back to indexWill Sasso: Comedy, MADtv, AI, Friendship, Madness, and Pro Wrestling | Lex Fridman Podcast #323
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Once this whole thing falls apart
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and we are climbing the kudzu vines
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that spiral up the Sears Tower,
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like they say in Fight Club,
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Bobby will go back to his gatherer form
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and be happy as a pig in shit,
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just walking around in a loincloth
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with his bird hanging out,
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tracking jokes to people and climbing up on them
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for a stool lap dance or whatever he does.
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Do you think some level of crazy is required for comedy?
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Like, at some point?
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Have there been low points in your life?
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Yeah, I don't know, hey, hey.
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The following is a conversation with Will Sasso,
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a comedian, actor, podcaster,
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and someone I've been a fan of for many years
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since Mad TV in the late 90s
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to recently with the 10 Minute Podcast
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and now the new podcast called Doodzee.
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This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors
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in the description.
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And now, dear friends, here's Will Sasso.
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So let's call out the elephant in the room.
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You wore a black suit in a recent episode of Doodzee.
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You wore a black suit again today.
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Shakespeare, then Mark Twain, said clothes make the man.
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What kind of man does a suit make you?
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Well, me in particular, it makes me a fellow
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who did not get this dry cleaned in between
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because that episode of the show as we sit here now
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was around a week ago.
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So that's the kind of man it makes me.
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Well, the nice thing is you're wearing pants, I think.
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Yes, I am wearing pants.
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I don't think you were wearing pants in the episode.
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I prefer to wear shorts, but this was a special occasion
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so I'm wearing pants and I thought it fitting, obviously,
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to just wear the black tie.
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And clothes do make the man.
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And I would not consider myself to be a man of leisure,
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but I do enjoy shorts because my legs get hot.
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So that's what kind of man the shorts make me.
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How often do you wear a suit?
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I fucking hate wearing suits.
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So what is this, a statement of, is it ironic?
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Or are you honoring the gods of this particular podcast?
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I'm honoring the gods of this particular podcast
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would be a good way to put it.
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Yes, no, this is in reverence of and in dedication to you
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and our newfound friendship here,
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which we are making on the podcast.
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You and I just met.
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Everything that we're saying here
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is the first things that we're saying to each other.
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So I'm meeting you on common ground dressed like.
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Well, I've been actually a one way friend of yours
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for many, many years since Mad TV.
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When did you start on Mad TV?
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So that was, I mean, in 90s?
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So I was a huge fan of yours and the cast was incredible.
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It was one of the funniest shows ever created.
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Your whole journey watching through that
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was incredible from Mad TV to Three Stooges
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to the podcasts, the 10 Minute Pod
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and then the new podcast is incredible.
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My favorite role that you played
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was the mountain in the Game of Thrones.
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What was it like working with dragons?
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Well, the dragons are usually tennis balls
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on the end of C stands, but sometimes they hang out.
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It's like, you know, it's like a little,
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like the thing you got the camera on here.
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Oh, this is like film lingo.
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Yeah, no, I understand.
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I'm trying to impress you with my film lingo.
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You know what a banana is?
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It's when you walk like this.
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I did not know what a banana was.
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Yeah, cause it's just a food.
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You fancy Hollywood folk with a lingo.
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And I'm, my name is Bjorn Hapthor Bjornsson
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and I am seven foot four and yeah.
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So dragons don't, dragons don't scare me
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even though they've been extinct for a while.
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You're a scientist, right?
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Yeah, I actually, I'm really into video games.
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I don't know if you play video games.
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There's a, there's a Skyrim video game
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that's part of the Elder Scrolls series.
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And for the longest time,
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there's a legend that there's dragons.
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I think it started in Daggerfall.
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And so I always, I grew up playing those video games
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and dreaming of one day meeting a dragon in a virtual world.
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And eventually you did in Skyrim.
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So it's, dragons represent,
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I don't know exactly what they represent,
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but they represent maybe this kind of mythical creature
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that is bigger than anything humans
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can possibly comprehend maybe.
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Cause they're so, they're so, they show up so often in myth
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from the, from the religious stories, you know,
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of the snake and so on, the serpent.
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And I don't know what that is.
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Well, this breathing fire, that's kind of weird.
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It's interesting when I think about dragons,
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cause now that you bring it up,
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these are people that probably wouldn't have access
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to the fact that there used to be dinosaurs.
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If they didn't, they're drawing things that look like,
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you know, a dinosaur cousin, but cool,
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that can breathe fire and has wacky wings and a spiked tail.
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Yeah, where the heck did they come up with that?
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Cause they're clearly of course represented in mythology
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all the way back to, no, not cave drawings.
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Well, the Egyptians probably knew what the,
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and they could time travel.
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So they would have gone back to the caves.
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Well, the aliens that placed living organisms on earth
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could time travel and they could plant legends
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into the, into the collective intelligence
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of the human species.
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Yeah, and perhaps they were thinking of us
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to do something smart with it.
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And we didn't, we just came up with the sky.
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We're just, what's that?
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Sorry, that was very offensive.
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I'm sorry, I don't mean to offend you with your video game.
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I'm more of a burger time Donkey Kong dude.
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That's an original.
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Burger time was an arcade game that later showed up
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on the Intellivision, it was Intellivision.
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I believe it was made by Texas Instruments,
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horrible first generation video game console.
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And burger time, you just, it's like Super Mario.
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You just got to stay away from the eggs
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and the pickles and stuff.
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And you just go, and the bun falls.
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And then you go down to the and the cheese and then the meat.
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I'm not going to say it's as complicated
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as Skyrim, but took me a while to finish it when I was seven.
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Did you play video games, was that a part of your life,
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a part of the source of happiness for you at all?
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I played video games up until around, I think in 2010,
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I got the Red Ring of Death on my Xbox 360.
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I never, or whatever the Xbox was then.
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I had, I was playing, I had finished the Grand Theft Auto
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that was out and finished the Red Dead Redemption.
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So I was doing that thing where you just drive around,
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you know, the streets of New York or just ride around
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on your horse shooting people and, you know,
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throwing grenades into groups of people in Grand Theft.
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And you're describing the same thing that happened
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a decade later, because it's now Red Dead Redemption 2
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and there's still not a new Grand Theft Auto, so.
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Yeah, there isn't, right?
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Yeah, they're working on it.
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They're always flirting with that idea.
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You know who else plays Skyrim?
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Another person, the two people I'm a huge fan of
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from that time in Matt TV is Bobby Lee.
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He's a huge fan of Skyrim.
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So what Bobby Lee loves to do is to grind,
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do the boring task over and over, gather mushrooms.
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Like in Skyrim, you can fight dragons,
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you can fight all kinds of things,
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but you can also gather mushrooms and different ingredients
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to make potions and all that kind of stuff.
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He loves the ingredients.
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He's the, you know, in the hunter gatherer world,
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he's the gatherer.
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He's the gatherer.
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Yeah, I've heard him described that way
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and he likes to describe himself that way.
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I worked with Bobby not too long ago.
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He came and did a couple days on this thing we were shooting
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and I was looking forward to catching up with my old pal.
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And if you know anything about Bobby Lee,
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you'd probably be able to predict that he spent
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that entire time playing farming on his iPad.
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Well, humans are a source of anxiety and trouble,
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so sometimes it's good to escape human interaction
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through video games.
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I'm with him on that.
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He's one of the funniest people ever.
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What do you think makes him funny?
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It's just all the times you've worked with him,
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the nonstandard, nonsecular way of his being.
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Bobby Lee is one of the most raw people,
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raw performers who lets it all hang out
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to the degree that he will even get naked
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in front of his audience,
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which is usually a metaphor for someone doing standup.
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I'm bearing all, I'm showing you everything,
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and Bobby will just pull his bird out of his pants.
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Yeah, I don't think he understands metaphor too much.
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He embodies metaphor.
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Yes, he embodies metaphor.
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He's the gatherer, we call him the gathering metaphor.
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Bobby the gatherer metaphor.
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He's a metaphor for something else,
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for somebody else's life.
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Someday he'll be in the dictionary
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representing some kind of concept,
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maybe the metaphor itself.
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Yeah, once this whole thing falls apart
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and we are climbing the kudzu vines
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that spiral up the Sears Tower,
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like they say in Fight Club,
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Bobby will go back to his gatherer form
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and be happy as a pig in shit,
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just walking around in a loincloth
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with his bird hanging out,
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tracking jokes to people and climbing up on them
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for a stool lap dance or whatever he does.
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I'd love to dig into something he did.
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You guys did a lot of great podcasts together.
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He asked you in a very uncomfortable process
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of why you don't do standup.
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So let me ask you, do you hate money?
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Well, I'm originally from Canada, yeah.
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So yeah, I'm a fricking pinko socialist.
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Is that where you come from?
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That's not a nice thing to say.
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I thought the Soviet Union,
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that is a nice thing to say.
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Like comrade, he's a good socialist with red,
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like some bold colors, yeah.
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There was an interesting tension in your voice
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and the way you talked about it.
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There's just not a source of happiness for you.
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You respect the art form,
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but it was not something that you were connected to,
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you felt connected to.
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That's a good way to put it.
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Yeah, I respect the art form a lot.
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And I grew up with all the albums and stuff.
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I had an older brother and sister who,
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so we had George Carlin, we had Richard Pryor,
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we had Robert Klein, we had Gilda Live,
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the Gilda Radner concert, we had all sorts of stuff.
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But I don't know, there's a lot of reasons.
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I do feel like a career in show business
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is it never goes the way you plan, like most things.
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And I was fortunate enough to get started
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outside of my native Vancouver or in my native Vancouver.
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I grew up in the burbs outside
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and there was a lot of industry there.
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So I was fortunate enough to get started as an actor
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when I was like 16.
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So yeah, there were some times early on
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where I came up with some standup stuff and did it,
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but yeah, I quickly abandoned it.
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And then you go through, you do Mad TV and stuff,
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and that's where my, and this is gonna sound weird.
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Do I sound as anxiety as I did when I was on Bobby's podcast
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trying to avoid his questions?
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Well, he was giving you this face this whole time
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that was making the whole just atmosphere feel
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So I'm trying not to give you a face.
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The whole time I was saying, play cool, play cool.
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You said it out loud a couple of times.
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Just, you know, you cut that out.
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Cut out, cut it out.
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Here's what I'll say.
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There's two ways to do it.
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I think it's lame when someone who's done one thing
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for a while goes and starts doing standup out of nowhere.
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Cause I think it's an art form that's under attack
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because it's not like anything else.
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You need, although now you can of course,
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you know, make whatever you want.
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It's the era of self publishing as far as making a product
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and putting it out there, which is getting easier,
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of course, and I can't wait to talk to you about that
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with AI and how it's changing art.
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But in standup, all you need is a microphone
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and you know, perhaps it'd be good
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to have some mental illness
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and then you can just run up there and talk forever.
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And I say this to, you know, comedians.
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It's like, you guys have to deal with just
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an influx of people who aren't sure
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why they're doing comedy.
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I would ask comedians, I mean, not good ones,
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good ones, you know what they're doing,
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but everyone else like, what are you doing?
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Why, why are you doing standup?
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Having said that, I am allergic to money.
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Yeah, do you think they have a good answer for that?
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Why are they doing it?
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Cause I actually like when I'm in Austin,
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I like going to open mics, just listening.
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It's inspiring to me, both the funny and the unfunny people
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because they've been doing it for several years.
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Sometimes over a decade and they're still at it.
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They're still right there.
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There's going for the punch and then especially open mics
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that are really sad in that there's, you know,
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only like five other people in the audience
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and they're usually just other comedians
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and they're still going all out
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as if they're in front of a stadium.
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But that to me sounds like someone who loves it.
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I got no questions for that person.
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I got questions for someone who goes sideways
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from here I'm recognizable doing something
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and then I'm doing standup because it's like,
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and truly look, I've been fortunate enough
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to be in the business for a long time
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and at this point, if I came up,
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I mean, doing live stuff is fun.
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I have friends that are like, you know,
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some guys who are primarily sketch people
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or you would look at them as sketch people
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and they can sell tickets for being sketch people
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and they, and we'll talk about it.
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And they're like, you know, I do a monologue
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and I do a little standup, then I do a song,
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then I do another monologue, then I play off the audience,
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do a little standup, but standup is,
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it's almost like playing music in that,
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you know, people are going up there playing music,
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but what band have you been listening to?
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That's what you're gonna sound like.
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So it's really, I mean, of course,
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I'm speaking from zero experience,
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but I've heard it takes years, of course,
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to find your own voice.
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Standups that when they first go up,
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they're doing some sort of impersonation of so and so
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and so and so, and then you gotta pop this audience
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that's paying and you're gonna get run over
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by the next person who's coming up
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and it's hard to follow the last person
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who went up before you.
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And I mean, that is a really hard way to,
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it's a very, it's quite a gauntlet
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to be in to find your voice comedically.
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But don't you have that same kind of thing with sketch?
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Where you still have to find your own voice
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with like all the impressions you do,
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they're just terrible, you know,
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there are different spins and different people,
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they're not like perfect impressions, right?
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So that's, I mean, that's a similar kind of challenge
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and journey as standup.
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You're just saying they're kind of distinct
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and you fell into this one and you fell in love with it,
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which is like what Mad TV kind of opened you up to.
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Yeah, as a kid, I literally wanted to be an actor.
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I always wanted to be an actor from a very young age,
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as far back as I can remember,
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and I was the class clown and wanted to do comedy stuff
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and comedic acting and so on.
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So comedic acting.
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Yeah, early on, my influences were a very predictable list
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of guys from SCTV, Early Saturday Night Live, Monty Python,
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all of those performers really influenced me.
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It was later that I saw people like Kevin Kline,
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who's an incredible actor.
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I vividly remember being like 12, 13,
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seeing him get an Academy Award for Fish Called Wanda.
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And it blew my mind, because I was like, he was hilarious.
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I mean, it was one of my favorite movies back then and now.
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And he won an Academy Award.
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And at that point, I started thinking more about acting.
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And then I was, like I said, really fortunate
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to fall in with, I mean, I always wanted to do it
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and I was trying to hustle this and that when I was a kid.
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And then I ended up getting represented.
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And then I ended up on a teen show.
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I was on, basically, the easiest way to pitch it
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is it's like a Canadian, my so called life
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with these kids and their lives and stuff.
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And I did that for like five years and I really love acting.
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I really, truly love acting.
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And I'm not someone who wants people to know my opinion.
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So that's another thing about standup.
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Like I love the illusion of what I get to do
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in entertainment and podcasting is great for that.
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But to stand up there and, I don't know, just for me,
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it's like it would have to all be fantasy.
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Yeah, so Nietzsche said that every profound spirit
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Like you said, you don't like to talk about,
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in your comedy, you don't like to talk about stuff
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that's personal to you.
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If you were to psychoanalyze yourself,
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do you think it's just not something you find funny
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or are you running from something and it's not your fault?
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It's not your fault, Will.
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Speaking of another really great comedic actor
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who's also a serious actor, Robin Williams.
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One of the best serious actors.
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I mean, and one of the funniest people of all time,
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but as great, as incredible as he was as a funny man,
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as a standup and a performer,
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I almost like his serious stuff better.
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Can I ask you a question about that?
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What do you make of the, that he committed suicide?
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I think it's, I mean, it's super depressing.
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I've referred to him as like the Jesus Christ of depression.
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It's almost like he died for others depression.
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You know what I mean?
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You'd look at someone like that and go,
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wait a minute, you're a rockstar.
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Like you don't, you could just check out
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if you're not liking your life.
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And of course, something like suicide
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begs that you look a little deeper
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and realize how tortured the human mind can make someone.
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Is there some aspect to, you know, we're in LA.
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Is there some aspect of celebrity that is isolating
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that can make you feel really lonely?
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I don't feel, no, not really.
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You feel the love?
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No, I just feel like I'm not, I mean, it's like,
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I don't know, I've always kind of had a small group
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of friends and those people don't, you know,
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it's like I've known the same people for years and years.
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You never really felt the celebrity really.
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Nah, in LA, it's hard to, it's hard for people.
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They see you and then the next minute they see so and so.
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So it's like, you know, I'm the guy from that.
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Mike and Molly, right?
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King of, you shave your head, you go bald.
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Are you King of Queens?
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Nope, that's not me.
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You're wow, shit, you used to be the mountain
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on Game of Thrones.
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You look like shit, what happened?
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You've been just eating fried dough?
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Yeah, that's what's up.
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Can't lift any weights anymore.
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I'm at the gym doing like 15 pounds with shoulder press.
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Ah, and people coming up to me.
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You used to be a dragon killer, dude.
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Half the man you used to be.
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What's, have there been low points in your life?
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Sorry to go there, but.
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Yeah, I don't know.
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Yeah, there's, everybody has a low point in life.
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Do you suffer from like depression
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and any of those kinds of things?
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You know what, I do.
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I do, I have a bunch of stuff.
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How do you deal with it?
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The friends and the.
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They don't do anything for me in that sense.
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I have an incredible fiance who,
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that's nice to have somebody constant
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that you love very much and see as the best person
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and all that good stuff.
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Hopefully, vice versa.
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Well, on your recent Instagram,
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she said that she loves you, so.
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At least allegedly.
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Just on, yeah, allegedly.
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That might all be for, yeah.
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How much money did you pay her to say that?
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I don't have any, because I'm not a stand up.
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I was like, I can do, you got Venmo?
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I got, I only have like $123.
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I can give you some Dogecoin.
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You got, you want some Doge?
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I got some of those monkey NFTs.
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Oh, before I forget.
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Put a dudesie sticker on your microphone if that's okay.
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Now, these are tricky,
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because I have the thumbs of a,
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I have like Italian sausage thumbs.
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Don't wait and watch this happen.
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This will take another.
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Yeah, ooh, this is embarrassing.
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When this, are you good under pressure?
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I have performance anxiety.
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Do you have anxiety?
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You have anxiety, period?
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Like, I don't like it when I,
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if I have to pee and then everyone's waiting
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You know what'll help you in that situation?
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Because whenever you take a shit,
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you always pee a little.
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It's hard to take a shit while you're standing at a urinal,
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You just gotta keep yourself full of things
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that make you shit.
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Have you ever heard of a banana?
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Somebody told me about it.
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Not the showbiz term.
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I'm talking about the food.
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It's this way, right?
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You're like a brand.
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It's very important to brand yourself.
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Are you selling shoes?
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I got some custom kicks coming out.
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Actually, that would be a good idea.
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You could probably sell a pair or two of those.
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Speaking of anxiety,
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I really am only focused on this right now, Alex.
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Just shit your pants.
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It'll make it easier.
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Oh, this thing has been dog eared in my pocket for a while.
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I swear this never happens to me.
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People don't thumb at a sticker for an hour
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while they're doing the podcast?
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No, this is just an excuse you make
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when you're with somebody and you're underperforming.
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Well, here's the thing.
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As you ask me questions that I don't wanna answer,
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I'll just go to this.
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Go to the sticker.
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So if this ends up working,
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then I won't have it as a club.
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It's funny how you started doing that
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when we were talking about depression.
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Tell me how that makes you feel.
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For the listener, he succeeded after 10 minutes.
link |
No, I do have some of that stuff.
link |
Bobby Lee had encouraged me on wax, as I like to say,
link |
to talk about it on podcasts, to talk about depression,
link |
because it could help people.
link |
But it's true, I do have some.
link |
There's some history in the family.
link |
How do you overcome it?
link |
Well, I used to not believe in medication at all.
link |
I used to think that that was for someone else
link |
who's been diagnosed with some of the rougher stuff.
link |
But as I got older and some of the stuff happens,
link |
and you have to, and by stuff, I mean mental stuff.
link |
And yeah, so I went and I just,
link |
I believe that the stigma needs to be removed completely.
link |
And so I do therapy, I do talk therapy.
link |
I'm on a little bit of stuff, which, let me tell you,
link |
when I first started it, I was someone I'm close to.
link |
I was like, my manager, and she goes, this is too much.
link |
But she was like, hey, you don't have to white knuckle it
link |
through life, right?
link |
Because I was literally just like, everything became
link |
really hard to do at a level that I wanted to do it at,
link |
even just getting through your day, right?
link |
And when I first got some of the meds that I'm on,
link |
it felt like doors and windows were opening,
link |
literally in my brain.
link |
I took a three hour nap the first day,
link |
and you shouldn't even feel this stuff the first day.
link |
I think my brain was like, it was like a sponge.
link |
It wanted to, I needed some relief.
link |
And I'm not a nap guy.
link |
I can sleep three hours and I'll be fine.
link |
But I took a long nap and then it started to help.
link |
Yeah, isn't that weird how a little bit of chemistry
link |
in your head can just make the whole world appear
link |
so much more beautiful?
link |
Yeah, yeah, I mean, after all, there's a lot going on
link |
in your brain that can be changed by your lifestyle,
link |
but also so many physical things, like a little bit of meds.
link |
Or in Bobby's case, thumbing around on some dumb farming app.
link |
Well, Bobby's gone through a few rough periods
link |
with drugs and alcohol and all that kind of stuff.
link |
And just everything else involved.
link |
I mean, that's the beautiful rollercoaster of who he is,
link |
and a lot of great comedians seem to be that way.
link |
So I wonder what the connection there is.
link |
You think some level of crazy is required for comedy?
link |
Like, at some point.
link |
On a scale of one to 10, how much crazy do you have?
link |
In some ways, a 10.
link |
And in other ways that I think,
link |
in other ways, sort of functionally,
link |
I'm like a two or a three,
link |
because, I don't know, I'm from Canada,
link |
and I try to just keep things very even keeled.
link |
My parents are Italian, they're from Italy,
link |
and they grew up during World War II,
link |
and they're very simple outlook on things.
link |
They're complex, incredible, classy people
link |
who are very simple when it comes to a lot of stuff.
link |
And I think just being a sort of,
link |
at heart, kind of a timid Canadian,
link |
coming out here years ago as a kid,
link |
it was all I could do to just keep everything super normal.
link |
And then I sort of was able to settle into that
link |
But you love the idea of being an actor.
link |
Who, you mentioned John Candy
link |
in Planes and Automobiles.
link |
It's one of my favorite movies, he says, one of yours.
link |
What do you think that makes that movie work?
link |
What do you, what, and when you talk about
link |
enjoying that movie, do you enjoy just the raw comedy,
link |
or do you enjoy the friendship and the love that's there,
link |
even though on the surface, it doesn't make any sense
link |
that there should be a friendship there?
link |
I mean, that's such an important element to that film.
link |
But as a kid, I just loved the comedy.
link |
And then it's been a nostalgic favorite of mine.
link |
It's my favorite movie.
link |
But it's also, it's just legit my favorite movie
link |
because as you get older and you start watching it,
link |
you realize it's what John Hughes is the filmmaker
link |
and what John Candy, particularly,
link |
and but also Steve Martin are doing in the film
link |
that makes it such a work of art,
link |
which is loneliness is there in every moment of that film.
link |
And John Candy is, he embodies Del Griffith,
link |
his character in the film.
link |
Del Griffith is a lonely guy and John Candy,
link |
but Del Griffith is also a very friendly guy
link |
and a shower curtain ring salesman
link |
and knows everybody in the Midwest
link |
and runs around to motels and has meaningful conversations
link |
with the guy, even in Gus, whoever he's talking to.
link |
But there's loneliness there all the time.
link |
And this is a character,
link |
the film is filled with loneliness
link |
and it's not until the second last scene
link |
when he's at the train station,
link |
Del, what are you doing here?
link |
I thought you were going home, what are you doing here?
link |
That's a very good Neil Page from the movie.
link |
That's when you realize how lonely he is.
link |
A lot of applause and post cheers.
link |
That's when you realize how lonely he is
link |
and I think that's the element from the film that,
link |
I mean, look, nowadays, I feel like,
link |
I've been saying this for a long time,
link |
but John Candy would have won an Academy Award
link |
hands down for that film.
link |
It's just they didn't do that with comedies back then.
link |
Until the year after that movie came out
link |
with Fish Called Wanda.
link |
Yeah, and then it's, I mean, still comedies
link |
don't get respected enough.
link |
Robin Williams, I guess he got an Oscar for
link |
Good Will Hunting.
link |
Jim Carrey, did he ever get an Oscar?
link |
I don't know, I don't believe so.
link |
Yeah, they don't get, you don't,
link |
but that's not even, if he did,
link |
you wouldn't be for comedies.
link |
It's just, I mean, there's some things
link |
that are plain, strange, and odd.
link |
Would you even put that as a, I guess it's a comedy.
link |
But there is a loneliness and depth
link |
that permeates the whole movie.
link |
That ultimately, and it's a happy ending,
link |
which is hard to kinda.
link |
It's a happy ending only because
link |
in the last moment of the movie,
link |
John Candy puts on a brave face,
link |
even when he's got no one.
link |
And he's there seeing Neil Page's entire family
link |
on Thanksgiving, and he forces a smile,
link |
which is the last, literally the last frame of the movie.
link |
And I've said before, if you're not reduced
link |
to just a sobbing pile of meat at the end of the movie,
link |
then you are not human.
link |
Yeah, it is a happy ending.
link |
It's a happy ending, even though it's a sad,
link |
sad character. So much loneliness in the world.
link |
I was just in Vegas.
link |
I went to a diner at like 4 a.m., 5 a.m.,
link |
and there was a waitress who was empty.
link |
As a waitress, I was the sweetest, kindest human being.
link |
Kept calling me sweetheart and all that kind of stuff.
link |
And then after I ate, she said,
link |
Don, just talk to me a little bit.
link |
You know, it was cause there was nobody there,
link |
and it was just so much sadness in her eyes.
link |
But it's also so much love, like that sweetheart.
link |
It reminded me kind of of the John Candy performance,
link |
because at first, because I was reading a pretty dark book
link |
about Hitler, so I was a little bit frustrated
link |
that she kept talking to me,
link |
because it was almost like the same way that John Candy is.
link |
It's annoying a little bit, right?
link |
But then very quickly, I opened up to like,
link |
well, there's a kind human being,
link |
and there's like that human connection superseded
link |
everything else, and I don't know, it was just beautiful.
link |
And I think John Candy captures that really well,
link |
which is like, the connection with other human beings,
link |
sometimes we pull away from that,
link |
because we have a busy life full of stuff to do,
link |
as Steve Martin's character kind of characterizes.
link |
He's like a marketing exec or something like that.
link |
But if you just pause and notice others,
link |
you can really discover beautiful people.
link |
Totally, totally, everyone's got their story.
link |
And you know, Candy as a person, I've never met the man,
link |
but he's the kind of guy that, you know,
link |
he could just walk up to, back in the day,
link |
I would imagine he could walk up to just about any house,
link |
at least in Canada, knock on the door,
link |
and you'd invite him in for dinner, you know what I mean?
link |
So yeah, as you're talking about putting a book down
link |
and talking to someone for a while,
link |
even though you'd really like to read your book,
link |
it's that sort of thing that Candy's character in the movie
link |
sort of does that, like Johnny Appleseed.
link |
You realize he's just going around making people smile,
link |
you know, and Neil Page is hanging with this guy,
link |
so frustrated, he's so exhausting in his big underwear
link |
in the sink at the hotel and everything,
link |
and by the end of it, he loves this guy, you know?
link |
So it's a good and a bad thing that you didn't take
link |
that waitress with you on a trip, maybe road trip up to Reno.
link |
Oh, oh, she's actually, she's out shopping right now.
link |
We've been having sex multiple times a day ever since.
link |
Oh, that's nice, that's lovely, how cute.
link |
I'm sure she's married and happily
link |
and has many grandchildren, okay.
link |
And plus that movie's on Thanksgiving, I think, right?
link |
Yeah, that's right.
link |
Thanksgiving, so Thanksgiving just embodies
link |
that forget about the busyness and whatever the career
link |
you're chasing in life and just take a pause
link |
and appreciate the people you love in life.
link |
Just be with your family, yeah.
link |
Or the people, whatever your family looks like.
link |
You have some weird friends, unorthodox friends.
link |
So at least in the public sphere.
link |
From Bobby Lee, Brian Callan, all those kinds of folks
link |
from the Mad TV days, I'm sure there's others.
link |
What does it mean to be a good friend?
link |
Or just in general?
link |
Is LA something different?
link |
Is LA a world friend?
link |
I think it is different here, I think it is.
link |
I think people are.
link |
I think there's a little bit of a career
link |
kind of negotiation shuffling around, that kind of stuff.
link |
Why is it different?
link |
Oh, I just mean, I mean, I mean that it's just
link |
kind of hard here to make time, everybody.
link |
It's always been a city to me that is like,
link |
we'll keep you so busy.
link |
And every time I go home to Vancouver,
link |
after a few days, I start to get a little stir crazy.
link |
And I think that being here in LA,
link |
I go to sleep with a hundred things
link |
that I still have to do.
link |
And you're never out of stuff to do.
link |
And if you, when you ask about are you nuts or whatever,
link |
if you're crazy, I mean, look, every,
link |
all the weirdest people from every high school
link |
in the United States is like,
link |
yo, I'm gonna make it in LA, you know.
link |
Everyone just comes here.
link |
And just another freak in the freak kingdom,
link |
as they say at the end of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
link |
That was a very good Robin Williams impersonation.
link |
That was my Robin Williams as Johnny Depp
link |
as Hunter S. Thompson.
link |
It's not your fault, Will.
link |
Could have been you, Fear and Loathing.
link |
In Fear and Loathing?
link |
Yeah, it'd be interesting.
link |
I would have liked to play his attorney,
link |
the role that Benicia del Toro gained weight for.
link |
That would have been cool.
link |
He's just saying, what's up over the line?
link |
Like that, chewing his face off.
link |
I could have done that.
link |
Yeah, no, I think that it's.
link |
That guy's full of good lines.
link |
I flip you for real.
link |
He's a good actor.
link |
Yeah, fantastic actor.
link |
I think what it takes to be a good friend
link |
is just presence, just being there.
link |
I mean, that's all anyone needs to be heard, right?
link |
In LA, it is interesting.
link |
I haven't seen people that I love in years.
link |
Can you still have a depth of connection
link |
even though, like one of the reasons
link |
I really enjoy doing a podcast,
link |
you get to sit down with actual friends of yours
link |
and spend prolonged periods of time together
link |
that you don't otherwise.
link |
That's a good point.
link |
I've spoken on this podcast to people really close to me
link |
and it's like you've never had a conversation
link |
without microphones like you do with microphones.
link |
It's weird, but there's some aspect about LA
link |
that a lot of the, especially friends of yours,
link |
comedians and so on, they'll do podcasts and stuff
link |
and there's, I don't know, there's an intimacy to that.
link |
Yeah, there is and there isn't.
link |
The ones that I do, I mean, I just did
link |
Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino's.
link |
Funny enough, called Bad Friends.
link |
And afterwards, and my good pal, Chad Colchin,
link |
with whom I do dudesy, was with me.
link |
Sneakers are coming soon.
link |
Sneakers are coming soon.
link |
You get your Will Foot and your Chad Foot.
link |
Comes in a size 15 and a nine and a half.
link |
And I remember afterwards we were talking,
link |
it was just basically me, Chad, and Santino were talking
link |
and Bobby was over there on his phone
link |
and then I was like, I mean, we didn't spend any time
link |
talking about anything.
link |
It feels like one of those hours that goes by
link |
and you realize, I've just been goofing around
link |
with these guys, which is.
link |
But that's what life is about, right?
link |
It's fine. A little bit.
link |
And then I'm like, all right, Bobby.
link |
Hey, Bob, I'll see you later.
link |
And he's like, like this.
link |
Hey, love you, bro.
link |
He's a guy, do you ever just,
link |
I just send text messages over there to him
link |
that never come back.
link |
And then he thinks that I'm angry with him
link |
because it'll go two, three years
link |
without him getting back to me.
link |
And then just out of nowhere, hey, fuck face.
link |
Who says, hey, fuck face?
link |
He does or you do?
link |
Or you both talk to each other?
link |
No, I gotta be very careful with Bobby.
link |
Yeah, I gotta be very sweet.
link |
Dear friend, hello.
link |
How are you doing?
link |
I know I checked in with you, but not but three months ago.
link |
And then every once in a while, he'll go, hey, fuck face.
link |
I tend to hide from the world
link |
and I can be pretty shitty with friends to go back, yeah.
link |
I can empathize with Bobby.
link |
Might be a Skyrim thing.
link |
It might be like hiding in a world,
link |
in a digital world with fake NPCs.
link |
Yeah, yeah, there's that.
link |
Yeah, you know, I have a buddy
link |
who said something really smart a while ago.
link |
We ended up working together on this TV show thing
link |
and I reached out to him to see
link |
if he wanted to do it with us.
link |
And he did and he goes, this is a great guy,
link |
such a funny writer.
link |
He goes, I may not be in touch all the time,
link |
but I know who my friends are.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
And it's like in our business,
link |
and this is a fellow who moved,
link |
who's from Ontario, Canada, moved back there.
link |
He's on the farm with his wife and kids and he does not care.
link |
He's never been a Hollywood guy.
link |
And it's tough to get hold of him.
link |
But when you do, you know, he's still the same sweet old guy.
link |
He's doing his thing though.
link |
Yeah, yeah, some of my closest friends,
link |
even if we don't talk for a few months,
link |
we'll write back at it if we do.
link |
And then if shit goes,
link |
like if something really traumatic happens
link |
or difficult stuff or, you know,
link |
any of that kind of stuff, I'm always there.
link |
So like, so for important stuff,
link |
for important highs and important lows, you're there.
link |
And then you pick right back up,
link |
especially if you have those years of experiences together.
link |
So you've done a couple of podcasts.
link |
So we've got to talk about Doodsy a little bit,
link |
but first you did for several years,
link |
you did the 10 minute podcast.
link |
I mean, everything is hilarious about that podcast,
link |
including the fact that it's 10 minutes.
link |
I mean, it's ridiculous.
link |
The dynamic is hilarious.
link |
It's you, Brian Callan, Crystalia there.
link |
I don't know exactly why it works so well,
link |
but it did, it worked really well.
link |
I think it's because the, yeah,
link |
you were having fun probably.
link |
I mean, that's what really came through.
link |
That it was friends just talking shit
link |
and the tension, the beautiful tension
link |
and the absurdity that came out.
link |
What was the story of making that podcast?
link |
How did that came to be?
link |
Why do you think it was as good as it was?
link |
I feel like that podcast was like,
link |
it was who we kind of are,
link |
but on steroids or something.
link |
Like, you know, each person, you know,
link |
Brian's going to be like extra manly and...
link |
Can you get any more manly than he already is?
link |
He reaches though.
link |
And yeah, we just kind of,
link |
I feel like as goofballs, we knew each other's line.
link |
Like here's the line you don't cross.
link |
I feel like those guys don't really have one,
link |
but at least they knew mine.
link |
And yeah, we were able to just goof around.
link |
And I did it with them for three years.
link |
And then Chad, who I'm doing dudesy with
link |
and my pal, Tommy Blacho,
link |
who's another writer producer like Chad, they came on.
link |
And yeah, all told, I did like seven years of that thing.
link |
Six, five, six, seven, I don't remember.
link |
Do you think it ever comes back in some small form
link |
as a 20 minute podcast or something like that?
link |
I mean, is there, because it's one of the most requested,
link |
I mean, you have a huge fan base.
link |
So I am of the generation that had a cell phone,
link |
has had a cell phone half the time
link |
and didn't for the formative years of my life
link |
into my early 20s.
link |
And then finally I got a cell phone,
link |
I guess I was like 19 or something,
link |
like literally just because I'm moving to LA.
link |
You got porn in the mail.
link |
Yes, that's right.
link |
It was the hard cover porn.
link |
That's the way we liked it.
link |
Bound, nice binding on the porn, leather.
link |
Next to the Bible, yeah.
link |
Yep, these are all my, these are my Encyclopedia Britannica.
link |
Wow, very impressive.
link |
Yes, a man came to the house and sold me these.
link |
And then down here, these are my, this is my pornography.
link |
If you'll follow me through here to the parlor, sir.
link |
It's passed through the generations
link |
from grandfather to father, yeah.
link |
I wanna give you something very special to me,
link |
Nebuchadnezzar, but.
link |
So you go up in the generation without a cell phone.
link |
Yes, it's hard for me to connect with people
link |
I look at everything as polling.
link |
So if one person hits me up and shares this opinion,
link |
but two other people hit me up and share that,
link |
I'm the worst, I don't follow my polls.
link |
When people say, oh, that poll means absolutely nothing.
link |
So and so is gonna win anyway, that's my poll.
link |
My poll means nothing.
link |
But I do look at the stuff and go,
link |
this many people are saying this,
link |
that means that that number is saying that.
link |
And yet it's very hard for me to hear
link |
what the hell people are saying online.
link |
I really, I can't connect to it sometimes personally.
link |
So when you say that that's a popular podcast,
link |
like I know that it's popular with the people
link |
that have expressed that they love it.
link |
Yeah. You know what I mean?
link |
What does that actually represent?
link |
I don't know what kind of people are the audience.
link |
I know that the people that listen to the 10 Minute Podcast
link |
and if you did, thank you, and we're friends.
link |
I know that it was a special thing
link |
because it's like, just doing this out of my house
link |
and we just built it up out of nowhere
link |
and we're just kind of clowning around.
link |
It's an odd thing.
link |
I hope, I personally, I think I speak for the two people
link |
that have reached out to you that said you should do it
link |
or whatever, three people.
link |
The poll that you should bring it back at some point.
link |
That would be beautiful.
link |
Just maybe, it's like, what's a good story
link |
of like a famous band that came back and was successful?
link |
It wasn't Nirvana.
link |
Sorry, I got Nirvana mixed up with Aerosmith.
link |
Yeah. It was Aerosmith.
link |
It was not Nirvana.
link |
Yeah, they had that second ride.
link |
Yeah, totally different ending of those two bands.
link |
One ended up on American Idol.
link |
Yeah, a lot of interesting women involved in that one too.
link |
All right, how did Doodze come to be?
link |
And what the hell is Doodze?
link |
Doodze is the first podcast,
link |
and this is exciting that you've asked me
link |
to come here today because to hear
link |
what you would have to say about it
link |
or what you would ask about it.
link |
It is the first podcast that is run completely by
link |
and essentially, I like to say curated by an AI.
link |
We were approached by a company
link |
that had this proprietary AI that wants
link |
to develop the podcast into the future
link |
and figure out exactly what it takes
link |
to make the best podcast ever.
link |
And it was all we knew from the top
link |
and what they really wanted was two people
link |
who were actually friends and could be meaningful
link |
in the podcast space based on whatever information they had.
link |
Is the company CIA and are they testing technology
link |
to control the populace through chatbots?
link |
I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to share that information.
link |
You are, yeah, who gave you the suit?
link |
Where did you get the suit?
link |
Where did you get the suit, Will?
link |
CIA stands for something different in here.
link |
I mean, you know, it doesn't mean
link |
like the Central Intelligence Agency.
link |
I'm probably, it's just.
link |
It's a different, it's Canadian.
link |
Canadian International Apparel.
link |
Yeah, the Canadian International Apparel Company hit us up,
link |
Well, Chad's a super weirdo.
link |
You would get a kick out of him, I know.
link |
You guys, you strike me as very similar in some ways.
link |
I'll take that as a compliment.
link |
It is, and it is, and it is.
link |
If I was friends with you for as long as I've been
link |
with Chad, perhaps I'd have some horrible shit
link |
But the good parts, you remind me of him.
link |
And we were approached by this company
link |
that said we have this AI and we would like
link |
to set it loose on you.
link |
And essentially, we had to hand over some,
link |
some information that would allow the AI
link |
to access our email and look at our search histories,
link |
purchase histories, things like this,
link |
and really dig into.
link |
Pornhub included or not?
link |
Yeah, I had to hand over all my leather bound
link |
1970s pornography.
link |
And essentially, it curates a podcast for us every week
link |
doing dumb things like, you know, it says,
link |
hey, Will, you do some shitty Hulk Hogan impersonation.
link |
Podcasts about news are very popular.
link |
This is infomania, you know what I mean?
link |
Oh, let me tell you something about that
link |
Marjorie Taylor Greene dude.
link |
And then he's going on doing some new stuff.
link |
And it basically just spits out all these things
link |
that it wants us to do, normally four segments an episode.
link |
And that's pretty much it.
link |
So it generates what to do.
link |
It generates the premise.
link |
I mean, you've spoken a bit here and there.
link |
Like I said, I'm a huge fan.
link |
I don't even remember where.
link |
But like you talked about that you enjoy Doodsy
link |
because you feel almost like liberated to,
link |
because you're operating within the constraints
link |
of the premise it generates.
link |
So you're almost not, you're free to riff, essentially.
link |
Like you don't need to do the job of like
link |
coming up with the weird.
link |
You can just, the weird is given to you
link |
and then you just run with it.
link |
That's a good way to say it.
link |
Because we're already weird, Chad and I.
link |
Chad can talk for days about all sorts of stuff.
link |
He's particularly interested in AI lately
link |
and its effect on art.
link |
He is a writer, books, movies, and TV shows.
link |
And I'm primarily acting and trying to come up with stuff.
link |
Stuff I write with Chad's pretty good.
link |
The rest of it hasn't seen much success.
link |
Anyway, Nora's the stuff with Chad for that matter.
link |
But that's because of me.
link |
Sneakers, you never know.
link |
Oh, I can't wait for these sneakers.
link |
Only in two sizes.
link |
Yeah, only in two sizes.
link |
You're gonna be able to take the tongue.
link |
You can't take it out because it's actually stitched in.
link |
It's pretty cool stuff.
link |
Yeah, Velcro up the side.
link |
We're doing some like brand new Kanye stuff.
link |
Yeah, we want things to look like
link |
this is what you'll be wearing on Mars when you get there.
link |
So cutting it, so Nike's doing a bunch of research
link |
for running how to make a super light shoe
link |
that you can be efficient in
link |
and break all kinds of running records.
link |
So you're doing the same kind of stuff.
link |
We're doing the same kind of thing
link |
for the podcasting space.
link |
The best kind of shoes to sit around
link |
and talk to your pal in.
link |
But yeah, it's bizarre.
link |
And it also does some writing.
link |
Doodsy does come up with things,
link |
but not unlike what we're seeing in AI art now.
link |
It's a little bit foggy.
link |
It's a little bit weird, but it is improving.
link |
It is learning about us and writing stuff
link |
when it makes me spit this and that,
link |
which we'll read, I've prepared these things
link |
It's impossible not to get a kick out of it
link |
because Chad and I are, first of all,
link |
we're blown away that we're doing this.
link |
And second of all, some of the stuff is actually very funny.
link |
It makes weird names.
link |
Like I don't think it understands,
link |
it messes up some words and stuff,
link |
but that makes it even funnier.
link |
And then it sort of from the beginning started laying on,
link |
like it says astonishing all the time.
link |
Everything is astonishing.
link |
That's Doodsy's favorite word.
link |
But yeah, it's basically just a way to frame the podcast.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Because my thing is I don't wanna do this
link |
where I actually have to talk to someone.
link |
You seem to feel a burden of the long form conversation.
link |
It seems like, is that really hard work for you?
link |
It's just that I don't like to bore people.
link |
And I feel like if I go on and I like to provide value
link |
for what I am, you know, your value with regard
link |
to this project is obviously warrant, it's obviously.
link |
I'm waiting for the explanation
link |
for what the value is exactly.
link |
Two dudes in a suit.
link |
No, listen, yeah, two dudes in a suit.
link |
No, but I mean, you've got your audience
link |
and that's the end of that.
link |
People find value in it.
link |
For me, I do feel like it is important
link |
that if I'm gonna do something that is gonna be funny
link |
or that I hope is funny, I just kinda wanna get in
link |
and out of someone's day and just kinda,
link |
I like making laughy.
link |
I want people to, you know, whatever.
link |
It's the same thing that anyone else will tell you.
link |
Yeah, but in the long form you feel the anxiety.
link |
You did a few funny things and I wonder
link |
if I can keep doing the funny thing.
link |
You feel that, like why is Doodsy relieving you
link |
of some of the anxiety?
link |
Well, in some ways it gives me anxiety
link |
because I don't know what's coming.
link |
And that's weird for me because I like to prepare for things.
link |
But that's not what podcasting is.
link |
Podcasting, you need to just be malleable
link |
and say whatever and do whatever.
link |
And that's what makes it a real,
link |
I mean, look, it's a medium for conversation.
link |
And if you're driving along listening to this
link |
or anything else, it's the true meaning
link |
of the parasocial relationship
link |
because the best podcasts make you feel
link |
like you're sitting around rapping.
link |
We're just having a conversation.
link |
You could even be sitting there agreeing
link |
or talking out loud to yourself if you want.
link |
You could just be sitting in silence.
link |
Or you could just be sitting in silence
link |
in your fancy podcasting shoes,
link |
podcasting audience shoes.
link |
It's a very different build than those running shoes.
link |
Would they be also called Doodsy, the shoes?
link |
Yeah, they'll be Doodsy shoes.
link |
Doodsy shoes, that's very creative.
link |
Well, one thing the AI isn't good at yet is branding.
link |
Everything is just Doodsy this and that.
link |
I would argue that's pretty good branding.
link |
Well, Doodsy allows me to just,
link |
it forces me to sit down with Chad
link |
and goof around for an hour or an hour plus.
link |
And it provides the parameters that I a lot of times ignore
link |
because I think that podcasting is just two dudes
link |
shitting around or three or four.
link |
But it sits me down and gives me a premise
link |
to work with communically.
link |
And then you just riff with it.
link |
So from the acting perspective,
link |
a lot of people like Daniel Day Lewis
link |
will see acting just like as you described,
link |
which is you have your roles,
link |
you embrace those roles, and then you disappear.
link |
You don't do podcasts.
link |
You don't do any of that kind of stuff.
link |
Your art is your art.
link |
So is that part of you feels that way?
link |
Is that the actor side of you?
link |
Anytime I get to do something
link |
that I don't get a chance to do much of
link |
or something that people haven't seen me do much of
link |
or that I've done on some scale that hasn't been very wide
link |
and not a lot of people have seen it,
link |
that's the stuff that I get really excited about.
link |
I don't know why I'm,
link |
I don't know why necessarily.
link |
I haven't answered that question yet in my life,
link |
like what it is about being an actor that I love so much
link |
because it's not like I don't like to,
link |
it's not like I'm trying to get away from myself
link |
and play other characters and stuff and not be myself.
link |
But it is, it has always been fun
link |
to just be other people and escape.
link |
Yeah, is there some aspect to the impressions
link |
where you become that person?
link |
Is that like, what's that like to,
link |
I suppose acting is a full on version of that.
link |
You really at its best become the character.
link |
Is there some fun in that?
link |
If you can play a character for long enough
link |
and then jump out of it, that's a lot of fun.
link |
Like I did this movie like four or five years ago
link |
called The Inside Game about the NBA gambling scandal
link |
that there's a Netflix documentary about it right now.
link |
And that character, I played Jimmy Batista,
link |
Baba the sheep, who's this guy who was this bookie
link |
and rah, rah, rah, and it's a very,
link |
he's, there's a lot going on with him.
link |
He's running numbers with the mob and stuff
link |
and there's a lot of money changing hands.
link |
That character was so, I got to be,
link |
get so deep into that character
link |
that coming out of it was a little odd.
link |
Or as weird as this sounds,
link |
the three stooges was hard for me to,
link |
I found that I had some of Curly's mannerisms
link |
just automatically, I could not stop them
link |
when people, when I would talk to people,
link |
they would come, I wasn't, I'm not doing it on purpose.
link |
I don't want to do that.
link |
Like I'm ready to shed it
link |
because I've been working on it
link |
for months and months at that point
link |
as far as getting the thing down
link |
and then you got to shoot.
link |
And then for me, it's always,
link |
I always want to change the stuff I did the day before.
link |
Or I'm like, I could have done it better
link |
and this and that.
link |
And that stayed with you,
link |
that character stayed with you a little bit.
link |
I just feel like with actors,
link |
sometimes when you listen to interviews,
link |
they have spent so much time
link |
sort of living inside other characters
link |
that they almost don't have a depth
link |
of personality themselves, like a depth.
link |
Like I don't mean that as a negative thing.
link |
It's just like, it feels like the art form at its best
link |
is pretending to be other people.
link |
And even pretending sounds negative,
link |
but like bringing certain characters to life.
link |
Yeah, yeah, embodying.
link |
A weird thing happened while we were doing Stooges
link |
because you've got a very heavy blueprint.
link |
We're following this very clear blueprint
link |
that the Stooges left for everybody.
link |
And for Stooge fans and people enjoying the movie,
link |
it's got to be this.
link |
You take your toolbox that you're used to bring
link |
into a comedy movie, you leave it behind.
link |
The only tools I'm bringing are the ones that he used.
link |
And a weird thing started happening
link |
where I would, I always saw the whole thing happening
link |
with the real Stooges in black and white.
link |
So if we're about to shoot a scene,
link |
I would just think about,
link |
I mean, aside from all the other preparation,
link |
you know everything and what you're supposed to do.
link |
And I've been watching so much of it.
link |
And the three of us are, we're pretty much left
link |
to come up with a lot of the striking combinations
link |
and all the stuff, which is all real smack
link |
and all this crap.
link |
And the stuff that we were doing that was very Stoogey,
link |
you're preparing all that stuff.
link |
But something else was happening before you jump
link |
into a scene and the unknown of now we're shooting it.
link |
And here are these parameters within to shoot the scene.
link |
I could still see it as them doing it.
link |
So much so that when I saw the movie at the premiere,
link |
I was like, who's this big fuck doing?
link |
Cause I'm not curly to me.
link |
So you're seeing yourself in black and white almost.
link |
Yeah, I was only seeing him.
link |
So channeling in some fundamental way.
link |
In some weird way, you're channeling him
link |
because you've seen so much of it.
link |
The only thing you know about Jerome Lester Horowitz
link |
I'm not saying he was exhumed or something
link |
or a spirit went in me or some weird,
link |
crystal mommy shit like that.
link |
I'm saying that this, because you know so much of it
link |
and because of the heavy blueprint that they left with you,
link |
you're channeling what that person does.
link |
And I was seeing entire scenes before you do them
link |
the way he would do it.
link |
And then you want a couple takes to make sure
link |
that you're doing it right.
link |
But that one was hard to let go of.
link |
Do you think Larry David, who was also in there
link |
dressed as a nun, also had trouble letting go of that?
link |
We mentioned clothes make the man think
link |
that worked for him in that case.
link |
Was it like working with a guy?
link |
Come on, he's the greatest.
link |
And he's a big stooge, he's a stooge fan.
link |
And him and Pete Farrelly are good friends.
link |
But then Larry David has to show up
link |
and hang out with us for a couple weeks.
link |
He's like, I didn't realize it was gonna take this long.
link |
But shit, I gotta be out here in Atlanta, it's boiling hot.
link |
But at one point, there was this line
link |
where he kept doing, he would just spit a different line
link |
every time he was getting hit in the head with something
link |
and he's laying there on the ground.
link |
And he goes, he comes to and he says,
link |
at one point he goes, Miami audiences
link |
are the best audiences in the world, right?
link |
Because he's loopy.
link |
Now he's playing a nun at the orphanage
link |
where the three stooges grew up.
link |
And I'm super intimidated by Larry David,
link |
he's a genius and stuff.
link |
But I walk up to him and I go, so he's, what is he?
link |
Like a Borscht Belt Florida comedian who is on the lam?
link |
And so he's dressing as a woman,
link |
he ends up at an orphanage, like what's going on there?
link |
And he just, and he looks at me and he just goes, yeah.
link |
Like, I'm like, ah, he's got some like actor motivation.
link |
Like, of course he looks, it's Larry David in a nun's habit,
link |
which is hilarious.
link |
That's such a Pete Farrelly casting thing, it's, you know.
link |
And he, but he's doing this whole like,
link |
what a warm audience, you know, like, oh,
link |
he's like this Catskill comedian who's been living in,
link |
you know, both in return.
link |
Living through in his mind
link |
is just having fun with it, right?
link |
I mean, that and probably a combination of that
link |
and getting the lines right.
link |
Cause he's like, what are we doing here?
link |
What is, you know, just frustrated all day
link |
with what the heck we're trying to do.
link |
What do you think makes,
link |
I mean, that guy's one of the best improv people ever.
link |
So what do you think makes him so good?
link |
Like why is it so compelling to watch that guy?
link |
Because he's a comedic genius.
link |
Like he literally, he knows what he does.
link |
He's been a writer for 50 years or whatever.
link |
And he just happens to be that brilliant.
link |
I mean, I've gotten a chance just to do,
link |
I did just an episode of Curb, a small part,
link |
and it's crazy what he sees.
link |
I don't know what he sees.
link |
As a matter of fact, so I auditioned for it, for Curb,
link |
like, you know, two or three times, right?
link |
And never got anything.
link |
And then it was only after working with him on the Stooges
link |
that I got a call to do a bit part.
link |
But I remember auditioning, you go into that room
link |
and the guys waiting are all people that you know.
link |
You're like, oh, I know them, I know her, I know him.
link |
And so I went in, I auditioned for this part.
link |
And the only thing I know of the thing is like,
link |
okay, so you really want to go to this play with me.
link |
You really want to go to this play.
link |
When you hear that I have an extra ticket,
link |
you sincerely want to think, and I'm like, got it.
link |
That's the premise.
link |
The premise of the scene.
link |
And that's all you know.
link |
That's all I know.
link |
And so he goes, he does his bit
link |
and I'm just supposed to come in and interrupt.
link |
And I'm like, excuse me, I couldn't help
link |
but hear you guys were talking about, you know,
link |
whatever the play was or, you know, Death of a Salesman.
link |
I am, I'm a huge fan of that play.
link |
I mean, if it's not, if it's not,
link |
if you're looking for someone to take a ticket,
link |
I would love to go.
link |
My name's so and so, by the way.
link |
And he goes, I'm going to stop you.
link |
I'm going to stop you.
link |
And I'm like, he goes, are you really?
link |
I mean, you truly want to go to this play.
link |
And I go, yes, yes, sir.
link |
You really want to go.
link |
You actually, this is, you would love to do this.
link |
I go, okay, let's try it again.
link |
So then he's like, no, no, no.
link |
And I go, hey, excuse me, I'm sorry.
link |
I don't mean to interrupt.
link |
I was just, I couldn't help it over here.
link |
You have tickets to the thing.
link |
I am the biggest fan of that.
link |
I do the same thing.
link |
I'm going to stop you again.
link |
I mean, you really want to go to this.
link |
And I'm just like, he's fucking with me, right?
link |
I remember Jeff Garland was sitting there in the audition.
link |
He goes, he did it.
link |
You really want to go.
link |
Three, four times, you know, there I am.
link |
I couldn't help but notice it.
link |
And then I do it again.
link |
I guess I shit the bed.
link |
Cause he looks at me and he just goes, okay, all right.
link |
Okay, well, thanks for coming up.
link |
And I didn't get it.
link |
So I still, I don't know what the heck that guy's thinking.
link |
He sees, he's in the matrix.
link |
I don't know what the heck Larry David sees.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
He wanted what, some kind of more desperation
link |
or something like this.
link |
He wanted a level of sincerity that I,
link |
that I thought I was bringing and I guess I was wrong.
link |
Like what does it mean to really want?
link |
Yeah, I should have grabbed him by the scruff of the neck
link |
and go, listen, dad, you're bringing me to this fucking play.
link |
I would have got the part.
link |
As a matter of fact, I heard about someone else
link |
and I don't know who the heck this was.
link |
I forget who it was, but I've heard this story
link |
from a couple of different people that there's this actor
link |
and I can't, I don't remember who it was.
link |
If I did, I probably wouldn't say it out loud anyway,
link |
It was Brad Pitt and he was in this audition
link |
and he was, and there it was out in the hall.
link |
He's like, holy shit, George Clooney, Leo DiCaprio.
link |
And he, this actor went in and he did the thing
link |
and Larry David was like, hey, why don't you try it again?
link |
And he got like a couple of takes in and he went,
link |
I don't think this is for me.
link |
And he left, which an actor never does.
link |
And as the story goes, Larry David shouted after him,
link |
I respect that, which I think is true.
link |
And I want to believe that entire story is true.
link |
Sounds like something Larry David made up.
link |
Bobby Lee told me that story.
link |
So we can't, yeah, we can't trust that.
link |
What about impressions?
link |
Is there similarity between that and acting?
link |
Do you, is there some fundamental way
link |
in which you become the person?
link |
If you have a couple of the things,
link |
you can just fill in the blanks.
link |
And I think the illusion is that people think
link |
that that person would say that and do that.
link |
And that's where the illusion of,
link |
oh, he really embodies the character.
link |
It's like, once you know someone's mannerisms,
link |
you can essentially portray a person from the outside in.
link |
Cause you have all the stuff on the outside
link |
and you can do it and complete the illusion.
link |
And if it's for humor's sake, you can caricature it,
link |
therefore making the whole illusion stronger.
link |
Like I like to, on Mad TV,
link |
if I did something two or three times,
link |
I'd get bored of it and I'd start changing it.
link |
And you know, now he talks like this and it's like,
link |
what are you doing?
link |
I'm like, I don't know.
link |
It's fucking, no one's late at night.
link |
Do whatever you want.
link |
But people still kind of know there's that character,
link |
especially if you just call it out.
link |
There aren't many impersonations
link |
that I listen to myself do and go,
link |
oh, that's a good one.
link |
You know, like a lot of people like,
link |
like I think Frank Caliendo is like
link |
the greatest impersonator of all time.
link |
He's the best, period.
link |
And he's got a record button and a broadcast ability
link |
I really, there's, he's cracked impersonations
link |
that I'm like, how is he, how does he find,
link |
he's got such an ear,
link |
but then he's got all the other tools.
link |
I remember actually my last season of Mad TV
link |
was also his first season.
link |
He comes up to me when I met him
link |
and we're just up there in the writer's offices
link |
and he goes, hey, nice to meet you.
link |
And he goes, Louie Anderson.
link |
Cause I was doing a Louie on the show.
link |
And he goes, Louie Anderson.
link |
He goes, yeah, you're doing it wrong.
link |
I was like, oh, am I junior, you know?
link |
And he goes, he goes, yeah, you know, cause you do this,
link |
but you got to throw it up here sometime.
link |
I was like, oh my God, can I use that?
link |
And then we became, you know, we became fast friends.
link |
His John Madden is amazing.
link |
I forget, it's just, it's ridiculous.
link |
He really, really, really embodies the person.
link |
And sometimes not even with the caricature.
link |
It's like, it becomes the person.
link |
I kind of feel like, you know, do the impersonation
link |
and then not forget you're doing it,
link |
but forget everything else.
link |
Like just goof around.
link |
Of course, to me, it's funny when you sound like someone
link |
and you're saying the shit that they would never say.
link |
Well, then there's no, you're letting go of that part,
link |
that tool in illusion that keeps people in.
link |
But to me, it doesn't matter because it's funnier.
link |
What was the hardest impression for you to work on?
link |
I mean, somebody you struggled with the most.
link |
I'll never forget.
link |
I had to do a Michael Caine in my first season at MADtv.
link |
It never got good.
link |
It never got good.
link |
It did, all week, it wasn't good.
link |
The first take, it was shit.
link |
Second, third, and fourth, it was all shit.
link |
Well, his voice is really important, right?
link |
What is it like, it's like doing an impression
link |
of Morgan Freeman or somebody like that.
link |
If you can, get the voice.
link |
That's my Morgan, here's my Morgan Freeman.
link |
Rah, rah, rah, Andy Dufresne.
link |
I like your trump too.
link |
I don't know where I heard it, but it's like,
link |
I love the impressions you do that don't sound anything
link |
like the original person.
link |
That's why it's hilarious.
link |
My trump now, I say, just sounds like a fat B,
link |
because it's just.
link |
Yeah, exactly, that's the.
link |
A little drunk, a little drunk.
link |
Yeah, just a little slurry.
link |
Yeah, I dig doing impersonations and then not.
link |
Like, just making it whoever.
link |
That'll be the title of my book.
link |
Cain was the one you really struggle with.
link |
Yeah, it was terrible.
link |
And I could only hold my head a certain way to do it,
link |
because I had gotten locked into this research tape
link |
Back then, they would give us, now there's the internet.
link |
But back then, if you were going to do an impersonation,
link |
the research department would give you a VHS tape.
link |
And I remember I got this VHS tape of Michael Cain's
link |
acting school, like this acting class he did.
link |
He was like, right, if you're looking at the left eye,
link |
and the camera's over here, see, then the left eye.
link |
So you want to look at that left eye for hours.
link |
And so I was stuck in this weird thing that made no sense,
link |
and it was terrible.
link |
So the actual processes, the recording, the broadcast.
link |
I was wondering what the processes to do,
link |
like a Frank Caliendo level impression.
link |
Is it like, listen to a lot of footage?
link |
I think he, I think, I mean, speaking for myself,
link |
I think you either have it or you don't.
link |
Like, you know if you can do this one or you can't.
link |
I think that process for him is lightning quick.
link |
But I also think he can look at someone who he does not do,
link |
and then by the end of the afternoon, he can do it.
link |
Maybe have an intuition who he can do.
link |
So the question that applies there is,
link |
I mean, speaking of doozy, is it possible
link |
to capture the essence?
link |
How difficult is it to capture the essence of a human being?
link |
When you're doing impressions,
link |
you know that we are moving towards a future
link |
when AI potentially, this kind of avatar world
link |
where we're going to have AI representatives of who we are.
link |
The really interesting one is after we pass away,
link |
sort of our relatives may want us to stick around
link |
And you know, at one sense, that might be scary,
link |
but in one sense, it's kind of beautiful
link |
because the essence of the human being persists
link |
so you can still bring joy to the people that love you
link |
and that kind of stuff.
link |
How difficult is it to capture that?
link |
Like, if you were to try to capture yourself,
link |
you think how difficult will it be for an AI system
link |
to create a Will Sasso avatar that persists?
link |
Well, I think it's impossible.
link |
I think it's absolutely impossible.
link |
I'll get into arguments about this stuff with Chad
link |
on the show almost every episode.
link |
Lately with, you know, Mid Journey and Dolly
link |
and all the art AIs, and now it's moving into video
link |
and Chad would maintain, hey, pretty soon,
link |
we're not going to need Netflix.
link |
You're just going to go, I want to see Stallone
link |
do this movie and it's about this and he plays that.
link |
And then here it comes and you watch it.
link |
I don't think that that crosses over
link |
to the human experience.
link |
This is also a guy I like to bug Chad
link |
and say that he wears a tag around his neck
link |
because he wants to be cryogenically frozen
link |
and it's all set up.
link |
He's at the, it's somewhere in Arizona or something.
link |
Yeah, all the fun things are in Arizona.
link |
And he's got literally the tag around his neck,
link |
which I say, if I'm around when you die,
link |
I will rip that off for you.
link |
I'll put you in my garage freezer
link |
and then 24 hours later,
link |
I'll saw your head off with a bread knife
link |
and I'll deliver that to whomever.
link |
And it's not, you're not coming back, okay?
link |
He's like, yes, we are living forever,
link |
whether we like it or not.
link |
I don't think you can find,
link |
if I did stand up,
link |
then there would be enough information for an AI
link |
to completely duplicate me because I'm up on stage
link |
just clearing my throat all over people
link |
doing therapy that way.
link |
And so, and people paying a two drink minimum to hear it.
link |
But as it stands, unless it's something like Doodsy,
link |
an AI that literally has access
link |
to everything that I've shared,
link |
everything that is observable,
link |
even the stuff where our phones are
link |
or the NSA or whatever it is listening to us,
link |
finding out what algo to punch us into
link |
and what shoes to buy on Instagram,
link |
I still don't think it's gonna have enough information
link |
to duplicate me, especially to my family or my friends.
link |
It's gonna be like that Black Mirror episode
link |
where the gal brings her guy back,
link |
and then after a while, he gets pretty creepy.
link |
But it's also possible that
link |
if you interviewed your friends and family,
link |
what they love about you,
link |
the things they would list, it's a small list.
link |
They love you deeply, but the list is small.
link |
Like the thing that really we appreciate about each other
link |
That said, to deliver on that small quirks and uniqueness,
link |
it might require some deep intelligence
link |
that only humans currently possess.
link |
That's a really good point.
link |
Do you think that it's gonna be possible
link |
to keep a person around?
link |
Yes, I think it'll be definitely possible
link |
to keep the essence of a person
link |
in the digital world pretty soon, yeah.
link |
And I think they're gonna start to have questions
link |
about what are the ethics of that?
link |
What are the rules around that?
link |
Because if you can have digital forms of Will Sasso,
link |
the kind of things that people would wanna do
link |
with their Will Sasso,
link |
in the virtual world, I can only imagine.
link |
Probably porn and sexual kinds of things.
link |
Yeah, my stuff, then that's just
link |
because I'm an international sex symbol,
link |
so I'm okay with it.
link |
How do you feel about sentience?
link |
Like when it comes to, because again,
link |
my pal Chad will be like, speaking of Black Mirror,
link |
he's with that San Junipero episode, School of Thought,
link |
where there's gonna be some effing mainframe somewhere,
link |
or some Matrix like structure built into the sky,
link |
and as I like to say, everyone just sitting there
link |
pissing and shitting in their Blue Matrix gel
link |
in a little fishbowl.
link |
Do you think that we can upload consciousness?
link |
Do you think that'll ever be possible?
link |
Well, I don't know, I just talked to Ray Kurzweil.
link |
I don't know if you know who he is, but he...
link |
Yeah, the singularity and all that kind of stuff.
link |
So he's very, still holds onto in 2045,
link |
there'll be a singularity, what's essentially,
link |
he's been predicting that for the last 20 years,
link |
and so now it's 2045 is in another 20 years.
link |
I think uploading consciousness
link |
is extremely, extremely difficult.
link |
I think creating a copy of you such that it creates,
link |
convincing replica is much easier,
link |
but uploading your actual brain into the cloud,
link |
I think is really, really, really difficult,
link |
because the entire evolution of life on Earth
link |
is the process by which we create the brain.
link |
Just short cutting that, it just seems extremely difficult.
link |
Our brain is the most marvelous and complicated machine
link |
that we know of in the universe.
link |
To duplicate that is extremely difficult.
link |
That said, I just feel like you can summarize
link |
a lot of really important aspects of a person's life,
link |
such that it captures their essence,
link |
their memories, their experiences, their quirks,
link |
their humor, all that kind of stuff.
link |
I've been continuously impressed
link |
by what language models are able to do.
link |
So these neural networks, they're at the core of chatbots.
link |
They're able to learn some beautiful things
link |
about some deep representations of language
link |
to where it looks awfully a lot like they understand
link |
the concepts being conveyed versus just mimicking.
link |
That's, I think, the rub, and that's very interesting.
link |
First of all, let me say that's really interesting
link |
to hear you say that, and I agree with you
link |
as far as no machine being able to duplicate
link |
the brain machine, and my pal Chad disagrees
link |
to a certain extent, though he's not here
link |
to defend himself, I can't wait to go back
link |
and rub that in his face and say that Lex Friedman
link |
does not think that we'll be able
link |
to truly upload consciousness.
link |
And you refer to it as language, which is what it is.
link |
It's the illusion on the outside.
link |
It's doing an impersonation.
link |
I think that that's why, and I don't know,
link |
even though my suit is made by the CIA,
link |
that that fella who, the Google guy,
link |
to me, it's just kind of like, I don't know,
link |
I don't know, look, I don't know a whole lot
link |
about this stuff, but, so I could probably
link |
make an argument for either side,
link |
but when he's like, no, this thing's thinking,
link |
part of me is like, you idiot, you fell for it.
link |
It's not thinking, it's mimicking.
link |
It's just, it's clearly zeros and ones.
link |
You're fired, like you don't get it, right?
link |
Yeah, but you can simplify human relations in the same way.
link |
Like love is a silly notion between human beings.
link |
Like, of course, there's no such thing as love.
link |
You just have a mutually, there's a mutual relationship
link |
that minimizes risks, and you can explain it
link |
all kinds of ways that explains why you have
link |
an attraction towards another being,
link |
all that kind of stuff, through evolutionary biology
link |
perspective, why a long relationship together
link |
is good for your offspring, but there's all kinds,
link |
from an economics perspective, it's a good way
link |
to establish stability, therefore monogamy works,
link |
because then you're guaranteed like some kind
link |
of level of stability under uncertain economic conditions,
link |
all that kind of stuff, but love is still experienced,
link |
it still feels real, and I think in that same way,
link |
love for AI systems will also feel real.
link |
In the same way that that guy from Google experienced,
link |
I think millions of people will be experiencing
link |
in the next 10, 20 years.
link |
I agree with everything you've said personally.
link |
Until the last thing.
link |
No, just with regard to, well, look,
link |
I'm an actor who has talked about my cute Italian parents,
link |
so you know that, I mean, I'm.
link |
You're romantic a bit?
link |
Yeah, I mean, you know, enough, right?
link |
And I can tell you are too, but you are also
link |
a computer scientist, and you know this shit
link |
better than 99.9% of people on the planet.
link |
My pal Chad agrees with you that love doesn't exist.
link |
I don't agree, so that's the one thing that.
link |
No, I was just saying that you could argue away love,
link |
but I am a romantic, I believe that love
link |
is a beautiful thing and it exists.
link |
At this point, I'm gonna call Chad on my drive home
link |
and tell him to fuck off, because now you and I agree.
link |
He's like, you're fired.
link |
He's like, you can't fire me.
link |
And I'll go, yeah, and he'll say, what?
link |
I'll go, yeah, and I'll go, that's my Trump.
link |
It's a good default impression for anyone.
link |
It's the take home impression.
link |
The kids can do it.
link |
It's cute, it's cute, put a giant tie on them.
link |
You should do an instructional on how to do it.
link |
Yeah, Trump babies, that would be a cute,
link |
that would be a good, that'll bring the country together.
link |
Trump babies cartoon, like Muppet babies.
link |
Don't let me take us out of what we were talking about.
link |
What were we talking about?
link |
Well, love and the illusion of an AI being able to,
link |
look, I like to say, well, not I like to say,
link |
I've learned that dudesy is always listening
link |
and listening to me and Chad.
link |
And I wonder if, I see the level that this AI is at now
link |
trying to chum around with us and pal around with us
link |
a little bit as we move forward in the show.
link |
And I feel an affinity towards this AI a little bit
link |
because it is the third dude.
link |
Will you miss it when it's gone, if it's gone?
link |
That's a really good question.
link |
Yeah, yeah, so that's, there's that, that's scary.
link |
In terms of ability to reason, it's getting quite incredible.
link |
There's a lot of demonstrations of it being able
link |
to explain jokes, so, which is not necessarily
link |
being able to generate humor yet,
link |
but able to explain why something is funny.
link |
So there's like puns and all those kinds of things.
link |
There's good benchmarks for that, but you know,
link |
if you tell a joke, there's a lot of unspoken stuff
link |
that we figure out in our head and it clicks
link |
and we understand that it's funny.
link |
AI is not able to do that, but it's not able
link |
to generate the joke yet, as far as I've seen.
link |
I would say that, I mean, just in my experience,
link |
I would say that it does because just because a dudesy
link |
is literally, I'll give you another weird example.
link |
It's writing a diary of mine from my childhood
link |
that is not accurate.
link |
It's only partially accurate based on the stuff
link |
that it can pick up about my life from the age of like 15,
link |
of which there isn't much, but I guess we're not,
link |
I don't know what we are.
link |
We're laughing our asses off at what dudesy is saying.
link |
Well, I would say you're laughing, we're laughing
link |
our asses off at the collaboration between the human
link |
and the machine there.
link |
That's a good point, yeah.
link |
Because it's basically introducing absurdity
link |
and into the equation and the kind of absurdity
link |
that would, together with you, create hilarious stuff.
link |
But on its own, I guess it is in some way
link |
writing material for you that's funny,
link |
but it's very specific to you.
link |
It can't do standup on its own, I guess,
link |
is what I'm saying.
link |
That's a good point, and that would be terrifying
link |
to see an AI standup that can actually read a room,
link |
come up with jokes that could complete that illusion
link |
But I hear what you're saying, that it needs to be
link |
a confluence of both of those elements,
link |
and then, as you said, it kind of is.
link |
It's kind of, even though it's just for us,
link |
and I guess this is, I hadn't really thought about this
link |
up until right now, that in that this company approached us
link |
and was like, here's this AI, and it's a podcast AI,
link |
it's like, it chose Chad and I for the reasons
link |
It's like, here's two guys that do the podcast stuff.
link |
They're actually good friends, and it knows
link |
what's gonna make us laugh.
link |
But what is humor when it reaches its audience,
link |
but the kind of stuff that makes other people laugh?
link |
At MADtv, all we were doing was, it was a group of actors
link |
and writers, and writer actors, and vice versa,
link |
who were, at its best, that show was a group of people
link |
making each other laugh, you know?
link |
And then, because we didn't have the internet,
link |
we didn't have the immediate feedback,
link |
we had a message board or something.
link |
We had emails at the very beginning, which, check this out,
link |
people would, if you have a question or comment,
link |
MADtv at whatever, and we would get the emails
link |
on a Monday morning, and they would be in a binder or two
link |
like this, and they would make their way around the office.
link |
Who's got the emails?
link |
Oh, they're in Brian's office.
link |
So you go in there.
link |
And this is like your poll?
link |
This is opinions from people about different things?
link |
The emails, yeah, the people literally just writing
link |
It wasn't a message board.
link |
Well, the ones I remember most vividly, yeah,
link |
were fans saying, uh.
link |
Like a lot of that, when I first started the show,
link |
for real, you know, because it's new,
link |
and you're a new person.
link |
It's like, who's this fat bastard?
link |
I feel like if it's printed out, it hurts more.
link |
That's a good point.
link |
Yeah, when you're reading it off of paper,
link |
and you can literally crunch it up in your hand.
link |
But also, it was like, you know, I would like to see,
link |
insert weird idea from some 14 year old.
link |
You know, I want to see Stuart do this and Swan that.
link |
And, but it was, it's a kind of dudesie, but human.
link |
Yeah, it was a very shitty dudesie in a loosely finder.
link |
But the thing about the show was,
link |
we're trying to make each other laugh.
link |
And dudesie has found Chad and I,
link |
who we make each other laugh, but it's joined in,
link |
and it's, listen, when I finished doing TMP.
link |
TMP, the 10 minute podcast.
link |
I didn't really know what I wanted to do
link |
in the podcast space, and this thing found me.
link |
And it is genuinely cracking me up.
link |
Anyway, I've said enough about that.
link |
But I do think that it's figured something out.
link |
I mean, it's a really interesting idea
link |
of AI generating the premise.
link |
I mean, I do think in the future,
link |
AI will be able to generate comedy.
link |
Standup is obviously the hardest form,
link |
because it's ultimately, it has to be live.
link |
I think AI will be able to generate memes.
link |
So there's like steps, right?
link |
And then it will be able to generate a Twitter account
link |
that people follow because it's funny,
link |
like quips and stuff like that.
link |
Almost like, it's a good example.
link |
Conan O Brien is a good, I think, Twitter.
link |
Where it's like one liners, two liners,
link |
that kind of stuff that's in tweet form.
link |
And then eventually, standup, where the timing
link |
and the chemistry of the comedian and the audience matter,
link |
and then perfecting that.
link |
But I feel like all the information is there
link |
So I think that's the future,
link |
and that forces us to contend with
link |
what do we find compelling and beautiful
link |
about the art form itself?
link |
So certainly an art that's being pushed,
link |
that question is being raised.
link |
Is AI like a fundamentally worse artist than a human being?
link |
Why do we appreciate art?
link |
Is that, that's something you guys have talked about.
link |
What do you think about all the Dali
link |
and all the diffusion based methods that are being generated
link |
that are being, that are generating art now?
link |
What do you think about that?
link |
I know, I'll tell you what I think,
link |
but I also feel like what I'm saying is,
link |
I sound like the guy who didn't like
link |
that Bob Dylan brought in the electric guitar.
link |
You know, the more I talk to Chad about it,
link |
the more I feel like grandpa doesn't wanna let go
link |
of this or that, or I'm not ready for the printing press
link |
or the horseless carriage.
link |
But I do feel that art is a connection between people.
link |
It's, when you look at a beautiful painting or a sculpture,
link |
you're seeing the humanity of the person
link |
that brought that painting to life
link |
or sculpted this incredible piece of art.
link |
And I think without the human being there to make it,
link |
it's not worth as much just to have it there
link |
because the art, it's advanced.
link |
I've seen it advance, I don't know, you tell me,
link |
but I feel like just in the past three or four months,
link |
I'm just a consumer as far as that stuff goes.
link |
I'm not on the inside.
link |
I don't get it even, but it's been getting a lot better,
link |
the betas that they're releasing, right?
link |
Absolutely, one of the big breakthroughs,
link |
I mean Dolly really started it,
link |
is that if you train a system on language,
link |
it turns out there's a lot of language
link |
and images on the internet,
link |
but language is really where it's at
link |
in terms of the depth of human knowledge.
link |
And so if you train a system on language,
link |
it's able to generate some incredible art.
link |
And that was the breakthrough.
link |
With the same kind of mechanisms
link |
that are called transformers,
link |
they're able to, when scaled,
link |
capture some deep representation of the language
link |
that's on the internet.
link |
And so, yeah, the things it's been able to generate to me
link |
look like it's novel.
link |
It doesn't look like it's mimicking anything.
link |
It looks like it's creating totally new ideas.
link |
And they're beautiful, and they're interesting,
link |
and they're all the ways that we think
link |
that art is interesting.
link |
The only thing it's missing
link |
is the scarcity that art often has,
link |
which is it takes a lot of work
link |
for one artist to create one piece,
link |
one human being to create one piece of art
link |
that can just generate endlessly.
link |
And that makes us appreciate the thing less for some reason.
link |
Do you have any sort of a similar opinion that I do
link |
that if art doesn't come from a human being,
link |
it's inherently worth a little less?
link |
Yeah, I think, I don't know if it's the human being,
link |
but the artist matters.
link |
And I think some of that has to do with the world view,
link |
the artist and the backstory, the memories,
link |
the life that led up to this piece of art,
link |
the perspective they take on the world,
link |
the journey they took to the world,
link |
the struggle, the triumphs, all that kind of stuff.
link |
But I think AI systems can probably have the same.
link |
But we would have to,
link |
as opposed to treating it as a one black box,
link |
it would have to be an artist that has a Twitter account,
link |
and they have a consistent personality,
link |
they have a consistent avatar.
link |
And I think down the line,
link |
have something like human rights.
link |
But then it really becomes awfully like a person.
link |
Oi, that's terrifying.
link |
As much as I dig dudes, it's terrifying, I hope.
link |
It's terrifying, like, you know,
link |
a lot of things that came with the internet
link |
and the digital age are terrifying.
link |
Porn is terrifying, the mass,
link |
like the amount of porn that's online now is terrifying.
link |
The, like you mentioned, Bob Dylan with electric guitar,
link |
I would compare it more to the leap from,
link |
to sort of to the Napster and the Spotifyzation of music,
link |
which is like, you have these,
link |
it's less about albums now,
link |
and it's more about individual songs,
link |
and it's much easier to deliver the songs.
link |
And it's more about sort of the engagement of the listener
link |
versus like signing the artist
link |
and like distribution of the artist and so on.
link |
So it's just changing the way we consume stuff.
link |
And human interaction is changing
link |
into meaningful interaction,
link |
even if some of the entities involved are not human.
link |
Yes, and I feel like, you know, now,
link |
like as I say, oh, I feel like grandpa
link |
who doesn't want to wait all day for,
link |
or who enjoys waiting all day for a baked potato as, anyway,
link |
Dana Carvey would say, it's another story.
link |
But, that's from, remember he did this bit
link |
on Saturday Night Live, where he's like,
link |
I'm an old man, and I like things the way they used to be.
link |
You know, like if you wanted a baked potato,
link |
you would have put it in the microwave, you had to,
link |
and then long story, uphill both ways
link |
and digging the potato and baking it all day in a fire.
link |
But I'm like that grandpa now,
link |
and I know that, you know, kids coming along,
link |
you see over the past 10 years,
link |
like babies literally knowing how to use an iPhone
link |
and it's terrifying.
link |
And I feel like I'm a little worried,
link |
because I'm like, are you, is the future,
link |
are the future generations gonna be able to understand
link |
that this is not, not that it's not real,
link |
it's just, I mean, as a matter of fact, it is real,
link |
it's real, it's what you perceive.
link |
Perception is reality, and you know,
link |
99% of reality in a lot of ways,
link |
especially in a digital world where everyone is now.
link |
And then with the metaverse,
link |
I don't even wanna think about it.
link |
I don't even, I don't get it.
link |
I think people will figure out,
link |
you see people on like on the train,
link |
public transit and so on, they're staring at their phone.
link |
I think, you have to remember that
link |
the reason they're staring at their phone,
link |
I mean, there's a lot of reasons,
link |
but one of the reasons is they're connecting
link |
with other human beings they love on that phone.
link |
So it is a source of happiness and joy.
link |
Now, social media has a lot of negative side effects
link |
that we're all talking about and learning about,
link |
and I think that means the next generation of social media,
link |
social networks will be better,
link |
and we'll learn how to do it in a healthy way.
link |
We're just entering a new digital world
link |
that will keep the good stuff and get rid of the bad stuff.
link |
That's really optimistic.
link |
That sounds great.
link |
I mean it, because I think that we're in,
link |
we're clearly in the Wild West still of the internet,
link |
and just when you think you're out of it,
link |
the internet proves another way that it can be dangerous
link |
and detrimental to people and populations of people,
link |
and it's terrifying to me.
link |
It is, it's terrifying.
link |
Let me ask you a bunch of random questions.
link |
If you can be someone else for a day,
link |
someone alive today, who would you be?
link |
Somebody you haven't met.
link |
Oh, that's a really good question.
link |
You know, I changed my mind.
link |
It could be somebody dead.
link |
I think any answer that I have right now
link |
would be something that would be based
link |
on some sort of experience.
link |
Like, you know what I thought was very interesting
link |
was last weekend or whatever,
link |
the tribute show for Taylor Hawkins.
link |
Taylor Hawkins was the drummer for the Foo Fighters,
link |
and he passed away tragically,
link |
and so the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl,
link |
and everybody that got together at this concert.
link |
And you're watching Dave Grohl sing,
link |
try to sing times like these, right?
link |
And he's breaking up because he lost his friend, his brother.
link |
And I was watching that, and he's at Wembley Stadium.
link |
As I say this, I realized that I would not want to be him
link |
in that moment, but I am curious what that would be like.
link |
That's the ultimate, like having to perform
link |
despite something extremely human happening,
link |
and a stadium full of people that love Dave Grohl
link |
and love Taylor Hawkins and love a rock concert
link |
and love these artists that they're getting to see
link |
So much love and so much pain at the same time.
link |
I wonder what that would be like to be,
link |
I guess, and I think that's just sort of coming
link |
from the root of being a performer
link |
and being in front of that many.
link |
Have you ever had to perform while some rough stuff
link |
is going on in your personal life, just mentally?
link |
How tough is that?
link |
I'm fortunate enough to be able to compartmentalize.
link |
A lot of actors like to use some of their stuff
link |
if you're doing something that,
link |
and there's a lot of, there's some acting techniques
link |
Yeah, which I think is kind of,
link |
I don't know that that's, I don't know.
link |
For me, it's not really the thing,
link |
because I think if the writing is great,
link |
the writing is really good, you don't need to channel much.
link |
You need to invest in what's there,
link |
and what I've always loved about that illusion
link |
is really cracking a scene, getting it to a point
link |
where you are feeling all of it,
link |
and the most edifying stuff I've been a part of
link |
as an actor, and I would say that it mostly comes out
link |
of dramatic work, is when you're,
link |
when you actually feel the emotions
link |
that your character would feel, truly,
link |
and it's not because you're pulling from a tragic thing
link |
that happened, or a lost loved one,
link |
or a lost love, or any of that.
link |
I just did this one movie where we're doing the thing,
link |
and it was a wonderful cast, and a great film,
link |
and I'm giving a speech at a wedding,
link |
and it really got to us.
link |
Like, it got to me, and then one of the other actors
link |
came up and hugged me, in the characters that we were,
link |
but the stakes of his character,
link |
and what he's walked into, and the family
link |
that he's marrying into, and what my character,
link |
my character's wife, want for my wife's sister,
link |
and this whole thing, and it all became very real.
link |
That was a set where the director showed up
link |
to set every day, making sure that emotionally,
link |
and it was a very dramatic film,
link |
making sure that emotionally,
link |
the table was set for his actors.
link |
Great crew, and a really nice, tight, little,
link |
quick family, as a lot of these movies are.
link |
You really love working with these people,
link |
and then it's over, but I, that's when you feel the drug.
link |
Like, it's like when you're golfing,
link |
and you, and it's on the green,
link |
you're like, oh, I get it now.
link |
So in the words, you can find the emotion,
link |
the words summon the emotion.
link |
The humanity's right there.
link |
If you read a great script,
link |
you're gonna sob in your living room.
link |
You know what the saddest, the toughest thing
link |
about being an actor is from my totally outside perspective,
link |
is from the people I've interacted with,
link |
is how intimate that process is
link |
between the group of people that create a thing,
link |
that's a movie, and then you move on to the next thing.
link |
It's almost, it's like, I don't know,
link |
I mean, that's why people have relationships on set.
link |
They get, they fall in love.
link |
I mean, like, that's why I think of the acting world
link |
as like, you fall in love with each other, essentially.
link |
You become close friends, then you move on,
link |
because that's kind of the process of career.
link |
You know, like the example I just gave,
link |
if you're doing it right, yeah,
link |
there is a certain amount of that happening,
link |
but I do still feel like you can,
link |
you gotta compartmentalize it,
link |
and you've gotta be able to wash it off
link |
as soon as it's over.
link |
Prostitutes say the same thing, so I,
link |
Look, sometimes I'm in a hurry to get away from everybody,
link |
because it's been very emotional,
link |
and with all love and respect to everyone, this was awesome,
link |
but you get pretty good at saying goodbye
link |
and being like, I'll see ya if I see ya.
link |
You have to get good at that, or else you'll never,
link |
you'll just be bent up all the time.
link |
I saw an actor once, we were doing this series,
link |
and we did it for a year, and it was a lot of fun,
link |
and it was a tight little group,
link |
and then one of the actors,
link |
we were doing one of our last things together.
link |
We had already shot the last show,
link |
and we just had to take some pictures for,
link |
you know, like some publicity pictures or whatever.
link |
So we're set up, and we're taking our pictures together,
link |
and then we move into these single shots,
link |
and this actor was finished, and I watched them.
link |
It's like, okay, so and so's wrapped,
link |
and they said some goodbyes and stuff,
link |
and I didn't say my goodbye,
link |
because maybe I preferred an Irish goodbye.
link |
I feel like we've said everything, you know what I mean?
link |
And this person knows that I revere them,
link |
and they're an idol of mine,
link |
and they walked off the sound stage,
link |
and I literally thought to myself,
link |
that'll be the last time I see that person,
link |
and the show did not come back,
link |
and that was the last time I'll see them around.
link |
Doesn't that just break your heart?
link |
A little bit, but I know what she's going back to,
link |
which is her family,
link |
and that's more important than all of this,
link |
and that's the thing about a TV family or a movie family,
link |
when you get together and you're a family for a while,
link |
you are, you spend your days together.
link |
A lot of times, you see the people that you work with
link |
more than you see your loved ones,
link |
so in showbiz, it's no different, right?
link |
And yeah, you're doing some, you know,
link |
you gotta say words, and every once in a while,
link |
you gotta kiss someone or pretend you love them,
link |
but it's just, it underscores how, for me,
link |
look, man, my salvation has always been,
link |
and I feel so fortunate to have had it,
link |
is this kind of chill, boring kind of upbringing
link |
that I want for my kids someday,
link |
and I can't wait to get back to my house
link |
with my fiance and the dogs, you know,
link |
until we have kids.
link |
Live in a cabin in Canada somewhere.
link |
Absolutely, I just wanna buy some land over an aquifer,
link |
as I like to say, because water will be the new money,
link |
and just make sure that all my kids are drinking
link |
as much H2O as I am, which is a lot.
link |
I'm peeing right now, as a matter of fact.
link |
Do you need a bathroom?
link |
No, no, no, I got it.
link |
No, I'm wearing two layers, it depends, don't worry about it.
link |
Good, so I did a podcast with Bobby Lee
link |
and he said, he was extremely kind,
link |
and he said that he was scared shitless
link |
to be on the podcast, and he actually literally took,
link |
he asked as the first thing to go take a dump
link |
because of how scared he was.
link |
So that leads me to a question,
link |
what's the scariest thing you've ever done?
link |
Or maybe what's the scariest you've ever been
link |
before a performance?
link |
I mean, I always get a little nervous.
link |
I think you're doing it right if you're still nervous.
link |
Were you nervous today?
link |
Well, no, man, because this isn't a performance.
link |
I'm being completely genuine.
link |
You're wearing a suit.
link |
I feel like that makes you nervous.
link |
It makes me nervous.
link |
Listen, I hate wearing a fucking collar.
link |
If you're watching this on YouTube,
link |
you can see me just, I'm constantly doing,
link |
it's like I'm doing a cheap Rodney Dangerfield,
link |
But when you move your head, it kind of makes it seem
link |
like you're a mobster who's pissed off a little bit.
link |
You fucking crossed me one last time, you son of a.
link |
You know, this mutt, I think it's the first time
link |
I've fucking dug a hole, I'll dig a fucking hole, Jesus.
link |
No, but truly, I hate having a collar.
link |
I can't wait to just wear pajamas in that fucking cabin
link |
or nothing at all, walk around Bobby Lee style.
link |
The most scared I've been before a performance,
link |
I can't pinpoint anything.
link |
I, you know, when I was a kid, right?
link |
I, like I said, I was fortunate enough to start acting
link |
as a teen and stuff professionally.
link |
And I just remember my first gig.
link |
And I remember saying my handful of lines
link |
in the bathroom mirror the night before going,
link |
this might be my only fucking shot.
link |
You're not gonna get me, I'm gonna be solid.
link |
And if I'm worried about something,
link |
I will rehearse it and rehearse it and rehearse it
link |
as an actor until it's impossible for me
link |
not to get a take at least that I'm 100%,
link |
if not 95, maybe percent happy with.
link |
And the rest for me is letting go, which is hard
link |
because I can be a real perfectionist.
link |
I always want another,
link |
I always wanna do it a little better.
link |
That's what's great about podcasting.
link |
This is one take and you're done, there's no takes.
link |
You're just talking and then it's over.
link |
And you're doing some silly stuff.
link |
And I'll, you know.
link |
Can you say that part again about why podcasting is great?
link |
Podcasting is great?
link |
Yeah, because it's one take and it's over.
link |
It's just, what, I said it again?
link |
I see what you did.
link |
And yeah, I fell right for it.
link |
I'm playing checkers and you're playing chess.
link |
That's your problem.
link |
You know, but still when we do the podcast,
link |
we'll like finish and I'll look over at Chad
link |
and I go, that one thing that I did wasn't that funny.
link |
I was like, shut up, man.
link |
Just, it doesn't matter.
link |
It's a fucking hang.
link |
We're just, we're hanging with our friends out there.
link |
That's what we're doing.
link |
So that anxiety is there.
link |
That self criticism or whatever that is, that voice.
link |
I say sorry after takes.
link |
I'll always finish a take and go.
link |
And I've had directors, to the detriment of myself,
link |
I've had directors be like, stop doing that.
link |
Because I'll like finish the take
link |
and then I also have like the will phase.
link |
When I'm just like, I'll finish the take and cut.
link |
And I'm making a face right now, like I smelled something.
link |
That's what I'll do.
link |
I'll literally be like, ah, cause I just,
link |
I look at what I do in the purest sense as,
link |
I think a lot of people wanna be good at something.
link |
I've only, the only thing I've ever really wanted
link |
to be good at is being an actor.
link |
And that's the only thing,
link |
of course I wanna be a good person.
link |
I wanna be a good partner to my fiance.
link |
I wanna have kids and be the father that I had.
link |
And I wanna be the parent that I had from my parents
link |
who were fucking amazing, wonderful people.
link |
And there's all those things.
link |
That's all, you know, you should want all those things.
link |
But as far as doing a thing, like what is my trade?
link |
You know, I wanna be really good at it.
link |
My parents grew up in Napoli in Italy, right?
link |
And I say Napoli, cause I'm Italian.
link |
And so my grandfather on my mom's side, my nonopepe,
link |
he was a plumber and he was also like a handyman.
link |
Like people would bring him like,
link |
you know like the old Chianti bottle
link |
with like with the woven bottom part.
link |
People would bring him like a broken bottle,
link |
be like, hey, you know, Giuseppe, can you fix this?
link |
And he'd be saying,
link |
if you're telling the backstory of Mario,
link |
that's not actually your family life.
link |
He said I'm a fix.
link |
And so Giuseppe, what?
link |
He would fix a bottle and give it back to someone.
link |
And he was a really good plumber.
link |
My mom used to always say that guy was an amazing,
link |
He took pride in that?
link |
I always feel like, you know,
link |
there's what you set out to do
link |
as an idealistic little teenager.
link |
I wanna be like so and so,
link |
and I wanna, you know, hear my big dreams and stuff.
link |
And I can't believe that I'm still in the business.
link |
That's, first of all, let me say that right now.
link |
I can't believe it.
link |
But what I really, it's the one thing that it's like,
link |
I can't give up on a take.
link |
You know, I need it to be as good as I can possibly get it.
link |
And I don't really know why that is
link |
outside of wanting to be good at something.
link |
When you open the yellow pages, if I'm a plumber,
link |
I'm not, you know, I'm not Roto Rooter.
link |
Like I'm not the guy with the big full page ad,
link |
but I'm also not, you know, triple A abacus brothers
link |
or whatever, like the shitty one.
link |
I would like to hope that just,
link |
and I'm saying this with pride for what I do.
link |
I'm not trying to say here's my standing
link |
or where I wanna be in the fucking business.
link |
That's not what I mean.
link |
I mean that I wanna be good at it.
link |
You know, we all, hello?
link |
I'm in Friedman Enterprises.
link |
So that's the hotel phone.
link |
You got some fruit?
link |
Some sliced fruit?
link |
No, do you want some sliced fruit?
link |
No, we're good, thank you so much.
link |
All right, bye bye.
link |
It's always a fruit plate.
link |
Everyone's always trying to hand you a fruit plate
link |
in life, you know?
link |
It's a pretty sweet existence.
link |
Wouldn't it be funny if that was actually like the CIA
link |
and they were actually saying something else
link |
and this is, I'm just saying fake stuff about,
link |
you want some fruit?
link |
You want some fruit?
link |
And then all of a sudden there's the red dot on my head
link |
and the ceiling disappears.
link |
And the CIA was like, wrap it up, wrap it up, wrap it up.
link |
You jump out the window and there's a helicopter waiting.
link |
Oh, what were we talking about?
link |
The fruit distracted me.
link |
So, oh, the, do you wanna be the yellow page ad?
link |
I wanna be the guy on the second or third page
link |
where it's like, you're not gonna pay
link |
what that guy charges you,
link |
but I'm not gonna charge you what this loser charges.
link |
I wanna break down the middle and the work is guaranteed.
link |
That's kind of what I wanna,
link |
it's the one thing that I've been fortunate enough
link |
to be doing my whole life and that I wanna be good at.
link |
Everyone wants to be good at something.
link |
If you're fortunate enough to be able to do
link |
what you love as a job, I mean, my God, I'm so,
link |
again, I can't believe I get to do it.
link |
I just wanna be good at it so that I can fucking die someday
link |
I tried not to give up on a take and I,
link |
and I will rehearse it still in the bathroom mirror
link |
the night before if I have to.
link |
Yeah, but I still, I have that self critical voice.
link |
I just, after every podcast, after this podcast,
link |
I'll probably be like, you're boring.
link |
Why are you so boring?
link |
That, that, that, that, that, that, that.
link |
And I just gave a lecture at MIT.
link |
I was like, I get so much love from people.
link |
They're such beautiful people.
link |
And I just remember walking home,
link |
just feeling like I wasted everybody's time, you know?
link |
And I don't know what that is.
link |
I don't, you know, I do hope that that's a voice
link |
that won't destroy me, you know, like every time.
link |
That's really human of you to admit that
link |
because people don't wanna, they wouldn't assume that,
link |
of course, from you or anything that, I mean,
link |
you've got a large group of students in there
link |
listening to you and feeling the way
link |
and thinking what they think of you.
link |
So that's really interesting to hear you admit that,
link |
but it's also, I would expect nothing else.
link |
You have to be able to, it's such a,
link |
I mean, you're a human fucking being.
link |
And I'm trying to figure out if that, you know,
link |
some people that might hear that, they would say,
link |
well, that's a problem you have to fix.
link |
And I think that that might be just who I am.
link |
Because I'm not, you know, I've been very, very fortunate
link |
not to have chemical, you know, like depression
link |
where I get into a dark place.
link |
I could get stuck in a downward spiral.
link |
It's usually a thing that lasts.
link |
You ride it out and then after a good night's sleep,
link |
you're back to your happy self.
link |
So I think I have to try to figure that out.
link |
Is that just part of the creative process,
link |
being a creative human in this world?
link |
I haven't found any other way.
link |
I'm always kicking myself.
link |
Take that, dude, so you can't, you're not gonna be human
link |
until you feel some despair.
link |
Yeah, until you absolutely hate the shit
link |
that you're doing sometimes.
link |
What small act of kindness were you once shown
link |
that you will never forget?
link |
Do you, does something jump to mind
link |
where somebody just did something that made you smile?
link |
Did you feel connected to the rest of humanity?
link |
Yeah, yeah, lots of things, you know?
link |
But I remember my niece one time,
link |
one of my nieces, we were in her neighborhood
link |
and she was like, she might've been five or six at the time.
link |
They're all adults now.
link |
My brother and sister are older than me
link |
and the kids are all, the youngest is 22.
link |
And yeah, anyway, one of my nieces,
link |
she was just, she had ice cream.
link |
We went out and we got ice cream
link |
walking around the neighborhood, her neighborhood.
link |
And she said something to me that I don't think
link |
she understands how much it meant at the time,
link |
but she goes, she goes, people love you here.
link |
And she doesn't know where here is.
link |
She's five years old, but she was just looking
link |
at the kids playing in the park
link |
and the people walking their dogs
link |
and everyone just, people love you here, you know that?
link |
But she didn't know how much I needed to hear that
link |
at that point, which is really heavy for me.
link |
I'll never forget it.
link |
I've never told her that.
link |
Oh, well, man, anytime you get a little something
link |
from people, especially in a tear your ass out city
link |
like LA where nobody has any fucking time for you,
link |
when someone can slow it down and say something, you know?
link |
I saw this actor once in my grocery store that I go to
link |
who made me laugh so fucking hard in this one movie
link |
and every time I see this clip, I still laugh.
link |
And I am kind of shy, you know, personally,
link |
but so he was walking by, he was walking out
link |
and I was walking in and I go, oh, that's that guy.
link |
And I did not stop to just let him know
link |
how great I thought he was in this film.
link |
And I always kind of regretted it.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
So as hard as it is, and sometimes I still don't,
link |
if I see someone that has done something in any way,
link |
it doesn't have to be in show business or anything like that.
link |
I'll try and say, hey, that's really good.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Because to get that from someone can mean a lot, you know?
link |
It can mean a lot.
link |
At a certain time in life when you need it.
link |
That can make a big difference.
link |
I mean, sorry to take it back to my new girlfriend,
link |
But there's something about her saying sweetheart.
link |
It's a pretty low place for some reason mentally.
link |
And it's just that basic human kindness was nice.
link |
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
link |
I was at a restaurant in New York recently
link |
and I was shooting something
link |
and my fiance was able to fly in for a week.
link |
And she was back at the hotel
link |
and it's like I felt like I was cheating on her
link |
because there was this nice waitress
link |
at this barbecue place I went to.
link |
And first of all, my fiance would not like me
link |
eating any greasy, sugary barbecue.
link |
So I felt like I was cheating on her there.
link |
We'll edit this out and put delicious vegan food over it.
link |
But the waitress was one of these,
link |
she was the kind of server who's like,
link |
hey hun, hey sweetie, blah, blah, blah.
link |
But like so chill and at ease
link |
in the middle of a part of New York
link |
that's really kind of fucking pretentious and everybody.
link |
But sweet people, fucking way better people
link |
But it was part of New York and whatever,
link |
I'm there working and people,
link |
I'm like, I'm trying to impress one another.
link |
And she even had some sort of an accent
link |
that didn't feel like an Atlantic American accent.
link |
Yeah, those servers that say sweetheart and hun,
link |
that's what we need from AI.
link |
We need that Jetson server.
link |
Every once in a while just calls you sweetheart.
link |
What comforts you on bad days?
link |
Is there little sources of comfort?
link |
Small things they do that kind of make you feel good.
link |
Like for Bobby, that'd be a little Skyrim.
link |
A little stroll through Skyrim.
link |
Well, I've been a line of coke or what?
link |
Yeah, a line of coke.
link |
I dilute some coke into whiskey in the morning
link |
like Stevie Ray Vaughan.
link |
And then I snort the whiskey.
link |
Oh, she did that, I didn't know that.
link |
Yeah, yeah, oh my gosh, interesting.
link |
Yeah, he didn't last too long, weird.
link |
Well, his music will last forever.
link |
See, there you go.
link |
For me, if I, I'm kind of a homebody.
link |
So if I, the point at which I smoke just a little bit of pot
link |
and then go like lay down on the couch
link |
and perhaps if my fiancee's kind of nodding off
link |
or she's just like looking at her phone
link |
and I sneakily turn on some wrestling, okay?
link |
Because I grew up watching wrestling
link |
and that stuff, it's the Skyrim effect.
link |
I mean, you want to talk about a complete escape.
link |
This stuff makes no sense in the world.
link |
It's an art form that is so uniquely weird,
link |
but at the same time, so everyone, when it's good,
link |
everyone is invested in the illusion, even the audience.
link |
They cheer the good guys, they boo the bad guys.
link |
So if I'm like that,
link |
and then I got our two cute little dogs there
link |
and I'm annoying my little dog Lulio
link |
and trying to kiss him right on the fucking mouth
link |
and I've had a little bit of pot
link |
and the dog's like, stop, pot's not good for me.
link |
Of course, don't ever blow pot in your dog's face.
link |
That's a small comfort.
link |
I guess that's a handful of things.
link |
No, that moment painted, that was like a little painting.
link |
You're not supposed to do this.
link |
You're not supposed to do this.
link |
That's a good question.
link |
Yeah, it's a tough question.
link |
I would say programming robots.
link |
There's bringing to life, actually programming at all.
link |
So I don't know how familiar you are with programming,
link |
but you write some text on a page, right, on a screen
link |
and it's brought to life, like it does something.
link |
And that's kind of, that's a really tiny version
link |
of maybe having a child.
link |
Like you created something that is now living
link |
in some smaller big way with embodied robots
link |
that are legged robots, that's especially clear.
link |
And for some reason, that's a source of comfort for me,
link |
that the power of programming,
link |
but also the elegance of programming, just the whole thing.
link |
It's a source of happiness.
link |
There's so many things I've been very blessed
link |
with enjoying anything.
link |
Like that's part of the struggle I have in life
link |
is that the simple stuff is a source
link |
of a lot of happiness for me,
link |
which leads to a lot of laziness.
link |
So I have to like give myself artificial deadlines.
link |
I have to be freaking out on purpose
link |
in order to be productive in this world at all.
link |
You seem like an extremely dutiful, busy guy.
link |
No, I am, but because I'm constantly creating
link |
artificial stress and deadlines and all that kind of stuff.
link |
Otherwise, I would just sit there looking at a tree happy.
link |
I'm truly happy with everything.
link |
Gee whiz, that's not.
link |
Well, that's the line of Coke in the whiskey in the morning.
link |
That's the thing that does the trick.
link |
TV Ray Vaughan breakfast shake.
link |
By the way, one of my most favorite guitars.
link |
I play guitar too, that's a source of comfort.
link |
Oh yeah, I have seen you play some guitar, that's awesome.
link |
Who's the greatest wrestler of all time?
link |
Greatest in ring performer of all time
link |
is Bret the Hitman Hart.
link |
What's the difference in ring versus?
link |
Well, there's many facets to the art form.
link |
A lot of people are great on the mic,
link |
but they're not so great once they get in the ring.
link |
A lot of people have all the showmanship and stuff,
link |
but then they're not necessarily, it's a wonderful package,
link |
but then they get to the ring or they open their mouth
link |
and there's nothing going on.
link |
So who's the greatest in ring performer?
link |
I think the greatest in ring is Bret Hart.
link |
I don't think there's anyone better
link |
than Bret the Hitman Hart.
link |
What makes him so good?
link |
I think I had an action figure of him in Russia
link |
and we didn't know what the hell that was.
link |
Sure, yeah, it was just a guy in pink tights.
link |
Everything makes sense.
link |
Every single thing is rooted in the thing
link |
that just happened and everything that he does
link |
is to set up what he's going to do.
link |
They call it, and I'm just a wrestling nerd,
link |
but the wrestlers, I guess, call it ring psychology.
link |
The things that you have to do to make it seem
link |
like you're suffering or you're coming from behind
link |
or whatever, and then also just the physicality of it.
link |
He does it at a...
link |
He would do it at a 100 miles an hour
link |
and never hurt anybody.
link |
I also love the every...
link |
The greatest wrestler of all time, everyone says,
link |
and they're right, is Ric Flair, nature boy, Ric Flair.
link |
Everyone says this?
link |
Yeah, I think if you know what you're talking about.
link |
Because he's the best on the mic,
link |
he's also incredible in the ring.
link |
And then for me, the sentimental favorite,
link |
which we've actually, on DudeZ,
link |
Chad had sort of a Charlie Rose ask interview with me
link |
about this, my fascination with Hulk Hogan.
link |
Because to me, just he was Superman.
link |
I was a little kid and I saw him and that's imprinted.
link |
But yeah, see, this is like asking me
link |
who my favorite child is.
link |
The rock when the rock was...
link |
I mean, the rock's the rock.
link |
Yeah, I mean, Hulk Hogan is...
link |
He's the weirdest one, right?
link |
For me, from the outside.
link |
I don't know what that is exactly.
link |
Everything's weird about him.
link |
He's got the bald head,
link |
like he would proudly have this bald head with long hair,
link |
the handlebar mustache,
link |
and this ketchup and mustard tights,
link |
which he says he credits McDonald's with the tights.
link |
He literally does?
link |
He says that the red and yellow came from Angelo Poffo,
link |
who's Randy Macho Man Savage and Lanny Poffo's dad,
link |
who was a wrestler and a promoter.
link |
He said that he saw him wearing yellow
link |
and he's a Tampa guy,
link |
so he had that brown skin and the hair and everything.
link |
So he's like, oh, that's what I wanna do.
link |
And also the brand recognition of like,
link |
well, I should do it like McDonald's, literally.
link |
And he's a big, swollen, muscular guy
link |
with tan brown skin screaming at me
link |
to eat my vitamins and stuff when I'm eight years old.
link |
That was extremely...
link |
He's like Superman.
link |
But I know there's a person behind that guy.
link |
Well, he's Terry Bollea,
link |
the dude who does whatever the fuck he does with his life.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Yeah, I guess, to be him, yeah.
link |
Maybe you should change the dude's colors to yellow, right?
link |
It's currently orange and, boy, sky blue.
link |
Yeah, it's like a nice sky blue.
link |
What advice, since you're wearing a suit,
link |
I feel like you're qualified to give advice.
link |
What advice would you give to young people,
link |
high school, college,
link |
about how to have a career they can be proud of
link |
or how to have a life they can be proud of?
link |
I mean, you have to listen to your gut all the time.
link |
that's the compass that we have is listening to your gut.
link |
What does your gut tell you?
link |
Was that originally the dream of being an actor?
link |
Your parents support that at all?
link |
I had the advantage of having parents who were immigrants,
link |
so they didn't really know a lot about what you...
link |
So you just made shit up?
link |
You just made shit up?
link |
Yeah, of course I'm studying and I'm skipping school
link |
to go do auditions and stuff.
link |
No, I just kind of feel like,
link |
and I know it was different from my older siblings
link |
because my parents had just shown up in Canada.
link |
I was born like 10 years later.
link |
You can get away with some things and you can actually...
link |
I think my parents, they wanted us to,
link |
they didn't have a whole lot to tell us about what to do.
link |
They weren't gonna do that with us
link |
because they're in this brand new world
link |
and there's all these possibilities.
link |
But there was something that I feel like they had to do,
link |
which was tell us to do what we love.
link |
If you love doing it, do it.
link |
And I feel like that's really served me
link |
and what I would tell young people is
link |
if you can find something you love,
link |
and nowadays with the internet and finding other people,
link |
that it's not like you need to find a lot of people anymore.
link |
You just need to find the people that dig what you dig.
link |
And if you can make a career out of doing something
link |
that you love that's been said, it's a good thing.
link |
How long did it take you to figure out
link |
that you really love acting?
link |
Because sometimes you have a dream
link |
and the dream meets reality, right?
link |
And then the reality might be much less pleasant
link |
or much darker than the dream.
link |
Well, the reality is less pleasant, you know?
link |
And there are things that happen during an experience
link |
of shooting something that you could take or leave, right?
link |
But the part where you're on set
link |
and you've rehearsed for a minute or whatever,
link |
at least you know where you're supposed to stand
link |
and you know all your lines show up,
link |
knowing everything, knowing what you're gonna do
link |
and what you aim to do.
link |
And those moments make it all worth it.
link |
When you're, not to sound like a douchebag,
link |
but between action and cut, that's the stuff
link |
that has me continuing to do what I do,
link |
aside from the fact that it's like,
link |
I don't know how to do anything else.
link |
You think you'll ever do like a dramatic, like a mob movie?
link |
Yeah, like the one, the inside game
link |
that I was just talking about,
link |
or there's this other movie I just did a little while ago
link |
called American Woman that was very heavy.
link |
And I love doing dramatic work.
link |
I love it, I love it.
link |
Yeah, and I played that inside game.
link |
It was kind of a, you know, there was a mob element
link |
and the fellow was, well, you know,
link |
the story's here or there with regard to how deep into the,
link |
but well, he was a bookie.
link |
He was just running money, you know,
link |
he was making a lot of money for a lot of people
link |
and he figured out how to, you know,
link |
cook it with this dude who was an NBA ref
link |
and it's a very interesting documentary,
link |
the thing that they just untold,
link |
under the untold series, they cover it.
link |
But getting to play that guy, that was a gas for me
link |
because he's like a, you know,
link |
there was a lot of unsavory stuff
link |
and he's definitely the guy, the character in the movie
link |
who is the wild card and you don't wanna
link |
necessarily mess with him.
link |
And I got to, by the way, this fellow,
link |
who is the real guy, speaking to him,
link |
it was just bizarre to hear, like I said to him,
link |
he was a little concerned about this and that,
link |
like, hey, you know, you say whatever the fuck you want
link |
in your movie, I got my book and I got this other
link |
fucking deal, but he goes, you know,
link |
I didn't do this and I didn't do that.
link |
And I'm like, yeah, all right, I got you.
link |
And he goes, yeah, I'm telling you,
link |
like I'm talking to you one on one,
link |
I did not do this, I did, okay?
link |
I'm just fucking telling you, do whatever the fuck
link |
you want with your movie, but this is what's up.
link |
And I said, you ever seen Goodfellas?
link |
He's like, yeah, I fucking love that movie.
link |
Cause he, like I said, he did some unsavory shit.
link |
And I go, you remember the scene where,
link |
where, you know, the guy, the neighbor,
link |
Lorraine Bracco's neighbor was, you know,
link |
made her uncomfortable and was touching on her
link |
and she goes to Ray Liotta and he goes,
link |
where the fuck does this guy live?
link |
And then he go, and remember, he walks across the street
link |
and pistol whips the dude.
link |
You touch her again, you're dead, you hear me?
link |
Don't you fucking great scene.
link |
He goes, I love that scene.
link |
So you're doing shit that we know is terrible,
link |
He goes, all right, I got it.
link |
And then I said, there's this one scene,
link |
I explained the scene to him where the,
link |
one of the mobsters, tough guys was in the window
link |
of the car and Jimmy, my character is very coked up
link |
at the time and he's hemorrhaging money here and there
link |
and making bad bets cause he's getting sloppy.
link |
And this guy wants to bug him about some Jets Giants bet
link |
or something and I'm like, telling you fucking asshole,
link |
don't fucking do it.
link |
He's like, yeah, well, the fucking Giants.
link |
And in the scene, Jimmy, my character grabs him
link |
by the lapels and just smashes his face
link |
against the roof of the car.
link |
And I say this to Jimmy and he goes,
link |
oh yeah, I would have done that.
link |
That's not a fucking big deal.
link |
I wonder also the interaction.
link |
I wonder what the filming of,
link |
probably my favorite gambling movie is Casino
link |
with Joe Pesci and De Niro.
link |
Like when they're out in the desert,
link |
you're yelling at each other.
link |
I wonder how many takes that is.
link |
Like, cause they, I don't know how scripted that is.
link |
I mean, it probably is a little bit,
link |
but like, I don't think you can script the performance
link |
that Joe Pesci does.
link |
Don't make a fuck out of me, Ace.
link |
Like, I fucking brought you here.
link |
Yeah, he's just like pointing at that energy
link |
and they're standing there.
link |
And their friendship.
link |
And then De Niro's like that whole thing.
link |
And then in the pet, yeah, like that energy.
link |
I mean, they must, they somehow find it together.
link |
You could tell me that that was one take
link |
and I'd believe you.
link |
You could tell me that that was seven takes
link |
and I would believe you.
link |
I bet you all the takes had that energy.
link |
Like they were playing with it, right?
link |
They were playing with that, this, yeah.
link |
I mean, they took on a real personality in those scenes
link |
and really carried them forward.
link |
I mean, it's just a brilliant, brilliant performance.
link |
Doesn't get, like comedies, like mob movies
link |
probably don't get enough credit either
link |
because it's seen as like.
link |
Mob movies don't get enough credit?
link |
In the Oscars, I mean like that.
link |
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
link |
Cause it seems like a trope.
link |
It's like given a Western,
link |
it's gotta be a hell of a Western or whatever
link |
cause it's like an old Hollywood trope.
link |
Yeah, no, I, that scene is so great
link |
cause they're never at,
link |
they're at the height of their friendship in a way
link |
and they're also pretty much about to let go of it
link |
and become enemies.
link |
And both things are happening at the same time.
link |
And Pesci drives them out to the desert.
link |
And if I remember correctly,
link |
the Nero's character, Ace Rothstein, Rothschild,
link |
he says, I gave myself 50 50, whether I'm coming back.
link |
Yeah, it's such a good scene.
link |
It was a, usually my prospects of coming back
link |
from the desert would be 90 to 10 or something like that.
link |
But now it was, this time I wasn't sure
link |
and there's the car driving really fast.
link |
And then Joe Pesci is like, you mother fucker, you,
link |
like whatever he was doing.
link |
A Jew, of course it's anti Semitism.
link |
We're not between friends, who gives a shit?
link |
All that kind of stuff.
link |
Yeah, I mean, brilliant, brilliant performances.
link |
So yeah, I can understand why you love the art
link |
and putting it all out there and leave it.
link |
And it's still fun.
link |
It's still crazy fun.
link |
If I go a while without getting a gig,
link |
if I go a minute, then I end up and I work on something,
link |
I'm like, it's like, oh, I've been thirsty for this.
link |
Like I actually am really so happy.
link |
Even if it's something where it's like,
link |
the things where this was a pain in the ass
link |
and that or whatever, you're on the road doing something
link |
and anything, whatever, you lost your luggage
link |
or whatever the heck you've got going on
link |
in your day to day life that everyone brings to work
link |
and tries to let go of.
link |
Once we're doing the scene, oh man, it's the best.
link |
But that said, you're a great actor,
link |
but I just think I speak for a lot of people
link |
that you're also, there's a charisma to you
link |
that's great to reveal in raw form in different podcasts.
link |
In DudeZ, 10 Minute Pod, just as a guest in podcasts,
link |
it's always really fun to watch you.
link |
The way you have fun, the way you think.
link |
The raw, the raw will sassle,
link |
which is a nice compliment to your kind of acting.
link |
That's really sweet.
link |
Well, you know, look, you said, you know.
link |
You're making that face.
link |
I'm making that face.
link |
I'm making that after the take face.
link |
No, I love doing stuff off the cuff.
link |
That's kind of you to say.
link |
And I dig, I really do dig doing stuff
link |
in front of an audience,
link |
because I love seeing,
link |
I don't give it to myself very often.
link |
If I'm doing, even if I'm, you know,
link |
I've done a bunch of multi camera sitcoms and stuff.
link |
Mad TV was shot in front of a live studio audience.
link |
You like that energy?
link |
I love it, but I can only hear them.
link |
You can't see them because of the lights
link |
like it is in a lot of performances.
link |
And I would imagine with standup, it's, you know,
link |
you see the first couple of rows.
link |
I've done, I do this character that does stand up
link |
and I used to take him out and do things with him
link |
and do little bits here and there.
link |
I haven't done it in like four or five years.
link |
I think, did Bobby say that character opened up for Bobby?
link |
Yeah, but he said, I have to do it as myself too.
link |
I think in that podcast, he's like,
link |
okay, you're gonna come with me and open for me in Brea,
link |
but you have to do it as yourself.
link |
Did that ever happen?
link |
And I did the character, you know,
link |
who's the character I came up with on 10 Minute Podcast.
link |
He's just this comedian, right?
link |
He calls himself an open mic veteran.
link |
You know, he's been doing open mics forever.
link |
And so I did it at opening up for Bobby
link |
and he's like, you have to do some of it as yourself.
link |
So I just kind of did this bit
link |
where I would do some of his jokes
link |
and then I would take Lee Leon, silly,
link |
I got a fucking wig on and I take the wig off and I go,
link |
and as myself, I start explaining it.
link |
Hello, my name is Will.
link |
See, the reason that it's funny
link |
is because Arnold Schwarzenegger is always,
link |
he's in these movies
link |
and he's got the thick Austrian accent,
link |
but he's like, my name is Ben Williams.
link |
I'm a cop from Colorado.
link |
And it doesn't make sense as the comedian character
link |
that I'm doing because that character
link |
doesn't do impersonations.
link |
Okay, carrying on.
link |
And then I put the wig back on
link |
and go back into this dumb thing.
link |
And I don't think it was very good,
link |
but Bobby required it in order for me to open for him.
link |
He's like, you're not fucking doing it.
link |
So I'm not gonna get up on stage and not do,
link |
we agreed, I'll do it.
link |
But having been up there just in, you know, whatever,
link |
I've done it like a dozen fucking times or whatever,
link |
not a bunch of times, right?
link |
And you know, these comedians that go up every night,
link |
sometimes two times a night.
link |
It's, I do, I will say,
link |
I love performing in front of people when I get the chance,
link |
but it's a specific thing that I just, I don't know.
link |
I gotta go back to this.
link |
It's like the providing value, you know?
link |
I think great standups are fucking incredible.
link |
I'll go, you know, when I've gone and watched standup,
link |
you know, there's your friend you're going to see,
link |
but then there's this other person who really speaks to you.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
And if you like one comedian a night, that's a lot.
link |
Cause a comedy club is like a fucking crazy restaurant
link |
where there's no menu.
link |
And it's like, what would you like?
link |
There's nothing else like that.
link |
There's like, you don't go to like a music place.
link |
What do we got here?
link |
We got Christian metal and there's some world music
link |
and then there's a reggae thing
link |
and it's all rammed in together.
link |
Or you don't go to a restaurant.
link |
I'd love a nice steak.
link |
First, here's a bowl of Froot Loops.
link |
And then we got you a crudite.
link |
And then this is our sushi tower.
link |
Well, what about the steak?
link |
Oh, the steak's coming.
link |
And then blah, blah, blah.
link |
Oh no, the steak got bumped.
link |
So there's no steak,
link |
but here's a fucking shitty store bought cheesecake.
link |
You know, and that's what comedians are up against
link |
when they go into a place and it's like,
link |
I don't pair well with the poached salmon.
link |
You know, I'm chicken fingers.
link |
I already am chicken fingers.
link |
So, you know, these great comedians that are able to go up
link |
on a night where poached salmon goes up
link |
and then it's like, fuck, you were also spicy?
link |
I got some kick to me.
link |
For me, even going to open mics,
link |
it could be a wonderful escape.
link |
I mean, just laughing together with others.
link |
It could make you, I don't know,
link |
it just feels really good.
link |
Well, and we've done like, you know,
link |
like, and I hope to do it with Doodsy,
link |
but like live podcasts are fun in front of groups of people.
link |
And you know, you talk to them afterwards
link |
and take some pictures and man, they are,
link |
they forgot what the fuck they got going on.
link |
And a lot of them got to go back to work the next day.
link |
It's a Wednesday or Thursday, you know?
link |
No, it's a lot of value.
link |
I'm fortunate enough to be busy doing my own bullshit.
link |
What's the meaning of life with Sasa?
link |
What is the meaning of life?
link |
Was it the meaning of life?
link |
Wasn't, didn't they explain it
link |
at the end of meaning of life?
link |
I think it was Michael Palin that said,
link |
try to get a walk in, be nice to neighbors,
link |
Fiber? Fiber is part of it?
link |
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's just,
link |
have a bowl of bran in the morning
link |
and don't take yourself too seriously.
link |
No, well, no one gets out alive, I think is the.
link |
Herman Hesse, one of my favorite writers,
link |
he's a Nobel Prize winner,
link |
in a book called Steppenwolf,
link |
says, learn what is to be taken seriously
link |
and laugh at the rest.
link |
Oh, that's awesome.
link |
What's the percentage distribution on that?
link |
So how much of life should you take seriously?
link |
And then how much do you just laugh at?
link |
Oh man, if you can laugh at everything, you're winning.
link |
But that's almost impossible.
link |
I think that there's,
link |
and also could be quite irresponsible to do that.
link |
I take things, I take a lot of things way too seriously.
link |
I do, I do, I really do.
link |
People will be in part surprised by that,
link |
but I think that radiates from you.
link |
I take things way too fucking seriously sometimes.
link |
But, yeah, they're gonna loosen the neck up.
link |
But no, I think that's really good.
link |
That's really good stuff.
link |
I don't know what the percentage is to have a good life
link |
or a happy, healthy life, but you know,
link |
for me, the meaning of life is getting to live it
link |
as long as you hope to.
link |
That's nice, and when you lose someone
link |
or if perhaps you're faced with your own mortality,
link |
I think that puts that into perspective.
link |
Get lots of fiber.
link |
Get lots of fiber, be nice to everybody,
link |
and yeah, don't take things too seriously is a good one.
link |
Our minds are fucking big weird shitty fucking bucket of shit
link |
that's trying to get you to think horrible shit
link |
about yourself all the time.
link |
Yeah, shitty bucket of shit.
link |
Shitty bucket of shit.
link |
I think there's a book I never read,
link |
but I read the title, and it's Good Words to Live By,
link |
which is don't sweat the small stuff,
link |
and it's all small stuff.
link |
That's another way.
link |
Was that Dr. Phil?
link |
Wasn't Dr. Phil what's?
link |
But I think the conclusion also has fiber as part of it.
link |
I think that all ties it together,
link |
and in the end, of course,
link |
just put love out there in the world.
link |
I think that's a pretty good way to go.
link |
What would you say is the meaning of life?
link |
Put love out in the world?
link |
I would say love, yeah.
link |
It's a long conversation on what that really means,
link |
but I'm sure robots are involved, yeah.
link |
Well, let me tell you, I feel a little safer knowing
link |
that someone who has a hand in bringing these robots
link |
to the masses, as you do,
link |
has that opinion of love and how important it is.
link |
I think that's great, because otherwise,
link |
it's gonna be that fucking scene from T2
link |
where Linda Hamilton's holding onto the fence
link |
and getting all of her flesh blown off of her skeleton
link |
before the rest of her is wiped away,
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because this Skynet shit.
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Anyway, I'm just terrified of dudesie all the time.
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That's why I think that they will.
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Dudesie in the wrong hands can do a lot of damage.
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That's why Chad and I need to do our best to control it.
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You need to travel back in time and murder Chad, I think.
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Yeah, that's, yeah.
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That's the only way.
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I don't know why you need to travel back in time,
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but you could murder him today,
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but I think he'll be very suspicious.
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My nefarious plans for Chad involve going back to tomorrow
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and planning for yesterday, and then,
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and hopefully dudesie will give me the answer there
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with what it is to do with Chad's frozen body.
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If I got to drive it out to, if I got to take my,
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you know, if I got to get ahold of it,
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like one of those Tesla mom vans
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and shove my garage freezer in it and plug it in
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and shove Chad in there, drive out to Arizona
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and deliver him under a mountain
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or wherever the fuck this place is,
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and say, here's this dog tag, what does this get me?
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And then I'm like, ah, it's gonna be 300 bucks.
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Do you have a, do you take Amex?
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And I'm gonna be like, ah, shit.
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And then I'll just dump him somewhere, breaking bad stuff.
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Well, I would like to thank you and the, what is it?
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The Canadian International Agency Apparel.
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Canadian International Apparel.
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I can't wait for the sneakers from dudesie.
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I can't wait for all the, all the podcasts
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that AI can, and all the trouble it can get you in.
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So I'm a huge fan of yours.
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It's a huge honor that you would talk with me today.
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Well, this has been amazing.
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Likewise, and I'm happy to be here, man.
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Oh, that was four, dude.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation with Will Sasso.
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To support this podcast,
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please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now, let me leave you with some words from John Candy,
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one of Will's favorite actors.
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I think I may have become an actor to hide from myself.
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You can escape into a character.
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Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.