Seth Rogen Returns Again

22:33But now the realization, like you might not travel for 13 years. Yeah, that's a hard. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, you can't go back. I don't know. I still kind of think it's a good idea. To not give them anything? What about when they're old? Give them some amount, but not too much. Spend it all. Spend it. Do you want to go to Paris tonight? Yeah, exactly. I was in a Beastie Boys video many, many years ago. And one of the things I remember is they were showing me pictures or something on one of their phones. They had recently gone to Paris and there was all these pictures of them in an incredibly expensive menswear shop.

23:04just in like ridiculous matching outfits. And they were like, oh yeah, every time we go to a foreign country like this, we all go buy funny matching tuxedos and stuff like that. And I was like, that's a good thing to do with your money. You'll never regret buying matching tuxedos with your three friends with top hats and canes and tails and going out on the phone. You will never regret that. If you're rich, that's the thing that is good to spend your money doing. I'm struggling with this currently very much. How much money your money's money should be making you. Yeah, mainly that. No, just kids versus feeling very free.

23:39I really, really like feeling very. Are you a married person? I'm not married and I don't have children. I literally have nothing except that house I'm building for me only. That's great. I mean, it does feel great actually. But then I'm like, oh, am I going to regret it later? Is it going to feel empty later? I mean, there's just so much that I struggle with. I like being able to go on vacation and do it up. fly first class, stay in the hotel. And not worried if you're fucking your kid up. Exactly. I'm also very scared of that too. Oh yeah. When I was young, we would do these press tours and I'd be on like a private jet going to do press with a nine-year-old.

24:15And I'd just be like, this child is good to have a hard time coming back to earth from all this. Exactly. It's harder than I anticipated, which is, well, I worked my whole life so I could fly first class and they're too young. I got to be with them. So what the fuck am I going to do? I'm going to sit back in the exit row next to the toilet? No. That feels unfair to me. It is unfair to you. It's unfair to everybody. No one should have to do that. I re-listened to the second interview. I want to publicly apologize. I was coming really hard at you about kids and then I've censored other remarks you've made and I certainly was a part of the problem.

24:48Oh no, you were pushing. I never did articulate what I was going for in that. I've never felt you needed to apologize for me for the record. Well, it was pretty full court press. The real essence of it was is I was like, You would be such a fun dad for me. Yeah, I would want to hang out with you. Can you be our dad? Sometimes you see people and you go like, that would be a very fun dad. He has the spirit to be a dad. Ultimately, I think I was just trying to give you a compliment that you would be such a fun dad. Thank you. Being a good parent is nowhere on our list of reasons whether or not we would or would not have children.

25:20I assume we'd be good parents. I know people who are so much fucking stupider who are good parents. Seriously. I do think I would be a good parrot, but I just don't think I want to be a parrot. Yeah, yeah. I love it. I heard you say something recently and I was like, yeah, yeah, that's fucking ideal for him. What did you say? And I should have shut up. It was in the press recently. Him basically just saying that we're having a great fucking time and I don't feel like I've missed out and everything's groovy. Paraphrasing. Things are good. This is a random question, but I think maybe because of our guest that came out today, which was Nikki Glaser.

25:48And we went through this whole thing where she had made some jokes about me and I was very, very sensitive. Yeah, yeah. What did you say? No, it was great. Everything's on the show or out in the world? She was going to make it in the Golden Globes. And I had found out that it was too hard for the Golden Globes. And I was like, oh, no. And then during the whole monologue, it was just one of those cameras was on us. And I was just waiting to have to fake some positive reaction to being shit on. And then so she didn't tell it there. But then she told on Stern the next morning. But then I purposely didn't want to hear it because I thought I'd made up these fucking jokes that were so mean to me.

26:18And I was kind of just devastated. And then I heard the joke. It wasn't bad at all. And I was like, what a waste of my time. Then we had her on. We talked about it. It was so fun. But I think because she was the guest today and I posted and I was just reliving that whole thing. I was curious. Are you sensitive? Like, I'm so sensitive. Yes, I am sensitive to people making jokes about me, for sure. It's really hard, right? Especially if it's comedians I like. Yeah. It's happened a few times. Like, when we made the interview, we kind of became open season because we were like the news. To remind people, North Korea hacked Sony.

26:49North Korea hacked Sony. In the wake of your film. It almost started a war. It was the biggest act of industrial espionage in history, I believe. It's kind of cool you were a part of that. That's a cool deathbed. It is. Oh yeah, I fucked up world relations for a minute. Yeah, geopolitics. You're like, I'm powerful. Well, that's another good lesson. You can hit the bullseye too effectively at times. There was comedians that I like making jokes about us in the movie. Whenever they would make jokes that the movie sucked, that I just didn't like because that's all I care about. But again, you get over it and it's happened again.

27:18you've been obviously invited to all these rows yes have you ever gone to one yeah nothing of those has ever really insulted me i have like a pretty thick skin about because i also make jokes about other people all the time especially in our movies we make a lot of jokes about people and i've had people come to me and been like that wasn't great being in a theater full of people having them laugh hysterically at a joke making fun of me yeah like i've received direct text It's just for people being like, why would you do this? And I'm like, yeah, I get it. I'm sorry. And I've gotten better. I have been in some situations recently where I was going to make jokes about certain people and certain things and had the foresight to ask the people beforehand as to whether or not they felt as though this would be in poor taste.

28:02And when it was told to me in no uncertain terms that it would in fact be in poor taste, I was happy to not do the joke. And I know enough about myself now to know that I'm drawn in a bad way to the joke I shouldn't be making sometimes. And I get a kick out of saying the thing that I know I probably shouldn't. And it's not even always the funniest. Sometimes it's very personal. Sometimes it's just something I know I shouldn't necessarily be saying. I used to be much more inclined to do it. And because I think I wanted to show I would do it or I didn't care or I thought it was just funny that I was treading into these waters that even if the average person didn't think they were taboo, like I knew in my head.

28:38I was like, oh, this is fucked up. It's like you're answering the calling to the commitment to comedy. Like in that moment, you elevate it. Yeah. But I actually thought it was funnier. It's not even always funnier. It's like a thing that I know I shouldn't be saying. It's a slippery slope. This is terribly corny, but hurt people hurt people. There is some reality. And we even had fun talking with Nikki. It's like the bottom line is I'm really sensitive. And because I'm really sensitive and insecure, I'm great at seeing other people's sensitivities and insecurities. You almost have to be a little wounded to even know what to do.

29:10Or sometimes you've just tread into an area where you are fodder for comedy, whether you like it or not. That's what it felt like with the interviewer. This is such a big story. You have to make a joke about it. And I just got that. People wouldn't be doing their job. Exactly. Like you feel as though you were ignoring a big thing that was happening if you didn't do it. And in those moments are the feelings of a few more important than like addressing the elephant that all sees in the room. Like Diddy. I mean, it's not going to happen now that those jokes aren't going to pop up at the shows and stuff.

29:40You're just like waiting for it. I know. And all I'm thinking is, how does Diddy feel? I know. I'm pretty worried about it. Poor guy. All I'm thinking is I'm watching this stuff. This guy has to watch these jokes. He's probably sensitive too. For all of his improprieties, he never really made fun of people. He didn't even earn this. He didn't deserve it. That's not what his bag was. Because he wasn't out there shitting on other people.

30:03Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

30:15Before we get to the studio, I just want to say I love the boys so much. And I love Gen V so much. Oh, that's so nice. How much time does that whole thing take up? I want it to go forever. I know it'd be great. They're doing the last season. Oh, they are. Yes. But they're doing another show. We've slowly become the thing we are making fun of, which is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So we are doing another show that's like a prequel about the formation of Vought set in World War II with Soldier Boy and those characters. But it's a funny thing with the boys where me and Evan, it's a very well run show.

30:48And the guy Eric Kripke who runs the show does such a good job that it makes it that it does not occupy very much of my time or energy. We were very involved in the very beginning of the show. We like cast the show and kind of designed a lot of the uniforms. I would imagine you were taking all of your cultural capital and power at the studio to allow that tone to exist and be that bold. And then once that was achieved and rewarded, you could step away. Well, it was also Amazon. It was a good moment for us. We found ourselves in a place who was like looking for its identity in some ways. They didn't have like a flagship show.

31:20And so they kind of didn't know what it was. The people who are running it changed over in the midst of the time we were doing it. So I actually think we kind of just got lucky. No one had any reason to tell us no, basically. They actually really believed in it. And our pitch was very clear. People want the R-rated version of superheroes. Well, but maybe the X-rated. Very much so. In a world that was like so inundated with superheroes, people will get such catharsis to see what this would kind of be like in real life and how gruesome it would be and how gross it would be. And I remember that was the thing we would always say in the pitch is just your whole life, you've seen Superman shoot lasers out of his eyes.

31:54You've never once seen how grotesque the effects of that would be on like an actual human's body. 6 ,000 degrees. Exactly. And that was like a thing. We were just like, that is what the show is. They really don't fight us very much on stuff on that show. From a content standpoint, I'm amazed at what they let us get away with. The reason I love it so much, and Chris and I will say this all the time, mid-sequence, we're like, I can't believe it's on television. I mean, the appeal is I can't believe it's on television. Yeah, and that's like our favorite tone. And that's like a thing we've always chased.

32:24It's a thing I was actually just talking to my wife about. I actually think there's something about Barry was a defining moment. I can always speak personally, but I do think it was a moment where I saw things in a movie where I was like, I didn't think you could show that. Putting calm in her hair. I always think of the first thing where you see his nuts and dicks stuck in the zipper. It's so funny because you're just like, they don't show that. And the joke is they're not showing it. And it was still one of the funniest scenes ever, even though they aren't showing it. And then they show it. And it was one of those things where you're looking around in the theater at the people around you, strangers.

32:56And you're just like, are we fucking seeing this? Like, is this real? Are we actually in a theater where this is happening? We've seen throughout the years when our movies are functioning the best. That is a moment we've been able to elicit from a crowd. And that's like a thing me and Evan are always referencing. It's not like laughter and it's not cheering. It's disbelief that people were allowed to do this thing. And that also somehow it's actually serving the overall story in the movie and the comedy. That's like the dragon we're chasing a lot of the time when the audience is just like, are we fucking seeing this?

33:27And yeah, with the boys based on a comic. And it was one of the first things me and Evan read. We were just like, I can't believe someone even drew this. Okay. So the comics are as hardcore. The comics are even more hardcore. Oh, they are. I would say if anything, we toned it down, honestly, and made it more comedic. The comics are a little less comedic and are a little just dark and violent and gross. We added a slightly more human, you know, like it's a little over the top with the blood and the popping of the human heads, which I think adds comedy to it. Yeah, definitely. It's so much fun to work on.

34:00I have a weird question. Were you attracted to dangerous things when you were young? Well, he's a karate master. Yeah, sort of. Well, that's controlled danger. I mean, like that type of danger. I played rugby. I wasn't adverse to danger and adrenaline. As I've gotten older, I'm very adverse to physical danger, just injury in any way. Because of the Todd Phillips thing? Yeah, your comedy is dangerous. What you were just describing is the shock and awe and disbelief of, oh my God, we're going to do this, is bringing people along on a dangerous ride comedically, which always is the funniest, really.

34:35It is all in service of the audience. As a fan of movies, I've felt these moments where I'm like, oh, they're fucking going for you. Your novelty meter goes up like, oh, I'm going to actually see something new and original. Exactly. Did you watch The Substance? I love that movie. It was so good. And that was one of those times, honestly, recently where I was like, holy fucking shit. I know Coralie a little bit. And I think she's a genius. Her first film, Revenge, is very, very good. I don't know if you've seen it. I haven't. I recommend it. It's another 10 out of 10 movie. But in a movie that already showed me it's willing to go as far as anything, I never thought it would go this far.

35:06I loved it. It's almost more rewarding, I think, the older you get because it gets harder to do that to you. So yeah, I was sitting in the substance going like, here we go, man. I'm 18 again. I feel like I was watching like Dead Alive or an old Sam Raimi movie or something like that. We were just like, oh my God. Yeah, those were movies we loved. Dead Alive, which is one of Peter Jackson's first movies, is this grotesque kind of horror zombie movie that is so gross. And me and Evan would watch it and just be like, oh my God, this is what we're looking for. It's too much. Yeah. This is the stuff right here.

35:31And Evil Dead and Army of Darkness and those movies. They were so gross and funny. It's amazing the two of you have been able to continue together. And Evan's had kids. so they have done really amazing yeah okay so before you came in it was told to me that you were hopeful i would watch all 10 episodes of the studio it's always helpful and i go man i love them but this is a tall order that's five hours i normally have to watch someone's movie or i watch an episode or two oh they're half hours they're half hours yeah but i'm like man i gotta watch the whole series so of course i go into it with a little like oh fingers crossed from the bottom of my heart and sincerely i have probably told 40 people already how much i fucking love it i watched two by myself and then i said to kristin you've got to go watch these two and catch up because we're going now for the next five nights we're doing this show and then so she too is obsessed i just plowed through it and i loved it and i'm so glad i had all 10 to be honest but i don't know what part of your dick to start sucking first I want to tease the tip a little bit but the chap is calling my name that's why I do this holy fuck I think the first thing I want to say is this cinematic accomplishment I did not see it coming and it's so fucking impressive let's go premise first just because I want to get to the one or so bad but hit me with the premise of the studio it exists in a world where there's just kind of one other studio in Hollywood there's like Universal and Netflix and Columbia and then there's Continental Studios which in our world was founded 100 years ago And it's in our Hollywood as we know it, except there's one other fictional studio and every other movie exists.

37:09And there's the movies that this studio has made, basically. And in the pilot, my character, who's worked at the studio for decades and has always wanted to run the studio and who loves films more than anything, finds himself to be the head of the studio. And it's really based on our dealings with studios. We've been producing a very long time and writing a long time. And honestly, this one sentence that was said to us by an executive many years ago was the kernel of the whole ideas. we were getting notes on something and he goes, you know, I got into this job because I love movies and now it's my job to ruin them.

37:39And we were like, and that's honestly something we've seen a lot. We've befriended a lot of executives over the year. We worked with great executives. Catherine O 'Hara seems a little archetype of Amy Pascal a little bit. Inspired by her role in our lives, especially as like a mentor and someone who taught us a lot. I adore her. Oh, she's the best. She walked the whole show. She was very nervous about it, but she loved it. Wait, Amy. Amy around Columbia, Sony. And was sort of unceremoniously ousted. And unfairly. Yes. Sort of in the wake of the interview. I would be lying if I was. Her emails came out.

38:11Harsely responsible for it all happening, which adds a layer to it all. Wow. Okay. But since then, she's become a very successful producer and it's a much better job, but it's a hard transition, which is something we can deal with in the show. And can we talk for one second? Because for years, the president of the studio was a threatening figure for me. It was who I would have to really bull over and impress in a pitch to get them to buy it. And then to get it greenlit was its own fiasco and so hard. And so I just had this weird relationship. And then over the years, I've been able to step back.

38:44I imagine we feel the same way, which is might be the worst job in all of Hollywood. Yes, exactly. Anything you do could get you fired. So it's a constant dance of how much responsibility or ownership do I take over any given thing? because you want to be associated with successes and not associated with failures, but you don't know which one is going to be which. There's countless movies that everyone wrote off as bombs that become huge hits and vice versa. Things that everyone's betting on as a huge hit that becomes a bomb. And also art and commerce are obviously big themes in Hollywood and in our lives, I would imagine.

39:17And they are truly the inflection point of those things. And they really are the people who every day are faced with the choice of, do I support creativity or do I mitigate risk and bet on commerce. These two actors I don't even want. No one agrees they're good, but they're going to secure me X amount for them. They have 50 million followers. Exactly. Or you make the dumber version of the movie and the smarter version. And it's a very fear and panic based job because you could actually lose your job at any moment. I've known people that run movie studios for like six months. They're gone. They're never even there to see their movies come out.

39:51No, or they don't do anything. That's actually a strategy a lot of people take is to do nothing. So you can't be blamed for it. a lot of people's strategies are to come in and to try to not make movies. It's just an all fear run job. I started getting really empathetic and sympathetic. These people I used to kind of hate or was scared of. Now I'm like, oh my God. It's like hard to fully villainize them once you get to know them. So it was during the pandemic. I rewatched the Larry Sanders show, which was one of my favorite shows ever when I was young. And I was just like, it'd be fun to do something kind of like this.

40:20What's my version of this type of character who's constantly at odds with what he wants to do and what his job is making him do. He wants to make art. He wishes he was Robert Evans in Robert Evans' time. Yeah. No one is anymore. But a lot of studio heads are like that still currently. It's sad, really. It is. It's a bummer of a job. It's really sad, but it's funny. It's like inherently was very comedic to us. We would constantly just see these people in these situations where we're just like, thank God this is them because it's so fucked up. And a lot of it is also they just want famous people to like them.

40:54And they just want directors to like them and they want writers to like them. And the writers and directors and actors just want something, such a transactional relationship. At best, they like you because you're giving them things. And at worst, they don't because you're not or they just think you're a fucking idiot. And a lot of them just want to be like, if there's that group of people at the party talking, that's the filmmakers. They just want to be invited into that group. Well, the show starts with Seth's character, Matt. you're visiting set for the first time and Pete Berg's directing. I don't even think I've put it other than I've been directing a movie and the president stopped by and I'm just panicked.

41:32I don't want him there because I'm afraid I'm going to do a bad job in front of him. I really underestimated how rough it is for the studio. They often don't want you there. And I think that is palpable to them as well. And they just want to be there. And they've killed themselves for 30 years to get this job. And then they show up at their movie that they're financing and no one wants them there. It's really sad. But you make yourself the joke of the whole movie, which is fantastic. Back to the sensitivity thing and who you can make fun of. I think it's very fair because you're the one who's probably most embarrassing in all these situations.

42:03Oh, for sure. And it really is tapping into my own fears. I am a producer now. I produce more things than I act in or write. I am often in the position where I'm like, am I making these things worse or better? Are people happy when I show up or are they bummed out when I show up? It's hard to know. It is hard to know. Oh, and a lot of the stuff that I wanted to write about and put into the show was my own feelings of insecurity, just as someone who at times we are the people who decide which movies are getting made and which ones aren't. And we're betting on people and not other people. And we're casting people and not other people.

42:35And it really is that fear that I'm ultimately mitigating risk as opposed to nurturing. It's weird to be on one side of the line and transition to the other side. Identity wise. That conflict is really something about like the character that I thought was very funny and interesting. I've put so much more work into this than anything I've done in a very long time. It seems so. Yeah. And so I really knew I wanted to be a character that I thought I could perform in a funny way, but also really spoke to my own. Your struggle. You can say it. My struggle. Book coming soon. Look for the German translation.

43:10But yeah, so all those things were really the reason that we made the show. So you get this job, but you make this Faustian deal right out of the gates with the chairman, Bryan Cranston. He basically says, like, I will give you this fucking job if and only if you get on board with making this exciting new franchise, Kool-Aid. Yeah. Oh, he's like, oh, my fucking God, a fucking movie on Kool-Aid. Which isn't even that nuts. It's not crazy. It's just enough to be something. It's like one degree, stupid earth. Probably would make a great movie the more I watch the show. Well, what's funny is in the show, we come up with like a plot for the Kool-Aid movie and we really put a lot of thought into it.

43:49It's funny. I watched The Bear and I really like it. And that was something I would say a lot as we were making the show is like as seriously as they take cooking is as seriously as we have to take filmmaking. We can't pretend that something would happen that wouldn't. And we can't present the audience with an idea that we are telling them people would be excited about. But in the back of your head, you know, they wouldn't make that fucking movie or that cast wouldn't be exciting or you wouldn't be nervous talking to this person. has to feel real also. Okay, so that's the premise. Ike Barinholtz is one rung under Seth's character.

44:18Yeah. And fucking, we just couldn't love Ike more. Catherine Han is the head of marketing. These are all our favorite people. She's so funny. What a monster she is. She's so fucking talented. Oh my God, I never really worked with her. I did like a live reading with her once a few years ago and I just always been a fan of hers. It's funny because in the script originally, that character was sort of like the straight person, the smartest in the room, the most buttoned up. And then she came in and was like, no. But also was like, that's not who the heads of publicity are. They know everyone. They're kind of in on influencer culture.

44:51They're so online. They want to be the hippest in every single thing. These archetypes are pretty consistent through all the studios. They really are. Building up to the show, we interviewed almost every person who runs a studio in Hollywood, almost every person who runs marketing for a studio in Hollywood, people who used to run studios. One of actually the resounding feelings from the marketing people was that they view themselves as more creative than the executives. They're like, we actually make stuff. They do. We actually create things. We're making commercials, content. We're thinking of posters.

45:24We're thinking of little ads. These guys are just sitting in rooms fucking giving notes and shit like that. I'm sitting in front of an editing machine. They're the arbiters of good ideas and we are the creators of good ideas. And so that was like a really funny dynamic. They have extreme ownership. They're incredibly confident, a lot of them, which is also like the dichotomy. A lot of the executives are sort of like me. There's kind of like Nebus Shee Jewish people who are feigning confidence at best. But the marketing people come from sales. They have like a whole different energy. To defend them for a minute because that other job is so terrible.

45:53They have nothing to do with what gets made. They actually are on the green light committee at some of the studios. That's true. But most often they are handed a movie. They're tasked with make everyone in America. Well, they could have directly been overruled is what happens a lot. Often they will have said, we should not make this movie. We cannot sell it. And then they're like, guess what? We did anyway. And if it fails, you're the one who's going to get fired. They got to polish a lot of turds. Yes, for sure. That was just a very funny dynamic to add into the show. And Catherine O 'Hare is on the show.

46:25Catherine O 'Hare, Canadian. Fellow Canadian, legend. Icon. Icon, literally. She's just so fucking perfect and everything. Okay, the episode that I have to imagine you feel proudest of, I can't stop talking about is episode two. It's called The One-er. That was a tough one. I don't want to give too much away, but I also want to whet people's appetite because it's an incredible accomplishment. The episode's called The One-er. It starts with you and Ike driving to visit set. We already know people do not want you to visit set. And the stakes couldn't be higher because Sarah Pauly is directing a movie and they're getting a shot at magic hour, which means you have this tiny window of 40 minutes of good light.

46:59And then the shot's going to be the camera and it's going to do a one-er. We're never going to cut. It has to be perfect. and you guys decide to visit in that moment. Tell people what a oner is. It's a continuous shot. Like the most famous one probably is like the one in Goodfellas where they start outside the Copacabana and they go through the kitchen and they weave their way through and they drop the table and the comedian starts. There's no cuts. No cuts. One long uninterrupted. And everything has to be done perfectly. You can't fuck up once. There's no coverage for it. It's a full commitment.

47:27The very famous one at Hit and Run. Yeah. Very famous. It's probably the second most famous one. But by the way, when you commit to one and it works, the fucking exhilaration beats anything you can do on a set. Because it's a team sport. Everyone has to hit everything perfectly. A lot of moving parts. They're very hard. And the show is so menace. Also, they're acknowledging what masturbation a one-er is. How no one notices, how it's just for the filmmakers to get off on their own technique. Yes. I've even heard stories about people having the existing record on the monitor that they're trying to beat.

48:00That's funny. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so what's fucking impossible is the episode is also a one-er. In real life, the episode itself is a one-er about a one-er. And then all the things that are being laid out in the episode are just so fucking satisfyingly woven into the conclusion. The whole episode is a one-er? Yeah. Well, in the whole show, every scene is a one-er on the whole show. There's a few episodes where it's maybe only four or five shots throughout the whole thing. For 30 minutes. Yeah. That is really impressive. But also, not only are they choreographing their own one-er, which is the episode, but there's also a real-life one-er happening in the show.

48:39Jesus Christ! It is so mind-scrambling. It's an insane accomplishment. Thank you. It was really hard. Because it's not just the one-er. It's the layers of payoff. It's magic. Oh, my God. Holy shit. Did you direct it? Yeah, we directed the whole show. We wrote the show knowing it would be one-ers. It wasn't like a thing we just decided when we showed up. And for that episode, especially, we had to really block basically the entire episode and the days leading up to it, but not with the actors. So like me and Evan, who I direct with and the writers, we only had access to this house for like two days before we started shooting it.

49:14And so as they were in the house, we just would walk through it and really try to block it. What we would do is we could only actually shoot for around an hour a day because of the light. So we could only shoot between five and 6 p.m. basically. So everyone would show up in the morning and we would rehearse whatever that day's chunk was. And they were eight or nine minute chunks. There's very little trickery in that episode. Oh, yeah, yeah. It seemed like you had three cuts. Yeah, exactly. There's like three or four cuts total in the whole thing. Which you can't tell. They're stitched beautifully.

49:46Chris and I, we were even arguing. I'm like, probably there was a hood mount on the car that was somehow easily detached. Yeah, it's exactly what it was. Oh, thank God. I just won one argument. We would do visual effects to erase rigging. That's like a trick we would do. That's what Kristen said. Well, it'd be on the hood. There's a lot of sleight of hand involved. This is a cinephiles fucking whack-off session. Like, we were geeking out. It was so fun for us. It was just like the opposite of how we were always brought up making movies. It was always about two cameras, improv. We'll figure it out editorially later.

50:15We were like, what if we do the exact opposite? And we are painting ourselves into this corner that we cannot paint ourselves out of. Because there's 15 actors in that episode that all have lines. If one person forgets their lines. It's so scary. nine minutes into a take, it's back to the car. Oh, the Golden Globes one was the hardest because of the amount of people. That has a lot of long shots in it, but there's also 400 extras in every single scene. So my question about that episode is, did you guys piggyback on when the show was actually? No, we created our own Golden Globes. That's another episode we shot at four days because we couldn't have that room for very long.

50:51And we had to load in and load out in the same week. But no, we threw the Golden Globes. No, it's a full Golden Globes. So that shows has to be functioning as a real Golden Globe show in the background. Oh, yeah. We had to cast so many people and the choreography of it was unbelievably complicated. But it's funny because as we were doing it, we're like, I don't even know if the average person will be able to articulate what is happening here. The energy of it, I think, is what we were excited about. Well, OK, so another achievement of the show is you have fucking plot. A lot of comedies really don't have plot.

51:23They don't have an engine. And these fucking episodes, every one of them are so stressful. The tension is thriving throughout the whole show. And that's because of the oners. Yeah, it's because you're never cutting. And I think it's also because it never settles into a rhythm of cutting back. There's no breathing between two people. We were always like the tone should be stress and panic. It is. And there's only a stories in the episode, which I think was also conducive to that type of storytelling is we're never cutting between. You set up my story and I'm doing this thing and you set up Mike's story and he's doing this thing.

51:53the stories are all singular. And so that also helps with the singular camera and the singular style of being in the room with the characters from like a writing standpoint. You know, it's funny. I did these table reads. It's actually where I met Catherine Hahn for the Netflix is a joke festival a few years ago. We did a live reading of Seinfeld scripts. Oh, I remember this. I was Jerry and Aziz Ansari was George and Jack Black was Kramer and Catherine Hahn was. Oh my I feel like in reading them, it was like the Rosetta Stone or something like that. It's all the structure. Math. And it's not even the jokes.

52:28It's the order of the scenes and the raising of the stakes. That to me is what I would want to do with a show. It's like true situational comedy. And then also the score, you have this like chaotic jazz. And that's fucking nerving you up to no end. It's like never rhythmic. That's what we'd always tell the composer. We'd just like never have it settle into a rhythm. Whenever it feels rhythmic, it would get boring. always make it a little off and uneasy. It really is stressful. So driving home the night of the episode, The One-er, did you get a burst of elation? I was pretty happy. You could also watch it the next day.

53:01You don't have to wait for an editor to assemble it. Yeah, exactly. I was honestly really nervous about how we were shooting the show. And I would talk to my wife, Lauren, a lot about it. I'd talk to Evan a lot about it. The first few weeks, especially, I was just like, are we fucking up? Are we making a mistake? Are we so up our own fucking asses with this that were just sacrificing comedy. That was my real fear. I was like, are we making it less funny in service of this style? And I kept being like, no, I really think we thought of this because it would be additive to the tone and the comedy.

53:29And then I saw it cut together and I was like, thank fucking God. And I was so excited about it, so happy by it. And yeah, when we finished the Wonder episode, I was really happy. And Sarah Pauly is someone I've known a very long time. I was in a movie she directed 15 years ago or something like that. And she's such a funny person and such a funny actor. Go was one of mine and Evan's favorite movies. It was inspirational to us. It's wild and frenetic. Exactly. I think Pineapple Express is very inspired by Go. And Dawn of the Dead, I was just always a huge fan of hers. And then I worked with her and I'm just like, she's one of the funniest fucking people I've ever been around.

54:03But again, you have a non-actor in this kind of high stakes situation where she's going to have to hit all of her beats really well. And she like nailed it. She couldn't have been funnier. Yeah, that was the thing with the show. We have a lot of non-actors on this show, filmmakers, writers, directors. That was another fear I had where it's like we're taking these non-actors and essentially asking them to do like the hardest thing. Now you got to be a part of this seven minute scene. Yeah, a play. If you literally say one word wrong, we have to start over. And we got a 50 minute reset. Sometimes.

54:32Yeah. Literally, we got to get back in the car. This is so stressful. Back up the block. You're breaking shit all the time. I'm falling. There's thumps in the show. Oh my God. So what you were saying, it did become like a real team effort. And those are also my least favorite moments on sets often is just you're sitting on an Apple box. The crew guys are on their phone because it's just, OK, now it's this shot. Now it's this shot. One out of 200 people feel like they're working. And that's kind of the person who's on camera. Then I've been in some movies. I got to be in a Steven Spielberg movie.

55:01And he had these very elaborate shots sometimes where it was like, oh, no, it's all going to play in this one shot. And I would just see how the whole crew would come together and be so psyched about it. You're right. people rarely all do their job at the same time. Exactly. That's why people like doing theater because it's everyone coming together. And in this, even if you had two lines in the scene, it was so fun. You didn't feel like you were just window dressing or just waiting for your part. You were a part of a huge scene. And that was another reason that it was partially procedurally alluring to us.

55:30Yes. So I think there's a lot of ways you can be a good director. I really, I think you've grown a better understanding of what is needed to accomplish these things and how much time it'll actually take and how much preparation it will actually take. And so we're very prepared and it would get very discouraging at times, the shooting style where we would joke often that until sometimes like the seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th take of these long sequences, it's just not even fucking close. And we would be looking at each other being like, is this the one that we can't do? and sometimes it's just the camera has to like latch on to the car and the fucking magnet keeps fritzing out we're relying on technology to do what we want that isn't as reliable as you would hope it is sometimes and sometimes it's just an actor keeps like missing the thing or tripping over the thing.

56:19Can you imagine if you fucked up your line twice? No. I feel comfortable saying this because he's my dear friend but David Krumholz is in a few episodes of the show and there's a very complicated sequence of me entering the Golden Globes it literally starts in the limo and then I walk the whole red carpet and then I walk through the wall. He's got a two joke. He's got to hit you with. Exactly. And then I walk through the ballroom. I'm interacting with a bunch of people throughout it. Adam Scottson and Ike and O 'Hara and all these people. And the last moment is me and Krumholtz and it's like a three line exchange.

56:48And there's 500 extras, cars, limos, all this shit. And he's just got nine minutes sitting in a chair waiting to fuck up and fly. But he's probably going to be so. Exactly. More and more nervous. He sees the machine like coming towards him. He's like, he's holding his side somewhere. Yes. You like see the train rolling down the tracks. And I will say God bless him because I would tell the actors, look, if you genuinely think you've thought of something that is better than what we've written or additive and it comes to you in the moment, I want you to do it because I don't want it to be too rigid and I want it to feel alive.

57:22But just know if it's not good, it's fucked up everything. Workshop it in the makeup trailer. I'm trusting you to gauge in your own head whether or not you think I will think it's good enough to warrant this risk you're taking. And Dave several times was just improvising stuff. And even he would do it. We would cut and he would just look at my face and be like, I should have said that. He is one of my favorites and he's spectacular in your show. He's so good on the show. He's one of the best. And then he nailed it. I think some of our moments are some of the best moments of the show. and we would put him in it more after that because it is so alive and you do feel like i don't quite know what he's gonna do and at its worst the show in the earlier takes that was always to me the scary zone is we would start to get it but it would just feel sort of rigid because everyone was too focused on hitting the mark and the timing and the camera point in the wrong place and that's why it's good to have agents of chaos like dave in there yeah in some ways just can't say the lines did the same way twice.

58:21And Han was like that too. She would just say other stuff. And you could see there's like a moment where everyone's like, oh no, is this going to cause a major problem? But then that becomes its own fun thing for you to play with, right? Very much so, yeah. You're scared the whole time. Your character's always scared. Actually stressed out. Actually, like quite on edge that we're not going to get it. Oh, there's something so kids in a playground about it. That's what was also fun about it. It's like, it is how kids film things. You just point the camera at who's talking and you walk around and that's it.

58:51And so there is that energy. It did feel a lot like that. It's a cool way to keep yourself interested after year 30. It's like you got to do something to wake yourself up a little bit. No, definitely. I'm afraid of the next show you do. Yeah, exactly. What are we going to do? You know what I heard is impossible? It's underwater. It's all in space.

59:12Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

59:46Me and Evan, we kept saying as we were doing it. shot the whole show so not that long actually like on the grand scale of things no with how intricate it is and how well done it is any amount of time would not have shocked me yeah okay i hope you're able to do this so the fucking appearances are one after another like martin scorsese's in it steve buscemi ron howard's in it charlie's throne's in it zach afren's olivia wilde's in ice cubes in it it never stops and when i'm watching that i'm so happy for you because to To me, that is this crazy reflection of what you've built. You can call Martin Scorsese and he'll show up and do your thing.

1:00:23Call his manager. Ultimately, he has to say yes. I've never met Martin Scorsese before. There's a lot of accomplishments on display. There's the technical accomplishment. There's the writing. There's the life story of you and Evan. But also there's the goodwill. Yes, what you've built goodwill wise. Really, it's all there. Part of my whole thesis in general is to try to over deliver. I don't take any success for granted. when we made this the end and all these things we were just like give people more than they're expecting don't tell them it's hollywood and then have a few people and try to sell that as hollywood so that was something for us that was very important is we were like if it's going to be about hollywood you have to believe that these are the people a studio head would be excited by intimidated by wanting to impress wanting to befriend the actual people who are in movies and we're not trying to tell you yeah this guy's in a movie this is the tom cruise of the show Exactly.

1:01:16We really didn't want to do that. And Larry Sanders, again, was a thing that was hugely inspirational for that. Because as a kid, I remember Sean Penn's on it and Jim Carrey's on it and Tom Petty's on it and Elvis Costello's on it and all these great comedians and actors are on it. And I was like, that's part of the fun of it. They got them and it feels real as a result. There's so many that Kristen said to me mid-episode, do you ever start feeling offended you're not in something? the whole time we're just like i just hope this is easier the second season she's also an acting robot she would have killed those waters she's built for a water also we didn't want to only do people that we know and that we work with and they're kind of like associated with us when it was kind of a mix of people that we didn't even know that well yeah do you have a relationship with scorsese i met him once for two seconds before this is a cold call we really tried to make the roles good honestly that was like a big part of it was even if you had one joke we We wanted it to be like a great moment and to not feel like you're just kind of there.

1:02:16And they're not just like extras in the scene. Everyone has to have a moment that they can really sink their teeth into. But it was really hard. And we spent a ton of time rewriting the scripts for people. They want it to be good. And once they commit to it, they're like, OK, what if I do this? It was always very welcome. Everyone that came had some leverage. Everyone has leverage. You want them to think it's funny. And that's the other thing is we're always just like, we want you to be excited about this. Like, we don't want you to feel like you're doing us a favor. We want you to feel like you're getting to do a thing that you think is cool.

1:02:46It was by far one of the biggest challenges of the show was to get all these people and to schedule it and to not let them down, honestly. Did you find it hard to direct these huge people? Were you like, oh, fuck, I gotta tell? The answers, yes. I have to tell Martin Scorsese what to do? It was different. Talking to the actors is the thing I struggle with most as a director. And it's also because I'm an actor in the scenes and some actors just don't like to be directed by the other actors me and Olivia Wilde we're talking about me and Evan would kind of do like a good cop bad cops thing I would be in the scenes and be like great perfect and then I'd go to Evan and be like tell her to slow down she's not hitting her mark she's not saying the sign properly and she actually was the only one that clued into it but it's really hard I had to do a thing with Michael Peña and I didn't figure this out until like two weeks into shooting because we're in every single scene together and I'm directing it and about two weeks in it occurred to me he doesn't hear me give myself a note all he hears is me say something to him so like two weeks and i go i need you to know after these takes i go like that was too slow i gotta speed it up i give myself notes and then i come to you i just want you to know i don't think i'm doing it perfectly i'm berating myself and then i go on to you i would have a hard time doing it alone having a partner makes it much easier i think in a lot of ways because they got to be a little suspicious like how the fuck's he know what happened he's inside the scene with me a thing that would happen is the people i was in the scenes with could tell what i just was dropped at him because I was also very aware where the camera was and what it was capturing at all times so there'd be times I would just see like oh the camera guy he just missed it you started talking too soon so that's easy to call cut on but I think the thing that would be hard how on earth did you manage when someone did a shitty delivery of a line minute one of a five minute one or did you go like oh I'll just go through to the end or will I just be brave right now and say cut it depends what take it was because also you got to navigate just not bumming people out yes and that's something me and Evan talked a lot about and that's something we actually learned a lot of improvisational comedy is it's a fine line between directing improv and just shutting people down sometimes we would let people go on these runs for 10 minutes where we're just like this isn't gonna mean the fucking movie but like they seem to really think it's funny we'll get 10 other good things out of them today because we didn't tell them this yeah and so that was math that would happen in our heads sometimes it was a hard reset I would stop early because I would just know like once this happens, it's going into a new zone.

1:05:00But that was something we were constantly navigating. Well, this is the most I've ever talked about a show when someone was promoting a show, but I have still yet a couple more questions. Great. One is the other thing that I became hyper aware of is your own aesthetic, or at least what I think is your aesthetic, is really on fire. Every single house we go to is an architectural masterpiece. I complimented Seth's outfit when he got here. It's very nice. Are those Bottega shoes? They are. Yes, yes, very nice. He's like a little style boy. You can do that when you don't have kids. You can spend all your money on clothes.

1:05:33Couches and clothes. It's a thing I'm sort of making fun of myself with. I like all this stuff. Yeah. And then, of course, for me, I got hyper-focused on all the cars. So every episode, Matt Remick is driving a different 60s. A different old car. There's an MG. Then there's an old Merc. Then he's in a 53 Vette. You don't have a car thing, though, do you? I do like old cars. I don't have like a collection of old cars. Do you have any old cars? I have a Carmen Ghia. That's perfect for you. Yes. Yeah. And I have a Studebaker Lark. Not the one in the show, but I have one like that one that we drive in the winter.

1:06:07Have you ever ride an Avante? Yeah, those are amazing. I like those. Oh, I'll add to the complexity. He's driving these old fucking 70 year old cars that are all stick shifts up even in the winter episode. Getting in the driveway for real. I'm starting to think he's got his hands full. He's directing this thing. I'm just driving that car. And I'm driving so fast in that episode. Ike was so scared the whole time we were doing it. And you have a look on your face when you drive. I started clocking it. You almost like licked your lips as you're navigating. There's a giant fucking camera. You can't see.

1:06:35I can't see. You're on an irreplaceable car. If you fuck it up, you're down for the day. It's what we made. This is the end, honestly. We were designing the house for the movie to be set in. And at first the joke was like, it's a douchey over the top, overly stylish house. And by the end, I was just like, oh no, I just made my dream house. Yes, yes. You're like Nancy Meyers in this way. It worked in both ways though. To the average viewer, it was a douchey over the top house. And to me, it was my dream house. And so that philosophy carried through. Me and Evan joked about a lot. A lot of my memories in Hollywood are being in beautiful places with beautifully dressed people screaming at each other about the stupidest shit ever.

1:07:13And that was like an energy we wanted to capture. It's glamorous and it's institutional. And it's been here for decades. And great architects have built these homes that people live in. and there are these beautiful homes. And then you're in there just like screaming at each other about like how much of the guy's balls you can show in the movie. Amy Pascal, this like gorgeous architectural house. And the studios are very beautiful. Is this real? No, we built that completely. Okay, I got really angry because we're watching it and you seem to be on Warner Brothers for lots of this show. And there's a Frank Lloyd Wright building.

1:07:45In the show, the ideas that Frank Lloyd Wright designed the main offices. In the Mayan period. Yeah, exactly. It's like Mayan revival. So I was like, I fucking worked on that lot for two years and I missed it. There's a Frank Lloyd Wright film. I was angry. I was beating myself up for having missed that. So that's entirely fabricated. Entirely fake. Thank God. Because I could see where it was positioned and I was like, it's where the Warner Brothers is. Yeah, you kind of buy into it. It's like, oh yeah, I could see that at some point. It was part of the idea of making it seem like old and monumental.

1:08:14A lot of these studios are gorgeous. The Paramount offices are beautiful. The Columbia offices are these like art deco marvels. So much artistic thought went into the building and then inside they're making decisions of all time. They're so bucking against any creative freedom as they're standing in these like cathedrals of cinema that people were given free reign to make beautiful. But I'm just a huge architecture fan and I love Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in L.A. especially. And they are all this Mayan revival, but there's a great documentary about Frank Lloyd Wright. And it talks about how all of his buildings in Los Angeles are essentially uninhabitable because he had suffered like a terrible family tragedy before he came to L.A.

1:08:51and they are all very tomb-like. This one right down the street, the Black Dolly house. Yeah, exactly. It's like constantly being run over. They have like a sarcophagus-esque vibe to them. And to us, that was a funny work environment for a lot of reasons because it feels very old and it feels like we're trying to uphold the days that have gone by institution. We're like encased in this tomb, basically. A big cement blob, really. But it's also kind of beautiful. And all the houses in the show are John Lautner houses who is a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. A lot of his houses are in movies. In Lethal Weapon 2, the Garcia house is a John Lautner house.

1:09:23So yeah, we also like this idea that it was an architect whose work is in film. And a lot of the music in the show is from other movies. Chinatown. Yeah, we use the Chinatown score. We use the long goodbye music. I also started adding up your budget as I was watching. I was like, yeah, he got a nice budget. It was pretty good. Tech company. Just keep buying those iPhones. Exactly, right? Yeah. I always ask this when we have people on who are in creative partnerships where one person's more of the face. And same with Ike and Dave. Has there ever been tension there? He doesn't give a fuck. It occurred to me on this interview, Monica.

1:09:58I was like, it's time the next time Seth's here. We need to have Evan. Get Evan in here. Yeah. Would he be up for that? Totally. I was like, is this starting to feel immoral for us to not include Evan? Whenever I'm on Howard Stern, he's also fascinated with Evan. And he's always like, what is his deal? Yeah. The fact that Evan has no desire to be in front of the camera, I think, is an instrumental part of our dynamic. And that he is not jealous. If anything, he's like, I'm so glad I don't have to do all the stuff that I have to do as the performer in the things. Because sometimes that gets tricky.

1:10:30We had also Phineas with Billy, obviously. I was like, how are you guys doing it in a way that, but some people just don't care. But it's also reflective of us personally. Well, yeah, of course I care. Of course I find it interesting. because it's not that easy for us. It's a little more complicated, I think. I know so many partnerships that have broken up over the years and more than haven't, actually. I know a lot of teams that have split up. We had a therapist actually say to us, we were producing a show. Things were getting real hairy for a second there. And she looked at us and she said, you guys are in the Beatles.

1:11:04Look what you guys get to do and what you make. Don't break up the Beatles. That's really great. Thank you for saying that out loud. Yes, that's true. It's true, but when you're in it, you can feel like, I'm not getting this recognition. I'm not getting this. I could see for Evan or Dave or for Phineas, like, no one knows what I'm doing. Maybe they don't. But it's interesting because Phineas doesn't have that. Some people have it. He knows damn well what he's doing. Yeah, Evan too. He doesn't care at all. He does get a lot of credit for a lot of stuff. I'm sure he's got a really nice house. Great, yeah.

1:11:35He'll probably leave his kids some money. Exactly. Well, Phineas said something really interesting. He said, actually, I get attention, but it matters that Billy gives me the recognition. If she wasn't doing it, then yeah, I'd have a problem with it. If within the partnership, there wasn't that acknowledgement. Definitely. I feel very fortunate about it. And it's not lost on us. We recognize it. We are like, isn't it great that we still like each other and we still work together well? And his life is very different than mine in many ways. And we've found ways to navigate that. You know, he has kids and I act sometimes.

1:12:08we both have things that pull us away from just writing and directing together, but we've never really had any issue. I feel very lucky about it. It's very fortunate. Okay. Last question in the show, you're acknowledging the real context of our industry, which is like movies are harder and harder to get to make money. It's just gotten more stressful. They make less movies, less of them work. The whole thing's terrifying. Yeah. You perfectly pivoted into TV. And I wonder, do you consciously do that or did it just accidentally happen? When I look at a lot of your peers, you somehow went perfectly into doing virtually what you were doing in movies and TV.

1:12:46It was sort of conscious. I think what's good is we are also able to keep making movies just in a different way than we did before. Yeah, but like making a 30 million dollar comedy, that's going to make 120. That's just off the table. Ninja Turtles to us is a movie that we can write. That's like a high school comedy that is really fun and we love it but in order to make that movie now it has to be teenage mutant ninja turtles yeah and it's a lot of ideas that we would put into any movie but it's just like oh or barbie for me that's a comedy that's a straight up comedy i think we've always been realistic as to what the market wants and can bear we may knocked up in super bad but very quickly we were like we gotta add machine guns and car chases to this shit or it's gonna start to feel the same and after that We're like, oh, we got to add like demons and monsters and meta celebrity in order for this to feel new and relevant.

1:13:36I don't know if we've ever spent that much time lamenting the trends and instead have tried to really see what is working and work through that. So with television, that for sure was like a conscious thing. We're like, oh, now you can do shit in television. That used to be the stuff we did in movies. It's different, but it's kind of the same. Yeah. Now on the other side of all of it, and as much as I lamented the disappearance of all that and I suffered I've made movies that didn't work in this fucking era I also recognize I am so glad the boys isn't a movie yeah so on the other side of have you found making tv is just as fun or even more I mean we had so much fun with this show I've always been able to really wrap my head around writing movies and I actually think writing tv and movies are very different as is evidenced by the fact that there are brilliant tv writers who write terrible movies and brilliant movie writers who make terrible tv shows they are not the same skill set and I actually did always find I struggled to be a meaningful contributor on a lot of our TV shows because I think the thing that I had a hard time wrapping my head around was this seven hour movie idea.

1:14:38And then with the studio, one of the big revelations for me was like, no, it is not a serialized show. It's very episodic. Oh, I can actually really wrap my head around one 30 minute movie, basically something with a beginning, middle and a setup and a payoff. That's the thing that is exciting about television is you can sort of create your own type of narrative and they're just much more open to risk. I mean, in the 80s, maybe this would have been a movie in the 70s, but this was conceived of for TV, knowing this is not at all the type of thing that they would make into a movie, but this is exactly the kind of thing that they would make into a well-budgeted TV show.

1:15:13But we still have movie ideas. We are working on movies and we would like to keep making movies, but we just try to be realistic. I saw One of Them Days with Kiki Palmer and SZA. Yeah, and it was fucking hilarious and it did well. R-rated comedy. I saw it in the full theater and I was like, it works. It can still work. I just saw Judd give an interview where he was saying like, if The Hangover came out today, it would fucking annihilate. I think it's a trend. I do think it ebbs and flows. There are moments where all seems lost. And then Barbie comes out. And then a movie comes out where you're like, oh no, like people are into this stuff.

1:15:45But also I'm watching Fall Guy and I'm like, this movie is flawless. It's got everything you would ever want. This thing should make half a billion dollars. It's just too expensive. That's the thing you have to be smart about also. And that's the thing we've always tried to really consider is you have to be realistic about what your movie costs and what you're asking of people. You know, if I was making was essentially a romantic comedy, I would not spend 80, 90, a hundred million dollars on it. I'd spend like 20, 30 million dollars on it. That's always been part of our philosophy, but we're never as existential about it.

1:16:17I feel like as some people get, because I think I've personally seen these trends ebb and flow just throughout the time I've been here. You know, and like Sandler makes movies that are on Netflix, but they're great and people love them. And if I was out to dinner with Aziz and we just were talking about comedy and the waitress was there and she's like, who's the best comedian alive right now? Adam Sandler. Without skipping a second. She said it or you guys? She said it. She said it. We were like, we don't get an obligatory nod. We're right in front of you. Those things give me hope. People still like these things.

1:16:47People always will want a comedy movie. Just the system has crumbled a little bit. When I was younger, you could write a funny movie, they would buy it and then cast it. That doesn't happen very much anymore. Now they want you to have everyone attached, but actors don't want to get attached. Kind of rightfully so, because you're exposing yourself. And if you attach yourself to a thing and no one buys it, then you could feel as though that's a knock on your career. You don't have any capital. Exactly. But also that shouldn't be the system. The studio should just buy into the idea of it. Buy his crib if they like it.

1:17:20And trust me, once that movie exists, it is going to be made. You will be able to cast it. Actors who are great, who know it's a real thing, who aren't exposing themselves and their name instead of studios doing what they should do, which is buy and develop films and then decide which ones to make and then cast them and hire directors and make them. That system has gone away a little bit. And I think that's out of just pure terror and risk mitigation and panic and all the stuff that is in the show and it's people thinking that that will give them a more sure bet but it's also negating the entire system that's in place of like executives developing ideas that are hopefully good and working with talent that is hopefully good well i love it man i'm so glad that i got to see all that's so nice i feel very lucky it comes out on march 26th on apple plus and it's spectacular and this is number three and i can't wait for number four we'll get evan in here Yeah, we have space.

1:18:21You do. Yes, yes. Tell him there's a seat waiting for him. All right, well, thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me. That was great. Hi there, this is Hermium Permium. If you like that, you're going to love the fact check with Miss Monica. Oh. Okay. Oh. Oh, my gosh. You're excited because you're getting a boat today. Not today, but. Oh, you're getting a boat. By the time this is out. It's Christmas for this little boy, and he's so excited. For the gearhead, I'm going to have my first pontoon boat. You're very excited. It's gorgeous. I can't. Monica, the leaps that have been made in the pontoon world.

1:19:08Wow. I could bore you for hours. Then, see, Sim. Why? Because by the time you got your boat, it's the best. It's much better. Don't look at me like that. Oh, I got you. I thought you were saying by the time I get it, like I receive it tomorrow. But yes, by the time I got in the market for, yes, there was a huge leap forward. Let me hit you with some of the feature. Okay, let's hear it. Pontoon. I grew up on a pontoon boat. Dave Barton, my sweet stepdad, he had himself a pontoon boat. Two steel pontoons on the bottom. What is a pontoon? A pontoon's a big steel... Rod. What would I say? Pontoon.

1:19:47I mean, I don't know what other word to use. If you could picture a kayak. Okay. But completely sealed and it's stainless steel. Oh, okay. Or aluminum. And you have two in the water and then there's a flat deck. So it doesn't have like a hull. It's not made out of fiberglass like a normal boat. It's just got these two pontoons and then a big flat deck on top. They're ideal for maximum passengers. Right. But what I got is called a tritune, Monica. They've added a third pontoon in the middle of the boat. It's very buoyant. And then it has these little runners on the side that actually lift it out of the water at speed.

1:20:19So less drag. Barton's pontoon, which this was standard. You generally have like a 50 horsepower Johnson outboard motor. That sounds lovely. And you'd go, it could maybe go 13 miles an hour. Oh, that sounds great. I thought you just said 50 miles. With a tailwind. That's Barton's boat. But now we're up to tri-tune with the elevation. Mine has a 400-horsepower V10 on the back. So eight times the amount of motor that Barton's. So how fast is it going to go? I think it'll go about 55 miles an hour. I thought you just said his went 50 miles an hour. 15, 13 with a tailwind. One, five, not five, zero.

1:20:58It sounded like 50. Full ski rig on it so I can pull skiers, tubers, everything you used to want a speedboat for is available on this with 13 passengers. Wow. Oh, money. The sound system is off the charts. We're going to be dancing on this motherfucker. That's really fun. Oh. Bo culture is... I'm new to it. You're not new to it. Well, I'm not new to it, but as an owner. Sure, sure. Shout out Ken Kennedy. He's my brains. I'm like, I'm getting a pun to say, well, you need, these are the two brands. Then he found one. He's like, this one's pretty perfect. So you got to get the easy top. I'm going to have one more thing that'll bore everyone to tears.

1:21:40The pain of owning a boat, anyone who owns one will know. We can't talk about the negative. I'm going to. The worst part of owning a boat is that when you're done driving it, you have to take the cover and put it back over so that the cabin's completely covered. And there's all these snaps and it never fits right. And it's like a fucking 15-minute ordeal every time you get off the boat. So then you get lazy and you go, I'm going back out in a couple hours. I'm not going to put the cover on. And then you don't put the cover on. And then the interior of the boat just gets destroyed and you're slowly destroying this boat.

1:22:10It's the big problem with owning the boat. Mine has an easy cover. Monica, it's a remote control. So when we're driving, I have two to three options. Bimini, I can have the front of the boat in shade, the back fully exposed to sun, if that's your jam. The back fully shaded in the front, open to sun, bathing. Or full open, so total shade. And then when I get back, I hit a button. The whole fucking top drops down and seals the whole top as if I put the cover on and snapped it with a button. Again, that didn't exist. Really privileged. It's so privileged. That is. And it didn't exist. Yeah. Five years ago.

1:22:52Exactly. I waited just long enough to get into this pontoon game. I think one of the best things in life is to have experts in your life. I mean, this is, I guess, what we've accumulated over the past seven years. It's part of the joy is you get experts in your life in different areas. So you always have some. I mean, you don't like asking for help, but I love asking for help. And I like asking the smartest, best, most knowledgeable person for help. Yeah. So it's just accumulating a mass of people who are the best. Saves you a lot of time. So much. In fact, last night, I reached out to someone, an expert, a medical expert.

1:23:33Oh. that we met here in this job for help with an important question. Perimenopause question? No. Okay. But I am going to text Mary Claire. Something did come up that I was like, ooh, I need to ask her about that. How receptive were they? Extremely. Ah. Nice. Okay, I guess I'll say it. I wonder if I should say it. Yeah. I think I can. So I was listening to, nobody's listening, right, Elizabeth and Andy. Elizabeth was telling a story about her taking her son to urgent care. The doctor comes in, and the description of the doctor is very unsettling. Okay. Extremely. Beard, eye patch, and a hook? I think would be better.

1:24:19Okay. I mean, I've been watching a lot of The Pit and ER. Yeah, and ER. You're pretty. I'm like, I know what's going on. Yes. He has a drug problem. Okay, sure. I really do think so. Oh, okay. He was like over his scrubs wearing this like puffy vest. It was all stained. Oh, fuck. And then he was wearing a mask. His mask was stained. Oh, Jesus. And then he was like incoherent. Okay. CTE. Probably. Yeah. So anyway, she is telling this story. And I was like, oh, my God. And so I texted her and I said, Elizabeth, you need to report him. Oh, report him. Yeah. That's probably right. I just think because she obviously has the ability to say, like, I'm going to get my kid out of here and I'm going to take him to another doctor.

1:25:06But a lot of people there don't. Yeah. And they're just going to have to take this doctor at face value. And so I text Elizabeth. I said, I really not to scare you, but I think you need to report this. I'm watching ER and like it's bad. Yeah. And also the pit. And Chicago Hope. Oh, my God. Something is so excited happened. I thought I was done with the pit. Like I thought it was over. And it's not. It's ongoing. Yes. Oh, my gosh. So then I got to watch another episode. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. I was so excited. Anyway, so I DM'd a old guest of ours and said, what do I do if, yeah, is there a way to report?

1:25:45He helped me. He gave me some resources. Oh, good. So I sent them to Elizabeth. We'll see. TBD. Speaking of ER. Yeah, you were. Continue. When you're the one speaking of it, you can just continue speaking of it. I wasn't speaking of it. It came up so naturally. What have I said? Speaking of pontoon boats. Okay, so speaking of ER. Guess who was on? I posted about this. Oh, Dr. Adam. Dr. Adam. Dr. Adam Scott. Dr. Adam Scott. He was a little patient in there. He was only in like the very beginning of the episode. Was he great, of course? Of course he's great. But he's so young. And I was staring and I was like, is that Adam?

1:26:28He had a neck brace on and he was being brought in. So it was kind of hard to tell. Yeah. And so I had to wait till the credits to double check and it was him. And they needed a freeze frame and a photo and a post. Of course. Yeah, naturally. He's a friend of the pod. I got to promote his episode of ER. Yeah. And in the episode before that, another friend of the pod, Bradley Whitford. Saddest episode of the top three saddest episodes of ER total. Okay. Ding, ding, ding. Bradley Whitford was on an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that they were watching yesterday. Oh! That show is way, way funnier than I had guessed it was.

1:27:07It's quite, quite, quite funny. It's a very good show. Mike Schur. He doesn't fuck up. No. Speaking of Mike Schur. Speaking of ER. Speaking of Mike Schur, I was watching ER last night. Have you guys seen the show Adolescence that's on Netflix? Oh, so it keeps getting recommended to me. Have you watched it? I've seen half of it. It's all oners also. Oh. It's one-hour oners. And isn't it like really intense? It's about a boy that, like 13-year-old boy that stabs a little girl. And it's his dad like dealing with it. Yes, I've heard. There's all these articles that say it's flawless. Okay, I'm going to do it.

1:27:50Maybe when I'm driving the bus home, I'll plow through the whole season. It seems a little intense to watch while you're driving. Four episodes only. Oh, it's only four episodes. Hour long. Okay. So that'll get me 280 miles. Why don't you just watch it tonight? Because I have to get in the car at 5 a.m. tomorrow to go to the airport. So I'm not going to watch anything tonight. Why don't you just try? Okay. I'll watch it tonight. Okay. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:28:27Okay. Okay. Let's get serious. Let's get serious. Seth Rogen. So serious. Yeah, she's so serious. I love Seth Rogen. Me too. Okay. Now, does history of violence have staircase sex? Yes. Top 10 movies that have stair sex. Oh, okay. Great. Now, I think it's worth us revisiting. you did bring up that you'd rather have sex on a unicycle than on the stairs. Absolutely. And not only would I rather, it's a personal goal. You want to. Once I thought of it. Yeah. I would love that. Yeah. Talk about a high wire act. I mean, the stakes would be so high. If everyone reached orgasm in that dynamic, I bet it would be explosive.

1:29:13Because you'd be scared you're going to fall and get a concussion. Okay, I just feel like you wouldn't be able to fully let yourself go. That's the challenge. Okay, yeah. History of violence. Close enough to touch. Never heard of it. A woman in the mirror. X deal. I know, I am worried. Some of these pornography. I'm worried about that, but I don't know. Spanish fly. Okay, let's talk about Spanish fly. Okay, teach us about Spanish fly because I didn't know what it was. You didn't know what Spanish fly was. And you taught me. And Spanish fly, and again, there's got to be very, very clear about this.

1:29:44This was not, this is an urban legend. Yeah, it's not real. All growing up, I knew about Spanish fly. And it wasn't a drug that would knock women out so you could rape them. Let's just be very clear. It was not. It's not roofie. This was a magic pill you would give girls that would make them super horny. Yeah. And they would find you irresistible. Yeah. It's more like a witchy thing. Yeah, yeah. Like a love spell. And probably still some deception. But anyways, that's a, yeah, that's a urban legend that there's a pill. And then the other one that I was always told growing up, most of my brother told me this, is that actors to prevent getting erections took saltpeter.

1:30:22And I don't know if saltpeter is real and it really does prevent you from getting an erection. Rob, will you do a perfunctory search of saltpeter? Tassium nitrate, component of gunpowder.

1:30:36Gunpowder? It's been used to prevent blowing of hard cheeses. prevented from what? Blowing up hard cheeses? Blowing up hard cheeses. It makes hard cheese soft. Let me search erections. Do saltpeter's erections. The belief that saltpeter can suppress erections is a myth. There's no scientific evidence. So good, I said it was the equivalent is saltpeter. This is like Marilyn Manson's ribs. Okay. But this is worth noting that we were doing an episode of Armchair Anonymous yesterday. And it had occurred to me that I had had sex in a stairwell. Exactly. And last time we fought, we fought about this because you thought it was crazy that I said, I think I would rather, I would definitely rather have sex on the stairs than a unicycle.

1:31:26And then you thought that was crazy. And then it turns out you've done it. Well, hold on. I don't think you would because you have to imagine how painful it is to have three thin points of contact on your body, so your own weight on these three very hard, tiny points of contact, then someone else's weight and thrusting on you. It would be insanely painful. I would expect the guy to kind of prop themselves up also on the stairs. So they're not slant. They're not like whole body weight is on mine. I think you'd be surprised at how good I am at lying on the stairs. I would be quite surprised because I don't know how you get around the fact that you have these three points of contact.

1:32:09Better, huge improvement. But anyway, someone said, well, I bet a lot of people have had sex in stairwells. And then I realized, oh, I had done that. Yeah. What a blessing. One of the real blessings of my life. No, don't say that. Yes. No, don't say that. You have children. One of, not the blessing of my life. One of how many? I've had hundreds of blessings in my life. And this is one of them. Okay. I was gambling in Las Vegas at the Luxor Casino in my 20s. And I met a very attractive woman from Australia. Oh, my God. Yes. And after a couple hours of flirting and drinking at the blackjack table, we excused ourselves.

1:32:57Her, her. Request. Her request. Spanish fly? Led me. Did you? No. Are you sure? Saltpeter. Wow. Led me to the staircase at the Luxor, the stairwell, which is a very weird staircase because it's diagonal. That's right. Diagon alley. Diagon alley. Diagon alley. It is a pyramid shape. Yes. So the staircase is going up like an MC Escher situation. But again, that was not on the stairs. That was like more leaning over one of the railings. Listen, what if you had taken saltpeter and she had taken Spanish fly? That's a match made in hell. That's a bad match. That's the worst. That was me on coke, to be fully honest with you.

1:33:38Oh, God. Yeah. Everyone's horny and then I can't perform. That's so weird that then you loved that drug because you loved having sex. I told you that's when, I mean, there were numerous times where I had to acknowledge what a problem it had become. But yes, there was a moment where I was at a bar and I decided, I told the dude like, oh, get the guy and let's get an eight ball. And there was a girl there that liked me. And I was like, this is something. You would rather do that drug than have sex with this attractive person. And I previously that would have thought there was nothing I would want to do more than have sex with an attractive person.

1:34:16And you'd rather poop in the bed. Say what? you're just you're like grabbing you're grabbing from everywhere speaking of ER so no you did poop in the bed once that's not relevant to this conversation well you're on coke yes an excessive amount so that's my point anywho I'm glad for you that you had sex in the stairwell me too me too one of the blessings but there's blessings all around if you keep your eyes open I guess that's right If she remembers me and she's hearing this, thank you so much. What a great memory. No? No, yeah. I just had like a very prudish judgment. Oh, cool. What was it about?

1:35:00Just sex? No, it was just like, I don't think she's okay. Oh, my God, Monica. I know. I'm sorry you asked and I wanted to be honest. Blood shaming. No, I know. That's why. I'm glad you're owning it. I said it was a prudish judgment. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not necessarily true, but. You can imagine. What if you had killed her? What? What? I was a nice boy. You know. Right. I don't think murderers like that's not how it works with murderers. They're not like, you know what? I'm going to go gambling. If I meet someone who wants to fuck in the stairwell, I might murder them. I don't think that's how it works.

1:35:39No, that's not how it works. They're there knowing they're going to be charming and Ted Bundy. I don't even think murderers are gambling and having fun and getting drunk. No, they are to lure. They're in their grandma's underpants. No, not Ted Bundy. Like Brad Pitt said in Seven. Oh, yeah. Not Ted Bundy. He was hot and out and about. He was in a cast hanging out by cars, acting like he couldn't get his crutches or something. Whatever. He was still playing it. He was still luring. He was playing a victim and luring people. You don't think anyone's been lured? Please. That's what roofing, that's what a lot of roofing is at bars.

1:36:18What? Okay, we're talking about, no, we're talking, we're talking about killers. Yeah. And we're talking about roofing. Well, rapists. And we're talking about me playing blackjack in Vegas. No, I'm saying, okay, I'm saying that just because you're having fun in a bar and you're fun doesn't mean you're safe. Well, I was, though. I know, I'm not talking about you anymore, okay? Okay, okay. I'm not talking about you. Okay. You're just saying there could be someone drinking at the blackjack table who's a killer. Yeah, or a rapist. And then they're using that method to meet people that they'll kill.

1:36:53Or rape. Right. And they'll be on all the Vegas cameras with a ton of documentation. You're going to get in so much trouble for this. And a lot of documentation that they were talking to their victim. It'd be a really dumb serial killer to get their victims in a Vegas casino because it's so filmed. Okay. Well, I just. You want to be out in the woods in a parking lot with a cast on. No, a lot of. No. They act like they're going to hook up with someone and then they rape them or kill them. This is common. Okay. So my point is, I just don't know if she's still with us. I think she is. She was really a cool, smart.

1:37:31I'm sure she was. But you can imagine how neatly it filed into my whole thing about Anglos, right? Because the only other really time that that had happened in such an aggressive manner was when I was in 10th grade, the aforementioned snowboard trip story with my friend from Manchester. Right. That was in a stairwell, too? No, but it was an English gal. And now I had an Australian gal. I was like, something's going on with these gals. They're very assertive. Right, right, right. Yeah. It funneled nicely into my stereotype. Right. Okay. Oh, my God. The next movie is Impulse. Mm. The Thomas Crown Affair.

1:38:07Oh, there we go. That's my favorite. Serve the People, Misty, The Room. Okay, so I have heard of three of those 10 movies. Yeah, me too. Okay, existing record for a one-er. Several movies have been filmed to appear as if they are shot in one continuous uninterrupted take, including 1917, Birdman, Children of Men, Silent House. Okay, now, hold on. And I'm going to pull up another article here. Okay. Goodfellas. Yeah. That's three minutes. Feels so much longer. Yeah. Well, it was early. It was early days of Wunners. Creed, four minutes. Atonement, five and a half minutes. Children of Men, six minutes.

1:38:561917, eight minutes. Extraction, 12 minutes. Birdman, 15 minutes. Now we're talking. Gravity, 17 minutes. Ooh, we're climbing. Boiling Point, 92 minutes. Is Boiling Point a John Woo movie? Nope. It's Stephen Graham from Adolescence, isn't it? No. He's the lead in it. That's so sim. But a London restaurant. Oh, my God. I'm cutting that. I hope you said I'm cutting that. Too scared I'm cutting it. It's too much. Russian Ark, 96 minutes. Wow. They're so rewarding when you are directing one and everything goes right. Nothing really feels like that. Stunt, like when a stunt goes right, that's a really, like the hardest I've ever celebrated was in chips.

1:39:49When my friend drove a Humvee through a motorhome and drove it right through the center of it and broke it in half and made it through the other side at full speed as explosions were going off. I was on the 6th Street Bridge and I screamed with elation like you can't imagine. That's really fun. Highlight of another blessing of my life. There's a lot of stunt people in your movie. Yeah. And Chips? Yeah. Oh, yeah, the whole fucking movie. There's like a hundred people listening. Stunts. So many stunts. I'm listed as a stunt performer for Michael Peña. That's, you did brown face? I did all the driving in his getaway car scene.

1:40:31That's appropriation. I didn't do brown face. I just went to a tanning, spray tanning, and went too far. Okay, that's it for Seth. We love Seth. Oh, God, we love him. I can't wait for number four. Me too. Bye. Bye. Love you.

1:41:01Thank you.