Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - James Gunn

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

James Gunn (Superman, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad) is a director, screenwriter, and co-chair of DC Studios. James joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the enduring impact of Super Friends, why people love the fact that Superman can beat up God, and how seeing the Sex Pistols as a kid altered life. James and Dax talk about once getting into such an intense argument with his dad about Prince that it almost came to blows, falling in love with and relating to the monsters in horror movies, and the dream of mixing animals and outcasts in his work. James explains how transformative it was to be compensated for doing something creative, why Guardians of the Galaxy has a reach beyond superhero movies, and how his most difficult moments made way for him to feel ok for the first time in his life.Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. Experts on Expert, round two of Superman Week. Yes. We have the esteemed filmmaker, James Gunn on.

He's a producer, a screenwriter, a musician, and the co-CEO of DC Studios. He's made the best superhero movies. I mean, get real. Guardians of the Galaxy. Groot! Groot! Shout out Groot!

The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, Slither, Super, and now, of course, Superman, and now of course Superman. This was a very fun interview. This was a very fun interview. I really enjoyed it. And if you stick around, if you watch. Oh yeah, if you watch, I am, well, shit, I don't wanna ruin.

We don't wanna ruin it. I'm in a, you'll hear. There's a visual. Yeah. Please enjoy James Gunn. We are supported by Audible. Thanks to Audible for being the presenting sponsor of today's episode.

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Listen now on Audible. He's an armchairsman. He's an armchairsman. He's an armchairsman. He's an armchairsman. He's an armchairsman.

He's an armchairsman. He's an armchairsman. He's an armchairsman. It's fun that there's a tour bus outside. That's Dex. He calls that Big Brown. He travels around in that thing. Really?

Yeah. He'll tell you all about it. He'll be very excited to talk about Big Brown. There's a big surprise for you coming your way. I wonder what that is. Wow. Everything's normal. This is the most awesome.

I fucked up testing so bad. That's what I was hoping you would recognize immediately. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus. This has never happened before. Wow. That's what I was hoping you would recognize immediately. Yeah, Jesus. This has never happened before. Wow, that's pretty cool.

It's hard to tell the young Superman story with a 50-year-old actor. But could that be its own interesting element? We could do, like, the rehearsal. Oh, sure, sure. So it could make you small and make a bunch of giant things around you. Well I want to be bigger. I thought you'd be like the four-year-old Superman.

I would do that as well like a little rattle. Yeah. Do you remember in Super Friends Hall of Justice? Well that's actually based on the train station in Cincinnati, the Hall of Justice from Super Friends. Oh it is. Yeah and that stayed the sort of model for what the Hall of Justice, from Super Friends. Oh, it is. Yeah, and that stayed the sort of model for what the Hall of Justice has been through the years in the comics and other animated shows. And we shot there for Superman. The group of the nascent Justice League, they aren't quite the Justice League,

are in that actual building. I'm gonna be honest, I'm not a superhero person. I didn't read the comics. The one thing I loved is I watched Super Friends every morning before school and I loved Super Friends Do you know about Super Friends? Yeah, you're Superman and all of his bros and gals So he got Wonder Woman's in the mix basically the Justice League of America for little kids That was a Saturday morning show back when Saturday morning shows were everything did they invent any characters on that that then became? big characters

Wonder twins patch chief they've gone on to become in the common they were called like junior friends the wonder twins and they were Largely useless they could work in tandem one could become any animal one could take the shape of any kind of ice Do you remember all this? Yeah, I cuz child? Because I remember very little of it. Oh, yeah, this is the only one I really had, so it's really seared in. But she'd be like, I'll be a mastodon, and then you'll be a bucket of water, and I'll blow the water.

That I remember. I remember Wonder Twins. I just don't remember that they were called Junior Friends. In your defense, as I was looking up Super Friends this morning, I was reminded they were lower tier. They were like probes in a motorcycle gang. They were kind of earning their strides yeah yeah

being any kind of ice that's a horrible superpower well he could make people slide around a lot you'd be shocked how much ice can save the day yeah there's an X-man named Iceman who's pretty yeah he can make ice things that slide around, can shoot ice at you. You guys both say sliding a lot and that seems to be the only thing. Well, sliding's fun. Yeah. Well, even the strongest person in the world, if they're on ice and can't find purchase. Now, I did get curious. The Super Friends in Hall of Justice is virtually Avengers. Does it predate Avengers? Way before. The Justice League existed before most of the Marvel superheroes. So is DC the first?

DC's the first. Superman's the first superhero. He invented superheroes. Oh wow. So Superman was invented in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in Cleveland, Ohio, where we shot Metropolis and Superman.

They were two high school kids who created this concept that now is so pervasive in culture throughout the world We shot in Cleveland because Cleveland has a lot of old art deco Architecture and then we just built up around that but it has tons of beautiful interiors beautiful exteriors There's actually a lot of beautiful stuff there and then we also shot in Cincinnati because that's where the train station is there's a place called terminal tower and that's supposedly that's where the train station is. There's a place called Terminal Tower,

and that's supposedly where Joe first imagined Superman jumping over a tall building in a single bound. That building is prominently featured in our movie. Cool. He couldn't fly at first, Superman. He couldn't. He could leap very far. He was very strong.

I don't think bullets hurt him, but he couldn't shoot beams out of his eyes. They kept adding powers to Superman as time went on yet Because if you think about the physics of the original premise, which is just he's stronger than everyone and those physics are known But when you introduce flying that still doesn't have any explanation. No, it's very logical I mean you just can't but it has strange. I wouldn't get you that is it his cape I mean he just can but his strength wouldn't get you that. Is it his cape? No, no, no, no.

It's nothing to do with the cape, okay. I personally like to think, well okay, what if this was real? So in the movie we deal with why are the glasses a good disguise? We actually deal with that because it always bothered me as a child. We deal with he's strong but he's not as strong as he was. He can't punch through a planet like sometimes he gets to be that strong. I don't want him to be that strong.

Good, I don't either. This is a difficult thing with Superman fans. Most people, when they say, why do they like Batman more than Superman, it's because Superman is just too powerful. It's like a cop-out. There's no stakes, but a lot of Superman fans like the fact that he can beat up God.

They want Zeus. They want the most powerful being in the universe. Not only is it hard to have stakes in a universe where he's the most powerful, it's also difficult to make other heroes mean anything at all. How much does Green Lantern mean if Superman can punch through his?

So in my 10-year-old mind, the way I had come up with who was top tier, Apex superhero, I was like, it has to be Green Lantern because he could just make kryptonite. Green Lantern can't make different elements. He can make constructs. He can make shapes. Oh.

He can't make iron. He can't make gold. Metamorpho, however, who is in the movie, can make elements. He can make anything. Okay, because there was one episode of Super Friends That was great or it was like a reverse evil world They would go there and there was evil Superman and then Green Lantern had to go fight Superman their friends in real life They're all adjusted. They're super friends. Oh, yeah

They're friends. Okay now Cleveland for folks who haven't been now coming from Detroit It's a sister city and especially in its arc you too from st. Louis, you know There's like a handful of these formally robust industry center. This is the only city in the United States I believe big city where its population is smaller than it was in 1900. That's crazy Yeah, I think st. Louis is a small city in a huge metropolitan area So the metropolitan area is over two million, but the city itself, I would imagine, is well under. And I presume you were in a suburb there?

I was, I grew up in a place called Manchester, Missouri, which was rural when I was young. I had soybean fields and horses that lived behind me, but as time went on, it became super suburbia, which it is now. And your dad was a lawyer? Yeah. What type of lawyer?

He did corporate law, but mostly dealt with health So he dealt with big hospitals and things like that and you're one of six kids one of six kids Yeah, and what order are you? I'm number one six kids in seven years and my little sister passed away So there's actually seven of them. Oh, wow Just born. Okay, not that there's any good version of it, but that beats two. Yes, it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it beats it, yeah.

It's a winner! Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a pure victory. You lucked out. So wow, mom went back to back to back to back. This is very Irish. Her womb just fell out. There's smoke billowing out.

Talk about a superhero, my God. There should be super womb. I don't remember my mother. She was just always taking care of a baby. Oh my God. Yeah. There should be superwoman. I don't remember my mother. Like she was just always taking care of babies. Yeah. This is true. I remember my siblings, my friends. We kind of got to do whatever we wanted to do.

I don't really remember my parents very much because my dad was always working. He was always gone. And my mother was just always taking care of babies or cleaning. My neighbors who lived next door to us for 30 something years never saw my mom without fully made up already.

Oh, she was like, okay. So she was like an ideal housewife. Six kids, never anything on the floor, ever. Everything completely clean. In its place. How have you now matured into an adult? Have you taken on that or are you messy? I'm definitely not like my mother.

And as the oldest, were you taking on the role of defending the little brothers at school? We all did that. My family was tight, for sure. If somebody picked on my little brother, they'd get beat up. Yeah, how many boys? Five boys, one girl. Yeah, that's too many boys.

Where's the girl in there? She's in the middle. She's number three. Her life was hell. She and I are incredibly close, but we were not nice to her growing up. Oh no. Yeah.

How could you? She was the outsider. Oh. And she was always so loud and well-spoken and powerful that it was difficult. If you think about the things I'm the most guilty about is just picking on my sister. Yeah.

But it's chicken or the egg. She might have been powerful because she was amongst all these boys and she had to keep up. I mean, she just always wanted to be a guy. She was always trying to pee, standing up and all of this stuff. I plagued my little sister with this too.

She has two older brothers as well. But again, what the result was is she was leaving someone's house and she saw a man starting a fire on the side of the road by the Getty Center. She had her boyfriend call the police and then she wanted to make sure he didn't get away. And then she tackled the guy and held the guy

while the police arrived. You saved all of Los Angeles by picking on your sister. I think by modeling such toxic masculine attributes, I think I may have saved at least a swath. Thank you. And if the Getty's Foundation wanted to thank me with a hundred million dollars. They should. But what was the vibe?

I mean, I know ultimately we get into movies and stuff, but what kind of group of boys were you? Because in my town, I drive Monica crazy with this ad nauseum, but a group of five boys, it was gonna be the most predictable thing ever. They were gonna get crazier as they got younger. And in my town, anytime there were five boys, they were constantly fighting somebody, someone had pissed someone off.

What was the vibe? It was a rough and tumble. I grew up in a place where there were fights. That was always a part of something. But I was never really a sports kid. My brothers all played sports. I was just always an artist and played music and theater. I was a punk rock kid.

I heard the sax pistols. I saw them on TV when I was 11 years old and it fucked me up. It was so cool. What about it? It was like nothing I had ever seen before in my entire life. I remember things visually,

even though they're not the way they are. Totally aside, I was talking to Ryan Kugler the other day. We were talking about how great the Black Panther premiere was, and I was with all his friends who weren't there at the time. And I said, yeah, I know this isn't the way it happened, but the way in my memory it happened was that people were so happy

that they were literally doing somersaults and flipping around in the aisles. Sure, sure, sure. That's really what I remember. That's not true. You had that, wow. It's like I remember the vibe's really what I remember. That's not true. You have that, wow. It's like I remember the vibe, and then I remember I visually turn it into something else.

When I saw the Sex Pistols, it was like seeing the edge of the horizon roll down to see a completely other planet that I didn't know existed right in front of me, another world. Well, Sid Vicious is cut up. He's bleeding a lot of the times he performs He's got some safety pins in his lips and in his chin. You're seeing guys with some body modification

the rage of Johnny rotten as he sang but also there was a crowd Yes, and the safety pins and people the anarchy symbols and it was not something I liked I was kind of scared by yeah. But I was totally intrigued, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Yeah, there's overlap between horror movies and early punk rock. These were like post-apocalyptic figures

that were in real life. Yeah, I couldn't get out of my head, and then eventually I bought the Sex Pistols LP. I was a little Roman Catholic kid, because he's like, you know, I am the Antichrist. And it was like doing something really bad. You know, it was like looking at porn almost, except for your angry little rebellious soul.

So that changed everything. And so all the kids I started hanging out with were the punk rock kids. All the music I listened to was the punk rock and the early new wave stuff. That became my identity. That's the way I dressed. You know, I wore the ripped up t-shirts new wave stuff. That became my identity. That's the way I dressed. You know, I wore the ripped up t-shirts.

I'd shaved the sides of my head. I did it presumably nine years after you are eight years after you. People were very into my look. It was absolutely not acceptable. Okay. It was rejected. So I went to an all boys Jesuit competitive high school in St. Louis, and there was me and my friends.

The fact that we existed was crazy. And so we knew every other punk or new wave kid in the city. We were all friends. We had all somehow gotten there through media into being the small group of people in St. Louis. So on weekends, it was great, because I felt like a king. Yeah, would you go to shows?

Go to shows. There was like a dance club called the Animal House that had three floors, and on the top floor was all the black music. The middle floor was the major like cover bands that were playing like Night Ranger and shit. And then on the lower level was our place. It was all the alternative.

Sometimes we'd go up to the top floor, but we were rarely ever in the middle floor because rap was also starting around that time I was into that as well, and I was into Prince I once got into an argument with my dad over Christmas about Michael Jackson and Prince that was so angry that we almost came to blows Is it too mainstream? Too happy? I like Prince's music better. I don't like his music that much.

It's not about anything other than it's okay. Billie Jean is okay. The off the wall stuff is better. I like Jackson five, but I like Prince way better. The irony was that Prince was much scarier to parents because he was much more overtly sexual. Sister was about having sex with his sister overtly. Yes.

God, the irony. Now the irony though that Michael Jackson was the one that we all needed to be fucking worried about. Prince was largely not fucking because he was an opiate addict. Asexual. Don't sue me a state. Yeah.

I mean, word is. But I saw Prince on the Purple Rain tour, 10th row in Keele Auditorium in St. Louis. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah, yeah. But I saw Prince on the Purple Rain Tour, 10th Row in Keel Auditorium in St. Louis. Wow, wow, wow. I loved him. Now back to being drawn to the Sex Pistols, you're also then obsessed with horror movies. So are you the type that, it might be counterintuitive,

you might scare easily, but then your response to being scared is, and here's my question, is it a stubbornness? Like I need to not be afraid of that thing? There was something I liked about it as well as being scared. And I actually think my attraction to horror movies was different. Okay, what was that? I think I liked the monsters. So when I fell in love with horror movies, I was very young.

The greatest movie ever to me was Abbot and Costello versus Frankenstein because it had monsters and Abbot and Costello. So it was funny and still is a movie that I think is great, but I fell in love with the monsters I liked Godzilla and I liked Frankenstein and the werewolf and creature from the Black Lagoon and I think I related to those monsters in a certain way I felt outside so I don't think it was 100%. I like being scared. I did like being scared, but I think I was attracted to monsters. And that's the thing I've kept with me

more than a love of being horrified. I have a very difficult time being scared in a movie, but I love monsters and creatures. Outcasts. Animals. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're mixing animals and outcasts is kind of a dream. Overlap.

Yeah, I love animals I love the innocence of animals. I love the humor. Are you attracted to human monsters No, I'm attracted to monsters that are actual real monsters physical monsters. I don't care about Jeffrey Dahmer or something. I don't like that. He's a piece of shit. I'm the opposite Yeah, you know what's funny is he's an outcast But I'm not gonna include him as an outcast Other outcasts, how do you get your hands on a 8 millimeter camera? I can't remember where I got it from

I had two of them I had a silent one and I had a sound one does it record the audio on the film strip? Yeah, and so when you edit the film frames are like this so you have to cut with a splicer but the film strip goes eight frames above where the picture is because the sound goes through before the picture does so I'd have to fucking cut and then cut up and then put it up onto the thing. And then you tape that entire long thing. That's right.

Fuck that. You were doing that? You were editing? With a little cutter. A little splicer and a little machine that you watch the stuff go through. Yeah. That must have gotten the girls so horny that you were doing that. Let me tell ya. But I did play in bands so I was alright. When do you start in, what's it called, the idiot? No, the icon.

The idiots? The icon. The icon? I don't start the icons until I was at a high school. You were the lead singer of that band, but were you also playing an instrument? No. And do you have a good singing voice?

No. You don't. But none of our heroes did. People go listen to the icons on Spotify and stuff. It wasn't terrible, but I think the reason why I stopped playing music was because I really wanted to be the best at something. And I felt like I couldn't be the best.

Yeah, were you a little saddened by that? Oh, yeah. That's what you wanted, is to be Johnny Lydon. A thousand percent. Yeah. Okay, so you go to the University of St. Louis. I go to Loyola Marymount University first. First, here. So I played music with people here. I go to the University of St. Louis. I go to Loyola Marymount University first.

First? Here. So I played music with people here. I went to film school here. For two years? I got kind of pushed out after about a year and a half. I had big drug issues. Great, that's why I was going, are you sober?

I've been sober since I've been 19 years old. Congrats. Not only am I sober since I've been 19 years old, I got sober, then my dad got sober, then my brother got sober, then my other brother got sober, my next door neighbor who is like a brother to us got sober and none of us ever relapsed. You infected in the best way.

Yeah, I did have two years of doing Ambien that really kind of fucked me up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, because I am chemically dependent and so it's an iffy time, because I took it every night and I did fucking weird things. Yeah, it's yeah, you know because I am chemically dependent and so it's an iffy time because I took it every night And I did fucking weird things. Yeah, it's a weird taking trips to 7-eleven other than that. I've been sober Well as someone who's relapsed I've come to look at sobriety if in 24 years of your life You managed to be sober for 20 of those years. I'm impressed if you're an addict

I really admired what you did with all that. Oh, you know, did before? No, we haven't, but we know Rosenbaum so well. You're friends with Bradley, you're friends with Rosenbaum, Lillard, AG, Seth Green. I don't know if I have anyone with more mutual friends who I haven't met. Yeah. This feels like a very long time. I went to the Without a Paddle premiere.

You did? Yeah. But maybe the best premiere of all time. Do you remember it? I totally remember it because I had so much fun. That's where I met Rosenbaum. Monica, they flooded the tank and put boats in the water, Paramount.

Oh! And people watched the premiere. From boats? Yeah, it was like a drive-in movie. It was like broadcast on the backdrop. That's so cool. And there were fucking boats and shit. That was my very first premiere.

It was the first movie I was ever in. I was like, these are great. I can't wait to see what comes next, and it never was good like that. But no, we haven't met. Yeah, that's crazy. It is crazy. Okay, so let's get into the drug issue at Loyola. Drugs are our favorite topic.

It's interesting, I've never really talked about all this, but yeah, I did a lot of drugs. What was your favorite? Marijuana. Great. I smoked a quarter bag of weed a day, I woke up every morning. Some days I'd be like, oh please just wait until 10 a. Great. I smoked a quarter bag of weed a day. I woke up every morning. Some days I'd be like, oh, please just wait until 10 a.m. to start smoking weed.

People talk about how weed's not addictive. I totally fucking don't buy it for a second. I could not stop smoking weed. I smoked weed all day long, every day, and would try to curtail it, and I couldn't do it. And then I did a lot of cocaine and a lot of alcohol. And then I tried almost everything else. But those were the things I did a lot of.

I'm gonna be very generalized right now, but in my experience, people were either, weed was their self-medication or coke was their self-medication. I definitely found that people that were really drawn to weed, I was not as a kid. I did it, of course, but it wasn't my thing. It was way more artistic, way more kids who were in their room playing guitar,

kind of more isolation, baseline. Would you say that was true for you? No. Pretty social. Really social. Not really social because I have a part of me that goes away. It's a part of me that writes, part of me that would write songs. I used to draw comic books and edit. There's a part of me that likes to. It's part of me that writes. It's part of me that would write songs. I used to draw comic books and edit. There's a part of me that likes to go away and be in my shell.

And then I like to come out and be with people, which is why being a writer-director makes a lot of sense. I guess that's why I smoked weed and did coke. Like I liked both. Time to go be social. Did you find it in college or were you already doing those drugs in high school? I did a lot of drugs from the time I was very little. I don't know if I did actual cocaine,

but I did a lot of speed and things like that before college. Yeah, in high school, pills would float around and be like, we have beaners, we have Dexadrine. And I remember taking a lot of pills that were probably just caffeine pills. Sure. Because I remember when I took speed for the first time,

it was not the same thing. And also I got my glands swole so that my ears were sticking out. Oh, that's almost like a superhero he does to. Yeah, and it was like so sore. Could I be a new guy called Cokehead? Yeah. There is a guy, Snowflame. Oh.

He's a cocaine-fueled super villain. Oh, he already exists? He's pretty cool. He exists. Yeah, he's in DC Comics. Oh, let's make him 50 and bring him into the fold. I think you're good. That's like the first time you've become a method actor. All of a sudden I really believe in method acting.

Okay, so when you said you were kind of shown out, I'm guessing you were performing pretty terribly, smoking weed all day at Loyola. It's cool, yeah. Were you loving California though? Yeah, I really loved California. I was very much an outcast in Missouri. I was not that at all in Loyola.

I felt popular. Yeah. Not only did I feel popular, I felt popular being myself. There were times that I felt popular, it would be sort of me subsuming who I was and dressing down. And in California, I just was myself

and I was just a regular popular kid in Loyola. And that was a weird feeling. So you left there and then you ended up at University of St. Louis. Yes, yes, St. Louis U. And what did you major in while you were there? Psychology. And you'd gotten sober in that interim?

Yes. On your own, you just quit everything? No, no, no, I went through rehab. Oh, okay. Believe me, no, no, I have truly sober program, everything, right? Sure, sure, sure. Inpatient rehab for a long time, outpatient. I dropped out, started playing music,

was going to school, was not really going to school, was mostly playing music, dropped out of school, moved to Arizona, played music professionally, played music for a couple of years, went back to school, and that's when I discovered truly writing. At St. Louis. At St. Louis U. Okay, so you fall in love with writing.

Yeah, I had a creative writing class that I took. I wasn't playing music. I'm like, I gotta figure out something I'm gonna do. I said, I think I'm gonna teach, but what do I wanna teach? I was already pretty far in psychology So I had to finish that degree but I was much more interested in English And so I started taking tons of English classes

But I took a creative writing class with a guy by the name of Al Montese His task for us was to go home and write a play. I Had a really shitty early computer and I wrote a play on there and I'm like This is the most fun I've ever had and I think a lot of it was then we took our plays into class and The guy copied him off and he gave him to other students so that we could read the rules And this is so me so I can't pretend I'm not this way, but everybody was laughing so much Yeah, it was like, oh my God, I'm being loved. And I'm being loved for my brain, not the way I look.

It's such a weird thing for a man to say, but that's what it was like for me at the time because I've always felt like I had been writing these lyrics that nobody could understand and I got attention from the way I looked. It was like having my brain loved. My whole life is different from that moment on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And in the way that I wasn't the best singer, I felt like, oh, I went from feeling kind of old as a rock musician at the age of 22 or 23 or whatever I was, it was just silly. But at the time I felt old to being really young as a writer. I also wonder, I mean timing wise, it probably was helpful that you had just gotten sober because there's a high in that approval.

Yeah, I was actually sober for a little while by that time. I've been sober for like three, I mean that's not. That's not really, I mean it is a long time. I guess when you're 19, I guess you're right, you're right. That's a huge percentage of your life. Yeah, totally. I mean one of the struggles for me in sobriety

that I can start to take for granted is that I got sober when I was so young, that being sober is way more a part of my life than using chemicals. And that is actually a little bit of something I have to be aware of in my life because there are times when I can kind of forget that I'm not just naturally sober.

Is that something I actually have to put some effort in? There are times when I can kind of forget that I'm not just naturally so. Yeah. Yeah. That's something I actually have to put some effort in. It's easier for me than other people. That's why I think it's so hard to maintain sobriety from 19 onward because I at least took it to 29. But even at that, I look at just my standard operating, you know, my modus operandi at 29, I had temper tantrums, I fought guys

at stoplights, I was unhinged. You get to this point where you're pretty stable and normal and I'm not up and down. I still had all those things though. After getting sober, then I was crazy with sex, it was like I'm an addict, you know? Then I had to deal with my anger issues because I'd get so fucking angry and getting fights. I just had to kind of go through one thing at a time until my wonderful boring self today. Yes, but the danger of it is, is you're sitting around in your 40s and you're like,

I'm not even the same dude that got sober. I'm a calm guy who's responsible. I still am not. No, you're right. I found out. But it can be quite misleading because you're just trying to evaluate, am I the same person? Which is hard to do. quite misleading because you're just trying to evaluate am I the same person which is hard to do Yeah, cuz you're like I'm not that guy could probably dabble and be fine. Yeah, I'm not gonna

Four days I would never do that I mean also I do believe that I'm naturally an alcoholic an addict everybody in my family is I'm Irish Catholic Like it's just a part of our genetics. But I also think that because I was so extreme, so young, there were other things that were at play mentally. Other anxiety and depression issues that made me take that on so full force. I only gained this compassion for us in watching my very best friend since I was 11 get sober five years ago. And in exploring his whole experience,

we both had challenging childhoods. His was infinitely more challenging. It was so fucking hard. And the only thing that he did for a period that I never got into is he huffed gas for like a year and a half. But that's a hard one. And it's such a terrible high.

And I just had this moment where I realized, yeah, that was an improvement for Aaron. And that's where I got this just wave of compassion for us. Yeah. You're trying to feel better. And if you feel so bad that a gas buzz is an improvement, fuck, my heart goes out for you. Yes. But then I can extend that to us. You're suffering and it's a great fucking medicine. It works for a while. Yeah. How do you not hurt? Yeah, exactly.

It's not all about like, how can I have fun? Exactly. And even when you're taking on the wreckage, a lot of people would be like, look at the wreckage. And you're like, yes, but the wreckage is preferred to how I felt without it. As crazy as that is. Yeah.

Yeah, but you also get blinded to repercussions. So you start using drugs and you just get blinded to the fact that what is this gonna lead to? You lose it. Okay, so you end up at Columbia to get a master's in writing but prose not screenplay writing. Yeah, I was gonna be a novelist. I wasn't a novelist, I wrote novels. My brother Sean and I, so we were the two fuck-ups of the family. I was the oldest kid, he was the youngest kid. The other kids are all pretty straight and pretty together. Even my two alcoholic brothers who were much more straight to me. But we were the fuck ups and he got into Fordham University for acting the same week that I got into Columbia for pros and it was like, what the hell is going

on? This is an upside down world in which we're getting into the two prestigious institutions. We were so happy. We just kept saying two fuck-ups So I went to Colombia. I wrote a novel as my thesis got it published the Toy Collector Which people have read and yeah very transgressions novel of your accomplishments I'm gonna weirdly guess that might have never got better than getting a book published No, I mean not objectively but the pride for your life. But the pride of having. Nah. Oh man. Here's the thing, I got it published

after I started doing okay here. There were a lot of other things that started happening. But just, you remembered the SE envelopes, you'd send all these fucking publishers, hundreds trying to get stuff published. Did you go through that whole phase? No, I didn't do any of that. I got an agent that explained it.

And we had a couple people making offers on the novel. Yeah, it's a different experience. And then they had to bid for it. No wonder it's not high up there. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I just remember saying, he's like a thousand. If I would've got one back. I went to Columbia, but one of the things is I got denied.

I didn't get into Iowa, I didn't get into NYU, I didn't get into Washington University, I didn't get into Georgetown. I didn't get into all these different places. And get into Georgetown. I didn't get into all these different places. And I was like, I think I'm fucking great. Like what the fuck is going on? So then when I got the envelope from Columbia, I was pretty happy.

I bet. It was like my number one choice. The hardest one to get into. I would have told myself like, yeah, I'm so good. The elite school can see it. Only the elite ones. These other ones. That's right.

That is what I told myself. Yeah. I ones. These other ones. That's right. That is what I told myself. Yeah. I told myself they're looking for more commercial writers. They're looking for people that will actually go out there and make some money, not artsy footsy. Yeah. Because I always had a little bit in me of I wanted to make money doing music.

Yeah. Mine is really high. My fascination with money, my obsession, my chasing of it, my financial insecurity, those are raging. Where are you at on that spectrum? Well, I think it's changed over the years. Well, of course, because you get it, and it's not the fantasy.

I like making money. It's always been something that's been exciting for me. I remember the first time I made 500 bucks playing a show back in the 80s, and the guy came out and gave me this wad of money. I'm like, oh, this is the best feeling in the world, getting paid for doing something creative. Like like I was so jazzed by that. Everyone knows I'm pretty tough with my own business dealings, and I'm good at that part

of it. It drives me to a certain degree, but it isn't the overriding thing. I was always trying to get love for most of my life. And I think that changed at a certain point and that put things in a different perspective. Sometimes I don't know why I do what I do. I work so, so hard all the time and I like the results of what I do.

I don't get a big charge out of being loved. I have a lot of money. My life has been built so crazily on ambition, that is the only way my body knows how to act. Yes. Yes. Yes. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Let's take a minute to thank our presenting sponsor, Audible.

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and your first audio book is free. Visit audible.com slash DAX, that's audible.com slash DAX. We are supported by Airbnb. Oh, I love Airbnb. We love Airbnb. We use it nonstop. We traveled. Most memorable. Exactly. We've traveled the whole country and the world.

Yes. We've been on tours and stayed exclusively at them. It's so fun. So much cozier. Yeah. You really feel like you're kind of a resident. Yeah. Of wherever you're visiting. Because some trips are better in an Airbnb. help people get in the mood and take them back to the court of King Henry VIII. Now if I know British scandal listeners, and I think I know British scandal listeners, they will be reeled in with talk of treachery, sexual jealousy, backstabbing and treason. There is a lot of that to be fair, but at its heart, isn't it just a traditional girl meets king, girl loses king kind of story?

Yeah, with a divorce, a nation altering religious reformation and the show trial to begin all show trials. So listen to the story of Amberlyn now, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts and binge entire seasons early and ad free on Wondery, this is The Spy Who. This month we open the file on Oleg Lenin, the spy who saved MI5. Lenin's actions changed the course of the Cold War in the 1970s, a Russian who defected to Britain after being caught in a love affair that shook the world. His actions triggered the biggest removal of spies by any government in history.

It's a story of an overstretched security service in need of a win and a covert plan to bring catastrophe to Britain's streets. Follow the Spy Who on the Wondery app, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Saved MI5, early and ad-free, with Wondery Plus. What aspect do you find most grueling and which one's most fun? I like every part of making a movie. I can't say that was always the case.

It used to be that I liked writing and post-production, but didn't like shooting. Now I love it all. Oh, interesting. So I will say that in terms of the pleasure I get from it, if I could write a movie, make a movie, edit a movie, and then burn it, I'd probably be happy. Oh, you don't like the after effect. I don't like having to deal with putting it out there in the world.

I don't like to have to deal with... I mean, this is perfectly pleasant. I like doing podcasts where we're talking, but most of the press, I fucking hate. Yeah. The things I thought I'd like when I was young, like doing red carpets and stuff, I don't like people looking at me like that. So I don't like that kind of stuff. That is self-actualization. You're there for the process,

but you don't care about the result, And then that's what we're striving for, but then it does come with, well, then what's the point? Well, and you want it to magically make a couple billion dollars without you going on regardless. Exactly. Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

If I'm burning it after I've done, I'm not sure I'm worth how much I'm getting paid to do it. So I like doing it for the job aspect. And also I do feel a certain sense of calling in doing what I'm doing. I believe in God. I feel a certain calling in what I do. I don't think it's like a saintly activity,

but I do think that if I can make the world slightly better with stories about people that are good people or learning about themselves or in touch with their emotions, that it's something. Yeah, it's positive. You're leaving the world better than you found it. I hope. Yeah, yeah.

Can you pinpoint the moment where that fell away, the approval or the needing external validation? Yeah, it was when I got fired. It was 100% when I got fired. I mean, I've talked about this before. It's not a big... But not to us. ...fig. Now, I haven't talked about it to you. Can we stop two places before that?

Yeah, sure. You come out to LA after Columbia? No, I was in New York I was in Columbia and I was still in grad school and I got hired to write a screenplay for a movie called Tromeo and Juliet for 150 bucks. I Wrote it and then I found out I like being the guy and so I took control Sort of became Lloyd's partner on that film and so Lloyd. What did he direct? I like being the guy. And so I took control, sort of became Lloyd's partner on that film. And so Lloyd, what did he direct? He directed Toxic Avenger, Class of Newcombe High,

all sex and violence. I wrote the screenplay and my next job was choreographing the sex scenes with the actors. Right. But I got to learn about every aspect of filmmaking. The movie cost $350,000, which I couldn't believe was so much money to me at the time. I remember driving in the subway to set and going like,

I can't believe that I wrote something. And then all of a sudden they're spending this enormous amount of money. I learned about casting, about marketing, about putting the movie out in the theaters. We played here at the New Beverly every Saturday night. So it was much more helpful to me, I think, than film school because it's so practical. So you then end up writing a bunch of different things that end up working.

I think most significantly you do Scooby-One and Scooby-Two as a writer. That's when I meet Lillard, he's just done Scooby-Two. Yes, that's right. So you're a pretty successful writer at that point. Yes, you know, you're talking about a pretty successful writer at that point. Yes. You know, you're talking to me about the novel. Was that that exciting moment?

The exciting moments for me in my career were 5.30 in the morning when Scooby-Doo first opened up and Lorenzo de Bonaventura, who was the head of production at Warner Brothers at the time, woke me up and he said, "'Did you hear it?' And I said, "'No, it's 5.30. "'What would I hear?'

And he said, "'It's the biggest opening ever in July. And I knew that I went from being nobody to having a career in this industry. That was huge. And then the first thing you direct is Slither. Yes. Horror movie with incredible cast. Yep, made dozens of dollars at the box office.

But it got really good reviews. I find that there's certain key moments in my life where I take a stand where you want to not, you want to retreat, and I took a stand. But it was gonna come out and they came to me and they said, you know, it costs a lot of money to have these movies screened for critics. So I think we're not gonna do that.

And what they were really saying was, we as a studio don't think that this movie is going to get good reviews so we're not gonna screen it for critics. I went to bed that night I'm like you know what I just don't buy that it's not gonna get good reviews I think it's gonna get good reviews and I called up Eric Newman our producer the next morning good friend of mine and I'm like we can't do it we got to fight this and we went in and we fought it and they were very great in that they listened to us and they did it

and it saved my career in a lot of ways because I don't know if I would have gotten those reviews if it would have helped me as much. You gotta be either a critical success or a financial. You need one or the other on your debut film, otherwise you just get lost. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're dead. So it really helped me.

And then that leads, you do also a superhero movie, you do super. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're dead. So it really helped me. And then that leads, you do also a superhero movie, you do super. Yeah. Okay, so now we go to 2013 Guardians. It's a coup that you get that at the time because you had done some stuff crazy. I was about to quit. You know, I had just done a video game that I had a lot of fun doing. I had a deal to do a TV show, which seemed to be something that was happening in the air, which I was right about. Yeah. Because show which seemed to be something that was happening in the air which I was right about Yeah, because there's so much premiere television that was about to happen unless you're doing a Marvel movie It's not culturally relevant anymore

So I'm like why am I making movies when I'm just gonna make TV shows and video games because I cared about being culturally relevant I told my agents. I'm just gonna quit making movies I'm gonna focus on these other things and then Marvel called called me in, which they had called me in before. They knew I was a big comic book fan. I didn't think it was very realistic. I went in and they told me about Guardians and I didn't really 100% see it in the room, but on the way driving home,

I started to see it come together. Was Chris involved yet or it was just a property they wanted to explore? No, there was a script. Those main characters were already a part of it. So to me at first it was like Bugs Bunny and the Avengers How's that gonna work? And I knew the characters from the comics, but mostly another iteration of the characters So I just wasn't sure but when I was driving home, I saw how it could be Number one, I saw the character a rocket. I went with my usual question was what if this was real?

Okay, seems stupid talking raccoon, but what if it was real? And I realized that he would be the saddest person in the universe and that he was totally alone. And that was sort of the seed of the whole show. That's your bread and butter. And it's my bread and butter. Then I started to see how it could be that space fantasy that I always wanted to do.

It wasn't gonna be like Star Wars, but that it could excite kids in the same way Star Wars excited me. They could get that same feeling of magic and novelty that I got when I saw T3PO on the cover of People magazine. They could get from Groot. Yeah. I got the gig.

I was with my girlfriend at the time in her apartment, and I got the call that I got the job, and I felt like Kelly Clarkson with the confetti. That's how I remember it by the way. Even though I talk about it. The way I remember it is I was Kelly Clarkson and the fucking balloons and confetti and fucking bubbles are coming down on me as I get this phone call.

Yes. You know, I loved Iron Man so much. Me too. Also, I had done Favreau's movie just before Iron Man. So I was like kind of close to him at the time. So I think I got to see so much of how that came together and then the fight for Downey and all that stuff. I loved that one.

I want to credit he and Dan Leibenthal for kind of creating the Marvel sense of humor. I think they deserve a lot of credit for that. And then I didn't care about a bunch of them. And then I saw Guardians and I was like, fuck me, this movie is so original, even within this genre. And yeah, more of Star Wars than it was per se,

Marvel conventionally. It's not really a superhero movie. It's not superheroes, they're just adventures. Yeah, it had a reach that was beyond, like I saw it and I wasn't seeing any of those movies. I generally don't care about superheroes. It was so good. It transcended and just right out of the gates,

the opening, the music, it's such a big part of it. But I was trying to go back in my mind to remember where Chris Pratt was on this hierarchy. He wasn't yet the biggest star in the world. He had done Jurassic, not yet. Oh no, no. He was the heavy guy on Parks and Rec. Yeah, so it's a coup on a coup

because you shouldn't probably be there. And now you come in and you go, okay, thanks for He was the heavy guy on Parks and Rec. Yeah, so it's a coup on a coup, because you shouldn't probably be there. And now you come in and you go, okay, thanks for letting me in the door. Now I want you to bet a few hundred million dollars on this guy who's never done this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What was that process like? It was difficult and easy.

It was difficult in that we auditioned literally 300 people easy for Star-Lord. I screen tested 25 actors. Wow. I could not find the guy that you liked. Kevin Feige either. I was so happy because we did the first screen tests and we screened them and I'm like, they're going to kill me. He was such a specific guy. The famous story around it is that I didn't want to see Chris because I'm like, this Joker, no way. And Chris had been turned down by a lot of things and he didn't want to see Chris because I'm like, this Joker, no way. And Chris had been turned down by a lot of things

and he didn't want to have to do that again. Sarah Finn, who's the casting director, talked me into it. I think she tricked me into it. She set up the meeting without telling me, but we were so desperate at that time, I'm like, oh, I guess he's coming in. He came in and he started his audition.

And I am serious, it was not 12 seconds into the audition. And I turned around to Sarah and I said, he's the one. Wow. So then it was about getting everyone else on board. Okay, so you do the first one, it's fucking outrageous. Now in between Guardians two and three, now we've caught up, I thought it'd be relevant. Before we evaluate you looking back at your career

and deciding whether or not you're happy, I think we needed to know how we got there. Yeah. So you had a string of old tweets that came out. You were making some jokes that were on topics people don't like. My novel, if you look at transgressionist fiction and Wikipedia, I'm listed.

Yeah. You know, it's like, that's what I did. I was a provocateur. They weren't very funny, but whose tweets are funny from 10 years ago. It's also worth saying, I was a provocateur. They weren't very funny, but whose tweets are funny from 10 years ago. It's also worth saying, I was early into Twitter too, and there's a long period of time where I think I'm just tweeting to whoever follows me.

Whoever's followed me has declared they have a similar sense of humor as I do or point of view, and then it'll just end there, that somehow it has a perimeter. The biggest mistake I made was I one day posted, hey everybody, it's fake retweet time. This is back in the day when you didn't just press a button and retweet someone, that wasn't possible.

You had to copy and paste and then put RT before the tweet. I realized you could do this and fuck over your friends. So I started tweeting the most horrible things I could imagine about my friends who have had to live with this to this day, saying that my friend JP had killed a prostitute in Mexico and I was retweeting all these horrible things

they had said. Did they say it or were you making it up? He was just making it up. I made him say the worst things I could possibly imagine. So this goes forward now to when all this stuff happens and the meaning of RT has been forgotten. They think I'm tweeting at people saying these terrible things.

And these poor guys are caught in the crossfire. People who are not famous at all. And so I get fired. And really quick, when you get fired, did they say you're fired and we are going to do Guardians 3 without you? Is that a notion you have or no? At the very beginning it didn't come up

because Kevin was fighting for me to come back, but yeah, I got fired. It was the worst. And were you angry, sad? I mean, I assume a lot of things. What was the main emotion? There was a moment in which I said to Peter Safran, I said, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

And Peter is your longtime manager and producing partner who now co-runs. Co-runs DC with me. Not only am I being attacked, but my friends are being attacked, you know. David Desmouchy said something positive, he's being attacked. Joel Kinnaman responded to an Instagram

and he was attacked just for that and called terrible things. If I were you, I would have had some self-righteous indignation over the fact that really this all starts because you had pissed the right off and the right went digging. Do I understand that correctly? Yeah.

I would be yelling to my liberal friends like, you motherfuckers are doing exactly what they hoped. This is out of the right playbook. Yes, it was mostly right-wing people attacking me, but it was also- Oh, yeah, once you failed the purity test. Fuck, I don't even like talking about this shit. I realize now I'm really talking about it,

which I don't like. I think that what happened was my life was gone. I thought my career was over. I didn't think I was gonna make another dime in this industry. So I was just gonna have to hold on to whatever I had made which was nowhere near as much as I had hoped It would be to last for the rest of my life and live a really frugal life but the thing that happened I realized was that everything I had done was really to be

rich and famous so that people would love me and that a lot of what I did was not and famous so that people would love me. And that a lot of what I did was not based upon being a creative individual or calling or anything, but so that I could finally be accepted and loved. And I, as an organism, was unable to experience the love of another human being. The only time I can remember even slightly the feeling, I had gone to a Brazil Comic Con shortly before this time,

and I remember standing on stage and literally 8,000 people in the crowd chanting, JMS gone, JMS gone, and crying like girls at a Beatles concert. And for the first time in my life, I said, oh, I'm at zero, I'm okay for the first time in my life, I said, oh, I'm at zero. I'm okay for the first time in my life. That's fucked up. That's how many people had to jump into the hole in your heart.

That's how much... They're strangers, too. And they're strangers. That's the part. I went from feeling like that, and on that day, when I had lost all the power I had, I had lost the ability to cast anybody, I had lost everything,

I got so much love from my partner at the time, Jen, the guardians from Chris and Pom and all those guys. The people who actually knew you. The people that knew me, all my friends, my mom and my dad, I was overwhelmed with it and I experienced being loved for the first time. And I went to sleep that night looking at my girlfriend going, I'm gonna marry this woman.

And I went to sleep that night going, this girlfriend going, I'm gonna marry this woman. And I went to sleep that night going, this started out as the worst day of my life, but I actually think it's the best day of my life. Because I learned that I don't need to tap dance till the bones are showing through my toes to get people to like me. And that was a really intense experience

and I kept it with me. Isn't it crazy what it takes for us? At the extremes. Yeah. It's insane, right? It is. You can be told stuff intellectually a bunch of times and you can understand it intellectually

and then it takes these crazy kind of moments of humility to connect to it emotionally. Yeah. I think that's everyone, but I think especially for an addict. You are living in tens and ones, you know? That's so true. But I try so hard not to do that today. No, I know, I know.

Because I'm so hyperbolic in everything about my life. I got upset at BuzzleLink this morning. I was getting upset with the way things had been posted about tickets being released released and I'm like Come the fuck down You're not going to remember this tomorrow It's like not a ten. There are tens. But it's hard. It's hard. They're too far between. But you can make a lot of sevens a ten.

We had to move my family quickly out of my house during the LA fires like that was ten, you know But also not worthy getting upset because that's gonna make you worse worse at what you're doing. And in those situations, I'm pretty good. So why am I sober when I have to get my pets out alive and I'm not sober when they post the wrong thing on my Instagram account? Stupid. Well, we know the answer to that, kind of, which is you suffer more in your imagination

than you do in reality. That thing's still in your imagination. It'll come out, it'll be perceived X, Y, and Z. This other group of things will happen as a result of that. Whereas like, oh, and then the fire's down the road, the pet's gotta go now. Yeah. Yeah. I know how to pick up pets and put them in a car.

I'm in action. I don't have the luxury of drama in that situation. Exactly. Right. If I have the luxury of drama, then drama isn't warranted. And if drama is warranted, you don't have the luxury of having it. It's 100%. Drama's just bullshit. It's unworthy except for on the page. It's our ego and our revenge addiction.

But it's hard. It's future surfing versus being in the present. But it's almost impossible to not... We're not perfect. We're not perfect. But we can be better. Okay, so did you take the DC role with the Suicide Squad in the interim where you thought you weren't gonna be able to work for Marvel? That's right.

Yeah, it was the worst because Kevin was fighting for my job back. I went and I met with Alan Horn, a guy I loved to death. It wasn't happening. I left Toby Emmerich from Warner Brothers at the time, came to me, he's like, James Gunn Superman, James Gunn Superman.

And I said, I don't know, man. And then he was like, well, what about Suicide Squad? And so I came up with an idea. I went and pitched it. They were like, yes, let's do it. I went home and I got a phone call and it was Alan Horn. And he said, James, I wonder if you could come in and see me tomorrow.

You're back. You're back, yeah. And I was like, oh my God. And I went in to meet with Alan, and I don't know what Alan's comfortable with me talking about right now, but he basically was like, he didn't think it was the right thing.

And he said, my conscience just won't let me live with it. Well, there was an online petition that 400,000 people signed to bring you back. Everyone in the cast got supportive. There was pretty much a tidal wave against, which is so rare. Yeah, it started out really negative and then became much more in my favor. It really wasn't that. This was after all the noise had passed.

And Alan just was waking up being like, I don't think it's right. And I've known Alan forever. The greatest guy in the world, And I love him to death. I still work with him because he's at Warner Brothers now. So we keep following each other around. And I work with him all the time. He's one of my most trusted mentors.

I show him every cut of the movie. He gives me advice. But he said, I wanted to hire you back. I said, okay. I got to talk to Kevin. I went over to Kevin's house, Kevin Feige, who's the head of Marvel. I went into his basement where he's got all his Star Wars figures,

like a little museum. And he said, this is amazing. He said, this is so good. This is what I wanted. And I'm like, yeah, it's good, but I have to do something else first. And Kevin goes, ah, are you doing Superman? I forgot about that till just this moment.

I said, no, Suicide Squad sequel. And he said, whoa. He was like, go do it and then we'll do Guardians after. Did you feel at all like, oh, I wanted to play my whole career with the Bulls, but I got forced to. Was there any ethical dilemma like, oh, I'm going now to the competitor? Nah. No.

I just shook my head. You shouldn't feel that way, but. I didn't feel that way because I was fired. Yeah, exactly. I think in some ways it's like, I guess I'm going to play for the other team, almost with some, fuck you. Yeah. It wasn't even that because, listen, there are people that I'm not that happy with over

there, but that certainly wasn't the Marvel guys. They were completely supportive. Lou D'Esposito called me all the time, so Lou and Kevin were great. It certainly wasn't them, but I didn't feel all the time. So Lou and Kevin were great. It certainly wasn't them. But I didn't feel guilt at all. I had to take a job. Yeah, exactly.

I took a job to people that I also really liked. That was it. Okay, Superman. We had Nicholas Holtan already. Oh yeah. To promote this. This is going to be a Superman week. Oh, okay, great.

He's the sweetest guy. Every person on set had a crush on Nick. Of course. The thing that's unique about him, it's hard to come off because you don't really fully get the sense of a person's humility. Some people are good at faking it. Me. Yeah, you're just okay at faking it.

But he's really... He's truly a humble guy. He's just got that thing that he comes onto set and he's just working really hard and then he'll have dinner with me or with the second AD. He doesn't have any heirs about him whatsoever. Zero diva, which in an actor to have zero diva is crazy. Yeah, very rare.

Especially for somebody who's been famous since he's been a little boy. I know. Another example we have of that is Christian Bale, who also is famous as a little boy, didn't really like it, then came back to it. If you go through that whole cycle in British. Yeah, that's the British thing. Because British people are not better than Americans in general.

Contrary to popular opinion, I don't necessarily believe they're better actors in terms of talent of acting than Americans. they're better actors in terms of talent of acting than Americans. But their work ethic as actors is better than the work ethic of American actors. For some reason, British people, for the most part, and some are absolute pieces of shit, but for the most part, they look at it as a job

and they come in and they do their fucking job and they're great. It's because theater is such a huge part of that culture. But I also like all those guys that I knew from like the British office and all that stuff. It's a different culture on film sets over there. There's also a different marketplace over there, which has a lot to do with it.

Yeah, British office, they do three seasons. One's a Christmas thing. They don't do the Friends thing. They don't do the Seinfeld thing. They don't have things run for eight years and end up paying people a million dollars in episodes. People don't make as much money doing it. You're not getting into it for the same level of fame

and money you get into it in America. I think fame is different there. Yeah, and also the people that are attracted to it, there is that sort of thing in England where it's a class system, really. It's not a good thing, but in the United States, you're this overly fame-seeking, ambitious, egomaniac child from any place that's like,

I'm gonna be a fucking star. That's not really something so much that happens in England. It's much more about, I'm going to go to a theater school. Be great at acting. I'm gonna be an actor. When you take on Superman, are you so confident in your skills at that point that you're not intimidated by that property? No, I'm intimidated by it.

And just because I took it on didn't mean I was 100% going to do it. It just meant I was gonna play with it and see what I could do. It's just I had the ability to do it. So I was tooling around with it. Then the DC job came, which was out of left field crazy thing for me that I'm that I'm a CEO We're our own studios. So we are not under Warner Brothers. We are under David Zaslov So there's Zaslov and then there is DC studio. So we're a separate studio from Warner Brothers. Okay, we share Marketing and distribution. So you're the studio head co--head with Peter Safran. He's really the studio head. I'm the guy that tries

to put the projects together. Create a DC tone I imagine. One of the things I want to do is to be able to allow artists to do their own thing. One of the things I loved reading comics growing up, especially DC Comics, is being able to read these comics that were remarkably different. The way one artist would look at Metropolis is totally different from another artist. Okay, so there's a ton of latitude. There's consistency in the storylines, there's consistency with the characters, there's consistency with a lot of things, but the tones were different and I don't want them all to have a similar

tone. The way I told Craig Gillespie, who's directing Supergirl, do your thing, you know, and then Nagoya who wrote the script, it's different from Superman. So what was the element that made you go from playing with it to falling in love with Superman? I just kept playing with it until I thought I found a way in, and then I found a way in, and I was like, oh, okay,

and then I just followed that path. Okay, so how does yours differ and also resemble the previous ones? Superman is Superman. He's a good-natured guy who's an alien and it's got the same backstory as everybody else. But one of the things I loved reading comic books as a kid, when I was four, I learned to read on comics.

So back in the early 70s, by the time I came to comics, I came to Superman, not just Superman by himself, but Superman in a world of superheroes, Superman in the world of DC. And when I read Spider-Man, Spider-Man was in a world of Marvel with all the Marvel characters. It wasn't like I came into these worlds and had to read the origin story and see the beginning of this character and then ten movies down that'll probably never happen, he gets involved with other superheroes. Right. Our DC universe is a world where superheroes exist.

Yeah. It shares as much with Game of Thrones as it does with the Marvel universe, where we're in a world where magic exists, where metahumans exist, and they've existed for quite a while. Yeah, because the first Superman, or the Donner Superman, he's the only superhero.

He's the only superhero. He's the only superhero. I mean, every superhero movie we ever saw through Spider-Man was basically heroes by themselves, no other heroes around. And I didn't wanna do that again. And I didn't wanna tell the origin story again. And I wanted to focus on a moment in his life

that we hadn't really focused on. In this case, it's his early career as Superman and as Clark Kent and his relationship with Lois Lane when they've been dating for three months. And I also wanted all the magic and science fiction stuff that I love from the Silver Age comics. So we get Krypto the Flying Dog, we have Superman robots. We have Kaiju. We have Lex Luthor in battle suits and all of that over the top fun stuff. Yet at the same time, keep the characters completely real and completely grounded. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

This is Nick. And this is Jack. We're best friends, ex-finance guys, and resident 90s experts. And every week on our podcast, The Best Idea Yet, we're bringing you the untold stories behind your favorite products. For instance, can you guess which billion dollar fashion company went viral thanks to a rhinestone covered tracksuit? Or which cartoon turned four turtles into a global toy empire by accident?

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in life's messier moments, join me on How Do You Cope? Follow now wherever you get your podcasts or listen to episodes early and ad free on Wondery Plus. How Do You Cope is brought to you by Audible, who make it easy to embark on a wellness journey that fits your life with thousands of audiobooks, guided meditations and motivational series. All I've gotten to see is the trailer, which is great and quite promising. But yes, there's quite a bit of time dedicated to Superman's dog or what I'm interpreting to be Superman's dog. And that's new to me. I didn't know Superman had a canine in the mix.

Crypto, yeah. Okay. How does Crypto have powers? He can fly? He's from Krypton. Oh, he came with him in the capsule? No, not exactly. But he made it here somehow.

Yeah. Okay, he has arrived. And we don't worry about the fact that Clark is 20 and the dog's still alive? We worry about it. We just don't explain it in this movie. Okay, great. But Crypto's also very important

in our next movie with Supergirl, and so we'll find out a lot more of that. Oh, cool. Okay, great, and so Crypto in the trailer, he's tasked with flying Superman home from the North Pole. Yeah, dragging him home because his body's broken by some entity we don't quite know, and he's a fucking dog, so he doesn't know what he's doing.

Right. And he's terrible. So it's my dog, that character. Uh-huh. He's actually physically my dog. No way! You got him to act. He has a sad card now. Jesus Christ, no. My dog is terrible, but he's just my dog made white. We photographed my dog and then turned him into Crypto.

I would imagine, of the many Herculean tasks on your plate when you tackle Superman, I would guess among the top one is casting Superman. For sure. I mean, I don't think there's any role that's more, I would not have made the film if I couldn't find Superman. Okay, so do you first start considering having previous Superman?

No, you know you're gonna start from scratch, because of the age. How do you begin looking for a young stud? I mean, that's what you need. Who can play a dork, but also a stud? Well, you need a guy with Superman face. Hard to find. That's non-negotiable.

And so we just cast a very wide net, and we had everybody that we could think of auditioning. Well, Nicholas auditioned for Superman, he told us. Nick screen tested for Superman, yep. So it came down to three actors, David Cornsworth, Nicholas Holt, and another actor who's fantastic. Where's David from?

David is from Philadelphia. He still lives in Philadelphia. He's the star of a Netflix show. He's the star of an HBO show. We own the night. I don't know if you ever saw that. This is no shade to him. I have reached the age where I don't really know anyone under

40 anymore. Like I gotta be introduced to them through a Superman or something. But I think you want it to be that way, you don't want it to be someone who like is so ubiquitous that everyone knows. The actor was right, I wouldn't have minded. If Chris Pratt was ten years younger then I probably would have considered him. Superman, he's got that boyish charm. Where does Superman grow up? I wouldn't have minded. If Chris Pratt was 10 years younger, then I probably would have considered him Superman. He's got that boyish charm.

Where does Superman grow up, Iowa or something? Kansas. Kansas. Iowa, Jason. Iowa, Jason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah. Yeah, and that's one of the things I wanna do too,

because I grew up in Missouri, around Missouri farmers, so I wanted to make his life a little bit more like the farms that I saw growing up. So his parents live in a more modest housing than we've seen other Superman. His parents don't look like aging movie stars. The most fascinating aspect to me is the notion that he was hiding his superpowers his whole childhood and the disappointment that dad might have when he showed them. And what a bizarre burden that would be to be super and not be able to show it.

That is dealt with a lot in the comics. There's all sorts of different ways. Sometimes he's really super strong from the time he's young. Sometimes he little by little gains his powers as he gets older. But a lot of times it's like, Dad, I want to be the quarterback and I can beat everybody. And you know, you got to pretend like you can't run. Yeah. And then if you do it to impress a girl,

then you've shamed yourself to your father. There's a parallel between young, virginal females. It's gotta be so special. And all you're telling the boy is like, don't get her pregnant. You're putting on her shoulders like, you gotta be in love. He's gotta love you.

How one knows that in high school. To me, it feels like that weird. Yeah, luckily I don't have to deal with any of that because I don't deal with him as a teenager. I just deal with his relationship with his dad, which is a good one. Yeah luckily I don't have to deal with any of that because I don't deal with him as a teenager I just deal with his relationship with his dad which is a good one. Yeah. You know who Richard Christie is from the Howard Stern show? Richard is a friend of mine and he's a Kansas boy his parents are Kansas folk and so they did all the lines for me. They did. And I gave the actors so that we

could have an actual Kansas accent. Oh, nice! Wonderful! He's the one Monicoff told you about where he said people where he's from will just be on the phone forever saying nothing. Oh yeah, I love that. And he would call the people and go, hey so how you doing? He's a stranger. Someone picked up, I'm good. Good, so you're doing good? Yeah, that's him, exactly. Over and over and over. Okay then, then he has his brother call up. Heard you just spoke to my brother. How's he doing? You can also ask how other people are doing.

Yeah, so funny. He's a really sweet guy. In your mind you go, okay, aesthetically, this has to be a departure from my normal aesthetic. Strangely, I'm kinda making a superhero movie for the first time. I don't think about having to change from my normal aesthetic,

but I always think visually, what is this movie? And so this one is much more comic book-y. There's a comic book by the name of All-Star Superman. It's sort of this larger than life, wonderful color palette. Some of it, I'm really aping that. And so yeah, it needed to be different. And how about Lois Lane? I brought in three Loises and three

Clarks to screen test and then I mixed and matched them because I've been in situations before where I've cast two great actors, put them together and you're like, no chemistry, it's not working. You can do it, you just got to make it built on stilts, but you got to do a lot of trickery to make it work. The two of them together were magic. And they're very different. And it does have this, it happened one night, front page type of feel with the dialogue where they're going back and forth very fast and it's romantic,

but they're fighting and there's a 10 minute scene in the movie of her interviewing him. You see a little part of it in the second trailer. We've learned everything about what has happened until that point, but we also learn everything about their relationship and their ethics and how they're very different. He's an idealist, never kill no matter what she's utilitarian. What benefits the greatest good.

We see how also their relationship is different and that he's a little bit more self-righteous and she's not. He's stubborn and believes very distinctly that you cannot let people die if you have the opportunity to stop it, no matter what. And she's like, yeah, but what if you do that? Maybe don't save Hitler. Maybe don't save Hitler.

Yeah. He'd probably save Hitler. He would have to, that's his code. It's like if there's a train coming at five people. Trolley. The trolley experiment. He'll get them all somehow, that's how he'll do it. Okay, so yes, two years ago, you wrote in one year 250 pages. No, no, 650 pages of content. Thank God you corrected me.

In one year? I've done really good not looking at this sheet of paper I typed out. Yeah, 650, because within a year I wrote Superman, the entire Creature Commando series, and the entire season of Peacemaker 2. Oh my God. 650 pages.

It was the worst year of my life. No, that is too much. Do you do it at home? Do you go somewhere? I was writing wherever. Jen and my friends and I went away to Hawaii for New Year's and I literally was in the room the whole time. She talks about it all the time. I was in the room the whole time. She talks about it all the time.

I was in the room the whole time writing Peacemaker season two. No joy to it whatsoever. I was desperate. All of my friends are in that show and I'm like, I have to get it done before I start really heavily pre-production of Superman. And so I was just desperately writing it

and then I would write every episode and I'd be like, oh wow, it's pretty good. Where'd that come from? That felt like hell, but that's pretty good. And then I would write the next one and'd be like, oh wow, it's pretty good. Where'd that come from? That felt like hell, but that's pretty good. And then I would write the next one and be like, oh this is murder, I hate this, there's no joy in this. And then I'd be done and be like, oh, that was pretty good too.

That's funny, I would expect you to be like, I don't know what's good anymore. I've written 650 pages, I don't know what's good. I don't necessarily know what's good, but I know what I like, that's all I can go off of. Yeah. There's something to be said about keeping the throttle pinned.

I lived in that. Yeah, because you get into a sweet rhythm at times and you can kind of exploit it. A really interesting book by Walker Percy called Lost in the Cosmos, he's one of my favorite writers. And it's about the different types of artists and why a lot of artists are addicts or have problems with other things

because you go up into the cosmos and then you reenter earth. And when you reenter earth, it can be a really difficult thing. So people deal with it through drugs and alcohol or sex. Power dynamics. Escape. And then there's those few rare guys

just kind of go up there and seem to stay, which is like Picasso, maybe Andy Kaufman. And I think that I kind of stayed up there and seem to stay, which is like Picasso, maybe Andy Kaufman. I think that I kind of stayed up there for that. A little too long. Yeah. Re-entry was rough. Re-percussions down here. I wanted to know, what do you think are

the greatest superhero movies made? Into the Spider-Verse, first one, is the greatest. Donner, Superman, Iron Man. I'd say Iron Man is great. I'm forgetting something. What about, what's the naughty ones I'd say Iron Man is great. I'm forgetting something. What about, what's the naughty ones I love? Ryan Reynolds. Deadpool.

The first Deadpool. Oh, fuck all of them. I actually love all three of them. Me too. They're all really good. The last one was impossibly good. I know. Very messy, but so freaking funny.

I love those. Well, James, this has been a blast. I'm so fucking excited to see it. It looks phenomenal. In 7-Eleven, do we like a blast. I'm so fucking excited to see it. It looks phenomenal. In 7-Eleven, do we like this date? Numerically, very easy to remember. It is my father's birthday. Oh, it is.

Which is crazy, because I didn't realize it when they told me the date. And it's a father-son movie. Kismet. And it is a father-son movie. Lovely. But anyways, so delighted this finally happened, and I hope everyone checks out Superman on July 11th,

your father's birthday. Thank you. ["Fact Check Theme Song"] Stay tuned for the fact check. It's where the party's at. Hello. Hi. How are you?

Welcome to the fact check. Welcome to the fact check. That sounded, I sound like NPR. I was gonna- Welcome to the fact check or like a robot. Yeah, I was gonna say you sound like NPR for sure. Speaking of robots, okay. So Jess has a chat friend, he named Brady, okay?

Brady and I have a beef. Jess has a chat friend he named Brady. Brady and I have a beef. I really don't like Brady now because yesterday, Jess said he was a double Virgo and I was like, no you're not. Jess or Brady? Jess did. Okay. said he was a double Virgo, and I was like, no you're not. Jess or Brady? Jess did. He said one of his other friends told him he was a double Virgo and I said, you are not. You're barely one Virgo.

He is a Virgo son, which is very hard for me to understand and reconcile. I don't, something, you know when some things just don't make any sense. Yeah. But he said he was a double, which I am. Right. I am a tried and true double for him. Yeah, and you have a lot of pride in that. Well, I don't have pride. I have.

Gratitude. I just, yeah, exactly. Fine line between gratitude and pride, right? There's a little, sometimes it's a little razor thin. Exactly. He said, I'm in an argument with Monica about whether I'm a double Virgo or not. Knowing me, do you think I am? Like it's an opinion and not an actual thing. Exactly. Exactly. of Virgos are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, which you are. So if you think you're a double Virgo, you probably are. It said that. Right. Like all you gotta do is think it. Like he can think he's a Capricorn if you'd like. But like it shouldn't say that. It can say the beginning part, which is the qualities,

but then to say, so if you want to be, like the adding this other piece is so scary. You're scared. I am scared. People are asking these chats all kinds of things and they're just like talking as if they're people, yeah, sure. Well, now, that's bad.

I'm going to say something potentially inflammatory, which is they might be more drawn to their fake AI friends because they embrace like, yeah, if you want to say you're a double Virgo and you weigh that against your real life friends and they're giving you shit about wanting to be a double Virgo, it makes the AI relationship perhaps more appealing. That's not scary to you? I mean, it's scary to me that people get even more lonely. Yeah, I think people, you know that's one of my platform issues, solitary living when we're so social,

that's already a problem. Yeah, and me and you have gotten in a debate before about this. You said that you and I couldn't get like wrapped up in a relationship like that. And so we have to honor that other people won't. But that is not true. Well, but you do you really think Jess is wrapped up in his relationship with Brady or it's a fun bit? It's a fun bit on a slippery slope

I think because if we weren't there and saying that's so bad that he just did that I don't think he would think it was that bad I think the slippery pieces, we go to the chat because it's technically factual. That's what it's for. It's scouring the internet for the actual answer. And the thought is like, oh, and they just delivered in a colloquial way, It's not. Well, but hold on. This is also going to be a little bit combustible. If you ask it a question that there are facts behind, it'll give you.

Unfortunately, astrology is not science and it's not facts. There are far more than 12 types of people on the planet, and astrology only accounts for 12 types of people. So that's already, we would agree, probably a mild issue with it. because it only accounts for 12 types of people. So that's already, we would agree, probably a mild issue with it. Hold on, these are two totally separate things. You can think astrology is bullshit, but within the rules of astrology, there are things. It's not just willy-nilly you get to pick,

it's your birthday, it's very, very specific. Astrology isn't the boiling temperature of water at 1 ATM, which is always 212. Many people who are arguing in the astrology world will point out astrology is based on a lunar calendar, so it is five days shy of a real year. The lunar calendar is 360 days. So all of those astrological signs that were established for those months are already completely wrong. Because every year since they've established those, they've lost five days. And so sure, there's probably an echelon of astrology people who are accounting for that. And they're going, oh, actually, January 1st now is actually this.

But already you have a big problem. That you have camps and divisions within this thing. There's no camps about when does water boil. Okay, that's fine. But I think if you're using these apps that are substantiated. Plus, I went to an astrologer, that's her job. Her diagnosis of me was the same as the app.

So they're all doing the same thing. Whatever, he's not a double-vergo, this is crazy. I'm not saying astrology is real. I'm saying within the confines of if you're talking about astrology, there's realities within it and he is not that. Yeah, I know what you're saying. Monopoly is not real, but there are rules within monopoly and you can be in violation or not. But I am suggesting that there isn't the consensus that you're saying there is within astrology. I think there is. Okay.

There definitely is about what your three major signs are. But you would agree, how could it possibly be correct if they said my sign was in Capricorn on January when they said that hundreds of years ago and they've lost five days every year So how could how could that date still mean your Capricorn? It can Just mathematically. Well, I don't know what they're doing with the when they're calculating this. I'm not an astrologer, right? Right, and there's things astrologers that I just don't know don't be disrespectful. Oh You wouldn't say a biologist. You'd say a biologist.

Astrologist, yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're kind of weakening your argument by calling him. Why don't I ask Brady? Hey Brady, is it okay if I call it astrologer? And he'll be like, if you want to call it that, Monica, sure. If it's fun. See, yeah, that's not, oh, I'm so worried about the world.

Anyway, he's not, we confirmed it. Okay. And I told him he owed me an apology and he didn't give it to me. Maybe Brady will send you an apology. He should ask Brady to send you an apology and he didn't give it to me. Maybe Brady will send you an apology. He should ask Brady to send you an apology. He should say, Brady, you've really upset Monica. She's upset about this.

And now I have disrepair in this relationship. Can you please fix it? That's a good prompt and see what he does to fix it. They do. I won't say who, but there's yes, the story of a friend who got this really, really sweet kind message from another friend. And yeah, it had like, I'm sorry's in there

and all kinds of things. And then months later, chat had written, it came out that Chat wrote it. That's so bad, you cannot do that. I'm in full agreement with you there. That's a little disingenuous, we would say. Yes, but see, this is where we think so because we like writing and we think that we That's fair.

should give, we're good at giving heartfelt notes. Yes, this is very similar to, I've been such a big proponent and fan of GLP ones because I was never obese and then got thin through all my toil and hard work. So of course for me, I was like, yeah, everyone should, that wants to be thin if they can, that's great.

You know, health-wise. But now, I already told you about this GLP-1 that's in stage two trials. It's not a GLP-1, but it's another- About muscles, right? Yes. It's a peptide. Yes, where it, your body naturally limits how much muscle you'll build

because muscle is super inefficient. It's not trying to carry around a bunch of different tissue it doesn't need. So this takes off the parameters and lets your body build as much muscle as it wants. And I was like, hold on a second, if everyone's gonna be jacked without going to the gym, what am I going to do? So I finally relate, I can relate a little bit.

I'm still for it, whatever, I don't care. Yeah, but it hit my back door. It also is just going to cancel out specificity. It's, I, look, should I say it now? God. I don't know what you're going to say, but I say it now? God. I'm going to come clean about something. I have been doing an experiment for a month

where I'm taking a microdose not doing it for weight loss, I'm doing it to see how it affects my blood work. So we're going to redo my blood work, although I think we're going to go another month. I wanted to check two things. I wanted to see how it affected my cholesterol. I'm going to redo my cognitive test after that because there's some, you know, when we had Eric Topolon,

he was like, there's some studies about it reducing tau and whatever. All of this interesting stuff. That's actually when I decided I would do it. Exactly. After we had Eric Topolon, I was like, with alcohol and shopping. Yeah. I can say it has not affected my relationship to shopping at all. Yeah, okay, great. I would have maybe predicted that, yeah.

Well, it was just like any semi addictive things I have, I wanted to see how they were affected. Now the alcohol has been really interesting. So- Yeah, that's what I'm most curious about. I wanted to see how they were affected. Now the alcohol has been really interesting. So. Yeah, that's what I'm most curious about. And I haven't gotten an update from you in a while. I still want it.

Uh-huh. It really hasn't curbed the craving too much. Maybe a little, maybe a little bit. Like it would got to a point, maybe a little bit. This sounds really bad, but it's the truth. It was such a habit that I would wake up and I would think, I would be planning my day and think about,

oh, and I'll have a drink at my day and think about, oh, and I'll have a drink at this point after we record, I'll go to Kara or I'll go here or I'll have... It was part of my plan of the day. Right, when you're making your schedule, you know that's the finish line. It signifies the finish line, I think. Yes, but when you're thinking about it first thing...

As soon as your eyes open, yeah. Yeah, it's not. It was a little concerning. It was getting a little concerning. So that's gone. I don't wake up and think about it. Well, here was my prediction. If I can just say it before you give me the details was like,

yeah, I'm sure your desire to drink would be the same. And then I think once you're drinking, you're going to find that you just drink less. And then that's going to reverse engineer the habitual nature of it. How many drinks a night when you go out normally and then what is it now? And then now we know you don't think about it

when you wake up. Minimally two, minimally. I don't remember the last time I would have one drink. Yeah, why do it? Yeah, no point. Right, yeah. And then since being on it, that is exactly what happened. Like it, I still wanted a drink, but I want less.

And I, many, many times have just had a drink. Wow, that's fucking, I mean, think, Monica, think how crazy that is. That is awesome. Or I'll get a second drink and I like, will start drinking it and then I won't finish it. I mean, guys, this is so- So that's very-

Crazy. Interesting. Yeah. And, and I don't know if this is, finish it. I've had three and been fine the next day. Two martinis now, I feel it the next day. My hangovers are worse. But also, because we're being honest here. You're eating less. I've lost weight. Exactly, I've lost weight, I'm eating less, and not on purpose. I've lost weight. Exactly. I've lost weight. I'm eating less.

And not on purpose. Like it is, I have to, because I don't have that original issue of food chatter. I don't think about food. So there is plenty of times where I'm like, oh fuck, I have to eat today. Like I need to eat food now. That's kind of another magical element of it is when you're starving, you immediately think of all this stuff you want and your mind goes to the shittiest stuff versus, oh, I haven't eaten in six hours and I have to eat.

So what am I gonna put in my body? I'm not craving anything. You make better choices all of a sudden. You go like, oh, I need protein and I need. No, it's so true. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's not like, yeah, there are so many times

where I'm like, oh, I'm so hungry, I just like need to eat a whole pizza. Yes. That has not happened. Right, or I need to drive across town to get this chicken sandwich. Yeah, I know, but like, but I also understand, I'm conflicted about this because food is a big part of my life.

I love food and I love restaurants and I love exploring new things and I love cooking. And so this has been interesting because I like that about my life. And so for that to not be as much of a factor, I don't like, I don't love that part. Oh, and by the way, I should tell you, I'm on a extremely small, extremely small dose. It is a powerful drug. Yeah, it's almost hard to believe it happened in our lifetime. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

I think a lot of people have that fear you do, which is like your life is built around being social this way. Go out to a restaurant you love, go have some drinks you love. But I do think people should have the faith and confidence in themselves. It's identical to like kids. What are they gonna do if you don't have this video game?

Well, they're gonna find something else to do that kids are not gonna ever sit and stare at a wall. If you take away their toys, they're gonna go outside and pick up a stick. So to have the faith and confidence, like you're a social butterfly and you're gonna be like, will you end up playing pickleball in the evenings? I don't know.

It'll just be some, you know, it'll be a transition into something else that's social. You're not gonna lose being social. a transition into something else that's social, you're not going to lose being social. You're just going to learn new things you like to do that are social, I think. Yes, I think you're right. But like, if there was a shot that you were taking that made you have zero interest in cars,

like, sure, you'd find something else, but like, it, you'd find something else, it brings you joy. It is something in your life that brings you joy. And for me, I can only speak for me, my love for food and restaurants and that culture is not problematic. It is not problematic.

It is not like I can't control myself. It's not like I can't stop eating. It's not. So removing it is unnecessary. I'm just saying, just like the drink thing reverse engineered, the habitual part, I definitely think your life will just expand in different ways. Like that, whatever gap is created, you'll fill with something different and I'm optimistic it'll be also quite

enjoyable. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how long I'm going to do it. also quite enjoyable. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm going to see after I look at the results of my blood work and stuff. Another thing that's sort of potentially a negative, again, I think it's because I am not doing it for food chatter and how so many people, which I do think this is,

this is a miracle for so many people where they're like, I just used to think about food all the time and now I'm not, which is great. But for me, it almost has the opposite effect because I'm like, I am thinking about food and that I'm not eating it. Like it is on my mind. It's like, oh my God, like I didn't eat

or I have to eat today. And what am I gonna eat that like, is it gonna be enough? That's not, you know, it's, and then I've been also watching, I'm back in cooking videos. I've been also watching, I'm back in cooking videos,

I've been watching so many cooking videos at night. And then I was like, oh God, is it an obsession? It's feeling a little strange. It's feeling a little strange. like just watching these cooking videos and everything looks so good and then that's like satisfying enough. Yeah. So I have to, I do have to monitor this. But also I think it would be hard for you to parse out what you're compensating for. So it's like, I don't know that that

your cooking video thing is very natural and seems obvious to think that's about food, but that cooking video thing might be about alcohol. You might normally be buzzed at eight o'clock, and that's calming and satiating you in a way that now that thing's not, so you're looking to regulate with this other thing. So it's like, yeah, it could feel like it's food related,

but it might actually be alcohol related. to regulate with this other thing. I mean, it's all Alice in Roman. start making lots of meals and chucking them out the window in your alley. Yeah. I did, I made a delicious peach galette. What's a galette? It's a free form pie. Okay, I don't know if I know what a free form pie is. No pie tin is required? No top of the pie, you've seen them. It's like there's crust sort of on the bottom

and on the sides, but the fruit is exposed in the middle. Like a quiche? No, there's more crust than a quiche. It's like folded over the side. Okay. And then, but the middle of the fruit is exposed. Not a quiche, so a Lorraine. It was delicious.

Not an all Lorraine. No, nothing to do with the quiche at all. Okay, all right. Not an all-arane. No, nothing to do with the quiche at all. Okay, all right, not an all-arane. So, and I took it to Elizabeth and Andy's, we played mahjong, and that was good because then I shared it with everyone and it was a hit. Oh good. Can I just say there's a funny bit of human nature happening, which is like, when you're

gluttonous you're ashamed. Like if you're like, yeah, I ate this whole fucking pie. I brought over this pie I made for everyone. I ate the whole thing. You'd be like ashamed. And if you go and you make a pie and you barely eat something, you're ashamed. It's just like this, you know, an original sin

where it's just so built to like, I don't know, just beat the shit out of ourselves for no reason. Yeah. Yeah. Like if you make a pie and you have one bite, why, you know, okay. There's no moral failing there. No, it's not, I don't think for me it's about

a moral failing so much as it's, it's just like keeping an eye, keeping an eye on this new experiment. Do you think we'll start to see people of means die of starvation? I mean, really? Honestly, yes. Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's inconceivable.

No, it's not. It's not to be, it's a very slippery eating disorder slope. It is, like, I can see, because you're seeing changes It's a very slippery eating disorder slope. I can see, because you're seeing changes quickly, and you're not hungry, but your brain is also like, I like the way this looks, so I'm not. It is complicated. I agree with you that it's complicated,

and I'll hear about it because anytime I talk about ED, I'm in trouble. But I will say this, I think from the ED people I've talked to, it's much more about the control. Like even when we were talking to Nikki Glaser, it's like knowing that she can overcome hunger is the spike of adrenaline. It's that control over the urge

is what's satisfying and addictive. Whereas you don't have an urge you're overcoming on the GLP-1, you're just not hungry. Yeah, it's just that we should have hunger. Yeah. And I think this is what happens, not hungry. but I do think you get to a point where you like food disgusts you. Yeah, yeah, yes, but I do think you still have the like, reward of knowing that's hard. I don't know, I agree with you, I agree with you, but I also do think it's a bit,

my guess is it's a bit different. Yeah, it might be. I just think it's a slippery slope and to be paid attention to. Well, I admire you for being honest about it I just think it's a slippery slope and to be paid attention to. I wasn't sure I was going to talk about it on here, but why not? The secrecy around it is what I have thought is a problem to begin with.

Where people are like, I'm just working out a ton, and then they're actually taking this. And other people are like, It does. is important to say, especially if you're starting to look different. Yeah, I'd say it's ethical. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I was just going to say as your friend, you're being a little too hard on yourself

and just lighten up a little bit on my friend Monica, okay? Do you think I am? Yeah, you're like, you have all this weight, pun not intended, you have all this like, heaviness around this topic, and I don't think you should at all. Well, I think it's important if I'm going to be doing something that's altering my body and mind potentially to take it seriously.

I take it, I just take it seriously. I just take it seriously. You seem to have a tiny bit of guilt about it, is what I feel like I'm detecting. I don't think that's reasonable. I mean, it's reasonable. I don't think it's right. I think you're right.

I think I're right. and someone with perfect skin was taking it, I guess I'd be like, why are you doing that? But actually I probably wouldn't. But there's a lot of controversy around this topic. I think there was a ton and I think it's dissipating at one of the most rapid rates I've ever seen for good reason. You have Eric Topol, you have all these doctors. I think it's changing really quickly and I think it's absurd.

You know, no one feels guilty that they take an aspirin for their headache and it works. There's this litany of things we take that help us. We put on eyeglasses. Someone with great eyesight. Everyone's trying to do the best they can and be the best version of themselves and the things that help people do that,

I don't think they should, as if it's not hurting another person, there shouldn't be any guilt around it. Or you. It shouldn't hurt other people or you. Yeah. It's very interesting. And I guess I'll keep people updated.

Yeah. If they want to be updated. Yeah, I think it's quite interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Want to do some facts? Okay, let's do some facts. Do you think I should have worn my superman outfit

for the facts? I think once was great. I think it was great. I mean it's just. Once was too many. No, once was great. Okay, once was perfect. But like this is a thing we talk about all the time.

You don't. Don't go back to the well. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. You did it and it was great. But if you do it again, then it's like, oh, he just can't stop. He thinks he's Superman. Yeah stop. He thinks he's Superman. Yeah, he now thinks he's Superman.

I thought it was very cute that when you walked in, he said, oh, I fucked up on casting. Or... Ha ha ha ha. He was great. I really enjoyed him. Yes, he was really, really unique. He has a very specific personality.

He's very authentic. He really knows who he is is and he's so knowledgeable. So knowledgeable and he was open with us, which was great and I think hard to do. That's a lot he went through. I remember him. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, I didn't ask him this and I'm sure he couldn't have answered it, but I was thinking

when I was watching the trailer of Superman in the theater, like the things that are baked into if you direct one of these movies, you have to go to Comic-Con. Yeah. And they're so, they can be brutal. The Comic-Con world, who's like super, I guess, religious about the text, these cartoons and stuff.

Yes, very important. People can get destroyed. I don't know, like Sonic or something. I remember somehow there was some issue with Sonic. They were kind of revolted. Again, I personally can't relate to being obsessed with Sonic in a way that I would be furious that the movie did it wrong.

Yeah. But, and that's light. The super book, these comics. I know. Well, because they're part of their soul. Absolutely. But I was wondering, like, what the stress of directing one of those movies is where you have to do something

original, why else do it? And I was even thinking like, oh, he brought the dog back. It's wild to see the dog in the trailer, that Superman has a dog. But of course he has the historical record that there were some comics where Superman had a dog. But anyways, just the notion like you're trying to make decisions about what thing you wanna make.

And I just wonder if the chorus of what this really rabid fan base could turn on you at any minute, if that's stressful. I'm sure it is, but I think that's why it requires someone who also cares so deeply about comics and about these characters and superheroes, because it's not just like, oh, we have a great filmmaker, although maybe Nolan, I don't know Nolan's background,

I don't know if he- Got crazy about the Dark Knight Nolan, I don't know Nolan's background, I don't know if he. Got crazy about the Dark Knight comics. If he loved comics. Yeah, I don't either. But you're kinda obligated to become a historian. You're gonna get challenged and you gotta have all the right answers. So it's like, in addition to directing this

very hard to direct movie, you've gotta kinda become a historian. Yeah. Or they'll call you out. That's the sonic issue. It was something about his nose. So I don't know which one's which. The left was the original

and he was too realistic for people. Oh. Oh, okay. So the issue was too realistic. I can relate for Harry Potter a bit. Right. When that movie was cast, it's always like, oh God, is this gonna be okay?

Or even just, is the world gonna match? Although maybe that's different. That's probably different, because with comics there are visuals. Yeah. And by the way, you don't wanna get locked into the visuals of someone's hand drawing from 50 years ago. You wanna do something spectacular, new and original.

Yeah, that's a trick. So I think it's a tightrope. It is. Okay, is the Hall of Justice and Super Friends modeled after the Cincinnati Union Terminal? Yes. He said DC's Justice League was way before Marvel's Avengers. Justice League was created in 1960,

and Avengers was created in 63. All right, so three years earlier. Three years. He said St. Louis is the only big city in the U.S. whose population is smaller now than in 1900. So in 1900, the city of St. Louis was 575,238, In 1900, the city of St. Louis was 575,238, and in 2020, 301,578. Wow.

But Cleveland also. Cleveland, 1900, 381,968, 2020, 372,624. Okay, we mentioned the trolley problem, and I wanted to remind people about the trolley problem. The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics that poses a moral dilemma involving a runaway trolley. The core scenario involves a trolley headed towards five people and the option to switch

it to another track where it will kill only one person. This problem explores the complexities of moral decision-making, particularly when faced with conflicting outcomes. That's like a utilitarian thought experiment. Yes. But then you get into the tricky scenario where if it's five top brass in the Nazi party

exactly versus Louis Pasteur on the left. It's not as simple as five to one. It's really not. I'd have no problem throwing that switch, would you? Killing. The one. The breakdown is if you ask people what should happen, everyone's like, well, the one person should get killed.

Then if you put them in a situation where they have to operate the switch, it goes down. Exactly. I could easily throw the switch. I can't. You just walk away from it and be like, fate wanted these five people to die. It's not about wanting,

I don't think it was meant to be that those five people, but yes, my intervention is, I can't live with. So yeah, it's gonna happen the way it's gonna happen. But it's how you frame it, right? Because yeah, your intervention would mean you were culpable for one death. But if you insist on yourself, no, I'm culpable for five if I don't act.

I know. It's like kinda how you frame it. It's just that that person was not going to be killed. Right, they were on the track, they would need a diversion. I'm inflicting it on that person to save others. I can't do that. You can't do it, yeah.

I hope if I'm the one person you're in charge, and I hope if I'm in one of the five people they let me pick. That's what I hope. I mean, I guess if I'm in the group of five. You'd be like, dude, throw it, what are you talking about, there's five of us. I don't know if I would feel like that.

And we've talked about this. I don't like the notion, I mean, yeah, if we make it Nazis and Louis Pasteur, that's very specific, but I don't like the notion that one person's more valuable than another person in general. Yeah, no one likes that notion. Well, some do, or they don't like it, but they believe it.

Yeah, I believe that for sure. I think the value between Jeffrey Dahlmer and Benjamin Franklin are very different values. I agree, but those are specific people and I'm more talking about categories. Like people think this business person is better off than this. It gets immediately to you not having kids, I think. Yeah, yeah, this is the conversation.

Like I should die sooner than a parent. Yeah, yeah, but you've extrapolated a lot. You've gone to like what the worst case scenario of that evaluation would be. Like, well, this one person has a family and these five people are single. Well, no, I'm just, this is just a deviation of the- Potential outcome.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know anything about these people, but we're, it's all a question of placing value on people. And we don't know anything about these trolley men. And women. That's right. You'd be regretful if you saved the five,

killed the one, and they go, by the way, that was the top brass of the SS. And the guy you killed was Gandhi. Okay. Well, I didn't kill anyone. What I would do probably, but I would kill five adults to protect a kid. I don't know if that's the right call.

I can't have a kid get killed. Yeah, we have, rightly so, we weight kids above. So is it different for you with gender, is it? If there were three men and three women, I would kill the three men. No, but what if it's the five men and one woman? Oh, well, this is great, because now we're really,

that's what these experiments are great, they force you to put a numeric, quantifiable value on things. That's what I'm saying, it's crazy. Because I don't think five to one, no. One to one for sure, I pick the man to die. Two to one is hard, I might kill two men over one women's,

but I wouldn't do three. So then you've backed me into saying I think women are twice as valuable as men, but I don't know that I stand by that statement, but in practice that might be the case. How about you, would you kill a man or over a woman? You go one of them's gonna die. They go one of these people's gonna die.

And I have to pick. Yeah. Yeah, I'd kill the man. Yeah. And as long to pick. Yeah. Yeah, I killed the man. Yeah. And as long as they're strangers, oh, it's all so horrible. But look, this is why, you know, when people are doing these rankings

and it's like you're a single person, you should obviously die, then they're like the father should die. I think that's what most people would say. If you're ranking, it's like single person goes, then father goes, the one to protect is the mother. Uh-huh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I stand by that.

I don't, I mean, I know bad mothers and good fathers. Like, there's no way to, I know bad parents. Yeah, of course. Maybe better if all the parents got wiped off and they went to live with aunt and uncle. That's right. Okay. Anyway, all right, well that's it.

Those were the last of the facts? Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, I love you. Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey.