#2310 - Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez is a director, producer, and screenwriter known for films including "Desperado," "From Dusk Till Dawn," and "Machete." He is the founder of Troublemaker Studios and Brass Knuckles Films. www.brassknucklefilms.com This episode is brought to you by Visible. Join now at visible.com/rogan This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/JRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The Joe Rogan Experience. Training by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

• 0:12Joe Rogan?

  Oh, man.

• 0:13Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 0:13Joe Rogan?

  Very, very nice to meet you.

• 0:14Speaker 02

  Incredible to meet you.

• 0:15Joe Rogan?

  I'm a fucking gigantic fan.

• 0:17Speaker 02

  Man, I appreciate that.

• 0:18Joe Rogan?

  I just love what you've done because like, anybody who could start their career off and make a movie for $7,000 is a hero.

• 0:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 0:27Joe Rogan?

  That's such a, just an incredible accomplishment to make a movie that people still watch and talk about today for seven grand.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  It was an experience, for sure. I, I had a really good plan and it backfired. So, I tried to, right away when it worked in a different way, I wanted to share that experience. I wrote a book called Rebel Without a Crew that really inspired filmmakers.

• 0:51Joe Rogan?

  You did the audio for it, too.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Just recently, I couldn't believe it, I hadn't read it since I wrote it and I had forgotten a lot of the details and now I can see why it inspired so many people because it, you know, when you're in your early twenties, six months feels like six years.

• 1:07Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  So, when you read it now and go, "Oh, my God, from inception to making it penniless by myself to toast to the town," it's like that. It was unbelievable. I couldn't wait to shout from the rooftops to all the other filmmakers like me who thought they couldn't get in, how I did it exactly, I wrote a book about it. And I'd read it now and I'd go, "Oh, my God, this is an impossible story." I keep laughing during the audio, but going, "Okay, what you're reading right now never happened before and it never happened again." It was like lightning in a bottle and you would see, every time I thought something wasn't going my way and I was really bummed about it, within weeks, an upshot, beyond. And it really taught you that you just gotta follow your instinct. If you have an idea, go, even if you know no one else has ever done this before, and you'll end up someplace different.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  I'm gonna ask you about that because I know you end up doing the same thing a lot.

• 1:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Where it's not manifesting so much in that way, you're just kind of following your nose, you're doing something that just sounds ridiculous. Even when I tried to tell one of my teachers what I was gonna go do that summer, I said, "I'm gonna go try and make a movie." And he goes, "Oh, yeah? Who's gonna be your director of photography?" And I said, I didn't want to tell them I'm the whole crew. And he said, I'm, I'm the DP. Oh, the actors are gonna hate you. You're gonna be there setting up your lights all the time. I'm like, okay, I'm not even gonna tell them I'm the rest of the crew. It was just because I had read this advice that meant to be good advice, but it sounded really depressing. It was someone had written, if you want to write screenplays, write three full screenplays, throw them away. Your fourth screenplay will be it. It's like, I haven't written a screenplay. It's very hard to write a screenplay.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  It's hard to write, it's like, three huge meals that you're just gonna dump. Why not, okay, write the script, throw it away. But while you're throwing it away, why not also shoot it and direct it? Light it yourself. Do the sound yourself, so that you're training yourself on each one. So I thought, where can I do this? Where I can get paid to do that? Like, my own film school, where I get paid to learn. So I discovered that there were these straight to Spanish movies that are action movies. You go to the, you've seen the HEBs around here? There used to be a video section to rent movies, and there was a Spanish section. The Spanish section had movies like, there were just action movies. They had a soap star. They were made for thirty grand, forty grand. Shot on video, no action, but it had a title that looked kinda like a US title,

• 3:21Speaker 02

  like, perros rabiosos dos, like, written like Lethal Weapon 2. And you would rent it, it'd be like, just crap, people in an apartment talking. It wasn't, so I, I looked at the back of those and I thought, we can make a better one, probably for like, five thousand dollars. Cause I had made a short film called Bedhead, by myself with a wind-up camera. It was eight minutes, and it cost eight hundred dollars. So I thought, multiply it times ten, I could do an eighty-minute movie for eight thousand dollars. But with dialogue and everything, I bet I could get it for under eight. Probably more like five or six. Let's go shoot a movie. Write it, shoot it, I'll be the whole crew. So I learn all the jobs, and then we'll sell it to the Spanish home video market. No one will know it's me, cause it's Robert Rodriguez, a bunch of Robert Rodriguezes. I'll make three of those.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Cause I was so young, I was winning a lot of film festivals with short films. But I thought, if someone sees one of my short films that's winning all these awards, they're not gonna hire me to do a short film, they're gonna hire me to do a feature, and I've never practiced that, so I need practice. So I'm gonna practice three films. Take the best scenes from them, have a demo reel. With the money I make from them, I don't know how much I can sell it for, so I gotta make it really cheap. Let's just do the first one, then we'll know. Then I'll take that money and make my first American independent film, and that'll be more serious. Because I threw it away like that, I just thought, well, let me just make something fun. Action movie, I guess I could do action. I started as a cartoonist, so I was more comedic than anything else. I said, well, an action movie, let's make it fun. Let's make it about a guy with a guitar case full of weapons, kinda like Road Warrior, who goes from town to town with a guitar case full of weapons.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  But I can't afford Road Warrior on the first one. So, how about I just do a Genesis story? So I took out these cards and I go, okay, maybe he was a guitar player. In fact, that'll be a funny title, because I have this comedic sense. I thought, I'm gonna make a movie that's got so much action, and it's actually shot on film, but I'll call it, basically, The Guitar Player, which promises no action whatsoever. Put it on the shelf, and if someone happens to be so desperate to watch it, they'll be surprised. You know, that was like my joke to myself, but I just wanna practice. So I did this method where I just got the cards and I go, I'm used to making short films. Guy with a guitar case walks into a bar, looking for work. They refuse, saying, we don't hire people, we use a synthesizer now. He leaves.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  A guy with a guitar case full of weapons walks in after, shoots the place up, says he's going after the guy who owns it because he did him wrong. So I put those two cards down, and I went, okay, that's how a short film would start, but shit, this is a feature. So let me put, it's gonna need like, three scenes before. This is how fast you write?

• 5:50Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  The script, I wrote that script, because it was, again, I'm throwing it away. I'm just gonna make something that I wanna see, because no one else is gonna see it.

• 5:56Joe Rogan?

  You're getting paid to practice.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  If I can sell it, I'll be paid to practice. So I thought, okay, we gotta figure out who this guy is. Okay, how about he's a guitar player who's coming into town? But wait, who's the guy that shoots the place up? Let's start with him in jail. I read a story about a guy in Mexico who was running his drug business from his jail cell, and he used it as protection, he could walk out at any time. If someone puts a hit on him in jail, he shoots them up, tells the bad guy, I'm coming after you now. I'm coming to your town, I'm gonna shoot up your town. He passes the mariachi on the road. The mariachi is a mariachi, the guy who just wants to be a musician. We get to know who he is, and then he walks in the bar. And then the guy comes and shoots the place up. Well, now he's gotta leave and go to another place, so now he's gotta go meet the girl, and now this is gonna happen. And because it's a, you know, movie about a guitar player...

• 6:41Speaker 02

  He's got to have some kind of tragic past because Road Warrior had a tragic past. Mad Max, he lost his wife and kid. Oh my gosh, she has to die because that's going to be, every movie is going to be like a sad song in a songbook. So it kind of just broke that fast. And when I shot it.

• 6:55Joe Rogan?

  Did you do it like that with the index cards?

• 6:56Speaker 02

  Index cards. I do this for everything.

• 6:58Joe Rogan?

  And just laid out on a table?

• 6:59Speaker 02

  I do this for everything.

• 6:59Joe Rogan?

  For everything.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  I do this talk where I, by the end of the talk, I say, I keep these in my, in my bag. It always makes me smile because I know I've made a million dollars with this before.

• 7:11Joe Rogan?

  And that's a tiny little.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  This is a tiny one you can carry anywhere. I gave this to my kids one Christmas.

• 7:16Joe Rogan?

  For people that are just listening, it's closed together with rubber bands.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Rubber bands. I gave this within a, in a cool little leather bag for my kids one Christmas. I thought they would say, what's this shit? They loved it. I said, you can change your life with this thing. Because a lot of times, you know, you go to a therapy, not for answers, you go for questions. We have the answers inside us. Usually we ask ourselves terrible questions. The therapist asks you questions like, why do you, why did that make you feel? Why'd you do that? What's, what's going on? If we do our own questions, like what's next? What goes before this? Your mind comes up with the answer if you ask the right question. So I've used this for like, we usually ask unempowering questions. You know, the words we use in ourselves are so important, but so are the questions. Like, why am I such a loser? Well, I can give you 10 answers right now.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  But if I change it to, what three things could I come up with to start this week that would not just change my life, but everyone around me? You don't come up with three, you come up with like 15. Just keep coming out. And as you look at them, you go, these kind of go together and are actionable. I can actually start this right now. I mean, you can literally change your life. Business ideas, movie ideas, stories, just with a deck of cards. By the time I build up and show all the examples of it, at the end of the talk, I hold up one of these with the rubber bands to the crowd. And I say, who wants to change your life?

• 8:36Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  Everybody's hands go up. I toss one out, they catch it. In fact, I remember my nephew about seven years ago caught one. And it's funny because he's on Broadway now. It's just like, lets you map out your life. Another friend of mine, DJ Katroni, he's an actor, he caught one. And he said, wow, that talk you gave was so empowering and how you wrote it. I went home and I picked up an old script I hadn't picked up in a while and I just cut off the phone for three days and I finished it.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  And I said, you finished a script in three days? I like the feedback loop that happens when you inspire somebody. Well, I'm gonna try that because I got a bunch of half-baked ideas that I've never gotten none that way. You did it in three days? Yeah, if you shut the phone off, you can do it in three days. And now that movie's out, it's coming out. It's called Fight or Flight with Josh Hartnett.

• 9:18Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  After hearing the talk, he went and picked up this old thing that he thought.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  And I get this a lot when I've talked to people. It's really inspiring to them to hear other people. That's why I'll ask you questions about it, too.

• 9:30Joe Rogan?

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• 10:16Joe Rogan?

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• 11:00Joe Rogan?

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• 11:43Joe Rogan?

  Go to drinkag1.com/joe and for a limited time, get a free immunity bundle, including a bottle of omega-3 fish oil and vitamin D tossed in with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro, backed by a 90-day money-back guarantee. That's drinkag1.com/joe. How did you develop this approach? Is this something you completely invented yourself, just to map out life on index cards?

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Writers will often put index cards up to just kind of block out a scene. It's a visual way to see your story. Like when you lay it out and you go, oh, this worked. I'm missing a section here. But again, like this is asking you, what can I put there? You'll come up with a bunch of ideas and it almost gives you like an overview. But I started it when I was a cartoonist. I had a daily cartoon strip. So I would draw on different cards, different drawings, and every day I had to come up with a comedic idea and a drawing and a story. And it was tough. You'd have to draw it out. And you would sometimes make two drawings that you really liked and go, oh, this kind of is the setup. One, two, three, payoff of the joke here. And I'd come up with it, like that. So I kind of use it for everything.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  It's kind of a more, I'm a more visual kind of person. So it helps you visually see something that's normally like written words and stuff.

• 13:06Joe Rogan?

  So it started off with cartoons and then worked into writing, but I haven't seen too many people apply it the way you're explaining it, like you could actually use that to fix your life.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Oh, fix your life completely. Because there's another question. It's just a question. And the amazing thing is, once you start doing stories, that's why I like doing a lot of original franchises. Probably like made the most original franchises of filming, because I don't usually direct other people's stuff. Because you realize you're creating this story, like I just made this guy's destiny happen. And I can give him a good outcome or a bad outcome. It's in my control. And you realize you can do that with your own life. So you're writing the story of your own life of who you're gonna become, who you're gonna be. And as a parallel. And you realize you've got that power. And when you realize you got that power, you can, you can make literally anything happen. And it's, uh, I, you realize art and life should be the same.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  You know, so many people, I, I was telling this story to somebody and they said, wow, you're really positive and that kind of makes a lot of sense. You know, I have a project that's pretty much all together. Almost the pieces are there. But I guess I'm just not ready. It's gonna be on your tombstone. Here lies so and so. He was never ready. You can't wait to go do it. Like with life, you don't know what's gonna happen. You wanted to work out today. What happens? Bunch of shit, right? Got in the way. Your tires flat. Fires went up. You just got fired. You can't, you're not ready for life. You're like this. But for some reason, people, artists think that they need to be ready to create art. It's like, no, you gotta jump in and just start. You just need to start. You're not gonna

• 14:43Speaker 02

  really feel ready till you're almost done with a project. I didn't feel ready to make that $7,000 movie till the last few days when I was like, okay, now I wrap my head around it. I have to figure it out day by day.

• 14:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, the procrastination really cripples people.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, or thinking that they need to know more. And you don't realize the answers you get that you need are not gonna be figured out sitting at a desk, it's gonna be on the floor.

• 15:03Joe Rogan?

  I think it's kind of a fear of incompetence and failure, especially if you're undertaking something like starting a film. Like some people just, for whatever reason, they don't have the confidence to just potentially fail. And just, just try it. Just get moving. Just get, you know, having way, my friend Ari on his laptop, he has this quote. Top of his keyboard, uh, first draft of everything is shit.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:26Joe Rogan?

  And it's Hemingway.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:27Joe Rogan?

  I'm like, God, what a great fucking, it's like such an important thing to know.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Cause he knows the process.

• 15:31Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  If you trust the process.

• 15:33Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  You don't have to worry. And if you question, well, I don't know, you're an artist. That's what an artist should think, but don't let that cripple you. I call it fear forward. Like you should have some fear going into something.

• 15:42Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Like I might screw up, but that's good. That means you're not wasting your time.

• 15:46Joe Rogan?

  I think it's really important for people to hear someone like you who's accomplished so much, say it that way. Cause they can internalize it and go, okay, this is what it is. I just have to do something. I just have to actually get moving. I just can't sit around waiting for the perfect time, cause it won't happen.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  It's not gonna happen.

• 16:02Joe Rogan?

  And there's that thing, like you have to, hey, you know, I always give people copies of the War of Art, Pressfield's book.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:09Joe Rogan?

  Amazing.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  It's a great book.

• 16:10Joe Rogan?

  But it's all about that. That book is, if you're trying to figure it out, that book's the guidebook. Read that book. It's a short little book, super easy to read. And it gives you the tools to put in your head, like, oh, this is resistance. Like this procrastination, this is this weird fear of doing it.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:27Joe Rogan?

  Cause it's not like the thing you're doing is painful, which is really crazy. Like writing out cool plot lines and this is, that's gotta be fun.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  It's really fun.

• 16:36Joe Rogan?

  Fun.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Now, the making of it might be very painful.

• 16:39Joe Rogan?

  Tedious.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  But it's a very short amount of pain versus a long-term pain of you not living your dream.

• 16:44Joe Rogan?

  That's the longest.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  That's the longest time you can spend. That's the longest time in pain.

• 16:49Joe Rogan?

  There's, um.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  You just rip the Band-Aid off and jump in.

• 16:52Joe Rogan?

  I mean, I'm sure there's a, a bunch of people out there that are in the middle of that right now. They're trying to figure out.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  We have to keep reminding ourselves, cause we know, and we gotta remind ourselves, sometimes we forget and we don't apply it to other areas of life. I'll talk about that. That's when I really found success was when I, when I took these ideas and moved it to another area. But like, I try to figure this out. When I was, I was doing that other method, the wrong method, when I was cartooning. Because I would, it would be so hard to come up with a cartoon strip each day. But I needed the money and I had a daily cartoon strip here at UT. We had the biggest comics page in the country. It was really, everybody wanted to be the next Burke Bredd. He'd come out of there, he did Bloom County. He was a UT student and his college art was like national stuff. So we all wanted to be him. And so I would go like, this gotta be an easier process than sitting here and working it out. I want to come home and develop a process where I sit on my couch and I just picture it first.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  I picture the comic, I picture the jokes, I picture the drawing, then I gotta just go draw it, right? I'd be there two hours, three hours, my deadline's coming up, shit, it's not working. So I have to go, fuck, start drawing again and be like, okay, this kinda goes with that one. Oh, here it is. And I realized something really profound back at, you know, 19 and it's really carried into mariachi, which is when you pick up the pen or the keyboard or the camera and you start, it starts doing itself. You realize it's not you. It's coming through you because there's a creative spirit assigned to us that needs hands. And it's not gonna reward you if you're doing that, because they can do that. But as soon as you pick it up, it takes over.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  So I realized, oh, I just have to be a conduit or a pipe. And if I just start, I'm gonna be like, whoa. And you gotta keep your ego out of it, because then you go, wow, how did I do that? I wonder if I could do it again. You just shut it, you just shut it right back up because you think it's you and it's not you. And I know this works because I taught it to my kids when they were younger. I thought, I gotta teach it to my kids. And since they hadn't learned any bad habits, they went, oh, so we didn't have to do anything? We just have to start writing and it's gonna come out and go, yeah. And they went, they wrote all this amazing stuff. And I was like, they don't have to be reversed, you know, reversed. But that, that was a very powerful thing. And I saw when I did another $7,000 movie recently, I had a TV series based on Rebel Without a Crew.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Where I got independent filmmakers, so it only made short films and I gave them two weeks. I said, you gotta do like mariachi. You can bring one person to be either cameraman or your sound guy, but you gotta do the whole movie yourself. Write it, direct it, edit it, and be shot in two weeks. That's how long it took me to shoot mariachi. And they're all, oh, we don't know how we're gonna do it. By the week they started shooting, they're already talking about their next three films. Like, they changed their idea of what was impossible has just dropped out. So I was really curious to do mine. I was doing one based on my medical experiments I did to pay for mariachi, which is another story. I definitely want to get into that. And I brought my son, I brought my son Racer, because I knew he hadn't been working with me on the movies for a while. I'm gonna make him my second guy. He's gonna be my co-writer, my co-lighter, and he's gonna be doing the sound. And I didn't show him how to use the sound equipment till we're filming, because we're documenting it. We

• 19:57Speaker 02

  made a documentary about it, and people really loved about how we made this movie today for $5,000. And he was fumbling around, and we're going, and I thought, they're gonna, he's gonna hate this. You know, he's got his own interest. He doesn't want to work on a movie. But I need him. And so he comes to me at the end of the day with his brother and goes, Dad, the actor didn't show up, the set didn't match, the location didn't match the script at all. Everything was falling apart. We asked you how we're gonna finish the day, and you said, well, I don't know. We'll see what happens. And we thought, oh my God, is this the movie that finally, you know, he can't figure out? But by the end of the day, we figured it out. And their eyes were all wide. And, oh, they don't realize. That's the creative process, and that's every day, in life and in work. Life, you

• 20:41Speaker 02

  don't know. You're gonna figure it out as you go. Art should be the same way. And by the end of the two-week shoot, they're interviewing him. He's all waxing philosophical about the creative process, like he's been doing it for years. He goes, I never knew how my dad did mariachi. And then now I know, because I just did this project. He didn't know either. He just started, and he figured it out day by day. Most people never start. I mean, he succinctly encapsulated everything I tried to say in my book, which was, you just gotta go. And identity is key. Identity is the main thing. All these people who are out there, you gotta tell them this. If you are listening, and there's something you're not getting in your life that you really want. It's not, it's not a matter of desire. You have the desire.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  There's a, there's a missing element that I talked about in the book and I'd forgotten myself. You know, we forget our own good advice. Over the years, people would say, hey, in your book, it says this. I'd go, I wrote that? I was so smart back then. What, what happened? I gotta go reread my own book. But it was this thing where I told people, because they would come up to me a lot, because I was making films really early on and say, I'm an aspiring filmmaker. You might hear that. I'm an aspiring comic, you know? I'm an aspiring filmmaker. I'd go, stop aspiring. You're calling yourself an aspiring filmmaker. That's now your identity. You're always going to be aspiring. Just say you're a filmmaker. Take one of these cards and make a, a business card, even if you have to handwrite it, who you are. I'm a direct, I, I wrote, I did one. I had it printed up.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Director, cinematographer, editor, composer. I, that's who I am. Now you're going to have to conform to that. And you're going to start making films. That's, I started making these films even for Spanish video. And so you have to think at first, and I'd forgotten that lesson. So, and I wanted to use your gym because, you know, I like to work out now. I never did. You started as a cartoonist. I'm surprised. I, I was always an artist. I was really tall, you know, for school.

• 22:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I started, I was an illustrator when I was a kid. I wanted to do comic book illustration.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:36Joe Rogan?

  That was my thing.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:38Joe Rogan?

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• 23:40Speaker 02

  Fun, right?

• 23:41Joe Rogan?

  Love it.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Because it's just, it's not you. You know, you start drawing and then suddenly...

• 23:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. When did you learn that? I don't think I knew that. I think I was doing that, but I didn't know it. And until I started reading about it, like the concept of the muse, the concept of...

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Oh, right, right, right.

• 23:56Joe Rogan?

  Like that you just have to sit down and do the work and it comes to you.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it started when I was 19, doing the comic, but then it kept getting repeated.

• 24:04Joe Rogan?

  But you realized it at 19?

• 24:05Speaker 02

  I realized it at 19, that that was the process.

• 24:07Joe Rogan?

  That it wasn't you?

• 24:08Speaker 02

  It felt like something else, but then it really hit me later on. And I'll get to that one.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  It really hit me later on where I kind of put it all together around 2001, 2002, when I was doing a movie where I was, again, kind of going back to the way I did mariachi. I was on a big movie, though. I was the writer, the director, the producer, the cinematographer, the editor, the composer. I was doing all these things. Plus, I was doing the production design now, and I was taking on more jobs to make it more like a handmade film, more like a lot of factory movies are being made. I said, "I want people just to feel different. I think they'll get a feeling from it they don't get from, you know, a McDonald's process. They're still good, but you know, there's something about a home-cooked meal." And I didn't even know how to read or write music. And I was writing music for a 100-piece orchestra. And I was like, "How?" Figuring it out by notes, going, "Eh, eh."

• 25:01Speaker 02

  There's only 12 notes. You go even less than a scale, so you hit three notes, four notes. "Ah, that's a bad note. Okay, that's pleasing to the ear." And I was just writing it note by note, because it's a kid's movie, so I figured it should sound like a kid wrote it. And I'm like a kid, it should sound like that. And I was writing pretty complex stuff, not knowing what I was doing. I go, "How is this even possible? That I'm doing all these jobs I wasn't trained in?" So I went on Amazon and I looked up any book that had the word creative or creativity in it. I just ordered it. I didn't know what section it came from. They just arrived. And I'm thumbing through them, and one of them is really speaking about the creative process, how it worked. And I was like, "Wow, wow, that's how it is, that's how it is." And then it said gels and mediums. And I was like, "Oh, this is a book particularly about painting."

• 25:44Speaker 02

  But it applies to all the other things I'm doing. That's when I realized that it's all linked. That creativity is ninety percent of any of those endeavors. Ninety percent of it is just being creative. The technical part, like writing, reading or writing music, and there's a lot of great musicians who don't read or write music, they're fantastic. The technical part, you can fudge that, like how to shoot the movie. You can fudge a lot of the technical stuff. Ninety percent is created, and if you know how to be creative, you can literally jump from job to job and do it really well. Because you're coming with your own experience, your own point of view. That's why I teach my actors to paint on the set. Because they've never painted before, and they're already being creative by acting, but in between takes, we'll go paint a portrait of their character.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Where I take a photo of them in character and have them paint a background. I said, just pick up the paint, you can use these three methods, any color you want, the paintbrush is gonna know where to go. Even though you've never painted before, it's gonna know where to go. And they do it, and I put a stencil of a line drawing of their face over it, I'll show you some. You're not gonna believe it, Josh Brolin was way into it, Lady Gaga did one, Bruce Willis did one. And it's just like magic, how it comes together, and it's to teach them that you don't have to know. You know, we always think, I need to know this, I need to know that. What about the other side? Half of the battle is knowing, what about the other half? Not knowing, I think, is the more beautiful and where the magic is, because you don't need to know what's gonna happen, you just need to show up. You just need to pick up the pen, you need to do the keyboard. Yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Because it just starts coming through you, and they see it, and it helps them go back to the set and solve any creative problem. Because it was much harder in the paint room figuring out gels and mediums and all this stuff. They go back to the set and they can solve any problem instantly, and you'd think that they're already in a creative mode by acting, but it fires off a whole other part of your brain to go do something else creative at the same time. Remember on the set, Josh goes, Is it okay I'm still thinking about the painting? I go, I think so. I think it's alright. Let's see. Let's see.

• 27:41Joe Rogan?

  That sounds like something he would say to you.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  That is so funny.

• 27:45Joe Rogan?

  That's like a Miyamoto Masashi quote from the Book of Five Rings.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:49Joe Rogan?

  Once you know the way broadly, you can see it in all things.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. You start seeing. And so that's where I started piecing together that it was something, because I really wanted to look it up, because it would feel like when I would go to write the music, I don't have to write very many notes before. It feels like I'm being pulled by the hand. Like, I didn't make that. I didn't make that.

• 28:09Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  And I didn't do that, and I didn't do that. But what is it?

• 28:12Joe Rogan?

  A lot of musicians say that, and a lot of comedians say that, too.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  Well, if you ask any, all the disciplines. Like, I go, I ask Jimmy Vaughn, how did you play that? That solo was amazing. Did you have that worked out? He goes, it's kind of like tuning a radio. You know, if you get it just right, you can't even believe what's coming through.

• 28:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  You know, you always hear everyone's version of that. And so I called it something. I thought, I'm gonna call it the creative spirit. Like, there's a creative spirit. Imagine the creative spirit that's assigned to you, and if you're someone who's just like, I don't think I can, I don't think I can do this or that. And they don't, and they don't pick up the pen. They don't, they don't actually start. How frustrated that spirit must be.

• 28:48Joe Rogan?

  The spirit's just hovering over you, waiting to be summoned.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Hovering over, going, oh my god, well, you just, it's not you. It's not you. You just let me through.

• 28:55Joe Rogan?

  And it's crazy that that concept has been around forever, this concept of the muse. But yet still, even though-

• 29:00Speaker 02

  I never heard it like that, where it's like, takes, it still feels like you have to do a lot.

• 29:05Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's how Pressfield talks about it.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  You just go, I just don't need to be a pipe.

• 29:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  A clean pipe, a conduit, so more stuff comes through. And that means take your ego out of it.

• 29:12Joe Rogan?

  I mean-

• 29:13Speaker 02

  And just, just do the work. Just show up and start.

• 29:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Pressfield literally thinks that it's like, like an angel, or like some sort of a divine presence that presents, I think, I think there's something to it, man. And it's, it sounds so kooky, but if something is super successful for amazing people, and they're all telling you the same thing, like, why do you have to? Nah, man, I'm not stupid. I'm not gonna believe in the concept. Whatever the fuck it is, there's something that happens when you're creative, where you feel like an antenna. You feel like you just take, these ideas are coming to you. They're entering into your mind. It's not physical effort. It's not like you're picking up bricks and stacking them on the wall. Like, something is happening to you.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. You're tapped into- I had a friend of mine, Tim Ferriss, was over at my house and I was telling him about some kind of, you know, it's a very creative house, really, because it's where I do a lot of my creative work and a lot of creatives like coming to this place. See, you have to come check it out, so you can see the frisettes I have.

• 30:13Joe Rogan?

  Oh, you have original frisettes?

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, we'll get to that, we'll get to that.

• 30:17Joe Rogan?

  Oh, my god.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  But it's just totally, totally, you have so much of your favorite frisettes. Totally creative place, and I like people to come there, but it's just inspiring to be in an environment where everything around you is about creativity, because then you get in that headspace.

• 30:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  And you're able to do more, because you realize it's not you, it's just coming through you and you just gotta, and you just have to witness it. And it just takes a lot of the load off of you. A lot of people can start easier if they know, oh, it doesn't have to be me. Like, my kids, like, oh, it's not, I don't have to do it? I just have to actually pick up the pen? Yeah, it's very freeing.

• 30:49Joe Rogan?

  Hmm, yeah, it's something that everyone should learn. With anything in life, anything that you're doing in life, is just to take action and trust this process that happens.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:59Joe Rogan?

  But you have to do things, you can't just sit and wonder, and it's that procrastination and the anxiety about starting that's like crippling for people. It keeps them from getting off the ground.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  And they're doing that to themselves. You're literally doing this to yourself.

• 31:12Joe Rogan?

  Yep.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  So when you say, "Well, I don't know if I can," you just chopped off your leg. Right at the beginning of the race.

• 31:18Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Where you go, "Well, I tried it once before," you just cut the other one off. I mean, you're literally doing, you're your own worst enemy. I had this one gal, and fear of failure, this is the best thing. One gal, in one of the talks, she said, "Okay, you're real positive, but what do I tell myself when I just spent a year and a half doing something and it didn't work out?" I said, "Well, that's a very negative way to ask that, can you rephrase the question first, then I'll attempt?" And she went, "I learned a good lesson the hard way." I said, "Well, that still sucks." If you're focused on the failure, have you followed your instinct and it didn't work out?

• 31:55Speaker 02

  It doesn't mean you're wrong. Sometimes the only way across the river is to slip on the first two rocks. It's the only way. And if you just stay there, you're not gonna go. So you have to embrace the failure. Because if you're going on instinct, I mean, you're doing it literally on instinct, not like someone said, hey, go over there, there's a money-making scheme, go do that. Literally, you had the instinct. And my best example is Four Rooms. A movie I did with Quentin. Because if you study the ashes of your failure, you'll find a key to your next success.

• 32:19Joe Rogan?

  That was the movie where there was four different stories playing simultaneously.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Four different movies, four different stories. And I love short stories, because I had made a bunch of short films, I thought, oh, I wanna do that. So when Quentin asked, and I asked the audience, I like asking the audience, how would you answer this? Quentin goes, hey, I'm gonna make a movie called Four Rooms. Four different directors. You gotta use the bellhop, it's New Year's Eve, you're in a hotel, you can't leave your hotel room. You wanna do it? Hand goes up.

• 32:41Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Now, just on instinct. Now, I asked the audience, was I wrong to just go by instinct? Or should I study it a little bit? Nobody really knows the answer. What would you say? Would you study? Are you more studious?

• 32:53Joe Rogan?

  Me?

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Are you more instinctual?

• 32:54Joe Rogan?

  A hundred percent.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:55Joe Rogan?

  I'm primarily instinctual.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  I figured, because that's why you're here right now. Because we're not that smart. I'm not that smart. I couldn't have figured this shit out. It's because I was just at an instinct to go that way when everyone else was going that way. And you're gonna stumble, you're gonna fall, but you're gonna stumble upon. You're gonna stumble upon ideas no one thought of, because you're going the way that's not picked clean already.

• 33:15Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  So I would just like, Four Rooms, I said, yeah. Now, if I had just studied a little bit, I would have seen that anthologies like that never work. Like, even when it's Corso easy. You know, Woody Allen and Coppola, they did one. Nobody goes to see it, they don't know how to wrap their head around it. What is this, three movies, anthology? Doesn't work. If I'd studied first, should I have changed my answer? Nobody knows that answer. Well, I'm gonna go on instinct. I'm gonna say, I say instinct anyway. Movie bombs, doesn't do well at all. Now, I could be really upset about that and go like, wow, I gotta be really careful now going forward. I have to tiptoe around as an artist. Well, that's, that's not the state of mind I was when I won Sundance. I was throwing stuff out.

• 33:52Joe Rogan?

  Can I offer a counter to that?

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 33:54Joe Rogan?

  It only bombed financially.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Okay, no, no, I'm not done with this story.

• 33:57Joe Rogan?

  Artistically, it was a very good movie.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  There's a lot of great stuff in it, but it was even better than that. My whole thing is, examine the ashes of your failure. And I don't find one, I find two keys in there to my biggest movies, directly from that experience. So my instinct was right, but again, sometimes the only way across the river is slipping on the first two rocks. I was on the set, had to be New Year's, so I dressed everybody up in tuxedos. And Antonio had just done Desperado. The next week, he came and appeared in there. The little boy from Desperado, he had a little brother, so I hired him. And then I just found the best little actress, who's a half Asian girl, Asian American. So I cast an Asian mom. So it would look like they were a family. So I'm seeing Antonio and Tamlin Tamita all dressed up to deny it. I went, wow, they look like a really cool international spy couple.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  What if they were spies and the two little kids that can barely tie their shoes don't know it? They get captured and the kids have to go see them. So Spy Kids, there's five of those now. The other key to success that I got on that set was I love doing short films. That's why I signed up for it. It didn't work, but I'm gonna try it again. Not four stories, three stories, like a three act structure. Not four directors, but the same director. I'm gonna try. Why on earth would I try it again? Except that I had just done one and I figured out there might be a different approach. That's Sin City. So Sin City and Spy Kids directly came from that thing you would call a failure. If you've focused on the failure. So go back and look, tell everybody, go back and look at something that you had a real instinct for,

• 35:27Speaker 02

  that you did and it didn't work, and sift through the ashes of it. And you're gonna find either that you've already had the success from it and you didn't realize it. What you really need is a boost of confidence in your instinct. Or you will find something that will be the key to your success.

• 35:44Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's also the magical part of the creative process is that it's not always gonna work. And that's actually good. That means when it does work, it'll be even more rewarding.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, mariachi didn't work.

• 35:56Joe Rogan?

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• 36:39Joe Rogan?

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• 37:23Speaker 02

  I failed at that. I was gonna sell that to the Spanish home video. This what's blew me away about rereading the book. I'm like, oh, my God, I was so bummed. I finished making that movie. And you see in the book, clearly, I'm a penniless, clueless filmmaker. Making this movie, I think by myself, I think it's gonna work. I don't know. A borrowed camera, I didn't even know how to use it. I call a place in Dallas that rents this equipment. I go, I got an Aerie 16S, you know, on the phone. It has two motor looking things. One has one number and one's got many. Oh, that's a variable speed motor. It means, oh, can I do slow motion with it? You know, I was literally learned to like that. And then I went and shot the whole movie. And I had to shoot the whole movie in two weeks. And I couldn't develop the film till I got back. So I shot blind, not knowing if that camera was even working.

• 38:05Joe Rogan?

  Is it true that you invented the walk away with the explosion behind you?

• 38:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was accident. Yeah, yeah. If you can look at all the compilations, it starts with desperado.

• 38:14Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Because it was an accident. I didn't think, you know, this is what happens on desperado. In the script, it says he throws some grenades over the side of this building to blow up the bad guys and him and Salma walk away. It was just supposed to see some body parts fly. It was just a grenade, you know, that was supposed to be a nuclear explosion. Just some body parts, some shrapnel and some smoke. But it's two stories up and we get there, we're shooting so fast. I went to my poor effects guy who was just, you know, so busy just having done a big shootout and I went, Mandy, I know you don't have body parts, we didn't ask for it. But do you have anything we can just throw? It's so high up, is there anything you can launch up there? And he goes, oh, no, I don't have anything. So I need something to come up because I wanted some shit to fly up behind him. And he goes, I give you fireball. I said, fireball, like?

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Like what? It'll go up 60 feet, but it's propane, so it's gonna burn off like that. How fast does it burn off? Like that. So, okay, I'll shoot slow motion. Okay, well, shoot slow motion. It's all the actors. Just keep walking. Don't turn around, because it's supposed to be pretty big, and it might be really hot. I want you to send your eyebrows. Just walk fast. Walk fast and determine, but I'm gonna shoot. It's gonna feel funny, but when I shoot it in slow motion, it'll look like you're just walking normal speed, and it'll slow down the explosion. Well, it looks fantastic. I remember when I showed you. Yeah, it looks fantastic. See, they're just walking. They don't know. Look at it. Tony was just like, look at her. She's just like so calm. But if you play that, if you sped that up and played it in normal motion, it goes by like that.

• 39:32Joe Rogan?

  It's crazy because that scene has been copied so many times.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  It became an action, like, staple. Look, so...

• 39:41Joe Rogan?

  They even used it for Fear Factor. Now that I'm thinking about it, we used it for one of the ads for Fear Factor. It was me walking away, and they blew some shit up behind me.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Because it's just like, it's this cool attitude and working the music.

• 39:52Joe Rogan?

  I thought it was the dumbest shit ever, because it was a TV show about people eating dicks. It wasn't an action movie.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  It was just an accident. Again, the accidents that you stumble upon.

• 40:03Joe Rogan?

  There you go.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  All right.

• 40:06Joe Rogan?

  That's hilarious.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  So, that came out in August of 2000, 1995. Just six months later, Dust Till Dawn came out, and I made that. I enjoyed it so much.

• 40:17Joe Rogan?

  I fucking loved that movie.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks.

• 40:19Joe Rogan?

  I loved that movie.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  I showed this explosion shot, you know, the movie, to Jim Cameron. He was watching it. I was waiting for his, because, you know, he was doing, it was like Terminator 2, blowing the shit out of everything. So, I was wondering if he'd like my little rinky-dink thing. And his hand went up in the air when he saw that moment. So, I thought, yeah, I'm doing that. I'm gonna do that in Dust Till Dawn. Dust Till Dawn, I had it where the actors come out doing the dialogue, though, and the explosion just keeps going, and they're walking away while having a conversation.

• 40:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  So, within two movies, within six months, you saw two versions of that. So, people just started doing. You see it in Man in Fire. You see, I mean, you see, like, whole compilations of it, but it's an accident.

• 40:52Joe Rogan?

  That's gotta be weird for you. Like, you're like, bitch, that's mine.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  No, no, because it wasn't mine. Again, it came, it came... If I had engineered it, yeah, I'd be really smart. But again, like I said, I'm not that smart. Sometimes you stumble upon...

• 41:03Joe Rogan?

  But it's gotta be pretty cool that it's become like a part of, like, action films.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:07Joe Rogan?

  Dust Till Dawn is so... First of all, who knew Quentin Tarantino would play such a good fucking psychopath? Who knew?

• 41:14Speaker 02

  What's so fun is, um... He's in Desperado now. I met him on the film festival circuit. So in 1992, we're both had movies with guys in black in violent movies. In fact, I met him at the Toronto Film Festival for Reservoir Dogs. They had Mariachi because they put us on a panel together to discuss violence in the movies in the 90s, even though it was only 92. And so we met there and became friends and he said, "Oh, my next movie is in Pulp Fiction." I just thought, "This crazy guy, he's so funny." And I said, "I'm gonna write him in Desperado." It was before he did Pulp Fiction or any of that. So by the time Desperado came out, Pulp Fiction was a phenomenon. And then people cheer when he walks on stage, on set. But when we were doing that Four Rooms, here's another thing that came from Four Rooms.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  If I hadn't done Four Rooms, it'd be No Dust Till Dawn. When we're doing Four Rooms, he takes me into a room and he starts reading me. And I got a, it's on the internet, I put it out. Him reading me the first scene of Kill Bill. This was in, you know, eight years before he made the movie. And then he said, "My very first script I wrote, and I didn't get paid shit for, like 1,500 bucks, was Dust Till Dawn. And now, because of the success of Pulp Fiction, they wanna make all my old stuff. And these producers have it. I didn't get paid dick, so I'll do a rewrite and you and I will go in together. You should be the director because it takes place in Mexico and you're Mexican." So I was like, "All right." That's the second time he read me a scene in 2001.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  There's one video where he's even younger in Four Rooms, reading me a second version of it. So over the years, he would read. We had an office next to each other when I was writing Desperado and he was writing Pulp Fiction. So he'd read out scenes, there he is. And I would read out, you know, show him scenes from Desperado.

• 42:57Joe Rogan?

  Fuck.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  And we just became friends there. He was originally gonna make Pulp Fiction for a Tristar and then they passed on it because they thought, "It's weird, it's long." And he went, did it for Miramax.

• 43:06Joe Rogan?

  Did he wanna be the serial killer?

• 43:08Speaker 02

  I asked him to, because I knew he liked acting and I just knew him as a person. Like, a lot of times I'll cast somebody just by meeting them. "I'm gonna cast you in a movie." Because you realize you can, there's something about them that captures you that's gonna just be magnified when you put a 50 feet on screen. That's why I've discovered a lot of talent that way. That's why I found Salma. I just knew she was gonna be it. But he was so, so great and I thought, this is a really fun character. I bet he could, he likes act, I can get a performance out of him and he'll come in with a take on it. So I said, I'll do Dust Till Dawn. Uh, would you be interested in playing Richie? He goes, I'd love to play Richie. I said, okay. Well, so he was the first person we cast. And he's fantastic in it. He's really great. He's really scary. Got all into character.

• 43:52Joe Rogan?

  He was terrified.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  Kind of had this really cool haircut. I, I showed him a picture of, uh, Burt Reynolds in Deliverance. I said, dude, you got the haircut of Deliverance. He was like, oh, wow. You know, he just really slipped into it. He was always in character and he was always intense on, on the set. It was really fun to see him.

• 44:08Joe Rogan?

  He was very believable.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  He really enjoyed that performance. I said, dude, you're so good in this movie. Anyone talks shit, they're just talking shit. It's bullshit through gritted teeth. Don't listen to anybody. You're really great in this movie.

• 44:17Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, no one's listening. You can't listen. Anybody's talking shit about Quentin in that movie, shut up.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:23Joe Rogan?

  He nailed it. He, he scared the fuck out of me.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Well, when you get a lot of success, people would tend to, you know, it connects you with target, you know?

• 44:30Joe Rogan?

  Of course.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  So they would, they would say stuff about him and, and being in a, well, he shouldn't be acting in his movies. You know, just bullshit like this. Like dude, this'll shut, they'll shut him up. And if it doesn't, it's just bullshit. Cause you're really great in the movie.

• 44:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. You just have to tune out the noise.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. How do you, how do you, how do you get past the noise?

• 44:44Joe Rogan?

  I just tune it out. I'm busy. Stay busy.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:47Joe Rogan?

  I don't read anything about me. That's the big one.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, don't read it. That's true.

• 44:51Joe Rogan?

  Don't engage. Like sometimes people send me things. I'm like, don't send me that, man. I don't want to read it. I'm not going to read it anyway. Yeah, friends.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 44:59Joe Rogan?

  They don't know any better or my sister might send me something. Yeah. It's just, I just go, just leave me out of it.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  I got some really good advice early on. I like to share this with people. I share this with my actors because they get a lot of shit sometimes.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  I was afraid to even do like a bigger movie because I was flying under the radar with, you know, Mariachi and Desperado. And then Spielberg sees Desperado wants to do Zorro with Antonio and me directing, right? So I go, cool, I'm working with Spielberg. And they're like, oh shit, I'm working with Spielberg. You probably remember this time because we were about the same age. Remember the eighties and nineties? People would just throw shit on him all the time, all the time. No respect for this guy. They were so jealous. Past, public, everything. He was like, he couldn't catch a break and he was making like the coolest movie. Ah, that movie sucks. Ah, Jurassic Park sucks. Unbelievable. So I thought, oh shit, it's because he's got his head way up. Maybe I should fly into the radar and I'm not gonna make, if I can make a movie with him, what chance do I have? I went back and rewatched, you know, like Temple of Doom,

• 45:54Speaker 02

  which people say, that's not as good as Raiders. I watched it and go, if I can make a movie that's an eighth of that, I'd be lucky. So I called him and said-

• 46:01Joe Rogan?

  They made Close Encounters.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  I know, jeez.

• 46:03Joe Rogan?

  That's a fucking incredible movie.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  But you get that much success and then people kind of resent it, right?

• 46:09Joe Rogan?

  It comes with the territory.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, but how do you get past it? I was curious for him. So I, I, I said, hey man, I just saw Temple of Doom. I don't know how I'm gonna make this movie for you. He goes, oh, don't worry about that. Just make a great movie. So then I go to him and I say, um, I'm afraid that if I make a movie at the bigger level, I'm just gonna be a target like him. I mean, he's the best filmmaker and he's getting shit kicked out of him. I said, how do you do it? How do you do it? Do you just, you get rocks thrown at you all day long?

• 46:39Speaker 02

  He goes, oh, Robert, you just don't blink. And I was like, wow, that's like a Clint Eastwood line. Wow, that's how he did it all his time. It's just like, just don't blink. Commit to making a body of work. I try to tell filmmakers sometimes if they have a success for the first one, they get really afraid of the second one because they think, oh shit, now I might fail, right? The fear of failure cripples a lot of people. If you commit to just making a body of work, a body of work, like he did, he just made any movie he wanted, some hit, some don't, some overperform, some underperform. A movie like Mariachi that was not supposed to go anywhere, way overperforms. And you can't tell what's gonna be the one. So just commit to a body work. And now no one gives him any shit. Now he gets some respect.

• 47:22Joe Rogan?

  I think it's also important to recognize that the people that are tossing shit your way, they're doing it to distract themselves from the fact that they're not contributing anything. It's almost always the case of that. That's what the critic is. The critic would not be a critic if they had something to contribute. So they see other people that are taking that chance and going out there and they're, they're acting-

• 47:42Joe Rogan?

  On their instincts and they're putting something together and they try to attack all those things as being garbage because really they're not contributing.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:50Joe Rogan?

  And so they're

• 47:51Speaker 02

  And they may very well want to.

• 47:52Joe Rogan?

  It's very easy to attack.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  And they may very well want to, but they're getting hurt by the fear.

• 47:56Joe Rogan?

  Most of them, yeah, well, the same instincts that make them want to attack successful people are the same things that hold them back from being creative.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Talk about closing that pipe.

• 48:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I mean, doing it to yourself.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  Doing it to yourself and by doing that to the people, if they would just commit to a body work, don't blink.

• 48:12Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  And just keep making shit, don't get somewhere.

• 48:14Joe Rogan?

  That's great advice, commit to a body of work.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  A body of work, like look at, someone, I mentioned this and a friend of mine, businessman, called me and said, wow, that really, that really spoke to me, you know, I tend to look at all the different businesses I have created that failed instead of looking at the whole body of work.

• 48:30Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 48:31Speaker 02

  And I fixate on the ones that didn't work and it's like, you never know what's gonna work or not, that's not your concern, just go make shit, follow your instinct, because again, maybe, maybe that one that didn't work is your four rooms. And you've got, and you've got, you get two other great ideas out of it. I've forgotten that Dustle Dawn came out of that as well, so that's the, that's the third one out of that four rooms.

• 48:50Joe Rogan?

  That's awesome.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  That thing gave and gave and gave.

• 48:52Joe Rogan?

  Dustle Dawn was so fun because it was two different movies, it was like this

• 48:56Speaker 02

  That's why it couldn't get made.

• 48:57Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 48:58Speaker 02

  So when he first wrote it, he couldn't get made because people, okay, so this is what happened, the effects company hires him and they, they said, we want a movie that'll showcase our effects in this vampire bar, it's about two brothers go to vampire bar, Quentin starts writing, he starts writing Quentin style, where he gets way into the brothers, so much into the brothers and it turns into like a Desperate Hours type movie for half the movie, he waits half the movie to get to the bar. So now, for, for financiers, it's now like a mixed bag, it's like two movies in one, right?

• 49:28Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  But it was a negative then, it was like, this movie's all wrong, it's like suddenly there, it's one thing and then suddenly it turns into a vampire bar, this, we can't make this. But then Pulp Fiction comes out and now everybody wants to make it, oh, it's two movies in one, it's great. Whole different perspective change, well, a little success will do for you. Four rooms, oh, four rooms, oh yes, four rooms, four times the fun, you know, so you never know, so I told Quentin, let's make it right now. Because we made it to our next movie, right after Four Rooms. So Desperado, Four Rooms, and so Desperado came out in August 1995. Four Rooms in December. Dust Till Dawn was in January. That's how fast those came out. We're working that fast back then. Wow. So I said, let's make this right now because you're starting to steal from the script.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  That Ezekiel speech that Sam Jackson says in Pulp Fiction? That's from the original Dust Till Dawn script. Really? He just took it, he was, he was pulling stuff out of it. Cause it was just not gonna get made. Scrapping an old car. So I said, before there's, before it gets picked clean, let's go make this thing. And we'll shoot it now. We'll shoot it right now. Wow. And it was so fun. It was so fun. I loved that movie. So fun. Cheech, Cheech is so great. You know, we did a table read and we have a table read with your actors. You only have your main actors there. So sometimes you'll assign other parts to other people who are there. So it was like, Cheech, why don't you go ahead and take, you play the main guy at the end, but go ahead and read for the, for the, oh no, he made, the guy who gives the speech in front. He was playing that character.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Read for the border guard and for the guy who comes at the end, Carlos, who I was gonna get like, you know, Eric Estrada or something. So he starts reading and he does each one, you know, it's immediate and he does everything in a different voice and we're like, by the end, I was like, wow, he should play all three characters. And so I asked Quentin, Quentin goes, hey, what if we get Cheech to play all three guys? And I was thinking the same thing. So I go and tell Cheech, Cheech is just frigging hilarious. And he go, hey, man, you're gonna play all three characters. Do I get paid three times?

• 51:18Speaker 02

  But this is why I love having comedians on the set, you know, because we're out there shooting that desert scene, you know, at the end. When the Cheech comes and the whole place is burned down. It's 125 degrees in the shade. We're in Barstow in a dry lake bed. So frigging hot. We're all just like, not moving. So I'm gonna have to go get something. We're all just, Cheech is like this in a suit with a hat. He goes, hey, Roger, can I, this is gonna be a walk, can I go to my trailer? I was like, oh, man. By the time you go, this guy's gonna be back and we'll have to start. We should just stay right here. Okay, I'll go into my mental trailer. Okay, high school dreams, air conditioning. Lines up the whole set. Okay, this guy's gonna be in every movie. He's been in 10

• 52:00Speaker 02

  movies a month because it's that attitude. You like that attitude. Somebody who can find levity and torture. Movies can be torturous sometimes. So having people like that that are really on your team that can really lighten up a set is just the best.

• 52:13Joe Rogan?

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• 53:19Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by the Farmer's Dog. Here's a fun fact. Research shows that dogs who maintain a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer on average than dogs who are overweight. Isn't that wild and also kind of obvious at the same time? So why is feeding vague scoops of ultra-processed kibble still the status quo for most dog owners? Healthy alternatives exist, and trust me, I know. I buy one, the Farmer's Dog. I use it for both my dogs. They love it. They eat it up quick. It smells good to them. It smells good to me. It's human-grade food. The Farmer's Dog Makes fresh food for dogs and my dogs love it.

• 53:58Joe Rogan?

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• 54:40Joe Rogan?

  It's so interesting because you never got, you know, Quentin essentially does these wild, chaotic action movies that just blow you away. You do everything, like you're doing like kids movies.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  There's a similarity to them. Yeah, there's a similarity to them. I'm still that cartoonist. So what they all have is they're all comedic. Like even the action movies are kind of just fun. I mean, think of Desperado. It's like a James Bond movie. He's got a guitar case that fires missiles. He's got this one that's got weapons. It's like Spy Kids is very much the same thing. It's just some are for big kids and some are for little kids.

• 55:12Joe Rogan?

  Even Sin City.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, even Sin City is very playful. The Sin City one was so dark. I remember the first book, the one that Marv, that Mickey Work plays. It was so dark. I was going like, oh, my God, it's gonna be dark. I have to add some levity to this and Mickey will bring humor to it. And it's the funniest episode. It's really funny, but he's in the book. It's, it's just like, oh, my God, he's just killing everybody. But you're really with him because of the way he portrayed it. We didn't change very much. We just added, you know, some humor to it. And that gallows humor really, you know, really works.

• 55:41Joe Rogan?

  Like when the yellow guy gets shot in the dick.

• 55:43Speaker 02

  Oh, that's the, that's the, that was a good one. Does a really good use of color.

• 55:48Joe Rogan?

  That, by the way, was one of the fucking creepiest characters ever in a film.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  And it looks like that in the drawing and I just wanted to, my whole idea was, because I'm so respectful of someone's artwork. You read Sin City and you realize that art is half of it. If anyone else in Hollywood were to make that into a movie, they would just make it like a gritty crime thriller. And take out the whole visual element, which is that stark black and white where people's eyes glow in the dark.

• 56:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  And it has all these layers of unreality. And I went to Frank Miller, I said, I want to just make this move. I want, this is like the coolest movie never made. And he actually wrote it because he had been in Hollywood writing a couple of screenplays and he got shit on and screwed around and the whole Hollywood thing.

• 56:33Joe Rogan?

  Jamie, can you show me the scene with Mickey Rourke and the yellow guy?

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Oh, this Bruce Willis and the yellow guy.

• 56:38Joe Rogan?

  Excuse me, Bruce Willis and the yellow guy? Just, I just wanna like, while you're talking about this, I wanna look at it.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  And, uh, yeah, so he, he went and made this comic, he said, fuck Hollywood, I'm gonna go make a comic that can never be made into a movie because it's so dark, it's so sexy and so everything. And I'd call him up, man, let's make a great movie.

• 56:58Joe Rogan?

  God, it was so interesting.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Oh, Bruce loved this. I gotta tell you, it's funny, so this is the fastest, I think, any Hollywood movie's ever gotten made.

• 57:08Speaker 02

  Really? Yeah, I'll show you the process. It's kinda like this cards thing. You're gonna, it's gonna blow your mind. What is it now? It's April? Okay, so imagine, this is, this is 2000, if this is 2004, April. Last year, I had two movies out. In the summer was Spy Kids 3D, it was the number one movie. Couple of months later, Once Upon a Time Mexico, another number one movie, but also both of them ended a trilogy that I had started. So I was looking for my next thing. I opened up my Sin Cities again. I was like, oh shit, I know how to do this now. I just did a whole movie on green screen, which was really new back then for Spy Kids 3D, because I wanted it in 3D. It was the first digital 3D movie. Because when you're in Austin, you just innovate a lot. George Lucas told me that. It's a

• 57:53Speaker 02

  good thing you're in Austin. That's why I'm in Marin County. When you live outside of that box, you think outside of that box automatically. You're just gonna stumble upon innovations. So I thought, I'm gonna go take this process and utilize it to make Sin City. So I did a test, a little test of it. I went, oh shit, this is gonna work. So it was October when I got that idea. I filmed it. I contacted Frank Miller, met him in New York. I showed him my laptop. It looks like his art, but then it starts moving. It's actor. And he's like, wow! And he gets all into it, right? It's November. And he goes, um, oh no, but then we have to write a script and the studio's gonna have notes. And no, that's not how it works. I got my own studio. I'll write the script. It's gonna be unremarkable. I'm gonna copy right out of your book and I'm gonna edit it down. I'm gonna edit three

• 58:35Speaker 02

  of the stories together. I'll write it this month. I'll show it to you in December. And then in January, we'll get a couple of actor friends. We're gonna shoot the opening scene as a test. You don't give me the rights yet, because I understand this is your baby. You've never given up the rights. I know what it's like for an artist to make something. Let me take all the risk. I'll go ahead and write the script. We'll shoot the opening scene. I'm gonna fly you down so you can watch. We brought Josh Hartnett, Marlee Shelton. That opening scene in Sin City, that was our test, 10-hour shoot day. And Marlee Shelton comes up to me and says, "Why did I hire this guy to kill me?" "Well, I don't know. Let's go ask Frank. He should know. It's not in the book, but I'm curious myself." So Frank answered her question and said, "I wanna do this movie." "No, no, let's wait." We had a whole process. "I'm gonna shoot the opening. I'm gonna cut it together. I'm gonna put in the effects. I'm gonna put in the music. I'm gonna put

• 59:20Speaker 02

  in fake titles. Then we're gonna watch it. And if you like what you see, then we do the rights and we make the movie. If you don't like it and you're still on the fence about it, just keep it. It's a short film. Keep the gift." So we committed to the process. We make the opening sequence. He loves it. He wants to do it. I take it to Bruce Willis first, which was cool about doing it that way, which is unheard of. When I went to his agent, his agent was like, "Wait." He leans forward very dramatically. "You brought actors down." Oh, because I told him, "This is Frank Miller. He's one of our greatest artists. He wrote in Hollywood and he got screwed around." And the guy goes, "Welcome to Hollywood," you know, like that. I'm like, "Yeah, whatever. I just respect the artist. So I just thought,

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  'Hey, you'll be a partner. You're gonna co-direct this with me. And we're gonna make this. We're gonna take all the risks. You're gonna come down. We shot this opening, which I have. I'm gonna show it to Bruce so he can see the book, but then he can see how it gets translated." And the guy gets very dramatic. He goes, "Wait, you brought the actors down. You shot this. You did the effects for it, and you didn't have the rights?" And I leaned in and went, "Welcome to Texas." All his little monkeys spit out water. Frank was dying. It was super annoying. They said, "Okay, you can go meet with Frank. You can go meet with Bruce." So I showed it to Bruce, and he's watching it. He looks at the book, and he looks at the thing, and he goes...

• 1:00:42Joe Rogan?

  Damn, this is really great.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  And then fake titles come up, his name's in the titles. And I go, look, you have to be in the movie, your name's in the titles. And he's like, I'm in. So he was in and we were shooting the finish, we were shooting the actual movie by March.

• 1:00:55Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  So by April, we're already done with it. We're filming the, the second story by April. It was out the next year. I mean, that's as fast as a movie's ever gone into production. All these actors jumped on right away once we had Bruce. And he loved, he loved doing this film noir type thing. And we're doing something very experimental, which is green screen. Nobody knew what green screen back then was. And what I told them was, well, it's kind of like theater. But instead of being in front of a black curtain, you're in front of a green curtain. You'll still have some props. You might have a steering wheel, like Clive just there just had a steering wheel. You might have, uh, but just mainly you and the actors and everything else goes away. And I'll fill in the, the later. So what's cool is their performances are so focused on each other because there's no other stimulus around. Then you got these great performances. We only built the bar.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  Hey Frank, we'll build the bar so that you have, but we have a place to hang out with and, uh, you know, do our story meetings. But everything else will just be on the same, you're going to come see the green screen when you come visit my studio. The whole movie was shot in an area let smaller than this room. By the time you bring your lights in, where the actors actually had their, the playground. It's unbelievable.

• 1:01:58Joe Rogan?

  Wow. That's incredible. And it was so inspiring too. That movie was so, because when I left the theater, I remember thinking, I've never seen anything like that before.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  It was like the comic, because the comic was that way.

• 1:02:10Joe Rogan?

  It was so different and it just like, when someone does something that really just steps up and, and, and enters into like kind of just a new area of art. Because that's what it felt like. It felt like a real legitimate comic book art movie. And this is before 300.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Joe Rogan?

  So 300 kind of took that as well.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, Zach called and said, how'd you do that movie? I said, I just put on a DVD. Go, I put all the, I put all the secrets on there. And they went and they shot the same way.

• 1:02:35Joe Rogan?

  It was such a good movie and it was, it was so fun.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  Because it was also Frank Miller.

• 1:02:38Joe Rogan?

  The thing about the, yeah, right? Same thing. But the thing about those kinds of films where someone like does something new. It's like, when you see something new, and I felt this way about Pulp Fiction too, you're like, wow.

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:02:49Joe Rogan?

  You leave the theater, like everything's different. You know, like the world's different, like that got made? Like this, like I, now I know. And the thing about people today. Like, young people today that don't know like how revolutionary Pulp Fiction was when it came out.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Joe Rogan?

  When it came, when it came out, it was like such a different kind of feeling that you got after you saw the movie. It was, there was so many what the fuck scenes that you left that theater like, Jesus Christ. It's like, the world was different. The world was different. Quentin Tarantino changed the world with Pulp Fiction. That's how profound it was.

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:24Joe Rogan?

  And I'm not exaggerating. It changed what was possible in film after that.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  No, I, I was, I was there during it. I remember the studios were just like,

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  we don't understand why this movie's big head. We don't have anything like this coming out, except, except your movie, Desperado, maybe, because Quentin was in it.

• 1:03:42Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:03:42Speaker 02

  And I was like, yeah, yeah, we, we got our pulse on the, on what people want. It's like, we don't, we don't know. So I gotta tell you really, uh,

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  two things. First of all, George Lucas told me that and he's like,

• 1:03:54Speaker 02

  I showed him the Sin City thing, because we'd both been early adopters of digital and DP's, directors of documentary, didn't wanna even look at digital. They were like, fuck that. They, they already spent all their time learning film. Which by sticking your head in the sand and not seeing where the times are going to the detriment. Now the cameras are designed and they, they don't look as good as they could look. But they weren't a part of the conversation. Where I was shooting my own movies, I wasn't gonna let some DP who didn't wanna get in digital, keep me from making, uh, uh, you know, Sin City. So I just shot it myself. I figured it out myself. So I showed it to Lucas and he was like, this movie will show people what digital's capable of. Finally, more than the Star Wars movies I'm doing, because it's just so avant garde and so crazy looking. But I only made it for me. I, I really wanted to see it made. I didn't, I literally didn't think it would be successful on its theatrical run.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  In fact, we didn't even test screen it. They're like, can we do a test screen? I'm like, no. What for? Everybody's gonna say it's black and white. Why is it black and white? Why are there three stories? That's all wrong. It's voiceover. It's all voiceover. That's all wrong. We know it's that way. Why would we go hear people tell us that that's not what a movie's supposed to be? Let's just put it out. Figure it won't do well theatrically, because you'll just see the first trailer and go, okay, black and white, it's not for me. It's very counterintuitive, which is most of the things I do, just like always go a different way. But they'll find it on video later and that's, that's good enough for me. But then it was a big hit theatrically. Now, let me tell you about Pulp Fiction, because groundbreaking doesn't look groundbreaking to you or anyone around you necessarily when you're doing it.

• 1:05:21Speaker 02

  I'd forgotten about this, but I journal. And I ran across an old journal and I brought it up to Quentin when I interviewed him for my director's chair episode. I have a show called The Director's Chair, where I interview writer-directors. His was so big, we did two episodes. We talked about all his movies. And I said, "Do you remember this time I found in my diary, right down to the hour? We went out to dinner." I mean, he was so into Pulp Fiction. Ever since I met him, my next movie's gonna be Pulp Fiction. I visited the set. He was into it, was into it. He finished the movie. And I said, "Hey, how did..." Because I live here in Austin, I don't get to hang out with him except when I go to LA. "How did your movie come out?" And he goes, "Yeah, it's not the one. It's like, it still feels like a movie Quentin would make." I'm like, "What? What do you mean?" It's like, it just doesn't feel like a real movie. It feels like another movie Quentin would make.

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  And I was trying to be the supportive friend, because I knew how much he'd put in. "It should be different." He's like, "Man, just wouldn't have it." It was like 2:00 in the morning, I was dropping him off at home after we'd been out. And so, I went back to Austin, and he'd had a screening for all his director friends, that I couldn't be at, because I lived in Austin. So, I called one of them. I said, "How was the screening?" And he was a little bummed about it. He goes, "Nah, this isn't the one for him." And I was like, "Really?" He goes, "Yeah, it's just too... Yeah, it's just not it." And I asked him this, and he goes, "You're right." You know, he'd forgotten about that moment. He goes, "In fact, yeah, people didn't get it. And in fact..." And he didn't get it either. He wasn't sure if it was it. In fact, one filmmaker even said, "I want to sit you down and tell you all the things that are wrong with this movie. But I'll wait till you get back from Cannes."

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  He goes to Cannes, he wins Cannes, and the friend left him a message there. "What the hell do I know? I've only made one movie." Everyone's mind was changed. So, he was surprised by it too. So, that's... I just want people to hear that, because you're making something groundbreaking. It's not like you're going, "I'm making something groundbreaking." You don't know that it's gonna do that. Sometimes things overperform. And that's why, if you just commit to a body of work, you're not gonna know which one's gonna be your Pulp Fiction, which one's gonna be your Four Rooms, you know? And if you just do that... Because I saw a lot of people get hurt, you know? Like, John Carpenter made The Thing. He thought he made a great movie. He thought he made an amazing movie. Bombs. Critics called it pornography at the time, if you remember, like this, the makeup effects. Audiences didn't go. It came out the same weekend, unfortunately, as E.T., right?

• 1:07:36Joe Rogan?

  Why do they call it pornography?

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  Just because it was just so self-indulgent and gross and nasty. I mean, they really reamed him to the point.

• 1:07:43Joe Rogan?

  So the special effects?

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, the special effects are really crazy, yeah.

• 1:07:47Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. If you don't remember the time, it was really like that. There was repulsion towards this movie.

• 1:07:53Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  I know you don't think that now, because ten years later, and it took ten years.

• 1:07:57Joe Rogan?

  I thought it was a hit.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  No, it was not. It was not. Wow. Ten years later, it was suddenly considered a classic. Now, if he had committed to a body of work, he would have just let that roll off his shoulders and just don't blink. But it really fucks you up if you think, I made it, my instincts must be off. I thought I made a great movie.

• 1:08:14Joe Rogan?

  It's a great fucking movie.

• 1:08:14Speaker 02

  It's a great fucking movie, but if no one else is saying that. So I asked Quentin, who, George Lucas had the same thing. He showed famously Star Wars to all his director friends. And they're all like, poor George, just wasted all his time on this movie. And Spielberg was the only one who was like, it's naive, it'll do good. And so I asked Quentin, was there anybody in that director's group? And he goes, yes, there was one. Catherine Begelow. She was the one who was championed and said, this is something new and different. No one else was saying that. But that's pretty amazing, right?

• 1:08:46Joe Rogan?

  That's super amazing.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  It's really, and I would have forgotten it if I had not written it down.

• 1:08:50Joe Rogan?

  There's a lot of films that slip through the cracks.

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:54Joe Rogan?

  For whatever reason, or they don't get received. You know what I saw recently that I fucking loved? The Monkey.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  The Monkey, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:03Joe Rogan?

  It's, it's a Stephen King book, that, or it might have been a short story.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a short story in one of his.

• 1:09:09Joe Rogan?

  That was adapted.

• 1:09:10Speaker 02

  Skeleton Crew or something.

• 1:09:11Joe Rogan?

  It's fucking fun, man. I watched with, my youngest daughter loves horror movies. We watch a lot of horror movies together. And we were, you know, looking for something the other night. We're like, all right, let's take a chance on this. Had no idea what it was. Watched the trailer. I'm like, are you in? She's like, okay, this is good. So it's fucking chaos. It's such a chaotic, insane, hyper violent movie.

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:09:36Joe Rogan?

  And but funny and just, you know, kinda scary. It was really good, man. It was fu- it was like a classic. What I really love about the early Stephen King work. Like his early work was like.

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  That's a, here's one that fell through the cracks. Like, and I was there at Sony when we were doing mariachi desperado. When this movie came out, I remember the marketing team said, we have a really great movie. Unfortunately, no one's gonna see it because of the title. So what is it called? He goes Shawshank Redemption.

• 1:10:03Joe Rogan?

  Oh, my god.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  And it bombed.

• 1:10:05Joe Rogan?

  What?

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  Oh, Shawshank Redemption bombed.

• 1:10:07Joe Rogan?

  What?

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  It was a bomb.

• 1:10:09Joe Rogan?

  How?

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  Nobody went to see it. It's called Shawshank Redemption? And what the hell? The guy's in prison? Nobody went to see it. And this is Sony marketing. They just couldn't get anybody to go see it.

• 1:10:18Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  But you've, history gets rewritten. Now, again, you can be Frank Darabont and be like really down. But fortunately, he didn't have to wait 10 years. As soon as it got to video, it became a phenomenon in video. And now it's considered, if you go on IMDb, it's always neck and neck with The Godfather is the best movie of all time.

• 1:10:36Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  That's a movie nobody saw. So again, look, don't blink. Commit to a body of work. You may make a classic. It might be the thing, and you're not gonna hear about that for 10 years. Just keep going. Don't let it. Don't let it make you question your instincts, because your instincts.

• 1:10:50Joe Rogan?

  I would have never guessed Shawshank was a failure.

• 1:10:53Speaker 02

  There's a lot of movies that are like.

• 1:10:54Joe Rogan?

  Incredible.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  That was a time when people could, um, really get a second life on video. Now, now it's different with streaming and all that.

• 1:11:02Joe Rogan?

  Opening night to see the audience to view their film, Darabont and Glotzer went to the Cinerama. Dome and found no one there. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

• 1:11:13Speaker 02

  Imagine just like, I don't know. I thought I thought, you know, as an artist, you're gonna be going, I must be wrong. I must have just don't have.

• 1:11:22Joe Rogan?

  That's clearly a fault of the marketing.

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  No, it's also just.

• 1:11:27Joe Rogan?

  I'm blaming them.

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I mean, because if anyone showed up, they would have gone and screamed it to everybody else. Sometimes it's just, it's just the way it goes. It's just, it's supposed to go that way. Now, I can tell you an alternate one that there's a movie called Body Parts with a guy named Jeff Fahey. I loved that movie Body Parts. What Eric Redd, he did the Hitcher, he did, you would never hear about it because the timing of it. And Jeff Fahey was a big Jeff Fahey fan. I remember in the early 90s, I kept going, I was at my mother in laws and across the street was a dollar theater showing Body Parts. I'd go every night for seven, at 7pm, I'd go for a dollar. It was at the second run and watch it, just to hear how an audience responds to it. And he was just great in it. I just felt the connection to this guy. I go, I wish I was making movies. I would work with this guy. He's really a cool actor.

• 1:12:11Joe Rogan?

  What is this about?

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  It's, it's about a guy who gets in a car accident, loses his arm, and he's given the arm of a killer just to kind of just replace him, but it. Suddenly he starts doing things.

• 1:12:20Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I remember this. Okay, so anyway. Same dude that was Lawnmower Man.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was in Lawnmower Man too. So.

• 1:12:27Joe Rogan?

  Another season.

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  This should have been something that, you know, was it for him, but this week it came out. They had just caught Jeffrey Dahmer like the week before, so they pulled back on the marketing completely. So no one saw it. And so he didn't get that boost his career, but, but the Silver Lining, the key in the ashes was me. I saw it every night. So when I went to do grindhouse, he retired from acting. He was in Afghanistan. I asked for him to send a tape.

• 1:12:55Joe Rogan?

  Afghanistan?

• 1:12:55Speaker 02

  He was working, doing work out there.

• 1:12:57Joe Rogan?

  What kind of work?

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  I remember some kind of, you know, like helping people and stuff. Um, he sends me a tape and so I hired him. I hired him to be in it. And because he was in that movie, in fact, I'd already hired Michael Bean. And I went, oh shit, Jeff sent me a thing. God, Jeff's great too. I'll just make them brothers. So they play brothers in Greynhouse. Because he did that movie, he got lost, that show Lost, he got, he just, his whole career came back. So we were talking about it. I just recently was telling him, man, it just came out on 4K. You gotta come see. You've probably never seen it. He goes, I've never seen the finished movie. And I said, you're great in it. I was showing him some scenes. It was blowing his mind. He goes, yeah, this movie didn't do well. I remember now. Why? Cause the Jeffrey Dahmer thing just, I went, that's just how it's supposed to go. But I saw it and that's why I hired you.

• 1:13:42Speaker 02

  And that's how you got that second career later on. Because I was there every night because it was in the dollar theater so quick. I wouldn't have been able to afford it at any other time. So that's how weird shit happens, right? It's so cool. It makes you see that you don't, it's, it's just sometimes that's just how the balls roll, you know? It's just all interconnected somehow. Somehow it's interconnected. And you have to trust the process. You just have to trust the process.

• 1:14:02Speaker 04

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• 1:14:32Joe Rogan?

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• 1:15:15Joe Rogan?

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• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  I had someone in the audience recently, I was talking about brass knuckle films and getting everybody all stirred up about it. And one gal goes, "You're real positive, but do you have any doubts?" I was like, "I've never been asked that question before." So whenever I don't have an answer, I'll ask them first, you know? "What do you guys think? What do you guys think? How would you answer? How would you answer that? Do you have doubts? Do you have human doubts?"

• 1:16:01Joe Rogan?

  Everyone has doubts.

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:16:04Joe Rogan?

  It's what you do with them.

• 1:16:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:16:06Joe Rogan?

  Do you let your doubts overwhelm you? Or do you take them into consideration? Like, are these doubts valid?

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:16:11Joe Rogan?

  And what do I have to do to make sure that these fears don't manifest themselves as reality? Do I have to do extra work? Do I have to work harder? Do I have to be more objective?

• 1:16:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:16:22Joe Rogan?

  You know, you have to take into consideration that anything you're going to do that's going to be exciting also carries the possibility of risk. And the risk of failure is a thing that keeps a lot of people from acting.

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  So if you're going to commit to a body of work and not blink...

• 1:16:38Joe Rogan?

  You've got to be welcoming of failure.

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  You don't have to worry about that stuff.

• 1:16:41Joe Rogan?

  There's a jujitsu expression, well, a lot of people use it in MMA as well. You don't lose, you learn.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. So if you know that's the process, this was my answer. I said, "No, I don't have any doubts." Because I like to be counterintuitive.

• 1:16:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, your process is long. The thing is long. It's not a sprint. You're not running to a telephone pole. You're running to the other side of the world.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:03Speaker 02

  So I tell them, "No, I don't have any doubts." Just to be counterintuitive, and I say why? Because if you understand the process, why should you have a doubt? You might fail, but it might be four rooms. You might, if you have an instinct to go there, or you don't know how you're gonna do it, what's half the battle? Not knowing, that's where the magic is. I don't have to know. I'm gonna figure it out when I'm almost done. You know, all those things come together.

• 1:17:25Joe Rogan?

  Risk averse, early on, and it becomes a pattern. And it's very hard to break out of. And I always tell them, find something that you can have success in. Find something that you enjoy doing. It doesn't have to be a career. It could be a game that you enjoy playing. It could be anything, painting, writing. It could be a thing that you enjoy.

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  Because you love it, you'll probably, you will have success at it.

• 1:17:46Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  Because I'm sure you were drawing too, you know, in school. I would be drawing all day in school. I'd make these flip cartoon books in the sides of the dictionaries, paper dictionaries, flip cartoon movies. I'd get the dictionary that was biggest and fattest. I'd make these very elaborate stick figure animations. And everyone in class loved them. And I'd be like, I'm gonna be broke. Because I can't pay attention to class.

• 1:18:09Joe Rogan?

  I used to do cartoons of the teachers in high school.

• 1:18:12Speaker 02

  And everybody loved them.

• 1:18:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I'd pass them around the class, and I got in trouble a bunch of times for it. And one time, I had this science teacher, Mr. Holman. And Mr. Holman was very odd, very eccentric guy. And so I drew a cartoon of him behind his screen. So he had a screen that he pulled down where he could show like films. And then when he pulls the screen up, he had no idea that on the chalkboard I had written, I had drawn this cartoon of him. And the whole fucking class starts laughing.

• 1:18:41Speaker 02

  The power of the pen you had back then, right?

• 1:18:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it was like my first introduction to being a comedian.

• 1:18:46Speaker 02

  It's very satisfying, but did you think you were gonna make a career out of that?

• 1:18:50Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  No, of course not. You think, I was thinking, oh my God, I'm gonna be so broke. I can't understand what they're talking about. I'm way behind, and I'm not the best artist. So it's not like I'm gonna, like I'm some protege or something. So I'm fucked. But that's ended up being my career, was just doing that stuff. Because you love it so much. So I ask people, if you want to find what you're passionate, what is that thing that you run off to do on the weekend?

• 1:19:12Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  I was always going to making movies, and I was doing that. Once you're done punching the clock. What is it that you go run to? That's probably your passion. Put more effort into that and you'll you'll actually find success doing it.

• 1:19:22Joe Rogan?

  One hundred percent.

• 1:19:23Speaker 02

  Put stuff together. Suddenly, opportunities are gonna fall in your lap.

• 1:19:27Joe Rogan?

  And if that's not it, at least you'll have learned that you could follow this process to get good at something or get really deeply involved in something and you could apply that to other things. It might be a new thing that you get excited about.

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  So this is what I applied it to, because I'd forgotten this lesson, which was just say you're this person. Stop aspiring.

• 1:19:45Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:19:45Speaker 02

  Our words we use are so powerful. If you say, well, you know, I'm probably not gonna be successful. That's your lot in life. You just you just did that to yourself.

• 1:19:53Joe Rogan?

  Self-defining.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  So I had a friend of mine.

• 1:19:58Speaker 02

  I mean, like, I I always hated working out. I didn't follow any sports, did no sports. In high school, they go, we need you. It's a small school. We need you on the team. You're tall and everything. You play basketball. I don't know how to play any of these things. I hate working out. There's a line in the faculty that I gave to Elijah Wood, because that was my line to teachers when they make me want to run and go, I don't think a person should run unless he's being chased. And they would leave me alone. But I hated it. And so then I became a filmmaker. Oh, when I was a cartoonist, my back kept going out. Nineteen, I'm like, have a cane and my back would be out for like a month because I would sit.

• 1:20:32Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  Kitchen table drying. I was so tall that it was just, it would throw my back up. I would just, disc would go out. And then when I started filmmaking, every year would just go out like clockworks. I'm operating the camera, I'm operating the Steadicam. And when I was doing, you know, Spy Kids Two, I think, with Ricardo Montalban had a bad back that he got surgery and it fucked him up. And he was in a wheelchair. He was paralyzed. So he's in a wheelchair and I'm with a walker because my back went out and he goes, Robert, I'm eighty-four years old. What's your excuse? You gotta work out, Robert. He was always in shape, Ricardo. That chest in Star Trek Two, that's his chest.

• 1:21:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:09Speaker 02

  I know, and he was in his late sixties or his mid-sixties.

• 1:21:12Joe Rogan?

  They fused his spine? Is that what they did?

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, they did something and fucked him up.

• 1:21:15Joe Rogan?

  God damn it.

• 1:21:16Speaker 02

  So.

• 1:21:17Joe Rogan?

  Every time I hear a story like that, I wish I could talk to that guy before he did that.

• 1:21:20Speaker 02

  I know. And he went to a good place, but they just hit something wrong. They fucked him up.

• 1:21:25Joe Rogan?

  It happens to so many people.

• 1:21:27Speaker 02

  So I go, okay, I don't want that to happen to me, but I don't know how to work out. So the next year I worked with Stallone, Flash Stallone. I gotta get in shape because my back keeps going out and I don't like to work. Get thee a trainer. Anyone you ever seen in Hollywood who got in shape, they had a trainer. And I go, what about you? He goes, oh, I need a trainer. You need a trainer. Well, then if you need a trainer, Mr. Rocky, what chance do us mortal men have? So I hired a trainer and guess what happened? Hated it. Hated it. I hid from the guy. He'd come to my house. I'd pay him not to show up. I'd hate it. I'd hide. I'd hide. I'd call in sick. And then when he did, when he did get me, I'd be like half ass in the workouts, you know, because I hated it.

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  And then one year, it was just torture. I knew I had to do it, but. So this is my, my point is that sometimes it's not a lack of desire. So when people really want to become something and not get in it, it's not because they have to change their minds. There's something that goes with it. Desire, you have, I have plenty of desire. I was paying this guy. I wanted to get in shape. I didn't want my back going out anymore. I had the desire. I was missing another key element. Then I figured out, and it's a lesson I already knew, which was stop aspiring, but I forgot it. So this woman, a friend of mine from Mexico shows up. She's a production manager. I have to stop smoking. My doctor said I have to stop smoking or I'm gonna die. I've been smoking since I was eight years old. Oh, boy. I said, well, you're gonna go back to smoking because you just told me that's your identity.

• 1:22:47Speaker 02

  You've been doing it since you were eight. So right now you're a smoker who's not smoking. Eventually you're gonna conform to their identity. You have to change your identity. You have to say, I'm a non-smoker. I'm a non-smoker. Because what does a non-smoker do? Hate smoke. They get sick of the smell of smoke. She was like, okay, I'll try it. I don't know what happened to her, but I thought.

• 1:23:05Joe Rogan?

  That voice is killing me.

• 1:23:07Speaker 02

  She truly talks like that. So then I go, wait a minute. Shit, I used to, I used to apply it to filming, but that's all I was back there. Where, where else in my life can I do a 180? And it's gotta be a 180. Because if it's just a matter of degrees, it's bullshit.

• 1:23:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  It's much easier if it's just opposite day. So I went, oh my God, working out. I hate working out. Of course I hate working out because I tell my trainer and everyone who will listen how much I hate it. I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete. The last thing I would ever call myself, Mr. Cartoon Guy. I'm an athlete. By the next day. What does an athlete do? Loves to work out, makes time to work out, eats right. And it's gotta be opposite day, it's much easier. Only goes to lay on the couch, they just kind of, no, I'm gonna go work out. Or, there's a donut, not gonna cut it in half and eat half, that's bullshit. Those degrees fuck you up. Opposite day. There's a donut, no, I'm gonna reach for an apple. Not only was I able to work out, this is 14 years ago, I didn't need a trainer again. Ever.

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  I would just be like, making myself do it because I'm an athlete. That's how powerful the mind is. So, I'm saying if someone says, ah, I wanna go do this thing on the weekend, and I'm, you might have the desire, but you gotta get the identity too. You've gotta say you're that. Yeah. And it, it sounds a little awkward, like I asked somebody, Alex Friedman, I, I said, do you consider yourself a creative person? And he went, um, well, you know, I mean, you guys. That's a good impression! I said, you're stuttering there, man. You're stuttering, you're stuttering. He goes, I, I know, I know. I said, no, no, no, you gotta say. And are you technical? And he goes, yeah. Okay. You're technical and creative. That was the first thing that stuck in my ear. It's also what Jim Cameron is, it's also what, you know, George Lucas is. Technical and creative.

• 1:24:46Speaker 02

  When I first had a, uh, my first job, my dad had a friend who owned a Photoshop, and he said, go work for my friend Mario for your summer job when I was 16. Went to work for Mario, processing film for photos, and he gave me a camera and film, and said, go home and take pictures with this, cause I need you to know how to use that camera so you can help me sell the cameras. So I went home, and I'm from a family of nine kids, I mean, 10 kids, nine siblings. Taking all these pictures of them, doing cool stuff. Go back, he looks at the pictures and he goes, whoa, these are really creative. You're creative. You gotta now learn how to be technical, cause most creative people always need technicians, and technicians always need creative people. Now, it's against your, it's just a gift you have. They can never really be creative, they'll just be technical, but because you have creativity, if you apply yourself, it's against your nature, but if you apply yourself and learn

• 1:25:31Speaker 02

  the technical part, you'll be technical and creative, and you'll be impossible, and be unstoppable. Ooh. And I was like, whoa, unstoppable at 16? He goes, here, go, go. I know, sometimes, and I'm gonna ask you about, who did that for you? Who was, cause if you look at... All the different turning points in your life, there was probably somebody who sent you in a direction. It comes through them. Because if I were to go back and ask that guy, hey, that advice you gave me, he'd be like, what? What I said? I didn't remember saying that. It just came through him at the time. So he pointed me that way. And that's why I went and made a Marachi by myself. I didn't want to take anybody because I wanted to learn. I didn't know how to use that camera. But if you go ask somebody to do it for you, your I need

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  list, if you make a list of all the things you need before you can make your dream happen, the longer that list is, the less that's gonna happen. You gotta reduce it down to nothing. Me, my hands, my bootstraps, this camera, I'm gonna figure it out on the day. Be technical and creative. So I told Lex, now, you gotta own it. When I say, are you creative? You go, yeah, I'm creative. And I'm technical. And I don't blink. And I'm gonna create a body of work. He's like, walks out of there, supercharged.

• 1:26:44Joe Rogan?

  Lex needs a guy like you in his life all the time. He's too self-deprecating. He's such a brilliant guy.

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  And it's nice to be self-deprecating is kind of a joke.

• 1:26:52Joe Rogan?

  A little bit.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  But the words you're using yourself are very powerful.

• 1:26:54Joe Rogan?

  He beats himself up.

• 1:26:55Speaker 02

  The words you're using, and you're doing that to yourself.

• 1:26:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:58Speaker 02

  The guy throwing cabbages you on stage, look close, that's fucking, it's you. You're doing that to yourself. You're the one who's like, you do that to yourself with your words.

• 1:27:09Joe Rogan?

  He'll make like Twitter posts about how down he is. And I want to go over to his house and fucking shake him like a baby.

• 1:27:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude, you're gonna, you're down, you're gonna stay down. I have this theory called baseline. I talk to some of my kids and we just laugh about that and go, okay, when shit fucks up, when shit's not going right, don't be down about it. Don't feel like you're in a slump. Because now you're just stuck yourself in a grave and it's gonna be hard to climb out.

• 1:27:28Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:27:28Speaker 02

  When shit isn't going right, oh, tire's flat, oh, I got fired. I call that baseline. You're a baseline. Anything above baseline, like this right now, we're here having this great talk. This is way above baseline. I'm on the Joe Rogan Show. You know, so way above baseline. Celebrate that shit.

• 1:27:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:46Speaker 02

  Because it's not always there. Don't say that you're gonna go down, you're just gonna go to baseline. It's much easier to accept and then you're not in a negative position. You're just kind of at a normal. I'm at a normal and I'll really appreciate when anything above baseline happens. My daughter about to go play an arena show, she's gonna sing, I'm gonna play with my band. I told her, way above baseline, we're gonna get a nice hotel, we're gonna really celebrate this. Because this shit doesn't always happen. And when everything is going really, really wrong, baseline. Only when things are really down would you call yourself low and you don't wanna do that. Otherwise you'll stay there for a much longer time. If you're just at baseline, that's just life. Oh yeah, I tried to go make that movie and it didn't work.

• 1:28:25Joe Rogan?

  That's such solid advice.

• 1:28:26Speaker 02

  It's really, it's mindset, it's all mind, it's all stuff you're doing to yourself.

• 1:28:30Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:28:30Speaker 02

  And these are things I like to pass on to people because when they come back and give it back to me. I don't know if you'd give your kids advice as you learn it, because you learn so much. You've got the best job in the world, you're learning all day. I bet you don't know if it's gonna stick with them. I was shocked how much stuff not only sticks, but they come back and they feed it back to me.

• 1:28:49Joe Rogan?

  Oh yeah.

• 1:28:49Speaker 02

  Dad, it's just like, it's just like you taught me.

• 1:28:52Joe Rogan?

  They also learn by watching you do it.

• 1:28:55Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, they've seen you move through the world.

• 1:28:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, if you're the dad and you're making all these films, you're doing all this, you're involved, you're, you're, you have action. There's a lot of action, you're constantly in motion, you're doing things, creating things. That's inspiring to them, they like absorb that. If you're down on yourself all the time.

• 1:29:11Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 1:29:12Joe Rogan?

  You know, that's.

• 1:29:12Speaker 02

  They go, okay, that's life and I gotta look, that's gonna happen to me.

• 1:29:15Joe Rogan?

  Or you can reject that and be the opposite. Like I have a friend and his family was alcoholics. He's never had a drop of drink in his life and he's like super disciplined because of that.

• 1:29:29Speaker 02

  I'll tell you my secret, I've never done drugs.

• 1:29:32Joe Rogan?

  None?

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  None.

• 1:29:33Joe Rogan?

  Nothing?

• 1:29:33Speaker 02

  Never been drunk.

• 1:29:34Joe Rogan?

  You don't even drink coffee, you were saying?

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  I don't even drink coffee.

• 1:29:36Joe Rogan?

  You were telling that story because it's so hilarious.

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  A friend of mine, what was his name? He was working at the Sony when I first got there for um.

• 1:29:44Speaker 02

  Mariachi and I was like this kid and there were people my age were assistants and he was like falling asleep at his desk and I'm like, why, why are you falling asleep? And he goes, I'm trying to get off coffee. And I was like, oh my God, I'm never gonna get on coffee. Like, I want those guys getting their hooks in me. And then over the years, he's like Starbucks showing up and everybody like zombies going in there having to get their coffee.

• 1:30:03Joe Rogan?

  As I drink some right now.

• 1:30:05Speaker 02

  Marketing and all, it's made to be addictive like nicotine and all that.

• 1:30:09Joe Rogan?

  Oh, 100%.

• 1:30:09Speaker 02

  And then your buddy can't create that. And I already, I already stay up for days as it is, you know, I don't want anything like that.

• 1:30:15Joe Rogan?

  Do you really?

• 1:30:15Speaker 02

  I can stay up. I just, I just did this, uh, what's your favorite workout music?

• 1:30:20Joe Rogan?

  Mine? Wu-Tang Clan.

• 1:30:22Speaker 02

  I just, I just did a, the classic stuff like Van Halen and stuff, but I just did a music video for Wolfgang Van Halen. And we shot it in two days and I was up two days cutting it. Cause I just wanted to see what was gonna happen next.

• 1:30:34Joe Rogan?

  Two days?

• 1:30:35Speaker 02

  Two days. I was just like, I want to see what happens next. You don't even notice. My shoulder is getting all fucked up. And I'm like, what's wrong with my shoulder? Did I pull a muscle and doing some shrugs or something? It was like, I went back to sit in that chair. It's like, oh, cause I've been sitting like this for two days, sitting just doing this.

• 1:30:50Joe Rogan?

  That's insane.

• 1:30:51Speaker 02

  But it's, it's really cool. It's a great freaking song.

• 1:30:53Joe Rogan?

  At point of diminishing returns where it's like, you're so tired that you really will be better off sleeping?

• 1:30:56Speaker 02

  It's different with editing. Editing is a weird, I, I was thinking that as I was doing it, I go, I wish I could do this with writing, where I could just write for two days straight. But words will knock me out, put me to sleep after a while. Editing is just visual stimulus and you're so excited. I kept going, okay, one more hour, one more hour. And you just can't stop. You just can't stop. Cause now you're, you're seeing it. It came out so cool. It's gonna drop.

• 1:31:19Joe Rogan?

  38 hours later.

• 1:31:20Speaker 02

  It's gonna drop like next week. It rips your head off. It's a great workout song for sure, but it's just really entertaining.

• 1:31:25Joe Rogan?

  That's incredible.

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  He does all the instruments himself.

• 1:31:28Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:31:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, he plays every instrument. He plays the drums, the bass, guitar, sings, writes the songs. Uh, when he goes on tour, he takes this really great band with him because he can't play all the parts, but the albums, his third album, he's working on his, um, Plays all the instruments.

• 1:31:43Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:31:43Speaker 02

  Super talented, really, really fun. But I like working with people who just do more than than other people. They just they're just at that level and it's so inspiring. It inspires you.

• 1:31:53Joe Rogan?

  It's fuel.

• 1:31:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely fuel.

• 1:31:55Joe Rogan?

  That's why I always tell people, if you can surround yourself with other people that are really getting after it in life, it will 100% motivate you.

• 1:32:01Speaker 02

  Completely.

• 1:32:02Joe Rogan?

  In a different way.

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  Completely.

• 1:32:03Joe Rogan?

  Instead of having that procrastination feeling, you get up excited.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  You have to. And it's like, you know, your parents tell you, be careful who your peers are when you're younger, because it means one thing.

• 1:32:12Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:32:12Speaker 02

  But later, even more. Like, when I started going to the film festival and there's Quentin. And then I meet Jim Cameron. And then you meet like George Lucas. It's like, you can't hang with these guys if you're not accomplishing something.

• 1:32:21Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:32:22Speaker 02

  So then when they say, hey, what are you up to? Well, I'm down in Texas and I got my own studio and I'm pioneering digital filmmaking and green screen technology. I want to make the first digital 3D movie. And they go, oh, okay, cool. I'm like, oh, okay, I can hang out here for a while. God, I gotta be doing something.

• 1:32:36Joe Rogan?

  That's a great one line.

• 1:32:37Speaker 02

  I was like, but still, compared to what they're doing, you know, when I first met Jim.

• 1:32:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but it's still, it's exciting.

• 1:32:41Speaker 02

  When I first met Jim Cameron, that's why you don't want to be around people who you're the best. You're better, you know.

• 1:32:47Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:32:47Speaker 02

  You want to be the one that they're swinging higher than you.

• 1:32:49Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:32:50Speaker 02

  So surround yourself with those people and do something so that they let you hang with them. But you want to learn. Like, here's to Jim Cameron, for instance, when I met him, I really wanted to impress the hell out of him. So I said, I'm about to go do Desperado and I can't afford a Steadicam operator. So I took a three day, three day Steadicam course and I'm going to operate it myself on the movie. I'm going to operate the Steadicam, that big beast of a camera. And he went, I bought a Steadicam, but not to operate it. I'm going to take it apart and design a better one.

• 1:33:20Speaker 02

  That's completely who he is. Us mere mortals are like trying to operate the thing. He's designing whole new systems. And if you think of it, that's very consistent with who he is. That's the person you want to hang out with, not someone. The guy had said, oh, me too. I'm doing the same thing.

• 1:33:34Joe Rogan?

  Didn't he go to the bottom of the Mariana Trench or some shit?

• 1:33:37Speaker 02

  Dude, so he's got.

• 1:33:37Joe Rogan?

  Summary that he designed?

• 1:33:39Speaker 02

  It's only, yeah, it's on his desk. It's like this big on his desk, this green machine. And I was looking at it going like.

• 1:33:47Speaker 02

  Weren't you afraid? I mean, I've got kids and wife. You've got kids and a wife. Weren't you afraid of going down that deep and something happening? He was like, no. I said, why not? Oh, I designed the escape vehicle. So if any other bozo had done it, I'd be afraid because he did. He had all the confidence in the world. Talk about no doubt.

• 1:34:10Joe Rogan?

  That's so insane.

• 1:34:11Speaker 02

  Is that hilarious? That's great though. That's him, though. It's like, yeah, if someone else had designed the escape vehicle, I'd be afraid. But no, I did it. So he had no pause at all.

• 1:34:19Joe Rogan?

  That's so crazy.

• 1:34:20Speaker 02

  So that's kind of confidence. That does look people you want to hang out with.

• 1:34:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's a legitimate genius.

• 1:34:26Speaker 02

  It changes your perception of life. And by osmosis, you pick up, I call it this proximity phenomenon. When you're just near, I took a painting class with Sebastian Kruger, a painter in Germany. I saw this class that he gives for a week. I went, I'm gonna go do that class. Not to learn how to paint so much. I know I'll be a better director by learning paint because it's that another way into creativity. Again, you just want to get better at creativity. So just do as many jobs as you want, as you can, that you're interested in. Because if you just do one job, you barely know that job. You have to do all these other ones to kind of inform it.

• 1:34:56Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:34:57Speaker 02

  So I went out there. He doesn't teach you anything. He just paints. I'll show you the examples before and after. Just by, I thought for sure, I did a pre-painting before going out there. It looks like crap. I went, I don't know what brushes he's using and the kinds of paints. It's a different method. He must have some trick. I go and he's painting this amazing Mick Jagger photo reel in front of us. And we all can paint alongside him. I go, what paint are you using? It's regular paint. What brushes are you using? Regular brushes. Well, how come I can't do that? I go back and suddenly it's a different painting. I'm gonna try one more. It's more photo reel. When I show it to you, it's gonna blow you away. It looks like, I dropped the brush. I was like, holy shit. It's because I've finally given myself permission to do it. Because you have the ability, but you're blocking it because you go, I don't know.

• 1:35:42Speaker 02

  I don't know. There's something I don't know. So again, you're just chopping off your own leg. And by being around somebody who's doing it at that level, suddenly you can do it too. It's like breaking the M field. Like as soon as I made mariachi, no one had ever done anything like that. Suddenly there's 10, 12, 13 movies made, you know, very low budget because they go, oh, it's possible. Now suddenly you can do it too. And when it's in the room, when you're right near it, it's just a phenomenon that you can just glean off them without them teaching you anything. Just by being around and seeing how they move through the world and seeing they have accomplished and that they're regular people. They're just accomplishing at a high level. It just blows your mind.

• 1:36:17Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Scams have gotten smarter because criminals use AI to flood you with fake texts, emails and phone calls that are designed to be more convincing than ever. One wrong click can put your personal information and your identity at risk. So protect yourself with LifeLock. LifeLock helps detect and alert you to threats. And if your identity is stolen, LifeLock will step in to fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Dedicated US-based identity restoration specialists will work with you until your identity is restored. Backed by the million dollar protection package with up to 3 million in coverage for eligible losses and expenses.

• 1:36:59Joe Rogan?

  Visit lifelock.com and save up to 30% your first year with the promo code JRE. That's promo code JRE or go to lifelock.com/JRE for 30% off. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Chime. And I know people don't usually get excited about banking, but Chime is doing something different and it's worth paying attention to. In a recent survey, they ranked the number one choice for new checking accounts in America. That means real people, millions of them are choosing this over traditional banks. That's because banking at Chime is fee free, no monthly fees, no overdraft fees, and thousands of fee free ATMs. But here's the real kicker.

• 1:37:44Joe Rogan?

  If you get their Chime card, it gives you 5% cash back. On a category you actually pick yourself. Your savings rate crazy high, it's nine times the national average. They're calling it the most rewarding way to bank. Go to chime.com/rogan. Takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card. Provided by Chime's bank partners. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for more details.

• 1:38:15Speaker 02

  That's really important in standup comedy.

• 1:38:17Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, right. I was in this conversation last night in the green room. We were talking about this area of the country that's falling apart. And I was like, comedy is top down, man. You have to have a bunch of assassins all working together in the same location. They all feed off each other. And then all the people coming up below, they see that. They see these young guys that are coming up. They see these people working really hard and constantly creating and hustling, doing all these different sets and constantly working on new material. And they get inspired by it. And then you see these guys get Netflix specials and it's all happening at the club. So this club that we're doing in Austin is all about that process. And like, we have specifically designed it to have two open mic nights, Sunday and Monday. So new people, no experience, get up there.

• 1:39:01Joe Rogan?

  People from all across the country moving here so they can be a part of the process. But there's like a real path to success that you could see. Because guys like Ron White are there, guys like Shane Gillis are there, Tony Hinchcliffe and these young guys, Derek Post and all these young guys that are coming up that are like really exciting, you know? It's like, it's really fun. There's like a vibe of creativity that everybody feeds off of.

• 1:39:24Speaker 02

  I love what you've built. You've come here, you've only been here like four years and you've already like built this whole community.

• 1:39:30Joe Rogan?

  Well, it kind of built itself, man. It's the same thing we were talking about before with instincts. First of all, I had the instinct to escape LA. I was like, this is not going to change. It's going to get worse. I gotta get the fuck out of here. And Ron had already been here. Ron was here in 2018. And once my family was interested in doing it, it was pretty easy. Because I'm one of those guys like. I just can just pick up stakes and go. I'm like, okay, life is different now. Let's live in Texas. Like, I want that. I like change. I like, I like not having any fucking idea what's gonna happen. I'm excited by that. And so then, once we got out here, and then Ron's like, we gotta open up a club. Okay, we gotta open up a club.

• 1:40:12Joe Rogan?

  And so then I started looking for locations, and luckily, The Ritz was available.

• 1:40:16Speaker 02

  Wow, that's right.

• 1:40:17Joe Rogan?

  We did, we did, I'd been under contract for this one world theater that was owned by Colt. That fell apart.

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, Ritz is cool. It's right down there with all the...

• 1:40:27Joe Rogan?

  Oh, The Ritz was the perfect spot. When The Ritz was available, it was like, oh, my god, this is it. And then we walked in, and it was still the Alamo, so it was like set up for a movie theater with like the angled slope seating. And then we had to change everything, but I'm like, this is it. And then I started bringing in other comics to help me. I'm like, what would you do? And Louis CK came, and he was like, I think you should make this stage smaller. Make the stage smaller. I think you should make the ceiling lower. Make the ceiling lower. Like, so we were able to do whatever we wanted to do and design the club from scratch, just for comics. And once everybody knew that it was happening, people just started moving here, man. It was nuts.

• 1:41:06Speaker 02

  You build it, they will come.

• 1:41:07Joe Rogan?

  It really was like that, but it was, it was like the universe wanted it to happen. And I say that, it sounds so self-important, but...

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  No, no, it's like, I believe that. It's just you're stumbling upon these ideas.

• 1:41:19Joe Rogan?

  So many things had to happen in this order for it to happen this way. And then you had to have someone who's like me, who's accustomed to just going by instinct. And I've always done that. I always, my whole life, I'm like, fuck it, let's do this. I'm like, that's what I do. And so when this came up, I'm like, okay, well, you're not gonna stop doing what you do now. Don't be a pussy. This is what you do. You're gonna throw a bunch of money at this thing. Let's make this happen. And tell everybody you're doing it. And, and call all your friends in LA, and call all your friends in New York, and come on down, man. We're making this happen.

• 1:41:52Speaker 02

  Wow, wow. I tell people that after Mariachi, it's like, I, I never thought I could get into the industry, because I didn't live in LA, and you need contacts and all that, so I just, you know, again, I made a practice film. But then when it got bought, and it was getting released... And in one Sundance, my practice film, I thought, I don't have to move to LA. But they won't even know I'm not there. Between an airplane flight and FedEx, I'll just stay here in Austin. So for the past, you know, 35 years, people are like, why are you living in Austin? I don't understand. It's like now they're all moving here. But it's because you could just think outside of the box here. So, yeah, I would tell people, filmmakers who all thought they needed to move to LA, stay where you are, build up your community around you. We built this amazing community of filmmakers here. All they made here were westerns before that.

• 1:42:35Speaker 02

  Suddenly I was making Spy Kids, Sin City, you know, these crazy movies that really changed, the ripple effects to the whole community is huge because you're changing the workforce.

• 1:42:44Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:42:44Speaker 02

  And so you just, by doing that thing, and it's like, it isn't like an instinct. It's like it's pre-planned, it's like it's pre-laid out.

• 1:42:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:52Speaker 02

  I tell my artists, when you come to my house, you're gonna feel it. You'll feel like these connections. And I go, I think we realize we're not that smart. You know, we're not smart enough to predict all that stuff. I think we've lived this life many times before and we forget a lot of it. So we have a barely impression of what we're supposed to do. But it's because we did it a thousand times and we forgot it each time. Like a dream, when you wake up from a dream.

• 1:43:15Joe Rogan?

  That might be true.

• 1:43:16Speaker 02

  Because, you know, you wake up from a dream and you go, I was a filmmaker in that dream and I had five kids. You know, that's what it's gonna be like when our life is over. You'll wake up and it'll be like, your past lifetime just goes away and then you can go start again and only now you're a fish or something. But I thought this, had this thought, wow, what if I wake up and I can barely remember the dream? And that's it. Because it feels like, sometimes you feel like you can predict the future, but not like you can predict it. You recognize it once it happens, like, oh, yeah, this is, this is right. But how did I know to go this way? I didn't, on purpose, like you said, I didn't set all the, all the things that needed to fall into place are too coincidental. What is that about? So that's why, even worse, just follow your instinct. Follow your instinct, even if it sounds bonkers.

• 1:44:01Speaker 02

  Follow it. And if it fails, keep going because that might be your four rooms or something. Just keep going.

• 1:44:06Joe Rogan?

  That really is an important piece of advice, too, to, if you're outside of a hive of like-minded thinking, you could, when you're outside of that, you can think on your own.

• 1:44:15Speaker 02

  Go another way.

• 1:44:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:17Speaker 02

  I mean, it's like high school. You go back to, you know, someone famously leaves high school and goes off to college and goes off, sees the world. They come back to their old hometown and they find their old friends still driving the same streets. That's LA.

• 1:44:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:30Speaker 02

  They're still doing the same shit, the same way. And you just went off the reservation and discovered a whole world.

• 1:44:36Joe Rogan?

  It's also, their opinions are only based on what's popular. It's like you were talking about Pulp Fiction.

• 1:44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:42Joe Rogan?

  Like before, they're like, what the fuck is this? And then they're like, oh my god, we got more of this.

• 1:44:45Speaker 02

  Now we gotta make something like this.

• 1:44:46Joe Rogan?

  Let's fake Dawn. Like, that's what it is. Like, they don't, their opinions are bullshit. It's like, it's all just based on, they lick their finger and they find out which way the wind's blowing and that's how they think. And that's how they are politically, that's how they are socially. It's like, they're nonsense people.

• 1:45:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:02Joe Rogan?

  And you gotta get away from that.

• 1:45:03Speaker 02

  Get away and just create your own thing and.

• 1:45:05Joe Rogan?

  The problem with comics is that we got all, we all got trapped in the velvet prison of television.

• 1:45:09Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:45:10Joe Rogan?

  So television's the velvet prison. The real art form is what we do on stage. That's what everybody really loves.

• 1:45:16Speaker 02

  What do you mean by being on television? I mean, like sitcoms and stuff?

• 1:45:18Joe Rogan?

  Yes, sitcoms, game shows.

• 1:45:21Speaker 02

  It seems like it's come back the other way. So many comics have such great, like Netflix specials are massive.

• 1:45:26Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:26Speaker 02

  Where it's basically them doing stand-up, but they've got a huge audience.

• 1:45:29Joe Rogan?

  Exactly. Well, what happened was the internet came along and a bunch of unconventional people became very famous on the internet.

• 1:45:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:45:37Joe Rogan?

  Without the help of Hollywood. People that, the Tim Dillons of the world that don't fit into this television box. But when you get them on the internet and they can get buck wild, like, oh my god, and then they have this massive following, the Theo Vons, all these different people. That have this very unconventional approach that for whatever reason wouldn't fit in, and they couldn't host The Tonight Show.

• 1:45:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:46:00Joe Rogan?

  But, you know, once they get on their own and now they develop these, like, there's more arena acts now for stand-up comedy than ever before.

• 1:46:07Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:46:07Joe Rogan?

  In the history of comedy.

• 1:46:08Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:46:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:10Speaker 02

  That's amazing, yeah.

• 1:46:11Joe Rogan?

  But I mean, not even close. I mean, the the only arena act in the like the nineteen eighties was Andrew Dice Clay. So first it was Steve Martin, then it was Andrew Dice. And Steve Martin kind of decided that the popularity of it all was so confusing to him that everything that he said was funny and it didn't make any sense. It didn't feel, and he stopped doing comedy. Stopped doing stand up. Would would you have, he had a very different kind of stand up anyway. He did play the banjo and he sang songs and. So Dice comes along and Dice Clay is selling out arenas, like the first comedian ever to do that. And then later in the two thousands, it was Dane Cook, because Dane Cook figured out how to use MySpace and developed this gigantic following online.

• 1:46:49Joe Rogan?

  Same kind of thing. And so then, when, by the time the pandemic hit, I was like, we don't need to be in L.A.

• 1:46:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:46:57Joe Rogan?

  We're not gonna be on TV. The only reason why we're in L.A. is the Comedy Store. And the Comedy Store is closed for the next fucking year and a half because these idiots that are running the city. And we came to Texas. And once we were out here, I was like, oh, this is so much better. Because now, instead of being around these Hollywood people that don't really have opinions, they just go which whatever way the breeze is going. Now you're hanging out with regular folks.

• 1:47:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:24Joe Rogan?

  Like regular people, people that are cops and firemen and auto repair guys. You're just humans.

• 1:47:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:32Joe Rogan?

  So all the people I interact with are just normal humans.

• 1:47:34Speaker 02

  That's what I always loved about living. There weren't any filmmakers here.

• 1:47:38Joe Rogan?

  So much better. It's infinitely better, nicer. Everyone's waiting.

• 1:47:42Speaker 02

  You get a lot more done. I was crank, sometimes I'd have two movies out a year. I would be making some so fast, because I just had a studio where it's like, let's just make more stuff.

• 1:47:49Joe Rogan?

  There also has to be something cool feeling about like doing it on your own, away from the hive.

• 1:47:54Speaker 02

  Way better, way better.

• 1:47:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:56Speaker 02

  That's why it's like I try to create original franchises. Because if you go direct one of the James Bonds, you're one of the James Bond directors. But if you create your own franchise, like a Spike, it feels so much better.

• 1:48:05Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:48:06Speaker 02

  That's successful and someone says, wow, I really love that movie. You go, oh, I did that voice. Flupus man, man, help us, save us. They go, that's you. Oh, my God, I grew up with that. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, it's a homemade movie, you know, so. It's much more gratifying. And yeah, I did the right thing by by moving out.

• 1:48:20Joe Rogan?

  One movie that seemed like it could be a franchise is Alita.

• 1:48:23Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, we want to do another one for sure.

• 1:48:25Joe Rogan?

  For sure.

• 1:48:25Speaker 02

  Part of a graphic novel series.

• 1:48:27Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:48:27Speaker 02

  You gotta come to my studio.

• 1:48:28Joe Rogan?

  I want to go.

• 1:48:29Speaker 02

  That city is still in my parking lot.

• 1:48:33Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:48:34Speaker 02

  Twenty foot ceilings, seven streets. It's like the largest standing set in the country, if not the world.

• 1:48:40Joe Rogan?

  Can I call Friday?

• 1:48:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:48:41Joe Rogan?

  Can I go Fri-?

• 1:48:41Speaker 02

  Come Friday. You're not gonna believe what's here.

• 1:48:43Joe Rogan?

  Okay, we're in.

• 1:48:44Speaker 02

  And you're gonna go like, okay, because I'm putting you in a movie.

• 1:48:46Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 1:48:46Speaker 02

  Because talking about what you just said about how people are different here. I just started a new label. Like the label I gave myself, I'm an athlete. When you create a label.

• 1:48:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:57Speaker 02

  It's a business thing, too. It gives, what a label is, is a filter. So I'm doing an action slate. So that already you get a bunch of ideas because it's just action. An action slate of four pictures. It's called Brass Knuckle Films. And you're gonna be in the first one. Because I'm gonna direct the first one. I've already got which one it is. I'll show you. It's a great part for you. You're gonna come to the studio and I'll tell you about it.

• 1:49:18Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 1:49:18Speaker 02

  But Brass Knuckle Films is cool because it's the first time that it's an investable film slate. So fans can invest in a movie. They get perks and stuff, but it's not crowdsourcing or crowdfunding. Like, you can get killed in the movie if you put in a certain amount of investment. But what's cool about it, I just want the audience to win. Because the audience is an afterthought. Like you say, you go to the studios and the people in Hollywood and you go, they barely even watch movies. And then you come meet the real audience and they're so into it. They're so behind it. It's like, where's your cut of it? Studios only show up to an audience at the end when they want you to go get your friends to come spend money on their overpriced movies. So I'm gonna do this thing where even at $250, the lowest level, you put into this thing,

• 1:50:02Speaker 02

  any of the four movies, one of which I'm gonna direct for sure, producing all of them there at Troublemaker to keep the cost down so they go to profit sooner. Any one of these movies success, you share in that success all the way through sequels. And for even the 250 bucks, anyone who puts money in. You get to have that proximity effect because we have a whole group together.

• 1:50:21Joe Rogan?

  That's such a great idea.

• 1:50:22Speaker 02

  And everybody gets to pitch their action movie idea. And I'm committed to making at least one of the movies on the slate from a fan investor's idea. So not only will you be an investor, but you be a creator. So we're almost already topped out. We're gonna hit our, we still have 20 days left and it's gonna surge again. We're gonna raise like 1.5 million for development funds. And we're, yeah, we're almost at a million already. 22 days left, so I'm telling everybody who's listening, come in at the lowest level. Just be part of our community because people who come here get proximity.

• 1:50:57Joe Rogan?

  And the lowest level is five bucks?

• 1:50:58Speaker 02

  250 bucks.

• 1:50:59Joe Rogan?

  250 bucks?

• 1:51:00Speaker 02

  250 bucks, but you know, you make that back on success of any of the movies.

• 1:51:06Joe Rogan?

  That's awesome.

• 1:51:06Speaker 02

  And it just hedges your bets. And it's just action because there's always an appetite for action. Like if you ask Netflix right now, what kind of movies do they need? They'll say, action, action, action. We don't have enough action.

• 1:51:17Joe Rogan?

  For sure.

• 1:51:17Speaker 02

  And internationally, that's, so we're gonna make the thing that people always buy and they're also really fun to make. And you're gonna be perfect in it.

• 1:51:23Joe Rogan?

  I want to bring you back to Frizzetta.

• 1:51:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:51:25Joe Rogan?

  Because this is the thing that I, I wanted to pitch this to Quentin and maybe I could pitch this to you.

• 1:51:30Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:51:30Joe Rogan?

  Somebody needs to make a real Conan the Barbarian.

• 1:51:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:35Joe Rogan?

  A real Conan the Barbarian that's like the Robert E. Howard books.

• 1:51:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:39Joe Rogan?

  The real Conan the Barbarian.

• 1:51:41Speaker 02

  Those are amazing books.

• 1:51:42Joe Rogan?

  Because the Arnold ones are great. They're fun. And Momoa, I think is the best Conan of all time. Because he was that, the guy, what was his name in Game of Thrones?

• 1:51:52Speaker 02

  I don't remember, yeah.

• 1:51:53Joe Rogan?

  Khalil Drago. Yeah. In, he, he's the most realistic of all Conans. That's what Conan's supposed to look like.

• 1:52:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:02Joe Rogan?

  He didn't look like a bodybuilder. He looked like a fucking super fit assassin.

• 1:52:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:06Joe Rogan?

  Just a sword.

• 1:52:07Speaker 02

  He came from the mountains of Samaria.

• 1:52:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. But the books.

• 1:52:11Speaker 02

  Books are awesome.

• 1:52:12Joe Rogan?

  They're fucking awesome.

• 1:52:13Speaker 02

  And it's right up your alley. It's about, it's about, the Barbarian is actually the one who's got code.

• 1:52:19Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:52:19Speaker 02

  And who has morality.

• 1:52:20Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:52:20Speaker 02

  And all the bigwigs are the ones that are like fucking crooked and shit. Yeah, it's just so classic.

• 1:52:25Joe Rogan?

  And the Barbarian's god.

• 1:52:26Speaker 02

  That guy was from Texas. That guy, Robert E. Howard, from Texas.

• 1:52:29Joe Rogan?

  Outside of Dallas, right?

• 1:52:30Speaker 02

  In fact, where I have a house where I made all these movies, it's in the land that he looked over and saw and said, that's Samaria. That's where Conan is from. So I always felt this connection. I wanted to do a Conan movie. So I almost did a Conan movie. I even roped Jim Cameron into wanting to do it.

• 1:52:47Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:52:47Speaker 02

  Where we're gonna do kinda like what we did with Alita. I said, dude, let's do a Conan movie and we'll make it look like the paintings. Technology wasn't there yet. And I ended up doing Sin City instead. I'd already written, uh, it was gonna be three movies. So he does different occupations. It's kinda built like a James Bond series. You know, where you follow him on his different, so it starts with him as a thief. And the second movie is him as a buccaneer mercenary. And the third one is when he becomes king. So the actor could grow with the role. You know, the way you, you know, like you took Daniel Craig and started him Casino Royale. By the end, he's no time to die. You gotta get an actor who, who does the whole journey. So I had a whole trilogy, uh, marked out.

• 1:53:28Joe Rogan?

  Let's go, dude.

• 1:53:28Speaker 02

  I know, it's, dude, Netflix had it. I went and pitched it to them and they, and they let the light, the rights lapse. Like they had too much, uh, sometimes it's too much baggage for a character.

• 1:53:39Joe Rogan?

  Dude, let me call them, right? Let me get on the phone with Ted Sarandos.

• 1:53:42Speaker 02

  Let's go make it, already, yeah.

• 1:53:44Joe Rogan?

  Hey Jamie, can you pull up Frizzetta, uh, Conan, the usurper?

• 1:53:49Speaker 02

  It's probably, uh, a painting called Chained. Is that the one with the chains?

• 1:53:52Joe Rogan?

  I don't.

• 1:53:53Speaker 02

  Or is it the one where he's, he might be Berserker?

• 1:53:55Joe Rogan?

  There's a bunch of the...

• 1:53:56Speaker 02

  He named him different than the books because of the copyright issue. So like, so whatever's on the, but you'll find the cover of it, but the painting itself might be, have a different name.

• 1:54:04Joe Rogan?

  Just, if you just pull up Frizzetta Conan, cause he did a bunch of them.

• 1:54:07Speaker 02

  So you'll love this.

• 1:54:08Joe Rogan?

  Yes, here we go.

• 1:54:10Speaker 02

  Chained, the barbarian, man ape.

• 1:54:14Joe Rogan?

  The one when he's standing over the bodies with the sword pointed to the ground.

• 1:54:17Speaker 02

  That's called, yeah, that's called the Barbarian.

• 1:54:18Joe Rogan?

  Yes, that's the one. I remember seeing that when I was a kid. Cause I was always into graphic novels and I was always into comic books. And I saw that when I was a kid at a comic book store. I was probably like 11 years old and I was like, holy shit. That is the coolest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life.

• 1:54:37Speaker 02

  And he's still come, imitates today. He has this very triangular way of composing that tells a story. The posters still look like this.

• 1:54:44Joe Rogan?

  That fucking...

• 1:54:44Speaker 02

  Look at the one with the snake. Again, if you see the triangular design, your, your head, your eyes go immediately to the snake and then down to him. And it's like, it tells a whole story. I have a theory, theory of why his, his art is the way it is. Now, you know, I knew him. Did I tell you?

• 1:54:57Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:54:58Speaker 02

  Okay, so when I, first you get to Hollywood, right? So I'm just this kid who's an artist. You get to Hollywood, first thing you want to do is work with all your heroes. So, Dust Till Dawn, I said, I want to work with Frizzetta. Because he used to do some movie posters, like The Gauntlet with Clint Eastwood, that gauntlet one he did.

• 1:55:12Joe Rogan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:55:13Speaker 02

  Uh, look up The Gauntlet Clint Eastwood Frizzetta.

• 1:55:18Speaker 02

  And so I called him and he said, yeah, I'll do it. In fact, when I showed him the movie, he goes, where'd you find this gal? And I said, uh, yeah.

• 1:55:26Joe Rogan?

  That was Frizzetta?

• 1:55:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, he did that.

• 1:55:27Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:55:28Speaker 02

  So I wanted to get that for Dust Till Dawn, right? So, he said, where'd you find this gal? And I said, I wish I had a gal like that to paint. Oh, what, she's based on all your paintings? All the girl that's always in your paintings? I made Salma dressed like that, because it's a Frizzetta come to life. He goes, oh, that's all you need on the poster. And I go, well, you had to draw the other actors. So, when you come to the house, you'll see the painting he did. It was the year he got his first stroke. So it took him, by the time I got the painting, we'd already made posters. We thought, okay, it's not going to come. And then it showed up at the last minute. But we gave it away at comic book stores, you know? But it's really cool. But at the bottom of the painting, there's the, some of the actors. Even paint Harvey could tell. He was like, the other actors, Quentin. And then instead of vampires, he just did his monkey dudes he always does. And it's really cool. It's really cool. But I got to know him and I got to go visit his studio, because we kind of, again, it's that similar mindset.

• 1:56:14Speaker 02

  And I didn't realize he had all his originals. I see that little monkey dudes on the box.

• 1:56:19Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:56:20Speaker 02

  He had all his originals in his, next to his house in his museum. Like, all those that you were just looking at. They were all there. I didn't realize, as an illustrative artist, sometimes you don't own your own material. He made it a point to own his own originals. So like, the ones you just were salivating over, those were in my house.

• 1:56:38Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:56:38Speaker 02

  I wish I knew you seven years ago. Because his kids-

• 1:56:41Joe Rogan?

  Oh my god.

• 1:56:42Speaker 02

  His kids are so impassioned about the art. Even his granddaughter, Sarah Frizzetta, she has Frizzetta Girls. This is, they're so always, you know, bringing up his legacy and-

• 1:56:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they've sent me a bunch of stuff.

• 1:56:55Speaker 02

  So cool. But, um, I really wanted to go do like a Conan-type movie or a John Carter. I wanted to do one based on Fire and Ice, which is the only one he had actually, it was an animated film. Thought, well, maybe if Conan's been used too much, let's do Fire and Ice as a movie. Because he worked on that as an animated film. Let's just make his, I just want his paintings to move. Like, add Frank Miller's art move. I want Frizzetta's paintings to move. Because he's, he was transporting us to another world that we all recognized.

• 1:57:21Joe Rogan?

  If you could make that, that Conan with the sword-

• 1:57:24Speaker 02

  Make him look like that.

• 1:57:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Go, go back to that photo again, Jamie? That, with the sword?

• 1:57:29Speaker 02

  It's called, uh, The Barbarian.

• 1:57:31Joe Rogan?

  You- Um, it's, you could say that Conan's been done to me, no, the one with the sword, yeah, that one.

• 1:57:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, they never seen it like that.

• 1:57:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. But the thing is, it's like.

• 1:57:44Speaker 02

  And look, that's not a guy that's just like been in the gym.

• 1:57:46Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:57:46Speaker 02

  He's, he looks like a.

• 1:57:47Joe Rogan?

  He's been swinging a sword and cutting off heads.

• 1:57:49Speaker 02

  With technology, you can do that. That's why I'd gotten Jim interested in it. Let's make him look like that.

• 1:57:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:55Speaker 02

  It's like a made up, even anatomy in a way, you know?

• 1:57:58Joe Rogan?

  The books were so fucking good, man. Even though Conan's been done a bunch of times, it hasn't been done right.

• 1:58:03Speaker 02

  The right way, yeah.

• 1:58:03Joe Rogan?

  No, it hasn't been done like the books and it's so ripe, like.

• 1:58:08Speaker 02

  And because it was done that way first, like with, with Arnold in it, people just figured, oh, we'll just hire a bodybuilder to be, you know, a barbarian type creature, character from then on. But to do it really like that, he's more like a James Bond character, you know, it goes from movie to movie.

• 1:58:21Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:58:22Speaker 02

  It's really, and he's really fucking smart.

• 1:58:24Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:58:25Speaker 02

  And he's just, uh, no, but I got to meet Frizzetta, so you keep that up for a second. So I went to his, we talked about his paintings and how he did it and I got a theory on how he did this. But when I went and saw the originals, like holy shit, you got all the originals. How did you make the, and he really loved to live life, like he'd go play golf, he'd go play baseball, he'd get an assignment. And he'd wait till the last minute and go and paint it. So what happens when you wait till the last minute, you have to just open up the pipe and let it through, right?

• 1:58:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:55Speaker 02

  I think that's why we all know this place, you know, collectively dream, you know, Jim Cameron would come over to my house, you know? Um, Del Toro, George Miller, John Favreau, to see these originals in person, when you see them in person, it blows your mind. It feels like you're being transported. I think because he did them at the last minute, they just came from the universe. Because that's why people relate to them. People would just buy these paperbacks for the art.

• 1:59:18Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:59:18Speaker 02

  This, this, Conan was created in the 30s. These books came out in the 60s.

• 1:59:22Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:59:22Speaker 02

  They didn't become a big hit till these books came out because of the art.

• 1:59:25Joe Rogan?

  Exactly.

• 1:59:25Speaker 02

  And then when you read the stories, the stories were really great, but they got them for the art.

• 1:59:29Joe Rogan?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:59:30Speaker 02

  And he was showing me his, his, his layout of paintings and he went, two days, one day, three days.

• 1:59:36Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:59:37Speaker 02

  Four days, two days.

• 1:59:40Speaker 02

  I was like, holy shit.

• 1:59:41Joe Rogan?

  Just locked in.

• 1:59:41Speaker 02

  Just locked in and it's just coming out because he had to, and his wife would say, yeah, his paint was still wet when I was taking it to get shit because he would wait till the last minute, but these masterpieces would come out. And I just was really inspired by him. So when he passed away, you know, his kids said, what should we do with the art? So well, let's make a movie based on the art because.

• 1:59:58Joe Rogan?

  Who's got this now?

• 2:00:00Speaker 02

  So different, they've sold some of them, but the kids, like if you go to.

• 2:00:03Joe Rogan?

  Frank Junior.

• 2:00:04Speaker 02

  So much money. Frank Junior still has, uh, the museum up there. He still has a lot of the masterworks. The kid, each kid has some of the masterworks and, um, and they're all great and, and keeping his legacy going. And I want to make a movie about it just to get his name back up. You know, we're blown, we were all inspired by him.

• 2:00:20Joe Rogan?

  Oh, so inspired.

• 2:00:21Speaker 02

  So, so cool was.

• 2:00:22Joe Rogan?

  How did he find out about those books?

• 2:00:24Speaker 02

  I think it was just an assignment and he would barely read the book. He would just be like, ah, he would just do his own thing.

• 2:00:29Joe Rogan?

  So they, they start putting the books out, more mass publishing in the 1960s. So he does these illustrations, he does the paintings.

• 2:00:37Speaker 02

  They're flying off the shelves.

• 2:00:38Joe Rogan?

  Flying off the shelves because of the paintings.

• 2:00:40Speaker 02

  Because of the paintings.

• 2:00:41Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 2:00:42Speaker 02

  And those paintings and those books, no matter, even the best art book today, when you see the original, cannot, they cannot capture what the original has. You'll be blown away. You gotta see, I've got like 14 different Frisettes, you gotta come see.

• 2:00:55Joe Rogan?

  God, that's so cool.

• 2:00:56Speaker 02

  Especially as an illustrator, you're gonna freak out.

• 2:00:58Joe Rogan?

  We have one of the prints. We have one of the prints of, go back to those, uh, images one, the one that we have Jamie with the him with the giant gorilla.

• 2:01:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:07Joe Rogan?

  We have one of those where he's fighting the gorilla, he's on its back, he's got a red cape.

• 2:01:11Speaker 02

  I'm gonna, yeah, that's called, uh, Man Ape.

• 2:01:13Joe Rogan?

  Man Ape, that's right.

• 2:01:14Speaker 02

  Just pan over to the left and it's on the left side, I saw it. There it is.

• 2:01:17Joe Rogan?

  That's it. We have a print of that.

• 2:01:19Speaker 02

  That was in my house.

• 2:01:20Joe Rogan?

  Oh, the real one?

• 2:01:22Speaker 02

  The real one. Okay, so here's what happened.

• 2:01:23Joe Rogan?

  We have that out by the pool table.

• 2:01:24Speaker 02

  The kids, the kids said.

• 2:01:25Joe Rogan?

  Look how fucking cool that is.

• 2:01:27Speaker 02

  The kids said, um, can you take our paintings for us and show them to influential people? Because hurricane season's coming, they lived in Florida and we don't want anything to have, they're insured, but fucking they could be gone.

• 2:01:37Joe Rogan?

  Oh my God.

• 2:01:38Speaker 02

  Can you take it? I was like, fuck yeah, I'll take them to my house. So for a year and a half, I had these, not the barbarian one you were just, the one with the sword standing, I had that one in my house.

• 2:01:47Joe Rogan?

  Oh my God.

• 2:01:48Speaker 02

  So I would have everyone who came to South by Southwest or was just in town, they'd come to my house and make them pizza and we would just stare and drool over the Frisettes.

• 2:01:57Joe Rogan?

  Those inspired me so much as a kid to be an illustrator.

• 2:02:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:02:01Joe Rogan?

  Those, the Frisetta paintings and some of the drawings from the graphic novels that people had made of these inspired me so much as a kid.

• 2:02:12Speaker 02

  It's just, it was dream imagery. It's like you knew what dreams were.

• 2:02:15Joe Rogan?

  Fantasy.

• 2:02:15Speaker 02

  You know, it would just be, it would feel like we dreamt this too and recognized it.

• 2:02:18Joe Rogan?

  Yes. And every young kid wanna, oh, I wish I was Conan.

• 2:02:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're a skinny little kid and you're going like, is that what I'm gonna view? And I go, no, I hate where I'm at.

• 2:02:27Joe Rogan?

  You're eleven.

• 2:02:28Speaker 02

  You're like, God, I wish I was that guy. I wish I had that kind of power and strength.

• 2:02:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I don't know if you've read these books, but they were based on, I mean, these comics, they were based on the books. They would just translate the books. There was a comics code, so the Conan, the barbarian comic, had to follow the code. But then there's a black and white magazine called Savage Sword of Conan.

• 2:02:47Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I read those.

• 2:02:48Speaker 02

  They didn't have to follow the code.

• 2:02:49Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:02:50Speaker 02

  That's why people would get killed and they would just, and Roy Thomas would just like take the book and put the book in several chapters.

• 2:02:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they were brutal.

• 2:02:56Speaker 02

  They're really great.

• 2:02:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:57Speaker 02

  That's what, so I grew up with that, drawing out of that, learning how to draw anatomy from the Conan books.

• 2:03:01Joe Rogan?

  The Marvel comics were fun, but they were...

• 2:03:04Speaker 02

  This was still under Marvel, but it wasn't under the code because it was considered a magazine.

• 2:03:08Joe Rogan?

  That's what I'm saying. Like, the Marvel comics were fun, but they weren't brutal enough.

• 2:03:11Speaker 02

  They weren't brutal because they had a comics code.

• 2:03:13Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:03:14Speaker 02

  Because they're comic size. By doing a magazine.

• 2:03:16Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:03:16Speaker 02

  They got around it.

• 2:03:17Joe Rogan?

  See if you can find the Savage Sword of Conan.

• 2:03:19Speaker 02

  Savage Sword of Conan, number one.

• 2:03:21Joe Rogan?

  Ah, there it is, yes.

• 2:03:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, look at the one where he's nailed to the cross. That's Boris Vallejo. Oh, this is a great Frisetta story.

• 2:03:27Joe Rogan?

  He's another one. Boris Vallejo was incredible.

• 2:03:30Speaker 02

  He came out later in the seventies, so this is a great Frisetta story. Several of his paintings, when you see them, they're not very big a lot of times because they were for paperbacks, so they didn't have to be that big. But then there were some, like in the early seventies, that were big. Silver Warrior, At the Earth's Core. And I asked Frisetta, I said, what was this era here? Because a lot of these were in the sixties. What's these four bigger ones that you didn't, what was that for? He goes, oh, they were saying I was washed up, that I was finished. It's because Boris Vallejo was coming out and they're like, oh, he's the new Frizzetta. So I did one, two, three, four beauties. Shut them all up.

• 2:04:04Joe Rogan?

  Ah, that's incredible.

• 2:04:07Speaker 02

  Shut them all up.

• 2:04:08Joe Rogan?

  Shut them all up. Pull up Boris Vallejo Conan, because Boris had a different style. It was like a little more.

• 2:04:14Speaker 02

  It also, you could feel.

• 2:04:16Joe Rogan?

  Sexual or something.

• 2:04:17Speaker 02

  But you could, you know, I, I, I love his art, but you could almost feel the model in it. You'd almost, you could almost see that there was a model he was painting from.

• 2:04:24Joe Rogan?

  Well, it was very cool, but it was a different feeling. Frizzetta was more raw.

• 2:04:28Speaker 02

  Very raw.

• 2:04:29Joe Rogan?

  Boris Vallejo, it was, it was great though.

• 2:04:31Speaker 02

  I mean, he's doing the Frizzetta style. I mean, I mean, you know, Frizzetta was the Jimmy Page of art. Everybody wanted to be him. So everyone couldn't, you couldn't unsee Frizzetta's work when you were doing your own work.

• 2:04:41Joe Rogan?

  I mean, this is Man Ape.

• 2:04:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's just doing Man Ape again.

• 2:04:44Joe Rogan?

  He's doing Man Ape in a different version of it. And, you know, I drew a lot of things that were like that, like a different version of Frizzetta's stuff. Everybody did. But yeah, I was more of a Frizzetta guy than a Boris Vallejo guy. I, I, I loved it. It was great. I was happy that he was doing it.

• 2:04:58Speaker 02

  Like the one where he's crucified to the cross on the bottom.

• 2:05:00Joe Rogan?

  That was pretty dope. That was pretty dope.

• 2:05:02Speaker 02

  And the one in the far bottom left is the first issue of Savage Sword. That one was really cool. Cause it had, yeah, I thought that was cool.

• 2:05:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:10Speaker 02

  But not, it doesn't come close to, you know.

• 2:05:12Joe Rogan?

  No, it's just, Frizzetta just had a, it was more.

• 2:05:17Speaker 02

  I think it's because of that process. It was just the way he did them.

• 2:05:19Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:05:20Speaker 02

  They were just, they were just, there's some magic to them. And I'll show you a couple of things that'll blow you away when you see them in person. But the in-person thing will really floor you. Just how much even the best books cannot capture the art as it exists. I saw your gym. Your gym is awesome. I thought I had the best gym. You've got a great gym, but I got one thing you don't got. You gotta come see.

• 2:05:42Joe Rogan?

  What?

• 2:05:43Speaker 02

  I don't have mirrors up.

• 2:05:44Joe Rogan?

  You don't have mirrors on purpose?

• 2:05:46Speaker 02

  It's because I just have. The original Drew Struzan painting. For First Blood Stallone.

• 2:05:54Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:05:55Speaker 02

  Because it's got glass over it, you can kind of see yourself in it. But I just stand in front and I go, I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. That's my inspiration.

• 2:06:04Joe Rogan?

  Good for form.

• 2:06:05Speaker 02

  For form. It's, I can kind of see the form, but that's my mirror when you come. It's the, it's the Stallone painting. And that's one.

• 2:06:12Joe Rogan?

  That one?

• 2:06:13Speaker 02

  See like that one. But it doesn't, it doesn't capture it, the painting at all. Even this digital copy of it. Like, look at the original poster of it, with, it has the writing on it. The way they printed it was like ass. Look at that thing. So when you see the original one, you're like, oh my God, this is like fine art. And that's, and that's still doesn't capture it, but it's closer than the, than the poster.

• 2:06:35Joe Rogan?

  But there's something about seeing the actual physical thing.

• 2:06:37Speaker 02

  When you see the real thing, it's so inspiring. And then when you see the physique that he has, you're just like, okay, I'm gonna work harder. But that's in my gym, so you gotta go check that out.

• 2:06:44Joe Rogan?

  I've got a photo of Alexander Karelin out there. That's my photo to remind me every day what a pussy I am. His, Alexander Karelin, who's like the greatest Olympic wrestler to ever come out of Russia. There's a photo that, pull up the photo that we have in the gym. He was a freak. They called him the science project. Cause his parents were like five foot five. And he was like six two, 300 pounds. And just it was built like a panther. Look at that. That's him.

• 2:07:08Speaker 02

  Oh geez, yeah.

• 2:07:09Joe Rogan?

  That's the picture. I have that picture up in the gym. That's my inspiration. Every day I work out. Cause he was just such a fucking physical freak. And it's just that particular image, that, that intensity. If I'm ever tired, I look at that image.

• 2:07:24Speaker 02

  What's your, what's your workout routine? How often do you get to work out?

• 2:07:27Joe Rogan?

  I work out every day. Basically every day.

• 2:07:29Speaker 02

  First thing in the morning?

• 2:07:30Joe Rogan?

  Occasionally I feel like I'd need a day off. I'll take a day off. But, uh, yeah, first thing in the morning.

• 2:07:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:07:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's the thing. Get up, get going.

• 2:07:38Speaker 02

  Cobwebs out of your head.

• 2:07:39Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's like you said, like you decide, I'm an athlete. I, I, I sort of decide I'm this person who gets up and gets in the cold plunge first thing in the morning. I'm this person that does these two and a half hour workouts, then gets in the sauna. That's what I do. I do it every day.

• 2:07:54Speaker 02

  I do the thing, this might inspire some people, like. So I don't have a trainer, but I'll look at like, I like watching other people see what they do in their routine. So I adopt some of that. I saw Josh Brolin all freaking in shape for the Deadpool movie. And I was like, dude, I text him, what is your workout? Could you tell me? He goes, oh, send it to you. He sends me a PDF of his whole workout routine that the, you know, the trainers had given him. It's intense. It was like, okay, if I do one fourth of this, I'll have a quarter of his results. I'm fine with that because I don't have this shit to do anyway. So I would be in and out of there, half hour. You know, so you don't have to commit all the way, you know, if you, as long as you're doing something, you're getting up and you're, and you're working out and you're doing it very strategically. If you don't have a lot of time, there's no excuse. You can make, you can.

• 2:08:39Joe Rogan?

  Oh, you can get a lot done in a short amount of time.

• 2:08:41Speaker 02

  You get a lot done in a short amount of time.

• 2:08:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:42Speaker 02

  Reverse pyramid train or something. You got three minutes in between each one. You can get work done during that.

• 2:08:46Joe Rogan?

  You certainly can. In fact, there was a study that just came out recently that showed that you get more results from one set to failure than you do with three sets.

• 2:08:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:08:58Joe Rogan?

  That you get.

• 2:08:59Speaker 02

  Sometimes I would then just keep holding the bar after I was done, just like for 10 more seconds.

• 2:09:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, there was some, some study. See if you can find this. It was a very recent study. It was very counterintuitive because a lot of people think more work, better results.

• 2:09:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:09:12Joe Rogan?

  But this, in this study, they were showing that they got more strength gains and more muscle recruitment in one hard set to failure.

• 2:09:22Speaker 02

  There's a lot of counterintuitive stuff.

• 2:09:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:24Speaker 02

  I like when I hear stuff like that. I try it. You know, I just roll it into the routine and give it a try.

• 2:09:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:28Speaker 02

  Because you don't know, you don't know what's going to work for you. There's no, there's no one right way to do anything. So I try to just get advice and, and, and adopt it. And I had this funny Stallone once. You ever had Stallone on the show?

• 2:09:39Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 2:09:39Speaker 02

  He's a great interview. My best interview on the director's chair is him because it's the most one that any layman could identify with. The guy really is rocky. His story is unbelievable and he's really funny. And, uh,

• 2:09:50Joe Rogan?

  I interviewed him before for the UFC.

• 2:09:52Speaker 02

  He called me and said, he asked if an actor friend of mine could be in one of the Expendables. He was like, my actor fell through. Can we, can you ask, what's his name? You know, friend of mine. Yeah, I'll ask. So I asked my friend. My friend goes, oh, no, it's too short notice, you know, because it was a last minute replacement. I need to get in shape. Okay, that makes sense. But, but it's not a physical role. You're just wanting, you go, I wouldn't want to be in a Stallone movie and not be in shape. So I have to get in shape and I don't have enough time, you know, just kind of shooting a week. So I go to Sly and I say, Sly, uh, he said, you know, I figured Sly would understand. Yeah, he has to get in shape. Get in shape. Get in shape. You don't get in shape, stay in shape. I was like, yeah, that makes sense. You gotta stay in shape.

• 2:10:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, there's a photo of Stallone walking around Malibu, looking like he's nine months pregnant. Have you seen that photo? I don't know if he did that for a movie.

• 2:10:44Speaker 02

  It's probably for, probably for Copland.

• 2:10:45Joe Rogan?

  No, it wasn't for Copland, it was recent. It was like within the last few years.

• 2:10:49Speaker 02

  What is he now? He's like seventy. Hey, no excuses. No excuses. Stay in shape. Stay in shape.

• 2:10:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:57Speaker 02

  That dude, such a great interview because I've watched the Rocky movies. You know, when was the last time you saw the Rocky movies?

• 2:11:01Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, here it is. Study finds higher training volume increases size, not strength. Oh, this isn't it. No, this is in May of twenty twenty four. It was very recently. It was about one set. Doing one set to failure shows, uh, strength and muscle recruitment benefits over three sets.

• 2:11:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I, I mean, I don't know when the last time you saw the Rocky movies.

• 2:11:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, here it is. New research says you could build strength and muscle with single set training. No, this isn't it either. It might be December twenty twenty four, it might be it. So just one hard set per exercise delivers impressive results.

• 2:11:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, at least try that.

• 2:11:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:40Speaker 02

  Get out, get in and out.

• 2:11:41Joe Rogan?

  They were saying it actually works better, so maybe this is another.

• 2:11:45Speaker 02

  Kind of a thing.

• 2:11:46Joe Rogan?

  Cause I, I read it just a couple of days ago, but it doesn't matter, we get it. It, so, but that is also very counterintuitive.

• 2:11:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11:52Joe Rogan?

  Cause most people think, oh, it's all about the amount of time you spend.

• 2:11:56Speaker 02

  It's having a pressure.

• 2:11:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. What I, but I do a lot of different, uh, exercises in one, I, I do full body workouts almost entirely, a very rare, unless one day a week I do heavy leg stuff or it's just legs. You know, because the leg, there's so many muscles of the legs. I don't, you know, when I wanna make sure that I'm doing that, I just, it takes too much time.

• 2:12:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:16Joe Rogan?

  Cause I'm doing leg curls and leg presses and lunges and it's like, I can't do other stuff too. But I like working out by myself.

• 2:12:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:26Joe Rogan?

  Without a trainer because. It's time to think.

• 2:12:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, time to really.

• 2:12:30Joe Rogan?

  No other voices.

• 2:12:32Speaker 02

  It's very meditative.

• 2:12:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:33Speaker 02

  And you work in the body and the body, you're getting ideas and I keep my computer there and I write down ideas.

• 2:12:38Joe Rogan?

  Oh, nice.

• 2:12:38Speaker 02

  Uh, did you, uh, you know, did you see the, I was watching the Rocky movies again and I was like, we watched the first one. Showed it to my lady, she loved it. I said, we gotta watch the second one, watch the second one. The next night we watched the third one. I finally, we got to the fourth one. I was, okay, I'm gonna write Stallone. I said, dude, you were consistently moving that character through the different eras and

• 2:12:59Speaker 02

  you need to go back to directing because he, when I worked with him, he'd done a bunch of movies in the nineties and he was telling me why the movies didn't work. I said, you gotta go back to directing. No one was at your level directing yourself, getting career bests out of your other actors. While you're also not just the star, but the franchise and being in insane shape back then, which was way before anyone knew anything about training. You were probably in the gym much longer than you needed to be. And he said, very perceptive.

• 2:13:26Speaker 02

  I was like, you probably were way over training because then people didn't know, there were no science to it back then.

• 2:13:31Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:13:31Speaker 02

  And getting all that work done. So how can you work with another director now? They can't have their respect. You gotta go back to directing. Cause you can't argue with the result. And he was like, can't go back to directing. Well, we did this movie together. It was his biggest opening ever with Spy Kids 3D. Two years later, a year later, he goes, I'm writing another Rocky. And that was that new Rocky. He, he hadn't directed in 22 years.

• 2:13:58Joe Rogan?

  Whoa.

• 2:13:58Speaker 02

  He went back to directing and writing, did another Rocky, another Rambo, and then a whole new franchise, Expendables. Crazy, like for your career to come back like that.

• 2:14:08Joe Rogan?

  Did stunts on Expendables and broke his fucking neck.

• 2:14:12Speaker 02

  But, cause he went back and that's sometimes, you know, that's the key to successes, yeah.

• 2:14:16Joe Rogan?

  Late sixties.

• 2:14:17Speaker 02

  And I said, yeah, it's harder.

• 2:14:18Joe Rogan?

  Doing his own stunts.

• 2:14:19Speaker 02

  It's harder to go do it all yourself, but look, you can't argue with the results. Look at the results you got back then. I'm so glad he went back to it because it inspires me all over again. So it's, you know, I'm sure you've done that. Someone that really inspired you and you want to know who are your heroes that you got to inspire back in some way? And then you're just like, oh my God, they inspired me so that I could be here for them when they needed to hear that to go on. It was like all part of the universe of that creativity, you know? You're the one who goes whispers in their ear. Another one with him, because he inspired me, you know, so many times was I started working with my kids more. It's very counterintuitive. Like, I don't know if you work with your kids or whatever, plan to work with your kids, but I would say to anybody, if you have an opportunity to work with your kids, take it. Because when I was like, when I turned 50, I thought, I guess I could keep making movies.

• 2:15:04Speaker 02

  It's been good to me. I guess I could just make more. I mean, I was way into it, you know, when I was younger and it's been good to me. But I bet there might be another job I can take that with the knowledge I have, I could probably make just as much money or something. I don't even know what jobs exist. I got this job when I was 21. So I got jobs for dummies and I started looking through all the other jobs were, oh, I want that job, I want that job. And then I get to filmmaker and it has a little icon of a guy with his hands up like this. And it says, this is the best job. Just make movies with your friends. You sit back, watch the money roll in, but 99% of film students can't get this job, so give it up. So I went, I actually got the best job.

• 2:15:43Speaker 02

  So I stick with it, but it still wasn't enough desire until I made that $7,000 movie with my kids. And they got so into it and I realized that's my next 10 years. I'm going to work with my kids. I'm going to make them all work on movies because it's not about making movies, it's about life lessons. It's a huge project that you have to, you don't know how you're going to get through even the day, much less the project. But that's life. It's like, I felt so good afterwards saying, you know, the process now, if I get hit by a bus, you guys are going to be fine. Because it's just like the movies. The story of life is just like the stories we make up. You go get your plan together, which is kind of like your script. You attack it, try to make it as bulletproof as possible. Go for your goal, whether it's building a comedy club or whatever. Watch it all fucking fall apart.

• 2:16:28Speaker 02

  And then that's when you roll up your sleeves, turn chicken shit to chicken salad. The finished result's way better than your original vision. Wash, rinse, repeat. That's life. Mmm. It's a microcosm of how life works. So I made them work on the movies. And I did this manifesting thing. My son said, well, I'd like to do a VR movie. So let's make a company together. We'll call it Double R. Y'all have Double R names. Double R Company. Watch, I'm gonna show you this, how this works. Cause I did this with Brass Knuckle Films, which is creating a label. Double R, that'll be our logo. And I made t-shirts and little notepads. And they got way into it. Cause now that we have a company, you have to do stuff to fill the company. So we'll call it VR Company and say, y'all need to sell hitsets. Give us some money to make a movie and we'll make you a movie. We did one with Michelle Rodriguez and Norman Reedus called The Limit.

• 2:17:12Speaker 02

  That had the, they made us a big Double R logo in the front. That was like in March. Later that year, we made that $7,000 movie. That also had the Double R logo. Then I went to Netflix and they said, could you make us a Spy Kids type thing? That always does well. So I thought, okay. I kinda came up with it in the room. I thought, little kids superheroes who have to save their superhero parents. That's We Can Be Heroes, another Double R movie. My kids wrote it with me. It's the most watched and re-watched movie in Netflix history. Nothing can touch it. Kids cannot stop watching it. Cause it's little kids superheroes. No one's ever done that before. And my kids are like, Dad, it really works, this thing. And I was like, shit, better than I thought. I was just, I was just making an example. But that's, that's how it happens, right?

• 2:17:54Speaker 02

  Like it feels predestined, but also you're like, let me just show you how it works. And you go to show someone an example and that becomes your bread and butter. Yeah. And so I just tell people, if you have an opportunity to work with your kids, you're mentoring them. They're mentoring you because they're the age I was when I was making mariachi in Desperado. They got so many great ideas. Mmm. And you're taking on this big project that's teaching them about life. And because you're both in the same boat, you both know what it's gonna take. And it's family time. So you're like checking all the boxes. And I was telling this to Sly, I was so excited back in, you know, 2019. And his wife Jennifer was like, You don't work with your daughters. She hits him, you don't work with your daughters.

• 2:18:34Speaker 02

  And he's like, oh shit, maybe I should dial this story back. I was so evangelical about it, but I get people in trouble, but they couldn't hear it. And the next year, the daughters went on, started a podcast. He would show up for her once in a while to like get ratings up. Now they have a TV show, second season, family still alone. They're all working together. They're all living the best life. So I tell anybody who listens, because it's something I stumbled upon, because it's very counterintuitive, because you would think, oh, if I work my kids, doesn't that look like privilege or whatever. So I'll tell you this, what happens when we die? Don't you just give everything that you created over your life to your kids because they have your last name? They weren't a part of it. If you have a chance to work with them and build

• 2:19:15Speaker 02

  it with you, you have that next level mentorship relationship, don't just parent, because after a while, once they're in their teens, they don't really need you to peddle in over them. Partner with them, become their mentor, their OB one, and they mentor you back. It gives them such a boost in confidence when they teach you some shit. And you'll have that next level experience. That way, when you pass on, you give them the stuff, they go, yeah, I made this with my dad.

• 2:19:38Joe Rogan?

  That's great advice.

• 2:19:39Speaker 02

  So I tell people.

• 2:19:40Joe Rogan?

  Especially when you do something like you do, that's, well, you know.

• 2:19:43Speaker 02

  Depends on what you have. Find your version of, you know, like not everybody can necessarily work with the kids, but if you have an opportunity to do it, do it.

• 2:19:48Joe Rogan?

  Right, but like this thing that you were saying about jobs for dummies, 99% of people are not going to be able to do this. Well, that's the thing. It's like, but yeah, but it's possible.

• 2:19:55Speaker 02

  It is possible.

• 2:19:56Joe Rogan?

  And part of the 99% not going to do it because they don't know anybody who's done it.

• 2:20:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:20:02Joe Rogan?

  That's part of the problem, right? And once you see, like, oh, look how he did this. He just did, I think I could, he told me how he made El Mariachi. I think it can be done.

• 2:20:11Speaker 02

  That wasn't taught in film schools. That was completely, again, they don't teach you, they teach you how to do one job.

• 2:20:16Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:20:16Speaker 02

  So that you can go pull cables on someone else's movie. My thing was like, be the owner, be the creator, be everything. And you cut the line and suddenly you're at the film festival.

• 2:20:24Joe Rogan?

  But no one had really done that.

• 2:20:26Speaker 02

  Nobody had done that before. It was the first time. That's why, even when I was doing it, I was like.

• 2:20:32Speaker 02

  I kind of have the idea this can do it because I did that short film and I'm doing the math, but somebody must have done this already. Even when the studio, in the book it shows, even when the studios were flying me up because they saw Mariachi and wanted to do a deal with me, I went, "I've never heard of anyone getting the business like this. This must happen all the time where they find some filmmaker, student, they wine and dine him, and then you never hear from him again because I've never heard a story like this." And I was the first one, that's why. That's wild. It was really crazy. And I didn't even want them to release it. I didn't want them to release it because it was my practice film. I just threw it away. They said- Wasn't everything one take? One take because I was shooting on film. And if I shot two takes of everything, I'd double my budget because most of the money went to the film.

• 2:21:17Speaker 02

  Ah. I wrote the script around everything I already had so I wouldn't have to buy anything. So it's like, "Well, what do we have? We took stock in what we have." And this is a lesson for life. Like, if you think you can't do anything, well, look around you, you've got a lot of resources. It's about being resourceful. We have a turtle we found, we have a dog, we've got a ranch, your brother-in-law has a school line, I mean, a bus line, we'll borrow one of the buses. When you see what we do with a bus, he crashes into it, we have some bar, let's write everything around that. So we just have that. And if I shoot two takes, we double their budget. How about let's shoot one take of everything? I know not everything's going to come out because I'm doing everything myself. I'm pulling focus, I might meter it wrong, who knows? But I don't want to shoot a safety take or it's going to double the budget. We'll go home after I finish shooting the whole movie, I'll see what stuff didn't come out and I'll go just reshoot that.

• 2:22:02Speaker 02

  Of course, you get home and you're, "I'm not going to fucking go back to Mexico and reshoot anything. I'll just figure out a way to edit around all the stuff that didn't come out." Not everything came out. But, um, yeah, it was merely just following your nose and not knowing if it was going to work. Somebody must have thought to do this already, but no one had ever done that before because it's so counterintuitive. You're told, but that's how movies started. You know, you think back in the old days, Charlie Chaplin and a guy behind the camera doing this, they didn't have 200 people. It turned into a business, just like with comedy, and it turns into a business to where you think that's the art form. That's not the art form. That's the business of the art form. The original art form is you by yourself doing it. This is how by myself I was. It was like, "You've got one guy here now, right? Because you have all these digital cameras."

• 2:22:44Speaker 02

  I had one camera and I had the sound, and I can't do them at the same time because the camera sounds like this. Really noisy, and it sounds like all your money is going away. So I had no slates. I would just say, "Run." The guy starts running.

• 2:23:00Speaker 02

  Stop filming. Cut! You know, like, I would just shoot my little pieces like this much. After I would do a whole scene, one take, one take, one take, one take. Put the camera down. Get the microphone really close to him, like that. Okay, see all your lines again. Pick up the glass again. Do all that stuff again.

• 2:23:18Joe Rogan?

  Wow!

• 2:23:18Speaker 02

  Cut it in by hand. So...

• 2:23:21Joe Rogan?

  So you cut in the audio by hand and try to sink it to the mouth?

• 2:23:24Speaker 02

  So when they're not... because they're not actors. A lot of times, like, repeat what you just said. Wait, so you cut it by hand and it would match?

• 2:23:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:32Speaker 02

  And if it didn't match, I would cut away to the dog, or to the knife, or the other person. That's why it's got a really fast cutting style, which became my cutting style. Was just to get him back in sync, because I didn't want it to look like a low-budget, rubbery lip thing. But if you watch it, you see them in sync. Every time they're on screen, they're in sync. And then, as they start to go out of sync, it cuts. And it cuts back. But this is about being resourceful. But it saved me a ton of money. Doing it that way.

• 2:23:57Joe Rogan?

  And it made it actually interesting to watch.

• 2:23:59Speaker 02

  Makes it more interesting to watch.

• 2:24:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:00Speaker 02

  Oh, so anyway, so, originally, I didn't have any ideas. I was gonna make three of these movies. Before making my serious, American, independent film. But my first movie, I gave it to an agent in, uh, Los Angeles. And he said, "I can get you work off this right now as a writer-director." And I went, "Writer-director? I'm not a writer. Well, I guess I wrote the script, but I guess that makes me a writer." Again, I didn't know how to own stuff yet. So you just gotta say you're a writer. I still thought, "Well, I... I didn't even have written the movie. I didn't consider myself a writer." Yes, that's the shit we do to ourselves, right? So, I said, "Okay." So he sent it around. All these studios were flying me up. It's in the book. It's just crazy how fast it happened. And they're offering me these deals, because they saw that I went and did something. That's why you just gotta go make something. Because people, sometimes they're so impressed that you even did anything.

• 2:24:45Speaker 02

  Most people never start. And they went, "Wow." And I thought, "Well, it's actually a good calling card now. If you like the cinematography, I did that. Hire me as a cameraman. If you like the editing, I did that. Hire me as an editor." But they hired me as a writer-director. And they said, "What movie do you want to do?" I go, "Well, this all happened so fast. I didn't... I didn't really have a chance to think about it. I was gonna do three of these practice films and then make a real one, so..." "But you like Mariachi, why don't we remake that?" And they said, "With, like, Antonio Banderas." I'm, "Okay, okay." But... Audience might not like that the girl dies. So we're going to screen this version that you have now to an audience. So we screen it to an audience and they liked it the way it was. So they said, we're going to take this to some film festivals. I was like, no, don't show this movie. It's my practice movie. Literally, no one's supposed to see this one.

• 2:25:30Speaker 02

  They go, no, no, you got something really special. I said, no, dude, I'm telling you, I can do much better than that. Give me $2,000, I'll go reshoot half of it. Just knowing that people are going to see it now, I would do completely differently. And they go, you've got something. They're smarter than Mark Kenton there said, you got something really special here. We're going to take it to the festivals. And we won Sundance. Because I made it for myself. There was a real lesson in that. Like, if I was trying to think about what all the audience was going to want to see, I would have changed so many things. But because I knew no one was going to see it. It's probably the only movie in history you ever made where people were guaranteed not to see it. Just by the title, I titled it that way so nobody would see it. I didn't want anybody to see it. I wanted to just throw it away and practice. I figured maybe the third one one might, might be the better one. You know, like that advice, throw three scripts away and then do a fourth.

• 2:26:15Speaker 02

  Well, I'm going to throw three movies away so that by the fourth, I'm, I'm so savvy, know how to film and do all these things. This first practice film is not going to be it. That's the one that is going to be it.

• 2:26:24Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 2:26:24Speaker 02

  So, commit to a body of work, throw shit away. Don't put, don't be precious about it. Just go make it. Don't blink when people criticize it. And just keep going, make a body of work. That's it. That's, that's the secret. And that's the secret to life, too. Just keep, just keep trying to make it the best.

• 2:26:39Joe Rogan?

  That is phenomenal advice. And coming from a person like you that has accomplished so much, it's so resonant.

• 2:26:44Speaker 02

  That's why I accomplish it, by doing those things, which everybody can do. It's not because I'm, I'm not that smart, I'm telling you, not that smart. I just follow your instincts, like you've done. When you follow your instinct, you're letting the universe do all the talking. And some of that sounds wonky, but I just call it that because it is from some other place. And you're just an instrument, you're just a pipe.

• 2:27:02Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:27:02Speaker 02

  The soul that gets into your body, and you realize that when you have kids, I don't know if you had that experience. As soon as I had my first kid, I was like, this isn't my kid. You can just tell it's not my kid. I mean, it has physical characteristics, it may even mannerisms in my walk. But there's another soul in here that's from some other place.

• 2:27:20Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 2:27:20Speaker 02

  And each one is so different. I have five kids and I have from nine siblings. They're so, they're from different planets.

• 2:27:27Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:27:27Speaker 02

  And so you realize that the soul is on a communication level with some other thing that our human bodies are just very primitive to, to do. So when we get a, a voice. We can't tell if it's come from the universe, if it's for our own mind, or if it's just, because it all sounds like fucking Morse code. Because the brain is so primitive, it's a three-pound meat computer, so why we can't remember shit? It's like, we're limited by the body our soul got put into. Just like we'd be limited if we're put in a fish, because they got even smaller brain, they, you know, they only go forward and backwards.

• 2:28:00Joe Rogan?

  That's why a lot of people say you have to learn how to get out of your own way.

• 2:28:04Speaker 02

  Because you're, you're, you think I'm so limited.

• 2:28:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:08Speaker 02

  But you actually...

• 2:28:09Joe Rogan?

  Also, maybe you don't, and maybe you're cocky, which is equally bad.

• 2:28:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, because that's beginning your own way in a different way. It's a false, it's a false, where you think, I can do anything because I'm just so cool. Where you're saying, no, you can do anything because you're just a pipe. Be that, and then you'll see much more flow happening. You'll see things just falling in your lap.

• 2:28:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, don't think about you at all.

• 2:28:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, get you out of it. It's not, you have to be very humble. It's a very humbling thing. The more humble you are, the more shit happens, not just for you, but everyone around you. Being creative, and I figured this out, like, one year, there was a book called The One Thing, a business book called One Thing, like, do one thing and just do that well. I thought, okay, that book's not for me. And I was doing this talk where they introduced me, they said, Robert Rodriguez, writer, director, editor, publisher, a long list of all the jobs I do, and I went up there like, wow. That, I get tired just hearing that list. And I keep seeing that book, The One Thing, and I thought, at first I thought, that's not me. But I realized, you know what, I don't just do all those things. There's one thing I really do that ties all those together.

• 2:29:12Speaker 02

  When you think about it, I do one thing, and it's I live a creative life. And if you commit to living a creative life, like literally applying creativity to everything you do, your workout in the morning, how you interact with your kids, the meal you cook, what you're gonna do that night, a business call you take, be creative. I love my business meetings now the most. I make people pizza, I make them my chocolate. We talk about creativity, and they want to be in business with you. It's like so good because you're adding creativity. It enriches your life and everyone around you. And that way, anything that touches creativity, whether it's painting, drawing, sculpture, music...

• 2:29:45Speaker 02

  Is available to you because what 90% of that job is just being creative. And if you're doing it all day, you're always going to be in a flow. If you don't embrace that and you go about your daily life and you don't apply creativity. Well, when you go home that night to write your novel or something, you're going to be blocked. Cause you're not in a creative flow. But if you've just been applying creativity all day long to everything. I'm going to do, I'm going to do this talk creatively. I'm going to bring some cards. I'm going to go do this, you know, you're applying creativity. You're always in a flow. So when you go back to go do your main job, you're in, you've already been doing it and you're living your best life. Cause I found I was most successful, happiest and most fulfilled when I was being creative. So why not just do that 24/7? And it's been a life changer.

• 2:30:24Speaker 02

  It's been doing that like 15 years with consciousness, like consciously say, cause people don't like to say they're creative. Like when I ask, are you creative? And Lexing is like, oh, yeah, you know, like stumbling through it's like, because people think being an artist means you have to have the mustache and the hat. And it's like, no, artists are regular people and regular people are flawed. And that's why you relate to something that they do because it's flawed. If you made it perfect, they couldn't relate to it. Cause humans are flawed. And if you think of it that way, you go, well, I can create flawed stuff. I can do that all day long. And then that gets out of your way. Cause then somebody who comes to you and they go, really love that part where the explosion is, oh, well, that was an accident. Cause I didn't get what I really wanted and I had to make this work. And that was an accident. They like those acts, they, they respond to those accidents in a big way because they're from another universe.

• 2:31:09Speaker 02

  They're, they're, they're the part that's magic, the part you didn't know, the part you couldn't have predicted. Right. And so if you set up, I purposely make my budgets smaller and my shooting schedules shorter. So that those more of that stuff happens because that's the stuff people will relate to. And it gives you complete creative freedom. Like you have a lot of creative freedom here. I'm probably the director who's worked with the most outcast ostracized or people who are considered difficult than any other filmmaker. Mainly because I'm independent and I don't have to listen to a studio if they're like, oh, you can't work with that person. Ooh. So like Mel Gibson couldn't get a job back when I hired him on, I was just always a big fan of his.

• 2:31:50Speaker 02

  I always liked a creativity first and talent first bullshit controversy, not even distant second, it's not even considered. And I get to work with these amazing people, Steven Seagal, Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan. And then people who are considered difficult were like Michael Parks. I got this from Quentin, Michael Parks was in a. Dust Till Dawn, he's the sheriff at the beginning, the Texas Ranger. Quentin said, "Man, I love this guy, Michael Parks. He was gonna be the next James Dean. He had a show on TV in the 70s called Then Came Bronson. But then he kinda got difficult for people to work with, and so he was relegated to these low-budget grindhouse films. But check him out, he's always really great. I wanna put him in Dust Till Dawn, but I hear he's my difficult to work with. You work with him first. And if he's great to work with, I'll work with him."

• 2:32:34Speaker 02

  I was, "All right, sure." So I work with him. It was a dream. It was amazing. He was really great. No bullshit. Of all the people like that, and then we both kept putting him in movies. Mickey Rourke was considered, couldn't work, he couldn't get a job. I gave him Once Upon a Time. But when I met him, I was like, "Oh, my God, he's just like Mickey in the old days." You know, Quentin and I actually wanted him in Dust Till Dawn. We both wanted Mickey Rourke in the lead role. But he retired from acting, he was just boxing. He don't even look at the scripts. We're like, "Oh, man, we could hire Mickey Rourke, and there's no Mickey Rourke now. We're so bummed." But then years later, I went back to him, and no one was hiring him. And so I met with him. I said, "Okay, I'll meet with him." It's like, "Holy shit, he still has that charm and everything." So I put him in, gave him a small role, Once Upon a Time, Mexico, and I kept riding him more scenes. He was

• 2:33:18Speaker 02

  broke. I mean, I gave him money to go buy his own suits, 'cause he always dressed to the nines in his movies. It's like, "Look, I'm all out of time costume designing this thing. I'll give you some money, go buy your own clothes. You're always gonna dress." He came with these Billy Martin suits and stuff. I said, "I'm gonna put a bullet hole in the back of one digitally, just so you can keep," because he wanted to keep the clothes, "so you can keep the clothes." "Thanks, brother." And then I put him in Sin City, and it relaunched his career. But he was always a dream to work with. And I would hear from people later, "Oh, he's been difficult again." I was like, "Really? He's gonna come back again?" "No, again, 100% of the time, I've never had any difficulty with even the difficult, ostracized one." So it makes you think, and you know that, 'cause you have anybody you want on your show. But it makes me wonder,

• 2:34:02Speaker 02

  what environment are you putting them in? Right. That makes them like that. 'Cause like, somebody would say that about Red Gower. It was amazing. Hard to work with. Really? No, it wasn't at all. But for some people... I didn't know he had the reputation. I don't know, but somebody told me. I fucking loved him in Blade Runner. Loved him in stuff. Blade Runner, The Hitcher. Bruce Willis, people would tell me was difficult to work with. I'd say, "Bruce? I've worked with him four times. Let me tell you, this is what Bruce is like when he walks in the set. Hey, Hefe. What's going on, man?" Hefe means boss. Does that sound like somebody who's difficult? That's gonna be somebody who's just so happy.

• 2:34:39Speaker 02

  One time, I was doing this Kobe Bryant Nike commercial. I was gonna be in with Kobe, I was directing it. And I was working out at the gym where Stallone works out, Gunnar Peterson's gym. And Bruce was there. And I was trying to get an actor to do a cameo in this commercial. I was shooting that weekend, I was working out because I was gonna be on camera. And so then I go to Bruce and I go, hey, what are you up to? And he goes, ah, I'm just looking for a job. And I said, well, are you a basketball fan? Because I'm shooting a Kobe Bryant commercial Saturday. Why don't you come by the set? It's downtown, we play this role. Bring a couple of suits, because it's very last minute, but last minute replacement. Yeah, yeah, sure, love to meet him. Okay, good. So I went back to the Nike people and said, Bruce said he's gonna be in it. Well, we'll call his agents.

• 2:35:24Speaker 02

  No, no, don't call his agents, because he probably didn't tell them. And he said he'll come down, I think he will, because he's cool like that. Well, we think we should call him anyway. So they called the agents, the agents go, Bruce Willis is not gonna be in a Nike commercial. Well, he talked to Robert. Okay, I guess he is gonna be in a Nike commercial. So then we're down there in the set, we're downtown LA, we're filming Kobe, we're filming everything else. And it's like, almost time for him to show up. And they're like, you sure he's gonna come? He said he would, he said he'd bring two suits. And now, now I'm thinking how ridiculous that sounds, but I told him in the gym. And said, come down with a couple of your suits from your own closet. Like, there's no wardrobe, there's no time to get a wardrobe fitting. And just show up. He shows up, shows up, does it. So I'll film you out in an hour, because he knows how we work together. Had a great time, he's great in it.

• 2:36:08Speaker 02

  Takes off, brought his two suits.

• 2:36:10Joe Rogan?

  That's amazing.

• 2:36:11Speaker 02

  It does not sound like somebody who's difficult.

• 2:36:13Joe Rogan?

  No, it's the environment that you put these people in.

• 2:36:15Speaker 02

  Totally the environment you put them in. Because I was watching like a Dog Whisperer, and it's like, if you have a pit bull, some of those guys can be alpha male pit bull. If you put them in a situation where aggression is needed. Like, if you have a chaotic set, and producers are coming down going, eh, no, you can't wear that, you can't talk like that. Of course, you're gonna piss these guys off. But if you put them in an environment where they know there's somebody who's the boss. I mean, they show up, it's my studio, I'm operating the camera, I'm the DP. I'm there acting with them. We're shooting it in record time, getting them out of there fast. They're having a ball.

• 2:36:49Speaker 02

  Pitbull just wants to follow. He doesn't want to, he doesn't want to fucking take over the show. And so everyone's really, that's my theory on it anyway. I think it's just the environment. Cause they always say, oh, if you have a dog that's misbehaving, it's the owner. It's the owner and the environment. It's not the dog.

• 2:37:03Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:37:03Speaker 02

  There's nothing wrong with the animal. The animal is fine. The animal could be very calm and assertive and even submissive.

• 2:37:09Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's also these exceptional actors with these eccentric personalities. They're oftentimes like, if you put them in a bad environment, you're gonna get a fucking terrible result because it's part of what they are is like a little bit of chaos.

• 2:37:21Speaker 02

  Well, they're also just gonna have to protect themselves.

• 2:37:23Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:37:23Speaker 02

  They have to protect themselves if this, if this environment is fucked up.

• 2:37:26Joe Rogan?

  Think about the type of guy that told you that like, wait, you filmed this and you didn't get the rights.

• 2:37:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:37:32Joe Rogan?

  Those fucks.

• 2:37:33Speaker 02

  Those are the guys that are gonna drive you up a wall.

• 2:37:35Joe Rogan?

  Exactly. We've all encountered those executives.

• 2:37:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:37:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:39Speaker 02

  I remember I talked to Mick's, I'd heard, you know, he'd been in trouble and something. So I go, maybe, maybe his head got big and was trouble. So. I said, well, what was wrong? And he went, everything had to be what Mickey wanted to say, what Mickey wanted to wear, what Mickey wanted to do. So, okay, well, maybe, maybe he's gone back to some. I'm about to work with him again. So he comes, no, he's a dream again. So at the end I go, man, you always bring it, brother. What? You're always bringing it. It's just, it's just so great to see. Yeah, with some people, you deserve it. Most people don't deserve it. Cause he remembers I gave him his shot back. So I was like, okay, he didn't give me any shit. Maybe he gives the people shit, but he.

• 2:38:11Joe Rogan?

  That's awesome. Listen, brother, I've really enjoyed this. Really enjoyed talking to you.

• 2:38:15Speaker 02

  We'll have to bring you to the studio.

• 2:38:17Joe Rogan?

  A lot of things, I wanna see the studio, but I think a lot of things you said are really gonna help a lot of people.

• 2:38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, hopefully, hopefully, cause it's, uh, it's been helpful to me to then tell people. And then the feedback loop, they tell me back something I said, but they morphed it into something new.

• 2:38:31Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 2:38:32Speaker 02

  Like they've added their own thing to it.

• 2:38:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:34Speaker 02

  And I go, that's not what I told you. You go, oh, we've added to it. So no shit. Well, now, now I'm taking your advice that came from my advice. My kids do that all the time. They go, it all comes back to what you taught us, Dad. I go, what was that? What did I tell you? That one time you said, you know, basically like the glass was half full, half empty. Okay, but I didn't tell you all this other stuff. Where'd that come from? Oh, we added to it. So I was like, well, shit, that's the cool part.

• 2:38:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:58Speaker 02

  Like my son got on a, was a Japanese knife maker, you know, in his teens. He just wanted to get into Japanese life. This is a guy from another lifetime, you know, different, he obviously knew this was his path. That's when you know it's a soul born in there. Didn't get that from me. Making these Japanese style knives, selling them for like a thousand dollars a pop. By the time he was 18, he got on that show Forging the Fire. And won. And I was like, how did you, you didn't even know how to use most of the equipment they gave you. You got $10,000? How did you, what was your mindset? He said, I imagined I had won already. Somehow I had won. And so when I'd come up against a challenge that I wasn't sure how I would get by, I just had to remember what I did to get by it, rather than trying to be freaked out about it.

• 2:39:39Joe Rogan?

  Whoa, that's some freaking Samurai shit.

• 2:39:42Speaker 02

  I read that, this, you've obviously been in another life before. To come in armed with that, I didn't learn that from me. And it's like, well, it's kind of like, no, that's nothing like anything I ever told you.

• 2:39:54Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 2:39:54Speaker 02

  So the feedback loop, when you share with people, I love people coming and telling me, hey, I was really inspired by your book, and you said this. I'm like, I don't remember saying that in the book. I think you added to it a lot. It triggered something in you. And we all keep compiling our ideas.

• 2:40:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, we all do that.

• 2:40:10Speaker 02

  That's why I'm all interested in everybody else's perspective, because we all have our own relationship to creativity and the universe and all that.

• 2:40:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And the more you interact with things, the more you contribute.

• 2:40:20Speaker 02

  But come be in a brass knuckle film. That sounds like a great reality. Let's do Conan or Rosetta something. You gotta come see that.

• 2:40:26Joe Rogan?

  Definitely something. Definitely something. I can't wait to see your studio.

• 2:40:28Speaker 02

  Because you'd be great. I can already tell you, I got a great part for you, where you will knock it out.

• 2:40:33Joe Rogan?

  All right, we'll talk.

• 2:40:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, we'll talk.

• 2:40:35Joe Rogan?

  Thank you very much.

• 2:40:36Speaker 02

  Thanks, sir.

• 2:40:37Joe Rogan?

  It was awesome. I really appreciate it.

• 2:40:38Speaker 02

  All right.

• 2:40:39Speaker 05

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