Zach Braff Is Processing Pain Through Art‎

We all face difficult experiences at some point in our lives: loss, grief, disappointment—feelings that can be overwhelming, confusing, and even paralyzing to confront. But what if we could transform our pain into something beautiful? What if we could use our creativity to process our emotions and, in turn, transmute them into something that speaks to others, serves as a communal salve, and illustrates that hope, help, and healing are possible? Today we explore the art of understanding, accepting, and processing emotion through the creative process with the incredibly talented actor, writer, director, and new friend, Zach Braff. Many of you may know Zach from the hit TV show 'Scrubs,' or his seminal directorial debut ‘Garden State’—a much-celebrated independent film he wrote, directed, and starred in alongside Natalie Portman. But today, we dive into the creative process behind Zach’s newest directorial effort, 'A Good Person,' a story about a young woman played by the eminently talented Florence Pugh whose world crumbles in the wake of surviving an unimaginable tragedy. In addition to discussing Zach’s background and his relationship with creativity, today we talk about what happens when you create with authenticity, find presence in pain, and make your own meaning. We also discuss Zach's own personal journey in bringing this story to life and the impact he hopes it will have on audiences. 'A Good Person' opens nationwide this Friday, March 24th— and how long it remains in the theatres is up to you. Let’s help him make this one a hit. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Thesis: takethesis.com/RICHROLL Squarespace: Squarespace.com/RichRoll JOOVV: Joovv.com/RICHROLL Momentous: LiveMomentous.com/richroll Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:19Zach Braff?

  What if I was completely authentic with my own pain? I stopped with all the bullshit and stopped with trying to be anything else other than, let me write something that is very authentically myself. I sat down to write this film about grief and about loss, but also about how one stands back up. As a writer, this is what's gurgling inside of you. And when you sit down and stare at the blank cursor to see what's gonna come out, this is what came out.

• 1:47Rich Roll?

  We all face difficult experiences at some point in our lives. Loss, grief, disappointment. But what if we could transform our pain into something beautiful? What if we could use our creativity to process our emotions and in turn, transmute them into something that speaks to others, serves as a communal salve, helps us better understand our own pain, and in turn illustrates that hope, help, and healing is possible?

• 2:17Rich Roll?

  Well, today, we explore the art of understanding, accepting, and processing emotion with the incredibly talented actor, writer, director, and new friend, Zach Braff. Many of you may know Zach from the hit TV show Scrubs, or perhaps from his seminal directorial debut, Garden State, which was a much-celebrated independent film that Zach wrote, directed, and starred in alongside Natalie Portman. But today, we dive into the creative process behind Zach's newest directorial effort, A Good Person, which is this really beautiful story about a young woman, played by the incredibly talented Florence Pugh, whose world crumbles in the wake of surviving just an unimaginable tragedy.

• 3:00Rich Roll?

  It's a story about grief, it's about addiction, forgiveness, trust, it's about friendship, and, most importantly, the messy path to sobriety, to becoming whole, which are all themes very close to my heart, of course, that I relate to deeply through my own lived experience, and which I think Zach renders with a very keen appreciation for the complexity and the nuance of this emotional landscape, as well as this just incredible degree of accuracy that's rarely portrayed in cinema. I've got a couple more things I would very much like to mention before we dig into this one, but first...

• 3:45Rich Roll?

  Today, we explore the themes of addiction, compassion, forgiveness, and self-discovery that the film grapples with. In addition to discussing Zach's background and his personal relationship with creativity, his creative process, we talk about what happens when you create with authenticity, when you're able to find presence in pain, and what it means to take all of that and create meaning for yourself. We also discuss Zach's own personal journey in bringing this particular story to life, and the impact that he hopes it will have on audiences. Zach is an artist in the truest sense of the word. I really love getting to know him through this conversation, and it's just a privilege to share his wisdom and experience with you today.

• 4:29Rich Roll?

  Final note, if you care about independent cinema like I do, if you enjoy mature, fair, great writing, great acting, and look, if you just want to be entertained because this movie is that, as well as quite funny at times, then please make a point of going to the theater this weekend and checking it out. A Good Person opens nationwide March 24th. How long it remains in the theaters is kind of up to you. So if you enjoy this conversation, and I think you will, let's help Zach out a little bit and make this one a hit. And with that, here we go. This is me and Zach Braff.

• 5:07Zach Braff?

  Do you run every single day?

• 5:09Rich Roll?

  No, I've got like lower back issues right now. So I'm actually benched from running at the moment, doing all these weird exercises to try to alleviate my back pain, but I might be looking at surgery. So I'm a little hampered.

• 5:24Zach Braff?

  Brett Goldstein, you know, that actor from Ted Lasso who plays Roy Kent?

• 5:29Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 5:29Zach Braff?

  Do you watch that show?

• 5:30Rich Roll?

  A little bit. I'm like one of the few people that hasn't like gone deep on Ted Lasso.

• 5:36Zach Braff?

  I directed an episode. I'm invested because I didn't.

• 5:38Rich Roll?

  I know, I know.

• 5:39Zach Braff?

  But anyway.

• 5:39Rich Roll?

  The famous biscuit episode.

• 5:41Zach Braff?

  I have lower back issues too. And I saw him at a party and he goes, I want you to read this book. I'm someone who's had back surgery and I'm going to send you a book. I want you to get this book. He goes, it's all in your mind.

• 5:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The Sarno book. Yeah, the Sarno book. I've got a great story about it, but finish your thought.

• 5:56Zach Braff?

  But anyway, I'm like, I'm literally at this get together with a fucking back brace on. And he hugs me and he feels it and he goes, I've had surgery. I've gone down the wormhole and you're going to roll your eyes at me, but you should read this book. And so I haven't read the book yet, but I ordered the book.

• 6:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So it's by this guy, I believe it's Paul Sarno. And I can't remember the title, but it's something like Healing Back Pain. And the thesis of this book is essentially that not all back pain, but certain. Types of back pain are really the result of unhealed emotional trauma. And if you go into that and heal that, you will release whatever it is that's causing you that pain.

• 6:34Zach Braff?

  I believe the hypothesis.

• 6:36Rich Roll?

  It is a good hypothesis. I think there's truth in that. And that book has been recommended to me so many times by so many people over the years. And I consistently resisted it. I was like, you don't understand, you know, you don't understand, this is real. And I've got MRIs and like the whole thing. I've tried all these alternative modalities. And then I was at a birthday party, maybe six months ago, talking to a PT person and a breathwork person. And then up walks Tobey Maguire. And he's like, are you talking about back pain? And then he tells his story of back pain and he refers this book, right? And I was like, okay, I've been referred this book a million times. But I've never been referred this book by like an A-list.

• 7:22Zach Braff?

  Literally Spider-Man.

• 7:23Rich Roll?

  Is this the voice of God? And I was like, all right, I'm gonna get this book. And I downloaded it on Audible and I went on a long bike ride and I listened to the whole thing. And I was like, okay, it's in my mind. And then the next day I went out and went running and kind of pushed myself a little bit more than I should have. And I thought, well, I'm not hurting myself because it's all in my mind, right? And then my back seized up and I was like in bed for two days.

• 7:47Zach Braff?

  Oh, no.

• 7:48Rich Roll?

  So.

• 7:49Zach Braff?

  Well, that book might not be intended for like mega marathoners like you. But for people like me who can point to, yeah, I have had a lot of emotional trauma. And I also have a horrible back and neck. Maybe it's something to look at. I don't know that the book's gonna tell me how to fix it. But I certainly have bouts of bad backs after a periods of depression or periods of trauma.

• 8:12Rich Roll?

  Well, that's information, right? That's good information.

• 8:14Zach Braff?

  Yeah, it's good data, I guess.

• 8:16Rich Roll?

  You should read the book.

• 8:17Zach Braff?

  I'm gonna.

• 8:17Rich Roll?

  It is a good book.

• 8:18Zach Braff?

  It's on my kitchen counter.

• 8:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So now I'm recommending it to you. Like I had a awkward experiment with it. Anyway, Sunday Emergency Pod, Sunday afternoon, we're here. Thank you for coming and doing this.

• 8:31Zach Braff?

  Thank you.

• 8:32Rich Roll?

  It's an auspicious day. It is unusual for us to do a podcast on the weekend. On top of that, it's daylight savings today. It's also Oscar Sunday. I take it you're not going to the Oscars?

• 8:43Zach Braff?

  I'm not going to the Oscars. I'm low key watching it with friends on a couch.

• 8:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, have you been in the past?

• 8:48Zach Braff?

  I've never been to the Oscars. I've been to after parties and stuff like that, but I've never had a film that was invited in any way. I've been to the Globes and the Emmys, but never, never the big dance.

• 8:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but like you would be, like, I would imagine you would be invited, right? Like, are you somebody who's like, I'm not going unless I have a film there?

• 9:06Zach Braff?

  I've never been invited.

• 9:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 9:08Zach Braff?

  I've never, I've never had a film that was included. So you're really not invited unless you're either have a film that's there or you're someone's date.

• 9:16Rich Roll?

  I got it, right? Well, we're here instead.

• 9:19Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 9:20Rich Roll?

  The consolation prize, right? But we're here because you do have this wonderful new movie coming out, A Good Person. Thank you for letting me take a peek at it the other day. And I'm excited for you, man. This is, uh, this feels like a return to something that is so authentically you. Like the grown up Garden State Zach Braff, like exploring complicated emotions in a way that is a story version of how you're kind of processing, you know, things that you went through in your own life.

• 9:57Zach Braff?

  Yeah, that's very true. I think I went back to what if I was completely authentic with my own pain? And that's something that Garden State very much was. And I had no idea that it would have the response it had, but I was 25 years old when I wrote it. And I was in a very depressed state, even though a lot of wonderful things were going on in my life. I just was quite lost and that's kind of what bubbled up and what came out of me. And now during the pandemic, circumstances were such that this is what came out of me. And so I think you're right. In both instances, I really, I stopped with all the bullshit and stopped with trying to be anything else other than for better or for worse, let me write something that is very authentically myself.

• 10:42Rich Roll?

  The direct impetus was a series of losses that you experienced. Most specifically, like you had your best friend who was like living in your guest house, right? During COVID?

• 10:53Zach Braff?

  Well, the first impetus for writing about tragedy and trauma was I lost my, my sister had an aneurysm in 2016 and she actually survived, although in not a fully conscious state, in some tiny percentage of herself was alive for two more years. And my mom and brother in particular were by her bedside almost every day because they lived up north and I would go visit her and she was not, only a fraction of herself was there. Then she eventually passed and soon after my father, who was 84, but I can't help but think that it kind of expedited his demise. He died of cancer after.

• 11:36Zach Braff?

  I went into the COVID, still grieving all of these things. And then my best friend was living in my guest house. He and his wife and their newborn baby were searching LA for a home. They found a home. They went back to New York to collect their things and literally like the first day of lockdown, they came back from New York and he had contracted COVID. And this was at the very beginning.

• 12:02Rich Roll?

  Right, early, early.

• 12:03Zach Braff?

  Nobody knew what the hell, you know, it was the mayhem of the beginning of, I think, March of 2020.

• 12:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:09Zach Braff?

  He's 41 years old, very healthy, a Broadway star, trying to get his life going as a TV and film actor. And he was very sick and they put him on a ventilator and he never came off of it. So not only was I on the front lines of losing someone who was close to me to COVID, but his wife and baby were living in the guest house.

• 12:32Zach Braff?

  You know, trying to digest this horrible thing. And it was so traumatic because we, we didn't know if she had COVID or we didn't know. And it was so.

• 12:41Rich Roll?

  I mean, that was back when we're all like sort of spraying our groceries in the front lawn and all that kind of craziness. Exactly. Yeah, there was a lot of fear.

• 12:49Zach Braff?

  She'd be sobbing in the, in the pile on the ground and we were like, can we hug her? Is it safe to hug her? She might have been exposed to it. So it was really, really horrific. And it was in that headspace during the lockdown that I sat down to write this film about grief and about loss, but also about how one stands back up after such things.

• 13:13Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Well, for me, like, I'm not like a film critic or somebody who has tons of filmmakers, you know, on the podcast. So I don't know where the line is. Like, I don't want to spoil anything for anybody. So maybe we root it just in the themes here.

• 13:26Zach Braff?

  Well, there's certain things that are in the trailer that we can, we can talk about.

• 13:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, what, what I found interesting about it is, yes, you explore these themes of grief and loss and loneliness and despair and this kind of very messy road to finding your way forward to recovery. But you do it through modalities that are very different from your lived experience, right? So there's a choice that you made, like you could have had a more direct kind of narrative that related more specifically to the things that you experienced. But you made this decision to do it through, you know, somebody who's involved in a car accident. And there are people that die and there's, you know, drugs involved and et cetera,

• 14:12Rich Roll?

  which is not related to your direct experience, although the emotional experience of that character's journey, I assume, you know, kind of matches up with your own.

• 14:24Zach Braff?

  I think so. Yeah. I think it was the way I was processing all of these things. But I didn't want to write specifically the story of my life. I didn't want to write about COVID. I didn't want to write about my sister's aneurysm.

• 14:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:36Zach Braff?

  But all of that was, you know, it's like, as a writer, I'm sure you know, and other writers can relate. You have all of this gurgling inside of you. And when you sit down and stare at the blank cursor to see what's going to come out, or a songwriter, I imagine would be the same, this is what came out. This story is, it was sort of my. Interpretation of all these feelings I had, including recovery and things I'm wrestling with my own relationship to alcohol and all of that stuff became a part of it. But it's by no means directly my story.

• 15:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's interesting like that, you know, as somebody who's been in recovery for a long time, like my kind of radar for false notes in movies and television, that kind of grapple with addiction stories is pretty finely tuned, right? And even we were talking and you're like, it'll be interesting to get my feedback on that because usually people who tell a story in that subculture are people that have experience participating in that, right? Which is not you, which, you know, led me to think, well, maybe, you know, he's going to get it wrong because so often it is like, you know, off note. But in watching the film, and this is the honest truth, like I was surprised that you

• 15:53Rich Roll?

  were able to create such fidelity because that is typically, you know, something that only somebody who has direct experience with that world would be able to accomplish. And I know you had, you know, experts or consultants or whatever helping you with that, but that's a very hard thing to do. And I think it's, for me, the kind of cinema verite of it all, or the kind of honesty comes through in the messiness of it. Like usually the story arc is somebody has a hard time, they're going through something, they hit bottom, they end up in the rooms of recovery and then the movie ends or like that's the end of the story. Whereas in this narrative, it's very up and down, right? That's not the end of the story.

• 16:35Rich Roll?

  And I think that's much more true to reality, like how difficult and nonlinear the whole thing is.

• 16:41Zach Braff?

  Well, thank you. I have to say, that means so much to me coming from you and I was very nervous to show you. I did, of course, have consultants. I did not want to. Do anything that someone in the community would go, that's not real. I asked a lot of questions. I have friends in AA. I had someone who's sort of a recovery expert who was on set anytime we dealt with that stuff. But when I was showing you the film, I was like so nervous that not just, of course, you know, it isn't hard to get the details of what an AA meeting is like, or perhaps. But I really just wanted to honor that community. And in this film, it saves the character played by Florence Pugh's life and the character played by Morgan Freeman's life. So I wanted to honor the community. So when you had that reaction, I was relieved and happy.

• 17:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's not an easy thing to accomplish. Of course, you have this incredible ace in the hand with Florence because she's just a genius. I mean, her, what she is able to do is so beyond like the abilities of mere mortals. Like it really is a gift. Like it's incredible.

• 17:47Zach Braff?

  She's not of this world. I really believe that.

• 17:49Rich Roll?

  How does she do that?

• 17:50Zach Braff?

  And it's completely.

• 17:51Rich Roll?

  With her face or just with the most subtle thing, the honesty and the pathos is unbelievable with her.

• 17:58Zach Braff?

  I'll make it one more step miraculous for you. She has never attended a single class in her entire life. She's never spoken to a acting coach. It is 1,000% God given natural talent. And I'm not biased in saying she's one of the finest actors in the world. Everyone's lining up from Chris Nolan to Denis Villeneuve to Ari Aster to you name it. They're all in a line to try and work with her. And I wrote this for, you know, we were, it's no secret, obviously, we were partners and she was with me through this pandemic. We were in lockdown together. She was, she's an amazing chef and she was making Amanda pizzas in our little mini pizza oven and bringing them down to her. We were on the front lines of this experience together. And we went through lockdown and, and the death of our friend together.

• 18:43Zach Braff?

  And so I wrote this with her in mind. Because I wanted to write something for her because she's brilliant.

• 18:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, she knocks it out of the park, not surprisingly. And I really do think that she is the greatest of her generation.

• 18:57Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Rich Roll?

  You know, she is the heir apparent of Meryl Streep in so many ways. Like, nobody can do what she can do. And when you watch her, you're like, how is she doing this?

• 19:06Zach Braff?

  And it's so exciting for the, it's so exciting. I gotta say, it's so exciting for the acting community because we, there's plenty of people that are very fine actors.

• 19:15Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:16Zach Braff?

  I think I'm a decent actor. I can, I think I do a good job. But we actors, whether it's me or, or Meryl Streep, are taking this woman aside and being like, holy shit, you are fucking incredible.

• 19:30Rich Roll?

  So what is that? Like, what is her process?

• 19:33Zach Braff?

  It's God given, man. There's, there's nothing.

• 19:35Rich Roll?

  She just channels it and it happens.

• 19:37Zach Braff?

  I mean, I'm not saying she doesn't do work. She, of course, she works on the character. She spoke with, um, in this film, her character has an opioid addiction and she spoke and, and met with a woman who recovered from a bad opioid addiction and talked about what withdrawal was like, what, you know, she sort of interviewed her and talked about, please tell me anything and everything. She watched videos. She does her research, don't get me wrong, but I don't know what to say other than it's just a natural ability that's out of this world.

• 20:03Rich Roll?

  And you as the director, like, what is your interface with her in terms of like, how you're, you know, directing her, how you're nudging her to get the performance out of her that you want or need? Or do you just get out of the way?

• 20:15Zach Braff?

  I think with people like her and Morgan, you just don't get in the way. The way I think of it is, you know, we shoot everything out of order, as you know. And so, an actor, a good actor, a great actor, is so focused in the moment in the scene, just like you and I are talking here right now. We are, our job is to ignore that there's cameras, ignore that there's lights, look at each other and be present. And the best instruction you can ever give a young actor is to genuinely listen. Because if I'm genuinely listening to you, Rich, I am so in the moment and present. My brain is listening to you. It's like a meditation. I'm not thinking of the moving camera. I'm not thinking of the guy whispering in his walkie talkie. I'm with you. And so, there in that moment, my job as the director is to look at the macro of the whole film.

• 20:59Zach Braff?

  I need to go, I wonder if Morgan is a little bit angry in the sequence of their evolution of their relationship. And it's always a question with a genius like that. You're like, do you think we should try one where you're not as angry here? Because we're gonna go A, B, C, D, E, F, G. And what do you think? And normally, someone like them will be like, that's smart. Let's try one like that. Other times, they'll be like, no, no, I'm really feeling this because of these reasons. And you go, great, great, keep going. So I'm mostly staying out of the way. But I'm shaping it because like the conductor of an orchestra, I have to see the whole piece. You're not going, think of it like Florence Pugh is like the best first violinist in the world. And I'm the conductor. I can't play violin like that.

• 21:43Zach Braff?

  But I do know that at certain moments, she needs to be a little quieter so I can hear the oboe. Do you know what I mean?

• 21:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:49Zach Braff?

  And that's what my job is as a filmmaker, working with actors of that level.

• 21:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, having that global awareness of where this puzzle piece fits in the broader picture of the movie and making sure that it's simpatico in the flow.

• 22:03Zach Braff?

  And keeping the tone cohesive. That's really important. Because a movie like this, which I should say off the bat, because we've only talked about the heavy stuff, also has a lot of humor in it. So the director is also really in control of the tone. What movie are we all making? We have to make sure we're making the same movie. So there's other moments where you can go, that's a bit too broad, humorous moment for this movie. Or sometimes you try them. And then go, in the edit, I gotta see, that might, that might not fit in this film. And when I start to really strip away all the pieces of clay and find out what this movie is, that might be too broad. This might be too maudlin. You know, so you're, you're kind of, you're the one in charge of the tone of the thing.

• 22:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I feel like there is a bit of a tone arc in this movie, because it kind of opens with Morgan Freeman's voiceover. And that he's, you know, the voice of America. It's like, that soothing voice, and there's train sets, and you're, you're thinking, oh, there's something, you know, perhaps very homey, or potentially, you know, on the negative side, maybe even too sappy. And then the movie kind of develops into this darker terrain that it's exploring. But then Florence Pugh's mom is Molly Shannon, who can go super broad, right? Like, that could get too nutty. Like, if you're not making sure that that's properly calibrated for the story they're trying to tell.

• 23:22Zach Braff?

  That's the perfect articulation of what my job is as a filmmaker, is to make sure... We're all making the same movie.

• 23:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:29Zach Braff?

  Like, somebody else is in another movie.

• 23:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Zach Braff?

  Well, that happens all the time.

• 23:32Rich Roll?

  It throws off the whole thing, yeah.

• 23:33Zach Braff?

  You'll see that. The audience won't even know how to articulate it necessarily like that. But they'll go, why are these scenes off? It's because that character's in a different film. There's things I've loved. But every time there's a scene with X character, I go, oh, this person's in a different piece.

• 23:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 23:50Zach Braff?

  It alienates me every single time.

• 23:51Rich Roll?

  And that's the job of the director, to make sure to avoid that. Or to make sure everyone's on the same page.

• 23:57Zach Braff?

  I think so. And by the way, people might love it. It might just be my own personal squirm that I go, oh, my goodness, this would be so much better if that character was in the same tone as the rest of this.

• 24:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. There's something about this movie also that feels a little bit kind of out of time, given the current kind of state of Hollywood. Like, this is a very traditional indie movie in the Sundance tradition. You made it with Killer Films, right? Like, the, you know, premier production company for this type of movie. And in the era in which you came up, in the Garden State times, it was all about Sundance. Like, that was the zeitgeist of the culture. And like, launching an independent film into mainstream awareness. And, you know, that was something that, you know, the culture kind of invested in, right? There's a lot of energy around that.

• 24:52Rich Roll?

  Now, Hollywood is a very different place, right?

• 24:55Zach Braff?

  Completely different. And it changes every year. It's different from last year.

• 24:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's like, I mean, my wife and Giant, we went to go to the movies the other day. And we're like, what can we see? And we're like, these are the options? Like, 80 for Brady? Like, what are we gonna, you know, like?

• 25:10Zach Braff?

  Well, I made a movie.

• 25:10Rich Roll?

  I want to go to the movies. I want to be excited to go to the movies. There was nothing exciting, right?

• 25:15Zach Braff?

  Well, I made a movie for you, Rich.

• 25:16Rich Roll?

  Yes, I know. And I'm getting to my point, which is that it has become rarer and rarer that there is, you know, mature, adult fare that deals with themes that, you know, appeal to someone like myself, that find their way into the movie theaters. It's either Marvel, DC, giant event picks, or the occasional, you know, outlier, like Everything Everywhere All at Once.

• 25:41Zach Braff?

  Yeah. But that's still, but that's still visual spectacle. So I would say it falls into visual spectacle and horror.

• 25:49Rich Roll?

  Horror is big still.

• 25:51Zach Braff?

  Yeah, horror is big still.

• 25:52Rich Roll?

  Predictable to, yeah.

• 25:53Zach Braff?

  Because.

• 25:53Rich Roll?

  But a movie like yours, these movies don't end up in the movie theater. Like, it's amazing that you figured out a way to get this movie into movie theaters.

• 26:00Zach Braff?

  That's why I'm praying that people go.

• 26:02Rich Roll?

  I mean, how did that happen?

• 26:03Zach Braff?

  That's a great question. How did it happen? It happened because MGM so believed in the film that they said they were going to give it a theatrical release. Now, mind you, this film was, we shot in the fall of 2021. It was ready to come out end of 2022, but Florence had two other high-profile films and it was a bit crowded of a marketplace. So MGM held it until the spring, March 24th. So in the meantime, I was, the company was purchased by Amazon.

• 26:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:33Zach Braff?

  And so in my head, I'm terrified, I'm going.

• 26:35Rich Roll?

  They're gonna just put it right.

• 26:36Zach Braff?

  Did I lose my?

• 26:36Rich Roll?

  It's gonna go right to Prime.

• 26:37Zach Braff?

  You know, if I say to other filmmakers, I have a theatrical release, they're like, what? To your point, it's very rare that these films even get a theatrical release anymore. So I was nervous that Amazon would just put it on streaming, but they believe in it too. So I think the response has been so positive that they're gonna give it a run. It'll be on 500 screens on the first weekend, which for an indie is substantial.

• 27:01Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. And then it's all about how it performs opening weekend. And that will dictate whether it lives to fight another weekend.

• 27:09Zach Braff?

  Every filmmaker's future.

• 27:11Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 27:11Zach Braff?

  You work your butt off for so many years and blood, sweat and tears. And it all really comes down to if people show up the first weekend.

• 27:20Rich Roll?

  Sure, and those numbers come in like Friday night, right? Like, there's an algorithm that predicts based upon the numbers on Friday night, how it's gonna do, right?

• 27:29Zach Braff?

  And sometimes they'll surpass those numbers, like Creed really surpassed the algorithm. But yeah, based on all the decades and decades of data they have, although that should mostly be thrown out the window post-COVID because all bets are off now post-COVID, no one knows what's happening. But traditionally, there's an algorithm that says, based on what's happening, you know, noon on Friday, we can predict what the weekend will be. But sometimes they're off, you know, they were way off on Creed. Creed did like $20 million more than they thought.

• 27:57Rich Roll?

  And so how do you balance? Your relationship to, you know, the creative act of making something and shipping it, to use Seth Godin's term, like you're putting this thing out, out into the world, which you should be very proud of, like it's beautifully rendered and it's, you know, exquisitely performed and all of that, like that exists, you know, as this kind of music box thing. And then there's the commerce piece and the public response to it and all the kind of, you know, running around promoting it kind of stuff that you have to do, the external, you know, noise around it. Like, how do you maintain your sanity in the wake of all of that?

• 28:38Zach Braff?

  I don't know. I don't know, man. You're right, though, and I've heard you speak about this with other people, and I really appreciated your perspective on it. Maybe your episode with Seth, one of your episodes with Seth Godin that I, maybe I'm thinking of, but that difference between being so proud of something and yes, this is like your book, this is 100% authentically me. Now it's up to the universe to decide its fate, whether people go to the theaters, whether people respond to it or not. But how do you still hold on to good or bad, that I'm proud of this thing that I put all of my, myself into? That is very tricky and hard. I don't really know the answer.

• 29:15Rich Roll?

  Do you get caught up in looking at the reviews and peeking at stuff that maybe you feel like, meh, maybe I shouldn't look at that?

• 29:21Zach Braff?

  Well, I got off Twitter, thanks to you, which was, I mean, I still will, no, it was your conversation with Seth, actually. You have no idea how much you really, and I mean this in all sincerity, how much, what a positive impact this podcast has had on me, and I really want to thank you. And I'll probably bring it up a few times as we chat. But one was Seth Godin saying, "I have no interest in reading people day trading their emotions." And that really, really landed hard with me, because I had a very unhealthy relationship with constantly reading Twitter. And I don't mean just stuff that was about me. I just mean the negativity that is the town of Twitter.

• 30:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Zach Braff?

  And I was obsessed with being in that town. And I'm someone who battles depression and anxiety and like, I shouldn't be in that town. I'm too sensitive for that town. Like, if it was a place, I wouldn't go there. I'll, of course, say like, hey, here's my trailer, but I don't obsessively read Twitter anymore.

• 30:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Zach Braff?

  In terms of reviews, I don't go down the rabbit hole and read all reviews. As a producer on the movie and as a partner to MGM and these companies, I'll, of course, know the gist. I'll know the tone, the tenor of the response, but I won't obsessively go down and read everything. I don't, I don't know. Did you do that with your book? I don't, I don't.

• 30:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but that was a while ago. Like, now I have a very different relationship with all of that. At the beginning, I was very caught up in all of that. And now, I really work hard to create a buffer between myself and all of that noise. And I don't get caught up in the conversations and I unfollowed everybody on Twitter. So I still have a Twitter account. And like yourself, like, I'll post stuff that's interesting or my own stuff, but I don't go and, you know, scroll through like what people say about me or what everybody's saying about like the culture war subject of the moment or any of that's the stuff that really gets me jacked up.

• 31:09Zach Braff?

  People day trading their emotions.

• 31:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 31:10Zach Braff?

  Of course, reading something negative about myself on Twitter was not good for my extraordinarily sensitive brain, but I'm not even really speaking about that. I'm just talking about the tenor of the conversation. I just think was really, really, really bad for my psyche. And another thing I got from you, I really should be your publicist, was I forgot the name of the author, but The Chaos Machine.

• 31:30Rich Roll?

  Max Fisher.

• 31:30Zach Braff?

  That completely, I hope your, I hope your listeners and viewers get that book, because I want to resell that book to you, because I got it off your podcast. And that completely changed my relationship with social media.

• 31:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's an incredible book.

• 31:44Zach Braff?

  I really needed to hear those words. And I'm a little bit on Instagram, because I do enjoy pictures of things, but I'm not on Facebook, I'm not on Twitter, I'm not on YouTube obsessively. That book was transformational for me.

• 31:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's doing God's work with that book.

• 31:58Zach Braff?

  He really is. And I, and I wish more people knew about it. I found it on your podcast, but I was like, I'm just gonna be this guy's publicist and talk about it everywhere I go. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give everyone the book for the holidays.

• 32:08Rich Roll?

  I'm sure Max will be happy to hear that.

• 32:10Zach Braff?

  I don't even have kids, but as a parent?

• 32:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 32:12Zach Braff?

  I feel like every parent should read that book because it is insane what these corporations are doing to our minds, let alone kids' minds.

• 32:20Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Agreed. Hundred percent. And as a sensitive, creative person, part of your job is to protect that sensitivity. Like, you have to be kind of in touch with your, you know, emotional self and be able to kind of channel like what it is that you're feeling and experiencing. And all of that noise is either, like, the best case is it's a distraction. The worst case is it starts to, you know, tamper down that voice. Or you feel like you can't express yourself authentically and honestly. And that's antithetical to like, everything that you need to be about to do what it is that you do.

• 33:04Zach Braff?

  Exactly. Or even worse, Rich, you start trying to chase what you think people want you to be. You start trying to chase creating something that is not in any way authentically you, but is something you think will be better received by a studio, by an audience, by a movie theater chain, by a critic. That's not going to be good.

• 33:26Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 33:27Zach Braff?

  That's like a band trying to write a hit album for the charts. Odds are, I mean, obviously, there's certain pop stars that have it dialed. They're all written in Stockholm and they talk about an algorithm for creating a hit. But if you're trying to do something that is personal, like your book or like my films, trying to mold them into something that is not you, that is not honest, that is not authentic, is going to be a piece of shit because it's just a mess of something that it's like something AI created that doesn't make any sense.

• 34:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, because you're so afraid of the cackle of the Twitter community that you're watering down your voice to make it non-offensive or to make sure that you're adhering to a certain set of talking points. That, you know, will be approved of by, you know, the community, you know, the online

• 34:24Zach Braff?

  But that's impossible.

• 34:25Rich Roll?

  This is terrible. It's like the worst.

• 34:27Zach Braff?

  But it's also, it's not, it's not something you could ever succeed in doing is pleasing everybody. I think that's another golden thing I got from you was that I read Tribes and talking about like, find your people and speak to them. Find people that feel like I do. And obviously, you and I think alike because I love your podcast and you liked my movie. So find people of like minds who appreciate what you have to say and make something for them. Don't try and, I'm, I'm not trying to make a film for everyone. You couldn't, I couldn't, I don't, wouldn't know how.

• 34:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 34:59Zach Braff?

  We all have a band we absolutely love that some people say they hate.

• 35:03Rich Roll?

  Sure. Right.

• 35:04Zach Braff?

  It's like that. I mean, I'm so glad that Coldplay exists. Coldplay is one of my favorite bands. People abhor Coldplay. I, I go to the concerts in the stadiums and sob.

• 35:15Rich Roll?

  That's funny. My friend Toby Morse, who's been on the podcast before, is like this hardcore, like punk rocker, straight edge, you know, fully covered in tats and comes from that kind of like DIY, you know, community of, you know, it's not about the money or whatever. But he's like a super emo bleeding heart for like Coldplay. Like he just loves talking about Coldplay, which is antithetical to like this image of this like super touted up guy, you know, but it's like, there's something beautiful about that. And it's, it's something that we talked about earlier, which is that, and this goes to kind of the discourse on

• 35:52Rich Roll?

  social media, which is that prioritizes or favors like cynicism and irony and negativity and judgment and scoring points for taking people down a peg. When in truth, like earnestness and enthusiasm and like being a fan of something and not worrying about whether it's cool and just being confident in your own voice and expressing what you love, you know, the algorithm doesn't favor that. And that might not be approved of or considered cool in like our Current environment, but honestly, like, that's the stock in trade of, you know, the kind of person that I want to be around and the artists that I respect.

• 36:37Zach Braff?

  Well, that's why I'm drawn to your show, because for me, what you're putting out there on the internet is positivity and curiosity and the desire to learn and the desire to grow and the desire to be a better person. It's the antithesis of what I think is the tenor of so much of the internet, which is who can out snark whom? And I'm trying to turn that, some of that off in my life. And that Chaos Machine book was like the perfect articulation of why.

• 37:07Zach Braff?

  And find things that are, that will help me be a kinder, better, more interested person.

• 37:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:20Rich Roll?

  So I take it on some level that the process of like writing this movie provided some kind of therapeutic outlet for the confusing, you know, emotions that you were experiencing. The grief of, you know, your friend and your sister and your dad and all of that and COVID and, and all of that. But, you know, what is the connection between like your own mental health journey and the kind of creative outlet of like writing and directing stories that help you kind of make sense of these things?

• 37:55Zach Braff?

  I battled depression and anxiety my whole life and I had OCD pretty bad as a child. And I think I found writing and performing as a way of dealing with that, particularly humor. Making people laugh was a high for me. I didn't play sports at all. I had no connection to sports. I didn't know how to make friends. So I became, because I was a funny kid, I became a class clown and that's how I made friends. And then when I was around 13 years old, my, you know, I lived on the East Coast in Jersey and sleepaway camp was very popular. A lot of the kids would go to a traditional sleepaway camp that was about sports. And I didn't shine and I felt alienated and I was like, what's wrong with me? I love performing and my parents found this theater camp for me that was called Stage Door Manor.

• 38:40Zach Braff?

  And I went there and it was like, epiphanous. It was utopia. It was a, it was a place where everyone was a performer and everyone was like me. And I didn't know that there were other kids, that many kids out there like me. So just from an early age, the way I would manage anxiety and depression was creating art, whether it was as a performer or as a writer. I have a very early memory of being in fifth grade and the teacher said, who's gonna, we had to write an essay and who's gonna get up in front of the class and read their essay. And I did and I had written other kids in the class into the essay and made a very funny essay, but the protagonists were kids in the class. And I got up there and they were belly laughing as I read it. And I remember clocking the teacher in the back of the classroom, holding her stomach and laughing.

• 39:25Zach Braff?

  And I thought, this is probably the highest high I've had in my life so far.

• 39:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like lights on.

• 39:31Zach Braff?

  Is there any chance, this is a career? When's career day? So that's a long-winded way of saying, that's why I became a writer and a filmmaker, was a way of trying to find shared community with these feelings that I have. And to answer your other question about, is it cathartic? It's most cathartic when I finally watch it with an audience and I see their reaction. When they laugh at the right moment, when they swipe a tear at the right moment, when their pin drop silent at the right moment, that's when I feel like, oh, I'm not alone in these emotions.

• 40:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's an antidote to loneliness. These emotions that I'm feeling are collective.

• 40:08Zach Braff?

  Absolutely, absolutely. That's the best, that's better said than I could have said it. It's an antidote to loneliness.

• 40:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you went to, you went to like a public high school in New Jersey, but then you had this summer camp. Your dad was like a gregarious, charismatic guy, right? Who did theater and that was your kind of original impetus?

• 40:28Zach Braff?

  Actually, the original thing was, he was a trial attorney who loved theater. So he would, we were 45 minutes from the city in Jersey, from Manhattan. So we would go see, and he was a lawyer, so he could afford, was very lucky. He could afford to bring us to the theater and I loved musicals as a kid and he loved them. And then he got into community theater, you know, he would be the star of the local play because he was so charming and a very good actor. I mean, he could have been an actor. And that's kind of was, you know, another reason I got my, that's how I ended up in theater camp was because he was wetting my palate with the local theater and with Broadway. And, um, you know, that's how it all began.

• 41:01Rich Roll?

  And that was kind of a, the theater camp that you went to was like a legit.

• 41:05Zach Braff?

  Yeah, it's the real.

• 41:06Rich Roll?

  Primo theater camp, right?

• 41:07Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 41:08Rich Roll?

  Who came out, like some other names came out of that, right?

• 41:11Zach Braff?

  Well, Natalie Portman and Robert Downey Jr. And, uh.

• 41:13Rich Roll?

  Just a few, just a couple.

• 41:15Zach Braff?

  There's lots. Josh Charles, Manny Moore, there are some big, big names. And by the way, a ton that are working actors who aren't famous.

• 41:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Zach Braff?

  A ton of theater and people you see all the time, but you might not know their name. I mean, you know, if you were a young kid and you wanted to pursue this, this is where you went. This wasn't, this isn't just, as my father said, kind of with a little bit of a laugh. He said, I guess you don't need to bring a mitt.

• 41:42Rich Roll?

  Right? But these are your people. Like you realize early on immediately like, oh, this is my lane. This is my community. I relate to these people. Um, I can be, you know, I can like sort of stand out here and like be myself. And I don't have to wear the mask that I feel like I have to wear when I go to high school.

• 42:02Zach Braff?

  When it was time to leave. I really, I was, I really, I really can't express to you how much it felt like going to a utopia for six weeks and then being pulled out to go back to what I dreaded.

• 42:17Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 42:18Zach Braff?

  Um, so it was traumatic in a weird way because I, I had found what I thought was heaven on earth.

• 42:26Rich Roll?

  But there's something really amazing, rare and beautiful about discovering at an early age, like what it is that you want to do. Like that, that is something that, you know, is not, it's not a normal experience. Like most people, I feel like, you know, the pressure that's on, you know, the typical 18 year old, when they head off to college or whatever, they're supposed to, you know, know what they want to do with their life. Like most people don't. Like that rare occasion where you're like, oh, this is the thing that I'm going to be doing. You know, it's like, there's something amazing about that.

• 42:59Zach Braff?

  I feel very lucky about that. I know that people struggle for, you know, for years to find out what their calling is. I do feel very lucky that I knew it at such a young age.

• 43:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I think I'm starting to figure it out.

• 43:09Zach Braff?

  I think you've got a couple of things you're really good at, man.

• 43:12Rich Roll?

  I was at least, I don't know, mid 40s before I figured it out, but anyway. And I think people, you know, they know you from Scrubs, they know you from Garden State, they'll know you even more from this movie and you've done, you know, lots of things over the years, but you kind of like, you know, hit it hard early on, like your early years, like, I feel like that's kind of an underreported aspect of your career, like.

• 43:37Zach Braff?

  Yeah, I had beginner's luck.

• 43:38Rich Roll?

  Getting cast in like a Woody Allen movie when you were like 18 and then also The Public, like, you know, you being, you doing Shakespeare at The Public when you were, how old were you then?

• 43:48Zach Braff?

  So, my very first part, I got 14, was a pilot for CBS that didn't get picked up. And then I kind of.

• 43:56Rich Roll?

  That was the Bruce Paltrow.

• 43:57Zach Braff?

  Yeah, Bruce Paltrow, created Seen Elsewhere. And it was Gwyneth's father and it was her first part too. She was a stunning 17-year-old and I was sort of a nerdy 14-year-old and she played the beautiful cheerleader and I played the nerdy freshman. It was about a public school. Same year 902, Bivou, who's 90210 came out. It was Bruce Paltrow's sort of gritty answer to 90210.

• 44:20Rich Roll?

  Right, this is gonna be the dark side of 90210.

• 44:22Zach Braff?

  By the way, the show couldn't even get picked up today and this was, this was when I was 14 years old. It was really gritty. It was bold as hell. Maybe on streaming, I don't know. But it didn't go anywhere. It was too R-rated for CBS, certainly. And then like, you know, I auditioned, I auditioned for lots of things and then it wasn't until I was 18, I had gotten into Northwestern to go to film school and right before I was about to go, I got cast in Manhattan Murder Mystery, Woody Allen's film with Diane Keaton. My first scene in a movie is, I'm only in one scene in a movie, but my scene partners are Woody Allen, Diane Keaton and Angelica Huston.

• 44:57Rich Roll?

  It's insane.

• 44:58Zach Braff?

  And I'm 18 years old and I'm playing.

• 44:59Rich Roll?

  And you were kind of raised on Woody Allen.

• 45:02Zach Braff?

  Yeah, I mean, now, now it's, it's frowned upon to talk about Woody Allen, but I do have to say the truth, which is, without glorifying Woody Allen, the truth is that I was raised on Woody Allen. He was my father's favorite. You know, he was speaking to, to my parents. They loved it. He was their target demo. And so all of those films were very influential in my, in my life. And then there I was playing, you know, Annie Hall was their favorite movie and there I was playing Diane Keaton in Woody Allen's son. It was, it was a really surreal moment. And then I was sort of thought like, well, do I, you know, this is a big thing. Do I stay with this and not go off to Northwestern and study film?

• 45:43Zach Braff?

  But then I chose that. I said, I want to go, I want to really learn how to make movies. And so that's what I did.

• 45:48Rich Roll?

  That took a lot of courage, I think. I think most people probably would have thought, hey, I'm on my way. Like, why should I get off this train? I might not be able to get back on.

• 45:58Zach Braff?

  In New York at the time, and we're talking about 93, being an 18-year-old who had just landed the part of Woody Allen dying Keaton's son, that was a huge moment.

• 46:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 46:09Zach Braff?

  And I did not.

• 46:10Rich Roll?

  Because being cast in a Woody Allen movie at that time, you're sort of being anointed.

• 46:14Zach Braff?

  Yes. You're anointed. And then I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't ride that wave at all. I just disappeared.

• 46:21Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 46:22Zach Braff?

  And then I came back after Northwestern, and I had a wonderful Shakespeare teacher. I was in film school, but I talked my way into an acting class. Northwestern at the time separated the two schools. But I talked my way into an acting class, and I had a wonderful acting teacher. And one of the things he really introduced me to and explained to me and gave me the distinctions for was Shakespeare. And I understood it for the first time in my life through this incredible professor named David Downs. And the very first thing I got out of Northwestern was in a production of Macbeth starring Alec Baldwin, Angela Bassett, Liev Schreiber, Michael C. Hall,

• 47:09Zach Braff?

  some others, Jason Butler-Harner, and other incredible New York theater actors, directed by George C. Wolfe, who's one of the preeminent theater directors in New York, in a 300-seat house at the Public Theater. So that was my first job out of college.

• 47:26Rich Roll?

  It's bananas.

• 47:27Zach Braff?

  And it was crazy. And I had a front row seat to watch these incredible actors, particularly Liev Schreiber, who I will say, and I don't, you know, for those who know New York Theater, he's probably the-

• 47:39Rich Roll?

  He's the dude.

• 47:40Zach Braff?

  He's the finest New York, I believe he's probably the finest American Shakespearean actor than that there is. So I got right out of school, and I don't mean to diminish anybody else, but Liev is particularly gifted. I got to have a front row seat watching Liev Schreiber do Shakespeare. And that was like life changing, and that was like grad school.

• 47:58Rich Roll?

  Right. I would imagine also terrifying.

• 48:02Zach Braff?

  Absolutely.

• 48:03Rich Roll?

  Like, he's a pretty intimidating-

• 48:05Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 48:05Rich Roll?

  Presence, that guy.

• 48:06Zach Braff?

  He is. And I was playing two parts, young Seward in Fleeance, and Fleeance is Van Quo, Leo's character's son. So I was in awe of him, but also, but definitely certainly intimidated by him because he's a very strong presence.

• 48:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you go to Northwestern to study filmmaking, you come out and you're doing stage acting, and you have all these acting opportunities that are not necessarily filmmaking opportunities, but the world is kind of like opening up to you pretty quickly. And not for nothing, like Northwestern, like incredible program, I mean, who, so you must have been, like, that era was, like, was Seth Meyers there when you were there?

• 48:46Zach Braff?

  Yeah, Seth Meyers was there.

• 48:47Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Richie Keen, do you know Richie Keen?

• 48:49Zach Braff?

  Yeah, how do you know Richie Keen?

• 48:50Rich Roll?

  I know Richie Keen. Yeah, I love Richie Keen.

• 48:53Zach Braff?

  One of my great buddies.

• 48:54Rich Roll?

  I've, like, we could talk about that later, but yeah, I love Richie.

• 48:57Zach Braff?

  Lots of people, Catherine Han, who's an incredible actress and really gaining traction. There were so many really, really talented people. And again, people that are working and are brilliant, but not necessarily household names.

• 49:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So at some point, you find your way to Los Angeles, though. Like, how does that happen?

• 49:15Zach Braff?

  So it's funny, I was, I was in New York, I was, this is the height of the music video era, right? So, I mean, this is 1998, the Fujis made a video for like $7 million. It was like, it was like the day. This is the era. You know, this is like Spice Girls, Mariah Carey. This is like the apex of the music video time. People were spending a fortune. I was P A'ing on those because I didn't want to take features as a P A. because that would lock me up and not, let me be free to audition. So a P A. on a commercial was kind of the perfect, or a music video was the perfect job for me because I could- Do three, four days, make a little bit of money and then be free to go on auditions. So that was kind of my system. Then I finally got an indie called You Can Count on Me. That went to Sundance. That was like a big break.

• 49:58Zach Braff?

  And then I got another one called The Broken Hearts Club, which was Greg Berlani's very first film. And then that went to Sundance. I went to Sundance two years in a row. So I was kind of starting to get momentum.

• 50:09Rich Roll?

  With Timothy Olyphant, right?

• 50:11Zach Braff?

  Yeah, Timothy Olyphant, Billy Porter, Dean Cain, all sorts of wonderful actors. And then I was waiting, but I came out here, I had no money. I followed a girl out. I was dating a young woman and I sort of used that as the impetus. But the truth was, I knew, this was back in the day where if you were auditioning in New York, they were FedExing a VHS tape to LA. That's how you were trying to compete. Now, if you're the director of a movie, Rich, and I come in here to audition, we're going to shoot the shit a little bit. We're going to get to know each other. We're going to have a little bit of a bond and then I'm going to launch into my audition. And then you're going to be able to say, I like that. Can you try it? Bring it down a little bit and give me some notes and then we're going to go again. Now, that's how the actors in LA were auditioning.

• 50:55Zach Braff?

  Then you'd go home and you'd have a stack of 40 VHS tapes that had been sent from all over the country. You're going to barely watch them. You're going to fast forward them. So I knew that if I was going to seriously compete, I had to come out to LA. So I did. My parents sold me $5,000 to buy a car. I bought a Nissan 240SX manual. And I got a job at a French Vietnamese restaurant, which was called Le Colonial. It's no longer there, but it was in Beverly Hills at the corner of Beverly and Robertson.

• 51:28Rich Roll?

  That place had a moment.

• 51:29Zach Braff?

  Oh, did it?

• 51:30Rich Roll?

  That was the spot.

• 51:31Zach Braff?

  I was there.

• 51:31Rich Roll?

  So you were a waiter there?

• 51:33Zach Braff?

  I was a waiter there. It's now a lycra store, which is bizarre because I-

• 51:35Rich Roll?

  The lycra store, but 2000 to like 2002, like that around two-

• 51:42Zach Braff?

  It eventually closed down because it was meant to be a restaurant, but it became such a hotspot.

• 51:46Rich Roll?

  It was basically a nightclub.

• 51:48Zach Braff?

  The neighborhood said, this is not what we give a permit for.

• 51:51Rich Roll?

  And it was also, I don't know if you know this, well, you worked there, but it was kind of, it became like a sober hangout at night. There was one night, was it like Monday night was the night? And like, we would all go and hang out at Le Colonial.

• 52:08Zach Braff?

  Yeah, I knew that.

• 52:09Rich Roll?

  Like at 2000, I threw a party there.

• 52:10Zach Braff?

  We served a lot of coffee that year. Yeah.

• 52:14Rich Roll?

  Anyway, I remember that. Like, it was cool. Like, that was the scene. There was a scene happening there.

• 52:19Zach Braff?

  You ready? So I had to wear a tunic and the opening sequence of Garden State where my character is working at a French Vietnamese restaurant is all inspired by my experience working at Le Colle.

• 52:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think I knew that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true.

• 52:34Zach Braff?

  I tried to blow my mind.

• 52:35Rich Roll?

  Now that, yeah, no, it's, yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, that's wild, man. That's wild.

• 52:40Zach Braff?

  So, so things had stalled a bit and I, and I was a waiter and I was, I was happy to be making money as a waiter, but I was not having any traction. All the traction I had had in New York was gone and I was just, I couldn't get arrested here. And I started to get really insecure about it. Maybe I came out here too fast. Maybe I, I should go back to New York where I had momentum. I was doubting everything. And my agent said, you're panicking. Don't panic. Go through one more pilot season. This is back in the day when auditioning for pilots was actually the beginning of the year. It was like January to April was pilot season. And I did, and my first audition of that pilot season was for Scrubs.

• 53:23Rich Roll?

  That's amazing. Little did you know that that would go on for how many years? Nine years?

• 53:29Zach Braff?

  It went for nine years. Yeah, nine years.

• 53:30Rich Roll?

  I mean, huge show and, you know, in thinking about that, like in thinking about your career as like an independent writer-director and also as like a network television actor, you forge your career along two kind of traditional paths. Like one, you become an actor in like a big network sitcom and it's all about syndication, like after a certain number of episodes or whatever. Like it just becomes like, you know, a financial, you know, windfall, right? That allows you to, the opportunity to like do whatever you want. That's kind of like no longer. I guess maybe does syndication even still exist?

• 54:10Zach Braff?

  Not really. No, not in the traditional sense, no.

• 54:12Rich Roll?

  And then the idea of like being an independent filmmaker and going to Sundance and like making a splash and becoming the new hot thing. I guess like, I mean, Sundance is still there. It's not what it used to be. Everything's kind of shifted.

• 54:28Zach Braff?

  Sundance is not what it was in 2004.

• 54:31Rich Roll?

  Like, so you're there 94, 90, like when, you know, these early years.

• 54:35Zach Braff?

  As an actor, 99 and 2000, but then in its prime for Garden State in 2004, I believe.

• 54:43Zach Braff?

  And that was still the era of like Sundance.

• 54:45Rich Roll?

  That was like a, there was like a bidding war.

• 54:47Zach Braff?

  Yeah. And it was, I'm sorry to mention another controversial name, but at the time, your fantasy, what you read about in all the books was that your cell phone would ring and it would be Harvey Weinstein and he wanted your movie.

• 54:59Rich Roll?

  All about Miramax.

• 55:00Zach Braff?

  And it was, you know, I had been reading these books, like you know you're a success when your phone rings and it's Harvey Weinstein and they want your movie. And that's what happened to me. They released it internationally and Fox Searchlight released it domestically. But that was the very first screenplay I'd ever written. And when I got Scrubs, I thought, I was so thrilled, obviously, but then I, my second thought was, oh, this is going to help me get my movie made.

• 55:27Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. That's the instinct of a real filmmaker, though, right?

• 55:31Zach Braff?

  Yeah. It's funny. I look back now. I sent my DP from the movie who's now become an Oscar nominated cinematographer, Larry Schur, who shot The Joker and a Zillion other things, but he's a brilliant guy. He shot Garden State. And I found an old picture of us and I sent it to him and he goes, we were so young. And I said, we didn't know, we didn't know. Because I had such chutzpah. I didn't know so much that I was, that I just had so much drive. I was like, I'm going to get this made.

• 55:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 55:57Zach Braff?

  I didn't, I didn't know that.

• 55:58Rich Roll?

  What, were you 25, 26?

• 56:00Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 56:01Rich Roll?

  When Garden State happened?

• 56:02Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 56:03Rich Roll?

  So you're in this high-profile sitcom. You make, you write your first screenplay. You make this movie. You make it with Natalie Portman. It's a huge success. Everyone's talking about it. Like, that's vertigo inducing for, you know, a young man, right? Like, how did you process all of that success?

• 56:22Zach Braff?

  Um, I think it takes time, it takes looking back on it to see, wow, what a crazy time. It was definitely a whirlwind. And.

• 56:35Zach Braff?

  I think I instantly had terror of trying to duplicate it. Right, then it's like, how am I ever gonna top this? How am I ever gonna top it? And then you're sort of chasing it because I don't, it was lightning in a bottle. I don't know how, you know, it's this classic sophomore album thing. Or sophomore book or sophomore movie where it's, you know, people are like, like a band will release an album and it's time to write the sophomore album. They spent their whole life writing the first album. Right. My first screenplay was, I didn't spend my whole life writing it, but it was certainly everything I'd been brainstorming on since I'd gone to film school and wanted and dreamt of creating. And then it was like, oh, I always admired Damien Chazelle because Whiplash was a huge

• 57:20Zach Braff?

  hit and then he had, he had a bunch of other things locked and loaded. Yeah. And I didn't, so I took work as an actor in films that some were good, some were bad. There was interest in me directing huge things, but I, but I was also, keep in mind, I was also doing the show for, I was contractually obligated to keep doing the show for a very long time. So any of these other things could only happen during your? Brief window. Yeah. So I would sometimes, once I set up a movie, I once set up a movie that I had adapted from a Danish film I loved and it was literally Sean Penn was attached to star in it and it was all about to happen. And then if we didn't start by a certain date, we couldn't make the movie because I had to go back to scrubs and, you know, it's very, very hard to get anything made.

• 58:05Zach Braff?

  And of course, we didn't hit the date and the whole thing fell apart. Right. So I had years of sort of feeling like I fucked everything up because I didn't, it was such a, it was such a beginner's luck kind of situation where I didn't really know how to recapture it.

• 58:23Zach Braff?

  And also I was, it was very hard for me to write because I was, maybe you might feel that way if you've written, I think I've heard you say this on the podcast, that when you've had such a successful book, you're like, how do I? You get blocked. Yeah, how do I, I don't know, I don't know how to begin to try and top that. I didn't think anyone was gonna see this fucking movie. I thought my parents and like the temple choir would go.

• 58:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And it becomes this thing, you become a victim of your own success and the pressures that, you know, suddenly befall you. I mean, you do move forward. I mean, I feel like the second movie got overshadowed by the whole crowdfunding kerfuffle that like surrounded all of that.

• 59:01Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 59:02Rich Roll?

  Which is weird. I feel like if somebody were to pursue that kind of fundraising for their film now, it would be a very different response than what happened then.

• 59:11Zach Braff?

  I don't think so. I don't know. I definitely did not intend to become the face of that. I was, I've always been interested in like new things and, and, you know, Kevin Smith is the one who turned me on to MySpace. He's like, you gotta try this thing, MySpace. It's so awesome. You can talk to your fans and have a discourse with them. And I'm like, really? So I've always been into like, you know, and I wrote a blog. He's the one who said, you should write a blog. You're a writer. You should, you know, so back in the day, I was like writing a blog.

• 59:38Rich Roll?

  He was the first one to do a podcast, too. I mean, that guy's been at the front end of like a lot of stuff.

• 59:44Zach Braff?

  Before MySpace even, I was writing, I had a, on my, at zachbraff.com, I wrote a blog, I would write a blog. And he's the one who taught me all about like interacting with your fans and developing your fan base. And it's so cool. If you're a writer, you can have like a daily conversation with your fans. I was like, what? So I was kind of always interested in the new thing. And that particular thing, it just so, it just so hit people the wrong way. And you're right, I do agree that it hurt the film badly. And my, my hope is that one day, you know, people will revisit. Cameron Crowe told me that. And he's like, he really liked that movie and he was very supportive of that movie. And he said, I think there's going to be a day, I don't know when it is, he said, but I think there's going to be a day where people revisit that film and see it in a different light.

• 1:00:21Rich Roll?

  Well, I can't remember where I heard you tell this story, but Larry David like smiled upon it, right?

• 1:00:29Zach Braff?

  It's funny, if you, if you've made a bunch of things, anyone listening or, or anyone who's an artist and knows this, there are certain things you do that are, that people like, and there's certain things you do, people don't, but you, you have a certain soft spot in your heart for things that didn't work, that you go, it's a nail in my heart a little bit. Cause that film was really personal and, and very hard to make. And it was about the fear of losing my father. And my brother and I wrote it together. My brother, Adam, and I wrote it together. Every once in a while. Someone will come up to me and of all things I've done, and I've done a lot now, I'm 47 years old, someone will come up to me and say, hey, I just want to say, and the film we're talking about is called Wish I Was Here. Wish I Was Here is a really

• 1:01:10Zach Braff?

  important film for me. And for me, it's like that they're complimenting my child that's underappreciated. And so one of those was Larry David. I was in a restaurant and Larry David came up to me and I was just totally still. And he said, this movie, Wish I Was Here, you wrote that? Like he was shocked, surprised. No, he was totally shocked. And coming from him, who I love, of all people. I was like, yeah. He goes, that's a really well-written movie. So on behalf of my brother.

• 1:01:40Rich Roll?

  I mean, come on, right?

• 1:01:42Zach Braff?

  That was pretty cool.

• 1:01:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Zach Braff?

  So I'm hoping, I'm hoping one day people see it.

• 1:01:46Rich Roll?

  It's that, it's

• 1:01:47Zach Braff?

  I still have hope for it.

• 1:01:48Rich Roll?

  It's that Seth Godin thing, though. Like you said earlier, like what you put out in the world shouldn't be for everybody. And, you know, to the extent that it connects with a certain kind of person, like that's why you're doing it.

• 1:02:00Zach Braff?

  Isn't that what Godin said? He's like, I'm not making Coke. I'm not making Pepsi. I'm not making Doritos. He said something like that. Like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to make something that is certainly, most certainly not for everyone. But when you find the people, whether it's you or Larry David or the people that are my fans, I'm hopefully making something they can relate to.

• 1:02:30Rich Roll?

  So you've done a ton of directing in television, Ted Lasso, and now shrinking, like working with Harrison Ford and Jason Segel, which is super cool. But it's been a number of years since you wrote and directed your own film, right?

• 1:02:43Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Rich Roll?

  So like, why did that take so long? And then kind of maybe second to that, like, what is the creative process? Is it just, you know, you finally realize like you have a story to tell and then there's a mad rush and you get it done? Or like, what does that look like for you?

• 1:03:00Zach Braff?

  I bat a little lot. I mean, I liked your conversation about the war of art and getting your ass in the chair and staring at the blinking cursor. You just have to sit there. It's so easy now to procrastinate. And I'm

• 1:03:14Zach Braff?

  I think the pandemic in this case really made me run out of excuses. Not only was all of this, you know what it feels like when you, when you have something to say, it's kind of gurgling up. It's kind of like, it's kind of like when you have to puke, for lack of a better analogy, you, it's, it's there and you know, you, you know, you have to sit at the keyboard. If you can just get your butt in the chair to do it. And I, I felt that during the pandemic. I felt like I had something to say and I didn't know if it was going to be good. I knew I wanted to write it for Florence because I wanted, I was in awe of, of her talent. And, and so I just sat down during the pandemic and it, it, some of it came fast and, and easy, and some of it didn't. But that's what it is. It's showing up. It's the war of art story. It's putting your butt in the chair.

• 1:03:59Zach Braff?

  I can procrastinate like anybody and I look back and, um, at years of procrastination. I directed a big studio comedy called Going in Style, which was fun. You know, it was fun to have a budget and it was fun to direct, you know, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin, but, and it was awesome. I would, I would do a big fun studio comedy again. It's just, it wasn't, it certainly wasn't me. It wasn't authentically something from my brain and my heart.

• 1:04:25Rich Roll?

  So commerce and art.

• 1:04:27Zach Braff?

  I find it very hard.

• 1:04:28Rich Roll?

  Those two things, right?

• 1:04:29Zach Braff?

  I, I don't want to say I find it hard because that feels like it's justifying it and speaking into, into existence and, and words have power. So I just want to, let me just say that I have in the past done everything I possibly kind of procrastinate and I aspire going forward to be more disciplined with putting my butt in the chair.

• 1:04:48Rich Roll?

  Right. So when you get the call like, hey, we'd love for you to come down and direct this episode of Ted Lasso or this episode of Shrinking, you can arrive on set and you get to work with like these amazing actors and bring your lens, your specific, unique creativity to that process and, and kind of nudge it in the direction of your sensibility a little bit, but these are big machines.

• 1:05:13Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:14Rich Roll?

  But they pay well and it's great. And you're like, look at my career. I'm doing good. But ultimately in the way that like this podcast is a distraction from me writing another Book, those things are distractions from you being the writer-director who creates your own movies from.

• 1:05:32Zach Braff?

  Well, I wouldn't use Lasso and Shrinking as examples because, first of all, they're very short commitments relative. You know, it's basically a six-day shoot and a two-week prep for a half-hour episode of television.

• 1:05:43Rich Roll?

  Right, but that's three weeks of like, I don't really have to sit down and write.

• 1:05:47Zach Braff?

  No, but it's very challenging. I do find it very fulfilling. I don't want to, I'm not going to just be a director for hire. First of all, in the case of Lasso, I was, it was, it was episode two, the episode of the biscuits. It was, it was a really amazing opportunity to help set the whole tone of the show. So I was really honored that I got that slot because it was, episode two of Ted Lasso kind of introduces the audience to like, oh, this is also going to break your heart, this show. And then my episode of Shrinking, which just aired, was also sort of a seminal episode of, of season one. So for me, I really love doing it. I think that those can coexist. It's really what I'm talking about is, you know, being on the internet, taking up 10 hobbies, doing things that are anything to distract

• 1:06:32Zach Braff?

  from what I feel like I should be doing, which is writing films. And also, keep in mind, when you write a film, it's then a huge process to try and get it made. Then you shoot it and you cut it, then you have to wait. In this case, I waited so long for it to finally come out. And it's finally coming out, um, March 24th.

• 1:06:50Rich Roll?

  Right, because you finished this thing, yeah, as you mentioned, like, a year and a half ago or something like that.

• 1:06:55Zach Braff?

  Yeah, so this, by my point is, there's a lot of downtime. That A, yes, my first priority, I believe, if I'm, if I'm being true to myself, should be writing. But in terms of, I don't want to go direct TV I don't believe in, but in terms of directing things that are my taste and that I love, I enjoy doing that.

• 1:07:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it, it is creatively nourishing.

• 1:07:14Zach Braff?

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm getting to make Harrison Ford, helping him be his hilarious self.

• 1:07:20Rich Roll?

  It's crazy. I've only watched the first episode of Shrinking. So you're, you're like, episode eight or something like that.

• 1:07:26Zach Braff?

  I'm episode eight, but it's really, I gotta tell you, I know I'm biased, but I'm only a little biased because all I did was direct episode eight. I have no connection to the show other than that, and the show is wonderful. And I think you'll really like it, Rich, because it overlaps with a lot of things that I think you're interested in.

• 1:07:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The mental health discussion.

• 1:07:43Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:44Rich Roll?

  It is funny to see Harrison Ford in a comedy.

• 1:07:47Zach Braff?

  He's hilarious.

• 1:07:47Rich Roll?

  And what's crazy about that guy is that. I thought he was like this sort of, you know, kind of crusty rascal who didn't really want to work anymore and was sort of sailing off into the sunset. And suddenly he's in like everything. Guy's like working more than he's ever worked in his entire life.

• 1:08:06Zach Braff?

  I think he loves working. I think he loves flying and he loves working.

• 1:08:09Rich Roll?

  He loves flying, but I gotta keep him out of that plane and crashing onto golf courses.

• 1:08:15Zach Braff?

  Well, in his defense, that's a glass half full, glass half empty conversation. I would say he lost an engine in a plane and successfully landed on a golf course.

• 1:08:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I have a friend who's in, you're a pilot, right? So I have a friend, a good friend who's a pilot and he was flying over the desert just a couple of weeks ago and had an engine failure and had to land on a, this is something that happens when you fly those little planes.

• 1:08:36Zach Braff?

  People make jokes about Harrison Ford flying and I'm like, the guy landed a plane on a golf course. How about applaud him?

• 1:08:41Rich Roll?

  Right. But you must have like those moments of, is this real? Like, you know, Harrison, it's crazy, right?

• 1:08:50Zach Braff?

  Yeah, especially when he says my name. That one's really trippy. Because, you know, there's still people I geek out about. And when Harrison, you know, first got to know him, he didn't, I don't think he knew my name. But then when he learned my name and was calling me by my name, it was pretty, the little kid in me was pretty giddy.

• 1:09:08Rich Roll?

  Right. So over the years, you've worked with De Niro, like Tommy Lee Jones, right? Michael Caine, like some of the, some of the greats, right? Like what do you learn from? Like what makes those people so good? Are there commonalities? Are there themes across, you know, these people that we revere for this thing that they do that we can learn from?

• 1:09:32Zach Braff?

  I think courage, real courage to go all out without a net and, and, and, and trust that the filmmaker is gonna be their safety net and make sure that it works. I would say all of those people show up and are present and go all out. And sometimes even them, these legends, sometimes it's too much, sometimes it's too little, sometimes it's not right. That's one thing I really learned is it's not always. Even the geniuses, it's not always right, but they're trying things and they're playing and they're exploring and they're looking for it, just like a painter who keeps painting

• 1:10:16Zach Braff?

  over their painting, they're hunting for it and with real courage. So I think that's one thing I've really taken from the great masters I've had a chance to work with.

• 1:10:30Rich Roll?

  And as the director, your job is just to kind of like calibrate those choices and kind of get them in the line, in the kind of lane of the tone of the film.

• 1:10:43Zach Braff?

  Absolutely, and it depends on the actors. Some will, I've worked with some, I won't say specific names, but I worked with one legend who'd do one take like right in the zone where I wanted it, and then he'd do one miniscule, and then he'd do one huge, and you were like, what the fuck is that?

• 1:10:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's giving you choices.

• 1:11:01Zach Braff?

  But he's, not only giving me choices, but he's kind of playing himself and trying, I mean, playing with it himself to try and figure out what's right. And then there are other great masters who were like, there was one take.

• 1:11:13Rich Roll?

  That was it.

• 1:11:14Zach Braff?

  I know I'm me, that was great, right? And you're like, whoa, whoa, slow down.

• 1:11:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and then you as the director have to be able to like have a hard conversation with somebody that you're like, am I really gonna like, you know, step up to this dude?

• 1:11:30Zach Braff?

  Absolutely. Do you know how many times in a trailer, Rich, I have given myself pep talks in the mirror of a trailer, being like, you have to have balls.

• 1:11:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:11:38Zach Braff?

  Like whether it's acting with De Niro, I was his co-star, this movie hasn't come out yet, but it's a comedy with De Niro and I'm his co-star, and I was like, this is the moment you've been waiting for. If you are a wimp in this scene and don't go all out and don't go toe to toe with De Niro, you know, I had this scene where I'm screaming at him and it's a comedy, but it's, I'm screaming at him. And the same thing with Morgan Freeman, it's like, if Morgan's over it and you haven't gotten it, you have to be brave, you have to not be a wimp, you have to not be intimidated. So I definitely give myself these pep talks in the mirror in the trailer.

• 1:12:14Rich Roll?

  I can't even imagine. It's wild, man. When you're sitting down to write, like, do you have a routine? Like, okay, these are the hours that I do it? Or do you just strike when the inspiration hits? Or, you know, how do you, like, I'm just thinking about, like, the conversation that I had with Robert McKee, like, everything's structured. So, do you have characters? Do you start with character? Do you start with plot? Like, how do you figure out these stories?

• 1:12:38Zach Braff?

  I really want to take Robert McKee's class, by the way, because I've never written.

• 1:12:41Rich Roll?

  He's done now, though.

• 1:12:41Zach Braff?

  I know, but there's a video.

• 1:12:43Rich Roll?

  He should do a masterclass.

• 1:12:45Zach Braff?

  By the way, after your, he should do a masterclass. But after your podcast with him, I went on his site and there's, there is something in April, maybe it's pre-recorded, I don't know. But it's definitely virtual. It's not like, but I really, even though he bummed me out, a lot of his stuff he said, when he said film is gonna be like ballet.

• 1:13:06Rich Roll?

  He ends with that. Yeah, you were like, ballet?

• 1:13:08Zach Braff?

  I was like, Rich, I was like, I texted.

• 1:13:10Rich Roll?

  It's all up to you, though. Like, if a good person succeeds, then there's hope, Zach.

• 1:13:16Zach Braff?

  Well, I'm trying. I hope people go. Please don't make the theatrical experience like ballet. Yeah, that's what Robert McKee said. But I never, I've never written like that. I think that that's very helpful to a lot of people. And I actually would love to take a class because I've never had a class like that. And I think I would get a lot out of it. But it's not the way I write at all because I have to see, I kind of see, the way I write, and I don't know if this is unique to me or maybe other actor writers write like this, but I kind of improvise the scenes out loud to myself. And then I write them as I go. So I kind of get into character as each person in the scene and then improvise the conversation and then write as I go.

• 1:14:01Rich Roll?

  So you're writing dialogue from the get-go as opposed to just conceptualizing, like, the arc of a story and figuring out who, what, who these people are and what they want?

• 1:14:12Zach Braff?

  Absolutely. Now, in the macro, I'll have an idea of, I'm gonna start this thing. And I think the beginning is this and the middle is this. And then it'll get to there. I have a GPS point set, if you will, but I don't.

• 1:14:26Rich Roll?

  Do you know the ending?

• 1:14:27Zach Braff?

  Not always. In Garden State, I completely changed the ending.

• 1:14:32Rich Roll?

  I mean, Tarantino talks about that. He's like, I just keep going.

• 1:14:35Zach Braff?

  That's what I do.

• 1:14:36Rich Roll?

  And then I figure out the ending because I'm just following these people and what they would do next.

• 1:14:40Zach Braff?

  I agree with that school of thought from that great master. I really kind of write a scene and when it works, and again, I have a vague idea where I want to go, but when it works, I go, well, then what would happen? Now, I'm not always ready to write that scene. I might go, oh, what's probably going to happen is their next interior cafe, so and so and so and so, we're going to have an argument. I might just write that and not be ready to write that dialogue. But then I'll go, and then what would happen? Well, she's going to have to go confront her father. I'm ready to write that one. I have some ideas for that. So that one, I'll just do a messy first, you know, like throwing paint up on the canvas. It's not always all great, but it's just blah.

• 1:15:19Rich Roll?

  Let yourself be bad and get it out there.

• 1:15:22Zach Braff?

  Because if you're not sitting there doing that, you need to get this stuff out so that all of a sudden you're going to write, you know, some scenes in Garden State were just first passes. I never touched them again because I was in a good flow state and something really meaningful came out. Same thing with A Good Person. But then, of course, of course, there's tons of scenes you toss and you're like, I don't agree with Robert McKee said. He was saying that like 90% of it, he throws away. I definitely don't do that.

• 1:15:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What was interesting in watching A Good Person was that there were multiple occasions where, you know, the characters arrive at a certain point and there's a very kind of predictable thing that you're primed to expect to happen because you've seen it in movies before, right? And then, and then you would make a different choice. Like, it would be like, oh, this is where this is, this person's going to do this. And then actually they do this other thing and you're like, oh, wow. Yeah. Okay, we're going to go in a different, we're going to go somewhere new with this thing that defies like that trope.

• 1:16:23Zach Braff?

  Well, that's the highest compliment you can give me. Thank you. I think that, you know, even as a writer, you find yourself going, we've all seen so many movies, right? So your brain starts to go, go here. And you can't help it because we're all conditioned from watching, you know, 47 years or whatever, how old you are, we have movies.

• 1:16:42Rich Roll?

  And there's certain things about those tropes. They're tropes because there's aspects of them that work, right? And we were chatting before, like when the person is sitting in the AA meeting, like this is the moment for exposition. Like you kind of need that, or like that serves a purpose, right?

• 1:16:57Zach Braff?

  But even in the

• 1:16:58Rich Roll?

  But how do you do something different with that?

• 1:17:00Zach Braff?

  But also, without giving any spoilers, the way I do it is, it might be AA share might be a good moment for exposition, but it's also a moment to throw a fucking loop at the audience and do a reveal that they're certainly not expecting.

• 1:17:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:16Zach Braff?

  Which is what happens.

• 1:17:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's a bunch of those in there.

• 1:17:20Zach Braff?

  But there are certain things that, you know, one thing about the Robert McKee thing that I really do believe and follow is that everything you've ever watched, at 30 minutes in, we enter the new world. Because this is something that audiences are completely conditioned to expect. And if you can, any movie you're watching, I mean, obviously there's exceptions, but 99% of films that you watch, at 30 minutes in, we enter the new thing. So the first 30 minutes have been setting up, this is the way things are, this is the status quo, there's an inciting incident.

• 1:17:56Rich Roll?

  Build the world.

• 1:17:57Zach Braff?

  And then at 30 minutes in, especially a studio movie, you can check your watch, it'll be 30 minutes. You, the new thing begins.

• 1:18:04Rich Roll?

  But the inciting incident is usually at like 10 minutes, right?

• 1:18:08Zach Braff?

  That's all, that can vary, but one thing's for certain. They set off on the new thing at 30 minutes.

• 1:18:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:15Zach Braff?

  And that's an example of something that, if you go and test a film and you're not doing that, an audience won't know exactly how to articulate it, but they will say like, it felt slow. And what they're saying is you didn't start the new thing at 30 minutes because everything I've ever watched starts the new thing at 30 minutes.

• 1:18:32Rich Roll?

  So you have this unconscious Expectation, and if that's not met, you feel like, oh, this isn't working, but you don't even know, like the average person doesn't even really quite know why.

• 1:18:43Zach Braff?

  It's kind of like song structure, you know, and like, like it's gonna have a bridge. It's gonna do verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, or something like that. I'm not a songwriter, so I don't know. But audiences, like listeners, know that that's how most songs are.

• 1:18:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:58Zach Braff?

  And I think audiences know, like, you know, the hero's journey.

• 1:19:01Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:19:02Zach Braff?

  General sense of the traditional arc of a film. So you have to, you don't have to do anything, but people are conditioned to be used to some rough form of that.

• 1:19:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's, uh, it's in saying like, you don't have to do that. Like, it reminds me of adaptation, like the sort of internal tension and battle between the identical twins, which of course, it's a multiple personality movie, right? Like Charlie Kaufman is at war with himself because on the one hand, and McKee said this from his experience with him, he wants to be the artist, but he also wants to write the blockbuster. To write the blockbuster, you have to follow this sort of semi-formularic thing where you're meeting these expectations. But how do you express and explore art within that? And it's those two things butting up against each other. And when you find that right, you know, when you can make those things work together

• 1:19:54Rich Roll?

  is when you create something, you know, kind of amazing and unique.

• 1:19:57Zach Braff?

  Yeah, like adaptation.

• 1:19:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:20:00Zach Braff?

  The rare thing that is both artful and accessible enough for enough people to justify being in the theater is the sweet spot.

• 1:20:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:20:11Zach Braff?

  Right? Because so many of these films that are awardsy or, or really boutique, a niche audience, they aren't necessarily accessible to, to enough people in 2023 to justify it being in theatrical experience.

• 1:20:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:29Zach Braff?

  Because it's not commercial enough.

• 1:20:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And it's a weird conundrum because there's never been more avenues and opportunities for filmmakers with the streamers, right? There's just so much content out there and so much creativity that it's almost challenging as a consumer, like, what do I watch next? Like, there's a lot of amazing shit out there. And yet, the funnel towards like a theatrical release has never been narrower.

• 1:20:58Zach Braff?

  It's very, very hard to get a theatrical release these days, particularly for something that's not spectacle.

• 1:21:05Zach Braff?

  Another thing I got out of your Seth Godin episode was his thing about, you have to give the audiences the why. Why go to the theater for this? You know, it's obvious when it's spectacle. Oh, I want to see that on a big screen. Or if it's The Whale with Brendan Fraser, the why is, oh, I'm excited for Brendan Fraser's comeback. I want, I root for Brendan Fraser. I want to go see that. And I think the why for a good person is that not only is it a really special thing to see this extraordinary ingenue Florence Pugh go toe to toe with this legend, Morgan Freeman. But I really believe, and it's probably because of my love of the theater. I still go to the theater in New York all the time.

• 1:21:45Zach Braff?

  But there is something that is very lost seeing something emotional and immersive alone at home. There's something really beautiful about sharing that experience with strangers in a room. And the laughter that happens, the pin drop silence that we experience, the sniffles we hear when there's an emotional moment. I still really long for that experience. And I hope there's enough people that still do because it certainly is rare and rare these days.

• 1:22:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, I, you know, was not prepared to be emotional, but it did, I mean, it cuts close to home because of my own. It's very different from my story, but it explores certain terrain that I'm familiar with. And, and, you know, I found myself, you know, definitely emotional watching it like. And I think there is something about that shared experience that is special. And I think the power in it, not to kind of like harp on this again, but the power in it for me is that, yes, there's an arc and there's a three act structure and all of that, but it's not all tied up in a nice little bow. Like, it really does show you like how gnarly and messy and confusing this process of grappling with grief and, and, you know,

• 1:23:00Rich Roll?

  just, just how fucking hard it is to be a human and to come to terms with like difficult emotions that all of us face. Like, we may not all be in the extreme situation of being in a car accident or, you know, having an opioid addiction or whatever it is, but. You know, you don't get out of this life alive and we all face fucking crazy bullshit and obstacles. Like, life doesn't go the way that we plan it to go, which is really the narrative of the show. It's like, there's kind of a beautiful sort of trajectory lined up for these characters and then everything goes sideways, goes haywire. And, you know, I think most people like experience some version of that in their lives and then have

• 1:23:41Rich Roll?

  to grapple with how to, you know, get right with themselves, make peace with it, and move forward in a healthy way.

• 1:23:49Zach Braff?

  Absolutely.

• 1:23:49Rich Roll?

  And we do, we don't do this elegantly. Like, this is not a clean process for anybody. And I feel like the movie, you know, appreciated that nuance of the human condition.

• 1:24:01Zach Braff?

  Well, thank you very much. And I wanted the audience to see themselves in the characters. Like you just said very articulately, they're not, they're not necessarily gonna have the horror of a fatal car accident, or perhaps they don't know someone battling an opioid addiction. But I wrote it, I intended to write it in such a way that people would see their own selves in the film, whether it's, whatever their lowest point is. The film is about standing back up. The film is about the drive and the hope to continue after a really dark time. Not for you, that could be a divorce, or it could be a depression, or it could be losing your job, or it could be, whatever. Insert your low point here.

• 1:24:42Zach Braff?

  It's really, the film is really a discussion of the, the human capability to stand back up with community, with friendship, with love, the ability to go on and still have hope.

• 1:24:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You mentioned, you know, beautifully put. You mentioned that you're not a songwriter, but you do have this, you know, uncanny facility for knowing exactly the right needle drop at exactly the right moment, right? Like, you could have had a very successful career as a, as a music supervisor. You know how to, you know, kind of find the right music to help tell your stories.

• 1:25:19Zach Braff?

  Thank you.

• 1:25:19Rich Roll?

  And, you know, this is, you've never been more, you know, successfully exemplified than in Garden State, like- You basically like put the shins on the map. You create this soundtrack album from that experience. You win a Grammy, which is nuts because like I'm sure it didn't even occur to you.

• 1:25:39Zach Braff?

  And it went platinum.

• 1:25:40Rich Roll?

  It went platinum too.

• 1:25:41Zach Braff?

  By the way, here's the best part of the story. Well, there's two parts of the story. One is that I idolized Quentin Tarantino and I only met him like twice. And the first time I met him was after I saw him at the Independent Spirit Awards after I'd beaten him for the Grammy for original soundtrack.

• 1:25:56Rich Roll?

  That's unbelievable.

• 1:25:57Zach Braff?

  And he comes up to me and he goes, "You stole my fucking Grammy, man." And I was like, "Is he kidding? Is he serious? I love this man. Please love me." And he kind of smiled and he was taking the piss as the English say. But that was really surreal because the idea that I would win a trophy over Quentin Tarantino.

• 1:26:16Rich Roll?

  Was that like for which?

• 1:26:18Zach Braff?

  I think it was the second Kill Bill, maybe?

• 1:26:19Rich Roll?

  So it wasn't Pulp. I mean, Pulp Fiction is iconic. I mean, it's still that iconic, but also, you know, Garden State iconic for that soundtrack.

• 1:26:26Zach Braff?

  The story of that is the ultimate, um, don't give up story. All those songs were songs I was listening to at the time and songs I loved. And I put them in, you know, The Avid, which is the computer we edit on for my cut. But there's not a single person in town that didn't tell me, "You're not going to get any of those songs. We have no money."

• 1:26:45Rich Roll?

  For people that don't know, when you're cutting, you do this temp track and like, "These are the songs I'd like to have. We're never going to get them, but like this is the vibe I'm going for."

• 1:26:53Zach Braff?

  And what happens is you get temp love. You fall in love with that song. But we had no money. We made that movie for two and a half million dollars. We didn't have money to license all of these incredible songs. And I was told by anyone and everyone, "You will never get those songs. You need to start replacing them." And in the spirit of being too young and not knowing what I didn't know, I was like, "No, I'm going to get them. I'm going to get them." I didn't know it at the time, but I was manifesting. I was manifesting that there was no way I was not going to get all of those songs. And I got every single one.

• 1:27:28Rich Roll?

  And to what do you account that? Like, how did that?

• 1:27:30Zach Braff?

  Just not taking no for an answer.

• 1:27:31Rich Roll?

  Persistence?

• 1:27:32Zach Braff?

  Persistence, not getting stuck, not going into the fetal. I'm sure I went into the fetal position a couple of times, but not taking no for an answer. I remember, you know, for example, the Paul Simon people, Only Living Boy in New York was one of the hardest ones to get because it's probably the biggest, most expensive in a normal world where you're paying full rate, probably the most expensive song on the album. And it was a hell no, hell no, hell no, hell no. And then I said, what if we got his manager into a screening room? And we just showed him the moment how it's used. And they were like, he's not gonna come. I go, let's just try. And the manager came with a few people and they sat in the screening room at CAA alone.

• 1:28:16Zach Braff?

  And they watched the movie. And at the time, the Paul Simon song came on, I looked over and they were all swiping their eyes. And they said, absolutely, we'll do it.

• 1:28:30Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:28:30Zach Braff?

  And then cut to that whole summer, Paul Simon was on tour and he started playing Only Living Boy New York. And he never used to play it. And he was saying, you know, I never played this song anymore, but there's this movie that came out called Garden State. And he started playing Only Living Boy New York on tour.

• 1:28:46Rich Roll?

  That's gotta be such a crazy mindfuck.

• 1:28:49Zach Braff?

  So, and that happened with every track.

• 1:28:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, what else is on? You have Nick Drake.

• 1:28:53Zach Braff?

  There's so many incredible songs on it. And, you know, little by little, the puzzle, once I got Coldplay and then once I got Nick Drake, and then once I got Paul Simon, other people that were smaller artists started signing like, oh, well, if the cool kids are doing it, we'll do it.

• 1:29:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:05Zach Braff?

  And we, you know, we figured out a deal that was, that was, that no one ever thought they'd see money from, but was a backend deal where, you know, in a world where someone buys this soundtrack, you'd make money. Thinking like, haha, that's never gonna happen, but thank you for loaning us your song at a rate we can afford. And then the thing goes on to be platinum. And they all made lots of money off of it.

• 1:29:28Rich Roll?

  Did that lead to people contacting you simply to like music supervise their movies? Or to consult on the music?

• 1:29:35Zach Braff?

  I did have a deal, that's probably the only deal like this in the history of deals. But I was, I starred in a movie called The Last Kiss.

• 1:29:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:43Zach Braff?

  That I didn't direct. Some people think I directed that movie, but Tony Goldman, the actor director did.

• 1:29:47Rich Roll?

  Paul Haggas wrote that.

• 1:29:48Zach Braff?

  Paul Haggas wrote the screenplay. And I, um, My deal was to star and do the soundtrack. That was my deal.

• 1:29:57Rich Roll?

  That's, yeah, that's very unique.

• 1:29:59Zach Braff?

  I don't know if anyone's ever had that deal before, but that was my deal.

• 1:30:01Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So you're like, I'll do it, but I also, I have to do the music also.

• 1:30:04Zach Braff?

  Well, I was thrilled to do it. I really loved the script. It was, it was an adaptation of a very, very popular Italian film called L'Alte Mobaccio. And I was thrilled to be in it and, and, but I was so hot off the tails of Garden State that they said, hey, will you also do our soundtrack?

• 1:30:19Rich Roll?

  Right. You have the golden touch.

• 1:30:20Zach Braff?

  I was like, please.

• 1:30:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool. So the Oscars are tonight. Like what, how do you, like, when you cast your gaze on, you know, the movies that are being feted? And the kind of movies that are getting made, like, how do you think about the state of Hollywood? And is it headed towards that ballet situation that McKee talked about?

• 1:30:43Zach Braff?

  I think the jury's still out. We are watching it all change before our eyes. In the spirit of Seth Godin, uh, audiences need a story as to why a particular film is worth making the trek to the theater. Cinephiles, of course, there's a group of cinephiles who, who will always go. Those are the people, like the people who buy vinyl to, to listen to music. But what is the story that beyond, beyond just the category of, oh, it's a giant spectacle, you need to see it on the big screen.

• 1:31:16Zach Braff?

  It, the, the jury is still out on, on, on whether, whether films will still be released theatrically that are not in that category.

• 1:31:24Rich Roll?

  And I think the, that the jury is out on an explanation as to why the general public, the public at large should care about this art form.

• 1:31:36Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37Rich Roll?

  And I think it becomes harder for that person to care when the choices they're being offered are, are just amusement park rides. Versus, you know, kind of challenging narratives.

• 1:31:51Zach Braff?

  Well, I'm trying to help, Rich. That's why I made a movie.

• 1:31:54Rich Roll?

  This is why you're here today. Like I am, I'm doing, help me help you, Zach.

• 1:31:59Zach Braff?

  A good person, a good person, March 24th.

• 1:32:02Rich Roll?

  There you go. There you go. But at the same time, like. I'm on these streamers and I'm like seeing, I just, I'm so nourished by, you know, all different kinds of storytelling formats that aren't necessarily the kind, you know, like, like the sort of advent of the limited series, like, like watching, like, I don't know, crime stories set in Iceland and like, all this stuff that's opened up to me.

• 1:32:27Zach Braff?

  I know, but it's a separate experience.

• 1:32:28Rich Roll?

  It is, that's a different thing.

• 1:32:29Zach Braff?

  What I want to savor, and what I hope Mr. McKee is wrong about it becoming ballet, is that there is, just a very sacred experience of going into a theatrical house and sitting with strangers and watching a piece of art, and also this societal agreement, for most people, that we turn off our phones for two hours and immerse ourselves in a story. And at home, we're pausing and we're checking our phone and we're saying, "Did you feed the dog?" And all of this stuff that is not immersing yourself in a story. Now, again, I'm a theater lover and goer, so I had that experience with live theater,

• 1:33:10Zach Braff?

  which is, which is, for the community of people that are into that, we know that. But for the cinematic experience, I pray that that doesn't go away, because I find it very, very special and not something that's akin to watching your favorite streaming program. It is fully immersive and there's something magical about being around other people experiencing the same thing.

• 1:33:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Amen to that. But we need more good movies in the pipeline.

• 1:33:42Zach Braff?

  I'm doing all I can.

• 1:33:43Rich Roll?

  You are, you are, I know you are. It's funny, because I, when I was, you, I, the movie's not out, so I got like a link to see a screener and, and then in the middle, like, I snapped a little photo and I sent it to you, and you're like, "Focus, what are you doing?" Like, don't, wait.

• 1:34:00Zach Braff?

  You're being the guy.

• 1:34:01Rich Roll?

  I know, it was like, then I felt terrible, right?

• 1:34:03Zach Braff?

  You're being the guy who's on his phone.

• 1:34:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:06Zach Braff?

  But you know why? You were at home.

• 1:34:08Rich Roll?

  Yes. Yeah, I wouldn't have done that in a theater.

• 1:34:10Zach Braff?

  Of course you wouldn't have.

• 1:34:12Rich Roll?

  That's true.

• 1:34:13Zach Braff?

  And I submit, you're gonna get way more lost in the theater into a story.

• 1:34:17Rich Roll?

  I agree. For the aspiring writer, creator, filmmaker, who's listening to this, what is the, you know, what is the kind of inspiration or the advice that you can give that person who's embarking upon a career or thinking about exploring storytelling as a lifestyle, as a life?

• 1:34:42Zach Braff?

  Well, a famous writer, I forgot who it is, said, "Being a writer is signing up to have homework for the rest of your life."

• 1:34:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, is that Laurence Kasdan?

• 1:34:50Zach Braff?

  I think it's Laurence Kasdan, yeah. Which I think is very accurate.

• 1:34:53Rich Roll?

  Or having a podcast. It's pretty good for having homework all the time.

• 1:34:57Zach Braff?

  But a podcast is communal.

• 1:34:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:34:59Zach Braff?

  A podcast, you have friends, you have crew members, you have this beautiful studio. Writing is sitting alone at a blinking curser, telling yourself you suck. It's hard. That's what I would tell people. I won't be as, try and scare anyone away from it, but know that it's, that I'm this deep into it and I battle procrastination. I battle working. So I would say develop very early on, I mean, you've had some of these amazing people on your podcast, let's name it, the guy who wrote War of Art.

• 1:35:34Rich Roll?

  Steven Pressfield.

• 1:35:35Zach Braff?

  Yeah, Steven Pressfield and the like. You know, you have to develop a system very early on, something I never did, that is fail-safe for you working and producing content. And that is, in 2023, that is very much turning off your wifi and getting your phone out of the room. There are so many distractions. And then I believe with Mr. Pressfield, it's about putting your butt in the chair and not being afraid to not know what it is today, but getting in the chair and showing up.

• 1:36:15Zach Braff?

  But it's like running with an elephant on your back if you're trying to do it with your phone in your hand.

• 1:36:23Rich Roll?

  Are you able to take that sensibility, that energy, and get right back into it?

• 1:36:29Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:30Rich Roll?

  Like in that press field thing, like as soon as you lock it, you're on to the next.

• 1:36:32Zach Braff?

  For the first time in my life, I'm like halfway through a new screenplay now. But that's with a lot of, that's with maturity and also really coaching myself and working with people. My therapist in particular, who's a cognitive behaviorist, was just very, very valuable to me, of developing systems that support you not failing.

• 1:36:58Rich Roll?

  So what would be an example of that?

• 1:37:02Zach Braff?

  Making commitments to produce pages to people. Even he, I mean, I have, you know, people I work with in terms of like who I get thoughts on my writing, but even my therapist, even if he was not going to read them.

• 1:37:15Rich Roll?

  Just external accountability.

• 1:37:17Zach Braff?

  He will say like, "So how many pages are you going to send me by Friday?" So that's just one example of a system that's in place. I'm committed to turning in work. I have this lightboard thing, I think I sent you a link to it, that really helps me. It's a, it's just this, and you can literally do this with a paper calendar and do stickers on it like when you're potty training your kid. It's a matter of like giving yourself a going for a streak. That is to say, you only get a sticker or you light the thing up. My therapist actually said you can do it with a light, his clients have done it with a light bright before. But the point is, you're only, you want to go for a streak, just like I know people

• 1:38:01Zach Braff?

  who are doing, who are in a program and going for sobriety want a streak. It is, it is how many days can I write in a row? Or how many, how many, how many days will I commit to someone, whether it be my partner or myself? Or whomever, your therapist, that I will write Monday through Friday for a minimum of four hours a day. And when I don't, I've dropped my streak. And there's something about a streak that's very powerful.

• 1:38:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's, it's an interesting thing, like how reptilian the human brain is like, but momentum is real. And once you bank a few days and you got a little bit of energy behind it, and you're gonna put that little light bulb in the thing, like, you're like, that's enough, you know, to get you to keep going.

• 1:38:48Zach Braff?

  I was telling you this, when we met, that I, I was working on, taking a break from alcohol, and that I, and I found that if I printed a paper calendar, and literally, I got, I ordered stickers on Amazon, and I would just, when I didn't drink that day, I would put a sticker on the, on the calendar. And it worked for me. I was like, I'm not gonna not get my, my, kidding me?

• 1:39:15Rich Roll?

  I gotta get my sticker.

• 1:39:16Zach Braff?

  I want my fucking sticker. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I don't even want this glass of wine. I want my sticker.

• 1:39:24Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God. It's like, I don't know whether to be encouraged by that, or just think humanity is doomed, you know?

• 1:39:31Zach Braff?

  Well, I think it's, I don't know, you say it's reptilian, but I think, I don't know. I guess my therapist says it best, is that there's a lot of power in a streak.

• 1:39:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:41Zach Braff?

  I know that that's for sure.

• 1:39:42Rich Roll?

  That there's, it's empowering to say, I'm not gonna fuck up now. Yeah, you gotta respect the momentum.

• 1:39:47Zach Braff?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:48Rich Roll?

  And protect it, you know, and create boundaries around it.

• 1:39:51Zach Braff?

  I love that, your episode, I forgot the name of the guy who did One Year No Beer.

• 1:40:00Rich Roll?

  Oh, Andy Ramich.

• 1:40:01Zach Braff?

  Yeah, that was an amazing episode.

• 1:40:03Rich Roll?

  It's cool.

• 1:40:04Zach Braff?

  So that, that was a lot of things he said, too, with, in the, in the, with regard to alcohol and. You know, finding that space for for people that don't necessarily think they need to work a program, think they can probably do it on their own, but but also wanna wanna rethink their attitude towards alcohol consumption. I thought that was, you know, he talks about streaks, and that's the whole idea behind it is just like, do 28 days, you know, do 90 days. And I found that incredibly empowering.

• 1:40:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you can always go back to what you were doing before. And I think what's cool about that movement that that Andy helped create is, like you said, there's a lot of people out there that wouldn't classify themselves as alcoholics. But, you know, get to a certain age, like, hey, do I really need to be hungover today? Like, why do I, you know, go out and binge every other weekend or whatever it is. But when you're in a culture where that's just the thing that you do, it can be difficult for social reasons to opt out of that and to have like a community of people to support you in finding a different way. And then, and then, you know, experiencing what it's

• 1:41:20Rich Roll?

  like to be alcohol free for perhaps the first time and seeing how much better you feel and how more present you are in your life and how more productive you are.

• 1:41:30Zach Braff?

  I'm doing it. I will be honest and tell you that I'm doing it. I I'm taking on his challenge.

• 1:41:38Rich Roll?

  Nice.

• 1:41:38Zach Braff?

  And and I have you to thank, man. I really, I really thank you so much for for bringing, I'm sure there's other people listening, and if you haven't, you have to go listen to that episode. I never felt, I never saw anything in my life that spoke so directly to me and my relationship with alcohol, because I never felt like I would, I would certainly go to AA if I if I felt I needed to, and maybe will make that decision one day. But I just felt that episode was so. And his work is so genius because it hits a sliver of the population that hadn't necessarily been addressed before, which is like, why do I, why am I doing this habit?

• 1:42:23Zach Braff?

  And for people that do have the power to just to not work a program and just try and say no. What would my life be like without it? So that was very, very, very powerful to me. And I'm gonna, I'm aiming to go six months and see what happens, but I, I feel fucking great.

• 1:42:45Rich Roll?

  That's awesome, man. Well, you're here today for me to help you get the word out about your movie, but I feel like I'm getting more out of this from you promoting this podcast.

• 1:42:54Zach Braff?

  No, I'm promoting your show.

• 1:42:55Rich Roll?

  Including your joke of like, yeah, I just got back from the United Kingdom promoting your podcast.

• 1:43:01Zach Braff?

  Well, I was in the UK and I was on the Chris Evans Show and, and we, I didn't even know that he knew you, but we started talking about, you know, anyway, I know, I appreciate it, man. I've said enough, Rich.

• 1:43:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:14Zach Braff?

  But I just, but you have, you have made a big difference in my life and, and I can imagine for so many people listening, they feel the same way.

• 1:43:21Rich Roll?

  Well, it's incredible to hear that and I'm working on just receiving and so I'll say thank you. But it is amazing and a bit surreal as somebody who, who has followed your work for a very long time and has a ton of respect for, you know, the, the art that you share with the world. And I couldn't, you know, be more excited about this new movie. Like I said to you, it's beautifully rendered and I think everybody should go out and check it out.

• 1:43:53Zach Braff?

  Yes, thank you.

• 1:43:54Rich Roll?

  I'm excited for you to have that experience of, of having a movie back in the theaters after a very long time.

• 1:44:00Zach Braff?

  Thank you.

• 1:44:01Rich Roll?

  It's a pretty cool and very special experience and I hope that you can navigate it with presence and with gratitude and not get caught up in all those externalities that you can't control because irrespective of how it does or doesn't do, you should be very proud of what you created.

• 1:44:19Zach Braff?

  Thank you, Rich.

• 1:44:21Rich Roll?

  And it was a pleasure to have you here today. And, you know, yeah, man, this was super cool.

• 1:44:26Zach Braff?

  Thank you.

• 1:44:27Rich Roll?

  So, thank you. We should probably tell people how to find tickets and all that kind of stuff, right?

• 1:44:33Zach Braff?

  Yeah, Fandango is the most popular way. You can find tickets on Fandango.

• 1:44:36Rich Roll?

  And just in the US or is it internet?

• 1:44:39Zach Braff?

  In the UK and US.

• 1:44:42Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. So, check it out. You can get tickets on Fandango if you're in the United States or in the UK. And first weekend, super important. Got to get out there right away. Can't wait around.

• 1:44:54Zach Braff?

  Please check it out this weekend, everybody. I really appreciate it.

• 1:44:56Rich Roll?

  All right, cheers. Thanks.

• 1:45:06Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as The Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment.

• 1:45:51Rich Roll?

  Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, The Meal Planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering by Kale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and A.J. Akpodiate.

• 1:46:38Rich Roll?

  Thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.