#157 Peter Berg - Exposing Big Pharma, Lone Survivor, and Hollywood’s Dark Side

Peter Berg is an American director, producer, and writer. He began his career as an actor, before transitioning to directing with his feature debut "Very Bad Things" (1998) and has since helmed notable films including "Friday Night Lights" (2004), "Hancock" (2008), "Lone Survivor" (2013), "Deepwater Horizon" (2016), and "Patriots Day" (2016). His episodic television work spans many critically acclaimed series like "Friday Night Lights" and “Ballers”. Berg has also tackled complex and dark subjects like the Sackler family’s big pharma influence through “Painkiller” and the complex realities of settling the American West in his upcoming series “American Primeval”. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://helixsleep.com/srs https://amac.us/srs https://patriotmobile.com/srs https://rocketmoney.com/srs https://shopify.com/srs https://meetfabric.com/shawn Peter Berg Links: Website - https://www.film44.com/ IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000916/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pberg44/ American Primeval - https://www.netflix.com/title/81457507 Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:21Speaker 01

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• 0:55Shawn Ryan?

  Peter Berg, welcome to the show.

• 0:57Speaker 03

  Pleasure, man. Thank you.

• 0:59Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I can't even believe you're sitting here. I've watched so many of your movies and series and to have you sitting here is pretty surreal.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  Well, I feel the same way. I've watched a lot of your shows and I figure it's good for you to expand your reach and get a director to come on here because I think I asked you if you'd had any other directors and you said not yet, so I'm glad to be here. I'm a big fan of yours and good job, man.

• 1:32Shawn Ryan?

  Man, thank you, thank you. I am curious, I have to know this. How the hell did, like, you gotta be a super busy guy and with who you appear to be surrounded by, I mean, how did this pop up on your radar?

• 1:51Speaker 03

  I was trying to think about when I first came to know of you. You know, I know a lot of SEALs. And it might have been Marcus or Morgan Luttrell that somehow got you on my radar. And a couple of other guys that are living in California that I know. But just your name came up. You know, I'm always interested in anything a SEAL is doing. Particularly in ex-SEAL, I know how challenging it can be for so many team guys to kind of figure out the next chapter of their life. And we get a lot of guys in L.A. who are trying to figure it out and kind of trying to get into writing or directing or stunts.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  And I pay attention to that, try and help. And I heard about you and how you had kind of found this whole new career for yourself. And having gone through, you know, the military experiences you have, I found it really fucking impressive.

• 2:52Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  And that caught my eye also. So, you know, I don't think people understand how hard that transition is. You know, I mean, obviously, military guys do, but civilians don't. They don't think about it. If they do, they, you know, kind of think about it. But to go from the job that you've had, and, you know, I've been fortunate to have a pretty decent look at, you know, for a civilian, to understand how difficult it is to let go of that world and move into civilian life. I think it's important that people do make an effort. I do, and I just, a lot of respect for what you've done.

• 3:35Shawn Ryan?

  Man, thank you.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  A lot.

• 3:36Shawn Ryan?

  That means a hell of a lot coming from you. So, I really appreciate it. Well, let's, I got all kinds of stuff that we're gonna talk about when it comes to that. But everybody starts off with an introduction here, so.

• 3:51Shawn Ryan?

  Peter Berg, you're born in the heart of New York City in the 1960s. You moved to Los Angeles in your early twenties and have realized your dreams of becoming a celebrated film actor, writer, director, and producer earning accolades across multiple platforms. Your approach to filmmaking is deeply personal, often focusing on real stories that highlight human endurance, teamwork, and the fight against adversity. Your films are known for their gritty realism, emotional depth, and action that feels both authentic and exhilarating. Among your many creative endeavors, Friday Night Lights, Lone Survivor, and Deepwater Horizon stand out as highlights in your career.

• 4:35Shawn Ryan?

  More recently, you tackled the opioid epidemic. That's like, super close to me. And, uh, and, uh, I'm sure you know why, which we'll get into. The opioid epidemic head-on with your epic show Painkiller, just one week after its release. Painkiller ranked number one in the top 10 English-language series genre and currently has over 54 million hours viewed. And on January 9th, you're about to introduce your latest project, American Primeval, Into the World on Netflix. I look forward to discussing that today. Thank you for giving us a sneak peek.

• 5:13Shawn Ryan?

  That, uh, like, it looks so awesome and so realistic and, uh, like, the sounds in it are, it's amazing. It's amazing. I think you'll like it. I can't wait. I can't wait for that to come out. And, uh, clear eyes, full hearts. Can't lose. Can't lose. Let's dig in. So, so, also, everybody gets a gift.

• 5:45Shawn Ryan?

  Still a little something for the, uh, flight home.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  Open it now, right?

• 5:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, go ahead, open it up.

• 5:53Shawn Ryan?

  Sir, uh-

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Oh, the gummy bears.

• 5:55Shawn Ryan?

  Bears, yeah.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  Okay, they're not gonna get me high, I'm not gonna get me low or anything?

• 5:59Shawn Ryan?

  No, you'll have to go back home to California to get those.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  Okay, I can get them.

• 6:04Shawn Ryan?

  But, uh-

• 6:05Speaker 03

  I love gummy bears.

• 6:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, those are good. Little something for the flight home.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Oh, well, here's, here's yours. I got you, I got you this because I thought I might need it.

• 6:15Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  For my three hours. That's from what I understand, some of Tennessee's finest, uh, from right here, right in Franklin.

• 6:24Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man, this is awesome.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:27Shawn Ryan?

  Franklin Distillery.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 6:29Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  Um-

• 6:30Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  And then I got you, this is, this is a limited edition. This is an American Primeval Crew Hat, which generally, we had to earn up on the mountain, uh, but I figure you, you've definitely done your fair share of earning, so that's a gift from me and the entire crew of American Primeval.

• 6:50Shawn Ryan?

  Man, thank you.

• 6:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, man.

• 6:52Shawn Ryan?

  I'm gonna have you sign this. This is gonna be a relic in the, in the studio.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  I'd be honored.

• 6:56Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. This is very cool.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, that's rare. That's a collector's piece.

• 7:00Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  Cool, man.

• 7:02Shawn Ryan?

  I'll get it, I'll get it, yeah, we'll have you sign it after the, uh-

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 7:06Shawn Ryan?

  After the, uh, after the interview here. And then, um, one last thing. I got a Patreon account. They, they're my top subscribers, top supporters.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 7:17Shawn Ryan?

  They're the reason I get to be here and you get to be here. They've been with us since the beginning. And so, one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask every guest a question. And, uh, you had a ton. So, this is from Tori Miller. "With so many great movies that you've directed and several based on true events, which movie was the most stressful to film and made you feel that you got-" That you got it right when it finally released.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Right, so I've been asked this question before and I'll give the real answer. Like, you know, I could just say, oh, well, Lone Survivor is my favorite or Frayn at Life is my favorite. But the truth is, they're all incredibly fucking hard to make. Every single movie that any director makes, any TV show, is really, really hard. You go into it believing you're gonna touch God and achieve real greatness, and you're gonna change lives, and you're gonna tap into the divine creative forces of the universe. And you just don't always do it. Sometimes you fail miserably, sometimes you succeed. But the reality is, they're all really, really challenging.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  And you end up kinda looking back, at least I do, and loving certain things about every one of them. Even the ones that suck. You, you know, cuz you don't go into it thinking, hey, man, I'm gonna make a really shitty movie and I don't care. No, you go into it like, you know, I would imagine, you know, an athlete goes into a game. A team guy goes into a building. You know, a dentist goes into a mouth with a drill. You go in expecting to have a good result. You know, if you're like a competitive, ambitious human being.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  And so I try for them all to work, every single movie. And, you know, I love all of them. They're all really stressful. If you really push me, I'll probably say like Lone Survivor is my favorite and that was the most emotional.

• 9:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  But I love them all.

• 9:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it's, you've made some just amazing, amazing stuff. And, but yeah, I would say.

• 9:38Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that had to be a lot of pressure, you know, considering the events that happened that the movie's about. And then in just our conversation before we, you know, actually officially started the interview about showing the families. I mean, that's, that's tough. I mean, that is.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, we're talking a little bit about it. And for some reason, you know, I always say like, I wanna make a love story, just film a love story with a girl and a boy on a beach, drinking wine, kissing and crying and doing all the things that people do, falling in love on a beach. And then I always end up on top of a mountain with a bunch of stunt guys fighting for their lives and, you know, pyrotechnics, bombs going off and weather and animals. And I, I can't seem to just make the love stories. I, I tend to be drawn towards more challenging projects.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  And in the case of Lone Survivor, like, right from the get-go, when I met Marcus Luttrell, and, you know, first looked into his eyes, I knew, I read the book quickly, and he was in town interviewing directors, and a lot of directors wanted that story. So I met with him, and really, literally, from the moment I met, sat down with him and looked into his eyes, I was kind of caught in this spell of, of emotion and pain and, and sacrifice and this energy that Marcus had kind of got me. And still to this day, it still gets me, just FaceTiming. I mean, I have such a connection to him.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  But making Lone Survivor, and, you know, started with going to the Deets family, the Axles and the Murphy family, and asking for their blessing and telling the story. And all, all three of those meetings were very emotional. I remember going to Danny's parents' house in Colorado, and his father taking me into his bedroom. Uh, which they left kind of as it was, almost from, from a young age, or, you know, Hot Wheels and posters of girls and, you know, toys and all kinds of things. And there was also his uniform that had been recovered. And his father-

• 12:09Speaker 03

  That they recovered? Holy shit. His father sat me down on Danny's bed, which is his bed from childhood. And he, he had a piece of paper and he started reading from the paper. And he started talking about, and I, I remember hearing after action report, autopsy. And he started, uh, reading and he said, "Left knee, bullet. Left thigh, bullet. Groin, bullet." And I realized he was reading his son's autopsy report. And he started shaking and he said, "Abdomen, bullet." And I could see the tears falling out of his eyes and hitting that paper.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  And he finished, I can't remember how many times Danny Dietz was shot, but a lot. And he put the paper on my lap and the autopsy report was his father's tears in it. And he said, "That's who my son was. That's how tough my son was. You make sure you get that right." And I thought to myself, "Okay, what the fuck have I gotten myself into with this?" Um, not a joke. Very, very real to some very good, decent human beings, parents and wives and siblings. And it was a tremendous amount of pressure to make sure that when I was done

• 13:38Speaker 03

  and I showed that film to not just the families, but the entire SEAL community. I think Admiral McRaven was, was running-

• 13:48Speaker 03

  Either SOCOM or the SEALs, I'm not sure what he was running. Yeah. When we finished, but I had to show it to him and all of those folks. And, and the families and everyone in between. And every day I was making that film, I was thinking about the Murphys, the Deeches, the Axlessins, Marcus, and so was the whole crew, so was Mark Wahlberg. It became something much more than a, than a movie for us. We didn't quite realize the power of the brotherhood of the SEAL community, of your community, you know, at first, maybe, certainly some of the actors didn't, but very quickly everyone did.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  And that, that movie had a special gear that is very hard to find. I think if you ask Mark Wahlberg, or Taylor Kitsch, or Ben Foster, anyone that was involved in that film, we see each other, you know, text each other, and like, no, no, that was it. That, that was one that would be hard to replicate, and a feeling that's very hard to get. And the pressure to get it right was there every day, including the trellon set every day, reminded me that if I didn't get it right, he was gonna kill me. So that every day I would, by the end, at first I was really scared, and then sort of

• 15:13Speaker 03

  halfway through I would see Marcus in the morning, I'd be like, I know, I have to do a really good job today, or you're gonna kill me. Anything else? He'd be like, nope, that's it, I got it, and then I'd go about it.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Man. And then you had Morgan kind of like lurking as backup. Yeah. Cause you know, for me, Marcus was a scary one, but Morgan was a really scary one, who really didn't have to say much, but was, have you met Morgan? Do you know him at all? I've never met him. And he's such a great guy, and you know, in Washington now, doing really well. I just spoke to him last week, and you know, having those two guys suddenly in your life, and, and then just the general SEAL community was a gut check, and it definitely focused a little bit harder every second than I have in some other films.

• 16:14Speaker 00

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• 16:51Speaker 00

  Nordstrom Rack is celebrating 125 years of Nordstrom with 125 of the best deals up to 65% off. In stores and online, we're talking incredible savings on brands you love like Vince, Sam Edelman, Rag & Bone, All Saints and more. They're only here while supplies last, so shop today. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

• 17:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, wow. That is, uh, that's heavy. I mean, that's, you know, we...

• 17:31Shawn Ryan?

  It's interesting, you know, the, kind of, some things we can relate to, that being one of them. I mean, we, my platoon was the guys that went in and relieved them after that. And I told you about the rounds up there and...

• 17:45Speaker 03

  That just gave me goosebumps when I walked in here and saw the rounds from the Chinook that crashed. That, I was not expecting to see that.

• 17:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, pretty heavy. There's some heavy stuff in this room. Uh, it's very historic, but, but, um, yeah, I remember, you know, when we, we got the after actions report when we got into country and they showed us, uh, it was, I think it was, uh, it was some kind of a recruiting video that, um...

• 18:17Speaker 03

  I kind of put up.

• 18:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  I saw it.

• 18:19Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, you could, I remember seeing, I was new, you know, fairly new and I remember seeing Danny Dietz.

• 18:29Shawn Ryan?

  Upside down on the mountaintop and his cami blouse was pulled up. And a lot of the guys in my platoon were in a, were in a team with Danny and they were like, holy shit, like he just got that tattoo and I was with him when it, when he got it on his rib cage and it was just like, that's when it became very real for me.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  I can't imagine how, how personal and how much emotion you guys must have felt seeing those videos. I saw those videos.

• 19:01Shawn Ryan?

  Rage. I mean, I would watch them every time we went out on an op. That was my, that was my, my warm up.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, man.

• 19:10Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I would, this is why the fuck we're doing this, because of this. And, but, and then, you know, I can't wait to get into some of the opiate stuff too. And, um, with you, that's something we can relate on. I lost my best friend to opiates. And who was struggling, you know, you were just talking about. You know, the transition from military, four military guys getting back into civilian and everybody goes down the, down the spiral and, and he didn't make it out. And it was, it was because of opiates.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 19:45Shawn Ryan?

  Actually, it was because of that operation. So that was my best friend's team.

• 19:50Speaker 03

  He was part of the recovery operation?

• 19:52Shawn Ryan?

  He was part of the, the recovery operation. He was, I'll tell you this, this was, this, I've never talked about this. But

• 20:05Shawn Ryan?

  he was, that was his sister platoon. He was in Iraq. They were doing, having a great deployment, which means they were going after a lot of bad guys. He had, his name's Gabe.

• 20:22Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know if I should be doing this, but fuck it. I'm gonna do it. And, uh, cuz this, he had one of the worst runs I've ever heard. And, uh, he was engaged and, um, had a mess up at a strip club and got a stripper pregnant. Broke off the engagement. Uh, was gonna do the right thing. Um, he was gonna do the right thing in, in his mind, which was to marry her, marry the stripper, have the baby. And, uh, and he deployed to Iraq. Well, uh, they were getting after it and she went into labor. There were some complications. So he left Iraq to come home.

• 21:07Shawn Ryan?

  And to be with her while the, while the baby was born. Gets home, goes to the hospital. The baby's dead. The mom is dead. He doesn't tell anybody. He goes back to SEAL Team Ten and says, "Hey, uh, I wanna go back with the guys over in Iraq." They say, "Oh, you didn't hear? The guys are coming home early." He had screamed to go to development group. Uh, and they said, "Hey, you need to reenlist." So, "How about you jump in with the, your sister platoon who's in Afghanistan right now?" He's like, "Well, I don't have any of my gear. It's all in Iraq still." And they're said, "Don't worry. You don't need gear. You're not going on operations.

• 21:50Shawn Ryan?

  You're just gonna go over there, reenlist, get it done, jump back on the bird, come home." So he wears his dress camis. Gets on the bird. They land, uh, in Germany for a layover. Find out that Marcus is on the run.

• 22:07Shawn Ryan?

  Then, they, he lands in Bagram. You know, so they know there's, they know that three guys have died. And that Marcus is on the run. They land in Bagram. And he finds out that the Hilo went down, which was all his, you know, the rest of his friends. Wants to go on the recoveler, on the recovery op with, with, with Dev. They wouldn't let him on at first. And he was like, basically, he's like, "I don't, they're like, "You don't have any kid. You can't go." He's like, "I don't give a fuck. I'll, I'll scrounge up some shit."

• 22:44Shawn Ryan?

  So in his dress camis, goes and takes, piecemeals some shit together from the techs. Gets like a helm, like a helmet that doesn't fit with a monocle.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:56Shawn Ryan?

  Piece of night, uh, night vision, like a shitty rifle, you know, without any optics on it. And he's in his, like a old flat jacket that, you know, I mean, you knew the gear we were using back then because you made the movie, but it was like the old shit that didn't even have any magazines on. It's found a couple of magazine pouches, put it on, goes on the fucking op.

• 23:19Shawn Ryan?

  The dev guys are all like, who the fuck is this?

• 23:24Shawn Ryan?

  Why is a tech coming on this? And, uh, goes on the op. And, uh, but I mean, that's,

• 23:32Shawn Ryan?

  goes on the op to recover the guy, the bodies. You know, they get in a firefight out there. And, um, and, um, and, and he also had a role in Benghazi. He also had a role in the coast bombing at the agency. Um, but never fucking told anybody. You know, and, and he told me when he was in BUDs. He was in BUDs, uh, with, uh, I believe, I know James Sow was one. I think Axelson was the other. And this was, he was in BUDs when nine 11 happened. And through Hell Week. And he told me he was sitting on the grinder or standing on the grinder. Sow was on one side, Axelson's on the other.

• 24:16Shawn Ryan?

  And this is like 30 minutes after the towers.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Wow. What a time to be on the grinder.

• 24:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. And so they give a speech and they're basically saying, hey, Blake, it's been peacetime for a long time. And, uh, your guys' generation is going to war. And look to your right and look to your left. There's a good chance that one of these guys are going to be dead. You know, in the near future. James Sow, Matt Axelson. And when he fucking landed, when he landed in Bagram, it was that Master Chief that gave that speech that greeted him coming off the fucking bird.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 24:55Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh,

• 24:56Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 24:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 25:00Shawn Ryan?

  And then he later died of uh of addiction with opiates. And so I've never told anybody that.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  I appreciate.

• 25:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  And and I mean, it just kind of goes back for me to what we were talking about. The the complexity of, you know, the difficulty of surviving for anyone that went through Bud's during nine eleven. Okay, yeah, you're gonna be busy and good luck surviving that. Just literally coming it back alive like Sa and Axel said couldn't. Uh, and then if you do come back, the complexities of having to carry, forget about the the woman and the baby. I mean, that's horrific and that that would do most people in then whatever you saw in

• 25:48Speaker 03

  theater and people these these guys are coming back and having to try and move move on. And I, you know, know some professional athletes and I've seen the complexities of an athlete retiring. Um, you know, I I own a boxing gym in L A and we get a lot of military um and and pro athletes that come in there and and train and especially when they're when they've gotten out. Uh, and and I see firsthand how hard it is uh for pro football players. We have a couple in there now. We've had a lot of uh team guys come in and they're trying to just stand on their feet like like like children again, like babies in a new world.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  And and uh I can't imagine how hard it was for for your friend to come back with with the weight of those experiences in a world that's not necessarily receptive and we can't see the injuries, right? So I could be talking to you and you look pretty good and you know, you're handsome and you're ex fucking Navy SEAL and everybody loves a Navy SEAL and so you're cool. Inside it's can be, you know, a different story. Uh, and I and I I remember when I someone gave me the statistic about how much money the government spends making a SEAL, right? All the training, everything, you know, three phases and then all the specialized training.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  And then, I don't know, I heard pretty high numbers for however what it costs to make a SEAL versus how much money they put into kind of keeping an eye on a SEAL when he when he's done.

• 27:27Shawn Ryan?

  They don't care about us.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I tend to agree. I mean, certainly, they don't act like they care. They might say they care, but if you just look for actions, that that's where it kind of gets hard to to for me to to sort out.

• 27:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, they did try to hide it, you know, they try to hide it. They don't like talking about it because it fucks up recruiting numbers.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 27:47Shawn Ryan?

  The upper echelon of the SEAL teams fucking hate this show because because we dive into

• 27:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would imagine.

• 27:54Shawn Ryan?

  We expose it and it it, you know, and and, you know, I don't care if it hurts the recruiting numbers.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:02Shawn Ryan?

  They they've, I believe they have a responsibility.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  I understand that, you know, what I went, I got to go when I was writing Lone Survivor, I got to go to Iraq with Team Five to a place called Rawah. I don't know if you're ever out there. It was a Marine Corps base kind of by the Syrian border. And I got to spend a month, you know, as a civilian embedded with with a bunch of guys from Team Five. And that was without a doubt one of the greatest experiences of my life on on many levels. And I a couple of I took a lot from it and have a lot of memories. But to this point, one memory that really stuck with me when I tried to understand, when I look now back and I try to understand the transition for SEALs, but not just SEALs, it could be any

• 28:48Speaker 03

  anyone who's in the military, but certainly it could be for Rangers or Delta or, you know, Marsoc or any particularly special operators that have to kind of get out. Something I remember from my time in Iraq was I got to go with the SEALs and they were gonna go into a house and, you know, kick in the door and get a guy. And so they all went in and they wouldn't let me go in until it was secure. And so I was sort of out on the street and I was on a corner with this one young SEAL, I think it wasn't quite a new guy, but he was young, little guy. And he was he was doing security on his corner. And I was kind of with him. And and he wasn't really talking to me. He was kind of looking out in the

• 29:30Speaker 03

  street. And there were three Iraqi young men that had sort of come and were staring at us. And he knew enough Arabic to say, you know, go, get out of here. And he yelled it at him and they stared at him and he yelled it again. And and they sort of walked away. And afterwards, after the whole lot, we were back at the base. I said, Well, what would you have done if if they didn't leave? And he said, I would have killed him. I said, what? He said, well, you know, the way I look at it is if I'm working and I see them, I own them. I own their shoes, I own their pants, I own their shirt, and I own their organs. I own their heart. Their heart is mine. So I do whatever the fuck I want with that.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  I own them. And I remember thinking,

• 30:21Speaker 03

  well, this guy's gonna have trouble getting out of the military. Like, how do you take? And I totally understood that mindset of like, fuck it, I will survive. My job is to protect this corner. My guys are in that house, I will fucking protect this corner. I, I understood that. But then thinking, well, this guy's gonna have to get out one day. And he's gonna be in traffic and someone's gonna cut him off. Or he's gonna be in Starbucks and someone's gonna say some shit. And like, the complexity of that kind of mindset, to have to adjust to being able to be, like, I remember, uh, someone once talked about Mick Jagger, right? The Rolling Stones guy.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  And you met in the house, in like 1975, when the Rolling Stones were the biggest band in the world. And Mick Jagger told a story about how he had to come home from a world tour, where they were selling out stadiums all around the world. And he's Mick fucking Jagger. And he comes home and his wife, Jerry Hall, this woman, and he has a, has a baby. She hands him the baby. She says, clean up the baby, and there's dog shit in the yard. And Mick Jagger's like, but I'm Mick fucking Jagger. I just came back from, you know, the, oh. And I gotta, and I've always thought that moment, just a little moment, right? I felt what it means to have that kind of power in a place like Iraq.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Well, now you gotta come home and you have to turn it in. You have to retire and you have to move forward.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't think civilians understand that.

• 32:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, they don't. They don't, you know, but I think that, uh, that's, that's a, that's, I think that that's a big reason why opiates become such, such a, such a problem.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:20Shawn Ryan?

  You know, in the, in the community, I mean.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  And they're right there and so then, yeah.

• 32:24Shawn Ryan?

  It numbs that out.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  Turn it off.

• 32:26Shawn Ryan?

  Dumbs it out. And, uh, and then it's, it's just, it's the only thing that seems to turn the switch off, you know, for a lot of people. And, um, the immediate, easy fix.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:40Shawn Ryan?

  You know, just it dumbs you out to where you don't give a fuck.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:42Shawn Ryan?

  You know, anymore.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:44Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, and then, you know, down the spiral we go.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  Well, that was what Painkiller, you know, was for me. The, the show I did about Purdue Pharma, you know, and the Sackler family. Um, it's interesting, just today, what's the date today? What is it?

• 33:02Shawn Ryan?

  The sixteenth.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  The sixteenth. So today on the way over here, someone sent me New York Times article about a new twist in the opioid epidemic. These companies that serve as the middlemen between the doctors and the, um, the, uh, I'm sorry, between the prescribers and the insurance companies. There are these companies that control what the insurance companies will allow to be prescribed. So if the doctor says you should have two hundred and fifty, you should be able to take two hundred and fifty milligrams of OxyContin a day. These companies are in charge of regulating whether the insurance companies will pay for that. So they've got this incredible power. And there's three main companies, can't remember the names of them, but it's just today in

• 33:48Speaker 03

  the paper. And now it came out in the Times today that the Sacklers and other drug companies were bribing these guys to restrict the, the amount of pills that were allowed to be prescribed. So they would, they would get paid off and they would allow. These incredible prescriptions to be put through and the insurance companies to pay for them. So it's just more of a game within a game within a game.

• 34:15Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, when you made that, I mean, I mean, that exposed a lot of shit to the public. That people weren't really thinking about. I mean, when you make something like that, do you have any fear?

• 34:31Speaker 03

  A little bit. For a minute, I did.

• 34:34Shawn Ryan?

  You're fucking with some really powerful people.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  So at first I didn't, right? It's like, it's like people say, well, when you went to Iraq, were you scared? And I said, well, not really, because there were 20 Navy SEALs around me all the time and I felt pretty safe. When I got back and I kind of really looked at the map and figured out, I felt a little more nervous. But in the moment, I didn't feel nervous. Probably should have felt a little more nervous, but I felt very safe with the guys.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  The Sacklers, at first I'm like, well, yeah, these guys are fucking scumbags. Fuck them. Let's make a movie and let's, let's tell the truth. You know, I have friends that have died from drug addiction and I don't give a fuck and let's go. I'm not scared. The more research I did, the more nervous I got because they're just like, these are like real mobsters. These are the real Pablo Escobars, the real drug dealers that are, you know, putting up numbers much larger than the Medellin cocaine cartels, the companies like Purdue and the Sackler family. So the more I learned about just how powerful and quiet they were and what kind of masterminds at secrecy, like,

• 35:43Speaker 03

  you still, if you try and, you know, search Richard Sackler, they're so fucking scrubbed that you'll get virtually nothing on them. And they just constantly cycle that. And I don't still, I've yet to find anyone who's better scrubbed as far as, you know, internet than Richard Sackler, the, you know, the kingpin of the Sackler family. But so the more I learned, the more nervous I got. And there was a moment where I was literally paranoid and I'm like, checking my back and like, like making sure doors are locked and, you know, having access to security if I felt threatened. And then I realized like, if they want to get me, they're gonna get me.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  And kind of by the time. We really got going there. The wave was really getting big and people were finally starting to say the name Sackler and realize just how dirty and corrupt this family was. And I felt a little, I think all of us involved felt at least secure in that like if they were, it was so public at this point that if they did come after us, everyone was gonna know. It's like I didn't have to leave a note like, hey, man, if something happens to me, it was Richard Sackler. People kinda already would get that. Yeah. And everyone's like, dude, I don't know if I wanna stand so close to you. I'd invite my friends out to dinner and they're like, yeah, no, we're good. I'm very busy for a while. Let's see how the show plays out.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  People kinda distanced themselves, jokingly for a minute, but I mean, I, I, I'm not necessarily like the biggest conspiracy guy. Like, I'm always up to entertain a good conspiracy story. Like, I'll talk about Lee Harvey Oswald for a long time and the magic bullet theory and all that, but I, and I don't even know whether it's a conspiracy or it's just like the realization of how the world does business. And this, if you really wanna understand what the fuck's going on, not just in pharmaceuticals, but I think in almost any business, certainly the business of war, right? Yeah. The amount of guys that are making money off of war, right? That's a different story.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  But the way that the money rules the world, it's all about money and the Sacklers knew it. And the Sacklers knew that they had this incredible product that could do this incredible thing, take away your fucking pain. Like, for anyone that's dealt with pain, whether it's like the emotional pain that your buddy went through after losing his child and girlfriend and seeing what he saw in that helicopter, he's in pain, give me that pill, give me 40 milligrams of that Yeah. liquid honey, you know, that happens to have a little battery acid in the middle of it, I'll take it.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  And the Sacklers knew it and they knew how to monetize it and they knew how to game the system.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  And I think like, the worst thing that I found, the thing that really floored me, was this guy Curtis Wright. Do you know who Curtis Wright is? Curtis Wright, no. So, the, the, one of the challenges the Sacklers had and, and with OxyContin and Purdue had, they needed to get the FDA to approve it, right? They'd spent so much money developing this drug, and they were having financial problems prior to OxyContin being, um, uh, you know, approved by the FDA, that they were all in on, on OxyContin, and they needed the FDA to approve it. Like, you think about the FDA, you know, big government organization,

• 39:27Speaker 03

  and it, you know, is probably a big organization that probably does need a haircut, and I'll bet they're gonna get one now with the new administration, which is probably a good thing, I think. Um, but you think, oh wow, the FDA has to approve OxyContin, that's probably a team of fifty scientists and they're gonna have to go... It was really just one guy. Oh shit. And it was this kinda nerdy dude named Curtis Wright, and he was the obstacle. He kept saying to the Sacklers and to Purdue Pharma, "I can't approve this drug. This is heroin in a little M and M wrapper." Like, "What are you, fucking crazy? No." And they kept trying, he went through multiple applications, and this one guy was saying no.

• 40:09Speaker 03

  And that was putting the entire Sackler family and Purdue Pharma in real risk of, of financial ruin. And so, at some point, prior to getting the approval, some members of Purdue Pharma took Curtis Wright to a hotel room in the Virginia area, somewhere near DC, and they spent a couple of days in a hotel room. And no one knows what happened in that hotel room. When they came out, Curtis Wright had signed the approval, with the words that "OxyContin is believed to be non-addictive." Is believed, is believed, which is weird language. It's not, "OxyContin is not addictive."

• 40:51Speaker 03

  It is, "OxyContin is believed to not be addictive." But no one ever used that language. Doesn't make any sense. Curtis, he approved it. I, the drug gets, you know, going and it becomes a grand slam homerun, and the money's off the chart. About a year and a half later, Curtis Wright leaves the FDA. And goes and works for Purdue Pharma.

• 41:15Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  He was making, they say seventy thousand at the FDA, hundreds of thousands at Purdue. They bought him. And, and when I heard that, I'm like, okay. That is how the fucking world operates. Um, and to, it's not a conspiracy, it's a fact. And, you know, it's public, people know about it. Um, human beings, like your friends and friends that I have are dying and are still dying. People are getting addicted. Families are being thoroughly fucked up.

• 41:50Shawn Ryan?

  It's crazy.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  And derailed. And this is how it goes. And so it was making painkiller was a, a, you know, it's a mostly powerful experience. I don't think there was a day filming it when someone on the crew didn't come up to me and say, hey, can I talk to you for a second? My best friend died. My cousin died. My mother died. Just in your studio today, someone that works for you came up to me and started sharing me a story about their relationship, uh, and to a family member and, and the drug. And it, it's, it's omnipresent and it's horrible. And it's, you know, I, what, what I get from it is like, let's open up our eyes and be

• 42:34Speaker 03

  real honest about how this world operates.

• 42:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  And usually it's money.

• 42:40Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we're, well, we're sort of the things, what was the initial thing that kind of got you paranoid about the Sackler family?

• 42:48Speaker 03

  I, I remember we, I was trying to interview members of Purdue Pharma. To, cause like I said, you can't get any information on the Sacklers. So I was trying to interview members, people who had worked for the company and we couldn't get anyone to talk. And then a journalist, uh, from the New York Times had written a book that we were, was one of our source, pieces of source material for the book, a book called Empire Pain. That the author of that book, Colby, said, there's a woman who will talk to you. And she used to work for Richard Sackler as one of his, like, five secretaries. And I'm like, great. He's like, she's gonna call you at whatever time on, you know, in two days.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  Be ready, she's gonna call you. So I was, I was in pre-production on film. My phone goes off, it's FaceTime, and I answer the phone and it's this woman. And she's in a car and she's pulled over on the side of the road. And she starts talking to me about working for Richard Sackler. But she's getting real close to the phone and she's whispering. And she keeps looking around and she told me she'd left work and driven to the parking lot of a little strip mall. And she was, you know, willing to tell me enough about him. She told me some things about him, but I could feel her legitimate paranoia and fear of talking about him. And after that call, I came back and I said, guys, we, we, we just gotta like,

• 44:17Speaker 03

  you know, watch our backs. Yeah. And be smart, because we are poking a bear. Yeah. And that, I don't know, man, they still could get me. And if they do, if I go quick or I go weird, check out the Sacklers. I will. I do feel pretty safe here with you, though, I gotta say. We're in good company. Yeah, I feel safe. But, uh, did you, did you struggle with addiction at all, or? I was lucky. I, I never, I never had addiction. Um, I have family members that have, they've used, um, 12 step to, to their, to their, um, you know, I have one sibling and, you know, she's done an incredible job.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  She's 30 years sober and A has been a godsend to her. And we've talked about addiction and, um, and I've asked her, I'm like, what, what do you think it is? Like, you know, I've asked her, do you think I'm an addict? Because I do drink. Um, but there's not a drug I haven't tried. Pretty much. I don't think I've done bath salts or angel dust. Uh. Okay? Take those two, maybe a few others, but I've tried them. And I, I don't know, man, I always had that ability to sort of see, see through the shot, see through the line. You know, if someone put a line of coke in front of

• 45:43Speaker 03

  me back in the day, I might do one. But then I'd think about the other and I kind of had that, that, it's not that I didn't want to do it and that I didn't see kind of what was good and what felt good about it. But I was able to sort of see, well, let's jump ahead 24 hours, uh, 48 hours and think about the cost, the hangover, the self-loathing, the self-disgust, the bad choices that start to accumulate and the, and I was able to kind of, I'm good. Um, and my sister said to me that that ability

• 46:24Speaker 03

  to have that pause is something that can separate, you know, an addict, a true addict from someone that's not. And, and I think about that because I, it's not any superhuman quality. It's nothing that I could credit for and be like, oh, I can do this. Uh, any more than I think most of the addicts that I know, uh, suffer not for, it's not, it's not about weakness. It's not mental weakness or physical weakness that's causing someone to go back to that drug or back to that behavior, whatever it is. It's so fucking self-destructive.

• 47:03Speaker 03

  Um, it's a, it's a disease, I believe. Um, and I'm fortunate that I don't think I have it.

• 47:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  You know, and do you? Have you, have you experienced it?

• 47:15Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 47:16Speaker 03

  Is that common knowledge? I forgive me for not knowing.

• 47:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it is. It's, uh, I had a hell of a run in Colombia with cocaine.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:23Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, I appreciate the bottle, but I've been, I've been, uh, I've been sober for three years.

• 47:30Speaker 03

  Good for you, man.

• 47:31Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, well, I've been on booze for three years, but, uh, yeah, really, I was really riding the line there. Opiates, coke, benzos, booze, sleeping pill, all of it combined together. And then, uh, and then, um, I did a psychedelics, um,

• 47:54Shawn Ryan?

  Treatment.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  You had a little journey.

• 47:56Shawn Ryan?

  I had a little journey, went down, went down to Mexico to do, uh, do some drugs that got me off the drugs.

• 48:03Speaker 03

  What were some of the, the drugs? I'm sure everyone knows this and you've talked about it.

• 48:07Shawn Ryan?

  No, it's fine. It was, uh, so I, I had really cleaned it up. I had a, I had, uh, so I moved down to Medellin.

• 48:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a tricky spot for anyone that's even tempted to flirt with the devil. You're gonna find it down there.

• 48:23Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that's kinda why I went and, uh,

• 48:26Speaker 03

  You found what you were looking for.

• 48:28Shawn Ryan?

  I definitely found it and, uh, overdosed a couple of times, almost died. Uh, I remember calling my mom on Mother's Day. Uh, you know, I've always heard,

• 48:44Shawn Ryan?

  you don't have to worry about, you don't have to worry about how much coke you've had until things start slowing down. And they said, uh, they said, when you're on speed and things start slowing down, that's, that's when you're riding the line. And, uh, that happened to me a couple of times down there where it was like,

• 49:08Shawn Ryan?

  it was like that fucking scene in Old School where like, you know, the, the voice is like, "Woo!" I started hearing that.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  How, how much coke had you done? You think and how long was the binge?

• 49:21Shawn Ryan?

  About five years and, uh, a lot. I mean, I just, it's just, I mean, it's, you know, at that time, like really good coke in Miami was like a hundred and fifty bucks a gram.

• 49:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:35Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, down there I was getting it for five bucks a gram.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  And it was so much stronger, right?

• 49:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, it's fresh from the, it's just right, right. I mean, it's Columbia.

• 49:47Speaker 03

  But, but would you do like, cause I, I never did. But I heard about like three day, four day binges that people would go on. And you're not sleeping and you're just doing more. Did you ever experience anything like that?

• 50:06Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it was all the time. It was all the time. And I would go, you know, I don't know, I never really kept track, but I mean, I never stopped. Like I would, I would go hard in the paint for a week.

• 50:20Speaker 03

  Oh, my goodness.

• 50:21Shawn Ryan?

  And then I would go all the way up until the point where like I would get like this really bad heartburn and I would just drown Tums and Pepto and anything. Like I just wanted to keep.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  How did you get yourself out of that?

• 50:40Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I actually got run out by the federal police. And I, so I like really, uh, I always take care of everybody around me. And I do with my team now. I've, I've, I've just always done it. I've always been. And so when I went down there, I had a, a kind of a, I had a penthouse in, uh, in a neighborhood called El Poblado. And so anybody that was around me, I would take care of. So like number one guy, doorman, who has access into the building that I'm in. The door guy.

• 51:24Shawn Ryan?

  And so all the door guys, like if I went to go get booze, they got booze. If I went to go get coke, they got coke. When I would leave Columbia to come back to the States, I would give them all my clothes, my shoes, my sung, everything. Like a computer, it done anything. If I went to go get a phone, I'd got them a phone. So I really took care of those guys because I knew that they controlled access into the building and, and up to my apartment. And so they'd kind of tipped me off and one of them in particular tipped me off. And, uh, and had told me that, that they had set up a.

• 52:03Shawn Ryan?

  They had set up a observation point in a building across a mine. And um, and that they may have bugged the uh recessed lighting in the hallway outside of my uh where I was at.

• 52:18Speaker 03

  But this is real or was this like coke paranoia?

• 52:20Shawn Ryan?

  No, this is real.

• 52:21Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 52:22Shawn Ryan?

  And uh, yeah, and so when I got one to that, I uh I high-tailed it out of there and never went back, cleaned it up, cleaned up the coke, tried to clean it up. Then I started going to Costa Rica, but Costa Rica was like fucking Disneyland compared to what I was doing.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  Piravina, you weren't about to Piravina.

• 52:41Shawn Ryan?

  It was just a bunch of gringos down there wanting to wanting to have sex with with Latin Costa Rican girls. And I was, I was just like, this is fucking stupid.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  JV.

• 52:52Shawn Ryan?

  I need, I need to be, cause the real issue was adrenal addiction from, from all my time in and um.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  Right, but that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, like you get to play God.

• 53:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:06Speaker 03

  Talk about adrenaline, what are you gonna do with that energy when you get out? You're gonna go to Medellin and shack up.

• 53:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Speaker 03

  Right?

• 53:14Shawn Ryan?

  People would come down to visit me and uh to think it would be a good time, which I thought of, you know. I'm not condoning this, it was a fucking, it was horrible and I speak against it all the time now, but, but um they couldn't, you know, they'd last maybe two days and they'd be, they'd come down to visit me for a month and then I'd get a note, you know, on my table that's like, dude, I'm out of here. It's like, this is fucking crazy. And um, and uh, cause it, it wasn't, uh, I mean, it's just different, it's just crazy down there. I mean, I used to go to this um, club, it was called Fahrenheit. And in the club.

• 53:54Shawn Ryan?

  They had like these tables where they would they would line like put lines and mounds like little mounds and key bumps and shit on the table of coke and then lacquer over the top.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  You know, right now, some of your uh wide viewers are like just Googling Fahrenheit and booking plane tickets right now.

• 54:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, that was a long time ago.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  I'm sure they're looking.

• 54:16Shawn Ryan?

  But uh.

• 54:17Speaker 03

  Don't do it.

• 54:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but don't do it. It doesn't lead anywhere good.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  Right. So, okay, so what would happen though? You go to Fahrenheit. How would how would that play out?

• 54:27Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it was just that was I mean, that was just one hangout. But what I really liked doing was, I mean, what I really liked was the adrenaline, you know, and and it just, you know, the adrenaline from from the teams and in my time at the agency, like it just, I mean, it was just always like shit was happening. And then when I left, I think I couldn't fucking feed that anymore. And um and I had no nowhere to get it, you know, and so that's I was like, I'm gonna go down here and like.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  But what what do you think um how would did you go get into 12 step? Did you?

• 55:03Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 55:04Speaker 03

  What saved you? What got you to to walk away from the drugs and the alcohol and?

• 55:09Shawn Ryan?

  That Mother's Day thing like really got to me because I was like, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fucking OD down here and uh my body will just decompose because nobody really gives a shit about me down here. Nobody knows I'm here other than my parents and they'll just eventually get a call like, hey, your son's body is fucking decomposing in this penthouse. He OD'd on coke, you know, and like the career that I've had before that, it was just like, oh, there's my son, the former seal, former CIA contractor who's fucking died of a cocaine overdose. I was ashamed and and so I went home and I I mean, I still struggled with the benzos and because down there would I would just, you know, you can get whatever you want. So if I was getting, you know, eventually if I was getting to

• 55:55Shawn Ryan?

  going too hard down the coke train, I would just pop a Valium and then.

• 55:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:59Shawn Ryan?

  But whatever. But um but uh then I had a suicide attempt. And that was really like the breaking point for me when I got when I got back home, just nothing was, I couldn't get anything going and and uh and uh pulled the car in the garage and reclined the seat back and.

• 56:20Shawn Ryan?

  I woke up. Wouldn't, I should have never woken up, but anyways.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  That's what you call a positive fail, my friend.

• 56:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:29Speaker 03

  I'm glad you fucking failed.

• 56:31Shawn Ryan?

  Me too.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  I really am. I really am.

• 56:35Shawn Ryan?

  Me too. But, um, so, so.

• 56:39Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 56:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, so then, you know, then I.

• 56:41Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 56:42Shawn Ryan?

  Then, uh, but then, but then I found, you know, psychedelics through this show and, uh, went down there and haven't had, kicked everything.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  So the psychedelics helped you? Are you, are you in 12-step? Do you, do you use 12-step?

• 56:58Shawn Ryan?

  Peter, it was like a light switch, man.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  What psychedelics did you do?

• 57:01Shawn Ryan?

  I did, uh, Ibogaine and 5-MAOD NT.

• 57:05Speaker 03

  And you smoked a toad?

• 57:06Shawn Ryan?

  I smoked a toad.

• 57:07Speaker 03

  I smoked it four times, my friend.

• 57:09Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 57:09Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 57:12Shawn Ryan?

  I want to hear about this.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  I love that toad.

• 57:16Shawn Ryan?

  Did you die?

• 57:17Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 57:18Shawn Ryan?

  Tell me about it.

• 57:24Speaker 00

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• 58:32Speaker 03

  I was gonna recommend that you just smoked a toad before you told me that you did. How many times have you smoked a toad?

• 58:40Shawn Ryan?

  Well, one day I did it thirteen times.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  Oh my goodness.

• 58:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, you had to really get, you had to get some, get to it.

• 58:52Shawn Ryan?

  You gotta dig deep, you know, but, um, but, but.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  Like fourteen, it's off the pipe? It won, like staying under?

• 59:00Shawn Ryan?

  It was an all-day event. I started at like nine AM.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  And you had a good shaman that was guiding you?

• 59:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, amazing, amazing. And, uh, like I just, the first time was the scariest and probably the one that I got the most out of, I mean, like I said, you know, between that and the Ibegane, I haven't, this February it'll be three years since I've had a toad.

• 59:21Speaker 03

  I mean, those are the two most powerful, I mean, Ibegane I've never done, but I know what it is. I'm scared of it, actually.

• 59:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  And I've, I've met the toad, um, wow, you really, I, I can see how that would've taken care of a problem.

• 59:38Shawn Ryan?

  Cleaned me out. Still clean.

• 59:40Speaker 03

  How, how many times did you do the Ibegane?

• 59:43Shawn Ryan?

  One.

• 59:44Speaker 03

  That's enough, right?

• 59:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Different experience than the five MEO?

• 59:48Shawn Ryan?

  Totally different.

• 59:49Speaker 03

  How would you, how would you explain the differences?

• 59:52Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, I, I mean, the Ibegane's like a twelve-hour experience.

• 59:58Speaker 03

  They say the Ibegane is, is the god, the godfather, yes, like that's the most powerful.

• 1:00:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  I always heard that five MEO's the god molecule, but Ibegane is the godfather.

• 1:00:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  Is that accurate?

• 1:00:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I think, I think, I think so.

• 1:00:14Speaker 03

  What was the Ibegane like?

• 1:00:16Shawn Ryan?

  Man, it was, uh, it was, I mean, it was about twelve hours long. I couldn't walk afterwards and it, it was, you know, in a nutshell, it's like a life review. It's like a life review of looking at your life through.

• 1:00:38Shawn Ryan?

  From an outside perspective, like a non-bias.

• 1:00:41Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:42Shawn Ryan?

  Non- for me, like a non-emotional perspective. And so a lot of the things that kind of happened, I guess you just you process them in a different way.

• 1:00:54Speaker 03

  Like from way back, from your little kid?

• 1:00:56Shawn Ryan?

  Everything, like, and it wasn't all traumatic shit, you know, it was, um, like, to be honest, it was like this, it was like the, it was like these TV screens, like thousands of them, kind of like going off into a distance and just disappearing. And if I, and every screen was a different portion, like, like, like, segment of my life. And I could see them through my peripherals and like see them, you know, kind of moving through. And I, I could think like, oh yeah, that's, you know, when me and my dad did this thing and that is in Iraq. And that's when I was a teenager wrestling. And this is, there was no like chronological order, there was no nothing.

• 1:01:39Shawn Ryan?

  And if I tried to pay too much attention into one screen, then they would all disappear. Um, and so it wasn't even like I was reliving experiences, but that's kind of, you know, how it went for me. I didn't, I didn't like, it wasn't, it wasn't a scary experience, other than at the very first, I saw like my head split open and another one mushroomed out.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  That's a little scary.

• 1:02:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but, but I wasn't, it wasn't, you know, like you hear some of the horror stories about people reliving things or meeting demons, I didn't.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  On IberGang?

• 1:02:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I didn't meet any demons, I didn't, it was just a life review kind of. And, um, and then when I came out of it, it's like I had this, uh, new sixth sense that said, hey, all this shit you're doing, it's fucking poison, like. Knocked this shit off, quit drinking, quit, you know, I quit caffeine for a long time. I quit smoking marijuana for a long time. I, uh, I was still taking Adderall, uh, to concentrate.

• 1:02:42Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 1:02:43Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, hadn't had any of that. And, and, uh, like the, the, the fruit that came from that experience, just, I mean, it totally like revolutionized this show and my business. I, I was kinda scared to leave the military, uh, genre, not leave it, but explore new territories and like that somehow that just like.

• 1:03:06Speaker 03

  Do you credit the Ibogaine more than the 5-MEO?

• 1:03:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  With your sobriety?

• 1:03:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:03:12Speaker 03

  Cause I've heard that.

• 1:03:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:13Speaker 03

  I've heard that from ex-military guys, ex-team guys who've taken Ibogaine and they physically look different. I've seen them since.

• 1:03:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:22Speaker 03

  And the look in their eye, that they're, it's almost like their facial construction is different, their cheekbones feel different, their eyes feel different, their posture, um, and they're sober.

• 1:03:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  It seems to be the, one of the more effective medicines.

• 1:03:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, they've done studies on it now. It's, it's, it's, it's, um, I mean, it's really changing a lot of lives.

• 1:03:47Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 1:03:47Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and it is the cure for, for opiate addiction.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:52Shawn Ryan?

  For alcoholism. And so if you are out there riding the fucking line, you know, like we were just talking about, and, uh, you're looking for a way out, I'd highly recommend it.

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, same here. And, and I do hope that whatever happens with Kennedy and, and, you know, the new administration, that people start looking at this and that any of it, whether it's ketamine, psilocybin, 5-MEO, Ibogaine, that people start at least being educated on what it, it can and cannot do and that the government starts making these, these medicines available. I'm all for it. My, my experience on, um, 5-MEO, I never did Ibogaine. I don't know if I have the guts for it. I was scared to do, to smoke the toad.

• 1:04:40Speaker 03

  I remember my friend took me, and my friend's a pretty high functioning business guy, successful, and you know, and the fact that he had done it, and a couple of other people I know that are pretty high functioning have done it, made me, you know, willing to take the chance that I didn't, I was a little concerned that I was gonna break my brain on something that powerful, but because they had done it, I felt confident. And I got to the place in California where I was gonna do it the first time, and they were already doing it. And I was looking at them, and it's a little, if you watch somebody that's going through it, you know, they're making some noises and moving around a little bit, and I was like, not quite sure what kind of experience they were having. And

• 1:05:22Speaker 03

  the guy, who was actually a psychiatrist, who is now the minister of this, and he used to do antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, and you know, he would write scripts for it. And he started learning about some of these psychedelics, and he completely changed his practice, and only does 5-MO and ibogaine now. And I thought that was interesting. But he took me aside, and he sat me down, and he said, "Okay, Pete, you know, you're about to ingest 5-MO DMT. It's the most powerful psychedelic, you know, certainly one of them in the world. It's gonna last 30 minutes or so, and you're gonna have this very powerful experience, and you might feel as though you're dying,

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  but you won't." And he's telling me all this stuff, and I'm kinda looking at him. He's like, "Do you have any questions?" I said, "Well, you know, I'd heard this about other psychedelics, you know, should I set an intention, right? Like, I wanna make peace with my father, or I wanna remember my grandfather, or I wanna spend time with my dog Schlemmer, who died when I was eight." Like, you know, what's my goal? What should I... And I remember, he looked at me, and he put his hand on my shoulder, he said, "Good luck with that, Pete. Good luck. You try and set all the intentions you want." And that kinda freaked me out a little bit, 'cause I could tell, like, you know what I mean? He was like, "Okay, you, good luck with your little intentions." And I remember...

• 1:06:50Speaker 03

  Smoking it and the feeling of, for me, what they say, they call ego death, right? And I've heard, I've talked to other people about it. Mike Tyson's talked about it. Um, you know, it's certainly nothing that I'm the only one that's experienced. But when you experience it, you really know you've experienced it. And it's, it's interesting because you try and explain it to people and you find that words fail you because we don't literally have the words in the English language to explain this kind of experience because people just haven't experienced it. So they don't have words for it. Um, and, but it is death, right? Of some sort, that, that's a word that people can relate to.

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  And, and for me, the way I explained what I first experienced was as the medicine was taking over my mind, I felt myself trying to hold on to thoughts like, okay, I'm in Malibu, California. I'm in California. I'm on the west coast of America. I'm in America. I'm on the western hemisphere. I'm on the planet Earth. I was trying to hold on to, and it suddenly the, my ability to think was just turned off about that thought. And then I went to, well, I'm Pete, my dad's Larry, my grandfather's Harry, my great grand, that's off. Um, I'm wearing shoes, I'm wearing socks, I'm wearing, that, and every thought I could

• 1:08:20Speaker 03

  have would suddenly be slammed off, almost like a, a steel curtain was shutting down. And I could feel myself trying to hold on to any kind of thinking, any kind of rational thinking. And every thought was just, and then this giant wall of darkness came over me and it was a sound and it was like, over. And I remember thinking very clearly, I'm dead. And my first thought was, it's all over. It's all nothing. Everything is nothing. I thought that. Wow. Everything is nothing. And...

• 1:09:06Speaker 03

  All of this sort of sudden, because these are just words now, I became aware, sort of, that something was still going on. I was still functioning. There was brain function.

• 1:09:20Speaker 03

  But it wasn't any brain function I'd ever encountered before. And then I just started going into something that felt so expansive and such an energetic experience that was kind of moving and unfolding in multiple directions, everywhere, everything at once, kind of energy. And that energy overtook me. And I remember I sobbed and I laughed and I screamed. And when I came out of it,

• 1:09:56Speaker 03

  the people who had organized this, the doctor and his assistants, one of the women had a pet wolf. And I didn't know there was a wolf in the house. And I came to and I was on my hands and knees and I had snot and tears all over me. And I really had this cathartic release of feelings that I just don't have the ability to access on a regular basis. And I looked up and there's this white wolf staring at me. Like, "Little, about as close as you are, a little further away." Locked into my eyes. Damn. And I'm staring at this wolf and I start pointing. And I'm trying to determine whether it's real, which it was.

• 1:10:39Speaker 03

  And I look up at John, the guy, and I'm trying to ask him if this is real. And I remember he put his hand on my shoulder. He said, "Pete, try not to make sense of anything right now. Just stay in it."

• 1:10:53Speaker 03

  And it was an incredibly life-changing experience for me. Sounds like a David Yarrow photo. Wow. It was, it was, it was so powerful. And for me, because I'm not religious, I, I, I'm, was raised a bit atheist. I'm a Catholic Jew and my parents didn't believe in organized religion. So I never, I just never really had access to it. This, this felt like an incredible religious experience to me. And for me, and I have people like Pete, stop fucking talking about 5MEO, but I love talking about 5MEO.

• 1:11:37Speaker 03

  And if someone's done it, I'll talk to them about it for hours. Because for me, the big secret that we all keep, that we all walk around as humans on this planet, and we never acknowledge, well, there's a lot of them, but the real big one for me is the concept of infinity, right? The concept that if you look out in the sky at night, that in theory, it goes on forever, in all directions. It never stops. It has no barriers. It has no ending, right? Very hard to get our mind around. I, I shared a car in Greece with Elon Musk alone for 35 minutes in traffic. And I was like, it's a long story, but I ended up in a car alone with Elon Musk and his driver and his security guy.

• 1:12:21Speaker 03

  And this was after I'd done it. And I'm like, I'm fucking, I got Elon Musk for 35 minutes. What do I want to ask him? And I said, Elon, what, what are your thoughts? Can you explain to me like, like, in a way that I could understand your concept of infinity? Like, because I can't understand it. How do you process the concept of an infinite universe? And he looked at me and said, Pete, I don't have a clue. I don't think I ever will, and I don't think we ever will. And I remember, wow, okay, he, he doesn't get it. I'm, I'm not so, you know, I, I don't get it either. Yeah. I mean, that tracks. But when I was under it, the 5MEO, I felt as though I was beginning to experience

• 1:13:05Speaker 03

  the maybe very beginning of a, of a look at a glimpse of what an infinite energy might feel like. And that felt religious to me. It felt like, and it sounds so stupid for anyone, and I get it, don't judge, don't judge. Try it, maybe.

• 1:13:28Speaker 03

  That's where I went and it really has helped me so much in every aspect of my life as a father, as a filmmaker, as a friend, in business negotiations. It's given me access to a different perspective. And I would imagine for you, it doesn't feel like, people are like, well, could I get addicted to it? And I don't know of anyone that gets addicted to things like Ibogaine or 5Mio. It's like, no, I'm good. It takes balls. It's like, I parachuted, I've done, you know, some jumps. And every time I've jumped, it takes, it's like, you don't really want to, right?

• 1:14:10Speaker 03

  That last second, you're like, how many jumps have you had, would you say?

• 1:14:14Shawn Ryan?

  Not very many.

• 1:14:15Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:14:16Shawn Ryan?

  Not very many.

• 1:14:17Speaker 03

  I had 13. On my 13th, I had a malfunction, so I haven't gone since. But every jump, no matter who, and I've been in a plane, you know, with some, down in San Diego where, you know that Skydive San Diego?

• 1:14:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:29Speaker 03

  Which is a great place, Jeff Bramston. That's where all the SEALs train and civilians. I go as a civilian. But a bunch of tough people jumping out of planes. And I know every one of them, that second, right before they jump, they feel that, maybe not today, at least most people do.

• 1:14:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:46Speaker 03

  Sure there are a few psychos that don't. But that's how I feel about like 5Mio, is like, I'm glad I did it, but man, if I'm gonna do it again, it's, you know.

• 1:14:57Shawn Ryan?

  I'm hesitant to do it. Every time.

• 1:14:59Speaker 03

  Have you done it once? Or you haven't?

• 1:15:01Shawn Ryan?

  No, I've done it, I think, four times.

• 1:15:03Speaker 03

  Right? It takes.

• 1:15:05Shawn Ryan?

  And four different sessions.

• 1:15:06Speaker 03

  It takes a certain type of courage.

• 1:15:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:08Speaker 03

  To take that hit.

• 1:15:09Shawn Ryan?

  You don't know where you're going.

• 1:15:11Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:15:12Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, so, so you went in, so are you saying you're not an atheist now?

• 1:15:17Speaker 03

  No, I'm not an atheist, but my belief, okay.

• 1:15:25Speaker 03

  Don't judge.

• 1:15:26Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not here to judge.

• 1:15:27Speaker 03

  So, the second time I did it, I went into this, again, this time I skipped the crying and one thing's interesting is, doing it a couple of times, I think you go a little bit further. Does this sound utterly insane?

• 1:15:42Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 1:15:43Speaker 03

  People are gonna be like, "Oh, he's just fucking drug wacky dude."

• 1:15:47Shawn Ryan?

  Nah, we talk about this all the time on this show.

• 1:15:49Speaker 03

  Because I really believe in this. And by the way, I don't believe in cocaine. I don't believe in recreational LSD. I think weed is problematic. I certainly don't, opioids, fuck no. This is a totally different animal to me. Including alcohol. That's all over there. This, this whole time I sound completely different.

• 1:16:10Shawn Ryan?

  This is a medicine.

• 1:16:12Speaker 03

  I-

• 1:16:12Shawn Ryan?

  So like, all the coke and all that shit, like, I think we kinda covered it, like, it's not good. I mean, I-

• 1:16:19Speaker 03

  Dark, dark, dark, suicidal energies. No, this is a whole nother experience. So the second time, I very quickly went into this energy that feels like I'm deep in the universe and I'm experiencing something that feels like this multidirectional energy that's just expanding. That I feel maybe part of the energy that built the universe. Something had to build it, right? Got all these planets floating around and, you know, you start getting into like the sun and what the fuck the sun is? And how that thing's still burning and how we're in this, you know, something's, right, and, and so there was some energetic,

• 1:17:01Speaker 03

  even if a god caused an explosion and that created the massive universe, not just our little solar system, but the infinite universe, which we are such a small part of, right, so-

• 1:17:13Shawn Ryan?

  They say there's more planets than grains of sand in the world.

• 1:17:18Speaker 03

  So, it's a, god would have to be really busy and he's probably not just our god, the way I look at it. But I'm feeling something, and we don't have words for this, but it's a real energy. That, words do it, won't do it justice. And as I'm coming out of this energy- I start to see images of religious, iconic religious structures being built. The pyramids, the Vatican, the Notre Dame Cathedral, Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Literally, I'm seeing man building these temples. And it's coming, so I'm coming out of the energy

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  into man's building of religious, you know, artifacts and temples and structures. And I'm seeing man building these temples, acknowledging their religion, their gods. But to me, it felt very reductive. After being in a much larger energy, this actually felt smaller to me, if that makes sense. And then I saw these religious, the pyramids, Mecca, Notre Dame Cathedral, I remember very clearly. And I came out of it. And there was a guy with me who was sort of my attendant. I don't know if you had someone watching you. Just make sure you don't take up all your clothes and run down the street, which I didn't. But I looked at him, his name was Connor.

• 1:18:47Speaker 03

  And I remember coming out of it. And I looked at him and I said to him, Connor, organized religion is somewhat fucking absurd.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  And he looked at me and he nodded, just like you did. And I couldn't understand,

• 1:19:07Speaker 03

  in that moment, having felt something that to me felt beyond organized religion. These structures, and I've been to the Ma'ad, been to Notre Dame, I've been to the Vatican. I haven't been, I've been into Saudi Arabia, but I couldn't go to Mecca. I wanted to.

• 1:19:25Speaker 03

  I've been to Japan and to India and seen Buddhist and Hindu temples. And I appreciate that, and I certainly respect it. But in that moment, I felt that if that type of organized religion wasn't speaking to me. But I did believe that there's definitely a force greater than anything we can see or feel or touch out there. And that, to me, was the most honest religious experience I've ever had. Interesting. So. That's kind of where I am.

• 1:20:03Shawn Ryan?

  That's I mean, it it uh it sent me down a path cuz I was first time I did it. It was, I didn't really believe in anything either. I grew up Catholic. And uh and that, you know, went out the window pretty much as soon as I joined the SEAL teams with that culture and what we were doing and. And uh but that but but I just I did you have your eyes closed or or a blindfold on?

• 1:20:30Speaker 03

  I did. They were closed.

• 1:20:31Shawn Ryan?

  So I did a I did it. I wanted to see.

• 1:20:33Speaker 03

  But I didn't. They just closed. I didn't. They didn't cover them up. I couldn't see anything.

• 1:20:38Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  Were your eyes open?

• 1:20:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I came back when I after I died, you know, after the.

• 1:20:43Speaker 03

  What did your death feel like?

• 1:20:44Shawn Ryan?

  My death felt like, man, like it was the most anxiety, most fear I've ever felt in my life. And uh and like it felt like all the negative like toxicity, like shit that I've experienced. You know, rage, like it felt like it was just rushing through my veins, out of my fingers and my toes.

• 1:21:10Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:21:11Shawn Ryan?

  And um and it felt like uh it I I had like this. It wasn't really a visualization. It was more like it felt more like an intuition, but it it felt like uh. It felt like there was this black tar like dripping off of my heart.

• 1:21:28Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:21:29Shawn Ryan?

  And uh and I had had my.

• 1:21:31Speaker 03

  Wow, that must have been terrifying.

• 1:21:33Shawn Ryan?

  It was. And uh and I just, like you, I had all these thoughts and shit about things.

• 1:21:40Speaker 03

  Because that's your ego trying to hold on to logic.

• 1:21:44Shawn Ryan?

  And the last thing, the last thing that I was grasping on to was my wife and my son.

• 1:21:49Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:21:50Shawn Ryan?

  And uh I was just like, I knew I was a hundred percent certain, like, you're fucking dying, Sean, like this, there's no coming back. You're done. And I was just fighting like hell cuz I just. I didn't wanna leave my wife and my six month old son in this fucked up place. And uh, so that was like the last thing that I was holding on to. And then when I, when I let that go, that's when the crossover happened. And uh, when the crossover happened, I like sat back up and uh, we're on the beach or close to the beach. We're up on a like, a mount, like a hill and you could see like, see out, you know, into the Pacific.

• 1:22:34Shawn Ryan?

  And there were some islands out there and I remember, everything looked exactly the same. It was just more vibrant. But like, every time I do psychedelics, I'm like, it's very, it's a lot of intuition going on. And, and you know, uh, and I was really reluctant to do this because I was like, this shit's for the hippies. I'm not a hippie.

• 1:22:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:55Shawn Ryan?

  And I've heard hippies talk about energy and all this stuff. And um, but when I opened my eyes, I saw, I, I just, you could intuitively feel and see this

• 1:23:10Shawn Ryan?

  flow of energy from the ocean into the beach, up the trees, like into the grass, through me and it was, I could just, you could see it intuitively and you just knew that it was there. And, and, and you know, if, I felt like if there would have been some negative energy out there, it would have been like a spotlight in the darkness. Like you just would have been able to identify it immediately. Uh, cause everything was just so positive and uh, and then I felt the presence of uh, Gabe, you know, who, who we talked about.

• 1:23:51Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:52Shawn Ryan?

  And um, and I've, I've felt that uh, I just, it was the feeling that everything that, all the trauma, everything that had happened uh,

• 1:24:06Shawn Ryan?

  throughout my life was supposed to happen. And that it was uh, it was okay. And uh, that none of it even fucking mattered because this is such a miniscule sliver in time that we're experiencing right now. And that.

• 1:24:23Shawn Ryan?

  And so it's, it's, so it made me believe again in a higher power.

• 1:24:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:29Shawn Ryan?

  And then, uh, and it's honestly, it sent me on a journey. And, uh, I mean, now I'm a Christian and I've, I've had another experience after that that, that, that turned me into, uh, a Christian that like fucking slapped me in the face like, hey, pay attention. And, um, and, uh, it's amazing. I mean, the stuff that that, it's, it's,

• 1:24:55Shawn Ryan?

  and you also realize how miniscule like you are.

• 1:24:58Speaker 03

  We are.

• 1:24:59Shawn Ryan?

  And you're okay with it, you know, which is the ego death, right?

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  But, right. Well, and that's where I say like, it's changed me in all aspects. Like I don't get upset about things that I used to get upset about. I'm not quick to like get to conflict. Um, I found my work has just gotten better.

• 1:25:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:19Speaker 03

  I'm a deeper movie maker. Um, I,

• 1:25:25Speaker 03

  when I was editing, um, Painkiller, the opioid film, uh, I had two editors and one I had never worked with. And they, they were, they were editing while I was still in Canada filming. And then I came back and then I had to come in, work with them, you know, every day. And I was just getting to know them. And one of them had an energy, I had just done the toad. And, and they were both really good guys, but I could tell one of them had a, had an energy, a heaviness, darkness. Um, and I found out that his, he and his wife had taken their son, I think, um, three-year-old son into the doctor, the ear doctor for a procedure. This was like three months prior to us starting to work.

• 1:26:09Speaker 03

  And this, they put this son under local, some sort of local, uh, anesthesia. Uh, and the son died, their kid died.

• 1:26:20Speaker 03

  And I found out that that was my editor and that that had happened to him. And this came in after I'd found out and we're working and then I realized he had a picture of his son, little picture kind of under his computer that I noticed for the first time. And we're, you know, I don't know him that well. And I started asking him about his son. And I, you know, I heard about this and I'm, you know, really sorry and I just, you know, want you to know that I'm, I'm aware and if there's anything we can talk about or you want to talk about or I just want, I want that, I want to be available to you for that.

• 1:27:02Speaker 03

  And we started talking and started asking him questions about his son and what kind of life his son had had and what kind of, you know, young man he was at that age and what he had experienced. And we started talking, we started talking for a while and he stopped, he said, you know, I haven't talked about my son like this. And, and I realized, I don't know that I would have had this conversation prior to experiencing that medicine. And we started talking about it and I said, well, you know, how were you and your wife coping? He said horribly, horribly. He said, we're going to grief counseling, but it's not working.

• 1:27:46Speaker 03

  They've gone to some like chainsaw counseling where they go into the woods with chainsaws and just start cutting trees as a way of trying to release anger and energy, I mean, and axes and, I mean, and group therapy and, and I asked him if he had thought about exploring psychedelics and he said his wife is talking about that. And I said, well, have you heard about 5M? He sat up, he said, my wife has been asking me about this. And I said, uh, he said, what's it like? What do you think? And I thought about it and I said, you know, um, here's what I think.

• 1:28:27Speaker 04

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• 1:29:06Speaker 03

  And I was like, you know, forgive me if I'm if I'm overstepping. He's like, no, I want you to say it. I said, OK, because I really didn't know him that well. I said, in my my mind, the way I'm thinking about you and and your family. If if this is your son right now in your mind, and he's right here. And wherever you look, your son, your dead son is right there. And you can't, right? Wherever you look. I said, I believe that that this medicine could maybe take your son and put him here for a minute. And give you never gonna it's never gonna go away.

• 1:29:45Speaker 03

  But give you a little bit of space to maybe process something like that in a way that you're not able to. And I stand by that. And it's advice I would give to myself, to you, to anyone. The only thing I think is that young people might. I don't think it's good to do for someone, you know, much in their 20s still. I would I would encourage people to wait till their 30s. Just because I don't I'm not I can't back that up scientifically. It's more of a hunch. But if someone came to me and they were like, you know, nineteen or twenty, you know,

• 1:30:28Speaker 03

  my son, I've talked to my son about this, and he's in his early twenties, and I'm very honest with him about, you know, all of this, everything, I try to be honest with him about, but I said, I don't think you should do this until you're thirty.

• 1:30:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:42Speaker 03

  What do you think?

• 1:30:44Shawn Ryan?

  I think it all, I think it, uh, I think it depends on life experiences, so, because it is so healing, so, you know, um, I think if you have a kid who is, I'm not, like, I can't back this up either, so.

• 1:31:01Speaker 03

  Right, I know, I know what you're talking about.

• 1:31:03Shawn Ryan?

  With a grain of salt.

• 1:31:04Speaker 03

  I think I know, I, yeah.

• 1:31:05Shawn Ryan?

  But, you know, I mean, there's kids that have been through lots and lots of sexual trauma, rape, and, um, and I was just had a guy in here, and I'm not gonna mention his name, because this kind of conversation was offline, but, um, his son, you know, was in an, in an accident, and, and, uh, somebody was killed, and, um, and his son did this, and it's, it sounds like it healed him, you know, and, and so, because he carried a lot of fucking guilt.

• 1:31:40Speaker 03

  How old was his son?

• 1:31:42Shawn Ryan?

  Seventeen or eighteen, I think, and, um, and, uh, you know, kind of got him through, so, you know, because you, you do realize, I mean, for me, just, you just, you, man, I'll tell you, like, it, it changes your perspective so much that, you know, it's like, oh, fuck, like, so-and-so died, you know what I mean, that sucks, that a short life, could have had, you know, had a lot more life to live, died in his twenties, died at twenty-five, a lot of seals, whatever, death sucks, right, that's how humanity perceives it, it's fucking horrible, like, you only get to live once. After doing the five MEO DMT, this shit is what sucks.

• 1:32:25Shawn Ryan?

  They're in a better fucking spot, you know, they're like, and you get, it's almost like you get a window or a veil's lifted and you, you see like what it's actually all about.

• 1:32:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:36Shawn Ryan?

  Even though you can't, like you said, there's no words in the English language to, to describe it, but it's a hell of a lot better than here.

• 1:32:45Speaker 03

  For yeah, I, I, I would agree with you, like for, for someone like your friend's son, I think it could be really helpful if someone has gone through that kind of really fucked up trauma that's sort of out of the realm of just talk therapy is not gonna, you know,

• 1:33:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:00Speaker 03

  fix that. I think what would be important is that whoever administers the medicine, the toad? I mean, Ibogaine for a seventeen year old, I don't know, but maybe. Um, did that, did he do Ibogaine?

• 1:33:15Shawn Ryan?

  I believe it was the, I believe it was.

• 1:33:17Speaker 03

  Five MEO? But that, that whoever, you know, is the minister, the, the, the guide stays on board with that person for days, weeks, months, helps process that. So it's not like, you know, at least keeps an eye on that, on that younger mind.

• 1:33:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:37Speaker 03

  Just to make sure that like he's able to talk about things. Um, you know, cause I, I remember I was trying, you can relate to the idea that we don't have words in our, in the English language, right? For some of these feelings and so it's hard to explain what you experienced. And I was talking to someone about it. Uh, and he told me about this tribe in Brazil that does a lot of, uh, you know, ayahuasca type psychedelics. I think it's slightly different than ayahuasca, some like the Yamato tribes. These are some of these wild tribes that have been doing psychedelics for generations.

• 1:34:18Speaker 03

  And how they have different words, words that we don't have in our language. And he, and he's trying to get me to understand how we don't have words for so much. And he talked about this word that this tribe had. For the feeling you get in your stomach when you hear a cliff diver jump like a hundred feet or two hundred feet into the water, that concussive sound.

• 1:34:44Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:34:45Speaker 03

  You know that? It gives you a feeling, it's hard to explain, but like if you've ever heard somebody really get punched in the face, you know, with a bare fist, that's a sound that, different, not like a movie, right? Like a, and that sound of a body hitting the water is a stirring sound, and there's a, there's a term for that in this language, because that's important to them. Let's, let's remember that feeling that you get.

• 1:35:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:15Speaker 03

  And I, and I, and I think it's interesting that we're so new to this world, and it's become sort of vogue, and I know a lot of people are doing it, and they think it's cool, or, you know, rich people in, you know, the Hamptons of New York, or in Beverly Hills, are having like psychedelic parties and all that, and expanding their consciousness and microdosing mushrooms. Great, I don't, I don't judge that, but it, there is something very real to it, and particularly for people who are going harder, and have, I don't know, man, that kind of trauma to dig, to dig up and to look at, this shit is, it's real.

• 1:35:59Shawn Ryan?

  I think the world would be a better place, you know, which is fucking politicians would use it, but, um, but, uh, have you ever heard anything, have you ever heard anything bad coming from it?

• 1:36:10Speaker 03

  No, no, and I looked it up, um, I think, I think I heard somebody died, there was a, no, I remember there was a doctor or a shaman who, I think in Mexico, this is all, you know, searchable, was putting people under and like molesting.

• 1:36:35Shawn Ryan?

  Oof.

• 1:36:36Speaker 03

  Right? And, but that was, you know, one person, he was busted, that, because I, you know, searched it all, like dark side, downside, uh, addiction deaths, and ve- very, very little. Uh, I couldn't find anything directly related, but I remember this one story of some, some, you know, shaman who, who was, um, putting people under and like, you know. Doing that, but I don't know, man. I don't, I haven't heard much.

• 1:37:07Shawn Ryan?

  I just.

• 1:37:08Speaker 03

  Have you?

• 1:37:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I just heard this last week. I had, uh, actually it was the guys that got me, that got me into this. That like, they didn't like talk me into, they shared their experience on how the, how it helped them and I, it, it, it, I was like, I gotta do this. But they came up, uh, we went to an event, uh, together. We were all talking about psychedelics and, um, they, I guess there's somebody that, I haven't looked into this yet, but apparently it's, there's, there's something out there on it. This guy did it. It seems to have experienced a 10-year time period and within 30 minutes.

• 1:37:50Speaker 03

  I began or M E O?

• 1:37:52Shawn Ryan?

  M E O.

• 1:37:52Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:37:53Shawn Ryan?

  And had, I don't know, I, like I said, I didn't get any, I didn't have like a storyline or anything when I did it. Which is, it doesn't sound like you did either, but, but he, he had built a relationship, had a kid, like all this shit happened in his mind in 30 minutes that was 10 years worth of time. And then when he came out of the, of the, of the experience, only 30 minutes had passed and he had like, he still misses like whoever he met.

• 1:38:30Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 1:38:31Shawn Ryan?

  In that experience.

• 1:38:32Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 1:38:32Shawn Ryan?

  He had built a 10-year relationship with those, with those people. And so all he wants to do. Isn't that fucking wild?

• 1:38:42Speaker 03

  Crazy.

• 1:38:42Shawn Ryan?

  I know, I've never heard that.

• 1:38:44Speaker 03

  That's a, that's a movie, man. That's like, cause there's like eternal sunshine of the spot, spotless mind. I don't know if you ever saw that film?

• 1:38:53Shawn Ryan?

  Ah.

• 1:38:53Speaker 03

  Jim Carrey, it's a good movie where he wants to erase part of his brain to get a girl out of his mind. It's like just, you know, bad relationship. But see, that's fascinating to me and, and.

• 1:39:06Speaker 03

  I can totally see how that could happen. I think that one of the things that Five Mio did for me was just that, kind of what's the adage, that we use 2% of our brain, or, you know, and it's like, to me, I've made the analogy to people, like, do you want to understand a little bit about what it's like? Think about your dreams. And when you wake up from a dream, and you've had some insane dream, that you're speaking languages, and your mother is there, but her head is an ostrich head, and your, you know, son is like a stockbroker, and he's making deals, but he's only two, and you're like, where the fuck did that come from? What, how did my brain, what, you know,

• 1:39:50Speaker 03

  I shut down part of my brain to sleep, and something else woke up, right? And as a writer, I can relate

• 1:40:01Speaker 03

  to that feeling of accessing parts of your brain, right? That you just can't get to, you know, sitting here, talking. And I've had that experience many times. I don't know if you've had it writing, but where you sort of sit down, and things start coming out of you. And you look, you think that, you know,

• 1:40:22Speaker 03

  15 minutes have gone by, and you look up, and three hours have gone by. And you don't remember it, and you look down, you've written 10 pages, but you've accessed something that you can't get to normally. And they'll call it, you know, flow state, or, you know, some sort of optimal, creative, like, Rogan thinks that this state is an actual entity, like, an external, like, goblin that comes in and enters you, right? There's this guy, Steve Pressfield, who I like, who's like a guru for writers, and he talks about this too, like, that being able to access...

• 1:41:00Speaker 03

  Truly access aspects of your mind that you normally just can't get to, right? So that five MEO can put you in this state where it just shuts down your default network. So everything that we normally think of like, oh, I'm wearing a sweater, you're wearing a sweater. I'm wearing pants, you're wearing pants, carpet here, all your things that are up on the wall. That's all our rational, turn all that shit off. And the next thing you know, you've created 10 years

• 1:41:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:29Speaker 03

  of a life and you, you really think you've got a son and a wife.

• 1:41:33Shawn Ryan?

  It's crazy.

• 1:41:33Speaker 03

  That's

• 1:41:34Shawn Ryan?

  And still has feelings.

• 1:41:35Speaker 03

  I've never heard that, man.

• 1:41:36Shawn Ryan?

  Apparently he still has feelings, but I'll tell you the

• 1:41:38Speaker 03

  Like he's mourning his child that never existed.

• 1:41:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yep.

• 1:41:43Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:41:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yep, maybe tapped into another life, who the hell knows?

• 1:41:48Speaker 03

  Maybe.

• 1:41:49Shawn Ryan?

  You know, it did also, another thing that like it did is it sent me down, it, this stuff just sent me down a rabbit hole. Have you ever read the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz?

• 1:41:59Speaker 03

  No, I've heard of it.

• 1:42:00Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man, you got it.

• 1:42:02Speaker 03

  Tell me, give me like the

• 1:42:03Shawn Ryan?

  Basically, I'm gonna butcher it, but um, I mean, lots of people read this. Some people read it every, I think Tom Brady reads it every year, but it, it talks a lot about like, it's, it's four agreements that you make with yourself and I can't even, I haven't read it in years. So I don't know them all off the top of my head, but it kind of talks about like, I don't want to make this book sound like something it's not, but one thing that it does do is it talks about how we've all been indoctrinated. But it doesn't do it in like a conspiracy-ish fucking way. It's just the way it is and um, and a lot of people read this after psychedelics and it's, it's,

• 1:42:46Shawn Ryan?

  when you read it, you're like, oh yeah, like, okay, like, yeah, this is, this is true. And in between that and, and kind of, and, and what I experienced through psychedelics and how, how healing it is and how it's fucking illegal here, why, I don't know. It's helping so many people with addiction and trauma.

• 1:43:08Speaker 03

  FDA, baby.

• 1:43:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, and it sent me down this rabbit hole to think that everything we know and have been told is a fucking lie. And I do believe that, um. I do wanna ask you about something. Did we go to the moon?

• 1:43:23Speaker 03

  Pardon me?

• 1:43:24Shawn Ryan?

  Did we go to the moon?

• 1:43:25Speaker 03

  I don't know, man. I wasn't there. I wasn't there. I, I, I know about the picture. Capricorn One was a movie when I was a kid that was, you know, about the fact that, you know, the, the theory that we never did. I don't know, man. I, I like to think that we did because that's how I was raised. And if that didn't happen, then I gotta really unpack a whole bunch of other shit. But I don't know. I can tell you, I never went to the moon.

• 1:43:55Shawn Ryan?

  What about the Stanley Kubrick stuff? Have you looked into that?

• 1:43:58Speaker 03

  Which stuff?

• 1:43:59Shawn Ryan?

  Did he, did he staged it? He filmed it?

• 1:44:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's Capricorn One. That's the movie.

• 1:44:04Shawn Ryan?

  That's what it is?

• 1:44:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:44:10Speaker 03

  I don't know, man.

• 1:44:11Shawn Ryan?

  Damn!

• 1:44:12Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 1:44:13Shawn Ryan?

  I love this subject.

• 1:44:14Speaker 03

  I know. I don't, I...

• 1:44:20Speaker 03

  I'm gonna assume we did.

• 1:44:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:22Speaker 03

  But I wasn't there.

• 1:44:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Speaker 03

  I just want to believe we did.

• 1:44:26Shawn Ryan?

  Me too. I don't know, though. There's some pretty compelling evidence.

• 1:44:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, people are full of shit and, and there's, there's a lot of reasons that we would have lied and governments are horrific and governments will do things that we can't believe to advance agendas and I've seen all of this and I've gotten a front row seat to some really fucked up shit

• 1:44:55Speaker 03

  that, that our governments do and, and when I was young, I didn't know about it and I didn't think about it and I thought there were good guys and bad guys and I believed our leaders when they said that we were the good guys and they're the bad guys and not always the case.

• 1:45:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:14Speaker 03

  You know, I did just come back from Israel, uh, last week.

• 1:45:19Shawn Ryan?

  How was it?

• 1:45:20Speaker 03

  Dude, it's fucked up. You know, I...

• 1:45:26Speaker 03

  I was, I was, it's, I was, two weeks before I went to Israel, I was in New York. And I was gonna have lunch with a friend of mine, and she brought a friend of hers. And who I didn't know, and during the course of the meal, Israel came up and she started ripping into the Israelis and fuck the Israelis and fuck Zionism. And she's looking at me, she's really getting mad, and I'm like, I'm curious, are you, are you Arab, are you Muslim? She said, I'm Palestinian. And I said, okay, um, I can imagine this is a really fucking hard time. She goes, yeah, it is. And I said, I get it. And she starts ripping Israel, they all need to fucking go and fuck the.

• 1:46:09Speaker 03

  And I go, okay, okay, I hear you. You know, I'm curious, how do you process the Nova music festival and what happened? You know, three hundred Israelis were killed at that music festival. And she looked at me and she had this look in her eye that I haven't seen, I don't know, ever. And she said, I thought it was fucking hilarious. I loved it. And the feeling I had was sickness, anger, confused, like I'm looking into the eyes of this thirty-year-old girl. And I said, I gotta go. I said, I'm gonna leave. And I said, look, I just want you to know, I don't agree with anything you said, but my pulse was going, like I was,

• 1:46:50Speaker 03

  I didn't even know what I felt other than I had to get out of there, walk away. And then I decided to go the next week to Israel, I wanted to see it. And I wanted to just see it for myself. And, and I went to that side of that festival, and I went to one of the kibbutzes, um, that was attacked. And I wanted to go into Gaza, asked if we could go in, it was told we couldn't go in, it wasn't safe. Um, we got close and could see in to that world, the Gaza Strip, you know, behind the wall.

• 1:47:29Speaker 03

  And I just spent, I was there for five days, and I really just tried to, to see it, you know, because we read about it, we see it on our computers, we certainly get into our, you know, whatever social media feeds, I had all this info, I wanted to see it. And I think my, my biggest takeaway is, um,

• 1:47:53Speaker 03

  As like, simple as this sounds, is that these people fucking hate each other. I mean, hate each other. I've never seen that kind of hatred.

• 1:48:06Speaker 03

  I remember when I was in Iraq with Team Five and we were driving through towns. People would look at us, we'd be in those RG trucks. Can't remember what they were called, like, not the Humvee, but in those trucks, you know, looking out. And they'd be looking in with this look that felt, I hadn't seen that look a lot. You know what I'm talking about, like, die. But when I was in Israel, the anger and fear was so palpable. And I know it's on the other side, and I don't know, man, like, I just think like,

• 1:48:41Speaker 03

  where my mind starts going is, okay, Israel did this shit. Palestinians did this shit. It's been going back and forth since 1941 or whenever the, you know, 1907, depending on how far, whatever, however far back you want to go. Because I've tried to go back and, well, okay, it was their fault, and it was their fault. And the English gave it to the Israelis, and that fucked everything up. And then World War, and it's this Rubik's Cube that you never solve. Bottom line is, like, they fucking hate each other. They cannot work it out. Like, it's like, you know, two kids that are fighting, they just can't stop. And they're never gonna stop.

• 1:49:22Speaker 03

  And I came out of there with the sense of, and looking into so many Israelis I met, the energy you get is, please, we need help, right? And yes, they're horrific what's happening over there, right? These kids dying in Gaza, and innocent people dying, and horrific what happened. It's horrific. And I'm not like, at this point, I don't know what to justify and who's right and who's wrong at this point. It's just, if it's gonna stop, they need help. That was my take. They need someone to come in and say, you go over the fuck here, you go over the fuck here, stop. Yeah.

• 1:50:06Speaker 03

  And I hope that can happen.

• 1:50:09Shawn Ryan?

  It's a very complicated situation.

• 1:50:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's super complicated, but at the end of the day, if you just look at it, just practically, they can't, they can't fix it without other people, in my opinion, getting involved. It's like, there has to be help from us, there has to be help from Saudi Arabia, from UAE, from Qatar, from Egypt, from Jordan, like, they gotta help. Europe's gotta help.

• 1:50:43Speaker 03

  Cause they can't fucking figure it out.

• 1:50:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:46Speaker 03

  That was what I got. And it's, it's really fucking sad to me.

• 1:50:52Shawn Ryan?

  How much time did you spend over there?

• 1:50:55Speaker 03

  I was there for five days.

• 1:50:56Shawn Ryan?

  Five days?

• 1:50:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and, you know, I recommend for people to go there if they wanna understand what it really feels like and get a better sense, maybe a deeper sense, of just how dark and complex the problem is. So, I recommend going over there.

• 1:51:24Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, damn. How long ago was that?

• 1:51:27Speaker 03

  I got back like ten days ago.

• 1:51:29Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man, so this is fresh.

• 1:51:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, you know, brutal, absolutely brutal to go tour the kibbutzes, you know, and the tour that I had was a, you know, young twenty-eight-year-old guy whose brother was killed, his mother was kidnapped. They, they kept the kibbutz exactly as it was, October seventh. So, the blood's all over the place and the glass and the kids' shoes and, you know, the baby shoes and, you know, babies were taken and, you know, absolutely horrific. And, and, you know, like, you seen that video of Murphy and Deets, and, you know, using that. I mean, you can't go there without getting activated.

• 1:52:15Speaker 03

  And then you go to the music festival and, you know, it's, fuck it, man. Fuck it, game on.

• 1:52:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:23Speaker 03

  Okay, you want, you're gonna do this, game on. You support that. Right, and I do. But then you start, you know, understanding the pain on the other side and you just, your head starts to explode.

• 1:52:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:35Speaker 03

  And, and that's why I've come to the conclusion like, they can't, they need referees.

• 1:52:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:42Speaker 03

  It's like the nastiest hockey fight you've ever seen in your fucking life with no refs.

• 1:52:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:49Speaker 03

  You know?

• 1:52:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:50Speaker 03

  And people are bringing guns onto the ice and knives onto the ice and, and no one's there to stop it.

• 1:52:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I've been hesitant to, to, to cover the subject because it's so fucking complicated. It's just, it's...

• 1:53:05Speaker 03

  Well, if you, if you look backwards, it's really complicated. Well, you did that, well, you did that, well, you did that, well, you did that. Okay. That's never gonna get unpacked, in my opinion. Looking forward, big, big brother issue, like, you know, from forty thousand feet, someone has to step in and organize a large group effort to stop this shit.

• 1:53:33Speaker 03

  So, that's what I hope happens.

• 1:53:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:53:36Speaker 03

  Having, because it sucks.

• 1:53:38Shawn Ryan?

  Me too.

• 1:53:39Speaker 03

  It sucks.

• 1:53:41Speaker 03

  For everyone.

• 1:53:42Shawn Ryan?

  The world is a fucked up place.

• 1:53:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, but there's some good, some good stories too.

• 1:53:48Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's move into what you're doing now.

• 1:53:51Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:53:52Shawn Ryan?

  American Primeval.

• 1:53:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:53Shawn Ryan?

  How did that, how did, uh, that come across for you?

• 1:53:56Speaker 03

  So, American Primeval, that's the new show. Um, did you ever see Jeremiah Johnson when you were a kid?

• 1:54:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:03Speaker 03

  So, when I was a kid, Robert Redford played this wilderness guy who went out into the coun- to the, uh, went out west from the city and like had to learn how to survive and, you know, ended up marrying an Indian woman and a kid and he was, ended up, first he was totally inept and couldn't function and Indians wouldn't even waste an arrow on him because he was so, um... He was, you know, so useless and such a non-threat. And by the end, he was a great warrior and he had the respect of multiple tribe. And that was one of my favorite movies as a kid. And that was like, something like, that got me going and wanting to make movies and tell stories and stuff. And I always kinda wanted to do something like that.

• 1:54:47Speaker 03

  You know, an adventure story. Not like a western in the traditional sense. And I like westerns, like, What's Causing a Sunday Night's Kid was one of my favorite, or The Unforgiven. Um, I loved The Cowboys, some of John Wayne's earlier. I loved all those movies. But I kinda wanted to do something that was a little more, like, raw and just pure survival. And didn't have like, towns with saloons and whorehouses and, you know, sheriffs and people. I wanted like, to be up in the mountains with the savages. And, um, so I got a friend, this guy, Markel Smith, who wrote The Revenant. Did you see The Revenant? Yeah. And, and I loved that. And I'm like, hey man, let's, let's go back into this world.

• 1:55:31Speaker 03

  And he actually came into my office and I have a, a collection of axes in my office. Think you'd, you'd approve of it? And I pulled out this ice axe and I walked up to him and I go, I just put the axe in his lap. I said, let's do a show that's this. And I said, let's just channel this, this ice axe. And he smiled, he said, okay. And he wrote it and it's this kinda epic saga set in eighteen fifty-seven. In this corner of America, it's, um, southwestern Wyoming and southeastern Utah. It's that intersection. Where in eighteen fifty-seven, it was fucking wild. There was no civilization.

• 1:56:13Speaker 03

  But it was kind of the last, one of the last areas that were really wild in America. And, you know, there were multiple Native American tribes. There were the Mormons who were setting up in Salt Lake City. And they were violent, had a real violent side to them. Cause they'd been fucked over from New York to Georgia to Illinois where their leader, Joseph Smith, was killed. So this dude Brigham Young flees west with 2,000 Mormons and sets up his last stand in Salt Lake City, thinking no one's ever gonna come. And he starts growing the Mormon church and he builds his army to defend. So he's out there, the US government's sending the army to fuck with the Mormons and get them out.

• 1:56:57Speaker 03

  Cause Brigham Young's trying to turn Utah, true, this is true, into a Utah state. Utah wasn't a state, it was a territory. And Brigham Young's like, alright, we'll take it. This'll be a Mormon state, Utah. And it was President Buchanan who preceded Lincoln, who's like, yeah, no, you're not doing that, bro. You're not doing that. So he's sending the army out there to get the Mormons out. So they're fighting, all the Indians are fighting, and you've got all these trappers who are just, you know, hunting, trapping bear and other pelts. So it's just a fucking savage place. And our show follows a woman who's got a handicapped son, who's just trying to get

• 1:57:38Speaker 03

  through that land to California to find the kid's dad. So you think, she's got a secret. And the story's her journey through that part of America.

• 1:57:50Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:57:51Speaker 03

  And it gets nasty.

• 1:57:52Shawn Ryan?

  It looks like it.

• 1:57:53Speaker 03

  It gets nasty.

• 1:57:55Shawn Ryan?

  I started as, it's, it's...

• 1:57:59Speaker 03

  Did we send you the shows?

• 1:58:01Shawn Ryan?

  You sent them to me.

• 1:58:02Speaker 03

  Alright, good. We'll sit down and take a peek as they get... And it's, the organizing of event is worth anybody checking out. That it's a very under-reported mass murder, arguably the first mass killing in American history. That's called the Mormon Meadows massacre. And it happened in eighteen fifty seven. And a group of pioneers called the Fancher Party that were going from Arkansas to California had to move through Mormon land, Utah land, to get to California. But at eighteen fifty seven, the Mormons had basically issued a proclamation saying that no one can come through our land

• 1:58:47Speaker 03

  without a permit from Governor Brennan Young. And they'd done this because they were getting so disrespected by the pioneers who would come through and be like, hey, bro, can I have some of your wives? Or maybe I'll just take one of your wives. And they'd steal women. Mormons were polygamists, and they all had ten or fifteen wives, which was problematic. But they, these pioneers would come through and harass the Mormons, rape women, kill cattle. They'd let their cattle graze on the Mormons' crops. So there was all this mutual disrespect. So by the time this party came through without a permit, the Mormons warned them off and said, you gotta go back. You gotta go around, which would add like two weeks to the journey. And these pioneers were like, fuck you, we're not going around.

• 1:59:32Speaker 03

  So the Mormons came back and killed all of them. So a group of Mormons, and what was kind of fucked up is they dressed up as Paiute, which was a tribe out there, Indians. They dressed up as the Indians and actually brought a couple of Indians with them so that any witnesses would think it was an Indian murder. And it was really a Mormon murder. Uh, it was a killing done by Mormons. And they killed about a hundred and sixty-five of these pioneers, men, women, and children. And really horrific moment in the history of the Mormon Church. Um, and it's a horrible moment in general. And that's kind of what we use as like the inciting incident is what we call it,

• 2:00:15Speaker 03

  where, you know, the moment that kicks something off. So the show's kind of going along, and you don't realize it's gonna hit you. And then the Mormons' mental massacre kind of comes at you hard. Um, and that's the event. And so it was interesting that Going to Utah, meeting the different Mormons that were historians of this moment in time, and getting them to talk about it, because it's a dark moment in Mormon history, which I never knew about until-

• 2:00:44Shawn Ryan?

  You got them to talk about it?

• 2:00:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, and there was one guy, uh, one Mormon wrote a book called The Meadows Massacre, and he took me to the site. And he wrote it, because there's a monument in Utah now where the massacre took place, and the Mormons built the monument to all the folks that were killed. And his book, it's really interesting, because it, it's about this crime, this horrible moment in Mormon history. And, and, and what he does in the book, and what he said to me was, "Okay, as a Mormon, if you, if you want to show this moment in our history, you have every right to do it. It happened. But I would ask you to read my book and do your research, and at least understand how it got to that

• 2:01:31Speaker 03

  point," right? Because, you know, like any moment of, of violence, if you, if you backtrack it, and think, well, which is kind of what's so tricky about the Israel situation, well, trying to unpack it, it just, you know, and get to the roots very hard. In the case of the Meadows massacre, what this guy, what the book did well, is it sort of let you understand how things got so tense that this 145-person massacre could occur. And I thought that was really kind of interesting. And, in learning about that, and learning about

• 2:02:12Speaker 03

  American history and the continual line of violence that's, you know, plagued our planet, but certainly plagued our, plagued our country, you start to understand man, and, you know, our human nature, and why we're so inclined to violence. And that's sort of the theme of the show, and then- One thing so interesting that saved the Mormon church arguably is that in eighteen fifty seven, the army was ready to come in big numbers and just fucking kill the Mormons. And that would have been no Mormon church. There'd be no BYU. There'd be no Salt Lake City as we know, it would have been over. And that would have been a great act of violence, but the civil war was just popping off at

• 2:02:56Speaker 03

  that moment in eighteen fifty seven, eighteen fifty eight. So Buchanan and then Lincoln had to pull all their troops away from Brigham Young and they were about to fucking get him, right? Civil war, ah, we need these troops back east.

• 2:03:14Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 2:03:15Speaker 03

  And that saved Brigham Young. The civil war saved the Mormon church.

• 2:03:18Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, I had no idea.

• 2:03:20Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 2:03:21Shawn Ryan?

  That is interesting. Where'd you film it?

• 2:03:23Speaker 03

  Uh, in Santa Fe. In Santa Fe, uh, on location. I wanted to do a film with no sound stages. I was like, let's go out there, let's go up on the mountain, let's shoot in the weather, let's, let's fucking shoot, let's make a survival show. That's what I asked for. And that was maybe one of the stupider things I've ever asked for, because we're up there for a hundred and thirty-five days on the mountain, through the winter, through the summer, you know, uh, snowstorms, rainstorms, lightning strikes, fucking rattlesnakes. We'd have rattlesnake wranglers cruising through the set, you know, constantly.

• 2:04:06Speaker 03

  And they'd find the little ones, which I didn't understand, those are the real dangerous ones, did you know this? The little rattlesnakes, the younger and smaller the rattlesnake, the bigger the venom load. So you see a big rattlesnake, you don't want to mess with it. You see a little rattlesnake, everybody clears out.

• 2:04:24Shawn Ryan?

  No shit, I didn't know that.

• 2:04:25Speaker 03

  Snakes, our actor broke his leg, we had to film around that, stuntmen got all fucked up. Um, it was, it was a wild shoot. And I'm like, you asked for it, you got it, but, um, a good challenge, a really good challenge.

• 2:04:42Shawn Ryan?

  Man, it looks, the preview was awesome and, uh, like, it's, it looks super realistic and, uh, I'm sure it's gonna crush it on Netflix, it's on Netflix, correct?

• 2:04:55Speaker 03

  On Netflix on, uh, I think January ninth.

• 2:04:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, January ninth.

• 2:05:01Shawn Ryan?

  Well, Peter, we're wrapping up the interview, but um...

• 2:05:05Speaker 03

  You're a good dude, man.

• 2:05:07Shawn Ryan?

  So are you.

• 2:05:08Speaker 03

  Appreciate it.

• 2:05:09Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for opening up about your uh, about everything.

• 2:05:12Speaker 03

  Same to you. Thanks for sharing the story of your buddy.

• 2:05:15Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, it's... He lives on. So, he was an amazing dude, but um, but um, man, we covered a lot of ground there. And you thought you didn't have it in ya. Here we are.

• 2:05:30Speaker 03

  I wasn't sure.

• 2:05:32Shawn Ryan?

  But uh, hey, it was a pleasure. Pleasure to see you again. And uh, best of luck with the film.

• 2:05:38Speaker 03

  Appreciate it.