Jonah Hill

Jonah Hill is a film actor, writer, and filmmaker. He broke out in comedy with Superbad in 2007, before earning critical acclaim in dramatic roles in Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street. He transitioned into filmmaking with his directorial debut Mid90s, a raw and culturally resonant coming-of-age story that established his distinct, emotionally honest voice. Expanding across mediums, he has directed music videos, commercial campaigns, and television, while producing and developing projects through Strong Baby Productions, including the Netflix documentary Stutz. Now a multidisciplinary filmmaker, he continues to shape character-driven stories—most recently directing Outcome, scheduled for release on April 10, 2026. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: AG1 https://DrinkAG1.com/tetra ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://DrinkLMNT.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Squarespace https://Squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Lectio 365 https://Lectio365.com ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Tetragrammatin.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. They couldn't be more different to me.

• 0:28Rick Rubin?

  Describe the difference.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  I was in Django Unchained, I was in like one scene. So, I felt it was you were like a paint color in his painting. And like, you are red, come in and be red in this corner of the painting. And as an actor, which is why I don't act a ton, that is not what I do. I am like, you're this person, go. And let's see what happens. And Marty is like, when I say, one of the most I've ever learned from Marty is he's my hero and lucky to get to ask him questions, like I get to ask you questions, etc. He creates this space where the plumbing is so intact, where the infrastructure is so intact, that when you walk onto the stage, you can do anything.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  And it is supporting what the actor wants to do. And will creatively, if they want to take it to a place, is still with it. He will guide you within the movie itself. So, I've never felt such freedom and then sort of like just rigidity. But, I love Quentin Tarantino's movies as much as I love Marty's movies. There's nothing to do with the work itself. Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I thought, it's one of the greatest movies I've ever seen in my life.

• 1:42Rick Rubin?

  Same here.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  I think it is one of the most exquisite and credible movies. I think Leo's performance is unrivaled and that he was so brilliant. I just think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a complete masterpiece. It's just, what I found was the process was different.

• 1:58Rick Rubin?

  That's the last movie I saw in a theater.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, at the time, I called it the last movie.

• 2:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Because it felt at that time like all movies were going away and that was like, you know, had real movie stars and a real director that you went to go see their movie because they're the director.

• 2:13Rick Rubin?

  What's Judd like as a director?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Abbotow?

• 2:15Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  He's awesome. I mean, God, I haven't worked with Judd in so long, but we're very close as as friends and he put me on. I mean, dude, he put me in Superbad, like, end of story. Him and Seth Nevin, I O forever. They they put me in the movie Superbad, which like, completely launched.

• 2:34Rick Rubin?

  And how did that happen?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  I was younger, very improvisational, very open, very much wanting to mine your experiences in life for the piece itself and like, is just an awesome guy. He's taught myself and a lot of other people how to make these kind of comedy movies and I'm forever grateful for that. I went to like the Harvard on steroids of making comedy movies when I was nineteen, you know?

• 3:00Rick Rubin?

  Would you say you've learned from all of the experiences as an actor on what to do as a director?

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you learn a tremendous amount, most of all on how to talk to actors. But really in directing, you're you're running a company, you know, it's just running a mini company that dissolves after a year. So the biggest thing is like as producers, like at Strong Baby, we I'm always like, I was in the hotel business for fifteen years and I opened my own hotel. I know how to make the sheets nice. I know how people should be treated. I know how the food should be like, you know, if I'm asking like, you know, Scorsese to come for a few days, I'm like, you're gonna get treated nice. The set's gonna run smoothly. Your time won't be wasted. You'll be respected, you know, like it's a first class experience. And I I believe a lot of the things I was bummed on was productions themselves. And we really work hard to make our productions great.

• 3:53Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about working with the Coen Brothers.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Very much like Quentin. I would put them in that category of like you are the color red in this painting.

• 4:02Rick Rubin?

  It's like Alfred Hitchcock as well.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Kubrick, super exacting, super like they have the painting in their head and they're fucking brilliant. They made Bobowski full stop. We never have to say anything ever again. They are and and fun hangs and funny guys.

• 4:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  But I didn't find myself adding a ton. Like I wasn't like I would they were just like, please sit right here, say this, et cetera.

• 4:24Rick Rubin?

  Well, I think this goes to you saying. You see yourself primarily as a writer, not as an actor.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and even as an actor, which I do see myself as an actor too. My foundation of acting is writing.

• 4:38Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Whether I'm saying new words or not.

• 4:41Rick Rubin?

  What was Todd Phillips like?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 4:44Rick Rubin?

  How would you describe that experience?

• 4:46Speaker 01

  I would say a mix of the two. Very exacting and very open to improvisation. And I, I look back on that experience. I was in a way different place in life.

• 4:57Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  It was a hectic shoot, it was a hard shoot. But Todd's a very, very brilliant director. There's no surprise that he's had so much ginormous success. And he's made some of the best comedies ever. Old School is, is to me, his like crown jewel. I think Old School would go up with any classic Bill Murray, like, you know, that era, any Borat, whatever your thing is. Old School is the only movie to this day I've ever seen in the theaters, walked out in New York City when I was 18, walked out and then walked back in and saw it again.

• 5:30Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  The only movie to this day. I said, I gotta see that again right now.

• 5:36Rick Rubin?

  I read that you watch movies over and over often.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Often, and, and I'll go back to Todd for one sec. He was a very interesting character in movies because he'll like, he's such a punk. You know, his first movie is about Gigi Allen. It's one of the best docs ever. And you could see even Joker 2 is so punk. It's almost like he wanted to be like, burn it down to have to rebuild it or something. He made Joker and it was this crazy success with Joaquin and they did such a great job. And then it's like, the other one was almost like a middle finger in a sense to it all. And then now he's gonna like, like, I just can't wait to see what he does next.

• 6:09Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  You know, I'm actually interested to see what that dude does next.

• 6:12Rick Rubin?

  And Gus Van Zandt.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Unbelievable. Just with, with Gus the other day, I did my first magazine interview, but it was for Interview.

• 6:20Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  And Scorsese interviewed me for Interview. So Gus was kind enough to shoot the photos.

• 6:24Rick Rubin?

  Oh, great.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  And we've remained very close. We're producing a movie that he's directing, it's Strong Baby, which is an incredible movie. On my DGA certificate, you need three people to sign. And mine were Spike Jones, Bennett Miller, and Gus Van Zandt.

• 6:38Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  And so Gus is very near and dear to my heart. And he acts in my next movie, Cut Off.

• 6:43Rick Rubin?

  Oh, cool. How would you describe his strengths as a director?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  No idea.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  It is the most mysterious. I cannot tell you that anyone who works with him adores him. It's like, I have no idea. He's a man of such few words. It's such a hard thing to get him to say almost anything. It's just vibe and magic and it's almost like quietness in his energy till it becomes something. I have no idea how to describe what Gus Van Zant's directing skill is, but I will tell you that is probably the best performance I've ever given in a movie, in my opinion. And no one saw it and he is brilliant.

• 7:24Rick Rubin?

  Would you say stylistically, he's different than everybody else?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  He, I don't know what he does.

• 7:30Rick Rubin?

  And you worked with him and you don't know what he does?

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Yes, he doesn't talk that much.

• 7:33Rick Rubin?

  Did that give you a sense of freedom? Or did it make you self-conscious in that, I don't know what's happening?

• 7:41Speaker 01

  You feel safe because it's Gus Van Zant. That's the way I'd put it. If he wasn't Gus Van Zant, I'm sure me and Joaquin would have been freaking out. And we would joke, we're like, oh, cool. Gus had like nothing to say today.

• 7:54Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  You know, and then he'd be like, we'd make fun of him and he'd be like, oh, that's very funny. You know, like.

• 7:58Rick Rubin?

  So maybe for a whole day, he might not say much.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Walk in, hey Jonah, how are you? Good Gus, how are you? Good, good. Okay, action, do the take, do the scene, walk up to him, Joaquin wheels up to him in the wheelchair. Go again, go get one, go again, that's good. Almost like nut, like you're like that. And then there's a great director I worked with, Bennett Miller, who's a genius, who did Moneyball. And his style is almost confusion till something great happens. He sometimes confused the shit out of me where he's so smart and he's, I don't really follow what he's talking about a lot of the time. And then somehow he would confuse you into some master.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  He's a chess player, so I feel like he had everything chested out and it was more like chess to him.

• 8:48Rick Rubin?

  How much do you know about the backstory of the making of the movie Moneyball?

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 8:55Rick Rubin?

  Okay, so it was a book, Michael Lewis's book, bestseller. And it's a nonfiction book. And if you read the book, it wasn't obvious how to make a movie out of that.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  My dad didn't believe me. Because he loved the book and he's like, what do you mean? Like, what are you gonna do?

• 9:13Rick Rubin?

  It doesn't seem like you could make that a movie.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  I don't know how they did. I was there for it and it was amazing to watch. I didn't mean to tell you how they did, but Bennett's a, you know, there's no one out there that doesn't know that Bennett's not a true genius. He's so brilliant and what he did with that movie is amazing. And how he utilized two great writers and Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zalian and kind of used their, you know, collaged their work. And the work I did with Brad and Brad and I did so much fun hanging in time with Bennett to talk about this stuff. And Brad was so his vision and I think he has a real authorship over that movie too. He deserves one.

• 9:50Rick Rubin?

  How'd you get into surfing?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Friends, different friends, Mike D., Spike, very influential in me doing TM. Mike D.'s like an uncle, he's like Uncle Mike, you know? He's like Uncle Mike to my kids. He, he really got me into surfing and TM. So those are the two, two biggest.

• 10:06Rick Rubin?

  Two good ones.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Two, that year writing the Beastie Boys movie. Oh, so I was writing the Beastie Boys movie with Adam and Mike and I produced the Beastie Boys doc that Spike directed. So I was working on that. So we spent a whole year together and he finally convinced me to go surfing. And once I started surfing, he was like, you really need to do TM. And both have, in the past seven years, have made a massive difference in my life. No social media for the past four or five years and really limited internet. Really, really limited internet.

• 10:37Rick Rubin?

  How's that changed you?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  I'd say it's the biggest change that I've had. I cringe when I think about when I was on social media as far as like what I posted and the amount of gratification I wanted. It's kind of what the movie outcomes about in a large way. We all do it. We all want people to love us and like us and whatever. And I cringe as an almost middle-aged man, I was posting like fit pics of myself, like in outfits or whatever for validation. And, you know, I'm not wrapped up in the constant. I don't see 20 bajillion images a day, good or bad. I don't see the hate or love. I don't see the millions of opinions a day.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  I get to think about what my opinions are. So much of the bad parts of creativity are when you're trying to keep up with the Joneses. And when I left social media, I stopped thinking outcome isn't a movie where you're like, what are they doing? I should be doing outcome. Outcome is what you make when you're, you just think, what should I be making?

• 11:42Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  And so it freed me really creatively to like, just be with my family, my thoughts, and just kind of like, what am I about? What am I into? You know, not what is culture into at this moment and what should I be doing? And what should people think of me? And what should I think of myself? I just meet people and I have no idea what their social media presence is like. So I just know what they're like based on us talking.

• 12:19Rick Rubin?

  Seems more real.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  I, I think it's the healthiest thing you could do, but I also have a lot of empathy that a lot of people for their jobs have to use it. And if I had it and had to use it, I would be naughty sometimes and I'd get caught in that a lot, like a lot of people do. And so the movie is largely about, what would happen if we just focused on our interactions?

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Like what would happen if we just, your day starts at eight AM or seven AM? And then you go to bed at nine, at nine PM? What do you do? Did you pick up the phone and call? The person you should call, the older guy that you should call, that's like a, like a father to you? Or did you just doom scroll? I used to have a list of like positive actions. At my time where I was trying to change my mindset the most, I had two whiteboards in my kitchen. One said gratitude list, it was 10 things and one was positive actions. So one positive action could be calling mom.

• 13:21Rick Rubin?

  This is like seven years ago?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was like around that time. It was great to see it. It was great to see that I had done 10 nice things for other people. By the end of the day.

• 13:31Rick Rubin?

  Where did you get the idea to do that?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Well, Studs talks a lot about Grateful Flow. So Gratitude, Grateful Flow is a mini in-your-head tool that it does a gratitude list. The gratitude list and that were, it was an idea I had. No one told me to do it. I just, you know. A lot of people I know make gratitude lists. But the Positive Actions one really helped because, you know, so much of the problem with like not moving forward in life is beating yourself up or like the negative thoughts you have. And I'm really good about catching them now, probably from like seven years of tools.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  And knowing that they don't serve me, they hurt me and everyone around me if I'm beating myself up. So catching the negative thought, fucking changing the channel, and going to get on your feet and do something for somebody else. And kids are the best because what makes you feel better than wiping your kid's ass? I mean, I, I know that sounds crazy, but I feel like I'm a good person. He'd have poop in his butt if I didn't take it out. Like, you know, like talk about a person who needs your help, you know? Or taking him to Skyzone, watching him laugh and be like, this is like, I'm getting to do shit for him that makes his life better.

• 14:52Rick Rubin?

  When you go with him to Skyzone, do you jump on the trampolines as well?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. I love Skyzone. Don's a nice friend from elementary school, invented Skyzone. Shout out Jeff Platt. Isn't that crazy?

• 15:04Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 15:13Speaker 03

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• 17:26Rick Rubin?

  Do you have brothers and sisters?

• 17:29Speaker 01

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

• 17:53Rick Rubin?

  Older brother.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Older brother, Jordan, yeah. And so like to me, I have those moments and I, and I think about him and I talk to him and I go like, how cool is this man? We're going to sit with Rick Rubin right now. And then he has two kids, Josh and Charlie, who I kind of helped raise after. And that was also the biggest moment in the change of my life. I really, I didn't actually bring that up, but it's like, I was a lot more responsible for them. So I had to get my act together.

• 18:19Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  And they are now 18 and 16 and I've like helped them become men, you know? And I'm so proud of them. I love these guys. And he lives on through them. And they're amazing boys.

• 18:32Rick Rubin?

  Do you feel like he lives on through them or through you?

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Them. Think he was most proud of them and I think he, sorry.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  I think he, I think he's so proud of them.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think he's very proud of his kids. They're fucking awesome kids, you know? They're something to be proud of.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  And Matt and I grew up together and we're like brothers, you know? He's my, Matt's my brother.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  And Uncle Mike's my good brother and Spike and all those guys, they've all, I'm embarrassed.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  I have a lot of brothers. And then my little sister Beanie is um just so fucking awesome. Our relationship has changed so much, you know? She's a very strong person and has kind of always been the boss. She was 16 years younger than my brother and 10 years younger than me. So she's always been like our boss. And then she's, you know, married with an incredible wife and and um has her own booming career that has, you know, had nothing to do with mine, just her own talent and like we've had to go through all the things that siblings go through and the differences of opinions and little fights here and there.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  But where we've landed is a place where like we can totally be ourselves and be there for each other. And it's like, I urge siblings to do that.

• 20:04Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 20:05Speaker 01

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

• 20:27Rick Rubin?

  I'm going to read to you a quote from the new movie.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 20:31Rick Rubin?

  Not everything is one thing. I mean, everything in this conversation. Just because the cameras are rolling doesn't mean it's not real. Just because it's performative doesn't mean it's not the truth. Tell me about that.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  I love you, Rick. And you see the things I want you to see. So Reeve's mom, played by Susan Lucci brilliantly in the film. Shout out to Ellen Lewis, our casting director. She's a brilliant, maybe the greatest of all time. Cast Goodfellas, et cetera.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  She had the idea to cast Susan Lucci, which was an astonishing choice and Susan was brilliant. So Reeve's mom, Keanu's mom, he has to go make an amends to, but she will only receive the amends on camera during an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which she is a cast member on.

• 21:25Rick Rubin?

  He has to appear on a reality show to make amends to his mom.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  And you don't realize if he starts his amends and then you, she asks him to take that again, meaning say that again, because the label of her drink wasn't facing camera and she's got to get her beak wet with her sponsorships. So yeah, this is probably the most heady scene and concept, but one I love the most in the movie, which is things can be many different things, right? You know, the scene is long and goes many different directions in a way that I'm really proud of and her, her and Keanu's performance both are brilliant. Keanu gives such a quiet, beautiful performance in that scene, but he didn't respect her choice to be on that show and views her as lower. She won't even accept his amends unless it's monetized.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  She used his fame for her own benefit. And then she goes on to remind him how she left her marriage and her husband at 19.

• 22:21Rick Rubin?

  For him.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  For his dream.

• 22:24Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  And moved out to LA, stayed at the Oakwood Apartments and 19 years old, no supportive family, left her husband, which ended up ending their relationship. Also, he could live his dream because he was obsessed with it. He would not just ask for it, not just begging for it, but she says tantrums, days long tantrums. And you can imagine what this 19 year old woman was going through with this five year old who was relentless.

• 22:53Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  And she says that quote and he goes, what are apologies? Are they for you? Are they for me? Like who are they for? What are they for? And I just think it's such an awesome thing because we so quickly want to say things are good and bad. Are they real or they're not? Are they whatever? But they're a lot of shit. And there's good and bad to both, and there's lies and truths to both. And there's falseness and genuineness in both. I could say this to you and want to monetize it, but I could still mean it. I could say something in the most private intimate setting and not mean it. Yeah, I love that scene. I love that scene. I think it's probably the most important scene in the movie.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  And it taught me a lot through writing it.

• 23:44Rick Rubin?

  It really messes with your perception because our first instinct is this is the most shallow thing we've ever seen. And then she says something like that, and it's profound.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  I'm so happy you felt that way. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's just sick.

• 24:03Rick Rubin?

  That's a real rug pull out moment for the audience.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  The last thing I know, if you're expecting from Susan Lucci playing a Real Housewives mom is like depth.

• 24:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, it all makes sense. It's amazing.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  You know, it's a funny, a funny person in my life. A great person in my life is Ari Emanuel.

• 24:23Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  I've worked with him in different capacities. He's my agent. And I've been surprised at how people view Ari. Because there have been many times in my life where the most profound thing I had heard like all year in a deep, deep emotional level have come from him.

• 24:40Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  You know, a guy who's pegged as, you know, in a superficial industry, the most superficial job in the most superficial industry, and just cares about deals and this and business. Some of the most insanely profound life advice in really heavy moments have come from him. And so I think he's a big inspiration in this movie in that within Hollywood and all of its falseness and all of its this and it's that, there is real depth and real people that populate it as well.

• 25:08Rick Rubin?

  The film is a parody about Hollywood and fame. Would you say it's wildly amplified from reality? Or is it closer to reality than we might know?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Not at all. I don't think it is farther than you think. I think it is.

• 25:26Rick Rubin?

  It's not amplified.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  I think it honestly, there are things that are real that are way too broad to fit in the movie. That would feel too broad to fit in the movie. And even some of the stuff I put in feels too broad to people.

• 25:37Rick Rubin?

  So as outrageous as the movie is, it's representative.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 25:45Rick Rubin?

  Can you think of any example in your life of something that happened where you just couldn't believe it happened because it was just so outrageous?

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:54Rick Rubin?

  Is there one you're comfortable sharing?

• 25:56Speaker 01

  College dropout came out before I was famous, okay? Before I was like in movies and shit. I probably was the biggest Kanye fan is, was, whatever you want to say of his art of anyone in the world. If you want to talk about surreal, Kanye West went on a Jew-hating tour and then Instagram that I'm the reason he actually loves Jews. If you want to say something is too big to be real, that is an example of it. Like, it's from outer space. The whole thing is completely from outer space.

• 26:28Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  But now that I get to live a true quote-unquote "normal" life, like I really get to live a normal-ass life, I am so grateful for. It used to be like, how crazy are all these outlandish things that are happening when you're in your twenties and stuff and all this stuff with movies and stuff happens? And now I live like, I don't live in a mansion when I'm not shooting. The whole job is writing and editing, which is I can walk from my, my house, from breakfast with my family, drop my son off at preschool is next to my office, I go to my office, I edit or write for nine to five, come home, walk on the beach with the fam, eat some dinner,

• 27:13Speaker 01

  get the bath ready, wipe the butts, eat some high-chew strawberry-flavored candy, which I shouldn't have, and then hit the sack, start it over the next day, 6 a.m. with Blippi and Baba, you know? And I'm like, how blessed am I? I just feel blessed that I get to have a family. I feel blessed that I get to feel that kind of love. I feel so blessed to be a dad. I feel so blessed that...

• 27:42Speaker 01

  As a person foremost, but as a comedian second, or a comedic voice, let's say, as a writer second, I get to go from being Bart to Homer.

• 27:49Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  You know, and so I'm really excited for this new era of my work as I am with my life.

• 27:55Rick Rubin?

  Did you always want to be a dad?

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just didn't know if I'd be able to do it. The movie Stutz, the personal part from my end of Stutz, when the movie had to become personal for me, was my fear of not being able to pull off having kids or family, or if I was always going to be too like working or in my own shit to do it.

• 28:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  And I think by the time we were mixing it or locked it, we were pregnant.

• 28:22Rick Rubin?

  Congratulations.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Thanks, dude. Yeah.

• 28:24Rick Rubin?

  It's beautiful. It's almost like the film had to be an art project that got you to the place that you really wanted to be.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  I mean, I think about that a lot, obviously. A lot of artists will say the same thing. Clearly, my medium is movies, though Shirley Stutz in mid 90s came from a very personal place. More so, you know, Outcome and Cut Off, all my movies will be personal, but abstractly, those two were personal.

• 28:51Rick Rubin?

  Do you talk about going to your writing room for the day? Can either writing or editing?

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Uh huh, my office, yeah.

• 28:57Rick Rubin?

  Describe what that process looks like. Are you by yourself or are you with somebody?

• 29:02Speaker 01

  It changes from movie to movie, you know, so it's not always the same. But like right now, I'm editing Cut Off, right? So I'm on, in my office by myself, on a system called Evercast, which is awesome, which is like a better Zoom for editing movies where we all can control things. And my editor is at Warner Brothers. Her team has a whole office there working on the stuff that we give the team to do, while me, her, and our producer Amanda Adelson, and my assistant Kat Aguilar are all on Evercast. But I love that place. That's my Shangri-La, but it's just one little room.

• 29:39Rick Rubin?

  When you're not editing but writing, let's say it's the beginning of a project, what does that look like?

• 29:45Speaker 01

  The beginning of a project, it's falling in love. You have these ideas, you have millions of ideas. Everything for me originally, when it's just me, is run out of my notes section. So ideas, like let's say for Cut Off. The original idea there was I had worked with Jennifer Lawrence on Don't Look Up. And I was like, Jen and I are so funny together. And more so Jen is so more funny than I've ever seen her be in a movie. I want to make a movie where we both get to kill equally hard. But it's not like a romantic movie. So the way I thought to do that would be like brother and sister. So I thought of us as siblings, then twins, then rich, obnoxious twins that get cut off in their mid 40s and have to go to the valley with $0 per year

• 30:31Speaker 01

  and have no idea how to tie their shoes. It's something that inspires you, then the story can come from there. It's not really, it's like the players, the artists, or the feeling, or the idea, or whatever.

• 30:43Rick Rubin?

  Does it often have to do with the people or not?

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, people, I love these people. So it didn't end up being Jen. She couldn't do the movie because she was having a baby. And so it ended up being Kristen Wiig, who I'm over the moon about, who is the funniest person on the planet. So it ended up being Jen starting this idea. And then she had nothing to do with the movie, except giving me the idea.

• 31:05Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Just by loving her. And then so with the ideas, you have three or four, you're kind of batting around like premises, or like what they could be. Right? Let's say like Beastie Boys movie, Cut Off, outcome. And then whatever one you can't stop thinking about, and you can't stop writing notes in your right notes section about. You know, you'll have a notes section for each one. Everything runs out of my notes section. So if I can't stop thinking of ideas for one, or it's just like, one day you just go, oh yeah. I don't care about anything else.

• 31:36Rick Rubin?

  Do you only do this when you're in the writing room or 24/7?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  All the time. I'm present with my family and I work on it and I'm not always perfect at it.

• 31:45Rick Rubin?

  But ideas come all the time and you note them?

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I have to say to everyone around me like also because I hate that I'm on my phone, but my notes section is on my phone. So sometimes I'm writing in my notes section and it looks like I could just be fucking around on my phone. And a lot of, I say to everyone, a lot of my job is staring at a wall. So it may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm thinking about this thing for years on end, the same thing. And then the other cool part I want to say that it's not just creative is, if, let's say I become obsessed with the idea and I go, this is it, I'm in love. I then take it to Dines and we strategize and Ari and Ricky, you aren't our manager, and we strategize, is this a movie that we could get made with who? What is the infrastructure of that movie? And then we have to decide whether we're going to go forward based on,

• 32:32Speaker 01

  can this actually be the next two years of our life pragmatically? So we have to formulate, the business plan can be as creative, but if like, let's say it's something so off the wall with no stars or anything, we have to go, I still may do it like Stutz. Yeah. With banging down my door to make Stutz. Yeah. And I'll go, fuck it, I'll eat it and lose a bunch of money for a few years because I have to. But we make that decision together, Matt and I.

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• 34:35Rick Rubin?

  How's it working with Adam McKay?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 34:38Rick Rubin?

  Had you worked with him before?

• 34:39Speaker 01

  I hadn't. Adam McKay is a total hero of mine. The man made Step Brothers. He should be knighted in every country. You know McKay and Will Ferrell, their work together is like Matt and Trey level to me. The holy trilogy, like their first three, like Anchorman, Talladega, Step Brothers. I have a Step Brothers tattoo.

• 34:56Rick Rubin?

  Where'd you get your first tattoo?

• 34:59Speaker 01

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

• 35:24Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about your parents.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Rich and Sharon, they're awesome. You know, they're parents, they have their flaws and they're, they're great attributes. But now that I am a parent, I think they're a lot greater than I would have, I would have given them shit. And now that I am a parent, I'm like, oh my gosh, are my kids gonna say that I suck to a therapist and make a movie about it? You know, like, fuck this shit, I wiped your ass. And I like call them all the time and just say, thanks and I'm sorry. You know, because I'm like, you guys were like 20, whatever, you know, I'm 42, making mistakes, you know, you're 20 something making mistakes and you wiped my ass, you know? So like... How dare I not, you have no perspective.

• 36:07Rick Rubin?

  What's their relationship like?

• 36:09Speaker 01

  They're like classic bickering old Jewish couple. They've been together since they were like teenagers. Literally Long Island Jews been together since they were teenagers. I'll probably see them after this.

• 36:22Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about your relationship with Seth Rogen.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  I love Seth. I'm so happy for Seth and Evan and their crazy success with the studio. Like it's so cool to watch them have this new realm of success too. It feels like a new big chapter for them. I mean, all those guys, everything. They wrote Superbad and they let me play the guy in Superbad, which I would have been something in comedy. But they, you know, they gave me the opportunity of a lifetime, you know? And I love them and I make an effort with them to like still try and go to dinner with everybody. I'm the annoying one because I'm the schmaltiest one now, where I was the most probably out to lunch. That like, I'm more like, I'm more like, guys, we really should all get dinner and like, you know, like see how everybody's doing.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  And like, we had a really great dinner recently that was like hours long and just laughing and making fun of our parents and everything.

• 37:15Rick Rubin?

  What do you remember about that first part of Superbad? Tell me about being invited to be part of it.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  You just knew it was the shit. It's the best script I've ever read to this day. They worked on it for 10 years and Judd infused so much like emotion into it, I think, or inspired them to do that. They had just worked on it for so, you know, when you work on something for 10 years, it doesn't get made and they never gave up. And so it just got better and better. And we were making Knocked Up and then like I was able to read it and stuff. I did a table read where I played a different character. Joe Luttruglio's character, the guy who gets hit by the car. They were like real teenagers playing the like kids. So everyone thought I was too old, but.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  I just knew, I was like, if I get this movie, like, it's a game changer. And I knew the movie was gonna be successful because it was so funny. It was like Seth and Evan had just, it was really their writing, you know? And then Michael, Michael Sarah is just, I can't talk about my career and my life without talking about Michael. He's one of my best friends to this day. He's such a beautiful friend and he's just the funniest person. Him and Kristen Wiig are the two funniest people in the world.

• 38:27Rick Rubin?

  Did you ever ruin a scene by laughing?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Me?

• 38:30Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yes, all the time, all the time.

• 38:33Rick Rubin?

  It's just too funny?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it cracks me up, like it's, now I'm directing too, I'm the worst. I'll be in the scene, directing it, and I'll break a take.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  You know, cuz I'm like, I'm like, I'm also like laughing at the absurd, I'm like, sometimes I'm like directing a scene, I'm in it, and I'm like, I don't fucking talk directing Keanu Reeves, but I'm in it and I'm bald and I look like an insane person and like, you know, sometimes I'll just crack up at like the absurdity of life.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  But I break scenes all the time. I don't encourage it if it's like false or something, but like, goddamn, there's no problem with having a good time.

• 39:13Rick Rubin?

  How is acting in a drama different than acting in a comedy?

• 39:18Speaker 01

  I've only done like a couple like real where there were no, it wasn't both or something, you know, or,

• 39:25Rick Rubin?

  Was Moneyball the first dramatic role?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  I think I had one before that. Now as I'm older, there's not much difference to it. I feel viewed as one thing. I'd have to get cast now in a drama I wasn't directing.

• 39:38Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  That's the way, the only way I could answer that question. You know, I've done, like Ira, there's a, there's a, I think there's one knockout dramatic scene with me and Keanu's characters, not cuz of me, but cuz of Keanu and the person who plays my son in the movie. And that's a, I think, a dramatic scene I'm very proud of.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  There was no, you know, this difference. It's just honoring what that is.

• 40:01Rick Rubin?

  Have you ever been acting in a scene and get so lost in it that you forget it's a movie?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 40:10Rick Rubin?

  Feels like it's really happening.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Yes, the best one by far is Acting with Joaquin. I'd say Acting with Joaquin is like being directed by Scorsese. I'll say Acting with Joaquin and Leo is like the same level of like quality, like four seasons of acting, four seasons of being directed is by Marty. When you act with those guys, it's like as if it's real and Joaquin's style is more like mine, where it's more like convincing yourself kind of stuff, not like I'm as good of an actor as him. But like Leo is just such a trained, talented actor. He could talk about normal life and then he'll action and he'll do the best acting you've ever seen. Whereas Joaquin is more like me. I have to kind of like think about it all day if I'm acting in a movie

• 40:56Speaker 01

  and I have to like do pretend that something sad is about to happen. So those scenes we had together in the Gus Van Sant movie, I can really forget I was there and really access emotion and I'll always thank him for that. It was the best acting experience in my life. There's one scene in particular and I cried because I cried today. And it's funny, I don't cry very often. I cried during that scene and it was real. And that was the only time that's ever happened to me. Like I've cried in scenes and been supposed to. But it was because it was like, and not because I was accessing my own life.

• 41:26Rick Rubin?

  Was it in the script that you were supposed to cry or you just cried because that's what happened?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  I cried just because that's what happened and it was because.

• 41:32Rick Rubin?

  You were taken over.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Taken over by like what I was supposed to be feeling as this person.

• 41:37Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  And that had never happened to me. It hasn't happened to me since.

• 41:41Rick Rubin?

  And you think it was because of how convincing they were?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  I think it's because Joaquin sets the table for you to allow yourself to feel that and he's doing that.

• 41:50Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  And then you got to give all credit to Gus. It's not saying I can't describe what he does, but Gus does something to create an environment where that happens.

• 41:57Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, Gus doesn't say anything, but that happens.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  He's doing something that's making that happening and it's the director that's doing that along with your other actor, you know?

• 42:07Rick Rubin?

  Was the Phil Stutz documentary the last thing that you put out?

• 42:11Speaker 01

  The last thing that I put out was the Stutz documentary and then right after a movie called You People that Kenya Barris directed. And I didn't do press, so that's when I stopped doing press was like when those two came out. And the main reason was I really didn't want to do press for Phil's movie. You know, I love the movie Stutz, like I'm upset, that sounds so bad to Phil. I didn't want to capitalize on a movie that was designed to help other people. I didn't want to have to get a pat on the back or not a pat on the back. I did it for a very pure reason and I just wanted to go out there and help the people it was supposed to help

• 42:51Speaker 01

  and not have to talk about it or like make it like I was getting clout from it or something.

• 42:59Rick Rubin?

  How did the idea to make it come?

• 43:01Speaker 01

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

• 43:27Speaker 01

  And so I was creatively, like I was directing a lot of music videos and commercials. I was writing a Beastie Boys movie with Adam and Mike. Because I thought, okay, well, people liked mid 90s and I got offered all these movies to direct. And luckily I knew Mike and Adam and the book had just come out. And Spike Jonah was going to produce it and Spike, I think, vouched for me as kind of being the person that should direct the movie. And I adapted it with Mike and Adam, which was an incredible year, but we ultimately, I realized you don't, you don't write the Bob Dylan movie with Bob Dylan.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Bob Dylan can't be there while you're writing it. And you know, Adam, Adam is like, that didn't fucking happen.

• 44:12Rick Rubin?

  Cause you want to make the best movie and they want to tell the story.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  These guys are my heroes and like, I never want to bum them out and, and, and it was the best years of my life. I got to spend a year with Adam and Mike writing, like I, it was one of the most, like how this is a gold standard experience. I wouldn't trade the time, but I had no idea, when that movie didn't go, I had no idea what I was going to do. So I was just kind of creatively like, what am I gonna, you know, if you make movies and you're lucky enough to do this, and especially if you don't have a family yet, you pour everything into it. So when you're left with nothing to pour stuff into, you're confused. So my friend Joaquin Phoenix, who introduced me to Phil Stutz, funny person to have introduced you to your therapist, he's like, hey, I've been doing some interviews with Phil and I want to make something, blah, blah. And he kind of was talking to me about it in a way

• 45:00Speaker 01

  where he wasn't sure about what he was making or what it was going to be. And, and he had seen mid nineties and was a big proponent of that movie. And he was kind of in the conversation, I felt like he was asking me to do it.

• 45:11Rick Rubin?

  Was Phil unlike anyone you've ever met?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Stutz, you meet him and you kind of, you've entered his space and it is like a dojo. It's got like, you know, you see it in the movie. It's like, it's got power to it. And it like, your first talk with him, you kind of leave being like, I'm a if I choose to on the back to go on like, a really significant journey, which sounds kind of woo woo or whatever. But you're like, kind of you meet someone and you go, you know what, if I, if I go do this, it's going to be an important thing that I go do. And it was, it helped me a lot and, and, and a lot, along with a lot of other things. But I go back and forth about that movie a lot of whether it was smart to make it.

• 45:53Rick Rubin?

  Tell me your thoughts about that.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  I felt the reason for making it was as simple as this. This is what I told Netflix when I pitched it. I want to make a movie about the tools, right? That shows the tools. So if you're a kid that doesn't have a lot of money and your parents, let's say, won't let you do therapy and it's stigmatized or you need to watch it in private or you can't afford to go get, if you have a Netflix account or access to one, you can privately watch this movie that will give you therapeutic tools to help your life, where you can do it without shame, you can do it without money. And if you're in like a third world country, like whatever. And then the full circle to that was I went surfing in El Salvador and all the kids were yelling stuts at me.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  And my friend who translated it was because they had all loved stuts and they had all watched it and they were like 10, 11 years old.

• 46:43Rick Rubin?

  That's amazing.

• 46:44Speaker 01

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

• 47:12Rick Rubin?

  It's great and it's not like any other documentary.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  And I really appreciate that. And I've gotten that response from a lot of people I admire and a lot of people, but I do feel I was, I would say in a sense, punished for being so vulnerable or like people calling it self-serving or that I think I'm some sort of evolved person and I'm not.

• 47:32Rick Rubin?

  Who cares? You had kids shouting stuts at you.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I guess neither of them actually really at the end of the day drive why I make something. I have to make something because I have to make it and I had to make that and I did. But what I'm saying was it was, it wasn't as comfortable of an aftermath for me as some of the movies.

• 47:51Rick Rubin?

  It's also beautiful filmmaking. It's really original.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Thank you. And I think it was probably the hardest movie I'll ever make.

• 47:57Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, not everybody's ready to see it at a particular time.

• 48:02Speaker 01

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

• 48:24Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  And I was like, damn, that is cool.

• 48:27Rick Rubin?

  There's no other therapist like Phil Stutz.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 48:30Rick Rubin?

  He's truly one of a kind.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  He is one of a kind, even for letting me do that, you know? But his insight to things without having the answers himself.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Are what make him able to me able to receive advice from him.

• 48:44Rick Rubin?

  In the first meeting you had with him, did he do a drawing?

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:50Rick Rubin?

  Right away.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I can probably tell you what it was. It must have been the shadow, something about the shadow. Cause we went over the shadow in the first meeting and that was like mind blowing to me. I had done therapy my whole adult life. That was more just me kind of sitting and bitching in the therapist. I mean, like, this fucking guy cut me off and I'm pissed about that, you know, like, whatever. It was the first guy who kind of broke down, like, here's why you may feel this way and like how you spoke to yourself and were spoken to when you're younger, maybe like plays out a lot in this stuff and just mind blowing stuff that I had never heard put in a funny and digestible way, which is why I thought, oh, this could really work.

• 49:33Rick Rubin?

  How many different projects are you developing?

• 49:36Speaker 01

  I don't know, thirty, something around there. And it could be anything from a Grateful Dead movie that we're producing that I won't be in or won't direct. I'm also the director of my movies. So when it's one of my movies, if that's what's in production, I have to keep my eye mostly on that.

• 49:55Rick Rubin?

  Can you imagine directing a movie that you're not in?

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 50:00Rick Rubin?

  Is that the dream?

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Well, mid nineties I wasn't in. So my first movie I wasn't in, and I've directed a bunch of commercials and music videos that I wasn't in. So during that ten year period, I really wanted to not be someone who just wanted to be a writer or director. I I'd been writing big movies since I was young, so that was nothing new. Like I had written on the Jump Street movies and like, you know, I all the movies I've been in as a funny actor. All writing and ideas are, they come from, well, they come from whatever you believe they come from. I think we're like an.

• 50:32Rick Rubin?

  Where do you believe they come from?

• 50:34Speaker 01

  I think we're an open channel. And if you're open, ideas come to you through some sort of whatever you believe in. And what I believe is that I don't come up with anything, that I'm lucky enough to be like a vessel, that these mostly comedic ideas come through. And I feel so lucky that the high that I get from this, besides solving a Rubik's Cube of really hard work, is a moment of creative, a creative joke or idea comes from whatever channel is open. How lucky are we that we get to be in the room when that happens?

• 51:16Rick Rubin?

  It's a miracle when it happens.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  And it's the greatest feeling besides hanging out with your son.

• 51:23Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, totally addictive, totally addictive.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's just as gratifying to me when the plumbing starts to work. That's why I like the boring, lame pipe of the job also because-

• 51:35Rick Rubin?

  The craftsman aspect.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, because a great joke or a great idea, you know, a really cool paint color isn't shit if the wall falls down, you know, or the toilet's overflowing, you know, you gotta do all the like homework, I call it, like all the homework of it in between those blasts of creative like moments are now very gratifying to me too, more than gratifying, I like cherish them and I love that I get to be a part of that.

• 52:03Rick Rubin?

  What was the initial seed idea for the new movie?

• 52:08Speaker 01

  The first thought was, I was paying attention to what was going on with people with a huge form of entertainment becoming a celebrity getting in trouble for something. And I was watching like we all were, all this happening, and I thought, who's the person that we'd all be the most bummed got in trouble for something? And the answer was Keanu Reeves. So I was like, God, everyone loves Keanu Reeves. No one, everyone would be so bummed if he was like an ax murderer or something, right? And that was all I had, and I was like, I want to make a movie where Keanu's like a

• 52:47Speaker 01

  movie star, like a beloved movie star, and he gets a call from his crazy crisis lawyer, Ira, played by me.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  And he just goes, there's a video. And that was the initial idea. And you feel the panic in Keanu Reeves and, and to Keanu's credit, I called him and that was all I had. And he came over to my house in Malibu, where I used to live and I pitched him that and he said, go write it, I'm in. And he never wavered from me from that day forward. And that was like three years ago.

• 53:19Rick Rubin?

  That's why he's the guy you'd be so bummed to hear he did something bad because he's that guy.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  He's that great of a human being and he's, um, he's just an amazing guy. I've never met somebody so hardworking, so dedicated. And it was trippy for me because my first movie, my first two movies, one was about like a bunch of skater kids that weren't actors. And then the other one was about Phil Stutz, my therapist. So I hadn't directed movie stars, you know? So it was like my first camera test of outcome, it was like Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Martin Scorsese. Like I was like, wow, I'm directing like a big Hollywood movie. And then this next one is the same way with a bunch of stars. And it's like, I kind of started implementing stars into the movie or iconic figures that I, I love into the movies.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  And it's become a whole new level of mixing, like more the documentary style or more like visceral style of things I was making earlier on, to also incorporating all the big Hollywood movies I love and my joy of those into my work now.

• 54:21Rick Rubin?

  Do you feel like the best work always feels like a documentary regardless of whether it is or not?

• 54:28Speaker 01

  That's such a complex answer because now everything's different. Every single thing is different. Like some things cannot feel real in a great way. Some things can feel super real. You know, you kind of always want like the emotion to be real, maybe even if it's outlandish. Like my newer movie, the one called Cut Off is with me and Kristen Wiig. And we play two moronic heirs that get cut off in their mid 40s by their rich parents, played by Bette Midler and Nathan Lane.

• 54:52Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  And it's more like Preston Sturges or The Jerk, you know? It's like, it's, it's total screwball comedy. But even in that, I'm finding as I'm editing it, I'm like, wow, when I screen it or when I watch it, I go, you do want some emotion to really hang this on, even if it's absurd. But I used to just view movie making as it should be as real as possible. And then I think of movies, like a movie I always come back to that I love, and my favorite director is Mike Nichols. And The Birdcage is a movie that I thought a lot about for outcome. And I think about a lot of my own filmmaking now, which is. There's things that feel so unreal about that movie, but the emotions are super, super real. So maybe an emotional documentary, but not always in its like fixtures. Does it have to feel like a dog?

• 55:38Rick Rubin?

  The new movie is definitely emotional and the premise is funny, but the actual interactions are really heavy.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:48Rick Rubin?

  From the beginning, did you know it was going to be as emotional as it turned out?

• 55:52Speaker 01

  No. The best advice I've gotten from Mr. Scorsese was, we had dinner with him like before we started and he's in the movie. And he just said, always listen to the movie. Just always listen to the movie. It's telling you everything. Don't be rigid.

• 56:06Rick Rubin?

  He's great in the movie.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  He, I know it's funny to say because he's Martin Scorsese, but he, he really is phenomenal in the movie. His performance is heartbreaking. He really gives a beautiful performance. I can't believe I directed a beautiful performance by Martin Scorsese, but here we are. And, you know, when he saw the movie and, and told me what he thought, that was a pretty special moment for me. But no, I, I wanted it to be more of a comedy with a capital C.

• 56:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  And I gotta give it up to Apple. They're a great company to make movies at because they, they loved what it was becoming. They saw it was becoming more of like, you know, maybe more in the Jim Brooks or Mike Nichols direction. And they, they didn't say walk towards it. They said run towards it. We'd rather make a movie that's funny and moving than a movie that's just funny. And I was so grateful that they supported us in that because it was different than what I even wrote and what we even shot, you know, in a lot of ways because it's a comedic premise. The premise is essentially he has this video come out that's going to come out. It's fearful of it coming out. And his crisis lawyer, played by me, Ira,

• 57:16Speaker 01

  makes him go make amends to everybody, apologize to everybody in his life that he hurt, but not to be a better person, but to find out who's extorting him. Which is a very funny, dark, dark funny premise was always the premise of the movie.

• 57:30Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  So he'd go on this amends journey, but in no way to like enlighten himself, just for really like self-serving reasons. And each one of those apologies, when I started like almost writing them to shoot, because there's the writing you write as a script and then there's the writing you write to shoot. The truth of it was that Keanu's character, Reeve. Had to be surprised about what they were hurt from by his behavior. That each one had to be like a rug pulled out from under them. He's apologizing for one thing, but that's not even the thing they're upset about. It's like you're so far off from being healthy that you can't even pinpoint the thing you did wrong was.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  And, you know, it starts with Marty's character, who's his childhood manager. This guy who works out of a bowling alley.

• 58:20Rick Rubin?

  How do you come up with the idea of it being out of a bowling alley?

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Out of bowling alley?

• 58:23Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  In the valley, there's this, this pins, which is like a bowling alley. That was around even growing up in LA when we were young. It's near the Oakwood Apartments, which is where like the child actors, you know, I've seen documentaries. And of course I'm an actor, so you know all about this stuff. There's this place called the Oakwood Apartments where all kids move with a dream with their moms or dads, or go out to California to try and get on a show or get on a Nickelodeon show or something. And it's like these apartments and there's guys that kind of scout the apartments. And, you know, the character Richie Red Rodriguez, who Marty plays, he's like this schlocky guy who signs kids and some of them turn out to be fucking Johnny Depp. And some of them turn out to be, you know, no, nothing of note, you know, or a major note.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  But he knows his inevitability. It's more like the philosophical character is the guy who knows if he does his job right, you leave him.

• 59:17Rick Rubin?

  He says it.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  He says it. Yeah. And that's kind of like, if I do my job right, you leave me. He goes, I know that, you know, I don't want to act out the scene, but it's beautiful. And the way Marty does it is beautiful. And he's like, he goes, I know what the fuck I am. And there's a lot of roles in life. It wasn't just about, you know, the movie's not about Hollywood. It's about people we encounter on our journeys who you know are temporary. And maybe you are that person who's temporary for someone. Like I always remember when I was growing up, one of my first girlfriends, and she was so beautiful and so smart. Even at the time I was like, you know, like I'm temporary until you meet someone that you will like fall for, because you're so wonderful. So we've all been on both sides of that. You know, do we discard those people?

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  So the message, a lot of it is like, it's okay that that is their function. But they don't have to be discarded and in fact, like, you know, my big thing is like, it's so hard for me to call like my dad or Stutz. You know, like people who are like father, you know, that whole thing is like, it's like so hard to just pick up the phone and just say like, how are you doing? It's really hard. I don't know if it is for everybody, but it's like, or when my grandparents were alive, you know, you'd go visit your grand, I'd go visit my grandma and I'd always like, gotta go visit nanny and I, and I loved her. It wasn't like you don't love them. It's just, I don't know, you know, do you know what I'm talking about?

• 1:00:43Rick Rubin?

  I do.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  It's just that effort it takes to do something you know is great for you and them, but you don't do it a lot and years fly by sometimes, you know?

• 1:00:53Rick Rubin?

  You usually don't realize it until it's too late.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Until it's too late. And so that was about realizing now to appreciate the people you should be calling and going to check in on.

• 1:01:03Rick Rubin?

  Do you think that came from your work with Phil Stutz?

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  I think a lot of things come from my work with Phil Stutz. That one in particular, he's a figure like that for me. That's like a, you know, fatherly uncle figure or my own dad who I'm loving and close with, but sometimes I just don't pick up the phone enough to say like, how are you doing?

• 1:01:22Rick Rubin?

  Do you know anyone who's gone on an amends tour?

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  I know plenty of people who have, yeah.

• 1:01:30Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about the conversations you've had with them.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  This was a comedic version because it is a tour. It is like tour dates, you know? He's so,

• 1:01:39Rick Rubin?

  He's checking them off the list.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  He's so focused on self-preservation that he makes it almost like a checklist job. But I've found in most cases that I've heard about that it's usually from a less sinister place than that and just apologies when you get to them.

• 1:02:00Rick Rubin?

  In the opening scene of the movie, our lovable hero is shown as two-faced. Did you do that to humanize him or to vilify him?

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  So the whole movie is about social media.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  From the beginning to the end. It's a story based in Hollywood, but it is about how even your 12-year-old niece has turned into a middle-aged, scorched, lifelong movie star. Because everyone, because of social media, is judged 20 times a day about everything that they wear, do, or say. The main point of the movie is that, like, you know, my nephews, I started to see, have the same paranoia that I would have as a famous person, about being liked on a grand scale.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  And how we can value that, which is truly impossible, over the opinions of the three people you actually are around.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

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

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  And so the movie is about that. And so what I wanted to show right away was a guy, I was just trying to throw you curveballs where you couldn't peg him down. He's nice. He is a movie star. He's humble. He's not humble. He's laid back and casual, but all he does is care about what you're thinking about him in the most uncasual manner ever. And it was an exciting opening for me because it, you know, reminded me of those kind of great... There's one, okay, so Keanu, there's one scene in Parenthood I'm obsessed with. I love the movie Parenthood, but Keanu, kind of, he's where he's going off on Martha Plimpton and Diane Weest, and he's kind of, kind of like off the rails yelling at them kind of in it.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  And I was like, I want to make a movie with that guy, you know, because like he's always so cool. He is cool. He's always so like John Wick and stuff. I was like, I want to see a guy who's like you. You can't emotionally peg down and he's not in control of his emotions. So that opening kind of reflects a guy who is just a mess. He's just a mess. He has no idea who he is. He has no identity. And through talking to these people that he's hurt, I think he's learning his identity is an asshole.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  And then hopefully by the end, you learn that how do we take some small steps to not be an asshole?

• 1:05:05Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Is Keanu's character in the movie more based on the real Keanu Reeves? Or is he more based on the real Jonah Hill?

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Neither. Neither.

• 1:05:17Rick Rubin?

  Made up character.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally made up character. I, I, I mean, I'm not like a Tom Cruise type figure like Reef Hawk is. I would say I'm more of a Don Rickles, a, a, a Sancho Ponce-esque character. But I, I, there's things I relate to about all the characters in my movies for sure. You know, this is my third movie, but you know, third and fourth movie really is, you'll see like, I love and relate to all of them. You know, I can surely relate to parts of Reef, but like, I'm in no way like, if, if like my family met, like when they see the movie, they don't go like, wow, that's Jonah. You know, like, and it's not Keanu from what I've found. The one funny anecdote I will say about that though part is, is that, because the character does have anxiety, which I've, you know, had in my life.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Keanu did not understand what or how to portray anxiety. He hadn't felt it in a sense that he understood.

• 1:06:08Rick Rubin?

  So he experienced it in life, but didn't know how to portray it because he never acted portraying it?

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  It in life.

• 1:06:14Rick Rubin?

  Oh, he's never experienced anxiety?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  That was the essence of what I got. Now, if I'm wrong, I will immediately take this back.

• 1:06:21Rick Rubin?

  That's great. That he just feels confident.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  The character, he did not understand something. I go, that's called anxiety. Like that's called anxiety.

• 1:06:28Rick Rubin?

  That sounds like a great conversation.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  It was, it was. And, and every conversation with him was great because I go like, you go, whoa, why is he like freaking out? You know, about what like someone, you know, and he's like, this person really would do this? And I go, yeah.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  Like you always used to hear all these stories about Larry David, like, like, like Jason Alexander would go like, you know,

• 1:06:50Rick Rubin?

  Nobody would do this.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

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

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• 1:08:23Speaker 05

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• 1:08:43Rick Rubin?

  How do you think fame changes a person?

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  It's like fatherhood. It's like before and after. It's like that day and the day before and the day after. You could buy a newspaper on the day you became a parent and the day you became famous. And it's like that kind of black and white. You didn't have to reprogram yourself, you know? At least from my experience. I can't speak on anybody else's experience. Mine was like, didn't want to admit it changes your life. It does. And then you gotta like, hopefully catch yourself and be like, you gotta rebuild from like, square one.

• 1:09:20Rick Rubin?

  Figure out who you are now.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  Just... What it is all about. From the first square step from waking up in the morning till going to bed. And if you're lucky enough to have that insight and time or tenacity to do that, then you're blessed.

• 1:09:38Rick Rubin?

  When you're doing an acting role, how much preparation do you do?

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  It's all writing. It might as well, it's all, even if I'm acting, it's basically like writing a book on that person.

• 1:09:48Rick Rubin?

  Is it always about the language or is it something else?

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  I say writing a book about that person, meaning what music they listen to, what books they've read, what clothes they wear.

• 1:09:57Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

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

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  and then playing Ira, let's say, an outcome. It's all just much as being the writer or the director.

• 1:10:47Rick Rubin?

  Do you remember what Ira's first line in the movie is?

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Do I have shit on my face? Is that it still or was that an old line?

• 1:10:54Rick Rubin?

  No, that's it.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had bagel on his, he had a cream cheese on his face. And I love that as an opening line, which was, he has cream cheese on his face. He says, do I have shit on my face?

• 1:11:05Rick Rubin?

  It gives us a lot of information right out of the box.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Ira's a character I'm, I'm, he's top, he's top five, if not top three for me that I've ever played. I love Ira. I fucking love Ira, man.

• 1:11:16Rick Rubin?

  Is he based on anyone you know?

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  His job is kind of based on the icons of that job, like a Marty Singer, people like that who are like historically, you know, if you killed someone, you would call if you were in that position, right? So I thought it was a great comedic character because he's a guy with no judgment. A guy like that has no judgment. So the media, I wanted to play that character because I was like, wow, imagine a guy who by principle can't judge anybody else, right? His whole livelihood falls apart if he brings an ounce of judgment. So if you sat here, you're his client and you say, Ira, I killed someone. He has to go, okay. And he has to just get to the backs of it and where we're at and why and what and where are we with it? Before, you know, he doesn't go like, what the fuck?

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  And so I thought there's inherently someone so funny comedically with a darkly comedic lack of judgment. And ultimately, he ends up being a surprisingly, the thing I'm most proud of, the movie does this. Ira is like a miniature part of the movie is the movie does this where you think it's this thing and it's kind of shallow or whatever and it ends up being surprisingly deep. And I think Ira is the best version of that because he's the easiest character to peg as just a quote unquote bad person by what he does and who his clients are and what, how he lives his life. But when you start to peel back the onion, you start to see layers of a guy. Those things can be true, what he does or it can be deplorable, but like you start to see him as a human being.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

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

• 1:12:57Rick Rubin?

  What was the first movie you were ever cast in?

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  I Heart Huckabee, directed by David O. Russell.

• 1:13:03Rick Rubin?

  How did that happen?

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  That happened because I knew the Hoffman family, it was Dustin Hoffman's family. Their kids, Jake is one of my great friends to this day. They're all amazing. The whole family's amazing. And I was starting to do like kind of, I wouldn't call it stand up. Traditionally, I was starting to do these kind of like plays, one man shows that could kind of like almost spoken word kind of things.

• 1:13:27Rick Rubin?

  Where would you do those?

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  In New York City at a bar called Black and White. They have an open mic every Sunday night. And they kind of started becoming popular and at the same time I started making these prank call CDs that I would pass around to friends and Dustin.

• 1:13:40Rick Rubin?

  How long would your set be in those days? Like an open mic?

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  It could be anything. They were so cool because it was like, honestly, I think it was like a spoken word, like poetry kind of night. Really great people, Crispy T and Johnny T, really awesome guys. I was 18. I shouldn't have been allowed in the bar. And You know, I would think of the most outlandish premise I could think of. And it would be more like storytelling, one man show storytelling.

• 1:14:06Rick Rubin?

  Would you write it before you got on stage? Or would you write it on stage?

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  So the cool part that was cool is it would happen every Sunday night. I would start Monday and have to perform Sunday.

• 1:14:17Rick Rubin?

  Like being on a weekly TV show.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Exactly. So whatever you perform is gone and you're left with nothing. So you've got to find a premise and the crowd was.

• 1:14:26Rick Rubin?

  Would people laugh?

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, they'd crack up.

• 1:14:28Rick Rubin?

  Great.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  And you know what's funny is I like got this moment where I was all kind of like self-serious and like wasn't into comedy and stuff. And it was all rooted in just like not knowing who I was and stuff. And the second I got happy in life, you know, the second I like had my first kid and was happy and like smiling, all I wanted to do was be funny. And all I wanted to do my whole life was make my friends laugh, you know? So it has been like the greatest couple of years, like three years, four years of making these movies with my friends, with my family, being funny. Because if I could think of the best memories in my life, they're sitting like this with loved ones, cracking up.

• 1:15:10Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  That's it. That's like the thing. So when we do that on set and it's me and Dines and we're at work and our families are visiting us at work and we're all cracking up, making something, I'm like, this is like next level fulfillment.

• 1:15:24Rick Rubin?

  Are you as funny when it's not work, just in life?

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm the last person you should ask that question because I'm not, Dines, what do you think? He's like, ah, no, Fifth Amendment, dude.

• 1:15:37Speaker 06

  I think it's pretty obvious that yes. I think it's extends into real life. It's not a performative thing.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  It depends if you ask. I'll tell you this, I love it more personally. Like if we were at dinner and I was just in a good mood and our kids were there and I was like, I would be getting more joy out of it than the people laughing. And how cool is that, man? You know, making your kids laugh?

• 1:16:02Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  Fuck me, dude. Making my son laugh? Like getting him with a bit and seeing him become funny at almost three? You know?

• 1:16:12Rick Rubin?

  It's amazing.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  It's psychotic. It's mind melding. It's better than any of... No accomplishment even should be called an accomplishment than watching your kid tell a joke and have it be funny. It'll be like when he catches his first wave or like I see him do an incredibly kind gesture for someone, you know? It's like this feeling that's like superseded. But when you mix comedy in with that, because comedy's taken all these different forms in my life over all these years.

• 1:16:36Rick Rubin?

  When did you first fall in love with comedy?

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

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

• 1:17:04Rick Rubin?

  It was always through the reference of movies?

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  I was a clown. I was a jester. If you ask my parents, or Matt and I have been friends since we were like three or four. So like, I know my mom, because my mom tells my son, because she tells him, "Your dad was always funny," and you know?

• 1:17:19Rick Rubin?

  Would there be like comedians that you would love that you would imitate?

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would do Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. Later, the Sandler albums, I would like perform the songs for like... You know, you could tell who's gonna try and be a comedian in like Jewish culture is the person who performs at all the family shit. You know, because like I would be performing at every family function. It's like there was no stage or like there shouldn't be a venue, but I feel like a lot of my friends, like Andy Samberg or you know, people I came up with, it's like they were funny and would perform for the family.

• 1:17:52Rick Rubin?

  You think it was about getting acceptance in the family?

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  I think it's a million things. That's why I say my relationship to humor could be like five books. Because it's like, there's times where it's represented something evil to me. There's times it's represented like, "Why do you guys just want me to be funny in my darker phases?" Or you know, like, "I'm more than that," you know? And then ultimately, I'm like, "No, this is like the most golden light that I was given to love." Like, it is the most like, maybe the most important thing that ever was given to me was comedy and laughter. Because it's like... Dude, when you're like 90, you can't have sex, you can't surf, you can't like, can't do your hobbies really, but you can laugh. Mel Brooks is still funny. I had lunch with Mel Brooks

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  and Norman Lear, may he rest, like, you know, I was friends with Norman, close with him when he passed. He was 101. Guy was still cracking me up.

• 1:18:45Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

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

• 1:19:14Rick Rubin?

  Why do you think most comedies today are not funny?

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  I think that's a harsh critique.

• 1:19:20Rick Rubin?

  What's the last comedy film you saw that made you laugh like crazy?

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  So, again, there's the probably starker reality to it. Because my main mission of this is to make comedy movies, not bring them back, because they're not gone, but, okay, they're gone. And then, I'm being, I'm being allowed to make edgy comedy movies

• 1:19:45Rick Rubin?

  Why do you think they're gone?

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  In a climate where people are not allowing many people to make mainstream comedy movies, and I'm very grateful for it. And with that responsibility, I will say, culturally, it is hard to make jokes in the past, let's say, like, six or seven years, up until the last like one or two years, because a joke can be misconstrued and you can get into a lot of trouble. Right? That is obviously true. You can make a joke that offends someone.

• 1:20:14Rick Rubin?

  Why is that different than it's been in the past?

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  Because the consequences were different. I was even thinking about Seth and Evan, who made, you know, they made the interview about Kim Jong-un, and look at the consequences to their movie. That's a comedy about North Korea and the consequences.

• 1:20:29Rick Rubin?

  What were the consequences?

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  A global hack, and like, a lot of people lost their jobs, and like, people went crazy, and everyone's emails got leaked, and, you know, Michael Lin just released a book, that I saw him on Good Morning America today, about, you know, who was greenlit that movie. He was talking about the biggest mistake of his career was greenlighting that movie because of the fallout that happened, right? So that's the consequences of a comedy. Charlie Chaplin can, you know, release The Dictator or whatever, you know? It was edgy and it was like maybe scary or maybe pushing some buttons or Lenny Bruce would push buttons or whatever. But I look at that North, fuck the cultural, like, you know, right, left, whatever, all those people going crazy.

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  Like, I'm talking about like even the fact that like North Korea took that movie so seriously that they did something that could have, you know, it was essentially an act of war that could have gotten people, like a war started, you know? Based on Seth and Evan Spars, right? So stakes got bigger, but actually fuck that. The real reason is they aren't making money like they used to. So like, the real truth of it is, is that when I came up with Judd and everybody and Seth, our movies made a lot of money. You knew your comedy was probably going to open at $20 million if like Judd's name was on it or I was in it or Seth was in it or, you know, and it was like a good ass time for, or you know,

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Ben and Vince and the dudes right above me, like Ben, Vince, Owen, that crowd, you know? Will Ferrell, like, they were minting money, dude. But Will couldn't get Anchorman made.

• 1:22:02Rick Rubin?

  I didn't know that.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  Will couldn't get Anchorman made, but then look what that kicks off, right? Right now is the perfect time to be making comedies, whether, you know, look-

• 1:22:10Rick Rubin?

  Well, there's a void.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, I want to be the guy you come to to make you laugh with films. And at Strong Baby, we want to make funny movies. We want to make responsibly budgeted funny movies because 14 year olds have nothing to laugh at, as does everybody else. And I think comedy got shifted to TV, comedy became, can became dramedy, which is kind of what Outcome is, and so I'm guilty of that too, of emotional comedies, right? You know, The Bear becomes what people consider a comedy, which I love The Bear and Chris is a great friend of ours, friend of Strong Baby, amazing dude. I wouldn't say it's a laugh out loud comedy, just like, you know, Outcome has a lot more serious elements to it.

• 1:22:52Speaker 01

  Cut Off, the next movie I'm making, is more like an LOL, the jerk, these are morons, laugh at them. And I miss that, I really, really miss that. And so I'm having a blast making that too.

• 1:23:04Rick Rubin?

  When did you first meet Judd?

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  I first met Judd through Allison Jones, the casting director. I was a young actor, like 18 or 19 and.

• 1:23:12Rick Rubin?

  Have you been in anything yet?

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd been in I Heart Huckabee's, the David O. Russell movie, which is a funny first movie to be in because if you know the history of that movie, it's like.

• 1:23:20Rick Rubin?

  I don't, tell me.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  There was all these videos that leaked of him like kind of screaming, David O. screaming at like Lily Tomlin and everybody, like kind of notoriously outbursting at them. And I love David. I've seen him a lot since then. It was kind of a famous movie where the director kind of yelled at everybody. So to be 18 and be the first set that you ever were on, I was like, yes, this is crazy.

• 1:23:40Rick Rubin?

  On the set, did you feel like anything was weird or uncomfortable or not at all?

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  I was like, this is what directors are like. You know, I was like, this is unlike any other job on the planet. I didn't like love the yelling and stuff, but I was like, it's kind of crazy that the creativity, like there's no like grown up here really. Now there are a lot, work environments are a lot different on sets. I think you can run a very respectful environment and make a good movie.

• 1:24:09Rick Rubin?

  Do you think that the outbursts led to something that you got to see on screen that was of value?

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  I would say no, in that case. You know, in that case, just seeing it up close, I wouldn't say it added to the creativity. First thing Phil Stutz said to me was, you're not a good artist because you're fucked up. You're a good artist in spite of being fucked up. And so, yeah, I think I know artists that self sabotage is a big part of their process. But like Stutz said, I think if they were healthy and still doing their process, it'd be great because they're great.

• 1:24:42Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  What do you think?

• 1:24:44Rick Rubin?

  I think so.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  You never see it be like a tool in the toolbox, really.

• 1:24:47Rick Rubin?

  No, but I think there are some people who don't know how to express themselves very well. And it comes out of a frustration of not being able to explain what they want.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  Well, where it comes from is like, cool, that and a buck fifty will get you on the bus. It's the ultimate behavior that matters, right?

• 1:25:04Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. What I find about these work environments that's interesting is like, it is a creative environment, especially an environment like we say on our sets now, like we are making jokes about every person who interviews for the job. Like we are making jokes about things that could very make anyone uncomfortable. It is a comedy movie that is part of the nature of the work. And I am a writer, I'm writing the whole time. So I'm writing at the monitors, I'm writing while I'm in character, I'm writing while I'm out of character. And everyone that we work with respects that. And they tell us they love it and they're laughing and they keep coming back, you know?

• 1:25:39Rick Rubin?

  You ever get pushback where like you'll say, try this and it's like, no, that's too far, I won't do that?

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

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

• 1:26:02Rick Rubin?

  Coming through a speaker or through an earpiece?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Yes. And you ask their permission first. Like you don't, you don't just spring that on. You have, the actor has to be totally comfortable with it. No, the whole soundstage can hear it. So I'll go, okay, so say, oh, that's great. He said that, now you say back to him, say this, and he says that and that, and okay, cool. And it's a process we refine in rehearsals, so no one's like, it's not sprung on anybody.

• 1:26:21Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  And if the actor doesn't like that, they need to be in character, then of course that's not done. But everyone seems to love it. And then Keanu, what would happen was sometimes I'm so in love with what he's doing and writing new jokes, by the ninth joke, he goes, Jonah, okay, okay. Because he's just, he's just, it's just, because he knows I won't stop.

• 1:26:41Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  I'm having the time of my life. Like if I think something's funny, I'm chasing that like a, like a hound.

• 1:26:52Speaker 00

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• 1:27:30Speaker 00

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• 1:27:49Speaker 00

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• 1:28:35Speaker 00

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• 1:28:45Speaker 00

  Lectio 365 is a free resource. Find inspiration there, now and always. Learn more at lectio365.com.

• 1:29:07Rick Rubin?

  What's something about the movie business that nobody knows?

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  That it is an industry filled with so many, so many people who work in it. And a lot of amazing people that work really hard at a job that's really hard. I'm not talking about acting or directing. I'm talking about if you're like, you know, a grip or something.

• 1:29:30Rick Rubin?

  There's sometimes 50 or 100 people on a set.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and if you're a grip, you may not be getting paid the most and you'll be working long fucking hours and you have to love movies and care to do it and you're living paycheck to paycheck. And at its best, it's a beautiful industry.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

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

• 1:30:06Rick Rubin?

  How different are you than the characters you play?

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  Well, I've played a lot of different people. You know, probably most classic like Seth from Superbad, like my comedic character, let's say, like the comedic actor that you love, let's say. You know, there's like the classic Adam Sandler character. My classic comedic character would be like the loud foul-mouthed. You know, guy like Wolf of Wall Street or Superbad or something, right? So I can be loud and foul-mouthed, but I'm. I don't know. Those are like caricatures of a person, I guess, like maybe like comedic traits. So I could have those. I could also be quiet. I could also be like bajillion different things. I guess the main thing is even as a public figure of like how you've got to know me.

• 1:30:53Speaker 01

  I think we're always changing and are kind of growing and evolving, hopefully. So I guess this conversation is what I'm like now.

• 1:31:02Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. What are your reading habits?

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  I listen to tons of books. I'm trying to be better about reading physical books because I think it's good for your brain and I completely abandoned it. So I'm a voracious reader in quotes, but really listener. So I consume a lot of books, but through audio.

• 1:31:20Rick Rubin?

  What type of books?

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  People's lives, biographies, books about people. I love books about the entertainment business. I love like the book I'm reading now, which is a physical copy, is Preston Sturgis biography. I love the lives of people that made the art that I like. You could put me there all day and listen to a book and I'd be happy.

• 1:31:40Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about your musical taste.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  Man, I love music. It's obviously, well, not obviously, but it's very eclectic.

• 1:31:50Rick Rubin?

  From what to what?

• 1:31:52Speaker 01

  Classical to Trojan Records, to hip hop, to, you know, like, I was thinking about today, about Trojan Records, and that's my favorite label, and it's all over the place, in the best way, but it's just like, it's like a movie, like, I don't care about what genre a movie is, I care about like, whether it hits, if it like, makes you feel something great.

• 1:32:11Rick Rubin?

  How do you use music in writing or character development?

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Everything. I write everything to music. Like, I have to have a playlist for the project. So the, the second thing that happens after the notes section, when it becomes a real project with Matt and I, I start the playlist. So the outcome playlist is like-

• 1:32:31Rick Rubin?

  Is the playlist what the movie sounds like, or is it about the people?

• 1:32:37Speaker 01

  Well, there's two that become one. There's the master playlist, which is anything like, could be vibe of the movie, any one of the characters, like the master outcome playlist, it could be like, this reminds me of the tone, this reminds me of this character, this reminds me of this moment, this joke, this transition.

• 1:32:59Rick Rubin?

  Would you ever think of them as needle drops in the movie, or no?

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Then it becomes the ones that make it into the movie. And what I always find more fascinating are not the ones that make it into the movie, but the ones that surround the ones that make it into the movie. I love listening to those after I'm done with a movie.

• 1:33:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Because those needle drops serve this, the movie and the story. The other ones served like ethereal things. So I love reminding myself what that, you'll sometimes get a song on there and you'll go, why the fuck is Two Live Crew on here? You know, like, you're just like, oh, because this moment, Ira gets out of the car, he gets out bombastically, and I wanted to feel like, hey, we want some pussy! And you're like, that's just one little moment that I would never have to describe to somebody, but for me, it kept me going in a moment where this is all just in my head.

• 1:33:49Rick Rubin?

  In dramatic roles, do you have to force yourself not to be funny?

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  Hmm, no. I've learned as I've gotten older-

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  If I were to do it now, like, let's say someone were to approach me and I really wanted to do a dramatic role, I would have more of a sense of humor in between, like, while making it. I refuse to allow the experience to be hell at this point in my life.

• 1:34:10Rick Rubin?

  When you're an actor, do you think of your job as making the director happy or doing what's best for the character you're playing?

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  I was the epitome of like pissy teenager before I became a director, actor, where like I thought I knew best, all this stuff, and it was like I was in my own movie and all this stuff that I've definitely made a lot of apologies for. And now your job is really to serve the vision of what's, what the director's doing. And it's the respectful thing to do, and I will never make that mistake again.

• 1:34:43Rick Rubin?

  Can you leave the characters on the set when you leave? Or do they sometimes work their way into your life?

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

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

• 1:35:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  Out of respect to the people I live with.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  I would never, so I've never done that to them, nor, nor would I. And, and so if it were to be asked of me, I would be responsible and hire a professional to kind of like give me tools to sign out. You know, I've heard Emma Stone told me about like signing out of a character at the end of the day or something like that.

• 1:35:36Rick Rubin?

  That's a cool idea.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, like she literally, I don't want to speak for her, but she told me she signs out.

• 1:35:40Rick Rubin?

  Well, it's a physical ritual. And when you ritualize anything, it tends to stick in a different way. It's not just an idea.

• 1:35:48Speaker 01

  It's like the positive actions list being on a board instead of just in your head. Oh, I thought of that.

• 1:35:53Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:35:56Rick Rubin?

  Tell me something you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young.

• 1:36:01Speaker 01

  I didn't believe that happiness was just like calm and contentness.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  I believed that it was exciting and at like a fever pitch and at a hundred miles per hour.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  And as an adult, I believe fun to be at a turtle's pace.

• 1:36:25Rick Rubin?

  How has your taste changed over the course of your life?

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Change is constantly like your evolution of everything. Some things remain permanence, but change is constantly. And I'm less ingestive now. I don't intake as much stuff as I used to as one of the time. I got like thirty minutes, I'm probably on YouTube once the kids asleep. You know, like I used to have time to watch and listen and read.

• 1:36:56Rick Rubin?

  For the projects that don't start with you, how do you choose?

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  I just haven't in a long time. It's been over, Don't Look Up would be the last one.

• 1:37:06Rick Rubin?

  And how did you choose to do that?

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  McKay. It's mostly director, you know? I'd say it's a director's medium and like Adam McKay, you don't have to say anything else.

• 1:37:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  Like that one was like Leo and Adam McKay asked me to do it. And I was like, I want to work with both of those guys.

• 1:37:24Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. How different is your performance from take to take?

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  I gas out after two takes.

• 1:37:30Rick Rubin?

  Really?

• 1:37:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I do two takes and they are probably thirty minute takes where they go all over the place.

• 1:37:35Rick Rubin?

  I don't know what you mean thirty minute takes.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  Sorry, okay, so I shoot, except for my first movie, I shoot on digital, which means a film canister ends after like a few minutes, like probably like ten minutes, and they have to like reload it or like eleven or twelve minutes, I think. You could shoot for hours on a digital camera because it's a card.

• 1:37:54Rick Rubin?

  I guess when I say another take, I mean doing the same part again. I don't mean reloading the camera.

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  So what I mean by that is this, now because of digital, I can do it differently. Let's put it that way. If the movie shot on film, I do it differently. But I give my best two takes or my first two takes. And you probably wouldn't use anything after.

• 1:38:14Rick Rubin?

  Really?

• 1:38:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Whereas like Brad Pitt takes like 10 takes to like get to his good stuff. From what I remember and like famously.

• 1:38:22Rick Rubin?

  In the two takes, you said they're long takes. I don't know what that means.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  So then when it goes to digital, it becomes a different thing, meaning that I improvise so much and change the thing. So what I do is like on a, on a digital take, cause it can last forever. I'll do two takes that could be like 40 minutes long because I'll restart myself. I'll try different lines. I'll go off in a different direction and then take it back.

• 1:38:45Rick Rubin?

  You consider that all part of the first take?

• 1:38:47Speaker 01

  Because it still goes from the beginning, middle and end of the scene.

• 1:38:50Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  So when I tell the actors, like, I don't care if you change my words around. Here's what, how it starts. Here's what happens in the middle. Here's the events of the scene and here's the end. So in, within that beginning, middle and end is probably two 40 minute takes and then we're off of me. Instead of like, Keanu would do like very exacting takes of, unless I was shouting you jokes out at him. That would be the exact duration of the page count essentially. And he would do probably, you know, standard is like five, six takes, you know? But I do mostly like really couple takes.

• 1:39:24Rick Rubin?

  A couple of takes, but what you're talking about is very different than anyone I've heard talk about performances.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  And then if you asked people who work with me.

• 1:39:32Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  They would tell you I have an orthodox way of doing it that is heavily improvisational and what they would call improvisational. I might've written 40 of those alts.

• 1:39:44Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  So they're not improvisational to me because I came in with them. I just didn't implement them in the screenplay because they would make the page count go crazy. Then the studio would call you and say, why do you have 10 extra pages today? That's kind of more like pragmatic stuff, right? But like, yeah, I, I love that about it and I, I love, to me, that's why the Coen brothers are like, get the fuck out of here. They're like, we're better writers than you. Stop trying to like say a different shit. And I'm like, oh, sorry, I just, this is what I do. You know, like, I don't think it's better. I'm just saying it.

• 1:40:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, it's just different.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  It's my process. Yeah.

• 1:40:15Rick Rubin?

  Of course. If there was gonna be more takes, would it typically come from you requesting more? Or would it come from the director saying, please do it again?

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  As an actor?

• 1:40:27Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Either or. I usually do my two takes and I probably don't ask for anything else. Like, I honestly can't wait to do it again because I, it's been so long. It's been five years and I'm a different, such a different person. We all are fucked for five years, you know? So I'm like, man, I can't wait to see what it's like, what they ask for.

• 1:40:48Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about shooting in 16 millimeter film.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  It was awesome for that film. My big like film nerd, like A24, like cinema nerd kind of thing is like, I don't like that people just love like film stocks or whatever. It's like, does it serve the movie? For mid 90s, we wanted it to feel like you found an older movie. So Super 16 was like the best format that we, after testing a lot, that felt like a mix of a skate video and an old movie. And Decline of Western Civilization was shot on that, which was like a huge visual reference for that movie. So like that worked great for mid 90s, but would be terrible for Outcome. But I loved it. I loved, everything about mid 90s was like, there's nothing like your first time.

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  Like, I ran into Ethan Cohen the night before I started shooting mid 90s at a restaurant.

• 1:41:38Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  And I said, I'm gonna direct my first movie. It was after I worked with him. I'm like, if you give me any advice. He goes, let me eat my dinner and I'll think of something good to tell you. And he comes over at the end and he says, I was so nervous when we were making Blood Simple. I wish I could have enjoyed it. More, you know, he's like, just try and enjoy every day. And then I saw him after and he was like, well, and I was like, no, too stressed. But now I look back on it and I'm like, oh.

• 1:42:08Rick Rubin?

  Good advice.

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  Best rose colored glasses of, yeah, but the advice is impossible.

• 1:42:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  It's the same reason that gets you the position of directing a movie should make you unable to enjoy it as much as you should.

• 1:42:19Rick Rubin?

  Understood. Do you always know when something is funny?

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

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

• 1:42:42Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  You think it's gonna be like the thing that everyone's quoting, like you put it, when I say you make a rap sweatshirt with like a quote of that joke. And then you go to the first test screening at Burbank AMC, they tell you it wasn't that fucking funny.

• 1:42:54Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about test screenings in general.

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  They're amazing. Test screenings are incredible.

• 1:43:01Rick Rubin?

  How soon do you do it in the process?

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  So again, I'm very unorthodox. I test early, early and often. So usually I test five weeks into a director's cut, which is in the film's infancy. You know, that's, that's the infancy of a film's post, right? So you have 10 weeks to do a director's cut for the DGA, but then you have months after with the studio, friends and family getting notes or whatever. But legally 10 weeks, you have your director's cut. So five weeks into my director's cut, I test in front of a test screening. To get ahead of what my headline problems are. And to really get ahead of what the audience might not understand.

• 1:43:49Speaker 01

  And not to change it based on necessarily, they may not like something that I may like, and I have to then fight for how that can live, as opposed to taking it out. So I love that process. I love it. And that's been around since like Charlie Chaplin.

• 1:44:02Rick Rubin?

  What are some of the comments you get?

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  Well, for comedy, it's the best. It's like off with their heads. It's like the joke gets a laugh or it doesn't. And if you really want to be bullish, you're like, I know this is funny. There's a reason I'm me and the reason I get to make comedies. Well, you know what? You haven't set it up properly. You haven't set the table for them to laugh. So it's almost always in the setup. Yes. And so like, I'm obsessed. It's all a big puzzle. It's so fun. I'll test them. It'll be five weeks and get my nuts kicked in and my teeth kicked in. You want to kill yourself. You're like, you're like, this is, I'm a failure. I've, I've ruined it. And then you get one day in like bed, like one night where I'm like a total bitch to be around. And then the next day, like everyone at Strong Baby comes into the office

• 1:44:48Speaker 01

  and we're like, what was good? How do we support what's good? And how do we build on what's good? And it's such, you know, this is our like, third movie I've directed at Strong Baby, Stutz, out coming now, Cut Off. But it's like, it is so, the process is the reward. Being in the bunker with everyone, when you're like, you need to like, help something get better. And then to really take that, something not working, not as a failure, but that the test screening is a gift. It tells you exactly what needs the love.

• 1:45:24Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, it's an opportunity to see what's not clear. It's like crowdsourcing an answer.

• 1:45:32Speaker 01

  Yes. Cause I can play a movie to Spike and Mike and a whole industry crowd, and they get a lot more than someone who, you know, is not from LA or New York or works in entertainment, you know? And it's, it's an amazing tool to get an audience's reaction to things.

• 1:45:51Rick Rubin?

  When something is funny to you, do you always know why?

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  I could articulate to you why I found it funny. I think that's a gift I have is to say why I find something funny. But then sometimes things are just so funny about life, like, you know, having a kid teaches you like, they do something that's so unexplainable. That's hilarious. And then you'd be a fool to try and even waste your time describing. I often will because I like the analytics of comedy, but like, you can intellectualize this stuff all day, but my two-year-old is funnier than you are. He is.

• 1:46:27Rick Rubin?

  I bet.

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  Not you, being like, you know, he's funnier than any of us at any given time, you know?

• 1:46:32Rick Rubin?

  Of course. And he's probably not trying.

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  Now he's starting to try, which is even more incredible because I'm watching him like a sponge. Learning when to get out on a joke. When to, you know, like he's almost three, he's about to be three. And so he can like, he can tell like, I'll say like, you said it once. Get out of there. You know, the famous Albert Brooks story?

• 1:46:57Rick Rubin?

  No.

• 1:46:57Speaker 01

  With Rob Reiner, may he rest in peace, whereas, Rob told me this story that Albert killed so hard at a party one time in the seventies. They were all at a social event party. And Albert just killed from the jump, like was just killing, like socially just murdering. And he's like, he leaves. Like right away. He's like, he leaves and then the phone rings and they're like someone for Rob, like Rob, it's for you. And it was Albert. He's like, I left my keys up there. You got to bring them out to me. And he's like, he's like, come back and get them. He's like, I just killed so hard. I had to get the fuck out of there. There's no way I'm going back in there.

• 1:47:31Rick Rubin?

  That's so funny. There's a Seinfeld episode about that.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  No way.

• 1:47:35Rick Rubin?

  Leaving on a high note. Yeah.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  Well, it's not overstating your welcome. There's a lot to be said for it.

• 1:47:40Rick Rubin?

  How is LA now different than the LA you grew up in?

• 1:47:44Speaker 01

  Night and day.

• 1:47:45Rick Rubin?

  How?

• 1:47:46Speaker 01

  Well, night and day, not night and day. Let's say dusk to afternoon. It's like, it's like, the coolest parts about it was that I could go skate downtown or see a punk show or something. And then sneak into the Man on the Moon premiere, which I did on my 16th birthday. And so like where I met Rodney. Wow. Where I met Rodney, which is one of my favorite stories ever. Yeah. I could tell as a side, which is, because we were making the Rodney biopic. We were producing it. We had developed it with Terrence Winter, who wrote Wolf of Wall Street at Strong Baby. And we couldn't end up figuring it out. And I wanted to play Rodney and we were producing it. That'd be amazing. I'd still love to play Rodney, honestly. That's kind of something on my bucket list. So I'm 16 years old. I sneak into the Man on the Moon premiere with my buddy Mark.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  And we're in the back trying to wait for someone to open an exit door. So we can go in through the back. And a limo pulls up and it's Rodney in a suit with no shoes or socks on. And his wife, who's incredible, and a six pack of Mickey's bombers. And I'm like, Rodney, you're my favorite man. Like you're the king. You're the fucking king. And he's like, oh, wait. And it was my birthday. And so he was like, what are you doing? I'm like, we're trying to sneak in. He's like, I'll sneak you guys in. And then he sneaks us in. He gives us, both of us, one of his Mickey grenades. And he sneaks us into the Man on the Moon premiere. Incredible. Coolest fucking thing ever, man. Like I'll never, obviously never forget it.

• 1:49:09Speaker 01

  But I have a Danger Fields ashtray in my office from the comedy club. With the drawing? Yeah. That's so great. With the cartoon Rodney. What are your favorite documentaries? God, how much time do you have? That's pretty much all. I mean, it's like. You love docs. Just everything. Yeah. I mean, I love the movie Dig. I think Dig is stuck with me a long time. That movie really got me. Like just somehow how that story is told and, and the band, the one band being like credible, but not famous and the other being famous, but not as credible. It's just like this Shakespearean parable that's told through these characters that are, and Anton's just such an interesting character from Bryan Jonestown massacre.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  With the most, one of the greatest like main characters of all time. The guy who will never be as fucked up and harmful to himself, but will never be as great as him. And it's like, holy shit, that movie cut me deep.

• 1:50:04Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  She made another great movie on the, um, called We Live in Public, which we tried to develop at Strong Baby into a narrative feature, which is incredible movie you should watch. But all day, I mean, the decline of Western civilization docs are huge for me. I love your doc about Shangri-La. I love that. I've seen that. Any doc about, like the Geffen doc, any doc about the like business or art or how art or business is made and or process docs, you know, um, I just, I just fucking, I eat it up, man. I eat it up.

• 1:50:36Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about watching movies over and over again.

• 1:50:39Speaker 01

  If a movie is amazing, I don't get sick of it.

• 1:50:42Rick Rubin?

  What do you get from the repeats?

• 1:50:45Speaker 01

  I try and learn how it was made and how decisions were made. I'll, I won't name the movie, but a movie that could or is gonna win best, or you know, one of the ones for Best Picture this year. Great movie. On Cut Off, we have to rethink our beginning. And we're rethinking it now in the edit. And I watched this movie for the first time. I hadn't seen it, this movie. And I watched the beginning and I texted my editor, cause you're the same sound mixer as this movie. And I said, did you see this movie? And she goes, yeah. And I go, I guarantee you, people didn't understand, understand it and they had to redo this opening.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  And she texted the sound engineer and he assured me I was right. So I like how things are made.

• 1:51:36Rick Rubin?

  For problem solving?

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  For setting the table for the audience, whether it be for characters or the story or the tone. There was some little preamble that was additionally made to help set the table for the audience to immediately lock into the movie. And I saw it in the fir-, before I was even done, I texted my editor, guarantee you they did this and I was right.

• 1:52:00Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:00Speaker 01

  So for me, it's just like a deeper understanding of how movies are made, how good movies are made, how bad movies are made and all the decisions and fixes it takes to get there. Cause now that I'm realizing this is my fourth movie, it's not about decisions, it's about fixing and creating new decisions to support the decisions that worked.

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  And not beating yourself up about the decisions that didn't work.

• 1:53:04Speaker 07

  What may fall within the sphere of Tetragrammatin? Counter culture? Tetragrammatin. Sacred geometry? Tetragrammatin. The avant-garde? Tetragrammatin. Generative art? Tetragrammatin. The tarot? Tetragrammatin. Out-of-print music? Tetragrammatin. Biodynamics? Tetragrammatin. Graphic design? Tetragrammatin. Mythology and magic? Tetragrammatin. Obscure film? Tetragrammatin. Beach culture? Tetragrammatin. Esoteric lectures? Tetragrammatin. Off-the-grid living? Tetragrammatin. Alt spirituality? Tetragrammatin. The canon of fine objects? Tetragrammatin. Muscle cars? Tetragrammatin. Ancient wisdom for a new age.

• 1:53:51Speaker 07

  Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day.

• 1:53:56Speaker 07

  Take a breath and see where you are drawn.

• 1:54:04Speaker 07

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