Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Joel Edgerton

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams, The Secret Life of Us, The Square) is an actor, writer, and director. Joel joins the Armchair Expert to discuss how he knows when his Australian Vogue Editor-in-Chief wife doesn’t like his outfit, why his approach to relationships is ‘it takes two to tango,’ and the reasons why he gets starstruck over are athletes. Joel and Dax talk about the big dreaminess of Australian filmmakers, the deficits of old school masculinity, and why his brother is ‘that guy’ as a stunt performer in movies. Joel explains pitching ideas to George Miller while getting his steps in, the pleasure of working alongside someone better than him, and the incredible and brutal world he gets to portray in Train Dreams.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. I'm Dachshppard. I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. Today we have a very handsome and rugged yet sensitive and sweet man.

Yeah. Joel Edgerton. Yes. God, he was a delight. He really was. This was, I didn't know much about Joel, and so I was really happy that we got to know him and his project is incredible. It is. So, of course, you know him from Loving Warrior, The Gift, Bright, Dark Matter, but he has, you know, I don't go on on a limb.

I don't, I'm telling you right now, this is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. It's just sat with me since I've saw it. I keep thinking about it. Train Dreams, which is out on Netflix on the 21st, just in time for Thanksgiving. It is actually, you know, it's a great movie to see right before Thanksgiving because it gives you so much gratitude for the abundance we live in and have no gratitude for. Yeah. And take for granted because it's just a very simple story about someone in 1917.

And man, it was fucking whored. Yeah. So yes, Joel Edgerton, he's great. I also want to say that my heart is broken for Clito. and his family and my friends the Kimmel's and uh boy that's such a bummer and uh i send all my love to everyone me too yeah uh please enjoy joel edgerton armchair expert is proud to have alexa plus as our presenting sponsor the all new alexa plus is your smart proactive AI assistant just chat naturally about anything and watch your to do list disappear it learns your style and anticipates

what's next across Echo, Fire TV, and more. Learn more at Amazon.com slash new Alexa. Hi. Nice to meet you. Welcome. Where should I sit? Right there. Well, you look very cute in this outfit. You look very relaxed, playful beach vibes. Let me see your watch really quick. I like the Daytona-esque dials of it all. My wife bought this for me. It probably hasn't been well. It's gorgeous. It was made in the year I was born. That's cute.

74. 74. So it's a very old watch. I love old. Like, I was in Budapest and I'd be. bought a bunch of old watches from markets. I thought I'd wanted to go and get a really fancy, expensive watch. And I did, and I barely wear it. And the watches I love are these watches I got for like 50 bucks. These Budapest watches. Yeah, like World War II kind of old German and Russian watches. I have one very nice watch too, and I don't wear it ever. Why don't you wear yours? I feel like it makes me seem like a show-off. I was in Tokyo for two days. someone that told me you could get really good deals on really fancy watches.

So I went shopping for watching. I got a, I've worn it a handful of times, but I do feel like I'm a bit of a show off when I'm wearing. You get self-conscious. Child poppy. Yeah, but one of the things I do is I do a lot of my shopping on other men. Oh. I literally, I'll see something if someone's wearing and I'm like, I think I know where that's from, double R.L.

Good job. Oh, my God. Really good work. Wait, does this predate your wife? And Monica, I was going to save this because you'll be so excited. but his wife is the editor-in-chief at Australia Vogue. Oh, wow, incredible. Yeah, and my clothing game is definitely upped.

Well, you got it. You have an obligation. My clothing then punched above my weight. Wow, so you really nailed this, and I'm going to tell you, I saw it on Instagram, promoted to me, they know what I like, and I found my way to this like two months ago. So I certainly would not have known this was double R a couple months ago. Yeah.

Why are you? I just happen to have seen that shirt and I know this. Do you own it? No, I don't own it. Did it pique your interest? Did you think about it? Yeah, I did like it. Are you going to get it now?

I feel like I should give it to you at the end of this interview. Yeah, I kind of do. You know, years ago I met a producer on a film and he said to me that when he was a kid, his mom dressed him for his first day of school in a three-piece suit. He went to school and I'll start the story about saying he kept asking me what I was wearing and he asked if he could have a look at the tag. and three days after one of these moments, he turned up on set wearing the jacket that I had bought

and that I'd been wearing three days earlier. And then he told him the story, his mum addressed him in a three-piece suit for school. All the kids teased him. Sure. And he went home crying and he said, and he said, Mom, the kids would tease me about my suit. She said, well, you go to school tomorrow

and look at what all the other kids are wearing and then come home and tell me and we'll go shopping for you. Oh, that was sweet of her. And that was when he was like five, six years old. And ever since then, what he does is he walks around to other men and he's like, what is this? And it looks at a tag. And then he goes shopping. And I was like, that's kind of what I do.

I look at what people, and watches is one of them. I hope your wife watches this because I think she will appreciate my outfit. Of course. Like Joel knew about me, she'll know right away for you. And you'll know if my wife likes or doesn't like your outfit. And I'll tell you why. I'm not sure when I left to come here because she was the last person. I saw, and I ran into the room to grab something, and she looked at me, and I was like,

I wonder if I'm going to get an appraisal or not. I can tell by a micro expression, and sometimes I walk in, and if my arms go out, it's basically like, what do you think? And then I get a look, and depending on the look, sometimes I'm already taking the outfit off. Can you do the look? You're a good actor. Okay. It's kind of like, yeah, that's great.

Super slight disapproval. Yeah. Disapproval. But she's got great taste. Hopefully that extends to her choice in husbands. Good. I was going to ask this very far at the end after I had warmed you up and gained your trust.

But I am curious. How you guys knew each other since the 90s, but you didn't get together until 2018? There's like 48 people in Australia. Okay. We all know each other. She used to work at a magazine Harper's Bazaar. And I'm talking about the late 90s.

And I was a young actor. And I just remember meeting her. But I knew a lot of people. at the time. And then we just saw each other in social circles for years. And then in the sort of five or six years before we got together, she'd become very close friends with my brother and his wife. So we knew each other super well as friends. But were there not vibes throughout any of those different encounters? Like, were you doing the secret life of us when you met when she was at Harper's? Were you like already on TV? I don't know that anyone would have looked at my hairstyle

during the secret life of us and gone, there's a catch. That's the guy. That plume of fake blonde hair. The interesting thing was I had gone through, and I won't go too much into this, but I've gone through a string of relationships, complicated ones, some of them. And she was in a very solid relationship for a long time. Okay, okay. That explains that. And so quite often at these dinners, I was being ripped apart by my brother and his wife.

They were very judgy about me and my approach to relationship. And I'm sure they had some good points. That's a good point. But I will say in hindsight, I often look back on those relationships and go, you have to make sure that you acknowledge that it takes two to tango. You know, you can't just blame someone else for being terrible to you, although there is one. There was a character assassination. There was a pot shot or two taking it at most of those dinners.

By Nash, your brother. Yeah, it's just in general. And I think quietly in the background, people like to talk about other people when they're not around. Sure, sure. Yeah, it's very fun. It all came from place of caring. I think they wanted the best for me. Yeah.

Also, it's this great thing about siblings. Siblings tell you exactly what's going. Oh, you have shit in your teeth. Oh, you look fucking ugly in that. There's no threat of leaving. So the honesty's off the choice. And my brother's an incredible touchstone of honesty for me. When it comes to work, anything, he'll tell me straight.

I know for a fact that there were two people when Christine became single. Like, hey, do you ever think, Joel and her answer? I probably can't have a repeat on this podcast. But when my mom mentioned it at some point, she's like, no way. Great. I'd love to hear that. Because of your reputation from these dinners. Yeah, but I don't think my reputation was too bad.

I think it was more the fact that I was a guy in my mid-40s who just hadn't quite settled down. And to be honest, in fairness to me, my passion for work and the journeys that it takes you on geographically. Travel, yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people were interested in actors and go, wow, it's so excited. And we know it's really not that glamorous. And then once they get close to you or involving you, they're like, all right, you're going where for how long? Yeah.

So you're not really a reliable source of continuity. And it puts people in a vulnerable position to be a passenger in someone else's life. Yes, I don't want to be a passenger. No, I love being a plus one, though. I really enjoy going places to support Christine. And when she's there to support me, I appreciate if I'm constantly sensitive to how weird it all is. She's so cool about those worlds in general, even though she lives in the world of fashion. But it's got similar, you know, it intersects in its own way enough for her to

understand. And what I love most of all, whenever I've invited her to set, mainly because I want the kids to come. Like on train games, I got to ride on a horse and cart. It's like, can you bring the kids to set? The last thing in the world she wants to do, not because she's not supportive, but she doesn't want to be that person hanging around on a set where she's just someone standing they're not doing anything. Yeah. Well, I was going to say she has demonstrated that she is an industrious focused human being and to stand there and be useless for eight hours is a rough feeling when you are

generally of use to people. And I think what sort of made our relationship work in the early days, too, was the realization that she'd barely watched anything I'd ever been involved in. So she has a great taste. It's really, really good taste. I had become aware over the years, I remembered the first time it, anyone ever walked over to me in a bar and was like really interested to talk to me and the realization that the only reason she'd done it is because she'd seen me on television,

that she had an idea of who I was and the fascination with who I was without even knowing me at all. Whereas I love when people are disinterested, it becomes even keeled and good and our relationship works for a hundred reasons and that's one of them. Monica has the same thing as you. Yeah. And I don't get it. Okay. Yeah. Some gal, at the bar saw you and something and loved you. So she appreciates the thing you do. And she comes over for one reason. But you have your own

swag and charisma and value. And so who cares if that's how the door got opened? Unless you have some crazy fear of I'm going to really be a disappointment and let the person down. Who gives a flying fuck why someone enters the pitcher? This is Monica's issue too. You guys can gang up on me. Yeah. Can you guys put together a cohesive

reason why that's an issue that someone is aware of you before they meet you? Well, yeah. It's how. to articulate. It's a trust issue, right? It's like there's a built-in mistrust, maybe? It's more that I sort of mistrust somebody who is taken with the allure of you because they have an idea that fame is something special or that notoriety or a profile or whatever

you would call it. Okay, great. So now we're parsing it out. Yeah, that's an issue. If someone wants to be in the spotlight, but let's say you and I, did you see her? Yeah. Joaquin. Joaquin, but even Scarlett Johansson, unseen.

Afterwards, I'm like, I'm in love with that robot too. I understand exactly why he feels that way. Or after seeing her and name the movie when I was younger. And if I started the bar, I definitely want to go chat with her. And then she'll either really live up to my thing or she won't. But she can't. That's the problem. She has Scarlet.

She might exceed it. You have your own relationship with her in your head. That's a fantasy. That's like the best case scenario. No real human can live up to that. And so it is a disappointment. Oh, this whole idea, too, have never met you. heroes is an interesting one. But you know who really kind of gets me excited and this is separate

from gender or attraction? Actors have never really been the thing that got me jittery, sports people. There we go. Athletes. I met a bunch of old school famous tennis players and I remember getting nervous. This is a weird one. I don't know if anyone out there will know this one, but I was obsessed when I grew up in Dural with, of all things, pole vaulting. I used to cut down a sapling. You wanted to be a polter. I wanted to be a Polvalter. It was right around the time of the 84 Olympics, California Olympics. Put elastic between two trees, get a sapling,

drag my mattress out into the lawn. Tiny bullseye for you. Yeah, this sounds very dangerous. And Sergo Bovka was the greatest Polvaalter of all time. He never won a gold medal, but he won the world championships and he held the world record. I met him when I was 32 years old and got to shake his hand. He's only about my height.

Oh, really? but he has the hands of, like, Andre the Giant. Oh, wow. It was like, he'd stitched someone else's hands on it. I was like, I don't want to even hold that thing. That was probably the most starstruck I'd ever been. I was obsessed with the Romanian gymnasts. I met Nadi a common eat.

You did? I met Martin and Navratilova. These people got me far more excited than anybody I'd ever met before. Okay, this is juicy. No movie star. What do you mean? No movie star? Not a single movie star.

Did you get, like, butterfly-y feeling? Yeah, I'm going to be. man crush on Javier Bardem. Oh, yeah. Who doesn't? Can I hear an amazing Javier Bardem story? Yeah, please, please, please. So when I met him, I went to Madrid, I was on a road trip with my brother and my good friend Spencer, we stopped in, and Natalie Portman was shooting with Javier, and we knew

Natalie from Star Wars. So we go and meet them in a bar. I'm introduced to Javier. At the end of the night, we're leaving this bar, and this girl is leaving the bar, and she's clearly very inebriated. And this man put his arm around his shoulder and Javier asked the guy, do you know this girl? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'm just walking home.

And Javier said, well, with all respect, we're going to walk with you and make sure that she gets home safe. And so all of us walked with Javier because we're like, this dude is amazing. We're even having the thought and the inclination to protect this girl. And the guy was being honest, but Javier just was making sure. Yeah, double check. And we would have walked about a kilometer winding through these streets of Madrid to make sure this girl gone home safe. And I remember just thinking this guy has character.

Unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great story. And he's already so sexy. I know. You sprinkle that on top. And he's a protector of strangers? There are people like him that I really, really admire.

But that almost sounds like you admire his character more than you admire him as this flashy actor. Yeah, I remember when I met Sylvester Stallone. You know, you talk about childhood. hood dreams. My favorite actors when I was growing up as a kid were Harrison Ford. Most of the movies were about guys with muscle. Absolutely. So Arnold and Sylvester. And I remember doing one of those weird roundtable things with a bunch of actors. And I've never seen so many already successful actors get so giggly when Sylvester Stallone walked in the room. They were all like, oh, everyone was shaking. That's so funny. The power of that guy. Oh yeah. I'm obsessed with muscles. And

And I don't know how I could have grown up in the 80s. You've got muscles. I just cuddled you on the way in. I'm more free time now so I can develop my muscles. But yeah, it all starts with, dude, I saw Conan the Barbarian at a drive-in when I was probably eight. And I was like, what the fuck is this? I didn't have those magazines.

He'd never been on TV. I'm like, this is crazy. That's a real person. Yeah. I loved it. Did you love Road Warrior? I mean, you're in Australia. My brother and I were obsessed with Road Warrior.

Yeah, we called Mad Max. First one was just called Mad Max. Well, sure. But Road Warriors got colorful and over the top. Mad Max is like a straight, good movie. Road Warrior is more of a fun comic book. Oh, the second one, you mean? Yes.

Yeah, Mad Max 2. And then there's Road Warrior, and then there's the now ones. Now, have you seen the Tina Turner one, Mad Max 3? Oh, yeah, beyond the Thunderdome. We don't need another hero. The fact that she worked Thunderdome into a song and it was a hit is almost impossible. Her outfit in that with a chain mail. Oh, yeah, Master Blaster.

The little guy sat on the big guy's shoulders. There's something so incredible about re-watching that film now, which I saw it again, maybe about three months ago. Oh, really? Because I remember thinking, okay, the first one's very austere. Second one just gets crazy with the whole kind of like, what's that great line of males where he's talking about? There's only one man who can drive that truck out here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where there's a whole full-on road chase, which is more reminiscent of the new ones. Yes. But beyond Thunderdome just went, kind of crazier and it was a little kitch and then re-watching it is kind of extraordinary there's the whole Boeing 747 that's crashed and the wild children that are kind of living out there but that film is amazing george and bazleerman for Australian filmmakers are the two guys they dream big enormous yeah

because most Australian films live in this sort of two to five million dollar margin yeah there's not the market to fund big spectacles no these guys are seeing the world is their canvas. Baz is making Gatsby in Sydney. He made Elvis in the Gold Coast, and that's his new playground. So he uses Australian technicians, Australian actors, peppered throughout.

But creates his big worlds and does it in Australia. And George, for the most part, does the same thing. The Blu-ray of Road Warrior, the second film, has a little dock on it. And I don't know if you've watched it, but it's spectacular. You'll remember the huge semi-crash at the end. Mm-hmm.

They told the stunt performer who did that crash, you need to prep for surgery before the crash. So this dude had done a full prep for surgery in anticipation of getting airlifted to a fucking hospital. Just the neat to ties yourself, then do the stuff. You've seen the one where the guy clips his ankles on the thing. He breaks his legs on that. He clipped his ankles here, both ankles, but the break happened up here.

They broke both femurs after tapping both ankles. The guy that did that did stunts on a short film. When I first started out, I used to short films for the Australian film television and radio school where actors from drama school were going, get to be in these short films. And the stunt team turned up, and it was the guy that had done that stunt. No. His name was Grant.

And his two sons had become stuntman. The week or two before, he'd had a light plane crash with one of his sons in it. It was one of those things where you sit and it's just a propeller above you. And he and his son had had a crash. And so that had happened. His other son had broken his leg doing an abseil from the Harbour Bridge. And so the stunt team turned up, they're all part of the same family. They all had broken bones and they were all trying to drag a crash man.

And my brother was doubling me in that, which he's doubled me in so many things. But it was just funny watching the stunt team all trying to drag a crash man and go, you're already broken. One of the most terrifying things I've ever seen is my brother getting painted. up with fire gel to do a full body burnt and the weirdest thing I've seen it three times and one of them was on a really weird western that we made in Santa Fe that myself and another guy helped rewrite it was a very complicated film that fell apart and then found its way back up and one of the rewrites we'd done was that all these guys get burnt in this situation and my brother then got a job on it so I realized like I'd written this scene oh god then now my brother was like yeah I'll do that

Yeah, yeah. I'm sitting there watching him getting painted by those people. And Stunk guys, for all the craziness you think that they engage in, they're incredibly good physics, brain thinkers, a lot of them in terms of the dynamics. And they really care about each other. And the quietness that descended as they were painting him and making sure that it didn't go beyond a certain point, talking about how long and what the process and who was going to bring the fire blanket.

And I remember just being terrified. I would have felt culpable. Yeah. That's a good thought process for all of us directors to think about when we're asking people to do stuff like, what if my brother was doing this? Do I have the same opinion about this? Yeah. I mean, that's a whole interesting conversation about the pursuit of creating life is more important than fiction, taking care of each other on a set. It's amazing how much people suddenly kick bollick scramble on a set.

And we all know the big stories that have made the headlines about people losing. in their lives or becoming brain damaged. I had a cinematographer recently in Chicago and there's this big scream and the wind was kicking up and he just kind of kicked off in this really assertive way and said, we don't need to be doing this. And everyone first was like, well, is this guy getting old commudgeonly?

And then all of a sudden you realize, I think he'd been involved in a situation before where someone had got hurt. And everyone then was like, good for you. Yeah. No one needs to have something full on the head. It's very Harvey Arbaudem. What do we think it is about men and women, but we've got to be realistic, mainly men, being very attracted to stunts?

It's rates of passage. I'm fascinated by this, and when my blood boils, when I see red, you know, those sort of cliche expressions, but my inclination is to be very peaceful and I like to think I could handle myself in a fight, but I feel the inclination sometimes, always shy away from it. But I'm really interested in the world we live in now where there's sort of almost this line we don't cross. We're all part of society. We like to be civilized. And we know that to step over that line means we do something that's uncivilized. But it's crazy watching what I call like middle class rage in their car. Yeah, we look at these very safe lives.

So fight or flight gets triggered by the most benign things, being late to a meeting or somebody cutting you off in the traffic. Road rage is a big thing. indignation of what happens with humans lining up to do things at a fun park or in a shop, suddenly they're all kicking off. And the trigger is loaded up by compression of financial situation, marital, whatever is loading the bow. And then someone hits the hair trigger and it kicks off. And it's like this primal rage that exists, particularly in a lot of men who don't know how to manage it. And it's almost like a blindness comes over them with this sort of feeling. I'm fascinated by it. I love thinking about it, but it's a weird thing. I think we have tons of

vestigial stuff that we have no application for anymore. We were wired to overeat because food was scarce. We were wired to do a lot of stuff that we no longer do. And that's why sports is a thing. That's why like all these different activities we have are our ways of engaging in that wiring in a safe, socially acceptable way. But that's what's clearly driving. driving that. You can imagine a species that doesn't even like sports. Like if they didn't have any of that background. But I mean, there's a lot of ways to look at sports. Sports is also community, which we know we need as social animals too. There are so many things. But like a car jumping another car is so specific. And all of you guys love it. Yeah, because it's scary.

I just don't get it. I'm going to say something relatively controversial. Well, no, really. I mean, I see myself as a fairly undued kind of dude. Never wanted to drive cars fast. Okay. I don't have a particular sport on Fassano. I love all the sport. I love watching it, but I'm not obsessing over a particular team. There's a few dude boxes I don't feel like I tick and don't really need to tick. Yeah, yeah.

There's some that I do. I actually haven't taken it. I don't know if there's a dude test. I have it. I'll give it to you on your way out when I give you this shirt. Before you came in, Dax said, oh, Joel is so masculine. Yeah, yeah. I was like, really?

And it's just interesting to see, like, immediately that we are starting to talk about some things that are masculine. But what is masculinity is a really good question. My idea of masculinity used to be Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger. My movie diet was all about dudes that could break your limbs and kick you in the face. Right. You know, roundhouse kick you and all it. But the idea of sensitivity mixed within masculinity and talking about the kinds of performances I like from men. And Russell Crow is a good example.

He's such a kind of alpha male, he's such a brute force. And yet there's a tenderness to be able to watch the child inside the man. Because I think as bearded as we can all get, as masculine, was still a child, you know? Yeah. Did you watch Chimp Empire? No, I haven't. It's great. But yes, you're nailing.

The thing that made that not just a fun rubber-necky look at chimps warring was they follow the alpha male a ton. And you come to realize, like, the alpha male is not allowed to groom anyone. He only gets groomed. He's not allowed to get the hors d'oeuvres off each other's heads. No, it's just how they're signaling status. So he only gets groomed, and he has to be fierce at all times. There's two males that are trying to actively kill him. And then they have these troop-on-trop wars three times in this movie,

and he's got to be first one in. And they're outnumbered, and that's his role. And then the weird thing that alpha male chimps will do is they'll take on orphans. They'll be an orphan baby, and no one will claim it. And this alpha male will claim it. And he spends his whole time just grooming and being so kind of this thing. And I was like, that's the heartbreak of this role. He wants to groom and be emotional and be tender and nurture.

And his role just doesn't allow for it. I think that's the deficit of old school masculinity is tenderness. And this is why I think masculinity continues on through generations of being stoic and nonverbal and inexpressive is because you take your cues from the person. person above you, the moment that breaks, the moment you feel the tenderness from a male figure in your life, I think it sets better cues. And I'm fascinated now that I've got two kids and they're twins and one's a girl and one's a boy, and not to make it about men in particular, but how do you groom your children for the world? I mean, how do you build them up to be better

people in the world? Would you agree, I was trying to equip them for the real world and build in the aspirational version of what we should become. It's like you can't turn them out into the world completely naive. There's some reality you're working within and you're also trying to push it forward but I don't think it's like black or white. It's like you're trying to thread this needle. I want them to be better than me

and also I don't want them to get hurt their whole life. Yeah, my son said to me the other day this kid had said, you're not a very good Spider-Man. He goes, I'm going to web him. So he's got beef with another four-year-old. I'm going to web him. I said, hold on.

First of all, why don't you tell him how you feel about the fact that he discredited your validity as Spider-Man? Yeah, yeah, try that. And then if he regrets it, I'm told him the definition of the word regret, and then give him a chance. If he still says he's not a very good Spider-Man, then consider webbing him. And he goes, yeah, I'm going to web his legs, his body, and his eyeballs. And then my daughter just started cackling. He's got his back. So if you see a webbed kid around L.A., you know, did it?

You'll know that he did not heed your advice. But to the masculineity, anything, your older brother Nash, a year and a half older than you. A year and a half, yeah. He's a stunty. Was he a fucking stud? Did you idolize him? What was your guys' dynamic as kids?

We were kind of mild studs growing up together. We weren't full studs. You know, again, we weren't ticking all those boxes. But he was a daredevil in the true sense. Before he plugged into the idea that he could become a stuntman, he was literally doing things for free to entertain people. Like, do you dare me to try and jump that fence that's definitely going to trip me over and make me lose a lot of skin off my face?

You know, I remember like, yeah, Nash, we dare you. He would put himself up to do these things. Yeah, yeah. He jumped out of a moving train to not be late for a basketball game and then wasn't allowed to play because he was losing so much blood when he was right to the court. He had about 12 abrasions and it was right around the time they had decided that you can't play sport while you're bleeding. While you're actively bleeding. He literally jumped out of a charge of.

that was moving about 60 kilometers an hour. And did you feel inclined to match him? No. Or was he just so wild that it was like, that's his lane? Yeah, he one time also got out of a driving car to show that he could run alongside it while the car was also driving. Sure, sure. Which didn't end well.

He sort of taught me to Absale and rock climb and things. As he started getting into the world of stunts, he was fearless, you know, and he's able to flick that switch. You're going, right, I know my human brain is telling me this is very, dangerous but the camera's rolling and there's a lot of pressure on me and everyone's watching so I better just do it but do it safely stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare we are supported by alexa plus all right let me tell you about something I'm genuinely excited to talk about the all new Alexa plus look we're all juggling a million things these days and this thing is designed to

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Watch Mind the Game Now on YouTube, prime video, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And he was a brilliant physicist, actually. He was on his way to doing electrical engineering at university and really smokes, my way into drama school by saying, hey, Mom and Dad, I'm going to be a stuntman. And they love what? And then meanwhile, I've slipped into drama school without any sort of concern at all. Wow. He developed land? Is that what he did? My dad still is a property developer.

At the time, we grew up, my dad was starting a law firm. He looked like a hippie in a suit. He had really long hair and a really shaggy mustache. And he started a law firm in a town 20 minutes from where we lived. Was he a lawyer? Yeah. Oh. He was a property development. But he had a lot of degrees. He was a lawyer and then he actually retired at the age of 40 from his law firm. Kept topping up his law degree each year. I think he still does it and he still can practice law. But he realized he was just doing contracts for everybody else. It's like, why not just do the contract law for myself and make more money being a property developer? You said once in an interview that you wanted his attention. Still do. And I think I still will, lo and behold, after he's gone.

Was he unavailable? Was he busy? He was busy? Okay, or was it hard for him to express that kind of? My father is incredibly astute and sentimental and has a very beautiful softness to him and a massive heart. He can appear quite stoic.

He can also be very funny. And he was a real performer when it came to it. He always had a microphone in his hand. People wanted my father to make a speech about things. Give to the gab, if you could call it. That was incredible. He's just a real rack on. turn. I think he's the one, even though he wasn't in the profession of storytelling,

was the reason my brother and I, maybe a chip off that block as a way of kind of my dad was a performer. Does he get an enormous bang out of watching you guys perform for a living? Yeah, and look, as sometimes the difference between mums and dads, an essay of words from my mum, the same thing can be communicated with just a touch of my shoulder from my dad. I have to say occasionally I feel guilty about the fact that the way I view these relationships is like, I've got my mum, she's my biggest fan. And it's just the child of me because when I was a kid, I was always around my mum and my brother.

But my dad was trying to make a life for the family. And as a kid, you don't understand economics. So I was like, got to be good at sport because he'll turn up at sporting events. Turns out I wasn't that good at sport. I was always very middling at everything. If I did a play, he would come because you can't not come to your kids play. Yeah, you really got to show up for those. That sort of became the start of it for me.

I do feel this weird and unnecessary need to feel the pride of my dad. Even though I have it in space, it's like an engine that will constantly refuel itself no matter what I say to it. Yeah. Your brother, maybe too, maybe that's part of the daredevil element. Like, if I'm doing these crazy things, he's going to have to look. It's interesting how two siblings can grow up with the same series of events. with just one year's difference and interpret things very differently.

I'm always fascinated by that. And I think my brother's engine is sometimes defiance. Whereas mine might be the craving of like, look at me, look what I can do. Yeah, yeah, approval. My brother's was always, how could I ruffle his feathers a little bit? And I don't think he's actively thinking that way. It's all those subconscious stuff. But my brother and my father are so similar in many ways that they clash.

I remember some really drag out arguments on family holidays. I remember my brother and I making some late-night stupid music video when we were late teenagers. We got a hold of the video camera. We were doing Bohemian Rhapsody or something like this and dressing up and pretending to play guitars on baseball bats and stuff. And my dad came down in his bathrobe. He's like, you know, your grandmother's sleeping on the thing.

He started yelling. And my brother just turned the volume down and the video camera is still playing. My dad's in the background yelling at him. and then as dad's yelling at him, and as turns to the camera and keeps mouting the words of the song. And then dad leaves. My brother couldn't help but say something,

which brings him back. He liked antagonizing a little bit. And not to something bad about my bro, I just think that he's one of those people who likes to, like he said, do you dare me to do this? I think there's something beautiful about my brother that goes, if you think I can't do something,

I'm going to show you that I can do it. And he taught himself everything. how to be a filmmaker, how to edit, how to direct, no school. I'm curious when this would have happened because you and Bateman worked together on Smoking Aces. Did you guys become friends then? We didn't really, and not because I love Jason Bateman, but we didn't really work on the same stuff, the gift, yeah.

Okay, so it must have been around the time you guys were doing the gift. You wrote it and you were directing it and Bateman was in it. It had to have been him that showed me this short that your brother made. If I'm remembering this correctly. It's like all set in a car. Yeah. And there's like this crazy lock-off overlap shot, which is like so fucking startling. Yeah.

And it was kind of innovative at the time I saw it. And Bateman's like, Joel's brother made this. And I was like, oh, the brother is fucking clever as hell. My brother is the reason I became a filmmaker. I would write an act. He was a stunt guy. And then he became an editor and a director. We call him the film bully.

As in like, if you came to him and said, I've got this idea for a movie, he would just keep bullying you until you made it. He'd encourage you, go, stop talking about it, just set a date, start doing it. Rather than discourage me from stepping on his turf, he was like, you've got to go do it. He can do the most extraordinary things with no money because we never had money. There's a great short film he made called Lucky, where he wakes up in the trunk of a car, breaks his way out of the trunk of the car and realizes no one is driving the car, and the car's going about 100 kilometers an hour down a desert road.

and he has to break into the car to stop the car. It's a two and a half minute short film. So here's what happened on the day. They realized he wanted to shot 360 degrees around the car to show that no one was driving it. Now nowadays, you could just go and get a Waymo, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They couldn't work out how to get the stunt guy hidden in the car.

They tried him lying on the ground. They tried him just sort of lying there with a radio. And eventually Nash goes, cut the car seat out, rip the foam off it and build the car seat around Tony, the stunk guy. And you watch that film now, and there's an entire moving shot around the entire car, and you're like, no one's driving it while Nash is on the roof trying to climb his way in. And it was just Tony with two eye holes in the car like this. If you did that properly by scrubbing it out in post, that would have cost thousands of thousands of dollars.

Nash is that guy. He's a problem solver. He's an analyst, and he has what I think Spielberg has, which is a balanced left and right brain, creative brain, business brain. Creative brain, science brain. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, wow.

Okay, I want to touch on your career a couple places. One is, how do we go from TV in Australia, and you won for that show? Secret Life of Us. Yeah, you won an AACTA award. We were recognized, obviously. How do you go from there to Star Wars? That's pure luck.

I see career is sort of a combination of, hard work, whatever you can provide on a talent level, plus some occasional bumping into good luck. George Lucas came down to Sydney and he wanted to make two of his films there. And the unions are basically like, well, you've got to use some Australian actors. I just happen to have also the luck of, you could imagine the physiognomy or the right sort of resemblance to a young Phil Brown who played Uncle Owen. And I got the job. That was the thing that allowed me to come to L.A. for the first time.

Now, what was your demeanor like because you do that Star Wars and then three years later, I guess, you come and do another one with George. And I guess I forgot he directed those two immediate ones after the first three. What was your relationship with him on the first one versus the second one? Had you come in with more confidence? Episode three, I'm in for like a minute and I was part of a reshoot section because I had been offshooting King Arthur in Ireland. The weirdest thing is I got to go to Skywalk Ranch, stayed in the Kurosawa room. and I shot one day, and there was sort of a conveyor belt of pickup shots being done. So I'm in a green room, not much bigger than this.

Chewbacher and his son are in there. Who? Chewbacca. Chewbacca. Oh, Chewbacca. They're about to go in and do their pickup. So I walk in this room and this. There's Chewbacrely and his son just sitting there waiting for their shot.

And then I was in there. Yeah. But on the first one, I was so nervous. I had the most incredible time, this weird moment where, We're in Tunisia and George was in his tent about 400 yards away because they're doing a big wide shot and they were down low in the Uncle Owen kind of underground house. And I was coming out to meet Anakin and I had been working on the droids and I had a moisture farmer's screwdriver.

I was like, oh, just to bring it into the real world, I should just maybe have a rag that I'm wiping my hands before I shake his hand. I hadn't done many movies. I was like, I probably should ask George for that's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I asked an idea, I said, oh, could I speak to George? and I went, you know, Joel wants to speak to George. And then I realized he was going to have to walk 400 yards or like 200 yards.

So I was like, I better go meet him up there, tried to get halfway. Fumbled my words. I was thinking, you know, in the rag and what are you thinking? He just goes, sure. And he walked away. It's like, I'm such an idiot. Helped him get his steps in, though. But in rapid order, you start your career in kind of a unique way.

And I don't want to say start. You've been working for a while. but in movies, you're in shit with pretty heavy hitters right away. Clive's a fucking animal, right? Clive Owen. Clive Owen. Yeah. How are you doing around that?

For the most part, I've been like Scotty Pippen, played support to some incredible actors, and it felt like a very safe place to be. Do you think being a little brother helps in that situation? I'd never thought about it, but it's pretty extraordinary for you to say that because I think it does. Yeah. You know how to find your moment to shine.

but to service this older creature in your orbit. And also the pleasure of learning from getting a front row seat with someone that you really look up to. And knowing to use the analogy of tennis that your game gets better if you play with someone better than you, or more experienced than you.

So I've always had this pleasure of working alongside really interesting people and knowing that the whole thing wasn't sitting on my shoulders and had a pretty fun time doing it because oftentimes also these supporting characters. I love some of my characters when I look back. I love working on Black Mass. I love working in loving.

I loved working on Gatsby. Well, those were the ones I was going to list. It's like you got Johnny Depp and Leonardo Caprio all within the first like six movies you do. Clive. These are like some fucking heavyweight champs. Weirdly, I felt like I was going to go into those experiences and be so riddled with anxiety.

I get anxiety about other stuff. But weirdly, when I work, it's like that part of my brain turns off. I just really embrace the experience. rather than going, oh, no, they're going to think I'm really terrible. That hum is always going on. But between action and cut, I don't feel any anxiety at all. It reminds me when I work on movies sometimes nowadays,

sometimes bring someone who's there for the day or a background artist to go, just deliver this drink to the table and you see the handshake. Oh, that's right. This is a stressful thing. It is. The less you have to do, the harder it is, I think. Yes. I mean, which is counterintuitive.

And those actors that are like Navy SEALs who just drop in for the mission, of a couple of days, nail the tone and then drop the mic and say goodbye, I have so much admiration for them. You do Warrior with Tom Hardy. Yeah. This is a little bit pre Tom Hardy before we all know kind of how extraordinary. Yeah, really kind of revelatory. Before I worked with Tom, one of the only things I'd seen him in was Bronson. Yeah, what a fucking movie. I was like, who is this dude? This is fucking fantastic. Very chopperesque. Yeah, but in its own way. For sure. But it's weird that genre somehow has given rise to a few of our really powerful fucking Eric Bonner in that. You're like, okay, who's this guy?

I know, man. That performance is extraordinary. I just did a movie in Australia where I really tuned things up to 11, I call it. I played a prisoner with a full set of steel teeth. Yes. You know, it's like the opposite of what goes on in this movie, Train Dreams. One of the joys of acting is being able to go, right, what is the canvas we're painting here? And how bright a color do I need to make myself?

Yeah, yeah. How do I live in this world in the right way? But Bronson and Chopper are these sort of larger-than-life characters. It's wonderful to watch actors do that and not see the artifice. Chopper really disappeared. I mean, Eric really disappeared into that role. Tom, in Bronson. It's like over the top and subtle at the same time, which is kind of impossible.

Yeah, I call it the Nicholas Cage and certain performances of his where he goes so big. But it comes from a place of honesty. He's somehow grounded it. Everywhere he's at, he's an art installation. But that's why it's grounded in reality because it is who he is. It's authentic to him, yeah. It is who he is. That's at that level.

Rising Arizona and all, it's like incredible performances. But yeah, look, Warrior was an extraordinary experience. It was definitely also a reminder to myself not to doubt myself in terms of the approach. Something I was like, I'm 34. I'm too old for this shit. How did you get in shape for that? Was it crazy? We trained for three months in a fight gym.

We had to be there at six. seven in the morning or we'd get in trouble. I was never late, so I don't know what in trouble meant. Okay, in trouble from Gavin or someone else? From the whole fight crew. Oh, sure, okay, yeah. And then we'd go and eat lunch all together and then come back and lift weights in the afternoon, and that went off three months.

Did you love that period? I loved it. Yeah, that kind of discipline feels very good, doesn't it? And it felt like it reminded me that some jobs you can fake and some jobs you can't. Yeah, and it's really good to try and find the 10,000 hours of familiarity. so that you can concentrate on the relationships within the film rather than turning up on the day going also like, how do I punch a person while also looking sad?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was such an extraordinary experience. Gavin O'Connor, the director, taught me a really valuable rule as a director, and I'm always observing directors when I'm working, is that he treated every single scene, even the most interstitial scene, as the most important scene in the movie.

And I remember thinking, oh, that's really interesting Because actors often we go, okay, these four scenes are the big ones. Even for your fight scenes, you're like, okay, I've got to be on my diet for those four days leading up to that scene. Like a lot of it has to be mapped out. There's the same with Frank Grillo and I just before I'm about to fight for the first time in the big tournament. And it was written as one eighth of a page, just the guy coming and going five minutes guys. And Gavin just sent the whole crew away and he goes, right, let's make this scene worthy of being in the movie. And it talked about it.

And I was like, oh, this is cool. This guy's seeing every single frame as important as every other frame. Yeah, I like that. I want to talk about train dreams. So I watched it last night. I have to watch a lot of stuff because we have a lot of actors. It's been a minute since a movie got me this much. I watched it.

I loved it. And then I just have not stopped thinking about it. And then I came in and told my wife the whole plot. And I just have been ruminating on so many things about it. And then as I'm researching, I'm realizing that the director of this Clint Bentley, had co-written Sing Sing, which was another movie that had this kind of similar beauty to it. That movie is kind of extraordinary and unorthodox in so many ways, how patient it is. Yeah, so let's set it up.

Well, the first year we're given is 1917, but you're at that point probably 30 years old. But your character showed up in a town as an orphan and just kind of stumbled along until he found employment in logging and in bridge direction, working for the railroad. And it's just a very simple, quiet, slow existence. Yeah, it's a celebration, I think, of an ordinary life. Yes, in the most heartbreaking and tragic and impactful way. I cried several times during it. You're outside in these forests. Were you shooting in Idaho?

We were shooting outside of Spokane right near the border of Idaho. And it's just beautiful. There's enormous trees. And the severity of life then is so proud. present, right? The fact that you guys are logging, you're cutting down these enormous trees with the fucking saw that is like this. And the notion that you're doing that 12 hours a day in living out there is so brutal. It was an incredible environment to shoot in. And weirdly, you look at this film that's a period film. And it's based on Dennis Johnson's novella of the

same name, Train Dreams. You've got these themes or these sort of incidences in it that feel so relevant to today, it's this sort of idea that the world is moving too fast for these people. Technology is these people harvesting the earth for these sort of trees, not knowing what the outcome of that is going to be. The kind of misuse and mistreatment of immigrant workers being sort of torn away or kind of thrown off bridges for very little reason. The expendability of all of you is very present. But also this idea, I think, which is interesting to me, It's like, I'm a husband and I'm in love and I have two little kids and being a dad is the most epic thing that ever happened to me so far in my life. And the ideas within the film at some of the darker moments of losing the people that you care most about.

These things are so Shakespearean in our own lives and yet I don't know that we often look at our own lives and realize how big they are, how full they can be and how many peaks and troughs exist within them. because we're wired to watch movies and go, we're going to watch movies about astronauts and generals. But to go to the cinema and see a reflection, even though it's about a logger, I know what that feels like. And in this film, you're a dad too, this is my greatest fear.

Of course. And so when I told my wife, who doesn't love to go to places like Spokane, with the whole family, when her work swells around places like New York and London, but she gets when I care about it. something. And I tried to tell her the story of what happens in the movie. And I get, I'm going to get it now. When I get to the point about stuff that happens to my character, I couldn't keep

talking. And she's like, all right, I guess we're going to Spokane. Yeah. It's crazy. You meet Felicity Jones. Yeah. What's her character's now? Oh, Gladys. You have a simple life. In fact, again, you're so masculine and rugged in it. And I believe you have been working in this logging industry. You pull that off so believably. In the baked in architecture, I'm expecting as like, this man who's so strong and capable will eventually stand up to somebody and beat the shit out of somebody and be heroic in some moment. And I love that, no, that's not really life. You observe a lot of stuff that you wish you kind of could prevent and you don't have the gumption or whatever it is. You just kind of witness a lot of sadness and heartache and that you don't rise

to any occasion. You just kind of go, wow, okay, that's the world, I guess. This is the, The reality of planet Earth. That guy got thrown off a bridge, okay? Yeah, now I feel guilty. But this love story is captured so beautifully between you and Gladys. And then you have this little girl, and she's just heartbreaking. And that little kid was so fucking good. Okay, yeah.

What was she three? She was like two and a half. They were twins, you know, when you go on the movie sets. Because they can only work for her. Mary Kate Nash. Yeah, they might be future designers of great clothing. Yeah, they might have an empire. Yeah, exactly.

You should invest in them now, like seed money. That's right. We had twins and one was disinterested in everything, and the other was very playful. So Clint would be like, which one do we get for which scene? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fun. My best friend works at Netflix. She's on the Train Dreams campaign, and she fought so hard for it. She saw it at Sundance.

She came back, she was like, this movie is so unbelievably good. It's the best movie I've seen in a long time, and she fought to be on it. She helped create the trailer and stuff. But she's been talking about it ever since. She is such a fan. It breaks people open in a good way in the sense that I think movies are a really great place to get some emotion out of yourself by reflecting things in someone else's life. But also, I think it's also good to be reminded of people you've lost or joys that

you've experienced in life. And Robert's whole life, it's not a Western that's about revenge or retribution. It's about the world punching him in the stomach and him finding a way of getting back up. and the kindness of strangers that help rebuild us, like the forest regrowing after a fire. And I find it very moving and very personal. And for all of the Gatsby's and black masses I've ever been involved in where I think my whole pursuit has been,

how can I make people believe that I'm somebody I'm not? And I've always been terrified about being myself on screen. Well, I was going to also add, you have almost no dialogue in this movie. Yeah. And we become so reliant on. expressing how we feel through words that really is going to have to be in your eyes. Was that scary at all, or did you look forward to that?

I sort of look forward to it. I've been through the experience of making this movie with Ruth Naga, that Jeff Nicholson, the director called Loving. And my character in that, it was a real-life character, Richard Loving, and he barely said a word. I mean, he was interviewed numerous times. His wife would do the talk in. He was so inarticulate.

Jeff, in the first week, I always got to a director in the first couple of days and go, look, do not be afraid to tell me where I'm steering this thing wrong. I have no ego. Just help me out here. And Jeff's like, I have one note for you. I want to understand you less. Less. He gave me very few words to say, which was in suiting with who Richard Loving was.

And I felt like that sort of set the table for me for train dreams of trusting that if you think the right things and so much of what Robert experiences, I'm not a logger, obviously, but I've read about how to marry life and work. I am a man that's in love. I am a person that cares more about my kids than anything else in the world. So if you think those things, they'll be there for the camera. And the challenge for me was that Robert is less expressive than me. So making sure that with the hardest stuff in the film, I just knew how to keep a lid on it.

Because normally when I go to work, I'm like, geez, I hope I can do this scene. You know, particularly those ones you worry about the emotional things. You go, can I do this today? Yeah, and isn't it funny as soon as you give yourself the fear that I might have too much emotion than the emotions, like, overly available? It's such a mind trick. I think it was David Mamet, who sort of has lots of wonderful things to say about his opinions on actors, whether you agree with him or not.

Some of them are really wonderful. There's this wonderful thing where he talks about actors when they have to cry on screen. He's like, the problem with actors when they cry on screen is that their ego gets so excited when they get there. But they're sort of clicking their heels or patting themselves on the floor. They're smiling while they're crying. So they're trying to cry too much. And then while they're celebrating themselves,

it's the opposite of the feeling they should be having. So this oscillating, like, I'm crying. You know, I should be happy about it. I did it. I kind of felt like this was a good chance to do for me what I've often admired in some actors, which is watching that performance. I feel like I know you.

The only way you can really do that, in my mind is go, do you really connect with it? How well connected can you be to the material? And then just sort of open your chest up in some way. There's a moment in the film when my character expresses some first kind of showing a real grief about something bad that's happened. And the first thing he says afterwards is, I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. And that really typifies to me, a lot of men that I've known in my life, they're very stark, that if they get upset, they would leave the room, lest anybody saw. them. It also captures, and this is oddly a very big ding-ning-ding to how we started this conversation,

which is they capture really well the awkwardness between men. Men are very awkward around each other. If they don't come with a pair, they don't feel bolstered by something, you put eight strangers in the woods, and it's like, none of them want to talk. And whoever does talks, gets kind of blasted. And if they talk, they're crazy. All that stuff feels very authentic. And I remember a lot of those situations. That's really interesting that you say that. Yeah. Like you would have put eight women in that forest together. They would have known everything about each other and they would have been like great friends.

You put these men in this situation. They're just like, they don't know what the fuck to do. Yeah. It's like the intimacy is so scary. I was saying one of my buddies recently. I said it's an interesting, men don't get together and brush each other's hair.

Right, right. You guys are missing out. It feels so good. Yeah, but we're scared of intimacy with each other. There's no world where, apart from maybe my brother or something, like if a buddy comes around to stay the night,

then I'm like, night, one of us is sleeping on the floor. You know, there's a king-sized bed, you know. We're not brushing each other's hair. And it's fear of intimacy. Well, specifically, it's a fear of being called gay from when we were younger. I don't know how it was in Australia, but in Detroit, you lived all day in fear of who was going to call you gay.

You just reminded me of it. It's crazy. I was at Bondo Beach. A really good friend, Damien and I were at the north end of Bondo Beach. In summer, it's packed. We're up near this boat ramp. He's got a bad spine, and every now and then he's like, can you crack my back? But he's wearing this really tight speedo, and he's a very fit, sort of tanned, Italian, Australian guy.

And I was still like, oh, there's a lot of people around here. I was like, yeah, oh, I can only get over myself, you know what I can crack your back, fine. And so I wrap my arms around him, and he's all oiled up with that tropical oil, which makes it hard. So I grab him by the elbows. And I'd finally get a purchase on his elbows, and I lift him up. and I hear crack, crack, crack, and it's like great, and I drop him down. And then I look to my left and there's a row of about 20 teenagers just sitting there with her arms crossed, staring at us.

Weirdly felt embarrassed for myself. I'm like, what fuck should I feel embarrassed for myself? I'm cracking Damien's back. I'm helping my buddy be more athletic. I'm an unqualified chiropractic. Yeah, it's just in there. It's an innate. It's because it happens, do you?

you get called these names nonstop when you're a little kid. But also, who cares? Oh, yeah. I do sleep with my best friend in the same bed. You did brush you. Oh, yeah, yeah. He brushed your hair today. Dude, we've snuggled when we were younger.

We're both straight, didn't have dads around. We're like, yeah, I need some male affection. Let's go for it. But I think that was very fucking unique where I'm from. You probably weren't telling people. No, we didn't go to school and be like, oh, we had the best. We watched this raise Arizona. We kind of were snuggling.

My mom asked me on the side, like, you know, if you guys are gay, you can tell me. Like, even my mom had to say, this is welcome. But if she walked in, you and Cali were brushing each other's hair, it wouldn't even cross her mind, you're lesbians. No, no, it would not. Do you watch couples therapy? Have you ever watched that show?

Oh, it's a fantastic show. It's a reality show. Yeah, but with a real therapist who's amazing. And real people put themselves on the slab to be talked about. Yes. They don't have that pixelated face in the FBI voice. No, they're there. They're there.

They're exposing themselves. And there was this one couple and this one man, who had this huge secret. He was carrying this huge secret the whole season. He, like, wouldn't share it, wouldn't share it. Finally, he shares that in college, his friends saw him looking at male porn. Right. And it was like, this incident was chipping away at his soul.

Like it had grown into a green moss inside of him or something. Yes. And I'm like, that's the secret. For me, as a woman, that's crazy. But it's an immediate ejection. It's an ostracizing from all males in your world. You're like a man without a country. Yeah, it made me feel very, very compassionate and sad for men.

I'm like, that one thing has caused this man to go on this trajectory. That kind of pressure put on yourself. Yes, it's so unfair. Yeah, I hope it's lessening. It feels like it is. but I feel like I came up and peek. It also depends like you've got the map of the world behind you. I'm sure you could just point anywhere and go safe, unsafe,

like as in safe to kind of be openly, whoever you want to be, whatever that is, or not fear, certain things. I know that we like to think in L.A. and New York and Sydney, you could be whoever you are and your choices, or the color of your skin is fine, or your gender preferences are fine, your personal pronouns are fine.

literally 10 miles down the road, you'd be keeping a secret. I went to, when I was making this film Boy Raised, which is about gay conversion therapy, I went to Arkansas with my assistant, David, who is no longer my assistant now. He's a director in his own right and doing incredibly well. But David's gay. He and his husband just made a movie together.

But David turned up at the hotel in the morning. We're about to go to church, to go to this church in Arkansas. or 200 kilometers down the road from the hub of the KKK, he said to me, do I look too gay? Should I change my clothes? Yeah. And I started going, yeah, maybe.

And I was like, you know what, fuck it, no. But he was afraid walking into the church. Yeah. That there were people carrying guns. It was an overblown fear, but it also was tethered to something real. So stepping into that zone after a few hours flight from L.A., where life is totally free and fine. but then cut to whatever years later after that movie when all rights and freedoms and general

acceptance of things it becomes okay to march all progress backwards almost to the point where we feel like we should re-release boy raised or do a new cut of the film or get all the old footage that we never put in the film and release it in some way because things have gotten worse since then yeah stay tuned for more Armchair expert, if you dare. Hey there, Armcherrys. Guess what? It's Mel Robbins. I'm popping in here, taking out my own ad.

Holy cow. Dax, Monica, and I, I don't want this conversation to end, and I'm so glad you're here with us. And the other thing, I can't believe, Dax loves the Let Them Theory. He can't stop talking about it. I hope you're loving listening as much as I love having you here.

And I also know, since you love listening to Armchair Expert, you know what you're going to love listening to, the Let Them Theory. audiobook. And guess who reads it? Me? And even if you've read the book, guess what? The audiobook is different. I tell different stories. I riff. I cry. You're going to love it because it's going to feel like I'm right there next to you. We're in this together as we learn to stop controlling other people. So thanks again for listening to this episode of Armchair Expert and check out the audiobook version of the Let Them Theory read by yours truly. Available now on Audible. You can even

try it out for free with an Audible trial. Download the Audible app today. Well, the other thing about the movie that has really resonated with me, and I think in some ways it should be required viewing for everyone in 2025 is there's something so depressing about the fact that in 1917, just getting food and having clothes for you and your wife and your baby, was the struggle. And you worked so hard and had to be away from them

for so long to provide that. And then in your lifetime, you see a man land on the moon, which is crazy. You know, to go from that, to no electrification, saws to chainsaws, to steam power tractors,

to a man landing on the moon, it's almost inconceivable for someone to witness. But the notion that we transferred into abundance, maybe there was a couple weeks where people were satiated and felt grateful.

but I'm so shook when I see that movie of how unsafe we all feel and how much we all still pine for things. And it's like, oh, wow, we live in total abundance and that we can eat whenever we want and when shelter's pretty obtainable and clothes are pretty cheap. That was the struggle for 200,000 years, Homo sapiens were here. And then within five minutes, it's literally about, do you have phone 12 or 13 as a crisis?

It's so depressing. Yeah. And so human. Like, what the fuck? When you watch this movie and you think, how could we have problems when the abundance has arrived? There's a moment where my character has stares at a chainsaw in the movie and he can't seem to get it to work. And it's like me thinking about do I download chat GPT? I still haven't done.

The one time I played with it on another friend's phone. He goes, look, just type something you want to see. And I was like, I want to see a dog giving a lecture in the 1950s in a university hall. I don't know why I chose that. Sure. And then I changed the dog. type of dog and it blew my mind enough to make it terrifying for me to go, I'm not ready for this, but I know I have to engage. But I remember the first time I pointed a video camera at my

grandmother and she froze because she was like, well, this is a photograph. Right. I'm like, no, you're allowed to move. Just thinking about her generation, which is my character in the film, is like the telephone and she started her life without electricity and then you're right, it would have blown her mind the pace of things. Now look at us. My very favorite thing about the early years of the video camera, when you watch anyone's early home videos, for some reason,

everyone thought they needed to narrate what you were already seen. Here's Jenny opening her present. That's so true. He got a present from grandma. Jenny, let's see the present. Oh, it's a cabbage patch. Yeah, like, every time I see it, I'm like, why did we think we were seeing it?

I don't think we really realized yet. They would be seen it. We use it as an audio recorder. That's, okay. Here's Glenn on his new bike. Wave, this is Glenn. Yeah, fuck yeah. We know it's Glenn.

He's your son in this home video. We can see it. Okay, going into the study now. Yeah, it's the study, dad. I still have this old video of me being a goalkeeper on my soccer match when I was like six years old. I saved the goal. And then the striker from.

the other team. He comes up, Josh, kick the ball while I'm holding it. I got winded. Like, it knocked the wind out of you? Yeah. And I'm just lying on the ground. It's so scary when you're looking. And my dad, who's probably holding the camera, he's like, you know, like a refrigerator undershoulder, yeah. And you can just hear his voice yelling, get up, Joel. Get up! Oh my God. Well, okay, the line in the movie that just fucking sent me was on that spring day when he had misplaced a sense of up and down, he knew finally that he was connected to it all.

And I was like, oh, fuck. Dude, that's one of the best lines I've ever. There's something about the wisdom in the movie. One of the things that you can pull out of it is this idea that at the end of the day, it's all been worth it or it's all okay. And that Robert, as a character, for all of the things that he's gone through,

is reconciled to something that there's a comfort in all of it. And I do believe that occasionally when I do stop doom scrolling or something pulls me out into my own sense of self and retrospect. Is looking at the snapshots of life. In some way there's a journey or every now and then there's a fractured memory of life from any period of your life. Even talking today with you, I have images in my head of times with my brother and my father.

And life is beautiful. And life is not going to all be beautiful. Every now and then you get brought to your knees. But that's all of us. And I spoke to this lady last night, and we were talking about kindness. Just when a stranger does something generous, and particularly after the fires in California,

which sort of resonant in train dreams, I talked to her about kindness, which I've experienced many times in my life, where I'm like, somebody selflessly, there's something so simple, but it means the world to you in some way that helps you bring yourself back into the world. And she just sort of broke open

because she was talking about just the strange little things that popped up from people after the fires. Suddenly I opened the front door and there's food there for her and her family and someone sent some clothes for her kids. And I believe at the core of us as kids until we're corrupted

that we are actually wired to look after each other, Even if we're not family, we don't really want to hurt each other. I like to think that's our core human value. And I think we'd like to see that reflected in its own way and stories as well. Because we know there's a lot of awfulness out there. And the awfulness is within us in the wrong situation like we talked about. Our rage is always there. But I think our beauty and our love is also there.

And I can be compassionate to our rage because at the very core of all rage is deep, deep fear. Yeah. We get scared a lot. I agree with you. I think that's what motivates Roach's fear, protectiveness and mistrust. And it's a culture that leads us to that. I also feel I'm getting back to your ape.

Chimp Empire. Don't you think that most alpha males are actually just sort of fearful people hiding in plain sight too? It's like the fear of having to emulate or project or be something that may be deep down. No one feels like they're a superhero and unbreakable. I think we all hate alphaness in some way, because we see it as like, oh, this person has to be the ruler.

But for me, it's like, no, no, I'm paying attention. There's lots of fucking threats and no one else seems to be and I need to get involved. I noticed this with a lot of people I met during Warrior who were fighters. The people I thought were the real alphas were the kind of quietly stoic guys who didn't puff themselves up, didn't presume to kind of cajole people or kind of push people around. the ones who didn't brag about themselves. Yeah, yeah.

It was the ones just to the right who kind of puffed themselves up a little bit. It was like, you're almost alpha. But you've got to remind us how alpha you are, which means you're no longer alpha to me. Exactly. You know what I mean? Those quietly people you look at and go,

I want to walk down an alleyway with you. My experience with that, which was so crystal clear, was doing two different USO tours in Afghanistan and hanging out with all the enlisted dudes. and then going to the Special Forces camp a few different times and going like, oh, this is crazy. These guys are so calm. There's no machismo.

No one's flexing because they're the real operators. They don't need to let anyone know because they know. I was like, oh, yeah, this is something. Dude, there was a funny moment. Talk about different people's skillsets and what makes you feel comfortable or uncomfortable on Zero Dark 30. Catherine Bigelow asked one of the real ex-Dev group, Navy SEAL guys, beautiful guy

he said in this scene one of you guys to walk the perimeter with the canine I'd like you to say this line on the radio

basically is like on the comms he had to say something like perimeter clear same guy two days earlier had told me

about a mission where they had parachuted in in the middle of the night carrying a big oil drum that had been

jerry rigged basically filled up with weapons so two guys parachuting holding this barrel land in the ocean frog suit swim up to this thing where these pirates are taken over this ship and they'd go in there

kill all the pirates and save the hostages and they did it it went smoothly and successfully and two days later katherine's like can you say one line of dialogue in the movie and he suddenly starts terrible and he's like I'm freaking out I'm freaking out yeah yeah I can't but you'll parachute in the middle of the night it goes to show how asymmetric fear is and how rooted in nothing it is. Yeah, right? And it's how individual it is. Yes. It's just so arbitrary. It's like, here's a guy who will parachute in and board a pirate ship. I just couldn't believe that. That's hilarious. Everything he told me about story, there was a thousand reasons why that was really actually terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, one line of tall. Like, oh, boy. Yeah.

He was shiking. Well, it illustrates that fear and death's just one of the fears, and that could be low on your thing. And then fear of humiliation could be a 30. Maybe if Catherine had catched it this way. So first of all, you've got to walk in there, kill a dude. Yeah. Say this line of dialogue. Then you kill another dude. They should put a barrel on his back.

It's a motor sandwich. I can do this. Well, Joel, this has been a blast. I really, really love that movie. I really hope everyone sees it. It's fucking beautiful. And it really forces you because of the pacing. It's so slow.

It makes you kind of slow down. And it does make you take stock of the things that have true value. in your life, which is a rare feeling to have when watching a movie. Yeah. I'm mostly watching Mission Impossible. Like, I got to learn how to fucking parkour. I need to get out of a situation. I always think this, like, you know, you see these kids doing this crazy Instagram videos now,

like these real asymmetric gymnastic things and new ways of training and parkour was one of them back 15, 20 years ago. I was like, if I was a young person now, I'd be into all of this stuff. Yeah, I'm nervous I'd be dead because I'd also. want to be a hero on the videos. I was in the narrating phase of video cameras. Well, you guys have an incredible following on your podcast, but I'd be worried if I was just starting as a young person on Instagram

that I'd get wrapped up in how many followers I had. Of course you were. The cycle of that depression would be huge. And I worry about all that stuff, the engagement of social media. It feels like smartphones ruin my productivity. I should just turn the thing off and just make stories up instead of watching other people fall off a building. I was swimming with my daughter last night and she had shadowed at my older daughter's school for the day. So it was like her first taste of what it will be like at this new school.

She's in a class and she has nothing to do because they're teaching on some subject and they just handed her a ton of paper. She's telling me how many things she drew. She's like, I drew this and then I drew a picture of that. And then I was like, oh yeah, when you were in class, you're bored out of your mind. I did more fucking drawing in high school than I've ever drawn since, more note passing. I'm drawing, I'm writing, because I'm bored. Yeah. And I hate being there.

And that's what it's robbed us up. I found a drawing that my friend Chris Howard and I drew in science class when we were in, I think it was grade eight. And we were designing and really actually designing for the future. But we were designing a nuclear bunker. Okay. But it was on science paper. You know that grid paper? Yeah.

Yeah. tunnel to a grocery store and had a tunnel to a brewery. It was definitely a dude bunker because then there was a room to it. And it was very rudimentia. It was early days. It wasn't like proper tech. And it was an overhead scheme an

you were seeing overhead. It was like looking at an ant's nest, you know, like tunnel here in a box and then there was one room which I assume was just like our harem. Sure, sure. I stick figures of girls with like long hair. Yeah, yeah. This is the girls' room.

And then we had a helicopter pad ready for when the atmosphere was going to be right again. We were certain, and at different times in my life, I've been certain, and now particularly after watching House of Dynamite, I'm like, yeah, we're always inches away from me needing to go back to my bunker design. Pull out the design. I'll get into the girl room for sure, though. I'm good without the girl. I'm going to get a playroom for the kids. Maybe turn that into a school or something. Yeah, there was no educational facility.

That's a good point. Everyone knew what they needed to know already. What have we got to teach the world? If the world's ended with nuclear power, then we're all dummies anyway. Yeah. We know everything we need to know already. All right, well, Train Dreams is in theaters on November 7th, and then it is on Netflix for All to Consume November 21st.

I hope everyone watches it. It's great. And Joel, I hope we get to have you on again. This is so fun. Thanks, man. This is great. Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. No, it wasn't up there.

What was it? Yeah, my foundation. I am annoyed. I don't make fun of me. I was supposed to put makeup on and then my makeup was stolen. Well, it seems unlikely. I don't want to not believe her, but it does seem unlikely. Yeah, I don't know.

I keep a little bag of makeup up. stairs. Yeah. And there was some in there, but not the foundation, the important part. Now, Bobby Brown is against foundation? No, she's into a natural look. Okay. So she wouldn't probably want like cakey foundation. Thick. Yeah. Her foundation was the first foundation I ever used. It was a stick. I'm glad to hear that's the truth because you told her that in the interview. And if I found out now, you think I would lie about that? Oh, I'm going to flatter her maybe. No, I don't do that. A kind gesture. I don't do that.

You don't do kind gestures at the expense of the truth. That's right. I do. Occasionally. Like, do you like my new shirt? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You always say that to me.

You said that the other day about my shoes. Yep, I saw. I said, do you like my shoes? And you said, yeah, you can't trust me. I'll just be, I'll give you the playbook. Yeah. You can't trust me if you asked me. But if I unsolicited mention that I like your sweater or something, that's genuine.

Ask me when I think of your boots. Do you like these? But, you know, like, hey, do you like my new boots? Because there's always some enthusiasm. Oh, hey, I just got these new boots. Do you like them? No. I mean, that's devastating, right?

Look at you. Even in an acting exercise, it hit you. I don't, I... Right? Yeah, I didn't like that game. I know, but do you see the point it proved? Yeah, I think you just say like, yeah. Yeah, what you're right is a lot.

Yeah, boots. Why don't you like these? For real? Do you like them or no? No, they don't have nothing. I said pick anything. But now I'm asking for real. They're great.

Are you serious? They're not bad. They're not, I wouldn't turn my head at them. They're not, they're neutral, which is a win. Wow. When failure's on the table, neutral's a win. You hate it because it's silver medal. It's also not, these are gold medal shoes.

It's like the judge was not qualified and I shouldn't have asked. See, now you're attacking me. And there's all the more reason to just lie. Ask me again. How's me again? You like my boots? I was just thinking those are the greatest boots I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, you'd be right.

And then when you go, I like you. You're my friend. Yeah, I'm having a bad morning. Yeah, that's okay. Let's talk about it. My makeup got stolen, one. Well, first of all, you don't like my boots. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

I saw you before your makeup was, quote, stolen. Yeah. And you're already feeling a little melancholy. Well, I'm annoyed, is what it is. Oh, it's not even melancholy. I'm melancholy. You're annoyed. You know, look, wait, I'm not trying to trump your annoying, annoyance. Um, yeah, I just got some, like, annoying news.

Yeah, you found out your house is going to take longer than you thought. I just feel defeated. Okay. And my parents are supposed to, you know, my parents are always supposed to come and they can never come. Yeah. So, my dad's retiring and he wants to come. Yeah, now he can't. Now he has to keep working.

Now he's going to work until he's his, last days. He has to work until my house is ready. That was the, that was the contract he made with his employer. Yeah, it was weird. It was unconventional. I can go, give you as long as it takes for my houses, my house is my daughter's house to be completed. Yeah. And they were like, oh, God, he's going to then be out of here in a year. No, they're building the house in L.A. You got a long time. You can start a pre-year. He has another decade. It's okay. I'll be over it in like an out when we're done with this. After we're done. We're going to work.

I'll be done. Yeah, but anyway, it's fine. Some happy things are that the other day, you know, well, it's also been raining, but... Shockingly. I've done well. Yeah, you've weathered the storm, as we might say. I have leaned into the cozy nature of the rain. Yeah, yeah.

It's so fun. I've made the decision to enjoy it. Oh, good. And I was walking back to the car with Jess a couple days ago, and it was raining a little bit like sprinkling. And from far away in the distance, we hear this little voice. And she said, you guys okay in the rain? And she got a little closer. She had her umbrella and she was with a man, presumably her dad, but there's no way for me to know.

that you didn't have access to a DNA test she was so spunky uh-huh and we were like yeah we're okay are you and she was like yeah he's making me carry this oh she was complaining about yeah she didn't want to carry the umbrella right and I said oh yeah but you look cute nice and she she said yeah I got these glasses today they came in the mail oh why she ordered them yeah oh wow they came in the mail And then I felt, okay, then I felt back. So she took them. I was like, oh, my gosh, I love them so much. And she took them off and she was starting to clean them.

Sure. And I was like, yeah, give them a little cleaning. And then the dad was like, no, no, remember you're not supposed to do that unless. And I was like, I don't remember what he, they obviously had a rule about maybe she's broken some glasses before. Or maybe she will wipe some compulsively. Maybe. I don't know. Sounds like it.

The first thing he says nice glasses is you're like, yeah, let's spit these up. But he didn't like that, and I felt bad because I encouraged it. Sure, sure, sure. And then I was mad at him because I was like, just let her. We're having a conversation. She just wants to clean her glasses. It's fine. This is the tension of parenting.

You're like, what? What are their habits I need to point out that need broken and who gives a fuck? If he is a parent or not, we don't know. But anyway, she put them back on and, you know, she was chit-chatting with us. And I said, what's your name? And she said, A, B, B, B, B. B, B, B, Y. No, Abby with four Bs.

And then I said, Abby, and then Jess was, you know, like, Abba, B, B, B, B, and then the dad under his breath said, too many B. But what he was actually referring to is there was bees in a tree up ahead. Yeah. There seemed like they would like each other. I felt like he was an overwhelmed dad. Okay. I think we said, like, what are you guys doing? And they're like, we're just on a walk around, you know, like get some.

I think he was saying get some energy out. Oh, but yeah, okay. And so I think like she's... She's a handful. Yeah, because she's so special. Yeah. And it was, you know, then we left. We said bye to Abby.

Yeah, Abby B, B, B, B.A. Yeah. And I was like, oh, my God, what a special person. Yeah. And I was like, but yeah, I guess if you're in charge of that person, that's hard. Sure. Double-edged sore. It is.

So sparkly. I have a couple of those. I know. You guys okay in the rain from so far away. It was so cute. She heard someone say that at some point. Exactly. Oh, that's a thing to say. I should say that at some point. Yeah. The opportunity presented itself. She was so cute. And she had like the cutest hair, dude. Anyway, I really liked her, Abby. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. Speaking of cute, I took my number one girl. I mean, I have two number one girls, but I want to be able to say number one girl.

But I have two number one girls. Okay. I just, all right. Yeah. I want to say something. I know, but I'm just like one of them heard that they wouldn't lie. I'm just telling you. No, that's why I said I have two number one girls.

No one likes to hear that. Well, I do. That's unfortunate for them, but I have two number one girls. Okay. And I took the younger of the two number one girls to Sabrina Carpenter on Sunday. Yes. Oh. I'm like, I can't describe the feeling.

I feel like I like know it. Do you know it? Yeah, I do. I'm like love sick. I'm love sick. It's so overwhelming. It's overwhelming. It's overwhelming and I'm love sick.

I can't believe. that I got to be with her when she was at her first concert of someone she loved and watching her dance and scream and sing along and wave the phone over her head with the light on and clapping on cute. Be alive. Yeah. Oh, so much. Yeah.

And then now I'm stuck, this very junior high of me on high school. I'm stuck on don't smile. the Sabrina song. Yeah, you're listening to it a lot. Over and over again, all day long for, I guess, four or five days now. Because I started listening to even before we went. And then I listen to the song when I look at the pictures of us at the concert. And then I get really emotional.

And so, yeah, I feel like I'm in junior high. And I'm just overwhelmed with feelings of love. Yeah. And they're kind of original and new. And it's very, very nice. Yeah. And I'm quick to tell on myself when I buy a donut. it for $20 to avoid the line.

So I'm going to tell you, I did do the full merch line. As soon as we walked into Staples, I hate calling it Crypto. That's a dumbest name for, and also what crypto? Just generally speaking, crypto? It's crypto.com. Oh, okay. That makes more sense. I liked Staples.

It was called Staples. Staple Center, not even Staples Arena. Yeah. I liked it. I'm sure you did. Because you could always say to your wife or your partner, like, I got to run up to Staples, and you're not lying if you go to a Lakers game. Oh, it's about deception.

Well, they might think that you're going to get school supplies or office supplies. Yeah. And no one, like, let's put it this way. If someone says they got to go to Staples, you're like, oh, yeah, sorry, you got to do that. It's not, you're not going to Neiman Marcus to go shopping for fun. You are there for utility items, and it's a chore. Yeah. So you go like, I got to run to Staples.

And then you go see the Lakers play. And then you come home and your partner is like, first of all, where? Where have you been? Why did it take that long? Where have you been? And where's all the items? What'd you get? And you go, what do you mean?

I went to the Lakers game. What? You said you were going to Staples. Yeah, it's Staples Center. Out. Out. I said I'm going to Staples. You're a deceptive beast.

No, I'm not to say. I said I'm going to Staples and I went to Staples. Now, let's try this again. All right. I'll see. I'm heading over to Crypto. Wait, you're going to invest in crypto. Yeah.

Wait, no, we need to talk about that. We have, what? You're going to invest in crypto. You're going to invest in crypto.com. Okay. Okay. So you go to crypto. So I go into Staples and, you know, we got to walk a while to our section.

So we walk through about a half of the arena or whatever. And there's a couple different merch stations. Yeah. And fuck, dude, you know. You know, you're at these concerts. These lines are insane. There's hundreds of people, right? Oh, thousands.

And it's like winding back and forth. You're not even quite sure where one enters this line. Yeah. And I clocked it. And I was like, oh, boy, let's see if she's going to ask for some merch. Of course. And then... You can't go and not get merch.

So I got misled. It said, doors open 530. Show starts at 7. Yeah. And that doesn't mean Sabrina starts at 7. Sure. Okay. So we sit in the seats.

We're pretty early. Place is pretty empty. Just us. And then I think, she doesn't even ask. I go, should we go hop in that merch line? And she's like, yeah, I think she made me even surprise I'm willing to see. Aw. So we went and guess what?

A couple of things about the merch lines. They're not bad. Yeah, they move. A lot of people watching and they move. They go quicker than you think they're going to go. And it wasn't bad at all. And we took turns, each of us going to the bathroom and keeping our place in line. It all worked out.

And I'm just remembering I got merch And I got a shirt I should have worn it I'll wear it in the future Okay wear it Did you get a sweatshirt or a t-shirt? T-shirt, T-shirt. Cute.

I have so many sweatshirts. Sure, but you could always use more. I really at this point I can't Like I was looking, I hang mine on hooks And I was like we got a just this morning Hangers on hooks We got Thanks

So summer on hangers I'm disappointed You know we got cute merch We got snacks We got a snack. We got around the hot dogs. Hers had macaroni and cheese on the hot dog. Oh, dang.

Yeah, go staples. Go crypto. And then we got some chicken tenders because we were there for 15 hours. Because she didn't start until 9. Right, but I'm glad you got in the line. I'm surprised, like, you have to get in that line so quick because it goes. It sells out. Yeah, well, we were starting to watch.

That's the anxiety being in the line. You're watching them, like, remove the tote bag from that. And then you're like, well, hold on those six more stations. So, like, someone really wanted that tote bag. Did they have to go get in that other line? And then that will also sell out. It's a racket. The tote was popular, apparently.

Wow. Or they didn't make a lot. That's my guess. They didn't think they're going to sell as many as they did. Okay. Speaking of our merch, people really bought stuff and we're so excited for everybody to match us. Yes. And we're so happy you guys like it.

I'm excited for the people to receive it and feel the quality. Feel the quality. Rub it all over your body and then cover your body with it. Yeah, I do. And you will have it by the holidays. Yes, that's so good. We don't have any tote bag. We don't have tote bags.

So don't worry, they won't sell out. Yeah. Okay, now, the show was spectacular. Right. I've now, I guess, between last year and this year, I saw Taylor and then I saw Sabrina. Yeah. And they're much different performers, obviously. Yeah.

But I was kind of like really fascinated with what I think Lane she has staked out. Okay. Have you ever seen her live? No. No. Well, it's great. The set's incredible. There's all kinds of different dancers.

It's wonderful. And then she often is like in between songs and she can just sit and kind of stare at the camera and stare like, look around and do all this stuff. And I was like, wow, this woman's, she's so confident. Yeah. Riley, she's so calm and confident. Yeah, she's cheeky. That's her style. Yeah, and just so crazy, confident.

Yeah. So it was being filmed, so maybe it's also going to be a movie, too. They're all making these movies. Be silly not, too. They already have the cameras going to put it on the big, huge screen. Yeah. But anyways, it's so, it didn't start till 9. Right before she went on, Delty was on my shoulder falling asleep.

Yeah, sleep. That's hard for these little ones at these concerts. They're a long time. It's tiring. Yeah, and we'd already been there for three and a half hours. I think at that point when the show started. Yeah. But she sprang right away.

Good. Danced around. How long was the set? Like Sabrina. About two hours-ish. Oh, we had a really tricky call to make. We were given some lanyards. After we were already in our seat,

a nice gentleman Max came and gave us some lanyards so that we could go to the friends and family area after the show. And I was like, oh, wow. We might, she might come into there. Yeah, definitely. We might meet her. Yeah. And my dude, it's already like, it's late.

And I say to Delta, I'm like, okay, so we have these passes. You know, I don't know. Don't get your expectations too high, but maybe we'll actually meet her. And you want to go? And she's like, oh, my God, yeah, right? So we go in there and we're in there for a while, 20 minutes. I'm kind of looking around like, there's a lot of people for her to wander into here. Okay.

There were some snacks. We had more snacks. Oh, more hot. Yeah, I think I had this time I had cheese sticks. I don't eat chicken tender is a hot dog. There was marineria. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that whole spread.

You need mozzarella sticks? What did I say? Cheese stick. Yeah, yeah. They were mozzarella brand cheese. Okay, because to me, a cheese stick is a string cheese. Yeah. And a mozzarella stick is a breaded.

Mozilla stick. Breaded cheese with a marinera. That's exactly what it was. Yum, I love mozzarella sticks. Yeah, well, you would have loved these. They were tiny. They were like cocktail wiener size. Oh, wow.

So you kind of pop them like. Yeah. Yeah, you didn't pop them. Like a nap. So we were in there for about 20, and I just started thinking, there's no chance in hell she's coming into this room. Okay. You know, so I said to Delta, I don't, you know, I don't think this is her. There's too many people in here for her to come through.

And she's like, yeah, I was pretty proud of her. She seemed to accept that outcome. Okay. If I were her, I might been fighting for like, you know. Please, let's just stay and wait and see. Yeah, like when I was seeing Billy, idol her age. The notion that Billy I don't might have come out, I probably would have stuck around to the last person left, just in case. Yeah, same. But yeah, so we did not get home till

midnight. Yeah. School night. Yeah. Who did she arrest? Isn't she arresting people at these concerts? She put some cuffs on somebody for being too hot. We couldn't see from our side of the stage. They were on the opposite side of the stage. I saw brown hair. Oh, cool. That's good. They didn't give it to a blonde. She arrested. I think she arrested Anne Hathaway once. She did. Yeah. Yeah. It was Dakota and Ellie Fanning.

Oh, Dakota. That's who she arrested on Sunday? Yeah, that's 16th, right? Yeah. Oh, she arrests famous people. Yeah, that's why I said Ann Hathaway. Dakota and Elle? Yeah.

They're blonde. Now you got your, are they both blonde? Mm-hmm. Maybe she arrested a brunette, too. I'm surprised I didn't see them on that. They didn't pop them on the big screen. Yeah, I am surprised about that. Maybe you were in the potty.

No, I did not go to the. the potty during the show. Oh, well, it seems like you missed a lot because it was not brown hair unless one of them has dyed their hair. For a roll. For a roll. Oh, blonde. Both very blonde. So that's who they, uh, okay, we're on the very opposite side of that. Right. Can you, Rob, can you rotate the camera around so you can see Delta? That looks like a Jumbotron, though. Yeah, it does appear that they're on the Jumbo Tron. I guess we were looking at stage. is, who cares? The point is we had a riot. We had a riot. Yeah. Yeah. Fun times. Fun times galore. Yeah, yeah. Love it. Should we do some facts? Sure. Okay.

Okay. Facts. I'm glad that's not one of our routines where we stay in sync because people... Facts. Three, two, one. Facts. Maybe people would like it because then they could do it too. I don't, I think they would like it three times. Yeah. But like on time 100, oh my God, do you guys stop doing it? Let's do it one more time. Three, two, one.

Facts. Yeah, it's already repugmentment. I think we should get to do it three times a year. Okay. So that was one? No, it would start next year. Okay. Okay.

Now, one thing about train dreams, we did talk about it for a second, but it's Callie's movie, Cali's on the marketing team. She wrote it. She produced it. Yes. No, she didn't. But she has been talking about this movie all year and is on the team at Netflix, the marketing team for this movie.

And she had told me once the tagline, then I couldn't remember and I couldn't find it. But it's, I texted her. You don't have to do big things to live a big life. That's nice. And I thought that was lovely. There's also one that's internal. So I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say it. Oh, okay.

So I'm not saying. Great. Thanks for the T's. Yeah. But anyway, so see the movie. See it. See the movie. Now.

Three, two, one. Facts. I almost forgot what it was. You forgot your line. It's one word. Those are the hardest ones to remember. They are. We always talk about that.

Yeah. I think it came up in this episode. I think it did. Yeah. Okay. There really aren't. Many at all, other than Callie's tagline. Again, Kelly wrote, directed.

Okay. What fell? Well, just my amber mug isn't keeping it warm. And I wondered, is that thing even plugged in is what I wondered. And then I explored because I've impulse control issues because I might be ADHD, but I don't know. I, God, I just had this conversation with someone. We've had it before and I just hate when people self-diagnosed. I hate it.

But can I tell you my, like, you got to honor this, which is Gabor Mante said to me, have you ever been diagnosed? I mean, that's a, if there ever, there was a clue. It doesn't mean your diagnosed, though. He probably just was like, maybe you have it, but that doesn't mean you do. I think he was like, oh, this motherfucker is a deed. Yeah, I don't need the diet. Well, that's fine if I don't. What I'll say is when I look at the symptoms of it, it's hard to deny that I have many of those symptoms.

Yeah, but to me, the diagnosis is when it's problematic. Like, just having qualities. Like, I just had this fight with somebody. not fight conversation no it really wasn't but I was just like they told me that someone we knew mutually was diagnosed as on the spectrum

and I was like okay or maybe they weren't diagnosed but like said they were on the spectrum I don't know but I was like I know this person they're not they're not like getting in the way of anything they're trying to accomplish and I do

feel that it's not fair to people who are definitively on the spectrum to say like, I'm corky, so I'm on the spectrum. I understand that. I understand that it feels disrespectful to people that have a pathological version that is a disorder that is standing in the way their life. Yeah. But what I would say is you're evaluating someone very late into it. So I did have, I was disruptive in the classroom.

I was getting thrown up. I had impulse control issues. There were tons of times I got terrible fucking great. You're like, I had downside. I was just reading this one aspect of it as like, what happens in a debate for someone with ADHD is immediately amygdala is engaged right out of the gates. And then on top of that, they have done, they've measured the dopamine levels of ADHD.

people when they're engaged in a debate and you're getting a ton of dopamine and serotonin. So it is fueling on your, you get pleasure out of fighting, right? Like they've observed this in the brain. And I'm like, well, you know, yeah, that definitely described me when I was younger. And over years, in the same way, like, I don't not have dyslexia now that I can read just fine. It's like I had it. It was really problematic. I eventually gathered tools and now I'm fine with it.

I think that could also be the case, right? Like, I could have had a lot of challenges with ADHD that we didn't know those were that. But over time, I learned to work with them. I just, but it could also just be your personality. Yeah. And, again, it's all very arbitrary. It's all very arbitrary. Yeah.

It's a spectrum. You can have ADHD at an 11 and you can have it at a 1. But then to me, I'm like, then it's just, we all have it. And then where are you on the talking? But I don't think that's fair. I don't know. Even if you want to call personality types, let's call it personality types. Yeah.

Okay. So there's a personality type, which is like shy and not impulse control and not enjoying debate and fights and not an overinflated sense of injustice and not fidgety trying to do nine things at once and you can't brush your teeth. Like, fine. So I have that personality type. It doesn't need to be a disorder. Right.

But I do have a bucket of overlapping symptoms. Sure. We have overlapping symptoms with so many things. And that creates a personality. And I think some time, you know, it's like what you, you used to say a lot about, like, calling people racist. He's like, you're like, we can't call this person racist when there's a KKK. Exactly. And I, I, you know. You're having that issue with it. Yeah. I think a lot, and this isn't your issue. I think a lot of people's issue with it is what they think is I'm asking for sympathy or compassion. And I'm not. Because they're like, you don't deserve sympathy. That person can't even go to work. Right. But I'm not saying it because I want sympathy. I'm saying, now that I know all these characteristics about it, I'm certainly checking yes

on a lot of those boxes. It's not a detriment to me right now. It's, it's, it's power. Now, you know, there are things that I struggle with, I think, harder than other people struggle with. Everyone has things they struggle with that other people don't. Yeah. But I don't think that.

I don't think those are disorders. I think those are personalities that, like, we all have strengths and we all have weaknesses. And, like, you know, I, and it is because it's like dyslexia, dyslexia, you have. You've tested into. Twice, yeah. Yeah. You see, you see letters mixed up.

Yeah, I don't even see them. I don't even know what to do it. Right. Okay. Yeah. So the point is, you have that. Yeah. think if someone is like, I have dyslexia, like, it's hard for me to read.

So I hear this a ton. I can't tell you how many people tell me they have dyslexia. It happens a few times a week. I personally don't go like, well, have you been evaluated? Like, who evaluated you? Right. Did you go to school? Was it in college?

I don't care. I know. What they're telling me is it's hard for them to read. Yeah, that's fine. But then if everyone has dyslexia, then it does make it harder for people who have dyslexia to get seen as really having it, to get the extra time on the test, to do, like, if everyone just has it. But I don't think it does because you can't just say I have dyslexia to get extra time on your test. You do have to do what I did at UCLA, which is like go through weeks of testing. Yeah.

So I don't think anyone with dyslexia is being penalized that everyone's using it kind of colloquially. This is the thing with people with OCD. They're really pissed that people with OCDP are claiming to have a... That's fine. And they have a right to, and I'm not mad at them for that. I is someone with dyslexia. I don't care that people are saying they're dyslexic. Right.

That's fine. I'm just saying I don't want it to affect people who, you know, are nonverbal autistic. Yeah. Because, you know, someone has like a cork and is like, I'm neurodivergent too. I'm like, well, there's just such a lie. I totally agree with you. All of this pretends that there's this large majority of our population that is, quote, normal. Right.

And that you are neuro atypical or neurodivergent from this group. So what I agree, what I think is true is that this group doesn't exist. Yeah, this group is all of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all have all kinds of things. That part I agree with you on. But the irritation over people doing it, I don't care. It's like a semantic thing.

And maybe the are, maybe they aren't. What's important to me, I think, unless they're looking for sympathy, which I have no tolerance for. Right. As you know. But if they're just trying to explain themselves to me and there's now some new words available that kind of seem to condense the thing they're trying to relay about themselves to me, that's okay. I guess. I mean, it's one thing to me if they're using the symptoms to disdemeanor,

describe it, but to say, like, I have this is, is like, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. Anyway. Anywho. How big were Andre the Giants' hands? This is a big thing, too, with people, like, gluten-free. They're, like, do you have ciliacs? Like, were you tested for ciliac?

Well, but that, but, okay, again, like, Callie has it. Yeah. She has ciliac. Yeah. So when she tells the person at the, the server, She says, is it gluten-free? And they're like, yeah. She's like, okay, but she has to say, but I have celiac.

So can you please really double-check and make sure? And then they're like, oh, yeah, I'll check. Yeah. So it is a little bit of a thing that everyone's like, I'm gluten-free. This is all really funny, right? Because, like, I'm on the other side and it drives me insane. Because I ask, do you have gluten-free bread? And they go, do you have an allergy?

Yeah, they need to know. And they do need to know. it just gets so serious right away. Like they're not going to sell me something, right? Like now they're afraid they're going to get sued. Yeah. And I'll be like, no, no, no. Yeah.

So I'm like, no, I don't have an allergy. Are you sure? I'm like, no, I just, now I was like, well, I have one of my guys, I have psoriotic arthritis that if there is a bunch of gluten, my joints might hurt. I'm not going to go into anaphylactic shock and I won't get Crohn's over it. So no, it's not that big of a deal. Right.

Relative to Cali. Yeah, I think you, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I understand why they have to be careful, probably because so many people just are like, I'm gluten-free. I bet people sue a lot. They said it was gluten-free and they got sick and then they sued it. Yeah. And it can be really dangerous for some people and others are like, my tummy hurts. Yeah, yeah. It's like, that's not the same. Right. So I do think checking is good. And yeah, and she, we always like, just so you know it's an allergy. It's the real thing. And then they always say like, let me double check. Yeah, yeah. Um, so anyway, it's just, life's crazy. I think it's very common though.

I think like what you and I are talking about, everyone talks about. Yeah, me too. Yeah. I think people. I think they're all going to talk about it now that we talked about it. Um, okay, how big were Andre the Giants' hands? Hold on, hold on, hold on. Oh, I, but I just like, it's good to remember or constantly on the same side of arguments with just simply a little bit different ingredients, right?

Sure. So, like, the way you're upset, you get annoyed by that, I have been annoyed with you when you've said, I have cancer or whatever, you know, the things you've announced you have medically. And I'm like, you haven't gone to the doctor and been diagnosed, right? And I get really upset at you. I want you to, like, don't think that you have that. Right. Until you've gone and they've told you. So I'm acknowledging, I've been on the opposite side of this argument.

I'm just trying to acknowledge that. But I'm joking. If I have, so far, if I've said I have cancer, which, by the way, I don't think I have, because that actually would scare me to say. You have a jing-shu. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think I'd do that. But you have thought you had a lot of different things over there.

I thought I've had things, but I'm not serious if I'm like, I have a tumor. Like, I know, if I really thought I did, I would, of course, go get it checked out. So that's me being, like, hyperbolic and, like, it's a funny thing. But apparently it's so. not. No, you remember that I've been upset with you saying you have things. I know, but yeah, you do something because I'm like, oh, my like back hurts. And it does hurt. And you go, I think I have blank. Or be like, I, it's either period or I have like a kidney thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, you're like, you're like, you're like, you're like, you're just on that I've been on

your side of this argument we just had, this chat we just have. I know. But I think it's a little different because I'm not claiming to have a pathology. What's funny is, and I do think this is interesting, me and you did feel the same way about ADHD at one point. You used to think this. I still think that ADHD is taking over social media and now we all think we have it. And you even said there was a specific person that said they had it and you were like so annoyed by it. And as I was too. And now you think you have it and you're doing the same thing this person did.

So I think that's funny. I am. And I don't think anyone. needs to feel bad for me or I have a handicapped. No. Yeah. I just think I have a ton of the things on the list. Sure.

It's a great personality. But again, we're making an arbitrary distinction between a personality and a disorder. And a pathology. Yeah, that's my whole point. But again, we're still just talking about how someone is. We are, but there's medication and stuff. There's some line we go, okay, so you're getting a C. Like, there is, right, they're drawing a line.

they're going to decide on this side of the line is a pathology. On this side, it's not. And that's just decided by people. Doctors should be, yeah. Yeah. But it's not a test. No. It's like depression.

You're not discovering in your DNA. Here's the loci for this condition. It's still a diagnoses that is arbitrary in nature. I just think it should be a, you should be diagnosed if it requires change, different, like medicine, you know, whatever. I mean, I guess this is sort of back to that awesome guest we had on who was talking about overdiagnosis. Oh, yeah, from England.

Yeah. She was great. How big were Andre the Giants' hands? This is a third time I've said it. 16 inches long from wrist to fingertip. From wrist to fingertip. Boy, I wish I had a tape measure right now. I mean, imagine a full ruler.

Well, how about this? So my shoes is 12 inches. Okay. So that's like a rule. So we're going to here. First of all, what just that was made? Hi, Monica. I know.

Now we're going to go four inches past that. Holy smokes. Enormant. This immense size allowed him to palm a basketball with ease and made him comparable in size to a silverback gorilla. Okay. The only other fact is that we talk about AI and he wanted to see a dog giving a lecture. Like he asked.

Oh, right. He had designed. He designed that. And when I was at Charlie's house for the Dodgers game, he has an app on his phone. I guess it's in like development. And he took a, like, we put it in front of my face. And I just turned right and left. And then I just said three numbers.

That was it. Yeah. And then he said, have Monica running on a beach and yelling at. a dog. No. And it's so good. It is? Yes.

Oh, my godness. And then he was doing a lot of those, like me complaining at a restaurant. I was like, you can really take me out. Yeah. Maybe it'll swing in the other way because if you can't trust, if that's real, then nothing matters. Yeah. No holds bars. Yeah.

You can always just go as AI. I was AI. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wasn't me. Yeah. And I crashed my car drunk driving. I had nothing to do with that. It was a hologram.

They're that good. All right. All right. Love you. Love you. Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcast. 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.