Jon Bernthal

Jon Bernthal (The Accountant 2, The Bear, Real Ones) is an Emmy Award-winning actor and podcast host. Jon joins the Armchair Expert to discuss making peace with the beard, how looking like a real person has been an asset in his career, and teaching his kids to not react to negative emotions. Jon and Dax talk about the positive values he was exposed to growing up in a Quaker school, keeping an anger journal through boxing, and the impact of attending acting school in Russia. Jon explains playing baseball in Moscow to make some extra rubles, he and his brothers outgrowing their issues, and the meaning he gleans from talking to real ones on his podcast. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:05Dax Shepard?

  Today, we have one of my favorite actors on. I've been slowly becoming obsessed with him. I got a handful that I follow that I'm really intrigued by, and this is one of them, Jon Bernthal.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  I'll be honest, because that's what we do here. When I first saw him, I was like, oh, I don't know who that is. And then as soon as I saw his face, I was like, oh, I do. He's in everything.

• 0:23Dax Shepard?

  He's in absolutely everything. I think so many, most people will probably know The Walking Dead, because it was such an enormous hit.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  And he was in King Richard.

• 0:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, King Richard, The Punisher. He is The Punisher, The Accountant with Your Boyfriend, Daredevil, Fury, and he has a new movie in theaters now, The Accountant Two.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Also with my boyfriend.

• 0:43Dax Shepard?

  With your boyfriend. But one thing we didn't get to in the interview, which I really wanted to, we ran out of time, we had him for so long, is he has a really cool project in Ojai called Ironbound, and it runs from May 9th to May 11th and May 16th to May 18th. And he will star alongside actress Maren Ireland in this, in An Immigrant Blue Collar Story. And he has put his whole life and passion into this theater project in Ojai. And I hope people will go check it out, May 9th through the 11th and 16th through the 18th.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Once you hear this interview and you hear his acting background, you're gonna want to see that.

• 1:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, he's a monster.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. What a story. His story is felt like a movie.

• 1:29Dax Shepard?

  Yes, 1,000%. Please enjoy Jon Bernthal. We get support from Quince.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about the fact that the holidays are already here? It's crazy. I feel like I blinked and now we're in gifting season, which I'm not really mad about because I do love giving gifts. And Quince is making it so easy to find something great for everyone on my list, including myself. Because let's be honest, self-gifting is a love language.

• 1:55Dax Shepard?

  Quince is seriously the gift that keeps on giving. Their high-quality staples are made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. Full-on luxury quality at prices that won't wreck.

• 2:10Dax Shepard?

  Your holiday budget.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  It's the dream. The cashmere sweater, starting at $60, down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories. You and everyone on your list are staying cozy and looking incredible all season long.

• 2:22Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm gonna tell you this, it just got chilly for the first time this year in California, and I'm so excited. And I'm wearing my Quince cashmere right now.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 2:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I am going to gift this to some of my friends. I hope they're not listening.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Quince is also more than clothing. They've got fine jewelry for your significant other, leather bags for your bestie, hotel-quality bedding to set up your guest rooms, chef-grade cookware. That's an amazing thing they offer here, and it's such a good gift because people don't like buying cookware for themselves, but it's very important. And they also have five-star luggage, another good gift that people don't like buying for themselves.

• 2:57Dax Shepard?

  Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. We get support from Gusto. So here's the thing about running a small business that nobody romanticizes. It's not the big idea that wears you down, it's the payroll, the tax filings, the wait, do I need workers' comp for this stuff? That's the part that quietly eats away your whole afternoon, which is where Gusto comes in. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses.

• 3:42Dax Shepard?

  It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use so you can pay onboard and support your team from anywhere. They handle automatic tax filing, direct deposits, health benefits, 401K, all of it. And you get unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No hidden fees, no surprises. If something tricky comes up, you've got direct access to certified HR experts who actually know what they're talking about. And they're ranked number one on G2's highest satisfaction products list for 2026, and trusted by over 500,000 small businesses. That's not nothing. Try Gusto today at gusto.com/dax and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com/dax.

• 4:27Dax Shepard?

  Again, that's gusto.com/dax.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  My wife is disgusted by beards. I just got off of this movie. I just got back from Africa. And now we got kind of word that, and not the next thing I'm doing, but the one after that, they want to keep the beard. And I think the beard's gonna play in it. So like this beard ain't going nowhere.

• 5:05Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Everyone's gotta get comfortable. Make peace with the beard.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  And that's like not happening.

• 5:10Dax Shepard?

  In your family.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  In your personal life.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  She's like truly disgusted.

• 5:13Dax Shepard?

  You had a great mustache and it was like a comedy. No, it wasn't.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  King Richard?

• 5:18Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  The tennis guy.

• 5:19Dax Shepard?

  Big, bushy.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. It's impressive.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  It's disgusting. And then this thing just accentuates it. So, you know, it's funny, man. I come from a family, like my whole family sort of reminds me. My brothers are really good looking. My nose been broken a ton of times. I was born with these giant ears. I like hate the way that I look.

• 5:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, me too. But I look at you and I'm like, you're gorgeous.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  What are you worried about?

• 5:41Speaker 01

  I don't know, man. Similar.

• 5:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, man, I guess we've got like the big.

• 5:45Dax Shepard?

  Well, let me ask you. I made a decision where I'm like, this isn't the face I wanted. So I guess we're going tough? Like I'm gonna embrace being masculine?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Are your brothers pretty?

• 5:55Dax Shepard?

  Listen, we gotta get into his brothers. They're like the Romney family. No, not.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Rami Malek?

• 6:00Dax Shepard?

  No, no.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Rami Malek? Rami's brother's cool. I like Rami.

• 6:04Dax Shepard?

  The Emmanuel's.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Oh, the Emmanuel's. Oh, boy. Yeah, my brothers are.

• 6:07Dax Shepard?

  They're the Emmanuel's of DC.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  I'm the middle, but my parents took in a bunch of foster kids and my parents were sort of the parents in DC. They all had their own specific and unique and separate and private relationships with friends. So if you were in trouble, you'd go to my dad.

• 6:23Dax Shepard?

  Well, he was a lawyer that became the board of directors of the Humane Society.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 6:26Dax Shepard?

  I'm presuming a nice gentleman that would take on that work.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  I think my dad is really, he's a rougher, he's very direct.

• 6:33Dax Shepard?

  Where's he from?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Enormously smart. He's from Syracuse, New York, son of immigrants, Russian, Polish. But I don't know that people would lead with nice.

• 6:41Dax Shepard?

  Oh, great.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  When you get to know him, 100%.

• 6:44Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Fiercely loyal, a great guy to have in your corner.

• 6:48Dax Shepard?

  What kind of law did he practice?

• 6:50Speaker 02

  So he started off, his three cousins that were his best friends and like his brothers growing up, one of them specifically, but they were sort of involved with pretty major bank robbery in Connecticut. And my dad went into law, I think.

• 7:02Dax Shepard?

  To defend his friends?

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. But then he got into representing radio stations and TV stations. And I will probably completely mess this up. One of my other brothers would do this much better. But legend has it that there was a few young businessmen that he became extraordinarily close with, and he was with them from a very, very young age, helping them build their businesses, sort of being their right-hand man. When you ask me about my dad, the first thing I would say is fiercely, fiercely loyal. He is the guy you want in your corner. He's been in my corner. I've seen him be in other people's corners. No matter what happens, that guy's got your back. Huge lesson for me as a father.

• 7:36Dax Shepard?

  Was he a tough father?

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Definitely. And I think I was wildly disappointing as a son. You know, when you talk about my brothers.

• 7:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, let's hit it. So Nick is an orthopedic surgeon and professor at UCLA.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  He's done his research. Yeah, he's the head of oncology and orthopedics at UCLA. Went to Princeton, All-American football player.

• 7:53Dax Shepard?

  This is a bummer of an older brother to have.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  That's my little brother.

• 7:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's your little brother?

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's even worse. Yeah.

• 7:59Dax Shepard?

  Well, but listen, the older brother fucking was working in the Clinton administration and comms in the White House. Is that a miss?

• 8:05Speaker 02

  A little bit.

• 8:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay, let's straighten it out.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Hang on, don't give him that one, dude. Shit, bro, it's hard enough. He was, I believe, he was the youngest producer for the nightly news ever. He won like five Emmys by the time he was 25.

• 8:18Dax Shepard?

  He's got more Emmys than you.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  He sure does. I mean, the joke in my house, getting back to the ugly thing, is that if I had my brother's looks, I'd have five Oscars right now. You know, when you first start out, and I've said it before, you're just facing sort of like this avalanche of rejection. I think the first thing we go to as human beings is, oh, I'm disgusting. It's because my ears are big. And I do remember palpably walking into rooms where the casting director looked up and was sort of like, oh, you know, but I think, no, no, no, for sure. But I do also think it's because, look, in the beginning, I'm trying to be on soap operas. I would be in the waiting rooms and see these beautiful men just be like, this ain't gonna happen for you, bro.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Cookie cutter.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  But there was never a part of me like, oh, you just wait. When I get my hands on some meaty, it was always, I suck. This isn't gonna work for me. It's your gross. But what a blessing in the long run, because I do think that there is a thing for folks that I've seen. And I don't know that it necessarily means because of their looks, but I have sort of come up with people where I thought, wow, they've really got this whole thing kind of licked. And they play beautiful young men. But then when it comes time to play a father, or to play a soldier, or to play a cop, or to play somebody who's really worked with their hands. Honestly, whether they've done that or not, I think it really can become a hindrance.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  They don't look like a real person.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 9:32Dax Shepard?

  You don't meet a lot of dudes at the gas station that look like some of the folks.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  I think that's probably right.

• 9:36Dax Shepard?

  And then when they're playing the guy at the gas station, why isn't that guy in fucking Hollywood? Cause he's gorgeous. Why is he wasting his time in Pennsylvania at this gas station? So you had a brother ahead of you who went through school and clearly he must have been brilliant. This school you went to, friendly, something?

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Well, friends. It's really coming full circle right now because I'm trying to decide what we're doing with our kids next year. And, you know, I don't know if-

• 9:56Dax Shepard?

  We have 10 and 12.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Do you have babies?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Mm-mm. All that school stuff is scary.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  The whole thing. For me, being a dad, I love things that you're never gonna lick, that you're gonna fail at constantly, that you just want so bad that you can pour every bit of your heart into and that you just keep running into walls. And my God, do you just fail over and over again as a parent? You admit it and you show up. And so trying to figure it out now, I don't know if you could say the same thing, but I'm tremendously grateful for how I grew up, where I grew up, even with all of the walls that I ran into. And there is a huge pressure on me for my kids to learn what I've learned. Unfortunately, I don't think they're going to be able to learn it the way that I learned it.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:36Dax Shepard?

  Nor should they.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Nor should they. But I think it- Really could have gone and did go bad a lot of different times. And you know, my brother was definitely not a brilliant student.

• 10:43Dax Shepard?

  What was it?

• 10:44Speaker 02

  No, not at all. He really got bullied a lot. I think DC at that time, no matter where you were in that city was a rough city. And it was rough on him. And I think a lot of the decisions that I made, how I was gonna conduct my life and how I was gonna carry myself was really in reaction to that. In a very similar way, I think my little brother made those same decisions of what not to do based on what I was doing.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:04Dax Shepard?

  It was a pendulum swinging in your family.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  I think so, but I think the thing that was steady all the way through with my folks, because yes, both of my brothers are really wildly successful guys. And I think more than just that, they've had unbelievably satisfying careers. They're deeply kind and good people who put helping people and being there for other people before anything else. They're family first people. They have wonderful friendships. They have wonderful marriages. They have wonderful children that they love.

• 11:30Dax Shepard?

  I hate them. I hate both these guys.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  That's a lot to live up to.

• 11:34Dax Shepard?

  No rehabs or anything?

• 11:36Speaker 02

  No, I mean, look, man, we have that. Believe me, we have anything that you could possibly have within a family. But with our immediate family, I was doing an interview the other day for this movie I have coming out. And they asked Ben Affleck and me, like, what is your superpower? I mean, it was just so clear. I really do think it's them. It's my family. There's never been resentment among each other. There's not been jealousy. There's been total support. I did get in trouble a lot when I was young.

• 12:00Dax Shepard?

  What brand of trouble did you find yourself in?

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Got locked up a bunch of times and it was mostly I had problems with violence.

• 12:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay, uh huh.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Got into martial arts and boxing when I was young and probably learned from some of the wrong people. And a lot of questions with my own manhood and fear. And I feel like so much of that stuff comes from shame anyway. And again, when I talk about teaching my kids, I really believe every person has to have their own fluency and relationship with violence. I find specifically as a man, I think you have to be able to have a healthy relationship with it to sort of understand it. Because I think when it's super far away from you and you've never delved in those waters, it can be enormously toxic. And so to try to teach my kids that, my boys and my girls, but teach that to them in a place shrouded in honor.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  And respect and kindness and justice and under the umbrella of safety has been a real focus of mine. And man, I wish I had that. I mean, it's just super basic. It kind of goes for everything with these kids. And with us, and I try to remind myself all the time, try to not let your feelings be the boss of you. Try to not do anything out of anger, out of resentment, out of fear. Try to be your own master in that way. You're never going to have that licked. You're never going to fully have that down, but you can aim towards it. You know, you can try. Going to this unbelievably prestigious and lauded school that I went to, I still, you know, by the time I was 11, I was taking the subway and the bus school. I got jumped. I got mugged. That's not going to happen to my kids in Ohio.

• 13:28Dax Shepard?

  No, no, no, no.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  That is not going to happen.

• 13:30Dax Shepard?

  They have better odds of coming face to face with a cougar.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  For sure, for sure. But like, let's teach them that. But in both this business and in life, I've come across so many people who clearly walk down the street and walk into a room and have no situational awareness and didn't grow up the way that you grew up. And aren't thinking about those things. And it's not that, oh, gosh, they're a sitting duck or oh, they're vulnerable. Or oh, this is going to be bad for them. It's just that, who knows? And these things could become enormously valuable at a certain time. And when it does, what you don't want to do is sit in the corner and say, oh, my gosh, make it end. I think you want to be able to be in a situation where you can protect your family, protect your friends, stand up to somebody who's getting it bad, no matter what that is.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  But to never fall to the base inclination and desires that push you to say, oh, I feel bad about myself. I'm going to go bully that guy. I know what I can do right now. I feel a little bit ashamed. I'm going to be the loudest talker in the room. Rather, hey, you've been there. You've been on the mat. You've been in the ring. All that stuff, you recognize it for what it is. It's noise. And to give you a sense of confidence that's curated by really, really spiritually strong people. And what a gift I think you can give. And for me, because I had my boys first.

• 14:41Dax Shepard?

  So you have two boys and a girl?

• 14:42Speaker 02

  I have two boys and a girl. And then we just took in my niece who's three. So she's been with us for almost a year now.

• 14:48Dax Shepard?

  So you got four little kids.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Little as she's little.

• 14:51Dax Shepard?

  How old's your oldest son?

• 14:52Speaker 02

  13.

• 14:53Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:54Dax Shepard?

  It's my daughter's 12th birthday today.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Oh, happy birthday.

• 14:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we're going to Disneyland tonight.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Let's go.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  You'll go tonight and spend the day tomorrow?

• 15:01Dax Shepard?

  Exactly.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  It's probably so good for a 13-year-old boy to have a little three-year-old girl around.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  My niece's dad, he's in prison in Florida, he's not gonna get out. And my wife's sister, who's wonderful, is six months sober now, but really been fighting her whole life.

• 15:17Dax Shepard?

  Good for her.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's really, really fighting the fight. This little girl, she's seen a lot, she's been through a lot, and was going into the foster system, and we were able to get down there and get her to us.

• 15:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  And the gift has been so profound for my kids.

• 15:31Dax Shepard?

  One of the things I'm sure you wrestle with, like I do, which is like, what reality do they know? They've had a swimming pool their whole life. That's bizarre to me, but I think having a little girl around who's really in it is a good perspective giver for your kids, who, I'm presuming your house is pretty nice in Ojai.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  For sure, for sure, for sure. But also, it's funny, when I talk about that, people are always sort of coming to me, or coming to my wife, because it's really my wife, but saying, wow, that's so great. And I just totally see it as, it's a gift to us, it's a gift to our kids.

• 15:59Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I believe that.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Both are true, both are true.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Both can be true.

• 16:03Dax Shepard?

  This school, though, looks so idyllic, just from the photo I saw. It's like a Henry Ford museum in Detroit. It's a Quaker school.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  There are Quaker values that are enormously beautiful. There are no real Quakers that go to that school. The way that sort of DC was in the 80s and 90s, DC's a city that's not part of a state, and the public schools were in pretty rough shape.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Because it's really a lesson in hypocrisy, that city, because you have this sterling city on the hill, in the middle of the city, which is all these monuments and all these government buildings, but that's protected by the park police and the Secret Service. There's no litter, nobody from DC lives there. And then you go like two blocks in any direction, and there's a different kind of music, a different kind of vernacular, a different kind of folks. It's definitely not what it used to be, but it is that, and you see that. Growing up, no matter where you go, it's a loss of innocence. You sort of start to figure things out. For us, I think specifically, that school just had a history. I was really brought up with the idea of Quakerism, that there is that of God in everyone. The way that Quakers- Pray. I don't know if you guys have ever attended a Quaker meeting.

• 17:05Dax Shepard?

  I haven't, but I have a friend who's an atheist who attends a Quaker church.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  I mean, the way that Quaker meeting works is everybody sits around in silence. So at that school, for instance, once a week, everybody, every coach, every security guard, every buildings and grounds member, every teacher, every student sits in silence and there's no leaders, no followers, there's no priests, there's no rabbis. And if that of God moves you, anyone, you get up and you address the congregation and you speak from the God that's within you. So it's really steeped in conflict resolution and equality and diversity. How cool, right?

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Very cool.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  The school that I sort of came up with was vast, vast majority scholarship students. It really put a real onus on all kinds of diversity. There's kids that weren't allowed to go to the public schools that were allowed to come to our school. And what I saw was this really sort of utopian, beautiful thing where kids that were, in some cases, involved in things out of school that were genuinely dangerous. Kids were lost to gun violence, were on school grounds, really a part of this community where they felt respected and safe. And even when things would flare up, there was a way of dealing with them where there was no principal saying, you're suspended, you're kicked out. It was a group of your peers and we would try to get to the bottom. Okay, well, why are you doing what you're doing?

• 18:24Speaker 02

  And let's see if we can bring you guys together. And maybe you need to go spend a night in his neighborhood and maybe you need to go to her house and see what that's like.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  For me, it really worked. And man, do I believe it. If you would have asked me then, I would have been, this is a bunch of bullshit. But now I'm like, those Quaker values are beautiful. I love this school and I'm so grateful to this school and the people who are my best friends, who I played on my undefeated high school football team with are still my best friends.

• 18:47Dax Shepard?

  Well, they play football. That's a little bit of a shocker.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that's true.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  What?

• 18:51Dax Shepard?

  You know, the conflict resolution, God, and then your football team. I like it.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  We were a really sort of violent group of guys. And there is really that element there, this dichotomy, but supported anyway. Truthfully, what I'm most grateful for is it really was a place and a city that was diverse. People throw that word around, but the kind of folks that I got to grow up with were From all walks of life and in that city and at that time, I'm just so grateful for it. And I think where DC is is such an interesting thing because you cross one river in your Virginia and then you go out this way, you're in Maryland and there's the eastern shore. It's such a wildly different culture.

• 19:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So you go to Skidmore, but you're there for how long?

• 19:31Speaker 02

  I'd gotten in trouble in high school. So I had this sort of thing looming over me while I was in college.

• 19:39Dax Shepard?

  Trial coming your way?

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. I went to Skidmore to play baseball and it was at Skidmore where I started acting.

• 19:47Dax Shepard?

  You go to Moscow on the advice of one of your acting teachers?

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, this woman, Alma Becker, I have her name tattooed right here. She was my first acting teacher. I've told this story before.

• 19:59Dax Shepard?

  I've never heard it.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Okay, sorry. I know. It's the worst though, man. Anyway, I boxed my whole life and so my head's a little, and my biggest fear is that I'm telling the same story over and over and someone's sitting there being like, fuck this story again. In every boxing gym, there's somebody who does that and I'm so afraid.

• 20:13Dax Shepard?

  We just had a CTE expert on.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  I know. Now I'm scared for you because you just said that because we just had a CTE guy.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm scared for me about that too, to be honest with you.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  You're gonna be just fine.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I took this class to fulfill a requirement. I was a total shitbag. I was there just to play baseball.

• 20:28Dax Shepard?

  What position did you play?

• 20:29Speaker 02

  I played catcher.

• 20:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, how are your knees?

• 20:31Speaker 02

  I'm okay now. I mean, but from boxing and catching and I play a lot of outdoor basketball. They were bad. I've had a bunch of surgeries, but hey, my little brother.

• 20:40Dax Shepard?

  When I've sat in that position, I'm like, how do those catchers sit like this for two hours?

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was bad for a while, but I played all through high school and college. I played some baseball in Russia.

• 20:49Dax Shepard?

  We gotta get to that. Yeah, yeah.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. But there was an intro to theater class that all the athletes took and you would sit in the auditorium and I heard you could just sort of take acid and sit in the back and watch movies. So I was like, that is for me.

• 21:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that sounds great.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  I ended up, because I'm a total shitbag, in the intro to acting class, which was a serious acting student class. And I'd never seen anything like this before. And the first assignment was to bring in something that you really cared about, to share it with the class. Everybody was sitting on the floor, which I thought was the weirdest fucking thing in the world. Like, why are we sitting on the floor? And they were going around person by person, theater people sharing. And they were taking it so seriously, really emoting. And it just dawned on me, I totally didn't bring anything.

• 21:32Dax Shepard?

  Because you didn't love anything? Or because you just didn't want to participate?

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Anyhow, it was slowly but surely working its way to me. And the only thing I thought to do was to get my catcher's glove because I was going to fall practice right afterwards. And I kind of launched into this story about how my mother had given me this glove on her deathbed. And my mom's like alive and well. Oh, my God. Yeah. I just thought that was sort of acting and I just told this story. And I'm like, you know, and then me and my brother, you know, we just have a catch and talk about my.

• 22:02Dax Shepard?

  So it's kind of like an ABC after school special almost.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  And like everyone's crying their eyes out. I'm like crying my eyes out. I checked in with my son. I really went to this crazy place.

• 22:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  And I'm like, whoa, guys, I'm just doing the acting here. Like chill out. And this woman, Alma, who's this magical woman from the San Francisco theater in the sixties and the seventies, was in original Sam Shepard shows. It's just great, fierce woman, made everybody leave and she just ripped me the fuck apart. And then she said, but you're auditioning for the play. Learn this monologue, come back tonight and audition. I did, and I have no idea why I did, but I remember walking back to the house with the baseball players where I lived. And I remember reading the words and something was happening to me. And I'm like, what the fuck is this? The same thing that was happening in that room. And I got in the play.

• 22:47Dax Shepard?

  Can I make a guess or a suggestion?

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Sure, man.

• 22:49Dax Shepard?

  When one embarks on boxing and fighting and defending, weirdly, I don't want to get hurt. And I want everyone to know, pick someone else. There's an easier thing for you. Cause I'm protecting this sweet boy. That's really in me.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 23:02Dax Shepard?

  You get in there and you're like, wait, you can be a sweet boy? And people will be happy about that? And no one here is gonna fucking call me gay because I just said I like my brother and miss my mom? All these layers of, wait, a world like this exists?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  I can definitely identify with that. What I'll tell you for me more specifically was the guy who was getting in fights on the street, that guy was fake, that guy was scared. But what I found out, and still to this day, man, if I can tap in to like real. Genuine chaos and danger. I love my friends so much and I sort of went from the guy in the back talking smack like, let's all go do this to, you know, the shame. I gotta be the guy in the front. Okay, now I gotta be the guy to do it one on one. Okay, now I gotta be the one to like prove to myself that I can do it. This stupid, toxic, awful game. But what I found was that intoxicating energy, if I could tap into that this way, I could do it in such a positive way that brought me closer to people.

• 23:59Dax Shepard?

  Both pursuits are full of fear.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  For sure. And I think in both cases, what I really responded to is that it's a group effort and it's a collaborative effort and you get so close with, I know it probably sounds cheesedick and hokey, but like the soldiers that you're with next to you. The reason why I was getting in street fights, I didn't know how to tell my friends how much I loved them. That was all it was. I loved those guys. I didn't know how to do it any other way.

• 24:19Dax Shepard?

  Yep. And I wanted them to feel so safe and protected that they would love me so much.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 24:26Dax Shepard?

  And I thought my wife would like that.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is like, oh my god.

• 24:28Dax Shepard?

  And she's like, no.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, bro. And my wife comes from a genuinely tough family.

• 24:31Dax Shepard?

  Her uncle is a WWE.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  He won the gold medal for American wrestling. Yeah, Kurt won the gold medal in 96 and Eric.

• 24:38Dax Shepard?

  They were teammates?

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Best of friends. Mark trained him.

• 24:40Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was at Fox Catcher with him.

• 24:42Dax Shepard?

  Was he at Fox Catcher?

• 24:43Speaker 02

  And he left to go train with my wife's dad.

• 24:45Dax Shepard?

  Have you pumped him for those stories?

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. But I mean, my wife's dad's got even better stories.

• 24:51Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah. Okay, wow, wow, okay.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  They're serious. They're the real deal. Serious family.

• 24:55Dax Shepard?

  So, yeah, I loved my friends so much. I wanted them to love me so much and I would jump on fire for them to show that. And I found out you can do it in acting and comedy.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  You can also just say it, but sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can't.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  I know.

• 25:08Dax Shepard?

  If your group of friends come from a group of adults who say, I love you, and then act in an opposite fashion, if that's like your core group, everyone there is divorced kids, no, saying it really doesn't mean anything.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And the truth is, I don't want to sell these guys short because they're not Mongoloids, they're not simple. They're beautiful people with successful families and beautiful careers.

• 25:29Dax Shepard?

  The sad thing is you get older, as you go, oh, everyone on the other side was also in the same situation.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  That was one of the biggest things for me. I remember there was this one time in DC when we're at a bar. And there was some little stupid altercation. I think my little brother had got into it with some guy and I was fiercely protective. Cause you know, then you go to therapy and you start working on your anger and it's so crazy that we're even talking about this. But you know, I really like keeping an anger journal and really whittling it down and doing the work. Like what are the things? And one of the things for me are my brothers. I just knew from a young age, my job was to protect my brothers. So going into certain situations, playing pickup basketball with them on the street, going out drinking with it. Like if my brothers are around, I am that guy. And I still to this day.

• 26:11Dax Shepard?

  You're their security.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  A little bit. And I just do remember my brother got into it. This guy was giving him a hard time and this other guy stepped in and I just got up and I remember I hit this guy and I knocked his teeth out. I have this theory that you only got hurt in fights when it's your fault. Somehow that was my scientific.

• 26:27Dax Shepard?

  That's very interesting.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Complete bullshit. But you know, I remember I got this huge infection on my hand and it was Christmas Eve. And I just woke up that next morning in this state of like absolute horror. That this guy has to wake up on Christmas morning without his teeth.

• 26:43Dax Shepard?

  All I want for Christmas is my tooth.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Bro.

• 26:46Dax Shepard?

  You got to at least sing that and get a laugh.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Actually, how funny is that? I never even thought of that. That's such a dumb shit. But I just remember being in DC and like crying my eyes out, thinking about this guy. And that was at least the beginning of, you gotta stop this shit.

• 26:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  I always talk about this with my kids, like the steps of behavior. There's unconscious incompetence where you're just doing dumb shit and you have no idea you're doing it. And then that super incredible and vital point where you're like, oh, conscious incompetence. I am doing something wrong. Why am I doing this? And then that next step of conscious competence where you're like, if I tell myself every day, here it comes, don't do that. I can plan for it. I can do a million different things to keep myself from doing that. And then maybe you can get to that spot of unconscious competence where you don't even have to think about it. You just do that. And for the most part, cause I don't ever believe you're good. I don't believe that this is gone from you or me or whatever.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  But I just do want to say, I think with my brothers and my friends, the one thing that was always present is we only wanted each other to be okay and to be safe and to grow out of our bullshit. And whether we were able to say that to each other at the time or not, no. But that was clear, is clear, and I'm so grateful for that.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:56Dax Shepard?

  Okay, Russia.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 27:57Dax Shepard?

  Somehow, this teacher says, you know what you might want to think about doing is going and studying in Moscow?

• 28:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I didn't know, man. I knew that this is what I wanted to do. Once I started acting, it was baseball and acting.

• 28:08Dax Shepard?

  Is this like 96?

• 28:09Speaker 02

  I went to Russia in 98, and then I was there from 98 to 2001.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  Three years? Yeah, two years. I first went for a year, and that was to be in the Russian school, and she had hooked it up, got me an audition.

• 28:23Dax Shepard?

  And can I ask what the value of that, is that school where like Stanislavski taught?

• 28:26Speaker 02

  It's his school in Chekhov, yeah, the Moscow Art Theatre, yeah. And I was just dealing with this case. I was in real trouble and having to deal with parole boards and not being able to continue school. And I went to her and I just said, look, how do you do this? I thought it was like being a plumber, like what are the steps that I need to do? This is what I want to do. I wanted to be a regional theatre actor, and that was it. And she said, look, there's no rhyme or reason to this thing. There's no one way. But she said, you know, if I were you, I would audition for the Moscow Art Theatre. Americans haven't done this before. And I think what she knew, one, she needed to get me out of my environment. And I think, two, there was a level of training over there and an environment over there that was so beyond humbling.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Moscow was wild in the late 90s. It was completely run by the mob. Shootouts in the Duma. I had guns pulled on me multiple times within my first few days there.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  You know, it was a really lawless place. And for a guy who's like, I'm a tough DC guy, like a barrel, like you are not tough, like you are a little bug.

• 29:29Dax Shepard?

  These motherfuckers ate their shoelaces in Stalingrad.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  The old lady on the street, right? Like the babushka will fuck you up, straight up. And also, I hadn't done international travel. To go to a place to be a Russian actor, to be a Russian singer, that meant every bit as much as to be an American. You know, to be an artist there was, for lack of a better word, at this time in my life, it was this enormously masculine thing to do. You learn how to do ballet. You learn how to do acrobatics. You learn how to fight. Super rigorous and unbelievably cutthroat. If you get into these schools, it's so hard to get in. You know, out of 10,000 kids, they'll take 100. And then every semester, they'll cut you in half. That last year, those 10 kids, you're doing 10 plays in repertory. And when you show up to the theater, you're told which of those 10 plays you're doing

• 30:17Speaker 02

  and which role you're playing, both male and female. The level of discipline was so unlike anything I'd ever seen.

• 30:22Dax Shepard?

  What's going on with the language? Is it in English?

• 30:24Speaker 02

  So when I first got there, no, no, definitely not, man. Nobody was speaking English at all.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 30:30Dax Shepard?

  How on earth are you dealing with that?

• 30:31Speaker 02

  It was hard. I lived in a place called Parkol Turi, which is a gorky park and not a great area in Moscow then. The deal is if you got in the school, they'd provide a translator. So I had this guy who was with me all the time. But the cool thing was, is honestly, in your first 12, 13 months there, it's training your attention and your concentration. A common exercise would be if there was 12 of us, it's like ensemble building. At the same time, with no leaders or followers, we'd all stand up at the same time. And then at the same time, we'd all pick up our chairs. At the same time, we'd all start moving around the room. And you would have a newspaper article and you would have to read a paragraph from that newspaper article. While we're walking around the room, it's starting to get confusing, right? While we start walking around the room, I'm saying, Dax, what color is your underwear today?

• 31:15Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  And you would say red, right? Or whatever, or I'm not wearing it.

• 31:18Dax Shepard?

  Green and blue.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Green and blue. And then you would say, John, what'd you have for breakfast? Strawberries and eggs. And we'd go around the room. The teacher, meanwhile, is snapping, coughing and clapping. Then at one point, the teacher says, stop. Everybody stops and at the same time, everybody makes a semicircle with their chairs. At the same time, everybody puts their chairs down. Same time, everybody goes and sits down. And you had to know, what did Dax ask John? What was the answers?

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Holy shit.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  How many claps, how many coughs, how many snaps?

• 31:44Dax Shepard?

  Exercise and paying attention.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  What you're reading, your thing. And then you need to know every answer and you need to be able to recite.

• 31:50Dax Shepard?

  That sounds perfect for you.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  It was perfect for me.

• 31:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, especially coming from the sports background.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  It was more rigorous than boxing. It was more rigorous than football. It was more rigorous than anything I had ever done. And I think in Russia, to be an acting teacher is the highest acclaim that you can get. So my teachers were the biggest stars. And not just that they were famous, but they were the most respected. Oleg Tabakov is like the Robert De Niro of Russia. He's a teacher. So if you're anywhere in Moscow and a Moscow art theater teacher comes into the place that you're in, you have to stand up and you can't sit down until they sit down. Those guys all lived through communist times. So, you know, public gatherings were outlawed. So if you were to do theater, it was always state sponsored theater.

• 32:31Dax Shepard?

  Probably propaganda to some level.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Propaganda to some level, but then if they said, okay, you guys are doing a play, and this is a state sponsored play, but because my arbitrary look on it, if I'm a state person, you know, I think that there's actually an anti-state message.

• 32:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  They'll come to your house and kill you.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Meyerhold was one of the biggest Russian directors in the Moscow art theater, assassinated in his apartment, teachers sent to Siberia.

• 32:53Dax Shepard?

  Well, did they or did they not?

• 32:54Speaker 02

  According to them. And like, who knows? You know, it's corrupt as hell. This is where they came up in. And my three main acting teachers, these three men, they're best friends. I love these guys. And they did this play called Cinzano about these three best friends, who one of their mothers die, and they sit in an apartment and drink a bottle of Cinzano and talk about it. They did it all through the eighties, performing in subway tunnels and abandoned buildings, putting signs up through the city. If anyone had been caught.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Dead.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  I don't know if they'd be dead, but they'd definitely go to prison. They'd definitely be in trouble. And they performed it anyway. So there was just this level of vitality to it that I think I really responded to.

• 33:30Dax Shepard?

  How lonely were you?

• 33:32Speaker 02

  No internet. I didn't have an email account. I didn't have a cellphone. So there's no calls home.

• 33:36Dax Shepard?

  Are you a romantic, though? Are you telling the story of your life? And you're like, look at me, man, I'm in fucking.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  A little bit.

• 33:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that would be what would sustain me.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Things were not looking good for me. Like, I do feel every day I am in church, man. I am walking the walk. It's just for me, my mind was blown every single day, spiritually, physically, and just being in such a different environment. And I don't know if that's even possible now. I had one phone call on Christmas. I called my mom and my dad, and I called my best friend Greg Zumas. And I remember how awkward it was. And I didn't know how to talk to them. My dad would like, do you know how much this is costing? Are you sure? I'm like, Pop, what are we talking about, bro?

• 34:13Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 34:19Dax Shepard?

  This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  What?

• 34:30Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I need to talk about something that doesn't get enough respect. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese. This is not a casual burger. This is a crafted burger. We're talking 100% fresh beef cooked right when you order it. No artificial flavors, no fillers, no preservatives, just beef doing what beef is supposed to do. And here's a detail I love. There's a cowbell sound in the kitchen. When somebody orders a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a cowbell goes off and the grill master throws a fresh patty down. That's like having your own entrance music at McDonald's. I want a cowbell for everything in life. The onions are hand topped by someone who just knows the right amount. Two slices of cheese laid out in a star pattern, so every single bite gets cheese. And two pickles side by side, so you're never in a pickle desert.

• 35:14Dax Shepard?

  Every bite is accounted for. Someone engineered this thing with love. I love a Quarter Pounder.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Me too. That's my order. It's a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. I love it. I didn't know they put so much effort that they did a star formation. I should have known because you can taste it when there's effort.

• 35:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the love. Don't tell anyone this, but I'll put two of them back.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not surprised.

• 35:38Dax Shepard?

  The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only, only at McDonald's. For a limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California, and for delivery. Fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery. We get support from No Bull. The holidays can get hectic. You finally hit a post-summer routine and suddenly you're on hosting duty every week.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  That's when you really need to ground yourself.

• 36:06Dax Shepard?

  Exactly. And that's why I keep my training routine through the holidays. It's the whole No Bull idea. There's a No Bullshit training brand built around consistency, honesty, and just putting in the work. It's not about adding more pressure to an already packed schedule. It's about having Having the gear and the habits to move through the season your way. My personal favorite, all three of the shoes are fantastic. The Outwork, the Outwork Flex and the Drive 2. I like the Drive 2 because it's a hybrid and I lift, of course, but I also like to do what's called box jumps. Right? I do a lot of jumping onto a little platform and I want a little more flexibility. And boy, do they deliver.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  And if you're a cardio person and you're running and you also need to be lifting.

• 36:48Dax Shepard?

  And the style is banging. I don't know what to say. Beautiful style, very breathable, very, very comfortable, lots of support. They were built for lifting.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  They also make a great holiday gift. You know, I love gifting, a purposeful one that actually supports someone's goals and routines. And it's not a gift that just ends up in the back of the closet.

• 37:05Dax Shepard?

  Stay stronger than the season. Head to nobolproject.com all holiday season to shop new deals every week. This episode is supported by Helix.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about how November is basically survival mode? Between the holidays, the travel, the hosting, the cooking, the everything. Sleep is the one thing keeping me from completely unraveling.

• 37:26Dax Shepard?

  It really is the foundation. And I think people underestimate how much a bad mattress is quietly ruining their day. You wake up stiff, your back's angry, you're already behind before your feet hit the floor.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  That was me before Helix. I took their sleep quiz, which is so fast. It took me like two minutes and they matched me to a mattress that actually fits how I sleep. Not a guess, not a firm or soft coin flip. It's a real match. I have a midnight mattress and I really like it. I was noticing it because I actually had to sleep in one of my other beds.

• 37:55Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Recently.

• 37:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  That doesn't have a Helix mattress on it. And I really could tell a big difference in my sleep.

• 38:00Dax Shepard?

  Temperature was all over the map.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  It was a mess.

• 38:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  I need a new one.

• 38:03Dax Shepard?

  Look, they've got over 20 mattress models. So whether you sleep hot, need extra back support, or you've got a partner who moves around all night, there's one built for you. Plus free shipping and a 365 night happy with Helix guarantee. That's a full year to decide.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Helix has been named the most awarded mattress by Forbes, Wired and more. So it's not just us being enthusiastic, the experts agree.

• 38:25Dax Shepard?

  Right now, Helix is running their Black Friday sale with up to 30% off. Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. Helixsleep.com/armchair.

• 38:43Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Skims. Okay, I have a confession. I genuinely love matching pajamas. It's the best part of Christmas morning, really. Everyone in the same matching set, looking ridiculously cute in front of the tree.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  I love matching pajamas. I'm literally going to be in coordinating sets with all my friends this holiday season. Because I got them, spoiler to my friends who are listening. The same Skims pajama set I've been living in. They are so soft and cozy and they look cute. So you can leave the house and go get a late night hot chocolate and be cozy.

• 39:18Dax Shepard?

  It's so great how Skims has sets for everyone, too. Women's, men's, kids, even your pets. So nobody in your life has to be left out this year.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  I have a bunch of different pajama sets. One of my favorite is the organic cotton sleep long sleeve set.

• 39:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay, tell me more.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  It is so comfortable, very chic, too. The top is a button down, but very, very soft, easy to sleep in. But as I said before, you can multipurpose this and look super cute.

• 39:47Dax Shepard?

  Hot chocolate runs. It's like the pajamas we grew up in, except without the scratchy polyester that made opening presents feel more like a hot yoga class that nobody signed up for.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  All the nostalgia, none of the discomfort. Shop my favorite loungewear and pajamas at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcasts in the survey and be sure to select Armchair Expert in the drop down menu that follows. If you're looking for the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, the Skims Holiday Shop is now open at skims.com.

• 40:22Dax Shepard?

  You also end up playing professional baseball while you're there. How does that happen?

• 40:26Speaker 02

  While I was there to make a little bit of money, Moscow just got in a team. It was interesting there because all these new sort of American things were popping out. You really had very different rushes and very different Moscow. The Moscow that all the kids that I went to school with, you know, they were coming in, their whole families from the Ural Mountains, eating off a hot plate, really destitute. At night, it was drinking vodka, singing, rapping, playing theater games. No one had any money. So it was like you scrouched together what you had. That was the Russia. That I knew, but there was this other thing with the mafia and it was this fascination with American culture and these sort of American restaurants and McDonald's. And one of the things was baseball. So there was this new thing in Russia where these mafia guys would go with their model girlfriends and go watch baseball games.

• 41:07Dax Shepard?

  I went in 2000 to Russia.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  I was there then.

• 41:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I went to St. Petersburg and it was like, oh, communism's dead, but there's no stores. There's no bars. There's no restaurants. The downtown is just like dudes are drunk at nine in the morning. There's really nothing to do.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Real, real, real drinking. Not surprising to see dead guys on the subway on the way to school. There are certain cultural rules on the street. Like if somebody falls down and cracks their head open, you do not touch that person. You don't help them. You don't call anybody.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  What's behind that?

• 41:36Dax Shepard?

  I think they've seen so much fucking suffering is my guess through those many years. I mean, fuck from Stalin on so much suffering, food scarcity. They've just seen.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  It's just like take care of yourself and get through it.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I could tell you stories all day, like really brutal, dark stories that happened there. But for every single one of those, I've got one that is so profoundly beautiful.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yes, of course.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  Both of those things exist at the same time there.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Sounds like they're carrying so much duality there. Like even the fact that there's this mafia thing and it's all regimented, but then an art professor comes in and everyone has to stand up. Like that's already blowing my mind that they revere it.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  And on every corner, there's a statue of a playwright or a poet or an actor to find somebody like a street guy. He'll know what's playing at the Bolshoi. He'll be able to name all the members of the Moscow Art Theater. And when you go, there's no idea of this sort of like subscription based gentry exclusive theater. The theater is religion. Every theater is packed every night. People are sitting in the rows. It's cheap. You take your family to the theater. You go and you see theater. It's like something that you do and not in any kind of like, do you know who's gonna be in this? Like, and also just the way that these plays are even put on. There's no such thing as, okay, we're gonna rehearse and then we've rented this theater. So we're gonna go up in June. You rehearse a play until the director says it's ready.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Could be three years. Once you have a role, like if you're playing Hamlet and you're playing Desdemona, those. Those are your roles and you might get a call next week. Every night, there's a bill of what shows. It's not like this show is playing here.

• 43:10Dax Shepard?

  You're gonna move around.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  We're gonna see Dax and Hamlet tonight. And then tomorrow they're doing Othello and you're playing Desamona. So you have your parts. There's plays that have been running there for 35 years. And they're just, oh, they're gonna do it at the Taganka tonight. And you gotta see this production.

• 43:23Dax Shepard?

  It's like a rock band.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's really cool.

• 43:25Dax Shepard?

  What were you making playing baseball? What could someone make?

• 43:28Speaker 02

  It was in rubles, but I think at the time it was close to probably 25 bucks a game.

• 43:33Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:34Dax Shepard?

  But that went a long way.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  He's like, okay.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Congratulations.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  For me at that time, 25 rubles, which was approximately five bucks if I'm doing this right. Not in the Western places, but the three of us could go out to a Georgian restaurant, eat hot chapporty, split a bottle of vodka, get a couple of chickens, maybe a thing of beans, the best bread you've ever had. And we'd sit there and get completely fucking hammered and eat. Do you guys know what hot chapporty is?

• 43:58Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  Georgian food, it centers around this thing called hot chapporty, which is basically like this bread with these three kinds of Georgian cheeses, sort of like fried into it with an egg fried over the top. Like then you can put these Russian beans on it. I mean, it's bonkers good.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  For five bucks, three, four people eat and drink as much as you want. So for 25 bucks.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, not bad.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  You know, because I was 20 years old. My buddies were all Russian teenagers and people in their young twenties. And so to be like the big spender, like, come on, I got you. Like, it was so, so crazy to be able to do that.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 44:32Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so you get back from Russia. You moved to New York. You do 30 odd plays. You do some like guest stars on all the shows everyone in New York does guest roles on. You get Tina and Tony's wedding.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:48Dax Shepard?

  And that brings you to LA in 2004.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 44:53Dax Shepard?

  So you're just scrabbling for those, however many years that would have been. Just kind of cobbling together.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it was a lot of years. When I was in Russia, Harvard has a graduate school.

• 45:03Dax Shepard?

  That's really relevant. Yeah.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  No, I don't know if it's relevant, but they would bring their MFA students there. They saw me in a show. They're like, what the hell are you doing here? They offered me a spot. I was like, Harvard?

• 45:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Look at that.

• 45:14Dax Shepard?

  To go to graduate school.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  To go to graduate school, even though I never went to college.

• 45:18Dax Shepard?

  I didn't even know one could do that.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  Me neither. But then you go back to Russia, but this time as a Harvard student, which is a totally different thing. And that was an extraordinary thing, too. But they do these showcases and stuff and I got an agent.

• 45:30Dax Shepard?

  So you have a master's from Harvard?

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  So cool.

• 45:34Dax Shepard?

  That's hilarious.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Look at the arc!

• 45:35Dax Shepard?

  Given, basically, you left.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  You fled the country.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  I could bring in like a group of people that could tell you stories of how big of a fu- like, a colossal fucker.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  I love this. Your story is a movie.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 45:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your Will Hunting.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  I know!

• 45:52Speaker 02

  My best friends were from South Boston. My friend, John Davis Sparky, just passed. This year he OD'd. Fucking greatest guy. Played baseball with him. But he's a group from South. He took me to Harvard to audition. They're all waiting outside. They're like ripping lines in the car. The craziest group I'm ever- yeah. Sparks, you know, he's like, wait, he's like, "Did you get in?" I go in there and I do this audition. They told me in the room. They saw me in Russia. They're like, "Come back."

• 46:14Dax Shepard?

  Really is Good Will Hunting. He's like a janitor.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  I know. My favorite movie of all time.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  It was fucking nuts. I remember exactly where I was, calling my mom on Sparky's phone. She couldn't believe it. But I met my, I met my wife right w- yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:26Dax Shepard?

  You met her at Harvard?

• 46:27Speaker 02

  No, she's a, was ICU trauma nurse in DC. I met her the day I got home from Russia.

• 46:32Dax Shepard?

  What a story!

• 46:33Speaker 01

  I know. This is so wild.

• 46:35Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so you come to LA 2004. You get yourself on a show. You're a regular for a season. It gets canceled. That's 2005. You get another show for a year. You're in this nebulous, I'm imagining, you're like, is it starting or not starting? Is it starting? Were you feeling that feeling here in LA?

• 46:51Speaker 02

  For a few years in the beginning, there was definitely the whole ugly thing that I was telling you about where I was like, okay, this is not gonna happen.

• 46:56Dax Shepard?

  Well, the first one was a sitcom, right?

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, with like Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Lizzie Kaplan. And it was the people that had done Friends. And it was supposed to be The One. Jimmy Burrows took us on the private jet.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Wasn't it called like The Class or something?

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember it was Chris Klein and James Van Der Beek, I think, going into rooms to test with those guys. It was like, this is a total fucking joke. Look at you. You fucking charlatan. You ugly little joke. In the beginning, it was really hard. It was just no, no, no, no, no. For years, nothing. Couldn't make money. I was like selling weed. I was bouncing. I was doing whatever the fuck I could. But I'd come home feeling sorry for myself. And my wife was working at these major trauma centers around the country being like pull it never saying it.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Right. But she's like, do you know what I saw today?

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, dog. And she would never say that, but she could just do it by like, come here, I got you. And I'm like, I'm crying on her chat. What did you do today? You know, like you saw fuck.

• 47:51Dax Shepard?

  So several gallons of blood dump.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  Bro, right. And like literally like an angel. I'm upset about this bullshit. But I will say, man, through that time, it was really genuinely total gratitude. It was an influx of positivity. It was like, you're getting really close and there was no end game.

• 48:09Dax Shepard?

  So you haven't been arrested in a while?

• 48:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I got in trouble one more time, pretty bad in 2009. That's when everything kind of shifted for me.

• 48:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. After you've been working.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  That's when I stopped drinking and yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:20Dax Shepard?

  You don't drink?

• 48:20Speaker 02

  I do not.

• 48:21Dax Shepard?

  For how long?

• 48:22Speaker 02

  Since 2009.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Nice. Congratulations. That's a long time.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 48:27Dax Shepard?

  Meanings or anything or no?

• 48:29Speaker 02

  No, it was the anger thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Therapy, you said?

• 48:33Speaker 02

  That event more than anything else, like, yes, I was working. It was a really bad thing happened in Venice. And I think more than anything else, there's an issue sort of with one of my dogs. I tried to take my dog. It was a bunch of them. I ended up hitting a guy and he got knocked out and hit his head on the ground. Being down in jail in LA and not knowing whether this guy was going to wake up. And it was literally as profound and clear a moment as I've ever had.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Okay. If you're going this way, this is your life now. There's no more acting. There's no more girlfriend. There's no more any of this. You gotta go be the devil. You're going that way. He's not waking up. This is your life now.

• 49:04Dax Shepard?

  You just ruined your entire life.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  For me, it was way more active than that. It was like, okay, if we're going in that direction, I'm gonna let you into my life. I will be the worst version of myself. I will fully give over to whatever energy that is. And I see with so many people, violent criminals, folks that we call monsters. I know that they've been in the same spot and I was ready, man. It's not a tough guy bullshit. It's like, I am ready for whatever the fuck comes my way and I will meet it with whatever comes my way. And then the next thought was like, but. If just this one time, please, I swear I'm done. I will devote myself to this thing. I will devote myself to this woman. I will serve in every way that I can. I will really do your work, whatever that is. I promise you, literally in that moment, he woke up.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  That was July 3rd, 2009, July 3rd, 2010. I was in Atlanta, starting The Walking Dead, engaged to my wife, a year sober. A year later, my first son, Henry, was born. I'm like blown away with gratitude. Yeah. And at any point, including now, if it all goes away.

• 50:06Dax Shepard?

  Have you read the Pat Tillman book, the John Krakauer book, Where Men Win Glory?

• 50:10Speaker 02

  Sure, I love that book.

• 50:11Dax Shepard?

  He had that moment.

• 50:12Speaker 02

  That exact same moment.

• 50:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. He really hurt a guy right before college and he was almost done.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  It gives you a lot of empathy, as you said, when you hear about these stories of people. It's so easy to say like, yeah, they're just bad.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  You know, when I go into prisons and I get to know these people and there's some folks that we've been a part of reducing their sentences and getting them out. The biggest thing that I'm aware of, when I talk about my life, there's shame in it. Because the truth is, man, I had every opportunity. I went to grade school. I had good parents who loved me and I hit these walls over and over and over and over. So many chances. This wasn't the worst thing that I had ever, like, dude, what are you doing? But the thing that I find is the only reason that I got these second chances is because of that privilege, honestly. It's the only reason. And there are so many folks who just don't have that or who made that same deal with whatever and it didn't work out for them. And they're no better than me, they're no worse than me.

• 51:05Dax Shepard?

  Do you have an explanation for what was driving this side of you?

• 51:09Speaker 02

  For me, it's always, again, been I have these pillars of brothers who never fucked up, just got it all fucking figured out. And by the way, always made me feel like I had real worth. In a bond, you go to John, you really want to talk about something in emotion? You really want to have an honest conversation? I know they come to me, they'll always come to me and I was always that guy. That being said, I know it all came from shame. It all came from the times I was beat up, the times that I was jumped and I didn't do anything about it, the times that I was really scared.

• 51:35Dax Shepard?

  I can explain all this by one event. I let a kid beat me up in sixth grade and for years I laid in bed at night going, oh my fucking God, why didn't you fight?

• 51:44Speaker 02

  Do you know how much violence has happened because of young men laying in bed in light, hating themselves because they couldn't make their hands move?

• 51:51Dax Shepard?

  I've never been more mad at myself. It's funny because we interviewed Conor McGregor and I was like, how are you gonna, oh, I saw a boxing gym. I'm like, there's gotta be more to it than that. Oh, I got jumped by these guys that were older than me. Okay. And then I go, well, I didn't fight back. He's like, yeah, yeah, I didn't really. I'm like, yeah, that produced Conor McGregor.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 52:11Dax Shepard?

  God, it's fucking powerful. The amount of shame. I'm 50. It's all worked out. I'll be in bed. I'll just occasionally, I can be on the couch watching the kid punch me in the face for a long time.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  I know how toxic that road is, that shame and that I'm really a wimp, I'm really a coward if these guys find me out. You know, so I'm going to talk a little bit. Like, all those things are just such horrible roads to walk down. And it is crazy that a lot of the things that I get to do is portray these uber tough, strong. And the thing that I find such a gift is that I'm really aware of each one of their, not just deep vulnerabilities and sensitivities, but their shame. I just don't think there's any such thing as like violence without pain and shame.

• 52:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  You're crying inside. You go into prison and you hang out among folks who have had real, real time to sit with this. You go into prisons and you find folks who are, in my opinion, some of the most ethical and innovative and deep and spiritually sound because they've just had so much time to sit and really work a lot of this stuff out. And when you find folks like that, it's such a gift, you know, fully evolved, like fully figured it out. There are people who never get to be around their kids because they're behind walls and I think they're some of the best parents on earth. The way that they breathe is in full consideration of their children, of their offspring, of their spiritual connection. And I'm so in awe of it.

• 53:31Dax Shepard?

  You've done a bunch of great shit. I'm gonna jump right to one thing. Cause I saw you in Walking Dead and to be honest, I was like, eh, I know this guy. I would be fighting this guy at the bar. And I couldn't enjoy it. Like, it was that visceral for me.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  The character?

• 53:49Dax Shepard?

  The actor.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Oh. Shame, he's a dick.

• 53:52Dax Shepard?

  And I was like, oh, I just, I couldn't really enjoy it. I was like, yeah, this dude and I.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  I'm sorry.

• 54:00Dax Shepard?

  Are at a bar.

• 54:01Speaker 02

  It's a good show. I wish I didn't do that for you, dude. Can you watch it and just fast forward through my?

• 54:06Dax Shepard?

  I think this is great though, because I'm like, oh, this guy and I would get into it so bad.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  Same.

• 54:11Dax Shepard?

  Exactly.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what happens.

• 54:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and you just know.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Can I say one thing about that?

• 54:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  The guy who 2009 got knocked down, hit his head. 2010, July 3rd, I wrote him a letter and I said to him, I realized that when I hit you, I saw you in me and I wanted to fucking smash it. That's what it was. Sorry.

• 54:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, thousand percent. Then you start popping up in other stuff and I'm like, oh.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  This guy I hate.

• 54:34Dax Shepard?

  This guy's pretty good.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  This fucking guy.

• 54:36Dax Shepard?

  This guy's pretty good. And then for me, We Own the City, I was like, I'm prepared to bow down.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 54:42Dax Shepard?

  Holy.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  What a gift that one was.

• 54:44Dax Shepard?

  Fuck, are you good in that show?

• 54:46Speaker 02

  Thanks, man.

• 54:46Dax Shepard?

  That's like Gandolfini level. Oh, my God.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  Thanks, man.

• 54:50Dax Shepard?

  I cannot believe that show wasn't enormous.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I feel so bad for David and George because they're so great, you know, it's The Wire. But that show was, I think at that time, especially in a subject matter that I'm so curious about, fascinated by, deplored by, race and policing. It's like so at the center. Because of that show, I got this unbelievable front row ticket and access point in this fucking city that is like right at the tip of the spear of these fucking issues. And to really get to understand policing and for three months going out every single night on the east side with the gun squad and then on the west side of Baltimore with Nagavich and them and on SWAT raids and like really getting to know these guys really, really well.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  And then at the same time, understanding it through the systemic lens that George and David kind of singularly can do. Then getting to know the real guy and understanding it for all its complexities. It was just such a fucking gift.

• 55:46Dax Shepard?

  Both The Wire and We Own the City is as close as you can get to narrative being a documentary. I mean, it's just so enjoyably specific. There's not one line of exposition that someone thought they know how it works. They know how it works.

• 56:01Speaker 02

  When you're dealing with David and George, they're not interested in making the scene the funniest. It is journalistic integrity. It's like, we're shooting this with as many of the real people as we can.

• 56:11Dax Shepard?

  Not in an offensive way. It's almost a reenactment.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  It is, but to play this like wildly colorful guy that everyone said like the dude's fucking larger than life in this tapestry. Where like 90% of the people I'm working with are not actors. What a fucking gift. And in that world at that time, after Freddie, to be able to go into Baltimore, in Baltimore, The Wire is like required watching for every cop, like, you know, for every gangster, for every community member.

• 56:38Dax Shepard?

  Omar coming.

• 56:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude. And so like when you're saying, hey, I'm here with that, they open up to you. You make these unbelievable friends, but the experiences I had getting to play that role. Yeah, I'm just so grateful for it.

• 56:48Dax Shepard?

  I am so happy for you that you had that.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks, man. Me too.

• 56:51Dax Shepard?

  Wow, you're incredible. I know we're here to promote other stuff, but everyone needs to go watch We Own This City.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  I agree, man.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  I know we're in career mode, but I do have a question because based on this whole interview, I wonder what your opinion is on this. Have you seen Adolescence yet?

• 57:07Speaker 02

  I have not. I saw his movie. I cannot wait to see this show.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  It's fantastic. It is exploring the plight of young boys and violence and incel culture and how all this happens. And I was like, how do we fix this? And I don't know that you have the answer, but you've experienced a lot of this stuff. And I wonder, do you have an opinion on that?

• 57:28Speaker 02

  My two oldest, they're a year apart. Man, it's like everything. How do I raise kind, empathetic, sturdy, young men, protectors who take accountability? And there are things that I really feel my wife and I have gotten right.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  And there are things that I really feel like we haven't. And that is the rub. There are things that are unquestionably good. I think jujitsu is unquestionably good. A martial art that doesn't require you to strike somebody, which causes the other person to get angry and scared and strike you back, or that is such violent with striking that they could fall down and hurt themselves, but it's a martial art of getting close, you hearing them breathe and say, hey, I'm right here and this needs to stop now. I got you. I'm with you. To teach that to kids and to get them to have a facility in that and to be able to walk into a room and know that, that is an unquestionable good thing. Really having respect for nature, like getting outside, learning how to be outside, loving outside, doubling down on things that no one can take away from you. No one can take.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  Nature away from you. No one can take reading away from you. No one can take music away from you. Giving them these solid touchstones to really see value in those things as kids, fricking huge. And then everyone says it, and maybe I'll be proven wrong. It's sad, but the phone and the screen is the enemy. But I was raised, the kids that were told, don't ever touch beer, don't ever touch sugar. Those are the kids, like, the second they got the shot, they're, uh.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  Oh, exactly.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  Right? So like, how do you do it? But I think what you can do is you can clown the fuck out of people who are always on their phones. That's what I do with my kids. I'm like, look at that family. That motherfucker has not gotten off, like, how sad is that? Maybe that's not the best way.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  But it's a way.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  Hey, look, it's like, they'll point out, like, damn, that guy's not getting off his phone. But I do think that there are sort of undeniable things, art and food and skills and travel.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Confidence, I guess. That's how you get it.

• 59:20Dax Shepard?

  Yes, because then you don't have to prove it in other ways.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  I guess so.

• 59:24Dax Shepard?

  Let's talk about what's coming out. You have so much coming out. First of all, you won an Emmy last year for Bear, last year?

• 59:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:30Dax Shepard?

  Congrats.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Thanks, man.

• 59:31Dax Shepard?

  So you're on the Bear, you're gonna be in the new season of The Bear. You have the amateur coming out, April 11th. That's with Laurence Fishburne and Rami Malek. So The Accountant 2, I saw Accountant 1, seemingly from the trailer, this one's a two-hander.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  More so, yeah.

• 59:47Dax Shepard?

  That's really exciting.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  Again, not to be a cheesedick, but I do believe the greatest part of this thing is the people that you get to meet along the way. And in the first one, Ben and I really didn't get much time together. My character was sort of mysterious. You didn't know that they were brothers and they come together at the end. This one is the two of them together, and it's Gavin O'Connor and Bill Abuke, same writer and director. I don't know about for you guys, but as I'm getting older and older, I am just constantly looking for models of people that have really got it going. And Gavin's a guy that I really look at. He's been through it, he's been in those valleys, and I don't think you can be up in the mountain tops unless you've been in the valleys. But he is just like a family-first guy who takes his art super seriously, and I love him. And I've really found that with Ben. I just got done working with Matt on the Nolan film.

• 1:00:33Dax Shepard?

  Wait, you're in a Nolan movie, you son of a bitch?

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  That's why I have this haircut.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Congratulations.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Thanks, man.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  That is really.

• 1:00:39Dax Shepard?

  Talk about being a noint-

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. You know, I knew Matt from Ford Ferrari, but I just think that what they're doing together with this company is so beyond beautiful and what we need. And I think in a way is going to save this whole thing. They're artist first guys, but Ben is brilliant.

• 1:00:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, intimidatingly so.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, he really is such an incredible filmmaker. And what I loved is on this film, he's the studio head and he's the lead actor, but he's not the director.

• 1:01:05Dax Shepard?

  He's like Bill Russell. He's the coach and a player. Yeah.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  And it's such an interesting thing to sort of navigate, especially in that role through personal things in his life. He's really got a deeper connection to the role and you can see it and you can feel it. I think he's brilliant in the movie and we really had this awesome thing together.

• 1:01:24Dax Shepard?

  You guys are exploring in a fun way. He's autistic and you're not and you're brothers and you have a relationship and you're trying to understand what's happening with him. Does he love you? Does he care about you? Does he think about you? His behavior is very hard to read. That's all happening in this. That's a cool storyline.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  Really cool. And I think it's really personal to everybody who made it, which is the most important. Bill de Buque, who wrote it and created Ozark, he's wonderful.

• 1:01:50Dax Shepard?

  He wrote The Judge. I was in that.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. That's right.

• 1:01:53Dax Shepard?

  He was a headhunter in St. Louis or something right before The Judge. It's a great story.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  It does come from a really personal place. And I think that he writes family. And when you think about Gavin and the movies that he makes and sort of uncovering father issues and brother issues and masculinity and these guys are all sort of like deep dive type guys. Because of the first film, you do get sort of a sense through these flashbacks of how these boys were raised in this really, really unique, violent way by their father. I wanted Brax, the character that I played, he had to be equally, I didn't want it like one guy's got the affliction and the other guy's got it figured out. It's like, no, he is every bit.

• 1:02:30Dax Shepard?

  Here's one side of the coin. Here's the other side of the coin.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  They're equally dependent on each other. They're equally in awe of each other. They're equally fucking frustrated with each other. I find with everybody, I don't know if you guys think this with the relationships in your life that are the most important, but I'm constantly blown away by the things that I love about people so much are such a close cousin to what What I cannot fucking stand about them.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  It's like the same thing. And it can be something totally positive. My wife will never tell a lie. She will never exaggerate. Her integrity is so insane, but it's like, dude, if we just say he's sick, you know what I mean? Like, bro, like, we can get through this. But, oh, my God, I'm so in awe of that. And so I think you really feel that in this movie. The things that these guys love each other for are exactly what also drives them crazy. And I think it's really honest.

• 1:03:21Dax Shepard?

  OK, do you like this term, method actor? Or do you hate it? Do you have objections?

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  I don't know that, like, I hate. Look, being from the Moscow Art Theater and all that, I do think it's bastardized and it has nothing to do with what that method was.

• 1:03:33Dax Shepard?

  I think the colloquial understanding of method is you don't break character ever.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  Which is not what Stanislavski's method was at all.

• 1:03:40Dax Shepard?

  With that said, you played a mute in a movie.

• 1:03:42Speaker 02

  Oh, fuck. Fucking Holland, did Tom tell you this?

• 1:03:46Dax Shepard?

  I just read it.

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  Fuck.

• 1:03:47Dax Shepard?

  And you didn't talk to anybody for months.

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:51Dax Shepard?

  How does that?

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  Well, it didn't work, dude. I mean, like, I don't know.

• 1:03:54Dax Shepard?

  What do you mean it didn't work?

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Fucking Tom's on this Nolan movie too, man. And he was just clowning me. Yes, I was playing a fucking mute.

• 1:04:02Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  And embarrassingly, we were in this tiny little village in Ireland. And it was one of these deals where we're all living together at the same little resort. There's nowhere to go. So every meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner, we're together. So we're not just together on set. We're together all, which is great. I love these guys. You wouldn't want it any other way, except I come up with this idea. I'm going to be silent the entire time. So now they've been dealing with this fucking asshole.

• 1:04:25Dax Shepard?

  What if you saw someone was on fire?

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  Bro. But like, the way it all came to an end, which is so embarrassing, is not only do they have to deal with me on set, but we would sit there at dinner. What do you want for dinner? And I'd be like, you know.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  This is so lame.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  You kind of box. Gets yourself in a corner.

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  Bro, it was so bad. And then there was salmon for every meal and I'm obsessed with lemon for my salmon. So I wrote on this little notepad to Tom Holland, who was like 17 at the time. I'm like, hey dude, can you get me some lemon for my thing? I write that down. He's like, of course, can we have some lemon? And the guy comes over and drops the lemon in my soda and I'm like, fuck. I'm done. I can't do it anymore. Yeah.

• 1:05:04Dax Shepard?

  That was the breaking point.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  That was the breaking point. That was one of the breaking points. And I think the thing that is frustrating to people and certain people are definitely guilty of it. And I really try to catch myself because there is this thing that we want to show everybody how hard we're working. Some of it is performative and I have seen people where I've been like, oh, this motherfucker. Like, we all know how hard you're working, dude. Like, great, good for you. But I've also been unbelievably surprised by that, where I thought that and I was like, oh no. I will tell you Shia on Fury, when I first saw him get back from real bootcamp in full fatigue, show up at Brad Pitt's house, be like, I just got back from bootcamp, G. And I was like, dude. And then eight months later, this motherfucker has not stopped for one second,

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  being all the way dialed in and he's laying down shit that no one else is laying down. He's proving once again to perform on a level that other people can't do. Other people can't do it and that is his thing. I really do try to give people the benefit of the doubt and say, God bless you, man. Like, if that's what you need to do.

• 1:06:07Dax Shepard?

  I think it's cool. I think everyone gets to skin the cat how they want to.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:11Dax Shepard?

  And then the last thing, you have a really popular podcast. You have a podcast that's adored and loved. And so you're a peer in this space. The real ones. You have firefighters, first responders, drug dealers, convicts. You have the whole spectrum. How do you find folks?

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  To be honest with you, over 90% of the people that I have on are just friends of mine from life that I've just been like lucky enough to get to know. A lot of the cops in Baltimore. I have a really weird relationship with it. I've always really felt the need to shy away from getting too much of me out there.

• 1:06:43Dax Shepard?

  That's an old actor trope.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  It is. I totally get it. I also think that for me, we don't make money off the show. I don't monetize it in any way. The genesis. Of it was really after George Floyd, I found myself watching that and knowing that I had to be part of the resistance. It would make me so angry and so disgusted and then I had to do something and I would turn on the TV and I would go down there and then I would see people throwing bottles at cops and I looked at each one of those cops and I'm like, I know these people. They're brothers, they're sisters, their fathers, their daughters. And then I would go down to Newton Division where a bunch of my really good friends work and I would go make sure they were good. I just was so sort of disgusted with the national discourse on subjects like that,

• 1:07:27Speaker 02

  but especially that where I felt like the folks that they're being the loudest were the people at the opposite poles waving their flags as hard as they could because they were filled with fear and shame because they'd never experienced anything in the middle. They had never been down in that valley where they've actually come face to face with a cop or they've come face to face with somebody from one of those communities. And then I just looked at my life and I was like, wow. The one thing that I know is the guys that I know who run gangs and guys who I know who have been in that life and are real community minded, community activists, the real ones. They can look among their own community and they can tell you who's real and who's not. They'll tell you which one of these guys, yeah, he stands for the set, but he's not, like that guy ain't the real thing. That dude right there, he's down for it. Like he'll help

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  the lady cross or he's down for this community. And they can look across the divide and say that cop over there, he's real. He shows up. There's a kid in our community that has cancer since he's five years old. He shows up. And I've also saw it on the other side with the cops that they can look over and say, that guy's standing up. And then I was like, wait a second. What would happen if I put those guys together? Because in this moment where everyone's an expert, but no one is actually walking the walk. What would happen if you put those two guys together? And those are the people ultimately that I want my kids to learn from. And so that's what the first shows were, where basically it was cops that I was buddies with and gangsters that I was buddies with. But then it kind of evolved and it was, yeah, special forces, soldiers, surgeons, teachers,

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  activists, actors. But I'm a fan of your guys' show. You guys are actually really great at this. I am not.

• 1:09:00Dax Shepard?

  I disagree with that.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm really not. The point that I'm saying is that my show is never.

• 1:09:05Dax Shepard?

  It's not about you.

• 1:09:06Speaker 02

  It's definitely not. And the one thing that we hear over and over about my show is,

• 1:09:11Dax Shepard?

  He didn't say anything. You're a facilitator. That's great.

• 1:09:13Speaker 02

  I hope so. As I get older, in both fatherhood and this career, I really keep coming back to intention. Intentions are everything. Like, what are your fucking intentions? And every time that I've done one of those shows where I can get behind my intentions, forgive me, but when I used to play baseball, I had this coach in college who used to say, you're in the batter's box, and all of a sudden you start spiraling, you're like, fuck, I can't hit this ball. Fuck, fuck, dude, he's got, look, is he gonna throw a curveball? What is it? And you start to spiral out of control. And this guy said that in those moments, you gotta step the fuck out and remind yourself, why do you do this in the first place? Take yourself back. It's like, what are you doing this for? And if that is really clear and solid in the podcast thing for me, when I've had people on where I believe in this person.

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  One day I want my son, little Bill Bernthal, to listen to this guy and be like, yeah, dad fucks with this guy. Dad says, watch this guy. It's not about who they voted for. It's not about their politics. This motherfucker has integrity. This motherfucker's about it. And the majority of the people that we have on our show, they've never been on camera before. You guys do that too. Like, they've never done this. And I recognize that I'm asking them to do something that they're really not that comfortable with. And so I do have a very weird relationship with it. Because, look, you guys, I'm sure people are just lining up to be, I mean, like, look at the people you guys have on. Like, on our show, it's a little different. It's like, oh shit, that's right. I remember my friend from DC. It's more that kind of thing. I'm sort of have to sell them on the fact that, hey, you know me.

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna fuck with you. Anything you don't want in here, take it out. You know, like, you're good. And then in the same way, I know you're either a really good friend of mine, or you're a friend of a friend who say, this dude, there's no bullshit here. There's no bravado. There's no bluster. This person, this woman, this man is the real thing.

• 1:10:57Dax Shepard?

  It's awesome. I think people should check it out. The Real Ones with Jon Bernthal. Watch The Amateur. Watch The Accountant 2. Watch Daredevil. Watch The Bear. My fucking goodness. Awesome. I don't know how you have the endurance for it all. Watch the new Nolan movie. This was awesome.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  Thank you. I really appreciate you guys having me.

• 1:11:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  You guys are awesome.

• 1:11:20Dax Shepard?

  It was so good. Thank you, brother.

• 1:11:22Speaker 02

  Thank you very much.

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:11:31Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Squarespace. So here's something I think about a lot. Most people I talk to on this show, the ones doing really interesting things, they all had a version of their work that existed before anyone else saw it. It was just theirs, notes, ideas, projects they were tinkering with. And then at some point, they made the decision to share it. That's the part that's scary, right? Going from, "I'm working on something," to, "Here's what I made." Rob went through the exact same thing, building our site on Squarespace. And what made it doable was that he didn't have to become a web developer overnight. He just had to show up with the idea. Squarespace handles the rest. Beautiful templates that actually look like you hired someone, built an SEO so people can find you, email campaigns, scheduling, analytics, all under one roof. No code, no patchwork of random tools.

• 1:12:15Dax Shepard?

  And honestly, the thing I keep coming back to is how low the barrier is. If you've got something you've been building quietly and you're ready for people to see it, Squarespace makes that leap feel a lot less traumatic. Head to Squarespace.com/dax for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff. But there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends. Docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all of that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left.

• 1:12:57Dax Shepard?

  What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already right there, inside your email, your docs, your browser. You don't go to it, it's already working alongside you. You're deep in a long thread, highlight it, and it pulls the key points. About to send something important? It flags what doesn't add up before it leaves your hands. It knows your style, your workflows, and it just backs you up without getting in the way. A thought partner that's already up to speed, at your service, not after your job. So do yourself a favor and try Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 1:13:42Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Walden University. You know that feeling when you've been thinking about making a move, going after the degree, the promotion, the thing you keep telling yourself you'll get to someday? Walden University is built for that moment. For over 50 years, Walden has helped working professionals get the W, the knowledge, the skills, and the confidence to create real change in their careers and communities. Their programs are designed around your life, not the other way around. With Tempo Learning, available in select programs, there are no rigid schedules or set weekly deadlines. You move at your own pace. And Walden's faculty aren't just academics. They're practitioners who bring real-world experience into everything they teach.

• 1:14:25Dax Shepard?

  From your first class to career coaching and beyond, Walden is your partner the whole way. Take the first step and learn at a pace that works for you. Visit waldenu.edu. Walden University. Set a course for change. Certified to operate by CHEV. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every family has that one holiday tradition nobody actually enjoys, but everyone keeps doing because stopping it would feel like a federal offense. For me, it was a specific meal situation that I will not name because my family listens. But at some point, you have to ask yourself, am I doing this because I love it or because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't?

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  Yes, and that question applies to so much more than the holidays. I think a lot of us carry these invisible rules about how we're supposed to spend the holidays, who we're supposed to see, what it's supposed to look like. And when you start unpacking that with a therapist, you realize half of your stress is coming from rules you didn't even write.

• 1:15:21Dax Shepard?

  This is where BetterHelp can be a great resource during the holidays. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, which means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recs.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  I just love therapy. I've been avoiding it recently, or not avoiding it, but I was like, oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. I haven't canceled, canceled, canceled. But then I-

• 1:15:48Dax Shepard?

  You start feeling it.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, because then I had it this past- Last weekend and I was like, oh my God, I'm just thank God, thank God for her. Yeah.

• 1:15:56Dax Shepard?

  BetterHelp is now in network with more than 125 health plans with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com/dax. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash DAX.

• 1:16:23Dax Shepard?

  I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica comes in and tells us what was wrong.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 1:16:33Dax Shepard?

  I'm really trying to figure out what all that happened.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  You're late for the listener. 23 minutes.

• 1:16:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I would say more than just late. So I got back from dropping Delta off. I was like, I gotta work out, then record.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  That was the plan for the day.

• 1:16:51Dax Shepard?

  That was the plan, then edit. And then I was like, huh, I'm very tired. I'm gonna take a 20 minute nap. So it must have been 9:45.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:17:05Dax Shepard?

  And I set my alarm for 10:15.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  30 minute nap.

• 1:17:12Dax Shepard?

  But that's not, I now know that's not what he did. I was like, oh, I set it for 10:15, then I'll have a 40 minutes to work out and then I'll be able to still do all the things. Then I'm taking this nap.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:23Dax Shepard?

  And do you ever do this when you're taking a nap and you're like, you're kind of waking up a little bit and I'm like, oh God, this is so much longer than I thought. Like, am I gonna, the alarm's gonna go off any second. And then I'm like, okay, who cares? Right? And then I go back.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:17:39Dax Shepard?

  So I was weirdly conscious of how long the nap was. And then I thought that was part of my dream.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:17:47Dax Shepard?

  Like, oh my God, this feels so long. Anyways, my alarm goes off. Oh, okay, great. Then I look at the wall clock. I'm like 11:15, like 11:15.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  You said it wrong.

• 1:18:00Dax Shepard?

  I did. It's more than that. I knew I was setting at 11:15, but for some reason.

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  You knew you were setting it at 11:15?

• 1:18:06Dax Shepard?

  And for some reason, that was 10:15. I was still gonna have, I was setting on 11:15 and I was gonna have 45 minutes to work out, which makes no sense. That's what I'm struggling with.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  And we started at 11?

• 1:18:17Dax Shepard?

  11. I know.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:18:20Dax Shepard?

  I just confused.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  You just got out of whack.

• 1:18:22Dax Shepard?

  I confused 11:15 for 10:15 is what happened.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that happens. I'm jealous.

• 1:18:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, were you sleepy? You would have liked to have slept longer.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 1:18:33Dax Shepard?

  Instead, you got over here on time and then I'm mostly.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  Actually, I was five minutes late and I was stressed. And then I'm running and stressed and then you're not here.

• 1:18:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no. Um, why were you late? Did you just have too long of a nap?

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  No, no, I was working. We had a call.

• 1:18:53Dax Shepard?

  This is a shameful fact check.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Uh, we had a merch call, Easter egg. And then after that, I only had 30 minutes to take my shower and put on my makeup and get here.

• 1:19:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  Turns out.

• 1:19:07Dax Shepard?

  You had 40 minutes.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  35.

• 1:19:11Dax Shepard?

  Fuck, I'm sorry.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  That's all right. Did you listen to the podcast I sent you yet?

• 1:19:16Dax Shepard?

  No, because you sent it to me at late last night. Well, not late last night, but like nine o'clock at night.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably.

• 1:19:21Dax Shepard?

  And so I couldn't listen to it then. And there's another part of the thing. I was, the full intention.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  8:27.

• 1:19:28Dax Shepard?

  I'm an hour fucked up. I'm not really. No, my full intention was like, I'm gonna listen to that while I work out and then you're gonna talk about it.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:19:36Dax Shepard?

  The fact check. I didn't make it to that workout.

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  Easter egg again. There's so many Easter eggs already.

• 1:19:41Dax Shepard?

  This is all kind of, I think, reflective of what my updates would be.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  Okay, let's hear them.

• 1:19:45Dax Shepard?

  Okay. I'm gonna hit you with the headline. I think this is miraculous.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:19:51Dax Shepard?

  Um, and I think people will, they'll be scrutinizing of this. They'll be skeptical of these numbers, but I swear these are numbers. I weigh myself every day. Premium post duty. Wednesday, when we left for New York, I was 194 pounds.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:10Dax Shepard?

  Uh, in the morning, almost on the dot. Then when we got home on Sunday, I weighed myself 208.8 pounds.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:18Dax Shepard?

  So I gained 14.8 pounds in three days.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  That's cool. Well, you were in New York. You were probably eating.

• 1:20:28Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God, was I eating?

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  You know what it might mean?

• 1:20:32Dax Shepard?

  Tell me.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  It might mean that that's what your body really wants to be at. And you're you're kind of always like a little under what your body wants. I think I feel like that a little bit, like if I just don't.

• 1:20:47Dax Shepard?

  Hold the reins?

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, if I'm not like actively like thinking about sort of what I'm eating and doing my farmer's carries and my wogs and all this. If I'm just like being.

• 1:20:59Dax Shepard?

  I want you to write a fitness manual as well.

• 1:21:05Dax Shepard?

  Wogs and farmer carries.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Then I think my body at this stage in life wants to be at a at a certain number. And I'm like active at keeping it a little bit under that.

• 1:21:16Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  But I think that's what it really naturally just wants. Should I just give it what it wants?

• 1:21:24Dax Shepard?

  You gotta give your body what it wants. I mine is just eating so fast and so much and just I overate.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  What'd you eat?

• 1:21:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God, infinite hamburgers, but a new thing that I'm here to give a testimonial for. I urge you to do on your next trip to New York. Have you ever been to Mercado, Little Spain? That's Jose Andres.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 1:21:46Dax Shepard?

  Market in Chelsea.

• 1:21:48Speaker 01

  Oh, uh, then maybe.

• 1:21:51Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Monica, you're gonna die.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:21:55Dax Shepard?

  I'll add, I walk in and it kind of looks like a food court a little bit, right?

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  The Chelsea Market, yeah.

• 1:22:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but it's not. It's so, so elevated and hand-built and everything's so good. And the meat has been flown in from Spain and they have a cool little market.

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:13Dax Shepard?

  And so my intention was to go and get the hamburger there. Because remember Jose was like, I make the best burger.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22:19Dax Shepard?

  When we interviewed him. And so I go in there with the intention of getting that burger. I invite Dr. Mike.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:22:26Dax Shepard?

  We got a really cool tour of the whole thing. Um, I'm gonna cut to some of the things that came my way. They take olives, they press them, then they gather the oil and whatever else came out of it. And then they put it in some kind of calcium or do something to it. It comes out on a spoon, Monica, and it's an egg yolk. Have you had this?

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  No, but that sounds like something they do at a Michelin restaurant.

• 1:22:51Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it's, um, it's got a now skin over it, but all it is is the olive oil.

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:57Dax Shepard?

  And it's a yolk and you take the spoon and you put it and then it pops in your mouth.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:01Dax Shepard?

  The taste, I couldn't believe how good this was. Best artichokes ever. Then the big daddy burger then also recommended this more street burger. And it was, he's right, he had, it is, yeah, Emily Burger's got some major competition.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:23:21Dax Shepard?

  Truthful.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  No, you're just.

• 1:23:24Dax Shepard?

  Honest. Now, don't let that break your heart.

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:23:27Dax Shepard?

  I also ate at Emily Burger three times.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 1:23:31Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:23:32Dax Shepard?

  And Corner Bistro.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  Oh, I haven't been there in a while.

• 1:23:36Dax Shepard?

  Yes, so it was a.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  That's a good spot, it's a classic.

• 1:23:38Dax Shepard?

  Tour.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Nice. Oh, this is a ding ding ding.

• 1:23:42Dax Shepard?

  Tell me.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  This is a ding ding ding to a story I've been wanting to tell for a minute, David Chang.

• 1:23:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yes, you, yes.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  Okay, because when I went to Napa with Callie. We got to the airport, Burbank Airport. Dream of all dreams, if you live in LA, to fly out of the Burbank Airport.

• 1:24:00Dax Shepard?

  I don't even want you to tell people about it, but yes.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:24:03Dax Shepard?

  It's a blessing.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  It, it's, you're in and out so fast, especially because I carried on, can you imagine?

• 1:24:09Dax Shepard?

  I can't.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  And anyway, it was so exciting. We get to the airport, we get to the vestibule, what's it called?

• 1:24:17Dax Shepard?

  Baggage claim?

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  No. Terminal? Terminal, thank you.

• 1:24:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay. The vestibule, vestibule three, you're flying out of vestibule.

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  Sometimes you just have to put in a word.

• 1:24:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I agree, I agree. And it had similar amount of syllables.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  I think it could count.

• 1:24:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Anyway, we got to the terminal. Terminal sounds.

• 1:24:35Dax Shepard?

  Terminal.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Just gate. What?

• 1:24:39Dax Shepard?

  Gate.

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  Gate, gate.

• 1:24:41Dax Shepard?

  But then for the Bill Gates conspiracy theories, that's a problem too.

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  Okay, we get there and Callie's like, oh, I think that's, um, that, that fancy chef. And I was like, oh, it's David Chang. Now, we've interviewed David Chang.

• 1:24:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  Additionally, we've also like been in Spotify events with him, like we've seen him.

• 1:25:03Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  Over time, it's not, but I, but I knew, I was like, he is not gonna know me out of context. So I'm going to like not say anything to him.

• 1:25:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay, you decide I'm not gonna.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I, you know, I was kind of like, well, but I really don't wanna get near him. Because I don't want this to be an awkward, or like if he's like, oh, I kind of do recognize her, but. I got kind of anxious.

• 1:25:27Dax Shepard?

  You overthought it maybe a little bit.

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  And then, you know, we got called up, so we went, but so something happened and we got sent up there, but it was the wrong gate. So everyone was like in line and it was the wrong thing and she, Callie and I were first, so the, the, um, woman told us it was wrong. And so then I was like, oh, and I like look over behind to kind of tell her and it's, and he's there.

• 1:25:51Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Right there.

• 1:25:53Dax Shepard?

  Right in your face.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  So then I had, I was, I felt I had to at that point.

• 1:25:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  Kind of say, so I was like, hey.

• 1:26:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  So uncomfortable. And he was like, hey, and I could tell, again, I knew, I was like, I knew this is gonna happen. He's gonna kind of know he should know, that I'm not like a stranger who's saying, hey.

• 1:26:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, even that tone of hey, you told him, I know you.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:26:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  But, and he was like, hey, how are you? And I was like, oh, I'm good. And then I just left, or no, I said, I'm, how are you? He said, good. And then I just left. Or Callie was like, let's go. You know, she got me out of there and.

• 1:26:39Dax Shepard?

  She got me out. She whisked me away.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, she had to step in, but like, I know, I don't know what happened. Clearly, I should have just been like Monica from Armchair Expert.

• 1:26:48Dax Shepard?

  I know.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  It's just so easy to do that, but it felt impossible. I was so befuddled at the vestibule. And, and then I just, we just stood on the side like idiots, cause also.

• 1:27:05Dax Shepard?

  Now you're, now you're really flogging yourself probably.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then we get to the airport, le, going home. And I was and and she said, what if David Chang is here? I was like, he no, he probably already. I'm sure he came here for like.

• 1:27:20Dax Shepard?

  One hour.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And then left. It's fine. And then we're sitting at the terminal gate and she's like, he's here. She's so excited.

• 1:27:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God. She wants round two of this.

• 1:27:34Speaker 01

  Thrilled.

• 1:27:34Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  I was like, oh, no. So again, again, avoiding and I managed to avoid this time completely. Until so Callie's sitting at the window. I'm sitting at the aisle. All of a sudden she just looks at me with this face. And I look over and guess who's sit.

• 1:27:51Dax Shepard?

  In your row.

• 1:27:52Speaker 01

  In my row.

• 1:27:52Dax Shepard?

  Single banger.

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:27:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. Now what?

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  Ignore the whole time.

• 1:27:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  I had to ignore him the entire and he was like. Kind of having an issue with the bat. Well, his he was holding a thing we think is bread.

• 1:28:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  And I wanted to know where the bread was from.

• 1:28:11Dax Shepard?

  Sure, sure, sure, sure.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  But I didn't. I just I just like looked like to the right the whole flight.

• 1:28:18Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. That's intense.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  It was so upsetting. And then. She was like, do you want to switch seats? I was like, well, no, that's really weird.

• 1:28:29Dax Shepard?

  He'll think you thought he smelled.

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, and or his bread smelled.

• 1:28:34Dax Shepard?

  Well, not the bread. People like the smell of bread.

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know what it was. I don't know what it was.

• 1:28:40Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  But I did want to know. And I guess and we made a plan that if for some reason there was another.

• 1:28:47Dax Shepard?

  A third flight.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  Action. If there was another interaction that I had, I could ask. Oh, what you got in there? That was my line.

• 1:28:57Dax Shepard?

  You're really flailing.

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  Is it bread? Where'd you get it? We can't talk to him again.

• 1:29:05Dax Shepard?

  It's funny.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  Sorry, Rob. None of us can eat in any of these restaurants or do any of this.

• 1:29:09Speaker 04

  Do you want me to text him?

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  Guys, stop it. Why do all of you have this deep relationship with him and he doesn't even recognize me at the airport?

• 1:29:19Dax Shepard?

  He's in Idaho every year.

• 1:29:20Speaker 04

  I see my food stuff often, too.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  It really humbled me.

• 1:29:23Dax Shepard?

  Oh, man, I'm sorry you had that. I feel like I brought you back to seventh grade or something.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, like in the lunchroom.

• 1:29:30Dax Shepard?

  You're with Callie.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:32Dax Shepard?

  Like you feel I'm sure like a lot of old muscle memory was triggered.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  It did feel. Like we were in the

• 1:29:38Dax Shepard?

  And he was a quarterback or something.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  Or we were at the mall.

• 1:29:41Dax Shepard?

  You gave him nothing, just familiarity and then potentially a false curiosity about his bag.

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:49Dax Shepard?

  He sounded like a little monster. Yeah. Hello, David.

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  Even after I decided, God, it would have just been so easy for me to say Monica from Armchair Expert. I didn't, I had the opportunity. I didn't do it again.

• 1:30:03Dax Shepard?

  I will say in his defense, he was on Zoom. That was a Zoom interview.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  We, we saw him at the Spotify dinner.

• 1:30:09Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  Multiple times.

• 1:30:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  Obviously not as many times as the two of you have seen him.

• 1:30:15Dax Shepard?

  Right. I'm on vacation.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Not memorable, which is probably true.

• 1:30:19Dax Shepard?

  Not true.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  It's out of context.

• 1:30:22Dax Shepard?

  Very out of context.

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  I wasn't with you. It was awful and I really want to know what the bread was.

• 1:30:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Can you ask?

• 1:30:29Dax Shepard?

  I'll ask. I'll ask. Hey, my friend Monica was on a flight with you up to Napa. Opposite experience. My kids made fun of me for the first three days in Hawaii. I, I mean, you know, I don't ever talk to anyone on an airplane. I, I just want to watch my shows I've brought on my iPacks and that's my goal.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Oh, you mean like the people you're with?

• 1:30:49Dax Shepard?

  If I'm seated next to somebody, I'm not striking up a conversation.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, yeah, no.

• 1:30:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm trying to watch all this content I downloaded on my iPacks.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:58Dax Shepard?

  I've got it so mapped out, like I'm going to watch this many episodes of this. But I got sent a video of a dude that was filming riding behind me on a motorcycle at Circuit of Americas in Austin, the racetrack. Before takeoff, it was just like I had enough signal to download this video and watch a lap. And I'm, I'm watching it and then I hear the guy next to me says, uh, oh, is that Coda? And because he immediately knew it was Coda from like two turns, I go, oh yeah, it's Coda. Do, do you, have you been there? And he goes, oh yeah, I do a lot of track days there. And then his name was Boyd. And Monica, entire trip to Hawaii, five and a half hours, we talked like two schoolgirls.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:31:43Dax Shepard?

  Boyd, what a stud. He's a builder who lives on Maui and is so in the cars and everything. My kids just couldn't get over it. They'd never seen me.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:31:53Dax Shepard?

  They get up or I'd have to take Delta to the bathroom. She'd go, wow, you're really talking that guy, huh? There's like, does he need a break?

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you were talking to Zira. Well, I guess we have strengths and weaknesses. You talk a lot and I don't talk at all.

• 1:32:09Dax Shepard?

  Nope, that's, there was in no reference to your story other than it reminded me I had a real ideal seatmate, which never happens.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't talk either.

• 1:32:19Dax Shepard?

  It was such a fun and good conversation. It felt kinda crazy to not exchange numbers at the end. I can see how people fall in love on airplanes.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  Hmm, yeah, meet Cutes.

• 1:32:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I told him where I was staying and I kept.

• 1:32:31Speaker 01

  You were hoping he'd pop around.

• 1:32:32Dax Shepard?

  I kept, at dinner, I would like look, I'm like, I wonder if he'll just.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  That is like a love interest. And what happens is you're talking to the kids at the restaurant, you're chit chatting, and then you just see like out in the distance, there's Boyd and he's standing there and he does a little wave. And then you get up and you beeline and then you make out.

• 1:32:50Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah. All but the make out.

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  That's how it goes.

• 1:32:58Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. We get support from our sponsor, Lilly. For adults with obesity or with excess weight and weight-related medical problems, it's time to find out about Foundo or for Glee Ron. Foundo is a once daily prescription GLP-1 medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

• 1:33:29Speaker 05

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• 1:34:09Speaker 05

  Once Daily Foundo is available by prescription only in 0.8mg, 2.5mg, 5.5mg, 9mg, 14.5mg, and 17.2mg tablets. Learn more at foundo.lilly.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX. Now is perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundo.

• 1:34:33Dax Shepard?

  I have one more update from the trip.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:34:35Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so we went because Kristen is, again, time 100 most influential people.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:41Dax Shepard?

  We did not, I did not, and Ma, and I know she didn't either. She, we didn't, she, no, we didn't look at the list. We didn't know who was, who was nominated, other than her. I guess I know, you're not nominated, you're declared.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:53Dax Shepard?

  So my joke, the two days leading up to it is, was, you know, I bet the first 40, it's so obvious, right? They're at the committee, oh yeah, that person, that person. And then 40 through 85 is probably a little, takes more time.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:35:13Dax Shepard?

  My hunch is 85, the last 15, I bet is like a month of them in a room. What was that song? I never even heard of that, what? No, they can't be on the list. Like, I just imagine, it gets harder and harder to make a case.

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:35:27Dax Shepard?

  It's a lot of people to say.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:35:29Dax Shepard?

  Anyways, go to the event. And to our excitement, Adam and Naomi Scott are there.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  Adam was selected as well.

• 1:35:37Dax Shepard?

  Adam's one. So like, oh, phew.

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  That's fun.

• 1:35:40Dax Shepard?

  Very fun.

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  Friend of the pod.

• 1:35:42Dax Shepard?

  Friend of the pod, just a friend, good friend.

• 1:35:45Speaker 04

  I have an update.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  You texted him? Rob!

• 1:35:49Dax Shepard?

  Wow, this is like Lionel Richie. Uh oh, haha, I did say hi when we left Burbank for Napa, but I didn't get a response. So I wasn't sure if it was actually her, or maybe she did and I didn't hear, or maybe I'm just gaslighting myself. I thought it was her, so it was pretty strange when I returned on the same flight, was sitting next to her. If I had doubled down and said hi again, it would have seemed very odd, especially if it wasn't her. This was really a curb your enthusiasm moment. I did bring home all this bread that my kids never ate.

• 1:36:24Dax Shepard?

  Good job, Rob. That's a great.

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  That's a great update.

• 1:36:27Dax Shepard?

  Leave it up, leave it up.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  That goes to show, you know, we both were thinking, I, I said hi, though. I said hi.

• 1:36:34Dax Shepard?

  But it.

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  And then he said hi.

• 1:36:36Dax Shepard?

  It really demonstrates just how awkward being a human being is.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:36:40Dax Shepard?

  He was like, is that her? That's, that's, well, if it was her, she would have been a little more engaging.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 1:36:45Dax Shepard?

  Then she fucking iced me out on the flight, would never look at me. You owe him an apology.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  How dare you? How dare you twist us into that? It was, I recognized him. I said hi.

• 1:37:00Dax Shepard?

  You should send him a loaf of bread or something.

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  He should send me one. Why, why am I?

• 1:37:04Dax Shepard?

  You're in trouble.

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  Why am I in trouble?

• 1:37:06Dax Shepard?

  I slept till fucking 1:00 PM.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  This is great. This is great. We were both, hold on, I gotta take a picture of that and send it to Cal.

• 1:37:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's really funny stuff.

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  Ha ha.

• 1:37:17Dax Shepard?

  He really wrote a long, look at that. He gave you a paragraph.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  What did, Rob, what did you say?

• 1:37:23Speaker 04

  I just said that you brought it up on the fact check that you saw him on the way to Napa and back.

• 1:37:27Dax Shepard?

  That could be from Natalie. I mean, we don't know the providence of this.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  Rob, are you being a rascal?

• 1:37:34Speaker 04

  It's 100% him.

• 1:37:36Dax Shepard?

  But it's how hard to trust Rob.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  I can't believe you can text him like that. I can't even talk to him in real life.

• 1:37:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, he'll just be like, hey, dick, what the fuck's up? Monica shit the shitter slacks around you.

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  Why didn't you talk to Monica?

• 1:37:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, rat.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Okay, well, it's hard to be a person.

• 1:37:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it just, I think it demonstrates how awkward everyone feels at all times, even if you're both successful in your own right. You're still walking around like you're in seventh grade and you're not sure the person knows who you are.

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  Ah, seventh grade lunchroom.

• 1:38:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay, back to time 100.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 1:38:11Dax Shepard?

  The event is, and I know I'm gonna get myself excluded right now from ever being nominated. I'm looking around the room. Immediately, I'm so excited, you guys. As everyone knows, I wanna be around Simone Biles so bad.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:38:24Dax Shepard?

  She was there. I went up to her mom and told her mom how much I love her and I wanted to know if everyone asked her to do her hair now.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was cute.

• 1:38:32Dax Shepard?

  And then there's a bunch of people I don't recognize because they've done something heroic around the globe that year.

• 1:38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:37Dax Shepard?

  And so the thing kicks off and it's like Snoop Dogg is emceeing, what a party. Snoop Dogg, he's right there. That's so exciting. So, and I'm like, how's this dude a better host than everybody? Like he's reading off the proper like all people, but it feels so good and natural. He's just an ace.

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:54Dax Shepard?

  That's a blast. Woo. Let's go now to this honorary, immediately a microphone. And this woman has been freed like 68 days earlier from Hamas.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:39:06Dax Shepard?

  And she tells this long story, this absolutely one of the worst stories you've ever heard in your life. And then begging for her husband who's still there.

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 1:39:16Dax Shepard?

  In tunnels to be released.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  This is horrible.

• 1:39:20Dax Shepard?

  And you're like, you went from like Snoop Dogg cheering. So it goes from that. And now you're just kind of like, oh man, fuck. I feel bad that I was having a good time.

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:39:29Dax Shepard?

  And then back to Snoop, like bring out this great pop country star. And this guy gets out and he starts rocking on a guitar and he's like, everybody on your feet. And now we're all standing up and we're dancing. And then it goes to immediately, you know.

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  Climate change.

• 1:39:46Dax Shepard?

  Oh yes. It was just like this. Woo, woo. You didn't know what, and it's on TV. You could see where you would be, you'd have the wrong look on your face.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:55Dax Shepard?

  You just couldn't settle into a fucking mood or a tone.

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:39:59Dax Shepard?

  Or if we were there to have fun and celebrate, if we were there to really cry.

• 1:40:02Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:40:02Dax Shepard?

  And be fucking heartbroken and bummed.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Isn't that life?

• 1:40:05Dax Shepard?

  Ah, it was a very accelerated version of life.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  Wow. Speaking of New York City, when I didn't go to New York, something really, this was really the opposite of Sim and the opposite of a me cute.

• 1:40:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  So I was supposed to go, as we know, I didn't go because of Buddhism.

• 1:40:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  I don't know if I should say, I won't say who. There is a person in this industry, not, not the podcasting industry, the entertainment industry, who I love. I'm, it's not Ben and Matt. This isn't a, I think potentially an available person.

• 1:40:46Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  Very extremely attractive.

• 1:40:50Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  I love him.

• 1:40:53Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  So I was supposed to go to SNL when I was there.

• 1:40:57Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  Jon Hamm was hosting. So I was supposed to go to SNL with my friend Sally.

• 1:41:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  And I didn't go, obviously, because I didn't go to New York. And she texted me the next day. She said, I met your boyfriend last night. And I was like, oh, Ben or Matt? And I was still upset about that, obviously. And she said, no, this person.

• 1:41:22Dax Shepard?

  The new Ben and Matt.

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  And he was backstage.

• 1:41:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  With her, like with where I would have been.

• 1:41:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no, with Sally.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and at the after party, and she talked about the after party because she said he's like, he looked kind of alone.

• 1:41:39Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you love when someone's alone.

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  I do. I know, maybe it actually, maybe.

• 1:41:46Dax Shepard?

  You could have had the most regrettable experience of your life, given this, I'm glad you, I'm glad you had a trial run with David Chang, because that wasn't even, there's nothing, there's no stakes.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  No, that's what made it hard. I don't know, I don't know what happened. I think it would have been great.

• 1:42:03Dax Shepard?

  Can I play a role in this? Do I have access to this person?

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  Well, we could maybe have this person on. There's a project. There's a project coming up that I think we could potentially have this person on this show. Now, we will not say who it is when it happens.

• 1:42:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  Anyway, so I missed a huge meet cute opportunity.

• 1:42:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  And I, it like kind of, like I think about it every other day. While I masturbate. No, no, that was a joke. That was a joke. But for real, it was sad.

• 1:42:42Dax Shepard?

  That's sad.

• 1:42:43Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:42:43Dax Shepard?

  I'm sorry. The opposite of Boyd and I.

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  It, it is.

• 1:42:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:48Speaker 01

  It's the opposite. I'm having a lot of opposites of you and Boyd.

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  Really unfortunate. Really unfortunate. Anywho.

• 1:42:57Dax Shepard?

  So I had a fucking time of my life dinner with Vincent.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  Oh, Vincent did not have a friend of the pod.

• 1:43:04Dax Shepard?

  Oh, man. What a boy. I love him so much. Can I say one more thing?

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:09Dax Shepard?

  We had as much fun with Naomi and Adam. Is when I used to go to New York, like in my 30s.

• 1:43:16Speaker 01

  Fun.

• 1:43:17Dax Shepard?

  We ended up in a back elevator, like a service elevator to get out of there. And as we got in there, there was a room service tray, someone's room service tray. And there was a half drank and cup of coffee. And I said to Adam, how much would you pay me to drink this cup of coffee? Would you go $5? And as I was saying, would you pay me $5? I just drank this cup of coffee. And, um, well, okay, you didn't like that story. It was so funny. I felt like I was in seventh grade and he was so, he's putting hand sanitizer on it. And I just drank a random person's half cup of coffee. And then I picked up the tray and then what was the item in there? And then I took a scoop of it. It was an old dessert. Yeah. Yeah, it was like, I was acting like I was back when Aaron and I were

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:59Dax Shepard?

  Causing too much trouble. I couldn't believe how much fun I had out on the town. Like I was in my 30s and then I've been tired for two days.

• 1:44:08Speaker 01

  Oh, um, you know how I haven't been able to finish a book?

• 1:44:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  And I've had like

• 1:44:13Dax Shepard?

  Did you finish all fours? You did, right?

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, all fours is the last book I finished. And I've been reading Intermesso Ding Ding Ding Hats.

• 1:44:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  Hat riddle that we'll do later.

• 1:44:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  I've been reading that since December and I have like a hundred pages left and I just can't do it. Like I can't do it. I stare at it on the nightstand and it has like, it has like

• 1:44:36Dax Shepard?

  It's haunting you.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Squiggles coming out of it, like deep, like brown squiggles. And I don't want to touch it.

• 1:44:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  So, you know, I have this block about reading and then my friend Maddie, who's in town, she recommended a book. So I went to Skylight and I bought it. And then on the way out, there was another book there.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  That I grabbed last minute because it looked fun. I judged a book by its cover.

• 1:45:02Dax Shepard?

  Okay, good.

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  And I've read 130 pages in two days.

• 1:45:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 1:45:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:08Dax Shepard?

  Congratulations.

• 1:45:08Speaker 01

  I have high hopes that I'm gonna finish it this week.

• 1:45:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good.

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  And I love it.

• 1:45:13Dax Shepard?

  What is it?

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  I think you would like it, although it's fiction. You don't read too much fiction.

• 1:45:17Dax Shepard?

  That's right.

• 1:45:18Speaker 01

  But it's called Atavists.

• 1:45:21Dax Shepard?

  Atavists?

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Atavists. Something-

• 1:45:24Dax Shepard?

  Show me the cover, because I want to see what grabbed your attention. Yeah, it's a word I don't know, I've never heard of, and there's cute little foxes and bunnies on it. And then the name, Millet? Is that the author's name?

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, Lydia Millet.

• 1:45:34Dax Shepard?

  That's a cool name.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, and let me tell you-

• 1:45:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, won the Pulitzer?

• 1:45:38Speaker 01

  Finalist.

• 1:45:39Dax Shepard?

  Finalist.

• 1:45:39Speaker 01

  The word atavism, coined by a botanist and popularized by a criminologist, refers to the resurfacing of a primitive evolutionary trait or urge in a modern being.

• 1:45:50Dax Shepard?

  Ooh.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  And it's all these short stories, but they're all connect, all the people are connected.

• 1:45:55Dax Shepard?

  Ah.

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  And it's such a funny and interesting exploration of human behavior.

• 1:46:04Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I would like that.

• 1:46:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, you would like it.

• 1:46:06Dax Shepard?

  Naughty human behavior?

• 1:46:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, no, some, some naughty, some fringe, some, some horrifying, some-

• 1:46:16Dax Shepard?

  The gambit.

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  Beautiful, the gambit.

• 1:46:18Dax Shepard?

  Gambit. You say gambit, you really hit that B. I say the gamut.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  Oh, no, am I wrong?

• 1:46:25Dax Shepard?

  No, I think it is a camp, the Queen's Gambit. I think it's with a B, I just, I don't hit that B, you really nail it.

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  Gambit.

• 1:46:31Dax Shepard?

  Gambit. The whole gamut is what I say.

• 1:46:35Speaker 04

  Gambit's also a word, too.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Is it the same word?

• 1:46:37Speaker 04

  A complete range or scope of something.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:46:40Dax Shepard?

  Oh, so you're, you've been using the wrong word.

• 1:46:42Speaker 04

  Gambit, strategic move, or often in a gamer situation. So I think it is the Queen's Gambit.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 1:46:48Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so it's, it's the whole gamut. That's okay, this is great, real-time learning. We claim to love learning, but now we're not.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:56Dax Shepard?

  Didn't enjoy that learn.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  Strategic move, often involving some kind of sacrifice, intended to gain a future advantage.

• 1:47:05Dax Shepard?

  So then you could say, like, he was running a gambit, meaning some kind of strategy against me.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  Chess, politics, business, and even social interactions.

• 1:47:14Dax Shepard?

  If people don't watch you on the fact check, they are, they are missing out on 99% of the ride. That look.

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  Oh my God. Anyway, that was, you don't think I've been beat down enough today?

• 1:47:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:28Speaker 01

  But it's all right. It's the, it's the truth. I don't know words.

• 1:47:31Dax Shepard?

  No, you know.

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  Best to be able.

• 1:47:33Dax Shepard?

  You have incredible vocabulary.

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  Anyway, gamut.

• 1:47:37Dax Shepard?

  Gamut.

• 1:47:38Speaker 01

  Runs the gamut.

• 1:47:39Dax Shepard?

  That's helpful. Cause I was like, could I really be dropping the B that much?

• 1:47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  All right. Well, okay. Some facts. This is for John Bernthal.

• 1:47:49Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wonderful.

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  Quaker values. Quaker values, often summarized by the acronym spices, are centered around simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, service, and stewardship. These principles guide Quakers' lives and their interactions with the world, emphasizing direct spiritual experience, inclusivity, and a commitment to social justice.

• 1:48:13Dax Shepard?

  All right. So you're on them again. And let's say what we think our worst two qualities are of that list.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:48:18Dax Shepard?

  So simplicity.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Peace.

• 1:48:21Dax Shepard?

  Peace.

• 1:48:22Speaker 01

  Integrity.

• 1:48:23Dax Shepard?

  Integrity.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Community, equality, service, and stewardship. Something's happening when I'm saying S's recently. Are you hearing it?

• 1:48:32Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:48:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:48:33Dax Shepard?

  What happens?

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  Getting kinda anxious that I'm having.

• 1:48:35Dax Shepard?

  You have a lisp?

• 1:48:36Speaker 01

  Like something is going on. Yeah.

• 1:48:39Dax Shepard?

  Mr. Dags.

• 1:48:40Speaker 01

  Maybe it's inflamed.

• 1:48:42Dax Shepard?

  Spices.

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  Spices. Okay.

• 1:48:43Dax Shepard?

  Simplicity. Oh, I would say simplicity is my week. That's weak, right?

• 1:48:49Speaker 01

  Hmm. Well, I guess depending on how.

• 1:48:54Dax Shepard?

  What aspect of your life are you looking at?

• 1:48:56Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:48:57Dax Shepard?

  But I don't think I make things simple per se. I think I tend to have a lot of balls in the air all at the same time, trying to do too many things, go to many places, have too many vehicles, trying to live 10 different lives at once. Not good at simplicity.

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:49:12Dax Shepard?

  It wouldn't work for me either. I don't even aspire to that one.

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  No, you should. Quaker values.

• 1:49:17Dax Shepard?

  I don't have to live all of them, do I? I can just like, all a cart. And then integrity? I, I think I'm mid level there. That's good.

• 1:49:25Speaker 01

  Simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, service, and stewardship.

• 1:49:30Dax Shepard?

  I go peace, probably. Yeah. How about you?

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  Those are really linked, I would say.

• 1:49:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, simplicity and peace.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Um, I think my worst spices are service.

• 1:49:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  And maybe stewardship. Like, you said stewardship's kind of like, what is it again? I don't really get it.

• 1:49:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so it's like, you're the steward of your flock. You're the steward of your wealth. You're the steward of your objects. Do you maintain them? Do you cherish them? Do you do you take good care of everything that you were kind of gifted? And are you responsible with all this stuff that you were gifted?

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  Well, not objects.

• 1:50:08Dax Shepard?

  Not objects.

• 1:50:09Speaker 01

  But if we're talking about, if we're getting more abstract about it, yes, I think I am a good steward of like, people.

• 1:50:17Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  But I don't think of objects, but so, okay, maybe I won't pick that. Maybe simplicity for me, too.

• 1:50:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  I don't live a very simple life.

• 1:50:25Dax Shepard?

  Right. I don't want to live. It's, that feels akin to boring.

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  No, there, there are times, especially since I've become Buddhist, that I've like,

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  had thoughts of like, what, yeah, what is all this? What is all this? Like, we're just, it is so much noise and distraction and, and it could just be simple.

• 1:50:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but I think if you know about yourself, and I've had therapists tell me this, and I've had other kind of clinicians tell me this, like, I am an arousal personality type.

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:51:02Dax Shepard?

  Like, that is, I love being aroused. So I think it would be, I see the value in it.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:10Dax Shepard?

  But I also don't think that's my path.

• 1:51:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:12Dax Shepard?

  You know?

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  That works. That's, makes sense.

• 1:51:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  You're, you're just not going to be a Quaker.

• 1:51:17Dax Shepard?

  No, but I like it a lot. If I, well, it'd be up there if I'm forced to join

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  I love these.

• 1:51:22Dax Shepard?

  Some kind of religion. Yeah, this is good. This is where my friend Christine joined. She's very, very intelligent.

• 1:51:28Speaker 01

  Okay, um, who was on the class?

• 1:51:33Dax Shepard?

  All that sounds vaguely like Stoicism to me, by the way.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  It also sounds like Buddhism.

• 1:51:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  It's all kind of.

• 1:51:39Dax Shepard?

  All these things are really.

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  All the good ones are the same.

• 1:51:41Dax Shepard?

  Did you watch Heretic, that movie?

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, my God. I've been meaning to bring it up to you. Oh, my God.

• 1:51:47Dax Shepard?

  Great. I watched it on the airplane.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I liked it.

• 1:51:53Dax Shepard?

  Me too. I love him.

• 1:51:55Speaker 01

  Me too. Hugh Grant.

• 1:51:56Dax Shepard?

  Hugh Grant is so skilled.

• 1:51:59Speaker 01

  He really is.

• 1:52:01Dax Shepard?

  He's so charming. It's absolutely bonkers.

• 1:52:04Speaker 01

  But he, he's, yeah, he's a powerful actor.

• 1:52:06Dax Shepard?

  Beautifully. He's still so good looking. Yeah, it's a great movie, isn't it?

• 1:52:10Speaker 01

  Great movie about religion.

• 1:52:12Dax Shepard?

  Iterations. I keep thinking of the word iterations everywhere I go. I took a long bike ride yesterday and I was just like thinking on iterations. That's a big thing and theme of the movie.

• 1:52:22Speaker 01

  It's, it's a scary movie.

• 1:52:23Dax Shepard?

  Religions had all these same tenants prior to the Judeo-Christian ones.

• 1:52:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  But it is a horror movie.

• 1:52:32Dax Shepard?

  It is a horror movie.

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  The girls were really good.

• 1:52:34Dax Shepard?

  It's my kind of horror movie. It's just creepy.

• 1:52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:37Dax Shepard?

  And suspenseful. It's not like machetes and chainsaws and.

• 1:52:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:52:41Dax Shepard?

  Ghouls and.

• 1:52:42Speaker 01

  And it's, you know, a kind of a crazy person, but his theories aren't that crazy. I mean, it's, it's.

• 1:52:53Dax Shepard?

  This is consistent with all these things. It's like Maxime's really good until a line in the sand. But also that movie hinges on him as an actor because he keeps getting them to stay and quiet their fears. And if it's not Hugh Grant.

• 1:53:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:07Dax Shepard?

  Like they, that was really cast dependent.

• 1:53:09Speaker 01

  It was. The girls, so it's two girls and him in the whole movie.

• 1:53:14Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm. They turn out to be way smarter than you think, which I like.

• 1:53:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were great too. That, it was, I highly recommend that movie.

• 1:53:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  Okay, the cast of The Class is Andrea Anders, John, Lizzie Kaplan.

• 1:53:31Dax Shepard?

  Ah, lover.

• 1:53:32Speaker 01

  Friend of the pod.

• 1:53:32Dax Shepard?

  Lover.

• 1:53:32Speaker 01

  Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

• 1:53:34Dax Shepard?

  Friend of the pod.

• 1:53:34Speaker 01

  Friend of the pod. Heather Golden-Hirsch. We haven't met her yet.

• 1:53:38Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:53:38Speaker 01

  Sean McGuire, not quite yet. Jason Ritter, friend of the pod.

• 1:53:43Dax Shepard?

  Um, first live show.

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Those are, first live show, those are the regulars that I see. Well, Lucy Punch is in 13 episodes, but it looks like the rest are 19.

• 1:53:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay. What a cast.

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  Great cast.

• 1:53:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:58Speaker 01

  Um, the current rubles to American dollars, one Russian ruble equals point zero one two US dollar. A hundred US dollars is eight thousand four hundred and three point thirty eight rubles.

• 1:54:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so eighty four rubles per buck.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  Okay, the price of Bitcoin today.

• 1:54:21Dax Shepard?

  Oh, this is a random Bitcoin update.

• 1:54:24Speaker 01

  Ninety four thousand one hundred and eighty point seven seven, down a hundred and twenty three.

• 1:54:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but that's up. Last time you did it, it was eighty eight thousand.

• 1:54:32Speaker 01

  Okay, so maybe it went.

• 1:54:33Dax Shepard?

  It's on the rebound.

• 1:54:34Speaker 01

  Well, no, because today it's down negative one hundred and twenty three point oh two.

• 1:54:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay, just today.

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  So it must have rebounded and then.

• 1:54:42Dax Shepard?

  This is a wild ride, this cryptocurrency ride.

• 1:54:45Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 1:54:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and the stock market.

• 1:54:47Speaker 01

  Good thing we're tracking it.

• 1:54:48Dax Shepard?

  Market's very wild ride, too. A lot of wildness out there.

• 1:54:53Speaker 01

  It, there is. I just wanted to shout out his wife who works in a ER trauma center.

• 1:54:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, that's so cool.

• 1:55:00Speaker 01

  It's so cool. It's very ER. It's very the pit.

• 1:55:03Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:55:04Speaker 01

  And I, I think that's.

• 1:55:06Dax Shepard?

  Admirable.

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  Very admirable.

• 1:55:08Dax Shepard?

  Me too.

• 1:55:09Speaker 01

  And she's probably living simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, service, and stewardship, all the spices.

• 1:55:15Dax Shepard?

  Probably, yeah.

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  And that's it.

• 1:55:18Dax Shepard?

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:55:20Speaker 01

  Love you.

• 1:55:20Dax Shepard?

  Love you.

• 1:55:36Dax Shepard?

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