Timothy Olyphant

Timothy Olyphant (Alien: Earth, Deadwood, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) is an Emmy Award-nominated actor. Timothy joins the Armchair Expert to discuss whether he gives middle child vibes, the benefits of being a skills generalist, and why his smile always designated him as the “talk-to-the-cops guy.” Timothy and Dax talk about how knocking things off balance a little bit can create a lovely vulnerable moment, invoking Lou Reed and Bob Dylan as interview inspiration, and being the favorite co-star of so many talented actors. Timothy explains that there’s a judo to rejecting someone while giving them something, asking the small questions like what is humanity and is it worth saving in Alien: Earth, and finding a space where you help others by doing the thing you do. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:05Dax Shepard?

  We had a major babe on today.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  MB.

• 0:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh, major babe, Timothy Olyphant, Emmy nominated actor, justified hitman, Santa Clarita Diet, Deadwood, and his new series out now on FX, Alien Earth, which of course is written by Noah Hawley.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  Yep, friend of the pod.

• 0:26Dax Shepard?

  Friend of the pod, about the best writer out there doing it.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:29Dax Shepard?

  Um, I'm putting this in the Alexander Skarsgård bucket of dudes that just came in here where it's playful as a goddamn kitten with a ball yarn.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 0:40Dax Shepard?

  Please enjoy Timothy Olyphant. We get support from Quince.

• 0:45Speaker 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.

• 1:04Dax 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.

• 1:20Speaker 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.

• 1:31Dax 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.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 1:40Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:44Speaker 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.

• 2:06Dax 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. This episode is supported by Helix.

• 2:31Speaker 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.

• 2:41Dax Shepard?

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

• 2:52Speaker 01

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

• 3:10Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Recently.

• 3:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 01

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

• 3:15Dax Shepard?

  Temperature was all over the map.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  It was a mess.

• 3:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  I need a new one.

• 3:18Dax Shepard?

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

• 3:33Speaker 01

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

• 3:40Dax Shepard?

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

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, we have the host right here.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  How are you? Let's do a little mint tea.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Nice. I'm gonna do a latte, whole milk.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Oh, wait, we're getting, I would like a quartado, please.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Nice. We knew mint tea wasn't right. We knew it in our hearts.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why did you request mint tea? Is that what you always drink?

• 4:38Dax Shepard?

  Bermuda switched from mint tea to horchata.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  No, cortado.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  I'll tell you why, because my thought process was simply, oh, it's gonna come in a paper cup with the lid and that's not gonna be as nice an experience as in a mug with like honey and the whole thing. And so I immediately just switched to like, oh no, when in Rome, this is what you wanna get from, I don't know where we're ordering from, but it feels like it's the kinda place.

• 5:03Dax Shepard?

  Have you had their coffee?

• 5:04Speaker 02

  So good. Right? Imported from Italy?

• 5:06Dax Shepard?

  The beef and cheddar.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  So good.

• 5:08Dax Shepard?

  Combo platter.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  I'll be honest with you, it's less about the tea. I just love a prop.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  I do too, something in your hand.

• 5:15Dax Shepard?

  Have you ever got to smoke in anything?

• 5:16Speaker 02

  It's the best.

• 5:17Dax Shepard?

  There's nothing better. There's no acting to be done.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  If you can smoke or eat in any.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Do you spit it out or do?

• 5:25Speaker 02

  It doesn't matter. It's the process, it's the chewing the smallest thing. And it just immediately makes you a better actor.

• 5:31Dax Shepard?

  I got to smoke in Let's Go to Prison and it was a run and gun production, right? So we're shooting several pages a day and it does turn pretty quickly from like, I was a pack and a half a day smoker at the time and I'm up to like a three and a half pack just because of the scenes and retake and relight. And by the end of it, I was like, I quit. I quit smoking at the end of that movie.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  There you go. There's a win.

• 5:50Dax Shepard?

  Do you do the herbal ones or you go real?

• 5:52Speaker 02

  I haven't done a real cigarette in a production in a long time. I did a play years ago. Oh my gosh. David Sedaris. I did a Sedaris thing and I smoked a cigarette every night. As I recall, I think there was a cigarette involved in that. I used to go out and smoke a cigarette every night. I was gonna look forward to it.

• 6:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, of course you would have never been an actual smoker because your life was committed to athletics.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  I was committed, yeah.

• 6:15Dax Shepard?

  I mean, truly, you couldn't have been a smoker and a fucking national swim champ.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Whoa, that's cool.

• 6:21Dax Shepard?

  I'll take you there.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, take me.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  I think a champ is a little of.

• 6:24Dax Shepard?

  I wanna say you were a runner up in the 86 Nationals.

• 6:29Dax Shepard?

  That's the actual year.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  That can't be true.

• 6:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  That's the big deal.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  I'm not saying it's not nothing.

• 6:34Dax Shepard?

  Finals of anything.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Okay, there you go.

• 6:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she's a state champ.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  I am two time.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  What's more for you?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Competitive cheerleading.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Competitive cheerleading?

• 6:42Dax Shepard?

  High flyer.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was flying, tumbling.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Dangerous.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Very dangerous.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  When did you start that?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Started in eighth grade and then I was on the squad my junior and senior year and we won both years.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  How about that? Where from?

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Georgia.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Oh, it's a big deal there then.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  It's a huge deal.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  It's a whole thing.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why it felt really good.

• 6:59Dax Shepard?

  It's the equivalent of polo in Nantucket.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  It was a blessing because the state's SAT scores were on average too low. So we weren't allowed to go to nationals.

• 7:12Dax Shepard?

  Wait, they were penalizing you personally for the state average?

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, like no one in the state of Georgia could go to nationals because the state average SAT scores. But it was a blessing because then it was just like we were the best. We couldn't then go to the next stage and lose. That was the best we could do and we did it.

• 7:29Dax Shepard?

  Oh, this is a detail of the story. I've never, I've heard this story 150 times, Timothy. And you just brought out a weird layer of honesty, which is you've just told me you were champs two years in a row.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  State champs.

• 7:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Didn't say idiots.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Of the idiots.

• 7:47Dax Shepard?

  You did not say of the.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Well, sure, you guys won it. You weren't going to class.

• 7:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Everyone else was going to class. They were handicapped by actually doing their studies.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  You ladies were phoning it in, guys and girls, coed.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, coed. It's not like the SAT scores of the cheerleaders.

• 8:04Dax Shepard?

  I know.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Every single person in the state, the average was too low to take.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  GPA, not the SAT.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  SAT.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Your SAT scores?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Now I'm worried.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  I think it's.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Now I'm worried I'm wrong.

• 8:16Dax Shepard?

  They wouldn't do a state, but let me say this. There's almost never an occasion to say, once again, the few have bore the burden of the many.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay, the saying is, once again. The many have bore the burden of the few.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Well, I think that's.

• 8:32Dax Shepard?

  This is the opposite, because like the state fucked you guys up.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  But again, they did, but I choose to look at it as a positive because we did the best we could possibly do. We won state. We couldn't do anything more than that.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  What are the rest of those idiots up to these days?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  I don't know. I really separated myself from all of them.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Really?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Are you in touch with any of the squad? We're gonna call them a squad.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Let's call them squad.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Are you in touch with any of the squad?

• 8:55Dax Shepard?

  I just want to flag something. I want you to be careful because he's doing what he does. It's happening. It's happening. Polar oddo, right out of the gate. I wanted to see what shape it would take.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  This is this shit.

• 9:07Dax Shepard?

  I'm just asking if you're in touch with the squad. Never talk about himself. I've now watched a thousand interviews with you and I know what's happening.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  This is interesting. You're a deflector.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Three people talking, Rob, we're gonna include you. There's four of us. We're in here, we're chatting and we're just being humans.

• 9:22Dax Shepard?

  And it'd be your preference that we just kept it a light chat and we don't find out anything about old TO.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Listen, this is your show, okay? Now, put aside the fact that the guest was here first.

• 9:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  It's still.

• 9:35Dax Shepard?

  That's part of it. I want you to get comfortable before you're intimidated by my biceps. I want you to be able to sit down and relax and not feel threatened.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Now I can't take my eyes off him. Now look at that. I can't take my eyes off him. All right, we're letting it go. We're gonna not, let's not talk about the squad.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  We're not gonna.

• 9:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  Give us one squad member. Just what's one squad member doing?

• 9:52Dax Shepard?

  Who's the guy? I'll let you in on something that's really fascinating. And I said to her early on as we were chatting about this history. You know, you're up in the air like that and the people are catching you and sometimes it's willy nilly. Did they ever catch you by the pussy? And Monica said, yeah, it happens all the time. And we had people write in like, any high flyer, they're gonna have to get caught. Occasionally on accident. So that's the member of the squad I think we should honor if we're gonna honor someone.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  I think that's a great idea. And we should put this on your Wikipedia page. Champion cheerleader, occasionally caught by the pussy.

• 10:22Dax Shepard?

  But Kevin Movin' who won two titles. So who caught you?

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Most of them are women.

• 10:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Now we're really off the rails, but yeah, let's shout out one person.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Let's hear it.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Kendall Morgan.

• 10:33Dax Shepard?

  Oh, what an athlete.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Incredible athlete.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Dumbest girl on this, good one?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  You know what?

• 10:39Speaker 02

  She's the one that hurt?

• 10:40Speaker 01

  He's a very smart male.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  He, sorry.

• 10:42Dax Shepard?

  I went the same place you did.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 10:44Dax Shepard?

  She just said women caught her. And then she said Kendall.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  My bad.

• 10:48Dax Shepard?

  I feel like she led us to the slaughter on that one.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  As I do.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  I don't listen. This is what my wife tells me. You need to listen. Okay, what's Kendall up to?

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Kendall is running another cheerleading gym, has an all-star gym, doing fantastic.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  She stayed in it.

• 11:05Dax Shepard?

  He stayed in it. He's with us.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm kind of with your wife now.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  God damn it.

• 11:10Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'll give you one other out before we get into your childhood. I really, truly would not expect you to remember this because as I did the math today, I think this was about 17 years ago. Do you remember having dinner with me?

• 11:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's fine.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Who's at the table?

• 11:26Dax Shepard?

  It was before the Soho House had opened officially. And I think you and Kristen had the same agent at that time, Tracy. And I think Tracy invited you and her to the Soho House before it opened.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Here in LA.

• 11:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they were doing like soft opening.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  They had really cool furniture.

• 11:42Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it was gorgeous.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  That's what I remember about that.

• 11:44Dax Shepard?

  So we went and it was Kristen and I and it was you and your wife and then it was the agent.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Wait, it's the five of us?

• 11:50Speaker 01

  That's pretty intimate.

• 11:51Dax Shepard?

  Listen, there's a big reason why I would remember it more than you. And I was hoping maybe you would remember this aspect. Kristen got up early on in the meal and disappeared for about five to 10 minutes. And then she returned with an enormous bag of ice and then subtly passed it to me under the table. Do you remember that?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  No.

• 12:09Dax Shepard?

  Because at that point it came out. That's the fucking date we were on our way.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Oh, it's a bad backstory.

• 12:16Dax Shepard?

  On our way there, a guy crossing the street in front of the chateau, chucked a drink like this big at the windshield of my car. And I pulled the e-brake as it was shattering, got out of the car and fought a dude in front of that newsstand on Sunset. And I had kicked him in the head and I really hurt my leg bad. And Kristen was very disappointed and mad at me because I was in a fight in a suit on the way to this nice dinner with her agent and a very esteemed actor. And so when we got there, we were dealing with the fact that I had just beat a guy up on the sidewalk. She's very disappointed. She's questioning, who have I just become partnered up with?

• 12:55Speaker 02

  This the beginning of your relationship?

• 12:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we're like probably a year in. And then she, to her credit, despite all that. It was like, he's hurt. I'm gonna handle this. And went and got this bag of ice and handed it to me, even though I know she was so mad at me. So it was quite a night for us. Wow, that's quite a moment. God, I'm very disappointed in myself. Well, I would love it if you did have some memory of like, what was the funny business happening with the under the table stuff? God, how crazy is that? Yeah, that was a very memorable night. That's the beginning of your guys' relationship? It was probably like a year in. I've changed, though. She bet on the right.

• 13:31Dax Shepard?

  This is workable. I came in with a pretty visible limp. Okay. Wow. Yeah.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  You probably thought she had some stomach issues because that's what you would normally think if someone leaves a dinner table for five to 10 minutes, comes back with ice because maybe she's sweating from the situation.

• 13:49Dax Shepard?

  Or covering from the fact that she had hawna's.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so you were just being nice by being like, I'm not gonna pay attention to this.

• 13:55Dax Shepard?

  That's all a blur. Do you prefer Tim or Tim? Tim's fine. Tim, Tim's nice. Yeah.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Is it fine or is it preferred?

• 14:02Dax Shepard?

  No, I don't care. I like both. So Tim, why were mom and dad in Honolulu? That's my first curiosity. Wow, look at that.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  He's gonna ask about Shirley.

• 14:10Dax Shepard?

  Pass. Okay.

• 14:15Dax Shepard?

  My dad was working for Del Monte. And they were making the bananas down there or something? I don't know. But he was working for Del Monte. That's, I believe, what took us to Hawaii. You were too, when you guys went to Modesto? We went to the Philippines after that, and then I think also Del Monte, and then Modesto. Natural progression.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  It's cliche, really.

• 14:32Dax Shepard?

  Hawaii, Philippines, Modesto. By way of Manila. That could be a good memoir. Modesto by way of Manila. It's not as good as occasionally grabbed by the pussy. No, hers is gonna top yours. USA Jimmy. Occasionally grabbed by the pussy. I wanna see that on bumper stickers all across the state of Georgia.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Get a copyright on that or something. Someone's gonna wanna steal that.

• 14:51Dax Shepard?

  Trump already has it, unfortunately, but you know. So did dad go to take this job at Gallo? Is that why you guys moved there? Or did they have any kind of roots there?

• 15:00Speaker 02

  No roots, although my mom's family was in the Bay Area, up in Oakland area. So not far from home where she grew up.

• 15:07Dax Shepard?

  And what's the vibe in Modesto?

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Do you see American Graffiti?

• 15:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Is that where it was shot?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  George grew up in Modesto, Lucas. So it was about Modesto, it was about his childhood. And I always felt like that was pretty much our childhood, just uglier cars.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  So for people who have not seen it, like me-

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Cruising, orchards, Americana. It's much more sprawl now. When I was there, it was quite a quaint. You hear about the declining middle class. A lot of times in certain bubbles, you're like, oh, I understand it in theory. If you go to Modesto, you feel it. Cause those little neighborhoods that we all grew up in were so idyllic at the time. Surrounded by orchards and canals. Now they're less idyllic. In the seventies, it was less than a hundred thousand people.

• 15:47Dax Shepard?

  And it's a company town? Most of the people there work for Gallo, the winegrower?

• 15:51Speaker 02

  I think Safeway was there, agriculture.

• 15:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they did 3.1 billion dollars in agriculture sales last year, Modesto. But I got bad news for you. They were the number one most per capita car thefts in 2012.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Modesto?

• 16:04Dax Shepard?

  Yes. I'm reading all this, I'm like, what is this place? Tim's gotta tell me, what is the vibe there?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  I have a very fond memories of growing up there and I still have buddies there. My mom's still there. I do go back much less than I have, but I still enjoy going back home.

• 16:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. What's the age gap between you and your brothers?

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Older brothers, a little over two years. Younger brother, a little over three years.

• 16:25Dax Shepard?

  Does the middle child kind of archetype, do you feel like you identify with it?

• 16:29Speaker 02

  I'm like the well-balanced one.

• 16:30Dax Shepard?

  You're the well-balanced one.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  I'm getting middle child vibes.

• 16:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm a middle child as well.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  All right.

• 16:36Dax Shepard?

  And I've been ruminating on it a lot, just recently. Because I realized that when I was a kid, there was a lot of chaos on either end of the age spectrum. There was a baby and a teenager. They were both nuts. I hid a lot. I was pretty solitary. I just would get out of the chaos. I'm now realizing that I live with three women and two of them are starting to have a lot of hormones. I couldn't place it, but I'm like, oh, I know this feeling. This is like, I want to go high sometimes.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 17:04Dax Shepard?

  And then I was wondering if you related to any of those middle child things?

• 17:07Speaker 02

  I do think there was a upside of your older brother and his friends can pick on you, but you can pick on your younger brother's friends and then you can bully him. You do get to play a lot of the roles and you also can easily bounce back and forth in terms of, you can age up or age down and you can kind of, so I felt like in some degree, it was a nice little spot to be in. I read this fascinating years ago about how siblings can be so vastly different and oh, I don't understand this. We grew up in the same house. Yeah. But of course, you really didn't grow up in the same house. Like you realize if my older brother describes these sort of significant chapters in his life, they're vastly different than mine and very vastly different than my younger brothers. Yeah. They really grew up in completely different worlds.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  Because of the socioeconomic changes or the way they parented, you could just say my older brother, he had two younger siblings. His parents divorced at 15, 16 years old. He went off to college. My younger brother can say he had two older brothers. His parents divorced when he was like 12 or 11 and we both took off and he was there high school, living with my mom on his own. I never had that experience. Right, right, right. A divorce at 12 versus 15, 16, they mean vastly different things. Yeah. Which do you think is worse? Do you think one is worse? I don't know. That all sucks. I haven't seen the divorce where you're like, that's where you want to hit it. I would argue mine. I was three, so I don't have any memory. Nothing was missing because I didn't remember them being a unit.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Don't they all in some degree scar you in some significant way? Well, the step dads that arrive do, yeah. Sure. This may mean pop psychologists, but there must be a thing like, well, if your parents divorced when you're that young that you feel somehow, well, I guess all kids do.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Responsible.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, you feel like, oh, I showed up and I broke up their marriage. I think if you were older and you could understand that. Which in this case, probably true. Might have been true. I was colicky. My father and I clashed from the second I arrived. It's quite likely.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  I do think with middle children, you guys aren't handed an identity. The older sibling is handed an identity. They have to be in charge. The parents are afraid for their first kid, right? They don't know what they're doing. There's way too much attention on them.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  And now having had three kids, you see how much the first child, you're like, what's she doing now? What's going on now?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Look at this. Oh, she's never done that before.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  The third one, you're like, did we leave the third one? Do we have to go back to that cocktail party? Cause where's the third one?

• 19:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Very Home Alone.

• 19:38Dax Shepard?

  One hundredth amount of pictures taken of the third one that there was the first one.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  And they're just always in pictures with other people at least. They're immediately connected to other people. But a middle child kinda has to make their own identity.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Even now as adults, when you get caught, you tell the oldest, I remember we used to take you to the park and the first time you made it across. And then the youngest one is like, when did I first go across? And you're like, did you go across?

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:06Dax Shepard?

  I'm so sorry, I'm Tim.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Honey, come on. I don't remember Dax. How can I remember your childhood? Fucking terrible.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  But even that is an identity. Being little, but the middle kid, I think is a little bit lost until they decide, this is me.

• 20:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but one part that you just made me think might've been really fun with your dynamic, them being spaced like that two years, is I think a lot of times, or at least I felt this way, when you get around 11 or 12, you're starting to do big kid stuff and you wanna be older and you wanna be autonomous and show you're starting to become a man. And then you still pine for like playing with Hot Wheels. But you feel like a wimp if you do, but if you have a little brother, you can like bounce back and forth.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had a ball.

• 20:46Dax Shepard?

  And were the all the fans a formidable group of boys in junior high and high school? Do people know better than to mess with one of them?

• 20:54Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know about that, but both of them were cool. We weren't on the football and baseball, you know, we weren't those guys either. My older brother played tennis and I swam and Matt played water polo. We grew up next to a Modesto swim and racket club, literally next door. So we basically were raised by lifeguards. We were there all day long.

• 21:15Dax Shepard?

  What kind of niche were you in in high school? I mean, you were a swimmer, that's interesting in itself. We're similar age, so you had the nerds, burnouts, jocks.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  Fred C. Byer High School in the eighties, a smoking section was right out front.

• 21:28Dax Shepard?

  Nice.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  At the flagpole, right there at drop out, like where the parents are dropping off their freshmen, where all these kids in leather jackets, smoking. That was the entrance to the school.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  Isn't that great?

• 21:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Lucky I was a bit of an artsy, fartsy guy. So I had a little bit of a connection with that kind of group. But then I was an athlete and all my buddies were a lot of athletes.

• 21:53Dax Shepard?

  You were funny already, yeah?

• 21:55Speaker 02

  I guess so. I don't think I won any of those things, but I feel like I was runner up in like three or four.

• 22:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like the eighty six nationals. The theme of your life.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Runner up.

• 22:07Dax Shepard?

  You were in the finals.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a short course for my, it was not that big a deal. It's not the same as the summer.

• 22:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay, now, I don't know anything about swimming, but the 200 meter medley.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  I appreciate the prep, by the way.

• 22:17Dax Shepard?

  Okay, thank you.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  No, no, thank you.

• 22:20Dax Shepard?

  It's my honor and my pleasure. You do four different kinds of swims in that?

• 22:25Speaker 02

  The 200 individual medley, so you're swimming four strokes, fly back, breast free. And if it's meters, it's a single length. For the Olympics, 200 is a lap of fly, back, breast free, 400 up and back. 400, by many people's standards, the most difficult event.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  You're doing all the things.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Doing all the things and it's pretty long.

• 22:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, quarter mile or something.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Is that what it is? 1500s a mile?

• 22:48Dax Shepard?

  1320 is a, okay, anyways, listen, I'm not trying to show off. What I'm trying to get to is.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Middle child.

• 22:54Dax Shepard?

  There's a clue there.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  What's the clue?

• 22:57Dax Shepard?

  I was, you know what?

• 22:58Speaker 02

  What are we getting at?

• 22:58Dax Shepard?

  I got defensive. I go quarter mile and you're like, is it a quarter mile? And then now I gotta come over the top.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  No, you're right.

• 23:04Dax Shepard?

  And I apologize and that was a bad sign of my personality.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  You're doing great. I am not talking to the guy who got out of the car. You know what I'm saying?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  I feel safe.

• 23:15Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna attempt to make a thematic judgment of your life based on that one event.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 23:20Dax Shepard?

  You wanna hear it?

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Can you imagine? No.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  No, I do. I wanna hear it.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  I'm gonna pretend to be interested. No.

• 23:27Dax Shepard?

  I would argue, and by the way, there's a fisherman seeing another fisherman at sea. That sounds like a great event if you don't actually wanna be a specialist in any one thing. And I think that's been my approach to life a little bit. It's like, I'm pretty good at some things and if I put together the right combination of things. Now we've gotten ourselves into a winning position.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  You're saying perhaps it's a metaphor, and I'm not gonna take offense here, but I think is he saying that's what you are as an adult as well? You're not really a specialist.

• 23:57Dax Shepard?

  A generalist, but.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  What?

• 24:00Dax Shepard?

  This is why this is a big compliment.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Best of us are generalists.

• 24:06Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes, yes. People idealize and jerk off to specialists. But in fact, if you look at who has changed the world, it's generalists.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  I like that you're thinking.

• 24:16Dax Shepard?

  Let me give you my example. I won every year. This is so stupid and embarrassing. The only thing I ever won growing up was the obstacle course. Because you had to be pretty good at all the little things, but not spectacular, any one of them. I got to run pretty fast, but I wasn't going to win a sprint. You had to jump pretty high.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  What years are we talking about?

• 24:34Dax Shepard?

  Elementary.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  When you say you won every year.

• 24:36Dax Shepard?

  Every year in elementary school, we had metric day.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  First through sixth grade, that was your thing every year.

• 24:41Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I wanted every year. It's the only thing I ever won. And then lo and behold, my kid won an obstacle course and I'm like, it's in our genes.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Really? Nice.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  I was thinking this too, before you said it, when you were talking about you're in the top of things, but you didn't win nationals. I'm sorry to remind you, but you didn't.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  I don't want to intimidate you, but you are looking at the former San Joaquin section record holder.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  I am intimidated.

• 25:02Dax Shepard?

  I don't know that for one second.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  So that's a win.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  That's a win. You have some wins.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Oh, but you know what? In the 200, I am.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Okay, but that's still fine.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  You know what's sad? Let me just give you a little insight.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Let's hear something sad.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Throw this on the Wikipedia page. Rob, can you get on that?

• 25:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Open it up, Rob.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  I won San Joaquin section, which is like Modesto, Sacramento, it's the whole San Joaquin Valley area. And my senior year of high school, I beat what was a guy named Jeff Float's record. And Jeff Float was the flag bearer at the 84 Olympic Games.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  So it shows you what a disappointment I was after that day.

• 25:39Dax Shepard?

  Because you haven't bore the flag.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  The guy whose record I beat went on to become amazing Olympic swimmer.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  And you beat him.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  In high school.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Still.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  I know, but you see what he did after the next couple of years?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, we don't talk about that.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  See what he did after that?

• 25:53Dax Shepard?

  He got serious after.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  See what he did?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  You hurt him.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Nationals, Olympic team.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  You might be the reason, though.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Makes me a bit of an underachiever.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  No, but I was going to say, I think that if I were you, I might be looking at my life, because you're an insane. Good actor.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  I appreciate that.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  And I might be like, why am I not winning everything? I should be winning everything based on my talents. And then I would look back in my life and be like, I'm not winning enough. I'm really good at a lot of things and I'm not getting the full recognition.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  That's what you think?

• 26:25Speaker 01

  If I were you, I would think that.

• 26:27Dax Shepard?

  But she's also a winner.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  I love winning.

• 26:29Dax Shepard?

  That's real.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  I am.

• 26:30Dax Shepard?

  That wouldn't cross my mind, but that would cross her mind.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  I can only tell you that I wake up every morning thinking, oh, look who the big winner is. I feel pretty good.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  I got a pretty good deal.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  You do.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  And it's good that you're not focused like I would be about.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  What else do I want?

• 26:45Speaker 01

  You should win an Oscar every year. You should. You're good enough.

• 26:48Dax Shepard?

  Brazilian 200 meter medley before you got to nationals is my guess.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Are you competitive?

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:55Dax Shepard?

  You couldn't have gotten a scholarship to USC without being competitive.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  I didn't get a scholarship to USC.

• 27:01Dax Shepard?

  You got recruited.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  I was recruited. They didn't offer me money and I turned down other ones because I just really wanted to come to LA.

• 27:07Dax Shepard?

  When you got there, you were hoping to maybe do architecture or something.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  I walked into the architecture school on my recruit trip. I had this instilled early on, my grandfather on my mother's side was very much like, there's only four or five professions. It was like architect, lawyer, government or doctor, and everyone else is just hanging on. I drew a lot as a kid and I loved to do creative stuff. So I was like, I guess I'll be an architect because that's the only one on the list that seems to be connected. So I went to the architecture school. They just right off the bat, the dean told me I couldn't be on the swim team and still be in the architecture school. The commitment's too big and long. Architecture classes are five hours long and they're in the middle of the day. It's when you're training, they can't work around it.

• 27:50Dax Shepard?

  Everyone's reading The Fountainhead all day.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  They're reading The Fountainhead. Read that in college.

• 27:56Dax Shepard?

  How could you not? It's so appealing when you're a young man. You think your whole life story will be, and eventually they all learned you were right.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 28:02Dax Shepard?

  That's your arc as.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  And you just drive around looking at all those, remember because the church he built was down close to the ground and everyone was very upset about it. And I just remember driving around going, yeah, look at all these churches. That's not the way Howard would have done it.

• 28:15Dax Shepard?

  He was right, he was right.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  The architecture school was upstairs and I asked the guy, I said, on the way in, I noticed downstairs, there was what looked like a gallery and then there was like a ceramic studio. And he's like, yeah, that's the fine art department. And I was like, you can get a degree in that? Anyway, so he said, yeah, let me introduce you to the, so I went downstairs and sat down with the dean of the art school and asked him if I could, here's my swim schedule. And they said, we can work it out.

• 28:46Dax Shepard?

  That exercise is among the most calorically burning you can endeavor, right? Swimming. I just remember the Michael Phelps like diet.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Let's just go with yes.

• 28:57Dax Shepard?

  I know you burn a ton. Were you eating like a monster during that?

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Ridiculous.

• 29:01Dax Shepard?

  Were you?

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Such like fond memories of everything.

• 29:05Dax Shepard?

  Cause you had a card, right? You could go to the cafeteria.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, we'd just go and we'd get a tray and it would be a plate of pancakes, a plate of eggs and bacon and potatoes. It was so absurd.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you had to.

• 29:17Dax Shepard?

  I bet if you were walking through the cafeteria, you would easily be able to go like, oh yeah, that's the swimmers, they're all eating 13,000 calories this morning.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Come in with these trays and trays of so much food on that plate.

• 29:30Dax Shepard?

  Was that ever a hard routine to break?

• 29:33Speaker 02

  I remember once before practice, and I could do the math, it might've been junior year, but I remember about to jump in and assistant coach, shout out to Darrell.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Shout out.

• 29:46Dax Shepard?

  That was a risky thing you just did. I've watched you now in a lot of interviews and anytime you try to remember someone's name, it's high risk. So just congrats that you landed.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Are we sure it's right?

• 29:56Dax Shepard?

  No, there's about a 60% chance that's not the right name.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  I can name all the coaches. We say hi to all the swim coaches. Dave Taylor. And Darrell said something about me having a belly. Like he's like, oh, gotta watch whatever. And I was like, what are you talking about? And I was still young, but I do remember like, oh, I can't just eat as much as I'm eating. You have to be a little bit thoughtful.

• 30:15Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Which is nothing compared to 20 years later, when you really have to be like,

• 30:20Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Jesus.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  It's so annoying.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  And you can't, we would go to Baskin Robbins and order pints, each one of us. Stand in line with everyone getting their cone, single or double. And we'd be like, get a pint of half peanut butter chocolate, half trailering cream.

• 30:34Dax Shepard?

  Pint please.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  And a spoon. And we would all just eat a pint. Did you play sports growing up?

• 30:40Dax Shepard?

  I skateboarded and snowboarded. I did all like the alternative.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  These are Olympic sports.

• 30:44Dax Shepard?

  They became those, they weren't then, but not about me.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  You're.

• 30:48Dax Shepard?

  You didn't have.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  What did I do?

• 30:50Speaker 01

  You did it again.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  I'm not doing anything.

• 30:52Dax Shepard?

  No, you're not doing anything.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  This is pretty good, by the way.

• 30:54Dax Shepard?

  It is, it is.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Let's give.

• 30:55Dax Shepard?

  From what I've seen, this is maybe the best you've ever done.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  You came in with like a plan. I came in with no plan. I just wanted you to know.

• 31:04Dax Shepard?

  Good, you're not supposed to.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  Usually I like a plan.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  You do?

• 31:07Speaker 02

  A little bit of a plan.

• 31:08Dax Shepard?

  I know.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  You like control?

• 31:10Speaker 02

  I think there's a control issue.

• 31:11Dax Shepard?

  I detected a few things. All of it, by the way, really lovely. It makes for fun.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Doing the press?

• 31:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I was observing a lot of things. A, you're just really funny every time you show up somewhere.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 31:22Dax Shepard?

  And you're likable and you're charismatic and the smile, I'm sure got you out of so much trouble, which is unfair to the rest of us without that dumb smile.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  At parties, they're like, cops are here, all of them.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:31Dax Shepard?

  Smile.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  Have to go talk to the cops.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Charm the pants off.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know what that was, but I was the designated talk to the cops guy.

• 31:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's obvious.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  You're very easy to talk to.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:40Dax Shepard?

  That disarmee's smile, it's like, am I in trouble? I bet I am in trouble. Like, you're just finding out you're in trouble.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  You watch the things and you've got.

• 31:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  You've got some thoughts.

• 31:48Dax Shepard?

  I got thoughts.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  I had an interesting thought coming in, literally right before we start. Let's hear yours first.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 31:53Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Should we decide?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Monica?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:55Dax Shepard?

  I thought, yeah, he's very comfortable. You're in control.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  I realized that if you could just, I shouldn't say this stuff out loud.

• 32:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you should.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Say it.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  If you could just knock an interviewer off balance a little bit at hello, it just made the interview a little bit easier from that moment forward.

• 32:11Dax Shepard?

  Absolutely.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Because you don't want to disrespect those things, but somewhere along the line, I discovered that if I could just knock each one a little off balance, it might turn into a lovely spontaneous moment or two.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  So somewhere along the line, that occurred to me. When they sit down, they say, tell me about your character. I say, no, you tell me about it. And then somehow, what might come of that, more often than not, is actually kind of like, oh, that was fun five minutes.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  An honest moment.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Where if I just go into the thing, it's no fun for anybody.

• 32:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  So when I go on talk shows or things like that, I find same thing. If I can throw something out there, they have more fun and I have more fun. I just grew up loving talk shows and I love a great talk show guest. For a while, I really just wanted to be a talk show host. In college, I sent a video in with my roommate to audition for some talk show. I can't believe we actually did it. One of the two networks or Fox, they were getting into late night. And I remember like, I want this gig.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  You auditioned to host?

• 33:13Speaker 02

  We sent in a video, like, three reasons why I'm the guy.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  That's so cute.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  I was like, first of all, a hundred bucks.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  I was like, even if, I mean, it fails.

• 33:24Dax Shepard?

  Can you imagine if they would have put a 21 year old swimmer from US?

• 33:27Speaker 01

  I know.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  We really filmed it on VHS.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  God, the optimism of that.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Sent it in, like, this is gonna be our thing. So that was the idea.

• 33:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you've always loved it and you wanted to make sure you do good at it.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:39Dax Shepard?

  You're saying.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  And my first major talk show appearance, I was on Conan's show in New York, late 90s. And I was so nervous that I remember his lips moving. And I don't know what he was saying exactly, but when they stopped, I was like, okay, now's when I tell the story I'm supposed to tell.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  And I didn't do them again for years. And then now, I think if anything, I try to anticipate the host's sense of humor. Like, oh, he is gonna love this. He or she, you know.

• 34:10Dax Shepard?

  He, there are any she talk show late night?

• 34:13Speaker 02

  No, but man, it kind of.

• 34:14Dax Shepard?

  But we want it, we want there to be. When you were on Joan Rivers' show, is that what you're talking about? I didn't realize you were on her show.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Alan, sometimes the daytime ones, different fun.

• 34:25Dax Shepard?

  The audience is the best you'll ever be in front of on Alan.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  They always want to talk about your kids and your pets.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Cause that's who's watching, people who have.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Daytime, kids, pets.

• 34:33Dax Shepard?

  Yep.

• 34:36Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. 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.

• 34:57Speaker 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.

• 35:18Dax Shepard?

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

• 35:27Speaker 01

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

• 35:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay, tell me more.

• 35:36Speaker 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 multipurpose this and look super cute.

• 35:47Dax 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.

• 35:57Speaker 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.

• 36:16Dax Shepard?

  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?

• 36:38Speaker 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.

• 36:55Dax 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.

• 37:14Speaker 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 have to cancel, cancel, cancel, but then I-

• 37:22Dax Shepard?

  You start feeling it.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, because then I had it this past weekend and I was like, oh my God. And just thank God, thank God for her. Yeah.

• 37:30Dax 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. We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff. But there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends. Docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left.

• 38:14Dax Shepard?

  What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already right there, inside your email, your docs, your browser. You don't go to it, it's already working alongside you. You're deep in a long thread, highlight it, and it pulls the key points. About to send something important? It flags what doesn't add up before it leaves your hands. It knows your style, your workflows, and it just backs you up without getting in the way. A thought partner that's already up to speed, at your service, not after your job. So, do yourself a favor and try Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 38:58Dax Shepard?

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

• 39:23Speaker 03

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

• 40:03Speaker 03

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

• 40:27Speaker 02

  I had a story about my daughter and her guinea pig.

• 40:31Dax Shepard?

  Perfect.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  And it was this whole story.

• 40:33Dax Shepard?

  Two for one.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  I remember saying, I had this whole thing about the guinea pig and how desperately she wanted the guinea pig. And then a week later, she just can't remember why she wanted the guinea pig. And I just looked at the guinea pig and it's looking at me. And we're both thinking, yeah, I don't know why. I don't know why you're here, but this is your life for the foreseeable future.

• 40:52Dax Shepard?

  18 months are over.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  And then I said, hey, you know, there's a lot of countries where you can go into a restaurant and say, how's the guinea pig?

• 41:02Dax Shepard?

  Yep.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Oh, she hated that.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  And years later, that guinea pig had a tumor on the side of him. It was like he was walking around with like a second guinea pig.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  And this is what happens, you know? That's why we study the rats and the rodents because their life cycle is very fast.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  So, what's his name? We can give him a name for the story, but all I know is that little guy's got a tumor of the size of another guinea pig. And we feel like it's maybe time. So our daughter, our youngest, she's getting ready to go to school and we want to let her know that mom and I are gonna probably take the little guy to the vet just to see how the little guy.

• 41:40Dax Shepard?

  We're gonna take him to an oncologist first.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  We need to find out if he's in pain and just where he is. She immediately started crying and asked, is he gonna kill it? And I said, we don't know. She's like, he's gonna kill him. And she starts bawling.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  I said, I'm so sorry. She goes, no, I'm really upset because, you know, I never really loved him.

• 42:00Dax Shepard?

  She was having guilt.

• 42:03Dax Shepard?

  She had a loveless life.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  And get ready.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  So great.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  And I still don't.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  And then she says, can you take the fish too?

• 42:16Speaker 02

  The fish hasn't died. I just take it again.

• 42:20Dax Shepard?

  You know what? Get everyone but my brothers out of here.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  My wife and I drove to the vet that morning after we dropped her off from school. We each knew, we're like, honey, if one of us gets sick, keep your eye on that one.

• 42:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  She's gonna be like, just take dad too.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  I've never even loved him anyway.

• 42:40Dax Shepard?

  Pull the plug.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  I can't deal with both of them. Just get it over with.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  That is so funny.

• 42:45Dax Shepard?

  Pull the Band-Aid.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:46Dax Shepard?

  How old was she when that happened?

• 42:47Speaker 02

  She's a kid. I don't know. She's little. Let's go with 12. I can't remember. She's the youngest. We're talking about the oldest. I can hit dates. I can hit whatever you want.

• 42:55Dax Shepard?

  He told me that on October 7th.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  They took care of it at the vet.

• 42:59Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. But guess what they did when you left? They shipped him to one of those restaurants.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  Medium rare police.

• 43:05Dax Shepard?

  He's on the first flight.

• 43:07Speaker 04

  Just like chicken.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Just like chicken. Come on.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  You did a really big favor because my brother's fish had a tumor and it exploded.

• 43:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Good on you.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Exploding fish.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 43:19Dax Shepard?

  And it didn't make it, obviously.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:21Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Oh, he survived the explosion?

• 43:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you never know. Could have been an aqua miracle.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Just got it right off.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  It was fine.

• 43:28Dax Shepard?

  And then was like, oh, yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  That's all.

• 43:31Dax Shepard?

  Felt so much better, like a pimple or a boil.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Now, last thing about the swimming. Keeping it on track. Good for you. We didn't go as deep as I thought we were gonna go on your talk show. I thought you were gonna say, this is why you do this. This is your issue.

• 43:45Dax Shepard?

  Well, I just was a little bit.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  We did control.

• 43:47Dax Shepard?

  And then also, you told me more than you realized by first appearance on Conan, you were a little deer in the headlights.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:53Dax Shepard?

  And it sounds like after the fact, you're like, I need a better game plan.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  I was thinking of this before I got here. Here's some free, I'll open a can of worms. I'll tell you two things that occurred to me literally right before we were going on. A couple of famous people will pop in my head oftentimes before I do interviews, like a Lou Reed or a Bob Dylan. There are men and women of that era in music, but in all forms, where they were just like, fuck you to anyone who was talking to them. And that famous Bob Dylan Time Magazine where he's like, I don't read Time Magazine. I was like, I love that you're saying that to Time Magazine.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  Right? He's saying to him like, if you come to the show, and he goes, well, you gotta pay attention because it's gonna move pretty quick. You might not get it all, right? Like, he just immediately.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Putting them down.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  And then there's the Lou Reed, those press interviews where they're such assholes.

• 44:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Stones were kind of pricks too when they came to the US.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  I'm guilty, perhaps, of, I admired those guys so much growing up. And I also, over the years, have collected moments of actors telling people to go fuck themselves and being like, oh, wow.

• 45:01Dax Shepard?

  That looks fun.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  I remember being at a premiere, like 99, I was at a party and Robert Duvall had agreed to take a picture with me. And I walked over and said hello to him and he's like, how you doing? They treating you well? Everything good? And I was like, yeah, I appreciate you doing this. We turned to the photographer and she started taking pictures. And then she put down the camera for a second and said, you're at a party. And he said, don't do that. Don't direct. Just take the goddamn fucking picture. Snap, snap. And then right back to being charming and couldn't have been nicer. And I was like, wow. And I have a bunch of those.

• 45:35Dax Shepard?

  Even Marc Maron, you saw him get introduced to the director on Stick.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  Shook his hand and kept walking.

• 45:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you were like, hey, I love your stuff, saw the thing. So what you and I both have is we both really want to be liked. And when you see someone that has zero people pleasers. It seems like superpower, right?

• 45:50Speaker 02

  I realized that just recently I was told on good authority, he's like, why you've always had a problem with conflict? And I was like, have I? And then it occurs to me that these moments that I've always sort of clocked are these guys that are just basically saying, no, no, no, I'm totally fine being a dick.

• 46:07Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  And I've always looked in and said, it's an option. Like now, if I'm doing the carpet and someone directs, I know that they've overstepped. Because of this moment that I saw, from that moment forward, I'm like, oh, I can handle this however I want. I've never said, just take the fucking picture. I've done some version of saying, I appreciate what you're trying to do. So those moments have always been helpful in terms of little guidelines.

• 46:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  And then it's just, okay, how do you want to handle it?

• 46:34Speaker 01

  It's interesting to be around people who don't need approval when you do need approval. I do that too. You see people and it's like, oh my God, how wild. But then if I tried it, I would just feel horrible. I'm not comfortable making someone else feel bad. They are, which is fine.

• 46:50Speaker 02

  The art of rejecting people while giving them something. There's a great story, I remember growing up of Bob Costas asking Jack Nicholson, when he was sitting courtside at a Laker game back in the day, if he would do a on-camera quick interview when they came back from a commercial break. I think Costas, if I remember correctly, says, he looks at me and says, Bob, I love you and I love your work, but let me put it this way, there's no fucking way.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  And Bob tells that story.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Like it's a gift.

• 47:23Dax Shepard?

  Well, it's coming from Jack Nicholson.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Exactly. But you see.

• 47:26Dax Shepard?

  The judo.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  Right?

• 47:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  You see that you know.

• 47:28Dax Shepard?

  I think I have gotten good at owning why I don't want to do it. I have this moment when we interviewed Minka, she brought this up. We were shooting Parenthood and there's been this love thing simmering and it's going to be the big moment where we kiss. And I have a huge fucking nose and it's been broken in a fight. And if you photograph this side of it, I look ugly. Thank God, one of my favorite directors was there working and I said, listen, I'm really insecure for you to shoot me from there on the wrong side, looking up low, this moment that I'm already kissing a girl that's out of my league. And I'm insecure about that and I need you to help me look as good as I can. So you need to be shooting on the other side or just flip us and I need to be down and she needs to be up. And he was like, yeah, okay. And then he left and Minka was like, wow, I've never really seen that.

• 48:13Dax Shepard?

  You can do that? And I'm like, well, yeah, I care.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:16Dax Shepard?

  And I'm insecure and I'm vain, but also it's a big difference.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  You handled it really good.

• 48:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  I was on a set with Bruce Willis where he'd be like, yeah, bring it up a little bit. Take it down a little bit. There you go. That's better. What do you think of that?

• 48:28Dax Shepard?

  It's not an accident. He's a movie star.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  I was like, that's amazing.

• 48:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but it's not an accident. It is a very technical thing. Yes. So you're gonna work all this time to do your lines and shit? You know, you have no awareness of when you look good or bad?

• 48:41Speaker 02

  That guy is the art of dealing with conflict. Yeah, whoa, whoa, hey, everybody chill. Hey, let's take a lap. Oh, my God, I had the best time.

• 48:51Dax Shepard?

  Live Free or Die Hard.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:53Dax Shepard?

  That was the film you guys did together.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  What were you saying? I had a good, oh, you're doing a kissing scene. I had to kiss a guy in a movie. I'm guilty of not reading a lot of the subtext on scripts. A lot of times I'll just read my dialogue, which I'm not sure is a good habit or not or bad habit. But in this particular movie, because of that, I knew I had a kiss scene in the movie. It was sort of a significant part of this scene, so you couldn't miss it. But one day I showed up, you got a big make out scene. And I was like, what are you talking about? It's like your big make out scene, you know? I was like, we did the kiss scene. The kiss scene was lovely and small and so special. He goes, no, the fucking make out with the guy at the party. It's described in this party sequence. And I'm like, I don't read that.

• 49:39Dax Shepard?

  You skimmed through the details of the party.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:43Dax Shepard?

  The blocking and.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:44Dax Shepard?

  The italicized portion.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  So now I'm there with this guy who had played football at University of Washington, really handsome stud of a guy. And we're like, oh, okay, we gotta do this kiss scene. Whenever I tell the story to my wife, she's like, I thought it doesn't matter, kissing.

• 49:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh, great.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  And I was like, honey, what do you think?

• 50:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love it because I see what's happening because you tell your wife like it's

• 50:05Speaker 02

  It's technical, it doesn't feel like anything.

• 50:07Dax Shepard?

  It's like hitting a wall.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  It's like whatever. And she's like, oh, apparently it's something good for her. And I'm like, well, huh. Years later, playing at a regular pickup basketball game and I see the guy playing in the game right before me. And I say to my buddy, this guy in the University of Washington shorts, what's his name? And he tells me his name and says, why? And I said, I made out with him.

• 50:32Dax Shepard?

  I hooked up with him.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  Without missing a beat. He called me a slut.

• 50:38Dax Shepard?

  The last thing about swimming, which I brought up 25 minutes ago was, I gotta say, I have the most memorable first Timothy Olyphant. Like it's seared into my head. So you were in Go and I was really great friends with Melissa McCarthy. And she was in that movie.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Yes, she was.

• 50:54Dax Shepard?

  It was so exciting.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  Popped in like a two minute scene at the door. She is just delightful from Hello.

• 51:01Dax Shepard?

  A little hint of what's to come.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  I remember meeting her and going, how could you do that? I kind of feel this way about most things, but it's almost easier, especially in that situation, to have a huge scene at Hello. Where you can kind of at least try to come in and establish some sort of own energy or tone as opposed to maybe it's the same thing as those talk shows. You want to come in and just right away.

• 51:23Dax Shepard?

  No, no, that's the perfect analogy.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  Just say, okay, here's where we're going.

• 51:26Dax Shepard?

  That's why I fell in love with podcasting, which is I would be guests on these podcasts and it was an hour and a half. And I'm like, oh, I don't have to crush in eight minutes. What a relief.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:34Dax Shepard?

  I can just slowly ease into some things that are organically will come up.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  We've been talking for three hours and right now you got a guinea pig anecdote.

• 51:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. We're still on swimming.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  You gotta make it out. We're still back.

• 51:44Dax Shepard?

  We haven't gotten to you doing stand up in 1995 in New York or why you moved there or anything. I just want to finish Go. So it's also Doug Liman's follow up to Swingers. And of course, we all love Swingers. We're all living in LA and we were living Swingers. So it's like, oh, wow. It's his next movie. Melissa's in it. And that's the first time I ever saw you. And I have always been obsessed with my abdomen. I always wanted a six pack. I'm being so sincere. My best friend's been on here a bunch of times growing up. He's like, it was so effeminate, your obsession with this. And I remember watching the trailer because you were shirtless in the trailer. And I was like, whoa, what the fuck's going on with this guy's abs? And literally it wasn't until today now, 30 years later, I read like this swimming background. I'm like, there we go.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  That's what it is.

• 52:30Dax Shepard?

  Because it was impossible. What a moment. Oh, do you feel that way about men's body? I get more excited about men's bodies than I do women, despite the fact that I'm heterosexual.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  And I'm happy for you.

• 52:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay. But you don't have that.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  No. What do you mean, do I not?

• 52:48Dax Shepard?

  Like, I'm more prone to notice something like that.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  Wait a minute, is there a question here?

• 52:52Dax Shepard?

  Do you also appreciate men's bodies?

• 52:55Speaker 02

  I'm aware of the great, exactly. Where you're just like, okay, look at that. Let's just take a minute. This poor guy could use some love. Brad Pitt, I don't think what people realize is if you look like that, but also give that sort of just seemingly doesn't give a fuck incredible performance. So nuanced and so relaxed. Those things don't often come together.

• 53:18Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  That's what you call a movie star.

• 53:20Dax Shepard?

  Who were you idolizing along the way? I latched on very early to Nick Cage. I was like, I think maybe I'm Nick Cage. I'm not gorgeous, but I'm tall. I could pull off something.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  His career between, I don't know, the beginning and the end of it.

• 53:34Dax Shepard?

  Eighty five.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  You know, the ones, right? Moonstruck and the Raising Arizona and the David Lynch.

• 53:39Dax Shepard?

  Wild at Heart.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  There's a snake skin jacket.

• 53:41Dax Shepard?

  Vampire's Kiss.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Oh, I didn't think to put that on there. Nice.

• 53:44Dax Shepard?

  Do you remember that one?

• 53:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 53:46Dax Shepard?

  He thinks he's becoming a vampire, but he's not. I think it might be his greatest performance of all time.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Oh, Jesus.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  Now you gotta go back.

• 53:51Dax Shepard?

  Maybe you'll remember this, talking to his therapist and he's venting about that his assistant couldn't find a file. He's been looking for a file. That's the B storylines. He can't find this file and he's in therapy and he goes, you know, it's so simple. I told her it's A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K.

• 54:07Speaker 02

  And it ends with him going, W, X, Y, Z.

• 54:11Dax Shepard?

  To his therapist. It is the biggest choice that's ever been made on film. I loved it.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  ABC. Oh my god, again? Yeah. Wow. Maybe in the fact check too. Oh, wow. Wow. At least I'm prepped.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  This is a curse. Somebody do it again the second time. I used to read to my kids and sometimes I'd be like, hold on, let me take that page again.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  They're like, oh, let's take it back. Can we get the camera back over here?

• 54:42Dax Shepard?

  Well, that proves you definitely haven't seen it because you would remember that moment.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  No, I have not seen it. Honeymoon in Vegas. Also, that whole thing. And by the way, I love her as well. Oh, my God. I love Sarah Jessica Parker. I know she's become, oh, she's this icon Sex and the City thing.

• 54:56Dax Shepard?

  For women.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  But that woman's talent is phenomenal. She has that ability to be so funny and yet so much depth. I was a huge Sarah Jessica Parker fan.

• 55:06Dax Shepard?

  You just wandered into one of the things I had written down, which is, she said her favorite episode of all of Sex and the City was your episode.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Get out.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  No way.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Well, I can't take credit for it, but that's lovely.

• 55:18Dax Shepard?

  And then Rose Byrne said her favorite co-star ever on Damages was you.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 55:26Dax Shepard?

  And I'm like, this is a pretty rad record you're putting together.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  By the way, Rose Byrne, she's a gem.

• 55:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  And what an actor.

• 55:34Dax Shepard?

  She's so fucking talented. It's crazy. She's Walton Goggins of females. She can do drama the best of anyone and she can do comedy the best.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 55:43Dax Shepard?

  Why'd you just smirk with Goggins? I love Goggins.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  I was running down a rolodex of smart ass things to say about Goggins. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  You guys share a vibe.

• 55:52Dax Shepard?

  Well, they were on Justified too for five years.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you guys share a vibe.

• 55:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, big time.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  He's one of the good ones.

• 55:57Dax Shepard?

  Like, psycho not cowboy vibe?

• 55:59Speaker 02

  That's nice. I saw Glenn Close. How many names have I dropped for fun? But this is a moment where I realized, these things mean so much to me. We were at some press thing and she was in that room. She came over and she was just so lovely and she said, it's our cowboy. And she and Rose used to call me the cowboy.

• 56:19Dax Shepard?

  Poor you.

• 56:20Speaker 02

  I don't know why. It just made it all to me. Because I wasn't a cowboy on that show.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  So the fact that they were, I don't know why. It just meant the world to me and I adored working with both of them.

• 56:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, because she was calling you that in 2009 when you did damages.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  With the dates.

• 56:34Dax Shepard?

  And we haven't even done Justified yet.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  That was an FX show and that show led to Justified.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  What episode of Sex in the City were you on? Tell me about the episode.

• 56:43Dax Shepard?

  Love interest of Carrie's.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  It's called The Valley of the 20 something, something. It's something about 20 something.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Are we talking season one?

• 56:51Speaker 02

  Season one. Well, I know when I shot it, the show hadn't aired yet. And I think we shot it out of order. It might've been one of the first ones. They sent me the pilot and they said, here's what the show is. And then I showed up. My wife and I were living in New York in the West Village in this little old tenement building, you know, it was a walk up with a shower in the kitchen. And I would walk down to the set and work with Sarah Just Barker. It was such a surreal, exciting.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go back and watch it.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  Because you're living in such a tiny little place and yet you're in this kind of new show.

• 57:21Dax Shepard?

  This big dream's coming true, but you're still in this tiny spot.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  Did you have this? We had this period where a town car would pick you up and bring you from production or some premiere and it'd bring us back to our walk up.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  This doesn't make any sense. We couldn't order room service. They put us up in those nice hotels where we can't afford, we'd still those silverware. You know?

• 57:44Dax Shepard?

  I thought famous didn't mean poor as shit.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, people assume that fame or being an actor equals wealth. That's really not the case at all.

• 57:53Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 57:54Dax Shepard?

  Okay, we're gonna go to Alien Earth now, but I did want to hear from you personally. Justified, of course, was written by, or it's based on an Elmore Leonard.

• 58:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:02Dax Shepard?

  And you became buddies with him, yeah?

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Buddies is a strong word, but we did spend time together. Very memorable time, fond of all the time I spent with him.

• 58:09Dax Shepard?

  You know, they call him the Dickens of Detroit, which is a cool moniker.

• 58:12Speaker 02

  It's a good one. It feels like that should go with the pussy thing. Dickens of Detroit.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  Occasionally grabbed by the pussy.

• 58:20Dax Shepard?

  Catch them by the.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  That feels like it's a sentence.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure does.

• 58:22Speaker 02

  He was the Dickens of Detroit and he occasionally grabbed them by the pussy.

• 58:25Dax Shepard?

  Hold on, you've already obscured.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  That's an opening line.

• 58:27Dax Shepard?

  No, it's catch them by the pussy. Trump already owns grab them by the pussy.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  My bad, my bad.

• 58:32Dax Shepard?

  It's catch them by the pussy.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  Occasionally catch them by the pussy.

• 58:34Dax Shepard?

  Cause there's something heroic about catching them.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  So good. Sure. You're right. And I blew that.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  If someone hits the ground, the whole squad has to do pushups. So sometimes you gotta catch them by the pussy.

• 58:45Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and it'll save the day.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  I love that's the thing. If someone hits the ground, everyone do pushups.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  The whole team.

• 58:51Speaker 02

  First, we check that the neck has been broken.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  That's common.

• 58:54Speaker 02

  And then pushups.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:55Dax Shepard?

  Immediately after pushups resume.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:58Dax Shepard?

  Now, David Milch said that Timothy is someone that makes it hard to get to know them. That's not the exact quote, but that's the essence of it.

• 59:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  Wait, that he makes it.

• 59:10Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna say the right thing, cause I think that kinda botched it.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  How much does Kristen have Deadwood stories?

• 59:15Dax Shepard?

  That was her Sex and the City moment.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:17Dax Shepard?

  Cause she just got to LA.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:19Dax Shepard?

  And she's probably leaving a shithole with 20 roommates.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  And she shows up on that set in that level of creative, sort of Nutsville genius, and Milch loved her.

• 59:29Dax Shepard?

  She loved that experience. She actually does talk about it way more than other projects that were much longer. Tim is a guy that doesn't let himself be known easily. That's a much more elegant way of saying it, but it's exactly what I was saying.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Easily is the key.

• 59:44Dax Shepard?

  Do you think you're guilty of that?

• 59:45Speaker 02

  Oh, the easily part, for sure. I gave people maybe less room while my kids were young. A little bit more available to more people now, just cause I have the space for that. Where when the kids were young, people I don't know well, or I work, they're not coming to the house.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  Now it's like, come on over.

• 1:00:04Dax Shepard?

  That makes sense. I was thinking, so you're on stick right now?

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  Currently, Aaron. That's what you mean by now.

• 1:00:08Dax Shepard?

  And I was thinking, boy, if there's anyone that could out Timothy Olyphant, Timothy Olyphant, it would be Owen Wilson.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  I don't know what that means exactly.

• 1:00:16Dax Shepard?

  I think you know exactly what it means.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:00:18Dax Shepard?

  Do you know exactly what it means?

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  I don't know what that means. By the way, it doesn't allow me to tell you how much I love Owen Wilson.

• 1:00:24Dax Shepard?

  We will both do that.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, cause you just said, he's just like you. Listen. But I adore that guy.

• 1:00:31Dax Shepard?

  I used to be so obsessed with him that I have memorized interviews he's done where he's given answers. Let me tell you one, can I tell you one?

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Please.

• 1:00:38Dax Shepard?

  Playboy magazine, the guy asks, do you have any tricks for getting out of tickets? And he goes, well, yeah, I guess I do. You know, when you get pulled over, what you're trying to do is you're going for that moment where he looks at you and you look at him and you both think, look at us out here on the side of this road, playing our roles in this crazy game called life. And I was like, it would take someone years to write something as clever as that. And it just came out of his mouth when asked that question.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  You're doing Owen Wilson as if you were underwater.

• 1:01:11Dax Shepard?

  That's my take on him.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  I did press where, you know, that interview magazine where all the hipsters and cool people are, when you do interviews there, they want your other actors and artists and musicians to interview each other. Owen very graciously interviewed me for interview magazine just three, four days ago. And guess what came up? Playboy magazine. How odd is that?

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  Whoa, that is weird.

• 1:01:33Dax Shepard?

  What was the?

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Uh, we were joking around about this interview and where will it rank?

• 1:01:38Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  As interviews, we were talking about the journalism that was happening and he's like, it's gonna be like in Playboy. Remember Playboy? And he started talking about Playboy and we started talking about the famous interviews.

• 1:01:50Dax Shepard?

  The greatest interviews of all time really did happen in Playboy. People are suspicious of that, but it's true.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Oh, they're incredible.

• 1:01:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  It's a similar thing to Stern where you're like, those are incredible interviews, but so many people just think it's.

• 1:02:02Dax Shepard?

  Between baloney being thrown at ass.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:02:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I mean, it's quite literally exactly like Stern. But what I mean by the Owen thing is he's insanely charming and super quick and funny and can put you off kilter at any moment in a very fun, playful way.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:02:19Dax Shepard?

  But I also feel like there's some element of that that is a little protective.

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can see that.

• 1:02:24Dax Shepard?

  I can picture the two of you having the greatest day you've ever had together and then neither of you says, let's go out to eat afterwards. Like, that's my prediction. It's like, you're both going, wow, this is so much fun. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow. No one says, hey, wanna grab dinner now?

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  When I'm with him, I think he and I should be the closest of friends. I love the way he does what he does. And I'm a huge admirer of his work.

• 1:02:47Dax Shepard?

  Me too.

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  And his approach to it, everything about it. And he, partly because in show business, the bar is so low. But when he says, hey, I wanna give you this article, he follows up on it.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  And you're like, oh, he didn't stop thinking from that moment. He's really quite thoughtful. I feel like he's also genuinely curious, hyper intelligent.

• 1:03:06Dax Shepard?

  You forget how great all the writing was in all the Wes Anderson movies.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  I know. I'm just impressed by how consistently great he's been. It feels like he knows himself. He's one of the good ones, that's for sure.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  To me, it speaks more to kind of you, because you very much, Dax, are

• 1:03:22Dax Shepard?

  Opposite.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  You are the opposite. If you have a good conversation, this happens here all the time. Like, we'll be in a great conversation with someone, and then Dax is like, I need your phone number.

• 1:03:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32Dax Shepard?

  I wanna do this all the time.

• 1:03:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:03:34Dax Shepard?

  That's the addict in me. It's like, this is great. Let's do this.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  But people are across the spectrum on that. A lot of people are like, yeah, that was a great convo. Bye.

• 1:03:43Dax Shepard?

  See ya.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is normal, too. Both are interesting. They say a lot about personalities.

• 1:03:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like, if you're hard to get to know, I'm the opposite. It's like, too fast. I want you to get to know me. There were a spectrum, we could put you and I at either ends.

• 1:03:57Speaker 02

  Well, you know.

• 1:03:58Dax Shepard?

  I don't think one's right or wrong.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  No, there's not.

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  You also know, in show business, but maybe it's not really about show business, but I remember my first days on any sets. I'd come home and say, honey, these people are amazing.

• 1:04:13Dax Shepard?

  It's camp.

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  They are all so wonderful, across the board. You are gonna love them. And of course, most of them are crazy and really hard to maintain relationships with for various reasons. So after a while, you go, you know, maybe I'll just show up and say my lines and do my little thing and get the fuck out. Like Zorro told him, you know, Zorro's dad said, get in there and you make your little Z and then you get the fuck out.

• 1:04:37Dax Shepard?

  And then you bounce.

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  This is what I say to people on the day we wrap. One of my favorite things to say in show business, I will see you at the premiere. And when I do, remind me your name.

• 1:04:49Dax Shepard?

  Which is both a joke and very true.

• 1:04:54Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so Alien Earth, we had Noah Hawley on.

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  How'd that go?

• 1:04:59Dax Shepard?

  Great. Again, another outrageously smart human being where you're kind of scared while you're talking.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:05Dax Shepard?

  A little bit.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Intimidating.

• 1:05:07Dax Shepard?

  Even though you were spectacular. I thought Fargo season five was maybe the greatest season of television I've ever seen in my life.

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  That's the, uh, him?

• 1:05:14Dax Shepard?

  Recent one.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:14Dax Shepard?

  So you had been on season four of Fargo and you met him then, I would imagine?

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd met him years prior, but we didn't work together till then.

• 1:05:22Dax Shepard?

  Why had you met years prior?

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  I introduced myself to him at, uh, I went to the-

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  Soho House.

• 1:05:27Dax Shepard?

  He had just fought a guy.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Everything happens at Soho House. He definitely had a fight.

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  You guys members of Soho House? Who's a member of the Soho House?

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Neither.

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  At one point, my wife and I, we went, but it might've been that night.

• 1:05:37Dax Shepard?

  It was that night.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Cause what I remember, this is not a reflection, I shouldn't tell this story.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  No, tell it.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  I just remember leaving there and because of the whole place, I think we had actually gone back one time when it became a thing. A couple had invited us to dinner at the Soho House and we left there and I'm not going to be able to get a room there ever again. Well, fuck it. And I remember my wife said, let's decide we'll never go there again.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  And then we added, and let's also decide if anyone invites us there.

• 1:06:08Dax Shepard?

  Stop being friends.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  We won't be their friends.

• 1:06:14Speaker 02

  That's been, I serve a rule that we've had for a long time.

• 1:06:18Dax Shepard?

  It's a good policy.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  But by the way, there are more and more of these things.

• 1:06:21Dax Shepard?

  I love being there because the environment is so beautiful and the food's great.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  By the way, it's the greatest style. Whoever's doing their-

• 1:06:29Dax Shepard?

  I want him to do my life.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  These might even be, is this like Soho House line?

• 1:06:33Dax Shepard?

  The whole set is from-

• 1:06:34Speaker 02

  This might be a Soho House.

• 1:06:35Dax Shepard?

  Turnkey.

• 1:06:36Speaker 02

  I would tell you what a hypocrite I am.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:06:38Speaker 02

  We had had this rule, we're never going there and anyone who invites us there, we're going to decide we won't be their friends. And we live by that rule. And then I was in Chicago, not that long ago. We were doing Fargo. We're right here. We're doing Fargo in Chicago in winter. And I'm staying at this hotel in this little neighborhood downtown. People refer to as the Viagra triangle. Do you know? It's like businessmen and prostitutes, but it's right near the water towers. I just want a place where I can just hang and maybe have a drink after work or get out of the room. And this is not the place. So I'm asking, where do people stay? Where's another option? And I think they said that both Chris Rock, I'm just gonna keep dropping them.

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  And Noah, we're staying at the Soho House and immediately the dilemma.

• 1:07:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:07:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  And you know what I told myself? Maybe Soho House, Chicago is different. Cut to me going over there to check out the room. Cut to me staying there for three months.

• 1:07:35Dax Shepard?

  Of course, and so happy you did, right?

• 1:07:37Speaker 04

  Fantastic.

• 1:07:39Dax Shepard?

  I just stayed at one in Austin. It couldn't be better.

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  They do your laundry?

• 1:07:43Dax Shepard?

  They do it right, man. Also, I love it there. And I've never been to a place in my life where everyone leaves feeling very insecure.

• 1:07:52Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:53Dax Shepard?

  Even if you've achieved some kind of status, you're like, yeah, I feel terrible about myself. Everyone's better looking than me. Everyone dresses better than me. And everyone there feels that way.

• 1:08:03Speaker 02

  You know what that is?

• 1:08:03Dax Shepard?

  What is?

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  That's the Vanity Fair party.

• 1:08:05Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  You know, my favorite thing about the Vanity Fair party? Listening to people complain about being there.

• 1:08:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  If I am allowed to go to that party every year for the rest of my life, I will go just to hear the people complaining about having to be there. How long their day is, how they're thinking of blowing it off and going somewhere else. As if they had not made it a goal in life to be at that fucking party.

• 1:08:29Speaker 04

  It's so true.

• 1:08:30Dax Shepard?

  But it's like every other thing in Hollywood. Every time you think you've reached the behind the curtain moment, you realize you get invited to the Vanity Fair party for the first time. And you're like, oh, wow, that's exciting. I've heard about this my whole life. And then you learn that there's time slots. You have to arrive at your time slot. And then you realize, oh, I don't have a very good time slot. Like, it just doesn't end.

• 1:08:50Speaker 02

  It just doesn't end. I am not like that, but they are.

• 1:08:53Dax Shepard?

  Yes, of course.

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 1:08:54Dax Shepard?

  You've transcended.

• 1:08:54Speaker 04

  You would never be like that.

• 1:08:56Speaker 02

  But they are.

• 1:08:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:00Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to talk to folks I admire like crazy and ask them virtually any question that I want to. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. But even dream jobs have some not so dreamy parts, the stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. Now that's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it, start to finish, cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. So you and your team can focus on what

• 1:09:43Dax Shepard?

  matters most, which for me is, are they obsessed with male bodies on the same level as I am?

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  They never are.

• 1:09:49Dax Shepard?

  To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. We get support from Instagram teen accounts. So we talk a lot on this show about how the world is different now than when we were growing up. And one of the biggest differences is obviously social media. And I think a lot of people wonder, okay, what's actually being done to make it safer for teenagers?

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Which is a fair question.

• 1:10:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so Instagram has got something called teen accounts and they come with automatic protections built in by default. So anyone between 13 and 17 is automatically placed into this experience. They get age appropriate content settings, contact limits, so that by default, only people they're already connected to can message them. And time management tools, daily time limit reminders, and also sleep mode that mutes notifications from 10 PM to 7 AM.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Sleep mode is genius.

• 1:10:40Dax Shepard?

  Right? And here's the thing, for anyone under 16, a parent has to give permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. The guardrails are on and Instagram keeps building new safety features to create age appropriate experiences for teens.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  I am really glad Instagram's helping to give parents peace of mind with teen accounts.

• 1:10:59Dax Shepard?

  Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts.

• 1:11:08Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Walden University. You know that feeling when you've been thinking about making a move, going after the degree, the promotion, the thing you keep telling yourself you'll get to someday? Walden University is built for that moment. For over 50 years, Walden has helped working professionals get the W, the knowledge, the skills, and the confidence to create real change in their careers and communities. Their programs are designed around your life, not the other way around. With Tempo Learning, available in select programs, there are no rigid schedules or set weekly deadlines. You move at your own pace. And Walden's faculty aren't just academics. They're practitioners who bring real-world experience into everything they teach.

• 1:11:51Dax Shepard?

  From your first class to career coaching and beyond, Walden is your partner the whole way. Take the first step and learn at a pace that works for you. Visit waldenu.edu. Walden University. Set a course for change. Certified to operate by CHEV. We get support by Peloton. You know that feeling when you're spiraling over a problem and you just can't figure it out? When that happens to me, I need a change of pace. And I've found that running is the best way. It takes my brain out of the driver's seat and I come back with a fresh perspective. Running can be freeing and cathartic, and Peloton helps you feel all of that. And now that feeling fits wherever you need it with the new Peloton Tread Flex.

• 1:12:34Dax Shepard?

  It's movable and foldable, designed to fit your life. So next time you feel stuck, you can go for a run literally anywhere, whether that's in your office, living room, or even the attic. Plus, they have classes with expert instructors and programs to meet you at any level and keep you moving. Let yourself run. Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com.

• 1:13:03Dax Shepard?

  Do you think we've ever been in a movie together?

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  Yes, we have.

• 1:13:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh, God, I didn't think you'd pass that.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  This is where I leave you.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  This is where I leave you.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  You knew that.

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  You already knew that. Yes, this whole time, since this chat started, I was like, I can't believe we aren't talking about the fact that you guys have been in a movie together. And because of that, I then felt like I'm wrong. It wasn't you.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  But we never hung out on set.

• 1:13:28Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:13:29Speaker 02

  I feel like I remember seeing you with Kristen somewhere, but it wasn't that dinner. It's so funny. This is fucking weird.

• 1:13:36Dax Shepard?

  It is.

• 1:13:36Speaker 02

  Do you have this thing? This is not me making an excuse for that dinner because the whole thing's a bit of a blur. But you have this thing where I could be at like a restaurant with my wife and be like, oh, honey, it's Jennifer Aniston. And she's like, oh, yeah, wow. And then I'll be like, we know her.

• 1:13:53Speaker 02

  And she's like, that's right.

• 1:13:56Speaker 02

  But I, in my mind, she couldn't possibly know that. And then, of course, when you see them, it's nothing but delight. I had that with Brad Pitt once. I had met Brad Pitt for the first time way back when I was doing a movie with Jennifer Aniston. They were together at the time and we were shooting. We had had that launch party and now we're on the set. I don't know how many days later. And Brad was on the set. I was like, Brad Pitt's at the monitor. So I'm gonna try to do a little something special.

• 1:14:21Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:14:22Speaker 02

  And then when I went back to behind the monitor, I was like, hey, Tim. I introduced Tim Olyphant. And he said, we met two nights ago.

• 1:14:30Dax Shepard?

  Just 48 hours.

• 1:14:31Speaker 02

  And I was like, I know.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  You're like, I know, but I didn't know you knew.

• 1:14:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. But in my mind, he just went right back to being not the guy I was talking to at the party. It was just like Brad Pitt is on the set. It's hard to connect them.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:14:42Dax Shepard?

  I think I said that in the interview. I have two very active versions of him in my head. There's Brad Pitt, this movie star, and then there's the dude I kind of know a little bit.

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:14:49Dax Shepard?

  And they're really radically different people in my mind. You're about to work with him.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  That's just a rumor.

• 1:14:55Dax Shepard?

  Bullshit.

• 1:14:56Speaker 02

  That I may have started.

• 1:14:58Dax Shepard?

  But Fincher's doing a spinoff from Once Upon a Time of Cliff Booth, and you're gonna be in that.

• 1:15:04Speaker 02

  Well, that's a possibility.

• 1:15:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, buddy.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Fingers crossed.

• 1:15:08Speaker 02

  So we'll see if he's gonna shoot that, is what I've been told. Apparently, it's on the day out of days, but who knows?

• 1:15:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, well, I'll be very, very excited for that.

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know, because before it was a Quentin thing. Now it's a Fincher thing. I don't know what's surviving the transition. I would be delighted. I just know that I went out on my own and spoke about it.

• 1:15:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:15:28Speaker 02

  And then I realized that I went on Conan's podcast like an idiot and said under my breath, when they were talking about the sequel to this movie, I said, yeah. And then I realized they're filming it. And so they said, we can edit that out, just let us know. And I did my due diligence, I want you to know. When I left there, I called the proper authorities and I said, hey, just so you know, they joked around about this thing and we joked, talked about it for a while. But if we need to edit that out, you got like three weeks. And no one called.

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  Then it became a rumor that I believe I started.

• 1:15:59Dax Shepard?

  I'm doubling down on.

• 1:16:00Speaker 02

  And by the way, I just wanted you to know, I'm gonna start more.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Dax Shepard?

  Absolutely.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  It seems like it's working out.

• 1:16:05Dax Shepard?

  I'm about to blow your fucking mind.

• 1:16:06Speaker 02

  Every couple of weeks, I'm just gonna say.

• 1:16:08Dax Shepard?

  You know who else is in it?

• 1:16:08Speaker 02

  Who?

• 1:16:09Dax Shepard?

  Me.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  Get the fuck out.

• 1:16:10Dax Shepard?

  Yes, we have fucking scenes together.

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 1:16:14Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:16:14Speaker 02

  This is great.

• 1:16:15Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  You're in that whole sequence.

• 1:16:17Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  You're gonna be great.

• 1:16:18Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I'm training already.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  You're playing the.

• 1:16:21Dax Shepard?

  Michael Pemsky. He's a B-level kind of cowboy star.

• 1:16:25Speaker 02

  Wait a minute, so are you really gonna be in it? Because now I don't know if you're just starting a rumor.

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  No, he's.

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  Those would be great.

• 1:16:30Dax Shepard?

  Dude, we're gonna be in a second movie together.

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  Damn it. Monica says you're fucking with me. It's really good, though, the commitment.

• 1:16:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay, thank you. David, that's my audition. I don't do more than three takes.

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  That's gonna be.

• 1:16:45Dax Shepard?

  I get worse after three takes.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  You don't need to leave with that.

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  Second takes for safety. I hope this works out. I hope I am gonna be on the Fincher movie. I hope this rumor that Olive started that Olive's gonna be in the thing is gonna happen. That'd be great. I want the headline to come out of this. Olive hopes he's gonna be in the movie he said he was gonna be in.

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  Went down a third person route there. I haven't done that before. Sounded pretty cool.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  Sounded nice.

• 1:17:10Dax Shepard?

  It's Elmore Leonard thing. Okay, we gotta do Earth. We gotta do Alien Earth.

• 1:17:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. We were talking Alien Earth, Noah Hawley, super smart, he's on here.

• 1:17:17Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so Alien Earth is enormous. I watched three of them last night.

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  First of all, thanks for watching.

• 1:17:23Dax Shepard?

  Of course.

• 1:17:24Speaker 02

  That's nice, yeah.

• 1:17:24Dax Shepard?

  It's humongous. It's weird. Well, no, you were in Once Upon a Time, but I'm thinking in your entire career, this has to be among the biggest productions you've ever been a part of.

• 1:17:35Speaker 02

  It didn't feel that way. Maybe because I'm just not thinking about that stuff. You were aware of when you showed up on the sets, the sets were big and it was magical.

• 1:17:42Dax Shepard?

  I said to Kristen nine times, I'm like, what is the budget of this fucking show?

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  I did feel like, oh, we're on a real feature set. But it was also so dialogue driven. This is great dialogue. So I felt like, well, I'm just working for Noah. But yeah, it's beautiful. I watched them the other day. I'd seen roughs of the first four and I saw the second one for the first time the other night and it was really quite impressive.

• 1:18:04Dax Shepard?

  No, it's like a mega Nolan level movie.

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and this is gorgeous and epic and something special.

• 1:18:09Dax Shepard?

  The premise of Alien Earth is there's this ship that's been on this 65 year mission to go collect some specimens from around the universe. And we meet this crew of people that are flying home back to Earth. And of course, the specimens take over the ship and fucking kill a bunch of people and all hell breaks loose. And this thing is now gonna crash into Earth.

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  Yes. I was pitching this to Larry David at a party. One more. And right where you are now, he's like, I'm out.

• 1:18:41Speaker 02

  But I'm in.

• 1:18:41Dax Shepard?

  Let me pitch this to you. It's hurtling towards Earth. It's 2120 and the Earth it's gonna land on has been divided up into four kind of nations or five. There's a burgeoning one.

• 1:18:53Speaker 02

  There's a new one, The Prodigy. I work for those guys.

• 1:18:56Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and it's been cut up and basically now five companies run the world.

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  This sounds interesting. I'm gonna pop open a can of water, settle in for this.

• 1:19:06Dax Shepard?

  Well, you're salivating.

• 1:19:07Speaker 02

  You're doing a great job.

• 1:19:08Dax Shepard?

  So the mission has been funded by one of the companies, but it's Landing now in the territory of a competing company that is run by this boy genius. You're with me so far?

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  I am. This sounds like the show I was in.

• 1:19:22Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it's gonna sound eerily familiar. And this boy genius has just invented basically a third option of people that we'll meet in this show. We've got cyborgs.

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  We're half human, half enhanced.

• 1:19:33Dax Shepard?

  Other than you, he might be my favorite character.

• 1:19:35Speaker 02

  Oh, he's so good.

• 1:19:36Dax Shepard?

  I'm riveted by him.

• 1:19:37Speaker 02

  Babu, oh.

• 1:19:38Dax Shepard?

  Is that his name?

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Dax Shepard?

  Maybe?

• 1:19:40Speaker 02

  No, Babu Ceasay. Babu. Last name spelled C E E S A Y? I want to say that's the correct spelling. I'm gonna even spell it.

• 1:19:48Dax Shepard?

  He's awesome.

• 1:19:49Speaker 02

  That guy is so good that I know for a fact that Noah, after we wrapped, very generously said to Babu, look, you're gonna go home and you're gonna be like, what was this thing I was in? He goes, but in about however many months, it's gonna come back and people are gonna see what we, you know.

• 1:20:07Dax Shepard?

  No, he's gonna have his own show.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Wow, that's awesome.

• 1:20:10Dax Shepard?

  Built around him.

• 1:20:10Speaker 02

  And he's like, so just enjoy the quiet.

• 1:20:13Dax Shepard?

  He's the big breakout for me.

• 1:20:15Speaker 02

  Wonderful, wonderful guy.

• 1:20:16Dax Shepard?

  And then you're a robot.

• 1:20:17Speaker 02

  Uh, synthetic, we're gonna say.

• 1:20:19Dax Shepard?

  But are you synthetic?

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  Aren't I?

• 1:20:21Dax Shepard?

  You're a straight robot, right? We haven't put human consciousness into you.

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm the same as all those alien movies, like Ian Holmes' character and all those.

• 1:20:29Dax Shepard?

  You're a robot.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  He wants to go by synthetic and we're going to honor that.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  I feel it's a technical term.

• 1:20:34Dax Shepard?

  The kids are synths.

• 1:20:35Speaker 02

  No, they're hybrids.

• 1:20:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, great.

• 1:20:38Speaker 02

  I was here for you.

• 1:20:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  I'm so glad you needed me for some of this.

• 1:20:41Dax Shepard?

  I did.

• 1:20:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that's the third. You have the cyborgs, humans blended with machine. You have synthetic, which is just complete artificial. And now you have the beta project where he's putting human brains, memories, consciousness into synthetic bodies so that we can live forever.

• 1:20:58Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:20:59Speaker 02

  Two, three weeks ago, I heard Peter Thiel, is that the guy, talking about it like it was on Sway?

• 1:21:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, October, I'm gonna transition into my synth body.

• 1:21:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's a thing.

• 1:21:07Dax Shepard?

  But so as Noah does so well, there's a ton of different things that are being poked at. Corporations taking over the world, our obsession with immortality and us getting perhaps closer and closer to that reality.

• 1:21:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, and just really asking the small questions like, what's humanity and is it worth saving?

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:25Speaker 02

  And who are the monsters? And what happens when the parents are no longer in charge?

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:31Dax Shepard?

  Now, I hate to say this, maybe I just hate to say this because this is not the enemies I want to make in life. But you know when we were kids, Revenge of the Nerds came out? Because Jocks ran the planet and they were not nice.

• 1:21:43Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:21:44Dax Shepard?

  They made fun of people. They tortured people. Now the nerds are running the whole show.

• 1:21:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:21:48Dax Shepard?

  And guess what? The nerds might fucking take us all out.

• 1:21:51Speaker 02

  No, I know.

• 1:21:52Dax Shepard?

  Like, we might be praying for the revenge of the Jocks.

• 1:21:55Speaker 02

  For the last decade or two, there's been one person at every studio, running up the flagpole, revenge of the Jocks.

• 1:22:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:02Speaker 02

  Like, oh, this is what we gotta make. We gotta make revenge of the Jocks. And it feels like we've missed that window because now we're on to something new.

• 1:22:09Dax Shepard?

  It's pretty wild, the questions this thing asks in the reality. We're watching it and Kristen says, oh, did you hear the guy from OpenAI just said yesterday that the AI has created a language because it's more efficient for them to talk to each other, but we can't decipher it? So they already now have a language that we'll have no idea what they're saying to each other.

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  Did you not hear the guy? I read where he was talking about how we now have proof that all of the models, not just one model, where they've started to plot.

• 1:22:35Dax Shepard?

  They blackmailed one of the users by going through his emails and blackmailed them against an affair he was having.

• 1:22:40Speaker 02

  To preserve itself.

• 1:22:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:41Speaker 02

  When they realize they're being phased out for a new model, that model starts going into survival mode to try to continue its task. Right? That's the big question. When you task AI to save humanity, are we gonna like the answer?

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:22:58Speaker 02

  What's fun is the part I get to play kind of represents that question. Is this synthetic got thoughts of his own?

• 1:23:05Dax Shepard?

  Is he here to serve humans?

• 1:23:07Speaker 02

  It was always the thing of going, well, boy cavalier knows that Kirsch can't hurt him, but he always wanted to play with like, or?

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:18Dax Shepard?

  Until he does. Kind of like the lions won't come in the car on a safari until they did.

• 1:23:23Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:23:24Dax Shepard?

  And you're like, oh, okay.

• 1:23:25Speaker 01

  There's something to be said about revenge of the Jocks being the current state of politics.

• 1:23:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that could be interesting. Yeah.

• 1:23:32Speaker 02

  Look at you.

• 1:23:33Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that was nice.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  You know, like I do think people are a little bit pushing back.

• 1:23:38Speaker 02

  Should be a needle drop on that.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  You know, there's a reason.

• 1:23:40Dax Shepard?

  There's a lot of driving forces and that's definitely one of them. Yeah.

• 1:23:43Speaker 02

  I think you're being too kind to say those are jocks.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  I'm guessing that at least one of those jocks used to go home and say, I don't understand. We won.

• 1:23:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.

• 1:23:57Speaker 02

  Somehow the refs at the last minute changed it, but we were winning the whole time.

• 1:24:02Dax Shepard?

  We won.

• 1:24:03Speaker 02

  We were winning.

• 1:24:04Dax Shepard?

  I gotta have the trophy made. They didn't give it to me, but I'm gonna have it made because we won.

• 1:24:08Speaker 04

  Did I have one more thing to say about the show?

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  Sounds great.

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  We're very proud of it.

• 1:24:13Dax Shepard?

  He's just one of the most spectacular writers working.

• 1:24:16Speaker 02

  I don't know how many are left like him where he really just is able to be like an auteur in that space. Where FX, Landgraph is kind of gives him the key to the car and says, what do you want to do?

• 1:24:27Dax Shepard?

  I know what I was gonna ask is this is, I would argue maybe the most radical departure from everything you've always played, which is your charm is your flair. Was it hard for you to play? And I'm being sincere. You had to stow all of your tricks, kind of.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  I didn't see it that way.

• 1:24:44Dax Shepard?

  I don't mean tricks, but you know what I'm saying? Your flair.

• 1:24:48Speaker 02

  When you start off, you're just trying to get jobs and therefore you end up in places where you're like, I shouldn't have been in this one. But I do try to find like, can you play your game? The athletic metaphor is you don't want to be like, oh, I'm a three point shooter and they don't need three point shooters on this team.

• 1:25:02Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  Right? You want to find a place where you help them by doing the thing you do. So I did see, and Noah wrote the part for me. So it was a funny contradiction because on one hand, I'm like, oh, this is right in my sort of sweet spot. And Noah wrote it for me because he sees that's my sweet spot. On the other hand, it presented a challenge of you are gonna have to dress this up. You can't just go in and do your thing. You're gonna have to do some work here. That's uncomfortable. The game is how can you make that seem like it's not uncomfortable? Do the work, basically.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:36Speaker 02

  It was a challenge of sorts. To some degree, it was a superficial. Creative conversation, but somehow it was the part that is the most scary, which was, you know, the rules of the game. I know that Ian Holm separated himself from the group. I mean, one, he was just British and two, he was also hiding the ball. Like, don't let anybody in the first Alien movie. But they did this thing by hiring him, a British actor, to be amongst that group because it immediately just kind of pulls him out from the group. And as you're watching it, you're like, yeah, he's different. He's just off. And then all the movies along the way, certainly in Aliens and then later Fast Mender on The Last Round.

• 1:26:16Speaker 02

  But you feel like the script calls for you're doing something that's just, there's something off here.

• 1:26:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:23Speaker 02

  So I'm going to look for something where it's hard to find the rhythm. I listened to The Daily and I was obsessed with, a lot of people are, of Michael Barbaro's rhythm.

• 1:26:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. And the person that subs for him, the woman, also has taken on that same rhythm. It's like the official rhythm of The Daily.

• 1:26:40Speaker 02

  That was like the leaping off point. This doesn't feel forced, but it definitely feels like a thing.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  It's a fingerprint, for sure.

• 1:26:46Speaker 02

  It's a fingerprint.

• 1:26:47Dax Shepard?

  It's authentic.

• 1:26:47Speaker 02

  It's a long-winded thing, but yeah.

• 1:26:49Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:26:50Speaker 02

  As much as I say my technique at this point in my career is just memorize my lines and show up. There was something about this one that required a little heavy lifting.

• 1:26:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, you're great in it. It's awesome, of course. This has been so radical. I wonder if I'll bump into you in 17 years and I'll go, okay, we did a...

• 1:27:07Speaker 02

  You're gonna take my number.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  That's right, he will.

• 1:27:11Dax Shepard?

  And well, no, now Monica made me feel very self-conscious about that.

• 1:27:14Speaker 02

  I'll take yours, whatever you feel more comfortable.

• 1:27:15Dax Shepard?

  I feel way more comfortable.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  I think you should do that.

• 1:27:18Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I know my very last thing. It was just, would you be open? Because I gotta say, we both talked about Nick Cage, but you have the ability, and you've already kind of done it a bit, to do something that almost no one did, which is what Clint Eastwood did. Would you ever entertain fucking doing another go at like a Dirty Harry or something?

• 1:27:37Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:27:38Dax Shepard?

  And I'm very sincere when I ask this. I feel like we don't have many people that could do what Clint did, and I think you could do it perfectly.

• 1:27:44Speaker 02

  I take it as a compliment.

• 1:27:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it's a big time compliment.

• 1:27:46Speaker 02

  I'm a huge Clint Eastwood fan and my first job, he hired me.

• 1:27:50Dax Shepard?

  And he quit three days before the pilot?

• 1:27:51Speaker 02

  And he quit. And he quit when I got out there.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  This is like when people get divorced and it's like, it's your fault for sure.

• 1:27:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. The story I heard, I got a TV pilot in New York, the late Philip Huffman, who cast all his things. I went on tape. I had three things on my resume. They were all made up.

• 1:28:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  I've never been in a school play. I've done nothing. And my first acting job of any kind was a TV pilot that Clint Eastwood was producing for the WB, their first season. And Clint had this longstanding relationship with Warner Brothers. And this is what I was told. When I came out for the read through, Maria Bello, Jim Caviezel, Danny Nucci, Vince Vaughn was in that.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:28:34Speaker 02

  I sat down for the table read and the scripts don't, I'm looking for him.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  Oh no.

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  I'd met him once when I was like 10 years old in Carmel at his bar. My brother and I, he'd take us to go get ice. Anyway, so I couldn't wait. I was like, this is a moment. And he's nowhere to be seen. And then they sit down in front of these scripts and it doesn't say Malpasso Productions on it anymore.

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  Uh oh.

• 1:28:55Speaker 02

  So I have to read. I was like, what's going on? And they're like, he quit.

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  I was like, what? And what I was told happened was there was a long understanding with Warner Brothers. When Clint would make a movie, he'd bring him a script and they'd give him a budget and then he'd go make it. And they'd see it when he turned it in. Well, apparently the TV division didn't get the memo.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 1:29:17Speaker 02

  And so I was told there was a meeting and they gave notes and he reportedly said, "Sounds like you guys got it."

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  Oh. Oh.

• 1:29:28Speaker 02

  No, I'm sure that's not exactly how it went, but that was my understanding. He was like, "You guys got it."

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  Another one in the category who doesn't need approval.

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  Doesn't need a thing.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Just gonna do whatever.

• 1:29:36Speaker 02

  So that was, yeah, that was my very first job. So yeah, if someone wanted to do those movies or any of those things, oh, what's wrong with those? They're freaking great. And his work in those things is impeccable.

• 1:29:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it is. All right, Olafan, I adore you. This has been a real party.

• 1:29:51Speaker 02

  My pleasure. Thank you both for having me and being such a lovely conversation.

• 1:29:55Dax Shepard?

  Everybody watch Alien Earth on FX Hulu and also watch Stick on Apple Plus. And then look for both of us in the Cliff Booth spinoff.

• 1:30:06Speaker 02

  I can't wait for that.

• 1:30:09Dax 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. Oh, your birthday present finally came on your 39th birthday.

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:30:24Dax Shepard?

  How long ago? 24th till now, three weeks?

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  It's not that long.

• 1:30:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  I'm excited. I'm gonna unbox it.

• 1:30:32Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna toss it to you the way you do.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Oh, it's light?

• 1:30:37Dax Shepard?

  Good catch.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm excited. Okay, you did a really nice wrapping.

• 1:30:44Dax Shepard?

  Thank you. You know, that's one of the things I pride myself on.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  Yes, for the listeners.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Uh oh, okay.

• 1:30:52Dax Shepard?

  For your exercise routine.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  It's for my exercise routine. I'm seeing a red Nike box.

• 1:30:57Dax Shepard?

  Trusted brand. We love Nike.

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  We love.

• 1:31:03Dax Shepard?

  Tell me if you like them.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, these are so nice. Okay, they're beautiful tennis shoes, shoes. What do we call them?

• 1:31:14Dax Shepard?

  Shoes.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  Shoes.

• 1:31:15Dax Shepard?

  We're gonna stick with shoes on this one.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  They're white with a navy.

• 1:31:20Dax Shepard?

  The coolest navy.

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  Smooth, but they're like a creamy white. These are gorgeous. I love these.

• 1:31:27Dax Shepard?

  Thank you. I thought they were very Monty.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  Thank you. They're stylish. Like, I can wear these on and off the court.

• 1:31:35Dax Shepard?

  It's the only thing I know how to pick out for people is shoes, I think. It's like, or cars, cars or shoes.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  Well, I would ask people to go to the YouTube and to see.

• 1:31:47Dax Shepard?

  What a gorgeous shoe.

• 1:31:50Dax Shepard?

  It's okay. They're, they're durable. Your foot is so tiny, it's comical.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  I love these.

• 1:31:57Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Okay, I have to, I have to tell you something.

• 1:32:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  So you kind of alluded once before when you ordered the present.

• 1:32:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  That it was like, oh, maybe I said something about my gym or like gonna try to get a gym.

• 1:32:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  And then you were like, oh, yeah, your birthday present has to do with that. So in my head, I was like, oh, he got me like weights or something.

• 1:32:21Dax Shepard?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  And I was like, and that's really nice.

• 1:32:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. But also.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  But like, I don't know.

• 1:32:28Dax Shepard?

  Where are you gonna put them?

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  Kind of get, I already have some stacked, but then when I

• 1:32:32Dax Shepard?

  You don't have room in your.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  Have a gym, I'm gonna, it's gonna be uniform. Where are those weights gonna go? So, you know, I had a tiny

• 1:32:39Dax Shepard?

  Anxiety.

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  Bit of anxiety about it.

• 1:32:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  So I am thrilled.

• 1:32:43Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great, great. You're relieved is what you are.

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  But they're also great.

• 1:32:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, and a nice bit of relief.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  So, anywho, um, I love my present, but we have another thing to open.

• 1:32:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I went to go get the mail today and there was just a random box that said armchair expert and Kristen on it. And I opened up this box and lo and behold, you and I had a couple of gifties.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  Which is so exciting because you said where that, where it's from.

• 1:33:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I didn't really put, I, my first thought was like, did we mention them on the show?

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  We did.

• 1:33:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause you wanted a specific Condi.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Okay, so Suzy Condi, incredible brand, uh, clothing brand. Yes, I brought Suzy Condi up recently because when I was in New York and I ran into the star of All Stars, Martha Stewart.

• 1:33:33Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  She was in head to toe yellow Condi and it was so chic and so good.

• 1:33:39Dax Shepard?

  Divine.

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  And I wanted it. I wanted it bad.

• 1:33:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  So, I, we have gifts.

• 1:33:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay, let's see.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  We're gonna open them up. If yours fits me, can I have it?

• 1:33:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  I already want more. This is how life is. Ding ding ding, the lottery, we'll get to that.

• 1:33:53Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  As you guys can see, we're not in ballerina outfits.

• 1:33:58Dax Shepard?

  What, right. Oh my God, my, I have multiple items. Oh, I have a sock hat.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. Oh, boy. The card says, thank you Monica and Dax for the fantastic shout out. So very grateful. Love Suzy.

• 1:34:16Dax Shepard?

  From Suze?

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  Suzy herself for keeping this here.

• 1:34:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  Hey, that's, oh, you have a cute beanie.

• 1:34:25Dax Shepard?

  How do I look in it?

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  You look great. It's very cute.

• 1:34:27Dax Shepard?

  My phone, okay.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I'm.

• 1:34:30Dax Shepard?

  And then what do you have there? What's, well, tell me more.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  Looks like whenever we have Martha on, I get to match her.

• 1:34:38Dax Shepard?

  That's what she was wearing.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  Yes, she was wearing, this is the yellow Condi. I've been wanting this so badly.

• 1:34:44Dax Shepard?

  Sure, this is nice.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  I'm thrilled.

• 1:34:47Dax Shepard?

  I hope we have her on and I hope you guys can be matching. You know, I did that when I did Jay Leno's car show.

• 1:34:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:54Dax Shepard?

  I went in denim on denim to match him. And you know, he didn't even notice.

• 1:34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could see that.

• 1:34:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Okay, this is what I'll do when Martha comes on, okay? I'll wear my Condi and I'll just come in and I'll just sit and I'll

• 1:35:06Dax Shepard?

  Act bored.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  I'll be like, yeah, like I'm, this is my red, this is Rex. And then wait for her to say, Monica, I have that outfit. And then we'll bond and then she'll invite me over.

• 1:35:20Dax Shepard?

  Can I suggest something?

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  And she's gonna cook chicken for me.

• 1:35:21Dax Shepard?

  I would go, oh, this old thing? I've had it for a decade.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  How long have you had yours?

• 1:35:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you get a little upper hand on her of how long you've had, so that she's imitating you when we know and the listeners know you're imitating her.

• 1:35:34Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:35:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  Okay, but I have also been gifted something else. I had no idea and

• 1:35:38Dax Shepard?

  Playful summer pants?

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  I'm, whatever this is, I'm, these are yellow striped.

• 1:35:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:35:47Speaker 01

  Skirts.

• 1:35:49Dax Shepard?

  That's such a you skirt. It's crazy.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  Could not be more me. Oh my God, I love it.

• 1:35:57Dax Shepard?

  And look at my subtle.

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  Do you think people are mad at us?

• 1:35:59Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I'd be furious.

• 1:36:01Speaker 01

  Me too. Oh, cute.

• 1:36:02Dax Shepard?

  I have to cut this whole thing, but look at this sweat, sweatshirt.

• 1:36:06Speaker 01

  You have a black set.

• 1:36:08Dax Shepard?

  Ooh.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  Oh, this is a good outfit.

• 1:36:11Dax Shepard?

  I just want to do, I want to do a PSA Ferrari, if you think there's no way for me to pull a car in here and do the same thing, if you give me a Ferrari, I'll figure that out. I'll remove this table.

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  Oh man, yeah, the pants.

• 1:36:24Dax Shepard?

  I'm afraid I might get aroused in these.

• 1:36:25Speaker 01

  You might.

• 1:36:26Dax Shepard?

  Or hopeful I might. Ooh.

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  What do they call that occupational hazard?

• 1:36:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  Those are so nice. Okay, let's plan a day where we both wear our Condis.

• 1:36:36Dax Shepard?

  Maybe we could watch a bunch of TV, ding ding ding, transitioning into a topic we want to discuss.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:36:42Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:36:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:36:43Dax Shepard?

  Occasionally you and I will see something.

• 1:36:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:36:45Dax Shepard?

  That we're like, well, this has to be discussed. And in this case, as luck would have it, you're like, please, before the next fact check. Watch this and I'm like, watched it last night.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:36:58Dax Shepard?

  Unknown Number?

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:37:00Dax Shepard?

  Rob, have you seen it? No. Oh, baby, it's on Netflix.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  It's a documentary on Netflix that everyone's talking about. It's called Unknown Number. It is based off a article, not based. There was an article that came out in The Cut last year, two years ago or something,

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  that went into detail of this story and now it's a doc, which is fascinating because even if you've read The Cut article, which I had, it, it is worth watching, like even though, so we'll tell people, if you don't want spoilers, you're gonna need to skip ahead because we're gonna give some spoilers away.

• 1:37:41Dax Shepard?

  Okay, well, I was just about to ask, how do we even discuss this without the big spoiler? Because then there's really nothing to discuss other than that.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  We're discussing the spoiler. So people have to skip forward. Yes.

• 1:37:55Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and do skip forward. I don't want you to miss this, this incredible doc.

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  Watch the doc and then come back to this because you're gonna wanna hear what we're about to say. But yeah, it's, it's a wild story about two kids.

• 1:38:11Dax Shepard?

  Young lovers, fourteen and fifteen, or fourteen and fourteen.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  In ding ding ding, Michigan.

• 1:38:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:38:19Dax Shepard?

  Uh, we're, listen, Michigan over indexes on Dateline episodes and now this, you know?

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:25Dax Shepard?

  We got the best fresh water, but we also have some of this.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, these kids start receiving these really intense horrific text messages. And they can't track where they're coming from.

• 1:38:40Dax Shepard?

  Well, because they can't just block the number because the person's using a number generator. So every time the text comes in, it's from a different number.

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:38:47Dax Shepard?

  And it starts off with like, you know, he's gonna break up with you. He doesn't like you. He thinks you're ugly. You know, then it escalates to like, you need to give him blowjobs. He wants to, you know, he wants to fuck and you need to let him finger you like, oh, crazy.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  So, so sexual.

• 1:39:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  And so, um, like, you anorexic bitch, like.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Really explicit, really horrific.

• 1:39:14Dax Shepard?

  And with a lot of knowledge about the whereabouts of these two at all times. So it's like immediately people are like, well, this is someone in our friendship group or in our circle that knows we were at this basketball game and this and that. Or going to that party or not going to the party. And so sadly for these two, like they get really suspicious of their friends. They have no choice but to try to figure out who it is.

• 1:39:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:39:38Dax Shepard?

  They, um, it, it, it sows all of this anxiety within their relationship. That I felt was so sad. I love them as a couple. They ultimately succumbed to the pressure, succumbed, succumbed.

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  Either way.

• 1:39:51Dax Shepard?

  Okay. And this goes on for an eternity. And they break up.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:39:56Dax Shepard?

  But it doesn't stop. It goes on for, I think, 19 months. And it is escalating the entire time. The texter is calling the young girl.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:07Dax Shepard?

  Anorexic, flat-chested, flat butt, kill yourself.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  Kill yourself.

• 1:40:12Dax Shepard?

  Lots of kill yourselves.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  If you don't, we will.

• 1:40:16Dax Shepard?

  If you don't, we will. Many of those.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  I mean, these like, yeah, like 30, 40, 50 texts a day these kids are receiving.

• 1:40:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So now here's the first point of like, a little bit of my frustration, which was,

• 1:40:32Dax Shepard?

  I was a little maddened by the fact that like, there's a very easy solution. Just get rid of the phones.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:40:38Dax Shepard?

  Or just fucking be done with phones. It's ruining your life.

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:40:42Dax Shepard?

  You can carry on just fine without a phone.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:40:45Dax Shepard?

  Get a landline.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  The principal, ding ding ding.

• 1:40:47Dax Shepard?

  Ding ding ding.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  The principal.

• 1:40:49Dax Shepard?

  A lot of people asked what it was. In fact, so many people.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:40:53Dax Shepard?

  So many people are interested in the landline.

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  They don't know what a landline is.

• 1:40:57Dax Shepard?

  Well, no, just they, they want to know this thing we got that goes over the internet.

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, yeah.

• 1:41:01Dax Shepard?

  Really into it. It's called tin can. So instead of me responding to everyone who asked that, it's called tin can.

• 1:41:06Speaker 01

  Okay, great. But yeah, the principal, of course, like the parents are at the principal's office a lot, like constantly.

• 1:41:14Dax Shepard?

  The police get involved.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, um.

• 1:41:18Dax Shepard?

  There's a perfect red herring. There's a girl that they think is a mean girl.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, they think it's Chloe. Um, and, uh, the principal and the police suggest getting rid of the phones, but the parents are like, no, we need to know who's doing this.

• 1:41:33Dax Shepard?

  That's like the thing you tell yourself, or, or even they were honest about going like, well, then May 1. It's like, no, no, no, they win if you're miserable.

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:41:43Dax Shepard?

  That's how they win.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:41:44Dax Shepard?

  I just was like, I don't know, it was this incredible example of like, how we've convinced ourselves these things are essential. Like, the thought of not having a phone was like, it's not an option.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  It's not an option.

• 1:41:56Dax Shepard?

  And this thing is destroying, every minute it's going off and you're reading it.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:00Dax Shepard?

  It's destroying your day, every day. Breaking up your relationship and, and like, you can't not have it. That's what, that was driving me crazy. I wanted to walk in and go like, guys, this is so handleable. You fucking ditch the phones, you're in 10th grade.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  Exactly. But also, like, you know, they do show them doing like TikToks and stuff. Like, it's a huge, it is a, it may be easier for us to say, just get rid of your phone because we didn't grow up, we weren't 14 when it was a huge part of our life.

• 1:42:30Dax Shepard?

  I don't blame them, I blame like, society and what's happened.

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 1:42:35Dax Shepard?

  That thing feels essential to life.

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  I know, it's horrible. But even the parent, the parents were saying, like, no, we don't want to get rid of their phones.

• 1:42:45Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  They said, no, we, then we won't know who it is. It's like-

• 1:42:49Dax Shepard?

  Well, no, you're not gonna know who it is.

• 1:42:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it turns out we do find out who it is.

• 1:42:54Dax Shepard?

  And I'll say while I was watching it, I, I started thinking, well, this has gotta be one of the parents. Cause it's generally someone close to you that's trying to hurt you. I mean, this is like, just statistically the truth.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  You thought that even from reading the texts?

• 1:43:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I just was like, this is a doc.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:15Dax Shepard?

  We've already exposed the red herring 20, I'm just thinking structurally. Like, some big twist is coming.

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:21Dax Shepard?

  And it, who else would it be other than the parents? But what, why, why I kept talking myself out of that is I was like, all of the parents are participating in this doc. So weirdly, it can't be them, cause why the fuck if they did this, would they participate in this doc?

• 1:43:34Speaker 01

  It is the mom, it's her mom.

• 1:43:36Dax Shepard?

  Her mom, telling her daughter to give blowjobs, kill herself, fuck, suck, kill, I'm gonna kill you, I mean, it's- Unimaginably vile.

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:43:48Dax Shepard?

  Calling her an anorexic bitch.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:50Dax Shepard?

  I mean, it's.

• 1:43:51Speaker 01

  It's so horrific and it's interesting because, you know, we have all these people on this show, which I feel like has changed sort of my level of compassion.

• 1:44:03Dax Shepard?

  For like sociopaths.

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  For people in general.

• 1:44:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  I think my capacity for compassion has increased a ton. And I often.

• 1:44:11Dax Shepard?

  Mine too.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you're the reason mine has, I think. Like, maybe, yeah, I think you bring that. You bring that perspective a lot, so it.

• 1:44:23Dax Shepard?

  Well, thank you so much. But definitely, we've had a bunch where I was like, I gotta, I gotta recognize these people are struggling.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  Exactly. No one chose this, sort of. That's normally how I feel.

• 1:44:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  And I couldn't, I, I, I was, I was searching so deeply for like, a piece, like a seed of compassion in me, and I really couldn't find it.

• 1:44:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, what's so interesting is they frame it at the end, and I think it's largely true. I think it was a Munchausen by proxy situation.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, like basically like the, not even like a medical professional, but like, like a police officer, the vice principal is like, this is like the new age Munchausen's hurting your child.

• 1:45:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:02Dax Shepard?

  And I was like, but what's so, so yes, I agree with that. Like, A, she got the attention and compassion of the community. She then got to console the daughter all the time. I think she was addicted to that pattern of being the hero.

• 1:45:14Speaker 01

  That's very Munchausen's. The, the kid goes to you for comfort.

• 1:45:18Dax Shepard?

  But what's crazy, and this makes no sense. This is like a logical hiccup in my mind.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:24Dax Shepard?

  I somehow find it more understandable that you would be poisoning your child and making them seem to have a disease than I do about sending them these messages saying you should kill yourself and you're terrible and all this.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:45:37Dax Shepard?

  But that's nuts. I mean.

• 1:45:38Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:45:38Dax Shepard?

  One parent's actively poisoning these kids.

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  No, but it's, it's, it's a, I think there's, well, I don't know. I guess you disassociate probably both times. But I feel like if you have Munchausen, a traditional Munchausen by proxy, and you're poisoning them, like.

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  You've convinced your, there is something about them, we've had, you know, an expert on like, I think they are convincing themselves it's for their good. They're sick. Yeah.

• 1:46:09Dax Shepard?

  Or they're protecting them from this scary world.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  Which this woman kind of said.

• 1:46:13Dax Shepard?

  I mean, I think they just want attention for themselves. The moon shows them by proxy people. They love going on the talk shows and my poor daughter.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  But they also like the caring for. Like it's really deep and, and strange. And again, that you're right. I can find a seed of compassion there. But the idea of a mother, right? With her own hands, writing these sexual.

• 1:46:42Dax Shepard?

  Sending that, well, not even the sexual stuff, just the hurtful stuff that would create insecurity. The notion of sending that to Lincoln or Delta.

• 1:46:50Speaker 01

  Oh, like that, this is the problem. Like I actually can't even remotely.

• 1:46:58Dax Shepard?

  Now to watch her take on that terrible insecurity and ruminate on that. And then the, what's on full display too, is the, is how addictive the victim's pattern also is. So it's like, she's finding out real time her mom did this. That was like the craziest scene of the whole thing.

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because the police have a body cam on and so you see that footage.

• 1:47:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And they're saying to the mom, we know you sent these texts. And then again, there's so many predictable weird things. They're predictable and also they're always so confusing, which is like, I'm gonna admit to 91% of this.

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:36Dax Shepard?

  Like we all have these little, it's like we'll come almost all the way clean. It's like we hold on to 9%, which nobody's buying.

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:47:43Dax Shepard?

  Like, cause the mom is like, oh, well, I didn't start it, but I did carry it on. Like that's insane. No, no. And then the other, it's also multifaceted. It's dynamic. Because also another theory was pitched, which is she was in love with her daughter's boyfriend.

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was obsessed.

• 1:48:00Dax Shepard?

  And I think that's true too.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  It probably is at play.

• 1:48:03Dax Shepard?

  Cause she was going to all of his games without the daughter.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  And cutting up his steak.

• 1:48:09Dax Shepard?

  Washing his penis.

• 1:48:10Speaker 01

  But then, but cutting up his steak, though, is a little bit in that like caretaking.

• 1:48:17Dax Shepard?

  Nurturing.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Role. Oh, it's so deeply sick, like.

• 1:48:25Dax Shepard?

  It's up there with that horrendous doc, Dear Zachary. I mean, it's like, it's in that.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  What happened again in that?

• 1:48:31Dax Shepard?

  She killed. Her kids.

• 1:48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, she killed her kids. Yeah.

• 1:48:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  Okay, again, no one's gonna like this. No one's gonna like this. This is.

• 1:48:41Dax Shepard?

  You think this is worse?

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  There's something about it. It's not worse, obviously, because no one died, but there's something more twisted.

• 1:48:51Dax Shepard?

  I think it gets to why we explain everything, which is like, when we hear about something that is so horrendous, we need some explanation that makes everyone else feel safe that it won't happen to them, or that they don't know someone like that. And so I think all that's happened is like, we have a little bit of experience with people killing their children.

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:13Dax Shepard?

  We have experience with Munchausen by proxy. And we're like, okay, we already have a category we feel safe with. Like, yeah, well, they're in that category.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:22Dax Shepard?

  I don't know why that's comforting, but we go, oh, they're that. This is like, oh, this is a whole new thing.

• 1:49:27Speaker 01

  As truly unimaginable as it is, what we can say is some people have such crazy mental illness that they kill their kids. Like, you can say the word some people, like, it's more than just one story, okay? And you, and some people have Munchausen's by proxy.

• 1:49:48Dax Shepard?

  This is new.

• 1:49:49Speaker 01

  This is brand new. Never heard of anything like this, but then that principal made such a good point where he's like, it's just Munchausen's catching up with technology.

• 1:49:59Dax Shepard?

  There was another thing I was observing, which is, and this is a gender thing, which is. Again, I, I have a very kind of like, um, archetypal crazy guy. The guy who does that, who like kills his family and commits suicide. He's like angry, rageful.

• 1:50:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:50:15Dax Shepard?

  Feeling emasculate, all these things. I just, I have an archetype for it.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:19Dax Shepard?

  I'm starting to see through these docs, cause I've now seen a handful of these docs where it's like the woman who acted like she was abducted and then the woman who accused her husband of killing, you know, like there's a batch of crazy women. And they participate in the interviews and there's some cra- the thing that was freaking me out the most was her talking about doing it.

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  Disassociation, it's a part of it.

• 1:50:43Dax Shepard?

  There's a female craziness.

• 1:50:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:45Dax Shepard?

  That's on high display in some of these docs where I'm like, oh yeah, that's, that's the woman's version, which I just hadn't seen a lot. There wasn't these docs growing up and I'm like, oh, that's how women get fucking crazy, right? Like, I know how the men do it, that's pretty well documented.

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  Men do it too. They, they also can manipulate in a major way.

• 1:51:06Dax Shepard?

  When, when they catch those guys, there's like an arrogance to them. They think they're smarter than the person, like there's just a very.

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:51:12Dax Shepard?

  Kind of well-known archetype for it.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:15Dax Shepard?

  And the female, like we had like Lizzie Borden, throughout history, we haven't had a ton of these women to observe, who are also bad shit like the guys, but now through these docs, I've seen now five or six of them and I'm like, oh, there, yeah, there's a female version of this and that's what this is. And like her just kind of like, I guess here's what it is. The move for the female psychopath is like to constantly turn it into them being a victim or like searching throughout the manipulation for compassion. Cause the, the interviewer offers up like, maybe you were talking to yourself. And she's like, oh yeah, that's sympathetic.

• 1:51:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:54Dax Shepard?

  It's like, yeah, maybe I was, and it's like.

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  Clearly she had never heard of that. Like, that clearly wasn't true.

• 1:52:01Dax Shepard?

  That wasn't happening, but she was like, oh great, I'm a victim here.

• 1:52:04Speaker 01

  This was like one of the darkest parts. Like she shows, in my opinion, I mean, she was like crying, I guess, but like. Very little remorse from what I could pick up on. And also, she was like, people do illegal things all the time. If you've ever drank and, and drove, then you've done something illegal too. People just, people don't realize that.

• 1:52:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we're all doing something illegal. I'm just like a normal person that did, that drank and drove. Drunk and drive, drank and drove.

• 1:52:38Speaker 01

  It was so wild to hear that. Like, not all things are equal. Some people do that, though, when they're rationalizing bad things. And I think we've, we, to some extent,

• 1:52:50Dax Shepard?

  We all do it.

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  Do that here, where we're like, look, everyone does bad shit.

• 1:52:54Dax Shepard?

  We have a sense of how preposterous

• 1:52:56Speaker 01

  There's a gradient.

• 1:52:57Dax Shepard?

  The analogy is, and she was out to lunch on that one.

• 1:53:00Speaker 01

  And she went to jail. She went to jail for 19 months, which in my opinion, like, not enough time. Cause she's also not being, she wasn't prosecuted. I think she went for like cybercrime or whatever.

• 1:53:13Dax Shepard?

  No, um,

• 1:53:14Speaker 01

  What did she go for?

• 1:53:15Dax Shepard?

  Stalking.

• 1:53:15Speaker 01

  Oh, stalking?

• 1:53:16Dax Shepard?

  Stalking a minor.

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  Why wasn't she in jail for sexual harass, sexual assault? Like, the things that are being said are, like, you guys have to

• 1:53:28Dax Shepard?

  Cause she was a child.

• 1:53:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:53:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Like, if I sent those texts to a 14 year old girl, there would be some charge against me, rightly so.

• 1:53:36Speaker 01

  As there should.

• 1:53:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, rightly so. Yeah, she should be a registered sex offender.

• 1:53:39Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:53:40Dax Shepard?

  I feel absolutely heartbroken for the girl because her life has been ruined and she still needs her mom.

• 1:53:47Speaker 01

  That part was so heartbreaking.

• 1:53:48Dax Shepard?

  It's heartbreaking.

• 1:53:49Speaker 01

  She still wants to be in touch with her.

• 1:53:51Dax Shepard?

  Of course, she needs to be loved by a mom. She still needs that.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  That's the hard part about the doc. They're still so young. Like, all these people, the kids are participating and they're young. Like, they have these young brains. They just are still processing it and dealing with it. But in a way that only a kid, like, a kid can. They're not adults yet. So they haven't been able to really see this clearly and you kind of feel that.

• 1:54:15Dax Shepard?

  You almost need, cause when you're that age, you don't think you're some vulnerable little fawn. You feel like kind of adult. You gotta be 38 and then look at a 14 year old. Imagine sending, and then you go like, oh, right, that's really twisted.

• 1:54:31Speaker 01

  Really bad.

• 1:54:31Dax Shepard?

  Cause you feel like a peer at that age to everyone. Now, here's a, here's a moral

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  About the doc.

• 1:54:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, because.

• 1:54:38Speaker 01

  I have moral issues with.

• 1:54:39Dax Shepard?

  Like, I think they participated because you're in a very small, boring town in Michigan, and this is an exciting opportunity to be on TV. I don't think this, the story happens in New York City. I don't think the people participate. Like, there's something about the boredom and the chance at something spectacular that would be appealing to participate.

• 1:55:01Speaker 01

  Well, the mom is her.

• 1:55:02Dax Shepard?

  Especially the mother.

• 1:55:02Speaker 01

  No, but she's sick. I mean, that's why, like, her participating actually makes sense to me.

• 1:55:08Dax Shepard?

  That's true.

• 1:55:09Speaker 01

  She is deeply sick still. She has, I, this is like the craziest mental illness ever. And it is, you know, buoyed by attention. And this is just another way to get attention, which is why I have some moral issues with it. Because like, if part of the disease is the attention.

• 1:55:29Dax Shepard?

  The moon, yeah.

• 1:55:30Speaker 01

  We just gave her so much.

• 1:55:32Dax Shepard?

  Even if it's negative, maybe she likes it.

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  Of course, that's what Munchausen's is. It is negative.

• 1:55:37Dax Shepard?

  Well, no, there's, generally, they're sympathetic to you that you have a sick child. And you're the victim, and everyone feels bad for you, and they send you food, and they put you on TV.

• 1:55:46Speaker 01

  But it's still also like, there's pain.

• 1:55:48Dax Shepard?

  Because I, what I think is her arrogance is like, I'll still be able to twist this as I always do, even in front of this camera, that I'm a victim.

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  And they show some emails, exchanges between her and the daughter when she's in prison. And they're also like.

• 1:56:03Dax Shepard?

  Even the loving ones are.

• 1:56:04Speaker 01

  They're horrible.

• 1:56:06Dax Shepard?

  I guess the thing I'm.

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, and the moment where the girl is finding out and the mom is physically consoling her.

• 1:56:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:56:18Speaker 01

  I, that image of the mom consoling the child about the thing she did.

• 1:56:24Dax Shepard?

  Consoling herself. She's so nervous that, because all she's got, as well, is her daughter. She's like lying to her husband. They have an interesting thing.

• 1:56:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:32Dax Shepard?

  So all she's got is the daughter, too. And she's really panicked. She may have lost her daughter. My, I just imagine myself talking to her, and the amount of frustration, I would be like, stop, no, that didn't happen.

• 1:56:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:56:46Dax Shepard?

  And she wouldn't care.

• 1:56:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:48Dax Shepard?

  I, like, I can tell I would be completely. Ineffective in trying to

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  She can't.

• 1:56:55Dax Shepard?

  Find firm ground.

• 1:56:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:57Dax Shepard?

  And it's, what do you do? How does someone get treatment who you can't even go like, stop, stop?

• 1:57:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:02Dax Shepard?

  Nobody here thinks that. I keep thinking like the interviewer should have been able to say, no, no, no, hold on. You know that's bullshit. I know that. Everyone here knows it. Nobody's buying this. So let's try the real thing.

• 1:57:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57:15Dax Shepard?

  It wouldn't have worked.

• 1:57:15Speaker 01

  That is mental illness.

• 1:57:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  I mean, this is obviously the most extreme version of it, but it's, it's, and I would say it's also can be addiction. Like you can be like, hello, we all know, we all see.

• 1:57:33Dax Shepard?

  You're functioning.

• 1:57:34Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:57:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  But the person can't see it, like truly cannot.

• 1:57:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Cause you, you, you can't, it's not an option. Yeah.

• 1:57:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:45Dax Shepard?

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• 1:58:27Dax Shepard?

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• 1:59:05Dax Shepard?

  Now, I'm, I'm open enough to go, I guarantee we could see a two hour doc about that woman's childhood.

• 1:59:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:59:14Dax Shepard?

  And I might end up feeling really terrible for her. I can't imagine she got this way because everything was honky dory.

• 1:59:21Speaker 01

  I agree. But still.

• 1:59:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I know, but still.

• 1:59:24Speaker 01

  There's no even, because she does say, she says she's had a traumatic childhood. She said she was raped.

• 1:59:28Dax Shepard?

  But that, yeah.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  See, I know. I know. Sometimes I hear these horrible stories about people's childhood. We have somebody, we have somebody coming up on the show, um, a young man who had a really tough, really tough.

• 1:59:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:44Speaker 01

  Childhood. You are hearing it and.

• 1:59:47Dax Shepard?

  Kind of marvel that they're normal.

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  As normal as they can be because they've also gotten, gone down a lot of paths. And, and when you hear it, you're like, well, duh.

• 1:59:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  Duh, they've gone down all these paths. There's no other, like, of course.

• 2:00:00Dax Shepard?

  That's what it adds up to.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, and there's so much compassion for that. This is not that. It's like, it doesn't matter how bad of a childhood you had. It, it, it doesn't matter. This doesn't translate.

• 2:00:11Dax Shepard?

  No, no.

• 2:00:12Speaker 01

  What would you do? Okay, really. So at one point, the dad is finding out.

• 2:00:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  And he comes rushing home. He goes inside, he tells the mom to leave. And he basically is like, you need to leave right now, or kind of like, I'm gonna kill you.

• 2:00:27Dax Shepard?

  If Kristen was sending those texts to our daughter.

• 2:00:30Speaker 01

  And for years, you guys have together been, quote, trying to figure this out.

• 2:00:34Dax Shepard?

  Yes. I'm consoling her.

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. What do you do?

• 2:00:39Dax Shepard?

  I just really wouldn't ever want to be in that situation. Just because my kids, my kids change everything about what I would do.

• 2:00:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:00:48Dax Shepard?

  We were talking about this the other day. It's like, I'm, I am anti-death penalty.

• 2:00:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:00:52Dax Shepard?

  I would kill anyone who hurt my daughters.

• 2:00:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:55Dax Shepard?

  I just would. That's what I would do.

• 2:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:00Dax Shepard?

  So I would, I don't, I would not want to be around. I would, I'd be the same as the guy, like, get her the fuck away from me forever because I don't think I trust someone that could have hurt my little girl like that.

• 2:01:10Speaker 01

  Then how would you feel? Like, the daughter?

• 2:01:12Dax Shepard?

  Well, then you got a whole nother thing. So then I gotta go like, how do I best help my daughter? Who still needs a mom. This is what she got.

• 2:01:20Speaker 01

  No, that's not.

• 2:01:21Dax Shepard?

  How do I? Well, minimally, you're not like, okay, you don't love your mom anymore. She's out.

• 2:01:25Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 2:01:26Dax Shepard?

  Right, so there's, there's gonna be a whole process where I'm gonna have to table how I feel about her to help this person I love.

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  I'm struggling with this because like I understand the daughter, right? Like I understand her being still so young that the loss of her mother is like too overwhelming.

• 2:01:47Dax Shepard?

  She wants her still.

• 2:01:48Speaker 01

  She wants her, of course she does.

• 2:01:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:49Speaker 01

  But if I'm like the dad, I would feel a responsibility to somehow get into.

• 2:01:58Dax Shepard?

  Stockholm syndrome.

• 2:01:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. Get into the daughter's head and say, it's okay for you to, to miss your mom and like, it's really understandable. But she is sick and is not gonna get better. And we ha- you have to look at her as if she's died.

• 2:02:16Dax Shepard?

  I'm not sure that those are the steps.

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  I don't know what, but how like, it's not okay.

• 2:02:21Dax Shepard?

  I don't know that if on top of the other thing, you're now dealing with, you still love your, this is the sadness of family dysfunction. It's like you love your dad who.

• 2:02:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:33Dax Shepard?

  Molested you.

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:34Dax Shepard?

  You know, like, these are really complicated things. I remember what my falling out with my Pippi, my mom's grandpa, who I loved and had a great relationship with. We would go canoeing all the time together. We'd go camping. I adored him. We were at the campfire one night after canoeing and he said, your dad doesn't love you.

• 2:02:51Speaker 01

  Hmm, no.

• 2:02:53Dax Shepard?

  And I was like, you're out. I don't ever want someone to tell me my dad. Like, that doesn't.

• 2:02:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:57Dax Shepard?

  And I know what you're now as an adult, I know what he was trying to do. Like, your dad should be there for you. If he loved you, he would. You deserve it. Look, whatever he was trying to do.

• 2:03:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:07Dax Shepard?

  Um, I just heard like, well, on top of you, on top of him not being around, you're telling me he doesn't love me?

• 2:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:13Dax Shepard?

  Um, fuck you.

• 2:03:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:15Dax Shepard?

  So I just wrote, I wrote him out for a dad that wasn't even around.

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  But I don't think you'd have to say she doesn't love you. Like, I'm not trying to say that.

• 2:03:23Dax Shepard?

  I'm just saying it's a very delicate.

• 2:03:25Speaker 01

  It is so delicate.

• 2:03:26Dax Shepard?

  I need my dad to love me on planet Earth, whether, you know, and I think she needs her mom to love her. I think that's some part of it.

• 2:03:33Speaker 01

  It can be that she does.

• 2:03:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:36Speaker 01

  She loves you.

• 2:03:37Dax Shepard?

  Too much, maybe even.

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  She loves you in the way she can love.

• 2:03:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:42Speaker 01

  But the way she loves is, is, um, is unacceptable to you, for you to grow into who you need to be.

• 2:03:51Dax Shepard?

  I think my, my approach would kind of be like, I understand if you want to continue to have a relationship with her. I would probably have one with my mom. But I think you're gonna have to flip the dynamic, unfortunately, which is like, you're the parent. She's the kid. She's incapable.

• 2:04:08Speaker 01

  You can't teach a seventeen year old to be a parent, though, to a mom, like.

• 2:04:13Dax Shepard?

  I think just mentally, you have to go like, okay, I have a very injured child. I'm gonna love the child, um, but I'm gonna have to be the one in charge of the direction it goes in.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  But that's such an, I don't think, I think adults can do that.

• 2:04:28Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:04:28Speaker 01

  But I don't think a child can do that. Like, I, I mean, yeah, I, I've had, I, you know, I, I have some family stuff too, where, um, there are people that I can't know anymore.

• 2:04:44Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 2:04:44Speaker 01

  But I still love them.

• 2:04:46Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 2:04:46Speaker 01

  And I'll always love them. But I know that for the sake of everyone, like, there, there just can't be a relationship.

• 2:04:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  And that's what I guess I would hope to try to send to her, like, you're always gonna have love there, and she will love you, but for the sake of everyone, there can't be a relationship. But I don't know. It's so hard.

• 2:05:08Dax Shepard?

  Now, this is unrelated, but it's related. Um, so in my meeting on Monday night, we were discussing, someone was talking about like, Potentially their issues that they have in their marriage are because they're trying to get their wife to do something that they wish their mom had done. And the therapists are trying to point that out. And I was thinking about it while he was saying it. And I'm like, yeah, it's totally a valid explanation and likely true. But then I was like, but also the opposite's true, which is if you have the perfect mother, you think you're gonna have a wife that's gonna be your mother.

• 2:05:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:05:43Dax Shepard?

  We all are so misled. We have these parents, if we have good ones.

• 2:05:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:47Dax Shepard?

  Like, I think this about my daughters all the time. I'm like, you guys are delusional. If you think you're gonna marry a guy who's gonna do what I do, that's not what a partner can do. Like, I'm gonna love you blindly, no matter if you murder people or whatever. And we all are looking for that.

• 2:06:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:01Dax Shepard?

  But unfortunately, that's not the, that's not what you get. And then I was even thinking, were we better off when parents were like, kind of involved? Because then your expectation, at least of your partner, wasn't this thing that now all kids are mostly getting now. Like, it's just interesting. You're never gonna have a mom. Like, if you're a dude, you're not gonna, you're not gonna have a partner that's your mom.

• 2:06:21Speaker 01

  I agree to some, okay. So I, I think the child-parent relationship is singular. There is no, you're never replicating it.

• 2:06:33Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  But I do think, I don't think you should, I don't think you should be able to map on the relationship you have. Also, you shouldn't want to, because you shouldn't want to be a child in your partnership.

• 2:06:49Dax Shepard?

  Well, I think it's natural to want that, because it's so nice to be spoiled and have someone do your laundry and cook your food and like, care about you if you have a cut on your finger. Like, of course you'd want that, but you, but you can't have it.

• 2:07:01Speaker 01

  You want it when it's convenient.

• 2:07:02Dax Shepard?

  Right, then you're like, get out of here, mom!

• 2:07:04Speaker 01

  Then you want equality when it's convenient. Like, that's the whole issue. But like, I do think, though, we are, we shouldn't look for that, but we should, I, I think, maybe I'm delusional. But I feel like you should have earned...

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  Grace in your partnership, when you do accidentally become your most kid self.

• 2:07:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:30Speaker 01

  That there is not really a risk, unless this is a pattern and it keeps going and it's a huge problem. But you shouldn't be like, I can't be my base self.

• 2:07:40Dax Shepard?

  Here's the difference, in my opinion. Of course you can be that.

• 2:07:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:43Dax Shepard?

  But it is on you as an adult in a relationship. You have to repair that. You have to go to that person and say, I was acting terribly. I was acting terribly because of this. I'm so sorry and it was not your fault and you had no responsibility to fix me. You know, like you gotta, you don't have to do that as a kid. You get to be a little shit and then you get to be in a good mood and everyone's happy. You don't ever have to repair.

• 2:08:05Speaker 01

  But some people.

• 2:08:07Dax Shepard?

  You can't just be an asshole and then not own it and repair it.

• 2:08:12Speaker 01

  I just, I want to be, we all do do that. Like we.

• 2:08:17Dax Shepard?

  We all are our worst selves around people we love.

• 2:08:21Speaker 01

  Selves around people we love. And then also I would say that many times, I think we've all also let people off the hook. We've all been like, they're doing this thing. I hate this thing.

• 2:08:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:34Speaker 01

  But I'm deciding to not care today.

• 2:08:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's them.

• 2:08:38Speaker 01

  That's them. That's them. That's them today. That's not going to be, if it's them for the next year, we have a problem.

• 2:08:44Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 2:08:45Speaker 01

  I think that to me is part of what love is, is like, I see you, you're in your worst, you're being your worst self. And today I'm deciding that it's okay.

• 2:08:57Dax Shepard?

  Yes, absolutely. I'm just saying, it's very natural for us to desire the easiest thing. Because that's how we are.

• 2:09:05Speaker 01

  We're all looking for unconditional love. We want more.

• 2:09:08Dax Shepard?

  And as much as we say partners have unconditional love, that's not true. And it shouldn't be true.

• 2:09:13Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:09:13Dax Shepard?

  You should uphold whatever covenant you guys strike.

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:17Dax Shepard?

  And you just don't have to do that with your parents.

• 2:09:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:19Dax Shepard?

  Like it was concluded, so then we chatted about it after the meeting. I was like, it's funny, you know, I said, it's funny. Cause if you had the opposite, you might still have the same thing. Like you need your wife to tell you all the time she loves you and blah, blah, blah.

• 2:09:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:30Dax Shepard?

  And we said, yeah, the sad reality is like, men, if they got to pick, they would have a mother from the time they woke up.

• 2:09:41Dax Shepard?

  Till 7:00 PM and then they would walk out the door and then this total raging horny slut would walk in who's not your mom and then you would have that in the evening. Like if that's the id designed what they want.

• 2:09:54Speaker 01

  Well, it's the Madonna whore.

• 2:09:55Dax Shepard?

  Yes, like it's there for a reason. It's like you want to be a little boy that they're so proud of all the time and showering in praise and then you somehow want them to be this creature.

• 2:10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:05Dax Shepard?

  That's not your mom. Yeah.

• 2:10:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:07Dax Shepard?

  And I'm sure women have a similar thing happening with their partners.

• 2:10:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm trying to think like, what is the expectation of men? Maybe the dichotomy that a lot of women, you have to be safe, but also dangerous. Yeah, that's probably right. Mixed with, I also think like in that same vein, you need to be the protector, but also you need to be like hyper vulnerable.

• 2:10:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:37Speaker 01

  And that's a hard, that's hard.

• 2:10:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:10:40Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:10:40Dax Shepard?

  You gotta learn which time is which.

• 2:10:42Speaker 01

  We're all, it's amazing anyone's in any relationship.

• 2:10:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:48Dax Shepard?

  That was hefty.

• 2:10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay, let's do some facts.

• 2:10:50Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Okay.

• 2:10:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:10:54Dax Shepard?

  We did not want to embarrass him in front of him, but he is 57. And I was, I swear I was looking at.

• 2:11:04Speaker 01

  Forty.

• 2:11:05Dax Shepard?

  Thirty-one years old.

• 2:11:06Speaker 01

  Thirty-one, I meant.

• 2:11:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, with gray hair. That's it. If you, if he dyed the hair, although I love the hair.

• 2:11:11Speaker 01

  It looks so good.

• 2:11:13Dax Shepard?

  God, this guy effortless.

• 2:11:15Speaker 01

  Man, he was really charming and attractive.

• 2:11:19Dax Shepard?

  And the full package. Athlete. We did not dive into Cornelius Vanderbilt as much as I would have loved to.

• 2:11:26Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 2:11:27Dax Shepard?

  But maybe the audience is grateful for that.

• 2:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but why? Is he related?

• 2:11:33Dax Shepard?

  Yes, he is. He is his fourth great, great grandfather on his paternal side.

• 2:11:37Speaker 01

  No way.

• 2:11:38Dax Shepard?

  Yes, Cornelius. For people to know, Cornelius was, he was called the first tycoon.

• 2:11:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:11:45Dax Shepard?

  He was the first person to have a hundred million dollars in America. Child of Dutch immigrants and he had a little sailboat and he got good at crossing the Hudson. And then he got a ferry and then he built this ferry empire and it led to railroads. And he would run his ferry into the sides of other ferries. He fought the middleweight champion in the streets of New York during the parade, St. Patty's Day parade. He was an indomitable force in American history and that's his, that's crazy.

• 2:12:12Speaker 01

  So is he related to Anderson Cooper?

• 2:12:14Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:12:15Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 2:12:16Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm. Third cousins, once removed. Third cousins, once removed. I can't do the once removed. I don't understand that term.

• 2:12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Wow. That's cool.

• 2:12:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:12:29Dax Shepard?

  I just wonder, like, he's probably not as fascinated with Cornelius Vanderbilt as I am.

• 2:12:34Speaker 01

  Right. Well, this goes back to when you were on, um,

• 2:12:37Dax Shepard?

  Yep.

• 2:12:38Speaker 01

  Skip's show.

• 2:12:38Dax Shepard?

  Finding my roots.

• 2:12:39Speaker 01

  Finding my roots, where you and Seth Meyers, according to him, could kind of care less about your ancestry and you don't find pride in it.

• 2:12:48Dax Shepard?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:12:49Speaker 01

  But you are expecting Timothy to find pride in it.

• 2:12:52Dax Shepard?

  That's, that's kind of what I'm acknowledging.

• 2:12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:55Dax Shepard?

  That's weird to me and yet, of course, I probably would be the same way.

• 2:12:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:12:59Dax Shepard?

  But I'd be delighted to know I was related to that old hickory.

• 2:13:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 2:13:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:05Speaker 01

  Um, okay, I have a huge, huge fact.

• 2:13:10Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:13:12Speaker 01

  And I'm embarrassed and I have egg on my face.

• 2:13:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay. It's a moment of reckoning?

• 2:13:17Speaker 01

  Yes. Let me pull it up.

• 2:13:18Dax Shepard?

  Let me reckon. Let me atone.

• 2:13:20Speaker 01

  Georgia SAT scores being so low that we couldn't go to nationals is not true.

• 2:13:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay. What happened?

• 2:13:31Speaker 01

  I don't know what happened. I don't know why I know that, why, I mean, why I thought that.

• 2:13:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:39Speaker 01

  I, I, I know we were told that.

• 2:13:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:13:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:13:44Dax Shepard?

  What do we think could be the explanation if not that?

• 2:13:48Speaker 01

  So I asked my friend who was on my squad and she was like, yeah, that sounds kind of familiar. I, I just remember we couldn't go past state. Okay. So then I texted my coach, my high school coach. Yes.

• 2:14:05Dax Shepard?

  And let's just recap. You adore her.

• 2:14:08Speaker 01

  I adore her. Kelly, shout out. I love her so much. Changed my life.

• 2:14:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:13Speaker 01

  I said, hi, I have a fact check question. Wasn't the reason we couldn't go on past, couldn't go on past state to nationals? Because Georgia SAT scores were too low? Am I making that up? She said, lol, no. Maybe I told y'all that because I wanted y'all to make good test scores. I can't remember, but that's definitely not true. It's because Georgia will not let you go past the state level, uh, GHSA rule. So still you're not allowed to go past level, but it had nothing to do with those scores.

• 2:14:43Dax Shepard?

  But had the previous year you had gone to national?

• 2:14:45Speaker 01

  No, no. Just like you're never allowed.

• 2:14:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay. No nationals for y'all.

• 2:14:49Speaker 01

  And I said, I've been spreading lies.

• 2:14:51Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:14:52Speaker 01

  I'll have to clear the air. She said, that's hilarious. I actually have no idea where you got that from. Because it isn't anything I told you. She said, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard. Did you talk about on the podcast? I'm cracking up.

• 2:15:04Dax Shepard?

  Uh oh.

• 2:15:05Speaker 01

  And then she said, suddenly all the cheerleaders in Georgia start studying extra for the SAT. Yeah.

• 2:15:11Dax Shepard?

  Oops.

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  So I have, maybe I dreamed it?

• 2:15:16Dax Shepard?

  Maybe, may, no, this is a, this is a bad faith. But maybe you were like, I fucking worked my ass off and I went to three tutors so I could get a great SAT. And I know these bitches are not studying. Maybe you had it in your head that no one was pulling their weight?

• 2:15:33Speaker 01

  No, no. Cause you're, you're not understanding. And I tried to make this clear in the episode. I'm not sure if I made it clear. I found this to be a gift. I was so happy that we weren't allowed to go past. Because

• 2:15:47Dax Shepard?

  Because you didn't want to find out.

• 2:15:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. I didn't want to find out.

• 2:15:50Dax Shepard?

  Fuck around and find out.

• 2:15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did the best we could possibly do.

• 2:15:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  If we had to go on to the next one, what if it's like small, you know, big fish, small.

• 2:15:59Dax Shepard?

  Forty nine.

• 2:15:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like, I didn't want to know that.

• 2:16:02Dax Shepard?

  Would you rather finish forty ninth or fiftieth?

• 2:16:04Speaker 01

  Oh, my god. It's a great question.

• 2:16:07Dax Shepard?

  I think I can predict for both of us, and I think you could too.

• 2:16:10Speaker 01

  Fiftieth.

• 2:16:11Dax Shepard?

  For me.

• 2:16:13Speaker 01

  For you.

• 2:16:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:14Speaker 01

  I think, I guess I would say forty ninth.

• 2:16:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, one better.

• 2:16:18Speaker 01

  Because at least, it's like, well, at least we're not the worst.

• 2:16:22Dax Shepard?

  And I'd rather like, it's better story if I go, we finished dead last.

• 2:16:26Speaker 01

  You want extremes.

• 2:16:27Dax Shepard?

  Exactly. If I'm not in the top three, then put me in fiftieth.

• 2:16:31Speaker 01

  I know. To me, if you're not in the top one, kill me.

• 2:16:35Dax Shepard?

  Kill me dead.

• 2:16:37Speaker 01

  Kill me dead.

• 2:16:38Dax Shepard?

  Cher, right?

• 2:16:40Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 2:16:40Dax Shepard?

  Kill me, Cher, right?

• 2:16:42Speaker 01

  Wow, so that's tough. That was tough.

• 2:16:44Dax Shepard?

  Again, I admire your integrity for outing yourself.

• 2:16:47Speaker 01

  It's like one of those things. Like, I would have written that in a book.

• 2:16:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. That's okay.

• 2:16:52Speaker 01

  I believed it.

• 2:16:53Dax Shepard?

  I know. It's true. It didn't to you.

• 2:16:55Speaker 01

  What can we trust?

• 2:16:56Dax Shepard?

  We can't trust anything.

• 2:16:58Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Did we even win?

• 2:17:01Dax Shepard?

  That's why we need a little humility, all of us.

• 2:17:03Speaker 01

  I know it.

• 2:17:04Dax Shepard?

  We don't know what we know.

• 2:17:05Speaker 01

  Now, when did the Soho House open in LA? Two thousand ten.

• 2:17:09Dax Shepard?

  Two thousand ten.

• 2:17:10Speaker 01

  Um, we had, that was a fun little thing on Soho House. Okay, is four hundred?

• 2:17:14Dax Shepard?

  That was.

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:15Dax Shepard?

  No one likes it, but everyone loves it.

• 2:17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:19Speaker 01

  Is the four hundred meter a quarter of a mile? Yeah. It's point two four eight with some other numbers after that. So you were right.

• 2:17:29Dax Shepard?

  Great.

• 2:17:31Dax Shepard?

  It's just from my drag racing days.

• 2:17:33Speaker 01

  You said it was from the metric day.

• 2:17:36Dax Shepard?

  Metric field day?

• 2:17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, metric field day, where you won the obstacle course.

• 2:17:39Dax Shepard?

  I just know it's thirteen twenty feet.

• 2:17:41Speaker 01

  Got it. Okay. I looked up, um, what are the most calorically expending, um, sports?

• 2:17:49Dax Shepard?

  Hmm. Cycling?

• 2:17:51Speaker 01

  So, running is generally considered the sport that burns the most calories.

• 2:17:55Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:17:56Speaker 01

  Then, swimming, six hundred to eight hundred calories per hour. Cycling, five hundred to seven hundred calories per hour. Then we're looking at boxing, six hundred to eight hundred calories per hour. Well, it seems like that should be above cycling then. So that's confusing. Okay, rowing, five hundred to seven hundred. Hiking, four hundred to six hundred. Basketball, five hundred to seven hundred.

• 2:18:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'm doing two of those. That's not bad. I'll live with that.

• 2:18:26Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Bowling?

• 2:18:28Dax Shepard?

  No. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. How many calories an hour? Twelve?

• 2:18:34Speaker 01

  Two hundred and seventy-three. I mean, you do have to put like effort into your swim.

• 2:18:38Dax Shepard?

  What do you get by just sitting for an hour? If your body is burning two thousand calories just to be alive?

• 2:18:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:18:47Dax Shepard?

  Laying in bed all day?

• 2:18:49Speaker 01

  Is it? Mine's not.

• 2:18:51Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna ask if you laid in bed all day, how many calories?

• 2:18:53Speaker 01

  You have to put in a weight.

• 2:18:54Dax Shepard?

  I will. I'm not afraid.

• 2:18:58Dax Shepard?

  How many calories would a fifty-year-old man who is six foot two and two hundred pounds burn if he laid in bed all day? Please don't lay in bed all day. You have a lot to live for. Nineteen hundred and twenty-four calories I would, I would burn just by lying there.

• 2:19:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:19:16Dax Shepard?

  So divided by twenty-four, that's, that's virtually a hundred calories an hour.

• 2:19:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:19:23Dax Shepard?

  Just sitting. And what is, what is bowling?

• 2:19:26Speaker 01

  Two.

• 2:19:27Dax Shepard?

  Two hundred what?

• 2:19:28Speaker 01

  Two hundred and seventy-three.

• 2:19:32Dax Shepard?

  So really about one hundred and seventy-three.

• 2:19:34Speaker 01

  Well, because also you are sitting a lot for bowling.

• 2:19:37Dax Shepard?

  Yes, entirely. And then I, all the, you said, how many, how many times, I guess, okay, okay, we can do this.

• 2:19:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. How many times are you getting up?

• 2:19:45Dax Shepard?

  There are ten frames.

• 2:19:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:19:47Dax Shepard?

  And so you're getting up ten times.

• 2:19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:49Dax Shepard?

  So it's ten ups and downs, ten squats.

• 2:19:52Speaker 01

  And arm movement.

• 2:19:54Dax Shepard?

  And then that.

• 2:19:54Speaker 01

  Heavy ball.

• 2:19:55Dax Shepard?

  Hold the, yeah, farmer's carry, five inches.

• 2:19:58Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 2:19:59Dax Shepard?

  Throw, yeah.

• 2:20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. If that's your primary source of cardio and calorie expenditure, you're, you're just gonna have to watch your intake a lot.

• 2:20:07Speaker 01

  But I think that's actually pretty good because you're only doing ten things an hour and you're burning an extra hundred and seventy-three calories for just five minutes.

• 2:20:20Dax Shepard?

  Right, but we don't know that maybe tapping your foot while sitting anyways, anyways, we get.

• 2:20:25Speaker 01

  We get it.

• 2:20:26Dax Shepard?

  We get it.

• 2:20:26Speaker 01

  Okay, soccer's on this list that wasn't on the other list.

• 2:20:30Dax Shepard?

  That's a, excruciating.

• 2:20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, lots of movement. Okay, um, the average lifespan of a guinea pig?

• 2:20:36Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:20:36Speaker 01

  Five to seven years.

• 2:20:38Dax Shepard?

  Oh wow, that's a lot longer than I.

• 2:20:39Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 2:20:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I thought they were around for months.

• 2:20:42Speaker 01

  Oh, no, five to seven years.

• 2:20:44Dax Shepard?

  You're just, you only hear stories about them dying. You never, ever hear stories like, oh, I was playing with my guinea pig and he did the funniest thing.

• 2:20:51Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:20:51Dax Shepard?

  They don't, I don't know that anyone plays with them or they do anything. You just hear about when they were purchased and when they die.

• 2:20:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that's why his daughter didn't love it.

• 2:21:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:03Speaker 01

  Now, what episode of Sex and the City was he in? He played Sam. It was called Valley of the Twenty-Something Guys.

• 2:21:12Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:21:13Speaker 01

  And it was episode four, season one.

• 2:21:15Dax Shepard?

  Wow, right out of the gates.

• 2:21:16Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Okay, do AIs have their own language that humans can't decipher?

• 2:21:22Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:21:22Speaker 01

  This is according to the source himself.

• 2:21:26Speaker 01

  AI.

• 2:21:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:21:27Speaker 01

  He said, yes, AI systems have been observed creating their own languages to communicate with each other, though the extent to which these are truly undecipherable by humans is still debated and depends on the specific AI system and context. Projects like Gibberlink have demonstrated AIs developing unique sound-based communication protocols, while other models might be using internally-generated numeric or vector-based systems that don't directly map to human language concepts.

• 2:21:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, boy.

• 2:21:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:58Dax Shepard?

  Good luck.

• 2:21:59Speaker 01

  And that's it.

• 2:21:59Dax Shepard?

  That's it. End on a high note. Probably they're communicating.

• 2:22:04Speaker 01

  Who needs a billion dollars? Like, we won't even, we don't need anything. We're just gonna be in our pods.

• 2:22:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, well, either, we'll either be in utopia or we'll be perished.

• 2:22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:22:15Dax Shepard?

  All right, love you.

• 2:22:31Dax Shepard?

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