cover of episode Peter Dinklage on House Of The Dragon vs Game Of Thrones & Being The Famous Dwarf Ever

Peter Dinklage on House Of The Dragon vs Game Of Thrones & Being The Famous Dwarf Ever

2024/8/7
logo of podcast Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh

Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh

Chapters

Peter Dinklage discusses his unique fashion choices during his youth, including capes and top hats, and how they reflected his personality. He also touches on his early acting experiences and the challenges of being typecast as a dwarf.
  • Peter Dinklage wore capes and top hats in his youth.
  • He was in a ska band where he played the trumpet.
  • He lived in Williamsburg in the 90s.

Shownotes Transcript

Do a lot of dwarves have beards? Shut the f*** up. No, I'm kidding. I was kidding. You're dealing with a real one right now. Octogenarian men, to be exact. Those are old guys. Okay. I knew that worked. We're leveling it up. I'll bring it down. I'll bring the book. Please. Your life is Game of Thrones. This show is House of Dragons. Williamsburg was crazy in the 90s. It was just affordable. It was all the...

It's all the... The Curlies were there. The Globals were there. Wow. Right? Sure. And HBO was really worried about Game of Thrones. They were just like, dragons? We do like the wire and... But it was mafia. With great risk comes great reward. Do you have people in the dwarf community reaching out?

Insane. Listen, bro. In the tree hollow? I didn't say what I meant, B! Hold on, let me call them. It's really small. What's up, everybody? Welcome to Flagrant. Today, I am incredibly excited. Maybe the most excited I've ever been to do an episode of Flagrant. Okay, we have an illustrious guest. I think the first time that I met him, I said...

season two of a specific show, his character was the greatest season that a character's ever had in the history of television. I think that's what I said. Whoa. Yeah. And then he said, can you leave me alone, please? I don't think that second part was true. We have Peter Dinklage here! Let's go! Let's go!

Now, we also have... Is that the bear horn sound? Yes. The special effects are high here. We also have Elliot with us, guys. Elliot. Oh, what's up, Elliot? The fearless director of Peter's new movie, um...

Andrew Shooks' new film. No, no, this is your guy. We call it a film, not a movie. Okay, my bad. Highbrow. I need to be higherbrow. You do. How do I do? You can pluck. Can you teach me how to be more sophisticated when I talk about cinema? Cinema. There you go. Now you've got a fresh new way of it. It's rubbing off on me. Yes, yes. Okay, we're very excited to have you because you barely do podcasts. You don't do anything.

I don't do anything. Outside of just being part of like, you know, huge movie franchises and TV shows, sorry, film. Yeah. You know, when researching you, there's like three things on the internet. Yeah, right. You have a Marc Maron. You have an address that you gave your college. That was the highlight, yeah. That's awesome. Very cool. That's really awesome. Very cool. That was very cool. And it was like about...

20 years after I graduated, I guess, and the school hasn't lost its beauty. And the kids, they look so young. Yes. We think we're adults at that age and they just look like children. Yes. So that just means we're all old. But that's good that you think they look like children because sometimes in Hollywood...

But you were like, they're too young. They're so young. Look how young they are. I would never think that I'm their appropriate age. 21, yeah. Where is your dorm room? Yeah, no, that was a highlight.

But I do things. I do things. I do this. I do things. This is rare. You got to do things. You got to sell the cars. But the more you do things, though, I drink a lot of coffee. You know, you pour the wine. You start talking your mouth off, especially with friends. Yes. And you just get in trouble. This is, yeah. So actors should, because it's taken out of context. Yeah.

It's taken and used for somebody else's agenda. Yes. Anything hot button. So we won't talk about anything hot button. If you talk about what you had for breakfast. That's all we're going to do. I dare anybody to turn it into their own agenda. Yes, I agree. But they will. They will. They will. Now, you did have a good opinion about the Olympic opening ceremony. Yes.

I did not see it, but I heard Gaga was great and Celine. I heard it rained. It did rain. But literally, I didn't even know the Olympics were happening. Oh, no way. I've been upstate. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Hey, I'm a patriot. We're a globalist. Wait a minute. A globalist? What is that? Part of the Hollywood agenda? What does it mean when you're pro the world? Humans. Humans? That's scary. What about the animals? I love animals. That seems, yeah. All of them? What about the aliens in the universe?

No, not all of them. Yeah. No, there's a few. Yeah, I feel like there's a few. There's just a few. Are we talking about the animals or the humans? The animals. Can we just rank the humans? No, no. Let's get the movie canceled before it comes out. Badgers are assholes. Can you swear on this? Of course. You have to. Whatever you are. Badgers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you can really do whatever you want here. Really? Yeah. Elliot will do that. Elliot, we're going to have to keep Elliot buttoned up. Clothes on. Yes. Dude, Elliot has a piece on him. Did you know that? He has a what on him? He's got a real... A tool? He's got a weapon. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He showed it to us when we were out in Calgary. When you were casting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When that's when you got the part. I'm just kidding.

I thought I got it on my merit. He was like, let's compare foreskin. You got the part, then got the part. That's how it goes. That is 100% true. Do you have foreskin? No, I don't. But he doesn't either. He's a huge Jew. That's not just the domain of the Jews. There's some other people that have it. Catholics. I don't think Catholics have to do it. We did back in the day.

Yeah. Mark is Catholic. Yeah, I'm Catholic. I was raised very Catholic and I'm still, you know, just wrapped up. It's like my third version of birth control. You know what I mean? You just tie it off at the end and you're good. That's real. No condoms. Double done. Condoms, foreskin, abstinence. No pregnancy skills. Fantastic. Extra. Yeah.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

No, no, dude, hold on. This is, I'll set you back a couple of years because it's, you know, we're not going through much when you're, we're going through puberty anyway. No, so it doesn't matter. Yeah. And just guys who are really jacked up. Yeah. No, I mean, it was a really, I, my mom gets so mad at me when I just, you know, and cause she's like, we, it was private. We paid for it. Uh, it was really a beautiful, lucky place to be. But, um,

No, when you're that age, you don't really understand that. You understand, like, nobody understands me, and I'm going to start smoking cigarettes and hang out with, like, the Judd Nelson and the Breakfast Club crowd. Okay, now, I'm glad you brought up the Judd Nelson Breakfast Club crowd, because in doing my research, you said this.

That you would wear... About Judd Nelson. No, no. Not Judd. First time I've ever brought up Judd Nelson in conversation, I think. But I think Judd inspired that you would wear cakes. Judd Hirsch inspired, I think. I don't know. You're mixing your Judds. You're too sophisticated for me right now. I don't even know. I don't know. He still calls them movies. Like, you gotta dumb it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Judd Hirsch...

Okay. No, capes. You said you would wear capes. Yeah. Yeah. Black velvet capes. Okay. A lot of black. Jesus, I haven't changed. A lot of black capes. Yeah. Combat boots. Okay. Mullets.

Which just was the thing. What's the reasoning? What's going on here psychologically? What are you trying to do? See, that's exactly why I wore the capes, because of people like you. Because you're trying to get underneath me and never understand it. No, I think it's protection. It's a shield. It's hiding. Were you sassy with it? Like, would you ever, like... Did I fart? Every time I exited the room. No, no, no.

I did rock a beret. Oh, my dad had the beret. Berets were popping. He still wears a beret. I put away my beret. I tried to wear it to school once. Yeah. Raspberry beret made it a thing. A lot of Jersey kids were wearing berets after that song came out. But you also used to wear top hats. Yeah, I had a little top hat phase going. Yeah, but I was just trying to get laid. Yeah, because top hat would get

I think it would start a conversation. By a certain someone. Yeah, yeah. Men. With monocles. What you hiding in there? Are you a top? I'm a top.

Men. Octogenarian men, to be exact. Those are old guys, okay? I knew that word. I knew that word. That's 80s. Did you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 80s, yeah. We're leveling it up. I'll bring it down. I'll bring the book down. Please! Danglish! Thank God, dude. I'll say movies, not films. I'll say magazines, not books. Please. Listen, listen. You're...

life is Game of Thrones, this show is House of Dragons. You just have to be a dumbass. That's not fair. That's not fair. Unfair of him. We all saw season 8 of Game of Thrones. You never watch Game of Thrones, man. I always love getting that. You were on Game of Thrones. I've never seen it. Yeah, we're...

Just identifying me. I haven't, you know what? Are you the most identifiable human being on the planet? Yes. It's funny. The problem with this is coffee gets... Here, just use Mark. Yes, use Mark. Yes.

I mean, this is not fooling anybody, but sunglasses and a hat. I can't know everything. Why are you fucking trying? I really did have a moment, though. When we used to, we got out of, me and my family got out of Chelsea when Game of Thrones was really hitting and we had to move out. So we moved to Brooklyn where everybody's just a bit calmer. But I was walking up 10th Avenue towards our old apartment and

I was being harassed a little bit. You know, people mean well, but and Leonardo DiCaprio walked right by me in a baseball cap and sunglasses. And he just went, give me a little. And I was like, God, they don't even know this because they're not looking for Leo. They just see me. But, you know, no big deal. Nine times, 99.9 percent of people.

80% of the time. They mean well. And the other 20%, you just want to give them a lecture. It is a funny thing because in terms of, like, you're on the biggest show ever, and then in terms of recognizability, they're going to hit. Like, immediately they're locking it in.

Well, they're confused why you're there. Like we're on the street or in a, getting a coffee or something. They're just trying to, they're, they, again, they mean, we don't know what gender they are. They're just, thank you. They're just, um, um, they're just, uh, uh, confused. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They don't get it. Also, I think when you watch someone, this is different where film is different from television. Uh,

I remember watching The Wire when I was younger, and those people were... That was their real life. They weren't actors to me. Right. Well, yeah, that show was incredible. But I think the same thing happened with Game of Thrones. It was like, oh, this is the world that I'm just a voyeur in. And then you see somebody just walking their dog or getting coffee, and it's like, yeah, that doesn't make sense at all. Where aren't you riding a dragon? And you were also so good in that show. And to his point, we spend years...

years getting to know you as Tyrion. Yeah, that's the thing. It's a familiarity unlike a movie. It's a familiarity. I just have to point out before we met, I thought Tyrion was this ingenious character that you concocted. And then we hung out one night and partied. And I was like, I don't even know if he's acting. I was like, this guy is fucking getting after it, dude. What happened?

I always wanted to read the book and see if like you just made him you no it wasn't me Dave and Dan are writers yeah just they're so good um they're so good

Yeah, I haven't watched House of Dragons because I feel like what—I don't know. I just spent so many years doing that show. Yeah, it's a little close. I'm watching other things now. It's maybe one day, but it is wild. I miss that show, but it's like I miss the life of it more because it's nine years. It's just such a thing. It's such a big chunk of your life, which is rare. I will say the difference is—because I'm obviously a huge fan of Game of Thrones, and I've been a fan of House of Dragons—

I think what some Hollywood execs thought is the reason people like Game of Thrones is the dragons. And I don't think they realized that it was like exquisite writing. Yeah. And it was. You hear it. It's like I love Breaking Bad because those guys are so good. But you hear that crispy like Vince Gilligan writing. You're like, this is how people talk. But it's so good.

Dense. Every sentence had weight. And it's not just like...

It's not like you read some scripts and you're like, there's so many scenes where it's just somebody asks a question, somebody answers it. And it's just so sort of dead. Meaningless, yeah. It's just, that's not how people talk. Yeah. Wait, what do you mean by that? It's not how people talk? No, no, no. You're not supposed to ask, you know, it's not how people talk in life. Yeah. They talk over each other. They do fits and spurts of poetry and like they forget their chain of thought. Yeah. It's a really...

So sometimes dialogue is... Great writers know that. Yeah. And then the one... It's fucking hard. Yeah. To make it look natural. But like, that's the thing. It's... Who was I? Oh. John Goodman. I heard a... I think it was a podcast. There we go. John Goodman talking about that. Like the Coen brothers. Yeah.

You feel so good and so fresh, you feel like those guys are just improv-ing. But no, it's written every line they're just faithful to. Yeah. And you say Breaking Bad. You go outside the lines and it's like, it falls apart if it's a really good script. You know? The thread, the sweater will become unthreaded and you'll lose it. But you stick to those lines. I remember watching Game of Thrones, like there was certain lines that

I remember almost like rap lyrics. The chaos is a ladder. I drink and I know things. Or a t-shirt. But they become t-shirts, which...

obviously we're going to commodify everything. This is like America. Yes. They haven't heard thought of that before. Yeah. And, but it's so impactful. Like, okay, this is it. And that's what I was going to say. Like breaking bad, maybe the best show ever. I love it. But there's, I remember I am the danger. I remember that one thing. I'm the one who knocks. I'm the one who knocks. Yeah. It's amazing. Or come on. It's a game of Thrones. You get a few of those every season. Like a few of those chaos of the ladder. Like you said, these things, Holy shit. That's going to stick with me. It's all good, man.

I fancy myself a little smart, but I was like, oh God, why didn't I put that together? Yeah, that is perfection. The light tour, the last leg. This is it.

Atlantic City, we've added a second show on August 24th. Then we got San Antonio. We added a second show. Then we have Las Vegas, September 13th. That's the Sphere weekend. We're all going out to Vegas for the Sphere. On Friday, we're coming to the Life Tour in Vegas. And on Saturday, we're going to UFC, the Sphere. Then we got Cleveland and Columbus. Then we have Minneapolis. Then we have Milwaukee. Denver, we've added a third show. That's going to be October 16th through the 17th. We added a third show.

October 18th, Cincinnati, we've added a second show. Rama, Ontario, we're up there. Then Salt Lake City, we've added a second show. Reno, Nevada, we have two shows. San Jose, we've added a second show. Portland, and then Honolulu, Hawaii. And then the Life Tour is over. So if you want a chance to check out the Life Tour, this is the craziest tour I've ever done. This is the tour that brought all of my dreams.

Made all of them come true. Actually, you guys actually made all of them come true. But I think it is by far my best work and it is the work that I'm most proud of ever.

I would love if you guys come and check it out. These are your opportunities to check it out before it is over. Theandrewsouls.com. Do not get hit over the head by the scalpers. I will see you guys out there. Peace. What's up, guys? It's date time. This is important. I'm going to start doing a monthly show at New York Comedy Club. People in New York don't even realize I live here. They keep asking when I'm going to come. I'm going to do about 20, 30 minutes at this show once a month along with some friends. I'm going to do a big chunk of time at New York Comedy Club. First show is August 14th.

New York Comedy Club. Also, August 29th and 30th, I'm going to be in Honolulu, Hawaii. September 6th and 7th, I'm going to be in Vegas. September 12th and 13th, I'm going to be in Doral, Florida. The 19th and 20th, I'm going to be in Timonium, Maryland, which I'm pretty sure is outside of Baltimore, but I don't really know. 28th, Greensville, South Carolina. And we are going to have more dates coming at you guys. Go to akashsingh.com for those. Also, if you want the best guy in the city...

go to my brother's Jai shop that I have also invested in, Fontainhas, that's F-O-N-T-A-I-N-H-A-S. Go there, check it out, Best Jai in the City, or I'll give you your goddamn money back. Let's get back to the show. I won't give you your money back, probably, but I'll think about it. Let's talk. When the idea of playing the role comes up, is it, do you not even care that it's fantasy? Are you just looking at it? Were you familiar with the books? Genre has nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it. Sadly, though, sometimes genre, um...

I don't know. I mean, I was raised in the 80s where it was like before Lord of the Rings, you had like just like B movies. The fantasy was like B movies. Yeah. Beastmaster and like they weren't so expensive to make. It's hard to, you know, to make it look good. Yeah. No fault of any filmmaker was struggling to make those things. But, you know, then.

I guess probably I fell in love with sci-fi because of Star Wars and Blade Runner and the ones that were done really well. Yeah. But fantasy was always sort of like, really? Yeah. I mean, we had Jim Henson, like Dark Crystal, which was really cool when I was a kid. But everybody sort of shied away from it because it was a certain thing and it wasn't elevated enough. Yeah.

So Star Wars... And they were worried. HBO was really worried about Game of Thrones. Yeah. They were like... There was a few people who really believed in it, and Dave and Dan, especially in their writing, but...

Because of that, I think they were just like dragons. But we do like the wire and suppression. Yeah. That's so not what, but they, but it was the risk. As with great risk comes great reward. Yes. And every day. And I wish people did it more because then we have, you know, knockoffs and sequels and it's like, I'm missing that risk. So that you think that's what's happening right now with film. Yeah. Oh my God. There's a concern about risk. Yes. Yes.

But I think being inundated by all these remakes and stuff that are sort of flopping at the box office, they just are like, but aren't you learning a lesson because of that? No. It's really hard. And I wouldn't begin to know how to run a studio. But I think you've already spent some money developing these scripts. We're already at the gate.

Just unlocks the gate and let us run. And if we mess up, we mess up, but we might not. And it might be great. Yeah. But, uh, I, I just don't understand, you know, that reasoning, that reasoning. I was talking to a guy, uh, and who's in the business. And, uh, he was saying, uh,

that the studio model is there's a guy who works there who might be in love with film. Like he truly might love it and that's why he ended up getting the job. But his job is to put out eight movies a year. Right. That's the job. Like a quota. A quota of movies. And whenever you have a quota, like if you're a cop with a quota, you're going to arrest some, you know. Wait, what are you pointing at? What? Why are you pointing at that? I was pointing at that. I was pointing at that. Yeah, yeah. You look like a burnout. I wasn't pointing at that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should be the, like go on the dating game.

Bachelor number one. Yeah, we kind of, we're doing it all right here on this couch. How long do you spend washing your hair? Five minutes. Three hours. Three hours. Um,

We really should. We should just go out tonight, the three of us. Yeah. We'll just see what happens. Yeah. Because we're going to attract three very different types of people. We're girls just thrown in at you like crazy? No. When?

Come on, Wayne. Game of Thrones? I'm out of here. Come on. There had to be something. Game of Thrones, even if you're married, whatever, it must present itself. Just the presentation. Thank God I already had kids when Thrones was hitting. Shout out to your wife, incredibly talented, lovely lady. Amazing writer, director. Back to the girls throwing it at you. That you reject. It's a weird thing because when fame comes a little later...

it's it's you're just like okay great it's happening but then you're maybe you're sort of know how to navigate it better but i i'm the personality which um probably should have had more fun when i was younger but those young people who are getting that full like all right let's say men who are famous at a young age who are having the opposite sex or the same sex throwing themselves at them

How would you ever trust that? How do you trust that? You're not falling for me. You're falling for this idea of I'm not that. So it's very, and I'm sure a lot of young people can speak much more eloquently than I can about it because they're living through it as we speak.

But yeah, that would be, and I'd see the young people on Thrones, which is huge. We'd go to Spain and, you know, there'd be people in the lobby like, hello, what do you want to do? And it was just like, wow, that must be very...

I wonder if you start to resent... It was like being a heavy metal musician in the 80s. Right. Like Motley Crue. It was like our version of that and what those guys must have just had experienced. Sorry, if we can backtrack a little bit. You've probably spoken about this, but if you can indulge us. When you get the script for Game of Thrones, when you read Tyrion's character as the first season is being filmed, what are you thinking? Are you thinking like, this is what I've been waiting for? I've never really gotten a role like this before.

I'm sure you get a lot of bullshit roles and stuff that you're like, this is the same fucking thing I always get. Then you get this guy, Tyrion, who's so complex, so smart, so layered. Are you like, I get to flex now? And then are you like, this is going to be it? Yeah, yeah. First, no. Yes, I get to flex, but I'm sort of maybe cynical about

if something feels that good, it's not going to work. Nobody's going to buy this. And the first season we didn't have any money truly. I mean, it's all relative. We had some money, um,

But even at the end, if you visit our base camp, our trailers were the same as they were in the first season. It was really... And I think that's what made the spirit of all of us come together so well. And the crew, we roughed it, man. You really would never know. Our salaries got higher as it went along, but the conditions were kind of great, like an indie movie almost. I mean, the sets were extraordinary and the costumes were extraordinary. That didn't feel indie, but...

The vibe did. And I think that's what really, um, but to answer your question, no, I was kind of cynical. Like this is great. That's nobody's going to go for it. It's weird. After the first season, do they, did they start expanding your role? Do you think that they saw something special and. They, they, I don't know if they, you start expanding it, but they definitely started the, what happens in TV. They start to write for the actor. Um, they gear it to your strengths and, and challenge your weaknesses. Um,

You know? Oh, like, so what did they try to challenge for you? Oh, shit. I set myself up. Yeah. My ability to act good. No, I told them, you know, I knew David Benioff a little bit and I got to know Dan, thankfully, who now are two of my close friends. Um,

Um, we were also the only Americans on that show. Um, I mean, some of the producers were American, but I was the only American cast member. Momoa is American. He was on for the first season. That was a fun, fun season. Um, um,

So we sort of just got, like, houses and everybody else would sort of commute back and forth to London. So the three of us sort of spent a lot of time together. Right. Being, like, sort of missing our families and being, you know, Americans abroad. But they definitely started, you could feel them warming up and making your, you sort of become synonymous. So they start to understand you and how you're going to play this character. Yeah. And then they ride towards that. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, they all had, they had the long story.

the long game in their mind the whole time. The map of the whole thing was exquisite. But yeah, I just wanted to not be a fantasy dwarf. I wanted to like, not to be crass, but I wanted to have a dick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's so like, that's like, you know, when clinically what you are is, has become sort of,

by the fantasy world as a term for somebody who's not human. Yeah, yeah. Like a gnome or an ogre or whatever else. There's a fairy, pixie, leprechaun, elf, everything. Dwarf. No, no, that one's real. That one's actually a thing. There's no gnomes in the world, but that's a thing. But therefore, when you do that...

You're clipping your balls. You've got all kinds of fantastical things. Dragons, unicorns, dwarves. Yeah. You're just clipped. And I was like, I can't be clipped, guys. I can't be clipped. Akash has a... And they do that with not just people my size. That's what I'm saying. They do that with...

nationality. We've got to be careful. Who do they do? Throughout the time. We're not talking about what we were talking about before. Every slave movie has black people in it for some bloody reason. What are we going to do with that? What are we going to do with that? Why do all slave owners always

I've got to be white. What's that about? It's negative stereotypes, dude. Oh my God. Yeah. There's a, I thought it was, I thought it was pretty cool as I was looking at all the things that you've done. It again, I don't know. I don't know when you first started, like maybe getting into it, there's certain things you have to do, but it seemed like you made a, uh,

a choice not to play any of those roles that you would probably get offered. Oh, I got offered. Oh, I can imagine. Yeah, early days. Now they know better. So we're not going to send that to Pete. Yeah, he'll be upset. No, no, I'll just quit now. Most people that want to be an actor...

Let me, let me rephrase that. Most people want to be famous and they want to be famous through acting. We'll grab at it. Yeah. It's the difference. And it's a culture we're living in. A lot of kids are asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? And they say fame. It's without the, without the, well, what's the substance of the fame? Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, it's hard because everybody, everybody's, you know, unique coming at it from their unique angle. And, uh, I can only speak from my angle on what I wanted to do. And, uh,

I think it's more to do with the people you surround yourself with, the people you're lucky to find along the way. Like I call it the tribe. Like, you know, you, you get a, we've become friends with really good writers, really good directors. And you start to do that together because we're nothing without each other. Yeah. We can't act in a, act in a vacuum. Yeah. It's a collaboration. So that's, you sort of hook your wagon to talent. Yeah.

And hopefully friendships. And they're usually the same thing. Do you have people in the...

dwarf community reaching out and saying... Listen, bro. In the tree hollow? I didn't say where they lived. I didn't say where they lived, Pete. Hold on. Let me call them. It's really small. That's dwarvish. What did you say? That's dwarvish for... Somebody page me?

You guys remember pagers? I'm not asking. You think we're on a fucking group chat or something? Yeah, I had a real thoughtful question, Mark. I'm sure there are. I'm just not on those group chats. No, no, no, not on any social media. You know that your fake Instagram account has four and a half million followers? No way. I met that person once at a press conference in...

Barcelona, maybe. You believed them when they said that they ran it? No, I was. And he's a really young guy. And I went, oh. I didn't know how to process it because he was like, isn't that great? I'm that guy. I'm really trying to. He was like, it was like he was being altruistic, like helping me or something. And I went, no, no, no, no, no. I'm trying to not do. You can do what you want to do. Just be kind and don't took pictures of my kids. And I just went right for that. Yeah. I admonished him for that. And he was so kind of.

It was hard to argue with him because he was really sweet and young and he never did since. I checked a couple of times just to make sure he wasn't and he didn't. You can't do that, man. Leave the kids out of that. That's...

Off limits. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah, the kids... There's a couple things that are off limits, and everybody instinctually should know those things as humans. Yeah, but the desire for attention makes you often look the other way. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah, I know. At what age did you... Yeah.

But it's strange when people set those up. It's more attention for me than them. So is it? I don't... What's the reasoning? They couch it. They get to see the numbers go up. They still get the gamified dopamine hit from the platform. Right, right, right. So anything more shocking, get more, I guess. Yeah, especially if they don't have kids. If they're young, then they're just like, oh yeah, it's just content. You know, my cousin posts their kids. Like, why can't... Yeah, and we're also living in a culture where people are posing on magazine covers with their newborn babies. Yeah. I actually worry about that. Like...

I have. I just had a daughter. Woohoo! I know. It's fucking awesome. It's the coolest thing ever. I did not know that, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, God, the best. Yeah, it's the fucking coolest thing ever. I thought you guys were good friends. How do you not keep up with this guy at all? I mainly ask him the questions. So I know a lot about what's going on. You've got to follow his fake account. Yeah, I'm going to send you the fake account. It's great. I wore capes too, but you never fucking asked me. Yeah.

No, but it's one of those things where it's like, it's the coolest thing I've ever created in my entire life. My wife and I, she did most of the creating. For sure. Big God complex. Don't they have it? It's great just making life. But at the same time,

I feel like, okay, right now she could look like any baby, but once she starts to look like just her, I'm like, okay, I don't think she can ever be on social media, at least not mine. I don't want anybody to recognize her. But it's also this thing that I'm so proud of. They become their own person too. And they're not doing this anymore. They're eye rolling you. Okay. So that's, I'm a little bit terrified of that too. Are you at the point where the kids are going, Hey, I need my own time, dad.

Like you're bothering your dad. I did it to them. I have to go film a movie again. I mean, the greatest thing is they do, they're their own person. Yeah. And your parent will tell you the same thing. It's like, it's then, it's not overnight, it's gradual and they're always their own person. And you just, yeah. How old are you? You can't take the credit anymore. The credit sort of fades away. And then, and then.

Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. How old are you? How old are you? 12 and six. 12 and six. Oh, you 12 is like real human. Yeah. Yeah. She sure is. Ideas, opinions. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Telling you how the world is. Yep. Yep. What is something she told you? What is something she told you? It's great. Shakespeare's overrated. It's just great to just be, just have enlightening conversations with your kid. But what was she saying?

Oh, God. I mean, you know, Taylor Swift. I can tell you anything about Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is, let's talk about culturally Taylor Swift. Because I'm in it. I'm in it deep in anybody with kids. Not in, what? That's all right. Talk about that thing. Culturally.

Anybody with a tween can tell you the same thing. Taylor Swift is huge. I mean, she's everywhere. Get out of here. But I think, and I'm like, I think she's fantastic. But I also go, but what about Nirvana? What about the Beatles? What about this? What about that? But it's like Taylor all the way. And my son loves Nirvana. And I'm like, thank God. And we blast Nirvana in the car when we're together. But when you're not around...

Taylor Swift. Yeah. But it's, and I think it's like, oh my God, it's what people were like with like the Beatles, what the old parents were like, what's that? Yeah. What is that stuff? It's all the time. We're hearing the Beatles and it's,

but she's really something. How about politically? Have you guys had any, because she's- I had no point. I just wanted to bring up Taylor Swift. You want tickets to the show? Yeah. Did you go see her? Have you taken her? No. I saw Olivia Rodrigo though, which was fantastic. Oh yeah, she's awesome. Yeah, she's really good. And they're really good. They're so good. Yeah. And they've sort of, you know, broken through to, you know, pop music can be a little bit bubble gum and they've like put some real genius behind it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, you're not super, super... Shit, I'm starting to sweat. Because I bring up cultural icons and I'm saying the right thing. I love their music. I really do. And I listen to it all the time. Whose music sucks? Overrated on the radio. We want to know whose music sucks, Pete. Not Nirvana, obviously.

Who is long gone? What about the Wizzy? That caveman who was hitting the rock? He really did. But no, but there's like a very famous ska band that was popping up in Jersey back in the day.

Yeah, there was. Hugely famous. Hugely famous. The Wizzy? The Wizzy. Are you familiar with them at all? Very familiar. Very familiar? The Wizzy. I like their earlier stuff. Yeah, their earlier stuff was good. They kind of fell off for me a little. Yeah, what was it? What do you think happened? I don't know. I heard you go. I heard just they went through different ways.

I heard it was drugs and capes. It's a lot of... I had a huge addiction. Is this the least known fact about you, that you were one of the lead singers of a ska band? We were rapping. We tried to be the Beastie Boys. Rap, ska, everything. But you were playing... Trumpet. Come on, dude. Which, at one gig, because we were so drunk, somebody sat on it. I don't know how you can sit on a trumpet and completely bend the...

I still played it. I had one gig where I just got kicked in the head. I still have a scar here. Blood was everywhere. Jesus. By a bandmate? Yeah. Accidentally, of course. But the thing about bands back then is they don't last long because you don't have roadies. And somebody always... There was...

Like our drummer, Jim, had a truck. Okay. So it was, if you have a truck, we got to load the equipment in your truck, Jim.

And then, you know, you start to, people get a little bit like, you know, Jim maybe wants to hang out afterward and not load up the truck. And we, there's the one girl that came to the show. And you all share. Oh, God. No, no, no, no. It was the 90s. It was the 90s. Yeah. No, you want to, you don't want, so you just sort of, you start to really get at each other. Yeah. And then the, the, um.

the band's mission statement isn't fulfilled. Some of us want to be actors. Some of us want to be not in Wizzy for a long time. And it's just the nature of it. And I'm just, you know, Did you ever think about getting the band back together? Well, surprise. Come on. Yeah. I've lost touch with those guys, except for, for Jim, the drummer. Yeah. Yeah.

We had a lot of fun. They're great, great, great bunch of people. We just were young. Yeah. Yeah. And not musicians. That's a huge. No, that's not true. A couple of them were real good musicians.

and i wasn't would you write the songs co-write the lyrics yeah oh yeah and did you release anything i feel so old right now oh yeah i wrote those whizzy lyrics uh we really didn't release them this is the time of cassettes there's a demo on youtube right now really your demos are on youtube oh cool yeah nice nice that was fun no it was fun we just got free drinks and

You know, it was a couple of years of my life. Wow. Were you living in Williamsburg at the time doing that? I was. I was living in Williamsburg. Dude, you lived in Williamsburg at the time that it was the most dangerous city in America almost. A lot of us in the 90s graduate school. You move down to Manhattan. You don't even think of Brooklyn. I lived on Ludlow Street. Oh, where we saw it. Yeah. The smallest apartment. Yeah.

And then you move to Williamsburg because you couldn't afford Manhattan. And as soon as you get a little scratch, you move back into Manhattan. And then you get a little fame and you get the fuck out of Manhattan and move back to Brooklyn. Like we live in downtown Brooklyn now. Because there's really good schools and people sort of genuinely leave you alone a little bit more. Williamsburg was crazy in the 90s or what? It was just affordable and a little empty. Yeah.

I think New York, I've never been... It was all the... All the globalists. The globalists, yeah. The Curleys were there. The globalists were there. Wow. Right? Sure. Calm down, English. You can talk. Don't get it started. I get to talking about the dwarves. You can talk about... Our domain is this and this. Don't get me riled up again. Um...

Yes. No, it's just because we couldn't have... It was cheap. It was cheap. They say they aren't. No. I'm not going to... We're not. Elliot's here. Elliot is here. That is hateful. I know. Wow, dude. Very, very... Elliot's a very religious guy. Yes. Elliot's... Elliot is a very... Your fearless director is a very religious guy. I know. He kept Shabbat when we were at the... Yeah, I know. At the film. Yeah. Yeah, we were eating Chinese food. I still don't know what Shabbat is. Yes.

Yeah, what is Shabbat? Elliot, what is Shabbat? Shabbat is actually the most important festival in Judaism. Can you talk into the mic, please? Why don't you help your brother? We're like segregated over here. It's called a ghetto. I mean, I'm all over. All right, guys, let's take a break for a second. Let me solve a huge problem, hangovers. Are you ready? Yes.

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I'm just, they just got to figure it out. I would check them out right now. Check out symbiotica. I'm sure they'll have something that you can indulge in and you get that discount. Now let's get back to the show. Why did you end up going with Elliot to make the thickets? Why did you, what? Why did you, why can you stop doing it again? You're doing it again. I, I, uh, Elliot, uh,

You want the origin story of the thicket. I like origin stories. Just to let everybody know, Dinklage and Elliot have made this beautiful film, The Thicket, that they were generous enough to put me in. And I got this haircut that the internet loved for about a year. They really were complimentary about it. They said super kind things. And it was really awesome. Yeah. You're really great in the film. You're very kind. He plays a pimp, kind of. Oh.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look at that. Kelly said you were great too. Off camera. So it's real. No way. Yeah. Okay. And it's drama. No, wait a second. We have to talk about how hard you worked.

I did. I did work hard. How hard did I work? I actually have to say. No, I did work hard. Wait, but how? This is actually working. Wait, what was I doing? No, we, you know, I was amazed. You really dived in. It was like some real fucking alleviation. Aw, thanks. No, you,

I wanted to maybe save this, but what I found remarkable was you really took it seriously. You took the work seriously. Yeah, it was cool. Five fucking days we were on the phone and you were like committed and you did it. And I remember, I think you were sitting here, you did like 15, 20 takes. It's hard. Acting's hard. I'm not good at it. And I was like, I don't want to, you know. Not true. No, actually. I mean, it is.

It's hard. You're not good at it. But you're good at it. No, you're really good at it. Because here's the thing about comedy. Comedy is drama twice.

So in order for you to get where you needed to get to, it was almost a very natural thing. The thing that was fascinating about watching you work was your movement. Is this too serious? No, I love this. That felt more natural because I did get to hit a woman. Were you method for that one? Sorry, babe.

I didn't know this was a fantasy movie. What's going on? No, no, no. Go on, Elliot. Why did you add that scene? That wasn't there. And then on the day, were you going through something at home? I knew you'd connect. I knew you'd connect.

I thought, no, I was really, I wasn't surprised. Okay. But what I found was interesting with you was, you know, you were doing stunts. You did fight sequences. What? Yeah, the fight stuff was really cool. The fight stuff was really cool. He never tells us anything. Here's the other thing that he got lucky with. And they have to come together quick on that. Look how gay he's being right now, picking at his hands. You know how lucky he got? He was the only actor that got a scene in sight.

He literally had 90% of his scenes inside and we're out there is minus 35 degrees, which was unbelievable. Oh yeah. But, um, you took direction really well. You didn't argue. You rift, which was, you know, no, you guys were cool. It was awesome. I thought it was really fun. And, uh, I thought it looked beautiful. Obviously, you know, you sent me the film and just like, it looks so amazing. And, uh,

I'm very proud of it. We worked really hard on it. The guy who wrote the book that this is based on is very excited about it. Joe Lansdale, yeah. He's been helping us out with the promotion. I see. I mean, he's hyped. That's always great. Because adaptations of books are a very hard thing to do. They have to be separate entities. And if you're too faithful to it, what's the point? So we sort of...

Took some liberties. Yeah, we had a great writer, Chris, and he just sort of changed some things around. Yeah. You know, you have to. Otherwise, just read the book. Right. You're going to be that faithful. That's an interesting take. Most people are like, oh, this wasn't authentic to the book. But that is a good point. If you want exactly the book...

Read the book. Well, I would argue that people want to see the book come to life. Yeah, sure. Get it distilled, get that essence of it, the spirit of it, but then take liberties, I think. They did that with Thrones. I mean, those things were...

you know those books yeah yeah you know and harry potter yeah yeah harry potter you have to pick and choose as a true fan yeah those are really faithful i read those to my kids now they left a lot out just you needed to for time right right right but i feel like they they definitely cast exactly what oh yeah which is i mean i'm all for movie making obviously but sometimes

It's a shame because the imagination of who you think, you just think of those actors now. And now with the Game of Thrones, you think of the actors. So it's hard to read a book after you see the movie. But no, the big thing was in the book, and one of our other producers years ago had the inspired idea to make the villain a woman. Because in the book, it's a man, a cutthroat bill.

And we changed it to a woman. And I think that opened it up so much. Yeah. Let's just make it more realistic. Yeah. As a villain. Yeah. But you made her ugly. Well, it's hard with Juliette Lewis, but it was really. And you mean that seriously. I just want to point out because they were going to think you were being sarcastic. She's beautiful. And you were being genuine. She's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. But even now that you're looking at me like this. No.

You made a thing. Why did you make a thing? I didn't make a thing. I didn't think I was being real there. Did I do that? Yeah. I started that? You're a dick. No, I think it's just because otherwise it's like the all scene thing. It's the dick.

He just turns into a bat and flies away. Oh, you ought to hit the cape. I still do that without the cape. Get him a cape. We made the character, the villain, into a woman played by Julia, the brilliant and beautiful Julia Lewis. And I think that sort of was inspired. And Chris, our guy who wrote the screenplay, ran with that and it made it so much better than like,

The outlaw gang. It was really guy-heavy, our film, as we all can attest to. And you don't want the women in the Westerns just to be victims, which they are so much. We're inundated by that. We're the long-suffering wife, and it's not just the domain of Westerns. So it made it really richer because it's not, when is this guy going to try and rape this young woman? It's sort of like she came at it with a real maternal instinct

like sick and like protective. And it was really great. It got so much, so much deeper level. Yeah. She was almost like a parasite to their youth. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Otherwise it's just sort of,

But I like that you guys are showcasing stories where women are bad. Yeah, I think that's what's fun about this. That's my point. Exactly, like men are the heroes and they save the day for these awful women. And I think those stories are really important to get out there right now. You know what I mean, Elliot? You misogynist. I mean, that was always going to be the real intention of the film. I like how you snuck that in there. Is it that subtle? Yeah.

I haven't done my job, have I? No, no, no. Elliot is obviously a champion of women. He directed rap videos for years. Why don't you tell us something? LAUGHTER

Wow, it's all making sense now. You see? Yeah. Girls, girls, girls as well. You guys, people think I'm being sarcastic, but like all the music videos that we watched growing up, Elliot directed. Okay, just give us the bangers. Oh, Method Man and Red Man. The Rock Wilder. I did Shine.

Wait, which one? Shine. Shine. Shine Barrow. That's gangster. That's gangster. That's gangster. So there's this guy, Shine Barrow. He's Jewish now. How did Shine slip my... No, no, you'll know this. What year are we talking? 2000. I'm going to tell you the story. It all makes sense. Shine is this rapper that's come out. He's a Bolivian guy. It's coming out. He was there at the nightclub when Sean P. Diddy Combs... Yeah. Yeah.

allegedly shot an adversary in a nightclub while he was dating J-Lo in New York City. Shine ends up taking the blame, probably done by the lawyers of Sean P. Diddy Combs, gets extradited, I believe, to Belize. Oh, he's not Belizean, he's Belizean. So basically, Sean's, like, P. Diddy's team of lawyers...

Puts the whole thing on. And I love Sean, dude. I thought he was going to be that guy. When it was really Diddy that actually did it. And now we know Diddy is like a horrible human being that you fraternize with. I was in that club that week. So what happened was we were scouting a video of...

for a rapper called Black Rob. Yeah, of course. You did Woe? We did Woe. Get the fuck out of here. I was really sad because, you know. These are iconic moments. You really should have had one in the thicket. Like a rap or something. Just something like, I guess you were the closest to it. In terms of like the rap videos. Because he's a pimp. Is that what you're trying to say? I'm not making that generalization. Jesus Christ. We were in the club that week and, uh,

And I remember we had to, we went and met J-Lo and Diddy together. And he wasn't very nice to her. Wait a minute. Diddy wasn't nice to J-Lo? I will. There was a, I, there was a guy called. Can I understand this? You're saying Diddy.

Was mistreating the woman he was with? We were shocked. I can't believe this. I know. What was he doing, though? Well, we did this big pun. So anyway, we really had a hard time calculating the script and the nuance of the thicket. We can guard it. Give us the Diddy drama. Cheers. Cheers, Pete. There was a rapper called Big Pun who did that. Yeah, of course, obviously. Anyway, so he died.

And we did a tribute video. And the tribute video we shot in the Bronx and then we shot in Los Angeles and everybody was in it, like Noriega, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott. We're all in this house in Bel-Air and Diddy walks in with J-Lo. Actually, hi, whatever. He's always very sweet to begin with. And then he goes to the top of the stairs and I'm just watching this argument take place.

And I hear out of the corner of my ear, don't you fucking embarrass me. And I look up, I'm like, what? And she literally goes, why? And is like, sort of looks down at the floor and he's staring at her and she goes, okay, but can we have meatloaf from Kate Mantonelli's afterwards? So that's what it takes. Wow.

Wow. Yeah, but he was heavy. He was heavy. I mean, when we did Woe, you know, what would happen is everybody would come out from the block. There'd be like 300, 400 guys screaming. And it was very hard. You know, not that they were out of control, but it's 300 or 400 people up in Spanish Harlem.

And he didn't have... Terrifying. Absolutely fucking terrifying. Good Jewish boy from London. You see three to four hundred black and Puerto Ricans. What is your knee-jerk reaction? He got invited to the block party. What do you do in that moment? He asked me for a monitor and a milkshake.

And then I couldn't get it to work. Where's my buttertop? Where's my milkshake? And I'm standing there. Where's my mother? I'm standing there and I'm looking at him. It's like 2 a.m. in the morning. And then I'm like, I'm so sorry. So I step off. And he had a guy who worked with him. I'm not sure if I can say his name. But the guy came up and he just said, we don't like how you sound.

And I'm just like, what do you mean? He goes, you're a long way from home. And I was like, well, what do you mean by that? He was just like, you better be careful. And I made sure I always carried a milkshake with me. Every video I did. Except with Jay-Z, I never had to carry a milkshake with me. What was the video you did with Jay? I did Girls, Girls, Girls. How was Jay? I truly...

couldn't believe how professional he was and gracious and he had it down we you know at the time it was the day before 9-11 we shot that video the day before 9-11 wow but what were you doing on fucking 9-11 i mean he wasn't in the dows isn't that interesting he got the memo no he said what he said he goes what was 9-11

He was great. He made a speech afterwards. I said to him the day after, I said... On 9-10, he was like, something crazy is about to happen. The blueprint coming out. Something's in the air. Literally. We can't do this. He made a speech. What did he say? I said, listen, you're Mr. Fucking New York. You've got to talk. And he got up and he said, this is a tragedy and it's a terrible thing. It was kind of... I was really...

that he did it, but he felt he needed to do it. And then we started talking about British gangster movies. And then I said, he goes, well, what are you doing next? I'm going off to Hawaii. He goes, why are you going to Hawaii? I said, I'm going to dive with sharks. He goes, man, that's dangerous. And I'm like...

Wait a second. You just did a fucking double album with R. Kelly. Don't talk to me about that. Elliot, how do you become, how does like a Jewish guy from London become the go-to director for the iconic music videos?

I don't know. Of our child? I really don't. I actually don't know how it happened. Was there one that was so amazing that everybody else started calling? I worked with Sonsy Gold. I think it was because I worked with Sonsy Gold. Sonsy Gold. And she was very, very cool. And everybody was like, oh, you're watching me. So she was the tastemaker.

Santee Gold as the tastemaker. And then Jessica Simpson. Wait, what'd you do with Jessica Simpson? I did her biggest video. Which was? I did this song called With You. And as soon as Method Man and Red Men saw the Jessica Simpson video, like, that's our guy. And this is when music videos were. That's when they meant something. They were movies. Yeah. And there was an MTV that showed videos. How were Meth and Red?

So I did this video called DeRoc Wilder. Classic song. So how were they? They were fantastic. But we were shooting up on this big...

sort of uh sort of runway it was about 50 feet up and i said and we there was no safety for them and we had this big sort of styrofoam egg and they were getting they were drinking and having a good time and i said to i said to red man i said listen do me a favor just slow down just for a half an hour stop just slow down on the booze so

They get up there, roll camera, action, literally comes out, chugs a bottle of Henny, and you see at the beginning of the video, throws a bottle of Henny. And yeah, that was a highlight of the night. And then we had, in the video, they jump on a car and there's pyrotechnics that go everywhere. Wait, you've got it right here.

Oh, wow. Oh, so. So, oh, this little thing drops off 50 feet on each side. There's no safety. Oh, wow. Method Man was so cool, though. Yeah, both of them were the fucking shit. Just like the slag. Just go, if you can, go to the, there's a bit where they jump on a car.

I mean, this is crazy. So I knock on the door and I say, listen, we've got to do pyrotechnics. You know, you've got to talk to the actor or the performer. Like, we're about, there you go. It's about here. So I said to them, just slow down.

And then Reg says, I'm on mushrooms. And I said, I'm going to put you on a car and you're tripping your tits off. And you'll see the expression on his face. He literally doesn't know where he is. When he's on the car? Yeah, when he jumps on the car. I mean, they're really, I mean, they are so off their fucking heads. But what a great environment to be shooting in. My son came. Yeah, he was happy. Explosions going off. There you go. Oh, this is crazy. Off the test. But they were great.

Okay. Maybe the pirate isn't worth it. That's so much fun. I never know. Black dudes were doing mushrooms back in the day. Yeah, they really were ahead of their time. Yeah, progressive. Because black psychedelics, I don't think, hit until kind of recently. Yeah. I mean, Jimi Hendrix, yeah. But then you didn't hop on the wave. Yeah. White people really like... Jimi, you guys kind of clicked. How the hell did we get Jimi?

I don't know. Played the one national anthem where like, that's a paintbrush. And then Black people were like, fuck that. You know what it was? Honestly? Guitar. Electric guitar. Oh yeah. That wasn't, Black people weren't doing electric guitar. They didn't care as much. And Woodstock. He was. Yeah. Hendrix being white at Woodstock. Yeah. A lot of white people at Woodstock. Yeah. Is that true? Yeah. That's where they were making them for a while. Is that?

There were mostly white people at Woodstock? What the fuck is going on? Where were you guys? I mean, DMX came. We almost took it over. We're talking about 69. 69, you guys were like fighting for rights or something like that? What were you guys doing? Did you say DMX? DMX would go missing. Wait, did you have a DMX story? We did. So on Girls, Girls, Girls...

DMX had gone missing for three weeks and he popped up on our set and we had to stop shooting because the person from the record label, I said, listen, come on, why do I want to keep shooting? She's just like, no, they haven't seen each other for a long time. It was like he was Attila the Hun or something like that, meeting his lost, lost son or something like that. But yeah, he came in, disappeared, grabbed Naomi Campbell and that was it. Wait, he was...

That's fire. Are you saying DMX was having an amorous relationship with Naomi Cameron? I can say that they were both there at the same time and then they weren't. That's all I can say. Could have gotten away with anything on set of the thing. Yeah, no cameras. What were we thinking, dude? We were so well behaved. We really were. I mean, we were just such... We were really just kind gentlemen. We were just cold. It was cold, Elliot. I'm sorry. Why didn't we shoot it in...

Yeah, Texas. I mean, it was an interesting choice because the book is East Texas. I didn't gear it back to the thicket. I was just making a joke. I would like to talk about this. We can talk about your scene. I have to pee. Excuse me. He has to pee. I would like to talk about it because when I'm reading this book, it's East Texas? Yeah. East Texas. Yeah, that's where it comes from. Yeah. Okay. And then where we filmed it is Calgary in February. That is the coldest part of Canada. Yeah.

It's beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. Very cold. Very cold. We were going to shoot it right before the pandemic in Spain and like the desert, more deserty locations. I mean, that would have been lovely. Yeah. Right. So lovely. We could have a nice, what is a good Spanish wine reference? We could have a Rioja. Siesta. Oh, siesta.

A prostitute. Beautiful prostitute. What does that mean? What? I don't know what that means. I think it is a protest. I think we could protest for something. Different type of grape. I think it's a different type of grape. But I'm so glad you went cold.

Because you know what it is with cold movies. No whores. It's really, you got to get cozy with it. My trailer is warmer than yours. Come on over. Is that the move? I totally didn't know that. You got to heat her up. But it looks, snow looks so pretty. You can make a mediocre movie. You set it in snow and it's gorgeous. It's stunning. It really is. Every movie. Like this movie is beautiful. Because snow...

I don't know what it is, what it does. It's just unique for us. The second you see it, you want to go outside. Blood looks really good on snow. Horses in the snow. They shot the Revenant. Same exact place. Right by the parking lot. I remember watching, I'm not going to sit there. Anyway, so I remember seeing, he was talking about how hard it was to find the locations and it was like, it was brutal and they went all over the world and they found it. Anyway, so the location come to find and we said, we go and they go, this is where they shot the

the Revenant. And I was like, this is incredible. And I was imagining, was it really that difficult? And there was a parking lot literally five feet away. And I was just imagining how difficult that day must have been. Like, we found our location. The most beautiful location. Next to a parking lot. Yeah. Leo getting just thrashed by a bear. Yeah. Was that thrashing? What did you think it was? There was a lot of conversation. I thought he was getting fucked by the bear. Okay, so there was a lot of conversation about that. That's not how you have...

Dragging around. I mean, you're getting me riled up. You keep on getting me riled up. He's a popcorn. We've talked about it. Yeah, I'm on my back. A popcorn? Yeah, a popcorn. What is that? You don't know what a popcorn is? No, I'm on my back. I'm not going to show you, but I'll show. Popcorn. Yeah.

Like you burst into it. No, no, I don't burp, but I just, I hit a little pop pop. Like I'm on my back, but I just, you know, every once in a while I let her know I'm still here. A little Orville Redenbacher. Exactly. Yeah, just because once she forgets or she thinks that this is just her world, then I just remind her, no, it's my world.

Why, is that your game? Are you a back? Are you a popcorn? I don't know the terms. Are you more revenant? Missionary. No, the cape style. The whizzy. 1986. You don't know about the 1986 move. Bringing the cape into the bedroom is fire, dude. No. Never? No, that is just the death of...

anything attractive or sexual. Yeah, but just as like a finishing move. What about a top hat? That's crazy.

Top hat is great. Something to just rest your elbow on. You've done this before. This has happened a lot. You can put it over the girl's head, depending who she is. You know what I mean? I'm just saying. Never, Mark. How is that too far? You guys get to get away with this stuff. I'm your guest. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. It's his camouflage shirts. What is he looking at on there? You don't want to know.

It's moves, crazy moves. By the way, these were big in the 80s, the jean shorts. Oh, yeah, they're coming back. Did you wear jean shorts? No, because I had respect for my... They don't make them in black. That's the problem. Yeah, if they were velvet, Peter would be like, all right, we'll look it. All right, guys, let's take a break for a second. Listen, you know, summer, summer, unfortunately, summer is coming to an end. You know what that means?

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What were you going to tell us? We have to give respect to Calgary, I think. Oh, talk to her. Because we were talking about finding this location. And I think we found a great place. What just happened right there? I was boring myself. Oh, did you? Okay. Ellie, were you happy with Calgary? I really liked Calgary. I thought the people were amazing. Chad, thank you.

Yeah, Chad was wonderful. You know what it is about going to a place like Calgary? It's they're so... Stop it. Stop it. No, no. If you shouldn't LA or New York, there's so much to do. What the people...

That does make it hard. I just love it. He can't even be in promo mode. It's just so beautiful. He's like, I think we should give credit to what's the safest thing? Calgary. He's a great actor, but no one is that good. He played the most iconic character in TV history. Hey, can you promote this film? Calgary's

cold that's why I don't really do these things there was one benefit though because everybody on the crew was a hunter

Yes. So we would have like elk. Yeah. I don't eat meat though. No, literally. It was so cool. You work in New York and it's like, what did you do this weekend? I went to a bar. I got, I hooked up with somebody on Tinder or whatever. I don't know what kind of set that is, but you go to Calgary. What'd you do this weekend? Hunted elk. Yes. And this is like the hair makeup thing.

Oh. And you're like, wait, what? What did you say? Yeah, look at this video. I know what we can talk about. It's such big country. Yes. And it's so fun. Yes. And that's, and they are, we're, we were the only show in town. My point was we were the only show in town. So we got the greatest crew. Yeah.

And sometimes when you go to other cities where you're not the only show in town and you're an indie movie. Nobody cares. You just get, you know, you get some people who aren't the best at what they do. All due respect, but we got the best at what they do. Now, I will say about this film, one thing that was very surprising. The transpo team, these are the people that drive you around. The trans team, yeah. Yeah.

Are you gonna do it again? Hey, hey, are you gonna fucking rile me up right now the trans team which we call the trends? That's what you heard. They run Hollywood Yeah, they do they do run Hollywood and for whatever reason a little bit faster than regular I do do that sometimes but it's always him. He just he what did he do?

He was using the term. He was using the actual term. Don't bring the cape out. Don't you disappear. Don't you disappear. Don't you disappear. Not you, Peter. The transpo team, all women.

And what did that do for you? I didn't know that they could drive stick. I didn't know. What about the popcorn? I didn't popcorn any of them. I was having honest conversations with them. So where are you from? Calgary. No, no, no. But my favorite thing about Calgary, Calgary is like the Texas of Canada. So we would get in that car. They'd be all polite. And then...

And then, like, you know, I would just kind of, like, be asking some questions. You know what I mean? And within, like, a few minutes, they were like, that COVID. Get out! No, no. They would do the COVID was a hoax. They were like, I'm not getting faxed. And I was like, these are my people. I found my people in the transport team in Calgary. Oh, wow. So that is a positive. Yeah. You're too trans. Yeah.

I remember once in Gun Thrones, we had a driver. I forget which country. We're not in Belfast because we had our crew there, but we're somewhere weird, remote. And there was a, she would speak in tongues and she would be driving and she'd go, and it wasn't Tourette's. It was like, she was like, I'm just contacting my higher spirit. No way. Going like 60 kilometers an hour. She's like, excuse me, what? It was wild. Did you inquire?

Yeah. About this at all with Ben Hoffman? It was a talk. Yeah, it was wild. Because then you go, who's going to pick my family up at the airport? Not this person. The witch. You hired a witch. Yeah. Yeah. That was a wild thing. That's pretty crazy. I guess what we're trying to say is that women can drive.

If they're possessed by a man. Yes. That's kind of what you were getting at, isn't it? Damn it, Mark! Mark, what are you doing right now? Come back! Don't!

Don't lie! Pete, don't lie! I thought that's what you were going to say. Pete, we need you here. Pete, we need you here. Okay? Oh my God. Okay, listen, this movie, can we get into promo mode? We have to actually try to... I thought I did a really good job. So, Calgary. And you just went...

Women drivers. They were good at driving. They got us there every single time. I want to ask about the Wichita. Do you believe in ghosts? You think ghosts are real or no?

Can I tell you something about Mark? Do you guys see the thick sense? You should delete him out. I'm in camo. I'm in camo. I'm halfway gone. You can barely see me. Where's the top half of you? The bottom half is just weird 80s jean shorts.

We're so Catholic, so I'm asking. He believes in demons 100%. So it's against the law for us. Yeah. He believes in them. Oh, really? No, he's like... Wiccan? The opposite. The exact opposite. Isn't your sister Wiccan? Nah, she just does drugs. Oh, okay.

sent to my mom so he is 100% sincere in believing in demons I've never seen a demon they're out there they just have skin and they wear suits oh damn wait a minute did you get invited to like a Weinstein hotel or something what did he offer you there's more than one Weinstein out there that's good come on give us the good stuff

countries falling apart okay um no back to the wiccan yeah yeah but i've never seen a demon but in my in my brain i'm like they still might be out there like like sometimes like i'll see something move in the room like a shadow i'm like hold on what the fuck

This is genuine sincerity. When's the last time you took acid? No, I never did acid. Oh, you've never done acid? No, I look like it. It's too much organic shit going through you. Like too much natural living. Yeah, I think so. I'm just raw dogging the world too hard. Right, right, right, right. Sorority is like a high in and of itself. Have you done acid? What? Have you dabbled in the psychedelics?

Um, everybody has their twenties. I mean, the twenties were crazy. So you have seen a ghost. See, I'm not fucking crazy. No, I never saw a ghost. Did you ever have any like, uh, crazy hallucinations during this, this wild time in the twenties? In the 1920s. In the 1920s. Yeah. During this wild time. Half life. Early 1900s. There were all these flapper girls. Yeah. I mean, the economy was booming. I was wearing spats. Um, um,

No, I just like listening to music and seeing some colors and, you know. Pink Floyd is awesome. You're wondering when it's going to, because when you have a certain amount of anxiety like me, you wonder, okay, when is it going to be over now? I really don't want it to, I want it to be over now. I'm good. Did you have bad trips? No, no, but just like, okay. It's enough. Yeah, enough already. We're done. It's lasting too long. I'm a control freak. Yeah.

Yeah. That's why I don't do drugs anymore because that. Yeah. They just stick around. It's like a guest that won't leave. Yes. You know, that's all. Yeah. And I guess microdosing is what everybody's doing now. I don't even. What's the point? Back in the day, we macrodosed. This is the best drug. It's not, though.

it is it destroys families lives uh profession honestly it really kind of might be the worst that's a good point I'm so glad you didn't indulge your stupid fucking idiotic thing no one's ever killed a family I mean it's kind of been proven Andrew that it's the worst

But, cha-ching. Bro, I thought I had one right there. I thought I was really on it. Cost-benefit analysis, but you're right. I put nicotine above it. Mark's on the nicotine. Everybody smoked back in the day. Camel lights. Do you know the zins? Do you know what the zins are? No. Magazines? Stop. Oh, that's zine. The zins are these little pouches people put under their lips. You haven't seen this?

That's called chewing tobacco. Can you show us? Actually, David, can you ask David? I've had one in my mouth for 30 seconds and then I had diarrhea for three days. The problem is weight loss. It is a diarrhea. It's hard to make an Indian have diarrhea. Wow. That's true. It is nearly impossible to make. He's built for hard shit. I'm built for semi-soft shit.

Would you ever do Hot Ones? Yeah, absolutely. That show. But I feel a lot of pressure. Like, if Alex played in, like, a charity basketball game, I would have the same. Oh.

Yeah, you gotta show up. You gotta show up. Same level of like, God, who is the one actress? Jenna Ortega just bodied that whole shit. I would feel like I would have to go with that hammer. She did really well on that one. Is it weird to bring up another show on your show? Not at all. The one funny thing about that, I mean, actually, I fucking hate you. We're beating. We have a public beef. I remember when I was on that show.

The one thing about that show that's so interesting is that like... It's a great premise. Better than this one. I don't know. What is the premise here? What is the premise? The premise is saying really offensive things. Racist wigs with even racist answers. Be an asshole. America! USA! Yay, because we're in such good shape right now. The show is... You know, we had a Civil War once. We did. Didn't it work out? Well...

Don't we think? What were you about to say? The Jew... No, no, no. The show is, I think...

I think the guy is overshadowed by the show. I think the interviewer is actually excellent. Is that why you're trying so hard? No. To be bigger than your show? I just need chicken. We need chicken. We need another thing. I've been trying to say that. We need another thing. I think the interviewer is fantastic. I think people think it's about the chicken, and it's not. He just asks really good questions. It's like it's not about the dragons.

It's not about the chicken. Circling back. Circling back. Circling back. And they're trying to sell the show without him. But nobody wants to buy it without him because the show is really about him. I want to do that show. I think he's fantastic. I think you'd be great on that show. I think you're fantastic. You didn't have to compare. Okay. But the fact that you said that, it meant a lot. Yeah. Let's compare. Would you do that show?

Would I eat chicken in front of people? Yes. As a white man? You're going to make me eat? So those 90s videos. What else am I going to do? Do you want me to sit there and eat watermelon as a white man? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who asked you to do that? What the hell? Ken Speedy suggested racist things to me as a white man. Oh, did he? He did. That's crazy. You know what's funny? He wanted me to play basketball as a white man. He wanted me to eat chicken.

don't do it jacket potatoes when i'm not irish all right that's better that's it yeah you know what scared me down anyway elliot tried to make it less racist by going we had a chicken incident on a rat video what happened with snoop talk wait what did snoop my brother he's not your brother you know what we did a big throne is he your brother

Hey, I'm honorary. I'm sorry. I'm going to say it right now. Wait, do you get to say that special word? Fuck off, man. Chicken? But I want to love. That's your boy. No, just, yeah. He just respects you. No, it's just love. Yeah.

I'm not going to go into your guys' personal relationship. I feel like it's something between you guys, and I don't want to pry. Then we're going to respect that. We are going to respect that. That's for y'all. Hey, LA, can you tell us your chicken and black people story? Go, go, LA.

I can tell you about Snoop Dogg and the politics of chicken. Any way you say it, it was very specific. The politics of chicken. We were doing a video for the Eastsiders from the LBC, and the entourage showed up. It was about 250 people. Hungry.

Well, this was a thing. How do you... Come on, Pete. This was a thing. Pete, come on. Pete, I need you to hold it together, okay? My publicist... Micah! We're cutting out all the racist stuff. It's going to be a 10-minute episode. So there was a service and a catering truck that was going to fill it up. Anyway, so the production assistant, Snoop, is like...

I need some chicken. Come on, dude. He didn't say it like that. I need some... I need? I would like some chicken. Anyway, so... How do you ask, Snoop? What do you say? Please. Please.

- Please, can I have some chicken? - No, but when you have a six year old, with your friends, when they go, "Hey, give me that." Instinctually I go, you think, "How do you ask?" You can't say it. And now I'm programmed to go, "How do you ask, dude?" - Yeah, you say that shit. - That's actually good. How do you ask, dude? How do you ask for chicken?

Anyway. It wasn't what it was. I mean, the production assistant was like, Snoop would like some, because he speaks about himself in the third person, Snoop Dogg would like some chicken. And the production assistant said, well, there's a KFC around the corner. Peter doesn't like that, the third person. You don't like the third person? You guys invented the third person. So anyways. The English.

Nobody else was third-personing. That's fair. So Snoop, it's like a needle on a record just stopped, and he said, no KFC. It has to be Popeye's. I could have told you that. I mean, the PA didn't know.

No, I respect that move. KFC's gentrified Popeyes. Is it really? I don't want that white-ass chicken. I quite like KFC. You would. The famous bowl is fabulous. I mean, it's got everything. What does it have? Ten yeast corn, mashed potatoes, gravy. That's Mark's hot ones. It's just KFC wings. Yeah, I mean, if I want to go crazy, I'll get down a gallon of milk probably with it. It'd be fun. I would do that. Alex, you can probably speak on this.

From a place of expertise. Absolutely. You would prioritize Popeyes over KFC. Definitely. And then what is the most elite chicken? Oh, come on. Scos.

What? Roscoe's. Oh, we don't have that out here. What do you have out here? Church's? Popeye's is probably on taco. But Roscoe's is only just the one, right? There's a couple in LA. How many are there now? There's a couple in LA. Altadena. Oh, wow. And Pico. God, that mac and cheese, man. Yeah. It's a good...

But you don't eat meat. I don't. I do now. You know why? Because of Thrones. Like, it needs more promotion. I started eating fish and chicken again on that show. Why? Vegetarian. You see. Not see. Sorry. Because vegetarian in Croatia. Is impossible. Yeah. You cannot do it. Yeah. Really tired on set. And I was like.

You know, my dad, my dad and I fished together and I missed fish. And so, and you're right on the seaside there. So you got to get after it. And I said, I'll have a tuna steak. And it was just, that was it. But I don't eat the cow or the pork or that stuff. Really? Yeah. Not since I was 16. What about the poultry? Last hamburger I had was McDonald's cheeseburger drive-thru when I was 16.

And I met a girl who was like this willowy vegetarian writer from the neighboring all-girls school. Nothing ever happened because I was wearing my cloak. And I was like, whoa, that's so cool. Vegetarian? What is that? And then me and my brother, Jersey, went through a drive-thru, ordered McDonald's. I started eating a cheeseburger and I went, oh, I'm going to be a vegetarian.

After this. After I finish this McDonald's cheeseburger. You got to go into rehab high. Yeah. And that was like 50 years ago. Did you get the attention of the girl? Did she acknowledge your sacrifice? I actually met her years and years later about...

15 years ago and she said oh i was just i was a vegetarian for like six weeks and i went ah it was like a lifetime for me dude but thank you i had a friend that did this in college he like met a girl fell in love miles is right here just say his name no not him and uh meets this girl she's like very like into like activism and stuff right in order to like you guys have the same hair

No, no, no, no. He was like clean cut, like Mormon looking guy. Different types of that. Talk about the girl. Oh, yeah. The girl also had clean cut, like shaved head. Yeah, lesbian. And in order to like get... This is where the story's going. He like kind of leaves her. That's where he got the jean shorts.

But he ends up losing her and they stop dating. In order to win her back, he becomes vegan. And then that's not enough. He ends up joining the Peace Corps and lives in South Central Africa for four years. When you do that, the women are really attracted to all that. And doesn't ever win her back.

Oh, God. Meets another girl while he's in Africa. Started stalking her and was like, why aren't you? They never react well to that stalking. Yeah, right? So he met a girl in Africa? Yeah.

why are you laughing i'm not gonna say anything you said it makes it seem like it's gonna be racial it's not racial at all it could be a cultural thing where in africa in lesotho no way yeah it's a small country inside of a country known as south africa oh wow yeah okay cool south africa correct but it's a country within south africa it's kind of weird and what's the deal

She's just a nice girl. Nice woman. Just digging diamonds. Nope. That's not okay. Hang on. Hang on. All day. Digging those diamonds from the beers. That's Sierra Leone. No, the beers I think in South Africa too. Yeah, yeah. Pieces of shit. Yeah. You assume that she was living in Africa as an African, I think, and that's not. Is that a crazy thing to assume? She was a Peace Corps also? She was a Peace Corps also. Is that a crazy thing? She was a Peace Corps. If she's in Peace Corps, she's definitely white. Yeah. Why didn't you join the fucking Peace Corps? Yeah.

I love that ad. The toughest job you'll ever love. Remember that ad? No. Bring that ad. That is a good one. It's not often I look at people like they're old, but I was like, holy fuck. That was their tagline. And the drummer goes... Speaking of music... I didn't join the Peace Corps, no. Why? My mom was a very, very...

Outspoken still is peace marcher. Really? And I was raised in the 80s when it was like raised by like always the fear that nuclear war was going to happen at any minute because of so much like Cold War environment. Wait, you actually felt that as a kid?

Yeah. So the... This was when you were dealing with, like, Cuba stuff, Cuban Missile Crisis. No. No, that was... I mean, you're dealing with... Sorry. What was it? Reagan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is Cold War, Soviet Union. Yeah, yeah. So when you were growing up, so...

When did they start to integrate the schools and stuff like that? When is that? Did they make you do bomb drills? You had to go under the desk and shit? Duck and cover. Yeah. Is that really part of it? Yeah. As if that would... How old did you think I am? You are 49. You're 49. You know Game of Thrones is not a documentary, right? I'm 650 years old. Don't you stop. Don't use

But we use a different time. Celsius. Celsius. You can't.

Time is different with our community. I'll never say community again. I've never asked a question about the community. Who has the minutes from the last meeting? Geljahide. Can we please, we talked about the beards everywhere. Why do dwarves all have beards? I don't know. What is that? What is that?

You have great facial hair, though. That's unemployment, man. It's just unemployment. And Thicket. Thicket? It definitely works for Thicket. Oh, wow. Do a lot of dwarves have beards? Shut the fuck up. No, I don't know. Ah!

You're dealing with a real one. You're dealing with a real one right now. I want to say that every day. Tell him shut the fuck up. Let him go, Pete. Let him go.

No! Shut the fuck up! Is that a stereotype? I love that. Let them fucking know. That's got to play around, dude. God, I really want to come back. But shut the fuck up was just... It just shuts it all down. It's perfect. It just shuts it all down. I'm just talking about the Lord of the Rings stuff. If you look in his eyes, he's still reeling right now. He didn't tell.

He's melting down. I know him. He's dying. He's dying on that couch. So anyway, Thicket. Thicket, in theaters. We're signing off? No, no, we're not signing off. In theaters when, though? September the 6th. There's still movie theaters? How long will they be on? This guy is...

Why is there no Peter Dinklage on YouTube promoting his stuff? Because the only thing he says... You won't bother, and there's no theaters anymore. It's so sad. There's a Jonathan... Oh, yeah, the movies. But the Oscars... Yes. Jonathan Ross. No, it's a funny thing we could talk about culturally. Because I think truly...

In terms of comedy, which I think this is what this is. I hope so. You're supposed to be funny. Yes, we're trying our hardest. I feel like comedy is at the front lines of, which it shouldn't be. It should be the opposite of what's dying in the movie business because it's really hard to make a comedy that's released in theaters. You're right. And it shouldn't be because you want the people around you to laugh and everything, but people are getting their fix now.

from YouTube, from YouTube falling down the stairs. Let's get a little, I got my laugh for the day, like my little laugh quota. And I don't want the long form comedy anymore. Cause I don't have the, cause show me the laugh beginning to end and like a Hal Ashby movie, even like, you know, that just, I don't want to follow a narrative to get my laugh. I want a quick fix. It's a big investment. So we got to watch that. I think that you were onto something. I don't know what I'm onto, but I feel like, I feel like,

you know, you guys are all funny. We should watch that. International audience. That's what I was... They're fearful. Long-form comedies. Yeah, my understanding was internationally it doesn't play as well because so many jokes are so-so. They believe. So they believe. So they put their money into it. I mean, you were in a Marvel movie. It's like that internationally will play. Comedy, you don't know if the joke is going to translate well in... But you need the patience for the... I agree. And I feel like... I also think if you put out a comedy movie that's not funny...

It is wildly disappointing to go see. Yeah, it's so sad. That's the thing. So it's like, and I think people are a little bit hesitant, you know, culturally. I think that pendulums swing. And, you know, I think there was a moment where it swung in a direction where people were a little scared about taking some chances. I think the pendulum swung back. But it takes time to make films. So in the next maybe year, two or three, then maybe we'll get some fun stuff. But I also think like...

People want convenience, man. You can watch a movie at home. You can watch the greatest TV shows at home. You want me to put on shoes and an outfit and get a babysitter and go to the fucking... Crinkle in next door to me. Dude, I saw Dune. We saw Dune.

In San Francisco, we watched Dune. You had a Sour Patch Kids crinkler next to you. This was actually, it was more than one. The worst. I had someone ironic. I'll shush my own kids for doing that. I love that. I fucking love that. Are we streaming something? I had a guy ironically laughing next to us. Like he was so in on it. Oh God. That he's like, oh, that wasn't exactly how it was. And now I feel like I'm not getting it.

So now I'm insecure about my own consumption of the movie and I can't just get lost in the picture, which I want to get lost in. Right. And I had that moment where I'm like, I have a big screen at home. I have a good sound system. Dune's coming out in like a week. Fucking two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. So then should we all be making stuff for, I mean, the money isn't there obviously, but should we make stuff for streaming because that is how people are consuming things or should we push people to theaters? Yeah.

Well, I think it's sort of... Spielberg, I heard an interview with him, and he's like, I don't run a studio, but even for promotion, for the diehards that don't have a big screen, who want to see it on the big screen, and it's also the sound, because sound at home isn't as good as some of those things. It depends on the movie theater you're in. We have Alamo in Brooklyn, which is incredible. The seats are incredible. They play great movies. They play retrospectives. But Spielberg said in this interview where he's like...

I don't run a studio, but show it for a couple weeks for the diehards and for promotion for when you stream it. Just give it that chance. Also... Don't allow that...

chance to go away because like me who back in the day when i would like line i remember with my friends we lined we lined up for cape fear on the opening day it opened and there was one guy ahead of us we we were up all night drinking and we got there at like the first showing at like 10 a.m and there was one guy in front of us already on the line who was like

crazy middle-aged guy by himself. And you're like, wow, you're, you're more of a diehard than we are. And that was the excitement. And it was communal waiting in line. Remember I saw Star Wars five times when I was a kid. And part of it was like, did you,

what number is this for you? The community of standing in line. It was so fun. Yeah, and that's what I would say. But we didn't have the thing at home. For stand-up, or I mean for comedy, so much of laughter is the contagiousness of it. That will never go away. So seeing it in the theater with everybody laughing and then you get to share that laugh, you'll laugh more than you will if you watch it by yourself. That's true. I wish there was, and that's why live comedy, so much of it is better, so much of the reason it's better than watching on TV because we get to share the laugh. Yeah.

Also, I think that's why horror still works in the theaters. Horror needs a collective. You guys were scared together. Yeah, we're scared together, so there's the comfort of being together. Like, watching a fucking scary movie by yourself. Psycho. Alone. Psycho. You gotta go to sleep after that shit. But watching it with, you know, 100 other people or 200 other people, you get to leave going, oh my god, that was crazy. This person throws their popcorn. It's a fun... You kind of laugh after you get scared. Breaks the tension a little bit. That's an interesting point about, like...

You would brag, it was almost a badge of honor, how many times you saw a thing. Right. And that is gone. Right. I don't think there's the redundancy anymore. Like, oh, I saw Titanic five times or whatever people ended up seeing. Right. I'm trying to think of a movie that I saw in the theater and I was happy to see it multiple times. We also know about everything before we see it now, too. Oh, you think too much is spoiled. Oh, definitely. Definitely.

So by the time the film is coming out, the internet has spoiled it. TikTok has spoiled it. All the writers have spoiled it. Think about it. 1977, when I was a kid, I didn't know what a Chewbacca was or a C-3PO. So the first time you see it, you're going, what is it? What the fuck? And it's almost like I have to go and watch this again because now I know what it is so I can. No, that's a fantastic point. The first time you were at the movie.

It's the first time. Your mind is blown. Yeah. Now we go into the movie in the same way you go into a restaurant. I already know the best dishes. Anything. I know what everybody recommends. Maybe you know what's going to be in this. Yeah. But let's, like, everybody on the, I'm old. This is going to sound very old. But everybody on the dating websites, I've told you, I know it's mostly lies, but I've told you everything about. Every single thing about. What's there to talk about? There's nothing. There's no, there's no slow reveal.

And even that slow reveal is redundant because I've already read everything. And there's nothing more romantic than the slow reveal. Yes. If finding something about somebody, it's the... It's the Lewis and Clark.

of the bedroom. The adventure. Yeah, yeah, that is... Yeah, you won't cover a shared interest. You're like, oh, fuck. You just got even better. Oh, my God, you love jean shorts too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're meant to be together. We're meant to be together. You didn't put that on your website. That's a great point. If I know everything, why do I have to get ready and go to the thing? If I knew nothing, everything I'm about to consume is going to be a surprise. Right. And that's what... It makes sense why horror is... We cushion ourselves.

to not have the unhappy ending. Yeah. And sometimes unhappy endings in terms of everything is like really important. Now, think about it. You're gonna talk about happy endings? No, no, no. I would love to. But think about horror still gives you that experience live because it's not seeing a Chewbacca. It's the surprise of this person jumping out. So you still get that surprise. Right. In most other genres, you're being tipped off to what's gonna happen. Right. Mm-hmm.

So what we crave is that surprise. Right. And if you're not going to provide that surprise, I might as well watch it at home. Right. And you want to rush to with the horror. You want to rush to the theater because like the great movies like Sixth Sense and Get Out is like, you know, you don't want it spoiled. So you have to forget that because you know that something is going to be revealed. And like with a drama or a comedy, it's like it's it's different. So then if we know that that will always be spoiled.

then we have to change the way that we consume it or the way that we deliver to people. Because you can't stop the internet, right? No, good luck. It's kind of impossible. It's just how we re-engineer. Having kids, I think I have faith in like, they're going to sort of turn their backs on it a little bit. It's so funny. We talk about this. I would love, I know it's probably, I think parents are dealing with it all the time, but it's, I would like a generation of like,

Of like Luddites again. So, yeah. And they're all beet farmers. No, no, no. It's, all right, you know how like. It's just saturation. Yeah. And when you saturate someone.

with whatever. It's like with drugs, you either go to rehab or with internet, they gotta get it, you know. I think that like our generation is obsessed with the internet. And I think... Because it's new. It's new. And I think children always reject the obsessions of their parents. Right. And I wonder if...

your kids my kids will see us on our phones all the time and be like that's what old people do fuck that i don't want to be like a straight edge movement in social i i i genuinely believe that in the same kids it's it's at the it's the bottom line of like they just still want to

stay connected to their friends. And that's what they're, the bottom line of what the, why they're using it for that connectivity, which we're pushing, we're putting on them all the, the, the horrible things that happen on the internet, all of that stuff. But they just want to be with their friends. And if you don't want to miss out on a trend that your friends know about, or just like, you know, just anything like, how are you just like, you know, anything like that, you want to stay connected. I think we put on to them all the evils of it all. And, and,

They're sort of so savvy early on now that they're just like, yeah, I just ignore that stuff. So now they can discern between the horrible content and just the fun ways to connect. I hope. This is the idealistic version of...

Yeah, we're the, and this is not my thought, but like we're the first generation that's smoking cigarettes. We said Dax said it. Yeah, Dax Shepard. Where it's like eating junk food. Everybody eats junk food or fast food, smoke cigarettes. And then the next generation is like, yo, what the fuck were they doing? Right. We had to hide Playboy magazines. Under our beds. Between the magic. We had them in our tree fort in the back.

wood wrapped in plastic so they didn't get wet now if it's like if it's such easy act and it was like you won't do the tree fort yeah you know like now it's like jerking off in the woods yeah it's a little terrifying and sketchy

But now it's so saturated that you can just get in it whenever you want. Whenever you want. Why aren't they all locked in their bathrooms all the time? They got it so easy. But so, so saturated that maybe they're going to be like, eh, it's not a big deal. I remember downloading an image to jerk off to and it would load from top to bottom.

No pun intended. Yeah. And like, it was terrifying because like the tits load, but you don't know if there's going to be a dick there. Oh, wow. Do you know what I mean? Like, so you've already started the beat. You know what I mean? Faxing porn. Yeah. I remember watching like before cable.

There was a box on, like my friend Chris had it. Yeah. Who had like cool parents. They had the bar down in the basement with the pool table. So they were the first to get cable in Jersey growing up. And it was just a box that sat on their TV called Wometco Home Theater. And it was, you turn from the regular TV and you flip the switch for this one station. And it had, it was the first cable, like 1970, whatever. And...

During the day, it would be scrambled, so you would look at the boobs in the scramble. I think I saw one flip back and forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great. Before HBO, which later became My Employer. We had a... We had a...

Yeah, we had a... What was it? Channel 35. There was this woman, Robin Bird. Dude. Come on. Come on. She made us men. Robin Bird made us men. Wait, who's Robin Bird? The Robin Bird show. She was... Public access, right? She was a retired...

Porn actress. Okay. She was like Tracy Lord's era. Okay. Robin Bird. And then she did this public access show called Robin Bird Show. And it was so beautiful. She would host. She would just talk to like porn actors. Porn stars, yeah. And like somebody would get up and dance like kind of half naked. Yeah. And they would just be naked. And she was like an older woman. She was older then. Yeah. And she was sort of sun-soaked and just- Yeah, it's like white trash Diane Summers. Yeah. Like just had-

Smoke three packs a day. Incredible, though. That's an SNL version of it. Who's that? Dana Carvey? Oh, that's Sherry O'Derry. Dana Carvey! Masturbation of disguise. Masturbation of disguise. Dana got it. Anyway, yeah. You look up Robin Bird and you're going to get a lot of

But I remember we would go home as a group of friends. That's so weird. Is Jameel out there? We would go home with five of us. We would sit on our bed. Come on, guys. Yes. And we would watch together. I think it was the Super Bowl. Yeah. Literally, it's every single day. First time I watched porn was with the homies. No, for real. And my mom...

my mom is, you know, my mom's from Scotland, grew up poor as shit. So one of the things that like, when she first, you know, they had this dance studio and they, you know, dancing got popular. I remember swing dancing got like really popular. It was in like gap ads and shit like that. I think dancing's been popular for a really long time. Swing dancing.

To the point where you could make money teaching lessons. What, at Wisconsin? Yes. You were raised in Footloose. I was raised there. Dancing was illegal, but we broke the barriers. Kevin Bacon was there in the burn. Six degrees, man. Wait, what is that? Seven. Is it now seven? No, six degrees. Oh, because we're overpopulated as a culture? It's gotten big. But the penis is real.

And did you know that? What? Kevin Bacon is known for having a unit. I didn't know that. Him and Elliot. Did you guys talk about that when you watched Robin Bird show together? Mostly just that. Yeah. But I remember we would, we would Bob watching the room and the door would be open and we'd watch it with on mute. And I didn't realize it would reflect off a window.

So my mom, who just made a couple bucks, one of her big splurges was when she bought the internet package, not the internet, the cable package, she goes, I want all the channels. Thank you, mom. Thank you, mom. And we were just all there hard with the homies. And my mom noticed one day walking by that the TV would reflect off of the window.

And then the next week we went and showed up and there was no porno for us to be hard to get. No. And yeah, it really affected our friendship. Yeah. So you were left with the Oxygen Network. Yeah. We would watch Elliot's music videos. Thank you, Elliot. You should have gone in Jersey. You really should have got the hook. I know. You should have got the Playboys. W.H.T., yeah. Damn it. What do you think of artificial intelligence in movies?

As far as like writing and making things inevitable? You're beating yourself with that question, buddy. Not with writing. I have a couple of friends who are teachers and they're navigating that landmine of students submitting papers at a high school level of English papers written by AI. And they're very talented teachers and they can spot it right away. But it's like we had Clip Notes back in the day and it's like the new...

high-tech version of what cliff notes were. In movies, it depends. I think everybody sort of treats AI like the enemy and

uh it's really not it's a tool it's like if you have a hammer you could either build a house or kill somebody with it and it's really like it is still a tool and i have a friend who's a really incredible visual director and he sends me like short films that he makes just with ai and they're weird and beautiful but they're definitely ai they're not there's nothing human about them

So I think it's really kind of cool if it's used not to lie. If it's used like a dragon. It's like CGI. If you CGI a dragon, it's great. If you CGI a dog, that's obviously a CGI dog because we know what a dog looks like and we'll always be able to tell. But if we treat it like a really cool technological tool,

Then I'm not forward. Do you think that we can write dialogue? Just don't lie with it. Just don't try and like hoodwink. Cut corners. Yeah, don't try to hoodwink me as a viewer, as a human being with it. Yeah. Or cut corners and like not hire a real person. Do you think AI dialogue can match Cyrano? No. No chance? No. Ever? No, no. I don't think so. Because it's...

It's regurgitating information that a human at the bottom line, a human has given it. Yeah, it can only work off what it has. It can't innovate. It can't inspire. It can't make something that's never been made. No, good luck with Shakespeare. AI, you know, good luck. All power to you, but it's never going to happen. Have you done Shakespeare? Yeah. He did Cyrano, right? Well, no, Cyrano is written by a very talented Frenchman.

um um yeah well also i think i think there's a there's a there's a wife that played a role in that screenplay right yeah she wrote zero now yes um we did it as a play incredibly talented yeah yeah you like playwright writer director and you were very very when we hung out you were very uh humble edmund rostan is the french writer just took me a second to remember his name

But you were very humble and kind to your wife and you were like, she's so unbelievably talented compared to me. That's what you said. And I remember that. I thought that was very nice. And you said that with nobody around. And I thought that was cool. Yeah. Well. Then you said, just kidding. Gotta be humble and kind. Yeah, I don't think that's a good question. I don't, I think it's, it's, everybody's getting a little bit panicked and we've created it.

And we live in this sort of like Blade Runner thing of like things that they're going to take over. Yes, we use the Molotov, but...

Yeah. I've seen people compare it to Photoshop. Like when Photoshop kind of came on the scene through Adobe, there's a lot of initial pushback from artists to say like, oh, if you're not sketching it with hand, you're not a real artist. But I do. Yes. I like I know a lot of incredible prosthetic makeup artists and now it's sort of to age people and de-age them. And it's creepy.

And it doesn't have the same impact that an incredible prosthetic artist does to add wrinkles or take away. De-aging is harder, but, you know, I think that's sort of fake looking too. Dove brought up a good point. I think this is a... Not to continue to talk about Game of Thrones, but we will. The...

You can tell when sets are created and sets are real. I don't know why you can tell. Because you have a brain. But my brain should look at these things that are created digitally, but they look almost perfect. And you had an interesting point, which is like in a real set, it offers more movement. You can like walk about the room. Well, that's the thing. They're trying to make it perfect and nothing's perfect. And it's great for deep things.

Ellie, she can speak to this better than I can, but it's great for like really deep background just to sort of, but like the stuff in the room. You can't do it. It's sort of ridiculous because it's actually more expensive than actually going and shooting a real set. You're saying building out the artificial sets. It's ridiculous. It's so expensive. Because CGI artists know that, pay me because now it's a thing.

The Mandalorian. Yes. It's all shot on a virtual stage. And it just looks... But you know it, not to put it, it's a great show, but you can tell that it's not real. It's not tactile. Yeah. But it's the way, you know, it's... But that's okay because it takes place on different planets. Yes.

In a way. A little bit. More is forgiven. It's not okay. Yeah, you get away with more. But more is forgiven. It's thick. It looks it. You see it. Like, I'm not even trying to promote it. You will see it. And it will instantly feel cold. I think it affects the actors subconsciously as well. Oh. 100%.

If you are cold, you don't have to act cold. Right. Yeah. And you can think about acting whatever the role is and getting the emotion. You know, like those things. Whatever that is. It's done for you. Yeah. Whereas if you're on a set with a screen behind you, there's so many things to calculate. All the great filmmakers prefer real locations to being on a stage. Yeah. I think it was... Stage is easy for some things. Interior is great. Boom. But even that, I'd rather shoot in a real restaurant and shut it down for the day and have like...

I don't know. It just feels like people have sat here where I'm sitting and ordered. Feels like soap opera when it's fake. I, for whatever reason, when it's real, I lose myself in it. I believe it. I can believe the absurdity. I can believe a fucking, I can believe the fantasy. I can believe a fucking dragon when the castle's real.

right when it feels like the background might be artificial and every stone is like perfectly laid i don't know if i can tell the difference to be honest with you but i can definitely see it affecting the acting like yeah to your point if i'm eating you can tell the difference you don't know you can tell yeah i don't know if i maybe i can't i don't know i can't think of examples where it was fake um i didn't know that it was cheaper to actually go to location if that's the case why does everybody i mean it's uh it's called a volume stage

And it's, you have to go out and you have to shoot the background plates in order to do it. And then we create like Batman, the new Batman, we were at Patterson. That was all shot. What's his name? Matt Reeves. Matt Reeves. Yeah. All volume stage. I thought that looked good though. Yes. But you're talking about like $200 million. Got it. So you need to spend that type of money to make it. Wow. Hmm. I mean, can you even, yeah. And that's the whole thing. It was like indie movies are trying to,

How do you compete with that? So what about this idea? You don't have that facility. So you got to go real. And then it feels better. Okay. You were part of the golden age of television. And some people say the golden age of television basically happened because movie budgets skyrocketed to the point where they couldn't take chances. And they had to only do these $300 million existing IP films that were guaranteed success. And then all of a sudden...

the beautiful stories that were maybe adapted from books ended up thriving on television. That's what some people say. Now that movies, these $300 movies aren't necessarily making money, they're losing money. Do you think that the studios will start making the $20 million film in an effort to profit? And now we live in the golden age of film. It ebbs and flows.

I don't know whether it's low tide or high tide. After our show, everybody wanted to spend a lot of money because they thought that's how you make a lot of money. And then there was the feeding frenzy, Netflix and Amazon and all those people. Everybody's like spending, spending, spending. And I think a large part due to Thrones. And then it didn't work out for a lot of them. So they went, nope, we're not spending any money anymore. And so then you're going...

all of us on the creative end of things go just have to keep up with their expectations. Yeah. And their, their budget, their slate and all that stuff. So it's sort of like, what are, what do you guys, what's the flavor now? And how can we help? And we're just, we want to entertain people. And, um, I kind of feel like you want to really hard and it's, but that's, it's like, it's like politics in this country. We're never satisfied. We're never with the pendulum is just swinging back and forth. Yeah. Um, um, so there is no formula. It's just, um,

real whatever is a popular we can follow that popular crowd everybody's chasing what's successful yeah but with that you sacrifice well you risk and creativity and all that stuff um is there a story that you would want to tell our movie or a film you'd want to make that just like either hasn't been made or couldn't be made given the restrictions oh there's a billion of them but but i don't know until i read them you mean what story i want to tell yeah has there been anything in your mind recently that you're like oh

I would love to see this. Well, I just love like challenging, like in South Korea, they challenge why South Korean films are so great. They challenge genres. Like you can watch a horror movie that can leave you in tears. Like an action movie that just is so beautifully dramatic. Like they don't, they're not, and thank God we've sort of,

had them coming toward. They've become popular in our country. Parasite was huge. Parasite, yes. Because I just like the idea of defining genres. I think Jordan Peele does that really well. He's like so good. But they've been doing it before Jordan Peele for a long time and

But people in our, I'll say it, maybe in our country, they just get sort of like, well, what kind of movie is it? How many Rotten Tomatoes did it get? I need to know what I'm seeing. Yeah. And I don't ever, ever want to know what I'm about to see. Yeah, Pixar is incredible. Yeah. And I think they define the genre where you're like, oh, I'm just going to go see a little kid's cartoon. And you walk away being like, what the fuck was that? Why did they just do that in the first 10 minutes of Out? Yeah. Why can I not?

move. Why are they courageous? No, I mean that genuinely. Why do you think they are so brave? Because kids are more open than we are. Dude, that might be it. They...

That might be it. I don't know. They might be more willing. Shrek was another one that really flipped all that stuff on its head. It's like the princess stayed the ogre at the end. But they've defied what I was just talking about. Kids movies, movies for adults. WALL-E, I saw that before I had kids. It's one of the greatest movies I think ever made. And there's no fucking dialogue. It's like if Stanley Kubrick made an animated movie. That movie, WALL-E, is like...

still one of my top five movies of all time. And it's an animated kids movie, but it's not, it's so good. Yeah. Yeah.

Have you watched it with your kids? Yeah. And do they appreciate it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah, of course. And are they getting the point of the film? Yeah, of course. Because it gets kind of deep towards the end. It's what happens when you pacify a group of people and just give them the most convenient thing. But that's our perception. They get something else from it. They get something. Yeah. I do notice, the only thing I do notice is...

the pace in which these movies are go. We saw inside out and they all have like a, a, a pace to like, I showed them ET a couple of years ago. And they're like, it's funny because you watch ET as an adult and you're like, well, this movie is all about divorce. It's not about the alien at all. It's not at all. It's all about divorce and the kids suffering from it and the mom. But they thought it was just like kind of slow.

And I think it's no fault of theirs. It's just we live at a speed. I saw Taxi Driver with 99. With your little kids? With Daniel. I showed them Schindler's List. We need a factory. Why was he saving it? What's wrong with the Nazis? No. The Dome of Interest was a big hit with them. That...

You know, that is a great point. Pace. They're used to such fast pace. Yeah. And the older films are much slower. Yeah. But they build in a way that the newer ones where you don't have the attention span don't. So like if you give E.T. a little bit of time, all of a sudden you're really fucking invested in the story. But like you said, it's not about the dragons. It's not about the alien. Yeah.

Yeah, it's about this turmoil in the family, which is probably the most relatable thing to people and kids growing up at that time. For sure. Divorce getting super popular. Ooh, yeah, yeah. But I didn't see any of that when I was a kid. None of it. You just saw, oh my God. I saw Reese's. I was like, I really want Reese's. Do you know Eminem's turned them down? Yeah. Fucking idiots. Crazy. So crazy. You idiots. Nobody turns down Spielberg. That's insane. What makes Spielberg special?

Oh, man. That innocence. Human condition? That idea of like, it's not, it doesn't, well, especially with the movies that I grew up with, Close Encounters, which still is one of my favorite movies of all time. It doesn't talk down to the kids. It makes them just right there with everybody else. Treats the children like adults. Well, just like smart. Yeah. They can solve problems. They can. Yeah. And he just has like a hope. Yeah.

I'm such a cynical fuck, but I need to go to the movies for hope. Like something's good about people. And he's always done that. And not in a saccharine way, but in like a real beautiful artist, beautiful artist way. And all the great artists. Jaws. Fellini. Everybody. Yeah. Hope. But Jaws is hope too. It's like this working class, like a run of the mill. The nuance of family. The nuance of like sitting around a kitchen table without like making it feel

Product placement or something. Mundane. Yeah. And it's also, it's weird because it's what it's sort of, I think about that sometimes. I'm like, we grew up with his films. Did they define our childhood or did I have a childhood? And Spielberg was a part of it because I was obsessed with movies from a very young age and Spielberg in the seventies. And for my childhood, he was like,

Did he gear my childhood? It's funny. It's like, that's how deep it runs because it came at that age. So you're looking at your childhood and your family dynamic through the lens. Mom and dad, why aren't you getting divorced? But you love each other. It's weird. We'd have a fucking alien if you just hated each other. I'm trying to build character. Okay. So Spielberg master at that. Yeah.

Anybody else outside of Elliot or Elliot included. But I have a real cynical side going through me too. But this- Kubrick was asked, because did you maybe know this story? He's like-

He was asked, why would you make, because he was Jewish. Stanley Kubrick, the greatest filmmaker of all time. Don't hold it against him. Spielberg's also a favorite filmmaker of all time. He was asked, what did you ever think about making a Holocaust movie? And he said, I don't make comedies. I don't make comedies. I don't make comedies.

And they said, it's impossible. Yes. Why do you say it's impossible? Because apparently it's like really bad what happened. And they said, what about Schindler's List? And he said,

Schindler's List was about, I don't know the number, 850 people surviving. The Holocaust was about 6 million people dying. So as great a film as Schindler's List is, it still had that hope. Like it was about survival. And

I want to see Kubrick's version. It's too late now, but like about like this, there's, there's no happy ending here. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, yes, we need the hope. We need the, the, um, that, but, uh, yeah, that's interesting. That was his version of that and why he didn't do it. But like what you, what you see in a story, um,

It's interesting. You're cynical, so you want to see the best versions of humanity. And it reminds you like, okay, I'm a little cynical, but you know what? There is some good shit out there in the world and it's worth pushing through and life is awesome. Right. Because I get sort of bombarded with a lot of weird shit on a day-to-day basis living here in the city. And if I get one, it makes it okay if I get one like,

one like little beautiful story just like from a stranger it's it's like uh or it's like a it's weird when you're when you when you're in the public eye it's like blanche du bar i've always depended on the kindness of strangers

streetcar named desire it's a great line and i like that's true for if you get a little in the public eye you're like i just want a little kindness from you it's really refreshing it gives me a little hope people are good because most of it's like oh my god like stealing pictures and like take from you i want to take from you and when you just get a little like what can i give to you or what can i just let you be just and all i need is just that little reminder it's nice it's not woe is me at all

But I rarely get it from white people. Because it's all about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you feel about the state of the country? Like, are you worried at all in this political climate? Careful now. Whoa. Careful now. Yeah, I'm worried all the time. All the time. What gives you hope? You? You?

Freedom of speech? I don't know. The next generation, which will just hopefully obliterate all our bad mistakes. Because we're living in a

Wild times. Whoa. I don't think people are aware that, again, we did have a civil war not so long ago in the grand scheme of how long people have been around. Yeah. It's terrifying. Yeah. I do think we are a little numb or desensitized. Yeah. Yeah.

Happened in Europe a while ago, too. What happened around then? I don't know. Nothing bad, probably. The thicket in theaters. September. Okay. I know you have plenty of things to do. We are so grateful for your time. Anything before you leave?

Any like lasting last thoughts? You gave this great speech at your college and I thought it was really cool. You wanted that. You wanted more of that. I wanted exactly what you gave today. Director Schultz. No, just because just hanging out with you. I was like, oh, I hope we get the guy that I hung out with, which I thought you gave us, which is awesome. Get rid of these cameras.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I thought you brought it even with the cameras. But I really thought that you had some great advice for these kids. And it felt like you actually really cared about your college. I don't think a lot of people care about their college experience. But I thought you did. Yeah, I really don't. And I thought it was really cool. And it wasn't impactful to you. But you fucking enjoyed. No, I'm saying I didn't enjoy my college. I wouldn't. Come on. No, your college. You didn't enjoy going. But it felt like you valued your time at your school.

I wish I did. I wish I valued my time in high school more. Interesting. Hindsight is 20-20. We all have regrets. But no, it's just, again, they were all so young and it's like, wow, you're at such a fork in the road at that age. And you can go down any number of paths. And I was just trying to speak to

Don't worry about making mistakes. I thought, yeah. You know, because mistakes are everything. They're maybe more important than like things that you don't think are mistakes. Fail. Fail again. Yeah. Yeah. I got that tattoo on my back. Wait, really? Yeah. Beckett, my favorite writer. Yeah. It's all about like failing. And what is it? Ever tried, ever failed. It's just fail again, but fail better. Because there's no like perfection. It's just failing better.

And that's what we do for a living. We just, we still, we just trust that every time out of the gates, we're going to make something great, but it's all about failing better. Yeah. And it sounds cynical, but it's really not just about, um, failing better. And you keep on feeling better. And I like that contradiction of terms too. What do you mean? Failing better. Yes. Yes. Yeah. If the expectation is almost like, Hey, this is, this might not work out, but it might work a little better than the last time you tried. Yeah. Yeah. And differently too. Um,

But again, it's all about just faith in each other and all that stuff. Yeah. Peter Dinklage, everybody. Elliot Lester, everybody. Elliot Lester, Peter Dinklage, The Thicket. We would love it if you guys went and watched The Thicket. Don't watch The Thicket. Also don't watch it, but we would love it if you guys go check it out. Go check it out in theaters. These guys are absolutely amazing. They let me be in this really beautiful, cool movie. So thank you so much. And thank you so much for taking the time. I know this is rare for you, but this is awesome. You're the man.