"Peter Berg"

Put down the sugar– we have the wonderful Peter Berg. A rash, a seething ball of confusion and rage, and a love for the game. Happy New Year, Listener. It’s an all-new SmartLess.

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

• 0:00Sean Hayes?

  This episode of Smartless is sponsored by Google Book. So this may not surprise you, I have a lot of thoughts in my head. And my dream is to just blurt them out and somehow get them down on paper, because my brain works way faster than my hands. That's where Google Book comes in. It's a whole new kind of laptop. No more typing, you just talk, and the Rambler feature cleans up your ums and uhs and all the times you change your mind. Basically, it turns messy thoughts into tidy text. Visit googlebook.com for details. Available in select countries and languages to 18-plus users. Check the responses for accuracy.

• 0:43Sean Hayes?

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• 1:19Sean Hayes?

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• 1:55Sean Hayes?

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• 2:42Will Arnett?

  For resources and to support those affected by the California wildfires, go to smartless.com/wildfires.

• 2:54Will Arnett?

  Hey guys, I just want to say welcome to all our fans overseas. I don't think there are any. Well, hang on a second. I don't think we've ever done a welcome to our overseas fans. Wherever you are, I know we get a lot of listeners and this is not a bad. We get a lot of listeners in Iran. Yeah. And I will say, we do have a huge listenership there. We have some listeners in Germany. We have some French listeners. Bonjour, ça va? UK. UK for sure. Canada, Australia. Well, Canada's not over any sea, but look at them. Okay, sorry. And so, but. Couple of lakes. Certainly the people, our friends down in Australia, Down Under. We have a lot of fans down there. How are you going? How are you? A lot of fans in Brazil, the home of the Brazilian.

• 3:36Will Arnett?

  And so, just to all of our fans, welcome to Smartless.

• 3:59Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, God, that was...

• 4:00Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, he's barely with us. Stupid Sean didn't know we had to record today. What did we interrupt, Sean? Were you in the middle of toasting Pop-Tart?

• 4:09Sean Hayes?

  No, I wish. I saw my things in my trays and...

• 4:12Will Arnett?

  Take...

• 4:12Jason Bateman?

  It's not your trays. Is that Invisalign? Or is it just a bite? Is it like a bite stick?

• 4:18Sean Hayes?

  No, I have one more tray to go.

• 4:20Will Arnett?

  And then what? What are you working towards? Perfect teeth when they lay you in the coffin? Is that what it is? Why'd you choose to do it in the last third of your life?

• 4:29Sean Hayes?

  Your life? They were pretty jacked. They were getting real jacked.

• 4:33Jason Bateman?

  No, they really weren't. You're just running out of shit to fuck with.

• 4:36Sean Hayes?

  Well, this is true. This is true. No, I panicked. I had a whole other thing and then I just got the text. And I was like, oh my... There's no worse... It's like getting a text saying...

• 4:47Will Arnett?

  It's like you're sleeping through your alarm clock.

• 4:48Sean Hayes?

  Absolutely. Or getting a text that says, "Where you at? You on your way?" I'm like, oh my God.

• 4:54Jason Bateman?

  What do you guys do? What do you guys do? How do you guys not miss appointments on a day?

• 4:58Sean Hayes?

  I usually don't.

• 4:59Jason Bateman?

  Do you... But do you... But why? Why do you not miss them? Is it because you look at your little calendar app the night before or morning of?

• 5:07Will Arnett?

  Night before.

• 5:08Sean Hayes?

  Night before, yeah.

• 5:09Jason Bateman?

  Night before.

• 5:09Will Arnett?

  Night before. And I do a... I get an email the night before as well from people I work with that say, "Here's what you got coming up tomorrow." I do a week...

• 5:17Jason Bateman?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're getting an email from people you work with?

• 5:23Will Arnett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:23Jason Bateman?

  That they send... So this is from your executive assistants?

• 5:27Will Arnett?

  From Sweet Liz.

• 5:29Jason Bateman?

  And they say... "Hey, boss, boss man, here's what's coming up for you tomorrow."

• 5:33Will Arnett?

  Doesn't... I don't make her talk to me like that. I'm not like you. She sends me an email Sunday night. I get "Week at a glance."

• 5:40Sean Hayes?

  Oh, nice.

• 5:41Will Arnett?

  And she does...

• 5:42Sean Hayes?

  Like it's a TV show.

• 5:43Will Arnett?

  Yeah. I get "Week at a glance." And she sort of says, "This is what's coming up in the next week." And sometimes even if it's a busy month, she'll be like, "This is what's coming up."

• 5:50Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, but you can't do that yourself.

• 5:51Sean Hayes?

  I kind of do that too.

• 5:52Jason Bateman?

  Hashtag relatable.

• 5:53Will Arnett?

  I could do it myself. By the way, you're the "call my assistant" guy. I never say that.

• 5:59Jason Bateman?

  Who says that?

• 6:00Will Arnett?

  You do.

• 6:01Jason Bateman?

  I look at my own calendar. She'll put stuff on my calendar, but I will give myself a week at a glance.

• 6:07Will Arnett?

  You'll say, talk to the assistants. You say that, I've heard you say it a million times. Listen, I love you. There are very few people who love you more than I do. I love you a lot. And but you're made up of, you're nothing but blind spots.

• 6:23Jason Bateman?

  Sean, do you have, Sean, do you have an assistant?

• 6:26Will Arnett?

  Sean laughed at it too. You know what, because he loves him too.

• 6:29Jason Bateman?

  Do you have an assistant, Sean?

• 6:31Sean Hayes?

  I do, yes, it helps my life.

• 6:32Will Arnett?

  Do you not know his assistant? Hang on, JB.

• 6:35Jason Bateman?

  No, I don't.

• 6:36Will Arnett?

  How do you not?

• 6:36Jason Bateman?

  Why do I not?

• 6:37Sean Hayes?

  Because I know Liz and I know Bloom.

• 6:39Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I know Bloom.

• 6:40Jason Bateman?

  What's his or her name?

• 6:41Will Arnett?

  Nick.

• 6:42Sean Hayes?

  Nick.

• 6:42Jason Bateman?

  Why have I never met Nick or ever heard of Nick?

• 6:44Will Arnett?

  Because you're not, this is what I'm saying, because you're living in a blind spot, bro.

• 6:48Jason Bateman?

  Hey, Wayne, keep your voice down.

• 6:53Sean Hayes?

  I'd love it if your name was Wayne.

• 6:55Will Arnett?

  I know, Wade. Only thing better would be Wade. If my name was Wade.

• 6:59Sean Hayes?

  I had a buddy named Wade, Wade Wilson.

• 7:01Will Arnett?

  Hi, Wade. Wade, what's been, Sean, how you been doing? Are you okay?

• 7:04Sean Hayes?

  I've been great. I just, I'm still frazzled about that being late.

• 7:08Will Arnett?

  You're frazzled, but how are you in general?

• 7:11Sean Hayes?

  Oh, thanks for asking. I'm really good.

• 7:13Will Arnett?

  Are you?

• 7:13Sean Hayes?

  Yeah. Why, something I should know?

• 7:16Will Arnett?

  No, I couldn't tell the other night. Like, I just, I feel like it's a very, um, nothing to do with what's going on in the, I don't mean like sort of.

• 7:25Sean Hayes?

  No.

• 7:25Will Arnett?

  I just think that, like, in general, it's a weird time. I, for me, it's kind of a weird time. I woke up yesterday with, and I don't get this a lot, I had like general anxiety.

• 7:35Sean Hayes?

  About?

• 7:36Will Arnett?

  I don't know, I couldn't explain it.

• 7:38Sean Hayes?

  Low grade?

• 7:39Will Arnett?

  Yeah, kind of low grade and I couldn't, I couldn't shake it and I don't know, and I'm, and I'm not really made that way in the sense that like, I'm, I feel really lucky that, I think I've mentioned this before. Downey once said, nobody wakes up in the morning, morning happier to be themselves than you. And, and, and it's sort of true.

• 7:55Sean Hayes?

  That's kind of true, yeah.

• 7:56Will Arnett?

  But, but I do.

• 7:57Jason Bateman?

  But you're not bright enough to be concerned about things.

• 8:00Will Arnett?

  I think so, I think that's probably true.

• 8:02Jason Bateman?

  It takes a lot of intelligence to really see all the problems that could come your way.

• 8:07Will Arnett?

  I think, I think that's true. Or, or, or it's just that everything's worked out. But it's one of the, it's one of the two.

• 8:14Jason Bateman?

  Well, but we had a, we had a wonderful conversation on Saturday around the table. I love that.

• 8:18Will Arnett?

  We had a really great conversation with Danny, our friend Danny D's whom, whom we all love and adore. But I, I, but you know, sometimes, so I think that the, the, the contrast when I'm not feeling great is so, is, I, I really feel it because.

• 8:33Jason Bateman?

  Usually you're 72 and breezy.

• 8:35Will Arnett?

  Yeah, yeah. And I, it was weird, man. And I kind of took all day and I was like, um, and I was just trying to, I don't know. I was, I was looking to redirect all day. I was like, what am I gonna do?

• 8:46Jason Bateman?

  And how about today? Did you wake up back to it today?

• 8:49Will Arnett?

  Yeah, little bit better today, little bit better.

• 8:51Jason Bateman?

  Okay, can I tell you what it was? Cause I had the same thing yesterday.

• 8:54Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 8:55Jason Bateman?

  It was the sugar.

• 8:56Will Arnett?

  You think so?

• 8:57Jason Bateman?

  It's sugar. I swear to God.

• 8:58Sean Hayes?

  Interesting.

• 8:59Jason Bateman?

  It's fucking, we had that big fat fucking carrot cake.

• 9:02Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Jason Bateman?

  And God, was it good? And, and I was a disaster yesterday.

• 9:06Sean Hayes?

  Really? But it was Will's cheat day and everybody had a little piece of cake and, and.

• 9:11Will Arnett?

  Cheat meal, not day.

• 9:12Sean Hayes?

  Cheat meal, cheat meal, sorry. And, and everybody got served a little piece of cake and Will got served two, like two pieces of cake and five things of ice cream. And I said, and I said, I said, how many people are you cheating for?

• 9:23Jason Bateman?

  Exactly. Well, how many people are you cheating on?

• 9:26Will Arnett?

  You did, but did you notice this week that, that I ate mine? I only had one piece of cake and then I had a few, few scoops of ice cream, which I brought with me like a, like a psycho.

• 9:35Jason Bateman?

  You brought fucking chocolate sauce with you too.

• 9:37Will Arnett?

  No, that was Jen's. She was, that was at her house.

• 9:39Jason Bateman?

  This isn't a cheat day. You're impregnating people as well, I guess. It was like, it's, it's not just, you know.

• 9:47Will Arnett?

  But do you remember two weeks ago, do you remember two weeks ago when Jen, when, when our friend, when I went to have a second piece? And she looked at me and she was like, honey, do you really wanna do that? And she shaved me.

• 9:58Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:58Jason Bateman?

  This week. You guys, you guys just need to get married and get it over with.

• 10:01Will Arnett?

  I know. This week, she, she, I, she saw me look at her, like she'd had like three bites, tiny bites of her cake, and she pushed it towards me. And I thought it was a really kind of.

• 10:11Sean Hayes?

  I saw that. And then I kinda, kinda got sad. I was like, why didn't she push it toward me?

• 10:16Jason Bateman?

  Because you don't look as much like a trash can.

• 10:18Sean Hayes?

  A little bit.

• 10:19Will Arnett?

  Well, I think that, I think that Shawnee, this is my vision of you is that you're like, I'm only having one piece and then you kept going into the kitchen eating stuff.

• 10:26Sean Hayes?

  That is correct. And silence and shame, yeah.

• 10:30Will Arnett?

  Anyway, so yeah, so we're, we're feeling good today though, right? We're all back to it.

• 10:35Sean Hayes?

  That's interesting about the sugar thing though, Jay, I want to talk about that.

• 10:37Will Arnett?

  I think the sugar thing is true, good, and you know what the other thing is? My new hack, and maybe I've talked about this, I just, I tried to call a few people and talk to a few people and ask them how they were doing, and that was really helpful.

• 10:48Sean Hayes?

  Oh, that's good.

• 10:48Will Arnett?

  Yeah, that really, really helped. And get out of your own head a little bit.

• 10:53Jason Bateman?

  Do you not have my right number? You might not have my right number.

• 10:55Will Arnett?

  I knew how you were doing, okay? Which I'd just seen you nine hours before. We all know how you were doing, okay?

• 11:03Jason Bateman?

  I'm cold this morning. It's chilly in LA.

• 11:05Will Arnett?

  We love you.

• 11:06Sean Hayes?

  You've got the hoodie on.

• 11:07Jason Bateman?

  I love you and I love our next guest. Guys, today, we have a fella who's been a part of our lives for a long time. He's been delivering films and TV shows as a director and as an actor for about 35 years. He's a huge part of the entertainment business, but keeps well out of the spotlight. As a director, he can deliver some of the most hilarious moments on screen or the most brutal and disturbing. As an actor, he can do the same. He loves football, his son, and Ari Emanuel. Not necessarily in that order. I love him, his movies, and his ability to send hilarious gifts. In that order. Folks, it's America's Pete Berg. Come on out, Pete. Wow.

• 11:44Sean Hayes?

  Wowee, wowee.

• 11:47Jason Bateman?

  Did I get that right? Is that the order? Is your love for football, Emmet, and Ari, is that the right order?

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Uh, it's, it's my son.

• 11:55Jason Bateman?

  Fluxuates.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  It's my son, Ari football, I would have to say. But they're all, they're all up there, dude. They're all up there.

• 12:03Sean Hayes?

  That's cool. It's so nice to meet you.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  It's a pleasure to meet you, Will. Sorry to hear about the anxiety. I agree with Bateman. It's definitely, the sugar's not helping, so.

• 12:14Jason Bateman?

  No, and you're very smart about that stuff, right?

• 12:17Will Arnett?

  Pete, you should know I've been off the sugar for a few months, but I have one cheat meal every seven days, as per my.

• 12:23Jason Bateman?

  That's why it's affecting you a lot, probably. Your body's so cleaned out.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  But does, does sugar have to be part of the cheat meal? Can't you just eat, you know, pizza or something like?

• 12:33Jason Bateman?

  Bacon, yeah.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, have bacon.

• 12:34Sean Hayes?

  I think it's, I think it's that and everything else.

• 12:36Will Arnett?

  I prob- I probably should. I, I, I, I think that it's just.

• 12:39Jason Bateman?

  Well, but like, like any of us, uh, sort of, uh, uh, folks in recovery, uh, we miss the sweet. We miss, we miss the sugar of alcohol. And I think it's, you know, for a long time, uh, for some reason cigarettes curved that, uh, curved it for me for a while. And then when that went away, uh, like now, and then, uh, yeah, then the coke. Cause it looks like sugar.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:00Jason Bateman?

  Um, stevia helps me out. Stevia helps me out.

• 13:04Sean Hayes?

  Oh, that's good. Stevia's good.

• 13:05Jason Bateman?

  Pete, you're good with, you're good with, you're good with, look at you.

• 13:08Will Arnett?

  You look trim, man. You look great, Pete.

• 13:10Jason Bateman?

  So good. If you took that tarp off right now, you'd see somebody that could beat your ass, Arnett. Pretty handily.

• 13:16Will Arnett?

  I know he could.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  I would never.

• 13:17Jason Bateman?

  Runs a boxing gym.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  I do.

• 13:19Will Arnett?

  I've known, I've known Pete, Pete, you and I have known each other very loosely for years.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  I, I've said hi to you many times and I wish it was more than just a hi. It's always been in passing. And Sean, I don't believe we've met, but it's a pleasure to meet you also.

• 13:34Sean Hayes?

  This is correct. We have not met and it is a pleasure to meet you too, Peter. I'm a big fan.

• 13:38Jason Bateman?

  Pete, tell me about, tell me about, tell me about the boxing while we're here. Um, uh, th- this is, it's, it's, it's been a steady escalation of commitment from you. Um, not just in training, but then like now you're, now, now you're co-owning a gym.

• 13:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I, about 15 years ago, I was thinking about maybe a side hobby. And people were asking me if I wanted to go in on a restaurant or maybe a bar. And, and to me that just seemed like a horrible idea for many reasons. Just like one, talk about like all blind spot. I had, I had enough of, cause I'm like you, I have a lot of blind spots. But there was, I, I sensed that that would be a bad move for me to open a, a bar, be part of that.

• 14:22Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  And at the time, uh, I was boxing at a club that Bob Dylan owns in Santa Monica. And the trainer of the gym got into a beef with Bob, which is a whole great story in itself. Getting, getting into beefs with Bob Dylan, which like, there's a whole side of Bob Dylan around a boxing gym.

• 14:42Jason Bateman?

  Hey.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  You know, you're really annoying me today.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  If you don't do something, I'm gonna get physical on you.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  We used to spar Bob, but you could never hit, you weren't really allowed to hit him back. And he would pop you. Bob Dylan had a sharp jab. And it was supposed to be like, but you couldn't hit him back. And so I took a few shots from Bob. But Dylan got in a fight with the then head trainer and fired him. And Gary Shandling, who's a good friend of mine, was also training at that gym. And Gary came to me and said, Pete, why don't we take this trainer and start our own gym? And I said, okay, it seemed like a better, more interesting experience than opening a bar. And so Gary and I backed this gentleman, started our own gym.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  And the gentleman who we hired ended up leaving. We had some problems with him. And then Gary died. R I P Gary Shandling, who I love so much. And left me alone with the boxing gym. And it has been one of the stupidest things that I have ever done in my life. Bar fucking none.

• 16:02Jason Bateman?

  Wait, why?

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Do not.

• 16:04Jason Bateman?

  That sounds like such an easy thing to run. Low overhead, there's no maintenance.

• 16:09Sean Hayes?

  Hey, clean these towels and lock the door. That's it.

• 16:11Will Arnett?

  Two things, two things, actually technically three things. One thing is people, people say that I got a lot of blind spots, but I don't see them. The other thing is this, Pete, is my son who's 16, the last year and a half, he's gotten into boxing and he's boxing at another gym that I'm not gonna name, but he's going twice. And now he just said to me last night, Dad, can I start going three times a week? And he boxes with this guy, which is really cool. And I was thinking like, love to get him out to your gym maybe and get him in there, get another.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Churchill Boxing Club in Santa Monica, come on down. It's a great gym.

• 16:43Will Arnett?

  Great. Well, we're gonna get a nice boon. But here's what I wanted to say is a little sideline, because I do want to finish the boxing theme is. We haven't spent enough time, I feel like we've been delinquent on this podcast. We haven't spent enough time talking about and giving credence to Gary Shandling. Cause he was one of, talk about a heavyweight, to use the analogy. This guy was an unbelievable, he's the reason I got HBO. Cause Pete, you knew him, I didn't know the guy, but what an influence he had on, on what we consider to be comedy now. In a lot of ways, Gary Shandling.

• 17:15Jason Bateman?

  Actors, writers, format.

• 17:17Will Arnett?

  What was he like, what was he like?

• 17:18Speaker 03

  So, I mean, I got to see both sides of Gary, you know, I saw him as, you know, a comic titan. And a, you know, a very entrenched member of our industry. And, and that's how most people knew Gary. The boxing gym is actually a fascinating culture. Our gym is meant to be a pretty traditional boxing gym with pro fighters. So we would have a lot of Russians, South Americans, we had folks from Japan, we had Chinese fighters. And these were, you know, young men who would come to LA, rarely spoke much English, were not at all connected. And Gary took a deep interest in their lives.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  And I would come into the gym and Gary would be sitting with, you know, a couple of kids from Argentina, talking about boxing and talking about life and had this incredible connection. And when Gary passed away, there was a huge memorial, I don't know if any of you guys went to it, you know, a couple of thousand people. You know, everyone in Hollywood went to Gary's memorial service. And then the next day, we had a service for him at the gym. And there were, you know, a couple of hundred people who knew Gary only as G from the gym. And they had no idea that he was, you know, famous, they had no idea that he had this other life. They just thought he was a really sweet guy who cared about them. And he really did.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  And so that, that was a side of Gary, he absolutely loved boxing. He loved Bob Dylan and loved fighting with Bob Dylan.

• 18:52Jason Bateman?

  I'd love to see that pay-per-view. That's such a funny image.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Gary tried to do a talk show where he would, he would, he would fight you three rounds in the ring. And as soon as those three rounds were over, you would collapse and, and, um, and he'd do an interview. He would do the interview after you'd been punching the shit out of each other. And he only did one with Alec, with Alec Baldwin. And I was there for it and they both, I think, had heart attacks. Literally many heart attacks. And, and, and at the end of the third round, Baldwin was laying on his side and Gary was laying on his stomach. And they were wheezing. There was like,

• 19:37Speaker 03

  and, and Gary was trying to ask him questions.

• 19:42Jason Bateman?

  How'd you get started, Alec?

• 19:43Speaker 03

  And, yeah, and Baldwin was just like, I, I think I really need some water. Or, or, and I'm like, I'm like, guys, you're both, you're both, I, I, it never aired.

• 19:54Jason Bateman?

  Did you shoot it?

• 19:55Speaker 03

  We did.

• 19:55Will Arnett?

  I've seen it, Pete, and it, it got kind of real too in the, in the, when they were fighting too, right?

• 20:00Speaker 03

  No, they were beating the shit out of each other. Baldwin was tough and Gary, Gary was deceptively, you know, effective as a boxer. And I think Alec didn't quite know what he was in for. So it started and Alec thought it was gonna be kind of fun. And Shanley just started face punching him over and over and over.

• 20:20Will Arnett?

  Yeah, it got weirdly real and like, it was uncomfortable.

• 20:24Jason Bateman?

  Pete, you gotta show us this. You shot it?

• 20:26Speaker 03

  Uh, I, Gary shot it. So I, we could maybe dig it up. But it was, it was priceless, but I was literally concerned that they were both having heart attacks. And I got them to stop and drink water. And then, you know, it was one of those, it was a deep level of exhaustion. It just wasn't going away.

• 20:44Sean Hayes?

  It's just like an icebreaker before an interview, like?

• 20:47Will Arnett?

  Yeah, just to support everybody at ease.

• 20:51Jason Bateman?

  And we will be right back.

• 20:55Sean Hayes?

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• 21:40Sean Hayes?

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• 22:22Sean Hayes?

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• 22:39Will Arnett?

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• 23:23Will Arnett?

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• 23:42Sean Hayes?

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• 24:27Sean Hayes?

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• 25:02Sean Hayes?

  And now, back to the show.

• 25:05Will Arnett?

  Pete, I do want to go back though. I want to get back into how you became who you are, which is, as Jason said in the intro, I mean, you're an incredible filmmaker and actor, and you haven't acted as much in the last few years as you used to. But you started as an actor, and Jason, you probably feel a lot of connection to what Pete does, because he was able to kind of go from an actor who was in a lot of stuff and people wanted, and become a director yourself, which I know is a trajectory that you're sort of on. Pete, talk a little bit about that, like about being an actor who's auditioning for jobs, then an actor who's in demand, and then turning that into, or having the vision, or having, what, talk about what it was that inspired you to become a director, etc.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  So I think one of the, like, lightbulb moments for me that got me really starting to think about directing, which is something I'd always thought about, and I think Jason always had too, and it was something we used to talk about when we were working together. I remember on the set of Hancock in particular, you talking about filmmaking and me kind of sensing that you were going to move in this direction. But for me, I was an actor on Chicago Hope, which was a pretty successful medical drama, and we went up against ER every Thursday night at 10 o'clock, and they beat us every Thursday night, but we were still getting, you know, 23 million people watching us,

• 26:29Speaker 03

  which we thought was just horrible, because we were coming in second, and that was horrible, but in looking back on it, obviously it wasn't. But I was getting kind of famous as this doctor, Dr. Billy Cronk, on Chicago Hope, and, you know, thank you. And, you know, when you, back then in particular, got TV famous, you were pretty famous, so wherever I went, people were like, "Hey Billy, how you doing Billy? How's Diane?" My wife on the show, and, "Hey Billy, how's the..." And I'm like, "Okay, I'm not fucking Billy, my name's Pete." And at a certain point, I started sensing that if I wasn't careful, my legacy was going to be Dr. Billy Cronk, the TV doctor.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  And I was on a plane flying from LA to JFK, and I was sitting in my seat, and people were walking by me, and a man stopped, and he said, "Hey Billy..." And I said, uh, my name's not Billy. He goes, hey Billy, my wife has this rash. What do you think? Show them the rash. And she pulled up her shirt and stuck her elbow, which had a really bad rash on it, in my face. And I'm just sitting there staring at this rash. And they're smiling. I mean, all other people on the plane are all kind of like, hey Billy, what do you think the rash is? And I'm like, that's it. I'm not doing this anymore. And I started, um, you know, writing and I wrote a movie, Very Bad Things,

• 27:55Speaker 03

  which was my first film. And, uh, and, and that, you know, was something that once I got a taste of that and figured out that I, I could do it, um, I, I never really looked back. And, and I do love acting, but I was not going to be Billy Cronk for the rest of my career.

• 28:12Sean Hayes?

  But what was that thing that made you, were you scared to be like, I can't believe I can, I'm gonna try to do this? Like, how did you get over the fear?

• 28:19Will Arnett?

  Yeah, cause you had a real career as an actor. Like, so you gotta make a leap a little bit and go like, alright, I'm gonna do this.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  So I was flying to New York, uh, to act when that, when the rash was-

• 28:28Sean Hayes?

  And the same guy was on that plane and said, I have, I have a different rash.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Well, and, and the reason I was on that plane where I was presented with the rash was I was flying to New York to be in a movie called Copland. I was gonna act in it. Uh, and that was Stallone and De Niro. And Stallone had put weight on and was gonna, you know, try and win an Oscar. And this was Harvey Weinstein producing it in the height of his power. And, and Ray Liotta and Harvey Keitel and all these big stars were in the film. And I, I had a small part in it. And, and I-

• 28:59Sean Hayes?

  Stallone directed that too, right?

• 29:00Speaker 03

  No, James, James Mangold directed it, wrote and directed it. And my, I was one of the cops and most of my scenes were in this like bar. And I would just sit around waiting for my one line. So Stallone would talk and De Niro would talk. And then finally it'd be my line and I'd be like, yeah, for sure. And then, and anyway.

• 29:21Jason Bateman?

  Sounds like me in Kingdom.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  No, you had a great, you were phenomenal.

• 29:25Will Arnett?

  No, Jason.

• 29:26Jason Bateman?

  Turn left.

• 29:27Will Arnett?

  No, no, no.

• 29:27Jason Bateman?

  Turn right.

• 29:28Will Arnett?

  Jason, by the way, sidebar, sidebar, Jason had one of my favorite lines ever delivered in the film. And you know what it is? It was like, hey, driver, are you late for something? Remember that? You guys are cruising along the desert? Fuck, I love that.

• 29:41Jason Bateman?

  Abu Dhabi, scared out of my mind.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  But, but I was on the set of, of Copland, just watching everything happen. And there was this young director, James Mangold, and I was watching him and he was arguing with Stallone and getting into all this creative stuff with, with, with De Niro and Ray Liotta. And it was just like, he was alive. He had this energy coming out of him. And I was sitting there waiting for my line and I'm like.

• 30:08Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  And I finally at lunch, I walked up to him. I didn't really know him. I said, hey, man, can I ask you a question? He said, yo, what's up? He said, I said, how do I get your job?

• 30:17Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 03

  How do I get your job?

• 30:19Jason Bateman?

  You want to work 60 minutes an hour, not just 10.

• 30:22Speaker 03

  And he said, you got to write. And I said, okay, well, how do you, how do you do that? He goes, well, do you know how to write? I go, yeah. He goes, well, do you have an idea? I said, kinda. He said, well, what I do is I use note cards. And I outline my, and, and so then I want to get all my cards, then I've got the idea. Then I start writing the scenes. And so I went back to my hotel and I was staying in Essex House in New York. You know that hotel?

• 30:48Will Arnett?

  Sure.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  It has a big.

• 30:49Will Arnett?

  Sounds like Park South.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  The big, beautiful park views, right?

• 30:52Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  I had the shittiest room in the hotel. I had the back, tiny little room in the back of the hotel that looked out over an alley. And I went home and I, I went to the drugstore, I got note cards, I got pen. And I started note, I started writing the note cards and outlining the script. But I had a really small room and, and I had the note cards kind of all over the room. And I'd go to work and come back and more note cards. And I had this whole crazy system. And one day I came back and the note cards had all been moved and cleaned up. And I'm like, who did this? And they told me it was Manuela, the housekeeper. So I found Manuela and Manuela, you can't do this. I'm writing a movie and she's like, what?

• 31:34Speaker 03

  And I told her about these guys who go to Vegas and accidentally kill a hooker and then have to chop her up. And she's like, oh my God, then what happens? And what? And Manuela helped me write the script because I would bounce it all off of her. That's so good. And I had, I had the script up all throughout the rooms on all the walls. So I was like living in it. One day I came back and I went to go in the room and the key didn't work. And I went down and they said, Mr. Burgh, we have a problem. We had to move your room. And I had, I'm like, holy shit. They took me up to the top floor. I went to turn to where the shitty rooms were. They go, no, you're this way to where the good rooms were. Walked me down into the park suite and I walk in this beautiful suite and the staff at

• 32:18Speaker 03

  the Essex house had cleared out the walls and put my script up on the walls. No way. And they said, Manuela told us what you're doing. We wish you the best of luck. Come on. That's amazing. And that, that moment really changed everything for me. That's incredible.

• 32:34Jason Bateman?

  I never knew that. Pete, Jesus, that's fucking great.

• 32:38Will Arnett?

  That's so fucking incredible. What a, what a great story about humanity, people and belief and all that kind of, also I think, like to think that Manuela, before she knew it was a screenplay, she was nervous because she had all these cards about going to Vegas and killing a hooker. She's like, I got a serial killer here. This guy is.

• 32:56Jason Bateman?

  Um, well, Pete, how did you?

• 32:58Will Arnett?

  That's awesome.

• 32:59Jason Bateman?

  How did you take your, um, you know, you're very, you've got a very, your, your taste, your sensibility, your personality is very, you know, seasoned and no bullshit. And, you know, uh, there's no real artifice to you, which I just fucking love. And yet, and you've somehow managed to take that and, and, and mold it into an actual visual aesthetic too. Um, where did that come from? Like the style of your films, the way in which they're shot, the way in which they're cut, the, the actors you hired, the things you asked them to do and not to do, like where, how was that shaped?

• 33:37Speaker 03

  I mean, the, the things. I think that I do that tend to work the best like if it's Friday Night Lights or The Kingdom or Deepwater Horizon or Patriots Day. These are, these are films that I do a tremendous amount of research on, you know, I'm kind of a psycho about that. Um, I'm, I'm in Tel Aviv right now and uh, last night we had a missile attack that was pretty amazing, uh, and somewhat terrifying. And I've always been someone who likes to see things for myself and, and that generally translates to, to my writing. Uh, and I try to, try to have, have this deep of a almost anthropological or almost journalistic understanding of my world. So, you know, I went to Saudi Arabia

• 34:22Speaker 03

  a long time ago before we did The Kingdom and, you know, lived there for three weeks and got a as much of an understanding as I could about, of that culture. And once I, I kind of feel like I've done that work and I understand the world. When I did Lone Survivor, I went to Iraq and embedded with the Navy SEAL platoon for a month on the border of Syria, uh, and, and that helped me make a better film. Um, and that, you know, helps me in theory communicate with, you know, someone, you know, like when we were doing the, uh, the scene in The Kingdom where they, you know, we're gonna cut your head off. Um, you know, I, I've had a, I've tried to have a proximity, certainly never to that kind of level of violence, but to at least understand as best as I can,

• 35:07Speaker 03

  you know, what these, you know, executions were looking like and, uh, and how they might have gone down. And that I think could help me help you reach an appropriate level of, uh, terror and a, and a willingness to fight, which you did so well in that, uh, which I found fascinating. And I've had so many people talk about that scene and how Jason Bateman, this sweet, funny guy, went fucking psycho to save himself. And, and that really comes from the research and.

• 35:38Jason Bateman?

  So then you're looking for a level of authenticity that then just naturally lends itself to, let's say, a handheld camera, disaturated color, uh, blah, blah, blah, like. So all of these things, you're, you're, you're engineering it from a very organic place. You're not kind of going backwards into an aesthetic.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 35:56Jason Bateman?

  You're just going, yeah.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  And, and you know, when I was acting on Chicago Hope back in those days, I learned so much because, you know, we were doing 28 episodes a season and we would have 28 different directors coming in. And I learned so much and a lot of these directors were, um, you know, they tried to have feature careers and they were a bit older and they were angry. And they were trying to prove that they were Tarantino or Scorsese and, and they would just spend so much time setting up shots and doing all this stuff. And we as actors would sit around waiting for all this equipment. And I'm like, what the fuck are we doing here? Like, I want to act, I want to, I want to be, feel free to, to, to, you know, not be beholden to the, you know, and you guys have all seen it, the machinery of filmmaking where

• 36:42Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  Cranes and dollies and lighting and hair and makeup and every, it seems like it, it impacts everything other than the actual acting.

• 36:51Jason Bateman?

  All right. And so Pete's stylist, yeah, multiple cameras, handheld cameras going at the same time. And when they run out, shooting on film, and they'd run out of film, the AC would just put the camera on the ground, reload it, put another magazine of film on top of the camera while the other two are still rolling. And while we're resetting back to the top of the scene, No fucking way. Like multiple takes over and over and over again without ever cutting, just reloading the cameras quietly.

• 37:15Speaker 03

  I remember when, uh, when we were rehearsing, um, Hancock. Remember we would have all those crazy rehearsals with Will and Charlize.

• 37:24Jason Bateman?

  On the soundstage with Akiva?

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And, and when I first met Charlize, she, she came up to me because Jason and I had worked together. And I knew Will and I think Will had heard a little bit about my style of work. And, and Charlize said, you know, Pete, I, I understand. I've talked to Jason, I know how you like to do this kind of wild thing and move around lots of cameras. She just said, you know, I don't work that way. I, I need a certain amount of, you know, of organization. And there has to be a system where I can, and I'm like, Charlize, no problem. I got you. We'll do it. We'll cut and we'll reset and do it. And, and then like the first day I was working with Jason and we were just going off and Will was into it. And I would cut for Charlize.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  And then about an hour, she came up to me and she said, you know, that, that thing you're doing with Jason. Do that to me and I want that too.

• 38:18Will Arnett?

  Pete, I was thinking about you the other day. I was down in Fort Worth, Texas, not a bit. And I was truly, I was doing this thing, I was working with, like, with Taylor Sheridan. He was a great guy and so I was staying at this hotel and, you know, it was the fall. And I hear, I'm in my hotel room, I'm trying to go over my shit that I'm working on. I keep hearing this like.

• 38:44Will Arnett?

  Like, what the fuck is like, is my phone on? And I keep looking around the room, the TV is not on. I go out in the thing and I look out and I could just see over the treetops in the distance, this stadium and I fucking look it up on my phone and it's a fucking Texas high school football game.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:00Jason Bateman?

  Oh, wow.

• 39:00Will Arnett?

  And the stadium was packed and I could hear the fans and I could hear the announcer. I was like, holy shit. It was Friday fucking Night Lights, man. Like, it was incredible.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:12Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. How did that, how did that, how did, so for, for, for the listener, yeah. Pete brought us Friday Night Lights, the film, and then shepherded the television series to us as well by doing, what, the pilot, probably the first couple and EP'd the whole thing, right?

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:29Jason Bateman?

  You're, you're, the writer, you're second cousin to the writer, perhaps?

• 39:34Speaker 03

  Yes, Buzz Bessinger is my second cousin.

• 39:37Jason Bateman?

  Was that helpful in it finding its way to you or did it happen without that?

• 39:42Speaker 03

  It was, you know, I had, I had followed the, the book and read the book and Buzz used to, you know, push me to try and make it. At the time, I actually didn't really have the juice. There were a lot of filmmakers that wanted it and Brian Grazer controlled it. And I would call Brian and just sort of check in with him. And I knew they were going through a list of, you know, some pretty top tier directors. And, and Brian was always nice and he was pretty honest, saying, you know, maybe we'll get, get to you. And, and two directors, one fell out and one Brian got annoyed with and fired. And he called me and he said, okay, dude, it's yours. And that, that was an incredible experience.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  Experience and you know when I when I was doing Friday Night Lights, I went and I was, I think I was forty one at the time. Flew down to Texas and moved into a high school, the school Austin Westlake. And I stayed with a football player's family, let me live in his house. And I lived on a futon in Koyani, who was a wide receiver for Austin Westlake, an eighteen year old. He was probably seventeen or eighteen at the time. And I went to high school with him every day. And I went to football practice and lived with this team. And it was really an amazing experience.

• 40:58Sean Hayes?

  That's really cool. And that's why it feels so real and authentic and just the way in which you just shot the the the the sport as well. Um, what was your, did you play a lot of football, um, growing up?

• 41:10Speaker 03

  I played high school football, but I tried to, I wanted to be a quarterback. My ego was like, I'm gonna be a quarterback and I was horrible. So for three years, I tried to to play quarterback, uh, very unsuccessfully. And my senior year in high school, my coach moved me to defensive end. And and I really realized I should have done that all along because I liked hitting people and I didn't have the pressure. I I would get too anxious and couldn't remember the plays and just had some horrible disasters as quarterback. When I finally moved to defense, um, you know, I I developed a real love for the game. But you know, the the book is about so much more than football and I think that's why the show, um, is work so well.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  It's really just, you know, you're you're a huge sports fan, uh, Jason. I I know how much baseball means to you, right?

• 42:02Sean Hayes?

  I remember when I was a kid, I um, I played football when I was really young. And I remember my mom telling me to go to this guy's house to get fitted for the equipment.

• 42:12Speaker 03

  Uh oh.

• 42:12Sean Hayes?

  And so I did and he gave me the mouth guard to fit in my mouth.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 42:17Sean Hayes?

  And the only good thing from the whole experience was that it tasted like mint. It was like minty flavored. And it's like, oh, maybe I could do this because it tastes so good. That was the extent of my happiness. Go ahead, Will.

• 42:28Will Arnett?

  I'm, well, I just, I don't know where to start, um, honestly.

• 42:32Speaker 03

  That's so funny.

• 42:34Will Arnett?

  I mean, so much.

• 42:35Jason Bateman?

  It's true. I was like, oh, maybe there's a silver lining here.

• 42:38Will Arnett?

  Well, part of it's funny, part of it's funny, and then part of it's just a nothing story.

• 42:43Jason Bateman?

  It is a nothing story.

• 42:44Speaker 03

  And disturbing and, and, you know.

• 42:46Will Arnett?

  Hey, Pete, I'm sure that all your films have, and you mentioned a few of them, like, have, have a place in your heart or in your, in your life where you look back and they represented a thing, or, and I'm sure you learned a lot from them. Was there, was there one of your films that, that really, for you, transported you and kind of, not, not like, hey, I figured it out, but more like, and again, not even necessarily your favorite, but something you just like, you learned a lot from,

• 43:17Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:18Will Arnett?

  that was like a turning point film for you?

• 43:20Speaker 03

  I, I mean, there was, there was a moment when I was, you know, I, sometimes I answer that question, and, and I, I mean it by saying, I, you, you'd never set out to make a shitty movie. No filmmaker does. And we all understand how hard it is to make a, a good film, and sometimes they're good, and sometimes they absolutely suck.

• 43:38Jason Bateman?

  It's so hard to just make a movie that doesn't suck. Not a good one, just one that doesn't suck.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  It's so hard. Exactly.

• 43:44Will Arnett?

  I don't think people appreciate that, actually, to be honest.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  You know, and people don't.

• 43:48Jason Bateman?

  It's a magic trick.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  It's, it's not their responsibility to appreciate it. It's on us. And, you know, I've had people just say, God, your movies, that movie sucked. And I'm like, okay, fair enough.

• 43:58Speaker 03

  I mean, really, people would say that, appreciate that. Didn't, didn't, that wasn't my goal, I assure you.

• 44:03Will Arnett?

  It's usually in the Boston area, by the way, that you get that. Fuck you, dude, that fucking sucked, huh?

• 44:08Speaker 03

  For real, for real. And, and, and they don't, but yeah, Boston's very direct. But you, you know, you, I do love everything I've done, and I find, you know, that these are things that I try as hard as I can, and hopefully the result is good. So I do, I do have connections to every film I've done. There was a moment when I was making Friday Night Lights, the movie, where we were gonna film a scene, there's a coin toss scene, that's a big dramatic scene where all these schools have to decide who's gonna be in the playoffs. And we'd been, but, we scheduled for three nights to film this scene. It was a big scene. You know, Hundred Extras, Billy Bob Thornton, all the principals were there. And it was a complicated scene.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  And, and this was when I was starting to find a style with multiple cameras and what Jason was talking about. Just keep moving and don't cut and shoot and do a... So we had three nights scheduled to shoot it. And then we got up there and rehearsed it for a couple of hours. And I had the cameras going and we shot it in about two hours. And we cut and, and I'm like looking at Eric Heffron, who was my first A D. And you've worked with him, Jason. And he's looking at me and I'm like, wha- what, do we have this scene? And he's like, I think we do. And we, we, this was two hours. We had three nights to shoot this scene. And we're standing there and the D P comes over and says, wha- what just happened? I go, I'm not sure. And the script supervisor was all confused because he couldn't make sense of any of it.

• 45:37Speaker 03

  And I go, I think we've got it. And then the producer came over and was like, you can't do this. I'm gonna get in so much trouble because we... And, and, and I realized then that I, I was able to work in, in a way that I didn't realize was possible. And the actors loved it and it came out great. And I loved it and the studio saved a shitload of money. Um, and that, that became for me, um, kind of a, a, a personal sort of realization that there are not as many rules as we think there should be.

• 46:09Jason Bateman?

  Interesting.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  You know, I think, I think the success of your guys' podcast is another example of that. You know, like, really? Like this happened?

• 46:18Jason Bateman?

  Go forward, yeah.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  You just did it and you followed no rules and you followed your hearts and you have this incredible relationship with each other. And people responded to it. And, and I think that th- those are the kinds of, um, signals or signs that I look for as I kind of chug through my life.

• 46:36Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, you know what else is great about, about that, that, that particular specific style too is that it's super reliant on the team. You know, those camera operators and, and, and focus pullers, they're, you can't get to them in between action and cut. And they've got to be making decisions in the moment, watching. And listening to the scene, making composition work, et cetera, et cetera. Tagging certain things that they didn't get in the last take. And it's all that sort of teamwork that maybe is an exciting comparison for you to sports and to what you appreciate with, you know, your fellow linemen as opposed to perhaps the quarterback route you could have taken where it's just like, oh, I'm the star and

• 47:19Jason Bateman?

  who cares who's blocking for me. I just need to, you know, you got more in the trenches and you potentially became more of a crew guy than a cast guy that you may have stayed had you gone the quarterback route or maybe just stayed, you know, as an actor. I don't know. I'm just such a big, I just love.

• 47:37Will Arnett?

  Well, I think also everybody's probably really present, right? Like everybody's in it, as you say, Jason, everybody's listening, everybody's in it. There's no chance to fuck off and get on your phone or whatever. You gotta be.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  It becomes kind of like a bit like theater or a live experience. I've had a lot of actors say, like, they've gone into some sort of creative blackout while we're doing it and they don't remember exactly what happened and they were able. And I've experienced that. I used to do theater and I loved it. And I'm sure you guys have felt that before where, you know.

• 48:09Will Arnett?

  Sean won a Tony last year.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  I know you did, Sean. Congratulations. Did you ever?

• 48:15Will Arnett?

  Goodbye, Oscar. Goodbye, Oscar.

• 48:16Speaker 03

  Did you ever find that?

• 48:18Sean Hayes?

  It's actually a good night.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  You must have gotten into that flow state on stage where you're just in it and you don't necessarily remember it. You're not thinking.

• 48:27Sean Hayes?

  That's so true. From the second you start pacing backstage, waiting for your entrance.

• 48:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:31Sean Hayes?

  Right? You're somewhere else a little bit and then the second you step on, you're like, oh, there's just a couple of shows here and there where you have your markers where as you're talking in like a monologue or something, you go, from this point on, I have about 25 more minutes. Then I get to go home and eat pizza. And so, you know, you start having those markers.

• 48:50Will Arnett?

  But most of the time you're in it.

• 48:52Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, most of the time you don't have a choice but to be in it, right?

• 48:54Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 48:56Sean Hayes?

  We'll be right back.

• 49:00Sean Hayes?

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• 52:23Sean Hayes?

  And back to the show.

• 52:26Jason Bateman?

  Now, Pete, I want to talk to you about potentially one of the most challenging periods in your career, going through the work experience with Justin Theroux on Leftovers. How did you manage to just keep your head up, go forward, and say, "They're not all gonna be like this"?

• 52:42Will Arnett?

  I did see that he managed to work in a shirt, like, he went tarps-off in a running scene in the pilot, which probably was his call.

• 52:49Jason Bateman?

  Well, and fucking Theroux stole your sleeveless look, you know? Pete's got a great war cry, basically, physical work war cry. He'll take, he'll grab, he'll grab his short sleeves, he'll pull them up over the top of his shoulder cap, and turn his T-shirts into, you know, shirtless.

• 53:04Speaker 03

  Every day.

• 53:05Will Arnett?

  I like that.

• 53:05Jason Bateman?

  You know, Justin just cuts off the sleeves, but Pete's actually got a move there that creates the sleeveless look, and it gets, gets everyone fired up.

• 53:12Speaker 03

  You know, when, when we were getting ready to cast Leftovers, Damon Lindelof, who is a genius, you know, was telling me, you know, I was directing a pilot, and he wanted, you know, me to do kind of what I wanted to do. To do and he certainly wasn't giving me mandates, but he really was encouraging me to meet with Justin Theroux. And I I met with him and I I couldn't figure him out. I'd never seen anything like it.

• 53:39Jason Bateman?

  You thought it was a bit. You thought Damon was having a a laugh.

• 53:42Will Arnett?

  He can't figure himself out. So I mean, they keep going.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  And you know, the tattoos and I've never seen someone with less body fat. There's just no one. He's so ripped and so intense. And I was like, I I I didn't get it. And then I met and and and Dem's like, he wants to meet you again. And we met again. And I I still didn't totally get it, but he covered his sleeves. He wore a shirt. So I didn't have the tattoos. And then we met a third time. And I guess I I was I he wore me down a little bit and he was so determined to play this role. And I have to say, once he showed up on set, that guy is legit. He he he did such a great job. He covered the tattoos.

• 54:27Speaker 03

  He got his haircut looking like, because I didn't buy him as a Midwestern cop, you know. I I was having trouble seeing that. And he really transformed himself and.

• 54:37Jason Bateman?

  That show is so fucking good.

• 54:39Will Arnett?

  He looks like a West Village, like he's just kind of like a downtown New York dandy, that guy. So like he doesn't, you know what I mean? Like you can't even, no, he doesn't. You can't even see him above 23rd Street. So forget it.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  He's a downtown guy for sure, but he's a he's a real actor and you know.

• 54:55Jason Bateman?

  He is. He really is. And that show.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  Such a good writer.

• 54:59Will Arnett?

  Pete Pete, that show is so good.

• 55:01Jason Bateman?

  You and Damon and then and then what Mimi Leader did afterwards, sort of like keeping that thing going like it's just fucking beautiful. Um, you know, Max Richter's music, I mean, it's just, and you make you. But you made all those decisions, setting that show up with the way it looked, the way it sounded, who's in it, where we're shooting it, what the crew is, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And and so thank you for that, um, among all the other things you set up. It just, I just love your taste.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  No, I appreciate it.

• 55:30Will Arnett?

  I was thinking about what you were saying. I'm kind of going back a little bit, but you know, I I've had this same frustration about. And I love hearing about your style, Pete, because there is nothing, I think it's even, the hardest thing to do is to make a funny film. Uh, because there's generally no flow on, on set and you're, you're turning around and you're doing, you know, doing all this kind of shit. And there's nothing less fun than trying to make a comedy film. They're really fucking tough to do and because the system is set up, it's set against you.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:02Will Arnett?

  And that's why often really funny films that break out are films that are small films. They come out of nowhere because they don't have the budget to fuck around and to have a big company move and all this shit. It's just young people who are like just grabbing cameras, throwing cameras on their shoulders and, and getting it. Two or three, you know, two cameras, handheld, blah, blah, blah. And that immediacy is what you need in comedy. And it just doesn't exist in a, in a bigger format.

• 56:28Speaker 03

  I saw, I saw Sean Baker's film, his new film, Enora. Have you guys seen it?

• 56:32Jason Bateman?

  Is incredible.

• 56:33Will Arnett?

  No, I haven't seen it.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  That's the hardest I've laughed in a movie in, in quite a while.

• 56:37Sean Hayes?

  That's great.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  And Will, did you see it, Sean?

• 56:40Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I saw it, yeah.

• 56:41Will Arnett?

  What's the film?

• 56:42Jason Bateman?

  Enora.

• 56:43Will Arnett?

  Oh, yeah, we were just talking about it. I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, yeah.

• 56:46Jason Bateman?

  You gotta check that out. It's fantastic.

• 56:48Speaker 03

  When that dude is in the courtroom and, and he's, the judge throws him out and he's tries, starts objecting. Like he's part of the legal defense team. I, I just haven't laughed that hard and, and to your point, Will, it's just, you know, I'm a big fan of Sean Baker and, and, uh, it's just loose, wild. You, you don't know what, who, who these people are that are in the cast and.

• 57:11Will Arnett?

  I remember seeing, I remember seeing Rushmore in the theater when it first came out and feeling like, fuck. This is fucking great.

• 57:18Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 57:18Will Arnett?

  Because there wasn't any.

• 57:19Jason Bateman?

  No winking.

• 57:20Will Arnett?

  There's no, well, there's no, yeah, and there was no pre, there's no pretense. It was just, they came out, obviously they had Bill Murray. But you got the sense that these guys were young and they didn't know what they were doing and they were gonna try shit and, and they weren't part of the system yet.

• 57:34Jason Bateman?

  Mm-hmm. Now, Pete, where, you, you being an actor, um, how does your, uh,

• 57:41Jason Bateman?

  Do you have more patience or less patience with actors as a director?

• 57:46Speaker 03

  You know, I reckon that I think I have less patience at times and I value, I have so much more respect for actors who really come to bring it, who are really there to work and who are smart and were thinking. I just worked with Betty Gilpin. I don't know if you guys have met Betty Gilpin. She's in something I just did, American Primeval, and she's just a wonderful, wonderful actress.

• 58:13Jason Bateman?

  Which, by the way, Amanda Saw, my wife, over the past couple of weeks, I don't know, she sneaks off and she watches shit while I'm busy doing dumb shit. She says, "It's so incredible, Pete. You guys, this, what's it called again? American Primeval?"

• 58:30Speaker 03

  It's called American Primeval and it's a very violent, very violent show.

• 58:35Jason Bateman?

  She says, and you know, and you guys both know Amanda very well. And Pete, you know her a bit.

• 58:40Speaker 03

  Yes, I did.

• 58:41Jason Bateman?

  She does not give it up. She will not shut up about this.

• 58:45Speaker 03

  Appreciate that, Amanda.

• 58:46Jason Bateman?

  This is fantastic, she says.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  But so, but to your question, I recognize if I've made a mistake in casting, and sometimes you do, and usually it's smaller roles, but sometimes it's not.

• 59:00Jason Bateman?

  Who?

• 59:00Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna say. I won't mention names. But you, I can't get, I get frustrated with myself for allowing myself to put someone in a situation that they're just not right for. And I, I've had moments where I wanna get angry with actors and just say, you know, give line readings or just yell at them or...

• 59:24Jason Bateman?

  Be better.

• 59:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, just do it fucking better. Do something. But that unfortunately is not an effective strategy at all. So I, you know, I've learned enough to know that, you know, generally in editing, you can fix things. And oftentimes I've worked with, I've directed actors who I thought were really kinda shitting the bed and later in editing, I've found that they weren't. But in general, I find that, you know, getting, as I've gotten older, like when I did my first movie, Very Bad Things... I was so insecure and confused and I had Cameron Diaz and Christian Slater at the height of his career and I was making a movie.

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  If you walked up to me and said, "Good morning," I would respond with, "Go fuck yourself." What the fuck does that mean?

• 1:00:13Jason Bateman?

  So much stress.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  What does that mean?

• 1:00:16Jason Bateman?

  Have you seen it lately? I just saw the first thing I've directed and it did not hold up.

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 1:00:22Jason Bateman?

  I used to think it was so great.

• 1:00:23Speaker 03

  What was it?

• 1:00:24Jason Bateman?

  It was called Bad Words. And there were parts of it, I was like, watching it with my kid the other day, I'm like, what the fuck was I thinking there? Anyway, there was a lot that I liked, but still. Have you seen Very Bad Things lately? Does it hold up?

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  Not lately, but I've watched it and you know, it's like I said earlier, I, that's who, I, I, I am not happy about how unhappy I was making that film. I was just a seething ball of confusion and rage every day. And thank Cameron Diaz for being so sweet. She would pull me into her trailer and she would, she would watch Uncle Buck in between takes and just, I'd walk by her trailer, I'd hear this laughter and it would be Cameron Diaz watching Uncle Buck. And she'd be like, "Pete, just come and watch Uncle Buck for a little bit and calm down." And I would just sit there trembling, watching Uncle Buck and Cameron's laughter calmed me down. She was such an angel to me.

• 1:01:15Will Arnett?

  That's so fucking, by the way, one of the great line readings of all time in Uncle Buck is John Candy when he's talking to the principal and she's got the wart on her nose. And he interrupts himself like eight times because he keeps saying, "Warty knows, Warty knows." No, wart on the, no, what? It's one of the great line readings of all time.

• 1:01:35Jason Bateman?

  Pete, before we let you go, tell us, tell us what, what drew you to, to American Primeval? This, this is, this is a show. Can't wait to see it. Yeah. This is a show that is coming out January 9th, I want to say?

• 1:01:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:01:51Jason Bateman?

  Does that sound right?

• 1:01:52Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 1:01:52Jason Bateman?

  Yes.

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  January 9th on Netflix, yes.

• 1:01:55Jason Bateman?

  January 9th on Netflix. What about it drew you to it? What part of it, now that you're done with it, do you like the most?

• 1:02:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I wanted, I'd always wanted to explore the Western world. And I say the Western world because it's not a traditional Western. There's a movie called Jeremiah Johnson that Robert Redford did a long time ago. Where he played a mountain man, or he played a city man who came to the mountains to try and find gold. And he became a mountain man. And he developed a relationship with the Native Americans out there. And it was just a really formative movie for me as a kid. My parents took me and I always wanted to do something like that. And Markel Smith, who's a friend of mine, who wrote The Revenant, and I were talking. And I'm like, what if we did something in this world?

• 1:02:44Speaker 03

  And we started, and my goal was I wanted to go out into the elements. I didn't want to shoot in sound stages. I wanted to challenge. So we ended up with this six-part series that's about a very violent period in American history. In 1857, where the Mormons were just starting to have an army. And Brigham Young was very violent. And they were trying to hold out in Utah. The army was coming after them. Multiple Native American tribes were fighting. And I thought this would be a really interesting environment to set a story. It was a very, very violent time in a very violent history, which is American history. In a very violent global history, which is planet Earth.

• 1:03:27Speaker 03

  And we wanted to explore man's innate desire and inability to not kill each other. And we thought that that was, you know, just something, and living in this world today, where obviously violence is on the rise. And Will, it might not all be sugar that got you anxious. Like, these are rough times, you know? And this is something we wanted to explore. And I think one of the biggest takeaways for me, and this isn't necessarily the sexiest takeaway, but learning about Brigham Young and the history of the Mormon church and how persecuted they were and they were run out of New York and then they were run out of Georgia and they Joseph Smith, the leader, took them up to Illinois to try and create

• 1:04:11Speaker 03

  this navu, this place where they could live and Joseph Smith was killed and Brigham Young fled across the country on foot with 2,000 of his followers and ended up in what was a God forsaken land, Salt Lake City at the time. And he said, well, we'll stay here. This is the place. No one will ever come for us here. And he started growing the religion and the US military started coming for him. And the Mormons were a very cunning and at times violent organization. And one of the things I'm very happy with is actor Kim Coats, who plays Brigham Young. He was in Sons of Anarchy and thought I was joking when I cast him as Brigham Young, just a great actor. And learning about that aspect of it was

• 1:04:55Speaker 03

  something that for me was just really personally quite interesting. And getting to know the great Betty Gilpin, who does such a good job in our show.

• 1:05:04Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, that's what Amanda said. And Taylor Kitsch, you're

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  And Taylor, who I love with all my heart.

• 1:05:09Jason Bateman?

  Collaborator, yeah?

• 1:05:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, man.

• 1:05:11Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, he's a great actor. Well, I'm fucking thrilled for you. I'm just excited we get more Pete Berg stuff. Hopefully you're there in Tel Aviv researching something that's gonna be awesome to see one day. I won't even ask you about it.

• 1:05:25Will Arnett?

  I know, I've been thinking the whole time. I'm like, what is he doing?

• 1:05:27Jason Bateman?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:28Will Arnett?

  I know.

• 1:05:29Jason Bateman?

  But I miss you, buddy. Hurry back. Let's all hang out. Let's go watch Will's kid go box over at your gym.

• 1:05:38Speaker 03

  Bring him in anytime. Or Sean, if you feel like hitting something, come on in. I've got some people.

• 1:05:43Will Arnett?

  Are you kidding? Right after this, he's gonna hit the fridge. Listen.

• 1:05:48Jason Bateman?

  He's gotta finish off that foot long.

• 1:05:49Speaker 03

  Cheat day.

• 1:05:50Will Arnett?

  Cheat day.

• 1:05:51Jason Bateman?

  Every day is cheat day, yeah.

• 1:05:52Will Arnett?

  Thanks, Pete.

• 1:05:53Jason Bateman?

  Nice to meet you, Pete. Pete, love you. See you soon, I hope, pal. Thanks for doing this.

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  Congratulations on everything, fellas. Keep up the good work. You're making people really happy and we need that.

• 1:06:02Jason Bateman?

  No, thank you.

• 1:06:03Will Arnett?

  Thank you, pal. Thank you.

• 1:06:04Speaker 03

  Bye.

• 1:06:05Jason Bateman?

  Thanks.

• 1:06:07Will Arnett?

  I'm excited. That was great, Jay. I'm excited for his show, American Primeval.

• 1:06:11Sean Hayes?

  It was wild when he came. I never met him. I think he's like one of the best.

• 1:06:15Jason Bateman?

  He's just, the guy's such a great filmmaker.

• 1:06:17Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:17Jason Bateman?

  He's a really, really good filmmaker. And, and you know, and he's, and he doesn't throw that in the public's face, or, or, or the industry's face. Like he's got his own-

• 1:06:28Will Arnett?

  No, keeps a low profile. You're right.

• 1:06:29Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, low profile, and he's, he's not, he's not-

• 1:06:32Sean Hayes?

  He's just making stuff.

• 1:06:33Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, exactly. And every once in a while, stuff will show up and you'll go, oh, fuck, man, is this fantastic? Nothing ever sucks about what he does.

• 1:06:39Sean Hayes?

  And Jason, you were fantastic in The Kingdom.

• 1:06:42Jason Bateman?

  Nah.

• 1:06:42Will Arnett?

  So good. Jason, you were-

• 1:06:44Sean Hayes?

  So good.

• 1:06:44Will Arnett?

  You were so good.

• 1:06:45Jason Bateman?

  I remember loving that movie.

• 1:06:47Sean Hayes?

  I loved that movie.

• 1:06:48Jason Bateman?

  I thought that movie was fucking great. It's scary as hell.

• 1:06:50Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it was like one of those rare ones that was like all work.

• 1:06:52Will Arnett?

  It was so great. I'm telling you, that line reading, I went, I saw it in the theater with, with Kras, with Krasinski. And you, and yeah, we did, we saw it in New York, and we, and you delivered that line. We were fucking-

• 1:07:02Jason Bateman?

  Are you late? Are you late?

• 1:07:04Will Arnett?

  It's so fucking good.

• 1:07:09Sean Hayes?

  I can't wait. That, it's called American Primeval, right?

• 1:07:12Jason Bateman?

  American Primeval, correct.

• 1:07:15Will Arnett?

  Sometime in January, go on the, the Netflix.

• 1:07:18Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:19Will Arnett?

  You know?

• 1:07:19Sean Hayes?

  Or the reflux. Yeah.

• 1:07:21Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:21Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Jason Bateman?

  Sean, I don't see you looking off to your-

• 1:07:25Will Arnett?

  I know, Sean, this is a fun day.

• 1:07:27Sean Hayes?

  I do, I wasn't prepared. I wasn't prepared.

• 1:07:29Jason Bateman?

  You're not prepared.

• 1:07:30Will Arnett?

  Oh, that's why.

• 1:07:31Sean Hayes?

  I'm nervous.

• 1:07:32Jason Bateman?

  So we're gonna stall a little bit while you pull, like, now I see him looking around all the different windows, trying to find where's the folder that-

• 1:07:38Will Arnett?

  Where did I have them?

• 1:07:38Jason Bateman?

  Possible buys.

• 1:07:40Will Arnett?

  Why did I have?

• 1:07:43Sean Hayes?

  Possible buys.

• 1:07:44Jason Bateman?

  Possible buys.

• 1:07:46Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, go ahead. Let's see.

• 1:07:49Jason Bateman?

  So, you know, you know, you know-

• 1:07:53Will Arnett?

  Scotty, where's the, where's the thing?

• 1:07:56Sean Hayes?

  That whole thing with Gary Shandling.

• 1:07:58Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Sean Hayes?

  The whole boxing thing with Bob Dylan. That was really funny. That was a story that I was really blown away.

• 1:08:07Jason Bateman?

  Buy?

• 1:08:07Sean Hayes?

  Buy?

• 1:08:08Will Arnett?

  Buy?

• 1:08:10Sean Hayes?

  Okay.

• 1:08:11Will Arnett?

  The problem with that is, is that it's so close, it's so on the nose that, to be honest, for me, I just, I just don't buy it.

• 1:08:21Jason Bateman?

  That will work. That will work.

• 1:08:23Will Arnett?

  You know what I mean? So like-

• 1:08:23Jason Bateman?

  Two half ones make a full. Yeah.

• 1:08:32Speaker 04

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• 1:08:37Will Arnett?

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• 1:09:35Speaker 05

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