#2280 - Peter Berg

Peter Berg is a writer, director, and producer. His latest project is the Netflix series "American Primeval." https://www.netflix.com/title/81457507 Save $20 on your first subscription of AG1 at drinkag1.com/joerogan 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com/rogan! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The Joe Rogan Experience.

• 0:13Joe Rogan?

  Are we up? Those are a lot.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Is this too much?

• 0:19Joe Rogan?

  They're delicious.

• 0:20Speaker 02

  Am I making a rookie mistake?

• 0:21Joe Rogan?

  No, I love them. They're too good, though. There's a lot of sugar in them. They're trying to make one with no sugar. They're pretty close, but right now that's got a ton of sugar in it, but damn, it's good.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, they taste good.

• 0:33Joe Rogan?

  We did the full thing today, dude.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Thanks for the workout.

• 0:36Joe Rogan?

  My pleasure.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  Thanks for the work. You're a beast. For anyone that doesn't know, you are a fucking beast. And I suspected you would be, you know, that's why I wanted to work out. And I was smart enough and I told you right away, I'm not going to keep up with you. But man, you go hard.

• 0:53Joe Rogan?

  You did a lot of the things, though. You did all the stuff, you know, like in stuff that you'd never done before, like windmills and...

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, those windmills were like, you could really get in trouble with the windmill.

• 1:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  For people that don't know what that is.

• 1:05Joe Rogan?

  You certainly can with heavyweight. Yeah, it's something, but it's all those things like the pushups and body weights, squats. It's all just to, you have to build to it.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  I love the way you warm up, you know, because I'm the same way. I do a long warmup every day. And my buddy Ari got me into it and, and just try and stretch absolutely everything. And I was telling you, I got thrown off a horse in Africa a month ago. And when I was in the process of getting thrown off and I was like in the middle of the air. And I'm about to come down and I'm like, oh shit, this is going to be a problem. And I thought about those warmups and I landed and rolled and didn't hurt myself. So I think those are really smart.

• 1:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, if we could just appreciate when your body works well without having to be injured, it would be so nice.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  Right?

• 1:51Joe Rogan?

  Because you really only think about your, oh god, I hope my body heals when you get injured. If you get fucked up, then you think, god, I can't wait to get healthy again. But if you just appreciate, and the best way to appreciate your body working well is to keep it working well.

• 2:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 2:06Joe Rogan?

  Is to work on it, like stretch out, work out, lift weights, get some cardio in. Do those stuff that's uncomfortable, like stretching. I like that you started off your workout with a nice, long stretch.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  We had a good stretch.

• 2:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  And a good ice bath, man. Yours is colder than mine.

• 2:23Joe Rogan?

  That blue cube is brutal because it's always running. It's like a flowing river.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28Joe Rogan?

  It's hard.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Great, it was a great way to start.

• 2:31Joe Rogan?

  God, gets you fired up, man. And also, like we're saying, your workout's done. Your day can, you're free. You don't have to think about doing it. Just get it out of the way early. You're good.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Well, and the sauna and the way you approach, the way I think you approach all of it is kind of a meditation.

• 2:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  You know, and I know that that's probably really an important part of your creative process. It is a mine when I'm writing or directing, to be able to have that time alone. Uh, and it's a moving meditation. And I think one of the secrets to your success, in my opinion, is that you know how to take that time for yourself. Lock in, focus, get mentally and physically ready, because it's not easy to do what you do every day and to be this, this present. So, I respect it so much.

• 3:18Joe Rogan?

  Well, thank you very much. Well, I'm, obviously, I'm a huge fan of what you do. And fucking American Pride Evil is so good, dude.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Thank you, man.

• 3:26Joe Rogan?

  I feel like you made it just for me. I've been waiting for a realistic Wild West series like that forever. And that is, I'll just say it right now, that's the best one that's ever been made.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 3:38Joe Rogan?

  Is the best representation of the Wild West that's ever been made. It's so good, dude. It's so brutal. My wife checked out after episode one.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  Did she? Yeah.

• 3:48Joe Rogan?

  She's like, I can't, because we watch, we watch shows before we go to bed. And we're in the middle of Severance, which is excellent.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:55Joe Rogan?

  Really good show. And Severance is, you know, I mean, there's some brutal moments, but it's, it's just really complicated. It's really engaging.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  You've got to pay very close attention.

• 4:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, really good show. And then I said, hey, baby, we gotta watch, uh, American Pride Evil. I go, Peter's coming on, please sit and watch with me. This is a couple of weeks ago.

• 4:14Joe Rogan?

  The first episode, she's like, Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you doing to me? It's like 10 o'clock at night, I gotta go to bed.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:20Joe Rogan?

  I can't like, people are getting tomahawked in the fucking head and I gotta go to sleep.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, if I have to call her or send her flowers or anything, I will. I've, I've had to send a few people flowers and give them like massages and stuff, like therapy. Treatments because it's traumatizing.

• 4:38Joe Rogan?

  Because you did it right, that's why, because you did it right. You did it like it really was. It was a fucking barbaric time in a barbaric place. And it's never really been, other than eighteen eighty-three, Taylor Sheridan's series, which is also excellent.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Excellent.

• 4:55Joe Rogan?

  Excellent. He did a fantastic job. And how crazy is it that like Faith Hill and, what's the other guy's name?

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Tim.

• 5:05Joe Rogan?

  Tim McGraw? They're fucking great actors.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Sure. Tim was in Friday Night Lights. Do you remember him in the movie? He played the father, like the mean alcoholic father. Who used to beat up his kid and Tim was great in Friday Night. Tim's a very good actor.

• 5:21Joe Rogan?

  Isn't that crazy that someone who's a great singer can all just slide into this other thing and be amazing at it?

• 5:26Speaker 02

  He's an artist. I mean, he's a really deep-thinking, deep-feeling artist.

• 5:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, clearly.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  And Taylor, Taylor Sheridan has a knack for getting great performances out of people like McGraw. Or did you see Jerry Jones, his cameo in Landman, which I think is the best cameo ever? Have you seen that yet?

• 5:45Joe Rogan?

  What episode is it on?

• 5:46Speaker 02

  I'm not sure because I don't know each episode, but he's got, Sheridan has a sequence where Jerry Jones, basically playing himself, just tells the story of how he got into business and how he started up and it's just beautifully done. Sheridan's very good at getting people to do cameos and pulling it out of them.

• 6:08Joe Rogan?

  I think that that show was like Billy Bob Thornton was built for that show. It's like it was born for it.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:14Joe Rogan?

  That he's, that's his perfect role. He's so goddamn good in that show.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  In Landman.

• 6:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, in Landman. He's so god, I mean, he's been good in a million things, but in Landman, it's like you just believe he's that guy.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 6:27Joe Rogan?

  You just believe. But American primeval, back to that. What, what inspired you to do such a realistic interpretation of that time period?

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Do you remember a movie called Jeremiah Johnson? Did you ever see that with Robert Redford?

• 6:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, a long time ago.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  So Redford plays this. City man who goes out west looking for gold and ends up sort of stuck somewhere around Montana and is trying to survive out there. When the Indians first find him, he's so inept. He's trying to catch a fish in a frozen river with his hands. I mean, it's just he's completely inept that they don't even waste an arrow on him. They don't kill him. And by the end of the film, he's a warrior and he's learned how to survive and he marries a Native American woman and his wife gets killed and he goes on a vengeance spree and kills a whole bunch of people and ends up getting this incredible respect from the Native Americans.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  And my dad took me to see Jeremiah Johnson and that movie always stuck with me. And I'm good friends with Taylor Sheridan and we work together a lot and I obviously know everything he's doing and I kind of wanted to see if I could play in that space. But, you know, he's doing it so well and so specifically, I kind of thought, well, what if I just did something that was really about the survival? And I like to call it inch by inch filmmaking where you think about how hard it would have been just to go 50 feet and take a piss and how there might have been 15 different things that could have killed you on the way to taking that piss. Instead of just jumping through those 50 things, let's, let's really try and stretch it out

• 8:11Speaker 02

  and try and show people and capture the brutality of moment to moment living back in, you know, that part of America in 1850s.

• 8:20Joe Rogan?

  And you're used to doing films. So is, what is the process like transitioning from something that's two or three hours to something that's long form? You have all this time and multiple episodes to lay out the story, but you're doing it with the quality of an excellent film. Everything starts with good health. That's why AG1 is a great addition to any morning routine and why I've partnered with them for so long. One scoop, once a day, simple, research-backed and designed to support your whole body health. And it actually tastes Great. You can forget juggling multiple pills and supplements. AG1 is a more in one solution

• 9:03Joe Rogan?

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• 9:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it was a massive job. You know, a movie, a big movie is generally like 85 day shoot. American primeval is 145 day shoot. And I had, one of my, my, my ideas and with Markel Smith, who, who wrote the episodes and was very talented, was let's not shoot in sound stages. Let's not, you know, make parking lots look like forests, but let's go up into the mountains. And in this case, we went up onto some different Indian reservations in New Mexico. And we're like, let's really go out there for 145 days. Let's do it. You know, we were talking, this is all prior to us going out and actually doing it. And it's kind of like,

• 10:31Speaker 02

  be careful what you ask for. It's like, you're actually really fucking on the mountain for 145 days. And there's lightning storms and snowstorms and windstorms. And we had rattlesnakes everywhere. And we had to have all these dudes going around pulling the snakes out of the, out of the, the rocks and stuntmen breaking ribs. Joe Schilling was with us every day. I think we killed Joe five times. Thanks, Joe.

• 10:59Joe Rogan?

  I saw Tate Fletcher, I was telling you too, episode two.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  We only killed Tate once, but thanks Tate for that.

• 11:05Joe Rogan?

  I love that dude.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Men were so tough and, you know, breaking bones and all kinds of horrible things. But the creative experience of getting to do basically six movies at once, you know, because I directed all of them. And being able to go that deep in characters and to be able to bring in elements like Brigham Young and the Mormon religion and have big themes circling around just very visceral, violent moments as a filmmaker is fucking awesome. And it's, it's, it's different, you know, because it's not, directing an episode of a television show is its own experience, but that's very quick. Directing a movie is really, really wonderful and very, obviously creatively demanding.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  But that's, this is six movies all at once.

• 11:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  And having to keep that in my head and kind of figure out how to keep myself functioning and not wasting energy and, you know, I built a gym in my house in New Mexico with a nice bath and a sauna and I'd get up at four every morning and just have that time for myself to keep myself fit and, you know, mentally and physically ready to, to, to go at it.

• 12:19Joe Rogan?

  When you're, when you're, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but when you're in the middle of a project and you're doing your workouts and your song, are you just like constantly going over the show in your head?

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I mean, I, I try to, I, I do go over it, but in more of an abstract way. I, I'm a bit of an improvisational filmmaker, meaning I don't like to have everything super planned out. I, I think kind of the way you conduct your podcasts, you, you have some ideas and then you just sort of allow whatever happens to happen. And I, I try, I know what I'm gonna do that day. So, you know, particularly with American Primeval because, you know, we had so many big battles and stunts and, you know, kind of dangerous, complex filmmaking that you, there has to be some plan. But even within that, I try to loosely think about what I want to do and then get out

• 13:12Speaker 02

  there and, and, and let the actors kind of. Start doing what they do and see what kind of creative vibe gets going. And allow the cameramen, you know, I just shoot handheld cameras. So we have a lot of flexibility with how we can work and capture. And my feeling is rather than plan it all out, go out there knowing kind of what you want to accomplish. But allow kind of creativity, allow that kind of divine magic to enter the process. Which can kind of be freaky for like my bosses at Netflix because they're spending a whole lot of money. And they're like, what are we doing today? And I'm like, I don't really know what we're doing today, but we're gonna do something. But I've done it.

• 13:55Joe Rogan?

  Well, they're pretty good at staying out of the way, aren't they?

• 13:57Speaker 02

  They actually are fantastic about it. And, and you know, I have to give, you know, my boss, there's a woman named Bella Bajara at Netflix. Who, and people talk a lot of shit about Netflix. I'm not one of them. I mean, they're giving so many people so much work. And they, you know, once, once you convince them that you have a vision, they let you do it. And.

• 14:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  She was great and she let me do it. And, you know, it was interesting because there was a scene in, in the second episode of American Primeval. Where a Native American cuts the throats of five women.

• 14:37Joe Rogan?

  Spoiler alert.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Sorry, spoiler alert, I guess, sorry. There, there's a lot other bad things that happen, but there is this scene, right? And, you know, Netflix is a very busy company. They're making a lot of stuff. And we were deep in the edit process and I got a call from Bella, the, the boss, my boss. And she's like, I want to see this show. And I'm like, well, it's your show, so please come in. And, you know, it's hard for her to keep track of all the shows and all the scripts. And I was impressed that she even wanted to come in. And so she came in to the edit room and she's like, I'm gonna watch one episode. And it's kind of a big deal. She's, you know, very influential person in, in our world. And so it's me and Hugo, the editor, and Bella comes in and we show, we're showing her the first episode.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  And we're just sitting in this kind of dark screening room and I have no idea what she's gonna say or do. And it's pretty violent. And it ends and she goes, I want to see another one. And I'm like, okay, we'll start a plan the second episode. And we're getting right to the moment where spoiler alert, these women are about to have their throats cut. And I'm starting to have a full fucking panic attack because I'm pretty sure that she doesn't know what's coming up. Right. And Hugo, the editor is kind of looking at me like, should I stop it? I'm like, and I really didn't know what to do. And we're, and I, we get to the moment where this event happens. And my body heat was, was literally rising. I'm ready for her to like fire me and take the show and I know.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  And the scene happens and the girls get their throats cut. And she says, stop and we stop. And she goes, Peter, I can sense your concern about my reaction. Let me tell you something, I'm here for this violence. I'm not afraid of this violence as long as you make it emotional and connect me to the emotion. Do it. And I'm like, thank you, Bella. And she left and she allowed us to explore the kind of grit and intensity that people have reacted to. And I tip my hat to her for that, you know, it's, um, it's not, you, you need that kind of support.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  And to get something like American primeval made today because it's not, you know, it's not your grandmother's Western.

• 16:56Joe Rogan?

  No, it's critical that you do it that way. Because if people want to really know what that was like, if you read the historical accounts of what happened, that's what happened.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 17:07Joe Rogan?

  It happened that way.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  And you know.

• 17:10Joe Rogan?

  It was horrific.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  One of the things that, you know, a lot of people have, have talked about. And I had, you know, the LDS church issued a statement sort of critiquing the show and critiquing me. Um, which I appreciate and I understand why, um, members of the Mormon community would be offended by the portrayal of Brigham Young. Um, and the Meadows, the Mountain Meadows massacre, which was the event that, you know, we use as kind of our inciting incident. Um, for the first episode, which was a real massacre that the Mormons committed on a group of pioneers who were heading out west. Well. Mormon militia with some pied Indians attacked and murdered about 140 men, women,

• 17:56Speaker 02

  and children. And we present that in the film, and we present Brigham Young in the film. And many Mormons, since you start reading all the debate about it, a lot of Mormons are saying, yeah, this is exactly what happened, and this is a part of our history. And there were other Mormons, particularly the seniors in Salt Lake City, who were saying, this is not what happened, this is not fair. But what I find interesting about the Mormon church and about kind of how we present it is I've had a lot of people come to me and go, dude, I never knew the Mormons were such savages.

• 18:33Joe Rogan?

  So gangster.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  They were fucking gangster. Brigham Young was, in my opinion, a gangster, a survivor, a warrior. And for anyone who follows Mormon history, you know, they started in upstate New York with this young kid, Joseph Smith, who found these tablets and basically rewrote the Bible and started getting this following. And then they moved to Missouri, and they got popular, and then there was an extermination order, and it was kill all the Mormons. So they fled to Illinois and tried to survive up there at this place called Nauvoo that was going to be their, you know, peaceful place to live. And Joseph Smith was murdered, and they were run out of Illinois, and Brigham Young led

• 19:17Speaker 02

  these dudes, men and women, on foot across the plains in the winter to Salt Lake Valley, which was this desolate wasteland. And he said, oh, we'll stay here. They'll never come for us here. And they started coming. And Brigham Young basically said, fuck it. We're not taking it anymore. He built his own army, the Nauvoo Legion, and he said, we're staying here. We won't mess with you, but if you come after us, we will fight. And that point, I think, is interesting, and I think Brigham Young, who survived longer than all of them, and if you go to Salt Lake City, he did a pretty good job, right?

• 19:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  That's a big city, man.

• 20:01Joe Rogan?

  It's a great city.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  And, I don't know, I respect the Mormon religion. I respect Brigham Young. And I feel like we make him look like a gangster in American Primeval, and...

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Um, I don't know. He's, he's-

• 20:19Joe Rogan?

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• 22:30Joe Rogan?

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• 22:40Speaker 02

  A survivor, and I respect that.

• 22:42Joe Rogan?

  Well, this is the reality of- Historical figures, you're you're talking about a different time in the world. And it was a particularly barbaric time. And if you wanted to survive, this is what you had to do. And this is, we're not talking about the United States in 2025. We're talking about the Wild West. And and you're talking about a persecuted group of religious people. Like, if you want to survive, you want your children to survive.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  You gotta fight.

• 23:10Joe Rogan?

  You gotta take up arms. That's just how it is. Like, you know the story about the Mormons in Mexico, right?

• 23:14Speaker 02

  Remind me.

• 23:15Joe Rogan?

  Well, uh, there's Mormon sects in Mexico that moved there when they made, uh, polygamy illegal.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:26Joe Rogan?

  And this was a homeboy from Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. His family is from Mexico. His father was born in Mexico. And his father could never be president because he wasn't born in America. And he was born here in America, ran for president, the whole deal, became governor of Massachusetts. But there's still these huge groups in Mexico that are armed to the fucking tits.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:51Joe Rogan?

  Because they're always constantly battling with the cartel. And there was a series of murders a few years back where a woman and children, like family, were slaughtered. And it was some confusion as to whether or not the cartel targeted them, or whether it was a case of mistaken identity, or what happened. But, you know, there there's been documentaries about them. They're fucking, they live in armed compounds.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  The Mormons.

• 24:15Joe Rogan?

  In Mexico.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that would be.

• 24:16Joe Rogan?

  So it's a similar sort of a situation with them in Mexico now.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  When, I mean, the the polygamy was a thing, and, you know, we do touch upon that a bit in in Primeval. I think Brigham Young had forty odd wives.

• 24:32Joe Rogan?

  Nice.

• 24:36Joe Rogan?

  How do you fucking keep up with two?

• 24:38Speaker 02

  I, I don't know.

• 24:39Joe Rogan?

  I don't really understand how someone could have two wives.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  That, that's a whole nother conversation. I mean, I, I have a friend who, uh, lives in, in Saudi Arabia and a long time ago, I was, I was in Saudi Arabia doing some work. And I'd asked him, cause in Saudi, you can have multiple wives, Saudi, Saudi men. And I'd asked him about that and sort of what, like, wow, that's amazing. Multiple wives. That, that's so cool. And we were leaving, we were leaving Riyadh Airport and, uh, he was walking with me and there was a man in front of us and he was holding like five suitcases. And he could barely walk and there were four women around him and kids everywhere. And he just looked like he was about to collapse and fall face forward on the ground at the airport Riyadh.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  And my friend looked at me and said, Pete, this is the reality of what having five wives looks like, uh, on the ground, if you want to see what, what it really feels like. So to think about Brigham Young having, you know, forty-five wives, um, okay, good, good luck, I guess.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  Right? Um, yeah, uh, but that, that was one of the, the, the issues. The polygamy that people that were non Mormons back in eighteen fifties were using to attack the religion. And, um, you know, that was something that was, the, the polygamy has obviously been since outlawed and the, the church has cut itself, uh, off from that policy. But, um, you know, the Mormons were, the whole idea that this kid, Joseph Smith, I believe he was a young teenager, fifteen, fourteen.

• 26:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  When he and his buddy walked into these woods in like eighteen, late eighteen thirties, right? Like.

• 26:24Joe Rogan?

  It was eighteen twenty.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 26:25Joe Rogan?

  When did he, um, find, when did Joseph Smith supposedly find these golden tablets? I believe it was.

• 26:32Joe Rogan?

  But either way.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  He had fifty-six wives.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Brigham Young had fifty-six? There's, there's a photo of-

• 26:37Joe Rogan?

  There's sixteen he forgot about.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  See, I didn't wanna, I didn't wanna oversell it, so I undersaw it. I kinda knew it was in the fifties. He had fifty-six wives.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Forty-six kids, only, only four, excuse me, only forty-six kids made it to adulthood. It's part of why.

• 26:53Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow. Only forty-six.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Um.

• 26:56Joe Rogan?

  He's basically Genghis Khan of Utah.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  But-

• 26:59Speaker 03

  Eighteen twenty-three, he was visited by an angel who directed a Mormon Berry book.

• 27:03Joe Rogan?

  Eighteen twenty-three?

• 27:04Speaker 02

  And how old was he, like?

• 27:05Speaker 03

  Fourteen.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  Fourteen, so, but, so this kid at fourteen, and comes out of the woods and says, "The angel came and told me that the Bible's almost right, but it's not quite right, so I'm gonna rewrite it," which he did, the Book of Mormon, "and look at where we are today. It was not that long ago, right?" And, and, and the course of that journey from Joseph Smith coming out of the woods to where we are today with Brigham Young University and, you know, beautiful city of Salt Lake City, Utah, um, there was a lot of bloodshed. And Joseph Smith was murdered. Brigham Young, uh, fought, and another interesting theory that isn't proven, but it's, I believe it, it, it, it holds,

• 27:52Speaker 02

  is what saved the Mormons. Because in eighteen fifty-seven, when you had the Mormon Wars, you know, Brigham Young was fighting President Buchanan, and when the military was coming after him in eighteen fifty-seven, and he was holed up and prepared to fight in Salt Lake City, and Buchanan wanted him out. And then, right around eighteen fifty-eight, eighteen fifty-nine, a little thing called the Civil War popped off. And the entire focus of the US military was not on Brigham Young and Utah, but it was on fighting the Civil War. The Utah church was able, and Brigham Young was able to grow the Mormon church and survive and, and thrive, and he was able to politically negotiate,

• 28:35Speaker 02

  you know, a place in the government, so that by the time the Civil War ended, Brigham Young was deeply entrenched and was, you know, able to lead the Mormon church to the great power that it is today. I think if the Civil War hadn't occurred, there would be no Mormonism in the United States.

• 28:52Joe Rogan?

  Wow. That's crazy. What a fortuitous turn of events.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna probably get ripped on for that one, but I believe it's supportable.

• 29:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you're gonna get ripped for everything.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  That's okay.

• 29:02Joe Rogan?

  It's just how it is. Mormons are the nicest people. My next door neighbors used to be Mormons. They're the nicest fucking people.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  I I completely agree and.

• 29:11Joe Rogan?

  They're so ni- I know a ton of Mormons, cuz I know a bunch of people in Utah.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  And Salt Lake City, you is a Utah is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful state. Salt Lake City is a cool city. And like, I'm down with the Sundance Film Festival, so I'm down with the whole state.

• 29:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, no, I love Utah, but it is a fascinating story. It's a fa- and and it's, you know, look, they have a great sense of humor. Because the Book of Mormon, when when Matt Stone and Trey Parker did that musical, they took out a full page ad in the playbook. So they're like, if you wanna know more about Mormonism, come visit, like, find out the real thing. So instead of protesting and suing and attacking them, and they just took out a fucking ad.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  So when I was doing.

• 29:59Joe Rogan?

  I think that shows incredible character.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure, for sure.

• 30:04Joe Rogan?

  Cuz that fucking, you've seen The Book of Mormon, right?

• 30:06Speaker 02

  I guess I have.

• 30:07Joe Rogan?

  Hilarious and pretty brutal. And they're like, well, if you like, you like to find out more about Mormonism.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't figure out, like, I, when I was doing my research for American Primeval, I went to Salt Lake City. And the Mormon church gave me a tour and and, you know, I told them what the film was about. And that the Mountain Meadows massacre was in the book. I was gonna be in our show. And they took me to the theater. Have you ever been to the theater, the Mormon Theater in Salt Lake City?

• 30:37Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Holds like twenty thousand people. It is the most beautiful, incredible theater. Um, where they have, you know, weekly, you know, events and meetings and they took me in there and there's a huge pipe organ. And I had a private, you know, concert with their organist. Yeah, it's that.

• 30:54Joe Rogan?

  Whoa, look at that blaze.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  And I sat by myself in the in the center of that theater and you see the pipe organs.

• 31:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  And they they gave me a private, you know, concert. And then they took me into the museum and showed me, you know, the history of the Mormon church. And I told them about the Meadows massacre, which, you know, I've taken heat for in the show. And at the end of the tour, there's a bookstore in the in the in the museum, the Mormon Museum in Salt Lake. And the book Mountain Meadows Massacre by this guy Turley was there. And I'm like, I want to buy this book. I read the book and I'm like, oh, for sure, we're putting this this story in our film. And it was for sale in the Mormon bookstore.

• 31:40Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  And I met with the author, Turley, who then took me to the site of the Mountain Meadows massacre. And he had written the book with the support of the Mormon church to get their side of the story out.

• 31:53Joe Rogan?

  Did you film at the actual site?

• 31:54Speaker 02

  No, we didn't. That was in the actual site was in Utah, but I went and toured it.

• 31:59Joe Rogan?

  He filmed in New Mexico.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, we filmed we filmed everything in a on different reservations around Santa Fe. But if you go to the the site of the Mormon Meadows massacre in Utah, the Mormons have built a big memorial there honoring, you know, 130 pioneers from Arkansas who were were killed there. And the Mormons have have have owned this event. And they were very willing to talk about it, which is kind of like them buying a full page ad in a book of Mormon.

• 32:29Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  They're like, you know, we know you're going to make a film about the Meadows massacre. It's probably going to be inflammatory in some ways. However, come visit us. We want to meet you. We want to show you. We want to play music for you. And I had an incredible time with the Mormons that were, you know, involved with us doing the research for for Primeval.

• 32:54Joe Rogan?

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• 33:24Joe Rogan?

  Did you know that overweight dogs can live an average of 2.5 years less? And did you know that 60% of dogs are overweight? So when my friends say, "I just feed my dog kibble," or whatever, I tell them, "No, you've got to think about this one. You have to try the Farmer's Dog because no one, dog or human, should be eating highly processed food for every meal. So try the Farmer's Dog today and get 50% off your first box of healthy, freshly-made food plus free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com/rogan. Tap the banner or visit this episode's page to learn more. The offer is for new customers only." So what is the backlash, though? If they've admitted that this massacre took place, and it's a historical, it's part

• 34:09Joe Rogan?

  of the historical record, the book is for sale in this Mormon theater, what is the backlash?

• 34:14Speaker 02

  The biggest, the biggest single issue, if you get into the weeds, and I think it's an interesting point of debate, is whether or not Brigham Young knew and authorized this massacre. And the way the massacre played out in real life was different how we did it in the film. In the film, we did it in, you know, one swell, a move, like it just happens. And, you know, we filmed it in one shot, and it's, you know, pretty intense, visceral, very fast event, and then it's over. In reality, this wagon train was surrounded by the Mormon militia, the Navajo Legion, and some of these Native Americans. And it went on for about four or five days.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  And the Mormons dressed up as Native Americans, this is where it gets kind of, some Mormons aren't thrilled that we pointed out the fact that they were trying to put the blame on the Native Americans. So they literally Mormons dressed up as Indians to confuse the pioneers, and in case there were survivors, to say, "Oh, it wasn't Mormons, it was the Native Americans that did this." So they don't love that. But what, what the Mormons claim, or some in the Mormon church claim, is that during the three or four days that the siege took place, before the actual massacre, and the details of the massacre are really fucked up, because the Mormons pretended they were accepting a surrender. So they went in with white flags, and they said, "Okay, the men walk this way, the women

• 35:37Speaker 02

  and children, we're going to walk you to safety because the Indians are going to kill you." Mormons said, "We're here to save you." So they started walking them out, and then on a someone's signal, they just killed everyone. Really bad. But the issue of whether Brigham Young knew about it or didn't know about it, we imply that he knew about it. We never say that he authorized it, but we imply that he did know about it. And what many of the defenders of Brigham Young will say is that there was a letter written where Brigham Young said, "Do not harm these pioneers. Don't kill them." But the letter was sent by horse while the massacre, while the event was already occurring.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  So I've had people say he knew that that letter wasn't gonna make it there in time. He was covering himself. "Oh, hey, I wrote a letter. I knew it couldn't get there in time, but I wrote a letter, so there's plausible deniability." No one knows. It's hard to believe if you really start getting into this, and obviously I did. I know it's not on the top of everyone's list of things to give a fuck about. But it's really hard for me to believe that in 1857, a group of Brigham Young soldiers would unact unilaterally, on their own, and commit a crime that's horrible without somebody approving it. It's hard for me to imagine.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  So that's the single issue that tends to, you know, if I do, and I really try not to, my girlfriends turned me on to Reddit. I never even really knew what it was. Oh, my God. Like, I don't, like, what? Like Reddit is fucking crazy. Yeah. I was talking to, you know, Jack Carr, right? And he's getting into, you know, making movies, and he's doing all this cool stuff at The Terminalist, and I think he's a great guy. And he was talking to me about reviews, because it was the first time he was ever getting reviewed, right? And, you know, any filmmaker who says they don't read the reviews is lying, okay? They're just fucking lying.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  And we do read reviews, and we care, and they hurt, you know? And he's like, I guess he'd gotten, you know, read something he didn't like on The Terminalist, and he's just called me, he's like, "How do you handle this shit? I wanna kill this mother..." And he's freaking out, and I'm, I mean, I'm not, he wasn't really freaking out that bad, but he was pissed. And I'm like, "Jack, you know, welcome to the world of, you know, what we do. People are gonna, are gonna talk." I'm like, I'm like, you don't understand what like before Reddit and and comments and all the things back when we first put movies out. Man, there were three critics that mattered.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Like when I first started making movies, there was this guy Kenneth Turan in a in the LA Times, there was Janet Maslin in the New York Times, and then there was Siskel and Ebert, right? Yeah. And like, they had so much power, right? So you'd you'd make a movie and you'd spend, you know, tens of millions of dollars and you'd put your heart and soul and you're like, we never try to make bad movies, right? Like, that's that's never the goal. We're always like, you know, we want to win some. It's hard to make a good movie. But you put all your your heart and soul into these movies, and then it's fucking three critics that control your fate, right? And I was telling Carr about, um, you know, my first movie was called Very Bad Things.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  It was about this bachelor party that goes haywire. That's a great movie. Appreciate it. Thank you. I love that movie. So that movie got, hands down, the worst review ever given to a movie in the history of film reviews. Please don't pull it up right now. But feel free, anyone listening, Kenneth Turan's review of my film Very Bad Things in the Los Angeles Times, okay? I read this review, I literally vomit. Like, people talk about vomiting, like, I don't know if you've ever vomited when something bad happens. I puked. I went into like shock. I'm like, he tried to destroy my career and he like, it was, and so I'm telling Jack and I'm going, pull it up right now. Pull it up.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  And he starts reading it and he's like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I go, don't fucking tell me about bad reviews, okay? Because I got the worst. And Kenneth Turan, who like, after I'd gotten that review, I was in a bar at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, getting drunk with a couple of my friends, and Kenneth Turan was in the bar, and I got up and started moving towards him. Like, I was in a blackout rage. And and my friend Joe and and Mike Mendelson held me back because I was gonna get him, you know? And and for for three films after that, Kenneth Toran, he just had it out for me. This guy hated me.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  And finally, on, I believe it was either Friday Night Lights or Lone Survivor, he reluctantly gave me a good review. But it was more like a broken clock is right twice a day than people. But like nowadays, like, as I said to Jack, it's like, OK, if you, the crazy thing about if you are focusing on how your your work is being perceived, and it matters, and it does matter, and like I say, anyone who says it doesn't, I think is kind of lying.

• 41:07Joe Rogan?

  Don't you think it matters more about the audience than about the critics?

• 41:11Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 41:12Joe Rogan?

  My perspective on critics is that no one wants to be a critic. Generally, they wanted to be creative, but they're not good enough.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 41:21Joe Rogan?

  To contribute.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 41:22Joe Rogan?

  They don't have anything to contribute.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  And and they're they're using a different standard that doesn't really apply to just like the working human being that just wants to be entertained. And that's why I said to Jack, I go, dude, like, like, you know, we have rotten tomatoes, right? Which is a way of, you know, critics, if if you get sixty one percent good, you get a fresh tomato. If not, you're, you know, you've got a rotten tomato. And that that sucks. OK, I've got a rotten tomato. That sucks. Oh, I got a fresh tomato. Oh, that's great. But now they have the audience score right next to the critic's score.

• 41:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  And that's the one that I said, Jack, don't look at the critics. Look at what your audience is saying. And that's when, you know, like, I learned about Reddit and all that stuff. And I'm like, fuck the critics. I'm down with this Reddit shit because you get such interesting conversations.

• 42:12Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  And they're much more thoughtful, I think. And they've taken away the power, you know, and and I'm not shitting on critics. I get it. You want to be a critic? Whatever, you know? I I do like the the quote about critics and life doesn't go to the critics. The man in the arena.

• 42:31Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  I like that quote, and I believe in that.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  And I've used that to justify my mood. When I get a bad review, I'll just read the man in the arena over and over until I feel good.

• 42:42Joe Rogan?

  Is that Theodore Roosevelt?

• 42:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great quote.

• 42:46Joe Rogan?

  Great quote.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  And it's true. It is absolutely true.

• 42:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  That, you know, to do, to do, people that do.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  You know, I was just talking to Dana White.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  And about something that I actually want to mention to you. But, and my love of a guy like Dana is the doer of it all. The guy who just says, I don't care what the critic says, I'm going this way. I am fucking going this way. And if I win and you're with me on the ride, you're part of me. If I lose and you're still with me, you're my friend. If not, I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna do it again. And I have, I have so much respect for that. And, and I'll tell you another interesting thing about my business that never, it never, it always surprises me how real it is.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  But when you make something, a movie, or you do something, whether it's American premiere of almost anything I've done, and I don't know if you've ever experienced this. You know, you put yourself on the line so intensely. And, and you'll believe in it with your heart and your soul and you go for it. And as it's getting ready to come out, there's this weird thing that happens where everybody separates from you. And you're the one that's kinda, now you're about to be judged. It's gonna be determined to be successful or a failure. And it's gonna get reviewed. And everyone's kinda like, good luck, Pete.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Good luck. And I could like, like the day or two before it comes out, all the people like, and this is when you know who's got your back. Okay? Cause there's a few, you look around and like, wait, all these people were with me for this journey and I'm all by my fucking, where, where'd everybody go? And it's, you know, like my sister, my best friend, Ari, my dog, my son, there's a few people who are really right there. And then, and then when it comes out and it works, man.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  You have a lot of friends and and and that's, you know, just one of the things that you have to do um in this business and it's why the critics fuck them and it's why Dana and people like that, you, who do, you know, create it and build it and make it and it it's real.

• 45:22Joe Rogan?

  You definitely need feedback because you definitely need to know if you're on the right track, but you can get lost in feedback. You can get lost in positive feedback, too. You get lost, you can get lost in people approving you and and enjoy, you you can get drunk in it. I don't read anything. I don't read anything about me.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  No red hutch ever?

• 45:41Joe Rogan?

  Nothing. I don't read anything. I just, I get it. Like, sometimes I'm good, sometimes I'm not as good. That's, I get it. I do my best. That's all I can do. And I feel like if you're really self-critical, which I am, and you're you're objective and you you analyze yourself and you and you're brutally honest, if you're brutally honest about what you've done and how it is, like, could you have done it better? Is there anything, did you cut corners?

• 46:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:09Joe Rogan?

  And if you don't, if you don't cut corners and if you do your best and you really prepare, that's all you can do. You just do your very best. And if you haven't done your best, that's when the critics really sting. If you know that you kind of slacked off or you weren't focused or there's something that was wrong with what you

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Or you did it for the money?

• 46:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  That can often, yeah, I I agree with that.

• 46:30Joe Rogan?

  To do it for the money is a real, real one, you know, I mean, that's the the downfall of Robert De Niro.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:35Joe Rogan?

  Right? He needs money for divorces, his, you know, he's got marital problems and so I spend a lot of money and he starts doing these fantasy movies with Michelle Pfeiffer and it's like bizarre shit where he's like, you're like, what is Robert De Niro, one of the greatest actors of all time, doing these fucking goofy ass movies?

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. You can extend him. I I agree with you that, like, what I always say is, I do a lot of research for my films and, you know, have went to Iraq with Navy SEAL platoon and lived on an oil rig and went back to high school for Friday Night Lights. And I found that if I, whenever I put that work in and I put that research in, um, and I really, real, with the exception of Very Bad Things, which was a fantasy about a bachelor party gone haywire, which Kenneth Ryan didn't like. It it did, it did hurt me. It did, that review, but I was younger. But if if I do stay true to my instincts and my passion and I follow it. A, the work seems to connect much, much better.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  And I don't, I don't feel if somebody doesn't like it or wants to talk about it or debate it. Okay. It's I don't, it doesn't hurt me.

• 47:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's experience, right?

• 47:45Speaker 02

  I think so, yeah. Yeah. And anytime I've done a job for the money, and there've been a couple. It's, it's backfired horrifically. And the money was never worth it.

• 47:55Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  The, the, the, the reviews did sting worse.

• 48:02Joe Rogan?

  Cause you agreed with them.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, they were right. I was lazy, I didn't give a fuck, I was, you know, I, I cared, I still, I didn't phone it in, but I wasn't locked in.

• 48:12Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  And.

• 48:12Joe Rogan?

  That's the difference, right?

• 48:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think one of the reasons that you don't have to read your shit is because you know you're locked in. You just are. And that's why you're, you're connecting.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  And, and, and lock, locking in, and I say it to filmmakers now because. So kids are so confused, young kids that wanna become filmmakers, you know, that. They, they think they're, you know, they're gonna work hard and they're gonna make these movies and they're gonna put their heart and soul into them and people are gonna watch them. And then they go in and they see TikTok videos that are getting, you know, four hundred million likes. And someone's just, you know, live streaming them like making toast. Like, they're like, wait a minute, what the fuck is happening? And I say, look, all you can do is control your passion, your work, your, your discipline.

• 49:06Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  And, and believe in something and put the work in, and I believe that the results. You know, will, will take care of themselves. But it's, it's weird, you know, for, for filmmakers today and to try and figure out how, how to, what's gonna penetrate and what's not gonna penetrate and.

• 49:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  I remember. When I did that series about opioids, painkiller. And you know, that pretty heavy issue and we worked really hard on that. And I was very, very proud of it. And you know, we came out number one on Netflix and we were number one for like six, seven days around the world. And on the eighth day, we were number two. And the number one show was a documentary made on cellphone footage about the Johnny Depp, Amber Heard divorce trial. Where people were just in the parking lots. And that was the number one show on Netflix in the world. And I'm like, whoa, wow, like, you know, they probably made that for $25,000.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  If that, and that everything is sort of, there's this great parody now. And I'm like, and it's confusing, but I'm like, dude, you just have to work harder. And if you're not telling the truth, you're gonna have a harder time.

• 50:23Joe Rogan?

  You can't be in the business of getting the most attention. Because, uh, human beings are easily distracted, easily amused. We like a lot of things that have zero quality and just because we're watching it, doesn't mean it resonates with us. Just because you're watching the Amber Heard trial, doesn't mean it's changing the way you feel about things, really entertaining you. And not just entertaining you, but stimulating you in a way like, wow, like that was a fucking masterful piece of cinema. You know, there's a difference, you know, and yeah, there's gonna be a bunch of people that just watch people unbox cellphones or eat octopus. You know, there's like, there's weird videos that get a lot of likes. But you're not in the business of attention. You're in the business of art.

• 51:07Joe Rogan?

  And, um, I feel like when it comes to paying attention to comments and critics, I feel like if you're locked in and if you're doing your best, if you don't, if you're one of those people that don't need to be checked on, some people need to be checked on. Some people get off the rails, they get a little full of themselves and they need a little something to just like set them back. You need someone to say, that one sucked. You're like, god damn it. And then you work harder. But if you're working as hard as you can. This is my advice that I give comedians when it comes to comments and things like that and negativity. You only have so much attention. And think of your attention as if it was a number. Like you have 100 units of attention.

• 51:52Joe Rogan?

  Now, if you're spending 30 units paying attention to comments and negative articles and criticism, that's 30 units you can't use for something that you love. And then also, it probably bleeds into your thoughts when you're doing those things that you do love. Particularly like devastating negative reviews and comments and things that are like really hurt you, that hurt your feelings.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  Takes a lot of numbers.

• 52:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  Takes a lot of numbers.

• 52:20Joe Rogan?

  It's just bandwidth. You're robbing yourself of your ability to do the things that you love. You're robbing yourself of your ability to pay attention to your family, your ability to contact your friends and reach out and to be present. Cause you're thinking, "Oh my God, I can't believe he hated my movie." "Oh my God, I can't believe, you know, I bombed. Oh my God, I can't believe this podcast sucked." Whatever it is. You're robbing yourself. You can only do your best. And if you're not doing your best, you probably need those comments. You need something to wake you the fuck up and get locked in. But if you're locked in, you don't want it. You should know. I know if I talk too much. I know if I interrupt too much. I know.

• 53:04Joe Rogan?

  And I'll drive home, I'm like, "Ugh, I hate it."

• 53:08Speaker 02

  You don't need to be reminded of that.

• 53:09Joe Rogan?

  I don't need it. I fucking hate me. I'm my number one critic. So, I don't pay attention. And this is something that I had to figure out over the years. But when I knocked it down to a formula of attention bandwidth.

• 53:25Joe Rogan?

  That's when I really understood it. Cause I'm like, okay, the, the times, even distractions, like the times that I'm spending just scrolling through Instagram and looking at nonsense, like that hour is a valuable hour to me. I could have been doing like real good things with that hour where I feel good about it. Or I get nothing, just, just distraction, just nothing, which is fine sometimes if you're on a fucking airplane or something like that, you got nothing to do, like who cares?

• 53:53Speaker 02

  Is it really ever fine, do you think?

• 53:54Joe Rogan?

  I think it's okay sometimes.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  But barely, barely.

• 53:56Joe Rogan?

  As a comedian, I think there's a value in having your thumb on the pulse of culture. And even the chaotic, you know, fucking unboxing videos and food and stupid shit and people just sticking their ass out.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 54:10Joe Rogan?

  And Insta hoes, like there's, there's a value in keeping your thumb on it. You just have to know when your thumb's getting burnt.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  I don't think there's a value in Insta hoes.

• 54:19Joe Rogan?

  Nah.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't, I actually don't, and I've, I've gotten pretty.

• 54:24Joe Rogan?

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• 55:06Joe Rogan?

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• 56:26Speaker 02

  Could it like just removing that from my life, but I was challenging.

• 56:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  The boxing, okay, yeah, people putting shit in boxes, maybe eating.

• 56:35Joe Rogan?

  It's weird.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Eating asparagus, I guess.

• 56:38Joe Rogan?

  I do enjoy cooking videos. Yeah. I think there's value in that. I love watching chefs prepare food.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Where do you stand on, and this is something I talk to, to a lot of writers and filmmakers about, like just being quiet is really important. And, and being for me, the most creative experiences I've ever had have come far away from any stimulation, from any controlled thinking, from allowing ideas to come to fab like.

• 57:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Like the divine, the divine spirit, the angels that are creativity that, that require a certain amount of quiet and space for those to, to emerge, at least for me they do.

• 57:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Uh, and I try to make space because I so agree with the bandwidth and you're, you're right, but more than anything, just turning it all off.

• 57:34Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 57:34Speaker 02

  Can be so inspiring for me creatively.

• 57:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, one of the most disappointing things that I've ever done, the most is some of the most disappointing things is when I sit down from my computer to write and I wind up looking at my phone. And I just scroll and bullshit and then I start writing, but I'm distracted and I get an email or a text message comes through, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'll text him. And I'm just distracting myself. And then I realized like after an hour and a half's gone, I just fucking wasted an hour and a half that I could have written something that could have been a new brilliant bit. It could have been a new thing that I'm really excited about. Instead, I just fucked off.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, so my, my creative process, like I just, I just wrote a script that'll be my next film. And I wrote it in a very locked in zone. I, I try to find a way of locking myself into a, a pattern when I'm writing, but it involves, the, the key for me is getting up about four forty-five at the latest, but usually right around, I, I'm crazy about it, so I'll set my alarm for five forty-five to the same song every morning that wakes me up. This script was Van Morrison. And from, I will go right, I'll take a piss and then I'll get a cup of coffee and then I'll go right to my writing room with no phone, no stimulation, nothing until I've

• 58:53Speaker 02

  put in, you know, usually about two and a half to three hours of just pure mental focus, no distraction, no conversation, no news, no phone, no nothing.

• 59:05Joe Rogan?

  Why do you like to do it in the morning?

• 59:07Speaker 02

  Because I think when you, I actually like studying writers and their writing habits. I believe that, you know, if you've had a good sleep, a sober sleep, and an intention sleep, meaning you go to bed with some plan of what you want to write tomorrow. So I want to write, I'm making a film about Marines, I want to write the landing at Okinawa in World War II, which is part of the story. I know I'm going to write the actual landing scene. I go to bed with that intention, I might even write that intention down. You wake up, your mind is like at its most fertile. It's like a calm pond, you know, like a mountain pond that's absolutely flat and like glass and reflective and beautiful.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  And in the morning, it's at its most calm, your mind. And then I believe that every bit of stimulation you put into it is like a pebble or a rock being dropped into that water until the water starts getting all churned. And that's what happens to our minds by, you know, eleven o'clock in the morning. If you've been, you know, plugged in and communicating, your mind is just a fucking feral, you know, boiling cauldron of acid. This is how I think of it. So I like early morning, super calm, I can find the ideas. And I tend to, if I lock in like that, I write at a, at a high level and kind of to

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  your point about like critic proof, I know it's good. I, because I know it, it came from the deepest place I have.

• 1:00:43Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  And it's like, well, okay, if you don't like that, then you don't like me.

• 1:00:47Joe Rogan?

  Right. Which is fine.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can handle that.

• 1:00:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  But like, I know that, you know, versus, you know, writing a little bit here, working a little bit there and then going out to lunch and then sitting in a cafe and, and, you know, a coffee shop and kind of writing, but being on the phone, I just don't think that's deep work.

• 1:01:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  And I, I, I have noticed though that like rappers and a lot of people in the hip hop community, I've been working on a documentary about Rihanna for quite a while and spent a lot of time with her in the studio. And it's amazing the hours that hip hop performers, you know, musicians and rappers keep because they're going into the studio at two o'clock in the morning and working till, you know, one in the afternoon and then sleeping all day. And that, that, that nighttime, and I've talked to her about it, she's just extremely creative late at night, almost for me, the exact opposite. But like, I, like, do you like to work creatively at night?

• 1:01:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  Can you write comedy at night?

• 1:01:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I write when I get home. Yeah, so what I do is I do shows and then I come home and everyone's asleep. My whole house is asleep, so it's quiet.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  And you can access?

• 1:01:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, because my mind is really stimulated because I just performed. You know, and you know, I just, maybe I've had a drink or two and I sit in front of the computer and I just start thinking.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:02:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I just start thinking and I just try to freestyle with thoughts. And the way I write is I just, I have a topic and I just start with just essentially an essay. And not an essay that I think anybody's gonna read. An essay is just like my thoughts, just rambling thoughts and then maybe I'll rewrite a paragraph, but I'll keep the same paragraph above it to reference. And then I'll rewrite it again.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  What kind of subject?

• 1:02:33Joe Rogan?

  Anything, whatever it is, technology, how it's affecting our lives and what our future's gonna be like. And then I'll sit down with that and think about the pros and cons and like what do I really? What hasn't every society faced this? Like, would you wanna go back and live in the caveman days again? No, definitely not. Would you want, do you wanna live in a time with no penicillin? No, no, no, no, no. Like, so how much technology is too much technology? And I'll just start writing and out of that, I'll get a bit. Out of that, I mean, not always, maybe one out of ten times, something's useful. Like, there's a lot of times I'm just throwing shit against the wall, but the key is throw a lot of shit.

• 1:03:16Joe Rogan?

  You have to throw a lot of things. You know, Hemingway famously said, my friend Ari Shafiri has this on his laptop. It says, "The first draft of everything is shit."

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it.

• 1:03:26Joe Rogan?

  Such a great quote. It just sits on his laptop and I love it. I love that. It's so true. And I just write. I just write.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  But when you're, when you're writing, like, cause I was just watching you as you were speaking, you were, you were looking up at the sky, like, for an idea. Do you, do you think about your, your writing intellectually? Okay, I'm thinking this thought, okay, I'm gonna write it down. Or are your hands on the keyboard and you're just channeling?

• 1:03:53Joe Rogan?

  It's both. You know, sometimes I'm just sitting there thinking about it before I write or in the middle of writing, like. Is this right, am I correct? Is this how I'm looking at this, or am I trying to force this? And then, I also write on a computer that is not connected to any apps. It doesn't have anything on it. The only thing it has on it is, um, it has, it's a mic, it's a think pad. So it has a-

• 1:04:16Speaker 02

  So you can't distract yourself?

• 1:04:17Joe Rogan?

  Right, I can, I am allowed to Google things to find out if something's correct. That's it. There's, I've never, I don't go to websites, I don't look at it. This laptop is just for writing. It's connected to the internet, which is a tricky thing, but there's a rule. So my home computer is, there's no rules. I might watch YouTube videos, I might fucking watch a little Netflix. It's, you know, iMac, so it's big screen. I might do all kinds of stuff on that computer. But when I'm writing, my laptop is only for writing. And so there's, there's, I don't allow myself, there's no TikTok, there's no Instagram, there's no nothing. I don't ever look at anything else, I just write.

• 1:04:58Joe Rogan?

  And I use the browser, the, I use fucking Bing, which is like, who searches shit on Bing? But you could, you know, it's good enough to find out what's real and what's not real. That's the only time I use it, that's it.

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  And do you experience like euphoria when you're writing on occasion? Do you blow your mind?

• 1:05:17Joe Rogan?

  Well, you know, these ideas are not, they're coming from fucking the ether. They're coming from somewhere. I know that creativity is an individual thing and it varies. But for me, my best ideas seem to come out of nowhere. It's like, I don't even know if they're my ideas. They're, they're coming from someplace. And this is the concept of the muse, right? Like the muse is bestowing upon you these beautiful gifts of creativity.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Steven Pressfield stuff?

• 1:05:44Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes. The War of Art, amazing book. I've got a stack of them out there.

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love him. He's a big inspiration to me.

• 1:05:52Joe Rogan?

  He's incredible. And he's, he's just a brilliant guy.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Joe Rogan?

  But that, that's where, where it's at. It's just like, setting this table, showing up, and then trying to pull these things from this other dimension, this wherever the fuck they're coming from. And then I get these little nuggets, and then the nuggets I transfer to my phone.

• 1:06:15Speaker 02

  I feel bad for people who never get to experience that.

• 1:06:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  You know, I keep a necklace with a dog tag and a quote from a William Blake poem. And he said that has always just helped me quite a bit. And it's the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful and exalted things.

• 1:06:40Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  And I remember the first time I got to experience the power of writing and something, it was like literally a religious experience. I don't know what happened. I kind of blacked out. I lost track of time and I wrote eight pages. And I looked at it and I'm like, I don't know where this came from. And I read it and I blew my mind and I felt like I was having almost a religious experience. And that quote, when I read it, the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful things. The creation, being creative and being able to please God through creativity. Or have a religious, a mystical experience that's not drug induced.

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  Through your power of your creativity.

• 1:07:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  I think it's the greatest thing in the world and it kind of saved my life. Because if I hadn't found writing and filmmaking, I don't know what I would have done. I wouldn't have been, I mean, I don't know.

• 1:07:43Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's why it's for you, because it feels so real and so powerful that without it, you feel like your life would be lost.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 1:07:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, isn't that amazing? That's an amazing thing to find as a human being. If you can find something that you love so much that you can't imagine life without it, like that you would be lost.

• 1:08:00Speaker 02

  Can I tell you about, it's sort of a non sequitur, but I did want to, I did want to mention, and it's sort of related to something I love because I love boxing. And I own a boxing gym in Los Angeles, which was hands down the stupidest thing I ever decided to do in my life was, oh, it'd be cool to have a boxing gym and manage boxers and, you know, no, don't, don't. It's awful. I mean, I love the fighters and I have so much empathy, but. Um, one of my fighters, Chris Van Hirden, um, his girlfriend is a girl named Cassenia Carolina, who I think I told you a little bit about earlier when we were working out. And, and this is just a, a fucked up story.

• 1:08:43Speaker 02

  She's a twenty eight year old American Russian citizen who made a fifty one dollar donation to Ukrainian charity. She went home a year ago to visit her family in Russia and Putin got her. And she's in prison now for twelve years. And her name's.

• 1:08:59Joe Rogan?

  What was the charity?

• 1:09:00Speaker 02

  The charity was a Ukrainian, uh, uh, charity based in America for Ukraine that she thought was gonna give, um, uh, money to children that had been, you know, hurt by the war in Ukraine. Um, it's all, it's all very researchable.

• 1:09:18Joe Rogan?

  And so she got put on a list?

• 1:09:20Speaker 02

  She got somehow they, she's a dual citizen. She's an American citizen and a Russian. She went to visit her parents a year ago in Russia and on her, somehow the Russians were able to figure out like if anyone with any Russian, uh, citizenship, even if it's dual, makes donations to certain charities, they get flagged. So she came in, um, got to her parents' house, was called to the police station the next day, um, came in and they arrested her, uh, and, and said, you donated fifty one dollars, you're, this is treason. And she's now a, almost a year into a twelve year sentence.

• 1:10:00Joe Rogan?

  Holy shit.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  So, um, President Trump has been super cool. Dana White has been, um, helping, um, just trying to get like, you know, it's so, it's such a crazy chess game, right? That, that, you know, someone like, and, and I hope things go really well between us and Putin, and I think Trump's doing some great things and I'm glad we're talking, but the way they do business is different and they will grab somebody, you know, and they've done it to, um, to, to, um, Brit- Brittany Griner and they just released this guy Fogel who they had gotten for smoking weed. If they can get you. Um, and hold you and use you as a bargaining chip, they will. And, and we don't do that, you know, it's one of the things that the US doesn't do.

• 1:10:45Speaker 02

  But you end up having to make these kind of crazy swaps. It's all about swapping, right? So they get Ksenia and, and well, who do we have that, that that's gonna, you know, get Putin to say, alright, yeah, I'm gonna let her out.

• 1:10:59Joe Rogan?

  Right, but they released that arms dealer.

• 1:11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, but the people that we have are like pretty serious criminals.

• 1:11:05Joe Rogan?

  The merchant of death.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  The merchant of death for a basketball player smoking weed. It's crazy, but you know, if you love Brittany Griner, like, or know, like, I know Ksenia and my, you know, good friend is engaged to her and he's in hell. And it's like, we need someone to trade, you know, and, and so it's not gonna feel right for, you know, people, we're gonna have to trade someone that's done some pretty bad things to get this girl out of prison, and that's the game that these guys are playing. And it's not a game that you ever, ever want to get involved in, and I wish I hadn't, but I have. And, um, you know, Ksenia is a beautiful girl and she's in a really bad way and she doesn't deserve it, so.

• 1:11:49Joe Rogan?

  And it's, it's so true that we don't do that in America because there's a lot of Russians that fight in the UFC and they don't even. This episode is brought to you by Chime. And I know people don't usually get excited about banking, but Chime is doing something different and it's worth paying attention to. In a recent survey, they ranked the number one choice for new checking accounts in America. That means real people, millions of them, are choosing this over traditional banks. That's because banking at Chime is fee-free. No monthly fees, no overdraft fees, and thousands of fee-free ATMs. But here's the real kicker. If you get their Chime card, it gives you 5% cash back on a category you actually pick yourself. Your savings rate, crazy high. It's nine times the national average.

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• 1:12:55Joe Rogan?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Look, it's good to prepare for the future, but when you start over analyzing what's happening around you, dreaming up every hypothetical situation of what could happen, that's when it gets dangerous. You can start to hyper-fixate and stress out and all over things that haven't even happened. That's no good for current you or future you. If you're struggling to stay in the present and out of your head, try talking with a quality therapist from BetterHelp. They have psychologists, family therapists, marriage counselors, social workers, and more.

• 1:13:35Joe Rogan?

  Whatever you need to work through, BetterHelp can match you with a seasoned professional with the specialty that you need. BetterHelp is now a network with more than 125 health plans with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com. That's better H E L P dot com. They get booed. No one even cares.

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  They love them.

• 1:14:08Joe Rogan?

  Especially when they're really good. People get excited to do that.

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  Khabib is...

• 1:14:11Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  I mean, we don't, we don't do it. And, and that's, you know, we, we take, our, America takes a lot of shit and I don't know, maybe, you know, what we deserve and what we don't, but we don't do that. We don't detain 28-year-old, you know, ballerinas for smoking weed and throw them in prison for 15 years, 20 years. We don't take people and say, well, you donated $50 to a charity that we're not aligned with, we're throwing you in prison for 12 years.

• 1:14:43Joe Rogan?

  It's treason.

• 1:14:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's...

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  But yeah, owning a boxing gym and

• 1:14:49Joe Rogan?

  Well, you were telling me about how when you met Canelo and Canelo came to your gym to train. I thought that was almost worth owning a boxing gym.

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, Canelo, Canelo saved my gym. Canelo, I sparred with Canelo. Did I ever tell you that?

• 1:15:01Joe Rogan?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  On my birthday.

• 1:15:03Joe Rogan?

  I hope he was nice to you.

• 1:15:04Speaker 02

  I was, I was flying, I had landed in LA from, and I had a few drinks on the plane. I wasn't drunk, but I wasn't sober. Walked into the gym, Canelo was training for, he was in camp. I don't remember for which fight. I walked in, I announced it was my birthday and I wanted rounds. Okay? And I wanted rounds. And Eddie and Shep on this.

• 1:15:26Joe Rogan?

  You golfed it on yourself?

• 1:15:27Speaker 02

  Oh, I called him, I go, it's my birthday and I want some fucking rounds. And he just kinda stared at me.

• 1:15:32Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no.

• 1:15:33Speaker 02

  And, and I ran up, didn't warm up, got my stuff on, Pedro wrapped me up. I put my gloves on, I waited till one sparring partner was out, I go, me? And to Canelo's credit, he only threw one punch, okay? I went two rounds with him. He threw one punch at the end of the second round. But it was a jab. And the way it landed, I've never been hit like this. He locked my jaw and my whole neck cracked. He locked my jaw down, it was a perfect jab and he threw it maybe, I don't, 20%. It was just this one perfectly placed jab. But I did spar two rounds with Canelo.

• 1:16:14Speaker 02

  And, and I, I can say that honestly. He went extremely easy on me.

• 1:16:23Joe Rogan?

  That's very nice of him.

• 1:16:24Speaker 02

  But yeah, I'm, I'm, I mean, it was cool cause we got, I got to see his whole journey when he came into our gym and he was just starting and I think he was fighting a guy named Lopez and he was just this little redhead skinny kid. And to see his progression, you know, he, he's one of like the only good stories in boxing, if you ask me, like, name two good boxing stories. I'd be like, well, I think Alvarez is a pretty good story. He's, you know, stayed with his trainers. He's a, you know, family man. He's, you know, carries himself well. He's made a lot of money. Okay, that's one. And two is, there is no two.

• 1:17:04Joe Rogan?

  Well, Floyd Mayweather is a pretty good story.

• 1:17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, all right, all right, all right. I'll give you Floyd Mayweather. You're right, you're right.

• 1:17:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, 15-0, all his faculties, still making millions.

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  He just bought all the real estate in New York. Okay, you're right. I'll give you Floyd. For some reason, it's always hard for me to put, and you're right, Floyd is...

• 1:17:23Joe Rogan?

  I got another one.

• 1:17:23Speaker 02

  Hold on, hold on, hold on.

• 1:17:25Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  Current?

• 1:17:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:28Speaker 02

  Sugar Ray, uh, Sugar Ray Leonard?

• 1:17:30Joe Rogan?

  No, Andre Ward.

• 1:17:33Joe Rogan?

  Andre Ward, Olympic gold medalist, two, two-division world champion, retires undefeated, brilliant analyst, has, they offer him millions of dollars to go and fight Canelo. After he's retired, he says, "I think I can serve boxing more as a commentator."

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  I, I will give you Andre Ward, but I would, I would submit that nobody knows who he is.

• 1:17:52Joe Rogan?

  Oh, every boxing fan knows who he is.

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  Boxing fans, of course.

• 1:17:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Speaker 02

  But I mean, he never...

• 1:17:57Joe Rogan?

  Right, he didn't achieve superstar status like Sugar Ray Leonard.

• 1:18:00Speaker 02

  He never, he never crossed over.

• 1:18:01Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Speaker 02

  But, but yes.

• 1:18:03Joe Rogan?

  And I don't think Sugar Ray Leonard is necessarily the great example either, because...

• 1:18:07Speaker 02

  He saved his money, though.

• 1:18:08Joe Rogan?

  He, he took a lot of fights that he shouldn't have taken later in his career, like against Terry Norris and those kind of fights, like...

• 1:18:15Speaker 02

  I, I just put him in, um, I put him in a slight, like, like a positive story, just because I've, I've been to his house. He's rich, he's still, you know, sharp.

• 1:18:28Joe Rogan?

  That's good.

• 1:18:28Speaker 02

  He's handsome, and he's well-spoken, and it didn't take his brain.

• 1:18:32Joe Rogan?

  Right, he didn't take his brain.

• 1:18:33Speaker 02

  The stories of, you know, like, working-class boxing gyms, like Churchill Boxing, my gym in LA.

• 1:18:39Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  Uh, which I technically don't own anymore, because it just was turning into such a headache. If you could see the day-in, day-out trials and tribulations that these fighters go through.

• 1:18:50Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  And you know it from UFC. I, I think that boxers have it, like, harder, I think. I can't prove this. But boxing is a, a more dysfunctional state than UFC, mainly because of Dana. And, you know, the fact that Dana's been able to monopolize it, and that there's a system that you're a huge part of, that, that makes sense. And that there's good people involved at the top, and, and, and on the, on broadcasting and all of it. Boxing has none of that.

• 1:19:20Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:19:21Speaker 02

  And so it's this broken, dysfunctional... Um, mess that is just begging for someone, hopefully Dana, to come in and organize.

• 1:19:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they are talking about doing that and Turkey Alashik, who is running Riyadh Season, has done a phenomenal job of putting together these incredible fights. He's basically just said, there's a lot of resistance getting these top fighters to fight each other. What's the resistance? They want to maximize their earning potential by staying undefeated and avoiding the really tough challenge. Just give them the money now.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:54Joe Rogan?

  And he's having all these fighters fight these dangerous fights and it's incredible for boxing.

• 1:20:01Speaker 02

  Do you think that there's a way for Dana and UFC to work with him?

• 1:20:05Joe Rogan?

  Yes, maybe they're talking about doing that.

• 1:20:07Speaker 02

  How would that go, do you think? What would it look like?

• 1:20:09Joe Rogan?

  Well, I mean, he obviously has an excellent relationship with them. Cause you know Riyadh Season helped promote the big event at the Sphere, which was an insane venue. Have you fucking been to a experience there?

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  I haven't been there, but I watched UFC fight.

• 1:20:27Joe Rogan?

  It's the greatest, you weren't there.

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  I wasn't there.

• 1:20:30Joe Rogan?

  It's the greatest venue in the history of anything.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  But it doesn't overpower the experience?

• 1:20:35Joe Rogan?

  I don't know, man. It didn't overpower the fights. The fights were insane. They were so good, but it was like the arena itself is so spectacular. I would say go to see any band there you possibly can. Go to see anyone there. It's so good.

• 1:20:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:49Joe Rogan?

  The graphics are so mind boggling. It's like you're on a drug.

• 1:20:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:53Joe Rogan?

  It's like you're having a psychedelic experience. I mean, the moment I walked into it, I was like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. It's so incre- actually, there's a video of me, like the, I made a video. I wanted to film the, my very first reaction, the very first time I walked into it. It blew me away.

• 1:21:10Speaker 02

  What kind of drug, what kind of drug would you compare it to?

• 1:21:12Joe Rogan?

  It's like you're in a different dimension. It's like this is-

• 1:21:15Speaker 02

  Like a mushroom, like a DMT?

• 1:21:17Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's like, it's, it's so, oh, this is, this is actually me walking in. Give me some volume.

• 1:21:37Joe Rogan?

  And this is just, they're just practicing and doing rehearsals of all the graphics packages. This isn't even, the audience is even in yet.

• 1:21:51Joe Rogan?

  This is insane.

• 1:21:52Speaker 02

  Oh wow.

• 1:21:53Joe Rogan?

  And, and this is nothing compared to when they had the graphic packages running and, I mean, it was unbelievable. It's just the amount of money that it cost to put on a show there, though.

• 1:22:06Speaker 02

  Do, do you think that, like, is it gonna be profitable? Like, like, like, how do you make that money back? Like, it's...

• 1:22:13Joe Rogan?

  I don't know.

• 1:22:14Speaker 02

  How much did it cost?

• 1:22:16Joe Rogan?

  I think the UFC spent something like 25 million dollars over a normal budget for a...

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  For an event.

• 1:22:22Joe Rogan?

  An event.

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  But I was just thinking, like, if you pay, I think it was Dolan, it was, uh, the Madison Square Garden folks that, that put that deal together. And I just, I'm like, well, okay, it holds, how many, 35,000?

• 1:22:36Joe Rogan?

  I don't think it's even that much.

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  It's not that big. And I just, like, they, someone spent a lot of money on that screen, right?

• 1:22:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  Like, that's a lot of technology.

• 1:22:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:44Speaker 02

  But, so you thought, you thought that Turkey, he did a great job, but was Turkey involved in the UFC fight at...

• 1:22:52Joe Rogan?

  He was involved in Riyadh season, was a part of the Sphere event. It was co-promoted by Riyadh season.

• 1:22:57Speaker 02

  So in, in theory, Dana could work with him in some way and start...

• 1:23:01Joe Rogan?

  That's the plan. And they own Ring Magazine now. So, the reason why that's significant is the Ring Magazine belt is one of the only belts that has kind of been, it's, there's a bunch of different organizations that are sanctioning bodies. There's the WBO, the WBC, the IBF, there's all these different, it's very fractured, right? But Ring Magazine has always been like, Roy Jones Jr. was the Ring Magazine middleweight champ of the world. The Ring Magazine super middleweight champ of the world. Like, that's the gold standard, is Ring Magazine.

• 1:23:34Speaker 02

  So, so there would be one belt in this?

• 1:23:36Joe Rogan?

  Right. If they can do that and then overpower everything else with money, and then really put the compelling fights, like, did you watch this past weekend, Arthur Biterbeev and Dmitry Bivol?

• 1:23:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:23:47Joe Rogan?

  What a fucking fight.

• 1:23:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:23:50Joe Rogan?

  Probably the greatest light heavyweight fight of all time.

• 1:23:53Speaker 02

  Bivoule.

• 1:23:53Joe Rogan?

  Incredible.

• 1:23:54Speaker 02

  Bivoule trains in our gym, by the way.

• 1:23:56Joe Rogan?

  Does he really?

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  Churchill Boxing. The hardest punch I've ever seen anyone throw in my life was in our gym. David Benavides was sparring Bivoule.

• 1:24:05Joe Rogan?

  Whoa.

• 1:24:06Speaker 02

  And Bivoule, and David Benavides is a great fighter, but Bivoule caught him uh, and, and dropped him with the jab.

• 1:24:14Joe Rogan?

  Whoa.

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  In sparring.

• 1:24:16Joe Rogan?

  Whoa.

• 1:24:17Speaker 02

  In sparring. Bivoule, incredible fighter.

• 1:24:19Joe Rogan?

  Amazing.

• 1:24:20Speaker 02

  He's an example. So they're both are. Those are actually two guys that I feel like could be, could do it right. Um, but just having so much trouble getting a recognition that they deserve. I mean.

• 1:24:30Joe Rogan?

  Well, Benavides has been chasing Canelo forever.

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  Won't fight him.

• 1:24:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, for a good reason. That's a hard fight. That's a hard fight. And you want that fight? You gotta, you gotta get paid.

• 1:24:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, you gotta get paid.

• 1:24:41Joe Rogan?

  But I'm hoping that with Riyadh season.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  Turkey would make that fight.

• 1:24:45Joe Rogan?

  Right? Cause he signed a multi-fight deal with Canelo for 400 million dollars. I think it's a five-fight deal for 400 million dollars. I think that's what's been reported. I don't know if that's accurate. But, but Terrence Crawford's the first one, which is gonna be incredible.

• 1:24:58Speaker 02

  Is that really, is that really happening? Is the Crawford-Canelo fight happening?

• 1:25:01Joe Rogan?

  Yes, it's happening. So what was going to happen was Terrence, uh, was Canelo apparently had made a deal with Jake Paul to fight Jake Paul.

• 1:25:11Speaker 02

  Ridiculous.

• 1:25:12Joe Rogan?

  Ridiculous, but I bet it was for a significant amount of money.

• 1:25:16Speaker 02

  Still ridiculous.

• 1:25:17Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but fun. I'd watch it. Look, Jake Paul wants to test himself against actual not just world champion, but one of the greatest of all time.

• 1:25:26Speaker 02

  He would be, if, if Canelo really fought and it wasn't fixed, Jake Paul would, would not survive 45 seconds.

• 1:25:33Joe Rogan?

  Meh, I don't know about that. I think it would take a few rounds.

• 1:25:37Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:25:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, first of all Jake is a lot bigger. Jake's a lot bigger.

• 1:25:40Speaker 02

  But what way would they, what way would they fight?

• 1:25:42Joe Rogan?

  Well, I don't think Jake is getting anywhere lower than 205 pounds. He's a huge guy.

• 1:25:47Speaker 02

  But so Canelo would let him fight at 205?

• 1:25:49Joe Rogan?

  I think that would, would be the case. I think Canelo, when he got to 175, when he was, uh, fighting light heavyweight and you know, he still fluctuates between 68 and 75. I feel like he probably weighs 190 when he's walking around. So he would probably weigh 190 and Jake would weigh over 200. They would probably fight either at cruiserweight or they would fight at heavyweight.

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  But didn't Tommy Fury like take Jake Paul?

• 1:26:13Joe Rogan?

  No, he beat him, but it was a very good fight.

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  But that's what I'm saying, but Tommy Fury versus compared to Canelo, you think?

• 1:26:20Joe Rogan?

  Right, different levels, different levels, yeah, no doubt. Look, who's favored for sure? The greatest of all time, I mean, one of the greatest boxers of all time in Canelo Alvarez, he's the favorite. But I'd like to see what happens, it'd be crazy. I, I like a little freak show every now and then. As far as like, would you like to see?

• 1:26:37Speaker 02

  I like a lot of freak show.

• 1:26:38Joe Rogan?

  Look, if Jake Paul wants to fight for the title, I would like to see him beat top contenders in the light heavyweight division or whatever division he chooses to compete at, and then eventually fight for a title, yeah.

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  But are the fights even real, like the Tyson fight? Like, I saw video breakdowns of Tyson not throwing punches early on in that fight. I don't know if you've watched any of those videos where like, he's, there's a, like a left hook is 100% available. Tyson, you know, in training 99% of the time releases that punch and he held out. Like, do you think that that was a real, was that a real fight?

• 1:27:15Joe Rogan?

  It looked like sparring to me. That's what it looked like to me.

• 1:27:18Speaker 02

  But like with an arrangement beforehand?

• 1:27:20Joe Rogan?

  Uh, I wouldn't want to speculate because I haven't talked to anybody about it. But my educated assessment?

• 1:27:26Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 1:27:26Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:27:27Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 1:27:27Joe Rogan?

  It looked like sparring. It didn't look like a fight.

• 1:27:30Speaker 02

  And you think if Canelo and Jake Paul agreed to do it?

• 1:27:33Joe Rogan?

  I don't think that would be that. I think that would be a fight.

• 1:27:35Speaker 02

  That would be a fight.

• 1:27:36Joe Rogan?

  That would be a fight.

• 1:27:36Speaker 02

  Like a sanctioned, real, non-.

• 1:27:38Joe Rogan?

  It would have to be a fight, yeah. I don't think Canelo Alvarez is making any agreements where he's not going to knock you out.

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  Well, he's not taking the fight though, right?

• 1:27:45Joe Rogan?

  Well, this is what happened. So, they had this agreement and Jake Paul actually told me about the agreement when I met him at the inauguration, we were talking about it and I was like, holy shit, it hadn't been announced yet. I was like, that's crazy. And then Turkey came along and said, fuck all that. Let me throw some money at you and said, stop with all this bullshit. You need to be fighting the greatest fighters in the world right now. You need to be fighting Benavides. You need to be fighting Terrence Crawford. So, Terrence Crawford is first on the list and a lot of.

• 1:28:14Speaker 03

  Second on the list, according to reports.

• 1:28:16Speaker 02

  I thought they pushed it.

• 1:28:17Speaker 03

  Who's first on the list now? He's supposed to fight Crawford in September, and they're gonna have him fight Cinco de Mayo weekend against

• 1:28:22Speaker 02

  Against like a no name, right?

• 1:28:23Speaker 03

  William Scull, S-C-U-L-L.

• 1:28:27Speaker 02

  That's why I was asking, I don't-

• 1:28:28Speaker 03

  From strip Canelo last year, or unnamed.

• 1:28:31Speaker 02

  Do they have a date for Canelo Crawford?

• 1:28:34Speaker 03

  September 13th supposedly, but nothing's been signed yet.

• 1:28:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, see, that's kinda crazy that they're gonna have another fight beforehand, but it does give Crawford time to bulk up. So Crawford got on scale the other day, he was 185 pounds.

• 1:28:44Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:28:45Joe Rogan?

  Yes. And he's doing deadlifts, he was doing deadlifts with 450 pounds. Crawford is a strong dude.

• 1:28:52Speaker 02

  I'm gonna put Crawford in another success story of boxing. I'm totally just contradicting myself. Now I'm remembering, you're right. He's the, I love the guy.

• 1:29:00Joe Rogan?

  He's fantastic.

• 1:29:01Speaker 02

  I know you've had him on, right?

• 1:29:02Joe Rogan?

  He's so, a couple times. He's so good, and he's the best switch hitter in the game. Maybe the best switch hitter since Marvin Hagler.

• 1:29:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:09Joe Rogan?

  He's phenomenal. And he's so intelligent, like his boxing is so clever, he sets traps.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  How old is he?

• 1:29:15Joe Rogan?

  36, I believe.

• 1:29:16Speaker 02

  And Canelo's like 30?

• 1:29:18Joe Rogan?

  37. So Crawford is 37?

• 1:29:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I'm looking at a thing right now.

• 1:29:22Joe Rogan?

  How old is Canelo? I think he's 35? I wasn't looking at his. 34, 35? I don't have his up. He's still in his prime. What's crazy is, fucking better be if he's 40. And went 12 hard rounds where they never slowed down once.

• 1:29:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's because people like you are getting us all in crazy shape, Joe. Like these guys are living forever. You're like teaching us the way to do it.

• 1:29:48Joe Rogan?

  Look at that. Very likely Terrence Crawford faces fighter with 90% KO rate after Canelo, says De La Hoya. Who would that be?

• 1:29:54Speaker 03

  That's what I was looking at.

• 1:29:56Joe Rogan?

  What weight class would that be, after? So he must have fought a, oh.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  That's such a boxing headline, isn't it? Like 90% change.

• 1:30:04Joe Rogan?

  Virgil Ortiz Jr. Okay, Virgil Ortiz Jr. is a savage. That would be a phenomenal fight. That would be an absolutely phenomenal fight. Yeah.

• 1:30:14Joe Rogan?

  After that, though. Well, I saw his fight with Madrimov, who's very difficult, who Crawford struggled a little bit with too, but beat, and Virgil walked him down. He was battering him towards the last rounds.

• 1:30:28Speaker 02

  Why is Oscar De La Hoya offering an opinion on who Crawford would fight? Oscar De La Hoya is not Crawford's manager, is he?

• 1:30:36Joe Rogan?

  I don't believe so. No, I don't think he has anything to do with it.

• 1:30:38Speaker 02

  Do you watch?

• 1:30:40Joe Rogan?

  Oscar seems like he's a little off the rails these days.

• 1:30:41Speaker 02

  Do you watch? Okay, for sure. And, I mean, God love him, and I do-

• 1:30:46Joe Rogan?

  Looks like he's having a good time.

• 1:30:47Speaker 02

  Do you watch his clap, like, okay, I know social media, I said, "Don't scroll," and certainly, like, Insta hoes are bad. My favorite Instagram account is Oscar De La Hoya on his Clap Back Thursdays.

• 1:31:01Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:31:04Speaker 02

  And then he rips into Eddie Hearn, basically, and it's deranged. It's absolutely deranged, but it's funny. And Oscar clearly doesn't care. He does, like, to your point earlier, he does not give a fuck, and he just rips apart anyone and everyone. And he does this thing every Thursday called Clap, I think it's called Clap Back Thursdays. And that's my secret guilty pleasure.

• 1:31:33Joe Rogan?

  My secret guilty pleasure is watched him dance around with a thong on.

• 1:31:36Speaker 02

  Oh, that was-

• 1:31:36Joe Rogan?

  He's out of his fucking mind.

• 1:31:38Speaker 02

  The best. That was the best.

• 1:31:39Joe Rogan?

  With his fake abs.

• 1:31:41Speaker 02

  It's a hell of a drug, cocaine. It's a hell of a drug cocaine.

• 1:31:45Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no. No, no.

• 1:31:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, I mean, he's, I mean, I like to say we've all been there. I haven't been there.

• 1:31:54Joe Rogan?

  I haven't been there.

• 1:31:54Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:31:55Joe Rogan?

  I haven't put the fishnets on.

• 1:31:57Speaker 02

  I've been here, but I haven't been there, okay? And, you know, like, I do respect him. Oscar was a great fighter.

• 1:32:05Joe Rogan?

  Phenomenal fighter.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  Phenomenal fighter, but, I mean-

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  Come on now, it's like Oscar De La Hoya and all that's coming with him and Eddie Hearn, who I also like quite a bit, and then you've got Al Hayman and Bob Arum, you know, is in his well into his 90s and is just going, it's chaos.

• 1:32:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:26Speaker 02

  And, and-

• 1:32:27Joe Rogan?

  That's the problem, is that they're represented by different promoters and it's very difficult for people to co-promote, very difficult for people to decide like who's the A-side, who's the B-side, you get ridiculous deals where, you know, this fighter wants 75% and the other fighter wants 25%, they have to figure out whether or not they can make this happen, and the fighter's like, "Fuck that, I want it 50/50", and then the promoters get involved and they don't want you to fight that guy, fight the number one mandatory contender, and then these, some great fights never take place, or they take place too late, like Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, they fought too late. I mean, if that fight could have been arranged by Riyadh season, they probably would have caught them both in their prime and it would have been chaos.

• 1:33:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Manny was, he was done before that ever started.

• 1:33:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and he also had a blown shoulder going into the fight.

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:13Joe Rogan?

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• 1:35:01Joe Rogan?

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• 1:35:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. Have you, um, I have a little regret that I never had a professional fight. And I was just in Mexico. And my driver, so we're talking about boxing, and my driver told me his son was a pro fighter. And that if I wanted to, and he told me how much it would cost, I could come have a professional fight and his son would, would let me win the fight.

• 1:35:31Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:35:31Speaker 02

  And then, and I, but then I could have, well, but it would be a sanctioned fight. And it would go, I would have a boxer X score of 1-0 or 0-1. I mean, I could have not paid the money and like taken the loss, but at least I would have had it.

• 1:35:45Speaker 02

  And I did think about it for like about, I don't know, maybe a minute. And I decided not to do it. Like you and I were talking, like, I just can't take getting hit in the head anymore. And, you know, when I was younger and I had the gym, I would, I would spar more.

• 1:36:04Speaker 02

  You know, and Canelo, I sparred and that was controlled. But I sparred Cam Newton once. You know, the football player?

• 1:36:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:11Speaker 02

  Who's six foot five. And he was in the gym and he wanted to work. And I'm like, well, let's spar. And we'll just, you know, spar light. And he wasn't a boxer and I have, you know, basic defensive boxing skills. But I'm like, well, just let's work, Cam. And he's like, okay. And we started, you know, kind of sparring a bit. And he didn't. Really know what he was doing, but he's a very, very, you know, physical specimen. And I lightly kind of jabbed at his face. And maybe hit the gloves and he just went insane. And started punching me across the ring. And I'm just like flashes of white and I lost all feeling in my hands.

• 1:36:51Speaker 02

  And then I didn't, I didn't spar any other athletes until Steve Nash came into our gym, the basketball player. And he wasn't as big as Cam Newton. So I'm like, well, all right, I'll spar with Steve Nash and he doesn't know how to box. So we'll just gentlemen spar. So we're sparring a bit and I hit him and I'm, I underestimate how fucking athletic he is. He just fucking cracks me hard with a, a just solid right and it's my hands go numb. I see nothing. And then I'm like, that's it. I'm done. And then, uh, Saquon Barkley comes into our gym. You know, Saquon, do you know who Israel Barkley was, a pro fighter, had his uncle, had an incredible, uh, career as a pro fighter. Is that Iran Barkley?

• 1:37:34Speaker 02

  I'm sorry. My bad. Iran Barkley. Thank you. Wow. That was a political slip. Israel Barkley. Oh shit. Sorry, everybody. Thank you, Joe. Iran Barkley. Do you know who Iran Barkley is? Sure. Okay, good. So that was Saquon Barkley's uncle, right? Ah. Did you know that? No, I didn't know. Yeah, that was his uncle. So Saquon comes into our gym and I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm gonna spar with, and I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm not gonna fuck with this guy. After Cam Newton and Steve Nash and Saquon Barkley is a fucking stud, right? Like this guy's like Mike Tyson, but bigger, just his body type. So I'm like, well, I'll hold mitts for him. I just wanna see. And that guy could fight, like his uncle, Iran Barkley. Legend.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  Legend. Taught him and he started throwing punches and Saquon Barkley could move and counter and had balance and you know, head movement. I'm like, dude, if you had instead of playing football, gotten into this at, at, you know, 12, 13, I'm assuming that your brain stayed on, you would have been one of the great heavyweights of all time. He could, Saquon could box.

• 1:38:45Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:38:46Speaker 02

  And so, but I learned, I thought about taking the fight in Mexico and I decided.

• 1:38:51Joe Rogan?

  Don't do it.

• 1:38:51Speaker 02

  I'm not, would you ever?

• 1:38:52Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:38:53Speaker 02

  Hell no, right?

• 1:38:54Joe Rogan?

  No, no, not now. I'm 57. There's no way I'm fighting anybody now.

• 1:38:58Speaker 02

  Dude, you're in shape.

• 1:38:59Joe Rogan?

  I did agree to fight Wesley Snipes, like 20 years ago. Yeah, there was a-

• 1:39:04Speaker 02

  What happened?

• 1:39:05Joe Rogan?

  Well, he, you remember what happened with him with taxes?

• 1:39:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. He went to jail, right?

• 1:39:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. So, I think they were trying to figure out a way to make money to try to pay the government off. And the UFC, they contacted, well, this guy, Campbell McLaren, who was one of the original producers of the first UFC before Zuffa bought it. He, he, he knew me because I worked for him at the time. I was the post-fight interviewer in 1997 and 1998. And that's, that was when I first started working for the UFC.

• 1:39:37Speaker 02

  I remember.

• 1:39:37Joe Rogan?

  I started again as a commentator in 2001. So, in 19, you know, 97, when I knew him, he knew that I did martial arts. He knew I was obsessed with this. And then, so he contacts me, like, I guess it was like 2004 or 5 or something like that, somewhere around then. And he says, this is gonna sound crazy, but Wesley Snipes wants to have a UFC fight. And he wanted to fight Jean-Claude Van Damme. And we didn't think that that would be compelling. And so, we offered some other names. And we said, what about Joe Rogan? And he said, yes. And I said, well, what do you mean, like, when are we talking about like how, because I'd been training. I was brown belt in jujitsu and I'd been training kickboxing still. I was regularly training.

• 1:40:21Joe Rogan?

  And so I would have had to really ramp everything up.

• 1:40:23Speaker 02

  He was kind of a martial arts guy, right?

• 1:40:25Joe Rogan?

  He's a martial artist, but I don't think he's ever had a fight. And I don't think he has any ground game. And that's a giant problem.

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  No, no, you would have gotten a hold of him.

• 1:40:33Joe Rogan?

  Well, also, I was a national, I mean, I, I competed nationally in Taekwondo for five, six years. Traveled around the country like, and I had three kickboxing fights. I was a good stand up fighter like, and I, I can kick very hard. I'm very good. And even then, then I was even better because I was in my thirties.

• 1:40:50Speaker 02

  So what happened?

• 1:40:51Joe Rogan?

  He didn't want to do it.

• 1:40:52Speaker 02

  For every reason you just said, you would have killed him.

• 1:40:56Joe Rogan?

  As time went on, I think he kind of understood that it was a bad idea. I think initially he thought he, who knows, it could have been fucking chemically fueled. These, these conversations with him.

• 1:41:06Speaker 02

  The desire to have it was chemically fueled and then he sobered up.

• 1:41:09Joe Rogan?

  But I trained every day. I trained for six months.

• 1:41:12Speaker 02

  You would have annihilated him.

• 1:41:13Joe Rogan?

  I was kickboxing with Rob Kamen in the morning and I was doing jujitsu at night. I was fucking exhausted.

• 1:41:19Speaker 02

  Prepping for the Wesley Snipes fight or just in?

• 1:41:20Joe Rogan?

  We were in negotiation. So the first negotiation was 50 50. They were going to split it 50 50, this and that, blah, blah, blah. And I said, okay, great. And then a couple of weeks went by and I had lawyers involved, the whole thing. And then it was like Wesley wants 60 40.

• 1:41:36Joe Rogan?

  And that, but this time I'd already invested so much time training. I go, okay. I just give it to him. I'm like, I'm going to fuck this guy up. I go, just give it to him. Just give it to him.

• 1:41:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41:44Joe Rogan?

  And then it got to a point where just give me a half a million dollars. I don't care what you give Wesley. I go, I want, give me a half a million dollars. And we agreed on that. I said, I don't care what you give him. Just give it to him. I'm going, I'm going to fucking strangle this guy. I'm going to get a hold of him and there's not going to be a goddamn thing he can do about it. I was convinced. And I was like,

• 1:42:03Speaker 02

  So was Wesley convinced. He obviously knew that.

• 1:42:05Joe Rogan?

  But it was so engrossing. Like it took up all my energy and my time.

• 1:42:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:42:10Joe Rogan?

  Like my, my mind shifted into like what it was when I was younger and I was fighting. It was wild. It was weird. Like I became like a different person for like, like almost a year.

• 1:42:20Speaker 02

  So like when you hear the name Wesley Snipes now,

• 1:42:23Joe Rogan?

  I have no animosity.

• 1:42:24Speaker 02

  There's not like a little part of your brain that still flips?

• 1:42:27Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think he did a smart thing. I think he did a smart thing by not doing it.

• 1:42:34Speaker 02

  It's just so interesting and, and, uh, the, the idea that you got to experience. A version of what it feels like to prepare to fight someone.

• 1:42:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:43Speaker 02

  People just don't get it, right?

• 1:42:45Joe Rogan?

  Well, I had fought a bunch of times, you know, and I know when I was younger. I mean, it had been more than 10 years since my last fight, but I knew what it was like. I knew the experience. I knew what training and preparing was right like. And I also knew that like I was a like legitimate brown belt in jujitsu.

• 1:43:03Speaker 02

  Dude, you would have fucked him up.

• 1:43:05Joe Rogan?

  But it was like, I think he had had this idea that he was going to be able to hit me when I was trying to take him down. I was like, dude, I would fucking happily stand up.

• 1:43:13Speaker 02

  Do you think the Zuckerberg Musk was ever real? Was it ever even slightly real?

• 1:43:21Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. That that to me is the most silly.

• 1:43:23Speaker 02

  Could you ask him, please?

• 1:43:24Joe Rogan?

  Zuckerberg is legit. He trains hard. He trains with legit guys. He trains all the time. He's very smart and very obsessed by it. And he's like legitimately training. He's significantly smaller than Elon. Elon's a big guy. Um, but that only goes so far, especially if you don't have any endurance.

• 1:43:41Speaker 02

  But does Elon, what, what do you think Elon's fighting skill strategy would be like?

• 1:43:46Joe Rogan?

  But he took karate when he was younger.

• 1:43:48Speaker 02

  So would he come karateing?

• 1:43:49Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. I don't think it was ever gonna happen. I mean, I was entertaining it because I think it would be fun if it did happen. And Elon said he would do it and Zuckerberg said he would do it. But like, how can, I don't know how the guy tweets as much as he does. How the fuck could you train for a fight? I mean, how do you, how do you run SpaceX and Tesla and the Department of Government Efficiency and Starlink?

• 1:44:11Speaker 02

  Joe, he's your friend. You know him better than we do. How the fuck does he do it?

• 1:44:14Joe Rogan?

  I don't know how he does it and I'm his friend. I don't know how he does it. I don't understand it. He's, he's, I've never seen anybody who knows how to manage time better than that guy.

• 1:44:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:25Joe Rogan?

  And he's also has like a hundred kids. Like, I don't fucking, I don't get it. He's a different type of human.

• 1:44:30Speaker 02

  I, I just love the idea of people that don't ever fight, having to suddenly have a fight. Right? Just like, like, you know, because people have never fought, but suddenly get them, and yeah. Okay, here's another secret. Don't like, when I do scroll, I look for street fights with people who don't know how to fight. Or drunk people fighting is funny too. But like, like, you know, okay, Elon and Zucker. Uh, Mark, you know, are gonna fight. Okay, let's say it's gonna really happen. They both train, but they're not fighters. So however much they train, they're still running their other businesses. Now the fight starts and for about 20 seconds, they're gonna have some tactics that their trainers have been.

• 1:45:14Speaker 02

  And then it's all gonna go out the fucking window.

• 1:45:17Joe Rogan?

  It will go out the window with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg's a real martial artist.

• 1:45:21Speaker 02

  But has he ever really fought?

• 1:45:22Joe Rogan?

  Yes, he's had jiu-jitsu matches. He hasn't fought a kickboxing match, but he does a lot of sparring.

• 1:45:27Speaker 02

  So he could do a two-minute or a three-minute.

• 1:45:30Joe Rogan?

  100%, no doubt. Yeah, no doubt. And also, he's very disciplined.

• 1:45:34Speaker 02

  And stay true to his, what, what style of fighting?

• 1:45:37Joe Rogan?

  Well, he, he trains in jiu-jitsu, but he also trains in mixed martial arts. So he does Muay Thai, he does everything. He's really obsessed with it. And he has been for years.

• 1:45:46Speaker 02

  Okay, so.

• 1:45:47Joe Rogan?

  He's a legitimate martial artist.

• 1:45:48Speaker 02

  Elon's gonna come out and Elon's running SpaceX and he's got to dodge and do. And now he's gonna take some time and focus on the fight.

• 1:45:55Joe Rogan?

  He's not gonna do it. No, you don't have, there's no way he has the time. Like, if you wanna really prepare properly, you train twice a day and you have to have recovery in between. So you have to get massages, you have to do red light therapies, you have to do everything. Especially if you're at his age. You, you, and you have to take hormones, you have to be on the ball. You have to take peptides. You, you have to. You get, you have to really watch your nutrition. You have to really make sure you get enough, enough sleep. All those things are out the window. He's not doing any of those things. He doesn't have the time to do any of those things.

• 1:46:22Speaker 02

  No, so it would have to be a, like a demonstration where they agree to how it's gonna go.

• 1:46:27Joe Rogan?

  But even then, there's no way he could be in condition for it. There's no way. And so he did train with some of my friends. He trained with Lex, Lex Friedman. I think he trained with George St. Pierre as well. So I think he realized early on.

• 1:46:39Speaker 02

  His cardio wasn't gonna get him there.

• 1:46:41Joe Rogan?

  His cardio is non-existent.

• 1:46:43Speaker 02

  What is, what is harder on cardio than boxing slash UFC, do you think? Like, I always say boxing, people don't understand how exhausting 40 seconds of sparring is. Like, and I'm, I'm never fought UFC. I've, I've always felt that boxing, for some reason, is actually harder on the, on the cardio. I'm sure I'm wrong. I'm sure I'm wrong.

• 1:47:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, definitely wrong. Wrestling is the hardest. Wrestling is number one.

• 1:47:09Speaker 02

  But the, what, what else compares in terms of cardio and physical demanding to?

• 1:47:16Speaker 02

  Wrestling, UFC, boxing, what?

• 1:47:19Joe Rogan?

  Maybe ultra running, maybe really crazy things where guys have to run like 300 miles.

• 1:47:23Speaker 02

  But they don't have the anaerobic kind of exhaustion and the...

• 1:47:26Joe Rogan?

  Soccer, soccer takes incredible conditioning, incredible conditioning. Those guys are unbelievably fit.

• 1:47:31Speaker 02

  Have you ever followed, um, Aussie Rules football?

• 1:47:35Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:47:35Speaker 02

  So, you know, I'm doing a, uh, my next film's about, um, a football game that some Marines played in World War II. And we're filming it in Australia. It's called the Mosquito Bowl. And in the middle of, it's a true story about this football game that was played on Guadalcanal before the Battle of Okinawa, but these Marines all played it. And, um, these Marines were good college football stars. And then they all died in the Battle of Okinawa. It's a, it's an intense story. But we need to film, uh, this tackle football game. There was supposed to be a touch game and the Marines ended up playing tackle. And legend has it that it was the most violent football game ever played. And so we got to film a tackle football game.

• 1:48:15Speaker 02

  Um, in Australia, which is, we're gonna make the film. And like, stunt men are tough, but like, playing tackle football, it, you know, is a, is a fucking painful thing to do, right? Imagine, you know, even like Turkey Bowl touch football games on Thanksgiving get like, people are in the hospital. So I was just in Australia and I'm, I had the idea that, well, like Aussie Rules football, it's perfect. We'll just take a bunch of these guys and teach them how to play tackle football and, and they'll really do it. So I just went to, uh, an Aussie Rules football practice in, um, in, uh, um, uh, Brisbane, Australia.

• 1:48:54Speaker 02

  And those fucking dudes are tough. They are tough. If you ever just watched like the highlight reels of Aussie, I mean, no pads, full smash, um, and I put that...

• 1:49:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, here it is.

• 1:49:09Speaker 02

  I mean, so, yeah, these are the guys we're gonna use to, uh, to play...

• 1:49:14Joe Rogan?

  Oh my god, these fucking collisions. Oh, Jesus.

• 1:49:16Speaker 02

  I think these are the toughest athletes.

• 1:49:19Joe Rogan?

  I think this is how they play, should play regular football.

• 1:49:21Speaker 02

  I do too.

• 1:49:22Joe Rogan?

  I really feel like the pads are bullshit. But there's only way, the only way you can play American style football is with pads. Because like the collisions that these guys have, like your career, you cut short.

• 1:49:33Speaker 02

  Look at this guy, look at him.

• 1:49:34Joe Rogan?

  Oh, out cold.

• 1:49:34Speaker 02

  He's done.

• 1:49:35Joe Rogan?

  Stiff.

• 1:49:36Speaker 02

  Look at this, look at the hitting is just fucking nuts.

• 1:49:42Joe Rogan?

  And I'm sure a lot of head to head collisions too.

• 1:49:44Speaker 02

  So I went to this, a practice of one of these teams, just got back and they were, um, and I brought in American football and I'm like, all right, do you guys have any idea? And they're like, zero. I'm like, come on, you, you, you, you sort of have to know something and they're like, zero.

• 1:50:01Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:50:02Speaker 02

  So I get, I get, they just know nothing, like, how much of cricket do you know?

• 1:50:06Joe Rogan?

  Zero.

• 1:50:06Speaker 02

  Okay, if you, if, if I had a gun to your head and said, one rule of cricket, could you do it?

• 1:50:11Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:50:11Speaker 02

  Could you do it? No, you couldn't.

• 1:50:14Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no.

• 1:50:14Speaker 02

  Like, it's a big cricket, do you understand?

• 1:50:16Speaker 03

  Ball's gotta stay in, I think, I've seen him try to throw it back in, but I don't know.

• 1:50:19Speaker 02

  Stay in the what? The ball has to stay in the what?

• 1:50:21Speaker 03

  The pitch, they go to the pitch?

• 1:50:23Speaker 02

  We don't know shit. Do you understand how fucking popular cricket is?

• 1:50:27Joe Rogan?

  Gigantic.

• 1:50:27Speaker 02

  Like, bigger than football.

• 1:50:29Joe Rogan?

  Huge.

• 1:50:29Speaker 02

  Go to India or Sri Lanka, I mean, like, these people go nuts. So, in, in Australia, they have hundred thousand people stadiums for Aussie Wolves football. So I go and, and I'm like, you know, I'm meeting these guys and these guys I think are big stars. I don't know them, but you know, this is a major Aussie Wolves football team. And I got the football and they don't, so I lined them up, eleven against eleven. And I'm, and they're, they're really kind of starting to get into it. And they're lined up, center, guards, tackles and, and I'm like, all right. So what do you think? They're like, yeah, we don't like it. I go, well, let me, let me help, tell me what this does for you. All right, you're the center. And you, if you were doing this in American football, you'd be making six to seven million dollars a year.

• 1:51:12Speaker 02

  You're the tackle on blind side, you're making forty million dollars a year protecting Patrick Mahomes. Okay, you're Patrick Mahomes and I'm telling them how much money they would make, because these guys make no money.

• 1:51:23Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:51:24Speaker 02

  There's no money in it.

• 1:51:25Joe Rogan?

  Which is crazy.

• 1:51:26Speaker 02

  Crazy, and then they have, do you know, um, tall poppy syndrome? Have you heard of this?

• 1:51:31Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:51:32Speaker 02

  Like, there, there's no ego, like, these guys, they're huge, you know, they're members of these super successful teams, but they don't have the ego of American athletes. And they, they don't get the attention and it's tall poppy syndrome. They're culturally, um, you know, conditioned to not brag and to not boast and to be humble. And, and, uh, I don't know, I'm, I-

• 1:51:56Joe Rogan?

  They like to see people get knocked down when they get too big.

• 1:51:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:51:59Joe Rogan?

  That's tall poppy syndrome.

• 1:52:01Speaker 02

  Tall poppy, they cut, the tall poppy gets its head cut off, so they stay humble. Which I kind of thought was kind of cool, you know, just realizing that I was like hanging out with like the captain of an Andre rules team and I had dinner with the captain of the, um, oh, uh, the, the New Zealand, the All Blacks, the, the rugby team. And this guy, um, this was a little while ago, a couple of years ago, this guy in America, I mean, you know, the All Blacks, like the most popular rugby team and, and the most humble dude ever and you go to a restaurant and nobody bothers him, he, you know, no security, no nothing.

• 1:52:40Speaker 02

  We don't, that, that would never exist here, but seeing how hard these dudes hit and trained made me think, well, maybe they're working at the level of athleticism that fighters are working at. I mean, that's a

• 1:52:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:54Speaker 02

  hard fucking sport.

• 1:52:55Joe Rogan?

  It seems like it, especially if you watch that video, like that's, that's unbelievably grueling. The difference between fighting and anything else is that there's no one there to assist you. There's no other teammates, there's no rules, there's no timeouts. You know, you have round breaks, but fighting is very individual and if you didn't prepare properly and your opponent did, you're fucked. If he's better than you and he's more skilled and he's got better genetics and better, better training and he comes from a better background and he's more, he's more technical, you're fucked. You know, it's, it's, it's a crazy sport where you're literally putting your health on the line.

• 1:53:29Speaker 02

  Let me, let me ask you this question and this, this is something I don't talk about, but it's another secret theory that I have.

• 1:53:36Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 1:53:37Speaker 02

  Just between you and me. I feel like, and I've seen a lot of boxers train.

• 1:53:42Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:53:43Speaker 02

  And I've seen a lot of great trainers. Eddie and Chapo are great trainers.

• 1:53:50Speaker 02

  Abel Sanchez is a great trainer, Pedro Nema from my gym, lots of great trainers out there. And I've watched entire camps.

• 1:53:57Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:53:58Speaker 02

  Where trainers, like if I'm your trainer, I figure out, okay, this is our opponent. These are gonna be our tactics, we're gonna do a lot of jabbing with overhead rights, and we're gonna take our head offline consistently, we're gonna counter this way, we're gonna... And I've really watched this and paid a lot of attention to it. And this is, I'm not in any way shitting on trainers, but I'm kinda at making your point about how alone fighters are. I see all this training, and I watch it, and I understand the strategies and the tactics, and the second the fight starts, none of it has any relationship to how the fight goes down. All this strategy is rarely employed, and it becomes this moment where a fighter has

• 1:54:43Speaker 02

  to adjust and adapt and improvise incredibly. And yeah, the conditioning matters a lot, but I often think that like, the training doesn't do shit. The trainers are, they can help you get your head right, and get yourself in a warrior's mindset, and I do respect that, but tactics? Sometimes I think that they're like... Am I wrong?

• 1:55:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:55:10Joe Rogan?

  You're definitely wrong.

• 1:55:11Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:55:12Joe Rogan?

  At the highest level, it's the most important thing.

• 1:55:13Speaker 02

  Okay, but do not...

• 1:55:15Joe Rogan?

  At the highest level, like at a Terrence Crawford level, tactics are everything.

• 1:55:19Speaker 02

  But he just does it.

• 1:55:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he just does it, but it's also because he spent so much time working on the fundamentals and the technique, and the movements, and counters, and positioning, and he understands boxing so comprehensively. He knows where the punches are coming from, he knows where he's gonna be vulnerable to get hit, he knows when he's not.

• 1:55:40Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 1:55:41Joe Rogan?

  He knows when he has to take a risk, and to give one, he has to take one.

• 1:55:45Speaker 02

  But how much of that, like his trainer, Bo- Bohheim, Boham, I might be saying, I know him, I know his trainer, just like Eddie Incepo, and they've got, who's got to have Canelo, they have lots of other fighters.

• 1:56:01Speaker 02

  But like Eddie and Cheppl have never had another Canelo Alvarez, including all of his brothers. And I would be like, okay, how much of it is just God given talent like Terrence Crawford has that's then trained by trainers versus how much credit does a trainer get?

• 1:56:18Joe Rogan?

  Trainer gets some credit, but a trainer with a bad fighter is never going to create a world champion. Like you, you have to be an extraordinary individual to be a championship level fighter. No doubt. And then there are some championship level fighters that have, they have emerged from gyms that don't have any championship, like Marvin Hager, one of the greatest of all time. He came out of the Petronelli Brothers Gym. They weren't known for having like a giant stable of multiple world champions.

• 1:56:45Speaker 02

  Who was the, who were the top, who in your opinion, the best UFC trainers?

• 1:56:51Joe Rogan?

  Well, there's quite a few. There's quite a few. There's some really elite trainers out there and I don't want to miss anybody. But Farah Sahabi is probably one of my favorite. He's a, cause he's very, very intelligent and very analytical. And he does a fantastic job also of breaking down fights, both before the fight and after the fight, and telling you like what tactics didn't work and why they didn't work and what went wrong in the fight and what was very effective. He's just a brilliant human being and also just so intelligent about the way he makes his fighters prepare. And he trained George St Pierre, who's one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all time. So there's him.

• 1:57:34Joe Rogan?

  Um, there's Greg Jackson and Mike Winklejohn from Jackson Winklejohn in Albuquerque, which is phenomenal gym. That's where John Jones came from. Multiple world champions have come from that, that gym. Those guys are phenomenal. John Crouch in Arizona, he's phenomenal. Um, there's, there's just so many fucking, like top of the food chain guys.

• 1:57:56Speaker 02

  And how much, how much of that skill is, and if it's, it's all equal, I, I get it. But how much of that skill that makes a great UFC trainer is, okay, if I'm your trainer and I'm getting you ready for a fight, I'm going to study your opponent, I'm going to study your opponent's strengths, his weaknesses, his tendencies, his tells, and I'm going to train you in relationship to that and, and, and be right. Right? So I, you can anticipate where there's going to be an opportunity and take it.

• 1:58:26Joe Rogan?

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• 1:59:10Joe Rogan?

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• 1:59:55Joe Rogan?

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• 2:00:37Speaker 02

  How much of it is that and how effective is that like versus how much of it is Joe, I gotta keep you fucking ready for anything. I gotta keep you in shape. I gotta keep you mentally like good. Um, I gotta remove distractions and I gotta be like your father, your uncle, your brother, um, and everything else in between. Do you, you know what I mean?

• 2:00:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I think there's both, but I think for some fighter, every fighter has a different approach. John Jones is famous for studying tape and, and devising game plans and strategies that are based on what he sees about his opponent's tendencies.

• 2:01:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:01:13Joe Rogan?

  And that's how he caught Daniel Cormier with that left high kick. Like he, he knew that Daniel dips to the right.

• 2:01:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:20Joe Rogan?

  And you know, and Daniel even called it out before that. You think you're gonna hit me with that head kick? And he actually did hit him with it in the fight. Cause Daniel had a tendency and John exploited that tendency. And he does that with everybody. He's famous for not just doing that, but also not taking fights on last minute notice. Like he's had some opponents fall out and the UFC offers him an alternative, alternative opponent in a short period of time. And he says, no, I didn't train for that fighter. He goes, I'm the greatest of all time for a reason. And that reason is I'm fully prepared for every fight. I'm not gonna take a fight against someone who I'm not fully prepared for.

• 2:01:58Speaker 02

  And has he had the same coach his entire career?

• 2:02:00Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:02:01Speaker 02

  So that's a real-

• 2:02:02Joe Rogan?

  That's Jackson Winklejohn. He's been with them forever.

• 2:02:04Speaker 02

  And that's an incredible pairing.

• 2:02:06Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's incredible. Jackson in particular is fantastic at devising strategies to deal with opponents. And you know, he trained Holly Holm and she knocked out Ronda Rousey.

• 2:02:15Speaker 02

  I was there.

• 2:02:16Joe Rogan?

  They are, you were in Australia for that? That was in Australia.

• 2:02:19Speaker 02

  No, I wasn't there. I watched it. I wasn't, I felt like I was there because I watched it. I mean, it was shocking.

• 2:02:24Joe Rogan?

  That was crazy. That was, that was a crazy fight, but they, they trained her for-

• 2:02:28Speaker 02

  Were you there?

• 2:02:29Joe Rogan?

  Yes. Yeah.

• 2:02:29Speaker 02

  Shocked, right?

• 2:02:30Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it was incredible. Yeah. But Holly was good, man. She's a multiple time world champion in boxing and in kickboxing. She was very, very legit striker.

• 2:02:38Speaker 02

  But you were surprised?

• 2:02:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it was shocking, but it was also like Holly was good. She was really fucking good. And when she landed that head kick, like holy shit.

• 2:02:47Speaker 02

  I remember Rhonda's face, just the shock in her face and, and she just, it was, yeah, that was, I literally felt like I was there because it was a piercing moment.

• 2:02:58Joe Rogan?

  But they knew that Rhonda had a very specific entry that she used to try to take people down, and they avoided that every single time.

• 2:03:05Speaker 02

  Kept her out.

• 2:03:05Joe Rogan?

  They, they, they circled away, they fought off Rhonda's takedown attempts and kept the fight standing.

• 2:03:11Speaker 02

  And that flustered her.

• 2:03:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, well, it was just more effective. And so it really depends on the athlete. Like I said, if you get a person that falls apart in the heat of the moment and just throws it all out the window and starts brawling, yeah, well, then your training has kind of gone to waste. And then they're relying on instincts and hopefully skill. But if you have a really good fighter and a really good trainer, then you get a Mike Tyson.

• 2:03:34Speaker 02

  What was her trainer, Edmund or Rhonda's trainer? I can't remember his name. But I wonder whether he underprepared her for that, right?

• 2:03:48Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. I mean, she was very stretched thin when that was going on because she was doing movies and she was a superstar and she was like constantly being courted. But, you know.

• 2:03:59Speaker 02

  You know, she did a movie for me. I'm part of that problem.

• 2:04:02Joe Rogan?

  Oh, really? What was that?

• 2:04:02Speaker 02

  It was Mile 22, but she had kind of retired by then. This was after her, this was after the fight.

• 2:04:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I think that the distractions when you're a superstar are huge. And if you give in to all those distractions, you say yes to everything. And you have agents that want you to be, and you think like, you're so confident, you could do anything anyway. You could, I don't give a fuck, I'll beat everybody. And that's how every champion feels.

• 2:04:25Speaker 02

  Sometimes I think about like what I've seen with, with coaches. And, and you know, I, I do appreciate a coach. And, and I've just seen different success stories in different ways that coaches have really impacted fighters. But then I think about like, why don't life coaches work better? And like, like, I wouldn't mind having a coach that would be like, Pete, here's our enemy, here's our opponents. And like, I actually had a therapist for a while who, when I first started seeing him, his name's Barry, and he's a great guy. And I love him. And he's, but you know, so much of my relationship with him was unpacking my shit, you know, my parents and my trauma and my fears and all this stuff.

• 2:05:09Speaker 02

  And and for years Barry would, you know, talk to me about my dreams and all this stuff and and like the dreams that I had that night, not my goals. And then I started realizing, well, okay, I feel like I've talked about my mom and my grandma, my grandparents and every fucking thing, the bad that's ever happened to me and and like Barry, what if we start talking strategy, like, could you coach me? And he started coaching me a bit and I found that like with my business decisions, my creativity decisions, like, like you're so disciplined, you know, like, I don't know, do you ever think like, why don't life coaches work better?

• 2:05:48Speaker 02

  And if you had someone like, um, John Jones' coach in your life every fucking day, would, would it be better?

• 2:05:59Joe Rogan?

  I think for a lot of people, yes. Yeah, if you could find someone who could devise a strategy that you could follow and you could help because it's a collaboration, you know, you could collaborate with this person and go, yeah, there's definitely value in that. But you could also be your own coach.

• 2:06:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you can, so many people can't, right? Like, don't people ask you, or I don't know, they ask me for, you know, advice and how do you do it? And I'm like, well, you know, you gotta go to bed, you gotta get up early, you've gotta have self motivation, you have to not make stupid mistakes and, you know, sometimes what you don't do that helps more than what you do. And I, I, I'm aware of people struggling to figure out, like more than ever, especially with, you know, all this perceived success through social media and the glorification of billionaires and all this stuff. Everyone's like, I'm not happy where I am and I want, and I, and I'm like, well, you know, are you following these basic rules?

• 2:06:58Speaker 02

  Like the basic rules that I believe you follow, you Joe, follow. And people seem to have so much trouble.

• 2:07:06Speaker 02

  Getting on a program.

• 2:07:07Joe Rogan?

  Well, you have to pay attention to the people that are successful. Like, what are they doing? And without doubt, everyone who is really successful and has longevity has discipline. And discipline is maybe number one. Discipline is showing up with a desire to improve and work hard every day.

• 2:07:28Speaker 02

  What do you think the source of your discipline is?

• 2:07:31Joe Rogan?

  Martial arts, for sure. One hundred percent. Learning when I was young that focus and, and, and drive and attention to detail and, and obsession leads you to get excellent at something. And there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. That the more time I put in, the more I trained, the better I got, the more I was really locked in and focused, the better I performed. And I learned that at a young age. I learned that as a kid. And so I developed discipline when I was very young.

• 2:07:59Speaker 02

  But so thousands of, of young people, at what age did you start martial arts?

• 2:08:04Joe Rogan?

  I started fighting when I was fifteen.

• 2:08:05Speaker 02

  Okay, but you started fighting?

• 2:08:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I started training when I was like fourteen. I took my first karate classes when I was fourteen.

• 2:08:12Speaker 02

  That's actually older than I would have thought. But like so, so many, you know, thousands of kids take boxing classes or your lessons for mixed martial arts or whatever, and they don't find the level of discipline that you were able to find, right?

• 2:08:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's not for everybody.

• 2:08:29Speaker 02

  So, but what made you able, what made you, like, was it your parents? Was it insecurity? Was it someone that gave you shit when you were eight that made you be like, fuck it, I'm gonna learn this shit and I'm gonna master it?

• 2:08:42Joe Rogan?

  Well, when I first started doing it, I just wanted to figure out how to fight. And I wanted, and I was very lucky that I found a gym that was filled with incredible fighters. They were very high level. One of the guys, my friend John Lee, was a national champion and he was like a mentor to me. And, you know, I was a white belt and he was a black belt and competing in the World Cup at the time. That's when I met him. And, you know, he just took a liking to me and helped me out a lot.

• 2:09:09Speaker 02

  So white belts, you're total novice?

• 2:09:11Joe Rogan?

  Complete beginner, but I got a black belt in two years. I was obsessed. I trained every day of the week. I had a key to the gym and I could work out anytime I wanted because my instructor at some point in time realized that I had potential and made a deal with me and offered me, um, I could teach classes. And if I taught classes and I taught private lessons, like teaching beginners, like when they first come in, you have to take a certain amount of beginner classes, private lessons before you're allowed to enter into the group class. So I would teach people from the very beginning and, um, so because of that, uh, I was able to be at the gym all day long. And, and whenever I wanted to be there, I could be there.

• 2:09:50Joe Rogan?

  And I also, from teaching, really broke down technique, which is the most important thing to like, if you have bad technique, even if you're like a good fighter, you have flaws in your, you can get pretty far with bad technique if you're just tough.

• 2:10:04Speaker 02

  Eventually you get, you get caught.

• 2:10:06Joe Rogan?

  It's just not, you're not going to be the best. The best have excellent technique, like without doubt, especially when it comes to martial arts. It's kicking and jujitsu, like it's, technique is everything. And technique and, and drive and training and focus. And I realized early on, like, I thought I was a loser. And then until I started doing martial arts and getting really good at martial arts, I'm like, oh, I'm not a loser. Like, I'm really good at this. Like I have a propensity to it. I have a genetic propensity. I have like very good, I'm fast, I hit really hard and I really loved it. I love getting better. I love the fear of it too. I love being terrified. I love overcoming the fear of competition. It was so fucking scary.

• 2:10:48Speaker 02

  It was like, it was like religious for you though, wasn't it?

• 2:10:51Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:10:51Speaker 02

  A, a, a much, a massive experience.

• 2:10:55Joe Rogan?

  It was so religious that my girlfriend at the time wanted to fuck in the gym because I had the keys and I wouldn't have sex with her there. I'm like, no.

• 2:11:01Speaker 02

  Why, it's a sacred space?

• 2:11:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:03Speaker 02

  You can't fuck in the church?

• 2:11:04Joe Rogan?

  Even when no one was there, I would bow.

• 2:11:06Speaker 02

  That might have been a mistake. You should have, you should have.

• 2:11:09Joe Rogan?

  No, I've fucked her plenty.

• 2:11:10Speaker 02

  All right. So we're keeping it, but like, like, okay, so I think that's so interesting that to, to trace the origin story of, of your fuse being ignited because people look at you and they're like, okay, that dude is fucking on, he's in it. Um, I've had people tell me that I'm in it. Um, you know, some of our friends, mutual friends are in it.

• 2:11:35Joe Rogan?

  You know when you're in it. You know when you're in it.

• 2:11:37Speaker 02

  Most people can't find that.

• 2:11:39Joe Rogan?

  Well, they don't have the thing, whatever. Like, not everybody's gonna be great at everything. They're just not. Some people just don't have the discipline, the desire. They don't have the willpower to push through when they're tired. They don't have the willpower to show up when they're feeling tired and lazy, or when they're uninspired. You have to, you have to learn that. And you have to learn that through, like, if you want to get great, there's only one pathway. There's only one pathway. It's hard work and discipline. There's no other way. And you might not get there still.

• 2:12:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:11Joe Rogan?

  Because if you're hard work and you have discipline, but you're, you're competing against Mike Tyson, and he also has-

• 2:12:17Speaker 02

  Bad timing.

• 2:12:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he also has hard work and discipline, but superior genetics and superior training, hypnotized from the time he was 13. You're fucked.

• 2:12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:25Joe Rogan?

  You're fucked.

• 2:12:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I, um, I can remember when Canelo Alvarez first came into my gym, and he was young, he was just starting to, you know, have a rep. Everything about that guy reeked of exceptionalism. The way he put his bag down, the way he took his shoes out, right? The way he drank his water. Every rep, every, you know, when he started to stretch, every single stretch-

• 2:12:54Joe Rogan?

  Intention.

• 2:12:55Speaker 02

  -felt intentional as fuck.

• 2:12:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:57Speaker 02

  Him starting to just lightly warm up on a heavy bag, felt he was absolutely exceptional. And I try to tell other fighters in our gym, and other people in general, that like, you don't understand, it's, it's not something, you know, you see other pro fighters, I've seen a lot of them come to our gym, and they're talking to people and they're joking around, and they're sort of, you know, taking a moment or two off. And then you look at all of them, and these are good fighters. I mean, these are pro fighters. But they're not exceptional and they don't have that intention. And when I would see Canelo Alvarez or certain elite, Crawford's done media days at our gym.

• 2:13:38Speaker 02

  They, from the moment they walk in, everything about them, the way they take their sweatshirt off and fold it up and put it down. I'm like, that dude's a world fucking champion. Has nothing to do with the fighting. The way their, their hands, they hold their hands out when they're getting taped. It's almost like every breath from the moment they walk in to walk out is so fucking exceptional. And I look at all these other fighters, I go, no, you don't understand, you don't, he's got something you don't have.

• 2:14:07Joe Rogan?

  And you can still lose with all that. Because you're competing. You might be, yeah, you might be competing against a guy who has a slightly better strategy and maybe he's better at one thing that sets you off. Yeah, and you wanna beat that guy? Well, you gotta work even harder. You gotta go back and figure out what you did wrong. You gotta figure out where your flaws are and improve upon them. Whether, whether it's an endurance issue, whether it's a technique and strategy issue, whether it's pacing, whatever it is.

• 2:14:35Speaker 02

  Floyd never lost, right? And I do, I have, I, I totally agree with you, what you said earlier, that Floyd deserves. That's a great story. I just, for some reason, have in my life over the years, sometimes hated on him a little bit, for a variety of reasons, mainly because of how defensive he was. Now I know how great he is, but I do sometimes look for inspiration in random places. And if I'm feeling like I need a reminder of what excellence is, I'll watch training videos from Vegas with Floyd. Just him and his uncle or his dad, just doing the mitts, doing these like 15 minute rounds, just so smooth and effortless. And what does he say? Hard work, easy work, hard work? Or I can't remember what his phrase is.

• 2:15:20Speaker 02

  But the, the beauty of like Mayweather training in, in a gym, and I, I just find that so interesting to look for people who are exceptional.

• 2:15:33Speaker 02

  Um, in, in.

• 2:15:34Joe Rogan?

  It's a long road, man. It's a long road. You're, you're making a mountain, one layer of paint at a time. And you're, you're competing against other people that are doing the exact same thing. And if, unless you set yourself apart from the pack. Unless you're a guy like Marvin Hagler that goes to Cape Cod and trains in the winter and runs on the fucking sand.

• 2:15:52Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 2:15:52Joe Rogan?

  Unless you're that guy that like pushes it past everybody else, you're not going to be exceptional. And it's a, it's a fucking struggle. That's why some fighters, they reach a certain level of success and they sort of slack off. A lot of people thought Canelo was doing that when he started playing golf all the time. Like they're like, oh, he's not completely focused anymore. He's. And maybe this is why he doesn't want to fight Benavides.

• 2:16:14Speaker 02

  Might be, might be a little true.

• 2:16:16Joe Rogan?

  It also might be a money thing. It might be like, look, I'll fight that guy, but I know what that fight is. And I want 200 million dollars for that fight.

• 2:16:23Speaker 02

  How about just like, how hard it is to stay hungry when your refrigerator is that fucking full?

• 2:16:29Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:16:29Speaker 02

  Like you're Canelo Alvarez, you're a good looking dude. You have a beautiful wife. You've got this. hacienda in Mexico that like Pablo Escobar would have killed for.

• 2:16:38Joe Rogan?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:16:38Speaker 02

  With the stallions and the cars and then, and, and you gotta go fucking deal with David Benavides.

• 2:16:44Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:16:44Speaker 02

  Like, like that's like when, you know, Rocky, when he had to go fight, I can't remember who and he's all rich.

• 2:16:49Joe Rogan?

  Clubber Lang.

• 2:16:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, he had to go fight Clubber Lang, rich.

• 2:16:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:52Speaker 02

  Like, okay, Canelo Alvarez, I'll fight you poor, but now I gotta fight you rich. And I gotta wake up for like, aye.

• 2:17:00Joe Rogan?

  Hagler always used to say it's very difficult to wake up in the morning when you're sleeping in silk sheets.

• 2:17:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:17:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. And like, and, and I do think about that also. Like, I had people asking me like. Like, you know, we started talking about making American Pride Beable. That, that was 145 days up on a mountain. You know, in standing on ice. Uh, with clamp-ons, your shoes, cause we're on ski mountains and there's fucking wind and it's fucking miserable. And I'm like, people are like, why, why are you doing this shit?

• 2:17:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:33Speaker 02

  I'm like, cause I fucking love it.

• 2:17:36Joe Rogan?

  Cause you fucking love it.

• 2:17:36Speaker 02

  I love it. But they're like, but, but we could like, you know, I got a boat. We're gonna go on to the Mediterranean. I'm like, no, I'm gonna be up on the mountain.

• 2:17:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:45Speaker 02

  And like. Staying hungry is a, um, I don't know.

• 2:17:50Joe Rogan?

  Well, it all depends on what your motivation is. If your motivation is just get wealthy and then once you reach that point, now you're fucked. Because now you don't have this motivation anymore. If your motivation is the big house and the big cars and all that bullshit. But if your motivation is excellence, you can maintain that motivation no matter what your financial state is.

• 2:18:08Speaker 02

  Forever, right? It's an unlimited source and that's the necklace I wear. Pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful.

• 2:18:14Joe Rogan?

  That's what it says on your necklace?

• 2:18:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful and exalted things. It's that quote.

• 2:18:21Joe Rogan?

  That's perfect.

• 2:18:21Speaker 02

  It reminds me dude like, okay, I don't, I'll, I'll enjoy, like you want to take me to a fancy Michelin restaurant here in Austin? Okay, you want to take me to Guero's and fucking have some ribs? Okay, like I don't care and I mean, I appreciate it.

• 2:18:40Joe Rogan?

  Right, but it's not your primary motivation.

• 2:18:42Speaker 02

  Hell fucking no.

• 2:18:43Joe Rogan?

  Your primary motivation is not to show up at the big party and have everybody kiss your ass. No, it's creation, the creation of great art.

• 2:18:49Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 2:18:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and if you're a fighter, it's the same thing. It's like to, to be excellent, to be unstoppable, to be the best of the best. And if you have that motivation, you can maintain that with wealth.

• 2:19:01Speaker 02

  You can still get hungry to be Canelo and come out and fight David Benavides.

• 2:19:05Joe Rogan?

  But it's obviously very hard to do, which is why most fighters don't maintain it once they achieve wealth.

• 2:19:11Speaker 02

  Who's the best? Who's the best, like I think Tom Brady is a great example of like someone that was able to just

• 2:19:19Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:19:19Speaker 02

  Like reignite the fucking beast.

• 2:19:21Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:19:22Speaker 02

  Kobe Bryant, I, I guess, you know, yes, but like fighters or people that you know that, I just think it's interesting to think about.

• 2:19:32Joe Rogan?

  It's a different thing though. Sports and fighting are a different thing because.

• 2:19:35Speaker 02

  You don't play boxing?

• 2:19:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you don't play it. It's like you could decide that you're going to still maintain a very high level of basketball and you enjoy, you want to just be excellent. But no one's kicking you in the legs, you know? No one's taking you down and strangling you.

• 2:19:49Speaker 02

  Who's the, is George St Pierre that's been able to like, who, who is it? John Jones that? In your mind is like curious in that they were able to with a full fridge and comfortable sheets just keep fucking.

• 2:20:03Joe Rogan?

  But Jon Jones is exceptional because Jon Jones beat a lot of guys when he wasn't training. There was times in his life where he was fucking off and partying all the time and still beating the best guys in the world. That was like the, the, when he had that press conference with Daniel Cormier, he goes, I beat you when I was doing coke.

• 2:20:19Speaker 02

  Coke, yeah. That's such an insult. What's a worse insult than that? Like, dude, I was doing, I was high on fucking eight balls and I beat your ass.

• 2:20:28Joe Rogan?

  Well, Jon talked to me about it. He said, I used to, when I was younger, I used to give myself an excuse. So I would party really hard like a week before the fight, which you should never do. And it's like, well, if I lose, you know, maybe it's because I partied. But he doesn't, he doesn't do that now. Now he thoroughly prepares. And he went through a time when he was the light heavyweight champion, when he was kind of like playing with his food because he was just so much better than everybody else. He wasn't, he wasn't threatened by people. So he wasn't putting on the performances that he did when he was younger, like when he won the title against Shogun. He lost some of that motivation, but then gained it later in life when he went through a bunch of legal struggles, a lot of problems and realized like this could all be taken away from me. I gotta get back to what made me great.

• 2:21:13Joe Rogan?

  And then, you know, won the heavyweight title, defended against the greatest in Stipe Miocic and, you know, now he's the heavyweight champion of the UFC.

• 2:21:20Speaker 02

  What do you think?

• 2:21:21Joe Rogan?

  He's been fighting, he's.

• 2:21:22Speaker 02

  How many?

• 2:21:23Joe Rogan?

  Won the title in what, like 2008? When did, what year did Jon Jones win the title? Which is just.

• 2:21:30Speaker 02

  That's insane.

• 2:21:31Joe Rogan?

  Fucking crazy.

• 2:21:32Speaker 02

  And he's 40.

• 2:21:33Joe Rogan?

  No, he's in his 30s. He's 30, he's, he's the youngest ever, uh, champion in the UFC. He won the title at 22 years old. 2011. 2011, okay. So he has been a world champion for 14 years. That is unheard of.

• 2:21:48Speaker 02

  But so he has to be the greatest fighter in the history of the UFC, greater than Pete, George Saint Pierre, I mean, right? Like.

• 2:21:54Joe Rogan?

  I think on paper, for sure. I think the problem with that is like, who did he fight versus who did George Saint Pierre fight? Who did Khabib fight versus who did George Saint Pierre? Like, it's like, who did Mighty Mouse fight versus?

• 2:22:05Speaker 02

  Okay, but so according to that.

• 2:22:07Joe Rogan?

  Who did Anderson Silva fight?

• 2:22:08Speaker 02

  Who do you put number one based on those metrics?

• 2:22:10Joe Rogan?

  Well, out of just the sheer longevity and the accomplishments, I say John Jones. But I could see the argument for Mighty Mouse being the best martial artist I've ever seen. I think he's the best expression of martial arts talent and technique that I've ever seen. But then George St. Pierre is right up there, too. And George St. Pierre was, you know, multiple division world champion. He won the welterweight title, then he won the middleweight title. And then he came back after four years off and beat Michael Bisping for the middleweight title. Like, he's, he's in the argument, too. I just think there's a real problem in saying the number one of all time, the greatest of all time. But if you were gonna give it to somebody, I would say, give it to John.

• 2:22:49Speaker 02

  When you think about John and like, like what, how he's been able to do it for this long and go through these highs and lows and get, I mean, fighting and doing blow, like, that's fucking like...

• 2:23:01Joe Rogan?

  Well, he's that talented. He was that good. He's an intelligent psychopath.

• 2:23:05Speaker 02

  Like, like, but what, what's in there? You know, like, to what we're talking about, what's the, like, what's driving that motherfucker?

• 2:23:13Joe Rogan?

  No, no, you can't, you can't, you can't manufacture that. You either are that guy or you are not that guy.

• 2:23:19Speaker 02

  So that's pure nature. That's like...

• 2:23:21Joe Rogan?

  It's a lot of things. It's how he grew up. He has two savage brothers. Both of them are NFL players, superior athletes, they beat each other up all the time, I'm sure.

• 2:23:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:30Joe Rogan?

  You know, it's like, you're in a competitive environment from the time you're young. You have incredible genetics on top of that. Then you go to a place like Jackson Winklejohn that is superior training with world-class sparring partners, world-class coaches, world-class recovery, training facilities, technique, strategy, all the above. It's like, you need a perfect storm to be a, a real, true, all-time great.

• 2:23:53Speaker 02

  Do you, do you think that, because sometimes I think we're, that having a, being fucked up can work to your advantage and having addictive tendencies and being like, being able to harness addictive tendencies into something as violent as, and, and to, to be able to apply those to a sport versus just being, well, I'm a well-adjusted human being with no addictive tendencies, not a lot of trauma. I'm gonna, I'm gonna fight you. Oh, no, I'm a fucking beast that grew up in a fight and like Mike Tyson. They grew up, like, I don't know, I don't even understand if you grew up inside or outside, dealt with fucking ignited torments.

• 2:24:34Speaker 02

  Drug addictions, violence, and I will kill. And, and I, I guess, uh. That, that's always interesting to look at how well-adjusted people do versus people that have real trauma. When it gets fucking brutal.

• 2:24:50Joe Rogan?

  I think there's some real value to being out of your fucking mind. I do, I really do. And I think some of the greatest artists, some of the greatest athletes, some of the, the greatest accomplishments were achieved. By people that were out of their fucking mind and just had pushed it to a level. To a level in, into an area that other people weren't willing to go. And that's how they became the best of the best. And you don't get to be a Michael Jordan unless you're out of your fucking mind.

• 2:25:17Speaker 02

  Well, maybe an Elon Musk, I don't know. I don't know if.

• 2:25:20Joe Rogan?

  Right, yeah. Similar, similar in that regard. It's not a normal person that chooses to take on four, five jobs like that. And then runs the Department of Government Efficiency. Like, who is that? And very few people are willing to put in that kind of work or have that desire to do anything like that. You have, it has to be real. You can't be forcing it because if you're forcing it and it's like, oh, God, this is like. I don't really wanna do this. Well, there's someone out there that wants to do that. They're gonna get better. They're gonna be better at it. They're obsessed. They're all in. You have to be all in and fighters aren't all in anymore. That's the worst stage of their career.

• 2:25:54Speaker 02

  It's horrifying. And, and, you know, I say that about. People ask me about my job or how do I get a job working in Hollywood? I wanna make movies. I'm like, well, are you sure you wanna do this? Because like, you're not gonna have an office, you're not gonna have a boss, you're not gonna have someone saying, hey, Joe, get up, time to get up and. You're gonna have to be totally self-motivated. You're gonna have to deal with, and, and, yeah, like.

• 2:26:21Speaker 02

  Reviews, I, I feel what you're saying there, but you're gonna be judged, you're gonna be only as good as your last job, you have no fucking job security. And, you know, you're gonna be up at four in the morning in some mountain filming someone, cutting someone's fucking head off, having no idea whether you're like on the right path or the wrong, you, you gotta be a little fucking crazy.

• 2:26:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you have to be crazy to think that you can do it, right? Cause most people don't get a chance to do that.

• 2:26:47Speaker 02

  Delusional thinking, you have to be able to be delusional.

• 2:26:50Joe Rogan?

  Well, I don't even think it's delusional.

• 2:26:52Speaker 02

  My business a little bit.

• 2:26:53Joe Rogan?

  You have to be willing to go through everything that it takes to get there, and that is not an easy road. And it's not an easy road to be a great filmmaker, it's not an easy road to be a great athlete, no matter what you're doing, to be a great author, you have to be willing to go down that road, and it is a long road with trials and tribulations and errors and, and successes, and you have to learn from your successes and learn from your failures. And not everybody has their shit together enough to pursue a path consistently for a long enough period of time that you achieve greatness.

• 2:27:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, or, and having, the combination of having your shit together and being fucked up, cause it's gotta be, you gotta be crazy, but you gotta be able functionally crazy. But I always say delusional thinking because I, I made the point to, to people asking me about my job, I'm like, well, okay, think about it this way. You have to have the ability to look someone in the eye, so if I'm a young filmmaker and you're the head of a studio, I have to look you in the eye and say, hey, Joe, um, here's the deal, um, I need a hundred and thirty-five million dollars. I'm gonna make up a story about a bunch of, uh, cowboys and Indians fighting in a mountain, I'm gonna bring all these people up there, I'm gonna film it and move people around, and

• 2:28:12Speaker 02

  I'm gonna edit it all together, and I'm gonna, for your a hundred and thirty million dollars, I'm gonna build this thing, I'm gonna make it all, put music on it, edit it and make it all, and I'm gonna put it out into the world, and people are gonna stop doing what they're doing, and they're gonna watch it, and they're gonna love it, and it's gonna bring you value.

• 2:28:30Joe Rogan?

  But why is it delusional? If other people have done it. This is the thing.

• 2:28:33Speaker 02

  Because everyone that's done it is a little delusional.

• 2:28:37Speaker 02

  Because it just doesn't like you. You're you're right. Okay, it's not totally delusional, but it's a little bit of magical thinking. Maybe take the word delusional out of it and be like, you know, like the idea of magical thinking that like, oh, no, I can do something. That that's very doesn't quite make sense. It's not like, oh, I'm gonna make this table. I'm gonna measure it and cut it and nail it and. Attach it to a frame and no, it's like, I'm gonna, I've got this abstract vision that I'm gonna attempt to. Put together in a way that costs somebody a lot of money and yet I'm gonna aspire to touch people's hearts and souls with this. It's just a weird way to think.

• 2:29:20Joe Rogan?

  It is, but.

• 2:29:21Speaker 02

  I love it, but.

• 2:29:22Joe Rogan?

  But it it obviously works like it can't be delu- like.

• 2:29:26Speaker 02

  There's a lot of bad movies out there.

• 2:29:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's true. There's a lot of bad everything. There's a lot of bad books, you know, but is it delusional to want to write a book? No, it's been done forever. You know, it's just like filmmaking is fairly recent in terms of human history.

• 2:29:39Speaker 02

  Do you know what my dad told me when I told him I was going to Hollywood to learn how to make movies? So my dad was a business guy and I love my dad very much, but he, right when I was getting ready to come to Hollywood, he said, Pete, I've secured you a job. At Lehman Brothers, you're gonna work on a desk and you're gonna learn about finance. It did. It's done. And I had studied theater in college, which was making my dad very anxious because I was starting to get into making his little movies and all this stuff. And I'm like, I'm in L A and I'm getting ready to move to L A. And he stopped me. He's, we're not moving to L A. I've got you a job. This guy Barry Frank, who's a friend of my dad's, who knew someone at Lehman Brothers and and I think they're out of business now, by the way.

• 2:30:22Speaker 02

  Big money company. And I'm like, Dad, I'm not doing it. He's like, what do you mean? I go, Dad, I'm not. He said, you're really gonna go to fucking bullshit Hollywood? I go, I am. He goes, you're not. I go, I am. He said, okay, I'll tell you what. Good luck out there. You know what's gonna happen? You're gonna end up making them gay pornos.

• 2:30:45Joe Rogan?

  Imagine like that's the only way, that was the only thing that could happen if it goes wrong. You made gay pornos.

• 2:30:50Speaker 02

  Gay pornos.

• 2:30:51Joe Rogan?

  That's hysterical.

• 2:30:53Speaker 02

  And he's staring me in the eye and he's not fucking kidding.

• 2:30:56Joe Rogan?

  Fucking funny.

• 2:30:56Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I'm like.

• 2:30:57Joe Rogan?

  Oh my god.

• 2:30:59Speaker 02

  Dad.

• 2:31:01Speaker 02

  I'm not. And I fucking left. And in the back of my mind for the last thirty fucking years has been that warning.

• 2:31:09Joe Rogan?

  Don't do gay pornos.

• 2:31:11Speaker 02

  Be careful. Like you better fucking work. But it, no, it's not magical thinking, but to my dad, the idea that you were his, you know, because I had no artists in my family. My dad was a business guy. He was like Mad Men advertising, worked for Gray advertising, like Jif peanut butter and shit. Like the account guy. He, he had to go get the Jif peanut butter guys drunk twice a week. And that was his job, you know, but the idea that wow, you can make a career in the arts. Yeah, people do it, but most people don't fuck with that.

• 2:31:45Joe Rogan?

  Most people don't make it. Yeah.

• 2:31:47Speaker 02

  They don't fuck with it.

• 2:31:48Joe Rogan?

  But that's just because it's hard.

• 2:31:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:50Joe Rogan?

  If it was easy, everybody would do it. It was easy. Everybody'd have their own fucking movie. Everybody'd be making movies.

• 2:31:56Speaker 02

  Everybody had their own fucking podcast. If it was easy to have a podcast, my favorite.

• 2:31:59Joe Rogan?

  Everybody does. I think everybody does have it. Gavin Newsom just started one.

• 2:32:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, well.

• 2:32:04Joe Rogan?

  Second one, I think.

• 2:32:05Speaker 02

  Well, you're right. You're right. But so like, well, like, so this is the other thing, right, that I, I think is so interesting. And, and it's true with podcasts. What I tell people who like come to Hollywood and they're like, I don't understand this business. I'm, what do I do? What do I do? I'm like, fuck off. Let me tell you something. There's no barrier of entry for my business or podcasting. Meaning, anybody in the world can move to LA. You don't even have to be in LA anymore. You can be in Austin and be like, I'm an actor. I'm an actress. I'm a writer. I'm a director. I'm a producer. I'm a podcaster. Any motherfucker can do it.

• 2:32:40Joe Rogan?

  You don't need a degree.

• 2:32:41Speaker 02

  Get on an airplane and look to the left when you're getting on, like, do you, can anyone fly a fucking plane? If your toilet is fucking backed up and you need it fixed, can you just pull anyone off the street? Or does a plumber have to have a fucking degree, right?

• 2:32:55Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:32:55Speaker 02

  Like. But we wanna exist, this is why I say magical thinking. You wanna thrive in a job where all you're doing is talking, Joe. You're just talking. Anyone can fuck, everyone has a mouth and two ears, but you're doing it on a different fucking level. That's magical thinking in a way. If you, a little bit, I don't.

• 2:33:16Joe Rogan?

  Well, if I set out and said, I one day wanna be the biggest podcaster on earth. That's magical thinking, but I didn't.

• 2:33:24Speaker 02

  You just followed your instincts and who was your first one? The who's the guy you were telling me about?

• 2:33:28Joe Rogan?

  Brian Redban, my buddy Brian. Yeah, we just started out with snowflakes falling from the screen and we did it on a webcam. We were just being silly and we just did it all for fun.

• 2:33:37Speaker 02

  But people move to LA or get into my business thinking, I'm gonna smash it.

• 2:33:44Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:33:44Speaker 02

  Like they're not.

• 2:33:45Joe Rogan?

  That's a little bit delusional thinking.

• 2:33:46Speaker 02

  Delusional.

• 2:33:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:47Speaker 02

  Like I always say to people.

• 2:33:48Joe Rogan?

  Or aspirational.

• 2:33:49Speaker 02

  Because it's, it's delusionally aspirational.

• 2:33:53Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:33:54Speaker 02

  Like, cause I'm like, dude, if, if, if, like you come, you wanna work in, still call it Hollywood, even though it's not really Hollywood anymore, which is so decentralized. But it's fucking show business, motherfucker. It's money and art smashing together in this very bizarre way.

• 2:34:12Joe Rogan?

  And you gotta get so good at art that the money people trust you.

• 2:34:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you gotta know how to play the money game. Even when they trust you, you still have to know how to play it. Even if you're, you know, um, uh, Tarantino or Christopher Nolan or you still have to understand, you know, for the most part, that there's, there's financial parameters and you have to be able to accept that and play that because you're playing in a serious game. Like our bosses, they don't give a fuck. They're all publicly held now and they're looking at stock prices. And I say to people, bro, if you just wanna be like an artist and just pure and think about like, oh, I just, you know, like you actually were when you were doing your podcast.

• 2:35:00Speaker 02

  Like, I kinda was when I was in Minnesota making little movies and doing all this idiotic shit that got my dad to say, oh, you're gonna make gay porn, you fucking idiot.

• 2:35:10Speaker 02

  But this little phase of, oh, isn't, I was in Minnesota and St. Paul in this small school. And I'm like, I just fucking love this shit. Just like your first podcast, I just loved it. But I'm like, I tell people, if you just wanna be an artist, go write plays in Oklahoma City and just stay over out there. But if you wanna, like, step into this arena, like, it's tricky, you know?

• 2:35:35Joe Rogan?

  Well, you have to be all in. And you have to realize that this is a very high failure rate.

• 2:35:40Speaker 02

  And yeah, even all in, just like fighting, you still might not make it.

• 2:35:44Joe Rogan?

  You might not make it. Yeah, I mean, the acting's the best example of that. There's, I mean, we talked about Tim McGraw being amazing. How many amazing actors out there that don't act? There's a lot. There's a lot of people that can act. You can take them and they can figure out how to do it. It's a weird skill that some people either have or don't have. Some people have the ability, you can definitely get better at it. There's definitely like people that, that train very hard and there's method acting and there's all sorts of different strategies. But the reality is, there are a small number of roles and a large number of people. And they're auditioning for these things. And if you don't get into one, you probably won't get another. And it might be five, 10, 15 years and you've had no success and you don't know what the fuck to do. And you can quit or you can do what Billy Bob Thornton is and you make Sling Blade. Right?

• 2:36:29Joe Rogan?

  And then all of a sudden, boom, he takes off.

• 2:36:31Speaker 02

  Well, that, that's what, um, the, the reason I got into directing was I was trying to act and I was having mixed success. And I was getting very scared that, you know, you could, like, prepare for an audition for five days and I know everything and I'm ready and I'm all in and I go in and I la, I get 30 seconds of the director's time and you find out like, oh, you look like the dude that the director's girlfriend cheated on him. And who the fuck? And he's like, you were dead before it started. And I was, um, I was on this TV show, Chicago Hope. It was a hospital drama. And I was kinda getting a little famous. I played a TV doctor, Billy Gronk. And people kept calling me Billy whenever I walked down the street, like, hey Billy, what's up?

• 2:37:14Speaker 02

  Billy, Billy, Billy. And I'm like, oh my fucking god, this is gonna be my legacy, is being this TV fucking doctor, Billy. And I was on an airplane going from LA to New York, and I'm sitting there, and this guy walks by me, and he stops, he goes, hey Billy. And I'm like, my name's not Billy. He's like, my wife has this rash. Show him the rash. And she pulls up her shirt, and she's got this fucking rash, and she's sticking it in my face. He's like, Billy, what's the rash? And the other people on the plane are like, what's the rash? And I'm like, fuck this shit. I'm like, I've been busting my ass, I'm barely making it as an actor, and people are showing me their rash. I'm like, I gotta fucking do my own Sling Blade.

• 2:37:58Speaker 02

  And I did very bad things, and still got the worst review ever in the history of reviews.

• 2:38:03Joe Rogan?

  I loved that movie.

• 2:38:04Speaker 02

  But it started my career.

• 2:38:05Joe Rogan?

  It was a good movie, man. Fuck that critic.

• 2:38:08Speaker 02

  But you know what saved me? So I get the horrible review. I throw up. And I'm literally on death's fucking door, like, I'm done. I have no career. I get a phone call at night from a woman named, her name's Kelly Chapman Meyer. She was married to Ron Meyer, who used to run Universal. And she's like, he was a huge fucking guy, Ron Meyer. It was a big, big mogul in our business. And I could hear these guys laughing. And she's like, Pete, Pete, I'm on the boat with Ron, and Steven, and David Spielberg and David Geffen.

• 2:38:42Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:38:42Speaker 02

  And they're, we're watching your movie. And they're laughing like little fucking frat boys. And the fucking, Ron Meyer gets the phone, and he's like, this is fucking great. And I'm holding the review of Kenneth Turan, like, I just got it. And I'm like, what? Hold on. Spielberg, this movie's fucking great. It's great. And I'm like, let's go.

• 2:39:05Joe Rogan?

  That's awesome.

• 2:39:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, so they say.

• 2:39:07Joe Rogan?

  Well, they were right. And the critic was wrong.

• 2:39:09Speaker 02

  I appreciate it, dude.

• 2:39:10Joe Rogan?

  But I think a lot of those critics probably wanted to beat you. And they didn't get the chance and they failed and they got this job and then they shit on everything.

• 2:39:17Speaker 02

  And you gotta be able to take the hits. And I took the hit, you know, like.

• 2:39:21Joe Rogan?

  It strengthens you. It strengthens your resolve.

• 2:39:23Speaker 02

  Go as it get knocked down seven, get up eight. Like, I believe in that. Like, like, if it's just all good, all the time.

• 2:39:32Joe Rogan?

  I think you get knocked down seven, you get up seven. I think you have to get up seven times.

• 2:39:36Speaker 02

  You knock down seven. No, you get knocked down seven.

• 2:39:39Joe Rogan?

  Seven times, you get up.

• 2:39:40Speaker 02

  You get up for the eighth time.

• 2:39:42Joe Rogan?

  No, seven times. You get knocked down the seventh time, you get up.

• 2:39:45Speaker 02

  Is the phrase, is the phrase.

• 2:39:46Joe Rogan?

  Phrase sucks.

• 2:39:47Speaker 02

  Get knocked down seven, get up seven, or get knocked down seven, get up.

• 2:39:50Joe Rogan?

  Well, whoever made the phrase, they're wrong.

• 2:39:52Speaker 02

  No, because you start.

• 2:39:53Joe Rogan?

  Every time you get knocked down, you get up. That's one time.

• 2:39:55Speaker 02

  If you start up and get knocked down, one, one.

• 2:39:59Joe Rogan?

  Yep.

• 2:39:59Speaker 02

  You're one ahead of getting up, because you started up.

• 2:40:02Joe Rogan?

  No, no, you get knocked down one, you get up one. You get knocked down two.

• 2:40:06Speaker 02

  Fall down seven, get up eight.

• 2:40:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they're retarded.

• 2:40:09Speaker 02

  So you're saying, you're saying that Denzel Washington.

• 2:40:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I'm sure.

• 2:40:12Speaker 02

  Japanese proverb.

• 2:40:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's great. That's great, but that's nonsense.

• 2:40:15Speaker 02

  This is wrong?

• 2:40:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, every time you get knocked down, you get up. You can't get up if you haven't been knocked down. That's stupid. If you get knocked down seven times, you get up seven times. Period.

• 2:40:23Speaker 02

  It's like math, man. You're making me do math.

• 2:40:26Joe Rogan?

  They're just delusion. This is just like.

• 2:40:27Speaker 02

  So this has been.

• 2:40:28Joe Rogan?

  This is just like pump you up talk that doesn't make any sense.

• 2:40:30Speaker 02

  So this has been misquoted.

• 2:40:32Joe Rogan?

  You can climb any mountain. No, you can't. There's certain mountains you're not gonna climb. Shut the fuck up. This is stupid. I believe I can fly. Well, you fucking can't, R. Kelly. Jump off a building, see what happens. You can't fly. Okay? You get knocked down seven, you get up seven times. Because otherwise, there's no way to get up when you're already up.

• 2:40:51Speaker 02

  Did you hear that?

• 2:40:53Joe Rogan?

  Right? Am I right?

• 2:40:55Speaker 03

  I don't know what you're saying, but I also like, you have to get up the first time to be.

• 2:40:58Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying.

• 2:41:00Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no. You don't get credit for fucking.

• 2:41:02Speaker 03

  You don't start up.

• 2:41:03Joe Rogan?

  You don't get credit for not getting knocked down and getting up. That's stupid.

• 2:41:06Speaker 03

  But you don't start up.

• 2:41:07Joe Rogan?

  Yes, you do. You start standing up, you get knocked down, now you're up. You get knocked down once, you get up once.

• 2:41:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then you've been.

• 2:41:14Joe Rogan?

  You have to get knocked down to get up.

• 2:41:15Speaker 03

  You have to start.

• 2:41:16Speaker 02

  But you start up.

• 2:41:17Joe Rogan?

  Nonsense. You don't get point, you don't get extra credit for fucking standing up.

• 2:41:20Speaker 02

  But getting in the ring, you have to have courage.

• 2:41:23Joe Rogan?

  You get knocked down. You get that's the the challenge is getting knocked down. You you fight. You don't you don't get credit for thinking you're gonna fight. You have to actually do it. When you actually do it and you get knocked down, you get up. You get knocked down once, you get up once.

• 2:41:39Speaker 02

  I I.

• 2:41:39Joe Rogan?

  You get knocked down seven times, you get up seven fucking times. You can't get up eight times.

• 2:41:44Speaker 02

  What I what I like about. What you're saying is it just like, oh, I can climb any mountain. No, you fucking can't.

• 2:41:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:51Speaker 02

  Like, get knocked down, get up. Who fucking gives a shit? Just get up.

• 2:41:55Joe Rogan?

  Get up.

• 2:41:55Speaker 02

  Like, that's the kind of advice. I'm a fan of.

• 2:42:02Speaker 02

  It's like, life is not fair. You're gonna you're gonna come into the whatever if if you want really to have a success. You're gonna see people that work less, that have luck or, you know, connections or who fucking soar past you and it won't be fair. Deal with it.

• 2:42:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:20Speaker 02

  Fucking deal with it.

• 2:42:21Joe Rogan?

  Well, you can't compare yourself. You know, that's the great quote. Comparison is the thief of joy. You can't compare yourself. You can look to other people for inspiration.

• 2:42:29Speaker 02

  Have you always felt that? Have you always been that way? Like back in the day when Fear Factor days and before you were Joe? Like you are now. Were you competitive? Were you?

• 2:42:40Joe Rogan?

  I wasn't competitive with other TV shows.

• 2:42:42Speaker 02

  You were just playing your own game.

• 2:42:43Joe Rogan?

  Well, Fear Factor wasn't an example because that was just a job. The Fear Factor was I didn't want to work with actors.

• 2:42:48Speaker 02

  What about doing stand up? You done you were doing stand up then?

• 2:42:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but stand up was just a thing that I loved to do and I did it. I mean, certainly compared myself to other people that were doing better than me like, wow, why why are they doing better than me? Why are they more successful? Why are they sell out everywhere and I don't? Yeah, uh, but then eventually I caught up. You know, it's just you just keep working. That's all it is. All it is is like, keep keep improving and working. And if you don't have the desire to keep improving and working, you should get out because you're in the wrong business. Because there's gonna be a bunch of people that do have that desire and if you want to live a life of mediocrity and half-assedness and just fucking. Kind of showing up and doing the bare minimum, like, what kind of a fucking life is that? That's not fun. That's not exciting. That's not stimulating.

• 2:43:31Speaker 02

  One of the things.

• 2:43:32Joe Rogan?

  Some people don't have drive. They don't. Have this desire, you can't, you can't like, you can't make a championship fighter out of someone who doesn't like working out. Like you can't, it's not gonna happen. Like you have to have something inside you, a calling to whatever you're doing. For you, it is filmmaking. You have a calling to this thing. It's a passion project. It's love, it's art, it's intensity, it's discipline and focus and you're trying to make the best fucking thing you can make. And if you're not doing that, you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. Or you need to come to Jesus moment. You need a refocusing. You need something that real, that like Pressfield had, where he realized he was kinda like forty years old and like half assing his life. He turned it around and he talks about how he turned it around by deciding that he's a professional.

• 2:44:18Joe Rogan?

  And amazing career since then, right? Which is kinda spectacular.

• 2:44:21Speaker 02

  For anyone that doesn't know Steven Pressfield and they're like, they wanna do anything like writing, sports, podcast, that motherfucker has laid it out. And I'm not a big fan of like self-help, tell me shit, like the war of art, that, that dude, in my opinion, and I think yours, that's the real deal.

• 2:44:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's a guidebook. It's a guidebook for creativity and discipline and, and becoming a professional, you know, and he, he really laid it out. And he laid it out also with his own personal examples of failure, which I think are very important. Like you need to know, like that this struggle that you're experiencing, when you feel like you're fucking up, everybody has that. Nobody is just like gung ho, the best of the best right out of the gate. You learn, you improve, it's a long, slow journey.

• 2:45:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 2:45:11Joe Rogan?

  It takes a lot of fucking work. And if you're not interested in doing that, well, you better find something else. And there's a lot of people that aren't interested in that. A lot of people just wanna do a job where they make some money and then at the end of the day, they go play video games, hang out with their kids. That's great. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you wanna do something that's extraordinary, that's very hard, it's gonna take extraordinary effort. It's gonna take extraordinary discipline and willpower and it's gonna take objectivity. You're gonna have to have introspection. It's gonna be a lot of things. You're gonna have to a lot of soul searching.

• 2:45:41Speaker 02

  And you still might fucking get your ass kicked.

• 2:45:43Joe Rogan?

  Get your ass kicked. Yeah.

• 2:45:45Speaker 02

  Right?

• 2:45:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but that's why when people do succeed and someone can put together something like American Primeval, it's so fantastic. Because we know how hard it is to do. It's not easy.

• 2:45:56Speaker 02

  Are you gonna apologize to your wife for me, or do I have to?

• 2:45:58Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no, she's used to watching. She fucking freaked out in Nosferatu, she hated that.

• 2:46:03Speaker 02

  Did you have to watch that movie, the climax that I was talking about?

• 2:46:07Joe Rogan?

  I'm not gonna watch that with her, but I'm gonna watch it.

• 2:46:08Speaker 02

  No, no, no, definitely don't watch it with her.

• 2:46:11Joe Rogan?

  So the climax, uh, tell everybody, you were telling me about it in the gym.

• 2:46:14Speaker 02

  Last night, I watched this film, um, uh, uh, called The Climax. Um, it's made by this French director who's made some really fucked up, uh, uh, Gas, Gaspar No, his name is. He's uh, from, um, uh, my son made me watch this film. Um, and he's, he's, this guy's made some really fucked up films, and I don't recommend them if you, if you have like, any sensitivity, because this guy is the hardest filmmaker out there right now, in my opinion. Like, these are fucking intense movies. They're one called Irreversible, they're one called Enter the Void, and they're about drugs and death and sex, and they're very experiential. So you feel like you're, um, yeah, so this is it, this is the climax.

• 2:46:59Speaker 02

  And it's about these dancers who accidentally drink a bunch of fucking LSD. And this is the hardest film I think I've ever seen in my life. Uh, and you feel like you are on a very, very, very bad LSD trip.

• 2:47:17Joe Rogan?

  Is this in subtitles?

• 2:47:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's French. It's French, but it's, language is almost irrelevant. But if you wanna, um, I don't, I don't recommend LSD for, because I'm not a doctor, and I think it's a very dangerous, and I've done LSD, and I've had some pretty intense experiences on it. Um, but this is a brilliantly deranged, um, trip into, um, you know, have you ever had a bad trip, like a really bad trip?

• 2:47:45Joe Rogan?

  Not really.

• 2:47:45Speaker 02

  So I haven't either. And I've done, you know, some of the DMT and the Five MEO and, you know, mushrooms, I've had powerful experiences. But I, I did have one bad experience on LSD the first time I ever took it. And none of us had ever taken it before, so we, we didn't feel it, so we took another hit thinking that. So we all basically were a bunch of high school kids in New York City, trying to go to a Santana concert, and then we just started fucking tripping out. And it was scary. It was actually really, really scary. This movie, uh-

• 2:48:19Speaker 02

  Is a experientially, it becomes, and this is something that is one of my strategies when I'm making movies. Is I don't want my movie to be a part, a spectator sport. I don't want you watching it, I want you participating. I wanna try and grab you by the throat and make you watch. And be like, come on, bro, watch, put the fucking phone down. I wanna own your heart and your mind and your pulse while you're watching my films. That's just a goal. Some, sometimes I do better than others, but that's always the goal. I don't want you kinda sitting back watching. This motherfucker, Gasparyno, he takes you into it in a way that, um, I'm sure a lot of people will hate it. I mean, people-

• 2:49:03Joe Rogan?

  Is he the guy that is, like, speaks to you the most right now?

• 2:49:08Speaker 02

  No, I don't, I mean, there's a part of me like, so I'm getting ready to make a film called Mosquito Bowl, this war movie. And, and these young kids went through, I don't know if you know, the Pacific Theater Campaign and what the Battles of Tarawa and Guadalcanal and Okinawa, these were hellacious, awful fucking violent fights. And the Japanese wouldn't surrender and they believed in Emperor Horiohito, so they would fight to the death. You know, banjai charges and seppico, they would kill themselves before they would be taken prisoner. In World War Two, you had these young American kids who, in our movie, were, were college football players who Pearl Harbor hits.

• 2:49:48Speaker 02

  And they immediately joined the military and they have to go fight these fucking horrific battles. Like, just people's throats getting blown out and torturing and killing and suicides from the locals. Suicide, and, and so to me, one of my goals with this next film is I wanna try, cause been a lot of good war films. And just like there've been a lot of good westerns, and I always said, well, I never got to make one, so I wanna try and make a western. That was American Premier. Been a lot of great war films, great war films, but I never got to make one. So my take is to try and bring people into the experience of-

• 2:50:24Joe Rogan?

  But you have, you have made war films?

• 2:50:26Speaker 02

  Uh, World War Two.

• 2:50:28Joe Rogan?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:50:28Speaker 02

  So you're right, I made, I made Lone Survivor, but I never made a World War Two film. And there've been a lot of great ones, you know, from Private Ryan to Hexer Ridge.

• 2:50:37Joe Rogan?

  Private Ryan was probably the first one that was realistic though, right?

• 2:50:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:41Joe Rogan?

  I mean, that that opening scene, holy fucking shit.

• 2:50:44Speaker 02

  Which is like why Steve, for anyone, like you asked me who I look up to, Steven Spielberg. He is so far and ahead the goat of my business to think that the guy who did fucking Jurassic Park and E.T.

• 2:50:57Joe Rogan?

  Close Encounters.

• 2:50:58Speaker 02

  Close Encounters, then is like, oh, you know, and Spielberg was always like the good boy of the of the, because it was like he was growing up with like Coppola and Scorsese and Michael Mann and these guys were like fucking.

• 2:51:09Joe Rogan?

  Gritty.

• 2:51:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, they were just fucking hard partying motherfuckers.

• 2:51:12Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:51:12Speaker 02

  Um, you know, hard drinking, hard drug and hard fucking filmmakers. And Steven was like the good, goody good kid, right? Like, well, little Steven, he's got to go home soon. Put the, wait, let, don't, keep the girls in the garage, Steven's still here. And then Steven's like, oh, really? And then he makes, um, you know, Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List.

• 2:51:35Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:51:36Speaker 02

  And these movies, like, he goes, oh, really? You don't think that I know how to do war? Saving Private Ryan was like another fucking level.

• 2:51:44Joe Rogan?

  Another level.

• 2:51:44Speaker 02

  Um, so to answer your question, Spielberg's who I look up to still the most. And I think he's on a whole nother level based on the the scope of his work. But gasp or no, if I'm thinking about the thing I got out of watching this film that I would try and use in my own way for for Mosquito Bowl, for a war movie, is the idea that you want to try and take the audience into what it would have been like to try and get on that fucking beach. And, you know, in the case of my film, there was a battle of Tarawa and they were trying to get ashore, but they fucked up the tides. So they came in and the tides were too low. So those landing craft all got stuck on the tides, uh, on the coral reef.

• 2:52:27Speaker 02

  And they started getting bombed by the Japanese who were hiding in the caves and they brought their big guns out. So these kids were getting blown up before they even got to the fucking beach that were getting killed. And their, you know, best friends or body parts are floating in the fucking oceans. And there's sharks and there's giant surf waves and they're getting rocked before they've ever even got. So I'm like, okay, well. How do I want to show that? What like, and I look at a movie like Climax and I'm like, alright, different horror, bad acid, bad LSD, but my god, you're wa- like I had to stop watching it. And I knew I was coming in here today and I'm starting to have an anxiety attack because I want to get sleep to do,

• 2:53:13Speaker 02

  you know, to talk to you. And I'm fucking watching this movie and I'm all worked up because he's taken me into the fucking experience. And he does his movie Into the Void is about DMT. And he takes you into the experience of DMT. So for anyone um who doesn't ever want to experience and you know, things that you've touched and I've touched, watch, you can watch these movies and you can be like, whoa. I I'm getting that feeling. And that's a that's a real accomplishment for a filmmaker. And and I, it's immersive. So watch it, but don't let your wife.

• 2:53:51Joe Rogan?

  I'll definitely watch it.

• 2:53:52Speaker 02

  Do not like, I don't want to shit.

• 2:53:54Joe Rogan?

  She won't. Don't worry. She's not going to.

• 2:53:57Speaker 02

  It is not for everyone.

• 2:53:58Joe Rogan?

  I can't talk her into watching anything that she doesn't want to watch. She only watched American Primeval because I told her it was gonna be really awesome. And she loves Yellowstone in eighteen eighty-three, but there was like.

• 2:54:09Speaker 02

  We're violent.

• 2:54:10Joe Rogan?

  It's fucking violent. Well, it's also, it's that time period, I think, we do have, we we do have a bit of a problem culturally because a lot of the films that were created in the early days about the Wild West were very glossy. They were very whitewashed. It wasn't an accurate representation of what actually went down, you know? Film in the nineteen sixties and seventies in particular, when it covered that subject, like spaghetti westerns, you know, great films. But it just never really quite captured the reality. I don't think filmmaking was really ready for that experience because I think

• 2:54:48Joe Rogan?

  the the settling of the West and making their way across the plains in particular and dealing with the Comanche and the Plains Indians. Like, it is one of the most brutal experiences in human history.

• 2:55:02Speaker 02

  They couldn't look at it in film back then. There's no way.

• 2:55:05Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:55:06Speaker 02

  People have asked like, well, you know, when I was making it, is there gonna be sex in the film? Like Isaac and Sarah, are they gonna fall in love? Are they gonna have sex? I'm like, are you fucking, can you imagine what they would have smelt like?

• 2:55:22Speaker 02

  Just think about just odor.

• 2:55:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:24Speaker 02

  From head to toe. There's no way these people were gonna have sex. There's no way they were gonna smell each other or taste each other in any fucking way. And, and that was like, you know, when we were talking, when we were putting it together and we're writing it and, you know, Mark and we're like, well, should they have sex? And we're like, there's no fucking way. Just that alone.

• 2:55:46Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:55:47Speaker 02

  Would have been. It's amazing to me that people did have sex. Like that world wanted to fuck each other. Like, like, get the fuck away from me.

• 2:55:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they barely washed back then.

• 2:55:57Speaker 02

  Barely. They ne- and they never brushed their teeth.

• 2:56:00Joe Rogan?

  Right. And making their way across the country. There's, I mean, you're months on end.

• 2:56:05Speaker 02

  Same clothes, no sanitation. Women didn't, there were no tampons.

• 2:56:09Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:56:10Speaker 02

  Like, there's no toilet paper. They didn't have Japanese toilets that blow water up your ass and you can fucking dry yourself.

• 2:56:20Speaker 02

  This was a messy fucking world and they were not gonna make. I wanted to do a scene where, where, uh, Taylor Sher- uh, Taylor Sher- Taylor Kitsch's character has to shit and he's constipated. And, and he's gotta use sticks to help him get it out. Cause that, we had read about that. About that was how you had to shit. Cause you were constipated all the time. She would have to stick wood up your ass.

• 2:56:45Joe Rogan?

  Oh, to break your shit up.

• 2:56:47Speaker 02

  Break it up and force it out. And we, we had that scene written. Um, and I, I called that one off.

• 2:56:57Joe Rogan?

  By the way, Taylor Kitsch is fucking great.

• 2:57:00Speaker 02

  He's a beast.

• 2:57:00Joe Rogan?

  That scene in the first episode when they first meet him and he has to take off his clothes. And he's changing and you see the scars all over his body. Like, holy shit.

• 2:57:12Joe Rogan?

  It's, he's really good in that movie, that show, right? He's really fucking good.

• 2:57:17Speaker 02

  Taylor is such a great, great guy and a great actor and, you know, like. Um, really proven, cause he had some big fucking misses. One of them was my film Battleship, which I'm proud of. I love all my movies, but I'm kinda made him do that film and he was, didn't quite work and he kinda had some other misses, but he stayed true to himself and has built an incredible career and is, that's a guy who truly does, like, he used to live here and now this city got too big for him, so now he's up in, up way up in the crazy mount, the crazy hills of Montana. Um, just tracking wolves with cameras all day long.

• 2:57:56Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 2:57:57Speaker 02

  Like, I looked at some of your pictures, out in the lobby of the wolves, like, he, he sends me pictures all the time. He's just so true to himself in that way.

• 2:58:06Joe Rogan?

  That's awesome.

• 2:58:06Speaker 02

  But yeah, he plays a bad man.

• 2:58:08Joe Rogan?

  He, he plays it so well. I think this is his best work ever. I mean, he's been in a bunch of phenomenal projects, but this is, this is his best. It's so good, dude.

• 2:58:19Speaker 02

  Alright, I appreciate it.

• 2:58:20Joe Rogan?

  You should really be proud of it.

• 2:58:21Speaker 02

  Thank you, man.

• 2:58:22Joe Rogan?

  It's, cause it's, it's not just really good. It's really good about a very unique time when you have this convergence of of, of American, you know, this, this emergence of these settlers trying to make their way across this country and dealing with the Indians. And it's just, it's just phenomenal. I mean, it's, it's a crazy time in human history and a very brief time. If you really think about the impact that the West has had on American culture, we think about Wild West, every kid grew up playing cowboys and Indians, like, this is a time that was a very short window. It was only a couple hundred years and it really changed the entire

• 2:59:08Joe Rogan?

  world, cause the, the successful settling of this country by the Europeans changed everything. The establishment of America changed everything and the only way it was gonna happen was you gotta get through the, the Indians.

• 2:59:21Speaker 02

  So, we're doing the next one on, uh, this is a, this is a, um, announcement.

• 2:59:26Joe Rogan?

  Ah.

• 2:59:27Speaker 02

  The next American primeval is gonna be on, uh, General Custer.

• 2:59:31Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 2:59:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 2:59:32Joe Rogan?

  Whoa.

• 2:59:33Speaker 02

  And we're gonna focus on... A period, short period of time, leading up to Little Big Horn and how when, you know, cause he is a very misunderstood character from American history. And I'm sure you know a bit, uh, are you a Custer fan?

• 2:59:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:59:48Speaker 02

  I mean, he was a fucking beast. And he was a, you know, warrior in the Civil War who was leading in the front of the cavalry. He started cavalry charges. And I've like to, um, can you imagine being in a cavalry charge, fucking like, fucking 500 guys on your side, 500 of mine, and we're just galloping, full fucking speed at each other and just fucking smashing. And he would just, and he just kept doing it all through the Civil War and was just a badass. The war ends and he's a warrior with, like, he starts losing his mind because he doesn't know what to do with himself. So they send him out west to deal with the Indian problem.

• 3:00:27Joe Rogan?

  So have you thought about multiple versions of American Primeval with different characters throughout history?

• 3:00:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the goal would be to do, um, like, one of the things that was cool about American Primeval and reactions, people like, whoa, I didn't know that about Brigham Young. I didn't know this about Jim Bridger. I didn't understand, right? And, and so you get something that works, hopefully is, you know, entertaining, cool fucking show that's just fucking awesome. But you're also like, oh, wow, I'm gonna fucking learn about the country, right? So you, I like the idea of taking moments in American history, not necessarily all about the West, although Custer's something that Marco Smith and I are both kind of obsessed with. And there's so much cool shit around the story of General Custer and Crazy Horse and

• 3:01:16Speaker 02

  building a fictional story around those characters and having some great actor play Custer's exciting. But I could see doing the third one on something like the Attica Prison Riot, which has always obsessed me. And if you followed that, there's an incredible book by Tom Wicker, who was a journalist, called A Time To Die, that dissects that event. Because I like events, you know, like I'm good with events. If you give me a contained event over a short period of time and I can tell that story and it's emotional and visceral, that's... And Attica was fucking wild. And how it started and how it escalated and the players involved and the negotiating to try

• 3:01:58Speaker 02

  and calm it down and the corrupt governor Rockefeller who wouldn't negotiate because he don't want to be appear weak. And then finally, it just goes off and everyone's dead. And it was, you know, a great look at the American prison system, racism, negotiations, religion, because the Black Panthers were in there and the Muslim Brotherhood was... It just... So I like the idea of taking moments in American history that are probably pretty fucking violent and sort of presenting them and being like, wow, this is thrilling and deeply entertaining. But I never knew that. And this might, like in with Attica, oh, this

• 3:02:40Speaker 02

  might get me to think a little bit about prison reform and the state of, you know, incarcerated American men in today in America. Because that story of Attica is deeply rooted in like abuse of prisoners all over America.

• 3:02:57Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 3:02:58Speaker 02

  Have you done anything on that?

• 3:03:00Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 3:03:01Speaker 02

  I mean incarceration.

• 3:03:03Joe Rogan?

  Well, I have done some shows with Josh Dubin, who used to work with the Innocent Project, and now Ike Perlmutter, sir. And, you know, because of the show, we've gotten a lot of people actually that were wrongfully accused, released.

• 3:03:17Speaker 02

  It's, it's...

• 3:03:18Joe Rogan?

  The prison system's a fucking disaster.

• 3:03:20Speaker 02

  It's fucked.

• 3:03:21Joe Rogan?

  It's a fucking disaster.

• 3:03:22Speaker 02

  I mean, look, going back to Ksenia, this girl who's now in a fucking working prison camp in Siberia for like, we have fucked up prisons.

• 3:03:35Speaker 02

  Russia, South America, imagine being in a Venezuelan prison right now.

• 3:03:41Speaker 02

  And so, I like the idea, and America has its own unique flavor of fucking hell within prisons.

• 3:03:50Speaker 02

  Not to make light of prison, right, and I'm not, but I actually had an idea a while ago for a show that I wanted to do, like Survivor or Fear Factor. Take, take three guys, three, like, take the three of us in this room right now, three fucking tough badass American men, alright, and put three, yeah, there's three of us in here.

• 3:04:14Speaker 02

  In my mind, you are.

• 3:04:17Speaker 02

  You're a fucking legend.

• 3:04:18Joe Rogan?

  You're a legend, Jamie.

• 3:04:19Speaker 02

  Fucking legend, Jamie. But you put each man in a maximum security prison somewhere in the world, like the worst. So you're in Thailand, Jamie's in Venezuela, and I'm in Russia, okay? And you go in by yourself, alright, and you just are put into general population. And the deal is, you can get out anytime you want, you just have to say the code word, "blue vase", and the warden knows and the prison knows, but nobody's telling, nobody knows, everyone thinks you're a prisoner. Whoever stays in the longest gets ten million dollars. And you have no idea when the other guys have gotten out.

• 3:05:01Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 3:05:02Speaker 02

  So like, you could stay in for five fucking years, and me and Jamie got out in three minutes. But just like, how you would survive prison, and what a horror prison is today. And so that took me down a rabbit hole of, I assume maybe doing it as a film, but...

• 3:05:21Joe Rogan?

  It'd be a good Squid Games movie.

• 3:05:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, like Squid Games, like, did you ever see the movie Brubaker with Robert Redford?

• 3:05:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:05:27Speaker 02

  Where he, which true story about a warden of a new prison who went in undercover as a prisoner to, you know, to see what was going on. Um, but I think to do something like Attica, something like we're doing, we're gonna do Custer next, but if you have any good ones, man, send them over.

• 3:05:45Joe Rogan?

  I will.

• 3:05:45Speaker 02

  All right, buddy.

• 3:05:46Joe Rogan?

  Well, hey, brother, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate you very much.

• 3:05:49Speaker 02

  You're a fucking beast.

• 3:05:50Joe Rogan?

  Your work is amazing.

• 3:05:51Speaker 02

  Thanks for the workout this morning.

• 3:05:53Joe Rogan?

  My pleasure. It was fun. I was, I was so pumped when you wanted to do it. I was like, yeah, let's go.

• 3:05:57Speaker 02

  I appreciate it.

• 3:05:58Joe Rogan?

  It was fun. It was a good time.

• 3:05:59Speaker 02

  Thank you, Jamie.

• 3:06:00Joe Rogan?

  Mary from Primeval, right now on Netflix, can't recommend it enough. Absolutely fantastic. Peter Berg, you're the fucking man.

• 3:06:06Speaker 02

  You too, buddy.

• 3:06:07Joe Rogan?

  There it is. Damn. All right. Goodbye, everybody.