Into The Matrix with Laurence Fishburne

Are we all living in The Matrix? Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with actor Laurence Fishburne to explore the science of The Matrix, simulation theory, and who has the better deep voice. Would you take the red pill?

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist, and today we are joining a one-on-one exclusive conversation with someone whom I'm proud to call my friend, Lawrence Fishburne. Lawrence?

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Neil.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  How are you, man?

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Thank you. This is so great. Thank you for having me, man.

• 0:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my God.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  I'm so excited to be here.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is this your first time back at the Hayden Planetarium?

• 0:44Speaker 01

  I haven't been to the Hayden Planetarium since I was a boy, probably.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Walked by many times.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because when I was a boy, I came by and was like, I'm doing this for life.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 0:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  I wanted to live here, too, but I wasn't that good in science. I liked it, but I wasn't that good.

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait a minute, you told me your mama taught science.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  My mama was a science teacher.

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so then how'd that square out?

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Well, I found this other little thing that I was good at.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, this little thing.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  You know, that little acting thing, the little play-acting thing.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Little thing.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  And it kind of worked out for me, so.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, it kind of worked out?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  It kind of worked out, yeah.

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I just look at your catalog.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh. It's not just deep, but it's broad.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm looking at it, and I'm saying, if I were an actor, that's kind of how I'd want to be.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Oh, man, thanks.

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because as an actor, you act this way, and act that way, and act this other way.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you're always doing the same thing, that's not acting.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  It's not as much fun. I mean, it's fun for some people. Some people, like, they do the thing. They find the thing. If it works for them, they do that.

• 1:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They find the niche, yeah.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  It's cool. For me, I'm just, I'm a kind of a curious person.

• 1:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  So I'm interested in stuff that I don't know.

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  And learning about stuff that I don't know, so.

• 1:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, that curiosity, most of us lose in childhood.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as an adult, you get comfortable.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yes, sure. But as an actor, it's good to have that kind of curiosity because you never know what kind of part you're gonna play. If you're looking for something different every time, like I am.

• 2:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, you want people to, if you're not always in control of what role is offered.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you want to at least give the options.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. And you want to keep learning. I mean, I want to keep learning, so my curiosity has just drove me to.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just looking at this. How many people know you were in Apocalypse Now?

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Hmm, a few people.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  I'd say a few people.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You had a bit role in Apocalypse Now.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  I was one of the four guys on a boat heading upriver with Martin Sheen to go and assassinate Marlon Brando's character.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, you were one of the young soldiers.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  I was a young sailor on this boat.

• 2:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sailor on the boat.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I remember, you, I don't know if you confided in me, whatever.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a little late now, that you were like underage at the time. How old were you?

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I auditioned for the movie. I was 14 years old. I got the part. They asked me how old I was in the interview. I lied and said I was 16.

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  They knew that I was lying, but they just hired me anyway. It wasn't like my lie convinced them to hire me.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  It wasn't that. You know, a lot of guys, if you go back and you see these documentaries about World War I, you discover that there were many boys, 16, 17, who enlisted, who lied about their age and they were conscripted anyway and they went to war.

• 3:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they could fight. Okay, so you were 14, lied and told them you were 16, and you were playing an 18-year-old.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  And I was playing a 17-year-old.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  17-year-old, okay. So that was Apocalypse Now.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Apocalypse Now, 1976, 1977.

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, you know, Boys in the Hood, John Wick.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  John Wick.

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my gosh.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's just fun, mindless entertainment.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, yeah.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  John Wick.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, style above content.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Fighting, fighting.

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you had me some good fighting, you know?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all good.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, you know, even, I forgotten, you and, I'm blackish.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Blackish, yep, as the grandfather, as Pops.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, grumpy grandpa.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, grumpy grandfather, Pops, that was fun. CSI, where I played a scientist.

• 4:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes!

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Television, Pee Wee's Playhouse. Where I played the cowboy, Curtis Cowboy Curtis, yeah, yeah.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Peewee's Playhouse.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, Peewee's Playhouse, yeah.

• 4:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Good fun.

• 4:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what I thought was broad and diverse wasn't even the full story?

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Not quite.

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right, so you played a scientist on CSI. Were you the guy in the morgue?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  No, I was not the guy in the morgue. I basically replaced William Peterson. When William Peterson, who was the bug man, left.

• 4:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  My guy came in, I was a guy named Ray Langston, who was a pathologist.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So which CSI was this in the pantheon of CSI's?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  It was in the original CSI which took place in Vegas.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't remember that.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Season nine, ten, and eleven.

• 4:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You must know CSI ended up, it became so successful as a force of attraction.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For people who might want to become scientists.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 5:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And at least anecdotally, there were chemistry professors saying, why are all these women now in the class that wouldn't, weren't?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Wouldn't normally have been.

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as, oh, I saw a scientist on CSI, because they were real people portrayed.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With real social lives, personal lives.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 5:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were not just the scientists in the lab.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Nerd and brainiacs.

• 5:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nerd lab scientists that, give me the answer, let's have the real people move on.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Right, they made science sexy.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were the real people.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And CSI created a museum exhibit that traveled.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  That's right, they did, they did, they did. It made science sexy.

• 5:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  It was the way they shot it. And what I used to always tell people about the show was, they were like, oh, you're the star of the show. I was like, no, I'm not the star of the show. I'm like, the crime that they're solving with the scientific method is the star of the show.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, there it is.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  That's the star.

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Science reigns supreme.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 5:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In every ep- every episode.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Every episode.

• 5:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, was that your only time as scientist?

• 6:00Speaker 01

  No, my other time as a scientist was in a film called Contagion that came out in 2009. I played the head, the director of the CDC.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Uh, so it was all about, you know, tracking down potential pandemics that were gonna happen. And we had a guy who recently passed on, a guy named Elliot, who was the head of the CDC, and that was his job. And every day he'd be on the set and he'd be like, look at this, look what we're tracking in Bolivia, look at what we're trafficking in Africa.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, as an advisor?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  He would be like, we're tracking this in this country, we're tracking this disease in this country. And it was fascinating, and then of course. When covid happened, it was like

• 6:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  It was like they had lifted everything from the movie and it was actually happening in real life.

• 6:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I visited the CDC for my very first time just a couple of months ago.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they took me deep into the

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Did they?

• 6:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so into what was basically like the situation. The vault. The, what, what, what? I saw this vial of Legionnaires' disease.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fluid.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, you know, it's like this is their, what they study this.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I went into the room and as a, as an astro person,

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The only analog I have to this is Mission Control.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all these desks in arcs.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 7:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a huge wall and it's a screen of the world.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And at every country, there's data.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  There's data.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming in.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What disease is there? What's getting tracked? How many people have the disease? How many people have died from the disease?

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Potentially what it will do if it gets out?

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of this is there.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Oh! Yes, but thank God for them.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, no, no.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Thank goodness that they exist, that organizations like that exist.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And their hearts in it. They, they care.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  They care.

• 7:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They care.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, a scientist twice.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Two scientists.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me say I'm a little disappointed given how many movies you've made.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you gotta come through for me now.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  I've done a lot of science fiction though, Neil.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yes! Oh, my gosh!

• 7:52Speaker 01

  I did a little.

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I looked at the list and, and I'm, I'm embarrassed to say, I've seen like only, I gotta go on a like a

• 8:00Speaker 01

  You gotta have a fishburn night. You gotta have a fishburn night.

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  You like, you get the movies, you line them up.

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna do a fishburn binge.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  You get your menu, you line your, your menu.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta, we gotta do a fishburn binge here. And, yeah, The Signal.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  The Signal.

• 8:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Signal.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yes, 2017.

• 8:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's

• 8:18Speaker 01

  That was a great one. I played not quite a scientist in that, but a guy in a hazmat suit.

• 8:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  So it kinda qualifies.

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Event Horizon.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Event Horizon, Search and Rescue. Passengers.

• 8:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Contagion.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Contagion.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Colony.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  The Colony.

• 8:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, man.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Who?

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Predators, what was that?

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Predators was, uh, part of the Predator franchise.

• 8:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  So it was

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was Predator 3, wasn't it?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  No, no, it was, it was like 4 or something.

• 8:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Basically, the premise was The Predator collected a group of really, really bad human beings and dropped them on this planet, which is basically the Predator's hunting ground. So it's like a convict.

• 8:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they selected them to be bad already?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  They just selected them to be bad.

• 9:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So none of us would miss them, I guess.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Exactly, and this is where the Predators go to practice their hunting.

• 9:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  It was Adrian Brody, myself, Mahershala Ali, Alicia Braga, Topher Grace.

• 9:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would have been early for Mahershala Ali, right?

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was, it was.

• 9:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got everything he's in.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was early for Mahershala, myself, Walton Goggins.

• 9:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  And of course, Denny Trejo.

• 9:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  It's a pretty cool movie, I gotta say.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back on my list.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, Predators.

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fantastic Four, I didn't know you.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Fantastic Four, I voiced the Silver Surfer.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my gosh.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and then of course, this little, little thing I did called The Matrix.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The friggin' Matrix!

• 9:38Speaker 01

  That little movie, you know.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Matrix!

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I don't know who saw that.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't even look at my notes anymore, because you just distracted me. The Matrix, that's my single favorite movie of all time.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Really?

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  I don't know if you're ready to see what I want to show you, Neil, but...

• 9:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't, don't try to out-deep voice me.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Okay. I won't.

• 10:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's try it.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I want, I want to hear you do as best you can.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Okay. This is StarTalk.

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you're trying too hard there.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Oh, don't try. You need to, that wasn't naturalistic?

• 10:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you were forcing that, let me...

• 10:17Speaker 01

  This is StarTalk.

• 10:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm Morpheus.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  No. I'm Morpheus.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why can't I be Morpheus?

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Because you're not.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Because I am.

• 10:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, we just lost, uh-

• 10:42Speaker 01

  James Earl Jones.

• 10:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  James Earl Jones.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  The great James Earl Jones.

• 10:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I only barely met him. I was at a premiere of, uh, on Golden Pond with him playing opposite, uh, Felicia Rashad.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, uh, but Darth Vader. I mean, come on.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Luke, I am your father.

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do not overestimate the power of your technological terror.

• 11:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me hear, Luke, I am your father. No, Luke, I am your father.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look into your, search your feelings. You know to be true.

• 11:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  CNN hasn't been the same ever since they stopped using his voice for that.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  I'm so like-

• 11:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're using all the correspondences, like, don't you understand?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Exactly. I just, I would, I would love that gig.

• 11:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I want the gig.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  You want that gig?

• 11:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I don't want you to have the gig.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  We might have to fight about it now.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, you'll lose.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Okay, you ready? You ready? Let's try it. Ready? Let's audition. We're gonna, this is our audition for CNN. Ready?

• 11:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Replacing James Earl. Do I have Marmee go first?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 11:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is CNN.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  That's not bad. It's actually pretty good.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  This is CNN.

• 11:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, that sounded a little more authoritative. Let me go, let me try again.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  All right, go ahead.

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause you, you, you hit, you hit the syllable sharp there.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  This is my wheelhouse.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay, all right, all right.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 12:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is CNN.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Nice, nice. This is CNN.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got the little breath at the end there. I could put some breath in, too.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  You could put some breath in.

• 12:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is CNN.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  All right, you got it. I'm gonna just, I acquiesce. It's your gig. You want, you got it.

• 12:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, how deep can you take your voice? Have you-

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Uh, probably right about in here.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, like below audio frequency levels?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  I don't think it's sub, I don't think it's that-

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  20 hertz?

• 12:44Speaker 01

  I don't know if it's that deep.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're 20 to 20,000. That's the traditional range.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, I just put it through a thing. I go to the studio and they put it through a thing and it comes out.

• 12:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take it down.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it sounds like evil alien.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me see, I haven't done this in a while.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now, oh yeah.

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh yeah.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Oh no.

• 13:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Come on, baby. Okay, so now if you can do that voice, then it looks like Morgan Freeman got all the god jobs.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did. He did. He did get all the almighties.

• 13:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the almighties.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  He got all the everlastings and the almighties, yeah.

• 13:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, you know.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  But you got the cosmos.

• 13:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because you can't have a pipsqueak voice coming out of the universe.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  You can't.

• 13:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That doesn't work.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  No, no. It's like burning bush.

• 13:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotta be down here. You've gotta be.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just a bias we have.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does.

• 13:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Suppose God's voice was, "Hi, everybody. I'm God." There's no reason why I couldn't be high pitched.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  "Hi, I love you so much. I love you. All of you are my children and I love you so much."

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one would believe it.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  They would just like, okay, alright.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Hello, I'm Alexander Harvey and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 14:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me take you to the map.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 14:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With The Matrix.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Let's go, let's go.

• 14:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, one of the reasons why it's my favorite film is other than one little bit where the science, they played loose with the science, okay? By the way, I don't mind that provided a story is internally consistent. That's the big Comic-Con rule, really.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Ah, okay.

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not whether it's real science or not.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you're gonna have a rule that operates in your story,

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  stick with it.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you, if you set up the rules of the world.

• 14:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm perfectly happy.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  You have to abide by those rules.

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct. And that's what any video game is.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Any story.

• 15:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Any.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Any story in any medium.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, it's any story in any medium that I, I agree.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it did it so well. And it was such a. Fantasy adventure and

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 15:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And good and evil and I don't know, it was and it was beautiful to watch.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so just like, you know, kudos to the the Wachowskis.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 15:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a brilliant, a brilliant idea and a brilliant execution of a brilliant idea.

• 15:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Apparently rumor tells

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 15:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That Will Smith's agent was not convinced by the story enough to have him.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Play Neo.

• 15:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Play Neo.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what about the story intrigued you?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's well, yes, moved to Australia for five months or whatever.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  For two years.

• 15:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, two years, yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Basically, I mean, we were there for three years doing all three movies.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Essentially, um, what drew my interest in it was.

• 15:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It wasn't too weird for you, so I don't know what this is.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  I understood it.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so maybe.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  I understood it when I read it.

• 16:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People couldn't.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Here's the thing.

• 16:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cross that.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  There was a guy, like, one of the main producers on it, obviously, Joel Silver was one of the producers. There's another guy Lorenzo Bonaventura, who was one of the producers, and he was, I think, the guy who was like showing this to the studio executives, to the people who make the decisions. And a lot of the the the story is.

• 16:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The shirts or the jackets?

• 16:21Speaker 01

  The suits, the whatever.

• 16:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The suits.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Uh, so the executives, right? And, uh, many of them were, the story is that many of them just didn't get it. They were like, we don't understand this. And what I've heard is that Lorenzo's response to that was, don't worry, no one under thirty understands it anyway.

• 16:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Right?

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  So I was thirty four, thirty five or something when I read it. And it was the most original thing I'd ever read. That didn't mean that everyone was gonna get it. That didn't mean that everybody was going to understand it. That's what my experience with Apocalypse Now had taught me. Because when I made Apocalypse Now in the nineteen seventies, it was the most expensive movie ever made. It was the most ambitious movie ever made during that period of time. Marlon Brando was in the movie and Martin Sheen was in the movie and it was about the Vietnam War and it was exciting. And John Meilius wrote the screenplay and all these wonderful elements. But the movie commercially did not do well.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  It was a critical success, but it was not a commercial success. So I had learned that even though something on the page. Or as a concept is brilliant, that doesn't mean it's gonna translate with an audience, particularly an American audience. One never knows. The American audience

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is fickle.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Is is mercurial, man. It's, you know. So I just knew that it was the most original thing that I had ever read, and I understood it. I got it, and I wanted to be a part of it. And the timing just so happened that the way that it all sort of came together. We shot the movie in nineteen ninety-eight. The movie came out in nineteen ninety-nine. The internet was born in nineteen ninety-eight, essentially. Cell phones became a reality in nineteen ninety-nine.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just the digital world.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  The digital world.

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Descended on everyone.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  On everyone. Essentially, what the story is and and why it resonates with everybody all over the planet, and it did at that time, is because it's the old myth told in a digital format.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  And we were right.

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it had deep resonance.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were right at the birth of the digital age.

• 18:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And so, but is is that rumor true that Will Smith turned it down?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  I don't know. I've heard that before, but I don't know. I've never really sat down with Will and asked him about it.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay. Because that, when I heard that, I said, how does an actor know what role you should or shouldn't take, you know?

• 18:53Speaker 01

  You know, it depends on who you are and, you know.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're true to yourself, it doesn't even matter. You're just true to yourself.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's anybody's guess. Maybe that's the case. I don't know. I've never sat down and asked Will about it.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Can I share with you all my religious observations?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yes, please.

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Catholic, religious, Christian, Catholic observations.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  As you are a Catholic.

• 19:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I was raised.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Braised Catholic, right. Okay. Please. Yes.

• 19:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My doubts.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Descended early.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, well. A religion rifled with doubt.

• 19:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but I'm still fascinated by the fact that there's such a thing as religion in the world, and billions of people.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Practice.

• 19:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Practice it, right? That intrigues me as an educator.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because something is attracting them. What is it and why? And you're this religion over here, because that was the religion of your parents.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're sure your religion is the one true religion in the world. But so are these people, are just as sure as you are, and will go to war on that.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Historically.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, historically, correct.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's why religion intrigues me. So, in The Matrix. So first, Neo, that's an anagram of

• 19:59Speaker 01

  The One.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The One. You had to dip your head in "The One."

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't non-act that expression. "The One."

• 20:07Speaker 01

  "The One."

• 20:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's "The One."

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, he's the Savior.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so now watch.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  The Christ.

• 20:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, so now watch. Uh, early in the film, uh, he wakes up from his

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's someone knocking at the door, and apparently he hacked something for them.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And is about to give them, and so he says, "Wait a minute." He goes back, rummages through a thing, gives him a disc.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the guy says, "Thanks," you know, "Okay, you're my Savior. You're my regular Jesus Christ."

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're my own personal Jesus Christ.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a script line.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  That's right there.

• 20:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's right there.

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right there, okay, but let's not stop there.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so, we keep going. There's the part where he gets brought into the Nemechka Nezzer

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For the first time, so he's still rafting, looking around, and there's Joe

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Joe Pants.

• 20:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Joey Pants.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, Joey Pants, yeah.

• 21:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Penteliano.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Penteliano.

• 21:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Penteliano, and he's there, and he's just looking, and then that character, Cypher, is startled, and he says, "Oh, you scared the bejesus out of me."

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yep, that's two.

• 21:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so hang on.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's two, yeah.

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, hang on.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who betrays the group?

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Cypher.

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cypher!

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He betrayed

• 21:27Speaker 01

  He's the Judas.

• 21:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who, he's Judas?

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's the Judas.

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's Judas.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After, the bejesus was scared at.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He doesn't have Jesus in him.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  He doesn't have Jesus in him.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, but, let me keep going.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Keep going.

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  If you can.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Cause you think you know the movie better than I do, and you might.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I don't know.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  You might, let's go.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, here's the difference. It's my favorite movie, and you've made a hundred movies.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay, all right. So then, everyone sort of decides that he's the one.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  He's the one.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, when he's like pulling Trinity up

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the helicopter as it comes.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He is the one.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  I told you, he is the one.

• 22:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He, he is the one.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Do you believe it now, Trinity?

• 22:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what it means to compliment you on exactly imitating what you were paid to do in a movie. And I would say, hey, you should be that character. Too late, already been done. No, but the weird thing is, you're not imitating that character. You were that character. Yes. Even that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, let's fast forward towards the end. Mm-hmm. He gets shot, point blank. Right. By Smith. Yes.

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Then he drops. Drops. He keeps firing into him. Yes. Okay. Just, alright, do you know how many bullets he put in him? I don't. You don't? I don't. I will tell you. Tell me. Okay, it requires a little bit extrapolation. Okay. Okay. The bullets you see, it's like four bullets, point blank to the chest. Okay. At that point, we go back to the Nebuchadnezzar. Mm-hmm. And you see his body responding. Right. Okay, but what if you track the rate that bullets are being fired? Yeah. And continue them into that scene. Mm-hmm. Then we come out of the scene, and there's a few more bullets that you observe. Right. That's 14 bullets. Okay. Okay? Okay.

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are 14 stations of the cross. I didn't know that. In a Catholic church. I didn't know that. Now, for non-Catholics out there, in every church, Catholic church, in the, typically in the pillars that surround the main open area. Yeah. From the side areas, mounted facing inward, are 14 drawings, paintings, relief maps of the 14, they're called stages of the cross. Got it. Okay? Yeah. And they're key moments in Jesus's life. And it's an early movie, really. Oh. The word movie doesn't even exist. Exactly. Right, but a sequence. But it's visual. It's a visual sequencing, okay? Okay. And it's all of it, and it's, he's tried under Punches Pilot. Uh-huh. He carries the cross. Uh-huh.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's put up on the cross. Oh. He dies on the cross. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it. So it's all, you can look it up on any, you know. 14 stages of the cross. Yes. 14 bullets. Now. Interesting. And he dies. Right. Then he's resurrected. Resurrected, right there. It comes back more powerful than ever before. That's right. Is that not Jesus?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  That's Jesus all the time.

• 24:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Joining the side of God.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  That's Jesus all day.

• 24:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All day.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All day, all night.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  So who's Trinity?

• 24:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, okay, so we got it like.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  In the Catholic.

• 24:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would have to be Mary Magdalene.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I'm thinking.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Well, she does take him to a sex club. That's where they meet. At the sex.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was that a sex club?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  That's a sex club.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were just dancing.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  No, it's a sex club. You look behind and you're looking deep in the background. They didn't allow them to show all of that, but it's a sex club.

• 25:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Mary Magdalene, right there.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  And who's Morpheus?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  In the, in the Christ mythology.

• 25:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, I'm trying to.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  He's the Baptist.

• 25:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  John the Baptist?

• 25:25Speaker 01

  He's John the Baptist.

• 25:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because John the Baptist knows Jesus is coming.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Yes, he knows who he is.

• 25:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And sets everything up.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  And he's been looking for him.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he been looking for him.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  And when he meets him, he goes, I'm supposed to be baptized by you.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  So that's who Morpheus is in the Christ mythology.

• 25:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the Christ.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  But there's also mythology, Greek mythology.

• 25:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell me, tell me.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  There's, well, Morpheus is the Lord of Dream. It's the God of Dream.

• 25:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  From Greek mythology, right? Persephone, who's in the second or third movie, who's played by Monica Bellucci. The oracle is Greek.

• 26:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's, that's an actual oracle.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  The oracle is Greek.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, too bad we lost her before the second film.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She was really a strong character.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Niobe.

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's an element on the periodic table called niobium.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Is there?

• 26:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, there is. Because there's something about the colors that were sort of iridescent and radiant.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's something about the, in the Greek legend.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Niobe, I don't know the full story. But it had, it borrowed that from Greek legend.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Niobium.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  So there's, there's the Osiris. There's the Nebuchadnezzar, which is also biblical. Yes, of course. It's also the size of a very large bottle of wine. Ah. Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar. You tend to find it only in champagne, because that's when you. Oh, well, it's kingly. It's kingly. Yeah, it's kingly, it's party for thirty people. Thirty people. And you just lean the bottle for Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar, okay. Bottle of wine. So there's, you know, there's, there's the Gnosis, there's the Osiris. Okay, so. Persephone. I, I don't want to say mashup, because that might undersell it. It's drawing from these very deep. All, all these traditions. It, it draws from Western tradition. Mm-hmm. Spiritually, religiously, and Eastern tradition, spiritually. Mm-hmm.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  And philosophically as well. Especially. Yeah. Because it's, scenes are not just simple scenes. You have to think about them. No. What's going on here and why? Right, right. Like, when I saw the film for the first time, I had forgotten about all of that, because we had to train so hard to get the physical stuff right. Oh, yeah. That I forgot about all of the philosophy and all of the sort of religious tenets. But you come in and film your scene and go back to the trailer. It's not, no, it's not that simple. It's not that simple. It's, it's, it was, it was a year of work, but so much of it was physical, and we had to work so hard to do that. Mm-hmm. That I really forgot about the stuff that's in the dialogue.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Like, my favorite stuff is in that first encounter I have with him, and I'm asking him, "Do you know why you're here?" You didn't say that right. And I'm saying. Do you know why you're here? See, I, you know. And, and this is what has brought you to me, and that whole thing about, "Do you know what the Matrix is?", and I go, "It's all around us, you can feel it when you go to church." All that stuff.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  That's my favorite stuff, cause it's very, it's really cryptic and it's, and it's really scary.

• 28:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And ethereal.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  And ethereal and very scary.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you have to deliver it that way, otherwise it's just a line.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just a line.

• 28:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you have to live inside that.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  And I had forgotten about all that stuff that's in it. And even the stuff with like Joe Pants and the agents when he's talking to them.

• 28:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  And he's having the dinner.

• 28:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yes.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  He's having his steak.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's very, that's, that's almost ASMR.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, because he's, he's, he's eating the steak and he puts the.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  And he's eating it and he's like, I know this steak isn't real.

• 28:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but my mind.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  And I don't care.

• 29:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is telling me it's real.

• 29:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we have a deal.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I don't wanna remember nothing, nothing.

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You put it back in my body.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  All that stuff is just, you know, it's fantastic.

• 29:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, every, every, so, so that's my, so the religious line.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Through it.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And no one doesn't love the idea of a savior. I mean, this is.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 29:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and a plausible savior, right? He didn't show up as Superman.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This, he had to find it in himself.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just the way the oracle had required of him.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's why it's your favorite movie, cause it reminds you of Jesus?

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, no.

• 29:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I, I, I, I respect storytelling.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the stories that have outlived civilizations.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  And, and, and the story of the Christ is indeed.

• 29:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's there.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  A powerful story.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's very powerful.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very powerful. So there's all of that, and then there's a few more things.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, they, they tossed in, it was a little bit, they stapled it on when, when the oracle says, oh, watch out for the, for that glass. And he says, what glass?

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he turns around and it drops.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  And he drops it, yeah.

• 30:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she says, that glass.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now here's gonna be eating your craw.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would you have done it if I didn't?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  If you did, exactly.

• 30:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, it's one of these future, you know, did trying to avoid the future, make that future happen.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 30:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, I thought. That was unnecessary because the movie was already deep. And that was almost cliche sci-fi.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Time, you know.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 30:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Future prediction.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought the movie was above that, but fine.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  I liked it. I thought it was clever because of what they did, the way they set it up.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  With the know thyself sign.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, right.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  And they set it up with that.

• 30:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  And also that she's grandma and she's baking cookies.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, it was a full.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Her baking cookies and she's in the projects. Like she lives in the projects.

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if people know that those are the projects.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  That's.

• 31:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But did they have projects in Australia?

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Well, we weren't supposed to be in Australia.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  It takes place in a modern city.

• 31:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think ostensibly Chicago.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  It's, yes, basically.

• 31:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I only know that because I have the original script.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 31:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, and.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it's the L going by.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, they wanted to shoot it there, but unfortunately couldn't do it.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heart of the city.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Heart of the city.

• 31:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heart of the city.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Heart of the city.

• 31:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hotel.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, and, oh, and Wabash Avenue.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  And Wabash, yeah.

• 31:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wabash is a main street in Chicago. And that's an explicitly stated street.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'm saying, where did you guys get the projects in Australia to film in?

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Oh, there were, no, we, it was all okay, it wasn't location, that wasn't a location, that was a, that was a soundstage.

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, just set that up?

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, very well done.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That felt like the project.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  It did.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I grew up in projects and that.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My middle income projects, so.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There were fewer junkies.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, but it felt like the project. I mean, it really did.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it did. They, they got that.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  They got it right.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a couple of things, uh, by the way.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  What did you think about the spoon?

• 32:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm getting it. That's my next thing.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 32:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, ta ta ta. So I give a public talk, one of which you attended.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think you attended it.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, one of them is called An Astrophysicist Goes to the Movies.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I show clips.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I analyze the clip.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and The Matrix has a dozen clips. I don't put them all in one thing because I.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's scientifically themed, not movie themed.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, I have a section on optics.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, with the spoon.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One side is convex, one side is concave. Right. You slurp out of the concave side. Yes. Concave, convex. Yes. If you look into a spoon, on the convex side. Right. You are distorted but right side up. If you look on the concave side. It's upside down. You are upside down and that was accurately captured in the frickin' movie. Yeah. Yes. The science was right. The sci- the optics of that. The optics of the science was right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That was good. That was cool. I like that. Yeah, yeah. And then the kid saying, "Do not..." Do not try to move the... Do not bend the spoon. That's impossible. That's impossible. Instead, bend yourself around the spoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, "We..." That's good. That's good.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's genius, man. No, it's good. It's genius. It's all good. Yeah. Now, here's another thing. I let it go because everyone does it, but just... I'm telling you that in almost every movie where they show people crazily brilliant. Yeah. Okay? Mm-hmm. Like, that's the point of the movie. Right. Because they're brilliant. Right. Like phenomenon, for example, with John Travolta. John Travolta. Right. I've never seen that film. Okay, it's interesting. It's worth, you know, at an afternoon if you're at home. Cool. Uh, he gets hit by lightning and he... He was just a regular guy. Right. Even partly mocked for not being smart. Oh. And then he... Wakes up and he's... Yeah, well, after he's hit by lightning and Robert Duvall is in that as the... The person studying his new abilities. Oh.

• 34:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anyhow, the point is, he says, "Name me ten mammals" or something. You want in alphabetical order? And then he goes through the whole alphabet. Right. All right? So, yes, a really brilliant, smart person would do that. Right. I don't have a problem with that. But in almost all these cases, they start moving stuff with their... With their minds. With their minds. Yes. And it's like, there's no evidence that smart people can move stuff.

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just figure things out faster or better. Okay. Okay? Right, right. I'll give you that. We start moving things. Right, right. There was Lucy. Yes, I remember Lucy. Okay, Morgan Freeman was in that. It's fun. Yeah. Yeah. And she starts using more of her mind. Mm-hmm. Changes her hair color as she's walking down the street. Right. You know, stops bullets. Mmm. You know, you gotta be in the Matrix to stop bullets. Right. Come on now. Exactly. You know. Yeah. So anyhow, so the hopefuls. Mm-hmm. Who are waiting in line to see the Oracle. Yeah, the potentials, yeah. So they were doing things. Yeah, the one kid was moving the blocks. The blocks in the air, yeah, yeah. So I, okay, fine. All right. Fine. It's a nice visual. Yeah. It's kinda cool. Yeah.

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, also, the Oracle is establishing that Trinity's in love with him. Right. And he's oblivious to that. Mmm. Okay, I was kind of oblivious to that too. I mean, I'm just, you know, guys are just generally stupid, you know, about these things. Mmm. So, and she says, "You're not too smart either." Not too bright, huh? Not too bright. I didn't wonder what she sees in you. Ooh, not too bright either, huh? (laughing). Yeah, it's great. It's really cool. Yeah. Because, given the choice, you'll have Morpheus in one hand and Trinity in the other. And, you know, so, I think it was brilliantly acted by Keanu Reeves.

• 35:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where he's in the car and they're driving, and he says, "Good sushi." I used to have noodles, I used to eat noodles there. I used to eat there. Good noodles, really good noodles. Really good noodles. Yeah, yeah. And he says, "None of that's real?" And I'm inside of him feeling this. He goes, "Can't go back, can I?" Right, this is... He's like, "Even if you could, would you want to?" Ooh. (laughing). Yeah, I mean, that was one of the hardest choices. Because so many of us, I mean, that's another thing. Forget all the religious mythological sentiment. Right. It's, "What do you value more?" Cypher said, "Put me back in my body." You know, I don't want... I don't wanna know anything.

• 36:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't wanna know anything, but, you know, I'm a scientist and I'm curious. I'd kinda rather know the truth. Right. Because there's some chance, some hope, that you can do something about the truth. Or you can do something with it. Do something with it. Mmm. If it's all just a delusion, I don't know that I want that to be my life. Right, exactly. Let me tell you my one... Issue. Right, right. I only have one. The only one thing that scientifically just rubs you the wrong. Rubs me the wrong way and the rest of the movie was so brilliantly done. I'm giving it a hall pass. My man. Hall pass on the matrix. Uh, here's your hall pass. That's what's up.

• 37:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so you've got the scene where you are describing to Neo. Mm hmm. Where he is. There's a chair there, easy chair. We're in the construct. We're in the construct. Right. And it's white everywhere. Right. And brilliantly done and there's no echo. Right. That was perfectly done. Alright, you describe to him that the machines are using humans. As batteries. As batteries. As a power source. As a power source. And there's some other language in there just to flesh out that scenario. Right. Here's a problem. In the laws of thermodynamics, if you have a certain amount of energy here and you turn it into another kind of energy. Mm hmm.

• 38:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For example, there's chemical energy in gasoline. Right. You put that in your car, it turns it into kinetic energy to move your car. Mm hmm. You ingest food, which is chemical energy, and you keep your body at body temperature even though it's colder outside. When you're comfortable 72 degrees, your body is still maintaining 98 degrees. Inside. If you, if you put anything outside at 98 degrees, it'll go down to 72 degrees. Even though you're saying that's a really comfortable, your body's actively maintaining your body temperature. That takes energy. Right. Your body's moving, you're running, you're acting. That takes energy. Right. Okay?

• 38:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It turns out, anytime you convert energy from one form to another. You don't get 100% of it. You don't get 100%. No, you get like. Oh. At best 90%. Your car, I forgot the numbers, the efficiency's grown over the years. Mm hmm. Car might get 30% of the energy of the gas to have you move forward. Got it, got it. You know where the rest goes? Into heat. That's why the engine gets hot.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of a combustion engine car.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just take it for granted. Of course it's gonna get hot.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 39:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait a minute, that's energy I wanted to use to go forward. That's miles per gallon wasted as heat. That's what happens when you convert from one form of energy to another. To another form of energy.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? So now, the laws of thermodynamics dictate that it's not a hundred percent, you don't get a hundred percent of your energy. Alright. Here are the machines using humans as a form of energy. I can tell you how much energy we radiate.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 39:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? We, depending on how big you are, alright, if you're exercising or not in that moment, typically between eighty and a hundred watts.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eighty or a hundred watt light bulb, that's how much, that's what we are.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  The human.

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we use the battery and that's fine, rather than a bulb.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The same idea.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Same idea, that's not what matters here.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? We are an energy source for the machines. They're tapping our hundred watts.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fine. Where do we get our hundred watts from?

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're feeding us.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  They're feeding us.

• 40:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're feeding us.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever they're feeding us, feed themselves with that.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Ohhh, wow.

• 40:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bypass the middle, the literal middleman.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, the middleman.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't need the middleman at all.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Right, okay.

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't feed humans, have them generate energy and then have that energy generate the machine?

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, what are you doing?

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They didn't study physics.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Probably not.

• 40:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then there wouldn't be a movie.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  There wouldn't be a great movie.

• 40:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. You just have to submit with no people.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  There'd be just like, a movie that you watch and you never get those two hours back again. And you don't have the memories, and you don't have the appreciation and the cultural, you know, significance of the picture.

• 40:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was so worthy of a hall pass. I gladly signed it.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gladly signed it over.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  The idea that human beings are batteries is kinda cool.

• 41:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's a cool, and it's true.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  It's a cool idea.

• 41:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's true. Speaking of hall passes, I was once principal for the day at a middle school in the Bronx.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Oh goodness.

• 41:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was a program where they'd bring you in and you'd see how the public schools are run and this sort of thing.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I didn't tell them. I snuck out the pad, the principal's pad, that says "principal" on the top.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I still have it in my, don't tell anybody.

• 41:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's gotta be the most powerful thing. Safe with me.

• 41:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The principal's notepad. Exact. Right, so I can, if I sign a hall pass, it's legit. It's all good. It's all good. It's all good. Cool. So, so I, I let that one slide. That's good, man. Thanks. It was a brilliantly delivered scene with the battery, you don't say Duracell, but we all know what the Copper Top is. Exactly. And that was very well done. And then one character refers to him as Copper Top in the movie. Yes, yes, yeah, derogatorily, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

• 42:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the film raised a point early on. Mm-hmm. It was early. Hmm. By the way, just so you know, is someone generally credited with advancing the possible, the idea that we could be living in a matrix. His name is Nick Bostrom. Okay. And those are into dumpster diving. We have him as a guest on an earlier episode. Oh, interesting. Of StarTalk. He's an Oxford philosopher. Right. And you can hypothesize that if we have the ability to create a world in a computer, and the characters in that world think they have free will, then how do you know you're not one of those characters that are created? Right.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, if they have free will and they invent computers, and they want game time, they might create a computer world within their computers. Right. And if they have, think they have free will. And they could do the same thing. And it's that all the way down. Yeah, just all the way. Exactly. Yeah. And so if you, close your eyes and throw a dart. Hmm. I'm simplifying his argument, but this is the essence of, close your eyes and throw a dart, which universe are you most likely to hit? One of the simulated universes, or the one real one that started them all? And so, that's a terrifying prospect.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  That's a frightening question.

• 43:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Frightening question that the matrix sits in the middle of.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the middle. And so, my best rebuttal to that.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was, by the way, the last universe has to evolve to get computers and program and right. All right. We currently do not have the ability, or the computing power, to create a perfect world where people think they have free will. We don't have that ability yet.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  No, we don't.

• 43:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, if we don't have that ability yet, we're not any of the ones in the middle that do have that ability.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 44:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're either the last one, the last simulated universe that hasn't gotten there yet, or we're the original universe that hasn't gotten there yet.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Hmm. Logic tells you that, yeah.

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we go from the odds are like 99.999% chance we are, to one in two.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how I got out of this one.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  That's pretty good.

• 44:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That made me feel better.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  That's very clever.

• 44:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Feel a little better about that.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  That's very clever. I was, I was just talking about like, the phones and virtual lives that people are living online.

• 44:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  That's what I was like.

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's like not, you, you think, so.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  So it's not.

• 44:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've become your own avatar.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, people are having, I mean, people are living virtual lives on their phones and on their computers and they create these avatars for themselves and post and look at me and all that. And it feels like the life that they live on their device is more important than their life here in the, here and now in the real world.

• 45:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reminds me of Chris Rock, who said, anytime you meet someone, it's not really them, it's their representative.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 45:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the person they want you to think they are.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Think they are.

• 45:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And online does that better than anything.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Yes, it allows you to sort of present.

• 45:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Present.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  What you wish people to think of you and the way you want people to perceive you.

• 45:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is this our first step? Will we one day step into that character?

• 45:33Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 45:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you become your online character?

• 45:34Speaker 01

  I don't know. Here's what I think, though. I did this show.

• 45:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, wait, it can happen. Let's say you're dying and we say, we can upload your consciousness and have you occupy all these spaces you have established online.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Exactly. So I did a science thing, this thing called Year Million. Have you seen this thing?

• 45:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Alright, so.

• 45:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Year, million.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a limited series, it was about four episodes, and it's all about the singularity. You've heard of the singularity? So it's the hypothesis is the singularity, and when that's gonna happen, and when it all becomes sentient, and when, and ultimately what will happen is, we will evolve to this point where we integrate with the technology.

• 46:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  And that thing you just described about being able to upload your consciousness into a matrix

• 46:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  is kind of, but it's.

• 46:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'll happen way sooner than the year million.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Well, according to this show, and the science behind the show, I didn't, I wasn't responsible for the science, I'm just the narrator.

• 46:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  The singularity, this event, is, is, is not as close as we think, and it's not as far as we think either.

• 46:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright, that's a, alright.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  That's, that's.

• 46:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying, 150 years ago, we were in horse and buggy.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now we have rovers on Mars, okay?

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  What's happening here is what's important. Not what's happening out there.

• 46:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh-huh.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Cause I mean, even to, even to get out there, we don't have the infrastructure to do that yet.

• 47:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, not yet.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  And it's gonna take a long time to figure that out.

• 47:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so straighten me out, the matrix was when you're not in reality, got it?

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so when you're in the matrix, most people, as they say, you know, you take out your garbage, garbage.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, you go to church.

• 47:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You go to church.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  You go to work.

• 47:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You go to work.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  But you can feel it.

• 47:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so, who in the movie, are only the hackers the one who felt it? The ones with great computing power?

• 47:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would everyone have felt it?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  I would like to think that everyone felt it, but not everyone paid attention. In other words, most people chose to ignore the feeling.

• 47:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  And then there were certain people who couldn't ignore the feeling.

• 47:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is. Because I, I wake up, and I have these feelings.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Uh oh. Something getting ready to happen, man.

• 47:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, so I wonder, more often than I should.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 48:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why is it that I wake up every day as myself? How come I don't wake up as another person? Why am I consistently myself every day? And then I wondered, is that even true? Do I actually wake up as different people every day, thinking I was always that person? And why am I having these thoughts?

• 48:32Speaker 01

  You should have been an actor, man.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Because then that wouldn't bother you.

• 48:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it wouldn't bother me.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  You wake up and be whoever you wanted to be that day.

• 48:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw your one man show.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  I feel like Tiny Tim's a guy.

• 48:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw your one man show downtown.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the, uh, Perlman Center.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it was a series of skits and you were completely different characters.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In every skit. The different characters, the different tonalities.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 49:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Different body gestures.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah.

• 49:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, acting is not just, did you deliver the line right?

• 49:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 49:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is your, did your, did your body participate?

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the delivering of the line?

• 49:10Speaker 01

  It's, you know, it's the storytelling thing, it's the characterization thing, it's the physicality thing.

• 49:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  But essentially, you know, that show was a thing I've been working on forever and ever.

• 49:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just congratulations on that.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Thank you, and it's just, you know, those five characters that I do, plus myself.

• 49:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  As, you know, an adult, and as a child, and as a younger man, and all that. But thank you, thank you for coming to see it.

• 49:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, no, that was good, it was good.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  It was beautiful.

• 49:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, there are so many great actors where you part the curtains and somewhere in there, they've done Shakespeare.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? And you, you were Othello.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Yes, I did Shakespeare. I did Othello on screen with Kenneth Branagh.

• 49:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, he's a big Shakespeare guy.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  He's a great Shakespeare actor and Iren Jacob. Yeah, back in nineteen ninety-five.

• 49:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay. The street cred, Shakespeare cred.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  I got a little shake.

• 50:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ah, I got a shake in the mix.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fun. It was, it was great fun. I haven't done it live, which is one of the things I hope to do in the future. In fact, I'm engaged to do it at the Pearlman. I'm engaged to do King Lear at the Pearlman sometime in the near future, yeah.

• 50:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, that's an important story right there.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  It's a great story.

• 50:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, wow.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Some say it's arguably one of the greatest plays ever written.

• 50:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And for me, it's up there, just for the messaging.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 50:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That it is.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  It's powerful.

• 50:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For me, Shakespeare, the challenge is, here's this very awkward sentence to anyone's modern ears.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 50:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you gotta deliver it like that's exactly what you would have said in that moment.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  In that moment, at that time.

• 50:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's hard.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Well, he's a better poet than we will ever be actors.

• 50:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  So.

• 50:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, pause. I gotta, okay.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  I have to credit, I have to credit.

• 50:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just, I had to catch up with that sentence.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  I just have to credit that with Kenneth Branagh. Kenneth Branagh said that to me when we were doing Othello.

• 50:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  He said Shakespeare is a better poet than we will ever be actors. It gave me something to take comfort in.

• 51:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  And to, and it allowed me to relax.

• 51:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  And, and not try, like, I'm never gonna be as great an actor as Shakespeare was a writer.

• 51:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  I don't, so I don't have to try to do that.

• 51:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  All I need to do really is be mindful and surrender to the language and try to speak the language with as much ease and dexterity as possible.

• 51:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, surrender to the language. I like that. Uh, I was in the Oregon Inn. I, I attended the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 51:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Up in Ashland, Oregon, just recently.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  I've never been.

• 51:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, my gosh. The, the, the whole culture is embedded in the town. And I saw Coriolanus for the very first time.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Oh, I just saw it in, in London with David or Yellow.

• 51:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, yeah, okay. It's, it's, it's one of the most violent things ever written.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, except their version, now this sounds like, oh, they're just trying to be woke.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Their version was played by women.

• 52:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And non-binary actors.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Wonderful.

• 52:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But all women.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 52:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you say, well, why are they doing that? What's the point of that? Here's why. If, when you see guys being violent, you say, oh, they're just guys being violent. You see a woman threatening to slit someone's throat. Our cultural, our acculturalization says, that's especially violent. Cause women don't go running around threatening each other with knives and swords and, and this, it's not a thing in our culture and in our literature. When you see women do it, it brought the violence to a whole other level that I think I would have missed. Otherwise, it was just.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Unless you were in a woman's prison.

• 52:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless in a, in a woman's prison, okay. You say that like you've been.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  I haven't, but I'm assuming.

• 52:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Yeah, no, so it was a, it took me to, now, it just took five minutes to adjust to it. But then, it's like every act of violence was more violent because of that. So people just exploring ways to get out of a story, things that you wouldn't, wouldn't otherwise know.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's this with you and the American Academy of?

• 53:09Speaker 01

  I was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences last year.

• 53:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, congratulations.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Thank you. I was so honored, I was so surprised. My friend David Anderson, who is a scientist. Who's in Pasadena, California, nominated me and then.

• 53:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a dig, cause I didn't.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Cause you didn't. My friend Neil deGrasse Tyson didn't. And then my other friend.

• 53:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So was that a dig? I don't know.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Francis Ford Coppola.

• 53:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Francis Ford?

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Who seconded my nomination.

• 53:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So of course you'd know him, cause he directed.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  He directed Apocalypse Now and Rumblefish and Cotton Club and One From the Heart.

• 53:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are all your movies you're in?

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  I was in One From the Heart, but I got cut out of it, thank God. I was mercilessly cut out of it. And then a movie called Gardens of Stone, which is the only time I ever worked with James Earl Jones, the late, great James Earl Jones. And then most recently Megalopolis.

• 54:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's on my list.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I've seen previews.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Which is beautiful.

• 54:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I've seen previews.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  It's really beautiful.

• 54:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, I sort of know. Coppola, Francis Ford. We, we met a couple of times, just overlapping paths and his film, The Conversation is, is second, just below The Matrix as to my favorite.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  That's wow.

• 54:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a very tight, brilliant story.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  But really cerebral also.

• 54:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And cerebral, yes, I'm there. Plus I identify with the main character who is himself geeky and a little socially awkward.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Socially awkward, but also in a world of his own.

• 54:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  And very, very much isolated.

• 54:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's what part of, you know, back then, with you a geeky, you are isolated and you're geeky. Now we all found each other at Comic Con, but back then, you know, that was not how it happened.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  But then he also has this, this reach, this power that allows him to sort of enter into other people's worlds and their lives as well.

• 54:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a way to say that. I hadn't thought about it that way. Yeah.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus he came to one of my public talks and he gifted me one of his wines.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 55:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think he acquired the Inglewood Vineyards and then became Coppola and he's done some other things. Might have sold it since then. Nibou, yeah, Nibou.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Joe, I had a little overlap with him, but otherwise.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  He's an incredible man and I, I.

• 55:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he was nominated you?

• 55:15Speaker 01

  He nominated me for the American Academy, but he's really the guy that's responsible for me becoming the kind of artist that I am.

• 55:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  My exposure, the things that he exposed me to and the way in which he trained me and, and and the way in which I work with him is really kind of how I've managed to do what I do.

• 55:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm. So let me tell people how we first met.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm filming Cosmos in the desert in New Mexico, which has a lot of tax incentives.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Tax incentives.

• 55:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For, for movies. So there's a whole movie industry.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  And sci-fi lore kind of hovering in around the culture.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Am I not allowed to say that? Did I say something? I'm sorry, but am I not allowed to talk about?

• 55:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you visit Area 51 while you were there? Well then, who were you to talk about?

• 56:02Speaker 01

  I'm just saying.

• 56:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I visited Area 51.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  I'm just saying it's lore. It's like.

• 56:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I visited Area 51.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Well, I did a story about it on History's Greatest Mysteries, I'll have you know. Matter of fact, two episodes were dedicated to Area 51.

• 56:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  And the Roswell Incident.

• 56:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, all right. Well, if you visit. If you visit Roswell.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The lamp posts have green alien lampshades on them.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 56:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alien heads.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so tiki.

• 56:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Once you go there, there's no, there's no turning back.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  It's so kid.

• 56:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's built into your economy of the city.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  Gotta go.

• 56:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta keep pumping that.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  So, back to the real story.

• 56:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, sorry, sorry. So, I'm there and our cinematographer is Bill Pope.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Bill Pope.

• 56:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and I say, "Bill, what other work have you done?" "Oh, well, I filmed The Matrix." It was like, "Oh, no." "Can I touch you?"

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so we, I couldn't stop talking about The Matrix with him. Then I was wondering, "Can I get to do that in Cosmos?" "What can he do for me?"

• 57:01Speaker 01

  A little bullet time in the Cosmos.

• 57:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "Do some bullet time. Surely, you got something up your sleeve."

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where I can do something cool.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then I, I, I'd learned, I'd forgotten how, that you were filming.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  The Signal.

• 57:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Signal, not too far in the nearby city.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, in Albuquerque.

• 57:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Albuquerque, yes, yes, because I was outside of town and near Santa Fe. And the point is, I, what was it? I, but then I, I forgot, then I connected with you.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Bill Pope connected us somehow.

• 57:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I brought you back.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you hadn't seen him in a while.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  I hadn't seen him in years.

• 57:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so there was like time out on the set of Cosmos.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 57:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the three of us just boogied down for a bit.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that was fun.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  And there was a beautiful sort of rainstorm that was approaching the studio where you guys were shooting.

• 57:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what's fun is because you have vistas to the horizon, you, you see the rainstorm, pick up the dust.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  We could see it coming.

• 57:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  And it was like something out of a movie.

• 57:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you see the coloration of the sky, the pinks and the blues.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you're reminded, this is where, Georgie O'Keefe, where do you think she got her colors from?

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 58:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was her life, her horizons, her skies.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, and I'm, I'm delighted that we've been friends since then.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Me too, man. I really, I, because again, I'm, I've always been interested in, in science and astronomy and the future and what it's gonna look like. And obviously, science fiction.

• 58:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, clearly, yes.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  So, to have befriended you and to learn so much stuff from you, you know, even when we're not sitting down, like just the fact that you came back with Cosmos, because I watched Cosmos as a child.

• 58:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, Carl Sagan, yeah.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  We both watched that as, as children. It was so inspiring to think. Of not just the world, but the cosmos in that, in that larger sense.

• 58:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What it did was, it wasn't just a separate subject that you study and then return back to your home base. It folded it in to not only your knowledge base, but your state of mind.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Exactly. It opened your mind to the possibility.

• 59:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a way that you can't even think of that series as a documentary. We need a different word for it.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 59:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because a documentary, let me sit down and let me watch this documentary.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  When I come up with the word, I'll let you know.

• 59:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Please.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  And if you come up with a better one, then you can have the CNN gig.

• 59:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Horse trading on the deep voice.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  And this has been StarTalk.

• 59:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and then say, as always, I bid you to keep looking up.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.

• 59:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a wrap.