Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey is an Academy Award-winning actor, producer, author, and professor of film, known for his captivating leading roles and versatility. He has appeared in more than 40 feature films, beginning with his breakout role in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, that have grossed over $1 billion. While he is most popular for his roles in films including Dallas Buyers Club, Interstellar, Free State of Jones, and the HBO television series True Detective, McConaughey is also the author of Greenlights, his life-changing, #1 New York Times Bestselling memoir that provides an intimate look at his life, career, and personal philosophies. The book has inspired millions of readers through the actor’s unflinching honesty, unconventional wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction–and it’s now available in paperback and with exclusive new content. Beyond writing and film, McConaughey, alongside his wife, Camila, founded the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a nonprofit organization that empowers high school students to make healthy choices by implementing after school fitness programs across 19 cities in the United States. From November 16-17, McConaughey will be headlining the 2024 Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas. Joined by authors including Malcolm Gladwell, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Ernest Cline, he will showcase his memoir and celebrate the culture of literacy, ideas, and imagination with readers. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Athletic Nicotine https://www.athleticnicotine.com/tetra ------ Squarespace https://squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Vivo Barefoot http://vivobarefoot.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA25' ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

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

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Tetragrammaton.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  When I first started, I had instincts for it, but I didn't really know what I was doing.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  In a way, I did know what I was doing, but I didn't, I couldn't explain. I didn't know what my rights were. I didn't know what to, how to stand up for my man, as I called it, like I do now.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  I never went to acting school, and I never had anyone sort of teach or coach me until about 1998, which was about six years after I'd started. And I met with this woman who's been one of my great mentors of my life, Penny Allen. She's the late Penny, and she's moved on now. And she taught, started teaching me my rights. She taught me how to break down a script, how to go, where's the character coming from in this scene? Where's the character going? What's the need? What's the obstacle? What's the event? All those things that are classic acting questions that an actor needs to know. And I had about two years of a very clumsy time in acting. Because you know, when you just have the instincts or something, then all of a sudden

• 1:27Speaker 01

  you go get, you're gonna go learn the knowledge, you get conscious. It's confusing. Oh, I was conscious of, and it was sublimating for my instincts. But I stuck with it. And after about two years, you know, you learn something, I got across that bridge where, okay, now what I know is in tune with what I understand and what I always understood. And then when I combined the two, that's when acting got really fun. That's when I started to love it. Because I learned ways to love it. I loved, I could have a plan in preparation and take that plan to the, to the set between action and cut and know, have a good enough plan, be prepared enough that I could call audibles or react to whatever's going on.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  And that, doing that, and then knowing, oh, I know, I used to not know, meaning...

• 2:17Speaker 01

  If I go into a scene with an intention, there's what I want to do, there's what I'm actually doing.

• 2:22Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  There's what's actually getting recorded. And then there's what's getting edited. Well, I would sit there and go, oh, that was it. And then director go, well, come have a look. I'd look at it and go, oh, no, that isn't what I thought I was doing.

• 2:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Now I've closed those gaps and that came from learning the knowledge of studying acting. I've closed those gaps. When I want to do something, it's pretty doggone close to what I'm actually doing, which is pretty doggone close to what's actually getting recorded. So I've closed the gap.

• 2:48Rick Rubin?

  And would you say that a big part of that was being able to look at it, see what you did, and then based on that information, try it again?

• 2:59Speaker 01

  I mean, look, the objective side of, early on, I was too, I was too afraid to go look at a monitor.

• 3:05Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Early on, I didn't even, I still, not so much anymore, but early on, I would go see a film that I was in and have to go, go to the parking lot and throw up.

• 3:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Just because.

• 3:15Rick Rubin?

  Stressful.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  It was, you know, you see one scene in a whole week's work or it would come brushing into 60 seconds on a film and it was, it was, it was too much and I didn't like seeing myself. I didn't like hearing myself.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Again, got over that a little bit and could.

• 3:31Rick Rubin?

  Interesting to hear though, because I wouldn't, knowing what little I know about your personality, I would think you'd be comfortable seeing yourself on the screen. So the fact that it took time, that's an interesting thing.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  It, it, it took a lot of time. Like I'm still, the better the performance, the easier it is for me to watch.

• 3:46Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  If I catch myself.

• 3:48Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Bullshitting or I catch myself.

• 3:49Rick Rubin?

  Can you ever see a movie with you in it and not know it's you? Can you fall into the character?

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Yes. The quicker I can watch a performance, say in this, in this instance, one of my own, and say the character's name is Ron Woodruff or whatever, and go, how quick I go, oh, who's this guy Ron? Instead of who's this guy McConaughey playing this guy Ron? Which sometimes that happens.

• 4:15Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  And I'm like, I'm not getting past seeing myself.

• 4:19Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  And the quicker I can get in and go, oh, I'm seeing this character. And yeah, I know it's me, but I'm following this man.

• 4:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  And then I end up afterwards going, oh, here's what, here's how I felt about that. Then I can kind of look in there and go, well, you did that. But it's, it comes after.

• 4:34Rick Rubin?

  You've been in so many movies and your face is so familiar. For the audience to go past it being you and become the character, does that get more difficult as you do more and more films?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Um.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  It became that way when I had a, I had a real, really successful romantic comedy run. Where I was the go to rom com guy. And I was, those movies were succeeding. They were doing well in the box office and I was, and I had done like four or five in a row. Now that did box me in because no one, any.

• 5:07Rick Rubin?

  People just saw you as that.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  And the life I was living, I was out here in Malibu, just learning to surf, I'm on the beach without my shirt on. It all kind of fit like, oh, this is.

• 5:17Rick Rubin?

  He's playing himself.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Playing himself. So what that did was if I did go and I snuck in a few independent dramas in there that were not romantic comedies. Audience didn't react to them. They're like, no, no, no, no, no, I would, I want to see you go over here.

• 5:30Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Now, I then took off. That's when we moved back to Texas, Camilla and I, and she was pregnant with our first son, who's now named Levi. And I took a sabbatical from Hollywood, moved back there and.

• 5:46Rick Rubin?

  How long of a sabbatical did you take?

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Well, it ended up being 22 months. I didn't know how long it was gonna, it was a one way ticket into.

• 5:52Rick Rubin?

  Tell me what you were thinking, what was the mindset?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  It was a conscious decision. Because I couldn't do what I wanted to do and I was wanting to do some dramas, wanting to do some. I said, okay, I'm gonna, if I can't do what, if I'm not being offered what I want to do, I'm gonna stop doing what I'm doing. So I rebranded. I pressed stop on what I knew, went away, didn't know how long it was gonna take. The conscious decision was.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Look, my life at that time was so vital. Fall in love with Camilla. She's pregnant with our first child. My life was alive, man. I was mad, sad, I felt everything. The ceilings were high and the basements were low and the bandwidth was wide. The work I was doing at that time, those romantic comics, were like a

• 6:39Speaker 01

  It was a minimized, no, don't, don't, don't, don't feel that much. Don't be that happy, don't be that mad, don't be that sad. So I was feeling governed by the work and I was like, man, I'm, I'm, I'm happy to say that my life feels more vital than my work.

• 6:53Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  If it's gonna be one way or the other, I'm glad it's that way. I go, but I'd like to find some work that challenges the vitality of what I'm feeling in my life. And that was gonna be in dramas. Which are what dramas allow for. And so we headed off to Texas, had called the agents, said, said, no more rom-coms, no more action comedies. And it went dead silent for a while. And, uh, I got a little, I had, I was never gonna come back on my choice, but it did get a little wobbly. As I like to say, that, that, that bottle on the shelf started to look a little better earlier in the day.

• 7:26Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  I didn't have purpose.

• 7:27Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  I was looking, I didn't have-

• 7:28Rick Rubin?

  What were your days like? Tell me about those 22 months.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Um, A lot of gardening, uh, yard work.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  Um, writing.

• 7:44Rick Rubin?

  You always write?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  I've always written. Always been kind of a note taker.

• 7:49Rick Rubin?

  Diary?

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Journal, diary, notes on the-

• 7:53Rick Rubin?

  When did you start?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  That's about 12.

• 7:57Rick Rubin?

  And consistent?

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:59Rick Rubin?

  Do you keep them?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Kept them all.

• 8:01Rick Rubin?

  Great.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Have a treasure chest of all of them.

• 8:03Rick Rubin?

  Beautiful.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:04Rick Rubin?

  Beautiful. Do you ever look back?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Well, I did when I went and wrote, wrote a book, Greenlights. That's exactly what that was about. Which was a scary prospect for me.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Because I don't really like, I'm not comfortable looking back.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  But that, that two and a half, three year process, right, and that was all about going back. I took all the diaries away, went out to Martha, Texas. And that's what I knew I needed, that first seventeen days when I went away with nothing but my diaries and me and no cell service, no nothing. The first ten days were, were hell. I did not like the company. And as I was looking back at myself, I was embarrassed and ashamed at certain things and I'm just, uh, and the monkeys were on my back and the demons were coming out and I was not, I was, I was drawing blood with myself. We were wrestling it out.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  But I stuck with it and after about ten, twelve days, which usually is what happens when I go on these one person walkabouts. I hit the spot where I was like, oh, that stuff you were so embarrassed about, where you were so arrogant or whatever, you cocky little shit you were. Well, look, buddy, if you wouldn't have been that cocky, you wouldn't have put yourself in a position to get humbled to where you figured out what you figured out. So let's applaud that cocky little son of a bitch you were. And let's not be embarrassed, let's laugh at it. Things that I was ashamed for, like that I was having trouble forgiving myself for. I started to go, do nothing we can do about it. And then that lesson that seems to happen, I think with all of us at some time, you start to shake hands with yourself.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  And you go, well, okay, where, what stuff are we saying the buck stops here, tired of that shit no more. And what stuff we saying, I forgive you, bud. Because, and you know, you realize it, it's one dude. Fences were, at the time were good. I was not, I knew I wasn't evil. I knew I wasn't a tyrant. I didn't have skeletons in my closet where I was like, oh, I'm a bad guy. But I had wrestles. I was wrestling with demons and wrestling with my relationship with God and myself.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  You know? But I get to that, got to that point where,

• 10:07Speaker 01

  it's like, all right, you know. Remember, Makai, there's only one person that you do not have a choice to sleep in bed with every night.

• 10:15Rick Rubin?

  How long was that whole process?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Seventeen days. So that next five days, then I started to fly.

• 10:20Rick Rubin?

  Okay.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Then I was like, oh, I see you're essentially the same guy you were when you were 12. I see you've still got a lot of the same questions. I see you've got some more answers to some of those questions, but we're still thinking, you're still essentially the same young man you were. Still thinking the same way, asking the same questions, interested in the same thing. So the next five days, I started to find, the themes started to appear. And there were like, eight, nine, 10 essential themes. I was like, oh, this is, everything you've got falls into one of these buckets.

• 10:53Rick Rubin?

  And had you not done this, you would have never known those themes. Only by looking back.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Only by looking back. Did I see that there. And even today, you know, four years later, got a whole new bucket of stuff of four years, not 50 years worth, but four years worth. And those, the buckets are similar. They're kind of different titles and evolutions, but they're evolutions on the same, same way I was thinking when I was 12. And I wouldn't have found it without looking back.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  I know, I mean, I needed, I needed or wanted, I'm glad I went and found the connection with my past. Obviously, better, you better, I better understand where I am and what's, what's up ahead, because I feel the thread. My thread to my past was consciously pretty short before that. And that helped that thread get wider, thicker, and longer.

• 11:46Rick Rubin?

  Tell me more about from those first 17 days to getting a finished book.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I go away, I come back. I was on fire that first time I came back. I felt like I, the lightning bolt struck. And I was like, oh, we've got something. It's, it's emerging. It, I, I can't help it. It's happening. So I come back, and Camilla was over across the yard. And I remember I just, bam, saw her, hugged her, dropped to my knees and just, tears of joy were falling, sort of just a, just came, just came out of me. From that experience where I'd just been. Right? So I, I, I stayed at home.

• 12:28Rick Rubin?

  Would you say you were more in touch with yourself? Describe what was going on internally when you came back.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Truth was wide open. I just, I felt more whole. Felt more, I was the same, I tracked myself back to when I was 12 and writing, but all the way back to when I was eight and five. And I was like, yeah, and here, and here I am, all of this. And I hadn't, I hadn't, that'd been over there in the closet, behind the door. And now, hey, here, there was a, like, all attitude was gone. Attitude was gone. So if you use a word, people like to use the word vulnerable. I was just, I was just open and, and, and strong and clear. The mind, the heart, the loins were in sync and just.

• 13:22Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. So it was a therapeutic process?

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yes, 100%.

• 13:26Rick Rubin?

  You came together.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:28Rick Rubin?

  Beautiful.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:29Rick Rubin?

  Beautiful.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I did that 17 days. I come back for a few weeks. Panel around the get back, catch up to date, get back in the credit section with family and work and a few things. I head back out the next time. Where'd I go the next time? I think I went to Longview, Texas, which is where I was raised. And I found a little camp out by, by a lake. And I did a 12 day, 12 day run there. I came back after that. I felt that all seemed more.

• 13:58Rick Rubin?

  And you do these totally by yourself, you're by yourself. You make it a point not to see anyone else during that time, if you can?

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yes. I pack up.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Bunch of ribeyes, a bunch of water, tequila.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  And go.

• 14:16Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Um, and I came back from that. That was a good trip. And then I went to a buddy, my Barton Axe place on the Lano River where I learned to swim. And had a great run there. That was an anarchic time. Now, now the story was getting wild. I'd found the stories. Here they were. Here's the themes. Now they were getting wild and I had the confidence to go, oh, leave the fangs on the stories. We're not going to defang, we're not, we're not cutting the balls off the stories. We're going to leave the fangs on them. And that was a really wild, the third session was a wild run. That was about 14 days. Uh, the next one was we went out to Buddy Richard Linklater's place, director. He's got it stayed now in a, in a, in a tree house of his. And every day we'd come to his library.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  And so I was emerging, coming out of my own hole into sort of more, the library was more like I was inspired by all the books and writers. And he'd pop by every few hours and we'd have a little conversation for 10 minutes and he'd pop out. So I was starting to have it, it was becoming, the monologue was now becoming a dialogue. That was a really good order of running. It had all tightened up. I really felt like I had something. In between, I'd send stuff to my editors and they would, they would help. And by this time, they're finishing my sentences and I'm finishing theirs. And by this time, you know, we're early on when I send them something, they go, we don't think this, we don't get this story. And I was like, how can you not get that story? Well, 95% of the time, they were right. They didn't get it because I hadn't written it well enough. Which then when I would write it better and show them, they go, oh, I get it.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  And I was like, ah, that's what you mean when you say this doesn't go. Well, I need to write it better.

• 15:47Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Then the fifth time I went to one of my, it was always sort of a fantasy dream of mine. New York has always been a, I don't know, I guess in my back of my mind, a writer in, in New York.

• 15:57Rick Rubin?

  Have you ever lived in New York?

• 15:58Speaker 01

  No, but I, but I, I love New York. And so I then went, let myself go to the Greenwich and got a, got a single room and stayed there for 14 days on my own. But let myself have room service. Let myself go, Monday Night Football. Yeah, watch Monday Night Football. And I was, I was waxing the car now. It was really down to the final, final edit.

• 16:21Rick Rubin?

  Also different energy in New York. Just even if you don't talk to anyone, you feel the people.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  I get, I, New York, man, my metabolism speed's up there. Uh, I need less sleep, but I was more, more energy. I, that, that, I have, I love New York. Um, and so to go there as a writer, kinda, I don't know, in a romantic way, maybe like, I'm a writer in New York, man. This is cool. Um, and then something that, I went out and I want to bring this up because I want to see what you think of this.

• 16:50Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  So I went out for, recently, back to Martha with what I've written in the last four years. Let's see what you got. I don't know how many stories. The first stories were 50 years of my life. Now I've got four, but got some, some stuff I think's true and original and possibly worth sharing. But it hit me about why am I so fired up, tuned in?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Again, the mother feeling is primal as I can ever feel when I'm out there in Marfa.

• 17:21Rick Rubin?

  It's so low density, there's so few people, it's so quiet, the sky is so big. There's so few distractions and the nature is big, but it's not overwhelming. It's not like the jungle.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  The desert manicures itself.

• 17:36Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  It's like a cat.

• 17:37Rick Rubin?

  It's pretty minimal.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Very minimal.

• 17:41Rick Rubin?

  And I think it leaves a lot of space for the mind to do its thing. I think that's why Donald Judd moved there in the 70s.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Well, this is part of what this, there's a theory I'm working on now and I'm asking people about it.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  I was conceived four miles from where I was riding.

• 18:03Rick Rubin?

  Marfa? I didn't know that.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Port Davis, Port Davis Mountains.

• 18:06Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Lot 63, mom and dad.

• 18:09Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Conception.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Coming back to conception, I think that that location, like people always go, where are you from?

• 18:20Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Where are you raised? I'm interested in an experiment of taking people back to where they were conceived, whether they know it or not, and see what happens over their, over three months or six months of their life.

• 18:30Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  I think there's the beginning, the alpha omega, I think there's a beginning and an end if we go back to conception.

• 18:36Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. There's so much we don't know.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:40Rick Rubin?

  You know?

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I love to know. And also try to remind myself, great, also know what you don't know.

• 18:50Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, would you say you live in your head or your body?

• 18:55Speaker 01

  I'm, I spend a lot of time in my brain. I'm a thinker.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  I probably have to remind myself more to live and to allow that. The body express, let the action dictate the thought, rather than the thought dictate the action.

• 19:19Rick Rubin?

  When you read a script

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:21Rick Rubin?

  And you like it,

• 19:24Rick Rubin?

  what is happening in you that tells you you like it?

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Okay. So when I start off, it is, it's logic. I wanna, I call it conservative, very liberal late. Liberal is the fun part when the bodies dictate, right? But the first part, I wanna measure, is this thing written well? Is the structure good? Is the story good? Is the character good in this story? Is it logically put together? Did the writer get lazy at the end of act two to go to act three? And conveniently write something my character would never do, just so they could land the plane?

• 19:55Rick Rubin?

  Do you read it as a story? Or do you read it as a vehicle for the character?

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Both. And it takes a few reads. But the first off is story. Then I'm looking at who's, you know, my man going through it. I try, I try to, again, I'm dissecting early.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  And sometimes I'll, I, I, it matters when I read. Like, I'm not sure how, I'm a slow reader, number one, and I have to pick my spot.

• 20:28Rick Rubin?

  Me too.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  I don't like, hey, you got an hour between two and three, and then you're off from seven to nine. Okay, I'll read 60 pages and then I'll, no, I need to, I wanna go, especially I want nothing on the back end.

• 20:39Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Because if I get into it, I wanna wander with it. If I read it really slow, if I wanna keep reading it, read it again in through the night, I don't wanna, I don't wanna schedule or an appointment or an end point. So that can free me up to really give the thing justice it deserves. And there are many, there's movies I've done where I was like, now that thing's trash. And I've had people come to me, my team going, dude, you gotta read this again. You're not seeing. I'm like, what? And then I read and get clued in. Killer Joe, you five is seven one, the ones that people close to me is like, you gotta read this again. And I went back in the right space and saw the truth in it for me and why it was a good idea for me that I did not see before.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  So then I get going on.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Character. And that's what my preparation after I'm like, okay. I'm interested here. I've talked with who's the rest of the team? Who's the director? It's their movie. That's who I really want to get. I really want to have a, hopefully, a strong relationship or trust in that director. Because it's their movie.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Or do we have the similar sense of humor? Do we have a similar sense of what we deem excellent? True? Untrue?

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Sensibility? Because if we don't, we're gonna be, I'm gonna be doing what I think is true and I love. And I go, that's it. And they're gonna be going, no, I like this one. I'm gonna go, no, why you like that take? I was bullshitting. Look at me. I was acting. You caught me acting right there. So then we're gonna have a long shoot because we're gonna. So if we, you know, what kind of movies do you like? What have you done? What kind of music you like? What kind of sense of humor you got? Then you're gonna, okay, we're gonna communicate well. We have a similar sense of truth or excellence.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  And then I'm, then I'm just breaking down character. And I get, and I try to get every character in one long musical note, that thread again. Each scene, each, you know, each part of a scene has notes, just like music, right? And notes in order can make a song. And so how do you, I go from being very didactic, like I said, conservative early in the moment. What's the truth in this moment? There's that note. Then this one, there's that note. Then this one, there's that note. Then back away, and now it gets fun. Now I'm going, okay, let's breeze through the script. And I'll laminate pages, read them in the shower. I'll, I'll, I like to read it, you know, Saturday night with a buzz at 2 a.m.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  I like to read it 2 p.m. after church on Sunday. I like to read it Tuesday afternoon after a five mile run. Read it when I'm excited, when I'm sad, when I'm tired.

• 23:26Rick Rubin?

  And do you get new insights depending on your state?

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Bingo. So now I'm starting to see the character from different angles. So this is now arming me. So I can go to the scene with, I mean, I got four versions of the truth.

• 23:39Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  So whatever you throw at me, it's gonna probably, most likely fit in one of those. And I'm whoop, throwing it out there. And you're going, that's what I was talking about. I'm ready.

• 23:49Rick Rubin?

  On the set, if there's gonna be another take, how often would it be the director saying, let's do another take versus you saying, let me try again?

• 23:57Speaker 01

  I'll shoot all night. Meaning if, cause I'll just, I love, I love, let's just try, hell yeah, let's try it again.

• 24:03Rick Rubin?

  Iterations.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Might just come up with something, something, the magic might happen that we didn't know about.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  So usually the director's saying, we got it.

• 24:14Rick Rubin?

  Good.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  And I'm like, okay.

• 24:16Rick Rubin?

  What's your state of mind on the first day of a new project?

• 24:20Speaker 01

  I'm nervous.

• 24:21Rick Rubin?

  Yep.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  I've learned to be

• 24:25Speaker 01

  happy about being nervous.

• 24:27Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Got, got, got that edge.

• 24:31Rick Rubin?

  You're nervous because you care.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:33Rick Rubin?

  And it's good to care.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Yes, amen. Yeah. So I I'm remind, I have to remind, I've learned to remind myself, hey, it's everybody's first day, bro.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  200 people here. Everyone's trying to find their way. Things are gonna move slower than you think. Cause I used to wake up in the morning, 5 a.m.

• 24:54Rick Rubin?

  Ready to go.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Let's go! And then by lunch, I'm like, I need a, I'm wasted, I need a nap. I've learned to pace. Because

• 25:03Speaker 01

  if you, if you, if you, too much energy too early, it just takes unnecessary endurance to, to have the right kind of focus at the time in between action and cut, which is basically the only time you really need it. So I remind myself that everything's moving slower, everyone's gonna find their, find their way. So sit back and let's find a way in it, listen, set the tone. Usually if I'm, if I'm gonna be, say, the lead, I know that when I show up to work,

• 25:34Speaker 01

  how prepared I am,

• 25:37Speaker 01

  everyone else is watching that. Oh, McConaughey's on time, McConaughey knows his shit.

• 25:43Rick Rubin?

  Let's go.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Oh, this is how this is gonna be?

• 25:46Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Okay. Instead of showing up late and going, what are we doing today? Oh, it's, that, people, you can do that too.

• 25:52Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Some people work that way. And then, but I, I know that that's gonna be the, the pace. And then everyone else sees that it's gonna be, and I like to kind of work at that pace because I wanna have as much time to play with the magic in between. Well, let's try it this way, let's try it this way. And if I'm there on time, prepared, we can try it more ways. And get more out of the day. And dance more.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  I'll go for it. I try to pop the top in the first day. Meaning because I'm nervous, I try to go out of my comfort zone and maybe do a take or two that

• 26:29Speaker 01

  bad.

• 26:30Rick Rubin?

  Gone too far.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Go too far.

• 26:31Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  And because I find it much easier to come back.

• 26:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Rather than going, did I ever get there?

• 26:38Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  I'm going, go too big, go over it, go way back. And that's, what was that? Great. Well, now we.

• 26:46Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Now, now we did the animated version. Now let's do the real life version.

• 26:51Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  I find it much easier to come back there. And so I try to do that. That's a decompressor for me. And then I start to settle in, bam, there it is. The simple one after you go too big is the one that you go, there it was.

• 27:04Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  That was truth. Bingo. We're good.

• 27:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. And for you, it's still new because the big one is one thing. And then when you come down from it, it's a new thing you're doing again.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I know, I've done this long enough now, when I do it well and I tell the truth, I can feel it. And afterwards, look at you and go, and you're like, yeah. I don't even need to go look at the monitor. We're like, that was it.

• 27:26Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  At the same time, if we're gonna do another take, I've learned to try to sometimes as performers, we go, well, let me do what I did there again.

• 27:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  It's like, no, no, no. I will remember in my head, there's three spots I want to get to in this scene. To get you from this, from here to there to there. But I don't want to know how I'm gonna get there. So let's, one thing I always would have a habit of doing is coming in very, with my preparation, coming in very balanced.

• 27:56Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Like solid, I'm balanced.

• 27:58Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  And one thing that Penny Allen taught me, uh-uh, you get that prepared, now come in on one leg. Because what we want to see in life is someone find their balance in a scene. Not come in, I'm balanced, but the finding of the balance in the scene. The getting past the obstacle to get what you need to come out the other side. That's where you see real life coming out. So I've, I get massively prepared, then I come in and try and I love it when a director throws something at me or tells them that I don't know. I'm like, don't tell me you're gonna do that thing. Let me get surprised. Let me react, because that'll be the good stuff.

• 28:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  You know, and I don't know it's coming.

• 28:36Rick Rubin?

  It's real.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:38Rick Rubin?

  Over the course of a movie, do you get new insights into the character?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Let me, a good example is, um...

• 28:51Speaker 01

  So I've always, I've always done films, which is typically 120 pages, right? So you break that down, what do you got? A 40-page first act, 40-page second act, 40-page third. Well, every actor's favorite act is act one. Because that's where we're introducing you to us. Even if you know what this story is and how it's gonna end. Ah, you had never done it with me. You know what I mean? So let me give you 40 pages of an original character you're gonna go through this story with.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Then I'd go do a series called True Detective. I don't know, 450 pages, 10, how many, however many episodes it was. I got 150-page act one. That's like, three episodes. Woo! Well, after I got, I was about 100 pages into act one and I started to get nervous, like, this is, this is gonna be boring. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta release here. And I was like, no, just trust that if you hold that line.

• 29:47Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Like with music, right? If you hold that.

• 29:50Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  That, that...

• 29:51Rick Rubin?

  You're pulling the bow back.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  And then at 150, when it happens, it's the dynamic, you're gonna go, whoa!

• 29:57Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  And I'm thankful I did, but I got, I got nervous. I was going, man, is this boring?

• 30:03Rick Rubin?

  No, because it's just a different rhythm than you're used to.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I had a longer act one to just indulge myself in.

• 30:10Rick Rubin?

  Is that the only time you've done TV?

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. I've done some different episodes where I showed up in cameos and stuff, but that's the only consistent character.

• 30:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, and it was a good experience.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Well, I loved it, I loved it. And the writing, and Carrie Fukunaga directed it, the writing was such hot shit. It was like, every day it was like, ha, I can't wait to say these words.

• 30:30Rick Rubin?

  You have to believe the character you're playing.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  You have to believe, you don't have to agree with them.

• 30:38Rick Rubin?

  Okay.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Meaning...

• 30:41Rick Rubin?

  They could have a different point of view than you do, but you can still play that character. Can you play any character, or no?

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, we all got everybody, we all have everybody in us.

• 30:52Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  You know? For instance, though...

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Time to Kill, I play a defense attorney. Who's arguing...

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Retribution for the the many who raped

• 31:11Speaker 01

  this man's daughter.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  There's a time to kill, but I didn't agree with that.

• 31:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  I don't personally agree with that eye for an eye in that.

• 31:21Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  But understanding the prosecutor's position.

• 31:25Rick Rubin?

  And you know, in the story, that's who that is.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:28Rick Rubin?

  And that's a real perspective.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  But I also think, understanding the prosecution, or even agreeing with it, absolutely helped me be a better defense attorney.

• 31:40Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Even agreeing with that.

• 31:42Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  In a way helped.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Look, Rustin Cole in True Detective.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  The guy's agnostic, at least. And goes into some philosophies and theories that go, whoa, I don't want to be. I'd never, my faith had never been so strong in my personal life as then. And I know that my, how solid I felt in my own life, my own faith, gave me, helped me have the courage to go, oh, I want to go way away. I don't have to look over my shoulder.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  See if my buddy God's still there. No, I can go way into the dark. It gave me the, so I don't think I would have had the courage to, because I was going some places in there in philosophy where I was absolutely

• 32:28Speaker 01

  not believing. But I had the trust because of my, I had, my faith was as strong in my real life as it ever been at that time.

• 32:35Rick Rubin?

  And you're telling a story.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:37Rick Rubin?

  And in stories, you don't agree with all aspects of the story. It's what makes the story work.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Well, the protagonist is only as good as the antagonist is.

• 32:46Rick Rubin?

  That's it.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  The, you gotta have a great adversary.

• 32:50Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  It's a massively important service.

• 32:57Rick Rubin?

  Would you say you are moved through life, or you move through life?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  I think I move through life.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Again, goes back to your head and body analogy. I'm very deliberate. I'm very intentional. I have written many proverbial headlines and went and made that headline happen. I've set many goals and made that happen. Now, at the same time.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Spiritually?

• 33:39Speaker 01

  I haven't engineered

• 33:43Speaker 01

  finding my wife.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Connections in life that were just divine. I didn't engineer those. I did engineer putting myself in a position to receive them. I got conscious of that.

• 33:58Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  But like, dude, you gotta take a road trip or you gotta take a walkabout. You need to go away solo. I'm lost. I'm going mad.

• 34:07Rick Rubin?

  You know enough to know that you're lost and you need to take action.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so take action and go put yourself in a place where you're stuck with you.

• 34:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  And wrestle through it, draw blood, and let's, until the divinity comes and the truth lands on you, that little butterfly lightning bolt that you go, whoop, that's true for now and all time. And so, I've been conscious enough to know when I need to go put myself in that place or even take a road trip, you know?

• 34:32Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  I'm ahead of time.

• 34:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  What time is it? Is it two o'clock? And you're like, nah dude, it's just noon. Oh, you gotta slow your roll, bro. You're two hours ahead of time and you've only been up for five hours.

• 34:43Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  You know, you need to get on time.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  So I've, but I think I move...

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Like, I believe to go to talk about like, uh, divinity or relationships spiritually. The times I've been heavily, like, I believe, the times I've been heavily agnostic.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  There's no God.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  I've always felt like God was going, there you go. Way to put your hands on the wheel.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Too many of us just lay back and go, Inshallah! If God's willing, hey, it's about fate. If it happens, it happens. I don't, my hunch is that that's not, that if there is a God, he's going, well, yeah, but put, take responsibility for it. You can make choices that will have consequences and put your hands on the wheel. And so in that way, I think I'm moving, but I mean, the big stuff that's happened to me, it's, it's, it's moved me. If I go back and look at that 50 years of writing Green Lights, those stories, I thought 90% of my successes in life were gonna be the stuff I engineered. I moved it.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  The majority of the big spiritual things happened in my life, I didn't, I didn't do it. It, it happened. Did I go out, did I get myself out the door?

• 36:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Did I put on my proverbial shoes?

• 36:17Rick Rubin?

  You participated. You did your part.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  But it happened.

• 36:19Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  To me. I wasn't making the math. I wasn't making the poetry.

• 36:25Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about your spiritual life.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  I'm happiest and most connected spiritually

• 36:36Speaker 01

  when all day, when I'm praying with my eyes open, when this is a prayer, when every exchange is a prayer.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  But, but, but truthfully, what do I also need?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Come Friday, I kinda need Sunday morning. I need that church.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  I need to go to that place to do inventory on the loved ones in my life, to do inventory on my week, to roll through my mental Rolodex and see the people I love in their truest form and just be like, ah, I wish that for them. And then end on me, end on an image of myself, not Instagram happy, not just where I am. And if I can grasp that image, that's my final. So let's take that to the week. But I need that Sunday. I need that ritual where I'm forced into going at the most, I'm number two.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? I need that humility. And I, I didn't, humility was a, a word that I struggled with for decades.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Because I would always lose confidence.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  And I'd be passive.

• 37:58Rick Rubin?

  Explain that.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Humble.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  And I, and I would recede. And then I heard a definition

• 38:11Speaker 01

  that humility was, um, just admitting you got more to learn.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden that one go, my shoulders went back. My heart got high. I was like, oh, I'm in.

• 38:21Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Yay. But now I'm engaged. Now I can be involved. Now I can be confident. Now I can be like, again, I know what I don't know. Oh, there's a bunch of stuff I don't know. Well, that's, that's humble, but that's basic. You're not bowing your head to that. You're going, yeah, I did, a hundred percent.

• 38:37Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  I don't know that. I don't know. I'm still searching. Well, cool. Instead of, I don't, I don't know.

• 38:43Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  I mean, and, and I've gotten a better relationship with, with, with that and through my spiritual life and, and it's in the last probably 10 years. But I do still need Sunday. I, you know, we're, I was raised on Methodist and Methodist in a stereotypical way. We were raised. It's a lot about gratitude, being thankful for what you do have.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  That's still a big basis of my sort of daily spiritual. And I got that from my family and try to carry it on with my family. And I think it's really important. I think it's really strong, a strong, easy foundation.

• 39:17Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about your prayer life.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  We have, I mean, there's the nightly ritual around the table.

• 39:27Rick Rubin?

  Before dinner?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Which everyone goes around. Give us one thing you're grateful for. There's, uh, my, my wife loves to do it with all the kids before they go to bed. Tell them, give me a rose, give me a thorn. Give me both from the day.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  I don't have any sort of meditation rituals or times in the day that I go, oh, I'm going to go for a walkabout or meditate or sit still. Again, if, when I'm, when, here's when I feel the most spiritual. When I'm looking

• 40:04Speaker 01

  at men like brothers and women like sisters. And that's not all the time. I can start to objectify people and not look at, and I have to catch myself. Whoa, your eye is getting low. Kind of, hey, raise your eye.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  You, you, when I'm seeing men like brothers and women like sisters and

• 40:27Speaker 01

  being a big brother, seeing youth and going, oh, be a big brother to them. Ah, that's, that's when I'm, that's when I'm, I'm moving everything. It's not just me moving my head. Everything's connected for me and I'm, I'm the most spiritually strong. Um, when I feel like, oh, yes, it is about self reliance, absolutely. And have your hands on the wheel, but you're not in control. But drive, but you know what? Steer the best you can. Steer the best you can and be open to, be open to the magic that happens and trust it. Like I say, my least favorite word is unbelievable. That everything happens, oh, well, yeah, of course. When I'm most spiritually strong, I've got the best sense of humor. My humor is high.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  So things that we used to would, when I'm not as spiritually strong would irk me or I'm, oh, are you kidding me? How that, no, I'm not there. I'm, I'm much more quickly going.

• 41:22Rick Rubin?

  How ridiculous.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Of cour-, of course. Yep, there we go again. Touche. Got me. Shame on me for thinking I had it all handled. You know what I mean? Dummy. Here we go. You know, so those are the things that I know with, that, how I feel when I'm most spiritually strong.

• 41:38Rick Rubin?

  Did you have a different path imagined for your life had you not gone into acting?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:44Rick Rubin?

  What were you gonna do?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  I was gonna go be a defense attorney and, uh,

• 41:48Rick Rubin?

  For real?

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and defend the family business.

• 41:51Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Your father was a defense attorney?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  No, he was a pipe salesman, but he, he, he, he got into enough stuff where he was like, Oh, you want to- Might need you, buddy.

• 41:59Rick Rubin?

  Protect other family, I understand. You wanted to protect families.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Protect our family.

• 42:04Rick Rubin?

  Oh, your family, okay.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Yes, protect, to protect the McConaughey. My dad was like, hey, you're a pretty good lawyer, you're good at, go, go be a lawyer, come back, defend the, defend us. We got a few deals going on, I might need you, defend.

• 42:20Rick Rubin?

  How different is your performance depending on the actor you're playing against?

• 42:28Speaker 01

  That's a good question. So,

• 42:33Speaker 01

  no matter who

• 42:36Speaker 01

  I'm playing with, or who's on the other side of me,

• 42:41Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm gonna have my monologue before we're gonna have a dialogue. So I'm gonna know when I say, my man, I'm gonna have my identity.

• 42:49Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  And if I got that, then it's gonna be fresh every time to whatever happens, but you're gonna see essentially the same, same character from me. May say things-

• 43:01Rick Rubin?

  The person decides to play the part opposite you whispers their lines. Do you respond in some way, or if they yell at you, do you respond in a different way, like?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:14Rick Rubin?

  How much does it change?

• 43:15Speaker 01

  So, look, I've worked with many actors, and I've been that actor that comes and just goes way off script, does something wild, so you

• 43:24Speaker 01

  and it can be, it can be like, whoa, I had, that was far, far, far from what I ever expected, but hey, wasn't my place to even expect, so let's, let's go with this.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  There's times where if someone's going really big, I just counter

• 43:44Speaker 01

  and become much more still and much more simple. There's times where someone's whispering, and, and I'll, I'll, to give dynamic, let's give a little, let's give a little accordion this thing a little bit. And it's also-

• 44:05Speaker 01

  I'm having trouble hearing you, man.

• 44:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Go ahead, you can do that. You're wondering why they're whispering? Ask them why they're whispering.

• 44:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  You're wondering why they're yelling, go, hey, man. I can hear you.

• 44:16Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  You know what I mean, just what?

• 44:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  So whatever that comes into mind, you don't have to break that wall and get objective. Just do it.

• 44:22Rick Rubin?

  Just be it.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Ask the question. Wow. You had your coffee this morning, didn't you?

• 44:26Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  All right. Here we go.

• 44:28Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  I thought you could break sweat. Well, I mean, just work it, do it, do it in the scene. Don't ask permission, and just, and just, just do it and let it play out. So just play against it, or if you, what the hell is he doing? Ask them what the hell they're doing.

• 44:40Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Literally, ask them, what the hell are you doing?

• 44:43Rick Rubin?

  Do you ever change lines?

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:46Rick Rubin?

  And ad lib, ad lines?

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Yes. I think I'm pretty good at that. And there's a difference, though.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  The definition of improv is not

• 45:01Speaker 01

  come in and make some shit up. It has to come from the original text that that writer wrote. That has to, it has to come in from, I can riff, what's the relationship of this? Me and you, Rick, sitting here. If I pop off into a skit of a joke that everyone goes, haha, that's so funny. But you're like, what did that have to do?

• 45:22Rick Rubin?

  Doesn't have to do with the scene.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  It wasn't, had nothing to do with the scene.

• 45:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  And you'll see, like, comedians will do that. In movies, you'll be like, that was a great skit, but that's on Saturday Night Live. That's not in this movie. That's not where your character's from. That's not who you are.

• 45:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  That's not, I don't think, in my opinion, great riffing or improvisation. Improvisation comes from knowing the text, the innate meaning of the text. And then, in, what's the context of the relationship you're in? In the, in the scene with. And then, you, you could riff on that. There's many ways to, to say and, and do that. I mean, I get Sometimes I get what I call a launchpad line. That he's confused, Wooderson character. He had one line, there were three lines in that originally written for me. And one of the lines was Wooderson hanging outside of a pool hall. Checks out a high school girl, walked by, his buddy hits him and says, Wooderson, you gotta cut that out dude, you're gonna go to jail. And Wooderson says, no man, that's what I love about those high school girls, man.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  I get older, but they stay the same age. I'm like, who is that dude? Now, that's a launchpad line, meaning if that guy says that and means that, it's not an attitude. He means it. There's an encyclopedia on that guy. You know what that guy's eating. You know where you got, you know so much, right? Um, Wolf of Wall Street, there was one line in there where Leonardo DiCaprio's character asked my character, so what's the secret of this business? And he goes, cocaine and hookers. I'm like, that's a launchpad. And they're like, if this guy means that, and he's not saying it to be cute, he's like, no, this is the deal.

• 46:56Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  I can, you can write a book on that guy.

• 46:58Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  So that's where it comes from. And then I'll try and have extra. I always wanna be like, what if, what if directing everybody else cut? What would you do? What would you say? What'd you do? Well, I wanna be able to give you another hour.

• 47:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  If I can.

• 47:13Rick Rubin?

  So you could stay in character and continue the story even if it's not in the script?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  That's the goal.

• 47:21Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  That's the goal. I can't always go to, you know, there's sometimes you get dry and all of a sudden you're going, that's all I got. And it's in this, in, you know, um.

• 47:28Rick Rubin?

  But you have enough to keep going.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:34Rick Rubin?

  How much of a performance is the words you're saying? And how much is something else?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  It's something else.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  I'm a wordsman. I love words.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  But the words are literature. We, when I do my job, when a performer does their job, now it's the bloodline. You wanna see life. Fuck what I say.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  But hey, it's written well, you say that, what's the meaning? What's the content meaning of what?

• 48:05Rick Rubin?

  You might be able to look at someone and the line is said without saying it.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  That's the gut, that ideally in moving pictures.

• 48:13Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  You get, you get a Nike swoosh, you get a Rolling Stone tongue. You don't have to say anything, you know what it is. Just a look says it all. We don't need that paragraph because.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  You got it with the look. You don't need that paragraph because you went.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  And the way you said, the way you gave an affect, that said it, dude, don't say another word.

• 48:37Rick Rubin?

  How about body language? How important is body language?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. I mean, look, one of the things I remember having an instinct for early on was, I remember writing this in 1992 on Days Confused. I was like, does he move with his head, his heart, or his?

• 48:55Speaker 01

  At the time, I remember writing, his head, his heart, his cock. And I was like, oh, what is he doing? He's moving, he moved cock forward. Changed the whole walk. How person enters. Have the laid other ones, chest, oh, their heart first, oh, maybe they're proud. How are other ones that, you know, they're inquisitive, they want to, I want to know.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  This talking to you is different than this. Is different than this.

• 49:21Rick Rubin?

  Very different.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  And I just went head, heart, loin.

• 49:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, and they're all different characters.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Right. And the kickback and the tonsils now are laid, so it's informing a whole bunch. My neck got loose. Lazy fingers.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  But now I want to come up here and want to talk and we're, it's a different. Just kind of moved up.

• 49:42Rick Rubin?

  And would you decide that before a scene of like, how you're going to move, where you're going to go in the scene?

• 49:48Speaker 01

  No, that's something, that's something that early on, I just, those two, because sometimes it's a combination of those three.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  I will again decide where am I coming from, where am I going to? Because what I want to do is get caught behaving. You've seen scenes in movies where you're like, you can tell it's like, right when the scene starts, I think they went, and, action.

• 50:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  And go. It's like, no, you want to, you want, we want to be going and when let him say action, you and I are already shooting the shit. And we just talked about that and know what was that thing and now we start the scene. Get caught. Coming into a scene and get caught. Flying out of a scene or rolling out of a scene. That's what, that's my favorite acting to see and that's my favorite acting to do when I can, when I can do, that's what I try and do. So I don't make a choice, those choices already, hopefully, those are out of my head now, those are, meaning I'll have hundreds of pages of notes for a character going in. By the time it's time to shoot.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  If I'm prepared.

• 50:53Rick Rubin?

  You don't refer back.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Or I look at him and when I wrote him down, I was like, oh, this is genius. Don't forget this. This is so good. Extra star highlight there. By the time I look at on the day, I'm like, well, duh.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  You know, that's the, that's the place under I'd like to get to.

• 51:11Rick Rubin?

  How has being a father changed your life?

• 51:18Speaker 01

  It's the only thing I ever knew I wanted to do.

• 51:20Rick Rubin?

  Really?

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Eight years old, man. I remember meeting my, my dad when he'd introduce me to his friends.

• 51:26Rick Rubin?

  Is that when you started practicing?

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Started, no, I didn't start practicing till later.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Few years later, started practicing. But at eight years old, I remember. My dad was a big sirs and mams and please and thank you, man, especially on the sirs and mams. And I remember him introducing me to.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  These two guys that I later found out were his hitmen. And I remember we were in Oak Forest Country Club parking lot. That had had lunch in the 19th hole there. And they had black suits on and shades. And the sun was in my eyes. I looked up. I shook their hand. Nice to meet you, sir. Nice to meet you, sir. And something happened in that moment. Maybe it was the fact that they also look like, you know, the men in black guys, but also.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Something came up in that conversation that they had kids. And it hit me. That every male that my dad had introduced me to and made me say that I said sir to, they were fathers.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  And in that moment, I went like, oh, that's how you make it in life. That's what success is. And maybe again, it was those men in the suits with the shades, but I was like, wow. Oh, that's it. And that was always clear to me. Where I wanted to be a, a father. And for a while there, and I didn't know if I was ever gonna find a woman that I was gonna get married to. I, I kinda wanted that, but once I let myself off the hook of believing that's how it had to be, that's when I found her.

• 52:58Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  When she showed up.

• 53:00Rick Rubin?

  You stopped looking.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know?

• 53:03Speaker 01

  And so, uh, became one and, you know, that the.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Our greatest, I, I, my feeling is what would be my most honorable export.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Three confident children that go off and have a character and know who they are, know who they're not.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Said confident and considerate and, you know, that can go chase down and know what they love to do and do that for themselves. And what they do for themselves also happens to be good for other people as well. That would be my most honorable thing. If I could be, I have this dream and I don't share it with them, but my goal would be that later on in life, when my kids in 30 years from now, that I can be counted as on one hand, as one of the, they could say my dad's one of my best friends.

• 54:05Rick Rubin?

  Oh, that's beautiful.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  That I could, it doesn't have to be the first one, the second or the third.

• 54:08Rick Rubin?

  On the hand.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  On the hand.

• 54:10Rick Rubin?

  Beautiful.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  That would be.

• 54:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Because we, I think it's the, I think it's the, um, it's the living form of immortality.

• 54:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Become a father, you're immortal. Become a parent, you are immortal.

• 54:22Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  The, it's past, it's going on. They will, there's so many lessons that I don't, I'm realizing that I'm not going to figure out in this life, but they may come to fruition by my eldest son's great, great grandchildren.

• 54:37Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  And I will be an author of that.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  That sense of immortality is in fatherhood is something that I'm really honored with.

• 54:49Rick Rubin?

  How do you think your wife's relationship to the kids is different than yours?

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  She's more the day to day.

• 55:00Rick Rubin?

  Yep.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  We have to watch that she doesn't become bad cop and I'm a good cop. So that she's dealing with, hey, hey, don't do that. And I don't just show up and then they're going, yay, hey, you know, kind of make sure. Our moral bottom line is solid. Her and I are, we have a very similar moral bottom line. We are in the middle of a really fun time that any parent would know with teenagers of. Reemphasizing, renegotiating what that is because it's a whole new, they have so much access to more things in the, in the world. Real world, virtual world, real friends, social friends, media friends, online, offline, in real life, what matters to them. And there's dangers out there. Our coach, University of Texas, Mac Brown, said, said, told players, he goes, I will

• 55:45Speaker 01

  treat you all fairly, but I will not treat you all the same. I'm learning that with kids. I've got three, my three kids, they're three different individuals. The only thing after having kids, I realized that it surprised me was it was more DNA than I thought. I thought it was much more environment. I'm like, no, they are who they are. And I've got an older one who's extremely considerate.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Old soul here and a teddy bear over here. I had a middle one who's just girl, daughter, who's absolutely practical, calls the bullshit, sees it and just calls it what it is. And she's also, you know, a great forgiver, you know? Doesn't like to, let's, let's not have a lot of confrontation. Come on, listen, I'll, I'll take a tide for you. Come on, let's just get past this. I got a young one who's just a bullet and super, super smart, strong. And I've learned with him that, you know, he's, he's got a bull of a mind. And just let, even if you know he's saying something that gonna ask to do something that you know I'm saying no, let him get it out of his mouth, let him finish. So I've got to treat them all differently, yet what, what we call fairly. And so Camila and I, I think, walk a good line of that.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  The teenage years are becoming a new challenge for that because it's new for us too. And their world's different. And so I can't completely go, well, this is how it was for me. Cause the world's changed that much. It's, it's the way they have relationships and, and through social media and the way, the, the way they move and things that are maybe okay now, that just weren't even in the, in the pictures of the possibility of being. So there's, it's, I'm, her and I are constantly going, what are the values that we want to maintain from what we learned and what we, how we grew up and what we've grown up with? That, hey, they don't, they don't go away when the weather changes. We, you kiddos, we still gotta take these through this. I know it's a whole new game.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  You're doing things differently and there's, but you, those values are not interchangeable. We gotta stick with those and that's what we're trying to stick to. And we're, her and I are close on that. We're, we're, we're close on that. I'm probably a little more. Well, go find out than she is.

• 57:51Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  And there's a, you know, maybe a mother's protection that's in there for, and I'm like, well, I'm right now in this time of, go free play, go, go find out.

• 58:01Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Go get bruised, go break the arm, go, go figure out, go learn the consequences. That the experiences are where we'll remember that. I don't want to, don't want to protect them too much. At the same time, you know, don't want to send them into stupid situations. I think parenting, a lot of it is, when do we, our kids are going to climb a tree. They're going to get out on a limb.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Kid's up on that limb right there. You're like, he, he falls. Got a good, you got nice grass there. He's probably not going to break something, but he might bruise. Well, let him climb.

• 58:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Cause if I go, no, no, no, no, no, hey, go, go, go down. Kids aren't afraid to fall, afraid of heights till they fall, right? But now, mind you, come out here and we got one at the top of that tree.

• 58:46Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  And it's right over the table. You're like, oh shit. Um, I don't want to startle them, but I want to say, hey buddy, come on, just take your time. Come on down the trunk. When do you tell them to come down?

• 58:56Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  From the tree and when do you say, no, if you fall from there, that'd be a good fall for you. And I don't want to say it too early. I think some of us say it too early.

• 59:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  And then kids are all of a sudden afraid of heights. They're afraid to go try things. And then all of a sudden, you don't want to say it too late. Cause the first time they get in trouble, they're in jail or worse.

• 59:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  You know, so trying to.

• 59:14Rick Rubin?

  Did you ever have those boundaries as a kid? Did anyone tell you, don't climb the tree, watch out, that's dangerous?

• 59:20Speaker 01

  My parents for, would let me climb pretty damn high.

• 59:23Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  And, and stay pretty doggone calm while I was up there where most parents would be like,

• 59:30Speaker 01

  you seen this?

• 59:30Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. And you think it's because they trusted you? What do you think was going on with them?

• 59:36Speaker 01

  My, my family's very much always been, you know, what, what, what tickles us may bruise others. You know, um,

• 59:46Speaker 01

  we, you know, no one got.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  You can get too excited, you didn't get overly excited about it.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Or alarmed about a good scar. You're like, that's a good one. You got a story now, too. And you remember that, you learned it. It was, it was, so there was a, there was a leash. There, we had our do's and don'ts.

• 1:00:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Here are the rules we're gonna, we expect you to follow. But, you know, go. If you didn't get out, if you didn't hustle, if you didn't go for it, effort was our thing. That's my dad's thing, it's kind of my thing with my kids now. I mean, I'm not telling you you gotta be straight A's, I'm not telling you you gotta win this or be the best, I'm just saying. I need a hundred percent effort, man.

• 1:00:27Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, you do your best, that's all that matters. And it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Right. And then, if you win, great, look in the mirror and go, I had something to do with that. You lose, you look in the mirror and go, I had something to do with that, but I don't regret.

• 1:00:40Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Going, ah, kind of half assed it, I kind of fudged that one, I didn't really show up.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Which is, would my worst, I hate that feeling.

• 1:00:49Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Of leaving something going, ah, damn it.

• 1:00:52Rick Rubin?

  Didn't do your best, yeah.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  I wasn't prepared, and I've embarrassed myself on that, too, I've showed up times not, not as prepared as I should have been, tried to wing it and failed.

• 1:01:02Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  And horrible feeling.

• 1:01:05Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  But if I'm, if I, you know, feel like I'm doing my best, if I don't lose, I can, I can be pissed, but I can also then go, well dude, that's okay, that's how it lies.

• 1:01:16Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  What else are we gonna do?

• 1:01:18Rick Rubin?

  Exactly.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:23Rick Rubin?

  You work with so many different directors, tell me about the different styles.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  The best thing to direct, the best directors

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  have really creative ways of saying this one word.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes. Now.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  The best directors never say the word no. No stops that creative process.

• 1:01:48Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  I'm sure you'd know that you do that as a producer, I'm guessing, right, I mean, just like, you add on to it, now I can rearrange it. Yeah, we're talking and I can come up, yeah, and what about if, and all of a sudden.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  The, every actor wants to believe that the idea was ours. And every great director knows that, and so makes us feel like it's ours. Even if the P A just came up and said, try this.

• 1:02:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  The best sets.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  You steal from each other and you're honored to be stolen from. Cause you're there, it's all free, it doesn't matter where it comes from and you feel like it's your idea. And every actor thinks that movie's about them. Amen. Yes. Even if you had one part and one role, you, when you ask, someone asks you with that movie, you tell them it's your movie, man. And here's why. You're the center of that. You want every actor to believe that. It's a wonderful thing.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  I've had, I've worked with one director who was, had that shot list and was prepared for that shot list. And had the money to shoot every single shot and every single scene, wide, mediums, close-ups, this. And shot every scene. It's not that fun. He was going to make the movie in the editing room. With a basic set of shot. He didn't have a point of view of each scene. He put together something nice, it connected the dots. Okay, but I didn't feel life. I didn't feel any magic.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  You got someone on the other stream like a link later.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He's got opinions. Yeah, well, you know, what if, you know, you think Woodson be interested in the intellectual redheaded girl? You know what I mean? He's probably been with the typical hot chicks, the cheerleaders and stuff. You think you'd like the intellectual redheaded girl? Yeah, he likes hot, con. He'd say, cool, man. Well, listen, she's like, she's sitting over here in the car, it's Friday night, maybe like, she's got her nerds in the backseat. I don't know, maybe like, you think Woodson like me pull up, try and pick her up? Yeah. Wanna shoot it? Yeah. The next thing you know, that's the, just kinda, what if, you know, never said, here's what I think, here's what I want you to do. You give the actor the chance to go, yeah.

• 1:04:02Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I like that. Great. Wanna try that?

• 1:04:06Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now I'm got, now I've got ownership.

• 1:04:10Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  Thought it was my idea. Feel like it's my idea. You gave it to me.

• 1:04:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  But you let me go, yeah. And now you want me to go into that scene, have it ownership of that.

• 1:04:20Rick Rubin?

  So you're not being told what to do?

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  Nobody likes to be told what to do.

• 1:04:24Rick Rubin?

  That's true.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  That's the first thing I tell directors. I say, I'm so easy to direct. Just don't tell me what to do.

• 1:04:28Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Yeah. Nobody likes to be told what to do. That's it.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  Nobody.

• 1:04:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:04:36Rick Rubin?

  That's the secret of the universe.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Hmm. Learning that with parenting, too.

• 1:04:41Rick Rubin?

  Rule number one. Nobody likes to be told what to do.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Do you wanna, you wanna mess up and call something a mandate? People are running. We want a choice and we wanna believe it's ours.

• 1:04:51Rick Rubin?

  If you wanna do something and someone mandates it, you won't do it.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes. Coyote the opposite.

• 1:04:57Rick Rubin?

  Exactly.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Rick Rubin?

  Exactly. You read a script, you imagine a movie, and then you get to make the movie and you see it.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:05Rick Rubin?

  How much change happens?

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  A lot. I've got a, I've got a class that I, a professor in the University of Texas called Script to Screen. I started it 10 years ago. It's about that exact thing. I looked up 15 years ago and was like, damn, the movies, the final product on the screen is so different from the original script. What's that process? Here's the book this film is based on. They haven't seen the film. They read it. They all get up and declare, what movie are you seeing there? Then we hand them the first script. Whoa. Where'd this storyline go? And hey, okay, let's talk about it. Then we hand them the next script. Whoa, where'd so-and-so go? And then they hand them the next script. Whoa, what happened to my favorite end scene, that action sequence at the end?

• 1:05:45Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  Well, then we come back and tell them.

• 1:05:48Rick Rubin?

  And those are all real examples.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Real examples.

• 1:05:50Rick Rubin?

  It's a real book.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:51Rick Rubin?

  That, there's a first script, there's a second script, there's a third script.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  And then we show them the movie.

• 1:05:55Rick Rubin?

  And then you show them the movie.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  And then we come in and talk to them about, you see how we skin these cats? We've been doing all of mine. We've done Mud a few times, we've done Dazed, we've done Free State of Jones, we've done The Gentleman. We're about to do, this one I'm done, just did Paradise. We've done about eight of my movies.

• 1:06:12Rick Rubin?

  Have you ever directed?

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  I have.

• 1:06:15Rick Rubin?

  How's that experience?

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  I don't particularly enjoy, what I've directed, I've also acted in.

• 1:06:22Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  And I don't particularly enjoy changing hats.

• 1:06:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Could you imagine directing without acting?

• 1:06:30Rick Rubin?

  Or you prefer acting?

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  I prefer acting.

• 1:06:32Rick Rubin?

  Okay.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  I like being the subject.

• 1:06:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  I like having a singular obsession. Let me handle my man. That's it. I don't want to consider how the whole ship is sailing and what we're navigating. I like it. It's just a lot of, I don't like being a... The director has to be objective. Where's this whole thing going? I like going, let me handle this lane. Let me dominate this. Show some real life. Let it be fire. And you catch it. That's more enjoyable.

• 1:06:57Rick Rubin?

  Have you played any known real-life characters or only fictional characters?

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  I've played some known real-life characters.

• 1:07:04Rick Rubin?

  And how's that different?

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Well, it comes with a, I always feel a certain sense of responsibility.

• 1:07:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  And I've tried different ways. Early on, I remember I tried to almost emulate and really studied the person's

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  diction and and I don't think that was the right way to go about it, actually. I then came and have done a few where

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  it's big, just get the spirit. Don't be worried about, don't get hung up on the details of, you know, people all the time come up with, they're like, oh, this person should play this character in history because they look like him.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Studios, he's like, we don't really care how much they look alike. What we want is the best actor for the role.

• 1:07:52Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, but I look just like him. So what?

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Give you a good, give you a good example. Dallas Buyers Club. Ron Woodruff, real-life character. I've got hours and hours of footage of him and tapes and I'm listening. I know his story and, you know, you hear his attitude and then but when I went to go see his mother and his sister outside of Dallas, right as I got in the car to leave after a three-hour hang, they came out, tapped the window, I rolled in, said, yeah, what's up? They go, hey, we have Ron's diary. That be helpful? I went.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, if, if I'm not trespassing, then I know, please. Gave me the diary. So what do I get from the diary? Nothing that's in the script written. But what do I get? I get a, I, I see a story about a guy who, on Sunday night, is ironing his shirt.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  Putting new AA batteries in his pager because tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. he's gonna drive 36 miles over to Kingwood, Texas and hook up the speakers for the Collier family. It's gonna cost him $12 for the wire to hook up the speakers. It's gonna cost him about $8 worth of gas to get there. He's gonna charge him $40, which is less than the best, best than the, than the store company would charge 80. But he, he's gonna do a good job. He's gonna do it for half the price. But he's only gonna net about $10, $15 on the day of the work. But you know what? It's gonna work for me because they'll, I'll get a referral and I'll go to another. So then wake up. He's got his shirt on. He's going out the door as pager goes off.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Oh, we're canceling that script. We decided to go with Best Buy to hook them up because they're closer and, and, and they got a warranty.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  To a guy who now, whose day turned into, lost its purpose. Who had his ironed shirt, who then said, went back in the house and then kinda all of a sudden noon shows up and decides, well, I'm gonna go for a drive and I'm gonna go to Sonic.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  Cause I like that. Maybe Suzie Mae's working there and she's kinda cute. Plus, when I order a single cheeseburger, she gives me a double with jalapenos for the same price.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Suzie Mae is there. Hey, when you get off, wanna smoke a joint? End up at the day's end, room 16, shag up, getting high. The week turns into partying and sort of drifting. Until next weekend where I'm gonna do it again and something falls through. So you saw this guy with, that would have, he was trying. He's setting himself up and then it wouldn't go, wouldn't go the way he planned it. And he just sort of drift and lose his way into the week. And it happened week over week and he kinda got lost. What did that tell me? I got a dreamer who just couldn't follow, never followed through.

• 1:10:53Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Had some shitty luck, but kinda just had great ideas, but would never have the confidence to trademark them, or patent them, or follow through, or engineer them.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  That tells me a lot about who the guy is. None of that's in the script.

• 1:11:08Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  But how that guy moves, how he thinks.

• 1:11:10Rick Rubin?

  Tells you more than the script.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  What's he doing when he's alone? How's he thinking? He's looking over the horizon. He's just never gonna go there.

• 1:11:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  There's a lot of humanity in that guy. And I get that from his diary, not from how does that guy talk.

• 1:11:26Rick Rubin?

  So lucky that the diary was available. Amazing.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that they had to.

• 1:11:31Rick Rubin?

  Offered it to you, yeah.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's beautiful.

• 1:11:35Rick Rubin?

  Beautiful. Do you gamble?

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about it.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  I gamble enough, as I say,

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  to buy a ticket to the game.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  I don't gamble too. I don't spend too much. I'll bet a hundred dollars on games, and what it does is it's enough for me to be interested in watching. That's enough for me to go, when they win, I go, "I knew it." It's enough for me to go, when they throw a flag, and it should have been a flag, to get off the couch, get pissed at the ref, and go, "What are you doing?" So I bought myself three hours of entertainment value to be engaged with the game. And like every gambler, if I go seven and one,

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  I'm a fortune teller. I knew it. See, I was thinking, and when I go one and seven?

• 1:12:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Something's off with them, not me.

• 1:12:23Rick Rubin?

  It's rigged. The game's rigged.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  And all of that already is worth that hundred dollars, win or lose, to me.

• 1:12:29Rick Rubin?

  Are you superstitious?

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  I don't think I'm as superstitious as I ought to be. I think I'd like to be more superstitious.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Again, I'm a thinker. I love logic.

• 1:12:44Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  And reason at the same time. Yeah.

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  Who gives a shit about being right?

• 1:12:55Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  Especially when you're talking to somebody, you know what I mean? I like to find my rhyme from the reason though. Like, I like to find my art, acting, from real life.

• 1:13:06Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  I like to measure what's the practicals that we can measure? What's the science of our situation to then find the art? So that's where I go conservative, liberal, late, as I was talking about earlier.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  I've had plenty of

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  what are obviously, for lack of a better word, coincidences or, you know, things being invisible. I'm like,

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  do you know that bluebird was gonna be there? Yeah, I've had plenty of those where you're like, you don't know that, that math adds up in hindsight.

• 1:13:40Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  You look and you go, connect those dots.

• 1:13:42Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. There's something else going on.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:45Rick Rubin?

  That we don't understand, bigger than us.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  Yes. And, and, and things crossed and that, that red light I hit that held me back 30 more seconds is why I ran into her because she was walking by at that exact time. And if I'd have been 15 seconds earlier, I would have missed. And look at what, you know, things that I'm going like, ah, okay. I'm not part of that math.

• 1:14:06Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? So if that's superstitions or coincidences or fate or divinity intervening, yeah, I, I believe in it. The thing is with it, from the way I go with it, I, I do have to watch and I, I wish, I think some people have to watch, even people that are very empathic.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  If you're looking for the superstition,

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  you start to, it can be trouble. Cause you start to create

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  rhymes where you're like, no, those, that, that's not, there's no rhyme to that. It's, it's a little bit like this. The masseuse who's, who's, who's, you know, he's saying, my, my shoulder needs work. And the masseuse goes like, you know, well, are you, is it because you're not, need to get more in touch with your feminine side? Or what's your horoscope? Like, no, actually, a car ran into me yesterday. I mean, actually, that's an injury that happened. You know, um, so we get, I think we have to watch looking for, if we're, if we're looking for those synapses, those, those were reason rhymes and connections. And that's what artists do, we associate. But if we, if we're hunting, like you said earlier, when I said, found Camilla when I quit looking for. If we're looking for the associations.

• 1:15:22Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  I think they back up. I think the angels back up and go, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not. You'll, we'll land and it'll be obvious. But don't be trying to make too many. And life can get very noisy and clumsy and frustrating, confusing if we're associating too much. Like I, it's, it's why, it's why it's why I don't, like, the new weed? Oh, man.

• 1:15:49Rick Rubin?

  Too strong.

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  It's too many associations. I'm seeing art in everything. And if you're seeing art in everything, you're not seeing any art at all. If every moment is so significant, none of it has significance. And that's why it's like digits, the subplots can become unmanageable. And if the subplots become unmanageable, you're like, well, you're missing the main vein. So I don't think those superstitions are in those divine truths land when we're looking at them and trying to create them. And it's a fine line to walk about how to be aware and listen and notice.

• 1:16:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  But yet not try and make them. So we can make false ones and that can be illusions.

• 1:16:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Which are not, can, can make us mad.

• 1:16:28Rick Rubin?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  Literally.

• 1:16:29Rick Rubin?

  What's the most beautiful place you've ever been?

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  Mali, Africa.

• 1:16:34Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about it.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  So

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  I had, um,

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  a recurring wet dream.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  Um, and two things were true in the dream.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  I was floating down a river and there were African tribesmen down the left

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  cliff that went in down, down the river into infinity. And so the first time I had it, I woke up and math doesn't add up for that being a wet dream. The elements didn't tip, weren't the typical thing. They're more of a nightmare if anything. And then I had it again, five years later. I was like, oh, I had the same dream the second time. I gotta chase this dream down. What do I know? I got a river and I got African tribesmen. So I thought the river, the river in my mind was the Amazon. So I ended up going, okay, 21 day trip. I'm going, I'm going to the Amazon. I'm gonna go float the Amazon. I did it. I met the brown skin people with the wet eyes, the beautiful souls they have in Peru and everything and had a great trip. Thought, okay, I finished it.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  Five years later, I have the same dream again. So I said, what's the other thing I know? The African tribesmen. Oh, I gotta go to Africa. Where do I go? I don't know where to go in Africa. It's a mighty big continent. I'm sitting in my hotel in Dublin one night, the Morrison Hotel, and I'm listening to one of my favorite musicians, Ali Farquhar Ture. The African blues man. I'm like, oh, where's Ali from? So I go look in the liner notes, Nia Funke. I said, I'm gonna go find Ali. That'll be my point. Yep. And I'll go there and see where the trip takes me. I find him day four.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  You never met him before? Never met him before. Yeah. Get over there, find somebody who can take, we take a boat, Nia Funke, can speak Bambaata and we find him. Have lunch with him, talk with him, da, da, da, da, da, da, spend the day. And now all of a sudden I'm getting in the boat. We've said goodbye and it's only day, it's the afternoon, day four. And I'm like, well, where now? And I had a guide who was like, have you ever been to the Banja, Banja Gara where the dog gonna live? We should, we should go. You would like this. You will remember this. And so for the next 18 days, we hiked 15 miles a day, stayed with family, slept on the roofs. It was the most innocent, pure, but strong place I'd ever been. And I felt like I had gone literally home. I felt as at home there with them. Didn't speak the language. Yeah. Didn't need to. Yeah. You felt like you belonged.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. I knew I'd been there before too. And they knew I'd been there before. Yeah. And, um, you know, we're little things, you know, we had this talisman. And we were on, we were in this place called Benji Matu and Isa, my guide, had this beautiful talisman. And there's a trunk of a tree that was cut off. It's like it was a bit of a tabletop. And he set the talisman like that. The edge was hanging over.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  And I went over and scooted it. And he goes, why you do this? And I said, oh, I just don't want that to fall. He goes, this is Africa. Elephant could run by, shake the ground, but never move.

• 1:19:27Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. You're right. This is old country. This is not, the mountains over there don't have tips. They've been flattened, you know? So I learned so many lessons over there. They're very, you know, they're very, they're very proverbial. There's nothing wispy about their proverbs. They're like, you know, do not adult. If you adult, the same thing will happen to you in your own bed. They always have this at the end. It's like a fire and brimstone. Wow. And it's not about right or wrong. It's about, do you understand? Oh, okay. You know, everything's proper nouns.

• 1:20:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  You know, rules.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  And I just like the clarity of that. And they were so loving the sense of, talk about sense of humor.

• 1:20:15Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  Talk about, I remember one of my, one of my friends that I met over there, Jael. He had a bum, he had a bum hip.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  And so he walked, he, he, he walked like that, right? And a French doctor couple had come over and, and said, hey, we like you a lot. We're gonna take you, we're gonna fly you back to France. We're gonna do a surgery on your hip. He was all excited about this. And he left us to go take that flight.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  And that afternoon, he showed back up. And we're like, what happened? And he goes, I got to the airport. And I, and I said, it hit me that this is how I was born.

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  It's not for me to change it.

• 1:21:10Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  This is how I walk.

• 1:21:13Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  I don't want to change it.

• 1:21:16Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  That sort of non-sentimentality, the sort of, whoa.

• 1:21:23Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, acceptance.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  Whoa, but strong acceptance.

• 1:21:26Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  And they're very sensitive people.

• 1:21:29Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  But yet they deal with, um, you, they, they, they play, you play it as it lays. I remember hearing, um, on that second time, I went back again, a fourth, the second time back to Mali and found Ali again at that festival, Al Dessert, you know, that festival way out in the middle of the desert. Like, if you can find it, you, you, you will be here for three days. And generators are all out in the middle of the desert. I find on the last night, I find, I'm walking around camp and I hear Ali's strings. And I go look under the tent and there's Ali playing guitar, the little campfire. There's a French journalist and the village, um, hermaphrodite.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  This young, uh, uh, young boy who had, um, large, uh, large breasts on one side, but also testicles, but fully naked, was crawling all over Ali as he played, just adoring him. And Ali's playing the song and what I noticed over there, and they saw this in many circumstances, you don't shoo the inconvenience. You don't, ah, ah, ah, ah, you don't run someone offstage, hey, I need my space. No, you play this song as it has never been played before because you have the village hermaphrodite crawling all over you, making you play out a tune. That's the original tune. And it will only be played once. And that's, you play it as it lays.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  There was a beauty to that, that they don't, they're, they're not, you, anything that happens, I mean, they, you run over an animal on the road and you're having a conversation, you didn't even mean to hit the animal, bam, you hit the animal, they just pull over and keep the conversation going. You and I both get out and go get the animal, continue the conversation, go put it back in the truck and we're back up, we drive off. They don't stop, there's no, oh, oh my God, what just happened? It's all you, you, you play it as it lays. There's a beauty in that, the way they, the way they, the poetry they go through life with.

• 1:23:20Rick Rubin?

  Sounds beautiful.

• 1:23:24Rick Rubin?

  You think of yourself as sensitive?

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:23:28Rick Rubin?

  In what way? Describe it.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  I hear a lot of things.

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  And I think I listen.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  Maybe I listen to too many things.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  Again, deciphering which ones to listen to and what not to.

• 1:23:54Speaker 01

  Sometimes I wish I was less sensitive.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  Be nice to just sit on a bassline without any percussion. You know what I mean?

• 1:24:05Rick Rubin?

  When you say you hear things, you mean things that people say or something else?

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  No, the else.

• 1:24:10Rick Rubin?

  The else?

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, the stuff that's not words.

• 1:24:15Rick Rubin?

  You're tuned into something. That be a way to say it?

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:22Rick Rubin?

  You have any rituals on the set?

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  Yes, so.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  I find every, you know, I make a soundtrack for every role. Then I have certain songs for certain scenes.

• 1:24:37Rick Rubin?

  You make it in advance?

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And. It's a rhythm, it's a rhythm thing. Helps me how I enter a scene, I come in.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  I like to play some skins or play body. And I'll come in with rhythms for scenes and get a hum or a whistle. And by the time I'm saying, I'm in, I'm doing a version of the genre of the song that's for the scene, but I'm doing it in a ditty. Whether it's a pat, whether it's me.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  And I want to get, I'm getting out of my head.

• 1:25:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  I'm getting out of my head and I'm getting to just, it's not about logic. Now about rhyme, the reason, we're all on rhyme now. There's rhythm, so we're gonna walk in, so that's a pace of addiction. That's a pace of how I'm looking at you, pace of how I'm talking. Whatever that root, and that's what I do before scenes. I find a certain tap of a ditty of the music that is for that scene, before you see.

• 1:25:37Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about your relationship to music in general.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  I'd take music over.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Video or films any day if we could just have one. I mean. Growing up and even now, it's one of the beautiful things about music, sometimes.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  The lyrics and that lead singer.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  They're talking to you.

• 1:26:04Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  They wrote that for you.

• 1:26:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  How did they know?

• 1:26:10Rick Rubin?

  They're smart. They're good at what they do too.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Other times, it's a...

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  That's an interesting look.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  I don't know that. That was not me, but man, thanks for letting me in to that story.

• 1:26:27Rick Rubin?

  Is it always lyrics? Is the lyrics the thing that pulls you in?

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  No, it's not always lyrics. It's not always lyrics, but sometimes, you know... You know, growing up, washing my car on Sunday to get it shined up for going to school on Monday. You know? Couple of Coors Lights in the driveway, listening to Mellencamp. Pink Houses. It was like, dude.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  That's America. He helped form my sense of patriotism.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Lonesome Jubilee. Beautiful album he made. About race relations and relationships in the world and in America. Ah, the love stories in that that are not typical.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  Formed a lot of... A lot of those, I was like, oh, you're reading my mail, man? How'd you know? Thank you.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  Then I've got other people like Ali Farquhar Touré, which is a... He's speaking Bambara. I don't know what he's talking about. So I hear a song like "I Do."

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  Beautiful love song. I've heard this song. Oh my gosh, it's love. This is... This is a romance. This is about a man and a woman. It's a love story. One night, after listening to the song for three years, I decided to look at the liner notes. And the liner notes say,

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  "Trust in your fellow man. You cannot trust someone else until you trust yourself." I'm like...

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Well, it is a love story, but it's not the love story I thought it was. Because I didn't know the lyrics.

• 1:28:06Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  So, I malaproped, but I was in, but it still was a love story.

• 1:28:10Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  So, I love that sort of thing about not hearing or why I like certain French music. I like some French grooves because I like, I love this French language. And when I can't, I don't know what they're talking about.

• 1:28:22Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  And I kind of like not knowing what they're talking about. So, it's not always that the specific lyric.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  As much as it's about the feel. And then, you know, you have those, I've had it and many thousands of other people have had it. But I've been, you know, I had that summer with Lori Williams.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  With the top off the Jeep. Coming back after a great night where I first heard Don Henley's Summer 69. And I was like, ah, dude. I remember where I was. I smell it right now. And then he's talking about, you know, T top, I'm like, yeah, I do. And I do have my sunglasses on.

• 1:29:02Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  How'd you know? You know, so you remember that. You hear, you hear the first two chords of certain songs and you're like, takes you right back.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  You know, it's, it's, music's great, great marketing, a marketing tool. I'm always interested how resorts and stuff and, and stores of retail are very smart with playing the music that whatever their demographic was. Play the music that was hot when they were 18. Because it takes them back to a youthful place, even subliminally, to a youthful place where they felt young and free in the most peril, right? It's a very good marketing tool, but it's also very comforting.

• 1:29:43Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:44Speaker 01

  And now, you know, I'm going through my, my kids are pretty musical, especially Levi, my eldest. And I'm having that time where he's now coming back to me going, Dad, check this out. And I'm like going, yeah, I played that for you eight years ago. And when you kind of brushed back, and that, he's just coming, coming at me now with Hall & Oates.

• 1:30:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, amazing.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  You know, coming at me with, you know, the police.

• 1:30:08Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  I'm like going, yeah, man. Yeah, all right.

• 1:30:13Rick Rubin?

  When you leave the set, do you take the character with you? Or can you leave the character on the set?

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  So, the character's always with me. I mean, my wife jokingly says I'm sleeping with a different man. She didn't literally mean it, but I come, I come home, I'm gonna talk, I'm gonna talk about the same things, but differently.

• 1:30:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  If I'm playing, look, Ron Wood of Dallas Buyers Club.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  The guy was clinically trying to survive on everything. I mean, things were tight. There was no room for error. There was no room for being loose. I mean, this is what, so I was very clinical at home.

• 1:30:56Rick Rubin?

  Even at home?

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, but about the same things would be, but I was a little more like Camilla would come to me at the glass of wine and go, "Just take the edges off," you know? Gold. The guy was a, a consumer.

• 1:31:09Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  Of, of food and lust and sex and money and, oh, man. I was so much fun in the house. We were talking about the same things, but I was like, "Hell, yeah, milkshakes on a Wednesday night. You wanna do pizza again? Yeah, let's do two." I was yes to, I was Captain Fun.

• 1:31:26Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  Talking about the same things, but the family's like, "Man, you're just like, it's Saturday every day." Cause my, I'm playing a guy that is Saturday every day. So that's a vacation.

• 1:31:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  It was a Saturday every day. Still took care of the stuff that needed to be taken care of. I didn't become like irresponsible. I was just like a yes guy, though.

• 1:31:41Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Talking about the same things we would talk about as a family.

• 1:31:44Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  So, I'm just tapping into that part of me that I'm, that I'm, got the HKZ turned up on the frequency of that character, of the character I'm playing.

• 1:31:53Rick Rubin?

  Have the characters ever changed you beyond? Tell me about that.

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  The effect that some movies, more movies probably more so than characters.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  For me. Contact.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Me and Jodie Foster, Bob Tumex directs. She's the believer in science, I'm the believer in God. It's a story about where do those two contradict each other? And where do they, where do they cross?

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  Sitting down with Carl Sagan, talking about the structure of the universe and.

• 1:32:35Rick Rubin?

  Did you get to do that?

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:36Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 1:32:37Speaker 01

  Got to get three hour, three hours listened to.

• 1:32:40Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  It was awesome. I walk away from that going, wow.

• 1:32:46Speaker 01

  God's backyard is a whole lot bigger than I thought. It expanded my. You know, thought I was here on earth, center of the universe. No, you're about the tip of the five, top left corner on the five on a clock this big. And this is in one galaxy and there's millions and there's even millions of universes. Whoa, okay, that humbling feeling. We are Marshall. We go shoot that. It's about the 1971 plane crash, true story in these football team and a lot of their coaches die on this plane crash. And there's survivors that have survivor guilt because I was supposed to be on the plane. But when I saw you show up, I said, no, you take it. I'll drive back. And the plane crashed. We shot into town. Hollywood comes to Huntington, West Virginia.

• 1:33:32Speaker 01

  They were, they were scared. They were scared. They were also, everybody in that town was connected somehow, related to somebody on that crash. And here comes Hollywood to tell their story. And they're looking at us like, don't you fuck us, man?

• 1:33:45Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:46Speaker 01

  Don't you fuck us?

• 1:33:47Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:48Speaker 01

  Don't make us look. McGee, the director, did a great thing. Open set, anyone from the town wants to come to set, I'll give you a script.

• 1:33:54Rick Rubin?

  Great.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, they slowly started coming out of the woods in the woodwork, coming around, hanging around. And it was a cathartic movie for them.

• 1:34:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  After it came out and it, and, and we did our best to tell it and get to tell the spirit of it right, didn't take advantage of, of, of any of them. So to see how a movie can affect.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  A people, a place, a community, to see how sometimes it'll affect me as a character, my own perspective, like it did with like Palmer Joss in Contact. I always try and take some lesson from it. I mean, it dissipates somewhat because when I'm playing the role, that's, there's certain literal beliefs, I'm in that vacuum.

• 1:34:36Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. But it sounds like you grow from it.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  When it, when it, when, on the good ones, I do. Look, I've done some where I'm like, dude, you just connected the dots. I don't know how I grew from that. If anything, I was, I was trying to, couldn't wait to get out.

• 1:34:48Rick Rubin?

  Were you ever asked to do something on a movie that you refused to do?

• 1:34:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:54Rick Rubin?

  Like what?

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  Lie. Lie on my character.

• 1:34:58Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  There's just certain things where, where.

• 1:35:00Rick Rubin?

  Where you, you're like, the character would never do that, I'm not doing it.

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 1:35:04Rick Rubin?

  You're protective of your character.

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  It's my job, that's my job. And if I lie, meaning I was talking earlier about that, into the second act, into the third act, is when writers usually get in a pinch, oh, I've gotta land this plane. So a lot of times they'll give the main character a convenient malaprop of their own character. So they can screw up, so somebody else can come in and we can start to finish this movie. And like I go, that's bullshit, bro, would never do that.

• 1:35:40Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  Oh, come on, we just, I was like, that ain't on me.

• 1:35:44Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:44Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna let you know before we're in production, I know we don't shoot this for two months, but we gotta ride our way out of this, cuz I'm not doing, if you wanna give that to someone else.

• 1:35:52Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Go right ahead. But what I suggest is let's ride our way out of this smartly.

• 1:35:56Rick Rubin?

  Make it better.

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, because that, I get it, it's tough, but we gotta figure out another way that works. I'm not saying that, because I say that, they don't come back at you, the writer, and go, I can't believe, or you, the studio, they're going like, what the fuck's McConaughey doing? He wouldn't, what was that, it was bullshit.

• 1:36:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  He wouldn't have done that.

• 1:36:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  And that's on me.

• 1:36:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:15Speaker 01

  So I was, I'm not, I'm not taking that. So to lie on my man, no, and I can't, I can't do that. That's really the only time I use can't. It's the word can't, like, I can't do that.

• 1:36:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the most fun part of your job?

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  The daily making. I'm probably as happy and as loose and relaxed and as in tune and alive when I'm the daily making of the movie.

• 1:36:43Rick Rubin?

  And what's your least favorite?

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  Least favorite? Nah nah nah, nah nah nah, nah nah.

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  Well, the hardest, the work is in the prep. When I'm, if I've done the work on the prep, that's when I'm sleepless nights. That's when I'm grinding and I'm looking under everything as many ways as I can. Have I done enough? Have I done it in other ways? Kind of look at this. And then when I go to work, and that's play. All that shit's out. Okay, trust you got it. And that's fun. The ending of a movie,

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  if I, if it felt good about it and the experience was good, it's always kind of, kind of nice. I feel like I deserved this break. I feel like I deserved this long drive home. I feel like I deserved it. I'm sleeping in tomorrow. I feel like I deserve another drink if I want one. I feel like we're gonna sit back and go, yeah, man. I feel like I laid something down true. That feels good. The hardest part, though, is that next three weeks.

• 1:37:40Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  I always like to say this. I mean, I've had a structured day, a character.

• 1:37:44Rick Rubin?

  What am I supposed to do?

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  Like I said, I walk into the bathroom, forgot I need to take a piss. I mean, I'm like, what are you doing? Oh, yeah, can someone, so my wife helps me. She's like, we're gonna set up some simple things. Here you go. We're gonna pad the walls a little bit. Just put a little padding, let's just consider it ease back in. Cause that's slowly good, and then I'm back in the groove. But I'm a little like this for a few weeks afterwards.

• 1:38:07Rick Rubin?

  What are your obsessions outside of work?

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  Well, I just found one three years ago. Tennis. First hobby I've ever had in 25 years. And I love it. I cannot get enough of it.

• 1:38:21Rick Rubin?

  How often do you play?

• 1:38:22Speaker 01

  As often as I can, wherever I go, I try to go four or five times a week. If I can. I'm not making it five times a week, but everywhere I go, I'm gonna find a pro, I'll go for two hours. And my son's into it now, so it's a father-son thing we're doing. And I, I made up with it.

• 1:38:36Rick Rubin?

  What do you think it is about tennis?

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  Well, one, I can, I'm at the level now where when I do it well, I know what I'm doing.

• 1:38:45Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  And like, when I do it wrong, I know what I'm doing. So I can measure, I feel it, I know immediately. When I miss a shot, I want to make a shot, what I did right or wrong. The second thing is, the ceiling is infinite. I'll never, I know enough about it now, if I watch the pros play, I am in awe.

• 1:39:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  So to understand the game enough to be in awe of them, to see what, how, why they're so great and go, wow. I'll never be that, but wow, the ceiling is infinite.

• 1:39:12Rick Rubin?

  Are you playing to win or are you playing to play?

• 1:39:16Speaker 01

  I'm mostly play to play, but I've started to play more points in matches now.

• 1:39:24Speaker 01

  And when I'm doing that, oh, I'm playing to win. Yeah.

• 1:39:26Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about three turning points in your career.

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  My career?

• 1:39:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Well, first one, it's how the career started. Walked in the right bar at the right time.

• 1:39:41Rick Rubin?

  And that really happened that way?

• 1:39:42Speaker 01

  That really happened.

• 1:39:43Rick Rubin?

  That was it?

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  That was it. The bartender, I went to that bar because that guy was in film school with me and he gave me free drinks. He says, there's a guy at the bar who's a producer in town. I go down and introduce myself. Four hours later, that guy and I are drunk, get kicked out. On the way home, he's riding with me in a taxi back to my place to drop off. He pulls out a joint, says, everybody acting? I said, man, I was in a middle light commercial for about that long. He goes, oh, you might be right for this part, come on down to this, your desk. Went down ninth there the next morning, that was Dazed and Confused. I read for the role and got it, three lines turned in three weeks' work, right bar, right time.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  Second one would be, and it's a combination.

• 1:40:23Rick Rubin?

  Yep.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  I did an independent where it's a time where I was, I was, I was not getting a lot of jobs. And I got hired for this, this, this role. And my idea was, oh, I've been studying too much, I gotta get out of my head, I gotta go back and do it how I did it earlier. Dazed and Confused, I show up, I'm just my man, tell me what to do. Hey, you think you want to pick up the Red intellectual girl, go do it, let's shoot it. I didn't read the script. I said, give me the situation, I'll go handle it as my man would. Well, I show up on the day of the set after getting this bright idea. And right before about to go, I didn't get a little nervous, I said, let me see some sides, just to see that. And if my thinking was if they're written well, I'll go, well, obviously, that's what I'd say. And if it's not written well, I'll just do what I want.

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  And I go, page one, page two, page three, page four.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden, I go.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  Can I get 12 minutes? Because it was a four-page monologue. Rick.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  In Spanish.

• 1:41:24Rick Rubin?

  No.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:41:25Rick Rubin?

  Really?

• 1:41:26Speaker 01

  And I mean, the sweat trickle goes down my back of my neck, I'm like, oh shit. So I got so embarrassed.

• 1:41:31Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  That then I got up for that afterwards, I got called in for to meet with Joel Schumacher, director of A Time to Kill. And we were talking about the, I think it's Billy Lee Cobb, the role Kiefer Sutherland ended up playing as a, he was a clan member. And that's the role that Joel wanted me for. But I had not only read the script, I read the book.

• 1:41:53Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  And I'm like, the dude I like is this Jake Gyllenhaal, the lead. I'm gonna get that in, in this meeting.

• 1:41:59Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  I remember I was in a sleeveless Mellencamp shirt.

• 1:42:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  Smoking cigarettes at the time, and we're talking, Joel's like, you'll be great in this part. And I said, yeah, I know guys like that, that Billy Lee Cobb, I met a few of them, I know who they are. And so I'm like, well, who's playing the role of Jake Gyllenhaal? And he goes, I don't know, who do you think should? And I remember going.

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  I think I should. And he goes, ah, great idea, but it's never gonna happen. But it planned to see.

• 1:42:29Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  Because they went down, they had trouble casting over the next two months.

• 1:42:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  Sandra Bullock comes out while you were sleeping, all of a sudden, she was already in the third role.

• 1:42:38Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  But she can green light a movie.

• 1:42:40Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  Now?

• 1:42:41Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  Oh, the studio's got a little leverage, maybe we could consider an unknown. He calls me in for a read on, it was a Valentine's Day. And he called me and it was on Fairfax, not at a studio lot. I remember him saying, they were doing it on Fairfax on a Sunday, Valentine's Day. Because no matter how well you do, you're probably not gonna get the job. And I don't want it to go on your record as you tried and failed.

• 1:43:01Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  So, they're looking after me.

• 1:43:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:04Speaker 01

  I read, I get it.

• 1:43:06Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 1:43:09Speaker 01

  Would have never had a chance to get it if I wouldn't have said in that meeting.

• 1:43:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, you planted the seed.

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  I think I should.

• 1:43:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, cuz he would have never thought of you.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:16Rick Rubin?

  Why would he?

• 1:43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, amazing.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  A third fun one is a funny one. It's a reign of fire. It's a dragon slayer. And I just finished a film and the day after I finished filming, I shaved my head. I don't know if you've ever shaved your head, but.

• 1:43:31Rick Rubin?

  I've not.

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  Okay, you shave your head for the first time.

• 1:43:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  It's not usually pretty under there.

• 1:43:37Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  It's dark white. I had scars, you know, some bumps, da da da da. It's, it's, it's. And paparazzi had gotten a picture of me the next day on the streets and it didn't look very good. Well, the producers see this and all of a sudden I get this note saying, you did not shave your head. I know this is a prosthetic and you were trying to prank us. I know you didn't shave your head. And if you did shave your head, this could be bad for your karma. And when that read down the note, and I'm not gonna say the author.

• 1:44:10Rick Rubin?

  Bad for your karma.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  And I took that personal. I was like, oh, these are, these are fighting words, man. You don't, you don't challenge someone's karma. You don't step out of bounds in a written handwritten note that this is bad for you. What do you?

• 1:44:21Rick Rubin?

  Well, the idea that they control your karma is a wild idea.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  And, and the idea that that's an indirect threat.

• 1:44:28Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  Because I shaved my head. So I'm like, okay, I'm, I understand Hollywood's a game. Let me play this game. I get it. They want McConaughey with this, with this nice flowing locks for the role. But my guy's got a shaved head. He's a dragon slayer. I said, all right, what I'm gonna do, I said, who's, I know what they're doing. They're going like, girls aren't gonna like this. They're not gonna like the shaved head. So I said, all right, I got a plan. I was saying the Chateau Marmo. I gave myself 10 days. I went to a pool every day.

• 1:44:55Speaker 01

  Put some baby oil on it. Hair got, head got nice and tan, man. My beard got blonde. And I went and bought a badass, beautiful Hugo Boss blue suit. And there was a big Hollywood party coming up on Friday night. And I said, I'm gonna show up to that looking high and tight, baby. I said, if I look good and I was in shape and I'm in the suit.

• 1:45:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:18Speaker 01

  I go, there'll be pictures and.

• 1:45:20Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:21Speaker 01

  It'll get about, it'll get around back to those studio head desk and some secretary will go, oh, I think he looks handsome. And all of a sudden they'll be, what are you doing?

• 1:45:28Rick Rubin?

  It'll be good for your karma.

• 1:45:32Speaker 01

  Well, sure as shit.

• 1:45:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  The next two, it came out, the picture of the tabloids, plus it got back in this, in this, in the Hollywood system, picked up. And I got a call on a Tuesday evening. We love the shaved head. Great character choice.

• 1:45:49Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  Good for my karma. But I, but I played, I twisted the game. I said, I'm gonna play, alright, I'm gonna play the game with you here. And I remember deliberately going, get a nice suit, bro. Look sharp.

• 1:45:59Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  Get tan. Make disco look a little bit better and get out there. And it worked.

• 1:46:04Rick Rubin?

  It's great.

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  But I think I would have lost the job. I think they may have, may have, they were about to fire me and I wanted to roll.

• 1:46:09Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Do you think that pressure makes you better or it undermines you?

• 1:46:18Speaker 01

  Better. But pressure's different from tension.

• 1:46:23Rick Rubin?

  Okay, describe, what's the difference?

• 1:46:25Speaker 01

  Tension's an actor's worst enemy. When you're acting. You don't want tension.

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  But pressure.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm, I'm going further. I'm going deeper. I'm going wider. Um, I will do more of what I need to do to perform as well as again. I will do more of what I need to do so that I have less tension on the day when I'm in the game. I will study the playbook more in depth so I can more easily call an audible when it's live.

• 1:47:00Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Um, the pressure though, that I put on myself, one, starting with, I don't want to be embarrassed.

• 1:47:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  Two, I want to do, I want to do it well.

• 1:47:12Rick Rubin?

  Absolutely.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  Three, I want you to go, yeah, that's what we're talking about. I want, I want it to translate to people. I want to communicate. I want people to go, oh, that's nice. Well done. That's excellent. I want to, so the pressure, I like and want that pressure. And if I put enough pressure on myself early, I have less tension late. Again, conservative early, liberal late.

• 1:47:40Rick Rubin?

  Understood.

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:42Rick Rubin?

  Um, are you ever surprised by the reactions to your performances?

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. One thing, and this is, I always think this is kind of one of the best compliments an actor can get.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  When I do, when I do, when I do have a good performance,

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  people on the set and people in the world go, "That's you."

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  And it's an indirect, but very direct compliment. Because if you

• 1:48:17Rick Rubin?

  Because you're not seeing anything. You're not seeing you do anything.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Not seeing me act.

• 1:48:21Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:21Speaker 01

  And in a way, a good performance, we're

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  Some people think that acting is about being outside of yourself. No, it's not. That's only half the journey. It's seeing, noticing, but then, and studying something. It may not be me, but, "Oh, I've got that in me." And here are people I'm studying that as examples. So I'm gonna find that myself. And I'm gonna turn up the HKZ on that part of the Equalizer up to full. That's what's gonna be primary. You know, and so, we all got it in. We have everything in. We have everybody in us. So that's only half the journey is going outside of ourself. It's getting to the insular, the singular. I see it from the inside out. And you may, I get there by observing out, objectively first, to then bring it in and go inside out to where I'm living it, breathing it, feeling I am the guy. And if someone goes, "It's you."

• 1:49:10Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  At first, when I was more insecure early in my career, I'd be like, "No, it's not. I'm acting."

• 1:49:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  Then I got, I was like, "No, exactly. That means I pulled it off."

• 1:49:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. How do you think growing up in Texas informed who you are today?

• 1:49:29Speaker 01

  Well, like growing up in Texas or growing up in my family, like So, look, on a 30,000-foot level, Texas is fiercely independent. And you're, and you're, there's a certain I remember in Texas, talk about pressure. You know, typical things you were, you know, pat on the back, do good because, or get consequences and you get in trouble because you didn't are

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  Because that's religious. That's not what you, you know, it's not how you were brought up.

• 1:50:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Got to do. Then there's because it's un-American or it's very American. And then there's your last name. Cause you're Reuben. You're McConaughey and now you're in trouble because that's not Reuben. That's not. Well, in Texas, you had a fourth one. Cause you're Texan or that's no, no, that's not Texan. So it was another measure of initiation of what your expectations were.

• 1:50:26Rick Rubin?

  Interesting.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  There's a fierce independence in it.

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  Texans have a great identity, but they're not like Louisiana. Louisiana people stay in Louisiana. Texans are like, okay, now get your passport and go. And then come back and tell stories about it.

• 1:50:43Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:44Speaker 01

  Or get out of here.

• 1:50:44Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:45Speaker 01

  Go man, but then come on back and tell us about it.

• 1:50:47Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  So we're, we like to export and you're pushed to have the courage to go. Go find out, man.

• 1:50:53Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  In my family, it was, uh,

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  look, it was effort, hustle. And there's a lot of stuff I know that I've gotten because I've out hustled. Where I met, where I wasn't the most talented, but I got it because I out hustled.

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  Work ethic was big. And, and also my family's outlaws, man.

• 1:51:17Rick Rubin?

  Where do you think you got the work ethic though? Not all outlaws have a good work ethic.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  See, my parents did though, had, they were absolute outlaws, but

• 1:51:28Speaker 01

  they were a big, hey, man, say what you can do, do what you say. If you can't do it, don't say you can do it.

• 1:51:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:35Speaker 01

  You know, we got a lot, you run these people that are always, they're all yes about everything.

• 1:51:38Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  Over leverage.

• 1:51:39Rick Rubin?

  No bullshit.

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, just say what you can do, do what you say.

• 1:51:41Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  And if you can't, you're doing me, you're doing the person a better favor by going, that's, that's not for me.

• 1:51:47Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. Now I can find someone who can. Thank you very much.

• 1:51:50Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  So don't over leverage yourself. And, uh, say what you can do, do what you say. And if you're gonna say, if you say you can do it, you do it. Do it. Don't half ass it was a big thing my dad said. Don't half ass something, man. If you're going to.

• 1:52:05Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, do it.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Then do it.

• 1:52:06Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, or don't do it.

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  But just don't do it.

• 1:52:09Rick Rubin?

  What are some skills you learned for parts that you've played?

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  Got a film coming out, Rivals of Amzai right now where, um, I got half decent on a mandolin.

• 1:52:20Rick Rubin?

  That's cool.

• 1:52:21Speaker 01

  It'd be good, but I got, you gotta have decent on it.

• 1:52:22Rick Rubin?

  Cool though.

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  Jammed an Avet Brothers song out, barked that out, that was super fun.

• 1:52:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I'd already, I'd done a lot of films where I learned, learned early in scuba dive. Did a lot of scuba diving. I'd ridden horses, but got to be a pretty good horseman on a couple of films.

• 1:52:41Speaker 01

  In this film called Paradise that are coming out, I'd drive the hell out of that bus, but I consider myself a pretty good driver anyway. So I don't know if that was a skill I learned, but you know.

• 1:52:49Rick Rubin?

  Uh, reading habits, do you like to read?

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  I don't read much.

• 1:52:52Rick Rubin?

  Okay.

• 1:52:52Speaker 01

  I write more than I read. I have trouble getting through a whole book.

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  I try, and my libraries filled, you would see books, you'd be like, wow, Kanye. And I'd be like, I know, I, I honestly, I have, I started every one.

• 1:53:08Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You think it's that you're impatient? What do you think it is?

• 1:53:12Speaker 01

  No, I don't think it's impatience. Here's.

• 1:53:15Rick Rubin?

  Doesn't hold your attention?

• 1:53:16Speaker 01

  I lose my attention.

• 1:53:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:18Speaker 01

  Or, or this.

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  Like for instance, Emerson's.

• 1:53:26Speaker 01

  Is it, it's not a sermon, but he's got an essay on self-alliance.

• 1:53:33Speaker 01

  Uh, it's seventeen pages.

• 1:53:36Speaker 01

  Took me nine months to read it. Because

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  each paragraph, I go, whoa.

• 1:53:45Rick Rubin?

  Whoa.

• 1:53:46Speaker 01

  Set that down, I gotta walk on that and try and apply that to life.

• 1:53:50Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  And see what I get back, kind of reverb I get. And, and before I could go on to the next. So I do, I, I, I love principled sort of reading that's, this is an approach on a philosophy on life, and I want, now I want to take it in, see if I can practically see what I get back from it. See what it does to me, see how I'm asleep and how am I, how are my relationships? That's my, and so it take, I'm a very slow reader that way, if it's that type. If it's fiction.

• 1:54:17Speaker 01

  It usually, I usually lose my interest. If it's nonfiction. That I can turn, I like taking nonfiction and turning that into fiction. Turning that into dreams. And like, well, let's levitate this, let's expand, let's riff on this. What if this story kept going? You know?

• 1:54:32Rick Rubin?

  Do you know your dreams? Do you remember your dreams?

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  Pretty much. And, you know, if I have recurring ones, like the ones I was telling you that go to Africa, those are. I take those. As a, as, as a sign.

• 1:54:45Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:49Speaker 01

  And I've got some, yeah, I've got some recurring. Nightmares, and I got some recurring good ones. And I, I write some down and then my wife and I'll talk about them too. Because sometimes. We've found that we're having, we're on a similar, having, we call it similar pillows.

• 1:55:05Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:05Speaker 01

  Different dream, but of the same.

• 1:55:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  Of the same milk.

• 1:55:08Rick Rubin?

  That's interesting.

• 1:55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:10Rick Rubin?

  What do you believe now that you didn't believe when you were younger?

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  Oh gosh, that's a great question. I believe now that I didn't believe when I was younger.

• 1:55:20Rick Rubin?

  We can do the opposite also.

• 1:55:21Speaker 01

  If that's what I'm thinking, I'm gonna flip it.

• 1:55:25Speaker 01

  Because.

• 1:55:28Speaker 01

  I think, you know, part of what is, is.

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

  Challenging about growing up.

• 1:55:37Speaker 01

  A lot of times we learn worse, we don't learn better. Knowledge, I love knowledge. And I love it. What, if, if, if, if we don't have something to teach younger people, then what the hell is evolution for? What have we been doing? At the same time.

• 1:55:54Speaker 01

  Life. Ask you to start just compromising. Ask you to start going, well. Call it a shade of gray. It's not a contradiction, it's not black and white, it's paradox and all this, there's wisdom and all that. At the same time.

• 1:56:12Speaker 01

  I'm not ready, I don't think any of us should be, and I don't want to be ready to go.

• 1:56:20Speaker 01

  I'm still working to hold off as long as I can to going, well, that's just how it is. And that revolutionary spirit of youth, of belief, out of ignorance.

• 1:56:32Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Is beautiful.

• 1:56:33Rick Rubin?

  Absolutely.

• 1:56:36Speaker 01

  As soon as I gain knowledge and I understand practically, I'm like, where's belief come from? Well, you want belief, you want faith, don't look at the facts.

• 1:56:45Speaker 01

  You ain't gonna find them there. The facts tell you.

• 1:56:50Speaker 01

  It's losing game, bro.

• 1:56:51Rick Rubin?

  The facts tell you what you can't do.

• 1:56:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  And as a guy who likes to go to the facts first and then make fiction out of that, dreams out of the facts. I, I, I, that's a constant challenge with me to go. No, go to the, don't lose the rhyme for the reason.

• 1:57:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  And I try to find rhyme in the reason, but don't be blind or turn tone deaf to the rhythms and the rhymes that have no reason.

• 1:57:16Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  And you're not supposed to know, it's not supposed to add up, it's not math. It's not science, bro.

• 1:57:21Rick Rubin?

  It's something else.

• 1:57:22Speaker 01

  It's something else and just. So that belief as a child is something I'm, I'm still, I don't want to, I believe in man, I believe in mankind. I believe in people. I believe we can improve it just even a little bit. And I don't think it's that, that hard. I believe in myself. I don't want to

• 1:57:44Speaker 01

  for convenience

• 1:57:49Speaker 01

  say, yeah, that's okay, that's how it is. At the same time, I think I ought to be able to forgive more than I do. And there's some, some things where I need to go, dude, that's how it is. Just let it, let it ride. You can still take your value into that and still believe, but you, you've grown, you've changed the world, this change, that's how, that's how it is. Don't fight that. I'm trying to, it's hard, it's hard picking the right fights.

• 1:58:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:12Speaker 01

  And I'm trying to, and, and the fair fights in life are hard enough to win.

• 1:58:16Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  I'm trying to raise three kids.

• 1:58:19Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:19Speaker 01

  That's a beautiful fight to be in and it's a fair fight. And a justified one that you can go, if you just do that. Man.

• 1:58:29Speaker 01

  Not ready to concede and go, well.

• 1:58:32Speaker 01

  I'm trying to pick the right battles.

• 1:58:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:34Speaker 01

  Trying to pick the right battles, because we've got 24 hours in a day.

• 1:58:37Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:37Speaker 01

  There's not enough time to take on every single battle.

• 1:58:39Rick Rubin?

  And you think when you were younger, you would have taken on every battle?

• 1:58:42Speaker 01

  Bam, you just take them. They're one-way tickets.

• 1:58:44Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:45Speaker 01

  You know, and as you get older, you don't. You've got family, we've got responsibilities, you can't take one-way tickets. You know, I can't say, hey, you want to go see if we can go back to Ali's hometown tomorrow morning? Get a backpack and go.

• 1:58:57Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:58Speaker 01

  Well, hang on, I got to check.

• 1:59:00Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:00Speaker 01

  This decision has some context and consequences.

• 1:59:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  I can't just pick up and go on a one-way.

• 1:59:05Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:05Speaker 01

  I got to go check and see if it's the right time, I got responsibilities. So, those things that come with maturity, those boundaries, I think lend us obviously more wisdom and freedom and enlightenment, but

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  if it's, I watch when it starts to just scrape at belief and faith, and blind faith and belief, and I'm a trust-first guy.

• 1:59:26Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:26Speaker 01

  And I don't want to, I don't want to not become a trust-first guy. I think cynicism is one of the biggest diseases we have, and it kills us early. Skepticism, I'm for. Cynicism, like, no, you copped out, you gave up. Uh-uh.