#71: The Master Creator - How Jon Favreau Went from Swingers to Elf to Ironman to Chef

Jon Favreau (@Jon_Favreau http://www.twitter.com/Jon_Favreau) is a man of many talents. He burst onto the acting scene with his role in Rudy. He first established himself as a writer with the iconic cult hit Swingers, in which he starred. Then, Favreau made his feature film directorial debut with Made, which he also wrote and produced. Other directing credits include Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Cowboys & Aliens, Elf, Zathura, and Chef, which he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in. Lots of commas! This man does everything. Recent acting credits include The Wolf of Wall Street and Identity Thief. Favreau is currently directing a live-action film with groundbreaking technology that blow your mind — an adaptation of Disney's Jungle Book, set to be released on April 15, 2016. In our conversation, we dig deep into his creative process, how he writes, the inflection points in his career, how he prepared for Chef, and much more. The impact of Dungeons and Dragons? The value and danger of motorcycle treks? It's all in here. All show notes, links, and resources related to this episode can be found at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast This show is sponsored by: Onnit Labs http://www.onnit.com/tim — See the gear I use by clicking here http://www.onnit.com/tim. 99Designs http://www.99designs.com/tim — See the competitions I've run there, including the mock ups for the cover of The 4-Hour Body http://www.99designs.com/tim, which hit #1 NY Times.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake.

• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, I would have seen it before you'd tell me.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by ONNIT. I have used ONNIT products for years. If you look in my kitchen, in my garage, you will find: AlphaBrain, chewable melatonin for resetting my clock when I'm traveling, kettlebells, battle ropes, maces, steel clubs. It sounds like a torture chamber, and it kind of is. It's a torture chamber for self-improvement. And you can see all of my favorite gear at onnit.com/tim. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com forward slash tim. And you can also get a discount on any supplements, food products. I like Hemp Force, I like AlphaBrain. Check it all out, onnit.com/tim. The Tim Ferriss Show is also brought to you by 99designs.

• 1:05Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:44Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, ladies and gents, this is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where I deconstruct world-class performers to figure out what makes them tick. And moreover, what are the tools, tricks, tactics, routines, books, whatever, secret snacks that you can replicate, that you can actually use in your daily life, or in your career, or in your personal endeavors and your journey into life itself? Anyway, my guest for this episode is just a tremendous, tremendous man. He is an actor, writer, director, and producer. His name is Jon Favreau. I've been hugely impressed by Jon, and we've had an opportunity to spend some time together.

• 2:28Tim Ferriss?

  He's a man of many talents. He burst onto the acting scene with his role in Rudy, then he established himself as a writer with the iconic cult hit Swingers, in which he starred. And many of you have seen it. We have a lot of stories about Swingers, which I was surprised by, and I had done a lot of homework. Then Favreau made his feature film directorial debut with Maid, which he also wrote and produced. His other directing credits include Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Cowboys and Aliens, Elf, and that was a real turning point for him, so we dig into that. And I did not know that he was involved with Elf before I really dug into it. Zathura and Chef, which he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in. And the way he approached making Chef was very, very fascinating.

• 3:13Tim Ferriss?

  And as someone who's trying to create myself, in more than one way I suppose, I'm creating books and podcasts, and now TV shows, and I have news coming related to that, I was very, very interested in how he approached doing Chef, which I fell in love with. And that's actually how we ended up connecting. It was through Chef, and I went on Twitter, and then we connected, had a short exchange on Twitter, and we also ended up investing in a couple of startup companies together. Okay, so lots of commas. This guy does everything. Some of his recent acting credits include The Wolf of Wall Street and Identity Thief, and he's done much, much more.

• 3:53Tim Ferriss?

  He is currently directing the live-action feature film that I'm dying to see, because I'm obsessed with The Jungle Book. This is Disney's adaptation, which is set to be released in April 2016. So without further ado, I invite you into the mind and story, some of which are very funny, the stories of Jon Favreau.

• 4:19Tim Ferriss?

  John, welcome to the show.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 4:21Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you so much for taking the time. I've really been looking forward to this.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  Oh, good.

• 4:25Tim Ferriss?

  And I suppose we could start perhaps at the beginning. And one of these questions that I like to sometimes ask is what albums or bands you listened to in high school? What were your go-to?

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Wow, I was expecting this one.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  Let's see, I liked, the earliest music I listened to that I can remember actually have like an album of was, I remember the Animal House soundtrack, all the old music, like the 60s music. And then Billy Joel, I grew up in New York, so Billy Joel.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  My first rock album I ever bought was Led Zeppelin. It was Led Zeppelin. I was in, I was in high school already. And then I was, I was in high school in the 80s, so then you had like the Ramones around in New York and Queens where I'm from. So it was, it was an interesting time. And then I, you know, there's a little bit of overlap with CBGB's as I got older in high school. But that was more for the scene because it was cool, rather than the music itself, which I don't find myself listening to too much.

• 5:30Tim Ferriss?

  I ended up getting into Billy Joel myself. I was always a Metallica, sort of heavy metal head. And I got into Billy Joel because I was a busboy and waited on him at one point.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 5:39Tim Ferriss?

  On Long Island, and he was the coolest guy I'd ever met. He would buy a cup of coffee and give me a 20 as a tip, which was a lot of money to me at the time.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a big, that's a good thing to remember, too, by the way.

• 5:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  That's, that's pretty good. That's not, and you know, in the greater scheme of things, he could probably afford it. But it made, it made a big difference. Look at that.

• 5:58Tim Ferriss?

  Huge impression, yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  Maybe he made a fan out of you.

• 6:01Tim Ferriss?

  I still, I still remember it to this day.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Good to remember. Now, when, we, we may not have the same exact frame of reference. What do you, I'm 48 years old.

• 6:07Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm 10 behind, roughly. I'm 37 right now.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  So that was a golden oldie. You were listening to the oldies, right?

• 6:14Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  I was, he was still recording when I was, when I was listening to him.

• 6:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, he was still, I mean, everyone, the hush came over all the waitstaff when he came in.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Yes, and Long Island especially.

• 6:23Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. Out by Montauk. And the, I remember the waiter's name Gavin, he was supposed to wait the table. And he said, "All right, I'm going to do you a favor today, Ferris. I'm going to give you that table."

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Because he knew you'd get broed out so hard?

• 6:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly. What was your experience in, in high school? What was it like? Can you paint a picture?

• 6:42Speaker 00

  High school was, um... Let's see, I was, I had just gone to Bronx High School of Science, which was a public school that you had to take a test for in New York. It was a very good school. It had been around for a while. And the New York public school system was very good at the time. I think it still is. If you do well, you will never outgrow the public school system. There's always room for people who are, you know, have, you know, who require different education needs in every way. And I know my dad was a public school teacher.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  And, you know, I feel pretty strongly about that system. And especially having lived in other cities too, I really grew to appreciate it. And the Bronx High School of Science was one of the flagship schools for Zatt, Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, you know, all of these free schools. But I did have to commute all the way from Queens to the Bronx. It was about an hour and a half each way. But I was around other people who were more academically inclined. But I also met people from every different borough and all different walks of life. Because the, you know, the one thing that unified us was that we all passed this test. And you have a lot of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Because, again, it was a free school.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  And so I had the good fortune of meeting the brightest from every community. So everybody that I met, if I met a kid from Harlem, he was a really smart kid from Harlem. If I met someone from Brooklyn, from Riverdale, you know. So you really had all walks of life. I didn't realize it at the time, because I grew up in New York. So diversity was just something you grew up with. Especially as you traveled through different boroughs. You know, you just knew people from all over the place. Or if you worked in the city, you met people from everywhere. And, you know, that was a, I think that was a good experience too. You learn a little bit. I know you like to speak a lot of languages. You get to know how to curse in every language. I try. That's usually what you pick up first. It's Greek and, yeah, in Spanish.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  So, but it was, so you met a lot of great kids. But they were kind of nerdy kids. They weren't big on sports teams, things like that. The long commute time, a lot of homework. So I, I, early on, the, the first thing from high school that I got into through that crowd was Dungeons and Dragons. That was something I was really into. Uh, then I kinda outgrew that a bit, um, more socially than anything, but I always liked fantasy. I always liked that swords and sorcery stuff and science fiction. And then it, then I moved more into, cause remember I graduated eighty-four, so it was the early eighties. That's when also punk rock was, was kind of in its heyday and, and there were a lot of clubs downtown that were going strong that you could go to. So, and, and we were from all the different

• 9:38Speaker 00

  boroughs, so we were very comfortable going into Manhattan. That was kind of the central point for us all.

• 9:42Tim Ferriss?

  And this was still in high school?

• 9:43Speaker 00

  Still in high school. Um, never really was a, the, the kids from the city, from Manhattan were more the, a, a little bit more socially advanced and, and could actually get into these clubs.

• 9:53Tim Ferriss?

  A little edgier.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, you know, we're, we're from the, you know, we're the bridge and tunnel crowd. So we didn't really, uh, end up in the nightlife too much. Uh, but, but you were exposed to it and you were going down to Greenwich Village and hanging out in Washington Square Park. And, and, and also that was a lot of when I got introduced to, to cinema because it was pre-VCR. Uh, the only way you'd see a movie is it was in a movie theater if it was on television. And so I remember going to a lot of the revival houses, uh, first with my dad when I was younger. And then, and then, you know, when I was in high school, going on my own down to like the cinema village, uh, all around, all around NYU down there, there were a lot of great revival houses and seeing the films of like

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Kurosawa, Scorsese and, um, just being introduced to a lot of stuff I would not otherwise have access to.

• 10:41Tim Ferriss?

  Was there any particular film that was the inflection point for you wanting to focus on that craft yourself?

• 10:49Speaker 00

  I didn't wanna do it till much later. It was never a realistic option for me. So all the way through high school, college, it was never something that I thought I would do. It wasn't till I was twenty-two that I actually decided to try in earnest to, to get into entertainment. But I always enjoyed acting and I always loved movies. Uh, and I was an usher actually during high school at an old, uh, ex-Vaudville house, the R.K. O'Keath's in Flushing. And and as a as an usher, you got to see, you know, movies over and over again. And it was still the architecture, the projection room, all of it really felt like something out of a time machine. So I, you know, was exposed to that side of the movie business first. And and it was, you know, it was really cool. I liked it. I like movies.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  It was an old rundown theater. It's not there anymore. Uh, but it was really wonderful seeing the you kind of could see the history of it if you look behind the curtain. Cause first it was an old vaudeville palace and then it started showing films and then and then eventually it got broken up into a triplex. So you had this beautiful elegant Moorish style. Uh, just, you know, again, the movie palaces of of of the of the vaudeville era and the post vaudeville era, uh, broken down into the multiplexes that didn't have a lot of personality back in the in the eighties. I guess the seventies started that. But it still had some of the gloss of it and some of the beauty. And but, you know, of course, there were still the dressing rooms from the vaudeville

• 12:19Speaker 00

  days and there were sub basements and you went behind the the screen and the big theater and you saw, you know, all the the ropes and rigging from its its live theater days. So it was kind of it was kind of nice and there was a sense of nostalgia, but it was also just overrun by mice and it wasn't just it wasn't well maintained. So there was a sadness to it. So there was in this, I have a nostalgic feel towards the movie business even from, you know, even from before I was around because I was exposed to all that stuff. And of course, all movies keep keep the legacy alive as well. Yeah. And and that was part of the fun part about coming out here. Even when I was just auditioning, uh, for the first time for for bit parts, you would audition on the lot. You would go, you'd get a drive on and then you'd be walking around like the Fox lot

• 13:04Speaker 00

  and see the New York streets or Warner Brothers and see all the back lots as you're walking from your parking to the appointment. And and you just felt so lucky to be in the business. You know, you were like, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm somehow connected to this industry. And and even though we were just like the guy sweeping up after the parade, we we still were, you know, what, and give up showbiz? You know, even the guy shoveling after the elephant, it feels like he's part of the show and I and I was that guy. And you, uh, you dropped out of college, is that right? I did, yeah, it was, well. Uh, misleading because I took a, I took a.

• 13:36Tim Ferriss?

  You took a lot of credit.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  To go to, I got a job offer.

• 13:39Tim Ferriss?

  What was the job?

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Offer to work on Wall Street.

• 13:41Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  For a friend's dad who need to hire an assistant. And I worked there for a year and it wasn't a great fit for me. But I had not been a great student in college. I'd gone to a very academically oriented high school, as I said. And then I was on the waiting list for Cooper Union to go to school for engineering. Cooper Union is a great school in Greenwich Village. That is, uh, it's all scholarship. It would have been a great, it would have been a great fit for me. And again, my family was, uh, you know, my, my dad was a teacher. So there wasn't a lot, we didn't have a lot of dough for a private education. But the idea of Cooper Union, I would have gotten a great, a great opportunity. Uh, waiting list never got called up. I ended up going to Queens College, which was a city school, good school too.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Um, and, but never really found my footing. What I wanted to do was more interested in the, uh, what was going on socially at school rather than academically. I didn't really have a major. I didn't find myself excelling. I got by, but, um, but I didn't excel. And then after I'd worked for a year and went back to school, then I got Dean's List, straight A's because that, that year of working in the real world really, uh, seasoned me a bit and, and I got me, I think matured me a bit. And then, and then after I was back in school and back on the Dean's List, that's when I went cross country and that's when I discovered, uh, people doing improvisation in Chicago and decided I wanted to join that circus and that's when I dropped out.

• 15:11Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. And the, when you came back and were more seasoned and hit the Dean's List, was that because of the structure of working in the adult world? Or was it because you saw the benefits of focus rewarded in say, uh, a company or, uh?

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Well, kind of the opposite of that. I felt that, that you, you, at school, if you worked at all, you got, you got recognized. There was every once in a while an asshole teacher that, uh, you know, busting my ass and the guy's still giving me bad grades like, but that's like a rarity. Usually if you were working, usually if you're not doing good in school, you don't like the teacher, you're not, you're not coming halfway, you're not doing your job. But if you do your work, you'll get an A. And there's something real, you know, real egalitarian about that, whereas in the workspace, you you're expected to bust your ass and rarely do you get recognized for the work you do. Because somebody else is either, they're either oblivious because they're so hung up on what they're dealing with, your boss, or somebody else's, you know, there's weird

• 16:09Speaker 00

  office politics, or you're just, it's just expected of you to do your work. So it it felt like a whiff of reality of the real world, where it's not revolving around you. Whereas in school, even if you're part of a big lecture hall, at the end of the day, it's about you. You're you're paying money to be there. They're going to give you a grade based on the work you do, and it's focused around how you absorb and and fit the work and how you fit into the system. In the workspace, you're a cog, and you can figure out how to move your way up, but it's not incumbent upon them to recognize you. You have to make your own way. So it felt like a very, a much, it felt like I

• 16:52Speaker 00

  was going back to a kinder, gentler situation when I went back to school, where I put in the same work I would have, you know, on Wall Street, and then I was getting straight A's. So it felt good. But I also felt in another way, that it let some of the air out of the balloon, that I got a whiff of what real life was. What was waiting in the wings? It was kind of scary. That was like, okay, now I'm gonna work 50 weeks a year to get two weeks off. And I'm gonna live in those two weeks. Because pretty much everything happening during the week, you're either recovering over the weekends, or you're, or you're, you know, or you're, you know, you just, everything's about getting ready for work. I just came home from work, decompressing, and just getting back on the horse the next

• 17:37Speaker 00

  day. And especially in Manhattan, where you're, you know, I was commuting from the boroughs also. And and then I had gone cross-country and seen how everybody was living, and I had- What sparked that cross-country trip? I think it was-

• 17:55Speaker 00

  I think it was that I had worked for a year, right?

• 17:59Speaker 00

  And I'd saved up enough money for a motorcycle. And that was sort of a fantasy to go, you know, you watch like Easy Rider. Easy Rider, I was just gonna say. Oh, that's the thing, oh man, you know? And so I went cross-country and I was, there was a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota that happened to be lining up with when I wasn't in school or something. I don't even remember if I was still in school. It's going back many years now, in the eighties.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  But I remember saying, oh, let me go check this out. And then once I was all the way in South Dakota, a girl I was dating at the time was in San Francisco and I looked close on the map and I was like, let me just. You're like, it's only three and a half inches. I'll never be closer. And that's back when, you know, I was just thinking about this the other day. It was back before you could just go online and get a map. Like, you had to belong to like the AAA and TripTic something where they would send you maps with highlighters showing you the routes. So you had this map that was like folded up in your saddlebag and you would look at it. It really was like the old west and, you know, you're like on horseback going cross-country and it was such a long, harrowing trip.

• 19:09Speaker 00

  And I remember how many people in the country looked like they weren't enjoying themselves the way they lived, the way... And some people were having a great time, but like there's, there seemed to be a lot of variety in the way people lived and the lifestyles people had. And I think also having grown up in a big city, I didn't realize what rural America was like and really how big the country was and how much variety there was. And also the other thing was how...

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Personable people are. And I was, you know, here I was on a motorcycle and I was young and I wasn't, you know, I was not user friendly. I didn't have the, you know, Buckminster Fuller banker look. I was, you know, a guy climbing, you know, covered with dust and young and New York plates on my bike. And, and people were really cool to me, like people really, when, if I broke down, people helped me out. I helped other people out. You know, you sort of develop a sense of how you fit into the world and how it's not about you. You're one little piece of the whole thing. And you start to appreciate how big the world is and, and that you have to figure out how to fit into that. Whereas I think your whole life, especially where I was brought up, it's more about how does it fit into my world?

• 20:30Speaker 00

  So it's that perspective that, you know, I think we all continue to struggle with as we get older. How we fit into this whole thing, how this whole, it's not fair.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  Feeling is, is one that you feel a lot more when you're young than when you're older.

• 20:45Tim Ferriss?

  The, there's something magical about motorcycles too, being part of the environment as opposed to

• 20:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:50Tim Ferriss?

  Inside the, the, the bubble that is the chassis of the car.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Would not recommend it, by the way. Very dangerous. I, I'm not, my buddy is in a wheelchair now who introduced me to it. Uh, it's, it, it fits in really well with your sense of, um, invulnerability that comes at that age. Uh, not something I, I would do. I would thought, if I could afford one, I would. So let me just say to the people listening out there. I don't want to turn this into something where I'm proselytizing for it because it's not, it's not something that I do anymore. But it, but it was definitely a, a, a bit of a, a transcendent experience that you're flying and you're, you are so vulnerable and so much, uh, you know, there, there, you're just, you're just taking it in in a much different way. It's, it's, it's like a ride.

• 21:38Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm going to, uh, love to ask you about Chicago, uh, motorcycle also, just as a side note for folks. I totaled the bike and at that point sold it because I had a friend get, uh,

• 21:51Tim Ferriss?

  Fantastic rider had a car run a red light, hit him at an intersection, cut off one of his legs.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:57Tim Ferriss?

  And when your body is the bumper, my mom actually calls motorcycles donor cycles because she's been a PT for thirty plus years.

• 22:04Speaker 00

  Brain injuries with perfect organs. So, and it's not the, it's not the rider, it's the people around you.

• 22:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  And, and, and under the right circumstances, it's great. But the way, I'm very fortunate that I made it out intact. Because it's, it's bad odds. You're playing, you're playing, you're playing slots at the, it's not, it's not the best game.

• 22:23Tim Ferriss?

  It has nothing to do with how good you are as a rider, like you said. So dialing back the clock a little ways. So, and I won't spend too much time on this. But I was a runt up until about sixth grade. Got the living hell beat out of me all the time. And D and D was my refuge.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

• 22:37Tim Ferriss?

  So I still have all of my modules. I'm one of those guys. Now.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  I'm completely self-conscious about the fact that I played. It's like, it takes a lot for me to talk freely like this about it.

• 22:48Tim Ferriss?

  But I feel like.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Weird shame for some reason.

• 22:52Tim Ferriss?

  Why do you feel shame about it?

• 22:53Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 22:53Tim Ferriss?

  Because I feel this, I kind of wear it as a badge of honor in a way because I run into so many people who, who also had that shared experience.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Well, I think I've grown into it. Like, I think I'm accepting of it now. But it was such a way I had been defined myself for the first few years, like for like a freshman and sophomore year in high school. And that was like what? And then when I didn't do it anymore, you're so quick to say, because I find that there's nothing more embarrassing than whatever the last phase you just went through was. I continue to feel that way.

• 23:25Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  You know, thank God my life is not, you know, all the things that, ways you embarrass yourself, all the haircuts you've had, the ways that you dress, the music you listen to.

• 23:33Tim Ferriss?

  I used to have a rat tail.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Growing up, exactly. And now, you know, I'm of the age where, you know, for, for the, the children's generation of this age, that's all going to be well documented and very hard to escape.

• 23:44Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Uh, every single Facebook, you know, picture you've put up will be there on some level. Uh, so, but, uh, but I, you know, you're, you're right. I think that there was tremendous value in it. I have an affection for it. I remember too much of it. Um, you know, it really took up a lot of my brain space. Uh, when I was, when I was around that age, whatever 15 or 14, I forget what age I was playing. Um, but it also created.

• 24:15Speaker 00

  A set of, I think it encouraged a set of skills that is not that unlike filmmaking. Because you're telling a story and the people who are experiencing that story, especially if you're like a dungeon master, you're telling the story in a way that where the people who are participating, who've signed on, are experiencing in a very subjective way and there appears to be a certain level of spontaneity or free will, and there is built into it, but you're creating a context and a world and experience that's very specifically curated. So you're guaranteeing a sort of experience regardless of what they do within

• 24:56Speaker 00

  it. And I think when you're watching movies, the illusion is that you're subjectively experiencing the film as an individual and you're kind of making those decisions in a de facto way through the character that you're following the film through. If a character in a film ever makes a decision that the audience doesn't feel that they agree with, it changes the experience. It becomes like a horror movie where, "Don't go in that room!" You know, it becomes a much different type of experience. Or if you're watching a character that's not, you know, that you're watching because they're an anti-hero. You know, when you're

• 25:37Speaker 00

  watching Travis Bickle is a different experience than most films because most films, you're going to walk through it, experience the things that the characters do. They're going to do a smarter version usually of something you would have done and they're going to be facing a lot of consequences and you're rooting for them because you and them are kind of riding next, you're the co-pilot of the protagonist. And in role-playing games, it's a similar experience but a different medium.

• 26:06Tim Ferriss?

  Were you, did you have a particular race of preference? Were you a dwarf, a elf?

• 26:12Speaker 00

  I liked all those. I didn't like the elves so much. I liked the dwarfs, I liked the hobbits.

• 26:15Tim Ferriss?

  I was always a gray elf.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  Were you? That makes sense for you. I don't remember what's the gray. Is the gray different?

• 26:21Tim Ferriss?

  I just, I like the...

• 26:22Speaker 00

  There's wood ones?

• 26:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, there are also, I think it's the drow elf. Those were the dark elves.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  It was the dark ones.

• 26:28Tim Ferriss?

  They were the...

• 26:29Speaker 00

  I remember more from the Tolkien stuff now. It sort of replaced it. Cause I was introduced to that.

• 26:33Tim Ferriss?

  They do blend together.

• 26:34Speaker 00

  They do. Well, yeah, we were very close. But I liked the hobbits, cause I read the book The Hobbit before I ever played the game. It was an important book to me. And I always liked, I kind of relate to that character, cause he just wants to be comfortable and living in like the nice environment, but then is drawn out into the adventure and then returns. It's very Joseph Campbell. That reluctant hero. And I think that that's a good metaphor for what I've experienced is that, you know, I've never jumped into the stuff. You know, I guess, maybe there's been a little bit of boredom or unrest and earlier in my

• 27:12Speaker 00

  life, but generally, I kind of like, I like some, things kind of boring. But then every once in a while, I just, there's a little bit of that adventure blood in me that forces me out of it. I think we're different people from reading, knowing...

• 27:30Tim Ferriss?

  You have more self-preservation instinct, I think.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Is it that? Or it's complacency or something? But I do it kind of in spite of who I am, as opposed to because I'm, I have this wanderlust and I can't sit still. I just get bored sometimes and I want variety. Or I get, something captures my fancy and I get really curious and want to try something new. I'm an only child. I tend to do it more for me, I find, than to show other people. I tend to be very solitary in that.

• 28:04Tim Ferriss?

  What is the itch that you're scratching? Would that novelty satisfies? Do you think?

• 28:10Speaker 00

  I don't know, you know? I think it's different as I get older, cause now it becomes about what impressions I had from younger in life and things, you know, on that checklist of, you know, how people buy the car that they never could afford?

• 28:21Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  Later, or they, you know, or they date the girl they couldn't date? You know, there's a sense of somehow... You know, working on your scorecard. But for me, it's like, um, like I want, as I get older, especially, it's like I wanted to try to sculpt. And I, and I started.

• 28:40Tim Ferriss?

  Sculpting, literally.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, literally like sculpting and I'm lucky that I work with such talented people of all different diverse skillsets in the movie business. Then when I want to sculpt, I talk to somebody who's an expert sculptor, sculptor, and they, and they put together a little package for me of, and, and a list of tools I need and, and next thing you know, without a lot of wasted time, um, I'm, I'm sculpting. I always drew.

• 29:02Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  And I always would sculpt a little bit here and there, whatever. If I was in like a class or playing with the kids, Play-Doh and daddy was always good at, at, at making.

• 29:11Tim Ferriss?

  Step aside, kid. Let me show you how it's done.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, you get a lot of, you get a lot of, um, you know, when you go parent teacher day or whatever, the kids would bring dad to school, whatever that thing is when daddy could make something cool out of Play-Doh. You get, you get, you know.

• 29:26Tim Ferriss?

  Some street cred.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. So.

• 29:29Tim Ferriss?

  What material were you or are you using?

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Uh, now Chauvet, something called Chauvet, which is one of those, um, I think it's petroleum based or wax based, uh, clays that doesn't dry. And, um, you have to heat up to get it to be viable.

• 29:43Tim Ferriss?

  These blocks that look kind of like plastic explosives, I guess.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  Kinda.

• 29:47Tim Ferriss?

  I know what you're talking about, yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  And, uh, it was developed, I think for the automotive industry. So you get some really nice textures out of it. And, uh, it's just fun to do because you, you're doing better than you thought you could.

• 29:57Tim Ferriss?

  Now, why sculpture as opposed to, I wanted to be a comic book penciler for about 10 years. So I did a lot of illustration. Why, uh, why sculpture as opposed to, uh, something else like watercolors or?

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Oh, cause, uh, I don't know. There's something fun. I, I did it. Because you could, uh, give it to people.

• 30:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  You know, it's like a thing. It's like a substantial thing that you have, or you could display, or you could give, or, or cast into a metal or, I don't know. It just seemed kind of cool. Uh, I was, I was messing around on the, on the set of Jungle Book with, uh, we had blocks of wax because there's a sequence where that we have, uh, big, big beehives that we had to. Cast and we had to cast it out of wax so it interacted in a way that was realistic. And so we had blocks and blocks of beeswax around. And so while I was on the set on the many hours sitting at the, in the director's chair, I had a block of wax sitting there for about a month. And then next thing you know, I, I asked for something to carve it with it, carve it with.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  And I got like some little carving tools and next thing you know, I was carving a bear. And next thing you know, it's like I pull over the, all these artists that are working on this. So well, what's how, how should I, well, the bear, the ears are a little far back. Move this a little. And so I was getting pointers and, and everybody who had passed by, oh, it looks like a bear. Yeah. So it's, it's a little bit, oh, what a good boy am I. And something of to see at this age, honestly, it's like, um, I'm very happy to be working in the field that I am. I feel like I'm learning constantly. But I understand why. I think like Nick Nolte, I heard like loves glass blowing. Like I get it. I get why that's exactly the type of thing to be doing. And I did, actually my experience was with cooking. With, I read your book, by the way, I know I've told you this, but let me tell you this on the

• 31:44Tim Ferriss?

  I appreciate that.

• 31:45Speaker 00

  Podcast, uh, the four, four hour chef. Uh, when I was preparing to do chef, uh, I'd always like watching.

• 31:51Tim Ferriss?

  Which blew my mind. I've said it to you and I've said it's on the internets, but I'm, we're going to dig into that.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 31:57Tim Ferriss?

  But lovely movie.

• 31:58Speaker 00

  Thank you. It was a great movie and important film for me because it, it, it just, you know, it, it allowed me to deal with themes that I felt were important, but, but also it gave me the excuse to learn from great chefs and work in the kitchens of great chefs to prepare for acting in, in, in the film. And I loved cooking and I loved, and I never, Roy Choi, the, the chef who really was, was my partner in this. Um, as he was preparing me, when, when we first started, he said, you're, you'll, a chef, when a chef, because he was telling me these things to teach me, but also to understand insight as I told the story to make the film one that he and the community would like. He said, "When a chef sees a bag of shallots, they get excited because they're gonna get to peel

• 32:43Speaker 00

  all the shallots." And, and, um, which I thought was, it was confusing at first, but then after going through the culinary training and everything, there's some, it's true, there's something very meditative about, uh, preparing your mise en place. Because you, you're dealing with sharp implements and you have to get it perfect and you can't hurt yourself. And you can't really do anything but this thing, but it doesn't require all of your brain at the same time. And so you get into this really cool zone where you, everything's so thoughtful that you're doing. And by the time you actually prepare a meal with all of this mise that you prepare, that you, that you get ready, there's a, a tendency to be very tuned in to what you're tasting

• 33:28Speaker 00

  or what you're presenting to your guests. Because they know the work, they've been watching you put work into it. And so, the mindfulness, uh, that it implies and, and, and demands in its preparation, but it also asks of the people, um, who, who you're sharing it with. Uh, it, it creates a, um, a nexus point of all the people where you're all sharing a common experience at one moment, which, uh, is something I've grown to appreciate and, and is a very elusive dynamic. As, as a dad, it's, it's very, you know, being very, very present as, as you, um, you know, spend time with your kids, making sure you're not checking your emails when you're

• 34:13Speaker 00

  tucking the kids in, you know, it's, and, and with friends and, and as a husband, there's a, it's not something I did effortlessly a decade ago. And it's something that I've grown into and I find that people, as they mature, they, they start to value that more. And so everything I look to do, whether it's sculpture or, you know, I would be a glassblower, I would love to play with that, it seems fascinating, or, uh, you know, any of these hobby type things, or the cooking, uh, is all about being very present in that moment and, um, and it's a good.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  It's a good counterbalance to the intensity with which I approach my, the work that I do.

• 34:55Tim Ferriss?

  I think the, the word mindfulness is so appropriate for cooking and I found that what used to create so much stress, such a stress response to me, which was preparing food, has now become, like you said, almost this meditative practice where I could meditate in the mornings and I tend to do that, but I also find that if I just make food, make dinner two or three times a week, and you have these knives, so you have to be present, state aware, it's, it has a tremendous decompressing effect. Are there any particular ingredients that you're playing with these days?

• 35:29Speaker 00

  Well, I like, ever since I made chef and met Aaron Franklin down in Austin, I've been over and over again refining my smoked brisket, the Central Texas style smoked brisket. And to me, that's like alchemy, you know, it's, it's, there's, there's a certain amount of technique in the trimming and in the way you, but mostly it's about leaving alone. It's almost like baking in that way, like it's, it's, it's chemistry and changing little factors, but it taking whatever it is 14 hours to see how it turns out. There's something really rewarding about that. And it's also a flavor that people don't get anywhere else. So when you do it right and people get to taste it, it's, it's kind of a fun, it's kind of a fun thing to share because it's special. And it's only, it's only good for

• 36:13Speaker 00

  a short amount of time, too.

• 36:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  It's, you know, it's like a

• 36:17Tim Ferriss?

  It's like coffee.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  And then it kind of goes away.

• 36:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  And then I like that. I like, um, simple pasta dishes, very simple ones. You know, like there's a, there's a pasta, Scarpetta, the restaurant Scarpetta makes a really good pasta that's just in a tomato sauce that you could find online, the recipe for, but it, but making the pasta from scratch, infusing the oil, starting the tomato sauce from Roma tomatoes that you blanch and peel and slow cook and mash down into a sauce and then mixing it with the infused olive oil. And then cooking that with the pasta water and getting the right texture. And again, it's amazing, but it's only good for just a few minutes.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  And then, and then with the pasta dish is great because you, you pull together a group of people who are interested in doing it. It's a great thing to do if the family's all vacation someplace or you're over at a relative's house, especially because I have less and less things to talk about because my, my context is so different from everybody else's that, you know, if we talk about movies, it's not, you know, I'm thinking about the other things than the people talking to me were thinking about. And, you know, it's, there's so little overlap with most people that I meet. That cooking is great because it creates this context where everybody is on equal footing and everybody has a different skillset.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  And it becomes a real, a task that you have to be, you're interdependent with and it, it, I find I have endless patience to spend time with people that I don't know very well. If you're working on a really exciting cooking project. And then at the end, we all serve it together and we really feel like we fought a war together. It's a great, it's a great bonding thing. I'm working on a kitchen at my, in my house that's geared towards having like groups of people cook. That feels more like a restaurant style.

• 38:09Tim Ferriss?

  Big tabletops.

• 38:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, and all like open shelving and, you know, everything that you'd see, you know, beautiful in a way a restaurant's beautiful, not beautiful for a house, but, but the people who like to cook, it's, it's like the perfect, like, like a lab. And it's, it's fun because, you know, you're all gathered around and, and I did it, my experience, the first time I did it like that was at the, at the Skywalker Ranch, which is where we, we mixed the sound for a few movies. I've been working with them, I think since Iron Man. But for those of you who don't know, it's, it's a, it's a. Five thousand acre ranch in Northern California in Marin that George Lucas

• 38:55Speaker 00

  put together and oversaw the architecture for. And it started off as just a sound facility, very high, it looks very low tech, it looks like a winery almost, but beautiful rolling hills with cattle grazing. Victorian house on the hill that he, where he does his editing. And where he uses his home base. And other technical buildings that have cropped up around it. And it's state of the art mixing facility, sound facility, recording stages. So it's this very strange, and then a bunkhouse with themed rooms for the people who, who work there because you, you stay there when you work there. Because it's so remote. And so each room is themed for either a director or a writer.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  And so you have like the John Ford room, that's western theme, the Akira Kurosawa room, Dorothy Parker room. And so you stay there and during the day, there are restaurants that are open on the facility. At night, everything closes down, but there's a commercial kitchen in the common area and a walk-in, a walk-in fridge. And so as we were making chef, you know, you're looking at these scenes over and over again, listening to the crackling of the, you know, the frying food and the pasta and the olive oil and the garlic simmering. And your mouth's watering all day. And each night we would pick another recipe from the movie and all of us, me and the editors, the sound crew. We'd all get together and we'd cook together at night. And we'd cook all the dishes from the movie and it was so much fun.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  Because here we're in the middle of, you know, in the middle of nowhere really, in a very remote spot and, and just together, you know, the fireplace going, all of us cooking together and then you sit down for the meal. And you sleep good and then we hit it the next morning and we would do the next reel.

• 40:42Tim Ferriss?

  Sounds like a hell of a, a hell of a routine.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  It was great.

• 40:44Tim Ferriss?

  Amazing.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  It was really wonderful. So that's why I want to try to see if I can capture some of that at home.

• 40:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. The, uh, the, uh, the one thing that's always struck me about a well-designed kitchen is just the elegance and the economy of movement that it provides for a chef. Uh, where they're, they're, they're never reaching too far for anything, everything. I mean, you have everything in its place, right? The mise en place.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 41:07Tim Ferriss?

  And how quickly.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  A good line cook or chef can work if they have all their items in the right place. Yeah, it's true. It's interesting because I did, part of the training I did was work in, first, first I went to some pretty accelerated culinary training that Roy sent me to off with a French chef to get the context before I ever entered a professional kitchen. And so I went through all my mother sauces and my knife cuts and basically an overview of what the first year culinary students would deal with. Then I got to come into his kitchens. He has a few different restaurants and food trucks too. And I spent time floating from restaurant to restaurant. First, they let me like prep cook. So I was picking parsley and you know what I mean? I've done that. Micro basil. They're like, you're holding up my station first. I'm like, oh God.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  Because it's all they'll trust you with. And it's so like labor intensive. And so you finally do that. And then, then eventually I worked my way up to the hotline. And on the hotline, then I started working and then, and then I worked the pretty about midway through, I started working on one of his kogi trucks. And it reminded me, because there you're in tight quarters too. It reminded me very much of bartending, which is what I did to make a living in college and after college when I moved to Chicago as a bartender. And you know, there's that dynamic of, of getting in the weeds. It's kind of halfway between being a chef and being a, a server. Because you're preparing things, but you're also dealing with the public and you're not doing anything that complicated. So you don't

• 42:40Speaker 00

  have the, there's not the elegance of, of being a chef, at least the type of bartender I was. I wasn't like a mixologist, like you see now. But, but there is this, you do get into the weeds and you have to do this dance with the people in a very small space. And I found that that rhythm was coming back to me as I was working, especially on that truck, where you know how to get out of the way, you pop in, you pop out, you reach around on somebody's left, on their right, you're behind them, you're not crashing into each other and you're helping each other out and you're becoming like this big octopus together. And when you're working on the hotline, it's even more that way. Because there's, you know, behind you, you know, there's like hot food coming through, people are speaking different languages, you're, you're being asked to do things, you're being instructed

• 43:25Speaker 00

  to. That's the other weird thing. It's not like they prepare you ahead of time and say, here's how you make everything. Let's train. Maybe when you first open a restaurant, it's that way. But when you're working in an established kitchen, they basically just throw you on the line. And then the rush comes. And then they show you once how to do something, and then you just copy them, and maybe they show it to you again. And then the chef's watching you from a distance and saying, hey, you only put mayo on one side of the bun, it goes on both. You know, there's a certain quality control aspect that the chefs, that's really what the chef's job is, is overseeing other people doing the work and keeping the standards to a certain consistency. And so there was, you know, working and little by little, you know, first it's, I'm just doing

• 44:07Speaker 00

  the popcorn at A-frame, and then, then I'm, next thing you know, I'm pulling the burgers out, or doing the, you know, assembling some sandwiches, and next thing you know, I'm plating. And so by the end of the Saturday dinner rush, you know, there's a half dozen plates I'm helping with. And you start to appreciate how good these other people are. You know, the people who work the broiler, or the saute cook, you know, who

• 44:30Tim Ferriss?

  The grill station.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  Is just nailing them, you know, making it perfect, and timing it just right. And then, and then the one that I remarked at the most was the, was the, was the bus boy, who knows, just went to walk up to you with that, with that deli container full of ice water. And like, it's the best water you've ever had. Like, I didn't even know I was thirsty. And then this guy hands me this, like, 16 ounce, you know, the quart size, you know, like you get wonton soup in that

• 44:54Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 44:54Speaker 00

  Clear container. So those are all over kitchens, right, those deli containers. And they, they'll give you one full of ice water, and you'll drink it in like, one sip. And it's the best thing you've ever had in your life. And, and as I was mentioning that to Roy, he says, yeah, you're ready to make the movie. That's, now you've had that, that experience is what, how I know you're ready.

• 45:15Tim Ferriss?

  So, speaking of, of moments, when did you decide to write Chef? I'd love to talk a little bit about the writing process.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  Chef, Chef was, okay, so I, remember, I, you know, it's kind of hard out of context with, with what The Swingers experience was.

• 45:31Tim Ferriss?

  Sure. Well, we can, we can, well, let's talk about both.

• 45:34Speaker 00

  So with Swingers, it was, that I had, I had not known I was going to be a writer, had received from my dad, Final Draft, which was a program that is pretty user-friendly and, and formats your writing to look like a screenplay. And, and for people who are writers, or want to be writers, a lot of it is

• 45:58Speaker 00

  There are subtle things that, much like, let's say, a job, like a resume for a job. There are certain standards by how you're gonna put that together so that when somebody receives that resume, it looks professional. The formatting. The formatting, all that stuff. I don't know that much about just regular jobs, but I know like a lot of effort goes into the resume, a headshot for an actor. For a screenplay, as people receive the script, they're making a lot of little subconscious calculations and decisions about you based on what they're seeing. And a screenplay that's not formatted properly is something that's completely dismissed. And what was fun was when I received the program, I just typed a little bit, next thing I know, it looked just like a real screenplay. And I've read enough of them for being an actor. And this was after I had already done Rudy, I had moved to Los Angeles, I thought that

• 46:44Speaker 00

  was gonna be my big break. But things weren't really popping for me. But I had read enough scripts and knew enough about acting to feel comfortable tapping away at a screenplay, never thinking it was gonna, anything was gonna happen with it. More to show my friends, and you know, you type, you type for a half hour, an hour, two hours, next thing you know, you got like a stack of eight pages. And it feels like you've got a piece of a screenplay there. So then it becomes like, I just wanna try this, you know? It kinda goes back to the earlier conversation we're having about why do you, why do you do things, you know? For you, it's that you can't sit still, and you're, and you're super curious, and you got a lot of energy, and you, you kinda hunger for it. I think with me, it's, it's a little

• 47:28Speaker 00

  bit more erratic than that, where I just get, I just get, something bites me in the ass and I wanna try something. Like, I'm just curious about something, if I could do something. But it's, it's much subtler. And I just tap away at it and peck away at it, and then it starts to look good. And as it looks better, you start to build up, like with doing sculpture, like messing around a little bit, next thing you know, oh, it kinda looks like a bear. Well, let me carve it a little bit better, let me try a little bit more, let's see how far I could take this thing. And, and so with the screenplay, it was kinda like that. And showed it to some friends, showed it to the acting agent I had. People felt good about the swingers screenplay and then we.

• 48:07Tim Ferriss?

  How long did it take you to get it to a first draft, let's just say?

• 48:11Speaker 00

  Very fast, because there was no pressure. I didn't have any, I didn't have any, I would, I would outline maybe a few pages ahead of where I was. I came from an improv background from Chicago. So it was really just characters talking to each other. The improv that I did was something called The Herald, which was Del Close invented. It was a great improv teacher in Chicago.

• 48:29Tim Ferriss?

  The Herald?

• 48:30Speaker 00

  The Herald.

• 48:31Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  Like the name.

• 48:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, okay, got it.

• 48:33Speaker 00

  And it was one of those things like, what do you call it? Harold? You know, it was one of those, that's how it got its name. Like the Beatles haircut, I think.

• 48:40Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, got it.

• 48:41Speaker 00

  Had a name. I forget what the name was. Uh, but, but there's, uh, it's long form. So you would start off and take one suggestion and do three different scenes with different characters that were unrelated, all inspired by this one suggestion. And then you would have three beats of those scenes. And by the end, they would all interweave and connect and come to some greater statement about the, the, um, the suggestion than just a short form joke oriented improvisational skit would. So it's looking to bring improv into revealing as a higher form to reveal greater truths about,

• 49:24Speaker 00

  about the suggestion by forming a group mind with a, a team of improvisers who are used to working with one another. That was the aspiration for that. But it did give me a, a set of skills, having done that in Chicago for a while, that, you know, you're self-editing, you're, you're knowing when each scene should end, you're bringing in the next scene to begin, maybe after some time had passed or with a plot point that had occurred. And, you know, you're, you're learning story. You're learning story the hard way. You're learning a story in front of a bar full of people who paid $4 to be in there. And they wanna be entertained and laugh. But the laughter doesn't last if there's no story. Story is the king. And, you know, you think it's about the last, but really it's about investing in the story being drawn in. And, um, and so I, I guess I had enough skills from that

• 50:09Speaker 00

  and also read enough screenplays and maybe The Dungeon and Dragons and stuff and being a storyteller, knowing how to create a little bit of a world. That, you know, here I was unfolding the story about this group of friends in Hollywood, set in the same world I lived in. I had broken up, or been broken up with at the time, about a year earlier, so I was still, that was fresh in my mind, so that was one of the character's dilemmas. And, you know, although it wasn't really autobiographical, there were enough things that I could draw from, you know, what's the expression from Glengarry Glen Ross? Always tell the truth, it's the easiest thing to remember. Yeah. Draw upon, you know, if you're gonna talk about a neighborhood, talk about the neighborhood you grew up in, talk about the neighborhood you know, even if it's not you.

• 50:53Speaker 00

  But you're gonna have a more consistent world that you're developing than if you're putting them on Mars, and you don't understand Mars. So, you know, a lot of things got slugged in, and I wrote it fairly quickly, about two weeks. Two weeks. It was very quick. And it didn't change really that much after that. Did not change. Did not. But I had written my sketches and things. Did you write it, start to, you wrote it from the beginning to the end? Yeah, from beginning to the end. A few things changed, not much, 10%. Got it. Over time.

• 51:25Speaker 00

  And that was in final draft? Yeah, yeah. It was a good. Was Chef the same way, that you did it start to finish? So Chef, I didn't, you know, I'd written Maid after that, a few years later, and then I had been hired as a writer, based on swingers, to do script doctoring and things. And that's where it gets tough, because when you start getting paid to do something that you used to do for fun, you don't want to do it for fun as much. And what was nice about it is that you can, you can make a living enough to, you know, for a single dude to be able to buy a house, over a few years, and, you know, drive a new car, you know, or newish car. But you can make a living just being a writer for hire, because they're always looking for people with fresh takes and new ideas, in the writing area, because

• 52:10Speaker 00

  the very established writers are all, you know, they're busy, you know, you get hired to do one thing that could keep you busy for a year. So, there's always room for another writer, once you kind of make that list. Unfortunately, if you're not on the list, you can't get in the door. And swingers put you on the list. Swingers put me on that list. So I went from an actor, and also people kind of knew me from my acting, from Rudy, and so there's a bit of a novelty of being an actor that they recognize and know, and you're already used to being in those rooms, you're already, people know who you are, you know who they are, you already have representation. So it's easier to get into that system. So, uh, that was a, a, a bit of a, I wouldn't say it's a life hack, but, uh, but it's, um, am I using that term properly?

• 52:54Tim Ferriss?

  I think, you know, I think, I think that you-

• 52:57Speaker 00

  I'm trying to sound like I fit on your podcast here.

• 52:59Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, you already fit on the podcast. You're doing great. The, I think the, uh, the, it seems like you gave yourself sort of more tickets in the raffle, so to speak, than a lot of people because you had the writing, acting, directing-

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Well-

• 53:12Tim Ferriss?

  irons in the fire, not, not all necessarily at that point.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  Eventually, but in the beginning, remember, I'm trying to break into another field.

• 53:21Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  Right? So I'm like seeing how far I could take this thing and the acting thing got me more raffle tickets in that sense. Um, but it was an interesting way into writing and much like how acting was a really interesting way into directing. Because in directing, one of the disadvantages that most people other than me had was that if you're going to direct, the only way you can show people you're a director is by directing. There's no apprenticeship per se in directing. It's not like assistant directors, there's an apprenticeship. You could work your way up from a P A, work your way up to second, second, second A D to first A D.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  You will hit the top of the food chain and, and by learning from other people who are better than you. There's no room on the set for another, the director's assistant is not another director. The director's assistant is somebody who was a P A, somebody who worked in development, somebody who's, you know, uh, most, I don't think I've ever met a director whose assistant was, was a director in training. Uh, and even then you're not getting that experience, but as an actor, I got to have front row seats for every director that I worked with. So by the time I ever directed, I already, you know, there were a half a dozen directors that I thought were great and half a dozen that I thought weren't great. And I emulated the ones that were great and being an actor, you're kind of modeling yourself,

• 54:46Speaker 00

  imitating what the people you respect do. And that's kind of what musicians do too, right? If you, you know, you, everybody practices Hendrix licks first and then they come up with their own style. But there is a, there is a, uh, this, uh, mimicking phase of learning. And, and it's tough to get those 10,000 hours under your belt. Just by going to film school. Now, maybe it's different because now people can literally take a camera, go out, film something, edit it, put it up, get feedback, see if people like it or they don't, and they could hit the drawing board again. It does not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They can, they can do that thanks to technology. By

• 55:31Speaker 00

  the time I was coming up, that wasn't, that wasn't even an option. Swingers was done as cheaply as you possibly could for that quality of a film, and that was almost $200,000. And Clerks had been done even cheaper than that. The budget was $200,000? A hundred and seventy-five, something like that. But Clerks had been done for, I think, $10,000 or something ridiculous like that. And that's a, you know. That's a feat. Oh, yeah. Because it was done at a time when it wasn't quite that straightforward. It was very inspiring to us. It was before we had done it, and we're like, why can't we just do it? Because instead of trying to sell swingers, we ended up making ourselves. So by the time I had done chef, it was like, I, I had been wanting to do something, everything I was developing, I was trying to work as a chef into. Because I want it to be something

• 56:11Speaker 00

  I want to learn about. So if I was working on a TV pilot, or working on a, developing something for, producing something for somebody else, it was like, what about in a restaurant? What about a chef? Because it seemed like it was a very, from watching Top Chef and following chefs, reading chefs' biographies, reading Kitchen Confidential, which is the first one that I read by Bourdain. Great book. Great book. And it seemed like there's something here. But it didn't seem like something that warranted its own, I couldn't see the way to make it into its own thing. So that was kind of bubbling around my head. And then something about, by doing something about being a dad, being, we're talking about mindfulness, about mindfulness and parenting,

• 56:51Speaker 00

  about how a few simple, overseeing a few important things in your life over the course of many years can ruin your life if you don't invest enough into the, the things that are important but not pressing. So if you put everything into your career and not into the things that won't, things that aren't the squeaky wheel but are important, but not in the short term, over time, you'll find yourself... In a situation that you don't even understand how you got into, you know, and you see it a lot in the chef world, you see it a lot in the movie world, a lot of families that where it doesn't work out. And a lot of it's because the career demands so much time, so much effort, and creating that balance, which, which, you know, fortunately I've done, you know,

• 57:35Speaker 00

  the older I get, the better I get at it. And, and, and now, uh, things are, you know, I think well balanced for me, but I wanted to make something about somebody where they weren't well balanced. What if I had made different decisions in my life early on? And, and then looking at it through the idea of the culinary world and, and having really, stories are about growth spurts. It's about, right, coming of age. I'm a big, I mentioned Joseph Campbell before, I'm a big hero of the thousand faces.

• 58:02Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  Huh? Sorry?

• 58:03Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no, I was saying just the monomyth. I find, you know, just.

• 58:06Speaker 00

  The mono, mono.

• 58:07Tim Ferriss?

  Well, see, he talks about, I've become fascinated by Joseph Campbell in the last few years. Uh, also the, the, how these archetypes.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 58:16Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, translate across all cultures and indigenous tribal.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  The hero of the thousand.

• 58:22Tim Ferriss?

  Mythology, exactly.

• 58:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. You ever seen, speaking of Skywalker, I think the first time I ever saw the Skywalker Ranch was on the Power of Myth with Joseph Campbell's interviewed by Bill Moyers.

• 58:32Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I haven't seen that. I haven't.

• 58:34Speaker 00

  That's one of the first, uh, when, when video first came out, that was one of the first things that was, uh, available in that realm and it still holds up. It's great. I'm sure it's easy to get your hands on the power of myth and he's being, he's in, sitting in the library at the Skywalker Ranch, being interviewed of everything back, you know, from Adam and Eve and earlier, all the way through Star Wars. And it's like a four part or six part series from PBS, I think. And it was great. That was my introduction to, to Joseph Campbell. And then there's books about relating that archetype.

• 59:08Speaker 00

  Rise of the Hero storytelling to screenplays and how there's less variation than you you might think and the more you stick to it, the better. It just is, it's, it's, those are great instruments to fly with and with Jungle Book, I really am, you know, going back and doubling down on that, on, on just going back to the, to the old myths and it works so well for, for Lucas.

• 59:32Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, uh, I've been, I'm fascinated by, by screenwriting and I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the format, but I took the story seminar by McKee and have read a handful of books.

• 59:44Speaker 00

  That's, that's pretty intense.

• 59:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that is, that is intense.

• 59:47Speaker 00

  Even that book is, uh,

• 59:48Tim Ferriss?

  It's intense.

• 59:49Speaker 00

  I don't know if I've ever gotten all the way through.

• 59:50Tim Ferriss?

  I found it very dense. I found it difficult. Uh, there, there are a handful of others like Save the Cat that I found very helpful for, for me personally, just to think about the storytelling mechanisms.

• 59:59Speaker 00

  There's, there's one called, uh, if, if I may.

• 1:00:01Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, of course.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  The Writer's Journey.

• 1:00:03Tim Ferriss?

  The Writer's Journey.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  The Writer's Journey. Um, and I, I'm sorry, I'm a loss. I could look it up while we're, while we're talking here.

• 1:00:10Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I'll put it in the show notes as well.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Okay, you'll, you'll put it in? Okay. Right. Cause it, what it does is it takes Joseph Campbell and refines it down from the perspective of somebody who think it was a story executive at Disney and, um, and, and breaks what, breaks apart what the, what those archetypes are and how they apply to movies that you would have seen, breaking down movies using that and, and also talking about the three act structure as it is a, as it, um, pertains to the, the mythic structure that Campbell talked about with the, the calling, the refusal

• 1:00:48Speaker 00

  of the call, the entering into the extraordinary world, the entering the inmost cave, the, uh, killing the dragon, taking the elixir, going back and healing the land. And, um, even back when I, uh, I even looked, I was, I had already read the book by the time I had done Swingers and looked at Swingers.

• 1:01:10Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, The Writer's Journey. So it's been around for a while.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  It's been around for a while and I had, remember reading that book and seeing if it. If I was structurally correct with swingers and I was satisfied that I was. But the trick, I think, is not to use it as a map to write because you have to write. I think you just have to brain dump when you write. I don't think you could try to control your writing too much.

• 1:01:37Speaker 00

  For me.

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  Some people are very different. People who come out of, you know, where they're creating series arcs for a television show. It becomes, you know, you have to develop a group mind and you use the dry erase board and you plot things out. It may change, but it's very well thought through and I find that people that have come from that background tend to like to outline a lot. And then there are other people who just come from pros in creative writing or, you know, a story, you know, short story writers that where they just want to, you know, the routine has more to do with

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  what time of day they write, how much coffee they have before they do, you know, getting into that.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  Getting into the creative routine. Uh, that's where their structure is. There's always some form of structure. Sometimes the structure is in the writing. Sometimes the structure is in the writing. The act of writing.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  But I found, I find that for me, I like to do. I like to outline a little bit. I like to, I first I do. So here's what you're getting back to chef. So with chef, I, those two thoughts of wanting to write something about the chef world and wanting to do something about mindfulness and parenting. Both crashed into each other. And I got the idea, the epiphany hit me that, um, that I, this is, this could all come together in a project. Let me write this thing. And I, and I took out, I like composition. I know you like the minutia.

• 1:03:00Tim Ferriss?

  I do. I love the minutia.

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  So composition, mead composition notebooks, you know, the black and white fleck cover cardboard.

• 1:03:07Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 1:03:07Speaker 00

  Sown spine.

• 1:03:08Tim Ferriss?

  Looks kind of like a zebra, the black and white on the cover.

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  Exactly. I like those because I find, um, I think it's from my drawing days, um, when I used to get like a really nice leather bound drawing paper sketchbook. I'd be so reluctant to, to.

• 1:03:25Tim Ferriss?

  Defile it.

• 1:03:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like, is this drawing good enough for my, because it was always felt like a showpiece, whereas the, the notebooks seem like, um, because everybody grew up with them, like as their first notebook, that there's a freedom in marking it up, but you can't rip pages out. Right, so you can't self-edit. Because if you do, the book falls apart. So it's not like a spiral. You can't use a spiral. For me, you can't use a spiral. So I have for everything I've done, and there's a lot of incomplete projects. I'll get a composition notebook, I'll date it, title it, and then just start filling it with some time stream of consciousness, sometimes a list of movies that I want to look at that relate to this, a book, an image, something. And it becomes my,

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  you know, that's where I just brain dump. And so for chef, I was actually meditating. I was meditating and the two things hit each other. And usually if I'm meditating, which I try to do at least once a day,

• 1:04:25Speaker 00

  although I don't always, but I find that in part of the distraction of meditating, creative thoughts might pop into my head, but that seems to be a distraction. So I have to push past those. It's kind of like on the highway entrance. First you have everything you're worried about hit you. Then you start to have

• 1:04:46Speaker 00

  creative thoughts that are interesting and inspiring. But those will trick you into not meditating too. So like, these are all obstacles that you have to kind of pass by. And then, and then you get into the good part, if there's such a thing. I know you're not supposed to judge it or think about it. But you get into that brainwave or whatever that thing is that seems to be the experience that when you meditate that you seek

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  that kind of baseline thoughtless.

• 1:05:19Tim Ferriss?

  Right, the void, floating in the void.

• 1:05:22Speaker 00

  I don't know if I get as far as the void, but...

• 1:05:24Tim Ferriss?

  For me, that's how I feel, but...

• 1:05:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's good. I don't know if I'm that good.

• 1:05:27Tim Ferriss?

  How do you meditate? What type of meditation?

• 1:05:29Speaker 00

  Just, you know...

• 1:05:31Tim Ferriss?

  Do you focus on your breath? Do you focus on something else?

• 1:05:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, I can do that, TM or breath or I try different things. But now, you know, honestly, it's like I don't even... It's more of like an exercise now, like I know how to get to, I think it's a, it might be a brainwave pattern, I don't know, but it's a state of mind that I could hit without really tricks. I kinda just need to, it takes me about five or six minutes and I could get there.

• 1:05:56Tim Ferriss?

  Do you sit in a chair with your feet on the floor or are you legs folded?

• 1:05:59Speaker 00

  Different, I try not to lay down, cause you fall asleep, right?

• 1:06:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  But I try to do that. I used to do it, I haven't found a place, it's nice when you could do it the same time every day. I just switched from production to post-production on this, so I don't, I don't, I haven't gotten into my routine, I haven't been doing it as much as I should, but otherwise I'd like to. But, but in the middle of it, I got the, the idea for Chef hit me and I let myself stop, which I don't usually do, and I took out a pad and I just scribbled out like eight pages of, of ideas and thoughts, and, and left it alone, and then read it, and it had, you know, if I look back on it and read those pages, it really had eighty percent of a heavy lifting done, as far as what it

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  was about, who was in it, who the characters were, what other movies to look at, what the tone is, what music I would have in it, what type of food he was doing, the idea of the food truck and the Cuban sandwiches and Cuban music, and, and he's from Miami, and, and so it all sort of grew out from that. And then I went ahead and I have enough half-written screenplays that I just forced myself to keep writing every day, and so this only took me a few weeks too to get the first draft. But the big thing was I was so scared of, of, of, it's like the Kublai Khan dream,

• 1:07:23Speaker 00

  the poem Kublai Khan, right? Wasn't that the story that, that it was a dream and only part of it was written down because he forgot it all? The poet, I think I have that, I think I have that right, going back to school, I don't remember if I made the details right, but the idea that sometimes you feel like when you're writing a, a story or screenplay, if you let enough time pass... In the first draft, you get off of that, that kind of

• 1:07:48Tim Ferriss?

  Get out of the zone.

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  Run you're on, yeah. Cause I don't think it's something you control. I think it's something you access and, and um, I don't think, I'm not to say it's from some other mystical place, uh, but whatever that part of your brain that it comes from is a, is not a part of your brain that you necessarily can force to do what you want.

• 1:08:07Tim Ferriss?

  It's not, not fully domesticated.

• 1:08:08Speaker 00

  Right, yeah. You gotta kinda, you gotta kinda trick it into doing its thing.

• 1:08:12Tim Ferriss?

  And when you did the, the brain dump down into the composition notebook,

• 1:08:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:16Tim Ferriss?

  Do you take then, I'd imagine these are not necessarily in chronological order. It's just a full on brain dump?

• 1:08:22Speaker 00

  It is, it's what, you know, is some of it's chronological, then you go back and hit another part of it and then run it through again. And so it does, it does go on little tears. It's like a pitch session, except you're alone.

• 1:08:32Tim Ferriss?

  And when you said tone, what would be an example of, of tone for a movie? How, how would you sort of write that down or describe?

• 1:08:38Speaker 00

  I said like eat, drink, man, woman, opening. Like that, that stuff, right?

• 1:08:43Tim Ferriss?

  Fantastic movie.

• 1:08:44Speaker 00

  Um, Big Night. Um, you know, a lot of it's movies. A lot of it is Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack. Food truck, food, Cuban sandwiches. Cuban sandwiches, uh, the son, the, there's a divorce. The, they've been separated, but they get along. Get along and he's with, he's stuck, he's with, uh, he's, uh, there's a critic coming. You know, this is, this is Bratton two. It's, there's only so many, there's like so many cooking restaurant movies you can make. And the guy is preparing the, he goes to the farmer's market and brings his kid with him. Like, so there's, there's moments, there's vignettes, there's, um, images.

• 1:09:27Speaker 00

  Um, and some of them are sequences and some of them are movies. And sometimes it's movies that are in your memory. And then when you see the movie, it's not that. But it's the version in your head from what you remember of a movie. And then you, and then Kitchen Confidential, I remember referencing that a lot and, and who the characters are. And I wanted a very, uh, a lot of, Latino cast members. Because that's what was really Kitchen Confidential, I remember like, that's really what kitchens were and what I saw and what it was and never what was depicted. And how does that? The, the.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  How does the vibrance of that culture with the music playing in the kitchen? And then they're cooking food that's not that. And then in being re-inspired, he's inspired by that. Who the people that are surrounding him, the music he's listening to, and where he came from in Miami. And maybe that's the type of food he used to cook and now he's cooking very trendy, you know, user-friendly food that wasn't inspiring to him. And then being frustrated by not being inspired by, his art is no longer inspiring him and he's hit an impasse. And also the impasse is affecting both his professional life, but in a way he's not aware of his personal life too.

• 1:10:49Speaker 00

  He's stuck, spiritually stuck.

• 1:10:52Tim Ferriss?

  And on the show business side of things, this is something I know very little about, but in terms of the actual making, selling, distributing of the film. And feel free to correct me if I get this wrong, but I've heard you refer to, I think, Making Chef as going back to basics.

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:09Tim Ferriss?

  And constraining the size or the budget so that you could do certain things, like have the language you wanted to have in the movie, for instance, be authentic.

• 1:11:18Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:11:19Tim Ferriss?

  How did you make this movie? And I know that's a very novice question, but I've talked to people sort of indirectly, have gone through the big studio process and have had a very rough time of it. What made Chef different? How did you, or Swingers, you could comment on?

• 1:11:35Speaker 00

  Different times. You know, again, I think it's all a matter of,

• 1:11:43Speaker 00

  it's all a matter of adjusting to what the, of what the environment is at any given moment and adjusting in an Art of War kind of way. I don't think about it in those terms. But acknowledge what the terrain is. And I think a lot of what seems like in my career in general, as though I've had this vision for how my career was going to change and things I would try to do and to get things accomplished, was more a reaction to what the circumstances were. So, for example, I thought Swingers would open a lot of doors for me acting-wise. It didn't. I got to do a little bit of stuff here and there. It was fun, but...

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  I was very sought after as a writer after that. And so the writer door opened up. The actor door was, you know, kind of more of a, more of a small, you know, a little cracked open door that occasionally I could poke my nose through, but it wasn't receiving me. But the, but the writer door was wide open. So I started to do that and I learned a lot about storytelling and interacting with executives and what the system was by being involved with projects and none of which that ever got actually produced with the versions that I wrote. But I was part of a chain of writers on, on, on certain projects.

• 1:13:06Speaker 00

  So I would, I was pretty good at, at adjusting to what path was available to me and finding something interesting about what was available, but without ever feeling that I was compromising, but just trying to check out something that could be cool and not getting in my own way of saying, why shouldn't I be a writer on this? Why not pitch this take on a movie, even though I've never done a rewrite? Why, why not go in there and talk to them about this? And, and so I've had, I think I've had enough confidence to not be scared to try something new, which I think is something I get in a lot of people's ways. I think people get in their own way a lot. And there are certain things that I'm, you know, that I have been scared of, but, but for some reason, career wise, maybe it's my early upbringing.

• 1:13:51Speaker 00

  I don't know what, but I, I never feel intimidated when I'm in a room with people or if I'm on stage in front of people. Like I don't, I don't get that. My, my heart doesn't, doesn't race in those situations. And those even before the improv? Yeah. I've always been comfortable like getting in front of people and talking and I've been a bit of a ham when I was little, like loving to jump up in front of the family and put on shows. I just think certain people are wired. Now that I have three kids. For sure. You're just kind of wired a certain way and certain people are. You know, kind of, you know, they kind of have certain things that they like and certain things that they're good at and you could adjust them and change them.

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  But you're kind of, you're kind of working with a, you know, you're kind of handed it. It's like, it's like poker. You get a, you know, you get dealt a hand and you could play those cards well or poorly. But, but you're definitely working from, um, you know, you're definitely inheriting your properties in risk at the beginning of the game. You know what I mean? You're, you're, you're starting from a certain vantage point and then, and then it's, what do you do with that?

• 1:15:00Tim Ferriss?

  With, with a movie like Swingers, for instance, and again, this is, these are just things that I've heard quoted. So feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. It's, it seems like everyone has seen Swingers. I mean, it gets, it gets quoted all the time. Um, the box office was around six million?

• 1:15:15Speaker 00

  It was, if that.

• 1:15:16Tim Ferriss?

  If that.

• 1:15:17Speaker 00

  So it was considered, you know, so, so just to give you a perspective, we, you know, trying to get it made for a year, nobody gives us the money. Doug Liman was able to raise the money and we make it together.

• 1:15:30Tim Ferriss?

  What is his, uh?

• 1:15:31Speaker 00

  He's a director.

• 1:15:32Tim Ferriss?

  Director, got it.

• 1:15:33Speaker 00

  He's the director of the film, but when I had met him, I was trying to set it up as a director. I was trying to direct it and he had already done a film. Uh, he was just part of a circle of friends and not very, uh, I wasn't very close with him, but I knew him through somebody else and he was somebody who had directed. And so I had, you know, bought him a cup of coffee. He talked me through lenses and was preparing me for when it was time for me to direct. And then in that process had said, look, I know you, you know, hopefully you will get to put this thing together. But, um, but I can raise the money and, and so we agreed to creatively be partners on this thing and, and, um, and we made it a much smaller budget than I thought was possible.

• 1:16:09Tim Ferriss?

  This was the 200K.

• 1:16:10Speaker 00

  This was the 200K that he was able to bring and figure out how to bring that movie to the screen with that budget, with the experience that he had had. So, uh, so that it happened. We tried to get into Sundance.

• 1:16:23Tim Ferriss?

  And not to interrupt, but was he that financing from sort of independently wealthy individuals or was it from?

• 1:16:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Tim Ferriss?

  Companies or?

• 1:16:31Speaker 00

  I think it was more like that. Yeah. I think it was more of the connections that he had from growing up in town and being involved with, uh, you know, there were, there were people that he knew that were willing to bet on him. As some of it was based on stuff he had done already and some of it was, um, you know, uh, that he, you know, had passion about this thing, but he was able to get the, the, secure the financing.

• 1:16:51Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:16:52Speaker 00

  So, uh, so the, the first experience. Was that, um, then, then we made it and that was real seat of the pants. And then we didn't get into Sundance, which was our goal, was to get in. That was the be all and end all for us. And I don't know if it was that it wasn't finished enough or we had just, just pulled it, you know, a cut together for them or it was screened on videotape versus a screening. Who knows what it was, but it was incredibly disappointing to us. So it felt like all was lost. Then we put up, uh, after Sundance, that Sundance festival, when everybody had gotten back, we had done our own screening in Los Angeles for the cast and crew and invited some distributors to it as well.

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  And it played extraordinarily, extraordinarily well there. And then we had multiple buyers and, you know, you don't have to be in Hollywood to know what that means, you know? More than one person i- is interested. It's a whole different dynamic. And now there was a, a bit of a bidding war over it and ended up selling for $5 million. And Those are distribution rights. Distribution rights. And, um, and so we were, we were riding high. It was, you know, in all the, all, everybody wanted to interview us and everybody wanted to feature us in their magazines and we were like the next thing. And, and so in like the year between when it was acquired and when it came out, we were riding very high.

• 1:18:17Speaker 00

  Vincent, I think, got cast in, uh, the sequel to Jurassic Park, which is about as big as you can get. And everybody who was nobody was now, had a seat at the table, had another shot, you know? And, and then by the time the movie came out, it opened, first weekend is in whatever, two theaters, four theaters, it was huge box office. And then a few weeks later, nobody cared and it made $5 million. And, and it was considered a failure, you know, the box office wise. Cause you gotta figure out one side of us was like Sling Blade that made a hundred million dollars and won Oscars and the other side was, um, Good Will Hunting that won Oscars and made like a hundred million dollars.

• 1:18:59Speaker 00

  So we were kind of the disappointing, uh, underperformer at Miramax at that point. And so all of it kinda ebbed away. But again, it was enough to get my foot in the door as a writer. And I had already, now I had not just been the guy who was in Rudy as a character actor, but now I had been in this movie that, as you said, everybody has seen. So thanks to video and later DVD and earlier on LaserDisc, everybody had seen this film. And it'd become part of our culture. And that's when I kinda learned that it's not always the movie that does the best, that has the most impact, or is the most rewarding. Or does the most for your career for that matter.

• 1:19:38Speaker 00

  Even though in the short term, success is celebrated here and failure is unforgivable. But over time, I think that it, that shifts a bit. And I know, for example, like Vince had got in Jurassic Park on the heels of Swingers, he's far more recognized now from Swingers. That grossed one, you know, not even a tenth, maybe a hundredth of what that movie made. But for some reason, this one has had more impact on his career, even though far less people went to see it in the movie theater. So you never know what's gonna, and I find in my own career the same thing. It's not always the things that make the most money.

• 1:20:20Speaker 00

  It's the things that, the performances were, there's something about certain projects that stick in people's memories more.

• 1:20:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the staying power. And I was astonished as I started studying film more and looking at movies that had a huge impact on me, or were these landmark iconic films among the, you know, high school and college males who were the majority of my friends. You know Fight Club, for instance. And I was astonished that it wasn't some massive, massive hit.

• 1:20:45Speaker 00

  Or Raging Bull, you know, was, you know, all these movies that are sort of failures in the, in the, in the, in the beginning. And Rudy was my first experience with a movie coming out. It didn't do well at all, didn't even do number one at the box office. Was considered also an underperformer. But now everybody knows it. It's a cultural, you know, it's a cultural point of reference. I hear the music everywhere. People refer to it constantly. So like, those are the ones where you make the ripple, the cultural ripple. And that's honestly the thing that is most exciting, that's the most appealing to me, is how can you impact, how can you make that kind of impact and affect people? And either touch them, entertain them, make them laugh.

• 1:21:31Speaker 00

  Make them feel connected, you know, that's the, that's the part that's the most rewarding at this point in my career.

• 1:21:37Tim Ferriss?

  And I am keeping an eye on the time. I know that you've been very generous with your time and I'll, I'll only take a few more minutes. The, I would be remiss of me if I didn't mention that a number of my fans have said to, "Thank you for Chef." They've rented it five to 10 times just to show friends. So I think that that, I think that's gonna be one of the movies.

• 1:21:56Speaker 00

  That's what, that's really what, that was kind of the thing. I know within like the chef community, they accepted it, the ones that I've met. So that was a big scary part of it for me. Cause if, if everybody, if people had liked it who didn't know about that world and, but then the people who are in the world didn't like it, it would have been a mixed, it wouldn't have felt good to me. But the fact that people are seeing it now like I, uh, I'm spending more time with my son after seeing the movie. Or, you know what, I'm gonna try to open up my own business that I've been putting off forever. And that's when you feel really humbled and good and flattered because you feel like

• 1:22:41Speaker 00

  you're connecting. It's selfishly just a very good feeling to know that, that you're, that you're, you're, me being on this planet has changed somebody else's experience, like in a, in a good way. And it feels, it feels, um, it feels, you feel connected to people, which I think is kind of part of the, the trip here. It's part, kind of part of the goal.

• 1:23:09Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, for sure. Well, I think anything with a basis in storytelling at some point, I mean, you're making a lot of connections through this. I think there's, we are hardwired for this, this Joseph Campbell-like experience, even in our own lives. I'd love to ask just a couple of rapid fire questions.

• 1:23:25Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:23:26Tim Ferriss?

  The first is, when you hear the word "successful," who is the first person that comes to mind?

• 1:23:30Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:23:34Speaker 00

  Oh, I like listening to this on your show. I don't like answering it.

• 1:23:39Speaker 00

  Let's see.

• 1:23:42Speaker 00

  I guess. Just knee jerk. Knee jerk. Gates. Okay. And not be, you know why? Because, because, um, not because of the richest guy, but because of his, because of how he shifted his, um, his priorities. Because he's now making tremendous impact with the hand he's been dealt, or the pot that he's built up.

• 1:24:11Speaker 00

  That he's making, uh, that there's one, there's like, there's like the Bill Gates from, there's the Microsoft Bill Gates, and there's the post-Microsoft Bill Gates. And to me, there's something fascinating about that. And that he was able to be effective in what his goals were for the first chapter, and then what his goals are now, which are very different. So he was able to shift his entire, um, shift his entire, uh, agenda and be effective, be completely effective. Yeah, very similar metric-driven hardcore approach. And I don't know a lot about, honestly, about, this is purely layman's perspective of, hey, there's a lot of, this is how many lives have been saved by this, or this is the,

• 1:24:56Speaker 00

  um, this many people have agreed to have charitable donations. But it's just, uh, there's something that, that, he's just the first name that popped into my head. Any particular director who comes to mind? Director or writer in film? There's a few, you know, and they're all different. Like, I worked with Scorsese. And I think that he's been,

• 1:25:20Speaker 00

  I think there's a certain, there must be, when I came up and what he represented, and I got to meet him and see him work. And so he's inspired me as far as what his body of work and who he is as a person.

• 1:25:34Speaker 00

  But I also think of like the Coen Brothers, who've managed to...

• 1:25:38Speaker 00

  Tickle their own fancy and enjoy everything they're doing and have tremendous variety and entertain people as well, but seem to have maintained a certain balance, a healthy balance between their work and their private lives and I haven't dealt with them that much, but they seem like genuinely like well-adjusted, normal, nice people who happen to make really exciting, cool movies. And then Jim Cameron, who's sort of the other end of the spectrum, who's kind of the guy who's reinvented aspects of the industry over and over again with tremendous enthusiasm and

• 1:26:20Speaker 00

  and also just a sharp intellect that's into solving problems and changing the way we do the magic tricks. And I've certainly inherited a lot of what he, of the ground that he broke with Avatar, with Jungle Book, a lot of the same technology, a lot of the same people I'm working with. So there's a, you know, healthy respect. And then Walt Disney is another one who I had researched quite a bit back around the time of Iron Man 2, when we were referencing him in the Stark Expo and the Stark, the old Stark archives. But he was a bit of a techie at his time and a bit of a storyteller too. And so he was doing the, you know, what he was doing in his time is like, seems like

• 1:27:04Speaker 00

  what Pixar is doing now. It's like cutting its technology, great stories, great emotion, telling stories with a different set of tools that nobody ever had before. And there's something, there's something really to me, I think, he was, he's one of those key, key figures.

• 1:27:20Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, Total Hacker. They, they display a bunch of his old, cobbled-together MacGyver-like rigs at the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.

• 1:27:29Speaker 00

  Up there in Presidio.

• 1:27:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, which is amazing. What is the book that you've gifted the most to other people?

• 1:27:37Speaker 00

  Actually, The Writer's Journey was one of them. I've given your book, I've given Four Hour Body to people, too.

• 1:27:41Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you for that.

• 1:27:42Speaker 00

  I've given that. Those are the biggies. I'm trying to think of anything else.

• 1:27:51Speaker 00

  Hmm. I did grow, when I first started off in acting, I gifted Groden's book to my family, uh, his first book, It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here, because it really told the story about how difficult it is when you're first starting off trying to be an actor. And he had such a great voice. Uh, I can't, none are jumping, none are jumping to mind. That's three, though.

• 1:28:13Tim Ferriss?

  That's plenty. That's plenty. Uh, last question, uh, actually, there, there are two, they're pretty quick. The first is, what advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?

• 1:28:23Speaker 00

  Wow. Um, oh, he wouldn't listen.

• 1:28:27Tim Ferriss?

  A 30-year-old self?

• 1:28:32Speaker 00

  Um, I think

• 1:28:40Speaker 00

  to not confuse how you feel about something with how that thing really is. I think you think you're being more objective than you really are. And you're colored by emotion more than you think you are. In, in positive ways and negative ways, but, but it's, um, perspective is, is, um, is much more subjective than you think. You think you're a lot more uh, uh, objective than, than you are. To me, specifically at 30, and, and 20, I don't even know, I wasn't even a human being yet. What I would say at 20, because as part of it is just the ignorance of, of walking into, you know, the, the, the forest and not knowing

• 1:29:23Speaker 00

  where I was going. And whatever was getting me through it, you know, thank, thankfully I had enough. Something in the back of my mind told me to just take that road and walk, not knowing where it was going. And so that was, um, so I'm very grateful. I like where I am. I like what the experience of my life is. I like, every year I like better. I like who I am better. I like what my life is better. Um, So it I'm very reluctant to interfere with the way things were. But I think a lot of it is how I feel about things and what I do to how I've how I've kind of balanced things out in a way that is is that I'm proud of, that I like.

• 1:30:06Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I love your work and thank you so much for the time. Where can people find out more about you, find you online?

• 1:30:12Speaker 00

  Hey, let's see, I don't know, I I'm on Twitter and Facebook at John underscore Favreau on Twitter and then Facebook, I think it's just John Favreau and Instagram, John Favreau. It's pretty.

• 1:30:26Tim Ferriss?

  Pretty consistent.

• 1:30:27Speaker 00

  I've been working, so there's not a lot of stuff up there. You know, we I'm on there where we do like we do pop ups once in a while in Los Angeles. Maybe we'll do one up north for the from the food from chef.

• 1:30:37Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, that'd be great.

• 1:30:38Speaker 00

  So we we've been doing that.

• 1:30:39Tim Ferriss?

  I've been dying to have like not only Cuban, but the grilled cheese sandwich. I'm sure you must hear about that a lot.

• 1:30:43Speaker 00

  Yes, I've cooked them. I cooked them for the crew of the movie. I cooked them for my kids. I cooked them here at the in the editing rooms. But I enjoy cooking. We've cooked together. I think we have. Can I reveal that?

• 1:30:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:30:56Speaker 00

  You and I have cooked cooked beignets.

• 1:30:58Tim Ferriss?

  Beignets. That was an amazing experience.

• 1:31:01Speaker 00

  For a Super Bowl party.

• 1:31:01Tim Ferriss?

  So good.

• 1:31:02Speaker 00

  You had never done that before.

• 1:31:03Tim Ferriss?

  I had.

• 1:31:04Speaker 00

  It was. That was what we're talking about. Here we were. We we didn't really know each other that well. I read your stuff. You saw my stuff. And then, lo and behold, you put some some hot oil there and the focus is no longer on one another. That's not keeping your your fingers out. It's called it.

• 1:31:19Tim Ferriss?

  Keeping all your fingers. Well, John, thank you so much. There's there's tons more to explore. Everybody, I'll put links in the show notes to where you could find John and thanks so much for your time.

• 1:31:29Speaker 00

  Great, great. And thank you, too. I love I love the podcast, but I you've I know this is about me, not about you. But I've I got to know you through your writing and I was very you're very.

• 1:31:44Speaker 00

  Intriguing, I get pulled into your work. You make it very easy to read your stuff. It had been recommended, I think Four Hour Body was recommended to me, and one of those things where you just pick a chapter here, a chapter there, next thing you know you're reading the whole thing. And your approach to questioning things and curating research and fact-based, but not being, you know, it seems like there's always, you always are either dealing with a scientific method where something has to have been through a double-blind study, or completely anecdotal. There's, there was no middle ground. And what's interesting about, about your stuff is you'll say, hey, look, here's what I've experienced, here's the sample that I've seen this experience with. It's not something that should be looked at scientifically,

• 1:32:26Speaker 00

  but there are certain indications that this is worth looking into more, and here's what I do, and here's what I've done. And it, it makes it much more inviting than either the very walled-off world of traditional Academia. Academia, and then also this, I don't know, science that's more based on anecdotal information that doesn't take science into consideration as much. But to acknowledge that science has importance to it, but also looking at how, what has not yet gone through that machine might have some truth to it too. And giving full disclosure of your context and why makes it not intellectually offensive.

• 1:33:10Speaker 00

  You know what I'm saying? It feels like you could be responsible intellectually, not flying in the face of science, but, but you're also opening it up to new ways of thinking. And, and, you know, I think it relates to where you, your context, the whole world that you're, the whole Northern California way of ethos of looking at things and how to, how, how to be more effective and efficient in, in approaching problems that we still face. So, I love looking at your stuff, and like I said, Thank you. The three, the Four Hour Chef was really, was a great counterbalance to the other chef biographies that I was reading, or autobiographies, or cooking books.

• 1:33:50Speaker 00

  And documentaries I was watching and then here was the very concise version of a lot of the same information that was a really good, really good counterbalance.

• 1:34:01Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I really appreciate it and I love watching your experiments. I love watching you do the huge blockbusters then do chef. I can't wait to see what you do next. Well, I know, I guess I'm waiting to see Jungle Book.

• 1:34:13Speaker 00

  Jungle Book.

• 1:34:14Tim Ferriss?

  And it's gonna be amazing.

• 1:34:15Speaker 00

  It's gonna be something different and cool and you know, just like everything else, the doing, doing one with this level of technology, which I, you know, I got a taste of here and there with Iron Man and but to really throw the, throw the whole thing into, have the whole movie rely on that magic trick working is, it's exhilarating. But if it all works as well as it looks like it will, it's, it'll be something nobody had seen before. So it's, it's exciting stuff.

• 1:34:45Tim Ferriss?

  I can't wait to see it. Well, John, to be continued. Thank you so much for the time.

• 1:34:48Speaker 00

  Great, my pleasure.

• 1:34:49Tim Ferriss?

  And this was fun.

• 1:34:50Speaker 00

  It's quick and easy.

• 1:34:51Tim Ferriss?

  Quick and easy.

• 1:34:51Speaker 00

  All right.

• 1:34:52Tim Ferriss?

  All right. Thanks.

• 1:34:53Speaker 00

  Take care.

• 1:34:58Tim Ferriss?

  The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Onnit. I have used Onnit products for years. If you look in my kitchen, in my garage, you will find AlphaBrain, chewable melatonin for resetting my clock when I'm traveling, kettlebells, battle ropes, maces, steel clubs. It sounds like a torture chamber and it kind of is. It's a torture chamber for self-improvement. And you can see all of my favorite gear at onnit.com/tim. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com forward slash tim. And you can also get a discount on any supplements, food products. I like Hemp Force. I like AlphaBrain. Check it all out. Onnit.com/tim. The Tim Ferriss Show is also brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is your one-stop-shop

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