The Price of Obsession Nobody Talks About - Zach Braff - #1107

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35:14Normally, this level of testing would usually cost thousands, but with Function, it's$365 a year. That's$1 a day to stop guessing with your health and start knowing. And right now, you can get$25 off bringing it down to 340 bucks. So get the exact same blood panels that I do and save$25 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom using the code modern wisdom at checkout. I think ultimately what I was thinking about was what is the outcome that that achieves, right? Because we're talking about process. It's a degree of detail focus, orientation, hypervigilance, bias toward seeing problems potentially before they've even...

36:00Yeah, we are playing... You know, anxiety is all about uncertainty. I'm uncertain about how the future might unfold. So if I can think about all of the different ways that it might unfold, I will know all of the different potential catastrophes. You're not usually anxious about all of the ways it might go right. Anxious about all of the ways that it might go wrong. But as a filmmaker who can't fall asleep at night, staring at the ceiling, obsessing about the big scene you have tomorrow, it's not healthy for mind and body, but it is helpful in that I've probably foreseen everything that could possibly go wrong.

36:34Yep. Yep. So you're prepared. And I've got texts going out at two in the morning being like, did you guys da-da-da-da-dee-da-da-da-da? And, you know, everyone's asleep, but I'm starting going like, you did order the blee-ba-blop, right? You know, like. Yeah. I mean, it's the same for me. It's the same for me with this show. That noticing Dr. Jordan B. Peterson should have a full stop after the B. And I just want to make sure that it's okay. And did we check that we got the release form that signed for the thing that's going to get the thing? So what I'm thinking is, lots of people who have that malady strength end up in situations where they, they can be very successful.

37:18So my favorite example of this is to a degree, Eddie Hall. So he's world's strongest man, 2017, 2018, British dude, six foot three. By the time that he won, it's on the winner's podium and he puts this trophy in the air and he says, Nana, this one's for you. His grandma died recently and he sort of won this title and he retires there. His first title and he retires, although he's worked his life to get there. He says, if I hadn't retired at that point, I would be dead, divorced with no relationship to my kids. He was 400 pounds, at six foot three on so many peds that his blood pressure was so far off the charts that we forget hypertension this was like galactic tension and he was working so hard with his training that him and his wife the relationship was just completely short uh and his kid didn't see him so everything was falling apart and i think about that and i go well the level of obsession and attention to detail that led him to be the best in the world also had these side effects that came along with it, physiological ones that were second order side effects, but the first order side effects of just not paying that much attention to my wife, not paying that much attention to my child, not nurturing my relationships, not thinking about the peace inside of my own brain.

38:29And as far as I can see, the people that are really successful at lots of things, not everything, but at lots of things are paying an unreasonable level of attention to detail. that is where the i'm trying to net down what is the what's the like corn that's being grown out of this thing for you across your career it's like an unreasonable level of attention to detail sounds like that in my own performance and what's going to go on and what might happen tomorrow and what did happen today and the lesson i need to learn and why is that why are you why have we decided because i don't understand why you brought that fill light oh it's for the bounce off the wall right why why why why why why why and yeah that unreasonable level of attention to detail has allowed you to do all these great things yes and when people look at the outcome that they want i would love to be on a show that gets run for gazillion guerrillion seasons and it lasts for nine years and then comes back and it gets to do the thing i would like to i would i would go okay this stuff does come along for the ride too yeah you are also going to not only in the professional life, be awake at two in the morning texting people about the fucking phone shot from yesterday.

39:38But then it's also going to bleed over into your personal life as well. You know, you can't switch it off. You can't say, oh, I want you to be obsessive and ruminative in this domain and not, what, my relationships? No, no, no, no. That's a totally different, I should be a different person. I should, Jekyll and Hyde, Batman and Bruce Wayne. I'm kind of fascinated by that sphere of question, the price that people pay in order to have the strengths that they've got i don't know how people do do this with big families uh i don't know how they do it um uh i don't have a family i don't have children i don't have a currently even have a partner uh i uh you know i i we when you're doing what i do you often will have to go away for long periods of time.

40:30So I, I would love to have that stuff, but that's probably, for me personally, other people are very good at managing it and figuring it out. Obviously in Hollywood, there's plenty of people with wives and husbands and families. I have yet to have that happen. So I think personally for me, one of the costs has been just obsessively being career focused. And I, it being the most important thing to me, the thing I love the most, the thing I get the most gratification out of is creating. And I think that the cost has probably been watering the seeds of having a family and a relationship. How much of that's been a conscious choice?

41:18I know that I'm going to pay this price potentially and I'm going to continue to focus on the career thing. No, it's not been a conscious choice. It's just been, you know, I do think I, if I'd put the level of attention and intention and focus into having a relationship and a family that I put into my career, I'd have a different life. Not a kingdom. Well, I just have a different life. I'd be like Jacob in the Bible. But I have, I think it's safe to say I just kind of went all in on, I mean, I've had some wonderful relationships, but I have been through for the last 25 years completely career focused.

42:06And when I'm not making something, I'm writing something, or when I'm not writing something, I'm trying to collaborate with someone. I am the most happy when I'm making stuff. So when I'm not, I don't idle well. I don't sit on a beach and just stare at the ocean well. Maybe for like a week. Yeah. I think about people talk about developing a good work ethic, but very rarely do people talk about developing a good rest ethic. I would like that. If you got that book, I'll read it. I'm afraid not. I mean, look, dude, this is part of my neuroses, but I go, I actually get anxious when I know I'm going to have a long time off.

42:55Yeah. Does work feel like safety to you? I just feel like I'm most myself, I'm most in my element when I'm collaborating and creating. and uh and when i'm not i um i don't feel fully fulfilled uh even when i'm writing my own stuff which is spending a lot of time alone with the computer i'm not i don't enjoy it i'm not the collaboration there's no collaboration it's lonesome it's depressing because some days i'm sure you write you know some days you're just like i suck yeah i suck i had and the next day you read it and you're like actually that's not i had a better night's sleep i um i remember this this comment when I first started doing live stuff.

43:35I just finished this live tour around Australia and New Zealand and Bali, and it was so sick. And when I first started doing live three years ago, someone commented with a piece of advice, and they said, when I'm on stage, I always have two voices that are equally loud in my head. One makes me Apollo, and the other makes me Sisyphus. One says, you're amazing, and you can keep going. And the other says, you suck, you should quit immediately. And I just think it's so funny that when you have different elements of the same performance, right? In order to say a thing, you need to write the thing first, unless you're going to ad lib it.

44:12And that means that some days you sit down to write and you're like, I fucking blow as a writer. And other days you sit down to write and you're like, I'm great as a writer, but at each different juncture, someone that tends to be a little bit more self-critical, someone that's got this predisposition toward hypervigilance, gonna be like that could be better it could always be better yeah and that tends itself toward a kind of ingratitude like micro in ungratefulness each different time because you can always see i mean i love that shot of the phone it was great but oh if we just had another half hour if we we've been able to get that next 120d in and we've just been able to you know adapt it a little bit more and um but this is what pushes somebody to be unreasonably detail-oriented and to get to a level of quality that is so beyond.

44:58And the market and status and money and acclaim, by design, there can only be one winner at an awards ceremony. There can only be one best anything, right, at a time. The market rewards someone that is going to continue to push and push and push. I don't know how people enter this business without having the mentality that they're going to go all in at it. Because what I tell young people who I see starting out is like, okay, but make sure you're going to go 100 % of what you have because in this town, every single person around you, not every single person, there's hundreds of thousands of people here that are going to work really, really, really hard.

45:39And they're going to have you a lunch if you don't. Absolutely. If you're going to audition and you don't have it memorized and you didn't work on it as hard as you possibly could and work with your friends or work with a coach or in this case, there's so much self-taping, get a good lighting setup and a good camera and a nice backdrop and you're just phoning it in. Do you know how many fucking people are going all out for that same part? It's basically pointless. You are wasting everyone's time, especially yours. It's crazy when you come across people that are trying. I mean, I only know this profession, but it's crazy when you come across people that are doing it half-assed.

46:18It's like, what are you? There's just, you're going to get blown out of the water. It was very much a winner-takes-all thing where only one person can play the role. Right. Only one person can be this particular, the fucking AC, right, that's on set. There's only one, maybe there's not, actually, but there's only one number one AC, right? Well, three cameras, three. Okay, you know what I mean, you know what I mean. There's only one A camera for its AC. There we go, thank you. Yeah, you can continue to go up the stack. Typically, there's only one person for each big thing, right? And you go, well, if that means that I'm not prepared to go all in on that one, or think about it in a personal standpoint, you're going to go out dating.

46:57That person, unless you go polyamory, that person is only going to be in a relationship with one person. And if you are not showing up in the best possible way, being attentive, thinking about them, replying in an orderly manner, doing stuff, being thoughtful. somebody that's just a bit more thoughtful or a bit more chill like even the thoughtfulness of like i probably text them a bit much today like i should i can chill out for a little bit the hormones are good fucking neurochemicals are kicking it um you will be beaten yeah right there will be somebody that's prepared to be more thoughtful so whatever the optimal strategy is with regards to effort if you're not prepared to give it everything the person that will just gets out ahead and that means that you've lost absolutely absolutely and this is um a career path that uh is all so much luck but i often think of it as like it's all a complete lottery i think if you're really really preposterously good looking you have a lot of lottery tickets and if you're a really fucking talented actor you have a lot of lottery tickets If you're both, you have a shit ton of lottery tickets.

48:09But it's still a complete lottery. Because I know plenty of people that are wonderful actors and you don't know who they are. And plenty of people that are beautiful and good actors and you don't know who they are. It's a very, very challenging career. I'm very, very present to being lucky. Yeah. How many people have you seen across your career that you just, you can't believe that they never made it? Plenty. Wow. plenty i can i i can i um i have a couple people that come right to my mind uh who i'm like why have why has their number not come up yet that person is gorgeous and has blue eyes and is one of the best actors i know um you know they might get work here and there but they're not a household name they're not they're not a lead on a show um just go watch new york theater i mean you'll see some of the best acting and in london of course you'll see some of the best acting you'll ever see in your lifetime and some of those people don't can't or have yet to convert that to uh to tv or film did you know your gut controls your energy your recovery how well you absorb everything that you eat and the one nutrient that keeps it all running properly is fiber well it turns out that 95 % of Americans don't get enough of it, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Momentus' Fiber Plus.

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50:15How do you think people should reckon with the... Because that's a kind of uncertainty that's almost outside of your control, right? That you can't make somebody give you a chance at something. You can stack the deck in your favor as much as possible, but I can understand why people become bitter or jaded or resentful. Absolutely. If you're giving 100 % and you're still not, of course you're going to get jaded. No one owes you anything here. And I have to remind myself that too when I don't get stuff. I still read for things when it's competitive and I want it.

50:54I auditioned for something that had a huge monologue. It was like a two-page monologue. And just like I'm saying, because I look at a lot of audition tapes from the other side of the table, if I'm not, you know how many people are going to memorize the shit out of this monologue and crush it? Why am I even going to waste the time if you're not going to do it? So for like a week, I worked on memorizing this monologue. I was walking the dog, walking on the monologue. I was fucking doing the dishes, looking over at the monologue. And I went in there, I bladed tape down, and I crushed it. I was so proud of it.

51:24Didn't even get a call back. didn't even, didn't even get a, hey, good job. Fuck you, dude. And, uh, show came out and I saw the guy do it and I went, I was so much fucking better than that. In my egotistical mind. But, um, but, you know, I didn't, I didn't get it, but I fucking brought it. I brought a hundred percent. Um, that doesn't mean you're going to get everything. Um, they didn't, they didn't want me. They wanted him. Yeah. I wonder whether this is one of the reasons that people have such a, this is interesting i think the number one desired job of young kids is youtuber and number two is influencer oh god is that true horrendous yeah um kids if you're out there you don't want this smoke i'm telling you this sheer amount of screen time alone will kill you um i wonder whether one of the reasons that people like that i'm aware kids don't necessarily know what they're getting themselves in for one of the reasons that maybe older people might like the idea of it is that there's kind of no rejection in the world of, you can become not popular, but no one's telling you that you don't get to do the thing.

52:32You mean as a YouTuber influencer? Yeah, yeah. If you're creating just a solopreneur or a small unit and you're the guy that's in front of the camera or whatever, like, it's your thing. You can do it as much as you can. You can send an unlimited number of two-page monologues and put them on the internet. And you are the star, even if that wouldn't have been picked up by somebody else and no one, it's a permissionless world. That's interesting. there's clearly people weighing in on whether it works or not by how many views it's getting after a certain amount of time. But that's a sort of a soft rejection.

53:07Correct. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what I'm thinking. It's so interesting because we didn't have that growing up as a thing. It wasn't a position. Well, think about some people on YouTube now are even doing sketch shows, full productions Shane Gillis, Gillian Keeves this thing before he's now doing tires that was him just fucking about there's a much smaller tighter thing absolutely and I think there's a lot of people making a great living being whatever their niche YouTube thing is I go down the rabbit hole on these people and I've got some people that I just love to watch and I'm not even like, I've been going down the rabbit hole on like these RVs.

53:56Like van life people? Yeah. Recreational vehicle people that are giving tours of their vans. It's not a life I would ever lead, although I'd love to go camping in an RV. I would never, I don't want to live full-time in an RV, but I'm fascinated by these, the algorithm has been sending me these people giving tours of their RVs. I love it. What have I been looking at recently? There's a guy that plays a role-playing

54:221800s British war game, like a third-person shooter war game, online thing, but he dresses in a full kind of colonial-era British soldier outfit in his house while he's doing it, and he's got a monocle on, and he's got a huge fucking trumpet, and as he's doing the live streaming, he blows the trumpet. He's like, come on, boys, don't need to be shy. Let's get them. And he blows this. I don't know what his neighbors think the fuck is going on. So, like, I got into him. What else have I been getting into? You know what I'm really into now? What? They have these fucking videos of, like, the greatest hits of when detectives get people in the room.

55:06Oh, yes, yes. To finally admit that they did it. Psychopath finally realizes that he's not, that the detective knows what's going on or whatever. Or, like, guy who murdered all these people finally comes clean. And the detective, like, and if someone's cut the video, they've got a narrator like now, Detective Dunmansom will finally confront him with the, and you see their techniques because, you know, they have the camera up in the ceiling and all these things where they little by little, they move in tighter and tighter to the guy. That's one of the techniques I've learned. You know, they get closer and closer.

55:36And, you know, they do good cop, bad cop. They bring in, they switch into a woman, like all these techniques. And, you know, if you watched it for hours, it'd be so boring. But they've edited it down are like the most insane. It's like fucking Red Zone. It's like Strike Zone or whatever it's called in American football. It's American football when the football's live on a Saturday. It's only games that are in the final 10 yards. Oh, yes. And it just cuts between that. It's a highlight reel of the interrogation sequence. This is that for interrogation. But they cut like a specific case down to the last, like 30, well, the story of the progression of I didn't do it to okay, I did it to 30 minutes.

56:14Yep. And it's fascinating. Oh, man, the algorithm knows I like that. I do want to do something with that, just creatively. I've been talking to a director about, I'm really interested. I love the adolescence that show with the oners and everything. I love that show because I thought it was so brilliant, even outside of the incredible craftsmanship of making it as a oner. but I really am interested in that world of the detective work and the performance of getting someone who's done something horrific to finally admit it. I think that's so interesting. I would be very interested. I can't think, I was trying to think in my mind of a TV show where the detective's personal cost of hypervigilance has been played out recently.

57:09and I can't quite think of one. The reason that comes to mind, I had a conversation with a guy called Amir Levine and he wrote the book Attached, kind of broke attachment theory into the world. I think it's the best-selling attachment book and he's just written a new one called Secure, which is a revisitation and evolution on the previous one. One of the studies that he taught me about was they bring people into a lab who have had their attachment styles assessed in advance and there's some anxious people in the room, there's some avoidant people in the room, there's some secure people in the room.

57:43And partway through the conversation, might be one of those ones where they don't know whether it started or not yet, they might be in the waiting room or whatever. And a computer that's in this office or whatever that they're sat in, computer over the far side, just gently starts wafting smoke out of it as if there's some sort of computer fire that's about to occur. And he said that the anxious people are the first ones to notice but the avoidant people are the first ones out the door. And what he was thinking about, because he spent all of this time talking about what this is, what it's like to be an avoidant or a dismissive avoidant or an anxious person or a secure person.

58:22And much of what you're talking about, unless you're talking about secure attachment, is here are the problems. Here are the challenges that you need to face. Here is how to overcome them. He's like, well, what about the advantages? Because they have to be advantages because this has been selected for, right? Evolutionarily, this has been selected for. So you have a degree of hypervigilance in the anxious people that's allowed them to pay attention to something that everybody else might not have noticed. The avoidant people are much quicker to make a decision. Oh, should we leave? Is it going to upset someone?

58:52The avoidant person's like just Wile E. Coyote down the door. And what that led him to explain to me was if you were someone that's an EMT or if you were a SWAT guy, people who are avoidantly attached are able to partition off part of their brain. Like, I don't need those emotions right now. I don't need you, rumination. I don't need you, worry. I don't need you, whatever. I got a job to do or I just don't want to engage. and the ability to, I just don't want to engage, also means that there's a person bleeding on the side of the street and I just need to do my job. I need to be a professional here.

59:30That's the avoidant person? Correct. Wow. Yes, their ability to partition off little bits, but they wouldn't pay the same level of attention. So if you were to cast, let's say, a cop show in this manner, you would expect most of the guys that are the kinetic door kickers to be avoidantly attached. And you would expect most of the detectives that are paying an awful lot of attention to be anxiously attached. Because they're going to be... Interesting, I noticed that the killer's shoe was untied on one side. I wonder what the... That's how he choked her, whatever the fuck. Like, that... And what would be fascinating to me would be looking at somebody from the role of a detective who has this unbelievable...

1:00:13I mean, you've seen this with Sherlock Holmes to a degree, Benedict Cumberbatch's replaying of that. Kind of, he is this unreasonably attention-to-detail guy in his professional life that can't switch it off in his private life yeah but i think seeing what you are praised for in public you pay for in private how could that show up inside of a crime detective thing i think would be really cool you've got something that's so pro-social and lauded bringing baddies to to heal and you know catching the catching the crims yeah But then also you've got what's the same talent causing on the other side and how is this person paying for it?

1:00:53That'd be fun. That's interesting. You know, you see aspects of the detective work in the interrogation room in almost every detective cop show or movie. But I'm curious, I mean, this is just a side note, something I'm curious about to develop for some project in the future is really focusing on all these techniques they are employing. Sometimes they're bad techniques that they shouldn't be doing. They're manipulative and they get false confessions and all that kind of stuff. But I haven't seen anything that's really focused on their different strategies. That'd be fun. I think it's interesting.

1:01:35What are some of the coolest strategies that come to mind? Because I remember seeing these. One thing I just watched recently where this guy wasn't even speaking and he was just silent. and they these two guys were being aggressive and they were like we know we know we know we know what you did we got and they did have a lot of evidence that it was him they just needed him to say it and

1:02:00they they said let's give the female detective a try and she came in and she went 180 degrees different she was like are you cold sweetheart let me get you let me get you a blanket she got him a blanket she goes are you hungry and he kind of nodded and she got him food and she kind of just sat next to him and little by little he started opening up to her and it was you know that's a that's a subtle thing but uh you know there and then if and then he eventually um confessed and uh it was all of all them strategizing for how to get him to i don't know i just think that that the all the stuff those guys and gals are taught and then employed is really interesting to me.

1:02:46That would be fascinating. One thing that they all do without fail is move closer and closer and closer as the person is getting closer to confessing. They move their physical position. Do they say why? I think it's just like intimacy and closeness and I don't know, that's what's been studied to work on people maybe create a sense of uh inescapableness too that as this person is opening up a bit more they're they're backed into a corner they're backed into a corner i'm sure i don't really not fully know the psychology of it but you would have a three consultants criminology oh i would fully research it but it would be fucking sick like because now you know all of this stuff which would just be fun to know yeah but you can employ it in your real life where were you last night negotiate a cheaper espresso over the the counter because you got in close and tried to touch someone on the arm twice yeah yeah you saw adolescence right i did so that third episode with the with the cycle ladies circling in the yeah yeah i mean that was just that's an example where it was done just brilliantly uh of her being she's she's not a detective she's a psychologist i believe and uh but their dynamic uh and the kid is such extraordinary they're both extraordinary actors but that was an example of a fictional account of why i thought that was so brilliant just it's all dialogue all brilliant acting just focused on uh peeling away the layers i'd love to see something like that uh more of something i'm personally interested in something like that fuck what was that thing with kit harrington in it uh the first episode it was on netflix and then they did a french version and um the whole thing is set inside of one of these So there's been something like this made.

1:04:32Well, tell me, because I'll watch it tonight. Dude, it fucking rules. Kit Harington, Detective Confession Series. Let's see if I can get it. A fucking criminal. It's called Criminal. It's on Netflix. Thank you. And there's two seasons now. And it's... One ticket sold. Dude, it fucking rules. So the whole thing is set. I don't think they ever leave the floor that this is on. They sometimes go outside for a shit coffee and then come back in. But yeah, that was really, really cool. I'm interested in what you think about the network TV is supposed to be dead thing. Yeah. Scrubs revival pulls in like 11 million people within the first five days.

1:05:21Yeah, they were wrong. What do you think that says about where audiences really are? I do think they are still, you know, there's a lot of metrics now for television, both broadcast and streaming. The first is the live viewing. That means you watched it when it was live. Then they're very interested in what the live viewing plus three days was, how many people DVR'd it. Either DVR'd it and watched it within three days or it was on the streaming platform and they watched it within three days. And then the next metric they're most interested in is plus seven days. How many people streamed it or watched the DVR they did of it within seven days.

1:06:03So all of those numbers are very important to the modern day streamers and networks. The numbers of people watching broadcast are completely a tiny fraction of what they were back when Scrubs was on television. And, you know, shows like Friends were getting numbers like you can't believe. Um, um, I mean, I, I, I, I don't have the stats in front of me, but like the MASH finale, uh, was like the, uh, you know, a, a large percentage of earth was watching it, you know? Yeah. Um, that's just gone in terms of a live thing other than the Superbowl, you know, and I'm sure certain soccer, uh, games. Yep.

1:06:47Um, it's just not a thing anymore. Olympics opening ceremony. Whatever they are. We all know what they are. They're, they're usually sports. Um. the final thing. But the numbers still are there on broadcast TV for certain shows. People do want to not survive. Survivor's huge. You know, there are comedies, you know, like Scrubs and Abbott, for example, that are doing really meaningful numbers. because people do still watch broadcasts. There are plenty of people that, they skew older. Obviously, a younger demographic is going to stream. They don't know broadcasts. They didn't grow up with it. I wouldn't be able to watch it.

1:07:39I don't think I have a device in my house that would be able to access live TV. Well, you could really put rabbit ears on your TV. And go old school. Yeah. But the crazy thing about broadcasts is it's in the air. It's free. Snag it. Yeah, here's the cold open. No, it's being broadcast to antennas that you could just put an antenna to your TV. Stay there. And there's plenty of people, believe it or not, that still are watching the broadcast channels only. They don't have, of course, an older audience. But all of those pockets of the pie, all of those slices of the pie are meaningful and important.

1:08:21So there's the broadcast slice, And then there's the, then there's the streaming plus three plus seven. Those are, those are all people we want to, uh, to watch the show. A funny, interesting that's happened thing. An interesting thing is, fuck, take three. An interesting thing that's happened is that a giant, really meaningful number of people went, oh shit, I never watched this show and went back and started the series. Oh, cool. and and uh that's really cool because although it's going to be a minute before their numbers affect the new show because they're gonna have eight and a half long they got eight and a half seasons to watch yeah it's a big run but um but that's really cool too because plenty of people said to themselves oh i'm interested in this but i never watched it so i should probably start at the beginning um so that's been cool too because the one thing that's fun about the revival is if you're liking it and you're responding to it like it seems a lot of people are and you like these characters and you never watched the show well guess what there's eight years of how they became who they are uh which is which is it's basically a massive prequel but it wasn't this is the sequel but you've watched the sequel first so go back and watch the right which if you love it is so cool i would love that um it's kind of like you know house of dragons game of thrones that's exactly what i was thinking exactly what i was thinking if you're trying to go from joey chestnut to joey swole, the RP Strength app is the best place to start.

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1:11:10At all. You don't need to be. And they got me. Dude. They got everybody. I mean, I was at uni. No, I wasn't at uni, but I was still in Newcastle when it was happening. And the volume of extras that they needed with British accents in and around Ireland or able to access Ireland was so fucking high that basically anyone I knew with a beard was being tapped up. Were you? I wasn't a beardy man at the time, unfortunately um but we had we had a friend who had kind of long hair looked sort of warlocky and uh and he went and it was he an extra in one of the scenes for the things it's like we just need people that are in the fucking british isles to come and also it's cool because like they don't make tv on that scale that much um these days and as someone who loves production and loves uh filmmaking the scene i mean it became so fun to watch the behind the scenes after the show one of the best parts because it was like wow how did you do that and I loved that aspect of it too just to watch you know big big productions a movie being done once a week a movie being released once a week movie quality stuff and they remember what's the one the big battle where he's where Kit Harington surrounded we're really talking about a lot of Kit Harington today but where he's surrounded the battle of the bastards I think it was called or whatever yeah your guys are nodding that was just one of the most incredibly done episodes of television ever and and then then then you had the fun if you're into this stuff of watching how the fuck did they do that yeah yeah yeah it's uh one of my favorite things when that was coming out i would watch the episode and then there's a channel called emergency awesome and he does uh breakdowns of everything the guy's like been doing it for quite a while it's a huge channel and he would explain exactly what was going on in the episode and it kind of goes i found out that uh spoiler alert that Jon Snow as a Targaryen, like a full season before it happened on the show, because he'd realized, oh, this flashback is with fucking Ned Stark and this thing.

1:13:17So he's helping you get a context that you wouldn't necessarily be. He's like the Sherlock Holmes of watching series. Oh, he does it on a lot of shows? He does it for fucking all sorts. Yeah, pretty much every big series that's coming out. He seems to be of a fantasy sci-fi genre. um but one of the things that was fun there was he basically and i realized this with game of thrones in particular he was using the chekhov's gun thing as a real hack for what was going to happen in in future episodes so there was basically nothing that happened after season three especially season four in game of thrones that was superfluous nothing even though it was big and quite unwieldy there was never a pumpkin reference that was done that wouldn't pay off at some point in future and he would always be able to say i know it's going to happen next week this is what's going to go on because we've just seen this thing happen you might have noticed that they brought up that she wasn't talking much recently and that's because i was like this guy's it's better to watch it after than before i know i know but i got and i did kind of ruin the series for myself i did kind of ruin it but i got so much joy out of you know an hour hour and a bit of the episode then the 20 10 minute 20 minute of the behind the scenes then the next day i'd go and watch emergency awesome that would be another hour and i was like oh dude i'm getting like fucking triple my triple my money i don't watch trailers if i know i'm gonna go see a movie there's a lot that's revealed now yeah i i if i'm excited like i just went and saw the the ryan gosling movie uh uh project tell mary which i everyone was talking about i was excited and I thought to myself, I'm not even going to watch the trailer because I want to go have a great experience.

1:14:56Not know what to expect. I mean, I know it's an astronaut movie. I don't want to know anything else. And that's how I am with most, when I know I'm going to go to the theater, I don't watch the trailer. That's fun. I once got, Neely got ejected from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. So me, this is February 2022 in Manhattan. and I went with Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, Michaela Peterson, Tammy Peterson, a couple of their friends and it was when COVID masks were still mandatory. And we were all sat in a line. I'd moved to America two days before. So I was still, I guess, it's crazy. It's so big, all of the people are crazy.

1:15:42Some of them are fat, some of them are beautiful. It's crazy. And then we got to downtown Manhattan. We go to the show and everyone's supposed to have masks on. But you're allowed to, you can move the mask to one side if you're taking a drink. And obviously everyone's having refreshments, doing stuff like that. And maybe somebody had taken, there was a chagrin at the fact that Jordan and Douglas, who were right-coded, were at this theater or something like that with the manageress and the staff or something. Somebody was scrutinizing the amount of time that it was taking Tammy to pull her mask down to take a sip of water to then put the mask back up and had come over and mentioned, or maybe she'd taken it off and taken a drink or whatever, come over and brought that up during the show.

1:16:30And then I don't think the response had been super cordial, though it had been like, okay, whatever you say. And then it happened again. And then someone stood at the end of our row and basically was sort of like on mask watch, watching them. And I could hear, I was sat next to Douglas, and I could hear Douglas doing breathing exercises, trying to keep himself calm. And he's going, oh, my anxiety is creeping up because of the thought of watching a play like that. Well, I'm watching this while you're watching me. Anyway, the interval, the halftime interval, I walked out and I was like, I can't wait to watch this.

1:17:04So sure enough, I go through and I see Jordan and Douglas talking to the manager lady, venue manager. And I hear Jordan doing, So what do you mean by mask? Exactly. And what do you mean by sip? Exactly. and uh sure enough this lady was really really pushing the limit uh of this and we um i think we we were able to stay i think we stayed until the end but in a disgruntled way and that was i was like i've been in i've been in america for three days and this place is like it's just so much more um people are so much more prepared to call out the things that they don't want on both sides you know in the uk the manager s would have apologized and the person that had done it would have a part they would have both apologized to each other at the same time everyone was so on edge you know Yeah, that was an interesting one.

1:17:52Unreal, man. I'm really happy for you. It's cool to see someone go full circle and really love what they do. You're awesome. Thank you. I really love your show and I love when I catch lots of inspiring advice from your Instagram clips. So I really appreciate what you do. Heck yeah. I appreciate you, man. Good luck. Let's keep in touch. Yeah. Appreciate you. Goodbye, everyone. I get asked all the time for book suggestions People want to get into reading fiction or nonfiction or real-life stories. And that's why I made a list of 100 of the most interesting and impactful books that I've ever read.

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