Tom Pelphrey

We have for me a revelation of last year for others not old news because he's been great so many times, but I was exposed to him in task last year.

What a show. Tom Pellfrey. He's an Emmy nominated actor. He was the bad guy with a heart of gold in task. He also was mind blowing an Ozark, love and death iron fist and guiding light at the beginning. And one day time Emmys. I probably watched him in guiding light because I used to watch that with my grandma. Was that one of your show? It was. It was one of my shows. I probably watched a young him. If you've not seen tasks, get on it. It streams on HBO right now, and it's just a beautiful show.

And then in addition to him you have Mark Ruffaloge. She's Louise. It's such a good show around. Powerhouse. Please enjoy Tom Pellfrey. I feel like this is a very long time coming. I know, brother, we have somebody friends in common. Well, Zegers for sure. Zegers. Well, I just feel like from that world, there must be more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess I miss.

There's no chance we've ever been in a meeting together. Is there? I can't think of her. But I did have a panic this morning. Like, oh my god, what if we were in a meeting together?

“For God, you wouldn't. Where do you have to be at 12 30? I'm so curious.”

Beyond as something for a photo shoot and some kind of interview, but I don't really know what it is. Okay, that's just getting cardant from place to point. I just fucking honestly, they tell me where to go. I say, okay. That's right. To my best to show up. Yeah, have you had to adopt that strategy? Because I kind of watched my wife operate that way. For years, I was like, I need to know everything I'm doing so far out in advance, like control freak.

And then I'd watch her just kind of wake up and figure out what she's doing that day, and it worked out just fine for her. And so slowly, I've been like, oh, yeah, I'll figure out what I'm doing tomorrow.

Have you always been this way? Or did you evolve to this? No, I've kind of always been this way, but to the extreme that it was not great.

Okay, little detrimental. Yeah, really just not thinking at all about. [laughter] Not what you've been in your views, basically. [laughter] Just think it about tomorrow. Yeah.

But I guess it is a good thing to do to not think too far ahead when you're busy, because then you get a little overwhelmed. I just produce a bunch of anxiety, obviously. So I'm not in today. I'm focused so much on tomorrow.

“Do you feel like you're more prone to having anxiety?”

Yeah, you know, I have zero in my waking hours. Like if you ask me, do you have anxiety? I don't. At night, clearly I do, because I wake up many, many nights a week and just rumenate on stuff. That's coming up in the future for an hour. So clearly, if you have a lot of anxiety, but when I'm awake, I'm not fearful of it.

It wakes you up from sleep. Oh, yeah. Have you ever had Jung or Jung? No. Just so much of it is, you used to subconscious. So often in a Jungian session, you'll just talk about your dreams. And I wonder if these things are waking you up in the middle of the night, that there might be a way in there, that you're not consciously experiencing it, but maybe there's something deeper.

Yeah. I mean, I was just a natural for a week where we have a house, and I don't work there.

And I sleep like a baby there, and I never wake up with anxiety, because I hit literally nothing to do it.

“Yeah. What's your anxiety level? Not high. Not very high. Again, back to the nothing, but the future.”

If anything in the past, and this is a lot less so recently, but I would feel depression at times. Some people are kind of more one way, some people a little bit more the other. So just like melancholy? Yeah, just kind of sadness sometimes coming out of nowhere, not necessarily attached to anything. Yeah. And then the future is bad, right? When you're in that state, it's not full of opportunity and hope. Everything feels bad, and that's say everything just gets kind of gray.

Maybe you're not even thinking about tomorrow or the future is just right now's bad, or just like feels heavy. Yeah. It just kind of comes on. And that's an interesting thing to observe. You know, I cart told me, if you guys were coming up. Yeah. That book really changed my life in a lot of ways, but he sort of says, even the way you talked to yourself about it, even saying instead of I'm sad to say,

I have a sadness in me to acknowledge it's not who you are, and also that it's sort of transit. Yeah, it's temporary. Yeah. Okay. So a whole township, New Jersey. This is a suburb of New York City. Ish Central Jersey, Jersey Shore. Oh, Jersey Shore, Springsteen.

Okay. And then recently we just... Yes, Charlie Pooce. Charlie Pooce. Okay. Yes, I claim to fame.

We have a lot of Jersey boys and girls.

How far to New York from Howl Township, our 15 with decent traffic? And how close to the Jersey Shore? Oh, 10 minute drive. So did you grow up hanging around the the boardwalk? Oh, yeah. Okay. And was it similar to what I watched on MTV? I thought a lot of weed out of the gold chains.

There is a lot of that, but the problem that we had with what was that show called Jersey Shore. Jersey Shore, right? Absolutely. Yeah. The problem we have with that show was all the kids on that show.

“I think minus one, we're all from Long Island.”

Oh, that's great. But no, that is kind of the vibe. That's like a seaside heights kind of vibe, which I think is where that show was filmed. Depending on the beach you go to,

you get a very different flavored, very different color. Yeah. Yeah. What was your little click in that world? What kind of dudes did you hang out with? I'm seven years older than you. Okay. I think I have some idea of what was happening seven years behind me.

I was very fortunate. I just was back in New Jersey for a few weeks. I still have some of my best friends that I've truly been friends with since I was four years old. Oh, wow. So nice. It's incredible. Life saving.

Yes. Such a beautiful thing to be able to have those kind of friends still. And so we were kind of a mixture. There was some who were better at athletics. I eventually obviously get an acting. But everybody was very kind and supportive of one another at a very wholesome. Oh, wow. Okay. Good. This isn't when I would have maybe took a guess at.

I went hard left issues. I went to college. Okay. Okay. Before then it was pretty nice and peaceful. Is your brother older younger than you? My brother's younger almost four years.

“Did he try to pale around like I tried to pale around my brother?”

He did. He followed a lot. Bobby was like the natural athlete. My brother six foot six. Oh my god. Star basketball player played football wide receiver. He was in a different mold. Who looked out for a hoop?

Yeah. Wow.

Bobby would always say even when he was bigger, he would say I don't mess with Tommy because Tommy's crazy.

Yeah. That's a really vital thing. If you can claim crazy early in your life, it really saves you. What brand of crazy were you? Just a kind that if it's going to go there, I don't really care.

We'll go all the way. When you are a boy and you get a sense that even if I win this fight, I'll be walking at some point. I'm going to get a stick or a shovel. When you assess that that guy is going to.

But there's different types of crazy. There's like they're going to just verbally fight you on everything. They're going to get physical fights. They're going to jump off a roof for no reason. You know, there's so many kinds of you guys.

A lot of brands. The root of it is just like a supersensitivity or a fear, not for maybe in that situation. But for me, yeah, was realizing with a certain amount of demonstration of anger, the energy would push everybody back and then you'd get some space. Yeah.

So Bobby is the little brother. Yeah. What am I going to do? Mom is a secretary bookkeeper and dad was kind of like a traveling salesman. Oh, of what? Right. What did he sell?

What was your filter for a while? Coffee filters. I have my coffee here with me.

I never looped home with that.

That thing raised the sun. Who's? Put it in each thing myself. And how did he install in the coffee filters? I don't know exactly.

I just remember sometimes when I was really young, he would come back from overseas. I remember in particular a sweatshirt from New Amsterdam that I tried to wear every day. To be worldly. Isn't it wild?

Things that are so magic when you're a little true. In their tiny, I know. Yeah, yeah. And they mean so much. I know.

It is weird. So as you get older and it's like these little snapshots you have of these little things. That's what you're doing. Yeah.

It's like, why was it so powerful?

You almost want to know. Well, I think I know. It's like your dad was away. He thought of you. Yeah.

He got you something. That's what it means. You know, like, oh, my dad was out on his own. I mean, no one's thinking about that consciously. But that's what it means.

It's like a connection to him. For sure. What was your relationship with him? We got closer when I got older. My parents got divorced when I was still pretty young.

We still got to see my daddy coached my basketball team. God bless him. I played all the sports and I was terrible at all of them. Yeah. But, you know, he's the coach and I'm a son and he had to play me.

I was good at like fouling out. But when I got older, we started to get closer.

“I think that when you sort of become a man or start to,”

the world takes on much more gray, less black and white. You start to understand a little bit. You start to get a taste a little bit of you lose this sort of childish, simplicity or naivete and I think I can meet him there on a more even level.

He passed away when I was 25. So she was 57. Yeah. Yeah. So fucking young.

I know. Did he die a cancer? No. Hard attack. He passed away in his sleep.

Were there signs of it?

“Was that a complete shocker or was he already struggling with heart disease?”

There was no signs, no warnings. He did not take the best care of himself. So I don't think he'd been to a doctor in years. Did he have any addiction stuff? I mean, who were we to judge?

Yeah. I think God identified as an alcoholic and got sober, so it's very easy for me to say. I don't know. I mean, yes. He liked to drink.

He would never touch hard alcohol.

Oh, no. He was like one beer. Not one. A new jersey in the 90s, man and drink was. Oh, no.

No. He could have been cultured. He went to Amsterdam. Amsterdam. God knows what he's doing in Amsterdam.

Did you have stepped in? No. Oh, great. Good to you. Yeah.

It was my mom, really. Looking back now, being a father now. I always appreciated what she did, but just looking back now, knowing even just having one kid and an amazing partner, and we have helped and all that.

“My mom raised two boys, two wild animals.”

They were on her own while she worked full time. I don't know where to put that in my head. Yeah. I really don't. I don't even understand how you do that.

I know how you do that. And even if you were somehow able to like white knuckle that, how it doesn't make you like twisted in some way, and it didn't. And I'm imagining to find an actual stress, right? It's not like you guys were rich or anything.

My dad made sure that the money thing was fine. We were by no means rich or anything, but we also weren't in any kind of poverty. And there were stress for sure, but it wasn't like the overwhelming theme of everything. Yeah. I took my daughters, just me a year ago right now to Hawaii for spring break, the three of us.

In day three, the trip, I called my mom and I was like, I don't know how you took the three of us on trips. And those are girls. And there girls. To be fair, pretty put together girls. Not David and Dax, right?

Yeah. The fighting because they're bickering in like after three days of it. I'm like, this is not why did I do this. I'm like, my mom, because I'm 20, 30 vacations in cars. Yeah.

I know. Yeah, just in a car for 21 hours with three kids during the Florida. I know.

We'd never take the trail.

I don't know if you would have been able to do that. We took the train down once to Disney World. Oh, you did. My magic. Oh, it's only magic.

Well, it's just an overnight train ride. It's a kid. It looks on it. Yeah, recline the seat and there's a dining car. Oh, yeah.

That's when I started reading Lord of the Rings. It's weird. I haven't thought about this since so long. I wanted to read Lord of the Rings. I went to the library and I didn't understand the order.

So I took out the second book first. Oh, no. It's great. It's a start. So I'm reading the two towers on the train down the floor.

It's one of my happiest memories. Were you a reader? Oh, yeah. Fouracious. Later on in life when I got into certain programs.

They would call it alcoholic reading. I love reading for the young age. Just huge books getting lost in them. I don't think my mom understood that Stephen King is kind of like a low-key pervert in his books. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Doesn't shop in the movie. So if you just know movies, it is like all it's hard. But then you read the books. I'm like 11 years old reading all this.

My gateway into reading was Bukowski. So similar. I was just like, no. Oh, yeah. No.

Yeah. Because I didn't start reading until like high school. Did you read Bukowski when you were younger? I mean, when I was in college. That's what turned me on to reading.

“I was like, how do these stories about this guy taking a shit?”

Or getting drawn? Yeah. Or fucking some stranger? Or getting in a bar fight? Yeah.

And at 14, 15, I'm like, oh, this guy's a hero.

I mean, how powerful books are you.

But came that. If you had read like Anne of Green Gables, you'd be so different. We would be sitting here. I read other books and I became a teacher. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. Yes. Some people are just destined to go somewhere. Were you an introvert or were you super social? I've heard the term extroverted introvert.

Is that getting too much? I think of people in Los Angeles? Ambevert? I think that's different. You can be extroverted and then you got to recharge.

Right. They say how you recharge is what you are. I definitely recharge alone. So I don't get energy from being around a ton of people. But I like being around people too.

But I think Kaylee told us that when you guys met you were living like in the woods and upstate New York or something? Yeah. Like you and a dog in the woods? Half way up a mountain on a dirt road.

The deal is very introverted. I don't go crazy. I don't have to figure out something social. I'm definitely an introvert but I've also gotten more balanced and that I enjoy being around people.

Is she a bit of a gateway for you for that? Oh my God. She's like the total opposite of me.

What a good team. Well, I'll tell you.

I never before in life understood what it actually meant

to have a partner. What a powerful thing. And the more I've received from her, the more I see that she's sort of gotten out of her way to either understand me or love me or both.

The only response and it's quite a naturally occurring response is to want to reciprocate to want to give it back. Like how can I be better?

“Where can I understand you better and show up a little better?”

And you have that experience at it. This is wild. Yeah. Let's begin a lot this morning. Sometimes I've interviewed her.

I'm like this gal in Kristen. There is so much overlap in the video. There's the obvious stuff. There's like this animal obsession. And there's this kind of carefree spirit.

And things will work out and don't worry. A lot of that stuff. But what I think I really isolated this morning when I was mowing it over is Kristen has insane self-esteem and confidence. And the benefit of that self-esteem and confidence is kind of mind-blowing.

Really anticipated what that was in Kaylee strikes me as that same way. 100%. She'll say what she wants to say. She's not overthinking who thinks what? She's just confident.

That's a powerful thing in a partner, isn't it?

No, it's a really powerful thing. When I was first around her seeing how much she believed in herself and was just fully in her own body, in her own way, confident in what she was doing.

“There was times it was literally like, are you glad to do that?”

I'm like tearing myself apart and I'm questioning myself and doubting myself. And she's just like, this is who I am. This is how I do things and I have no problem with that. And I know what I am and I know what I'm not and I've no problem with that either. That was wild, especially in the beginning of coming from a place of trying to heal this sense of like,

how do I be all things to all people? I've gotten over that a lot more recently. Yeah, and we just had this expert on that was telling us about different attachment styles and like a secure attachment style. And I think when you're really insecure, you're worried the person you're with is going to leave you or you're not worthy of them. And then so because you're afraid of that, you're looking for a lot of data to either confirm or deny that.

So they're evaluating the relationship a lot. So maybe if Kaylee was insecure, it wouldn't be easy for her to be generous to you and benevol the way she's been to you because she would think, well, I'm giving and he's not reciprocating and is that mean this as opposed to like, I'm gray and I'm going to just pour it on you. I don't think that's a loss of my power or a loss of my leverage or I don't know.

I just think there's so much that grows out of having a partner. It's kind of confident. 100% but I also think that over time we've learned that she does have insecurities in other places. And where I might be strong and secure. And that's kind of amazing too where you realize like,

okay, we're actually kind of balanced here even though it just shows up in different ways. So where I'm strong, I can help you and where you're strong, you can help me. Those are the best. It's wild. By the time we met, I was 39 years old, I was almost 40 years old to go that long without really understanding what

partnership could mean. Yes. You know, I'm grateful. Were you feeling each other's gaps and you make each other better? Yeah.

And as much as you've known who you are, how much do you feel like since the really knowing who you are that you've also changed? You've changed the time. Yeah, I've changed the time. That's beautiful though. Yeah.

I feel like that's the real knowing who you are. When you know who you are on a deep enough level that you're allowing yourself to change versus this is who I am and then you're muscling your identity. I totally agree with you. And I think that's a full belief in yourself.

“If you think you have to be rigid to protect this identity.”

It actually comes from insecurity. If you're 100% attached to your like belief on anything really. If you're just like, this is 100% what it is and it's very black and white, that actually comes from insecurity because you're afraid. Well, what happens if I change my mind on this? Like who will I be?

Yeah, you'll be on your identity. Yeah. Is that steak? Right. I also think I like a strong partnership.

It's very similar to the program, which is like, I'm not good at you telling me what to do.

I always buck against that. I'm terrible at it asking for mentorship or advice.

But if I can watch you navigate a situation and you're sharing about it. And I can just be over here watching. And I go, oh, yeah, I have that same character defect. You did what? Oh, and what was the outcome?

If I can observe you, I can grow and learn a lot. I do best if I'm just allowed to observe you. So yeah, to observe. Cricing moving through life for the last 19 years, doing it completely different than me. And then getting these different results, I think that's helped me enormously grow towards those things.

Yeah, almost like learning or taking advice through the attraction of like a good example versus somebody sitting you down and telling me what to do. Because my insecurities go like, well, I should know that already.

Nobody likes being told about that.

I don't know that. But I think people like that. Do you like me and directed? I feel like you'd would. Oh, that depends.

Okay. Yeah. Tell me. If the director's good. Yeah, I think it's directing you.

Finture brings out the, yes. Sorry. You know, he brings out the bring it on. I'll do anything you say, run through the wall for you. All that stuff.

And there's a lot of different ways that directors can be beautiful and really good at what they do.

“I have this conversation the other day, but I think ultimately, well, for anybody probably in all things.”

But certainly when it comes to what we do is, is that person themselves? Do they know who and what they are? And are they coming from that place, meaning David would direct how David's going to direct. And Jeremiah, who I just worked with on task, will direct how Jeremiah is going to direct. And Jeremiah is just a sweet angel human being.

What a show. Just beaming love and this gentle kind of very whispering. But they are both who they are and their power comes from being in how they are and not trying to do what somebody else would do. Yes. They know their point of view.

And they have, yeah, I mean, probably just in life in general, but when you really encounter that in somebody, you sort of know it on the level of like intuition. Yeah. And they feel safe. And they feel safe. It feels very safe.

There's nothing that's coming from them that feels like a liar in security in revealed. Right. Yeah, that's so true. Very true. What did you want to start acting?

I know you want to Rutgers hide a high school teacher that changed my life. Oh, really? Yeah. Steve Casacoff. I auditioned for the play.

I couldn't sing her dance. Got a little chorus part. And he came in and he was genuinely scarier than the football coaches. Oh, and it was like, who is this? Who is this guy?

Yeah. But he took it dead serious. Yeah. Go for him. Oh, yeah.

What a gift. And he spoke to all of us like we were paid professionals. It was incredible.

“I think if I hadn't had that experience.”

I don't know if I would have done it because what that experience gives you is an insane work ethic. If what you're doing is very important. He also drilled into us. You are a part of something greater.

So even if you were to lead in the play, you didn't after her set day. You stayed and helped build the sets. There was an a question about that. And so it builds the sense of we're all here to do something that's bigger than any one of us could do by ourselves and your team.

And you support everybody else on the team. That's amazing. That's so good. Incredible. You loved it.

I heard you talking with somebody about how all in you were in that the school was 8 to 6. You were also in two different other theater groups. You were doing shit at night, class until 6. And then there'd be a main stage show. And then you'd work on that from 7 to 11, you'd either act in the show or you were running

some part of the backstage to learn how to do that. And then from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. we had two different black box theaters. And at that time, they would give us access to him.

So whatever we wanted to do, we could and we never were not doing something for 11 to

1 a.m. So we'd write our own plays. We'd direct them. We'd cast them with our friends. We'd hang the lights.

We'd make the music use.

“When we'd rehearse them for a month or so and then we would put on the show on a weekend”

that we didn't have the main stage show. So we were constantly layers in of working a multiple things simultaneously. And also learning how to do everything ourselves. Yeah. And never getting fatigued.

Just being energized over the whole thing. Ever. The things I can get away with back then when I was 20 years old. I mean, it's like wild. What school was it?

Rutgers. Yeah. But for the worst of Rutgers. Until today, I didn't even know Rutgers was New Jersey State University. Oh, yeah.

I just got a little bit private. Yeah, I guess I thought, I mean, it's got a real prestige to do the name Rutgers. Does it? Well, yes, not New Jersey University. Yes, I mean, it's pretty cool.

Yeah. It's very rare for a state university. I have a name aside from Colorado State, right?

I never thought about that.

I think I can think of any other ones. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, oh, Rutgers must be like a private. It's too lame.

Too lame. Too lame is probably private, actually. Probably. It was just there, and I should know that. I don't know.

What is that? Nicotine? Would you like some? No. Okay.

Yeah. It was of a spray of me before. I wasn't just answered. Did you ever smoke? Oh, like a motherfucker.

And you quit. Yeah. 20 years ago. 21 years ago. I have two cigarettes at night.

Good for you. That is my dream. Yeah. That is someone he used to drink. The dream is, too jack-and-dice tonight.

If I could do that, that would be no. I know that I'm more of us because you even say that, and I could not. My stomach. Yeah. Yeah.

But when I would be drinking, it used to like pain me and genuinely confuse me. Be out with somebody drinking at a bar or whatever. And somebody would like leave half there. I used to always be like, what? It was as crazy to me as someone trying to eat their food annually, like you had it.

Why do you order it? What? The medicine is still in there. Like, what? No, exactly.

What are we doing here? Is there not a purpose in what we're doing here? We're trying to get obliterated. Yes. And that's the solution.

You can't leave half of it or not. No, that was mad mean. And then having that debate in your head, like, am I going to be a scumbag and say, are you going to finish that?

Which I ultimately always would.

Sure. I don't want to leave this. Yeah. I don't want the fuck they ordered. Yeah.

Yeah. Can't be left. I said this last night, my family and I have discovered this taco place on the street with hard shell tacos.

“And we'd like them so much as I'm eating them, I'm panicked, you know?”

And I got six last night. Halfway, there was like, no, no, if I didn't get enough. And then other people ordered some and there was one person left one. And I was like, is that going to go, I could do this is just like cocaine, which is, I stopped doing cocaine when there's no cocaine.

Not, I'll stop now. And these tacos. I wouldn't ever be a taco left on the table. I don't care how many were ordered. I will have them till they're gone.

Yeah. Even though they're never gone. Well, they were gone. No. You can't get them in a game tomorrow, I mean, literally any time you want.

You can get those. Did you finish this thing? I mean, I drink a lot. Well, frequency. I drink a lot.

But I'm always leaving half, sometimes I drink half of our teeny and I'm like,

you know what, I want wine now and then I'll leave that, I'll drink some of the wine. For me, it's just so social. I mean, you want a little buzz. Obviously. Let's be real here.

Yeah, but obliteration is not the goal. That sort of gives you an insight into the mental illness of it, because as we're saying this, I know at the time, I thought you were the one who had a problem. Yeah. And I really did.

I'm not trying to be funny. I'm not even doing much. Why are you doing that?

“Like, are you doing this for a joke or just don't drink at all?”

Yeah, right. Not get off. I mean, you're just going to say, I kind of agree that there is something weird about that, too. Like, well, if you're just going to have a little bit, why do you need it?

I get that. The rationale. I get that, too. Yeah. The other thing I think you can quickly tell how people are is I'll watch a movie like

leaving Las Vegas. And I don't, yeah, man, that looks so good. I mean, most people, non-addicts are watching that, going, that looks terrible. And I'm watching going, like, yeah, man, to finally throw in the towel and just go, like, I'm going all the way.

And I'm not going to look back weirdly is still appealing. I mean, I'm not going to do it. But I watch it. And I can remember just finally going, I don't give a fuck. I mean, so much of the addiction, I think, at least for me, was like, medicating this

mountain I had on my shoulders, like, I got to accomplish this, and I got to accomplish that. I don't become this. I'm a fucking loser. And when I would just surrender to a three day bender, I was letting that go.

Of course.

“I think we're not going to be a fucking star.”

We're not going to be a public author. We're not going to be a good boy. We're not going to be a public author. We're not going to drive responsibly. We're just going to be a piece of shit.

And I'm going to let go of this battle. And there's so a lot of relief in that. And where have you found your relief? Where do you find it now? First of all, I don't have it as much.

I have children. All right, you know now for three years, anything we thought that was important is a fucking joke. I know. The air movie works.

So it's good or bad 100%, okay, well, you know, it doesn't matter anymore, which is liberating. But even before that, years of sobriety and just having a partner and building other aspects of my life that weren't me trying to be spectacular or relief from that, can you relate to that pressure? Of course.

And I had to give that up over time in sobriety realizing that that was just as detrimental as the drinking was truly because it becomes like, who am I?

And if this is my identity, if this is how I'm evaluating myself, then I'm always going

to fall short. Be careful with game you're playing because depending on the game, there is no way to win. There is no top. And even if you get to the top, you can't stay there. You have the sustain now at the top.

Well, it's even harder probably genuinely. I would imagine so just seeing how it goes sometimes where you do something and it's good and it comes out at the right time and you sort of whosh. And it goes up here like, that's a wild confluence of many things happening. But exactly the right time coupled with, we did a good enough job and boom, it kind

of takes off. You're like, there's no way to control that. You can't even replicate it. If we could people would do it all the time, clearly we can't. You have an industry with a bunch of people trying to figure out how to do it and they

can't do it with any consistency. So it is out of your control. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And then you are powerless. And then for me, it was like, okay, well, then what is the identity that I want to build

and even if you were succeeding, it wasn't succeeding enough. How are you anything about a failure? If that's the identity, it was just constant failure or less of a failure, more of a failure, whatever. It's insanity.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

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car insurance. That's smart, not checking which platform you watch that new show on, so frustrating. Fifteen minutes later, you've logged in to seven apps, reset two passwords and still haven't found it. Yeah.

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In the second, you get there, there is ten minutes of evaluation and then you go like, all right, there's only now one trajectory. There's only one movement left. It's down and that is almost waste carrier than the other thing than the climate. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, new round of I wasn't prepared for this. I thought I was going to get here and just feel fucking carefree all the time. No, no, I just know I have something to lose.

“And I think that's where when you can start to visualize or see these things, not as”

concepts, but as the real energy that drives you through your life and decide, do I want to play that? No, that's not where I want to build my house. That's not what I'm putting on the altar. So I will play that, but it won't mean identity.

Yeah. I mean who I am, it will not mean my value. I'll do it weirdly, then you can do it with more freedom, right? Such a mind, because it is.

I became a million times better actor when I decided I am done identifying myself with being

an actor. Yeah, I don't think telling people, I mean, we have to tell them, and it's good. But you have to get there on your own. I don't think you can see it like, oh, okay, I just won't care. You care.

It's a lot of trick, it's a lot of mental trick, like the kid things, like you receive all this love, they don't clue whether you were good or bad on tasks. They don't know what HBO is. It doesn't mean anything. And you're experiencing this love because you're you and you're available and you're

connected in present, that's all it takes to be worthy of love. No. It's not right. I'm a cry baby. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm a cry baby. Yeah, I'm a cry baby. Yeah, I'm a cry baby.

It is the gift of getting to be a father to finally understand what unconditional love

is. Both ways, like, here we go. But there's nothing she can ever do where I wouldn't love her with all of my being. Yeah. That's the solution that would make you look for more a member, and I also know, like you

said, the feeling when I walk into the room, she is excited to see me. She does not give a fuck about anything I did or not do. She just wants you to be there. He's here. Yeah.

He's here. Presence. That's it. Man. What a beautiful gift.

Yeah. I don't have kids. So I wish people would be able to have that without it. I mean, that's the goal, right? The kids are the reason you're able to feel it, but we should all be feeling like

that. Our presence is enough to be loved and worthy. I do too.

“But there is a certain reality of the marketplace of friendship and partnership, right?”

It's like people shop in their echelon. Jocks are friends with Jocks, burnout's are friends with burnout's. Like, so to deny that, all this stuff is real is also not true. It's like, status is a real thing. People are attracted to people who other people are attracted to.

All these things are real, but the real relationships, the ones with your family, the ones with my childhood friend, he doesn't like me more now that I've gotten successful. Right. Maybe he lies. I'm distracted, but those ones are the ones you kind of got to foster have.

Because the other place is a bit of a marketplace. That makes sense when I'm saying. I see what you mean. I guess I'm saying more in the general sense, not like love from a specific person. It's like, I'm someone worthy of love walking around not to get someone's approval, but

just like walking around on earth. Yeah. I'm a person. So I'm worthy of this. Yes.

Can't give you that, but we all should have that. It's hard, though.

“We all have it inherently, and I think we forget it, and I think we don't show it to each”

other. Especially nowadays. It's the worst timing for that.

Well, it's interesting because what I experienced with Matilda my daughter makes me and

“maybe this is the way my brain works, but you probably think it too.”

I immediately start applying it out, I start thinking like, that someone's daughter, exactly. Someone's son. Once you know that, and then you see the ripples, you're like, well, if this is me and her, then how sacred this is applies to everyone everywhere all the time. I love that.

I don't think everyone's doing that. I mean, I don't start with great intentions, and I don't start with loving kindness and benevolence. So I have tricks. That's one.

Yeah, that's someone's kid. A kid's being annoying. You see it all the time. Kids are on other kids. Yeah.

Because if I, and then you just go like, I know what the dad feels like, that's the most special girl in the world. I know. She's picking her nose. She should have picked her hands, and if that's my daughter, I'm like, fuck yeah, girl, you know,

my other hack is this is so indulgent, but armchairs are the nicest fucking human being. Monika constantly do this. People listen to the show are just across the board the nicest fucking people. We met so many of them. And if I'm in traffic and I'm getting mad, I have to go like, I imagine that's an armcherry.

And I just completely immediately drop the whole thing. But I need tricks, unfortunately. Me too. Me too. Me too.

Me too. Me too. Me too. Me too. Yeah.

That's the thing. We have to work on all this. Like, left to your own just natural devices, it doesn't usually turn out the most beneficial for all involved. Yeah.

The stars and protect ourselves and all those things.

“And trying to not do that, that's just the only thing we can do is try not to.”

And then you can, if you're like, you know what, I want to try to see this in a better light than you can. Yeah.

Well, the part of the miracle is even being aware of what you're doing in the first place

goes back to that Eckhart Toley book, reading that and him saying that over half the battle is one, the second year aware that there's even something happening, that there's even something to change, that there's even something you don't like, that there's even something you're battling because at least I can relate when I was drinking and stuff. I could make jokes about all men I'll call.

I didn't understand until I understood and once I understood, it changed. I didn't really understand until I understood and that sounds silly. It even sounded silly to me three weeks sober looking back being like, how is this a revelation to you? So I'm dying enough, we have the same experience.

So my understanding is what you probably drank through college and it was fun, you're successful. Yeah. Then you got on the soap and you got two daytime Emmys, that was two years out of college. Right.

I had a college. Where were we at? Eagle wise. I have two different thoughts. One would be like, if I was 20, I was making money, fucking doing this in the

ur nominating me. I would be on fire. But I wasn't a thesby in from high school who went to college and I don't know if you had some like, I need to be doing Broadway. I'm not sure.

That part. Like, I did have that. I had the, I want to be doing Broadway in blah, blah, blah, but I also thought that I was fantastic and that was being shown all the evidence of how great I was in that world would be rolling out the red carpet.

When I left the soap, the great shock to my ego, leaving the soap and everyone didn't have a red carpet rolled out from the 80scripts, lying down for two years, they bring a palette over a buffer. Not only did I not have any scripts being offered, but the thing that was desperately trying to get, I couldn't even get.

“Do you remember when actor you wanted to be at that moment?”

Who is your laptop? At that point, Sean Penn. Yeah.

I mean, Jack Nicholson's always been my favorite, hello, it's been my favorite, he's a Jersey

boy group 15 minutes from my group. I mean, he's, that's what I do to know himself. Oh man, more than any other actor, I think I always watch him with a bit of a smile on my face. Like it just makes me happy to watch him do almost anything.

Clinton Greenmore. So at that time, though, it would have been Sean Penn, like Sean Penn and college, that was like actors actor, wanting to know everything about Sean Penn, look at Sean Penn and Mystic River and then watch milk. Even some of the best actors, there's like an essence and that essence to me permeates

what they do, almost regardless of what they're doing, even if they do two things that are equally amazing and genius, there's a similarity in essence, Sean Penn doing Mystic River and then Sean Penn and milk, I'm like, that's not the same human being. Where's the vibration that, like, even if I close my eyes in my ears somehow, I can feel Daniel Day Lewis's in the room.

You can kind of feel that about Sean Penn too, and then he does something that's like a bit of a sweet and low down, you're like, wow, he like changed his own rhythm. Yeah, can I tell you something, you have that. Whoa. You really have that.

I was rocking, I was like, that's that guy, like it was shocking, such a transformation. You've hit the mark you're going for. Okay, so you want to be Sean Penn, but you're getting all this love, it has to be related

That ends right when your dad dies, too.

“These have to be a kind of a confluence of, yeah, it was actually while timing, and”

this is why sometimes real stories are stranger than fiction in the sense of come off the soap and just really crash into the brick wall.

The drinking was always kind of out of control, but I always had structure.

I realized looking back, I'd had structure straight through, high school college, college, only a few months off into the soap. Now the soap, I never missed the day, I was never unprepared, regardless of how and saying I was. So the soap was amazing structure.

It's five days a week. It's with the hardest job in acting, right? It's labor intensive for sure. You're doing like 20 pages a day or 30 days for the audience, you're doing four pages a day on a normal show.

The soap itself is filming 60 pages a day or 50 because commercial break. So you're doing an hour of television every single day, every single day. Love it. It's impossible. It's simple.

Unless the light fell on your head, you're getting one take. You know what I mean? There's just literally not no different angle on someone else. Maybe they'll keep the day created and they can because they have three cameras, at least back then, per seenium style, three cameras and their live editing and the booth.

So at the corner of your eye, you could see if camera one, the red light comes on. You know now it's on you and all that kind of stuff. I feel like this is an incredible training. And so many ways. It's amazing.

I'd never been in front of a camera before.

The technical aspect of the job, which is hard to pick up, if you're going on theater

“and stuff, also just memorizing fucking dialogue, right?”

You're doing 10 pages a day, a total muscle because when I first got there, it took me two weeks to learn 10 pages and by the end, just as like a bet, we would do these character episodes where our character would be in the entire episode. So again, 55 pages, whatever. When it got time to be mine, they were like, "Do you want to do it in one day?"

I said, "Yes." And I did. Yeah. And I knew what I was doing. But that's a crazy muscle, but you can exercise it.

It is wild though, isn't it? How much your brain will adapt and morph into where you need it to be strong? It's shocking. Okay. So all that's going on.

So all that's going on.

So I get out of the soap.

The red carpet isn't rolled out. It's also suddenly the structure gets pulled. But at the time, I wasn't thinking like, "Oh, I've had structure, now I'm going into no structure, completely unprepared for no structure." This is why all the retired athletes get depressed.

They've had the structure for their whole life. Totally. So everything goes off the rails. Devastated depression. This sounds so self-indulgent, but it's just the truth.

This is how I felt. And then a better year of that. And then my dad dies. That really rocked me. I hadn't known anyone who had died that was close to me, who wasn't very, very old before

my dad. And again, it was a surprise and these, my father. And that sadness, I realized like, "Oh, what was I being sad about before?" Right. You almost hoped.

Shame. But also, it just shocked me into like, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, there's real things, you know?" Oh my gosh. But that experience was wild. And something that no one had talked about before, or at least I hadn't paid attention

to, or read a better anything. But my dad, that there was grief, but there was just also like this terrible fear. I felt like I was on the edge of the abyss, like it brought my own mortality, everything rushing at me in a way. It was also this realization that, unfortunately, probably too many people have this realization

much younger than I was, but that nothing is guaranteed. And whatever you think is there for sure, that makes you feel safe, it's not. But the anvil of impermanence hit you. Yes. I was not in any place mentally spiritually physically to grapple with or to understand

or to have a practice around and it really rocked me. What year did you get sober? October 1, 2013, it was six years later, give or take. What was your trajectory? It was like a slow burn.

I hadn't worked in over a year. I was in a considerable amount of debt, broke, worried about not being able to pay my rent. All the things. The last thing I was hanging my hat on ego wise was a relationship I had with a woman who was very successful and beautiful and yeah, well, she chose me.

I bullied myself quite a bit that way, too.

“That's what we're doing before we know how to do anything else is just like, where”

is my value there, there, because those are all fallen away now, but that ended. And then I just remember being in my apartment in Brooklyn at the time and just being so crush felt so worthless. And you know, at that time, I didn't realize what it wasn't to later, but I can articulate it now, just like the constant level of this fear, anxiety, shame, guilt.

It's like a buzzing constant. Somebody boil the frog slowly, that buzzing, build slowly over time, you don't realize how deafening and it'd become until you're free of it, hopefully free of it.

drunken. Anything that's normal? Absolutely.

That's part of the problem, again, to the awareness of it, like you just think that's

normal, because that's the way you've been slowly living more and more and more like out of the blue. And my apartment in Brooklyn still to this day don't fully understand this into my brain read the power of now. Where did that come from?

Yeah. But I was like, OK, I knew I had to do it, I'm going to do that, but I don't know where that came from. You're. Very strange and thank God.

Yeah, this is before your phone could have heard you. I turned it all over at the phone. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't even have a smartphone. The universe smartphone.

Yeah. Yeah. So I go, I go get the book. I literally read the first four pages and no exaggeration. I throw the book across the room.

Rage. Why? Well, I didn't know exactly why, but I went on. I'm on is that cartolian scene. And of course, he's like the one person you can find in the evidence.

I'm in vain saying, my buddy, Rhett. I called him. I got his voice message. Joe, bro.

“Do you know anything about this motherfucker in that cartol, like, is he supposed to be insane?”

And for a week, I wouldn't touch it. I never left that zone. I read the first few pages at book. And I go, oh, it's another guy claiming to have another, otherworldly experience that I'll never have.

And now he's going to share the truth with me. They only he received from the heavens. It's fucking religion. It's the same old fucking thing and fuck this thing.

And I never went back and I never called a friend.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Were you guys sitting on a bench somewhere? Maybe I'm dribbling. Maybe I'm dribbling.

I'm dribbling. Oh, fuck. Oh, my God. Oh my God. This guy's a prophet.

And another guy who receives some metaphysical statement, but you do that here all the time. Tell me. You're not on a bench. You're not saying it came to you via the clouds. But you are on here talking about your experience and lessons you've learned, through

your experience and not everyone else has had. Right. True. That we hope people will hear and take and live by. Great point.

My delineation is. Great point. His was that was the world. You're right. You're dead right.

And this dumb little distinction I'm making is his was other world. But to some people yours is otherworldly. They're like, I don't know what that's like. I don't know what those experiences are like. It's very fair criticism, Monica.

I'm just very. It isn't really interesting taking this. Yeah. Right. No, I know.

Well, for me. Okay. You got that. As crazy as I was an am after week, I was like, bro, you're going to throw a book across the room.

You need to read that book. I literally threw it, by the way. So that's why is that making you so. Why? Well, this is what I realized later.

But then I started reading the book again and I realized very quickly. What triggered me was everything he said was the truth. And that meant everything I was doing was wrong. And I don't like that. Yeah.

That's still don't like that. Yeah. It was just too much. Why did I throw the book? Because the higher me knew in that moment that reading that book meant my life would

change forever. And that didn't change. That didn't change. And it was going to be uncomfortable and you're going to have to grow. Yeah.

“Because I think on some level, we all understand that being fully, truly exposed to the”

truth. Things are going to change. And that sickness in us that thing in me as miserable as I was is like, uh, we don't want to change. Yeah.

I think how terrifying it is to change needs to be given more prominence to understand why it is difficult for people to do. I think that gets downplayed on the level because I like to talk in big language sometimes because I think these things are big and the feelings with them are big. And if we use small language, we kind of downplay it.

But I think when we change, when we make a big change, especially you die. And you are reborn because the you, the me that was drinking on that day, did die. It's terrifying. Yeah. The terror is, well, then who am I?

Exactly. The terror was, what am I going to do on Thanksgiving? What am I going to do on Christmas? How am I ever going to go on a big vacation? What is a vacation?

Yeah. What is the celebration? How am I going to last longer than one minute in the sack if I don't have three beers in me? I'll never find a gun.

I guess.

I never thought I'd do anything again.

“How am I going to watch football or any of my friends going to want to hang out with me?”

What am I going to do with my friends if they do hang out with me? Yeah. And it's your whole life at that point. Everything. Because it is permeated.

It has got its tentacles in every single thing. I'm going to go see a play without a flask in my pocket. All the things.

How am I going to mourn? How am I going to celebrate? Yeah. Celebrate with huge. Yeah.

That was more of a trigger than I'm a crazy. I get a job when I'm sober, what do I do? I'm going to eat two pizzas. That became my, we're going to get fucked up. Yeah.

It's going to be on pizza. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

“I remember going on vacation with my girlfriend for a year of sobriety.”

It had been going well.

It was the first time I made it past three months and I was like coming up on a year or

maybe a had a year. And we showed up in Mexico and I was like, oh no. I have not taken a vacation in 12 years. We're step one isn't drop your bag in the room, go get a drink, and then everything unfold.

Yep. Drop my bag and do what? Yeah. God won't go home. I think.

Yeah. What did you do? Yeah. What did you do? I sat at the pool and stared at people so fucking judgment on like looking at this

one guy and he's just a slob and uncamped and I was like, this motherfucker can control his drinking. And I can't.

This guy can drink by the pool.

I hated this guy. I just white knuckle that.

“The boat's hell of fucking diaclos 12 bucks, but when we got into the room, they had given”

us like a fifth of Dakeela that they brewed there. I'm like, of course, the fifth fucking free in a diaclos 12. I was just like, I was going to explode. I couldn't get off that vacation quick enough. Now I love vacation.

Boy, it took a minute. No, I can relate to that. So you read power now. It's probably my father was obsessed with power now. That might be in the mix too for me.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, he wore for the last 12 years of his life. He had a little charm on his gold necklace that was now the clock, the now clock. Yeah.

He's obsessed with it. Wow. But you read that. How does that lead to then? Subriding.

I read that. Over the course of like a month and a half, I would go down to Magorlick Park in Brooklyn. Every evening. I wasn't working at the time. I had plenty of time on my head.

It's made my dog. So we had plenty of time go down when the sun was setting and just read part of the book. Kind of watched the sun through the trees and sit and breathe and wasn't exactly meditating because I didn't know how. But just kind of being there and feeling the stillness and then this dawning awareness of

like, oh, this feels really good. Everything he's saying is true. Every part of my body is responding to what he's saying in a way that's like beyond my intellect doing yoga on these days, eating better, then have plans. I don't even want to go, go drink three days.

I can't even touch the book. I don't go to the park. I don't do yoga. I don't eat well over the course of a month and a half. Again, so much of his book is about awareness being present so you can be aware.

The awareness is dawning like, whoa, what happens when I drink is very shocking. It's like vibrating out beyond the drinking itself. It's really like kind of damaging everything and now I can see it and then I was walking on audition one day in the city and it felt like I got struck in the head with a lightning bolt and again, this sounds comedic.

I guess it is comedic but just, oh, I have a drinking problem. All right, you had been saying, your friends, you're drunk. These are strange truths that we might be able to understand. And how did you know to go to a meeting? My experience with that was a little bit different as well.

It took me a long time really, I mean, I went to a meeting early on but it took me a long time to really understand even what the meetings were with Eckhart and he was using teaching from the Bible of Jesus, had a relationship with Jesus, what he was, what I felt like he was when I was a kid that had gone away and so my sobriety was really in that. The obsession was relieved instantly and it was a god thing, it was a spiritual thing.

It was a Jesus thing and then I went to meetings and I was confused. I didn't know if I was supposed to be there, I felt really guilty because I heard people really struggling in the beginning and I was a mess.

And I had a ton of work to do and I'm still doing, like I'm not saying that, but I never

wanted to drink again ever after that.

“It was just like, boom, were you in the drugs as well or just drink?”

I'd take it or leave it if it wasn't, I didn't care for the most part. So for me, it was God first and then eventually program was like, oh, I literally didn't understand what it was at first. I thought it was only for people who were scared they were going to drink and then I'm not supposed to go, you know, eventually I met some guys that were like, we're not thinking

we're going to drink. I was like, program for living. What do you do? And they're like, we're crazy and I was like, oh, I'm fucking crazy too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, non-crazy people don't go this route.

I know. And then I got to see how beautiful it was. I actually think that entire program is perfect. I feel like, divinely inspired those steps. I can't think of a better, more perfect expression of living a spiritual life, like

keeping yourself good and strong and useful and it's so beautiful. Do you have a favorite step or a couple?

I didn't have a sponsor and worked the steps until I was seven or eight years sober. I understood them long before then, but was noticing just through my own experience, looking back on the steps being like, wow, I did a lot of those things, not thoroughly, not perfectly, but spontaneously, even without the program just after a month or two of sobriety just thinking and being like, I need to call this person and say, I'm really sorry.

That wasn't the best version of me. I let you down. I can't imagine how difficult that was and kind of naturally just wanting to do that. Which to me is the greatest testimony to what the steps are that I could give, which is like there is something so deeply real about that process.

Those steps are just an articulation of something that is deeper, like it's coming from a deeper place and we're just going to name what it is and like how to do it.

“I think all of the steps rests upon the steps that come before, obviously, the first”

one is that lightning bolt moment I had, but then for me two and three were the most important

ones I ever did and they're kind of joined. That makes sense. Given your ease and comfort with religion or Jesus, it explains to like, that's hard for me. Yeah, yeah.

So it makes sense that that part of that card story didn't bother you and that was the thing I got hung up on. If anything ever took me out of the program was the higher power stuff, the hard for me. Yeah. What is two and three?

Came to believe in a power greater than ourselves, turned our life and our will over to that power. Came to believe that we could be restored to sanity by a power greater than ourselves. Yeah. Got it.

Here's the thing, man. What you're saying right now, I understand completely and fully.

I totally get it and like that always breaks my heart, because as a kid that feeling

that I have that I'm describing, I hated church. It was very confusing for me, even as a young person, to like try and separate out the religion. Yes. From what I felt like I was experiencing and/or reading again, voracious reader, I love

to read my Bible too. I didn't even grow up in a very religious house, although I just liked it. So hearing you say that and I understand there's a million reasons why I haven't heard so many people say that I totally get it and then you wish, like, how do you respond to these things?

Like you want someone to have a kid and experience it. You just want it because you're like, it made it easier. That's all. And then like trying to help other people and they don't even want to say any of those words and I get it.

And I don't need to. We don't need to talk like that. We just talk however we want to talk. But then you're like, boy, I wish I could give you even a taste of it, even if we called it something else because it will help you.

Yes. Yes. Now mind you. I do the things, right? Like every morning I do my first three steps.

I do the prayers and I do the ten steps. I do them all because they cost me nothing and I'd rather do this thing than die drinking in them. You know, it's like it's very easy for me to cooperate. But for me, the four step is the thing I think that changed my life entirely.

That to me, if there is a single step that they should teach in fucking elementary, it's this notion of making a list of all the people that you have resemblance against. Why do you have resemblance against them? What are they threatening? Because in your mind, you don't see any pattern.

“But if you have to write out your first step and you look at that column that third column”

and you go, oh my god, all of my issues in life are being driven by three of my fears. It's not like I have 50 fears. I hate Margaret and I hate my teacher, I hate my step, it all threatens one of the same three things. My whole life is being governed by three things I'm afraid of.

So I can either try to control seven billion people to act in accordance to not trigger

those three fears or I can get to work on those three fears and be relieved of all this. That's absolutely proprietary novel, crazy special. Yeah. I don't know that there was many times the life I was more terrified than when I went to do my fifth step.

So the fourth step is what Dax just explained. The fifth step is sharing it with another human being before God, it says, shaking like a leaf. What a vulnerable place to put oneself. Yeah.

Getting to the part where I acknowledged all the stuff about what was my issue was hard. Then telling someone about it wasn't terribly hard for me. But I know and I've received many dudes fifth steps and I've seen the anxiety coming in. And I know the experience, which is this, oh, this person's not walking out of the room in horror over who I am, what a gift.

I get the gift at that big time. Yeah. I'm not intrinsically flawed and terrible and unlovable. I'm just a dude who did all the same shit all of us, other dudes did that God here. Yeah.

That's incredible.

“But you have to say it in order to feel it, so saying it for the first time that's”

horrifying. Yeah. Have you seen the drama The New Movie? No. Okay.

I've obsessed with it. Zendaya Robert Pattinson. Oh, okay. Yeah. I think best not to know anything about it when you see it, but a secret is revealed

basically. The whole movie spirals based on that secret. And I just think about it all the time.

Are there things that people just shouldn't ever know about you? Because we hear say the opposites. Like, just share it. People will say you're not that bad or I'm like you or whatever. But I was like, oh, no, maybe there are some things that shouldn't be shared.

I don't know. Let's give you.

“Well, I think you want to choose carefully who you're sharing what with it.”

That's for sure. I mean, the fifth step isn't like an indiscriminate like, let me just grab a guy off the street. It's hopefully at that point the person who you trust the most, the person who's guided you to even get to that place. So it's a very kind of sacred, special, specific place. Yeah.

That's it. Stay tuned for our share expert if you dare.

I think the problem is often, and this is what you see with the tension in our country is like,

we have this technology, which is I can see the kid in Wisconsin post a video that is totally fine in his town. And should be fine in his town. And the dude in Miami who's making this joke, it's good there. Yeah. But it's being seen by people from other cultures and other populations and other places.

And there isn't some unifying. So no, in a program like this, yeah, there is no secret you shouldn't share. Because they've been through it, we speak the same language. And that's not to say that it's for everyone. And it's not to say that everything has to be for everyone. It's cool to find your group and have that trust among you.

And it doesn't necessarily have to extend everybody. A hundred percent. You can see even in the course of this conversation, the amount of seemingly weird things that either I or DAX have said, but we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

“If I tell my mother and law, like, no, I say it's a drug and I had this one more.”

I was like, oh, jokes on me, you really are, I don't get it. You knew, but you didn't know. But if you've walked that, no, you can 100 percent know. You're not in your body when you say it. A hundred percent.

Yeah. I'm imagining that plays into your upward trajectory, professionally. Yes. It was almost immediate October 1st, 2013 that happens. The next three days, craziest detox.

And I was a binge drinker. So I'd gone days without drinking. Suddenly, it was different. The thing was different out of my body. Three nights, every night.

Whoa. Yeah. The amount of water that was on Jersey water. Yeah. The amount of water that was on that bed.

I wake up always perfectly in the middle of the night.

Sasha's sleeping next to me in my dog. So can wet nightmares, lucid dream. I didn't even know if I was sleeping or not. It was like, oh, yeah. The way you're falling and then you're not falling.

Like, I don't think my abs can activate that way other than detail. And also, what is it? So everywhere. Wake up in the middle of the night. I'd put the blanket back on top.

So Sasha could go on that side. I'd get on the other side. Soak the other side of the bed to wake up in the morning. I'm not even sure if I've ever even slept because the dreaming anyway. Three days.

That Friday, having audition starts the process of an audition, which I end up booking a pilot. Where they had like five male leads and they've read me for four of the male leads. And I didn't book any of them, but I booked the fifth one. Oh, yeah. The one I hadn't read.

It was wild. I mean, the confirmation. And this is not why we do it. And I'm not saying this is going to happen for everybody. And this is just the way it worked out for me.

“And maybe that's what I needed at that time.”

But within two or three weeks, I'll have a sudden. I'd gone from not working in a year and a half to booking a pilot. Well, here's where I can touch higher power. As much as I have a hard time with it. I also weirdly believe you're not given things.

You can't handle yet. So to me, that's a product of that. Yes. It's like your God knew I going to give him this role a week ago. He had fucked the whole thing up.

Max, I live by that. I believe that true. Some people aren't that lucky. They do get positions. No.

I think that all the time I watched that documentary about him. And I just saw it just seemed like he's like, oh, let me try acting. And then a year later, he's like one of the biggest moves in the world. I'm like, I'm like, what the hell? What the hell?

I'm like, me and you watch that. I'm sure you felt like I watched that. I was like, oh, no. Yeah. Yeah.

That's horrible. It is. Yeah. It is. Yeah.

It is. It is. It is. It is. It is.

It is. Oh, man. Yeah. Good luck. I used to think with the like Marlon Brando of it all.

I just wonder if it's just so easy for you to do. If you understand it so intrinsically without any effort, then you're robbed of the appreciation of the discipline. It took you to be good at it. Like, if a basketball player could just walk on the floor and wherever they were, throw

the ball up and it goes in the net, that basketball player's never going to train

a day in their life. And they're not going to have respect for the game because they can do a thing that no one else

And they're like, why is this a thing to be proud of? I think you see that with a lot of artists. They feel fraudulent. Because they didn't necessarily work as hard as someone else next to them did. And I think that does fuck people up.

“I think that's why a lot of comedians go into dramas because”

for Jim Carrey to be Jim Carrey is easy as much as that's crazy. Yeah. He knows how to do that. Which it wild. And I think he felt some guilt of like, I'm the highest paid actor in the world for eight years

and we're on this thing. I can just fucking do it. You could wake me up in the middle of the night and say, "Be funny right now. I could do it.

No problem. No prep." I mean, I don't know. I have no idea why. Yeah.

But there is this insatiable desire for a lot of comedians work. To me, it seems like it comes very natural to them. I've got to go fucking grind to demonstrate that they deserve it. It's all a mental fuck. Like great.

If it's easy for you, let it be easy for you. I know. But it's hard because sometimes it's the struggle that gives the meaning context or gives you the context to find the meaning. Great.

So I'm dangerously close to fucking you over for your next thing. But I just need to know this on task. I thought this was really interesting.

“So you did an interview magazine with my hero, Gary Oldman.”

Yeah. So rad. But in that interview, you guys were talking and you said that Ruffalo is super playful and silly and goofy on set. So the degree that you finally had to ask him. Yeah.

I'm always so curious. I get to work with so many talented people.

And I always want to learn from them.

And you always can. Somebody will always share and always be something you could take away and try and get better. But like with Marco, it's like, wow. And this is an actor who I've admired for years and years and years. Also, I've started in theaters, so I know Mark's theater actor near it.

So all these ways in which I really look up to him and then see him on set. And he's so generous. He's so kind and sweet and goofy. He's like a kid. He's playing in his joking.

He's just so silly and sweet. And so I was like, man, because I can't be that way. Not when I'm doing something like that. I kind of want to just live in the energy of what we need to be doing. Like somewhere.

It's not that literal. I'm not like method or anything. It's just like let me live in that energy. But Mark, it didn't matter. And then he would do the scenes in their amazing.

So he was like, what is going on? I said, have you always been this way? And he goes, nah, nah. He used to be more like you. [laughter]

And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, well, he used to be more intense. He's like, he's your focusing. I was like, yeah, I don't know how to not focus. And that doesn't even come from any like, this is how I do it.

It comes from like, I'm being paid to do a job. It's my responsibility to make sure I do my job for you. And so I know what I need to do to make sure I could do my job for you. That's all it is. But Mark was like, I've been doing this for so long.

He's like at a certain point. If it wasn't going to be fun, I can't keep doing it. Polligies. Mr. Ruffler.

But basically, it needs to be fun.

It needs to be enjoyable for me. Or it's unsustainable. And it was also a relief because I'm definitely less held than I was 10 years ago. So to hear Mark say, no, I used to be like you.

And then to see where he's at now is like, okay, okay. Maybe this is just maturation. Maybe this is just years under your belt. Maybe this is just experience. And eventually you go lose her and lose her and lose your wear it.

Like what like a loose fitting garment? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, okay, well, then there's something to work towards.

“This constant knowing that you've done the work that you need to do”

in a way that you can just be easy, be easy, be easy. I think you can only get that so much practice. You can just walk in and be like, I just got it. Yeah, you learn that over time. You learn it over time and you build trust in yourself.

And I definitely trust all those things a lot more. Like I said, then I did 10 years ago. I need two hours with you because I got to see the other thing. Okay, so I'm seeing you act. And I'm like, this dude, there is a tenderness to you.

That is so attractive and appealing. It's just so beautiful. I mean, within five seconds of meeting your character. I'm like, yeah, I want to help this dude figure out whatever. It means figuring out he's like a good boy.

I'm like, character. Yeah, like your heart was just so exposed in it. Third thing was, this guy's fucking bodies awesome. I then did 10 minutes. I did 10 minutes to my wife on the body.

I got all the ways to this guy. You bro, look at you. I want to give you the ultimate compliment because this is what I thought. I'm like, this guy's real. And this real dude doesn't go to the gym for an hour a day.

But he has this body, and I go, he's one of these dudes. I knew in junior high that was like for no reason genetically. It was just fucking jazzed. You have those kids in your schools. You're in gym class, everyone's getting undressed.

Yeah. You know, what does this guy lift all day long? It's just natural six pack and fucking packs. And I'm like, that's what this guy is. He's just one of these fucking stallions.

I love your brother. I'm not.

Yeah, you know, it always is a little distracted.

And to me, sometimes when bodies are a little too perfect. Where you're like, this guy's doing this life. And you look like you're.

I mean, we don't. He's active.

And also growing up in Jersey.

“We're very similar to the boys from Philly and Pennsylvania.”

Like, we all lifted way. Almost had been lifted. It was going to bench in the garage. I had a bench in my garage. So I was 12 years old.

And guess what? If you don't want to bench in your garage, you're doing pushups. You're doing pull ups. Which is really what I did for Robbie.

Because it's like he's just banging him out when he can. Pop some pushups while he's on lunch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Get up and get scouts. It's dips.

Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't have a personal trainer. No. No.

He should look like he had a personal trainer. Tom, I'm so glad we got to meet. I know this was great. I can't pour enough praise on you on task. This happens to me like once every five years.

I can name the people. You know, it's just like, I don't know the person. I'm just like, what? What is this? What?

Yeah. It's so fun when that happens. It happens once in a while.

“For me, the last couple years, I say, you and Timmy Shalamay, or is just like, what?”

Wow. I'm in good company. That's all I get. Get up to Goggins. Goggins is blowing a fucking mind to Goggins.

Oh, he's a little boy in the new Game of Thrones show. You just love it. It's so much. It's so good you watch it. I'm only two episodes in.

But I love it. It's better and better. It's so good. It's so good.

But delightful to finally meet you.

I hope you get all the love and awards that you so rightly deserve for task. What do you want to know? I'm about to go to New York to a movie with Apple. This really cool, like, action sci-fi. A very different vibe from task.

One last question. I've been regretful. I didn't ask when you left. We're both in a similar situation, which is we have partners who are way more famous in us. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I'm good with it. Four or two. I love it. First of all, so badass.

So impressive what she's been able to do. It's like, girl, go get 'em. It's so awesome. And secondly, I would not want to. True.

True.

“Like, I'm so grateful if I get to keep it in an actor, get to keep making enough money,”

get to keep having access to good scripts and just filing. Right under that radar. Ah, be thrilled. That is a serious thing that they both experience. Like, getting to see it up close.

Kelly's kind of like naturally magnanimous. She can live that fully 24/7 in a way without it being a strain because it's not a lie. It's just part of who she is. Whereas like I said before, like, I need to retreat to regroup and all that stuff and I don't think that would be good. Are you getting now because of the nature of this that when you're speaking, sometimes somebody whips their head because your voice is what's doing it too.

The fun is when I had was being at my daughter's school. Like, I'll kick off for the new year and then a little field day and there's a hamburger cart thing and I stepped up to get my hamburger and I said, "Oh, could I get it without a bun to this like 14-year-old girl?" And she goes, "Yeah." And I go, "Okay, thanks."

And she goes, "Wait. You're not on aren't you anonymous, are you?" Like, never seen me.

Never seen anything I've been in.

They've been an old man actor. But yeah, a 14-year-old kid. That's a little different. That's a lot of kids like. Yeah, yeah.

This is like, that's just misnamed me. No, no, no. Okay. It's like listeners tell crazy stories. And so she somehow is a 14-year-old girl at the school.

Oh, wow. And that one, the most trip. Yeah. I was like, "Oh, that's so rad. This is like young girl.

Does even know I'm an actor." That's something like that. Yeah. Yeah, that was great. Well, you're a delight.

And I really do hope we can double date or something. Yeah, brother. I'd love that. Yeah, you're a good boy. I can tell.

But you used to be a bad boy. So that's my favorite kind of boy. All right. You're like with everything. He is at our pair.

Expert, buddy. Makes mistakes all the time. They got my haka tea here. He's got a little pal, the facts. Hello.

Hello. Were you at an event? I went to an event last night. Let's see if we can make up on today. Oh, I am, yeah.

And I'm going to one after our recording. So I had to pin a little bit of my car. I'm going to be looking at all this with events. I know when I am. And I, I'm also dying.

Like, I don't, something's wrong with me. I just made a doctor's appointment. I like, bit the bullet. I was like, I got it. I, what's going on?

Why are these lingering for so long? They shouldn't be lingering for everyone. Just make you feel safe. Like, again, I had it for three and a half weeks. But me too.

And then it went away. And then it came back. And then it went away again. And then it came back. It's like, it's just in me.

It's dancing. It's dancing. I know when I, I, like, I didn't use to care about antibiotics. But now that I live in LA, it's like, and I'm like afraid of them. I'm on antibiotics.

You are in my eyeball. Oh, no. It doesn't have a horrible style. Oh, no. Did you put a hot compress?

I did. I've been, and then everyone's telling me to do it.

Yeah. It's a funny one. There's certain things, right? Yeah.

“You say it, and then it's like, almost like, when someone falls, you say, are you okay?”

Oh, I have a thing hot compress. You know, there's a few. There's a handful of things. Yeah. And I'm being heavily monitor.

I'm going to live with three ladies. Right. Oh, no, no, no. I'm not mad at you. Be up your back.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm laughing at the frequency. I get it. Everyone would naturally want to help me. And make you feel better.

Yeah, yeah. That's a way to help. It's just funny. Each girl that walks through the room. Have you done a hot?

Yeah. It's really funny. They want you to do a hot. And then you said it right away. And I was like, is this correct me up?

It'll go away in a tone. Don't worry. Without that. No. See, this is why you know, these women around.

Yeah. If there's just all men, they'd be like, throw a rock at it.

“Makes me feel better that you're on antibiotics.”

Like, yeah, maybe I just carpet bomb this system. Let's get rid of it. It's like, it's in there. Yeah. And it keeps coming back.

It's like clear. It's just kind of dormant and like ready to pop. It is a nice, though. It's like a nice way to get a dose of gratitude and go like, oh, this is what people would like chronic pain.

Like, you know, just to talk. Sometimes to experience like, oh, yeah. If you don't feel well for weeks on end, it's really. It really permeates everything. You're doing and thinking about, but yeah, I started feeling it again.

I loved re-learning the same lessons just over and over again. But, you know, I was in Nashville, slept like a little baby. To the point where I didn't even wake up to pee like five of the nights. And I was like, this is crazy.

I thought I always have to wake up for a pee, for a pee pee.

And then virtually the second I got home. And we had this crazy week. This is basically just went to shit. And I was like, it's a tonic caffeine in Nashville. Come on, fake egg.

And I was like, oh, yeah, it's all stress. And then, yeah, a sti. Increasing it sti is before she goes to work. Do you ever get that? I've never had one.

They're so stressed related. It's crazy. Like it's shocking how a media and direct it is to stress. What's your stress thing? Do you get, well, you get a rash or?

I don't really, I don't think I have. Oh, well, I know. I just always had it. Yeah, well, I'm stressed or not. I don't think I present physically.

What do you stress? Sometimes, like, sometimes when I, you know, I'll think like, oh, with my face. Like, if I'm like breaking out or something. Like, oh, maybe it's stress.

But I don't think it is. You know, I think it is. Yeah. I just think it's just like, I get like anxious and depressed. Yeah.

But I don't think I get physical symptoms. But like, even, I'm saying this is a rational person. Even walk me through the mechanism of how being stress is going to give me a small infection on the inside of my eyelid. Like, it doesn't even, I don't even understand how it could make sense.

Other than it's just over and over again. I see this as a result of something. Body keeps the score. Body. Body.

Okay. I can't do it. We need Ricky Glass. Oh, um, B.K.T.S. B.K.T.S.

That's really good. Sounds like a kip up man. I don't as good as Ricky. Okay, so I've been having real for the first time ever,

FOMO about Coachella, which I've never had.

Yeah. But I keep watching this clip of Bieber. And I like wish I was there so bad. Wow. And then I'm so stupid.

I didn't know it's two weekends in a row. You learned a lot yesterday. We had a guest on Easter Egg who performed at Coachella. And we'll be performing again next weekend. And I didn't want to ask that guest if Bieber is going to perform again.

Is this a perform again? It's supposed to be the same line. It's the same thing. It's supposed to be. I mean, I don't know.

Bieber. Do you know the moment I'm talking about?

“He's like, I think it's starting on these down.”

He's like, there's a camera and they start playing. It sounds like a little bit of a remix of one of his old songs. But it's from, you know, he did this mashup of his YouTube stuff. And they play it, right? Yeah.

He's like singing along to little him. Right, right. And presuming there was some visual component to his well. Yeah.

He's playing again the second weekend.

Oh. Yeah. I think it's the same. Yeah. And the strokes are right before him.

Is this Saturday night? No. Saturday night. He plays at 11 25 p.m. Oh, perfect.

Because I was just thinking Molly's where they are. Yeah. I can't go. But now he has a calls to make. I want to find out if someone fancy like his opinion.

What's been it that I can tag along with? I might call in a lot of favors for this. I didn't think this one. It's like back. Like Coachella feels like it like kind of was an affirm in it.

I shouldn't say that. I don't care about Coachella. So I'm only like on the periphery. Yeah. Yeah.

But. Do you have the thoughts I had that I expressed yesterday, which is like when I'm seeing the photos from people like Coachella. I'm like, I don't know the outfits for Coachella.

Everyone's looking like. Have a vibe.

“And even though our guests said, um, wardrobe.”

Something was a phrase about taking pictures of your wardrobe.

I just said like outfit picks. But there's another word. Yeah. No. There was.

I don't want to walk down. What I do or don't know. I guess you're proving the point. I'm trying to make anyways, which is like I do look at those pictures. I don't like.

I don't know if have any business. A lot of people are like bikini like very high fashion bikinis. I mean, you don't have to wear that. I'm just going to do what you want to do because you'll see the music. If you want.

I'm not a music. Um. Um. No. What's it called?

Music festival gore. Yeah. That's not for too many people, right? So many people crowds. And then I'm like, I can't see.

People are taller than me. It's dusty.

Although I did have that incredible experience at Bonnaroo.

When we were sent there to promote hidden run. Um. Because it's just rolling grassy green fields. And it was just like ideal weather green, no dust. It was nice really spread out so you didn't feel very crowded even though presumably

there are bazillion people there. There's one in Napa that I might go to because I like it. Yeah, about bottle rock. That's from Molly. Molly loves it.

And Eric could go sometimes with Molly. And you should go to that with them. Yeah. Because then I just won't go to the music. And I'll just go shopping.

No, no. You go there and drink wine and stroll around and stuff. And just whatever way their crowds move and use move the other way.

“I think I rather just go to Napa different time.”

Okay. Yeah. You know. Speaking of Napa, I keep reading. You know, the wine industries I call out.

I know. Well, it's collapsing. Yeah.

Yeah, I shouldn't say past tense.

But is it? It's in a real rough state. I need to, I like, I got to get there. I got to help out. Well, I'm not doing my part.

What I'm proposing to you is that you might want to attend one of these auctions. And by a winery as a distressed asset. Because they're auctioning off these wineries that were worth. They've also just been trashing tons of yields. Right.

It's really depressing. No, because it's so beautiful. But in the pig and me, I was like, I should try to. Yeah, you should. I have fake chunk of land in a fire sale in Napa.

Yes, because I want to stay there. If you want to go. Yeah, of course. Just pull our money and buy an armchair winery. Oh, my God.

Armchairie and we have no charity in there. Listen, guys, Sim, that you brought that up because I went to an auction last night. Is that was at your event that you? Yes, that was the event. I went to the friend of the pod.

Beautiful lovely wonderful friend of the pod in friend of life, Lake Belle. Oh, how was that? I was hosting it. It was so fun. It was so cool. So it was for red, the charity red member. Okay.

Red used to be like all the rage. Sure. It was everywhere. We were talking about this. Like millennials knew about the charity red.

It's like maybe the only charity we knew about the brand. Collabs with brands. You could only get this product in red. Yeah. My nano was red.

Yeah. It was genius. Anyway, and they did a lot of really great work.

“But unfortunately, and that's why shouldn't it be being in front of AIDS all the time on here.”

It's like, it's like on its way back. What? Yeah. But we have all this treatment for it. I know, but globally, it's on its way back.

Yeah. But here, but yeah, there's treatments. But that's kind of why it's like people aren't like as concerned. But then there's a vaccine. But there is no rage.

Yes. By the way, that brings up measles. There's a 200 kids now have passed from fucking measles. Fuck, they died. Yeah.

It's totally preventable. I can't. It drives me nuts. Yeah. So that's where they're.

But we think they have side effects for the measles. Vax, go find me 200 people that have died from the measles. Vax over the last 25 years. You can't do it. I know exactly.

So, but yeah, there's holdups for the vaccine right now. But it's like that. So that's kind of there. Push. That's our push is like we can end this.

It's not like we can slow it down or like treat symptoms. Like no, it can be done. Yes. So, which is very, very cool. But anyway, so I went to this auction.

And it was really cool because so I guess Lake has been doing this for like 20 years on her mom started it. And she does it at like different charities for different charities. And it's called auction for nothing. Okay.

And the way it was presented to me was like last. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

What if when you're at the doctor, you read just symptoms. What are your symptoms? I keep dropping a piece of metal on my computer.

It's weird.

I just have no motor control.

Maybe I don't have any motor control. Oh, my God. I can't talk either. But is it falling off your finger? You're doodling with it.

I'm lying with it. Okay. Okay. All right. So it's kind of like measles.

The time you've it. Okay. So it was presented is like, you know, you bring some like kind of like non item item. And people auctioned for it. It's super fun.

Like she said someone brought like a fake hundred dollar bill from their purse. Someone brought a plane ticket to somewhere like old. You know, kind of nothing items. It's just like a fun way to raise money. Okay.

So people are bidding on shit. Yeah. But like funky and fun. You know, hopefully it's a bit of a bit. Yeah.

So I was like, what should I bring? What should I bring? So I was like, Oh, I know.

“I have a key card in my wallet from the four seasons Beverly Hills.”

It's in 1111 key card that I stayed in on my birthday as we know. It's lucky. It's like, and I was like, this is a sacrifice. Yeah, but it doesn't say 1111 on it. It does.

Yeah, because it's in it's sleeve. Oh, okay. So it was written with a pen. Yeah. And I was like, I felt like, wow, I'm.

This is your part of my thing. That's important to me. But whatever. So you get there. You write your item on this card.

And you put it's like your estimated value. And I said, I submitted value $1,100. I mean, yeah, $1,100 in my $11. And anyway, put it in great. It starts and actually, who do you think?

Who do you think?

Who do you think made the first bid?

You? Yeah. Do you get it back? It was me. No, wasn't for that.

So she picks out of the hat reads a mall. So the first one was Naomi Scott actually. Okay. And it was, she said, she would curate for you. You give her a year.

And she would curate like all the magazines of a magazine. Brand. God. I'm sorry. Took D.

I don't know. But. And for that year.

“And I was like, oh, collect all 12 issues.”

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like off eBay or something like that. Okay. That's like, oh, that's kind of fun.

I like magazines. Yeah. I bid first. Yeah. Okay.

Got this action going. And then she threw, you know, she was like, I mean, it's really, like, it's fun for the ads. And then I remember God milk. Oh, sure. And I was like, oh, shit.

I can, I can, like, request. Yes, some of these old God milks. And so then I, you know, I kept bidding and bidding. And I want. Oh, great.

How much has been on that? 400. Okay. Great start to the night. And I was like, oh, I participated.

I'm done. Yeah. No. You're not done. You're just getting started.

Yeah. Okay. You were just getting started. I do not think I should go to auction. Oh, you got competitive.

Yes. Okay. Because boots. There were boots from a, from a boot brand. From a fancy brand.

Okay. So there is real ones. Yeah. Okay. See, this is where things got tricky.

Because then things started to get very like real. And then I was like, Oh, no. Many people are at this function. And isn't it a living room or like a big space? It was, it wasn't at a huge space.

Was that an intimate space rented and, and, like, Hollywood. Hollywood. Cool space. Okay. Yeah.

I started to panic. Because I was like. People are doing real things. And I put in a key card. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, so. You're starting to panic. Yeah. What do I do now?

I look like an idiot. Yeah. And no one's going to. And I also want, then I got competitive on the other end. Like, I want people to want my item.

Of course. So she starts to read it, you know. And I was like, Oh, my God. And I said, You know what? I'm going to throw in one night stay.

You interrupted. Yep. Well, she read it. And I was like. And I'll, I'm going to throw in one night stay at the hotel.

That felt like a really good pairing. Uh huh.

“I think I can't guarantee a little bit of room 11 11.”

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and it went for $1100. Okay. Great.

Yeah. What's probably what it will kind of cost me to buy that room. So, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But it was really fun. Yeah. That sounds fun. I want to share that.

I'm delighted about this because I finally kind of can truly relate.

I keep hearing this term parasocial relationship. And certainly intellectually, I understand what it means and what the definition is. Yeah. But I don't know that I've ever been able to relate to it. Okay.

Yeah. I also know the person. Uh, yes.

These are the trickier ones.

Yes. So, it's sederous. So, like, you know, we've had him on. Yeah. I'm going for a walk with him.

Yeah. We've had him on many times. Yes. I get occasional postcards from him. Yeah.

And I've sent one or two. And so, I have access to him. I started with us listening as I've said before, listening with the girls at night to sederous audio books. Yeah.

“But now it's become that's what I listened to before, but period.”

I don't listen anything else anymore. Yeah. And I have it for months. Yeah. And I'm re-listening to the same books over and over again.

And I already know the stories. And I love them just as much.

And it's like, every eighth word he chooses.

I get a ping of joy. And I'm so now immersed in his life. I think it's the whole pair of social parties. The reason it's possible is it's not fictitious, right? So, everything he's writing about is you and his sisters and his dad.

Exactly. Now you know everything about him you think. Yes. I'm like, I'm so upset. I can't be at breakfast with he and Amy or out shopping with them.

Or he has this friend. Who he goes on these weird day trips to different countries when he's in France with. And I'm like, I want so bad to be spending all of his time with him and hearing him compute the world. That is what it is. And his breakdown.

I was just re-listening to his breakdown of COVID and being in New York City and the BLM thing. And just the way he's so perfectly skewers kind of everybody. But also participates. But I have a question. Okay.

Do you want to be with him? I want to spend a lot of time with him. I know.

“And I want to somehow be creative with him too.”

That's not really parasocial. Parasocial is like, you feel like you're like, I know him. Yeah, I feel way closer to him than he could possibly feel to me. And you're like, oh my god, like Amy would definitely do something like that. I just think I would fit in perfectly with those two.

Did my mind of course? Do you think like, like, you know their personality is like if someone out in the world, it's something like that sounds like my buddy. Sure. I mean, I'm thinking about him many, many times throughout the day.

Yeah. Every day for months. Yeah. This is, yeah. Welcome to the club.

Yeah. And now. I love it and it's frustrating. I can also understand like when I hear people, we'll say they have a parasocial relationship with you.

It's like, yeah, I really feel it now. I understand that and it's frustrating. Yes. Because I love him. You know, like, I just love how his brain works.

And I want to like be able to real time experience life with him. Yeah. He's so great. Stay tuned for our share expert. If you dare.

[MUSIC]

“But you can see why in the podcast space,”

why it's extra, right? Yeah. I'm like, like, this conversation we're having is so normal. We're not choosing. I mean, we are.

We're making choices ultimately as to what people here and don't hear.

But like, we're just talking off the cuff me and you. We have no normal. We have no normal. Yeah. And so if someone's listening to that, of course,

it tricks their brain like they're here with us. And it's real time. Yeah. They know us. They know what we think.

Yeah, they can predict what you or I will respond. Yeah. And like, it's complicated. I understand how genuine it is. It's very genuine.

Yeah. It's not like sometimes. It's not sick. Sometimes you, you kind of frame it as like it's scary. Well, it, it's not.

And it's not to me. I think I know how I feel about David. There's nothing he could be, he should be scared of. Okay. You are talking about you very specifically about peer social relationships.

Can get very slippery and scary. I mean, hello, Beth Stead was 100% that that show is about peer social relationships. Yeah. And then that is. And like what you're owed.

What you're owed by the people you know. You're in a different position. But also, yeah, I don't, I don't think. Today or so is me anything. I think I owe him something.

The amount of the hours of joy this man has given me is like crazy. I paid $13 for the book. It's kind of fucking bonkers. But like, okay, I currently have a peer social relationship right now with. Aaron and Sarah Foster.

Oh, okay. Sorry, listening to their podcast. Yeah. And I, I, I listen. Part of it, yes, is when you're listening.

Like, I listen at night. Yeah. And like, so they're in your head before you're going to bed.

And like they're just in your, again, with podcasting specifically, they're in your world

when you're doing like your intimate things. Yeah. And so, but like, you know, my best friend works with them every day. Two of my best friends work with them every day. Yeah.

Like, it's just weird. It's kind of this weird. They're close. Yeah. Yeah.

And like, I was listening to an old episode. And I was like, on a, can you ask Aaron? Oh, point. [laughs]

“Can you ask Aaron about this doctor thing she was talking about?”

Because I think I need to go to the doctor and I kind of am interested in trying this. And she talked about it on the pod. Can you ask her? On a thing, this is all so weird and funny, right? Yeah.

Because on a work sits next to her all the time. Yeah. And she thinks it's weird when people have it with me. Well, I'll tell you what I have to do. And I guess now we're really, we're in a zone that we could guide each other, which is I have to fight the urge.

And I have successfully fought the urge to send him a voice memo. Yeah. Almost every day to Tom from a tight like this story or like how he said this thing or like, and I just know better, right? Yeah.

I just know that even if he loves me to death, he can only really absorb so much of that thing. Exactly. And I'm sure he feels like there is the literary him and there's the him. Yes. Again, that's why that's different.

He, I mean, it's stories about him, but they're crafted. They're, they're, they're perfect. Yeah. They're perfect. They're perfect.

Us doing this. Like, we're then they walk down, we walk down the street and someone says something about Tom. And it's like, oh, fuck yeah, I forgot. I said that. You're not forgetting what he put in his books.

Yeah. It's on purpose.

“But I think he, you could send him a nice note.”

No. It takes all my restraint. Well, look, I've read what I know I need to do. And what's insane, because I'm obsessed. I know he just send him more postcards.

Right. But I'm not making the time to do that. And he gave this great speech. It's in one of his books. He gave us speech to one of some college.

And he was basically telling them, like,

you know, write a letter to your grandmother. Write a letter to, like, those are only advice for these graduates. Yeah. I think the time to sit down and write, so that your grandma can be sitting there and reading this thing holding it. It's not a fucking text message, blah, blah, blah.

That's nice. It's like, heard that. And I'm like, I can't even, if I, if I, if I, if I want to honor him, I already know what he thinks is disposable. Right. Anyways, it's all so crazy.

That all these feelings about him because I actually know. But you know, it's okay. This isn't, and I don't mean for him. But there can be a don't meet your heroes. I mean, meet your heroes.

“But don't get so close in parasocial relationships, right?”

So because, like, you know, I'm like, well, I, like, I'm like friends with, I'm like friends with Aaron and Sarah. I'm like, we're friends. I'm sure, sure, sure. And, and then I do laugh at myself because I take a step.

And I'm like, well, we actually for real could be friends. We have, like, so many people in common. I could meet them. But I was like, oh, no. That would ruin it.

It would change, okay, ruin is maybe not. Yeah, I don't know if that's the word. It would change it. Okay, because I, well, I experienced this with Elizabeth and Andy. I had a parasocial relationship with them for so long.

Okay. And now we're all very, very good friends. And I still love their podcast much less and immediately. But it's not the same listening experience. You don't have the yearning to connect to it.

You have the connection. So it's like the yearning has been taken away. Yeah. And I like, and then yeah, I will text and it's normal. Just like my friends text about our show.

That doesn't feel parasocial. That just feels like. Yeah. So I wonder if the move is for me to protect this very special feeling. I have every single night for an hour.

Yeah.

I guess we never deserve that.

But I've been having these feelings lately. And it's not that I'm looking for inspiration. I just find the thought of this inspiring, which is like we interviewed a journalist yesterday, who's like so impressive. Yes.

And his mind is so wonderfully curious. And I've been having these thoughts lately of like, I would like to put more time into figuring out how to collaborate. Collaborate with people, whether it's writing or it's something. I just, I just seem like intrigued by the notion of I haven't written with a human being since the groundlings.

Yeah. But I used to love that. It's like you, and also you're forced in there. So there was 15 of us in the company. And if I had my drug, there was me and Josh Nathan went over it together every day.

So we had the exact same sense of humor, but you write with everybody. Yeah.

And you sit in your apartment, your one bedroom apartment,

and then you come up with a three-page sketch. Yeah. And often you came up with really great stuff because you had to. Oh yeah. And then it was a really joyous experience that I long for.

Yeah. I think you can find that. I also think you could. I don't know. When I'm doing this, but this is whatever.

It can be something you want to do and try to do.

“But also, I think it's okay to admire from afar.”

But like, just like, I love what that person does. I can let that be something I consume. Yeah. And I don't have to be like connected to it or a part of it. Or a part of them.

Yeah, we're going to work through that. I mean, I'm on this surface. I agree with you. Mm-hmm.

When I'm curious, like, I guess it's just natural if you enjoy something.

You want to be close to it. Of course. Yeah. Of course. It's also because I think you actually.

You're in a weird position where you have the ability. If I put a lot of energy. Yeah. You could do it for so long. I wanted these collaborations with people.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, it's a awful neck. I've ever put this person at this person. Yeah. And I couldn't.

Oh, right. There was no way to do that. Yeah. And then do and then not able to. I don't know.

“I think there is something freeing to just like that person.”

That person's just great. Yeah. I don't know. The dangerous part could be I want to somehow work with them. Mm-hmm.

And I want to produce something with them. And I guess I want them to see me as worthy of that. Yes. Of course. I certainly know I have zero money motives.

So that's good. Yeah. I can take that off the table. Yeah. Something like I'm like, oh, we could have a best seller.

Yeah. I don't have nothing like that. But you're worthy. I guess that's sort of how I like I think that's like you don't need anointment. You don't need somebody else to say like.

That's what I want you. I know. You do you hope they would love you. You do. But I think you can get to a place where it doesn't really matter.

Like if you find out they like you. It's like, oh my god. That's so flattering. But like. I'm there without their actors.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Like certainly I'm flattered by that whole fast-bender story. It could even happen.

Yeah. That's so cool. But also that fast-bender story would have in the past sent me into another sphere. And then I'm like, I got to fear how to work with this guy. Yeah.

Because he likes me doesn't mean he and I are going to be in a movie. So that stuff is all gotten very neutralized in my life. I guess I can just like someone and if they like me that's great. But I don't, I'm not off to the races with all these fantasies. But of course more and more.

“And I think maybe it was reminded by this journalist.”

We were reminiscing about self-sumitting stories to journals and publishers and just how to moralizing it. Yeah. We have your little envelopes and your postcards you send with it so they can respond to you.

And so I do think because that was my initial thing I wanted to always do.

I have a referee for writers in a way that is probably reminiscent of like when I first started acting. This crazy referee for actors. And then all the way around to your point like maybe just keep in chairs that you don't need to infiltrate that and then neutralize that too.

Maybe just stay a fan. You can stay a fan. Maybe it's like confidence or which I know you have. But it's weird. I guess.

Too much of. Well you have a lot. Intermittent. And then you have none. Yeah.

I guess we all, we all have that pendulum. But I, you just remind me something, but great, great, great, great. Or something. I've been meaning to bring up for three or four weeks. Okay.

I feel like if someone comes up and tells that someone, I really respect obviously, comes up and says they love the podcast or I, I'm a slatter. Yeah. But we're not, I'm not doing this for that at all. Right.

Which is maybe newish for me in the past 10 years of it. Yeah. And I don't feel like I need that approval from people I wanted respect from. To confirm for yourself whether it's good or bad or not, I'm proud of it. And I don't care, like what other people say, good or bad doesn't have much of an impact.

Right. Because I feel very convicted and in my feelings about this, so I guess that's sort of what I would hope. I feel a human being. Yeah.

You just like don't need that, who we had the other day to like work with them so that you're like, and I sort of worked with them, like they may, so I must be good, right?

Yeah. I just want to live inside of one of his stories as much as I can, and I feel like by being with him since the stories are about reality somehow I'd be able to live one of the stories. Yeah.

Okay. The thing he just wanted me to be because it was confidence and domains. And we were talking about things identity markers that are important to me. And then one I said that was troubling you as it should be was I said fighting. And then I didn't act.

It's always irked me since then that I didn't explain why.

And I have figured out how to articulate why. Okay. And this is not a boo who I would hate for you to think that this is a boo who's sorry.

“But I think if you grew up with an older brother, it's significantly older than you.”

And you guys fight a lot. You have a great fear of that violence. And then you have some stepdads that are like really, really violent and you're scared a lot of that. And then you go to junior high and you date an eighth grade and all the eighth graders want

to kick your ass. And just like older dudes wanting to kick your ass. And then just floating through Aaron's neighborhood and the amount of violence like the amount of time in my early life that I was so terrified of men and a violence to come to a place through fighting where I don't have any of that fear.

I walk in the street, any guy I see, I have no fear. I'm not saying I can beat every guy up. But I'm saying I have no fear. I've conquered that fear. And the fear was so all consuming and very, and so frequent that it is like a total shackles

I broke out of through finally forcing myself to stand up fight back to the thing and

overcoming it. So if there's been any one of these identity markers that has given me the most relief funny enough, it's way more than driving fast, it's way more than all these other goofy ones I have. But it's the one that liberated me from this feeling I hated, which was fear.

Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. I'm being scared. That makes total sense.

I think I'm at more likely. And clearly fighting is just bad. That's not a way to define yourself. So I get all of that. But for me, I wanted you to understand why that's an important one for me.

It's like, yeah. Yeah.

“I think I know that about, I don't think you like it because it makes you scary.”

Or I'm trying, I want to beat somebody else. Right. I don't think that. But I guess for me when I look at the picture, I'm like the reason you were put in the position in the first place to be scared is because somebody else is violent because of

somebody else who made them, to me it's this horrible cycle that makes kids afraid and then they have to build that defense mechanism and it's like, I would just want the whole thing to stop for sure. And when you watch the Jack Reacher video of the guy pushing him off his motorcycle and him being the guy up, like, it's just all obvious violence and all of it's bad.

And all I'm seeing is, oh yeah, that guy tried to make Jack Reacher terrified and tried to hurt him. Yeah. And Jack was like, but this. Yeah.

By the way, I, like, defend yourself. I'm not. I don't think he did the wrong thing there. I'm just like, oh, like, I hate all this. I hate that guy who sucks and that guy who came out is violent too, like he started

with violence. It was reciprocated with violence. This whole thing is just like, I just wish that wasn't like the case, you know, but I mean, it's also reality. So whatever, but that's where I'm coming from when I say, I just wish that cycle would

stop. You know, it's a terrible reality of life on planet earth. So I'd rather be some that wasn't a victim of it. Yeah. That makes sense.

Yeah. And it's like, when women take self-defense classes, it's not because they like want to run in the street and start kicking everyone. You want to not feel afraid. Yeah.

Exactly. So I do, I 100% I get that. And if, and I'm Cecilina, the Brazilian Jets who can't, like, if she tells me something I love about myself is I'm, I'm indomitable. Yeah.

I love that. I do too. Yeah. I guess just the whole thing makes me sad.

“It's like, yeah, it makes me sad that you have to do that because there are people”

in the world who rape people. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes you have to do this. You know, whatever.

But anyway, it makes total sense to me that that would be it.

And my algorithm unfortunately confirms my worldview that this is still essential.

But see, that's what's so funny. I don't have that. You don't have that. So, like, I see so many videos of, like, just a random Joe at a bar doing nothing in some asshole.

You know, I see so many of those videos. For me, I'm also misled probably about the frequency, right? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Let's do some facts. For fun. Oh, I really love Tom. Yeah.

He delivered. Okay.

So state universities that don't have the words like state or university

in them. He went to Rutgers. And we were like, oh, that's weird. It doesn't say university. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So is it private or public? But technically Rutgers is Rutgers the state university of New Jersey. Yeah.

I read that.

“That's how we knew it was the state university of New Jersey.”

Right. But I, again, still it's weird that it's Rutgers state university of, yeah.

It's not Bellyneham University of Georgia.

Right. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. You know, it's not like McHaschen, North Carolina State University.

Yeah, you're right. But I'm not finding a lot of others. Yeah. It's all like College of New Jersey, College of Charleston, SUNY. Well, what's Duke?

Duke is private. Duke is private. This is private. Okay. And to Lane is private.

I had brought that up. But that's private too. Only private. Very private. Very, very, very, very private.

Okay.

“Next up, what's happening with when you're detoxing, when you do the stomach, jolts?”

Because he said, what is that? The bodies react into the sudden removal of substance that is adapted to causing gastrointestinal distress, muscle spasms from electrolytes, shifts, or intense nerve adjustments. It's often a sign of toxic leaving the body, resulting in, yeah, cramps, gas, diarrhea, muscle spasms.

I will say we talked about it in the episode, the two most humbling moments in alcohol addiction, which I've talked to many people. Is that moment for me in the kitchen?

I was like, oh, it's not a joke and I can't, I'm never going to quit.

Yeah. That moment. But when you have violent DTs, you're like, could this really be happening? So, okay. I feel stressed about not stressed, but saying that because it's good because people

need to have expectations, but I'm like, I'm nervous that that's enough to have people just never stop. Sometimes I think that, I'm like, oh my god, if I stop, like, we'll have, you have stopped. You've quit for a month here and there.

“I don't know, but like, what if I have that and then I can't handle it, then I just don't”

want to see if it happens. No, you're not, you're not even, don't think anywhere close to having DTs. Scared. Well, anyway, don't let the DTs stop you. They're really like, those were the facts.

They were really no facts. I mean, they were those facts that I just gave. I'm not surprised. I doubt you were either to find out that he had had a very high status girlfriend. I'm not surprised.

I obviously wanted to know who was, but you know what I respected is privacy and I didn't look it up. Yeah, this guy's a killer. He's so sexy. He's so nice.

He's so sweet. He's so sweet and engaged. Yeah. He's he seems like a fair man. They have like the X-factor kind of a truck in the S, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. He's lovely. Good pair. Good pair with us. Yeah.

Dynamite. OK. I love you. I love you. [BLANK_AUDIO]