Nick Kroll Returns

Nick Kroll (Big Mouth, Adults, I Don't Understand You) is a comedian, showrunner, and producer. Nick joins the Armchair Expert to discuss why he turned down the opportunity to kiss Dax’s wife, calling dibs on a celebrity brand sponsorship with Kleenex, and longing to be an undeniable casting choice. Nick and Dax talk about how he feels that Big Mouth is now the longest running series on Netflix, how his wife is such a supportive guide for what brings him joy professionally, and what it was like producing a cross-country intervention for his best friend. Nick explains his motivation to speak honestly about his family in his standup, how Adults celebrates the great tradition of real comedy folks making a show together in NYC, and Coach Steve gets to meet Hermium Permium while Frito gets to meet Hormone Monster. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Buck Rogers and I'm joined by Jean Lightyear.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:06Dax Shepard?

  Hello, returning guest, but long, long time.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Long, long time.

• 0:10Dax Shepard?

  Seven years long time. Nick Kroll, an actor, a writer, a comedian, a producer.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  He does it all.

• 0:18Dax Shepard?

  Big Mouth, Kroll Show, The League, Sazish Party. Eighth and final season of Big Mouth out on the 23rd.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:28Dax Shepard?

  And it's spectacular. I watched it, it's spectacular. It is a laugh riot.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  He's one of those guys in the comedy space that just has so many things going on at all times and it's awesome.

• 0:40Dax Shepard?

  Busy couple of weeks for him because also on the 28th, he has the FX show Adults. It's on Hulu and on FX. And then he has a new movie out on June 6th. I Don't Understand You.

• 0:56Dax Shepard?

  Those are the many projects and offerings of Nick Kroll. Please enjoy Nick Kroll. We get support from Quince.

• 1:03Speaker 01

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

• 1:22Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:38Speaker 01

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

• 1:49Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:56Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 1:57Dax Shepard?

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

• 2:01Speaker 01

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

• 2:24Dax Shepard?

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

• 3:08Dax Shepard?

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

• 3:50Dax Shepard?

  That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com/dax. Again, that's gusto.com/dax.

• 4:14Dax Shepard?

  Let me warn Monica that I'm early, because I'm always late.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Good to see you.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Good to see you too.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Welcome back.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 4:21Dax Shepard?

  Fun pants have arrived.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  We got a couple pairs of fun pants.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, different versions of fun pants here. And then we've got a really understated guy, a guy who's realized that peace comes from inside and not out.

• 4:36Dax Shepard?

  Little denim.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  You're not into the presentation of it all?

• 4:39Dax Shepard?

  Well, this has an explanation, and I am curious, do you ever buy stuff off Instagram? The ads that are curtailed to you?

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Because I've decided it's time to enter my aging Japanese sculptor age. And I would almost put those pants in that space.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  Versus, you know.

• 4:58Dax Shepard?

  Go ahead, because I haven't wrapped my head around what they are yet.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Like a well-to-do carny on vacation.

• 5:05Dax Shepard?

  But can we also just throw in goggins as like a hint of maybe goggins?

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Oh, that we're going for?

• 5:11Dax Shepard?

  Unintentional, but I can tell you what really happened was I see an ad, they weren't these. And I was like, those look fun. Maybe I would wear those in the summertime.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  A light pant.

• 5:19Dax Shepard?

  Ordered them, and then it was like, when funding gets complete. And I was like, I didn't know this was a business model. You know about it.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  No, wait, I thought this was a scam. You're saying like, once we raise enough capital, we might actually be able to produce the product that we're selling.

• 5:34Dax Shepard?

  That's a business model now that I didn't know about, and they're selling them, and it appears they've already made them. But I don't know if it was maybe just a digital, whatever. I took a fucking gamble, and then like months later, they raised funding. They arrived.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Can I feel them?

• 5:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and then I went on and I just said, I'm gonna only wear these all summer. So I ordered every version they make, and I'm waiting for funding, but these ones just came.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  We're still raising for a second round. You don't know how many different patchworks. We need so many old lady blankets to make these pants.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do look quilted.

• 6:08Dax Shepard?

  They're not pricey, guys.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  I ordered once off Instagram, they were like short, little, cool pants. Then I realized they were coming from a bizarre Chinese address. And then they came in, they were truly the worst material and like a tiny pant. But I do want to talk about the sponsor.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Sponsors here tonight.

• 6:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  What have you guys got?

• 6:25Dax Shepard?

  Please, please.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Instagram, is Instagram a sponsor?

• 6:27Dax Shepard?

  They're huge. They're our only sponsor.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Congrats.

• 6:30Dax Shepard?

  But yes, I feel guilty and the way I've talked myself out of the guilt is like, yeah, who knows what the sizing is whenever you order online, but I'm not gonna go to a store. I get so sleepy when I shop.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  You shut down?

• 6:42Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Do you ever go with your wife somewhere and she wants to shop?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Or on your own, you might be into shopping on your own. We don't know.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Or you dress up like your wife and go shopping on your own?

• 6:50Dax Shepard?

  Yes. I walk into a store with either my daughters or my wife and the very first thing I do is look for a bed.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  It is. There's so many dads on chairs in stores.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 7:01Dax Shepard?

  That would be a thing, dads on chairs, like Instagram.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  That would be a talk show I would watch. If it was just like dads on chairs, you'd come in, you'd be like, what's going on? That's how you find out of the family.

• 7:10Dax Shepard?

  What female in your life is shopping for what?

• 7:12Speaker 02

  I definitely shut down. I will go in very occasionally and then I will pull the ripcord.

• 7:18Dax Shepard?

  And I don't know that's any better because you put it on there and you're like, this is a bingo. You bring it home and then still somehow something went wrong.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:25Dax Shepard?

  So my thing is just like, I just order stuff and then I try it on and I go, great. Someone in LA is gonna get a great pair of pants. It goes straight to Goodwill.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Oh, really? You just?

• 7:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So there's just like a stream of stuff going to Goodwill that still has the tags on it.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  I would like to find better, this is terrible. I want better than Goodwill.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 7:42Dax Shepard?

  Well, real, real.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  What I worry is that some guy's gonna go in pulling Dax Shepard's very nice unworn pants, then sell them at a high end resale. I feel like there are good charities that are people who are looking for work and so they need nicer interview clothing and stuff like that.

• 7:59Dax Shepard?

  I like that.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  But I need to find those names. So callers, can you hit us up?

• 8:02Dax Shepard?

  Just to push back a little bit, hard to hate on a hustler. Like if there's someone coming through.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 8:08Dax Shepard?

  And they profit off my thing.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  He's putting in the work and it is a he.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  It is a he.

• 8:13Dax Shepard?

  We know it's a he, unfortunately.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  It's hard to hate a hustler, he.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  My pronouns are hustler, him.

• 8:19Dax Shepard?

  So yeah, it's been seven years since you were here.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 8:22Dax Shepard?

  And if I had bumped into you on the street last month and said randomly, how long do you think it's been since you were on? What would you have said?

• 8:29Speaker 02

  What I remember originally from that conversation, because I went back and listened a little bit today because I was like, where was I? Where were we? What was happening and what year was it? What I remember was I was talking to you about getting a car and what car I should get. Because I had like a little Audi A3, nice enough, but slightly understated. And you were like, go for it, man. Fucking get the car you want. So I got a Tesla.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  I got a Tesla.

• 8:53Dax Shepard?

  Congrats.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Before any salutes happened. I was like, yes, I deserve a big, beautiful, luxurious, fast car. And I had it for like, two years. I liked how it drove, but then I started to not like how the service was. There were elements to it that ultimately felt like a reflection, in a way, of Musk. There's a certain obstinance to how it operated as a company that I began to be like, I don't like how this is making me feel. And then I also started having kids and I didn't want a sedan with car seats. So anyway, it made me think about, when was I thinking about a Tesla? I was like, oh, this is before the pandemic. And I realized it's been seven years. So I knew it was in that 2019, 2018 region.

• 9:35Dax Shepard?

  If we bumped into each other, my guess would have been, I think, three and a half. I guess I'm wondering, is your time now warped as you age like mine is?

• 9:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think time is hurdling past. Time is moving at a rapid pace and I think about this a lot. It's partly due to us getting older and every day is shorter.

• 9:54Dax Shepard?

  Fractionally less.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yes, I now have family. Every window of time is now taken up more than it used to be. And I think also the phones and screens are just such that now there's no downtime in any way. Every moment is filled with something, like a great podcast, like.

• 10:09Dax Shepard?

  Sure, sure. A great way to spend three and a half hours. Wow, you're right, that's a new element I haven't incorporated into my overarching theory on accelerating. There was so much more boredom and boredom takes longer.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Yes, I can't go to the bathroom without pulling out my phone.

• 10:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Taking a picture of my mind.

• 10:27Dax Shepard?

  Photographing my body.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  My physical body.

• 10:31Dax Shepard?

  My physicality and my body. And I sent it to you.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  For your leisure, for your entertainment, for your critique.

• 10:38Dax Shepard?

  I think it's only been three years. I do have seven years of photos of you. And I love mapping the progress.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  And it's been a roller coaster and I appreciate you letting me know that, that's fair. But I do think time seems to be moving at a pace that feels unparalleled in my life.

• 10:52Dax Shepard?

  And untenable.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Untenable, yes.

• 10:54Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Oh, it's all culminating to something.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  I think COVID fucked with it too. Those couple of years.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Those years are kinda gone.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  They're a blur.

• 11:02Dax Shepard?

  It's a smear.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  It is seven years, so COVID falls right in the pocket of that time.

• 11:07Dax Shepard?

  Now, last interview, I don't remember that I hit you with anything really got you, but I do have a single got you this one. I'm gonna go a little harder today.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Okay, so. I immediately start sweating.

• 11:19Dax Shepard?

  Start taking up your jacket.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Here it comes. I've been waiting. Here it is. Okay.

• 11:23Dax Shepard?

  You turned down "Nobody Wants This." Pause. And so my question is,

• 11:30Speaker 01

  This is huge.

• 11:31Dax Shepard?

  Why didn't you want to kiss my wife? Slash, how long have you been closeted?

• 11:37Speaker 01

  These are great questions.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  I have been in the closet about not wanting to kiss your wife. For years, for years, I've pretended to be charmed and delighted by her.

• 11:48Dax Shepard?

  That makes sense.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  So this is a great gotcha.

• 11:52Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm. By the way, I wouldn't have even known. I was FaceTiming with Kristen right before this. I go, I have Nick. And she goes, oh, yeah, you know, he turned down "Nobody Wants This." And I was like, oh, my God. Thank you so much.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  I did my research. Thank you. All these years in, I'm still doing my research.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  I didn't know that.

• 12:11Dax Shepard?

  What? You didn't know what?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  You didn't know that you turned down?

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Okay, here's what happened.

• 12:15Dax Shepard?

  You want to take your jacket off?

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:18Dax Shepard?

  This is like Matt Damon turning down Avatar and missing out on $250 million. Do you know that story?

• 12:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 12:24Dax Shepard?

  He tells it openly. It's wonderful. He was offered 10% of Avatar on the phone with James Cameron.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  To be Sigourney Weaver, and I said everything right here.

• 12:30Dax Shepard?

  Yes, absolutely. To be Sigourney Weaver. You cannot ignore Sigourney Weaver.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Wait, for real?

• 12:36Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Before the first movie.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Okay, so I'm in bed with my wife.

• 12:40Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Making... Because I'm a straight man.

• 12:44Dax Shepard?

  You're temporarily out of the closet.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  I'm temporary.

• 12:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  As evidenced by your child.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, both of my children, who we conceived.

• 12:51Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, and you're holding them like a strong patriarch.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  In our marital bed as heterosexual husband and wife.

• 12:57Dax Shepard?

  Lovers.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  My wife is like, I started watching The Best Show. And I was like, oh, cool. What's it called? She's like, "Nobody Wants This." And I was like, oh. And then I was like, oh.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  She's like, I love it. And I was watching it. I was like, oh, my God, it's like you.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  It's so weird. It could be you.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  It's like hot rabbi. It's like you.

• 13:18Dax Shepard?

  This is the kind of role hunt I'm always telling you you should do.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  And I was like, I honestly do love Kristen. I couldn't want to kiss this fucking woman less.

• 13:26Dax Shepard?

  Yes, of course. Yeah. You're like, is there any kissing?

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:30Dax Shepard?

  Ew!

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Well, and that's like a cooties thing, and that's a long time. That's a life.

• 13:34Dax Shepard?

  And you're married now, and you refuse to do

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:36Dax Shepard?

  romantic roles.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Well, because my wife wants to kiss your wife. And so she would have been jealous of me.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:44Dax Shepard?

  Correct.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  And I can't have that.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  It could break up the marriage.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  It's like a movie by that guy who does those kinds of movies.

• 13:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  Carol. Todd Haynes.

• 13:52Dax Shepard?

  Todd Haynes, good.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Is that it?

• 13:54Dax Shepard?

  And when Monica edits, you're gonna go like that guy Todd Haynes.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Isn't Haynes or Hayes?

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Haynes, you got it. You got it.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Oh, I meant Todd Hayes. This is a guy who's making movies in the valley.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  I'm involved with investing and stuff. So I was like, I think they maybe offered this show to me. And then I went back and I wasn't sure if they had offered it to me or if they just wanted to talk to me about it. And I still don't quite know whether it was this is yours or you're one of people. Because when I read it, I was like, this is good. Kristen's amazing. But they should cast Adam Brody to be this guy.

• 14:27Dax Shepard?

  Well, hold on a second.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  I swear to God.

• 14:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great. By the way, I didn't know till today they offered it to you. But when I read it, I was like, you gotta get Brody. He's the only option.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Yes, because he's the only symmetrical Jew.

• 14:39Dax Shepard?

  He is heartthrob Jew.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Can I have a tissue?

• 14:41Dax Shepard?

  Absolutely.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Give you a whole box.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, Dax, that was so aggressive.

• 14:47Dax Shepard?

  That was meant to be aggressive. This was not.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 14:50Dax Shepard?

  Can I have that over here? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna take one for me.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  Mind if I just spit loogies out while we

• 14:55Dax Shepard?

  Of course.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  As Monica will attest, I'm just a disgusting mess of coffee. So you have children and you're just sick for

• 15:02Dax Shepard?

  Six years.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Oh, that's on camera? Oh. But so good, but let's leave the

• 15:07Dax Shepard?

  Just put that on the floor, yeah.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  I'm sorry to do this. Kleenex is a personal sponsor and I travel with my sponsors, show to show. So if this is okay, we could just do this.

• 15:15Dax Shepard?

  We should do a celebrity line of Kleenex. Nobody has touched that space.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  Nobody's touched it. They think Kleenex is because they got the branding on it.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  I could see your faces on the Kleenex box. How cute.

• 15:25Dax Shepard?

  And we're both blowing our nose in a very cute and appealing way.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Oh, sick little cutie.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Why did I turn that down? I'm a sick little cutie.

• 15:34Dax Shepard?

  I am a sniffle.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Sick little cutie.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Nobody wants this. Nobody wants this cold.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  But Brody, I remember checking one, but I think he's half Jewish, which explains the square. The Jews are all kind of angles and circles.

• 15:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  And he's got enough of it. It's in the eyes. You feel the sweet kindness of it.

• 15:55Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  But then there's like still the square shape of it all. I keep doing this. Does that make sense?

• 16:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. It does.

• 16:01Dax Shepard?

  Now, did you go so far as to go back through your emails to see?

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:05Dax Shepard?

  You did.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  It was an offer. I don't, I don't remember.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  I don't know if I fully went back through. Have I regretted it watching Adam? Absolutely. Just fucking. One of the biggest shows on Netflix ever. And people fall in love with him all over again.

• 16:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Do you care or not care?

• 16:22Speaker 02

  There's so many elements that go into these things, especially as you have a family and just choices change slightly. Where you're like, how does this work? Life just becomes a much more complicated puzzle of can I go and make this thing? Literally, it was dead in the middle of when we were having our baby. There were a lot of elements that went into it. And yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  If you've asked me if I've watched it, I have not. I cannot watch it.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 16:48Dax Shepard?

  Have you had anyone where you really wanted it? Someone else got it?

• 16:52Speaker 02

  It's still smarts when I go out for things, but as a producer and maker of things, you really take the heat off of yourself and others when you don't get something for various reasons. You can still be very, very good and not write for this based on the particular part or the equation that they are putting out. So major reason I became a writer and producer was to avoid the powerlessness of being cast. I cannot receive this much control. I cannot handle that. So I need to start making things so that I can start to be the one.

• 17:24Dax Shepard?

  Who controls.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Pulling the strings.

• 17:27Dax Shepard?

  This Fengali.

• 17:30Dax Shepard?

  The Jewish monster controlling the media property.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Rise. That was my take on Nobody Wants This. And they didn't want that. They didn't want my take.

• 17:40Dax Shepard?

  The Jewish monster.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Those two words are never together. I think they're heard together quite a bit these days. The one that I'm dealing with right now, Jesse Armstrong's HBO movie, the guy who made Succession.

• 17:52Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  There is a part in there, I got sent, they were like, Jesse Armstrong's doing this thing, Pharrell, Rami, Jason Schwartzman. Succession to me is just the best thing made.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Perfect.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  It's perfect. This one is about billionaires on a mountaintop over like a weekend.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  And they're all tech billionaires. And I was like, it's rare that a part or a group of people feels like, I feel real for that. Let me be a shitty little tech billionaire in that thing.

• 18:17Dax Shepard?

  Overcoming a lot of childhood trauma, being overlooked and then trying to rule the world.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:22Dax Shepard?

  Cause no one wanted to kiss you.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  Exactly. Then coming down to this big, massive story about where we are as a culture and humanity, then boiled down to like a beautiful, personal story. I auditioned, my family put me on tape.

• 18:32Dax Shepard?

  Self tape.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Self tape on like a Sunday after a brunch. It was the only time to get it done.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  You're so full.

• 18:37Dax Shepard?

  That's relevant where you do vol.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  It was like a family brunch. We had to do the family brunch.

• 18:41Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  And then I was like, I don't know when I'm gonna do this tape. My wife's like, let's do it right now. And so I fucking did it. You can hear my son screaming in the background on the tape. And I send it in, you're waiting and waiting and waiting and then.

• 18:52Dax Shepard?

  Did you get it?

• 18:52Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  I fucking hear.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  I didn't know that was the end.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  You seen the fucking trailer? I'm not in it. I know all those guys a little bit, except Corey Michael Smith, who I adore.

• 19:03Dax Shepard?

  We love him.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  I love his height. I love his three first names.

• 19:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  So I watched that trailer and I'm like, oh, those guys are all great. This is gonna be great. But boy, oh, boy, did I wanna fucking be in that so badly.

• 19:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  I have no beef towards any of them.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Except your son. You resent your son, I assume.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I blame my family.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  You really should, that brunch.

• 19:26Dax Shepard?

  You should watch it with him.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  This is what daddy should be doing if he hadn't done what he did.

• 19:32Dax Shepard?

  You couldn't control your emotions for four minutes while I self taped. But you know, I do just wanna put a fine point on that. I too have been liberated by casting people. I just wish every actor could start casting.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:43Dax Shepard?

  Because man, it takes all the fucking onus off your shoulders.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're just like, you're great, but you're not right for this.

• 19:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  So be it. However, the other part of casting, I will say. That certain people are undeniable.

• 19:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  And every once in a while, you're like, they're not exactly right, but they are undeniable. And so we are going to cast them.

• 20:04Dax Shepard?

  They force you to rewrite your original idea.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  And in my worst moments, I'm like, but if I were undeniable.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, we all just want to be undeniable.

• 20:16Dax Shepard?

  Okay, well, that was great. You turned on Nobody Wants. I think that'll be a hot story. Headlines flying.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  People are gonna be so thrilled.

• 20:27Dax Shepard?

  By what the final outcome was.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  How much do you guys consult each other about the stuff you do?

• 20:33Dax Shepard?

  Quite a bit.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  She has to get permission, obviously.

• 20:35Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I only let her work.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  That's a given.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 20:38Dax Shepard?

  I guess that's stupid.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Just making sure you knew that.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Because of the modern times, I was trying to be polite.

• 20:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so if I've decided it's in the window, I want her to work.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  If I've decided she's done having children.

• 20:50Dax Shepard?

  We have such opposite personalities. I know what she'll get in love with, and she'll get blinded by this one element. And then I'll just be the little voice going, well, you also need a really good director, or you also need blank. And then conversely, she'll be monitoring my ego and my low self-esteem and reminding me, you know, we help each other in that way. Do you have that?

• 21:10Speaker 02

  I do have that with my wife. Right now, there's the creative stuff of like, I'm excited by this. She'll be like, that's great. For example, the Jesse Armstrong thing.

• 21:18Dax Shepard?

  You also have indigestion, which is like, the triple crown's coming if you break a bone.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  So this cough that you're gonna hear, I've had for three weeks. I have two children under five. I believe I've had walking pneumonia like three times in the last year. And I'm coughing up, I mean, this is just the reality. You're a month of five. Your kids are older than mine, but you're still carrying.

• 21:40Dax Shepard?

  We just got healthy last year after 12 years.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  I seem to be coughing up, and it's all color-based, where I'm like, it's not this green, so everything's okay. I can be in public. I just called the doctor and I'm like, it's this, it's sort of between.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Armchair yellow.

• 21:54Dax Shepard?

  It's just banana yellow.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  It's kind of banana yellow. Can you see this paisley in here? Can you see the color? Sometimes it's this, so I'm not that worried.

• 22:02Dax Shepard?

  Call me when it's kiwi, inside of a kiwi.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  And tell me when the seeds start coming out.

• 22:06Dax Shepard?

  And you have your Z-Packs.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  I did start, and I try to avoid antibiotics because I'm RFK till I die, which I think will be sooner than I think.

• 22:14Dax Shepard?

  He's a great role model. Germ theory is a joke.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  But I did finally lock into the antibiotics. I was like, I gotta do a bunch of press stuff. I gotta get clean.

• 22:23Dax Shepard?

  Gotta detox.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Now, here I am on day three of the Z-Pak, just like,

• 22:29Speaker 02

  and the indigestion. Why didn't I play the rabbi? Anyway, my wife, I trust her opinion on things. What she's really good at is also being like, whether the piece of material is whatever it is, and sometimes that's just for me to figure out. She will monitor, does this seem like there's something that feels exciting to you or something that you wanna do versus-

• 22:49Dax Shepard?

  Intellectually a good decision.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Yes. Does this spark joy and excitement?

• 22:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Now, you know, since I interviewed you, I don't know if this is a fair assessment, but I had this, and maybe I told you then, I don't think I was brave enough to, but I have admired your choices from the get-go, truly. And I guess my conclusion was, and maybe it was just to mitigate my judgment of myself, but do you think knowing your dad has money has helped?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, we did. I actually-

• 23:17Dax Shepard?

  We did do that?

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was interesting, because I went back and was listening to our podcast on the way here, they do my research like you do.

• 23:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  I was FaceTiming with Kristen.

• 23:26Dax Shepard?

  You should have, yeah. Did she tell you I was not offered any roles and nobody wants this?

• 23:31Speaker 02

  They offered you to play her sister.

• 23:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  We covered that a little, and it was interesting. And I think it was sort of a realization in that interview where I was like, oh, this is so interesting to go back and hear yourself for a conversation you had seven years later, how your mind works where you still will pop up with a similar thought, or I'll record my stand-up and I'll improvise in a moment, and I'll be listening back, and my mind will have a very similar idea again. Makes you be like, boy, I'm not fucking that interesting.

• 23:55Dax Shepard?

  No, no.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Boy, I'm not a multi-dimensional-

• 23:57Speaker 01

  It just means you believe what you're doing.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, your mind goes to a similar place. So I was listening to it, and I was like, oh, wow. I hadn't talked about that much, and it was very kind of you to say. And I do think the major advantage of my parents, growing up very comfortable, very privileged, was the luxury of choice. And so as I had my career, I could make choices based on the fact that I had a backstop. If it didn't work, I was gonna be okay. That has been the great freedom of that, has allowed me to make decisions based on that. What has changed is now that I have a family, and now that I have responsibilities beyond myself, I feel a greater pressure and decisions that are weighed by more than just pure, does this spark joy?

• 24:38Dax Shepard?

  Well, my immediate thought was not to try to reshame you from being privileged.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  No, I do that to myself constantly. And if you want to go to the internet, they've been doing a great job of it as well for years.

• 24:48Dax Shepard?

  I wondered more because you do produce things now and there is an element of your now growing business. By the way, my favorite production company name I've ever seen, you know, his production company is named Good at Business, right? Is that what it is?

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  It was Bobby Bottle Service, my old character would be like, I'm good at business.

• 25:08Dax Shepard?

  Those guys all want to be good at business.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  And I wanted to change it at some point. Then I was like, no, I think that's just it.

• 25:14Dax Shepard?

  Don't ever change it. It's so, so good. As a performer, you just want to be ignited and have fun and be engaged and keep that momentum going. As a producer, it's a different endeavor. You must consider the marketplace.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  That also is another advantage is my dad built a business and I got to watch him have a business. That was a major benefit to me in innumerable ways, but particularly in understanding the literal economics, but less the economics and more just the managing of something. In particular, my dad was an entrepreneur and built stuff. And so in building a business, I just saw it growing up. Whereas it sounds like you talked about how you grew up, that wasn't around. So you learning how to build a business had to come innately from yourself?

• 25:57Dax Shepard?

  What I did see, I want to give my dad credit. My dad was an entrepreneur. He started many businesses and they would work out for a while and he would buy a bunch of stuff and then he would go bankrupt and just over and over.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Gotcha, gotcha.

• 26:07Dax Shepard?

  He was a passionate guy at starting things and not a great manager of things.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  And that is a distinction. Probably your healing has been like build something and then maintain it.

• 26:14Dax Shepard?

  Protect it, be a good steward of it.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Yes. And I would say that as I continue to make things and watch other people make things and the difference between people who really successfully make things and the people who struggle to make things that really blossom is the ability to start something, have an idea that's great, but then continue to fucking grind it until it's right. Cause we know a lot of people in our business who have great ideas, write a great version of a script.

• 26:39Dax Shepard?

  A great first draft.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  That needs work. They don't want to keep working it. And you gotta keep sculpting it and polishing it and editing it over and over and over for it to actually work.

• 26:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. The endurance aspect of the business isn't something that's People really talk about or think about quite often.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  It's not the fun part, and that's my problem with your fucking dad.

• 26:58Dax Shepard?

  Tell me, please let it rip.

• 27:02Dax Shepard?

  This is season eight of Big Mouth.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:04Dax Shepard?

  By the way, I watched three episodes last night. It's as good now or better than it has ever been.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 27:09Dax Shepard?

  I just was dying last night. It's so fucking good. That's the longest running show on Netflix, adult show?

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Actually, Nobody Wants This Now has been on for 10 seasons.

• 27:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, they somehow.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  No, it'll be the longest running scripted series on Netflix, which is crazy. We did eight seasons on Big Mouth and then Human Resources, which we did a spinoff of for two seasons. So it's about 100 episodes of this universe that we built. I really think this season's as funny as any of the seasons we made.

• 27:36Dax Shepard?

  No, it's incredible. So we're year eight, right?

• 27:39Speaker 02

  No.

• 27:39Dax Shepard?

  And can I announce it?

• 27:40Speaker 02

  We've done seven, I'm sorry. But can I announce that this is the final season?

• 27:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, this is the last interview.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  This is the end.

• 27:47Dax Shepard?

  Because we all died from Kroll's children's illness they picked up at preschool. Not because we wanted to end the show, but with your show, eight seasons in. Do you have these psychotic moments where you're like, I think this show sucks and nothing new's happening. I gotta change it. And then I'm like, no, you don't. Do you have that battle?

• 28:05Speaker 02

  This particular show, because it's a show about kids going through puberty and adolescence, we made a decision pretty early on that the kids would continue to change. Literally, the song is called Changes, the theme song, Charles Bradley, based off of Ozzy Black Sabbath song originally. And it's about, we're going through changes. Like, the show is about change and evolution. And so we were decided early on, these kids are gonna change emotionally, but they're also gonna physically change. Season eight, the final season, my character, Nick, who's been tiny the whole run of the show, how I was through puberty, hits a growth spurt. He's in high school now and he grows. And like, the character grew. Guy hit puberty and then all of a sudden in 10th grade, I grew like six inches.

• 28:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  And all of a sudden, I was taller than Andrew. So because the show and the characters continued to change and evolve in a real tangible way, it never felt old or stale. That has made the show always interesting and always new and always exciting, as opposed to whether it's like a Podcasts or a sitcom or a show where people kind of want things to stay the same or people like what they like.

• 29:08Dax Shepard?

  There's a sweet spot. Howard evolved. If you chart Stern from 95 till now, it is a different show. But it was just this perfect level of incremental change.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:19Dax Shepard?

  As he acknowledged his own changing.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  He's very smartly kept it evolving in that way. And I think on our show, in a way, you start with Nick and Andrew. It's based on me and my friend Andrew Goldberg's life and we start to grow out. It's like, oh, this girl Jessie and she got her period. And then it's like, oh, she needs a hormone monster. And then it's like, oh, there's this girl, Missy. And then there's Jay and let's start to explore his house and family. And then by season eight, you just keep broadening out who your focus is and what stories you can tell. And then always knowing you can come back to your core kids. But there was always new stuff to tackle and look at and try to understand.

• 29:55Dax Shepard?

  I want to frame this whole thing. The theme of this one, I want to be best friends.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  This interview.

• 30:00Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm. Great. Because I'm still best friends with my best friend from 11, Aaron Weekly.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  You talk to him daily?

• 30:07Dax Shepard?

  Almost.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  You talk to Andrew Weekly daily?

• 30:09Speaker 01

  That was a joke.

• 30:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Aaron Weekly. But you know why it didn't work? Sadly, it's W E A K. Like he's a weakling, but he's very strong.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  I bet he is.

• 30:20Dax Shepard?

  Please don't challenge him.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  But that must have affected him. Is he a muscular fellow?

• 30:23Dax Shepard?

  No, he's way cooler. He loves who he is more than I do.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  And that's why you guys are good friends.

• 30:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  You're a star who hates himself and he's a regular guy who's totally at peace.

• 30:33Dax Shepard?

  So I'm watching last night, the show and it's still shockingly.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  Goes hard.

• 30:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. The whole time you're kind of like, I really can't believe it's on TV, which is a fun feeling to constantly have.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 30:44Dax Shepard?

  And I wonder, could you have done that show solo? Or do you think you and Andrew have a bubble where you're like, as long as you and I think this is okay, it's okay.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Andrew, who I've known since I was six and we were best friends in middle school. We stayed friends in high school. He went to college with actually a couple of friends of mine, but then he came out to LA and he started working in animation. He worked his way up through Family Guy. McFarlane's assistant and then became a writer and then producer there.

• 31:10Dax Shepard?

  For eight seasons?

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:12Dax Shepard?

  Somebody does do. I watched you and McFarlane talk. It was really interesting. Even the thing you just said that your characters age. It didn't even occur to me like, oh yeah, cartoons, the characters don't ever age.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 31:23Dax Shepard?

  That's unique.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  I actually met McFarlane through Andrew. It was crazy when I met Seth and then we haven't seen each other very much. Cause I've stopped crooning.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  So we don't see each other on the circuit.

• 31:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Having that conversation with him, I was like, oh, this is very weird. There are not many people I could have this conversation with. Besides a couple of people like Seth McFarlane who created a show. Trey and Matt won't talk to me. I think with Andrew and I, we had the same thing where it was like around sixth, seventh grade. We started hanging out constantly and we just made each other laugh. And then we went to camp together and we were doing campfire skits. And we were like, if this is funny to us, then who cares? But then we went our own ways. And then we came back together with this show where he came to me with Mark Levin and Jen Flack. And who he had been their assistant when he first moved to LA 25 years ago. And then they worked in film and television. They made a bunch of stuff and then they came to me with this idea. They're like, it's you and Andrew going through puberty. It's animated. That was an idea where it's like, yes, let's go. We all just bring different skills to this thing.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  The creative bubble of being like, I have whatever I do. My voices, the people I know that I can call in to do stuff. They have an unbelievable knowledge of storytelling and animation and creating a structure and family that makes for a show. So I could do what I do, they could do what they do. You know, we started this show 25 years after we were those boys. We created a show together that we've now done for eight seasons, but we hadn't worked together in 25 years.

• 32:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  And then we come back together, work together, fucking doing Wayne's World sketches.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Hosting talent shows, doing literal word for word Wayne's World. We didn't work together since.

• 32:54Dax Shepard?

  Since we ripped off every, starting a live sketch and became heroes.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  But it's been both gratifying comedically and artistically, but on a human level. So unbelievably gratifying to reunite with your best friend from childhood to make this thing that then worked in a way that you could never have imagined. If 13 year old Nick and Andrew are like, you're going to get to go make an animated show. On Netflix, no less, a thing that they will understand entirely.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Streaming service.

• 33:22Dax Shepard?

  On the computer.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:23Dax Shepard?

  What?

• 33:23Speaker 01

  It's pretty wild.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 33:33Dax Shepard?

  This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8. Okay, I need to talk about something that doesn't get enough respect. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese. This is not a casual burger. This is a crafted burger. We're talking 100% fresh beef cooked right when you order it. No artificial flavors, no fillers, no preservatives, just beef doing what beef is supposed to do. And here's a detail I love. There's a cowbell sound in the kitchen. When somebody orders a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a cowbell goes off and the Grill Master throws a fresh patty down. That's like having your own entrance music at McDonald's. I want a cowbell for everything in life.

• 34:15Dax Shepard?

  The onions are hand topped by someone who just knows the right amount. Two slices of cheese laid out in a star pattern. So every single bite gets cheese and two pickles side by side. So you're never in a pickle desert. Every bite is accounted for. Someone engineered this thing with love. I love a Quarter Pounder.

• 34:34Speaker 01

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

• 34:47Dax Shepard?

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

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not surprised.

• 34:52Dax Shepard?

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

• 35:19Speaker 01

  That's when you really need to ground yourself.

• 35:21Dax Shepard?

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

• 35:58Speaker 01

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

• 36:02Dax Shepard?

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

• 36:10Speaker 01

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

• 36:19Dax Shepard?

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

• 36:30Speaker 01

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

• 36:41Dax Shepard?

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

• 36:52Speaker 01

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

• 37:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Recently.

• 37:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 37:11Speaker 01

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

• 37:15Dax Shepard?

  Temperature was all over the map.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  It was a mess. I need a new one.

• 37:18Dax Shepard?

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

• 37:33Speaker 01

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

• 37:39Dax Shepard?

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

• 37:57Dax Shepard?

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

• 38:42Dax Shepard?

  And honestly, the thing I keep coming back to is how low the barrier is. If you've got something you've been building quietly and you're ready for people to see it, Squarespace makes that leap feel a lot less dramatic. Head to Squarespace.com/dax for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  You're good in partnership because you have it with Mulaney too. Do you prefer working with a person?

• 39:15Speaker 02

  I do, I love a person. I mean, I love a sex doll. Let's be honest, to write with and nothing sexy.

• 39:23Dax Shepard?

  Store your pens in their fleshlight.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  They're great at breaking, they're great at story, they're great at.

• 39:29Dax Shepard?

  Holding the pens.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  But I do like partnership. It's like watching you guys. There's just something intangible about the conversation that for me personally, I'm much more generative that way.

• 39:39Dax Shepard?

  Oh yeah, we've done other shows with other people. And if we sit down, we have to stop ourselves. On the fact check, we literally have to stop ourselves. Like, oh, it's been too long.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  But you know, it also.

• 39:50Dax Shepard?

  She's about to tell you that she loves working with other people.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  No, I'm not.

• 39:54Dax Shepard?

  And that she would like to permanently work with other people.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  I'm not. I'm gonna say that I think sometimes in a three environment, it can be hard. And I can imagine sometimes, probably, I'm not putting words in your mouth, but I assume that sometimes you're like, it might be easier if it was just me. Not all the time, but in a real way, like, well, this person has their own thoughts and I'm coming in with the structure. So I think some people do prefer a solo creative endeavor. And that's understandable, too.

• 40:23Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's your stand-up. You get that as well.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Yes, I get that in stand-up. I do love to do that in stand-up, but I always feel a little insecure. Insecure is probably the wrong word. Like, I wanna kill myself.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Sure. Suicidal.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, like ideations. No, but I do feel oftentimes like I'm better in conversation. And when I do stand-up, I love it, but I'm like, oh, am I lacking that spark that creatively things can come out of me when I'm in conversation that don't come out of me alone?

• 40:50Dax Shepard?

  Okay, Mulaney, I was gonna bring that up, too. I gotta say, I was embarrassingly kind of ill-informed on Mulaney.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Turns out so was I.

• 41:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Then I was on a trip that he was on, and I was like, oh, I really like him. I'm gonna watch his stand-up special. I watch it.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  No, I think I was like, you gotta watch.

• 41:08Dax Shepard?

  You had been pushing hard for Mulaney. You're a first-in-Mulaney fan.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think he's great.

• 41:12Dax Shepard?

  And so I watched his stand-up special, and I'm an addict. Anything addict, I like. It's so fucking great. But then I was wondering, were you at that intervention?

• 41:20Speaker 02

  I produced that intervention.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not surprised.

• 41:24Dax Shepard?

  Good for business. Good at business.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Good business?

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Not good for business. Not good at business.

• 41:30Dax Shepard?

  It was not good for business.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Losing your mind. It was, uh, I mean, you've been on probably both sides of it.

• 41:38Dax Shepard?

  Just to tell you really quick, so Aaron, the reason we're back in business is he went another 19 years after I got sober. He got sober five years ago, and so we two had a restart, basically, five years ago. And it's like, oh, good, back in business.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was so, I mean...

• 41:54Dax Shepard?

  You can tell me you don't wanna talk about it.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  No, because, I mean, I do...

• 41:57Dax Shepard?

  Because I had a relapse, and Monica had to deal with it.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:00Dax Shepard?

  Had to be detecting things and we've explored that a lot. And I think a lot of addicts get to go on TV and talk about the experience. And I think they get to do stand up about it. And I don't really think you hear enough from the people who are fucking terrified. And thinking you're losing your mind, maybe.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe you and I could do a separate podcast about this.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  For real, it's so hard.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  It was so scary and brutal to go through. Cause he was in New York, I was in LA. It was the height of the pandemic. So it was incredibly stressful to be in the midst of the pandemic. Trying to literally coordinate and produce a intervention, bringing a bunch of different people together. Friends from college and my wife was very pregnant and I was shooting, don't worry darling. Which there was no stress there. There wasn't for me personally in that, except it was at the height of COVID pre vaccine. I had a very pregnant wife and we had COVID scares and that was happening. And then John was running around New York city like a true madman.

• 42:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  And I was so deeply scared that he was gonna die.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  And I was trying to orchestrate all this of combining all the elements that go into these things. Like the intervention person, where he was gonna go, who was gonna be at it.

• 43:14Dax Shepard?

  You need all that lined up.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  It was so fucking stressful. And then all of a sudden, I don't know how long your relapse was, but you're all of a sudden going back being like, oh, that's why I've had an inconsistent friend for the last X amount of time.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Oh, this explains that. And so it gives you both empathy for them and also tremendous amount of anger because they've been lying to you.

• 43:32Dax Shepard?

  The deception.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  The deception.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Was there a lead up of like, hey, man, are you all right? Was there a lot of that pre-intervention?

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have a very clear memory of being outside at my house. There was someone working inside of my house. This was again, COVID, we just moved into our new house. We were about to have our kid. It was just so intense and I was trying to have these conversations with all these people while this was happening. It was the same week. I have a very clear memory of being outside, like sitting on the ground on the phone with them, both of us crying. Me just being like, I'm so scared you're gonna die. And so I felt him feeling the same way, but also like.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  Just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, I mean, this new Airbnb, I gotta go.

• 44:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  I have really not talked about this at all, but watching how it evolved, because also when he came out of rehab and started doing stand up all about it, he was still pretty fucking pissed about the intervention because he was having a good time. I don't know how you felt when you got clean.

• 44:30Dax Shepard?

  There's a lot to unpack for years.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  He was pretty angry. It was also like, oh, I don't know if I like having jokes about me.

• 44:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Especially when you went out on a huge limb.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, like, oh, I don't know if that feels so great.

• 44:44Dax Shepard?

  That's the reward for getting put through the emotional wringer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  But then we talked about it and I was like, I don't love how you're representing this. And he was like, I totally hear you. And everyone's process and art is different. So what he's willing to share, I mean, it's what makes him so fucking funny and dynamic and intoxicating as a performer is that he's giving you a written version of his life, but he is giving you access to elements of himself. And I myself am very guarded in certain ways like that. But it's what makes him such an amazing stand up.

• 45:15Dax Shepard?

  But I wonder, so for Aaron, we had 16 years of him still at it and I never said a word. I knew what was going on. He knew what was going on. I'd go back to Detroit. We'd spend time together. I knew he was doing his best in those times to not be as fucked up as he was. And the very first time I ever said anything was, he was growing weed at the time. There was a house next door. He wanted to buy this.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  Nothing wrong with that. Keep going.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Everything's great. On the up and up.

• 45:42Dax Shepard?

  So I bought him this house. I bought like a house in Detroit for $65,000 and I called him on a Monday to say like, hey, the house is closed. You can start growing weed in there. And he didn't call me back for like five days, which is just not him. Even in the height of his addiction, he's very responsive. By day four, I'm wondering, is he dead?

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:03Dax Shepard?

  And then when I finally get on the phone with him on day five and he goes, oh, hey, sorry, dad, I had the worst flu. And I go, Aaron, dude, who do you think you're talking to? I had a lot of those flus.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:16Dax Shepard?

  And I go, I think you're gonna die really soon and I don't want you to. And I have a fucking treatment center in the Caribbean. If you wanna go, it's handled. In my mind, I'm like 98% sure he's gonna say fuck you. And he goes, uh, yeah, I'll go. And I was like, oh, my fucking god.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:34Dax Shepard?

  Well, I just gotta add one thing for the comedy. He doesn't have a passport. So now he knows he's going to treatment. But we have to wait five days. That was the most stressful five days of my life.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  That's so scary.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Is he gonna make it?

• 46:45Dax Shepard?

  It's exactly that feeling. I knew for a little while what stuff was going on, but not for however long he had been using. It was only near the end. The fear is you're gonna lie to me or you're gonna be obfuscating.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  There's a point where there's nothing to lose, right?

• 46:58Dax Shepard?

  My main concern, and now I will approach you about this, is I think you're gonna die.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:02Dax Shepard?

  And that's all I can tell you. He talks about, I was the first one to speak. And also he's like, Nick didn't get the memo that we were all gonna be nice to John. And I was like, nobody got the memo. I just was like, I'm a good student. If the job is to tell you a letter of how you've been a bad friend, then I'm gonna tell you how you've been a bad friend. Cause this is no more joking around, no more nice shit. Like, it's fucking done.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Yes, it's serious.

• 47:24Dax Shepard?

  This is serious.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  That's the tightrope, I think, with addicts. I didn't know any before I knew Dex, but it is a tightrope to walk where you're not alienating them so that they just completely go off the deep end and don't talk to you anymore. But you have to also say that you see some things wrong. I was just at such a loss. And I was just like, I know you're doing this. And then there was just like, I'm not doing it.

• 47:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Also, you're in survival mode, too.

• 47:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Yeah, if I tell you I'm doing it, then the next thing is I have to stop.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:54Dax Shepard?

  And I can't at that moment. I'm not there yet.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  It ultimately, thank god, cause where he's landed and how well he's doing in all ways is amazing.

• 48:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And then I'll put an end to this, cause I don't want you to feel like in any way it's exploitative. But I will add, I just told this to her recently, I worked with a comedian. Who was supposed to be sober, got fucked up in the movie, did so many things. I was about to say innumerable. You already said it a while ago and I didn't want to repeat innumerable.

• 48:22Dax Shepard?

  So good. He did so many things. We almost got in a fistfight on sex. He tried to put glasses on my face and poked me in the eye and he was so disruptive and it was a mess. And then, two weeks after, I hate his guts. He has to have an actual cop on set with him. That's how bad it got. And there was a point where he's running through this store and the cops chasing him like Barney Fife is a heavyset cop and he's going, "Chase me, officer, chase me." And I'm on my fucking chair waiting. I just started laughing so hard. And I'm like, oh my God, he's so fucking funny. It broke my hatred and I started laughing and it's hard to have compassion for people who are charismatic, but it can be harder for people who are really funny and charismatic because they can win people back over.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  That's the problem with addiction is the rascal. There's something so charming about the rascal and the person who kind of can't stop themselves from going for it. And it's intoxicating.

• 49:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  And they're worried also if they lose that element, then does the whole thing unravel? So I totally get that.

• 49:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I wanted to say a few more things about Big Mouth. One is, did I write it? You're at 67 characters you've done on the show?

• 49:29Speaker 02

  I believe it's 79.

• 49:32Dax Shepard?

  And more than.

• 49:35Dax Shepard?

  It was fun to watch you and McFarlane talk. I encourage people, if they're animation nerds, to find you guys chatting. And I was also thinking, what an accomplishment for you to have done eight seasons there. But you're also talking, you're doing 20, it really minimizes.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  He's like, actually, I've done 138 seasons of American Dad.

• 49:51Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 49:52Speaker 02

  25,000 seasons of Family Guy. Boy, there's a difference between early 2000s, 90s TV money.

• 49:58Dax Shepard?

  I asked Mike Scher this at one point when I was interviewing him. I'm like, does it make you a little bit mad that if you had the same career in the 80s and 90s, you would own the Red Sox? You'd be Tom Warner?

• 50:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 50:08Dax Shepard?

  And you, eight seasons of a fucking show, you'd have a couple hundred million dollars.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Does it upset you, Nick?

• 50:16Speaker 02

  No, because daddy's got so much money.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  No, but what I will say is, we've done fine on the show.

• 50:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  It would have been a different thing years ago. But also, we could not have made Big Mouth in the 90s or early 2000s. When we came in, we were the 33rd produced show by Netflix. Now in the fucking 100 millions of shows. But at that point, they were so early, they were letting us do literally whatever we wanted.

• 50:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  And letting us take incredibly big risks. And we have been grandfathered into continuing to be able to take those risks. We could not make that show there now, exactly.

• 50:53Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and by the way, this is so in keeping with the thing I admire about you, which is, you might not have gotten $100 million, but you made something that could almost not be made. And of course, on your deathbed, you'll have so much more pride in that.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Right on my deathbed, as I'm dying, I'm like, I got so many animated kids to jerk off.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  We just announced that we're making this new show called Mating Season that will come out a year from now, as if it were not another season of Big Mouth, but on a similar schedule as Big Mouth, called Mating Season, about animals dating and fucking in the woods.

• 51:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wonderful.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 51:26Speaker 04

  I do a great grizzly bear voice.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  I'm like, okay.

• 51:32Speaker 04

  I'm chafed. Can we revisit this in an hour?

• 51:36Speaker 01

  It sounds like you're...

• 51:37Speaker 02

  This is my Wilford Brimley.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly.

• 51:39Speaker 04

  America's gonna be a record gold winner. When your little ones come in cold from building a snowman, make them an extra thick bowl of Quaker Oats.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Can you say diabetes?

• 51:49Speaker 04

  Diabetes. Get your blood sugar checked regularly.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  It's so funny to think about now, he's promoting Quaker Oats. That glucose spike from that oatmeal.

• 52:00Dax Shepard?

  They'll nail ya.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  What a hypocrite Wilford Brimley was. That will be a different kind of show, where it won't be kids going through puberty. It's a show about dating and relationships. So it'll be interesting to start that. So I'm excited that we're continuing this team of people.

• 52:13Dax Shepard?

  The machine you built.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  And it makes sense for a viewer to be like, oh, I liked Big Mouth. Now it's about dating and fucking as adults.

• 52:19Dax Shepard?

  Okay, the other thing I wanted to say about Big Mouth, similar to when I was watching The Studio, have you watched The Studio?

• 52:25Speaker 02

  I watched most of it, yeah.

• 52:26Dax Shepard?

  There's so many accomplishments in The Studio. Technically, it's so impressive, it's so fucking funny, it's so well acted. But when we met with Seth about it, I was like, can you zoom out and take a little bit of pride? About the people that are willing to come be with you. And when I look at the amount of people you've had on Big Mouth over the last eight years, are you able to take in what a testament it is to your character? And just that people would want to work with you. Like that, to me, I would hope would be one of the nicest things about the show.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Thank you. That's a very nicely observed thing, and it's true. I have a tremendous amount of pride in the core group who was on that show. It's Mulaney, it's Maya Rudolph, it's Fred Armisen, it's Jordan Peele's literally last acting job.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Literally, my friend Jesse Klein, a genius writer, performer, and now I O. DeBree, and Jason Manzoukas, that's the core cast, Andrew Rannells. Then the people that we've had on the show, it's insane. A few years ago, Cynthia Revo came to me and was like, I'd love to do something on the show. And I was like, great. We first went to her with a song to do, and we were like, hey, we have this amazing thing. She was like, amazing, let me hear the demo. And she heard it and she was like, it's a great song, but I am a diva. She doesn't mean like, I'm a diva, but like, I'm a diva. And so for me to sing this song, this song has to change.

• 53:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  To make sense for me to sing it.

• 53:50Dax Shepard?

  Right. You don't invite Jordan to play, well, maybe.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  You baby invite him to play golf, because you could probably win a couple hundred thousand dollars off him. As good as basketball players, he's fine golf.

• 53:59Dax Shepard?

  He's fine.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  He's fine. But not with the way I've been fucking played.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  He's gonna come for you, you know, he has vendettas.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  And that's when it became personal. That whole Last Dance, everything is just like. That's when it became personal.

• 54:12Dax Shepard?

  Most of his energy was figuring out how he could hate his opponent.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Go back and watch his Hall of Fame speech.

• 54:17Dax Shepard?

  He earns them.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  He's nitpicking like the guy who made the team in high school over him. It's like, bro, you did it. You can't be Cam Michael Jordan without making an enemy. You have to be a fucking killer.

• 54:29Dax Shepard?

  And it proves, more importantly, you think a trophy and successful heal those wounds. No, you actually just gotta go heal those wounds.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  But I think that that's what the great mystery of life, and however you're competitive, whether you're an athlete or if you're making stuff, you have to figure out whatever those wounds created that generates your ambition, your drive, your desire to make things or to be great. How can you heal that thing and maintain that drive?

• 54:55Dax Shepard?

  Yes, harness it and then put it away when you need to put it away.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  And that's a really hard thing to do because that inner critic is what drives you and it's also what destroys you. Coming back to what you're saying, Cynthia Revo doesn't do that part. Then we come back to her like, would you like to play Missy's vagina? And she's like, I would love to.

• 55:10Dax Shepard?

  She's great.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  There's a scene with, it's Cynthia Revo, Io Adebry as Missy, Quinta Brunson as the doctor, and Tandaway Newton as Missy's hormone monster. I look at that scene, I'm just like, this is fucking heavy hitters across the board. Lupita Nyong'o, we have multiple Oscar winners.

• 55:27Dax Shepard?

  It's a cast of an Alexander Payne movie or something.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  Funny. We're gonna make some video that'll come out. There's like 34 Oscar nominations, or 18 Oscars in the show.

• 55:36Dax Shepard?

  Shall we talk for a second about I Don't Understand You?

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 55:39Dax Shepard?

  Tell us what happens in this.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  So this movie is me and Andrew Rannells. We are married, going on our 10 year anniversary, trying to hold on to our marriage a little bit. We've been trying to adopt a baby unsuccessfully. And we go to Italy, we end up in this little nona's house in the middle of nowhere, Orvieto, and shit goes wrong, one after another. It's a crazy night, basically. What feels like you're watching at the beginning is, oh, it's kind of a sweet little rom com, a couple struggling on vacation.

• 56:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  And then it all unfurls into like a farce thriller. Very bloody, bloody, funny. I'm a bit neurotic, a bit controlling, and he's the loose, fun, flighty. This couple, David Craig and Brian Cranow, it's based in part on their personal stories of trying to adopt, and then a vacation in Italy that went off the rails that they combined, and they wrote and directed it together. And Andrew and I have known each other for now a long time.

• 56:37Dax Shepard?

  You guys bonded over not wanting to kiss Kristen Bell?

• 56:40Speaker 02

  Yes. I have to say it, watching Andrew Rannells and Kristen Bell kiss would be a delight.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Two beautiful white people.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 56:49Dax Shepard?

  So white and so beautiful. They could sing together.

• 56:52Speaker 02

  Oh my god, I'm rooting for them.

• 56:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  That is the Todd Haynes movie that I really want to see. But he's been a big part of Big Mouth, we've been friends, and he's just the funniest, most talented guy. He's got that Broadway, he can sing like an angel, but he's deeply funny and a great actor. Amanda Seyfried plays the woman who we're trying to adopt a baby from, who we're FaceTiming with as she's like, "I'm gonna give you my baby," and we're in the middle of an Italian village, covered in blood. Have you gone on location with your family to shoot a lot?

• 57:20Dax Shepard?

  I went with Kristen to Italy when we were newly dating, but not with kids. That was outrageously fun. I've taken the kids to London where she was working, and that was not outrageously fun.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  And on a cruise ship.

• 57:31Dax Shepard?

  And a fucking active cruise ship. I've got a one and three-year-old.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  Was that Rogan? Was that Laura Miller Rogan's movie?

• 57:38Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  Which is a really fun movie.

• 57:40Dax Shepard?

  Absolutely, if you're in it.

• 57:42Speaker 02

  With the Kelsey Graham, yeah. Oh dear lord.

• 57:46Dax Shepard?

  What were you gonna say? Do you love it?

• 57:47Speaker 02

  You have this dream of, I'm gonna go make this movie in Italy. My wife was like, "Let's go to Rome and make this movie." And we had a son at that point who was gonna be nearly two, and so he was starting to be not like a tiny little baby. As we get there, we've realized that my wife is pregnant.

• 58:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh, what do you do about doctor visits?

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:04Dax Shepard?

  Mamma mia, papapia, baby's got a diarrhea.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Baby, baby got a diarrhea.

• 58:10Dax Shepard?

  Do you wanna hear really quick? Aaron and I, my best friend, we figured out where that saying comes from. It is from the early 1900s, and a woman brought her baby to the Italian doctor. Mamma mia, papapia, baby's got a diarrhea. It's not a big deal. We weaponized it, but it was just good news. They were so worried the baby was something wrong.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  Or is the baby dying of dysentery?

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, or rotavirus, pre-vaccine.

• 58:34Dax Shepard?

  That's what the RFK.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  It all circles back to RFK.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  It always does. So you have this idea of what the movie's gonna be. Me and Andrew Rannells, working together, dream. Me and my wife in Italy, our son no longer a little baby, making memories, making movies.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Eating pasta.

• 58:49Speaker 02

  Making love.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 58:51Dax Shepard?

  Now we're talking.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  All of a sudden, it's like, oh, it's a month of night shoots 45 minutes outside of Rome. So much the movie takes place at night and making of the movie was a blast. But I would get home at like five in the morning.

• 59:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  And my son at 7 a.m. wants to party and has revolted against. We brought our nanny with us and my son wants no part of that.

• 59:10Dax Shepard?

  He's done with that.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  He is scraping at the door. I've just washed mud and rain off and I've glided into bed. It's just like, wah. And like a busker playing an electric violin outside. So at 7:30 in the morning, my son's like,

• 59:24Speaker 02

  and I'm just here like,

• 59:30Dax Shepard?

  Cold clothes. It was madness.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  And that's what's interesting about early days of family and life and marriage is you're learning on the fly how to do these things.

• 59:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Speaker 02

  So you have to make these choices mistakes.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:43Speaker 02

  Making the movie was not a mistake at all. I'm really proud of the movie. I love it, but it was a very hard, physical thing to figure out.

• 59:51Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  I showed my wife the movie. I was so relieved that she was like, oh, this is great.

• 59:54Dax Shepard?

  Right. It was all worth it.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  Yes. And we also had unbelievable times. I would go with my son up to Villa Borghese, that park above the Spanish Steps. And I would take him on a little merry-go-round and walk him around and go to the zoo and just laugh at these animals. You dumb idiots, you got stuck here.

• 1:00:10Dax Shepard?

  Look at us.

• 1:00:10Speaker 02

  Freeze, freeze. Excuse me, I actually have a pickup in 13 minutes and I gotta go. I have real thoughts.

• 1:00:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  On a time. Oh, my God. Are they controversial?

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  Go see me on the road to see the material.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:00:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So how many dates do you do a year?

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  I don't do many dates. Stand-up, I did a special 22 or 23.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  So good.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  Thank you very much. Called Little Big Boy.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  On Netflix. And then I always have 20, 30 minutes in the pocket that I'm working on or playing with. I'm gonna go do some dates this summer. I'm doing a couple of dates with Mulaney, Birbiglia, Fred Armisen at some big festivals in Canada. I'm doing another festival in Canada with Kumail, Jeselnik and Michael Che. And then I'm doing some mess around stuff here and there. I'm always at Largo in L.A. when I'm here.

• 1:00:54Dax Shepard?

  We recently read the top 10 earners of stand-up and we were just aghast.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was gonna say, I gotta buy diapers. But I gotta say, I didn't always have to buy diapers because I got your guys' products was really grateful for.

• 1:01:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Dax Shepard?

  It went bankrupt and we no longer have anything to do with it.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  I had a feeling.

• 1:01:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Thought I'd be hearing more about it.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  You thought maybe those diapers were gonna come back into play.

• 1:01:18Dax Shepard?

  Good at business.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, good at business.

• 1:01:20Dax Shepard?

  Really good at business, especially the diaper business.

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  Good at business, medium at diapers.

• 1:01:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And even less so with my beer company.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  No, that one you're enjoying.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  Erin and I have an NA beer. Can I try it?

• 1:01:31Dax Shepard?

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Please send it.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  They're good.

• 1:01:33Dax Shepard?

  It's outrageous.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  I still drink much less than I used to, but my skin is so crazy that when I drink alcohol sometimes, my face will become wildly flush.

• 1:01:41Dax Shepard?

  The Asian innu comes out?

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I'm married to an Asian woman, but it makes the Asian flesh look very cool compared to what happens to my face, which looks like a storm.

• 1:01:50Dax Shepard?

  Angry, hostile.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  Like a Doppler. Oh, there's a tornado, because it's not clean. It's not like an Archie comic. It's like, ooh.

• 1:01:56Dax Shepard?

  And it's moving.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Dax Shepard?

  It's gaining strength.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  So that's what I do is I do a couple NA beers. I do five to 10 mushroom chocolates. I crush up some gummies, pop those right up the schnozzle. You gotta really crush them up, folks, because I want to be responsible on this podcast. If you're gonna snort your edibles, you gotta pulverize them. Use a mortar and a pestle. A lot of people aren't. They don't know. Bring that with you everywhere you go. Everywhere you go. Your mortar and pestle.

• 1:02:24Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:02:30Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Quince. Okay, so I have a confession. I'm the worst holiday shopper on the planet. I wait until the last possible second, I panic, and then I end up buying something nobody wants. But this year, I've cracked the code, and the code is cozy. And Quince's bedding makes it so easy because the quality is exceptional. It's the kind of gift people actually use and love long after the holidays.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Yes. Okay, can we talk about their European linens? Because Quince's 100% European linen gets softer with every wash. Most bedding peaks the day you buy it, and then it's all downhill. This is the opposite. And their organic cotton bedding is breathable and incredibly soft. It's hotel quality comfort for your own bed.

• 1:03:10Dax Shepard?

  You crawl into bed and you're like, wait, did I accidentally check into a Four Seasons? Quince just makes it easy to create a bed you'll actually look forward to getting into. And their quilts, coverlets, and duvet. Day inserts make any bed and any gift feel complete.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you can get and give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 1:03:36Dax Shepard?

  I mean, guys, I put these on the bed of my children. They are wrapping my little babies and I feel great about it.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Mine are striped. They're so cute. They're very fashionable and very comfortable. And it's not just bedding. Quince has everyone on your list covered with Mongolian cashmere sweaters, fine jewelry, leather bags, chef-grade cookware, five-star luggage, and more.

• 1:03:55Dax Shepard?

  Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. We get support from Skims. Okay, I have a confession. I genuinely love matching pajamas. It's the best part of Christmas morning, really. Everyone in the same matching set looking ridiculously cute in front of the tree.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

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

• 1:04:50Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

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

• 1:05:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay, tell me more.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

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

• 1:05:19Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

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

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Sorry, real quick about this special. You do a bit about moms being annoying. That is so spot on and good. And I think about it.

• 1:06:03Dax Shepard?

  Every time it was your mom?

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  Definitely every time I talk to my mother. We are on the heels of Mother's Day. And yeah, I think about it all the time. They are so annoying, but we love them.

• 1:06:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's the most thankless job in the world.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Such a wild job and upsetting.

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  It's brutal.

• 1:06:18Dax Shepard?

  Have you watched Love on the Spectrum?

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  I've watched a little bit of it.

• 1:06:21Dax Shepard?

  Watch a little bit more, just to get this. And I think this was Kristen's observation. The thing that unites all kids on the spectrum is they are relentlessly mean to their mothers. Every time their mom starts talking, they're like, oh, ma, like, these poor mothers, they have this kid that they have to give so much time to.

• 1:06:36Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Which is in essence of what it is, I think, to have to be a mother.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  Which is the emotional connection that we feel to mothers. Fathers, it's not like we're nothing, but they can take or leave us a little bit. Moms, there's such an importance to that emotional connection that it also flares up. And it's tough because I think that joke is about my shortness. I do say that moms are annoying. What I believe the joke is about is my impatience, my inability to see through what she's trying to do, which is just love me.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Yes, of course.

• 1:07:06Speaker 02

  I don't know if my mother sees it that way exactly. She's like, a lot of people have talked to me about your mother joke. I don't always talk about my personal life and family in stand-up. When I do, in that case, it resonates with people because I think it's something people really do connect with and can relate to.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  It is the most relatable. And for this reason you're saying, everyone is just so impatient and mean to their moms. And they are calling to say like, hey, I just re-upped your AAA. And it's like, why'd you do that?

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  You didn't even ask.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  It's so crazy.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  No, they can't do anything right. It's so crazy. So, thank you for that.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fantastic.

• 1:07:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so lastly, this is a very busy couple of months for you.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Big Mouth comes out May 23rd. Adult comes out on FX on May 28th, and then drops on Hulu that night, May 29th. All eight episodes.

• 1:07:54Dax Shepard?

  And then I Don't Understand You, June 6th.

• 1:07:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Dax Shepard?

  So, every few days, you have a big project. Coming out.

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  If three projects come out in three weeks, that culminates about 15 years of my work life. In over a three week period.

• 1:08:08Dax Shepard?

  They're all dramatically different as well, which is helpful. It's not like you have three superhero movies coming out in a week and you gotta somehow explain.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  How upsetting.

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  I can't believe I'm the bridge between DC and Marvel again.

• 1:08:22Speaker 02

  So Adults is.

• 1:08:24Dax Shepard?

  I watched it last night.

• 1:08:25Speaker 02

  You did?

• 1:08:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 1:08:26Dax Shepard?

  You can immediately sense when something's generated by the people in the show. And that they have some rapport and that they're real comedians and they weren't just cobbled together with whoever had an agent.

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:08:37Dax Shepard?

  Like you watch Broad City, you're meeting like, yep.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  It was created by Rebecca Shaw and Ben Cronenwald, who are super young. When I met them, they were 24. It's been almost four and a half years since we first met to when the show is now being made. It's about young 20 somethings in New York and that great tradition of shows. The pitch was always like, if Friends, they were in the West Village and then Girls and Broad City. Now those kids are living in Brooklyn. Now that kid is living in deep Queens.

• 1:09:03Dax Shepard?

  Right, right.

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  They're living in like Flushing because that's where one of them's parents have a house where they can all live.

• 1:09:09Dax Shepard?

  They're all freeloading and one of the gals wants to now incorporate her new boyfriend.

• 1:09:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:09:14Dax Shepard?

  A young Monica Padman. She's fantastic.

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  She's fucking funny. They're all, and so we cast all those kids. None of them knew each other. It's five 20 somethings, some stand up, some actors, some Tik Tok based people, all incredibly funny performers. My hope is you watch that and you're like, oh, this group of people seem like friends. There's a vibe. I wish my friends were like this, or this is what my friends are like, or this is what I remember my friends being like in my early twenties.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  And you produced it?

• 1:09:41Speaker 02

  I produced it and then directed a little of it.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:09:44Dax Shepard?

  When I was watching it, I don't know why I get so comforted by this. I've said this before, but when I watched English Teacher, I don't know if you've seen that show.

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:51Dax Shepard?

  Not to get on a soapbox, but I think early when I was adjusting to the transition in comedy, which was totally righteous, you should let the folks make the jokes, who the jokes are about.

• 1:10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:04Dax Shepard?

  And I watched English Teacher and I was like, yes, this dude's gay and he's going so fucking hard on this topic. And that was the solution. What I didn't want was for these topics to go away. Everyone needs to get made fun of.

• 1:10:16Speaker 02

  Let them do it themselves.

• 1:10:18Dax Shepard?

  I think we all have this maybe knee jerk concern that the younger generation is so fragile and precious. And so the thing that was so comforting about seeing this is like, oh, they're going fucking hard. Like the kid they know comes out about being molested and they're just going so hard about him being molested. And I was like, oh, wonderful. Comedy's still very much alive and the younger kids are gonna push just as fucking hard and just let them do it. That's the part I really liked about the show.

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  The creators, Ben and Rebecca, again, super young. They are fully Gen Z. So they love their friends and they love their generation, but they also see what is inherently silly about it. And so the show is kind of that. They're making fun of everything that we feel about Gen Z, but it's also with real love.

• 1:11:00Dax Shepard?

  It's coming from the inside and not the outside.

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  And so it's not like these fucking Gen Z kids are sensitive. My hope is that it's a little post-identity politics.

• 1:11:10Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  So they're just sort of existing inside of it. And it's not like, as this person, I feel this way, is part of the hope.

• 1:11:16Dax Shepard?

  No, I was just enormously relieved watching it. Oh, good. Comedy's gonna win.

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  Is it too late to put on the poster? Dax Shepard, I was enormously relieved.

• 1:11:27Dax Shepard?

  Cause I go into everything thinking, oh, these fucking precious. They can't even take a joke about each other.

• 1:11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:34Dax Shepard?

  I hope I'm owning it. You are. Okay. Thank you, Monica.

• 1:11:37Speaker 02

  Ben and Rebecca, when they first came to me, speaking of how long these things take, my first email correspondence with them is November 2020 about like, let's do this. They were like, we love Big Mouth. We want to make live action Big Mouth for our twenties. It has become its own thing entirely, but there is a natural feeling of, oh, what we're trying to do with puberty, they're doing with their early twenties. This moment in life that you are in this space and what's funny about it? And how can we heighten that out and do some sort of surrealist things about it that speak to the emotional truths that lie underneath it?

• 1:12:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. If you have a tone, it's that it goes hard.

• 1:12:08Speaker 02

  It goes fucking hard. Oh, I was gonna say, you're talking about me and I would never say that about myself. It's so funny where I'm like, yeah, I go fucking hard.

• 1:12:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, of course you wouldn't say that. Billy Bobbles, what's his name?

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  Billy Bottles. It's my Billy Bob Thornton doing.

• 1:12:22Dax Shepard?

  Can I be your brother that shows up as Billy Bottles?

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  I do want to bring back Bobby Bottle Service because I think he'd be like way into crypto. Like, you know what I mean? I bought fucking Doja Cat coin at eight, dude. Now it's down to four. But I fucking, I'm using positivity and maximizing my potential to move to Puerto Rico. So that I should be able to make all my money back and then some.

• 1:12:48Dax Shepard?

  Never sell. That's the thing. Never.

• 1:12:51Speaker 02

  Never sell, never settle. Here's the other option. Go entirely on emotion. Buy, sell, go with the market. Keep going with the market.

• 1:12:59Dax Shepard?

  Chase.

• 1:13:00Speaker 02

  Change course.

• 1:13:01Dax Shepard?

  Don't lead. You want to chase in finance.

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  Never trust your instincts.

• 1:13:10Dax Shepard?

  I want to have a quick conversation with Coach Steve.

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:13:15Dax Shepard?

  As Hermium Permian.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:13:18Dax Shepard?

  Because I feel like they share an essence and I just want to see how it goes.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  I'm excited to see this.

• 1:13:22Dax Shepard?

  So I'm just going to introduce you to Hermium Permian. He lives by himself in an apartment and it goes pretty well. Where do you live, Steve?

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  I'm not living anywhere particularly, so I'm just wondering if you've got extra, you know, you got extra space in that place? Maybe we could crash together for a while.

• 1:13:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I'd love to have some visitors over. My mom, Mrs. Monica, she's in and out sometimes and she'll bring snacks.

• 1:13:42Speaker 02

  Well, you know, if Monica wants to hang out, if your mom, who it's not clear if she's alive or not, or if this is kind of a Bates Motel situation. Anyway, you want to play it, I'll hang out with her. I'll hang out with the dead corpse. I'll do whatever you need to do. I'm here to hang forever, for long term, for whatever you need.

• 1:13:57Dax Shepard?

  Do you have any allergies?

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  I've got a couple allergies. Uh, I'm allergic to, I've been living on a diaper barge. Turns out I'm allergic to all the diapers that are on there, the used diapers.

• 1:14:08Dax Shepard?

  I have bee stings.

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  Are you allergic to the bees?

• 1:14:12Dax Shepard?

  The sting, I think.

• 1:14:14Speaker 02

  Wait, you, I should mention, I'm also dying. I got classic TB.

• 1:14:21Dax Shepard?

  Oh no, I had an uncle who passed.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm so sorry. Does he need company? Should I go hang out with him?

• 1:14:27Dax Shepard?

  This has been great.

• 1:14:31Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and then the last one, I want to do Frito talking to Hormone Monster.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:14:37Dax Shepard?

  Because I feel like we could go somewhere that might make Monica throw up. She hates Frito.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Does she hate the Hormone Monster? Oh, the Hormone Monster's scary too.

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  Oh, this guy's awesome. If you met my Hormone Monster, he's so horny.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Oh, that's right. And Frito Lay.

• 1:14:52Speaker 05

  He is better than just about anyone I know.

• 1:14:54Speaker 04

  Tell her everything.

• 1:14:55Speaker 05

  Oh, he puts it in, he gets it out, he puts it back in.

• 1:14:59Speaker 04

  I can do it forever, Monica.

• 1:15:01Speaker 05

  He can't come.

• 1:15:02Speaker 04

  I can't do it, cuz it's so sexy.

• 1:15:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, cuz he likes the edge. He brings it right to the edge.

• 1:15:07Speaker 04

  I live on the edge, Monica.

• 1:15:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's right. He lives on the edge in New York. If you ever go to the Hudson Yards, that weird tower that they built, it's called the Edge.

• 1:15:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, I like to hang out there. Have you ever eaten steak, monster?

• 1:15:22Speaker 05

  I love to eat steak. I go to Morton's, Bobby Bottle Service.

• 1:15:25Speaker 04

  Do you ever have a ribeye steak?

• 1:15:27Speaker 05

  Ribeye's the best steak you could ever eat. Nothing like power, that.

• 1:15:31Speaker 04

  I can't even afford a ribeye, but they're delicious.

• 1:15:34Speaker 05

  Oh, buddy. I'll take you get a ribeye and then we'll make some extra butter for that mashed potatoes if you like.

• 1:15:40Speaker 04

  You know what butter is code for, Monica? Sauce.

• 1:15:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh, thank you. That was disgusting. People are throwing up. Your fucking vocal cords are done.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  I know. We have killed you.

• 1:15:53Dax Shepard?

  You're gonna have to double up on the zeep.

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  Can you double a zeep?

• 1:15:56Dax Shepard?

  I always double my zeep. Nick, you're a blast. I wish you came more frequently than every seven years.

• 1:16:02Speaker 02

  That's what my wife says.

• 1:16:04Speaker 05

  Got a deej.

• 1:16:08Speaker 02

  And by the way, it's so crazy. The show was already working seven years ago, but to watch your show absolutely explode over these seven years has been amazing.

• 1:16:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, well, thank you. You're part of that success story. Everyone in the first year when there was no reason to trust us, I have deep gratitude. Next time you have three projects coming out in a week, please come back. And congrats on getting married and having two children since we saw you last.

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  I wish you could have been congratulating me for being a part of Netflix.

• 1:16:33Dax Shepard?

  Making out with my wife. Yeah, you just wouldn't do it.

• 1:16:36Speaker 02

  Oh, no, we're still making out, just now we're doing it on TV.

• 1:16:38Dax Shepard?

  Well, then I'm relieved by that. I don't mind that you're not in the show, but the fact that you're disgusted by my bride is unacceptable. All right, be well.

• 1:16:45Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:16:46Speaker 06

  He is an arm care expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's gonna let him have the facts.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  I got my hair cut today. Barb did my hair.

• 1:16:59Dax Shepard?

  Where'd you find Barb? Barb Chopstick? What'd you say?

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  Don't ever say that again. Barb Thompson.

• 1:17:08Dax Shepard?

  Thompson, okay.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  She's awesome. And she's done my hair before. She did it for a gala.

• 1:17:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  One of the only gals I've ever been to. And she's, she's great.

• 1:17:20Dax Shepard?

  Always a bridesmaid, never a gala.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  I know. And she said you did a great job.

• 1:17:26Dax Shepard?

  Are you growing your hair out on your legs too?

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  Oh, don't look. I just haven't shaved. Fuck.

• 1:17:31Dax Shepard?

  But I didn't know if you were making a decision like everyone's making. That was a fair question.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  God.

• 1:17:36Dax Shepard?

  What happened?

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  I can't believe you did that. I was.

• 1:17:40Dax Shepard?

  Well, I wanted to celebrate you if you were embracing.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  Fuck that. No.

• 1:17:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  I take care of my hair.

• 1:17:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  I just haven't and it's hot out.

• 1:17:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's great. Can you understand there's a movement where women aren't shaving anymore? And I thought maybe you joined that movement.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  I was really actually self-conscious.

• 1:17:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh, and I mean it worse.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Notice. And I was like, there's no way anyone will notice. And you noticed immediately.

• 1:18:04Dax Shepard?

  I'm very observant. You know this about me.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:18:06Dax Shepard?

  I don't miss a thing.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  It just takes a long time to shave.

• 1:18:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I shave my arms now. I have all this money tied up in these tattoos. And I want them to be visible.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  That makes sense. Well, you know, I also, I have to groom my arms, my legs, my armpits.

• 1:18:22Dax Shepard?

  I know.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  My vagina parts.

• 1:18:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I feel terrible for you. I've said that now that I'm, now that I'm grooming a lot.

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sucks. Speaking of, how's the cashmere? We haven't even seen it in a while.

• 1:18:34Dax Shepard?

  Well, you know, there's a real producers, Delta.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Are you collecting?

• 1:18:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, it's growing.

• 1:18:42Dax Shepard?

  Although I may have a big, I might have a, I'm now thinking I might have a nice deposit in the drawer in my bathroom. I think maybe I haven't transferred some to the.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:18:52Dax Shepard?

  The main storage.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:18:56Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I had been wanting to tell you a story.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:18:59Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so we all went to Monster Jam on Saturday.

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, who's, describe we all.

• 1:19:04Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so we all is Charlie and the boys, Ace and Wilder, the two handsomest men in Los Angeles. And then my girls, Lincoln and Delta, and then Delta's friend.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Fun.

• 1:19:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and then Eric.

• 1:19:19Dax Shepard?

  Eric, yeah, that's all. So we went, it was immediately fun. It's so fun. Monster Jam's so fun. We got to ride in the like 12 passenger monster truck. That's great. I was kinda not clocking any of this, but apparently, um, Delta and her friend had brought their two most important stuffies in a red bag. I didn't know that. I probably would have been like, maybe we don't bring them into the event.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  Can you describe the stuffies?

• 1:19:49Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it's imperative that people understand the stakes here. So, anyone that knows Delta would know her son Groot.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. I don't even count Groot as a stuffy. When you said that, I wasn't thinking of him. He's a real boy.

• 1:20:04Dax Shepard?

  He really is.

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  Unlike the robot.

• 1:20:06Dax Shepard?

  I don't know that I've ever seen, and I had very deep relationships with my stuffies. I had three bears that I loved and I thought about them. And if I was gone too long, I felt guilty. Like, I was very in touch and close with my stuffies.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  What were their names?

• 1:20:20Dax Shepard?

  I don't, I didn't name them. Just, one was a polar bear, one was a brown bear, and one was like a

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  And?

• 1:20:28Dax Shepard?

  Koala bear. They were different breeds, so I didn't, breeds, the species.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  So you just said koala, polar?

• 1:20:35Dax Shepard?

  I just never was like

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  You never called for them?

• 1:20:37Dax Shepard?

  Addressing them. I was just squeezing them and feeling guilty.

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  But what if like, it was downstairs and you had to tell your mom, like, oh, my God, polar is missing?

• 1:20:44Dax Shepard?

  That would never, like

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  It would never happen.

• 1:20:47Dax Shepard?

  I would never

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Lose track.

• 1:20:49Dax Shepard?

  Never.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:50Dax Shepard?

  And they didn't travel out of my room either, because I was too afraid something would happen to them in the wild. Okay, but to put like this in perspective, Groot goes everywhere with us. Groot has truly a bigger wardrobe than Delta.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:05Dax Shepard?

  He has many different jammies. He has swimwear. He has like

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  For Delta's birthday, she'll often ask for clothes for Groot.

• 1:21:12Dax Shepard?

  That mostly, that's all she asks for is things for Groot. And he has books he reads, and he's an artist, and she makes him dinner, and he, like, it's so, it's such a huge part of her life, Groot. And then I didn't know this, I learned this recently about Groot. She was kind of explaining what was going on with him athletically. And then I said, is Groot disabled? And she said, yeah, Groot is disabled. And I said, oh, what's his disability? And she said, well, he's half tree and half boy. So he needs to breathe carbon dioxide as a tree, but he needs to breathe oxygen as a boy. So his lungs are like half dedicated to breathing.

• 1:21:55Dax Shepard?

  And so that's kind of an impairment for his cardiovascular. Additionally,

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  Stop!

• 1:22:01Dax Shepard?

  This is all real. Like, I didn't even know Groot was disabled.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Well, I

• 1:22:04Dax Shepard?

  But I just had a hunch, there was some way she was talking about his athleticism and his outfit.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:22:11Dax Shepard?

  I don't know, I asked, and he is. And then she went on to tell me another challenge he has is he's got both veins.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:22:21Dax Shepard?

  And then he also has to have plumbing for the water.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:26Dax Shepard?

  So it's like his body's sharing a lot of

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  Wow, double duty.

• 1:22:30Dax Shepard?

  Double duty. Also, his bark hasn't come in, and that's gonna make him more stable.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:22:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so it was a lot going on.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  Okay, wow.

• 1:22:39Dax Shepard?

  And I'm gonna be honest, I love Groot. Like, he's also my grandson. And when we snuggle at night, I go, I want a little time with Groot, so he has to be in my

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  Does everyone have to leave?

• 1:22:50Dax Shepard?

  No, no, no, no, just, I will want Groot in my left nook and Delta in my right nook if we're all laying together. But she's gotta give me some grandpa

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  You don't have any, okay, never mind.

• 1:22:59Dax Shepard?

  Anyone? Oh.

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  Nevermind, I don't wanna say.

• 1:23:03Dax Shepard?

  Okay, good. I'm afraid I know.

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  It's because you like him in your nook and like, like a kid, like a kid.

• 1:23:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like a little baby boy. So, uh, okay, so great time, we're having the best time. Now we're up in this huge suite. There's like 50 people in there, it's a blast, it's hectic. And Delta comes up like mid-show. Again, I'm gonna say, I've said it before, there's no better show on earth than Master Jam. It starts and it doesn't let up. Race, race, race, race, race, stunts, stunts, stunts. So it's a party, we're eating food, and then Delta comes up to me and she is She's passed. Uh, like she's, I don't want to say she's hyperventilating. She is so scared and panicked.

• 1:23:51Dax Shepard?

  And she said, we don't, we've lost Groot. And I'm like, what do you mean? I didn't even know Groot was in here. We lost the bag. So her friend was in charge of carrying the bag. She brought it in here. Someone maybe stole it or whatever. And I'm like, okay, no one stole it. Everyone that came is still here. No one left mid time, you know? So now we start scouring all the bathrooms in there. And then we go through systematically and we look under every single chair. This takes 35, 40 minutes. I'm missing the Monster Jam.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  Sure. You can hear it still.

• 1:24:20Dax Shepard?

  I can hear it. That is helpful. And um, I say at some point, okay, it's not in here, which means it didn't, it didn't come up here.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:24:31Dax Shepard?

  Now, we arrived and we went right out onto the, to the arena floor to take that ride. So it's like, we're seven stories up. That was pre-show. I don't, so now.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  Did they take him into the monster truck?

• 1:24:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So, well, here becomes the investigation. So then Charlie and I, I'm like, oh, I made a video of them get, I'm like, did they even bring the bag out of the car?

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:24:52Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I took pictures.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:55Dax Shepard?

  I take some, oh, yeah, there's the red bag. Then I have footage of them getting on to the monster truck and she's carrying the bag. We don't have footage of them getting off, but I'm like, but this is, she would have never set it down in the elevator or on the walk. It definitely had to get left in the truck. So now, exactly. And we're now mid show. This is hours later. And I.

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  And is that truck like out on the thing?

• 1:25:21Dax Shepard?

  No, that truck has now been already put in a trailer to go to the next Monster Jam. So I like, I asked my friend Sally, who I've been.

• 1:25:34Dax Shepard?

  You know, going to Monster Jam with Sally as our host for, I don't know, eight years now.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:40Dax Shepard?

  She's an incredible lady.

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:25:42Dax Shepard?

  She's an armcherry.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  Oh, shout out.

• 1:25:44Dax Shepard?

  She's so sweet. And I'm like, I don't know what else to do, but like, here's the situation. She's a mom. She put out a full court press. Oh, look, okay, I'll try to get into that truck. Like, I'll try to find the truck in the parking lot and try to get into this semi to get into this monster.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:26:02Dax Shepard?

  So like, an hour goes by and Delta's really like, she lost her son.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:26:08Dax Shepard?

  And I'm, I'm very pessimistic. I'm like, who knows? They set that bag down anyway. There were so many bags and so many things and so much equipment. It's in an arena. So I was really, really pessimistic. And then the show ends and then we just sit there for another 45 minutes while the whole place clears out. We're kind of like waiting to see if they're gonna find Groot. And then she says, well, you guys are free to, if you want to just wait in the car. So anyways, we go sit in the car now and then I get a text from Sally and it's a picture of her and she's a lady and she's holding the bag. She found the bag in a random golf cart somewhere.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:26:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. It was.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  On its way to the trash.

• 1:26:52Dax Shepard?

  On its way to a sex trafficking.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  Don't say that. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What a tale.

• 1:27:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God. It was, um, the amount of relief I felt.

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  So obsessed, scary.

• 1:27:06Dax Shepard?

  When that bag returned, you know, I was starting to think about what our next two weeks to a month. Like, I was like, this is gonna be.

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  Imagine when it's like to lose your son. You never get over it.

• 1:27:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's gonna be devastating in a way that I'm not sure how we're all gonna deal with. We lost Groot forever.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  That is so scary.

• 1:27:27Dax Shepard?

  Once we had Groot, I was like, you know, I started thinking like, what do I do? Would, would you have wanted me to find the same Groot? And she's like, no.

• 1:27:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, cuz it's real and he's real and there's no replacing him.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  Well, and so she answered our long lasting question about would you clone?

• 1:27:46Dax Shepard?

  Would you clone your dog or your kid?

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  She won't.

• 1:27:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I guess she has.

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  She's like me.

• 1:27:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she is. I guess she has ethics. I don't know.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  We don't know.

• 1:27:55Dax Shepard?

  We don't know what that means ethically.

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh, that's why. But okay, if he had gone in the monster truck and then got sent to the next monster truck show, that's a kid's book. That's a children's book.

• 1:28:08Dax Shepard?

  And like, they love him and he becomes kind of a mascot for Monster Jam.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Yes, but then he returns back home always.

• 1:28:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but he's like, now he chews tobacco and he's grown up a little bit.

• 1:28:18Speaker 01

  We have different versions of this story.

• 1:28:20Dax Shepard?

  Well, he's on the Monster Jam tour.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is. He's on the tour.

• 1:28:23Dax Shepard?

  He's not going to like symposiums on physics.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  But he's very, it's very Toy Story.

• 1:28:29Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes. He could have been on a real adventure.

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  I don't think that all the dust from the monster truck would be good for his lungs.

• 1:28:38Dax Shepard?

  Well, not given what I've learned about his. Yeah. Now, what if like the driver of Gravedigger found him and started keeping him on the dash?

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:28:47Dax Shepard?

  And we could like, then we were watching and he was riding on the dash proudly.

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, that's terrifying.

• 1:28:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it was really an event. Yeah, so I missed a good half of Monster Jam. Both looking for and then panicking over.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  Sally, really hero.

• 1:29:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God, the hero of all heroes.

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:29:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I mean, if you were to ask me at some point what I would pay for his safe return, it would have been embarrassing.

• 1:29:15Speaker 01

  I know, but Dax, that's life. It's like, you can't, you can't buy health. Well, actually, I mean, to an extent you can, which is a problem, but, you know.

• 1:29:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  That's why health is the most important thing we have.

• 1:29:27Dax Shepard?

  And just being there, I guess.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Being alive.

• 1:29:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, being present.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Being present. Um, well, I'm also grateful because I really got codependent for the girl. The friend. Can you imagine?

• 1:29:41Dax Shepard?

  No, I know. So that was all happening. She now feels so guilty and she's crying. Delta's crying inconsolably.

• 1:29:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:29:50Dax Shepard?

  Her friend's crying and I'm like the dad watching. And so I kept going, oh, sweetie, it's totally okay. Delta should have been carrying her own bag. It's not, I was like trying to comfort her and trying to comfort Delta. Her group is in there too.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Oh, it is?

• 1:30:08Dax Shepard?

  She's got the double whammy. She's lost her stuffy and she lost Delta's stuffy.

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  Who was her stuffy?

• 1:30:14Dax Shepard?

  Um, I didn't get a good gander at it once they were all reunited. I didn't even know we were bringing stuffies to Monster Jam.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  Not anymore.

• 1:30:22Dax Shepard?

  I hope not. And then, okay, now this is the thing that we go back to. We've been talking about this the last few episodes. I'm like, and I'm talking to Charlie and Eric. I'm like, you know, all I gotta do is keep trying to find group and not say, this is why we don't. What you want to say as a parent is this is why we don't bring stuffies to sporting events.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:44Dax Shepard?

  And I was like, she has learned that lesson. She, I don't need to tell her that. She is in major discomfort.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:52Dax Shepard?

  And so I let it go. But then I, on the way home, I was just saying how grateful I was that he's back.

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  Slipping it in a little bit?

• 1:31:01Dax Shepard?

  A little bit. And then, and then I said, he's just so valuable. We gotta make sure that we're safe when we bring him places. She goes, but he can't just be a, a boy that lives at home and doesn't go and do things. He, I can't just be protecting him from it. And I'm like, I know that's a great point, but there's a ton of things we can take him to. So he's not stuck in the house, but that are also maybe not so distracting as Monster Jam.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  This is complex because this is how you feel about your kids. This is how you parent them. You're like, you know, they're, I'm going to let them go explore the world.

• 1:31:35Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  And another person could say, look, they're a little too valuable for that. Don't let them just go down the street to Ralph's.

• 1:31:42Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  Where there's crazies.

• 1:31:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  Um, so it looks like she's.

• 1:31:48Dax Shepard?

  She's inherited my parenting.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Looks like it's nurture.

• 1:31:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, in this case.

• 1:31:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:31:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  I'm grateful. I'm so grateful. I would have been really. Yeah, I would have been so sad if group. I mean, I would have been happy for him if he was on an adventure, but we, we know that really he would have gone in the trash.

• 1:32:06Dax Shepard?

  Well, he's, he's so cute.

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  Dex, missing persons after like forty eight hours, they're dead.

• 1:32:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so you think he might someone murder him?

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  Trash.

• 1:32:16Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I just can't imagine holding that little guy. He's so sweet looking.

• 1:32:20Speaker 01

  Oh, I know.

• 1:32:21Dax Shepard?

  I told her that's why I didn't know he had a disability because he's so smiley. I have no idea he's suffering from anything. He's in a perpetually great mood.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  Well, that's the thing. Is he in pain?

• 1:32:31Dax Shepard?

  It sounded like there's some pain accompanying these.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:32:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  Now, don't trick him into getting like pain meds for him.

• 1:32:40Dax Shepard?

  I might see if we can get some nerve blockers.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Wow, that isn't quite an adventure. I'm.

• 1:32:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  I'm really glad that had a happy ending.

• 1:32:51Dax Shepard?

  Oh, me too. Anything fun happen to you?

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay, so you've been gone a couple of days.

• 1:32:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  In the meantime, I've watched two full seasons of You, the show You, which reminds me, I want to play the thing.

• 1:33:05Dax Shepard?

  That's a show about me?

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's about time that we revisit that because I'm watching it.

• 1:33:11Dax Shepard?

  Such a great exchange.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  Okay, let's.

• 1:33:14Dax Shepard?

  Laura Ingraham?

• 1:33:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:16Speaker 02

  You want me to put on the TV?

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, you can. This is my favorite clip of all time. And now it has extra meaning because I'm watching the show.

• 1:33:24Dax Shepard?

  Is it a great show?

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  I love it. It has real Veronica Mars vibes.

• 1:33:28Dax Shepard?

  Oh, fun.

• 1:33:29Speaker 01

  But it's, it's like Dexter meets Veronica Mars, but I've never seen Dexter.

• 1:33:35Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  Okay, let's watch this real quick.

• 1:33:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:38Speaker 06

  You know, I was watching an episode of You where measles came up. Wait, wait, wait, when did I mention measles? I don't know. It was on You. Wait, what? What? What was on me? What are you talking about? What is really going to happen? I never had the measles. Was on You. We never did a. We never did a measles and vaccine episode. Am I, is this a joke? I know. It was on You. It was on You. I've never had, Raymond, I've never had measles. What are you talking about? Stupid. It was an episode of a show, Laura.

• 1:34:17Speaker 06

  What's it called? You, You. I've never done a show on measles. I just completely give up. We gotta go. It's a show. I give up. Called You on Netflix. There's a show called Laura and I.

• 1:34:30Speaker 01

  Moving on to Adele. I can't explain this.

• 1:34:35Dax Shepard?

  What are they talking about? So stupid.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  So funny.

• 1:34:41Dax Shepard?

  It's a real life.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 1:34:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  Oh my God. Anyway, um, so I, yeah, I started you random. It like popped up as the next, this never works out.

• 1:34:54Dax Shepard?

  Right, right. Auto.

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  Auto play or whatever. And, um, I was like, sure, why not watch the whole thing? And then last night stayed up so late, I couldn't even look at the time. I was too afraid to look.

• 1:35:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  And watch all of season two.

• 1:35:10Dax Shepard?

  How many episodes in each? 10? So you watched 20 episodes?

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  They're like 45 ish minutes.

• 1:35:15Dax Shepard?

  Whoa.

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  Oh my God. Okay. So it is Penn Badgley from Gossip Girl, who I loved back then, Dan Humphrey.

• 1:35:22Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  And he recently, he has a podcast, but also I saw, there's like an Instagram kind of viral video of him like dancing on one of these talk shows. And I was like, oh.

• 1:35:35Dax Shepard?

  Well, okay.

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  In my opinion.

• 1:35:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  And so I was like, oh yeah, I love him.

• 1:35:39Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  And then he pops up.

• 1:35:42Dax Shepard?

  Dancing is attractive.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  I guess. You know what? It is.

• 1:35:45Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:35:45Speaker 01

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna circle back. I didn't say it wasn't.

• 1:35:48Dax Shepard?

  Right, right, right. You just didn't put it very high on the list.

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, but turns out it's really high.

• 1:35:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  So, um, anyway, then it pops up and he is a, he's a stalker, like he's obsessed with this woman.

• 1:36:02Dax Shepard?

  Uh oh.

• 1:36:02Speaker 01

  There's like murder.

• 1:36:04Dax Shepard?

  Ooh.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  He's a psychopath, but there's, it's a love story and he's hot and it's, it's confused, it's confusing.

• 1:36:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  It's sexy, but scary.

• 1:36:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, very thin line for women there.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Well, I know, and I, I hated myself, of course.

• 1:36:21Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  I heard him, um, say on an interview, something like that, like, or someone asked, like, what do you think of when people say he's hot?

• 1:36:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  And he was like, He's a killer.

• 1:36:32Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  So I saw that clip before I watched the show and I was like, yeah, he's right. This is, people are crazy.

• 1:36:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  And then of course, I'm like, he's hot.

• 1:36:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:42Speaker 01

  He's also tricky because he's like kind of a good boyfriend if he wasn't a murderer and putting people in cages.

• 1:36:48Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:50Dax Shepard?

  Who, who, who just was everyone obsessed with that's also was a murderer? Wasn't there recently someone everyone thought was hot?

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:36:57Dax Shepard?

  Is it the United Health?

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:36:59Dax Shepard?

  Assassin.

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:00Dax Shepard?

  People like really horny for him.

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  Luigi.

• 1:37:03Dax Shepard?

  Luigi.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  That one, I, that's real life. So I find that much more complicated. I do not think he's hot.

• 1:37:10Dax Shepard?

  He's hot.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  No, I don't think there's anything good about killing.

• 1:37:13Dax Shepard?

  He was hot without the murder?

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  There's no way for me to know.

• 1:37:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you can't go back in time. He's got very powerful eyebrows.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  I don't think murder is hot in real life and I don't think vigilantes are hot.

• 1:37:30Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:37:31Speaker 01

  I'm going to say that.

• 1:37:32Dax Shepard?

  Good to know.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  I'm not, there's a lot of people that are like, good for him.

• 1:37:36Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

  And I, I disagree.

• 1:37:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  I disagree wholly.

• 1:37:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I think that industry is evil and I don't think you're allowed to kill people.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Except in the show, sometimes he does kill some people I really don't like.

• 1:37:52Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  And it is vigilante. And like, it's for kids. He's protect, sometimes he protects kids. He's weird and he's like, kind of this like good friend and.

• 1:38:03Dax Shepard?

  Hard to pin down. Mixed messages.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Really, really mixed messages.

• 1:38:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  Anyway, I am loving it.

• 1:38:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. That's great.

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  Five seasons.

• 1:38:13Dax Shepard?

  Oh, there's five, oh, so you're fucked for the whole week.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:38:17Dax Shepard?

  So what time did you go to bed? Do you know?

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  I really don't know, but I was so tired when my alarm went off at nine.

• 1:38:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  And so I'm gonna have to go back to bed. Probably three.

• 1:38:27Dax Shepard?

  Wow, you're nasty.

• 1:38:29Speaker 01

  I can't help myself.

• 1:38:30Dax Shepard?

  I know, you're indulgent.

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  And because I'm scared a little, like, it's very cliffhanger-y. It's very good at keeping you on the hook. So I'm a little too scared in those scenarios to go to bed. Like, I need to know how it's completed. But they do a good job at the end of each season, too.

• 1:38:49Dax Shepard?

  You never know.

• 1:38:49Speaker 01

  I did star episode three, but then I was like, Monica, no.

• 1:38:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you got to stop.

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  I got to stop, so I turned it off about halfway through that. When I woke up this morning, after so much murder.

• 1:39:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:01Speaker 01

  I was like, I think I need to take a break today.

• 1:39:05Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  Because it really gets infiltrated. And then it made me think, this is what's happening with boys and video games.

• 1:39:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  They're just, it's like a constant, they're living in this world that's dark and bleak, and they're shooting people and stuff. And then, like, reality starts to disappear.

• 1:39:24Dax Shepard?

  Hmm, you're feeling that happen to you?

• 1:39:26Speaker 01

  Well, I just could see it.

• 1:39:29Dax Shepard?

  This is your OCD, like, this is, you think you're a killer, or you think you're a pervert.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  I don't, okay, in this show, it's a lot of voiceover, because you're hearing his thoughts.

• 1:39:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:42Speaker 01

  And so then, today, I was kind of hearing my thoughts like that.

• 1:39:47Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  And I thought, I need to take a break.

• 1:39:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, take a little break.

• 1:39:52Speaker 01

  No, but I also really want to know what happens.

• 1:39:54Dax Shepard?

  Keep going.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  All right, let's see if there's anything else I want to talk about. You, you know, you're really tunnel vision.

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  It is easy, I get why. I get how it happens.

• 1:40:06Dax Shepard?

  He's only so culpable, it was very confusing.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  But it was just...

• 1:40:10Dax Shepard?

  And he didn't do a good job, like, he should have recognized what was going on much sooner, and said, it's a television show on Netflix, and the title is You.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  And the title is You, Y-O-U.

• 1:40:21Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and not Laura Ingraham.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  But he did end up saying, it's a show on Netflix called You. And she still said, ah, I don't know.

• 1:40:29Dax Shepard?

  But he did, he did say, I was watching You about seven times before it's a show on Netflix.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  It's so good, I almost feel like it's fake, and I don't want to, like, look too into it.

• 1:40:39Dax Shepard?

  I don't think so.

• 1:40:40Speaker 01

  I don't either.

• 1:40:41Dax Shepard?

  It's such a genuine reaction from her.

• 1:40:43Speaker 01

  All right, well, that's it, let's move into facts.

• 1:40:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, facts.

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  So facts for Nick Kroll.

• 1:41:03Dax Shepard?

  When he said daddy's money, when he brought that, I keep thinking how funny that was when he said that. Do you remember that?

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:41:09Dax Shepard?

  I don't care, because I have daddy's money.

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was so funny. Also, I wrote down specifically when he said sick little cutie. I laughed so hard at sick little cutie. I thought that was the funniest. It was just a sick little cutie.

• 1:41:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he was a mess. He was coughing and snoring, a little indigestion there for a minute. I fucking loved it.

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  It was great. And then I was kind of like, oh, sick little cutie is kind of like my kink.

• 1:41:43Dax Shepard?

  That is your kink, sick little cutie. That could be your clothing line.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  Sick little cuties.

• 1:41:48Dax Shepard?

  Sick little cuties.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  Anyway, that was just, it really made me laugh. He's so funny.

• 1:41:56Dax Shepard?

  But it's more than that. He's got that thing some people have where he is just like infinitely comfortable in his own skin, which is so appealing.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:06Dax Shepard?

  It's such a comforting personality type.

• 1:42:08Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:42:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. The women came after me. Should I tell you that?

• 1:42:12Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 1:42:13Dax Shepard?

  Uh, the, my, what I thought was an incredibly obvious joke about period underwear and tampons. Such a joke. Some women really came at me hard.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  I think they also might, I don't know if they really think that or if they're like playing along.

• 1:42:30Dax Shepard?

  They're playing your role, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We really did uncover though, something with the X.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:42:36Dax Shepard?

  Cause maxi pad, tampons.

• 1:42:39Speaker 01

  Maxi pad would have been the first.

• 1:42:42Dax Shepard?

  Probably.

• 1:42:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:44Dax Shepard?

  And then Nix and then.

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:42:47Dax Shepard?

  What is it?

• 1:42:47Speaker 01

  Thanks. That's another brand of.

• 1:42:49Dax Shepard?

  Spanx. They go on your, they cover your, okay.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, women, X because X.

• 1:42:57Dax Shepard?

  Someone said that. Someone suggested that in the comments and I think that's brilliant. And I don't think that's what it is, but that's a brilliant.

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  How could you possibly know?

• 1:43:07Dax Shepard?

  I'm just trying to imagine the TamPax people going like, okay, let's call it, it's, it's a tampon, but let's, let's build on that and let's add X because of the chromosome. I just, I.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  What's your, what's your, um, you know, idea?

• 1:43:23Dax Shepard?

  That they wanted to imbue a sense of max, like max comfort, max absorption, max freshness, max, what was the word? They had the word attached to TamPax in the ad we showed.

• 1:43:38Speaker 01

  Oh, radiant.

• 1:43:39Dax Shepard?

  Max radiance.

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  But it's not, it's TamPax.

• 1:43:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:43Speaker 01

  Not TamMax.

• 1:43:44Dax Shepard?

  TamPaximum.

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  I think it's X chromosome.

• 1:43:48Dax Shepard?

  That's good. It's good. We'd have to track down whoever named.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  Maxi pad. That's the original. I bet, I bet you can, you can do that and come back to us.

• 1:43:58Dax Shepard?

  Are you, do you think they're alive?

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  Probably their kids are kids of kids.

• 1:44:04Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Well, while you read a fact, I'm going to ask AI if the inventor of maxi pads is still alive.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:44:10Dax Shepard?

  Is the inventor of maxi pads still alive?

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  If people listen to the CTE episode with Chris Nowinski and then also it came up in another episode, the P baby.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  We had AI make a video of us originally talking about the P baby, the original story of P baby.

• 1:44:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'm going to post it tomorrow, but so by the time you listen to this, it will be posted. And I really, really recommend people going to watch this. It'll be on our Instagram. Because for one, the story is just, you need a good reminder of the P baby, but the AI is hilarious.

• 1:44:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I can't wait to see it.

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  And it's like. A version of you and me, like the AI made versions of us. It's so funny.

• 1:45:01Dax Shepard?

  I can't wait to see.

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:02Dax Shepard?

  Were you holding this as a surprise for me?

• 1:45:04Speaker 01

  No, I was just gonna. I'm doing stuff, you know?

• 1:45:08Dax Shepard?

  You got things to do.

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  Um, anyway, so check that out. Check out the P baby and the AI. It just reminded me, AI.

• 1:45:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Did it respond?

• 1:45:16Dax Shepard?

  Well, it had to have. Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner, an African American inventor, is renowned for her development of the adjustable sanitary belt, a precursor to the modern maxi pad. Okay, so they really went back. That was 1912.

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:45:31Dax Shepard?

  She passed away in 06, so that's off the table. Kenner's invention patented and featured a moisture-proof pocket designed to hold menstrual pads securely in place. The innovation. Okay, we're in Krenner face racial discrimination. That's a bummer. And of course, was awarded five patents. In summary, Mary Beatrice Davis and Kenner passed away in 06. Okay, so I don't know if we're giving her credit for a maxi pad or she did the belt.

• 1:45:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:45:58Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  All right, so we didn't learn anything.

• 1:46:01Dax Shepard?

  Nothing, absolutely nothing.

• 1:46:02Speaker 01

  Great. Um, now what are the most watched shows on Netflix? This is on Wikipedia and notoriously Netflix doesn't really release this information, so.

• 1:46:12Dax Shepard?

  Or they do it weird. They do, they'll do like a minute, like, so I just saw this. And congrats to Duma and Minka Kelly.

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  Oh, Ransom Canyon.

• 1:46:22Dax Shepard?

  Ransom Canyon has 2.6 billion minutes viewed. And to put it in perspective, Mobland, which I love and is seemingly hit, everyone I know is watching it, had like 580 million, so.

• 1:46:34Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:46:35Dax Shepard?

  A four and a half X of second place.

• 1:46:38Speaker 01

  Ooh, e.

• 1:46:38Dax Shepard?

  But they do minutes, right? So that's an interesting way to quantify it.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:46:44Dax Shepard?

  As opposed to like households who watched it.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Is it minutes or hours?

• 1:46:48Dax Shepard?

  Minutes.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  Interesting. Okay, well, this is just Wikipedia. Oh, and it's most popular television series by hours watched in their first 28 days. Number one is Squid Game, season one.

• 1:47:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Stranger Things.

• 1:47:03Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  Is number two. Three is Wednesday.

• 1:47:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  Four is Squid Game, season two.

• 1:47:10Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  Five is Dahmer.

• 1:47:14Speaker 01

  Monster, the Jeffrey Dahmer story.

• 1:47:16Dax Shepard?

  Wow, I wouldn't have picked that up just from walking around and people telling me to watch stuff.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:24Dax Shepard?

  That one's a surprise for me.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  Uh, Six's Money Heist. That was a big, big show. Yes, I think maybe it was in Spanish, I think.

• 1:47:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Anna turned us on to it.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  She loved it.

• 1:47:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:38Speaker 01

  Um, oh, wait, no, sorry. That's so Six's Money Heist, part five.

• 1:47:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  Interesting. Seven, eight, and nine are Bridgerton, season one, two, and three.

• 1:47:49Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  And then ten, Money Heist, part four.

• 1:47:54Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:47:55Speaker 01

  Eleven Stranger Things.

• 1:47:56Dax Shepard?

  I need to give Money Heist another shot. It was, it was subtitled?

• 1:48:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. I know I would, I would watch that. I'm still in ER.

• 1:48:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I know what I started, which is so fucking good.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  The Pit?

• 1:48:09Dax Shepard?

  Deli Boys.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  Oh, I want to watch Deli Boys.

• 1:48:12Dax Shepard?

  You gotta try it.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want to.

• 1:48:14Dax Shepard?

  It's such a unique tone that they were pulling off beautifully.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:48:19Dax Shepard?

  It's fantastic.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Cool. I love that.

• 1:48:22Dax Shepard?

  You know, I like discovering these hiccups in my thinking.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:48:25Dax Shepard?

  And, uh, so there's a joke in Deli Boys.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:48:28Dax Shepard?

  They have to deal with this Italian mob boss quite often.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:48:32Dax Shepard?

  And they're Pakistani. And the, the patriarch of, not even the patriarch, one of the partners in the criminal organization, an older guy, he hates Indians, right? He's constantly talking about how he hates Indians. And so he's sitting across from this Italian mobster. And, uh, he, he says, um, Pakistani, but I'm telling the truth. Indians are terrible. And the Italian goes, oh, I thought you were Indian. And he goes, no, I'm not. They are our mortal enemy. And then the, um, mob, the Italian mobster goes,

• 1:49:06Dax Shepard?

  So you guys look identical to each other and you hate one another? And he goes, oh, Cookie just got canceled. He's like, then they all laugh the notion of a mob circuit get canceled.

• 1:49:17Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, that's funny.

• 1:49:18Dax Shepard?

  But then I was like, I think people do go, how do these two people hate each other so much? They're clearly related. And then I was like, yeah, I would never think that about the Irish and the English.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:49:31Dax Shepard?

  The French and the English.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:33Dax Shepard?

  And then I wondered if people in India are looking at those people going like, wait, you guys are the same people. Why are you fighting? I wonder if it's like, whatever in group you're in, the out, it seems crazy on the outside.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  It's always about land and.

• 1:49:45Dax Shepard?

  Religion often.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  Religion, but yeah, who owns what? And it's, I mean, that's, that's very timely because India and Pakistan were.

• 1:49:54Dax Shepard?

  Well, this was obviously made before they've now launched missiles at each other.

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  But they're in a ceasefire.

• 1:49:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:00Speaker 01

  But anyway, okay, Seth MacFarlane and Nick, that conversation, that's the sag, on the SAG-AFTRA Foundation YouTube.

• 1:50:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  So you can watch that there if you're interested in animation.

• 1:50:13Dax Shepard?

  Pretty unique conversation.

• 1:50:14Speaker 01

  Okay, the seasons of Seth MacFarlane's shows, how many? Family Guy, 23 seasons. American Dad, 19 seasons. Cleveland Show, four seasons.

• 1:50:25Dax Shepard?

  Forty-six.

• 1:50:28Dax Shepard?

  Forty-six television, forty-six seasons of television.

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  That's really it?

• 1:50:33Dax Shepard?

  That's all the facts.

• 1:50:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:35Dax Shepard?

  Well, Nick Kroll, we love you.

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  Well, there was one more.

• 1:50:37Dax Shepard?

  Pray for your speedy recovery.

• 1:50:43Speaker 01

  He's gonna be sick for another 10 years or so.

• 1:50:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, uh, like six, six more years he's got of being sick. We're not sick anymore.

• 1:50:52Speaker 01

  Well, you kind of are. You're still kinda sick.

• 1:50:55Dax Shepard?

  Probably more sick than I was pre-kids in general, but like, they just stopped putting their fingers in each other's mouths and butts and like, like they just, they get a little more separated as they get older.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  Speaking of kids.

• 1:51:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  I wasn't sure if I was gonna bring this up, but why not?

• 1:51:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, why not? I said I was racist, you know?

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  Well, no, this isn't negative towards kids.

• 1:51:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, right. I'm just saying I revealed a lot. That I had some vestigial racial thinking that I caught myself.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah. Um, Mother's Day, we just had Mother's Day, right?

• 1:51:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:34Speaker 01

  It's getting increasingly harder for me.

• 1:51:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  And I think from, for like so many reasons, I feel overwhelming.

• 1:51:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Um, and I'm just tracking that.

• 1:51:48Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:51:49Speaker 01

  That it's starting to feel really tough. Um, I'm glad I go home. I go home. I've gone home the last couple of years. And it's nice to be with my mom. Um, and I know it makes them very happy. So I like doing that. But there is something about being there that's hard. When I'm there, especially for moments, uh, events, yearly events, the pass it like time starts to feel very oppressive. The passage of time.

• 1:52:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:25Speaker 01

  You know, we're, we go to the same places and, you know, I'm going to this like mall that I went to when I was in high school. And to see it be so much the same and also so different. It's just, it feels, it feels sad. It feels melancholic.

• 1:52:42Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:52:43Speaker 01

  And, and then seeing my parents' age.

• 1:52:46Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Is so hard.

• 1:52:48Dax Shepard?

  The lack of permanence to everything.

• 1:52:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:52:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  And I can kind of, Buddhism, I know. And I, when I'm not there, I can detach from it when I'm here.

• 1:52:59Dax Shepard?

  And you can keep it time locked in your mind and memory.

• 1:53:03Speaker 01

  Uh, yes. And I, I think I can just compartmentalize and like they're there and that's happening, but I'm not seeing. Day to day, like the little things that are changing. So it's ki- it's kinda hard to be there, even though I'm glad I make that decision. That's a little hard. And then I also know being here would be hard because all of my friends have kids.

• 1:53:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:26Speaker 01

  And that is painful in its own way.

• 1:53:30Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  And like, it just feels sort of like this day is hard.

• 1:53:35Dax Shepard?

  Is it painful because you feel like you're missing out on the mothering experience? Or is it painful because you feel excluded from your friends in a way?

• 1:53:42Speaker 01

  I.

• 1:53:44Dax Shepard?

  Which pain is it?

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  I think it's both. I think it's.

• 1:53:49Speaker 01

  It's so tricky because it's not like on a day to day, I think of the pain of not having children.

• 1:53:56Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  But on that day.

• 1:53:59Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:53:59Speaker 01

  I am aware, I'm just very aware that I don't.

• 1:54:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:03Speaker 01

  And that it's not, it wasn't really a choice. It's just the way my life went, right?

• 1:54:11Dax Shepard?

  Unfolded.

• 1:54:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it unfolded in this way. I made decisions that took me in certain places. I, you know, I'm not married to my high school sweetheart. I didn't have one, you know, and yeah, I'm just like aware, like, oh, my life hasn't gone, didn't go that way.

• 1:54:29Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  And yes, I can still make decisions that might lead to that. But it's different. It's like really different now. The, me having a kid now is a real choice. It is not like, oh, I fell in love with this person and then maybe we'll have kids. That's the next step. It's, I have to make.

• 1:54:49Dax Shepard?

  Oops, I'm pregnant. What do we do? Fuck it, let's do it.

• 1:54:52Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's real, real hard decision making.

• 1:54:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:56Speaker 01

  It kinda, I don't, yeah. And that's, that's an annoying thing to have to think about.

• 1:55:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:02Speaker 01

  Um, so yeah, I guess I'm just sharing it was a hard take.

• 1:55:06Dax Shepard?

  Closer or further?

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  I don't know. Like it, it, it, it makes me feel, feel like, oh, I wish I had that.

• 1:55:16Speaker 01

  But does it make me feel like I'm gonna take those steps to do it?

• 1:55:20Dax Shepard?

  If I were you, I would just wanna be crystal clear if it is a desire to have the experience versus the A student in you.

• 1:55:30Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:55:31Dax Shepard?

  That's hard to know which is driving it, but I think one is worth chasing and one is worth overcoming.

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I don't know. Again, that's a question that I I have to ask that I'm kind of resentful that I have to ask, resentful towards my, towards life, I guess, because I know that if I was married and in a partnership, I would, I would have kids.

• 1:56:00Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:56:00Speaker 01

  I would want that.

• 1:56:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:02Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:56:03Dax Shepard?

  What does a guy in your situation do? Like, what is this 37 year old guy who can't go get a donor?

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  Well, they could.

• 1:56:10Dax Shepard?

  I mean, yeah, they could. And then they gotta get a surrogate. And it's definitely more complicated. You're like, you're a stop at a sperm bank away from having a kid.

• 1:56:20Speaker 01

  Well, maybe.

• 1:56:22Dax Shepard?

  Well, maybe because of fertility, but you know, like a dude who's not loaded and can't pay for a surrogate and egg and all that stuff. I wonder what, how they wrestle with it, you know?

• 1:56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, I mean, I assume it's the same feeling and the same thing. Like, I guess I have to figure out if I'm gonna like, just be with a person I don't wanna be with, or, or take those steps. In some ways, I mean, it's, it's all hard, but I think for a man, if they have the means, I mean, a lot of women don't have the means to do any of this either.

• 1:57:02Dax Shepard?

  How much is a sperm donor? That's not terribly expensive.

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  But to your egg, like, you know, do retrievals and it's expensive.

• 1:57:09Dax Shepard?

  But let's just say you.

• 1:57:11Speaker 01

  You have to remove the eggs in order to make the embryo.

• 1:57:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh, they can't put a baster in you and do it?

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  Oh, they can try. Yeah, some people, that works for some people. It's pretty hard for it to take, but it works for some people. But then if that doesn't work, you spent money doing that. And then you have to, you know, it's a lot.

• 1:57:28Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:57:29Speaker 01

  But for a man, they can make the embryo, you know, they'll take the egg, the sperm, they'll make the embryo, and then they'll implant it into a surrogate.

• 1:57:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I imagine that's a pricey endeavor.

• 1:57:41Speaker 01

  I'm sure fertility is so expensive. Another thing that's like, that's a cost that it wouldn't be a cost. I mean, having kids is an insane cost in general, but.

• 1:57:51Dax Shepard?

  To mental health.

• 1:57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, diapers, diapers, ding ding ding, that came up in Nick Kroll's.

• 1:57:56Dax Shepard?

  Diaps.

• 1:57:57Speaker 01

  Your diaps and they went bankrupt.

• 1:57:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, my diaps went bankrupt.

• 1:58:01Speaker 01

  Bad for business. Anyway, I just thought I would share it because I'm sure it's complicated for a lot of people.

• 1:58:08Dax Shepard?

  Surely, Mother's Day.

• 1:58:10Speaker 01

  For so many reasons.

• 1:58:12Dax Shepard?

  Carrie sent me this incredible post that a girl at our high school had put on Facebook. And she was a grade younger than us, I believe. I didn't, like, of course, I didn't recognize her right away, but it was this really heartfelt, beautiful post about the complicated nature of Mother's Day and how she basically had to say goodbye to her mom at 16 because the mom moved to Arizona and the mom was not healthy mom. And so this girl was living, going to my school.

• 1:58:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:42Dax Shepard?

  Living on her own.

• 1:58:43Speaker 01

  Oh, my.

• 1:58:44Dax Shepard?

  Paying for an apartment. She sent it to me because she goes, side note, that's fun. I was once in detention and Dax Shepard said to me, what'd they put you in for?

• 1:58:54Speaker 01

  Oh, that's funny.

• 1:58:55Dax Shepard?

  And then went on to say, don't worry about all this. Your life's really going to start in two minutes. And I know mine's not ending here in this detention.

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:59:04Dax Shepard?

  Whether I said that or not, who knows, maybe in her mind, I said that. But I'm delighted that on that detention, we had, you know, like a fun.

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, an interaction.

• 1:59:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but it was just a really sweet post and a reminder of like, man, some kids, like the experience can be so rattled. Carrie sent it to me going, I'm such a fucking asshole for bitching about my two loving parents who, you know, whatever.

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:29Dax Shepard?

  But yeah, there's kids in your high school that are like, they're supporting themselves and living in an apartment.

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:34Dax Shepard?

  And they don't have any parents.

• 1:59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:39Speaker 01

  Anyway, well, that's it.

• 1:59:41Dax Shepard?

  All right, love you.

• 1:59:42Speaker 01

  Love you.