Lena Waithe

Lena Waithe (The Chi, Queen & Slim, Master of None) is an Emmy-winning writer, producer, actor, and playwright. Lena joins Armchair Expert to discuss being a talkative kid in the South Side of Chicago, discovering television through her grandmother, and realizing she was a writer before the industry knew where to place her. Lena and Dax talk about the changing definition of celebrity, the hard-won evolution of The Chi, and her fairy godmothers in the business. Lena explains how identity can become mistaken for activism, how aging can be a privilege instead of a fear, and why the best conversations require listening instead of assuming. Check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds: https://www.allstate.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. And today we have Lena Waithe. Oh, I love Lena Waithe. She's an actor, producer, and a screenwriter. She created The Shy. She was on Master of None.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  We loved that show.

• 0:16Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Queen in Slim, Boomerang, Them. This is the final season of The Shy, now streaming on Paramount Plus. You know Lena, you're gonna really fall in love with her if you've never heard her chat. She's just as sweet and wonderful as they get.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 0:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Please enjoy Lena Waithe. We get support from Quince.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  I have to say, I am so ready for fall. I want sweaters. I've been craving a true crisp morning where I actually need a jacket. I can't wait.

• 0:46Dax Shepard?

  I'm fully there. The second it dips below 70, I'm like, this is my season. Give me the layers, give me the boots, give me a reason to wear something other than a t-shirt. And honestly, that's why I love Quince, because fall is when your wardrobe actually has to show up. And everything at Quince is 50 to 80% less than similar brands. We're talking 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters, starting at $60.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  $60. $60 for cashmere that you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. It's amazing. Gets me every time. It really shouldn't be real, but it is because they go straight to the factories, they skip the middlemen, and they just hand you the savings. The stuff isn't trendy. It's the kind of pieces you grab over and over because they work every time.

• 1:27Dax Shepard?

  The 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters for me are it. When I look at Steve McQueen, this man owned a couple of sweaters he wore all the time, and he looks iconic.

• 1:36Speaker 01

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• 1:55Dax Shepard?

  Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, Let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. We get support from AG1. Fall is that time when your body and mind are getting ready for the winter. You're settling in, bracing for the cold. Your body's already running a deficit from the shorter days and broken sleep patterns. You don't want a nutrient deficit stacked on top of that, too.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  That's where your AG1 routine earns its spot. It's not fixing your sleep or your alarm time. It's giving your body what it needs so the dark mornings don't tank you before you even start. One scoop cold water every morning before anything else.

• 2:44Dax Shepard?

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• 2:58Speaker 01

  That's the part people miss. It's not a one day fix. It's what happens when you stay consistent.

• 3:02Dax Shepard?

  It's an easy, everyday thing. I've added it to my morning routine and I'm going to tell you, I actually love the taste of it. It's like Pavlovian. I drink it and I know I'm going to get that little vitamin buzz.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Well, that's also the thing. When you do it first thing in the morning, you already feel kind of self-esteem because you're like, I already did something good for myself.

• 3:19Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Go to drinkag1.com/dax and for a limited time, get a free immunity bundle, including a bottle of omega three fish oil and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/dax. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that Armchair Expert sent you.

• 4:01Dax Shepard?

  Holy.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  What?

• 4:03Dax Shepard?

  Holy options.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  No, no, you were great.

• 4:06Dax Shepard?

  Were you offered enough options? Cause look how many I have.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  I know. That's how I usually am.

• 4:13Dax Shepard?

  Oh, cause you brought her a cream top and she was like, I'm not fucking with that much dairy.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  I don't drink coffee.

• 4:17Dax Shepard?

  Don't drink coffee?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  What about tea?

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Sometimes.

• 4:21Dax Shepard?

  Is it caffeine in general you don't get down with?

• 4:23Speaker 02

  I don't know if I need any kind of caffeine.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  He's already like.

• 4:31Dax Shepard?

  Caffeine.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Well, he doesn't need it, but he drinks it.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  I can't do it. Yeah, I don't want to be dependent.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  It's fun. It's something to look forward to.

• 4:40Dax Shepard?

  Do you identify at all with the many, many things that come across your Instagram about ADHD? Cause for me, I'm like, ooh, yeah.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  I don't have ADHD. It's interesting, the person who I share my life, she says.

• 4:52Dax Shepard?

  She's already on here, so I don't know what to tell you.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  I know, I know. I like to watch my podcast, so I like, I watch y'all as well. I'm watching the podcast, like, watching on my phone, and I'm like, watching a Kim Burns documentary at the same time. It's like, I'm doing that and this and that. And she's just like, how, how are you able to do this and follow what's happening here in this conversation? And listen to this documentary? I don't know. It's the thing.

• 5:13Dax Shepard?

  My question is, do you think you are consuming both at like, what percentage?

• 5:18Speaker 03

  That's a good question.

• 5:19Dax Shepard?

  Because you know, they've debunked the myth of multitasking, right? Like, there's been enormous studies done where they measure the time spent, and then they have proven that if you had just done one at a time, and then the next one. Like, this is already kind of known, but I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm just wondering what percentage you think you're.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  She thinks it is?

• 5:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  You know, the truth is, here's the thing. I will sometimes say, okay, put the phone down, let me focus on this. I think it's really about not just attention span, which we all have to work at expanding. We have to actively do that, but I think that it's also about giving something your undivided attention.

• 5:56Dax Shepard?

  That could almost be your rating system. Like, if you had a public platform where you rated things, it would be like, what thing did you shut down all things for? So this season, what show you were like, you know what, we're putting this over here?

• 6:06Speaker 03

  The thing that I'm like, really locked in is Half Man.

• 6:09Dax Shepard?

  Half Man? What one is that?

• 6:11Speaker 03

  That's the gentleman who did Baby Reindeer.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  This is his sophomore effort.

• 6:15Dax Shepard?

  HBO, it just came out?

• 6:16Speaker 03

  Just came out. There's two episodes up right now. I think both are pretty exquisite.

• 6:19Dax Shepard?

  Exquisite, nice word.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  You know, Baby Reindeer locked us all in in a real way, but I think, and I got to tell him this, I was really grateful to be able to do that at the Globes. I stopped him and I said, you made me want to be a more vulnerable artist.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Oh, that's lovely compliment.

• 6:35Dax Shepard?

  No, when he goes into the whole thing about he's in that fucked up, crazy zone of drugs and fucking and that. I was like, oh, wow, man, I'm so impressed. He's going here.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:45Dax Shepard?

  As like an addict. I was like, oh, yes.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  And it's true.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, we're all addicted to something. Our vices sometimes look different and some are more socially acceptable than others. You know, it's like cheating is a vice. Being unfaithful, I think can be a vice.

• 7:00Dax Shepard?

  We'd say that's low acceptance, right? Yeah, we would agree.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 7:03Dax Shepard?

  Universally reviled, universally practiced Estelle.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Esther. Esther Perel.

• 7:08Dax Shepard?

  Esther Perel. I fucked it up on both sides.

• 7:11Speaker 03

  Brought her all together.

• 7:12Dax Shepard?

  I made her a one name artist.

• 7:13Speaker 03

  You're like, look, let me glob you here.

• 7:14Dax Shepard?

  Let me make you worldwide.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  I got you. But also, it's like shopping is a vice. Socially acceptable.

• 7:23Dax Shepard?

  Social media is a vice.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Absolutely. But socially acceptable in a way, because the funny thing is people on their phones posting on social why you shouldn't be on social. And folks are watching it like, yeah, but I'm getting this message on the very thing you're telling me to get off of.

• 7:35Dax Shepard?

  We had the the CEO of Instagram on and he gave this.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  First of all, Liv, Liv, who's my guy with the glasses who always says the thing about the updates and stuff? Who's talking about that?

• 7:44Dax Shepard?

  That's our guy, Adam Mosseri.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah.

• 7:46Dax Shepard?

  And I love him.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  I like him a lot.

• 7:48Dax Shepard?

  And he's so thoughtful.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Very.

• 7:50Dax Shepard?

  Like, he's the dude you should pray is running that thing.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:52Dax Shepard?

  And we have him on. We have this great thoughtful thing and I challenge him on every damn thing.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 7:56Dax Shepard?

  And people are on the goddamn app telling me, how could you platform him? You can't support this. And I'm like, you're on the app. You cannot have this position.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 8:08Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  Of course, because they have to rationalize.

• 8:11Dax Shepard?

  They're on there just to shut it down. I think in their mind.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  They're going to take down the very thing that they're hoping to keep alive.

• 8:17Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so we love the new show Mad Man, Horse Man.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  No, Half Man.

• 8:21Dax Shepard?

  Half Man.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  It's too much coffee. Too much coffee. I just really like that show a lot in terms of how he's exploring masculinity and what relationships can look like between two men that don't necessarily have to be, both of them have to be queer. But I think he also was exploring versions of that in Baby Reindeer as well. But I think he definitely is sort of an artist that's making television in a way that is forcing us to pay attention in a way that I don't know we always do. The fact that this was something that was not proper America Netflix, this was Netflix. That was like coming out of the UK. And he said to me, he was like, I don't think Netflix thought it was gonna be this huge hit. That speaks to the disconnect between, I think, streamers and audiences. And it's sort of like, what do audiences actually want? What do they need?

• 9:06Dax Shepard?

  This is the beauty, though. There's downsides to the streamers. You have a show that's about to be on for eight seasons. If you had that on network TV in 1980, you'd be buying a baseball team.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  I lived through the whole thing. Okay.

• 9:17Dax Shepard?

  The one upside of it is, yeah, they're gonna make Baby Reindeer.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  That's Netflix.

• 9:21Dax Shepard?

  No one there believes in it, but they're gonna make it because they're gonna make 350 shows this year. And then that does give the opportunity for all these things to pop. Beef comes out of nowhere and all these shows come out of nowhere that no one was betting on in like a network way. And that deserves acknowledgement. Like, it's taken a toll on a lot of aspects of this industry, but that one part is amazing. It's like they switched to niche and then niche became mega hit sometimes.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  No, that's true. And it's about like, what becomes mega hits? Why does it become a mega hit? I'm always fascinated by that. Are we creating stars anymore? Or just sort of depending on the ones that already have the money to carry a show that might not be that great?

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Well, stars also are becoming stars in a different way, like not just because they're on TV or in movies or in music. I was looking at all the pictures from the Met Gala this morning. And I was like, I know I'm like getting old.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  You're like, who are these people?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  But I don't know any of these people.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like being 30, watching a Billboard Awards.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  I know. I was like, wait, is it me? Or is it that the stars are from TikTok from things that I'm not on, but they're not on my TV? I don't think.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Right. I think the word star is sort of becoming interesting. The word celebrity, public figure. What does that mean? Because you can become a celebrity in a week, but then your has been that never was in like a year.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  It's so fleeting.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  I know. You're like, you're like, wait, I have so many thoughts.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  You've done good. You've maintained. You're fine.

• 10:46Speaker 03

  Back and forth.

• 10:46Dax Shepard?

  We have this friend, I love him so much, Gordon Keith. He's on a popular Dallas sports radio show, and he has been for like 25 years. He was visiting last time, we were talking about AI and everything. And he said to Chris and I, he goes, you know, you guys might be among the last mortal stars.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  Mortal.

• 11:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like the future stars will be AI. It's like you might be in history, the last of the mortal star. And Chrissy goes, oh, my God, that's so funny. The last of the mortal star.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  The final season and one of the strongest seasons of the comeback is telling us the future, which the comeback has always done.

• 11:22Dax Shepard?

  That's your first acting job too, right?

• 11:24Speaker 03

  That was technically, yes. The disease always starts to take credit for my first TV. I'm like, actually, Michael Patrick King, Lisa Kudrow, they threw me in there. One episode, very grateful to Alison Jones, who discovered me.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  I love Alison.

• 11:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, what did they predict this season?

• 11:38Speaker 03

  That AI is gonna take over all of the shit. They've been such ahead of the game and the comeback is just sort of one of those great shows. I was honored to be asked by New York Times about what are the 100 most important television shows? It was a very tricky task. This is not definitive list. They just came out with 100 greatest songwriters ever and movies and all that kind of stuff. So I was honored to be at the table for the television one. And I was really happy to speak about the comeback because it was on when I was in college, the first season, and I could see in that moment what they were doing with comedy. And that was so unique and so special. Because I was already like in Sex and the City, I was already a Friends fan, but to see these two brains come together and make this show about an aging actress in Hollywood and what she had to do and the fact that they were ahead of the curve in terms of reality television

• 12:23Speaker 03

  in that first season. And then in the second season, getting into the premium cable type thing and what that would ultimately be. And for this third and final season, I mean, now the seasons are spread out between like a decade, which is so brilliant because the first season was so beloved. And for me, we talked about it that 10 years later, HBO was like, yeah, do a second season. And now 10 years later, they're doing the third and final. And it is this sort of trifecta of Hollywood and what happens to it. And I'm like All About Eve, you know, it's sort of, oh, this is what happens. There's a person that's there that we look at and we love. And then she eventually gets put out to pasture and there's someone that comes in to replace. And it's cyclical. It's sort of telling you, you can only be on the mountaintop for so long because you can't breathe the air up there. So you have to start climbing a new mountain or you'll die at the top of the one. You made it to.

• 13:05Dax Shepard?

  Everything's driven by young people. This is also a reality. I'll talk to young people. I have a 13 year old. We have friends. The people that they don't know, break your heart. I mean, literally, the people they don't know.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  The movies they haven't seen.

• 13:17Dax Shepard?

  The movies.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  They're like Shawshank Redemption, what?

• 13:19Dax Shepard?

  That wouldn't even, no, I wouldn't even take that swing.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  You would say, okay, like, I mean, Blazing Saddles, like, what are we doing?

• 13:26Dax Shepard?

  That one's probably a no-go for most young people.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  What are we doing? What's the, what's the bridge? What's the bridge? It is up to the parents. The parents gotta get in there. Like, my mom made sure I liked Prince.

• 13:37Dax Shepard?

  Right. Although that's not a hard job.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  It was. I didn't get it at first when I was a young person.

• 13:43Dax Shepard?

  Really?

• 13:44Speaker 03

  In the car, couldn't hear it. I'm in college, in Chicago, he comes to the city, she makes me go. It's one of the things I'm very grateful for. She's like, you gotta come to the concert. I said, I don't like, I don't hear it. I go, I'm like baptized, I'm like, oh, got it. And then I go out and buy every record, which took me like a long time because he was just releasing music every week since he came out.

• 14:00Dax Shepard?

  I guess you're nine years younger than me, so that explains a little bit. I couldn't have not loved Prince. You know, I was probably in fifth grade when Purple Rain came out. You were either into Michael Jackson or Prince, and to me, Prince was dangerous, and I liked him. I was like, okay, that guy's dangerous, I'm into him.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  See, like, Michael was like perfect for like, this is gonna sound so wrong, but he's perfect for like, if you're a kid.

• 14:22Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  Sorry.

• 14:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  That's the headline.

• 14:27Dax Shepard?

  You don't want to talk about your partner, but now you said Michael Jackson's perfect if you're a kid.

• 14:37Dax Shepard?

  You tell your problem, it says, good news and bad news. We did not talk about.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  So we did avoid one thing.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  If you're a kid, like, Michael Jackson is like magic.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  I mean, there is a reason he is so complicated. He was half kid.

• 14:54Dax Shepard?

  He seems trapped in his.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  Smokey Robinson has this really great quote. He said, "Michael Jackson had to be a man when he was a kid. And when he became a man, he was a kid again."

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I co-sign on all that. What I don't co-sign on, and that is somehow a justification for the behavior that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  I don't think he was justified. I think he was just like, that was an observation that he made.

• 15:14Dax Shepard?

  Like, I definitely do think that's right. I think his childhood was stolen from him. And then he lived it out as an adult in Neverland Ranch.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  I mean, literally creating like.

• 15:22Dax Shepard?

  But let's that not take him off the hook.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  I know.

• 15:24Dax Shepard?

  That one's like a big digression.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Perfect.

• 15:27Dax Shepard?

  So I had never met you. I had seen you on Master of None.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:31Dax Shepard?

  I liked you on Master of None.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 15:33Dax Shepard?

  I loved the Thanksgiving episode. I remember, I had no idea you were a writer. And in fact, not till much later, I thought maybe that was your first time writing.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:42Dax Shepard?

  Like, I know your history.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  That was my fear actually about doing the show. Cause I was like, oh, it's these people that think I'm an actor who's trying to write. But actually, I'm a writer that you want to act.

• 15:49Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  And he's like, right, yeah, I don't care.

• 15:51Dax Shepard?

  You're already a staff writer on Bones at that point, right?

• 15:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did that, cause I needed a job, yeah.

• 15:57Dax Shepard?

  I met you in real life. We were at this event. And I'll add, I'm so excited you're a 2 PM interview, cause that means Delta will be here when we get done.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 16:06Dax Shepard?

  So I was with Delta when we met, and something happened between you two. I don't wanna speak for you, but.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  Instant.

• 16:14Dax Shepard?

  There was an explosion of charisma and connection.

• 16:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, instant.

• 16:18Dax Shepard?

  I think the first thing she said to you was, I love your voice, or something.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:24Dax Shepard?

  And then I saw this side of you, and she has that effect on people. Not that it took a lot, but I saw a side of you immediately that was like, oh, I love this person.

• 16:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:34Dax Shepard?

  I gotta say, of all the stop and chats I've had in my life, I ranked that very high and like, oh yeah, I really love this person.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Wow, yeah.

• 16:41Dax Shepard?

  It was a very memorable hour and a half hang.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  No, it was clear that you're raising kids that know who they are. That was, I think, very interesting, to be talking to a young kid who was almost like fully formed.

• 16:55Dax Shepard?

  She was probably nine then, yeah.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  Right, that's why it throws you a bit.

• 16:58Dax Shepard?

  Fucked up, yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  Cause I'm going like, what? You know, to be a girl with a husky voice and have one her whole life, there was sort of this thing of like, her having like almost her own sort of voice, her scratchy voice.

• 17:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, hers was real scratchy then, too, yeah, yeah.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  It's so sort of like, oh, yeah.

• 17:13Dax Shepard?

  The two girls with cool voices were chatting.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, yeah, like, we see each other, we see each other.

• 17:18Dax Shepard?

  I hear you.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  I hear you, literally and figuratively. It was a lovely meeting.

• 17:21Dax Shepard?

  It was lovely. I really enjoyed learning about you today. Starts in Chicago, yeah, 1984, May 17th, we're about to have a birthday.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, damn right, about to have my Jackie Robinson year, about to be 42.

• 17:32Dax Shepard?

  How do you feel about aging? You're very accomplished, that helps.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  Having Emmy, I think I love it because, you know, it's interesting Oprah did this really interesting episode back in the day with these amazing women who kind of were known for being beauties in their heyday, like it was Diane Carroll, like Lauren, the model.

• 17:51Dax Shepard?

  Nicole, no.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  No, no, no, Lauren, I'm forgetting, but she's like a model with like a gap tooth or whatever. But she just had these women on there who were just really known for their beauty and she asked them what they feared the most and they all said aging. Oprah was kind of taken aback by that because Oprah said, that's not a thing that scares me. And Oprah in that moment, literally is having this lightbulb moment in front of people. She's saying, oh, I think it's because I'm not worried about a beauty type of thing fading.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:14Dax Shepard?

  That's not what her value proposition was.

• 18:16Speaker 03

  That's not what my value was.

• 18:18Dax Shepard?

  Also, black people age better.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  Well, this is true.

• 18:20Dax Shepard?

  This is true.

• 18:21Speaker 03

  We should get something in the deal.

• 18:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Don't get us talking about pepper.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  We have to deal with some shit. But also I'm a person, interesting way, that doesn't concern myself with the male gaze.

• 18:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  And so there's this level of, I don't need to look younger than I am. I don't need to appeal to a certain audience. I just want to get wiser and evolve and grow and learn and know something more today than I did yesterday.

• 18:47Dax Shepard?

  There's a lot of factors too. I would argue, and correct me if I'm wrong, the older black woman has a matriarchal position that's very cherished and valued. I know you lived with grandma, right?

• 18:59Speaker 03

  I did, yeah, yeah.

• 19:00Dax Shepard?

  Grandma means a lot.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  True.

• 19:02Dax Shepard?

  Also knowing you're aging into a role of great relevance and purpose versus a lot of the white ladies are just thrown out the pasture.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  Not as cherished.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:15Dax Shepard?

  So I think there's a lot of different things in the mix.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think to me, it's just whatever somebody says, I hate getting older, I say, what's the alternative?

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It's better than the alternative, for sure. But it's funny that you bring up the male gaze part because we just had this crazy experience last week where we interviewed some of the listeners and we had this man on to tell a story. And I was like, oh my God, he's so hot. He graduated from the same college as me. And I was like, I graduated in 2009. When did you graduate? And he graduated in 2021. And I was like,

• 19:48Dax Shepard?

  You had a moment.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Oh my god. I had like a real, I'm old. I'm, I guess, a cougar. I hated it. And I don't ever walk around thinking that. I never walk around thinking I'm old. It was because I'm in front of this young, hot guy.

• 20:05Dax Shepard?

  She's 53, by the way. I don't know if you know.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:07Dax Shepard?

  She didn't say her age.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Fast math. I'm 38.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  We look great. You're killing it.

• 20:16Dax Shepard?

  You're crushing. I was pumped. I was like, oh, good. We're in a phase where she finally like is into fucking a younger dude. Like, let's get on with that.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 20:23Dax Shepard?

  And that's not where it went.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  No, this made me feel so old and irrelevant. And I was like, oh, wow. I normally never feel that way in life. I'm pretty confident. But then in juxtaposition to this young, guys, when you say male gaze, there is something very real about that.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, I'm not really concerned about that.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:43Dax Shepard?

  I feel like the door is open for me to tackle something that's so dangerous to tackle. It is funny that you say like, I'm not concerned with the male gaze. And I gotta say, leading into meeting you, I think the reason I was shocked we got along so instantly well, by my estimation, was like, I'm nervous around lesbians because I'm so used to my value proposition being, you might like me. And so like for me to enter a situation where it's like, I know you're not gonna like me. Capital L like me. And I have to confront how much capital L like me means to me.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  That's real.

• 21:18Dax Shepard?

  And how much of my own personal self-esteem and value comes from capital L like me. Do you like me?

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Attraction.

• 21:24Dax Shepard?

  And so I know, oh, yeah, you're never gonna like me. I start there, which it fucks me up a little bit.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  That is real.

• 21:31Dax Shepard?

  And then a lot of your art is deeply activist oriented. You have a lot of causes you care about. And then so my next insecurity goes like, she's gonna look at me and like, this dude doesn't give a fuck about anything. I go in with these two insecurities. And then I start talking to you and I go, no, I think she likes me. Maybe not capital L like me, but I can live with this.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  And is that enough? Is lowercase L enough?

• 21:52Dax Shepard?

  Totally is. And I think everything can get so easily misread. I'm sure there's some lesbians are like, oh, he don't like me because he only likes people he can fuck. And I'm doing the opposite thing, and neither's true.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  No, yeah.

• 22:04Dax Shepard?

  I can't say I've had a lot of lesbian friends. And I have to acknowledge it's gotta be some part of my own insecurity. Or so I feel like, oh, I'm invisible to this person or something.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  That's super interesting. Couple of things like I.

• 22:16Dax Shepard?

  So scared saying that.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no. This is like really great. First thing I want to touch on is the art being rooted in activism. And the truth is, is I don't think of myself as a activist in a way. I think of myself as a human who studies human behavior. And I try to like capture it for us to to look at. I think because a lot of stuff I'm dealing with is black folk. It can be sort of categorized as, okay, this is what this group of people is dealing with and going through. Especially with a movie like Queen and Slim or something like them coming in, which I produced. I didn't write or direct on that, but that was a black person who I believe identified as queer. But he was trying to explore something there through that. And Queen and Slim, I was exploring something about our society.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  And then you look at something like The Shy, which is sort of exploring just sort of life, middle class, Chicagoans. But because if it's people who are a part of a marginalized community, it sometimes can be seen as, oh, this is a political thing. Cause we don't have any choice for it to be anything other than that. But then you think about Thanksgiving episodes, like so many straight white dudes come up to me, tell me how much they love it.

• 23:21Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love it.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  And that was a breakthrough for me because I used to think of it as the black episode of Master of None.

• 23:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh, interesting.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  This is gonna be, oh, we gonna have a black episode, Aziz? Oh, cool. Oh, yeah. Okay. A gay black episode.

• 23:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  And I just thought it was for the gay black folk. Gay black folk love the Thanksgiving episode.

• 23:35Dax Shepard?

  Sure. I think everyone loves it.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  But that's the thing.

• 23:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  That's the trick.

• 23:38Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  Is that, yes, it's specific, but it's also universal.

• 23:42Dax Shepard?

  So you know, I don't think you're preachy. I think you're telling the stories that are true to you. You're supposed to write what you know.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 23:49Dax Shepard?

  And you are in these two groups that inevitably are gonna seem political.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. But for me as an artist, my goal is to not separate myself from the things that make me who I am, but to get folks who don't look like me, love like me, come from the walk of life that I do, to be able to look at the work and not only see it through a particular lens. It's to say, hey, you can see yourself in this character, just the way I see myself in the lead character in Baby Reindeer.

• 24:11Dax Shepard?

  Well, I was gonna say, even when you listed the shows that you like right now. Of course, those are the shows that you like.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  Some people might go, oh, I'm surprised that she's watching that show.

• 24:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Yes. As a black woman, they like, oh, you're not just watching Power and Girlfriends?

• 24:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  He was like, nothing wrong though, so yeah, they did actually watch the I also love bait. Want to shout out Riz Ahmed on Amazon. If you haven't seen it, check it out. Beautiful show. He gonna be mad. You ain't seen it.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  I know, see?

• 24:36Dax Shepard?

  Everyone's in trouble.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  How assume are you seeing bait, right? But I'm also like, why you not seen it?

• 24:42Speaker 01

  What issues do you have?

• 24:44Dax Shepard?

  Let's just start with everyone's in trouble.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  I know.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  To go to the thing about like me and straight men, I feel like I have really great relationships with straight dudes. And a big part of that, I think is because sex is not on the table. So they don't for this need to perform.

• 24:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  Cause nothing's coming from it. And I think that's why I also have very interesting relationships with straight women, because that gets a little dicey, because it's a level of huh, you're kind of masked, but you're a woman. I kind of like this energy. I'm kind of confused. It can get a little tricky. I'm going like, are we cool? Are you hitting on me? You are, but I don't know what's going on. And so I just hear what you're saying in terms of, oh, but if you couldn't like me, then what's my end? What am I doing?

• 25:20Dax Shepard?

  What's my value to anybody who wouldn't like me?

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Right. And the truth is, is like, there's so much value because that isn't all that you have to offer me.

• 25:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I know it's stupid as I'm saying it, but it is the emotion I have, right? That I have to think through.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  That's super interesting.

• 25:38Dax Shepard?

  I go like, oh, I've got nothing to offer this person. They're not gonna want to interact with me. And I gotta step over that.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  No, I think that's super fascinating to me because I think for me, when I approach, I'm just, I'm curious, what's the energy gonna be? I'm more curious about that. Cause my brain isn't always there. I more so want to know, well, who are you? What's the thing? The word I dislike the most is assume. Anytime someone says it, what follows it is sort of say, so, so what you're saying is you didn't ask, you didn't go to the source, you came up with a narrative for yourself.

• 26:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  About a person. And by the way, there are people that have narratives about me that are completely based on nothing.

• 26:17Dax Shepard?

  I think I had created one. She won't like me. She'll think I don't care about anything. Why would she want to talk to me? I'm talking to her a while. She seems to like me. She's smiling.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  That's what a lot of our society is doing right now, which is why I think it looks the way it does. We assume things about each other rather than having that moment of like. Talking to each other and really hearing each other. Because even like what you just said, I try to be an active listener. That's why I was like, I heard a couple of things. I was like, OK, I want to address the activist thing. I was like, that's really interesting to me. It's not combative, but it's sort of like, oh, huh, that's interesting thing.

• 26:47Dax Shepard?

  I know that word's dicey. Like for me to even say active, I know that's a loaded word.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  No, it's not at all. But to me, it's like, I get what you mean. It doesn't seem like an odd thing at all, what you said. But I think for me, it's helpful to hear and to kind of go, OK, I see how the work can be perceived that way. And because I have no control over how people perceive the work. But I think for me, as an artist, it's always about, OK, that's how it can be seen. OK, cool. And how do I continue to make work that no one feels ostracized from? Because some people may go, I don't want to, because that's active. I don't want, I want to just kind of chill.

• 27:18Dax Shepard?

  I don't want to be taught a lesson.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Exactly. And sometimes work, especially by women or women of color, or if you add queer to that mix, there's this idea, this assumption.

• 27:27Dax Shepard?

  That you're going to be taught.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  This is going to be a lesson.

• 27:29Dax Shepard?

  There's going to be a moral gift.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  It's about to be woke. Versus just, oh, that was just kind of funny and human and grounded.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  It can be a burden because even if you're saying something or you're making a piece of art that a white woman made, straight, people might not be like, it's an allegory or it's a lesson or it's trying to teach me. That's part of the thing. I mean, sometimes we'll get in like debates here. But if I'm saying something, it's kind of like I'm speaking on behalf of always. And not always, I'm just saying what I think.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Right, but you have to always like identify that. It's just like, I'm just talking from my point of view. I don't represent everyone.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  I know, and then that's exhausting. Because no one else has to.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  You don't do it, I know, if you don't do that, then people will be like, oh, so you're speaking for us? You're speaking for me? It's just like, oh, no, I'm not. I'm speaking for myself. Hey, that's a part of the way people do interviews. If you pay attention to it, they're like, I'm just talking about me. No offense to this person, no of that. I don't want to, I'm sorry I'm married in a healthy marriage. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Because people at home are going like, well, fuck you.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  I know.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  What? It's like, Jesus, what?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  I know it got really out of control.

• 28:28Speaker 03

  No, but I like you. I had to get to know you. I had to meet you. Met your kid.

• 28:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I like you so much, too. I had you immediately. I didn't let any of that get in the way. It was just like passing thoughts as I consumed your art.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  We're programmed.

• 28:38Dax Shepard?

  So you were zero to 12 south side of Chicago?

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 28:43Dax Shepard?

  And what was that like? Mom and dad divorced at three?

• 28:45Speaker 03

  At two, dad died suddenly when I was 14, but I only saw him from like until I was like seven and then like seven years kind of went by. He was gone.

• 28:53Dax Shepard?

  Was he an addict?

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Well, you know, it's crazy because I wanted to get his death certificate because I didn't know anything about how he died. And he was actually killed by someone, but it was sort of in self-defense. So it wasn't a story like that. But the coroner did show that there was cocaine in his system. There is a history of addiction.

• 29:11Dax Shepard?

  My dad loved cocaine and then I grew up to love it, too. It smells so good.

• 29:14Speaker 03

  This is why my grandmother told me. She said, the grandma's gonna say it's in your blood. So be mindful, be thoughtful. A lot of us kind of got told.

• 29:21Dax Shepard?

  They told me that, too.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Oh, shit. You didn't.

• 29:23Dax Shepard?

  They told me.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  Let me just see what's up.

• 29:26Dax Shepard?

  I gotta find over myself.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Did you see the Chevy Chase doc?

• 29:29Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  Jesus Christ.

• 29:31Dax Shepard?

  I would love your analysis.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  I thought it was quite fascinating. I thought it was quite human. I'm a person that's done a documentary about a person who was no longer here, being Mary Tyler Moore. That can be a little bit trickier. I don't want to say there's more pressure, but her, what a word, was kind enough to give us the life rise and the space to tell that story. It took us about five years, just going through a lot of interviews and things like that. Obviously, written the memoir when I was much younger and just obsessed with the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Dick Van Dyke and all that kind of stuff. But it's tough to kind of create a portrait of a person and obviously that person is still here and he's being interviewed.

• 30:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  And, you know, I've heard the stories. I think a lot of us have.

• 30:06Dax Shepard?

  And they're in the doc.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:07Dax Shepard?

  It's pretty unflinching on his many, many.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 30:10Dax Shepard?

  Outbursts and shittiness.

• 30:12Speaker 03

  I learned a lot of things that I didn't know, which I think is the point of a documentary.

• 30:15Dax Shepard?

  Childhood didn't sound great.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  No, not at all. It's tricky because it's not about making excuses, but rather about giving you context for a person.

• 30:21Dax Shepard?

  It's an explanation, not an excuse. That's what I like to say. Those are different things.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think the thing with Chevy that got me the most was the 50th SNL bit. To watch that and to see him still be affected.

• 30:34Dax Shepard?

  Can't get out of his own way.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  For people who haven't seen it.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Well, I also don't want to, okay.

• 30:38Dax Shepard?

  No, no, you're not gonna ruin anything.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  Checking it out, but if people know that there was a 50th anniversary special on SNL with like everybody that ever pretty much touched it and a lot of the people that were important to the show. By the way, Lorne Michaels is interviewed as well, which I thought was really important, but Chevy talked about not being in the show.

• 30:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  And even though he was very much part of the origin of the show, I mean, that's not disputed. But also he came back and hosted and wasn't the best energy for, I think, either party when he came back to host. And sometimes your reputation, you leave a mark that can stick with people and who knows what happened. That's the thing. He doesn't know what happened. Lorne kind of is Lorne, sort of, I don't know, we try. But also Martin Short said something really interesting. He was like, Billy Crystal was there as well. He didn't speak either. So what are you gonna say? So Martin Short definitely gave some context to the situation, but you know, what I appreciate is that Chevy Chase said, like, I was hurt by it.

• 31:27Dax Shepard?

  He was hurt. He reaped what he sowed.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  What I respect is vulnerability.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  I respect the honesty. The toughest thing for people to do is just to say, that hurt my feelings.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Yes, literally.

• 31:36Dax Shepard?

  Do you know where my compassion came from?

• 31:37Speaker 03

  Where?

• 31:38Dax Shepard?

  It'd be one thing if he was so happy and unaffected by the wreckage. He seemed to be incapable of not creating, right? Like, if he was sitting there, high on his horse, feeling great about it all and enjoying life and feeling good, he is a victim of it all. He's very uncomfortable. He's in such discomfort. It's very obvious.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 32:00Dax Shepard?

  And so I look at it and I go like, yeah, he was terrible to a lot of people and primarily himself. And I have compassion for that, that kind of self-destructive, I can relate to it. And then also these crazy glimpses of him where he's still a fucking genius, like just him interacting with the dude with the flowers. And I shared, so I'm lying back from the NBC up front and they put me in a car with him. I've never met him.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 32:21Dax Shepard?

  We're sitting in a car together and then we pull up to the hotel and there's 600 people in front of the hotel to see stars. And when he gets out, everyone's so excited, right? And he's trying to walk through this crowd and goes, oh, yes, I'm feeling much better now. Thank you for asking. And keep moving and I was like, feeling much better now. Thank you for asking is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. And that's also part of him, right?

• 32:43Speaker 03

  But I think that's a sort of a portrait of a person.

• 32:48Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 32:53Dax Shepard?

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• 33:38Dax Shepard?

  This episode is supported by Helix.

• 33:41Speaker 01

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• 33:52Dax Shepard?

  That's the dream. You just described one of my ideal fall nights.

• 33:56Speaker 01

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• 34:12Dax Shepard?

  Increasingly so.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  I need it. I have to have it. And I heard that you're supposed to sleep at a cold temp for optimal sleep. It's very, very helpful.

• 34:23Dax Shepard?

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• 34:43Speaker 01

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• 34:50Dax Shepard?

  Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. Helixsleep.com/armchair.

• 35:04Dax Shepard?

  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. October 10th is World Mental Health Day, but you don't need a day on the calendar to give yourself permission to talk to someone. I've been in therapy for a long time and the stuff rattling around in my head always just quiets down the second I say it out loud. And it doesn't have to be some big life crisis. Maybe it's a work thing that's taking up too much space or hard relationship moment, or just a feeling that something's off. That's enough. That's worth talking about.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  You know, I love therapy more than anything. Gets me through. Often I'll want to cancel because I'm like, I don't really have anything to talk about. And then I'll go and I have some major revelation.

• 35:53Dax Shepard?

  You know, I was just talking to a friend who has just started it. And I said, one of the most powerful elements of it is just hearing yourself say out loud, the thing that's been ruminating in your head and how different it sounds once it's out into the world. You gain perspective immediately just by hearing yourself say it.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do.

• 36:08Dax Shepard?

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• 37:15Speaker 03

  What I love about those documentaries, adding my own to it, you know, with Mary Tyler Moore, is that she's a woman that could turn the world on with her smile, but she also was an alcoholic and dealt with a lot of death in her family. And her son has accidental suicide and he was in his twenties. And then she also did Ordinary People before that and then experienced it in real life. She went through a ton, but was sort of the Jackie O of television of her time. And so I think ultimately, when you're trying to paint a portrait of someone, there's a lot of colors you have to use and you have to really let people speak to their experiences of them. And the truth is, everybody's right, even though there's a moment in the doc where someone talks about how he was treated by them and he was saying, I don't recall that, but this person's truth exists.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  The documentary allows Chevy's truth to exist as well.

• 38:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they're just wreckage.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  But that's the thing, it's like the Pee Wee Herman doc I thought was really phenomenal because I grew up with that.

• 38:07Dax Shepard?

  I loved that doc.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  That doc, I watched it multiple times.

• 38:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's a beautiful.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  It's so stunning because I didn't realize what I was actually getting when I was watching that show.

• 38:16Dax Shepard?

  Me neither.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  He was speaking to the crazy weird kids.

• 38:19Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it was all misfits.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:21Dax Shepard?

  And I didn't even get that, but I felt very connected to him.

• 38:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I didn't know I was a misfit until I realized, I'm like, what is it about this language that he's speaking that I understand?

• 38:29Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  Sometimes you don't know what you're seeing until somebody points it out to you.

• 38:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 03

  And so, and I think that's the other thing too, you get perspective. You kind of look back on a career and go, oh, and then you see the downfall, you go, I see, oh, this is interesting, that kind of went, how they tried to make it like he was a bad dude.

• 38:42Dax Shepard?

  Breaks my heart.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 38:44Dax Shepard?

  He was straight and fucking hookers, like he could have done anything straight and nothing would have happened.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, that's the thing. Hello. Anyway, it's the thing about these people's lives and the impact they have on us that we don't even realize. And then you realize that this person that has such an impact on you was a person.

• 38:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh yeah, everyone.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  It's weird when you realize your parents are a person, you're like, oh, that's weird.

• 39:02Dax Shepard?

  There's only one person I think might not be a person, but this is one.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Who?

• 39:05Dax Shepard?

  Steven Seagal.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  You could have went anywhere.

• 39:09Dax Shepard?

  Like, I know if I watched the doc and I saw the wreckage, he'd be very comfortable.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  You're like, I don't know. It's begun, yes, begun, yes, begun, yes, begun, yeah.

• 39:15Dax Shepard?

  So I read that you wanted to be a TV writer at seven, and this feels impossible to me because when I watched TV at seven, it wouldn't have even occurred to me that it had started with writing. It's just like, these people exist on this box. I think that might be real.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  I think the truth is, I knew I liked writing as a kid. I liked the assignment of having to summarize the book or tell about what you did the day before. And I remember my teacher really affirming me that young, saying, I look forward to reading your papers.

• 39:42Dax Shepard?

  We both know our teacher's name. Who was it?

• 39:44Speaker 03

  Mrs. Tarbunis.

• 39:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Larry Leclerc.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 39:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. When they tell you you're a good writer.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  You're like, okay. I think what we say is so powerful. The power of the tongue is real.

• 39:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And I just need to always, any opportunity, give any little kid that thing.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, because they'll remember it. It stays with them.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Both ways. Whether you're told you're not good at something or you are good, like, it just sticks.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  For sure. So, no, I was really grateful to have that, but also obviously loved watching television as a young person. I used to watch old TV because I had the grandma in the house, so we was watching, like, All in Family.

• 40:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, her shows.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  I did that too with my grandma, yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  All in the Family.

• 40:18Dax Shepard?

  Samson.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  Well, we liked The Jeffersons a good times, obviously, being a family in Chicago. I got to watch that old TV. That had a really big impact on me. A Different World was really important to me, which is the spinoff of The Cosby Show. For the younger audience, really sort of speaking to me, even though I was like, didn't even know what college was.

• 40:34Dax Shepard?

  I had beef with that show.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Okay, what's the beef?

• 40:36Dax Shepard?

  I'd say my first number one love of my life was Lisa Bonet.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Of course, you're not alone.

• 40:41Dax Shepard?

  I mean, forget it.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  And then she gave birth to herself. Come on, Zoe Kravitz. It's also stunning.

• 40:48Dax Shepard?

  I got to dance with her one night for like two hours.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  What?

• 40:51Dax Shepard?

  I just need to tell you, Chris and I were at a thing.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  Of course. This is how every story starts.

• 40:54Dax Shepard?

  And Chris then goes, there's your girl.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  This is why you're married to the best lady on the planet.

• 41:00Dax Shepard?

  She goes, there's your girl, and she's dancing. And you love to dance, so get over there.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 41:05Dax Shepard?

  And I fucking danced for two.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  Lucky.

• 41:07Dax Shepard?

  Car was floating on a cloud. Anyways. The spinoff was like, she took us to the spinoff, right?

• 41:13Speaker 03

  Correct, and then she got in the boot after the first season.

• 41:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh!

• 41:15Speaker 03

  But that's the way it's supposed to go. I lost my lead, season three, you know, people knew about that. But there's something that happens when the universe takes someone away like that. Where we're like, we gonna hang the hat on this person. Well, let's remove that person and now see what you do. And what happened was A Different World became the show was ultimately meant to become, which was supposed to be about Jasmine Guy and Kadim Hardison and Cree Summer and Chanel Brown and Daryl Bell and Sinbad and everyone that came in and touched the show.

• 41:41Dax Shepard?

  So that show was like everything?

• 41:44Speaker 03

  It was just everything. It's like, even I'll talk about it now.

• 41:46Dax Shepard?

  Did you just wanna live in the world? Did you wanna be in that college? Weren't they all in a college?

• 41:50Speaker 03

  That show's a big reason why a lot of folks went to historically black colleges. My black ass, loving A Different World the way I did. I ended up going to Columbia College in Chicago, study writing, producing and television. But I did go visit Fisk, which is an HBCU as well. I wanted to stay in Chicago and I wanted to go learn how to write television.

• 42:04Dax Shepard?

  Is Columbia, Chicago?

• 42:06Speaker 03

  A part of university?

• 42:07Dax Shepard?

  A part of the New York? They're completely different things.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Completely different.

• 42:10Dax Shepard?

  I was trying to figure that out while I was researching you today. I was like, I'm reading all about it.

• 42:13Speaker 03

  University, I went to the college. That tells you like, you know.

• 42:16Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  But she was an exec or is an exec and I'm a writer, so it makes sense. It's like, okay.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  I feel like all this sad stuff.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Using different parts of your brain. But I went to Columbia and it was really the best thing.

• 42:26Dax Shepard?

  Can I ask really quick though? Who are you in elementary? Who were you in high school? Who were you in junior high?

• 42:30Speaker 03

  Oh, who was I?

• 42:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, in Chicago. And you moved to Evanston, but tell me the first 12.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 42:36Dax Shepard?

  Who were you?

• 42:37Speaker 03

  Elementary school, I was, the conduct grade was always low.

• 42:41Dax Shepard?

  Horsein' around?

• 42:42Speaker 03

  Just a busybody. Talking too much, my mom having to come up to the school.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  You said you're not ADHD, but this is sounding a teeny bit.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  I was a social butterfly, way young. I was there to socialize. The grades were solid, though. The reading and the writing and all that, I was killing it. You know? But I was talking too much. And then junior high, I was very much like a tomboy, but I hung out with all the pretty girls and stuff like that. I was in that crew. I loved movies. That was a big part of my personality. People could ask me about anything.

• 43:13Dax Shepard?

  Can I ask how early you were fully aware of being? Queer, and then when you started sharing that with friends?

• 43:20Speaker 03

  Oh, man, that's so interesting because I feel like I'm a person that believes it's sort of in you from the beginning. It's about where you recognize it.

• 43:30Dax Shepard?

  But I mean, for a minute, you're just not even sexual.

• 43:33Speaker 03

  True, no, but the thing is, when you're kids, like, you laugh, you have crushes.

• 43:37Dax Shepard?

  That's true.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  You like other kids, like around like six or seven.

• 43:41Dax Shepard?

  There's teachers you like.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  That was never one of my fantasies, though, because my teachers were like my aunts and moms. Like, they were like, amazing, but they just were giving that. But it was really about, I was looking at these actors and stuff coming up and the Janet Jacksons. I could recognize, I'm like, Janet is beautiful. I was like, okay, what's happening over here? Halle Berry is beautiful. I could recognize Whitney Houston is beautiful, but I also considered my mother to be beautiful. And so there was a level of like, oh, you're beautiful, she's beautiful. Okay. These women that I could recognize, it was a different thing.

• 44:12Dax Shepard?

  Did you have a young mom? Are you the older sister or the younger?

• 44:15Speaker 03

  I'm the youngest, and my mom was like in her 30s, like, she had us. So it feels like the usual age, you have kids. And my sister's like almost two years older than me, and so it was just the two of us. And I just gravitated toward the female energy, but then I was also a tomboy, like, outside with the boys and stuff like that. And so I think for me, high school, I definitely felt very queer. But the thing about tomboys, girls don't really get teased the way boys who are effeminate do.

• 44:41Dax Shepard?

  No, right.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  Because in a patriarchal society, it's not odd to be a girl that wants to be a boy. It's odd to be a boy that wants to be a girl because girls are sort of second-class citizens.

• 44:50Dax Shepard?

  Right. Yeah, that's true.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  And so that was the thing, like, I was never teased or made fun of. So I was never, was never eyeballed. And then in college, I was still living with my mom, so I wasn't really out exploring. It wasn't until I moved to LA where I was like, okay, where are the gay clubs at? Where are the gay kids, this and that? And then when I would go to those clubs, I would feel very much like an outsider, like, I didn't feel welcome.

• 45:08Dax Shepard?

  Did you feel inexperienced?

• 45:09Speaker 03

  Definitely. Felt inexperienced and also felt like I don't have any gay friends either. And so I've just cultivated this sort of like queer, black women, it's not like a requirement. But the thing is, like, we had to curate that, cultivate that community. Like, it wasn't just like, oh, where's my other queer, black masked women?

• 45:27Dax Shepard?

  It's that turnkey.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  No, like you gotta really find folks and then we've literally found it. We were hanging out last night and it's private. We don't have our phones. We're just having dinner. We're sharing. It's amazing. But it took a beat for us to like figure that out.

• 45:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  And so I think that's the interesting thing about community is that it takes effort.

• 45:43Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  It takes time. It takes energy.

• 45:45Dax Shepard?

  Everything worth having. No one ever knocks on your door and gives you something that's worth having.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  No, I do think there's this desire of everything you can have delivered to your door and not friends.

• 45:55Dax Shepard?

  No, not friends, not partners, not any of that stuff.

• 45:58Speaker 03

  Nah, you gotta work for it.

• 45:58Dax Shepard?

  Not jobs, all the shit that's worth having.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  You gotta fight for it.

• 46:02Dax Shepard?

  They don't hand it out.

• 46:03Speaker 03

  They don't. And then when you get it, that's when the real work begins.

• 46:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So you got, I don't want to say lucky, cause obviously you'd gotten a degree in it, but you land pretty quickly in LA after graduation as an assistant to an executive producer of.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Girlfriend.

• 46:17Dax Shepard?

  Girlfriend. Yeah, right?

• 46:19Speaker 03

  Which I was loving.

• 46:19Dax Shepard?

  And the creator of that show at the time had been the youngest black showrunner ever, like 30 maybe, right?

• 46:26Speaker 03

  Well, cause Evette Lee Bowser, who wrote On A Different World, she was up top. She had a crazy show called Living Single. So she was outside as well. I want to give her her flowers. And then Mara Brockakil was also coming up at that time. Mara, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:38Dax Shepard?

  Anytime M A R A, I'm afraid, is it Mara or Mara? I've had to go by. In this case, it's Mara.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  I have to interject. I have to.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  Please, come on.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Last week or two weeks ago, I met Mara twice in like one week.

• 46:50Speaker 03

  She's stunning.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  And she's incredible. I went to a dinner. Yeah, one of my events.

• 46:55Dax Shepard?

  Well, I guess right into a lot of events.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  But she was at two and she's the best. And we exchanged numbers. I told her the story of the show and she was like, I want to listen. What episode? So I was like sending her episodes. So hopefully she'll hear this.

• 47:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  So big shout out.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  Mara Brockakil, I'm gonna send it to her. I'm gonna send it to her.

• 47:12Dax Shepard?

  But that feels like a real blessing to land with that person as a potential mentor.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. And she has. She has been. She came to the Queen and Slim premiere, Gina Prince Bythwood, I want to shout out as well, who wrote and directed Love and Basketball. Mara got me a job working for her on Secret Life of Bees. Once I was done with Mara and then Gina got me a gig working for Ava DuVernay when she went to go direct her first film. So that's my trifecta of fairy godmothers in the business. And Gina just hit me like today, cause she got a chance to look. My play that I did in Baltimore and her Reggie Bythewood, her husband, who was also a big mentor of mine. They literally sent me a text today saying, hey, we love this play. It was very well done, really proud of you. And I was like, it's like my parents are telling me they're proud of me right now.

• 47:50Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so when you leave that show, is your first staff writing job on Bones or is it on the Nickelodeon show?

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Nickelodeon was first and then I got Bones. So I did the half hour multi cam and then I did the hour long procedural.

• 48:03Dax Shepard?

  And culturally going from.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  So different.

• 48:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And how did that go?

• 48:08Speaker 03

  I kind of struggled on the multi cam kids show thing because it's just sort of not my vibe.

• 48:13Dax Shepard?

  Watching a lot of that.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, but like I needed a job and the lead was a black girl and so they couldn't hire, shout to Izzy, I love him. He was like, all right, I'm gonna have you two black women split the check because he's like, otherwise I can only have one. I know that's sort of how it goes. Not his fault. I mean, it's just the way it goes. They did like the paper team situation. So me and another black female writer shared an office and we were on a writing team. Then I did like work for a bit, but I wrote the pilot of this. I had a table read for it.

• 48:36Dax Shepard?

  Did you sell to Nevins?

• 48:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 48:38Dax Shepard?

  I love.

• 48:39Speaker 03

  I love him so much. He's the best. I call him my Clive Davis. He was like, come on in. And he taught me a lot too. He said to me, whatever you don't get in your first season, you'll get in your second. Whatever you don't get in the second season, you'll get in your third. It was so great at breakfast and he just sort of gave me such.

• 48:52Dax Shepard?

  He bought the pilot in 15, but you didn't shoot it till 18?

• 48:55Speaker 03

  We shot two pilots of it. We did one pilot and he said, this could be better. And he was right and then we did it again. And then that was the one he greenlit.

• 49:02Dax Shepard?

  So two things, A, hard to hear that, B, what a champion to say, go get it right.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:07Dax Shepard?

  Right? Was it hard to hear it or did you know it as well? Or was he wrong?

• 49:12Speaker 03

  No, he was right. Ultimately, I can't have to give him that. I though didn't think the director we had for the first one was the right director for it. I will say that. And they were like, no, this is a big deal. By the way, don't need to say his name or whatever, but no need to disrespect anyone. Because he is very talented and amazing. I just didn't think he was right for what I was doing. And so then we did that and in essence, like Nevins was like, yeah, okay. We were both right. And so he said, let's go here. And we got Rick Fama Yua, who directed Dope, who directed The Wood. And he directed the pilot of our show, which is a big reason why I think it went. And we had a beautiful cast and Alex Hibbert, who came from Moonlight right over to our set. And obviously Jason Mitchell was coming off a straight out of Compton. And Ilana Ross and Jacob Lattimore, just the whole cast was really wonderful. And they sort of brought us into this space of, oh, okay, this is the show.

• 49:55Speaker 03

  I always wanted to be an ensemble piece, but they were like, no, you need a lead. And then, of course, season three, our lead was taken away due to some events. And then it became the show that I think I always intended it to be.

• 50:04Dax Shepard?

  Do you think this description is fair? I've read this many times where people say like, it's a hopeful version of The Wire. I mean, that is maybe the greatest show ever made, so it never hurts to be in the same sentence.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  More hopeful. You know, yeah, I definitely get the comparisons for sure. And I think The Wire did something that hadn't been done on television before. And I never feel like weird about comparisons or people mentioning things in the same sentence, because I think that's such an honor. And I think the shy really, for me, was the slice of life ensemble. I didn't want to necessarily go too deep into these different organizations or places or things like that, because I really wanted to have people in living rooms having conversations while people in living rooms are watching it and maybe be encouraged to have their own conversations. I'm a writer that I think leans into conversations.

• 50:50Dax Shepard?

  Wanting to start conversations.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  Not even wanting to start them, but wanting to have them. I love Matthew Lopez, phenomenal playwright, recently said to me, which, by the way, which he got from Mike Nichols, but he was saying that every conversation, there's like three categories. It's like it's a negotiation, it's a seduction, or it's a competition or something like that. And so I really kind of carried that, and I might be paraphrasing, but I really do love the art of a conversation.

• 51:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, conversing, for me, it's a very fun game. It's like the best game, and you can play it all day long.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 51:19Dax Shepard?

  I just love games, and I think talking to people is just this super fun game.

• 51:24Speaker 03

  Sometimes people like to be in combat in conversation, and I prefer to be in dialogue. I mean, you're saying something, I'm digesting it, I say something, you digest it, and we can kind of accept that.

• 51:38Dax Shepard?

  Mine would be opposite of combat. It would be, I say something. And it opens a door for you to say something even scarier, which opens a door for me to say something even scarier.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:49Dax Shepard?

  That to me is like the ratcheting up of it. Not like a conflict, more just like, I'm going here. Oh, fuck. Okay, I'll meet you there and then plus one.

• 51:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:58Dax Shepard?

  That's the fun game of it.

• 52:00Speaker 03

  I love that. I think, cause that's really how you get to be close. It's sort of saying, I want to say something scary. And that gives me permission to say something scary, too.

• 52:07Dax Shepard?

  So I think Master Nun is a very interesting and probably unexpected deviation.

• 52:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:13Dax Shepard?

  But ultimately has to be a wonderful thing to integrate into the overall thing.

• 52:18Speaker 03

  It would change my life.

• 52:19Dax Shepard?

  I learned the story today. I would have assumed you and Aziz were friends.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  And I know.

• 52:23Dax Shepard?

  And that the role was written for you.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  I know.

• 52:26Dax Shepard?

  But that is not at all what it was.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, not at all.

• 52:28Dax Shepard?

  It was written for a white woman that might become his love interest.

• 52:30Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:32Dax Shepard?

  So walk us through how.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  I don't want to do Aziz like, I don't know if it was a white woman. It was just supposed to be a straight woman.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Go on this show and tell us himself.

• 52:38Speaker 03

  Look, here's the truth. I don't know how likely that is, but get Brad Pitt, Aziz Ansari. I don't know. We'll see what happens.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  He's hard to get, this guy.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  Trust me. I know. I know. I love him. I love him. He's my brother. He doesn't like to talk. He doesn't want to talk to people. Like, that's just how he is. He talked to Amy, which was surprising.

• 52:54Dax Shepard?

  We've had maybe 15 text exchanges.

• 52:57Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 52:57Dax Shepard?

  And they're all about watches. I'm like, that's all we're gonna do, huh?

• 52:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, take it. It's more than what I'm supposed to get.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  When we first started this show, there was like a list of like eight people that we wanted.

• 53:06Speaker 03

  He'd be great, though. I'll bug him.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  And he's on there.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  Having me here doesn't hurt, cause now he'll be like, okay, all right, talk to me about it.

• 53:13Dax Shepard?

  She lived.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 53:15Dax Shepard?

  I think she lived. Let me call her first and make sure she lived.

• 53:18Speaker 03

  Talk to me about it.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  No, the Michael thing's really gonna throw him. He's like, I'm never going on there.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  I know, no, no. Oh, Jesus Christ. Again, I gotta give a shout out to Allison Jones.

• 53:26Dax Shepard?

  We had her on, by the way.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Friend of the pod.

• 53:28Speaker 03

  That's right. I did. I watched it.

• 53:30Dax Shepard?

  We love her.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  That's also a rare thing, cause she also doesn't talk to people.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  I know. That was lucky.

• 53:35Speaker 03

  She's like, I just discovered people.

• 53:36Dax Shepard?

  But you know, not cause she doesn't want to per se, she made it very clear. She was so flattered and no one ever cares about casting directors. She just didn't think anyone, she kept thinking, why are you interviewing us?

• 53:46Speaker 03

  Which is insane.

• 53:47Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it's insane, but it's very endearing.

• 53:49Speaker 03

  She's phenomenal. She literally saw something I Put out online, which I wasn't even in. It was a pilot presentation for a show ultimately did called twenties. I would put it out there because I wanted somebody to see it and go, okay, we could do this. And so then I got a call that she wanted to meet me. I didn't know who she was, but I went and sat with her and I walked by the poster for freaks and geeks and bridesmaids and Fresh Prince of Bel Air and I thought, oh.

• 54:09Dax Shepard?

  And she's like Lorne Michaels.

• 54:11Speaker 03

  Got it. Yeah. So I stood across from her and I just talked to her about television and she has such great taste in everything. And I talked about Maude and watching that and watching Golden Girls.

• 54:20Dax Shepard?

  Are you pretty encyclopedic with TV stuff?

• 54:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I worked at Blockbuster for a while.

• 54:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. And Best Buy and movie theater.

• 54:27Speaker 03

  Yes, in the movie theater.

• 54:28Dax Shepard?

  You did your homework.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  I do. I know all my stuff. So we were just like talking about the most randomest like things and she just kind of goes, have you ever considered acting? And I said, I have not. She said, okay. So can I bring you in for some stuff just for like, you know, shits and giggles? And I was like, sure. And she did. She brought me in for Veep and I wasn't able to really handle that because Julia Louis-Dreyfus was like in front of me. And so I wasn't expecting that. So I just like completely.

• 54:47Dax Shepard?

  You gotta be a fucking gunslinger to be on.

• 54:51Dax Shepard?

  That's not a great starter acting job.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  But then she did bring me in for a tape and I got to come back, which was cool. And then I got a call that said, can you just go meet with Aziz?

• 55:01Dax Shepard?

  Wait, really quick, can I ask?

• 55:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:03Dax Shepard?

  At that time, were you like extra money or were you like, I want to act. I have a desired act.

• 55:09Speaker 03

  No, I just really trusted her instincts. I didn't think that that was something that was in the cards for me though. I'm a writer. That's what I do. So because Aziz and her, she was obviously brought on to do the show. It didn't even have a title. It took forever for us to get the title of the damn show. Untitled Aziz and Sorry Project, because y'all know how that goes. But obviously I was a fan of Parks and Rec and then knew his comedy. But I got a call that was from her office and says, want you to go meet with Aziz? And I was like, why is it casting people calling me? What's about the staffing?

• 55:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 55:35Speaker 03

  I don't know, but go meet with Aziz and Alan Yang. And obviously I knew Alan Yang's name as well. And so I thought, okay, all right, I'll go sit with them. But it's from Allison's office. So this is strange. And they were like, I know, just go to his house and sit and talk to him. And so I later found out that Aziz told her that he didn't want just people to come in and read with him. He wanted to meet people first and see if they were interesting and then read. So he just said to her, send me interesting people. And by the grace of God, she and I just met. She said, oh, Lena Waithe is interesting. You should meet her. He was like, okay, I don't know who that is, but send it to the house. So I went to his house and sat with him and Alan, not unlike this, literally kind of almost similar. The furniture and everything. And I just sort of talked to them like I would if it was a staff writing meeting, but it clearly wasn't. And I just was like myself, I'd recently fallen in love. I was just being myself, comfortable with my own skin.

• 56:20Speaker 03

  And then I got the call, okay, he wants you to read with him. And I was like, oh, okay. So he thought I was interesting. So I came in, sat down, read with him, and it was just instant. Then I came in to test for it. The casting couch, it was a very straight white woman sitting next to me. And she's like, are you going in for Denise? And I was like, yeah, are you going in for Denise? She was like, yeah, she's like, it's funny, we get bummed at each other all the time. And I was like, right, yeah, this is weird.

• 56:41Dax Shepard?

  By the way, it's so much better.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:43Dax Shepard?

  It's way better. None of the ones where you sit down is like, yeah, I'm kind of the same, but way less good looking than this guy.

• 56:49Speaker 03

  You're like different variations of each other.

• 56:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  And so to me, who I looked at, it was Alan and Michael Schur too, who was our parent on that. It was basically them saying, this is the NBC 1994 version of this show. This woman we're bringing in. Of course, when I come in, it's like, this is where shit is going. Like, this is what it is. And so I totally get what they were doing. And so obviously when I went in, I had a cold too. And when I went in, I was like, oh, I told Michael Schur, this is my flu game. I'm gonna talk right around this, man. Cause I was like, let's go. Cause I could just feel something was interesting. And of course, after I read and tested, Aziz was like, come on, come in.

• 57:18Dax Shepard?

  And were you encouraged to be loose in improv in that audition?

• 57:22Speaker 03

  A little bit.

• 57:22Dax Shepard?

  Cause again, if I'm going from, okay, we had this one archetype.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 57:25Dax Shepard?

  But we're trying this other thing out. Let's see all the flavors. Like, I would wanna know.

• 57:30Speaker 03

  They knew I was a writer and they were like, you know, but I also didn't come in there. I didn't wanna blend the two. So the season one, I didn't write anything.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  Me and Aziz would have conversations where he would take little things from there and put it in there. But then season two, it's success. He was like, okay, I wanna do a Denise centered episode. And I was in season two a lot less because I had gotten ready Player One. And that was a very interesting, tricky thing, because it was like classic. Like, we got a season two, and now you say you wanna go do the Spielberg movie, only be in it for a couple of episodes. And I was like, yeah, I was like, but this is an opportunity. I'll give you a great episode, just talking shit.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:00Speaker 03

  I was like, I'll give you a great episode, it'll be fine, man. Don't worry about it. Like, I gotta go do this movie. And he's all like, oh, God, classics. And so sure enough, he came to London where I was filming, so he and I could write the episode.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  Cause I actually told him, I said, I can't write that episode with you. I said, cause I gotta focus on this movie. I like how many I'm telling you to get to be in a fucking Steven Spielberg movie. I gotta show up. He was like, if you don't write it with me, it's not happening.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Uh huh. Good for him.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  And so I was like, fine.

• 58:22Dax Shepard?

  And I won an Emmy.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  Yes, it did.

• 58:24Dax Shepard?

  You won an Emmy for that.

• 58:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, we became the first black woman to win for outstanding writing in a comedy series.

• 58:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  So great.

• 58:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:30Dax Shepard?

  And did you love acting?

• 58:31Speaker 03

  It took some getting used to because he did want me to be myself.

• 58:35Dax Shepard?

  And you're in New York City.

• 58:37Speaker 03

  I was in New York City, baby. Going to restaurants with him.

• 58:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 58:40Speaker 03

  Does he, I mean, he's like, show me a really, he's like, he's a reason I know how to like eat oysters and like caviar, this kind of stuff. Cause he's such an old school gentleman type guy.

• 58:47Dax Shepard?

  He knows every restaurant. And I'm like, okay, this is all fascinating.

• 58:51Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 58:52Dax Shepard?

  What a tour guide to New York he must have been.

• 58:54Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. I mean, and even in London, too.

• 58:56Dax Shepard?

  I watched the show and I'm like, I want to spend a week with him and fucking meet him at Corners and eat shit.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  I know.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Shopping, eating.

• 59:03Dax Shepard?

  Look at girls and eat shit. Let's go.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  No, it was fantastic. I remember we used to go see Moonlight together. And Barry Jacobs was doing a Q and A after and it was just like crazy. And then we were, cause we knew we had Thanksgiving coming up. And so we were like, oh, this is crazy. He's someone that is a big part of not just my career, but I think just my evolution as an artist and as a person in the world. And I'm really grateful for his existence because my career wouldn't look the way it does if it weren't for him. And Allison Jones and Alan Yang and Michael Schur and Netflix, those guys over there. It's just such a big part of my career.

• 59:37Dax Shepard?

  Now, what did you have to learn to run The Shy?

• 59:42Speaker 03

  I'd never run it. I'm not a showrunner.

• 59:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you've never run it?

• 59:45Speaker 03

  I did the showrunner training program with the WGA and I realized, yeah, someone said, getting your own TV show is like being beaten to death with your own dream. And nothing is truer than that.

• 59:54Dax Shepard?

  I always say the hardest core motherfuckers in all of show business are showrunners.

• 59:58Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:59Dax Shepard?

  You have to give it to them.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  That's why I don't do it. Cause they're doing budgets, they're dealing with actors, they're dealing with execs.

• 1:00:03Dax Shepard?

  They're the edit. They do every single piece of it.

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  The way I get to sit here, you know, shout out to Jewel and Justin who co-showrun it together. I do think it's a two-person job. I get to be the creator, you know what I'm saying? And I get to like give notes and things like that.

• 1:00:15Dax Shepard?

  You were in the writer's room, I imagine?

• 1:00:17Speaker 03

  I wasn't in the writer's room for season one and season two. And those were rocky times because I was a, a young buck. Like I was thirty, thirty-one. That's young to be a show creator. They have showrunners they put you with who are older and wiser. But at the same time, I'm doing something new and you're holding on to something old.

• 1:00:33Dax Shepard?

  That's the inherent tension in all these situations.

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  Always.

• 1:00:36Dax Shepard?

  Is I'm trying to do something new, but you know how to do it.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:00:39Dax Shepard?

  Both of you are right.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  Yes, correct. But we're fighting, but you can't get the green light until they're like, well, we approved this guy to come oversee.

• 1:00:45Dax Shepard?

  If they spend a hundred million dollars on something, they want someone that has done it many times successfully.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  I lightly called Michael Scharr our parent on, you know, Master of None because you need that person that's gonna kind of watch. Okay, all right. What are y'all doing? Okay, what's happening? Okay, you wanna do what? That's the nature of the beast. And I think people that watch television don't always think about all those things. Or sometimes you have a whole episode and this actor got sick or this actor got a movie. Okay, you go here, we gotta rewrite this and that changes that storyline. But we'll figure it out. These two actors who we wanted to be a couple don't really have great chemistry. Okay, so we'll go over here. It's like all these different things.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  It's logistics.

• 1:01:13Speaker 03

  Yes, it's logistics. It's like, it's also a workplace. It's like, everybody don't always get along.

• 1:01:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you're doing a lot of.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Therapy for people in HR.

• 1:01:22Speaker 03

  Exactly. Okay, HR dealt with that. So it's just like, okay, it's eight seasons. I was like, yo, I'm going May eighth is we're gonna be in Chicago, last day of filming. We're gonna do the whole thing and go promote it in New York.

• 1:01:32Dax Shepard?

  Now, explain this to me. So seasons one through five, ten episodes. Season six, sixteen episodes.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  They did that. They asked us for more, yeah.

• 1:01:41Dax Shepard?

  Season seven.

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  Twelve.

• 1:01:42Dax Shepard?

  Twelve.

• 1:01:43Speaker 03

  And eight, I asked us to go back to ten.

• 1:01:45Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so for our last season.

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  Gonna be ten, baby.

• 1:01:48Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:49Dax Shepard?

  Unconven- by the way, Parenthood, which I was on for six years, we never did a season of the same number, same thing. We did thirteen, we did twenty-one, we did eighteen, we did fourteen.

• 1:01:57Speaker 03

  Was that because of the streamer or the network?

• 1:01:59Dax Shepard?

  It was the network. It was like they would never kind of commit to us. We were always on the bubble all six years. And it was like, this year's like, good news, sixteen. We're like, what fucking, what number is that? You're either doing thirteen or you're doing twenty-two at that time. We're gonna do sixteen and then one year we're gonna do, they tell us midway through, I don't know, it was very confusing.

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  When we, they told us they wanted sixteen episodes, we'd already had our ten-episode pitch. So we had to go to them and say, well, you gotta give us a few more weeks to figure out what that is. And they were, okay, but it's good news. They want more episodes. And it's like, I had a new guy had come over and he wanted more episodes because it was doing well. But we had never told a story that way. Before.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  People are really like, you're being told, you're like, okay, so we're gonna do sixteen, got it? And then seven, oh, you're doing twelve, okay? And that's why they say, yo, eight, I gotta, this'll be ten, okay, cool.

• 1:02:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Do you have the pride of having a show that went eight seasons?

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  This is like, you're in the thinest of air.

• 1:02:48Speaker 03

  I know, there's a lot of gratitude, but also knowing that when we came on at that time, it was a different world. Eight years ago?

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  Things were very different.

• 1:02:57Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:57Speaker 03

  Very different, even more, slightly more than eight, because we did the first pilot, then we did the second one.

• 1:03:02Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:03:02Speaker 03

  So, we had a mini room, and then this and that.

• 1:03:04Dax Shepard?

  You mean, you sold the pitch in two thousand fifteen?

• 1:03:06Speaker 03

  Correct, yeah.

• 1:03:06Dax Shepard?

  So, you've been doing this for eleven years.

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  Exactly, you've only seen eight seasons, but, you know, it's a pilot, they'll never see the light of day. There's things that I've lived through that have really made me the artist I am now, and maybe someone that can really see things from a lot of different angles.

• 1:03:19Dax Shepard?

  In two thousand eighteen, you became the voice of AT&T, and I'm wondering what your tagline is, can you say it? I wanna hear it.

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:03:26Dax Shepard?

  I made Billy Crewed up do the Visa commercial, Priceless, Mastercard, I made him do it to Monica.

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  Get, hold on, this is how you know.

• 1:03:33Dax Shepard?

  I wrote one to fuck with Monica, that he had to write.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Mastercard was fantastic.

• 1:03:37Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  He did a cold read, it was perfect.

• 1:03:40Speaker 03

  What is, what was my main, because it was like, what was my main tagline? I'm forgetting it.

• 1:03:45Dax Shepard?

  I had better at AT&T.

• 1:03:47Speaker 04

  Just okay is not okay?

• 1:03:49Speaker 03

  Just okay is not okay.

• 1:03:51Dax Shepard?

  Is that it? Does that feel familiar?

• 1:03:52Speaker 03

  It was that, but it was something else, too. It was something else.

• 1:03:55Dax Shepard?

  How many years did you do that?

• 1:03:57Speaker 03

  Oh, I did that for a few years, like, maybe like, three?

• 1:04:00Dax Shepard?

  That's the best job in Hollywood, no?

• 1:04:02Speaker 03

  It was the best, and I could do it at the crib, too.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Dax Shepard?

  And the pay is nice.

• 1:04:06Speaker 03

  It's lovely.

• 1:04:07Dax Shepard?

  It's like, nice payday.

• 1:04:09Speaker 03

  Yes, it is.

• 1:04:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, from minimal work.

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  V O situation.

• 1:04:11Dax Shepard?

  If you looked at your career and you charted your hourly rate, there would just be this huge spike, and it'd be your AT&T.

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  It's right there, it's right there, and people would recognize me from my voice.

• 1:04:21Dax Shepard?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:04:21Speaker 03

  Speaking of the voice thing, yeah.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:23Speaker 03

  They knew, they're like, hmm, your voice sounds familiar.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Oh, maybe Delta's like, gonna have a huge campaign.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  No, she will. She will, she will, I'm speaking of.

• 1:04:32Dax Shepard?

  She's the kid who, you know, I'm certain to be wrong, what I love is she loves writing more than anything. She writes compulsively. We just had the conversation last night, you would love. I imagine if you can imagine having a kid, this would be the ultimate conversation you could ever have, right? She wants to win. There's like a writing competition at school to write basically the closing statement of elementary. And so all the kids are writing something she really wants to get picked and to be able to read it on stage. She wrote it and then she read it to Kristen and Kristen said, it's really good, but I think in you're better off speaking to your dad about this, but I'm not sure that it's you. And so she came upstairs and she's like, mom said this, I'm gonna read it to me.

• 1:05:14Dax Shepard?

  And I got to have this conversation with her and I said, the challenge as a writer is to never write for anybody but you. And it's so hard.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 1:05:24Dax Shepard?

  I said, so you could choose to write this to try to win a contest, or you could choose to write the story that you would tell your best friend Inka about your experience at CWC. What would you say about your experience to Inka? Your best friend? And she was like, I get that. Okay, I get that. And I was like, this is like the dream of all dreams. Have a conversation like that with my daughter about what it means to find your voice as an artist. Oh.

• 1:05:47Speaker 03

  That's good.

• 1:05:48Dax Shepard?

  I was just floating on a cloud, this whole conversation. It was so fun.

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  You know, it's interesting because I am childless by choice. And it's when we talked about this a little bit, like if you remember that, I'm still in that camp. It's so fascinating because there's so many things that I think about in terms of like, why I don't want to be a parent. A lot of it's because you have to have a sort of mental capacity for that. At the end of a day, what's interesting is you have the capacity to sit and like, hear it, give the note, you go hear the rewrite. You're gonna maybe be there if she wins, you know? It's gonna be, it's a lot of, you know, if she doesn't get it, then there's also that, you know, emotional showing up that you'll do.

• 1:06:29Dax Shepard?

  The most likely thing is if she succeeds at writing the thing she'd really tell her friend Inka, it's not gonna get picked.

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  Oh, well, who knows? We don't know that.

• 1:06:36Dax Shepard?

  We don't know. But at this age, at this age, in that context, it probably won't be rewarded originality and true voice.

• 1:06:43Speaker 03

  But that's also a little lesson you got to give.

• 1:06:45Dax Shepard?

  Well, I told her, I said, look, hon.

• 1:06:47Speaker 03

  Okay. You set her up.

• 1:06:49Dax Shepard?

  No, I told, well, luckily I got my own story to her. It's like, I've always written what I wanted and it didn't work. It didn't always work.

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  Well.

• 1:06:56Dax Shepard?

  I wanted a Car chase movie. That was a love story. Nobody wants that. I wanted that and it didn't work, but I kept doing it. And one day, the podcast happened. It took so many years of me being truthful to that. Sometimes it takes a while, but you will have the pride of having always told the story you wanted to tell. And that is invaluable and worth more than any amount of money you could have made.

• 1:07:17Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Where I do that, because I have this mentorship program where there's writers, there's actors, there's people who want to be execs. And I get on Zooms with them once a month and they can ask me whatever they want. We have these lovely private conversations. And I think that's where I realized, oh, that's where I can show up and like be real. Because also there's that element too of being supportive and encouraging, but also being grounded and being realistic. And I think that is the path you're walking with your kid. Maybe for me as a mentor, which I've become and I try to do that, it's still a responsibility. You know, but I think you're doing, I always say, parents are doing God's work because it's a different kind of responsibility that you have. This is a person that is a reflection of you, but also you want to make sure that they're on a carbon copy of you.

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it's like, you gotta give her guidance, but also make sure she has a space to become more of herself.

• 1:08:08Dax Shepard?

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• 1:12:16Dax Shepard?

  The thing you fight the most as a parent constantly is they are their own thing. It's all you're doing. Like, you're trying your hardest.

• 1:12:23Speaker 03

  But think about how many parents don't do that. There are so many parents whose children are really doing the thing that parents want them to do.

• 1:12:31Dax Shepard?

  It's very natural and gratifying to see yourself in other things. We search for that, and that's how we bond, and it's great. Invariably, you do that. You see all these things that are similar to yourself in it, and it's very gratifying. But then you have to go like, and that's 10% of them. I might miss the other 90% that's not like me at all, because I'm not looking for it.

• 1:12:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:52Dax Shepard?

  You gotta remind yourself to constantly look for it. Back to the baby thing. So what happened to me was, A, I've always wanted kids, so that's standard. But also, I had a friend who had a daughter who I just fell in love with. I'd take her trick or treat, and she'd ride on my shoulders, and I just constantly was like, if I don't get a Madeline before I die, I'm gonna...

• 1:13:11Speaker 03

  You're built for it.

• 1:13:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm built for it. But Delta fuck you up a little bit?

• 1:13:16Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. No, that's not the problem. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because then I'll meet kids, and I'm like, oh, could my kid be cool and chill? Yeah, of course they will. But then the tricky part is, though, they gonna have moments of not being... Chill, not being cool, like upset. It's just a lot going on.

• 1:13:32Dax Shepard?

  There is a lot.

• 1:13:32Speaker 03

  You know, I'm just like, how much do I have? Like, I got responsibility for myself, my community, my work.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  And you feel fulfilled.

• 1:13:40Speaker 03

  I do, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  I'm whole.

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  Yes. And I do think it can be very societal. I think sometimes people say, oh, why'd you want to have kids? Oh, you know, on that age, I couldn't finally afford it, or it's that time. Although now, every other week, there's an article in the New York Times about people can't afford to have the children now. So they're deciding not to for certain reasons, or people don't like the world they may be bringing them into. But for me, it's more of an internal thing about what do I actually have the mental capacity for? What I also think about is at the end of a long day, what do I want to do with myself? And I think the first thing is to not take care of someone else.

• 1:14:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, that's fair.

• 1:14:15Speaker 03

  Because it's a different kind of thing that you're doing. Because also, anything could happen with kids. Like, they fall, break something. They sick.

• 1:14:21Dax Shepard?

  Can I hit you with something?

• 1:14:22Speaker 03

  Go ahead.

• 1:14:23Dax Shepard?

  Now I'm trying to convince you to.

• 1:14:24Speaker 03

  No, no, no, go for it.

• 1:14:25Dax Shepard?

  But I'm just, I just want to point out a lot of these counterintuitive things.

• 1:14:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:28Dax Shepard?

  You might be shocked to learn, or find out, or experience that taking care of them is taking care of yourself in a way that was unimaginable.

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 1:14:38Dax Shepard?

  The amount of healing and perspective that's happening in those moments, and the right sizing of all of your concerns, and all these existential things you have, and the racket in your head, and the things that are important. Like, somehow it can alleviate all of those things. It's like, you think you're going to be overwhelmed, but weirdly, it prioritizes things in this way. Oh, this is weirdly nurturing to me, and has, yeah, just prioritized things in a very clean and lovely. Like, here's what I miss about being an addict. The beauty of being an addict is you have a single goal. I'm telling you, it's a liberating fucking thing. It's like, I have one mission today. Do not fall off of this high. That's so peaceful.

• 1:15:21Speaker 03

  Is it difficult for you to watch stuff like Euphoria, or like any of those things?

• 1:15:24Dax Shepard?

  I love it.

• 1:15:25Speaker 03

  So you can watch?

• 1:15:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love it. Yeah, yeah. Because I know, it's not like I just see it, I'm like, oh, I've been in that room. I know this thing. Yeah, I love it.

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  Got you.

• 1:15:35Dax Shepard?

  Some addicts can't watch that shit.

• 1:15:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, yeah, but I hear you because I love Jada Pinkett calls her children her teachers. She says, they teach me things about herself, life, all that kind of stuff. And I thought that was a really interesting way of looking at parenthood. Because obviously you're thinking this the other way around. But I think for me, I am taught something by human beings every single day. And that's why I feel like I don't need to produce one or have somebody produce one. Because it really is a writer's job to be a witness, to really look at human behavior and try to understand it and accept things about it that don't make sense to us sometimes. Because when I look at society, it's easy to get frustrated, but rather I say, why are we behaving this way? Because it's not out of sheer desire for destruction.

• 1:16:20Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:16:20Speaker 03

  It's out of the sheer desire to be seen, to be loved, to be a part of something. And so I think, yeah, I may not be a parent and I don't have a desire to be. But I think what I do have a desire to do is to understand humanity and have empathy for us and be able to reflect us back to ourselves so that way we could better understand ourselves.

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  I mean, Chelsea Handler says this so perfectly all the time. She's like, I don't have kids, so I have the capacity to give to all these other kids.

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, a lot of my friends have kids.

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and just like she gives all these charities. She's just like, I have space. If I had a kid, I could not feasibly do all of that.

• 1:17:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I will say my friend Malina Masukas, who has a little one who's like her son, who's not yet one. And he is in that space of when I come over there, I can just like hold him. And I was over there holding him and she's like, you come over here to get your baby fixed. That's the problem. And I was like, what? No, no. Because when I hand him back, when I'm sitting there also low key getting tired, he's getting heavy as hell.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  He's heavy, she noticed. I'm like, girl, this is not normal, girl. What is happening? What's in the breast milk? She's like, I know, child. But as I give him back, because I'm like, yo, I'm exhausted before I leave. And she's just like, this is you give him back over here? I was like, yeah, I want to give him back. I want to give Rockham back.

• 1:17:39Dax Shepard?

  We had a terrifying moment when Kristen was probably like six months pregnant. We went out to eat with our friends, the Hanson's, and they already had two little kids. And we were at Bob's Big Boys trying to have dinner. Impossible. It was not possible to have dinner with these kids there.

• 1:17:51Speaker 03

  And so you guys were like, look what we're about to do.

• 1:17:53Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Lord, we can't go to Bob's Big Boys anymore. Like, that's a wrap on going out to fucking eat a hamburger?

• 1:18:00Speaker 03

  Y'all don't want to leave the house, though. Let's keep it honest.

• 1:18:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, now we have an excuse. So you got that built in excuse. That's nice.

• 1:18:07Speaker 03

  That's other thing. Parents don't be going nowhere.

• 1:18:10Dax Shepard?

  Anytime I don't want to go somewhere, there's a play that night.

• 1:18:13Speaker 03

  Oh, look, see, look, I'm here. I go out. I go out a little bit.

• 1:18:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17Speaker 03

  I'm outside a little bit, just a little bit.

• 1:18:19Dax Shepard?

  You're social. You've been since elementary. Problem.

• 1:18:22Speaker 03

  I've been social.

• 1:18:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's your life. It's your life force.

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  You're social too.

• 1:18:25Dax Shepard?

  I am.

• 1:18:26Speaker 03

  You're social too.

• 1:18:27Dax Shepard?

  Drives my wife crazy.

• 1:18:30Dax Shepard?

  Like, how many people do you need to talk to? I'm like, everyone, hopefully. I think there's like seven billion left I have to talk to.

• 1:18:37Speaker 03

  It's like, it's your job. It's your job.

• 1:18:39Dax Shepard?

  She always says the greatest gift about this show is that like, I do get to talk myself out enough.

• 1:18:45Speaker 03

  So that way we can go home.

• 1:18:46Dax Shepard?

  At night. Yeah, yeah. The load's not all on her shoulders.

• 1:18:51Speaker 03

  I love you guys. I love you guys together. I'm not Team Cher. What happened? I'm not, I'm not. I'm like, guys, no. I say, internet, what are you doing?

• 1:18:59Dax Shepard?

  Can I tell you my conclusion? I think it's a good one.

• 1:19:01Speaker 03

  Oh, God, yeah.

• 1:19:02Dax Shepard?

  That's all we got asked about when we got nominated this year. But I think my final conclusion is the best way for me to digest that is nobody's good enough for her.

• 1:19:11Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:19:13Dax Shepard?

  And I love that. And that's true. But I'm the next best thing.

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  That's right, brother.

• 1:19:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're killing it. You're killing it.

• 1:19:19Dax Shepard?

  That's the message. The message is in against me.

• 1:19:21Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:19:22Dax Shepard?

  It's nobody's good enough for her. And I love that. I'm glad that's how she feels about her. And I'm glad that's how America feels about her.

• 1:19:29Speaker 03

  This is real. This is real.

• 1:19:31Dax Shepard?

  I can live with that.

• 1:19:31Speaker 03

  But to me, I just love what you two represent, which is.

• 1:19:37Dax Shepard?

  1950s.

• 1:19:42Speaker 03

  Old school. No, but I think sometimes people have an idea of who they're supposed to be with. That idea is never as good as who they're actually supposed to be with.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  She said I was supposed to marry like head of UNICEF.

• 1:19:55Dax Shepard?

  She was supposed to marry Mike Scher.

• 1:19:56Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:19:58Dax Shepard?

  You know, a good boy.

• 1:19:59Speaker 03

  Mike's pretty successful.

• 1:20:00Dax Shepard?

  Well, and he's just a good human being.

• 1:20:02Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:20:03Dax Shepard?

  He wakes up thinking how he can help other people. I don't. I wake up thinking about speedboats.

• 1:20:07Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:20:07Dax Shepard?

  I'm like, should I order a Donzy or buy a used one?

• 1:20:10Speaker 03

  No, but you also type of person that said, I gotta get a Madeline before I die.

• 1:20:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, that's true.

• 1:20:15Speaker 03

  That's real.

• 1:20:15Dax Shepard?

  I do want to ask one thing, and you can say no.

• 1:20:17Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:20:18Dax Shepard?

  But you were with someone for a couple of years.

• 1:20:19Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:20:20Dax Shepard?

  And then you got married, and it only lasted a couple of months.

• 1:20:22Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:20:23Dax Shepard?

  And I'm dying to know if something about the title fucked everyone up or you up personally.

• 1:20:30Speaker 03

  It wasn't the title, no.

• 1:20:32Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:20:32Speaker 03

  It was me.

• 1:20:35Speaker 03

  Also feeling like even though I'm not as happy as I should be, I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And I just didn't have the language or understanding of that. My happiness didn't feel like it was important. I think what was most important was that I honor this relationship.

• 1:20:56Dax Shepard?

  Keep this thing going, whether you're enjoying it or not.

• 1:20:59Speaker 03

  Because of how much it's changed my life and how grateful I am for it. And how amazing this human is. And I don't want to say happiness, I don't want to be frivolous about that. Like, I think we wanted different things. One of the things is like, I actually realized I didn't want to have children. And that's a pretty big life change.

• 1:21:13Dax Shepard?

  It's huge.

• 1:21:13Speaker 03

  But at that time, I just thought, I just kept putting it off. And so that wasn't me lying. It was me still trying to understand what I wanted and who I wanted to be. And I think that's why, for me, it's really important having this perspective, stepping back. It's like, we have to really ask ourselves whose life we want to... Because a marriage and a relationship is the blending of two lives, truly. And so you have to really ask yourself, what life do I actually want? And I don't think I was very clear about that. All I knew was I want to be with this person. I want to have this house. I want to have this dog. I want to have this mural. But then I didn't ask myself, but like, where do you want to be in five years? Like, really?

• 1:21:49Dax Shepard?

  And in its best version, it's like, I wanted this life. This person wanted this life. And then magically, when we get together, the two of us get a life that neither of us even thought of.

• 1:21:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:21:59Dax Shepard?

  And that's like, maybe the greatest thing that can happen.

• 1:22:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, or you could say, yo, we have impacted each other's lives in such a significant way. And now this might be where we give each other room to go and have lives that make sense for both of us. Yeah, that's brave. That's hard to do. Yeah, but I didn't do it in a way that was noble, that was honest, that was kind. It was done in a way that felt like a car crash. And that's because I just sort of like, was driving the car too fast, not knowing the gear, and just sort of going. And that doesn't remove accountability from my behavior.

• 1:22:35Dax Shepard?

  It's hard to exit these things elegantly. Very few people.

• 1:22:38Speaker 03

  I wish I could have, you know, landed the plane better. You know what I mean? But I think ultimately, and again, it's about giving yourself... Grace and kind of looking back at it and go, oh, you could have handled that much better. You could have dealt with that in a different way. But what I do also understand, accept is that I'm where I'm supposed to be. I know she's where she's supposed to be and I don't have any ill will toward anyone. I think the will is toward myself.

• 1:22:59Dax Shepard?

  That's, I think for me, the greatest feeling is I was with a woman for nine years. I still love her to death. We're friends and her life turned out so fucking good.

• 1:23:08Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 1:23:09Dax Shepard?

  And I'm like, oh, yes.

• 1:23:11Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. This person's life is like ten thousand better.

• 1:23:13Dax Shepard?

  That's where it could kill you. If you crashed the car and the person's fucked up, that's hard to live with. But if like you can look back and like, oh, good. She's so happy. She has the perfect husband and the perfect kids and fucking.

• 1:23:26Speaker 03

  So happy. And that to me is how you know you really love somebody is that when you want them to be happy and happier without you.

• 1:23:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:35Speaker 03

  Cause I don't know if that happiness would have ensued if I would have stayed there. To me, removing myself, I think was actually the right thing to do because I wouldn't have been able to deliver the life that I think she would have wanted.

• 1:23:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. What are you most excited to do? You've done so many things. You have created many, many shows. You have them on Amazon. Obviously, we have.

• 1:23:54Speaker 03

  The shy.

• 1:23:54Dax Shepard?

  The shy.

• 1:23:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, wrapping up.

• 1:23:56Dax Shepard?

  May 22nd.

• 1:23:57Speaker 03

  Coming out, May 22nd, Paramount Plus, last season of Shy says goodbye.

• 1:24:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay, Shy says goodbye.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Eight seasons.

• 1:24:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. What are you dying to do? You're also a producer on Cats, which has got nominated.

• 1:24:08Speaker 03

  Jellicle Ball, myself, Cynthia Erivo, Jeremy Pope, La Roche, John Legend.

• 1:24:13Dax Shepard?

  Dominated today for.

• 1:24:15Speaker 03

  For nine nominations.

• 1:24:16Dax Shepard?

  Nine nominations.

• 1:24:17Speaker 03

  One of the ones, thank you so much. One of the ones I'm in there is for best revival of a musical.

• 1:24:21Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:22Dax Shepard?

  Now, let me ask you, were you a fan of Cats?

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:24:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the whole time I'm like, what's going on?

• 1:24:28Speaker 03

  And then I went to go see this version where it's told through queer, black ball culture.

• 1:24:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:24:35Speaker 03

  Which really makes so much sense. It lends itself to this world so well. It's almost like it was meant for this world.

• 1:24:39Dax Shepard?

  Couldn't agree more.

• 1:24:40Speaker 03

  It's phenomenal. It was perfect.

• 1:24:41Dax Shepard?

  That world would have made sense in the ball world and almost nowhere else.

• 1:24:44Speaker 03

  Exactly. Paris is Burning. I highly recommend everybody check out. Also, you know, Cartier and Collection, Jenny Livingston, phenomenal documentary, changed my life as well.

• 1:24:52Dax Shepard?

  What's that about?

• 1:24:53Speaker 03

  That's about the ball culture. Made a documentary about it when she was coming out of NYU. And it just is a movie that has been such an archival of our queer black ancestors and what they were doing at the time and the things that they were saying. But also speaks to reality of the time, what was going on. So obviously love that. And then I went to go see this show at PACC, which is where it started, and I was blown away by it. And then I wanted to be a part of it and they were kind enough to let me join the team and came over to Broadway and here we are. Really special.

• 1:25:21Dax Shepard?

  Do you want to do another show next or do you want to do a movie? Or do you want to do more AT&T commercials?

• 1:25:27Speaker 03

  I'm doing a movie, writing a movie now, was an adaptation of a short story called Grand Rising, which is something that you guys, if I say that, you kind of go like, huh, I don't know what it is. It's a different way that sometimes black folks and certain groups say good morning. Instead of good morning, they say grand rising. Grand rising is something that sometimes I feel like a little more enlightened, you sort of say that.

• 1:25:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:46Speaker 03

  So I just wrote this amazing short story. I read it, loved it. I raised my hand to see if I could possibly come on and adapt it. They were kind enough to trust me with that. Fox Searchlight is doing it. We're not telling much about what the movie is, because I think that's the new thing now, be a little bit mysterious about the storyline. Let folks come, experience it for themselves and see what it is. But I'm working on that right now, a couple of TV show ideas, maybe want to play with like, what it is to be in your 40s, so stay tuned. And then, yeah, theater, theater, theater. That's what I care so much about, just because I think with everything happening with the streamers and people not really wanting to go pay, go see the movies. Live entertainment is something that we can't deny. And it's like Station 11. It's like they're going around town, performing Shakespeare for the people, for entertainment.

• 1:26:26Speaker 03

  Because when all of this stuff shuts down, what do you have is people that can interpret words on a page and inspire you and move you. I think it's why Hamlet hit us all. Shakespeare sort of wrote about the most difficult thing he ever had to experience and we just know it to be one of his great works. But to see that movie and to see how that story was happening in real time, obviously the way they were showing it, just reminds me that this is how we actually like to be communicated with.

• 1:26:54Dax Shepard?

  I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen it yet.

• 1:26:55Speaker 03

  It's okay, don't worry about it.

• 1:26:56Dax Shepard?

  I have kids, isn't there just?

• 1:26:58Speaker 03

  That's another truth. It's okay, she didn't see F1 when Brad came. She was like, I don't.

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  Wasn't you know why I was editing this show? I couldn't make it.

• 1:27:09Speaker 03

  Like Brad, I haven't seen the movie.

• 1:27:11Dax Shepard?

  I hear it.

• 1:27:11Speaker 03

  Go ahead. I hear it's fine. I hear it's fine.

• 1:27:14Dax Shepard?

  I heard you're fine. I heard you look fine.

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  I can see that you are fine.

• 1:27:19Speaker 03

  I ain't look good in it. Nah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So theater's my shit.

• 1:27:24Dax Shepard?

  Lena, I just, I adore you. I really, really, really like you.

• 1:27:26Speaker 03

  That feeling is mutual.

• 1:27:27Dax Shepard?

  I really, really like you. I'm so glad I got to spend a couple hours with you that day. And my heart swells when I think of you and I'm really glad you came. And I want everyone to watch the final season of The Shy. May 22nd on Paramount Plus. Go see Cats.

• 1:27:41Speaker 03

  Yes, please.

• 1:27:41Dax Shepard?

  Watch them.

• 1:27:43Speaker 03

  I was a part of season one of Them Covenant. Season two I wasn't, but I think both seasons are really strong.

• 1:27:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:27:47Speaker 01

  Also Tonys, we're putting out good vibes.

• 1:27:49Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 1:27:50Dax Shepard?

  Win all the Tonys.

• 1:27:51Speaker 03

  Come on, Tonys.

• 1:27:52Dax Shepard?

  The Anthony's, as I call them. Get you a couple Anthony's.

• 1:27:55Speaker 03

  Anthony's.

• 1:27:57Dax Shepard?

  Let's get that EGOT going.

• 1:27:58Speaker 03

  Look, come on, let's go. I know. God damn it, we gonna see what happens.

• 1:28:01Dax Shepard?

  All right, be well. Thanks for coming.

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:28:03Dax Shepard?

  Cute shoes, by the way.

• 1:28:04Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 1:28:07Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  What's up?

• 1:28:16Dax Shepard?

  What it is.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  What is up?

• 1:28:19Dax Shepard?

  How are you?

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  I'm good.

• 1:28:21Dax Shepard?

  You're good?

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. Okay, well, we both went to Delta's play.

• 1:28:28Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my heavens. That was a big event.

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  It was a huge event.

• 1:28:33Dax Shepard?

  Big event. In events that happen within the event.

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, tell.

• 1:28:38Dax Shepard?

  Do tell.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:40Dax Shepard?

  Um, okay, Mary Poppins.

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:44Dax Shepard?

  And I think some backstory is necessary and you can help me be objective here. But Delta's like, she's never been super into. Acting or musical theater or singing.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:57Dax Shepard?

  Like just a mild interest. I think she's done a few little plays. Uh, I think she did last year's school play.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:29:05Dax Shepard?

  But she just seems, she seems to be in it for the social aspect of it, which is great.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:29:11Dax Shepard?

  So we all went, you, Anna, me, Kristen, who else was in that one o'clock show?

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  Uh, Kristen's mom and dad.

• 1:29:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh yeah, Kristen's mom and stepdad. And um, for the first two thirds of the play, no Delta.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  She's not in it.

• 1:29:27Dax Shepard?

  She was not in it.

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:29Dax Shepard?

  And we, you were directly behind us with Anna.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:29:34Dax Shepard?

  And we were having some fun up until then, right?

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:37Dax Shepard?

  Cause there's a lot of goof. It was the first run through of it. There's,

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:41Dax Shepard?

  there's lots of mic errors. There's, you know, there's the expected stuff.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've discussed the plays before.

• 1:29:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's the whole, it's the whole school. So there's second graders out there, you know?

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:54Dax Shepard?

  And everyone did a great job. Everyone did a great job. And it was also very fun.

• 1:29:59Speaker 01

  You know, you can hear the mics in the back, you know, the same, same, same old stuff.

• 1:30:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, all the standard fare.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:30:07Dax Shepard?

  And uh, I think even Anna said, is Delta in this? You know, at some point?

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:12Dax Shepard?

  Then she came out. She was Mrs. Anderson. And for people that remember, and I'm not super well versed in

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Neither.

• 1:30:17Dax Shepard?

  Mary Poppins.

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:19Dax Shepard?

  Meredith Poppins.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:21Dax Shepard?

  She splits at one point and they bring in Mrs. Anders. And she's an old fashioned old.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  Is it Anders or Anderson?

• 1:30:27Dax Shepard?

  Anders or Anderson.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Oh, we don't know. Okay.

• 1:30:30Dax Shepard?

  Tomato or tomato.

• 1:30:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:31Dax Shepard?

  She comes out and she's a bitch. She's mean to the girls and she's shoving people around.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:36Dax Shepard?

  And right when she came out, she, uh, full commitment, full energy.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, she came out with a real presence.

• 1:30:44Dax Shepard?

  A real presence, a real intention.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:47Dax Shepard?

  Um, her, immediately her dictation was off the charts.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, they have to do accents, which I, I just wish they would take that off these kids' plates.

• 1:30:57Dax Shepard?

  I think, you know, all in all, they did pretty darn good.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:00Dax Shepard?

  I think if you got like adults to do it, the accents would have been much. Worse, like just a random sampling of adults doing British accents.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's probably true.

• 1:31:07Dax Shepard?

  I was like, hmm, it's not, I was expecting to hear some real.

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  It could be worse.

• 1:31:11Dax Shepard?

  Some real snafus.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just feel like they should have taken that with, with, what was going on? Like they need to just.

• 1:31:16Dax Shepard?

  Enough on their play.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  But anyway, she did a great accent.

• 1:31:20Dax Shepard?

  She did a great accent and you could understand everything she said and she was projecting. She was loud.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  She was.

• 1:31:26Dax Shepard?

  And then she has a solo song. All right, maybe you take over now because I might sound too subjective as a father.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Well, I'm subjective too. I don't know that I can be.

• 1:31:38Dax Shepard?

  As a soulmate.

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  Very objective. Yeah, but no, she just did so, she just like had so much confidence. She sang it so well. She wasn't like, you know, you're kind of scared when these kids are singing.

• 1:31:52Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  Obviously, anyone singing if at any play, it's like, oh God, like what if they mess up or what if they, you know, whatever. It's very stressful and she just knocked it out of the park and was so confident and like loud. Like she belted like with her diaphragm, like she did it all right. And it was, oh, it was so wonderful.

• 1:32:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, two mega belts.

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  It was so good.

• 1:32:21Dax Shepard?

  One with her on top of a staircase and she looked possessed.

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:25Dax Shepard?

  She like the level of commitment and she was screaming to the rooftops and it was holding.

• 1:32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:31Dax Shepard?

  I couldn't believe it.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  I couldn't believe it. I mean, from last year's play to this year's play, major jump.

• 1:32:41Dax Shepard?

  Oh my goodness.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Major jump.

• 1:32:44Dax Shepard?

  Like we have four performers in the family.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:32:47Dax Shepard?

  And she just threw down a performance that I think might top, you know, both Kristen and I's professional work.

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  Well. Okay, I don't wanna, now I guess we are getting subjective, cuz that's not true. But, but it was, like, I think last year, at this time, we had this conversation here. That was a little touchy, but I was like, she's not committed.

• 1:33:11Dax Shepard?

  No, well, she was more, her mission on that previous one, as we talked about, was to make sure everyone else was doing.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  She was being very bossy, like vocally, like up on stage, like telling people what to do.

• 1:33:23Dax Shepard?

  Get over here, get over here, yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was like, oh no, like I wish she would just commit.

• 1:33:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, no.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  And then, boy, did she take the note. I mean, I didn't get it.

• 1:33:32Dax Shepard?

  Right, right.

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  She learned on her own, and she really just.

• 1:33:37Dax Shepard?

  She brought the fucking house down.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  It was so good.

• 1:33:39Dax Shepard?

  It was so exciting. I said.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  We cheered like it was a Super Bowl.

• 1:33:44Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I said, wow, okay, so that's what the experience is for these people who have kids that are great athletes and like score a touchdown.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:33:53Dax Shepard?

  I've never really had that experience yet.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:56Dax Shepard?

  No touchdowns in the family, no, no goals scored, and this was, I get how the parents get addicted to it.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:34:05Dax Shepard?

  It was so exciting.

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  I know, yeah, we were rowdy, screaming for her. It did remind me, I told you this, but, um, there's a picture of the state championship second year, I think, maybe first year, I don't remember, but there's a picture of the parents. And, you know, everyone is just like freaking out. There's this picture, and my dad is

• 1:34:28Dax Shepard?

  Out of his seat.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  wearing a hat, he's like wearing a boa.

• 1:34:33Dax Shepard?

  Oh, a boa?

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, they like hand these out, or so. In my head, he has a boa, maybe he didn't. He's like, yeah, up out of his seat screaming. And it does, it takes over. It takes over when your kid is like hitting. Yeah.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  It's so exciting.

• 1:34:51Dax Shepard?

  And then the moment that was tied for that moment where she was on the steps at the end, yelling from the bottom of her soul as loud as she could. Was I was, and Lincoln was there all day volunteering to help all the girls backstage.

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:05Dax Shepard?

  Get in their outfits and.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  As an, as an alumni.

• 1:35:08Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes. And I had this, you know, 30% anxiety over.

• 1:35:19Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Well, one child has already declared this is her path.

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:35:24Dax Shepard?

  The younger sibling now has just come out and fucking crushed.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 1:35:29Dax Shepard?

  What will this reaction be? You know, what will seeing her get so much attention and praise from us do? I had some anxiety about that.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:41Dax Shepard?

  And I think you were standing there.

• 1:35:44Speaker 01

  So, so.

• 1:35:45Dax Shepard?

  When Lincoln ran out and they met each other in.

• 1:35:48Speaker 01

  She ran out, gave her a huge hug.

• 1:35:50Dax Shepard?

  She picked her up off the ground and squeezed her and she was genuinely so pumped for her.

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  So proud of her. It was so sweet. It was so sweet.

• 1:35:59Dax Shepard?

  My heart was just destroyed at that moment. I'm like, oh yeah, siblings, man.

• 1:36:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:05Dax Shepard?

  It's more important than anything else.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:08Dax Shepard?

  Well, no.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:36:11Dax Shepard?

  You don't know about that statement.

• 1:36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it was.

• 1:36:15Dax Shepard?

  Did you ever see Neil crush at anything? And did you give him the full?

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:36:20Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  Only now. I mean.

• 1:36:23Dax Shepard?

  He's crushing that father.

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  He's about to crush.

• 1:36:25Dax Shepard?

  Fire fatherhood.

• 1:36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. No. Um, no, I was really hard on him.

• 1:36:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:36:33Dax Shepard?

  He needed it.

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, he needed it. Uh, he's, look at him now. He's doing great.

• 1:36:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Because of my mothering. Um, but yeah, no. It was really, really sweet and I loved it. Um, and then there was a five o'clock, which I didn't go to, but there was a big incident.

• 1:36:50Dax Shepard?

  Yes. So we're at the five o'clock, the curtains down, we're.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  Intermission, right?

• 1:36:55Dax Shepard?

  It wasn't intermission. It was just between some scenes where there was a little downtime.

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:37:02Dax Shepard?

  And so the curtain was down. And then all of a sudden you hear from the audience this horrendous crashing sound.

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:09Dax Shepard?

  And it's like, it's substantial, right? The, the kind of ground shook.

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:15Dax Shepard?

  And my only thought was like, oh, did one of the sets, because they have pretty big sets on stage, like two story sets, did one fall forward?

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:24Dax Shepard?

  And oh, my God, are where are the kids?

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:27Dax Shepard?

  And so I'm thinking this, and then Kristen jumps up and goes backstage because she's like, you know, clearly something's happened. You can hear kids back there like they weren't screaming, but there were noises.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:37:38Dax Shepard?

  So she goes back there, scopes out, comes back and she's like, you are not going to believe the size of this tree that just fell into the school. And so after the play, I went and looked back and there's this like, you know, like cement balcony with like a really huge steel railing, maybe a loading dock ish thing off the back of the gym. And this enormous tree, like the width of our oak tree in the front yard, like the, the trunk had to be like 36 inches in diameter, maybe more. It just exploded and it fell in all these directions. It bent like the, the big fence post size railing.

• 1:38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:17Dax Shepard?

  Was just crumpled like a taco, huge branches on there. A table that they were all sitting on.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  So scary.

• 1:38:27Dax Shepard?

  10 minutes before.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:38:29Dax Shepard?

  Was flattened.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  Oh. Oh.

• 1:38:33Dax Shepard?

  It's crazy. And I was like.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:38:36Dax Shepard?

  I just was like, yeah, my first thought was, oh, this is why it's completely pointless to worry about your children because you're not even going to think to worry about. I hope a random tree doesn't fall on them on the fucking playground of the school.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  Some people do think like that though, but it's a lot too much.

• 1:38:54Dax Shepard?

  It's not generally, people are worrying about kidnapping and all these other things.

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  That's true. Yeah.

• 1:38:58Dax Shepard?

  And it's like, okay, so thus far, the closest call we've ever had was just a tree exploded in the backyard of the school.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, freak accidents do happen.

• 1:39:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very scary.

• 1:39:10Dax Shepard?

  You just don't even know what to worry about. That was my thing.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good takeaway.

• 1:39:15Dax Shepard?

  Like, yeah, that's crazy. That was almost a fucking newsworthy disaster.

• 1:39:21Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, that would have been so.

• 1:39:24Dax Shepard?

  It was crazy.

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  But everyone will have a different takeaway. Someone will be like, I knew God was real. You know, someone will say, Sam, me probably. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of takeaways. You just choose. Yeah, you get to pick.

• 1:39:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's much meaning behind it for me, other than just, oh, it's a good reminder that like, life's that way. And it's really pointless to even worry about anything.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:56Dax Shepard?

  That's a great example of confirmation bias, right? It's like, whatever your overarching theory on life is, everything, every bit of proof will file in and support that.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:04Dax Shepard?

  So it's like, for you, that, that proves the world's scarier.

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't say that.

• 1:40:09Dax Shepard?

  I'm sorry, didn't mean to give you that.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, label.

• 1:40:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And then for me, it immediately confirms like, yeah, what a waste of time to worry.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  I don't think I thought like the world's scarier. I just feel like, yeah, things go wrong all the time.

• 1:40:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  But also I think like, wow, so lucky. Just like, so lucky. And we're just missing things all the time.

• 1:40:33Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:34Speaker 01

  Just like constantly avoiding catastrophe all the time.

• 1:40:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:39Speaker 01

  But yeah, like yesterday I was walking down the street and there were so many cop cars, but they weren't regular cop cars. They were all like, just like black.

• 1:40:53Dax Shepard?

  Unmarked.

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  Cars, unmarked, but then one was like on, like had lights or whatever in the back. But there were so many in a row.

• 1:41:00Dax Shepard?

  Where was this at?

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  On Western. And I was just walking by noticing all these cars and, and I was like, oh, well, something is going on. Something probably bad. Yeah.

• 1:41:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  And I thought, oh, do I, should I go home? Like, this is right where I'm about to be.

• 1:41:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:41:22Dax Shepard?

  Were you in the car?

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was walking to Cara. And so it was next to Cara.

• 1:41:26Dax Shepard?

  By the, um, Baskin Robbins or that weird apartment building between?

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:30Dax Shepard?

  That sketchy apartment building. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  And I was like, I mean, there could be a bomb in there. Should I go home? But then I was like, I mean, they'll probably get it, tell us to leave, like they, I, I guess I trust that someone in charge would tell us to leave there. And there was a cop on the street and he just said, hi, when I walked by. So I was like, I can't be that bad.

• 1:41:53Dax Shepard?

  Right. He didn't say, ma'am, go on the other side of the street.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  Exactly. Or you shouldn't be here, ma'am. Ma'am, you shouldn't be here.

• 1:42:00Dax Shepard?

  You didn't ask him what was cracking?

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  I wanted to. I should have. And then, cause when we left, they're still there and someone was yelling at them because cars were blocked in and he was yelling and I didn't want to bother them.

• 1:42:12Dax Shepard?

  They're probably executing a search warrant.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  He said, when, I, I heard one of the cops say something like, when we finished the invest, we're almost finished with the investigation.

• 1:42:21Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:42:22Dax Shepard?

  So someone went missing and?

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  I was like, maybe it's a bomb or maybe it's a jumper or maybe it's a big drug, like probably a big drug situation.

• 1:42:35Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  Or um hijack.

• 1:42:40Dax Shepard?

  Sex work.

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  It could be a sex situation, um, a negotiation.

• 1:42:46Dax Shepard?

  A standoff?

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  Hostage negotiation. I mean, there could have been so many things.

• 1:42:50Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:42:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:52Dax Shepard?

  And that guy, which he would have asked, cause he would have told you. Sure, a cute young girl. He would have like wanted to tell you.

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  I thought about it. I did like, what's going on?

• 1:43:00Dax Shepard?

  Dangerous than it was. Like, yeah, we just, you know, we had to, he would probably like, you know, fluffed it up a little bit.

• 1:43:06Speaker 01

  Officer, should I go home?

• 1:43:08Dax Shepard?

  Am I safe to go home or should I stay next to you?

• 1:43:12Speaker 01

  Will you protect me?

• 1:43:13Dax Shepard?

  I feel safer next to you.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 1:43:16Dax Shepard?

  He's like, I'm just coming out. I was first one in. So they're telling me, go ahead and have a 10 minute break, which is why I'm out here. But I was first one in.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  Normally I'm in there.

• 1:43:23Dax Shepard?

  I wasn't, I was first one in there. Once I saw it was not dangerous, then I was like,

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  Oh, it's not dangerous?

• 1:43:29Dax Shepard?

  Well, it could be. Could always be, could always get dangerous. Probably want me to stay close.

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:43:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. What are you doing for dinner?

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  I'm hanging out with my friend Jess, you'd love him.

• 1:43:43Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  You can go.

• 1:43:45Dax Shepard?

  All right, have fun. Think we're all wrapped up here.

• 1:43:49Speaker 01

  Okay, this is interesting on, okay, dates.

• 1:43:52Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  So we have a friend who just went on a first date.

• 1:43:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, we do?

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. And, um, this person, uh, brought me up a few times because I'm in stories.

• 1:44:05Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:44:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  And then at some point, the girl, a girl, it was a girl on the date. It's a lesbian on a date with a girl.

• 1:44:15Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  Okay?

• 1:44:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  And she brought me up.

• 1:44:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:19Speaker 01

  And then at some point, the girl on the date said, should I know who that is?

• 1:44:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  And then my friend said, oh, she's my friend, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, um, I, then she was telling me this and I was like, yeah, this is tricky. It's, it can get tricky if you're bringing up your friends a lot on a date, but they don't really know the backstory. They don't know, like, the level of friendship or...

• 1:44:49Dax Shepard?

  Whether either party are compatibly...

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:44:54Dax Shepard?

  Sexually attracted to one another. Yeah, if you're bringing up Jess all the time, they don't know he's gay. You gotta go, my gay friend Jess. You go, my gay friend Jess.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:45:02Dax Shepard?

  And then she says, my straight friend Monica.

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  I know. But that seems like a weird thing to say, like, oh, I mean, he comes up, like, he, he's, he comes up, right? And so, yeah, I guess I have to say, like, oh, my, my friend, I think I'll just say, my friend Jess, and maybe it'll be obvious he's gay.

• 1:45:24Dax Shepard?

  Uh, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. To me, it's obvious he's gay, but I've met him.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  You know it.

• 1:45:30Dax Shepard?

  I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:32Speaker 05

  He at least has a name that could pass as a...

• 1:45:35Dax Shepard?

  Female. Oh.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Right. That is true.

• 1:45:38Dax Shepard?

  But if you're talking about um burger, beefy burger or anything penis related.

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  Don't think I'm probably gonna bring up beefy burger. Um, yet, yet it will come up. It will come up. But anyway, yeah, it's like a weird thing about how much you talk about the other people in your life.

• 1:45:57Dax Shepard?

  On a date.

• 1:45:58Speaker 01

  On a date.

• 1:45:59Dax Shepard?

  I think it's only.

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  The opposite sex if you're straight and same sex if you're gay.

• 1:46:04Dax Shepard?

  I think it's only um a thing if you're talking about your ex a lot, which is also fine.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  Oh, on a first date.

• 1:46:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and there are versions of it that are totally fine.

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:17Dax Shepard?

  If you has still have complicated feelings about your ex.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:21Dax Shepard?

  It's not the place to discuss that, nor is it this new person, their, their duty to comfort you through that.

• 1:46:32Speaker 01

  Right. There are all these rules.

• 1:46:34Dax Shepard?

  If you've been with someone for a decade and you're talking about your life.

• 1:46:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:38Dax Shepard?

  And then you're going to ignore the last 10 years of your life. You know, like, of course, if you were with someone.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Come up.

• 1:46:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I don't think that's a big deal.

• 1:46:45Speaker 01

  I don't think it is a big deal either for me, but I think a lot of people would say that's wrong. Like, everyone has these.

• 1:46:50Dax Shepard?

  I think those people are really insecure and that's their issue.

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't think it would bother me.

• 1:46:56Dax Shepard?

  Someone have have having had an ex is too disturbing for you.

• 1:47:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:47:01Dax Shepard?

  You have some insecurities.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:04Dax Shepard?

  That's not, it's not that other person's.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  I know. I think I'm kind of like, I want to know.

• 1:47:09Dax Shepard?

  Sure. All the details.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:47:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  But I don't want them to ask me. So I think I'm just leaving that off. I think it's like, it's just like, hey, let's never talk, let's not talk about any of our past.

• 1:47:21Dax Shepard?

  Okay, but we're now on a date. We're on a date.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  Okay. Hi.

• 1:47:24Dax Shepard?

  Well.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  I like your hair.

• 1:47:26Dax Shepard?

  Further along, we're dropping into like the, the, I want to know exactly like what kind of info you're interested in about the ex. Yeah, because I think.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  So, well, you have to bring her up, I guess.

• 1:47:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Um, well, we had to, um, we were sharing our dog and then it just got kind of ridiculous. And finally I was like, just, you can have Snickers.

• 1:47:50Speaker 01

  That was probably hard. I have a friend who is going through that too. It's really.

• 1:47:55Dax Shepard?

  Boy, a boyfriend?

• 1:47:56Speaker 01

  No, no, a girlfriend, a girlfriend, a girlfriend of mine.

• 1:48:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's tough. It's tough. She's gay.

• 1:48:05Dax Shepard?

  No, she was straight. She was my girlfriend.

• 1:48:07Speaker 01

  No, my friend is gay.

• 1:48:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:48:10Speaker 01

  So don't worry.

• 1:48:11Dax Shepard?

  I was hoping you would, I would figure out what you're, what you want to know about the ex.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  I know, but.

• 1:48:16Dax Shepard?

  Well, what do you want to know about an ex?

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  I don't know. We have to practice and see.

• 1:48:19Dax Shepard?

  You want to know what they'd look like physically, don't you?

• 1:48:21Speaker 01

  No, I actually don't. I don't.

• 1:48:23Dax Shepard?

  Are you sure?

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:48:24Dax Shepard?

  You don't want to find out if they were Indian?

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  Oh, fuck.

• 1:48:27Dax Shepard?

  Cause I know you got a whole thing about that.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  I don't want, if, okay, do it again. You might need to, yeah.

• 1:48:33Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Yeah. So anyways, we had booked this trip and like, we talked about going on it together, but I was like, I don't want to be in Bombay with my ex. So I was like, you can just take someone else.

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:48:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And I transferred my ticket.

• 1:48:49Speaker 01

  Okay. Oh my God. First of all, that would not to me. I'm not like, oh, so she was Indian just because you were going there.

• 1:48:58Dax Shepard?

  I'm just trying to, um, to tempt you in that direction.

• 1:49:02Speaker 01

  Oh, um, have you?

• 1:49:05Speaker 01

  I don't even, I wouldn't even ask. I would just be, okay. I would say, I would say.

• 1:49:10Dax Shepard?

  Have you been to India before?

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  How long were you guys together?

• 1:49:12Dax Shepard?

  You don't think you go, have you been to India before?

• 1:49:16Speaker 01

  I mean, no.

• 1:49:17Dax Shepard?

  You just want to know what the girl now.

• 1:49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  I almost was about to say, oh my gosh, I went to India last year on this kind of random crazy trip and it was, it was so, it was so cool because I've only been one time before when I was little and it was really cool.

• 1:49:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh, are you Indian?

• 1:49:34Speaker 01

  I am. Yeah. Well.

• 1:49:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I thought you were Lebanese.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Oh, no. No, no, I'm not. Uh, well, I mean, I, I was born in Georgia and raised there, but my parents are Indian.

• 1:49:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh, cool.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  How long were you with your ex? Or how long were you with her?

• 1:49:50Dax Shepard?

  Five years.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  Wow. Wow.

• 1:49:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, from fifty, from forty-six to fifty-one.

• 1:49:57Speaker 01

  What happened? Do you mind me asking?

• 1:50:00Dax Shepard?

  Um.

• 1:50:01Speaker 01

  Sorry if that's too private.

• 1:50:02Dax Shepard?

  God, well, I mean, what happened? Like a million things happened.

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:50:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's happened in a relationship.

• 1:50:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's hard.

• 1:50:10Dax Shepard?

  Like I could list things and it'd probably just be me blaming her, but I'm sure I have the reason.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  That's very evolved.

• 1:50:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  That's evolved of you.

• 1:50:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  What are you gonna order?

• 1:50:20Dax Shepard?

  But she's, oh, you're off of it.

• 1:50:24Dax Shepard?

  She old? She young? Is she Indian?

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  I'm not asking that. I am never asking. Okay, I was on a date once where it came up, but I didn't ask. He brought it up.

• 1:50:36Dax Shepard?

  What did he say?

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  He said, like,

• 1:50:38Dax Shepard?

  I'm crazy for Indian.

• 1:50:39Speaker 01

  She was Indian and her family and something about an Indian prince. And I was like, I hate this. I absolutely hate this. If anyone says Indian princess to me, um, you're not for me.

• 1:50:55Dax Shepard?

  Well, what is the stereotype of the?

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. I don't know.

• 1:50:58Dax Shepard?

  I know of the Jewish American princess. That's a stereotype.

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that has a name.

• 1:51:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Jap. It offends both people.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:51:07Dax Shepard?

  Two groups of people at once. It's a twofer.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  Even if someone said Jap to me, I'd be like, I wish you didn't say that.

• 1:51:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  You know, actually, someone I love said it recently and I was like,

• 1:51:18Dax Shepard?

  Were they referring to a Jewish American princess or a Japanese person?

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  Oh, a Jewish.

• 1:51:23Dax Shepard?

  You didn't even get that part?

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I forgot.

• 1:51:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh, gosh, okay.

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  Jewish. I thought you were saying it offends princesses and Jewish.

• 1:51:30Dax Shepard?

  No, I don't care about offending princesses. They're a tiny group.

• 1:51:34Speaker 01

  Your wife is a princess.

• 1:51:36Dax Shepard?

  Not a real one.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  She is the closest we got. She played a princess.

• 1:51:40Dax Shepard?

  There's actual princesses on Earth.

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  Forgot.

• 1:51:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:44Speaker 01

  Okay, well, I don't want to offend them either, but, um,

• 1:51:47Dax Shepard?

  I can live with that.

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  Me too, me too.

• 1:51:49Dax Shepard?

  Picking the groups. Talk about punching up or down.

• 1:51:50Speaker 01

  Royalty, yeah.

• 1:51:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, punching up a royalty, I'm okay with.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  It's more the Jewish part I didn't love when they said it.

• 1:51:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Well, I'm from a very Jewish area of Michigan.

• 1:51:59Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:52:00Dax Shepard?

  So that term was used a lot.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:52:02Dax Shepard?

  And quite often by Jewish people.

• 1:52:04Speaker 01

  Right. Well, they're allowed. But this person wasn't Jewish. Anyway, okay, if you said, if you said it to me on a date, say it somehow.

• 1:52:12Dax Shepard?

  Jap.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  Oh, are you Jewish?

• 1:52:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 1:52:18Dax Shepard?

  Hard to be Jewish right now.

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, I know. I feel.

• 1:52:24Speaker 01

  I feel like the world is nuts.

• 1:52:27Dax Shepard?

  By the way, if the first that if the first date has somehow straight into Palestine, Israel, it's a bad day.

• 1:52:34Speaker 01

  I'm going to the bathroom.

• 1:52:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm gonna, I gotta go shit. I'm gonna go tonka all over the floor in the bathroom.

• 1:52:41Speaker 01

  I wanna go to my car.

• 1:52:42Dax Shepard?

  Cause I prefer doing that than having this conversation.

• 1:52:44Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, no, I know. I know. But you know, I do get deep and I do worry sometimes that like I get us to a place we're not supposed to go to soon.

• 1:52:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, well, that can be fun.

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  I know, but then it's like not fun. Cause then, yeah, we're talking about. I don't think what I know so far, which, oh, I guess I should tell people about going on a date. That should be clear.

• 1:53:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:53:09Speaker 01

  Um, from what I know so far, I just don't, I think he's very chill.

• 1:53:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:15Speaker 01

  And I don't think we're gonna talk about, um, global news.

• 1:53:18Dax Shepard?

  Global politics?

• 1:53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:20Dax Shepard?

  That's good.

• 1:53:22Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:53:35Dax Shepard?

  What if he's super into crypto and he wants to tell you about crypto the whole time? That's a hard one. Even if everything else was like a thumbs up.

• 1:53:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I would say.

• 1:53:45Dax Shepard?

  What would you say?

• 1:53:46Speaker 01

  I'd say.

• 1:53:46Dax Shepard?

  I'd go, have you heard of Bellizium? Oh, it's a one to one currency. It's so strong and promising.

• 1:53:54Speaker 01

  Oh, I haven't heard of it.

• 1:53:55Dax Shepard?

  I bought for thirteen dollars, um, a coin and it's already up to thirteen ninety.

• 1:54:02Speaker 01

  That's cool. Do you, how, um, do you know Ben McKenzie? Have you ever heard of Ben McKenzie? He's was from the OC, but he's also.

• 1:54:12Dax Shepard?

  I never, I never saw the OC, but I heard it was really great.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually also didn't watch it.

• 1:54:17Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:54:17Speaker 01

  Um, but he was a big actor on, on that show and he's also an expert in crypto and he was just on.

• 1:54:25Dax Shepard?

  What's he, what's he, what's his holdings? Which ones is he into?

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  Well, he's actually pretty critical of it.

• 1:54:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, oh, he's a hater?

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:54:33Dax Shepard?

  He's just mad he didn't get in when Bitcoin was, yeah, he's just jealous.

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe, but I do think.

• 1:54:39Dax Shepard?

  You have a podcast?

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  I do, I do, yeah.

• 1:54:41Dax Shepard?

  Are you? Are you Lebanese?

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I'm not. I'm not. I'm, yeah. Do you think only Lebanese people have podcasts? That's, that's an interesting leap. Hey, I gotta go Tonka.

• 1:55:03Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's what you parked in a lot called Tonka or something?

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  That's when you poop in your car.

• 1:55:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you're going outside to poop in your car?

• 1:55:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:12Dax Shepard?

  Fuck, yeah, can I come?

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  Oh, you're, you're.

• 1:55:14Dax Shepard?

  Well, that could salvage the whole.

• 1:55:16Speaker 01

  That could. I just got, I got perked up.

• 1:55:20Dax Shepard?

  That's rad, can I come?

• 1:55:23Speaker 01

  It would probably be a crypto guy that was into it.

• 1:55:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  So it all makes sense, you know?

• 1:55:27Dax Shepard?

  Trade offs.

• 1:55:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, everyone, no one's perfect.

• 1:55:31Dax Shepard?

  You're not gonna get it all.

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

  No one's perfect.

• 1:55:33Dax Shepard?

  It's gotta, you gotta get the right things.

• 1:55:35Speaker 01

  Anywho, um.

• 1:55:37Dax Shepard?

  I mean, full honesty.

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  Oh, Rob, he might be here. Lucas or the breast milk guy? Breast milk guy.

• 1:55:46Dax Shepard?

  Colosseum man.

• 1:55:47Speaker 01

  Rob is.

• 1:55:47Dax Shepard?

  Colosseum man.

• 1:55:48Speaker 01

  Going to pick up another drink for us using his ID. That's not alcohol.

• 1:55:53Dax Shepard?

  Full honesty.

• 1:55:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:54Dax Shepard?

  I'm on a date.

• 1:55:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:56Dax Shepard?

  And the girl goes, if you'll excuse me, I have gotta go shit in my car. Dude, I would be so into that.

• 1:56:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:56:03Dax Shepard?

  I would. I would be like, wow, who's this person?

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  You would not.

• 1:56:11Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I would.

• 1:56:13Speaker 01

  You would be like, who is this person?

• 1:56:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm intrigued.

• 1:56:17Speaker 01

  You'd be intrigued.

• 1:56:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  But you would not on a fir-, you would be like, she's crazy.

• 1:56:23Dax Shepard?

  Well, no, I would have some follow up questions, so I guess just tell me.

• 1:56:26Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, my God, um, I'll be right back.

• 1:56:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:56:30Speaker 01

  Uh, do you mind waiting? I have to, ooh, God, I, I have to go Tonka.

• 1:56:35Dax Shepard?

  What's, what's Tonka?

• 1:56:37Speaker 01

  It, it's when you poop in your car, okay? And I have to go right now.

• 1:56:40Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God, you have to poop in your car right now?

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  I do, I do.

• 1:56:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay, hold on.

• 1:56:43Speaker 01

  Do you mind waiting?

• 1:56:44Dax Shepard?

  Well, I don't mind waiting, but can I just ask you a quick question? I can see it's pressure.

• 1:56:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's kinda time sensitive.

• 1:56:49Dax Shepard?

  Why go in your car and not the bathroom here?

• 1:56:51Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm just like so uncomfortable. I'm really uncomfortable pooping in front of other people.

• 1:56:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, sure, that's, yeah.

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  I just have like a privacy thing. I know I'm not gonna make it home.

• 1:57:00Dax Shepard?

  How often do you do this? Every time you gotta go to a normal bathroom?

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  It's only happened once. It almost happened again and I can tell it's gonna happen right now.

• 1:57:07Dax Shepard?

  Okay, how about I come out and I'll just hang by the counter, make sure no one bothers you?

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  I know because.

• 1:57:12Dax Shepard?

  Cause you don't want anyone like knocking on your window or if I see a dude peeping, I'll be like, bro, fuck, give her some privacy.

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  Okay, that's really, really nice, but the whole.

• 1:57:21Dax Shepard?

  And I can hold your bag too.

• 1:57:23Speaker 01

  Oh, you don't have a, there's no bag. You just like poop on the seat.

• 1:57:27Dax Shepard?

  But that bag next to your feet. Do you want me to hold that while you're?

• 1:57:30Speaker 01

  That's really kind. I, I, the whole.

• 1:57:33Dax Shepard?

  Let me be lookout for you. This'll be fun.

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  No, the whole issue is privacy.

• 1:57:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'm gonna look the other way though.

• 1:57:40Speaker 01

  Okay, you're being, you're being a little pushy.

• 1:57:43Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you think I'm a weirdo now? Or I gotta tell you something, you're about to go shit in your car. So why don't you fucking back off the judgments, Tootsie? Now let's go. Grab your bag.

• 1:57:54Dax Shepard?

  This is a great date dude, it's so memorable. And he would be, like, cut to the three years later, I can see him with a microphone in his hand and his tuxedo on. And I'll go, I knew there was something special about Monica. When on our first date, she looked at me and said, if you'll excuse me, I have to tonka. And for those of you who don't know, Grandma Jane, Grandpa Bill, tonkas, when a woman uses her car to defecate in.

• 1:58:22Speaker 01

  As a toilet.

• 1:58:23Dax Shepard?

  And I thought, I should get out of here and run? No, I'm gonna provide lookout services. And I'm so glad I did.

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  Oh, people would cry. People would cry. They would also throw up.

• 1:58:36Dax Shepard?

  Not the people at your wedding. Fuck, I hope this all goes down, man. This sounds like a great.

• 1:58:40Speaker 01

  Can you please knock on wood? You better not hope that on my date I have to tonka. That is literally worst case scenario.

• 1:58:47Dax Shepard?

  Unless he loves it. And then you guys have fast forwarded to like such a level of intimacy and trust and connection.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  I mean, if he has to tonka, interesting. Not me. I don't want, I don't want to be the girl that poops in her car all the time. Okay, it happened one time.

• 1:59:08Dax Shepard?

  All the time. No one wants to be that.

• 1:59:10Speaker 01

  I know, but you're the one, you're kind of manifesting it for me. You wanted me to put a bag in my car.

• 1:59:15Dax Shepard?

  Trash bag. Why not? You just act like that's where you put your trash.

• 1:59:18Speaker 01

  That's manifesting. That's manifest destiny.

• 1:59:20Dax Shepard?

  Do you know if you're driving together, you're meeting there? Okay, that's supposed to be the safe thing to do?

• 1:59:26Speaker 01

  I don't know if it's safe or not, but one time I was on a date where the man picked me up.

• 1:59:32Dax Shepard?

  The male?

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  And at first I was like, oh, I like that.

• 1:59:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:36Speaker 01

  And as soon as he picked me up, I hated it.

• 1:59:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:59:39Speaker 01

  I was like, I really don't like being trapped in the car. I don't, now I'm aware of how he's driving.

• 1:59:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:59:47Speaker 01

  Me, precious cargo.

• 1:59:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:51Speaker 01

  And at one point he was just staring and I didn't, then I was like, you need to look at the road. I didn't like any of it. So we're just gonna meet there.

• 2:00:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay, right. What though, how do we handle a nighttime?

• 2:00:04Speaker 01

  He's not, or not doing his first day.

• 2:00:06Dax Shepard?

  You guys can kiss. He drives you home, then, then he's gotta get out and like, open your door and clean out the tonka from your backseat. Put it in your trash can. And then he might wanna give you a kiss goodnight before you go inside.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  If he wants to kiss me after I've tonka'd.

• 2:00:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, what a stud.

• 2:00:25Speaker 01

  Well, a stud and kinky. He's kinky. That's pretty cool.

• 2:00:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Yes, we like him. We like him.

• 2:00:32Speaker 01

  Pretty cool. All right, anyway, some facts.

• 2:00:35Dax Shepard?

  Let's do some facts.

• 2:00:36Speaker 01

  Okay. Um, okay. She talks about Half Man, the show, and you've since watched it.

• 2:00:41Dax Shepard?

  I'm glad you're bringing this up.

• 2:00:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:43Dax Shepard?

  She was dead right.

• 2:00:45Speaker 01

  She loved it.

• 2:00:46Dax Shepard?

  I love it. And now I even see what she was saying. Cause at the time, remember, I think I said like, yeah, you and I watch things differently. Like you're recognizing when someone's being represented. Like that's important to you and you'll always notice it. But anyone would notice it.

• 2:01:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:04Dax Shepard?

  Like the show is, is that type of show.

• 2:01:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:07Dax Shepard?

  Where it is, um, it's exploring some weird shit that goes down in most boyhoods that I'm aware of.

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:15Dax Shepard?

  Just weird. Boys are so fucked. I don't.

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:19Dax Shepard?

  I don't think girls know how weird boys are. Little boys.

• 2:01:25Dax Shepard?

  There's like a whole window where they're so bizarre. I cannot tell you how many of these boys were constantly trying to show me their penises and they wanted to sword fight and stuff.

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:35Dax Shepard?

  They just don't, they have these penises and they don't know what they're doing.

• 2:01:37Speaker 01

  They don't know what to do.

• 2:01:38Dax Shepard?

  They want to get them out.

• 2:01:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:41Dax Shepard?

  Smack them around. I was just like, I don't, I'm not into all this sword fighting.

• 2:01:45Speaker 01

  And you weren't?

• 2:01:46Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 2:01:46Speaker 01

  Oh, because you were already molested.

• 2:01:48Dax Shepard?

  I think because I'd already been molested, maybe. It was like, I didn't like the whole thing.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. But when, when we were in like hunting and gathering and we were naked all the time.

• 2:01:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:01:58Speaker 01

  I bet they weren't playing with them. It was like, it was just normal.

• 2:02:02Dax Shepard?

  This is when I read this really interesting article and it was about how cultural everything is to the degree of molesting.

• 2:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:12Dax Shepard?

  Here it means one thing. It's always inappropriate and it's always some kind of like deviant sexual behavior. Whereas they were paralleling it with this group, this hunting and gathering group that like when they see little kids, they juggle their balls.

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:02:29Dax Shepard?

  As a greeting.

• 2:02:30Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 2:02:32Dax Shepard?

  The dudes aren't perverts.

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:02:33Dax Shepard?

  There's nothing sexual going on.

• 2:02:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:35Dax Shepard?

  They, they do the same activity that here we would, it would be trauma.

• 2:02:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:40Dax Shepard?

  And it's just so interesting that how the power of.

• 2:02:43Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:02:44Dax Shepard?

  And it's all about, does it induce shame or not? And in that culture, it doesn't because everyone was getting greeted by getting their balls fondled.

• 2:02:52Speaker 01

  I know, but that is weird though, because innately though it is sexual because that is also a way to get aroused.

• 2:02:58Dax Shepard?

  But again, because the, the, the culture is so strong and the context is so strong, it's not, they don't get aroused. It's not a sexual activity. I didn't grow up there, so I have my thing.

• 2:03:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:08Dax Shepard?

  Anyways, I'm off on a long trajectory here.

• 2:03:11Speaker 01

  Oh, makes sense.

• 2:03:12Dax Shepard?

  I can't remember what we left base, but Half Man is so good.

• 2:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:17Dax Shepard?

  With similar tones being explored as DTF St. Louis. Like that relationship between Bateman and Harbinger was so intimate.

• 2:03:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was.

• 2:03:26Dax Shepard?

  They're constantly hugging and stretching each other, breathing on each other. It's just like this level of intimacy that certainly I didn't see on TV growing up.

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:37Dax Shepard?

  And by the time I did see it on TV growing up, it was explicitly sexual between two homosexuals.

• 2:03:42Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:03:43Dax Shepard?

  This is this weird zone of this, yeah.

• 2:03:46Speaker 01

  Even though you weren't, it wasn't represented for you, you still did it with Aaron.

• 2:03:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So like Aaron and I had a very, very intimate, very physically touchy friendship.

• 2:03:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:55Dax Shepard?

  But no penis business. There were no penises coming out. Yeah, but not, not, there was no, there was no weird sexual component. I'm talking about the behavior, the hat off. It was like this weird sexual.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  Well, Bateman and, and David Harbour didn't have any sexual.

• 2:04:10Dax Shepard?

  They didn't, but it was confusing. And there were times where it seemed they were both confused by the intimacy.

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 2:04:16Dax Shepard?

  And then he's even gonna hook up with a dude or he's like, he's open to, if he can give a guy an erection, he'll like that.

• 2:04:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:04:23Dax Shepard?

  Just because he'll be desired.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:04:25Dax Shepard?

  So just getting into all this fun gray area. So Nate and I loved that show, of course, as did you.

• 2:04:30Speaker 01

  I loved it. Yeah.

• 2:04:31Dax Shepard?

  But we were talking about it at lunch and he goes, dude, the other show that's even more extreme than that, that I, I've been watching. I want you to catch up so we can start watching together is Half a Man.

• 2:04:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:42Dax Shepard?

  So I did. And then the last Friday, when we had the day off, Nate and I went to lunch and then we came and got in the theater room and watched two episodes back to back. And it was, it was so fun.

• 2:04:51Speaker 01

  Aww.

• 2:04:52Dax Shepard?

  You remind me like being in my twenties or something. We were just watching TV.

• 2:04:56Speaker 01

  I love that. That's really fun. Um, okay, quickly, is Adam the one, Adam Mosseri? The one on Instagram with glasses who sends updates? I mean, I think so.

• 2:05:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:05:07Speaker 01

  Okay. He has glasses.

• 2:05:09Dax Shepard?

  That's definitely what she's talking about. He makes tons of posts directly to camera, letting users know of new features.

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Regularly post direct updates about the platform. He's so fun.

• 2:05:18Dax Shepard?

  He's so cute.

• 2:05:19Speaker 01

  He said, we were his favorite food.

• 2:05:21Dax Shepard?

  He's so smart, too.

• 2:05:22Speaker 01

  He is. Who is the model with the gap tooth named Lauren? Lauren Hutton.

• 2:05:26Dax Shepard?

  Ah.

• 2:05:27Speaker 01

  Iconic model. Something came up and you said, everything worth having, like everything worth having, whatever.

• 2:05:33Dax Shepard?

  It's hard.

• 2:05:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically. And it reminded me that in high school, Callie's mom got her this little compass necklace. It was from Kohl's.

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  And on the back, it said, there are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going.

• 2:05:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, okay, good.

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  And I loved that. And then they bought me the necklace because I loved it so much.

• 2:05:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's nice.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  And I love that saying.

• 2:05:58Dax Shepard?

  Um, there's a dude in AA who has a similar, um, saying that he says all the time, almost every share he says it, and I love it every single time, which is, uh, I found out that the shortcut is the quickest way to the back of the line.

• 2:06:09Speaker 01

  Hmm, I like that. Similar.

• 2:06:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:06:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:12Dax Shepard?

  Shortcut is the quickest way to the back of the line. Although it'd be quicker to just go to the back of the line before you do the shortcut. So it's not, it doesn't hold up.

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, because like, if you're, if you're cutting the line, which is the shortcut, you're not at the back.

• 2:06:25Dax Shepard?

  Well, the point is the shortcuts never work and you always have to go back and start.

• 2:06:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:30Dax Shepard?

  The way you're supposed to.

• 2:06:31Speaker 01

  I understand the point.

• 2:06:31Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Yeah, we'll stick with yours.

• 2:06:34Speaker 01

  I like mine.

• 2:06:34Dax Shepard?

  What was yours?

• 2:06:35Speaker 01

  There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going.

• 2:06:38Dax Shepard?

  Ah, okay.

• 2:06:40Speaker 01

  I love it. Cole's cash!

• 2:06:42Dax Shepard?

  Cole's cash, man.

• 2:06:43Speaker 01

  Oh, uh, Callie also got a tattoo of a compass. That was her first tattoo. She got a compass on her ankle. It was in college. She has since gotten it removed.

• 2:06:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, she has?

• 2:06:54Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. She didn't like the way it looked in pictures when she was like in heels and stuff.

• 2:06:58Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:06:59Speaker 01

  Okay. Um.

• 2:07:00Dax Shepard?

  Compass is a very popular tattoo.

• 2:07:02Speaker 01

  Is it?

• 2:07:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:03Speaker 01

  I don't know anyone else with one. I mean, I don't know a lot of people with tattoos other than you.

• 2:07:07Dax Shepard?

  Not your scene.

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  Uh-uh. Um, and her. Um, and Anna. Okay, I know a lot of people with tattoos. Charlie. Rob. Natalie. Natalie. Everyone has tattoos, actually. Erica. Wow, yeah, Charlie.

• 2:07:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:07:22Dax Shepard?

  Matt.

• 2:07:23Speaker 01

  Whoa, um.

• 2:07:24Dax Shepard?

  At least half.

• 2:07:25Speaker 01

  Mike Nichols. Yeah, at least half my friends. That's probably right. Mike Nichols says about conversation, "A conversation falls into three categories: a negotiation, a seduction, or a fight."

• 2:07:39Dax Shepard?

  Hmm. A negotiation, a seduction, or a fight. This is in, this is in theatrical realm, right? This is in.

• 2:07:46Speaker 01

  Every scene or, or conversation.

• 2:07:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.

• 2:07:49Speaker 01

  It says, "Or a conversation falls into one."

• 2:07:50Dax Shepard?

  Has to be one of those three things.

• 2:07:52Speaker 01

  A fight, a seduction.

• 2:07:53Dax Shepard?

  But life doesn't have to. A lot of our conversations.

• 2:07:55Speaker 01

  Doesn't have to, but I think he's kind of saying like, it is. Like, he's representing life and like, that is what happens in.

• 2:08:02Dax Shepard?

  Life.

• 2:08:02Speaker 01

  Life. Life as we know it.

• 2:08:05Dax Shepard?

  Network.

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  Um, yeah. Um, okay. The catchphrase from our AT&T commercial, Rob said it in the interview, "Just okay is not okay." She thinks there's another. That's what I'm seeing too.

• 2:08:16Speaker 07

  I think I'd found another one.

• 2:08:17Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 2:08:18Speaker 07

  To after, let me, um.

• 2:08:21Dax Shepard?

  Your way right away?

• 2:08:22Speaker 07

  More for your thing spots, I think was her.

• 2:08:25Speaker 01

  Oh, get more for your things?

• 2:08:27Speaker 07

  Let me see.

• 2:08:28Speaker 01

  That's not a good phrase.

• 2:08:30Dax Shepard?

  That's abstract.

• 2:08:31Speaker 01

  That's not a good phrase. If AT&T wants to hire me.

• 2:08:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:35Speaker 01

  I will say the shortcut line.

• 2:08:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay, only that line?

• 2:08:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:39Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. I'll say anything you want, AT&T.

• 2:08:41Speaker 01

  Actually, I will too.

• 2:08:42Dax Shepard?

  That's how I'll compete you, but.

• 2:08:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, God. God.

• 2:08:49Dax Shepard?

  You could hire, you could hire Monica. You should know she's only gonna say one sentence.

• 2:08:53Speaker 01

  They should hire me because a long time ago, I think, have I done an AT&T commercial?

• 2:09:00Dax Shepard?

  I'm sure you have.

• 2:09:00Speaker 01

  I maybe have, but I do know one of the commercials I lost was an AT&T commercial. And it was down to me and this, my nemesis. And she was my nemesis. I lost, I lost, um, a couple roles to this girl.

• 2:09:15Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:09:16Speaker 01

  She wasn't Indian or Lebanese.

• 2:09:17Dax Shepard?

  Did you end up knowing her?

• 2:09:20Speaker 01

  Um, I like.

• 2:09:22Dax Shepard?

  Did you chat with her at auditions?

• 2:09:24Speaker 01

  Um.

• 2:09:24Dax Shepard?

  Hey, you beat me out of, I bet you beat her out a few times too.

• 2:09:28Speaker 01

  Maybe. I forget her name. She was like up and, she was like becoming a thing.

• 2:09:33Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 2:09:35Speaker 01

  Um, and I forget her name.

• 2:09:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:09:36Speaker 01

  But she beat me out for this AT&T, I think like campaign.

• 2:09:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so many spots.

• 2:09:46Speaker 01

  And I was upset. And I knew the directors well. I had worked with them a couple of times, really loved them.

• 2:09:50Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 2:09:51Speaker 01

  Um, and so that was upsetting.

• 2:09:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:54Speaker 01

  That was a, that was a hard one.

• 2:09:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you lost a couple hundred grand probably.

• 2:09:57Speaker 01

  Fuck. Anyway, so they should make up for that.

• 2:10:00Dax Shepard?

  Oh, AT&T should.

• 2:10:01Speaker 01

  And hire me now.

• 2:10:03Dax Shepard?

  As a voiceover artist.

• 2:10:03Speaker 01

  And like now, you're getting bigger bang for your buck.

• 2:10:08Dax Shepard?

  I only say one thing, but you're getting a bigger bang for your buck.

• 2:10:12Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:10:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, trade offs.

• 2:10:13Speaker 01

  I have a voice for radio and AT&T commercials. That's what they say.

• 2:10:16Dax Shepard?

  That's what they say.

• 2:10:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:18Dax Shepard?

  You have a face for AT&T commercials.

• 2:10:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I have a face for radio.

• 2:10:24Speaker 01

  Okay, I have a face for radio and a voice for AT&T commercials. That's what they say.

• 2:10:28Dax Shepard?

  That's what they always say.

• 2:10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, all right, well, that is all.

• 2:10:33Dax Shepard?

  Those were the facts.

• 2:10:34Speaker 01

  That is all.

• 2:10:35Dax Shepard?

  Well, I love Lena.

• 2:10:37Speaker 01

  Me too. Great app.

• 2:10:38Dax Shepard?

  I love her.

• 2:10:39Speaker 01

  Great app. Love her.

• 2:10:41Dax Shepard?

  She's so lovable.

• 2:10:41Speaker 01

  She is. She's very smart and wise.

• 2:10:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:45Speaker 01

  And interesting.

• 2:10:47Dax Shepard?

  And accomplished.

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  And accomplished.

• 2:10:49Dax Shepard?

  Accomplished is cool.

• 2:10:50Speaker 01

  And just those good chatter. She's good chatter.

• 2:10:52Dax Shepard?

  All right, love you.

• 2:10:52Speaker 01

  I love you.