Anthony Hopkins

Sir Anthony Hopkins (We Did Ok, Kid, The Silence of the Lambs, The Father) is an Academy, Emmy, and BAFTA Award-winning actor. Anthony joins the Armchair Expert to discuss feeling othered and playing the role of the dummy in school, how growing up during a war shaped him, and a chance invitation at the YMCA that changed the trajectory of his life. Anthony and Dax talk about booking his first role the same day James Dean was killed, the advice Laurence Olivier offered after seeing him perform onstage, and doing screen tests with Katherine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole. Anthony explains the mythology behind his first table read for The Silence of the Lambs, his journey to sobriety, and why “We Did Ok, Kid” is a sentiment applicable to everything that’s happened in his life. 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 Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Mrs. Padman.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 0:06Dax Shepard?

  Today, we have a nighttime. I run guard, draw your sword, matey.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Sir.

• 0:13Dax Shepard?

  A sir, Anthony Hopkins.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, legend.

• 0:17Dax Shepard?

  Anthony Hopkins, Academy Award winning actor, The Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal, the father, Meet Joe Black, Fracture, and he has a new memoir out. Trickiest word in the biz.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  You did a great job.

• 0:30Dax Shepard?

  Thank you. Ding ding ding. His book is called, We Did Okay, Kid.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 0:35Dax Shepard?

  And I mean, again, what a surreal joy to sit down with Sir Anthony Hopkins and mostly his memory. And we've met a lot of good memories. This one is like.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Off the charts.

• 0:47Dax Shepard?

  Needs to be studied, perhaps.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Yes. Dates, people, you can see him visualizing, like he will give details that you're like, what?

• 0:57Dax Shepard?

  And as you pointed out, like he remembered the names of two little girls he was auditioning against to get into an acting school as a kid that he certainly never saw again.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  No, I know. Really amazing.

• 1:08Dax Shepard?

  Please enjoy Tony Hopkins. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple Pay. You know, holiday shopping can be a hassle, but Apple Pay makes it so much easier. Whether you're shopping online or in store, look for the Apple Pay button or contactless symbol at checkout. No more digging for your wallet or filling out long online checkout forms. It works at millions of places, including stores, websites and apps. This means you can spend less time at checkout and more time finding the perfect gifts. Pay the Apple way. Terms apply. We get support from Quince.

• 1:44Speaker 01

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• 1:53Dax Shepard?

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• 2:16Speaker 01

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• 2:34Dax Shepard?

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

• 2:43Speaker 01

  It's a uniform.

• 2:44Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:44Speaker 01

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• 3:02Dax Shepard?

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• 3:38Speaker 01

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• 3:51Dax Shepard?

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• 4:05Speaker 01

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

• 4:09Dax Shepard?

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

• 4:20Speaker 01

  So the thing, when you do it first thing in the morning, you already feel kind of self-esteem because you're like, I already did something good for myself.

• 4:26Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Go to drinkag1.com/dax and for a limited time, get a free immunity bundle, including a bottle of omega-3 fish oil and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/dax. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that Armchair Experts sent you.

• 5:08Dax Shepard?

  How are you, sir? Great to meet you, Dax.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  No, you stay, you stay. Please stay.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Singing books, what's that? Let them?

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Oh, we just had her on.

• 5:20Dax Shepard?

  I could sum up for you what let them is in our vernacular. It's acceptance.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 5:26Dax Shepard?

  It has a lot of parallels.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, don't fight.

• 5:29Dax Shepard?

  Don't fight.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  There's a wonderful quote by someone, Greek philosopher, and he talks about, whatever we can do to avoid making people uncomfortable and all the little problems in daily life, accept them.

• 5:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  He said, because when you look in the mirror, behind you is death.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:47Dax Shepard?

  Well, you know what else? Her thing is let them. So yeah, they're doing something that you don't approve of, that is uncomfortable for you, people, places and things. I'm powerless over people, places and things. And then let me, it's let them, then let me. And the let me part is the four step. It's, well, what am I doing in this scenario?

• 6:05Speaker 02

  You in the program?

• 6:06Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Oh, he's a big proponent.

• 6:08Dax Shepard?

  That's why I'm so excited to meet you. I have a lot of friends who have heard you speak over the years and I've never gotten that opportunity. So I've always felt left out of that and I'm very happy to meet you.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Coming up on 50 years.

• 6:19Dax Shepard?

  Christmas, right after Christmas?

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, December 29th.

• 6:22Dax Shepard?

  Incredible. 50 years.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  50 years, changed my life. I knew I was in big trouble. I checked in at an intergroup in Westwood.

• 6:33Dax Shepard?

  In Westwood?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Westwood Boulevard, it was a little office up the stairs. And I thought, maybe I'm making too much of a deal of this, but I knew I was in big trouble. And I was about to turn back and the voice in my head said, just get the, do something. The voice said, it's all over. Now you can start living in this orbit for a purpose.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Still forget.

• 6:53Dax Shepard?

  I love it.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Powerful.

• 6:54Dax Shepard?

  Can we start with what prompted you to write the memoir?

• 6:58Speaker 02

  My wife Stella encouraged me to do it. And many people, some people over the years, have said, why don't you write a book? So I have one of those weird memories, it remembers a lot of details. I said, oh, I don't want to write a book. Who wants to read about an actor? And I started writing bits and pieces of notes and threw them away. I just thought, oh, this is unnecessary. And so I said, just do it, that's okay. And it suddenly occurred to me a few years ago that my life has been beyond my explanation. I think it was actually Edgar Allan Poe who said that if we think about it, our lives have been written by some other author. Because when I look at my life, I think, how?

• 7:41Dax Shepard?

  You couldn't have written it.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 7:43Dax Shepard?

  Right?

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:44Dax Shepard?

  The reason I ask why you write it is I think the book will be a bit of a shock for people, as it was for me.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Did you enjoy the book?

• 7:51Dax Shepard?

  Yes, immensely. And so opposite of the fantasy I would have filled in for you of your backstory and your charmed life. And I think anytime someone with a voice people listen to acknowledge how challenging it's been, I think is very helpful. As you and I would know very well, I don't learn from people's successes. I kind of learn from people's failures and I learn from mine. And it's very helpful when I find out people I admire had a rough start or they had challenges along the way. I find that very, I find that more inspiring than you holding a fucking trophy on a stage. I can't really relate to that, but feeling other your whole life? Oh, I relate to that so deeply.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:37Dax Shepard?

  And I think that would surprise people. I think people would look at you and go, well, this guy's headed as good as one can have it. And he must always feel loved and must always feel celebrated and connected. But that wasn't the story, was it?

• 8:50Speaker 02

  I feel mostly disconnected most of my life. But in a way, it was all good because there's a part in the book where. I'd had enough of the game I was playing, the role of being stupid, being a dummy at school and all that. God bless my mother and father. They worked really hard to do something for me. And I felt sorry when my school report arrived. I was seventeen. My school report arrived on Easter nineteen fifty-five and the dreaded moment they opened the school report. Beautiful summery evening, spring, late afternoon. We were going off to the cinema and my father read the bulletin. It said, "Hanson is way below the standard of this school." My father meant well. He didn't mean any harm, but he said, "I know what's gonna happen to you. It's hopeless. I mean, what's the matter with you? Do you

• 9:35Speaker 02

  care?" I remember it was so clear. It was like I took a step back and said, "One day I'll show you. I'll show both of you." My father said, "God," he said, "well, I hope you do. My must I'm sure you will." Now, that moment, I think, triggered something deep inside me, which was a power of whatever you could subconsciously. I said, "Okay, well, fasten your seatbelts." What I was gonna show them, I had no idea. But within three months, I got a scholarship as an actor. Never acted before in my life. Except that very evening, we were walking up to see the film and we passed the YMCA and they'd had the Easter play. Something had shifted just slightly. Everything looked brighter.

• 10:16Dax Shepard?

  I want to put a fine point on it. You were called a dunce. You were made fun of endlessly. Your dad was disappointed quite often. You had been in many different schools. All the schools thought you were terrible. They thought you were dumb. And by the way, I can relate. And I had a big chip on my shoulder about it. But you were a real outsider.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 10:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. You didn't like sports.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Couldn't stand it. I mean, playing rugby, chasing a ball around the field, or cricket. I mean, what are you doing here?

• 10:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  One thing I've learned out of this, I was never a victim. In fact, all my debits inside me were the greatest power I could have had because it made me angry and all that. I went through years of that. But I look back now, I think now I've no room for all that anger.

• 11:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but you were a bit of a dichotomy, right? Because you were doing pretty terrible in school, underwhelming, yet your father had gotten you this encyclopedia set.

• 11:18Dax Shepard?

  And you had read this thing from beginning to end. So that you had these moments where people would ask you about something and then you could just pontificate, right? You had that kind of memory where you could recall and kind of blow their mind. But for whatever reason, you felt more comfortable playing dumb.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Well, I remember the afternoon I'd been to the dentist. I was seven, just off the wall. And there was a bit of a painful operation, had a needle and all that. I resented being in that dentist's chair. Got back, there was a box outside the house. My father came, I was a baker, and he came home, took the box upstairs, unpacked it. And there were 10 volumes of this encyclopedia. And I was so fascinated, they're full of pictures and all that. It was made children's encyclopedia, simplified versions of biographies like Beethoven and all kinds of subjects, geography, history, potted history for kids to pick up. But I learned from that and I learned, I learned odd facts, like I knew how tall the Empire State was, building was.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  No use this information.

• 12:20Dax Shepard?

  Do you remember? It's hard to know, right? You're reflecting back and you know what you know today, but then you try to imagine what you knew then. Do you think it was a conscious decision as like some kind of protection? I'm just gonna play dumb and they're gonna leave me alone and I can isolate and be by myself, which was what I want?

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:42Dax Shepard?

  Was it conscious?

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 12:43Dax Shepard?

  It was.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  It was protective because I had a very bright cousin, Bobby. He's dead now, but Bob was one of the brilliant kids in school, brilliant. And I was in school with kids who were way ahead of me. I just felt like a dodo. And I was told I was a dodo, I was told I was hopeless, you know?

• 13:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they said pretty cruel things to you. I mean, I recognize this is in 1936 and seven and eight, but still, by today's standards, I'm reading some of the things that were told to you and it's pretty hurtful.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, but life is tough.

• 13:16Dax Shepard?

  Tougher then, yeah?

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Oh, it's tough for everyone. I mean, you're just coming down the street, there are homeless people and you see kids struggling, you know, kids are bullies, kids are vicious. And that's a form of defense because life is rough for everyone.

• 13:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  I've gone past that stage of being. Resentful or angry about it, but I look around and life was tough and is tough today, this very moment.

• 13:38Dax Shepard?

  What do you think growing up, you were in Wales for seven years of World War II before it ended. How did that affect you and the people around you?

• 13:46Speaker 02

  I was fascinated by it. Because I remember the bombings and, you know, we would go down into the garden shelter.

• 13:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  And I think the local dock was bombed because there's a harbor town. Swansea was just on the road, that was bombed flat. And I remember the strange excitement.

• 14:02Dax Shepard?

  It was exciting.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  The sirens would go off and you'd hear them over him. And my father said, oh, it's Liverpool tonight. And they bombed Liverpool. And you look at all the hardship of warfare, terrible losses, appalling losses of life. And then towards the end of the war, 1944, we had two American soldiers who came to visit us and they were stationed there, Captain Dern and Lieutenant Cooney. And I remember they brought us cookies and chewing gum and all that. And the Americans, they were all over South Wales, waiting for the big day. They didn't know what it was, but it was D-Day.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Then they came to the house to say goodbye. We got in the Jeep, we stood on the corner of the gate and we waved. And at the top of the street, they turned and boom, they were both killed in the Arden Forest.

• 14:46Speaker 03

  You saw it?

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was the Battle of the Bulge, the General von Roentgen did.

• 14:50Dax Shepard?

  My grandfather was in the Battle of the Bulge?

• 14:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, thousands of Americans killed, appalling losses, and it was a surprise attack.

• 14:57Dax Shepard?

  Well, without being melodramatic, I'm sure you're resistant to that, but I would have been excited as a little boy. Bombs are exciting, airplanes are exciting. But do you think, growing up where literally the world was at war, shaped your worldview in that, oh, this is a dangerous place and who knows what's going to happen? Do you think you had a little insecurity of just about the world you were in?

• 15:23Speaker 02

  I think it came to a point where, as I become an adult, I remember the Cuba crisis. Everyone sort of remembers that was the deadly time. He thought, well, this could be it. Khrushchev and Kennedy facing each other. And I remember I was at the Royal Academy and I had a perspective, I thought, well, it's happened before. And I visited Wales about a week later, I think. I started closer and he said, yeah, he said, but in 1939, he said, we declared war, biggest military machine in Europe. And he said, in a thousand year.

• 15:50Dax Shepard?

  The odds were much worse then.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  And he said, within six years, the guy had blown his brains out in the bunker in Berlin. So much for history. Go through crises and crises. But finally, we come through it or we don't. But there's nothing we can do. But what is extraordinary, how the human animal is so vile. Why? I mean, to build bombs, to bomb each other? Why do we do it? Who knows?

• 16:14Dax Shepard?

  It's crazy. We can't stop.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  I have a strange theory, that's probably a useless theory, but maybe some hundred thousand years ago, the Homo sapiens suddenly may have realized that we're pretty savage. Therefore, we must destroy ourselves.

• 16:28Dax Shepard?

  For the good of the planet.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  But maybe at some deep level.

• 16:32Dax Shepard?

  You played Hitler in Bunker, and it was a confusing performance for people. Some of the reviews I read where people were like, he's so good that unfortunately, you do see the logic a bit in him.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:45Dax Shepard?

  And two questions about that. One is, well, first of all, have you read the book Blitzed by chance?

• 16:51Speaker 02

  No.

• 16:51Dax Shepard?

  Okay, it's great. I read it four years ago, and it details Hitler's drug use, which is incredibly well documented, because his doctor that was with him at all times.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Tom Moreau.

• 17:04Dax Shepard?

  God, he was writing down meticulous notes of everything he gave him. And towards the last few years, he was on speedballs all day long. He was on methamphetamine and oxycodone, direct intervenes. You map his addiction, the walls of the bunker get thicker. It's addiction.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  One of the American producers then, Tony said, great, we saw the data, so fantastic. Could you make him less likeable? Yeah. Can you make him less human? I said, he was human.

• 17:36Dax Shepard?

  Which is hard.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  I said, he was human. So go figure.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  And that's actually scarier. It's scarier that they're human and they're not just evil.

• 17:45Dax Shepard?

  Cartoon architects.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  It's buried in deep in all of us.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And that scares us because what are we capable of?

• 17:52Speaker 02

  For goodness knows what reason.

• 17:54Dax Shepard?

  So you had a very challenging start, but then you also had these little glimpses of pretty good fortune, right? And you mentioned one of them, which is you're at the YMCA, you wander to this room, you find out they're putting on this play, the Christmas Angels.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Easter.

• 18:08Dax Shepard?

  Easter. The director says, just basically, would you like to do a line in this?

• 18:12Speaker 02

  My father said to a neighbor, a friend of his, God take him to YMCA, get him out of these, always on his own. Get some friends, I've got to say, playing the piano all day.

• 18:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  And I went to the YMCA, I remember it all clearly. And I went into this room and there were kids playing table tennis. And I thought, God, I don't want to be part of any of this. And so I wandered down the stairs and up this hall and heard some voices through double doors. There's a stage. And I crept in and this man turned to me, he said, what do you want? Watch, can I watch? He said, yes, be quiet. He was very authoritative. He said, what's your name? I said, Anthony Hopkins. You're Dick Hopkins, this boy, the baker? I said, yeah. Oh, I said, would you like to have a part in this? And they gave me a part of a saint. But I had one line, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  It's a good line.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  I thought, well, I like the feeling of being on stage, but I didn't take it seriously. But being hopeless at school, I thought, well, maybe there's a chance, because my parents.

• 19:13Dax Shepard?

  They came every show, though. This is what's very sweet about them.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Three nights. And my father's, well, you never know, maybe Hollywood next. I think I was 17, he was making a joke.

• 19:23Dax Shepard?

  But you did good. That was maybe the first, I mean, you were good at playing piano and stuff, but that was the first time maybe you had some real acceptance of having put yourself out there and it went as good as it could go. It was very encouraging.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Looking back, I have a laugh about it all.

• 19:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And then the other crazy thing that happens to you is you know, a girl who's dating Richard Burton.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Oh, Bernice Evans, yes.

• 19:45Dax Shepard?

  This is so random, right? I mean, not random in that he's also Welsh, but how do you meet Richard Burton?

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Bernice was about eighteen, much older than me, but she'd been to the Slade Art School. And she lived up the bottom end of the house, just over the garden wall, with her parents. And my mother took a liking to her. She's a nice young girl. I was on the floor sketching. I said, I can give him some lessons. And she did a sketch of me, which is in the book. And so one night she's like, I can only give you half an hour. And I'd been painting a pirate on poster paint. She said, my boyfriend's taking me to the cinema to see Old Man Out with James Mason. And I sat there and I heard the doorbell ring and she come up. And he came up the stairs and he came to the room. She said, this is Richard, he's an actor. He's Richard Burton.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  He looked, he said, oh, I like the boots on the boat. And little did I know that many years later, I'd meet him here in the same dressing room in New York that I'd occupied in Equus. And he'd taken over from, Anthony Perkins took over from me when I left in nineteen seventy four, seventy five. And then Burton took over from Tony Perkins. So I was in New York, early seventy six, doing publicity for a film. So I asked the stage director, I said, can I come and see him? He said, yeah. So I went up the stairs and in the same dressing room was Richard Burton. And we shook hands and he said, well, he said, why don't we work together? He said, we must do it one day. And thank you very much. And walked down the stairs.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Coming in to see his performance that night through the stage door, because the crowds outside, was Elizabeth Taylor.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  He was looking a bit wobbly.

• 21:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. She did that well.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  She was a wonderful actress.

• 21:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. I just recently watched for the first time Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I cannot believe how funny she is in it.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Both of them.

• 21:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, they're incredible. And then I read the book about the director and how he managed those two at that time.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Mike Nichols.

• 21:38Dax Shepard?

  Yes, Mike Nichols.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  I asked him, he said, I didn't direct it at all. He said, they were George and Martha. I think it was Mike's first job.

• 21:46Dax Shepard?

  First film, right?

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Yes, he did the graduate after that. And he said, they were magnificent.

• 21:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Because they were George and Martha.

• 21:54Dax Shepard?

  It's incredible.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  My favorite line is at the end, when they all get up and leave and they've had their fight. And this one moment digs deep into me when Sandy Dennison, George Segal have gone. And she's devastated. It's Sunday tomorrow, all day.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  The depression.

• 22:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  The horrifying emptiness of their lives. Who's afraid of Virginia?

• 22:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So based though on this, this little experience you had at the YMCA, it kind of opens up potentially a new path. And you said also, meeting Richard when he left, you were like, okay, I want to be him.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:30Dax Shepard?

  How about the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama? How do you then get into there?

• 22:35Speaker 02

  They cut out an advert in the local Welsh paper, the scholarship auditions for Cardiff College of Music and Drama. My mother sent out an application for me.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  So I'd been at the YMCA playing now, blessed with the Meagre Foundation and had it there. So I learned a bit of Shakespeare, the Othello speech. And I went up to Cardiff and into the audition, Edgerton Castle. That's where the college was. And I went to, I met this man called Raymond Edgerton. He said, what you gonna do? I said, Shakespeare, Othello. All right, go ahead. And I did that scene and I was humming it up, you know, he said, very good. Well, he says, I'll let you know, you got your address. So two weeks later, got an information in the mail that I was on the shortlist of three people.

• 23:21Dax Shepard?

  Two girls and a boy, yeah?

• 23:22Speaker 02

  And I went up to Cardiff with my father to City Hall to final interview. And I went in this big grand room with a table with some head gazers, Dr. Hines, who's the principal, Raymond Edgerton, who's the head of the drama. And they asked me some questions. And one question they asked me, which I thought, that's it. He said, you didn't have a very good school reports? No. Oh, well, all right. I thought, well, that's curtains. But outside, there's these two young girls out there, Anne Holmes and Andrew Sheffield. And Raymond came, I said, well, the scholarship goes to the mail. I thought, it's in the post, in the mail.

• 23:58Dax Shepard?

  Here's his weird, he's locked into this being, he's a dunce.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can't see outside of it.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  I said, in the mail, my father's know the mail, you're the mail.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  They said, yes, in the mail, you've got the scholarship. Oh, I have. That's right. Yes.

• 24:15Dax Shepard?

  Yes, son, you are going to this school now. And you were in the paper for it. So it was a real turnaround.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was Saturday night in Weston Mill. My parents had been to the pub. They came back and my father said, look at this, you're famous. And in the Western Mail, it said, Anthony Hopkins, son of Baker, received this Prince Little's scholarship. My mother says, that wonderful, she looked at this, here's sad, isn't it? James Dean was killed.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 24:39Dax Shepard?

  Same day.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  On the Friday night, 70 years ago.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 24:42Dax Shepard?

  What kind of joy did you allow yourself to experience in that? Did it feel good to have your dad get to read about you in the paper after how pessimistic he was?

• 24:52Speaker 02

  There was some hope for me.

• 24:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  But then I went to the army. And after two years, what you call the draft over here.

• 24:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Called National Service. Did two years and then came out in 1960.

• 25:02Dax Shepard?

  You were Gunner Hopkins, the Royal Artillery. What was that experience like? Did it feel like school again? Or did you feel more capable there?

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Well, I became a clerk, God knows how.

• 25:11Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  I was useless to that too.

• 25:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 25:16Dax Shepard?

  I mean, you really hardly made it.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't know, I just fell on my feet. I was like a cat with nine lives.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  And yes, I survived. I think because I isolated in a way, because they don't let them get you.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  It's called nil kar burundum, don't let the bastards get you down.

• 25:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  And that's how I played my whole life.

• 25:34Dax Shepard?

  Did you feel lonely or did it not bother you to be so isolated?

• 25:37Speaker 02

  No, I didn't feel lonely, I just felt uniquely myself. I didn't need anyone, I never wanted to be part of anything.

• 25:44Dax Shepard?

  No, I'm gonna fast forward 55 years. In 2014, you were diagnosed with Asperger's?

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Hello, my wife is convinced I have Asperger's. I don't know what I believe, because too many labels are ADDH, I don't know what they're talking about.

• 25:59Dax Shepard?

  I was only wondering.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Just being human, you know?

• 26:01Dax Shepard?

  Yes, you heard that though and went back and went like, oh, that's why I didn't mind being alone.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  I don't even know what it is. I just feel like everyone else, confused, as we all are. We're all sitting here thinking we've got answers, got labels for everything. Dyslexia or whatever, I don't know.

• 26:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Just human.

• 26:15Dax Shepard?

  But I'm comforted by the fact that you weren't feeling lonely and isolated. You were fine.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. I never felt like a victim. And I've got that attitude today. Get on with it. Stop complaining.

• 26:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it.

• 26:29Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. This message is brought to you by Apple Pay. Bonnie, I can't believe it's almost the holidays. You know what that means, right?

• 26:41Speaker 01

  I sure do. My annual holiday gift guide.

• 26:44Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I love when you break out your gift suggestions.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  You're a good steward of my, my holiday gift guide.

• 26:50Dax Shepard?

  I'm entirely reliant on it.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Well, I like doing it. I like picking out the perfect present. Like one of my more recent ones, this, I'll give it to you now ahead of time.

• 27:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  For your coffee lovers, okay? There's an amazing small batch roaster downtown.

• 27:06Dax Shepard?

  The ones with those Ethiopian beans I'm obsessed with?

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yes, and they take Apple Pay right at the counter, which is so easy. So you just double click the side button on my iPhone, authenticate with face ID, tap and pay. That easy.

• 27:18Dax Shepard?

  Uh, what about for people who don't live locally?

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Well, that's where the real fun starts. I found this artist who makes these custom star maps. It shows the night sky from any special date. So you could do an anniversary or a birthday.

• 27:31Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, that sounds cool. But doesn't all this online shopping get tedious with the different websites?

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Not at all. When I check out online, I click the Apple Pay button, authenticate on my Apple device and done. It's so easy. No lengthy checkout forms required.

• 27:46Dax Shepard?

  Keep the suggestions coming. What else you got?

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Okay, book lovers, ding ding ding. I personally love supporting local bookstores. They're also just so fun and you can go to their website. And then for crafty friends, there are these amazing do it yourself kits.

• 28:02Dax Shepard?

  Okay, you really do have a gift for, well, gifts.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Thank you. Whether I'm shopping in person or online, Apple Pay works at a million places. It makes it so much easier to focus on finding those perfect thoughtful presents.

• 28:15Dax Shepard?

  Instead of wasting time typing in card numbers, which I cannot stand.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Exactly, same. More time for holiday magic, less time for payment hassle.

• 28:23Dax Shepard?

  Pay the Apple way. Terms apply. We get support from Scottsdale, Arizona. Monica, with summer ending or heading into fall, I've been researching a nice, quick getaway location, and I keep coming back to Scottsdale, Arizona.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Ooh, Scottsdale's good. What's drawing you to it?

• 28:39Dax Shepard?

  Well, first of all, I have this wonderful memory of going there as a kid, when I would go see my stepdad when he was working out there. The weather is perfect in fall. Warm, sunny, no humidity. And you can really do whatever you want with your time there. I want to do a sunrise hike through the Sonoran Desert, be surrounded by Sowaro, and then at the same afternoon, just completely melt into a spa treatment at one of their luxury resorts.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Oh, that sounds amazing. I want to do that. Also, I was there visiting my brother once, and I loved Old Town Scottsdale. It's so walkable. They have galleries and cute little restaurants and shops. The food scene alone is worth the trip.

• 29:18Dax Shepard?

  What I keep reading is that it's luxurious, but not stuffy. There's no pressure to do it a certain way. You can explore public art, check out the architecture, go off-roading in the desert, or just sit and watch a sunset.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  It really is the perfect fall reset.

• 29:32Dax Shepard?

  Learn more about all Scottsdale has to offer at unwindinscottsdale.com. We get support from Skims. So Monica just informed me that she's a girl's girl, and I nodded like I knew exactly what that meant.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the girls who get it, they get it.

• 29:49Dax Shepard?

  Okay, but for those of us who are clearly not girls, walk me through it.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Well, you know how much I love my Skims fleece joggers? Because the plush fleece is so soft, it's cozy. It's really comfortable without feeling too heavy. Well, I went to friend them, and she would not stop talking about how comfy they were. She almost didn't give them back to me, which was upsetting, but I'm a girl's girl, so I let her have it.

• 30:10Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great, great, great.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  So the sleep sets are awesome because they are very soft and comfortable, but they're cute. If I'm in my sleep set, I feel fine about going down the street to pick up my food. I'm still looking cute, but I'm comfy and I'm cozy.

• 30:25Dax Shepard?

  Roger.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  A really fun thing to do is if you're going on vacation with your girlfriends, to get matching Skims pajamas. I've done this with Callie, and it is so fun. First of all, the pics are so cute, but also it's just fun and friendship.

• 30:38Dax Shepard?

  So a girl's girl is looking out for your friends with better loungewear. I get it. Am I one of your girls now?

• 30:44Speaker 01

  You are. You and the other girlies can 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 our show in the dropdown menu that follows.

• 30:58Dax Shepard?

  This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to talk to folks I admire like crazy and ask them virtually any question that I want to. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. But even dream jobs have some not so dreamy parts. The stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. Now that's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it, start to finish. Cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. So you and your team can focus on what matters most, which for me is, are they obsessed with male bodies on the same level as I am?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  They never are.

• 31:41Dax Shepard?

  To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. We get support from our sponsor, Lilly. For adults with obesity or with excess weight and weight-related medical problems, it's time to find out about Foundo or for Gleepran. Foundo is a once-daily prescription GLP-1 medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

• 32:12Speaker 04

  Foundo should not be used with other GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Foundo is safe and effective for use in children. Don't take Foundo if you're allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had majorary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Stop and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, or severe stomach pain. Serious side effects may include inflamed pancreas and gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes, if you're nursing, pregnant, plant to be, or taking birth control pills, and before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. Taking Foundo with an insulin or sulfonylurea may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and may cause kidney problems. Once daily Foundo is available by prescription only

• 32:54Speaker 04

  in 0.8mg, 2.5mg, 5.5mg, 9mg, 14.5mg, and 17.2mg tablets. Learn more at foundo.lilly.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX. Now is perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundo.

• 33:16Dax Shepard?

  So in 1963, you go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Now, this is serious. This is big leagues. If you're gonna go to school and you're on that side of the world, that's the spot. Yeah?

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did an audition and I walked on stage and my gravelly voice said, what were you going to do? And I said, Iago from Othello. So I did the scene and I had an uncanny understanding of what Iago was. And I finished the scene and the last line was, I shall make a net that shall enmesh them all. So I said, thank you. And I was about to walk off stage. This woman's voice, hold on, where are you going? I said, I've finished now. Yeah, well, give me talk a moment.

• 33:54Dax Shepard?

  I'd rather not.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  And then now to this gravelly voice gives, hello, my name's John Fernand, I'm from... Very good, very, very good, yes. Never seen it played that way, but it's wonderful. I said, oh, thank you. And two weeks later, I got message I was in, joined September 1961.

• 34:10Dax Shepard?

  When does Laurence Olivier first see you act? Is it while you're a student there?

• 34:15Speaker 02

  No, no, that was the National Theatre. That was a different story.

• 34:19Dax Shepard?

  After you graduated from that, okay.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  I got an invitation to go to the National Theatre to audition and Olivier was running the National Theatre. It was then at the Old Vic Theatre. This is 1965. I went in and there was a man, he looked like a bank president. It was Laurence Olivier. So I did the audition and he said, good. He said, well, well done. About a week later, I got a call to join the National Theatre in his production of Othello. I had to run on and say, the automates reverend and gracious, new course, steering towards the Isle of Rhodes. So I went on and spoke Iago's lines instead.

• 34:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, oops.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  And suddenly changed and I thought, that's it, I'm fired. And I knocked at this door to apologize and somebody said, so Laurence is very annoyed. He was taking his makeup off. I said, I'm sorry about that. Oh, you went on and spoke Iago. He said, I thought we were gonna start the whole bloody play all over again. He said, by the way, that speech, the messenger speech, let me do it. You must really hit it hard. I said, oh, yeah, like that? Yes. To counteract the sleeping ghost that was in me, that I was incompetent and I was going to be a victim. I thought, no one will ever touch me. If I learn the entire role before we even start, I'll learn it. And it paid because nobody could touch me. I mean, you could have some sadistic director.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  And if they did, I would warn them. I'd get up and walk out because I wouldn't put up with it, being bullied. I'm always a bit paranoid, a little nuts, and I would walk away. I said, where are you going? To hell with you. Anyway, so that's what happened. Then he gave me a part in his production of The Three Sisters by Chekhov.

• 35:58Dax Shepard?

  Well, you understudied him.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  I understudied him in Dance of Death.

• 36:00Dax Shepard?

  And he said, a new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and walked away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse between its teeth.

• 36:13Dax Shepard?

  That's pretty great.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  I was told that night that I was going on stage and thought, my God, couldn't believe it. But for goodness, probably fear. I just got through it and probably overacted. But anyway, the audience gave me a big ovation. And I got a call from him next morning. He'd snuck out of hospital, put a coat on. And he said, I saw you last night. You did? Yeah, he said, you are very good. Well done. He was very soft spoken. He said, do you have any problems, any fears? I said, no, but I went through two shirts of sweat. That's called tension. I said, how long does it take to get rid of that? About 20 years.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Do you agree now?

• 36:56Dax Shepard?

  He said another thing to you, maybe it's apocryphal, but he also said to you, nerves is vanity. You're worried about what the audience will think.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:04Dax Shepard?

  I think that's incredible advice to hear.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  You don't have time to be nervous. Get on and do it. And he said, you know, you may make a mistake. Who cares? It's not important. It is important, but it's not important. Get on and do it. And if it fails, it fails and so on. Who cares?

• 37:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that takes a while to learn, though, don't you think?

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Well, vanity, ego, you know, when you're young, you think everyone's talking about you, nobody cares.

• 37:25Dax Shepard?

  Right. No, they don't. When you look back, have there been some performances where you're like, I shit the bed on that one? That was not good.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I've done films and things like that.

• 37:34Dax Shepard?

  But you thought you personally didn't rise to that challenge?

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. It may sound weird, blasphemous, but.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  It's only acting.

• 37:44Dax Shepard?

  I think you have to get there for your survival, or you can't do it for a long time. Stupid example, but I got asked to come honor my rheumatologist, right? And in the audiences, I don't know, there's a few hundred people and they're much older than me. And I make a couple of jokes and they do not like them. They don't either get them or they just didn't like them. And I was riding home on my motorcycle. I was like, yeah, you didn't do well. You'll live and you'll go to somewhere else and you might be fine the next time. But I had to learn to just be able to let that go.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Finally, nobody gives a damn anyway.

• 38:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  But it's important to hear you say that as the best that's ever done it. Cause so many people do sit with, oh, I need to do better. I need to do better, or I'm not good enough. So to hear you say it, I think is helpful.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  I do at the same time, this is a dichotomy. I do try to be cautious about what I say because people have different values. And for some people, things are very important. I know some people find their job as acting important. I do fine. I don't want to bring on their parade.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  So what I say is the degree of caution, I'm dispassionate about it, but I don't want to offend anyone because there's a lot of pain in the world. But what I say is finally, maybe approaching 88, I have no idea how much longer I've got, but I just think I'll don't take it all so seriously.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 02

  And when I was working 60 years ago, almost with Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn, I was taken aback when they were knocking on my door, the theater. And there's Peter O'Toole, so I wanted to do an audition, a film test. So anyway, I ended up in Ireland doing interior scenes with Katherine Hepburn and O'Toole. I was thinking, I thought, am I dreaming?

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  She was great to work with. She knew everyone on the crew. She was that old style Hollywood actress. My God, I'm lucky. You're getting a suntan in the middle of January in the summer. Beats working for a living. And I see her, she's, yeah, I always remember this moment, beats working.

• 39:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the line in Winter?

• 39:41Speaker 02

  Hmm. She said the exact same thing that Olivia said. It's just very important and at the same time, it's not important at all.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:49Dax Shepard?

  You were nominated for a BAFTA for that.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:51Dax Shepard?

  Which is your first movie. Did it shock you or did you feel like, okay, this makes sense?

• 39:58Speaker 02

  It surprised me. There's much better actors than me around, much more accomplished. But for some reason. I think it was the burriness. So I was strong.

• 40:08Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  I was tough and arrogant and all that stuff, I guess. But I was sure of myself inside.

• 40:15Dax Shepard?

  Very big movie that came next was Young Winston. And it's the first of five times you and Richard Attenborough collaborated. I'm just curious, what do you think was your guys' unique connection that allowed you guys to keep coming back together?

• 40:28Speaker 02

  I think he saw something in me that was rebellious and I was slightly mad. I've always been that, you know, something that's not to be trusted in a way. Something that's unpredictable.

• 40:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  And maybe that's in our nature. Maybe it's in my nature. I have no idea. I'm not a psychotherapist or anything, but I think there's something unpredictable in my very nature, which comes from the past. Not that I'm crazy in any sense. I don't believe that. But maybe that's a sense. And I remember Attenborough saying something dangerous about you. I remember Jonathan Demme, when my agent phoned for me one afternoon, nineteen eighty nine, I was in a play in West End. He said, I'm sending a script of A Call to Silence of the Lambs. I said, was it a kid's story? He said, no, no.

• 41:08Dax Shepard?

  Anything but.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Played the part of a lecturer. He says, not a very big part, but he's with Jodie Foster. I said, oh, she just won an Oscar. And he said, yeah. But he really asked, yeah. So I started reading the script and I phoned him. I said, this is the best part. He said, it's a very small part. I said, I know how to play it. He phoned back. He said, Jonathan Demme is coming to see you tomorrow on Saturday from New York. It's an offer. I said, okay. So Jonathan arrived on the Saturday, came backstage and we went off around to a local restaurant. I was curious, why me? He said, don't you want to play the bass? I said, yes, but why did you choose me? He said, I saw you in The Elephant Man, playing Dr. Treves. I said, what's that got to do with the lecture? He said, well, there's something in you that I think you can do it. I said, well, okay. He said, you have any ideas? I said, I know exactly what I'm going to do. He said, like what?

• 41:55Speaker 02

  I said, like how the computer in two thousand and one. A few months later, I was in Pittsburgh. We'll be filming this film. Jonathan, it was very nice. I met Jodie and she was very nice. As I called him, Jodie never spoke to him. That's not true. We were quite friendly. There's nothing spooky about it. That's publicity crap, you know? But we did the first reading and I knew how to play it. It was the first reading around the table in New York of all places. So we finished the script and Kenny, when the producer says, oh, Moses, Tony, what is that? I said, I don't know. And Jodie said, you're scary. But the scene when she comes down the corridor to meet Lecter, he was very flexible, easy director.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  He said, how do you want Jodie to see you? He said, we'll have the camera. It'll be her point of view. Would you be sitting down or lying down or asleep or reading a book or something? He said, no, I'd like to stand, stand in the middle of the hall. I said, yeah, I can smell her coming down the corridor. He said, yo, here's.

• 42:53Dax Shepard?

  We got the right guy for this role.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  So they did. They did the scene and the camera, the crew were up there. As the camera came, I heard John saying, oh, Moses. I said, good morning. You're not real FBI, are you? All the way to the FBI.

• 43:10Dax Shepard?

  Is it the most fun you've ever had playing a character?

• 43:12Speaker 02

  Oh, it's wonderful. You know how she looked like to me with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a robe, a scrubbed, hustling robe with a little taste. She knows how to needle and all her vulnerability.

• 43:26Dax Shepard?

  But it's the right mix of charming, too.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  Terrifying devil. I met a couple of people like that who were vicious and cruel, subtle.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Horrible.

• 43:34Dax Shepard?

  Interesting as well.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  All the way to the FBI.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  When you're in character like that, when you come out of it, are you like, wow? I really went somewhere. You're not.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  You're learning lion's job, hit the mark. Hope the catering is good.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:51Dax Shepard?

  You're honest about being sober or no? You don't like talking about being sober?

• 43:54Speaker 02

  It can be pretty boring. I was drunk. I drank a lot.

• 43:58Dax Shepard?

  What was it like?

• 43:59Speaker 02

  It was fun, you know? Booze works very quickly and it changes your relationship to space around you. It relaxes everything and it's a false courage and drinking is a very common thing. It's dietitian, I suppose. But I remember being insecure and all that stuff. Go and have a couple of jars and a couple of drinks and things suddenly look relaxed and you think, oh, this is good. And it is, and you can have some fun. Whether you're a lone drinker or a public drinker, you go and have some fun. You know, all actors drink because you're rebels.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  But finally, I was just lucky to have enough brain cells left to say, you're gonna die.

• 44:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Because I was doing stupid things like driving my car and doing dumb things.

• 44:37Dax Shepard?

  And we do dumb stuff when we're drunk. It's part of the fun.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  And I get into fights with people and it's horrible. A change of personalities to kind of induce schizophrenia.

• 44:46Dax Shepard?

  But what I'm curious about is once you got sober and you started, I'm assuming has happened to me is I'm kind of learning why I am the way I am to some degree, right? If I'm working these steps and I do the four step and all of a sudden I go, oh, wow, this is illuminating. My whole life is being controlled by like three fears. That's interesting. I now know what I have to work on as a person if I want to be in harmony. Did that exploration start impacting your work in an interesting way?

• 45:17Speaker 02

  What I'm told by an old guy who'd been around for many years, his name was Jack Bailey and he's a comedian and well-known personality. He took an interest in me and he had a wonderful sense of humor. You're always smoking a cigarette. He says, how are you doing, kid? And I said, I'm all right. Yeah, fine. You happy? I said, yeah, is that okay? Yeah, you dummy. That's what he came here for, to be happy. And he said, how long you got now? A few months. Good for you. Don't take the first drink. That's all you have to remember. He said, another thing, don't listen to the gurus. And he said, you know, it's not a mathematical formula. Just live your life. Sure, you can do the steps, but live your life, enjoy it. Because there were some people who were rigid, you know, you got to do this.

• 45:58Speaker 02

  And he said, avoid them because they're nuts. He said, they may have to do it that way, but you don't have to fall into their trap.

• 46:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Because he knew one of the guys was trying to take control of me. He said, no, just walk away. Enjoy your life. He said, this is for.

• 46:11Dax Shepard?

  I mean, 50 years is so long. It's changed so much. Like my father went to treatment in 87 and it was still shameful. Now I have no shame saying I'm an addict. Most people I interview that are addicts have no problem saying it. It's really changed in the last 50 years, right?

• 46:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:30Dax Shepard?

  Was it hard participating while being famous?

• 46:34Speaker 02

  No, don't take that into consideration at all.

• 46:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, I go to meetings and people recognize me. I'm fine with that. That doesn't bother me. I'm just a drunk like all the rest of them.

• 46:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  And accessible and all that and will be helpful. But I will never preach, lay down the law or talk it all the time because it becomes boring for people. So I, I'm very easygoing about it.

• 46:59Dax Shepard?

  If you had any... Scary situations in the last 50 years? Have you been close at any point in those 50 years of going like, I was so young, what the fuck?

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no. The craving left immediately. I'm not that sociable, but we had a bunch of people over in New Zealand recently for dinner, lunch. We've got some wine. I said, as long as people don't drive, get a car to pick them up. If they want to drink, then fine.

• 47:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  But no, no, if you have another drink, I'll even

• 47:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  overpour their glasses.

• 47:30Dax Shepard?

  I'd prefer people drank around me than not to appease me. You had a kind of a moment that, as you said, I don't belong anywhere. I'm a loner. But in The Dresser, when Ian McKellen said it was wonderful, you said, we got on so well and I suddenly felt at home as though the lack of belonging was all in my imagination and all in my vanity. I think this is a very profound moment. When is The Dresser?

• 47:56Speaker 02

  2015. We had a ball. We had a wonderful time. That's what he's got. He's got charisma, muscle, he's powerful, he's daring, he's courageous. And we had a lot of laughs.

• 48:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  Can make you laugh.

• 48:08Dax Shepard?

  But when you have this realization, and I know you're not one to feel bad for yourself, but when you realize I'm not alone, do you go, oh, why did I spend so much time?

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's all paranoia, I don't know.

• 48:20Dax Shepard?

  Do you have any kind of sadness or regret that it took you that long to realize?

• 48:24Speaker 02

  You can't regret things like that. I think I felt insecure because I was so lucky, really. I'm just lucky all the way through my life. And I think I shouldn't have been so lucky. Because people have tough times struggling to, and I've just been given this good fortune.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  You feel guilty about it?

• 48:42Speaker 02

  Well, no, not anymore. But I do look back and with curiosity, I think, how extraordinary that this happened to me. And all these opportunities came to me. So I never complain. You know, I was talking about the acting business and all that. I've known actors who've struggled for years and never quite made it. And I just don't know what it's about.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Like, why you?

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, why things happened to me the way they did. So I've got no ounce of complaint to me or regret. But working with Ian was great.

• 49:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I have one curiosity about your acting and it's about you being a composer. So you were also a very active musician your whole life. And you even paused acting for a while to tour with some of your compositions.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  For some odd reason, it comes naturally to me. Improvise on the piano and I improvise. And then I got a friend, Stephen Barton, who has a studio at the, where are the Beatles?

• 49:34Dax Shepard?

  Abbey Road.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  Abbey Road.

• 49:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  He has a studio then he's got sound equipment and all the samples of every instrument there is. Pure samples, there was real cello, real sound. So I pick and choose. Let me start with an oboe or something like that.

• 49:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, cello.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, the sound that's produced is so accurate. Even on the cello, you can hear the grind of a string. But they're so perfect, all done by German engineers, I believe, real samples. So you're listening to a real cello, but electronically manipulated. I don't know how the hell it works.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  But I'd use that because it's useful. Then it flows. I mean, I was listening to something, I thought, how the hell did I write that? I don't know.

• 50:10Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  I don't know. I mean, there's one that's called Fanfare and then it goes into a march. Now, remember the day working it out, you're sitting there, keyboard? I said, I want to do this as a fanfare, ba ba bum. Okay, everything, trombones, trumpets, ba ba bum. I said, I want to put a brass in there and another horn. And then suddenly it turned into a march. She's got the scores ready and Stella is behind my life extraordinary. She said, let's talk to a conductor. And we got a conductor of the London Philharmonic. And he came to the studio just to say hello. Lovely man. And I hear something, I say, you just did that, I see you. Well, we're in the middle of it now. Now I went to rehearsals at the London Philharmonic.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  I couldn't believe I'm sitting there, this is impossible.

• 50:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Are you afraid to even try to figure out how you can do it? Are you superstitious?

• 51:01Speaker 02

  No, I just didn't know that there's a way of. Doing it, just let the music come to you.

• 51:07Dax Shepard?

  Which are you more proud of, the acting work or the music stuff?

• 51:10Speaker 02

  Uh, both.

• 51:11Dax Shepard?

  Not one more than the other?

• 51:12Speaker 02

  No, but again, don't take myself too seriously.

• 51:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:16Speaker 02

  I'm just lucky.

• 51:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  And I paint and I draw and all that.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  You're just artistic.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, Stella told me, she said she found some old scripts before we got married, some old scripts I kept in the cupboard and I doodled, you know, drawings. And she ordered paint, I started, I come and she, of course you can do it. I said, no, you can do anything, go on, just do it. So I got some canvases, this is always the start out little boy from Port Hobart.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  Get some canvases and I say, I can't be doing with oil paints because it takes too long to dry. So I want to paint fast. So I've got acrylics. And suddenly I produced these paintings and I had to show off them and show them. I'm not supposed to say this, but I am fast, I work fast.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  I like to work fast because it means that you cut down your choices. Too many choices, you get fat and lazy. Just do a task. If you make a mistake, okay, go over it.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Who cares? Brush it out, paint over it, write music over it, whatever.

• 52:16Dax Shepard?

  Anyone who's listening, who has a young son, who is seemingly directionless and getting kicked out, I hope this is so hopeful for them that you just don't know what the future, you don't know.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Believe in yourself totally.

• 52:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Even though you may think it's a lie, believe in yourself. Never give in to what other people say you are. Never give them the chance to put you down. Cause you do that yourself anyway.

• 52:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  But don't let other people put you down. You get out there and you do it. And you may fail, you may run into a wall, so what? You get up and you do it, especially when you're young, you've got the guts and the strength to do it.

• 52:53Dax Shepard?

  And the stupidity.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the stupidity.

• 52:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Be stupid.

• 52:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Just have a go at it. Yeah, be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.

• 53:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Well, Mr. Hopkins, we're so flattered that you were willing to come on the show. Yeah, we've both obviously just loved watching so many wonderful performances. Your book is wonderful and it's very, like I said, unexpected, which I think is delightful.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Well, I'm really grateful and I'm really grateful that you liked it.

• 53:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's wonderful.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  We're gonna play some of it for our listening audience too. They're gonna get a little clip of it.

• 53:23Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good. We'll have audio.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I had to go old fashioned and read with my eyeballs.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  But thank you.

• 53:30Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it's delightful to meet you and thanks for making the big trip out here. And I hope everyone checks out the book. It is called appropriately, We Did Okay, Kid.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  That photograph in the back of the book, that photograph of my father. I was three and a half in Aberavon on the beach because during the war, he didn't go into the army. He was lucky, but he had to do some national service. He was in the observer corps, which is that's the RF, which was plotting aircraft, German, American, British, reporting movement of aircraft, warning the center in Cardiff. It was a network of observation. Anyway, so I was there, lost little kid like we all are, feeling hopeless or lost, you know? And I look at them, I think, we did okay, kid.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's beautiful.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  But whatever it is, you know?

• 54:16Dax Shepard?

  It worked out just fine.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:18Dax Shepard?

  Thank you so much. I hope everyone checks out the book and it's been a delight to meet you.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  Thank you both.

• 54:23Dax Shepard?

  Now, before we go to the fact check, we're going to play an excerpt from We Did Okay, Kid.

• 54:28Speaker 05

  I'm an alcoholic and I need help, I told my agent. He got me the time off I needed to focus on getting treatment. The tradition I belong to suggests that it's much better to change lives one person at a time by helping them one on one, rather than by crowing to the world about having found a cure for one's affliction. This is known in the rooms as attraction rather than promotion. And so I will say only that if you're starting to wake up to the ways in which alcohol is ruining your life, as I did to the ways it was ruining mine, there are people out there who will take you out for coffee.

• 55:10Speaker 05

  You can find them in every city and town at every hour of the day. I still go to meetings now myself, almost 50 years after getting sober. The day after my revelation, I went out for lunch with my friend Bob Palmer, who brought along his friend George. They were going to take me to my first 12 step meeting. I was in a state of shock because the urge to drink had gone. I saw a waiter carrying a tray with a glass of red wine across the room. How strange that I used to drink that, I thought.

• 55:44Speaker 05

  How are you feeling, Bob asked? Inadequate, he said. You are. That floored me. He explained that I had so little power. I was unable to predict what would happen in the next three minutes. Therein lay terror, but also freedom if we accepted it.

• 56:04Speaker 05

  At the first AA meeting I attended, I was moved by the speaker's story. He is just like me, I thought. He was a truck driver, not an actor, but we were the same. I had something in common with everyone in that room. We were drunks and we didn't want to drink anymore. I thought, they're all misfits like me, like all of us. We feel we never belong. We feel self hatred. All of us are the same. I'm not alone.

• 56:34Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've thought about trying therapy with our long term partner, BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. October 10th is World Mental Health Day, but you don't need a day on the calendar to give yourself permission to talk to someone. I've been in therapy for a long time and the stuff rattling around in my head always just quiets down the second I say it out loud. And it doesn't have to be some big life crisis. Maybe it's a work thing that's taking up too much space or hard relationship moment, or just a feeling that something's off. That's enough. That's worth talking about.

• 57:18Speaker 01

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

• 57:29Dax Shepard?

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

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do.

• 57:45Dax Shepard?

  If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside the US? You can still get 10% off your first month. Do yourself a favor and just try it. Future you will be grateful. Visit betterhelp.com slash tax to explore your payment options. That's better H E L P dot com slash tax.

• 58:14Speaker 02

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

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Do I have lipstick all over my face?

• 58:26Dax Shepard?

  No, you don't at all.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 58:27Dax Shepard?

  Cause you touched it up for him eating dad's oatmeal.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  I did.

• 58:31Dax Shepard?

  You want to tell people about dad's oatmeal? Cause this could be the first unbiased review.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Yes. Okay, so you eat the same breakfast every day.

• 58:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, 365.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  And I got to try it today.

• 58:44Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh. Before you give the review, what was your guess at what it was? It tasted like, like.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:53Dax Shepard?

  What's this mom? Oh, I made you something. Let me try it.

• 58:58Dax Shepard?

  Like that would be the commercial.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  That's.

• 59:02Dax Shepard?

  Why can't we have Lucky Charms? It's like a Lucky Charms.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  It's 100% a cereal commercial.

• 59:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Yes. So I just thought it would be kind of bland because it's healthy.

• 59:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, right. Can I do the commercial again? You be the mom, give it to me.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  Here, honey, enjoy your breakfast.

• 59:17Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'll try it.

• 59:20Dax Shepard?

  Tastes good for me.

• 59:24Dax Shepard?

  Don't you think that'd be a good commercial? I want Lucky Charms.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  With your hand falling out like that? That's a really sad boy.

• 59:35Dax Shepard?

  Tastes good for me.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  I think you booked it. That was good. They are gonna ask, um, can you shave out your tooth?

• 59:45Dax Shepard?

  Shave my beard too.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  Exactly. Can we age you down a little bit?

• 59:49Dax Shepard?

  Well, of course I wouldn't have my tooth in because when I eat, I have to take my tooth out.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Or it's like Lucky Charms causes.

• 59:57Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Your teeth to fall out.

• 59:59Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  That's allegedly.

• 1:00:00Dax Shepard?

  Mom would say, she'd say, well, hon, what happened the last time you ate Lucky Charms?

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Ding.

• 1:00:06Dax Shepard?

  Your tooth fell out.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Anyway, so I thought it was gonna be blah.

• 1:00:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Um, and I tried it and it is really good. It's really good.

• 1:00:17Dax Shepard?

  I'm glad that you tried it and it doesn't even look that appealing. Other than I dressed it up with fresh blueberries, that part probably made it look a little exciting.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  A little bit, but it's, yeah, it's a mush.

• 1:00:27Dax Shepard?

  It's a big bowl of mush.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:28Dax Shepard?

  And it's a big, big bowl.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Huge.

• 1:00:30Dax Shepard?

  And as I was telling you, this is my big reward.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, you said it's time for my reward and I was like, ooh, what's your reward? And then it was the same thing you do every day. How many days do you think you've had it? Like, how many months have you been eating this concoction?

• 1:00:44Dax Shepard?

  Over two years.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  This exact one with the?

• 1:00:47Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:00:48Dax Shepard?

  The flat, the flesh, the, and that works, the fresh blueberries, the fleshy, fresh blueberries. I got into about probably nine months ago.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:58Dax Shepard?

  And now that's like my real obsession.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Crucial.

• 1:01:01Dax Shepard?

  I put so, I put, I buy so many blueberries, it's crazy. Cause I'll eat half of the tray per bowl of porridge.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:01:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  They have great antioxidants.

• 1:01:13Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. This is, I'm gonna argue, like, if you, you could only have one meal that'd be perfectly healthy.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21Dax Shepard?

  I think this is it.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  I'm gonna poke a hole.

• 1:01:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay, but can I hit you with the macros first?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so it has, this bowl of oatmeal has upwards of 60 grams of protein.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a lot.

• 1:01:33Dax Shepard?

  It's a big boy's serving of protein.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  Big bowl. Baby like big bowl. That's what Eric says.

• 1:01:41Dax Shepard?

  Very good amount of fiber, which is elusive fiber is hard to get.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Fiber is hard. So, yes, I like that.

• 1:01:48Dax Shepard?

  And then probably more antioxidants than any other frigging meal you could put together with that amount of blueberries, half a rack.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:01:56Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Um, time to, to poke a hole and, um, wait, what was I, fiber? Oh, also, um, people have predicted that fiber is the new protein.

• 1:02:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  As far as like. Everyone's into fiber and you gotta have it and you gotta get the amount you need to get. So that's, that's ahead.

• 1:02:18Dax Shepard?

  Okay, right. And by the way, guys, Lane Norton has been saying this for years. Protein and fiber, you look at all these different studies.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Huge.

• 1:02:27Dax Shepard?

  The big thing they all have in common for longevity is like, you gotta have a lot of fiber and you gotta have a lot of protein.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you gotta have a lot of chocolate chips.

• 1:02:37Dax Shepard?

  You gotta have a lot of wine.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  A lot of martinis.

• 1:02:40Dax Shepard?

  But you give it, you gave it a passing grade.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Pass, I loved it.

• 1:02:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay, you give it an eight?

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  I was shocked because you, your concoction is oats, Bob's Red Mill.

• 1:02:52Dax Shepard?

  Swear by it.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  And Justin's honey almond butter.

• 1:02:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, uh huh.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  And I don't remember the brand strawberry protein.

• 1:03:02Dax Shepard?

  Lane Norton strawberry protein. It's because it's isolate, which I need. If for people who are lactose intolerant or get upset stomach from weight, if you get isolate or isolate.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  It's better.

• 1:03:14Dax Shepard?

  There's none of the, what I, I assume there's no lactose in it, which is what I think gives you the upset stomach.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Okay, well, so.

• 1:03:23Dax Shepard?

  See, I said, I think a lot and I think, so I don't want anyone to quote me. Yeah, I think and I think.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  And normally I'm pretty turned off. I can be turned off by protein powders because it does give you the bad. To me, there's a taste that lingers that I really am not a fan of. Like, I like it when I'm eating it, but then there's an aftertaste.

• 1:03:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay. And can you tell me the brands you've tried?

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Um, I can't remember.

• 1:03:46Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Cause there's a huge difference in the different brands. I will say that. I've had tons of protein, but I'm like, ugh, it's chalk. That's disgusting.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:54Dax Shepard?

  But I have two I'm in love with.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Well, this strawberry one that goes in your, your breakfast is really good.

• 1:04:02Dax Shepard?

  Again, it's all counterintuitive. Why would strawberry protein powder work in blueberry oatmeal?

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  Fruits.

• 1:04:10Dax Shepard?

  I guess.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Fruit medley.

• 1:04:12Dax Shepard?

  I guess. It just doesn't seem like that would be good, but somehow that comes together, especially with the almond butter.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really nice.

• 1:04:20Dax Shepard?

  That's the other big secret sauce in there.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. Now my hole.

• 1:04:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  That I'm poking.

• 1:04:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  I think in order for it to be the healthiest meal on planet earth.

• 1:04:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  I would like a green vegetable in there.

• 1:04:36Dax Shepard?

  You don't think the blueberries handles that?

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  I know. It's, it's, it's. Good?

• 1:04:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  I'm glad it's there.

• 1:04:43Dax Shepard?

  Monty, how are we adding any green vegetables?

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  That's my problem. I don't think we can call it that because I don't think you can add any green vegetables to that.

• 1:04:51Speaker 06

  You could put mint.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  No, that doesn't count and.

• 1:04:55Dax Shepard?

  Well, I mean, that's a good, that's the least terrible option.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Mint is an herb, Rob.

• 1:05:00Speaker 06

  It's green.

• 1:05:01Dax Shepard?

  Green as hell.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  It's a green herb and I'm looking for a green vegetable. I'm looking for spinach.

• 1:05:08Dax Shepard?

  I know.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  But it can't go.

• 1:05:09Dax Shepard?

  It doesn't, that'll have to be lunch.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you gotta work in a spinach in your lunch.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  That's fine. Um, maybe, okay. And, and you, and you'd really, ideally you'd want a little omegas in there. So you want some, some fish. I think you should smash up some fish in there.

• 1:05:26Dax Shepard?

  Well, I do my fish oil. What's our sponsor? Cause that is actually what I use.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nordic Naturals.

• 1:05:33Dax Shepard?

  Nordic Naturals. Yeah. Every night before bed, it's three Nordic Naturals.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I'm just saying, um, if you're saying this meal on its own, we need a little green vegetable.

• 1:05:46Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Counter to your counter.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:48Dax Shepard?

  You have to propose a different dish that would be better because I think you might find your way over to a spinach dish. That would be great, but then I think it would really drop the ball on a lot of other categories. The fiber and the, uh, in the protein and the antioxidants. So I might have the antioxidants and I think it's maybe fibrous, but regardless. So this is like, yeah, there's never going to be a perfect meal.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:16Dax Shepard?

  Unless you're just making a smoothie.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Well, yeah.

• 1:06:19Dax Shepard?

  Which I used to do.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Dax Shepard?

  It's too much oil cleanup. That's my issue.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's also too cold for my mouth.

• 1:06:25Dax Shepard?

  I think it is ironic that I've been making fun of Wilford Brimley for 40 years now in those oatmeal commercials and lo and behold, that's my most consistent meal.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  Same as you made fun of Catheter Cowboy and then you had to get one.

• 1:06:38Dax Shepard?

  And then I had calf.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Dax Shepard?

  And I don't like pain when I calf, just like him.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:06:43Dax Shepard?

  Um, have we not spoken since Halloween?

• 1:06:47Dax Shepard?

  I guess not.

• 1:06:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, no fact check.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:06:51Dax Shepard?

  That feels so long for a catch up.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Dax Shepard?

  For the audience, for the cherries.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  I guess the Halloween was, Halloween was Friday and today is Wednesday.

• 1:07:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's, let's talk about Halloween. Okay, but hold on, we can't go on without addressing your tooth.

• 1:07:09Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  People have been wondering.

• 1:07:11Dax Shepard?

  It'd be cool if we didn't address my tooth, but I'm happy to.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, there's no way.

• 1:07:14Dax Shepard?

  I've been wanting a gold tooth for, I don't know, seven years. I think even when we interviewed Kirby.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:21Dax Shepard?

  Didn't we discuss it and I'm like, do you know somebody?

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  I think we did.

• 1:07:25Dax Shepard?

  And then our good friend Eric found for me, uh, this dentist that we both go to. Who would have known that this very normal classy dentist also does gold teeth and shit?

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:35Dax Shepard?

  So I had a grill made.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:38Dax Shepard?

  That was first. I mean, I should wear that in one of these fact checks. That one's not very attractive.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:07:44Dax Shepard?

  It's intentionally not.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah, okay.

• 1:07:48Dax Shepard?

  Cause it's for a character I'm gonna play.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. Okay.

• 1:07:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, I guess I assumed you knew that somehow.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  No, I didn't.

• 1:07:56Dax Shepard?

  Okay, okay. So the, the, the grill is for a character I'm playing.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:08:00Dax Shepard?

  That they did not ask for.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  But great. Okay, fun.

• 1:08:04Dax Shepard?

  And then I, I, and it was, it came at some expense for me to have this thing made.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, acting is expensive in the heart.

• 1:08:11Dax Shepard?

  It takes a toll. Uh, you pay a price. I sent a photo to the showrunner and I was like, look, use them, don't use them, I don't care. I did have these made.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:21Dax Shepard?

  And God bless, he said, use them for sure.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:08:24Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Oh, fun.

• 1:08:26Dax Shepard?

  And I, uh, I don't think that's a topic I can tackle. I'm, well, I'll tackle it. I am having, again, and I think it's, in the effort of being honest, or in the pursuit of honesty, I don't need to make money for that acting. Right? So I said to them, I don't, just pay me the minimum.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:08:45Dax Shepard?

  Please pay me minimum. Give it to another actor you want to hire.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  That's really nice.

• 1:08:50Dax Shepard?

  It's not even that nice of me, but I, but for me, it was so.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  That's a huge growth.

• 1:08:55Dax Shepard?

  Emotional thing where it's like, I used to be so panicked all the time. Like, please, you gotta pay me the most because I probably never work again, that whole thing. And this is like, I just want to come play and you guys don't have to pay me. I know legally you have to, but whatever the minimum of that is.

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  Wow, that's huge. That's really awesome.

• 1:09:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it feels great. And actually, it's how I should have been started acting.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  You can't though, but also.

• 1:09:19Dax Shepard?

  There's a reality.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, money, we all have to, we need it.

• 1:09:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  We need it. And so you are lucky enough to not.

• 1:09:29Dax Shepard?

  And I don't need it now.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:31Dax Shepard?

  And now I can act for solely.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 1:09:35Dax Shepard?

  Play with people I think would be fun to play with. And it's, I love it.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  That's great. Okay. Now the tooth.

• 1:09:41Dax Shepard?

  Okay, the tooth. So then the tooth I just always wanted. So the tooth is for me.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  Okay. So it's nothing to do with the jobs or?

• 1:09:49Dax Shepard?

  No, no, no.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  And how do you feel with the tooth in? How do you feel?

• 1:09:55Dax Shepard?

  I'm largely unaware of it, other than I like to play with the backing with my, um, my tongue. Yesterday was day one with it. I went to the movies and I, and, uh, you gotta take it out to eat, but I was like, pop man, get away with some popcorn.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:10:08Dax Shepard?

  Because I can throw it past the gold tooth and just get it on the.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  You're gonna choke. Oh, my gosh.

• 1:10:15Dax Shepard?

  So I did, I did mess around with some popcorn with it still in.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:10:19Dax Shepard?

  And then, and then I went to, now this is a big thing I learned yesterday. I went out to lunch with a friend and I took it out and I'm like, I have nowhere to put it. So I put it in the tiny little pocket of my jeans. So I won't lose it there. And then when the meal was over and I wanted to put my tooth back in, the backside is like, it's like the back of earrings, the back.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:10:40Dax Shepard?

  So it's like it pokes through the denim. And I could not get it out. It was like embedded in my jeans.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  It has a post?

• 1:10:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, on the backside, there's two like, um, uh, what do they call them vampire clips? Like you'd have on a mic.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:10:56Dax Shepard?

  To, to snap into your tooth. And so not only did those puncture the denim and were caught in there. Like I was like trying to get a fishing hook out of my pocket and, and then it was all miscalibrated.

• 1:11:09Speaker 01

  Oh shit.

• 1:11:09Dax Shepard?

  I had bent up the fucking, day one.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Oh no.

• 1:11:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So then I recalibrated them and then a lot of the movie I was like, hmm, I didn't do that right. This feels really tight, like a orthodontist.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  Now, is it, um, did they do anything to your actual tooth?

• 1:11:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh no.

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 1:11:28Dax Shepard?

  Well, they took a mold, which is how they make it.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Right. But then they didn't like, have to like shave anything down or anything, right?

• 1:11:34Dax Shepard?

  Oh man, you're really getting all the secrets out of me. So he's like, close your mouth. Okay, it's hitting here. You know what we ended up doing, which feels insane?

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Venires?

• 1:11:44Dax Shepard?

  No. We ended up grinding my real tooth down a little bit so it'd fit with my fake tooth. And I was like, is this, I wonder my, this is like a, like a fad I'm going through and I've already altered my bottoms. It's a match this fad. I wasn't gonna tell anyone that part.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, you told me and now you told everyone. Which one did they shave?

• 1:12:03Dax Shepard?

  So this one's now a little, he's like, that one's too big anyways. He sold me on it like that.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  The one that's now small?

• 1:12:09Dax Shepard?

  The baby tooth? I got the one that goes backwards, the jacked one. And then next to that is this one. You think that's small now? Oh my God. Do you know the look on your face was like, it looks small.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  It's shorter than, it's shorter.

• 1:12:25Dax Shepard?

  It's shorter.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Why do you do that?

• 1:12:28Dax Shepard?

  So it'd fit my fake tooth. Okay.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  All right. It's fine. It's great.

• 1:12:32Dax Shepard?

  I knew I shouldn't tell you that detail.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  It looks great.

• 1:12:34Dax Shepard?

  But I did go, this is nuts. I'm grinding my real teeth down. And then I'm like, I don't know, who cares? I also think who's, who cares a lot.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 1:12:42Dax Shepard?

  Mom, this tastes good for me.

• 1:12:51Speaker 07

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. Okay. Now.

• 1:13:07Dax Shepard?

  Halloween.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  Okay, Halloween.

• 1:13:08Dax Shepard?

  It was spectacular.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  So fun. Per usual, hayride by you.

• 1:13:15Dax Shepard?

  Hayride was louder and brighter.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  It was so, it's so great.

• 1:13:22Dax Shepard?

  He sent me a very nice text a couple of days later.

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I meant it. Like, it's a very, very special thing you do for the neighborhood. Everyone in the neighborhood hops on and is in such a good mood and it's such a community builder. And we just don't have things like that anymore. And it's a really special thing.

• 1:13:43Dax Shepard?

  It's kind of small towny, which I like. You're like in LA, but it's very small towny.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Really, it's just the, like, everyone coming together and cheering and being excited and it's very special.

• 1:13:53Dax Shepard?

  It is very special.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  You did it.

• 1:13:55Dax Shepard?

  It is very special. And my brother was there for the first time. He rode with me the whole night and he did some filming, which was lovely. That's his new hobby.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:14:04Dax Shepard?

  And it was a great, like, getting to spend three hours with my brother driving around.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:09Dax Shepard?

  It's just funny because siblings is funny, right? So sometimes when I would make the turn into the alley, people would cheer.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I cheered.

• 1:14:16Dax Shepard?

  Thank you. And you probably let it cheer because you know I like that.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  And I'm a cheerleader.

• 1:14:20Dax Shepard?

  And you're, yes, you have the credentials. And then other times, crickets.

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:14:25Dax Shepard?

  So my brother would be like, oof. You know, like, he was like making fun of me a little bit, which was very good natured.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:32Dax Shepard?

  And then if they would cheer, he would be like, um, he'd be like, oh, well, goddamn, I should have been recording, like.

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:14:39Dax Shepard?

  But then a couple of times I would yell out the window when we go through the thing. And he's like, it's kind of a cheat because you're kind of initiating. The cheer is like, you're right, that is a little.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Okay, it doesn't count. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

• 1:14:51Dax Shepard?

  And then, yeah, the, we had the In-N-Out truck.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  You guys went all out. It's so fun. Yeah, you guys got an In-N-Out truck for the, for the neighborhood. It's for so many people to enjoy and it's really lovely.

• 1:15:05Dax Shepard?

  Halloween is a special holiday because everyone shows up eventized. They've put together a costume. So like, everyone's arrival is fun for them. It's fun for you.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:14Dax Shepard?

  Everyone feels special because you're getting the attention. They're trying to figure out your costume.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Dax Shepard?

  So it's just like very heightened.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  In some ways, it's a very vulnerable holiday.

• 1:15:23Dax Shepard?

  Tell me more.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  Because.

• 1:15:26Dax Shepard?

  If you go like sexy.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  If you do anything, you're just deciding to like put yourself out there, participate.

• 1:15:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  And look silly perhaps. Like, I always feel it, because I normally park a street down.

• 1:15:42Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  And I remember when we did Harry Potter Halloween and I was Rita Skeeter. And I had a wig and it was like bright green outfit.

• 1:15:53Dax Shepard?

  You look like a little schoolgirl, as I remember, didn't you?

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  Um, no, I mean, she did have a quill, but no, she was a lady.

• 1:16:01Dax Shepard?

  She's a lady.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, last year I was a little Mary Kate and Ashley.

• 1:16:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's the overalls.

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was overalls.

• 1:16:10Dax Shepard?

  I'm thinking more the bookworm, but I guess you were a teacher. But it came across as like a. Okay.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  Anywho, it was really a look. And I remember when I parked and I got out of my car, I was like, oh my, I gotta, I can't do this. Yeah, like, I don't think this walk, I'm gonna make it. Like, I'm so embarrassed.

• 1:16:36Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow, wow, wow.

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  But then as soon as I enter with all these people doing the same thing, it was gone and happy. So I think it's vulnerable. Char, do you know the story about Charlie?

• 1:16:48Dax Shepard?

  Getting in the fight? Yeah, please tell it, it's so good.

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  Okay, again, for people, I know everyone knows, we did mashups. That was our theme.

• 1:16:56Dax Shepard?

  Right. And quickly to explain a mashup, you're gonna come, they're gonna share one mutual word.

• 1:17:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:17:03Dax Shepard?

  So what was Carrie Bradshaw Shank Redemption?

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:17:06Dax Shepard?

  Was Kristen.

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  Yes, that was Kristen.

• 1:17:08Dax Shepard?

  You were Ro.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  The Ro, Ro, Ro your bow.

• 1:17:13Dax Shepard?

  The Ro, Ro your bow.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  Has to be the Ro, because it was the Ro.

• 1:17:16Dax Shepard?

  Right. I was Ferrariana Grande.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  You were Ferrariana Grande. People were upset because in the picture I posted, you had left, so you weren't in the adult picture, which was a bummer.

• 1:17:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  There was one with you with the kids, but I didn't post that, obviously.

• 1:17:30Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  Anyway, okay, Charlie and Erica and their two children were on their way and they were close to the house and they, Erica was Edward Scissorhandmaid's Tale.

• 1:17:43Dax Shepard?

  Really?

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  Fantastic. It was so good.

• 1:17:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  And Charlie was hot dog, the bounty hunter.

• 1:17:50Dax Shepard?

  And he crushed it.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  It was so good, but he's in this huge hot dog costume.

• 1:17:54Dax Shepard?

  He's in a huge hot dog, but and he has the huge blonde wig on with the braids in the side.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Dax Shepard?

  And as we know, perfect ten Charlie is enormous, a human.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:03Dax Shepard?

  And now they're on their way to the party and he somehow pissed off a motorcyclist.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  Yes, they got in a tiff.

• 1:18:09Dax Shepard?

  He like, and he waved and apologized and that wasn't enough.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:13Dax Shepard?

  So when Charlie turned into our driveway, the motorcycle decided to come back and get in front of his car in our driveway.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Dax Shepard?

  And let him have it.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Yes, and he did this.

• 1:18:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he made that cutting your throat sign.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  Yes, which is so weird.

• 1:18:28Dax Shepard?

  And Charlie, it's funny, Charlie and I were bonding over this because this happened to me more than once, which is like, I'm nice, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And if you're now indulgent and you're in, then I go, okay, motherfucker, like then I snap.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  Well, especially also, it wasn't just like you owe me an apology. He was threat, he was being like so aggressive and threatening.

• 1:18:51Dax Shepard?

  Yes. So ultimately it got to the point where Charlie fucked this and got out of the car.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Dax Shepard?

  And this motorcyclist, what could he have thought? First of all, he's a hot dog. And he's dog, the bounty hunter and he's huge.

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  And he's screaming at this guy as a huge hot dog.

• 1:19:13Dax Shepard?

  Hot dog, the bounty hunter.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  I.

• 1:19:16Dax Shepard?

  I wish there was video of that.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  So badly. It was so sitcom-esque, this idea of how a Halloween fight and these people looking absolutely ridiculous.

• 1:19:28Dax Shepard?

  A hot dog gets out.

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  Oh my God. And like so serious.

• 1:19:33Dax Shepard?

  And if you got beat up by a hot dog, that was.

• 1:19:37Dax Shepard?

  That would be so humiliating.

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  Anyway, the, the hayride was fantastic and the neighborhood took it to another level.

• 1:19:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God, yes.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  I believe we can credit a friend of the pod for this.

• 1:19:50Dax Shepard?

  I, yeah, I wonder.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  I'm not sure. So, but I do think.

• 1:19:54Dax Shepard?

  I do too.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  Yes. Ellen Pompeo.

• 1:19:57Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Friend of the pod.

• 1:19:59Dax Shepard?

  She was like, oh, you want to do a hayride? I got tricks too.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:04Dax Shepard?

  And she hired six professional actors to be zombies.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:09Dax Shepard?

  Going around the neighborhood like you were at, um, not Scott, not scary farm or universal horror night.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:17Dax Shepard?

  So we worked in perfect concert with the hayride because people will be on the hayride and all of a sudden zombies were like chasing them and stuff.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:24Dax Shepard?

  It became the haunted hayride.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  It was so amazing and it really, again, just the commitment.

• 1:20:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  I did get a little, I mean, I was personally extremely scared.

• 1:20:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I, I, uh, there is a very funny husband, wife story that came out of this, right? Which is like, I pull up into the same spot in the neighborhood every time for people to unload and load.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:49Dax Shepard?

  And people know that's where you get on or off the hayride. So I pull up and Kristen's there and she's like, you gotta go find these zombies. And I go, what? So you have to talk to the zombies. You gotta tell them, tell them they, they gotta stop scaring kids.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  Oh, I was nervous about that.

• 1:21:07Dax Shepard?

  And I go, oh, hon, I can't deliver that.

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:21:11Dax Shepard?

  Like, that's just what this day is.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:13Dax Shepard?

  And she's like, three little kids have already left. And I was like, oh, fuck.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:21:20Dax Shepard?

  We don't want that. We don't want kids leaving Halloween.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:21:24Dax Shepard?

  So I'm like, oh, you know me, I want to be cool.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:21:27Dax Shepard?

  So I'm like, fuck, and I'm the one that's going to see Ellen next because I'll be at the top of the hill.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  And it's such a cool thing she's doing.

• 1:21:34Dax Shepard?

  It's so cool.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:35Dax Shepard?

  So I get to the top of the hill and she's out in front of her house. Uh, and I go, hey, I really hate delivering this snow. And I think it goes against the spirit of the holiday, but if the zombies could maybe not scare the little kids.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:21:49Dax Shepard?

  And she's like, yeah, yeah, zombies, don't scare. She didn't care at all. And I don't think the zombies cared at all.

• 1:21:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:21:55Dax Shepard?

  But I did have to like clamp down on the zombies, which felt really. Compromising, yeah.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that sucks.

• 1:22:02Dax Shepard?

  But probably was the right thing.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  I did think, I did think, uh oh, like, these are scary.

• 1:22:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  And what about these little kids if I'm scared?

• 1:22:12Dax Shepard?

  Well, some left, Monica is what I was told.

• 1:22:15Speaker 06

  We walked.

• 1:22:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Rob, what was, what were the boys?

• 1:22:18Speaker 06

  We walked up there first and Vinnie was leading the charge, like, just walking. And there were, they, they laid off him.

• 1:22:26Dax Shepard?

  One feet tall.

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  But even just, even just seeing them as a little scary.

• 1:22:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Did they give Calvin hell?

• 1:22:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, they chose Calvin a little bit.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:22:37Dax Shepard?

  Did he like it or hate it?

• 1:22:38Speaker 06

  He loved it.

• 1:22:38Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good, good, good.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the thing. You don't know who's gonna love it and who's not. One of the zombies, um, knew my name.

• 1:22:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  Which was flattering.

• 1:22:49Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  But also scary. I didn't like it.

• 1:22:52Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  Monica.

• 1:22:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. It was a girl.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think.

• 1:22:58Dax Shepard?

  Cause what if it was one of the boys zombies? Oh, she called you pretty?

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is nice.

• 1:23:03Dax Shepard?

  This is all very flattering.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  It was too scary.

• 1:23:05Dax Shepard?

  What did it do?

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  Maybe it was Grouf or what, what's his name?

• 1:23:11Speaker 06

  Groot?

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  No, not Groot, the grandson, the, the scary singer.

• 1:23:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Guar.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  Guar.

• 1:23:22Dax Shepard?

  The horned pig face goblin?

• 1:23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe it was actually Guar.

• 1:23:27Dax Shepard?

  What's his name?

• 1:23:28Speaker 06

  Blothar the Berserker.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:23:30Dax Shepard?

  Blothar the, we should have invited Guar to the, fuck, should we have Guar? Oh, my God, we, cause I'm like, this whole night, I'm like, we've, we've peaked. I really don't even know if we should host next year.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Well, you have to, yeah.

• 1:23:42Dax Shepard?

  But fuck, if you got to the top of the turnaround and Guar was on a stage up there shooting blood out of their penises and stuff. You think kids were leaving with the zombies? Wait to Blothar the Blazaster, gets his penis is out.

• 1:23:58Dax Shepard?

  We've gotta get Guar performing in the neighborhood. Just maybe ask him to wear pants over all those penises.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:06Dax Shepard?

  Just sexualize it a little bit.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  Just a little bit on Halloween. Uh, I guess that's it for Halloween. It was just really fun.

• 1:24:12Dax Shepard?

  So much fun.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  It was really, really fun.

• 1:24:14Dax Shepard?

  What a holiday.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  One thing we need to talk about.

• 1:24:17Dax Shepard?

  Oh God, yes. And we're adorned in it right now. So not a problem.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Not a problem. You guys.

• 1:24:23Dax Shepard?

  Our new merch is the, the best we've had ever.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely ever. It's so high quality. This is actual embroidery.

• 1:24:30Dax Shepard?

  Embroidered.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  And yeah, so for the listener, you might want to go to YouTube to see it. I'm wearing a sweatshirt, black.

• 1:24:37Dax Shepard?

  Gorgeous sweatshirt.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  Gorgeous sweatshirt. It says armchair expert, has a crow on it, has a little mouse on the sleeve.

• 1:24:43Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  Tiny mouse.

• 1:24:44Dax Shepard?

  Cute little mouse.

• 1:24:46Speaker 01

  And I really can't get around the qua- over the quality.

• 1:24:49Dax Shepard?

  The quality's off the charts. Um, I, and I've been wearing this non-stop.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:53Dax Shepard?

  I wore it like four days in a row.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:54Dax Shepard?

  It just got out of the wash though for today. Oh, finally a really great station shirt. And then I'm gonna turn around and say, look at the back.

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great.

• 1:25:03Dax Shepard?

  Hey y'all, really great station.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  So this is gonna be available.

• 1:25:10Dax Shepard?

  In time for.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  In time for the holidays, but it's coming out.

• 1:25:13Dax Shepard?

  November 14th for preorder.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  November 14th for preorder. And there's other stuff too. There's plenty, there's lots of stuff.

• 1:25:19Dax Shepard?

  I got a hoodie here too, a new gorgeous hoodie.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Show the hoodie.

• 1:25:23Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna show off the hoodie. Um, it has, it has a cute crow embroidered.

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  Gosh, yeah.

• 1:25:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  It also has a mouse on the sleeve and it has cherries on the hood.

• 1:25:34Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  But it's all very minimal and like chic.

• 1:25:37Dax Shepard?

  Discreet.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  It's, it's a really good looking collection, guys.

• 1:25:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I applaud you Monica. You really spearheaded and steamrolled. What is it? What are the words we use? Here's my.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  You're really micromanaged.

• 1:25:52Dax Shepard?

  You made people's life hell to get here.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 1:25:55Dax Shepard?

  You really did all this and it turned out great. I'm so into it.

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  It's a really nice classic collection and we're excited to put it out.

• 1:26:02Dax Shepard?

  I think I was wearing one the other day, too. There's a super cute, um, heart shaped cherries.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  I love that one.

• 1:26:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. What does it say on that one? Just arms? Okay. Have a good time. Have a great time.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  We love it here.

• 1:26:14Dax Shepard?

  Gore. Vote for Gore.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So go check that out and preorder and it'll be for domestic. It'll be ready by the holidays.

• 1:26:24Dax Shepard?

  Buy yourself something for Christmas.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, do it. Okay, so I started watching a show, an old show.

• 1:26:33Dax Shepard?

  Me too.

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 1:26:35Dax Shepard?

  Wow, it's in the air.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  What did you watch?

• 1:26:37Dax Shepard?

  No, not on Trump here.

• 1:26:38Speaker 01

  Defending Jacob. It was a, it's a show on Apple and it's old, or you know, it's older.

• 1:26:46Dax Shepard?

  Older than Apple?

• 1:26:48Speaker 06

  Twenty twenty.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  Twenty twenty.

• 1:26:49Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  And, um, it has Chris Evans and is adapted from a book and it's a little bit of a whodunit. It's kind of like a Broad Church.

• 1:27:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  Whodunit presumed innocence.

• 1:27:04Dax Shepard?

  Sure. Murder mystery.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, you know, obviously I watched the whole thing in two days because that's how I operate.

• 1:27:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  And there was something really interesting. So you used to, you haven't brought this up in a long time, but you used to bring up a, um, something you read about a gene that you called like, um, you called ma- ma-

• 1:27:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, M A O.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  You called it M A O. Yes.

• 1:27:33Dax Shepard?

  This is the watching the grass grow gene.

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  Right. So, so yeah, you talk about it and you say-

• 1:27:38Dax Shepard?

  It's not a gene. It's just a chemical in your brain. People have high levels of it and low levels of it.

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  Okay. And then what happened? Tell people about it.

• 1:27:44Dax Shepard?

  Well, if you have a lot of M A O, you're very content to watch the grass grow. And if you have very low M A O, you need a lot to stimulate you. So these are like adventure seekers and adrenaline junkies.

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  Right. Now, you used to talk about that all the time.

• 1:27:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I did.

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  And I think I probably like looked it up at some point. I don't remember. But on this show, they talk about something called the murder gene.

• 1:28:09Dax Shepard?

  Ooh.

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  Or the warrior gene.

• 1:28:11Dax Shepard?

  Ooh, warrior gene.

• 1:28:13Speaker 01

  And it is the MAOA gene.

• 1:28:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, so maybe that's the gene that makes.

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  I think it's connected to this. Yeah, it's monoamine oxidase, MAOA enzyme, which breaks down transmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Low levels of this enzyme are linked to a predisposition for aggressive behavior, especially when combined with environmental factors like childhood trauma. The MAOA gene is located on the X chromosome, leading to differences in how it affects males and females. But yeah.

• 1:28:49Dax Shepard?

  So it's passed by mom. Oh.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Isn't that interesting? They talk about that in the show.

• 1:28:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so some, like in the show, I don't know how, I don't know if this is used in real life, but like in the show, they test.

• 1:29:05Dax Shepard?

  Boy?

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, this boy Jacob.

• 1:29:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  For it. And they test the family.

• 1:29:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  Jacob doesn't have it.

• 1:29:13Dax Shepard?

  He doesn't have it?

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:29:15Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:29:15Speaker 01

  He doesn't have it, but also the mom, because it's passed through the mom and the dad and the grandpa have it.

• 1:29:22Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and the maternal grandpa.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  No. Okay, you just gotta watch it. But, okay, in the show.

• 1:29:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  This is a spoiler.

• 1:29:31Dax Shepard?

  Uh, well, it's five years old.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Um, Chris Evans has this son, and then he also has a dad. But he's been lying about the dad. He says he didn't know his dad. He never knew his dad. But turns out he did know his dad. And when he was about six, the dad went to jail for rape and murder.

• 1:29:49Dax Shepard?

  Oof. I wish, I wish it was just murder.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, everyone wishes that.

• 1:29:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Um, it's played by J.K. Simmons.

• 1:29:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, we love J.K. Simmons.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  Love. So Jacob is in a little bit of a pickle.

• 1:30:04Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  Okay?

• 1:30:05Dax Shepard?

  A legal issue?

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so the legal team is trying to see if they can say that he has this gene. In case he's found guilty, they can say it's, it's not his fault.

• 1:30:17Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Okay.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  So I just thought this was a full circle moment.

• 1:30:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that really is.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  Murder gene.

• 1:30:23Dax Shepard?

  Now I want to watch it. I've decided to start Boardwalk Empire.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I never watched that.

• 1:30:29Dax Shepard?

  It's great. Of course it was it. But within two episodes, I'm like, yeah, this phenomenal. This is like Sopranos kind of.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  It's fun to find shows.

• 1:30:37Dax Shepard?

  It is.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  If anyone else wants to recommend more whodunnits, I'm in the mood for whodunnits.

• 1:30:43Dax Shepard?

  I'll try to keep my thinking cap on.

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  Okay. All right, now we can talk about facts.

• 1:30:47Dax Shepard?

  Facts.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  It was so cool that he did Silence of the Lambs.

• 1:30:52Dax Shepard?

  Then we got him to.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  That was scary.

• 1:30:55Dax Shepard?

  You know what's funny is I would never have the gall to say like, could you give me a little Clarice?

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:00Dax Shepard?

  But he just did it on his own. I thought, get out of the way.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:03Dax Shepard?

  Hopefully he'll do this for the next 30 minutes. I could have watched his entire role.

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:31:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. We should invite someone on to do their whole role from something.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  What would you pick?

• 1:31:13Dax Shepard?

  Nicolas Cage from Vampire's Kiss.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:31:16Dax Shepard?

  Because I need you to see him count or do the alphabet.

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want to see that. Also, though, that's tricky because we also want to talk to him. Like, who are you willing to not talk to, but just have them do their role?

• 1:31:30Dax Shepard?

  Tom Cruise as well would be a good one.

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:31:32Dax Shepard?

  Because as I've said on here many times, and this is another pledge to anyone in his world or sphere.

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:38Dax Shepard?

  I won't ask a single hard hitting question.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:41Dax Shepard?

  I just want to talk about his career. I don't care if he killed someone on the way over. I won't mention it.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  For anyone listening, I have not agreed to that pledge.

• 1:31:51Dax Shepard?

  That's not your thing.

• 1:31:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. People have already yelled at me and it hasn't even happened. People are like, you can't have him on and not. And I said, no, I can just worship somebody.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:01Dax Shepard?

  Because you get a lot, you know, you get a lot of the other version. It's okay if I just fellate someone once in a while.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  You can. I won't be doing that.

• 1:32:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay. What are you going to ask? Because you might just rule this out.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  On the way home and how'd you do it?

• 1:32:14Dax Shepard?

  We both know odds are. He saved somebody on the way over.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's probably right. That's probably right. Um, yeah. Uh, okay, let's see. He said, he thought Edgar Allan Poe said, if we think about it, our lives have been written by some other author. Now that quote, it seems, is a misattribution and a popular misunderstanding of a philosophy expressed by Will Durant. Says Durant did not say this, but he wrote about how other people's opinions and actions can influence our lives.

• 1:32:51Dax Shepard?

  Who's Will Durant?

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:32:53Speaker 06

  Historian and philosopher.

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  He's a philosopher.

• 1:32:56Dax Shepard?

  What era?

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 1:32:59Speaker 06

  1885.

• 1:33:00Dax Shepard?

  Hmm. You know, my kids have grown fond of saying to me, you were born in the 1900s. And it sounds so funny.

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  Because it's true.

• 1:33:11Dax Shepard?

  And it's true.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:33:12Dax Shepard?

  But it sounds ridiculous.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:33:14Dax Shepard?

  She's like, oh, you were born in the 1900s.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  How tall is the Empire State Building? He knew that because of his books.

• 1:33:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  Do you want to guess?

• 1:33:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I think it's probably seventy stories. So I'm gonna say 680 feet.

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  More.

• 1:33:33Dax Shepard?

  More. Is it like a hundred stories?

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  It doesn't say stories on here.

• 1:33:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  I'm sure.

• 1:33:39Dax Shepard?

  Eight hundred and sixty feet.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  It's 1,250 feet.

• 1:33:43Dax Shepard?

  Almost a quarter of a mile.

• 1:33:46Speaker 01

  That's a lot.

• 1:33:47Dax Shepard?

  Almost a quarter mile.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:33:49Dax Shepard?

  Do you ever get toothpaste sour?

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really tall.

• 1:33:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's much taller than I would have expected. Say it again, 1,200 feet? So it's got to be like 110 stories or 108 stories.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  And it's actually 1,454 feet to the tip.

• 1:34:11Dax Shepard?

  1,004, so more than a quarter mile.

• 1:34:13Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:34:14Speaker 06

  102 stories.

• 1:34:16Dax Shepard?

  102 stories.

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  I don't want to go to that 100. Actually, I've been. I forgot. Yeah, with Kristen. We went to the top.

• 1:34:25Dax Shepard?

  For a press thing or something?

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:27Dax Shepard?

  So funny, all the places you end up going on a press thing. And you can't, because you didn't frame it right, you don't really experience it.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a different thing.

• 1:34:35Dax Shepard?

  I have to go to the Empire State Building today.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:34:39Dax Shepard?

  At 10 o'clock, and then we got to be blank at what?

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:34:42Dax Shepard?

  And then you're leaving, you're like, oh, fuck, I was up there and I didn't even really.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  I know. And you do go up some, like, creepy stairs.

• 1:34:48Dax Shepard?

  To get to the Tippeties?

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, oh, I thought it was interesting because he knew Hitler's. I mean, his just, his memory was so amazing.

• 1:34:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:58Speaker 01

  And he knew Hitler's doctor's name immediately. Like you were telling a story and you said Hitler's doctor and he said Dr. Morrell.

• 1:35:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  And he just knew it.

• 1:35:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:35:08Dax Shepard?

  I know. We were discussing this, you and I, off mic.

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:35:11Dax Shepard?

  And I was saying, we have found this with a lot of people that were born in the 30s, 40s, 50s. My mom.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:19Dax Shepard?

  I do think there's something to be said with there was no stimuli. There was like, you watched TV for an hour at night.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:27Dax Shepard?

  That there was just way less info hitting you.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  I guess.

• 1:35:30Dax Shepard?

  And so everyone of that age seems to have a much higher retention of names of kids and teachers from their youth.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  I think that's a good theory. I mean, there is something.

• 1:35:40Dax Shepard?

  What else? Something's different.

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, something is different.

• 1:35:43Dax Shepard?

  Or maybe it's that we're juggling a much huger pool of people because we're online and that opens you up to like thousands of people or whatever. Something, there's some, something has to be the explanation.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  But he like knew lines, he like knew lines from movies and stuff he wasn't in, like.

• 1:36:02Dax Shepard?

  But that part is, I think, unique to him. That's his, like, that's why he can do Shakespeare.

• 1:36:06Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:36:07Dax Shepard?

  He has that kind of memory.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:09Dax Shepard?

  Remembering sonnets and poems and stuff. I can't do that. I have some rap songs from the 90s I know. Inside now, one.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Do it. Would you like to?

• 1:36:19Dax Shepard?

  No, I know you never enjoy when I do colors.

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  When you do colors?

• 1:36:22Dax Shepard?

  That's always the one I'll do. That's the one Aaron and I all do together. I am a nightmare walking, psychopath stalking, king of the jungle, just a gangster stalking, living life like a firecracker, cook is my fuse, then there is the death, that's the colors I choose, red or blue because of blood, it just don't matter, so I could die for your life on my shotgun scatter, we come to LA, we never die, we just multiply colors. That's just the first verse.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:36:42Dax Shepard?

  We could go on.

• 1:36:43Speaker 01

  You can go on.

• 1:36:43Dax Shepard?

  We will.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  You want. Um, was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Mike Nichols' first film? Yes.

• 1:36:49Dax Shepard?

  Highly recommend.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and Edward Albee play. It was, um, one of my theater professor's favorite plays.

• 1:36:58Dax Shepard?

  It was.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  So she would talk about it all the time.

• 1:37:00Dax Shepard?

  You know, stuff that we don't know.

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 1:37:03Dax Shepard?

  You don't remember.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't have the memory that he has, so no.

• 1:37:08Dax Shepard?

  What do you remember? You remember Friends episodes in great detail?

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  Not in as much detail as I used to. It's actually very sad. I don't like to be put to the test because I, it makes me sad.

• 1:37:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  Cause I really, I, I used to be able to name all the episodes and stuff like that. I don't think I could do that anymore.

• 1:37:26Dax Shepard?

  I used to know every single word in Smokey and the Bandit, like from beginning to end.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:31Dax Shepard?

  Every single word, word in Raising Arizona, beginning to end.

• 1:37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:35Dax Shepard?

  There were movies I knew inside now.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

  Good Will Hunting, obviously. Yeah, I did, I did someone's podcast and they put this to the test. They had me finish lines of Good Will Hunting.

• 1:37:48Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  And I couldn't do it. Like I did a couple, but I, I missed a lot and it was really upsetting.

• 1:37:54Dax Shepard?

  They did that to you?

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:37:55Dax Shepard?

  I would never do that to you.

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  Thank you. Is that a commitment?

• 1:37:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:58Speaker 01

  Okay, thank you.

• 1:37:59Dax Shepard?

  Out loud. A verbal pledge.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  Um, well, that's it.

• 1:38:06Dax Shepard?

  That was all the facts.

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:07Dax Shepard?

  He knew Hitler's.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  Well, I just thought that was interesting.

• 1:38:11Dax Shepard?

  Sure was. It's more of like a.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  It is a fact. He got it right.

• 1:38:15Dax Shepard?

  We had like a, we, we named the things we thought were interesting about it.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  That is a lot of what I do.

• 1:38:20Dax Shepard?

  That's true. So I guess it's, uh, it's in keeping.

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  It's a fact.

• 1:38:25Dax Shepard?

  That you found it interesting.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  I checked it and it was correct.

• 1:38:28Dax Shepard?

  The name was right.

• 1:38:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. It's impressive.

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  It really is. Um, that's it.

• 1:38:33Dax Shepard?

  All right. Love you.