How to Be a Great Collaborator in Any Industry | GaryVee x Neil Patrick Harris Q&A

0:00Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Gary V Audio Experience. Today's episode comes from a special ad hoc event exclusively for the holders of the Hangout Hawk NFT. In this private session, Gary is joined by none other than the Neil Patrick Harris, actor, magician, entrepreneur, and creative powerhouse. What makes this one unique is that it wasn't just a conversation. Neil answered direct questions from the Hangout Hawk holders, diving into topics like creativity, risk-taking, personal growth, and career reinvention. While the backdrop for this podcast episode is about entertainment and performance, the insights apply directly to anyone building something, a business, a brand, or a body of work.

0:38Mule shares how he stayed relevant for decades, why curiosity fuels innovation, and how authenticity is the real edge in today's noisy world. If you're an entrepreneur, creator, or operator looking to stand out, this one's going to be legend, wait for it, dairy. Let's get right into it. What's up, buddy? I'm okay. you are in a small group of these packs fudge fuck i can say fuck in it oh my god you know you can't imagine how much you can say fuck here i know right that's you fuck here is like the that's the same that's like the same general fuck here is like oh my god all right uh hawks so a small group of very serious collectors of be friends of a specific nft have the access here we have a very small group all i want yes all i want is i have been such a fan of yours for so long now we know each other personally truth you are truly one of my favorite people that walks the face of earth and i mean that i'll tell you why actually i love people that are very locked in when so i got to see a recent play of yours and you just got, you know, you did the play, then you did the nice thing for the crowd and then we got to talk for a few minutes after.

1:55And you were still coming out of the trance of being locked in. True. Well, yeah, the play was called Shit Meat Fan and it was an aggressive play about couples who have made, they're having a dinner party and they decide, oh, let's play a fun game since we all claim that we trust each other and we have no secrets. my wife she says we'll all put our phones face up on the coffee table and any text any phone call is public and everyone has to hear it and if we're as trustworthy as we think all should be fine and all is not fine the fuck all hell breaks loose and all secrets are out it was like a really chaotic show and it was pretty aggressive emotionally to do just because you're having to be authentic.

2:52It wasn't a comedy. It wasn't... Well, it was funny because in a lot of aspects, but it wasn't meant to be like farce. No. And so every single show, it got dark. It dealt with racist stuff. It dealt with homophobic stuff. It dealt with sex stuff. It was unbelievable. And everyone's secrets came out. And so then when the show was over, it was sort of, it was hard to shake off. So I saw you and it was, that was a great show. Actually, people were nice. And we did a talk back after. It was unbelievable. What I, what I most noticed was I know when I'm in the zone and I know what a certain zone looks like.

3:33We have a sports agency, athletes at the highest level. All I will say is you are so of your craft and you're so uncomfortably fucking good. And you have so many fucking dimensions to your game. And it's super cool. And one of the things with BeFriends that matters to me a lot is creativity. We have a character called the Creative Crab. And the Creative Crab and the Curious Crane are two of my favorite, oh actually, Courtney's hoodie, right there in the middle. Creative Crab. So I would actually, A, I'm going to ask you a question but then mainly I want to get out of the way and allow people in the community to ask you questions around creativity, around curiosity, around magic.

4:16you're one of the great connoisseurs of magic creativity is a big word for me as well you know we've never really we usually hang out in a personal set we haven't really got to chop up about that so go there that's actually where I want to go and then Jeremy right after that let's see who wants to come up talk to me about talk to me about creativity I just find it really important I think the two tenets that I hold most important in my whole life are two words, creativity and authenticity. Those are just really key for me. And I sort of found my way to those two core things. And when I am able to exist in a world, in a business world where those two things can intersect, chef's kiss, right?

5:05Right, so your favorite projects that you've ever had, those two elements are at the forefront. Right, and authenticity doesn't have to mean earnest, you know just truthful authentic it just has to be that it's real it's what i admire about you and what i think everyone everyone does is your authenticity is what makes you people draw themselves to you because if people can i can smell agenda and i think a lot of people exist assuming that there's another side to what's happening yes when we first met you were so nice immediately said, like, let's go have drinks. We sat down. You were so nice. It was really hard to not think, okay, at the end of this, this drink that we're having, you're going to pitch me something or you have some plan or something.

5:58And you were just wanted to hang out like you really did. And, and, and I was to a different place that goes to, I think I got lucky that that happened because I don't need anything from anyone emotionally or financially. Heard. And long before I had anything. Heard. Because I had the emotional part. I just genuinely like having relationships and so thank you for that. And by the way, I felt that way about you. And I'm, you know, I met you at a time where I'm now on the other side of that at scale. Yeah. You know? Heard. You know? I just love all that. Even if it's a magic trick or if you're seeing a show on stage, actually live shows, authenticity and creativity come together really radically because you can see when someone is performing and they're and they're faking it you know and they do the same big performance regardless of the reaction and so i think it's better when you're watching someone on stage especially when you can like bore into them they're not speaking for 15 minutes but you can still stare at them it's not like a movie where the editor has chosen who to play and so you know there's some there's value in authenticity and creativity just fuck i'm 51 years old right and i don't i don't i don't feel old and i think having a creative spark is ageless and i'm just so enamored by people that continue to add skill sets to their to their life resume whether it be like i'm gonna learn how to swing on a trapeze like you can do that why why not do stuff like that i find that creative you I grew up in a business that actually, that's real.

7:39That there are, what's really cool is unlike sports, a 60, 70, 80, 90 year old actor can add to their repertoire. She or he can do things like that. You know, I promised to bring it to the community, but now I'm too excited already. I want to just ask you this. Which actor, and again, you started so damn young. So you have a lot to probably choose from. which actor at what time did you see do something like take a risk or do something completely different and you were at an age where you're like holy shit this 74 year old icon did this i'm only 29 31 50 42 whatever whatever you're about to answer that gave you like incredible hope and excitement because you knew you were going to be able to do this for a long time was there ever a moment like that or as you're thinking it through who who touched on this energy a 68 year old this or a 74 year old this i mean dick van dyke for me oh my god that's a great is that a good one that's a super fucking blew me away just keep watching it like i was like this motherfucker is doing new shit at 84 then 87 i was like this is and it inspires the living shit out of me it's a perfect dancer because he also has done like dramatic work but he's he's a song and dance man and and he just keeps on going doing great work i question i question whether it's better as an actor to find your lane and to stay in it or whether it's better to continue to pivot can you have both can't one of the things that works for me as an entrepreneur is i view that as like 80 20 20 i'm going to stay in my lane 80 but if i am not flirting little different dessert a little different appetizer i'm going to eat steak i do steak but you know what i might order a different appetizer and i might try to like just a you know yeah uh i think hollywood's scary in that that could fuck you up because the machine's like oh you know like i think but i think with the way the world's now working with distribution i think there's a little more room for that creativity For sure.

9:50I mean, fuck, man. I've done all kinds of different parts. So I'm voracious in trying new notches on my belt. But sometimes I'm thinking, wow, I would love to be in a big giant Marvel movie, right? Yes. But I recognize - And by the way, people knew how in shape you were. You're ready to do it now. I don't fit. You are fucking fit, bro. But I can't fit it in my mouth. And I keep trying. You're fucking that's the dream. No, it's not. I keep I would love to be in one of those films, but I'm recognized that who I am and like the different shit that I've done hosting and and like. How I Met Your Mother, but also Gone Girl, I like pivoted enough that I sometimes think, oh, if I was casting this Marvel movie, I don't think that my name would be top of mind.

10:46I'm not just always the villain guy or like always the leading guy by the way you'd be a good bad guy I would love to do that right like really good but I think you kind of have to continue to do that over and over you would do Magneto well at this point I think you could Magneto it I really want to do one of those ones where you wear all the yeah Magneto nice helmet no no no I'm saying like Thanos yes that's some fucking game where you're doing motion capture acting You look like Magneto at this point with the gray hairs that I grew up with. All right, I'm going to get yelled at by the community.

11:19Jeremy, I'm ready. Let's get some people up here. I want to throw a question at Neil while I'm getting some people up. Just about adapting. One of our biggest characters is the adaptable alien. And I think you and Gary were speaking to it a lot right now of just going through different chapters in your career. Yeah. I think it's important to not. I think it's important in my life to always be hungry for new information and to never sort of feel like you've plateaued and so adaptability is important I think also like putting yourself in positions where you're not great at what you're doing makes you better at what you do what you do and so that's right and so you like if you're not good at shakespeare i'm gonna speak in actor terms because that's what you know then i think it's good to try shakespeare i think it's bad to just what was the biggest risk jump you did in your career for you like it may have been shakespeare i was i was 20 something i'd never done it i didn't go to college and study anything and so I was working on a TV show and so I was asked to go to San Diego to the Old Globe Theater and do Romeo and Juliet as Romeo in an open space theater Juliet would have been better wouldn't?

12:44you would have crushed Juliet I was a stud man a wonderful actress named Emily Burgle was Juliet and it wasn't it was directed by Daniel Sullivan, who's an amazing New York theater director. And it wasn't Romeo and Juliet by way of like, the time frame was set way earlier. It was almost Game of Thrones style. So we were using broad swords to fight and Romeo kills Tybalt normally in a sword duel. And in this one, I brained him with a rock on a mountain. It was like very cool, but I didn't know Shakespeare and like how it worked. and so that was terrifying for me like how long did it take you to get comfortable a day a week a month never I probably a month before I started working with um a guy named Dakin Matthews who was a dramaturg and we went through it and he just explained to me what all the words meant and why you say it this way and why you're not supposed to say Shakespeare in the rhyming that it is that's not what you're supposed to do and to and and it's a lot of text and i was worried about the memorization of it all but man doing it and once you start getting into it it just it became such a safe space and like you get lost in it so i loved those kind of adaptability things but i had i had done like doogie hauser which was a really fun show but it was four years of kind of standing and not moving around too much because there was cameras and lights and all that.

14:16So I was really good at standing still, but I didn't quite know how I can move my arms or like squat down. And so doing - You were the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. A little bit, yeah. And so, yeah, doing theater was a big thing. And Shakespeare was huge at that adaptability. I love that. All right, Charm. Plus adapting to the real-time feedback from the audience, the actors, and all those elements. Thank you for that answer. very excited to have the Hangout Hawks on stage. I'm going to go in the order you guys came up. So Laura, I'm going to pass it to you first and then we'll go to Mike. Thanks for being here on PH.

14:48So my question is around magic. I know what the Magic Castle is in Hollywood, although I've never been there, but I've heard amazing things. So I'd love to hear it. Maybe tell everyone what it is. And then maybe could you share a really cool story from your experience while there? The Magic Castle is a private club in Hollywood, California that It has been around for 50 some odd years. It was a mansion. It's right near Hollywood Boulevard, kind of near the Hollywood Bowl. And you have to be a magician member in order to go. In order to be a magician member, you have to audition with some tricks.

15:26Wow. Or you could be an associate member where you pay more dues, but you don't get access to the library and stuff. But it's fantastic. There's a big giant stage show that's in there. There's a medium-sized stage called the Parlor of Prestidigitation. There's the close-up gallery. There's a full restaurant, five bars. And you have to wear a jacket and tie, a proper dress code. And it's old school and immersive and runs every single day of the year and is super exciting. I used to go, well, I was a president there for three years. And when I was in LA, I would go weekly. I was a junior member.

16:06And then I wound up. You got your skills up? I got my skills up a little bit. I didn't spend too much time with the juniors because I was working on a show at the same time. But yeah, the castle is one of those miraculous places. I think magic as an art is so great because it requires practice and discipline. And when you see a good magician, they've worked hard at fooling you with card tricks or coins or whatever. and that's like worth honoring and worth worth keeping around love that thanks laura thanks laura jeremy who's next mike is next mike jy take it away hey guys i'm not sure if you can see me but there is a french horn back up there so yeah dude look at you i i spray painted it myself i was gonna ask how you got that you might not remember this either man but at vcon like you were hanging before you spoke and i was like man i see him but i'm not gonna bug him unless somebody else does and then a kid came up to him and i'm like i gotta sneak in and i had the playbook hey nice dude good anybody ever bring in one of these to you like this was my halloween costume in 2013 so i'm like i'm just gonna i'm gonna bring it uh good but so loved how i met your mother man such a special show uh the one question i would ask is if you woke up tomorrow morning and could wake up and be back on set working on one episode uh do you have one where you're like and maybe someone isn't around anymore that you worked with or you know it was just a really special day would it be any day that you would just be like i gotta go back to that day

17:48we did an episode with lin-manuel miranda that was super fun was the entire episode was in rhyme that was super cool to do and to have Lynn be a part of it I also loved the 100th episode was a musical episode and we did a big giant musical in the back lot of the 20th Century Fox lot where we filmed you must have loved that it was great but also Carter and Craig who wrote the show they perform in a band so music was a big part of that show so lyrically those songs are really good and really fun and funny so I really kind of enjoyed the spectacle episodes. A big suit? I don't think you can say fat suit now.

18:30I think that's inappropriate. I think we're back to where you can say things. There's that problem. That was kind of fun to be in a lot of prosthetic. Neil, did you... I'm very fascinated by this. Sorry to take away. This could be real quick. Did you sense when you did the pilot or the first show like did you have a sense that that show had it or was that like snuck up on you snuck up on me that show was a slow burn i didn't think it would go to series it was a pilot and the pilot's title was how i met your mother which does not sound like friends or seinfeld or fraser which were like more succinct titles and so we did it and it was and And it's a hybrid sitcom.

19:20So because of all the flashing back and flashing forward, we didn't have a studio audience that was there. And we would rehearse all week and then perform it for the audience and hear their laughs and huddle. And they'd rewrite the jokes. That's what normally happens. Then you do it again with new jokes. That's the will and grace kind of style, right? We just did it. We filmed for three days straight. And then they would put in laughs later. well for a couple seasons they they brought an audience in to watch the show that we had done and then they would record their actual laughs and then the laugh track got sophisticated enough that they could just add laughs as needed and so it was a weird hybrid job because I as Barney was this delusional kind of larger than life like everything is a big thing like let's make this terrible date where I'm not going to get a hand job like instead the greatest handjob I've ever received story right so that was how Barney lived his life and so because of that I could sort of pause in a kind of hammy way I guess for them to add laughs so in my mind I was imagining that I controlled the audience and so I would say like you know that whole that whole wait for it you know like like pausing because I sense now so I could I And the editor appreciated it because she knew that I would say half of my line, laugh.

20:47And then the other half of the line, bigger laugh. So I was like, I was being a little bit of a conductor within that show. All right, Jeremy, keep us going. I want to get everybody. Thanks, dude. Amazing. A quick side note. Someone at VFriends is also from outside of Albuquerque. And they wanted me to ask you whether you go red or green on your burrito. well green chili is amazing hatch green chili is like a staple in my in our kitchen red chili also delightful and the correct answer is Christmas oh that's exactly and green half and half you can kind of like pick and choose and meet in the middle it's like it's like eating a cinnamon roll and like waiting for the delicious final bite the correct answer was both thank you awesome Kyle Jaden I'm coming to you next and then Aiden and you're on deck.

21:39I don't know if you can hear me all right. You can, brother. Awesome, Gary. I just wanted to say, first off, I'm here all because of the generosity of Big Fish Benny. So I'm using his access pass to be here. Be with the Hawks. So thank you so much to Benny for that. He said, like, if you can keep giving, make sure you can keep giving. So I'm here because of that. So thank you to the Hawks and being so welcoming. You're basically more a Hawk than him at this point, Jay. A little bit. but very happy to be here uh as a filmmaker as myself right i love to be focusing on collaborations and involving everyone involved right currently i'm at a film festival taking a break from that right to be here for this call right uh but hey nph firstly thank you for giving us that little moment when you went into performing it was like you still have it right in there you could just tap it what do you mean he still has it he's in the fucking prime of his career right now?

22:35What do you mean he still has it? I mean, he's still having the Barney Stinson. It's like he could tap into the Barney part of it right away. Of course, he's one of the great fucking actors of all time. No, but I appreciate that because I do like, I can just pop into, I can remember, like, sense memory what it was like to be acting in that specific role. So thank you for giving us that film. I really appreciate it. My question for you is, you know, as a as a director i would like to involve and get my actors to be as creative as they can so what can i do as a director to give the actors the space to do it or how have you experienced that in your career that's a good question um it it sort of depends on which version of acting like live on stage improv drama sitcom they're all kind of more film for me as you know so film or sitcom.

23:34It seems like overall as directing actors, I think, is to not tell them what not to do or what you didn't like that they did, but to sort of like yes and push them in positive ways. I loved that you took one moment there where you did something blank, and I loved that. Let's do more of that next time, as opposed to don't just say the lines like this, because people take criticism in very different ways right and then i think sometimes directors will say if you do a take and they like it and they're ready to move on they'll ask the actors if they want to try anything different oh interesting and and i think like that uh i like the uh the option to do that how often

24:23probably 25 of the time i'm more the guy that says i try to be utility so i say if you're happy with what you got then good I would assume if you want to do another take but if you want to try some crazy shit with comedy it's fun to ad lib you know but that's dangerous because script writers have written scripts for reasons so I think they'll often say like do it as written and once they've done that a few times you can ad lib a little bit but I also think it's good overtake to do something a little bit different with your inflection with your energy I wouldn't do physical things different once you start doing the scene do it the same way physically so that your editor can pick and choose between takes if you do a whole thing when you're got something in your hand and then the next time you do the whole thing and you don't then they have to choose one or the other they can't intercut between the two of them but if you do the same thing every time then you're kind of self-protective in a bad way It's cool.

25:27It makes sense. Awesome. That was great. Thank you. Thanks, man. Have a good festival. Thank you. Hayden?

25:38All right. Yo, what's good, gentlemen? I have a question for you, Neil, and then I have one for Gary, if I have permission for that. You do. You do. You do. Neil, I want to know just a very wide scope, looking back at your whole life, what are the biggest takeaways or the biggest lessons that you've learned? oh wow um i i think i feel like life and acting are similar in that i want as many chapters in as big a book as possible and so i just want to keep i don't ever want to be finished with it and i don't i don't feel like that's coming from a place of neediness of like not wanting it to end. It's just that I don't ever feel comfortable being confident enough to just say, I'm a master at this skill.

26:33So I'm always kind of looking for new things and new adventures. And I'm very apt to try new things. So I am the guy that if people say, let's go whitewater rafting, I'm like, fuck yeah, let's do that. Let's try this weird food you never had before. Absolutely never had it once, right i think you should try all of this stuff and also know with acting you can be on at the top of your game and then two months later be just looking for a job again you know yeah it's why that's a really weird thing because it's really hard to get a job on a tv show i love pop culture and i factored in so much in business and i grew up in the 80s and the john travolta thing was the first time i understood that like when i was just like studying and watching and learning i was like this guy was the most number one dude in the 70s and he's nowhere to be and then bam pulp fiction and he's back and like like i it's that's absolutely right steven bochko who wrote doogie hauser md and wrote la law and hill street blues which were really big shows back in the day he he sat me down when doogie started like how old were you the day do you started it was 15 at that time when I did the pilot.

27:49And he said, this could be a big thing. But here's, I use TV like a surfing metaphor, he said. Like, you're going to be on a board and you're going to paddle out. And then this is a wave and you're catching this wave and it's great. And the wave will inevitably crash because they do. And then enjoy the ride and try and do as many tricks as you can. But then when it crashes, you're going to have to get back on the board and you have to paddle back out. And on the way out, you're going to get hit by other waves that you didn't get. And you have to paddle out and it's hard. And then when you're there and you're tired, you have to sit there for a fucking long time before another set of wave comes.

28:28And you may miss that set and you have to wait for the next life. It's kind of a life. It's a good it's a good thing to think of, because when you're on and when you're riding that wave, be aware that it's not going to just go on forever, ever, you know, and that there's more to come all the time. Love that. Aiden, what can I answer for you, my brother? Thank you so much, Neil. And also thank you for your time and being here with the rest of the Hawks. Cheers. Gary, so I want to make an AI avatar for my agency. I do not want it to be me. I want it to just be a rep of the agency. That way I can produce mass content without video.

29:06So an AI influencer, like somebody that looks like a human to be the same. Got it. Exactly. and looking at a lot of tools and none of them just seem to be even - Aiden, send me an email. We're spending an enormous amount of time on this and here's the problem. I've done this my whole life, aka 25, 30 years of really being on the forefront of tech. The speed in which AI is moving is profound. When social came, it's like, oh, this Facebook thing is better than MySpace and Fredster and that sat for a while. Then Twitter came out and then other things came out that were different. Like the tool that I would most want to use for making creative mid-journey six months ago has been outflanked 13 times over.

29:52Now mid-journey is kind of coming up. So I'm paying attention, but there's company 1337 that I like a lot. Send me an email. I will give you some options to look. And there's different price points and things of that nature. So send me, I'll help you with that, okay? Appreciate it. We got to get Neil as the oak monster in the AI video. I think Neil needs to be the voice of the oak monster One day in our animated movie Of course I do Hey Neil He talks like this But we're all gonna laugh because we know it's his penis Yeah exactly You know what I mean like that's the real kid Oh wait we weren't talking about the penis Neil this whole time that Gary has been meeting you And taking you out to dinner Has literally just been the ask you That's right it was a long play For him to be the voice of the oak monster Alright I'll do it love it all right let's keep it going i want to sneak in the other two i love it all it all makes sense now um kind of in a similar vein i wanted to ask you you know all of our characters most of our characters are tethered to an attribute we have like empathy elephant we have uh self-aware hair we even have on the flip side we have cynical cat you know we have a couple villains mixed in there cynical cat is a mother i hate fucking cynicism so much i hate cynical cat agreed and And, you know, Gary wrote a book called 12 and a half.

31:10It was like the ingredients of business success. And I kind of wanted to put it to you for creativity and more specifically collaboration. Like if you were going to say what are the top. No idea what this means. You've watched card breaking. Somebody's watched card breaking before. That was very well done. You got me. Is that a abridisiac of choice? I was like trying to analyze it. You really got me with that. you used that word you just used it in a sentence what earnest yeah and i don't see a lot of people use it you just used it i really took note candid clownfish candid it's a touching on what you were asking and the positive porcupine i love positivity here's what i'm not a single soup some of these v friends might come in to help i wanted to ask you what might be like the top three ingredients for a great collaboration, whether what they're bringing into the room or what others are bringing into the room.

32:09Like, what are you looking for in a collaboration? Like, in a fellow actor, in an ensemble, what are the ingredients, like, human traits that you think make for good chemistry, if I may, Jeremy? Yeah, absolutely. Wit. The witty weasel.

32:29Charm. The charming cheetah. and what's like like sexy is not the right word but like charisma? Charismatic chameleon. Yeah I think those are three good ones