Rhea Seehorn

Rhea Seehorn (Stick, Pluribus, Better Call Saul) is an Emmy Award-winning actor. Rhea joins the Armchair Expert to discuss growing up with a counterintelligence agent for a father, getting a crash course in status symbols in Virginia Beach, and discovering acting through a college requirement. Rhea and Dax talk about sharing a house while shooting Better Call Saul, telling eight pages of story without a word of dialogue, and training to look like a golf pro for Stick. Rhea explains how perfectionism can turn errands into paralysis, why needing a day job never meant giving up acting, and what happens when the need to be right leaves no room for uncertainty. Check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds: https://www.allstate.com/ This holiday season, NOBULL encourages people stay “Stronger Than the Season.” Head to https://www. NOBULLProject.com all holiday season to shop new deals every week and checkout products like the Drive 2, a versatile hybrid training shoe built for mixed workouts, helping listeners move through the season their way. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal now $8 for a limited time. Only at McDonald’s. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:04Dax Shepard?

  Today, we have Emmy award winning actor, Ray Seehorn. Oh, Pluribus. We love Pluribus.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  She's so good.

• 0:13Dax Shepard?

  She's our star of Pluribus.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:15Dax Shepard?

  Also, she was on Better Call Saul for years, Bad Boys, Ride or Die, Inside Man, Most Wanted. And she is on the new season out now on Apple TV, Stick with good old Owen Wilson, who she gives glowing reviews to.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  She does.

• 0:30Dax Shepard?

  Please enjoy Ray Seehorn. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking whether the turkey was fully thawed before Thanksgiving morning? You were told days ago to thaw it, days. And now you're standing in the kitchen, holding a 20 pound ice block, wondering if a hairdryer counts as cooking? Yeah. Checking first is always a great idea. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary, subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate North American Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. We get support from Quince.

• 1:09Speaker 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.

• 1:28Dax 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.

• 1:44Speaker 01

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

• 1:55Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm going to 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.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 2:03Dax Shepard?

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

• 2:07Speaker 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.

• 2:30Dax 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 brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  What?

• 3:02Dax Shepard?

  Okay. I need to talk about something that doesn't get enough respect. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese. This is not a casual burger. This is a crafted burger. We're talking 100% fresh beef cooked right when you order it. No artificial flavors, no fillers, no preservatives, just beef doing what beef is supposed to do. And here's a detail I love. There's a cowbell sound in the kitchen. When somebody orders a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a cowbell goes off and the grill master throws a fresh patty down. That's like having your own entrance music at McDonald's. I want a cowbell for everything in life. The onions are hand topped by someone who just knows the right amount. Two slices of cheese laid out in a star pattern. So every single bite gets cheese. And two pickles side by side. So you're never in a pickle desert.

• 3:46Dax Shepard?

  Every bite is accounted for. Someone engineered this thing with love. I love a Quarter Pounder.

• 3:52Speaker 01

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

• 4:04Dax Shepard?

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

• 4:08Speaker 01

  I'm not surprised.

• 4:10Dax Shepard?

  The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only, only at McDonald's. For a limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California and for delivery. Fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Hey, Monica. How are you doing? Yeah. Hanging. What's happening? Well, uh. Thanks for having me. Hello. Very excited to have you. Thanks for the beer.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  So happy to have you.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Since our little glowy lunch.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Oh, that's true.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Or brunch. I guess it was a brunch. It was the first time, first time Golden Globe nominee brunch.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  First time nominees.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  It was cool.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  It was cool. You were at the cool table.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  I'm rarely at the cool table. So that's very kind of you.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  I was happy for you.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  If that's your memory, I'll take it.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's tiers of tables. You understand this.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Definitely. Sometimes you feel it, feel it. And you're like, I'm legitimately put on the edge of this thing by the kitchen.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  You're making a good point that you only feel it if you're, you think you're at a lower table.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Right?

• 5:29Dax Shepard?

  The only people that can possibly feel good are like Leonardo DiCaprio. Because when you go to these things, you're like, oh, I finally got here. Like, oh, wait, TV's in back. Okay.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:39Dax Shepard?

  I guess we're over here. Now they're over there. I was so excited. Now I feel like shit. You can't win.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  It's a real roller coaster.

• 5:44Dax Shepard?

  You can only win if you're Leonardo DiCaprio.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Well, you can win if you're you, because you did.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  You're sweet.

• 5:48Dax Shepard?

  You can literally win.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  But I, I mean, it was funny. I was elbowing Carolina because I said, I'm always so uncomfortable when they do the in memoriam thing and people clap for some people that they recognize more. And I was like, even in death.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  I know, right?

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Our popularity is mattering.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. It does. There should be a rule, no clapping until the end, a big clap for all.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Right. I mean, obviously the idea is like, yes, I know that person's body of work very, very well. Yay. But then it's like some poor.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  I know.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Person that nobody.

• 6:22Dax Shepard?

  If I end up with a terminal illness diagnosis, I might fake my death just so I can observe if, well, if I make it in the in memoriam. And then if so, yeah, where they clap or if people go. They, what did they start laughing?

• 6:36Speaker 02

  I suppose you could interpret it that they're clapping like, oh, he's dead.

• 6:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, thank God. Suck ass.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  I love your bag.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Thanks. Claire V.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  It's a good bag.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Local, right?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Local.

• 6:51Dax Shepard?

  That's locally sourced?

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  I'm not trying to put it on display here, but yeah, my friend, the awesome writer actress Gloria Calderon Cowell, just turned me on to her bags.

• 7:02Dax Shepard?

  Well, then you were going to say, got it for you as a gift. That would have been even one step better.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  With a bunch of crap in it.

• 7:08Dax Shepard?

  Preloaded.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, preloaded.

• 7:10Dax Shepard?

  There's a lip balm in there. There's some Advil.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Oh, that'd be nice. That's actually a good gift idea.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Purse?

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:17Dax Shepard?

  You would be particularly good.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Oh, like a new phone. Yeah. I was thinking more like personal, like how good would you be at guessing what somebody wants in their purse?

• 7:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I would be bad.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Very personal, very intimate.

• 7:30Dax Shepard?

  What is the most outrageous present you've ever bought somebody?

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Outrageous in what category?

• 7:36Dax Shepard?

  It could be either. It could be like, I can't believe I'm spending this much money on somebody. Or it could be like, I can't believe how much work I've put into this. This is the high watermark.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Time put into something for not much product would be like when I make people things.

• 7:49Dax Shepard?

  What kind of things do you manufacture?

• 7:51Speaker 02

  I, uh, what if I was like, I have a plant.

• 7:54Dax Shepard?

  You have such a cute smile. It's really blowing me over. You don't smile a ton in.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Pluribus.

• 7:59Dax Shepard?

  You know what? I gotta say this now because it's going to happen. Our friend Eric pronounces everything wrong.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:04Dax Shepard?

  We all like it and we'll start pronouncing the things he pronounces wrong. So he has fucked up Plurbius.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 8:10Dax Shepard?

  That's what he calls Pluribus.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:12Dax Shepard?

  Plurbius.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:13Dax Shepard?

  And in our whole now pod, we all say Plurbius.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  I don't. I'm in the pod and I have not, I'm just so you know, I'm pronouncing it correctly.

• 8:21Dax Shepard?

  But if I accidentally say Plurbius, it's Eric Richardson's fault.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  How does he say my name?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Okay. I wanted to talk about this. We need to get this exactly right.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  It's one syllable.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  It's Ray.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  It's just Ray.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I went Raya.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  I know that I know.

• 8:33Dax Shepard?

  I heard Jimmy Fallon say Raya.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Well, I'm glad, I'm glad we're clearing this up. Once.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  But what if you were to act like what you meant was Ray, comma, uh, and then you were speaking?

• 8:43Dax Shepard?

  I would claim that in a court of law if you sued me. I would say, no, obviously I said Ray, a wonderful person.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  I was just in somewhere where there was a very large group of drunk people that were shouting, but they were very nice and they were shouting, we love the publicist.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  I was like, I think you're talking about Pluribus.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Maybe you really. They're like, Rayo, we love the publicist.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  Maybe they really like Ruth Bernstein from viewpoint. I don't know.

• 9:12Dax Shepard?

  Pluribus.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:14Dax Shepard?

  You're not smiling a ton in it.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  I don't smile a ton. I don't know.

• 9:16Dax Shepard?

  No, but you just smiled so brightly and I was overwhelmed with how cute of a smile you have.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:21Dax Shepard?

  Kind of fun.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  There's a few of us that didn't fix our teeth in this town.

• 9:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  No, but they look great.

• 9:26Dax Shepard?

  I got some jankiness.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  I have some jankiness. It's like, whatever.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Character.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  It's character, right?

• 9:31Dax Shepard?

  Back to what you may or may not have built for somebody for a present.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Bless you. So I constantly have to be making things. If I'm not working, I will embroider or sculpt or paint or draw or crochet.

• 9:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. You'd love painting and sculpting.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  But because when it was crochet, and I, for some reason, I can't get the hang of knitting, but I really, really want to. But I want the project to be over quicker. So I would make like baby clothes or I'll make a roomy because it's a tiny around. Like, yeah, it's not going to take months and months and months. For a while, everyone was like, wow, you're really obsessed with babies. I was like, no, I just need it to be over.

• 10:09Dax Shepard?

  Tell me about the embroidering that's done on a sewing machine?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  That's on a hoop.

• 10:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  You are not wrong. There are machines that do the massive embroidery. Like if you're getting like a baseball cap with letters, those are machines.

• 10:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  This is more almost like doing like a little painting in thread.

• 10:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay, okay. And what is needlepoint?

• 10:27Speaker 02

  I'm not entirely sure, but it is different.

• 10:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Embroidery often is leaving space, not always, but it almost looks more like a drawing element versus needlepoint to me. I know somebody's gonna write you and correct all of it. It looks like miniature cross stitch to me. The way it's like every teeny square has the exact same kind of, it's, there's a grid.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  You know who we can ask about this? Laura Moses Collins.

• 10:52Dax Shepard?

  Wait, are you guys friends?

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Matt does Ray's hair.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Matt does my hair all the time.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 10:57Dax Shepard?

  I have no idea.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:59Dax Shepard?

  Next time you're with him, ask him how Eric pronounces stuff. I'm sure he'll hit you with five or six.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 11:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, but Matt is doing your hair just so perfectly. Did he do it today?

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Looks great.

• 11:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  So good.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  I just made, I just made him something. It took me two years. Well, I mean, I did when they had the registry, when they had their kid. But then because he's just become such a close friend, I was like, oh, I should make something for their kid. Even though they're small things, I'm slow.

• 11:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Sounds so kind.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Two years old now. Yeah. They're called ragdoll stuffed animals. So they kind of have a stuffed animal head. It's a puppy and paws, but then the whole body part is more like a blanket. So people can like drag it around like a.

• 11:40Dax Shepard?

  I like that.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  This is advanced.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  For a while, people were like, oh, you should start an Etsy shop. I was like, one product per like two years.

• 11:50Dax Shepard?

  That's obvious, right? Yes, exactly. But my wife is like you. She has to be busy doing something. She's a big, big knitter. And she makes these incredible sweaters.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Maybe Kristen can help me.

• 12:01Dax Shepard?

  And she sincerely wants an Etsy shop. And I was like, hon, when do you think you're going to have the time?

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Oh, in my head, I want one. Can you imagine? Then like Kristen and I are like at UPS trying to ship stuff out with like shipping costs.

• 12:13Dax Shepard?

  And then getting their complaints and it getting sent back because this isn't actually an extra small.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  That's a headline, Ray and Kristen's Etsy shop sucks.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:21Dax Shepard?

  Let's go to Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're gonna head out.

• 12:27Dax Shepard?

  Norfolk, Virginia.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Norfolk, if you're from there.

• 12:29Dax Shepard?

  What do you say?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Norfolk.

• 12:30Dax Shepard?

  Norfolk. Okay, I'll take that on.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  Baltimore instead of Baltimore.

• 12:34Dax Shepard?

  Right. What is the one I say you hate? I say, well, Norlands. You're supposed to say Norlands. It's one word. Norlands.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Norlands.

• 12:43Dax Shepard?

  Wow, you're really getting into it today.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  If you're gonna do it, you might as well do it.

• 12:46Dax Shepard?

  What age were you in Norville?

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, born there and then left at two years old to move to Itzugi, Japan.

• 12:56Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great. So already, you'll be the first person I've probably ever interviewed whose father was in naval intelligence.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 13:05Dax Shepard?

  Counter.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Counterintelligence.

• 13:06Dax Shepard?

  Counterintelligence. Let's paint a fair assessment of how rare this position is. You're a smart motherfucker if you're in this role, no?

• 13:15Speaker 02

  He's, he was very smart. He's passed away, but yes.

• 13:17Dax Shepard?

  And then mom was also, she was working as an executive assistant.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  We were civilian, but they both worked on bases frequently. And then my mom was doing all different types of jobs after they got divorced and she went back to work on a lot of bases. She did everything from paralegal work to the person who does all the quality control training for people in the service and stuff. Yeah, she did a lot of things.

• 13:40Dax Shepard?

  She did all.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  She's very smart, too.

• 13:41Dax Shepard?

  Did they meet somehow through the Navy?

• 13:44Speaker 02

  No, I actually don't know. I do know one thing about how they met. A man named Ray introduced them and that is why I'm named that.

• 13:50Dax Shepard?

  That's why you got that as a middle name. That was a throwaway. Right? There was like a nod to him, but in the middle.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. First name Deborah.

• 13:57Dax Shepard?

  Deborah.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Got called Debbie. Perfectly fine name, but I don't know why I didn't feel a connection to it. And then it progressively got worse as I became a chunky middle schooler. And they would say, hey, Fat Debbie, do you want some more Little Debbie's?

• 14:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, they were popular in Detroit, too.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  This was in Japan, they were?

• 14:14Speaker 02

  No.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Oh, you were back.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Arizona at that point. But I was like, or no, that was Virginia Beach.

• 14:19Dax Shepard?

  You can get called Fat Debbie real easy in Virginia Beach. I've spent some time there.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  100%. And I was just like, I have always liked my middle name better. Let's just chuck this.

• 14:29Dax Shepard?

  You're on record as saying you really associated that with like attractive cheerleaders, that name.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry that was on record. I don't want to be mean to anybody named Debbie out there.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Or to cheerleaders. I had best friends that were cheerleaders.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  I was a cheerleader, so we take this in stride.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  She would always be like the person that's in like a John Hughes film that would be the really snobby, extremely good looking cheerleader.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  Who was mean. And that was not me for any of those categories. So it felt a little ill fitting.

• 14:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I think we're in the same generation. 12 years later, that person became Becky. I think Debbie was Becky.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  I see.

• 15:05Dax Shepard?

  But also, if ever you were gonna say something about Deborah, saying that you associate them with very attractive cheerleaders, I mean, that's hardly offensive.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:12Dax Shepard?

  Of all the things you could say, like, you're not like, oh, Debbie's generally are assholes or something.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  They can be a little rude, these Debbie's.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  It's a very particular kind of popularity.

• 15:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Yes. Which is not true across the board, but at the time, that's what that name was a little more known for. Monica was cool. That was the name that was, oh yeah, it would be the more like exotic name. Like if you were like a Sophia or a Monica. Yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 15:39Dax Shepard?

  Strong, bold.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. And probably like dresses a little cooler than all of us.

• 15:44Dax Shepard?

  Sure. Little new wave.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, little new wave and a little esprit.

• 15:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, lived in Esprit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know. We're the same age. So we know, we know what's going on with that.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  When I moved though from Arizona, I moved from Yuma, Arizona, tiny, tiny town. I've heard it's built up since then, but one school, not large enough that they even had separate kind of areas based in class. So moving from Japan, we didn't live on bases. I lived in a normal Japanese little suburb.

• 16:11Dax Shepard?

  Do you have any recollection? No, you're too young.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  I do. My sister, who's three years older than me, there's many times, she lives in North Carolina, there's many times where we will pick out the exact same wrapping paper from two totally different TJ Maxx, because that's what we like to do, browse around the Home Goods.

• 16:27Dax Shepard?

  Get the Maxx for the minimum.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. Or cards or something. And it almost always will link back to something that feels slightly Japanese.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:36Dax Shepard?

  You're drawn to the aesthetic.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Cherry blossom prince. We're both obsessed with all things miniaturized, which is a huge Japanese thing. I totally remember it.

• 16:43Dax Shepard?

  I love miniature stuff, too.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Obsessed. I know it's a huge trend now, but my obsession goes way back.

• 16:48Dax Shepard?

  Can I tell you my ultimate goal? Like if I had Elon Musk money?

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:52Dax Shepard?

  I want to build a pretty lengthy lazy river. Let's say I have 20 acres. I build a lazy river and then on the river, I build everything that's on the Colorado River along it. So miniature Rocky Mountains with the miniature ski lodges. And then I want to be able to float through and feel like a giant going down the Colorado River. That's kind of my dream.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  I was not guessing that end part.

• 17:13Dax Shepard?

  That I'm a giant?

• 17:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  That's the part you like.

• 17:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like Gulliver's travel.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  It's confusing because you are a big man.

• 17:21Dax Shepard?

  Like, why do I want? But that's like when Bill Gates said he wanted to be smarter. When they asked him what superpower he'd want, you're like, what a waste of.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Really?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, isn't that cool? Kind of. I liked that. This one's weirder to me. Like, it would make sense if I wanted to be like a giant.

• 17:35Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it would.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Because I've never been able to experience that.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 17:38Dax Shepard?

  But I think you could easily psychoanalyze this.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Of course. You love to overpower people.

• 17:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I don't ever want to feel.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Small.

• 17:47Dax Shepard?

  Threatened or in danger or gonna get physically harmed. It would be so fun to be a real giant and like walk through the Rocky Mountains and everything be tiny.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  I think it would suck.

• 17:57Dax Shepard?

  Well, yeah, you'd be very lonely. Where would you find a mate?

• 18:00Speaker 02

  And you keep breaking everything.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  And you might step on some people on accident.

• 18:04Dax Shepard?

  This is bound to happen. Yeah.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Every food item is gonna feel like the tiniest snack.

• 18:08Dax Shepard?

  What about walking through Manhattan, though? And it's like you're at face level with the Chrysler Building and you can like walk around. Like, wouldn't that be fun? No.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  No.

• 18:17Dax Shepard?

  All right. I don't have either. You can't co-sign on this fantasy.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  I make tiny things, too. I like the craft that's involved with making something miniature really well.

• 18:27Dax Shepard?

  Have you been to Legoland and looked at those little cities? Aren't those cities incredible?

• 18:31Speaker 02

  It's so incredible. And then I just got to go to like my first fashion show for Louis Vuitton and they flew me out and it was all very fancy, but everybody was nice. It was not, I get very socially anxious where I constantly think I don't belong wherever I am. But I had an absolute blast. But we had one day off that was like totally free. It just ended up not being any press or anything. Ruth Bernstein that I mentioned earlier is a good friend of mine and my publicist. She's also obsessed with miniatures. There is a store, there's two stores there that we found that that's all they sell is the miniaturization of like everything. You would be a giant in there.

• 19:04Dax Shepard?

  I would love.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  If you walked around, you would actually love it.

• 19:06Dax Shepard?

  It feels so safe.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  It was super cool.

• 19:08Dax Shepard?

  Because if a mean man ran out of a building and was like, I'm gonna find, I'd be like, oh, come on now. It's not gonna, you can't do anything.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Wait, a mean miniature man?

• 19:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If I'm a giant, I'm safe. Don't you, you guys are not getting this.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  We are getting it.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  I just want there to be a diagram of somewhere that is battery operated to have a mean man come running out. Like a cuckoo clock. He's just like, damn it. And then he goes back in.

• 19:28Dax Shepard?

  No, he's gotta say the same shit people said to me in my town where I'm from. You know, there's gotta be really.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  What?

• 19:33Dax Shepard?

  Well, the terrible words they called boys, you know, but I won't get bogged down.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. But it's got, yeah, there's gotta be like miniatures of old step dads and stuff. They pop out.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  The F word.

• 19:42Dax Shepard?

  And they say, yeah, yeah, one of the F words.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 19:46Dax Shepard?

  And then some of my step dads will pop out and they'll, you better eat with your, you know, and I'll just laugh because I'm so big.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  I love it. I love it.

• 19:53Dax Shepard?

  So you do remember Japan to some degree?

• 19:55Speaker 02

  To some degree.

• 19:56Dax Shepard?

  And then Yuma, Arizona, I'm hip to Yuma, Arizona quite a bit.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Really?

• 20:01Dax Shepard?

  Have you ever heard of Glamis, the sand dunes here in California? They're on the border of Mexico and the border of Arizona.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:06Dax Shepard?

  Huge sand dunes. And we go up there and go off roading.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 20:09Dax Shepard?

  And my wife and I's favorite thing about it is we pick up the local Yuma news over the aerial antenna. Her father is a news producer of some repute. We're very hip to how it goes. And the amount of errors that are happening in real time in the Yuma news, we then take videos and send to her father just because we know the father would shoot his self in the head if this was going out. But it's very, very pleasurable to watch videos.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  I'm gonna have to check that out.

• 20:35Dax Shepard?

  It was kind of mean to Yuma's news.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  We've been pretty disparaged.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  But I loved Yuma. When I was gonna say, the fact that we all went to school and like, we had like a mansion next to like a shack. I was super, super. Unaware of class as well as judging people by clothing. It was like some weird idyllic kind of bubble. We had kids on food stamps. We had people from reservations.

• 20:59Dax Shepard?

  How were people rich there?

• 21:01Speaker 02

  I think money they had before then, but those people would be like Wendy was my sister's good friend and she had horses on her property and we were like, what? Like blew our minds, but moving from there to Virginia Beach.

• 21:14Dax Shepard?

  What age?

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Nine.

• 21:15Dax Shepard?

  Okay, you were in Yuma till nine?

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:17Dax Shepard?

  From like three to nine?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  No, like six to nine.

• 21:20Dax Shepard?

  Six to nine. What was in Yuma?

• 21:23Speaker 02

  I don't know what case he went there for. I know we came back to Virginia for the Walker spy family case, which was fairly famous.

• 21:31Dax Shepard?

  What's that?

• 21:32Speaker 02

  It's just a very interesting read if you want to read it, but it's two brothers. One was Navy and the other one was CIA or FBI? I can't remember which both had begun giving secrets to the KGB. And both have since died in prison and one of their wives was also part of it. And they were using their kids to do like dead drops on bikes. And for a while they were going to try to prosecute one of the kids. And then I know you're going to fact check all of this.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  I am, can't wait.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  The kid did not get penalized. The kid had no idea what he was doing, but even in the trials, they were still claiming like, I didn't actually harm anybody. Why are they saying that I did? But the Navy guy was telling the KGB the exact weak spots on our ships.

• 22:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Where you could torpedo or bomb them and take the whole thing down and kill people. But he's like, yeah, but I didn't kill anybody. And then the other one was giving up the names of our agents that are undercover in Russia, all assassinated, I'm sure. And he's like, but I didn't do anything. I just gave names. So FBI, CIA, I think it was FBI, CIA, NSA and NIS, which is now NCIS. They all were working together. It took years and years and years and years and years, which I later found out, just like, what was it? The Robert Hanson one? Wasn't that a big one out of Maryland?

• 22:49Dax Shepard?

  I need a dinner party with you. I need all of these stories.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  My dad had passed away before that one, but definitely our people turning was his thing.

• 22:57Dax Shepard?

  And how much was he talking to you guys about his job? That was a huge curiosity of mine.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Not a lot. So he was in the field as an agent and like deep undercover before my sister and I were born. So there was that sort of more like spy thing you would think of when you think of spy going on then. But by the time my sister and I were around, he's going to a regular office. I definitely saw an interrogation room one time and I just immediately got the creeps. But unfortunately he died when I was 18 and your head is still way too far up your ass as far as thinking your parents.

• 23:30Dax Shepard?

  Are cool or interesting.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  I was like, whatever.

• 23:33Dax Shepard?

  Well, it's standard. Your dad's whatever your dad is. It's like, oh, that's standard dad.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Now I have all these questions that I can't get answered.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  But it felt more like, oh, dad goes to work with certain agents and occasionally I'd meet people that seemed like his partners, but for short periods of time. And I always wondered like, was he investigating them? I wonder like, was it really hard for him to make friends? If you're like, well, if Fred's sitting with you, he's might be investigating you. I don't know. Or was it not within your own office? I have questions. Maybe somebody could write in and help us. He ended up doing it for 33 years.

• 24:07Dax Shepard?

  He was older when you were born, I presume, or he was an older dad?

• 24:09Speaker 02

  No, and he died at only 52.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:13Dax Shepard?

  Can I ask from what?

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Alcoholism.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 24:15Dax Shepard?

  Okay, okay.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  This is so sad, I'm sorry.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Thank you. He and my mom had been divorced since I was 12. She's been happily remarried for over 20 years, but I always feel sad that I think he probably had some kind of depression that you're just like self medicating for in a way that we talk about a lot easier now. And also I think we're more aware and the government's more aware of helping people that you're putting in positions that mentally screwed. He was in the Vietnam War and in the Tet Offensive too. And like, I never heard him talk about any of this. I never heard that when people were like, did he tell you about the cases? Not really until they were over. Like he handed me a Newsweek article. I think it was Newsweek, I can't remember, but on the cover was them finally catching the Walker spy family.

• 25:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  And loading them onto a plane. And the agents that were all part of the investigation are photographed, but only from the back, you know, loading them on. And my dad had severe like, I forget what you call it, but it's like swayed back knees. When he locks his knees, they go way, way back.

• 25:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  So I totally knew it was him. And he was like, see who that is? And I was like, oh yeah, I don't even think I read the article. I was like, whatever.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  So stupid. I was like, I don't want Newsweek.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, like thanks a lot, dad.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  This is dumb.

• 25:33Dax Shepard?

  Children are incapable of being interested in.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  It's part of the dynamic.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  They're interested in who I could introduce them to.

• 25:40Dax Shepard?

  Surely, yes, yes, that's true.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Or tickets to things.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, tickets.

• 25:45Dax Shepard?

  They're interested in you as a conduit to other things.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  They absolutely want to know if suddenly a sports person follows me on Instagram.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, it's a big deal.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  That could get tickets to something.

• 25:54Dax Shepard?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Musicians.

• 25:56Dax Shepard?

  I hope you deliver occasionally, but not too often.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 25:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's the sweet spot. Well, my father was an alcoholic, but he found sobriety.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 26:05Dax Shepard?

  But he also died very young because I think the damage 62. It's not ideal.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  No.

• 26:10Dax Shepard?

  Seemed less crazy in 2012. I was like, 62 feels pretty old. Now I'm 51, I'm like, hmm.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  It's weird, right?

• 26:16Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  When I turned the age that my dad was when he died, I was like, whoa.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:20Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Cause at the time, you're right, 52 and 62, they feel older when you're younger.

• 26:26Dax Shepard?

  It was early, but not insane, right?

• 26:28Speaker 02

  I knew it was very early because everyone, especially because I was only 18, you know, you could see it on people's face of like, oh my God. Like, and I didn't know anybody who had a dead parent, right? Anybody. So I knew that it was significantly young, but I don't think I fully, and it sounds extremely narcissistic to say like, it wasn't till it's my life, but it's more about seeing where you are in life and how much you feel like you just started getting going.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Whereas they're like, whoa, if it was just cut off tomorrow, that's crazy town.

• 26:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  62 also.

• 26:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of nuts.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Are your parents with us?

• 27:02Speaker 01

  They are, they are, and they're, they're both above 62.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  She's like, they're 41.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, oh, let's hope. No, my dad's in his seventies and my mom is in her sixties.

• 27:10Dax Shepard?

  They're going to 100.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  And they're, knock on wood, they're doing okay.

• 27:12Dax Shepard?

  They're going to see 100.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  My mom's 83, she's crushing it.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Oh, great.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  I just put her on a plane to go home. I got her greeters, nobody like think I'm a horrible person.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  No, that's so great.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, she flew out to see me and go to the Academy Gala with me. She came up from Virginia and I have a picture of her hanging with ASAP Rocky, who was so nice. And he was like, you're exactly like my mom. That's what he's saying. Cause she was excited to talk about her dress costing $60.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  I love him.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  He's so, so cool.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:39Dax Shepard?

  Virginia Beach, nine years old.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  It's a beach town, much like LA. It's so spread out. You can be driving and driving and driving and it still is Virginia Beach. Although the resort pier boardwalk part is the famous part, but man, was that such a massive learning curve for the name brands? All those eighties beach, like OP, wave riding vehicles, Isada, just started wearing multiple Isadas with different collars popped up.

• 28:05Dax Shepard?

  Ron Jon surf shop shirts?

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Ron Jon, yes.

• 28:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, nice.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Body Glove, Jordache, that's not beach, but Sassoon. Yuma, like if you got to school, you won. Like, doesn't really matter how or what is on your body anyway.

• 28:21Dax Shepard?

  Wranglers.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  No one cared.

• 28:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Literally some people rode a horse to school.

• 28:27Dax Shepard?

  You had a little culture shock.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Yes. And I was considered very cool for not caring, like wearing whatever, like, look at her cuckoo clothes for like literally about 48 hours. And then just sharp.

• 28:39Dax Shepard?

  Fell off a cliff. The interest is over.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Yes. And then I got made fun of brutally.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Oh, what about your sister? Was she always cool?

• 28:47Speaker 02

  She was.

• 28:48Dax Shepard?

  She was.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  My sister dressed cool.

• 28:50Dax Shepard?

  Did you copy her?

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Tried hard. It made her hate me.

• 28:53Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  And I stole a lot of her Esprit clothes and always ruined them.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Oh, God, no.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  I know.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:01Dax Shepard?

  Deborah.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Always.

• 29:03Dax Shepard?

  Deborah, don't ruin her clothes.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  I stole her jewelry and lost it. I stole her clothes and ruined them.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Oh my God, these little siblings.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  I know.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Can't.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  She and I were only in school together at the same time for elementary because this is different here. When I was growing up, seventh to ninth was middle school.

• 29:21Dax Shepard?

  Well, that is bizarre.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  Junior high is actually what it was called. 10, 11, 12 was high school.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Oh, weird.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  So a three year difference made us never in the same school except for elementary.

• 29:30Dax Shepard?

  Virginia Beach was really doing it. Yeah, really doing it differently. I've never heard of that permutation of the grades.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Normally we're looking at a six through eight middle school.

• 29:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, nine through 12. You guys should have been in high school together.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, for one year.

• 29:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  We were not.

• 29:44Dax Shepard?

  You were not. And.

• 29:47Dax Shepard?

  So the massive interest in like painting, sculpting, all those things are solitary endeavors.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:53Dax Shepard?

  There was a refuge.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  My whole family is very good in artistic endeavors of all sorts, but none of them did it for a living.

• 30:00Dax Shepard?

  Your dad and your grandma were both really.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  So for my sister and I both as kids, it was very, the same as like, you know, they say kids take up reading as like a leisure hobby. If that's what they see their parents doing and my dad would come home and just start drawing constantly, constantly sketching. So it was very normal for us to do that. And then we would draw with him. And then when we got to see my grandmother, she taught painting and also had like a whole craft studio. I do think it was an outlet, but it was kind of absorbed osmosisly. And then I ended up going to in Virginia Beach, it's called Old Nation, uh, school for the gifted and talented program. Thank you.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  My God.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  It's a little bit like the governor's magnet schools that you will get shipped out to like one day a week.

• 30:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  So I would go to this other school and then later it was after school for more than one day a week. And then I just started getting more and more and more into like the classes and advancing, and then got my degree in fine arts.

• 30:56Dax Shepard?

  So Ray, when you would go to this class for the one day a week, were those your people?

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love those kids and they weren't even necessarily, I can't remember. Oh, Mark Quintana and I became like friends, friends, but for the majority, let's say there was 10 people in it. We were all from different schools. It wasn't like, we're going to now hang out outside of this.

• 31:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  But I guess the closest I would say is it felt like I later felt like about theater.

• 31:20Dax Shepard?

  My people.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  They're your people and it's safe and you're going to explore things together.

• 31:24Dax Shepard?

  More of me exists. That's comforting.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Yes. Later I would say, once I decided that I was going to pursue acting and I very quickly saw the business side of both the visual arts and of acting art take up so much time. They are a whole different. And I was like, I'm not going to be able to do both of these. One of them needs to be just privately as a hobby. And so I decided art would be, and now I would categorize it more what you had said. I would categorize it as definitely a yin yang thing to how social our jobs are as actors.

• 31:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's, I don't need anybody's permission.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  It's a private pursuit. It's very calming to me. When I'm painting and drawing and sculpting, that'll be a more just feeling like another creative outlet. When I do the things that are tedious and repetitive, like crochet, the embroidery, I'm usually following a pattern or I bought a kit. I also do Lego sets and jigsaw following instructions that are tedious one at a time. And then unraveling if I get it wrong and doing it a step at a time is extremely calming to me. So I do that stuff to calm my anxiety.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  That's truly miserable sounding.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  I am your gal. Like if you have furniture to build, like an Ikea thing that just won't come out. I have taken a printer apart and put it back together just because I was irritated that they make them to break so easily now. It worked for two more days. I have to say, that was it, but still, I mean, I legit, it was like, we're going to learn how to build this printer.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  It took a very long time.

• 32:53Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 32:58Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking if your alarm is actually set before you go to bed, you could have sworn you said it. You even remember looking at your phone, but apparently looking at it and pressing the button are two different things. Because now you're waking up to sunlight and panic. Yeah. Checking first always makes sense. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary, subject to terms, conditions and availability. Allstate North American Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. We get support from Gusto. So here's the thing about running a small business that nobody romanticizes.

• 33:39Dax Shepard?

  It's not the big idea that wears you down. It's the payroll, the tax filings, the wait, do I need workers comp for this stuff? That's the part that quietly eats away your whole afternoon, which is where Gusto comes in. Gusto is online payroll and benefit software built for small businesses. It's all in one, remote friendly and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay onboard and support your team from anywhere. They handle automatic tax filing, direct deposits, health benefits, 401k, all of it. And you get unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No hidden fees, no surprises. If something tricky comes up, you've got direct access to certified HR experts who actually know what they're talking about.

• 34:20Dax Shepard?

  And they're ranked number one on G2's highest satisfaction products list for 2026 and trusted by over 500,000 small businesses. That's not nothing. Try Gusto today at gusto.com/dax and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com/dax. Again, that's gusto.com/dax. We get support from NoBull. The holidays can get hectic. You finally hit a post summer routine and suddenly you're on hosting duty every week.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  That's when you really need to ground yourself.

• 34:57Dax Shepard?

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

• 35:34Speaker 01

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

• 35:38Dax Shepard?

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

• 35:46Speaker 01

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

• 35:55Dax Shepard?

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

• 36:06Speaker 01

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

• 36:17Dax Shepard?

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

• 36:28Speaker 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.

• 36:45Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Recently.

• 36:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 36:47Speaker 01

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

• 36:51Dax Shepard?

  Temperature was all over the map.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  It was a mess. I need a new one.

• 36:54Dax Shepard?

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• 37:09Speaker 01

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• 37:15Dax Shepard?

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• 37:39Dax Shepard?

  Did you ever find your groove in high school or no? My school is, it's kind of a wash.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  At a really large school, it wasn't unusually large for that area. I had like 650 in my graduating class. Virginia Beach has very highly rated public schools. So great schools, great teachers, wasn't any issue. It wasn't until I moved to DC and then definitely when I moved to New York that I. Sad, but I'm glad that I did wake up and realize that not everybody has access to great public schools. Like where I was from, going to private school was strange. It was either going to be the military one or the other one. No shade to these schools. They both were great schools, but usually the parents were taking you out of one of our schools because of discipline problems.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Same.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  And putting you in the, so I was like, private school, ooh.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it was huge. And I bring that up because it was constantly fluctuating, whether I was popular or not popular. But even when I was not popular, there's another table of people that I could go still hang out with. I never felt alone. Like my awesome stepsons were in smaller private schools and they did great and their schools are great. But when you go through inevitably any period where out of the blue, these kids, they don't like you because your pants today.

• 38:50Dax Shepard?

  There's nowhere to go.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Nope. If 10 of 12 kids don't like you on Monday.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Horrible.

• 38:55Dax Shepard?

  You're persona non grata.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. I'd be in tears because this group was calling me thunder thighs, which happened a lot. But then it was, I know. All the teachers though would say like, wait till you get in the real world. You know, the one where you'd have like five exams on the same day, backpacks with so many books that like you're falling over. Stressing out over your grades, then getting called thunder thighs at gym class and having to change in front of everyone. And they're like, wait till you get in the real world. I have news for kids. There is nothing, if you're being bullied right now, what's the awesome like bully slogan they're trying to get out there? It gets better. It does. Nothing will ever be.

• 39:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  My apologies to those who've had horrible trauma after school, but I think you know what I'm talking about.

• 39:35Dax Shepard?

  The utility of it, right? It's like, if you can make it through there, man, it doesn't get harder. You're never in a job that's that insane with like the cliques within a job or anything else.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  Although there still are, let's face it. You were just talking about the good tables and the bad tables, having an award ceremony. It's like, are we still doing this?

• 39:52Dax Shepard?

  But the guy, but Leonardo DiCaprio didn't turn around and throw a roll at anyone. No, it does. It does reach its apex.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Though you'd be like, ah, yay.

• 40:03Dax Shepard?

  I know that you decided to act once you were George Mason. Yeah. Then you moved. Why did you move to DC?

• 40:10Speaker 02

  Well, I went to George Mason University. I did not do any research on your schools like you're supposed to. I was very concerned about debt. I had an insane paranoid fear of debt. I don't know. I must have heard or read somewhere sometime that school loan debt or credit card debt. I think I put something on layaway once. Remember layaway?

• 40:31Dax Shepard?

  Kmart had layaway.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  And had to pay the interest on it. I just paid six times more for this thing. Like it freaked me out so badly. And I was already thinking, at the time, before I went to college, I was thinking, I'm gonna try to make a living as a painter. And I was like, I'm screwed if I come out of there with debt. Like, how the hell is that gonna work?

• 40:49Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  So I didn't apply to where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to NYU. I wanted to go to SCAD. I wanted to go to San Francisco Art Institute, Chicago Art Institute. But I was terrified of two things. One, if I didn't get in, then I've been fooling myself that I'm good enough at art, that I'm special in any way that I'm gonna be able to make a living at this. And two, the cost of it. My dad was definitely on the last parts of his alcoholism. And my dad was awesome until he wasn't. I understood that it was a very real threat that he might not be able to help me pay for this very, very soon. My mom was very supportive of me going to school, but wasn't in a financial place to help. So George Mason was considered one of the best public schools in Virginia.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  My friend, Julio, who was one of my best friends, her older sister was a super cool gal, just like my sister was. And she drove a Honda Prelude.

• 41:46Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, those are cool.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  She knew all the words to all the Duran Duran songs.

• 41:49Dax Shepard?

  I like her.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  She had a really cool asymmetrical cut, and she always knew everything cool before anybody else. And she went to George Mason. So I was like, obviously this school's cool. Never visited. Had never been there. Nothing.

• 41:59Dax Shepard?

  You knew all you needed to know. She went there.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  But that's how most people are making their college decision. It's financial first and foremost and like proximity.

• 42:08Dax Shepard?

  You know, somebody.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  You know, someone's like, sure, that's my option.

• 42:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, they did it.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  If I had gone to an art conservatory program, I wouldn't have ever admitted because I was terrified. And again, like, sometimes I was popular. I'm not saying like I never was, although it imprinted on me how ridiculous and trivial it is, what's popular and what isn't. Because it would just be like, I changed my hair and then they liked me in eighth grade. And then ninth grade, something went wrong with, I don't know, some jeans I was wearing and then it was boo again.

• 42:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Shaving was a big step forward in one period because I was being called hairy girl.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Oh, I was also called woolly mammoth, but that was for my arms. So then I did have to shave my arms.

• 42:50Dax Shepard?

  You weren't in an acting group called Woolly Mammoth, no? What was it called?

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 42:54Dax Shepard?

  That was a real ding ding ding moment there. Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  But I would have never admitted or had the chance to take an acting class. If I hadn't been in a BA program, if I had gone to just a painting school, it wouldn't have occurred to me, because at George Mason, you had to take another class in the arts that was not within your major. I think two, actually. So I took like a dance class that was really fun. And I was like, well, I'll just take a basic acting class. But it was completely outside of anything of anybody I knew to make your living as an actor. At the time, I thought, you live in Hollywood and you know Hollywood people. Or, and let's face it, if you look back at like 80s, American television and movies, or you look like a model. And I was neither of those things. So I was like, I don't even want to tell people. It would be akin to saying, I think I'm a supermodel.

• 43:41Dax Shepard?

  Right. Very tall poppy to think you could be an actor. Yes.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  I also didn't understand the craft to it. I was obsessed with film and television, constantly doing anything I could to earn more TV time. And I knew, how come this person's believable and that person isn't?

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Is it just magic fairy dust? Anything would be your author. I was like, how come I believe Maude? But I don't believe this person. Thankfully, my first acting class was all script analysis, all technique. No feel-good emotions, kind of like ethereal stuff. Took all those classes later. But it was the first time, and it was Lenny Ray Buck, it was the first time that I understood, oh, this is something that you can put your head down and work hard at and get better. I was like, I can do that. I can't do anything about a lot of other stuff, but I know how to put my head down and do my work.

• 44:28Dax Shepard?

  Right, right, right. So DC was just closest and they had a theater scene?

• 44:33Speaker 02

  To me, it might as well been Manhattan because I'd never been in any kind of big city. I think it was my first semester because it was still a fine arts class and we did field trips to galleries and museums. I thought it was a city. Nick at Night used to be, you're too young for this, but you remember? Nick at Night used to be old sitcoms playing late at night. It wasn't kids, it wasn't kids programming. Yeah. So I remember watching That Girl and being like, I'm gonna live in a big city. That's where the artists are. And so that's what DC was to me. And in fact, I still love DC. I still think it's some of the best theater in the world. I think my first play I saw there was at Woolly Mammoth Theater for an acting class assignment. Blown away. We didn't go to any theater growing up. School field trip, you were forced to watch some touring production of Julius Caesar or something, but that was about it.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  The Woolly Mammoth Theater was all new plays, often provocative plays. I literally didn't know that there are plays that could speak to you in the same contemporary way that a great film or television show is.

• 45:28Dax Shepard?

  I was just gonna say, like, when you realize there's modern plays, when you're a kid, the only thing you're exposed to is like, it's almost like a history lesson. Like, you're gonna see, you know, Dickens.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  And there were friends, there's a lot of classical theater in DC as well. And some of those productions were gorgeous, but I immediately gravitated towards the new place. They were always doing super dark comedies twisted, which is still pretty much my jam.

• 45:50Dax Shepard?

  How long did you stay in DC doing theater?

• 45:53Speaker 02

  About 11 years.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  After I graduated. I started working professionally while I was still in college.

• 46:01Dax Shepard?

  You were doing industrials and stuff, right?

• 46:03Speaker 02

  There's no agents in that town. You make your little postcards yourself and you start a non-union theater. And I would offer to usher for free if I could watch the plays over and over, which is a huge way to learn. Backstage running crew, volunteer box office, volunteer reading stage directions for new plays in a basement. Just so that I wouldn't be a complete stranger when I dropped by my postcard for my little show I'm doing with six friends in an alley somewhere. Eventually, maybe the city paper, which was kind of like Village Voice, would come review it. And then that might get you in a slightly better non-union theater. And then eventually a union theater giving you a tiny part. And then it's take a long time to get an equity card.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:44Dax Shepard?

  So if you spent 11 years in DC, next up is New York.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Then I went to New York.

• 46:48Dax Shepard?

  That's a long time to be somewhere. And then eventually, what was the fire that you're like, you know what, I'm now going to New York?

• 46:55Speaker 02

  I'm trying to make sure I did the math right, too, because then New York was two and a half years before I got a sitcom that flew me out to LA. I was just doing the math the other day that I've been doing this as a job for about 30, 33 years, which is crazy.

• 47:09Dax Shepard?

  Longer than you've not done this job.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  It's weird. And I love it. The exact same, the exact same as I did the very first day.

• 47:18Dax Shepard?

  Wowzers. I'm impressed with the stamina.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Love, love it.

• 47:21Dax Shepard?

  But was there some opportunity up there? Did you follow a lover?

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Anything, I had to go backwards. A lot of the context just didn't translate. I was working consistently in DC theater. I was able to quit my day job, which is such a huge milepost to get past. It wasn't about this town's too small. There were still people that still are some of my acting idols. And I wasn't yet playing leads. I looked younger than I was and was a very physical actor. And so was frequently cast as like teenagers and 20-year-olds as well.

• 47:53Dax Shepard?

  Which are generally the leads.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they are generally the really fun part. I was often the character part, not romantic lead, which then went triple fold when I decided to do TV and film. I guess I went to New York, you know what it was, is a lot of the plays that Woolly Mammoth would develop with the playwright often. We would help them flush out characters, would then go to New York and New York would not take our cast. Sometimes not even let you audition for it.

• 48:18Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  It needed to be a famous person or somebody that has Juilliard in the bio.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Or NYU. And it really bummed me out. And I took buses up there to see these plays. And they were great. And there was great people. There was no, you know, arms folded like, I did that better. It was always like, they were great, but I just thought, well, I want access to all the theaters.

• 48:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  And I thought, might as well go now.

• 48:40Dax Shepard?

  And was the first, you got an understudy role in a Broadway show, 45 seconds, what is it?

• 48:46Speaker 02

  You've really memorized all your homework. You're so good. It was called, it is called, it's a play called 45 Seconds From Broadway.

• 48:53Dax Shepard?

  45 Seconds From Broadway.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  The reason I'm stumbling is because everyone called it 45 Seconds On Broadway because it closed so fast.

• 48:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay. Well, that's a clever joke.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  It's the only Neil Simon play to ever be a flop.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  I think it was his last play that he wrote, too. And it was his love letter to the Edison Diner that was across the street from the Richard Rogers Theater where we were doing it. But also, to be fair, we previewed right after 9/11.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Oh, not great.

• 49:17Dax Shepard?

  Not ideal.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. There was that.

• 49:20Dax Shepard?

  Rough time.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  I was going to rehearsals, crossing Times Square, not a soul. One of the weirdest things you've ever seen. No one on the subway.

• 49:26Dax Shepard?

  Vanilla Sky style.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. We were still being told on the radio, don't go to public gathering places. Yeah. They still hadn't figured out, they still haven't figured out who was sending anthrax to everybody. It was a crazy time. And Jerry Zax was directing and he's notorious for, even though I was an understudy, that you have to be at every single rehearsal, even if they're not your scenes. And you also needed to be at every single performance. It used to be you would show up and if your actor that you're understudying is there and capable, you can leave. Sometimes you'd have to be on a pager maybe, but you could go home or go to a restaurant. No.

• 49:57Dax Shepard?

  Really quick, I don't know anything about the history of theater. Has that happened where someone like twisted an ankle and then mid-show we swap them out?

• 50:03Speaker 02

  We should find out. We should find out.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  I'm sure it's happened. It has to have happened.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  Jerry used to tell us, like, because we were all in the basement, full costume and makeup, waiting. And you're listening to the monitor and he would tell us if somebody falls.

• 50:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Trying to make their entrance or in the middle of a line, I expect you to finish the line. So we were down there like, and if anybody just did like a dramatic pause one night that they didn't normally do, you'd shit your pants. We were dying.

• 50:30Dax Shepard?

  What brings you to LA?

• 50:32Speaker 02

  A sitcom called I'm With Her that was loosely based on Chris Henchey's real life of dating Brooke Shields.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  What if a regular guy had to date the most famous, most beautiful woman in the world?

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Also, regular guy in quotes. He's also pretty famous.

• 50:46Dax Shepard?

  He was a little lower.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  He is now, but then they met. They met. He was a writer on Suddenly Susan.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  And Marco Pennant was the other producer on it. Brooke was, she said this publicly, she was going to play herself.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  But she got pregnant and Terry Polo played the famous person. David Sutcliffe was the boyfriend in the show. He's a teacher, though. And then Danny Comden and I were the fuck up character parts.

• 51:13Dax Shepard?

  And so that brings you to LA.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:15Dax Shepard?

  It's so encouraging to see someone stick with it and then have massive success later.

• 51:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:23Dax Shepard?

  What is quite intriguing to me is someone who battles the war of attrition with endless dedication. And then probably what I'm most interested in is like, there has to be moments where you're like, you know what? Fuck this. I'm going back to theater. I'm doing this. Weathering all of those start stops and getting excited and fuck, now we're back here. That's a grueling experience that takes a lot of stamina and resolve. And I just wonder, like, what was your north star through all that?

• 51:54Speaker 02

  The move from LA to New York and having to really almost totally start over with casting directors getting to know me and crashing auditions, couldn't get representation because I'd never even had an agent and now I need one. Those were some tough years.

• 52:09Dax Shepard?

  Where you started thinking backup plan a little bit or no?

• 52:12Speaker 02

  No, never.

• 52:13Dax Shepard?

  No, okay.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  The only thing I thought was it's possible I'm gonna have to get a day job again.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  And I've thought that at multiple times, years after that as well. I lost my insurance one time while in LA. It was just because this show didn't go. And that was back when we had a pilot season. So if you didn't get cast in something then, you most likely weren't gonna have a job for another 10 months.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I lost my insurance. I was like, shit, I'm gonna have to get a day job. I lived very, very, very frugally in hopes that I wouldn't have to get a day job. But that's all I ever thought was, I wonder if this is gonna have to be something I do in my off time, like plays that are only on weekends or something. But give it up now.

• 52:51Dax Shepard?

  You had a lot more moments of encouragement. I guess for me personally.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  I did.

• 52:54Dax Shepard?

  I had been here for eight years and auditioning all the time for commercials and I couldn't get them.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  I couldn't get commercials. Tried, tried for years.

• 53:01Dax Shepard?

  Everyone at the Groundlings was like in 12 commercials and they had fucking condos and cars and shit. And I do remember when the punked audition came around, it was like you had to improv.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 53:11Dax Shepard?

  You had to be great at improv.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:13Dax Shepard?

  And you had to not be afraid of confrontation. And I did say to myself, there's never gonna be one more on a platter for you. If you cannot book this, we have to get a little more realistic about the future. And that's the moment, I think, that's a little more specific. I mean, is like, you can lose faith in yourself.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  I did. And I used to really beat myself up too. For years, I actually don't think it was until Better Call Saul, because a friend of mine was like, you have to stop this or I'm gonna stop it for you. I would save the sides from every part I didn't get.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  And then every now and then, if I was getting really down on myself, I'd say, well, this weekend, you're gonna go over all those sides and try to figure out what you fucked up.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. The flagellation, self-flagellation.

• 53:58Dax Shepard?

  The masochism. I can still relate to it.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it got scary. And also, they would sometimes call me in and I'm just trying to make the role three dimensional. That's what I believe my job is. But I had lost weight. I was blonde, blue eyed. So suddenly I'm being sent in for girlfriend roles where I'm really not supposed to be making them interesting. That is a problem.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  But I got told in my face so many times, not hot enough to actually be the romantically, but not ugly enough to be the character part.

• 54:25Dax Shepard?

  There's nothing I can relate to more than I feel like the purgatory of being, it was like, I wasn't character looking enough. I am not good looking enough to get the lead of any of these things.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  That shit was hard.

• 54:36Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it was very real.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Very hard. I got walked out of an audition once with a casting director. And the fact that she said this with a tone that like, she's being an ally, made it worse. We're walking out and she goes, you're obviously the best person for the job, but you and I both know they're gonna have to get somebody hot. And I was like, am I supposed to nod?

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  Am I supposed to argue that I'm hot? I was like, I don't even know. I just shut up.

• 54:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. It can really do a number on you.

• 55:02Dax Shepard?

  Really quick, back to dad. How aware were you that he was dying of alcoholism?

• 55:06Speaker 02

  Not as aware as I would have thought it was. My sister says she knew.

• 55:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  Before we were told. I had to be told. I just thought he was very moody. He was towards the last five years of it, extremely irritable about things that seemed ludicrous. Like how noisy it was in Shoney's.

• 55:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Oh, Shoney's.

• 55:27Dax Shepard?

  Love the story, Shoney's. If you're possessed, Shoney's, something's wrong.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  No.

• 55:31Dax Shepard?

  Because they got a great salad bar.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 55:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  My dad's was more Mad Men style where it just was normal to have martinis at lunch.

• 55:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  And then came home and had drinks.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Is that a problem?

• 55:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Monica's asking for a friend.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  I'm sort of living that life currently, so.

• 55:46Dax Shepard?

  Did you have any thoughts about like whether you should or shouldn't drink?

• 55:49Speaker 02

  I didn't drink from 19 to 32.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 55:54Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah, there you go.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  And it wasn't so much like, oh, my God, I'm terrified I'll be becoming alcoholic or die from it, to be honest. It was me truly believing, and I still do, that my dad was covering up some emotions and feelings and thoughts that needed professional help.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  And so for me, I thought, oh, I wanna make sure, because I was drinking a lot in high school. That was the other thing is, we all knew the kids that got to college who weren't allowed to do anything and then they went cuckoo town.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Sleeping with everybody, drinking everything, all that. But I was, my mom was really great with not overreacting to me experimenting with different things. And so I didn't go crazy when I got to college, but I do remember after he died thinking, I wanna make sure I can develop other tools to deal with things that I already were problems. I already had panic attacks. I already had depression problems. I already had anxiety problems, extreme social anxiety.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Good for you at 19 for being able to realize it. That's young.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  But I waited another 10 plus years to get professional help and unfortunately, wish I had done that.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  It got worse.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  Much sooner. Yes. And when I don't stick with my professional help, I do start drinking too much. Not like.

• 57:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  But just when you know, this is for the wrong reasons. This is not to enjoy a glass of wine. This is to not think the things you're thinking.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  This is to numb out.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. One of my big coping things for a long time before I got any help, basically what turned out to be a lot of OCD behavior. And I totally thought I was covering this shit.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  And from that same play, the 45 seconds from Broadway, another one of the understudies, why can't I think of his name right now? So lovely. He had a very big brother kind of energy. All I was doing was coming to work and we were understudies in the basement together and rehearsals that I didn't know him socially. We never went out anywhere. And he just says to me one day, and I still don't know what he was watching or witnessing, but he just goes, hey, I know it's none of my business, but I just wanted you to know that you don't have to live the way you're living. And I was like, what? I don't, what, what, what? And he goes, I don't mean anything, but I just, I know a lot of great therapists and.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Stuff and you don't have to. And I was like, mm, this must be showing.

• 58:07Dax Shepard?

  Did you get defensive and hate him or were you?

• 58:09Speaker 02

  I didn't.

• 58:10Dax Shepard?

  Okay, that's nice.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Good for you.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Because I had been pretty much forced to see therapists before. If your dad dies while you're in college, it was like mandatory. Any introduction I had had with everything from Al-Anon to therapy had been forced. With threat of punishment.

• 58:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's not the way.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  And was an environment that was extraordinarily unhelpful. For a long time, that was why I wouldn't get help in any of those areas. And then thankfully, when he suggested this therapist that I went to, she was a dream. I was literally like, do you know the first time somebody, smart and compassionate, that's not your friend, says, ooh, that must have been terrible. That's a horrible thing to say to a kid. I'm sorry you went through it. And you're just like.

• 58:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  I'm not crazy.

• 58:58Dax Shepard?

  Yes. You're just waiting to find out you're that crazy. Do you have any tics?

• 59:03Speaker 02

  I was counting things and I still do it. Do you know what an Euler circuit is?

• 59:07Dax Shepard?

  Euler circuit?

• 59:08Speaker 02

  E U L E R.

• 59:09Dax Shepard?

  No, tell me that.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  It's like a vocal warmup?

• 59:11Speaker 02

  No. So I had to take one math class. I'm not good at math and it makes me sad, but I had to take a math class for college. I thought statistics and in my head, even though Malcolm Gladwell's books weren't out yet, that's what I thought the class was gonna be, like behavioral statistics.

• 59:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fun.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  It was not. It was hard as shit. But one of the things we learned was an Euler circuit, that's an equation. I'm not exactly sure how they explain what it measures, but the most famous example of it is the snowplows in New York have to use Euler circuits. It is to figure out the most efficient way to do a route so you're not backtracking.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Uh-huh.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  I was fascinated by this. And then later, when the OCD was happening and I'm living in Manhattan and I'm leaving from L train in Brooklyn to go into the city, you gotta be able to check the right payphones that you know are working to see if you have any messages, to see if you have an audition. You also need to not get very far away from the Equity Building, which is the only free place you can go to the bathroom.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:08Speaker 02

  Because they can afford to buy things every time you go in somewhere or Barnes and Noble.

• 1:00:12Dax Shepard?

  You're like an Amazon robot in the warehouse.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  Trying to figure out. And so then it's supposed to office, but then I'm gonna go buy food in Porium because I also need groceries. But that's gonna have to be last because otherwise it'll go bad. But I don't wanna carry my dry cleaning. I would sit and try to figure out the most efficient route and trains. And it got so bad, I needed black and white answers. Nothing could be gray or nuanced.

• 1:00:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  And I would tell myself, a smarter person can figure this out. And so it got to the point where I never left the house. I never did it.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  Not never, but that day when I was supposed to run errands, none of them got done.

• 1:00:45Dax Shepard?

  Because it was overwhelming.

• 1:00:46Speaker 02

  Because I can't figure out the perfect route.

• 1:00:47Dax Shepard?

  To get the route wrong.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  I'm not sure that that's the perfect route. I'm, yeah, maybe. Or what if the G train would be better? And over and over and over and over and over and over.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  The level of anxieties.

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  Anything I was reading, I would read over and over and over because a smarter person would have gleaned more from it.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:01:03Dax Shepard?

  I would have loved to have talked. Talk to you in this period.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  It pops up.

• 1:01:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  It still pops up now and then.

• 1:01:09Dax Shepard?

  Good, good, yeah.

• 1:01:09Speaker 02

  But yeah, I mean, those were things too that I was telling the therapist and she was like, okay, so you know, that's not very productive. And I was like,

• 1:01:17Dax Shepard?

  What do you mean?

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Everyone else is just reading at once.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  It answers when you are looking at the sides over and over. It's like, there's like a compulsion about you being bad or wrong or not smart or something.

• 1:01:27Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  And none of, yeah.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  Which my dad, when drinking, obviously with his job, he could find your jugular very easily.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:35Speaker 02

  And poke at it. He never screamed. He was not a rager, but he would go after your intelligence. It was his number one thing to do would be to tell my sister that we're not smart enough.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  What you tell these children.

• 1:01:47Dax Shepard?

  I know. And now that I'm a parent, I'm trying to think like, I don't know. I'm trying to imagine what the person thinks in that moment they're quote, helping their kids with, right? You maybe in your most generous state, you can go like, well, their goal probably wasn't to destroy my confidence in my intelligence. It probably was to tell me that is the most valuable commodity and you gotta be on it. I don't know. You wonder what they were thinking in this warped mind.

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  When he was in a healthier state, he would say things like really wanting me to make sure that I am independent as a woman and I have financial independence and that I am only ever with a man by choice, not because I need to be. And so I think they probably went together.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:32Dax Shepard?

  And then they just get kind of, yeah.

• 1:02:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. The underlying anxiety is what if I don't get to do this?

• 1:02:39Dax Shepard?

  Ah, yeah. I want to do one thing on this planet and I might not be able to get to do it. And what do we do now?

• 1:02:44Speaker 02

  And knowing that is the case for most people in our union.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like the statistics.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  Statistically.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  We'll tell you.

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  The case. And as far as the narrative of how people look at what's going on with me now, I'm very proud that a number of people in our business have told me and very happy have told me that it gives them hope, not hope to stick with it. And some of these people are actors and actresses that have been working a long time, but that the storytelling world is opening up a little bit for you to not have to be 25 to be the lead of a show.

• 1:03:16Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  Pluribus did very well with 18 to 25 year old males, which they keep thinking only want to watch a certain thing. And I'm like, I don't know. Apparently if you build it, they will come. I'm not saying I'm why they're watching it, but Vince's writing is strong. If the writing is strong, like they don't care if it's not a 20 year old.

• 1:03:33Dax Shepard?

  Well, no, what you're experiencing right now does not happen in 1980.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:03:37Dax Shepard?

  It doesn't happen in 1990. Does, you know, this is a new phenomenon. You are a woman not in her twenties that is carrying a show is fucking awesome and should be encouraging to all people doing all things.

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  Thank you. I mean, Vince would tell you stories like, you know, everybody turned Breaking Bad down. So Vince wouldn't be who Vince is now and being able to greenlight this show that everybody was like, how the hell do you even categorize this? What are we even saying this show is? It's a science teacher that gets cancer and because he thinks he's going to die, he becomes a meth kingpin. And then the whole thing's depressing. They were like, what?

• 1:04:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  What are you talking about? Oh, that's a middle aged dude. Is that fine?

• 1:04:15Dax Shepard?

  So obviously Saul's like the first big chunk of bedrock, right? You're on that for seven years.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  I think it's six seasons over a period of seven years.

• 1:04:24Dax Shepard?

  Does it take you a while to settle into that, to trust that this roller coaster might have found some kind of stability and I can trust that I'll be okay now? How long does that take?

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  That part does take a while. And it was two things going on. One was an immediate realization that is not justified, but it is what it is of the way people, fans and journalists and media treat you if you're doing what is considered prestige drama versus sitcoms.

• 1:04:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  It was a very sharp change. It was like, because we all know, if you're really doing comedy and sitcom comedy, if you're doing it really well, it should look like you're not doing any work at all. And it's,

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  It's the hardest job.

• 1:05:07Speaker 02

  It's a shit ton of work.

• 1:05:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  But I don't think one is easier than the other, but it was just very interesting to me that suddenly they were talking to me about craft. And I was like, oh, I think I'm being taken seriously as an actor in a way that I haven't been since I was on stage. When I was on stage, I was. And I did comedy and drama back and forth all the time and it was not an issue.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  But then you really get pigeonholed, but then you're lucky because your friend right next to you isn't getting called for anything. She's like, don't be so sad you're called for another sitcom, dude. And I wasn't, I loved them, by the way. So there was that realization. And also I was a huge Breaking Bad fan. I understood that this writing immediately, even in the first script, I was like, oh, these people like grow and change. You know, I watched Breaking Bad. And even my first conversations with Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould and the other actors, they reminded me so much of theater, deep deconstruction of scenes and rehearsals and really breaking things down. So I understood that something about the work had changed and I was also being given a platform to show more nuanced work. But I also would always have in the back of my head, what if I don't ever get cast again? What if this is it?

• 1:06:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  And then you become petrified that you're going to be written off the show. And then when it was ending, you know, and I was lucky enough to be considered for some other shows, but longing for the environment that I knew that was not just what I thought was some of the best writing I've ever read in my life, but his environment that he creates, the set, it is like having 300 people every day. You coming in with something that you're like, I'm not sure I can pull off this scene. This is harder than I've ever, and all 300 people are like, Monica's, Monica can do it. You're about to ace it. Let's go fucking do this. Like, it's crazy uplifting.

• 1:06:40Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:06:46Dax 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

• 1:07:28Dax Shepard?

  into everything they teach. 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 from Skims. Okay, I have a confession. I genuinely love matching pajamas. It's the best part of Christmas morning, really. Everyone in the same matching set looking ridiculously cute in front of the tree.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

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

• 1:08:21Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

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

• 1:08:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  It is so comfortable, very chic too. The top is a button down, but very, very soft, easy to sleep in. But as I said before, you can multi-purpose this and look super cute.

• 1:08:51Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:09:01Speaker 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.

• 1:09:20Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:10:05Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:10:27Dax Shepard?

  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. 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

• 1:11:10Dax Shepard?

  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.

• 1:11:37Dax Shepard?

  Well, A, I don't know anything about how Vince works, but I read enough interviews of you today that I learned this. I admire so much people who don't claim to know the answers to everything. And it sounds very much when you and Bob are talking with one another in an interview about the process. What I heard, and maybe I misread this, but it sounds like he's fine with saying, I don't really know where this goes. I don't know what this show is yet. Or this person, Jesse's gonna die in the first episode. Or, you know, all these things, like, the flexibility, the amount of confidence that takes to let everyone explore together and find out together is like so rare. And I feel like must be so special.

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  It is special. And yet you're looking at him going like, I know that there's a genius part going on in there because clearly you do have an architecture where the tiniest thing back in season two was paying off in season seven. And I've asked him about those things, like the stuffed animal floating in the pool. And like, you had to have nowhere and come. And he's like, I didn't.

• 1:12:35Dax Shepard?

  He said he keeps saying he likes to paint himself into a corner.

• 1:12:38Speaker 02

  He was like, he wouldn't suggest it for anybody. It's a terrible way to write.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  That is a genius.

• 1:12:42Speaker 02

  But there is an architecture of Pluribus. There was an architect, I mean, like Better Call Saul is a prequel. So you already know there's certain architecture that has to show up and be the way it is. But he does, and he did say Jesse was gonna be dead in like one season. My character was just gonna move away in one season. Michael McKean's character Chuck was gonna be the totally sympathetic invalid that stays home. Jimmy would become Saul Goodman, complete transformation by the end of season one. And the only way you saw his soft side was because he had to take care of his invalid brother. But Michael McKean was playing it with such gravitas that he was like, this is like Shakespearean, these two brothers, the way their relationship is. And then he started liking what I was doing without dialogue, but just being in Jimmy's presence and stuff. I don't know.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  So he just likes to plant a lot of seeds and see what's blooming.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. God, so cool.

• 1:13:31Dax Shepard?

  I'm sure you've talked about this more than you want to, but I am fascinated. You guys all live together on Saul?

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  You did?

• 1:13:37Dax Shepard?

  This thing's crazy. They're all in one house. Well, not everyone, but several cast members. Patrick, you and?

• 1:13:43Speaker 02

  Patrick, Bob and me lived together for most of the seasons. Yes.

• 1:13:47Dax Shepard?

  What is that? Tell me about that. Is it Melrose Place? Is it so fun? Does it make me an allocation?

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  Everyone's like, oh, you should have filmed it and made a whole second show. And I was like, people would be so bored. Like, it is a nerd-a-thon happening is what's going on. And like, my only concern, because Patrick and Bob lived together first, I think, second season, and I had said no, because I got along with them so well. And both of them are like my brothers, but you're like, that doesn't mean we'll be good roommates. And also, I'm freakish about my alone time.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Speaker 02

  And I have two sides of me that are very extrovert introverts.

• 1:14:18Dax Shepard?

  Well, I was gonna say, your job is extroversion. You need to get home and recharge.

• 1:14:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. Which often involves like Lego sets and staring at a wall in a corner.

• 1:14:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, redoing that row every fucking 12 minutes.

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  We always got places, though, that had areas you could be alone, and then more communal areas. And it worked out great. We often didn't have the same hours. But I don't know, like, you ended up with tons of time alone if you wanted it. And also, all three of us are close enough that you can say for real, like, dude, I don't want to talk. But we also, it just ended up that if you're in the kitchen, you need to be prepared for the fact that you might be asked to read lines.

• 1:15:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  If you wanna get your food and then like, move to another room, that's fine. If you hang in here.

• 1:15:08Dax Shepard?

  You're gonna be running the scene a few times. That's rad as well, though.

• 1:15:11Speaker 02

  It started out of necessity, because especially Bob had so many lines. But that show had very naturalistic moments in the style of the acting, but it actually was a bit outside of naturalism. The writing, like, people wax poetic. It was extremely verbal, and you did it to the letter.

• 1:15:29Dax Shepard?

  Monologuing, right?

• 1:15:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. You did not change a single word. And so we would drill and drill and drill and drill and drill lines, because we wanted all the takes to be about finding performance. Because Vince and Peter would write, and Tom and Jen and all the other great writers on it. You could have an eight to 12 page scene of just two people talking, and the map of what's going on underneath could be done a thousand different ways. And they're interested in all thousand.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:55Speaker 02

  Which is so fun as an actor, but you don't want lines to be your problem. You need to know them backwards.

• 1:16:00Dax Shepard?

  You got bigger fish to fry.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  So we would run them and run them and run them and drill them and drill. And you even drilled line, like, if Patrick had scenes with people that weren't one of us, we would still just drill those. And we always invited guest stars over to do rehearsals so that they felt comfortable when we go to set.

• 1:16:12Dax Shepard?

  It's just so wild to have a 12-page scene. That just doesn't exist in any other.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  We still do eight pages, six pages scenes all the time, and you shoot them for the whole day. But that's also the visual language that's likes, like, I was trying to explain to my mom the other day. I said, when you're watching a show, and again, it's not good or bad, it's just different. It's the style that he wants, the visual vocabulary he wants. If you start paying attention to how many times you think that camera has moved, ours is a lot. And I know he said this publicly, if you really let him shoot for as long as he wanted to, he wishes you would never cut back to the same angle twice.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:16:45Dax Shepard?

  So bazillion setups.

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  Bilzillion. You're doing a scene because it's here, and then it's here, and then it's here.

• 1:16:50Dax Shepard?

  God bless you.

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  Never indulgent, though. He always says he's not a good director explaining things. It's not true. It's so much fun. All the directors and writers that he hires have such specific, interesting things they want you to try. You never feel like you're just being exploited.

• 1:17:05Dax Shepard?

  We must talk Pluribus. Again, I know this is an annoying question, but I have to do it. Because Kristen and I debated so much. I mean, first and foremost, obviously, I fucking love that show. Congratulations. My God. I wanted to mention, too, that you were nominated. You won a Critics' Choice for Saul. You were spectacular on that show. You were nominated a couple of times for Emmys, right?

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:27Dax Shepard?

  Pluribus, we have debated so much while watching it, if it is a metaphor for something. I know this is annoying. I know people are driving nuts about this. I'm not asking you to tell me if it, what it's a metaphor, but I am curious, has it been expressed to you if it is a metaphor for something?

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  No. What has been expressed to me that I do believe is sincere is that Vince wants it to be able to receive all of the interpretations. They're all correct. He is staying true to his very specific, personal, unique exploration of questions he's grappling with about what it means to be human. I understand why people are like, well, it's obviously in response to AI. But AI existed 10, 12 years ago when he started writing this, but it wasn't a debate topic.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:18:14Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:18:15Speaker 02

  Then other people are like, it's about COVID. It's about isolation. It hadn't happened yet.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  People are really projecting.

• 1:18:21Dax Shepard?

  I like the ruling it out part. But then I read one word that I felt like confirmed my hunch, which was Vince sometimes feels like he's a missing throw.

• 1:18:31Speaker 02

  He has said publicly, there is a large part of him in Carol.

• 1:18:34Dax Shepard?

  I mean, that's why art is so awesome. You do project onto it. You see confirmation. I do think there's this kind of fantasy collectivism, that if we all just behave like, name the group we idolize for being so cooperative and so collective, that that would somehow be a utopia. And I very much think that's bullshit. And so, of course, that's what I projected onto it. I'm like, this is somehow a comment on this, you know?

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  That makes sense.

• 1:19:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Okay. Do you get to think about it in your own way? Do you yourself assign one?

• 1:19:05Speaker 02

  I reflect on it pretty much after the fact. I try to keep my head in the game while I'm doing it, that I have the great luxury of Carol can't figure out what's going on. When people are like, do you know the actual signals work? And I was like, not supposed to. So I don't matter. Ram's face full. I'm just playing when I'm playing.

• 1:19:24Dax Shepard?

  Well, it wouldn't be useful to you as the actor in the scene, except you have a distrust and a distaste for what you're observing. And I think there you would be free to assign what it is you hate about this thing. Not that you need to do it publicly.

• 1:19:40Speaker 02

  I mean, it's kind of almost the way you talk about, like, doing comedy, and for the most part, keeping it real, and the stakes real is what's funnier.

• 1:19:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you can't know what's funny.

• 1:19:48Speaker 02

  But I've also done comedies with people who cannot get the rhythm of a comedy. They're playing it for real, for like, they literally are doing it like a Mike Lee film. And I'm like, it's very hard to explain, like, no, the stakes are real, but you have to be aware of the piece you're in. And so, it's the same kind of thing where a part of your brain is just being Carol, but a part of me knows, oh, I get the point we're making here, though. And another part knows that this is funny. Sometimes the funny was on a page. Sometimes the funny is something we just, like, the pilot when I'm talking to the TV. Vince kept reminding me, I want this person to be an absolute reluctant hero that is a real person in the middle of such a non-real circumstance. And so, he would remind me, like, the more

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  I drilled down on, okay, what would somebody actually do? And Carol has different flaws and skills and strengths than I do. But just thinking about, like, I don't even know, I still feel flustered. And so I was so flustered talking on the phone and trying to piece together, like, am I talking to a person through my TV, but it's on the phone? Like, I took the phone away to motion about the crazy kids, and then realized, like, oh, he can't hear me unless the phone's here. And then started just dying laughing. And then he kept that. So we were always looking for comedy born out of the reality situation.

• 1:21:07Dax Shepard?

  That's kind of the most rewarding, right? When it's like, something really happened organically, and only when they all cut, do you recognize, like, oh, that was fantastically preposterous.

• 1:21:15Speaker 02

  But we definitely, I mean, the, like, late nights in my cast, we would have debates about stuff all the time. I mean, everyone was just cringing during that scene with the awesome Jeff Hiller, when you find out that your partner secretly didn't think you were actually a good writer. It's like, anybody in the arts, like, that's your fear.

• 1:21:31Dax Shepard?

  And your great suspicion.

• 1:21:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. It was fine. She knew it was popular. It was like popcorn. It's like,

• 1:21:40Speaker 02

  yeah.

• 1:21:43Speaker 02

  That was fun. You know, and then other times, like, we were constantly going back and forth about who's manipulating whom, between me and Zolsha, played by the frickin' brilliant Carolina Woodruff. Because she's very protective of her character, but her character has this dictum, like, that they have got to try to change everybody, no matter how much you don't want it, and that this is the loving thing to do. But so, would you be manipulative? And Vince would say stuff like, Are you being manipulative as a parent when you trick your kid into wearing a coat when it's cold outside?

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:22:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:16Speaker 02

  But it's because it's better for them. And so we were like, are you manipulating her? And then I'm partially, Carol's at some point completely choosing to live in delusion when she starts just playing house with her.

• 1:22:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:28Speaker 02

  And I was like, how much does she believe, am I manipulating her to get information? Was it Matt Cradle, my camera op? I can't remember. One of the crew members was like, but in reality, aren't all romantic relationships, aren't we all manipulating each other?

• 1:22:41Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:22:41Speaker 02

  Cause you're all trying to get something. You want to be loved back.

• 1:22:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:45Speaker 02

  Or you want monogamy or like whatever it is. And I was like, okay, that's depressing.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  It is depressing. I don't like the way that's phrased, but we are making choices to get

• 1:22:54Speaker 02

  As actors, we all know that we're supposed to assign the reasons.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  Exactly motivations.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  For every single line, because in reality, that is what your brain is doing.

• 1:23:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  Every millisecond, whether you think you have intentions or not.

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:23:07Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  It's a lot to break down.

• 1:23:10Speaker 02

  I'm constantly evaluating, how could I make the other person in the room more comfortable?

• 1:23:14Dax Shepard?

  Which would make you more comfortable.

• 1:23:16Speaker 02

  It's still ego.

• 1:23:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:17Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:23:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you'd be more comfortable.

• 1:23:19Speaker 02

  I did learn that one in Alanon.

• 1:23:20Dax Shepard?

  If this person.

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  You think you're just being such a good person that I constantly need to go make sure the person is not being talked to, is included in the conversation. And then you just make sure everybody is okay, obviously, because I was raised in a house where something might blow up at any second.

• 1:23:33Dax Shepard?

  If you regulate them, you'll be regulated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You won everything. Congratulations. We happen to be there. We happen to be there.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  We were at the Globes when you won.

• 1:23:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so exciting.

• 1:23:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  So exciting. And other, you've won, yeah, you've won everything. Yeah.

• 1:23:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The critic's choice. She fucked everyone up. Came in like a wrecking ball. We just saw Miley Cyrus Friday night. Top of mind, top of mind.

• 1:23:59Speaker 02

  That was a really fun show.

• 1:24:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay, we're gonna talk about Stick, cause you're in.

• 1:24:02Speaker 02

  So much fun.

• 1:24:03Dax Shepard?

  Season two.

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  You guys know all those guys, right?

• 1:24:06Dax Shepard?

  I know Owen Anoff, and he was one of my greatest obsessions. Sorry, listener, but I memorized an entire interview of his in Playboy magazine, like line for line.

• 1:24:18Speaker 02

  Was this during your OCD days?

• 1:24:20Dax Shepard?

  He, like no other human being, just chatting, he talks as if he has written it over the course of hours. He's just referencing this dog book you read about different breeds, and that's coming up.

• 1:24:33Speaker 02

  He's very smart.

• 1:24:34Dax Shepard?

  He's deceptively genius level smart, right?

• 1:24:37Speaker 02

  Yes. And I mean that in the best way.

• 1:24:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's how you'd want someone to be smart.

• 1:24:42Speaker 02

  Also, his speech inflection sounds spacey almost.

• 1:24:46Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:24:47Speaker 02

  And yet he is not. And also, none of what he's doing is just, it's just my natural way of being on camera. It is all thought out. He is very, very intelligent.

• 1:24:56Dax Shepard?

  The whole family is fucking bonkers.

• 1:24:59Speaker 02

  But yeah, him, Marc Maron, and Timothy Olyphant.

• 1:25:03Dax Shepard?

  What a charming motherfucker, huh?

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, we love him.

• 1:25:05Speaker 02

  I had no idea he was that funny. I didn't know he started in standup.

• 1:25:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, he's so funny.

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  He's so funny.

• 1:25:09Dax Shepard?

  Also, when we interviewed him, our pants fell off. I'm like, this is the most attractive human being applying it early.

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  But all three of those gentlemen, Rex as well, actually, all four of them are very, very funny people in very different ways. And I was just having a blast. And Jason Keller, the showrunner, is so nice. I'm obsessed with Judy Greer. I wish I'd had more stuff with her.

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  You don't hang out with Judy more? Best friends with Laura Matt. Okay, great.

• 1:25:32Speaker 02

  We have the thing. And I send her pictures of fountain pens whenever I find them anywhere, cause I know she collects them. But I'm obsessed with her. And Peter and Lily and everybody on that show, it's just that the way the story part that I was in, I'm more with the guys. I had a blast.

• 1:25:46Dax Shepard?

  And when I be right to guess, what a perfect thing to do in between Pluribus.

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  It was fun. I find Pluribus very funny, but it's not the same as like, and this isn't rom com light, but it has rom com elements, the part I'm playing in, Stick. But it also had like beautiful pivotal, sweet moments that Owen is also brilliant at. It was really fun to lean into comedy comedy.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:09Dax Shepard?

  And I would imagine that so much of Pluribus, and this was Bob's fascination when he interviewed you, was there's so much alone time.

• 1:26:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:17Dax Shepard?

  Which can be terrifying for an actor. You don't have dialogue as a way to convey. You don't have another person there to react to. It's just you thinking. That's a big undertaking.

• 1:26:27Speaker 02

  But I saw Breaking Bad and I saw Better Call Saul. It's not like I have never seen him take Mike Ehrmantraut, taking a car apart for 30 minutes and call it a scene. Like, he does that shit. I knew it, right?

• 1:26:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:39Speaker 02

  I didn't see this much coming from me.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:42Speaker 02

  Cause I didn't even know where we were going in the show. But it goes back to what we were saying a minute ago, but like, I now know that he trusts me and I trust him to just think the thoughts. When I get an eight page scene from him that has no dialogue, I know he wants just as much storytelling as if there was dialogue the whole time. So I'm going through and writing out what I'm thinking. You start from like, all right, it says I wake up on the couch. No, wake up, the other one, it was, I remember the one I was looking at, she wakes up on the floor.

• 1:27:09Dax Shepard?

  She's drank too much.

• 1:27:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. So immediately I know, not capable of sleeping in my wife's bed. And then I'm waking up and I drank too much. It was probably a hellish night. That tells you something about how you physically would feel. And then Vince and I were talking, like, what do you think that first moment is? And I said, I was thinking about it, and I know that in my life, the times when something horrible has happened, and specifically grief for a tragedy, there's that little tiny twilight moment when you wake up the next day where it might not be true.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  It might have been a dream.

• 1:27:41Speaker 02

  And you really are hoping and praying, was it just a bad dream? And so we made sure that her body, Helen, played by Miriam Shore, whom I just absolutely adore, she's a national treasure if you get to meet her, but that her body was there so that when I turned my head, it all like comes crashing down. And then it's like, okay, now think the thoughts about what are you gonna do? I still don't know if these others eat people or are real zombies. I don't know what they do. Do they have guns? Do they have lasers? She has no idea. So I gotta hide this body. Like, do I bury her? I don't know how to bury a body. Like, how am I gonna move the body? It's like, okay, now we're gonna go upstairs and get this blanket and then put the thoughts into like, why this blanket? Why this chest? Has it ever been used before? What does it smell like? Is it hers? Is it her grandma's? Is it my grandma's?

• 1:28:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So then my guess is on Stick, you can trust that the dynamic will inform a lot of stuff.

• 1:28:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:28:34Dax Shepard?

  That's kind of gotta be a fun reprieve.

• 1:28:36Speaker 02

  It is. It was a lot of fun. And then being back together with Rex from my Better Call Saul days.

• 1:28:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  So fun.

• 1:28:42Dax Shepard?

  And that comes out early November is what I read. But do we know, what is early? We're getting close.

• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  Four.

• 1:28:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:28:48Speaker 02

  And I think they're doing two. I think Apple normally does that, two episodes first.

• 1:28:52Dax Shepard?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:28:53Speaker 02

  I had the best time. I just really, I hope people, and I got to take a bunch of golf lessons again. I took a couple golf lessons to do, swinging in Pluribus, when she goes out trying to have a good time by herself.

• 1:29:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03Speaker 02

  But I had to like, really look like a golf this time, so I took a bunch of golf lessons. I liked it. I was never on a course. All they needed from me is to get the most professional, cause my character's supposed to have been like, she almost could have gone pro and does swing coaching for pros. They needed my swing to be as expert as it could. So I was only in a simulator for my class. Like, I have no idea which direction the ball would go if you put me on an actual course.

• 1:29:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, not your problem.

• 1:29:30Speaker 02

  Not my problem.

• 1:29:31Dax Shepard?

  No, it's someone else's problem where the ball goes. Well, Ray, this has been so fun.

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  So much fun.

• 1:29:35Dax Shepard?

  Everyone watched Stick, November 4th, and then you resume season two here soon, right? Shooting.

• 1:29:41Speaker 02

  Getting ready to go back.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  Ooh, exciting. Where do you guys shoot?

• 1:29:43Speaker 02

  I have the first script, New Mexico.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  He just loves New Mexico.

• 1:29:46Speaker 02

  He actually uses the same crews over and over as well.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  Oh, that's nice.

• 1:29:49Speaker 02

  It's a thing for him.

• 1:29:49Speaker 01

  That's very nice.

• 1:29:50Speaker 02

  The first script is bananas, is my report.

• 1:29:54Dax Shepard?

  Wow, wow, wow, wow. I read it, but this felt, was it hyperbole? Did it crash, Apple?

• 1:29:59Speaker 02

  That's what we were told.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  I don't have figures or, you know, any documents to tell me that that is why, but yes, it crashed when it came out.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 1:30:08Speaker 02

  We were in London doing a press junket right after something else. And Vince and I do not read reviews, but we knew we had to go in these rooms the next day, mostly he and I together. We were both trying to get our publics, just like, give me a general idea so that I don't walk into a room where everyone's like, hi.

• 1:30:26Speaker 02

  You know, and I was like, at first you don't think Vince would care. He's like, I don't know if they're gonna say like, dude, stick to Breaking Bad. What the hell?

• 1:30:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:34Speaker 02

  He's always wanted to go back to do a sci fi thing. He's obsessed with Twilight Zone, you know, which has so many elements in this and stuff. And people forget he was on X-Files sometimes. But yeah, he was worried. I definitely was worried. So they did come and tell us. They were like, well, Apple had to shut down because there were so many downloads. And then they said it was all great reviews.

• 1:30:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it said it broke all ratings and the platform itself was the sentence I wrote. And I was like, is that literal?

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  Love to hear it.

• 1:30:58Dax Shepard?

  All right. Well, Ray, such a delight.

• 1:31:00Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:31:01Dax Shepard?

  Long overdue. Everyone watch those things. Please come back.

• 1:31:04Speaker 02

  Thank you, thank you.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  Did you go number two?

• 1:31:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I did.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:31:19Dax Shepard?

  Well, it was in a water balloon.

• 1:31:20Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 1:31:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  Um, well, that's a ding ding ding.

• 1:31:22Dax Shepard?

  Did you go number one, two?

• 1:31:24Speaker 01

  I went number one.

• 1:31:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay, we're in between for the listener. We're in between Armchair Anonymous and fact check. We had a bathroom break.

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  There was a bathroom break?

• 1:31:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, this isn't just a random.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:33Dax Shepard?

  Unsolicited.

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  And you were worried you might have a number two. Liquid form.

• 1:31:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:31:42Dax Shepard?

  But I wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  It wasn't, which is great news, but it is a ding ding ding.

• 1:31:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay, ding ding ding. But you know that how I take my, um, I take my, my fiber in a unique way.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:31:54Dax Shepard?

  Which is, you know, Metamucil, you're supposed to pour a big glass of water and then dump it in there and steer it.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Yes, it's necessary.

• 1:31:59Dax Shepard?

  But I don't want to have that much liquid right before bed. And I always remember to have it right before bed. So I just take a big spoonful. I put it in my mouth and then I quickly have to rinse. I put water in there. I swish it around really quick and try to swallow it, but it does sometimes congeal in my throat.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is a horrible idea.

• 1:32:15Dax Shepard?

  It's a terrible technique, but I keep using it for whatever reason. But that is at play with this previous number two. I, sometimes when I have a big dose of the fiber, I think I'm gonna have a water balloon, but it's not.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  Okay, I just, your insides could explode if you're not doing Metamucil correctly.

• 1:32:32Dax Shepard?

  It was the first person who OD'd on Metamucil.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  No, peoples have exploded.

• 1:32:36Dax Shepard?

  They have.

• 1:32:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:37Dax Shepard?

  You know so much about medical history.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  I do, I do, I know.

• 1:32:40Dax Shepard?

  It's always impressive.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Okay, so your number two is a ding ding ding because I decided I was gonna reveal that in this episode, I had to number two.

• 1:32:53Dax Shepard?

  During the recording?

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:32:55Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  And you can probably, if you watch closely, you can probably tell when things turn.

• 1:33:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really? There was a specific moment it turned?

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, at some point I was like, oh, oh, oh, okay.

• 1:33:08Dax Shepard?

  And you were doing a lot of pinching and Kegel exercises?

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  You know, when it, that kind of comes in phases?

• 1:33:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, waves.

• 1:33:15Speaker 01

  Waves, yeah, waves. So.

• 1:33:17Dax Shepard?

  Not particles, waves.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Depending on if you're looking at it.

• 1:33:21Dax Shepard?

  Who the observer is, yeah. We make such smart jokes. I mean, you really gotta be a liberal arts educated.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, we haven't said liberal arts education in a long time. Hellenic Studies, wow. If you're in a day one armchair, you've got that.

• 1:33:34Dax Shepard?

  If you're old, because you've been listening to the show for so long.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:37Dax Shepard?

  Then you know.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  Speaking of that, actually.

• 1:33:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  I mean, this is early to announce it, but whatever, we're talking about this. We are going to do a really fun, very intimate live event in LA for Christmas, for the holidays.

• 1:33:54Dax Shepard?

  For the holiday season.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we are inviting like about like 50 or so armcharries to come for the taping.

• 1:34:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  And it'll be really fun, but we do want like real armcharries there.

• 1:34:10Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:34:11Speaker 01

  So we're gonna do a secret drop of like a word.

• 1:34:16Dax Shepard?

  I'm learning this real time with the audience. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  We're gonna do a secret drop of like a word or something.

• 1:34:22Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:34:23Speaker 01

  And then if you hear that, then you're gonna go to the website, type in the word.

• 1:34:27Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  And then also there's a little quiz. There's like gonna be some hidden Easter egg, if you know, you know, gems at this, at this event.

• 1:34:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  And so you really, we need the real armcharries there for them to get it all.

• 1:34:41Dax Shepard?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:34:42Dax Shepard?

  But also if they have a good Christmas story.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:34:45Dax Shepard?

  Cause we're gonna interview some armcharries.

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  That's true. We are gonna do like kind of a real time Armchair Anonymous Christmas stories.

• 1:34:52Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  So that's fun, too.

• 1:34:53Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  So anyway, guys, we'll give you more information about the word and stuff. Obviously, that's not fully thought through.

• 1:35:00Dax Shepard?

  What if someone wrote in the comments, just one note, sounds like you're trying to do a lot.

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  We are, we are. We just really wanted to make sure that the people who come are.

• 1:35:10Dax Shepard?

  Hardcore.

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Hardcore fans.

• 1:35:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  And we wanna do something special for them.

• 1:35:15Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:35:15Speaker 01

  So in order to find them, it is requiring a little bit of a duck, duck, goose chase. If you understand that reference, you're in, you're in.

• 1:35:26Dax Shepard?

  You're one of the 50 or 60.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Um, anyway, so keep your eyes and ears peeled for all that.

• 1:35:33Dax Shepard?

  Great.

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  It'll be really fun.

• 1:35:34Dax Shepard?

  Back to number two, I thought, you didn't finish that story, did you? Okay, so there's a moment where you start rassling your lower GI.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I could feel it. I was like, oh, no. And I couldn't really see the clock because of the glare. So I didn't know how much longer we had.

• 1:35:48Dax Shepard?

  Oh, this is giving me anxiety.

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  Feeling a little, and then you did keep talking and talking. And I was like, oh, and I was like, kind of trying to tell you with my eyes, like, wrap it up.

• 1:35:58Dax Shepard?

  Also, you tell me to wrap it up kind of a lot.

• 1:36:00Speaker 01

  I know, and you never.

• 1:36:02Dax Shepard?

  So I never know, it's just you're not interested in this topic or you're gonna shit your pants. We need two different looks, I think.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Both are important, okay? But yeah, the poop one.

• 1:36:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, one's a creative difference, one's a medical emergency. And I just think we need a specific signaling to delineate the difference.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  It was tough.

• 1:36:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Did you have any leakage or anything?

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:36:22Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  But I, you know, I barely made it.

• 1:36:24Dax Shepard?

  You did. Where did you go?

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  To my house.

• 1:36:27Dax Shepard?

  You ran, you, did you do a?

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  Cause normally, you know, the guest leaves and then we, we hang out for a second, we say bye, and the guest left and I, and I ran immediately to my house.

• 1:36:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the cruelty of that situation is such that you need to run and your body will not.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  Doesn't, can't run.

• 1:36:45Dax Shepard?

  You, yeah, you have to go extremely slowly in a hurry.

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:48Dax Shepard?

  That's the agony. We had Halloween since we last spoke.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:36:52Dax Shepard?

  Yes, your clown outfit was great.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  Thank you. It came in time.

• 1:36:56Dax Shepard?

  Historic as you sold it.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, vintage.

• 1:36:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  And fashion.

• 1:37:00Dax Shepard?

  I just think it's weird that you and Ryan had no coordination.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  I didn't even know they were gonna work, be clowns.

• 1:37:06Dax Shepard?

  You were both clowns and no one's ever come as a clown. And then all, out of nowhere, we have two clowns.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  Well, we have, all the Hanson's were clowns. Did you know that?

• 1:37:14Dax Shepard?

  They were?

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:15Dax Shepard?

  I thought Amy was, I thought she was an ace of spades, like a card, a playing card.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  She wasn't.

• 1:37:22Dax Shepard?

  She wasn't?

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  They're, they were clowns, I promise.

• 1:37:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  They told me.

• 1:37:26Dax Shepard?

  You would know.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they were like, we're going as clowns.

• 1:37:28Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  You know, it was that.

• 1:37:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Amy will be the ace of spades clown. Millie will be a ninja clown.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

  Well, she was also a clown.

• 1:37:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay, all right.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  The Hanson's also in as clowns, different kind than me, but uh.

• 1:37:42Dax Shepard?

  Sad clown for Ryan.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  Ryan was.

• 1:37:44Dax Shepard?

  Ace of spades for Amy.

• 1:37:45Speaker 01

  No, I don't, hers was more like a.

• 1:37:48Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna look right now, because you're making me feel like I'm crazy, but I know they posted a picture today.

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:37:55Dax Shepard?

  And that's how I'm gonna find it.

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  And you can find it because you know, like, I'm in the Hanson's group because we're all clowns.

• 1:38:02Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I'm looking it up. You know, I guess you could call Amy a bit of a mime. She's not a clown. And then Millie's got blood all over her face and she's in a crop top and a mini skirt, so that's not a clown.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  Yes, that's a clown still.

• 1:38:18Dax Shepard?

  Monica, look at this photo.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  Dax, you're gonna make Amy upset because they came as clowns.

• 1:38:23Dax Shepard?

  No, and then, and hold on, Evy's clearly Lizzie Borden. She's got an axe. What clowns have an axe, Monica?

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  No, mean scary clown. She was gonna be a little bit of a scary clown.

• 1:38:35Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so there's a subgenre of.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  Talked about.

• 1:38:38Dax Shepard?

  Axe wielding.

• 1:38:40Speaker 01

  I talked about this, they were a little, they were a little.

• 1:38:42Dax Shepard?

  Amy?

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:38:43Dax Shepard?

  Okay, this is, we gotta get an answer to this.

• 1:38:46Speaker 05

  Hi.

• 1:38:47Dax Shepard?

  Hi, you're on the show, if that's okay. Is that okay?

• 1:38:50Speaker 05

  Oh, sure.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  Hi, Amy.

• 1:38:52Dax Shepard?

  Monica and I are in a debate here about your family's costumes.

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  Can I apologize to you? I just want to apologize on behalf of Dax right now.

• 1:39:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she's already apologizing on my behalf. Now, I definitely saw that Ryan was a clown. And, and Monica's telling me that all of you guys were clowns, but then I was just consulting the photo. And is that the position that everyone was a clown?

• 1:39:14Speaker 05

  That was the goal.

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:15Speaker 05

  Even though everyone doesn't quite look like a clown.

• 1:39:18Dax Shepard?

  Okay, um, because Mildred has blood all over her face and she's kind of in a fun, like.

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  She's a, she's a teenage clown.

• 1:39:27Dax Shepard?

  She's a teenage clown, okay. And then tell me Evy's got an axe. She's not Lizzie Borden?

• 1:39:34Speaker 05

  She wanted to be a scary ballerina clown.

• 1:39:37Dax Shepard?

  A scary ballerina clown. Okay, I think this is a good call, Monica. I, I think we can both feel good about this.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  Are you serious?

• 1:39:44Dax Shepard?

  Well, can we say, can we admit they stretched the concept quite a bit? We got, what, did you? Okay, very much. And then I thought you were like the ace of spades or something, or mime. What were, what kind of clown were you?

• 1:39:57Speaker 05

  Exactly. I was a put it together last minute kind of clown because the costume was cold, didn't sit quite right.

• 1:40:03Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  Amy, you are perfect clown. It's so obvious you're a clown.

• 1:40:06Dax Shepard?

  What kind of clown would you say you were?

• 1:40:09Speaker 05

  You know, I don't even have a word for it.

• 1:40:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's original.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  I think you were a classic clown.

• 1:40:14Dax Shepard?

  A classic clown, like you've seen a million times.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  I, I knew.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  It was a clown.

• 1:40:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'm gonna give you this compliment in public. I've been thinking about texting it to you or pulling you aside and saying this to your face, but now I'm gonna say it in dead public. We have an expert that's gonna come out soon, Anna Lemke, who we already love. She's a psychiatrist and a professor at Stanford. She wrote Dopamine Nation. I love her. She has a new book about the power of prayer in life for the secular person. And it was one of the most compelling interviews we've done in a long time. It's a very compelling book. And the whole time I was reading it and the whole time I was talking to her, I was thinking, I think Amy's the wisest person I really know on planet Earth. And I'm so sincere about that.

• 1:41:04Dax Shepard?

  And I just think you're so fucking special and so wise. And I think you've known so many things intuitively that I'm growing towards.

• 1:41:13Speaker 05

  That sounds good. I'm gonna cry standing here. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said.

• 1:41:18Dax Shepard?

  I thought it a million times. I can't wait for you to read the book. And, and I, I hope you've, I don't know, take on-

• 1:41:26Speaker 01

  That was a really crazy thing you did, you know?

• 1:41:30Dax Shepard?

  What idea?

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  You're not a clown. And, oh, actually, you're the best person I've ever met. It's like, we're doing-

• 1:41:38Dax Shepard?

  I think the through line's truth. I'm telling her the truth from how I see it.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  I agree. I also think you're the best person on Earth.

• 1:41:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Monica agrees. But I just think you're really, really wise. You have a very wise intuitive spirit that I admire.

• 1:41:54Speaker 05

  Well, I do have to give honor to God, because that's where I feel like I learned most of my wisdom. So-

• 1:41:59Dax Shepard?

  What's working?

• 1:41:59Speaker 05

  I appreciate you saying that.

• 1:42:00Dax Shepard?

  It's working.

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  Really working.

• 1:42:01Dax Shepard?

  I love you to death.

• 1:42:02Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:42:03Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Bye, sweetie.

• 1:42:04Speaker 05

  All right. Love you guys. Love you, money, thanks.

• 1:42:06Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 1:42:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love her.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:42:08Dax Shepard?

  She wasn't a clown, but I love her to death.

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  She was. Oh, my God. This is feeling Elizabeth Holmes-y and crazy, okay?

• 1:42:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you're Elizabeth Holmes. You're like, you're showing the picture of the not a clown and going, it's a clown. It worked.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  I said, they were clowns.

• 1:42:24Dax Shepard?

  Your big eye, like how big your eyes are, just like Elizabeth Holmes.

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  Cause I'm disassociating, because you're making me feel like a crazy person. They went as clowns, and that was just confirmed.

• 1:42:35Dax Shepard?

  Okay. You're gonna number two again?

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  I might. I just might. Anyway, that's funny you brought up that book, because I'm sending it to someone who is dabbling in religion as an adult.

• 1:42:48Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:42:49Speaker 01

  At first, I was like, ew.

• 1:42:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it was a little scary at first.

• 1:42:52Speaker 01

  What's that gonna be about, you know?

• 1:42:55Dax Shepard?

  They become orthodox of something?

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  Or just like, I think I was like, why?

• 1:43:00Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

  But the more this person talked about it, I was like, okay, I, I understand-

• 1:43:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:06Speaker 01

  The, the draw and maybe the need.

• 1:43:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:09Speaker 01

  Um, anyway, so I'm gonna send this book over.

• 1:43:12Dax Shepard?

  I think in some way, I mean, I'm only gonna be able to go so far with it, right? But I'll say, I've had this weird child experience, which is a big leap of faith.

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:22Dax Shepard?

  And it's one of those things where then, once you've experienced it, you're kind of frustrated. You can't articulate what it means to other people. And you can see them on their face. They're getting glazed over as if I'm talking about religion, you know?

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:35Dax Shepard?

  So it's like, I have had this one weird transcendent experience that, as annoying as it sounds, you can't know until you feel it. And so I'm open to the notion that like, that person might find some incredible comfort and transcendence in exploring religion.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  I think if, what it does is remind you that the universe doesn't revolve around you and that you have really very little control, and that you, you're small, like in a good way.

• 1:44:06Dax Shepard?

  It's a humility dose.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. If that's what it does for you, that's great.

• 1:44:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  I think, I do believe you can get that other ways. But if you can't, like, if you haven't been able to access it, and that's the route-

• 1:44:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  I think, great.

• 1:44:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I mean, I can imagine, although I don't feel it, I can imagine a state of feeling deeply loved, without any qualifications.

• 1:44:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:32Dax Shepard?

  And really feeling that.

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:34Dax Shepard?

  And how liberating that would be.

• 1:44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:36Dax Shepard?

  When we all think we have to be so many things to be loved.

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:40Dax Shepard?

  Because I could see where that would be insanely healing and nurturing.

• 1:44:44Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 1:44:45Dax Shepard?

  It's really hard for me to break away the institution of it all. It's like, my whole opinion of it is so murky with exploiting people, fucking pulling back science, you know, all the-

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:00Dax Shepard?

  Molesting kids, all men in charge.

• 1:45:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:04Dax Shepard?

  Women have no role, you know, like, all this stuff that grew out of this other concept.

• 1:45:10Speaker 01

  A lot of people killing each other.

• 1:45:12Dax Shepard?

  It's almost like the opposite of a cult. Whereas, as we discussed, most cults have something great at the beginning. Who said it? Was it Adam Grant? Someone said, it's actually a lie wrapped in a truth. So it's like, you come into Esther, Nexium, or Scientology.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:29Dax Shepard?

  And the initial stuff is sound.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:33Dax Shepard?

  And then the deeper you go, it gets crazier and more corrupt.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:45:37Dax Shepard?

  And then the human, self-serving, human side of it is exposed.

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:45:43Dax Shepard?

  Whereas this weirdly might be the opposite.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  That's so true.

• 1:45:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's so wrapped in so much fucking-

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:49Dax Shepard?

  Corruption.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  Yes. I agree.

• 1:45:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  But the core of it, I don't think I could ever say I'm religious, but I do feel spiritual. And I think that the core is that, is, is just believing there's more.

• 1:46:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. The leap I haven't made is that there's like a being.

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  I know, but I don't think, like, I think that holds a lot of people up.

• 1:46:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:13Speaker 01

  And I, I don't think there's necessarily a being, but I just don't, that's okay to me. I don't need to figure it out. I just like, I'm comfortable that-

• 1:46:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I have felt better just from walking halfway there, I guess, you know?

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:27Dax Shepard?

  But I guess to get the thing I'm kind of fantasizing about, where I felt like a paternal, nurturing, you know, unconditional, loving being cares about me.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:40Dax Shepard?

  I don't know how I get to that without making it a being, you know?

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:45Dax Shepard?

  Then perhaps I don't need to.

• 1:46:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  But Amy is specific, because I know a lot of religious people. Hers is different.

• 1:46:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, she seems from another planet.

• 1:47:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, she is in touch.

• 1:47:03Dax Shepard?

  The purity of her intentions is so wild.

• 1:47:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. And her, um, understanding of human fragility and mistakes and-

• 1:47:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she's not judgmental at all.

• 1:47:17Speaker 01

  Zero judgment.

• 1:47:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  Very forgiving.

• 1:47:21Dax Shepard?

  Things you're really supposed to be, that you so rarely see someone-

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. I have one, there's one other person in my life that is kind of on par with her, also religious, or grew up religious. So it is, it is interesting.

• 1:47:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  That's Alison. Shout out Alison.

• 1:47:38Dax Shepard?

  Good job, Alison. Oh, back to Halloween.

• 1:47:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:47:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you were a clown. The Hansons were not clowns.

• 1:47:46Speaker 01

  You were, you ended up being a train conductor.

• 1:47:48Dax Shepard?

  I did, I did. I was a train conductor. No one complimented my outfit. That's nor should they have.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  I said, you look cute.

• 1:47:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just didn't hear me. You see, you don't hear compliments from me anymore.

• 1:48:00Dax Shepard?

  Maybe. Um, it rained.

• 1:48:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:05Dax Shepard?

  It rained. We didn't let it stop us.

• 1:48:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:48:07Dax Shepard?

  Didn't let us stop us.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  No, you, your hayride commenced.

• 1:48:12Dax Shepard?

  It commenced. You did ride it or didn't ride it. None of my friends rode it. Eric didn't ride it.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  I wanted to ride it, but every time I looked, it was full.

• 1:48:21Dax Shepard?

  It was fucking packed. Yeah. I looked at the clock right before we started when we ended. It went for a good two hours and 15 minutes.

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was really cool. And you really did it up. You, you, every year, you make it more special. You advance the tech.

• 1:48:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I had five different disco lights that were going now on a canopy above it, so it could broadcast on there, which was, people thought I was so smart because of the rain.

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:45Dax Shepard?

  I was getting lots of compliments that I had built this shelter for the rain.

• 1:48:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:48Dax Shepard?

  But that's not why I did it. I had done it just so that the lights would bounce off of something. But then that turned out to look like I had, I was so well-prepared. Yeah.

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:57Dax Shepard?

  But I mounted the speakers differently. I had four disco lights pointing at the thing, one in back that was rocking anyone we drove by.

• 1:49:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:05Speaker 01

  I'm gonna give you a compliment. I knew, I think the day before, uh, that we did at the Hansons, a Halloween carving, it's annual tradition. You did not, you were not there.

• 1:49:14Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  But Kristen was there, and she was saying that you were putting a tarp on or something, like, you, you were putting a top.

• 1:49:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  And, you know, and then I had an idea of what that would look like and stuff. And so, but then, the day of Halloween, I was moving my car, and I saw, and you were adjusting. Yeah, yeah, you were staging your hayride. And like, I came over and I looked at it, and I, I was, I was so impressed. Like, it wasn't, like, if I had to put a tarp on, I would just be like- Draping it and like stapling it or so. I don't know. I just, it looks so professional.

• 1:49:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, thank you. Yeah. I built the whole wood structure around the trailer. So it had a roof and everything.

• 1:50:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was like taut.

• 1:50:03Dax Shepard?

  You know, it was cute as I was day of Saturday, we had also, it should be said, Kristen's going equally and or harder on the entire property.

• 1:50:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:50:13Dax Shepard?

  There's skeletons hanging off balconies. They're playing games in the yard. They're having a fucking dinner party at a table.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:20Dax Shepard?

  There's a big trash can where a skeleton's throwing up fluorescent vomit.

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:50:26Dax Shepard?

  With a pump running and all, you know, so she has done so much stuff.

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:30Dax Shepard?

  And then I was quite busy on the thing.

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:32Dax Shepard?

  Well, day of I'm like, oh shit, we didn't get any candy to hand out. Right? Oversight, most important part of the holiday and we forgot. So then I ran up to Target and I was just loading up a cart with every kind of candy bar. And then a sweet woman said, um, I think she just said, happy Halloween to me. And I said, yeah, happy Halloween. Uh, just in time or something. So we're both buying candy. Yeah. And then she goes, have fun on your hayride.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:51:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she walked away and I was like, oh yeah, she knows I'm about to have my hayride. That's so sweet.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  That's so nice.

• 1:51:09Dax Shepard?

  So you didn't go on the hayride?

• 1:51:10Speaker 01

  I didn't want to tell you.

• 1:51:11Dax Shepard?

  That's okay. Eric didn't either. And he didn't want to tell me. And it makes me think everyone thinks so much pressure to ride the hayride.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  No, that's not why.

• 1:51:19Dax Shepard?

  We have 40 people at the house. So the first batch that went up the hill were all the kids, basically they got.

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then every time I looked, it's just like, oh, it's crowded and I can't get on and, um,

• 1:51:30Dax Shepard?

  Strangers.

• 1:51:31Speaker 01

  I had a really tall hat on for my clown.

• 1:51:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you did.

• 1:51:34Speaker 01

  So I don't even know if I would have fit on the hayride.

• 1:51:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:51:38Dax Shepard?

  It's all people problems.

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  But what was really cool about the hat, cause you know, I hate rain so much. And I hate feeling wet in clothes.

• 1:51:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  I, for some reason, I think that hat protected me. I think it like acted as some sort of umbrella or something. Even though it was pointy at top, maybe it like made the rain like.

• 1:51:57Dax Shepard?

  Dissipate.

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, my hat was really wet, but I didn't feel very wet.

• 1:52:03Dax Shepard?

  That's great. Congratulations.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:52:06Dax Shepard?

  Finding it when I was in the car.

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. You were in the car. Um, you were feeling a little down.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  And so I just, I just wanted to know if the hayride helped lift your spirits.

• 1:52:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Well, I had, um, my mom was in town, so my mom rode, I think three or four laps. It was a long time.

• 1:52:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:29Dax Shepard?

  And then she rode shotgun.

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:52:31Dax Shepard?

  And in total mom fashion, right? She gets in and yeah, I don't want to pat myself on the back too much, but I got a lot going on. I got the music going. Again, the, the route is crazy. Now it's raining.

• 1:52:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:40Dax Shepard?

  There's tons of people everywhere getting in the alley, da, da, da, da, da. I got the windows down so I can see out the rearview mirror as good as I can to see what's happening. I don't want it falling off, you know, all that shit. Also passing all the people, like kids are getting, they part, but then they forget that a trailer's coming through. So I'm watching for feet, whatever. So my mom hops in and she's immediately starts going in this dash of, um, Molly's car, the Tesla hitting buttons and try to get her seat heater on. She's rolling the window on. She's like, sorry to do all this business. I'm like, mom, mom, mom.

• 1:53:12Speaker 01

  I know moms.

• 1:53:13Dax Shepard?

  I know moms get busy, man. Moms cannot just sit, sit down and join the, the party. She, yeah. But we got through that. That was hilarious. Very.

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  It was a nice, you guys chatted?

• 1:53:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:26Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:53:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:27Speaker 01

  I mean, I just talked about my mom and dad. So, you know, yeah, moms, they have a tough job, moms.

• 1:53:35Dax Shepard?

  They do. They have a thankless, tough job.

• 1:53:38Speaker 01

  I, they do.

• 1:53:39Dax Shepard?

  So yeah, I was down.

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:53:41Dax Shepard?

  And then so of course my mom, so then if, if I'm down, then my mom's worried about me.

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were all worried.

• 1:53:49Dax Shepard?

  We were all.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  That's why we were like, don't tell them we didn't write the hayride. No, no, no. We're, of course we're worried about our friend who's feeling down.

• 1:53:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And then when your parents are.

• 1:54:01Speaker 01

  Worried.

• 1:54:02Dax Shepard?

  Then you have to regulate them.

• 1:54:03Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:54:04Dax Shepard?

  So then you're down.

• 1:54:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:54:06Dax Shepard?

  And now you also have to like, I guess fake it to regulate them.

• 1:54:09Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:54:11Dax Shepard?

  So it's just a lot of regulation that I think I had.

• 1:54:14Speaker 01

  On your plate.

• 1:54:15Dax Shepard?

  On my plate. Yeah.

• 1:54:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:19Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. 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?

• 1:54:48Speaker 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.

• 1:55:04Dax 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.

• 1:55:23Speaker 01

  I just love therapy. I've been avoiding it recently or not avoiding it, but I was like, oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. I haven't canceled, canceled, canceled. But then I.

• 1:55:31Dax Shepard?

  You start feeling it.

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

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

• 1:55:39Dax 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 U S, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com slash DAX. That's betterhelp, H E L P dot com slash DAX.

• 1:56:09Dax Shepard?

  I mean, look, another round of me being a terrible person was in the media and like I avoided that, but then it hit Kristen's doorstep really hard. And then I got to find out everything that people are saying about me. And I think I was just at that moment where I was like, I, the level of unjustness, it feels to me.

• 1:56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:28Dax Shepard?

  My behavior versus this weird narrative that is surrounding me as like a controlling, abusive, now flirting with people in public, which I don't do.

• 1:56:38Speaker 01

  I mean, but even if, but it's not, it's so frustrating. It's like the internet wants a narrative. They're going to find it wherever.

• 1:56:49Dax Shepard?

  Big normal publications too, running this.

• 1:56:52Speaker 01

  But there's still the internet. I mean, that's like, at, at this point, everything is for clicks. And so anything that they can do to have a headline, I mean.

• 1:57:05Dax Shepard?

  I just think when you like, when you grew up, for me, growing up around, up around certain men who behaved a certain way.

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:12Dax Shepard?

  And then literally dedicating my whole life to being the opposite of all that.

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:16Dax Shepard?

  I don't, I don't ever yell at my children. I don't swear at them. I don't yell at my wife. You know, like to have given it my all to be the opposite of what now. Some group of people is saying I am is, it's hard.

• 1:57:32Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:57:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:33Speaker 01

  It's so hard.

• 1:57:33Dax Shepard?

  I don't, uh, I don't love it.

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  I know. And.

• 1:57:36Dax Shepard?

  And I find it deeply insulting to my wife additionally, you know?

• 1:57:40Speaker 01

  Of course. It's like she can't make up any decisions.

• 1:57:42Dax Shepard?

  She's what? She's sitting in the house with her two daughters and modeling some abusive relationship. It's very offensive to her.

• 1:57:50Speaker 01

  I agree. And you know, you, you told us that you guys were in a thing.

• 1:57:56Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, what was it? And then you said from here, an episode or the compliments, which I, I was with Kristen yesterday, the girls, and we were talking about this and I was like, but it, that's your truth.

• 1:58:10Dax Shepard?

  I think she phrased it in a way that got easily intentionally easily confused for people. Cause we're saying, I flirt with Kristen by tipping people a lot.

• 1:58:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:19Dax Shepard?

  And I flirt with Kristen.

• 1:58:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. By.

• 1:58:21Dax Shepard?

  By complimenting people. If you think I'm complimenting like hot, young waitresses, yeah, you got a problem.

• 1:58:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:58:29Dax Shepard?

  I'm finding the dude that I don't think's had a compliment in a while and tell him I love his shoes. Um, you know, it's always somebody that I want to make their day.

• 1:58:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:39Dax Shepard?

  And so those compliments is flirting with Kristen, but it got to be, when I went through the grinder, that I flirt with people in front of Kristen.

• 1:58:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:51Dax Shepard?

  Also, if you listen to the show, I compliment people nonstop. It's kind of my thing.

• 1:58:54Speaker 01

  That's the thing. Like, I'm like, I mean, not to. So what? So what if you're flirting is fine. I mean, I depending like flirting is not fine if you are in a relationship that's that's unstable.

• 1:59:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, when I was feeling really defensive and like, of course, when I'm in these zones, I'm like, I'm in interviews in my head. It's just like, okay, well, next time I do an interview, someone's gonna ask me about this thing. And then, and then I'm defensive and I'm like, I will offer publicly $10 million to any server you can find that I have given my number to or hit on.

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  God, no.

• 1:59:34Dax Shepard?

  Like, go find, find this person you're, you think I'm doing this to.

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  Well, that's the difference, right? Like, I think some people hear flirting and they think hit on. That's not my definition. I don't think that's yours or hers or a lot of people's.

• 1:59:49Dax Shepard?

  But also I'm flirting with Kristen.

• 1:59:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. What she, yeah, what she is saying is she likes that. She likes having a partner who's kind and gives compliments to other people and isn't like withholding of that.

• 2:00:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  And I do think that was clear. That was clear. But if they can twist it, they will.

• 2:00:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:10Speaker 01

  So that's very aggravating and annoying. And I'm sorry that you guys.

• 2:00:17Dax Shepard?

  And they're eat, they're generally, I, I can brush them off, but when we're now on year two of now, there's a new, then it just starts making me think like, oh, is this now my fucking role?

• 2:00:31Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:00:31Dax Shepard?

  Going forward, it'd just be like every four months, there's another thing about me being a terrible man.

• 2:00:36Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:00:38Dax Shepard?

  And that seems, that makes me wanna go away.

• 2:00:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I understand. Yeah. But remember, like, we'll have people on and they'll be depressed about something going on. And we are like, we never heard it.

• 2:00:51Dax Shepard?

  Oh, for sure.

• 2:00:52Speaker 01

  Like, there are real silos. So that, that thing, the one from here, I didn't see, I, that never came across my algorithm ever.

• 2:01:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:02Speaker 01

  And then there's something else. And then on this person, it's like, this is all, we're all living in such different realities based on these algorithms. And it's like, so toxic. I mean, it's so bad out there. And I understand that there's no way to just say, oh, it's fine, because it sucks. It sucks if people are saying wrong things about you.

• 2:01:23Dax Shepard?

  And then it even like affects me on all these levels. It's like, oh, I'm about to be on Bad Monkey being an asshole.

• 2:01:28Speaker 01

  Which is.

• 2:01:29Dax Shepard?

  And I'm like, oh, God. I just give them like more fodder, you know, because people can't distinguish between.

• 2:01:36Speaker 01

  You just can't look at it.

• 2:01:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  Like, you really can't. I saw on my, on my algorithm, I did get served a little clip of you on Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson's show.

• 2:01:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 2:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was so funny.

• 2:01:49Dax Shepard?

  Was it? Are you being honest?

• 2:01:51Speaker 01

  I am, I promise. I liked it. I hearted it.

• 2:01:54Dax Shepard?

  You hearted it? Okay.

• 2:01:56Speaker 01

  I was gonna send it to you and say you should repost this, but I knew you were down.

• 2:02:01Dax Shepard?

  You knew I was in a reposting mood?

• 2:02:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Anyway, so I'm sorry that's happening, but all the people listening here.

• 2:02:08Dax Shepard?

  Know that I'm not a controlling abusive.

• 2:02:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And it's, yeah. Stop out there. Okay, so I had to poop.

• 2:02:17Dax Shepard?

  Who knows why I want my laughs?

• 2:02:20Dax Shepard?

  Does it just say poop?

• 2:02:21Speaker 01

  Said I had to poop at some point during this.

• 2:02:23Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay. Not just poop. Okay.

• 2:02:26Speaker 01

  That could lead to some, I would never know.

• 2:02:28Dax Shepard?

  You wouldn't know?

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:02:30Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Needlepoint versus embroidering. I had Laura send a voice memo.

• 2:02:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay, right.

• 2:02:37Speaker 01

  She's an expert of.

• 2:02:38Dax Shepard?

  Needlepoint and?

• 2:02:40Speaker 01

  Of the difference. Okay. We ready?

• 2:02:42Speaker 05

  Hi. Okay, so embroidery is basically the umbrella term and needlepoint is a branch of embroidery. The main differences are about like what kind of material you're stitched on, the style of stitches and the kind of thread used. So embroidery is like decorative stitching on fabric, right? And these stitches like French knots, satin stitch, chain stitch, and whatever fabric you're embroidering those stitches on is exposed as part of the finished design. Now, needlepoint uses one kind of stitch and it's called a ten stitch, little diagonal lines, and the entire surface of the fabric is covered. So needlepoint things generally end up being like pillows or belts or something like that.

• 2:03:27Speaker 05

  And then, oh yeah, embroidery is done with embroidery floss and then needlepoint's done with like, can we do with silk? Can we do with wool? So those are the main differences.

• 2:03:36Dax Shepard?

  That was a very thorough and great definition.

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  It was. Yeah.

• 2:03:39Dax Shepard?

  I'm, I'm.

• 2:03:40Speaker 01

  I'm, I still don't really know, but.

• 2:03:43Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 2:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:43Dax Shepard?

  But we know now.

• 2:03:44Speaker 01

  But we do know. I thought this was crazy because when we had Ray Madoff on, we talked about the name Ray and how uncommon it is, and especially for her, because hers is spelled R A Y.

• 2:03:56Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 2:03:57Speaker 01

  And here's another Ray.

• 2:04:00Dax Shepard?

  R H E A.

• 2:04:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:04:03Dax Shepard?

  This one gives me a lot of anxiety, the spelling.

• 2:04:05Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 2:04:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  I think it gives a lot of people anxiety. I think a lot of people say Rea.

• 2:04:10Dax Shepard?

  I think if you swap the E and the A, I'd be great. Because then I'd be, oh, it's making that A long. Right?

• 2:04:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just that the H adds like.

• 2:04:18Dax Shepard?

  Hey, guys.

• 2:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's that. Um, okay. So she mentioned TJ Maxx and you said more Maxx for the minimum. And then I wanted to look at some other really popular.

• 2:04:32Dax Shepard?

  Slogans?

• 2:04:32Speaker 01

  Famous brand slogans and taglines.

• 2:04:34Dax Shepard?

  Number one.

• 2:04:35Speaker 01

  What do you think?

• 2:04:36Dax Shepard?

  Just do it.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  Actually, no, not according to the.

• 2:04:38Dax Shepard?

  Can we trust the list where just do it isn't number one?

• 2:04:40Speaker 01

  Well, number one is Disneyland, the happiest place on earth.

• 2:04:44Dax Shepard?

  That's solid.

• 2:04:45Speaker 01

  That's really, really good. Oh, number two, Nike, just do it.

• 2:04:49Dax Shepard?

  Okay. I can accept that.

• 2:04:51Speaker 01

  And what, and what do you think three is?

• 2:04:53Speaker 06

  I'm loving it.

• 2:04:54Speaker 01

  No, but that's a really good one.

• 2:04:56Dax Shepard?

  Really good.

• 2:04:56Speaker 01

  Um, no, Old Spice, the original. If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist.

• 2:05:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. That's great.

• 2:05:04Speaker 01

  De Beers a diamond is forever. Yes.

• 2:05:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:07Speaker 01

  Um, Mastercard, ding, ding, ding.

• 2:05:11Dax Shepard?

  Which is, what's the saying?

• 2:05:12Speaker 01

  There are some things money can't buy for everything else. There's Mastercard.

• 2:05:15Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:05:16Speaker 01

  Billy, Billy Crudup. Remember when he came on?

• 2:05:19Dax Shepard?

  Yes, we did a fake one.

• 2:05:21Speaker 01

  We did a fake one. You had it arranged.

• 2:05:22Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 2:05:23Speaker 01

  It was very funny. Samsung, do what you can't.

• 2:05:27Dax Shepard?

  No. I think they paid to have that one on there.

• 2:05:30Speaker 01

  Dollar Shave Club, our blades are fucking great.

• 2:05:33Dax Shepard?

  Whoa.

• 2:05:34Speaker 01

  I know. And then shave time, shave money. I like that.

• 2:05:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, shave time, shave money.

• 2:05:38Speaker 01

  Oh, this BMW, the ultimate driving machine.

• 2:05:41Dax Shepard?

  Classic.

• 2:05:41Speaker 01

  Very good.

• 2:05:42Dax Shepard?

  I put that above many of the others.

• 2:05:43Speaker 01

  Oh, ding, ding, ding. Allstate, you're in good hands. We know this one.

• 2:05:47Dax Shepard?

  Inside now.

• 2:05:47Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 2:05:48Dax Shepard?

  Truer, truer words are now spoken.

• 2:05:50Speaker 01

  Uber, move the way you want. I didn't know that.

• 2:05:52Dax Shepard?

  That's not, no one knows that.

• 2:05:53Speaker 01

  Capital One, what's in your wallet?

• 2:05:55Dax Shepard?

  Know it well. Everyone knows that.

• 2:05:56Speaker 01

  So well. Oh, Rothy's, reduce your carbon footprint and style. Staples, that was easy. Marriott Bonvoy Rewards reimagined. I, I, I've heard.

• 2:06:08Dax Shepard?

  You get a little.

• 2:06:09Speaker 01

  Kellogg's Rice Krispie Snap, Crackle, Pop.

• 2:06:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's nice.

• 2:06:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess I wouldn't have thought of that as.

• 2:06:15Dax Shepard?

  As a slogan?

• 2:06:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but.

• 2:06:16Dax Shepard?

  That's, that's classic.

• 2:06:18Speaker 01

  Gatorade, is it in you?

• 2:06:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:20Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 2:06:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:21Speaker 01

  Kentucky Fried Chicken, finger licking good.

• 2:06:23Dax Shepard?

  Prime.

• 2:06:24Speaker 01

  Compass, let us guide you, you home.

• 2:06:27Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 2:06:28Speaker 01

  Airbnb, belong anywhere. Verizon, can you hear me now? Good. Yes.

• 2:06:32Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  Oh, why isn't this, this should be number three or four. Dunkin' Donuts, America runs on Dunkin'.

• 2:06:39Dax Shepard?

  Maybe just because it's newer. That is a good one. I know it inside now, but it is a newer campaign, I think.

• 2:06:46Speaker 01

  Oh, Wheaties Breakfast of Champions.

• 2:06:49Dax Shepard?

  Classic. Timeless.

• 2:06:51Speaker 01

  Lay's, bet you can't eat just one.

• 2:06:53Dax Shepard?

  Pretty good.

• 2:06:53Speaker 01

  Oh, Taco Bell, think outside the bun. That should be higher.

• 2:06:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:56Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm skipping some. Toyota, let's go places. Yes.

• 2:07:01Dax Shepard?

  Let's do that.

• 2:07:01Speaker 01

  Walmart, save money, live better. And I haven't really heard that. Oh, Wrigley's, double your pleasure, double your fun.

• 2:07:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  Burger King, have it your way.

• 2:07:10Dax Shepard?

  Top of the list.

• 2:07:11Speaker 01

  That's really top. Um.

• 2:07:13Dax Shepard?

  Your way right away?

• 2:07:15Speaker 01

  That doesn't have McDonald's. Maybe McDonald's had a beef.

• 2:07:18Dax Shepard?

  They didn't pay to be on.

• 2:07:19Speaker 01

  Where's the beef? Wendy's.

• 2:07:20Dax Shepard?

  Nice. Most people don't know that.

• 2:07:24Dax Shepard?

  Really good. I had a marketing class in high school where he said, like, he gave us examples of good and bad advertising. And so he first quizzed everyone if they knew where's the beef.

• 2:07:35Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 2:07:35Dax Shepard?

  Every 100% of the people in the class knew that campaign.

• 2:07:38Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 2:07:38Dax Shepard?

  And then they asked, he asked everyone to write down what restaurant it was from. And there's zero consensus. People didn't remember that it was Wendy's. They remembered the commercial, but they didn't remember it was for Wendy's. Yes.

• 2:07:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So that was given as an example of an ineffective campaign. Yeah.

• 2:07:55Speaker 06

  Would have said Arby's.

• 2:07:56Dax Shepard?

  You would have said Arby's?

• 2:07:57Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:07:57Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 2:07:58Speaker 06

  I had to guess.

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  It does seem like it would have been good for Arby's.

• 2:08:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they should wish they.

• 2:08:02Speaker 06

  They should have, we've got the beef.

• 2:08:04Speaker 01

  That's theirs?

• 2:08:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think that's theirs now.

• 2:08:06Dax Shepard?

  We've, yeah, we've got the beef.

• 2:08:09Speaker 01

  I do feel bad that McDonald's, I'm loving it, wasn't on there. That's crazy.

• 2:08:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I think there's some skullduggery going on.

• 2:08:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, the Walker spy family case. John Anthony Walker and Arthur Walker. John Anthony Walker, a US Navy chief warrant officer and communications specialist. A family-run Soviet espionage network led by John Anthony Walker. John Walker and his associates sold classified US military secrets to the Soviet Union, resulting in one of the most damaging security breaches in American naval history.

• 2:08:43Dax Shepard?

  I wonder how much she made in a, the full length of doing that.

• 2:08:48Speaker 01

  Walker began spying for the Soviets in late 1967. When distraught over his financial difficulties, he walked into the old Soviet embassy in Washington DC, sold a top secret document, a radio cipher card, for several thousand dollars and negotiated an ongoing salary of 500 to a thousand dollars equivalent, equivalent of 4,800 to 9,700 in 2025 a week. It's not that much.

• 2:09:10Dax Shepard?

  A week, 520 grand a year to endanger the lives of your countrymen?

• 2:09:16Speaker 01

  Weird.

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  But maybe it was desperate.

• 2:09:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:21Speaker 01

  You know, I don't know.

• 2:09:24Speaker 01

  People make bad decisions.

• 2:09:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:26Speaker 01

  Oh, was 45 seconds on Broadway Neil Simon's last play that he wrote. Rose's Dilemma was the last play. But 45 seconds on Broadway, from Broadway.

• 2:09:38Dax Shepard?

  She infected you.

• 2:09:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Was his final play to grace a Broadway stage.

• 2:09:44Dax Shepard?

  Hmm, okay.

• 2:09:45Speaker 01

  Okay, then I looked up, this is fun.

• 2:09:47Dax Shepard?

  It was a fun one.

• 2:09:48Speaker 01

  Metro areas with the most top ranked high schools. Like publics, because she said she came from a really good public school system.

• 2:09:54Dax Shepard?

  In Virginia.

• 2:09:55Speaker 01

  This is for some reason started, but this is usnews.com.

• 2:09:59Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:09:59Speaker 01

  Really good. 28, I don't know why it's starting there, but um. Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Roswell, Georgia.

• 2:10:07Dax Shepard?

  Wow, good job.

• 2:10:09Speaker 01

  Highest ranked schools nationally.

• 2:10:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God.

• 2:10:12Speaker 01

  Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology. That's, I'm from Gwinnett County.

• 2:10:17Dax Shepard?

  Wow, so is.

• 2:10:18Speaker 01

  So that's why I'm really smart. 27 Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Texas.

• 2:10:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:10:24Speaker 01

  26 Warchester, Massachusetts. 25 San Diego.

• 2:10:29Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God.

• 2:10:31Dax Shepard?

  It's happening.

• 2:10:31Speaker 01

  Can't read anymore. San Diego, Chula Vista, Carlsbad, California. That's, these names are tough.

• 2:10:38Dax Shepard?

  There's a pair, there's a pattern emerging. The trickier the name of the place, the better the schools are.

• 2:10:44Speaker 01

  Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, Washington.

• 2:10:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Bellevue makes sense.

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  Chicago, oh, Rob, Chicago, Naperville.

• 2:10:52Dax Shepard?

  Yep.

• 2:10:52Speaker 01

  Elgin.

• 2:10:53Dax Shepard?

  Yep.

• 2:10:54Speaker 01

  Illinois, Indiana.

• 2:10:55Dax Shepard?

  Great schools.

• 2:10:57Speaker 01

  Houston, Pasadena, The Woodlands, Texas. I don't believe any of these.

• 2:11:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:11:02Speaker 01

  Mine was too low. Baltimore, Columbia, Towson, Maryland. Jacksonville, Florida. Yeah, right. Austin, Round Rock, Georgetown, Texas. Bridgeport, Stanford, Danbury, Connecticut. Grand Rapids, Wyoming, Kentwood, Michigan.

• 2:11:23Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:11:23Speaker 01

  Are you in there?

• 2:11:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, God, no.

• 2:11:25Speaker 01

  Oh, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Florida. Yeah, right.

• 2:11:29Dax Shepard?

  That's all Scientology headquarters.

• 2:11:31Speaker 01

  Ew, really, Clearwater?

• 2:11:33Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, so maybe they've got like that, that learning tech is really working.

• 2:11:36Speaker 01

  I went to Clearwater Beach once.

• 2:11:38Dax Shepard?

  That's where you got your advice, right? Yeah, you could play black. You didn't take it.

• 2:11:42Speaker 01

  No, that was Ocala.

• 2:11:43Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that was Ocala, sorry.

• 2:11:44Speaker 01

  El Paso, Texas, Orlando, Kissimmee, Sanford, Florida, Greenville, Anderson Greer, South Carolina.

• 2:11:51Dax Shepard?

  Mostly the South, all these.

• 2:11:52Speaker 01

  Washington DC, Arlington, Alexandria DC, Virginia, Maryland. What? San Francisco, now we're just saying every single, I'm mad.

• 2:12:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay, this wasn't, this wasn't as fun as anticipated.

• 2:12:03Speaker 01

  I thought it was gonna be really fun.

• 2:12:05Dax Shepard?

  But.

• 2:12:06Speaker 01

  This is number six, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Anaheim, California.

• 2:12:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, number what?

• 2:12:11Speaker 01

  Six.

• 2:12:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you're reading up?

• 2:12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:14Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I thought you started with yours as number one.

• 2:12:16Speaker 01

  I wanted to, it wasn't number one.

• 2:12:18Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:12:18Speaker 01

  That's why I don't believe it.

• 2:12:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:12:20Speaker 01

  This has number one as San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, California. This, don't listen to this list.

• 2:12:26Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:12:27Speaker 01

  It was not a factual list.

• 2:12:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:12:31Speaker 01

  Oh, the Euler's circuit, that was fun when she talked about that, where she.

• 2:12:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:36Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:12:36Dax Shepard?

  Most efficient way to move something.

• 2:12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, a Euler's circuit is a closed walk in a graph that visits every edge exactly once and starts and ends at the same vertex.

• 2:12:46Dax Shepard?

  Hmm, vertex.

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:48Dax Shepard?

  I don't know that word.

• 2:12:49Speaker 01

  Vertex, isn't that where things cross? I don't remember anything from school.

• 2:12:54Dax Shepard?

  I don't think I ever learned vertex.

• 2:12:56Speaker 01

  Well, I did take stat. Did you take stat?

• 2:12:59Dax Shepard?

  Yes, in college, I thought it was gonna be the easy math, and it wasn't.

• 2:13:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I took it in high school AP Stat.

• 2:13:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's hard.

• 2:13:07Speaker 01

  It was hard. Let's look at vertex meaning. A point where two or more lines, line segments, razor curves meet.

• 2:13:14Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 2:13:15Speaker 01

  I do know some stuff. Wow, that's because of my education, you know, it was number one. Um, that's it.

• 2:13:24Dax Shepard?

  That's everything for Ray Seehorn?

• 2:13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:27Dax Shepard?

  Okay, what an interesting story Ray had.

• 2:13:29Speaker 01

  I know, she, she was riddled with anxiety.

• 2:13:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:33Speaker 01

  But.

• 2:13:34Dax Shepard?

  But she persevered.

• 2:13:36Speaker 01

  She persevered, I think she said she still struggles sometimes.

• 2:13:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:40Speaker 01

  But we all do.

• 2:13:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we do. All right, love you.

• 2:13:43Speaker 01

  Love you.