0:00

Welcome to the armchair expert.

I’m your host Dax Shepard.

Today.

I’m going to speak with one of my best friends.

Seth Green, you know, Seth Green.

You love, Seth Green.

It’s impossible.

Not to love Seth Green.

He has been endlessly.

Funny.

He is very very witty and if you’re an interview with him, which I’ve been several different times, you have to really bring your A game because he might be the fastest mind in the west.

0:26

He has a very successful show.

Robot, Chicken.

That he produces in believe writes and directs.

He is a voice on family guy.

He most importantly was in Without a Paddle where we met and fell in love.

0:42

Let us real you.

Now, with some of those stories.

He’s an object is dearest friend.

0:58

Seth Green has combined an armchair expert.

It’s so exciting and probably no other friend.

Do I have in show business has been a long for a longer ride?

Because it’s true.

Well, yeah.

Because you create like Tom now he was on Punk’d.

1:14

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, so you and Tom are all are probably like my long.

Standing Show Business friends, but you and I had such a unique experience together.

At least what?

I would, certainly the most unique experience.

Yeah.

I live me too, man.

Yeah, like from the get because I met you at Groundlings we got to do didn’t we do we do.

1:31

What was it like a Tuesday night?

Yeah.

Cooking with gas shower or something.

I think it’s Thursday, but ours lost.

You got to do that, which is always like just a gang violence is an improv theater in Los Angeles that I was a member of and you and they have guests guests come in and And they join the Improv team.

1:48

I got to go a lot because Mindy Sterling, who played Frau in.

Austin Powers is a teacher there.

And so she invited me.

So the Coronado, she was my first level teacher.

Yeah.

She said that, yeah, II.

Groundlings was legendary because when I first started coming to La, there was a restaurant called at the Bendix, which was like a 50s.

2:04

Oh, yeah, and they’re mean to you.

Well, all of the waiters were deep improv performers.

Yeah, they crafted a particular character.

That was in the vein of an old 50’s soda, hop, or whatever.

They’re called.

But with the explicit.

Goal of being offensive, right?

2:19

At least the one in Chicago, that I would go to in the one in Phoenix had go do they’re pretty mean to you in a funny way.

Yeah.

This was definitely fun was like my favorite place to hang out and when I found out that all of the people that work, there were actors and that they all came from the same school.

That was pretty excited about, huh.

2:35

So I’m always thrilled to go work out there because it’s like we met there and then and then you fucking punched me man.

Like yes.

Yeah.

Also God, that was Literally slip my mind Larry.

Just because I was thinking, no, we’ve known each other since without a paddle and I was like, all right, we when they got no, you’re right punked.

2:54

Me.

Yeah, and what the hardest Mark I ever had to punk?

By the way, what was it?

What was your poem?

It’s so stupid.

So I was hanging out with a bunch of the kids from the 70s Show.

I’ve known Danny since we’re kids even and Mila was on Family Guy and then Wilmer was in party monster.

3:12

So after we shot that movie, we spent a bit of time.

I would just go to the Friday.

Pigs.

And then we would go was really a party.

Yeah, there was a really kind before Club promoters were reality stars and there were cell phones, there were cell phone camera.

3:27

So it was just a different world at that moment.

Yeah, and we would go out on Friday nights and we would like, go you love to dance.

Nobody knows that.

I know that’s what I’m here to tell people and then there’s a very good, that’s, that’s legit.

3:43

He but your sister has a very good dancer.

Exactly.

Compliment.

I just like to feel music.

So one night will is like, hey, I’m doing a charity thing.

I want you to come after the show.

Okay, it’s like a casino night for charity and I was like, oh, you know, I don’t gamble.

4:00

But, all right, that’s right around the time like couch and I had had so many not great interaction, you and Ashton, right?

And so, I was really trying because he’s friends with a bunch of my friends and I’ve got no reason to dislike him.

4:15

I was like, I bet we could Would get along.

Well, that’s the set of Amanda back story, though.

It’s the Tower Hotel.

Is that right?

Now?

I had just been to this location the week before for a table.

Read in that exact room.

4:31

Here’s how trusting and not suspicious.

I am.

We pull up to the front of this hotel.

There’s a massive media van with a an extended Tower and I said out loud, ah, somebody’s filming something.

We shot The Italian Job on the roof of that same place.

4:50

I’m like I’ve spent time in that building.

Yeah.

Anyway, we go in and Erica’s there Christensen, who’s, who you were very good friends with yeah, cuz you know, I realized really quickly that we weren’t gonna hate each other and that we both liked a lot of the same stuff and we’re not great in crowds, but we like made each other a safe place, you know.

5:10

Yeah, so she was there and they were only like 10 people there.

And I go, guys, you’re Bend.

This is a charity.

You’re not going to raise a lot of money.

It’s very well lit.

This area that the events happening because we have to film.

5:27

So for exposure reasons, it’s inordinately bright in there and Seth immediately.

I noticed, right away, that the entire motif of the room had changed because suddenly, there were floor to ceiling panel mirrors, all over this room.

5:43

We’re not there last week and I go, this is weird.

It’s like they renovated this hole.

Fucking room.

And then he starts trying to get the mood, right?

I live.

This is a party.

Let’s fucking music.

Dim these lights guys talk.

So so right away, we can’t have music because we’re not gonna be able to license that music and also we’re not gonna have any audio for the bit.

6:03

So he’s like trying he’s so preoccupied with getting the lights down and getting the music.

I would fix.

This guy’s is sabotaging any luck of us will also right.

When I walked in Danny handed me a drink and he said well, let’s at least drink so Got a stiff.

Tequila drink in my hand, and I’m already getting a little sassy with it.

6:21

So I’m like there should be a way for us to control this light.

There’s got to be switching from where bet you there’s 35 minutes of footage of him walking around the room, looking for the light switches.

There’s well, but I’m hustling following all of these chords that have been dutifully attached to the corner by an electrician and literally folding into these brand-new closet things.

6:42

And I’m like, if we can get these closets open, I’ll bet we can turn the lights on.

Yeah, there’s camera man behind the mirrors.

And he’s staring directly into the mirrors, trying to figure out how to get the lights low.

And this is so stupid after the fact, the gambling starts, right?

6:58

And then in your not everybody else’s family, ambling.

I don’t play craps.

That’s like such a complicated game.

Yeah, somebody that doesn’t like to gamble and then Coach says, hey man, come come play with me and I’m like, oh man, I don’t gamble.

I’m trying to like make, you know, Headway with this guy.

7:15

Yeah, so then he Is all steak you and I go.

I guess that means, I think, what does that mean?

It’s something we get to that.

You can already see the implicit problem here, right?

Is, we’re going to try to entrap him into gambling illegally.

Scare him, but he know that he neither wants a gamble.

7:33

He wants a music loud.

He wants the lights down.

I mean, he is quite literally, the worst Mark we’ve had up to that point.

We’re like, we don’t have a bit.

This guy’s not gonna gamble know what?

So, he gets me on the table and agrees to stake.

Give me whatever that means.

And then we roll a couple of things and it goes bad right away.

7:51

Like, we lose right away and his face.

Drop City goes pale.

And now the guy behind the counter says, are that’s $1500 and and Ashton looks at me, like, oh, you’re good for it.

Right?

And I go, Oh, I thought you were taking me and he goes, yeah, just until the end of the game.

8:12

In that moment.

I crunched a bunch of numbers.

I was like, Let me see how expensive keeping a relationship going with this guy.

You’re trying to put a price tag and I re I don’t value of that friendship through all my monthly’s.

8:28

And at that point, I was fairly liquid without a lot of obligations and I was like, yeah, I can cover it.

So I go, but I am gonna stop playing.

So I got off the table and you know, this guy had been there the whole night.

8:43

Wow, and I was like, I recognize this guy but Were so many people in and out of that scene that you sort of recognized and he was familiar enough.

So I just thought, if he’s here he’s got to be here on purpose and then Alice like Hey, man, can I talk to you for a minute outside and I was like, I was outside.

9:03

There’s 10 people in here.

Why do you want a private conversation on?

This is we have a great shot in the hallway.

That’s well lit, that we need to get a close up for this.

So he takes me outside and like the first thing he says, is hey, man, I got Tell you I I really like you in Austin Powers or something like that.

9:22

It’s immediately made me uncomfortable.

I was like cool.

Thanks.

You’re so I want to help you out in 45 minutes.

This place is gonna give us that long that’s been sent to a people said in 45 minutes.

This place is gonna get my mind off script at that point.

9:38

So, I need, he said, I need you two to help me and I go help.

You know what he’s like, whose game?

Is this and I said, is I thought it was a charity game and the truth is, I really could plead ignorance.

I didn’t know anything on it in understand, then he started saying, I know these guys run an illegal game.

9:57

I know they’ve been running a game in their dressing rooms and I go, well, sounds like you’ve got more detail than I do, and he said, we again, want to terrible Mark, right?

This is our dude.

And he’s like so you gotta help me.

You should get out of here before you should get out of here.

10:13

Oh, that was the advice for the place gets rated.

And you believed all that.

That’s, that’s what I want to add.

Well, I’d had a bit to drink and it also seemed entirely Laurie.

You’re in the whole 1502 Kutcher.

I didn’t there’s a lot going on.

That.

Honestly wasn’t even the the I know it sounds to it.

10:30

That wasn’t that wasn’t even the thought I had?

This moment was like, okay, how do I get everybody out of here?

Yeah.

How do you want every five minutes?

It’s all went back to the Te’o and he even said that he was like, okay, so you get out of here and we know whose game it is we know which Ashton’s Game, and I said, I don’t even know what I thought.

10:48

This was a charity for kids or something.

We go back in there.

And I think the thing that immediately happens is I go to Kutcher and I’m like, hey, man, let’s wrap this up.

Why don’t we get out of here?

What if we like, why don’t you shut down your charity event really quick?

Finish this game and instead like we leave let’s go back.

11:05

And think what was really interesting about the show is that you went into each bit thinking.

Okay.

Well, we’re going to trick this person into thinking they’re somehow legally liable for something, right, but at the same time, you’re like now, May not work.

So you’re still trying to get a lot of other things cooking.

So like the notion that koechers trying to make you feel like you owe him $15 like, you know, you’re just throwing everything at the wolman, but now it’s getting, it’s getting really messy.

11:27

Like what is this bit about him?

Oh, he knew 1500 or now.

Is it about this?

Well, in it also was like the sixth or seventh thing you guys had ever done.

Yeah.

It’s so I had no idea the show existed.

No idea that Ashton had a side project.

11:44

I that’s what I always.

I always will meant about the fact that All the actors that came after me when the bit was over and they yelled, you got punked, that meant something to them.

But the first season I was in the position of like people were either terrified or mortified or whatever 9 go.

Don’t worry.

You just got Punk’d and they just stare at me.

12:00

I go.

It’s a new show coming out in March on MTV.

It’s people are saying it’s good.

Like, I have to kind of explain.

What aren’t while there was no relief to hear your on Kong’s prior to, it are.

Well, so like what immediately followed me trying to get You out of there was obviously a sped-up timeline where within moments of me saying.

12:22

Hey, let’s get out of here.

Somebody somersaulted think it was the craziest thing.

I think it happened right in front of us and then all the doors opened and there’s like a half a dozen guys.

Screaming doodle Laguna Blanca gonna get gonna break it down.

12:38

We’re also walking a tightrope of a we can’t we’re not allowed to act like, any official agency, right?

So we can’t say we’re pleased, we can’t say we’re ATF.

We can see where any So, you’re hearing some bullshit, you know, Commission on gambling, that’s what force were with.

And then we also are not allowed to legally.

12:54

You can’t ever let anyone feel like they’re kidnapped or detained or can’t leave.

So you’re also being very vague about your thing is like please.

If you’re up for it, sit down gently on the floor and comfortable, you know, like it’s just there’s so many tightropes.

That’s everybody knowing all the restraint that you guys had cuz in my mind again, I probably the only one in this room who’s ever not this room, but that room at the time, Been in handcuffs more than once.

13:18

An aha.

All right.

I know how this goes.

And that was the other thing in my head.

I’m crunching.

Well, if nobody says anything in this room, even if we all get interrogated, they’re not getting any information out of it.

So this will all be a wash and it met Wars.

That’s a long night.

13:34

It’s what I’m thinking.

And that’s confessed to me later.

He kept his back to me the entire time.

Yeah, because he knew, I’d make him at least, well, you already standpoint at in my mind.

Actually.

I was like, there’s no way that Seth Green remembers doing a show at the Groundlings with me, but maybe he does well and the second, the shit was over, you turned around.

13:56

I was like, fucking you dude.

I was very flattered.

Let’s go.

We’re all on the ground and Kutcher and I are like a foot apart I died.

And as I go down on the ground, I look him Square in the eye and just shake my head.

Ashley Judd, heat Style.

No, I’m saying I’m just like not a fucking word, dude, and we all go home tonight, right?

14:15

In my head.

I’m thinking This kid’s got such a promising career like and then we’re on the ground and our walks around.

He’s like this fucking game, dude.

I know it’s gets the thing and you told and then and then he says to me.

Now, why don’t you stand up and tell everybody what you told me outside and Ice?

14:36

I looked him in the face.

I was like, why don’t you tell everybody what I said, outside some colorful background, which is relevant is is if I had to say that, Defining characteristic of Seth Green from the second.

I met him all through the times we’ve been friends and it’s only gotten emboldened by every decision I’ve ever seen a mate Integrity.

14:56

Number one.

I’ve never met a guy with more fucking Integrity.

If there was one even being the world that would never rat you out.

It is Seth Green.

So the notion that move me cruelly compliant.

No, it just in a weird way without us ever even knowing why this would be the perfect scenarios that all your actions up to that point in life.

15:15

You have a reputation.

Integrity and rightly.

So and so the know it’s just really ironic that of all the things you have been up, Gaza is the opposite of who you are.

Well, it made it easy for me to look good in the mix because I could just yes, I thought you really shined in that up.

So I think we were like, oh, he’s a dude.

15:32

I want on a bank robbed.

I had some very weird.

I had some surprising interactions as a result of that show.

We’re just people that I would have never thought, would give me a second.

Look, we’re like subdued.

So you get punked.

Stayed strong.

Yeah.

Yeah, but so, very shortly after we shot that episode with you, the show aired almost immediately.

15:54

After I based on the success of that show.

I started taking meetings around town.

I have a meeting of Paramount, blah blah.

They’re making this movie without a paddle.

I had just made Italian job with the pradana line.

And he told me, they were developing, this three hander, and then I want to do it.

16:12

And by the time it got casting.

These other guys, I had already done Scooby-Doo to And like known Matlin for a long time and thought the world of him and then obviously, I had strong opinions about you.

So when we got to read together, well, in specifically, what happened is the studio was like, oh, yeah, that seems like an interesting option.

16:32

This kid from this show, that’s popular.

Maybe that’s got some value, but I had never acted in a movie ever.

Why?

I had never had a screen test.

I hadn’t.

I wouldn’t risk.

A long shot.

It must have seemed like at the time but it slowly, it was, it was a huge gamble for Grill and align and all them.

16:48

But you got I would say you got me that role because once it got to the point where they’re about to issue contracts, they go like, oh fuck, we better find out if he can act so it kind of went from I was I had had all the right meetings.

I talked my way into the job and then all of a sudden is like, oh wait you got to do a screen test for Sherry Lansing and now I get really fucking scared.

17:09

You’re going to take this fucking compliment, whether you like it or not.

I was very nervous about having to read the script and Steve.

The director was really smart and kind enough to go.

Oh, you’re really good at improv.

If I can make this audition largely improv.

I think you have a shot and but that very much required that long format and character if yeah eager it find it.

17:31

Yeah, and then also moving the same beats of that scene forward and it’s a a skillet man, but that fell onto your lap because you you are already cast and you you’re a part of my screen test, which was nice of you.

But thank God you could improve.

17:46

Rob so well because there’s a lot of brilliant actors who don’t improv that.

Just not the thing they do and if they were in the situation like okay, we’re trying to get this kid this role.

You got to improv with him.

You gotta join him.

They might have said, fuck that, or just would have sucked at it.

So my screen test was largely improved with Seth Green and it worked beautifully and that’s how I really got the job.

18:07

Had it, not been you in my screen test.

I probably wouldn’t have got it.

Well, thank you.

That’s very sweet of you to say, but obviously you got yourself a job by being awesome, a to armchair expert, if you dare, I definitely got to have a fun audition with you, and I definitely said to both Brill and align me and Lillard and Dax in this movie is a comedy in every scene.

18:41

Yeah, it’s a guarantee.

Yeah, because all three of us are actors in the same way.

So we’re going to start everything from an incredibly honest place.

No matter.

Well, character is and then we’ll be funny because we all know how Comedy Works.

For me, for my, for my point of view.

I had never been in a movie.

18:57

I was very, very nervous.

And it wasn’t like, I had two scenes in a movie thing with will.

Or was it after that?

Well, like, I was in a scene in Cheaper by the Dozen.

Yeah.

I was in a student movie, but I had by no means been one of three leads in a studio movie, shooting in fucking New Zealand, and that was probably your 25th movie or something.

19:19

And I got down there and you guys were both so generous, and Because we were both young guys who had people be generous, but you Seth had started doing movies when you were 10 years old, right?

Seven, right?

19:34

We were in a Woody Allen movie at what age.

So 12, but and then what age are you in?

Better off dead better off dead?

You’re not in better off dead.

No, I’m thinking of the other one.

Jon.

Cryer know where you think.

It Can’t Buy Me.

Love, Can’t Buy Me.

Love, which is my Faerie favorite movie of that are.

19:51

Yes, there is a little brother and I am.

Yeah.

Just turned 14.

Maybe I think I was just about 14.

I think I turned 14 on the movies suffice to say, you had a lot, you had a couple decades of experience at that point and Lillard it in a ton of movies as well.

20:07

And it was, it was the Perfect Two Guys to end up in a movie with because you guys are both pretty egoless.

You’re both really hard workers.

You have all these qualities that I got so lucky, you guys are patient with me and I was able to just learn really good at it.

20:23

No, I’m I have the guide you now there I have some rough scenes in there.

What was cool is that bill would invite us to watch dailies, right?

So we would shoot all week and then he would invite us to watch what we had filmed.

We’d all sit there together and watch and I remember being in scenes with you Seth.

20:39

Originally, the first scenes we shot when I was like, wow, this guy’s not doing anything like he’s not my mind at that time.

I think I was thinking like every scene in a movie.

You’re Jack Nicholson in a few good man, like you should be screaming and Eileen your arms about.

20:54

Yeah, and I remember watching Seth I’m thinking is he doing anything?

And then going to Dailies and going?

Oh fuck.

Wow.

That’s what that looks like when you put it on a screen and I really got to like in really rapid order, kind of figure out how that Medium works just through watching you through first thinking like, oh my God, he’s not do anything.

21:15

And then going holy shit.

He’s doing so much.

It was just really it was really great.

I think that’s all really valuable us.

All seeing what it is that we’re making.

Understanding that it looks like a movie.

Yeah and the actors all being able to witness each other and remember one of my one of my many reoccurring shortcomings as an actor at that point was rumor often.

21:35

I looked into the lens.

Do you remember we be watching dailies and it almost became like a drinking game like oh and unfortunately it was in some of my best things that actually be getting somewhere.

Like and it built later told me they had to like, set aside, some digital budget to rotoscope my eyes away out of the lens.

21:51

Yeah, because like my best takes.

I’m staring, right?

Dude, watch dailies down because like whack-a-mole like there he is again.

He’s in the lens that takes such practice though, and I’m totally faking it.

You know, I’m acting like I know what’s going on, but I do not know what’s going on, but you must have been good because if you’re staring down the lens and you aren’t good you would have been fired.

22:18

I don’t know that I could have been fired.

We were in so deep because they trained us for a month.

We were in New Zealand.

Would have been if they would have just told Brill, you gotta make this work.

And in fact, maybe they told Brill you make this work.

I don’t know, know there was so happy with the dailies and then we tested so high.

22:33

Yeah, we’ll never forget.

This is such a good lesson in just perception.

I can talk about the first time we saw it first.

I tell this story all the time.

I think I just told it last week, so collectively we thought we literally we thought were making Diner in the woods, right?

22:50

We’re making The Big Chill.

Yeah, exhale.

You’ve gotten even better.

You got these three actors me.

All I was working.

Really hard to give an incredibly honest storytelling.

Really on a story about friendship about life and love and decisions.

23:07

Scared.

Yeah, and then Dax and I go to a test screening, and how do you even explain it?

The whole movie as a whole plays so much sillier and more Broad and silly.

Well, I would say the defining thing, we both came to recognize.

23:23

Noises, oh, this was made for 12 year olds.

Yeah, it derived in feel really young the you and I both over the last 14 years have come to love that movie in a way, and really appreciate it.

And I think at least I’ll speak for myself.

I come to recognize why people love the movie at first.

23:40

It was just a little bit jarring that we thought we were making one movie and it just wasn’t that mood accent.

I sat together like practically holding that we really were holding having like a really Indescribable emotion.

To experience and they’ll even worse.

23:55

It’s like, Tommy Wiseau watching the watching the room with an audience seeing everyone like And you’re just like a board, my heart of this.

I’m there watching me, just kill mother has lines and they laughed and I do not think we’re jokes.

24:12

Like yeah sincere moment.

The best thing is watching that movie through other people’s eyes and realizing how many people love it and then coming to appreciate what it is that we’ve made, and how much fun it is.

There is no movie.

We could have seen that would have lived up to the life experience.

24:30

We had making it so we go to New Zealand.

Yeah, so we have We have been limping Herndon fives.

Like that was just all right.

Yeah, he’s gonna throw you right now.

Nice body.

We have these Olympic gold medal, rowers teaching us how to navigate Rapids in a canoe and there’s three of us in a boat Imports.

S just stuck in the middle.

24:46

So if Lillard, I get it wrong, which we did regularly, we’re going over in these class five.

Rapids.

I quickly learned how to keep my camera above my head.

When I dumped you get in this bubble, when you’re doing a movie where it’s like, you weirdly feel like you’re in a pretend world, even though you’re physically on a river.

25:01

That is a class-five, something in your brain.

And goes oh, this is for a movie is like Disneyland, you’re not thinking at all about the risks were jumping off of high water falls and shit.

But the craziest thing that happened was we about five times in a row.

We had to jump in at the top of this class for five rapid.

I don’t know who’s fucking gigantic and we had to jump off these rocks and they were going to film us floating through the Rapids.

25:21

Right?

And we did this three times and they’d all these search and rescue people and on one of the times, Seth Green disappears.

Let me explain your.

There’s a swirling Eddy at the at the base of the quinoa.

Right.

Yeah, you have to jump past it.

25:36

Oh my God, cuz it’ll pull you in and that’s exactly what happened.

And the fucked-up thing about it was I immediately was like I can get myself out and I started trying to climb this apparently razor-sharp, Slippery Rock.

And so I immediately like and just tear my fucking hands apart prior to that.

25:58

They said if you get sucked under Just go with it, it’ll spit you out and said is very calm Under Fire as As a person, in general, as you saw on Punk’d, when people are fucking somersault in through the window.

He stays calm.

So you didn’t Panic, he disappeared for like count of 10 and he did not pop up until a quarter mile down the river and people on jet.

26:19

Skis are now racing to him.

That was a lot of fun, but that’s not even the moment where we realized how dangerous it was because they finally got enough shots of us and then they pull us out and then they set the stuntmen and in they’re going to go over in the canoe.

They do the exact same.

We’ve just done five times in a guy breaks his head, open has to get rushed to the hospital is in the ICU.

26:40

And this guy’s an Olympic fucking.

Rower we go.

Oh, Jesus.

That the Olympian just got her.

Knowing.

This is if I say there was all these like really heightened moments that would never happen in your real life that were happening daily for us.

We’re working with a fucking real 10-foot bear.

26:55

That’s 1400 pounds Bart.

The bear that was every day was something cuckoo to date.

One of the more amazing experiences of my life.

There’s one moment that kind of Trumps.

All them for me.

Is that it kept Bart, the Bear in this horse trailer and they’d keep him in there until it’s time for him to work mind.

You he is not nocturnal, but all of it is a night shoot.

27:13

So he’s grumpy as fuck in there.

Feeding him a huge saucepan.

A coffee to remember that I forgot about they had the huge long saucepan.

They’re feeding him coffee and donuts.

So he’s eating sugar and caffeine.

He’s so irate and so he’s in this horse trailer it all of a sudden you just you here in the horse trailer is rocking back and forth on two wheels.

27:33

And Doug goes.

Well, I gotta go in there and Doug opens the door to a horse trailer.

This thing’s going fucking King Kong in there, and he goes in there and you hear him screaming.

Oh, Bart in the fucking trailer smashing around, there is no pin dug under him and then you here.

27:53

Good boy, far.

And then the trailers completely calm.

The job.

It was so amazing.

So, the life experience was so profound making this movie in the three of us.

It’s got so close.

We rented a house together and we live together and it just was it was the best experience of my life.

28:11

I think.

And then so, of course, no movie.

Could they have played, where we would have felt like had captured this thing?

We went through, right?

And when we, by the time I got to the premier, I commented.

Yeah, I really had, can I say what you said when we walked out of that screening?

28:26

Well Dax, I like, before the credits went down.

I was like, let’s smoke.

Let’s smoke outside like this and we walked outside of the Warner Brothers lot.

And We will need to turn the corner and just put our arms around each other and just sort of loud.

We go call the police cause there’s gonna be a bomb at the box office.

28:46

You know, I got I got I honestly I got dressed dressed down about that.

After the fact you did.

How just sort of reminded about the Way That Word of Mouth can kill something.

Oh positive or negative.

And that if you’re a part of something, especially if something stands a chance of being successful, even for comedy, S sake, there’s no point in a saying.

29:05

Oh fuck.

I’ve learned so much since then.

And also now I’ve been behind the curtain in a lot of different capacities on a movie and I recognize all that stuff, but certainly at that time.

Yeah, that’s not what I was thinking.

I was thinking me, neither.

Where is The Big Chill?

Whoa, where’s the big hill?

29:21

Without me?

The Big Joe?

I don’t understand.

They really focused on know, this joke, press to or that they sent us on was to this day, the most epic.

Promotional tour I’ve ever been on sale.

My folder says five weeks.

The road and it’s all the pictures for each of the Cities Lillard was sad because Lillard had just come off of.

29:38

Well, you were Savvy to but Lillard in particular, was Savvy about this kind of stuff because he had just come off of the Scooby-Doo movies that were super successful.

And he basically said they at one point said, we’d now like to add to the schedule every night that you’re in a town.

You have to go to a baseball game and throw out a first pitch or go to the football game.

Whatever the sporting event was, we had to do and Lillard said, okay, we’re willing to do that.

29:58

If you give us a private jet for the whole thing.

Yeah.

So now I’m 29 or eight.

And I’m with you two idiots and we have our own jet.

It weren’t flying all over the country.

Every day.

We’re in a new city.

It’s like we’re in the Rolling Stones, all of a sudden and I was, I was single at the time.

30:14

So we had crazy like, what if somebody got on the plane?

Well, you and I both remember, we fell in love with to journalist in Toronto.

Well love, I think I’ve definitely met, not that moment.

Yeah.

We were Diane trying to take people with although it’s really inconsiderate.

30:32

Who assume that someone is going to leave.

Their city or country on your plane.

And then I guess I remember he kept off or not on will pay your flight back or a bus or whatever and then no one.

No.

Remember the first thing I did leaving Van Nuys airport.

The very first flight.

I think we flew to Dallas first and I was like, two things guys.

30:49

I’ve never smoked on airplane.

I’ve never rode shirtless.

So I took my shirt off and lit up a cigarette and then we flew to Dallas.

Was that one of the times?

We got them 20g.

I do believe that.

Yes fucking greatest thing ever somos.

Like how you talk The person into?

Yeah because Moses.

These Pilots especially for private their former military and they’ve got some Air Force experience and stuff.

31:08

And so they’ll climb to, you know, like 30 or 40, thousand fifty feet, 12 a papa.

Rob Lowe where they steep nosedive for, you know, seven or eight like the vomit comedy film.

All exactly, like, thi have written on, right?

31:23

Yeah.

You sends got way into NASA on you.

That’s probably when you did I did.

Would, you know, that’s, that’s this.

I told conversation of like, how famous am I can I call ya.

Center and go check it out.

Would be a great reality show for us to do how famous am I.

And then we, yeah, we just cold call, like the president of Paraguay, and see if we can guess of his at a dinner or something.

31:44

That’s how I want to put a Sesame Street.

When we were filming Without a Paddle.

I called my publicist and I was, like, am I famous enough to do Sesame Street, or on this, press tour?

And not unlike Without a Paddle?

Or I had me remained sober up until the last few weeks.

Mmm.

I had been sober through this whole past repressed tour, which was very hard because we’re just Landing in cities.

32:05

We’re on a private jet, but at night, you’re at a hotel and they’re paying the bill.

So, you know, everyone’s drinking it’s a great time to drink and I’m just watching these guys get to drink and have a blast for a few of the weeks.

And then something happened, our plane broke in Toronto.

32:21

We had already been there.

One night, we got I forgot about and we were staying at the Four Seasons.

They always put you up in the nicest place.

And so, we had gone to the air.

Port and Ed waited for a few hours and then the, it was determined this planes.

Not going to fly you guys out of here.

So we’re flying in a new plane for you.

32:36

And which is so funny.

They felt so apologetic about it.

I don’t know why.

Yeah, that they’re like, we’re so so, sorry guys, but you’re going back into the city tonight, which meant we had no work responsibilities and we got you guys very nice rooms.

Well, these very nice rooms were literally 2000 square-foot rooms.

32:52

When we got into our rooms.

We’re on the top floor.

We were like running into the hallway to say to John.

What do you?

What is your name?

The room had a legitimate full bar in it.

Not like little not a minibar full fifths of shit.

Right.

And when I opened my door and I saw that bar, I went I’m not going to be able to make it.

33:11

This is, I think this is too much.

Your exact words were we’re gonna have a relapse tonight.

Yes, exactly.

I saw you like, escalator coming down to the to have dinner and I was like, we gonna have He loves night.

33:27

You knew it dude.

Somehow in the city that could get you pot and you’re going to have some pot covers, right haneda, right?

And I said, oh so you got a guy I’m like, since I’m relapsing.

Does he have ecstasy in your like?

Oh, well, she’ll find out.

Yeah.

So this was some steep enabling on your part because like I said, I don’t know if I’m going to eat any ecstasy and then we’re both at the urinal and you come behind my back, put your hand or your arm around my neck and pop that you were just complaining.

33:55

You just You’re pretty lean into my ear.

You’re like just I’ll go with you here, where this is a safe place.

We don’t have to leave until like 10:00 in the morning.

One bunny element about this is I do all this ecstasy, get hammered.

34:10

I’ve been sober at that point for maybe two and a half months.

And then I say to my publicist shit.

I’m gonna have a hard time going to sleep tonight and he’s like, oh mmm.

I have ambient.

So he gives me a few Ambien, which at up to that point.

I had never done it.

Now.

I did Ambien for the first time when we were making King Without a Paddle because I had such intense insomnia since I was like, 15 years old.

34:30

And I found and the whole time I was making that movie, I didn’t smoke it is Mark.

We could which know I didn’t smoke anything cause we were.

So, it was so active.

I was like, I’m gonna need and also, I don’t like to be.

I don’t like to smoke when I’m working.

Yeah, I like that surgical Clarity with respect to performing.

34:47

Hmm.

Um, so but you drank a lot, which you don’t normally drink, although I drank every night in India and saying that I started because I don’t And you ordering it like vodka.

You went straight to being like a real, a real drinks magnitsky.

Yeah.

35:02

I was very impressed by your tolerance.

I have a shocking alcoholic tolerance.

It’s a little probably all substance tolerance.

Probably thinking.

Yeah.

I have a good Constitution for that.

My metabolism is I’ve got a standing heart rate of a hummingbird said, it’s right.

35:19

So we get annihilated.

I do a bunch of now, ambient on top of everything else.

I’ve done and a wake up in the morning.

And we are now late for the jet and my publicist who would normally have probably called my room.

He’s Mia.

So I now go to his room during this Jason knock on Jason’s door.

35:35

My Jason Jason, we gotta go.

We gotta go to the airport and I hear as he’s walking across the room.

I hear all this metal climbing into itself, right here, like plates are dropping.

I’m like, what the fuck is going on in there.

He opens the door and I am not exaggerating.

35:51

He has at least ten of those food, carts that you order from room service.

Because he was on Ambien, and he kept reordering his thing because it was taking like an hour, and then they would tell him sir.

You’ve already already.

I don’t care.

I’ll take this in him.

So, just waves of food showed up and he was just as he didn’t eat any of it.

36:10

He was asleep by the time, he like all these things arrived and it’s his room was just standing room only with room cart and then we get on a plane and I have you know, a ton of Shame and I’m feeling bad.

No.

Oh my God.

You remember that was one thing is they would often?

36:25

Offer to let us sit in the jump seat while they landed, which was cool thing ever.

And he was in South was recommending.

Oh, you should go do this.

September 11th.

You could ride in the jump seat in any cockpit, just by asking.

And so I asked all the fucking time because riding in the cockpit of a plane, both during takeoff, Landing or in travel is an incredibly unique experience.

36:43

It is and I tried to get in the jump seat with my shirts still off and they actually said, could you put your shirt?

Anyways, long, long story short, we We on the plane ride to New York from Toronto.

My poses then gives me has an X.

36:59

And now I feel all of a sudden, I feel good again, and then I end up getting caught.

By the time I land, and then I go on Conan and basically a blackout and then I was asked not to come back for several years.

And then eventually they let me back on, you know, it’s good tax because you got to get your get your shit together lesson before the scrutiny on you.

37:20

Was so high.

Yeah.

It’s career-ending.

Yeah, and this is you’ve got a long Career ahead of you because you’re a hard worker and you’re talented.

I was a hard worker.

I questioned anymore.

Really?

Yeah, I get nervous as I get older that I, you just don’t try as hard.

Well, I don’t know that I have the fire.

37:37

I don’t know.

I certainly my ego which is a very healthy Evolution.

My ego doesn’t desire more success.

For the sake of success.

Do you think you find so much satisfaction and raising kids that it’s less compelling to create other things?

37:53

100%, I am so fulfilled.

Old by the experience of being a father.

It gives me so much self-esteem and I used to search for that self-esteem in my career.

For maybe the first time in my life.

I have pretty solid self-esteem and it’s weird what that does to your motivation in ways, so I don’t think I’m done, but I do think I’m going to happen now.

38:13

Find my way back into being productive and and motivated through a pure motivation like for the joy of the process, which yeah, I had a taste of that chips for me.

The I was making the movie, it was just, it was a fucking 10 from beginning to end.

38:30

It was like being on drugs without being on drugs.

So the process does appeal to me in a big way, but the notion of being like applauded or celebrated or successful.

That is subsided.

Thank God.

Yeah, I think your voice is unique and I know you as a writer Creator.

38:47

So I always look forward to your expressions in that category.

Yeah, they’ll be more.

I just think I’ll have Have to adjust what?

Exactly where I’m doing that.

Or we did that movie.

It was really Successful by those standards of that day.

39:03

It was like a 19 million dollar movie that made 16 weeks in the top five.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just wouldn’t go anywhere and then was hugely successful on DVD and stuff.

It was you took that that opportunity.

You you also had just done Italian job, which was a hundred million dollar movie.

You know, you would just been an Austin Powers movies, like you were doing very, very well.

39:22

And you took your Sherrill Capital at that moment and you chose to start Robot Chicken, not on purpose.

I wasn’t trying to do anything.

Well, that’s that’s what’s really fucking cool about it though.

Is that from my perspective back, then?

39:38

I remember thinking.

Oh, well, Seth kind of has the Keys of the Kingdom and you could have gotten yourself into any audition.

You were just in a really great spot as an actor.

And then you dedicated a ton of your focus time and attention to this thing Robot Chicken which again at the time it was like, what is Cartoon Network?

39:54

What is adults with Um, what are all these things.

And but you have this super altruistic passion for it.

From my perspective.

You weren’t evaluating whether it was it was monetizable or was a commodity or is going to be a propelling, your career, anything you just focused on something you fucking love, which was stop motion.

40:12

And I remember kind of thinking God, is he going to miss this great opportunity?

And I’m so have been so delighted to see that I was dead wrong.

And that thing has turned out to be a He sustained long-term career thing, you’ve done.

40:28

It ultimately has been profitable for you.

And you also we’re doing Family Guy and all these.

It just makes me so delighted that it all you ended up crushing like you made it.

You made decisions that I thought were kind of counter to perpetuating your career and it’s really impressive and and rarely do you see someone just going after their passion without any care in the world and being rewarded for it and I love it.

40:51

It wasn’t even my intent, you know, in the end of the 90s, the internet was just It’s sort of on the rise in the idea of making digital content.

That’s what I was interested in.

I’d made a ton of independent film and I understood that there’s a very basic principle of people will only give you as much money as they think they can make back.

41:11

Sure.

And they’ll only invest in something that they think there’s some value in, unless it’s so cheap that it’s negligible for them to spend on it.

And that’s where I was coming from is like, I bet we can do something really high quality for no money because there’s zero pressure in this space.

Yeah, no one’s looking at me to fail or succeed here so we can kind of just do something, but I don’t want to gloss over.

41:30

What is it?

That gave a 30 year-old, the level of self-assured - in confidence to do that.

It goes back to the Integrity thing.

I’ve seen you in a million situations.

Your dead fucking honest.

You have the best sense of humor, about yourself of anyone I’ve ever met.

41:48

Like, we must talk about you, Chang, before you leave.

But you just, I’m truly saying this from the bottom of Of my heart, you’re so admirable in a lot of ways, and I feel like, just your self-confidence is always been really obvious to me and why, and how you’re a fucking actor.

42:06

You should be an approval.

Junkie.

You should be chasing any kind of a claim.

Is it the length of time you had been in the business?

Or is it just your character?

Or are you filling your well with self-esteem in a way that has allowed you to not chase that stuff.

42:22

I’m not trying to put you in a position to brag, but I’m just curious.

No, I’m it’s More than I don’t.

It’s not it’s not like any kind of confidence.

It’s just there’s a certainty in some places.

Like I’ve seen all kinds of people in all kinds of situations and your you think everyone.

42:38

I’m plus I had I probably did a lot of drugs when I was young and got outside of self and had those, you know, microcosmic experiences of connecting with the Universe, on a granular level to realize, like, everybody’s the same.

Everybody feels insecurity everyone.

42:54

Yes, I’ve traveled.

Around the world.

And everybody from the most desperate poverty to the wealthiest of opportunity.

Everybody has the same basic core needs.

They just have a different way of getting an expressing it.

So that, that makes me more confident that my place is just my place and I don’t ride to try and be in somebody else’s place.

43:13

Nor concern myself with their judgment of me because most of these interactions are momentary, right?

And then with respect to my work, I have seen over and over again.

The difference Read a good audition and a bad audition.

Right?

And when someone is confident and certain you, they make, you think about it.

43:32

Like, oh, this would be cool to work with trick yourself into being confident.

Yeah, fake it till you make it, that’s with anything.

Well, we, I Monica and I both were just listening to a podcast where the guy said.

It is.

Far easier to act your way into changing your thinking.

43:47

Then it is to think your way into changing your actions.

I thought that was pretty from the outside in.

Yeah, like this dude.

He’s a Was he a light?

I’m sorry, New York, New Yorker journalist, whatever the fuck he lived biblically for like three years to the letter of the law.

44:04

And then he tried to become the healthiest person on planet and he did that for two years and he’s just done all these experiments.

And he said it’s crazy how much acting those ways will change your mental state totally.

Yeah.

I read this.

Really fascinating article.

I believe in the New Yorker.

It was by a psychiatrist who had met with a new patient and the woman he was meeting with he’s going through this laundry list of things, you know, You how much you drink?

44:26

How much you do this?

Blah blah blah, and she didn’t really drink.

She didn’t do drugs.

She was a very successful woman and she said all I do is I chew this nicotine gum on my shoe, a ton of them probably like 20 for day or something and he goes in his our many decades of being a psychiatrist.

44:42

He has started to notice that he can diagnose people’s mental condition by what recreational drugs they use and what effect they have.

So if he has a patient who does cocaine and can fall asleep, he knows do that.

Person has ADHD because only people with ADHD can take Ritalin, are stimulant, and then fall asleep, and if people smoke a lot of weed and are productive and energized by it, they most certainly are dealing with depression.

45:08

And he said, what’s fascinating, is that people find their drugs that they need that?

We offer some, we have Prozac.

We have SSRI Inhibitors, all these different things.

They’re just drugs, we made and people seem to find the drugs they need.

So for me, I think that happens to be nicotine and caffeine.

45:25

Just always been on it when I’m off of it.

I’m very negative and have a hard time on planet Earth.

I’m wondering you love weed and you’re productive on.

We’d do you think you found your drug, to the extent that I need any kind of drugs?

45:40

I will when I’m like the whole time.

I was shooting this, this when I was directing the movie, I just didn’t.

Yeah, I just didn’t and did you have any waves of did you have mood swings during that or know?

You’re pretty high from making the movie.

I was real happy for making the movie, but you Know.

What’s funny?

I didn’t smoke pot till I was in my mid-20s.

46:00

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, I didn’t realize I had been battling chronic.

Insomnia since I was 15.

Uh-huh, and I just didn’t drink.

I told you because alcoholism was real and my family.

Yeah, and I didn’t smoke pot because it felt dumb.

Yeah.

Like Stoners.

46:16

Like, dirt just didn’t seem cool to me at all.

I started when I was, I think I do when I was 16, I had acid for the first time.

Mmm.

And then I got really into psychedelics, but always from a scientific standpoint.

Sure.

Not in a recreational.

Like let’s go to the slogan important that you read the mccanney buck Terrence.

46:33

I really all of that shit.

I was kidding.

What was that called?

The some of them mushrooms in South America with its the in, don’t worry.

My little figures of Kool-Aid Acid Test and all of The Beat Beats poet.

46:51

Yeah, me too.

Got into Charles Bukowski them.

Me to like the Burrows and Stuff.

Just read all this.

Yeah, you know from the time I was before I was 15.

I was going to substance and alcohol meetings with my mom.

You and I share this amazing similarity to in that we were raised by single mothers.

47:08

Money money was a big big issue and then there was a lot of substance abuse stuff around us.

Yeah, we when I started going to those meetings and seeing adults honestly and like just unguardedly dealing with this shit.

47:24

Yeah.

Around Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

I went to meetings.

I’m a little kid.

Yeah, barely 15 years or I guess I was.

Yeah, it’s like 15, right?

Then.

And I got all of this information so fast, it made me never want to drink.

47:41

It made me never want it.

Uh-huh, but I had read so much when I was young and psychedelics acid mushrooms.

Those were all common themes and things as part of a school project.

I read all this stuff about The government study with respect to psychedelics of marijuana, and I thought that was fucking fascinating.

48:00

The idea of having a clinical study that was based on scientific analysis, your body and Minds reaction on substances under different conditions.

That to me is really interesting.

Let’s find out what biological reaction is caused by the stimulus.

Yeah.

So that’s what I did the first time.

I toss.

It was just like made notes, uh, Professor Green, I did until I got so high and you eventually cross over into the subatomic particle awareness, like everything is And Hannah can’t help it.

48:26

Yeah, but I didn’t start smoking pot.

Well, first of all, I didn’t I had a huge period of time where I just didn’t do anything right.

My time experimenting with all that stuff was between like 16 and 21, uh, hilariously an opposite like Anthem.

I didn’t start drinking until I was in my I was in my 20s and I had just gone through a breakup and you thought I’m going to give this a shot.

48:50

Well, I was just out at bars and stuff and saying, you know, But it’s still not your jam.

Really.

You’re not a big drinker.

Still.

No.

Yeah, and the pot.

I only got into because it helped me sleep so well, but you also function very well on it and you’re still productive and you’re still very coherent.

49:06

Like to me like I think I was designed to drink alcohol like you can throw as much at me as you want.

I’ll still be standing and yes, you know what I’m saying?

My blackout.

Yeah, we’ll definitely, but I got at some point, but you won’t know I’m blacked out while I’m like that’s that’s fair.

49:22

But yeah, it just seems like for whatever reason.

Physiologically when I did smoke pot.

I’m not I can’t really function.

I’m insecure.

I’m thinking about what I’m saying if it makes sense but so one of the, one of the funnier experiences we had is while we’re on that crazy, press tour.

We were at we just had to get lunch and we went to like a Chili’s in a mall parking lot and we were in Philadelphia.

49:43

Sure.

Philadelphia.

My hometown.

Yeah, I heard says Hometown and we’re like we’re pulling into this like chilies and says like staring out the window.

He’s really caught in thought and he goes, oh my God, that’s where My mother’s car burnt down in front of the school bus that was taking me to summer camp.

49:59

My mom’s beater caught fire, while we’re all loading into the bus and I remember the girl that I was trying to flirt with was like, oh my God, somebody’s car is on fire and I was like, oh, let’s let’s give him some space.

Ha ha, ha.

The best thing for us to do would be to look away from that car fire.

50:14

Not question, whose car that is or who that redheaded woman is with running frantically around the burner.

I won’t out any specifics, but I do remember reading an article a couple years ago, but you guys In your family guy deal and made the first text I sent to South was congratulations on your renegotiation.

50:31

I hope you burn down a car in the parking lot and chilies to celebrate, like how far you’ve come, but what it is, it’s it’s another thing that really I find impressive about you is that you again your confidence is so high, your self-esteem dead by again.

My estimation is always been really impressive.

50:46

And in reality you’re starting from some places that don’t breed tons of self-esteem and self-confidence.

Like so, That I’m not aiming to be something else.

I’m not you know 54 saying I don’t understand why I’m not getting called to play Jason Bourne like there’s no right.

51:03

But you’re also 54 in your you’ve done really well with ladies prior to your wife.

I’ve met all your, not all.

I’ve met many of your girlfriend’s.

They’re all beautiful.

They’re not with you because you’re famous.

They’re in love with you.

Like you you your boss and I think it’s awesome Sky.

51:20

Yeah, this guy your wife Claire who such a valuable life bonafide.

She is wild about a guy who married a 1000 crore property, who married a literal literal?

Princess not.

We like each other.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So all this time goes by you.

51:38

You do a lot of Robot Chicken and then you also your on the Family Guy and that’s a great that’s a great safety.

Net right isn’t.

Isn’t that just yeah, if that ended tomorrow, I would say, holy shit.

I’m still the luckiest guy on the planet.

I can’t believe that’s a job.

Yeah.

Because we have that in our family, which is Frozen just out of nowhere.

51:54

This Thing happens, all these jobs.

I think that’s what people don’t recognize when they go.

Like.

Oh, why’d you do that job, or why do you do this or what people don’t recognize that all these jobs are the same for all of us?

You go there you try your very hardest you believe while you’re doing it.

It’s the best thing you’ve ever done.

Yeah.

Yeah, and then it Bears no.

52:11

Relation to the what the end result is.

Our product is is you hit the lottery or you don’t kind of in and so Frozen, just this, she did a voice and blah blah blah.

And then we see it and then I was like, holy shit.

You’re in this thing.

This is crazy.

This thing to yeah.

Yeah.

And so, what year are you guys?

And Family Guy is our 16th season.

52:28

Oh my God, and it’s a hit still, right?

It’s still like a giant show.

We recorded our 300th episode.

Oh my God, it’s insane.

And so how is that helped?

You make the decisions you’ve made.

Well, I’ve never been the type to live by living beyond my means.

52:44

No, you’re very frugal.

I remember we’re doing thought of had on.

You came to the table when you’re driving a fucking Honda Civic.

And all I care about is cars.

And I thought, look at this guy is, he’s a bona fide movie star and he’s driving a Honda Civic.

It was manual.

It’s it’s really good for you.

And remember, I was driving an Escalade and you go who’s douche-mobile or what did you say whose dick had mobile?

53:01

Is this?

So you’re right.

You’ve never even when I met you and you had plenty of money.

You had a very modest apartment, but I will have Allison.

Yeah, I still I still live that way.

I think that’s actually a good way to live but I do do crazy shit like put the fucking water slide.

You have an elaborate in labor intensive construction, intensive water side.

53:19

You have the kind of water slide.

That was at Wet n Wild Ones.

Yeah.

It’s a back to repurpose tube from a farmer.

Water park, the thing that people usually want to pay you a lot for is not necessarily the thing that you you always want to do for sure.

And then if you’re if you make decisions based on the stuff that you really love when people see it, they can feel that.

53:44

And that’s usually the most attractive version of what you’re offering.

Yeah.

I think the audience can tell when you’re when you’re there because you need this thing to exist.

Uh-huh, so So you have your, have your own Studio.

You got to share with three partners that you she is?

Yeah, and and then how did you, you just directed a movie?

54:03

This last summer in a Thailand?

Correct?

Yeah.

How did you get that over the Finish Line?

How do you had such a fucking?

I mean, you’ve been through the same, not same hurdle.

So I took a trip in 2009 with my friend Dan Ferguson and had such a romantic cinematic experience in Thailand that I wrote a movie about it.

54:22

It’s high and it was all.

We’re saying Dan is one of the main segment producers for Conan who has been friends with for 20 years now and you guys have been on him about 12 honeymoons together.

We’ve been we’ve been Africa together.

Yeah.

Yeah, it took me.

54:38

You know, it took me like eight years to get the movie made.

Okay, you were trying that long.

A lot of things just came up in the way of me ever getting that script written.

Yeah, seasons of robot, a special.

I was directing a feature that I was doing pursuing.

Some other directing gig And then that show I did for Fox dad’s, while I was making that show the actress on it, that I had most of my scenes with Brenda song.

55:04

That’s like, ah, she would be this one character in that time and moving this would be perfect.

Actually, uh-huh.

And so that reinvigorated, me and when that show got cancelled, I was like, man, I better fucking write this thing, never gonna write it.

And so from that moment.

55:20

I started writing drafts.

I went to Vegas seems like the single worst city in America, you go to Right, you went there to write, I don’t have vices like that.

So what Vegas provides for me?

The hotels are incredibly quiet and I like to stay high enough that you can see the whole ways.

55:36

And then also, it is the only place I know in the country where you cannot leave your room for seven days at a time.

No one calls the cops and you can literally have anything you need.

That’s beautiful.

Becomes an incredibly valuable space.

55:59

I’ve gotten, I’ve actually got a lot of writing on them interesting.

I’ve always taken the opposite approach, but now you’ve got me intrigued.

Think you should go to Vegas.

I think I should go to Dubai the right.

Yeah, and I Workshop that draft for a while had a producer attached to it and I put a plan together.

56:17

I met these producers in Thailand called living films that have been making movies out there for over. 25 years.

Are they expats?

Are they are tie?

Yeah, 11 guys.

American one guy is German.

Okay, but they both have ties citizenship.

Okay, and they’re just plugged in and their heart was in the same place.

56:34

They like this movie.

They wanted to help us make it.

We knew there was an absolute maximum.

That anyone would spend on this movie that I wanted to make it and I was really fighting for particular caste, which meant that I could only spend so much on it.

Yeah, and that was it.

I met with life, 40 financiers, you know, I made hit and run for a million dollars, which now, I’ll tell anyone, but at the time that Before it came out and I was promoting it.

56:57

I was in this weird position where I actually didn’t want to say it costs a million dollars because I don’t want people to get their expectations low or think like, well, I’m gonna go spend $12 on a movie that caused a million dollars.

I had all these, you know, it’s all the ways to think, yourself out of just letting people receive it.

I’ve been doing my best to because this is already not what anybody’s going to be expecting from me, which is hard for me.

57:17

But, I’ve spent 30 years making movies and only in the last 10 years, the first category in my hyphenated.

Comedian, uh, hon.

A I don’t do stand-up and be, I don’t specialize in comedy.

So it’s a little frustrating.

57:32

But instead of me being like frustrated by that.

I just remember the audience.

Only knows what you tell them.

For the last 12 years.

I’ve been telling them Robot Chicken Family, Guy also side note, when you’re feeling healthy.

It’s like fuck man for people to have any association with you is like so lucky.

57:51

I definitely been there.

I’m like, I’m only the guy.

This guy is like well fuck dude, I would have Until 12 year old version of Dax, he’s that guy when he grows up.

He’s doing backflips for sure.

And I’m not and I’m gonna try to Poopoo anything else that we’re doing.

It’s just I imagine there will be a moment if anybody ever sees this movie just won’t be what they’re expecting.

58:09

Right?

I hope fun.

Hopefully it works well enough.

So it’s a drama ish.

I mean, it’s like sideways for comparison the huh.

It’s a guy who has prepaid a second honeymoon to Thailand for His failing marriage and on the eve of surprising his wife discovers.

58:30

She’s been having a year long Affair.

I’m so instead of confronting her.

He Scoops.

His old best friend to take the trip and figure out what to do.

Yeah.

I love that.

What things did you take very quickly to and what things were really hard about directing the feature for you.

58:47

You’re starring in it, right?

Yeah.

All of this movie me being able to guarantee the price point the schedule.

The result was Is all me hedging.

My bets with people.

I knew I could guarantee.

So, yeah, I cast people that I was certain about.

I tried to stack the deck in my favor.

59:02

And every way, I think acting in something that I’m directing.

I guess I just didn’t realize how much I do as an actor between cut and action, because we’d call cut, and I would be adjusting, everyone and everything and then we’d call Action and I hadn’t done any.

59:23

I just was thought of your own just Was not routed correctly.

And so I made a point of not calling action so that I could give myself that lack rolling moment of settling.

Yeah, but I found that that challenging for sure.

I had my DP who I gave very specific warnings to about, what to look for, in me, or what to be aware of like, bad habits.

59:45

Yeah.

Yes.

Stop like my eyebrow.

Okay guys, will like, you do too much brow acting.

Yeah.

Bracketing, the more still, you can be the better.

So I never have had this on a movie that I’ve made.

I think, because I’ve written those things, and I really knew them so inside and out, but Parenthood, which I directed that show and I didn’t write that show and as an actor, my job was harder on that show than it wasn’t anything I’ve written because I’m interpreting someone else’s language.

1:00:15

So there was a moment where I had done something as an actor in a scene in Parenthood that and as the episode I was directing and it sucked like, you know, we did it and then I watched it in the camera.

I had designed wasn’t working with this thing, right?

That’s the only time I’ve had this where I got super self-conscious like on set.

1:00:31

I’m both struggling as an actor in the scene.

And now I’m also struggling as the Director to figure out how to fix.

What is clearly a poorly designed shot and now people are star, well, maybe you should this, and maybe you should that and that, that was very spirally.

Like I’m like, I need to step over there.

1:00:48

Get my shit, find my comments and come back.

I need to First.

Make the decision about the acting and then I’ll make the decision about the directing.

But It was one little spiral.

I had where I got super self-conscious.

I had the benefit, you know, making Robot Chicken for so long and producing on the scope of shows that we have under the studio Banner.

1:01:08

I’ve gotten to be in the position.

Several times of having a room full of experts that we’ve hired on purpose start to all offer Solutions.

Yeah.

To Any Given problem and I came to realize because I watched so many We’re actors either do it, right or do it wrong that you need one voice?

1:01:30

Yeah, everyone will follow.

Yeah.

All any of these people want is to do the right thing.

Yeah, they are there because they’re good at a particular thing.

And if you give them a task, they will execute it.

But you have to maintain your vision.

Yeah, you have to be ready in that moment to say.

1:01:46

All right guys, this is what we’re doing.

It’s making sure that like you’re doing all the due diligence.

So you’re not making that choice out of ego.

I said everybody when we started This movie.

Look, guys.

I want the best solution.

Even if it’s not my idea, like I want at all times the best idea for us to be able to accomplish this goal.

1:02:06

The goal is always make our days stay on time.

Stay on budget, everybody enjoys themselves.

Nobody gets hurt.

Yeah, it’s not it’s not impossible.

I’ve made over 40 movies.

Yeah, it’s entirely possible to make a movie and have a good time.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I mean examiner speech to my people, which Was I’ve done this a couple times where it’s like, hey, this may be awesome.

1:02:29

It may fucking suck.

It may be a hit.

It may tank.

All that.

We know for certain is that we’re gonna spend the next three months together and that thing we have control over.

We can make this as fun as we want, or as shitty as we want that, that we actually have a say in.

We don’t have a say in any of the other stuff, make this best memory.

1:02:46

We all.

Can how far in advance did you know that Pena was going to carry you naked?

Because I have to tell you, I could not catch my fucking breath from the second.

He walked into the bathroom.

I was like, this is it was me?

1:03:02

Counting down to him?

Getting hit in the face with your dad.

Yeah.

It was sometimes it’s even more fun to know it’s coming.

Like a lot of times you want to bury what’s gonna happen, but sometimes it’s so fun and know that this little phobic guys, gonna get a dick in his face.

It was like watching hurt locker from the second he gets there and I’m naked on the floor, you know, these two are getting intimate.

1:03:25

How can you will admittedly say he is he’s from a little bit different culture than I’m from and that he was raised in a Latino household and it’s a there’s a little more machismo at least in his household.

And so he was there was very little acting for him to do in that scene and it was a late scene that I added in like, you know, while we were already rehearsing.

1:03:45

I’m like I sent them pages and I like emailed him, then I text him.

Hey man, just wrote a new scene.

You’re gonna hate it.

Let’s talk.

But when you’re directing, you have to remind yourself, I think and it’s actually what makes a movie great.

1:04:02

Is that the Deep he’s making his own movie?

The DP has an idea of what movie he’s making, and he’s making that movie.

Your co-stars are making a movie.

They think they’re acting in, right?

And your sound guy has everyone.

Everyone is making their own movie in their head and all these departments and it is imperative that you should be collaborative.

1:04:23

Everyone should feel like they’re It.

But ultimately, the biggest problem that many movie suffer from right, is tone.

So one seems like this one, seems broadly, comedic.

And the next thing is like, it’s all the way over here.

And that’s that’s that’s Seth Green’s job.

That’s the director.

Yeah.

1:04:38

That every scene, even if it’s swings in theme.

It has to be your tone.

Whatever your tone is to know your tone and execute your tone.

It’s really required for a movie to be cohesive when you agree.

I do it.

And to your point earlier.

1:04:54

It’s much easier.

It’s something that I’ve written cuz I know all of the details of it enough to make on the Fly decisions about what does or does not have to be there.

Yeah, and there were moments where they’re like, oh my God, we’re gonna get rained out.

We’re not going to get this thing and we’d have to say, okay.

Well, let’s pick up this thing tomorrow, that looks like this from across.

1:05:11

Here.

We can shoot this for that and that’ll still give me enough setup.

Cinematic geography to get us from here.

Yeah, that’s like knowing what you need in editing.

Yes, you the ability to make Susan’s on the Fly, meet me.

Yes, if your Christopher Nolan or your David Fincher, you do or your, or your Quentin Tarantino, you do have 120 days to shoot and you, you have the time to make sure that everything you planned is exactly on the day as you envisioned it.

1:05:42

But for almost everyone else you make a plan, you get there.

You realize holy shit.

No one realized.

The sun is over here in the sky.

At this time.

We can’t shoot in that direction anymore.

Fuck, I need to improve and to me that is Is the absolute joy of the job is that does it doesn’t matter how well you shot list your movie, or pre-plan, and shot list with your DP, you’re going to get there.

1:06:03

There’s going to be eleven things that go wrong throughout the day and it is basically like going to work and sitting out with a crossword puzzle.

It’s just all day, long solving micro problems.

Isn’t shot 13 days on boats.

Yeah, that alone fucking who has control over with a conditions of the ocean on that day.

1:06:20

Oh, yeah, and you feel like you executed the movie you had in your head, you’ve now finished.

That you’ve edited it.

You’ve tested it.

And you’ve now submitted it to film festivals.

Yeah, what’s the name of the movie?

Change land, change lamp?

Yeah, okay, which was really only meant to be a placeholder, but then it just became the title.

1:06:37

You are, you are happy with it.

I am, I mean, For Better or For Worse, it’s what I set out to make.

Yeah, that’s a huge win.

I, there’s all kinds of concessions that I made and things that look different, but there are whole sequences in the movie, that look exactly the way I dreamed them, which is kind of insane.

1:06:54

It’s almost Comfortable to show it to anybody because it’s not something that I can separate myself from.

It’s all very personal even though it’s not about anything that is personal to me.

Yeah, and it did it make you want to do that as much as you possibly can.

1:07:12

Now to direct I definitely like directing film.

I don’t imagine that I’ll do a lot of directing For Hire.

I think it’ll be something that I’ve been involved.

That you write again, or are you feeling all right?

Or something that I helped develop?

Yeah, so, um, I love acting you know, that’s that’s really my favorite thing.

1:07:30

And the thing I wish I could do more still.

Yeah, really?

Yeah, and that’s what’s funny.

Is the more I meet, like friends of mine.

I’ve had for a long time, most of them have sort of gotten less, and less interested in acting, and more interested in other things in their lives.

1:07:46

Yeah, most of the kids that I knew that we’re actors are far more interested in either directing or running their lifestyle Brands, when I’m certain Lifestyle brand.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s, that’s still my favorite thing.

And still, the thing that makes me feel the most like myself.

Like, I’ve said that a couple times that I’ve never felt more like myself than between action and cut.

1:08:03

Yeah, like, that’s really, when everything makes sense for me.

Well, I would imagine to, if you go back to your childhood and it was, there was a lot of uncertainty, and I think like, like me, you had very little say over your environment as a kid, right?

Yeah.

And then yeah, ultimately, it doesn’t matter.

1:08:20

If you’re four years old, when they yell action, you are in charge, like, It’s up to you to make all those decisions and you pretty much are in full control.

It’s funny in those moments, right?

Thought about it from that perspective.

It is a really wonderful moment of total control.

1:08:37

That’s interesting.

I can’t feel like there’s so many things out of my control when I’m performing just me.

I’m the only thing that I have control over in that moment, but that’s also kind of the Alchemy of it.

Is you get Make something real with somebody else.

That’s really my favorite.

I think I’m just good at playing pretend.

1:08:52

I had a lot of fantasies about what this career would be if I succeeded at it.

And I had told myself, you know, how money would make me feel.

I told myself how approval from strangers would make me feel those things failed fell dramatically short of my fantasy.

1:09:09

Yeah, the thing I never even thought about which is ultimately the single best part of this job is that I’m in most Surrounded by other people who left their town to come pursue.

This thing with their whole heart and they made it in their inspired, and they’re grateful.

1:09:26

And the actual community of people I’ve got to join, has been the thing that so dramatically exceeded my expectations and you are certainly at the total height of that list.

For me.

You have just always just brought me so much pleasure.

1:09:42

It was so fun to work with.

You is like the highlight of my acting career.

I don’t know.

We’ll all the time because we got to hear be our talk about falling in love with Sally Fields, Burt Reynolds.

That’s what he said was.

I’ll just watching that movie two people just saw us falling in love, on film.

And I always thought about that with without a paddle.

1:10:01

Whatever was like, you know, someone is like, I like that movie.

I said, well, you just watch the three of us falling head over heels for each other.

Absolutely.

So that movie that we were viscerally in love with, I’ll just do it was it was contagious.

I think if you’re in the audience so far, but that point I you are you Someone that I have deep gratitude for having met and you are the highlight of this job for me and all of our many wonderful friends we share in common.

1:10:28

Well, that’s, you know, how much I love you.

I think I’ve always been one of your biggest fan.

I think we’ve Kissed before, right?

We are definitely seeing Helena.

Never took is now yet.

Wait the chain.

Okay, you’re at your at your own, right?

The last thing I want to talk about before you go and I’ll try to, I’ll try to do it quickly.

1:10:45

If it can be done.

Good luck.

We’re in the makeup.

Up trailer on without a paddle and we’re kind of exchanging some of our more embarrassing moments in our teenage years and you start talking about an experience.

You had in my mind actually exploded out of my ears growing up in Michigan.

1:11:02

The two biggest commercials of all time, in Michigan growing up where where’s the beef campaign?

And then this cha-ching Campaign, which was a rallies hamburger commercial also called Checkers and checkers.

Yeah, depending on what country where you were at in the country and this kid would be behind the counter.

He be ringing.

Clapping go to hamburgers one, small fry, judging, and it was so popular that in Detroit, the Pistons at that time where the Champions and Dennis Rodman, was one of our big stars and he had cha-ching, shaved in the back of his head and he drove a jeep.

1:11:33

That had an airbrush to Ching.

You can’t imagine something more being more ubiquitous than the term should Chang, come to find out in the makeup trailer that you were the fucking kid in the church in commercial.

And when you said that and I looked at you, I want Went.

Oh my God.

1:11:48

That is you.

That’s where the Story begins.

Because as I recollect, you had shot this commercial.

You don’t live in Michigan or the Midwest.

So you never even saw this commercial air.

Did you learn?

You have no clue that fucking Dennis Rodman has shaved to Chang and his kind of thing and I knew it was popular for the company, but you have to understand like I that that’s a chain commercial, was the fourth commercial.

1:12:11

I did with this ad company, uh-huh.

Same director.

I had done like crush and I’m like anti-smoking thing.

Like she just worked with this guy all the time.

Yeah, and then this one commercial becomes popular and they said they want to make a second one.

1:12:27

And that was like when we realized on this thing is worth blown up.

We’re going to get to do another job.

And then rallies started bringing me to their like Flagship location in the biggest industrial like their training video.

1:12:44

Oh, okay.

You got really silly.

Yeah.

You were Soup To Nuts for the really good.

The biggest thing was they called me and I don’t think I was 18 and now they said that the New Orleans Saints.

Yeah, we’re playing in the wild-card playoffs against the Oakland Raiders at the Superdome and would I lead a cheer at Superdome and they would turn it into like a weekend.

1:13:12

I’d go visit like hospital.

They put you up at a nice hotel.

First-class airfare.

Yo, you don’t even know like my first day checking into that hotel in the French Quarter.

I’m at the desk and there’s like, complimentary jambalaya or something.

They’re getting my uncle, getting Mikey situated, and across the lobby.

1:13:31

I see Richard Simmons, and I said, I said, holy shit.

That’s Richard Simmons.

I’m so excited.

Yeah, and he’s looking at me and we’re 50 feet of you depart.

He is giving me the ugliest stink face like the, who the fuck is that really?

And I really Realized that he wasn’t happy and so I like got so super hot turned away and I go Richards.

1:13:55

Mad Dogging you and they said, well, the hotel gave you his sweet.

Oh, wow.

I didn’t know that part and I even said I don’t want it.

So, but even though you knew that the commercials were successful, you did not realize that all of the Midwest.

1:14:16

No, right.

Because, you know, they, they had you on a little bit of a dog and pony show.

The reason I know this in such detail is there is a video Because you were coming down to lead this chant the local news, did a piece, a little Slice of Life.

Peace on you and they followed you through New Orleans and you are, I think 16 or something.

1:14:35

Yeah, and you aren’t, it’s you’re in a trench coat phase.

Sure.

You had a trench coat on.

Yeah.

And you’re watching down Bourbon Street and super drunk humongous.

Middle-aged men are screaming at this little kid like right in your face.

1:14:51

Everywhere you go for armed, New Orleans.

Police officers.

I just imagine how surreal it would be to be 16 years old.

And to travel to New Orleans and everyone.

You’re seeing screaming cha-ching at you from commercial but also but also remember that they gave you the key to the city right at that, you know, I had, I was like work, I was a swell that’s regular on an ABC show.

1:15:21

That’s the best part is that the news decided it was Much better story that you were a nobody.

They said, struggling actor, Seth Green.

Yeah, but in your honest City Comedy is amazing anonymity as a result of it because the church anything was so uniquely popular.

1:15:37

Yeah, didn’t have any place in normal reality.

So that was entirely separate like my career is Seth.

Curry in the actor was entirely separate from the myth of the church in guy.

Yeah, and I got to speak this late.

Like I got to because I was so aware.

1:15:54

We’re of the false necessity of this.

Like it.

It ain’t a nationalization, like none of that was real.

That was all like this momentary pop sensation.

Yeah, that wasn’t even my legacy.

That was just this thing.

No one would even connect that to me.

They didn’t people were like, you think you’re going to give this acting thing a try.

1:16:12

It was like, I was on, Johnny Carson, five years ago.

That’s which, by the way.

Seth.

If you’re bored, please go down a Seth Green, YouTube rabbit.

It’s one of the best because you’ll discover this video about the New Orleans Saints.

1:16:27

And then also, you’ll see, Seth Green on Johnny Carson, wearing really tall Converse.

That is, when the Converse at were really tall were popular at my Bugle.

Boy, jeans passed above my half a pretty bad.

Yes, that you were had been a guest on Johnny Carson talk to him.

1:16:48

And then this local news anchor is like, Hey kid, you think you might stick with this?

Well, that’s what like I said it gave me.

Emotional plausible deniability, so I wasn’t really affected by the highs and lows of being the church in guy.

It’s right.

It’s just like another part I got to but but I’m not but I know you intimately and then also to watch this news story on you and to see that you again you’re doing a great job of navigating it at 16 years old because you’re, it’s such a bizarre scenario.

1:17:17

So they’re parading you around a city.

Like Mickey Mouse.

People are screaming at you and you’re getting keys to the city and clearly, you don’t love the Turn.

You don’t love your catchphrase to Chang yet.

When it’s fucking game time, you go out on the field and you went for it because you so much going on.

1:17:34

I quickly realized, as I turned to all of the New Orleans cheerleaders.

They were like, we’ll follow you.

And I was like, I have a fucking plan.

What are you talking about?

You on out there and he’s doing the splits Karate kicks.

Are you raving tripping over and over again?

1:17:53

Like a Nike?

Socata with Ching as my Battle Cry and 90,000 people are losing.

Their shit is if Miley Cyrus is performing, but there’s that goes over like seven or eight seconds and then everyone’s like, all right.

1:18:09

Oh my God saying but that’s so evolved to be 16 and on a show and to be like, I guess I’ll go with the pan out of play.

That role of History.

Yeah.

He was.

That’s what I’m saying is I would have been defensive when the guy treated me that way and I would have been telling them.

My ABC show.

1:18:25

This is the exact point I’m making is you somehow seem to have had this crazy Northstar.

Even from being young press, it is really impressive.

Thank ya.

Very few.

People can inhabit the, the shoes of the chain guy, such a plum and Grace would like, to be able to do this for the rest of my life.

1:18:42

And I’ve seen what it what it takes.

You know, last thing I think is really one of the best stories ever told me is that you went to the MTV Movie Awards One Time, by the way, please feel free to bring up any humility.

And story about me, but again, is one of my favorite parts of your personalities that you embrace all of your comedic.

1:19:02

Yeah.

Yeah, thanks, but you went one time to them TV movie awards and you wore a tuxedo shirt.

No, my remembering that.

Those two different things that I did.

Because I was trying because, you know, they, they were like be funny.

This thing, one of the times I got to go to the MTV Awards.

I was like to rock and roll thing.

1:19:18

I’ve seen people where rock and roll, should I wear some leather pants leather pants?

So the MTV Awards I saw the pictures of me with a lot.

It’s not, there’s no Playbook.

It’s so hard and you’re young.

What do you do?

And then the other time Q-tip.

1:19:33

And I so excited.

I’m on stage with fucking cute.

Yeah, and they fugitive from it Tribe Called Quest.

So they pitch this bit where I’ve got, like a full prosthetic, like sexy bouncy boobs.

Okay, and we’re introducing like what a fucking or somebody.

1:19:53

I can’t remember.

Who It was somebody with an ABS was like the whole thing was him with no shirt on in the video.

Yeah, and so they’re like, they wanted me in tip to be like, oh, this guy, he’s so ripped.

Oh, I’m not afraid to take my shirt off.

And then in the copy, its we both take our shirts off right away.

Tip is like, I’m not even fucking shut up, man.

1:20:10

Yeah, and I said I’ll do it, but it would be funny if I’ve got like Photo real boobs.

And then this is a joke and not just me taking my shirt off interested in doing on stage.

So they went down to Venice Beach.

And lickety-split got me one of those illusion shirts.

1:20:27

That looks like a muscle.

All right.

So I’ve got that on and on stage.

I like did this bit this quick change.

Pull this top off.

And it just bombed.

It just like, didn’t trying to be funny.

Oh, that is dangerous.

1:20:43

Yeah, the stakes are high Angelo.

That’s who it was.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

He did have an incredible body.

Yeah, but particularly, when you say his name immediately, the he had arrows.

He had the most pronounced arrows.

I think I had seen up until that point.

Yeah, he only drinks water and then runs wind Sprints 100 times a day.

1:21:01

Yeah, and it and it pays off well said, thank you for coming and being so honest and open and self-deprecating and lovely.

Thanks.

I’ll tell you.

That’s one of my favorite things about you and I think the reason we’ve been friends a long is that we’ve you have been exceedingly, often painfully honest.

1:21:17

And it’s an overshare.

Yeah.

No, not really.

It’s more like you’re very willing to Make certain that all humans are experiencing similar things and that’s incredibly compassionate.

Thank you.

You know, I kind of have the opinion.

1:21:33

I think this comes from being an AA for so long.

Is that I’ve heard people share triumphs a lot and I’ve heard people share failures a lot and I have always learned a lot more from people’s failures than their triumphs.

I don’t, I can’t relate to what’s his ass.

1:21:50

Winning the Tour de France, seven times in a row.

I have no relation to that.

I thought he lied and lived with a lie and perpetuated, a lie.

I can relate to that, that, you know I’m saying.

And now I’m deeply interested in that guy.

And now I actually feel like I have something to learn from him.

How does he navigate that?

1:22:06

That’s appealing to me.

And so, I think that’s why we both love Jay-Z so much.

Yeah, he’s probably our number one, right?

And if you’ve ever seen that documentary, I think it was called blogging.

What Fade to Black in to watch how that motherfucker write songs.

It is there’s I’ve never seen anything like it.

1:22:23

Yeah, he Ins to a fucking track like for 20 minutes and then walks into the booth and says those Rhymes that are so intricate.

The references are so deep.

Goddamn.

I tell you I sat next to him at the you know, the Met Ball.

1:22:39

Do know that thing.

Oh sure.

Okay.

So Kristen always gets invited.

I don’t ever get invited but three years in a row.

She got invited.

I said, I don’t want to go to that.

I don’t want to wear a tuxedo and then the fourth year.

She said, I think you’re going to want to go this year because let me tell you who’s at our table Beyonce and Jay-Z.

I’m like, I’m fucking there.

The whole three weeks leading up to it.

1:22:56

I am whipping up this fantasy.

I’m going to blow his mind.

He’s gonna like me so much.

I’m gonna be I’m gonna.

There isn’t a chance in hell that he and I aren’t going to be like he and Chris Martin.

We’re gonna be thick as thieves go to this.

Go to this dinner.

Kanye West is also at her table.

1:23:12

As is Sacha Baron Cohen, I’m ignoring those guys because I’m so hyper focused on Jay-Z.

Jay-Z.

I gave my A-game to for 25 minutes.

I promise you Seth, if we had both gone to the bathroom at the same time and bumped into each other at the scene.

He wouldn’t know you were sitting next night.

It was an absolute strikeout couldn’t.

1:23:28

I’ve had never had less of an impact in another human being.

Yeah, there was a point.

I know, I know a friend of mine is one of the partners in southern hospitality that restaurant that Justin Timberlake opened in or okay, and I got invited to the opening night, and I went there, and I was obviously, they’re way too early, because I was there early enough to get like whatever food I wanted.

1:23:54

Right, right.

I saw Jay come in the door and I it’s a small place.

So he walked from the front to the back where I was sitting.

Yeah, and I was like, oh my God, is this going to be the moment when I get to meet him and like say something cool and yeah, yeah.

1:24:09

Yeah.

I like to hear myself really like reasonable just thinking night like oh this, that’s what had off or whatever.

And he would on an Austin Powers t-shirt.

He never took his sunglasses off the back of the place.

As you know, all but did a spin on one foot and then walked straight the fuck up.

1:24:29

Like check to see if Justin was there.

Justin was not and he split and so that’s the closest.

I’ve got.

It.

Didn’t you feel a little bit better though?

That you guys both had arrived.

Too early.

Are you like?

Oh, this is that’s not good.

He left and never came out.

1:24:53

Is that Beyonce was in the third.

Austin Powers and solo, right?

Right.

I spent like five weeks with her, and she is incredibly approachable and super lovely, and nice.

And she actually was talking any of my shit.

One of the most talented people I’ve ever.

Oh my God, a fuck.

So one horn, a no on stage.

1:25:10

Yeah.

I got to say my favorite performance I’ve ever seen on TV was when she was on American Idol and episode and she sang One Plus One and I fucking had goosebumps from the second.

It’s and I was like the power of this human being is immeasurable.

It’s crazy what she can do.

1:25:26

That’s it.

That’s always an interesting thing, you know, shows like that really hit you as the audience on the side of cheering for people even if they’re not exceptional.

Yeah, and that is when you see someone like Beyonce perform, it sort of reminds you why really talented people.

1:25:47

Stay famous.

Everybody wants to do this.

Yeah, not everybody can do it.

Some people get the chance to do it and then there are some People that are born for it.

And again, this could I gotta wrap this up because you and I could probably use for 9 hours, but I have no, you just reminded me.

You and I witnessed A Moment Like This in real life while we were promoting Without a Paddle.

1:26:04

They sent us to Las Vegas for this thing called showest where they invite all the guys who own movie theaters, and then there’s about 3,000 people in this room and you sit up on this stage.

There’s all these tables and everyone that’s in a Paramount movie that year is there.

So, Seth, Matt and I are on this stage with Jim Carrey.

1:26:23

He’ll not wasn’t there, it was.

You me and Burt.

Oh, you’re right.

You’re right.

You’re right rice, but Jim Carrey’s are Meryl Streep’s there with Sky Commander.

It was a Sky.

Captain Manchurian Candidate Mean Girls.

Yeah, Tina Fey’s up their entire weird.

Definitely.

1:26:38

The least significant people on this stage, right?

We also got to be silly.

Were there with the legit luminary?

Yes.

We’re there.

A Burt Reynolds, which was great and we kind of set him up lovely.

So we did okay, but in general, I will say the audience would, it was probably day 5 of this show as thing.

1:26:53

So they Done, right.

They it was the worst one of the worst audiences I’ve ever addressed.

That Angelina Jolie was going to be here so they were not laughing at a fucking thing.

Right?

And people are making jokes and no one’s really Landing anything in, Jim Carey starts talking and he makes about ten jokes that fall completely flat.

1:27:12

And Seth, and I are both like, oh, wow, it’s not just us.

Look.

This is an impossible room and then he stands up on the table turns around Ben’s between his leg starts screaming in the microphone, you You will love me, you will and he basically summons the fucking lightning from the sky and said, fuck you guys.

1:27:34

I am more powerful than you and he got 3,000 people to do a 180 and they were cheering and screaming and laughing and we were both like wow.

Oh my god, Zeus just came into the room.

This guy has more human power than most humans ever to live.

1:27:52

It was really something to witness.

Wasn’t it as my yeah.

It wasn’t even particularly funny.

It was like the Robin Williams thing where it’s just like he said, fuck that you’re joining my train right now.

That’s that and it worked.

It is a crazy.

So you can’t resist me.

Yeah.

No, I got more power.

1:28:08

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was pretty awesome.

That was awesome.

Yeah.

I love you.

I love you back.

Thank you.

Seth.

Okay, come back again.

Okay.

All right.

We got more stories.

And really, I think we only got about, like, 5% of our stories out.

Your kids are old enough to go down.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure.

1:28:26

Stay tuned.

If you’d like to hear my good friend and producer, Monica, Padma and point out the many errors in the podcast.

You just heard.

Hi, welcome to the Seth Green fact-check.

Follow up with my lovely friend.

1:28:43

Monica.

Badman.

Hi.

How’d it go?

Pretty good.

There was not that much.

Yeah, mostly personal stuff, right?

Yeah.

I didn’t.

I got a little nervous.

I wasn’t going to be any sure.

There’s always there’s always something.

Yeah.

In Seth’s punked story.

1:28:59

You guys are talking about when you punked him.

Ashton kept saying he was going to stake Seth.

Uh-huh, and he Know what that meant.

Oh, I found out.

I mean, I think it’s kind of obvious, but I’ll go ahead and say, I spoke to a professional poker player.

Did you called called one or you?

1:29:17

Happy friends happened to be friends with 10.

So weird secret, you’ve been keeping.

I believe.

I’ve told the last four years you could have mentioned staking and gambling is when someone agrees to pay for the other person’s buy-ins and in return splits winnings with an agreed upon percentage.

1:29:35

Mmm.

All makes sense now.

Yeah, not too.

Seth in the moment in an already confusing moments.

Sure.

Yeah, that’s with bad lighting.

Not conducive to hooking up and dancing and people so then you were talking about bart, the bear.

1:29:54

Hmm.

On your movie.

Yeah.

That a paddle and you said he’s fourteen hundred pounds and he’s actually 1779 pounds.

Oh my gosh.

I’m so happy to hear.

You.

Say that.

Because soon as you said 1400 pounds on my, she’s gonna say he was 800 pounds.

1:30:11

Like half as much as he is in my memory.

That’s great. 1,700 pounds.

Uh-huh.

I’m going to add another fact that you won’t be able to substantiate, but the grizzly.

Bear is considered the biggest bear and that is based on mass.

So it’s the heaviest bear.

1:30:27

But the polar bear is taller.

And I do believe they have shot polar bears that are over 10 feet tall.

Really?

Yeah, why why’d they shoot him or?

Why are they over 10 feet?

Tall them?

Just because they’re really tall.

1:30:43

Well, because people are assholes and they used to, well, nothing killed specifically, because it was inordinately tall.

They did.

They just were on a.

I just remember, you know, if you’ve ever been in one of these Bass Pro Shops, they’re all over America.

They’re very fun to go into if you men into one.

1:30:58

I’m sure.

I have like, there’s a like inside, right?

Like an aquarium Lake and there’s bass and all this stuff you’d find in a Like and then in the bathrooms, they have all kinds of weird pictures of Trophy Hunters in the records.

I was at a urinal in one and there was a photograph of a boar in Russia.

1:31:17

That was 1800 pounds.

So I had no idea.

They got that big.

And then I I think there’s also, you know, there is like statues of the polar bears, the big ones that they’ve shot or photographs at any rate.

Somehow.

I know that there are over 10 feet tall, but they’re taller than Grizzlies but not as heavy.

1:31:34

The you said that the Sweets at they put you up at the Four Seasons in Toronto or 2000.

So that’s a huge exaggeration.

I can already feel well, so I called.

Oh my god, really turn over all the Rocks.

1:31:50

Yeah.

I’m good student.

I called and so the largest rooms at the Four Seasons.

Toronto are 3,800 square feet.

Oh my goodness.

There’s a pattern emerge, I know.

But I don’t know that your And the largest room in the Four Seasons, we do know.

1:32:09

We also don’t even know if that hotel is the same configuration as it did in 2004, right?

That’s wouldn’t ask that known years ago, they made of.

But that’s amazing 3,800 square feet.

That is a very well-appointed home.

Yeah, that’s a large living space.

1:32:25

Yes, that’s a mcmansion and it’s presumably just one floor.

There’s no way.

It’s two floors could have stairs.

Let’s hope.

I once went to A hotel room that had like a, you know, budget budget in or whatever that that, you know, that that’s a rental car chain.

1:32:45

Oh, that’s yeah, that’s not budget in.

No.

No, there there probably is a budget and I think there is and I think I went to one, and I think it would either is, or he’s this possibly be true that a budget and has a two-story Room, 39 bucks a night with my dad.

1:33:06

Okay, so Seth joked that he has, the standing heart rate of a hummingbird.

Mmm.

And the average lest anyone be concerned, right?

I don’t, you know, he was joking, it was clear, but I just wanted to, you know, give some facts on that.

1:33:21

The average heart rate of a hummingbird during flight is 1200 beats per minute.

Holy smokes.

When resting heart rate.

Reaches, 250 beats per minute in an average human resting.

Heart rate is 60 to Beats per minute.

1:33:36

Mmm.

I forget the number but you remember, when you and I were listening to the Sam Harris episode on scaling and they said with the exception of humans.

There is a pretty consistent amount of Lifetime heartbeats across the spectrum of of mammals or animals.

1:33:53

So I if there’s a limited amount of heartbeats, the last thing I’d want is a 1200 beats per minute.

Heart rate is your waist will be in through time, right?

Yeah.

It was that same Harris or Radiolab.

It was Sam Harris.

It was the guy on scaling, remember how he had he had modeled every animal, and he found that you can scale up from the smallest, insect up to humans, and then onwards to cities that the pattern still emerges.

1:34:20

I remember you were telling me about it.

I don’t think I listen to that one.

And for some reason in my head, it’s Radiolab.

No, no, okay.

And then you said that a, The Italian Job was a hundred million dollar movie.

Mmm?

And the time job, cos 60 million dollars to make an urn 176.

Point 1 million worldwide.

1:34:38

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what’s interesting about the Italian job is that it on its first domestic run, it didn’t make it to 100, it just shy of 100 and then they weirdly which they never do.

They re-released it like six months later for a couple weekends and then it crossed 100 million domestically so interesting that weird.

1:34:59

Yeah, you mentioned a podcast that we both listen to where the guest says.

It’s Easier to act your way, into changing your thinking, than think, your way into changing your actions, and I just wanted to say that, that is from the Sam Harris podcast as predicted and it’s episode, 110 called the change artist.

1:35:19

The guest on that episode is AJ Jacobs.

You said a lot of stuff about him.

That was kind of wrong.

Sure, kind of right kind of wrong, huh?

He’s a writer and journalist.

I agree to do this.

It’s okay.

It’s good, you need to.

1:35:34

Yeah, especially the way I talk.

Very irresponsible.

He’s the author of several New York Times.

Bestsellers editor-at-large for Esquire magazine.

Mmm, and he contributes to NPR and has written for the New York Times, The Washington Post and other journals.

1:35:50

And so when he lived biblically, which he did, it was for a year.

Oh, just you, I think I said two years.

You said three?

Okay, 300% office, huh?

That’s pretty close in the other experiment that you referenced when he got really healthy, but she did do that.

1:36:11

That was supposed to take a year, but it took him two years because he was so out of shape.

So it took him a year just to get to base.

I guess so and he did a lot.

He it’s an interesting podcast.

He did a lot of stuff.

It’s worth checking out.

Yeah.

It’s so you guys were both trying to remember a book about psychedelics by Terence McKenna.

1:36:29

Yeah.

Yeah.

What’s that?

You wrote a lot of books.

I’m not really Uh, sure.

Which one you guys are referring to but is it psilocybin?

No mushroom Growers guide.

No.

Okay.

Is it food of the Gods?

The search for the original tree of knowledge?

No.

Oh, boy.

1:36:45

Okay, is it true hallucinations?

No, these are all in very intoxicating.

Titles figuratively.

And literally the archaic revival.

Whoo, that that’s feels like this is the book.

I had or sacred mushrooms.

Now our cat, I think it was archaic.

1:37:02

Revival, okay.

Well, he was written a lot of books.

Yeah, he’s really dedicated himself to the psilocybin.

Mushroom.

Yeah, there is a great Vice has a, I don’t actually know where this lives.

I saw it on an airplane on a vice Channel.

I guess they have their own channel, but one of their programs is called like pharmacology or something like that.

1:37:21

And these in the host of the show is more lab nerd than he is.

Like fish or deadhead person, right, but he likes drugs and he he goes and investigates and he Went down to Mexico in search of psilocybin.

And there’s three different ones down there, and he turns the Quarry, find someone to take them up this hill and then they enter This Barn and there’s just hundreds of thousands of these cells.

1:37:48

I’ve and their fucking huge.

Some of them are gigantic and as a kid when I did mushrooms in there are teeny.

Oh, really?

Yeah, and I just looked at some of these are like the size of a small pizza and I thought who talked a lot motherfucker, you know, I’ve never done any of these.

Drugs, right?

1:38:04

So and I keep trying to get you to do them.

Yeah, you peer pressure me.

But yeah, I’m stoned.

Well, first of all, I take that as a compliment because you’re 30 and I’m 43.

So just by you calling me your peer.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, I don’t really mean it that way but you can take it that way.

1:38:22

Do you eat the whole mushroom?

And does it look like a normal?

Mushroom?

No.

Well, you know, I’ve never eaten the kind that you eat fresh that girl off of cowshit, which he He then goes to Florida by the way in gathers those, I’ve eaten, the ones that are freeze-dried and they’re, you know, they’re all wrinkled up and freeze dried.

1:38:41

And they are very colorful.

Like the stems have like cobalt blue in them.

They’re beautiful.

Yeah, and you eat the stems and the cap, they’re usually all broken up in the bag because they’ve been freeze dry.

And if you want, you can make a tea out of them.

You can put some stems in caps and hot mug of water.

1:38:58

And then when you do it that way, it hits you very quickly.

Much much faster than when you Them, usually we need them.

It’s as I recall.

It’s like, 40 minutes before it has been absorbed in your stomach.

Do you think the blue area is the most potent?

1:39:14

I mean, I think that without any proof.

It doesn’t seem like that.

That, that is the psilocybin.

But I don’t really know why that part is blue.

They might not even be blue before their freeze-dried.

I don’t know.

Uh-huh, but they were, there were there pretty crazy looking in Mexico, where he found them.

1:39:31

Yeah.

It’s neat.

Road, I recommend it.

Lastly, you were talking about how you relate to human stories, and how you’ve learned from people’s failures, more than their triumphs.

And then in doing, so, you refer to quote, what’s his ass winning?

1:39:48

The Tour de France, and I think we all know, it’s Lance Armstrong, but I just wanted to clear that up.

Thank you just in case.

Yeah, although liability wise, it was probably smarter to just keep it.

You know, know he did win the Tour.

De France.

Well, that’s true.

1:40:04

So then I go on to say cheated right?

Whatever.

It’s all out there before he ever admitted to it and I had friends who were big fans of his in the way.

They would passionately explained to me that he was not doping.

He’s been, he’s been checked every time it just ignoring the fact that there’s no way a human can win that race.

1:40:22

Seven times.

It’s the confirmation bias thing.

It’s like, you can ignore the most obvious fucking thing, like No One’s Gonna Win that race.

A seven times in a row it’s so grueling I guess so.

But people want to believe.

Yeah, they do this in spite of very on the surface logic.

1:40:44

You know, that’s his that’s a that’s a that’s a Superhero.

Level accomplishment.

Seven Tour de France.

Well, thank you Monica enjoyed that.

Did you enjoy listening to Seth Green?

Yeah, isn’t he the sweetest motherfucker?

Yeah.

All right.

Good night.