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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Umbrella

The strategy of hoarding reward points

From Edward Norton Returns AgainJul 1, 2026

Excerpt from Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Edward Norton Returns AgainJul 1, 2026 — starts at 0:00

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair E experpert. I'm Dan Shepppard. I' joined by Monica Norton. Hello. Hello. It's not true. We're not married. No, ' he's married to my friend Sha Shauna. Yeah ye. For people who don't know the backstory, Shawna Edward's wife. That's right. Producer Extraordinire. Yes. Iroduce Chrisen and I. Yes And then you'll hear a funny story about when we had babies, which maybe you've already heard, but we revisit it. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, very serendipitous semi moment happened. 'cause she had a dinner party. This is not the the if if you miss it originally, Shaana had a dinner party where you two met. Yeah, birthday dinner party for Jonah, I think. at a restaurant There's only like eight Do you remember which restaurant? It was on Melrose. It's kind of a famous fancy restaurant on Melrose, but I can't think of the name. like Jones. like Danta. It wasn in Jones or Danta. towards Lbrea L like more in that pocket of Melrose. Yeah Or Beverly could also been on Beverly and that whole zone further east. It doesn't matter west great The point is Edward Norton is our guest today. He's an Academy award nominated actor and filmmaker. Fight Club, America History X, Primal fear, Birdman H's a new movie out. We're continuing on with our invite week because we love the movie so much. Yes, so good. So we're pushing on strong and hard. Let's talk more about the invite And to hear all good things from Edward Norton. Please enjoy. This episode is brought to you by American Beverage. We've probably all had that moment where someone says something about an ingredient in your drink and you're like, shouldhould I be worried about that? And then you look it up and immediately end up in the wildest corners of the internet with completely contradicting information. All I want is clear transparent information. And I bet you do too. That's why American Beverage launched Good to K know. It's a site where you can look up over one hundred and forty common beverage ingredients, what they are, how they're used, how they've been reviewed for safety. No spin or judgment. just facts. You can decide for yourself. Visit good to Knowfacts. org for more information We get support from Quintince Have you been wearing the Quinslin shirts? Yeah. I've been wearing them a suspicious amount. Yeah, European linen ones. They're thirty four bucks, which is genuinely insane for how nice they are. It doesn't even make sense. Well, here's the deal. They work directly with the factories, cut out all the middlemen, so you're paying for the actual quality and not some brand's marketing budget Everything's fifty percent to eighty percent less than comparable stuff. I love it because it's all very classic and traditional and I know I'm going to be able to keep it for a very long time and the quality' off the charts. That's true. The style is very consistent. Whatever you get there, you walk down the street, you're gonna look good. They have these lightweight cotton sweaters, which I love for when it cools down at night,'s nice Drape around your shoulders in the summer and then throw it on when it gets a little cool. And it's not just clothes. They do home stuff, ding ding ding, travel stuff, everyday essentials. It's all the same model, quality without the marku. Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quince dot com slash dAs for free shipping on your order and three hundred sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too That's Qu INcE d. com slash dax for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quints d. com slash dax He's in our chch. Is child Is chster I'm going gonna do this after It's areat You got your tea. It's steeping You have a cream top. Did you drive from Malibu or from Hollywood? I was in Santa Monica working and then I came here. What are you working on? I am raising a lot of money right now. Okay for that cargo company The shipp, the mission. Yeah, have you seen this thing? He has a barge company, right? And it has a thirteen story crane on it. fifteen. fifteen, sorry. Get it right. Get it right. Imagine in the crane game, it's all about those stories. You know, this crane was originally. It was a construction site concrete delivery. Oh. It was for the delivery of concrete up into high stories. Yeah. construction sites Yeahes, so they're built for a ton of weight, right? That concrete once you've got thirteen stories of it in a tube. And all we're doing is bringing gas Yeah yeah. So he has these barges and then there's a fifteen story crane on top. And when a ship is in port, it hovers above the smokestack of the ship and sucks up all the carbon monoxide. orr I'm not sure what it's getting. It's actually the poisons. It's the nitrous oxide, sulfurous dioxide and particulate matter. All these diesel waste don't even actually deal with CO two. Obviously, people have their opinions and there's a lot of debate about CO two and atmosphic CO two and all of it, right? Yeah. But there are no regulations on CO two right now for the ships or just society you don't make you be compliant with zero CO two But we do have, this is super interesting because even the Trump EPA regulates nitrous dioxide, sulfur dioxide because it kills people. That's what gives you lung cancer. So you could call it the smOog. That's the stuff that creates the smog. that's really, really bad for people. I think the stat I heard is that the emissions off the ports in California drive like six and a half billion of respiratory health costs in the state every year, like cancer, asthma Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, the number I heard you talking about, which is crazy is that you've only been doing this for what a year or something. How long has this been operational? Operational since twenty twenty three. Okay, so for three years. But you were saying maybe it was in the full duration of its deployment, but maybe you were just saying a year that it was the equivalent of sixty five million cars. justust last year. Yeah. Okay, so in one year. Oh my God. It's suking The equivalent of sixty five million cars operating for a year. Wow. Yeah. It's a lot. This looks like a fucking billow poison, huh? The ships are really, really, I mean, you know a lot about cars. So you actually know what a catalytic converter is. Yes. The catalyzer, it basically is taking things that are poisonous like nitrous dioxide and sulfur doxide catalyze nitrous dioxide into nitrogen and oxygen, then it's just air. You're good, which is wild when you think about it that bond it's horrible. Oh chemistry's endlessly fascinating.. It's like, oh, this shape is good, this shape plus, this shape is your dad. You're dead. Yeah. It's amazing. I don't even think people totally grasp what a good job we've done on cleaning up cars. Obviously, there's some stuff coming out the pipe not as clean as an EV or something like that, but the average c' emissions are just not even in the realm of what they were when we were kids Totally. You and I probably came to LA somewhere approximate to each other at ninety five for. Yeah, ninety five was the first time I came to LA. too shoot prrimal feere. Oh, that shot here. Yeah here in Chicago a little bit. Yeah, I so have it in my head as being Chicago. ninety five was when you came Yes, ma'am English and primal fear. you were eight years old. I was eight years old. Oh God, shut. She's eight years old.. Well, I was only eighteen Sure. We were all young. You never saw the San Gabriel Mountains. In the mid nineties. People will even say and it sounds hilarious, like I'll be traveling and people like, Oh, I was a smog there. I'm like dude that's an eighties. Like that's so eighties that you're thinking that. Like I don't ever see dirty air. Be be quiet, Tom Hanks. That's enough. You know, we've never talked about your grandfather. I got super interested in your grandfather today Whatas his last name? Rouse? Jim Rouse, Yeahah. James Rouse. I found this guy fascinating. He's World War two, yeah. He served in the Navy in Naval strategic command at Pearl Harbor. And when did he get into city planning and all the civil engineering? It's funny to bring him up becausecause I was talking about him with someone. He's a very, very interesting person. He was like orphaned when he was in his early teens and he and his brother They lived this extremely like Huckin, Tom Sawyer like existence, kind of rootless and parentless on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. They had older sisters who they would bounce between, but often would just cut school and go off and live on an island crabbing and fishing. and he became extremely well known and they teach classes about him at Harvard now and everything. You had to like live with them to know what an extremely eccentric person he was, he really did like to go out and trap muskrat and make a stew out of it. Among the many things he did, he gave Frank Gary his first commissions. Oh really? Frank Gary's first building that wasn't Dennis Hopper's house was my grandfather's nineteen sixty seven. Oh wow, wow, wow. I have a photo of my granddad and Frank where Frank is so young and he has this unbelievable He looks like Ron Jeremy. Oh, perfect. G. Yeah. The hedgehog. credited my granddad with if you go in Gary architects today, my granddad's office building. buuilt nineteen sixty seven is the one in the lobby. Anyway, Frank told me something that resonated with me, which is he came to think that he was colorblind because H great feeling for space and community spaces and open spaces and all these things he was known for. But Frank said he had the worst instincts about color. And the funny thing was I always thought he was eccentric He would wear like green pants and a modress jacket. and you might have thought it was preppy, but he was like the furthest thing from prereppy. He parked cars and hustled pool to pay for night school, played really serious poker and never took his navy pay because he won so much money playing poker. And he was one of those people who had an edgier life, I think than the life that he became, you know became respected. Yeah, yeah. You know, he'd go to like a serious meeting and have lures in his hat. And I think people thought he was sort of intentionally folksy or homespun and it really, really wasn't It was genuine. Yeah, he was really, really funny person, but he was this incredibly accomplished kind of visionary thinker about cities. It was on the cover of Time magazine in the seventies or early eighties For his ideas about cities, which is wild. Monica, he invented the very first, arere you ready for this food court in a mall? Oh. So he built a ton of malls, right? Lots of malls. And he built these like festival spaces or installations in cities that were supposed to bring people together. This is interesting digression. Who knows if there are more than ten people interested in people go there In the fifties, he was on Eisenhower's housing commommission and I am told he was one of the first people to predict that the interstate highway system, which was being built in the fifties would encourage low density development outside the cities and that the middle class would sort of leave the cities for what became the suburbs and that this would lead to kind of an economic hollowing out of the cities. I don't know if it's true that he coined the phrase. He was an early user of the idea of suburban sprawl. And we all talk about suburban spprawl now. we grew up in it, right? Yeah ye. But he talked about suburban sppral. He kind of predicted the hollowing out of the cities. and in the sixties and seventies when all the cities were going bankrupt Basically because the middle class had kind of left for the bedroom communities. A lot of people like this guy is a visionary. even in the sixties and seventies, he was arguing for the need for more city planning, the revitalization of urban downtowns to bring the middle class back to the town center. He talked a lot about like the European tradition of the town center and the marketplace, how we needed to find a way to both in our suburban planning, actually build communities, not just developments and strip malls, but then in the urban centers, downtown Boston, he did the Fannual Hall Quin Met Yeah ye. Baltimore, he complete reeveloped the Baltimore inner harbor. He did theier in New York. South three Seaaport. Yeah which wasn't super successful. Well what I liked about reading about him is he went on to admit it didn't work in some cities. No. someome of them they were smash hits and they still stand. and then the others, the city didn't take to it, which is f becausecause in those cities, there wasn't as much suburban sprawl. Like people stay. I think the opposite it was so depressed Yeah, and also commercial real estate's always weird. what makes people want to return to a city center and it's not just the commerce or the mall. it's sports and a lot of things go into it. Restaurants, museums and live entertainment. I bring him up because You have what seems to me, I don't claim to know you well enough to make this observation, but from the outside, it seems that you have Among the loosest grasps of anyone I've ever met with their career. You hold it so loosely Fom my perspective. You mean like creative life, like in films? Like when you choose to work, how you've navigated, as we just said, ninety five, so thirty years of doing this, you're seeming confidence to be patient, your willingness to wait to something that you w to do, your refusal to get more money When you decide to not be in the Avengers, you're not doneumb. You're like, okay, I'm gonna wave goodbye to like forty million dollars, right? Like Oh, there's forty million bucks. Probably more than that. downy list. Seven or eight of them. Yeah.y hundreds of millions of dollars. So there's just all these moments I've just kind of observed over the years. It's such an enigma to me becausecause I'm so different Do you know what I thinks so funny about Number one, I was just talking to someone we both know on the phone. I said I was coming over here. Yeah. both admiringly talking about how good at this you are because you're such an autodidact. You're one of the people I know who I think most authentically avidly pursues moreore knowledge in all forms. You read as much as anyone I know. Thank you. I was saying that I thought Sean and I will be going along. We listen to it a lot. I said this in the car coming over here, I was like, haveave you noticed one thing Dax does which is he seeks affinity with a lot of his guests. Even to the point we laughed one time because there was one person you kept saying that's like this and they were like, I don't think Affinity meaning like a similarity. Yeah, finding. Yeah, yeah. too a fault. You have an instinct, I feel like, to connect Y through sh I know we can find bedrock, right? Like in I come in and we actually know each other. I come in and you're like, we are so different. I'm like, Hey, where's the affitting? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's so many things kidding. We're so similar to. No, I like the wor. But of course when there are things, especially if I think I'm similar to somebody, right? And then they have these behaviors that like I can't personally imagine Being confident enough to do or just having the peace of mind. So when people do things that I do weirdly maybe feel similar to that are so outside of how I operate, that's the nugget of like great curiosity to me. Yeah. L now I really because I know we're the same, right? We're human beings. We want to be loved and adored and we love our children. You know, like we're all the same. So when there's these like splinters, I get so fascinated with How are you somehow having this loose grip on all this and I'm was strangle holding it. How we look out through the skin at other people and our inability to necessarily see ourselves. Yeah, yeah is wild to me because I really might have said the same thing about you if I was talking to someone else in the sense that we've known each other a pretty long time. Yeah, yeah. twenty years. Yeah. and in different phases. I know we've talked about both of us perceiving that the other didn't like each other. I was God this guy really doesn't like this guy. I'm so dumb. But I feel like you're on a journey that to me looks from the outside like enormously confident carving of your own path defined entirely by The stuff that's so idiosyncratic and particular to you. notot only your passions and gifts and everything, but you've succeeded in multiple lanes. maybe all of us in our mind are restless and self critical and tend to not almost like tally the wins. We tally the dissatisfactions Yeah. and we don't see what others see from the outside that looks like confonident. Non attachment or whatever you're saying here say, right? It's also complicated too, right? Like A are we talking about what snapshot of me and you? No, exactly. Right? L Yes, today I agree with what you're saying and think God it all landed nicely. But if I take a snapshot in twenty I don't know, fourteen I'm pretty panicked. What are I doing now? The answer to your question is not that you need a reassurance, but in a weird way I don't think I have any lightness. of hold on my aspirations, my ambitions, my endeavors. When you say from the outside, it looks to you like I'm sort of confidently waiting. onlyly doing the things I want to do. Yeah We're not motivated by money. This is not true. Okay. First of all, I think we have talked about this. No actor turns off the actor's narcissistic brain. The joke that how many actors did it take the screw in a light bulb One to do it in ninety nine to say I could have done that so much better donon't think for ten seconds that I am capable of shutting off entirely. partart of my brain that goes Why didn't I get sent that? That's reassuring. It is reassuring. I would have liked to have read that. Yeah ye ye I'm really excited that they're calling, but I can tell there's this urgency to it and what that means is someone else dropped or couldn't show up. Okay, fuck it, I'll make it good. You know what I mean? I'll show them. Also Edward on success. young and that makes a difference when there's a lot of struggle it's going to cause a little bit more of like a tight Right So I can't help but come up with hypothesis for this observation that may or may not be correct. But one is I thought grandpa had a lot of money clearly. He was like a big deal in Maryland. Yes, he was very successful. He was really wild. He didn't trust money at all. He had an oldmobile his entire life. He lived in a very small house and he gave away all of his money. He was an extremely like man of the people kind of guy. I would say the most significant financial thing ed his grandchildren was he paid for all to go to college. He made it so that none of us came out of college with debt, which is huge. But that in his mind was that's the leg up I'm gonna give you. That was pretty much it. He gave away almost all of his money to the enterprise community partners, which was his low income housing. And that's why you were in Japan. You were working for that company? Yeah. ye because I kind of went to K' admired Nick Krole in this similar way where it's like he seemingly has only been motivated by what makes him laugh the hardest. There hasn't seem to be any dirty calculation of how he could get more money from the outside. But I interviewed him and was like, his dads is a billionaire, right? Or close to yeah, like he went to school in the limousine. and he'll be the first me. He's like, Yeahah money wasn't my issue. That wasn't something I had to go out and get. I think that liberated me in a lot of ways. I think that's fucking St stupend if someone can take that privileged childhood and turn it into just pursuing their creative interest. I don't think I'm as relaxed about how things are going as you think I am. Okay. Also, I'm not accusing you of having grown up with crol money. People did, but me. I remember in nineteen ninety two, nineteen ninety three in New York, I had an actual like little financial ledger book and I decided to go through the exercise of like If I want to be able to be an actor in New York and just wait tables or do temp jobs. I have to know exactly what it actually costs to be here. So I started this exercise. I wrote down every subway token, every muffin that I bought. I tallied every single thing so that I could understand how little can I live on. Do you remember what the tally was in ' ninety three To live in New York in the way I was living, I needed to make about eleven thousand bucks a year. I had found an apartment that was four hundred bucks a month. Imossible. A rent stabilized apartment was four hundred bucks a month. I mean, it was small. I worked out a system for myself. I thought I can exist in New York City if I knew what my nut was and I knew what I had to make. Here's where were similar. That was my same strategy in LA Yeahike made eight grand a year for ten years because that's what it took. By the way, the thing when I throw back on myself at that time was if I'd had to have a car and gas in that mix, I wouldn't have pulled it off. How could you get bu on eight grand if you were buying gas? Honda Civic and Suzuki six hundred motorcyle then alsoso gas wasn't as expensive. It wasn't as crazy. The apartment would be less. And I drove like eighty miles a week. Do you know what's funny is on the highway the other day onn the one on one turn to my right And I saw Toyota Corolla. FX sixteen GTS, which was my used car that I had. It's the weirdest. It's like a trapezoid. For no amount of money would I have said any of those could still be operating on the road. Toyota. The memory drawor that opens though, when you see the car you bent. Your late teens in. Holy crap. I have debated getting a ninety one Honda Civic DX and doing it up. Yeah. just ' like I lived in that car for ten years and I'm like, I need to honor that fucking nasty little k. It was probably your car that you saw. It could have been. Okay, so great. So there's not that. And then my other thought was simply You're not going to be able to even comment on this observation, but Monica can You're in the rarest situation where it's like Your talents fucking kind of undeniable and it was undeniable right out of the gates. I do think that's got to buy you some abatement of the anxiety. You know, you were just so validated and you were just so obviously brilliant at this that I don't think you were wrestling with what Monica and I were was like, Well, I'm not getting hired. A I not good? Like how does one know if they're good or not? Yeah. You're just going and you hope it's not that you're not good, but you don't fucking know. And I think that is a big source of the anxiety too I also don't know if you're an actor like you are, which is at an elite level, I don't even know and you can correct me if you're thinking, am I good? or do people think I'm good? I think you think like am I portraying this character correctly? Am I embodying this like you're not really, it's not very external or internal And that's what makes him so good. I relate to that. I can't remember if we've talked about this or not, but I've always felt there's only two categories of actors. I think some are iconic, and I'm not saying good or bad. but I think some people have qualities that we enjoy so much Clinieswood. Yeah. Harrison Ford. terrific actor. We go to them again and again for a set of qualities that we need from them. They're almost like Greek mythology, right? They personify something that we want. and it can be dark, it can be light, it can be stalwart, it can be hilarious. And then there are people who are in the Joseph Campll sense, they're the shapeshifter We need iconic performers because they represent something, they distill something for us and then people who are I don't even want to say character actors, but it's not them. They're a vessel for a thing that channels something else. And I have never had any conviction that I could function as anything other than someone who absorbs things sort of that shamanistic idea of the sucking up of something and finding the way to put it through yourself and express something with it, right? Yeah ye. You're like a motherbird. You like go out and you eat and then you come bring it puke it all back into Harlos mouth looking at it. What I enjoy most about it is this kind of the secret key that it represents, it's an excuse to go dive into Pete Sger's world and learn banjo or whatever. It's an excuse to marinate in a thing, soak it up find some way With the writing, whatever, find some way to get something across. and sort of inhabit a thing without the consequences of making that your whole life. And in that sense, it's a joy ride of diverse, weird, strange experiences. The other thing that it does Definitely to me honest to God, it's not am I good at it? It's at a certain point, you know I've worked with in this magic trick, not just the magic trick of acting, but the magic trick of how that interfaces with the larger magic trick of making a film that works or that has something to say or anything. The way I like working on it tends to also translate into something that I actually enjoy, which is don't feel that having done anything well earns me a sense of certainty that I'm going to do it well on the next one because I'm always like, this one might be the one that I uck Would I be right to imagine Pete Seger, right? Like you're just dumping stuff in there and I don't know what those things are whether you're reading a biography or you're watching video of him or you're learning to play the banjo. And while you're dumping it in there Are you just kind of waiting for the magic click? like Oh, there it is I often feel something close to a mounting sense of Maybe not panic because I've learned to trust myself, but I will often feel a mounting feeling that I have not and that we are getting awfully close to the beginning of the blast off. Yeah. I do love if and when the moment happens that something slides over into this feeling of the suit fits. I've got it, right?. Sometimes I find it's a different mechanism with each thing. Pete for sure, one of the things was just his voice. hisis vocal intonations and the rhythm and for me, the way he spoke and the way he's sung, being thin and Pete's teeth, his hair, his things, the clothes he wore. in a weird way, that's like that's the easiest. We don't even have to invent it because we've got copious photographs and that's like mechanical almost For me, there's something about the way the man used language and the rhythm of the way he spoke was of what made him seem like a druid to other people because he wasn't like their peer. He was this other thing. He was like their druid. Impersonation is always a challenge or a tricky thing. So one of your gives is you're kind of a mimic. I am a good mimic. Yeah. you're like a mimic. So there's that aspect, but I watch a lot of mimics do things and there's also three other layers beyond the mimicry, but yeah, clearly that's just like one of the components And Kristen can do this very well too from her musical training. She hears Voices, music, all of it, in very compartmentalized pieces. She can see each component of it. She can hone in on one little tiny aspect that's actually defining the whole thing, but that I would miss. It's almost like the key to the memicry, right? I'll go even a little more technical. I think someone who's got a good ear like Kristin does pretty much saying anyone have noticed that Pe who are good at that. and I've noticed that when I hear someone and I'm going to try to slide into it. I kind of intuitively know is happening mechanically.. I know where Owen's voice is Is it back here or is it up here? I know where Woody's is. I know where Bill Hurz is. and it is actually like a physical locating Yeah of what part of your face are reson. Yeah yeah. A lot of the way a person sounds has to do with how rooted they are in their breath or not, whether they're speaking from the forward part, the back. And I kind of think People who are good at it may just have Who knows why? It's not just the ear Be you hear the same thing. R. It's like an instinct for how to shape cavern of your mouth Yeah, that's a great piece it makes so much sense because right, Kristen like learned how to sing through her chest, through her head, locating her voice in all these different areas to get a different outcome and being very aware of that, everything you're talking about, like the machinery of making noise. Yeah, they try to teach it too theatater school, Like I had a voice class. I couldn't and I was like, what do you mean? What do you mean put it up here? I was like, I can't do that. Maybe it's genetic or something I will say too, though When I was a kid, I didn't feel particularly interesting Other people seemed really interesting to me And if someone was interesting to me or an actor or something, I used to just spend a lot of time ating people that I thought were interesting. Yeah. because then you would be interesting, right? In front of a mirror sometimes. Yeah. And I still, when I'm working on Pete Siger, I have certain actor friends who I just trust, who I go all the way back with, who I know I can sit in a room and be really goofy and not feel self conscious. Yeah, ye. And I will work and work and work on a thing. I readet my friend, Peter Lewis, who is a terrific actor. I'll work scenes with someone and someone who go, oh, I heard it and get it wrong and whatever. But I will do a lot. I of work in front of a mirror. Yeahah I was doing Death to Soochie with Danny DeVito I had decided in my own mind who my source was for this character who wears a cowie shell and a flannel shirt and won't give sugar to kids and is all these things and I was doing it. We're in the first couple days of the movie. And I think I said my voice is horarse right now, but I think I looked at Kevin Keeener and I said something like, hang on a second there, Nora, because you know, halt have you heard a halt, hungry angry, lonely tired, that's you and I'm not getting sucked into your negative energy pops up behind the moner and goes What is that?? And I was like, it's going to come to you. And he was like, you what is that? What are you doing? He was, I love it, but you know, it was just woody Harold. Yeah. Yeah. And I just decided that Sheldon Mopes was woody. It took Danny a coupleays where he was like, oh my God, oh my God. Sometimes you do things without thinking about them, but when you talk about what is mimicry and you realize it is the interface between ear and actual location of a thing in your body, right? It's like how does Steph Curry hit the shots he hits? There's a lot of muscle training, muscle memory. and also he just perceives distance to a degree of perfection that we can't really even imagine in ours. You know, to him, there's a clarity how far he is from that and it translates into motion. Yeah. It's just unreal. Well, And if he told you how it had happened, neurologists would say that probably can't happen. I remember that great chapter in Malcolm Gladwell book where it's talking about the great hitters. How do they hit? And they know the time frrame between it leaving the hand to before it's crossing the plate, right? They know that duration Yeah. And the gu guysy' like, o, I can always tell if they drop their shoulder and they do blank, it's going to be a fast bar because they have to start swinging the second it's leaving their hand, virtually beyond believe hitting Major Leagueball The most astonishing I don't care what anybody says. That's the single most incredible interface between the brain and the body in sport. There's a million things that are hard, like Nordic sk everything's hard. Even the F one guys, I'm not sure anybody's processing information and making a physical decision to do something virtually impossible. Yeah. Pose and blink, that makes sense.. So what they found was if all the things the batter said were true They can add that up. They know the duration of the cognition, right? They've measured it in an FMRI. And what they can conclude is none of that stuff's happening. There is not time for him to see the shoulder, compute it to here, move it to the frontal lobe, move it to the motor control, make this decision. They know that that's impossible to its. The emotional center of their brain fires that doesn't do any of that computation that the batter thinks is happening. They get an emotional intuition about that pitch and the great hitters have a really good emotional intuition. And I bet Steph Curry would explain what's happening, but I bet there's something completely emotional that's happening that allows them to do that in some weird way. That's what we're talking about too because at a certain point Anyone who uses their body and their voice as an instrument whether it's mimicking someone or singing I agree it's emotional. I mean, if I'm imitating someone, honestly the feeling I have it's not really analytical, it's joyful. Yeah, right? It's like an affinity or a And empathy. We both know we have to stop ourselves. Oh. Like if I start talking like McConaughey, everyone will eventually leave the room if I don't stop here Yeah. Yeah, I could do it for six hours. me I'm so jealous of yours. You're in the top three now. My Damon is pretty great. But the joy to sound like somebody you know. I don't know why that's so amusing to me Stay tuned for more arms. If you dare, we are supported by Allstate. 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Potential savings vary insurance and roadside assistance plans are subject to terms, conditions and availability. inssurance provided by All State North Americaan inssurance company, Northbrook, Illinois, Roadside assistance plans provided by All State Motor Club, Incorporated and All state affiliate Let's talk about a condition many people haven't heard of, and it turns out it's more common than you'd think Ceron's Dease, or PD for short PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis. This can cause a curve with a bump during an erection and for some men, lead to pain during intimacy and may impact mental health. It may also lead to anger and frustration, depression, lowered self esteem, and even withdrawal from sexual activity and physical intimacy Because of this, some men could feel embarrassed or reluctant to talk about PD. The actual cause of PD isn't always known. In some cases, it may be linked to a minor injury or repeated injuries during sex or other physical activity The good news is PD is treatable. If you notice a curve with a bump, a trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it and walk you through your options, including non surgical treatment. To learn more about Peroni's disease, visit talkaboutpd. com This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace, and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do well. Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public facing. in Squarespace was that bridge? Maybe you're in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skill set, a body of work It's been private. It's been yours, but at some point you're ready to put it out there, and that transition from private to public can feel like a huge leap. 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And you know, I'm a side sleeper I ordered a side sleeper and I get hot. so I have cooling. and I can't tell you how much more comfortable it is to be in there not sweating and tossing and turning. Cooling is really important. I've read that you're supposed to sleep a little bit cold. So I also have cooling. And they have over twenty models, so it's not a one size fits all situation. You just go take their quiz and they match you to what actually works for your body Plus, they've got cooling upgrades, which heading into summer, non negotiable. Truly Go to helelixleep dot com slash armchair for twenty percent off. That's helixleep dot com slash armchair for twenty percent off. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you Helixleep dot com slash armchair O SNL, I did the Wes Anderson horror film. We made a horror film called The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders. I do o. Do you know by the way, Seth Myers came up with that title? I did text Wes and say, if you did a horror film, what would it be called? And in less than two seconds he wrote Clers in the whispon Okay, now anyway, back to what is inarguable despite what it feels like on the inside, you have taken these pretty big breaks between projects. You mean films in terms of? Yeah, the chronological record. The archaeological record would demonstrate that you've had these breaks. And so when I see you in something and I'll cut right to the invite which we saw together Lved it We lo it so much I immediately sent you a text. You sent me a voice message. There is a moment in the movie we won't so up that we just looked at each other right after and we' were like What What are he gonna do? He's so good. Yeah, we're like Yeah, was that the thing that made you good. When you said it was like watching Valentino ride a motorcycle. Yeah. I mean, there isn't a compliment higher than. No, No Yeah. It should be universal. Yes I would say like it's like Mary Kaye Nashley's. No, you'd have to be doing aific. No I want to make a fashion Okay. Okay, okay I'm going to work on it Every time I see it, the last time you hear you were promoting the glass onion. And every time you work, I have this exact same thoughts. I go like Why does' he do this more ely Why this How does one guess what you're going to do I've never looked at making films or acting as a volume game. For me, it's not selling widgets and some of my great friends are Huge honkking movie stars and they work all the time. It's just the people who maybe inspired me to be an actor or I model myself on I never looked at them as the ones who were in the volume game. I want to do it when it something that gets under my skin interests me a lot and that I think gives me a little bit of a tickle of a feeling of, I'm not exactly sure how one crushes that or just how I'm gonna unlock that or if I'm even the right one for it. But I want to say there's plenty of times I wish more such things showed up. You're not trying to work. No, I'm not a resistter have a great thing right when it comes. But if you're like the lay person, you're looking on the outside, Birdman, I'm like, yeah, of course, that director calls with that crazy concept.en. Clearly, you're doing that. That makes sense. But then there's some other ones where I'm like, I'm not sure. Was it script motivated? Was it director motivated? Was it cast motivated? Was it conceptually like you're saying, like I just got I obsessed with this notion and I just had to explore it. If you had to rank those motivations, are they all equal? It can be very different, I guess. Like a complete unknown is probably director motivated. Yeah. I loved Jim Mengi. I got on with him. But actually on that one, that was super interesting because I know Timothy You knew him before the movie? Yeah, I knew him before the movie. and I knew he was considering doing that and I had this feeling in my head that like this might be a bad idea. It's high risk, but it's also a huge personal O investment in Dylan. Yeah You moved to New York and he was the soundtrack. I thought, you know, it was this kind of snottyy, notsnotty, it's sacred. It's untouchable. You shouldn't try to like do that. And when Jim brought it up to me, I went through a thing of thinking this whole thing could be inadvisable. It's great people. Why would we attempt to be these particular people who are so iconic and everything I want to get out of it Happily, Jim who is an incredibly unpreentious guy and was the right person to not treat it like a sacred cow. But he also said to me, he was like, you know I think you got to sometimes you got to really step back and get away from the mythology and look and realize there's a shit ton of people who don't know a thing about Bob Dylan and don't listen to his music. And he said, and we're in a time when there's not a lot of artists leaning in the way those young people leaned in to what they saw going on around them that they were not happy about, that they didn't think was right. They took what they had and they leaned in with everything they had. And he said, just an examination of that makes it worth. and I thought I'm in. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's super true for your character. Do we think that's true about Dylan? My laypers's take on Bob Dylan is he's fucking cool And when you try to make him more than just that, I think you're on a fool's, Aaron. I don't think he's as smart as everyone thinks or had his overarching political agenda. I think he's a very canny creator of mythology. Yeah. But by the way, unapologetically in admittedly. And Joe Bay is famous for saying he was the most aolitical person that I've ever known The fact that he channeled What he saw to me, Jim was right that the collision of a certain group of artists with the times they were living in was a really interesting thing to look at. Absolutely. And then I went Okay, great. You have the right North star for me, thenen it flipped all the way over into joy because I got to marinate in things that I love. and that meant a lot to me and I kind of almost like had to give myself permission. You had to geek out. The invite, which I don't want to be hyperbolic, but I will say it was one of the most pleasurable and creatively invigorating experiences that you've ever had. I put it right with working with Milosh Foreman, working with Spike Lee, who I revered and works in a very unique way, working with In your Rido on Birdman. The way that Olivia Wild ran the process On this film, I'm always hesitant to like unpack a thing before people see it. We should give full credit. There's a Spanish film called Sentimental. Pe upstairs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sentimental in Spanish, and then the people upstairs. It was written by this guy named Cesqu who was a playwright and directed this film And I saw it a number of years ago, Sean and I watched it. It put me on the floor. Like I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Same premise. A couple from upstairs comes down to have cocktails with the couple downstairs and all kinds of things ensue, right? Yeah. The actors were hysterical and brilliant. And I immediately thought to myself, I would love to remake this. And I thought to myself, I'm going to call Seth or Carell, and I'm going to be the guy upstairs and I'm going to direct it and I'm not even going to change much. And I thought to myself, we can shoot this in fifteen days. And I went and tried to get the rights And they had been picked up by someone already. Oh wow. And I called that producer and I said, hereere's to your point. like, hey, I would throw my hat in the ring to direct it and be in it. And he said, I think I'm gonna go another way. Oh. Like literally like went off to some other directors who worked on it for a bit, tried to put it together with other cast, and this one did not go by me. For a couple years, I went I was like the girl that got away. I I really wanted to do that one. Well so then how did Olivia become attached to direct it through whatever weird flow of things I end up getting a text from Seth. My wife produced a lot of Seth's movies and I've known Seth forever. You're in sausage party. I've done sausage party with him and he said, do you know about the invite? I didn't know the title. I was like, no, And he said, Olivia wild going do it if we do this? And I was like, wait, we're not talking about The people upstairs. And I talk to Olivia and she goes, would you really do this? And I was like, I've been wanting to do this for a couple years. Sererendipity. I did get this feeling of like Damned The currents of the stream You were patient. Brought it back around. and I got to it, I loved Olivia's two films. Yeah. I love Book Smart. I love D don't worry Darling. Just great science ficts for you, Darling. So Dax kept calling it, Thank you Darl. Olivia I'm sorry I kept fucking up the title. I'm a bona fide cheerleader for her. I saw incredible. Book Smart I was This is a fucking great movie. Sure. But also this is a genre of movies that I don't want to say it's easy to make good, but there's something inherently enjoyable about a coming of age movie. But then I saw Um, Don't worry. D'try Darlene. And I was like, this is a big undertaking. The production design of that movie? Yeah, it's insane And the story they're telling how abstract is and will that work, they disappear. Like there's just a lot of shit. But then it turns out it's real science fiction. Yeah, yeah. which what I love. I just was like, wow She's fucking awesome sharp Yeah Re, really, really good. Now what's interesting is none of the three are the same They're also uniquely their own thing. I will say I watched it with Seth Sundanson. He turned to me and goes, I don't know if I'm gonna be in a better movie than that. Really, I had this feeling I watched it, I knew Mike Nichols, one of our greatest film directors. He was one of those people who was a mentor to many young people in New York if you were a New Yorker and so funny, so dry, so brilliant. Such a great storyteller, but also great with advice. And for people who don't know, he directed well first he was in his comedy duo that was impossible and groundbreaking. Yeah. And then he became a director of theater and everything he touched turned to goal. And then he went into cinema and he did Virginia Wolf first out of the gate first And that was first movie Brillant. Virginia Wolfe. Second movie the graduate. Yeah. Yeah. Th thirird movie Carnel Knowledge. is impossibly talented. Also smoking crack during lots of it to Calcium and fucking up his finances. That was later married to Diane Sar. I mean, this dude was juggling a lot of shit. fucking Alopecia came over on a ship at eight years old. My little brother storry There's a biography on it. Yeah incredible biography. Have you read it? Yes, Mark Harris's right Anyways, thisud's leegend. So the fact that you knew him is kind of wild. I watched the film and thought either Mike Nichols came back from the grave and channeled himself through Olivia or he's just smiling somewhere because I really thought she's done something with this film that was what I loved about which is like hit the high end the low. It's as funny as you could want a movie to be, but then it really gets down into the real shit. I'm gonna to add an element. Yeah. there's like a good deal of sexuality in the film with a lot of confidence and not shying away from things. So like the moment, Monicao will tell you, I embarrassed her so much. was so embarrassing. Yeah, we're in a screen at the soa house with like a bunch of journalists. Some people probably know who we are. When Penelope invites him into the room I without my permission, let out this crazy noise. Like guttural. I go like, Oh, yeah. Like I was like, yes, let's fucking go to that room forever That moment's not Ncessarily easy to go get on film. No That's a moment, dude, where're like I can't help but go yes out loud, please. Well Penelope, I mean, it might be easy anytime she invites anybody. I mean she makes ites Yes. but it's constructed in a way and it's the right shot And seteth's reaction. I mean, all of it. You're just like, o like works. You know, it's like a powerful moment That's in the mix too. Oh yeah. when we made Birdman, I had moments. Where I was watching Alejandro and Chibo Lubetski, the great cinematographer who had known each other since college. They went to college together. And there was times that they were working out those long shots. and sometimes Alejandro would have his hands on Chibo's shoulders and his face by his ear. They would move together with him whispering and they would say funny things to each other and be laughing. And I thought these guys are in the zone. They's soulmates, they're having fun, but they're in a flow state. And sometimes you're watching someone else In a flow state. Yeah. I remember you telling me Yeah, they would link arms and walk with each other around the set sometimes for hours. Yeah, it was beautiful.. Olivia Wilde was in a kind of a flow state making this because it brought together for her notot only everything she loves and is most interested in playled to a lot of what I even think she is an actress and as a human being hasn't even necessarily gotten to fully express. It's hard to overstate, You know well, I do too. The mind you're in directing. and the state you have to be enacting are in direct opposition to each other. And she gives this performance in the film that's worthy of Jenna Rowlllands or Diane Keaton at their very, very best.. full of anxiety and longing and physical comedy and anger. There's so much going on in it And yet She directed us she directed this compositionally beautiful film. It's all in one apartment and never gets dull. She's guiding us collectively on how to find this thing on the fly and even saying things to us like We're going to stitch the parachute on the way down, but it's going to open. And by that, I mean She not only encouraged but actually kind of asked of us that we create our own characters In many dimensions, Penelope's character wasn't Spanish. Penelope brought in her interest in menopause and hormones and the Esther Pl of it all. Yeah brings that all in and creates this character, Pina, that is so striking and so dynamic and forceful and aspirational. And Olivia said To me, like my character's name is literally specific to a friend of mine, his story. There's a lot of things that my friend Julian Sandans, the actor who died years ago, the stuff about the rugs and the carpets. Those were things he said to me when he walked into my apartment one time. And it wasn't just that Olivia didn't tighten up, it was that she did something I've never done, which is she shot the film in page order. Right and basically said, I don't think we're going to end up in the same place that's on the page. I think we're going to end up in a deeper place, but we're not going to know what it is or even how we're going to get there until we march through these beats. But if we do them in order, each one will feed into the next and we will keep discovering how much this can bear as we go. Now, that all sounds super creatively sexy, but when you're making a film and hundreds of people are standing around and you're saying as a director, we're gonna kind of make this up as we go. And I mean really make it up as we go. to stay in a state notot just equanimity. but one in which you're relishing it so much that you're giving that performance while allowing for that much uncertainty. It is like right up there with the most impressive things that I've seen a director do. I will throw down and say, in thirty years Making films I haven't experienced a director investing trust in the cast at this level ever. Yes, To me, the ultimate signal of her competence is that takes so much confidence to let everyone be so collaborative. As beautiful as that sounds on the outside, like, yeah, be great if every No, it's not great if every actor has an opinion. They don't have an understanding of the global story that's being told. It's not just good to let actor, That's why we have writers And why we have directors. So to trust and to encourage that and not have any fear that I'm going to lose complete control because ultimately it does have to be the director's vision The fact that she was able to stay confident and not rattled and that encouraging to me is like it's almost impossible. No, almost impossible. I Gant, She won for it. It all works. You can only imagine the freakout that was going on in the margin. I can't imagine if I was paying for the movie. Exactly. Especially when Seth and Olivia particular They became convinced end of the film should drop into a frequency that was not entirely light. The decision to actually let it go there on Olivia's part, but then on the fly to figure out the mechanisms of how do to get out of a lot of hijinks and a lot of laughter and a lot of everything and over into a place where this film goes is mechanistically actually tricky. And one of the more amazing things a director has ever asked of me but trusted me in she basically said, I sort of think that maybe somethingomething between you and Seth has to uncork kind of thing, We need a hinge. Let me brag for you. so The movie is great beginning ten. It's so entertaining, it's so funny, and it is touching on anyone who's been in a long term relationship, you're gonna recognize everything, right? It's like your partner becomes the explanation for everything you don't like about living virtually. If there's a single scene that makes the whole movie work, it is your turn. You've presented as this guy. We don't really know you, just seem really confident and open minded to find out where that really came from was A real moment that had the ability to anchor the entire movie. You're waiting for a big turn or as you say uncorking or something and it's definitely that monologue. That thing ends and you're like, whoa, I'm kind of fucked up over that. And she told us that you did not share it with her beforehand to get a real reaction and very generously had film their side first Or multiple cameras or something. Well, Seth and her got Yeah Yeah. She was puzzling over how do we get through this gateway? I can't remember exactly what the conversations were It led to it, but I'll always do what we all learned to do in acting classes and I'll always write out for myself something that I think is the secret, whether it's in the movie or not. I'll always write out my own deeper idea of someone's backstory. Most of the times that doesn't make it into anything. Interestingly, like we talk about complete unknown I had found this thing that Pete Seager wrote about believing that the world is like a teaspoon brigade. And when we got to this final scene with him and Dylan in the end, and Jim wasn't happy with it, I said, Jim, I found this thing. I've been carrying this thing like my mantra. and he goes, that's the scene. So that's in the film. And sometimes that happens.. In this case, I said to Olivia, you know I have this idea about what happened with him. She goes, Is it good? Will it get us there? And I said, I think it is. Yeah. And I remember I think I said her at one point. I was like I can say this that if I say it to myself, I'm gonna lose it. Yeah. I can't get through it myself without being moved by it, right? Yeah. And she was like, donon't tell me what it is. And she set up on her and Seth so that she could film them hearing it for the first time. In the movie, her reaction is her hearing it for the first time, which is balsiest thing that I've ever had a director do emotionally on a film. She literally said, I want to film myself hearing it for the first time. I'll be the test dririp I can't really come up with a way in which a director could give me more trust, respect ever. But she was so smart to do it. She cast you, Seth, people who aren't only great actors, but great storytell directors. people who do know that you need a payoff at the end that it's not just like. You know you're at the end of the second act. I don't know that a lot of actors know they're at the end of the second. You like something happened. I want to say like I don't to ruin it or get in people's heads, they're watching it, but So much then uncorked, Seth's reaction Seth who had not heard it either. Seth I think very much respects me and you've done many things together and he loves me and everything. I know For sure that when I first did it, Seth thought. It's too long and too serious. By the way, that's exactly what his character would be. His reaction, that unbelievably rude thing that he says to me He made up on the spot.. I think it was one of the funniest improvisations. was so real. When you're a dude and another dude just got attention from the ladies from being vulnerable, you're like dude. But it's so magnificently rude that I had to turn around because it put me on the floor. get a special moment. But I think there is a shot of me bursting out laughing because you just can't believe anybody would be that big of a tool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah But it was so good Hinbald into Penelope, her reaction to his reaction became a thing that leads to a fight between us. And none of this was anything we had planned for. None of it. And I think that the fact that Olivia just sat They're letting these things cascade off of each other was so unprecedented to me. It's theater rehearsal. And we had all sat, the four of us, plus with Will McCormack and Rashida Jones We're great writers and great interpreolators of we have the Spanish film, they have the four of us, and we're quuizonarding this all together. And I honestly think everybody else was more anxious about the uncertainties than Olivia, which is a bizarre inversion. Not really, you want to look at your leader and go, oh, they know exactly what they want. that feels safer But if they're like, I'm hoping to be surprised. Y, But when you've been doing it as long as you've been doing it, you know that there's consequence to something you're supposed to get done in a certain number of days and there's people standing around with a certain measure of, do these guys know what they're doing? to operate as a director, to say to everybody involved, this parachute is going to open. It's powerful. It's amazing. All my respect to her. And then in the end she just edited and put together this It's so good. It's so fucking. It's so good. yeah, yeah.. Tell me about you're friends with Esther Perl, yeah. You and Sewn, I know Sewn has been like on vacation with her. I was talking at a conference that Esther was talking at as well and there was like social time And do you know, what's the funniest? is I'm sure like all of us Even as I was sort of starstuck and thrilled and ed on. Yeah, yeah, she's so sexy. She is such a force. Yeah, yeah ye. And so vibrant and alive and everything she says about. what is erric. as teror, you know, But it's the funniest thing To both be thrilled to be meeting and talking to someone and to have this voice in your head that goes, if we proceed down this path, she can't be my therapist.. I'm sacrificing the chance to have her as the Well, no you could do one of your characters and you could call into Metating in Ctivia as one of your characters. You've had her own years. Oh I adore her She's just so provocative. Yeah. because she's honest. I was at a thing where she was speaking and it was some teching and too many people were talking about AI and all these things. and Estair gets up and goes, all this talk about AI And no one's talking about the AI that matters in tech, which is artificial intimacy And she just goes on this ter. I'm a super fan of hers and honestly, you know it's fununny is like There comes a point, I think Penelope said this and I really agree with' kind of what you were getting at. It's not that you're not trying to prove anything anymore, but at a certain point in this kind of work, I find a lot of satisfaction not only in watching other people, like watching Olivia be in flow state is so great. You're like, I'm here to serve. whatever you need But this other thing happens too which Penelope, I think, affected which is you get to take the world and what you've taken out of it and you get to like pull it into the work and kind of communicated in another way. There are people who don't know who Mary Claire Haver is. There are people who don't know who Esther is. Like if you see the invite and you look at Penelope's performance, she pulled a bunch of shit together and put it out. Oh, it's very in this way. And I think that's really cool. It's just occurring to me now. I didn't have this feeling when I left, but I'm now having this thought, which is the only thing the movie may be didn't do and I want to know what the conversations were like among the four of you So your neighbors from upstairs Penelope, and you, sorry, you're the neighbor. They're in this very progressive sexual arrangement. They go to orgies, they're out there, they're communicating about it. What kind of conversations were going on about Z. about open relations Yeah, open relationships. Like I guess I was curious if the position at all or if it even talked about was like, Do the neighbors upstairs have a viable thing? Do we buy that it's gonna work out? What do we think about though? Was this being discussed He also have four cast members with different like sus men with the same girl his entire life. I think it was Olivia told us something about. he was like, What do you mean? Someone doesn't have sex every week or something that was revealing that they are f. No I think at the time either Olivia or Rishida turned and was like only person here without children. there's that. Yeah ye. And then there's just nature. they were fighting too. I think he said something like who Wh would ever speak this way? Exactly. Who would ever be in a relationship like this? I think people were like, yeah, a lot of us a ninety percent of relationships. Yeah But did you guys discuss that much or no? You just take it at face value. I think one of the things that was discussed and then And I think, especially by Penelope very successfully laced very subtly through is how new it is that they've only been together for a year. And you can see how thrilled he is about it. Yeah ye yeah. You can see in her very subtle commentary that like She knows that it's easy because it's early. She's not naive and I think it's funny when you do this kind of stuff because rehearsal such as it was was just six people sitting around a table. the four of us and Will and Rashida. And probably going, how much am I going to reveal about my own relationship? By the way, Olivia again You know, like the general who says I'll never ask if anyone something I won't do myself. She just like plowed in. She was just in the bubble with the six of us. Let's be real because if we can be real here and all of us Th throw it against the board together. Let's look at what ends up on the board and we go, ooh, that should be in there. But then when you go home that night to Shauna, she like, Yeah, I need you to be done with this movie. Like all you're doing is thinking about relationship. You're talking about marriage and honestlyter. Shauna was the one who said when we saw the first Spanish film, she was like, you have to do that And you're going to do that. She's just the cool. She is gonna happen. She cast Seth in his first film. I mean literally. and I think I love doing a film with Seth He's so good. There's such a reputation around Seth because of houseplant and he smokes weed and haa. Seth probably has the most incredible work ethic of anybody I know. He works. Yeah ye. So hard. Well it's the writing I mean' the. I mean, if something's not working, the computer comes up and he sits down and he's quiet. thousands of people works and works and works. Yes. he's the best improvisor imaginable And he'll make up a line like next time you're in there, check the rings on the older partner. It stuff that puts you on the floor, but you also realize But you also realize that actually There's a white piece of paper sitting over on the side that's full of his brainstorming and his lines and what feels like improvisation often is, but is often the mind of a It's a row at work. Whether are you writing in this moment? or you writing thirty seconds before or you writing eight seconds beforey That guy is an absolute machine. Well no the studio just he's also l in a file. He's like an encyclopedic film ner on top of everything else. this for me And I think Sheuna watching it It was like the studio wasn't enough. If you ever needed more proof, he is such a mature real deep wounded human being in this film. There's pain, there's sourness, there's anger not inflected by comedy. I think of things like Kramer versus Kramer or Richard Dreyfus and The Goodbye Girl. I loved watching him work in his gear. L I my boys all grown up? Yeah Yeah. I lo moogul This' a fucking literal mogul. I do think there's some colors in some depth. Olivia got him to go some places. Don't you think that you should see this movie with another couple? Like if you're in a relationship, I feel like this is a double date. You should go with another couple and then you should go. go straight to the red. have a real discussion. a light dinner Stay tuned for more arch There. This episode is brought to you by SopFi It All all in one finance app where you can bank, borrow, and invest all in one place. Let's talk bank accounts for a second. The average bank savings rate is zero point three nine percent in interest. You're earning pennies on your savings, but it does not have to be that way. With so far high yield checking and savings, the money barely making moves sitting in your savings account earn over eight times the national average savings rate with eligible direct deposit. No account or overdraft fees, which feels rare these days. You can get your paycheck up to two days early, perfect for getting ahead of a bill or grabbing what you need right when you need it. Plus, get up to a three hundred dollars welcome bonus when you sign up with eligible direct deposit Sign up for soFi checking and savings at sofFi. com slash armhare. SoopFI chehecking and savings is offered through SFI Bank NA member FDIC Terms Apply This episode is sponsored by Better Help So Monica, here's something that really stuck with me. BetterHelp's twenty twenty six state of Stigma repeport surveyed two thousand Americans and revealed that eighty five percent of Americans believe getting support is wise. Yet seventy four percent say society discourages people from doing so. That's a huge gap. Most of us agree therapy is a good thing, but there's still something holding some people back from actually going Right. And I think that's where just talking about it, normalizing it makes a difference. I mean, as you know, I'm obsessed with therapy I've been in it consistently for years and years and years. and I have said this and I I shouldn't say it, but I do think if you're struggling and you've been struggling for a while and you haven't sought therapy, I judge you a little bit. Oh Okay yeah. I know I'm not And I got to go therapy to work on that, you know, but also there are options for you. You can help yourself And Betterhelp makes that first step easier. They match you with a licensed therapist based on your needs and with over thirty thousand therapists and twelve plus years of experience, they typically get the match right the first time. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with Better Help. Sign up and get ten percent off at betterhelp dot com slash dAax. That's betterhLp dot com slash DAax This episode is brought to you by service Now I have my dream job. I get to talk to folks I admire like crazy and ask them virtually any question that I want to. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time, But even dream jobs have some not so dreamy parts, the stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. Now that's where serervice now's AI specialists come in They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work, they actually do it. Start to finish. casees closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. So you and your team can focus on what matters most, which for me is, are they obsessed with maail bodies on the same level as I am? They never are. To learn how to put AI to work for people Visit serviceNow. com We get support from Sims Monica has been on a whole kick lately. I really have. When I get new skims, it is like Christmas. I get so excited. I love skims and they have Sims cotton, which I literally reach for every single day. The fabric is really soft, but it also holds its shape. There's nothing worse than Sagsville. Exactly. It's really bad. Skims never does that Every single piece I've gotten from them still looks brand new after a lot of washes, there's no stretching, they lay perfectly and they support in all the right places. You're pretty particular about that stuff too, which is saying something. It is. And I'll just say it, the lightweight cotton thong is the best one I've ever tried. I also have their cotton jersey t shirt. I have it in black and I really love it. Tight fit, but it is very flattering. Sometimes I don't love a tight fit shirt, but Sims just does everything right. I really don't know what they're doing over there. The t shirt is perfect for summer. It's a great summer shirt. G get yours, shop Skims cotton and all of my favorite pieces at skMs dot comot After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcasts in the sururvey and be sure to select Armtraair Epert in the dropdown menu that follows Doid you see the Swedish film Force Majure?? Oh yeah with the guy doesn't go Yeah. One of the most provocative I've never had better conversations with other couples after that film. Yeah, people don't know an avalanche is coming and he gets up and pushes his own family out of the way run cell phone run runs Yeah, and then everyone's fine the avalanche is fine. she just can't see him the same as. Yeah everyveryone survives and he has to just be with his family. Yeah. He now thinks he's a coward. I remember that a lunch of a couple of couples after we saw that film. And we went around the table Literally, one lady said, I thought the whole thing was a little bit like, what's the big deal? Like would it really pinwheel like this? And we were all like, wait, so if this happened, she'd be like, I'd roll my eyes. It came around to me and I was like I did that I would just keep running return to time never return to family there would be no stop. There would be no recovery. Yeah Yeah with my wife. And it strikes our deepest fear that maybe we will be that way in the situation Becauseuse you don't know until the avalanche comes. You think you know. It's like Mike Tyson. you have a game planned I that don't even I can stop the adelan. I've been in a few Avalante situations. so Ive found out. But yes, we all think we'll be one way. Dax is just lucky that all three of the girls in his family can fit inside him. They They survive in the frozen concrete shell of his enormity. Now this goes back to my original thing. The thing I left out about my overarching theories on you I was thinking, maybe meeting Richard Geere. on that first movie having him and I don't know if he was or not. I knowew you have his apartment. so I'm imaging you guys were close. But if he was a mentor at all Tw was the guy who had a real healthy grasp on the career. Was he mentory guide to you or no Richard was great to me. He was kind, he was supportive. He levitated me. I still see him and We have enormous affection for each other just because of That experience. Yeah. and I ended up living in a place that he built and kept it the same. Yeah, there's some weird we have something Cnection. We have commonalities and connections and we have this often distant, but some spool of thread a memory I love with him was that I was so totally unsure whether that was A fluke and was going to be the last gig I ever did while we were doing it. that back in those days, I think you got either fifty or seventy five dollars a day per diM. and I was taking that and putting it in an envelope and literally keeping it under the mattress at my crappy little efficiency apartment that I had near the Sunset Marquis. and at some point, Richard's this phenomenal guitar player and every day in his trailer he had a different amazing guitar and I li loveved guitars and I was playing He had a ridiculous guitar collection. It was later sold at Sothey's for millions and millions of dollars.ow Probably one of the biggest privateatar collections in the world at the time. And he said, What do you got? I said, I don't have anything, you know, And he was like, what We're going guitar shopping. He took me to this place called Voltage guuitars off sunset and I found this nineteen sixty nine Martin D thirty five from the year I was born and it worked. And I looked at and I always remember it was thir thousandteen hundred and ninety five dollars. that was even considerable to me. At the time. And Richard, he was like, I like that. He goes, that's the one. And I was like, o man, I can't do that. he goes taking your perdium and keeping it in an envelope. And I said, Yeahah, and he goes, I'm going to buy this. You're gonna to bring me that envelope of cash tomorrow. and give it to me because you only live once and he was like, and You're going to get this guitar. And it sounds silly, It sounds materialistic and everything. It was a nice thing. It was like him saying like, hey You're gonna be fine. Trust yourself. He said something to me like, this won't be your last gig. Also, he was like, what are you saving it for? Rnt money? Get this thing. There's gonna be a lot of joy in it. It's my favorite guitar I've ever bought still. And I look at it and I'm like, he like launched me into something Yeah I can't explain it. No I can. He said that phase of your life is over. Yeah.. Walk into your new phase and walk with your shoulders back. Yeah, I love that. Me too. This new phase has abundance Okay, my last question This started with interviewing Gabor Matete I was walking him out and he's an expert on ADHD. I'm walking to Numa's car. and he said Have you ever been tested for ADHD And I just was like, well, that's an interesting question for an ADHD expert to ask. Did he say what qualities in you? He didn't. He just asked, have you been diagnosed with ADHD? Then I said, no, I never happened. You weren't like a Riddland kid you didn't I was't on Riddlland. Noither no. But then I have since been inundated with the ADHD algorithm on Instagram And we've now had a couple ADHD experts on, and I have not been formally diagnosed, but I am certain he was dead right to ask that question. And so I have really I kind of embraced it. I kind of dig it. I like thinking about the deficits, things I need to work on that are standard for AHD. and then like these super gifts I get from it, like improving quickly and all that kind of stuff. And so yeah, the dyslexia of the ADHD. it occurred to me. do you think you're neurodivergent at all? Not in a claimable, nameamable way this is a pet peeve. I may not be right about this I feel like Silicon Valley has done a lot of cool things and a lot of really negative things to our society. One of the ones that I find kind of aggravating is what I would call the romanticization of the idea of being on the spectrum Yeah. You get all these people who are just basically assholes wanting to on Credit that to them being on the spectrum. It's like, you're not on the spectrum. Shut up. stop it. Don't casually try to claim as a superpower A thing that for a lot of people is a real thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I'm on your side about this. I express that opinion a lot. You Yeah. And think there's a problem with just pathologizing. I'll get to the end road, which is too me, they're not actually pathologies They are words we invented like twenty five years ago and we added them to the DS. I mean we're acting like it means bipedal. L it's a real thing we could measure and observe. I don't think it's that. I think we're getting more and more good at recognizing patterns of behavior in humans. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be a pathalgy or an ism or some kind of disease. but I do think it's true that there are a lot of different patterns of human behavior. And when people express these certain patterns, we can kind of predict some of the pitfalls ahead for them probably some of the things that'll come easy to them.' like, that's all okay to just go like, I trend towards this and ye yeah, that makes sense. and it's I don't need I'm making an exccususe or anything. I' just like, oh, I think I'm in this pattern of people. I tend to agree. That's how I describe myself. I wouldn't even go near calling myself neurodivergent at all Wing something like loveove on the spectrum, The most beautiful, wonderful show. Yeah. I love it. I love the celebration of it. I love it while both observing people with real divergence, real conditions, whatever, just saying The universality of of love of relationships. Yeah It's just so great. When I hear someone like the one guy named Dylan who He'll say things and he just says per se a lot. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the next week, my family was like Sing per se, it was funny the first five times. You have the meimic thing, but you also some savant like qualities. I watched you recite the Walt Whitman poem on Cobert. Yes. Which is incredible. Oh, thanks. very low percentage of the population can do something like that. That's a funny observation. I'll depersonalize it really I'm friends with Pineas now. Do you know Pineas? Billy Iish's brother Brother, Yeahah He's one of the most special guys in the world. You would fall in love with him. He's twenty eight And I'm like, how is this guy not fifty one? He's definitely fifty one, mayaybe fifty eight. He's definitely wiser than me. He's smarter. I'll bring up a thing and he'll just go like, Ohh yeah, that was october twentieth. And I go, Uh And you know people can't do that, right People don't know what date you did Mund name things on. We just had Jack McBrayer on. Oh my God. He can name the d Yeah, ye anything that happens. He's like o yeah twel Again, not to pathologize it, but I saw on sixty minutes that people with super memory are also really high trending for OCV and they all had really organized closets. So I say to Jack McBraay, what this he's displaying this impossible memory? And I said, what's your closet look like? And he goes, Oh my Godd, you would love it. It's a dream. Everything's color coordinatedight? He's like, yeah, that's a pattern an behavior, that's fascinating. You had someone talking about obsessive compulsive disorder and how poorly people understand what it really even means. I thought that was great because I think OCD is another thing lots of people just like to say out. I'm a neat freak. ye. I'm a neat freak. Yeah, et ccera. I think there's an interesting connection Queen retentive memory, which I definitely have. But by the way, so does my dad. I don't want to credit it as something. I have a very strong and precise memory to the point where I can say most of the lines of the movies I've been in Right. And If I watch a film with a lot of focus, if there's a film I loved and I've watched it with focus, I have a lot of it locked in. The thing I've been interested in, to your point, never tested for in any way is I know for sure with me, a photographic memory is idetic. I think it's called being idetic. With me, it's completely auditory. If I hear something with focus music or words I have it or I pretty close to have it. When I learn lines, I learn them by saying them out loud. Once I've said them out loud, I've pretty much got it. There's an interesting connection for me between the auditory and the memory retention. Now, I would imagine that could Tension in relationships. I have it to a lesser degree that could but of things is right. I don't have it to the degree to which you have it, but I also have a very high degree as well. You're arguing with your wife And you're like, yeah, we weren't at the grocery. It's kind of maddening. And then you have to really zoom back and go like, o right, we're not arguing about whether or not it was at the grocery store or what was this This is not an. We're talking about an emotion she has that I have the ability to potentially alleviate or help. But I have to step over a lot of No, we weren't even in Michigan when that you know No memory. Here's the spectrum. it's like she's on the far left. I'm like two thirds and you're at the far right. Shana, if you're listening, you know what's great about that is that Kristen acknowledges that she has. No. But if you had to learn, I've had to learn, all right, that's not what's important right now when we're talking The impulse to correct because Your brain says, that's asynchronous with what I know to be my memory of the truth. But in the invite, the thing that Penelope says that was provoked That's improvisation, right? U L thing which is Penelope and I have known each other a long time and Penelope and Samahayk kind we all go way back. And the thing where I correct her English. Oh ye. Penelope and I had talked about in her life in relationships. and when she did, I was like, what if we put that in? Like you know what I mean? We put that in I love moment where I correct her. Yes and step into such deep mindfield, yeah. The look on her face didn't your whole body go Oh, he done it now. Yeah, yeah. But back to the question you didn' to answer. Have you had to learn to go, Ohh, that's not what's important I should take some pr. Sure. Oh my go, yeah. I mean, my father was a litigator. My father was a U.S attorney. grew up I'm sitting in the back of courtrooms listening to my dad cross examine and dissect people and I'm really good at it.. So someone who doesn't just think but does remember things perfectly. Yeah. Yeah, ye. Combined with the litigators thing is awful. Yeah, Esther has definitely given me some tips How to function more peacefully in your life. I think kids help teach you that really well. For sure. Ys and mine are moving into teens. I do need to say this out loud. We probably already have, but it's probably one of the cutest things that's ever happened to us is we either you invited us to lunch or we invite you to lunch at this vegan restaurant and we've both hidden our ultrasound photos in our menu. Yeah. That's impossible. to announce to each other for the same due date. Yeah. same due d. due date. That was an out of body experience. And let's remind people Sana introduced you and Kristin. Yes set you guys up. Yeah. So we felt invested in you guys. Yeah. You put the Ultrasound in the menu and you said, you know, we really like this place and I think we're going have this And you turned it around and we went, o, that's funny. We're ordering the same. turned our this is an impossible No half screamed. I remember you going No, you were like fucking getting it. Yeah, it feels like S. But then remember we looked at the due d and the due dates were the same? Yeah. know I know crazy. we don't give that enough credit. That was an otherworldly occurrence that happened I think so much so that you and I just wanted to go out and get a burger. Yeah. Yeah. And we were like fuck out of this good restaurant. We were like, let's get a burgera got children on the way.. When I think about things that like, I know you've talked about this a lot like your dad down to you and I don't know if it's cultural shift or psychological shift or whatever, but I do feel this thing that's really been landing for me lately is The thing you can do for a kid is actually just model for them what it looks like to be an adult Who listens, who asks a lot of questions, and has control of their own emotions. It's not that there's no boundaries, it's not anything. But that whole idea of just modeling more than telling is a thousand. Revelatory to me. We grew up in a generation where it's like the parents were saying one thing and you were observing them actively doing the opposite as they were telling you, and it just didn't mean anything Yeah It's really wild, but it all circles back to some of what we're talking about about creativity, about a great process with Olivia. Penelope and Seth and me and Olivia have all been doing this a pretty long time And one of the things I think maybe allowed that to work like that was Getting to this place where you go, I'm going to make myself available. I'm not going to come in with a predisposition and I'm not going to try to over control or direct with my determinations or my instincts or my certainties, the way this is going to go and that the lighter I hold it and the more available, I make myself to something someone else says or to, okay, that's not what I thought was coming, but What do I do with what came in a weird way, the happier you are? This is like aging, right? I'm young and I read the fountain head and I'm like, yeah, I want to be like Howard Rarke. Just whatever opinion I have, I want to believe in it. I don't care what anyone says and I'm going execute. And that was so appealing as a young man. And now as an older man I think I used to get horny for conviction and now I'm like so horny for humility. Humility is like the most powerful crazy thing. It's not appealing when you're a young man. But I think as you get older, it gets more and more appealing. And like all you're saying about that process is you like you walk in with the humility that maybe someone else has a better grasp of this or maybe someone else has a different angle that's also valid that might be more interesting O even none of you know and that the collision is gonna reveal that the uncertainty is a state in which somethinghing interesting and true might happen and that if it does and you make yourself available to it. All these other things will rise up that are better than your predispositions toward something It's all sounds corny, but what you're describing is Youthful creativity is often a flex. When you're trying to define yourself. and maybe if you're lucky and you get to keep being creative, you get to the place where it's more discovery than it is Flex. Yeah, you said something that's really beautiful and profound and it is that you were kind of asked about I can't remember the specifics of the question, but you're basically like, I try not to actually think about or pursue happiness and more interesterested and just expansion. I would replace happiness with expansion and I would replace sadness or unhappiness with constriction. And I think those are great things to swap out When you're younger too, it's in some weird way, you feel like if someone has a different idea, it feels like you're not getting an A on your homework And you end up probably with more people who you leave each other feeling a little bruised instead of leaving each other feeling You lifted each other higher You both went somewhere you'd not been before. It's nice to arrive in that place. Yeah for sure. Yeah, you don't have much of an ego I've noticed that over all the times we've had you, especially for someone is talented and could walk around with like, I have all the answers because you've proven to in a lot of spaces and you're doing all these other cool things like the barge. you could, but you don't walk in with that air which is very impressive, I will say.. It doesn't appear you have much of an ego anyway. It's hard not to have and not's humility, but I mean, I just think the scale of what's taking place in the world right now, the scale of the challenges, the scale of the assault of you know, the awareness and information about cataclym and violence and brutal every corner. I think we're in a very brutal age right now. We're overwhelmed.. Yeah in me, it sounds really trite, but it's like, how can you have Gaza being live streamed and then get off on your achievements? Yeah self important. You know what I mean? But also you see the Gaza thing and then you swipe up and then it's a guy jumping an old car over a river and then you're laughing and then you go to the next page and it's like some heartfelt reunion with a soul Oh my God. I mean, the ride you're on is insane for yourre nervousist.op. I often rely on the things you s me about someone in a powerboat doing something stupid. I'm curating that for go to bed on that The keep them comp. Well, Edward, this has been lovely. The invite is fucking phenomenal. I hope it takes the world by storm. You guys are also good Again, I'll just repeat it. It's Falelentino on a motorcycle, watching Edward do this monologue. Date movie of the summer. Yeah. could end in a lot of different ways. So june twenty sixth, everyone check out the invite. I adore you. and I can't wait to do it again. Love it Stay tuned for the fat check Isra the partyZ Ls banter for the summer Last banter. U sharefo girl. I know you think you're out for school Listen, my arms I woke up this morning and I was like Why am I sore Oh did something happen in the night? What happened I tried to lift you up yesterday. Oh my god, your arms were sore from that. Yes. Oh no, that's not a great sign. I know. I know What if that is your new workout routine, you had to try to lift me up three times. That's easy. That only reset. It only took only took a coupleays It was a quick workout to get the burn the next day. It was. I do not say this in a boohoo way. Now, we're not gonna complain. I'm not complaining. I'm just gonna say that We have been trucking through but yesterday We finished. and I was getting out of the hot tub and I kept like my eye was getting blurry on the right side And I kept going like, whyy is my eye blurry on the right side? And I would wipe it, I would wipe it and then it would get like kind of better Hmm, I'm going go upstairs and look in the magnifying mirror. And so I went looked in the magnifying mirror and when I pulled my eyelid down. Monica, there was dying there the size of like What's the biggest kind of pea? Is it a snow pea? L an dam AP. Yeah. Eam AP. Yeah. It was Eamam AP. I don't know how I wasn't feeling it and it was just Hemorrhaging It was nasty. It was justusing. Yeah, I know it's terrible to say. Yeah, no one wants to hear about that in the. No, it's terrible. But I was like, o, this is, well, that's a sign. It's a stin. a. I'm just so curious why stins are such a direct stress related Not for me, I've never had one. I never gotten them. Do you get them w? No, not really. Lucky you guys. We don't get styed. My mom used to say, I remember when she was a kid when I was a kid She would have to get hers lanced. It would be like a big ordeal. And she is famous for saying if she just sees somebody with a stie, she'll get one. Oh that seems Curious seems like o, you know what we don't call her a liar, but I'm not gonna call her any. But we must acknowledge She is much up. She exaggerates. Listen, speaking of Munchhouss. Okay I watch we weren't speaking to munchhouss we were I just said it. You just go munchs and speaking to Munchhs? No I didn't I said she has it. I was kidding. Yeah. Don't hurt me. I watched that doc last night. Oh you did. Yeah. Okay. What's it called mother? It's called maternal instinct. something's It's a horr It's a good name and a Horrible name. Guys, like I hate to say watch it, but I think like watch it Even though it's disturbing. It's so disturbing. It is. You know what I liked about it? It was short Of course. I reallyved that about it. Yeah, you now that's the first criteria you. Yeah ye, the shorter the better Are you excited? likeike the moment I normally feel screwed, are you excited? L you'll be watching a show. It's a comedy. So generally the episodes are gonna to be like thirty minutes is. And then you turn on the episode and you see it's like nineteen or twenty minutes. And you're like, I'm like, fuck you. you can't give me an eighteen minute episode. Are you like, O, this is gonna be a good one. It's like three minutes too long Okay, fifteen is ideal. No. I must love short content and maybe that's what's happening now. No No, it's not. I like a full size show or movie. But if it's a twenty something minute show, like nobody wants this has short episodes. and I like that ' then I can just keep going. Okay, You can watch it all in one One sitting, which I enjoy doing. Yeah, which is I've been meaning to bring something up for a while all year. Not all year. A couple months. okay Have you noticed I've been wearing this necklace a lot? Uhuh. Yeah For the listener, it is a gold necklace. It has like they look like rice shapes. They do Um, they're diamond in an o diamond o, diamond in a diamond shape Rice shape. There's eleven of them. This necklace was sent to me. It is called an eleven eleven necklace. Oh Be someone gifted that? ele eleven. Yes, because I'm obsessed with eleven eleven and it stands for eleven wishes I don't really have to look out for eleven eleven anymore because I already have it at all times. So did you model out how many years left you have on planet Earth and try to figure out what your schedule for wishes will be? If you have eleven, let's say you have sixty years left, that would be One every six years. No I didn't do that. if you six. just means I always have wishes. Okay, so you're just not using them. You're kind of stockpiling them waiting for emergency. No, it's like this whole thing represents abundant wishes. Not eleven. Like it just it's just It's just like good luck. Okay. You know just good luck. And the jeweler is called Devon Woodhill Jewelry. Okay And I really love it. It's very dainty, which I like dainty jewelry. U. And you're just walking around with good luck. Yeah and have you felt like your luck has improved since you started wearing it Yeah. Yeah, big time. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of great luck. I still look at, I still just see eleven eleven all the time. It's so cool. But now how do you feel since you don't need it anymore? I still love it. You still love it. o. And I feel I wouldn't want this necklace to end an arrow. It doesn't. It just adds. it didn't end, it adds. Okay, now if you had eleven wishes What would be your approach? My strategy? Yeah. becauseuse I might think, okay I have fifty years left Um So I get to use one every nine years or whatever it would be. Yeah. But I'm a hoarder by nature. Right. Like you know, you get points when you use your American Express. Yeah. I've never spent a single one of the points. It drives everyone in my life crazy U and I'm just like, yeah, if I have no other money ever I'll at least have some of those points I can cash in. That's such a ding ding ding. I for the first time used You did for your flight.ot American Express. I used Delt point. Okay, and was it did you get a free ticket out of it Uh, yeah. I've had underwhelming experience not deta specifically, but when I've tried to cash in airline points. I remember back in the day when I traveled nonstop for car shows. and I had a lot of points and they told you like, oh yeah, twenty thousand points, you get a flight. Well, every single time I ever tried to book a flight was like, oh, it was blackout. So it's really forty thousand or it's sixty thousand And a couple of times I use them, it was like it was five X of what they tell you it's going to be It's a lot of point. It's a lot of points, but it's a lot of money. Yeah. So it saved me a lot of money. So you got you did points plus I think. I think I did. Okay Julie helped me. Okay I don't know Julie. Julie is Max's mom. Shout out Max's mom, Julie. She does listen to this show often. Is she a travel agent? She is. Oh wow, and you're using a travel agent. Well, she helps me sometimes and it's really nice because like I don't know how to do any of this. I don't know how to use points P part of why I don't use them, right? I think that's what they're counting on. Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, Nope. I mean Julie knows. Do you imagine those first? So they bring in an expert certainly and then they pitch the board or whatever the higher ups are and they go, Okaykay were here's what we're here to pitch. We'd like to start this this Pos program. Yeah. and every twenty thousand points people get it free plane ticket. and And then the people there go like, well shit, if you divide that up, we're going to be giving and they go, well, here's good news twenty one percent of these people will hoard them and die with the point. That's right that act Sepherard tpe. I think it's more than twenty one Probably. I'm just this is the number.ure. And then they go and then thirty six percent of people will never be able to figure out how to use the point. the mod. So now we're down to like you know this was a part of their initial pitch. So like what we've modeled out is really only about eleven percent of people will be actually cashing these in.. So that's why it's this Yeahah, but they need to watch out for like the so we've discussed the Dac Shepherard types, the Vonica Padman types, but then there's also the Elizabeth Lame types. She's totally hacked She's like, she knows how to do it Kr She is like she pays zero dollars Yeah That's crazy. Kristen too. it's like you convert these points into those points and then on this month, you convert those points to these points and there's yeah. So yeah, there's some people have mastered it. I mean, I don't even know I cancel flights sometimes and they don't refund the money. they give me a credit and I don't know how to ever read don't give you like Here's a number to type in that will activate your credit. It's just like you have a credit. good luck figuring out how to do. So if you go to your app It's there. My app, you have an app for all your airlines? Just Delta. Delta is my main Yeah, 'cause of Delta one. But those expire 'a of Delta, your daughter. They expire with.red Credits usually expire within like a year or two. Yeah, it's like a year or two years or so. Your airline points expire now? No, no credits from cancel. Oh yeah, which I I don't know how to do. That's why you need to go get your Delta app you' ing in your number. and it'll it'll it's actually very easy to use on the that. You can just like say like pay with credit. Oh wow.. It's cool. I have done that. Great. I mean, your daughter's named after the dang airline. And every time she flies in I'm waiting to see because one hundred percent of the times we fly, when we check in and they read the things, they always comment on that it's the same name as the airline And she has liked that a lot as a kid. It's exciting. It's more attention. Of course. But she's getting older and I know it it won't be fun. L when she's twenty four and they're like, Oh you're fly and then she'll be like, Yeahah, man, I've heard this every time I've flown since I was So you think she's to start going by Dee Or what if she just refused to flight Delta so they can But then what if she was checking in at American Airlines and like, wouldouldn' you be more comfortable on Delta? And she's like, fuck me on okay, I'm going to go back to Delta. Oh shit. There's a lot. There's a lot to think about. But I am I'm waiting It hasn't happened, thank Godd, but I know it's coming where it'll change from excitement for the attention to annoyed. Yeah. And I'm just clocking that. And who knows? We have some flights coming up. This could be the time Let me know D But you won't be able to let me know. we gotught to You youre you have to to write it down and save it for later. because as a reminder, we don't have fact checks for the next little bit guys Get excited, it's rerun time. It's block partarty summer. Do you remember bllock partarty summer? tell me about it. It was on Nickelodeon. Okay. I used to when I stay with my grandparents in Savannah, there was block partarty summer on Nickelodeon. So Mondays was bewitched and then it would be all night Marathon Witch marathon And then it was I Dream of Jeannie and it was Mary Tyler Moores show. And I watched all of it and I loved it. Do you wish you were a kid again? H You were just you were just watching the children play in the backyard last week and you had great envy of the carefree nature of their play. Well this story and just the way there's a look on your face when you talk about being a little kid. I'm a nostalgic gal. I know, but would you like to be a little kid again think so because there are a lot of things I like lot about being an adult. I don't want to give those up. Right. And it's one or the other. You don't get both Well, we, you just told me that someone some human, the first human is trying the epigenome anti aging Anti aging treatment. Protocol. Protocol. Yeah. And so we were discussing this, what age Would we go back to? Yeah. And then we said, maybed be fun if I went back to being like four. Right, but you still have the same position and just a higher voice. Yeah. But your same brain. My same brain and my same knowledge, but I was a little four year old looking girl. Yeah. it would probably It would reduce stress between us. Yeah, 'causeuse you would never be able to get mad. It would be impossible. And I would just like, I would chalk up whatever you're doing. like, Oh she's a kid. The way I'm able to write off insane behavior in my house. Because I'm like, yeather kids. But that actually, okay, that's gonna get complicated because I'm gonna be like, I am not stop treating me like a child. Oh, but you' a child. No I gott help you into this car and I can pick you up and I got grab everything for you. I only look for but you can't get your jacket out All this stuff kids can't do You can't get your mittens on. Yeah. I think Oh my God. We're gonna have to go over every morning and fucking get you ready for your job But I'm also gonna be texting you. Why are you late Yeah We need to start the day. Come get my clothes on. And you can't reach, you can't cook yourself eggs. You know, you would need a caretaker Oh, and who like maybe Josha little steps and stools everywhere around your house. Okay. this would get tricky sexually Tell me. yeah. Because like Anyone I want to have sex with is not a ped of. to be a ped ofal. Like on your on your dating app, you have who you're looking for. handsome Financially secure pedophile. Bunny, smart No, listen, not it's not laugh joke. It's a laughing joke when we think about your miniature in four. Yeah you still want to date. I'm just San but mini miniature. Yeah, you have your same mental needs. Yeah. and I have my and I have physical needs like I need met and I need food. No, no, I mean like sexually. Yeah, yeah. I'm still attracted to the same people I'm attracted to, but they're not pedophiles. so this is gonna get complex. Because even if they're attracted to my brain, how will they feel like they can't have sex with a four year old body They just can't. They can't. It's a it's a If you thought the dating scene was challenging currently With you being four, it's gonna really be impossible. Four year old body. let's not say I'm four ' I'm not four. Yeah, I think a more A more blurry hypothetical. You don't think this one's blurry? No, this is black and white. becausecause they just can't. You're four What if you go to seventeen Oh no, that's even worse for some reason. Well, that's why I'm ye steering our vessel into those choppy waters because that's way more complicated No, but you know what's interesting? So it's a seventeen year old body Yeah. year oldy. But so what Unless I'm wrong, but I don't think I'm wrong based on my life experience. I don't look my current age. right I look younger. Okay. So I just looked seventeen I mean, it just be like if I currently looked seventeen That's right of whatever everyone thinks I look like, which often is young. Yeah, quite young. Yeah. So I think that would be fine because I am thirty eight in this scenario, right? Is that what happens that's it's a thousand percent fine because the entire spirit and intention of these laws is that a young mind that doesn't understand what they're getting into or how they're being manipulated would be taken advantage of. Exactly. Th a non sexual being would be asked to participate in sexuality with an older person. That power dynamic. But that's one hundred percent about the brain. Exactly. Yeah. yourour body can handle it longong before we acknowledge you can handle it mentally. So we already know what the goal is. So yes, there's nothing at risk. There's no victimization on the table Yeah, so, but the man who's able to be aroused year old is sick. It immediately takes it back to the zone. So what's the eight, see, this is a tr. That's why I was trying to steer us into sevent eighteen feels if I looked like I looked seven when I was seventeen, but it's me now. Yeah It's fine. to me. I also get the guy though about how because we know how we feel about the guy that was able to perform. Well the four year old, that's that's's a nonstarter Actually you could trap you could like trap They would on those hard copy shows and so that's what they would do. I'm gonna do that when I get four Weird use of. I think it's helpful. It's like doing good. Okay, o. What do we think of the guy who's willing to be with them seventeen year old body you with thirty. eight year old brain I think that's I think they're fine. Yeah, I look really good. I looks good. I don't look that different than I looked when I was seventeen. We had a version of this hypothetical. It was very similar to a hypothetical we had years ago, which is this thing I thought of, which is when I was in high school My girlfriends and I had some nude photos And high You mean exchang What do you mean? you had nude photos? Yeah, we had like taken photos. Oh yeah, yeah. Don't do that, kids J especially in this digital age, do not do that Well, they're going to do exactly what they're going No, you can say like that's you can say Be careful. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Be these things get out. I'm just notave. I think I think a lot of kid I think know not to do that. I'm just saying we were doing it with really shitty technology and the risk of having to go get them developed f in the town pharmacy. You know, you had to go drop your film off at fucking I know to way way easier to keep wrapped up than the digital age sending. Obviously there's an infinite distribution of the other cl. What I'm saying though is there was a bunch of hurdles and risky hurdles Yeah. But we still did it because we wanted to do it so much. So I'm only I think I'm trying to be realistic about whether or not peopleeople take that warning That doesn't matter. the hypothetical is. So let's say I have these photos And let's say Kristen had taken photos with her boyfriend when she was sixteen we're both just chatting about this and then we both have photos of each other when we were minors. Is it How do we feel about each person wanting to see those? Well, how old are you? Let's say I'm let's say fifteen and fifteen ' that's below age of consent everywhere? Yeah Teen to me is We know children who are older than that. Yeah, I'm just it's so curious because again, there can't be a victim because that person's now f. We can't say can't because because I can't be a victim Um, because I'm now fifty one. That boy that could have been a victim doesn't even exist Well, it' it still can be violating if a pedophile is using your pictures from when you were young to like get off. That's right. A pedophile would be concerning and we would know like there's not an ethical debate there Right that But I'm saying we can still be a vict You can setting Two consenting adults who I go, No, I don't care at all if you look at the picture of me when I was fifteen naked So you have my consent and I'm the person in the photo, and the person in the photo is no longer a minor and can't be victimized. Right. So there's there can't be a victim in this scenario. Okay. What are the? ye, what's the morality of that? Doesn't mean that there's not going to be judgment of the person who wants to see a fifteen year old sexually What m But what makes I think this situation good is like we know each other as adults and we make the two adults make a decision. So this guy knows You're thirty eight. You're dating. This guy knows that you monicar are thirty eight from your brain. But you've made your body seventeen. R But he knows he's talking to a thirty eight year old. with full autonomy. That's different because then he does get the full me. He gets a thirty eight year old conversation and interaction and brain. If it's just a picture That's not. They are they are getting off on a child. Well A child their wife as a child or their husband as a child That's still a child. like the picter is what they're looking at and liking. And so Yeah, that is I I doubt for sure if anyone that liked thoughtought it was that was jacking off a picture of me your husband I was When I was a kid. Yeah. Yeah. would I would be like, that's a that's a kid though. Like it's clearly a kid. And Ieen and this is so predictably gendered, I would be flattered like it would only it would only I'd only like it. Yeah That's just It might not be gendered because we also know men who've been It's you. all we can speak for is you and me. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'm say but I want to be clear. I'm saying if my partner was enjoying looking at No I know. Yeah, yeah, I would be flattered by it. I know. I'm just saying you're speaking for you, Dax. I'm speaking for me, Monica of what I would find creepy and what you would find creepy. Anyway I I think it's a fine line of age Stay tuned for more ar you dare We get support from Zip Recruitero get reccruit in I'm constantly looking for ways to call back time in my day. I've got the meal prepped dial, the grocery delivery locked in, the whole morning routine down to a science. We all have our own time saving hacks for everyday life, But if you're a business owner, how can you save time hiring? Zip Recruiter. They have a new feature that quickly shows you the most interested, qualified candidates first So you're not buried in a pile of applications from people who aren't even the right fit. Their matching technology is seriously powerful, and candidates can actually explain in their own words why they're interested in your job. That context up frront saves so much back and forth. There's a reason they're the number one rated hiring site on G two. Save time and meet great candidates sooner with Zip Recruiter fourour out of five employers who post on Zip Recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at ziprecruiter. com slash staxs that'szZiprecruiter d. com slash stackax. Meet your match on Zip Recruiter. The only reason that this conversation isn't just Gingly, um, indulgent This is actually a weird. possibility Yeah. This isn't totally Just I'm gonna explain it for one second. Yeah Okay, so And I'm going I'm going to make some mistakes here. I'm going to do the best I can though. I'm sure that some geneticists will hit me in the comments. But In general, what's confusing about aging is your DNA stays unchanged. Your DNA is your DNA, right? And then your DNA, your cells replicate through mitosis and they make an identical copy to the strand of DNA that originated as And so the question is, if it's making identical copies all the time, how on earth does aging even happen? Why do your cells look so different at seventy than they did at thirty Th scientists oh, it's called the Gamura property, whatever. The scientists discovered that in mice, what really is going on with aging is that although your DNA stays identical the whole time, your epigenome on top, the layer on top that's deciding which of U the genes it wants to turn on and off of the DNA strand, they accumulate all kinds of damage along the way. And that that's actually what aging is. the epigenome accumulating all these different errors that then start turning your DNA on and off in a different way than they did when you were younger. So They have figured out in these mice how to cut The A genome prune it back to before the errors occurred. And when they first did it They took the epigenome back so far that the mice died because they immediately got young and then their organs continued to grow as if they were infants So then they had to fine tune just cutting off the right amount of the epididum. And then they've done that. they can take a mouse takeake it to whatever age they decide which is It's mind blowing. And so they have just now started the first human trial So it is sincerely conceivable that people at some point in the not too distant future will be picking what physiological age they want to be Yeah. I just I also don't see how you if you're going back though, how why you wouldn't also go back to like your brain wouldn't be as developed either though, right? Like if you're literallyrain doesn't go through mitosis. That's what's unique about your gray cells that are in your brain is they are just you have them and then they're dying they're not going through that same process. So that's why they're not accumulating the same issues, but yeah, so your brain would wouldn't be affected by your cells going back. You're not losing memories or identity or any of that stuff. This is fucking wild. It's wild. You're gonna see me out there as a little four year old. So when you see T eighteen year olds together They might be seventy one and seventy three. Yeah. I know. It's crazy I mean, so that's the thing. I guess the point is If you go back to seventeen, the dude you like is also going to go back to seventeen. So now he's got two seventeen year olds with four year old brains that are fucking there's really nothing to think about Right. That's true or I think a lot of guys should go back to seventeen if I'm being honest. No, I look way worse. seventeen I gotta really think. the best stage for a lot of men. I know you have your frontal lobe eighteen seventeen with a frontal. No, I'm saying physically. Oh yeah Um, Yeah, it'll be interesting. and then it'll be tricky in some relationships because They'll be like, could you just go back to being could you like please be eighteen or twenty? Just love the way you were when you were twenty and the way you looked and then they're like you Yeah. Well, you could see people the same way that like, Plastic surgery is a slippery slope. slippery. It is a very slippery slope. Everyone knows is you could go like, I'm gonna go back to twenty nine You go back to twenty n, and you're like,h, I don't feel as good as I thought I was gonna feel, blah blah blah I I got it wrong better. I should go to twenty seven and you can see someone just getting caught in. That's how you end up as a four year old. Yeah. That's how you end up. You know, if I no, I would go back to being the baby in the picture. Uhuh She's how old. One Yeah Can she talk See, this is where Yeah, that would be frustrating. It's horrifying No, I think you would be able to because you've already created all the circ Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think you would be able to talk I mean, that's what would be so freaky as if you went back to six months. holden and you were like, where's my m Where's my microphone Lift me up and I'm telling you I've You're gonna to want to use those things Like I've already designed how you guys are gonna to get me over there. Yeah, if I was the age or too bad you can't do it for just like a day, you know, because then it's like be a baby for a day. Yeah, just for a day, you get to like I want to feel bad for you, you just be a baby I think Earon and I would love to take the little girl in the dress out for some. Yeah Exactly. But I still like sushi. like I'm still gonna like sush. I'm still gonna like But you get en thirty eight year old Oh no, probably though my taste buds will not have been drink Bye Beacauseuse how do they know if you're really twenty one? Well I'd have to have there'd have to be a way to put. Well then I'm not doing it. Yeah, you would never go before twenty one. No, no, in this world, you're able to prove your age, right? That's a tricky of your old license right And then you hold it up and it's like That's what that's you in thirty five years. I gu you're trying to like No, I think they know based on my conversation with them. Okaykay, because I'll be speaking. me what happened in nineteen ninety one They Yeah. and I'm only one year old old. You're right. They'll have to be some kind of really sophisticated age system where you can demonstrate your age your actual age. Yes. But then because again we don't want a sixteen year old. know. You can't prove she's not forty Exactly. That's why things are is going to be hard, but I I I actually wouldn't like sushi because my taste buds wouldn't have been developed yet Like my brain would be developed, but not my taste buds, right? know Do you think I know for me, I know it'll be like taking a sheet off of my face. Like I know my eyesight was so much better. The first thing I would notice is like, o damn, we can see. And I wonder like how much of my hearing I would notice is back Taste buds R deffinitely tastes way less than I did. Oh wait, taste buds begin forming in the womb around week eight of pregnancy and are fully developed and connected to the brain by week sixteen. Oh So you get your full taste buuds before you're even born? You get most everything And then he's gott to figure out how to use it all. Oh God. in middle age, around forty years old, the regeneration rate begins to slow, leading to a gradual decline in the sense of taste over time. Yeah. I'm eleven years into that journey, Monica. Now, do you think I'll be unethical when I'm one Eat looking. U What loking One looking that I would get an egg retribal Becauseuse I'm actually thirty eight brain Yeah, but you no longer need egg retrieval. Oh Oh boy. No, I wonder if the eggs are more in line with the brain. I don't know if you they would go back I just think it's whatever cells are reproducing start reproducing into those H. Interesting. Yeah, that's the weird Do you think it would be unethical to get to freeze a one year old's eggs? Yeah. ye ye quite quite unethical unnecessary. Well,gg I wish I had my one year old eggs now. could have waiting waiting. You could have waited until eighteen. those eggs would be just fine. I just the one year old is when you have you have so many. Yeah And like You can spare a lot Yeah. When you're one. Yeah. It's because they don't have the choice. I mean, look, I'm in a tricky situ where I guess I guess there were news articles when I said that I would get my daughter's eggs retreated Hay is what you said. That's You weren't saying you're making them. But no. It I was making and also when they're an adult The people in ferred I meant as children And I just want to be That's why I want to be dreadful and clear that I don't believe in harvesting eggs. and miners I don't know if I agree. And that's great. you shouldn't. You have the freedom. I'm not saying that I I'm not saying yes or no, but I think there's more to think about. being on being at the age where I like didid it twice, It wasn't great. I desperately wish I had just like eighty eggs that were young young and mature Young and mature. That's dig That's what we'reking about Young and mature. it's true I would Definitely go back and do it at age one and get eighty. And no one would even I wouldn't even notice Right. onlyly in this scenario because I'm a thirty eight year old giving consent That's the ish. A one year old can't give consent. They can't. That's why it needs to be eight. eighteen or above. I agree. I agree ethically. Yeah U But if you could time travel, you would kidnap yourself for a day, get all the eggs out when I was one. and return her to her bassinet. Yeah. No one none the wiser. Yeah. Yeah Yeah.

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