Pod Insights Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard Cynthia Erivo About this episode Cynthia Erivo (Wicked, Harriet, The Color Purple) is an award-winning actor and singer. Cynthia joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the vibes of South London, how she feels about people calling her cute, and her desire to connect with the audience when she’s on stage. Cynthia and Dax talk about the differences in acting in dramas vs comedies, the burdens of doing political roles, and why she picked extensive makeup over CGI for Wicked. Cynthia explains if she prefers songs led by lyrics or music, how she experiences synesthesia, and how much she loves Ariana Grande.
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Transcript 26,603 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dax Shepard? Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
0:04 Speaker 01 Hi.
0:06 Dax Shepard? We have the great privilege of seeing Wicked early.
0:10 Speaker 01 What a dream.
0:12 Dax Shepard? And our guest today, Cynthia Erivo, is so dynamic and so powerful and so infectious and intoxicating and euphoria inducing.
0:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
0:23 Dax Shepard? I fell so in love with her in this movie.
0:24 Speaker 01 She's so good, so good in the movie. She's such a cool person. She's also like, she just hosted the CFDA Awards. That's a huge fashion thing. She's very cool.
0:35 Dax Shepard? And then she arrived and she overdelivered. You have seen her in Harriet, Windows, Bad Times at El Royale, The Color Purple on Broadway. She's won all the awards and of course, November 22nd, just in time for the big Turkey Day, Wicked. You're gonna want to run out and see it. Buy your tickets now. Preorder. If you didn't preorder a month ago, you should already be panicked.
0:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, panic.
0:57 Dax Shepard? Please enjoy Cynthia Erivo. We get support from Quince.
1:02 Speaker 01 Okay, can we talk about the fact that the holidays are already here? It's crazy. I feel like I blinked and now we're in gifting season, which I'm not really mad about because I do love giving gifts and Quince is making it so easy to find something great for everyone on my list, including myself, because let's be honest, self-gifting is a love language.
1:21 Dax Shepard? Quince is seriously the gift that keeps on giving. Their high-quality staples are made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. Full-on luxury quality at prices that won't wreck your holiday budget.
1:37 Speaker 01 It's the dream. The cashmere sweater, starting at $60, down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories. You and everyone on your list are staying cozy and looking incredible all season long.
1:48 Dax Shepard? Well, I'm gonna tell you this, it just got chilly for the first time this year in California and I'm so excited and I'm wearing my Quince cashmere right now.
1:55 Speaker 01 It's great.
1:56 Dax Shepard? Yeah, and I am going to gift this to some of my friends. I hope they're not listening.
2:00 Speaker 01 Quince is also more than clothing. They've got fine jewelry for your significant other, leather bags for your bestie, hotel-quality bedding to set up your guest rooms, chef-grade cookware. That's an Amazing thing they offer here and it's such a good gift because people don't like buying cookware for themselves, but it's very important. And they also have five star luggage, another good gift that people don't like buying for themselves.
2:22 Dax Shepard? Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. We get support from Quince. Okay, so I have a confession. I'm the worst holiday shopper on the planet. I wait until the last possible second, I panic, and then I end up buying something nobody wants. But this year I've cracked the code and the code is cozy. And Quince's bedding makes it so easy because the quality is exceptional. It's the kind of gift people actually use and love long after the holidays.
3:06 Speaker 01 Yes. Okay. Can we talk about their European linens?
3:09 Dax Shepard? Mm hmm.
3:10 Speaker 01 Because Quince's 100% European linen gets softer with every wash. Most bedding peaks the day you buy it and then it's all downhill. This is the opposite. And their organic cotton bedding is breathable and incredibly soft. It's hotel quality comfort for your own bed.
3:24 Dax Shepard? You crawl into bed and you're like, wait, did I accidentally check into a Four Seasons? Quince just makes it easy to create a bed you'll actually look forward to getting into. And their quilts, coverlets, and duvet inserts make any bed and any gift feel complete.
3:39 Speaker 01 Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you can get and give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag.
3:49 Dax Shepard? I mean, guys, I put these on the bed of my children. They are wrapping my little babies and I feel great about it.
3:55 Speaker 01 Mine are striped. They're so cute. They're very fashionable and very comfortable. And it's not just bedding. Quince has everyone on your list covered with Mongolian cashmere sweaters, fine jewelry, leather bags, chef-grade cookware, five-star luggage, and more.
4:09 Dax Shepard? Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show.
4:46 Speaker 02 How long have you been doing this?
4:48 Speaker 01 We launched in February of 2018. Almost seven years.
4:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, you're many people's favorite.
4:55 Speaker 01 Oh, thank you. We try to do the opposite of clickbaity. Even talk shows, which we love, you just go in and you do your thing and then you get out and there's no context and things blow up. Trying to sort of be the antidote to that.
5:09 Speaker 02 Thank you for doing that.
5:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, for us too. Things get so out of control.
5:14 Speaker 02 Yes, they do.
5:15 Speaker 01 Getting worse by the second. I don't...
5:17 Speaker 02 I don't know what the heck is happening. People are seeking out the worst of things. It's very strange.
5:24 Speaker 01 It's a little bit of a, we say like outrage addiction.
5:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, and really unhealthy.
5:29 Speaker 01 It is. We're in a sort of an interesting time where I feel like celebrities, especially newer celebrities, are starting to push back and like question fandom in a really interesting way.
5:43 Speaker 02 It's like where the boundary is.
5:44 Speaker 01 Exactly.
5:45 Speaker 02 Where you get to be a part of my life and then when I get to have my life for myself.
5:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, that you're a person.
5:51 Speaker 02 It's like reminding people that humanity exists.
5:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:55 Speaker 02 You can be a human being.
5:56 Speaker 01 Exactly. It's sad that we have to remind people, but...
6:01 Speaker 03 Good morning.
6:02 Speaker 02 Good morning.
6:04 Speaker 03 Do it, do it.
6:06 Speaker 04 Oh, man. Oh, you smell so good. God, I smell like sweat. I just went on a hike.
6:12 Speaker 01 Well done.
6:13 Speaker 04 Oh, thank you. Well, this is a long time coming. Oh, my goodness.
6:19 Speaker 03 You're a miniature too.
6:20 Speaker 04 You are a miniature.
6:22 Speaker 03 You're in good company. Bonnie, are you jealous? She has even bigger pants on than you.
6:28 Speaker 01 I know. Her fashion's unreal.
6:30 Speaker 03 I'm Gax, by the way.
6:32 Speaker 01 Nice to meet you. You, welcome.
6:35 Speaker 03 We've already talked about bags. The fashion is outrageous.
6:39 Dax Shepard? Do you want to sit down for two seconds? Because I don't have the knowledge base to talk about what I thought was really funny while I was researching. Hit it, Alicia. For one second.
6:48 Speaker 03 I try to tell him all the time that he only has some of the info.
6:51 Dax Shepard? OK, Cynthia, I was watching an interview with you and you had mentioned that you were about to do some Somheim. And Kristen was readying herself for the day.
6:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
7:00 Dax Shepard? And she stopped everything. She's like, who is she playing? What's happening?
7:04 Speaker 03 Well, specifically because it was night music, which is my favorite. Who did you play?
7:08 Speaker 02 Petra.
7:09 Speaker 03 Of course.
7:11 Dax Shepard? Do you want to air your grievance?
7:12 Speaker 03 Well, my grievance was I was really struggling to figure out who you were going to play. Because I was like, you have the moxie for Desiree, though you're not anywhere near.
7:23 Speaker 02 Near the age for it.
7:24 Speaker 03 Right.
7:25 Dax Shepard? So your grievance, as I recalled, was you only played the child in that. Is that the same musical?
7:31 Speaker 03 Yes. So I've done night music twice. I did it at the Kennedy Center during Somheim Rep a million years ago. And then I did it at the L.A. Opera House.
7:39 Speaker 02 That's cool.
7:40 Speaker 03 But both times I played Frederica.
7:44 Speaker 02 What?
7:45 Dax Shepard? Who's 13?
7:45 Speaker 03 Who's 13 years old. The whole time, I dream of playing Anne.
7:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, Anne's phenomenal.
7:51 Dax Shepard? Well, now's your chance.
7:52 Speaker 03 Go, go.
7:53 Dax Shepard? Go.
7:53 Speaker 03 What you.
7:54 Dax Shepard? Sing off.
7:55 Speaker 02 Now, as the sweet and facility stumbled so lavishly onto her lap.
7:58 Speaker 03 Yes.
7:58 Dax Shepard? Oh.
7:58 Speaker 03 But here's the thing. Dax informed me pretty bluntly this morning.
8:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
8:03 Speaker 03 I can't pull off Anne either. He said, you're way more of a Desiree. I said, what do you know?
8:07 Dax Shepard? First of all, I didn't say that because I don't know the names of the characters.
8:10 Speaker 03 And we need context.
8:11 Dax Shepard? You are closer in age. This is bad news, I'm going to tell you. You're closer in age to 63 than you are 24.
8:18 Speaker 02 True.
8:19 Dax Shepard? I said, now, look, you could put on a ton of makeup and play 24. They could do some prosthetics and age you down. Or you could go out on stage with no makeup and you'd be playing 64.
8:31 Speaker 03 Can you believe?
8:33 Speaker 02 I'm offended for you.
8:37 Dax Shepard? It's ludicrous. That's why I say it, because obviously she's a beauty.
8:41 Speaker 02 It's like you aged backwards. It's very strange. It's a good joke because it's absolutely the most untrue thing in the world. I think you could still play Anne. I couldn't pull off Anne at all. Petra was perfect.
8:51 Speaker 03 Wait, what's Petra's solos?
8:53 Speaker 02 The Miller Sun.
8:53 Speaker 03 Oh, I don't know. Oh, yeah.
8:56 Dax Shepard? You've already done it, or you're about to do it?
8:58 Speaker 02 I did it at Lincoln Center.
9:00 Dax Shepard? Oh, it was a one-off?
9:01 Speaker 03 Now I'm serious.
9:01 Speaker 02 Well, four nights.
9:03 Dax Shepard? Did you want for more, or were you happy it was only four nights?
9:05 Speaker 02 I was happy it was only four nights because it was manic. I was doing 59 other things at the same time. On one day, I opened something in the morning, did something in the afternoon, which was like a full 20-minute set show for Pride Weekend, and ran from the Pride Weekend show to the Lincoln Center. That's right, to do night music.
9:24 Speaker 03 And that's a dangerous song if your head is not straight. It is such a wordy song.
9:31 Speaker 02 There was actually a night where I had to stop because it's also dangerous if you're not moving at the right speed. If it slows down too much, your brain switches on. It's one of those songs that you need your brain to be on autopilot, so you can actually just reel the words off. And if it slows down, and it felt like it was slowing to a grinding halt, it's like that weird sort of, oh, my god, I'm in the room. What are the words again?
9:54 Speaker 03 There's too many words in that song.
9:56 Speaker 02 And I just was like, okay, we have to stop. I am a big, big advocate for if it's going wrong, stop.
10:03 Dax Shepard? Interesting, because I was just gonna ask, do you have a mode where you'll just, you know the melody still, and just kind of make up some words until we find our way back?
10:11 Speaker 02 We're not gonna do a car crash. I can't. I'm gonna say, you know what? I'm gonna pull over to the side of the road.
10:16 Speaker 03 That's great.
10:17 Speaker 02 We're gonna just start again. Let's get back into the right space, and I'm gonna take you exactly where you're supposed to go in the right fashion. We're not focused here.
10:25 Dax Shepard? Let's regroup.
10:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, we're swerving too much here. It's not good.
10:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah, we're all over the road.
10:29 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:29 Speaker 03 That's not what, at least I was taught in musical the, it's like, keep it going.
10:34 Speaker 02 And it's the wrong thing to be taught. Sometimes you keep going. Sometimes, if you can, and you can get back into it quickly, keep going. But if you need to stop and refocus, stop and refocus because the audience will say, oh, you know it too. You were experiencing it too. Okay, so I wasn't insane. That means you're taking care of me. I can trust you.
10:53 Dax Shepard? What you're saying is, I'm not gonna gaslight you, audience. This is all fucked up.
10:57 Speaker 02 Yes.
10:58 Dax Shepard? I'm not gonna lie to you.
11:00 Speaker 02 And this is not what I want to do. This is not what you want to listen to. We're gonna go back to the beginning. It also says that I'm in control of this and I've got you.
11:07 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:08 Speaker 02 I won't take you down this road where it doesn't make sense.
11:11 Dax Shepard? What if you win so far as saying, I want everyone to re-enter. Go out in the lobby and know about, we're gonna ring the bell.
11:17 Speaker 02 That's too far.
11:18 Dax Shepard? Then come in.
11:19 Speaker 02 Maybe too far.
11:20 Dax Shepard? Okay, just to be provocative for one second.
11:22 Speaker 02 Go on, one second.
11:23 Dax Shepard? For two hours. Did you see American Symphony, the John Baptiste documentary?
11:29 Speaker 02 Yes, I did.
11:30 Dax Shepard? What a beautiful doc, right?
11:32 Speaker 02 Beautiful.
11:32 Dax Shepard? But if you remember, he's at Carnegie Hall and all the power goes out.
11:35 Speaker 02 Yes.
11:35 Dax Shepard? And he's fucked. I can't imagine anything more stressful. And then talk about 27 things going on in his life. He's got the Grammys, his wife. And then he starts letting his internal emotions come out on this piano keyboard. And he's processing this frustration and this everything. And then slowly it starts fusing with this melody. And then it becomes beautiful. And then magically the power comes back on. There is also some room for the chaos if embraced to become something unique and interesting.
12:07 Speaker 02 However, what he didn't do was continue on with what was already pre-planned. What he did was start something totally new.
12:15 Dax Shepard? You've won that. Checkmate.
12:16 Speaker 02 You see what I'm saying?
12:17 Dax Shepard? Great counter.
12:17 Speaker 02 Which means that he was completely in control of the situation. He said, what we were planning, out the window. There's no power, I can't do this. And then just let me filter whatever I can filter through in the present moment.
12:29 Dax Shepard? Well, listen, I just wanted to bring Kristen in because the whole house was a flutter today. Now Kristen's in, she believes this ruse. Mysteriously, our 11-year-old had an emotional fit this morning that precluded her from going to school on time because she knew somebody was coming to the house at 11.
12:45 Speaker 03 Is she here?
12:46 Dax Shepard? No, we had to send her.
12:48 Speaker 03 I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. I was like, oh, she's having a swing. Okay, we're gonna let her regulate. I'm gonna stand back. I'm gonna let her get it all out. She's crying, the whole nine yards. We finally calmed down on the ride to school. She goes, is Cynthia the 11 a.m. or the 2 p.m.? That's what she said.
13:04 Speaker 01 Yeah. I had a feeling you guys were gonna keep them home from school today.
13:08 Speaker 03 I used my optimistic outlook. I said, This will not be the last time.
13:11 Speaker 02 It won't.
13:12 Speaker 03 We're gonna double date. There's gonna be some other time where you will be able to be in her presence.
13:16 Speaker 02 Yes.
13:17 Speaker 03 And say what she means to you, because you mean quite a bit to her.
13:20 Dax Shepard? But hon, if Brad Pitt was coming over to clean the pool at 11 a.m. and I mysteriously couldn't make my appointment at 10, you would go immediately, this is horseshit. He just wants to watch Brad Pitt clean our pool.
13:30 Speaker 03 That's true, but I immediately take on their emotions. She started to get dysregulated and then I started to get dysregulated. And I was like chugging coffee to wake up, be like, how do we calm everybody down this morning? Then I called your sister to take the other one in.
13:42 Dax Shepard? And I was evil Oz upstairs journaling.
13:44 Speaker 02 Yep.
13:44 Dax Shepard? And I was listening to all the machinations and I was like, this is horseshit, but it's gonna work.
13:47 Speaker 03 I didn't even realize until really this moment what was pulled over.
13:52 Speaker 02 Oh my gosh.
13:54 Dax Shepard? Listen, some people will be disappointed, but that's something to be quite proud of. Our child did snow us.
13:59 Speaker 03 That she gave it a shot for something she loves.
14:01 Speaker 02 That is sweet. And also, I feel really cool.
14:04 Dax Shepard? Good.
14:05 Speaker 03 You are really cool.
14:06 Speaker 02 I feel really cool that your 11 year old was like, yeah.
14:09 Dax Shepard? And you're bringing something for everybody, because then you showed up in this outfit and now Monica's all on the ropes. She's fucked up.
14:13 Speaker 03 You're more than an outfit to me, though. So don't let him do that.
14:17 Dax Shepard? You got us all fucked up. This place is a titter.
14:20 Speaker 02 I'm gonna come back.
14:21 Dax Shepard? I think we should call it. That was a great episode. We can go only down from here. So what do you think about this really bad sample set I have, but 30 year old London? What do we share? Endlessly interested in whatever weird cultural differences we have, because it's misleadingly similar.
14:37 Speaker 02 As in between here and America?
14:38 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, right? You're like, oh yeah, English, shows, blah, blah, blah. But then there's really interesting differences.
14:45 Speaker 02 It's weird, because when I first moved here, I moved to New York and that felt the most similar to London specifically. But the thing that America and the UK as a whole have very similarly is that there are cities, places that it feels really multicultural and it's really like busy. And then you move further out and it becomes really disparate. I'm not having the same experience in London that someone is having in, I don't know, Yorkshire. Yorkshire's a beautiful, beautiful place. The vibe is very different and it just feels different. So it's the same as if I'm here in LA or I'm here in New York. It's very different than if I'm in Georgia.
15:19 Dax Shepard? London and New York have more in common than London and Essex.
15:22 Speaker 02 Correct.
15:22 Dax Shepard? Than New York and Georgia.
15:23 Speaker 02 Yes.
15:24 Dax Shepard? I get that.
15:25 Speaker 02 The foods are different. We just have different foods.
15:27 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
15:27 Speaker 02 Because we have to.
15:29 Dax Shepard? Why do you have to?
15:30 Speaker 02 Well, there are certain things that we're just not allowed to have in our food that you're okay to have in food here.
15:34 Speaker 01 Oh, like chemically?
15:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, chemically, yes. We're like not allowed to have certain things.
15:38 Dax Shepard? Yeah, but look how big and strong we are. Look at the UFC.
15:41 Speaker 02 Well, I don't think we have, do we have the UFC?
15:44 Dax Shepard? Yes, Conor McGregor.
15:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:46 Dax Shepard? I'm scared of him.
15:47 Speaker 02 I'm scared of him a little bit, but I do think like some of his bravado.
15:50 Speaker 01 He wants you to be scared of him, yeah.
15:51 Dax Shepard? Cause he's scared.
15:52 Speaker 02 I feel like there's a part of him that's just like the most gentle, sweetest thing in the world.
15:56 Dax Shepard? Well, this might interest you. We interviewed him last year and my main curiosity was like, what event happens before you dedicate your life to martial arts? And so I had asked him and he said, no, I walked into this gym at 12 years old. I'm like, yeah, but why do you walk into a boxing gym? What happened immediately before? And he's like, okay, well, actually I like this girl. She was older than me. She liked me. I was walking on the street with her. Then the older boys, one of whom was her boyfriend, pulled up in a car. Three older guys got out and beat the shit out of him. And then he goes, I didn't really fight back. And I'm like, now that makes sense. When you're trying to heal that embarrassment in front of a girl you like, where you didn't defend yourself, that's a motivation to continue on a life trajectory. And so, yeah, I think that little boy is underneath all of that.
16:38 Speaker 02 Still trying to defend himself.
16:40 Dax Shepard? It's really gone off the rails a little bit.
16:42 Speaker 02 I think so, yeah. He's just like gone one step too far, but oh, I hope he finds a little bit of healing.
16:48 Dax Shepard? Yeah, he has little kids. I think that can be a route into it.
16:51 Speaker 02 But I think there's something that has to be healed within himself first. It's also easily passed on to his kids. And that anger, that dismay, it's easily rubbed off.
17:01 Dax Shepard? Well, I say this all the time. I'm glad we have girls and not boys because yeah, I think the impulse when that was your life is to go like, well, if I don't pass this on to him, he'll suffer the way I did. And you're just starting it all up again because you don't have any faith in the future. I get it.
17:15 Speaker 01 Do you have kids?
17:16 Speaker 02 I don't, no.
17:17 Speaker 01 Do you want them?
17:18 Speaker 02 I don't think so. I'm good with kids though.
17:20 Speaker 01 I'm also on the fence.
17:21 Dax Shepard? You guys are the exact same age.
17:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, 37.
17:25 Dax Shepard? And you and I are only six days apart in January.
17:27 Speaker 02 No way.
17:28 Dax Shepard? Do you believe in all the astrology stuff or no?
17:30 Speaker 02 I think there's a part of me that does believe in it because I'm very Capricorn to a T, which disturbs me somewhat because it annoys me.
17:39 Speaker 01 That's what Capricorns do. They're annoyed by the fact that it's accurate.
17:43 Dax Shepard? The predictability.
17:43 Speaker 02 I hate it. I'm like, okay, so I'm stubborn. Good, great. Overachieving, yes, understood. Do I like nice things? Yes, I like nice things.
17:51 Dax Shepard? Uh huh. Am I in charge all the time?
17:53 Speaker 02 All the time. Do I plan people's lives? Yes. Am I emotionally adept sometimes? Yes. Do I keep my feelings to myself for a really long time? Yes. Am I working through it? Yes.
18:03 Dax Shepard? Am I insufferable? You bet your ass I am.
18:05 Speaker 02 Completely. Am I right a lot of the times? Yes. Does it annoy people? Yes. Do I like saying I told you so? Not always.
18:13 Dax Shepard? Okay, great. I love you. Thanks for stopping by.
18:15 Speaker 02 You don't have to sneak out. You can come back if you want to.
18:16 Dax Shepard? She has a whole schedule.
18:18 Speaker 02 Oh, enjoy. Bye, buddy.
18:20 Dax Shepard? Bye, guys. Love you.
18:21 Speaker 02 Bye.
18:22 Dax Shepard? Did you get on with Michaela?
18:24 Speaker 02 Cole?
18:24 Dax Shepard? Yes.
18:25 Speaker 02 I've known her since I was 16.
18:27 Dax Shepard? I love her so much. I read her book.
18:29 Speaker 02 She's one of the most phenomenal human beings in the world.
18:31 Dax Shepard? Well, for people that don't know Michaela, what was her incredible show? That was the best show of the year on HBO.
18:36 Speaker 02 I May Destroy You.
18:36 Dax Shepard? I May Destroy You. If you've not seen I May Destroy You.
18:39 Speaker 02 You have to see it. Also, before you see I May Destroy You, see Chewing Gum, which I'm in.
18:44 Speaker 01 Oh.
18:45 Speaker 02 For like an episode or two, but it's just brilliant.
18:48 Speaker 01 Oh, I'm so excited.
18:48 Speaker 02 And people don't realize that is originally based on a long-form poem that she wrote. I remember the first time I saw this poem, because she performed it live. I can't even remember where we were, but it was like somewhere in Holloway or something, like this small little theater, and it was like a one-woman poem, where she played all these different roles. And then it just expanded into this TV show.
19:08 Dax Shepard? She's like a wunderkind.
19:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, there's no one like her.
19:11 Dax Shepard? Where did you meet?
19:12 Speaker 02 East London. I want to say we met at one of the theaters or something.
19:16 Dax Shepard? You were just both into...
19:17 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:18 Dax Shepard? Are you comparable ages?
19:19 Speaker 02 I think she's maybe a year or so younger than me.
19:22 Dax Shepard? Younger?
19:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:23 Dax Shepard? What a bitch.
19:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, but I love her. She'd written some songs or poems with songs and asked me to sing, or I think it was when I was dancing, she asked me to dance to one of her songs that she was performing at a church or something, random. And we just stayed in contact, and we've been friends since then.
19:41 Dax Shepard? Give us a simple explanation of London. So you grew up in South London. You said you met in East London.
19:47 Speaker 02 Yeah, so I was born southwest London, a place called Stockwell. I went to school in South London, Clapham South, but I moved to East London when I was about 14, about Upton Park, East Ham, that kind of area, but properly East London.
20:00 Dax Shepard? Your whole family did, or just you went to a school or something?
20:04 Speaker 02 We all moved to East London.
20:05 Dax Shepard? Your sister, your mother and you?
20:06 Speaker 02 Yes. My mom bought a house in East London and that's when we moved. That was a really big moment for us because it was like, oh, we have our own house.
20:14 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the vibe in South London? Like, what are the stereotypes about these pockets of London?
20:19 Speaker 02 I thought that South London was pretty chill. I really enjoyed it. I remember there's open spaces, loads of like cool little parks that you can go to. It's very walkable. You can walk all around South London and mostly downhill.
20:31 Dax Shepard? And just never come home to avoid walking uphill.
20:34 Speaker 02 The bus is your best friend at that point, you know what I mean? It's lovely going, coming back is a damn nightmare, or you take a tube. There's loads of cool outdoors activities where I lived, you could go go-karting, stuff like that.
20:46 Dax Shepard? Go-karting.
20:46 Speaker 02 And East London is really vibrant. It's busy and alive, loads of different cultures.
20:52 Dax Shepard? Is it like the East Village in New York?
20:54 Speaker 02 No, I don't know if there's anywhere like it. You have the African community and different African communities. You've got Ghanaians, the Nigerians, you have the Pakistanis, you have Bangladesh, you have the Jamaicans there as well. There's like a smorgasbord of different types of people, which means that there's different types of food everywhere. And like, it's super vibey. I can go to the corner of East Ham right after the tube station. And I know that I'm going to walk into the store that has all of the saris and all of the 24 karat goals. But then if I cross the road, there's the shop that has the Jamaican patties. And if I walk far enough, there's the auntie that does the Nigerian materials. It's like that. And then there's the market, which has everything.
21:31 Dax Shepard? This is where Kirby's mom's shop was, I think.
21:33 Speaker 02 I love it in East Ham because of how easy it is to just get everything. But then next door, Larry, who's like the plumber, who fixes your roof and your backyard if he needs it. Who's very, very Essex, who sounds like this and wants to talk to you about what the weather's been like, is also there.
21:53 Dax Shepard? Right.
21:54 Speaker 02 So you have all of these people who sort of exist in the same way. And then West Ham stadiums over there. For what you call soccer, we call football.
22:01 Dax Shepard? Yeah, right. Which goes off.
22:03 Speaker 02 It goes off.
22:04 Dax Shepard? Yeah, especially in the, well, you were born in 87, maybe that had passed, but there was the whole hoodlum era. It felt like- Early nineties, maybe.
22:11 Speaker 02 Early nineties, when I was still very, very young. I think it was Arsenal, that terrible, awful thing that happened at the games where people were like, there was a stampede.
22:19 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:20 Speaker 02 It was terrible.
22:20 Dax Shepard? And they were all wearing Burberry, I just learned this recently. That was their thing.
22:24 Speaker 02 Yeah, something happened because Burberry was not that. Then it became part of that culture.
22:30 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
22:30 Speaker 02 I think it's been, in a way, reclaimed and changed again.
22:33 Dax Shepard? Beckham has saved it, kind of.
22:35 Speaker 02 Beckham saved it, yeah.
22:36 Dax Shepard? Yeah, what a style icon. We're gonna give him props for that. That's what got me to buy Burberry's sweater.
22:40 Speaker 02 Oh.
22:41 Dax Shepard? And Monica got me a beautiful one for Christmas.
22:43 Speaker 02 I did. Yeah, it's changed hands enough that the style has changed enough for it to become, for the aperture in it to become wider.
22:51 Dax Shepard? Right. Okay, so what age was mom when she moved here? Mom and dad both are from Nigeria.
22:57 Speaker 02 Yes.
22:57 Dax Shepard? Mom was fifteen during the civil war.
22:59 Speaker 02 Yes, I believe so, yeah, from war. And my mom moved to London when she was twenty-four.
23:04 Dax Shepard? Had she already been a nurse in Nigeria?
23:07 Speaker 02 She did all of that when she got here.
23:08 Dax Shepard? She came at twenty-four with who?
23:10 Speaker 02 Herself and her younger sister.
23:11 Dax Shepard? When she landed, what was the game plan?
23:14 Speaker 02 I don't know if she had a game plan.
23:15 Dax Shepard? Sure, just arrive.
23:17 Speaker 02 Arrive?
23:18 Dax Shepard? Mission complete.
23:18 Speaker 02 What do I do?
23:19 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
23:19 Speaker 02 And then she was told that she was to do catering, to which she said yes for a second and then was like, I don't know if catering's for me.
23:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah.
23:29 Speaker 02 And then studied nursing at King's College, became a nurse, then expanded and kept expanding and then got better and better and then started doing her papers for what we call health visiting. There's a position in the UK, I always explain it because I think it's a really beautiful position that everyone should have, called a health visitor. And it is a nurse or a nurse who's at the level of what you call a sister at this point, who can make visits to people's homes who have just had children. She will take care of mother and child, make sure the vitals are good. Her particular area of expertise was cognitive health. So it's, are your children developing in the right way? Are they able to pick things up? Can they spot color?
24:14 Speaker 02 From birth to the age of three before they go to kindergarten.
24:17 Dax Shepard? Oh my God, what a preventative step that probably. Saves a quadrillion dollars. That's different, though, than a postpartum doula. What is it? Do you know what a postpartum doula is?
24:27 Speaker 02 No, but it's weird because I think those are part of her duties to take care of mother right after birth. When mother comes home with a baby, when parents come home with a baby, that first couple of weeks, months, my mom is the person that you see.
24:42 Speaker 01 That's so amazing.
24:43 Dax Shepard? Right.
24:43 Speaker 02 Weighs the baby, the whole lot.
24:45 Dax Shepard? Probably knows about breastfeeding and all that stuff.
24:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, I don't know why we don't have more of that because that's the whole thing. You take a baby home and you're like, I don't know what to do with it.
24:53 Speaker 02 That's where my mom steps in.
24:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:54 Speaker 02 So she will tell you what's next.
24:56 Dax Shepard? Yeah, that would be of great comfort. Every parent has the moment in the car ride home from the hospital and you're like, holy shit, what's in our backseat?
25:03 Speaker 01 Why they give this to me?
25:04 Dax Shepard? This thing's way too fucking fragile to come to our house.
25:08 Speaker 02 Where are the instructions to this?
25:09 Dax Shepard? It needs to be in the ICU. Look how tiny it is.
25:12 Speaker 02 I don't know why you don't have this position here because it's so helpful because that bit between birth and kindergarten, it seems like there's nothing in between.
25:21 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
25:21 Speaker 02 Which is so odd to me because my mom is the person in between. That means that a parent who has postpartum depression, someone who might have been already depressed, someone who is finding it hard to let, all of that, that's my mom.
25:34 Dax Shepard? Oh, yeah. And if you fuck up the nutritional aspect of the first three years, like we now know, there's so much developmental stuff down river that doesn't happen if certain things aren't met.
25:45 Speaker 02 That would be her. And she was very good at it. She was like the child whisperer. It's very strange.
25:48 Dax Shepard? I would imagine, just to compare and contrast that to someone who is in hospice care, right? Where your full-time job is watching people die, the weight of that's got to be something else.
25:58 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
25:58 Dax Shepard? She is almost the opposite. She's seen all the excitement and the fun and the hopefulness and the future.
26:03 Speaker 02 Every day.
26:04 Dax Shepard? Do you think it has infected her in a positive way?
26:06 Speaker 02 I think so. She loves children and children love her. It's really magical to watch. They all just sort of go to her.
26:13 Dax Shepard? Is she supremely disappointed you're not going to give her a grandchild?
26:16 Speaker 02 She might be and I don't know if she knows yet. I think I have to break it to her. But the thing is, I want to satisfy that need in a very different way because I do want to be the person that's able to put people through school, take care. Care of young people who need care. I do think that's a gift that's come from her.
26:35 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
26:36 Speaker 02 Because I do think I am actually very good with kids and good with young people. I want to still be nurturing without necessarily being the biological parent.
26:43 Dax Shepard? Yes, and still being able to have a date night whenever you desire.
26:46 Speaker 02 Correct.
26:46 Dax Shepard? Yes, and take a vacation. That sounds fun.
26:48 Speaker 02 Do you know what I love? I love what Oprah's been able to do, where she essentially has been taking care of these young women, building them up enough for them to move into whatever careers they want to move into. And they're all excellent women. I think I aspire to be able to do that.
27:06 Dax Shepard? Yes.
27:06 Speaker 02 At some point.
27:07 Dax Shepard? When do you start singing?
27:09 Speaker 02 I start singing at the age of five without realizing that that's actually what I'm doing. I know I'm making sound. I feel very good about the sound I'm making.
27:18 Dax Shepard? Good.
27:18 Speaker 02 I like the reaction that people are having because of it.
27:21 Speaker 01 Other people are reacting positively.
27:23 Speaker 02 So I know that something is good. I don't necessarily know that it's the most tuneful sound. I just know that I'm having a great time doing it. And I'm seeing people's faces, smiles, applause is happening, good.
27:33 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:34 Speaker 01 Approval.
27:35 Dax Shepard? There's nothing like being little and going like, wait, I have control. And I feel so disenfranchised and powerless as this little person, but this is a moment in time. I'm in charge.
27:45 Speaker 02 Right.
27:45 Dax Shepard? Ooh, it's good.
27:46 Speaker 02 It's very good. I think for a little bit I was just chasing that because it was nice.
27:51 Dax Shepard? Yes.
27:51 Speaker 02 I think for anyone then.
27:52 Dax Shepard? You're not aware of it then, but when I look back, I also think it's very rare in your life where you can be in control. And I think singing certainly has that. It just happened to me. We saw Wicked. I'm like, okay, I didn't see the musical. I don't love musicals. And then fucking limitless and I'm like, oh, fucking come on, let's go. Let it rip and I'm in. You took complete control of me and whatever baggage I come in with. That's so powerful.
28:18 Speaker 02 But the thing is, I don't think I've ever thought of it as control necessarily. I think I've always thought of it as a way to encourage and connect people with emotion.
28:28 Dax Shepard? Well, that's the positive way, but I think you're in Capricorn denial.
28:31 Speaker 02 Maybe, maybe I am.
28:33 Dax Shepard? And by the way, it can be all things.
28:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
28:35 Dax Shepard? It's not singular. It's not binary. It's not like, oh, you like it because of the control or you like it because you make. People you love happy, that's part of it.
28:42 Speaker 02 I think I love the conversation of singing. I always think there's a real big conversation going on, especially when I'm singing live. It's a big old conversation. I can see it because I'm looking at people's eyes. I am urging them to connect with me. I'm trying to tell you this story. I can scream, I can yell, I can whisper, I can caress with my voice. I can do all of those things, but I want the energy exchange. And I guess selfishly, that energy exchange is like a high for me, it's a rush. And when I can see that it's happening, there's nothing better than that. It is a really vulnerable place to stand and be like, I'm gonna open up myself and I'm gonna tell you my stories with my voice. It's just me and that's always a really vulnerable place to be. People don't realize that. When you have to sing in front of an orchestra, they either love you or hate you.
29:27 Dax Shepard? The orchestra.
29:28 Speaker 02 The orchestra. Why would they hate you? Because some singers will come in and there's an entitled thing that people come to an orchestra with where it's like, I'm the singer, you play behind me. You're serving me.
29:37 Dax Shepard? You're supporting me.
29:38 Speaker 02 Exactly.
29:38 Dax Shepard? I'm the star.
29:39 Speaker 02 When actually it's the complete opposite. It's not that at all. You're all in it together. The music doesn't make sense without them and they don't make sense without you. They can play the song, but the lyrics communicate as well, but they help with the emotion. If you don't do it together, it will feel disjointed. I always get really nervous before I have the conversation, but I always urge myself to do it. Before we even start rehearsal, the first thing I ask the orchestra to do is to let me come with you and let's do this together. Because I'm not gonna do this alone. And if you're sat there not enjoying this, everyone's gonna feel it. Right. Because there's 20 of them and only one of me. And if 20 of them aren't enjoying it and if they can't go with it, their audience will feel that immediately.
30:23 Speaker 02 And we're off in the wrong direction.
30:25 Dax Shepard? Now, I know nothing about this, just from the outside, is there knee jerk fear that we're playing math, right? We have the sheet music in front of us and it goes this way to this tempo. But the singer has more latitude and the singer can individualize it. The saxophonist can't individualize it, nor can the oboist. So is it that sometimes they're like, all right, this person's gonna come in and they're gonna do whatever the fuck they want. And we're stuck in this grid and then we're gonna try to catch them, but then we're gonna fall back. Is it that? Is that their? Fear that they're going to be doing something that is different from what you're doing.
30:53 Speaker 02 Yes, and I think the actual fear is that the singer who comes in, who does have the latitude, isn't respectful of the fact that they have maths to do as well. They have a box to stay in. You can have your latitude, but if you're aware of, I need to make sure I make it back to here.
31:09 Dax Shepard? You gotta stick your landing every time.
31:11 Speaker 02 And if you don't.
31:11 Dax Shepard? I just got a point. That means you really.
31:13 Speaker 02 Exactly.
31:13 Dax Shepard? You're pointing right at my face.
31:14 Speaker 02 If you don't and you're just all over the place and you're not paying attention, you're not looking at the conductor, you're not listening.
31:19 Dax Shepard? You're in your own selfish world.
31:21 Speaker 02 Exactly. Now we're not doing this together. Now you're just doing whatever the hell you want to do. And I'm over here playing these notes.
31:26 Dax Shepard? We should just leave and let you.
31:27 Speaker 02 Why are we even here? You're doing this on your own. You don't need us.
31:30 Dax Shepard? And what percentage of you just had a guess? How many do you think are respectful?
31:33 Speaker 02 I think very few. A lot of singers just get excited that they get to sing in front of an orchestra.
31:37 Dax Shepard? And they're nervous.
31:38 Speaker 02 And they're nervous. They haven't really done it before. Sometimes an orchestra is a novelty to a lot of singers.
31:43 Dax Shepard? And in their defense, if it doesn't work out, no one's going like, the oboe suck tonight. They're gonna say the singer suck.
31:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:48 Dax Shepard? You are carrying the weight of the whole performance.
31:50 Speaker 02 Yes, but the weight becomes a hell of a lot lighter when you know it's not just you.
31:53 Dax Shepard? Right.
31:54 Speaker 01 When you say you wanted to connect, that's your main goal when you're up there. Did you feel like when you were younger, you had a hard time connecting outside of that realm? Was it an escape? I mean, it doesn't seem like it because you're easy to talk to, but I don't know if you were introverted or shy and that was your outlet.
32:10 Speaker 02 I wasn't shy. I was very bossy.
32:13 Dax Shepard? Hmm, baby boss.
32:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:14 Dax Shepard? So is Monica.
32:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:15 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
32:16 Speaker 02 I was very bossy. I knew exactly what I needed to do, what I wanted. And if I didn't like something, I was the worst version of a Capricorn that could exist.
32:27 Speaker 05 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
32:34 Dax Shepard? We get support from Skims. Okay, I have a confession. I genuinely love matching pajamas. It's the best part of Christmas morning, really. Everyone in the same matching set, looking ridiculously cute in front of the tree.
32:48 Speaker 01 I love matching pajamas. I'm literally going to be in coordinating sets with all my friends this holiday season because I got them, spoiler to my friends who are listening, the same Skims pajama set I've been living in. They are so soft and cozy and they look cute. So you can leave the house and go get a late night hot chocolate and be cozy.
33:09 Dax Shepard? Hmm, it's so great how Skims has sets for everyone too. Women's, men's, kids, even your pets. So nobody in your life has to be left out this year.
33:19 Speaker 01 I have a bunch of different pajama sets. One of my favorite is the organic cotton sleep long sleeve set.
33:26 Dax Shepard? Okay.
33:27 Speaker 01 It is so comfortable, very chic, too. The top is a button down, but very, very soft, easy to sleep in. But as I said before, you can multi-purpose this and look super cute.
33:39 Dax Shepard? Hot chocolate runs. It's like the pajamas we grew up in, except without the scratchy polyester that made opening presents feel more like a hot yoga class that nobody signed up for.
33:48 Speaker 01 All the nostalgia, none of the discomfort. Shop my favorite loungewear and pajamas at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcasts in the survey and be sure to select armchair expert in the dropdown menu that follows. If you're looking for the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, the Skims Holiday Shop is now open at skims.com.
34:07 Dax Shepard? This episode is supported by Helix.
34:11 Speaker 01 Okay, can we talk about how November is basically survival mode between the holidays, the travel, the hosting, the cooking, the everything? Sleep is the one thing keeping me from completely unraveling.
34:21 Dax Shepard? It really is the foundation, and I think people underestimate how much a bad mattress is quietly ruining their day. You wake up stiff, your back's angry, you're already behind before your feet hit the floor.
34:32 Speaker 01 That was me before Helix. I took their sleep quiz, which is so fast. It took me like two minutes and they matched me to a mattress that actually fits how I sleep. Not a guess, not a firm or soft coin flip, it's a real match. I have a midnight mattress and I really like it. I was noticing it because I actually had to sleep in one of my other beds recently that doesn't have a Helix mattress on it and I really could tell a big difference in my sleep.
34:55 Dax Shepard? Temperature was all over the map.
34:56 Speaker 01 It was a mess. I need a new one.
34:58 Dax Shepard? Look, they've got over 20 mattress models, so whether you sleep hot, need extra back support, or you've got a partner who moves around all night, there's one built for you. Plus free shipping and a 365 night happy with Helix guarantee. That's a full year to decide.
35:13 Speaker 01 Helix has been named the most awarded mattress by Forbes, Wired, and more. So it's not just us being enthusiastic, the experts agree.
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35:37 Dax Shepard? We get support from No Bull. The holidays can get hectic. You finally hit a post summer routine and suddenly you're on hosting duty every week.
35:47 Speaker 01 That's when you really need to ground yourself.
35:50 Dax Shepard? Exactly, and that's why I keep my training routine through the holidays. It's the whole No Bull idea. There's a no bullshit training brand built around consistency, honesty, and just putting in the work. It's not about adding more pressure to an already packed schedule. It's about having the gear and the habits to move through the season your way. My personal favorite, all three of the shoes are fantastic. The Outwork, the Outwork Flex, and the Drive 2. I like the Drive 2 because it's a hybrid. And I lift, of course, but I also like to do what's called box jumps.
36:20 Speaker 01 Ah.
36:21 Dax Shepard? Right? I do a lot of jumping onto a little platform and I want a little more flexibility. And boy, do they deliver.
36:27 Speaker 01 And if you're a cardio person and you're running and you also need to be lifting.
36:31 Dax Shepard? And the style is banging. I don't know what to say. Beautiful style, very breathable, very, very comfortable, lots of support. They were built for lifting.
36:39 Speaker 01 They also make a great holiday gift. You know, I love gifting, a purposeful one that actually supports someone's goals and routines. And it's not a gift that just ends up in the back of a closet.
36:48 Dax Shepard? Stay stronger than the season. Head to nobullproject.com all holiday season to shop new deals every week. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every family has that one holiday tradition nobody actually enjoys, but everyone keeps doing because stopping it would feel like a federal offense. For me, it was a specific meal situation that I will not name because my family listens. But at some point you have to ask yourself, am I doing this because I love it? Or because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't?
37:18 Speaker 01 Yes, and that question applies to so much more than the holidays. I think a lot of us carry these invisible rules about how we're supposed to spend the holidays. Who we're supposed to see, what it's supposed to look like. And when you start unpacking that with a therapist, you realize half of your stress is coming from rules you didn't even write.
37:35 Dax Shepard? This is where BetterHelp can be a great resource during the holidays. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, which means they typically Get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recs.
37:54 Speaker 01 I just love therapy. I've been avoiding it recently, or not avoiding it, but I was like, oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. I haven't canceled, canceled, canceled. But then I-
38:02 Dax Shepard? You start feeling it.
38:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, because then I had it this past weekend and I was like, oh my God, I'm just, thank God, thank God for her. Yeah.
38:10 Dax Shepard? BetterHelp is now in network with more than 125 health plans with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com/dax. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash DAX.
38:41 Speaker 01 You have some Virgo in you too. I'm feeling, yeah.
38:43 Speaker 02 I would just say what I thought. And sometimes that would not, it would not be nice.
38:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:51 Speaker 02 I wasn't a mean kid. I just was really honest all the time.
38:55 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Can I defend us for a second?
38:56 Speaker 02 Yes.
38:56 Dax Shepard? So it's an easy mix up. What I value the most is the truth.
39:01 Speaker 02 Please.
39:02 Dax Shepard? And I prefer an inconvenient truth than I do a flowery lie.
39:07 Speaker 02 Just don't do it to me.
39:08 Dax Shepard? But I have to acknowledge for other people, that's not the case.
39:11 Speaker 02 Yeah.
39:12 Dax Shepard? They're not interested in that. And that's also fair.
39:14 Speaker 01 Because it depends on where you're coming from. You have that, Dax has that hang up, I guess I'll call it, or obsession or whatever.
39:20 Dax Shepard? Character defect.
39:21 Speaker 01 No, it's not a defect, but because you were told things that weren't true and you had to figure it out. Yeah, you had to figure out what was true and what wasn't true. And so you seek the truth. So it comes from somewhere, that need.
39:34 Dax Shepard? Yeah, we're blaming January, but maybe there's more.
39:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think it might be a little more than January.
39:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
39:39 Speaker 01 Because we're all doing that. The best way to survive in the world. And so why truth for you?
39:45 Speaker 02 I think it comes from my own past and my history with my dad and all of those things. Maybe feeling a little lied to in that expectation of a parent and not getting it.
39:57 Dax Shepard? Do you have this chip on your shoulder? Do you remember being young and them telling you some kid's safe thing that you saw right through? And it felt so disrespectful, like, I know what's going on and you're trying to fool me. Did you have that sense of like, you're treating me too young? I know what's going on.
40:12 Speaker 02 I was a clever kid, so I didn't necessarily need much babying. So when a person did baby me, it still pisses me off now.
40:19 Dax Shepard? How sweet of you.
40:20 Speaker 02 I can't stand it.
40:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:24 Dax Shepard? Yeah, it's rough.
40:25 Speaker 02 Please don't call me cute. I haven't been cute in a long time.
40:28 Dax Shepard? Well, it depends what you're associating with the word cute is.
40:31 Speaker 02 A small squirrel, cute. My dogs, who are five pounds and eight pounds, cute.
40:37 Dax Shepard? Vulnerable too.
40:38 Speaker 02 Vulnerable. You know, some babies, cute.
40:41 Speaker 01 Do you think that's a small person complex thing?
40:43 Speaker 02 I think it's a small person complex thing to other people. I know I'm short. I'm very aware of being a small, five foot one person. But it's when people think because you're small, you're also very young and dumb. The two things don't go together just because I'm small. You know what I mean? I'm good.
40:59 Speaker 01 I have that too. I'm like, don't underestimate this. But then I think sometimes I'm too critical or harsh, or you need to respect me. Do you ever feel like you swing?
41:10 Speaker 02 I try not to swing. When someone's like, you look so much bigger on stage. I understand what that means. I think if you'd told me that 10 years ago, I would have been like, what do you mean? But now I understand what you mean by someone's presence when they're in performance mode. As opposed to when you meet them, they're two different things. So the look of someone changes when they're in their sort of element.
41:32 Speaker 01 Yes.
41:33 Speaker 02 They do seem bigger. You can't help it. And that's what happens. So I totally understand what that means.
41:39 Dax Shepard? This is all very comedic though, because that's your bag. That's what you were handed and that's what you're dealing with. So mine is universally, when I meet someone in real life, they go, oh my God, you're so much bigger in real life. So weirdly, I'm so much bigger in real life than they see me on screen. So if I wanted, if I'm in the mood, I could go like, I'm not powerful on screen or I'm not. I could let that be a whole thing. If you choose, you could really take it personal or something's going on. And what's really complicates it all, not for me as much, because I am giving. Given the best benefit of the doubt that a human on planet Earth can be given. I'm a tall, white dude. But if I'm short and black and British, how am I to know what's actually at play here? Is it just normal humanness? Or is it some kind of bigotry? What's happening?
42:23 Speaker 01 It's hard to know.
42:24 Speaker 02 It's very hard to know. And at any point, it could be either one of those things.
42:27 Dax Shepard? Yes.
42:28 Speaker 01 Or all of it.
42:28 Speaker 02 Yeah. Because sometimes it is. You're so sweet. Oh, my goodness, I didn't expect you to be.
42:33 Dax Shepard? You're so sweet, or you're so articulate, or you're so smart. I mean, these are very dog whistly.
42:38 Speaker 02 You're so well spoken. Oh, my God, I love the way you speak. How else am I supposed to speak?
42:42 Dax Shepard? But what's tricky.
42:43 Speaker 01 What were you expecting?
42:44 Dax Shepard? Here's what's tricky. There's the historical context of that comment. Basically, what I'm saying is I was expecting you to sound dumb. Yet, you do speak very appealingly.
42:53 Speaker 02 Yes.
42:54 Dax Shepard? Objectively. Again, how are you to know what the hell's going on?
42:58 Speaker 02 I like to think I'm somewhat discerning. And you can tell by the way someone says something and the intention behind it. I think you can always sense it through the way a person approaches you and what they're trying to say and the context through which they say it. I also just try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. If I was to run around going, what are you trying to say? The whole time, I would be exhausted. And some of this is exhausting as it is.
43:26 Speaker 01 It's a pick your battles.
43:27 Speaker 02 This is not the fight I want to even get into. And sometimes it's just a, yeah, thank you so much.
43:32 Speaker 01 Right.
43:33 Dax Shepard? I think the real move is to just file all of it into, that's their stuff.
43:39 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:39 Dax Shepard? And it's not my stuff. So my little thing is, I'd say at least half the people that come up to me in public, they have come up to me to say, hey, I love your wife. And I go, oh, yeah, me too. I don't really know what else to say. You just flagged me down, but like, I guess carried that message onto her. But the truth is, many of those people, they don't know what to say. And people are coming up to Kristen saying, I love your husband. Now, she is objectively more famous than me, so I could let that lower my self-esteem. Or I could go like, oh, yeah, people say it to her too. None of it means anything. They're panicked.
44:11 Speaker 02 What they actually want to say is, I think you're great. And I watch your shows.
44:14 Speaker 01 I know about you.
44:15 Speaker 02 And they know what about you and they want to have a whole conversation and nothing comes out.
44:19 Dax Shepard? Yes.
44:19 Speaker 02 But I love your wife.
44:21 Dax Shepard? Yeah, exactly. Now it's all fine. And at some point, you just have to make a decision for yourself. It's like, well, this could continue to rattle me or I could enjoy my life.
44:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
44:31 Dax Shepard? But if you're a justice warrior like I am, not in the popular sense, but if there's an injustice, I'm running towards.
44:37 Speaker 02 I'm telling you, this is God for God's shit.
44:39 Dax Shepard? It is, right? I just don't stand for it.
44:42 Speaker 02 It really is. Cause I have the same thing.
44:44 Dax Shepard? You suffer from it. I suffer from it. The person doesn't suffer from it.
44:47 Speaker 02 No, they go home afterwards. They're like, okay, that was good.
44:49 Speaker 01 That was a great interaction.
44:50 Speaker 02 Great.
44:51 Dax Shepard? And what they probably want to really say, and they're not even sure how to say it, is I'm short circuiting. You're a person that's on my TV that's now in three dimension.
44:58 Speaker 02 It's a complete collapse of reality for them.
45:02 Dax Shepard? Yes.
45:02 Speaker 01 A more generous take is that they are actually saying, I've invested part of my life in your life. I know about you. I know you have a wife and I really like her too. And I find you interesting enough that I've given you my time. That's really what they're trying to say, but then that's what comes out. But I do want to say that I am grateful that you, Dax, just said you recognize that as a tall, white, straight man. Yeah, I added that.
45:27 Dax Shepard? You don't know all my stuff.
45:30 Speaker 01 That you can't really imagine what it's like to be in that other position. Because I have heard people say like, they're just being nice. And I'm like, you haven't had 37 years of practice to know when someone's being nice and when someone's not.
45:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
45:43 Speaker 01 I think it's just great to acknowledge, maybe you can't know.
45:46 Speaker 02 I wonder if there's a world in which you just like, ask the question.
45:50 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Are you a racist asshole?
45:51 Speaker 02 Yeah. Are you being condescending or are you watch them short circuit?
45:56 Dax Shepard? I don't think I was ever going to admit this out loud. I only told a single person. I knew Monica would be mad at me. I told Eric, cause he's our shittiest friend and I knew he would maybe agree with this.
46:04 Speaker 01 Now we're telling the world.
46:06 Dax Shepard? Now I'm going to tell the world.
46:06 Speaker 02 Okay.
46:07 Dax Shepard? I was not proud of this, but this did happen. I'm at this burger joint down the street for the win. I love it. I'm there by myself. I'm eating a hamburger. There's a man and his wife and two kind of late teens kids. And the man leans over and he goes, I love your wife's commercials. It's cool. They let you be in them.
46:26 Speaker 01 That's so rude.
46:28 Dax Shepard? So rude. I take like four or five seconds and I'm like, this guy doesn't know what he just said. Maybe a minute goes by and I go, hey, did you mean to sound like a dick when you said that to me? Or did you just mess up your delivery? Wow.
46:40 Speaker 02 Right.
46:41 Dax Shepard? And he goes, what? And I go, well, you said that my wife lets me be in her commercials that I wrote. And I just don't know, do you realize how that sounded? Or did you just get nervous? And then he kind of panicked and he goes, huh, yeah, we just love all the work you guys do with mental health. I was like, oh no. Oh my god.
47:00 Speaker 02 Oh my gosh.
47:02 Dax Shepard? Oh no.
47:03 Speaker 02 Oh no.
47:05 Dax Shepard? And then y'all, we continue to sit there for another 15 minutes and finish our hamburgers. You were with this person? I was by myself, sitting directly next to the guy. He wasn't even a foot from me. You'd think he would move.
47:16 Speaker 02 There is something in the asking that made him have to think about it. What he said was rude.
47:22 Dax Shepard? Yes. I've left out a part, I consider for a moment, he might be trying to make a joke. He might know that's obviously an insult and he's just being familiar with me because he knows me. And maybe a buddy of mine would say that from Detroit. And I think I said, were you meaning to be a dick or were you trying to be funny?
47:37 Speaker 02 Yes.
47:38 Dax Shepard? Twitchy didn't answer, he said, I like the work you guys do with mental health.
47:41 Speaker 02 I will say that that is a really simple question to ask. And it's actually the simple answer, yes or no. It's a yes or no answer. And I don't think he knew the answer.
47:50 Dax Shepard? I don't think so either.
47:51 Speaker 02 I think he said a joke that he realized could be an insult as well, but thought it was like okay to say because he felt familiar.
47:58 Dax Shepard? And by the time I was asking him, he's already hearing the fight he's having with his wife on the ride home where she's like, why do you have to fucking open your mouth? I'm him in a lot of situations.
48:06 Speaker 02 I understand that there are people who short circuit and they just don't know what to say. And sometimes some of the sweetest interactions come out of that. My favorite types of those interactions are those where they just say, I don't know what to say and I have no words, but you're amazing.
48:21 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
48:22 Speaker 02 Because I get it.
48:23 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Well, that sentence weirdly conveys more emotion than any other one.
48:27 Speaker 02 Exactly. I'm really overwhelmed. I don't really know what to say because it's so honest. It's so endearing and it's so real. There are times when you're like, I don't know what to say here, but I know that this is a really cool moment and I'm glad you're here.
48:42 Dax Shepard? And I'm scared right now.
48:43 Speaker 02 And I'm scared because I don't want to say the wrong thing. It's an honest emotional reaction. The flip side of that is someone saying something and they say it in the wrong way. And if you look closely enough, you'll see it in their faces that, oh my God, what did I just say? Immediately you'll see it. But if that doesn't show up at all, then it's, oh, I said the best thing in the world. And then it's like, did you mean to hurt my feelings?
49:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:07 Speaker 02 Or was that just a moment of you trying to connect?
49:09 Speaker 01 That's a little bit better of a way to phrase it instead of where you're trying to be a dick.
49:13 Dax Shepard? How mad are you at me out of 10?
49:15 Speaker 01 I'm not. I'm not mad. But I do think maybe, oh, did you mean to hurt my feelings or were you just trying to be funny?
49:21 Dax Shepard? That would have meant a fixed vulnerability.
49:22 Speaker 01 That's the most vulnerable. And you're right, there's one answer.
49:25 Speaker 02 There's one answer. You know, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or I just wanted to connect. I'm so sorry, that came out wrong.
49:30 Dax Shepard? I should have let the whole thing slide. I don't think anything productive came out of it. Other than I came home and I was like.
49:35 Speaker 01 They did have to think about paying and maybe they won't go to the next person and do something.
49:39 Speaker 02 And say something like that.
49:40 Speaker 01 It's wild. Before you guys came up, we were talking about fame and newer celebrities are pushing back on fame.
49:48 Dax Shepard? The social contract of it all.
49:49 Speaker 01 Yes, they're building a bigger boundary and I think it's very interesting.
49:53 Dax Shepard? Well, I imagine you're dealing with something different than me. Well, now currently what we deal with, but prior to this show.
50:01 Speaker 02 Yes.
50:01 Dax Shepard? When I was just an actor, occasionally people were moved by what I did on parenthood. They laughed a lot at stuff I did. They didn't have cathartic emotional breakthroughs. You know, your lane in particular, I think is going to warrant an asymmetric connection where it's like, you really connected with my soul and opened up something and I don't even know what to do with this. We have it from the show. I just did a bunch of meet and greets for my beer company and I met so many fucking beautiful listeners of the show and they're saying like, my brother OD'd or I've repaired my relationship with my parents, they're addicts, you know, this kind of stuff. And I'm presuming that's the level of connection people are having with you and I love it, cherish it, feel so lucky to be receiving it and it's very emotional. Exhausting.
50:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think for me, that particular kind of connection has been happening since The Color Purple, really and truly. So that kind of cathartic release and people's stories and people coming together, breakups, the stories of abuse, those things have come up and people have been really open with me about the things they've been going through because of these women that I've been able to play and the stories that we get to tell. And during my concerts as well, people come together. There's something that happens in these spaces. I'm really grateful that that is what people experience with me, but I do have to be like.
51:25 Dax Shepard? Protective?
51:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, because otherwise I'll just arms open wide all day.
51:30 Dax Shepard? I think it's like when someone writes a cancer survival memoir that's popular. Inevitably, what you're going to hear when you meet people who loved it is their cancer journey or their parents' cancer journey, which is totally appropriate, but also it's a lot. You can't carry all those.
51:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, and it's very hard not to because I actually care. Every time someone takes the time to tell me a story, I'm listening. I feel their feelings because there's nothing worse than trying to tell someone a story and them not even bothering to like look you in the face.
51:56 Dax Shepard? No, then you're invisible.
51:57 Speaker 02 And I never want anyone to feel like that with me. So I take a lot of time to speak with people and be with people after shows and I can be there for like an hour and just be there with people.
52:11 Dax Shepard? No, your only solution is to not leave your house.
52:13 Speaker 02 It's not healthy.
52:14 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
52:14 Speaker 02 So after those shows, after those performances, whenever I've had all of that, outside of it, I have to find spaces for me to just be like me, find places where I could be meditative. And for me, running or walking gives me space to just like, I'm just gonna think, I'm gonna reconfigure my brain, I'm gonna free up some space for myself because it's really the only way I can do it.
52:38 Dax Shepard? I remember being depressed in my twenties, living in Santa Monica and just kind of hopeless. And I'd be like, just walk out your door and just walk. And I'd walk like five miles.
52:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
52:48 Dax Shepard? And I get back, I'm like, okay, yeah, I can keep going. What a magical thing to walk.
52:51 Speaker 02 It's so great. It has really. Helped me, I went to Greece and I filmed a little film called Drift and that was really terrifying and hard and heartbreaking, the whole lot. And what I would do every day before we would start filming is either run or walk miles and it would just sort of reset everything. The practice has just never changed.
53:15 Speaker 01 That's great.
53:16 Dax Shepard? At some point for your mental health, you're gonna have to like do some silly something.
53:21 Speaker 02 Some silly something?
53:22 Dax Shepard? Yeah, cuz Drift, Harriet, fucking Color Purple, like you're kinda living.
53:26 Speaker 02 If we think about it, even Wicked isn't really a silly project.
53:30 Dax Shepard? No, you're getting your ass kicked.
53:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'm pulling out everything from the depths of me. I think on the outside, people go, oh, it's fun. And then they get in there like, what?
53:40 Dax Shepard? What is great about Wicked, and again, I can't believe I'd never seen the musical, but I didn't know anything about the story, which was great.
53:46 Speaker 02 I really appreciate people who have not seen it at all and are coming to the movie fresh.
53:51 Dax Shepard? Can I tell you, I went back to our interview with Adina and she told this crazy story, you know, she got really hurt on stage one time. And then they had to rush her to the hospital. And she was saying this in the interview and like, I'm all green. And I'm like, I don't know what that means. She can't really be all green.
54:04 Speaker 01 Oh, you didn't know?
54:05 Dax Shepard? I didn't know. I didn't even know she was all green in there.
54:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
54:08 Dax Shepard? And then I saw you and I was like, oh, my God, now that story makes sense. She was in the ER completely green. That's fucking nuts.
54:14 Speaker 01 In her outfit. So funny.
54:17 Dax Shepard? And it's such a great, I don't wanna call it a trope, that feels dismissive, but it's a great architecture to watch someone just fucking take it on the chin. It's gut wrenching. I hate it. Especially the Justice Warrior me. I want you to go like, hey, fuck all y'all. I'm better than all y'all. I'm maddened by it and it's so sticky and good and great story.
54:34 Speaker 01 We got to go see it in a theater and it was so exciting. And I saw the play many years ago. I guess I forgot the whole thing. It started and I was like, what? I don't remember any of this. And then we were with a friend and she went to the bathroom and she came back and I was like, this movie is so sad. I hate what is happening to her.
54:52 Speaker 02 Right.
54:52 Speaker 01 You do such a good job of not playing it with pity, but you feel for that kid. And I was like, I'm her. I was like, so, you know, I'm her and I hate this for everybody. Especially me. It was fantastic. You're so good in it.
55:09 Speaker 02 Thank you, but I do have to do something silly at some point. I don't know what the silly thing is. I just did a really cool. I mean, there is silliness in it and I had a great time doing it. We did an episode of Poker Face with Natasha Lyonne.
55:21 Speaker 01 Yes, yes.
55:21 Speaker 02 And Brian Johnson and I had the best time doing it. And there is a lot of silliness. I got to use my funny bone there.
55:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
55:29 Speaker 02 But I think drama is always going to follow me. I think the dramatic bone is always going to be there. There's always going to be heart in something.
55:35 Dax Shepard? This is not a popular opinion that I have, but I have it. And I don't know where this comes from in me, but I'm a white trash kid. And I got to grow up and be free of that. And I don't have to tell the story of every socially and financially disenfranchised person. And I have always felt a little bit of sympathy. If you're famous and you're black, there feels like some obligation. Like you can't not be political. That's just not on the table for me. And although I think it's great to pursue those things, I also think it's yet another thing that's not fair about the whole experience. You finally transcended this and now you also need to be a social leader for me. And for you, I imagine like telling these stories. Did you feel some obligation like, yeah, I'm the best person to tell the color purple story?
56:20 Dax Shepard? I'm obliged to do so.
56:22 Speaker 02 There is a part of me that is like, yes, sometimes I want to just do some great stuff that doesn't have anything to do with the politics of me being a black queer woman.
56:33 Dax Shepard? Fashionista.
56:34 Speaker 02 I try. But I don't know if I have that choice. And so I kind of just accept it and try my very, very best to pick the things that have the widest view of what humanness looks like. I want to dance in the gray area always. I'm not particularly interested in characters that are only liked. I'm not particularly interested in characters that are just heroes. I want the complicated, icky space.
57:02 Dax Shepard? The Gary Oldman career.
57:04 Speaker 02 I want that. I want to be able to do all of those things and I want it to be okay. I have less worry about it than often sometimes studios and streamers do. They're like, oh, but what makes? She redeemable. Do we like her? And I'm always like, I don't know if the character cares if you like her or not.
57:19 Dax Shepard? Also, take a look at Sopranos.
57:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
57:22 Dax Shepard? The most successful show ever.
57:23 Speaker 02 If Tony Soprano is likable, we just watch it. Nobody asked if American Psycho was gonna be liked. I think it's okay if we can get those kinds of characters where the face is mine. We'll all be okay if we start really diving into those spaces and not being like, it's because she's black. It's just because she's human and she has darkness and light in her.
57:45 Dax Shepard? That's what's kind of clever about Wicked is she's green.
57:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's all the difference that a person can be.
57:52 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
57:52 Speaker 02 I loved the idea of being able to play her because there is no requirement for me to play her as just good or perfect the entire time. She makes mistakes. She fucks up. She gets it wrong.
58:06 Dax Shepard? Well, Ariana is perfect.
58:08 Speaker 02 Well.
58:09 Dax Shepard? But we immediately don't like that.
58:10 Speaker 02 And that's the thing. They're both fallible beings. They're both fallible humans. They rub up against each other. They're not great with each other either. It's not like Glinda's horrible and Elphaba doesn't give it back. They give it to each other. They're mean to each other for a long time. They say horrid things to each other until they realize, oh, we feel just as outcast as each other. In spaces, yours is more obvious, mine is not. I'm trying to live up to something that is beyond me and I can't get to a place that you are in. And I'm in the difference my entire life. So the experience of the world is very, very different.
58:49 Dax Shepard? Well, the most important thing is neither's thriving from the identity they've taken on.
58:52 Speaker 02 Because neither one of them at the beginning actually take on who they're meant to be. It takes them having to be like, this could be to my complete destruction, but I have got to be myself. Because it's the only way that I can actually fully exist. And that's when shit really takes off.
59:10 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Oh, my God. So good. We love John Chu. We've known John forever. He's the director.
59:15 Speaker 02 Truly is one of the most incredible people on the planet, just a good human being. Watching him work is really fun. He's so excited by it. And he's like finding things at the same time we're finding things and then the ideas keep going back and forth. Should we try this? Do you want to try it one more time? And it's just so thrilling the entire time. And this is what it's like for months and months on end. And the thing is, he won't say he's tired. I'll be like, John, you're tired. I need you to sit down. You need to take a break. Have you had something to eat? What are you eating? This is trash. I'm gonna get you some vegetables and some like nuts. Let's get you some sugar free sweets instead of having like all that sugar. Cause it's not gonna help.
59:58 Speaker 02 He's the kind of person that you want to be well, because he wants you to be well. He's creating this atmosphere that is so infectious. And it sounds really cliche and very facetious, but it's not. That's how we did this. And that's not to say that it was easy. It's just to say that because the atmosphere was set up in the right way. The things that were difficult were pleasurable at the same time. You could actually enjoy doing the hard work.
1:00:23 Dax Shepard? When you're a carpenter and you're building a house, it's hard.
1:00:25 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:00:26 Dax Shepard? But fuck is it rewarding?
1:00:27 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:00:27 Dax Shepard? Like it's all going right.
1:00:28 Speaker 02 Exactly.
1:00:29 Dax Shepard? And that's so rewarding.
1:00:30 Speaker 01 When people see the movie, it is shocking what he's done.
1:00:33 Speaker 02 I mean.
1:00:33 Speaker 01 It is incredible.
1:00:35 Dax Shepard? Visually, choreography.
1:00:36 Speaker 01 Oh my god. I was like, how did he do this? How did he think this? It's incredible. But I can imagine because there's so many moving parts, it'd be easiest for him to just be tough.
1:00:46 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:00:46 Speaker 01 So the fact that he was fun and engaging is a big feat.
1:00:50 Speaker 02 And really caring, because he asked me at the very beginning whether I wanted to do the makeup or whether I wanted to do CGI. There was a question. It was like, so here's the deal, Sin. If you do this makeup, it's gonna add three hours to your call time.
1:01:06 Dax Shepard? Yes.
1:01:07 Speaker 02 Every day. And it's gonna be hard to do that, because these are long days and you're gonna add to it.
1:01:11 Dax Shepard? I'm more worried about taking it off. Putting it on's one thing.
1:01:14 Speaker 02 The taking it off took an extra hour, hour and a half.
1:01:16 Dax Shepard? And is that shit bad for your skin?
1:01:18 Speaker 02 You know what? My skin was in the best.
1:01:19 Speaker 01 So you said yes?
1:01:20 Speaker 02 I said yeah.
1:01:21 Dax Shepard? Why did you say yes? You wanted to look in the mirror and?
1:01:24 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:01:24 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I get that.
1:01:26 Speaker 02 I didn't want to leave my trailer and have like dots on my face.
1:01:29 Dax Shepard? Can I see your hands? I couldn't tell if it was your nails were so long, if you were wearing some kind of hand thing.
1:01:33 Speaker 02 No, my nails were done.
1:01:34 Dax Shepard? Okay, and nothing was happening with your hands?
1:01:36 Speaker 02 Nothing was happening with my hands. I have very long fingers.
1:01:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:01:39 Speaker 02 Very long fingers.
1:01:40 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:01:41 Speaker 02 My nails are very long right now.
1:01:42 Dax Shepard? Can I ask you a really crazy question, it's inappropriate?
1:01:45 Speaker 02 Go on.
1:01:45 Dax Shepard? When you're wiping your butt.
1:01:46 Speaker 02 I knew you would ask that question.
1:01:48 Dax Shepard? I know, but everyone thinks it. Everyone's afraid to ask it.
1:01:50 Speaker 02 Because, no, no one's afraid to ask it.
1:01:52 Dax Shepard? Oh, is everyone asking that?
1:01:53 Speaker 02 Everybody asks that question.
1:01:54 Dax Shepard? All girls, though?
1:01:55 Speaker 02 No, everybody asks that question.
1:01:57 Speaker 01 Okay, yeah.
1:01:58 Dax Shepard? Very cliche.
1:01:58 Speaker 02 And my answer is, nobody uses just their fingers to wipe their backside. You use tissue.
1:02:04 Dax Shepard? Correct.
1:02:05 Speaker 02 And you wipe.
1:02:07 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I guess my question is, does the tissue go on the tip of the fingernails? Or do you try to get the tissue on the?
1:02:12 Speaker 02 Pads of the fingers.
1:02:13 Dax Shepard? Great, great, great, great. We're getting somewhere. And then, um, okay. And then you're just feeling a little tickle of the nails on your crack of your butt sometimes?
1:02:20 Speaker 02 No, because the tissue's there. You don't feel none of that.
1:02:23 Dax Shepard? I wonder, okay, what I would do if I were you?
1:02:25 Speaker 02 Oh, boy.
1:02:25 Dax Shepard? Is I would wrap my whole, I'd make a mitten.
1:02:28 Speaker 02 I fold.
1:02:28 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:02:29 Speaker 01 Oh, you're folder. I bunch.
1:02:31 Dax Shepard? Now, are you offended by that question? Are you like, I get it.
1:02:33 Speaker 02 Well, I get it. I'm annoyed by it. I'm like, ah, come on, guys. But I get it, but it's also like, I'm a functioning adult and I've never walked around smelling like, you know.
1:02:44 Dax Shepard? No one thinks that. In fact, everyone thinks you smell so good. It begs the question, how are you wiping your tush?
1:02:49 Speaker 02 Very well.
1:02:50 Speaker 01 They're saying, what they're saying when they're asking is I would never be able to wipe properly. It's a problem with them.
1:02:56 Speaker 02 That's a problem with them. And here's the thing, there are people who do not have nails who need to check how they're wiping.
1:03:01 Speaker 01 Big time.
1:03:02 Speaker 02 You know what I'm saying?
1:03:03 Dax Shepard? This isn't a pass on everyone without nails, by any stretch. So everyone's asking that question.
1:03:09 Speaker 02 Everyone's asking that question.
1:03:10 Dax Shepard? I kind of thought everyone would think that, but not be bold.
1:03:12 Speaker 02 No, no, people are bold. They are.
1:03:14 Dax Shepard? I knew you could handle it. I knew you could hash it out.
1:03:15 Speaker 02 How do you get anything done with those nails? And I'm like, I mean, I'm here.
1:03:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, I got here somehow.
1:03:21 Speaker 02 I'm dressed.
1:03:23 Dax Shepard? I love them. I was just thinking of the ergonomics in that exact situation.
1:03:26 Speaker 02 Thank you so much. But yeah, because the nails would change with the scene. Sometimes you would shoot two different things in one day, so the nails will change in the middle of the day.
1:03:33 Dax Shepard? Can we go back in time for a second?
1:03:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:03:35 Dax Shepard? You originally went to University of East London.
1:03:39 Speaker 02 That's right.
1:03:39 Dax Shepard? And you were majoring in psychology of music or music psychology? What is music psychology?
1:03:46 Speaker 02 It is the study of the way in which music affects the psychological state of a person based on where they live, their social standing. What's the word I'm looking for? Based on like elitism?
1:03:59 Dax Shepard? Socioeconomic standing, yeah.
1:04:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, status. And then when you get down to the final points of it, what is within music itself? So the way in which the note structures can affect the way a person hears the music and what it does to a person's mood and a person's psyche. So this is sort of layman's terms. If you hear a song in a minor key and the lyrics happen to be sad or without lyrics, it tends to evoke a sad emotion. Or if you hear music with a major key, even if the lyrics are sad, you will evoke a happy mood.
1:04:30 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:04:30 Speaker 02 There's a song, and I hate to pick this, but I pick it because it's the one thing on my mind and she's with me all the time. A song called "One Last Time" that Ariana Grande has. One last time, I need to be the one that takes you home.
1:04:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:04:43 Dax Shepard? I'm so happy. I was praying you would sing at least for a second and you just did. So thank you.
1:04:50 Speaker 05 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.
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1:09:09 Dax Shepard? If you want to sing more at any point, let me know.
1:09:11 Speaker 02 But her version, which is the seminal version, is in a major key and is up-tempo. When you hear it, you don't realize that it's actually a heartbreak song. People dance.
1:09:23 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:09:24 Speaker 02 Then there is a band called Third Story, who changed the key and took the tempo right down.
1:09:30 Speaker 01 Ah.
1:09:31 Speaker 02 And now it becomes a heartbreak song.
1:09:33 Speaker 01 And now people are crying.
1:09:33 Speaker 02 And now you make people cry.
1:09:34 Speaker 01 Whoa, that's fascinating.
1:09:37 Dax Shepard? It is, and do you find there's two different camps of people? So Monica and I are in different camps. I'm obsessed with music. It's a huge part of my life. But it's generally the music. The singing, sure. It's not the lyrics for me.
1:09:47 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, yes.
1:09:48 Dax Shepard? And so Monica's heavily driven by lyrics. I have even shared a couple of songs with Monica, and she'll be like, well, this song's a real bummer. And I'm like, it is? And then I look, oh, yeah, it's kind of about battered.
1:09:59 Speaker 01 Look at the words.
1:09:59 Speaker 02 Right, right, right, right.
1:10:00 Dax Shepard? And I completely missed it.
1:10:01 Speaker 02 I'm the camp that sits right in between.
1:10:03 Dax Shepard? Ah, yes, you should.
1:10:04 Speaker 02 Because I think both of those things have inherent value. Let's take Mozart's Lacrimosa. Nobody knows what those lyrics are. Lacrimosa means to cry. But you wouldn't know that unless you go and look up the lyrics and you know Latin.
1:10:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
1:10:17 Speaker 02 But you know that the music itself is deeply sad. Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da. That's what it sounds like. So it's sad.
1:10:30 Dax Shepard? You know you're sad.
1:10:30 Speaker 02 But the lyrics, though they mean to cry, it is actually about forgiveness in a way. You know, so it's actually not a sad song necessarily.
1:10:40 Dax Shepard? It's a double trick.
1:10:40 Speaker 02 Which is why I'm in both camps. Because even the happiest song can actually mean something very, very different. We can dance when we're happy. We can dance when we're sad. Both have value. Like, I'll listen to the lyrics all day long, but sometimes I just want to hear the music. Sometimes it's the music that moves me.
1:10:55 Dax Shepard? Yeah. One of the most interesting things about music to me, this is what I studied in college, which is cultural anthropology. I'll be in other countries and I'm listening to the music that everybody loves. And I'm like, how on earth do they like this music?
1:11:08 Speaker 02 Right, right, right.
1:11:09 Dax Shepard? It's so cultural. Largely when I'm in Mexico and I hear that it is all German inspired. Their musical genre in Mexico is polka drive.
1:11:18 Speaker 02 Yes, yes.
1:11:19 Dax Shepard? So the boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I go like, yeah, if I grew up in Mexico, I would love this music.
1:11:24 Speaker 02 Of course.
1:11:25 Dax Shepard? And that is fascinating. You think a music somehow objective to some degree, and it's not.
1:11:31 Speaker 02 I think it's what's really interesting about what's happening with, there's a musical Afrobeat, which is happening right now, and it seems to be growing tentacles and spreading out everywhere. Whereas before, I grew up with it and it's developed and it evolves and it changes ever so much. So it's become a little bit popularized. But if you go back 50 years, the rhythms are still very similar. The tonal qualities are still very similar. So you still hear the same types of notation, but lyrically it becomes different and the way we've put it together has become different and young people have started to listen to it. That was why I was interested in this particular subject, but I think I was too early for it. I needed to go and do the thing I'm meant to do, which is this.
1:12:10 Dax Shepard? Because you bailed, right?
1:12:11 Speaker 02 I didn't even go to RADA straight away. I went to like a young actors company program at a local theater because I was like, I'm not doing this. I don't think this is right for me. So I left and I went to this young actors company and at the young actors company, I was, I mean, I use the word forced fondly to go and study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. And I say it because this wonderful mentor of mine would not allow me to do this particular program unless I signed up for an audition.
1:12:38 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:12:39 Dax Shepard? She blackmailed you.
1:12:40 Speaker 02 Yeah. She was like, you sign up for an audition, you come to this. You don't, you can't. And I was like.
1:12:47 Speaker 01 Good for her.
1:12:48 Speaker 02 Fine. But grudgingly signed in to do an audition thinking, this will be short-lived, it's not gonna happen, I'm not gonna get in, we're caught.
1:12:56 Dax Shepard? Really quick, why didn't you wanna go there?
1:12:57 Speaker 02 There was no point because I was not gonna get in.
1:12:59 Dax Shepard? Okay, there we go.
1:12:59 Speaker 02 I was not gonna get in.
1:13:00 Speaker 01 I'm just asking to get rejected.
1:13:02 Speaker 02 You mean me, a girl from southwest London who moved to east London is now gonna go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts? In what world? That's a nonsense idea.
1:13:10 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:13:10 Speaker 02 No one's ever flagged it for me before, so why on earth? It's not gonna happen. And then I got in.
1:13:15 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:13:16 Dax Shepard? And did you like it immediately? Cause you're now the vice president?
1:13:19 Speaker 02 I...
1:13:19 Dax Shepard? What does that mean?
1:13:20 Speaker 01 You are?
1:13:21 Dax Shepard? Is that a ceremonial position? How on earth do you have time to be a vice president of a fucking college? This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
1:13:30 Speaker 01 Oh my god.
1:13:30 Speaker 02 It's so, I swear to you, it's the most ridiculous thing in the world. Because here's the thing, my time at RADA was not easy. I was the oddball, I was a true east London girl who just was myself. And I was like the one girl who really loved music. And like I left, I was gonna do a backing vocal gig before I came to the school that was gonna pay for the school, and they said no. I was doing gigs at night and I was the only person that was doing that kind of thing in this school. So I really had figured out my jobs.
1:13:59 Dax Shepard? This is John Batiste too, do you remember when, he's at Juilliard?
1:14:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:14:02 Dax Shepard? And he wants to be performing with us.
1:14:03 Speaker 01 This is, for people who are in America and don't know, it is Juilliard, basically.
1:14:07 Speaker 02 Yes, correct.
1:14:07 Speaker 01 It's the same level.
1:14:08 Speaker 02 It's the same space, the same level.
1:14:09 Dax Shepard? It had Royal in the title and I assumed that.
1:14:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, they might have some sort of connection.
1:14:13 Speaker 02 I think they have a little connection. If not, I'm trying to make it happen.
1:14:16 Speaker 01 Ooh, we like that.
1:14:17 Dax Shepard? That should be one of your tasks as vice president.
1:14:19 Speaker 02 I've given it to myself, I think that might be a really good idea. Like exchange studenting maybe, kind of thing.
1:14:24 Dax Shepard? Sure, some professor swaps?
1:14:25 Speaker 02 Maybe.
1:14:26 Dax Shepard? Everyone wants six months in London.
1:14:27 Speaker 02 Here's the thing, I would go to Juilliard and sit and chat with the students, cause I do actually teach at RADA.
1:14:33 Dax Shepard? You do?
1:14:33 Speaker 01 Wow, you currently teach?
1:14:34 Speaker 02 I currently teach.
1:14:36 Dax Shepard? Oh my god.
1:14:36 Speaker 01 What in the world?
1:14:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:14:38 Dax Shepard? You're gonna kill yourself.
1:14:40 Speaker 01 Dax is worried about your time. Are you the type that'll just run yourself into the ground?
1:14:44 Speaker 02 I try not to, but I think it's gonna happen. I think it's gonna happen this year.
1:14:49 Dax Shepard? This is the year.
1:14:50 Speaker 01 It's a lot.
1:14:51 Dax Shepard? For your collapse.
1:14:51 Speaker 02 I do think it's gonna happen because there's just like a lot going on. And I'm actively trying to work at RADA and do the things I need to do. Because I don't believe in taking on a title if you're actually not gonna do the work. I vehemently detest that. I don't want to be the vice president just because.
1:15:05 Speaker 01 Ceremonial.
1:15:06 Speaker 02 I'm not interested. And I know that there's stuff to be done. And I also love working with the students at RADA. And I try and get there every year for at least a week intensive workshop with the third year students. What I want to do is meet them in the first year, have a little time with them in the second, and then have the intensive in the third. So there is something that they work with.
1:15:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:15:29 Speaker 02 Throughout. They're not just meeting me the first time in the third year. But now they'll see me more often because, well, I'm there.
1:15:34 Dax Shepard? I want to ask you a very inappropriate question.
1:15:37 Speaker 02 Go.
1:15:38 Dax Shepard? Were you in love with any of your teachers?
1:15:39 Speaker 02 In love as in in love?
1:15:41 Speaker 01 Crushes?
1:15:41 Dax Shepard? Like, well, okay.
1:15:43 Speaker 01 I was in love with one of mine.
1:15:44 Dax Shepard? Yeah, Monica was in love with one of her teachers.
1:15:46 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:15:47 Dax Shepard? Still pines for.
1:15:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, I don't know what he's up to these days, but boy, was he attractive and so smart.
1:15:54 Dax Shepard? Did you have any crushes on your teachers?
1:15:56 Speaker 02 I don't think so.
1:15:57 Dax Shepard? You didn't. That's fair. I didn't have any on mine either.
1:16:00 Speaker 02 No.
1:16:01 Speaker 01 The theater space is very intimate, though.
1:16:03 Dax Shepard? I was only gonna ask, like, if I was teaching at 37 at a college, I think I would be mildly like, oh, Jesus, does this person have a crush? Because there's a weird magic to the whole thing.
1:16:12 Speaker 02 I'm gonna ignore any of it.
1:16:13 Dax Shepard? Yes, yes, yes.
1:16:14 Speaker 02 I'm gonna be like, don't know, don't wanna know.
1:16:17 Speaker 01 Not paying attention to that.
1:16:19 Dax Shepard? Oh, you have me confused with a human. I am an acting teaching robot.
1:16:22 Speaker 02 I'm also aware of what I'm walking into the school with.
1:16:25 Dax Shepard? I think I'd fall in love with you.
1:16:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, no, you are coming in.
1:16:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I think I would.
1:16:28 Speaker 01 For sure.
1:16:29 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:16:29 Speaker 02 But I don't know that people would fall in love with me as a me. I think they're falling in love with the idea.
1:16:34 Dax Shepard? But aren't people always falling in love with the idea of the other person?
1:16:37 Speaker 02 I guess.
1:16:37 Speaker 01 We fight about this all the time.
1:16:40 Speaker 02 I think so. I think people fall in love with the idea of a person until they allow themselves to fall in love with the actual person.
1:16:45 Dax Shepard? Yeah, with great luck.
1:16:47 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:16:47 Dax Shepard? You end up falling in love with the real person. But more often, you go, oh, no, this whole thing was a projection.
1:16:52 Speaker 01 But then if you're on the other side of it, if you're Cynthia, then you're like, oh, this person's in love with me. And then you run the risk of them fighting. Finding out about the real you and then being like, oh, I'm not interested in that.
1:17:02 Dax Shepard? But she'll be doing the same to that person because that person would have captivated some other fantasy and imagination. So it'd be complimentary, I think.
1:17:08 Speaker 02 But when it comes to the school of it all, I'm here to teach you and take you through and help you.
1:17:13 Dax Shepard? I shouldn't have even asked you that question. You're in a compromised position as the dean of this school.
1:17:18 Speaker 02 I would never. I'm also aware of what I walk in the room with. I know that there's a lot and I think I'm getting used to what that even is.
1:17:26 Dax Shepard? I'm going to suggest someone more likely would think they're in love with you, but what they're in love with is they want to be you. You'd be very aspirational. It's like, I want to be an empowered woman who's got a Tony and a Grammy. And so you would represent some kind of fantasy wish fulfillment and that could be misinterpreted as love as well.
1:17:44 Speaker 02 And the thing is, I would say to that person, you do not want to be me. You want to be the best version of yourself. You don't know if you want to do all the things or go through all the things I've already been through. My shit's made for me.
1:17:56 Dax Shepard? But when you're at that age, you really.
1:17:58 Speaker 02 You can't tell. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard.
1:18:00 Dax Shepard? Nicolas Cage.
1:18:01 Speaker 02 And I want to be that. I think for me, in a perfect world, I think I would be like the love child of Cicely Tyson and Barbra Streisand.
1:18:07 Dax Shepard? Who's Cicely Tyson? I'm so sorry. I'm very sorry with all apologies.
1:18:12 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:18:12 Dax Shepard? You don't either?
1:18:13 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:18:13 Dax Shepard? Thank fucking god. I was sure it was a white guy thing.
1:18:15 Speaker 02 I was gonna leave you out. You gotta look her up. She passed away a few years ago at like the age of 94, I think it was.
1:18:22 Dax Shepard? That's good.
1:18:22 Speaker 02 96? She made it to 96?
1:18:25 Dax Shepard? What a quitter. She almost made it to 100.
1:18:26 Speaker 02 We really wanted her to get to 100 and she was strong. She was one of the most incredible actresses ever.
1:18:32 Dax Shepard? British?
1:18:33 Speaker 02 American.
1:18:34 Dax Shepard? Oh.
1:18:34 Speaker 02 And she shaved her head just like me.
1:18:36 Dax Shepard? Ah.
1:18:37 Speaker 02 I read her autobiography. It's the most fascinating thing. She had a torrid relationship with Miles Davis.
1:18:43 Dax Shepard? Oh, that's a wild ride.
1:18:46 Speaker 02 She tells you all about that. She was in Sounder. She was in Roots. Most people probably know her best for How to Get Away with Murder. She was Annalise Keating's mother.
1:18:54 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:18:55 Speaker 02 But she's just brilliant. The way she used her hair as a statement constantly throughout her life was just really inspiring. So whether it was doing bantu knots or getting it corn rolled or shaving it off or leaving it as a. Afro. There's a really beautiful image of her when she is nominated, I think, four sounder for the Oscar, where she goes with like flowers in her hair. She's special, special, special. So that combination of her and Barbra Streisand, and Barbra Streisand I picked because of the Renaissance woman effect that she has over her own life and the way in which she was able to translate music and song and acting and do all of this vast arena of things.
1:19:36 Dax Shepard? She's one of our few, I always say this about Taylor Swift, when people try to figure out, what is the magic that's happening? For me, a big part seems like, at least through my little girl's eyes, is that she is a fully formed, self-created matriarchy. And I would argue Barbara was an early, like, created her own matriarchy world around herself. I can see that as inspirational.
1:19:56 Speaker 01 It seems like you are the combination of them, and especially Renaissance, you're the vice president.
1:20:02 Dax Shepard? You're an academic.
1:20:03 Speaker 01 You're covering a lot of ground.
1:20:05 Dax Shepard? Yeah, leave some for the rest of us, bro. With all this said, how mentally prepared do you feel like you are for Wicked? Because I can't imagine you are.
1:20:15 Speaker 02 I want to kid myself and be like, I'm really ready for it. I think in a way I am, but there's always the aspect that you have no idea what's coming. You can't have the future. I have no idea what this will be, full stop. But I think I'm open. That's as far as I can take myself. I'm open to the possibilities of what this might be. I'm very, very, very grateful for the chance to do something of this magnitude, because it doesn't come along often.
1:20:48 Dax Shepard? No. I feel like I have some insight into what you're gonna go through, which is, I think this thing will be what Frozen was.
1:20:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:20:56 Dax Shepard? And I think you'll have parents for the next five years coming up and complaining to you that their kid will not stop listening to a certain song over and over and over again.
1:21:05 Speaker 02 Right.
1:21:05 Dax Shepard? And then I think you'll have a lot of parents bringing over young children to meet you at the table, but the children have no fucking clue what's going on. I don't understand what you're telling me.
1:21:14 Speaker 01 That's the part that's gonna be different and harder, perhaps, because when it happens to Kristen, sometimes the kids are like, what? That's not her.
1:21:21 Dax Shepard? Elsa's a cartoon. What are you talking about?
1:21:23 Speaker 01 You're a person, and they're gonna see you as a person.
1:21:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:21:27 Dax Shepard? Thank God you're not green.
1:21:28 Speaker 02 I know, in real life.
1:21:30 Dax Shepard? You should fuck around one time, just go out as green. When this thing really peaks. You should go set up shop at a cheesecake factory.
1:21:36 Speaker 02 Oh my goodness. Can you imagine? Insane.
1:21:41 Dax Shepard? So I guess I have one remaining question about kind of how you got to this place. Cause we didn't talk about your childhood as much as I like to.
1:21:47 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:21:48 Dax Shepard? How old were you when mom and dad got divorced?
1:21:50 Speaker 02 Mom and dad didn't get divorced. They were never married.
1:21:52 Dax Shepard? They were never married.
1:21:53 Speaker 02 But I was 16 when my dad decided not to be a part of my life.
1:21:58 Dax Shepard? How frequently were you seeing him?
1:22:00 Speaker 02 Maybe two or three times a week. His choice. My mom was really, I think, kind.
1:22:06 Dax Shepard? And not talk shit about him to you?
1:22:08 Speaker 02 Ever. Never.
1:22:08 Dax Shepard? That's so nice. My mom did that as well. And as you get older, don't you respect it even more?
1:22:12 Speaker 02 I completely respect it.
1:22:13 Dax Shepard? It almost seems impossible.
1:22:15 Speaker 02 I honestly can't believe it. And gave him the space to come and visit if he wanted to. We would go over to his from time to time as well. She like really made the space for us. If he wanted to build a relationship, to build a relationship, and he just didn't.
1:22:28 Dax Shepard? Was he struggling with stuff?
1:22:30 Speaker 02 No, I think he just was not set up to be a dad. I don't think it was his bag.
1:22:34 Dax Shepard? Right.
1:22:34 Speaker 02 I read Jada Pinkett Smith's book and there is a section in the book where she talks about her father. And it really clicked for me when I read this part. She said that there are some parents who are meant to be parents. They're meant to shepherd their children into the world. Make sure that they are taken care of and they are good with them. And there are other parents who are meant to literally get them here. Yeah. And that is it. And we can't forget that each parent is still a human being. They are a human being before they're a parent. And I'm okay. That made everything really clear for me. And it doesn't remove hurts and pain that I had been through and have worked to work through.
1:23:15 Dax Shepard? Does it materialize in relationships?
1:23:18 Speaker 02 I think it did.
1:23:19 Dax Shepard? But you have your arms around it now.
1:23:21 Speaker 02 But yeah, thank goodness for good therapists.
1:23:23 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:23:24 Speaker 02 That shit really helps.
1:23:25 Dax Shepard? Were you generally attracted to people? You had some subconscious notion that they were gonna abandon you?
1:23:30 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
1:23:31 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Unavailable people.
1:23:33 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:23:35 Dax Shepard? Isn't it funny how fucking generic is this? Like, oh, what's the situation with this kid? Okay, I'll tell you exactly what's gonna happen in 12 years.
1:23:41 Speaker 02 You know that they're predisposed to like actually go. Away at some point.
1:23:44 Dax Shepard? You sense it somehow. The second you're so hot for somebody, there's some parental damage underneath of it.
1:23:51 Speaker 02 That's correct. It's ridiculous. Until you get your head around it and you get some control on what it is that you're actually looking for, what you're trying to fix in that, it just will keep going.
1:24:02 Dax Shepard? And do you agree? I had to go, oh, wow, I actually have to actively go the opposite direction of what I want. I gotta experiment with that.
1:24:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, I had to be alone for a second. I have to figure out what the heck this is. What am I running away from? What do I want for myself? And also, I think I was using for a small amount of time, my career as a conduit to like, find a way to get him back.
1:24:25 Dax Shepard? Sure. Look what you've missed.
1:24:28 Speaker 02 You missed.
1:24:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah, it's a great engine.
1:24:30 Speaker 02 Look what you gave up. Look what you gave up. You're gonna regret leaving this. That kind of thing.
1:24:36 Dax Shepard? What a great motivator that is.
1:24:37 Speaker 02 It's fantastic until it doesn't work anymore.
1:24:39 Dax Shepard? That's right.
1:24:40 Speaker 02 Until it leaves you empty and you're like, what am I actually doing this for? I've not done this for myself and now I have to figure out how to do this for myself.
1:24:46 Dax Shepard? Well, I think one of the great tricks in life that everyone has to figure out is what got you to the party, isn't what's gonna keep you at the party. And it's so hard to accept that or believe in that.
1:24:57 Speaker 02 We got to try something else now.
1:24:58 Dax Shepard? New fuel source.
1:24:59 Speaker 02 Let's change direction. Pivot. Let's go somewhere else now.
1:25:03 Dax Shepard? All blessings to this thing, but it's actually gonna get you asked to leave.
1:25:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:25:07 Dax Shepard? So you seem to have the same, Kristen has a really, really in-depth knowledge of music and reading music and all the math that's associated with music. Where did you learn that? Did you learn that at Royal Academy?
1:25:19 Speaker 02 I learnt it at secondary school or high school.
1:25:22 Dax Shepard? You went to a Catholic school?
1:25:23 Speaker 02 I did. So my music teacher there, Miss Ryecroft, who is so awesome, no one really understood her, but I really got her. She would pretend to be like this curmudgeonly teacher who just didn't like people, but actually she was the funniest, most brilliant, most kind teacher to me ever. She was like, oh, I have your number.
1:25:44 Dax Shepard? Right.
1:25:45 Speaker 02 I know what you are. You are a musician and I'm gonna make sure that you're always a musician. I see you. I was like quickly accosted. And I learnt to play the clarinets. I learnt to read music that way. And then she got me a viola, so I started doing that too. And I can't play any of these anymore, but it meant that I could really actually read music. And I did music proficiency, all of that stuff and did graded tests, the whole lot. Singing was happening in concert with all of that. They had a choir. I don't know how this happened, and I think it's because of Miss Ryecraft. And strangely enough, my science teacher, Mr. Saffo Jay, who somehow put this together, we started singing with a big choir in the UK.
1:26:28 Speaker 02 And we would do like requiems every year. I loved doing that because of the big sound of all these voices together.
1:26:34 Dax Shepard? What's a requiem? My apologies.
1:26:35 Speaker 02 So a requiem is a huge choral piece with all the voices, tenors, bass, soprano, alto, metesoprano. And occasionally you'll have recitatives in between where they're like solo lines that would end up with big choral numbers. And usually it's a long piece written but separated by particular movements. We did Carmina Brana and Carmina Brana, you wouldn't know the name, you would know the sound of Carmina Brana.
1:27:13 Speaker 01 We're gonna pretend like we don't know it, so you just keep going.
1:27:16 Dax Shepard? I don't know what you're doing. I bet if you do ten more measures, I might get it.
1:27:19 Speaker 02 Have you ever watched Romeo and Juliet, the Baz Lemon version? That musical, big choral thing is that. And we did another piece called The Rutter Requiem by John Rutter. And that is one of my favorite pieces ever. But it contains a piece called P A Yesu, and there are like three different P A Yesus. But these are the pieces that we would do. That's how I learnt about classical singing. And so she made me learn Schubert Lieder, the whole lot. So I expanded my classical taste in music at secondary school. Whilst running alongside with everything else and learning how my voice worked elsewhere. And just my outside love of music anyways. And my mom is playing Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross in the car.
1:28:00 Dax Shepard? Erika Baudou.
1:28:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I'm learning all of the, what was my auntie?
1:28:03 Dax Shepard? Can we sing Window Seat?
1:28:04 Speaker 02 Have I got a window seat? Don't want nobody next to me.
1:28:10 Dax Shepard? I just wanna.
1:28:11 Speaker 02 I love it.
1:28:12 Dax Shepard? I love Erykah Badu.
1:28:13 Speaker 02 She's brilliant. She's one of the artist singers that has gotten better and better and better as time has gone on. I just recently saw her in concert in London.
1:28:23 Dax Shepard? How late was she? Cause I've seen her four times.
1:28:25 Speaker 02 She wasn't that late.
1:28:26 Dax Shepard? I don't believe you one bit.
1:28:27 Speaker 02 No, she wasn't.
1:28:27 Dax Shepard? She wasn't. Maybe she was still on American time.
1:28:29 Speaker 02 She wasn't late. I think she was maybe like 20 minutes, 10 minutes or something.
1:28:33 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow.
1:28:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:28:34 Dax Shepard? I've waited three hours to see her and I didn't care.
1:28:36 Speaker 02 On. It was amazing.
1:28:38 Dax Shepard? Yeah, good.
1:28:39 Speaker 02 Puma came out as well. It was so good. There's an artist called Duran Benar. He does her backing vocals, but he's an amazing vocalist on his own. He was out. It was amazing. I went with my sister, my best friend. We had the best time.
1:28:54 Dax Shepard? She's a force.
1:28:54 Speaker 02 Oh, my gosh. She had her jewelry and her hat. She had these really cool trousers, pants that were like chaps, actually, but had like teddy bears on. It was just wild. The whole thing was wild. I was obsessed. It was brilliant. But yeah, that's how my proficiency for music, because I've had such a vast experience of it from loads of different sources onwards.
1:29:14 Dax Shepard? Now, you said the highlight is being in the stage and having that open line of communication with the audience. It's really happening. So I'm wondering, the moment in the requiem.
1:29:21 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:29:22 Dax Shepard? Do you experience something in that insane mass of harmony that can compete with the other solo thing?
1:29:29 Speaker 02 There's like 30 to 40 voices singing at once.
1:29:33 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:29:33 Speaker 02 Or at the top of their voices.
1:29:35 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:29:36 Speaker 02 In harmony.
1:29:38 Dax Shepard? It'll be like MDMA.
1:29:39 Speaker 02 Oh, my gosh. There's nothing like it. And it's ringing in your ears, but you can feel it in the back of your head at the same time. It's like a short circuit. And sometimes it's what I feel when an orchestra is playing all together. There's nothing like it.
1:29:53 Dax Shepard? You do realize how lucky you are, y'all.
1:29:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:29:55 Dax Shepard? I mean, really, you're having an experience on planet Earth that really very few people can ever touch.
1:30:01 Speaker 02 My experience is sort of enhanced by the fact that I experience anesthesia. So I see color.
1:30:06 Dax Shepard? You have that.
1:30:07 Speaker 02 I see color when I hear music. So for me, it's like
1:30:10 Dax Shepard? You're on acid.
1:30:11 Speaker 02 sensory thing.
1:30:14 Dax Shepard? We understand that we are story creatures. We understand that we passed on our culture and our knowledge through story. We're starting to really understand it neurologically, but we haven't really cracked what music is.
1:30:24 Speaker 02 You can talk about the science all day long and what it is and sound waves and all of that. But actually, we can't really crack the code on why it affects people the way it does. We can't crack how this piece connects with that person, but doesn't connect with this person. Why do we all understand this particular language? We might speak it differently, but there are a finite amount of notes.
1:30:45 Dax Shepard? My uncle, who went to Juilliard, who was a trumpet player, he told me, yeah, mathematically, every single song's already been written.
1:30:50 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:30:50 Dax Shepard? There'll never be a new piece of music. That's so wild.
1:30:53 Speaker 02 The notes are the same. It's just how we experience it. Why do we experience it like that?
1:30:57 Dax Shepard? I think part of it is it seemingly has absolutely no purpose.
1:31:02 Speaker 02 Right. But it does.
1:31:04 Dax Shepard? It does.
1:31:05 Speaker 01 The most important purpose.
1:31:06 Dax Shepard? But it seems like a weird thing for a human to do at any given time.
1:31:10 Speaker 02 Right.
1:31:11 Dax Shepard? And there's something, I think, just starting with that premise, which is like, this serves no purpose, is interesting. So we know we're doing it for some other calling. It's like the closest we have to touching something kind of mystical.
1:31:22 Speaker 02 I believe that. This might sound like the nerdiest thing I've ever said, but my favorite scale is chromatic.
1:31:28 Dax Shepard? Say it again?
1:31:32 Speaker 02 All the notes in between, a chromatic scale.
1:31:35 Dax Shepard? A chromatic scale.
1:31:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, because it leaves none of the notes out.
1:31:38 Speaker 01 Ooh. But it's not just humans, animals sing.
1:31:43 Speaker 02 Yes, they do.
1:31:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:31:44 Dax Shepard? They won't shut the fuck up. Whales.
1:31:46 Speaker 02 Whales. They're all tonal. Notes and music, however you experience it, it's the one thing that connects every single being on the planet. It's the one thing we all have in common.
1:31:58 Dax Shepard? And you're doing it at like the apex level.
1:31:59 Speaker 01 Lucky girl.
1:32:00 Speaker 02 Thank you. Thank you for saying that.
1:32:02 Dax Shepard? Put too fine a point on how great Wicked is. It's outrageous.
1:32:06 Speaker 02 Thank you.
1:32:06 Speaker 01 We don't love musicals in general, and we say that publicly, which is equal to me saying I don't like dogs, which is also true. But man, did it get me.
1:32:18 Dax Shepard? When you're experiencing some lip from somebody, you have to go through such a long list. You're like, is it because I'm a woman? Is it I'm small? Is it I'm Indian? Is it I hate dogs? Is it I hate musicals?
1:32:28 Speaker 01 I'm adding things by the second.
1:32:30 Dax Shepard? You're not helping yourself figure out what's really going on. Anyway, what a delight to meet you, Cynthia. I really have enjoyed this immensely.
1:32:38 Speaker 02 This has been really fun.
1:32:39 Dax Shepard? You gotta urge people to go to shit, but I don't. In fact, I could say like, whatever you do, do not go on November 22nd to see Wicked. And I know you'll be there.
1:32:47 Speaker 01 I bet everyone already has pre-booked their tickets.
1:32:48 Speaker 02 I hope so.
1:32:49 Dax Shepard? Is it a secret when the second one will come out?
1:32:51 Speaker 02 The second one is coming out the same time next year.
1:32:54 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay.
1:32:55 Speaker 02 22nd of November next year.
1:32:56 Dax Shepard? And you filmed them both at once, obviously?
1:32:57 Speaker 02 We filmed them both at once.
1:32:58 Dax Shepard? How long did that take? A year?
1:32:59 Speaker 02 That took about a year. We started rehearsals August 2022, started shooting December.
1:33:07 Dax Shepard? So four months of rehearsals?
1:33:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:33:09 Dax Shepard? Wow.
1:33:10 Speaker 02 We needed it.
1:33:11 Speaker 01 Of course.
1:33:12 Speaker 02 It was a mammoth.
1:33:13 Dax Shepard? Well, you're doing like a Broadway show.
1:33:14 Speaker 02 Started shooting it in December, came to a halt in June or July. I can't remember for the writing strike or actor's strike, both. And then came back top of this year in January, finished in February.
1:33:28 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:33:28 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow. And Ariana's fantastic.
1:33:32 Speaker 02 She's great. She's experienced a lot and she's a sweetheart. And what people don't realize is that she's experienced real heartbreak.
1:33:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:33:39 Dax Shepard? Again, back to the thing we were talking about, trying to figure out everything. So yeah, you have a package, Monica has a package, I have a package. The perfect end of the package also sucks sometimes.
1:33:47 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:33:48 Dax Shepard? It's like very hard to be sympathetic to someone who looks like her and has her career. And she's just as worthy of anyone's sympathy. You love her, right? I've heard you talk about her. You guys have really fallen in love.
1:33:58 Speaker 02 I love her. She's a bright spark, but you just wanna like,
1:34:02 Speaker 01 Take care of her.
1:34:02 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:34:03 Speaker 02 Give her a big old hug. And we really took care of each other. This was like a big one for us. We used to joke that the two of us were like dust by the end of it. Because we were working to the bone.
1:34:12 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:34:12 Speaker 02 I mean, whatever scratches, scrapes, cuts, bruises you think you could get, we had them. The flying in harnesses, chafing, we had it.
1:34:23 Speaker 02 Chafing was like a funny word to me until I realized what chafing actually looked like. When you had it repetitively.
1:34:32 Dax Shepard? It's almost a bed sore at that point.
1:34:34 Speaker 02 My gosh.
1:34:36 Speaker 02 It took months for my hips to just heal. Scratched palms, bleeding, I had a bloody nose. Like, it was mad. We were in this the whole way. Outside, she's got basically her arms out all the time. When it's cold, it's cold. There's nothing you can do about it. You wanna fly outside? Okay, we're flying outside. Is it windy? Yes, tough. We're gonna do it anyway. Is it raining today? Yep. It won't show on camera, so we're gonna do it. That kind of thing. We were willing to do whatever it took to do this. You wanna be in at 3 a.m.? Be in at 3 a.m. We're gonna finish this makeup, because we need to be on set by 5.
1:35:07 Dax Shepard? Yeah, you know, in some weird way, it's lucky you did it at this age. If you tried to do this at 45 with this long ass career, you'd be like, I am not getting in that harness.
1:35:15 Speaker 01 Like, I know about chafing. I'm not doing it.
1:35:17 Dax Shepard? And it's rare that I can ask women to feel bad for men, but I've spent a lot of time in harnesses too. Just put a penis and balls in that same harness as well as everything else that's going on. You're in it sometimes going, well, this can't be how it is, right? Like, this is probably gonna destroy my reproductive capabilities.
1:35:36 Speaker 02 But here's the thing. I'm gonna top you there. I'm gonna say, think of putting on a harness and then throw in a corset at the same time.
1:35:43 Dax Shepard? No, thanks.
1:35:44 Speaker 02 Because the corset's already hitting your hips, right? And now you put the harness on top of the corset.
1:35:50 Dax Shepard? And your ribs hurt.
1:35:51 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:35:52 Speaker 01 Everything's a mess.
1:35:52 Dax Shepard? All right, you win. I adore you. I hope everyone goes and sees Wicked, November 22nd. And I hope we end up interviewing you a dozen more times as you promote other things. Wonderful.
1:36:01 Speaker 02 Can I come back even if I don't have to promote something?
1:36:03 Dax Shepard? Yes, of course.
1:36:04 Speaker 02 This was fun.
1:36:05 Dax Shepard? Also, Kristen has just started doing this thing on Sunday. She started a choir club.
1:36:09 Speaker 02 Oh, my goodness.
1:36:10 Dax Shepard? So if you're ever here on Sunday, I'm sure she would love for you to come. And it's just a bunch of nerds like you guys fucking singing together.
1:36:17 Speaker 02 I would love that. A choir club?
1:36:20 Speaker 01 It's really cool.
1:36:21 Speaker 02 Do you know how lovely that would be?
1:36:22 Dax Shepard? Yeah, because there's no point to it other than remembering that you love music.
1:36:26 Speaker 02 Oh, my gosh. I would love that. I will. Thank you.
1:36:32 Dax Shepard? I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.
1:36:40 Dax Shepard? What now?
1:36:42 Speaker 01 No, I will put it on do not disturb for you.
1:36:44 Dax Shepard? Oh, I thought you had a bad update.
1:36:47 Speaker 01 No, I don't have a bad update. On a previous or upcoming, I'm not sure, Armchair Anonymous, you told me that you hate me because I don't put my phone on do not disturb.
1:36:59 Dax Shepard? That is.
1:37:00 Speaker 01 That's how I heard it.
1:37:01 Dax Shepard? That's how you heard it, okay. Okay.
1:37:03 Speaker 01 So now I have put it on do not disturb.
1:37:05 Dax Shepard? I guess those people will have to listen to Armchair Anonymous and/or go back and listen if it already came out.
1:37:11 Speaker 01 You should go back and keep listening.
1:37:13 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:37:13 Speaker 01 Just in case.
1:37:14 Dax Shepard? Because, of course, I remember it more of a playful, hey, is there anything like really trivial about each other that we want to air?
1:37:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, you tried to make it cutesy, but it wasn't.
1:37:26 Dax Shepard? It wasn't so cutesy.
1:37:27 Speaker 01 No.
1:37:27 Dax Shepard? But yeah, I inquired. By the way, you don't have a case on your phone.
1:37:31 Speaker 01 I know, because when I was Mary Kay and Ashley the Row era, I had to take the case off because they would never have a case.
1:37:38 Dax Shepard? You're absolutely right. You can't look.
1:37:40 Speaker 01 You can't look like that.
1:37:41 Dax Shepard? Like you're, you need to protect your phone. How low class.
1:37:44 Speaker 01 So embarrassing.
1:37:45 Dax Shepard? Funny enough, someone in the comments had like, someone wrote like, totally off topic to the episode, but why aren't any of the people in TV shows or movies using a phone with a phone case on it? No one does this. And they were saying their anxiety of watching a phone in scenes without a case is a lot. So I said, you know, generally they have the permit, minimally the permission of the phone manufacturer. And so if the phone manufacturer is like, yes, you can use our product, and they probably supply products, they don't want it all obscured with a phone case.
1:38:23 Speaker 01 The phone company wants it without the case so that you can see what the phone company is.
1:38:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:38:29 Speaker 01 But if.
1:38:29 Dax Shepard? I like that you're calling it a phone company.
1:38:31 Speaker 01 But if you don't have approval, you do have to have a phone case on because you have to cover up.
1:38:36 Dax Shepard? Or they what they call what's Greek in it. We'll find out if that holds up. But you Greek things on a set too, or she's you obscure the logo a little bit.
1:38:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:38:46 Dax Shepard? Put a little tape over this and that. You'll see a lot of, um, if people look closely, they'll see a lot of Mac computers being used in things with a little tape on it.
1:38:54 Speaker 01 Stickers or tape.
1:38:55 Dax Shepard? Yep. Covering up that logo that, what a great logo, by the way. Not a sponsor.
1:38:59 Speaker 01 Not a sponsor.
1:39:00 Dax Shepard? But what a cute apple.
1:39:02 Speaker 01 Although it's kind of.
1:39:03 Dax Shepard? I'm looking directly at yours, of course.
1:39:04 Speaker 01 Yeah. And we don't.
1:39:05 Dax Shepard? We have not greased it. No. My brother visited yesterday.
1:39:08 Speaker 01 How was it?
1:39:09 Dax Shepard? For just, I don't know, 12 hours.
1:39:11 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:39:12 Dax Shepard? Cause he was going on a cruise, leaving out of Long Beach. So he and, um, my sister in law, Tammy came from 1:00 PM till the evening and we went out to Cafe 101 slash Clark Street. It's not really Cafe 101 anymore. Had a lovely, uh, lunch, played spades, came back and then we wandered into here and we sat down and we just started chatting and it was, um, incredibly touching and connected. And we were talking about our childhoods together and realizations we have. And, uh, there was even some, some damp eyes at times.
1:39:53 Speaker 01 From both of you or just?
1:39:55 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:39:56 Speaker 01 Sweet.
1:39:57 Dax Shepard? Yeah. And it was, um, it was really, really, really special.
1:40:01 Speaker 01 Did you guys hug?
1:40:02 Dax Shepard? Well, we hugged when he got here and then we hugged a long time when he left.
1:40:06 Speaker 01 But did you hug in, in the moment?
1:40:08 Dax Shepard? No.
1:40:09 Speaker 01 That felt too much.
1:40:10 Dax Shepard? Well, it just didn't feel terribly necessary. What we did is afterwards we played pickleball.
1:40:15 Speaker 01 That's fun. Okay. I do have a question about this. Like.
1:40:18 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:40:19 Speaker 01 When people, when you're around someone and they have damp eyes.
1:40:23 Dax Shepard? Uh huh.
1:40:24 Speaker 01 Cause they're about to cry or they're crying a little bit.
1:40:26 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:40:26 Speaker 01 I don't really necessarily know how to handle that.
1:40:29 Dax Shepard? Oh.
1:40:29 Speaker 01 Always. Like I know how to handle it with my words.
1:40:33 Dax Shepard? Meaning you know how to say the right thing?
1:40:35 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:40:35 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:40:36 Speaker 01 But I don't because I didn't really grow up in an affectionate family, physically affectionate family.
1:40:41 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:40:41 Speaker 01 Like, I don't know if I should touch them or not.
1:40:44 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay. So specifically whether or not to touch them.
1:40:47 Speaker 01 Yeah. Do you?
1:40:48 Dax Shepard? I don't feel a compulsion to touch people. And maybe this is arrogant, but when that happens to me, and it's generally a man. Like if it's happening and it's another man.
1:40:57 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
1:40:58 Dax Shepard? I immediately feel super flattered.
1:41:02 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:41:03 Dax Shepard? The main feeling I have is like, I'm so lucky.
1:41:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:41:07 Dax Shepard? That this person feels comfortable doing this in front of me. It doesn't give me anxiety or like, I gotta do the right thing. To me, the right thing already happened, which is why they're doing it in front of you.
1:41:17 Speaker 01 But you don't feel the need to like, help or comfort?
1:41:20 Dax Shepard? No, I don't feel any, well, I inevitably will comfort and just will be.
1:41:25 Speaker 01 Talk.
1:41:25 Dax Shepard? Talking about whatever it is there, and I'll be hopefully dialed in and thoughtful and asking questions and.
1:41:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:41:33 Dax Shepard? But I get no anxiety, but I understand the anxiety.
1:41:37 Speaker 01 I only, I get anxiety about to touch or not.
1:41:40 Dax Shepard? It's just touching.
1:41:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:41:41 Dax Shepard? Okay, your words are fine, as you said.
1:41:43 Speaker 01 Feel like sometimes I, I should like.
1:41:46 Dax Shepard? Correct their hair.
1:41:48 Speaker 01 No, not correct their hair. That sounds awful.
1:41:50 Dax Shepard? Brushing my, my brother's hair back behind his ear. I mean, doesn't have enough to tuck behind his ear? Not that he can't, he couldn't.
1:41:57 Speaker 01 No.
1:41:57 Dax Shepard? He has very thick hair above his ears.
1:42:01 Speaker 01 What if he started playing with the ear and the hair in his ears?
1:42:04 Dax Shepard? That's very sexual. I mean, so is, so is putting the hair behind the ear.
1:42:08 Speaker 01 It is.
1:42:09 Dax Shepard? But no, I, I didn't, no.
1:42:11 Speaker 01 You don't need that.
1:42:12 Dax Shepard? Now, a full breakdown?
1:42:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:42:15 Dax Shepard? Yes, I would have probably moved over to that couch.
1:42:18 Speaker 01 And would you have put your arm around him?
1:42:20 Dax Shepard? And hope that he wanted to hide his head in my shoulder.
1:42:23 Speaker 01 Oh, wow.
1:42:24 Dax Shepard? But that would have been a full breakdown.
1:42:26 Speaker 01 It needs to be like, really bad.
1:42:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I'm.
1:42:30 Speaker 01 I'm gonna write down the rules. Rob, do you like to touch people when they cry?
1:42:36 Speaker 05 I get like you, I get on, I don't know what to do.
1:42:39 Dax Shepard? That would have been my guess.
1:42:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, I do.
1:42:44 Dax Shepard? Rob, here's a question, Rob.
1:42:46 Speaker 06 Yep.
1:42:48 Dax Shepard? So that, that totally makes sense for me.
1:42:50 Speaker 06 If it's Natalie, I know what to do.
1:42:52 Speaker 01 Of course.
1:42:52 Speaker 06 Other people.
1:42:53 Dax Shepard? And your children.
1:42:54 Speaker 01 There's exceptions.
1:42:55 Dax Shepard? Yeah. But Rob, do you think, and this, this sounds like I'm fishing for a compliment. I'm truly not. I'm just genuinely curious. We've been working nearly every day together for seven years. My, do you think my willingness to do that with men has at all like rubbed off on you?
1:43:15 Speaker 06 Yeah, probably.
1:43:16 Dax Shepard? Little bit?
1:43:17 Speaker 06 Yeah.
1:43:18 Dax Shepard? Like, do you think, like, you would take a nice, long hug for me, right?
1:43:22 Speaker 06 Yeah, I would. I mean, I have friends that I would.
1:43:24 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:43:24 Speaker 06 It gets more.
1:43:25 Dax Shepard? I'd love to hug you if you ever had a sad moment.
1:43:28 Speaker 06 If I needed to cry.
1:43:30 Dax Shepard? Yes. If you want to schedule one, I'm totally available.
1:43:33 Speaker 06 I'll put it on the calendar.
1:43:35 Speaker 01 It depends on who it is and it depends on how often that exchange happens, like how often you're crying around.
1:43:42 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:43:42 Speaker 01 There are some people who've definitely never seen me cry, who I'm close to.
1:43:46 Dax Shepard? Sure.
1:43:47 Speaker 01 And then there are others who see me cry a lot, you.
1:43:49 Dax Shepard? Yeah, sure, sure.
1:43:50 Speaker 01 You've seen me cry a lot. Kristen's seen me cry a lot.
1:43:52 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah. Callie, I presume? Or do you keep it buttoned up?
1:43:56 Speaker 01 No, she has. She, that's interesting, actually. I don't keep it buttoned up. She's definitely seen it.
1:44:03 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:44:03 Speaker 01 And heard it. But this is how I am with family. I have a very quick trigger to cry in front of my parents.
1:44:11 Dax Shepard? Oh, you do?
1:44:12 Speaker 01 But I don't want to. So I'm always like trying to not, but it's like always right at the surface.
1:44:16 Dax Shepard? That's the best kind when you're acting. And that's what you're supposed to do as an actor. You're supposed to try to not cry.
1:44:20 Speaker 01 Exactly. I learned that.
1:44:21 Dax Shepard? Most of the time you're trying to cry really hard and then the second it starts in, you gotta act like you're not.
1:44:24 Speaker 01 And you're like trying to keep it together. I learned that in college.
1:44:27 Dax Shepard? Acting 107.
1:44:28 Speaker 01 I did learn it in college. Yeah. So I'm always like, it's right there. Emotions are just so heightened with your family. I have similar feelings in, in this environment.
1:44:41 Dax Shepard? Sure, sure.
1:44:41 Speaker 01 Where it's like, could happen at any time, the tears, the floodgates. I don't have that as much with her. I don't know why. It's not, it's not good or bad, I don't think.
1:44:51 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Erin and I used to, we had this, I mean, we did this so often, we would laugh at ourselves for doing it, which is, we would. Our thing was we drank with everybody, all of our friends. But he and I always went another three or four hours.
1:45:06 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:45:07 Dax Shepard? Even from our, our most, you know, hard charging friends. There was always a few hours reserved for Aaron and I to just be together, really hammered at the end of the night. And we would start going through childhood and we would have a good cry while we were hammered.
1:45:24 Speaker 01 Oh, wow.
1:45:24 Dax Shepard? And we loved it. It was the only way we could.
1:45:28 Speaker 01 Talk about it.
1:45:29 Dax Shepard? Yes. Get into all the stuff.
1:45:31 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:45:31 Dax Shepard? And so like, we kind of needed it. And yet we only did it when we were super hammered. But luckily we were hammered all the time together. So yeah, we would do it. And then we would wake up and we'd just laugh like, oh yeah, we did that again. We just started crying together. While we were hammered.
1:45:48 Speaker 01 That's funny.
1:45:49 Dax Shepard? I mean, it feels like somehow the, the subconscious was like, you gotta figure out a way to.
1:45:54 Speaker 01 This is your moment.
1:45:56 Dax Shepard? However, it needs to happen. You do need to probably have some cries together.
1:46:00 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
1:46:01 Dax Shepard? And I've held Aaron a lot, for sure.
1:46:04 Speaker 01 Aaron's very, very sensitive.
1:46:06 Dax Shepard? Yeah, so wonderfully sensitive. Isn't it funny? Sensitive is like a pejorative, but it's so.
1:46:11 Speaker 01 It's not to me. It's not to women.
1:46:13 Dax Shepard? Someone who's not sensitive.
1:46:15 Speaker 01 That's a patriarchal thing because people say, think women are sensitive.
1:46:19 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:46:20 Speaker 01 So they've decided that's a negative thing.
1:46:22 Dax Shepard? Women are sensitive.
1:46:23 Speaker 01 Thank God.
1:46:23 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Thank God. I know we need it so much.
1:46:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:46:27 Dax Shepard? That's a great segue.
1:46:28 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:46:29 Dax Shepard? I really wanted to promote the Martha Stewart documentary. Did you finish it?
1:46:33 Speaker 01 Not yet.
1:46:34 Dax Shepard? I knew you wanted.
1:46:35 Speaker 01 We still have to talk about substance.
1:46:37 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:46:37 Speaker 01 We keep adding.
1:46:38 Dax Shepard? Okay. Well, let's talk about, do you want to talk about substance first? I mean, we're here talking about women. I think I want to talk about, I want to talk about Martha Stewart.
1:46:45 Speaker 01 Today's a big, today's a, I know it's in a couple of weeks.
1:46:49 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:46:49 Speaker 01 That this is coming out, but today is a big day to talk about women.
1:46:52 Dax Shepard? Why? Who is, oh, why?
1:46:54 Speaker 01 It's election day.
1:46:55 Dax Shepard? I know, but it's.
1:46:57 Speaker 01 But it's not.
1:46:58 Speaker 06 Two weeks later.
1:46:59 Speaker 01 I know, but I can't act like I'm not thinking about it.
1:47:02 Dax Shepard? Okay. I'm not going to prevent you from anything. So Martha Stewart, if I just start with my own. Of course, I knew who she was all growing up. She's been a, you know, a very prominent figure in culture forever. I remember when she became a billionaire. That was like very big news. And then her incarceration, which I thought was insider. Not only did I think it was insider trading, I think I thought that's what she went to prison for. I also thought it was insider trading of her own company. Neither of those things are true, which is fascinating. This is like an Amanda Knox story.
1:47:32 Speaker 01 Interesting.
1:47:33 Dax Shepard? And a Marion Jones story. This is another one. I bet we all remember it differently than what it actually was. But watching this doc, I admire her so much. And she's got some very unattractive sides to her.
1:47:48 Speaker 01 Big time.
1:47:49 Dax Shepard? Which she kind of owns.
1:47:51 Speaker 01 Well, does she?
1:47:52 Dax Shepard? Well.
1:47:53 Speaker 01 That's the part that that's.
1:47:54 Dax Shepard? You gotta get, yeah, you gotta get deeper into it. It's a phenomenal doc. I really want to interview her, of course. And I think it's great. I recommend it. And I can't wait for you to finish it because we can talk about like the, you know, pretty insane miscarriage of justice. Basically, America was sick of white collar criminals getting away with shit. It was in the air. And there was a lot of bad insider trading.
1:48:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:48:22 Dax Shepard? And no one gave a fuck about the other people. They wanted a sacrificial lamb. They want, everyone wanted someone to pay. And then you add in all the resentment people already have that she is a very successful, very rich, very powerful woman.
1:48:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:48:39 Dax Shepard? And whether anyone's aware of that or not while they're, I don't even, I don't think anyone was like consciously going, yeah, this is the wrong thing to do. I'm going to do it. I don't think that happened. But I don't think you're aware of how much you're responding to this thing you're threatened by and you don't even know you are.
1:48:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, people carry so many feelings that they don't understand about successful women.
1:49:01 Dax Shepard? It's very similar to the Kardashian hatred. It's quite similar because Martha was presenting the perfect life. She's in pursuit of perfection. And so people are simultaneously very attracted to that because we all like beauty. And we like this stuff and it's very aspirational and wish fulfillment-y. And then, and then you're mad you don't have it and she has it. And you're jealous, even though in her case, like she was physically doing it all herself. Like she's making floral arrangements and she's making the meals and she's all this stuff. But it's just, there's a lot of things that are fun to look at in the doc. How complicated are all of our relationship is with high status people and particularly
1:49:45 Dax Shepard? high status women and people who have what we want, you know?
1:49:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's complicated.
1:49:51 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:49:52 Speaker 01 Very complicated. Yeah, well, I'm excited to watch that.
1:49:55 Dax Shepard? Okay, The Substance. Now, my prediction was, I don't know if it was a prediction, I was just like, it's, it's unrelenting and very intense and I'm just curious how you're gonna feel. What do you rate the intensity, the gore?
1:50:08 Speaker 01 So, of course, it's so gory, it's so, um, it's very intense. It's so over the top, but I wasn't like, I don't think I was as disturbed as.
1:50:20 Dax Shepard? I was worried.
1:50:21 Speaker 01 As you were anticipating.
1:50:23 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:50:23 Speaker 01 And I said then, and I was like, I'm not sure if this is gonna be true, but I wonder if.
1:50:28 Dax Shepard? Women.
1:50:29 Speaker 01 Will watch this differently and will not think it's as intense as men do. I mean, it is, it is, it's crazy.
1:50:35 Dax Shepard? Objectively.
1:50:36 Speaker 01 Objectively, it is.
1:50:37 Dax Shepard? An alien would go, wow, that's a really wild film the monkeys made.
1:50:40 Speaker 01 Yes, everyone's like kinda screaming, it's like kinda one of those where people are reacting loudly in a really fun way.
1:50:47 Dax Shepard? Was it pretty packed when you went?
1:50:48 Speaker 01 No.
1:50:49 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay.
1:50:49 Speaker 01 There was, there was like.
1:50:50 Dax Shepard? The five people were screaming, did anyone walk out? Cause people walked out when I was.
1:50:53 Speaker 01 No, and that's like, to me, the idea of someone walking out is, is funny to me.
1:50:59 Dax Shepard? I mean, I don't wanna do any spoilers, but I just wanna talk about the sewing of the skin.
1:51:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:51:03 Dax Shepard? You were, that wasn't like, oh my fucking god.
1:51:06 Speaker 01 I mean, I was like.
1:51:06 Dax Shepard? Or fingernail stuff, no, that stuff was, I mean, that stuff is.
1:51:09 Speaker 01 I mean, I was like, ew, of course, I was like, ew, oh my god, this is so insane.
1:51:14 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:51:14 Speaker 01 But I, I was not like, oh my god, I gotta walk out or, oh, I gotta close my eyes. And like, by the end of the movie, I was dying laughing. I was laughing out loud at like such a high frequency. I thought it became so funny to me.
1:51:30 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:51:32 Speaker 01 So absurd.
1:51:35 Speaker 05 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.
1:51:49 Dax Shepard? I have that with violence in movies.
1:51:53 Dax Shepard? You know, it starts making me laugh so hard. Some of the violence in Goodfellas, some of the violence in Tarantino movies.
1:52:00 Speaker 01 That's interesting.
1:52:01 Dax Shepard? It's just, yeah. I think it is interesting.
1:52:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:52:03 Dax Shepard? I think there's something there.
1:52:04 Speaker 01 Right. I think because for you, since violence is a rea- was a reality.
1:52:10 Dax Shepard? Big time.
1:52:11 Speaker 01 You can see it a little differently, or you can like, you, maybe you know when it's hit an absurd threshold.
1:52:17 Dax Shepard? Uh huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:52:19 Speaker 01 And because for me, violence is just scary in general.
1:52:22 Dax Shepard? It's all violence.
1:52:23 Speaker 01 It's all scary. It doesn't matter even the smallest.
1:52:25 Dax Shepard? You don't know what's comedic and what's not.
1:52:26 Speaker 01 Yeah. And so I would, I wouldn't laugh at that, but this is like, yes, I'm so clear as to when like body gore has hit another level, or when, when the message of the female body has like escalated to a different point. It's such an incredible message. It's so true. Uh, speaking of successful women, it's cast so perfectly because Demi Moore is so gorgeous.
1:52:56 Dax Shepard? Yes.
1:52:56 Speaker 01 She's so beautiful.
1:52:58 Dax Shepard? She's a knockout. Yeah.
1:52:58 Speaker 01 She has aged incredibly gracefully. She looks incredible.
1:53:02 Dax Shepard? When you were my age, Demi, because she was perfectly the right age above me where she was like this incredibly exotic young 20 year old when I was like 15 or whatever.
1:53:13 Speaker 01 Yeah. Jess said that he, he was in love with her.
1:53:16 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow. Transcended.
1:53:19 Speaker 01 I know. I said, well, what'd you want to do? Eat around it?
1:53:24 Dax Shepard? Do people know that? I think it's worth repeating.
1:53:27 Speaker 01 It's worth repeating. If you listen to Monica and Jess Loves Boys.
1:53:32 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:53:32 Speaker 01 Monica and Jess Love Boys. That was one of our early spinoff shows. It was a long time ago at this point. We did a 10 episode show with Jess where him and I were, were so opposite, but we were on like dating missions, basically. And it was such a fun show. I, Another show I'm really proud of.
1:53:50 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let's add now because people for so many years have wanted to know why you guys didn't do a second season. And I think it's important to just say that you realize if you are actually gonna find love was this, this was not the right way. You had to prioritize your real.
1:54:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, it felt a little cheap. We, you know, we put out the, the questionnaires and people responded. And once we were going through them, I was like, yeah, this is, we're just making a show and it wouldn't really be about the real thing.
1:54:14 Dax Shepard? Instead of your real life informing the show, the show is gonna start informing your real life. And that's, that's a dicey road.
1:54:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:54:21 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:54:21 Speaker 01 Yeah. So anyways, that's why we didn't.
1:54:23 Dax Shepard? But he had girlfriends in high school.
1:54:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, he had girlfriends. Jess is gay, if people don't know that. He had girlfriends in high school and we'd be like, well, did you like?
1:54:32 Dax Shepard? What'd you guys do physically?
1:54:33 Speaker 01 Or would you? And he was like, I would eat around it.
1:54:37 Dax Shepard? Which by the way, feels very sexy, just having someone eat my thighs and get close. They were probably like teetering on the verge. It might've been better than actual what high school boys were doing directly.
1:54:49 Speaker 01 Yeah. It's worth perhaps going back and listening to that show just to hear him describe that. Speaking of that, actually, we have a feed. It's called Armchair Limited. It is where all our old series live.
1:55:02 Dax Shepard? Yo, great. People are curious about that.
1:55:05 Speaker 01 If you ever want to go back and listen to any of these fun things we've done.
1:55:07 Dax Shepard? Race to 270, a lot of people have been asking me like, where's Race 270?
1:55:10 Speaker 01 Race to 270, Race to 35. So anyway, all our old shows are on there. It's really fun if you want to go.
1:55:15 Dax Shepard? Armchair Limited.
1:55:16 Speaker 06 Armchair Umbrella Limited Series.
1:55:19 Dax Shepard? Armchair Umbrella Limited Series.
1:55:20 Speaker 01 But I think if you type in Armchair Limited, you can, it'll pop up. Anyway, um, I asked, did you eat, did you want to eat around it? And he said, no, I just wanted to write her letters.
1:55:30 Dax Shepard? Ah, okay. More of like, uh, what do they call that? Mother?
1:55:34 Speaker 01 Yeah. Someone called me that the other day and I was so flattered. So cool.
1:55:39 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah.
1:55:40 Speaker 01 Anyhow.
1:55:40 Dax Shepard? Anyhow.
1:55:41 Speaker 01 So substance. Yeah, like. She's so gorgeous and perfect. And so when she's starting to do, go down this road where she's
1:55:52 Dax Shepard? Taking a substance.
1:55:53 Speaker 01 Younger, yes. You're like, why? You don't need to do this. Why are you doing this?
1:55:57 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:55:57 Speaker 01 And, and then you see the young person and as a woman, and this is so sad, as a woman, you're like, oh, like, I guess I kind of get it. I like, I understand why she wants that.
1:56:10 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:56:10 Speaker 01 It's so fucked up. It is so fucked up what we do to aging women in this society. We really cast women aside.
1:56:20 Dax Shepard? It's asymmetric, for sure.
1:56:22 Speaker 01 Yeah. The way they shoot the men in the movie is hilarious.
1:56:26 Dax Shepard? Yes, yes. All fish eye, disgusting. He's always eating shit. Oh, God.
1:56:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's falling out of his mouth.
1:56:33 Dax Shepard? Sea substance.
1:56:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, sea substance. I want to, we have facts, but also, and this is for Cynthia. She was incredible.
1:56:40 Dax Shepard? Oh, yeah. What a blast that was.
1:56:42 Speaker 01 I have to tell you, any day now, I think we might get unplugged. The sim is hitting new levels.
1:56:51 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay.
1:56:53 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:56:53 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:56:54 Speaker 01 Yesterday, I was in Culver City. I'm never in Culver City.
1:56:59 Dax Shepard? Right.
1:56:59 Speaker 01 It was so random. It was kind of last minute.
1:57:01 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:57:02 Speaker 01 Decided to go.
1:57:03 Dax Shepard? Decided to go to Culver City last minute?
1:57:06 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:57:06 Dax Shepard? What on earth was in Culver City?
1:57:08 Speaker 01 Jess is helping open a new restaurant.
1:57:10 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:57:10 Speaker 01 And I told him I would come.
1:57:13 Dax Shepard? Be a patron?
1:57:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly. And, but I was like, really on the fence. I didn't know if I was, whatever. Then last minute, I was like, I guess I'll go. I wanted to beat traffic, so I went early. I went at like this random time.
1:57:23 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:57:24 Speaker 01 And I park, I'm just sitting in the car, I'm on the phone, and I look over and Molly is staring at me through my car window.
1:57:33 Dax Shepard? Richardson or McNary? Okay, Molly Richardson.
1:57:36 Speaker 01 Who also does not live in Culver City, is never in Culver City, happened to be meeting a friend for lunch. I know, exactly. Happened to be meeting a friend for lunch there and like drove by, saw my car, saw my little, she said she saw my little head.
1:57:53 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:57:53 Speaker 01 And then parked and, what? That is so weird.
1:57:58 Dax Shepard? It is very weird.
1:57:59 Speaker 01 Facts.
1:58:00 Dax Shepard? We have, listen, which it's so fine. We have complementary things about that trigger us into the sim.
1:58:06 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:58:07 Dax Shepard? So you have things, you have coincidences.
1:58:09 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:58:10 Dax Shepard? Right? That's kind of your, what you don't ever miss. Mine is more what's happening in my lifetime. This feels very suspicious. So my example, my recent sim moment was talking to my hormone doctor. Telling him how, I mean, this, we're just chatting. It's not like I'm asking him to deal with this. I'm just somehow, we're talking about getting older maybe. And I said, the thing that's fucking killing me is my eyesight. I find it so frustrating and I know I'm being a baby, but I cannot stand that, be able to fucking read anything that's not 25 feet away from me.
1:58:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:58:47 Dax Shepard? And he said, oh, I just got the bionic lenses put on.
1:58:50 Speaker 01 Right.
1:58:51 Dax Shepard? And I go, what, what bionic lenses? And he said, I think Johnson and Johnson makes now an artificial lens that lasts forever. That gives you perfect sight.
1:59:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:59:02 Dax Shepard? And I went, what are the odds I'm gonna be, I'm not gonna have to deal with fucked up declining vision? Well, that's where we're at. Again, that feels awfully suspicious, Monica. For 300,000 years, humans have had to deal with their eyes going to shit and I might not have to?
1:59:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:59:23 Dax Shepard? Come on, man. My final piece of the puzzle where I'll go, okay, this is sim. I'm in a sim is if they shut off aging. If they end aging and you don't have to die.
1:59:34 Speaker 01 I know, I know.
1:59:35 Dax Shepard? Until the earth blows up in five billion years?
1:59:37 Speaker 01 Maybe before that.
1:59:37 Dax Shepard? Or sooner, but.
1:59:38 Speaker 01 Yeah. But also you, you would still die by getting hit by a car and stuff.
1:59:42 Dax Shepard? You could still die by getting, yeah. I think we've, what we've really beat out all the things that this would cause is you, I think you'd get abnormally fearful of accidental death.
1:59:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, you'd, everyone would become agoraphobe.
1:59:52 Dax Shepard? Walk around with a big bubble wrap all over you.
1:59:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:59:55 Dax Shepard? So that to me, that's more what I'm tracking.
1:59:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:59:58 Dax Shepard? And I've always said this, mostly people that believe in the sim have an abnormally lucky life and I own that.
2:00:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, but that's if you're looking at the sim in the way you're looking at the sim. If you look at it in the coincidental way. That can also, that doesn't have to be privileged. That's just like, what the fuck is going on that I just said this? Or that I'm running into Molly? That my, my neighbor of my house owns the apartment next door? Like, that's not-
2:00:25 Dax Shepard? That's, I, I acknowledge that stuff is very simmy.
2:00:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:00:28 Dax Shepard? But, but, but I do think that if you're, if you've had, you know, two people knock you up that lied and said they had vasectomies and you're in a trailer on welfare, and you, if, if, if you do think it's a sim, I feel so bad for that person. Because why would that person deserve that sim?
2:00:46 Speaker 01 Exactly.
2:00:46 Dax Shepard? Why would they, they plugged into something to have that experience? So I don't think that person would ever think they're in a sim. Because why would they, who would be in a sim that's fucking insufferable?
2:00:57 Speaker 01 Well, that's a, okay, it gets so heady because if we're, if my, if I'm in my sim-
2:01:02 Dax Shepard? The people that are suffering are fake.
2:01:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:01:04 Dax Shepard? But that's what we hope.
2:01:06 Speaker 01 I know. I know.
2:01:09 Dax Shepard? I don't want anyone to suffer. I don't want any, anyone that's in a sim should be having a fucking-
2:01:13 Speaker 01 But in their sim, they are.
2:01:15 Dax Shepard? This is very confusing. Well, TBD.
2:01:18 Speaker 01 Whatever. Also to say, I think we might get unplugged soon because it's getting way, it's, that's so crazy.
2:01:23 Dax Shepard? Same, bionic eyes. I mean, they just happen.
2:01:26 Speaker 01 Um, okay, Cynthia.
2:01:27 Dax Shepard? Boy, did I like her. That self-assuredness was, is so attractive to me.
2:01:33 Speaker 01 Very. Okay, Michaela Cole. We were talking about if she was younger or older. She is the same age. She's 37 as well.
2:01:41 Dax Shepard? Okay.
2:01:41 Speaker 01 All of us were born in 87, all three of us.
2:01:43 Dax Shepard? Special year, as we know.
2:01:45 Speaker 01 Special year.
2:01:46 Dax Shepard? Seventh grade for me, birth for you.
2:01:47 Speaker 01 A postpartum doula. You wanted to know what that was?
2:01:50 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
2:01:51 Speaker 01 A trained professional who offers support to new parents during the postpartum period, which is the first six weeks after giving birth. Postpartum doulas can help with a variety of tasks, including physical care, helping with breastfeeding, infant feeding and infant soothing, emotional support, information, housework, incorporating older children. Oh, helping to incorporate the older child.
2:02:15 Dax Shepard? Integrating, yeah.
2:02:16 Speaker 01 Overnight shifts. She mentioned one of her heroes, Cicely Tyson.
2:02:23 Dax Shepard? Mm-hmm.
2:02:23 Speaker 01 And yes, it was, she was nominated for best actress in 1973 for Sounder. Cicely Tyson was.
2:02:29 Dax Shepard? Wasn't even here yet.
2:02:30 Speaker 01 No, you weren't.
2:02:31 Dax Shepard? Still a few years away.
2:02:32 Speaker 01 Couple of years.
2:02:33 Dax Shepard? Did you say 72 or 73?
2:02:34 Speaker 01 Three.
2:02:35 Dax Shepard? Oh, two. Yeah, okay.
2:02:37 Speaker 01 Your brother was here?
2:02:39 Dax Shepard? Sixty nine.
2:02:39 Speaker 01 Ding ding ding. Erica Badu.
2:02:41 Dax Shepard? Ah.
2:02:42 Speaker 01 I just wanted to, because you talk, you asked if she was late. And I just want to be clear, that's a thing with her. It's a thing that like, she is late a lot.
2:02:51 Dax Shepard? It's cool, although I like it. The queen's late. Like, you wait for the queen.
2:02:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, I agree. I just, for people who don't know that, it seemed random that you would ask that.
2:02:59 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
2:03:00 Speaker 01 But it's a thing, like, people ask, like, what, oh, she's gonna be a couple hours late, like, yeah. You said that your cousin told you that mathematically every song has already been created. That's not true.
2:03:11 Dax Shepard? Oh.
2:03:11 Speaker 01 The number of possible sound combinations is essentially infinite. For example, Spotify, the world's largest music platform, has over a hundred million songs registered and a hundred thousand new songs are added every day.
2:03:24 Dax Shepard? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Every day?
2:03:26 Speaker 01 That's what it says.
2:03:26 Dax Shepard? A hundred thousand songs are added every day.
2:03:29 Speaker 01 That's what it says.
2:03:30 Dax Shepard? Holy smokes.
2:03:31 Speaker 01 Um, yeah, so, no, no.
2:03:35 Dax Shepard? No.
2:03:35 Speaker 01 There's a infinite number of combinations, essentially.
2:03:39 Dax Shepard? All right.
2:03:41 Speaker 01 So you can tell your cousin.
2:03:43 Dax Shepard? I'm not gonna tell him. It sounds like a fun thing for him to hold on to.
2:03:46 Speaker 01 Okay, sure.
2:03:46 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
2:03:47 Speaker 01 Oh, we talk about how in England, they have things, we have things here that they don't have because we allow chemicals that they don't.
2:03:54 Dax Shepard? Oh, sure, yeah. We play it fast and loose.
2:03:56 Speaker 01 We do. But in 2023, about a year ago, California became the first state to ban four food additives linked to disease.
2:04:05 Dax Shepard? What are they?
2:04:06 Speaker 01 The California Food Safety Act prohibits the manufacturing, distribution, and sale of food and beverages that contain brominated vegetable oil.
2:04:13 Dax Shepard? Oh, I love brominated vegetable oil. Delicious. I gotta move.
2:04:17 Speaker 01 Potassium bromate.
2:04:19 Dax Shepard? Oh, no. Okay.
2:04:21 Speaker 01 Propyl paraben.
2:04:22 Dax Shepard? Well, what about propofol?
2:04:24 Speaker 01 And red dye three. Red dye three is the big, the biggie.
2:04:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
2:04:28 Speaker 01 Can be found in candy, fruit juices, and cookies and more. Cookie boy.
2:04:33 Dax Shepard? Cookie boy.
2:04:34 Speaker 01 Anyway, so that's good.
2:04:36 Dax Shepard? How are you doing on your cookie boy-ness? When's the last time you had a cookie?
2:04:39 Speaker 01 I had a cookie.
2:04:43 Speaker 01 At least two weeks ago, cuz I had one at Sycamore Kitchen. Love Sycamore Kitchen. They have a Rice Krispie Treat Cookie. It's so insane.
2:04:52 Dax Shepard? I just had an impulse I'm gonna share with you. You know how I wanna go back in my time machine and woo your grandma so bad?
2:04:57 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
2:04:58 Dax Shepard? I'd kill to do that.
2:04:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:04:59 Dax Shepard? I also wanna see you as a baby cuz now when I just asked you about cookies, of course, you looked one years old when you started thinking about your cookies. And so I wanna go back and see you as a baby eating a cookie.
2:05:09 Speaker 01 Oh, like my first cookie.
2:05:11 Dax Shepard? How hot was your grandma when you were a baby? Can I hit two birds with one stone?
2:05:15 Speaker 01 Um, yeah, she was beautiful.
2:05:17 Dax Shepard? She was.
2:05:17 Speaker 01 Gorgeous.
2:05:18 Dax Shepard? How old was she when you were eating cookies as a one-year-old?
2:05:23 Speaker 01 She would've been, okay, let's see. So my mom is 26 years my senior.
2:05:28 Dax Shepard? Mm-hmm. How old was?
2:05:30 Speaker 01 She was probably 20.
2:05:31 Dax Shepard? But isn't that your dad's mom?
2:05:33 Speaker 01 No.
2:05:34 Dax Shepard? Oh, that's your mom's mom?
2:05:36 Speaker 01 You didn't know that?
2:05:37 Dax Shepard? I don't know, man.
2:05:38 Speaker 01 Oh, my god.
2:05:39 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I think of your, that grandma feels very Indian and I know that your mom's parents lived in Savannah.
2:05:45 Speaker 01 From, they came from India.
2:05:47 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah.
2:05:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:05:50 Dax Shepard? I don't know cuz your dad, of course, feels so much more like he was an adult when he left India.
2:05:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, he was.
2:05:55 Dax Shepard? So when I see a picture like that, I just, I'm in India.
2:05:59 Speaker 01 You are in India. She, they are Indian.
2:06:02 Dax Shepard? You got that one right.
2:06:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:06:03 Dax Shepard? Okay.
2:06:04 Speaker 01 Okay, so she was probably in her late 40s when I was born. So she was probably around your age that I was eating cookies.
2:06:12 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow. Okay, that, I think this is gonna work.
2:06:15 Speaker 01 No, I don't know.
2:06:16 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
2:06:16 Speaker 01 No, my grandpa.
2:06:18 Dax Shepard? He won't know. All right, let me flip it. If you wanted to go back in time and give Papa Bob some ass, I love my grandmioles to death.
2:06:28 Speaker 01 I wouldn't do that to her.
2:06:30 Dax Shepard? You haven't met her.
2:06:31 Speaker 01 But you love her.
2:06:32 Dax Shepard? I love her so much.
2:06:34 Speaker 01 So why would I do that?
2:06:35 Dax Shepard? Smartest person I ever knew. Because this is, this is a one-off time capsule for him. This is like, he doesn't even know if it was a dream the next day cuz you came into town and you were nowhere to be found. She went back to the future.
2:06:46 Speaker 01 Okay.
2:06:47 Dax Shepard? Ding ding ding. Not a sponsor, great movie. It's a one-off. There's no threat to the marriage cuz you return to the future. He can't fall in love with you and ruin everything. It's just a one-off. You give Papa Bob a little tush.
2:07:03 Dax Shepard? I would want that for him. I would want it for him. And my, my grandma didn't need to know.
2:07:08 Speaker 01 Hmm.
2:07:09 Dax Shepard? And I would want Brad Pitt to go back and give Ulyss the right of her life.
2:07:12 Speaker 01 Oh, sure.
2:07:13 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
2:07:14 Speaker 01 That one feels less.
2:07:15 Dax Shepard? Why do we want that for her and not him?
2:07:17 Speaker 01 I don't know what to say.
2:07:18 Dax Shepard? What is, we don't have a word for misogynist for men. What is it? We need that word.
2:07:22 Speaker 01 There's no such thing.
2:07:23 Dax Shepard? There's no such.
2:07:24 Speaker 01 That's why.
2:07:26 Dax Shepard? It feels very mean to men. It feels mean to men. That she gets Brad Pitt, but Papa Bob can't have some.
2:07:33 Speaker 01 That's not mean.
2:07:33 Dax Shepard? Some tush.
2:07:34 Speaker 01 She.
2:07:35 Dax Shepard? Isn't tush the grossest thing to say?
2:07:37 Speaker 01 You keep saying it and I think it's disgusting.
2:07:39 Dax Shepard? It's a seventies rock song. He's like, I'm just looking for some tush. And Aaron, I sing, it is so grody.
2:07:45 Speaker 01 Okay, we're gonna get stereotypical here.
2:07:47 Dax Shepard? Yeah, of course.
2:07:48 Speaker 01 Women, I think, for the most part.
2:07:52 Dax Shepard? Mm hmm. Caveat, caveat, caveat, asterix.
2:07:55 Speaker 01 For the most part, their sex drive, they don't want to have as much sex as men do. As they age, as they get older, as things happen, like, I mean, for, it's actually for real, your sex drive does.
2:08:05 Dax Shepard? Well, so we have testosterone. That's like the, that's the sex fuel. Any, anyone will tell you that.
2:08:10 Speaker 01 Well, we have testosterone, but not as much.
2:08:12 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:08:13 Speaker 01 But yes, so, but with menopause and perimenopause, everything drops off. I know, because I'm in perimenopause. And, um, so, so I think a lot of women are having sex with their husbands past the point of them wanting. We know this. It's like, the husbands are like, can we have sex once a week? And the wife are like, sure, I guess.
2:08:36 Dax Shepard? Predominant pattern.
2:08:37 Speaker 01 Exactly. Not always.
2:08:38 Dax Shepard? But I do want to add, and this I think comes from, there's a ton of great work on this, from social scientists, like Ira's mom who studied.
2:08:46 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
2:08:47 Dax Shepard? Women cheat the same amount, but they are driven by novelty. This is like agreed upon. Women are driven by novelty and men are driven by sprain, unfortunately. So, you know, put that in your argument. This is kind of known.
2:09:03 Speaker 01 It says men are more likely to cheat than women.
2:09:05 Dax Shepard? Okay, but like 51 to 49?
2:09:07 Speaker 01 It's according to this is 20.
2:09:10 Dax Shepard? With somebody.
2:09:11 Speaker 01 This is 2022. Yeah, but they might be cheating on someone who's not in a partnership. Yeah, 20% of men and 13% of women admitted to cheating on their spouse.
2:09:20 Dax Shepard? Okay, yeah, and then I'm just gotta, you know, I gotta do my thing, which is like admitting culturally. It's so much worse for a woman to admit it. It's so expected of men.
2:09:30 Speaker 01 Even more. Exactly. That's, this is all tying back into what I'm about to say, which is why it's not the same that if, if Grandma Yolas gets to have sex with Brad Pitt, it's not the same.
2:09:41 Dax Shepard? You feel like it's right, writing the scale?
2:09:43 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:09:44 Dax Shepard? I got you.
2:09:45 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:09:45 Dax Shepard? Okay, so I imagine that that, this is, don't hate me.
2:09:49 Speaker 01 Okay.
2:09:50 Dax Shepard? If it's admitted 20% and 13%, I think the real numbers are probably like 35% for men and probably like 29% for women. That's just what I think. From the amount of adults I've known that have been married and the amount of affairs I know about and who they were with, that to me feels way more likely.
2:10:09 Speaker 01 I only, I only, I'm really trying to think, because I don't want to speak out of school. But in my experience, I don't know very many, but I personally only know.
2:10:26 Dax Shepard? Really?
2:10:26 Speaker 01 Who have cheated on their wives.
2:10:28 Dax Shepard? Cheated on their boyfriends. Most of the girls I know cheated on their boyfriend.
2:10:32 Speaker 01 Cheated on her boyfriend.
2:10:35 Dax Shepard? One?
2:10:36 Speaker 01 Well, let me think.
2:10:38 Dax Shepard? Let me go through every woman I've ever known.
2:10:41 Speaker 01 Okay, well, I guess for me, I guess I'm thinking more marital.
2:10:45 Dax Shepard? Yeah, okay.
2:10:46 Speaker 01 Once people are married, I, in my experience, only know men who have cheated on their wives.
2:10:53 Dax Shepard? I bet it's gone up too since women joined the workforce, because forever they were at home and they would interact with other women. Who the hell are they even gonna meet? Whereas like men were meeting women out in their workplace all the time.
2:11:06 Speaker 01 Well, they weren't meeting women out in the workplace.
2:11:08 Dax Shepard? Sure, they had secretaries and all these roles that were conventionally feminine, you know, females.
2:11:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:11:14 Dax Shepard? Yeah, like my Papa Bob worked at the Wonder Bed Breakery. Sure, everyone in the bakery was men carrying bags of flour, but then up front, there was all these women doing all kinds of stuff.
2:11:21 Speaker 01 Right.
2:11:22 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Anywho, okay, so.
2:11:25 Speaker 01 Okay, Mexican music is.
2:11:27 Dax Shepard? Hold on, no.
2:11:28 Speaker 01 What?
2:11:29 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow.
2:11:30 Speaker 01 What?
2:11:30 Dax Shepard? So I accept your full logic, then why doesn't that apply to your sweet grandma? Why isn't she like my grandma Ulysses?
2:11:36 Speaker 01 Wait, what do you mean?
2:11:37 Dax Shepard? If you okay Brad Pitt having a night with Ulysses,
2:11:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:11:42 Dax Shepard? Useless eggshells, named after Ulysses S. Grant. Why wouldn't your grandma be entitled to a night with me?
2:11:48 Speaker 01 Because I, I don't want that for my grandfather.
2:11:51 Dax Shepard? Oh, right.
2:11:53 Dax Shepard? But it's okay for my grandfather, which would make sense.
2:11:55 Speaker 01 It makes sense for your grandfather because you said you want it.
2:11:58 Dax Shepard? Yeah. I want them.
2:11:59 Speaker 01 I don't want it.
2:12:00 Dax Shepard? Okay.
2:12:01 Speaker 01 For them.
2:12:01 Dax Shepard? All right, I'm moving on.
2:12:02 Speaker 01 Okay. Tahano music is influenced significantly by polka.
2:12:08 Speaker 01 You're right.
2:12:10 Speaker 01 Um, that's it.
2:12:12 Dax Shepard? That was everything.
2:12:13 Speaker 01 Well, let me just do one more double check. Yep.
2:12:16 Dax Shepard? All done. Final note, not a spoiler. Loved Wicked.
2:12:20 Speaker 01 Oh.
2:12:20 Dax Shepard? You gotta go see Wicked.
2:12:21 Speaker 01 Got to. You will. Everyone already will. Everyone's already seen it probably by now, but it is so good.
2:12:27 Dax Shepard? Popular. Um, all right, I love you.
2:12:30 Speaker 01 Love you.
Previous Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Ex Next Megan Rapinoe & Sue Bird Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated