"Josh Brolin"
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Voted the best podcast of all time. I had a laugh riot. Smartless brings all the laughs when three friends, Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and

Will Arnett. Get together and just chop it up and spit it out. It's SmartLess, and it's a... Wait, am I not doing an ad for the... No? It's just a... It's a cold open. Okay. You're listening to SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess.

Sean, you seem kind of distracted this morning. Have you noticed? Have I noticed? No, he's all pissed off he had to reboot. Yeah, I had to reboot my computer. I hate when that happens. I don't like being late. I don't like being the guy that's the trouble. You don't like being third. Will was third today. No, that's not true. Technically second. I was third. Practically second, but technically third because Sean was here earlier. You know what? I thought that I had more time and I went and actually I went to the same guy that Sean did earlier

who helped him with his carpal tunnel, Tarek, and he... So I was going... I was standing on a rack... Don't drop Tarek's name in hopes of getting a break on your medical bill from him. Okay? That was pathetic. Jason, have you ever gone to him? Let's have the last name, too. Go ahead. Jason, have you been to him? Yes, I have. Yes, I have. Oh, you have now. Oh, yeah. Oh, really? So why don't you want to... Well, yeah, I had a bad back at some point. Tarek Goddra. I still do, but... Tarek Goddra. He helped Aline...

Yeah. So he's great, and here comes your discount. So I was standing on a—the reason I was late, I was standing on a racquetball because, as you know, I have a bad—I had to bail out— Toe? From my hamstring last week. I had to bail out a golf. Remember, you and I were playing with Charlie and Robin, and it got so bad, and he said that there was basically buildup on my hamstring around my—

my sciatic nerve. Fuck, man, I couldn't even sit down. Is it better now? Yeah, so how's it going? Much better. He's helped it out a lot. Yeah, so what do you got to do now to maintain it? He made you stand on a racquetball. That fixed it? Yeah, that was part of it. No, it was, you know, my posture is terrible. You know, pillow under your knees when you sleep. How you sit, all this kind of stuff. Anything about eating cereal for dinner? He said, he said double down. Oh.

Oh, did he? He said double down on that. And instead of milk, ice cream, like a real soft ice cream. Soft serve ice cream and cereal. Sean just got a boner. Sean, can I ask you a question? So earlier this morning before I record here, just half hour ago, I'm on a business call, right? Because it's a work day. You're on with a business call. Yeah, a business call. And so I couldn't take the incoming phone call from Mr. Arnett, right? Just let it go to voicemail.

Hang up the business call, check my voicemail. There's no message. Yeah. Just a record that he's called. Is that what he does with you? Like some, no, that's what won't leave a message, you know, because like he's trying to hide the fact that he, he, he tried to call and then I didn't pick up. And so he's like too embarrassed to leave a message. No, but do you leave a message? I never leave a message. Leave a message or at least I'll text afterwards and say, Hey, tried you. Yeah. Well, I'll do that sometimes, but, but,

But the call is the message. Listen. No, it's not enough that there's just a recent call from you. That doesn't qualify. You got to leave me a message if you want to call back. Honestly, no offense to Chris Berman at ESPN, but I think your new nickname might be Boomer. So listen, Boomer, here's the deal. I will say this. What we do now is we don't leave messages because there's a record that I called. And so you can decide whether or not. That's your message. That's the message. So that's official? Or were you just trying to hide the fact that you're stalking me like some kind of...

wounded ex-boyfriend. Hey, by the way, do you think I wanted to talk to you? I had to ask you something. Well, let's have it now. Look at this attitude. Do you think I want to deal with this? Text it. Imagine the smile. No, because it's easier. To Jason's credit,

Yeah. Jace, to your credit, I will always text you, hey, do you got a second? Or hey, I want to chat with you. And you call me right away. That's what folks do nowadays, Will. You call me almost instantly. Well, I was just trying, you know what? You know what? I was just trying to get, I was just trying to make it easy and streamline it. And I was trying to cold call you. Yeah, because we have a relationship that was established on calling years ago. When did we decide that we were going to text first? I didn't get that text. Ha ha ha.

Now that I got you all warmed up and ready for the first round, let's go out there and meet our fighter. Who we got, Arnett? By the way, our buddy Bradley got seven Oscar nominations for Maestro today. Wait, he did? He should have got Director, goddammit. That's the best directed film of the last decade. I agree. I totally agree, too. I mean, Christ, that movie. Blown away. Listener, there is no better film this year than Maestro. I agree.

Full stop. Full stop. If you... To do what he did with that film is so incredible. An impossible target. It's so different. Nobody's doing anything like that. When I first saw it, I was blown away. Yep. It's a stunning piece of work and...

I hope he takes solace in the fact that the Academy will probably look at this and Star is Born as, okay, he did it twice really, really well, so this next one we're going to give him at least a nomination if not the statue. It would be great if they did it for the next one. Oh, yeah. Exactly, Willie. That would be great. Willie's got one coming up with Bradley. So speaking of the Academy Awards...

Our fella seems to, uh, got himself an Academy Award nomination. -Oh. -Today? Yeah. Not today. But he has had Academy-- He's been-- I looked at his-- He's one of those guys, he's got his own award nomination page on Wikipedia, 'cause there's so many that they can't even fit in his regular page. -Oh, God. Now I'm getting nervous. -Same goes with his filmography. It's got its own fucking page, which most of the times it would bum you out, but with this guy, it's okay.

Because he's one of the good dudes. Really? And he has done stuff. I mean, you're going to remember a lot of this stuff. Johnny Betts from Private Eye. Taylor Rollator from 21 Jump Street. You might know him as Glenn from Finish Line. You might know him as Jack Passion from Moneka Road. Probably not. But you might know him more as Gurney Halleck from Dune or Thanos from Avengers Endgame or...

Or Dan White, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for 2008's Milk. Guys, it's the unbelievably talented, the explosion that is, my favorite JB, Josh Brolin. Oh, yeah. Oh, Josh. It was just talking about you this morning. When you started that resume, I go, what the fuck did...

The stuff you tried to bury. What is he doing? Yeah. Dude. It's all there. All the things that you've never seen and don't remember, welcome our guest. No, I mean, if he just said Goonies, I would have guessed it in two seconds. Well, fuck, I didn't want to say Goonies because I was trying to go old first, and so if I said Goonies, fucking Sean would have gone, it's Johnny Marlin. It's good.

Josh, does Goonies follow you around like Teen Wolf 2 follows me around? Yeah, but how proud of Teen Wolf for you. Honestly. Are you? There was a point with Goonies where it was like, please God, give me another movie, any movie that anybody will see. But Goonies was a great film. Teen Wolf 2 had its challenges. It wasn't for trying. But thank God it has turned into just kitsch in our resume, right? Yeah.

But it's not just Teen Wolf 2, it's Teen Wolf also. I just want to make... Yeah, T-double-O. This was not a sequel. Teen Wolf also. I wouldn't dare. I know. Are they going to do another one? Do you get that? Yeah, Teen Wolf 3 and 3D. It's in deep development right now. Who's better than Josh Brolin? Look at this. I am so psyched to settle in with JB. I am so psyched you're here, dude. So nice to meet you. Let's start with what you guys met on the set of... What was that...

What was the... Well, we met before a little bit, but we both... We did. I didn't want to bring up the Razzie-nominated Jonah Hex. Why? Did it get a Razzie? You know what? Why don't you tell the story, if you're willing to tell the story. Tell the story that you've told me when you were over at my house one day. You told me that you were walking by my trailer, and what did you see? Do you remember this? It was the end of a long day. We were...

We were shooting this scene where we came into, we were on horseback. Do you remember that, Josh, in that park? And they set up the old town? And John Gallagher and I came in leading. I did not know how to ride a horse. Shocker. Anyway, so it was like a dusty day. We'd been on horseback all day and I walked by and Josh had this incredible makeup for Jonah Hex that took absolutely

hours to put on. He could barely move. He could speak out of one side of his mouth. The other one had this prosthetic on that took forever. And it had a hole in the prosthetic. And a hole in the prosthetic. So I walked by his trailer and it's like 6 p.m. We've been shooting 12 hours as hot as fucking New Orleans. Like a thousand degrees. And Josh is sitting on the steps of his trailer. What?

It was a cigarette sticking out of the hole of his prostate. And I had to put a finger over the hole in order to be able to inhale the cigarette. And I had. What else did I have? And he was holding a bottle of whiskey. Maker's Mark. He was holding a bottle of Maker's Mark in his fucking hand, drinking it. At 11 o'clock in the morning. It sounded like he had a triple banger, too, or a double banger. It was a little later than that, but it was still. And the fact that I blame Jonah Hex on anybody else is a fucking joke. Other than me.

I got to see that movie, man. You have to. It looked handsome. The trailer looked great. He did look like a cowboy, I will tell you that much. I was like, this motherfucker came to fucking play. Can I tell you a quick story about that, actually? So we went to the premiere of...

And we're looking in the studio, kind of took over that movie and they made it even worse than it already was. And it wasn't that bad. It really wasn't that bad. But we left early as one does at their own premiere. Sure. And there was a guy in a wheelchair that left just before me that didn't see that I left behind him when my wife and I left the...

and he thought he was by himself and he was wheeling himself out and he said, 86 minutes of a waste of fucking life.

That's really funny. The worst review I've ever gotten. I'd rather lose the other leg than see that shit again. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's really funny. Sorry to interrupt. Well, I don't want to... Yeah, go ahead, Sean. I don't want to rain on your parade, but just let me know if it's now or 40 minutes I can talk about Dune because I have 800,000 questions. Okay, you can talk about Dune anytime you want. You can start now if you want. I was going to start a little further back than his most recent project he's working on.

Josh, so I wanted to talk, man. It's so great to have you. You're one of the all-time great dudes, and I really mean that just outside of even the shit that we do, you're a great dude. And you started, obviously, you know, you...

your dad was in the business, your mom was in the business, and so you started with that, and yet you kind of... It took you a minute. You didn't start... You weren't like a child actor in the sense that, like, when you were first young, you weren't really doing it. Am I right about that? You were kind of outside of L.A., and then you kind of came back to it. Is that...

that sort of I wasn't I wasn't I was born in LA I was born in Santa Monica which goes back five generations I believe St. John's big St. John's where my where my father was born and my grandfather was wow holy shit um and my kid my kid um two of my kids were born in St. John's wow so no I was raised I we left uh the valley uh

I believe it was Chatsworth when I was five and we went to Paso Robles. My mom was in the business as an assistant casting director, but that was it. Primarily she ran a wildlife way station and took wild animals away from people who had illegally taken them out of the wild and had them jailed.

My mother was a five-foot-three Texan blonde tornado. I smell a real compelling one-hour episodic. Yeah, right? Yeah. And by the way, we just wrote a book that's going to be out November 19th. I didn't really know what the book was, and it's kind of an unconventional memoir, but it's very mother-heavy. Fucking A. What's the name of it? Plug it.

I can't plug it because I'm not allowed to, but yeah. But it is coming out in November, Harper Collins. But yeah, man, so my dad was an actor. He stayed in LA most of the time. He went back and forth and drove the four hours to Paso Robles. So I had no real, I mean, I think I went on his sets. I think I went on Marcus Welby once.

And I think I went on Amityville Horror once and I was up on the catwalk at 11 years old where he walked in and I didn't know. I didn't know the process. We never talked about it. So Tracy, the catwalk is the permanent walkways way up at the top of the soundstage, usually like 30 feet up above the ground. Way up at the top. So I'm looking down and I'm watching my dad. You hear action, which I don't even know what that is. And he comes in through the door with an axe.

and goes to another door where somebody's doing off-camera to help him out, but I don't know that. No! And he's axing the door, and I'm like, and it reminded me of this story that I heard once of Laura Dern saying the first time she ever saw her dad on film was his head rolling down a flight of stairs. Oh!

Oh my God. But I remember that there was no, there was never anything. I don't have that story of like, oh my God, when I was four, I was doing little plays I made up in my head in front of my family and I just knew at five, this is, yeah, it was none of that. So I had no interest in the acting thing. And then ultimately just to jump forward, I took, I was kind of flunking out of school once we moved to Santa Barbara and I did a,

an improv class and I didn't even know what it was. It was like you can do underwater basket weaving or improv and I was like, I guess I'll do the improv. But really had like a bad taste about the acting thing because my dad made money and then spent that money and then we had no money and then we had money and then we had no money and I said, why the fuck would anybody want to do that? So ultimately I took that class and I remember I was the first person asked to get up and she said, so what this is, is you create a character

And any character you want, any character that comes to mind. And from the house, the students were going to ask you questions and you answer as that character. And I had created some kind of middle-aged New Yorker. And I don't even know how I knew that at that point, like an overweight, middle-aged, balding New Yorker. How old were you? I think I was at that point maybe 15, 14, 15. Wow.

And then when I was answered, then there was laughter, right? And that was it.

Like that was so, yeah. So it had nothing to do with what I was surrounded by. If anything, I was never going to be an actor. And it was that kind of drug induced, the drug of the laughter. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That or the attention or the, you can see that you're good at something. Like I wonder, because I think for any kid. The effect on people. Yeah, but any kid right at that age, if you put something in front of them that they don't suck at and they get some sort of,

you know, charming sort of social status. I mean, I'm seeing it with my kids now, Willie. I'm sure you are too. You know, it's like right about this age, anywhere between 12 and 17, like you're trying to like, where do I fit in? What's my lane? What's my group? What am I good at? What should I never do again? And for me, it was the same thing, Josh. It was sort of this acting like, well, that's where I got my attention. That's where guys thought I was cool and girls wanted to hang out with me. And it could have been anything else. I did this play. I did Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in high school.

I didn't understand a word I was saying. And until there was an audience, there's one line that says, I'll make one too. And that's the end of the scene. And they got a massive laugh.

16, 17 years old, no idea why anybody laughed. And I was like, oh, that's who that character is, and that's why people are laughing. And then it clicked. So, yeah, it's interesting, Jason, what you just said. It's like, until you get that drug, you just don't know what it is. I was just thinking about, like, how strange. You do something, and then people give you a lot of positive feedback, and why would you want to do that? Right. You've got to be careful what you put in front of your kid at that age, because that's what they're going to end up doing. But, Josh, when you did...

Like, Amityville horror was damaging to me. Like, I saw that as a kid. And I was like... It was like... It was one of the scariest things I've ever seen. You growing up on that set, did you...

Could you then go back and watch the movie, having experienced filming it, and get immersed into it? Or did you see how the sausage was made? But not having grown up on the set, only having seen that scene. But even that, even that. No, I had no interest, man. I'm telling you, I had no interest. And it wasn't until, very irresponsibly, my dad took me to the theater, the Mission Theater in New York.

to see "Apocalypse Now." - Sure. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Which, I mean, that was one of those, that's one of those immersive things where you're like, what the fuck are they doing? - How old were you when you saw that? - I was 11. - 11. - Yeah. - That's enough to absorb it. - I saw E.T. - I was two and a half.

Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. You were Hollywood two and a half. Fucking seeing that 11. Like, I don't think I saw. Well, what about Jaws? I mean, Jaws was out in what? 75. I was six. I was six at 75. And that's why. Or Rocky. Do you remember seeing Rocky? Oh, yes. And like the fact that like he doesn't win the fight, but it's a great big happy ending. I was just like, how do you pull that magic trick off? Yeah, exactly. We'll be right back.

All right, back to the show. So Josh, so then what happens, and you were like, first of all, it's kind of two questions. When you were up there, you were kind of, you surfed a lot. That played a big part in your life, right? You were a big-time surfer. That took a lot of your time. You had a whole gang of pals who you surfed with.

And then you kind of, and then you get Goonies. And what's that like? How did that come about? Because that was your first thing, really, right? Everything is super morbid. Every story I tell, thank God for you guys being able to reach out. Welcome to the party. By the way, morbid podcasts are like the best. They do the best on the charts. We got Josh Brolin. Aww.

Yeah, what? So I grew up with these guys called that called themselves. We called ourselves. I'll include myself in that the sito rats and and most of those guys 37 out of probably 50 of us are dead now. And that was the beginning of the punk rock era. That was an amazing time. It was an electric time. It was a fun time. But

I got kicked out of my house at 16, and I went down to...

lived on my dad's couch wait what was the offense i did the offense is my mouth you know i just got myself in a lot of cost me a few schools yeah words yeah exactly so um yeah my my mom said it's time for you to leave and i left and and and i stayed with my dad who was living with his girlfriend in this apartment and this was an attempt to kind of get my shit together so

I made up a resume. I started doing martial arts, which one does when you try to get your shit together. And I was fairly decent at that. And I started competing doing that. And at the same time I made up, my dad said, why don't you like try and like work a little bit? Why don't you do theater? Why don't you do that? And I was like, oh yeah, I can do that. And I made up a resume. It was a hundred percent made up. And I went from agent to agent trying to get an agent and

And, you know, saying that I was at like I had done Streetcar at the Librero International Theater. There is no Librero International Theater. Sure, sure. And at the same time, I did see Streetcar and I saw East of Eden. And those two movies had a major impact. Anyway, somebody, Hillary Shore, took me on, even though she knew the whole resume was bullshit.

And she took me on and I probably had back then, you know, when you would do auditions, you would go to three or four auditions in a day. Yeah. You know, and, and I think I did around 350 auditions before I met Dick Donner and Steven Spielberg and,

Wow. I didn't really know who they were, but that was a six audition process before they said, he's the guy. Really? Nothing but a fucking Thomas guide and a lot of hope, right? A bunch of headshots, yeah. It's an accident. Yeah. And I wasn't good. I can't say I was good. The same goes to today. If you do Dune with a certain director, it's going to be a certain thing, somebody who understands what take to use, whatever. And then if you do Dune with Denis Villeneuve, it's going to, you know, the foundation, the

you know, the worst it's going to be is still really good. Well, so actually talk about that and now we're going into Dune, Sean, but I do want to say as a sort of entree to that, that's a really interesting point, Josh, that you can go and do something and part of the reason that people like you choose directors and choose projects are because you say, I want to be with that person because I believe that I'm in good hands. I believe that...

A, that the script's good. I believe that their vision of executing is good and that the way that they're from start to finish, from casting to shooting to editing to all of that kind of stuff, that they're going to do something that I believe, that I trust in, right? Because you're putting your trust in that process. Yeah, but I also think, you know, just to kind of preface it,

And then more up your alley, Sean, is that, you know, theater. I met a guy named Anthony Zerbe. And Anthony Zerbe was one of the great Shakespearean actors, maybe the lesser known. And he had a poetry thing that he did, which I can't think of anything more boring. I don't know if you remember Cafe Lalo back in the day on like Fairfax. Oh, yeah. Like Steve Baldwin would go and read his poetry. And it was all just super dumb. And...

And I met a guy around that time named Anthony Zerbe. And Anthony Zerbe and Roscoe Lee Brown, the great Roscoe Lee Brown, would do an hour and a half of poetry. And I saw it and it fucking blew my mind.

The fact that they had such a command over the language and they understood pause, they understood cadence, they understood weight and all that kind of stuff. So I got together with Anthony and I started doing theater in Rochester, New York. And I did five seasons of theater in Rochester, New York. Wow.

When you get that kind of vibe, what you were talking about back from the audience, and when a play is not very good and yet chemistry is really good with another actor and then that can kind of send the play in a different place and you see people crying and you see people laughing, again, that's the addiction. You're like, oh, there's response here and there's kind of... Do you have a favorite of those plays back then?

I did a play that never went anywhere called Pits and Joe. And it was a guy with traumatic brainstem injury that had gotten into a motorcycle accident. It was based in truth. Wow. And this woman wrote it about her and her brother. And I did one of those things where back when you wanted to be Daniel Day-Lewis or whoever, you know. And I went into the care center that Joe was at.

And I checked in, I met with the head of the care center. I met with like the five heads, the psychology head and all that. And I said, I really want to live in here as one of these people for a couple of weeks. Can you not tell anybody else that I'm actually not one of them? I want to see if I can pull it off. And I remember that like after the second day, there was somebody, I was trying, I was smoking or something or trying to smoke or put a cigarette in my mouth. And a nurse came up to me and she said, Josh,

You can't, you're not allowed. And she was screaming in my ear and I wanted to say, shut the fuck up. She's like, I'm acting. She bought a ticket to the opening night. There was the head of the psychology there. He hated me and he hated what I was doing. And I was waiting by myself to have my...

you know, two cigarettes of the day. And he walked by me and it was just he and I. And he whispered, or he kind of like, you know, snarky said as he was walking by, he said, Joe would never do that.

I remember I felt a rage. And it was the rage that I felt and then the connection between if Joe feels a rage, he would never be able to get up, so therefore I can't get up. And that was what I needed to go play that. I love that. Interesting. I love that. It was cool, man. Have you stayed that kind of a researching actor or have you found that –

you know, what you've got, what you've absorbed in your life gives you enough of a toolbox to apply to any character that you're attracted to nowadays? I think both. And I think what I'm going through right now, you know, I've been very lucky to be offered a lot of really nice things recently. And I think the hunger right now is to kind of go back to 2008 or go back to that theater experience because I miss...

having to do or feeling like I have to do the research. Well, I tell you something about the research. It reminded me, Josh, of a story you told me years ago where you...

When you did No Country for Old Men, which is just such a spectacular movie. One of my favorites. Oh, my God. So, so good, and you're so good at it. And I remember we were talking, maybe it was when we were doing Jonah Hex, but you were saying there's that scene early on where you're going to, and the motorcycle accident reminded me of this, where you've got to shoot the guy, and you take your boot off to level the gun. Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah, because I had gotten to a motorcycle accident. And you didn't tell them. Tell these guys what happened.

- No, two days after I got, so I was doing this small movie with Brittany Murphy

And I was having to go from, I had gotten No Country. And there was no way I was going to get No Country. I even read for No Country and their only response, because I was doing a movie at the time, we sent in the video and their only response was, who lit it? So they didn't even comment on my act. I just thought it was really well lit. And then I got in there as the last reading and I got that part. They asked me that afternoon, would you be interested in playing this part? And I was like, well, hold on, let me think about it.

And then I got into a motorcycle accident two days later, going from one wardrobe fitting to the other. And I snapped my collarbone in half. And I called them and I said, and I had prepped the doctor. I said, look, you know, Ethan wants to talk to the doctor to find out how bad it really is. And I told the doctor, you need to tell them it's a hairline fracture. I tried to become as intimidating as I could possibly become.

I was like, you're not going to be a doctor anymore if you don't say these words in this way. And it turned out that the only reason I was able to do the role was because Llewellyn gets shot in the right shoulder. Had it been the left shoulder, I couldn't have done it. So he gets... So we're in the beginning of the movie...

He's supposed to be standing up and shooting at the antelope, and I couldn't do it. I couldn't lift up the... Because literally, it had only been two weeks since I snapped my collarbone, and I was letting it heal naturally. So...

I called somebody and there was somebody who knew a sniper in Vietnam and how could I hold the gun? - I love that you called somebody who knew a sniper. - Sure. - Yeah. I tend to know those people. - Yeah. - So yeah, so that's why the boot is, I took my boot up and-- - And the Coen brothers seem to like that as sort of a character choice that you would use the boot or was the boot off camera?

No, you see it. No, the boot's on camera. And they liked that just because it was viable. He takes his fucking boot off and then he balances the gun on his fucking boot because he literally can't hold the gun. While we're there, before we get to Sean's Dune fiesta, anything about... The Coen brothers are just...

you know, like every other person in this industry, they are my North Star and like, they can do no wrong. I just, to work with them, I'm just so like, I'll take anything you can give me about what that experience is like. - It's so, you know, it's funny 'cause I've tried to make it, you know, in the past, when you're on talk shows and you're like, tell me about the Coens, like tell me a funny story.

And there's not, there's so fucking normal. Right. Yeah. The greatest thing that I, you know, I've done three, three movies in a short with the Coens. Yeah. And, and, and the greatest thing I ever got from them was after every scene I've ever done, especially in the beginning, with the exception of one story that I'll tell you, I've never, ever gotten, uh,

great scene. Right. I've never gotten a thumbs up. Great job. Really? Just the moving on is the, it's literally moving on and looking up and seeing their backs walking away to the next set. No way. Wow. So it, it, it best, it's like, Hey, what'd you think? Like maybe later on I'd go, you know, what'd you think of that scene? And they go,

Yeah. Like basically it's got, it's, we got what we need. Right. And you did your job correctly, which is why we hired you. That was my dad's reaction growing up. That was your dad? Yeah. There's a trauma in that. He didn't have it. How would you, how would you know what his reaction was?

Yeah, unless you could read his mind through the rearview mirror, you know. You could read people's minds from 50 miles away? Woody Harrelson was the only guy who couldn't remember his lines during No Country, and we had that scene in the hospital together, and he talks the majority of the time. Yeah. And he couldn't get through his fucking lines, and then when finally he did one take where he kind of stumbled through his lines, and then I saw the Coens come running,

from behind set and they looked up and they go, "Wow, that was amazing." And I was like, "You gotta be fucking kidding me." This dude's literally stuttering through his shit. - You're holding his cue cards, right? - I get nothing! Nothing! - That's hysterical. - They were just happy they got a take, let's be honest. - Wait, so Dune, so-- - Here we go. - Here we go. - Okay, so wait, so a ride-- - So, so, so. - Is the sand real? Let's just start-- - So, okay, I'm so bored. Can I talk about Dune?

Can you get sand in your eyes? Can I talk about that? No, by the way, is it real? Is it a real place? Is it a real place? Yes.

No, it's one of-- "No Country for Old Men" is one of my favorite movies too. But "Dune," I can't get-- First of all, "Arrival" is one of my favorite movies as well. - Yeah, me too. - Cool, me too. So clever and well-made and the script is amazing. - Just the direction. - Tell them why it's-- Tell Tracy why that's connected, Sean. Oh, 'cause he directed-- the same director directed "Arrival" as-- - Denny Villeneuve. - Right, yeah.

And so, Dune... Who also directed Sicario, by the way. Yeah, and you were also great in that. Maybe a top three. I want to get in... Well, after Dune, I want to get into Sicario. Okay, so wait. I fucking love Sicario. I want to know, just like Jason said, what it's like with Ethan. What's it like on that set where...

I mean, are they sets? Are you really in the desert? Like, how much of it is real? How much of it isn't? Most of it is practical. Most of it is... Let's just pause the interview right here. Well, because it looks like it's really in the desert.

It does, doesn't it? It's because they've got the funds to ask. What part gave you that impression? Was it the desert? Would they be spending less money if they just green screened the whole goddamn thing? Or would that maybe be a little bit more? It's actually really sweet because he's like full fanboy right now. I'm massive, massive fan. Ask him to stand up. You can see his pants are off. And you're so good at this.

And then have him pan his camera right, and you'll see Scotty just in full pull mode. Go ahead. Next question, Sean. Gas. Go ahead and finish Scotty off with the next one. Wait, so isn't it, by the way, isn't it wild that you guys had to hold the release because of the strike? Speaking of holding the release. So now it's coming in March, is that what it is?

Yeah, was that why? Yeah. And then we went back for reshoots in the first one during the pandemic, which we hadn't. We did it before the pandemic. What is it? Tell me what it's like working with him. And is it the opposite of the Ethans? Of the Coens, I mean? Well, he's also Canadian, is he not, Denny? He is. He's French-Canadian. Right, so he's incredibly kind and probably effusive with his compliments. Thank you. Thank you.

Right? He's coming up giving you a little high five at the end of a good take. He is, actually. A little... Yeah, but what I was going to say about the Coens thing is that taught me a great thing and I don't really look for that anymore. Yeah. But I mean, what he's accomplished in U2 and Dune is like...

it's hard to get the tone and the feel and the actors and the script and the sets and just everything works perfectly. It creates a world that we haven't seen. It's very collaborative, you know, and if I can go back to Sicario for a second, you know, I had turned down because he wasn't really an established actor

Yeah. Director at that point. He had done A Sandi. He had done one American film with Hugh Jackman. What was that film called? Not Passengers, Not Visitors. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. About the kidnapping. And Jake Gyllenhaal, which was actually really good. But I said, I don't know why, because I think it was a really small part. Anyway, to get through this. Was Bob Elswit on board yet?

I mean, I think that wasn't in the DP. You mean Deakins. Oh, was it Deakins that did it? It was Deakins. And I had worked with Deakins a couple of times. And it was also Benicio and it was Emily Blunt. Anyway, I said no. I said no twice. And I don't know why. And he called me and he said what every director says and lies about, which is we're going to expand this role. Right.

Right. Like what it is right now is not really what it's going to be. And you're like, well, you're full of shit because I've heard that from everybody. But the truth is, and whether it was just kind of happened this way because of fate or whatever, you know, it was so expanded and it was so, once we got on set, it was like such a vibe that...

that all came from him, which was this isn't working, so let's work on this, or I'm gonna knock on your trailer door. Benicio doesn't wanna talk anymore. He thinks you should talk 'cause you like to talk. And I'm like, I'm a different fucking character, but we need this exposition. How can we make it behavioral? So on and so forth. So it became a very, very collaborative process. So that's what I get doing. You know, Deni is my good friend now, but

He's a guy who I would work on anything with because that kind of collaborative effort to me is the top. But Sean points out, like, Sicario, you know, is about a world that exists, right? Like, it's a reflection of this real world. Maybe heightened, maybe not. I don't really know. But, like, of this thing. Things like Dune, as Sean pointed out, it's world building, right? It's creating a world. It's creating a whole thing. That's so hard to get right, yeah.

Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, but there was a guy, Zev Borough, who I know from New York, and he's my good buddy, and he read through that whole series three times when he was a kid, so he knows it as well as anybody, as well as Denis does. And when he saw the movie, I kind of snuck him in in Santa Fe when I saw the first one, and there was a pause after the movie ended, and this guy's a 48-year-old guy, and he stood up and he started screaming, Yes! Yes!

yes that's great what do they call him what are they his nickname zev the virgin right i mean he ran through all three zev the verge wait now now that you're cool now that you've had all the success and you've been working for so many years and you told us the story about how you know your dad had money then didn't have money had money that didn't have money

And so it kind of left you in a weird place probably growing up. How are you with money now and handling it? Are you more responsible and you would try to teach your kids about the responsibility of money?

Yeah, it's an ongoing subject about where we live and what that promotes and what that, you know, given that I grew up on a ranch, given that we have a ranch that's three miles away from the ranch I grew up on, that I take my kids there a lot. I take my kids right now. They haven't been to the set very much, but I take them wherever we shoot. You know, I have a 30-year-old, a 35-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 5-year-old. That's crazy. Wow. Yeah.

Now, what kind of grandfather skills does he have? What kind of grandma skills does Babs have? I mean, what are these family get-togethers like?

You know, there's a real, for lack of a better word, hard-on for my kids, my young kids with said grandparents. Yeah. And really quick, just for my sister, and I'm just saying this for my sister, Josh. No, you're not. Your dad is James Brolin, who's married to Barbara Streisand.

No shit. Really? Yeah. This also made news. Fuck yeah! That's amazing. That's it. Fuck, go dad! It's for my sister. And for my sister, Tracy.

But they're keyed in on these two. Was it different than the first two kids? I think so. I think my first two kids definitely, you know, they laugh at it now where they were like, you know, we're still here, by the way. But the young kids are very cute, and I think that they're at an age now where things have slowed down enough where you start to appreciate those familialy,

et cetera, et cetera. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. What would you say is the biggest difference between your fathering on the first two versus the second two? Alcohol. Yeah.

You've got a little lighter blend on your hydration this round? I mean, that's just the fucking truth, man. I mean, I was in and out and that kind of thing. But, you know, I mean, and I think it's okay to say this even though it's an anonymous program. My son's sober. My daughter's married to a sober dude. That's great. My wife's sober. I love that. I love that. Right. So they learned a lot from your mistakes or your— Hopefully. Hopefully.

Yeah, that's awesome. You know what I mean? I think we were all pretty open. I tried not to let the thing cross over, and it did cross over a few times, and we talk about it, but it's a very open dialogue with us. When you mentioned about you getting kicked out at 16 years old because of your mouth and stuff, do you recognize the signs in any of your kids that they kind of might repeat the same behavior that you did when you were young? No, because I think mine was so extreme that...

that it was definitely a warning light. Yeah. As opposed to, let me try and emulate that to see if I can pull that off. Uh-huh, right, right. We'll be right back. And now, back to the show. You know what's funny, Josh? The other day I was reading this story in the Wall Street Journal. These guys don't know what that is, but there was a story about a weed...

There's a story about weed and it was saying how they've seen an uptick in, you know, kids having psychotic breaks as a result of cannabis as compared to 10, 20 years ago. So I send it to my ex. I text it to Amy, like, immediately. And she goes, why are you sending me this? And our older sons are 13 and 15. And I go...

Because weed is very readily available and there are things around and blah, blah, blah, and I'm very nervous about it. Like I just had this like, you know what I mean? Because it wasn't like- But I understand. It was like, remember back in the 70s? I remember I was a friend of my dad's in Paso Robles and I was on the floor or something and I looked under his bed and I found a drawer pot and I rolled it up in some writing paper and tried to smoke it when I got home and I was like eight or nine.

But even if I was able to smoke it, the high would have been, you wouldn't have been that high. Right. You smoke a full joint nowadays, you've got to call your mom. Oh, dude, one hit nowadays. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before I got sober, I remember I loved the idea of dispensaries and I loved the idea behind the science in it all. And I was like, what does this do? And where is this? And how do you make this? I'm in it for the science too. Yeah, I know. I get it. Yeah.

But there was a guy he was from Poland and we kind of would go through this whole thing and I would pretend like I didn't smoke because I didn't really love smoking very much and then I would give it to my friends. But then one night I was home alone and I was supposed to read this essay that my daughter had done and I went outside and I was like, well, maybe I'll try it. I'll just try a little bit. And I took a little hit and I got too much smoke and

And then I coughed it out. And by the time I had exhaled, I was convinced that there were crosshairs from across the building on my head. And I was slowly lowering behind my, you know. Army crawl back into the house. Yeah. And then I tried to read the essay and I read the same first line about 125 times. And that was one hit, man. Right.

So I get it. He needed to get into the edibles. It's heavy duty. Sean... Whatever. Sean, I love it when Sean gets... I love it. Well, Jason... Jason could... His book is coming out and it's about edibles. But he hasn't read the first... He's written the first line 120 times. Sean...

When Sean gets on weed, it is my favorite. When you take... Gets on weed. Who's old? But when Sean smokes weed or takes an edible, it's the funniest. It makes me laugh, Sean. Yeah. Well, I get like tunnel vision. As he's getting to the hospital. I get spurts of little energy. But wait. Like when I was a kid, I...

- I was so afraid of doing anything wrong. Like I was, I remember I was scared about having a library book out too long and I thought I was gonna get into massive trouble. Where does that come from where you're like, yeah, I'll try this, I'll do this, I'll get in this trouble, I'll beat the shit out of this kid, I'll smoke this stuff. Like where does that- - I never beat the shit out of a kid. I was never that guy.

Bullies, maybe, but I was never, even though we all fought a lot. But that was the culture. That was the culture that I grew up in, in punk rock and all that kind of stuff, back when parents were doing blow instead of parenting. Imagine what a bummer it would be to get into a fight with Brolin. It would fucking suck. At any age. I'll bet at eight he could really square you up. I went over there. I went over to Brolin. Remember, I came over and tried your cold punch like five years ago, and we got into the fucking cold punch, and he's a couple years older than me. I was like, look how fucking stacked this motherfucker is.

- How old are you, Josh? - Baby. - See here, he's just cut to ribbons. - I know. - Are you in better shape now than you've ever been in your life? I'll bet you are. - No, I was in better shape during Dune than I've been in in a very, very long time. I think when I did Deadpool 2, I think that's the best shape I've ever been in. - You look great in Deadpool 2. - Sean, cool it. - Did you still do the martial arts and have you ever, and or would you, and can I promote you and Downey fighting each other?

I would do that. I was just with Downey and we were talking about you two days ago. I'm going to fucking love to set that up. Wait, can I get in on that, Arnett? Yeah, I'm getting it. Running down Downey Brolin fight. Yeah.

Well, let's do it in, do we think Vegas, Atlantic City, or what about Laughlin? Laughlin would be kind of kitschy, right? Remember that, wasn't there like an animated thing, like celebrity fights or something like that? It was like a claymation thing. Yeah, look it up afterwards. It was super fun. I'd like to make that a reality. Oh, that's right. There was a claymation show, yeah. I'm bored with the acting. I want to fuck celebrities up.

There's our clip. I would fucking... I am backing you, bro, and you're my fucking dog in this one. Wait, Josh, do you know Brendan Shanahan? He's a friend of Will's. He's a hockey player. He's a hockey player. Retired hockey player, president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, one of the all-time great guys. So Will...

And Brendan and I were out to dinner, this was a few weeks ago, and I said to Brendan Shanahan, who's been in, you know, a thousand fights on the ice rink-- He holds the record for the most what they call Gordie Howe hat tricks, which is goal, assist, and fight in a game. Right. So I told him, I always had this little tiny, tiny, tiny bit of a fantasy of getting in a fight, 'cause I've never been in a fist fight, right? Mostly on the receiving end, right? Just getting beat to shit. Yeah.

Literally, in hockey fights where you just grab somebody and just blindly just go. What if you pull my hair right before you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like that. You know, that's what a hockey fight is. By the way, it's borderline fetish, but go ahead. No, no, just because I don't know. Part of me just wants to know what that feels like. And so Brendan takes me out. I'll make that happen. So Brendan takes me out and grabs me. And.

And he's teaching me how to fight. And I can't stop smiling because I think it's so funny. And he goes, first of all, wipe that fucking smile off your face if you're going to get into a fight. And how'd you feel? How'd you feel when he said that? You got scared? It made me laugh harder. Yeah, he's like, stop looking like you're going to enjoy this, goddammit. So he grabs me in some crazy hold in two seconds flat. I can't move my entire body.

Oh, yeah. And he's like, you would be dead if you had just beat the shit out of your face. He had his arm wrapped around. And then I would just start filling you in like this. And he just starts going like this. Sean's laughing. And he did say, by the way, it's at the back entrance, that little back side door behind the polo lounge. There's nothing more elitist than that.

than that scenario. What about MMA kind of stuff? Are you training with that too? Is that your skill set or is it more martial arts? I think it was. Martial arts no longer, even though the Gracies have become good friends through Laird Hamilton and all that, and I have massive respect for them. But no, I think the getting in shape, MMA...

Dana White's a really close friend of mine. I love MMA. I've always loved boxing. I didn't think MMA would last or UFC would last, and it has. It's incredible, and I get very into it. I have a lot of guys come over to my house. We just built this extra kind of MMA barn. What time? You can watch MMA on what? What time? What time? I'll invite you.

You know what's funny, Josh, is all this stuff, and you do a lot of this stuff, and you're very in shape and whatever, but, you know, over the last couple years, I've noticed, and I think you mentioned going to, you know, listen to poetry years ago, but anybody who follows you on Instagram or anybody who gets texts from you, you know, talking about your day or the things that you're grateful for, i.e. gratitude lists, knows that you...

You've kind of like veered into that. As much of a guy, you like to sort of mix it up. You've also become quite, and maybe this is just a result of older age and having younger kids again, you've become quite ponderous. You've become quite,

you're really appreciating the world around you in a way that's pretty astounding. I know, I'm going to make out with you now too. He's got that soft, chewy center. It's true, man. You do. Like every day you talk about, and you talk about things you're really open about, appreciating your wife, loving your wife, loving your kids. You're really open about it. And I think there's something super, super, super nice and vulnerable and beautiful about that.

Thanks. I appreciate that very much. I don't think it's a new thing, but I think it's ramped up recently because I love the idea of contrast. And the fact that I'm, you know, that I ride a vintage motorcycle or with a group of dudes or the fact that, you know, I'm perceived as this scrappy, gnarly, whatever guy.

Ultraman, the last man in Hollywood. But then what is the counter? It should be noted that Josh is smiling when he says that. I am smiling. I love the idea of contrasting that with... Because there is an incredible sensitivity, and I do love my kids. I will be raising... I had my first kid when I was 20, and my youngest...

I'll be 70 when she graduates high school. Wow, so cool. And I love it, man. I love it in the writing. What would be the contrasting thing that would surprise most people? What is the softest thing that you do on a semi-regular basis? Okay, here's a story. And I don't know if this is the best story to tell, but the story when we went to Atlanta...

And during the pandemic, we kind of moved to Atlanta where my wife is from. And, you know, nothing against Atlanta, but when I got to Atlanta, I realized I was in Atlanta. I didn't realize Atlanta was in Atlanta, so I couldn't stay. No.

But I was sitting there and it's such a nice house and I'm looking out the window and I see this kind of barrel-chested, tattooed, huge goateed guy in the middle of my yard. And he's kind of looking up at a tree. And I go, who the fuck is that? And I open the door and I go, hey, man. And he looks at me and he goes, hey, man.

And I go, "Yeah, what the fuck are you doing in my yard?" And he looks at me and there's a long pause and he goes, "I'm your gardener." And I go, "Oh, fuck, I'm so sorry." And I went down there and I started talking to him. And within 15 minutes, and I'm not kidding, I'm not exaggerating, within 15 minutes,

He and I are in a total embrace, tears falling down our cheeks. Wow. And it turns out that he's 24 years sober. Wow. He runs the biggest sober biker club that's an international biker club in the world. That's amazing. He's one of my best friends now. I love that.

So I love the idea of this cosmetic thing that you immediately judge and then underneath it is whatever. I love that. Well, the biggest compliment I can give you is I've never met you before. This is the first time. And you're completely, I feel completely at ease with you. I feel like I've known you forever. You seem so open and just normal down to earth and honest. Please put me in a chokehold. I'm sorry, I didn't know. And can you please put me in a chokehold? Woo!

Maybe the best time joke of all time. And I want a spoon with you. You seem like the guy that'd be really cool with a spoon. Are you in New York, by the way? Sean, are you in New York? I'm in Los Angeles. You're in Los Angeles. My wife saw your play. I did not, admittedly, but my wife saw your play, which I heard was... Oh, please tell her thank you. You were truly a revelation. Oh, that's very nice. It was...

Honestly, it was so... No, I know, Sean. Fuck off. Fuck off. It was so good. It deserves to get mentioned whenever we talk about it. It was so damn good. Oh, speaking of, Josh, you got any horrible, tragic theater stories? Something that just went horribly wrong? You know, no, man, but just theater is such a... It's a funny thing. You know, it's like my experience of theater is like you fucking people in Hollywood, right?

You're such phonies. You're such fakes. You don't understand the real thing. And then that person, three days later, you'll see in like an El Pollo Loco commercial. Right, exactly. Or they're like, I'm coming out in March for pilot season. You got an extra bag? Yeah, literally. I find it the most hypocritical society I've ever...

You know what I mean? And I love it. And I just wrote a play and we're trying to get that play done in Ojai and it's really good, but I'm reminded again and again how much I hate the theater community.

I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. He's totally kidding. One of my favorite questions, and we'll let you go, is with all of the incredible set experience that you have and all the incredible directors you've worked with, have you ever been tempted to take all of that which you've cherry-picked from them and sit in the chair yourself and direct something? You know, it's funny you would bring this up, and I'm curious why you would bring it up because I was going to bring it up regardless of whether you brought it up or not.

But I reached out to you when I directed an episode of Outer Range, which is something that I did with Amazon. Yeah. A very strange kind of Western, contemporary Western. And, you know, it's something that I've always wanted to do. I've directed theater. I've never directed. I directed a short, but I've never directed something that was substantial. Yeah.

and with money. And, and I reached out to you and I said, you were just thinking about it at the time, weren't you? I was thinking about it at the time. And I reached out to you and I said, you know, do you have any advice for me? And which I thought was really interesting. Like why, why would I reach out to you? So obviously my respect for you, who do you think you've called? No, but I love that I reached out to you and you said a great thing. You were like, don't

Focus on the day players. You said, don't forget about the day players. That was one bit of advice that you gave me. But you were so sweet and so kind of... And Tracy, the day players are the actors that are doing the parts

that are not the starring roles. Maybe one line, three lines. Yeah, sometimes they're cast right from the local city that you're shooting in. And, you know, there's an instinct sometimes for them to potentially overplay their scene because they're only in a couple of scenes. And sometimes as a director... Which can take you right out of a scene. Right, yeah. Which was your point, I think. Right. So how did that go?

Really, really well. And I have to say that directing, and I know a lot of probably actors feel like this, it wasn't an opportunity to finally do the thing that I wanted to do that no director would let me do. But it was more that the myriad interests that I've had in my lifetime that I never really understood...

all made sense suddenly. - Yeah. - It was like, I can utilize everything I've ever been interested in and everything that I've wanted to randomly learn and didn't know why. - Yeah. - Now makes perfect sense. - Yeah. - When you're available to somebody in the way that they need you to be available, which changes from actor to actor and, you know,

staff members, whatever, you know, DP or whatever, and say, how can I be most helpful as opposed to how can I make my mark and utilize, you know, use my power because now I finally have it. Right, right. Exactly. Are you thinking about doing it again, perhaps? I think that's the, I think out of that has come a real interest in finding foreign directors right now and finding projects like that and really focusing on, I think,

another echelon of great directors, and yes. I would like to think that I would further that. I think it would be dumb not to. I think the only reason why it wouldn't happen is out of fear, and I'm kind of, at 55, I'm kind of done with the idea of fear. But I was going to say, you know, the thing that Jason says to a lot of people, and he talks about experience on set, and you've been doing it a long time, you do have so much experience, and you do have such a point of view,

And that's important as a director, obviously, as we all know. And I'm surprised that it's not something that you're like actively doing more because you do have such a strong point of view. And know-how and incredible experience and comfort on a set in order to lead, you know? But I think it's also the fact, and I think this has to do with raising kids, is you're not afraid to be wrong because you understand that wrong doesn't really pertain. You just have to make a decision.

And you have to allow other people to be able to lean on you and stand behind your decisions and know that it's not going to be perfect and know that you're going to have to compensate and know that you may have to fix some things in editing and all that kind of stuff. I just think it's kind of like photography. It's one of those things that you know you'll never master, and I love the idea of having to pursue something that you'll never master. Yeah, yeah.

I love that. That's cool. Dude, we could fucking talk to you forever, honestly. I love you guys. I love this time. Love you, dude. Yeah. So, so good. Thank you for saying yes and doing this with us. Yeah, thank you. It's been a long time coming. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm a massive fan. Thanks, Sean. You're one of the all-timers, JB. Fucking love you. Miss you, dude. Miss you guys, too. Thank you very much for this time, honestly. Thank you, pal. It was nutritious. Yeah.

Have a great rest of the day. Thanks, brother. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. See you, Josh. Bye. Bye, buddy.

That is that's a JB. That's a real JB. That's a capital J capital Yeah, if somebody says hey show me the best JB you got I'm wheeling him out sure sure and then like they'll say well second third fourth. What else? Yeah, we're gonna go lowercase like a more like more of a beta JB Hey guys, there you are. What if somebody said show me a great BJ?

And you'd say, how much time you got? I'd say, Sean, let me look at your browser history. What?

I really like that Josh Brolin. He's a sweet guy. He's a normal guy. God, I could talk to him forever. I'm surprised you've never met him before. I've never met him before. I'm a huge fan. That's a good dude. Wouldn't you love to be stuck on set with him for a few months? Oh, God, yeah. Super fun. Yeah, I had the pleasure back in the day when it was a different time, but it was still super fun hanging with him. Yeah, he's one of those guys that's just electric. He is electric. He's really funny, and he's really smart, and he's interesting, and...

and all that stuff. He's well-read. Like, he's just like one of those... Bateman, you kind of... You've kind of known him, right? On and off for years? Yeah, a little bit. We shared an agent for a little while. Oh, right. Yeah, but I think you know him a lot better. I wish I knew him...

A lot better. I can hang with that guy. We have a lot of friends in common, if you know what I mean. And he's just a fucking... Is he back here in L.A. now full time? Yeah. He was here and then they moved to, like he said, they moved to Atlanta for a bit and then they came back and... By the way, everybody in Atlanta, I love Atlanta. All right? Me too. It'll surprise you every time. He does too. He was playing it up. He does too. And his wife is from Atlanta, her whole family. And his...

His sister-in-law and brother-in-law, who's a good friend of mine, Jackson, who we didn't talk about, who's a really good friend of mine who lives in Atlanta. Atlanta's a great, great town. You and I both had awesome experiences in that town. Yeah, I shot a movie there. It was super hot, but it was wonderful. The people are awesome. It's a great town, et cetera. But that old, yeah, that JB is... I like what he said, too, when he was, like, he was talking about how he likes to, what does he say, like...

Yeah, contrast. Contrast. Almost like bifurcate, right? Like what he's... How did you... Why didn't you not use the buy on bifurcate? You just had... You had it. How he likes to... Go back. We're still rolling. We're still rolling? I like the way he likes to what? Buy!

Bye. Oh, Sean, great one. Stupid ass. Get over here. I can't believe you blew it. Smart. Less. Smart. Less. Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Barbico, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armjarff. Smart. Less.

Hi, guys. Hi, guys. Hi, guys. Hi. Oh, Darcy's here. Hi. Guys, we have a friend with us today. We have a friend. Yes. Oh, my gosh. It's Darcy Carden. I know. Darcy. Hello, brothers.

Hello, sister. Hi. How are you, Darcy Carden? Good to see you guys. Thanks for having me. Darcy, who everybody knows from A Million Things, like The Good Place, and you were just on Broadway. We were just on Broadway at the same time. With you, my Broadway brother. Yes. At the exact same time. What with Darcy? I apologize. No, no, don't apologize. On Broadway. Don't you dare apologize. I'm so sorry. No, don't apologize. I'm telling you not to. I'm sorry.

It was a limited run. It was a short one. It was called The Thanksgiving Play. The Thanksgiving Play. And I heard you were fantastic. Did you have to, I'm just having visions of you having to go through a full Thanksgiving meal every performance. Was that what it was? That's what I thought it was going to be before I read it too. And I was like, God, eating on stage, what will that be like? There was no Thanksgiving meal, but we did, it was a bloody show. Oh, no. What does that mean? Oh, you were just killing turkeys.

I don't want to give anything away, although I did just say it was a bloody show. And plus, it's not running anymore. But it's a beautiful, wonderful, funny play written by Larissa Fast Horse, the first...

Native American woman to ever have a play on Broadway. Wow. That's cool. But we were truly covered in blood head to toe every night. So we had to like, we'd walk off stage and like get in the shower. Now I'm getting it. Not together. Now I'm understanding the storyline. Who said that? No, nobody did. But Darcy, we're so excited because Smart List Media has a new show and it's called WikiHole. That's right.

No blood in it at all, right? No blood. We haven't had any blood. No blood yet. It's bloodless. But WikiHole premieres Monday, March 4th, wherever you get your podcasts. So we're super excited. Tell our listeners that don't know as much about it as we do a little about what the WikiHole, what's in store for people in the hole. They need to know. They need to know.

It's a super fun trivia show. We have a panel of three guests every time. Different guests each week? Different, super funny, the funniest people you know. Like the best, best, best, funniest actors and comedians and musicians. Some of my best friends, some of my future best friends. It's all really, we've had like amazing people on it. Yeah.

And you basically, what, you have like one subject, one person? We start off with any random subject that you could look up on Wikipedia. Right, a donut. A donut, for example. It's like an improv class. Give me one word from the audience. Yes, totally, totally. And from there. You just, whatever you, if you looked up donut on Wikipedia, you would find yourself clicking on. Picture of me. Picture of Sean. Picture of Sean.

And so there's like little, what do they call, hot links inside, spicy hot links inside a wiki page. Delicious. And when you click on those things, it'll take you down another sort of fork in the road in the history of donuts. We may get eventually to a picture of Sean because he's famous for his enjoyment of the donut. Live for donuts. And then we'd get into a wiki hole that we get into Will and Grace. Yes. And into parental neglect. Right.

All of those things. Yeah, okay. That's it. That's exactly right, yeah. And then it'll get back into SmartList and then it'll get back into WikiHole and you'll be right back where you started. Will, Will, Will, I don't want to give anything away. I really don't. And you're our tour guide throughout it. Yeah, I'm always going to take you through the hole.

I've listened to it and it's fantastic. Thanks, Sean. I have too. You're hysterical. Love it. Thanks. I want to play WikiHole. How do we? Yeah, I would love to. Will you? Yeah. Let's do it. Okay. So if we were to start with the Smart List Hole, there's so many. I could start with anything. You guys have had these incredible careers. You've worked with everybody. You have won awards. But the thing that I keep coming back to is one man's

Sean. Uh-oh. You have a goddamn tuna fish sandwich for lunch every day. Is that right? Almost every day. Okay, almost every day. That is psychotic. I had to find out more, so I wikied tuna sandwiches. You're going to have one today, actually. Really? Okay, I might too. And here is our first question, okay? The top of the hole today is going to be tuna fish sandwich. Okay. So for the first question...

You each have a chance to list the ingredients, okay? And you're going to get one point per ingredient. Don't freak out, Sean. Don't freak out. I see you're freaking out. Well, it's just going to be there's so many different ingredients you could put into it. Okay, but listen, listen. There are five ingredients listed to make a tuna fish sandwich at the top of the tuna fish sandwich wiki page. So the five ingredients, the most common five ingredients. Mayonnaise. Okay. Celery. Wow, nothing for celery.

No, no, no, no. I'm not going to tell you until you all do it. Oh, okay. Yeah, you each say five. Okay, so mayonnaise and celery. Mayonnaise and celery. Some people put mustard in it. Some people put capers in it. Okay. And like hard-boiled eggs. Okay, can I go now? Yes, please. Tuna fish. Oh.

Well, of course. Yeah, guess what? That's one of them. No, you didn't say it. You didn't say it. Well, that's understood. So tuna fish. No, it's not understood. You're out. Have you ever played a game before? Well, you're not going to make a tuna fish sandwich with chicken. It's like going like, oh, I obviously got a touchdown. I'm not going to go get the touchdown. I obviously just assumed that I got a touchdown. So tuna fish, mayonnaise, bread, celery, and...

Pepper. Okay. Pepper. Will, you ready? Yeah. Okay. Tuna fish. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying this or no, I'm just saying, yeah, you said that. Yeah, I know, yeah. Okay. Bread. Mayo. Celery. Slower, Will. No, no, he's thinking. Onion.

Green onion. Ew. It's personal preference, and that's only four. What's your fifth? No, I think you said, wait, didn't you say, I think you said five. You guys, guess what? What? Will got all fucking five right. You're joking me. I'm not kidding. So say it again. Tuna, mayo, celery, onion, bread. So onion is a required element. Onion is a common, yeah. So hang on, hang on.

Sorry, Darcy, I don't want to cut you off because these guys are about to apologize to me. Jason's got something in his mouth right now, but I imagine when he finishes chewing that thing, he's going to apologize for going, fucking, fucking, fucking. White onion or white onion or red onion? Well, it just says onion. It doesn't. It just says onion. I got to try it with onion. Yeah, I bet it'd be delicious. I mean, all your sandwiches sounded delicious, but Will got them all right. Jason got four points and Will, sorry, Jason got four points and Sean got two points.

Yeah, Sean, you lose. What? What? We have more. It's anybody's game. Don't... All right, so what's the spicy hot link we go to off of this page? Fuck, you know what? Sean, you are a donut. What a zero. Okay, let's keep going. You eat it every day. You don't even know what you're eating. Well, that may be... Do you have it released? I don't even know. Sean, do you put... Capers. What do you put in yours? Jesus.

Uh-huh. Don't say tuna like that. Of course you have to put fucking tuna. Tuna, celery, and tons of mayo. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Okay. Great. Delicious. Dorsey, wait. If you think I'm playing again after I fucking...

-No, we're not done. -We're not done. You just entered the hole. You had to travel down into the hole now. We have to scale down this gigantic hole. And this is even a small hole for you guys. But usually it's a really big hole. Click a spicy link. I want to get some credit for the restraint. -You're getting it. -Exercising. Incredible. Okay, so here's our next question. You will each have a chance to answer this. The closest without going over wins.

What percentage of canned tuna in the U.S. is used for tuna sandwiches? Okay, I'm a first. I'm first. And I will say what percentage of canned tuna is used for tuna fish sandwich? I would say 90. Okay. That's my guess. Great. Well, because he said 90, I'll say 95. Okay. Dumb. Should have said 91. Dumb. I'm going to say 40.

Okay, okay. 40. Now, I was shocked by this, but the answer is 52%, so Will, you fucking got it again. Wow. Jesus. Why is that? Because I bet you some of tuna that's canned is also used for animals, for cats and dogs and shit like that. I didn't even think of that. All I could think of was casserole.

Yeah. It's a fucking, by the way, you don't want to keep playing this game with me with these guys. No, no, I bet we do. Let's have a third one. You're going to burst into flames. Let's go. What's the next hotline? Okay, here we go. Okay. Look how mad he is.

Okay, here we go. Americans consume one third of the total amount of canned tuna sold worldwide every year, and yet the tuna sandwich is not in the top three most popular sandwiches in the U.S. You'll each have a chance to guess three. What are the most popular sandwiches, the three most popular sandwiches in the U.S., one point per correct? Go ahead, Sean. Go ahead, Sean. Peanut butter and jelly. Sean, you should win this. Yeah, let's just peanut butter and jelly. Okay. Okay.

Like a regular turkey sandwich. No, no, you can't generalize. Be specific. Like, you know, something with turkey. No. Commit. I want to go to Touchdown. I'm not going to eat. Why are you on the end zone? To walk all the way down there and cross that line. Just say Touchdown. Okay. Peanut butter and jelly, turkey. Turkey. And what's another popular sandwich? Are you asking? And roast beef. I don't know. Okay. That's the question. Okay.

I would say a hamburger. Okay. That's not a sandwich. I would say a grilled cheese. And then I would say a club. Okay. Okay. Three most popular sandwiches in the U.S.? That's right. Here he comes. I would say ham. Some kind of ham, ham and cheese. Well, which is it? Ham or ham and cheese? Yeah. Let's commit. Ham and cheese. Okay. Ham and cheese. I'll say ham and cheese. Okay. We'll say it. I will say peanut butter and jelly. Okay.

And I will say egg salad. Okay. Wow. This is a tough one, you guys. If you, I would have guessed peanut butter and jelly would have been top number one. It doesn't even crack the top three. Wow. That's why I didn't guess it. Okay, good. Well, Jason, you got one, which is, I know, which is grilled cheese. Grilled cheese, grilled chicken sandwich, surprising, and turkey sandwich.

So, Sean, you got one as well. Okay. No burger, no PB&J. I wonder if they're not qualifying burger as a sandwich. I wonder the same. That's a big debate. Yeah, it is a big debate. They're not. I mean, this isn't the 1940s where you go, I'll have a hamburger sandwich. I'll just have a hamburger sandwich and a cup of coffee. I don't like that.

Put me through to Murray Hill 234. Yeah, exactly. I don't like that. And keep your sales receipt. Okay, let's jump on down the hole to sandwiches. Let's keep going with this. Wikipedia has a list devoted to American sandwiches. The only sandwich whose ingredients are a mystery on this list...

is the Diablo sandwich. - Diablo sandwich. - So here we go. You'll each have a chance to answer this multiple choice question. In what hit 1970s movie does someone order a Diablo sandwich? A, "Love Story", B, "The Poseidon Adventure", or C, "Smokey and the Bandit"?

- Well, I say "Smoking the Bandit." - Okay. - "Poseidon Adventure." - Okay. - I'm just guessing the Diablo. - I was gonna say "Five Easy Pieces" 'cause there was that great scene where Jack Nicholson does the sandwich bit, huh? - Oh yeah. - I'm gonna say "Love Story" just so we each take one. - I like that move. Sean, you got it. "Smoking the Bandit." - Oh thank God. If Will had won that one, we would never hear the end of it. He'd be the King Hole. - That's what we're playing for, to be the King Hole. - Hole King. - Hole King.

What's your handle in high school? Hull King. Hull King. Hull King. So Sheriff Justice, played by Jackie Gleason, orders a Diablo sandwich. Yeah. It's a very funny scene. I watched it last night. When I get home, I'm going to...

Hit your mama right in the mouth. That was it. You know what he says? Something like that. There's no way you could come from my loins. Good. So who won, Darcy? Okay. My little mouse will tell me the score in five seconds and I'll get a little. You guys, Will is the winner with six points. Wow.

Jason and Sean, you both had five. You were so goddamn close. Wow. Well, what does one get when they win or lose on the wiki hole? You're going to love this. You get a generous donation made in your name to Wikipedia. I like that. Oh, that's good. Which is great, right? Because they're always looking. Yeah, we need that. And you're never actually...

saying yes, you're always kind of X-ing it up. - So now I can feel less guilty for just clicking through that. - Exactly. - Yeah. - That's exactly right. - Very good. - Yeah. - Okay guys, I have one more question for you. - Yeah, yeah. - What is Henry Winkler's favorite sandwich? - The hoagie? - I wanna say a shark sandwich. That's what I wanna say, but it's still-- - I'm gonna say, you mean the jumping the shark sandwich? - Yeah. - I would say the hollowed out bagel.

You think he'd hollow out a bagel? No, I don't want to put my opinion on it. I've had it at his house with him before. Yeah. Okay. Well, to get the answer, we have a very special message from a very special guest. Hi, Jason, Will, and Sean. It's Henry Winkler with the answer to my favorite sandwich.

There are two parts. The first is a tuna sandwich with mayo, ketchup, and finely diced onions on Wonder Bread. Part two is the day after Thanksgiving sandwich, Wonder Bread again, see the bridge, mayo, turkey, fried stuffing, cranberry sauce out of the can, none of that berry crap.

And then Wonder Bread. Hey, Doris, what is it like actually being a guest on the show? And then, you know, instead of just being a question, you know, I had two of them at my dining room table and the tall one, you know, that third guy, I helped him get his Tony. You know what, Doris, you're in a new podcast, WikiHole, and I could bring one or both sandwiches if I were a guest on that podcast. Yeah.

There you go. What a sweetheart. How great is that? We love him. I mean, if I could put him in a sandwich, I'd snack on him all day every day. Oh, he's so delicious. He's the nicest man in show business. I've got an issue with his Wonder Bread addiction, though. Darn it. I want him around for hundreds of years. I know, I know. What is it, that? But it is delicious. It is delicious. Okay, quickly, I'm going to retrace the hole. We started with tuna fish sandwich,

which led us to American Sandwiches, which then led us to Smokey and the Bandit, which led us to Henry Winkler and right back to Tuna Fish Sandwiches. I mean, how about one of his sandwiches was Tuna Fish Sandwiches? I love that. I know. He's a smart guy. The full episodes, we go a little bit deeper into these wiki holes. It's super fun. You're going to love it. Play along with us.

We can't wait. And my three brothers, I'd love to have you on the full hole. We would love it. See you at the hole. See you at the hole. See you at the hole. So many times I've gotten that.

Now, listen, this is information we need to know. It premieres Monday, March 4th, wherever you get your new podcasts, and new episodes are released every week, or you can hear it a week early on Amazon Music or the Wondery app starting Monday, February 26th. Monday, February 26th, you say? Monday, February 26th, is that what you said? Monday, February 26th, you say? Oh, the 26th of February is when WikiHole is going to start. WikiHole. That's right.

With Darcy Carden. It's at the end of February, specifically on the 26th, I think. That's right. Is the early week on Amazon Wondery? That's the early week. And for everybody on March 4th. I love that. Yeah. Free wherever you get your podcasts. March 4th wide. Darcy, we love you. We can't wait for the new show. Thank you for being part of the family on Smartless Media. You guys, I love you so much. Thank you for doing this. Thank you so much for having me. This is so fun. Bye, guys. Bye. Bye.

If you like SmartList, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.