Woody Harrelson & Ted Danson
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman. We have a twofer today. This one was fun. Yeah, very. Flirty and fun. Flirty and fun. They're so different and yet their combined rapport is so unified. It's got a good vibe. It's got a good rhythm. Good rhythm. Yeah.

Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson. So Ted is returning, which is lovely because it's been quite a while since we talked to Papa Ted. And that was great. And then Woody, what an enigma. I mean, this gentleman. Is there a more interesting person on planet Earth? He's up there. He's truly at the tippity top. Yeah, I liked him a lot.

We had so much fun. He liked you a lot. Woody Harrelson is an award-winning actor. Ted Danson is an award-winning actor and producer. They have a podcast together. I have been a guest on it. It was so much fun. It is called Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson Sometimes. It's a great title. Anytime you have sometimes in a title. This is a party. Enjoy Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson.

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Welcome to the attic. This is a vibe, right? Well, hello there. Oh, Ted. I think this is one of the first podcasts I ever did. Was this... It was early days, yeah. I think it was, yeah, within the second year, maybe. Probably first. First? Yeah.

Wow, then that was a big favor. Yeah. Yeah, we did a good place week. No, no, not almost. Now we edit, so if you want anything out, you tell us.

Well, we'll edit anything Ted says out, but not Woody. So there's two different sets of rules. You don't want to lose anything that Woody says. Are you okay if I don't? Of course. As long as I stay close. Whatever you want. You're such a wonderful codependent. I adore that about you. I am a codependent. That's like a wuss. Is that what I'm saying? No. No, no. No, you could be an ass-kicking codependent. For

For sure. But he is a wuss coat of paint. One could be a kick-ass if one were so inclined. But you know what? I thought about this because we just had something where Woody had to point out to me that I need to stick up for what is right and I know is right. I had an example of that last night, and I did, and I was so proud of myself, heart-pounding, confronting the powers that be in my life, not Mary.

She was on board. And then I was trying to defend myself talking to you the next day or trying to explain why I'm such a wuss. And then I went, you know what? Being a wuss worked very well for me, to be honest. I am fairly successful. I have kids, grandkids, great relationship. You have beautiful houses and places. So here's to the wusses of the world. Your interview was years ago, but there are a couple of things that still cycle through my mind. Besides psoriasis? No.

Well, that we knew going in, that we're psoriasis brothers. Woody, do you have any kind of autoimmune issues that you could bond with us over? No, he's the healthiest human being on the planet.

No. You're not wrestling with any kind of health issues currently? No. Okay, good. I had a little accident, but once that gets all mended. What were you riding, like a bicycle or a motorcycle? Electric motorcycle. You know, my daughter just had her 18th birthday party Sunday night at the Bike Shed, which is a place I love. It's like for people who like motorcycles, you'd love it. Oh, yeah. It's downtown. I was sitting on Elvis's motorcycle. Oh, really? Elvis's motorcycle.

Anyway, so she said to me, we just got to get you on a much noisier bike. That's true. Because they would have heard me if I wasn't on an electric. Okay, so you were on an electric motorcycle riding in what, you were in someone's blind spot? He seemed to be going really slow. Why is he moving so slow? So I'm going around him, but I'm passing him on the left, which is when I realized. Making a left turn. Preparing to turn left. I didn't see you saying that.

Like I said to him, it would have been so bad to see a blinker. So he turns left. I'm assuming you kind of T-bone him with the motorcycle. Yeah. Okay. And he gets out and Woody Harrelson's there. How quickly does he notice? He didn't notice until my helmet came off. Okay. He was chastising me. Why are you passing me on the line? I'm sorry. You're right. But you shouldn't do that. Yeah, I know. I shouldn't. But why did you? I don't know.

what I was thinking. In retrospect, not a great idea. But anyway, then I took off my helmet and he's like, I know you. I don't remember your name. I said, Woody. Then we were on

Yeah, he switched probably. We were doing some laughing before it was all over. Yeah, I bet the temperature changed a bit. People recognized you. Well, I don't know, but a lot of cars were slowing down, but also we're like in the middle of the road. I did take a picture with five people. I don't know if they recognized me or they just wanted to get a photo with the guy in an accident. See the idiot? He passed on the left.

But it sounds like you were really gracious while he was scolding you. That would have been hard for me to take the lashing. Yeah, you would have been like, I haven't taken enough of a... I got my punishment. I just crashed and I'm all fucked up. You're good. You don't need to administer any further. My bike needs to be towed. My hand... He was driving a Tesla, right? Tesla. You guys deserved each other. Electric motorcycle and electric car. Yeah. Yeah.

That reminds me of Laura was driving and she kind of cut somebody off and kept going. And anyway, naturally, you know how it works here. They catch up. Yeah. He's right there. We're looking at him. He's looking at us. And he just goes, Tesla people. Ah!

Keeps going. I bet until he saw you, he was thinking of saying something else. Yeah, exactly. Sure, sure, sure. No, I don't think he really recognized it. Really? If you get cut off by somebody and then you catch up. You've gone through the effort to catch up. You're probably going to unload on them, aren't you? I thought it was a perfect unload. Catch the people. It was poetic. Right?

Two words. Also, in a courtroom being read back, you're like, so what? I said Tesla people. They are. That's what they are. It's like deniable but aggressive. No one's talking about the car I pulled up in. It's very manly. Oh, what is it? Rivian. I saw that. Oh, yeah. I like the Rivian. Me too. It's right out of Detroit. It's a manly electric car instead of those little Teslas. Yeah.

pussy ass tesla no i like the tesla to me it's great that he's changed the whole landscape because of those teslas yeah he fast forwarded everything about 10 years undeniable he forced everyone's hand we need to convince him but let the rest of us use his infrastructure because that was brilliant on his part but now we need to build a buyer way in or else it's going to slow down

Well, he listens. Oh, you mean because all those charging stations only work for Teslas? It was clever, but now we need in. Yeah. Okay, so what I was going to say, I remember from that interview that I do think sums you up in the most beautiful ways. You came up with the analogy that you feel like your life has been riding in the back of a pickup truck, looking backwards. Enjoying what I'm seeing, but never really choosing. Like all of a sudden, like, oh, what's this? This is cheers. I didn't see it coming, but this is cheers.

I see it now. Until I met Mary. It was the first time I hopped out of the back of the pickup and grabbed the steering wheel because I wanted that. Yes, yes, yes. Big time. You couldn't just roll the dice and hope it appeared in the roof of the mirror. But the codependency...

When you're afraid to stick up for yourself last night, whatever that issue was, do you go so far as to work through what happens when you do this? They're going to think what? That Ted's selfish or not a good person? I'd say 10, 15% of it's altruistic, where I really do care about not hurting somebody else.

This is a lifelong thing too. If somebody kind of bumps into Mary or insults her or does something, not insults her, she'll haul off and take care of herself. But if there's something where I should stand up and be manly, I'll look and I go, you're all right. This is fine. Don't worry. Ah,

This is really not Woody. The adrenal dump. So for me to get to the point where I can naturally be like you or Woody, I have to be right next door to rage. Anger has to be pumping through me at such a rate that I finally unload or at least stand up and go, nah, nah. Not today. Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen that. Shut up. It's happened once. Well.

Well, the other thing I discovered through researching you both today, and I didn't know this when I was a guest on your podcast, we are all exactly 14 years apart. Wow.

Woody, you're 14 younger than Ted and I'm 14 years younger than you. This is to the day. There's a symmetry here. It's not a great number, 14. I don't think that's anyone's favorite number. Divisible by seven? It's a good number. Seven's like a spiritual... It is even. I prefer it even. That's amazing. It is kind of, right? And then

Almost Monica's 12 years younger than you. Yeah, I don't fit in. We almost did. Almost. If you could only have been born two years earlier. We can reduce my age. I'm happy to be 34. Later. Yeah, yeah. We would have liked to see you come out in 89 instead. Yeah, ditto. Wait, so let's go around the room. How old, Monica? 36. 49.

Speak up. It's your turn. We're going youngest to oldest. Have you not seen the pattern? You're 62. Until next month. But July, he's going to hop up to 63, and that'll put us at 14. And then you're what? In December, I'll be 77. 77.

That's so funny. How does it feel? Can't you tell? No, we can't. That's why we would ask. It doesn't seem like it's having any effect on you. The joints, you know, the joints hurt. Oh, I thought you meant less. My joints hurt less when I smoke a joint. Actually, that's not true. It's a rare case where the cure is also the problem. I will say it feels like it's dessert time.

for me. One of the things I'm not going to mention, but it was nothing. It was me approving a photo or not approving a photo that we both loved. And then we're starting to get talked out of it, or I was. What hit me when I was finally back in my body and saying, no, sorry, this is what I want, was I'm 76.

What the fuck? I can make a mistake. Who gives a shit? I've earned the right, I said to myself, to enjoy the hell out of life. And I do feel that. Are you feeling at all the lifting? And I'm not sure how much you had it anyways, but the weight and the pressure to succeed and produce and to conquer. I found a way to keep that going by building a house and going so far into debt. It's almost a joke. I'm too embarrassed even to tell you. Oh, Mike, I will not tell you. I wonder.

- You are underwater. So it's like, you have to go out and work. It's not an ego thing. It says, boy, you better. - Did either of you have the weight of like, I gotta fucking do everything. I gotta get this done. I gotta succeed. - I wanna hear your answer, Woodrow. - You have the appearance

of just kind of floating through these magical successes. On the outside, that's what we think. But I don't really believe someone can float through accidentally and have your career. It's a funny thing because you hear people who say, oh, you know, I never wanted to be an actor. I never wanted to be famous. Music, whatever it is. And I'm like, that is such...

Yeah, right. There's no famous person, I mean, other than someone who was a hero and rescued someone. Sully. And that's exactly who I was thinking I was going to say in the pilot. We're still going to Sully. Who's now Tom Hanks in my mind. Yeah, that's right. Me too. But,

Literally nobody just becomes famous other than those rare examples. You really have to work at it. It's not easy. No. Even to pop above the froth, you know. Calling us froth. That's a very nice way to put that. All of you frothers out there.

Take no offense, frothers. It's little frothers. But no, I suppose I had felt that certainly in my life where I felt really ambitious. And now I feel ambitious, but in a different way. Things that I really care about, I want to do. I don't want to just, oh, let me do that because I think it'll be a successful project. I really want to be attached to something. I mean, if I'm going to do a sequel of something, I'm going to do a sequel.

I already did. That's one thing. Other than that, it's really my own pet projects that I'm focused on. Do you guys ever succumb to this fantasy where it's like, okay, I'm going to do X. And after X, I'm going to relax and enjoy.

And then once you're relaxing and enjoying, you go, I'm kind of miserable, relaxing and enjoying. What the fuck is this story I'm telling? So then I go back to getting new X with the fantasy again, that post X, I will do this thing. Do you guys relate to that at all? I,

I did. When I turned 70, I, in hindsight, realized that I was looking for a nice kind of gentle, grassy field to land on and make sure all my eggs were in order and all of that. Eggs, ducks, something. Mary has the eggs.

Sorry, go ahead. Hey man, that was just uncalled for. Then I met Jane Fonda. I was turning 70 when she was turning 80 and she had her foot on the fucking gas pedal beyond belief. She's 86. She finishes a 12 hour day of shooting, jumps on a bus to travel with a group of women to go protest this or do that. She's astounding. She is. She's force of nature. We interviewed her and I was completely blown away and fell in love with her. And I was like, yeah, I would definitely, if I were single, I would marry Jane Fonda.

Right now. She, by the way, I think would take you on. I think there was some sparks. I'd like to see that little power duo. It'd be fun, right? Okay, so I see the symmetry here because, Ted, you are attracted to people who aren't codependent. Yeah, they need my help, but go on. There's a funny dynamic, Woody, when the four of us all hang out. Mary and Kristen pair off and Ted and I pair off.

Because Kristen's very much like Ted and Mary and I are very similar. But Woody, you two have no problem from what little I know of you. You don't have any problem saying no to...

Or telling people what you need. What do you mean? You're doing it right now. You're already disagreeing. You can't even go along with that. No, no. You just proved my point. No, but I didn't know. Yes, just generally, you mean. Yes, you don't have a hard time advocating for yourself. I guess you're right. It's a good thing. You two are a good pairing in that way. Very much so. Huh.

Next question. Okay, great. From the time I met Teddy and I always felt there's something interesting where he'll play this weakness or this codependence, but he's also very strong, very powerful, great mind. Indomitable. Anything he wants you to do, he could manipulate you into doing. The most ridiculous shit. Do you want to go help him build the wall? Yeah. Oh, okay. You know, he explains it. Just something about Teddy.

You're a little of both things in a way. Yeah, no, I agree. All false humility aside, which is boring, I'm discovering that my self-deprecation through this podcast, when I hear back some of the bullshit I say that is so annoying to

You know, maybe once you can get away with it, then it's like, fuck off. Yeah, enough of this. Isn't it funny when you go back and hear? Oh, it's horrible. And I've actually said, can you cut out 90% of my self-deprecation, which left us about 10 minutes of podcast. Yeah. I'm horrible.

But anyway, let me go back to Woody and me. I grew up trained to be sensitive and I didn't have a brother. You had an older sister. Older sister, but totally simpatico and old enough that there was no competition. So along comes Woody and it was like all of a sudden I had an older, younger brother. With brothers, you can...

beat the crap out of each other because you know there's love at the bottom and you're going to be safe even though you will take it to the brink. I got to experience that in some ways with Woody and it was just...

Astounding to have that in my life. Well, your guys' childhoods are so radically different. So you're in Flagstaff with an archaeologist father and an older sister. And you've got two brothers. I assume you think everyone knows this. I had no clue of this history until today. That your father was a hitman.

And was convicted. Supportedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. One acquitted trial, one convicted trial, and then the assassination of a federal judge that he did not do. I don't know if he did it or not. I think that the government did a lot of nasty shit in the trial and pretrial and everything. But that's a good summary. Yeah, I mean, suffice to say, the opposite of a professor archaeologist. Ted's father. We'll leave it at that.

Wow, that's fascinating. Isn't it fascinating? So you, Woody, were born in Texas. You grew up in Houston. Dad left early though, right? Yeah. He was gone a lot of the time, but then he was incarcerated. And then you moved to Ohio at what, eight or so? No, 12-ish? Yeah. Okay. And you go up to Lebanon, Ohio, and you're a kid from Texas. Your dad is incarcerated. Yeah.

and you've got an accent. How did that adjustment go? Well, it was a little more complicated than I'd anticipated because I kind of imagined this Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer type of environs in...

the Midwest in Ohio. But then I got there and it didn't change much from when I'd been in Houston. It seemed like everybody wanted to fight me. It really felt like they were doing it. You don't look back and go... I wasn't provoking, no. And back then I was quite shy and very low-key, but I don't know why the tension would come my way that I wasn't wanting.

Not like later in life. Sure, sure. So I did a lot of fighting. Yes. I'm from Michigan in a blue collar, a lot of Kentucky transplants, a lot of violence. If you came to my school with a Southern accent, it was on. I know what your experience was like. There's no way you didn't get fucked with nonstop. A lot. Yes. Were your brothers older or younger?

Both. I was in the middle. Okay, that's a dangerous man. Right. The middle brother's a dangerous man. Middle child's dangerous. Yeah. Needs a lot of attention, that middle child. Sure, eventually. We gotta go get it. How were the brothers faring? Were they getting fucked with as well? Well, my older brother, who was quite small, was unbelievably tough. And?

and established right away he's not a guy to be fucked with. In fact, one time I remember getting chased down because I was mad that this kid had my bike. My bike had been stolen. I don't know, maybe he bought it. I don't know that he stole it. He was going after him. And then his big brother came out and chased me, obviously caught me, had me wrestled to the ground, and then turned me over, reared back his fist and goes,

You're Jordan's brother. Thank God for Jordan.

It was going to be bad for him. So Jordan really had a reputation of you just don't want to mess with him, even though he was tiny but just fierce. He's not like that at all now. He's very mellow in a way. I mean, he's crazy, but I don't think he had such an issue, and I think my younger brother did have some issues. He had big issues with school, just more with the authority. He was always getting in trouble. Did you hate school?

I would have hated it if I was... No, I didn't hate it. There are people in the school I didn't like.

Sure. But who were you in high school? What kind of kid were you? Well, I became kind of a model student, and I was always a mama's boy, and I did really well in school. Other than, ironically, drama. I took a drama class, and I thought I did very well. I memorized Casey at the Bat, presented it to the class. The outlook was not brilliant for me that day.

This lady gave me a D in drama. It's my only D. Oh, wow. Baseball hater. Yeah. Southern hate.

A Yankee? Yeah, that's what it was. Yeah, yeah. Some northerner. Yankee hate. Yeah. You go to Hanover College, so you're a good student. This is fascinating. You were pals with Mike Pence there? Is that true or not true? I wouldn't say pals, but he was there. He was a couple years older, and he did kind of help me. I gave a sermon there. I was considering being a minister. I was Presbyterian at...

I don't think I had what it takes. Well, I actually did have what it takes, but I'm sure glad I didn't go that direction. Well, you had the charisma we found out. That's a prerequisite. Well, clearly you have a ton of charisma. Yeah, that's not really a question. It's oozing out of every fucking crack and scab you have on your hand. Do you hate talking about your personal past? I don't talk about it much. And can you tell me why? I don't have to. I'm just curious. Because...

There's a lot of sensational stuff in there that I just feel like, you know, it's sensationalism. It's low-hanging fruit. Yeah, and I had a hard time, but there's a lot of people have much harder times, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. There's something about that kid, you must feel it too, where you look back at

the child you were, just the incredible innocence. And what is it that creates a loss of innocence? Is it not one's own perception of one's innocence that creates a loss of innocence? Like if you start to believe that you're no longer innocent, then you're no longer innocent in a way. But anyway, life's coming at you and unfair things are happening, unjust things and mean people. And then suddenly you get these layers.

And those layers, you get them and you get them, and then you spend the rest of your life trying to get rid of them. To a grove of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That you tacked on because of... Safety. Yeah. So, but in college you start acting. That's where we give it another shot. You study theater and literature. And then...

Do you move immediately to L.A., or is there a stop before L.A.? We went to Houston to make money, construction. Me and my buddy Clint. Who I just met. No, that was Frankie. Oh, shit. Okay. By the way, I was working construction with Frankie and Clint, but Clint went to Hanover College.

During that time, he ended up saying, okay, I'm auditioning for Juilliard. If I get accepted, will you move to New York with me and be my roommate? I'm like, what, a one in a million shot? You know, I had a nice leisurely thought about how I'd go about this profession, try to get some summer stock, maybe regional theater, five years or so, move to New York.

Well, he gets accepted, so we go, we make money and use some work in construction, then we go to New York, then all that stuff happened in New York. And he got in, and did he have a career? He did quite well. He did two years, but then he left to do a Broadway play, which he did for...

A year and a half. Okay, yeah, that's huge. Which, by the way, was Big River. He played Huck Finn. Oh, no kidding. And wait, who was the lead? He was in Shenandoah. Well, shoot.

Anyway, never mind. I forget. How did you know that? I was around. What year was that? That was about 84. No, I wasn't around. Yeah, like about that. Yeah, you graduate in 83. You do a year of construction or whatever, a summer, and then probably 84-ish, you're in New York. Well, I did 17 jobs in a year. 17. Did you have a favorite?

No. I hated every fucking job. But mostly, you know, I'm going to be a restaurant because I got no skill. And they're like, you got to go clean up. Someone threw up on table 10. And I'm like, tell them to fuck off. You go clean it up. I'm the guy who threw up. Why would I clean it up? Okay, you're fired. You know, that kind of thing. So when you auditioned for Cheers, did

It's already been out for a couple years. It had three seasons. Yeah. Had you seen it? I hadn't seen it. When I went to college, I was a TV addict prior. So don't take this personally. And so when I went to college, I just got completely away from television, never watched it. I kind of broke that addiction. And then actually it was a friend of mine from college, Leo Jeter, who was a year or two younger.

And he had moved to L.A. and he said, I just auditioned for this show. I think you should audition. The part's called Woody. No kidding. He just was doing you a solid. Oh, it was called Woody before you arrived. Yeah. And he was from Indiana, which is where we went to college. The only thing that I asked them to change and they did was the name was something like Podunk. I forget. Indiana. And I said, can you make it Hanover?

After the college. And they were like, yeah, but that sounds a little too... Lofty. Yeah, yeah. And yet they were finally like, okay, we'll do it. So was it easy for you to get that audition? Your friend calls and goes, you should read for this. Do you have an agent and everything at that point? Yeah, I had an agent. And what was your dream at that moment in time? I didn't want to do television. I had in my mind, I wanted to do Broadway.

And I was going to do Broderick because the guys I was understudying got fired because they were horsing around on stage with Matthew Broderick and a friend of Neil Simon's happened to be in the audience. Of course, they didn't fire Matthew Broderick, but they were getting rid of those other two guys. And when could I come in and take over one of the roles? And I'm like, well, I'll be there in a jiffy. So then when I auditioned for that Cheers part, there was really no pressure at all. Right.

Right, right, right. Because I'm pretty bad at auditioning. I don't care if you don't hire me. I'm going to do my dream anyway. I'm going to be on Broadway in the Neil Simon Theater soon enough, which won the 1985 Tony Best Play. Yeah, that's a great way to audition when you just do not want it. It really is.

If you could trick yourself every time to every audition to go like, I absolutely don't want this. Let's go. That was lucky. So then I did the audition and Lori opened. She was like, come with me. You know, and she took me into the room with all those guys with Jimmy and the Charles brothers. But it seemed to me to be more labyrinthian than it probably was. But I remember going through a couple doors. So I wasn't really thinking. And just before we're going through that door, I blinked.

blow my nose as the door opens and it's the door with all the writers and jimmy and everybody and they all start laughing and jimmy told me later i knew you had it then do you think they thought it was a choice they pretty much decided on this other guy you read with them oh i did i do remember him vaguely so then they came to networks it was between me and this other guy

And I just remember Teddy came in and he had some kind of, I don't know if he had a Coke or whatever. It was something from fast food place with the straw. And he just relaxed as could be. I've never seen him more relaxed. In the meantime, I'd watched a couple episodes. I'm like, oh, this is a freaking great show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is incredible.

Well, TV had gotten better in your hiatus. Right, right. Cheers dawns a whole new genre. Taxi cheers, yeah. It starts a new paradigm, which you had missed, the transition. And then Teddy actually helped me because Jimmy or someone was like, I don't know if he's too tough, kind of. And you were like, no, that's what makes it interesting. I vaguely remember that. You did, because they just weren't sure if I was too, you know...

Well, they were seeing the same thing the bullies on the playground were like, this guy's mad dogging me. What the fuck's on, what's this look on this guy's face? That's the contradiction of Woody that makes, to me, you absolutely fascinating. Because we were all like 37, 38, and he was 24, 25. So as soon as he came in Monday morning, we'd all go, come here, come here.

Tell us what happened. Tell us your weekend. And he'd be carjacked at gunpoint. He had gotten in two fistfights in a drag race or whatever. It was like all over the place. And then you'd sit there and read his poetry or listen to the play he had just written overnight. You are this bundle of contradictions. And you're kind of similar. You're both redneck hippies. Sure, sure, sure. Kind of. Yeah, yeah. He's more of a redneck gearhead. Yeah.

Sure, sure, sure. No, but it's the same thing on face value. But he does have the, yeah. Yeah, there's intimidation. There's a gentle, poetic soul underneath. An intimidating facade. Give me a big motor. This is all artifice. How about that? So is mine. No, it's all artifice. I would have loved to have just hugged everyone I met.

But that didn't seem in the cards, so I went the other direction. And I discovered early on that if I said, hey, it's me, Ted, one of the girls. Let's take our clothes off at work. So I went that route. There's no going back. You do. You get some validation early on, and then you just sort of –

Steamroll in that direction. You run with that. Yeah. A thousand percent. But did you get in a lot of fights? Yeah. You had violent family relatives around you? Yeah, stepdads, violent town. I didn't have a dad around. I was like, how does one prove they're a man? You do this, you jump shit, you do wheelies on stuff and you fight and you drink too much. And I was like, great, that's the playbook. I'm in. Let's go. And a huge bully trigger. If I sniff out in a room, someone's a bully, I have appointed myself the person that will stop that.

I have a huge, like, justice complex with bullies. Do you have that? Yes. No question. And I'll die. I don't really give a fuck. I'll just be the guy that's like, mm, stops here today. And I don't really care the outcome. It won't happen on my watch. That's how I could never work with a guy like, what's his name, Mike, what's the guy who's always so cruel to the crew? There's several of them. Okay, yeah, but- Mike, we're going to work on that.

Yeah, I'm dying to know. The only mic I can think of is Nichols. I'm like, I don't think that was his. What's his name? He does. Oh, Michael Mann? Michael Mann would be one. Yeah. He doesn't have the greatest rep. I heard he's terrible to the crew, but there's another Michael Bay. Oh.

Oh, sure, sure. There's some stories. You know what? Let me jump in here with Mary. Mary's one of you guys. She won't stand for a bully. You can fuck with her, maybe. You fuck with relatives or friend, she will rip you a new butthole. Yes. For real. I mean, directors have tested her and she will smack down Oliver Stone in front of everybody else. Good for her. Because Oliver said something nasty about me. Right. Testing her. It's usually about testing. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And if you push back, they become great. Yeah, that's the thing with bullies. A friend of mine, his daughter was being bullied and he wanted me to talk to her and I didn't talk to her. The reason I didn't is because I would have told her the only way to deal with a bully is to punch him in the nose or her in this case. I found that if you say squirrel. Right.

And run. And point elsewhere. And then run? And confuse them. No, you don't have to run. You just confuse the shit out of them. Yeah, they're not known for their brilliance. You can also nice them to death, too. I would pick out the nastiest people sometimes. Smacks of cowardice or not wanting to get punched or something. But I'd make them laugh. Yeah. I know. No, no, no, no. There's a downside to it. No, there isn't. Listen, I'm not advocating for how I have gone through life. In fact...

Kristen said something to me that was the most poignant thing that's ever been said to me. Because in my story about myself, I'm going to confront the bully to protect everyone else. And I think what people love about me is they feel protected by me. And Kristen said to me one time, you know all this stuff you do.

It makes me feel more scared than safe. Because I know when I'm with you, anything could happen. It has happened. We're at a, you know, driving down the street, someone throws something at the car, you're out fighting the guy on the sidewalk. That doesn't make me feel protected. That makes me feel really scared. And I had to go, oh, wow. I have to acknowledge the outcome of all this is the opposite of what I thought it was. That fractured my reality. Oh, you don't feel safer. You feel more in danger around me. I got to get my arms around this.

Because that's not what I'm trying to do is make everyone around me fearful I'm going to go off on somebody. Have you had that kind of integration or realization? Yeah, but now the way you put it makes me realize it a little more. But if you feel like someone's, you know, it's very difficult to not do something. It is. I think it's like maybe the hardest thing to resist.

But also you said you're a mama's boy and you are a mama's boy. Yeah. Mama's getting hit. So when I was a kid, I was like, soon as I'm big enough, this will never happen again. When I'm around. You finally took him on. I was too little. He was out of the picture by the time he was seven. But,

when you're watching that and you can't do anything to protect mom you're like you're fucking a coward and you should be doing something so that just starts this thing where like well the second i'm big enough that's not going to happen again because the amount of shame and regret for not protecting her was so much more painful than any broken nose would ever be so you just do math and you go fuck it you know i'll lose an arm but the shame i won't deal with ever again yeah

Yeah. We're all soaking that up because I have experienced shame. It's the worst. The worst. Nothing hurts as bad as the beating you can give yourself. Thank God I handled this mini situation between me and Woody last night. With the photo. I'd be sitting here in shame. It's shameful.

little right yeah and you'd be abusing yourself and flagellating what a dark light to get saturated in shame shame's a tough one it is it's the darkest one another tough one is guilt guilt just fries your circuits see i go to the bathroom in the morning out of guilt stay tuned for more armchair expert

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So really quick, I can totally see how being 38 and having a 24 year old, especially Woody, not just any old 24 year old, like a guy who's wandering around the city and getting into some shit would be endlessly fascinating and fun. Oh my God. First, we tried to beat him. I've told this a hundred times, but we'd take him out on the basketball court. He kicked our ass and we fancied ourselves good. Yeah, you were actually a very good basketball player in your youth. No, I was a very medium basketball player, but I loved it with the

passion. Nowhere near as good as mine. Didn't we just agree that there's no more self-deprecation? No, but it's true. Okay. All right, here's the truth. Basketball championship in our league at Kent School for Boys, 300 boys. So a school of 1,200 like normal high schools would have

killed us. Okay. But nevertheless, I am passionately in love with it. I go to Stanford. My buddy and I are going to go out for Stanford freshman ball because we just love it, both of us. I got to the edge of the court, didn't even cross over the line, and I looked up and it was the same year that Lou Alcindor was a freshman. Oh boy. At UCLA. So

The game was nothing like anything I'd ever played in my life. So I turned around. Where's the, where's the acting buddy? No, but he was a rower. He went on to crew and he,

He was happy. So Woody, every time you guys would try to dominate him. He would just kill us. Even chess, motherfucker. He would kick my ass in chess. You know, I thought, okay, no more physical stuff. It hurts. He's hurting us. He's got age on his side. But what it did was it made you want to, because you're also loving him.

You want to beat them at something or you want to just prank them to death. So anything that came our way, you wouldn't aim it at anyone else. It would be a wasted shot. You'd wait for Woody. Were you aware of any of that at that age? More so after Teddy told me, but he's always up front about these things. He's always saying, yeah, I'm going to beat you at this or that. But then he did get me really good one where he pantsed me in front of. Oh, wow.

Back in back when you could. Monica, you'll understand this, because he was clearly wearing sweatpants or sweatshorts even and no underwear, which we found highly annoying and silly. Yeah, that was a look at a time. And this was purposeful in the script we were rehearsing. And there was a full audience by then because we were famous and people came to watch us rehearse.

Woody's character steps on a chair and up on a table to make a huge announcement. And I'm sitting right there. So his jockless self was right at eye level. And it was just like, oh, fuck this. I pulled him down. Anyway, we were paid.

to be idiots in a bar. Those were our characters. They can't ever get better. There's no funner job ever, I think. It's impossible. It was a playground every day with the funniest people you ever met telling you all kinds of hysterical shit. The writing was brilliant. And then you had a director, Jimmy Burroughs, who was so able to embrace as much insanity, as long as you showed up,

When the cameras are rolling in front of the audience, he lets you do or be anywhere. Don't you think that's his confidence? A lesser man would have been threatened. Writers who came later on to the writing staff would be, wait, what the fuck? How do we know this is going to work? They haven't said my lines once. And he'd go, relax. They're there. It'll be fine. Right. He knew. He knew. I want to say something really quick. This is super interesting. What Ted, you just said that everyone on set was like, we want to get him, kind of.

Right. Because he has all these things going for him and he's beating us. It's kind of exactly what you're talking about when you first moved schools. It was like there's something happening where everyone's trying to get me and I don't know what it is, but I'm attracting that. And it probably was just something about your essence that people were

jealous of or wanted to see if they could beat you. It came back around in a nice way over here, but that's a through line. But in this case, it was kind of fun. And I was always trying to get them to. You are competitive. People say you're one of the most competitive people they know. And it works for me because I love to compete, but I don't really care.

I only compete with people who I know will kick my ass. Sometimes, if there's not a man around to compete with, I'll compete with the woman. For some reason, I don't like the idea of having to win or lose be part of my day that will make me happy or not. I love to compete, though, so I will compete with you, who are half my age, and then beat myself up or compare myself to you. I will never compare myself to...

some of my age in my group in my category is that dad is that tall poppy syndrome why would it be wrong for you to shine and to be number one well first off i do shine and i am number one yeah i'm sam alone i did not have a big father example i had

One of the most beautiful men in the world who loved me and was proud of me. But there was no putting his arms around me going, oh, oh, oh, we are men. I think that was part of my love of you. I got to experience, I'm making a joke, toxic masculinity. No, I got to be embraced by, and you would in essence say to me, it's going to be okay because I'm not going to really kill you, but we're going to take it to the edge. And I got to experience that, which is part of being man.

Yeah, he's one of three boys. Yeah, and I didn't get that. So I think that's one of the many reasons I adore you, Woody. Yeah. I adore you, Teddy. And you, you have this very similar thing. Don't lump him into my single, dude. No, no. I'm so flattered. It's not a two-shot. I just mean a younger version of you, Woody. I don't know.

14 years younger, buddy. I understand your reservation, but I'm like a pig in shit that you've just called us the same. I'm flatter to no end. They're a big similarity. What was the experience, Woody, from like aiming at Broadway to, and for the history of the show, first three years are good. They're climbing in the ratings.

But then you arrive season four and it really has a huge bump. It takes off. And then season five, it's the number one show. And it's like apex ratings. You had to have the light switch experience where it's like total anonymity. And then 40 plus million people that week see you and learn your real name. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That was a wild transition from porn anonymous to, well, I wouldn't say rich, but yeah.

Relatively. Relative to what I was. Yes. For sure. You could buy a Corvette. Yeah. Well, I had a Porsche and then a Corvette. Which one got carjacked? The Porsche. Oh, good. He had good taste. It didn't actually get carjacked. He wanted my keys. I was thinking that as I drove here. Because I went past Bronson and Franklin. And yeah, the guy put a gun to my head and he's like, give me the keys. I couldn't find them. Give me the fucking keys. I'm not, I can't, I'm not, I'm looking, I'm looking, where are the fucking keys?

I don't know where they are. Is that true? Did you not know? Yeah, and he counted to five. Oh, fuck me. And I'm thinking, you don't know. Is he going to pull the trigger? He sounds pretty convincing. And then luckily, the person I was waiting for, this is like two in the morning, this gal had gone in to get something in her building there at Bronson and Franklin. The door opens of her finally coming out, and she's,

He just looked and ran. Oh, thank God. Thank God. Because he was like on four. Oh.

Not that he would have pulled the trigger. I'm sure it was a bluff. Or not. You feel the muzzle against your head. You have to assume the worst. Let's just say that. You'd be really stupid not to assume the worst. Yes, yes. Oh, this is great, though. You're 25, and you got a Porsche, and you're on this show. 24. You got the Porsche first year. I got it just before I started the show. I was actually 23. Okay.

I did a Goldie Hawn movie in the DP. I bought it from him. Wildcats. That's right. Yeah. First movie? Wow. He's researched. Hey, by the way, you do your own research, don't you? You don't have a research team. Mm-mm. Pretty cool. Something to be said for that. Something to be said for that. Well, that was going to be one of my questions when we got to the podcast. We're almost there. I'm still curious. Were you the type that when it happened, it was a...

party or was it discombobulating or was it all the things at once? Yeah, it was definitely a party. Yeah. But I didn't stop to think about whatever the deeper ramifications of what is fame and do I deserve it? You know, I'm just like,

I'm going to lap this up because who knew this would happen? It happened to seven of you or however many people. It's a very rare occurrence. You also jumped into a pool that was pretty cool in that. There were enough adults in the room that somebody would be an asshole one week and all the rest of the cast, and we'd take turns being that asshole, would look at them like, wait, what? Don't do that.

Your behavior was moderated by the good work. You didn't want to fuck it up. It was too cool. Yeah. Were you having any fears, Woody, if your sights were set on Broadway? As the show carries on, are you getting nervous that you're going to be typecast as Woody? Certainly. And back then, I think it was much more difficult because that was such a huge show and we're so known for these parts. Yeah.

Like fringe, it's weird to not get typecast. Even today, something pops huge. It's very hard. You want to be able to get out from under any kind of typecasting. But yeah, it was because I was on it six years before I got anything else. Yeah. So I think the two things that are highly improbable in your life story is one, you get on that show. That's bonkers.

And then two, and I don't know, was it hard to get white man can't jump? Do you have to convince them that, no, I can play this street hustler guy? I just remember when you first audition, it wasn't an audition like acting. It was, we're going to meet down at this gym and either you can play or you can't play. If you can't play, you're not in. We don't need to hear you say any lines. Right. First of all, I played a lot of basketball and I'm like, oh, I am going to shine today.

I am going to crush you. And I did. You had to show that you had competition oozing from your veins, and you had both. And savvy. The opposite of Woody on Cheers, your character in White Men Can't Jump is conniving and calculated and smart and street smart and savvy. You're not playing a dum-dum in that movie. I might have been too dumb to realize that.

I really wanted it really bad. And my buddy Wes, you know, I had worked with Wes on Wildcats. That was his first movie, too. And he was the guy I liked most of the entire cast. Such an interesting, smart, capable human and a great actor. Well, so he was doing it, and I was just like, oh, man.

God, I want this part so bad. And luckily, it actually was ironic because it was about the time of Bush War I, and I had said something that got me in hot water, but it helped with Ron, the director, Ron Shelton, liked that.

He did. Yeah, yeah. So it actually played in my favor where I was supposed to do some commercial, which I'm glad I didn't do, but they canceled that. That was a dangerous time. A dangerous time. But I was supposed to do the thing in New Orleans, the Mardi Gras. Oh, yeah. Nope, cancel me from that. Oh, wow. You had an early round of canceling back at the beginning. Yes. Were you panicked at all by that? Were you scared? For a moment. Yeah, I think. I think it landed. People did say, you know, you don't need to cancel.

Now people know your views. You don't need to fan your plane. Yeah, you made yourself clear. Everyone knows where you stand on the 91 war. Oh, geez. When you were watching that happen, Ted, I can only compare the experience to I was in a movie called Zathura. There were young actors. Those young actors pretty promptly went on Kristen Stewart to just be this enormous star.

And Josh Hutcherson went on to be in multiple franchises. Oh, you worked with Josh Hutcherson on all the Hunger Games. Love Josh. I have this immense pride and happiness for them. I didn't experience any jealousy. What was your reaction to him breaking out in a way that you knew he was probably getting himself out of being typecasting and you yourself had to have been wrestling with the notion of being typecast at that time?

I have same reaction with unspoken competition. But what happens to me is because I, by then, love him wholeheartedly. Yeah. I think it's more of checking myself. Oh, wait a minute, Teddy, where are you? It's not envy. Envy means if you can't have it, you don't want him to have it. It was jealousy. It was just pure jealousy. Sure, sure, sure. But by then, I had already learned the hard way that you can't really compete with Woody. Yeah.

What year was that? Was that towards the end of Cheers? Yeah, it was 92. Oh, 92. All right. By 92, I had set up my personal life to the point where somebody had asked me to be in, you know, I don't know, Godfather 4. It wouldn't have mattered to me because I had made myself such a hot mess that...

My hands were full. Right. You were distracted enough that probably you didn't have the bandwidth to worry too much about Woody. Not new career. Did you, Woody, when you had that kind of breakout success and then indecent proposal right after, are you now itching to get on with that? I was never planning on leaving Cheers, but I felt like the writing dropped a little bit toward the end. I think Teddy felt that too. We'd done everything.

270 episodes or something? Yeah. So there were just more sight gags, and it wasn't quite as great as it had been. And then Teddy just kind of unilaterally decided he was going to move on. All right, let's back up just a little. That's kind of how I remember it.

We as a group, I remember the last two years. No, we did not as a group. No, no, no, no, no. I pulled the plug. I pulled the plug. Go ahead. But for two years before that, the conversation right at the end of each season was, oh, come on, how much longer are we going to do this? But no, I pulled the plug. There was no such conversation. By the way, I didn't know this until you told me a couple years ago that as soon as I pulled the plug, they immediately turned to Woody and went, okay, Woody, how about you take over the bar? Mm.

Right. Oh, that's true. What's his name? John Pike or something? John Pike. So it really wasn't Les and Glenn. It was Paramount. Was he from Paramount? He took me to dinner one night, and this is our last year, and he's just like, so Teddy will exit, but then you can become the person who runs the bar. It'll still be Cheers. It'll still be everyone else. It'll still be, and I said, listen to me. Without Teddy, there's no Cheers. Yeah.

You cannot do cheers without Teddy, period. That was over appetizers, and we still had the rest of the meal. You got right to it. A little awkward entree. I'm going to cut to the chase here. Do you think had you not had white man can't jump and indecent proposal, that would have been a more tempting endeavor? No, there was never even a remote chance. You just have conviction about it. No, I mean, come on. No way. It just wouldn't make sense. But a lot of people would have. I would have.

Yeah, finally. It's about time you guys fucking asked me to own this bar. Okay, so the show ends in 93. And how much contact do you guys maintain over the next years before you guys start the podcast? Irregular. Yeah, it was always at a party.

Mostly it was, hey, how are you? Let me have a talk of that. Yes, of course. Or a few other times, but in person a couple times a year maybe, maybe a phone call here and there. Go to Martha's Vineyard, see them. I was going to say, have you been out and had the Ted and Mary Martha's Vineyard experience? Oh, yeah. We did last summer, and it was like Eden. So nice.

I don't know. I don't see how you get a better life than that. Why go on working? Just say, okay, everything I need, I got. Let me stop all the bills and the new shit and just live in fucking Martha's Vineyard. It's pretty sweet. Well, you guys have both found your ways to islands, which is interesting.

You're on Maui. You're in Martha's Vineyard. So you have all these kind of... Maui and Texas. Well, and he has LA, I guess. But you have on the surface all these differences and different childhoods, different personality types. But also your lives kind of mirror each other. I mean, you'll have been with Mary for 30 years next year. Married 30, together 32. And you've been with Laura, I assume, for 30 plus years. I met her 87. 87.

And we started bumping uglies in 90. It took three years. So yeah, it took a little time. Well, it did seem like you don't want to do that. That's my assistant. Right. The more

The more I examine it in my own, like the way you do, you do a thorough self-examination. I think I was probably attracted to her right as soon as I met her. But it took three years before things shifted. Since 90, really, we've been together and living with each other. So that's 34 years. Damn, you got us beat. Yeah. So 30 years and 34 years, these are both pretty unique outcomes in this show business town. So that's similar. You have three daughters? Yes.

Yeah. Spectacular. I have two. Isn't it the greatest? Okay. So you come together to do the podcast. Whose idea was it? My memory was somebody came to me and said, would you be interested? And it was either the strike or COVID or something. And it was like, huh. And I knew you and.

and you're doing this and everything. And I remember enjoying our conversation. You're like, if he can do it. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But they said, you're not good enough on your own. You're going to need a partner in crime. And I didn't even know if it was my idea first, but somebody said, Woody.

And it was like, oh, you should take the story from them. But it was mutual. Oh my God, we get to catch up. We get to hang out. I realized that even with Woody, if you say, hey, let's go have a whatever, my first reaction is, I think I'm going to go home and be with Mary.

Because in essence, guys are wonderful, they're relaxing, they're fun to be with, but that's not where it's at. Right. It's the woman. That's where it's at. So to have a project together and an excuse to hang out is just fucking delicious. Yeah. And you're not bummed that it takes that. I get disappointed in myself. It's just the truth for me. Yeah. That's good. And even after, it's like, yeah, let's go do lunch, Teddy. He's like, I gotta get back to work.

No, no. What I usually say is, yeah. I haven't seen Mary in 90 minutes. No, I've said for the last 40 years we've known each other, the joke is I will say, go ahead and start without me. I'll be there. I'll be right there. That is the way it goes. When you guys get started, I'll be right. Well, that's why the hack is the double date, though. I only see you when it's a four-way date. Yeah. Your only access to Ted is you got to come with a partner. You're not going to ride motorcycles with him. No, no, no, no, no.

Do you guys interview people? What's the format? I've been a guest and I have been interviewed by them. Yeah. And they do a great job. But we got to really quick. Forgive me now. I'm going to tell you some stuff about yourself, Woody, that you might be aware of or not. And Ted would have already known this. Someone said Woody.

And most certainly you were like, good luck nailing Woody down. Because I tried to get Woody in a movie once. And then we even chatted on the phone about it. And the web of confusion, you are the most unpredictable man. The notion of nailing you down and getting you to commit to something is daunting. First off, if you want to nail somebody down, they have to have a phone. Or you can't approach them to nail them down. Let's start there. So if you don't have a phone...

You know, I've grown to love it, quite frankly. It's charming. And I'm trying to learn from it. But if you're in a jam, need an answer, you're not going to get it. Wait, you really don't have a phone?

No. Straight don't have a phone. What is that? It's like looking at a unicorn, right? No, but it's also how brilliant. It is brilliant. I want to do that. Clearly, you can go off and work around the world forever and are, and then when you're not working around the world, you don't want to have to be picking up the phone. You want to tune out. I can't do it, but I think it's brilliant. Well, yeah, in a way, it's been one of the great things for me. I gave it up about five years ago because my daughter-

said she was giving hers up. And I'd already been doing this thing where I would ask people, okay, if you could go back to the 80s, and it doesn't even have to be the 80s, it's just in the sense of there's not this technology. Would you want to do that? And a high percentage, maybe 90-something percent say, yes, I would do that. No problem. And then here's my daughter says she's giving up her phone. And I says, I want to do that. When? She says.

Two weeks. And that's what I did. Two weeks later, I gave it up. It's almost braver for her because she's at the point of her life where she wants to be social and be connected with everyone. You're at the like, let's unplug some of these things. But she's like plugging everything in. Hey, I'm going to give you all a chance to talk amongst yourself about me. Oh, is this the bladder? No, no, no. No. You, no.

I'm a whippersnapper. Are you brave enough to use that? I can step out. I don't think Ted cares. Don't worry, Teddy. I'll step out. No, Teddy doesn't care. You two can stay. Are you micing my... Teddy, I can see your penis from here. I literally can see your penis. I've heard it's gorgeous. Yeah. Yeah. It's gorgeous. Youthful. You have a youthful penis, Ted. I am so proud that I'm actually peeing while this is on.

There's so much of it that it almost seems unnecessary. Yeah, there's a lot of extra. That's true. I take a picture of them. Frequently, when we're getting ready for the show, we had more people in the bathroom. So it'd be like, Teddy, do you mind? I got to come in. Well, I didn't do it because he'd know something's up. But I think Georgie or someone said, can I come in and brush my teeth or shave? Yeah.

And Teddy's taking a shower. He says, yeah, yeah, sure. Well, once that door was open, man, I went in and I opened the shower door and someone takes the picture and you'd catch him full glory. It was great.

Okay, wait. So do you just use email? Email. So I have an iPad. But the cool thing about it is once I leave the house, I don't carry my iPad. Wow. So if I'm out anywhere, I'm not doing what I used to do five years ago, which is even a slight lull in the conversation. I'd be down here on the device. You see it all the time. Yes. And then it's just like someone's talking. Yeah. Yeah.

And now I'm here. And I hated it. It just felt so unpresent. You're present to someone else, really. Yeah. I joke about that sometimes. Hey, please tell your friend I can't wait until I have your undivided attention. Yeah. Does this burden Laura? Of course it does burden her. Oh.

And there are times when I'm like getting messages. How did anyone get a message? Like, I'm not even with Laura or with anyone. Somehow they managed. It's so funny to talk to Woody's agent and manager and ask them a question about Woody. And they just raise their hands like, we don't know. We don't have a secret connection to Woody. They're unplugged from him as well, right? I mean, when you're unplugged, you're unplugged. This is similar to the

apocryphal stories of Bill Murray, right? Which is he just has an answering machine. You might get lucky. There's something enchanting about that.

But you have to be Bill Murray or whatever. It's either that or you go through his lawyer, one or the other. Right. So if someone wants to hire you, what do they do? They call your agent and your manager, and then they, at some point, get an email to you. Well, this very thing happened with Bill Murray for Zombieland. I was the conduit that kind of got Bill into it. It was going to be Matthew McConaughey, but Matthew...

Wisely said. I don't even say anything. You could use anyone for this. Can we act out the conversation? Huh? Can we act out the conversation? Woody, what's up? I looked at this script. I don't have any words, right? I could come in, but I mean, why would we do that? Pretty good. I gotta give him a more whistle, Mr. Dax. Mr. Dax, what's going on with this movie? You gonna do this zombie land? They called me, but I said anybody could

do that call bill murray i said he's good that's good that's good when his best friend laughs anyway so he bailed and then it's like two weeks out or something and so i got a hold of bill and we were in atlanta i think and he had just left that day and i was just like fuck but we talked about it and he said well send it you know sent the script

And he's like, yeah, I like the script, but I don't get what I'm supposed to do. I don't have anything to say, and I'm just like a zombie. And you're like, that's what McConaughey said. And that's when they had the idea to make him that he was pretending to be a zombie so that he could talk and everything. It's a great movie, Woody.

It was a great fucking movie. God, that is a good movie. I won't get into all the movies that Woody's done that I absolutely love, but talking about Jealousy or Not, especially if he gets nominated for something, I haven't seen it. I will watch it on my cell phone just so I can say, yeah, fuck you. I'm watching. Such a small performer. Yeah. Yeah.

Which sucks because you've had to deny yourself the cinematic experience of like No Country for Old Men. You've watched all these on your phone and you're really hurting yourself. I don't. I like to pretend. I agree with you. As I was researching, I was like, you forget. It's fucking outstanding. You really are a good actor. Especially coming off of Cheers. The one I got to say that I just triangle sadness. A, that was the best movie of the year by leaps and bounds.

And that fucking entrance, you standing sideways. Were you on a cable or something? You're somehow standing sideways. No, they had a gimbal. And so it was a huge stage. Because ironically, I couldn't be there. I never told this to Ruben, but I honestly was like, I'm having so much fun in Maui. And it was during the pandemic, which, of course, I don't fear the reaper.

So I never really was worried about it, but I could use it as an excuse. Of course. I did use it as too dangerous. I don't know what they said. But anyway, so I said, you know, I could come in June or something. And they were shooting like in April. But anyway, so they did the thing in June, but they'd already shot all this stuff. And so they shot overs.

On to the people, you know, they had a uniform. So their part of the coverage was already done. So it was really wild how he kind of did that whole thing. Then they did overs back to me. He hasn't heard from any of the cast members that had to shoot with the first AD. They're like, what's it like working with Woody? You mean Frank? The stand-in? He was there. I would never do that anymore. And I don't know why I did it at the time. I just didn't want to leave. Pandemic, man. You know, I was having a great time there. Yeah.

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So on the podcast where everybody knows your name, which I was on and I loved it so much. It was so fun. I was one of the very first guests. We needed to learn. We wanted to pick your brain. Your wife was the one before and then you. Right. And I was like, well, this works. This immediately works. And I said to you, Ted, you either have the chemistry lottery with your co-host or you don't. You can't do anything about it.

And you guys just have it. You're such yin and yang folks. It's so fun. Yeah, it is fun. How do you divide up responsibilities? Who does what? I have a hunch Woody shows up.

Well, first off, everybody who works with Woody or has ever met with Woody will do anything Woody wants. He brings in a different crowd than I have mingled with in my life. So in comes some of the most fascinating people that I get to meet and hang out with. When the microphones roll, the part of Woody that I'm so different from is...

Everything fits. It feels effortless. It really does. Yeah, big time. I'm guessing then Papa Ted, as we call you in our household, you're doing the research. It's out of respect. It's not an age thing. Go on, please. Yeah, like Papa John's pizza, you're not thinking it's an old guy. It's just a papa. No, no, no.

It really comes from our daughters who call you Papa Ted, which is very sweet. I love that. Yeah. Are you in charge of the research? No. We have a team of people who research. But I don't think they do the perfect job on the research. No, but who does? And it's the same thing you can glean on your own if you wanted to Google it, Wikipedia, whatever. Yeah. But what I like about it is I read it, read it, read it, read it. Then I go, wait a minute.

In essence, what would I like to know about this person? Even if I don't know them, I want to know what makes them tick. And as soon as I let go, maybe I think about if I had to ask an opening question, what might it be? But even that kind of goes by the wayside. And we start rolling the mics as soon

soon as they walk through the door. Same, yeah. And let them know. But by the time we're actually seated and with our little muffs on, I'm now wanting to be with that person. I think that's probably true for you too. Have a conversation and not think about, oh, I got to have this directive about I need to tackle this subject, that subject. Yeah. Well, you have a great curiosity about people. You're a very good question. I do want to know what makes people...

And I've always wanted to know what it's like to be you. I'd like to know what it's like to be Dex, too. Yeah. I think you know. We could swap for a minute. Talk to Laura. I'll talk to Kristen. Well, there's some conversation in your head there. I'm just not sure Laura's going to want me back. That's the thing I worry about. She's like, yeah, yeah.

I'll keep this one. He has a phone. I can fucking ask him to pick something up on the way home for me. Even if everything else sucks, that's kind of worth it. Do you guys have the same appetite for work? Different. Well, I mean, career-wise, it's different because by default or blessing, I happen to love the fact that I get to be in town.

Most of my career has been television in LA. I've been so blessed. There are times when I go, "Oh, I wish I had Woody." You know, I will do that to myself periodically, but really, I'm really, really happy. And Woody's career, if I may, is all over the map as far as locations.

and what you tackle, which I admire hugely. But it does put us off into sometimes different directions. That's why the title is Where Everybody Knows Your Name, hosted by Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, parentheses, sometimes, which his friends love when they read it. Yes, I love it. Because I'm home. So sometimes I will do these podcasts without Woody. Was that a nerve wracking? Well, yeah. Woody's an extraordinary person.

and people love being around him. But I got to hang out with W. Kamau Bell, who'd spent the day. Impressive dude. Yeah, we'll find out. We haven't aired yet. If all of a sudden the needle dips when Woody's out of town. You did an interview with Martin Short without me. Yeah, I did some things that you kind of were irritated about. Ha ha ha!

I'm irritated about that. Like, wait, I wanted to be there for that one. Yeah, with that just said, I don't know who they're asking in my absence. Who? What? And there's virtually no way for you to find out either. You can't even listen to a podcast. Exactly. Oh, my God. It's so charming, the whole. Yeah.

Does it scare the shit out of you, Monica? Like how unpredictable he is and hard to nail down? I had an idea of you before you came in here, as is often the case when we have people in here. I was intimidated. Sure. And you're just so easy and fun and lovely. I find you a little daunting. I am. That's appropriate. I'm just pretty scary. Sorry.

Speaking of tiny but fierce. You know, it's kind of cool. People don't maybe know this, but we're looking at Monica and Dax sitting in these gigantic, comfortable, rocking leisure chairs. And it's very relaxing. Yeah, that's nice. To just see us be so comfortable. Yeah, it really is. I mean, that's happened over time, though. But the comfortability. He used to sit you over in the corner. I was in the bathroom, yeah. Yeah.

No, I was in your spot. When you were here last, you were in Woody's spot. I was in that spot. And can I just apologize? For? I didn't ever turn and say, hey, Monica, so what do you think about such a... I was into Dax and never spoke to you during that whole thing. And I really felt like the toxic male. I'm glad you apologized. Yeah, you wouldn't have done that. Well, that's very sweet, but that's not really your fault.

It's Dax's fucking fault. Well, for sure. 100%. Somehow it's my fault. It's always Dax's fault. But no, I mean, the way- That you didn't look at Monica as my fault. No. Because you were mesmerizing. The way it was set up was a problem. This having to do this was uncomfortable. Did you have to bring it to his attention? I bet you did. No, you know who did? Jake Johnson. Oh. We had Jake Johnson on, and in the middle of the interview, he said-

I don't like this. I can't see her. Can we rearrange? Yeah. I feel like I have to like turn my head and be off mic. So did you rearrange it right then? We did. And then we were like, oh, duh, this is what's been broken. We had no idea. We only had one lazy boy and we had a couch. So it made perfect sense. There was no lower status thing going on. It was just like, oh yeah, it's a triangle. This works. Yeah. Also everyone knows Dax, right? Like he's the movie star. It's also his name on the, yeah, I know you love it. It's his name on the

thing mostly at the beginning it was his friends who came in so no one knew me and so it was kind of like okay there's like another person here but we don't really know what she's doing the whole period I sat there I was so self-conscious it was like I don't know when to talk I don't know if I should talk literally just changing the seating it changed

Totally. Yeah, because it wasn't something we were unaware of. And I, of course, am best friends with Monica. I want her to be engaged. And we're like scratching our head like, I guess it's they come here, they already know about me. That's what's going on. Literally, it was like a physicality issue. You had to fend Shway this mofo. Yeah, we did. Thank God, Monica, because, and I know you've probably felt the whole time, even in spite of some of the awkwardness, like I'm definitely his intellectual superior. Right, right.

I don't know about superior. Why am I not included more? I feel like I have something to offer. But we've figured a really good balance out. And I wonder about you two. But you guys are co- Dependent? No, we know Ted is co-dependent. Just Ted. Which is a good thing, but gone. I just want to keep putting that in. Nine out of ten bachelorettes say they would prefer a co-dependent. I know one.

When I don't talk, it doesn't mean because I have nothing to say. Like we figured out a real flow. Dax mainly interviews and I come in as the audience often. I like sit in their seat and I think, oh, they're not going to understand something here or if I have my own questions, but we've figured it out. But it's taken a long time. And you two, I assume, equally ask questions. This is being presumptuous, but I feel like I'm having so much fun with Woody that the guests better be...

Deserving of me taking my focus off of Woody and onto the guests. And I think people get that in play. They jump in and swim. I feel that way too. Like a lot of times we do just have a banter for a while and then they're like, am I in this thing? Am I free to go? You guys seem to have this. I love that phrase. I hope you can swim because we did that on chairs. The first four or five years, guest stars would come and we would take them to lunch. We'd give them a mug. We'd have their armor.

We walked them through everything. And by about the eighth and ninth year, it was like, hey, hi, hope you can swim. Good luck to you. Good luck. The last few haven't worked out. Nah, we do not rehearse. You're right. Remember that one lady came in before they had cell phones. She had one of these big things. Big honking phones. And she was like super, super rich, which I think she was playing a character like that. She's dripping in gold. She's on the phone. Right.

on the stage right in the middle of things Jimmy's like what so she didn't last she didn't last she came in literally one day yeah

We also got fired once by somebody who was going to play somebody who had an interest in Rhea Perman, Carla. And it was Jim Arness's brother, who was Mission Impossible, Peter Graves. And he was there, and we had a read-through on Wednesday, the night after a shoot. And then Thursday he came in, and it was a bit of a rewrite, funnier. And he looked at it, and he looked at Jim, and he went, this is not what I signed on for, and got up.

and walked out of the studio. We all just got fired. Damn, that's a first. Yeah, cool. Yeah, it was actually kind of cool. Yeah, something new happened. Do you remember that? No, you were probably visiting the Berlin Wall. It's my favorite Woody story. When people ask me Woody stories, it's like sitting around 40 minutes late, where's Woody? This was like a Friday and we were going to shoot Tuesday. And somebody comes running in and said, oh, Woody's in Berlin. Yeah.

The wall's coming down, and he didn't want to miss it. He got there in time for the show. Oh, that's incredible. You were there? Yeah. Did you get a chunk of the wall as memorabilia? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a few chunks. Really? And I also got cobblestones that they used to throw at the wall. It's not like a big successful effort in bringing it down, but it was just symbolic. I got one of those cobblestones, and I put that in the house around this little pond.

When you were coming home through customs and they said, "Do you have anything to declare?" Did you say, "I have a bit of the Berlin Wall with me."

I don't know what the policy on that is. I've got about six ounces of weed and the Berlin Wall. Okay, just my last question. I do want everyone who has already listened to the show to listen because it's truly quite good. I really, really love being on it. Kristen loved being on it. Have you guys had a favorite guest? A handful, really, truly. But one of the first ones was

that knocked me out because I didn't know him and he and Woody are buddies. I know what you're going to say. Yeah. Flea. Flea. Oh, you had Flea. Wow. That was maybe the greatest interview I've ever seen of anyone. You know what he looks like. By his own description of his life, he should not have lived past 12 or 13 or something and music saved his life. But the first thing he did was we sat down

He said, excuse me, I need two, three minutes. And he sat there and he meditated right in front of us just to center himself so that he did not bring anything to the party other than just being there. And then you hear this astounding life that he had led.

and the give back that he's giving to the world and not safe give back. I mean, in gangland South Los Angeles erecting a park. Just astounding guy. Oh, he's a radical dude, huh? Yeah. Astounding. That's exciting. Tell him to do our show, yeah. Yeah, pass it along. Next time you're bringing down some wall. He lives right near here. He's got a sweet car collection too, right? He's got a bunch of funky like 70s Lincolns and stuff. You don't give a fuck. That was a bad question. I don't know about those things.

He had the same thing as me where someone came up with a really, really fast car when it was first coming out and they let us drive around in it. Can you invest? I don't think so. Tesla. I thought I'd just thrown a few shekels that way. Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't have even noticed it. I wouldn't have to be doing this podcast right now.

Then you'd really be Tesla people if you invested. That's true. Well, Tad, from the bottom of my heart, you know I love you to death. I can't wait for our next. You cooked me burgers last summer. It's a highlight of my summer. And then, Woody, now this is our second time being in a room together. No violence is broken out. This is very encouraging. I find you very intriguing and unicorn-esque. Yeah, yeah. I'm delighted to have gotten to spend time with you twice now.

So everybody listen to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. You guys, thanks so much for doing the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been awesome. Oh, good. I really have enjoyed it. Well, next time you got to sell your wares, you're always welcome. Okay. But also, I want to come over, have a little dinner. Oh, yeah. Teddy can come with his wife. I'll ask Mary, but I'm not 100% sure. Three couples. You start without me. Three couples. Oh, yeah.

Monica, it's nice to have you in our eyeline. Thank you. That should be your podcast, Start Without Me. Yeah, that's funny. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. Check, check, check. Copen, Mark and Dan Hagen.

I'm in Copenhagen, Denmark. That's what it's called? Yeah. Copenhagen, Denmark. That's hard to do. I've been fucking with the kids because we're in Copenhagen, Denmark. And Delta said, is Copenhagen in Denmark or is Denmark in Copenhagen? And I said, Copenhagen is in Denmark.

it's too early for you. That's hard. That's hard for me to process. Yeah. You up at 8am is virtually Delta at nine. So you are equally flummoxed by that. Yeah. It's early. We're doing an early, early bird special on my side of the pond. What's that time of it? Time? Is it your side of the pond? What time of a pond is it on your side of Ben Hagen? Um,

It's 5 p.m. Nine hour difference. Prime time. The witching hour for podcasting. Okay, here's the fun part. So we're staying at a hotel that is right next to, I don't know if you pronounce it Tivoli. I think it's Tivoli Park Hotel.

Which is where Walt Disney came and got the idea for Disney World. Really cool. Disneyland. Sorry, Disneyland. We rode on a roller coaster today that's, it was the oldest one still running ever made. And it was the third oldest ever. Built in 1914. Wow. A man has to be in the middle and use the brake. Oh my God. And that doesn't scare people. Is it like, is it kind of babyish? Um, yeah.

I mean, presumably you need the person with the brake. No, no, it doesn't. It's very much like a mine car ride, you know? Okay. Yeah. But the notion that there's someone in the middle, I said a man, it can be a woman. It happened to be a man when we were there, but they have this huge lever in front of them and they're slowing it down, which I find to be hilarious because generally when you go on a roller coaster, what you tell yourself is no reason to be afraid. It can't go wrong. But

But this has a human element. That's what I'm saying. That's scary. I liked it because it was a pretty docile or tame roller coaster. But because there was a human on board, it made it feel very treacherous. And he was older. I thought, what if he has a medical condition in the middle of this ride? Well, yeah, I don't.

Trusting humans is tough. I also then thought, too, wow, this guy must ride this roller coaster like 100 times a day. I think there's swapping out brake people. But still, I think these people are riding this roller coaster tens and tens and tens of times.

They must swap out a lot because he could cramp up. Yeah, that's right. I hope he's stretching. It's a very beautiful park. It's pretty big. And you can definitely see that Walt ripped it off for Walt Disneyland. Oh, no. Yeah, the architecture is kind of the same. It's very, very similar vibe. Is there a Mickey Mouse? There's a Mishy Mouse. Oh, wow. Yeah.

He's a thief. What time did you go to bed last night? You knew you had to get up early. Did it give you stress? No, I woke up late because, I mean, oh, I went to bed late because I had a dinner. My friend Sally from Arjun is in town. Uh-huh. She put together a little group of peeps for a dinner on the west side. Ooh, no thank you. Yeah, but for Sally, I'll do anything.

So I went, I brought Ana with me and it was fun. And it was a fun little group of people. You know, I was thinking on the way home, I don't like going to things with new people. I always prefer just my normal routine or seeing people I already know. But like meeting people gives me, I don't know if it

I don't know if it gives me stress so much as I'm just like, do I want to do that? Right. And I didn't. I didn't want to do it. But then it was so lovely and everyone was so great. I have that same thing. But what's funny is the second I'm around new people, I remember, oh, I love being around new people. That's actually probably my favorite thing.

thing but I think I don't so confusing yeah I don't think it's definitely not my favorite thing but I did think oh it's fun it's fine it's it's nice who's the most interesting person you met an astronomer no well ornithologist herpetologist what's that anyone with herpes um herpetology I think is a study of lizards or toads amphibians not for me okay

That's not going to be my second life.

No, it was a cool group of ladies. And what time did this conclude? Late, and then we had to get back to the side of town. And then I started the Simone Biles doc. All right, before you tell me about the Simone Biles doc, did you finish Sprinter? Yes, loved it. Oh, my God. I finished last night. What a juicy last episode. Which one was the last episode again? Sha'Carri competing in the 200 and then...

Noah Lyles competing in the 200. Yes. I'm so excited now for the Olympics. I am too. I think they should have done that for every sport. Yeah. I love Sha'Carri so much. I want to have her on so bad. She'd be great. Do you love her? I do. I love her. And I'm excited to see her in the Olympics. But when she's doing media events, you're stressed out? Is that what you're about to say? No, no. I just also...

I'm going to be pegged as like anti-American probably by you. But...

I tend to do this. You know, I love the Romanian gymnasts as well. Sure, sure. I really like the Jamaicans, too. A lot. Of course. That's fine. It's not a betrayal at all to root for them because you're going back and forth from our training camps to their training camps. I know. And they're at like a, you know, rural high school kind of a track. And, you know. And they're the best. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so disproportionate how much they've won. And I love their runners, all of them. I'm rooting for them. Me too. I was really concerned about one of their diets, so I don't want to single any one of them out. But one of them was eating fried chicken and drinking wine. And I was just like, that cannot be turbo fuel for this. Wine while you're competing? No, it's working. Well, think how fast she'd be without that.

on like a very clean diet. That's a very limited opinion. It could be the key to her success. Also, I think what I took away, because I saw some other people eating food, some Americans,

And I was like, yeah, if you're working at that level, I think you just, they can do what they want. Well, they can do what they want and they definitely eat a ton of carbs. And there's even that scene where they're saying, people think we eat a lot of protein, but we eat so much carbs. But they're eating like big plates of pasta. You're right though, our great 200 meter sprinter, what's her name? Yeah.

Harvard grad. Yeah, Gabby. She's awesome. She's so good. Yeah, day of the race. Yeah, she had barbecue. She was eating ice cream. She was with her friends and she was out like pounding ice cream. I don't know, Monica. She should. Dax. Monica. Dax. Monica.

They know more than we do about... Or... No. Are they fallible humans? I'll tell you, because I can give you a point match set, which is when our 200 meter and 100 meter, our other guy who's also great, besides Noel Lyle, the big guy who was a football player from Texas. Oh, I loved him. I did too. I loved him so much. But his coach, when he lost, he had a really underwhelming performance. And his coach said...

Do you want gold bad enough to stop eating and drinking Red Bull? And I was like, yes, you can't be drinking. You can't get all wired on Red Bull and then expect your body to perform. You need water and macros. Listen, you think always talking about water and macros.

Noah Lyle is eating and drinking correctly. And it shows. No, I saw his plate. He's got a lot of carbs. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. But he looked like there was cheese. He's not eating a ton of sugar and wine and fried chicken. Let's just say that. We don't know that. Part of it is their age. The guy who has to stop eating candy. Yeah. He's a little older. Okay.

All the more reason. Well, yeah. So I do think maybe you hit an age where you do have to pay. Not I think. This is life, unfortunately. Everyone hits an age where they have to start paying attention a tiny bit more to what they're putting in their body. Yeah. But the others, I think, are young enough that they don't. Okay.

And it's really working. Sha'Carri, I did not realize, they reference in the show a lot that she's been through a lot. Well, yeah, because she got disqualified from the last Olympics for weed. I know. And I remember hearing that story, but I didn't put two and two together that it was her because I didn't watch sprinting last time. I didn't really pay much attention. Yeah. Because her biological mom had just died. And then I was like, what?

What is going on that we care about that? If anything is not a performance-enhancing drug, it's marijuana. I mean, they should let them... They should pay their competitors to smoke weed. I agree. And eat tons of candy and fried chicken and wine. No, that works. You never want your competitor to do that. I know. I felt like... I was so mad when I... I looked it up because you do learn in there she was disqualified, but you don't know what for. So I looked it up. Yeah.

And, you know, my worst fear was that it was going to be she was on some performance enhancing drug. But no, THC in her system? Get out of here. I know. Drives me nuts. I love her so much. And I kind of want to follow around and buffer life for her a little bit. I want to deal with the press for her. Yeah, I think she's grown a lot in how to handle the pressure.

I saw her on Vogue. Oh, you did? And she was great. Like, there's a little video on Vogue, and behind the scenes, she's getting ready for this shoot.

And she was talking to the makeup artist and she said, please make sure to match my color. Like, don't make me lighter. She was like, I'm a melanin girl. It was really cool. It was really cool. Oh, I love her. I love her so much. Oh, and by the way, they keep going to Felix in that show, which we interviewed. And I'm so mad we didn't get to interview her when she was pregnant because she looks so cute. Oh, my God. She looks so cute. And actually, OK, this is a ding, ding, ding.

And an Easter egg, we have someone coming up also in this world. Yes, yep. Incredible episode.

And after you were like, I raced Allison. And she said, was she pregnant? And we laughed. I think she might have been. Oh, no. Well, yeah, it's hard to know when this doc was filmed. Because we had Felix over a year ago. But this was World Championship time. That was a year ago. Maybe she was pregnant. Maybe I raced a pregnant woman. I know. What a terrible. How embarrassing. Yeah.

Also, just what a terrible idea. Don't challenge a pregnant woman. I know, what if she fell down? Oh, his grass. It would have been okay.

We're in the yard. Anyway, yeah, she looked so cute. I did, on our armchair, on a Stories, I reposted that episode. Felix's. Yeah, I was like, in case anyone's watching this show. Oh, right, right. I saw that. I saw that. I thought that was a very good idea. I know you don't care, but I posted the OCD expert Allegra's episode today. And I know you don't care, but just, mmm.

Outpouring of people saying, Moni, we love you exactly the way you are. Don't you dare be different. I'm here for all the updates on Hermes. That's nice. No, don't say that word. That's a bad word now. Hermes. I guess you could say Hermes because that's not correct. I'm going to buy some Hermes.

Well, we drove very far yesterday. Yesterday was a long day in the car. Molly told me. Oh, she did. Yeah. Yeah, we drove from Oslo to Den Hagen. And if you don't stop at seven hours, we stopped seven or eight times to pee. Ew. These, my kids, thank God I have a fucking vehicle with a toilet in it that we mostly travel in because they can't go anywhere.

Once they start, it's over. Yeah. It might be anxiety. Do you think now they're used to the bus toilet? So now it is like going to be impossible for them to ever hold it? I don't know, Monica. I'm very pessimistic. And when I'm driving, I just have you. I don't know. I don't know. I kind of just wish you could hear my internal monologue as a dad. Like I just go like, oh, my God, I got to tell him to stop drinking. You're not allowed to tell him to stop drinking.

You're just going to have to pull over. You got to get over it. Yeah, you're going to pull over every 20. You got to get your expectations right. Like just the racket in my head to not scream, oh my God, you guys have to fucking go more than 20 minutes. We're never going to get there. And then, of course, I am driving a hundred and kabillion miles an hour every time we're nonstop because I got to make up some time so we're not getting there at midnight. Yeah.

So when I'm on the road, I am balls to the walls. I'm past all these people. And then I pull over and then I say people again. Oh, it's such a racket. I think peeing is practice makes perfect. Cause you know, I never pee. And it's probably because I hate pulling over. It's like chicken or the egg. Well, I will say now I'm going to tell him myself. So the last time,

hour and a half of the trip, I had to pee so bad. Like all of a sudden it hit me. I was also exhausted. Everyone's asleep, but me. And I'm like pounding diet Cokes and cappuccinos. I'm trying to stay awake. I mean, we were gassed. It's a long trip. And I drank too many fluids. So for the last hour and a half, I had to pee, but you'd be goddamned if I was gonna pull over because they were sleeping. So this was my opportunity to put some road behind us.

Sure. So I would not stop. And then it got to the point where I was like, I was in considerable pain, but we were now 15 minutes from the hotel. So I just know I'm stopping just before then. Right. When we pulled up to the hotel, I ran into the hotel and a man said, are you checking? I said, bathroom. Like, like I, he had to have thought I was shitting my pants.

And I just made it. As I was undoing my slacks, the urine was coming. Boy, was it a close call. That's my update. Oh, there's a big update and I don't want to give it. What? I think I know what it is. You do? What's your guess? Does it have to do with what I read this morning? What did you read this morning? Your text. Your text to the connections group. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No, this is wild. We pull into a gas station.

My American credit card will not work at the pump itself. So I got to go in the station to pay. I hate that. Yeah. So I'm in the station to pay. We're in Sweden at this point and the whole family's in there and they're throwing crap on the counter. So I'm going to pay for all this stuff and then I'm going to have them put like 25 liters on the card and then I'm going to pump. And this older man comes in. He's probably 62 or three. He's a tall man.

he comes right up to me. First I notice he's staring at me through the window. Then he enters. Then he comes up to me and physically pokes me. Oh my God. Oh no. And I turn around and he's yelling at me in Swedish.

What? Yeah. It was so fucking wild. And so I turn and I go, I'm sorry, I only speak English. He continues to yell at me in Swedish. I don't know what the fuck's going on, right?

He's yelling at me for, I don't know, 30 seconds, but I turn and I'm now trying to just pay and put my, you know, then he walks outside. Then they're putting more crap on the counter. Then he's standing outside and he's throwing his arms in the air like this. He's like looking at me through the window and he's throwing his arms in the air and he's still muttering out there.

And I'm like, I'm starting to really get triggered. I don't like that he poked me a lot. It's starting to really build. Then I walk outside to go put the gas in the car. I now realize what's going on. His car is behind mine, and he's furious that I didn't pay at the pump. Now, what's important to know is there's three open pumps.

But also, what? Like, why is he mad you're not paying at the pump? Because I'm clearly breaking protocol. You shouldn't be going in and buying groceries before you've pumped. But I also had to go in to give my credit card, whatever. Yeah. So he gets between me and the pump. And then I kind of— This is very unsweetish. He does not have legumes. The whole thing was quite shocking.

So then when he gets between me and the pump as I'm walking, then I snap. And so then I go, hey, I was just going in to put my fucking... Now I'm swearing. Put my fucking card. Now I'm going to fucking pump gas. There's three other things. Now I'm swearing and I'm clearly quite angry. My nostrils are flared. Kristen's now coming out. She now sees that I'm like face to face with this guy and I'm... My voice raised. And he goes...

Oh, why are you so angry? So, of course, he speaks English. He did the whole time. Oh, my God. Now his wife comes out of the car, you know, and the kids are there. By the grace of God, a Swedish guy at the pump next to ours says, watch this entire thing. So he comes over and he starts talking to him in Swedish. And I can tell what he's saying. He's saying, you had to be in, you know...

And he says he's holds up three other pumps and he's pointing. So luckily this guy like intervening. He's defending you. He was. He was defending me.

And then I just like, I stepped out of the sitch and, um, and then I pumped my gas and then the dude who had intervened, he said, Hey, you guys have a great vacation. Like he was so nice. That really made up for everything. And then the wife is trying to get the guy back to his car. So we get in the car, we pull out, we're driving. I put music out, we're driving for about 10 minutes and then Lincoln goes. So.

So are we going to talk about the elephant in the car? And so I paused the music and I go, yeah, absolutely. If there's something you guys want to say, if I owe you an apology, let me know. And Lincoln goes, well, let's just say that could have gone smoother. And I started to...

Laughing so hard at that could have gone smoother. But then they started kind of let me have it mixed in with Chris and goes, look, I cannot. Can you guys understand for daddy's background, older men touching? He was probably triggered, but definitely you could have been a lot calmer. You did not need to do that with that guy. He wasn't in the, you know, but they're going on and on. Yeah, but he was yelling in your face.

Yeah. So I kind of like, I just kind of take it all. I'm quiet. I'm quiet. I'm quiet. And then I just snapped and I just broke. I go, um, also another option is that guy's a fucking bully. And I'm the first guy who stood up to him. Just, I got to throw that out there. That's also on the table. Yep.

That was stupid to say. I got some more. You did? I got some more feedback from all my ladies. And then I was smart enough to just keep driving, keep my mouth shut, and let them express. Because look.

The other reality is I know what it's like to have a dad who's getting in mix-ups with people at the gas station. But also, it's terrible for them. And I acknowledge it. It's very uncomfortable. It is. It is. And I hated it. I hated when my dad was getting into shit with people. But I was caught between this thing where it was like, I was so doing nothing. A guy poked me. Then he yelled at me. Then he got between me and the pump. It's like, how much...

Can I, you know, how much can I take? Well, I did say that to them. I go, you know, believe it or not, guys, I'm very sorry. I truly am sorry that made everyone uncomfortable. And you saw a huge improvement. Yeah, it sounds like it, actually. I'm kind of shocked as soon as he poked you that you didn't punch him.

And that would have been bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wasn't going to tell a story because, listen, that does not in any way encapsulate the fine people of Sweden. That was clearly a one-off dude. And then really I think the more Swedish thing was the gentleman who intervened. But that happened in the middle of the nine-hour journey. And then I was pretty rattled. I was more rattled than I would like to be over that.

And I think Kristen's right. That stuff really does, it's stepdad land. Yeah, but you have old stuff there, but that...

Would bother anyone. If you're just doing your thing appropriately, you didn't do anything. You had to go in there. Right. And then you're getting screamed at in another language, touched. No, no one, no one. No one likes that. Including her or them would feel comfortable. Well, if he had done that to Kristen, he would have been on his back. That was the blessing maybe is that he didn't yell at Mike.

Girls are my wife. Because then it would have escalated terribly. Yeah. Anyways, that was an unfortunate part of the trip. Yeah. I feel like that update was necessary. For me with you, it's only a problem if you're inserting yourself into

Right. Into something. Which I do a lot. Yeah, yeah. Like on the airplane. Right. And it's like, that's unnecessary because now this escalated like crazy. Yeah, yeah. And that did not need to happen. But this doesn't sound like that. It's funny too, because I had five more hours to think about that interaction while everyone was sleeping, I was driving.

I had enough time to think like, wow, what was going on with him? There was something about me, which also funneled into whatever thing he's got. He must have looked at me and I'm huge and I have tattoos and

And maybe in his mind, he's like, these fucking big bullies do whatever they want. They're not conscientious for anybody but them just plowing through. Like he made up a whole story about me probably from how I looked. And maybe he was like, we're not taking it anymore. I don't know what went on in his mind, but clearly I really activated something in him. To walk in a store and poke me is fucking kind of nuts. Unless that's really common in Sweden. I don't know. Like people have a different...

Comfort level with being poked by strangers? Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Can I tell you the best part of that car ride? I decided I really wanted my children to hear Ki Kwan's story. And I don't think, we've never listened to an episode of the podcast. And so the first hour and a half of the ride, we listened to Ki's story and

And man, that whole car was crying. They loved it so much. Those little girls, they were really touched by it. It was so sweet. I wanted them to hear how hard it can be and like how much gratitude he has and how much gratitude we should all have. It's such a fucking beautiful episode. It is. It really is. I love it. Did you hear nice things? I got texted by a few people about it. Yeah. No.

Yeah, no. Okay, one more thing before, and we're running out of time, but okay, something crazy happened. Oh, wow. Yeah. I love, that's a great start to a story. I was reading my book in a public location. I look over and there's a mom with her daughter and she's being...

so horrible to her. Ooh. The mom is being horrible to the daughter. She's like, I already have such a bad headache and you're making it so much worse. And this kid is like seven or eight looking. Yeah. And I'm kind of just like looking at the side of my...

Doing some Monica Padman eye rolls and side stares. Yeah, I'm sure there were rolling and I didn't notice. But then, you know, the daughter is upset, obviously, and is sort of like slinking away. And the mom's like, you better not go too far.

And then I don't know what the daughter said. She said something. And then the mom was like, he just went to the bathroom. He'll be right back. So that, and I was like, Oh, the dad, the dad is here. Thank God. Yeah. Uh, and then the dad comes, the dad looks so sweaty. Ooh. Um, yeah. You had a growler in the toilet maybe? Yeah. Something was happening with him. Okay. He, so he took the daughter's hand and then they like walked over to the mom. And then all of a sudden I hear the mom, she's like,

standing on my toes. Wait, we're back up. Who said that? What member of the family? The mom said stop standing on my toes. To the daughter. Okay. And then the daughter was like, why? And then I was like, oh, this is how, like now that girl's going to go to school, she's going to be mean because she has a bad situation. I was telling a friend this and they were like, I would have said something. And I was like, no, you can't. Can you?

Oh, man. I don't think you can, even though... Well, really, in a weird way, you can't because it will not alter who they are at all. They're not going to go home with this great tidbit you gave them and change their parenting. They're just going to get embarrassed in front of their kid, and then they're going to act even crazier, and then the kid will be uncomfortable. Yeah, but I've had those thoughts, like I want to say something. Because my inclination in those situations is...

I want to let the kid know you're right to think this is inappropriate. Like, yeah, that's really my impulses. Like, I want to say to the kid, hey, I'm so sorry you're dealing with this and know that you don't deserve to be treated like this. That's almost I mean, no one should you really shouldn't intervene at all. But if you're going to, I think that's more the move than even saying anything to the parent. I don't think you can say anything to parents unless you see like physical abuse. And then even then, I think you like have to just call someone.

Yeah, that's rough. There's nothing worse than seeing that. I will say, though, life's changed. Growing up, I used to see kids get yanked around and smacked in public and like really manhandled.

At least you don't see that too much anymore. So I guess it's improving. In another age, this was normal. It's just weird now. It's so weird to see. And then it makes you feel like if this woman's doing this in public. I also have noticed there's like. In LA. There's like everything. There seems to be like a cultural aspect to this where I've witnessed this where like I'm in another state and I'm visiting people.

And the whole friendship group has this story that their kids are so annoying. Oh, they're so fucking annoying. And they're, you know, they're like, once that seal's broken and everyone, that's their kind of thing. They're like, oh, I hope they just fucking go off in the field and blah, blah, blah. I think it can be culture. I think it's really sticky and contagious. Yeah. And I'm seeing like.

Whole groups of people that that's their kind of opinion. Yikes. Anyway, I feel it was shitty. I feel really bad for her. Also, she probably was annoying. Yeah. Well, kids are annoying. Yeah, exactly. That has to be your expectation. Exactly. They're going to want to pee every fucking eight miles. Correct. Okay. There's a couple facts.

This is for Woody and Ted. I loved this. Yeah, this was very fun. I really loved it. I like that Woody Harrelson a lot. I already love Papa Ted, obviously. But Woody and I have only had two interactions in life. One was on his podcast and now he on ours. And I really find him intriguing.

Yeah, me too. We were wondering if Ted was in our first or second year of this show. It was the week of September 24th, 2018. So first year. Okay. Seven months in. That's weird. The timeline at the beginning is much different than the timeline later. Yeah. Because I felt like I was trying to get him on for a very long time. But no. Seven months. Seven months.

So in case people were wondering, Woody had said that Bush initiated the war simply to bolster the oil companies, the weapons industry, and a presidency that was at the time sagging. That was the comment he made that got him in trouble? Really shows how things have changed. Yeah. I mean, it's like nothing. I thought it was really kind of like the feeling I had when I was learning all this stuff about Spielberg. I thought it was really...

admirable that they went to him after Ted was leaving and they were like, you can be the new guy. And he was like, no, there's no Cheers without him. Yeah. That was really nice. Yeah. He also, though, was on, I mean, yes, I'm not taking that away, but he was also on fire as a leading man actor in movies at that point. I know, but I think he believes that. I do too. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm just saying he also, even if I imagine even if Ted wanted to stick around, Woody would have been happy to go on his way. Cause he was such a movie star at that point. Yeah. He,

He's so fucking good. I don't know if we put too fine a point on that in the episode. Oh, he's so good. The range of people he's played and every one of them is so interesting and unique and different. God, is he? It's and when if you met him at a bar and you had no awareness of him, he does not read as someone that is that hyper talented because he's so fucking laid back. He doesn't appear to care about anything. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And yet he's that talented.

hyper talented it's really so good mix messies i love it mix messies uh i love you okay bye i love you