how many takes that is.

02:08:03.340 | Like, 'cause they, I don't know how scripted that is.

02:08:07.100 | I mean, it probably is a little bit,

02:08:08.380 | but like, I don't think you can script the performance

02:08:13.100 | that Joe Pesci does.

02:08:14.420 | - Don't make a fuck out of me, Ace.

02:08:16.100 | - Yeah.

02:08:17.060 | - Like, I fucking brought you here.

02:08:19.980 | - Yeah.

02:08:20.820 | - And he's just like pointing at that energy

02:08:24.580 | and they're standing there.

02:08:25.740 | - And their friendship.

02:08:26.580 | - And De Niro's like, that whole thing.

02:08:29.940 | And then in the, yeah, like that energy.

02:08:33.020 | What is that?

02:08:33.860 | I mean, they must, they somehow find it together.

02:08:37.140 | - You could tell me that that was one take

02:08:39.140 | and I'd believe you.

02:08:39.980 | You could tell me that that was seven takes

02:08:42.300 | and I would believe you.

02:08:43.140 | - I bet you all the takes had that energy.

02:08:45.300 | Like they were playing with it, right?

02:08:46.660 | They were playing with that.

02:08:50.180 | Yeah, I mean, they took on a real personality

02:08:55.180 | in those scenes and really carried them forward.

02:08:57.100 | I mean, it's just a brilliant, brilliant performance.

02:08:58.940 | Doesn't get, like comedies, like mob movies

02:09:01.740 | probably don't get enough credit either

02:09:04.060 | because it's seen as like-

02:09:05.500 | - Mob movies don't get enough credit?

02:09:07.180 | - In the Oscars, I mean, like-

02:09:08.700 | - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:09:09.980 | 'Cause it seems like a trope.

02:09:11.360 | It's like giving a Western,

02:09:13.020 | it's gotta be a hell of a Western or whatever

02:09:14.940 | 'cause it's like an old Hollywood trope.

02:09:17.140 | Yeah, no, that scene is so great

02:09:19.740 | 'cause they're never at,

02:09:20.700 | they're at the height of their friendship in a way

02:09:24.260 | and they're also pretty much about to let go of it

02:09:27.580 | and become enemies.

02:09:28.660 | And both things are happening at the same time.

02:09:31.220 | And Pesci drives them out to the desert.

02:09:33.780 | And if I remember correctly,

02:09:35.980 | De Niro's character, Rothstein, Rothschild,

02:09:39.700 | he says, "I gave myself 50/50, whether I'm coming back."

02:09:43.860 | - Yeah, it's such a good scene.

02:09:46.220 | Usually my prospects of coming back from the desert

02:09:49.100 | would be 90 to 10 or something like that.

02:09:51.540 | But no, this time I wasn't sure.

02:09:54.180 | And there's the car driving really fast.

02:09:56.460 | And then Joe Pesci's like, "You motherfucker, you,"

02:09:58.980 | like whatever he was doing.

02:10:00.340 | A Jew, of course there's antisemitism or whatever.

02:10:03.620 | Or not, between friends, who gives a shit?

02:10:07.140 | All that kind of stuff.

02:10:08.180 | Yeah, I mean, brilliant, brilliant performances.

02:10:10.660 | So yeah, I can understand why you love the art

02:10:12.940 | and putting it all out there and leaving it.

02:10:15.060 | - Yeah, man, it's fun.

02:10:15.900 | It's fun and it's still fun.

02:10:17.020 | It's still crazy fun.

02:10:19.060 | If I go a while without getting a gig,

02:10:22.180 | if I go a minute, then I end up and I work on something,

02:10:27.740 | I'm like, it's like, "Oh, I've been thirsty for this."

02:10:32.340 | Like I actually am really so happy.

02:10:35.980 | Even if it's something where it's like,

02:10:37.940 | the things where, "This was a pain in the ass,"

02:10:42.260 | and that or whatever,

02:10:43.100 | or you're on the road doing something and anything,

02:10:45.740 | whatever, you lost your luggage,

02:10:46.980 | whatever the heck you've got going on

02:10:48.580 | in your day-to-day life that everyone brings to work

02:10:52.500 | and tries to let go of, once we're doing the scene,

02:10:55.740 | oh man, it's the best.

02:10:57.340 | - But that said, you're a great actor,

02:11:01.100 | but I just think I speak for a lot of people

02:11:03.900 | that you're also, there's a charisma to you

02:11:06.540 | that's great to reveal in raw form in different podcasts.

02:11:10.140 | - Oh, cheers, man.

02:11:11.260 | - In "Dudesy," "10 Minute Pod,"

02:11:13.260 | just as a guest on podcasts,

02:11:14.660 | it's always really fun to watch you.

02:11:17.020 | - Cheers.

02:11:17.860 | - The way you have fun, the way you think,

02:11:19.860 | the raw, the raw Will Sasso,

02:11:22.380 | which is a nice compliment to your kind of acting.

02:11:25.900 | - That's really sweet, yeah, cheers.

02:11:27.860 | Well, you know, look, you said, you know.

02:11:31.180 | - You're making that face.

02:11:33.220 | - I'm making that face, I'm making that after the take face.

02:11:35.780 | No, I love doing stuff off the cuff,

02:11:38.140 | that's kind of you to say, and I dig,

02:11:40.380 | I really do dig doing stuff in front of an audience

02:11:43.940 | 'cause I love seeing, I don't give it to myself very often.

02:11:48.500 | If I'm doing, even if I'm, you know,

02:11:50.380 | I've done a bunch of multi-camera sitcoms and stuff.

02:11:52.780 | "Mad TV" was shot in front of a live studio audience.

02:11:55.220 | - You like that energy?

02:11:56.420 | - I love it, but I can only hear them.

02:11:58.700 | You can't see them because of the lights,

02:12:00.340 | like it is in a lot of performances.

02:12:02.780 | And I would imagine with standup,

02:12:05.380 | it's, you know, you see the first couple rows.

02:12:07.700 | I've done, I do this character that does standup,

02:12:11.820 | and I used to take him out and do things with him

02:12:14.380 | and do little bits here and there.

02:12:16.340 | I haven't done it in like four or five years.

02:12:18.500 | - I think, did Bobby say that character

02:12:20.740 | opened up for Bobby?

02:12:21.780 | - Yeah, but he said, "I have to do it as myself too."

02:12:25.300 | I think in that podcast, he's like,

02:12:26.740 | "Okay, you're gonna come with me and open for me in Brea,

02:12:29.500 | "but you have to do it as yourself."

02:12:31.060 | - Did that ever happen?

02:12:32.380 | - It did, and I did the character, you know,

02:12:36.940 | who's a character I came up with on "10 Minute Podcast."

02:12:39.140 | He's just this comedian, right?

02:12:40.660 | He calls himself an open mic veteran.

02:12:42.940 | You know, he's been doing open mics forever.

02:12:44.500 | And so I did it, opening up for Bobby,

02:12:47.820 | and he's like, "You have to do some of it as yourself."

02:12:50.820 | So I just kind of did this bit

02:12:52.020 | where I would do some of his jokes,

02:12:53.580 | and then I would take, you know,

02:12:55.420 | silly, I got a fucking wig on,

02:12:57.300 | and I take the wig off and I go,

02:12:59.500 | and as myself, I start explaining it.

02:13:01.460 | Hello, my name is Will.

02:13:02.820 | See, the reason that it's funny

02:13:04.420 | is because Arnold Schwarzenegger is always,

02:13:08.020 | he's in these movies,

02:13:09.300 | and he's got the thick Austrian accent,

02:13:11.140 | but he's like, "My name is Ben Williams.

02:13:13.180 | I'm a cop from Colorado."

02:13:15.820 | No, you're not.

02:13:17.220 | And it doesn't make sense as the comedian character

02:13:19.660 | that I'm doing, 'cause that character

02:13:21.340 | doesn't do impersonations.

02:13:23.020 | Okay, carrying on.

02:13:24.620 | And then I put the wig back on

02:13:25.900 | and go back into this dumb thing.

02:13:28.020 | And I don't think it was very good,

02:13:29.780 | but Bobby required it in order for me to open for him.

02:13:32.700 | He's like, "You're not fucking doing it.

02:13:33.980 | So I'm not gonna get up on stage and not do."

02:13:36.340 | We agreed, I'll do it.

02:13:38.020 | But having been up there just in, you know, whatever,

02:13:42.380 | I've done it like a dozen fucking times,

02:13:44.380 | not a bunch of times, right?

02:13:45.460 | Like nothing.

02:13:46.300 | And you know, these comedians that go up every night,

02:13:49.580 | sometimes two times a night.

02:13:51.340 | I will say, I love performing in front of people

02:13:57.620 | when I get the chance,

02:13:59.100 | but it's a specific thing that I just,

02:14:04.100 | I just, I don't know.

02:14:06.860 | I gotta go back to this.

02:14:07.900 | It's like the providing value, you know?

02:14:10.900 | I think great standups are fucking incredible.

02:14:13.260 | I'll go, you know, when I've gone and watched standup,

02:14:17.060 | you know, there's your friend you're going to see,

02:14:19.100 | but then there's this other person

02:14:20.500 | who really speaks to you.

02:14:21.660 | You know what I mean?

02:14:22.820 | And if you like one comedian a night, that's a lot.

02:14:27.500 | 'Cause a comedy club is like a fucking crazy restaurant

02:14:32.500 | where there's no menu.

02:14:36.100 | And it's like, what would you like?

02:14:37.700 | It's, there's nothing else like that.

02:14:39.220 | There's like, you don't go to like a music place.

02:14:42.420 | What do we got here?

02:14:43.460 | We got Christian metal and there's some world music

02:14:45.820 | and then there's a reggae thing

02:14:47.500 | and it's all rammed in together.

02:14:50.420 | Or you don't go to a restaurant.

02:14:52.300 | I'd love a nice steak.

02:14:53.420 | Cool.

02:14:54.260 | First, here's a bowl of Froot Loops.

02:14:55.860 | And then we got you a crudité.

02:14:57.940 | And then this is our sushi tower.

02:14:59.940 | And well, what about the steak?

02:15:00.940 | Oh, the steak's coming.

02:15:02.100 | And then blah, blah, blah.

02:15:03.180 | Oh no, the steak got bumped.

02:15:04.540 | So there's no steak,

02:15:05.820 | but here's a fucking shitty store-bought cheesecake.

02:15:09.060 | And that's what comedians are up against

02:15:12.100 | when they go into a place.

02:15:13.380 | It's like, I don't pair well with the poached salmon.

02:15:16.660 | I'm chicken fingers.

02:15:17.500 | I already am chicken fingers.

02:15:20.140 | So these great comedians that are able to go up on a night

02:15:24.540 | where poached salmon goes up and then it's like,

02:15:26.860 | fuck, you are also spicy?

02:15:28.900 | I got some kick to me.

02:15:30.180 | - For me, even going to open mics,

02:15:33.500 | it could be a wonderful escape.

02:15:36.060 | - Yeah.

02:15:36.900 | - I mean, just laughing together with others,

02:15:40.140 | it can make you, I don't know, it just feels really good.

02:15:42.500 | - When we've done like, you know, like,

02:15:44.140 | and I hope to do it with Doodsy,

02:15:46.060 | but like live podcasts are fun in front of groups of people.

02:15:50.220 | And you know, you talk to them afterwards

02:15:52.020 | and take some pictures and man, they are,

02:15:54.860 | they forgot what the fuck they got going on.

02:15:57.500 | And a lot of them got to go back to work the next day.

02:15:59.700 | It's a Wednesday or Thursday, you know?

02:16:01.900 | No, it's a lot of value.

02:16:03.460 | I'm fortunate enough to be busy doing my own bullshit.

02:16:07.220 | - What's the meaning of life, Wasaso?

02:16:09.220 | - What is the meaning of life?

02:16:12.180 | - Why are we here?

02:16:13.020 | Why, why, why?

02:16:14.780 | - Was it the meaning of life?

02:16:16.900 | Wasn't, didn't they explain it at the end

02:16:18.700 | of meaning of life?

02:16:19.540 | I think it was Michael Palin that said,

02:16:21.420 | try to get a walk in, be nice to neighbors,

02:16:24.420 | eat enough fiber.

02:16:25.420 | Wasn't that the--

02:16:26.260 | - Fiber, fiber is part of it?

02:16:27.900 | - Yeah, I think it's--

02:16:28.740 | - Nutrition.

02:16:29.580 | - Have a bowl of bran in the morning

02:16:31.500 | and don't take yourself too seriously.

02:16:33.420 | - Yeah.

02:16:36.000 | - No, well, no one gets out alive, I think is the--

02:16:38.020 | - Herman Hesse, one of my favorite writers,

02:16:39.620 | he's a Nobel Prize winner,

02:16:40.920 | in a book called Steppenwolf,

02:16:44.940 | says learn what is to be taken seriously

02:16:47.180 | and laugh at the rest.

02:16:48.700 | - Oh, that's awesome.

02:16:49.820 | - What's the percentage distribution on that?

02:16:51.860 | So how much of life should you take seriously?

02:16:54.420 | And then how much do you just laugh at?

02:16:57.540 | - Oh man, if you can laugh at everything, you're winning.

02:17:00.620 | - Yeah.

02:17:01.460 | - It's almost impossible.

02:17:03.140 | I think that there's,

02:17:05.100 | and also could be quite irresponsible to do that.

02:17:08.540 | I take things, I take a lot of things way too seriously.

02:17:13.620 | I know that.

02:17:14.460 | I do, I do, I really do.

02:17:17.380 | - People will be in part surprised by that,

02:17:19.500 | but I think that radiates from you.

02:17:21.460 | - Really?

02:17:22.280 | Yeah, I do, I do.

02:17:23.120 | I take things way too fucking seriously sometimes.

02:17:25.720 | But--

02:17:26.560 | - Yeah, you gotta do that.

02:17:27.540 | - Yeah, you gotta loosen the neck up.

02:17:29.800 | But no, I think that's really good.

02:17:32.940 | That's really good stuff.

02:17:34.820 | I don't know what the percentage is to have a good life

02:17:37.620 | or a happy, healthy life, but, you know.

02:17:42.620 | For me, the meaning of life is getting to live it

02:17:46.620 | as long as you hope to.

02:17:48.320 | That's nice.

02:17:49.540 | And when you lose someone,

02:17:53.900 | or if perhaps you're faced with your own mortality,

02:17:57.340 | I think that puts that into perspective.

02:18:00.420 | And, but, you know.

02:18:04.100 | - Get lots of fiber.

02:18:05.580 | - Get lots of fiber.

02:18:06.740 | Be nice to everybody.

02:18:09.620 | And yeah, don't take things too seriously.

02:18:12.300 | It's a good one.

02:18:13.940 | Our minds are fucking big, weird,

02:18:17.060 | it's a big, weird, shitty fucking bucket of shit

02:18:22.420 | that's trying to get you to think horrible shit

02:18:24.660 | about yourself all the time.

02:18:26.100 | - Shitty bucket of shit.

02:18:27.380 | - Shitty bucket of shit.

02:18:28.220 | - I think there's a book I never read,

02:18:29.660 | but I read the title, and it's a good words to live by,

02:18:32.180 | which is, "Don't sweat the small stuff,

02:18:35.220 | and it's all small stuff."

02:18:37.700 | That's another way.

02:18:38.540 | - Was that Dr. Phil?

02:18:39.980 | Wasn't Dr. Phil, was it?

02:18:41.460 | - I don't know, but I think the conclusion

02:18:43.860 | also has fiber as part of it.

02:18:46.300 | I think that all ties it together.

02:18:48.380 | And in the end, of course,

02:18:50.700 | just put love out there in the world.

02:18:53.360 | I think that's a pretty good way to go.

02:18:55.740 | - What would you say is the meaning of life?

02:18:58.500 | Put love out in the world?

02:18:59.860 | - I would say love, yeah.

02:19:00.860 | - Yeah? - Yeah, yeah.

02:19:02.220 | It's a long conversation on what that really means,

02:19:05.700 | but I'm sure robots are involved, yeah.

02:19:08.380 | - Well, let me tell you, I feel a little safer

02:19:11.060 | knowing that someone who has a hand

02:19:13.340 | in bringing these robots to the masses,

02:19:18.020 | as you do, has that opinion of love

02:19:21.500 | and how important it is.

02:19:22.340 | I think that's great, because otherwise,

02:19:25.060 | it's gonna be that fucking scene from "T2"

02:19:27.500 | where Linda Hamilton's holding onto the fence

02:19:31.660 | and getting all of her flesh blown off of her skeleton

02:19:35.160 | before the rest of her is wiped away,

02:19:37.500 | 'cause this Skynet shit.

02:19:39.380 | Anyway, I'm just terrified of Doodzy all the time.

02:19:41.460 | That's why I think that they will-

02:19:42.900 | - Doodzy in the wrong hands can do a lot of damage.

02:19:45.860 | - That's why Chad and I need to do our best to control it.

02:19:49.340 | - We need to travel back in time and murder Chad.

02:19:51.840 | (laughing)

02:19:53.020 | I think. - Yeah.

02:19:54.420 | That's, yeah.

02:19:55.260 | - That's the only way.

02:19:56.220 | - It's been said-

02:19:57.060 | - I don't know why you need to travel back in time,

02:19:58.980 | but you could just murder him today,

02:20:02.380 | but I think he'll be very suspicious.

02:20:04.240 | - My nefarious plans for Chad involve going back to tomorrow

02:20:08.380 | and planning for yesterday,

02:20:09.860 | and then hopefully Doodzy will give me the answer there

02:20:12.420 | with what it is to do with Chad's frozen body.

02:20:15.900 | If I gotta drive it out to, if I gotta take my,

02:20:18.420 | if I gotta get ahold of one of those Tesla mom vans

02:20:23.460 | and shove my garage freezer in it and plug it in

02:20:27.340 | and shove Chad in there and drive out to Arizona

02:20:29.980 | and deliver him under a mountain

02:20:31.300 | or wherever the fuck this place is,

02:20:33.460 | and say, "Here's this dog tag.

02:20:35.060 | "What does this get me?"

02:20:36.420 | And then I'm like, "Ah, it's gonna be 300 bucks.

02:20:38.860 | "Do you have, do you take Amex?"

02:20:40.420 | No.

02:20:41.260 | And I'll be like, "Ah, shit."

02:20:43.380 | And I'll just dump him somewhere, breaking bad stuff.

02:20:46.180 | - Well, I would like to thank you and the, what is it?

02:20:50.580 | The Canadian International Agency Apparel.

02:20:55.020 | - Canadian International Apparel.

02:20:56.580 | - I can't wait for the sneakers from Doodzy.

02:20:59.700 | I can't wait for all the podcasts

02:21:03.500 | that AI can, and all the trouble it can get you in.

02:21:07.580 | So I'm a huge fan of yours.

02:21:09.100 | It's a huge honor that you would talk with me today.

02:21:11.380 | Well, this has been amazing.

02:21:13.140 | - Cheers, pal.

02:21:13.980 | Likewise, and I'm happy to be here, man.

02:21:15.780 | Cheers.

02:21:16.820 | - Bam.

02:21:17.900 | - Oh, that was three hours.

02:21:19.460 | Holy fuck, what?

02:21:21.020 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

02:21:23.500 | with Will Sasso.

02:21:24.740 | To support this podcast,

02:21:25.980 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

02:21:28.820 | And now, let me leave you with some words from John Candy,

02:21:32.380 | one of Will's favorite actors.

02:21:34.420 | "I think I may have become an actor to hide from myself.

02:21:39.820 | "You can escape into a character."

02:21:42.220 | Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

02:21:46.260 | (upbeat music)

02:21:48.860 | (upbeat music)

02:21:51.460 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Will Sasso: Comedy, MADtv, AI, Friendship, Madness, and Pro Wrestling | Lex Fridman Podcast #323

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