Joel Edgerton | Club Random with Bill Maher

Bill sits down with award-buzzed actor Joel Edgerton for a sharp, funny, and moving conversation that jumps from Hollywood absurdities to deeply personal truths. They dig into Edgerton’s career-defining performance in Train Dreams, and why stories about ordinary people, loss, and resilience can hit harder than any superhero spectacle. Edgerton opens up about early struggles and the love that carried him through, while Maher shares a bizarre first “job” as an unqualified bodyguard for a South African diplomat’s kids. Along the way, they talk about how Australian actors seem to be quietly running Hollywood—and that most American accents these days were probably learned in Sydney watching Leave It to Beaver. Support our Advertisers: -Head to https://www.squarespace.com/CLUBRANDOM to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CLUBRANDOM. -Get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for 1 year at https://www.factormeals.com/random50off Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:54Bill Maher?

  I don't know about you, but I'm a big fan of Green, in all its forms. I get it. And for fellow lovers of, well, Green, the Club Random merch store has you covered. Grinders, papers, and Zippo lighters. All designed to support your relationship with Green, wink, wink, whatever, and whatever philosophy comes with that for you. Head to clubrandom.com and bring home some random.

• 2:24Bill Maher?

  He's just too pretty.

• 2:25Speaker 05

  What are you saying about me?

• 2:26Bill Maher?

  Well, you're fine. You're a nice-looking guy.

• 2:30Speaker 05

  Down the middle.

• 2:33Bill Maher?

  No, but I'm actually not.

• 2:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, you just caught me at a low intelligence point. I was like... Oh, that was a joke.

• 2:43Bill Maher?

  Joel, you here? I'm here. None of that Australian accent here. At least you can do a speak American. Oh, my God. When you're in our country. Oh, my God. I'm gonna call ICE on you. No.

• 2:57Speaker 05

  I was watching your thing about Australians. I'm like, oh, come on. You're right, though. I was just skiing in Japan.

• 3:05Speaker 05

  And I didn't actually feel like I was in Niseko. I didn't feel like I was in Niseko. There were Australians everywhere, working in the hotel. All the ski instructors, New Zealanders or Australians.

• 3:16Bill Maher?

  I met a bunch of them last night. I was out at a Golden Globe party.

• 3:20Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah?

• 3:20Bill Maher?

  And, boy, they like me in Australia.

• 3:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, that whole bit was so... That was 10 years ago. It was when Trump was first talking about immigration. And, you know, we did this as the, you know, classic mode of satire. I went off on a rant how it's really the Australians who are coming. But there is that little bit of truth in it, is that they have done so well with acting jobs. Their best line was, "We used to think oceans could protect us, but there are too many Hemsworths and not enough sharks."

• 3:58Speaker 05

  Oh, man. "Bought the Barry reef." I mean, it's, you know, what's interesting is that everyone tells me they're like, oh, you know, what is it about Australians and acting and...

• 4:07Bill Maher?

  Yeah, what is it?

• 4:09Speaker 05

  Well, you know, one of the things is accents. Australians doing an American accent.

• 4:15Bill Maher?

  I asked Chris Hemsworth about that. He said it's because we all watch the TV.

• 4:19Speaker 05

  That's exactly what it is.

• 4:20Bill Maher?

  You watch American TV when you're a kid and it's just second.

• 4:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:24Bill Maher?

  You don't even have to try that hard, right?

• 4:26Speaker 05

  There was this policy in Australia which actually inadvertently helped all of us, which was there was no real barrier for how much local content there needed to be. There was no mandate how much local content had to be on TV. So I would wake up in the morning.

• 4:44Bill Maher?

  Like, Canada has that.

• 4:45Speaker 05

  They do.

• 4:46Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  France has it at the cinema.

• 4:48Bill Maher?

  Definitely Canada. There used to be a great show, SCTV, Second City TV, that was done in Canada. Martin Short was on it.

• 4:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:55Bill Maher?

  A lot of great people were on it.

• 4:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:57Bill Maher?

  Eugene Levy.

• 4:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:59Bill Maher?

  And they used to make fun of, they had, because there was, the law was that, the Canadian law was certain amount of content has to be about Canada.

• 5:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:09Bill Maher?

  So they were spoofing that with the, they did these Canadian brothers with their A. You know, it was all ju-

• 5:16Speaker 05

  We had like Skippy. Do you ever see Skippy the Bush Kangaroo?

• 5:19Bill Maher?

  No. What?

• 5:21Speaker 05

  Well, so obviously we were inundated with American TV, but you never really got much of Australian TV.

• 5:27Bill Maher?

  Was that a cartoon or a what?

• 5:29Speaker 05

  No, it was about this kid and his dad, and his dad flew a chopper and-

• 5:33Bill Maher?

  This is Flipper with a kangaroo.

• 5:35Speaker 05

  It's Flipper with a kangaroo. Yeah, exactly that. It's exactly that.

• 5:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they probably saw Flipper and went-

• 5:41Speaker 05

  And Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was actually also a bit like lassie as in if any of the kids were in trouble in the bush, Skippy would come back and literally be like,

• 5:52Speaker 05

  and he's, and the guy would be like, "What's that, Skip?" And he'd be like, "What? The kids are in trouble?"

• 5:56Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 5:56Speaker 05

  And the guy could understand kangaroo.

• 5:58Bill Maher?

  You're right, yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 05

  But when I come home from school, I would sit in front of the TV and I would watch Happy Days.

• 6:06Bill Maher?

  Yep.

• 6:06Speaker 05

  Gilligan's Island.

• 6:08Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:08Speaker 05

  Brady Bunch.

• 6:10Bill Maher?

  Ugh.

• 6:11Speaker 05

  What else? Eight is Enough. And then as I got a bit older, actually my first celebrity sighting. Was Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains.

• 6:20Bill Maher?

  That's my boy Alan Thicke. Alan Thicke, the father.

• 6:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, Alan Thicke, yeah.

• 6:25Bill Maher?

  He's a great, great friend of mine.

• 6:26Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 6:27Bill Maher?

  One of the greatest guys.

• 6:28Speaker 05

  Well, I spotted Kirk Cameron at first family vacation we went on with his Europe.

• 6:33Bill Maher?

  Yeah, he went nuts.

• 6:34Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 6:34Bill Maher?

  He's, well, I mean, not nuts, but he's a super, super hardcore Christian.

• 6:39Speaker 05

  Speaking of New Zealanders, have you seen his counterpart? Who does the, uh, he explains, uh, you know, creationism through the banana video. Have you seen that?

• 6:53Bill Maher?

  No.

• 6:53Speaker 05

  Watch the, anyone watch the banana video? It's like, he explains why the banana was obviously created for the human hand and, and how it's perfectly encased and thing. And then as he starts to eat it, he doesn't realize how phallic the whole.

• 7:07Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 7:07Speaker 05

  Thing is, but the banana video.

• 7:09Bill Maher?

  The banana was plainly created for girls to practice blowjobs on, plainly. That is, that is my interpretation of the Bible and not any stupider than what anyone else would find in the Bible. So I'm just gonna go with that.

• 7:23Speaker 05

  But I thank all of them for the, for this, you know, my, my niece is 10 and she can do a flawless American accent. And her, like, you, you listen to young Australian kids playing with each other and they sound like valley girls.

• 7:37Bill Maher?

  Just naturally, not even trying to do it?

• 7:40Speaker 05

  No, they're just like effortlessly fall into this sort of play accent that they do, all from television.

• 7:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:47Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, again, I could see how American actors could be pissed at this. I mean, when you go down the list of people who have just succeeded, I mean, even more than the British, really. Uh, in the, I would say in this century, certainly, I mean, starting before that, but like, um, I don't wanna like go down the list of names. I'll leave somebody out, but it is an extraordinary success rate. And, uh, you know, I mean, you're obviously having a moment right now, which is great because, you know, I've been watching you for years, always was a fan.

• 8:25Bill Maher?

  You know, big ones like Black Mass and The Stranger and things, I have lots of shit and, you know, you're always in something, you're always good. But it is funny, the way careers work, because I just feel like you never know what's the thing that's gonna like, oh, you know, just hit like on a certain different level.

• 8:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:45Bill Maher?

  And for some reason. You know, Train Dreams, that's the one you're, I mean, we're both up for an award, you know.

• 8:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's the Golden Globes. Thank God we're not in the same category, so we can have a civil conversation. How do you feel, let me ask you, how do you feel going, to me, and maybe it's because I've always set my ceiling quite low in life, like, being nominated to me is a win.

• 9:08Bill Maher?

  Sweetheart, I've been nominated for thirty-three Emmys, and they would never give it to me. That's not a gag number, it's a real number.

• 9:15Speaker 05

  Right.

• 9:15Bill Maher?

  It's crazy.

• 9:16Speaker 05

  Right.

• 9:17Bill Maher?

  For Politically Incorrect, for Real Time, for my stand-up specials, for producing, for writing, for performance, obviously, it's something I said. Well, it's everything I said.

• 9:29Speaker 05

  Well, you said enough to get the nomination, but then there's something you've said that...

• 9:32Bill Maher?

  Because I speak freely, and this woke town fucking hates that. And that's okay, I made my peace with that, but, so I know how this goes. I'm, you know, this is not, this is not something I would ever, I have good standing.

• 9:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:46Bill Maher?

  If I win this, by some miracle to go, what people always say, "I can't believe, I'm shocked." I really should be shocked.

• 9:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:54Bill Maher?

  If I win this.

• 9:55Speaker 05

  You know, like, from my seat, the admiration I have for guys like you that actually get up and say what you feel.

• 10:06Bill Maher?

  There are no other guys like me, Joel.

• 10:08Speaker 05

  No.

• 10:08Bill Maher?

  There are no other guys like me.

• 10:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:10Bill Maher?

  But go ahead.

• 10:14Speaker 05

  You know, like, I'm a guy that gets, you know, gets a job, gets a script, goes to work. My success is based on other people's ideas. And hopefully, along the way, their wisdom to put me in something, or not, and hopefully, the right things. You know, actually, one of the other things I have to say I really admire is your whole thing about the casting culture.

• 10:41Bill Maher?

  Oh, you mean the quotas?

• 10:44Speaker 05

  No, the one the you know actors appropriating and.

• 10:48Bill Maher?

  Oh, that too, yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 05

  Who's appropriate for what and.

• 10:51Bill Maher?

  The epicenter of woke stupid is this town, it really is, and things like that. I mean, like appropriation, we used to love that. You know, it was called culturally sharing. We thought it was a great idea when we, you know, now, obviously, if you steal something, I mean, you know, Elvis, did he steal from black culture? He sang the way he sang. He grew up in the South. I mean, the culture's mixed. You know, I just pointless to hate him for it.

• 11:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:20Bill Maher?

  And, you know, America was more racist, obviously, by far at the time. So it was like, oh, we got a white guy who sounds black. We like black music, but ooh, we don't want to put that on the radio. It'll corrupt the kids, whatever they were thinking in the 1950s. I mean, this is the 1950s.

• 11:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:36Bill Maher?

  But, you know, yes, to say that, you know, I mean, they were mad at, who did the movie about Leonard Bernstein with the Junos? They called it.

• 11:48Speaker 05

  Bradley Cooper.

• 11:49Bill Maher?

  Bradley Cooper, yes. I mean, Junos, do they even know how stupid they sound? I mean, what could be, they actually, that's a use that word. They made up this horrible word and then were like, oh, but we're the good people. We're saying, whoa, no Junos. You know, they, it's just so silly. They got mad at somebody for playing Castro who wasn't Cuban. Sean Penn had a great line. He said, you know, at some point, they're only going to let Danish princes play Hamlet.

• 12:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, this is what I was thinking, but it's all your other problem about Australians coming to America. I started, started wondering if I would ever have gone to drama school now. Because, you know, I went in there with this optimism, optimistic point of view that being an actor was, you know, I could try and be anything I wanted to be. Obviously, I would draw the line somewhere and more now than ever, but. Like, am I gonna be in a position where you won't have to bother with the Australians here? Because like, we'll only get to play, I'll only get to play like, mid-level intelligence Australian dudes.

• 12:58Bill Maher?

  Right. I mean, that is where it was heading. But I think they put the brakes on it a little. I mean, we have had a little bit of a, oh, come on. But, I mean, they do, I mean, there's a, now, there is a quota system. And I understand why they would have this. Everything that is unjust, and certainly lots of stuff that went on with representation of minorities, was unjust in this town for the longest of times.

• 13:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:24Bill Maher?

  I mean, there was a time when Oscar so white had meaning. It's not anymore. And they refused to give that up because they love being the people who are the social justice warriors. Okay, but, you know, I understand where this is coming from. But, you know, ultimately, you do not want to tell artists how to make art. This is what they did in the Soviet Union. This is what they did in communist countries. The last place you want people making a lot of rules about how you can make your art, who you can hire to do your art.

• 13:59Bill Maher?

  That is not what art is about. And that is, and no artist, no matter how liberal, is going to like that.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:06Bill Maher?

  They, people want, auteurs want to auteur.

• 14:10Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think, you know, there's certain examples of it where I totally get it. Like, you know, you see a movie called Coda. Coda was, I think it was going back two years. Troy won Best Supporting Actor. A film about a girl who's a Coda, who's essentially like a person of hearing, who grows up in a family of hearing impaired people. And the entire cast who are playing deaf characters are played by people who really are, you know, have hearing. And that, to me, was like, yes, that's exactly the thing that should be done. Because like-

• 14:49Bill Maher?

  It makes sense.

• 14:50Speaker 05

  Watching someone like me kind of go, I'm gonna pretend that I'm that.

• 14:53Bill Maher?

  It makes sense for that, you know.

• 14:55Speaker 05

  And it's about the cutting off of opportunities for people who are deaf actors, who are going, well, where was my audition? You know, where was I even gonna get a look into that thing?

• 15:04Bill Maher?

  The way the arts have progressed is that we have,

• 15:11Bill Maher?

  and I think for the better, of enjoying movies just as a fan, made movies more realistic. I mean, if you look at movies from the 30s, 40s, 50s, I mean, there's Spencer Tracy playing a Mexican, you know? He's just, they just kind of darken his face and he talks like this. It's like, that's just where it were. That's where everything was in movies. If I shot you, there was no gore.

• 15:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:34Bill Maher?

  You just went down.

• 15:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:36Bill Maher?

  You didn't see what we see. Okay, now we're at a realistic phase. If I was the director of this movie, as an artistic decision, I would cast the deaf people.

• 15:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:45Bill Maher?

  Because it's going to make the...

• 15:48Speaker 05

  It's gonna make the movie better.

• 15:49Bill Maher?

  I'm working in reali... Yes, we're in the realistic age now. It's gonna make the movie better.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:54Bill Maher?

  Yeah, so it's a case by case.

• 15:56Speaker 05

  Yes, the truth on screen is always better than anything you can make up. It's always much better.

• 16:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, people don't always like the truth, but,

• 16:06Bill Maher?

  yes, I think movies, when they're done well, movies that are about something, that are substantive, you know? They, they get at a truth in a way that doesn't put people off.

• 16:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:19Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 16:20Speaker 05

  Train Dreams was a good example for me of, like, I guess as I get older, I'm like, alright, well, what's suitable for me to play? Not, not looking at it from the perspective of conversation we just had, but, like, what do I connect with? You know, and, and the director of the film didn't realize that I had read the novella like five years earlier.

• 16:42Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 16:43Speaker 05

  I tried to get my hands on the rights to it. And of course, the film deals with one of the worst possible losses you could ever go through, loss of...

• 16:53Bill Maher?

  Trees.

• 16:53Speaker 05

  People close to you, loss of trees.

• 16:54Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah. Mostly trees, but then there's the thing with the, with the wife and the kid.

• 17:00Speaker 05

  And, and I'd become a dad since the director reached out to me and so...

• 17:04Bill Maher?

  Ah.

• 17:05Speaker 05

  Even though I'm playing a logger, I'm like, you know, trudging around pretending I'm a tougher guy than I really am, on an emotional level, it, it's wrapped up in my greatest fear. And I was like, well, I realized how much, as an actor, I've always tried to...

• 17:23Speaker 05

  Hide behind funny walks and costumes, as in like really, really like not show any side of who I really am because I feel like that's a little bit dull. And just like be, like Black Mass is a good example, you know, playing a crazy like, you know, FBI agent or playing Buchanan in, in Gatsby and, and all, they're not, they're like energetically, you know, like, because I love character actors, I've always loved character actors. Train Dreams was just a far more personal thing for me.

• 17:59Bill Maher?

  Again, it's not my field. I love being entertained. And if it's entertaining, I don't care if it's from the method acting or, you know, I love Black Mass. I love the character, I love the whole movie. So I didn't really care, but then I like Train Dreams too. You know, and that's obviously, I mean, you are obviously on a deeper emotional level because it's an emotional movie. It's a, it's a hard movie to, if you, if somebody says, and you know, whenever you're out to dinner with people and hey, you've seen any good movies? And if somebody says, yeah, I saw blah, blah, blah, and I go, oh, my first question is always, what's that about? Just tell me what it's about.

• 18:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, the train pitch, kind of like the being on the bus pitch, the quick pitch, it's not an easy one.

• 18:44Bill Maher?

  It's not an easy one.

• 18:46Speaker 05

  No.

• 18:46Bill Maher?

  I mean, what would you say, like a guy a hundred years ago has a rough life? And you know, he's born, nothing special and dies, nothing special in this world. And in between.

• 19:00Speaker 05

  I'm a studio exec writing the check right now.

• 19:03Bill Maher?

  In, in between, he gets glimpses of happiness, which, what? Which then disappear. But you know, the reason why it hits such a nerve is that, and here's a deep question.

• 19:21Bill Maher?

  Like, it act, it, it, it, it shows that there's a lot of grief.

• 19:28Bill Maher?

  At least in America, and I'm sure in a lot of places in the world. I mean, that's what people connect to. It's like, this, this, it's a movie about grief and people are, you know, why are so many people in this modern world hurting so bad that they relate to this guy who's got a really rough life from a hundred years ago?

• 19:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:52Bill Maher?

  That's the question.

• 19:53Speaker 05

  The question, well, the answer for me-

• 19:54Bill Maher?

  A lot of sadness out there.

• 19:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, and, you know, here, here's the one thing that I think sets Train Dreams apart is we go to the movies and we watch stories about extraordinary people, generals or-

• 20:07Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 20:07Speaker 05

  You know-

• 20:08Bill Maher?

  Superheroes.

• 20:09Speaker 05

  And, and talking about Australian movies, interestingly enough, someone pointed out Australian movies, which are quite small in their scope quite often, unless you're talking about George Miller or Baz Luhrmann. They say, "American movies are about people who are gonna save the world or save the universe." And Australian movies are about the person who's gonna save the local cricket club.

• 20:30Speaker 05

  And it's true, but you can root for them just the same, and, and it's a little bit more kind of a smaller bubble.

• 20:36Bill Maher?

  Much more relatable.

• 20:38Speaker 05

  But Train Dreams puts at the center of the movie 99.9% of who the audience is, which is the ordinary human being-

• 20:46Bill Maher?

  Yes, born nuts, yeah.

• 20:48Speaker 05

  Who's not gonna have a plaque, not gonna have a monument built about them, and celebrates the majesty of that. Now, what I have noticed too is that young people who haven't experienced, it's not about age, I mean, young people can experience devastating loss. But, generally, the people who haven't experienced any of the real blows that knock you to your knees in life, see the film as quite sad. People who have experienced loss or some kind of grief, see the film as quite hopeful, because what it does is also show you the power of rebirth and regrowth.

• 21:23Speaker 05

  And and has cleaned the director.

• 21:25Bill Maher?

  Like a forest.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly, yeah, and the analogy is very clean.

• 21:29Bill Maher?

  Well, it's plain that that's what he was going for, I think, you know.

• 21:33Speaker 05

  And and and the idea of just having to get up some days and put one foot in front of the other because there is an alternative, which is you tap out of life. Or you just find a way to absorb yourself back into the world. And I believe that the world moves and turns and swallows events up and each day makes it a little bit easier, you know. This is a little bit grim, but there's something beautiful about the resilience of human beings.

• 22:03Bill Maher?

  Yeah, which we all need, you know, I mean, no one, no one wins the game of life eleven to nothing.

• 22:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:10Bill Maher?

  If you win it at all.

• 22:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, and there's so much suffering right now. And it's so relative, you know, I have days where I'm like, I'm gonna crumble about this and that and then the perspective of life, obviously, I think we all, I don't know about you, but I I often find at my own fault and sometimes my own savior, compare myself to other people, I think it's a natural human thing, it's like, I'm okay because, you know, if you compare yourself to people below you in their suffering or whatever, that somehow.

• 22:43Bill Maher?

  In other words, you're saying to yourself, I really shouldn't, I don't deserve to feel bad because this guy has it worse than me.

• 22:50Speaker 05

  Why am I playing a violin for myself?

• 22:52Bill Maher?

  That's stupid.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 22:54Bill Maher?

  Pain is pain, yes, we could acknowledge rationally in our rational mind, there are of course people doing worse than you and whoever that guy is is somebody doing worse than them.

• 23:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:06Bill Maher?

  You know, there's a lot of shit out there.

• 23:08Speaker 05

  And the cruelty of kind of having the shouting for is of like looking at people above you like you want to dismantle them or something because they're, for some reason, even though they're disconnected to you, they're the reason for your pain or your suffering.

• 23:21Bill Maher?

  No, you shouldn't feel guilty about if you have legitimate, legitimately something to feel bad about, and we all do in this game of life. There's also, I feel, among each succeeding generation, which actually has it easier in most ways. There is a complete lack of perspective about what actually is hurting you and what is actually painful. Yeah. I guess what I'm saying is these kids are such pussies.

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• 25:21Bill Maher?

  But it's true. I mean, the things that they complain about and think are rough. Yeah. You know, as they're ordering from Grubhub every day and if you have their food brought to them and, you know. Yeah. Remember during COVID, like, we're all in it together? No, we're not. Half the people are sitting home in their pajamas during this crisis and having other people bring them the food. But they're just sitting home in their pajamas, day drinking and eating takeout food. Yeah. People, yes, are having it rough.

• 25:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:53Bill Maher?

  Like your character, not quite that much. And that's another thing they lack perspective in knowing is like the advances that we have made in the hundred years since, I mean, when, when is the, it's right before World War One when the movie starts.

• 26:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, early nineteen hundreds.

• 26:06Bill Maher?

  Yeah, early nineteen hundreds, right. And we see it up until the, the space age, which is great.

• 26:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:11Bill Maher?

  Because you see the perspective of a character and life does get, it just does get easier. I mean, a hundred years ago, a, a hot shower was a rarity.

• 26:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. But you know, you realize too, Bo, you know, so we made the movie. You think it's kind of special, had a special time doing it. It's not until you share it with an audience, start having conversations with people, you realize why it resonates, you know. There's stuff in the film that talks about how fast the world is moving and changing. And of course, we're talking about the nineteen hundreds, so what's faster moving about the world is a man goes to the moon and there's telephones and there's different modes of transport.

• 26:51Bill Maher?

  I remember. Antibiotics.

• 26:53Speaker 05

  Antibiotics.

• 26:54Bill Maher?

  And toilets.

• 26:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:56Bill Maher?

  And socks.

• 26:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. There's a thing about a guy, he drops dead. And the narrator in the film says that if, if he'd have experienced this sort of like, you know, five years or a decade later, they would have caught it because of medical advancement. You know, I, at one point in the film stare at a chainsaw and don't know how to, how to start it. And, uh, and it's like me staring at AI, wondering whether it's gonna change my industry and how the fuck do I use it. And I remember my grandmother, when I first pointed a video camera at her. And she froze. And I realized she froze because she thought I was taking a still photo of her.

• 27:37Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 27:38Speaker 05

  And that was a baffling move of technology for her. And now look where we are. It's fucking crazy.

• 27:44Bill Maher?

  My dog, I think, used to think it was a gun. No, really, when I would, when I would try to take a picture. My first dog, Blacky, loved that dog. But he was definitely, and I think he probably, I mean, I got him as a rescue. He may have been in a house.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  Someone's gonna shoot me at some point.

• 28:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah, there may have been a gun that went off. I mean, he was deathly scared of the.

• 28:04Speaker 05

  So when you point a video camera and he tries to get out of the way.

• 28:07Bill Maher?

  I mean, I only have one fleeting picture of him. It's just like him, like darting out of frame. He just was very, very scared.

• 28:14Speaker 05

  I don't think I'm going like that.

• 28:18Bill Maher?

  But see, now this, I hope this is not inappropriate, but I did really enjoy this movie. But like, from my perspective, which I admit is not the normal, never been married, no kids, never liked kids, okay. So like, who I really felt for was the trees. Because I've always been an environmentalist.

• 28:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:40Bill Maher?

  I'm always been, I'm a PETA board member for over thirty years. Animals, anything in nature.

• 28:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:46Bill Maher?

  So like, I know people cry at this movie. Where I was like, tearing up was the thing about, these trees are five hundred years old.

• 28:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:57Bill Maher?

  And we're cutting them down.

• 28:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:58Bill Maher?

  And it does something, that speech that Macy has about, you know, it does something to a man's soul. You think you're just logging-

• 29:05Speaker 05

  It hurts a man's soul, whether he locks it or not.

• 29:08Bill Maher?

  Right, but you're, you're, you're cutting into this miracle of nature.

• 29:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:13Bill Maher?

  Matthew Arnold once said, for people who don't say there are miracles, a tree is a miracle, we're just used to it.

• 29:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:21Bill Maher?

  And that does, I'm not saying, I'm not, I'm an atheist, I'm not saying who made the tree. I'm just saying it is a miracle of a sort. And we are just used to it.

• 29:29Speaker 05

  Well, the film has a sort of a spiritual kind of resonance with nature that's not religious, you know. And there's, the, the, the follow-up line of Bill Macy's after that thing about it hurts a man's soul is, we are but children pulling bolts out of a Ferris wheel, presuming ourself to be gods.

• 29:52Bill Maher?

  That is an amazing line, yeah.

• 29:53Speaker 05

  Our relationship with our harvesting of nature. And I have this big thing about, you know, and I could talk about shipping as one of them, the internet as one, nuclear technology is another.

• 30:07Bill Maher?

  AI.

• 30:08Speaker 05

  AI, now AI.

• 30:09Bill Maher?

  All the, all the electricity that you, I mean, it's sucking up all the energy, AI.

• 30:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, this brilliance of the human mind, or the, the finite, minimal percentage of us that can create these incredible things. But what we don't know is what happens next. You know, and there's this beautiful night character, a young logger in the film is talking about, yeah, and he's saying like, there's so many trees here, we'd cut down all of them. By the time we've finished cutting them down, the next one would have grown up as big as tall as the rest of them.

• 30:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 05

  You're like, yeah, but no.

• 30:42Bill Maher?

  No, not really. And, and I mean, if there, there are trees 500 years old. There are trees that were, I think, something like 2,000 or 3,000 years old, or

• 30:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:52Bill Maher?

  Something crazy like that, that they do exist. And, you know, thank God, we, we do protect, I think, here in California. Some of that, I mean, those sequoias are

• 31:01Speaker 05

  We've got to visit a few of them, but they're in like, really protected areas.

• 31:05Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 31:05Speaker 05

  But I do remember, like, before I saw Oppenheimer, learning when I was in school about the moment that Oppenheimer, you know, this, this obsession with getting a thing done, creating a thing, and then watching it take shape, as in watching the thing explode, and then realizing, what have I done?

• 31:22Bill Maher?

  It's like the atom bomb.

• 31:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:24Bill Maher?

  You know. Yeah, well, I mean, mankind, you know, is a destroyer. There's no two ways about it. Um, I'm not saying this with any political dimension, it's just a fact. Homo sapiens are serial killers. I mean, we are not the only human species.

• 31:44Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 31:45Bill Maher?

  Uh, there were six or seven human species, Homo sapiens wiped them all out.

• 31:51Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 31:51Bill Maher?

  Then they wiped out Australia, great example. When man

• 31:56Speaker 05

  landed here

• 31:57Bill Maher?

  reached Australia, okay, they came out of, we, we know they came out of Africa.

• 32:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:03Bill Maher?

  They went to the northern Europe, those, mostly the Neanderthals and so forth.

• 32:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:08Bill Maher?

  When they got to Australia, fossil record shows, there were lots of large species of animals. A thousand years later, there are none.

• 32:18Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 32:19Bill Maher?

  In a thousand years, they wiped out all the big game

• 32:22Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 32:23Bill Maher?

  of Australia. That's who Homo sapiens are.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:27Bill Maher?

  Hungry. Yeah, and

• 32:29Speaker 05

  We're hungry and we don't care. You know, one of the things I talk about with train dreams is I am constantly reminded of how we forget that we are part of the planet, you know. Because, you know, here we are, wearing shoes and we have, you know, we create alcohol and technology and everything in between.

• 32:52Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 32:52Speaker 05

  That we forget that we're also just one of the animals on the planet. And we take and we take and we take, whatever, for whatever reason. People say it's partly because we have opposable thumbs, but the koala has two opposable thumbs, so why isn't the koala running the universe? I don't know.

• 33:08Bill Maher?

  Brain.

• 33:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, the brain, our ability to have language, all the reasons that make us able to communicate, share stories, continue a history, pass on knowledge and create.

• 33:22Bill Maher?

  You know why all that happened? Because we discovered fire. And once they had fire, they could cook the food. And once they cooked the food, they killed off most of the bacteria and the parasites. So, evolution-wise, we needed a much smaller digestive system, and it went to the brain. We got a bigger brain.

• 33:43Speaker 05

  Nice.

• 33:44Bill Maher?

  And we used it to fuck each other up. But that is, that is why.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  A bigger brain than actually what we use, what, five percent of it or whatever?

• 33:53Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and that's still way, you know, maybe if we, we probably would be better if we used a larger percentage.

• 34:00Speaker 05

  We wreck everything.

• 34:02Bill Maher?

  We wreck everything.

• 34:03Speaker 05

  For our own pleasure.

• 34:04Bill Maher?

  We do great things too. I mean, let's not pretend that we don't love our lives.

• 34:09Speaker 05

  Not.

• 34:10Bill Maher?

  And it's not just us, you know, oh, these rich Hollywood, you know, showbiz type. No, I mean, yes, we have very privileged lives and we do something we love and we're so lucky about that. But there's millions and millions of people who are just really enjoying their life because they live in the 21st century and they do have toilets and they do have antibiotics.

• 34:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:32Bill Maher?

  And they do have Starbucks or whatever.

• 34:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:35Bill Maher?

  You know, it's just life is very convenient.

• 34:37Speaker 05

  Very easy.

• 34:38Bill Maher?

  In a way, it just never was before and very comfortable.

• 34:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:42Bill Maher?

  I mean, obviously, yes, there are people who are suffering, and we should do everything we can to help them. But life in general, even in the last 25 years, we have lifted like astounding percentage of people out of what they used to call extreme poverty, which is, you know, living on a dollar a day.

• 35:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:02Bill Maher?

  Literally defecating in the street. It used to be a thing, a billion people around the world did. And now it's just on my block, apparently.

• 35:13Bill Maher?

  No, but like, you know, we do progress.

• 35:15Speaker 05

  But how do you, how do you, okay, here's the thing. Is, you know, I could, I could, I constantly, when I talk about things, try and remind myself to use first person kind of go, rather than go, you know, we as people, or, you know, we this, we that. It's like, from my perspective, I don't know how it happened, and by various set of circumstances, and my parents' influence, and where I grew up, and socioeconomic, blah, blah, blah. I landed in a position where I can, for a living, do something that I'm very passionate about. That I wake up, most days, if I'm going to set, and I'm like, I am actually not dragging myself to work

• 35:58Speaker 05

  with any kind of ambivalence or grumpy.

• 36:02Bill Maher?

  You have one of the fun jobs.

• 36:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:04Bill Maher?

  That's one, that's one of the greatest things that we can be lucky to get in this life, is a, a career instead of a job. I've had jobs, I know what a job is, and I know what a career is. It's not like you don't work in your career. I work very hard, not here plainly. But like, in my real job, I work. But it's still a career, and it's still the kind of, it's still fun.

• 36:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:30Bill Maher?

  It's a fun thing that we do. We're, we're fucking in show business.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  We're lucky.

• 36:34Bill Maher?

  There's people who like work on an assembly line, and they chop the heads off of chickens all day long.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:39Bill Maher?

  It's like the logging thing. I mean, there's some like really soul-killing job. I don't know how people do that work at factory farms, where they're just killing creatures all day long.

• 36:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:52Bill Maher?

  It just has got to do something to you.

• 36:54Speaker 05

  Yeah. I, I knew a kid, he was one of my friends at school, he's sadly not with us anymore. And he wanted to be a vet, wanted to be a veterinarian. And so he wanted to work with animals and he was looking for jobs that involved animals. He got this job in a lab and his job was to inject disease into rabbits. So it was like, in order to get a fast track to the university degree he wanted.

• 37:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 37:21Speaker 05

  Actually do the opposite of what he wanted to do.

• 37:24Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's the shit my, my great people at PETA are always trying to get stopped.

• 37:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, fucked up. What's, um, what was the worst job you ever did before you started like clicking your heels in the, in, in, in moving in the direction you wanted to?

• 37:41Bill Maher?

  Uh, well.

• 37:41Speaker 05

  Did you ever have a shitty job?

• 37:42Bill Maher?

  I was a guest star on Married with Children.

• 37:47Speaker 05

  No, I'm kidding.

• 37:47Bill Maher?

  That's, that is a complete joke. I loved being a guest star on Married with Children.

• 37:52Speaker 05

  But did you ever have like?

• 37:53Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 37:54Speaker 05

  What were they?

• 37:55Bill Maher?

  Oh, my God. Well, I mean, I was always the kid who, uh, like, how did, how it worked, like after school like that. Like I realized looking back, every kid needs an identity, okay? I, I'm, I'm quite athletic, but I didn't really, uh, I was too short to play basketball.

• 38:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, me too.

• 38:13Bill Maher?

  And I fucked up that audition when I was a, a freshman. Um, I could have if I worked at that. I, I went out for track. I was like, oh, this is boring, just running.

• 38:23Speaker 05

  So you had an aspiration to being an athlete?

• 38:24Bill Maher?

  No, it's just like you're looking for an identity in high school. And I, and I still play basketball. I'm, I mean, I, I played on the baseball team for a while. There was just too much rules and too much after school. You know, they made it like a living, like, you know, if you were on the team. It was just too much. I couldn't, I wanted to, you know, I had to get home and do homework and shit. I was, so, uh, and then, you know, could I be an actor? I was too shy for that. I knew I wanted to do a comedy. So like, I, I kind of settled in on my identity being like the poor kid who works after school. So I always had mowing lawns, raking leaves, shoveling dryways, whatever the season was. I was doing something in the neighborhood to make money. And then I was the delivery boy for the liquor in the drugstore.

• 39:08Bill Maher?

  And, you know, I, I worked, I stocked the A and P. In college, I worked at Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips. Nice. This gross, like, like, uh, it was a, a fast food place with fish triangles and God knows what kind of fish product was in that.

• 39:26Speaker 05

  They swim around in triangles sometimes? Some of the shapes.

• 39:30Bill Maher?

  And I had to throw them in this vat of grease, which splashed back up and burned your arms.

• 39:37Speaker 05

  Have you got any scars from the time?

• 39:38Bill Maher?

  I did have to, yes, I think I do. I have still stories.

• 39:41Speaker 05

  See, that's a good reminder.

• 39:42Bill Maher?

  It is. I am so glad I had my difficult, from the time I left high school till the time I moved out here, ten years. I lived in slums everywhere. And it's so funny, when you're a white kid, middle-class white kid from the suburbs, you just don't think of yourself as poor, or I didn't. And then I look back and I'm like, I was extremely poor. I was living in the shittiest places. I had no money.

• 40:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:10Bill Maher?

  You know, I was living on shitty food that I didn't want to eat.

• 40:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:14Bill Maher?

  That was fast food. Like, of course I was poor. And it's good. I'm glad.

• 40:18Speaker 05

  What's your relationship with money like now? Are you frugal?

• 40:20Bill Maher?

  I got plenty of it.

• 40:22Speaker 05

  I've seen, I've walked around here.

• 40:24Bill Maher?

  I like it better than having none.

• 40:26Speaker 05

  I mean, most people wouldn't even live in a house this big as your, like, what I call your playroom here.

• 40:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah, my playroom.

• 40:33Speaker 05

  But I like, okay, so my dad was very, very, came from very work-class background. My grandfather drove trains. And he met his wife, my grandmother, she worked at the kiosk.

• 40:45Bill Maher?

  Train dream.

• 40:45Speaker 05

  Had five kids in a three-bedroom house in Granville. And I think my whole family, I don't know how long it's gonna take. My kids will probably inherit something different. But, you know, to see yourself as blue collar when you start out that way, but my dad became a lawyer. He was gonna become a farmer.

• 41:08Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 41:09Speaker 05

  And he became a lawyer. And then by the time I finished high school, we went from being what I would consider like, on the, just below the kind of middle-middle-class line, to being upper-middle-class.

• 41:19Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 41:20Speaker 05

  From the age of zero to eighteen, that's the trajectory I had. But I had a job as a porter at a hotel. So I'm very generous with my tips at hotels.

• 41:31Bill Maher?

  Me too.

• 41:32Speaker 05

  Cause I'm like, you know.

• 41:32Bill Maher?

  I love tipping big.

• 41:34Speaker 05

  I worked at a, like, a, my first job was wrapping Christmas gifts at a, what do you call it, like a department store.

• 41:42Bill Maher?

  That's gay. That is super gay. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, I'm just saying.

• 41:47Speaker 05

  And no audition process, as in like, you can do that job and it's like, the first job I had to do is rap a lawnmower. I'm like, who the fuck are you doing to me here?

• 41:55Bill Maher?

  Rap a lawnmower?

• 41:56Speaker 05

  Rap a lawnmower. She's like, I just wanted, I still want it to look like a lawnmower, but I still want it to look rapped. I'm like, well, I could do that.

• 42:03Bill Maher?

  Well, I can top that, Joel. When I got out of college, I wanted to move to New York to start my comedy career at the comedy clubs. And I had no money, so I, there was this, this thing in the Village Voice, rent-free situations. And the first two interviews I went on, I realized in my nevete, after about an hour, that they were old queens who were looking for a young boy to live, okay, but I finally got one.

• 42:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:28Bill Maher?

  I lived with, in the maid's room, the ambassador to South Africa, or at the time, delegate, because they were thrown out of the UN. And I took, and I was the bodyguard for their three children. I took them to school, I picked them up.

• 42:43Speaker 05

  Did you have a curly ear thing? Did you be like, kids coming out?

• 42:46Bill Maher?

  I did not. We didn't, this is 1979. Now, some people have said I was an au pair. I resent that deeply. I was not an au pair. Uh, but I kinda was, and I hate kids. So like, I feel like, to answer your question, the worst job I ever had, it was certainly that. Taking those three brats to school every day, picking them up, making sure they were safe, they got right from the bus, you know, to, right to the door of the school, and then, you know, and I understand why. He was a diplomat.

• 43:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:13Bill Maher?

  Um, and it was the Upper East Side.

• 43:15Speaker 05

  What if there were trouble? What was gonna happen?

• 43:17Bill Maher?

  They weren't in trouble, they were just.

• 43:18Speaker 05

  No, I mean, if, if someone tried to attack them.

• 43:20Bill Maher?

  Oh, uh, they, uh, they would have been fucked.

• 43:23Speaker 05

  You would have been like, take them, take them, take them.

• 43:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah. It's not like I'm, I'm with Marsh Vega or whatever, that Israeli training system is, I have, I have no training. I was, I was this kid right out of college. I don't know why they hired me at all.

• 43:35Speaker 05

  No question in the early stages, like, do you like kids?

• 43:38Bill Maher?

  No, I, I think I gave a great interview. I did.

• 43:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, love kids. Love them.

• 43:43Bill Maher?

  Yes, I definitely lied.

• 43:44Speaker 05

  So much.

• 43:45Bill Maher?

  I told them I was married and that my girl, my, my, I did have a girlfriend, but she was overseas. I said she was my wife, because she at some point. Did come and visit and she we were we were in the maid's room. It was like it was about the size of this room that we're in from here to there. I mean, it was literally when the bed was in the wall, when it came out. You only had this much space to walk by, but you know.

• 44:08Speaker 05

  Isn't that background checks or anything like that? I don't know.

• 44:10Bill Maher?

  No, no, just exactly.

• 44:12Speaker 05

  Like you seem like a good guy.

• 44:13Bill Maher?

  They just.

• 44:14Speaker 05

  Look after our kids.

• 44:15Bill Maher?

  Put their trust in this bearded college dude right out of yeah, yeah. I never thought of you're so right, like no checks at all.

• 44:24Speaker 05

  No, now it's like.

• 44:25Bill Maher?

  And no skills.

• 44:26Speaker 05

  Full background checks.

• 44:27Bill Maher?

  No skills.

• 44:28Speaker 05

  Everything. I've got four year old twins.

• 44:31Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 44:32Speaker 05

  And we had like have, by the way, like, you know, I for years I never realized how much of a legend my mom was. Had the greatest job, the most dignified job in the world is is a mom, like a dedicated mom.

• 44:45Bill Maher?

  True.

• 44:46Speaker 05

  And I treated her terribly, was so misbehaved and my brother and I a year and a half apart. I don't know how she did it all by herself, you know, my dad was around, but he was.

• 44:55Bill Maher?

  What do you mean you were a troublemaker kid?

• 44:58Speaker 05

  No, it's just like, you know, we were like any two boys, like fighting all the time, disobedient.

• 45:05Bill Maher?

  That's.

• 45:06Speaker 05

  And now I have two kids and I have my mother in law live with us.

• 45:10Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 45:11Speaker 05

  And we have a nanny that helps us with the kids. So my wife and I both have, you know, very busy lives. And I'm in like when you're suddenly going, I'm gonna hand my kids over to people like my mother in law I trust. Like I know where to find her.

• 45:30Speaker 05

  And she can't run that fast anymore. But like, you know, people you don't know and you're getting people who care for your kids who like you want to vet them, but.

• 45:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, you do know there are.

• 45:41Speaker 05

  You must have just seemed like a nice guy. I was like, yeah, these are my kids.

• 45:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, unbelievable. It's just so funny how how people were just rougher and more quaint back in the, I mean, you're so right. I mean, the in craze, the crazy levels of what I call, not just I, many people call safetyism.

• 45:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:59Bill Maher?

  You know, the excessive, over excessive.

• 46:05Bill Maher?

  Focus on everything. My car drives me fucking nuts. I mean, I'm pulling out to the end of the driveway. I'm looking at the road. If a car goes by before I pull up. Beep beep, yes, I see it. And Stevie Wonder isn't driving this car. I'm driving this car. It steers for you too. Have you noticed that like if you drift in the lane, it actually like starts steering for you? Uh, well, I don't drift into the lane, Joel. I mean, that's, I mean, why? Me either. I don't even know why I said that. Yeah. Why are, why are you drifting into the lane? This is like ever so slightly, ever so slightly. Oh, I see. If you just pass over, yeah. What about Waymos? What, I mean. Have you been in one?

• 46:50Bill Maher?

  There's a great example of rationality brain versus emotional brain. Right. Like my rationality side is that the left side or the right side? One of the, one side of your brain, you know, is more the, the right. And I'm glad I have that and I'm glad, I feel like I'm a balanced person because those two halves are, you know, equally strong. They're in communication with each other. They are. I, I've said this before. Whenever an important decision to make, I think about it sober. Then I think about it stoned. Yeah. Those are the two houses of Congress. And who wins? If they agree, then I will pass it into legislation. Then you can send it to my desk and I will sign it. But they have to agree. And you're like, what is this piece of paper? And they don't always. And you know who's almost always right? It's Donna.

• 47:36Bill Maher?

  It is? Yeah. Yeah, I swear to God it is. Like I'll be thinking of something and I'll get stoned and be like, oh, that is stupid. Why am I doing it that way?

• 47:44Speaker 00

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• 47:52Speaker 01

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• 49:11Speaker 03

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• 49:38Speaker 05

  See, what is the thing about that, like the creative, uh, creative mind, the rigidity of the creative mind and, and stimulants and possibilities there? And where does it tip into like thinking it's a great idea and it being a terrible idea?

• 49:54Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, you know.

• 49:56Speaker 05

  Balance.

• 49:57Bill Maher?

  Drugs get a bad name only because of the people who do them who fuck up with them. And they give a bad name to people like me and many other people who don't fuck up with them. And I've, you know, obviously people, some people have much more of an addictive personality.

• 50:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:15Bill Maher?

  Um, I don't. I'm lucky about that.

• 50:17Speaker 05

  You feel like you got a nice balance and equilibrium of things?

• 50:20Bill Maher?

  I've been smoking it for 50 years and I've never gotten addicted.

• 50:24Speaker 05

  Right.

• 50:24Bill Maher?

  No.

• 50:26Bill Maher?

  No, but I'm actually not.

• 50:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:28Bill Maher?

  Because I-

• 50:29Speaker 05

  You just caught me at a low intelligence point. I was like, oh, that was a joke.

• 50:34Bill Maher?

  But it actually isn't because I know the difference between addiction, because I smoked cigarettes for 20 years.

• 50:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, me too.

• 50:40Bill Maher?

  An addiction, and did coke for a couple. An addiction, an addiction is, didn't, come on, didn't you have a coke period?

• 50:49Speaker 05

  No.

• 50:49Bill Maher?

  Never?

• 50:50Speaker 05

  No, something else, yeah, something else.

• 50:52Bill Maher?

  Oh, good for you. Something else.

• 50:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's a big dark story.

• 50:56Bill Maher?

  Oh, come on. What could it be? Heroin?

• 50:58Speaker 05

  Nah, yeah, it learned like something, something in that world.

• 51:01Bill Maher?

  Opium?

• 51:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:03Bill Maher?

  Opium?

• 51:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:04Bill Maher?

  Fuck, wow. You know what? I remember in college-

• 51:06Speaker 05

  Short period, but like, yeah.

• 51:08Bill Maher?

  Where'd you even get it?

• 51:09Speaker 05

  Where?

• 51:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 51:11Speaker 05

  I'll give you his number.

• 51:13Bill Maher?

  Op- I never, nobody ever-

• 51:14Speaker 05

  Deleted the number. Thanks, my old man.

• 51:17Bill Maher?

  I'm not in the drug world anymore, but when I was, I don't remember anybody ever saying, hey, there's some opium going around.

• 51:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:23Bill Maher?

  Would you like some? I did it in, we did try it in college, when we did everything. I never got it.

• 51:30Speaker 05

  I'll tell you what I think it is, is too, is like, you know, as a kid, you go through all these phases. Well, from, again, I said this before, I'll talk about me. I went through all these phases where I was a good kid, good kid, good kid.

• 51:44Speaker 05

  Apart from the way I treated my mom. But like, as in behaviorally, like, I wasn't interested in alcohol or drugs. And then, you know, like, tried, you know, you go to college, you know, I gotta try this drug, and you go, oh, that didn't stick to the wall, you know, and then you try this, it's like, oh, that didn't do anything for me, but like, you know. So you're getting this pattern of going, just try stuff. And then every now and then, I think with people, they find a drug that goes, hello.

• 52:11Bill Maher?

  Right, so true.

• 52:13Speaker 05

  We belong together.

• 52:14Bill Maher?

  Yes, you're right.

• 52:15Speaker 05

  And, uh-

• 52:16Bill Maher?

  We belong together.

• 52:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, we belong together.

• 52:19Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, and it's a different rhythm for different people, but it doesn't always suit. I had this theory, and for me, it was really a kind of, a really short- Burst of peerage thankfully and speaking to love of my parents. My old man knows me too well and he recognized it and he was like, what are you doing?

• 52:37Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 52:38Speaker 05

  And and I owe him a lot for that.

• 52:41Bill Maher?

  And got your love?

• 52:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, like big time.

• 52:45Bill Maher?

  Well, that's a much more serious drug. I mean, this, I was gonna say, it's different than an addiction because an addiction tells me when to do it. This has never said to me, do me now. I just do it situationally. Three, four days easily go by when there's no reason to smoke and I never even think about it.

• 53:05Speaker 05

  Right.

• 53:06Bill Maher?

  So it's different, but it is, you know, kind of the love of my life. I mean, we love each other. Sometimes we forget each other's sentences.

• 53:16Speaker 05

  You know what I think too is I have this theory that like a lot of friends who've been through that situation where they hit rock bottom. You know, and I'm sure you know a ton of them too, I mean, you live in L A. But, you know, where you really have to have your most despairing point and then you realize that you have to turn around, but you're literally at the bottom. I always thought there's wisdom in how do you recognize the bottom is coming? And turn around and I think that a lot of people really have to like really hit the bottom hard, like really squish their face on it.

• 53:58Speaker 05

  And for it to crack a few bones and a few vertebrae before they look up and go, all right, I've got to change things, but how do you make that curve shorter and go, I see it coming?

• 54:09Bill Maher?

  I think in, we're talking about the psychological element and the physical element. There are designations, I think four of them. I won't remember their names exactly, but in a hospital, if you're like serious, chronic.

• 54:26Speaker 05

  Oh, with the pain?

• 54:27Bill Maher?

  Well, not not pain, not this is like.

• 54:30Speaker 05

  Addiction.

• 54:30Bill Maher?

  No, the level of how serious your malady is, whatever it is. This like chronic, serious, I forget the other designations, doctors, please help me out here. But, you know, like, like degenerative, maybe, you know, and then, you know, Andy Dick.

• 54:49Bill Maher?

  But I'm sure that there's that same thing with the psychological element. Like, there is like depression, you know, that's a level. I mean, I've been depressed, but I wasn't depressed because I lack serotonin, I don't think. I was depressed because my life sucked. Okay, that's one level. And, you know, then there's suicidal, you know, where like you get to that point. Or, and of course, you can do these also things with behavior, you know, like, are you a functioning alcoholic? There are, there are functioning drug addicts.

• 55:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:22Bill Maher?

  And then there, no, it has got you fired. That's a level, you know. Okay, now you're on the street. That's another level.

• 55:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:29Bill Maher?

  You know, they're just levels. And at where, at what point do you arrest them? And you know, there are some points, some people, where that point is, yes, just lying on the gutter.

• 55:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. But I'll tell you what, my experience, my short-lived experience taught me a lot about empathy. Because I was a private school boy. As in like, you know, where I grew up, ended up at a private school.

• 55:59Speaker 05

  Figured like my life was like fantastic, that anybody I saw on the street, for example, I saw them as like, especially if it came to drugs, it would be like, oh, you made bad choice, you made poor choices. Never really considered it like a deeper combination of things. You know, willpower is, is obviously a big part of anyone's life in regards to so many things. But there's also like, there's other shit going on.

• 56:26Bill Maher?

  So many, there's so many factors.

• 56:27Speaker 05

  But to not judge people as a combination of just bad choices, but actually kind of have an open mind to go, you have a story I don't know, but I'm not going to judge you for it.

• 56:40Bill Maher?

  Yes, I can't get into the head of someone who can't resist something because I can. You know, I mean cigarettes was hard, but I did it. That was the hardest one. But like I easily can, when dessert comes around at the restaurant. You know, like, you sure you don't want to bite? Not even one? Not really. I mean, would I, do I know it? Would it taste delicious? Yes. Do I care that much? Is it easy for me to say no? And for some people, it is not for food or for whatever their drug is. It's just not that easy. So I don't, so I don't judge.

• 57:15Speaker 05

  I think there's a dessert anonymous, is there? I think there actually is. There's actually like, you know, not to downplay it, but like. I know somebody who's in the like, like eating disorder issues. I had a dream. I just remember I had a dream once. So Kate Blanchard, I worked with on a play called Three Card Named Desire. And we did Bam together.

• 57:38Bill Maher?

  Another awesome actor from Australia who's taken our jobs, but she certainly deserves it.

• 57:44Speaker 05

  Getting on enough sharks. But I don't think she goes in the ocean.

• 57:47Bill Maher?

  Not enough sharks, but she, even if they were. But I, I mean, and I give up to so many of them. They are so good.

• 57:52Speaker 05

  And she's so good.

• 57:53Bill Maher?

  Try to be better than Kate Blanchard.

• 57:54Speaker 05

  But she's so good. And then while we're doing the play, she would also pull up after some evenings and give a speech. And she would have like given an incredible speech about the environment or. And we're like, you just did three hours on the stage playing Blanche. And then you make this speech. She's a, you know, she was running the theater company. She just seemed like an unflappable, incredible human being with just an aptitude, an ability to do so much.

• 58:22Bill Maher?

  So she played Blanche to your Stanley Kowalski?

• 58:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:26Bill Maher?

  I would have liked to have seen that.

• 58:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:28Bill Maher?

  Where was that?

• 58:29Speaker 05

  At Bam, we did, we did, we actually did the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

• 58:35Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 58:36Speaker 05

  We did Sydney and then we did the Kennedy Center, which I don't know if we would do now. I don't know that we'd be doing that now.

• 58:43Bill Maher?

  I think you mean the Trump Kennedy Center.

• 58:44Speaker 05

  The Trump Kennedy Center.

• 58:45Bill Maher?

  Okay. Get it right.

• 58:48Speaker 05

  We're gonna reboot that one.

• 58:49Bill Maher?

  One call to ice and you're gone. You're gone.

• 58:53Speaker 05

  Two cast members may not be included.

• 59:00Speaker 05

  I have to get what's his name back, who was here back in that 50s movie playing Hispanic. Um, the, uh, so I had a dream one night about Kate.

• 59:10Speaker 05

  And don't worry, it's not a saucy, not a saucy drink.

• 59:13Bill Maher?

  I'm fascinated already.

• 59:14Speaker 05

  And it was, it was that Kate was so perfect in my mind. And in my dream, I'm about to go to rehab. And I'm in this room and I'm feeling really shameful. And I'm fucking trying to pretend I'm not there because I think everybody's gonna recognize me. And I look up and across the room, I see Kate Blanchett. And we're all in a holding room to go to rehab. So I'm like, oh fuck, Kate's going to rehab. And I go over to Kate and I'm like, Kate, why are you, why are you here? Because I think she's perfect. Why are you here? And she goes, food. And I'm like, fuck you.

• 59:52Bill Maher?

  That's interesting that even in your dream, you're famous.

• 59:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:58Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 59:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:59Bill Maher?

  In your dream.

• 1:00:00Speaker 05

  I'm never not famous, no. No, it's done now.

• 1:00:03Bill Maher?

  In your dream, you're worried about getting recognized.

• 1:00:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm like worried about, you know, actually, that's something really interesting.

• 1:00:11Bill Maher?

  But it is, but you know what? I've had the same feeling in a dream because what is a dream? It's us processing our fears.

• 1:00:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:19Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 1:00:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:19Bill Maher?

  And our, what we're apprehensive about. And that is something we are apprehensive about.

• 1:00:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Bill Maher?

  Don't get caught in public doing something weird. Even though we're not doing anything weird.

• 1:00:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 1:00:33Speaker 05

  Speaking about this, like this is alcohol for anyone who doesn't fucking get it.

• 1:00:38Bill Maher?

  Yeah, all right, just.

• 1:00:39Speaker 05

  Taxi.

• 1:00:40Bill Maher?

  Fucking.

• 1:00:40Speaker 05

  That's, um, that's, um, the, uh.

• 1:00:45Bill Maher?

  It's alcohol.

• 1:00:45Speaker 05

  The lab shed.

• 1:00:46Bill Maher?

  Don't associate with us breaking your furniture just because we're telling you that we are drinking alcohol. But people who don't drink alcohol sometimes break the furniture in the middle of conversation.

• 1:00:58Speaker 05

  Social media that I love is that it puts the power in the hands of the average individual. The unseen individual, talking about the ordinary person.

• 1:01:08Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:09Speaker 05

  There's good and bad things about it.

• 1:01:11Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it would be great if the, if the unseen person wasn't usually a fucking idiot. But, okay, I take it theoretically, you're right.

• 1:01:19Speaker 05

  But don't trip over on the sidewalk. Don't do something dumb. Don't be mean to people because they'll talk about it.

• 1:01:26Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 1:01:27Speaker 05

  And it's like, you should hold those values true regardless of what outside judgment is. But it's a good reminder that. You know, we call it in Australia, any tall poppy syndrome. You can be cut down very easily and like X or Twitter or any of those social media platforms are there to remind you like.

• 1:01:46Bill Maher?

  You have to be.

• 1:01:47Speaker 05

  Stay in your lane and be normal, like stay in the human lane.

• 1:01:50Bill Maher?

  Anytime you or I, or anyone in the public eye, just leaves the house, just leaves the house.

• 1:01:58Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:01:59Bill Maher?

  There is potential, maybe it's a very small percentage of potential, but as opposed to just being home.

• 1:02:05Speaker 05

  They could all come undone.

• 1:02:07Bill Maher?

  Anything could happen. Many is the time I've said to my, and I try to do, be aware, like, okay, you're stepping out of a limousine, don't show your vagina. I've said that to myself many times.

• 1:02:22Bill Maher?

  They caught me once or twice and of course TMZ runs that one over and over.

• 1:02:27Speaker 05

  Oh, and they rerun it.

• 1:02:28Bill Maher?

  Me showing my cooch getting out of the car. Uh, but I'm not the only one who's had that happen, where they show their cooch getting out of a car. And you know, the really classy ones.

• 1:02:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Bill Maher?

  You know, smart ladies like Beyonce and Taylor Swift. You never see, you never see anything bad.

• 1:02:47Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:02:48Bill Maher?

  Because they're, they're smart, they're classy, they know that they're always trying to get you at something.

• 1:02:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Bill Maher?

  So they're just always on point when they're out.

• 1:02:59Speaker 05

  Do you believe that, I mean, the old days, pre all this stuff, no one knew much about actors, musicians, comedians, like.

• 1:03:14Bill Maher?

  Of course, that's a fact.

• 1:03:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, and it was mysterious.

• 1:03:18Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 1:03:18Speaker 05

  Now it's the opposite, right?

• 1:03:20Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, we have, I mean, we've passed the age of tabloids to, to obviously the age of not just TMZ.

• 1:03:27Speaker 05

  But self-promotion.

• 1:03:28Bill Maher?

  I happen to love, uh, and get my news from.

• 1:03:31Speaker 05

  What TMZ?

• 1:03:32Bill Maher?

  I love TMZ. I love Harvey. I love the show.

• 1:03:34Speaker 05

  I gave a very boring interview to TMZ the other day, very sanitized. They won't run it.

• 1:03:39Bill Maher?

  Well, when you're on TMZ, you want, you, you want to be boring. You don't want to be the thing that's interesting.

• 1:03:44Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:03:45Bill Maher?

  You just want to be on there because you're Joel and you're fa- I saw it. You signing autographs outside of.

• 1:03:50Speaker 05

  Kimmel.

• 1:03:51Bill Maher?

  Kimmel.

• 1:03:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, very boring, very pleasant, very polite.

• 1:03:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, great.

• 1:03:56Speaker 05

  This is the way not to be seen.

• 1:03:57Bill Maher?

  Your publicist is thrilled. That it was not interesting. You don't need interesting, especially right now. When you're at this moment where you're probably gonna, you're definitely gonna get an Oscar nomination. You might win it. You're right at that age where they wanna give it to the guy, you know, and it's, and it's, the woke people will love it 'cause it's about grief. I'm telling you, it's all lining up in your favor, Joel. I'm telling you, you've put in the time, you've put in all this good work. It's like, we, time we give him his Oscar. You know, so, don't fuck it up now.

• 1:04:28Speaker 05

  Alright, I won't.

• 1:04:29Bill Maher?

  And we're not fucking it up here, by the way.

• 1:04:30Speaker 05

  Right, good. We could.

• 1:04:33Bill Maher?

  We could, but we're not. Because we're just real.

• 1:04:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:36Bill Maher?

  And we're not bad people. So as long as bad, not bad people are being real, there actually is nothing to be afraid of.

• 1:04:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:43Bill Maher?

  Honestly, there is, I mean, when I walk out of a lim, I'm not gonna do something stupid. I guess I'm not stupid.

• 1:04:49Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:04:50Bill Maher?

  And yet, there's still that idea.

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  You've got a very nice looking vagina.

• 1:04:54Bill Maher?

  Apparently.

• 1:04:55Speaker 05

  I watched your team vagina interview too.

• 1:04:57Bill Maher?

  We're even saying vagina, we're completely politically correct here. Anyway, what's your next role? Let's pretend this is a real interview.

• 1:05:06Speaker 05

  My life is completely free for now, you know, I spend.

• 1:05:10Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:05:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Bill Maher?

  Well, that's gonna change.

• 1:05:11Speaker 05

  I'm writing, I'm like, I write and I make stuff. My life has completely changed since I had two little people that you would hate. Two children.

• 1:05:23Bill Maher?

  How old are they, four?

• 1:05:24Speaker 05

  And I'm not, I'm not leaving them in your care.

• 1:05:27Bill Maher?

  You say, they're four? Definitely not, even though I have the credentials.

• 1:05:30Speaker 05

  I'll give you a little, like, earpiece, like, alright.

• 1:05:33Bill Maher?

  I have references from South Africa. I'm telling you, I, I, hey, you know what? I didn't have any references, I didn't have any skills.

• 1:05:40Speaker 05

  You know what's weird?

• 1:05:40Bill Maher?

  I didn't fuck it up.

• 1:05:41Speaker 05

  No, exactly.

• 1:05:42Bill Maher?

  Those kids are fine, they were never, there was never any trouble.

• 1:05:45Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:05:46Bill Maher?

  I, you know, I was always on time, I got them to their school, I got them back, I took them to their stupid activities. And, and I was supposed to teach them French also, that kinda fell by the wayside. Well, I kind of lied about that, too.

• 1:05:58Speaker 05

  Do pas français?

• 1:05:59Bill Maher?

  Like, I would speak them French to them, like, they would learn French with their new bodyguard slash au pair.

• 1:06:05Speaker 05

  Did he speak French?

• 1:06:06Bill Maher?

  I, you know, bonjour, I mean, I, well, I took French my whole time. They'd started us on.

• 1:06:12Speaker 05

  Moi aussi.

• 1:06:13Bill Maher?

  I, I.

• 1:06:13Speaker 05

  Je parle pas français.

• 1:06:15Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:06:16Speaker 05

  No, say, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:17Bill Maher?

  They started us in third grade, and I was still taking it my freshman year at Cornell, and I still couldn't get it. There are some things you just can't do. And for me, learning a language, thinking in the other language, instead of always thinking in English, having to translate, you can't do it that way.

• 1:06:32Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:06:33Bill Maher?

  Some people hear a foreign language and they pick it up, and I'm like, are you fucking kidding? At this, at the, the, the normal rate people speak, could I ever understand French? No.

• 1:06:43Speaker 05

  No. My kids speak Spanish, like fluent Spanish, and therefore, my mother-in-law is, is Filipino Spanish.

• 1:06:51Bill Maher?

  Because they're being raised, raised by the nanny.

• 1:06:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, but like my, but my mother-in-law speaks Tagalog, Spanish, and English.

• 1:06:57Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:06:58Speaker 05

  She speaks only Spanish to them.

• 1:07:00Bill Maher?

  Well, that's the time to get it in their head, because when they're kids, they, it's easy.

• 1:07:04Speaker 05

  And it's beautiful to hear them speak Spanish.

• 1:07:07Bill Maher?

  So they're bilingual already.

• 1:07:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I feel ashamed that my promise to myself when they started was, I'm gonna stay up with them, and I had Duolingo. Have you ever done Duolingo at all?

• 1:07:17Bill Maher?

  Please, don't be ashamed.

• 1:07:18Speaker 05

  Duolingo, no, but Duolingo has this sort of guilt aspect to it where you do a course, and like, every day you do like a few lessons, and it's.

• 1:07:27Bill Maher?

  Not guilt, Joel, please.

• 1:07:28Speaker 05

  I'm riddled with guilt. I was raised Catholic.

• 1:07:31Bill Maher?

  What, are you Jewish? Don't be.

• 1:07:32Speaker 05

  No, Catholic.

• 1:07:33Bill Maher?

  I was too. Yeah, Catholics have a lot of guilt.

• 1:07:35Speaker 05

  I did my Holy Communion when I was ten.

• 1:07:37Bill Maher?

  So did I. Seven, when I did it.

• 1:07:40Speaker 05

  And I'm like.

• 1:07:41Bill Maher?

  They raised the age?

• 1:07:42Speaker 05

  I, well, I was around ten. I, my parents were thirty-four, thirty-five at the time that I did my communion, and we had this long house. Speaking of which, like, you know, when you say, like, you thought you were a king as a kid, like, you're rich, and my brother and I went out recently to try and look at the house that we grew up in that was up for sale. And I, in my mind, it was a palace. It was fucking huge.

• 1:08:09Bill Maher?

  Everybody's shamed of that.

• 1:08:10Speaker 05

  And then we went there, and it felt tiny.

• 1:08:12Bill Maher?

  Because you were two feet tall. Everyone, everyone says the same thing, Joel, none of us.

• 1:08:17Speaker 05

  And I was like, all right, well, we don't necessarily want to buy, but it was lovely to go there, but it was reminding me of all these things. There was a little church down the road we used to go and and so did the communion. Because of the insistence of my grandparents, they my parents wanted to please them. My parents weren't really super religious. So it's like, why load me up with all this guilt? Anyway, I realized that every Sunday, my brother and I would run down the like, we were like Ned Flanders kids. Like, let's go to church, let's go to church. And and they were like, ah, not today, not today. And of course, church is on a Sunday and what happens on a Saturday night is my parents would be out dragging us young kids along drunk. I'm fifty one, I've got two four year olds, I still take my kids out and do all that stuff.

• 1:09:02Speaker 05

  But they were thirty five year old kids. I call them ki- anyone younger than me is a kid. Thirty five year old people with two young kids hung over on a Sunday going, I want to fucking go to church. And it raised my level of, oh my god, he's gonna fucking punish me.

• 1:09:21Bill Maher?

  Me too.

• 1:09:21Speaker 05

  He's gonna punish me. And each week went by, I was like, I can't go now. Cause when I go, the punishment's gonna be worse.

• 1:09:28Bill Maher?

  No, I mean, Catholic upbringing traumatized me. You know, we were talking before about getting from train dreams about like how hard life is.

• 1:09:39Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:09:40Bill Maher?

  Compared to a hundred years ago, my life has been a dream. And I was very fortunate, I had a very Leave It To Beaver upbringing.

• 1:09:48Speaker 05

  All right.

• 1:09:48Bill Maher?

  Did that show.

• 1:09:49Speaker 05

  Were you Eddie Haskell?

• 1:09:50Bill Maher?

  What, ah, you know, the show.

• 1:09:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:51Bill Maher?

  That played in Australia?

• 1:09:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was one of the ones.

• 1:09:54Bill Maher?

  Cause that's from the, that's really old, that's from the fifties, black and white.

• 1:09:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm not kidding, like, and Mr. Ed?

• 1:10:01Bill Maher?

  Mr. Ed.

• 1:10:02Speaker 05

  The famous Mr. Ed.

• 1:10:04Bill Maher?

  The talking.

• 1:10:04Speaker 05

  I could sing all the jingles badly.

• 1:10:07Bill Maher?

  Green Acres?

• 1:10:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, Green Acres. Uh, what else?

• 1:10:10Bill Maher?

  No, let's hear it, you said you could sing all the jingles.

• 1:10:13Speaker 05

  But.

• 1:10:14Bill Maher?

  Green Acres is the place to be. No, you don't remember that?

• 1:10:18Speaker 05

  No, no, I, I, you've probably had a lie, I don't know that one.

• 1:10:22Bill Maher?

  For me.

• 1:10:24Speaker 05

  But, you know, I mean, uh, okay, so sorry to interrupt you. Eddie, I called you Eddie Haskell, which is an insult.

• 1:10:32Bill Maher?

  It's a funny insult.

• 1:10:33Speaker 05

  Because he's the naughty neighbour, right?

• 1:10:34Bill Maher?

  He's, yeah.

• 1:10:36Speaker 05

  He was the irascible neighbour.

• 1:10:38Bill Maher?

  It's funny because.

• 1:10:39Speaker 05

  So that's suitable.

• 1:10:39Bill Maher?

  Yes, he's, I mean, Beaver is Beaver. He's the, you know, the kid.

• 1:10:43Speaker 05

  He's the good freckled kid.

• 1:10:44Bill Maher?

  Yes, he's the typical 50s kid. I mean, this is the completely white world of the 50s.

• 1:10:50Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:10:50Bill Maher?

  I mean, you could not find a person of colour within 100 yards of this set. I mean, that's just where we were in the 50s.

• 1:10:57Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:10:57Bill Maher?

  We don't think it's good, but like we, you know, I've been talking about your thing with guilt before.

• 1:11:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02Bill Maher?

  There's too much guilt. There's no reason for you to feel, I'm sure you're like a better parent to your kids.

• 1:11:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:08Bill Maher?

  Than like everybody was in my era, as far as like how much time you spend with them. I mean, my parents and that generation, they didn't feel any obligation.

• 1:11:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:18Bill Maher?

  It's like, we brought you into this world, you have a roof, you have clothes, you have food, and you have your own life, and we were better. I had such a free-range childhood.

• 1:11:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:29Bill Maher?

  Of doing whatever the fuck I wanted, just be home by six. I remember my. That's when dinner is.

• 1:11:33Speaker 05

  My dad, I think the story goes that he broke his arm, jumping over the fence, trying to get there on time for my brother's birth. And he said his job as a groom when you get married was just to show up. Like, no planning, none of this, like, Christine and I got married at City Hall. We, we just did like, the kids asked, we didn't want to like bother with all the stress of like, you know, napkins and who do we invite and all this shit.

• 1:12:03Bill Maher?

  Well, then you got a really cool bride.

• 1:12:05Speaker 05

  She's amazing. My wife is incredible.

• 1:12:07Bill Maher?

  Because not a lot of chicks go for that.

• 1:12:10Speaker 05

  She is the best. They, a lot of. Really punching above my weight.

• 1:12:14Bill Maher?

  A lot of women really think that the wedding day is the greatest day of their life and, and like, that just has to happen perfectly.

• 1:12:23Speaker 05

  But it should be for you and not.

• 1:12:24Bill Maher?

  It should be, yes.

• 1:12:25Speaker 05

  And maybe because she's in the world of, like, she runs a magazine. She's the chief editor of Australian Vogue.

• 1:12:31Bill Maher?

  Oh, really?

• 1:12:32Speaker 05

  She deals with a lot of people. I deal with a lot of people where like, you know, there's a lot of people watching us. And maybe being in a wedding is nice just to be not watched and not about.

• 1:12:46Bill Maher?

  Absolutely.

• 1:12:47Speaker 05

  My brother got married and I remember somebody like wrote to him, he's like, why aren't I on the invite list? It's like, fucking hell, like. You're gonna like give him grief about.

• 1:12:56Bill Maher?

  No, it's, yeah.

• 1:12:58Speaker 05

  But guilt is huge, dude, in my life. Like every day, I'm like, am I a good parent? Am I not a good parent? I remember this, and my, you know, shout out to my parents who are just fucking divine. But I remember I was with my mom and my dad, and my, my mom uh knows that I have these big chunks where I'm working. And these big chunks where I get to spend time with my kids. And my mom was like, see, you know, said to my dad at one point, see, this is something you didn't get. And I remember thinking.

• 1:13:29Speaker 05

  That's not what he needs to hear. Because like, he's very special to me, and I kind of know more than ever now. Why there were certain times I didn't get to see him. But so I think a lot about that when I'm the parent going.

• 1:13:45Bill Maher?

  You're like the logger guy.

• 1:13:46Speaker 05

  Kids don't understand money.

• 1:13:48Bill Maher?

  The logger guy.

• 1:13:49Speaker 05

  The logger guy.

• 1:13:49Bill Maher?

  He goes away for a couple of months at a time.

• 1:13:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Bill Maher?

  Which is shit.

• 1:13:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:55Bill Maher?

  And acting isn't shit, but I'm sure you miss your family.

• 1:13:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:59Bill Maher?

  And then.

• 1:13:59Speaker 05

  Come back with a roll of cash.

• 1:14:00Bill Maher?

  You come back with a roll of cash and you have like oodles of time at home. Uh uninterrupted, which most people in their nine to five kind of fifty weeks a year job don't have at all.

• 1:14:12Speaker 05

  And then the wife's like.

• 1:14:13Bill Maher?

  It's just.

• 1:14:13Speaker 05

  Aren't you gonna log this? Isn't this some logging to be done? Like.

• 1:14:19Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:14:20Speaker 05

  But we, you know, like.

• 1:14:21Bill Maher?

  So it's just different, you know, and, and I mean, I just see so many parents fucking up their lives and their kids' lives. Because there's too much in their kids' lives, which fucks up their lives.

• 1:14:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:34Bill Maher?

  And they're really fucking it up on both ends. Kids don't need to be supervised to that degree. And it fucks up your life. You need to have a life too. So if your life is. Yeah, you're, I mean, I just watched Jay Kelly. Did you see that?

• 1:14:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:49Bill Maher?

  You see, you know, like so many movies I've seen, he feels very bad about his kids who don't like him because he wasn't there. You know what? Daddy was a movie star. I'm sorry he wasn't there all the time.

• 1:15:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Bill Maher?

  You just, my father worked nights. I never saw him during the week either.

• 1:15:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:06Bill Maher?

  It didn't fuck me up. So what?

• 1:15:09Speaker 05

  Sorry.

• 1:15:10Bill Maher?

  You know what?

• 1:15:10Speaker 05

  I think it did do.

• 1:15:15Speaker 05

  You know, like, but also, like, you could, I mean, there were so many examples of people who mistreated their children and they've gone on to like, you know.

• 1:15:24Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 1:15:25Speaker 05

  And people who were the best parents in the world and the kids, you know, did awful things.

• 1:15:30Bill Maher?

  Exactly, and, you know, life is this, this very complicated mixture of advantages and disadvantages. There's privilege and there's pretty privilege and, you know, I could name a million privileges.

• 1:15:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:45Bill Maher?

  And, uh, you know, you just either make the best of it or you don't. And as some wise person once said, if you're looking for an excuse, you'll find one.

• 1:15:55Speaker 05

  And, and don't we all filter everything through our, our own ego? It's like everything that happens around us and near us and adjacent to us or whatever, we're like, it's got something to do with me, when it really doesn't all the time.

• 1:16:10Bill Maher?

  I mean, Joel, this is the wrong town to start throwing accusations about narcissism.

• 1:16:17Bill Maher?

  And not to push it on Jake Kelly, which I did enjoy.

• 1:16:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Bill Maher?

  I enjoy George Clooney in anything. I enjoy Adam Sandler.

• 1:16:24Speaker 05

  I've worked with George.

• 1:16:25Bill Maher?

  But it is George Clooney in a.

• 1:16:27Speaker 05

  He directed me in Boys in the Boat.

• 1:16:29Bill Maher?

  Oh, Boys in the Boat.

• 1:16:30Speaker 05

  Gorgeous George.

• 1:16:32Bill Maher?

  Right. I always think of The Clitoris when I hear the name of that movie, but, but it is a good movie. Okay, but like, and I enjoyed the movie, but like yet another, another movie about the business itself.

• 1:16:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, there's been a lot.

• 1:16:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:47Bill Maher?

  About, I mean, the navel gazing in this town is extraordinary.

• 1:16:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:52Bill Maher?

  Like, I, it wasn't a bad movie or uninteresting or unfeeling. Uh, I enjoyed it, you know, I mean, he plays basically himself, this movie star, so it's a smart idea for a movie.

• 1:17:05Bill Maher?

  But, you know, I mean, I, I don't feel bad for the character. I don't feel bad for his kids who, who, you know, just, dad, you weren't there. Yes, because he was making a classic, you fucking brat.

• 1:17:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:21Bill Maher?

  That's what happened.

• 1:17:21Speaker 05

  And you're having an argument around a really nice swimming pool. But it's a great movie.

• 1:17:26Bill Maher?

  And then he came home and gave you a great life, which, you know, he, dad could have worked for the electric company, okay? Get the fuck over yourself.

• 1:17:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:36Bill Maher?

  Dear dad's a movie star and, you know, okay, so like that's who he is. We can't change who we are.

• 1:17:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:44Bill Maher?

  You know, there's just so much like of this shaming, a lot of it, you know, people wonder why so many young men vote for Trump. Well, maybe because, you know, he's one guy who doesn't make you feel guilty just for being born with a dick, you know?

• 1:18:00Bill Maher?

  It's true. It's a lot of his appeal. They make you feel, you know, a lot, not me, I'm old enough to remember when it was the reverse. So I get the backlash.

• 1:18:10Speaker 05

  It was like to be born without a dick.

• 1:18:11Bill Maher?

  But if you're twen- that I don't remember, but if you're 22 years old, if you're 22, you don't remember a time when it was the reverse. So you've only seen the backlash. You've only seen white men bad.

• 1:18:25Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, you know, I remember when, uh, when he first got voted in and, and, and the realization of the un- the, the sort of lack of awareness of, of the way dudes felt in the world. And I was like, you know, the whole seat at the table thing and it's like the presumption of position in the world. And friends of mine in Australia are talking about this whole, whole thing about going, you know, like work hard for what you fucking get. Be good at what you do to prove that you deserve these seat at the table. But the, the anger of, you know, that, that sort of phase, I think we're talking about the same thing anyway.

• 1:19:06Bill Maher?

  Yes, we are.

• 1:19:07Speaker 05

  But like, go, you know, I'm all for inclusivity and then you speak to the same person like a few months later and like, I'm fucking terrified. And it's like, why don't you just be fucking good at what you do? And if you're an artist, paint the right pictures, tell the right stories, make the best music. Like, do the best you can do and prove that the seat you were sitting on, you can still sit on.

• 1:19:31Bill Maher?

  I mean, in this country, because we have such a horrible sorry history, levels of reparation are, to my view, completely appropriate.

• 1:19:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:40Bill Maher?

  But at the end of the day, you also have to acknowledge, things have changed enormously in this century. And that ultimately merit, you know, is something that we're going to have to reinstate to where it formerly was. It's important and it kind of got bypassed. And the people it's supposed to help by forgetting about it are often not helped by it.

• 1:20:07Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:20:08Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 1:20:08Speaker 05

  Well, the pendulum swings in certain ways too. And I do believe that, you know, sometimes, like with the casting conversation too.

• 1:20:16Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:20:17Speaker 05

  It's like, don't think the pendulum swings so far, you're like, now she'll be nervous about this. It's like, you know, the pendulum like shifts and changes. But in terms of merit, like merit is just a thing. And it's like, I mean, I don't know how you solve that problem, especially two white dudes sitting on a lunch chat, talking about it.

• 1:20:36Bill Maher?

  Okay, but again, that's the guilt thing that I'm not going to buy into.

• 1:20:39Speaker 05

  No, right.

• 1:20:41Bill Maher?

  Just because we're white dudes doesn't mean we can't have opinions.

• 1:20:44Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:20:44Bill Maher?

  Or that we can't have this discussion. I mean, apropos of that discussion about appropriation, I remember John Leguizamo was sitting here. I love John, I think he's enormous talent. But I did point out to him that he was very angry when James Franco was going to play Castro. But he himself played characters, he played Luigi, he's not Italian.

• 1:21:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:06Bill Maher?

  He played, or Mario, or whatever it was. He played like Toulouse Lautrec.

• 1:21:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:11Bill Maher?

  He's not French.

• 1:21:12Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:21:13Bill Maher?

  You know, like, it's a, that's, to me, is very hypocritical and typical of the far left woke.

• 1:21:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:19Bill Maher?

  That they just, they don't see it when they, it's always okay when I'm making fun of it, but I can do it.

• 1:21:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:26Bill Maher?

  And like, don't be ridiculous, because you yourself have played these parts that are not you.

• 1:21:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:32Bill Maher?

  And that's why we call it acting.

• 1:21:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:35Bill Maher?

  Acting.

• 1:21:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was the Pharaoh of Egypt.

• 1:21:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, in what?

• 1:21:41Speaker 05

  In Ridley Scott's Exodus. I mean, you know, like, and it's a really interesting, you know, I mean.

• 1:21:47Bill Maher?

  Ridley Scott's Exodus.

• 1:21:49Speaker 05

  I'm out of vodka.

• 1:21:51Bill Maher?

  You want more?

• 1:21:52Speaker 05

  No, no, I'm good.

• 1:21:52Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:21:53Speaker 05

  But the, um.

• 1:21:54Bill Maher?

  That's what they all say.

• 1:21:55Speaker 05

  But you know, like, it is an interesting conversation, because the, the, the, the, I wouldn't take the experience away in the world, partly because of what it taught me. Love Ridley, like, fucking one of my favorite people in the world.

• 1:22:07Bill Maher?

  What a filmmaker.

• 1:22:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, and like, you know, to speak to him on the phone and, and kind of, you know, he's like, come, you know. Anyway, I did the movie. But at the same time, I'm like, all right, well, you know, what does doing that movie take away from someone else? And like, I wasn't even that famous a dude. It's not like, you know, I, I, the lot, the short version of that is when we talked about it early, is just really about like, on one hand, it's like, what suits you as a character is one thing.

• 1:22:43Speaker 05

  What you are taking away from somebody else is another thing. And it's like, there's a financial aspect that everyone can lean on and say, um, you know, the movie will only get made if it's, but as Coda proved, like, the success of that movie was the authenticity of the movie, you know?

• 1:23:04Bill Maher?

  We are pretty much past the age when it's about who's in the movie.

• 1:23:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:10Bill Maher?

  It's mostly about the movie.

• 1:23:12Speaker 05

  Who are movie stars anymore?

• 1:23:14Bill Maher?

  Right, that's what I'm saying.

• 1:23:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:15Bill Maher?

  It's Tom Cruise, okay.

• 1:23:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:17Bill Maher?

  But even Tom Cruise, if the movie was shit, I don't think it would do well.

• 1:23:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:22Bill Maher?

  I don't think people are gonna come out to see a sixty-five-year-old Scientologist in a shitty movie. They, they, they will come out to see that in Maverick, which is entertaining.

• 1:23:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:33Bill Maher?

  In a popcorn way, and you know, I, I love, I'm a huge fan of Tom Cruise.

• 1:23:37Speaker 05

  Me too.

• 1:23:38Bill Maher?

  You know, um, he's obviously got a little wire loose there in the head, that's fine. But like, what a movie star, what a filmmaker.

• 1:23:46Speaker 05

  Beautiful legend, dude.

• 1:23:48Bill Maher?

  Legend, and, and entertained me a million times, which I'm always grateful for.

• 1:23:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:53Bill Maher?

  You know, um, I just wanna be entertained. Here I am now.

• 1:23:57Speaker 05

  I wanna be entertained, I also think that there are. Countless examples of movies that have movie stars front and center that if the story isn't good.

• 1:24:06Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 1:24:07Speaker 05

  They don't make money. And then countless examples of movies that star people that aren't that famous. But if they're really good.

• 1:24:15Bill Maher?

  I mean, honestly, they could have done Train Dreams with Leonardo DiCaprio.

• 1:24:21Speaker 05

  They did, he was terrible. They had to reshoot it with me.

• 1:24:26Speaker 05

  They tried it with Timmy. Terrible, and they reshoot it with me.

• 1:24:30Bill Maher?

  But you're the same age as Leonardo DiCaprio.

• 1:24:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, and we're good, very good friends. We did Gatsby together. We're very good friends, and I'm so happy.

• 1:24:38Bill Maher?

  Okay, I'm just saying. It wouldn't have worked the same way. He's just too pretty.

• 1:24:45Speaker 05

  What are you saying about me?

• 1:24:46Bill Maher?

  Well, you're fine. You're a nice looking guy.

• 1:24:50Speaker 05

  I'm down the middle.

• 1:24:50Bill Maher?

  But we can believe you living in the cabin.

• 1:24:55Speaker 05

  This is something, though. I do think that at some point.

• 1:24:58Bill Maher?

  And Revenant was one of my favorite movies of all time.

• 1:25:01Speaker 05

  Revenant's amazing.

• 1:25:01Bill Maher?

  Where he does play a guy from a million years ago, but it's, it's different. He's eating a fish raw right out of the river. You know, it's just, it's just not the, it's just not the person we can relate to.

• 1:25:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:13Bill Maher?

  Who could bite into a fish right out of the river?

• 1:25:16Speaker 05

  I mean, I could. They're just too slippery, you know? Couldn't get a hold, couldn't get a perch or something. But it's, it's a good question is like, at some point.

• 1:25:27Bill Maher?

  And he's too movie star-y. He's already a movie, we just see him as a movie star.

• 1:25:31Speaker 05

  Imagine you went to Sundance and saw like, you know, like a three million dollar movie starring Tom Cruise. It just somehow, the metrics don't compute.

• 1:25:44Bill Maher?

  It doesn't.

• 1:25:45Speaker 05

  But mind you, that would maybe be one of the most radical movies you could pull. But there are certain things. I mean, back in the day, I think the studios told you who the movie stars were.

• 1:25:56Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:25:56Speaker 05

  Pre-social media, the, the definitely, the, the news outlets and there was like, all right, these are your movie stars. Now it's in the hands of everyone on, you know, social media.

• 1:26:06Bill Maher?

  I mean, your movie.

• 1:26:07Speaker 05

  Who's hard, who's not?

• 1:26:07Bill Maher?

  I mean, Train Dreams got crazy numbers on Rotten Tomatoes.

• 1:26:12Speaker 05

  Hmm, yeah.

• 1:26:13Bill Maher?

  Like, and Rotten Tomatoes is the, is the popular.

• 1:26:18Speaker 05

  Ninety-five percent.

• 1:26:19Bill Maher?

  Vox populace.

• 1:26:20Speaker 05

  I think if my mom knew how to write a review on there, ninety-six percent.

• 1:26:27Speaker 05

  My, I actually just.

• 1:26:28Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's a crazy number for, for any, for anything, but, but especially when it comes from the viewers, you know?

• 1:26:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a beautiful thing, it's a beautiful film. Um, it, you know, it's very un-Australian to cycle back to almost the very beginning of our conversation. One thing is Australians are, that is, we like to be complimented by other people, we're not good at complimenting ourselves. And when people compliment us, we often stare at our shoes, which are generally flip flops. Um, but.

• 1:27:00Bill Maher?

  So you see yourself as modest?

• 1:27:03Speaker 05

  I do, I do, I actually, you know, but at the same time, I do.

• 1:27:07Bill Maher?

  How ego centric of you.

• 1:27:08Speaker 05

  Huh? How are you good? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:12Speaker 05

  But, like, it, it is comfortable for me to say that I love this movie. I'm so glad that I'm in it and I know, and I've seen numerous people that I look back on my life whenever it's getting close to its end, which is to, you know, kind of suitable for the film itself. And go, it's one of my favorite experiences ever.

• 1:27:35Bill Maher?

  Well, it's not just a terrific movie and, and has touched so many people in a way very few movies do, but it is a defining, like, watershed in your career, like.

• 1:27:46Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:27:46Bill Maher?

  That I would, I would guess, as I've been an observer of show business for a long time.

• 1:27:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:52Bill Maher?

  You just see, like Matthew McConaughey, for example, did the, where he was the AIDS dude.

• 1:27:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:58Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:27:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:59Bill Maher?

  AIDS, automatic Oscar.

• 1:28:02Speaker 05

  The McConnaissance.

• 1:28:03Bill Maher?

  Not that he wasn't great.

• 1:28:04Speaker 05

  The McConnaissance.

• 1:28:06Bill Maher?

  But they also vote on, they just, it's not quite an exact science.

• 1:28:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:28:12Bill Maher?

  Giving out awards, let's put it that way.

• 1:28:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:28:14Bill Maher?

  So it has to be sort of the right thing, that the voters thing makes them feel like the good people.

• 1:28:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:28:19Bill Maher?

  And, um, and this one, like, hit, it just, it just walks that line perfectly. It is actually a good movie. It also is gonna, like, a, a, attract those people who wanna vote for it, the right movie.

• 1:28:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:34Bill Maher?

  I mean, after twelve years of Slave One, which I'm sure is a great movie, um, but some of the people who have voted for it on the, on the panel admitted, uh, we didn't see it, we just voted for it.

• 1:28:46Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:28:47Bill Maher?

  We knew it was the right thing to do. So like, but, but like this all aligns up because you deserve an Oscar.

• 1:28:54Speaker 05

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:28:55Bill Maher?

  And after, and after that, even if you don't get the Oscar, even if you get just nomination, um, which you definitely will, then your career, you know, like for whatever reason, look, I'm the last guy to think that awards should mean anything because they, it's really just an opinion and it bugs me that people talk about it as if they, you know, like I always say, when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, they won it. If you win an Oscar, it's just someone's opinion.

• 1:29:21Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:29:21Bill Maher?

  You didn't actually win anything. It's someone's opinion.

• 1:29:25Speaker 05

  Yeah. We'll change our opinion if we win at the Golden Globes, by the way.

• 1:29:28Bill Maher?

  Right, exactly. If I win, I have a whole different take on it. But, uh, but I do think you're at this other level and it's a, it's a perfect time because I always think that actors over 50 are just working on a different level. It's just one of those 10,000 hours thing.

• 1:29:46Speaker 05

  It's the rings of the tree.

• 1:29:48Bill Maher?

  It really is. Like they're just on a level of like, you know, that famous story when Jack Lemmon said to the director, you know, what do you want me to do? Not act? Exactly.

• 1:29:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:58Bill Maher?

  You know, we don't see the acting at all. And, you know, you see it in younger people and it doesn't mean they're not good.

• 1:30:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Bill Maher?

  But you just see this different level. So I just imagine for the next decade, you're going to get some amazing scripts.

• 1:30:11Speaker 05

  Oh, thank you, man.

• 1:30:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:13Speaker 05

  I feel that way with, um, you know, I used to, when I went to drama school and I was a very sanitized, uh, young man and, and everyone was like, ah, you know, like to be a great actor, you have to be through some kind of suffering. And I'm like, wow, so I had a pretty cruisy upbringing. Like, it's going to make me a shit actor. And, uh, and then I, you know, as I get older, I realize it's not about suffering and trauma and all that stuff. It's just the experience of life can give you the understanding of some things, the empathy towards other things, the appreciation of life, the patience to observe.

• 1:30:53Speaker 05

  And, and, and look into things without being too self-obsessed. That you can be open to slip into the skin of other people if that's what your job is. And so it's not really about like, I need to have been through hell and locked in a basement and beaten by my parents to become a good actor.

• 1:31:13Bill Maher?

  I also think people should know, and I can say this from experience, because in the eighties, when I was first out here, I made my living doing silly movies and, you know, TV shows. And to spend all day in makeup, like mostly just wasting time in your trailer, just sitting around, and then there's a lot of stress on a movie set. It's not like, and you're away from home, and very, very often you're doing things you don't want to do. I remember like getting very sick once because I had to, we were shooting in the Bronson Caves. Did you ever shoot there? They used it for every cave and ever seen in a movie. And I'm lying on the ground after the supposed explosion in the movie,

• 1:31:56Bill Maher?

  and there's all this smoke that I was breathing in for two days. There's a lot of shit. I mean, it's great to be a movie star. It also is, I mean, it's not like there's no work involved.

• 1:32:08Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:32:09Bill Maher?

  Or, or nothing that like, like every day is just tits and champagne. It is not. Um, anyway.

• 1:32:16Speaker 05

  It's like, you know, I feel like being an actor is like five minutes of a day.

• 1:32:22Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:32:22Speaker 05

  Good and bad will remind me why it's excellent to be an actor. And when I say good and bad, it's like, a good thing is like, yes, I'm doing the right thing.

• 1:32:30Bill Maher?

  Sometimes you're working only five minutes of the day.

• 1:32:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, and if you didn't, if you didn't give me that five minutes that reminded me,

• 1:32:36Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:32:36Speaker 05

  I'd probably go, I'm finally gonna go do something else.

• 1:32:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, John, John Cleese once said, "Making a movie is like spending eight weeks waiting in an airport."

• 1:32:47Bill Maher?

  Anyway, I can't thank you enough for doing my little ridiculous show.

• 1:32:53Speaker 05

  I can't believe I'm even here. It's such a pleasure to meet you and talk to you.

• 1:32:56Bill Maher?

  This was so much fun.

• 1:32:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:32:58Bill Maher?

  And I wish you luck on Sunday.

• 1:33:00Speaker 05

  Thank you. You too.

• 1:33:01Bill Maher?

  Since your interests don't conflict with mine, uh, good luck with your business.

• 1:33:07Speaker 05

  I'm gonna pat a cat in that.

• 1:33:09Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:10Speaker 05

  Uh, thank you, man.

• 1:33:16Bill Maher?

  Have you ever, you've been at the Golden Gloves a hundred times? No, never. They never even had my category before.

• 1:33:26Speaker 07

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• 1:33:56Speaker 08

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