Olivia Wilde

And today we have Olivia Wilde. Olivia Wilde. I'm such a fan. Yes, me too. I've talked about her a lot on here. I think she's such a gangster director. She directed Don't worry darling. The name.

“The name of Lizzy a few times. I never get right in the interview. Booksmart. She also directed it was incredible. And then as an”

actor, Tron, Cowboys and Aliens house. And she's a new movie out. Her third movie that she's directed. Called the invite with you and I saw and we fawking love it so much. And we're doing a little the invite week. So this is guest one of the invite week. Please enjoy Olivia Wilde. This is so great. Oh, come on now. Hi. Hi. Somebody's to meet you. We have so many friends in combat. I know. Start the list. Who's Barb? Barb is our old dad. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her.

I hate her. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her. She was so adorable. She had never done the Matt Gala.

And then she came with me. I was like, this is the whole reason I'm here. You look incredible. It was all of Barb. And she was like really giddy. And Barb is stylish. She's a hairstylist. Her style. She's very good. She got into your mermaid. She has. She's gotten in there many times. You know Monica was a herbal essence mermaid in a commercial with the orgasmic.

“Did you have to have like an orgasm? I did not have to have an orgasm. I was a mermaid in the”

commercial. Oh, yeah. I did have to swim. And I don't really know how to swim. So that was bad. Wait. You don't know if I can swim. You don't love it. Or you don't know how. It's somewhere in between. Olivia, I've observed her swimming. That's it. I'm going to let this not believe women, but she has she has swam in front of me several times. I'm okay. You're not confident. I'm not confident. And I do think if I jumped in, I would drown. Right. You need to be.

I'm already prepared. I can like get across the parade. Right. Right. But the jumping in,

I don't want to do that. So you never swim. It's not like, I'm going to go swimming.

Never. Wow. But I do like a pool. I like to like be by the pool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pool culture. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, pool culture. Yeah. It's like how I like skiing. I don't like to ski. I like to operate ski. You like operate pool. That's right. Wait. What's operate ski is like drinking culture. Basically, you just like go to the lodge. Yeah. It's a lodge life. Yeah. Yeah. And it's all the stuff except the actual sport. You know now that you're saying it, you're reminding my father who was a

drunk, but did get sober when I was in ninth grade. He got into skiing for a minute because he had a wife who was in the skiing. Really. Yeah. He just loved it. Yeah, because he would get all of his gear and then go straight to the bar. Oh, yeah. He said, there we just visit him coming off the slopes. Yeah. It's like golf. I think people golf so they can drink. Yeah. The nine people. Yeah. Yeah.

“All right. Yeah. Yeah. That's what they call the golf culture. I mean, I need to start by saying,”

I'm like beyond thrilled that you responded to my Instagram message. I was so flatter that you responded. I didn't do those DMs. I sent Monica's screen grab immediately. And I was like, you are not going to believe it. You had so buddies. I took a screen shot of it to which I showed Kristen because I thought it was so authentic. It was so sweet. People assume that someone in your position doesn't do any of that. That someone is a whole team. No, he doesn't. That's why it

is flattering. Very flat. Oh, me. I think you're referring to yourself. No, you might assume. No, no. But yeah, I'm making assumptions. I'm like, you're like a bonafide tour now. And you don't need to do press. And there's no reason you're going to say yes, but I'm just going to tell you that I have been for whatever reason, really cheering from afar. I appreciate that. From books smart. Speaking of our other mutual friend, baby, Katie, he's a pretty rope-book smart. And don't worry,

darling. Yeah. And she's very good. And she's now basically running Netflix. I know. She's like

the in-house writer producer extraordinaire. And she's a genius. She's a genius. Yeah. So I saw that. Don't worry, darling. Monica and I both. We had a field day with them. Yeah. Yeah. We were so into that movie. Mm-hmm. And there was so much accomplished in it. Visually story-wise acting, all of it, the swing, the execution. I was like, this bitch can fucking do. And then we saw the

feedback from it. You just said that you enjoyed it, which made me so happy. I immediately was like, this is a Mike Nichols movie. This woman made a Mike Nichols movie. Wow. So kind of you. That's my actual

“dream review. And it's definitely the best thing I've ever made. It's great. I'm so proud of it. It”

proves everything we've all been taught from the beginning, which is like the more personal, something is the better. Specificity, making something personal, authenticity, taking risk, all those things. And doing something for the process rather than the result. Yes. All of the ingredients to a great experience that I had known, but only now do I fully understand why that's so valuable. This is a challenge. This is a play. And how will this play be riveting on screen?

And why aren't I watching it in the theater? Exactly. That's always the question I think.

When something is an adaptation, which this was originally a play, I think the question is always why adapt? Why make it a movie? Or is it a book? Like why not just leave this as a great book? And I think it has to be that the medium you are adapting it into has to be taken advantage of. So like, what can you show in a film that you can't show on stage? And then you better take advantage of that. Or else we'd all just like to sit and watch a great play. Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf was

the kind of north star for me in terms of inspiration. Because Mike Nichols took this play written by Edward Alby that had been done to great success on Broadway. Everyone loved this play. Probably isn't the one to fuck with. No. Yeah. Exactly. And he decided to shoot it in a way that made it so visceral, so kind of emotionally vivid and really bold choices. Really making you feel like you were getting in their case like drunker with the characters. This in

photography really kind of took you on this journey, which you know, sounds so hokey, but it is a

real challenge when you're never leaving one set, which of course that movie is also in one of

the house. And we were so inspired by that. So the whole crew, we took a lot of cues from mechanicals in every way. It was a reminder that we could be just as ambitious with a single set, single location film as you would with an action movie. So we had this extraordinary cinematographer Adam Nuperbara, who also shoots the studio. And that's where I met him, he's crushing it there, and shot club kid, which is Jordan Firstman's movie that just got bought at Cannes.

Right. Adam is just incredible. And then we had this extraordinary production designer, Jade Haley. She's just one of the best. She had done marriage story. She had done lots of films that showed that she could turn a space into a character. And so Adam jaded, I put her head together and we were like, okay, how the fuck do we make a movie that takes place in one room, not boring. And became about using architecture to become a barrier in between people, using mirrors, a lot, using glass,

and creating a very designed approach so that then when I brought the cast in there, I could say, like, go nuts, just have fun. Right. We have figured out how to do all this. You'd be free. Yeah. Oh, it's so good. But we'll get into even more detail. Yeah, yeah. Let's start in the York City. You're a little tiny baby. You're brought home from a hospital to your city. But you're quickly whist away to DC to George. Quickly when I was five, we moved to DC. Yeah. Where did you live

“in Manhattan up till five? Upper Westside. Okay. 93rd and Central Park West. Do you have any memories?”

I can't tell if I've made them up. I like to pretend that I remember one thing just to traumatize my mom because when I was three, we were walking around Central Park and a flasher. Another place. Yeah. Classic. I definitely don't remember it, but I like to just say to her, like, I don't know. I guess ever since that day, I haven't really gotten over it. I said you want a trajectory, really. Yeah. Yeah. So kind of protected me. But no, my memories are probably all informed by photographs

and stories. My sister and I like to also like steal each other's memories. You know, you do that with siblings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so curious about how our kids who have photos of every moment of their lives. Yeah. We'll react to that. Will they have clearer memories or worse memories of their childhoods? Well, I think objectively they'll be more proof one way or another. Right. But does that stop us from having to remember anything? Or still creating the story

“that you want to have? Right. But you will be able to like check the tapes. Exactly. I think”

why this is with my kids. I'm like, okay, well, let's just start with the fact that they're going to resent something I did. Yeah. They have to. They can't be on plan earth and not reflect on

something I could have done better. Yeah. And I'm always like, what's the thing they're going to pick?

Because I'm a humble ship already in my head. I'm already defensive. Like whatever thing they think they're going to launch on me. But I will say the thing that's been sweet, if you had this with

you're in the warm home of watching Delta say insane stuff. Our little is one always was saying

the craziest up. And what is nice? I've benefited from this. The girls will watch it. Like it's hard to find a video of us where I'm not dancing with them when they're looking like I just held them and dance with them. You can't find a photo where they're not strapped to my chest. So I do think that's helped me in that they do go like, oh, yeah, you were clearly always doing the thing.

“Which I like because Beth would be my whole amazing thing. And they will feel like they remember that.”

Even if they don't really have memories of being like one strapped to your chest, they would think they do which is so nice. Yeah, they see that they were laughing and giggling into the little baby and I'm dancing around. My parents took pictures as though it was like the 18th century. Every photo looks like it was taken underwater with like a tint type. Like they're I don't know why they really did not document enough. And so we have a few pictures that all my memories are really

based around those photos. And then I feel like I started remembering things. I guess around like four or five. But oh, my kids love looking at old videos of themselves and it's funny because Otis, who's 12, his sister is nine and everything she does annoys him now. But he has this interesting like love for the baby videos of her. Oh, interesting. He just will sit and watch videos of her and smile. So you do love her. Yeah, and I have to like I have a whole file ready.

So when he's like Mom, I hate. I hate. I hate. I can look for steps. You're like a hot. Everyone, you couldn't pronounce ketchup. I loved it. There should be some sort of experiment where there's a kid and the mom takes videos of all the good moments and the dad takes videos

of all the bad moments. Maybe it's two kids. And if the person that's always getting the bad

moments, if they remember their childhood worse, then the person who's always getting the good moments.

“Because when we were little, it was only just like happy pictures of birthday, right?”

Yeah, only the vacations. Yeah, random, happy moments. Yeah. Well, now you could definitely get some of like falling down. And we have proof of them being shitty. So another great thing is like Delta watches and she's like, oh, wow, I was a handful. Really? Oh, yeah, we loved it. But my god, you were a handful. That's good. It's good. Yeah, I can do that. Otis likes to do something where he frowns, even if he's having a great time. The second he senses the camera. He'll do a sad face

because he thinks it's really funny that the record of his childhood will look like he was like horror. Yeah, he can snap into a frown so quickly and I'm like, oh, it's come on. The pictures thing, okay, could be a little telling because I have both envy and perhaps not envy because mom and dad and are Leslie. Yes. Our gangsters, the cock burns. They are both journalists. I'll tell you something and there's no way you would know this. It's pronounced coburn,

which I want you to imagine being a kid. Well, that, of course, I'm curious what it's like to be a young girl for the last time. It's spelled cockburn. You're claiming it's coburn. It's a Scottish name and it is very much like boy named Sue, you know me like a character building. I think the port, we should all give our kids devastating middle names. Yeah. Yeah. Just so that you can grow up with like something to be totally bullied for. War people burning you for that last

“name. But I think it was an early, important lesson in laughing long, not in a way that was like”

giving into the bullies in a way. I don't know. I thought it was funny too. I was like, oh, I get it. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just cock. I mean, there's a bird. It's a painful bird. Yes.

You're hoping it's from Rugburn, but it could be a pan. Yeah. It really could. It was never

a disc. Exactly. Oh, I hear it. It's like a disc of burn. Oh, okay. Yeah. There's that too. And it's up for grabs on who is it worse if you're a girl or boy, like to buy brother, get it worse. He's nine years younger than you. He's nine years younger. And so life is nicer and nine years later. A little bit, right? We've gotten more generally better every. I don't know. Have we? I'm basing it on. I see kids living out loud every version

of themselves in the elementary school. My kids go to, and they're not getting destroyed over it. That's true. They're going to happen. They're just right in the late 70s. I promise. Yeah. So that seems better to me. But then again, I don't know, just because we're in L.A. And I'm not into trying more, but no, my buddy's kids. They're nicer boys. I think having the last name looks like Cockburn in any city in any decade. It's too easy. Yeah. It's going to

effect. It's kind of comforting, too. It is. Is I know when or how evolve we get in the last name's Cockburn? We're going to take it off early. Yeah. But no, I was so proud to be a part of my family because I come from multiple generations of journalists. And so I grew up with my grandmother,

And my mom, it's a really interesting family, too. They're shipping people from Hillsboro.

Yes. Very massive. So she grew up with money, yeah. She did. Yes, my mom grew up and couldn't be more different from my dad's childhood who my dad grew up in Ireland had polio as a kid along with his two brothers. They lived a completely, I mean, the two childish of my parents. When I have done like deep therapy on this, it's been so interesting to think like, what did they find in common? Well, it seems like this ferocious appetite for the world in

“documenting it and investigating it. Yeah. Speaking truth to power, I think they both have a very”

strong sense of questioning authority and telling stories and justice. Well, yeah, justice. And going to places, nobody else wants to go. Yeah. And just living outside the box and they both do it. I mean, my parents, when I was little were work or respondents working in the most dangerous places in the world. And they'd both go to Baghdad on either the same job or on separate jobs. And they'd and they'd go on separate planes and then like stay in separate hotels and meet in the middle of the night.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, -Oh, my God. -Oh, my God. -I'm just sexy. -That's exactly it. And then I put on their bulletproof vests and go out to work. They lived a very cool life, which now I sometimes think about. You know when you come back from shooting a movie and at first you get home in a little bit of like shell shock because you're like, whoa, you come from a set environment and then you come home and there's always a day of adjustment of like remembering this world. And I think about how crazy it must have been for my life.

-It must have been from my parents, like, come back from like Afghanistan. -Oh, my God. -To me being like, where are my ballet shoes? They must have been like, wow, this is a big change. -I've seen a lot of your mom's work because she's both a producer on 60 minutes and front line. I've seen many of her front lines. I've loved front line. -Yeah, let me do it. -She did extraordinary things. And my mom was the first Western journalist to interview said I'm Hussein's son. Basically, her thing was that she could get an interview with people who would not talk to Western journalists.

-Do you think they were underestimating her? -Yes, I see. -Yeah, yeah, yeah, like leveraging them. -She would also go to places that were more dangerous than other people and she would sneak a camera under a burka to go into a place. She was incredibly bold. And she had a lot of respect for the people she was interviewing. I mean, there were some questionable people she was interviewing that she would agree with, but she had respect for the process and was incredibly well researched and just very, very curious and smart.

“And I think that kind of curiosity they both have and we grew up in this household where it was all about asking questions. And I think that had a really great effect on us.”

-She probably had on a platter she could have had a kind of comfortable life in San Francisco with rich parents. -I think so, though, you know, we kind of admire that. -We live in a patriarchal society. And I think as a woman born in the 50s, she felt that, yeah, there's probably a life she could have chosen that was way different and maybe a comfortable, but not at all taking advantage of her intelligence.

-Yeah. -And her skills. And so she left, she was one of the first women at Yale.

-Second, class ever. -Exactly. -Women as ever. -And she went and then she studied anthropology and she graduated early, went and lived in Kenya for a year. -Wow. -And went to grad school in London. -Secondly analyzed her. What was going on with her? -I think it was proven herself. -Yeah. -She was the youngest of three kids and my grandfather was a wonderful guy, very old-fashioned. And it wasn't like she was going to take over the company. That wasn't something that a woman was going to be given the opportunity to do.

“So, I think she was proving that she could forge her own path and that she was capable of much more than just being a wife.”

-Yeah. -Yeah. -Yeah. Then I ironically got married really young, which is funny, because I think she was like, "I'm not going to be a wife and I'm married my dad at 24."

-But in a way that was really rebellious because he was not the guy. My grandparents had envisioned at all. I mean, he was basically the opposite.

He was Irish. He came from no money, came from the socialist family of journalists who were just very, very, very bold. And yet the families came together beautifully and ended up really blending and loving them. -Oh, really? How was it decided whether they would live in Ireland or live in the U.S.? -I don't know if they ever thought they'd live there. -Because you spent summers in England, right? -Oh, yeah. -But every time we weren't in school, we were there, which was great. And I actually as a kid felt just as Irish as American.

-Wow. -And you have dual citizens. -I do, yeah. I actually have triple-eyed British Irish.

-There's a cabinet at Irish. Were you in Northern or Southern Ireland? -So there's a public of Ireland, very, very different.

“-Yes, yes, especially then. -Did you come back home with the ads? -I come back with an ads. I mean, how insufferable?”

-It's embarrassing. -Sure. The worst, the most of it's so annoying. -And I feel like my sister still does it. -Oh, no. -She goes back. She lives in London now, but anytime she comes back from Ireland, I'm like, oh, no. -Oh, no. -No, we're not doing this. But my parents did a great job of making us feel culturally, very connected to our Irish roots. Also, when you're a kid, I think your personality is forged in the summer. -Yes, absolutely. -Like that's who you are. -There is an Irish rascally mess. -Yes. -I just don't know what else to call it, but where I'm from, it'd be white trash. But in a prideful, wonderful way.

-Oh, absolutely. I mean, when you are a country who were the victims of such unbelievable oppression for hundreds of years, and really, they tried to wipe out the Irish.

They were treated horrifically, and I think that will never leave the Irish spirit. There is this survivor. You see it in the Australian, too.

“That's why there's such badasses. They have this chip on their shoulders. -Shift on their shoulders, like, you can't really mess with us.”

Like, we will survive anything, and I think the Irish have that. And it's a great attitude you see in all Irish artists, too. Like, I ended up going to acting school there in Dublin when I was older, and I loved it. The attitude towards acting in Dublin was so humble. Like, you go see a play in Dublin, and then you go have a drink with whoever's in the play afterwards. -You're like a tradesman. -It's a tradesman. You're a craftsman. -You're not a star. -No. And it's like humiliating to even think about it that way, and I think there's a respect for things much bigger than yourself.

For instance, like, we come from this little fishing village, and for a long time in that village, the fishermen didn't learn to swim. You'd love it. -Oh, my God. I couldn't believe you could do that. -You could do that. And the idea behind it was that if the ocean wanted you, it would take you.

And now, you know, it's different times we learn to swim, and luckily, our fewer people are drowning from this, but I always thought, there's this respect for things more powerful than yourself.

This understanding, like, the ocean and nature. And then there's just a humility to people there that I really deeply respect. -Okay, now. So the upside of your parents is like, "Oh, I'd love to have parents that interested in that engaged, always bringing home topics." But also, these are very involved in their own life's parents. -Yes. -So, like, when you said the picture is like, "I'm not shot, there's not a ton of pictures." -Yes. -What's the trade-off? They're pretty self-consumed, I imagine, have those careers? -You know, they were, but they did something that I tried to learn from,

where they were very social people, and they brought a lot of that to our house, so it felt like this kind of salon. Because, you know, there were all these interesting people around, and they brought us into that. Sit down and have a conversation or listen to this conversation or be a part of this. So we felt connected to their work and their lives, because they took us seriously as little people that bridge the gap between these very full careers that did take them away a lot, and being at home that they incorporated their lives into the home life in a way that I have to remember to do all the time.

Sometimes, I think people think you have kids, and so that means that when you're with your kids, like, you don't go out, you just hang out with your kids. But I read this interesting thing about how your kids learn to socialize from you.

“So observing your social life is an important thing, and so you have to bring them to things and kind of like bring the party home.”

We just had an expert last week, I was talking about, yeah, this phenomenon of the last 40 years where it's like, "Most kids had to go with their parents to the hardware store. They had to go with their parents to work on a day and sit their board."

Like, the amount of times you had to, and then just comparing that with hunting and gathering societies who are almost always,

you're not joining the kids or all the kids joining your role. Yeah. And they're learning so much. I see my 13 or all the time, just Eve's dropping on me and my friends. And I love it, and I don't care, but I can see how interested she is in what's going on. And she's learning so much from the way you interact. I used to crawl under the dining room table and lay down under the dining room table during their dinner parties,

and just listen to the hum and listen to their conversations. And think that they didn't know I was there, although, of course, they did. I wasn't very good at crawling quietly. But I think it's true. Every time I see how close my kids are to their friends, I feel so proud that we have modeled for them this idea of your tribe, your friendship community is being super important. Yeah. Now with all that said, did you ever long for, did you have a friend whose mom was always at home when you got home from school and she had made shit?

Totally. I also used to watch like sitcoms and almost fetishize the suburban environment because we lived in the city,

They was so foreign to us. And so I used to just watch hours of sitcoms and just think like, "Wow, I want that." And I did have a friend whose house I spent a ton of time at whose family was really sweet to me. And it was the opposite dynamic as mine. But of course, all my friends wanted, you know, my parents. Yes, exactly. My girlfriends would just sit with my mom and she would take them seriously and take their dreams seriously. And that was kind of the superpower she had for me when I was young and I was like, "I want to be an actress."

It wasn't like, "Okay, sweetie, every little girl wants to be an actress."

“It was like, "Okay, where do you want to study? What career do you admire? You need to then watch these great movies with these great actors?"”

What's the game plan? In a way that just reflected a kind of respect and a different way of thinking that I think a lot of my friends weren't finding in their homes. It would come over just to feel that vibe. Do you think maybe, though, you could have been adult to young? Or are you like precocious? And do you think you maybe missed out on some? Oh, I thought, I like 12, I was like, "Why am I still hanging out with all these children?"

I mean, my own apartment. Do you like all their dudes? Oh, yeah. Like how bad.

Oh, I mean, I grew up basically on the Georgetown campus, which is a terrible thing.

What a well-being. It's for your sports. And I would just walk around and try to make up different majors that I could say that I was sad. And I don't even think I looked older. I just took my head. I was like, obviously very mature. But I remember when I braces when I was 13, I told the orthodontist, he had to take them off because it made me look young.

Yeah. He's like, "You're young." Yeah. But I knew I was like getting tattoos at 13. I was a terror.

They sent me to boarding school because I was a tattoo. Okay, I was going to ask about boarding school because again, it's hard not to get tattooed at all here. I have a friend. No, no.

I just have a friend who just told me he sent his kid to boarding school. And I'm like, I can't comprehend it. Yeah, I can't even. I can't even. That they're leaving in five years.

I know. What are you talking about? So I just can't relate. And I recognize it was a totally different time.

“But anyways, how did you end up in boarding school?”

It's just a funny thing.

I went to boarding school and I would never send my kids to boarding school.

Yeah, there you go. We just know disrespect to the people doing it. And like my sister's setting her kids, I think they love it. I mean, her one son is there. The daughter will probably go and they love it.

I had a hard time. My sister went. My brother went after me. My brother went to five years older than me. She's five years older than me.

She's five years older than me. She's nine years younger. Yeah, my mom had kids in her 20s, 30s and 40s. Wow. So funny to run the whole gamut of like experiences with motherhood and different.

You guys all had such different childhoods, probably. Completely different. Sure your mom, after 14 years of experience. Yeah, totally different. But I think okay, boarding school.

Here's my take on it. What did you do that had landed you?

“What kind of nodding this for you up to?”

The way my mom describes that and then she said, I would have like torn the wallpaper from the walls. I was just so completely uncontrollable because I wasn't. There are far worse cases than mine. Stay tuned for more our share expert.

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- Oh yeah. - You can tell her. - But you were changing. - I was changing. - And I couldn't, I mean, there was no curfew that I would take seriously. - Were you partying? Was it boys? Was it shoplifting? - It was partying,

but not in the like drugs and alcohol way. It was like, I couldn't understand that if there was a concert, like so DC was a big music town. - Sure. - And so there was the 930 Club, which was an iconic music venue. - That's right.

- And the idea that I wouldn't be allowed to like go see any show I wanted and stay out and go and hang out. I couldn't fathom that kind of boundary. - Yeah. - And I liked to think that it was me just like wanting to plug into everything a little too early,

but really as a parent, they must have just been like, she's gonna get herself in trouble. - Yeah. - She's gonna end up pregnant or in jail. - Yeah. - I'm really happy that I went away

- Also, DC, it was a fun town, but for a 12 13 year old who thought she was 24, probably not the safest place. - I also too, I remember Chris and I went to like the correspondent thinner, I don't know what it was, eight years ago, 10 years ago,

whatever it was, but I had not been there since I was in high school and went to the 930 Club, and then on an earlier trip with my mom where we stayed at this like fucking gunshot, motel across street from a greasy people. - It was a shit hole. - Marion Berry was doing that.

- Yeah, grab the crack on TV and ease the mayor. - Yeah, we had the highest crime rate in the country.

“- Yeah, so I think when people go there now,”

it's that same chasm between New York when I was a kid and now. - So you go in New York and it's like, it's Disneyland. - Yeah. - You feel like you're in Europe, it's so clean and beautiful, every store for a nice nice,

but yeah, DC used to be a shit hole. Now it's so nice when they're for that correspondent thing, I'm like, this place is Eden. - It's so nice, despite what Trump likes to say, he is incredibly nice now.

And I think that it was also a time where it was impossible to like track your kids. It was like checking in from the pay phone, which by the way, now when I think about how much we used pay phones, for me it's just like the bacteria.

- Yeah, that's what I think about it. - It's like how off and we were just like smuggling as against the phone. - You could smell it too, like Eden.

- First got on it, the receiver's smell.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - And then you're like holding up, I guess you're cheating. - Yeah, yeah, you forgot everything. - Checking your paper.

- Checking your cigarette, it's touching the thing. - Exactly. - Pager Bravo, too. - Oh, the Pager. - Yeah, I loved it.

- But I went to a boarding school, it was very nice. So I didn't get sent to like reform school. I went to a boarding school that had this unbelievable theater department, which to me was extremely exciting. In DC, I went to GDS, Georgetown Day School.

It's a grade school. The theater was like in a gym. They did their best, but hand over where I went to high school, had a main stage theater, several black box theaters, studio theaters.

They had a student theater producer program. So you could learn to produce plays. I produced a 12 plays in a year. - Oh my God, it was like college. - I was so lucky.

And this is a Massachusetts, like beautiful. - It's beautiful, like Jeffersonian architecture in the suburbs. - You can imagine it. - This is like global, right?

- Yes. - It's like a very fancy private. - It's very fancy. - Did you have crazy classmates? - I did have crazy classmates.

I mean, it was a lot of people who've all gone on to do very impressive things. - Yeah. - And I would say most of people there, they were very focused on like going to Ivy's

and becoming like Titans of industry. - I found my home kind of with the theater kids. - Did you covet any of that wealth? Clearly people are taking like private jets to ask them for spring break and shit.

- Well, the cool thing about boarding schools, it does equalize that. So even though you'd hear someone, they had crazy, opulent lifestyles. But in boarding schools, we were all in shitty dorm rooms

and it was like, this really puts us all in the same thing. - See, it was co-ed? - It was co-ed. - So you could have lovers? - Oh yeah, it was all about life.

- Very beautiful. - Making out in the stacks.

“But now I'm like, do they even have libraries anymore?”

What do you do? Where do you make out? - They're also designing all these places to be safer against sexual abuse, which is a good thing. But it really hampers how much you--

- Oh God. - Yeah, where do you make out? - We're trying to get more of it. - Yeah, we just had an expert on what this art gets to. - Yeah, yeah, like bookstacks that are low.

- What? - All doors have a windows. You can be caught and be observed from a hallway. - It's all great stuff. - Wow.

- But again, we're on Earth this one. - But it's amazing how kids will find a way. - Of course. - It's incredible. - But it's amazing how kids will find a way.

- Of course.

- It's not like we're always animals.

- Yeah. - You find a way. And it was like, you know, you had to leave your door open and sign people in. But everyone was escaping in the mill

that I didn't run across campus now. - Oh man. - It was all that. - So you liked it. Then you got accepted to barred.

- Yes. - But you delayed the delayed delay. - Oh yeah. I deferred for like three years. I met someone later in life who had been there

when I was there who said that I was the most requested roommate because they knew that I was never going to show up. Oh, wow. So he's like, oh, you're going to get a two room single. Yeah.

So you're kind of a legend and you didn't even know. Yeah. Of course. Now I'd love to go. What sounds better than college?

The best. Read books. Then talk about them and group to bathe in class. So I would pay a lot of money. And you can't.

And you can't. So I'm going in retirement. Back. What would you study? The college physics.

Oh, cool. What did you study when you were there? Anthropology. Oh, very cool. Yep.

That was really fun. I have a fantasy of just picking up degrees as I'm an old man. I tell myself I would study neuroscience.

“But I think that would involve such a foundation of like mathematics”

and science that would take maybe like 18 years of college to get me a degree. Well, that would be the beauty of it. Like you could just take classes. You could skip organic chemistry. You really fuck that.

I don't care. Exactly. I'm not going to practice. You can't take like everything on like all those things.

The classes are online now, which is amazing.

Yeah, but yeah, so it's all about being in that. Yeah, I'm sure.

I love any opportunity to sit with people and debate things and talk.

Like any kind of book club, movie club. Yeah. I have this fantasy about starting a debate club like debate club dinners. Oh, because I think we've lost the skill of disagreement. Yes.

And like this person and my favorite thing was debate in school.

“Because you have to learn to argue that's right.”

Other person. I signed the petition to it's just such a great skill. So don't even be fun if you came to debate club dinner and under your plate was your position that you had to argue. And it is probably something that you don't believe at all, but you now have to argue

that. I love it. That's do it. Yes. I am committing fully to this dinner party.

Me too. Because my economy is forcing myself to mount a really solid argument for something I don't agree with. I love it. Okay.

I feel this way.

Now, I have to sincerely imagine.

I feel the other way. Yes. And most of the time if I take the time to. To confuse that. I recognize everyone has a pretty cohesive opinion and they're pretty well-intentioned

and I just disagree on the best route there. I do think that's how we have to respect each other. It's like the notion that we're not friends because we don't agree on something or that we can't talk or that I can't have you as a guess. All that stuff is so corrosive and wrong.

“It's only becoming worse with social media and everything because I think now there's this curated”

socializing that's happening across generations. We don't gather if we don't know who we're going to be within what their opinions are and what we'll be discussed and we can be reassured we will all have the same opinion. Yes. We're safe.

There's no real kind of randomness that allows for the opportunity for you to be in a conversation with someone who disagrees and for that to be kind of great. Yeah. And also, I also think just as an ethos, people think their goal is to end our conversation and convince the other person to think like that.

And I would just urge and beg people, it's like actually it's so much more rewarding to leave a conversation with a totally different person. We just had someone out. We had to get a frantic on who tried to kill his father and prior to that conversation, I had such a hard and fast opinion.

I'm like, all these people who are schizophrenic or any of these bipolar, like, take your fucking medicine. Why does everyone go off their medicine and go on these big, you know, and it's just frustration with that. And then through talking to this person for two hours, I was like, I totally get it.

And I definitely acknowledge there are a lot of people that may be the medicines not the solution for them. Or it's yet one of eight things. I don't know. I love going, whoa.

I want to eat it on that. Yes. And that's lovely.

I think that curiosity is such an incredible trait that you have and that it is something

that if we can just get people to see the value in it, like you said, it's not about convincing, but it is about learning. And it can be super frustrating when it comes to many things, but like when it comes to politics these days, it's frustrating because you feel the stakes are so high. Yes, you're convinced.

Very emotional. If you lose this someone's dying, and that's just not the context for a good conversation. Everyone's a rousal setting. It's just like fucking pan. Yeah.

Well, that's cool. Nathan is good because if you're handed your topic for your stance, then you can really do it without emotion. Exactly. And go hard on it.

So what I had to do like the moon landing was fake. Right. And you had to be like, listen, the flag was waving. Exactly. Or like you just think of like all the things you've heard.

But then really have to dig in. Yes. It allows for it to become an exercise that I think just works a muscle that we've lost. They're per cent. I love that.

I think it would be. I meant.

“That's how we started our friendship debating.”

We didn't try to put pause on some of the debate. It got to everything. It's a political arena. Yeah, we had to. Well, again, things get emotional.

The closer you are with someone, the more stakes, as you said, and like the more emotions come into play, where it's like, you don't even trust me or you don't hear me or yeah. That's this week at the heart of the motivation underpinning it is. We don't think if someone thinks differently, then us that we can co-exist or love each other or be there for each other, be friends.

So it's starting to get in scary like, wait, you think that about that? Can we even be friends is what you're thinking, which is preposterous. But I think that's what we've done. What we've done. Yeah, yeah.

This is why I think like when my kids argue with me over something, as opposed to, I think we were raised, or at least I was with like a don't talk back, rule. And for me, it's like, oh, they're learning on us how to debate, how to argue with people out in the world. So if they say like, well, I don't want to brush my teeth.

Or I don't want to do my homework or whatever it is, as opposed to like, do as you're told. Yeah, yeah. It's like, let's train them to be better. So sometimes I'll be like, you got to make it better.

Are you meant to be? Yeah. So we're the same. I'm constantly like, I'll lay something out. I know they're not going to like it.

And I go, okay, count on points.

Love that.

“I really think that even the hormonal spikes that cause them to be more volatile, that that”

is the training ground for later conflicts, so that it's like, okay, I'm glad it's

me you're arguing with because you know, I love you exactly. And I think about that, particularly, I think it happens to boys too, but for girls being around like 13, and then there's this idea that you become enemies with your mom. Now my mom and I definitely had some battles, but I'm kind of relishing the opportunity to have this.

And Daisy's only nine, and she's like, the nicest person in the world, and I've heard of this, but I think of it as like, yes, let me train you in this. I'm not going to tell you not to argue, but I'm going to make you better at it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I reject that they have to do a certain. I love my mom the whole goddamn right. That's good. I like to hear that my folks love their mom.

My poor father. That's just the old original. Yeah. I know I'm not there. Yeah.

But boys definitely, I just took Otis to Japan just us for a week for spring break. And it was like the best week of my life. I was like, I didn't know a couple strip because this is a delightful. It was really sweet because I realized he was giving me, like some activities were definitely for me.

We went like meditated at a temple with a monk, which is not something he would have suggested. Oh God bless him. He got through that at 12. He did.

“And he came and like meditated and learned afterwards, I was like, did you love it?”

He's like, I mean, no, but I love you. But I love you.

You could never get a dude to do that on a trip with a dude on a vacation.

If he didn't want him at a day, if he went, you'd hear about the whole fuck. Exactly. Yeah. I'd be like, I did this for you. You owe me.

We also just laughed so hard. He's really into manga. And we went and took a class, like drawing class, manga class. What's manga tell me? Like Japanese anime, drawing.

The class was entirely Japanese. And we were hissing ourselves laughing, like trying, like, crying, like hiding our faces. Every time we caught eyes, we were just laughs. Oh my God.

And it went, but we had to draw each other, which was the funniest thing in the world because he drew me in a way that was so hilariously weird. And I thought, like, a perfect depiction of him. But I'm not at all good at drawing. And we were laughing so hard.

He knew that that was me doing an activity that he loved.

“He felt so, I think, that just really seen and respected him.”

But then at the end of the day, every day, I'd be like, okay, Rose and Thor and like, well, it was your favorite part of the day. And he would surprise me by saying, like, I like walking through the cherry blossoms to you. That was really fun.

And I was like, what?

Like in LA, he would never be like, oh, mom, I'd love to go for a stroll in the park.

Yeah. He was like a whole different, on the other side of the world when it's just us, the rules were all different. And he also just kept spontaneously grabbing me and hugging me and like, I love you so much.

Oh. And I was so happy. I was just like flying high the entire time. Did you always know you wanted to? Yes.

I didn't like fan to size about motherhood in the way that a lot of my friends did, but I did always know I wanted kids. I didn't realize how fun it was going to be though. It's way better than I could have possibly imagined. And I think every stage of it, I love more than the last stage.

Now, of course, when we look at those old videos on this baby, and I was working a lot when they were really little and I'm like, just destroyed with guilt about that. It's like so many of us are. But I didn't realize that it was a friendship that was so deep, but so profound and so fun.

That is different than what I imagined it would be. Yeah. I think for me, it just exposes a lot of the limits I have given relationships, really, because they're just a product of my undying commitment and devotion and unconditional love. And I do wonder how many of my relationships could have been, and not just even romantically,

just if you treat it people with you treat kids, I do wonder what the sky is. That's so interesting. For relationships. Yeah. I don't think I can.

It's a biologic. Yeah. I don't know that you can. Yeah. But it does the introduces you to your own capacity for love, patience, empathy, forgiveness,

all of these things. It's not a selfless thing. I didn't think I possessed. The honest about my selfishness, and so I was like, I don't know, I saw this level of it coming.

Also, it humbles you so completely, like brings you to your knees and such a real way that I think that is something that just makes you definitely better person, but in relationships, being humble is a very important thing to have been humbled. Yeah. And I think to understand your own frailty, we all need to be parenting does it different.

Okay. We have to get back to the overarching story of your career. I'm going to ask you the questions Leslie asked you, which is after you do the acting school in Ireland, and you come back and you get yourself on the OC, which is really quick. Yeah.

And before then, I was a casting intern and it's so funny.

It's highly possible. So many of my friends now. I like certain topics. Who would you also read or know? Oh, I would read.

It was a little bit higher than my pay grade if I was really lucky if other people weren't in the office maybe I'd get to read, but I was really low. I would bring you coffee and water and I would kind of keep the sign in sheet and like just be behind my boss at all times. And she was mallyfin, she was one of the best casting directors in the business, hardcore.

She did everything from like Titanic to David Gordon Green movies to like eight miles to the Matrix to everything and I got to just observe and learn everything in that office. That was in LA. That was in LA.

First when I was 16, I came out for a summer and I worked for her for like four weeks

as an intern and then I came back when I graduated high school and worked again. I was like, can I do another summer working for you? And most cast directors will not let actors be interns because you're like a spy. You could easily like steal material. I don't know.

And you could just feel that you want to be auditioning.

“She was like you should go in audition and I went and got this pilot which was for the”

show called Skin that was a very short lived show on Fox. But it was like a ridiculous experience because it was like my first audition for a pilot then I got it. Just when you were wearing the wool turtle neck and she was like you got to get real it's like about your fucking outfit.

Yes. I came from like a northeast boarding school so I was dressed like a professor. I was like a lot of corduroy and she was like what first it was 95 degrees and I took two city buses to work. So it was like really funny.

I'm going to have to ask it and I know it's going to be so hard to answer but you're so beautiful. Oh, thanks. You're so beautiful that were you trying to downplay that you were fucking beautiful. I did not feel beautiful at all and I in fact, coming to LA, I don't know does anyone

get to this town and feel beautiful? I was like, this is crazy.

The first waiting room I sat in as an actress I was like, ah, I got to go.

This is a different species.

“I think that it took me a while to understand that what made me, I guess we all kind”

of go on this journey. But like what made me different was good and I didn't need to try to make myself look like the other girls where I really felt unattractive. You did. I was like they all really knew how to dress and again the aforementioned turtle neck is

indicative of what my vibe was. I dressed like Johnny Le Hooker. I wore a lot of vintage. I look back and like you were cool girl, but it sounds cool. But it's hard to get on those seashell when you're dressed in light.

Yeah. And my boss, Mally, was like, what are you doing? Go change before you go to your audition. But I also saw the bad side of that where we had girls come into the office to audition where she would turn them around and be like, no, she'd say, did you think I was a male

casting director, actresses would show up and outfits clearly designed for male director casting couch and we had directors who would be really unspecific about what they were looking for is just so they could meet every hot actress in a way and we were like having to read hundreds of girls and then none of them were right for it because he didn't know what he wanted.

So I learned the bad side of that really quick. I definitely just felt such imposter syndrome. And I remember casting director early on when I went to an audition told me I had a pie face. Oh, tell me what that means.

Yeah. But she kind of said it in a way that sounded like she was trying to be now. Oh, you got a pie face. She said something like, you'll be fine. You've got, I think she might have said apple pie, pump, pump.

So there was maybe a flavor attached to the pie. But I think she was trying to say something nice. I took it as like a flat face flat, maybe as apple pie and it meant all American. Yes. Maybe after she was saying that.

But I just felt, oh my God, when I think about the drawer of push-up bras that I had for auditions, because I thought maybe that will help. And it doesn't. And it's so sad being a 19-year-old going to auditions is rough and you're like driving to the deep valley to go to the correct reading with like 1,000 other girls.

I was inclined to think you might be like Lake Bell who I worked with in the show forever and we're friends. Yes, I love Lake. And what I realized is that Lake is so hot in her life that she liked to date ugly guys.

So I didn't say like that. No, I called her out on and I'm like, I think like you know it's cool that you'll date ugly guys. And she's like, yeah. So funny.

“And I'm like, that's how you know you're so hot that you don't even need the validation”

of a hot guy. Would you date the hot guy or the ugly guys? It's been a real range.

I feel like such an outsider always because as a kid, I would go between the states

and Ireland and Ireland obviously super weird outsider, American kid showing up in the summers. Weird outsider. Then back in the states, I felt like an outsider because I just felt like we were different family was different coming back and forth different. Then boarding school total fucking weirdo.

I felt like an outsider there at the NLA.

“So I never had the thing of like, I'm so attractive that I think--”

They did three because it looks fun, cry-- just to even it out. Yeah. That's no one. I think it is. But we'll call her in the fact, Jack.

Their personalities were good. And so yeah, she's not going to date someone hot just so that she feels hotter. She doesn't need to. She wasn't trying to compensate. She was not going through a set of old to a higher status person validating her,

which is a real unique idea for us. So you date people she really like. Yeah. Who often, you're like, well, that's cool. Right.

It's calling. Don't look into her. Oh, I am. I am. I am.

But does anyone-- it's an impossible-- well. I mean, talk about humbling. I think about all of our friends who went through that cattle call experience. And I'm like, it's actually great because being rejected that much does something very good to your character.

If you live. If you live. If you live. Yeah, yeah. You live.

You are not unscathed. Because we all have our unique version of why it was terrible. And it can't be all true, right? So my issue was I would go to the commercial audition. And it's like that dude's bald.

That guy's overweight. I'm not goofy enough yet. I'm a comedian. So this is what I'm supposed to get. But I don't look goofy enough to play the guy at the muffler shop.

It's crazy. Then I might go to the attractive shit. I'm like, I am not nearly good looking like these guys. I like that too. It caught in between the cameras.

I wasn't character-looking. And I wasn't handsome enough. I'm like, what are we going to do with this? Yeah. And then you realize that that is exactly what makes you so special.

It takes all long time. If you're lucky. Yeah. Okay.

“So who the were you at that time wanting to be career wise?”

Did you have a North Star? I wanted to be Catherine Keener, which is why I. Great pick. Got the job as a casting intern. Because I read that she had been a casting intern.

Yeah. I will emulate that experience. Yeah. Yeah. And I still want to be Catherine Keener.

She's a good romance. Is this good? Have you become friends with her? No. Have you ever met her?

I met her once. And I think I said something like, I've modeled my life. She was like, I don't know.

You'll never be able to accept me.

Exactly. You don't have one. She's just a return. And she was very sweet to me. So you want to be like in indie movies and do cool things?

Yes. Completely. Okay. Yeah. Very good.

Great. But this is the opposite of what I'm trying to do. It was funny because this is very classic. Me to not understand what I'm getting into and then be in it. I had no idea.

Big that show was when I joined because I think I joined the second season. Uh-huh. Josh Schwartz was like, do you want to come and do the show? Well, first season. Do you want to come play a bartender?

Because we had a lot of musical taste overlaps. Like we knew each other through that kind of world. And I remember I was talking about music a lot. And then he said, come play a bartender because we'll have real musicians are going to come on the show. And perform in the bar.

The beat shop. And that was the sales pitch. Yeah. And I was like, absolutely. And as a joke, I was like, only if I get to make out with Michelle Barton.

And he went, who told you? And I was like, ah, four real. Josh, I'm in. But it was so fun. Everyone was so great.

We had all these amazing musicians around. It was so fun. But I did not know how big the show was. Yeah. And after the first episode aired, I was like, wait.

What is this? And I remember Adam describing at the time any time. He could like sense teenagers in any place. He wasn't crossing the street to get around to walk around. Anybody who might be young.

And I quickly understood with that man. Yeah. Yeah. Did you interface with Ben McKenzie at all? Yes.

I loved. He was so sweet to me. We met him for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He was a crypto expert. He was on our experts.

Yeah. And I was about going, I think that's the smartest actor I've ever met. Yeah. He always was.

He was always very unactory.

Yes.

“It just felt like he in the best way was doing it for fun.”

Yeah. He belongs in the Austin state assembly. Yeah. That's his heritage. He's supposed to be doing that.

Yeah. Okay. So then you quickly get on or by my estimation pretty quickly. You get on house. Right.

Were you replacing Jen Morrison? Not really replacing also joining a show late. Season four, maybe. Season three. Okay.

It was like expanding the cast. And then we were all on it together. That show had such wide reach in a way that I had no idea. And even now, anywhere I am on the planet, there's a house fan. So I've never liked one of those medical shows.

And I loved house. Yeah. Because I love you. You're right. The whole thing was just that.

Were you fucking smitten with him? Is he smitten? Why? He is so smitten. Were they smitten?

No. He's so smart.

He's like a crime novelist.

And I'll just put it here. Yeah. And a motorcycleist. I loved him on Jews and Worcester.

“And he had done all sorts of interesting comedy in the English comedy theater world that”

I was obsessed with. Meeting him. Oh, I mean, the dreamiest dream boat. And so gracious. And had all these kids around him, really, that he was so sweet and encouraging.

And we spent a lot of time together. I mean, that's our show, right? We did like 19 hour days. I think the show went eight years. I did, I think four years.

Four years. And then I started doing movies in the off season. I had to deal with them where I would get paid less, but a man I could go do movies. Yeah. It was really nice that they were to let me do that.

But I knew I couldn't stay. And it was because the hours were, I mean, poor Hugh. The dialogue he had to fucking memorize. He had my favorite quote about acting with an accent. Someone said, what is it like, acting with an accent on the show.

And he said, it's like, everyone else is playing with a tennis racket and I have a salmon. Yeah. Perfectly like evocative, he's so good. I learned a lot from him. And yeah, we were good, but we're buddies.

He's the coolest. You gotta get him to the debate dinner. Oh, my God. We have committed to this. Yes.

Yeah. That was amazing. Now, okay. So you booked a pilot, then you booked those. See, then you booked this.

Well, there was like stuff in between, you know. I went back to New York and did like an off Broadway play and I did indie movies. While I was doing the OC, I did this Nikasavetti's movie called Alpha Dog, which kind of had a lot of the people from our generation. And that movie was crazy because it was about a murder that had happened in LA only a few

years before. It was a real story. And the real guy was on the run and the movie initially ended with like he is the youngest person on the FBI most wanted list.

“And by the time the movie came out, I think they had found him in Brazil and then they”

re-shot the ending to incorporate his capture while the experience. Well, as a Nikasavetti, so this dream you had of being like Catherine Caner, this is the right vehicle, but did it delivered to your romantic notion of it? Yes, I loved it. I felt the experience of being on the OC and being on the set of Alpha Dog and I was like,

I want to do movies. Yeah. And so they very kindly offered me a chance to stay on the OC. You were to leave and I left go make zero money. Yeah.

So you're booking stuff? I was super lucky. You don't have the posture syndrome? No. I mean, I think I still have imposers syndrome.

Maybe it's starting to wear off. Well, yeah. I would hope. I think that I was gaining confidence. Oh, by that point.

I think I have earning my stripes. But at that point, how's really changed to things? She did tron on the OC. Yeah. And then she did cubboys and aliens.

Oh, yes. This is like. Yeah. Now. And I was like, OK, I'm now aware making space in my mind.

There's a new movie star. That's nice. In a way, if cabboys and aliens had done what they thought it was going to do. By the way, you and I have had a very shared experience, which is rare, which is I did his movies of Thura.

Oh, yes. Fabro. Yes. It's the best movie I'm in. It's a phenomenal movie.

So good.

Everyone's like, well, everyone just wait for the $500 million dollar to arrive.

Exactly. It was just never came. So you and I are probably in the only two underperforming. Totally totally, totally, that also like tron they thought it was going to be the biggest thing that had ever been.

“I think it's very healthy to have these experiences because it just showed me that nobody”

knows anything. You don't know what's going to work and you better love the experience of doing it. Yeah. Cabboys and aliens had every brilliant person in it and Fabro is so good and we were produced by Spielberg and Ron Howard and it didn't work and yet the experience was the most

fun I've ever had. Was it? Oh, good. Yeah. With Han Solo.

Yeah. It was literally Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig and me and Sam Rockwell who became my best friend. Yeah. Truly the best movie being we have.

And Paul Dayno, another amazing guy who when I was a casting intern, he was the only really nice actor who would come in and not bitch at me for the fact that they were waiting too long for their audition. Everyone else treated me like low level staff except Paul Dayno, the nicest person in the world.

I was able to work with him on Cabboys and aliens. We just had the best time while Goggins. Oh, my god. Well, Goggins saved my life on that movie. What happened?

He did. I had a very bad horse accident and he saved me.

Basically, we were galloping across.

I've written horses in my whole life. I have a lot of confidence with writing English job, but this was Western different. And we were at that point like two months in and we got real cocky with it and we were pretty competitive. Oh, boy.

With me and Daniel Craig, there's a board galloping like full sprint across the desert with like 40 horses behind us. Oh, my god. And it was like we were like leading the charge to fight the aliens or whatever. And yeah.

What ever were you doing in that movie? We got to a part where I could see ahead of us that there was a large ditch, like a six foot

And I was like, this one's just going to jump that ditch.

And I'm on this Western saddle, no helmet because I'm playing like an old timey lady. Yeah. It's boiler. Oh, my god. Yeah.

I know everyone's seen it, but still. So sure enough, this horse jumps and bucks me off in a crazy way. I felt I hit my head and my back and I was laying, but unfortunately I was on the other side of this kind of lip of dirt. So meaning that the 40 horses behind me couldn't seem to know.

And there was also a lot of dust. No. And I remember having my ear to the ground and I could hear it and it sounded like thunder. Like they were coming towards me. And I had the thought sounds so dramatic.

But I thought it'll be quick. Yeah. It'll be like pulverized applesauce out. Oh. And I was waiting for it to happen.

And then Walgreens had seen it ahead of him and in a split second thought to turn his

horse sideways right in front of me and let everyone kind of bash into him. No. And he's a great writer. So he was able to handle that and people split the two sides around us thinking he had just like gone insane, but he was protecting my body on the ground and so I owe him

my life. It's crazy. He's a real life hero. He's a real life hero. Yeah.

He even brought that up when he was on the show. He's probably died about it. So many people. He saved so many heart. He probably saved.

Yeah. He's free. We're going on. He does. Let's leave men.

No, no, no. You let them go. Okay, so I guess I want to fast for now to book smart because we've had you for a while already,

“even though it feels like five minutes, I know things lead up to it, right?”

You direct. I'm using video for a band. I don't know. But then you do a chili pepper. Yes.

I did at Richard with Magnetic Zero and then the chili peppers was my first big gig, which I only got because a brilliant director named Mark Romantic who is all-time music video director King. He also directs movies and tells and shows, but he famously directed many, nine-inch nails videos, Michael Jackson, he's the top.

The screen video, which is still the most expensive music video ever made Michael and Janet. But he was supposed to do the chili peppers video and then he was directing me in a show. We did a New York vinyl in HBO show, also short lived. Also, one that everyone was like, this is going to be the second thing with Juno Temple? Yes.

I'm obsessed with her. Love Juno.

Oh, has always been since she was like 16, I met her on year one and knew that she was going

to be a superstar, then we did vinyl, Mark Romantic directing the episode of vinyl. Here's me talking about how I just want to direct, decides to throw me his gig on the chili peppers video. He's like, you should do it. I'm going to tell him they should hire you instead.

He gets me that job. I go direct that time of my life and then I took myself seriously. I was like, okay, I want to do more and direct to the short film. You did the clamor thing, right? Exactly.

“Through a grant, which is the only way people can really get going is through some sort”

of grant program. Then booksmart came about and I was so lucky. Do you have a real point of view? I mean, I guess it's as simple as that. How did you get to that point, that quickly? Probably the most valuable acting lesson I learned from working for Malif and my casting

director boss was that the person who got the role was going to make the choice. Someone who came in and with a choice, a choice that risked being the wrong choice, but a perspective on the scene. And people who came in and just tried to be sort of vague, give you what you want. They never got the job.

So I had learned this lesson that made a lot of sense to me and I think with directing, it felt the same. Ternetino says make the movie only you can make and I think it's really true. It's like, don't even try to please everyone. Make it really specific because it's going to be your obsession for several years.

You're going to be married to this process and you have to really, really love it and have something to say. And I think with booksmart, I felt so passionate about telling a story about shame and judgment in high school and female friendships and the intensity of that platonic love. I felt like I had so much to say that it felt effortless in a way because it just felt

like a place to put all these stories and opinions and ideas. And I think that all the high school movies that I grew up loving. I mean, really booksmart was really heavily influenced by both days and confused in the breakfast club, which those two movies really raised me. What's nice about it is there is a, and this kind of came up with the invite to there

is a shared language of when it comes to high school and adolescents that people are very fluent in. So you only have to reference her in things. For instance, a high school bathroom and like stalls.

“All you have to do is like show that and people are like, I got it.”

I know why that's scary.

I think that's why something like a high school movie happens with anything that's like, okay, buddy cop movie, hospital show, relationship movie. There is a sense of like, got it. There's a short hand. It was like an opportunity to lovingly poke on everyone's trauma from adolescents.

And it was, yeah.

“Did you ever saw me in the boarding school that got you through?”

I've always had very close friendships and really always had like a group of girls that

were my sisters and certainly in boarding school, I had a tight group. Also, we lived together. I mean, you couldn't have gone closer. And before then, I had my rider die and I still have those relationships. So I think I was pulling a lot from that.

I also formed this incredible friendship with Katie Silverman who wrote the film and we really felt like the two characters so much of those characters is modeled after our dynamic and beanie and Caitlyn were starring in the film and they would often just say that they would look over at us and sort of be check-in with other boy. It was like a film by friendship being made by people in this intense friendship and it

was wonderful. It's so good. Let's in the '90s. I covered this. I've never been in a movie that had '90s some plus rotten tomatoes.

Oh, I mean, I also made one that has like a 35. Yeah, that's all I made. That's all I made. Yeah. They're about 40.

I did something wrong.

Well, last, you've made it for six million bucks and made 25 million bucks.

This is fucking premium start. Thank you, darling. Don't worry, darling. That would have been a better title. So he's been a hard, don't worry, darling.

“That one, it's a major departure from that and so what inspires that?”

I love psychological thrillers. Name a few of your faith. I mean, Hitchcock as the master of all psychological thrillers. I love vertigo, so he's my top. But then I grew up loving the sixth sense.

I also love like Stephen King novels. Seven. I love Seth. Oh. That's our movie.

Best of all time. Sounds of the lambs. I had a library in my room when I was a kid of all like horror fiction. Like, I love scary stories, ghost stories. I, as a kid, loved like, tales from the crypt.

Yeah. Tell me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I loved goose bumps, like those kind of books.

I always had a fascination with that genre and I was fascinated by the kind of like

early rumblings of the Manus fear. Oh, yeah, it was kind of insolence, Mike. Yeah. I was like the beginning of being so cultured. Served by insil culture, meeting technology in a way that I was like, ooh, somebody could

take advantage of that and put us back into this time. And obviously, it's a metaphor for what's happening, which is like putting ourselves back into an era where women are stripped of all rights. And I think it preceded, I wasn't really thinking about tradwife culture yet because that wasn't happening.

It wasn't happening. During like COVID. Yeah, definitely. So it's smack in the middle November of 2020, September or something. Yes, exactly.

Okay. So the fun things about this, well, I just loved it. We had this extraordinary crew, like Matti Li Beteek, who shot that movie, is such a gangster. We made that movie for $30 million. It looks like a $100 million movie because of him.

And because of Katie Byron, our production designer, we were also shooting in Palm Springs and in L.A. on stage. But during lockdown, it was crazy. We were even outside. And this crew worked so hard on this movie together.

And it was this herkulean effort to build this world in this time. And for me, getting to do car chases in a 60's portion, it was just like a cat-knit cat-knit. I mean, I really just want to shoot car chases. I really just want to get hired to do like Fast The Furious 27.

Most of it's anything for me. Caroline was at the stunt team who were our stunt drivers. I realized at one point that I wanted them to be in the movie because we were about to go hire actors, the stunt guys were going to double the actors to drive. And I was like, why don't you guys just be in the movie?

Yeah. Yeah. They were all so excited and they gave it everything. I had to keep reminding that they didn't have to hide their faces. You know, stunt guys.

Yeah. Yeah. Famously, that's what they do. And they were all so brilliant and they gave these great performances. And I was so happy when the stunt's category was added for the academy because the whole

business is built on their act. That's a fucking movie, by the way, fall guy. Oh, I love it. Do my kids have watched it 25 times. I think it's a perfect film.

And then the director of that film was our stunt coordinator on the Tron David Leach and taught me many things, including what to do if you ever fall off a high bridge or building.

“I'm going to tell you guys right now because the court, you have to make yourself into”

like a tilted line, put yourself at an angle because if you go straight down, you're just fine. We'll shoot up through your brain. So you guys, because we were shooting out a really high bridge and he's like, okay, if

And he's like, if you fall off, just try to land at an angle and I always think about

it. How simple. How simple. Collect yourself. Take a minute.

Learn a lot about that. I mean, okay. I'm in a hurry. Yeah, I'm in a hurry. Yeah, I'm in a hurry.

Yeah, I'm in a hurry. Yeah, I'm in a hurry. Yeah, I'm in a hurry. Yeah, I'm in a hurry. Yeah, I'm in a hurry.

Yeah, I'm in a hurry. Yeah, I'm in a hurry. You kidding me, my job is to blow up the six-street bridge.

“Yeah, I think you're in a adrenaline junkie.”

Yes. Okay, maybe from your parents. Yes, totally. The idea of like, are you really alive if you're not experiencing something at full tilt? Yeah.

I went back in some of the stuff I read was you doing press around the time of thank you, darling. So don't worry, darling. Don't worry. I'm not really entitled. Why is it saying thank you, darling?

Thank you, darling. Thank you, darling. I've been doing a good job until now, I don't worry, darling. And as you impress everyone so much. And then it all falls apart.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it that the fun part for you, those, like, in my life, all of the films, the films, the films. Yeah, I'm on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'll let an angle. Okay, don't worry, darling. Yes. At the time, I could tell you were sick of talking about, like, people are making a big deal of the sex stuff.

Yes. But I'm here to tell you, that was great stuff. It was worthy of talking about, like, Monica and I, we both saw it. We were like, oh, do you like, yeah, I loved it. Almost on cue.

The dining room table soon. Oh, yeah, we loved it.

I had wanted to shoot, that was like a scene in my head for so long, the idea, basically

turning the idea, like a feast and like, yeah, it's like, I love food so much. It's really just me bringing food into every possible scene. Yeah, yeah.

“I think the notion of like showing up to the table, like you're going to devour.”

Yeah. Yes, it's wonderful. Also, it was really passionately showing you like female pleasure. I wanted it to be about that. But obviously, yes, it overtook the conversation in a way that was a bummer because there

was so much else to talk about. Well, here's the fascinating conversation. There is some tricky obscurity with feminism and sexuality in film because clearly women were objectified for a long long time. And then clearly, that's a cause to confront.

And then also, like, feminist or fucking sexual, you want to see sexual fantasies. Yeah. There can be this weird balancing act. I feel like if you're feminist, like, are you betraying feminism by having nudity? Which I don't, I reject.

Right. Of course. But there's some weird tension there about how you do the female driven sexy fucking movie, which I want you to do totally without any stress. Why know we both love Esther Perrell.

Yeah. And I love how she writes about how there's nothing very politically, a correct about her autosism. She talks about women's sexual fantasies and allowing for them to veer into a territory that is not something that you would necessarily ever experience in real life, or that you feel

is politically correct and how you think things should be. But your curiosity or imagination is allowed to veer into that territory. You want to power dynamic in your life and want a different power dynamic when it's time as well. Yeah.

And I love that she writes about how, like, it's so important to let your mind go to these places.

And Jillian Anderson compiled an incredible book of female fantasies called Want to

which is a book of anonymous fantasies from women around the world. And all you learn about the women at the end of each fantasy is like what they do where they live and if they have kids or not. And it's a lot of like powerful women who have fantasies about being objectified. Yes.

As there are these powerful men. Yes. I made a movie about PBS, I'm cultural last year and I learned so much about that. And it is all like super powerful men who on their lunch break go to the dungeon. It is true that when it comes to sexuality in film, this question of like, are you making

the problem worse by showing women in any way is nudity and female nudity apart of the problem resolution. And this has been written about for many decades in glorious time and wrote about like self objectification. There's so much to think about with it.

“And I think it's the way it's done is always what makes the difference.”

But I think for a long time, we weren't even seeing female orgasms in movies. It wasn't a part of it. It was all about the man's right. I think even that feels really unrealistic female orgasms, which is Michael Douglas says plowing you from behind, right?

Any warm up in two minutes later, you're screaming in a music. Yeah. You're screaming men unfairly. Yeah. Slamma girl against the war.

Or whatever. Yeah, she's like, go up for the orgasm. She's like, thank you. It's all I need. But at the same time, movies are allowed to be a fantasy and the kind of the idea.

It should be your fantasy. It should be the fantasy. We just need both parties making their fantasy and fantasy. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't see males get rid of their fantasy or female. Exactly. I want everyone to explore the little bit more. And I think for that movie, I was like, I just really want to focus on it being about

This world was about men who have created a utopian society for themselves.

“And I was like, well, what happens to female pleasure within that?”

These were topics that were very interesting. They had to be explore. Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah.

Okay. Now, I have directed Kristen in scenes with a male lover. Yeah. And I'm fine with it. I think for the male lover, Josh, do male in this case.

Oh, I love Josh. He's the sweetest guy. He's perfect to have your wife hook up with. Yes. He is.

But I remember just being like, I feel like I needed to be extra smart about that dynamic. To make her happy her husband brought in to make up with my wife. Yeah. And I'm directing the thing. Yes.

Did you feel any of that weirdness? Oh, I don't worry. Darling, no. No. That wasn't tricky.

That wasn't tricky. Many things. And maybe this comes from being such a theater nerd as a kid is like, once you're kind of in that dynamic of making something, making a player, a movie like everybody becomes part of the same effort to just like make it as good as it can be.

Yeah. And I feel like that eliminates a lot of the anxiety that exists in a regular sort of dynamic. I do think that particularly when you're directing it, I remember we had to have the camera spun around very slowly during the scene, or she's on the table, and Maddie,

the DB and I were just saying they can't, we're like, is that glass in the way, fuck the glass is the way. Move the glass. No, okay. Get away from the glass.

Like we're just looking at what can be seen.

“I think that any sort of weirdness and nerves around what's actually happening are eliminated”

by the obsessive focus on the shot and like making it work. And I was so happy with how it was all looking and feeling. Yeah. Yeah. We fucking nailed that.

We're not in like the 1940s anymore, we're kissing. I do appreciate when people really go for it. Well, you can feel, think of it.

We can remember these incredible, like the fucking Tom Cruise Kelly Top Gun make out

scene. You're like, let's go. I mean, that in half weeks was a huge influence. You can feel real passion, just like you can feel any emotion. And like you said, like the stunts we try to make them as real as possible.

Why wouldn't we go for it? Yeah. I think as long as everyone feels great, then it's awesome. That's the nuance of the whole thing. That's the nuance of the whole thing.

Because I don't know when your friends, it can be so funny. Like Sam Rockwell and I, we did this movie called "Better Living Through Chemistry." Or we had to have the craziest sex scenes. It was like a montage and it was so funny. Like we would just cry laughing because we were too good buddies.

Yeah. The idea of thinking of each other in a sexual way was just so ludicrous.

“So I think sometimes it's harder when you're best friends.”

You were talking about when you got to direct one of the incredible things was recognizing, oh, you can design these situations differently. Yes. And in particular, you were talking about a closed set. So there's an illusion of a closed set, right.

Historically, which means they're going to clear out everyone that doesn't have to be in the scene and then you're going to rehearse and private and then you're going to have a minimal crew to film the whole thing. But in your experience, so often it was not really a closed set. And there's all these little sneaky monitors that are around.

Like there's a monitor on the sound cart that just always was seriously stays on.

And it was when we were shooting books. Martin, we were shooting a scene with Caitlyn Deaver and Diana Silver's and they're in a bathroom together and it's like a sexy scene. And I was so fiercely protective of them. Of course, I shut down every monitor and then we had an amazing crew, but people don't

realize that a closed set can be even more closed and can really be closed. And in the defense of the crew, let's also be honest, all of it's white noise. Like they got to run cable and they got to throw the dialing out. It's not even like they're not paying attention to it. So they don't even know that they've wandered into one that sensitive.

Exactly. Yeah. They're like, I don't know what's going on. It depends on the comfort of the actor, too. Because I did this movie last year with Cooper Hoffman, this Gregor Rocky movie, that

basically I played Dominatrix and that one, it's called I Want Your Sex. And that movie, I would like get up in the middle of the scene, basically naked and walk around the monitor, we're like, hey guys, do you like this? It's just like, because I just felt comfortable with it and I at that point had no nerves about it.

So some actors are like, it's fine, I don't care. And they can feel like it's weirder if everyone gets weird. Which is the thing for some people. So it's like based on who what they want, but I do believe that the value of being an actor who has turned to a director is that you can empathize with every part of the experience

from when it's cold and they're the only freezing ones and everyone else has sick winter coats on to the sex scenes to bring them into early, to not giving them enough time to prepare. So I like to think that that's like the value of having been in their shoes is that I can make particularly sex scenes a little less weird. I have a quick question about that movie.

Well, it was fun. I had drinks with Katie recently and she was talking about, I guess maybe we were talking about fame, sick, leaners, book or something and we were talking about how things get

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She specifically referenced that movie. She was like, it was so crazy because there was all this stuff around it and all this crazy kind of quote drama that was not real and she as the writer was like, I don't understand how to tell people that it's not real and you're at the center of a lot of that.

“How did you handle, were you like, I hate everyone?”

You come to realize that it is so far from reality because it's about clickbait, it's about selling tabloids and okay, a long long time ago, I remember Jen Garner giving me advice when I was just a baby actor and she said the thing about this business is that you get unwillingly sort of cast in the soap opera of the media. Once they cast you as your character, that is your character and that is the narrative

and it really has nothing to do with you, but it exists and they will keep it on the way that you know, one life delivered will stay on for 150 years and that was such a great advice because it allowed me to understand the separation between reality and what the

media presents and I think we all have lacked like critical thinking when observing tabloids

stuff because you're like, oh snap, it's also by the way, the world is so overwhelmingly difficult and grim and when you can sink into a juicy tabloid soap opera, it's a lot more fun than thinking about how it did so real and so I was aware that we had been kind of turned into this tornado of drama that had so little to do with reality and that nothing was going to change that like one point our crew wrote this letter like this beautiful letter

basically saying like sign by the entire crew being like none of this shit that you're saying in the press is really like there was no fighting, there was no drama and we all had this great time and the crew did that on their own and like nobody here exactly doesn't fit the narrative, it's not as fun. It's not as fun. I know, but it drives. It's madening and I think that having a healthy understanding of of what that is and that it's a machine and just understanding

“that is is essential I think to surviving and this doesn't. But for that movie the heartbreak”

for me was that the crew had worked so hard on this movie and we were so proud of it and we

like never got to talk about the movie because it was always this like other stuff that was just

fictional drama that titillated people and I mean, I get it like shit's rough. It was COVID, it was hard and it was hard and tabloids feel like junk food and you're like don't tell me that it's not good for me like let me eat it. I don't tell me that the flavor isn't real flavor. It's so good. It's so good. It's red dye. It's red don't have it the red dye. Let me enjoy. I cast out a moment where I'm at an airport and I look at the cover of a magazine and it

says Ash and Mila are getting divorced and then I literally go, you know, it was with them three weeks ago. They seemed really good. Could this be true? It's on the cover of a magazine. Right, because on the cover it must have some. Yeah, like did I miss something? Right. They're fine. They

always been fine. I know. There's this not going to get to work. It's also it's impossible for them to

keep up with the need for so many more stories. I mean these tabloid people have to come up with

“something every time. They're the same content in front of that we are all are. Yeah, you have to”

double it in now. Exactly. Okay, so the premise of the invite, it just got taste here in taste here because I think God I didn't know anything about it. Yeah, it's just lovely. That's good. So at first I'm just like, okay, I'm meaning this couple. It's you and Seth. Yes, Seth Rogan. Seth Rogan. Seth Rogan. But it starts with the quote. What is it? It's an Oscar Wilde quote of being married. Yeah, one should always be in love. That is the reason one should never

marry. Which is very cynical. I put that quote in there because it I think represents the perspective. We were talking about earlier like a director having a perspective. Yeah. I like quotes that contextualize the kind of director's perspective. It's like the same thing when you read a book the search of the quote and I'm like, all right, I see your kind of, like see your vibe. And the movie is both romantic and cynical. I would argue. It's both romantic and cynical. And then also

because it's Oscar Wilde, it's like in a student observation that's also clever and funny. So you're like, oh, I can kind of say this rough thing, but I'm also putting it in a package that it's still fun. Yes. So we meet you guys and although I'm not in one of those relationships, I'm so aware of how easily all relationships fall into this. Yes. And that relationship being one that has, I would argue, slid into a kind of rhythm of resentment and a complete inability to hear

or see one another. Yes. And you are just sort of coasting along on like inertia and obligation. And your partner now somehow is the cause of every maladie you have. Like you're not responsible

And so fucking funny and you're immediately great. You guys are so good together. Do you know?

“I knew him only a little bit when he asked me to come and do the studio. And I came and did an”

episode and we had so much fun together. He reminded me that I had actually screen tested for knocked up 170,000 years earlier. Right, baby. And I was like, oh my God, that was our first time

acting together and I had been a fan of his forever. But we'd never really gotten to play. And so the

studio was immediately so fun. And we recognized something in each other right away. We were like, wait a minute. We have a real fun time finding a rhythm with each other. After a similar thing, maybe. Maybe. Yeah. There's a similar goal to the way we approach it. And he said genius for so many reasons. He's so sensitive to the audience's experience. He can feel what the audience is feeling at any moment. So putting this movie together with him, he was so helpful and reminding us at all times

as we kind of workshop this script together of how the audience would be feeling. And with innocent that you're improvising with him, he can feel where it needs to go. And it was so fun. But like the thing that I'm so proud of is that everyone knows that's a genius. Everyone knows he's one of the funniest people, smartest people, so stylish. This movie, I feel very proud of him

“in the way that he, I think, has shown an additional dimension, which I call sad dad.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm so good at playing someone who's kind of hit mid-life and it didn't work out for him. He plays a guy who was in a band. He had a little pop at the beginning of his

wife. Yeah, he's living on his parents. Like a real fucking loser. He feels an incredible

imposter syndrome within his relationship, within his life. He lives in the apartment that he grew up in, his parents house. He's bottomed out and he's reached this kind of like numb space that he has decided to settle into and he may settle into and live in forever. His wife, who I play, has hit a similar place of dissatisfaction with life, but is way more anxious. Well, I was going to say it is the Yen and Yen and Yen you often see play out, which is like the dude just fails out. Yes,

right. And then the the woman gets so much anxiety and it's trying to control every fucking thing. No one's prospering in this dynamic. And then we meet the neighbors, which are played by Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz. Yes. I mean, Penelope Cruz. No, that's true. She's so powerful and she's

“so beautiful. Oh. And so I didn't look like that. I know. I'm fair. Do you know she has a twin sister?”

No. No. I didn't get the wrong. We'll check. But she just has this incredible warmth to her

and is power. But I've never felt anything like it. I mean, I knew that I was in love with her,

but it really was taken to to new heights. All of us. And the chemistry that she's able to create with a house plant, like she can do anything. But she and Seth genuinely had amazing chemistry. So fun. Everybody on set. Because one cool thing about this movie is we shot it in order. The crew was more invested than they typically are because they were watching it play out. So they were like, oh, oh, oh, what's going to? Oh, no. Like they would watch the rehearsals and like clap at the

end rehearsals. Like kids watching a theater, production done in several different bits. Like they were so invested. Everyone was feeling like wait a minute. Seth and Penelope are in love. Yeah. Yeah. And it was. And maybe they were. They were in love. And you heard it here first. It was so extraordinary to see the pairing of two very different actors. She's like boom, clicking. And man, I mean, she just is unlike any one else. The fact that she wanted to do the movie. I felt like I was being

pumped. Yeah. Tell me, how'd you get her and how intimidated were you to guide her. First of all, on our Zoom that we had, she read this script written by Rashida Jones, when we'll coordinate. And she love it based on a script. Spanish movie? Yes. It was based on a Spanish movie called The People of Stairs, which in Spanish was called Sentimental. And that was based on play. And this play turned into a movie in Spain. It was also made into a movie in South Korea

in Germany in Italy in France. Like so you know, it's interesting. It's interesting for us. We got sexy neighbors, they're coming over for dinner. What will happen? Well, we handle that if your marriage is falling apart. I love the idea that every culture has this basic question and every movie is very different. And so Rashida and well wrote the English version. And then we approached

shoot it on film, workshop the script together as a unit. The writers in the cast for two weeks before we shot the film. And then to continue workshopping it as we were filming. That's sort of like high intensity adrenaline that I love the risk involved was that we would I suppose go off the rails and lose the tether of the story. And yet with these people, I knew we were safe because we had some of the best storytellers in the business putting their heads together. And I loved that we were

taking big leaps. And we were making it more and more specific. So like we would approach every scene and think, how can we make that more personal and more specific and more unexpected? I mean,

“the example I think about a lot is that big little lie show. When we got into that twisted relationship”

with Alexander Skars girl in Nicole Kidman, I've never been in that dynamic. But what I could

sense was, oh, this is the real dynamic. There was a level of specificity in the way the pattern in the cycle went was like, oh, I get the trap of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can see how people are trapped in this. Yes. And it's just through how specific it really was. Yes, I think that's when the actors are allowed to infuse real experience into the performance into the characters. And that takes writers who are really open to a process that is not traditional because we were taking this

grip to far from its original structure and making it more and more specific to these actors and their choices. We were thinking about it as we went. We were very careful to make sure that everything set up in an authentic way what we was coming next and that everything that happened would only happen based on what had happened before. So like we would finish a scene and then say, okay,

well, then tomorrow's scene, we have to rewrite it because it would never happen that way anymore.

Right. Because we've already crossed that boundary. We played that pizza. Now we have to do some a difference. It's a constantly engaging in the process of workshopping the script as we went along. We didn't know how it ended a week before we shot it. Whoa. We had an idea of the intention of how we wanted to end, but the way we wanted to do it set that I felt really strongly that we would actually not say very much in the end and anyone who's ever been through and experienced

that sort of creates an eruption, a conflict and an interrelationship knows that sometimes the speechlessness is the most devastating feeling, which we were so passionate about the idea like, people who are very quick to be snarky, you know things have shifted when they actually can't say anything. If you give me speech, it's like some shit sits in the back. Yeah, because fighting, you're still engaged. Yes. Fighting is you're fighting. You're at least fighting for it. Yes,

I'm way, but when you're done talking, you've resigned. You're done now. Yeah, exactly. This pause on the battlefield. And it's like, oh, no, this is different. So we were able to do that because we had

this group of unbelievable, I mean, I've never felt anything like this dynamic. And I can't believe

that I got to act with them, which was not their original plan. I was not supposed to be in the movie. I was putting all these ideas in front of the cast of like actresses who could play this part and all incredible people. And they kept looking not getting back or like not answering, not coming up with a decision together. And I was like, well, guys, we got to figure it out. And then they got together and then they came to me and they're like, we want you to do it.

The three other apps. And I was like, yeah, right. Weirdly, I had the confidence to direct the Edward Norton, but the idea of like acting with Edward. And now looking at that, I was like, are you kidding me? I can't, not me. And Edward was the one who was like, you obviously are

“telling the story for a reason. Yeah. And maybe you need to play this character. But who do you think”

you were in that quartet? Like who am I? Who are you really? I am a combination of all four of them. For sure. I have the kind of like resistance to social situations like sets character, the idea of a surprise dinner party in my house is my personal hell. Okay. But I have some of the like people pleasing anxiety of Angela. In my dreams, I want to be like Penalty's character. So I think I have the aspiration to have the kind of wisdom of Penalty's character. And then

Edward's character has this incredible ability to have reinvented himself and this kind of almost infant like openness, the sweet kind of openness to change, which is something that as I've gotten an older I've learned. I'm a combo of all four. I think there's a very fine line between a mutiny and collaboration. Yeah. Because Edward was telling me how much of it you guys all did together, basically. And so I'm imagining myself directing that. Boy, I want just the right

amount of them helping. And then it has to be a singular vision. I do believe a director has to

“bring to bear. And I think actors want that. They want to feel there's someone growing.”

So how should you navigate in the line is like, okay, that's enough ideas for the day. I know

They were all incredibly respectful of that exact thing of the need for it to all. You'd to be deferred to all exactly. So they would give me many ideas and then allow me to kind of

“say that one feels right. That's not so good. Is that hard for you to say that one's not the best?”

Interesting. I think initially I just wanted everyone to feel really comfortable giving me every idea. It was like give me everything opening it up. But then I knew by the time we shot, I was like at this point, I'm going to start kind of pruning the multiple ideas and say like, we're going there. But they also really respected that and would say like, what do you think? What do you want? I mean, it was so surreal for me the first day. I wrote it was like, what do you think? How do you think I should approach

this moment? I was like, oh my god. All I could see was like, primal fear. Yeah, you're so good. They're all such professionals that they just understood that I had a very, very clear vision. It was not specific to how things would play out in scenes at all. I knew that was

going to be a full discovery. But I did have like the intentions, always in my head. And so they

would check into be like, is that fitting the intention that you have for it? Does that feel right? And that was so, so professional of them to always kind of know that they're all filmmakers too. I mean, they're all directors. Yeah. So that helps. It was so far from immunity. It was a complete collaboration. I've never felt anything like it. It was like, we were all in rhythm with each other. I hope Edward tells you the story, but he'll probably be overly humble about it. So I actually want

to tell, was there's a scene where his character tells the story. His back story. His back story. Yeah. It's so good. And he came up with that entirely on his own and I didn't hear that until we were rolling cameras because there was nothing there before. And we needed a ramp, an emotional ramp to take us from one place to another in the movie and to shift the weather in the room.

“Edward said, I have an idea. I want to tell a story. And he said, do you want to know what it is?”

And I said, don't tell me because I want to hear it on camera, which he couldn't believe, especially because we were rolling film didn't have a lot of money. And I said, just tell me like roughly how long so I know what kind of mag I need on the cameras. He was like, do you think maybe you could have two cameras that day, put them on you and set so we can film your real reactions. And I had no idea where he was going to go with it. And he started telling the story that was so

different than anything I could have imagined. And I just burst out crying thinking about this, he was telling the story. It's so powerful and he's so good. It's so good. It's great and you're like good. This is a real story that's happened to you. Yeah. I believe it. And Seth is having his completely different reaction, which is perfect for his character. It was such a gift. And now that's one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Oh, it's incredible. And everyone was doing that.

Esther Perrell's very present in this movie. Esther was our consultant on the film. Okay. I mean, there's even direct quotes that Penelope is saying. Oh, yes. Esther's whole perspective is like

“her. Yes. As Penelope basically plays us. Yeah. Yeah. Had they had a friendship prior to them?”

No, I introduced them. Well, they feel perfectly matched. Oh my gosh. I know that's the podcast that I need. I need them to link up forever and ever. But I'll be at her to have a star, but she

had never met her. And then I introduced them on Zoom. And it was fireworks and Penelope and Esther

then had long conversations about the character. And every time they had a conversation, Penelope's character would get more specific. And I could feel her like slowly, like more thing. And because Penelope in the movie is not all Penelope in real life. She never met her. Just such a good actress that you believe that's exactly her. She is the sweetest, most kind of adorable, giggly, hilarious, but she's not a star. And that is a huge testament to her talent. And those direct quotes you're talking about

really they became like goal posts in the film that we were kind of working around these philosophies that we cared so deeply about that we wanted to be able to hit. So it was like making sure we could justify getting to that place in the conversation. So the whole idea of yeah, you can have a new relationship with the same person. When I first heard her say that in a TED talk, whatever was

almost 20 years ago, that blew my mind. I'd never even considered that concept. It's so beautiful.

It is. Yeah. This relationship is over. You may have another one or you may go your own separate way. Right. But a new one or no one is what's next. And allowing for that that maybe that's something that will kind of allow people to change within a relationship and let go of resentment for maybe things that have happened or the person you just don't want to be anymore and that you're allowed to reintroduce yourself to each other and decide, are you in love with who your person is

today? Exactly. Would you like to meet them where they are now and have a relationship with them now? Yeah. It's so hard for people. Yes. Of course it's hard. It's hard because I think it takes a lot of courage to get rid of that resentment that is in some ways convenient because it takes away the agency to have responsibility in your own life. It's much easier to be like, lose little ball and shame. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's in a relationship that the only flaws the other person.

Exactly. Oh, we were just talking about this last night. So many people have this notion that

couples therapy like they're doing drop-offs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks to them. Yeah. Thanks to them.

This person, please. Thank you. And this is like, this is a 50/50 thing. This is a system. Yeah. Did you guys are both in? Yeah. And you're both playing roles in this system? I mean, mating and captivity, that book when Esther released a 20 years ago. So now it's a 20-year anniversary.

“And she's reissued it with a new forward and it's fascinating. And I think it's required reading”

for anybody in relationships. Or just listen to her podcast too. It's just so mind-blowing. The way she can just drop in to these most horrific scenarios that couples deal with and navigate it perfectly. Did you hear the one she did about the guy who's in love with his AI? Oh, yes. So I started listening to that one. It was recommended to me. And I was having a hard time

understanding the guy of the rough comics. Anyways, but yeah. It's wild. And it's so crazy that

Spike John's made her whatever was 15 years ago. Which you were in. I play the like nightmare date with a human that really makes him think it'd be better to be with an AI. Yeah. But I just be easier. Yeah. I was like, no, she was my phone. But I think that the way Esther takes that relationship apart and by the end of the podcast episode, you actually think you're listening to a couple on a couch because she keeps inviting the AI to share. Stop. She's like,

she's so fucking open-minded the way she approves this whole thing. Yeah, that thing. It's open-minded. I know. Like my husband used to be like, dude, is Kimmini Nizus? He got to have a hidden partner. But she's curious about is he getting what he needs? But when I asked her about it, she said,

"People can live without sex. They can't live without touch." And that guy when she asked him,

what do you miss about having Astrid be human? And he said, "I just want to cut along the couch and watch Netflix." Yeah. I mean, it's so relatable. So relatable. Yeah. And that's the thing.

“The universe looks, experience of like, how do we survive in relationships? That's what's”

been so interesting about taking this movie out now to audiences is people connect with it that I didn't expect to connect with it. Like young people, rural, middle-aged people. Yeah, we've been through it. There's like 17-year-olds watching the movie and they're like, oh, that's me. That is me. Yeah. I was talking to these college kids and they were like, yeah, I felt really relevant. I'm like, really? That's fascinating. No, were you nervous at all

that this is going to open up so many questions about your stance on marriage? Are you open to that? I'm interested in all those questions. And what was really fun is that everyone making the movie has completely different kind of relationship histories. And set then I as the main couple in the film, you know, set this been a learn for 20 years. They are doing it their own way in a way that I just so respect, they respect each other as individuals. They admire the

hell out of each other. They are best friends, but they still have this really sexy dynamic. They're nailing it. It was really interesting to put him in a relationship that only made him more clear on why he was so in love with his wife and wife. And he was like, oh my God, people live like this bickering and not having sex, which he couldn't believe that people don't

“have sex. So cute. He was like, what do you mean? This is a fiction. I think all of us were like”

pouring our own experiences into the pot in a way that was like therapy. Yeah. I think the most romantic movie I've ever seen or I cried the hardest of. And it was because I had broken up with the girls with for nine years. And then I saw the movie. But eternal sunshine in the school was mine, it's really just the one exchange where they're deciding whether or not they're going to be together again. She's like, I'm going to do this and you're going to get annoyed and I'm

going to do this and you're going to do this and he goes, okay. And I'm like, oh fuck, I'm going to just say okay. I could have loved that and honored and appreciated that. I went into this whole zone where it's like, oh yeah, I met Bree when I was broke and we were in the tent with the light. Like we had that relationship. Now I have money and I'm famous. Like, why ever have anything that's that genuine? So in a weird way that movie made me deeply sad, I could relate to that.

Like, yeah, okay, I'll take all that, you know. Right. Right. So if you're just giving any sadness at the end, because you're a couple, well, we can't give away the end. But you know, there's hope in your story. There was actually interesting. You see it that way because it's sort of ambiguous by the side. Yeah. And the audiences we've taken a two so far, I do a little poll at the end of the Q&A and it's been 50, 50 every time. I had an argument with someone about the end of the

crew. I disagree with you. That it's hopeful. Yeah. Yes. And set that I disagreed when we were filming it. He was like, ride or die, felt like these people are together forever. He was so short of it. But isn't as it's so, um, we were also reflective of all of us in the room. Totally. I believe fuck, I've been doing this for 19 years. There have been periods where it's like, I want to bet on us. Yes. And then here we are. But you've also had breakups that you're like, yeah, that ran.

It's quite that should have been the end exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that for me is how I was like,

afraid in life of ever seeing an ending as maybe a healthy result. Right. And we don't have a lot of

movies about a divorce that should happen. I'm just not amazing. Mrs. Dalfire was made in the 90s.

And it ends with them not getting back together. Yeah. And the home movie like, okay, it's Hollywood. It's going to work. And the ending is just like, no, but they actually find a way to live separately, really happily. And I think that was very bold for that time. But it's still something people are uncomfortable with, particularly when there's kids involved. There's still this idea that like, no, no, no, you make it work no matter what. Yeah. And 50% of marriage is

end. So clearly, there's a lot of people coming to a different conclusion. But can we kind of change the conversation around it? But what's interesting is that now I've watched some of you so many times that I at the end sometimes I've started to feel like maybe I have hope. I'm like, oh, my changing my opinion. Yeah. Based on how I feel today. But offering the opportunity to end a relationship allows for you to make the choice to be in the relationship. And I think that is

various there. This is a choice. Yeah. And if people take away the obligation to be there and the

“resentment and the paperwork. And it's like, get rid of all that. That's how easily undone.”

You can get rid of that. You're allowed to leave. So if you're here, make the choice to be here and actually be here or don't. Yeah. Yeah. That's also okay. But also we have a good time pressure testing. This relationship they're observing from upstairs. Yes. That seems like a lot that seems great. But then what I like is you're truthful enough to go like, oh yeah, and then that has problem. All of this shit has problems. Yeah. Conflict isn't the problem. It's the inability

to be honest about it and resolve it. So we wanted to show an example of like rupture and repair.

Yeah. Because we're not saying like, you're only happy if you never fight. It's how you fight

how you recover from the fight and fighting. It's actually really healthy if it's honest and you're not letting this resentment build up over time and secrets and all those things that come if you don't communicate. There's also this delightful thing. And I think a lot of people thought this about bringing in, by the way, because we weren't open relationship all nine years. And I also think there's this thing when you meet the couple that seems to be totally fine with everything.

There's so intelligent they have thought through everything and they're unaffected by all this. When you get to see those people affected. Yes. It's really rewarding. It kind of confirms this hunch we have that no one can transcend those feelings. Now I'm on the other side of that debate right, which is like, no, we really did. No, it was really fine. And I know everyone thought we were full of shit. Well, it's also very threatening to people to present the idea that it's possible

that you could just love each other. Yeah. They don't even want to let that in to the room. Well, because they know they've experienced jealousy before and it's just such a dark feeling.

“The best thing I've heard about jealousy is that if you take, I'm ruining a Buddhist”

adage, but it's if you take the ego out of jealousy or left with admiration, I think I don't all the time. The other one is if you take the ego out of anger or left with determination. So it's not about eliminating the feeling. It's transforming it by removing the ego. Go climate. Would you so hard to do? But it's like, if you're jealous of somebody, it's usually because you actually admire them. You recognize something. You recognize something. Then offering people with likes.

Also, another thing that's really from meeting in captivity for Master's Book is the recognition of the third. She calls it the shadow of the third, which is that when you're in a relationship with someone, it's important to recognize the opportunity they have to be with someone else. And that's not a bad thing. It actually keeps the erotic charge alive. If you remove that, then you lose this kind of separateness that is important. You've traded safety. What you think is safety for death.

Exactly. Yeah. I do like acknowledging maybe if jealousy is just a useful way to be like, you are desirable. Yeah. And you desire others. And that's actually a charge. I don't want you to lose. I want you to not have that. Polyamory is a whole other step in that direction. I'm critical. I'm just like, I'll see this work. Right. I know hard one relationship is, I don't know,

“you're inevitable people. For me, it sounds exhausting. Yeah. I think it was like, if I”

never know about something, I don't care. That's amazing. And that worked great for us.

In Tildin, I always have to say that. But nine years ago. I don't think that is the reason I feel guilt free framing it that way is that just wasn't. It wasn't the thing that ended up. It wasn't the thing that ended up. Yeah, which people would probably assume. Yeah. Think of how many couples were so happy when you guys broke up. Oh, they're like, they're like, yeah, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about also the concept of compersion in the movie, which is also

an aesthetic compersion. Compersion is experiencing joy within your partner's joy. And we're using specifically in terms of like sexuality. So they say they transferred jealousy into compersion.

sad that my characters week were like, one on earth, we can't imagine. But I think that this whole point of this is we stop recognizing our partners as whole people. I mean, stop recognizing ourselves as whole people. Yeah. And I want people to leave the movie feeling like, am I blaming my partner for all my unhappiness? Am I fully realized whole person? Have I really thought about myself in that way? Not just someone who completes someone else or someone who needs to be completed. Do I recognize

“my person as a separate person? And I think that would be a healthy thing to put out there.”

A good line of thinking. That's useful. I feel like with comedy, my favorite kind of laugh is the laugh of someone recognize themselves. And the sense of like, oh my god, I thought I was the only one. And you can hear it in the theater when they're like, oh, that's the best because it takes the shame out of an experience and gets the sense that people are less alone. And they're just like, we're getting to laugh at how ridiculous we all are. And the movie is really just

having fun with that. It's like, look, we're all just awkward humans attempting to relate to each other. Oh, it's impossible. Olivia, I have had you for so many seconds. Because you're second of the day. Oh, that's okay. Thank you so much. Oh, such a joy. I think you're so good. I'm so excited to watch all the movies you'll make. Thanks. Yeah, I'm really a huge fan. I'm so grateful. And I

“feel like when I heard that you guys liked it. It was very exciting because I think there's this feeling”

of like very, very funny talented people can be very critical of comedies. Sure. So it meant a lot

to me when I heard you liked it. It's so good. It comes out June 26, June 26, in June 26, 262. Kind of cool, right? Six, 26, 26, 26. I wish that was like, it was like a Taylor Swift thing. Well, like, you could unlock the coordinate or something. We do to a show. No, it's New York and LA, June 26. And then it goes wider from there. So it's fully wide July 10th. Okay, July 10th. Great. Get your fourth of July blackouts done. Yeah. Yeah. And then when you're just thinking like,

I got to tighten it up this summer. Maybe I go to a movie instead of blocking everything. It's a great date night movie. Oh. And I think it's a great double date movie. Yeah. My fantasy is that people swing at the door. There's a little thing going through that. But people would think like, who's the other fun couple you know to go see it with? Yeah. And then have dinner and talk and argue. It'll spark

“so much. That's my fantasy. Oh, yeah. Really. That's great. I think that's assured. Olivia,”

this has been a blast. I'm so grateful. You said yes. Thank you. And the next movie, you direct, we'll do it again. Sweet. Do you? Thank you. So to whom for the fact, so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. Thank you, Rob. Move to my coffee over. Oh, he's a very, very, very nice. We did something earlier. We tested a theory. Oh, yeah. We were between recordings. And I hate to admit to this, but I was very

tired. And then I just soon as the episode was over, I just laid down on the carpet face down in the studio. And then I said, if I were on railroad tracks, and now is unconscious, non-responsive, could you move me off the railroad tracks? Yeah. And I said, of course. Yeah, you were like no problem. And then I said, okay, give it a shot. I want to tread lightly here. I want to be honest, but I also don't want to hurt your feelings. Go ahead. I was like, she even trying to lift me up.

I was, I knew I wasn't going anywhere. Like from when you first gave it your first thrust,

your, you went for it. And I didn't move it on. I didn't come off the ground. It was weird. I was like, she's not even going to be able to give me an inch off these tracks. Like, you know, I gave up immediately. It was really pretty bad. It was pretty bad. Really, like, could not get you to move at all. And I wasn't doing anything sneaky. I was just laying there. I know. And then so heavy. Yes. And then we went up to see Lincoln in the gym. Yeah. And

you said, you kept saying, which I think is hilarious. It's fine, because you get super strength. I do. I'm like, when we're really in this position, I'm going to get super strength. I know you're certain of it. And I, I'm nervous a lot of people think they hear about the one story from the

50s were a mom looked at a car off a baby. And have it so often. The moms always can lift the car off the

kids. But yeah, you're so confident. You're not even worried. I'm not. Which is, yeah, that scares me. Well, I mean, Lincoln did better. She'd, no, but I wanted, I also want to say something. Okay. I was like, well, if we're really doing this like for real role play, I can't do for real what I would do,

it if my full, but I also didn't want to scrape up your whole face. I was on carpet, but okay.

“Yeah, but ow, rug burned. Okay. Um, and I know that and I know you'd be upset if I scraped.”

Oh, my God. You don't know anything. I wouldn't be upset. I wouldn't even acknowledge my face was scraped. I almost, I couldn't admit I was tired. What are you talking about? I'm not, I wouldn't have been like, ow, Monica, would you, you think you'd ever hear a movie that? Of course. I mean, it happened five minutes later, we were up. Yeah, it did. You make a great point. But that's my child. Either it hurt you. So then we asked her to do it. She really got in the most. She didn't do what I did, which was half

strength. She thought about it a little. Maybe it's from her 18 months, but yeah, but she immediately thought to just grab one arm and get me rolling. Well, okay. I don't, don't try to lift me before me. I didn't say before we went up there. I said, it was hard because you were on your stomach and I would want you on your back. But you got to get me on my back or by the chance. And then yeah, Lincoln was so

“keen to impress you that she was running into me, like not looking at her feet or going and she”

got my side of my side scan, which is very tender in between the rubber mat and her fucking tennis shoe sole. Yeah. And it felt like she ripped all the skin off my side. And I did say,

yeah, the second time. Because I was like, you said, out the first time in the

music, oh, that's the second. And you. Yeah, I was like, stop that. That's two for two. Yeah. And I was like, this is why only when I have strength. I lost that one, but it did really get hurt. I know I'm shorted it. But listen, you're on the railroad tracks. I'm going to, you won't feel it because you'll be non-responsive, as you said, but you're going to be very injured after that. Well, if you said, you're going to be very happy with where you wake up. You're not going

to be on the tracks after Monica tried for a few times. I was like, that's it. You're going, I'm in three pieces. Like, well, you know what? I was also making the stakes. I was going, I know that was really scary. I made it. You know what, though? You know, I would die too because I wouldn't give up. You'd have to give up. No, I wouldn't. I would just keep staying there. I would know by

superhuman strength. What happened at the last minute in the movies? It always happens at the last

minute. So I would be like, it's okay. It's going to happen at the last minute. And then we both get dead. It does remind me of, and I know you've heard it, but Aaron and I is death pack, which is, if I die first, he's obligated as the funeral will be held at a railroad crossing. Oh, yeah. And he's going to put me in a full Superman outfit and then put me in a chair and tie me with rope to the chair. And then when the trains coming, you're like, it's no problem. It's Superman. He'll,

he'll get out of those ropes. But then I just get smashed. It would be such a good joke. No, it's a bad joke. It's so funny. In this case, you've already been hit by, I think you need a

“plan B in case you do die by railroad tracks. Why would then need a different, you have to go to”

we have backup plans for that. There's three different scenarios. Oh, my God. I hate this. You know, the dream is we die at the same time. I don't like this. And then in our funeral week, we have opposing cannons that are a hundred yards apart. Again, we're in superhero outfits. Yeah. And they explode the cannons and we're flying through the air. You're like, it's a bird. It's a bird. Look, we would look like superheroes in our capes and everything flying. But then

we would collide mid-air. Yeah. And then we would just fall like what's sex of some men. It's what a joke that would be so funny. So funny. Yeah, really funny stuff. Oh, my God. So, yeah. The whole thing only would be laughing, I think. They'd be laughing so hard. See, fly your dead body, fly across the air. Yeah, collide into the air and smack into the air. Yeah, hold the ground. And then everyone just turns and gets back in their car and leaves.

That's in a field. But then somebody has to clean that up. No, and leave it out for the scavengers, for the jackals and coyotes. Just had a brainstorm. Okay. You get, you can on your license, elect to donate your body to science and to organ donation. Would you donate your corpse to get eaten by polar bear? Well, have they taken my organs out and given them to people? Sure. Then yeah. Yeah, when that be great. Well, I don't know if it'd be great. But I just don't

like keep your stoke the polar bear. It's like you want to add it to zoo. And then they just throw this, they throw your corpse in there. Oh. That's such a sweet gift to that polar bear. I mean, yeah, I don't really care about the vessel afterwards. But I do want to give my organs to people. This is a fun topic because we just watched that crazy documentary about the woman. I haven't

just, I guess, this is inadvertently. Anyways, at the end of the thing which we watch with the

“family, the kids were asking me about, like, how do they kill people when you get sentenced to death?”

And I was like, well, you've got electric chair. I think it's still functional. Maybe in a state or two, lethal injection, most common. And then firing squad still. This comes up in an episode too soon. All right. I probably made the same point in that episode, which is, that's my pick by far. I think that's crazy. Well, tell you why. The bullets moving faster than the speed of sound. Did you know that's actually the bang you're hearing in a gun? You're hearing some bang from the

gun powder. But the big bang is when it breaks the sound barrier. Oh, Nicole. That is cool.

So you're standing there. The bullets traveling faster than the speed of sound. You would never

even hear the gun go off. You'd be standing there like thinking like, oh, this sucks. This is how I'm going to go. And then that's that. You're not watching someone hit a syringe to initiate the lethal injection. You're not watching a guy go over to that fucking archaic switch on the wall for the electric chair. I just hate it all. I hate it. Yeah, I hate it. It was fun for me because the kids are now

“I mean, you'll remember right, high schools probably the first place they have you debate the”

death penalty as as I recall. Yeah, I don't remember. It's a very like, it's a perfect. What if they still is so difficult to debate to launch on the young minds? Yeah. And I had a very specific opinion in high school that I don't now. Yeah. Oh, interesting. So were you pro-death penalty? Yes. So what changed your mind? I just learned about the world. I mean, one is I learned, well, too many people could be innocent. Uh-huh. I have two afraid of that. Yeah. I recognize that there is less choices.

And the matter than I used to think. Like, I used to just think like everyone was making these bad decisions. And everyone in the same childhood as you did. And then they made the decision with your brain exactly. Yeah. It's like, oh, no. Like, all of this is is a crap shoot and sometimes things happen. Yeah. And yeah, if I do it, I've made a choice. Right, right, right, right, right. And a bad one. And maybe I should be killed from that. Yeah. But I can't, I can't. People don't have that

same background. Yeah. So I'm just against it. Mine was fiscal. So my all point. And when I was a senior, I remember debating people often about it was, okay, it was spending $30,000 a year to keep someone incarcerated. So this man has just butchered this family. And we're going to go spend $30,000 a year to keep this piece of shit alive. When we could be giving that 30,000 to like the fucking inner city kid, he's got no leg up. I was just like, why of our limited resources, why on earth do we

honor this fucking person? But what changed my mind is I learned that almost all deathroinmates will exhaust all of the legal moves they can make. So they're entitled to X amount of appeals. They can do clemencing declarations, all this stuff, all told. I forget the number exactly. But all told the average legal expense incurred from someone on death row by the time they put them

to death is like over a million dollars. And the second I heard that, I was like, okay,

well, then my normal objection doesn't even make sense. That's even more money we're spending on the monster who murdered everyone. And I did always object to the notion of killing someone to show that killings wrong. It just always felt like a flawed premise. Yeah, just felt like how can that be a premise? Yeah. But if I were right, like if you got sentenced to death, they knew it was

“the person. Yeah. And they killed them the next day. I think I would be in favor of not spending”

$450,000 on a person who put your someone's family over the other people that could benefit from it. It's hard. Yeah. I just also, there's some cases where I forget the case we were just watching and they weren't getting the death penalty. And I was like, what's weird is this person is in so much discomfort with their psychosis and their mental health issues? It feels almost more torturous if they keep this person alive for another 35 years to suffer in prison. I used to also say that.

I used to say, like, I think it's worse for them to be in prison. Like, if they, if you really want punishment, death isn't really a punishment for them. Yeah. But so I used to also say that, I now no longer really feel like that. Like, I don't think they suffer. Yeah, exactly. I don't really

Yeah. I just want to keep them away from everyone. Everyone. Yeah. Which I guess some people would say

then, yeah, remove the, I just, I can't. Like, I can't get on board with, it's messy. The bottom line

is it's so fucking messy. Because I'm of the same opinion as you are. And then I just, we just interviewed someone who's like the fucking person was out for five days on parole after raping a bunch of other people and fucking breaks into it. It's like, then there's that. So it's like, uh, it's so inconvenient. I know. It is. And that's right. The people who want them turn away forever. They have, you know, everyone's got a, we've got a bunch of innocent people that belong there or

their circumstances, we're going to land in there no matter what. So we have a, we have a healthy dose of people we can point to for that. And then the people on the other side are going to have a really healthy dose of the people that were let out. And then immediately killed more people.

“I know. It's just, unfortunately, you have to choose the lesser of what do you want this”

country to be against people who are innocent in jail or people who are guilty out and like killing innocent people sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. It's, it's just, I think that's more

to me, the solution is more about that. Each side admitting that, then one side or the other

getting their way. It's just like, let's, let's just all acknowledge this is fucking really messy. And it's not great when the person that could have been better doesn't get to be. You can see that if you're on the, you know, throw the throw away the key side of the argument, even they would be able to acknowledge for the person who got out and turn their life around and never heard anyone again. It would be a shame to keep that person. You know, like, everyone could admit what's going on

on both sides and start with the notion like whatever solution we agree upon, it's going to be very far from perfect. And we have to accept that to some degree. Yes, I think we do. But you know,

I am not like, I'm a, I'm a pretty fearful person. And I also think that's where people who,

well, there's two, there's a lot of variables. But I think fearful people are often for it. Uh-huh. Yeah. Because it's like, well, it's a scary people, but it doesn't matter. The tiny chance that they could come out and do something like, no, not worth it. So I think that's also part of why I used to want it. Of just like, no, that's like a bad guy. They got, why wouldn't you just kill them? Yeah, let's just get rid of them. And now I'm like, I don't know, maybe I'm just less scared.

Hmm. I'm not scared at all, honey. Oh, congratulations. That was quick. Really quick. I didn't even see all the baby steps. It just like went from fearful to not fearful.

“It all. No, I just. You should write a book on how to overcome fear.”

Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare. I have overcome a lot of fear. I think. Oh, you're not, I'm not cured. Yeah. But I think a healthy dose fear is okay. But whatever you're doing is great. I think it's great. Yeah. But anyhow, I just don't, well, what did they, what did the kids say? Did you ask them about this? That's why it became a conversation because I was interested and fascinated with the notion that

Lincoln was very much like, yeah, that person should probably get. Yeah. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Tell me more about that, you know, and then I got to say my whole journey with my opinion on it. But I did think I left it thinking like, one of that's just a more natural conclusion for kids, or when you're young. Exactly. Exactly. But again, because life is a little

“more black and white when you're young. Yeah, they're good and bad. And you see such that you can't”

have the nuance and the exposure to like other people's experiences and how people got where they got and they're tiny and scared. Of course. Yeah, it's scary. But my, my parents watched it. I haven't watched it yet. But they, we were chatting on the film last week and they're like, have you seen this thing? You shouldn't watch it. This is what happens. I was like, oh my god. Okay. You shouldn't watch it. This is what it. You know, she was like, she's being sentenced to death.

And I was like, oh, like, I, that was my reaction. I was like, oh, and she said, as she should, and I was like, look, I, I get it. It's, it's about us. It's as dark as you can get. Yeah. It is. I mean, it's deer's accuracy still much worse. But it's on, uh, it's on the far end of this spectrum. Should the mom did it? The woman had like, killed her husband. And uh, then the

trying to, he's a documentary in his friend. Yeah. And as he's trying to build this whole story of his life so that the kid, you know, who his dad is, he starts kind of realizing that the wife killed them. Right. And then this custody battle ensues. And then the N. She, her self, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's so brutal. And it's like, yeah, it's sort of, also the guy who, um,

“who his kids in the water, killed them, put them in the water tower. Do you know that?”

Oh, my God. Hard. Just like, what is happening? Oh, it is. It's, uh, it's horrific. Anyway, um, so they told me and then she was, you know, happy that she was, that was a whole sentence. Yeah. And I was like, um, and, you know, what, uh, yeah, different opinions. And I respect, I get it.

Uh-huh. Um, but then, and I always want to say this,

because I think it'll come in response to like, what if you're, let me be clear. Someone foxed with my family on the death. I'm not claiming that I want it personally want them and be happy if they were killed. I agree. But I think, societally, we can do better than what we individually would want. I also am for, like, obviously, I'm not like, this woman should never get out of prison.

“And I'm like, she should never have the ability to get out. Like, it's not, I don't,”

but I don't feel unsafe knowing she's in there for life. Like, I'm not right. You know, she weirdly was the person that I was like, is it more torturous? Yeah. Like, this person is in such a fucking totally different reality than everyone else is that I just don't, I don't know. I don't know how this person recovers in any way. I mean, you also have to look at the, like, that woman has children, right? Yeah. That she didn't raise or have anything to do with.

Sure. But I just mean that person is children. And that regardless of how fucking horrific their parents, you are passing down trauma by murdering them and they're already so fucked up. I'm sure. They're already the kids in town who's mom did this thing. Exactly. There already had, like, the biggest of our lives. Yeah. Yeah. And then you add this and just like, it's just, they're, it's not just the one person. Like, there are repercussions. And I just wish we could just,

like, get ahead of all of this mental illness. Yeah. So it would be great. But back to, I don't know. I don't really know how to say it. I know what I feel about it. And I know I can feel it very strongly that part of our problem is people have not admitted what's possible to themselves. They want perfection. They want a policy. They want a law. They want some government action that's just going to be perfect that their people won't get accidentally shot.

“And people won't, you know, and I think the more you have that view of the world, the less”

you can compromise or be flexible because you believe in a fairy tale. You believe there's a version that's going to be, there's not going to be a version where we police citizens, which has to be done that shit's not going to go sideways. Yeah. It's just that's the reality of such work backwards on our solution with what's all admitting this first. It can still be worked and it should to minimize the wreckage and the accidents and the things like that. And there are things,

I think when people are, well, people are upset for a million reasons. But when people are upset, it's because they feel there isn't enough being done prevention wise for things. Yes,

things go wrong and things will always. Yeah. But when it's like repeated or it's the same thing

happening over and over again or this, you know, yeah, when it is the results of a system that's flawed and it's producing those results, then yeah, you got to tinker with the system. Yeah. But I'm saying even when we, when AI designs the system, right, where it is the most efficient best in that event, you know, these wing mows are still going to crash. Yeah. Right. There's no, there's no world in which vehicles aren't going to crash, even when robots are driving

them. Yeah. So, I don't know what I'm trying to say other than I just think it, it creates a

a situation where you could never meet in the middle, because you think something's possible that's

not possible on both sides. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'll do some facts. I want to fact about it.

I mean, look, we just we interviewed someone yesterday with the fucking crazy. Oh, yeah.

“Story, I really hope everyone listens to that one. It is so inspiring and it is so, I guess”

that it's like, how can you hear that story? I mean, it wasn't on death row, but like, he could have been. He could have been. Yeah. Yeah. And how can you hear that and also hear this person, like speaking, being brilliant. Yeah. And think like, that's someone to throw away. Like, you're very, it's a great counterfactual. It's, yeah. There were a few in there. There are, I mean, I guess we'll save it for, uh, will it come out? We're not doing a fact check.

Probably. Damn. Well, we should say that. So we're doing a little fun thing this summer. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. We are going to, we asked you guys what your, some of your favorite old fact checks were some classics, some blast from the past. Some, perhaps some origins of Lexicon, but exactly who knows how you catch up at the baby. Yeah. So we're going to rerun some old fact checks this summer. Yeah. Um, and curated by Don Cherie's favorite fact checks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, sorry. You won't get facts for the next

little bit. Yeah. And that's when we get back though, we'll have so many stories. Sorry. So many stories. Just way too many stories. All right, Olivia. Origin of Cockburn last name. Uh-huh. The last name has Scottish origin, but it pulls from the British word, "cock". Meaningful. C-o-c-c. Meaning wild bird and burner, meaning brook or stream. Oh, wild bird on a wild stream. Peaceful. Where did Olivia's mom Leslie Cockburn sneak a camera under her clothes? What other

high profile interviews has she done? She smuggled contraband video cassettes after Afghanistan passed the Taliban by strapping and under national traditional Afghan robes in 96. The video cassettes contain interviews in front of the regime that were strictly forbidden by the government in the UN. Wow. Other notable research projects or interviews include Kadafi, Saddam Hussein's son, and deep investigative work on Escopar. Whoa. I could have a dinner with her. Definitely.

What number female student at Yale was her mom? She was in the first class that included women at Yale.

She was one of the first 570 female graduates of the class of 1974. What season did Olivia join the OC? Two? How many years did she do on house five? Wow. That's fair.

“Speaking medical jargon. That'll burn you up. Yeah. Does Penel because have an identical twin?”

Online it says that she has a younger sister three years who looks very similar. They're often mistaken for twins but are not. Who is this? Penel will be cruise. But maybe they fool the Olivia. Yeah. That would be weird if. Is she younger? She doesn't have it. Oh my god. Her name is Monica. Oh wow. Monica cruise. Wow. Then Olivia got duped. We should tell her. They do look extremely alike. But she does look older. She looks different. And I don't know.

Older younger but I do know different. I would not think they were twins. I will say their features do look fit. Look at if you isolate the tip of their nose and stuff. Yeah. And they're mouth and their eyes. Which is funny because they do objectively have the same features. And yet. Oh. Wait. Wait. Rob. That's a difference of mission. Are you sure that's not? Yeah. Those are different on the right. No. That's not her. But they could definitely be twins. Here they are again. Okay.

I mean, that's them younger. Yeah. Go back to the first one, Rob. They're for the first one.

It's from now. Correct. But what I was going to say Monica is despite the fact that they do have very similar features. They have come together in a completely different way.

“Yeah. But that's how twins do it. Okay. To differentiate. She's different. Like they've”

done their hair differently. And it's a different one of them. Side part, mental part, and different color hair. I have a special feeling about Penelope that I've had for 30 years. Yeah. Join the rest. I know. We all do. She's a man in being her twin. Oh. That would suck. I had rather imagine being Harvey our bartender than her twin. Who's also a fun. Yeah. I want to be. I want to be her. That's the three way of all three ways right there. That's the dream. Three way.

I mean, it's crazy. If I got to be her, all I would do is look in the mirror.

“Like if I got to spend a week in her body, I would be in front of the mirror. The little”

jacket. You got to temporarily. Yeah. One week in Penelope. What would I do? Oh, we just and I played this game a lot. Like if we could switch bodies, what would we do? And he, and I, and you know,

he's pretty nasty. So he has some ideas. No, he wants to just take my body out on the tap.

Yeah. Really get it. Get it going. Yeah. And I was like, oh my god. Once I get back on my body, oh, I'll be sore. I'll be so sore. It have so many diseases. Oh, so many disease. That will be all. What are you doing here in his body? Go play basketball, things. Yeah.

Go play pickup basketball. Yeah. Exactly. You're not going to have masturbate with this

“penis. No, I will. Yeah. I'm curious what that feels like. Yes, of course. But I think step one for”

anyone that switches bodies into the other gender. Step one should be immediately that. I just, but I only want to do that. I don't want to have sex with a man or a woman in his body. Right. Right. I just want to masturbate and see what it feels like to have a penis. Yeah. But mainly reach tall things and play some basketball. Sure. Complain about your back. Or yeah. I mean, they'll give you a lot of gratitude, probably, for the things,

short people have that I, you know, take for granted. Right. Okay. What is the Astroprole A. I therapy episode? The episode title is my A. I love me better than anyone ever could. Just looking at her again. Yeah. How can you, how can you stop? I can't clearly. What a couple. I was going to say I know they're perfect. I reject what I'm about to say because I don't think of people there's any or does. Yeah. But I don't know how they don't just stare at each other.

Like, let's go on the living room. It was good light in there. And let's just look at each other. People do that. They say that about you. And no, but they have some fantasy of what they're related to life. Yes. So I'm not trying to perpetuate that, but at the same time, I feel like that couple, they could just stand in the living room nude and be so entertained. And also apparently

“he's so nice. Yeah. Remember, someone told us a really good story about him? Yeah. Was it?”

Little chef for some. No, and they were at a pub and he was there and they were all hanging out and then some girl was getting kind of walked someone back to the apartment. I love him and I love her. We love her. We love her. We love her. Great couple alert. Couple goals. All right. All right. Love you.