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you name it, I'll do it. There are two things that I have no desire to do, and I don't know why. Well, well, well, welcome back. It's a new season here on literally, and thank you guys for, for all the support. Um, we would have no show without you amazing listeners and, uh,
Just out in the world, people coming up to me, telling me how much they enjoy this podcast means the world to me. So it means the world to me that you're back here for another great season. Legend today. It's a legend alert. Sometimes the legends come along. You never know when they're going to show up, the legends here on Literally. But today we got one. Bear Grylls. I mean, he is the preeminent outdoorsman, showman, guide. I mean, he's
I've watched almost everything he's ever done. Running Wild is a staple. On my TV at home, and I'm going to pick his brain about adventure, the outdoors, adrenaline, how to raise kids, all that good stuff with a true stud. Stand by. ♪
Hey, it's great to have you on, man. I really appreciate it. No, nice to see you. Nice to see you. Pleasure. There have been talks here and there about me joining you on adventures, and I just have never had the time. I would be so down to do something. Yes, you'd be amazing. You've lived your life with an adventure state of mind from the beginning. Look at you, you know, so you'd do great. People always say,
you know, what is, what is the point of success and this and that? And I always say it's, it's about creating memories. Yeah. And, and having that adventurous spirit is like when I go on vacation to the people like you're always running, right? You're out, you're diving, you're fishing, you're,
I was in the British Virgin Islands last week and I came across a lobster that I'm, that literally I'm telling you it was half the size of my torso. It was just backed up. I was right. I'm like, get me some gloves, get me in like, and I was with a bunch of people that didn't, they didn't care. They didn't win. You know, good for you. Did you get the lobster? I, I tried to grab it with my bare hands and actually cut my hands out. It was so big. It was really big. I took off. Then I took off my, um,
rash guard and tried to grab it with that. And then by that time, the guys came in and were like, you have to have a license. And I'm like, okay, well, fair enough. Well, that was good improvising. I like it. Take off your rash vest and then use that. That's smart. Right. But I think you're right. Life is all about experiences, isn't it? And I think as you get, as you get, you know, people like you, you get successful in what you do.
Those, that value goes up and up. You know, you actually want tangible stuff, memories and experiences. And I think running wild always plays to that. You know, it gives people a taste of the wild that you wouldn't normally get in everyday life. And I never take that for granted. I love it. It's a great, great privilege to get to take these people away. So, yeah. Now you, you, um, summited Everest. You're at the time, the youngest person ever to do it. Now I, I, like I said, I will do anything.
You name it, I'll do it. There are two things that I have no desire to do, and I don't know why. I have no desire to jump out of an airplane. And by the way, I'll jump off of the mast of a ship, five decks on a, so it's not, I don't think it's a height thing. And I have no desire to climb a big radical mountain. That's okay. Listen, we're all, we're all different. We all have different things that we, that we love and,
You know, that's great. I mean, the great thing is you don't need to jump out of a plane and you don't need to climb a high mountain. But on the other hand, there are a lot of people that kind of spend a lot of their time running from the things they're scared of. You know, for you, it's not so much you're scared of it. It's just, you know, it doesn't flick your switch, which is fine. But I think what I have learned in terms of facing fears is that when we run from the stuff that scares us, the fear doesn't go away. The green monkey on our back just gets bigger.
And I think the lesson of life is we've got to try somehow to edge towards the scary stuff, even if it's hand in hand with those we love, you know, but moving forward, you can't stand still. Nature doesn't stand still. It stagnates if you're standing still. So, and it's difficult sometimes moving towards the stuff that is scary is difficult, but it's
A lifetime in the wild has taught me actually difficult is good. Difficult is where we build our resilience. Difficult is where we get our feet on the path less trodden that leads to the good stuff. And so I've learned to be less scared of the difficult and to more treat it as a signal that, ah, we're on the right path. We're on an interesting path here.
But, um, but yeah, you don't need to climb big mountains, but you definitely, I think, look at how you live your life. You're not scared of being uncomfortable. You're not scared of being out of your comfort zone. You're not scared of challenges. You love that. And I think that is truly a state of mind and something we we've all got to hold onto. It's not a God given thing. You gotta, you gotta develop those skills. It's funny. Um, even in, as an actor, when you read a script,
and you go through it and you make notes on the script and there's always going to be a line sometimes more than one where you're like i hate i don't want to say that i'm not gonna i had a great acting coach who said whatever that line is the one you don't want to say is the line you must say and because it's triggering it's triggering something in you for you to not want to say it obviously so what is that and let's explore it literally let's explore it
Yeah, well, there you go. I guess why you're top of your game. You know, most people don't like that. I mean, it is, most people are so scared of change and that uncertainty and, you know, it's a vulnerable place, isn't it? You know, I always remember the commando training center for the Marines in the UK, they have etched into the wooden thing above the doorframe, comfortable with uncertainty.
And it's an interesting kind of thing to live by. I think, why is that so important for a young soldier? But actually it's like life, war, adventure, all these things.
They start when things start to go wrong and things are going to go wrong. Same as an actor. You know, you, you, you got to get comfortable with that place, but most people aren't, but I do think it is a muscle. The more you, you know, go for you, like you saying that difficult line, that awkward line, the more you develop that as a muscle, the better you get at it. And that's how, that's how we get empowered. Isn't it? Do you worry about, um,
I mean, we're approximately the same age, so we grew up in a very, very different time. Do you like, I remember when I was a kid, when the weather was nice enough to go outside, the minute it was nice enough, the second we were outside until the sun went down and they called us in.
and you know now everybody has phones and they have gaming and they have so many things we didn't have do you do you worry about people who are younger losing their connection with nature and the outside and adventure and things like i know you've written a book about uh for young people but what are your thoughts on that yeah i think it's i mean first of all i'm always always conscious of not
Can't sit around pontificating about young people. I know. For sure. It's for all of us, isn't it? Yes. I think what I've learned through a lifetime of adventure in the outdoors is that nature is our greatest healer. You know, we ignore it at our peril. And it's the simple things, isn't it? It's like, you know, you wonder if you don't go outside or don't get barefoot.
earth under your feet or don't get enough sun in your life or don't ever swim and get in cold water or don't ever feel those few fears or lift your body weight a few times. If you don't do that stuff and then you're suddenly feeling really disconnected and anxious and wondering why, it's a catalogue, I think, of
lots of little things that we've evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to feel natural and to to feel like this is what we're meant to do and when we ignore those things you know you could ignore it for a day and it's okay and you could ignore one or two of them more often it's okay but if all of these things you're ignoring you're eating natural food you know eating as we've eaten for hundreds of thousands of years you know and only having suddenly processed stuff or
you know, all of that. So I think it's, um, we've got to listen to nature. Uh, it is our best healer. And I've learned so many of these lessons in my life through failure. Just by sometimes rushing too much and being away from those things and then feeling a disquiet inside and thinking, why am I feeling like this? And, uh,
And they don't teach this stuff at school. It's so interesting. I mean, if I started a school today, before I taught any French or science or anything, I would be telling kids, you've got to get first thing in the morning, morning light on your face. Instead, we hear the opposite, don't we, all the time from like,
Everybody, you know, avoid the sun. Don't get cold water. Don't be scared of all these things. But actually, the irony is we need it in our life. And the outdoors is front and center for that. Why is it when we walk with a friend outdoors, we can talk in a way that can't just...
sat down under white light, you know, there's a connection that is different. Why, why does running wild work? Why can I have conversations with people that are a whole different level than if we're sat on a chat show couch where we've got makeup on and everyone's, it's a performance for three minutes of telling funny stories about their project. Right. You know, there's a whole different level of connection when you're sat around a fire and, and have the space not to have to talk maybe and just sit around for a bit and, and
feel it and listen. And so I love all this stuff. It's deep in my DNA. I think it's deep in all our DNA is true. And when I'm away from it, I miss it. And I get, that's when I get more anxious. Yeah. I, I, I do. I'm like I said, I'm still outside all the time. Every night I, luckily enough, I live in California, so I can literally do it every night because the weather's great, but I, I make sure I have a fire and I'm looking at the fire. I think looking into fire,
for me, triggers something. I think it probably does for all of us. There's something about the flame and it's like morning light in your eye, I think is as important as morning light is being able to, when you can. Nature's TV, as they say, but you're so right. But it's no surprise. None of this stuff is a surprise. I mean, if you think just literally how we have evolved to thrive, to sit with those we love,
huddled close, walls to walls, body to body in front of a fire. You know, it's like, it's no surprise. Yeah, it's the classics. ♪
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Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. What if you had to pick scaredest you ever were on one of your adventures, what would it be? I look at you. I have a little bit of a breakdown of some of the stuff you've done. And the one that makes me freak out is the crossing of in the rigid inflatable boat from Halifax to
to Scotland. Well, actually that was a scary one. I wasn't going to say that, but I kind of forgot. But that was, we ended up very, it was 3000 miles across the Arctic Ocean around Greenland. And it was a small boat, you know, and we found ourselves like 500 miles offshore, icebergs being smashed by whitewater waves in the dark.
You know, like in a force nine gale, super scary place to be because you're so vulnerable. You know, I remember my best friend just grabbing me at one point, look him in the eyes, eyes and say, if we go over, this storm is getting worse. If we capsize, we're done, you know? And I do think generally mother nature, I think you have learned to my life, whether it's from high mountains like Everest or remote jungles or big oceans,
said, uh, mother nature is very humbling. You know, we're, we're, we're small visitors to do it. And you've got to one lesson above everything is you've got to respect the wild. You've got to, you know, you've got to go gently there and with, with humility. And I always remember that quote of saying mother, mother nature is, is like your mother. If you respect her, she'll treat you right. But if you disrespect her, she'll teach you a lesson. You'll never forget. That's a great one. And I think that's right. You know, so, um,
But yeah, there've been a whole bunch of scary expeditions over the years. I think you kind of, maybe it's a bit like childbirth. You sort of forget it and remember the great times or remember the great friendships, which is at the heart of so many of these adventures are always, always about the connections and the relationships and the friendships. And those endure. I feel very fortunate to come through a whole bunch of,
narrow escapes over the years from parachute failures to bitten by snakes to pinned in rapids, caught in crevasses, you name it. The other parachute failure is, like I said, jumping out of airplanes. So I'm assuming it opened, but then the canopy didn't open. Is that what happened? Well, it opened, but it ripped on opening and then started spiraling, getting dark. It was in Africa. I smashed in really hard. I mean, I look back on that. I should have
really I should have cut that away straight away and gone for that reserve but you know I thought I could sort it and things happen in seconds and before I knew it I was like boom and you know that was the start of a long recovery process for me I broke my back in three different places I was months and months in military rehabilitation back in the UK and I
just trying to rebuild everything. I mean, to rebuild my confidence as much as my movement, you know, struggling just to reach a bathroom without just being doubled over in pain and, and the thought of, you know, being able to do the only thing that I did well at that stage, which was my job to climb. And, uh, and a lot of the combat survival stuff that I did in the military, you know, I couldn't do any, I couldn't do anything. And, you know, it was a really dark time for me of trying to regain that confidence and inch by inch and, uh,
That's why I say my family be so important and great friends, just always beside in the bad times as well. It was a really stumbling journey forward, one step forward, two steps back. But I also look back on that time and I think, I wonder without that knock, that real knock of suddenly everything I take for granted, like my movement and doing a job I love and having all that taken away, whether actually I would have then
long-term had that fire to really go for some of these things. And I think when I recovered, my feeling was so lucky. I should be paralyzed. I was so close to being paralyzed, yet life's given me a second chance. And I'm never going to take that for granted. I'm going to go for all these things. I don't care if I fail. It's all a bonus now. I'm so fortunate. I'm going to smile every day, even when it's hard. I'm going to go for things with everything, all in.
And I think there's a power to that. And I'm not sure I would have got there if I hadn't have been through that original accident in hospital. Do you ever get, so, you know, I'm going to be 60 next year and you start thinking of things in terms of, you've just seen more. I've seen more accidents. I've seen, you know, you've seen stuff go wrong, right? So I find as I'm getting a little older,
There are certain things that I would have done when I was younger that I'm like, you know, I may be. And then I go, well, is that me getting soft? Is that something I have to fight? Or is that, is that the, the, the knowledge of the ages that all of the elders would have, would have come to. And it's, it's a natural part of my mental spiritual evolution. For example,
I, I, I like to E foil, right? So the, for the people who may not know that E foil is, if you've ever seen, it looks like a hoverboard in the, in the water that's standing up on a staff and it's ripping. It looks like Aquaman type thing. And it's on a flying wing with a, with a propeller under the water, but it looks like you're flying. And I loved it. Bought one, done it, love it. Never had, I've had some bad falls on it, but never anything bad. Um,
Friend of mine fell, got two fingers cut off at the, and I had been thinking if I fall on this, no one's going to like, I could fall out here and nobody would really know. And you just start thinking about stuff like that. So am I getting, and so I'm, I'm thinking of not, I'm thinking of selling my E-foil. Am I getting soft?
I think there's, there's, I think, first of all, I think it's part of its wisdom and experience. You know, as they say, our experience is the sum, it's the sum of all of our near misses. And as we get older, we've had many more near misses. You see your friend have an accident and stuff. But I think there's always a halfway house of stuff. You know, I don't think you need to sell your e-foil. I think you should be mindful of the fact that what happens if you do fall off and you're on your own or,
There's a failure with the thing and it doesn't work. You should always have a backup plan. That's part of being wise. That's called mountain sense. It's wilderness wisdom. You should embrace that. You should use that as part of being an elder.
you know so i think you could put things in place maybe you do it always with a buddy maybe you know what you're you're fortunate enough you can you can get somebody to come and keep an eye on you in another boat you know maybe a little safety boat well why not why not you've got a lot to stay alive for but at the same time you should be living with that adventure spirit like i say sort of life is a great gift we should be living boldly and i do think in terms of
of the adventures. If you don't, if you don't use it, you lose it. You know, I think you should, should fight a little bit to hold onto that thing. You should push yourself regularly. You know, I think we, we had changed and we adapt what we're pushing ourselves to do as we get older. That's right. Of course. But I think we should be out of that place of comfortable. We should still be in that place of uncertainty. We should still have challenge. We're designed to
over millions of years to thrive with challenge, whatever age we're at. You know, we can't say to our kids, follow your dreams, embrace the difficult, fail often and never give up. If you're not going to do it, I'm the same. You have to keep living it. You just moderate it as you get older and let that inner voice, that wisdom one,
put good measures in place. So you're smart about things because as you also know, as you get older, you only get it wrong once. If you screw up on that, I define it goes across your carotid artery, your debt, be smart, you know, maybe learn on smaller boards, maybe make sure you always do wear a helmet. You know, this is all part of it, but keep the adventure spirit because it's all we have. Oh, listen, don't you worry. I'm not in any danger of
Of that, I'm, I'm taking my family and are going to, we love going to Africa and my wife and I always have this fight. I'm like, I want it to be the most uncomfortable version you can come up with. That's what I tell my guide.
I want, I mean, I, I want it. What are you going to think is you got to keep their wife happy as well. I know that's the other problem is she's like, she'll go for like true camping. And by camp, like I'm talking about, like, I don't want the armoire on my tent. I don't want any, I don't, I don't want it to look like out of Africa. I want it to look like I camped when I was nine and 10 years old in a pup tent, not at a camp, like just throw it down and here we go. That's what I want.
Well, I hear you, but that's you. That's saying this is what you want. And as you know, as a dad and as a husband, if we live like this is what I want, it's on a road to trouble. No, it's not sustainable at all. It's not sustainable. And when it comes to holidays, listen, you know this as well as I do. You've got to...
You got to take everyone with you in every sense of the word. And, you know, maybe it's a little bit of camping that a little bit of whatever she likes. And I'm in exactly the same boat as well. I have the same things, but, um, where do you go? So when you're out and out of doing what you do all the time, what do you, what do you do for vacation? You go everywhere anyway.
Well, it's funny. We live on a little island off the Welsh coast in the UK. It's like two miles offshore, one little house on it, totally off grid, collect rainwater off the roof. You know, we've lived there for all our married life, you know, 20, 23 years. And our boys have been brought out. That's been a huge part of their life. And, you know, so...
For me, I travel a lot, obviously, for the work. For me, it's about getting back there. Shara is a really happy place for her because she knows we're away from tech and contact. I mean, not totally, but it's definitely a whole different gear in terms of just refocusing back on just family, regular stuff. And I like that as well. I'm really happy to slow down and just lie around in the grass and have cozy early nights together and just relax.
you know that's such a big part of family life it doesn't all have to be at a million miles an hour and all about kind of now now and it's you know it's it's i don't know it's just that's part of for me listening to nature as well slowing down so i like that we we do do other holidays as well we spend a lot of time in the mountains we have a little cabin up in um in the swiss mountains so we're there quite a lot but i do feel most of our holidays tend to be in kind of
these places we know well. So we'll go to a little cabin in the mountain or we'll, we'll take a boat and we'll go and sail together or something. And I don't know. I like that. It's often this private as well, which I know for you is a, is a big thing. You sort of find places, don't you? Where you can just be together as a family private, but it's still wild and scratches at it. Have you, with all the hundreds of thousands of hours of footage that
that you've shot and you're out there doing it i mean it's like obviously a crew's there helping you and things like that but have you ever gotten back into the editing room and gone wait a minute do you wait do you see that what's that up in the have you ever captured anything on camera that you were surprised about that you didn't notice was happening on during the time it was you were shooting it that's funny yeah i've never been asked that question that's that
First of all, I actually don't watch the shows anymore. I really don't. I kind of gave up watching any of our edits, even though we own the shows, we produce them ourselves, we make them.
you know, I really, about five years ago, I just stopped watching. I really, I don't know. I just, maybe as I was getting older, I really struggled seeing myself on camera. Really don't enjoy it. It's not a happy place for me. I don't know. I mean, obviously maybe for you it's different, but I really struggle with seeing myself on screen and I had to trust the team to edit and make it all kind of look as good as I can and tell me if anything's terrible. But, um,
So I kind of miss that side of things. Sometimes, I mean, it's more about the mistakes, you know, I, somebody get emails from the crew going, I mean, it's hilarious. Some of the things you number ties, Bay, you tripped over that same log on the way back and forth to some, you know, it's generally the mistakes. And yeah, that was a classic one recently with, um, we did a show last year with the prime minister of India, uh, with Modi. Wow. And, uh,
Yeah. So we took him out, we took him out into this jungle and, um, and basically it was raining and I had like simultaneous translation in an earpiece. Oh Jesus. So he was speaking Hindi. I was speaking back. It was like, and those get loads of static. And the lady was trying to think it was pouring rain. Eventually I went, I just, I just basically threw the earpiece. I thought this guy can't do it. We just got to, you know, I've just got to go with what I want to ask him. He's going to speak Hindi. I'll nod away. I'll keep going. Yeah.
And anyway, it all kind of actually worked straight until they got back in the edit. They go, there's one just gem of a piece where it's,
Prime Minister's telling me all about, you know, what he's doing for the infrastructure of the country and, you know, putting in roads and sanitation and this and the hospitals. It's all great. And I look at him, this was square in the eye, very intensely go, yes, at any moment, a tiger could kill us. He looks at me like, what are you on about? We must keep moving, you know.
Yeah. So it's more kind of the things where I've done my job really bad. Keep that in the show, please. No shortage of those moments. Tell me that that made the cut that moment. That's really funny. I haven't watched it. That's right. Oh my God. That's really amazing. Oh, that's too good.
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All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪
I've spent a lot of time in London and I actually did a play there and one of the actors was
living on a houseboat those houseboats you see on the thames i'm obsessed with those and you navigate the canals all through england you lived on one right is it am i getting this right but i mean i didn't yes that was our other home apart from the island for 20 years i mean we only saw a houseboat last year what's that like you you like you're like oh we're gonna go let's go up to manchester it's a long way but the canal takes us there and there's that kind of scene is that what you do
No, we did. We kept ours on the main part of the Thames in central London. And it was a little community of like 10 other houseboats there. And it was wonderful. I mean, it was a way of being in London with community, which often you don't get in cities where you don't know your neighbor in the apartment next door. You know, we had a really wonderful community. Nobody ever locked their doors, again, unheard of in London. You know, we had the central...
air conditioning unit of London basically going straight through London, which is the river. You know, we had great fresh air just racing up and down the Thames. I used to swim in the river loads. Really? I look back now and I think that probably wasn't the smartest move because it's pretty dirty.
But, um, I didn't know better in those days, especially, but I swim loads and we'd, we'd go shopping to the supermarket in the little rib on the side of our thing would bomb up the Thames. You know, it's just, I don't know, it gave an element of fun adventure to living city life, which became, which was part of our life when, you know, the boys were younger and stuff. So yeah.
I loved our houseboat. Saw some of our best friends from that community. And it was a really reluctant sale, actually, selling it this year. I kept thinking, because the goal was, I thought, the boys, as they get older, how great. We're going to have Jesse, Duke, and Huck, our three boys, living on the houseboat. All the girlfriends visiting. It's going to be epic. They're going to be the three tearaway boys in London. It's going to be epic.
But, um, but you know, it doesn't always work out like that. And the eldest one didn't really, he liked it, but the middle one was going off doing something else and never, you know, as parents, sometimes our best laid plans don't really work out. So they were kind of going, I think Papa, we should sell it. So I was like, okay, we'll, we'll sell it. But it's wonderful. And, and so great that you know about them because people don't really know about that. And it's a small little part of London living, but a brilliant part of it. Oh, it's so great. And.
And really the, I'm fascinated with how far you can navigate on that little boat all through the country. Well, you can, you can do that. Ours was big. Ours was a big old Dutch barge. I know those. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, so the, the, the narrow little canal boats are great for going up and down the coast. I mean, slow. It's slow. I, it's too slow for me. You know, I like, I don't know. You could run faster. It's too slow.
But ours wouldn't get on the canal. Ours is big. Ours was like a big old rusty hulk. It was like the Batcave where on the outside you go, oh my God, what is that? And then you go inside. It was just brilliant and like hammocks and it was just super cool place. So, um, but we didn't move it much, but we did have a rib on a little davit. We'd lure it into the water and then just bob off down the Thames to go food shopping. And then we'd go up, we'd get, we'd tie up alongside, you know, the Thames and the supermarket would be like three miles down river.
We tie up, we got the little metal ladder on the side of the river side. And I remember first time we're doing it, Shara, we finished shopping and Shara goes, why is everyone looking me like I'm really weird? And I go, honey, you still got your life jacket on. It's like gone around the whole supermarket in a life jacket. But, um, yeah. And when I, for the minute our boys were born, we'd have them literally on our shoulders. It was like two day old baby, like bombing out the river.
We'd sleep on the deck of the boat often in the heat of the summer. And yes, great, great memory. Great London, unlikely London memories. Yeah, exactly. That's so good. Do you, what are your sports that you do? Do you ski? I know you're, you're big in cricket, obviously is huge in your background. Well, not in mine. I mean, it was in my family's background because they were my grandfather. Do you follow it still? Like, are you, the Ashes is this year, right?
The ashes is on as we speak. No way. So I kind of, actually, I'm going with my uncle who's 93 now, ex-brigadier in the military, legend of a guy. I'm going to Lord's day after tomorrow with him.
He just loves it. He loves it much more than me. I'm going just to be with him because he's so wonderful. But my sports aren't those sort of sports, actually. I was never, I can't like a bit of, can't like a bit of tennis with the boys maybe sometimes, but my sports are always more, um,
Less conventional, I think, at school, you know, growing up. I love the martial arts stuff. I love the climbing, all of that. It was sort of different from the mainstream sports. And I kept that as a big part of my life and for my family now. Like I say, we have this place up in the mountains. We ski a lot. We paraglide lots. We ski with our little parachutes. Hang on, hang on.
Cause I'm a huge skier. I'm a huge skier and I haven't ever done your, I've skied everywhere you can imagine in North America and North America's got great, great, great, great, great skiing. Um, but I've haven't gotten to Europe at all, but you've got to walk me through para you're skiing with a parachute on.
Is that right? Well, yeah. So, so I take a little backpack, a little day sack and I'll ski with the family all day and we'll ski and we'll be off piece and all these beautiful places. We know really well now it's like our backyard, you know, but then at the end of the day, my eldest who also, um, speed flies with me, we just will, we'll race the family down. You know, it's like,
6,000 feet to the bottom of the mountain. We go up to the top. We can take our time. I know they're skiing. I can take my time and then just lay it out. And I go one, two, three, Jesse's next to me. And we just ski off the cliff. Out comes a little chute.
It's like lightning fast, 70 mile an hour. You can barrel roll them. And then we can land literally outside our little cabin. Oh my God. We love that. That's become a big part of our life. So, and doing that with your son is for me, it's like, that's a happy place for me. Um, so our sports are maybe less conventional, but they may be. Yeah. Less conventional would the definition of less conventional. I like to ski and parachute off of a mountain.
As opposed to softball. What is the learning curve for that? How do you, how do you, what's, if I'm, I'm a beginner, I say to you, bear, I want to do that. I want to do that. I'm a really good skier. I can do anything you want me to do in the skiing. What do I do next? Well, you, you start 30 love up and, and, you know, being able to ski well, but nowadays I'll say, go and do a course, you know, do a course. I mean, when I started it years ago, there wasn't a course. I was always crashing into trees and like,
Had so many near scrapes in the early days. But, um, you know, like I say, my experience is this is the summer many near misses. So I figured it out, but you never get complacent with aerial sports, especially with the parachute stuff. Uh, I mean, my boys have become much better than me at all of this, you know, our, our elders base jumps and we've, we've done, we've learned that together and do quite a bit of that. Does he wingsuit? And wingsuit. He does? We do it together. You've done, wait, wait, wait. You've done the wingsuit? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, my point is, is that he's better than he's better than me at all of these things. I now follow him. I go, Jesse, will you just check my shoot with this? And will you just check this? And gee, we've got enough elevation for the wingsuit on this stuff. But you know, so I now follow him, uh, which is fun. And the youngest, the younger guys are all kind of into it as well. We did a thing when they're all 12, we start them skydiving. So, uh, it's been a rite of passage in their life. We just,
Start off with the tandems and just strap them to a friend of friend of ours and jump alongside them and teach them. And so the younger two, to be honest, a lesson to it. The youngest just loves conventional sports, loves cricket, loves all of that. Middle one wants to join the raw Navy. Right. Uh, but they've all, they've all done a bit of this stuff, but as the eldest has really got good at it. Would you go into space?
Of course you would. I don't think so. Wait, wait, wait. That's not the answer I expected. All the stuff you've talked about, that's where you draw the line? Space? Well, it's not. It's more that I look at lovely Shara, my wife, and she is so long-suffering and so kind and encourages me so much to this stuff. And I always manage to sweet talk her.
and it takes a little bit of work and I have to really kind of play it kind of cool and just sweet you know wiggle my way in there to kind of you know when like when Jesse and me started base jumping or when we're flying a lot all this speed flying and skiing and all of these things that
you know she worries about you know and she i feel she puts up with so much with all of my work there's risk always there there's one of us is always getting injured you know it's not a sort of carefree existence for her if i look back over the years and i think i therefore i'm quite cautious about what stuff that is is maybe an unnecessary risk i've thrown that category
deep ocean submarines especially the last few weeks you know stuff that's outside of my control it doesn't matter how brilliant or great you think you are if that sub is going wrong is going wrong and there's nothing you can do about it and I think space has an element of that do I really need to do that do I really want to put shore through that stuff so
I could see her saying, really, she'd never stop me, but I could see her being really uncomfortable with it. And I kind of prefer, I think, to save my chips and my eight cars for the things that I really, really want to do, which is to continue the adventure sports with our boys and my work. I mean, there's just nothing better. There's nothing better than to be out.
in nature with your sons. I, I, I get, I do that with my boys and it's usually on the ocean and, and, and I love it. Great. Tell me, tell me about your boys. Tell me about, tell me how old are they and how many of you? So I've got two, uh, John Owen is my youngest and he's, he is, um, he's got, he's more of a comfort. He loves to surf, likes to ski. He'll do stuff, but it's not
Pat, he's an actor. He and I have created a show for Netflix. It's on right now called Unstable. It's streaming now. It's a comedy. Great. Brilliant. What a cool journey. That's you skiing off the cliffs together. Yes. Amazing. We play father and son on it. Wow. And we just got renewed for our second season. Congratulations. What's it called? Unstable. Unstable. Yeah, I'm going to watch it. Great. Love recommendations. Unstable. It is an
laugh out loud unabashed comedy yeah and and who wrote it uh john owen and i created it and we have we have a bunch of amazing writers who work with us but it's it's uh you know it's our show and uh people seem to like it that's a life achievement you know i think more than winning sort of awards on your own for great things you've done i mean to do something creating something with
One of your kids is a wonderful, it's all, you know, it's, it's, it's, that's a beautiful thing. It's heaven. And then.
for it to be received like it was, that was like the added benefit. And then, so my other son, he's the adventure. He's, um, a lawyer. Um, he works in finance. He actually, um, his company is a company called Maroma, which is a London based, um, ad agency that he worked in. He runs their investment wing. Um, but he's also got his commercial, he's got his commercial fishing license.
He's got his 10,000 ton license or whatever the hell it is for boat driving boats. Yeah. And if you go to Matthew Lowe's Instagram, you will see a young man who has caught some fish, my friend. Um, and what he and I do together is we, um, free dive and spearfish. How amazing. I mean, what a great fun thing to do together. And you know, it's, it's, uh,
as they say with you've done something right. If you brought them up in a way where they're happy, they love what they do and they're following their dreams with an adventure spirit. Bravo to you. You've done something right. And as they say, we're parenting example, example, example. So it's no accident. Well done. thank you. And you, you've been a good example for so many people for so many years with making such great content. And, uh,
This is great. I'm glad that you stopped by, but let's figure out a way. I mean, if Bradley Cooper can do it, that's all I know. If Bradley Cooper can do it. There you go. I can do it. He's probably a good friend of yours. He is the best. I love him. He's, he's what I mean. He could, there's nothing there literally is nothing that that man can't do. Nothing. I know. That's what I've learned. He's, he's incredible and, and humble and lovely with it. And I had a real family guy. I mean, him and Leia are so sweet. Yep.
And a super talent, but actually for me, that, that journey was, uh, was such a fun one. You know, we laughed a lot and he turned up on at the start of running while dressed and he'd got, he didn't tell me, he just got all the crew to give me a set of all of my gear. So he literally, and he, you know, basically I look like a slightly less good looking, well, a much less good looking version of that. So he basically looked like me with a rope and everything.
Amazing. Amazing. We laughed throughout it and he was brilliant and such a nice guy. Yeah. He's, he's, he's the best. He's the best. Well, I want to show him up though. I haven't lost my competitive edge. So there you go. There you go. Hold on to that. Never lose it. Season eight, the next season. We've got it. All right. Sounds good, brother. Thank you. This is great. All the best, Rob. You take care of my friend. Well, that man has almost made me want to strap on a parachute. My takeaway from that interview is I think I might be running from my fear.
of parachutes. I don't know, man. The guy has a flight suit. You guys have seen flight suits, right? You know what that is, right? YouTube that stuff. It's mental. It's unbelievable because he seems so sane. No, he is. He's very sane. He's more sane than anybody I've had on the show. I love that. As inspiring as I thought it might be. Ring, ring. What's that? Oh, it's the lowdown line. Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line.
where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep.
Bob Lowe, this is Ira Heiden in Los Angeles. I formerly played your brother in a movie called Illegally Yours. And my question for you is, on that movie Illegally Yours, how did you like working with Peter Bogdanovich? Love this Literally podcast. You're doing a great job. Bye. Ira Heiden.
As I live and breathe. Oh, my God. Dude, you were so great in that movie. So funny. It's the best piece of casting is when we found you. You're so good in it. You're so good in a movie that is so bad. The movie is so bad. And here's my thought. Okay. Peter Bogdanovich, for those of you who may not know, is
is one of the boy geniuses of the 1970s film movement. He's on the Mount Rushmore of films of the 70s. He made three perfect movies. Perfect. Back to back. The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, What's Up, Doc? Then he famously lost his way, started drinking his own Kool-Aid, and then came back with a movie called Mask, which I believe...
Cher was either nominated for or won the Academy Award. Huge hit, critically acclaimed. And I was a huge fan of his and his work. And I thought, he's back. Peter Bogdanovich, he's back. He wasn't. And that movie, I could write an entire book on Cher.
The mechanizations of insanity on that movie. Here's the one thing I remember most about it. I'm a huge Apocalypse Now fan. Everybody knows the scene in Apocalypse Now where they cut to the weird looking guy who finally says only one line in the whole movie, terminate with extreme prejudice. He was our first AD, that guy. And the first day I met him, I was like, wait a minute, no way, terminate with extreme prejudice?
He was Coppola's AD as well. So when that's your highlight of a movie, that's not a good sign. But if you ever want to watch me flailing, I mean flailing, trying. Like, you know, Titanic, where they have those people trying to stay afloat? That's me in Illegally Yours. And the Titanic was more seaworthy.
Elite Leors went down faster than the Titanic. And ironically, it was one of the funniest scripts I'd ever read, but you never know. But I did love Peter personally. He was so charming. He was so smart. He knew more about film. He was so quotable and so imitable. But it sent me into movie jail, from which I have never fully recovered, frankly.
So there you have it, Ira. That's about as honest as you can be in one of these things. All right, brother. Love you. Miss you. Hope you're doing great. What a great, what a great lowdown line that was. Thanks again. Welcome back to another season. Glad you're with us. There will be more to come next week on Literally.
You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Nick Liao, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar, research by Alyssa Graw. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and myself at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd, music by Devin Bryant. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production.
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