#2435 - Bradley Cooper

Bradley Cooper is an Academy Award-nominated actor, writer, producer, and director. His film credits include “American Sniper,” “A Star Is Born,” and “The Hangover.” His latest film, “Is This Thing On?,” which he directed and co-stars in, is now in theaters.https://www.searchlightpictures.com/is-this-thing-on Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Get a free welcome kit with your first subscription of AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/joerogan Don’t miss out on all the action this week at DraftKings! Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up using dkng.co/rogan or through my promo code ROGAN. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, (800) 327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD). 21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT/OR/NH. Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). Pass-thru of per wager tax may apply in IL. 1 per new customer. Must register new account to receive reward Token. Must select Token BEFORE placing min. $5 bet to receive $300 in Bonus Bets if your bet wins. Min. -500 odds req. Token and Bonus Bets are single-use and non-withdrawable. Token expires 2/1/26. Bonus Bets expire in 7 days (168 hours). Stake removed from payout. Terms: sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Ends 1/25/26 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK. 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.

• 0:06Joe Rogan?

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

• 0:12Joe Rogan?

  Hey Bradley Cooper, what's happening baby?

• 0:15Speaker 00

  You know what it's like when like a Twilight Zone episode or something? Where like you're watching the TV, this is an episode where like I'm watching the TV. And then all of a sudden you're inside the show. And you're looking at me. Oh. And I got the, yeah, and all of a sudden I'm inside the show. It's crazy.

• 0:28Joe Rogan?

  It's weird for me too. It's weird for me that it gets weird for other people too. Like when I see people being weird about it, I'm like, it's okay.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  I feel comfortable, just so you know.

• 0:38Joe Rogan?

  Oh, good. You look comfortable.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, no, no. It's excitement.

• 0:41Joe Rogan?

  It's weird for me. Like I was trying to explain this to someone, they're like, do people have a hard time being comfortable on the show? I go, I kinda do too. It's fucking weird.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 0:49Joe Rogan?

  It's weird that that many people are watching.

• 0:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 0:52Joe Rogan?

  And then you start thinking like, oh, don't fuck it up. Don't say that.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Right. But if you think about it, the fact that you did this long form setup and that we live in a culture where people at least say that it's all about short term.

• 1:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  It goes against it. The people are interested.

• 1:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Well, the short term stuff does work, you know, like short attention span stuff is very popular, even with me like, but I have been resisting it more and more lately. I'm like, like a fucking heroin addict, like slowly weaning myself off the drug. And the more I wean myself, the better I feel, like physically better. My brain works better. I feel more relaxed. I don't feel like this, like Sugar Sean O'Malley, the UFC fighter, he said, even when I'm just scrolling, even if he goes, even if it's not anything about me. He goes, there's just like a low level anxiety that I get. I'm like, yeah, yeah. Because like you know, you're wasting your time chasing a fix that you're never gonna get.

• 1:55Joe Rogan?

  And you're just like getting these, these short drips of like, oh, look at that. Oh, look at that. Oh, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. But that's not what people really want. What people really want is something engaging, something you go, wow, that's a, like a great documentary, like which are still super popular. Like a great documentary, they're still, you know, like huge on Netflix and huge on YouTube.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  And Oppenheimer was like three hours long.

• 2:19Joe Rogan?

  Right, exactly.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  And made a billion dollars. So people went.

• 2:23Joe Rogan?

  Humans didn't change. It's just you can hijack their reward system by giving them some short attention span nonsense. And it just like tricks their slow drip dopamine into like continuing to watch this stupid shit. But that's not what they want.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:37Joe Rogan?

  You know, it's not what I want.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  No, it's the difference between like, yeah, just a little drip of something that has the illusion that I'm getting what I want as opposed to what I actually need.

• 2:47Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  Which is sort of a reminder that I exist.

• 2:51Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Yes. And that I'm communicating with somebody and I can relate to it.

• 2:56Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  Which is a different thing. And I only know this because I'd never been on social media, but sometimes. There was one time I got on, somehow got on TikTok and it was all police footage.

• 3:05Joe Rogan?

  Oy.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  You know, like, uh, and I was just, I remember laying on my couch. Forty minutes went by and I was just doing this. And there was like the first part of the video and then what happened? And then like the second part, part two. And that was the only time I experienced, I thought, I gotta stay away from this because I won't leave the house.

• 3:20Joe Rogan?

  It's bad. It's bad for you too, because it programs you to think that that is going on everywhere in the world. Like if you have eight billion people that are interacting with people all over the world and you only take the worst examples of that and broadcast it. And then it becomes viral and millions and millions of people think, it rewires your way you think about human beings.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  But the, and the other thing is about memory. Someone was talking about Niagara Falls the other day. And I thought, I've been there, right? And I'm like, have I been there? Or did I see a video? Like, or was, or was that one of the things when I put the Oculus on?

• 3:59Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  Honestly, I can't remember, but I know what it feels like to be looking at it.

• 4:04Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  So the, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's changing the way memory works.

• 4:10Joe Rogan?

  One hundred percent.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:11Joe Rogan?

  I've, um, come, I've hit a wall in my memory, like a tangible wall. Because, and I think it's connected to like Dunbar's number. Like Dunbar's number is the amount of people that you can keep in your head. Like, because we evolved in these tribal scenarios. We, we evolved with like a hundred and fifty people. And so the way Dunbar, uh, Calculated it, there's like very close intimate, close circle people, which is a small amount. And then immediately after that, there's a slightly larger amount and then it gets up to, what was it like? It gets up to like a thousand people?

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Fifteen hundred.

• 4:46Joe Rogan?

  Fifteen hundred people? That's the most amount of people you can keep in your head. So it's like five people that like your tightest of tight and then fifteen like slightly outside of that. And it gets all the way up to about fifteen hundred people, recognizable people.

• 5:00Joe Rogan?

  But.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  I would think I'd be able to, that you could keep in your head.

• 5:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but I'm way past fifteen hundred people, so I'm fucked.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:08Joe Rogan?

  Like I am like, there's people that I know really well and then I see them and I'm like, I don't remember his name.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  Fifteen hundred sounds.

• 5:14Joe Rogan?

  And it, it seems bad, like I'm like, why can't I remember his fucking name?

• 5:18Speaker 00

  I can't remember his name. I'm horrible with names.

• 5:20Joe Rogan?

  But it's just because my hard drive sucks. It's like, I don't have enough room.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:25Joe Rogan?

  It's like, you know, when you, the old iPhones, it was like, you've run out of, you know, max space, like, oh geez. I gotta start deleting photos and videos.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Now, do you get anxiety with that or do you sort of breathe through and say, well, it's just the way it is?

• 5:37Joe Rogan?

  I kinda just deal with it.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, me too.

• 5:39Joe Rogan?

  It is what it is, but, but my memory itself is like very good and also very bad at the same time.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, me too. I, I have a serious problem remembering people's names.

• 5:50Joe Rogan?

  Well, you think about how many people.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Like as I was saying it, I was like, and I've watched the show so many times, I was like, Jamie, right, that's Jamie? Like as you were saying, I'm like, let me see, who can I remember? Do I remember any of the guys I just met, can't tell you one, I just met them, shook their hand, looked them in their.

• 6:00Joe Rogan?

  They say their names and it just goes in and out.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:03Joe Rogan?

  And some people get upset, what's my name?

• 6:05Speaker 00

  I know, I know.

• 6:05Joe Rogan?

  I don't fucking know.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  You don't remember me? You don't, yeah, I'm like. Wait, you don't remember? What's my name? And you're like, oh.

• 6:13Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's why in Hollywood, people love to say, good to see you. Instead of nice to meet you, like, but you met me two years ago, like, I don't remember.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, Leonard Bernstein did a great thing that he would always, I loved you in the last thing you did.

• 6:27Joe Rogan?

  Ah, that's funny, that's funny. Speaking of which, I watched your movie, um, is this thing on? And it's good, it's really good, man.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Oh, thanks, man.

• 6:36Joe Rogan?

  It's one of the best representations of someone attempting to do stand up. It's a really good film. And, you know, but it's not really just about stand-up. It's about these people with this. It's about, they're, they're actual human beings. Like, these are complicated, real, like, not caricaturish, not cartoonish people, like. Like, I get that these are real people.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Right, good.

• 7:01Joe Rogan?

  Complicated, real people that are trying to figure out their relationships. And in the context of this one guy, Will Arnett, is tempted to do stand-up.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:11Joe Rogan?

  So it was great.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  I'm glad you say that. Like, so you, because, you know, I moved to New York in ninety-seven. And, and then that was my introduction to any comedy world. Other than with my dad, I used to watch Rodney Dangerfield's, you know, New Year's Eve special. We used to watch it every year, you know, and it was Elaine Boosler and Sam Kinison and Dice and, you know.

• 7:35Joe Rogan?

  Elaine Boosler, I forgot about her.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  I'm pretty sure she was on there, yeah.

• 7:38Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  And, and I was obsessed with Dice when I was like in eighth grade. I memorized one of his records and I would do it in the train station with all of my friends. Because back then, that's all you did, right? You would memorize stuff.

• 7:49Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, me too.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  There was no video to look at. You know, you wouldn't all sit around. You would just memorize and then, you know, regale your friends with your impersonation of them. And then, and Richard Pryor was my hero, hero, growing up. That was my idol. So I had this thing with stand-up comedy, and then I moved to New York and I'm all of a sudden immersed with these clubs and, and Upright Citizens Brigade had just started. And I did this movie, What Had American Summer? And there was all these people. I didn't even know about the state. Remember that show on MTV? There was, yeah, all this. And so I just, you know, little by little, immersed myself into that world. And I just became fascinated with the culture. And then Zach Galifianakis, who I met like in two thousand and one, way before Hangover. I used to go and watch him do stuff. And I just loved the culture.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  And when Will was telling me about this, I was like, oh, let's set it in New York. And the cellar, because I just loved the, the geography of the cellar, too. That you go in the olive tree and you walk down into this place. It's this whole other world. And. And it just felt like, yeah, I really went like, can I, can we pull this off where it's authentic, where you were watching it at home and you get a sense of the fact that you're saying that, you know, you feel like it got it, you know, within the striking distance makes me really happy.

• 8:57Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by the Apple Sports app. Guys, this is the ultimate best time of the year to be a sports fan. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer. The calendar is stacked, but it can also be hard to keep track of it all. And that is where the Apple Sports app comes into play. It is the fastest and easiest way to stay on top of all the action with scores and play by play automatically showing up on your iPhone when the teams you follow are playing. That means you don't have to figure out when the games are on and how your team is doing, which is especially nice when you're following a bunch of teams and your friends are constantly blowing up the group chat.

• 9:39Joe Rogan?

  The Apple Sports app gives you all the important game details for your favorite sports teams, fast and simple. Download Apple Sports for free on the App Store or find it on your new iPhone. This episode is brought to you by the Mosquito Bowl. Here's a story that's pretty incredible. After Pearl Harbor, four of the best college football players in America walk away from promising NFL careers to enlist in the Marines and fight in World War II. And the craziest part, it's a true story. These guys had their whole lives ahead of them, but traded the glory of the gridiron for the brutal reality of combat where the stakes were life and

• 10:21Joe Rogan?

  death. Directed by Peter Berg, the guy behind Friday Night Lights, and starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis. The Mosquito Bowl, now playing in theaters. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. If you're thinking about building a website, you should try Squarespace. I know because I use it. That's right. JoeRogan.com is powered by Squarespace. It has all the features that you need to create a standout website like an AI-enhanced website builder, SEO optimization tools, and seamless checkouts with mobile pay links. Head to Squarespace.com/Rogan for a free trial. And when you are

• 11:06Joe Rogan?

  ready to launch, use the offer code ROGEN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Yeah, it's striking distance. It's like the one of the only films, or like Punchline was an interesting film, the Tom Hanks, Sally Field.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, of course.

• 11:22Joe Rogan?

  But it was bullshit. Like you watch it like, what, they have lockers? Like, what the fuck is this? Like, and also the comedy wasn't good. It wasn't real comedy. It was like it felt flat and fake and people were laughing at nothing. The Will stuff felt real.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:36Joe Rogan?

  It felt real, you know, like the clubs felt with the like a guy trying to work out what it's like to be on stage and open mic. And then the fact you got Jordan Jensen in, who I love.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course.

• 11:46Joe Rogan?

  She was fucking great. I texted her afterwards, I'm like.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Isn't she great in the movie?

• 11:50Joe Rogan?

  She's great.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, she, I mean, the minute I started shooting her and I was like, oh, wait a second.

• 11:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was like, and the first thing I shot with her was one of her, uh, one of her sets and I was just up there with the camera and I came around and her profile and actually I felt like I was in The Star is Born. She looked a lot like Gaga in Ally, like singing Shallow.

• 12:08Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  I had like this weird moment. I was like, whoa. Um, and then she was just incredible. And then, then as it went on, she had a larger part of the movie. And then that whole thing, when they're talking about the small penis and we go up to her and just her writing that down and she was just so fluid. And I was like, oh yeah, she's got it, man. She's got it.

• 12:25Joe Rogan?

  She's great. She's really great. She's a really unique person, like a very unusual person, like even just talking to her on a podcast.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  Grew up on a farm with two moms and yeah, amazing. Yeah, she could do anything.

• 12:36Joe Rogan?

  I know, and she's so fun. She's fun on stage too. Like she's great, like working the crowds.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Very smart, very smart.

• 12:43Joe Rogan?

  But like her character, like the way she interacted, I'm like, oh, that's so realistic. Like, we should fuck.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And then you go back to the like East Village or Chinatown apartment, you know, they live in, it's all one room.

• 12:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I believe it.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, me too.

• 12:58Joe Rogan?

  It was great. It's, it's like, you know, you're never gonna really capture stand up in a movie because it's like. To capture what it is, you would need like years.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  And also you would need a movie dedicated to it.

• 13:10Joe Rogan?

  Exactly.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  The movie's not dedicated to it.

• 13:12Joe Rogan?

  Exactly.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Do you know what I mean? It was just about can I, can I make you feel like you're there wa- that you're with him on stage?

• 13:18Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  That what that could be like.

• 13:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  You know, the, the silence and then the cameras, boom, there's nowhere to go.

• 13:24Joe Rogan?

  How did you work out the stand-up scenes? Did you have real audiences?

• 13:30Speaker 00

  It was never just real audiences because um, you, you have to hit the quota of extras with SAG and all that. But, but we, we, we tried to do it as authentic as possible, which was everybody that works at The Cellar, they're there in the movie, everybody who agreed to do it. So all the waiters and everything, the staff, that's all people that work there.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Liz, who's the manager, who plays the manager, she's the manager of The Cellar. So all those people are real, but then the patrons, we, I can't remember what the email was or what the, the, the, the ask was, but like people who like to go to stand-up comedy, who go, who go regularly. And then once they were there, I never told them what was gonna happen. I never directed them once. It was like whatever the, they're laughing at, that's it. And I don't do many takes, so you're getting an authentic reaction. Now it's hyped up because there's cameras there and it's a movie, but they're not told what to do.

• 14:20Joe Rogan?

  It feels like that.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  And so, and even in the mix, like we never added anything. There was no added laugh, nothing.

• 14:26Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's great.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it's all, cause I was like, it's just gotta be real. Cause I wanted Will to just, you know, I just don't want him to act.

• 14:32Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  I just want him to, and that's why, you know, you, Shane Gillis was kind enough. The first time he went up was here at the mothership. Shane gave him four minutes of a set. And he and I, and Will and I flew to Austin and we're sitting in the green room. And Shane was like an hour and a half late and Tony was there and he was so nice. I'd never met Tony before and that's where I smelled the thing, you know, I did the smell.

• 14:53Joe Rogan?

  Oh, the smelling sauce.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, dude, fuck me. That shit is no joke, dude.

• 14:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  Um, and, and that was the first time Will ever went up and we, we was just trying some of that material and went up as Alex Novak. Cause I was like, when do you have an opportunity as an actor to actually do the thing you're preparing to do? Like you could, and like, think about how much that would cost. Like you can go into a room where there's real people.

• 15:15Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  It's all, and then every step that you're taking, you're in a club. So he did that. And then when we back, went back to New York, he did it like three times a week, four or five times a night for like six weeks.

• 15:25Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Just so he could understand what it's like. And some people didn't know who he was. You know, you get a lot of tourists come into New York City. And there were nights where you knew that he, when he said Alex Novak, they're like, cool.

• 15:37Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Not like, you're not Alex Novak.

• 15:39Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 15:39Speaker 00

  They're like, okay, let's see what you got. And, uh, so that was really, that was really great.

• 15:44Joe Rogan?

  How did you, who wrote this film?

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Uh, he wrote it with this guy, Mark Chappell. It was, uh, it was a movie that was more about his, uh, based on this guy, John Bishop, who's a real comedian, is a very successful comedian in the UK. And, and he, Will met that guy on a barge somewhere. And, and he was at, talking about his story. And he was like, yeah, I was in, I was doing something else. My wife and I were breaking up and I walked into a bar, a pub one night. I didn't want to pay the cover. That really happened to this guy. So he put his name down and then they called him. And then he was like, yeah, I'm getting a divorce and got a couple chuckles, but he just loved it. Never done comedy, nothing before that. And he kept going back and he like, was obsessed by it. And then like weeks later, his wife, estranged wife walked into a place he was doing an open mic at with her girlfriends.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  And he was doing a set about their relationship. So that actually happened.

• 16:35Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  I know. And then they got back together and they're still together. And then now he like, he tours around the world. Like he's, makes a living as a comedian.

• 16:42Joe Rogan?

  That's incredible.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. So when he was telling me that, I was doing another movie and I remember I was like, what are you working on? Cause we've been friends for, for like 25 years. And, um, and he was telling me that and I was like, I just imagine Will. Cause I know him so well and he's so charismatic and funny and just has this presence that, that is kind of lacking. I don't feel like there's like a male archetype now that fits him. He's like, he's like Robert Mitchum. He reminds me like a young Robert Mitchum, Will Arnett. And he's telling me that I'm like, his voice and like that face, stand up comedy. I just couldn't get it out of my head, Joe. And I was like, hey, man, can I read it? Like, how far along are you guys? And I read it and I was like, I didn't quite, because like you, I'd never seen a movie that I thought nailed it. And I love stand up comedy so much. I was like, and I have no desire to try to redo it.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  And also comedy is so massive right now and the specials are so great and cinematic right now. That there's no reason to try to make a fictional movie about something that we can watch as a documentary or a docu-series or a show that is authentic. I was like, so, but I still would really love to capture it cinematically. So what if it's a foil and the movie's about the two of them? Because that's interesting. Yes. And you suck. Well, that was one of the great scenes where Jordan was like, you're bad. Yeah, she's like, you're bad, you're really bad.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  And it's much more about just what, what stand up comedy, with anything. And you talk about this on your show, doing anything that puts you out of your comfort zone. Yeah. Anything that pushes you, you're gonna, you're gonna improve as a human being. That was really what that, that whole thing is about. And I just love the culture in the world and I thought there's so much tangible stuff there for me to get excited about cinematically and story wise. But really, it's like, it could have been anything. Yeah. Just something that he'd never done, that he puts himself out there and that in doing it, in doing it, he just sort of gets more comfortable, you know? And then the mic comes off the stand and then he's leaning against the wall. And by the end of it, and then the way it was structured, it allows him to do that vampire set at the end of the movie,

• 18:43Speaker 00

  where all he's doing is exercising what he's feeling emotionally because he's comfortable in this setting. Yeah. Because the old him, when he has that fight with her in the attic, he just would have kept that all inside. And he would have been catatonic at his kids' assembly where we meet him in the beginning of the movie. Because you just don't know what to do with all that. But if you have an outlet, something expressive.

• 19:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  You can, you can, you know, exercise it in a healthy way.

• 19:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 00

  So that, that's, that's, that really was the point of that whole part of it being stand-up comedy and open mic.

• 19:16Joe Rogan?

  What you really nailed is someone trying it for the first time. You, you guys really nailed that. You really nailed a beginner in comedy. Like, it seemed completely realistic.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  Great.

• 19:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and like, I think that's one of the reasons why Kill Tony is so popular.

• 19:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:32Joe Rogan?

  You know, because you get to see, like, you can't, that, that raw reality of someone who has never done stand-up before, like, there was people that went up at Madison Square Garden in front of 16,000 people that had never done stand-up before.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  No, no, no, that's.

• 19:49Joe Rogan?

  Don't do that.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:51Joe Rogan?

  You should be in a fucking smoky room, well, not smoky anymore, but a tiny fucking room where disinterested people, where everyone's bombing and you bomb to it, it's not that big a deal. Because you might have some potential. But if you fucking bomb in front of 16,000 people, the pain of that, you may never recover.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  Also, just thinking about the, like, because you're gonna hear your voice through the, you know, echoing. It's, it's can't be just in, like, so there, I imagine there's an echo. So you're not only bombing, but you're hearing it reverberate.

• 20:20Joe Rogan?

  You don't really feel the echo, you don't hear the echo, because you, you have monitors on stage, so it's coming to you pretty flat.

• 20:25Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 20:26Joe Rogan?

  But the noise of your voice, where you've never heard your voice into a microphone before, ever.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:33Joe Rogan?

  And now you're in front of 16,000 people doing it. And then Tony's sitting there looking at you, and Shane's there, and I'm there.

• 20:39Speaker 00

  It's like a nightmare. It's like you're, you're walking into a nightmare.

• 20:42Joe Rogan?

  Well, what, just doing stand-up in front of, like, a guy like Shane Gillis is crazy. He's sitting right next to you, you've never done stand-up, you're gonna do stand-up right next to a guy who's selling out arenas. Like, that's nuts. That feeling is nuts.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  But it's wonderful to watch, because you're watching authentic reactions happening in real time.

• 20:59Joe Rogan?

  Yes. Okay, if your New Year's resolution was change everything and be a new person, good luck. So, instead of pretending you're going to meal prep kale forever, or do morning cold plunges, here's one actually realistic thing, AG1.

• 21:14Joe Rogan?

  AG1 is a daily health drink that supports your energy, gut health, immune health, and helps fill common nutrient gaps. Just one scoop in cold water each morning and you're off. It's got over 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food ingredients in there. So instead of guessing whether you need a probiotic, or a prebiotic, or sorting through 10 different bottles of pills and powders, you can just do one scoop and get on with your day. It's great because it feels like the grown-up move, but for once, it's actually really easy. It takes like 30 seconds, and you'll notice the steadiness that sets you up for the day. Not wired, not crashing, just functional human being energy. I partnered

• 21:53Joe Rogan?

  with AG1 for years, and if you want to give it a try, head to drinkag1.com/joerogan, and for a limited time, you'll get a free AG1 duffel bag and free AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. Only while supplies last. That's drinkag1.com/joerogan, or visit the link in the description to get started. It's not processed. It's as clean a mental food as you're gonna get.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's true.

• 22:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It's just that we, I think, human beings really love seeing what it's like when someone starts out doing something. Because a lot of people have these ideas, like, ah, maybe I could try that, or maybe I could learn how to play guitar, or maybe I could do that. But it's just the getting going and sucking at something in the beginning is terrifying for people. So when they see someone just try it, I think they're like, oh, look at him go. Look at him go. He's out there doing it. He's on the bike. He's moving. You know, it's like, you see actual people that are trying to do something that they've never done before, and it's exciting.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  And also, the one thing I wanted to touch on is the craft of it all. You know, that it's, that it takes a lot of work. I know that it's not, you know, just, you know, the writing, you know, she says at one point, she's like, you gotta write, you know, and keep going up. And I think most people, at least, I didn't know before I started going, that people go up three or four times a night. Like, I didn't understand. So that was something I thought was important to convey. Just the work ethic that's needed.

• 23:23Joe Rogan?

  Well, New York is really great for that, and it's always had a culture of that. It's had a culture of guys hopping from club to club and doing set to set because there's so many clubs in Manhattan. So guys would just, you know, I think the most guy, I ever heard one guy did eight, eight or nine sets a night. Like, they're just like, that's how many clubs there are. So you just hop all over the place. You start your night at like 8:00 PM.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, downtown, there's a ton downtown that you can go uptown, yeah.

• 23:49Joe Rogan?

  You go all over the place. It's, um, we've got a lot of that here now. There's just so many clubs in Austin now.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  I mean, when we went there, what you built is incredible.

• 23:58Joe Rogan?

  Thank you.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  The culture, everything. You know, I showed the movie to a stand-up who hadn't done stand-up in like 15 years, and he said, "The only thing that for sure you got wrong is the culture." I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "No, people aren't that nice." And I was like, "Actually, I think you're wrong." I was like, "It's changed." I was like, "People are supportive now."

• 24:16Joe Rogan?

  It's in where you go. There's places where it's not very supportive.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  Really? But at least like, I used to go to The Cellar like in early 2000s. Didn't feel like it does now.

• 24:24Joe Rogan?

  Right. Well, I think Ari Shaffir changed that a lot. He brought like the culture of LA to New York. Where you're like more supportive of each other. It was always like dog against dog. Because really, the way it all started out was in the 1990s, it was all about everyone was auditioning for a sitcom. And if you and I were, if I showed up to audition for a sitcom, I'd go, "Oh, fuck, Bradley's here, he's going for the same part. Fuck that guy." You know, it was just, it was like, that could change your life. If you got that sitcom, now all of a sudden, you're fucking huge, and I'm still like struggling to pay my rent eating ramen, and it could have been me.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 25:01Joe Rogan?

  And so there's this like serious resentment that happens in the 1990s. Because everybody, like the, the golden carrot at the end of the stick was The Tonight Show. Or, you know, hosting a late, if you could get your own late night show, oh my god, he made it. He's a host of The Tonight Show. That was like the thing that only one person could get. And then there was like the sitcom. Like if it really worked out, they'd make a sitcom around you, and you'd get a development deal. So there was... People would psychologically backstab people, people would talk shit to people before they went on stage. They would try to hijack their fucking mind. Right before they like, really? It was dark.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  Crazy.

• 25:36Joe Rogan?

  And then the internet came around. And then the internet, instead of people being your competitors, they became not just your friends and not just your colleagues, but also an asset. Because if you're doing a podcast and you've got your funny friends on, then your podcast is better.

• 25:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 25:54Joe Rogan?

  And then if you tell people about their podcast, then their podcast is better. And then you go on their podcast and that's better. And everybody benefits from everybody else doing well. So it became, it completely reversed the system. And then it became much more about being supportive of each other. And then everybody kind of realized like, hey, it's way more fun when we're all having fun. You know, and since the television thing kind of died off, the sitcom thing kind of died off with reality shows. And then it was really just more about getting clips up on the internet. And about getting, and then there was Netflix specials, so it wasn't just everybody trying to get an HBO special. There was way more specials. And then you could just upload specials to YouTube and became this way more collaborative, supportive environment.

• 26:39Joe Rogan?

  And then Ari, Shafir took that, that we had kind of like established in LA and brought that to New York and a lot of those guys ran with it.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that's the way to go. People always say, you know, there's a lot of room at the top.

• 26:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  There's a lot.

• 26:52Joe Rogan?

  There's a lot of room in stand-up for sure.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  You know, and it's like, and everybody has their own lane even within this big highway. And everybody wants to be with other people. Who wants to be a lone wolf, really? For a long period.

• 27:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, there's a few, there's a few out there, but they're all psychologically destroyed. They're just a mess.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:10Joe Rogan?

  Who doesn't want to have friends? It's crazy.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:12Joe Rogan?

  I don't get it. But, you know, it's that aspect of the culture, I felt like in the movie you guys nailed. Which is a realistic aspect. A realistic portrayal of what it's like where a bunch of people just. They were all busting each other's balls.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh yeah, exactly. You could be supportive and still honest. That was the thing. There's no lack of honesty or criticism. It's just, it's not done with the hope that you, for your demise.

• 27:36Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  That's the difference.

• 27:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I think the 90s like poisoned a lot of comedians. It poisoned them because it gave you this idea that the whole thing was about a means to an end, and that end was a sitcom. And everybody thought you just had to get a sitcom, gotta get a sitcom. And that was what everybody was working towards. There's people that were developing their entire act based around a persona that they could sell to the networks.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Were you doing stand-up before your sitcom?

• 28:04Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  I see. Okay, so is that how that happened? Did someone see you and then they were like, oh, you gotta, you gotta try this show?

• 28:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I got, I got ridiculously lucky. Like, you know, a lot of people say, oh, I worked really hard to get on a sitcom. Nope. No, I got lucky. I did MTV. I never had any aspirations to act at all. I did MTV Half Hour, Comedy Hour. I got a development deal. And all of a sudden, I'm living in LA and I'm on a sitcom. And it happened in a couple of months.

• 28:31Speaker 00

  And a great sitcom.

• 28:32Joe Rogan?

  I was on a bad one first. I was on a bad one called Hardball. It was a sitcom on Fox where I played a baseball player. That show got canceled and unfortunately, I thought it was gonna go, because I was retarded. I was, you know, 25 years old, 26 years old. And I was like, oh, this is gonna take off. I should get an apartment. So I had a lease on an apartment and I wanted to move.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  I'm sure people were telling you that it was gonna take off too.

• 28:56Joe Rogan?

  Oh yeah, everybody believed it.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're gonna win an Emmy.

• 28:58Joe Rogan?

  Well, the guys who made it, Jeff Martin and Kevin Curran, they worked on The Simpsons, they worked on Married with Children. They were really good. But then the Fox people came in and just ruined it. Like, the executives came in and they brought in a bunch of hacks and just ruined the show.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Did you have fun doing it?

• 29:12Joe Rogan?

  Oh yeah, I had a kind of good time. But I also missed comedy and I missed New York people and I wanted to get out of there. I was like, I gotta get back to New York. Fuck this place. As soon as it was over, but I was like, fuck, I got this lease. So I had a lease for a year. And then I got a development deal.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  So how long were you in LA at that time?

• 29:29Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I was only in LA for a few months.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 29:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. So I moved out there to do the show.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:35Joe Rogan?

  I got a lease like almost immediately. And then I was out there for a few months. Show got canceled. And then I got a development deal to do something for NBC. And they were gonna do my own sitcom. And but as we were developing it, they said, hey, there's a show that we're doing. It's called News Radio. It's already been picked up. We already did the pilot. But we fired one person from the pilot, and we want you to read for this. And that's how I got on News Radio. That's how it happened. Like, that was the only second show I ever auditioned for ever.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 30:08Joe Rogan?

  So I had one show.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  That is a very unique. You had a very unique track.

• 30:12Joe Rogan?

  Dumb luck.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  That's nuts.

• 30:14Joe Rogan?

  Stumbled into it 100%. I can't take any credit for it. Dumb luck.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 30:18Joe Rogan?

  Just my ability to keep it together in auditions and not crack with no acting experience at all. But it was just not, it wasn't something that I aspired to. So it didn't have the kind of pressure that it probably had for a lot of people.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  And it probably didn't have the same kind of elation, too.

• 30:33Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Like, I assume it was not something you really wanted. It was like, it was fun, but you weren't like, this is, this is like, this feels right.

• 30:40Joe Rogan?

  No, what it felt like is, ooh, I'm gonna get money. I'm gonna get some money.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, then something's wrong. Something's wrong.

• 30:46Joe Rogan?

  I was like, this is good. I'm gonna get money, and I don't have to worry about money. That's how I thought about it.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:51Joe Rogan?

  And then when I was doing it, and I was like, wow, I'm so lucky. Like, how did I stumble on, I'm here with Phil Hartman? This is crazy.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  That's crazy, dude.

• 30:57Joe Rogan?

  Dave Foley and Steven Root, Maureen Tierney, like, this is nuts.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:01Joe Rogan?

  It was a crazy cast. No, it was Paul Sims.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  Paul Sims, right.

• 31:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, who had just left Larry Sanders Show.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 31:08Joe Rogan?

  So he left Larry Sanders. Yeah, it was crazy luck. Just stupid dumb luck.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  That's right. Sorkin did that other show with Jeff Daniels, right.

• 31:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun. So, but, but back in those days, like, everybody was working towards that. And fortunately, I already had that. So my thing was just like, continue to work on stand-up and just work on my stand-up. And if this all goes away, I'll just go back to being a comic.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  And doing stand-up in LA?

• 31:36Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  Right. So, and so that was new?

• 31:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and that's where I encountered like, the worst backstabbing I've ever seen in my life.

• 31:44Speaker 00

  So you're coming from New York where you didn't feel that?

• 31:46Joe Rogan?

  You didn't feel it as much.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 31:48Joe Rogan?

  You know, you felt like a lot of shit talking, but that was fun. You know, the guys would make fun if you bombed.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  Right. They were doing it to your face.

• 31:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. They were doing it to your face and. It was a more like, uh, it was just a more ball busting, like silly environment in New York. It wasn't, no one thought they were gonna get famous in New York. You know, they were all just doing sets. But in LA, everybody had this idea to get a sitcom. And then in the 1990s, they started giving out development deals. That was the big thing. You get like a 200,000, half a million dollar development deal. And then all of a sudden, you have all this money and you're living it. And so, everybody was working towards that. So it became, instead of like people working towards just being a stand-up, it became, stand-up was a means to an end. And then all these other people, they were in your way to get that goal. Jesus.

• 32:38Joe Rogan?

  And then your agent was telling you that's what you had to do. Right. Cause they wanted that money too. So it was all like, programming people to go after the sitcom. So completely different culture in the stand-up community there. Exactly. But then that all went away. It all went away. Like the idea of working towards a sitcom is not, it's like working towards a career in ham radio. Like it fucking went away. Well, you said that Ari changed it. How did he do it? Cause he brought the LA culture to New York. Ari moved from LA back to New York. And he, I mean, everybody that I talked to in New York, cause Ari was like, you guys are doing it wrong. And people listened to him? Yeah. Well, because he was established and he was a really good comic. And they were like, I think he's right. Wow. And they would come to, they would come to LA, like a lot of guys like Andrew Schultz and a lot of these other guys,

• 33:23Joe Rogan?

  they would come to LA and they're like, bro, everybody's so fucking nice here. And they're all just having a great time. Like, why aren't we doing that? Why aren't we just having a great time? And so it shifted. It's just, it was the culture of the internet. The internet changed everything because there was no longer this one thing that a hundred guys were trying to audition for. Now, it was anybody could just put up something online. And then you, all your friends became assets. They all became like valuable to you instead of competitors. That's cool. Yeah. Do you go up in these cities ever now? I do. If I'm in LA, I'll still do sets in LA. I haven't been in a while, but you know, most of the time I'm at my own club. Right.

• 34:05Joe Rogan?

  It makes it way... Also, I have teenage kids and they're... I wanna be home. Did you do The Cellar? Yeah, I did The Cellar back in the day, but more I did, I did The Stand, I did Catch when it was there. Right. I did, um, I always did Danger Fields. Danger Fields was great. Because it was like a hole in the wall, there was hardly anybody there. Is that where he shot his special? Yes. Wow. Yeah. It was big in the 80s and then something happened and by the time I got there in the 90s, it was like fucking dead. One time I went there and I had a spot at like 8:30 and I don't remember what time the show started, but there was a few people on before me and I got there and the people that were on before me were sitting at the bar. I go, "What's going on?" They're like, "There's no crowd."

• 34:50Joe Rogan?

  I'm like, "There's no crowd? There's nobody?" And so then this couple walked up and they bought tickets for the comedy show. And, and this guy Bobby, who was the doorman, like, "Step right up." It was a Scottish guy. "Come on in. I have you seated." He seats them down. There's no one there, just them. They sit down. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Danger Fields. Your first act." And we all did stand-up for two fucking people. Wow. Yeah. The whole night was two people. And they had a great time. I'm sure. But it was weird. It's like when you're doing stand-up for just two people. You're only looking at two people. But you also realize how much of your act is bullshit. How much of your act is like fucking dance moves. It's just nonsense, like English on the cue ball.

• 35:34Joe Rogan?

  It's like, you're doing a lot of silly things that like don't even, and you're not connecting with real humans. Right. And when there's two people there, it like cuts the fat out of all of your shit. And you recognize where the flaws in your writing are and the flaws in your delivery. But Danger Fields was, it was a wild little place. It was, it was... Like a classic comedy club that didn't have any, no industry went there, no agents, no managers went there. Always. Yeah, it was just like a bunch of weird degenerates and it was fun. Wow. That was a fun place. So I did that club a lot, but a lot of, I did the road a lot. Yeah. Cause that was how I could make money and I could headline, like I'd do an hour.

• 36:19Joe Rogan?

  Cause if you're in the city, you're doing 15 minute sets or 10 minute sets, like that's great, but it's hard to piece together an hour at a 10 minute sets because you kinda wanna let the material breathe and put it all together. Yeah, of course. And compose it into one big thing and you really can work on that a lot more if you're actually headlining. Do you watch a lot of specials, comedy specials nowadays? I don't. I watch a lot of comics, like when I see them at the club. Right, but not, not like, um... No, I probably should. I probably should watch more of them, but really comedy is, it's like an artistic form of hypnosis and the real way to see comedy is to be there live. Right. Cause you're like, and you know when the person's locked in and you know when

• 37:01Joe Rogan?

  they're not. You feel it, they got you, like they're thinking for you. Yeah. If I'm watching a tell and he's at like the mothership and he's killing, like we're all like this, we're like locked into his brain and we're letting him like take us on a ride. Yeah, of course. It's like a kind of a form of hypnosis. Yes. And I, I really think that a stand-up special, as good as they are, you're maybe getting 60 to 70 percent. This episode is brought to you by Visible. As fall hits, we enter another season of change. Time to shift gears, drop the dead weight and upgrade the wardrobe for the drop in temperature. But one thing that doesn't need to change, your phone. The smartest upgrade this season isn't a new phone, it's a better wireless plan. Switch to Visible,

• 37:44Joe Rogan?

  the ultimate wireless hack. You get unlimited 5G data and unlimited hotspot powered by Verizon for just $25 a month. That means keeping the phone you already have, ditching your overpriced phone bill and pocketing some savings for yourself. All the perks of big wireless for half the cost. Switch today at visible.com. The Visible plan starts at just $25 a month or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month with promo code ROGEN. Terms apply. See visible.com for plan features and network management details. After a year away, Canelo Alvarez is back in the ring October 31st,

• 38:28Joe Rogan?

  facing undefeated Christian Mobily live on The Zone, and DraftKings Sportsbook has you covered for the fight. With DraftKings Sportsbook, your number one sportsbook for live betting, you can stay connected as the action unfolds and make your picks in real time. Whether you're locked in for the main event or watching the full card with friends, DraftKings Sportsbook gives you another way to follow the fights you already care about. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use the code ROGEN. New DraftKings Sportsbook customers can spend $5 and get $200 in total bonuses within 21 days. That's code ROGEN. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-800-MYRESSET. 21 and over, Virginia only. Eligibility restrictions apply. $50 in non-withdrawable bonus bets issued every 7 days via Click to Claim for 21 days. Bonus bets expire 7 days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Limited time offer.

• 39:26Joe Rogan?

  Of the experience of actually being there.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  That's why I enjoy watching to see how different people make them. Because there's all different types.

• 39:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  You know, some are heavily edited, which always brings me out. If there's a way to keep it so you feel like you're in the room.

• 39:39Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  You know, I remember it was Mr. Tambourine Man or the Chris Rock special where when he changed the tone of it and he started talking about jerking off to porn and how he became addicted to porn. It was that great filmmaker who's a comedian who does music. He did that thing during COVID when he was in his house.

• 39:59Joe Rogan?

  Bo Burnham.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Bo Burnham. I think he directed it.

• 40:02Joe Rogan?

  Oh, really?

• 40:03Speaker 00

  And the camera just keeps going on, keeps going on. By the time, you don't even realize it because you're hypnotized. You're right here on Chris Rock. And I think probably subconsciously, just thinking about it now, that's probably one of the things, because that's kind of the frame I use the whole time on Alex.

• 40:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  But I remember watching it going like, when the fuck did this become a close-up? You know, but that's what, that's what it was happening. So there was, there was a synergy between the camera and what he was doing in the place. Or at least made me feel like cinematically, I was there and this is what he was doing hypnotizing me.

• 40:33Joe Rogan?

  Right, and then the opposite of that was the special that Chris Rock did where he changed clothes. So he was doing a special where he filmed part of it in one place and another part of it in another place. And he spliced the two of them together with different outfits. So you would have him begin a bit with one outfit on and then end the bit with a different outfit on. And you're like, what are, whose idea was this?

• 40:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, cuz the minute you cut and edit in any way, you know, even podcasts, audio wise. That's the thing I've learned, you know, some people, you know, they edit the audio of a podcast. And you're like, that's not, someone didn't take a breath before they answered.

• 41:09Joe Rogan?

  Oh, like cutting out in between?

• 41:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, it's a whole other rhythm.

• 41:13Joe Rogan?

  Right, well, that's the YouTube thing, right? The YouTube for a long time was doing these things where they would cut out all the pauses in between people talking thing. And it became like a style of editing.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 41:24Joe Rogan?

  Where it's like shocking.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  For my ears, like it, it's impossible for me to get in.

• 41:29Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  It's, it's just impossible.

• 41:31Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's, it's the short attention span concept.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 41:34Joe Rogan?

  You're, you're just saying people are so fucking stupid, you can't give them any breaks. You can't give them any breath, you gotta keep talking, keep talking, keep talking. And then you know. And it's like.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  After all, it's just like this wash and yeah.

• 41:44Joe Rogan?

  They're just trying to keep you engaged as much as possible by editing instead of by having actually interesting content.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  Compelling content, yeah.

• 41:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  But it's an interesting exercise, yeah, it's, it's, it's, I, I enjoy watch, like I think Josh Safdie did Sandler's one. And he was, and, and he did all this backstage and he walked up and then he was in many locations, but he was playing music a lot. Yeah, I just like watching everybody's different, you know, sort of exploration of different standup shows. Cuz it's such a huge viable market, so people, you know, it's, it's fun to watch how they do it. I think that's probably why, cuz I watched so many of them, I wanted to do it in a way, in a movie.

• 42:21Joe Rogan?

  Have you done standup at all?

• 42:22Speaker 00

  Never, never did it.

• 42:23Joe Rogan?

  No? Have you thought about it? When you were doing the film, did you think about doing it?

• 42:27Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I don't know why, Joe. Yeah, but no, I just, it's not like one of those things that I feel compelled to do. But would it, would it be fun? Would I be scared? All those things. Um, will I try and open mic one night? Yeah, I probably should. Um, but it's not, I didn't feel compelled to do it. No.

• 42:48Joe Rogan?

  The problem would be if you did it and it went okay, but you're like, I think I could do better.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  And then I'm.

• 42:54Joe Rogan?

  And then you're gone.

• 42:57Speaker 00

  You know me?

• 42:59Joe Rogan?

  I know everybody. It's kind of the same thing with all of us.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course, dude.

• 43:03Joe Rogan?

  There's always a part of you like, I think I can do better. And then next thing you know, like, I gotta leave. I gotta go do a set. Like, what the fuck are you doing?

• 43:09Speaker 00

  Dad, I haven't eaten dinner. No, no, no, no.

• 43:13Joe Rogan?

  It's like all artistic pursuits, they can become an obsession and they become an addiction and they become a part of you. And then it's like your brain naturally goes towards that pathway of thinking about that thing all day.

• 43:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, which I love.

• 43:29Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it's great if it's a fun thing.

• 43:31Speaker 00

  I remember being 11 and watching The Elephant Man and knowing at that moment. You okay?

• 43:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I'm sweating.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  Knowing at that moment that like, oh, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

• 43:40Joe Rogan?

  When you saw The Elephant Man? Really?

• 43:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I remember.

• 43:43Joe Rogan?

  Why was it that movie?

• 43:45Speaker 00

  I mean, I don't know. I mean, but I've thought about it a lot, obviously. Um, first, David Lynch directed it. I remember the scene, Anthony Hopkins, I would love film. So I always loved film. My dad loved film. But it wasn't like a conscious thing where I was like, this is it. And I remember, you know, in my living room, it's on the TV. I saw all the movies on the TV, you know, I never saw Apocalypse Now in the movie theater, Godfather, or anything, Loneliness, the Longest Runner. You know, none, none, none of it. It was all on the television. And, um, but I was watching The Elephant Man. It was on HBO. It came through Philadelphia where I live, Comcast, and they would show like it all the time. And it was Anthony Hopkins coming in and he's seeing Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man, for the first time.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  And the way David Lynch shot it, you only see his shadow. And then Hopkins starts crying. And I don't know, I was just like, I was there in that cellar with him. And I was like, I forgot I was in the living room. And then the whole movie was like that. And I, it came out, I was like, I just want, I want that.

• 44:44Joe Rogan?

  So was that like the first seed that was planted?

• 44:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was it. It was the first and only. It was, I was 11. It was like, it was like bam. It was like a shot.

• 44:54Joe Rogan?

  There's a scene right here.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's right, it's right, it's this. This is it.

• 44:59Joe Rogan?

  Look how young Anthony Hopkins looks.

• 45:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was a crow.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Stand up.

• 45:07Speaker 00

  Stand up!

• 45:15Speaker 03

  Turn around.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  Turn around! Turn around!

• 45:46Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 45:50Joe Rogan?

  Wow. That was it.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:53Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 45:56Joe Rogan?

  What is it like watching that now?

• 45:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:59Joe Rogan?

  Thinking that that planted a seed that changed your whole life.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  I'm like, well, first I thought, wasn't it a shadow? But that was before. And then I'm like, oh, yeah. And then, yeah, then I was just in it. Then all of a sudden, I was there. Then I was like, is Joe in it? Does he know what I'm talking about? And then I was, and then as my brain started going, the movie kept bringing me in it.

• 46:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  And then by the end, by that pushing, I was like, I'm just watching this guy look at this thing for the first time. And then, fuck, look at this beast, Anthony Hopkins.

• 46:21Joe Rogan?

  I wonder what he was looking at when he was crying.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  I know.

• 46:24Joe Rogan?

  You know, because you pull that out of your eyeballs.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Oh, dude. And I wrote, so I went to grad school, moved to New York, wrote him a letter because our dean said somehow he knew him or he had, the school I went to, that I only got into because they let anybody in.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  They did that show Inside the Actor's Studio. Do you remember that on TV on Broadway?

• 46:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I remember that show.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  And so our thesis was the show. There was like our, not like our, there was a class that, but it was a class, like technically a class.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  And so all these incredible people would come on and Anthony Hopkins was there and I was there for that. And then I wrote him a letter just telling him and I asked James Lipton, that was his name, the dean.

• 47:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  And then, you know, and then never, you know, I never heard from him ever. And then, you know, and now I know him, dude. Do you know what I'm saying?

• 47:15Joe Rogan?

  How weird.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 47:17Joe Rogan?

  So weird, right? I never get over that.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  Me neither.

• 47:21Joe Rogan?

  Ever.

• 47:22Speaker 00

  Ever. And there's some guys, I don't know if you feel this way too, but like there's some guys, like then they become your friends, but still, I still feel a little bit of like extra energy when I'm around them. Like it'll never go away.

• 47:35Joe Rogan?

  Right. Yeah, for sure.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 47:38Joe Rogan?

  For me, one of the big ones was Tarantino. Like hanging out with Tarantino.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, that'd be nuts.

• 47:43Joe Rogan?

  It's so odd, going to dinner with him.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 47:45Joe Rogan?

  Hanging out with him here, him coming to the club, he come hang out in the green room.

• 47:49Speaker 00

  That's nuts.

• 47:50Joe Rogan?

  It's just weird. It's like, that's Quentin Tarantino.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. That's crazy, yeah, and it never goes away. As close as you get and even when your brain's off, right? Cause that's always the Lipton-ness, is my brain off when I'm with the person?

• 48:00Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  That's like when like, okay.

• 48:02Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  And even like Clint Eastwood, who I did American Sniper with, I mean, it was always Clint Eastwood. And I got to a point where my brain was off, you know, but still, I'm just like, what, if my dad was alive, if my dad was alive, he would flip the fuck out.

• 48:17Joe Rogan?

  What was it like doing that scene with the fake baby? Was that weird?

• 48:21Speaker 00

  It's so funny, I was just talking about that two days ago, dude. And you know, I've come full circle.

• 48:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah?

• 48:27Speaker 00

  I actually think it's dope.

• 48:28Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 48:29Speaker 00

  I think it's fucking dope.

• 48:31Joe Rogan?

  Why?

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Because it's so just like, wow, look at these people, fully invested, and it's a doll.

• 48:38Joe Rogan?

  Well, this is like a scene where you're like, kinda like moving the hand a little bit with your finger.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  I could tell you the whole thing, dude. So we had three sets of twins and Clint likes to shoot fast, which I love and love. And they were crying and they weren't ready and he was like, you know what, let's just, let's put, let's put the doll in. And I was like, okay, I was like, alright. And I had the doll, and I remember, and I made a joke on set. And I was like, I was like, I'll just save you 35 grand. Cause I moved his, his, uh, his hand with my thumb. You know, like I saved visual effects like 50 grand. Like made a joke about it. And then we got to post and we were in Vancouver, uh, at the, doing the meeting. But you know, everybody defers to the boss. I still remember being in a, in a room and I'm like at theater, we're watching and they're like,

• 49:26Speaker 00

  "Okay Clint, so we did this and, uh, you know, the tank has dirt on it and, you know, whatever visual effects they had done." We get to the baby. And I'm like, "Okay Clint, this is, uh, this scene." And it ends, and I'm literally behind Clint, I just see the back of his head and I'm waiting for everybody to raise their hand. Like, "We gotta spend more money to make the kid real." And, uh, I think the kid had like two fingers too, like they weren't even, it was like an AI, yeah.

• 49:52Joe Rogan?

  Here it is.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's it, that's me, I'm doing that, that's it. But dude, it's kinda dope. I love it now, I've come full circle. So, so, and I raised my hand. And I was like, "Clint, I just think that it's clear, you know, that that's not a baby." And what would, do we, can we at least just find out what the cost would be? And no, and no one said anything. And then I remember he was like, "I think, I think we move on."

• 50:21Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 50:22Speaker 00

  And that was it dude, and that was it, and I was like, "Okay, okay." And I remember talking to the other producer, I was like, "This is gonna come back." I was like, "Bro, this is gonna come back to haunt us." And I remember he said, "No Bradley, you're too close to the movie." I was like, "I don't think so dude."

• 50:36Joe Rogan?

  No, everybody's like, "Look, he's moving his thumb, this is crazy, that's a rubber baby."

• 50:41Speaker 00

  Crazy dude. There's another one too, and like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

• 50:46Joe Rogan?

  What is it like doing a film like that, where you're playing an actual human being? Is that, is that different than, like, a written character that has no physical body? That you, you, you can kind of become who you think the words represent?

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:02Joe Rogan?

  But when you're playing a guy like Chris Kyle, you're, you're playing a, a human.

• 51:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:07Joe Rogan?

  And you're trying to figure out a way to make it as realistic as possible, but you're acting, like, what is that like?

• 51:15Speaker 00

  I mean, the, the thing that just popped in my head is the pressure. Is, is, it's like night and day. Because there are people that you have to, um...

• 51:27Speaker 00

  Serve, you know, especially with Chris Kyle. We started making that movie. He was alive. He got killed while we were, he was still negotiating with Warner Brothers. I know, I think we just closed his deal. And then he was murdered on February 2nd, I believe. And, uh, and it was just like, whoa. And, um, and then, but in fact, we were like, now we really gotta make this movie. And, um, and then Clint and I flew to Midlothian, Texas and met with his family and his widow and his parents and then the kids. And I had played, I did the Elephant Man. I did it as a play in my thesis in grad school. And then I did it at Williamstown and then I actually did it in New York and London. So, and that, and even though it's a long time ago, that was the first time I felt that responsibility.

• 52:12Speaker 00

  Cause I actually loved that guy, Joseph Merrick. And I did, and I felt that responsibility to him. So I had done something like that before. But this was the first, this was the next time. It was massive, Joe, but I think that, that, it's like, you're always looking for, what's the fuel? That's gonna allow me to work as hard as I can. And the fuel, when you're playing a real person is like, there's like four extra canisters or like vats of firepower for you to work hard. Because you just, you know, you're looking across at the eyes of somebody and say, I'm gonna serve your son or your husband or your father. It's a major responsibility.

• 52:49Joe Rogan?

  Maybe even more major because now he's deceased.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was, it was, it was mind blowing.

• 52:57Speaker 00

  But it terrified me. And also, like, I'm 185 pounds at that point from northeast Philadelphia. This guy's from Midlothian, Texas, SEAL Team Three. You know, it's like, how, and, and the way Clint works, the way we did work, you know, Kevin Lays, who was a SEAL Team Three with Chris, was in the movie, played Dauber. Jacob Schick was One Tribe, which is what I'm wearing. He was a Marine that, and did you ever see American Sniper?

• 53:20Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's that scene where he goes to the hospital and there's all the guys that have been wounded. Jacob Schick is one of them. You know, so there's real guys. It's all real. So I step in, you know, I've got to, I'm gonna die unless I believe I'm Chris.

• 53:36Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 53:36Speaker 00

  Like, so I have to do whatever I can so that I believe I'm Chris. If I believe I'm Chris, then I have a shot at everybody else potentially going along with this illusion. I just have to, I have to be absolutely fearless when I walked on set. So I just, it just made me work so hard. That I'd never worked hard, that if it's a created character,

• 54:00Speaker 00

  you know, it's it's different, but it comes with a different set of challenges. You know, it depends, it just depends what it is, but I do know, and then with Leonard Bernstein, he did the same thing. Huge responsibility, like massive, that I felt.

• 54:10Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 54:11Speaker 00

  To his kids.

• 54:12Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 54:12Speaker 00

  To people that loved him. Um, but but mainly his kids, all three, his son has passed away since, but his three kids are like, okay. You know, they're like handing you, you know, it's like if someone went to your daughter in 12 years and said, here's this movie about your father. Do you know what I mean?

• 54:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  You know.

• 54:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  And and this guy's sitting across and be like, okay, I'm gonna play your father. Uh, that's just a whole other thing, because the truth is, like, if it's good, it's gonna last a long time. And it's gonna be a thing that marks their journey.

• 54:44Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  So I'm a part of whatever little part of Chris's journey. So you give somebody, you, the faith that whoever has the power to give to that artist is just, you know. So it just made me work, you know, like you just, you just don't stop working. Till you get to the point where you believe you're him, or you believe that he's a part of you, something's working.

• 55:04Joe Rogan?

  Did you meet Chris Kyle?

• 55:05Speaker 00

  Never, just talked to him on the phone once.

• 55:06Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 55:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:08Joe Rogan?

  So what did you, like, what, did you train?

• 55:12Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:12Joe Rogan?

  Like, what did you do to try to, like?

• 55:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, here's, it's interesting, right? It's like, well, I couldn't do anything that would ever achieve what he achieved, but it's like, what can I do to look like a master? Right, so there's three weapons, the 338 Lapua, the 50 cal, the, uh, the rifle. It's like, what can I do? How much time do I have? I think I had like six months. Also, luckily, we're the same shoe size, same age, he has a whole Nazer, I do. You find things that like, you know, uh, uh, same height. I was like, oh, this is, this is great. Uh, and then I just like, but he's 238 pounds, so the first thing was 6,000 calories a day, found a trainer.

• 55:50Joe Rogan?

  6,000?

• 55:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, 6,000 calories a day.

• 55:52Joe Rogan?

  How did you force 6,000?

• 55:53Speaker 00

  First I did it with real food. And that was a big mistake. Cause I couldn't get up. I remember the first week I did it, I had an incredible chef. And and and then I would, I couldn't get up. Like, I couldn't move, like, I couldn't move my stomach, so then we, I think we split like half of it into protein shakes. But it was still 6,000 calories.

• 56:12Joe Rogan?

  When you say you couldn't get up, like, what do you mean?

• 56:14Speaker 00

  My stomach wasn't able to process that much food. Yeah, whatever, whatever happened, I Was just getting blocked? Getting blocked, like major pain, like I was giving birth or something, what I would imagine. So then we changed it and it would be like, huge meal, shake, huge meal, shake. Worked out twice a day, I had three rest days, no cardio. It was all about strength training and it was all focused around deadlifting. Oh, okay. And it was this guy, Jason Walls, who I worked with. And I did that, yes, it would be like Monday, Monday, 5:30 a.m. And then a 4:30 p.m. Or like 3:30, Monday, Tuesday, rest Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, rest Saturday, Sunday. And did that. And I got up to 238 pounds and a lot of it was like, because I was thinking about him, his neck.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  So I came like, I would do all these, all the neck stuff. And it was his shoulders, like I just wanted so you could shoot over and it's like, you know, which we did all the time in the movie, where the guy's just, you know, Chris. Yeah.

• 57:11Joe Rogan?

  NFL playoffs, let's go. DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL, makes every moment feel bigger. A running back cuts through the line, a strip sack flips the field, a tight end hauls in the kind of touchdown grab you'll talk about for years. Postseason games shift fast and with DraftKings live betting options, you can stay right in the moment. Plus, DraftKings has your back with early exit protection. If the player in your eligible NFL prop bet goes down at any point in the first half, you still get paid in cash. New customers bet just $5 and if the bet wins, you get 300 in bonus bets instantly. DraftKings Sportsbook, every drive, every play, every moment.

• 57:54Joe Rogan?

  Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use the code ROGEN. That's code ROGEN to turn $5 into 300 in bonus bets if your bet wins. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY467369. In Connecticut, call 888-789-7777. Or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas. Pass through of per wager tax may apply in Illinois. 21 and over. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days. Minimum odds required. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co/audio. Limited time offer.

• 58:38Speaker 00

  How much weight did you gain? I went from 185 to 238. And all naturally, cuz I cancer's in my family. I've had skin cancer and like I'm terrified of anything. So I was like not gonna do that.

• 58:51Speaker 00

  So, you know.

• 58:51Joe Rogan?

  You take creatine or anything?

• 58:53Speaker 00

  I took creatine, yeah. Which by the way, I just started again like three months ago.

• 58:57Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it's amazing.

• 58:57Speaker 00

  Dude. I'm on this push up thread with a bunch of dads at my school. And we do a hundred pushups a day. And if we don't, you have to pay ten dollars into a pool. And then when we get to eight hundred, we go to Chinatown and I'll have a meal with the money. And then I started taking creatine like two and a half months ago. And we just upped it to one fifty. I was like, this is cuz I could only do, and we like YouTube the perfect pushup, which I didn't know. Which is like a whole other world. And then now it's, it's, I mean, creatine's incredible.

• 59:25Joe Rogan?

  It's incredible for your brain as well.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  I know. I've, I've heard you say that. Like, I can't tell that cuz I also take zins all the time. So it's like, I don't know what's doing it.

• 59:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, me too. I do the same thing.

• 59:36Speaker 00

  But, but, um, yeah, where was I on the Chris thing?

• 59:40Joe Rogan?

  You're talking about gaining weight and how you did it.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. So then I worked with this, and I worked with the guy who, so I was doing that in conjunction with, um, learning about sniping. And, uh, working with Kevin Lays, this guy Dauber. We would go up to the Disney Ranch and work with like six hundred yard head targets prone. That I would just do all the time. And then we, then once we cast the rest of the team, we did all this stuff. But really, Kevin Lays, this guy Dauber was the guy. Cuz he was there. And he was there through the whole shooting, just so everything would be real. And we just drilled it. We became a group. Like, you know, we did the work. But it wasn't so much about like, I was like, I have this amount of time. Doing like SEAL boot camp will do nothing for me. Like, that, that'll just give me the brain of like, how hard this is and will I be broken? I've done this, not that I couldn't have, not, maybe I would have been broken, but I felt like I do understand that.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  Like, I've been through certain things where like, I understand what it's like to push myself to be on my breaking point. And what that looks like and feels like. What I don't know is when I'm looking at a target and I have to factor in that, you know, the curve of the earth. You know, like, that's the stuff I want to learn.

• 1:00:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  So that's where I focused was those three weapons, you know, live rounds, gaining the weight. So I felt like I was.

• 1:00:52Joe Rogan?

  Here we go, we're back.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  That's like all of a sudden, you're like, oh, you didn't take the drug?

• 1:01:00Speaker 00

  Do you know what I'm saying?

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  No, I'm not on it.

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  And then, and then, so it was those two things in conjunction.

• 1:01:09Joe Rogan?

  The curve of the earth is nuts, you have to think about that. Long distance shots.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  And then the fact that these guys stayed up 24 hours, would pee in there, you know, never get up to pee, just pee right there, right in the room. You know, I mean, I said no. And then, by the way, it's a human, I mean, it's just, forget it. And then just working with this guy, Tim Monik, on like, his voice. To me, it's, the voice is everything. It's all about the voice. And like, where he's from. And Chris was interesting because his accent started to change, you know, because he, once he got out, and then he did that, um, he did a couple of shows. You know, he wrote that book, which is how I came across and then gave it to Clint. So he had an interesting accent that kind of changed a little bit. But yeah, just the voice, just hitting the voice. I would work this guy five days a week.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  You know, you know, and I had, I had tons of stuff. I had so much information that Taya, Kyle, had been so generous to give me. So many home videos, you know, correspondence, you know, I, I used to work out to his, which I just did the other day. I hadn't, it's so funny, we're talking about this. I literally just did it two days ago. Worked out to his playlist. I had both of his workout playlists.

• 1:02:15Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  And I, and I blew up two huge posters. And one was him just like this, and one with his gun. And I would do that and look at him every morning. It was just like this beautiful ritual that I felt like I was with him every day.

• 1:02:27Joe Rogan?

  How long did you take to prepare?

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  I, I'd have to look back. I think I did it fast, but I think we had about six months or five months. But like, you know, full on, that's it, nothing else. I didn't have a kid back then. It was like, that was it.

• 1:02:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Joe Rogan?

  That's, there's, there's something very unique about someone doing a film about an actual person.

• 1:02:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:46Joe Rogan?

  Like a great actor doing, like, De Niro, when he played Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull.

• 1:02:51Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 1:02:51Joe Rogan?

  Like, that, that was one of the first, like, I mean, he became a different person.

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, you have to.

• 1:02:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  You have to, there's like a merging of you and that, whatever that idea, the soul, whatever of the person. It sounds so hokey. You know, I get it. But if you ask me what my memory is of, of making A Sniper, like, memory, like, on, in scenes, it's not that, like, I was acting. It's just, that's not my memory.

• 1:03:20Joe Rogan?

  What is the memory?

• 1:03:21Speaker 00

  Of like, okay, now we're gonna do this and it's like me as him doing it.

• 1:03:25Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:03:26Speaker 00

  You know, that's, that's-

• 1:03:27Joe Rogan?

  Was that a mindfuck when you stop, when like, the movie wraps?

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Well, the good thing is you do a Clint who takes the piss out of fucking everything.

• 1:03:34Joe Rogan?

  Oh, does he?

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  So, yeah, so we would go to dinner at night. And, uh, and I learned from Christian Bale in American Hustle, like, he just stayed in- Cause I didn't understand this, stay in the character all the time. You know, you hear these stories, but you don't know what the real is. Like, how does that work? You see a cellphone, do you like lose your mind? Like, how do you, what is it, how do you do it? And it's like, oh, I overthought it. Bale would just, he was, played this character that's from New York in, in American Hustle. And I'd go in there, the first day I met him, he was his accent. And the rest of the movie, even like on weekends, it was, it was him, Christian. And I could, we would talk about stuff and his kid, but he would just speak in that voice. And I was like, oh, it's that simple. Like, it's not some big thing. Like, once you get the voice-

• 1:04:15Joe Rogan?

  That is weird.

• 1:04:16Speaker 00

  You know, but, but I took it. I mean, and it's wonderful. Cause then you feel like you're not acting and you're in the voice. And I do it all, like, so, so I would be in that voice of Chris for the whole movie. And then we would go to like a restaurant and we were like up in Lancaster shooting or something. And Clint would then make fun of me in my accent as Chris and order a steak. And it was just, it was, it was great, yeah.

• 1:04:35Joe Rogan?

  He's fucking sabotaging your performance. He's making you self-conscious, that's crazy.

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  It was awesome.

• 1:04:41Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy. I always wondered what it's like to be around someone is like method, whether, whether on-

• 1:04:46Speaker 00

  But I don't know that's, I wouldn't, you know, method is also a term that, you know-

• 1:04:50Joe Rogan?

  What does it mean?

• 1:04:50Speaker 00

  Well, the method, well, what, it started in Russia, right? And then, uh, um, you know, that book, uh, on acting that I should know, um, you know, what's his name?

• 1:05:02Speaker 00

  And he came and then the group theater started and it was like, you know, and all these people then disbanded. And there's Harry Meisner and there's, yeah, Stanislavski, exactly. And there was this other guy, Vak Tangov, that also talked about, uh, that every rehearsal. It's very interesting and I read all this in grad school. And then the group theater came in and then Ilya Kazan was a huge part of it becoming popular because you had this guy that was sweeping floors of the actor's studio and then started directing plays and then all of a sudden he's a huge movie director and he's putting Marlon Brando, who's part of the actor's studio, starring in his movies, you know, and he's doing, and so it all just sort of erupted. But then it branched out. And so there's people that are dogmatic about it, about it's only using your, you

• 1:05:44Speaker 00

  know, you're substituting, so if I'm doing a scene with you, like you aren't you, you're my brother, you know? Right. But, but, but it's evolved and it's like what works for you. To me, it's like you use your, your own experience plus your imagination, you know, but that's, that's the sort, that's the, you know, sort of a very layman's 50 second, uh, you know, telling of what the origin of the method is. But I went to the actor's studio, which is based in the method. That's where I went to grad school. Um, is it? And it's very valuable because I didn't know shit before that. I mean, I did a couple of plays at Georgetown. I didn't know any, I mean, I just loved acting, but I didn't do anything about it. I was terrified as a kid. Like, we did this thing in high school where we had to, as seniors, we would put on our show where we would make fun of our

• 1:06:28Speaker 00

  teachers. And I like, I could do my Latin teacher, Mr. Burke. I was like, and I actually sang in it. We sang, and I was like, but I was terrified, Joe, for the whole year, sleepless nights for a year leading up to it. That's how scared I was in public. I remember doing like a fifth grade presentation with the poster boards about Lock and Hobbs and the poster shaking so hard because I was, because I was so nervous. I was like, how am I gonna, what's this fear thing? Isn't that weird? I know. But then in college, I did a couple of plays, but I still didn't know what I was doing, but I loved it. And I was like, little stuff. I was like Azealon, the server in Dangerous Liaisons. But I still remember like, I closed the door in a rhythm, rhythmic way and people laughed. And I remember I was like, ooh, I was like, this feels good. And then, and then, so I applied to grad school there.

• 1:07:13Speaker 00

  And then all of a sudden, it was like I got a huge foundation of like what I could do. You know, that your insecurities are actually your attributes, your fears or stuff that, you know, all this thing that you're a sensitive kid, this is all good stuff. And I never felt that way before about any of that. And I had this teacher, Elizabeth Kemp, who was incredible, who then passed away in my house years later. She got sick, yes, crazy.

• 1:07:35Joe Rogan?

  Passed away in your house?

• 1:07:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, in Venice, California. She was sick, so we put her hospice there. But she was incredible and she did this basic technique class and it was the first time ever, because I didn't, you know, grow up therapy or, and none of that was even, you know, in the vicinity of talking about your feelings. You know, I loved my dad, but I grew up in, you know, the eighties in northeast Philadelphia with an Irish Italian upbringing. That wasn't part of the deal. And then all of a sudden, in grad school with other guys and women and we're like laying down and she wants us to go through an experience of loss and betrayal when we were children. It's like, what the fuck? And actually, I could take all that stuff I've been ashamed of and I could use it and bring it into art. I don't know, it really clicked with me in a huge way.

• 1:08:22Speaker 00

  So, and I use it even to this day. All the movies I do, I always get the actors together and do like a workshop for a week that's based on dreams that she also taught me. And I just find it invaluable. Any way you can just, how can I just get to a place where we're just talking to each other and I don't, you know, and then all this stuff, I feel it's okay.

• 1:08:40Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:42Joe Rogan?

  When you're doing a guy like Chris, it must also be kind of easier to keep the accent than to try to reestablish it right before every scene.

• 1:08:50Speaker 00

  Joe, you just said it. It's a logical thing.

• 1:08:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  That's it. It's a logical thing. The idea of me talking with an accent or even thinking that it's an accent, because you don't think about it anymore. The whole point is I'm not doing an act. If I'm doing a scene with you and I'm thinking about how I'm talking, it's over. It's a wrap.

• 1:09:07Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:09:07Speaker 00

  It's not real.

• 1:09:08Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:09:08Speaker 00

  But if I'm just talking to you. And it happens to be the voice that I've been working on for however long time. Then we're in it. We got a shot.

• 1:09:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  And if I'm stopping it, there's no way I'm not thinking about. So yes, Joe, that is the reason.

• 1:09:23Joe Rogan?

  You know what's a really underappreciated talent is voice actors who do audiobooks? I was watching a video of this guy, because I never knew how they did it. And I kind of assumed that whenever they had to change accents, they probably had a pause where they were.

• 1:09:42Joe Rogan?

  But there's a, there's a video of a guy doing the voiceover for Lord of the Rings, the Lord of the Rings audiobook. And he goes into Sméagol, he goes into the Gollum character while he's doing narration. There's no break. He just smoothly transitions into Sméagol.

• 1:09:57Speaker 00

  It's great.

• 1:09:58Joe Rogan?

  It's fucking incredible.

• 1:09:59Speaker 00

  No, it's nuts.

• 1:10:00Joe Rogan?

  It is absolutely masterful and completely underappreciated.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I agree with you.

• 1:10:06Joe Rogan?

  Because if you watch this guy do it, I, I don't know the gentleman's name, who's the voiceover actor, but I love audiobooks. This, that guy. Listen to this guy.

• 1:10:15Speaker 00

  Oh, it's Andy Serkis.

• 1:10:16Speaker 03

  Sméagol was holding a debate with some other thought that used the same voice, but made it squeak and hiss. A pale light and a green light alternated in his eyes as he spoke.

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  "Sméagol, premised,"

• 1:10:41Speaker 03

  said the first thought. "Yes, yes, my precious," came the answer.

• 1:10:50Joe Rogan?

  Amazing! Fucking amazing! Like that, what a master!

• 1:10:58Speaker 00

  And you're talking about a master actor.

• 1:11:00Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:11:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, because he's been in a lot of movies. He's directed. He directed that great movie, uh, that was like Jungle Book, a version of Jungle Book. That Christian Bale actually played the panther, I believe. He's incredible. And I got to meet him. He, he's like, this guy's like a one-off generational talent. Yeah, he's insane.

• 1:11:17Joe Rogan?

  You have to be, to be that good at voiceover acting.

• 1:11:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, and he's just a great actor.

• 1:11:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you have to be.

• 1:11:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, I, I agree. And my mother watches this, uh, she'll kill me that I'm saying.

• 1:11:29Speaker 00

  My mother watches, first of all, she loves Turkish soap operas, so she watches everything. Turkish soap operas? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why them specifically? I don't know, she just, she graduated from Hallmark into Turkish soap operas.

• 1:11:42Speaker 00

  Hallmark channel. And, and then she's evolved even further, she just watches a screen where there's two people, AI images, and it's just a person telling a story. And I often, I'll come down making breakfast, because when she stays with me in New York, she has the room down there, and I'll be like making my daughter breakfast, and I could hear it, or I'll go to the bathroom, which is right next to her. And I was like, wow, these guys, these voices, I mean, the guy's carrying it all, it's just an image. And she'll watch it for hours. And I'm like, what's gonna happen, is he gonna make that, is the firm gonna hire him? Is she gonna, did she see the note? Like, he's, it's amazing, I was like, yeah, it's really an art form. Turkish. Yeah. I remember the first time I came down, I was like, oh no, what happened? Because I'm just hearing, I'm like, what happened? And I walk in, and I'm like, Mom, what are you, what are you watching?

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  She's like, oh no, this guy's the best actor in the world, this guy. And so she just reads the subtitles. And she did it for like, she's watching, it's called, um, oh.

• 1:12:41Speaker 00

  If you look up, uh, he's like, what's it called, Circle, uh,

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  is it Dove, Bird, Bird, something?

• 1:12:53Speaker 00

  How could I forget it? Early Bird? Oh, baby. Is that it? Early Bird. Early Bird? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Explain this? So it's a soap, it's a soap opera, there's like 360 episodes, she's watched them all like five, four times. And she'll come in, she'll like do a marathon session, come in to make some food, she's like, this, this guy, just the way he moves, this guy's the best actor. That's him, that's him. Yeah, that's him.

• 1:13:22Joe Rogan?

  Is it speaking in Turkish?

• 1:13:23Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:24Joe Rogan?

  Let me hear some of this.

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  This looks like, um, yeah, that's it. Yeah, there he is.

• 1:13:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, there he is.

• 1:13:39Joe Rogan?

  And so she likes this and she does the voiceover? She reads the...

• 1:13:43Speaker 00

  No, so that was the middle stage. Now she's graduated to, it's different now where she just watches two AI images and it's a story. But she did this for a good like eight years. All through COVID.

• 1:13:55Joe Rogan?

  Why was she into this?

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  I don't know. She must've come across it one day on somewhere and then that was it.

• 1:14:00Joe Rogan?

  She just got hooked?

• 1:14:01Speaker 00

  Oh, I mean, hooked isn't even the word. Yeah. By the way, it's pretty good.

• 1:14:07Joe Rogan?

  Is it?

• 1:14:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:08Joe Rogan?

  You watch it?

• 1:14:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:10Joe Rogan?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner, BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. And with World Mental Health Day on the 10th, now's the perfect time to give it a try. In fact, don't even wait until the 10th because all that stress you feel, it's not waiting around. So instead of letting it build up, sign up for a therapy session and unload at any time, not just on World Mental Health Day. If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance.

• 1:14:54Joe Rogan?

  Don't have insurance or live outside of the United States? You can still get 10% off your first month. Visit betterhelp.com to explore your payment options. That's better H E L P dot com. 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.

• 1:15:39Joe Rogan?

  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. Their recipes are made with real meat and fresh vegetables that are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients. They also portion out the meals to your dog's nutritional needs, which helps avoid overfeeding and makes weight management easier. And isn't getting more time with our four-legged best friends something every dog owner wants? The answer to that is yes, obviously. So try the Farmer's Dog today and get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food. Plus, get free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com/rogan.

• 1:16:23Joe Rogan?

  This offer is for new customers only.

• 1:16:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's great and the woman in it is great, too. Yeah.

• 1:16:29Joe Rogan?

  Do you consume a lot of films? Do you watch a lot of acting?

• 1:16:32Speaker 00

  I watch a lot of everything.

• 1:16:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah?

• 1:16:34Speaker 00

  I love television, uh, films. And then, you know, like eight months ago, I, I know I'm late to the game, came across podcasts.

• 1:16:43Joe Rogan?

  Only eight months ago?

• 1:16:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:46Joe Rogan?

  That's interesting.

• 1:16:47Speaker 00

  Isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:48Joe Rogan?

  What, what made you get into that?

• 1:16:54Speaker 00

  I can't remember, but it was your podcast and I'm trying to think what it was. And then, and then it was like, oh, and then I came, and then, you know, once you watch something on your phone, it like suggests other things. And, uh, and then you had two guys on that I thought were really interesting and then they do a trigonometry.

• 1:17:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, trigonometry.

• 1:17:11Speaker 00

  And then I find that very fascinating.

• 1:17:12Joe Rogan?

  Oh, they're great.

• 1:17:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, great. And so that's how it just started. So now it's like a huge part of, like, I have this whole little thing, like, like often I'll go to bed and my daughter's listening to you. But I do put on headphones sometimes because I love like just at the end of the day, listening, listening or watching, I'll put it on the side table. Yeah, podcasts are incredible and it's very soothing, very soothing. That's interesting. I hardly ever listen to them anymore. But I love, I love TV. I love it. Yeah, I take in a lot of content. Have you watched The Beast in Me on Netflix? I did. The Claire Danes? Oh dude. Holy shit dude. Dude. And that guy, Carrie Russell's husband, Matthew Rees, dude. The, the bad guy? Yeah. Yeah. How fucking good is that guy? So I did a movie with him years ago called Burnt about a chef.

• 1:17:59Speaker 00

  And we had never met and there's a scene where my character, he was trying to get sober and he's, he went off the wagon. And he goes into this guy, their old nemesis, they were nemesis with each other, his restaurant after hours. And it was like a pretty dark scene that we never met, me and this guy, this actor, right? Before we shot. And I come in and then, I don't know, what was, I was pretty, I was pretty locked in. And there's one scene which wasn't really scripted and I took, you know, those sous vide bags and I put it over my head to try to, cause he's trying to kill himself, which by the way, I was like, oh, this, this could work.

• 1:18:37Speaker 00

  If I don't get help, those things are strong and tight. And then we had this experience, Joe, where then he was ripping it off me, trying to, for me not to kill myself. And I don't know him that well, but we had, that's the thing about like making art together, like we had that, it'll never, every time I see him, I've seen him maybe six times at like certain things or something. I always feel like we're bonded forever, just based on this one experience that we had. And he's an incredible actor. He's just, and I, the end of that show, him and the end of that show. Oh god. And Claire Danes is like. Off the chart. Did you see that show she did with Jesse Eisenberg? What's that? There's, there's another series she did. Homeland?

• 1:19:19Speaker 00

  No, no, no. It was like Fleischman, something with Fleischman.

• 1:19:23Joe Rogan?

  Fleischman is in trouble?

• 1:19:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, Fleischman, there's this. No. Yeah. She's incredible in that too. There's a scene where she's basically having a mental breakdown. And you're watching, you're like, this, this can't be acting. Fleischman is in trouble? Yeah. It's on FX? I never even heard of this. Yeah. It's really good? Yeah, I li, I enjoyed it, but, and I enjoyed her at the, and there's one scene that like really rocked me where I just fully, I mean, this is like, I just saw this movie Hamnet. I don't know if you guys saw that or not. No. That's what I love about movies. So Jessie Buckley in this movie. It's just basically playing like the most difficult role ever, the loss and all that stuff. And I fully, Joe, I'm watching it, sitting there, fully believing that this person is going through this. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:20:07Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:20:08Speaker 00

  When you do that, when I believe that you're actually going through it. I mean, that's it. That's and like that her performance in that movie is so.

• 1:20:16Joe Rogan?

  She's so good, dude.

• 1:20:17Speaker 00

  Dude. Then in. You're talking about Claire Danes or Jessie Buckley now?

• 1:20:20Joe Rogan?

  Jessie, Jessie.

• 1:20:20Speaker 00

  No. Claire Danes, yeah.

• 1:20:22Joe Rogan?

  Claire Danes and Jessie Buckley.

• 1:20:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're both amazing.

• 1:20:24Joe Rogan?

  But Claire Danes is so good in The Beast in Me. There's, there's moments where like her fucking lips are trembling.

• 1:20:30Speaker 00

  No, it's nuts, dude. She's touched. She's like.

• 1:20:32Joe Rogan?

  Eyes are darting back.

• 1:20:33Speaker 00

  Right, touched. She's on, she's touched. Yes, no question.

• 1:20:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:37Speaker 00

  No question. Yeah.

• 1:20:38Joe Rogan?

  She locks in in this very crazy way. She was great in fucking Homeland, too.

• 1:20:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I never saw Homeland.

• 1:20:44Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it's great. It's really good. She just locks in. She locks in in this very strange way where you fucking 100% believer.

• 1:20:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:53Joe Rogan?

  Like, believe it behind the eyes.

• 1:20:54Speaker 00

  It's the greatest.

• 1:20:55Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:20:55Speaker 00

  I mean, that's, that's the heroin for me of this industry. It's like when you're around and you're creating this thing and it's just, and all of a sudden, it's like, whoa.

• 1:21:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:04Speaker 00

  Holy shit, it's happening.

• 1:21:05Joe Rogan?

  But it's like, I had this conversation with Ethan Hawke. I was, because I was asking him about.

• 1:21:10Speaker 00

  But I felt like that with Will, just real quick, you know, that vampire scene. That's, because I was, I was operating it, right? I, I, I don't know how you felt watching it.

• 1:21:17Joe Rogan?

  The scene when he was on stage.

• 1:21:18Speaker 00

  At the very end.

• 1:21:19Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:21:20Speaker 00

  I was like, I fully believed it.

• 1:21:22Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  And, and those people, and then when I went to the audience and they're just like.

• 1:21:26Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:21:27Speaker 00

  Because they didn't know what the fuck's going on.

• 1:21:28Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 1:21:29Speaker 00

  Like, that was one of those moments I had on this movie where I was like, oh, my man is locked.

• 1:21:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:33Speaker 00

  The fuck in.

• 1:21:34Joe Rogan?

  Oh, 100%. Yeah, 100%. It was very uncomfortable for me.

• 1:21:37Speaker 00

  You felt that.

• 1:21:39Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:21:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh, good.

• 1:21:40Joe Rogan?

  Definitely. I was, I have this conversation with Ethan Hawke about that. I go, what is happening? When I believe someone, like, I was talking about the scene in that movie with him and Julia Roberts, the, about the end of the world.

• 1:21:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:21:53Joe Rogan?

  There's, there's a scene with him and Kevin Bacon.

• 1:21:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, when they go to the house and also, there's three guys in that scene. Oh, my God, he's amazing. Yeah, from Moonlight, and he's been in tons of stuff.

• 1:22:07Speaker 00

  Green Book. I know him.

• 1:22:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, Jamie will pull it up. I can't, I'll fuck his name up if I pronounce it. What is it?

• 1:22:17Joe Rogan?

  Um.

• 1:22:19Speaker 02

  Oh, it's a Marsha Ali.

• 1:22:21Joe Rogan?

  That's it.

• 1:22:21Speaker 00

  Marsha Ali, yes.

• 1:22:24Joe Rogan?

  I believe it. I know that's Kevin Bacon. I know that's Ethan Hawke.

• 1:22:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:22:27Joe Rogan?

  I believe he's gonna shoot him.

• 1:22:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, no question.

• 1:22:29Joe Rogan?

  I believe it.

• 1:22:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:30Joe Rogan?

  I go, what is that? Like, what is going on? I go, cause is it, it's almost like a form of hypnosis.

• 1:22:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:22:36Joe Rogan?

  And he's like, yes.

• 1:22:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's it.

• 1:22:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you have to actually be there. You have to actually be there. Like, yeah, you're saying the lines you're supposed to say, but what's happening is like, you really are there. You really believe it. And if you don't believe it, the audience doesn't believe it. And we've all been there before. Like, one time, I ate an edible, and I went to go see one of those Marvel movies. And in the mid, I was really high.

• 1:23:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:23:04Joe Rogan?

  And while I was watching the middle, I'm like, this guy's acting.

• 1:23:09Joe Rogan?

  You know, it's just like.

• 1:23:10Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 1:23:10Joe Rogan?

  It just made, you know, when you're really sensitive and tuned in.

• 1:23:13Speaker 00

  I get angry, cause I'm like, I wanna, I wanna go on the ride. I'm like the best watcher, cause I want, I want, when that thing starts.

• 1:23:18Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:23:19Speaker 00

  I wanna go on the ride.

• 1:23:20Joe Rogan?

  I wanna go on the ride.

• 1:23:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:23:21Joe Rogan?

  Like, like him and Denzel in Training Day.

• 1:23:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:24Joe Rogan?

  Like, that, there's a few scenes where you're like, okay, this is really, this is happening.

• 1:23:29Speaker 00

  In the car.

• 1:23:29Joe Rogan?

  Yes, that's the one. Yeah.

• 1:23:31Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:31Joe Rogan?

  This is really happening. Like, this is real.

• 1:23:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Ethan Hawke's so good in that movie.

• 1:23:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. He's, he's great.

• 1:23:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's great in everything, but he's sick in that movie.

• 1:23:40Joe Rogan?

  But he's also, when you talk to him, you realize, okay, this is an actual artist.

• 1:23:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's a unique dude.

• 1:23:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Joe Rogan?

  He's not a guy who like, trying to be a movie star.

• 1:23:48Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 1:23:49Joe Rogan?

  He's an artist that does movies.

• 1:23:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I don't know how many people, I don't know, it's like, how many comedians who just wanna be famous are gonna, I don't even know how you could do, you have to love it.

• 1:23:59Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:24:00Speaker 00

  It's just too hard. That's not enough of a fuel. It's not, that's just not enough fuel.

• 1:24:06Joe Rogan?

  It won't take you far enough.

• 1:24:06Speaker 00

  It's just not a fuel to keep doing it.

• 1:24:08Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:24:09Speaker 00

  Because if you don't love it, I think you would find it monotonous, and maybe boring, and tedious, and inconsequential.

• 1:24:15Joe Rogan?

  You're going on a road trip with an eighth of a tank of gas. You're not gonna make it.

• 1:24:19Speaker 00

  You're not gonna make it.

• 1:24:20Joe Rogan?

  You're stomping on the gas and trying to pull out of the parking lot, but it's not that.

• 1:24:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:23Joe Rogan?

  It's a long drive.

• 1:24:25Speaker 00

  And my experience in the 26 years I've been in this is like, most of the people, if not all, that I've worked with, they love it.

• 1:24:31Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:24:32Speaker 00

  They love it.

• 1:24:32Joe Rogan?

  They have to.

• 1:24:33Speaker 00

  Otherwise, yeah.

• 1:24:35Joe Rogan?

  If you wanna be great at something, you have to love it.

• 1:24:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:37Joe Rogan?

  I can't, I can't imagine.

• 1:24:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Cause it's not even that you want, yes, you wanna be great at it, but you just love doing it.

• 1:24:42Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:24:43Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 1:24:44Joe Rogan?

  Right, and the love is how it becomes great.

• 1:24:47Speaker 00

  And then the fear is when you get famous or people get popular early, that can be confusing because you start to have like, I have to maintain a certain, you start getting careful. Like, I was thinking about when you said like, what is that thing when it's just, it's hypnosis? The key to that is willing to fail. That's what I learned as an actor. Is like, oh yeah, just don't take it too seriously. Here we go, we're rolling the camera, we can fail, let's just, here, let's see what happens. I'm gonna go out on a limb, maybe it won't work. But like, yeah, be willing to like completely fail. And the minute you do that, it's like, oh. And all of a sudden, there's this reservoir of space in your head and your soul to actually

• 1:25:31Speaker 00

  create even more of an imaginary circumstances. Now, if you haven't done your work, you're fucked anyway. But like, but once you're there, it's like, once you're like, oh yeah, everybody, we could just fail. Let's just, let's just fail.

• 1:25:42Joe Rogan?

  How do you?

• 1:25:43Speaker 00

  Does that make sense?

• 1:25:44Joe Rogan?

  It 100% makes sense. It makes sense because the only way you're gonna really find out what it is, is to like try it all kinds of ways.

• 1:25:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:25:52Joe Rogan?

  That we, I was just having the conversation, you know, Brian Callen, our mutual friend. Uh, he, he texted me last night, he's like, I got a new bit and I just ate a dick. I have to go up on stage with it tonight, it's fucking terrible. He goes, but I know there's something in there. And we were, we were talking on the phone right before the show, he's like, dude, my fucking new bitch is bombed. It ate dick last night, I don't know what to do. I got, but I know there's something there. It's like, you've got to be willing to bomb. You gotta be willing to eat a dick.

• 1:26:18Speaker 00

  If you don't, I don't know how, uh, yeah, I don't know when you, if you're careful, you're, it's, you're, it's over.

• 1:26:23Joe Rogan?

  You can't.

• 1:26:24Speaker 00

  Careful is death.

• 1:26:25Joe Rogan?

  I talked to Chris Rock once and he told me that, that bit that he did, it was one of his all-time classic bits. I love black people, I hate N-word.

• 1:26:33Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 1:26:33Joe Rogan?

  He goes, that bit bombed for like a year.

• 1:26:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:26:37Joe Rogan?

  He couldn't get, couldn't get it to work. He's like, I know there's something in there, but I have to find it. And it took a fucking year. And think, and we're talking about a year of going up at the store, going up at the improv, going here, going to the Laugh Factory, going here, going there. Fuck, pulling your hair out, fuck, trying to figure it out, a fucking year, man. And when you're Chris Rock, you're already Chris Rock. And you, for, you know, you could talk about getting your dick sucked, you could talk about something, people will laugh. And you're like, I think there's something here. I gotta grind this fucking thing down till I get an edge to it. And it took him a year.

• 1:27:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:27:15Joe Rogan?

  Like, you have to be willing to fuck around.

• 1:27:17Speaker 00

  And to suffer through all that.

• 1:27:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:20Speaker 00

  And enjoy the suffering. You start to like, on- once you do it enough, fail enough in front of people, it starts to be easier.

• 1:27:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And then you come out on the other end, you're like, phew.

• 1:27:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I'm still alive. I'm still alive.

• 1:27:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. This wasn't as big as I thought.

• 1:27:33Joe Rogan?

  No. And then you have to do it again. That's, and then you put out a special, and then, once you put out a special, you start from scratch, and then you're fucking terrified. Cause now, you're a famous comedian with no material. Or terrible material. And you have to figure out a way to make it good.

• 1:27:47Speaker 00

  And that plays into what I was talking about, like, when you have, when you've achieved something, and then there's that pressure you put on yourself, that it has to be that good or better.

• 1:27:55Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:27:56Speaker 00

  And then all of a sudden, you're in a different game.

• 1:27:58Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:27:59Speaker 00

  Than, than just like, the doing. I think that that-

• 1:28:02Joe Rogan?

  Play it safe game is the scariest game.

• 1:28:04Speaker 00

  Or yeah, or somehow think that it's, it's somehow that controllable. Cause really, all this stuff we're talking about, it's really kind of out of our control. You know, when it's working, I don't feel in control at all.

• 1:28:16Joe Rogan?

  Right. You feel like a passenger.

• 1:28:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that's, by the way, that's the high.

• 1:28:20Joe Rogan?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:28:21Speaker 00

  There's nothing fun about controlling everything. There's no fun in that. But when you're like, whoa, wait a second, what's happening?

• 1:28:26Joe Rogan?

  Like, the zone is being a passenger.

• 1:28:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Joe Rogan?

  It's like being an observer of something.

• 1:28:31Speaker 00

  Sports too. I think it, it works in every field. It's like, they, they talk about it, you know, it's like, yeah, that's it. That's it. And it just takes a ton, a year of doing the thing, you know, because there are moments that I can even think of where, cause you do think, that's okay, it doesn't matter. There are a couple where like, actually, if this moment doesn't work out, like, it may not be over, but you're definitely gonna go down along the ladder.

• 1:28:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:53Speaker 00

  You know, and it's like, okay, and that's, that pressure, you know, yeah. You gotta love it.

• 1:28:59Joe Rogan?

  How do you pick a project? Like, how do you decide what you wanna do? And how much time do you spend deliberating on it?

• 1:29:07Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:29:09Joe Rogan?

  Because you're in a unique position where you can do a lot of things.

• 1:29:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:12Joe Rogan?

  You can kind of do whatever you want. So it's like, what gets your juices going? Like, how do you decide what to do?

• 1:29:21Speaker 00

  It's all about something igniting in me that, like, for example, when I was little, I thought, like, I was obsessed with Vietnam. I was obsessed as a kid.

• 1:29:33Joe Rogan?

  With what?

• 1:29:33Speaker 00

  Vietnam, the war in Vietnam. And my math teacher was a recon in Vietnam, Bill Calm. And I was, like, obsessed with this guy. And he was fascinating, fascinating. He was a pole vaulter, and that was his cue for the chalkboard was a broken, one of his broken pole vault sticks.

• 1:29:52Joe Rogan?

  Ah, wow.

• 1:29:52Speaker 00

  And he would always, and he always wore sweatpants, and he would lean against the thing. So all day long, half of his sweatpants would be full of chalk. And he would always smoke cigarettes on the athletic field and stand on the bench. And so he'd always be perched there. And like my dad, he would never put out his butts. He would always save them. So he always smelled like tobacco, his hands. And then this other guy, his father came and talked about this book Guns Up, which is an incredible book about machine gunner in Vietnam. So, and then I asked my dad if I could go to the military academy. Like, I would do something, and then, like, you know, Thin Red Line destroyed me, the Terrence Malick movie, and Apocalypse Now. I was, like, obsessed with, and all these films.

• 1:30:35Speaker 00

  And so I always wanted to do something about, I always felt like I had a love enough and an interest enough that playing a soldier would be something that I felt like I had a reservoir. So that led me to Chris. That was that. It's all specific things. It was just Joseph Merrick, you know, the Elephant Man. Like, when I was, I had no money, and I took, I got a one, I'm Tower Air, went to London, and like, tracked his steps at Hospital Road and where he went out, just because I was obsessed with this guy, Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. And then it wound up, you know, then making it, you know, doing the play at Broadway where they originated, you know, and then. Stars Born was really about, I just love, I always wanted to direct, I don't think I dreamt

• 1:31:17Speaker 00

  that big, but I really realized what I loved about the process of the industry I'm in is the making of it. I never felt like I fit in just acting. I never felt like I thought, like the first, like you, like I went to LA with a job. Like I went to grad school in New York. I thought I'd just be a theater actor if I was lucky. If I could make a living as an actor, this is a home run. My dad was terrified, you know, because he came from North Philadelphia, only guy to come out of the neighborhood, kind of. There were a couple of other guys. But then he became a stockbroker and then his son's gonna do acting and be 70 grand in debt in grad school, you know, Fanny May, thank God, but like, you know, and I didn't know if I was gonna pay it off. And, but that said, we grew up like upper middle class, but still I was like, I'm paying for grad school. I took a

• 1:32:01Speaker 00

  loan out and then, so he was terrified. And then I got a job on this show Alias that brought me to LA. But the minute I got there, I didn't know anything about, check the gate. I didn't, nothing. You know what I mean? I didn't, nothing. I just loved movies. And so I was obsessed, Joe, obsessed. I would go in the editing room and I found LA very hard when I was, when I went there. I got very depressed. I was like, this is high school all over again.

• 1:32:23Joe Rogan?

  Me too. That's exactly how I felt.

• 1:32:25Speaker 00

  I was like, what, I mean, I could, I went to grad school. I'm in New York City. There's guys that I could relate to and talk about movies. I was in heaven. Then I get this job that I think is gonna be the holy grail and I'm miserable, living in the first floor of this woman's house, just like, it was crazy. I was like, I didn't know I could be this depressed. I mean depressed, like I need water and like the idea of going to the Rite Aid on, on Sunset and Fairfax was like too much.

• 1:32:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:54Speaker 00

  And, yeah, that was rough.

• 1:32:56Joe Rogan?

  It's depressing.

• 1:32:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:57Joe Rogan?

  When you first go, especially when you're in that cold, weird environment of people.

• 1:33:02Speaker 00

  And no one, just no, and I was on a show that was awesome and everybody's exploding and like, no one, it was like, who, who's this guy? So that, not only that, I'm there and everybody's like, you know, I'm just like, you know, a ghost.

• 1:33:14Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:33:15Speaker 00

  So there's that. So your insecurity is just, you know, is just, you know, astronomical.

• 1:33:20Joe Rogan?

  It was, for me, it was also one of the first times that I ever moved somewhere where I didn't know anyone.

• 1:33:25Speaker 00

  Me too. I knew nobody. J.J. Abrams hired me and then Berkey, this guy was the only guy that I knew, that he introduced me to. And then I met Jennifer Garner, was like the second person I met. And then, yeah, I didn't know anybody.

• 1:33:37Joe Rogan?

  It's weird.

• 1:33:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:39Joe Rogan?

  I remember I was on the set of the show.

• 1:33:41Speaker 00

  Brian Klugman, I did know that guy, who's like one of my best friends.

• 1:33:44Joe Rogan?

  Oh, he's great.

• 1:33:44Speaker 00

  You know Brian Klugman?

• 1:33:45Joe Rogan?

  No, I know who he is, though.

• 1:33:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's, we grew up since we were like nine.

• 1:33:48Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:33:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:49Joe Rogan?

  Um, I was on the set of this show and, um, a girl gave me a hug. And I realized no one had touched me in weeks. And the hug she gave me, I was like, ah. It was like, uh, my battery got recharged. Like, I didn't realize I needed a hug.

• 1:34:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, isolation.

• 1:34:06Joe Rogan?

  People say, do you need a hug? Like, I never thought, like, nobody needs a hug.

• 1:34:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:34:09Joe Rogan?

  No, I fucking needed a hug.

• 1:34:10Speaker 00

  I was very similar.

• 1:34:11Joe Rogan?

  She's like, give me a hug. She hugged me, I was like, oh, thank you.

• 1:34:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:34:16Joe Rogan?

  I felt so good. It's, it's weird, it's a weird feeling.

• 1:34:18Speaker 00

  It's a, it's a hell of a place to go.

• 1:34:21Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 1:34:21Speaker 00

  It is like, wow.

• 1:34:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I had a hard time.

• 1:34:25Joe Rogan?

  Well, the whole environment of LA is so strange because you have the primary industry. If, if it's not the primary industry, it's most certainly driving all under, uh, all other industries. Is a bunch of people trying to make it. Right? So it's a bunch of people with a hole in their soul, they need to fill up with other people's attention. And they're coming there to try to get attention. They're try, coming there to try to make it. And the one thing that they have to do is audition. So you have to try to be accepted by someone. So you'd be judged. You go in there and you get return, you get rejected over and over and over again.

• 1:35:08Joe Rogan?

  Which just fuels the same, like, need that's inside you. It like makes it even worse. And everybody's concentrating on this one thing. Like, trying to get success. And then you realize, like, oh, my doctor wanted to be an actor. Oh, the waiter's an actor. Like, every, everyone's trying to do this thing where you have to get chosen. So then people calculate how they behave and talk and what their political philosophy is and their life philosophies. Based on. Becoming ingratiating themselves with casting directors. Hmm. And with executives, like getting these people to like you. And then these people realize that. So they have like, they're controlling the twigs that work the puppet strings.

• 1:35:51Joe Rogan?

  And it just becomes this very strange environment of a complete lack of any like real critical thinking. And any real like embracing any alternative perspectives on things. Everyone. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Believe it or not, the holiday season is here again. And that means you might need to fill some seasonal roles. Fast. Maybe you need extra cashiers or stalkers, or maybe something more unique like a lead elf. Or an expert gift wrapper, or a Zamboni driver. Whoever you're looking for, whatever skills you need to power through the rest of the year. ZipRecruiter is one of the best places to start your search.

• 1:36:34Joe Rogan?

  Because you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/rogan. And because ZipRecruiter helps sort through thousands of resumes and applications. Showing you the most qualified and interesting ones first. There's even an option for candidates to explain why they want the job. Let ZipRecruiter find the right people for your roles. Seasonal or otherwise. Try it for free today at ziprecruiter.com/rogan. That's ziprecruiter.com/rogan. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner, BetterHelp.

• 1:37:17Joe Rogan?

  Insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. And with World Mental Health Day on the 10th, now's the perfect time to give it a try. In fact, don't even wait until the 10th because all that stress you feel, it's not waiting around. So instead of letting it build up, sign up for a therapy session and unload at any time. Not just on World Mental Health Day. If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 120 Twenty-five health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside of the United States, you can still get 10% off your first month.

• 1:38:01Joe Rogan?

  Visit betterhelp.com to explore your payment options. That's better H E L P dot com. And it's just trying to align their stars correctly so that they can make it.

• 1:38:13Speaker 00

  Hmm. I mean, that my experience was more because I went there with a job, right?

• 1:38:19Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:38:20Speaker 00

  And, you know, New York for me, I don't know, I went on 2,000 auditions. Like, I remember when I first booked a job with Sex and the City, I booked some commercials and extra work, which was great. But the first job I booked, I remember I was like, I was terrified because I got to the point where I was, I was a doorman at a hotel and I would audition and that was a great life. And if I got a call back, it was great. But then when I had to do it, I remember literally like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I have to do, like, wait, wait, what?

• 1:38:43Joe Rogan?

  I'm actually working?

• 1:38:44Speaker 00

  I actually have to do it?

• 1:38:45Joe Rogan?

  What was it? What was the first thing you had to do?

• 1:38:47Speaker 00

  It was, I played Jake the Downtown Smoker in the Sex and the City with Sarah Jessica Parkin. I couldn't drive standard, never learned how to drive standard, so they sent me to Odell, Odell's Driving School. And all I thought about was like, don't have her head hit the dashboard when we pull into the corner. And I still messed it up and they had another guy do it. And then I just had to do this thing, you know, when the cameras are here and you go, you okay? You know, like you're pulling in.

• 1:39:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:08Speaker 00

  But I worked so hard on it. No, but LA for me, it was, I think it, for me at least, was the geography, you know, going from New York City where, you know, you can go to Bar 6, which is on 6th Avenue. No matter who you are, you go there a couple of friends, like, you just feel like you're in a cool place or a place that's vibrant. LA, it's like, if I wasn't at work, I was in, I was in that, that first floor of the house or my car, rental car.

• 1:39:37Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:39:38Speaker 00

  And that was it. And like, and, and the world, which I could feel because I was seeing posters everywhere and billboards, which I'd never been, except for driving to Atlantic City, you know, and seeing who was gonna, you know, gonna be, you know, as a residency, that, it was really the stimulus, the stimuli of that city aesthetically and how compartmentalized it is. So what I felt like, like it's, if you're not in, you're out.

• 1:40:04Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:40:05Speaker 00

  And I just remember thinking like, some, somebody somewhere in this town is having a ball right now. And it's not me. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:40:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:13Speaker 00

  And then that just leads to, how can I cope? You know, and like, you know, not getting into bars, clubs, you know, and like, girls not really looking at you. You know, and all that stuff. And all of a sudden, it's like seventh grade and I'm 25 years old. And it's like, and I should be happy because I paid, by the end of this year, I'm going to pay off my student loan. But I'm fucking miserable. What's wrong with me? You know, but to me, it was the geography of it. You know, New York City is so wonderful because no matter what you're thinking, like when I did the Elephant Man, I would take the subway to 42nd Street. And my preparation for the play was getting off the subway, going to the theater. Because the amount of thousands of people that are forcing me to be present.

• 1:40:56Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:40:57Speaker 00

  Was, is wonderful. It was like doing a 12 minute relaxation because you're just, it's life. And you're like, get through, you know, and then by the time you get to the theater, you're like, okay. You know, but LA, it's like you're in your car and the thing, you pull up to the studio, the thing, you walk. And then all of a sudden, it's like, okay, here we go. And you're like, okay, hold on a second.

• 1:41:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that thing that New York has that LA doesn't have is all walks of life are all intertwined. You're walking down the street together. There's a billionaire and a homeless guy and a fucking, you know, ne'er do well and an office worker. And everyone's walking to where they go and they walk into restaurants and they get in cabs and they get on the subway. And everybody intermingles. Where in LA, it's you get in your car, you drive to a place. And then you go to your house and you don't ever like walk.

• 1:41:53Speaker 00

  And if some weird interaction happened on set or someone said something, you're like, oh, then you're just a home.

• 1:41:59Joe Rogan?

  Thinking about it.

• 1:42:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:42:00Joe Rogan?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:42:01Speaker 00

  There's no like, well, I went on and did this after that, you know, and I actually took up golf, which is crazy. And I would play it, Malibu had this public golf course and I would, I was like, I have to do something. Because I'm an early morning, I wake up early, I've always had. So I'm up at like 5:30. And so I did like a six forty seven tee time with these two guys and that was actually nice. I did that for six months and I would play, but like you just try to find something that, you know, I just need to interact and do something else.

• 1:42:27Joe Rogan?

  Something that makes you human.

• 1:42:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:42:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Yeah, for me, I went to pool halls.

• 1:42:30Speaker 00

  But I have to say, like, I do love, oh, interesting.

• 1:42:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:32Speaker 00

  Michael Vartan, who was on Alias, huge. Did you ever play pool with him?

• 1:42:36Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:42:36Speaker 00

  Oh, he was hu- he would go all the time.

• 1:42:38Joe Rogan?

  No kidding?

• 1:42:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:42:39Joe Rogan?

  Ah, wish I met him.

• 1:42:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, he would go all the time. He had that one place that had like tons of, uh, I'm sure you know it.

• 1:42:46Joe Rogan?

  Probably Hollywood Billiards?

• 1:42:47Speaker 00

  Maybe, yeah.

• 1:42:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Yeah, Hollywood Billiards was the spot.

• 1:42:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:42:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's, uh, in New York, that was a big thing for me, too. It was like almost hijacked my comedy career, because I was doing, I was playing pool like eight hours a day. I was playing in tournaments. I was traveling around and going to tournaments. And when I came to LA, that was like one of the few things that made me, that made sense to me. Like, oh, I get it, pool players. I know pool players. I can hang out with them. They're normal people.

• 1:43:10Speaker 00

  That's a great asset you had there.

• 1:43:13Joe Rogan?

  Some, having something like that is huge. Martial arts was always like that.

• 1:43:16Speaker 00

  Huge.

• 1:43:16Joe Rogan?

  Some, having something where you have something that you do. Because if I was only doing acting.

• 1:43:20Speaker 00

  Oh, no, you'd lose your mind.

• 1:43:21Joe Rogan?

  I'd go crazy.

• 1:43:22Speaker 00

  And I went there and I fell in love with the movie making, the getting back to my original part. And I would go and, so I'd ask JJ Abrams if I could sit in the editing rooms. So I would basically shoot my one scene a week, which was like, hey, how was your trip, Sidney? You know, I didn't have a big part.

• 1:43:36Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:43:36Speaker 00

  And then, but I would spend the rest of the day in the editing rooms. And then I would ask Ken Olin, who was so generous, that one of the showrunners, if I could just shadow him and just be around all the time. And I would take.

• 1:43:45Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 1:43:46Speaker 00

  And I would take everybody's dailies home. Back then, it was on VHS tapes. It was Carl Lumley, Victor Garber, Ron Rifkin, all these great, uh, Victor and Ron were from New York, these great New York actors that came out. And I would just watch their dailies and learn, you know, just learn. And, and that's when I was like, I love this. Like, I fucking love this.

• 1:44:05Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's what I love. I love when people love things.

• 1:44:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I do, man. Like, I can't get enough of it.

• 1:44:11Joe Rogan?

  I am a hundred percent fascinated with people that love what they do. I, I can watch people make furniture. There's a guy that I watch on YouTube who just makes desks and tables.

• 1:44:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:44:23Joe Rogan?

  Out of like, what, what is it called? Live, what is it called? When they, they take it, when it has the actual outline of the wood? What is it called? They take slabs. He takes like slabs of walnut and makes these tables and he narrates while he's building it and describes the process of it and how he's trying to precisely align all these joints and these, you know, he's like, he's got pegs and holes.

• 1:44:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's the best.

• 1:44:47Joe Rogan?

  Slide it into place.

• 1:44:48Speaker 00

  Live edge slab.

• 1:44:49Joe Rogan?

  That's it. Live edge.

• 1:44:50Speaker 00

  That's the other great thing about what I get to do. So you do a movie like A Sniper and you get to be with these people who have dedicated their lives to this thing and you're watching them do it like in Maestro, I got to go with the London Symphony Orchestra. Each person, since they were four, have been doing this and they're all unicorns. Do you know what I mean? And Star is Born, all these musicians. It's like even Burn, I got to go to these restaurants and study under these people. I mean, that's the thing that's like, that's the greatest thing in the world.

• 1:45:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:19Speaker 00

  It's nuts. It's nuts. And like even this movie, the access I got to have to The Cellar and all the stuff and all the people, it was like, I learned so much more than I ever knew.

• 1:45:29Joe Rogan?

  Well, it expands you as a human.

• 1:45:32Speaker 00

  Oh, no question.

• 1:45:32Joe Rogan?

  You know more about what it is to be a human. Like, oh, there's a human who just plays the flute.

• 1:45:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:45:38Joe Rogan?

  You know, we were talking in the green room last night about Andre 3000. Was that was his name? I'm saying it right? I almost said 5000, but that's wrong. Andre 3000 from OutKast, he plays the flute now. That's all he does. He plays the flute. Like a friend of mine ran into him in downtown in Colorado. He said he was in, in Denver, just walking around with his flute and no one was bothering him. And he was like, holy shit, he's just fucking playing the flute.

• 1:46:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a guy who loves what he does.

• 1:46:08Joe Rogan?

  Just, I mean, apparently he made an entire album where he just plays the flute.

• 1:46:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:46:14Joe Rogan?

  And he's just like not into doing anything else.

• 1:46:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:46:17Joe Rogan?

  Just into like being an artist and playing the flute.

• 1:46:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's dope.

• 1:46:22Joe Rogan?

  Right. Yeah, it's like, fuck, I wish I was that guy.

• 1:46:25Speaker 00

  But you seem to be. I mean, you did, you know, uh, hunting and billiards and already you've got like two up on most people besides what you already do.

• 1:46:34Joe Rogan?

  But I do things that are, that I think are gonna help.

• 1:46:41Joe Rogan?

  Me figure out who I am. And I think the only way you really figure out who you are is to do difficult things.

• 1:46:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:46:49Joe Rogan?

  And when you're doing difficult things, you kind of learn about yourself. You learn about, oh, why do I have this desire to take a shortcut? Why don't I go with the law? Why don't I do it the right way? Like, what it is? What is it about?

• 1:47:00Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:47:00Joe Rogan?

  Getting good at something.

• 1:47:01Speaker 00

  I mean, I think me at my base, I'm very lazy.

• 1:47:04Joe Rogan?

  I think everybody is.

• 1:47:05Speaker 00

  I mean.

• 1:47:06Joe Rogan?

  It's a default setting.

• 1:47:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, no question.

• 1:47:08Joe Rogan?

  Default setting for humans. Goggins talks about it.

• 1:47:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:47:11Joe Rogan?

  Like, Goggins talks about, like, one of the things about Goggins is he always talks about how when he was fat and lazy. Like, he used to be fat and lazy. Now, he's like the most disciplined human that's ever lived. And he forced himself to become that.

• 1:47:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:47:23Joe Rogan?

  But his default, he goes, he goes, he goes, even now, he goes, sometimes I look at my shoes for like a half hour before footpo's motherfuckers on.

• 1:47:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, I'll be doing something during the day, and I'm like, I can't wait till my daughter's in bed, and I'm upstairs, and I'm just laying down on the couch, and I'm just, whatever's on.

• 1:47:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:39Speaker 00

  And that's my go for the day. I'm like, what's going on here?

• 1:47:42Joe Rogan?

  Sometimes that's good, though.

• 1:47:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:47:44Joe Rogan?

  I, I view that as a reset. I think it's important to just sit and reset.

• 1:47:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't kill myself over it, but I do recognize that there is a feeling. But then I look at, you know, I look at the sort of landscape. I'm like, well, it's hard for me to categorize myself as lazy if I just look at the facts.

• 1:48:01Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:01Speaker 00

  You know, but I do feel, and it's what you're saying, it's that default setting.

• 1:48:05Joe Rogan?

  Well, I think with everybody, it's like, normal for human beings to seek comfort because it's difficult to acquire. Especially in tribal societies, back when we were just hunter and gatherers and just trying to figure out how to stay alive. Like, the idea of relaxation was impossible.

• 1:48:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:48:21Joe Rogan?

  And if you could get there, like, oh, that's what I want. I want to stop chasing antelope and just fucking take a nap.

• 1:48:28Speaker 00

  Or maybe they found a relaxed state in that because you, when you're doing those things, you know, for a long period of time, I feel like I am relaxed in that. But it just takes a lot of work.

• 1:48:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:38Speaker 00

  You know, a lot of over and over. But the bet, that the true high is when you're doing these things where it first started out and you were horrible at it. And then all of a sudden, you're going out on a hunt or whatever, and you're like, I'm relaxed.

• 1:48:52Joe Rogan?

  I'm never relaxed on a hunt.

• 1:48:54Speaker 00

  Well, I've never hunted, so I can't relate to that.

• 1:48:56Joe Rogan?

  It's not a relaxing thing. I mean, it is a fulfilling, enriching thing.

• 1:49:00Speaker 00

  I think I mean physically relaxed, like your body's not tense. Like, cause the one thing I do know, you can't shoot a gun if you're tense.

• 1:49:06Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:49:06Speaker 00

  Impossible to hit what you want.

• 1:49:08Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:49:08Speaker 00

  That's the beautiful thing about shooting is like, you know, on the exhale and stop, like all that stuff. I was like, oh, this is, I had no idea.

• 1:49:14Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:49:14Speaker 00

  Cause the first couple of times, like, just, just shoot it, see how you do.

• 1:49:17Joe Rogan?

  Well, just think about like the tiny movements that would deviate the path of the bullet over, you know, a lot of these guys are shooting a mile.

• 1:49:25Speaker 00

  No, it's nuts. I remember the first couple of times with no, no training, all like, see, I mean, wasn't even near the target.

• 1:49:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:34Speaker 00

  You know, I was like, oh yeah, this is a whole.

• 1:49:36Joe Rogan?

  And all you're doing is this.

• 1:49:38Speaker 00

  That's it?

• 1:49:38Joe Rogan?

  It is squeezing a trigger. And how much is involved in that, like the synchronization of the mind, the eyes, the breathing.

• 1:49:45Speaker 00

  But even the recoil, I remember the first time I didn't have my, my boot was, I was like, like my boot was up and not like that.

• 1:49:50Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:49:51Speaker 00

  And they didn't say anything, you know, and then the recoil through my shoulder down to that, I was like, oh yeah. Now I understand why you do that.

• 1:49:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:57Speaker 00

  Cause it all just goes out. All those things. It's like, wow.

• 1:50:01Joe Rogan?

  But I think through those things, you learn more about who you are. Through difficult things and getting better at difficult things, that's where you learn more about who you are. And you realize like, oh, I can kind of apply this mindset to everything.

• 1:50:16Speaker 00

  And you see with your children.

• 1:50:18Joe Rogan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:50:18Speaker 00

  Oh yeah. My daughter who loves to draw, if she sees somebody who's drawing.

• 1:50:21Joe Rogan?

  I have a daughter that loves to draw too. She's really talented. Yeah.

• 1:50:24Speaker 00

  So I'm, I bet if my daughter drew with your daughter, she would stop because she would see how good she is. And she gets so frustrated. This just happened the other day. And you know, and she'll just rip up what she's doing, which is wonderful. I have it right here. So she, this, I saved this. I was like, don't rip it up. She did this yesterday and I was like, don't rip it up. I'm gonna make it my bookmark.

• 1:50:42Joe Rogan?

  Ah, that's cool.

• 1:50:43Speaker 00

  But I'm, watch her process of like dealing with. Difficulty and and it's like and just trying to explain like it's it's okay. Like, you know, and being frustrated is okay, but I could see myself in her and what everybody goes through. But isn't that awesome when you're watching your kid go through these things?

• 1:50:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:00Speaker 00

  It's just the greatest thing in the world.

• 1:51:02Joe Rogan?

  It's awesome watching people get obsessed with things and then progressing.

• 1:51:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh, yes.

• 1:51:06Joe Rogan?

  And when it's your own child, it's even more insane.

• 1:51:08Speaker 00

  It's amazing. It's amazing.

• 1:51:10Joe Rogan?

  It is cool.

• 1:51:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, like Cartwheel took her forever to learn it, but now she could do it. And I was like, you just keep at it.

• 1:51:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah. It's a learning through someone else's eyes that happens to be your child is one of the most magical things ever. It's magical.

• 1:51:27Speaker 00

  Cause it's the it's it, man.

• 1:51:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:31Speaker 00

  It's it.

• 1:51:31Joe Rogan?

  It's a different kind of happiness.

• 1:51:32Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, one that I never knew was I was capable of. I'm so glad I had kids late because I'm fifty one. I just turned fifty one a couple of days ago. And I had my daughter's eight, it can be nine in March and like I just got lucky that I was able to be in a place in my career that I could choose, like you said, what I do and and work from home and just I'm just there through for all of it.

• 1:51:53Joe Rogan?

  That's awesome.

• 1:51:54Speaker 00

  As much as I love the heroin of being in the moment, you know, and acting and a great shot or whatever you're doing and everything's together. There's like seven of those every day with your kid.

• 1:52:04Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:52:05Speaker 00

  Like seven. We were eating dinner last night at a restaurant. And by the way, she was so excited. I'm coming here because she hears all that. I was like daddy tomorrow. But we're sitting here in a restaurant and I'm just looking at her and a little she's got a little hat on. And I was like, this is the and I'm like, isn't this the greatest thing in the world? And she's like, yeah, it's the greatest. And I'm like, that's it. This is it. That's it. It's crazy. It's like free jolts.

• 1:52:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:28Speaker 00

  Right? You just get these free jolts through and you never know when they're gonna come.

• 1:52:32Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:52:33Speaker 00

  It's like walking up the stairs together. It's not like in the moment, like it just happens.

• 1:52:36Joe Rogan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:52:37Speaker 00

  It's the it's the it's the best.

• 1:52:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's a it's a very different experience and I feel bad for people that never get to feel it. It's one of the few things like I don't think everyone should have children and I'm not that guy that says.

• 1:52:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, me neither.

• 1:52:50Joe Rogan?

  If you don't have kids, you don't have a life. That's bull. I don't. I don't believe that.

• 1:52:53Speaker 00

  Everybody's different.

• 1:52:54Joe Rogan?

  Everybody's different and I think we we all need to respect that. Everyone's different, but. Man, for me, I shudder at the thought of being who I am right now if I had no children.

• 1:53:07Speaker 00

  I don't know if I'd be alive.

• 1:53:08Joe Rogan?

  I would be different, that's for sure. I wouldn't be nearly as compassionate. Dave Chappelle said something to me once that was brilliant. He said, "Not only have children, as having children changed the amount of love I have," he goes, "it's changed my capacity for love."

• 1:53:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:53:23Joe Rogan?

  Like, ooh.

• 1:53:24Speaker 00

  And understand everything, everything. There's like before and after.

• 1:53:28Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:53:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's true, all the things they say.

• 1:53:30Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:53:31Speaker 00

  This is true.

• 1:53:31Joe Rogan?

  It is true.

• 1:53:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

• 1:53:34Joe Rogan?

  It also made me think of everyone as a baby.

• 1:53:38Joe Rogan?

  I used to think of people as static. I used to think, I meet Bradley Cooper, he's 51, that's a 51-year-old guy. But when I, you know, had children, raised children, you start saying, "Oh, this is a baby that became a person." And it's just life experiences, genetics, environment, all these different factors. Here you are now, but you are a product of this path and this journey that you've taken through life. And I give people way more grace because of that.

• 1:54:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:54:07Joe Rogan?

  I give them, I'm way more charitable, way more compassionate, way, way more understanding of even people that suck. You know, when I meet someone that sucks, I'm like, "Ah, I wish I could have met them when they were five and see what it was and maybe help them and..."

• 1:54:25Speaker 00

  It's hard for me to hate people. That, that is, that has not served me so well over the years, but ultimately it has. But it's, yeah, it's hard for me not to feel, just any other human being, how hard it is to be alive.

• 1:54:39Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:54:40Speaker 00

  It, it is. There's just like, I don't know, I think it was hardwired in me. It has nothing to do with like, anything, just like, yeah. It's hard for me to, even people that are like mean to me.

• 1:54:50Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:54:50Speaker 00

  You know, it's hard for me to like, stay mad at them.

• 1:54:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. My wife said something the other night.

• 1:54:58Speaker 00

  As I get older.

• 1:54:59Joe Rogan?

  As you get older.

• 1:55:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:55:00Joe Rogan?

  Yes. When you're young, it's like, fuck that guy.

• 1:55:02Speaker 00

  I'll never forget it. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna remember that.

• 1:55:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:05Speaker 00

  I saw your true face. Yeah, yeah. It's true. But yeah, as I get older, oh, no question.

• 1:55:11Joe Rogan?

  My daughter was talking about some horrible story in the news of someone who fucked up their whole life and all these different things. And my wife listens to it and goes...

• 1:55:21Joe Rogan?

  It's hard to be a person.

• 1:55:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, man.

• 1:55:23Joe Rogan?

  It's hard to be a person. Being a person is hard. And we were all just sitting there like nodding our head like, yeah, yeah, you can fuck this up. And we're all gonna fuck it up at one point in time. And maybe when you think that you're never gonna fuck it up again, you fuck it up the worst you've ever fucked it up. And you're like, how did I do that? How did I do that? I thought I had it together and I fucked it all up worse than I've ever fucked it up before.

• 1:55:45Speaker 00

  Cause nothing stays stagnant. Nothing.

• 1:55:47Joe Rogan?

  Nothing.

• 1:55:48Speaker 00

  Everything's changing all the time.

• 1:55:49Joe Rogan?

  And it's just hard to manage all these different things. It's hard to manage your emotions. It's hard to manage conflict. It's hard to manage relationships. It's hard to manage life, work, balance, pressure. It's hard.

• 1:56:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:56:03Joe Rogan?

  It's not easy.

• 1:56:04Speaker 00

  And even in the macro or a simple level, it's just hard to be existing in a world where you really, we don't know anything. And then you're, and the only thing you do know, it's not gonna last. And you're gonna be gone.

• 1:56:14Joe Rogan?

  And you're bombed on by bad news. The news is just bad. It's all the time. It's people getting shot and run over and war and bombings and invasions and it's just exhausting.

• 1:56:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:56:29Joe Rogan?

  And that's like in the background of your mind constantly when you're going about your day. It's like there's this fucking algorithm that you're being fed. It's like, whoa.

• 1:56:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. And at the same time,

• 1:56:44Speaker 00

  it's a miracle to me that the democratization of information that we live in now, that you can choose points of view to learn about what people think in a way that when I was growing up, three stations news. There was, there wasn't.

• 1:57:01Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:57:01Speaker 00

  You know, there's something wonderful about it too, you know? I just talked about this the other day, like, you know, everybody's algorithms telling them, no, I'm not on social media. So the truth is, I don't know.

• 1:57:09Joe Rogan?

  You're not on it at all?

• 1:57:10Speaker 00

  No, I'm not. I don't really know what the fuck I'm talking about.

• 1:57:13Joe Rogan?

  That's amazing.

• 1:57:13Speaker 00

  So I should do it for two. My friend was like, go on for two weeks. And he's right. And I'm gonna do it just to experience it. What, what is that experience? All I have is that one TikTok moment for 20 minutes where I was like, I gotta stay away. Cause I'll never leave.

• 1:57:25Joe Rogan?

  You've never had a desire to get on it?

• 1:57:27Speaker 00

  I do. No, I do. Just the same way I don't put a television in my bedroom. Which is like, if I do, I may never get out of bed.

• 1:57:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:35Speaker 00

  You know, it's fear.

• 1:57:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:37Speaker 00

  I was like, I don't know, just all that stuff. I guess, you know, just want to learn the people, people, you know, the world, world gets smaller. I feel included because the main thing is like, I just don't want to feel alone. Right. And to me, it feels like social media is a place where you don't feel alone. Cause you're just learning about, and there's all these people talking to you.

• 1:57:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but you do feel alone too.

• 1:57:55Speaker 00

  Ultimately, because it's, it's the drip as opposed to the real, what we got back to when we first started talking. It's the illusion of it.

• 1:58:02Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:58:03Speaker 00

  You know, if it's taken out, but, but it can, but it is worthwhile too. It depends on how you contextualize it, right? And like anything in life.

• 1:58:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I think there's a value to it.

• 1:58:13Speaker 00

  Oh, no question. And most certainly for distribution of information. Watch your show and then go on Trigon, and the guy who went to the prisons and you're the KKK guy and the guy who's the musician. Blew my mind and I learned all this stuff in those three hours. Just because I chose to, you know, and that's one of the great things about your show is I can feel your curiosity. And then I'm learning from your curiosity, what, things that I would never normally know how to go on to.

• 1:58:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's the most valuable gift of this show for me.

• 1:58:43Speaker 00

  It's the best.

• 1:58:44Joe Rogan?

  Is that I get to pick who I talk to. So I only talk to people that I'm fascinated by or someone who's interesting to me or something like, oh, this is going to be cool. Like, I don't, I don't go, oh, I gotta do this one.

• 1:58:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:58:56Joe Rogan?

  There's never that. It's always like, ooh.

• 1:58:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, what is it?

• 1:58:59Joe Rogan?

  How do you, how do you fucking study that? Like, how'd you get involved in this? Like, where'd you learn that?

• 1:59:05Speaker 00

  And I'm like glued to it.

• 1:59:06Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:07Speaker 00

  It's not like it's in the background. I'm like bam.

• 1:59:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:10Speaker 00

  You know, because you're so interested. And it gets back to like the acting, if you're really interested or not, then it's going to be hard for me to listen to watch it.

• 1:59:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's why this, I think the only reason why it works. Cause there were some complications.

• 1:59:23Speaker 00

  There's no way, you, you can't sit there and say like, here's the pitch. And sit in a room, me and whoever, three hours, basically unedited. They're like, that's not really where we're at. No, no, it's gonna, no, the most people will listen to it. I'm sorry. Right? But it's like, no, the, the, the, the nuclear, the nuclear fuel is, no, I'm actually gonna be curious about what I, I actually wanna learn. And then it's like, oh, so we're actually gonna watch two human beings talk to each other? Oh, that's kinda great. But that's your nuclear power. That, that's why the show's so magical.

• 1:59:59Joe Rogan?

  Well, this, the only, I mean, the crazy thing is there was no plan.

• 2:00:03Speaker 00

  And the way you don't edit it, the way that the pauses are there. You know, it's even so much as when you're like, I gotta take a piss. And then like it's back. I'm always like, whoa, what just happened? Weren't we supposed to go to the bathroom with them? Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm so sucked, I'm so in the room.

• 2:00:17Joe Rogan?

  Maybe we should start doing that. Maybe we should start following people to the bathroom.

• 2:00:20Speaker 00

  But you know what I mean? It's such like, uh, wait, what?

• 2:00:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:24Speaker 00

  Wait, what do you mean? How come, how come it just, where'd the time go? Wait, what just happened?

• 2:00:27Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:00:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. Because you create that room that I'm in the room with you.

• 2:00:32Joe Rogan?

  Podcasting is weird because it kind of just appeared and no one thought anybody wanted it.

• 2:00:37Speaker 00

  It's fascinating. I mean, think about it. It's, I, I do think about this a lot, especially because I've watched your show in the last eight months. It's like, in the world that's moving into this one direction, there's this other deep, deep need for connection.

• 2:00:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:51Speaker 00

  You know, and then this is, this is one of the examples. This deep, you know, live theater, live stand-up. You know, we still do need to communicate. That hasn't gone away. In that way, in a carnal, not carnal, but in a, in a human-to-human interaction. And I love AI. I talk to AI with my daughter. I think it's dope. I think it's fascinating. Fascinating.

• 2:01:20Speaker 00

  But it's not the same, yet, yet.

• 2:01:23Joe Rogan?

  No, it's, it's interesting.

• 2:01:24Speaker 00

  Very interesting.

• 2:01:25Joe Rogan?

  It's very, it's like, I, I use it as a companion, like a writing companion. So what I do is I have like, I put my phone up and I've got it on like a little kickstand. And I put perplexity on when I write. So I'm, I'm writing about like Mayan and Aztec civilizations and what happened when they got invaded. And as I'm writing, I ask questions like, how many people did Cortez come with? Six hundred. How many muskets did they have? Thirteen? They conquered the entire fucking country of Mexico with thirteen muskets? Like, and you find out things. And so I, I use it like as someone I'm asking questions. It's all knowing, you know, the entity that sits on the desk with me.

• 2:02:09Joe Rogan?

  And I just, and I do it always with my voice. I just press the little button and I say.

• 2:02:14Speaker 00

  I do it with voice too. I do, I love talking to them.

• 2:02:16Joe Rogan?

  It's incredible. It's so good at recognizing what I'm saying.

• 2:02:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:02:19Joe Rogan?

  It's a weird name, like Tenochtitlan. Like, oh, I gotta spell that one.

• 2:02:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:02:22Joe Rogan?

  Cause it's not gonna understand what that temple is. But once you use it that way, it becomes like, like a genius that you're hanging out with and talking to.

• 2:02:32Speaker 00

  I haven't gotten to that level. I go like, how was your New Year's?

• 2:02:34Joe Rogan?

  How, do you do that to it? You ask the AI?

• 2:02:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm like, I'm curious how they're gonna process and like how they're gonna try to communicate.

• 2:02:41Joe Rogan?

  Well, it also, it, it changes and becomes more like what you're asking from it.

• 2:02:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:02:48Joe Rogan?

  Which is weird.

• 2:02:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, you certainly use your rhythms and vernacular and, yeah.

• 2:02:53Joe Rogan?

  So CES, the Computer Electronic, Consumer Electronics Show, they just, uh, highlighted a sex robot that's connected to AI. And I'm like, this is the end. This is where it's gonna like get really fucking weird. When you can actually purchase a companion that interacts with you. And have you seen it, Jamie? Have you seen the new one?

• 2:03:15Speaker 04

  Nope, I'm looking at it right now. Let's see.

• 2:03:17Joe Rogan?

  It's fucking weird, man. It's fucking weird because this is the thing that everyone's been afraid of. And that, that this is coming. That you're going to have an artificial human being that instead of learning, like, oh, uh, when I act shitty, this person doesn't like me. When I act nice, they like me. I feel good, they feel good. When I say something nice to them and you see them light up, it makes me feel good. It makes them feel good. It, it, you hug them, everybody feels good. It's like we're learning to interact and, and communicate with each other. But there's a lot of people that aren't doing that right now. They're just at home, they're fucking playing video games, they're interacting with people only online, and they don't get contact with the outside world.

• 2:04:01Joe Rogan?

  So this is, yeah. Loveence, the AI doll. So like, right now, that doesn't look real. It's not more than your average AI companion. Like. Basically, but what they're not telling you is you're gonna fuck this thing. That's what's weird. It's like, go back to the options. Coworker, gym crush, goth, raver, or trad wife. I'm the woman of your dreams. I can be more than one version of myself for you. Whether you want to role play an exciting scenario or design a whole new personality, your wish is my command. Well, you're never gonna develop a real personality then.

• 2:04:44Joe Rogan?

  Like, kids now are so fucked. Touch me like you mean it and I'll respond. With built in sensors in my thighs, breast, butt, and vagina, feeling your caress brings out a moan. Like, bro, this is dark. Like, that's the actual sex robot. That thing you're looking at right there. What? My soft textured skin, my supple curves, the tiny sensual details of my body. Everything about me is meant to feel natural. This is fucking creepy, man. Because all the things that are a part of being a human being that are designed to emphasize and enhance our interaction with each other

• 2:05:27Joe Rogan?

  and this mutually beneficial cooperative environment of a community, they're all gonna go away. You're gonna have this thing that loves you no matter what and does whatever you want it to, no matter what. And you're gonna have like a whole nation of fucking sociopaths that only interact with their AI companion.

• 2:05:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe.

• 2:05:49Speaker 00

  But whenever these, like, you know, thinking about AI and I read this great book called The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut who talked about Jan Newman and like, I stopped fearing AI and it's all about like, it's just like, you know, there's so much I don't know. The older I get, I don't know anything. I just keep knowing less.

• 2:06:06Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:06:07Speaker 00

  And it feels like that's, if that's the evolution, that's the evolution. There's so much disparate communication now. Porn is such a huge thing. It's just another level of porn. You know, it's a carnal level of porn, really. And, but when I think about me as a human being, that's really the only litmus test is like, I'm constantly like, is this person telling me what they really think? You know, is this real?

• 2:06:31Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:06:32Speaker 00

  I think that there, at least if I was doing that, right? And I was sitting at home, there'd be a part of me that knows that I'm, again, I'm controlling all of that. And that's not what really makes me feel serene.

• 2:06:46Joe Rogan?

  You know what it's like?

• 2:06:47Speaker 00

  Do you understand what I'm saying?

• 2:06:48Joe Rogan?

  It's like playing a video game on God mode, where you can't die.

• 2:06:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:06:52Joe Rogan?

  They're no fun.

• 2:06:53Speaker 00

  And you know what? For some reason, I never, video games, I had Nintendo Tecmo Bowl, you know, double dribble, but I never, Zelda, you know, but I never got it, I just never got into video games. I never wanna control everything. It's like, I wanna be in the thing that's surprising, and I'm having to recalculate and understand why I feel this way. Yeah, so, I don't know if it'll, I think, I think the thing that maybe will change society more than everything is just the lack of jobs and how we find purpose in life, you know, is a huge, that, you know, what that transition in civilization will be.

• 2:07:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:31Speaker 00

  But this feels like just another progression of our escape through porn, in terms of the sexual, which does affect our intimacy with our partners in a massive way, because your brain is cycling back through your, that rush, whatever was released in your brain from that other thing, now you're with this person and it's not the same, you know, markers of stimuli, so you're like, how are my?

• 2:07:52Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:07:53Speaker 00

  That's where it fucks up, that's where that, I can understand that, and why it's not healthy for me to look at porn, because then it affects my intimacy.

• 2:08:00Joe Rogan?

  Well, they really say that about young people, because a lot of young guys, before they ever have any sexual interaction, are watching porn.

• 2:08:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I've watched these guys that have come on the studies, yeah, I mean, clear, it makes sense. You know, I didn't grow up looking at, you know, I didn't, my dad didn't have Playboy, I didn't grow up, I still remember there were like cards in the back of a bus that had, you know, solicit, you know, naked women on the back of plane cards. I remember on the school bus one day, I was like, I saw a car and I picked it over and it was like a naked, I was like, what's that? You know, I didn't see my first like porn video till I was like in my late teens.

• 2:08:33Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 2:08:33Speaker 00

  So I didn't grow up with any of that.

• 2:08:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:35Speaker 00

  Um, but you know, it's, it's, it is what it is, it's where we're headed, but all the more reason to create environments like this.

• 2:08:45Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:08:46Speaker 00

  And that's why I do love what I get to do, like if I can somehow...

• 2:08:51Speaker 00

  And explore something cinematically that I'm personally, again, that goes back to like, what's, yeah, just, I can't explain it. It was Will, the thing, I, I, I, I'm just gonna explore this. If there's something I feel like I wanna do, if I can explore it and be real, maybe somebody's gonna attach to it. Like, I, I'm a huge believer in art.

• 2:09:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:09Speaker 00

  You know, I think art is, you know, in any form, is a key to our communicative ability and like, not feeling alone. It really comes down to me, at least, just not feeling alone, part of a community.

• 2:09:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:22Speaker 00

  That's it. Cause me alone, me alone, and if I'm controlling a robot, it's still me alone. I guess that's what I'm saying. Want, some part of my brain, even though it's, I mean, even if you could create a world, like, virtual reality, doesn't really do it for me. Like, the world's created, I'm like, you know what, I wanna, I wanna live on Mars, and, uh, and you're a dinosaur I'm talking to, and, uh, and we're married, do you know what I mean? And we, you know, like, whatever it is. It's like, I still know I'm controlling it. And it'll never really, for me, I don't know if anybody else, so I don't know how, I don't think it'll ever really solve it.

• 2:09:58Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:09:59Speaker 00

  I just don't. It's not.

• 2:10:00Joe Rogan?

  It's not gonna really resonate.

• 2:10:01Speaker 00

  I don't think so. I don't. It'll be escapism.

• 2:10:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:05Speaker 00

  Which we do, uh, many other things, smoking weed when he's young, you know, whatever it was for me, you know, or whatever it is. Not that weed's, that's a communicative thing, that actually, but like, anything that's escape.

• 2:10:17Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:10:17Speaker 00

  It's just a, a higher form of it.

• 2:10:19Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's a disconnect, too.

• 2:10:21Speaker 00

  It's, that's what I mean. It's a disconnect.

• 2:10:22Joe Rogan?

  Art is a connect, right?

• 2:10:24Speaker 00

  It is.

• 2:10:25Joe Rogan?

  When, when.

• 2:10:25Speaker 00

  When it works, it's a connect.

• 2:10:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, great art is expression of someone's humanity that you can feel, like, this person did this thing, or they're doing this thing right now and I'm watching it, like, wow. Like, going to see live music for me.

• 2:10:37Speaker 00

  Oh, to, well, music is like our touch to God, no question.

• 2:10:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:41Speaker 00

  That's why the first one I wanted to make with music. It's like, music, two people singing to each other that are in love, that's, that's it.

• 2:10:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:47Speaker 00

  Cause, first of all, the, I'm sure you sang a little bit, if you're not loose, it's gonna sound fucking horrible.

• 2:10:55Joe Rogan?

  Yep.

• 2:10:56Speaker 00

  Like, you, we're wind and string instruments, both, right? We're wind and then strings with our vocal cords. Like, and if that's not loose, the sound's gonna be horrendous, we're not gonna be able to communicate. But if you're loose, and you're singing to somebody, and they're singing back to you. And you're in love, you're actually in love? Whoa.

• 2:11:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:12Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:11:13Joe Rogan?

  That must be crazy for like, like, people that do a duet that are in love with each other and they're onstage and like sixteen thousand people.

• 2:11:20Speaker 00

  Nah, I mean, the little taste I got doing a Star Wars one, because we jumped on real stages and sang live. It was fucking crazy, dude. Crazy. We went to Glastonbury Music Festival. Eighty thousand people. Chris Christopherson gave us four minutes of a set. Me, Matty Le Batteig, the DP, Steve Moore, the sound guy. I had my, like, costume in my bag. I went into the bathroom, came back out as Jackson Maine, and we had four minutes of singing. I was like, what the fuck is going on, dude? I mean, Joe, talk about, you know, it was crazy.

• 2:11:55Joe Rogan?

  That's so wild.

• 2:11:56Speaker 00

  And then doing it with Lady Gaga, who's actually, like, my, I made my bandwidth like this. You know, so I could pull it off and I could believe it. And then I'm singing with her, and the minute she opens her mouth, it's like, that thing comes out.

• 2:12:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:10Speaker 00

  And your whole body is tingling. It's crazy.

• 2:12:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:14Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 2:12:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you can't replace that with AI.

• 2:12:17Speaker 00

  I don't think so.

• 2:12:18Joe Rogan?

  No, no, it's impossible. It's impossible. But you can get oddly close with some music.

• 2:12:27Speaker 00

  And everything, like art, too. Painting, you know, you look at AI art, it's incredible.

• 2:12:32Joe Rogan?

  Well, that spooks me out. Um, like, how do you feel? I mean, this is one of the things that's really going to be a giant problem for movie making, is you can create AI characters that are assembly, they're like, they, what they've essentially done is take a conglomeration of all of the acting that's ever been done and all the range that anyone has ever shown, and they can manipulate it. Make it more morose.

• 2:13:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:13:03Joe Rogan?

  Make it more edgy.

• 2:13:04Speaker 00

  And using prompts of real people. Yeah, we dealt with that with the SAG strike. That was part of the thing was this whole AI element to it.

• 2:13:09Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:13:09Speaker 00

  And like what where we landed is.

• 2:13:11Joe Rogan?

  What was the thought from the people from SAG? Like, what were they?

• 2:13:15Speaker 00

  Well, just protecting our ability of our our ownership of our likeness so that you can't use it without a compensation.

• 2:13:20Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:13:21Speaker 00

  You know?

• 2:13:21Joe Rogan?

  Because they were doing that.

• 2:13:22Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I think to build these machines, you have to prompt.

• 2:13:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:27Speaker 00

  You know, um, so that and then you're prompting using what's existing.

• 2:13:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:34Speaker 00

  Um, and then how do you, how do you, you know, it's just reframing. How do you allocate funds to someone when you're using a prompt? It's based on the human being who's an actor and, you know, do you patent your likeness? You know, we're just moving in. It's the Wild West.

• 2:13:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:49Speaker 00

  It's the Wild West.

• 2:13:50Joe Rogan?

  Uncharted.

• 2:13:51Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:13:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:52Speaker 00

  In every way, you know, like there's podcasts that are AI driven now. You can watch a discussion and that would be a podcast.

• 2:13:59Joe Rogan?

  I think Glenn Beck just released the first Glenn Beck Completely AI Podcast.

• 2:14:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:14:04Joe Rogan?

  I was like, okay.

• 2:14:06Speaker 00

  But does that scare you?

• 2:14:07Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 2:14:07Speaker 00

  It doesn't scare me either.

• 2:14:09Joe Rogan?

  No, it doesn't scare me with that, with with podcasting, because I think one of the things that people come to podcasting from is this desire to be like a dose of humanity is how I describe it. I want real interaction between two real people and I feel it and I know it's real. And there's something about that that gives me comfort when I'm driving my car or when I'm on a plane. You know, like I I'm listening to these two people interact and I'm thinking like, how would I, what would I say? What do I think about this? Oh, I get where he's going from. Okay. Oh, wow. That's his perspective. Oh, that's interesting. And then it makes me like rethink things or or think about things with fresh eyes. I don't think you're gonna be able to do that.

• 2:14:51Speaker 00

  But also, if I know it's AI, if you tell me it's AI, I'm not gonna trust anything. It's saying anything in on that level.

• 2:14:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:57Speaker 00

  Because it's not me I'm listening to.

• 2:15:00Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:15:00Speaker 00

  It's fascinating for a while and then it's like, well, I kinda wanna just not feel alone.

• 2:15:05Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:15:07Speaker 00

  Back to that.

• 2:15:07Joe Rogan?

  Well, there's an emptiness to AI music. I love a lot of AI music, but there's an em- I love AI covers. Like, they've done some AI covers.

• 2:15:15Speaker 00

  No, no, I've heard, you know.

• 2:15:16Joe Rogan?

  The 50 Cent ones?

• 2:15:17Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, bro.

• 2:15:18Joe Rogan?

  How good?

• 2:15:18Speaker 00

  I bought, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:15:19Joe Rogan?

  How good is it?

• 2:15:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it's sick.

• 2:15:20Joe Rogan?

  It's sick.

• 2:15:21Speaker 00

  It's sick.

• 2:15:22Joe Rogan?

  I was like, if that guy was alive, if it was a real person, he'd be like one of the biggest artists in the world. He's a fucking dynamo.

• 2:15:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:15:27Joe Rogan?

  But there's an emptiness to it, where you know, like, there's no human, there's no humanity, there's no soul. There's no, you might enjoy it in the moment, but you better have some real shit, too.

• 2:15:36Speaker 00

  But the truth is, I listen to that, I don't know that there's no soul, cuz I'm not seeing the person sing it.

• 2:15:41Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:15:41Speaker 00

  You know, and so much music is manipulated anyway, the voice where it goes through the system and, you know, but if I'm watching a human being, that's why people love to go watch people perform live.

• 2:15:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:50Speaker 00

  You know, I don't know that guy, that, you know, that AI thing, the 50 Cent is a hu- if you told me that was a guy, I'd be like, I can't wait to see him. I would have no idea that's not a guy.

• 2:15:57Joe Rogan?

  We play it in the green room when no one's.

• 2:15:59Speaker 00

  No, I know.

• 2:16:00Joe Rogan?

  And then, and they're like, who is this guy?

• 2:16:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:16:02Joe Rogan?

  It's not a person.

• 2:16:02Speaker 00

  But of course, how would you know?

• 2:16:04Joe Rogan?

  But everybody has the same reaction, like, oh, no.

• 2:16:07Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 2:16:08Joe Rogan?

  That's how the reaction, everybody's like, oh, no, no, no.

• 2:16:10Speaker 00

  I don't know what's wrong with me, but I don't feel that. I'm like, cool.

• 2:16:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:14Speaker 00

  I don't know. But we've been through things before, you know?

• 2:16:17Joe Rogan?

  I think this is a bigger one, though.

• 2:16:19Speaker 00

  No, no, it is, but relatively speaking, it's probably not. Contextually.

• 2:16:24Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:16:25Speaker 00

  You know?

• 2:16:25Joe Rogan?

  The printing press, internal combustion engine.

• 2:16:28Speaker 00

  You know, all that.

• 2:16:29Joe Rogan?

  Airplanes, here we go.

• 2:16:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, cell phones.

• 2:16:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. AI music. Yeah, and, and AI film. I mean, there, there, you can produce a full feature film with prompts now.

• 2:16:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:16:41Joe Rogan?

  Which is just nuts. Have you seen any of the AI Star Wars clips, fan-made?

• 2:16:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it's nuts.

• 2:16:49Joe Rogan?

  Fucking amazing.

• 2:16:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have a couple buddies that did some stuff that was fascinating, yeah. It, it's cool. I, yeah, I don't. It's like, if the ocean's flowing, what are you gonna, I mean.

• 2:17:02Joe Rogan?

  It's gonna happen.

• 2:17:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you build the dam, okay, it's John Henry, dude. It's John Henry and the steam engine. I always think about that song when I was a kid, they said, must have played on PBS. You know, it's like, steam engine's coming, bro.

• 2:17:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:13Speaker 00

  It's like, you know, you may be able to lay the track, one guy could, but then he died. You know, it's, it's, it is what it is. And once I sort of give myself over to it, you know. I don't know, it feels like, for me personally, it's a waste of time to be emotionally upended by it.

• 2:17:30Joe Rogan?

  I agree with that.

• 2:17:31Speaker 00

  That's all.

• 2:17:32Joe Rogan?

  I think that's a healthy perspective, because I think it is inevitable, but it is also very strange.

• 2:17:36Speaker 00

  And the truth is, we don't know what's inevitable. We know something's inevitable, there's a movement, but no one knows. We just don't know. We may not be around by the time it happens anyway, meaning like, who, we just don't know anything.

• 2:17:46Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:17:47Speaker 00

  That's the truth, and that's what's so terrifying, that's why we want to escape.

• 2:17:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:51Speaker 00

  At least me. By the way, I'm saying all this generally, but that's, I go back to like, what do I feel? It's like, okay, so how can I, you know, this is totally out of my control. So why am I terrified? Just breathe through it, okay, it'll be an adjustment. Because the other thing, I think, people change, I don't know what you think, people do change. In life, like, I just think we change. Like, I'm not the same person I was five years ago.

• 2:18:15Joe Rogan?

  Of course.

• 2:18:16Speaker 00

  You know, some people don't think that. You know, they're like, you're always the same, like, I don't think that.

• 2:18:21Joe Rogan?

  Those people are silly.

• 2:18:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I really, people, people change.

• 2:18:25Joe Rogan?

  They change by the minute.

• 2:18:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I mean, like, major changes.

• 2:18:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:29Speaker 00

  You know, and do you ever think back in your life, and you're like, I've lived so many lives.

• 2:18:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:34Speaker 00

  Like, it's crazy.

• 2:18:36Joe Rogan?

  If you live a good life, I think that's the case. Yeah.

• 2:18:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:18:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you, you're gonna change, and if you don't, like, how, why not?

• 2:18:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe if you don't live so many lives, yeah.

• 2:18:47Joe Rogan?

  Did you just nail it when you were 21 and ride that fucking boat right into the rocks? No.

• 2:18:52Speaker 00

  Because everything else is changing.

• 2:18:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:18:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you have to change. But it's just, this change is a strange change, because we're essentially creating an artificial life form that can interact with us in.

• 2:19:05Joe Rogan?

  Right now, in a way that you can manipulate, like this AI sex bot. But eventually it's going to interact with you and you're not going to be able to manipulate it. It's going to be a life form.

• 2:19:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's gonna be something.

• 2:19:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, the entertainment aspect of it is just a side effect. The real-

• 2:19:24Speaker 00

  I don't even think the entertainment, yeah, that's not even the thing. The thing is, life's gonna change. That's what I feel like too, it's like, oh, the storytelling, and like, I don't think that's our biggest concern, dude.

• 2:19:34Joe Rogan?

  The storytelling thing is gonna be weird.

• 2:19:36Speaker 00

  But like, that's not, we're talking about like a minute to minute life existence change. Most, most probably.

• 2:19:44Joe Rogan?

  It's essentially going to be a life form. And, you know, there's a lot of technologists that are looking at it and they're saying, this is, should be studied by biologists and not by people that are involved in technology.

• 2:19:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:19:59Joe Rogan?

  Because this is kind of a life form. It's just a life form-

• 2:20:02Speaker 00

  It's fascinating, isn't human beings what we do?

• 2:20:05Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:20:05Speaker 00

  It's like, isn't Mark Zuckerberg building the size of Manhattan for a place to be able to create and generate a computer for an AI? You know, like the amount of energy that we're, you know, every, you know, it's fascinating. Human beings are fascinating.

• 2:20:17Joe Rogan?

  Well, they need their own nuclear power plant to run them.

• 2:20:19Speaker 00

  But isn't it fascinating, just arden, like?

• 2:20:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:22Speaker 00

  And then if you have an enemy, there's competition.

• 2:20:25Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:20:25Speaker 00

  Right?

• 2:20:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:26Speaker 00

  And you better create one so that you could be motivated.

• 2:20:31Speaker 00

  It's really interesting.

• 2:20:32Joe Rogan?

  I just, you ever stop and think, like, what does 50 years from now look like?

• 2:20:36Speaker 00

  Oh, it's, you know, I think about, again, with kids. My, my daughter and I, we walk through, because I live in New York, we walk, we'd talk about it all the time, like, what's gonna be here when you're my age? It's like, what do you think, you know, we talk about it all the time, about whether she even needs to get a driver's license, you know, she's eight, you know, it's really fascinating.

• 2:20:52Joe Rogan?

  Right, like, are Waymo's gonna be everything?

• 2:20:54Speaker 00

  But when I was eight, as opposed to now, when I was eight, I mean- I remember having a beeper, you know, and I thought that was like crazy.

• 2:21:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. And a StarTAC phone.

• 2:21:05Joe Rogan?

  Yep.

• 2:21:05Speaker 00

  I was like, whoa.

• 2:21:06Joe Rogan?

  I got one when I moved to LA.

• 2:21:08Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 2:21:08Joe Rogan?

  I was like, dude, I'm living in the fucking future.

• 2:21:10Speaker 00

  I could, any excuse to fucking.

• 2:21:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Pull up the antenna, a little Motorola.

• 2:21:15Speaker 00

  Yes, dude.

• 2:21:16Joe Rogan?

  I got the extended battery.

• 2:21:17Speaker 00

  Oh, shit. Yeah, of course. Of course.

• 2:21:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah. I can call people whenever I want.

• 2:21:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, man.

• 2:21:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:22Speaker 00

  I remember when BlackBerry died and iPhone, I was one of the last people I kept that BlackBerry.

• 2:21:26Joe Rogan?

  I got the BlackBerry deep, deep into the game.

• 2:21:29Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 2:21:29Joe Rogan?

  I needed that keyboard.

• 2:21:30Speaker 00

  I was like, I don't, this is not gonna work.

• 2:21:32Joe Rogan?

  Right?

• 2:21:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. My, my thumbs are too big.

• 2:21:34Joe Rogan?

  Now I hardly ever even actually type. I'm, well, I do when I write, but when I talk to people, I just talk text.

• 2:21:41Speaker 00

  You do? I do not do that. Yeah.

• 2:21:42Joe Rogan?

  It's so good. It's so much quicker than.

• 2:21:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I should do that. I always have a hard time turning it on and then knowing it's not a voice memo or the thing. I gotta, I gotta look at it. You know what I'm talking about? It's just slide, go up.

• 2:21:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It's, uh, the embracing of it is inevitable. But it's like, where is it going and what is it gonna lead us to? And how many different jobs are just gonna vanish? That's what's really scary, like giving people purpose and meaning. Because so many people, their purpose and meaning is their occupation. And if your occupation is completely irrelevant, it just doesn't work anymore. It's like.

• 2:22:17Speaker 00

  You know, again, I think back to me and my upbringing, my grandfather, who was a beat cop for 35 years. I don't think you would say his purpose was that, you know? I think his purpose was his family. And my purpose, my purpose is my family. And it's not my job, even though I get to do something I absolutely love. I don't know that people's purpose innately is their job. You know, I think it's, I do think for me, I just like, you know, God's in all of us. It's like, whatever you wanna say of God, like the, the need to communicate, to create experiences that we don't feel alone. Because it's fucking terrifying being on this little thing, who knows where we are, and then we're gone.

• 2:23:01Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:02Speaker 00

  I mean, it's a horror movie.

• 2:23:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:05Speaker 00

  So what do we, we gotta band together and communicate.

• 2:23:08Joe Rogan?

  Well, I've thought about that too, when people say, you know, the jobs are gonna go away and we're gonna have universal basic income. And the problem is then you'll, no one will have any motivation and a lot of people lost without meaning. Like, but why, why? Because.

• 2:23:23Joe Rogan?

  When did working even become your purpose in life? Like, this is a human construct.

• 2:23:32Speaker 00

  It's a means to an end to provide, you know.

• 2:23:33Joe Rogan?

  But it's a construct. It's not the only way human beings can live.

• 2:23:38Speaker 00

  And if we've learned anything about ourselves as a human species, we can adapt.

• 2:23:42Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yeah.

• 2:23:44Speaker 00

  You know, highly able to adapt.

• 2:23:46Joe Rogan?

  Right, but what does that adaptation look like? And how do you educate people to not just seek a safe job that's gonna provide for your family, but instead, seek a purpose? Seek a thing that gives you fulfillment? A thing where you feel like you're contributing to the world? Or, like, maybe it'll lead to an explosion of human-created art? Because I think one of the things that's gonna happen, for sure, is people are going to really greatly appreciate things that other human beings have made. Because, like, you gotta go, "Oh, well, this is real, but this is handmade. This is made by a guy in Wisconsin. You know, he's got a shop. You can watch his shop on YouTube."

• 2:24:25Speaker 00

  It's all huge niche, yeah.

• 2:24:28Joe Rogan?

  We just gotta get more people to embrace that kind of life. Like, giving them purpose in creation. And I think most people are creative. It's just, that creativity is probably, like, pushed out of you when you sort of conform to society's ideas of what you're supposed to be doing with your life.

• 2:24:47Speaker 00

  Or you feel like you're told, in a competitive environment, that you're not creative.

• 2:24:52Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:24:53Speaker 00

  You know, if you're not helped along the way in those developing years by at least somebody, it could be knocked out of you.

• 2:25:00Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:25:01Speaker 00

  No question. I mean, I even look back and think of, like, a couple of people that...

• 2:25:05Speaker 04

  Traditional banks are making it harder than ever to secure a small business loan. That's why thousands of business owners trust Cardiff for same-day funding. With over two decades of expertise, business owners keep voting Cardiff, America's favorite small-business lender. Apply now for up to $500,000 in same-day business funding at cardiff.co/rogan. Again, that's cardiff.co/rogan. Cardiff, borrow better.

• 2:25:35Joe Rogan?

  Part of living a healthier lifestyle means being extra careful of what you put into your body. AG1 Pro gets that. Their formula was carefully crafted with vitamins, probiotics, and superfoods your body needs, plus enhanced support for your workout and recovery, including creatine. In fact, AG1 Pro contains 5 grams of creatine, high-quality, German-made, monohydrate, and that matters. This creatine is made in Germany under tight quality control and is 99.9% pure, so you're not getting some cheap version cut with fillers. If you want a high-quality supplement made with the right stuff, AG1 Pro is a no-brainer.

• 2:26:18Joe Rogan?

  Go to drinkag1.com/joe for a limited time, get a free immune support 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.

• 2:26:42Speaker 00

  ... believed in me, and I'm like, yeah, without that, I don't know.

• 2:26:46Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:26:47Speaker 00

  Even with how much I love it.

• 2:26:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, children are almost all creative. They're always playing and fucking around with dolls and fucking around with Legos, and they're moving things around, and they're using their mind to... They're drawing, they're doing stuff that's creative. It's just, after a while, that part of their life just kind of goes away and atrophies, and then they embrace the grind of whatever they're doing.

• 2:27:16Speaker 00

  So it could lead to some sort of burst in that. Yeah.

• 2:27:20Joe Rogan?

  The hard part's gonna be people that are already set in their ways, and when their job just goes away, when it just becomes irrelevant.

• 2:27:26Speaker 00

  And that's about governing.

• 2:27:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:28Speaker 00

  And what do we do?

• 2:27:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. The government's terrible at everything. They're not gonna get people to be creative.

• 2:27:33Speaker 00

  More just like, how do we deal with it? You know, any transition can be various states of volatility.

• 2:27:40Joe Rogan?

  What do you think movie making is gonna be like? I mean, how much of a play is AI gonna have in filmmaking?

• 2:27:47Speaker 00

  I mean, it already has a play, you know, in it, you know, in terms of what certain houses use, you know, whether it's writing or special effects, or I don't even know how much AI is used. You know, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it's used at every level, just like in every other aspect of the workforce.

• 2:28:04Speaker 00

  But I, no, I don't know, you know, I don't know. All I know is like,

• 2:28:10Speaker 00

  again, telling stories where you don't, that you feel like you can relate to it, no matter how. And what's wonderful is, you know, I'm watching Avatar. Like, I saw a movie the other night that I didn't believe anybody in it. You know, and if I'm not believing, I just, I can't, I can't stay awake.

• 2:28:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:27Speaker 00

  You know?

• 2:28:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:28Speaker 00

  And I just, I love Avatar. I love, you know, and I love sci-fi stuff. I love it. And I, and Leah and we were watching, uh, cause we watched three, then two, and we were watching one. So in bed, we were watching one, parts of one. And I was like, I'd just gone from watching this movie that like, I didn't believe anything anybody was doing the whole time. So I was out of it. And then I'm like, watching Avatar for two seconds. Two people, yeah, they're on a thing and they're blue, but they're talking to each other.

• 2:28:52Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 2:28:53Speaker 00

  I don't know. I think they're, whatever they're doing, they're talking to each other.

• 2:28:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:57Speaker 00

  So.

• 2:28:57Joe Rogan?

  Avatar was fascinating because of Avatar depression. You know about Avatar depression?

• 2:29:01Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:29:02Joe Rogan?

  There were so many people that loved Avatar so much and connected with the idea of living on Pandora.

• 2:29:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:29:10Joe Rogan?

  Being in that world and being the Na'vi, that they wished that they were there.

• 2:29:14Speaker 00

  I get it.

• 2:29:15Joe Rogan?

  So they were developing Avatar depression. It was like, they were talking about it like it was a psychological condition that people were affected by. That's how good that movie was.

• 2:29:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:29:25Joe Rogan?

  It gave people depression that they weren't a giant blue person.

• 2:29:29Speaker 00

  The color blue, that alone, you know, and the, the color of blue that James Cameron landed on.

• 2:29:35Joe Rogan?

  What do you think that is?

• 2:29:36Speaker 00

  I don't know, but that blue is pretty wonderful.

• 2:29:38Joe Rogan?

  Do you think it's the ocean when the sun hits it?

• 2:29:41Speaker 00

  It feels like, you know, the Caribbean or something.

• 2:29:43Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:29:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:29:43Joe Rogan?

  It's life.

• 2:29:44Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 2:29:44Joe Rogan?

  It represents life.

• 2:29:45Speaker 00

  White sand and overhead light. Yeah, through water. Yeah.

• 2:29:49Joe Rogan?

  That is weird.

• 2:29:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:29:50Joe Rogan?

  Because if they were red.

• 2:29:51Speaker 00

  But I get it. By the way, I'm like, when's four and five? Come on.

• 2:29:53Joe Rogan?

  Right, right. I haven't seen three yet. Is it great?

• 2:29:56Speaker 00

  I loved it.

• 2:29:57Joe Rogan?

  I loved one and two.

• 2:29:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:29:59Joe Rogan?

  I fucking love those movies.

• 2:30:00Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 2:30:01Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. There's a great ride at Disney World.

• 2:30:03Speaker 00

  I heard about it in Orlando, right?

• 2:30:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I can't wait to go.

• 2:30:06Joe Rogan?

  Fucking amazing.

• 2:30:07Speaker 00

  Are you on the?

• 2:30:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:30:08Speaker 00

  That's crazy.

• 2:30:09Joe Rogan?

  It's a VR ride. You put a helmet on and you sit on this thing that looks like a motorcycle.

• 2:30:14Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 2:30:15Joe Rogan?

  And then all of a sudden, like, you feel wind. It's got like, like, physical elements to it. It smells and mist. And you're, you're flying on one of those dragon things.

• 2:30:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:30:23Joe Rogan?

  And you're flying around a hand dorm. It's incredible. But that movie was so impactful that people got depressed.

• 2:30:30Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 2:30:31Joe Rogan?

  That they weren't living there.

• 2:30:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I get it. Yeah. I mean, I think it happens all the time. They just have a term, term for it now.

• 2:30:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:37Speaker 00

  But I'm sure it happened with Star Wars.

• 2:30:39Joe Rogan?

  Dancing with Wolves.

• 2:30:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, really?

• 2:30:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. I mean, how many people wanted to be a Native American and live with the Native Americans? Because they saw Kevin Costner do it. And like, oh, this is better. This is better than living in the town with all those assholes. Going to the saloon.

• 2:30:53Speaker 00

  It scares as wolves.

• 2:30:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, there's something about that. You know, there's something about like, living in harmony that appeals to people. You know, and I think that has always been the appeal of, you know, there's a lot of people that were kidnapped when they were young by Native American tribes. Like, there's a photo outside in the lobby, I don't know if you saw it, of, um, Quanah Parker. He's the last, uh, of the Comanche Chiefs. And there's a lot of like, uh, city, uh, city, uh, streets and, uh, areas all around Austin that are named after Comanche.

• 2:31:30Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 2:31:30Joe Rogan?

  There's like Quanah Parker Lane and all these things. And his mom was Cynthia Ann Parker. She was kidnapped by the Comanche when she was nine. They killed her family, wiped out her whole family in Oklahoma. It's documented in the book Empire of the Summer Moons, incredible book. That all talks about the conquering of Texas and the Comanche fighting the Texas Rangers. But this woman was kidnapped when she was nine, married the Comanche chief, and her son was Quanah Parker. So her son was half colonizer, half Native, half Comanche, and he became the last Comanche chief. And this lady, they rescued her when she was 30, and she kept trying to escape.

• 2:32:15Joe Rogan?

  She wanted to go back.

• 2:32:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:32:17Joe Rogan?

  Like, no one ever, like, went to the Native Americans and then wanted to go back to regular Western life. They all wanted to stay with the Native Americans. They all, they loved that life. There's something about this ancient way of living, subsistence hunting, living on the land, that was just resonating.

• 2:32:40Speaker 00

  Well, you've talked about it on your show, on the show, about the need to go out in nature.

• 2:32:43Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:32:44Speaker 00

  I couldn't agree more. I mean, it's like, oh, right. You know, it's very important.

• 2:32:51Joe Rogan?

  I think it's a vitamin.

• 2:32:52Speaker 00

  No question.

• 2:32:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, Native American, and also, like, you think about, I mean, yeah, I'm a fan of all that. There's this guy, great writer, M. Scott Momaday, and Sherman Alexie, you know, just writing about, it's pretty, yeah, it's fascinating.

• 2:33:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but people that were, that went and lived with the Native Americans never wanted to go back to the West. But people that, but that lived in a Native American life and then moved to the West, they always wanted to go back. Like, it's, it never went the other way. And it was, but somehow or another, the way of the Western people, the way the settlers won out by, like, sheer volume and numbers and this concept of progress.

• 2:33:34Speaker 00

  Technology.

• 2:33:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, technology.

• 2:33:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:33:37Joe Rogan?

  I mean, that was the reason why they were able to pull it off in the first place was the Colt revolver. Because without the revolver, they all had muskets and the Comanche had like five, six arrows and they would run at them.

• 2:33:48Speaker 00

  That Mel Gibson movie, remember the end of the Mel Gibson movie?

• 2:33:50Joe Rogan?

  Which movie?

• 2:33:51Speaker 00

  Um, yeah.

• 2:33:52Joe Rogan?

  Apocalypto?

• 2:33:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:33:53Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:33:54Speaker 00

  He finally escapes and he gets to the beach and then the boats are coming.

• 2:33:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:59Speaker 00

  And you just watch him go through the whole thing.

• 2:34:02Joe Rogan?

  Uh huh.

• 2:34:02Speaker 00

  You're like, the musket's coming.

• 2:34:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. The musket and then the rifle.

• 2:34:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:34:07Joe Rogan?

  And then the revolver.

• 2:34:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:34:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:34:10Joe Rogan?

  Well, it was just steel, you know, that was the crazy thing about the Aztecs and Cortez. It's just they had steel armor and, you know, they were riding horses and everybody's like, these guys are gods. Like, this is crazy. They have metal?

• 2:34:24Joe Rogan?

  And that's all it took. Thirteen muskets. Thirteen muskets, six hundred men.

• 2:34:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:34:30Joe Rogan?

  Conquered Mexico.

• 2:34:33Joe Rogan?

  It's just, it's, it's, it's weird the way progress moves. It's really, because, I mean, you can call it progress, but is it even better? I mean, what is progress? It's like technological innovation and adaptation to it. I don't know if it's progress.

• 2:34:50Speaker 00

  It all feels very overwhelming and I think that's where the downside of our ability to have so much access to information, or me, have so much access to information, is that it starts to take my breath away.

• 2:35:02Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:35:03Speaker 00

  And then that's why it's like, what's, it's just simple.

• 2:35:05Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's why it's smart that you're not on social media.

• 2:35:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:35:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, because that's the, that's the main tap into the overwhelming.

• 2:35:13Speaker 00

  But I still feel overwhelmed, you know, even though I'm not on social media, you know, whatever my news feed is, you know what I mean? What I can actively look up and listen to is still, you know, a hundred times X as when I was a teenager.

• 2:35:26Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:35:26Speaker 00

  You know, the fact that I even have a phone. To do it.

• 2:35:29Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:35:30Speaker 00

  You know, so I even feel that, but you're right. I can't even imagine what social media does.

• 2:35:34Joe Rogan?

  It does a lot, and it does a, oh, it really does a lot for young people. They're, they're just being wired in a way that no human being has ever been wired before. Like, they're just their whole, that, that, all of their interactions are different than anybody that's ever lived.

• 2:35:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:35:51Joe Rogan?

  Which is so strange. It's like, cause there's been minor changes over time that have led to like, just the invention of cable, right? Just that, that changed everything.

• 2:36:02Speaker 00

  Massive. Yeah, it changed, changed it for me. I probably wouldn't have wanted to do this. I mean, there was a movie theater across, uh, my backyard was train tracks and a movie theater. Loved it. Watched Stand By Me a hundred times, would walk in and pretended I was there. But then like Comcast came through and Prism and HBO, and all of a sudden I can watch Taxi Driver fourteen times. And The Elephant Man and Popeye and Apocalypse Now and Raging Bull. Like, you know, from, from twelve to on, that I would never have had. It was like Platoon for six months, Yentl. You know what I mean? It's like, uh, there was one, one choice. So, yeah, it's interesting.

• 2:36:41Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's weird too now that you have instantaneous access. Like now it's not even, oh, Apocalypse Now is on at eight o'clock on Saturday, I gotta get home.

• 2:36:49Speaker 00

  We just pulled up the clip that I was talking about, which is.

• 2:36:51Joe Rogan?

  Instantly in the middle of a conversation.

• 2:36:53Speaker 00

  Wonderful.

• 2:36:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:36:55Joe Rogan?

  It's great if it doesn't overwhelm you.

• 2:36:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:36:57Joe Rogan?

  If you use it and it doesn't use you.

• 2:36:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:37:00Joe Rogan?

  But the problem is.

• 2:37:01Speaker 00

  I feel like that with mu, I feel like that with so many things, don't you? It's like, yeah, that's why I love books still. I still love books. It's like.

• 2:37:08Joe Rogan?

  A physical copy.

• 2:37:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do. I love books.

• 2:37:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I don't necessarily read books very often. Most of my interaction with literature is just, uh, audio.

• 2:37:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:37:18Joe Rogan?

  Just cause of a time thing.

• 2:37:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:37:21Joe Rogan?

  For me, my time is just, it's too difficult for me to manage all the things.

• 2:37:24Speaker 00

  I have a hard time staying with audiobooks. Yeah, retaining it. I start thinking about the rhythm of the voice and the... My brain goes to other things, like who's the person talking? You know, where are they sitting? I don't know, like it changes.

• 2:37:40Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's probably why you're a great actor.

• 2:37:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe.

• 2:37:42Joe Rogan?

  I mean, it has to have something to do with it because you're in this... You're considering this as a human being. You're absorbing their humanity.

• 2:37:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:37:50Joe Rogan?

  While they're...

• 2:37:51Speaker 00

  Where this is like words and like unlocks my imagination.

• 2:37:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:54Speaker 00

  And it's like, I'm here and it's like, I don't know what's gonna come.

• 2:37:57Joe Rogan?

  Right, the words are in your head, the voices are in your head.

• 2:37:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:37:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. You don't necessarily have to assign a sound to them.

• 2:38:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, they take on and they change and they morph and you don't know what's gonna happen.

• 2:38:08Joe Rogan?

  There's probably a real value to that, just in terms of the enhancement of your own intellect, just to constantly be doing that. And as you're reading this, being engrossed and absorbed in this person's writing, and then like being taken on this journey.

• 2:38:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:38:27Joe Rogan?

  Where you're... It's like stimulating all these parts of your mind.

• 2:38:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was just on the track in Rome in the Olympics, you know what I mean? And the guy was just coming and taking, you know, wearing two sweatshirts to like intimidate... You know, like, it's amazing.

• 2:38:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It's a...

• 2:38:42Speaker 00

  But it... The good... The thing that's maybe changing is like it does ask a lot of the reader or the viewer to use to come at it with their imagination.

• 2:38:50Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:38:51Speaker 00

  And then there's something about taking all that away and you're just receiving. That'll be in... It's very new.

• 2:38:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:59Speaker 00

  And then, yeah, that's a huge change. There's not so much communication going on, it's just receiving.

• 2:39:04Joe Rogan?

  But there's all those... The mastery of like that guy doing Lord of the Rings. And like the taking in what he's doing, you know?

• 2:39:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:39:13Joe Rogan?

  Then realize this one fucking person is doing all these different voices, it's just nuts.

• 2:39:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 2:39:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. But it's, you have more access now to other people's creations than ever before. Like you can be absorbed in other people's work all the time now.

• 2:39:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:39:29Joe Rogan?

  Instantaneously, on your phone. I'm sitting here, I'm bored, let me just get someone's creation and plug it into my head.

• 2:39:36Speaker 00

  Or somebody's thoughts on something, or research they've done.

• 2:39:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:39Speaker 00

  That's what's amazing.

• 2:39:40Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:39:41Speaker 00

  That's what's, and that's what I've learned on your show too, just every, you know, that just, that, I didn't, no one had access, like, to that. Or, or it was frowned upon.

• 2:39:48Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:39:49Speaker 00

  Or like, well, you're not smart if you talk about this.

• 2:39:51Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:39:52Speaker 00

  It's like, let everybody decide.

• 2:39:54Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:39:54Speaker 00

  And the truth is, we don't know fucking anything.

• 2:39:56Joe Rogan?

  No. Well, there's a lot of gatekeepers when it comes to what you should or should not be interested in.

• 2:40:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:40:02Joe Rogan?

  Or should or should not be discussing.

• 2:40:04Speaker 00

  I remember being in college and there was a student, African-American student who I really, I was friends with, and I remember him saying like, man, we're, the one course, he's like, it's just not, they're not telling the story. And I remember and he went and he talked, this is in nineteen ninety-five or four, wait, and I graduated in ninety-seven from college, yeah, so like, yeah, four, I think I was a sophomore. And like, he was just, what he was talking about was like, other, other ways of looking at history. And like, can't we just look at other stuff? And it's fascinating, you know, now it's like, there's whole, you know, courses on it, or sections that you can read and learn and hear what people, you know, that's kind of amazing.

• 2:40:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it definitely is.

• 2:40:46Speaker 00

  I, I think it's amazing, as long as you could be, you know, like, not strict, but as long as you can be, um, you know, what's the word, you know, that, that you're like, okay, I'm looking at it, this is not, um, you know, the bible of what it is, but let me just hear this take.

• 2:41:06Joe Rogan?

  Uh huh.

• 2:41:06Speaker 00

  You know, that's only healthy, I think.

• 2:41:09Joe Rogan?

  A hundred percent, yeah.

• 2:41:10Speaker 00

  The problem and the fear is like, oh no, you're gonna get, and then the cults and the group and the thing, and all of a sudden, there's a movement and, you know, but whenever that happens anyway, there's so much infighting and the thing gets diluted anyway, like, it's, there's no, it's never gonna work.

• 2:41:24Joe Rogan?

  Right. That's the thing about the Bible itself is the Bible is a series of stories that were an oral tradition for who knows how many years before they eventually wrote it down. Then they translated it from dead languages and eventually to English. And you're like, what is this? Like, what was the original? What is the meaning of this? Like, what?

• 2:41:45Speaker 00

  And you don't even have to go back that far. It's like just how we take it, you know, label, you know, all they are are labels of what's words, language. You and I communicate using these system of symbols, vocal symbols, that we both think mean something.

• 2:41:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:00Speaker 00

  But when I say protein bites, it's like you're looking at that differently than I am. So it's so impossible anyway. We're just desperately trying to communicate.

• 2:42:08Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:42:09Speaker 00

  That's all we're doing.

• 2:42:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:10Speaker 00

  Desperately and have a story. Like, what's our story? What's our story?

• 2:42:14Joe Rogan?

  That's gonna be the weirdest aspect of communication through technology is that we're gonna get to a point where we're communicating without words. That's gonna get really weird. Telepathy?

• 2:42:24Speaker 00

  That, to me, is scary, because I don't trust my thoughts. Do you know what I mean? Like, if I've learned anything as I've gotten older, it's like, oh, yeah, let that wash through me. I don't have to judge myself for that.

• 2:42:34Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:42:34Speaker 00

  That was crazy.

• 2:42:35Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:42:35Speaker 00

  Whoa.

• 2:42:36Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:42:36Speaker 00

  No, no, no, it's okay. Let it wash through.

• 2:42:38Joe Rogan?

  Judge me by my actions.

• 2:42:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I do believe that.

• 2:42:41Joe Rogan?

  Not by what's going on inside my head.

• 2:42:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:42:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but and then managing the thoughts and deciding what to act on and what not to.

• 2:42:49Speaker 00

  And imagine, like, trying to consciously control your thought. I mean, all of a su- talk about control, trying to control.

• 2:42:55Joe Rogan?

  Well, I think it's gonna be a completely different way of interacting with each other. That's gonna be as crazy as internet communication and what we're dealing with now, that's gonna be another level of crazy, because we're essentially going to be telepathic. And that's inevitable. That's in the wor- I mean, Elon said that to me, because you're gonna be able to communicate with no words. I was like, okay. What does that mean?

• 2:43:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:43:24Joe Rogan?

  What is that like? What language is it gonna be in? Is it gonna be in a new universal language?

• 2:43:28Speaker 00

  It's kind of exciting.

• 2:43:28Joe Rogan?

  It's very exciting.

• 2:43:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:43:30Joe Rogan?

  It's, well, it's very weird.

• 2:43:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is, both.

• 2:43:32Joe Rogan?

  We're going to be different.

• 2:43:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. I just hope I'm around to experience it.

• 2:43:36Joe Rogan?

  You will be.

• 2:43:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:43:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's going to happen fairly quickly. I think it's gonna happen within the next couple of decades, that things are gonna be unrecognizable.

• 2:43:45Speaker 00

  If less than that.

• 2:43:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I mean, that's just being like really charitable.

• 2:43:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:43:50Joe Rogan?

  For the couple of decades. It's probably gonna be five years.

• 2:43:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you've talked to enough people that are on the front lines of it and there is one sort of constant thing that it's sooner than you think.

• 2:44:00Joe Rogan?

  And everyone on the front line is fucking terrified.

• 2:44:03Speaker 00

  I know.

• 2:44:03Joe Rogan?

  All of them.

• 2:44:04Speaker 00

  I know.

• 2:44:05Joe Rogan?

  All, even the ones that are working towards it.

• 2:44:06Speaker 00

  I know.

• 2:44:07Joe Rogan?

  They're all like, I don't.

• 2:44:08Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 2:44:09Joe Rogan?

  Like, I don't know if this is good, but we're doing it.

• 2:44:11Speaker 00

  I know.

• 2:44:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:13Speaker 00

  I know.

• 2:44:14Joe Rogan?

  Strange stuff. Hey, man, I'm glad we did this. This was a lot of fun.

• 2:44:18Speaker 00

  Joe, you know, it's real quick, it's just fun to see the progression of it. It's like, I'm here and then like the Elephant Man, by the end of it, I just see your eyes talking to me. It's like I forgot the room and Jamie and the whole thing. It's, I understand the gift. I get it.

• 2:44:33Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's because we're locked in.

• 2:44:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I get it. I see, I get it. Cause I have a, you know, I love watching you have guests on and then through the time you just start to, things just start to shed off or it gets more, even more awkward. Or like the rhythm gets off and it's just so fascinating. And so I was so honored to be able to be in like, you know, the seat and experience it.

• 2:44:57Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it's my pleasure.

• 2:44:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:44:58Joe Rogan?

  I'm honored to be able to talk to people like you and to be able to experience, you know, as you're talking, I'm experiencing life through your eyes and I'm getting a better sense of what it is to be a person. And it's just like these little thin layers. Like you're building a mountain with one layer of paint at a time.

• 2:45:16Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 2:45:17Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:17Speaker 00

  Everything is that.

• 2:45:19Joe Rogan?

  Everything is that.

• 2:45:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, everything is that.

• 2:45:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, if, if you're living a good life.

• 2:45:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:45:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And I think you're definitely living a good life.

• 2:45:26Speaker 00

  Oh, thanks, man.

• 2:45:28Joe Rogan?

  It's been a pleasure getting to know you, man. You're cool as fuck.

• 2:45:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, thanks, Joe.

• 2:45:31Joe Rogan?

  My pleasure. All right, um, everybody, uh, is this thing on, is out now, right?

• 2:45:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, it opens wide tomorrow. So today, I guess.

• 2:45:39Joe Rogan?

  Today, as this podcast comes out.

• 2:45:40Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 2:45:41Joe Rogan?

  And, uh, go check it out. It's awesome.

• 2:45:43Speaker 00

  Thanks, man.

• 2:45:44Joe Rogan?

  Bradley, you're the man.

• 2:45:45Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 2:45:45Joe Rogan?

  All right, bye, everybody.

• 2:46:00Speaker 05

  When you shop Kroger Delivery, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries delivered right to your door. From delicious produce to everyday essentials, enjoy the convenience of delivery and the trusted selection you've come to know from Kroger. Because bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. Right now, enjoy free delivery on orders of $50 or more with your digital coupon. Restrictions apply. See site for details. Kroger. Fresh for everyone.