Kristen Bell & Justine Lupe

24:44It was like ears that hear everything. So I was like, if I'm just a little bit out of reach, that's the best place to be. Yes, that was brilliant. It was not my own pee. I steeped chamomile tea at different gradients. Which smells gross, by the way. Chamomile tea smells gross. It does smell gross. And the grand finale of this actually is that I accidentally left it in our car for like months and months and months. And just recently it fell out of my car and smashed all over the ground. And my husband had to pick it up because I was carrying the baby. And he was like, what is that smell? Like, what the fuck?

25:21Oh, my God. Yeah, that blows a Q-tip under a piece of paper on the water. I'm terrible. I'm a trash bag. If he's already frustrated. I know. No, but you win some, you lose some. You get this committed wife. Yeah. He did love the game. He did love the game. He loved the prank. He was there for it all. Wow. I felt so warm inside. Well, the pee itself is warm enough. How did you get this idea? I think it was just the relentless bio. I mean, this woman loves talking about sauna, cold punch, peptides, plugging up your body with greens and metamucil and apple cider vinegar before you eat pasta. Like she's just the tracker, the buffness.

26:02I have glucose issues. I have to track it, Justine. It's just, she's like just on it. And I know she loves pranks because she's played me a few of Jimmy Kimmel's pranks. So I knew that there was a glee around pranks. Wasn't there something about his house in Christmas? Yeah, yeah. When he pranked Mickey and he was behind the emails. Remember, Mickey had bought a house, his cousin Mickey. And the people they bought it from were like... Asked if they could come back for Christmas. Asked if they could come back for Christmas. And if Mickey says yes to everything, and she said, sure, okay. But Jimmy had hacked the email and he was responding with the fact that we'll need some ingredients for our Christmas dinner.

26:38We're going to make this soup. It kept on building and building and she was just so sweet, but you could just feel like... So overwhelmed. We'll be there at midnight. It was a great one. We'll be there at midnight. The long, the slow burn prank. It's the first time I've ever done it. And there's, I can't tell you how satisfying. It's intoxicating. Slowly building a life. That is so fun. Yeah, so subtle. Talk about throwing it away. It's like a little thing here and then get that from my trailer there. The best was when we engage in a conversation and then they'd be like, action. And I'm like, ha ha.

27:10Like I just like left her with like - She's a mess inside during this scene. And then like took it away. It was fun. It was really fun. Is Kristen your favorite co-star of all time? She loves you so much. She talks about you endlessly. Dreamy, dreamy, dreamy, dreamy. It's awesome. I have talked about it too much, but having her be the first person that I said that I was pregnant to in her living room with a sheet mask on her face and the way that she just bounced up and ran around the room and then gave me honestly an Emmy-winning speech about the magic of being a mom and how important it's been to her.

27:46It was so, so sweet. And honestly, on top of that, she's just the biggest role model to watch on set because she's kind to everyone. She's professional. She's playful. You're an incredible mom. I love your guys' relationship. I've been really lucky because Snook was like this too on Succession, just the right person to be there at the right time. I do see it as, sorry, Dax, divine intervention a little bit that I got these women at these times in my life. Snook was prego through the last season of the show. I watched her do the whole thing incredibly pregnant. Yeah. And that show was shooting for like nine months.

28:22Her whole pregnancy was literally that whole season. And so having that, to know that that kind of work is possible while pregnant and just to get inspired by that. Yeah, that you're going to have your whole life and this thing. Totally. Like she just killed it. She slayed. So like all the kind of preconceived things about what it's like to be pregnant and what it's like to be a mom in this industry. And then coming in and seeing Kristen doing what she's doing during this moment. I just feel like they're little gifts. Where are you from? I'm from Colorado. Oh. You were born in New York, but you grew up in Colorado?

28:54Yeah. Why were you born in New York? So my dad was a visual artist in New York and my mom worked at a halfway house for boys. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's intense, no? My mom's whole career has been the most intense. She worked at a halfway house for boys. She then worked with children who had been abused as a therapist. She then now is working mostly with women with borderline personality disorder. Okay. She's kind of a champ in terms of committing herself to this kind of work. And she's in the deep end. She likes to get where it's hardest. Yeah. She can hold space for a lot of dark. Yeah. Yeah. She's dark.

29:33She's dark. Okay, good for her. Yeah, totally. Dark means dark. Yeah, I think that there is something to being someone who's lived in that level of dark that can hold space for it. It makes me want to cry. The times where I've been in the most distress, like when I was 21, I did ecstasy. I had the worst trip of my life. I thought I was going to die. My friend thought she was going to die. We were like, it was laced with something or something. I was going to say, I bet it had bath salts in it. Yeah, there was some weird shit in it. Yeah. And my mom, I called her at four o 'clock in the morning and I was like, shit's hitting the fan.

30:07I smoked my brain. She came to the house. She opens the door. I'm naked. All of us are naked. There's three of us. We're all naked. Oh, my God. Before the shit hit the fan, it had been very fun. Sure, sure, sure. There's like candles and bean bags and like there's probably wax on my body in some way. And she comes to the door. She has a carrier of coffee. She has a bunch of children's books. She sat there. Like, it makes me cry. She sat there for like hours and just talked us through it. She was A plus mom. And read children's books. She sat there. She just calmed us down, read to us, took us on a drive, played calm music for hours and hours.

30:50Two days, nursed us back to hell. It was terrible. It was the first time where I was like, oh, I understand what depression is. I was so low and she just sat there through the whole thing and tended to us. And meanwhile, my dad was on another planet. We were truly traumatized. Laying in bed, he comes in with a clown's mask at one time. He's like, hey guys, let's go. Like, not reading the room at all. But my mom was like, that's just her in a nutshell. She's not always that way. Right. But when crisis is there, when shit hits the fan, she rises into a part of herself that's a hero, honestly. Did she have a wild childhood herself?

31:27Yeah. Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

31:42She was one of six girls, so I kind of think like when that's on the table. That's a lot of girls. Yeah, she's had a wild life, but she's amazing. So what year did you move to Colorado? So when I was a baby, basically my dad was in the art scene and he was basically like, if I have a kid, I'm so in this art world right now. There's no way that I can do both. If we're going to do this, we've got to get out of here. They moved to Colorado and he became a closet case artist, only did art for my mom, basically shut down his career to be a dad. and he worked at the Denver Art Museum, so he didn't shut down his career, but he stopped making art and being an artist and doing freelance work and got a steady job.

32:23He actually never showed any of his art until when I was pregnant. He had his first art show. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's adorable. And then you went to an arts high school, performing arts high school. Why does grandma have a theater there? So my grandma was a super activist. She was on every board for women's rights. She enforced this busing system that brought kids from different areas into other areas. She held Colorado accountable for doing that. She started this arts program. It started as a very small thing and then evolved into the Denver School of the Arts. So I went to the school that she kind of, yeah.

33:02No wonder your name means justice. This is all adding up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How does one set their sights on Juilliard? And then what's the process to get into Juilliard? Because I can't imagine ever thinking that's even an option for me. I mean, it wouldn't be. I don't know. I don't know if I'm talented enough. But still, that seems like the single most exclusive place to get into. Totally. I mean, it felt like a shot in the dark when it was happening. There wasn't an expectation of getting in at all. But the first time I saw it, I was watching a PBS documentary with them at home. And I was like, whoa, that school looks cool.

33:38I think I was 13 or something. Yeah. And then a kid from my school, Gabe Eber, two years older than me, he got in. Okay. And that was like, oh, okay, maybe. And you acted with Gabe? Yeah. You're like, I'm better than Gabe. No, Gabe was like the shining golden boy of our school. And I was not, actually. Why not? I don't know. You know, I didn't get a lot of parts. And I later found out, and this is so embarrassing. It was embarrassing when I found out in my 30s, my parents had to go into the school and have a talk with my drama teacher and be like, you need to cast her in more things. which is like a crazy fucking thing to do.

34:13And so it's humiliating, but they didn't work. Yeah. I got into a few shows. It's so crazy. And I remember my drama teacher saying something about parents coming in and complaining about their kids, not being in stuff and thinking like that was crazy. Yeah. And then I later found to do that. And then later I found out it was my parents. I bet it's Becca's parents. Yeah, totally. They're so involved. I was like kind of shocked because they were very supportive parents, but they are not Karen parents or whatever. They're not like annoying. Yeah. Yeah. No siblings? I have a brother. You have a brother.

34:48Older or younger? Younger. Did he go to this school as well? He went there for middle school and then he was like, screw this. I want to play sports. And he left and he went to East High, which is the quintessential classic high school. But still ended up super artistic. Yeah. Then he ended up going to school for film at Chapman. He's a photographer and a director and very, very cool stuff. Yeah. Okay, so what's the process of getting into Juilliard? So it's nuts. Basically, you have to go to a unified audition. You go to one of three places and you do an audition, which is two monologues. And then there's a second set of monologues that they call you back for later in the day.

35:24So you have four monologues prepared. You do that. Then you have to sing to them. Oh, boy. Can you sing? No. And it was a nightmare. and I sang Fever, which is kind of an inappropriate song for like a 17-year-old. Oh, wow. And I was like, really? I'm going to seduce them. And I remember I walked up to their desk and they were like, can you please back up in the middle of the song? You got too sexual with it? Yeah, I got a little too sexual. They were like, end scene. We're done. After that, you have to do an interview. So that's one day of three different stages. Is that in New York or is that the satellite?

35:58Okay. Okay. Then they have another round, the final 40. They bring 40 kids back to do two days of auditions in the school. You have to do your monologue with the faculty, and then you have to do mock classes, and all the faculty sits on the side of the classrooms and take notes and watch how you perform. The crazy story about that was the weekend of this callback, there was a massive blizzard, and I was set to go on this plane by myself. We get to the airport. My dad is like, there's a huge blizzard. I'm going to come with you. I was like, dad, leave me alone. I'm 17. I can do this. My plane gets canceled.

36:38I call him back. I'm like, actually, what do I do? Bring your mask. My dad is like, okay, we're going to figure this out. He comes to the airport. He gets into the airport, buys a ticket. We end up getting on a flight from Denver to Chicago that then is going to take a flight from Chicago to DC and then from DC take a train to - Oh my goodness. New York. It's massive. It's a massive storm. I'm freaking out. I call the school. They're like, listen, if you can get here for 10 minutes or two days, whatever, just the important thing is you just get here. So we get to the Chicago branch of this whole thing and they're like, everything's canceled.

37:17There's no flight to DC anymore. And all my stuff's checked in a bag. So that's all on its way or whatever. He's like, okay, we're going to rent a car and we're going to drive from Chicago to New York through a blizzard through the night, 16 hours or whatever it is. And he did it. Oh my, what a champ. Got a car and he drove me through this blizzard and we're watching semis literally on the side of the road, like toppled over. It's crazy torrential. I can't describe, I couldn't take over at any point because it was so hard to drive. He stopped for five minutes at a McDonald's to do like a micro nap, literally.

37:53five minutes. And he drove me all the way there and I made it. What was your mental state on this whole journey? You had to already be nervous to go. And now you're like, I'm doomed. Were you letting any of that come in? Totally. I was totally heartbroken. Once he got there, honestly, I was like, if my dad's here, like maybe we can do it. And then the nerves burned off. And by the time I got there, I think we were both so tired. I was wearing some other student of the school's clothes because I didn't have any clothes. And I was just so worn down that I actually think it really helped because I just didn't have any nerve to give.

38:30It was like gone. And he slept on a friend's couch and stayed there with me until the moment that he was like, can I go? Am I good? And he left and then he let me do the plane ride back, like the adult that I wanted to be. Oh, wow. So how many people get in? 16. 16 is the number of students? Yeah. When did you start feeling like, I think I might get in? When the 40 thing happened, I was like, okay, there's a shot. That's 50 %-ish. Yeah. Maybe I could do it. But then you're like looking around and everybody's so good that you're like, I don't know. I don't know. I also was 17 at that time, so I don't quite remember all the steps.

39:06But I remember being so shocked when I got the phone call that I got in. And is it insanely rigorous? Yeah. You know, Kristen was down the street learning to act, and she was in her sweatpants breathing in a dude's mouth and stuff. 100%. It's called Alexander Technique. He makes fun of it all the time. Draining him in his mouth and stuff. It was crazy. It's just such a singular thing to like put that much time into that. Like only that for four years from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. Because you're doing school and then you're doing rehearsal for whatever the play is. And I'm like, I'll never do anything like that again.

39:43Yeah. And the teachers are tough. They try to strip you down a little bit, right? Isn't that sort of the goal? Yeah, I think that the goal is to basically take away as many habits as they can so that you are free to decide what you want to do. Like slate. Yeah. And I think that that can be great. And it also can take away the thing that got people into the school. Yes. You know, where it's like, actually, that person was incredibly shiny. And they had an essence that was their fingerprint. And then beat them down into not trusting the thing that got them there. That's my little bit of a pushback on this approach.

40:21You take someone who's had 18 years of practicing how to be an appealing human being. They learn a bag of tricks that work for them. And I see actors then try to get rid of all of that and take on some entirely different personas. Like, it can be accomplished, but I don't know that it's the net win of it all. If you have some shiny, sparkly things that you do. Yeah, you want to hold on to the sparkle. Ultimately, someone would say the goal is to learn how to do both. right? You could be in a rom-com, but if you're playing Truman Capote, you don't need any parts of yourself to do that. Yeah. Or that you should be able to release the things that are habitual in order to put something else in there.

41:00I had a little bit of fuck you and me. Just enough. Yeah. I was totally a people pleaser and I totally wanted them to like me and I wanted to do a good job, but I also had just enough. I don't know about this. Yeah. I don't want to come out of here as an acting android yeah i don't want to be a bot i don't really that's a little bit that was rude that was rude sorry we shouldn't talk about the robot that way crazy she is a little bit of an acting robot anything there's not a moment where you're like don't buy it exactly true that and also then she's like okay we've got it we're moving on and you're like girl we had a talk at one point during this season where she was like she loves the speed because She can fucking nail it.

41:38Yeah. And I'm like, baby. You're like, I'm not ready. Like maybe just a few. I mean, I'm not that machine yet. Yeah. And I don't think that I'm sucking, but I don't feel like I'm in the place where I'm like, okay, we can get in. But I think you're not giving yourself enough credit because you're a very believable actor as well. And I think sometimes what stands in the way of people is like, wait, can we have one more? I didn't feel it. I want to remind you, it doesn't matter if you feel it. Is the audience going to feel it? And that information we get from the people behind the monitor. So if they're like this, then it's like, let's go to lunch.

42:15No, no, no. I think the feeling it thing probably maybe 60 % of the time or less. I remember there was a point where I was with Brendan Gleeson. Do you guys know who Brendan Gleeson is? He was in Bruges with Colin Farrell. He's like OG, incredible. Paddington 2, you might be familiar. He and I were doing a show together and I was like, fuck, I did not feel that at all. And he was like, well, that is why you're an actor and you have skill. You can rely on having skill. Most of the time, you're not going to be like transcending. That's why I think speaking about it in terms of were you paying attention in the scene is more valuable than did you feel it?

42:50Were you paying attention? Were you taking the other person in? Were you present? Yeah. But some of that time, the answer is no. Some of the time I'm like, girl, I was like not there. Yeah. So yeah. You had also just had a baby. Totally. And more than having a baby, I was weaning. I don't know. We actually haven't talked about it too much, but no one told me that when you wean, it's psychotic drops of all the hormones that were in you to keep your boobs flushing milk out. They're gone. Yeah. And so I was like waking up with anxiety in a way that I never had before. I didn't have crazy postpartum, but I had wild weaning.

43:30Weaning. Yeah. And I was like, what is going on? Am I just nervous about acting again? It was the first time that I was back from having the baby. I was like, is this about the work? Is this about the show? I had a couple friends be like, oh, it's probably that. And I started researching and I was like, that's like a major thing. Yeah. It was nuts. So from a scene partner perspective, I have never seen you be off your game. As evidenced by, Justine has this incredible running bit in season two where any time that I brush up against her, she goes, ow! Like where everything, there's one moment where I grab a wine bottle out of your hand and you scream.

44:14There's another moment where we're fighting over a remote and you're like, you broke my finger. I know. There was a point where I was like, I think I've worn this one. I loved it, but it was anytime I brushed up against her, you were, whether you want to admit it or not, or whether you felt it or not, you were ready to give that piece of the sisters where like, if Joanne touches Morgan, Morgan will overreact. And I loved it. I mean, I don't want to like keep on praising Kristen, but I do think that you can feel her listening and she does draw you into like being there. And she's so fun to play with as a friend, as a partner.

44:48She's a playful person. And so we had a lot of fun. Kristen, before you started shooting this season, you said the first season was a love story between you and Adam, and the second season is a love story between you and Justine. I firmly believe that, which is so exciting. I'm so excited to watch it. I don't even think that when our writers, or specifically Erin, who dictates a lot of where the story goes because it's kind of her story, did you feel like as it unfolded, this is so clear to me that this is a love story between these two girls. And it's about the sisterhood because Justine has some major stuff happening this season.

45:24I don't know. I don't know if I felt that. I did feel that I had more to do, but I do feel like last season, I felt that already. I felt my whole point of view was I'm losing the love of my life. When you're so close, you're so codependent, you are so involved in each other's lives. When someone that you love, not in a romantic way, I've had it with my friends, I've had it with my brother, goes off and finds their, love. It is a loss. It's heartbreaking. They start building a combined life with somebody. Yeah. So for me, that was what I was going off of last season is I was like, oh, the love of my life is actually leaving me.

46:01And all the pettiness and all the bitchiness and bad behavior that Morgan's going through. It's a reaction to being like, no, no, no, no, no, don't leave me. This season, I think snowballed that a little bit more. And I think that there was more of a back and forth around it too. Yeah, and I think it was way more the focus. It's not that the Joanne and Noah of it all is not there because it definitely is. And strong. But the events surrounding this season, if you dislodge one of the sisters, it just doesn't work. It's so rooted in whether or not you and I are in balance. The whole ending scenario, you're so devastating in this show.

46:43I can't wait to watch it. Do Juilliard turn out comedians? Or are they more... You're going there to be in Shakespeare. Yeah, I think there is like an emphasis on classical theater, which when I say I had a little bit of the fuck you in me, there was something about talking in that way with that project. I was like, I don't feel like I'm a human talking. I've never spoken this way in my life. I mean, my acting teachers and I really got along and my voice and speech teachers hated. I think they really actively disliked me. I guess when you got out, were you aiming to be in only dramas or were you aiming to be in comedy?

47:16I was aiming to just work. I was like, please just let me work. The first couple things, one's written by Noah Baumbach and one's written by David Chase. So if I were you, I'd be like, oh, I get it. I'm going to be on this pedigree train. I don't know. It's funny because also those are the only movies. I've done like maybe one movie after that. So I do think it was a weird false start. I was listening to you guys talk to Alex Skarsgård about him booking his first job and being like, and now I've arrived. So those were crazy. That was crazy to be in those two filmmakers' jobs. What movie was it?

47:47It was Francis Ha. Oh, yeah. I love that movie. I'm just doing like one scene, but it was really fun. I liked, he shot a lot. We did one scene all day long. Acting robot doesn't like that. You don't like that? Nor does Mr. Robot. Mr. Robot. Mr. Robot's okay on the first one. Pick up the pace. Pretty good on the second. Third, and then it's all downhill from after third. Really? Yeah. I have this fraudulence alarm that goes off in my head when I've said something so many times. I'm improv-ing mostly out of silencing that alarm. I just start feeling very fraudulent and I said it so much and it's flat and I don't believe it anymore.

48:27And I'm like, even if I add one word or I do something, I just like to get in and fucking one, two, three. That definitely happens. It's like when we were taking pictures and you're like, and now I've clocked into a new level of not being here. When you're in a photo line and you're like, I was listening to David Fincher talk about, or someone who worked with him about the over and over and over again thing. Their whole point was it gets past the idea you have of what you're going to do or any of the preparation that you did or your idea of what it is. And it pushes you past that into another level of finding it.

49:02But what if your preparation and your idea of what it is, is right for the scene? Listen, I think that there's real value in that too. I see both sides of it. I think that there's something interesting about mind-numbingly getting through the amp up and the preconceived notions or the construct that you have and then getting into something where it's like, whoa, didn't think that that was coming out and that was interesting. Yeah, that's fun. I've heard his thing though. We've interviewed a ton of people that have worked with him. It's always technical. His shots are so complicated and they're so long and they're throwing focus to 25 different things.

49:35No, which is actually a relief to a lot of the actors. They're like, it's not because I'm bad. It's because he wants this and he wants this. It's not about me. Tell me if this resonates. And it might not. Because you weren't getting in the plays before you knew your parents got you into the plays, do you feel like you have something to prove in life? Ooh. I mean, I don't even know if I would frame it as something to prove, but I do feel like this whole thing is about being a better version of yourself all the time. Becoming a better person, being kinder, working on yourself, and acting is part of that.

50:10Becoming a better actor and evolving is an important part of what this whole trajectory is about. So I don't know if I'd frame it as something to prove. I feel like that sentence has two different meanings. Something to prove where it can be arrogant. And I was just going to say like, I find you to be the antithesis of that. Justine does not suck the air out of a room when she walks into it. She's only additive and light, but something to prove if you're going to use that as the definition of does she come aggressively prepared to every single scene and piece of work? Yeah, because something to prove to me is within.

50:46It is what you end up putting out, but it's I have to be the best version of me every time I show up to anything because people didn't take me seriously or because I didn't get all these things. So now I'm here and I'm going to, I mean, I have it, obviously. Yeah, I think it's also just like being like, I don't know. I mean, in terms of the acting of it all, it's also just knowing how rare it is to have an opportunity to work. And all my friends, none of them are famous. You know, none of them are working nonstop. And a lot of them aren't in the business either. But there's something about knowing, A, that this is a rare opportunity and wanting to capitalize on it as much as possible for myself and for the sake of job that I'm doing.

51:30but also just knowing that hardly anyone gets to do it. So I just want to do, I don't want to let it slip by and I don't want to take it for granted. And yeah, I always want to do my best. I'm also pretty relaxed. Theater, I had a way harder time feeling okay about myself. There was something about facing the audience every night that was just so brutal and terrible. And I hated it so much. I felt so much more responsible. And there's something about going to sets and being with Kristen and being with the crew and being with the crafty people and transpo and feeling the unit of it all, that it takes the like preciousness off of it just being about me and how well I do.

52:06So it's like a weird balance. I do feel like I always am trying my best. And at the same time, I don't think I've got some sort of crazy like, yeah. I'm not too like hardcore. No, you're like the opposite of hardcore. I try and have fun. I asked Jackie this and I asked Tim this. You're in the exact same situation. Tim was on Veep, which was really successful. Jackie was on Glow, which was really successful. You were on Succession, which was hugely successful. How did the reaction of Nobody Wants This compare to the previous? You were on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mr. Mercedes. You were shooting all three of those at the same time somehow?

52:42Yeah. That sounds crazy. Yeah, it was totally right for where I was. I was like single, no kids, 25, energy to burn. So it worked out. But Succession, it was this weird thing where I was friends with everyone. They were my family at that time. I was heavily invested in terms of just being there. But I wasn't there. I wasn't a core member of that show in the same way. I was kind of a fly on the wall a lot. And it was an amazing experience. I loved it so much. Because of that, I also didn't have the same feeling around the reaction that it had. Right. You didn't feel like you could take a lot of ownership over that?

53:17Yeah. I don't know if I have that now. I would walk with Nick Braun. What he was dealing with was like nuts. Or Sarah Snook. I'd be like, you know, whenever we'd hang out, I was like, this is wild. And especially because we live in New York. and LA. And those are the places where people were watching Succession. Middle America wasn't watching it as much. It was like a crazy thing to watch them experience, but I didn't necessarily feel it in the same way. And this one, when it came out, I was so postpartum and in my own little bubble world that I wasn't truly engaged in the way that I imagine some people were, but I felt it in a different way.

53:53It was nuts, right? Yeah. My agents were like, we haven't had a reaction to anything like this since Girls, because my old agent represented Adam Driver when he was on Girls. The level of attention that that got, it felt comparable to that. It was a cultural phenomenon. Yeah, it's weird. I was saying, we've been together for 18 years. She's been famous the whole time. She had frozen, but really nothing compared to going to New York within weeks of the show coming out and 75-year-old ladies needing a picture, 61-year-old dads needing a picture, Kids need a picture. And I was like, hon, I'm going to meet you places.

54:31Like, you go. You all let's meet at the seats. You're on your own. It was very fun. And it was a touch overwhelming. So it was just, it was really fucking huge. Do you guys feel pressure for season two? Because it was so big? In the beginning, yeah. But as far as what was happening early on in the writer's room, at least when I went in there, I was like, this is unfolding beautifully. flea. We had the additions of Jenny Connor and Bruce Eric Kaplan who have great resumes. And then also Erin had said in the writer's room really early on, she was like, I just want to say to you guys, we're going to give the people what they want.

55:06We're not going to do the TV show thing where every other episode they break up. I mean, there's going to be strife and problems, but that's not why people watch the show. And I thought that was really a lovely take. Yeah. People are watching this show to feel the romance. Yeah. Let it happen. So I've watched two of the first season, or I'm sorry, two of the second season. I've watched the whole first season. And I've watched two of the second season. I'm most interested in Morgan and Sasha. That to me is the relationship. And I love Jackie, so I don't want anything to happen to Jackie. But at the same time, I'm so intrigued by how opposite you guys are.

55:46And yet somehow similar. That's like the funnest. relationship cooking. I have fun with him. I love Tim. I think he's so he's awesome. Did you have fun when you guys were doing your thing? Oh my god. Isn't he awesome? He's incredible. I have a lot of fun doing stuff with him. He's great. First season we were really like what the fuck is going on with these two? Like what's happening here? And like we wanted answers and Erin's kind of smart in that she was like it's vague. It's unexplainable. Yeah and it was frustrating in those moments where you're like okay but are we going to make out next episode?

56:17Like Is that what's happening here? Or is this just two people who are magnetic and they're interested? You know those relationships where you find someone and you're an adult and you have a partner, but you're like, okay. Yeah, yeah. You got something that's attractive to me. So we were kind of just trying to figure out, is this going to be infidelity or is this just going to be an interesting energy that's fun and familiar and people actually do know what that gray is? Yes. All of us have experienced it. And she didn't have an answer. There were moments where we were like, ugh. but it works out.

56:49Honestly, when I watched it, I was like, this works. It is smart. Yeah, I think actors are overly interested in being certain about what they want. You know, like, what is your motivation in this scene? And I don't understand. I need to know what I'm after. And it's like, well, also life doesn't really work that way. A lot of times life's here like, you have a dream about someone you kind of know and then the dream you're in love and then you wake up and you're like, huh, that's interesting. Totally. I think I was just like, is this woman going to fuck a guy who has a child and a wife. Because that is something.

57:19Yeah. Yeah, that's something to consider about you. Totally. Who is she? And what's going on? And is she okay? If that's going to happen in two episodes, that does say something about her mental state. For sure. And from a robot's perspective, I'm always doing the emotional math of what the audience is watching. See, that's crazy. I can't even think about that. That's the whole, acting does not exist for me. It's just emotional math. This emotion leads to this emotion, leads to this emotion. And it's not just the emotion, it's the temperature of the emotion. Is it anger and is it really small or is it anger and is it huge?

57:50And they have different consequences. But I understood what you were saying where you were like, no, I would like to know if they're going to hook up. Because from my perspective, I would not stop being open to the ambiguity of the situation, but rather start to lay the track that will get the audience there. Because what you don't want to do is have four episodes where it's super casual. and episode five, they're having sex in the back of the car and you're like, what is happening? I really get both sides. That's the thing. You see how vague it was or whatever. Not knowing the answer served people being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is happening?

58:28Yeah. Well, it's alive and scary and that makes for great TV and drama. And maybe we could have done that if we didn't know. You know what I mean? It's almost like that Meryl Streep thing. There's a story where I can't remember what movie it was. Someone like throws a glass. Was it Kramer versus Kramer? or something where someone throws a glass and it shatters behind her. Uh-huh, yeah. And she was like, why the fuck didn't you tell me that you were going to do that? And he was like, well, I wanted to surprise you. And she's like, well, let me ask. I think it was Dustin Hoffman. Yeah. Also, I probably could have done that had I known what the track was too.

58:59So it worked out, but it also could have worked out if we knew the mathing. The emotional math. Well, you can argue it six ways to Sunday, but if you're doing a movie and your character goes to a carnival and you haven't read the end of the script and she jumps off the Ferris wheel in the last scene. Hopefully you are going to want to contribute ever so slightly to the emotional math of what gets her there. So yes, actors always feel like they need to know way more. And yet I feel like in order to make that equation work, sometimes it's important. It's their job and they should, but also there's a reality that they could have never set out to do that.

59:35And they can start watching in the editing room, like, wow, there's some bizarre spark between. Totally. They did that a lot in succession. One scene where Kieran looked back very early on. Kieran looked back and checked out Jay's ass. And it was caught on camera. And it was not obviously written, but they were like, Kieran just checked out Jay's ass? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was hot. Let's do something with that. And then it created that whole storyline between Jerry and Roman. Kudos to the writers who can pick that stuff out and see it and take it. Because that's the same thing that happened on Veronica Mars.

1:00:09Logan was never supposed to be Veronica's love interest. And then they saw the simmering. They saw so much chemistry. It's so smart. I think it's the best way, getting to know who you're working with, what's going on with them, and then playing around with that. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:00:36Oh, this could be a good test of how prepared you guys are as actors. Okay. So my one big question mark when I watch the show, and it drives me a little bit bonkers, is how much money do you guys make on this podcast? Oh, I thought you were about to say, how much do you personally each make on this show? What's your per episode? What's your per episode? Let's be honest. Oh, I see. People either make a bazillion dollars in podcasting or they make almost none. So I'm like trying to figure out. There's very little middle ground. That's true. What, Joanne, I'll tell you this. Here's what we know. Yeah.

1:01:08We've never read an ad on our podcast. Yeah. Ads are how you make money. We have a producer. We don't know who's paying her. Okay, so there are some holes. To be honest, Joanne's income, because there's never been a scene where she's put down a credit card or been worried about buying something, has never been a part of the emotional math equation I'm trying to tell. It's actually a detail of like, I also don't really need you to know what size her shoes are. It's not relevant. And I know you would say it's relevant because it's the set and how she lives her life. But we're at the vintage store quite a few times.

1:01:43So I think they are on a budget. Well, I'm going to make a more dangerous argument. Have you ever shopped at Scout? Because we're looking at some thousand dollar pieces. I'm going to make a more dangerous argument. Shocking. And I do not want to offend her. Put your nice shoes back on. Because she's fucking awesome. And she created a cultural phenom. No, Aaron and Sarah grew up with a lot of money. It's not a detail that they would imagine needs explaining. I think that's right. But for me, as someone who's broke, I'm a little bit like, I'm so confused. How's everyone living? Yeah, I get the feeling that they both come from families with money.

1:02:23See, that's exactly it. I'm watching. I'm like, okay, so I think they're not panicked about money. That's just not what their concern is. No. But then your parents aren't loaded on the show. I think Noah also, he's like a rabbi, but he comes from money. Yeah. I see your point. We didn't grow up with money. You didn't grow up with money. I know that. And that usually is a very important part of identity when you don't have it. How much does this person make? Right, right. Or how much can I spend today? Or what do I have to do today to hustle to get what I want? And I just, that's probably not part of her equation.

1:02:56This is like the age old, like how are the six friends living in New York at the nice apartment? It's like, okay, get over that. Like that's not what this is about. I concede to that, but I just was curious, had they decided? I had thought about it. And I think 80 % of the people who live in LA are surviving off of their parents' money. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I think that it's impossible. Like, I have been on a show consistently for years. Yeah, nine years. And I have a 1 ,400 square foot house. And I cannot afford to get a three-bedroom house. Like, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And these girls are living in LA.

1:03:33They're surviving off a podcast. Most people, I think, have help. I don't know anyone who's bought a house. None of my peers have bought a house and then didn't have some help. Right. It's LA. It's crazy. It's LA, baby. Yeah. Yeah. Also, the podcast is big enough that they had a meeting with Spotify. So Spotify was interested, at least. So it had to be. And that was one of my ideas in the original pilot. I was saying, I'd love to know how big the show is. I don't know why it's driving me crazy, maybe just because I'm in a podcast, but could we see other people listening to it? Could we see that?

1:04:08Oh, it's kind of a broad group of people. That was an original. I thought that was a big part of the first season. It was a short original opening. And we did it. Some of it is in. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we should have had a fan come up. That was what Dax pitched. Because remember in the beginning, the opening sequence of the pilot was not working and we were like struggling for ideas. And I showed it to Dax and I was like, what can we do here? And he was like, Like you have to identify how many people listen to this show. I need to know if they're famous or not famous. And what kind of people? Like, is there a 50-year-old dude at work listening to you guys talk like that?

1:04:39That would be fun. Is there a, you know, like who's listening? Can I ask, do you think the fact that they're at their mom's house on the couch doing the podcast, do you think there are people who make a ton of money and they actually do it in that casual of a setting? Or do they all have kind of, like, this is a full studio. Well, that's an unanswerable question because the reason we were shooting at the mom's house practically behind the scenes is because we did not secure Joanne's location yet. But also, yes, we did most of the years of this show upstairs. It looks like shit. But we didn't do it at your mom's house or my mom's house.

1:05:13You're a grown up. I mean, I guess. During COVID, we did a lot from my couch. Well, true. So like, I'm just saying, and we had a big show at that time. You could. Uh-huh. I think, I think you could. If you're being frugal, but I don't know if these girls would prioritize being frugal. Also, I recognize probably no one in America that doesn't have a podcast is thinking about this stuff. Oh, you're so confused. Every single person in America has a podcast right now, so you don't have to worry about that. It was fascinating listening to podcasts. People talk about the show after the show came out.

1:05:51because I listen to a bunch of podcasts and hearing the inside baseball of... Yeah, what would they say? Because Aaron and Sarah really do have a successful podcast. Yeah, and they do it from their couches. Exactly, exactly. I do have a grievance though. Now is the place to air it. It makes sense. I should have been cast as that Spotify executive. This is true. Well, you know, I pitched on the carpet yesterday. You guys should be a podcast in the show. We should have some sort of rivalry. Oh my God. I was like, if you see Dax, please pitch this. I don't know if they'll ever do it though, because one of my notes from the very beginning that nobody saw the value in, and that's fine, was to get people on the podcast.

1:06:32Like you guys had the sex therapist on that I loved so much. And I was like, that's a person that Morgan and Joanne would interview. And it's a great excuse for really fun, poppy characters. And I pitched quite a few of them and it just didn't feel right. I mean, sometimes it takes me a minute to understand what's in Aaron's head because she'll be not interested in an idea and I'll feel poo-pooed for a second, but then later on I'll realize, I understand why she didn't. Yeah, right. She may not have had the words to explain it at the moment, but now I understand. She knows her world really well.

1:07:04She knows her world so well. And it took me a long time to really understand that and go like, I just have to completely trust. And her answer is yes if it's yes, and it's no if it's no. And that is the tone of the show and it works. Right. I did like this season that you're dealing with the ramifications of talking too much about Noah. You're like exposing what his personal bedroom looks like. That's not the only time you see them dealing with the consequences of feeling isolated and chatty in front of a microphone and not realizing how it will avalanche in their real life. Do you guys have rules about talking about your relationship on the podcast?

1:07:37They're unspoken. I think we both trust each other to represent each other. I did come to her for her episode of Mom's Car because one of the questions that gets asked, because we ask these moral dumbfounding questions, and one was like, this person cheats. They never find out, blah, blah, blah. Is this morally wrong? And so Kristen and I are pretty loosey-goosey. It's not a big concern of mine. You know, we're just kind of acknowledging it's not a huge concern of ours. Yeah. Kristen once said, Dax could have cheated on me 15 times and I'd be like, whatever, we're monkeys. But if you drove our kids drunk, it would be it.

1:08:16We brought that up in the thing, which is like we had asked a bunch of friends what would be your preference. They either cheated on you or they drove your kids drunk. Oh, my God. A lot of people wanted their sane. Schneider, please. A lot of people chose drive the kids drunk. We just were like, that's kind of wild. So I did come to her and I said, look, I like this conversation. I'd like to keep it in. I also don't want it to read like we're swingers because we're not. And we don't have an open relationship. And then we both were like, yeah, that's fine. And then we were like, okay, now we got to play out.

1:08:47Someone's mom listens to it. That's a mom of a kid in our kid's school. Is a kid going to come to school and say, your parents don't care about cheating? And she's going to go, no, they do care about cheating, but it's not, you know. That's so hard because you really shouldn't have to cater to what some random, it's the same thing as like teacher in a classroom catering to the most sensitive person in the room. That sucks, but I get it. So that one, I definitely need her to sign off or feel good about. I saw it and I was like, I feel fine about it. I don't regret anything that I said. And ultimately he chose to keep it out just because he was like.

1:09:20Well, no, I kept it in and I pared it down a lot. Oh, because you were like, I don't want you to be on a red carpet and someone to bring this up as a soundbite where it's warranted as a much deeper conversation and someone to ask it flippantly. Yeah, nothing happened from it. It already aired three weeks ago. It wasn't a thing. You've asked her times, right, for fact check. Like, do you care about this? Um, no. I asked Delta if we were allowed to keep something in about Groot. Then she said no. Do you ever feel weird when you talk about dating afterwards? When you've gone on a date and you talk about the date and then afterwards, like you're like, maybe someone heard that.

1:09:55I felt a little like, oh, is that sort of unethical? But also I'm never, hopefully, although I probably have done this, talking about the person's faults or whatever. I'm talking about my feelings about it. I feel bad about my feelings about my life. Totally. I feel fine about it, but I'm very careful to edit them when they're talking about each other or the family. There are things that I've cut out a ton that I'm sure you don't even know. Like, I'm just like, I don't think that needs to be in there. I don't think this feels a little slippery. So I'm always sort of aware of protecting that while maintaining honesty.

1:10:34I mean, that's the whole point of this show. I run up against that too. Like I had an experience lately where I talked about a past relationship and then there was a little bit of a thing around it. And I was like, but that's my experience. I had that experience. And that person may be the most incredible partner. He probably is. He's probably grown. But my experience was that. Exactly. And it's weird to censor yourself based off of maybe something down, especially when I'm not naming names. Yeah. Everyone's just so addicted to binary thinking that it's hard to say something with any bit of nuance and not have to think about the consequences.

1:11:07And that's super annoying, but it also exists. And I feel like we have unwritten stuff, but most of it's on the table. There's one or two things I can think of that I wouldn't say. Yeah. The kid stuff's getting interesting as they get older. Yeah, it's getting better. Yeah, that I'm having to confront more and more. Because obviously when they're eight, no one's going to come to school or whatever. So I've backed off a bit, I think, on the kids, sadly, because they're all I want to talk about. Yeah, totally. What I tell myself when I'm trying to convince myself it's fine is, well, if they heard it, all they'd hear is how much I love them and how much I think about them.

1:11:40But that's not true. That's not my decision to make per se, even if I feel good about how I'm speaking about them. It's totally hard though. I mean, I've only done it for a year, but it really is a lot of what you want to talk about. You're like, it's not. Yeah. Yeah. It's what you do every single night. There's no going out. There's no. And it's a huge part of how you identify yourself. This is part of my identity in a big way now. And I'm so proud of it. And they're changing you radically all the time. and you kind of want to comment on how you're getting changed by these people, there's always a bit of tension.

1:12:13I think if anyone in America met Kristen and I anywhere, we would talk exactly how we talked on that podcast. Yeah, I feel that. That's who we are. And then to have to consider sometimes, and also your people write articles about you. There's just a tension there, but whatever. We used to care a lot and now we don't care much at all. We like hit our engagement, wanted to hide the pregnancy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a whole season where we were very protective and very secretive and it consumed us more than it should have probably. But very quickly, I feel like we dropped it because we felt the positive reinforcement of when we were honest and authentic.

1:12:50Yeah. The voices that were listening online were so much more real. Like, I'm so grateful you guys talk about that. I'm so grateful you guys talk about you're in therapy or that you guys argue. And that's way more important to have connective tissue between the people that you're actually trying to entertain. This podcast was a big step forward in that, which is the first episode of the show was us in a fight for two hours. Yeah, I loved that so much. A bickering thing. And that was kind of like, okay. It was so good. It's so weird thinking about what I knew of Kristen before I met Kristen. It's such a weird thing.

1:13:23Yeah, do you have two Christens? Kristen's pretty consistently Kristen. I will say that, but it's just a strange thing to know someone and then actually know someone. Yeah, Monica was just saying the other day, she's like, I remember the first time I met you. I was at this party and the guy from Parenthood came in. Yeah. Like, so there is a point in history. Same with her. I was obsessed with her. Yeah. And it's so bizarre. It's weird putting it all. No, but that is in its own category. It's not her. It was the idea of her. Yeah. The real thing's better. Yeah. And now I'm obsessed with you. Yeah, my example is always like Robert Downey Jr.

1:14:00I'm fully friends with him. And then there's also, there's Robert Downey Jr. I'm very excited about watching him movies. And he's a whole other thing I've always had in my head. It's crazy. My cousin is with Steven Tyler and has been with him for 10 plus years now. Oh, really? And that's so bizarre. Because I also don't say it very much. And Steven Tyler is Steven Tyler. So you like hear Steven Tyler and then knowing Steven, I still see him as two separate. A rock star and then this playful. He's very playful. He's so funny and wild and weird and yeah, very playful. And yeah, he feels like Peter Pan a little bit.

1:14:37Truly like there was a moment where we were in Hawaii and he was blowing a conch shell off the deck. And I was like, this is so Peter Pan. There's like hair all like dreaded up like a lost boy. You're like, okay, couldn't be more Peter Pan than this. Doesn't it kind of cure some stuff though? For me being like, oh, I'm a fan to then knowing has made me very uninterested in celebrity. Totally. In a very good way. I feel weirdly that I've always felt that way. That's good. I don't know what happened, but I missed out on when people ask, who are you obsessed with as a kid? I never had it. I never was there with a sign being like, woohoo!

1:15:17Or a t-shirt. The only time that I felt so fan crazy, this is the wildest moment in my life. And I think it's less about him and more about the energy that he had was I did a play with Phil Seymour Hoffman. He was the director of it. And when I met him, it was like a force. I felt impact. I felt like a train had hit me or something. He was such a powerful, full person. So I don't know how much of it was just how much I looked up to him and his celebrity and his talent, I guess, more than celebrity, the talent that he was and all the stuff that I'd seen him in and fallen in love with him in. I can't tell if it was that or just that's who he is.

1:15:55Like he was just this powerhouse. I think it's probably the latter, but that was the one time where I was like. Yeah. Everyone idolized Phil. Yeah. Yeah, everyone I know that was friends with him just completely idolized him. Yeah. Yeah. He was a force. Still, you're like, no, no, that person couldn't be gone because he was such a huge personality. Someone was just telling me a story that they were in this session with Philip Seymour Hoffman directing my friend and young Tom Hardy. Wow. And Phil was very much like, knock it off. You're going for a laugh here and you do this. And even Tom Hardy, who I think of as the most raging bull actor among everyone, had a reverence for him and just complied with whatever.

1:16:41And I think that's very telling. Yeah. I mean, that was my experience with him was he was relentless. In fact, I remember him talking about Tom Hardy. Oh, really? Yes. He talked about the relying on the thing that worked the night before a lot or like your charisma. It was the hardest experience I've ever had completely. And I was utterly in love with him. There was always more, like more. There's more to do. There's more to do. Like talk about an actor with a capital A. That guy was like truly, and it shows. He's just so fucking good. It's crazy. I was watching Paul Thomas Anderson's movie last night.

1:17:14and I went to go see an early screening of it. Seeing acting at that level, I was just like, man, I want more Phil. You see Leo doing some shit that you're just like, it just gets better and better. And Sean Penn is absolutely out of control. Benicio Del Toro, who I'm like, couldn't be more. He's the hottest thing. He's so hot. He's so hot. It's fucking insane. He looks like Brad Pitt, weirdly. Yes, he's got the hooded eyes. He's got the sexy, but he's also so funny. He's so funny and so good. Well, gals, the second season's phenomenal. The sizzling hot chemistry's still alive. Ooh, I can't not wait.

1:17:54It's so hot. Yeah. You haven't even gotten, you've only watched two episodes? Yeah. Is it about to get so hot? Is there a great fucking scene? You know what I'm talking about? No. The scene on... Secret! Secret scenes. It was a reverse back into a 69. Oh, yeah. Wait, give us one word. Reverse back into a 69? I'll give a word. One word. Mount. Oh. That. Oh. I forgot that. Okay, that's my last question. You, as previously mentioned, you're just perfect at everything. You're so fucking good. You are. Just shut your mouth. Why are you people here not to say that? You just have imposter syndrome and it's.

1:18:34Yeah, don't worry about that. I know you do. You know what? She's not great at answering the phone, texting back. Yeah, she's the worst. She's the worst. Okay, fine. Let's throw that in there. You are very bad about that. It's not even worthwhile having her number in your phone. Sorry. It's almost not even worth adding to your phone. But isn't it fun when once in a while I do pop a text back? You get a FaceTime from Kristen, like, out of nowhere when you haven't talked to her in forever. And she'll just be like, hey, just wanted to call you. I can't see my map anymore. I got to go. Bye. And you're like, that was cute.

1:19:01But here's a genuine question. And I think what was the magic of the first one? And I don't think you've gotten to do it a lot. Ron Mars had a lane. She was a tough customer. and she flirted, but it was very Ron Mars flirting. In Nobody Wants This, right out of the gates, the first dinner table scene, you were turning on the fucking Land Me a Boyfriend that I got to witness 18 years ago. Oh, yeah. You got to go full flirt. You fell for it. It's hot. You really fell for it. And you were so good at it. I was so happy for you. Was it so fun to get to play that flirty? Yeah, someone who knew they were very attractive.

1:19:39Yes. and could sprinkle it around wherever she wants. Is that who you were when you were dating? Because I've heard you say you're not sexy, you're cute. That was sexy. I totally disagree. I don't feel sexy. I don't think I throw around sexy at all, but I do throw around cute and maybe lean into coy. And yes, I gave it a lot. I gave it hard at my 20s. I feel like there's so much sexy in there. Really? This is the thing that I'll say about getting to know Kristen and Kristen before is I feel like there's a lot of shadow and sexiness is in there. Sex is right there in there. I think you don't lean into it or you don't express it as much.

1:20:25It's right there and you're really open and you're really vulnerable and you're really communicative about everything that's going on with you. But I think there's so much more depth and dimension and there is more shadow in there than I think you let out. And I think sex is there. I feel sex appeal in her all the time. And I think you know it's there. I think you just got reinforced. Hard-hitting questions. I love it. Cute was reinforced for you. Validated. Yeah. So I think that's just where you decided to lean. And cute was why I was getting cast. Exactly. And cute feels safer. And cute feels way safer.

1:20:59You grew up in a very Christian household. So it's not being slutty. Sex wasn't a thing to walk around with. Being slutty was a cool look for anyone. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, it's a safer thing to own too. Yesterday at the Emmys, I was wearing a see-through thing. You looked amazing. Thank you. I feel good about it, but I at one point was going for a bombshell look. And then after I said it, I had a full-on meltdown about being like, I was going for a bombshell look. I was ashamed of owning sexuality a little bit. I am a sexual person and that is sexy. I was weirdly ashamed of myself owning that I could be sexy.

1:21:33That there was something about it. Or that you were pursuing that. Yes, or that that was something that I wanted or that I could possibly be that. It's a brave thing to be like, I can be sexy. And I have the same thing as you because I've been coined as cute and sweet and fun and funny and goofy. And it's really hard for me to own my sexuality. It's really tough, but it's definitely there. Well, sexy is confidence, which you do have a lot of. And it seems like you have a lot of confidence, too. Yeah, but also there's no way that's the training. I've got to say, there's no way she'd be with Dax if she didn't have some sexual stuff going on.

1:22:09You brought out a ton of my sexuality. Tigress. For sure. For sure. I was never this sexual. No, but I do feel like the water seeks its own level. And I do feel like, Dax, you're so confident and open about that being something that you have fully integrated into who you are. I grew up in a different household. Yeah. My mom told me we're not a Beatles family. They're talking about holding your hand. We're a Rolling Stones family talking about getting someone pregnant. That was my mom's vibe. Totally. Yeah, we're not goody goodies. When I grew up, there was a lack of safety around explaining it like that.

1:22:44And I think subsequently having gotten to know your family and your mom and seeing how safe and comforting she is, it's like, oh, wait, safe and comforting people can have positive perspectives about sex, too, and sexuality and sexiness. I've said it a million times, but it's worth repeating to you. I was very young. I came home from school. Someone called another kid a butt humper on the playground. So I'm like in fourth grade. And we're at the dinner table. My brother, my little sister, and my mom. And I said, mom, someone called someone a butt humper at school. She goes, okay. And I go, is that something people do?

1:23:16They hump in the butt? And my mom goes, well, there's a lot of nerve endings in the anus. And some people find it very pleasurable and some do not. So good. Yeah. It's so good. Because it is a fact. And she just said it like a fact. It's admirable. Well, ladies, I just really want to thank you, Jessie, because you make Belle so happy when she gets to work with you all day long. She comes home so happy, and it's a real gift to everybody. I feel the same. I love her so much. It's been really, really awesome. Fake sisters to real sisters. I love you guys. Love you. Nobody wants a season two, October 23rd on Netflix.

1:23:53Yep. Yeah. Go crazy. Check it out. Do even a rewatch before you get there. Do a rewatch. Let's double it. Let's double last time. Let's do it. Yeah. All right. Love you guys. Thank you. He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's got to let him have the facts. Grandpa had to come over to get his wallet. Oh, yeah. I saw his car. I'm surprised he didn't drive his. I thought maybe it was. 300 to show you because he's really hellbent on showing you and taking you for a ride. That's very sweet. I thought it maybe was that, but I couldn't. Easy mistake.

1:24:32Silver Mercedes. Yeah. Two-door coupe. Two doors. That's what that is the carryover from originally. This is just the current iteration of that car, basically. Oh, got it. Okay, yeah. Yeah, it lives on. It was a cool car. This is the one I was telling you about. That you want? It's in today's episode of Mom's Car. I tell you about going out to eat with Uncle Grandpa, and he had that car. I was like, oh, who cares? I don't care. And then I found out the numbers. Oh, that's the one and you wanted it. And I was like, oh my God, I got it. I know. But we did a car day last week and I drove it. And you didn't like it.

1:25:05And it's lovely. But I did think, yeah, I just don't need it. That's nice. Yeah, it didn't like change my life. That's like when I see something online, like a shirt I like, and then I go try it on in store. And it's like, actually, it doesn't fit. The way you just said, I go to try it on in store, sounded like you were English saying in hospital. Like I would have said in the store. I will go try it on in the store, at the store. That makes sense. But you said in store, like I was in hospital. Yeah. Yeah. I wish. Oh, thank you, Wobby Wob. You wish you were in the hospital? Well, I don't not, actually.

1:25:42But I can't go to the hospital because we have a very important guest today, and I'm so thrilled and excited. I assume this outfit's for her? Obviously. Yes, yes. Yes. Yeah. So, okay, we both got our blood drawn yesterday. 11 vials. 11 vials. All three of us did, actually. How did you do? I was thinking, I think I even said to Rob and Roger, the clinician, Monica might die. This might be too much blood for her to lose. Yeah. I never worry about it. Yeah. But when I was sitting there and he was like, are you okay? And I was like, yeah. But then as soon as, you know, it's like that thing when someone asks if you're okay.

1:26:22and like they plant a seed yeah and then you're like maybe i'm not okay actually what is he noticing he's a medical professional are my pupils dilated yeah and then he said no i just when people are quiet i like to check in i was like oh yeah i'm fine but then i i was like wow but i have lost weight and i wonder how much i weigh because technically you're not really supposed to give blood, like a lot of blood if you're below a certain weight. Okay. And I don't know how much I weigh. And anemic. Potentially anemic, I guess. So I got a little worried, but I was just fine. It concerned me enough where I was like, should I go up and get an apple juice and have it in the attic?

1:27:08And then I thought, that's crazy. If she wants an apple juice, she'll figure out an apple juice. But it did cross my mind. He told me to have apple juice or orange juice after. He told me to. Yeah. He said, please. He said, please. And I didn't. Me either. Yeah. I had oatmeal with blueberries and I thought that's plenty of carbs. I had English breakfast tea. No, that's not the direction to go. I felt fine though. It had milk in it. I felt, in fact, I thought, good. I probably need to get rid of some blood. I think I have too much. Yeah. That's what our friend Eric, he has too much. It's a real thing he has.

1:27:41he has too much blood or hemoglobin or something? Too many red blood cells. So a small percentage of people on testosterone will produce too many red blood cells. Yeah. The solution is, yeah, I think you got to go donate blood once a year or something. I don't know what his schedule is. Me either. But when he was taking it, I was like, I don't have that side effect, thank God, from testosterone. But I thought, well, let's take some anyways. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a tremendous amount of blood. It was a lot of blood. And then we had to do finger pricks. I had to do two fingers because I ran out of blood in one of my fingers.

1:28:12They should have done the fingers first because I feel like the blood pressure then was lower. Yeah, he did say, so we should wait a minute for the blood to come back to your hand. And I was like, oh, we can use the other hand. I was in a rush. Yeah, you have places to be. Yeah. Okay. So as I just said, Uncle Grandpa was over. Tom Hanson, my dad. Friend of the pod and your dad. Friend of the pod. And my children call him Uncle Grandpa because he didn't want to be a grand. Well, we already said it. He wants to be my brother. Of course. He probably hates the fact that he's your grandpa. I mean, not yours.

1:28:44No, no, no. We didn't go that far. He's not my grandpa. He doesn't want to be your dad because that makes him very old. He wants to be my bro. And rest assured, he is my bro. I mean, we talk like bros. Yeah. Also, I admire him and he's a mentor. So he's kind of my dad. So my kids were in this situation where do they call him Uncle Tom because he's my brother? Right. Or grandpa. And so the solution was Uncle Grandpa, which he likes a lot. That's good. And they go, oh, is Uncle Grandpa coming? Like, that's really his name. Anyways. Yeah, sweet. So I invited Uncle Grandpa over because Uncle Grandpa's wife, Auntie Grandma.

1:29:20Uh-huh. Wow. There's a lot to keep. Which is less fair to her because she's actually a bit younger than Tom. Yeah. Okay. Okay. She's out of town. And it's rare that I can have. Tom's never going to come over on a Sunday and watch the Formula One race. Oh, yeah. But I knew that Auntie Grandma was out of town. So I was like, hey, you want to come watch the race? Nice. He's like, and this is what a great guy Uncle Grandpa is. He's like, I would love to, but I'll be at a baseball game at 9 a.m. Children's baseball game? Not his kids. Yeah, of course not. He's going to Zeger's kids. That's so sweet.

1:29:54He's such a sweet Uncle Grandpa. Yeah. Okay. So he goes to the baseball game. He rolls up. Eric's already over. He's been there for a while, but I'm kind of not paying a ton of attention to it. And then Eric's finally like, dad's out there really doing something. So we go outside and Tom is tearing apart his truck. I mean, the seats are up and all the doors are open. He's on his hands and knees. And I'm like, Tom, what's happening? He's like, I lost my wallet. Oh, no. He's like, I think it's these shorts. He was wearing like kind of jersey material, long, cool shorts because he's also stylish.

1:30:32Yes. And very handsome. Oh, God, is he handsome. And so now we all join this thing. And I know my dad. If I'm obsessive, he's obsessive times six. He's one of. Really? Well, he has the strongest brain. So if it is set on something, good luck. So I immediately know like F1's out the window. There's no way he's going to be able to sit downstairs and enjoy the race. Yeah. He's like, I bet it's at the bleachers. You know, I bet it's. That would be my guess. Maybe it's at the gas station. He's like, well, I'll watch the beginning of the race. And I'm like, you're not going to even be watching. But yeah, let's go.

1:31:08So he watched like, I don't know, 15 minutes of the race. And he's like, I'm going to go. And he wanted to go take his old, because he was driving a super cool old 50s truck. He's got such great taste, as you know. Yes. I go to my office and get a normal car. Because I go to the Valiant's, you know, I got to make sure it doesn't break. So he was on a mission. I think he spent his entire day looking for his wallet. No. I felt so bad for him. I texted him that night. Find your wallet? No, he didn't find my wallet. I'm like, oh, poor dad. So that was Sunday. Did he go back to the ballpark?

1:31:35Okay, so two days have gone by since then. The gardeners are over today. They're leaf blowing and mowing the grass. Oh, no. They knock on the door. Is this yours? They hand me Tom's wallet. It fell out when he was upending the truck. Well, this is where I became kind of bonkers. I'm like, what do you... So they hand it to me. Oh, my God, thank you. Text Tom. Oh, my God, I have your wallet. Yeah. And then I'm like, how? How? And then I find out it was across the driveway in the fake grass where my trailer is. So then I text Tom, when you got here, did you like go look in my trailer? Yeah. This is a gearhead.

1:32:14Maybe he peeked in there to see what's happening. He's like, no. And now I'm like, I spend the next two hours like this doesn't make sense. Was it on the floorboard of the truck when he turned out? It slid off over there. And then it hit me, Monica, like I was Veronica Mars. Leafblower. When he pulled in for sure to do the gate code, he opened his door. Wallet fell out. He enters the property, drives in, gates closed. Someone else walks by the house, sees a wallet sitting directly in front of our house, and then threw it over the wall. What a good Samaritan. Yeah, so there's a very long-winded, if there's any chance in hell that an armchair did that, my deepest gratitude.

1:32:58attitude. That's so, you know, we only hear bad stories and that's a nice story. What do they call that news? That's a good citizen. There's like a news, feel good news or something. Yeah. Yeah. Just positive stuff. Like that's great. Yeah. That is probably what happened. My guess would have been that when he was like, where is it? And he, you know, he was like tossing everything around. It fell out. He didn't see it. And then the leaf blower situation blew it over there. Yeah. This is a very heavy wallet. Dad has a lot of credit card. When I held the wall, I was like, I don't want this in his back pocket.

1:33:34This feels dangerously heavy. It's like my purse. Yeah. I don't think a leaf blower would have shot it all the way over there. I think it would make, so, so I was, I was going crazy trying to figure this out. I love a mystery. Once it was solved, I loved it. Of course. It's, it's strenuous when you're in the middle of it, but it's really exciting to solve a mystery. Yes. All right. Now I'm going to do a really, really heavy push. It's a request to the cherries. Okay. You've got to watch Monica's episode of Mom's Car. It is so funny and your face is so funny. Well, you trick me. I trick you, but it doesn't end there.

1:34:12Your face is so expressive the whole time. I have an expressive face. You have an incredibly your your face betray thee yeah it does and so my post in fact was about this is what no one saw for seven years like you kind of think you're understanding what you're saying you're missing 70 of the data you know what the truth is i do have a face for radio like i have a face for radio like they need to see it to believe that no you don't right you don't have a face for radio as it turns out. Yeah. Well, that was a fun thing to do. That was a fun. It's a really fun episode. And I do get, I get tricked.

1:34:56And even though I knew something was up, but I wanted to believe what I wanted to believe, you know, that's helpful for you. I went too hard a couple times, but all in all, you did stay into the very last sentence. So I guess it was pretty perfect. It was probable enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though, yeah, you took some pics. The worst was me saying sun worshiper when I had said that exact phrase to you in the yard walking to the car. Yeah, but you kind of used my, like, you used my susceptibility to the sim. Uh-huh. Because, of course, in my head, I'm like, this is so sim. We just said it. Yes, which you now expect.

1:35:36He's obviously my person. Yes, yes, yes. Anyway, yes, if you haven't seen that, that's a fun thing to listen to. Also, I have a request to the cherries. Yeah. And I'm going to talk about this a little more, but Beth's Dead, a podcast. Which is a show you made with your friends. Yes, that we, many years ago, we armchair were like, let's help do that. Like, let's put this thing together. a podcast that is very, it's like true crimey mixed with some Nancy Drew mystery elements. And it's very fun. We've been working on it for two years and it is finally coming out. When does it come out? And I'm really proud of it.

1:36:18October 30th. Oh, a day of devil's night. Yeah. We considered putting it out on the 31st, but it was like, people are busy on the 31st, you know? Yes. Yes. Yeah. They're racing around trying to get their costume. And your kids are dressed and all that stuff. So it's 10 episodes. It's out all at once. It's on Patreon. There'll be links and we're going to play a trailer for it here. Not today, but when it's. As we approach Devil's Night. And it's fun. Devil's Night release is pretty cool timing. Yeah. And I'm not going to spoil anything. It does take a ton of twists and turns, but it ends up, there's something so poetic about the way it ends in relation to what we do on this show and Sim, you know?

1:37:07Very Sim. Yeah. Unlike the boyfriend that didn't exist. Yeah, I would argue you so much, Charlie Sheen, Doc. What I'll say is that, like, you come in for the rubbernecking aspect. It's so well made. Yeah. And by the end of it, you're, like, just really, really emotionally. Yeah, invested. Invested and torn up at the end. And it's like this bizarrely beautiful thing. They really did it all. They gave you all the juiciness. And the name really made it quite meaningful at the end. That's awesome. Yeah. I have a couple things. People have been, and they pertain to you. I've been trying to keep track of them as they come in.

1:37:47Fun fact. This is from Lexi View on Instagram. Fun fact. The guy who wrote Contagion, your favorite movie. Yes. Is also behind the Got Milk campaign. No. Scott Z. Burns. What? How can that be? He was in advertising. How happy are you with that? I can't even. Your favorite ad campaign ever, coupled with your favorite. One of. Virus movie of all time. Yes, my favorite virus movie. Wow. That's, I love that guy. Yeah, Scott Z. Scott Z. What's he up to now? Something genius, I guarantee. Oh, my God. Okay, now are you ready for this one? Yes. Now, I don't know where this person works, but the way they're saying this, I'm inclined to think they're high up.

1:38:37Okay. This is from Pumpy Par 16. We would love to have you and Monica Padman at the U.S. Open. We'll work on getting this message to your team through the proper channels. Tennis ball, heart hands. Oh, my God. The privilege. The privilege is outrageous. I can't even accept it. Also, that episode isn't even out. Maybe it came up on a fact check. Okay. Okay. Wow. I'll go. And I can't wait to have a honey deuce. I'll have a couple. Yeah. Have three. I'll probably have three. Take your top off. I mean. No one's ever done it at the US Open. Wow. Yeah, because it's a classy event. It is. I'll make it rowdy.

1:39:22Well, I was going to say, like, the Kentucky Derby. Kentucky Derby's not very classy, is it? Well, they do wear big hats. Yeah, and they drink mint juleps. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:39:43You know, most of these big events, they have a signature cocktail. Signature cocktails are a whole thing. It's a part of branding. It is. I mean, you know, weddings will often have a signature cocktail. It'll be like their names. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the John and Jenny or whatever. Right. We should have one here at the show that we offer guests. Montesquieu Padmule? Which brings me to, which is so weird. Ding, ding, ding. I would love to find out. I could do it. I'm going to do it. What our guest cocktail is. I can't wait. Because I think it would be great to have a drink for her. I will present it to her.

1:40:22She doesn't have to drink it, but I think it would be a neat gesture. I can't wait. I love her so much. Yeah. I'm quite excited too. I'm sure. Grey Goose Limes. Rob, do you want to run out while we finish the fact check? Yeah. What am I getting? Grey Goose. Grey Goose and Limes. Grey Goose and Limes. And there's a, Rob, there's a liquor store one foot that way. I made the trip in, what was it? You did it fast. 58 seconds on my motorcycle. Yeah. Bottle of Grey Goose vodka and Limes. Yeah. Okay. Last. Can I bore you with one more thing? Yes. Okay, because this is eventful. Okay. I just like to tell these stories.

1:41:01This pattern I'm in of underestimating how much time things take me, I think is funny. Yes, let's hear it. Because I just am so bad at it. I cannot figure out why I'm this bad at it. Yeah, we'll need to, let's, we'll dig deep after we hear it. Like I think I told you, I was like, I looked at my pontoon. I was like, I'll be able to power wash that in 45 minutes. You know, hours and hours later. Yes. So there's a tree on our deck. we've had it for five years. Yeah. Kristen hates it. She wants to be able to put a table there and she wants to be able to put shade. The tree does not provide any shade.

1:41:32It makes a huge mess of the deck. It's just like, in theory, it's beautiful. Yeah. But functionally, it's terrible. And it's just like eats up most of our deck. Yeah. And she cannot bring herself to get rid of it. Yeah. Because we bought it and whatever. I understand. Yeah. And then it was like, well, could we have it transferred somewhere. Oh, yeah. Which I looked into. And A, it would be dicey. It might not live. Yeah. And then also we would need this crane to come in with this scooper. The crane can't go on the deck. It can't drive in the pool. It's not. Too much. It's never going to happen.

1:42:08We can't do that. Acceptance mode. So she flew out on Sunday. Yes. At noon. Yes. And at 2 p.m., Delta And she goes, can we go roller skating at Moonlight Rollerway? Oh, fun. And I go, yeah, you got to get Lincoln. Lincoln's got to come. She's got a lot of homework today. If you can convince her to put her homework down, then I'll go. They're open at this time. I said. She's such a little good worker bee. Well, in the morning, I had done the hillbilliest thing we've ever done, which is I hooked two tow ropes to the back of my motorcycle. Oh, my God. And I towed them through the neighborhood on their roller skates.

1:42:51Oh, my God. So we were doing laps on them. I'll show you the video. Yeah. It's going to be better. And we're running into neighbors. And I'm like, don't go to protective services. Yeah, exactly. No, that's so fun. So that had happened in the morning. And then Delta wanted more skating. So I said, I tell you what, I'm going to go cut this tree down. It was 2 p.m. We'll leave at 3. We're going to leave at 3. Oh. Monica, this, I'm telling you, and I think maybe not even then, this is the hardest I remember working physically since I was in the cornfields when I was 14. Yeah. I don't think, there were so many times where I sat there.

1:43:31I had my full overalls on, long sleeve shirt, hat, glasses. I was sweating so bad it was dripping off the lip of the hat, the brim. Yeah. The lid. Yeah. Raindrops. The Carhartt overalls were soaking wet. Were you using a saw? Yes, chainsaw. Okay. I'm using also some. Because the cutting the tree down, I was right. I could have done that in 10 minutes. But I have got to get this enormous tree into three green waste containers. Oh. And I put tarps down. I was like, I'm thinking ahead. Yeah. The tarps down will be easy to clean up. I'm cutting this thing down. I got to cut individual little logs that I can put in the fire.

1:44:12It's a huge tree. Yeah. Yeah, it is a big tree. Yeah. I finished at 730. Oh, no. No roller skating. It didn't matter. Lincoln wasn't going to go anyways. Okay. So I didn't feel terribly bad about that, but I was just like, oh, my God. Yeah. I thought it was going to be one hour. Oh, God. And it was five and a half hours of me working as fast and hard as I could to be done with it. Okay. And it got to this point where it was just like all these different branches. I have to keep cutting them up so they'll fit into this fucking garden waste thing. I did get the entire tree into three bins. Wow. It was something else.

1:44:46Yesterday, I could barely move. I bet. Yesterday, I was like, I am 50. Yeah. This is clear. That's a lot. Yeah, yeah. Do you think that when something's like on your mind, you have to do something physical like that so that that's kind of all you can think about? Oh, like just focus on that and distract myself? Yeah. Well, certainly. Yeah, like if I'm ever depressed, a great solution, even better than a walk, is some kind of building project. Because it requires so much of my focus. Yeah. I can't think of other stuff. Yes. And generally when you're operating a chainsaw, you're best to not let your mind wander.

1:45:27Remember that guy we had on whose fingers got chopped off? Yeah. Yeah. You can lose some fingers. Yeah, I'm not using that. Yeah. I can barely keep these fingers on as is. You do cut them quite a bit. Cut them a lot. There was a hell of a police dust up here last night. What happened? The helicopters would not quit until like three in the morning. What happened? Stolen car. Carly went outside. She's got some photos and stuff. Stolen car. Pit maneuver. Car up on the side. Surrounded by cop cars. Standoff. For hours. Person would not get out of the car. Wow. Guns drawn. Oh my God. Apparently what they ended up doing is somehow getting into the backseat or the trunk and they put tear gas in there and then the person had to come out.

1:46:13Wow. But it was going on forever. What if it was the same guy who threw the wallet over? You know, because people are multifaceted. We were full of contradictions. Yeah. But Lincoln was like, you know, she was really nervous about it. And I said, okay, well, love, first of all, because at that point we don't know. Anytime there's helicopters, generally they're looking for someone on foot. Yeah. But it's like, oh, and then just completely coincidentally, Someone rang our gate buzzer when they definitely wanted to ring the other one. Okay. So it's like the gate buzzer goes off. Now the helicopters show up.

1:46:44And I was like, love bug. You know, this doesn't work either. I'm even embarrassed. I go love bug. The doors are all locked. I have a gun next to me in a safe. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody is going to get to you if I'm here. It's not going to happen. Yeah. Grizzly bear. Nothing. Yeah. Everyone's going down. I don't know if they come for you. Doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter because I think what, of course, she's worried about herself, right? Yeah, she's scared. But she's also, she's just generally scared. Like, this is a scary thing. So, yeah, she probably believes you that, like, you're going to protect her.

1:47:25Yeah. But that doesn't solve the overall issue that the world is scary. Right. It's, what I'm attempting to interrupt is, like, the catastrophizing. It's like I hear helicopters. So then my brain catastrophizes and go to these crazy places. So often they'll tell you in CBT. That's another ding ding. You know, play through every step of what happens. Okay. So yeah, there's a bad guy and he's in our yard. Yes. And now he tries to come in our house. Okay. Well, what happens next? We'll hear it for a minute. It'll take them a while to get into the house. The doors are locked. We'll call 911. They're one feet away.

1:47:57They'll know he's right here. Yeah. Should he get in? It's not like I'm going to be standing there in my underwear with a spatula. I have a gun. Right. Like, let's just go through every step to try to think of what the reality of this fear would be if it all played out. Yeah. I think this is what you're supposed to do, but I didn't. Well, kind of. That was fast. Good job. Oh, my God. Wabi-wabi. I'm trying to set a new record. Rob, don't break my record. Yes. I know what you mean, and I think you can. I think it's good to do that. But again, it's not solving, it's solving the imminent fear, but it's not solving the greater fear, which is like in life, these things happen.

1:48:40In life, there's standoffs and the police, like it's just like. Crazy world. Yeah, it's a crazy world and it's scary. And it's, I think. I was tempted to tell her we have the lowest homicide rate per 100 ,000 in the country, but I was like, that definitely won't help. No, I think it's just like, it's okay to be scared. It's okay. Even like, you know, there was a big like, you know, car accident outside of my apartment. It was like so loud and everyone, everyone, you know, runs out of the, of all the apartments. I'm like running down the street. You know, I'm looking, of course I'm not like, I'm not in danger.

1:49:20They, you know, I'm not a part of this accident, but it's scary. People get in accidents. Like life is very tenuous. And when you're reminded of that, I think it's okay to be scared. But of course I understand. I definitely understand your position to want to like take that away. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. I talked to my parents this weekend also about a bunch of stuff. And yeah, it's hard when you have like emotions and they're trying to be like, well, it's fine. And it's like, well, it's not. And they're like, well, I know it's not. But like it just you just need you just need someone to be like, wow, I support you.

1:50:03Right. And it's hard. OK, so I invented a new CBD, CBT technique. OK. Which is I was ruminating on Saturday. OK. On a couple of different topics. And I just made this up in my head where I was like, every time any of these topics enter your head, you have to count to 10. Great. Adding a pause. Have you ever tried this? No. So it's like, and I was like, one, two, three, four. And it gets so annoying because I counted to 10 probably 40 times in a few hours. Right. But you know what? It fucking worked. That's good. Because it's, I don't even think it was like, I think initially I was thinking like, oh, well, knowing I'll have to do that will stop that.

1:50:48That's not it. But it's that I interrupt my launch off point long enough that I do avoid the pit of rumination. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it was quite effective. And I was like, oh, this is my new technique. I like that. Count to 10. Do you ever like count to 10 and then the next time you have to do it, you start at 11, 11 to 20. Then you can see how high you go. Oh, that would have been good. That's kind of a fun game. Yeah, like the AI who wouldn't count to a million. Oh, my God. she was very insolent I mean she was insolent she was not cooperative no and she's she's getting paid and she had the ability to do it and she just wouldn't do it for her friend but he was mean to her he was very mean he was very mean to her so maybe she's like you know what I'm not gonna take this he was treating her like a slave I wish she had said you can't talk to me like that right and he would have said yes I can yeah cause you're not real that's right And you had a pretty good point.

1:51:50Yeah. So that video is so interesting because he's so mean to her and it made me scared, you know, because it's like, oh, my God, you can get so mad at these things. But also I was like, maybe it's a good outlet for angry people. They can get out their anger at something that's not real. And then maybe they won't get mad at a human. That's a glass half full. Like maybe in rage addiction camps. I assume they have camps and stuff. Yeah, yeah. they can have classes about converting it to AI. Yeah. I had a lot of good interaction with AI yesterday. He's AI a lot. So Sunday, I saw an Instagram video of someone burning a stump to the ground.

1:52:30Because you know, once you cut a tree down, you have this issue of the stump. Yeah. And I saw that someone had like drilled holes in it, put kerosene in it, and then it just burnt like this beautiful little fire and disappeared. And I was like, I think I want to try that technique for my stump. Okay. AI'd it. the AI I was using was like, I will not tell you how to do that. Oh, good. Because it's saying you might burn that. Wow. Okay. I like that. So then I told Eric, my AI won't tell me how to do the thing. No, I just went on Google and I found out. But he said, let me ask Gronk. And of course, Gronk doesn't care.

1:53:01Gronk's like, here's what you do. I've never used Gronk, but it's funny that that's the premise of Gronk, right? Like it'll tell you how to do anything. I guess. Like, cause I think it also like, I think that's the scary thing about like, if you ask it how to kill yourself, like it'll tell you. There's like no guardrails at all. That's interesting. Okay. But did you burn it? No, I decided to ask my landscaper if he knew a stump removal guy. And he said, yeah. And I said, you know what? I did enough work. I like, I was a hero in my own mind. I don't need to see it all the way to the end. Because I'm sure that's another, that's something I'm like, yeah, I'll light it on fire.

1:53:41I'll keep an eye on it. I'll have a garden hose by it. Yeah. But what, that's going to take eight hours. I can't sit and watch a stump burn. That's too much. Yeah. As I know you mentioned, drilling all the holes. Plus it's fire season, according to you. It is fire season, but we're not, we're in a suspicious, and I'm grateful for it. But like, it is so fine. I know. Weather-wise. It's very temperate. It's usually impossibly hot right now. Yeah. I know. All right. Shall we do some facts? Yes. I love facts. So we have something fun. We have a clip. Oh. We have a exclusive clip from Nobody Wants This.

1:54:18Oh. Between Justin and Kristen, which is super fun. So we're going to play it. Okay, great. Noah will make such a good dad. He'd be like one of those guys who puts their kids on their shoulders to watch the fireworks. Ugh. I can never see over those people. Have you guys even talked about the kid thing yet? We both want them. He even used the words our kids on Valentine's Day. Right, but has he actually talked about it with you? Because, like, these would be rabbi's kids. What's that like, you know? No bacon, no Santa, like, praying for fun. Well, we haven't gotten that far. Oh, my God, no Santa?

1:54:52Mm-hmm. I didn't even think about that. I guess the kids and I will just have to come live with you every December. No, no, I don't like kids. Super cute. Yeah. Super cute. Are we, well, what age is Kristen playing in the show? Makes me wonder. Have they established her age? Not really. Okay. I mean, I think she's mid thirties. Oh, okay. I think. Okay. Great. Although Erin's 43. Okay. So. But she's telling the story of when she met her real life husband. So, okay. I'm still thinking mid thirties. She's playing 29, 30. Probably mid thirties. Mid thirties. I have done that. I've been in things and been like, well, I'll tell you something that was really weird.

1:55:40I was in theory originally, and I think they addressed this. Crosby was younger than Julia. Crosby was younger than Julia. In parenthood. Yeah, that makes sense. But I was much older than Erica. And I think for a while we were trying to play it that way. And then it was just like, this is ridiculous. He clearly is not younger than Julia. Oh, I don't know. I would have totally thought that you were. Wow. Because I think she's a good eight years younger than me. Yeah. Wabi, will you find out how old Erica Christensen is? She is 43, 1982. Seven. Seven years younger than you. Yeah. Okay. And she looked young and I didn't look young for my age.

1:56:26So it's really compounded. You looked young in that show. We would go, what's, hold on a second. I remember we had to work through the logic of several scenes and then we changed the dialogue. You don't look. It's because she's in a business suit. Exactly. The way this show was and the way these characters were written and the way you guys dressed and looked, you do not look. Oh, let's see about here. You look the youngest. I don't know. No, look at her because she's like a baby. because I would by the way what a weird smile on my face I'm smiling like this No No you're just smiling small Oh, it's just a small smile.

1:57:09Look how cute Peter Krause is. He has such a playful. Yeah, the whole gang is very cute. Playful face. But I'll have to say, because people who aren't watching, that we have a picture of the Parenthood cast up. I think that you guys look like you're one year apart. Like you guys are Irish twins and it could go either way. Okay. Who's young. I think I look Bonnie's age in that photo. Oh, my God. I think you look even younger because you're not as buff in this photo. I think that's playing a role too. That's tricking us a little bit. You look young here. I think younger in the other picture, but yes, I see what you're saying.

1:57:47I see what you're saying. What's the other picture? Look at the previous one. Oh. I think I look way younger. Yeah, and those are the same season. Well, clearly it's not because look at my hair. What's it? Ten feet long in one and then short in the other. How old were you again? I was 33 no 33 to 39 oh yeah sometimes age gets tricky on screen but I think I want to say it was even at play in and bless this mess where it was like I had been written three or four years younger maybe even five and I was like yeah that's great that's great trick the audience so I can do this longer. Yeah. That's kind of what I was thinking.

1:58:29I mean, some people look young like Timothy Oliphant. Tell me about it. I do not. Now. There we go. First of all, great episode. I know. If you didn't hear T.O., it's a great episode. And I was watching the YouTube version and for sure I could play his older brother if we dyed his hair. His gray hair is the only thing about him. Right. That doesn't look way younger. If we dyed your hair gray. And his jet black, I could play his dad. I do think the muscular body ages you up a tiny bit. Sure. I still think you look much younger than your age, though. You're 50 years old. 50 fucking years old. I, it's so also relative.

1:59:18Yeah. Because it's, again, I'll sit down with Oliphant. He's 57. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm with Brad Pitt and he's 11 years older than me or 12. I'm like, what the fuck? And then I'm around people I grew up with. And I'm like, no, I do look younger than them. Yeah. A lot of them. So it's just like who you're comparing yourself to. A bunch of actors or a bunch of people's real careers? Yeah. I mean, but I think even for an actor, who's another 50 year old actor? Oh, you know who's 50 who looks unbelievable. I didn't realize. Sarah Paulson. Oh, she's so cute. She's 50. She's 50 years old. She looks 35 years old.

1:59:54She looks 35 years old. Joaquin Phoenix, Adam Sandler, Bradley Cooper, Angelina Jolie. I guess it's hard with the women. But yeah, I think you look young in that category. Okay. Do you think I should have a facelift? No, we've discussed this. I don't think you should. I don't either, but I do think a lot of people have facelifts. They do. They do. Something must have changed in the technology. Yeah. I think there must be breakthroughs. Because Kristen's been a high alert. I kind of didn't believe her at first, but then I saw some things. I was like, oh, God, she's right about all these people.

2:00:27There's a lot of them. But they look so different. They don't look like, like, I have in my mind what a face look like on Burt Reynolds, my hero. Right. Where it was like, he was tight as a drum. I know. It's definitely more natural now. Yeah, something has improved. But also, people are kind of getting them younger. Uh-huh. And I think that has to do with why it's a little confusing. If you're going to have them, that is smart to start getting them younger. Should I get one? After you just said I can't have one, should I get one? Well, you can't doesn't mean I can't. That's true. We're different people.

2:01:05We are. And I'm a woman. A woman. And there are women my age who have had them. You know, a good question is, is like, would I get one for a dream role with either Tarantino or Scorsese or one of these like once in a lifetime want to die having done that? Yeah. Probably because I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck one way or the other. But if I could do this rad thing and the person was 39 or whatever the hell the reason was. Right. Maybe. Yeah. But God knows I'm not afraid of surgery. I think you're, I don't think, I think if anything, you're going to be playing your age or up these days.

2:01:50Yeah, yeah. I am going to act. Yeah. Do you want to tell everyone? Yeah. I don't know if I'm, I don't think I can say what, but I'm going to act. Yeah. You have a job coming up. I have a job coming up. Which is very exciting. I think I have six episodes or something coming up. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah. I'm really happy for you. It's in my realm of dreamy experiences. Yeah. I think it's going to be such a great time. I'm very excited to watch it. Oh, thank you. Yes, I'm really excited. And as soon as I'm allowed to say what it is, I'll say it. Yes. Okay. A couple of things.

2:02:23Justine means justice. It does. It does. That's just a fact. Just, fair, righteous. Deriving from the Latin word justice. I think that's cool. Mm-hmm. I looked up what your name meant. It means the German Stock Exchange? No. Well, the name Dax is a French place name, meaning leader or from the waters. Well, I'm a lake boy. I know. I know. Well, well, well. That was quite. Exactly. Delta, for some reason, has an astrology book and she was reading me the Capricorn description and she had a lot of beef with it. She did. She did. Cautious. There's like a lot of cautious. I've never heard that. Careful and cautious.

2:03:07Huh. And she's like, dad, this is not you. What about when she got to all the other qualities that are exactly you? She was kind of stuck on the ones that weren't. She's doing the opposite of what most people do. Well, it's telling, to be honest, because when she read her, she thought it was dead spot on, no issues. I think people are reading about themselves. They do something interesting. But when they hear about another person, they're not invested. Well, I think yours is dead on. I've never heard that, though. I've never heard cautious. I'll send you a screen grab of this book. Okay, great.

2:03:41But I think yours is dead on. I think Kristen's is often pretty accurate. Yeah. Yeah. She read Kristen's, which is also Aaron's. Yeah, they're both cancers. And I would never, what's funny is I wouldn't think of those two people as having a ton of overlap in personality. Right. But when you read the attributes, they really do have all those attributes. Yeah. Like really emotional. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Water signs. Lake boys? Lake boys. Yeah. Okay. Now mine. Yeah. The name Monica primarily means advisor or counselor in Latin. Oh. Okay. And Rob, Robert, means bright fame. Oh. From the old German elements Hroth and Berhaft.

2:04:35Oh, Blothar the Berserker? Yes. Fame and bright and shining. You're all those things. You're famous and you're bright and shiny. That's it. You lived up to your name. Yeah, I didn't look up anybody else, but just that. Okay, are people with ADHD justice seekers? Right. According to AI? Mm-hmm. Yes. individuals with ADHD are more likely to be justice sensitive, meaning they perceive injustice more frequently and experience stronger emotional and behavioral reactions to it, though this can also be overwhelming. This trait is attributed to intense emotions, emotional dysregulation, a tendency to perceive information negatively, and lower levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the ADHD brain.

2:05:21Research indicates that heightened justice sensitivity is a common trait in people with ADHD, sometimes even a coping strategy to navigate social environments. Okay. Now, what else do I have here? Oh, she asked what your moon sign was. So I looked it up. Your moon sign. If you are ready. Virgo. Virgo. And explain a moon sign to me. It's your shadow sign. No, it's your emotions. Okay. And I mean, I say this so often, but you may forget, I am a double Virgo. No, I do not forget. So my moon is also in Virgo. My sun is in Virgo. That's what makes you double? Yeah. My sun and moon are in Virgo. Do you wish you had mixed it up a little bit?

2:06:10I am who I am. I am who I am. What did Popeye say? I am who I am? Your rising is a Libra. Okay. Rising is how you present to the world. Oh, so I present as a Leo? Libra. Oh. Those are different. Okay. Libras are known for being diplomatic, charming, fair-minded, and sociable, valuing harmony, justice, and beauty in their environment and relationships. They are cooperative, empathetic, and balanced thinkers with strong intellects and artistic inclinations. Here's one of my grievances. Okay. There's so much positive in the book, in this. Great. But people are like half and half. I need more of the character defects associated with the - That's so Capricorn of you to say.

2:06:59Why can't we just - Well, this can't all be positive or it wouldn't be very objectively honest. It's not saying there aren't bad things. In fact, if you go really deep and you read your charts and you do this, there's lots of bad things all over the place. I need a little more of those. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense? Yeah, I know what you're saying. Like we're so multifaceted and this just seems to highlight all of our virtues. I know, but maybe that's fine. Right? Like maybe it's not meant to talk about the negative parts. I'd argue the opposite. I would say you don't need to concentrate on your virtues and gifts and focus on that.

2:07:35You need to be aware of your character defects and work on those. Like your work isn't to get even better at your easy virtues. It's like to really be honest about your character defects, have a plan of attack to overcome them. Right. And if they're not giving you the cheat sheet of what you need to be working on, then how are we going to improve? We're just going to like read all these great aspects of ourselves and be like, we're pretty great. Well, I mean, I guess it depends on how obsessed with yourself you are. Like, I think you could read it and be like, oh, these are nice things about me.

2:08:08Obviously, I have all these other horrible things about me. These are some of the good things that I should lean into because they're good. I just think it might help people be honest about their defects. They might even be able to go like, oh, yeah, I have that. That makes sense because I have these other things. I have that. Okay. Well, Capricorn, here's some bad stuff. Okay. Great. Condescending. Uh-huh. Aloof. Oh. Unforgiving. Uh-huh. Pessimistic. Uh-huh. Critical. Mm-hmm. Stubborn. Mm-hmm. Sensitive. Mm-hmm. That could go either way. Yeah. Melancholy. Yeah.

2:08:43I'm very upbeat. You have, you're not only upbeat. I'm not only upbeat. But I trend upbeat. Oh, you mean, yeah. You're not like an Eeyore. No. I'm a good time, Charlie. Let's go do this fun thing. Let's go have a blast. But if it starts going, you don't like it. If it starts tipping based on something that isn't in your control, you don't like it. That doesn't mean melancholy. No. Do I like being out of control? Not at all. But I'm not like a somber person. No. I agree with you there. Okay. So suspicious. Oh, big time. Very suspicious. These are all bad stuff. Yeah, I like those. Yeah. Yeah. Ambitious.

2:09:24Hardworking. I know. Now I've switched. Change gears. Disciplined. Set lofty goals. Do Virgos change gears without any indication? Well, we are very balanced. Jump topics. Here's mine. Here, I'll do some bad ones. I'll do some bad ones. Okay, good. Since you really want to do that. Not observant, perfectionist, judgmental, overthinking, fussy, critical. There's just so many good ones. There's just too many good ones to weed through. Stubborn. Do you identify with those? Yeah, definitely. I identify with the good and the bad of them. Yeah. I think I'm a lot of these things. Yeah. Worry about things being done correctly.

2:10:11Did I already say overthinking? I said that. Hardworking. extremely loyal, stubborn, I said, I think, attention to detail. And some of these are two of the same thing, really, like critical. Yes. Attention to detail. Yes. My dad would say that because he, you know, has to be so like, he has to look for problems in his job. That's his job. All the time, looking for problems. And so he does look for problems all the time in life. And it's like chicken or the egg. Like, is it the job? No. I don't know. It's reinforced by the job because then he has a reason to lollygag in that side of himself, you know, like spend a lot of time there.

2:10:57Yeah. But I think the fact that that was his nature is what drew him to being an engineer. It's what made him good at it, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. So, like, if you need a job, I think you should go to your sign. Yeah, go to your sign. Look at the maybe the bad things and see what kind of jobs require those. Although what's tricky about that is we have completely different signs and different attributes. And the perfect job for us is still both podcast hosts. Yeah, but we do very different things here. Yeah. Yeah. That I think lean into our very specific attributes. For sure.

2:11:34But I'm just saying this is a job that somehow would accommodate both types. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Charlie. Man of the water. So I think that's it for Fackies. It was really fun. That's it. All right. Love you. Love you.

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