Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Ke Huy Quan

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Indiana Jones, The Goonies) is an Academy Award-winning actor. Ke joins the Armchair Expert to discuss his experience was like escaping Vietnam after the war, what it was like landing his role in an Indiana Jones at such a young age, and his decision to quit acting in his 20s. Ke and Dax talk about how he struggled to find his identity, how he got into fight choreography, and the impact of asian representation on his decision to come back to acting. Ke explains what it was like to make his comeback with a critically acclaimed independent film, doing animation voiceover work, and having the fear of losing his acting career again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dak Shepard, I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi there. This is, I'm gonna say it, this is the craziest life story we've heard from anyone on the show. It's an impossible life story. I told a lot of people afterwards,

after we recorded this episode, that it was a very special one. Me too, it's the biggest delta that's ever been covered in a lifespan in two years. Our guest today is Ki-Hui Kwan, and of course you fell in love with him in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Dune and the Goonies as I did as a little boy.

And then fuck, he came back out of nowhere and everything everywhere all at once. He was so incredible. Just such a beautiful performance. Yes. Oh, when you hear his life story, just you wanna go back and rewatch. I feel like we were almost crying the whole time.

Yep, that's fair. Also, you can see Ke, currently in season two of Loki on Disney+, so please enjoy Ki Hui Kwan. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show?

We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash ymx. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. He's an armchair expert. He's an armchair expert. You came to visit us when we were shooting everything everywhere all at once.

Thousand percent. You did. I intend to tell that story. You still live in Woodland Hills? Yeah. How long was that drive for you? Was it easy? An hour. It was an hour.

Oh, so Friday's the worst. I miss the time where I used to live in Covina. I don't know if you know where that is. Yes. Well, I know West Covina. Yeah, it's just the next exit down. I used to go from Covina to Beverly Hills. Oh.

But back in the 90s, it used to take me only 45 minutes. Now I can't even travel more than 10 miles without taking 45 minutes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Covina to Beverly Hills now, that's a 90 minute drive for sure. Twice as long. Yeah.

I wanna start with a very simple question, which is every time I hear someone introduce you, they go, Fulki Hwi Kwan. I've never heard anyone say just your first name. Everybody calls me Ki and sometimes they'll say Ki Kwan, sometimes they'll say Ki Hui Kwan, but as long as you say my name I'm happy. Okay, but I just want to make sure that I could say Ki. Oh, everybody calls me Ki.

Okay, wonderful. In fact, my legal name is Jonathan Ki Hui Kwan. So I used to go by Jonathan for a long time, but everybody that knew me when I was a kid calls me Ki. Are you happy that Ki and Peele was a big show? I mean, that really popularized Ki. Yeah. Kiki Palmer. Oh yeah.

I made a joke. I attended the New York Film Festival, and Jordan Peele was there, Kiki Palmer was there. And when I got my award, I went up there. And this is actually Jordan Peele's joke. We were chatting. I love him so much, and I said, what does it take to work with?

I have the name, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're halfway there. Kee and Peele, Kiki Palmer, and then maybe I'll just change my name to Kiki Kee, you know? Okay, so Kee, of every actor and expert we've interviewed, you're gonna have, I think, among the wildest story as far as the amount of ground you've covered in your life. It's almost impossible from where your life started

to where it ended up. You even said it in your Oscar speech. My life is something you'd see in a movie, but it really happened to me. It's mind-blowing, but can we start in Saigon in 1971? Yes. So we're roughly the same age. I was born in 75.

You have my sister's birthday, August 20th. Yeah, I'm a Leon. You're on the cusp though, because I'm a Virgo 24th. My wife says I'm more like a Virgo than I'm a Leon. Yeah, I could see that. By the way, your wife has the coolest name, of all names, Echo.

Echo, yeah. What a cool name. That is a good name. Okay, so you're born in Vietnam in 1971, but your family's Chinese. Yes, actually I was born in 1970. It's wrong on IMDB. Oh, wonderful.

It's not easy to change your birth date on IMDB. I bet not. Yeah, I tried. And no one's trying to go older. You'd be the first person trying to go older. I like a truth. I like authenticity. So for the longest time, when I decided to get back into acting,

I have IMDB Pro. So I messaged them and I go, I want to change my birth year. I sent numerous messages, emails, and it's like, you have to show your passport, all these like, you know, identification. It's not easy to make that change. Polygraph test?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that. But I do imagine most people would have been calling and saying, I was really born in 75, like they wanna be younger. Of course. You're for sure the first person in history that wanted to make yourself older. It's only one year, it's not like a big difference.

It is a big difference in terms of what was happening historically in Saigon. That's one more year of being born into an active war. But how did your family end up in Vietnam from China? It was a great place to do business. My mom was born in Hong Kong. My dad was in mainland China, and it's just for opportunities. They went to Vietnam Saigon.

In what year? I don't know. They were there when they were very young. It was my grandma that took my mom there when my mom was just a little kid. Okay, so probably 60 she was there? Probably sooner than that. Maybe in the early 50s. Okay, wow. And then around the same time and they met and they fell in love. They got really busy and had nine kids.

Nine! Nine kids. Wow. Okay, but you hinted at it, right? Which is you already have family members that are adventurers, risk takers, entrepreneurial. They have left security at some point in their life to pursue something greater in their move to Vietnam. That's kind of interesting and telling.

You know, my parents were doing really well in Vietnam. What kind of business were they in? My dad manufactures plastic bags. Oh, no kidding? Yeah, and my mom had a little clothing store. And nine kids? And nine kids. That's not possible.

I don't know if they even read the condom back then. Yeah, your dad should have been making them. Yeah, and so they were really happy. Monica just really giggled at the thought of a plastic bag condom. As a condom, yeah, that was funny. Wait, what's the span of ages, like oldest to youngest kids? My oldest sister right now is 68.

Okay. And are you the youngest? I'm the seventh in the family. She's 68 and you're 53 or four? Yeah, I'm 53. 53, so she's 15 years older. Okay, so she was born in 55ish? Did I do that math right?

We're looking at about an 18 year range. Maybe 56. 56. Okay, wow. So you've got a full grown adult sister when you're born. Yes, I was an uncle when I was 10 years old. Wow. Really? Now I have over 20 nieces and nephews

and more than 20 grand nieces and nephews and more than 20 grand nieces and nephews. And I joke about this, everything everywhere all at once became a box office hit. It's because my family bought a lot of those tickets. If they all just went five times, you had a runaway hit. In what order were you?

What number were you? Seven. I was doing math when he said that. I have a younger sister, I have a younger brother who I'm best friends with. He's so supportive. My family has been very proud and very happy for the last two years,

and my brother more so than anybody. Yeah, and he got a shout out in your speech. Yeah. Sounds well deserved. So, born in there in 1970, you wouldn't have memories, I can't imagine, of wartime in Saigon, do you? Because you're too young. Yeah, but a lot of people have memories

when they were two or three or four, but for some reason, everything that happened in Vietnam, I only have glimpses of it, going out with my dad on his motorcycle or trying on new clothes at my mom's clothing store, just like snapshots. Would your father have been a potential enemy once Saigon fell and he would have been a capitalist

and a business owner, a manufacturer, was he at risk with that? There were a large Chinese community living in Saigon. And when the fall of Saigon happened, a lot of those Chinese people were targeted. And also it was a chaotic time. Disclaimer, Vietnam today is very different. A lot of people go visit every year.

But in the 1970s, they were targeted. And my parents made that difficult decision to get all of us out of there. They did stay around for three years after the end of the war, right? Yes. So that would have been the most perilous period for them, They did stay around for three years after the end of the war, right? Yes. So that would have been the most perilous period for them, because now it's a communist country and they're entrepreneurial capitalists. I think they were constantly living in fear.

I'm really grateful to them because to get all of us out of Vietnam, we didn't succeed on the first attempt. And back then, a lot of that generation, they would have their savings, not in the Vietnamese currency, but in gold. OK. We escaped on a boat. So to get on a boat, every person would have to pay, you know, a huge amount in gold sheets.

So the first attempt, we failed, and my parents lost a lot of their savings. How come it failed? We were caught. The boat got seized or stopped. Before we made it onto the boat, we were put in jail. The whole family. Yeah, the whole family.

And then it was not until the second time. It was a big jail for your family. Yeah, we were, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then my parents worked really hard again to try to save up enough money to try the second time. The second time, my parents decided that maybe instead of going all together at once, let's split up, a little smaller group,

and then whoever succeed in getting out, then maybe they can help. Okay, this explains, yeah, because mom ends up going to Malaysia with three of your siblings, and you and dad and five others go to Hong Kong. Yes, so my mom and three of my siblings went to Malaysia and then they stayed there for a year and they were granted political asylum and they immigrated to the United States.

And they were there for a year when we tried to escape and we ended up in a refugee camp in Hong Kong. You're seven or eight. I was seven. You must have memories of that. We're getting old enough to have memories. Yeah. You must have memories of that. We're getting old enough to have memories. Yeah, I was running around in my house and playing with my friends in Vietnam and Saigon,

and all of a sudden, I find myself surrounded by security guards and police officers in chain-link fence. That I didn't have the maturity or the wisdom to understand why. You're living the life of a prisoner all of a sudden. Yeah, and we were just in a makeshift refugee camp with a lot of bunk beds. It was just extremely crowded.

Yes, and sanitation was probably terrible. Yeah. Your mom's not there. My best friend, my little brother was not there. I was just with my five other siblings and my father. And you were there for how long, a year? More than a year. Did they try to educate you?

What happened all day long? How did you spend that time? Not much. It's not like they cared about school work or anything. We were just waiting. My dad, more than any of us, were trying to work on the paperwork and try to get out of there

and try to get in contact with my mom. And what's really interesting is for many years, I didn't really understand what was going on behind the scene. It was not until this year that I attended an event with Cate Blanchett in Geneva for the UNHCR. going on behind the scene. It was not until this year that I attended an event with Cate Blanchett in Geneva for the UNHCR. And they had an archive there that they invited me to.

And I found all the communication that UNHCR had with the Hong Kong government at the time. When we arrived on the shore of Hong Kong, we were in a boat with 3,000 other people. The Hong Kong government was so scared because they just didn't know what to do with us. And they were trying to get the captain of that ship to go to Taiwan instead of staying in Hong Kong. And thank God for the UNHCR, they were in constant contact with the Hong Kong government

and said, please let these refugees and we'll figure it out. And they were working constantly with many other countries, you know, France, the US, of course, Australia, UK. Like if you can promise us to let these refugees come on shore, we will work out on how to get them off your hands. We'll place them everywhere. Oh my goodness. So you saw all the correspondence.

And there were records. I found my name and my family's name in that archive. You're kidding. It was so emotional. It was just incredible. You know, for the longest time, that experience existed only in my memories. And of course, you know,

we talked about it with our families, but it was the first time where I have paperwork, I have proof that happened. And also the contrast between, obviously I would imagine feeling quite forgotten for a year, only to find out later you're a part of this complicated and dynamic part of history that's been recorded,

probably validates the whole experience in a way. Absolutely. A year when you're seven to eight, it's a long time. It's 15% of your life. That experience really changed all of us. I was with five of my other siblings and I look at their lives now and they're so strong minded. They're so determined.

They work really hard. It made them a lot tougher. And I think it really stemmed from that experience, going from having a home to losing our home, being locked up in a refugee camp, and then coming here. That's unimaginable. Do you think it's given you all a baseline of gratitude that's a little higher than everyone else's?

Absolutely. That's why to this day, I'm very grateful, one, to the American government at that time, who allowed us into this country, and everything that's happened since. How was it determined you would go to California? Because that's where my mom and three of my siblings, they were living in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Oh my God.

Yeah, and in fact that archive had that address where my mom was staying at because they needed to contact her and to find out where she was living so that it made sense for my dad and five of my other siblings and myself to immigrate to the US. Yeah, you guys would have a place to go specifically. Yeah, it reminds you there are real people on the other side of this making those connections, right?

Like reaching out, finding the people in America, then connecting them with the people in Hong Kong people are doing Yeah, thank God there are thank God So you land in California and I have to imagine it's got to be a tricky time to have come from Vietnam You're only four years out from this war. That was the most divisive war we ever had at that point I'm sure feelings were all over the map towards people that were coming now from Vietnam. How was the reception?

How did you feel when you guys got here? As an eight year old, you don't really understand, and especially when you have very protective parents, they kind of shield you from all of that. And living in Chinatown, Los Angeles was also very beneficial because it's an old Chinese community there insulated from all that news

that was going on around the world at that time. And we were just trying to assimilate into a new life. In fact, my mom's friends, their children never made it out. They either passed away on that journey or got killed. So we were very lucky. Especially how big my family is.

All of us made it alive. That is wild. And did you fly from Hong Kong to California? Yes. No more boat rides. Yeah, so it's quite interesting how I was on a boat in the middle of the night, escaping Vietnam, arriving Hong Kong, a year in refugee camp,

and then I got on a plane to come to Los Angeles. First plane ever? Yes. Were you excited in a way that you had never been in your life? You must have had a fantasy about America. No. You hadn't seen like American movies?

We didn't have any of that. Oh, okay. You were probably mad. You're like, why am I on a plane? I was happy because one, I was free, and second, I knew that at the end of this flight, I will be reuniting with my mom and my brother and my other sisters who I haven't seen for more than a year Yes, you're just so excited. I imagine for that reunion had dad told you anything about America like what to expect

No, he didn't even know this is so fast It's not like there were Televisions where we can watch and see what the lives in America is like. Yeah, Baywatch wasn't out yet. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you were born 10 years later, you would have known all about Baywatch.

Do you sometimes think about that time and think, I can't believe that was my life, that story belongs to me? Like I would be so disassociated from that, I think, because it's such a huge deal. I don't think about that experience often What I do think about is how lucky I am how lucky my family is all doing really well Even during some of my darkest days

I still feel grateful just because we get to live in this great country everyone made it safe at some point though You move up to Sunland from Chinatown We moved to Monterey Park in the eastern part of Los Angeles. Right, by Alhambra? Yes, by Alhambra. Alhambra has a pretty large Asian population. Yes. Because my great fear for you as a little nine-year-old boy

is joining now an elementary school where you don't speak English, you're very other, you represent this war we just had, I'm so scared for any little boy in that situation. Was elementary fine? For me, it was fine because I was trying very hard to learn English, to get accustomed to this new life. And you had a fair amount of classmates

that were also newly. Oh yeah, back then, the elementary school was called Castelaw, and it's still there. And I was in a class with 30 other students. A lot of them looked like me, and we all spoke the same language. And all of us were trying to learn English at the same time. Oh, what a relief.

This sounds like the ideal. Okay, this is an impossible gap, because really, within four years, you go from a refugee camp to starring in the biggest movie of the year with the biggest movie star by the biggest director of all time. This is really not a possible experience.

How do we get from newly into the States to getting in that movie? It's pretty insane. I was just being a kid going to school and one day this group of people came to my elementary school and they had an open call. What? This is a dream.

If I were you, I would actually think, this can't be reality. You're definitely in a simulation. So you didn't, were you like a glass clowny a little bit? I wasn't. In fact, I wasn't even the one that was auditioning. It was my little brother. His teacher thought he was perfect.

Sometimes even to this day, I wonder why I was chosen and not him because I think he's so much more talented than me. And he's funny. He makes me laugh all the time. So he was more of a ham than I was. And so he was auditioning for the casting director and I was just behind the camera coaching him what to do.

Was telling him like, David, do this, do that. And telling him what kind of expression he should be doing. And I was just like shouting out directions. You're directing him. Oh my God. They should have hired you to direct him. And I was just like shouting out directions. You're directing him. Oh my God. They should have hired you to direct him. And the casting director saw me

and I was speaking to my brother in Chinese, in Cantonese. Okay. He saw something in me and many years later, I reunited with our casting director. And he told me that they had a hard time finding the perfect kid to play short round. In fact, they went to London, to Hong Kong, Singapore, everywhere where there was a bigger Chinese community.

Because back then, Chinatown, Los Angeles was really small and they didn't think they would find who they were looking for there. So they went everywhere except Chinatown, Los Angeles. Oh wow. And they were about to give up and they said, why don't we just give it one last try? It's obvious how desperate they were

that they were going to random elementary schools. Exactly. That's not the normal casting. Yes, exactly. Especially for a movie of this size. Oh my God, this is unreal. Okay, so you're barking orders at your brother which is hysterical and I can see why she

or he would have seen, oh, this is what we need. This is a little guy who's running the show. Yeah, dynamic. And short round was a total survivor. I was precocious. Yes. You then auditioned. Then auditioned, they gave me the site,

and I could barely speak English at all, just very little. And then my reading comprehension was even worse. Of course. So I was saying the lines and really messing it up, saying like, Indie, like trying to even understand what I was saying. I'm not even saying the lines, I'm reading the lines. You're just making a series of sounds.

Exactly. And he saw something in there and he says, Kee, why don't you put that away and let's just talk. Who's he? Mike Fenton. He cast E.T., the Goonies. Oh, this guy's a genius. Yeah, so big casting director.

In fact, he told me he was later, when we reunited again. He said that after I left that room, he called Steven Spielberg and says, we don't have to look any further. We found your kid. Oh. And there's what before. I just got chills. I auditioned for Spielberg or Lucas.

Oh my God. Oh my God. What are your parents thinking right now? They had no clue what was going on. And they could barely speak in English when they answered that phone. The first Indiana Jones had come out. We haven't seen it. But you knew about it, right?

No, we didn't know. I mean, don't forget, we're living in Chinatown. We're very insulated by this small Chinese community. So we've never seen Star Wars. We've never seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. Jaws? No. Back then, we had a really small 13-inch

black and white television. We couldn't afford to go to the movies. We didn't even have a car. That's why when they call and they say, we want you to come to Burbank and audition, my mom said, we don't have any means to get there. We're out. Yeah, then we're sending you a driver.

Guys, this is not, I can't imagine what the fuck your parents, and they're having the same grapple with reality too. It's like, what is my life? These people are calling to bring my child with a driver. I mean, they must have just been trying to compute what the fuck was going on. Maybe even also scared. Yeah, like are we getting taken advantage of?

We didn't think much of it. They didn't think I would land the role. Of course. It was like, oh, they wanna see him? Well, sure, we'll take him. We didn't know it was gonna be a sequel to one of the biggest movies of all time. Thank God, actually.

It's crazy you didn't know. Because you would've maybe felt a lot of pressure if you knew who Spielberg was and all that. Yeah, that's why when I walked into the room, I didn't know that I was meeting and talking to three of the most successful people. Of all time. Of all time, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And written by Lawrence Kasdan. Oh my gosh. I mean, impossible.

One of the greatest writers of all time. Okay, so you go in there and clearly you choose the best writer of all time. Yeah. And you choose the best writer of all time. Yeah. And you choose the best writer of all time. Yeah. And you choose the best writer of all time.

Yeah. And you choose the best writer of all time. Yeah. And you choose the best writer of all time. Yeah. And you choose the best writer of all time. Yeah. And you choose the best writer of all time. Of all time, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And written by Lawrence Kasdan. Oh my gosh. I mean, impossible. One of the greatest writers of all time. Okay, so you go in there and clearly you charmed them in that audition.

Where was it filmed? It was filmed in Sri Lanka. So after my audition for Steven and George and Harrison, a few weeks later, I was on a flight. Again, my second time being on a flight to Sri Lanka. The first time I was on a flight was from Hong Kong to LA. I was in economy and all of a sudden, I'm flying first class with my mom to Sri Lanka.

And you're 12? And I was 12, yeah. They're serving you Coca-Cola's and nuts and all this. Sundays. And what's mom thinking? How's mom explaining this to you? Cause you're probably looking at her like, how is this happening?

She doesn't know, but she's got to give you an answer. I think she was just really happy for me and proud. My parents gave up so much. In fact, when we got to the U.S., my parents were heavily in debt because they just didn't have enough money to get all of us out. So they were borrowing money from their friends.

So when we got here, they were working really hard to try to pay off that debt. And that's why they put their 12 year old kid to work. Yeah. It must have been an insane amount of money relative to what they were making by working. Here's what's so great about Lucas and Spielberg.

I was 12 years old. We didn't have an agent or a manager. We didn't have anybody to look after us. No lawyer. So whatever contract they gave us to sign at that time, we just signed it. Yeah, of course. But little did we know,

not only did they give me a really generous salary, but they also made me a profit participant. No! They gave you a point of the movie? Yeah, I was able to share in the success of the movie. That's why when the movie came out and became one of the biggest movies in 1984, not long after that,

I got a check in the mail. And that check was so nice that I was able to help my parents pay off the debt. We were renting a little house in Chinatown, and I was able to use that money to buy a house in Monterey Park where my parents and all my siblings can live a bit more comfortable. Again, the range of luck you have. You've got like the worst luck and the greatest luck all within a span of four years.

And I think that's what makes it a great life. And not only that, when the movie came out, our world premiere was in London, attended by Princess Diana. Oh my God! And Prince Charles at that time, who was King Charles now, but going from a refugee camp,

and I'm standing in line with Spielberg and Lucas and shaking hands with Princess Diana. They should make a movie about your life. I wanna watch this movie. I wanna see a little boy experience all this. I love this. That makes me love Steven Spielberg. They were so generous.

Lucas had done that too with the Star Wars cast. He gave them percentage of their- But this 12 year old boy, they could have easily been like, meh. But everyone in Star Wars was also a no name actor and he gave them some of the toy rights. That is so rare. You have to fight for it.

Oh my god. And be a profit participant. No, you gotta say no and walk away five or six times. It was like on their own accord. It was out of their generosity. Okay, so again, you have no awareness of who Harrison Ford is either at this point. So you arrive in Sri Lanka

and you start working with him immediately? Yes. And is he intimidating? He is a very big man with a husky voice. No, he was not. He was so friendly. And playful? And playful and humble and kind.

I would always play with him. Yeah. And he would make me laugh. All of us would stand in a hotel in Sri Lanka. Every day after we wrapped, I would see Harrison swim in the hotel swimming pool. And I would always be on the side watching him go back and forth doing laps. And one day he asked me, he says, Ki, come on in and join me. And I go, I can't, I don't know how to swim. And he says, what? Come here. And he taught me. He taught me how to swim. And he says, what? Come here. And he taught me.

He taught me how to swim. Yeah. Key, this is bonkers. This is the best story I've ever heard. This is so special. I know you know it, cause you reflect on it a lot and you give a lot of gratitude vocally,

but how wonderful. I guess I have such distrust of anything good that I would have had a hard time that whole experience accepting it was real. I would keep waiting to almost wake up. As a kid, you don't really know how special that is. Of course. And so to me, I thought this is how movie making is.

Yes. You know, like from now on, every movie that I make is gonna be like this. The star will teach me how to swim. Yeah, and you would walk on these big scale, beautiful sets, you get treated really well. You'd have 200 days to shoot. Yeah, so I thought every movie was like,

and then very quickly I realized, oh wow, it doesn't always work like that. It's crazy how good you are in the movie having never done it. I really think it's because of Steven's direction. He's so good with kids. He would tell me specifically how to say my lines and he would give me directions where if I just follow that,

then I can do what he wants. He was just the kindest. There was never any screaming on set. There was always laughter. We can always goof around. Even though we were shooting on film, it was expensive to shoot on film. You have to process all of that.

We were constantly making jokes, doing take after take after take, and I would hear his laughter behind the monitor. And that's what it was like. So it was fun. You liked acting. Because of that experience. That's the reason why I fell in love with acting.

I remember we were shooting in London, Elstreet Studios, and that's where we built all those stages. I didn't even know this, because I hadn't seen Star Wars, but I knew later on, one day Carrie Fisher came to visit. I remember goofing around with her on set, Mark Hamill. Oh, they must have all loved you. I think they were all there for Harrison Ford. BOTH LAUGH

So, based on that experience, did it occur to you like, All of them all loved you. I think they were all there for Harrison Ford. So based on that experience, did it occur to you like, well, I want to do this more or were you thinking of it more like, wow, this weird magical lottery ticket fell in my lap, that was that or what was your thought when that movie wrapped? I wasn't thinking about whether I want to do this as a career. When Indiana Jones came out, I was immediately offered to do the Goonies. And I love making movies because it got me out of school. Yeah.

I didn't have to spend eight hours in school. I get to travel to these wonderful places and treat it really well. So I was just having a lot of fun as a kid. And it was not until as I got older did I realize I love this so much and I decided that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. What was it like when that movie came out and all of a sudden all the kids in school

now know you're in the biggest movie of the summer? It felt really good. Nobody pay attention to me prior to that. I was just one of 30 something students there and I couldn't even get my teacher's attention. And all of a sudden I was the star in the classroom. You're a movie star. Were any boys jealous of your attention and cruel to you?

That I don't know. As a 12 year old, you're not gonna think are people jealous of you. Well, you went to go do more movies, you didn't have time to pay attention to the kids in school. You had to bully. Yeah, I was skinny, I was tiny,

and I think it's because of that that I never got any bullying. Oh, okay. Yeah, that didn't happen to a quadrant of kids. They were so tiny that there was no glory in pushing them around. Yeah. Yeah.

That's so true. I was like, oh my God, he's so easy to beat up. What's the fun of that, right? Because I've always been humongous and people think like, oh, that must have been so nice. She probably never got picked. And I'm like, no, no, the opposite thing happened. Which is like boys from older grades

that were afraid to fight anyone in their grade. They were like, well, I'll pick a fight with this younger kid, but he's big. It won't be embarrassing. So weirdly, I think I got a lot of threats. Which is counterintuitive. It is, right? You would think like, oh, I had a mate.

In ways I did. It's just counterintuitive. It is, right? You would think like, oh, I had a mate in ways I did. Stay tuned for more of our chair expert, if you dare. Okay, so you immediately go into Goonies. You're now with another really spectacular director, Richard Donner, and he took a real shine to you, right? It was a very different experience

going from indie to the Goonies, because one, I was the only kid on set, so I got all the attention, all the love, and all of a sudden I walk on the Goonies set, I was with six other kids. You're one of six kids. And they all knew what they were doing. Even though it was their first movie,

like Sean Astin grew up in the movie family, Josh grew up in the movie family, Jeff Cohen was so awesome and cute, and he was a ham. And Koi Feldman was a pro already, and they all knew how to look the best in front of the camera, how to say the lines, how to hit the marks. This was only my second time.

And we drove Dick Donner crazy. We were constantly jumping on him, screaming on set, overlapping each other all the time. Now I have to fight for attention, which is something I was very familiar with because I grew up in a big family. Right. And how were you getting along with the other kids?

Obviously you and Cohen became really close. Jeff, who played Chunk, you're lifetime friends. He's even your lawyer now, which is incredible. He's my lawyer. We're best friends, we see each other all the time. Isn't that awesome, Chunk became a lawyer? That's crazy. Yeah, entertainment lawyer.

But the reason why he became a lawyer, he wanted to be an actor. And when he hit puberty, all of a sudden, he wasn't this fat, cute kid anymore. Right. And he couldn't get a job. It's hard to go from a kid actor to an adult actor. And he reached out to Dick Donner and says,

what can I do? And it was Dick Donner that told him as his kid, if you still want to be in this business, acting isn't the only thing, you can also do other stuff. And Dick Donner paid for all four years of his college tuition. And he went to maybe USC, then UCLA. UC Berkeley, UCLA.

Oh yeah, Berkeley and then UCLA for law school. There's all these angels in this story, it's lovely. That's why it's very heartwarming to see how successful these people are, yet at the same time, they're so generous and kind. Man, okay, so was that movie fun though? Of course you were feeling probably the least prepared or the least professional, but were you having fun?

Oh my gosh, it was incredible. Where were you at, Oregon or something? We shot the exterior stuff in Oregon, then we shot the majority of the movie at the Warner Brothers lot. We built the pirate ship in the biggest sound stage, I believe it's stage 16. And flooded it.

That water was heated. Oh. And Harrison Ford taught you how to swim so you're set. One day we're walking on the pirate ship, the next day we're going down a water slide. I mean, it was like a kid's dream. Yes. Yeah, wow.

And how did you get on with everybody? I imagine Brolin was much older than you guys. He was like the older brother. And we spent a lot of time in a trailer doing schoolwork together. We were like a big family. So as with any other family, there was a lot of fighting, there was a lot of love,

there was a lot of making fun of, laughter. We had all of that. I imagine your on-camera personas or roles that were assigned to you bleed into the dynamic outside of the set. When you're a kid, you're basically being yourself. Did you have a crush on Martha Plimpton? Not Martha, I was too young.

You were, were you 13? I was 13, going on 14. I had made your crushes at that age. You were a little bit ahead of sketch. Again, I was enormous. I think it was later on that I thought Kerry Green was really pretty. Yeah, she was, of sketch. Again, I was enormous. I think it was later on that I thought Kerry Green was really pretty. Yeah, she was, she is.

So, okay, that movie comes out, and now this is another hit movie. It wasn't as big of a hit as people thought it was. You have Dick Donah as the director, Steven Spielberg as the producer. I think we made around $66, $67 million versus Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom made $200 million.

But it was also 1985 and $60 million in 1985 was still a major. It was profitable. But I know what you're saying, there's a handful of movies like this where we all think they were even bigger than they were. The classic example is Shawshank Redemption. Every human being has seen that movie,

and it made like eight million dollars at the box office. That movie became a hit on home video. And that's what Goonies was. It became a huge hit on home video. I bet just as many people walking the planet today have seen Goonies as they have Temple of Doom. Yes. If not more. In fact, there are more Goonies fans

than there are Indiana Jones fans. I bet. It's a very seminal movie. It's one of those movies where you grew up watching it. It made a huge impact on your childhood and it changed you. And it was beautifully assembled in the archetypes where almost any moviegoer could find themselves in that group of kids.

That's the genius of that story and that screenplay by Chris Columbus. It is, I think lesser writers tend to write multiple characters, but none of them are very clearly differentiated. That's the mark of Christopher Columbus. Those are very specific archetypes that play perfectly off each other.

And any kid watching that movie, you can relate to any one of those characters. And even at times, right? Like, I feel like Chunk sometimes, and then also I feel like Brolin at times. I feel like your mouth or Mikey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the reasons why that movie became a huge hit

is really the direction of Dick Donner. Back then, it is unheard of to do a movie where you have overlapping dialogue because of the editing. So you you always have one actor finish their dialogue before another actor say his. But we were kids and we were just talking over one another. The sound guy said, we can't have this. And Dick Donnelly said, shut up, just let them be kids. Just let them enjoy themselves. And that's what we did.

We were just being ourselves. Yeah, and just kill the editor later. That's the editor's problem. I'm sure they had so many headaches of putting that movie together. So that one comes out and now I imagine you're a bit more savvy. You've now been at this for a couple years

and you go to the premiere and it's out again and you're even more popular at school. Then did you start thinking like, well this will just continue like this? Not yet, because I was still in school. So I was busy all the time. If I'm not on a set, I was in school trying to have a normal life.

That's why I never had any real friends in school. It's because by the time I made a friend, I would be gone, and then he would move on and have some other friends. Well, that's a question I had. Even as an adult, it can be kind of sad that you go on a movie set and you're with people for three months

and you're as close as people can be and then you return home to your real life and you just don't see them anymore and you're like, well, what happened? And then you go back to school and all of a sudden you find yourself kind of like the new kid on the block. You don't have any friends.

And a lot of times what happens is when I first go back to school after a hiatus, everybody would have a lot of interest in me. It's like, oh my gosh, like key, right? And then they would have a lot of questions for me. But then that quickly wears off because I already got everything I need from you. And then all of a sudden I feel myself being alone again.

By the way, and your life at this point is already in this pattern of extreme highs and lows. I wonder if you've even gotten addicted to that cycle. Does that make any sense? Wow, that's a great question. I am an arousal junkie because my childhood was all these peaks and valleys and everything was really heightened.

And I kind of crave that level of drama a bit. You're absolutely right. In some fashion, I grew accustomed to that. It's kind of like a musician, when you're performing on stage, in front of 70,000 people, and you hear all these cheers and applause, and all of a sudden you go backstage,

or to your hotel room. Or you go back to the hotel room, and it's just dead quiet. It's such a huge contrast. So you, at this point, you have an agent and you have the whole team, but you end up doing, interestingly, shortly after The Goonies,

you do 40 episodes of a Taiwanese show where you're speaking Mandarin. What was that experience like? Because that's gotta be, I don't wanna say a far fall, but a much different experience. It was very different. If you look at my resume, I basically accepted everything that was offered to me.

I never said no to anything. After The Goonies, I did a television show for CBS. And it was after that, then it started drying up. And then here was an opportunity from Taiwan, it says, we want you to do a 40 episode. And I said, of course, because I wasn't doing anything in the States. I would go to Taiwan and do this and come back. That sounds lonely. Even though I'm Chinese, you know, I grew up anything in the States. I would go to Taiwan and do this and come back. That sounds lonely. Even though I'm Chinese, you know, I grew up basically in the States.

Yeah. I've grown accustomed to what life is like in America. You're other even though you're in theory Chinese ethnicity. When I go there, and I think the Asian diaspora in the States knows this, for example, when I go back to China or to Hong Kong, they never look at you as one of their own. You're like a foreigner. So when I went to Taiwan, they thought I was American.

And I don't read or write Chinese. So it was a challenging time to do a 40-episode television show because one, I didn't speak Mandarin at that time, so I had to learn the language. Oh my God. And second, they had like a teacher to time, so I have to learn the language. Oh my God. Fuck me. And second, they had like a teacher to teach me phonetically how to say those dialogues.

And you had to learn your dialogue orally. When you're 16, 17, 18, your memory works great. Yeah. It's not like now I learn my dialogue way in advance. Did you notice any tension in the family? Was there ever any jealousy between the nine siblings? Were they like, well? They pluck him out of it.

No, no, we were never competitive with one another. In fact, it was quite the opposite because I started to make a lot of money. So when my siblings got a little older and got their driver's license, I was able to buy a car for them. Oh, what a hero. All of able to buy a car for them. Oh, wow. What a hero.

All of this comes with a lot of benefits. That's why they're all very happy and very proud of what I've done. But that's impressive because if I was the younger brother and I was the one auditioning the first time for Indiana Jones and then this bizarre turn of events happened, I'd be- You're like, that's my bus ticket.

I bought the bus ticket. Yeah, that's my- Or lottery ticket. I should be going there're like, that's my bus ticket. I bought the bus ticket. Yeah, that's my lottery ticket. I should be going there. Just quickly back to the Taiwanese experience. Yeah, I have a friend who is Mexican, but he was born in Chicago. And he tells me when he goes to Mexico, even though he speaks Spanish,

he's almost in a nether world. It's almost worse. Like if he were a straight American and white, there would be this kind of fascination and this maybe implicit status and all this stuff. But the fact that he's neither Mexican nor in their mind what the Americano is supposed to look like, it's almost the worst of all, three options.

That's why for my entire life until recently, I always felt like an outsider. When I go back, they treat me as if I'm a foreigner. When I was growing up in the States, I was treated like I was an American. So for the longest time, I always felt rootless. Especially because I'm Chinese, but I was born in Vietnam. Yeah, you're a mess.

Yeah, so it's not good for you mentally. I think maybe many, many years ago I needed therapy. I never had it. That's why I'm messed up. Yeah, because identity, this identity we construct is the core of what makes us feel safe. I think I spent my entire life searching for my identity and never got it. I think it can be a much harder road when it's as complicated as yours is. It's not until recently that I'm very comfortable with who I am. And also for the very first time, even though I've been in this business for 40 years, it

was the first time that I felt Hollywood has finally accepted me, that I belong. You're not an accident, you're not a lottery ticket. By the way, that's what I'm not putting a fine enough point on. You're spectacular. I mean, the fact that you got plucked out of school, now that's luck, but boy do you deliver in Temple of Dune

and then fucking, my God, do you pop in the Goonies. And this is among a group of very talented people who have long careers. So additionally to the luck, you're showing up and you're spectacular, which is wild. But even though you're spectacular, I could see where you might not think you had earned or deserved that because you didn't set out to do it. It was very complicated, I'd imagine. When Indian Goonies came out, at that time, it's great because it's current news.

This just happened to you. Then can you imagine what it's like five years later, 10 years later, 20 years later, 30 years later, when you are in your 40s and people still talk about the work that you've done when you were 12 years old. This is, I think, a uniquely hard experience to be very recognizable and famous and not working. We just interviewed Chris Pine,

and his father was on chips, and he was huge. Everyone in the country knew who his father was, and then he had a long period of not working, and he had to just get normal jobs. And to have a normal job and be famous, I think is a unique experience that has got to be extremely hard. It was difficult.

I've done Comic-Cons for many years where I'm signing autographs on a picture, you know, I was a kid. Yeah. I feel grateful and blessed that I have those two movies. But for the longest time, I always wished that I have something as an adult where people recognize me for.

I said it in my acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, and there was something that scared the shit out of me. Because it was something that I never shared before, but for the longest time, I was so afraid that no matter what I did in my adult life, that I could never surpass what I achieved as a kid. Your experience can only be compared to the 16-year-old that wins the Olympics and gymnastics and now has the rest of their life, where they'll be no more Olympics

and they'll be no more gold medals and they'll be no more Wheaties commercials. It's a unique thing to peak so much of your experience. I mean, I think it's a unique thing to peak so much of your experience. of their life where they'll be no more Olympics and they'll be no more gold medals and they'll be no more Wheaties commercials. It's a unique thing to peak so early. I think it could be torturous. For a long time, you know, there was like rumors how, oh, we're gonna do a Goonies sequel

and I was just praying to God and Buddha, please let that come to fruition because I always thought that would kickstart my acting career again. And every few years there will be rumors, Warner Brothers or Spielberg would hire writers and now we have a script and I'll always be holding my breath and it's like, oh please let the phone ring

and tell me that we're gonna do this again. And it never came to pass. So at a certain age you have to make the very painful decision that you're going to stop pursuing acting. Yeah. This becomes an interesting chapter in anyone's life, even if you didn't have the previous chapter, but you do. You decide to go to USC. That was one of the most difficult decisions that I've ever had to make in my entire life.

I was in my early 20s. It was like right after high school. You're already in your backup plan. Yeah, everybody had their entire life ahead of them and I had it behind me. I find myself going, oh my gosh, there is no road for me to move forward. Right. I can never hit that success. The idea of stepping away. I remember I was 23 years old. This was eight years after the Goonies. And people are still asking me about that movie. And I was still being recognized for those roles. It's on now VHS.

It's actually probably gaining some popularity in weird ways. And everywhere I go, people go, oh my God, you were so great. What are you doing now? What can we look forward to next? Oh, it's soul crushing. And the pressure. And of course your identity is all messed up because if you have such big success when you're a kid,

you're almost chasing going backwards. Like how can you ever move forward in life if the best is behind you? Yeah, and you had an identity that was defendable, which was I'm a movie star. For a couple of years, you were a movie star. And then when you're 21 and someone asks you, you're like, well, I'm still a movie star, but I'm not, but yeah, I'm a movie star. For a couple years, you were a movie star. And then when you're 21 and someone asks you, you're like, well, I'm still.

I'm a movie star, but I'm not. But yeah, I'm so confusing. Yeah, you graduate and then you see your friends, your classmates moving on to great and better things. I'm surprised you didn't turn into an alcoholic. No, no, I didn't. Surprisingly, I never drank when I was younger. Not until later years.

I drink now. One thing I was gonna say, of later years. I drink now. Yeah. One thing I was gonna say, of course you're as close as you are to your family because as you were saying, you have this really obscure identity. You're not Vietnamese, you're not Chinese, you're not American.

So of course the family had to be the only place that's like, well, I know who I am here. I am the sixth child of not. Seventh. Seventh child. I have an identity here. Also when you grew up in a big family, you don't need friends outside.

Your siblings are your friends. Yeah. Family has always been a huge part of who I am because they were my friends and if I needed anything, I can always come to them. But what's really difficult was when I wasn't working, and this was like my family has started their own businesses, they're all very successful,

and they always see me at home doing nothing. And they were worried, and they would say very gently, very carefully, very sensitively, Key, you want to do something else. Do you want to come and join the family business? Exactly. All the time, I would get asked. Out of their love for me. Because they didn't want to see me just doing nothing.

Sitting around waiting for my agent to call all the time. It's depressing. There were so many times where I just want to say, let's just give up. I was constantly thinking about that. Because I knew I can't go on like this. Month after month, year after year. And it's like, gosh, what the hell am I doing? I was constantly thinking about that because I knew I can't go on like this month after month, year after year.

And it's like, gosh, what the hell am I doing? Yeah. What was your explanation for why you weren't working? Did you come up with some concoction of like, is it because I'm not cute anymore? I'm not a kid anymore? I blame myself. I thought I wasn't tall enough.

I was never classically trained as an actor, so I thought my acting wasn't good enough. When you're fighting for a role and you don't get it, you feel there's gotta be something wrong with me. Of course. And we gotta add in, which you're probably not even taking into account at that time, there's like two roles a year for Asian men.

Exactly. There's nothing. How many are coming up in the 90s? I did American Born Chinese and the show runner, Calvin Yee, used to work at the mail room of an agency and it was his job to go through all the scripts that comes in and then catalog them. And he said back then, he went through a hundred scripts

and out of those 100, he'd be hard pressed to find one meaningful Asian character. Yeah. Right. That's right. I don't know, I mean, God bless any Asian actor that gave it a shot. All the roles are for me, and I was completely hopeless for nine years, and I looked the part.

Yeah, you had options out there. I can't even comprehend having had the exact same experience, but also on top of it, I'm Asian, I know like, yeah, two fucking opportunities a year. So you auditioned for nine years before you got that first role. Yeah. What made you wanna go on?

I was like, it's never going to happen, I accept that, but I will be so disappointed in myself when I die if I didn't try it. It wasn't even that I thought I could do it, it was I'm going to prevent this enormous regret, which is if I give up on this, I'll be so disappointed in myself. So I'm just kind of wallowing in this sea of like,

well, it's not gonna happen and I'm never gonna quit so that I don't regret it, but then probably I'm gonna regret having tried this for my whole life. So yeah, it was just like a constant debate in my head of whether we're gonna keep going or not. That was the same reason why I decided to get back into acting.

Really? It was because I was turning 50 and it was bothering me. It was eating at me and I was so afraid. I knew what I want, I knew what I love and it was that fear of regret. And I could see so clearly, I knew what I love, and it was that fear of regret. And I could see so clearly, I was 50 at that time, and I said, I'm gonna turn 60 very fast. And I'm gonna look back this past 10 years and I'm gonna say,

God damn, Key, you're such a coward. You didn't have the courage to do this again. And it was that fear of regret that I said, let's try this again. And coward's the operative word. Cause that's the exact same word I would use. We don't want to die as cowards. And I think that's okay.

Well, a coward to yourself. It's one thing to be monitoring to the outside. Like I don't want to look like a coward to the outside, but if you yourself feel like a coward, like that's a good motivation. Yeah, it's like one of the oldest stories told. Are you yourself feel like a coward, like that's a good motivation. Yeah, it's like one of the oldest stories told. Are you gonna be a coward? Are you gonna risk failure and maybe do something?

But you know, that's worse when you think you're a coward versus someone telling you that you're a coward. Exactly. Because if someone telling you, that's just a one-time thing, but if you're thinking mentally inside, it eats at you. It doesn't let go. And it's one of the most shameful assessments of yourself you can have.

And that's interesting. That's kind of a product of story. We like heroes and we like people who go after it. And it's just interesting how internal that is for us, the fear of being a coward is very powerful. Wow. Okay, so you do go to USC. And it turned out to be one of the best decisions

I've ever made in life. It gave me the knowledge that I needed and at that time I didn't know Despite having been in these blockbusters and when you an actor you step in front of the camera your Perspective is very narrow. You only see your fellow actors You see the director you see the producer and you don't really quite understand you're looking from the inside out Yeah really quite understand. You're looking from the inside out. Yeah. It's kind of like when you have a spotlight on you, you can't really see the audience. And going to film school expanded my perspective.

Right. And you learned to edit there. I learned to edit. I learned about camera. I learned about lighting. I learned about sound. I learned about the casting process. You're the director of the short film that you make. I went to SC, so I was part of also a bigger group. And so we would sit in front of the casting process.

You would have other students that are coming in. You would have many people trying out for the role. And it was my first time stepping behind the camera and go, Oh, maybe it wasn't me that I didn't get the role. A great experience for all actors would be to be on the casting side for a minute, because it depersonalizes the role. A great experience for all actors would be to be on the casting side for a minute because it depersonalizes the experience. You see quickly people are right or wrong for stuff. You can't act your way out of being wrong for the role.

And so it's not personal and you might've been great and you might've been the best version you could've been so you don't need to beat yourself up when you leave there that you didn't get it. It's simply, yeah, you were not right for the role, which is hard for us. We take it so personally. You know, something weird happened on my way here.

I was driving and I was by myself, and all of a sudden, for some reason, flashback to the days when I was much younger, driving to an audition, because I've never been here before, and it was very similar. I had that feeling where I was going to the casting director's office, never been there,

don't know what's it like over there. And you know, you have that nervousness. Like, come in here, Dax Monica. Like, I was nervous. Because I didn't know what it was like. I've heard your podcast before. I always feel like I'd be really bad at podcasts because they don't get to see me.

I have one of those voices where some people think it's a good voice, some people think it's a really annoying voice. That's everyone's voice. Everyone thinks that. No, no, no, no. Like you guys, like, Dax, oh my God. You have one of those voices where it's so freaking soothing. It's like, ask me anything and I will tell you everything. You know? Well, thank you so much. And I'm so sorry you felt that familiar feeling

on your way here. I know that feeling very well. That's funny. But you learned to edit. And then what's incredible too, is while you were on Temple of Doom, you were working with somebody that was teaching you Taekwondo for the movie

and you fell in love with Taekwondo. I think this is very fascinating. I studied Taekwondo right after Indiana Jones. And for the whole ride, right? You never stopped doing it. So at some point out of USC, you start fight choreographing. Yeah. That's incredible.

How did that come about? I was right out of film school and I knew a action director named Koi Yuen in Hong Kong because many years ago, he came to me and wanted me to be in his movie. I couldn't do it because I was on a contract for CBS at that time, but then we kept in touch, we stayed friends, and one day he found out that I graduated from film school.

And he called me and asked me if I wanted to work for him. A week later, I got on a flight, went to Toronto, I walked on the set, and it was the X-Men. What? First job right out of film school. Oh, my. Was doing fight choreography. I was an assistant action choreographer. There were three of us. What? First job right out of film school. Oh my. Was doing fight choreography.

I was an assistant action choreographer. There were three of us and we were in charge of the Wolverine Mystique fight in the Statue of Liberty. Oh wow. It was on that set I met a very young man named Kevin Feige. Oh, cause he was like an associate producer on that. He was an associate producer on that.

I met him there and little did I know that 22 years later we would be working together. That is so wild. He'd be running Marvel, you'd be an Academy Award winner. All of it's impossible. The impossible can be possible. So you stay busy for the next 19 years doing all kinds of things.

I was learning, I was happy for a period of time because I had a career behind the camera. I was working in Hong Kong, I was learning, I was happy for a period of time because I had a career behind the camera. I was working in Hong Kong, I was busy. That's all we need to be, kind of. But then after a while, something just nagged at me and I didn't know what it was. I didn't understand it. The satisfaction diminished over time

and I felt like the road is getting narrower and I can almost see an end. When had you met Echo? In 2002 when I was working for Wong Ka Wai. You met her on a set? At his production office in Shanghai. What was she doing? She was working for the management department at that time.

She was also working for the producers. When you're working in Asia, there's no one job description. It's like you wear a lot of hats, like you do whatever they ask. What needs doing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And did you guys kind of fall in love immediately? It was one of those where when we first met

right off the bat, we just talked nonstop. Our conversation can go on hours and hours. I didn't know that I was falling in love with her until it... It was too late. Yeah, yeah. You know, we were in Shanghai at that time, and then I got called back to Hong Kong. And it was that separation that I felt,

wow, I really miss her. Aww. And I felt that, you know, that butterfly that you have in your stomach that you have when you're in love. Had she grown up seeing you as Dada? She didn't. A lot of people in China didn't grow up watching the 80s movie, it was not until years later. Our first time meeting, because she knew that I was coming

in, she saw a movie that I did, and she asked the filmmakers, did they do something to his voice? Did they run his voice through like a synthesizer? Is that why it sounds like that? Oh my God. So the first thing she said to me was, wow, you really do sound like that. Oh yeah, no wonder you're self-conscious

about your boyhood podcast. Yeah, your primary love is critical when you met. How soon after that do you guys get married? Two years later. I gather from your speech, she was weirdly supportive throughout this whole journey. I ask her all the time, we've been together for 22 years now,

there was not a year that went by that she didn't believe in me. There were many times in our time together, I felt like she deserved somebody better. I just felt like, God, why'd you choose me? I'm not successful. My life is almost over. In a lot of ways, I felt. And I said, why? And she says, trust me, just trust me. You're going to be successful successful again I promise you year after year and even at

some point I go you got to stop saying that it's never gonna happen to me and I would get angry why do you say that you said that five years ago you said that ten years ago and it didn't happen okay I know why you got angry because now you're going to disappoint her she has a belief in you that you don't have in yourself So you're going to disappoint her and she's betting on the wrong horse. That's a great way to put it I felt like she bet on the wrong horse That's heartbreaking when you love somebody and you feel like you can't live up to their belief in you from day one when we were together She said you're gonna be I hope she gave you the biggest fucking I told you so

She said, you're gonna be... I hope she gave you the biggest fucking I told you so. That's ever been given. She should wake you up one morning and just go, I told you so. She earned it. She has a great eye. Many years ago, she saw a television show with Eddie Redmayne.

This was before Eddie Redmayne became Eddie Redmayne. And she said, this guy is going to win an Oscar one day. Wow. And I go, really? I go, he's great, but I mean, come on. An Oscar, yeah. He says, I can guarantee you he's going to win an Oscar one day. And then, sure enough, Eddie Redmayne won an Oscar. I'm your expert, if you dare. ["The New York Times"]

Okay, so in 2018, you see Crazy Rich Asians. Our friend John directed that. Oh, you know John too? Yeah. Oh my gosh. He's a USC boy. Yes, he is. Was there any overlap? No. Even though you're older, you went later. No, no, he was much later.

He was there when Laura was there. I know, but he went later at 23, so I thought maybe that gap. I was there from 97 to 99. Oh, shit. I went there for my majors. Okay, nevermind. So you see that movie and something clicks

when you see that movie? Yeah. You go, wow, they're gonna let us do this now, I imagine. Well, no. The first thought I had was, God, I wish I was up there with them. There we go. The entire cast was Asians.

It was the first time I've seen a big Hollywood movie that featured an entire Asian cast. And the entire time I was watching it, I just thought, wow, I could be that character. I could be this character. I would love to be in this scene. I would love to say that line. At the same time, I was really enjoying the movie.

You're demonstrating the power of representation. If you can see yourself somewhere, you start to believe that you could be there. It's so powerful. Good on you, John. I know. I'm not gonna make it through this interview without crying.

I can feel it welling up. And what's so great about it is that it was a huge success. Exactly. It was a phenomenon. It made me believe that, wow, we can do a movie with an all Asian cast about an Asian story and people will watch it.

They wanna see it. Okay, so you decide I'm gonna give this another shot. Where the fuck do you start? You don't have an agent, you're not doing the theater. It starts with a conversation with my wife Echo. And it was just a night where I'm enjoying a glass of wine and very casually, because I was really nervous, cavalierly just bring it in.

Hey, what do you think if I give acting a try again? And Echo is always supportive of everything that I do, supportive of all my ideas. And she says, I think that's great. If that's what you want, if that's what you love, go for it. And then I brushed it away very quickly. And then again, a few months later,

I would bring it up again. But that entire time, it would just be in my mind, can you do this? That voice in me. Jump, jump, jump. Yeah, would be so loud, I would literally have to like, I gotta go out for a walk just to clear my mind, can you do this? That voice in me. Jump, jump, jump. Yeah, would be so loud, I would literally have to like, I gotta go out for a walk just to clear my mind, just get that noise out of my mind.

But one of the things that she warned me about was that if you're gonna do this, you have to prepare yourself for rejection. Right. Yeah. You can't. Come home every day destroyed. If you're gonna do it, you can't just be thin-skinned and throw in the towel at the first rejection.

Because she knew you were probably very fragile and vulnerable. When you're 18 and 21, you get rejected. I said, sure, I got my whole life ahead of me. But when you're 50 and still going out and auditioning, and my gosh, it's like getting rejected again and again. I didn't think I have it in me. It's very brave.

How'd you get an agent? So I had a friend in an agency. It was like a mid-size agency. I called him and I said, please represent me. He was a senior agent at that agency. And he says, Key, I can't represent you,

but let me introduce you to this wonderful young agent. She's very aggressive. She's very ambitious. If she's willing to represent you, then you have an agent. If she doesn't want to, I can't push her on her. And I remember driving to Santa Monica, waiting in that conference room, and she came in.

Her name is Jacqueline Kim, who I'm with right now at UTA. I'm assuming she's Asian. She's Asian, yeah. Kim, do you decompress a tiny bit? I just wanted an agent. I wasn't like being picky. I wasn't in a position to be choosy. I know, I guess I just wonder if you feel like

she would be more innately rooting for you because... Yeah. I don't know. I was being interviewed. It was okay. I didn't have an ego going in because I knew coming in, I have to put all the success that I had as a child, put all of that away and approach this as if I was a complete unknown. Yeah. So after that meeting, I this as if I was a complete unknown. Yeah.

So after that meeting, I drove home and I got a call from my friend and her saying, yes, we would like to represent you. And I remember her even telling me, she says, this is what you need to do, Key. You need to get yourself a headshot. You need to go online and sign up. There's a website called Actors Access. Oh, yeah. I was really happy going online, filling out that form,

and I'm thinking, God do I really like there was a bit of his you know. Yes, you're like am I doing this? Am I really doing this? I have to get an account so I can see the breakdowns, I can see what is out there. Springing back some. Yeah I'm getting like sweaty remembering all this. I did all of that and what's really really interesting is, so I did all that, and because of the memories that I had when I was much younger, I didn't expect her to call me.

Maybe I'll hear from her six months later. And that's okay. I can do other stuff. And literally, two weeks later, she called me and said, Hey, there's this little movie that I think you might be right for. Two weeks? Two weeks later. Again, this is back to like, impossible good luck, impossible bad luck.

She told me about the Daniels. I wasn't aware of the work at that time. She did tell me that it stars Michelle Yeoh and she said it's one of the leads. And I go, what? You're like, I thought I was gonna audition for commercials. I thought I was gonna be auditioning for like minor roles. Yeah.

That's what I was prepared to do. Maybe a guest star on a television show. Get some insurance maybe by the end of the year. Cobble together enough days. Wow, two weeks. Okay, so now this is where our lives intersect a little bit because Anissa had been doing my hair on Bless This Mass, a TV show, and then she left to, I think, do this movie,

and I needed a haircut, and I'm like, girl, I need a haircut, and she'm like, girl, I need a haircut. And she's like, I'm way the fuck out. You guys were like in Simi Valley. We were doing the laundromat. Which by the way, I wish I could go there after I saw the movie. Because it was just a shit hole plaza.

And I'm like, what movie are you guys making? And it was low budget. She's like, well, we film in that thing. And I'm like, that old laundromat over there is your primary location. I just remember thinking like, well, we film in that thing. And I look and it's like, that old laundry man over there, is your primary locator. I just remember thinking like, wow, this is scrappy. And it was just before the pandemic. Right before, literally we started at the end of January

and we shot up until right before they shut everything down. And then did you resume for a minute? We shot everything with one more day to go. The entire world was shutting down and we just kept going because we knew just a little bit more, one more day, one more day to go. The entire world was shutting down and we just kept going because we knew just a little bit more, one more day, one more day, and we kept going until 824 came to us and says, listen guys, the entire country is shut down.

You need to shut down and we have one more day to go. Oh! I never thought we would get past that. So you came back for one more day? We came back eight months later and they gave the Daniels time to put it together. That might have been a blessing. It was a blessing, because the visual effects

was done by five guys in a garage. It wasn't like a big visual effects company working on a movie. So we gave them that time, it gave the Daniels time to put it together, and instead of coming back for one day, we came back for two. This might be one of the most impressive movies

I've ever seen in my life. For a million reasons. It's such a good movie. A, it's just a fucking brilliant movie. Even if the budget was 200 million, it would have lived up to that. It looks like it. It's impossibly good and complex

and the editing of all the editing I've ever seen in my life, I don't know how they kept all that straight. It's so impressive. But of course I was there, I saw the set, I saw what was happening. There's no way I'm gonna predict that that's so impressive. But of course I was there. I saw the set. I saw what was happening. There's no way I'm gonna predict that that's gonna be the outcome of that. It was so tiny and scrappy.

Yeah, it was. In fact, we didn't even have trailers. And this is the genius of the screenplay. The cameras rolled it in a way where they can shoot the majority of the movie in one building. And the entire cast had dressing rooms instead of trailers because we couldn't afford that. We didn't have a big crew or anything,

but what was great about it is that the entire budget was put up on the screen instead of going into people's pockets. Yeah. Yeah. But when you saw it, did you have the same thing I had, which was like, wow, this movie's gigantic. For sure, it felt much bigger than what it cost us.

And what you probably felt like on set. I felt small on set. Often it's the opposite experience. You go away, you make a movie for three months, you think you're making Gone with the Wind, you go to a first screen, you go, ah, hmm, okay, it's not bad. Looks kinda tiny.

And this is like the full opposite. It's like a big spectacle. When I read the script for the first time, I knew it was a great script. Was it hard to follow? I was able to follow. I got all the jokes. But there was just one thing that I had questioned about was, how the hell are they gonna pull this off? Right.

It was so wild and crazy in that scene where Michelle Yeoh's character and Stephanie Hsu's character sinks into the sofa. Yeah. And I thought it was a visual effects shot, but they did that practically. Oh my God. They built this couch, they rigged it

where you can sink into the couch. I did not like the practical. And it was so brilliant. Our industry has gone through a long period of time where don't even think about doing it practically. Just do it in post. They don't even want you to use squibs anymore. Everything will be done digitally.

Like, wow, really? That's why it was so refreshing to be on the set because we did everything practically. Wow. Now, I wouldn't have thought this when I was watching it, but now that I rewatched some of it today and I know about your fight choreography background in your second degree black belt in Taekwondo,

when you had your action scene, were you able to be helpful? Did you stay out of the way or did you go like, hey guys, by the way, I have choreographed quite a few fight scenes and I'm a second degree black belt. I have some thoughts. A lot of things that happened to me

was really a blessing in disguise, like going to film school, working behind the camera as an assistant action choreographer. For everything everywhere all at once, I only wanted to wear the actor's hat. But when the action team came to me and said, these are the moves we're thinking of for this scene, I understood it right away.

I knew the language, I spoke it, I knew what it takes to make it look good on camera. I spent a lot of time training actors how to throw punches and kicks. On X-Men, we would show Hugh Jackman. These are the moves, and this is how you do it so it looks great. So I had that knowledge.

So going into it. You felt confident. Very confident. It's a great scene, the fucking fanny pack. That movie, I think is one of the best movies I've seen in 20 years. I mean, it's so powerful and good. What I love about it is at first, I'm trying to understand.

I spend like some portion of the movie at the beginning being like, okay, do I get it? And then at some point you just surrender and you're like, I'm just gonna watch. I'm just gonna take it in. And by the end, you understand everything. Yeah, you have all this anxiety and then you surrender to the notion

that it'll all make sense if you stop thinking. You have to do a leap of faith. Which is the point of the movie. I know. It's the moral of the movie. It's so poignant. It's so beautiful, too. The love story between you and your wife and that is so crushing. You're so good in it.

What's amazing is I've met so many fans their age. It's a wide range. Can I tell you my then eight year old, one of her favorite movies she ever saw? Wow. Eight. And did she understood it? She did. Yeah, that's great.

I think a lot of young people got it right away. I meet a lot of older fans and they said, I love the movie, I've seen it three times, I didn't understand it the first two times, I had to watch it with my daughter and have her explain it to me. I think I understand 60% of it, but I wanna watch it with my daughter and have her explain it to me. I think I understand 60% of it, but I wanna watch it again.

Them not willing to give up so easily, there's something special about it. Yeah, I've seen it twice and I could go for a third viewing for sure. Oh, that's so good. You know, what an incredible experience. It's brilliant, you're brilliant in it, especially for a dude who'd not done it for 20 plus years

to come out and immediately be that proficient at it It's pretty mind-scrambling. You win the Oscar you win the Golden Globe you win the SAG award and now Does a new round of anxiety creep up because you've been here before Did you have a new round of like I gotta take every job that comes my way They might not ever ask again or were you no, this time we're going to do things we like? I did go through an anxiety phase after I won the Oscar because all of a sudden I felt, okay, so I have this really successful movie

and it reminded me of Indiana Jones. Of course. So then I go, is history gonna repeat itself? Am I gonna do something next, it's gonna be like the Goonies, and then after that, I'm just going to slip off the earth. You've formatted your brain for these highs, lows, highs, lows. That's what you know.

Something terrible's got to come your way now. Yeah. You know, I was asked a really interesting question yesterday. Do I still have anxiety or doubts about my next job? And I do, because when you have that for so long, it doesn't go away overnight. But I did feel like there was this huge anxiety of like making sure history doesn't repeat itself. I'm getting a second chance, and I want to make sure

that whatever I decide to do next, I want to make sure that it's going to be able to carry me forward. And I was so lost. I remember attending an event with Steven Spielberg, and he asked me how am I feeling, am I okay? And I said, Steven, no, I was so lost. I remember attending an event with Steven Spielberg and he asked me how am I feeling, am I okay? And I said, Steven, no, I'm not okay. Good for you.

He says, what's wrong? Let's have lunch. Oh. So we had lunch and I told him how I was feeling and he gave me some wonderful advice and it was at a time also where people were reaching out so I was getting offers. You're back to school where every kid's interested in you.

It's all very familiar. That's right. And you have a hunch this is gonna go away, just like it always has. They're interested for five minutes, and then they talk to you. The fear that all of this is gonna go away. And I felt like I had to make the right decision

on the next step, and that was really hard. Well, you joined the Marvel Universe, that's a great. But that was before the Oscars. I did that in 2022. It was after the movie had came out, before all the accolades. It was slowly growing and then I got that wonderful call from Kevin Feige about joining Loki.

And then I had that, I was very proud of it and then the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the SAG, came after that. The amount of like heightened experiences you've had. Both ways. Yeah, all the directions. Spielberg sent him Christmas presents for 39 years. Yes.

I love him. It's hard not to love this guy. I love him too. Oh my God. He is the sweetest. When I won the Oscar, during one of those commercial breaks, I went up to him, gave him a big hug, and I told him too. Oh my god. He is the sweetest. When I won the Oscar during one of those commercial breaks, I went up to him, gave him a big hug, and I told him, I said, Stephen, I hope I made you proud tonight. And he said, Keith, you've always made me proud.

Yeah. This is too much. Well, you were celebrated from Loki too. You won a TV Critics Choice Award. I was nominated. Oh, you didn't win. You won a TV Critics Choice Award. I was nominated. Oh, you didn't win. No. Well, then I take that back.

Honestly, that was such a huge gift of being given the opportunity to play Ouroboros. Can I say something really quick about Steven Spielberg? I feel like he must feel some responsibility for you. The presence say that a little bit. Like I plucked this boy out of his elementary school and changed his life. I have some responsibility.

I have some responsibility to him to make sure it's good. Not that he should have felt that, but I could see him feeling that way. Has he said anything to you as such? You know, I mean, he's given me so much. He was the first filmmaker to put an Asian kid in a big Hollywood movie. And he didn't do it one time, he did it two times.

He changed not only my life, but also my family's life. So he's given me so much. I don't know how he felt, but I would never say that he should be responsible for it, because he's already... Oh my gosh, I could never ask for anything more than what he's already... But I just mean he seems like such an incredible person in soul, that I can imagine that he probably took that on a bit. You know, over the years I would do something, and I would get a card in the mail, and say, Key, I just saw you in this, you were brilliant.

He was keeping an eye on you. Yeah. He was keeping an eye on you. Yeah, he was keeping an eye on me. So Kei, what are you doing next? I know you were in Kung Fu Panda 4. Yeah, that was my first voiceover ever. And how did you like it? I loved it. It was a very different experience.

I think doing voiceover work, you have to place your faith and trust in the filmmakers more than live action because I didn't get to read the full script. I didn't know what was going on. So I was in a recording booth with two of my directors and I just have to believe that whatever I'm giving them is good enough.

You know, I have no knowledge of- No context. Context of what I'm doing. Now you're doing the performance in a vacuum. Yeah. It's so weird. I'm bad at it. I've done a bit of it and it does not a vacuum. Yeah. It's so weird. I'm bad at it. I've done a bit of it and it does not come easy for me.

It's almost like the opposite of what I had to train myself to do as an actor, which is be calm, be still, have patience, undersell it. Your voice is so beautiful. It's like perfect for it. Well, just to be so heightened, my fears of like, oh my God, I'm being so broad right now and terrible, but that's what it calls for. Yeah. Well with all this stress on your shoulders

What are you doing next? I just finished a movie for Universal Studios It's called with love my first ever movie as the number one on call sheet in a major studio film Are you allowed to tell us what it's about? It's an action movie produced by David Leitch and Kelly McCormick who did The Fall Guy. Yes, I know David Leitch for years. Yeah, he's great. It's an 87 North movie. It's a big action movie.

We had a lot of fun. I grew up watching Jackie Chan and Sam O'Han, you know, the Hong Kong 80s action movies, and they all did their own fights. So going into this one, I knew the very first thing that I wanted to do was to do all my fights. There's something special about watching a movie knowing that the actors are doing it all

and not some stunt double. I completely agree. But then mentally I think I'm 21. Yes. But then when I do it, I'm surprised. I go, oh wow, I'm feeling really proud because I can do the moves. Then I wake up the next day I go, oh wow, I'm feeling really proud because I can do the moves.

Then I wake up the next day and go, oh my God, like my back, but nothing. A couple of Tylenol wouldn't fix, you know. I cannot recommend enough for people to go back and watch the early Jackie Chan movies from Hong Kong because he was Buster Keaton. I mean, he's jumping out of buildings. He's jumping onto buses from 40 feet near.

I mean, the amount of stunts he did, we've never seen anything like that. And I don't think we will ever see anything like it again, because now you wouldn't put an actor in that position. I mean, he's broken so many bones. Yes. He's going through plate glass windows. Those early movies are almost impossible

to believe they're real. And especially now with the technology of AI and defake, it's like, why would any actor do that? Yeah, well that's so exciting. It's a big love story, an action movie, and it comes out next February. Wonderful. You should go back on Colbert

because you were on Colbert on Valentine's Day. That's right, yes, yes. Yes, you started your segment by saying happy Valentine's Day. You's right, yes, yes. Yes, you started your segment by saying Happy Valentine's Day. You're good, Dax. So you should go back and commemorate it. Oh, and Valentine's Day is her anniversary too. It is, it's the anniversary of this show.

Yeah, we have a good cast. I'm in it with Ariana DeBose, who gave me the Oscars when I won. She was crying. Yeah, she was. I love her so much. I remember her opening the envelope and announcing my name with such emotion.

She couldn't even say it. And then Michelle Lynch is in this too. You know, you want a Super Bowl. Yeah. Fun. Oh, this is exciting. I'm so happy for you. Thank you so much. I'm so happy.

What a beautiful story. What a story. My God. Really quick, I am landing the plane, but it crossed my mind. It's almost like an epic, your life. In your 20 years of wandering, did you ever have the fantasy, like, you know who's gonna call me?

Quentin Tarantino. He should. Because he has this history of bringing back people that we all loved. Did you ever let yourself fantasize that maybe he was gonna call you? No. It's a weird question.

I love, I'm a big fan of his movies, of him. But you know, he brought Travolta back and he brings Don Johnson back. I never had that, I didn't know this, but being an Asian actor in Hollywood will condition to think a certain way. Let me give you an example. When 87 North, David Leitch and Kelly McCormick

came to me with Love, I read the script and I said, oh, you got the wrong person. This script is written for somebody else, for a white actor. And I actually passed on it. And they came back the second time, and they go, read it again. And I passed the second time.

Wow. And then they go, we want you to come in. And I remember meeting them in person, and they have slides of me as that character. And I was staring at it, and I'm looking at David Leach, who is one of the biggest directors in Hollywood. And I said, how come he can see me in this role, and I can't see myself in this role?

It dawned on me that because my entire life, when I go to a movie theater, when I watch a movie similar myself in this role. It dawned on me that because my entire life, when I go to a movie theater, when I watch a movie similar to this, it always stars. Go ahead, say it. Someone like you. Ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Someone not like me. Ryan Reynolds, that type. Yeah, so I didn't know that. I was conditioned to think a certain way. When you said like, did I ever dream a director like Tarantino would call me one day? No, I never did. I dreamt that I would get a call from my agent telling me,

there's this great role for you. I think you're perfect for it. We're going to send you out, given the opportunity to try to prove to them, to try to convince the filmmaker and the producer that I am right for this. And ever since the Oscars, I'm very grateful everything that's happened since. But it's so interesting how all these years I thought I was good for it, but nobody thought I'd be perfect for it.

Everything everywhere had to happen. I had to win an Oscar. And now it's flipped. Now they all think you can do it, and you're worried you can't. Yeah, isn't that interesting? It is, and it's so common. The flip that has to happen

once you've achieved something you wanted, you have to reset your whole brain. We say on here all the time, like, I know what it's like to try to build something, I don't know what it's like to try to keep something, and it's a completely different mindset, and you like to try to keep something. And it's a completely different mindset. And you have to rise to that occasion. And so yes, you have to now do some work

to believe in yourself and the way these other people do. But it's a minority's dilemma. It's extra, right? Because yeah, you're growing up proving yourself the whole time. You have to be exceptional. Yes, you have to be exceptional. And like you said, you don't even dream the same dreams

the other hegemonic group does because that's just not part of the story. And so once you get there to rewire as in like, no, I'm a part of this group now is very hard. It's a very hard transition back to identity. I love Dan Kwan, half of the Daniels. Dan Kwan says something that I really love and resonated with me. He said, today's system is made up of follicle stories,

meaning the stories of the past, something similar to that. And he said, if we want a new system, we have to make up new stories. For the last few years, I'm really grateful that Hollywood has opened up its doors for a lot of different groups of people that were never privy to those opportunities, and now they are. And we are creating new stories that's gonna change whatever future that's gonna come.

And Keith, they're already the best ones we've had over the last 10 years. You have Atlanta, this black perspective. You have Rami, this Muslim perspective. You have everywhere. They're immediately among the very best that have ever been made. It's really interesting, and that's why I wake up every day

thinking, wow, it's great where things are going. A new dawn. Yeah, a new dawn, exactly. Ah, well, Keith, thank you so much. This was delightful and life-affirming, and I loved every second of it. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Monica. Thank you, Dex thank you so much. This was delightful and life-affirming, and I loved every second of it. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Monica.

Thank you, Dax. This is incredible. I was really nervous coming here. Oh, I hope it subsided. And we'll come back and we'll talk about your movie. Yeah, come back next time. The own time. Thank you so much.

All right, be well. He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's gotta let him have the facts. Hello, Monica. Hi, Dax Shepard. Yeah, my voice went really high there, didn't it? Yeah.

Hello, Monica. What's the highest you can go? Well, I just ate a bunch of weird food at a for real Smorgasburg. I think maybe the world's first Smorgasborg. Fun. Well, because I'm in... You're in Smorgastown?

I'm in Smorgasborg, Norway. Where are you? I'm not really... I don't even know if this place has a name that's so tiny, but I did have a real life called a Smorgasbord. And what did you eat? Okay, I ate too many things. Shit, I'm jumping ahead.

I was about to show you the view. But yes, okay, so I ate a bunch of prime rib, but I also got into the potatoes all grotten hard, which is a lot of dairy and cheese. And then I guess what I did, I had dessert. They had a delicious strawberry ice cream that I smothered in a vanilla sauce. Vanilla sauce?

Yes, with also a berry sauce. It was divine. So when you ask how high can I go, I'm a little handicapped at the moment with how high I could go. But I'll try it, you ready? I want you to try it, yeah. Okay, let me clear out my instrument.

Please cut this. Mm! Hi Monica! That's pretty good, that's good. Let me try again, let me try again. Okay, let me close my mouth. Yeah, it's best if you do, because I really don't want you to see me either.

I'm going to cover my camera. Okay. Hi, mm, mm, hi Monica. Mm, mm. It's not good. It sounds not high. Your voice sounds different, but it doesn't sound high. Yeah, it just sounds weaker, my voice.

Yeah, it sounds like a mouse. Too much dairy. Okay, we're gonna blame, okay. We'll try it on the next one. I'll keep my instrument clean. I'll be preparing. So you have not cheated though. What, on gluten?

On the things you wouldn't eat at Letterman's house. Oh no, I haven't. Now have, you know what I did have over, it's been a week now, I did have a bite of a croissant one morning. I had a bite of a croissant because, that's huge. Fuck do I of a croissant one morning. I had a bite of a croissant because fuck do I love a croissant, especially when you're on the other side of the pond.

They know how to make them. But that's it. I feel validated. Oh, you do? Okay. Yeah, I do, I do, I do. I feel that you should have a little bit of Letterman's garlic bread.

Tell Dave I'll have a bite of a croissant if he makes it for me. Oh man, okay. Okay, let me see your view. Okay, I'm gonna take you as far as I can. Let's see here, hold on. I'll submit a picture too, so the viewer knows what you're also seeing.

Oh, gorgeous. Monica, that's a fjord. Oh wow, that's beautiful. That's a real fjord. Can you explain what a fjord. Oh wow. That's a real fjord. Can you explain what a fjord is? Yeah, so you could think of it as like maybe a bay, but if a bay was super skinny and 100 or 200 miles long, so all of this glacial water comes down all these mountains

and it fills up this bay. There's just so much water. As we're driving here, there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls. They're everywhere. Oh, beautiful. The fjords are these super steep cliffs, and it's this long channel that's maybe, I don't know,

at some points it's three miles wide, maybe at some points it's 15 miles wide, and it ultimately goes to the ocean. Ooh. But it's the most gorgeous. We took a ferry ride yesterday on that thing Eric was telling you about, the Tour of the Nutshell, whatever it was called. And yeah, it was pretty impossible.

It looked like a screensaver or AI generated. Wow, cool. Now, I could do an hour and a half on my thoughts about being here, both in Iceland and here in Norway. I have so many thoughts. Number one thought probably is, this is the nicest day of the year, and it's 58, and it was gray all day.

So it's a harsh, harsh environment. Yeah. Yeah, dark. It's really harsh. And I was sitting on the side of the road today while the kids were running around these trails and playing in the snow and stuff. And I was like, you know, at some point in human history, people left Africa and they headed north and they went through Spain and they went through Italy and Greece. And then they got up into Germany, still very good fertile land.

They were passing all these areas where tons of crops grew and olives and tomatoes and they were like, let's keep going north. And they got up here and they were like, okay, it's dark half the year, it's cold 10 months of the year, nothing grows. Let's not go back to where we just walked through with all the tomatoes and the sunshine, let's stay here. That is such an interesting thought to me. Maybe they got stuck.

I would say this place is more of a cultural shock than I've experienced in many other places. Like I'm experiencing maybe more here than I did in India. No way. Yes, and I'm gonna say this with tons and tons of respect to our Scandinavian friends. They're very stoic, they're very quiet. I think they can't stand us.

I don't know, I think we're loud and gross. And you know, maybe it's in my mind, maybe I'm just feeling less than, but it's so specific. And then I'm comparing that to the data we always hear, which is like, this is the happiest place to live in the world, but I'm not seeing much laughing or affection. Joy.

Yeah, and I'm trying to, I was saying in the car today, it's like, there's just this disjunction between what I know and then what I observe. And of course I'm observing it through my own cultural lens of how I define happiness. And I'm mildly aware of that, but also it's very confusing. Like when you hear happiest place on earth

and you come and you've yet to see anyone smile. That is so interesting. And then I got it in my mind, I was like, could these tests really even mean anything? Cause you're asking people what their experience is. And I I got in my mind, I was like, could these tests really even mean anything? Because you're asking people what their experience is. And I can already tell that culturally, no one would ever complain here. That just culturally, no one would ever say this sucks. It's like, it's not stoic enough.

So it's like, I don't know, what does this data mean? How is it gathered? It's also all relative. Maybe they're happy. It might be different than what we think is happy. And I think there's that. I think there's also these are means, right? These are averages of all the countries. And I think, well, what they definitely don't have is 20% of their population suffering and abject poverty like we have. Yeah. So then you're just wondering like, well, what

would these stats look like if you lobbed that off? If you took out the bottom 20% of our country and just chose to ignore that what happens like are you seeing? Extra happiness. Are you just seeing an average that's slightly above because there's no suffering on the bottom end. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It does. I think I think more than that though, it's conditioning. We in America are very conditioned to want. Mm-hmm, yeah. And so happiness. Yeah, we don't have the just right saying here. Whatever, what is it?

Shalom? Like. Lagoon? It's not lagoon, but it's something like that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not too much, not too little. We're like, no, no, there's no such thing as too much. Yeah, we are conditioned to want.

So that's why I think most people say they're not happy or they're not content, but in some of these other places, they're very much taught that word. Be content, be content, yeah. Content, it doesn't mean super high highs or super low lows, it's just like middle. But we like high highs here and they come with lows. I'll give you the moment that is most,

and again, it's hard to know if this is in my head, but I feel very strongly about this. The funniest moment, and it's repeated every few hours, when we all go in, all eight of us go into the gas station on the side of the road when we're driving and we get snacks, I'm positive, even though the person owns it and they would wanna sell, I think they think, you guys are buying way too much stuff.

Like this is, like I think they're disgusted by how much stuff we buy. Yes, I'm sure they are. Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah, like Eric and I are both getting a couple of Coke Zeroes for the car ride and then some waters and whatever, I'm like, even the owner wants to go like, I don't want you to buy this much.

That's enough, yeah. I don't wanna sell this much stuff to you. Is this totally inappropriate? And again, I don't know if I'm being triggered of being judged, it's all in my head. I'm not sure, but I do have this sense that they're pretty disgusted with how much stuff we buy at the gas station.

And when we're ordering at restaurants, I can tell they're real, they've told us that's too much food. No. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We were at a pizza place last night and the guy said, that's too much food. You ordered that and that and that's too much food.

Are you getting testy with them or no? No, no, no, by the way, I wanna be clear. They're so nice, everyone here is nice. It's good folk, there's no question about it. Their country is so fucking beautiful. And also I was thinking it's gotta be annoying because there's gotta be more tourists in this country than there are citizens. I mean, there's gotta be annoying because there's gotta be more tourists in this country than there are citizens.

I mean, there's so many tourists here. Oh, wow, really? Yeah, like, well, in Iceland, we learned the number. It was preposterous. There's like seven tourists to every one inhabitant of Iceland. Oh, my God. There's only like four or 500,000 people that live in Iceland.

And there's a few million people there on vacation. So, you know, you try to factor that in, like that'd be annoying as hell, but all that to say, I've just been doing a lot of thinking about this happiest place on Earth thing, it's very interesting. Yeah, that is really interesting, and also because I've talked to Jess about it, because he grew up, you know, he spent 11 years in Sweden

when he was young, and he has a specific take on Sweden that most people don't. And it is to him, one note kind of, yes, there's like a little bit of a bleak, like a darkness, a gray. Yeah. And I was like, would you wanna go back there? And he said, I'm good. Yeah, it's just different.

I'm not at all saying one's better or worse. It's just, it's impossible not to notice. Well, also within one year, you've been to basically the opposite, like the opposite. You've been to India and you've been to Norway. Yeah, there's like one person per 100 square mile here. Yes. And then when we were in India, it's like, it's on.

Life is on. Yes, and there's a fervor and a noise. There's a vibrancy, yeah. It's really interesting when we were in old Delhi, there's poverty everywhere, it's poor, it's a struggle. But people are having a great time. Yeah, they are. And that is an interesting juxtaposition

to what you're saying. There's like no poverty, but it doesn't have that energy. Yeah, so then of course, it's like, I think it's tempting to go back in history to wonder when this divergence happened. And you're thinking of the Vikings, and you're thinking of their different forms of royalty that they had. But really really I think you need to go back to the first migration here

I think like what I'm saying the fact that someone preferred to be up here than to be down south where everyone had come from Says a lot. That's like that's who you're starting with and then you know, yeah And of course in Italy those people got there and they're like hey this let's go this is a party this is fucking hundreds of miles from Africa they didn't go very far they're like these olives are growing everywhere uh i don't know it's been really fascinating but again what a gorgeous place impossibly beautiful okay i'm gonna tell on us boy now you're gonna start thinking like well you deserve to be judged if you're being judged And this is true. So Eric got almost got arrested yesterday

Okay, so remember you were a little bit worried I gotta stop we should have done this at the very beginning I think it would have been announced by now We should have done this at the very beginning. I think it would have been announced by now. Maybe people have heard or maybe they've read or maybe they don't know. But we have signed a new deal with Wondry and we're super excited. So we're going to Wondry and we're also going to be introducing on the fact checks videos. So you'll get to see my embarrassing faces. And we're going to also start doing video on experts. Yeah, so we're gonna have video on Thursdays, videos on both of our fact checks. You can still just listen if you want that'll be available as well. Yeah, not one

thing will be taken away. We'll just be adding some things. And you can still listen everywhere. This is not, you don't have to download anything or you can listen wherever you are you listen. And what is very exciting, because I've had a hunch some of the listeners would have preferred at some point to pay to listen to us ad free, that's also gonna be an option now for you

if that interests you. Just wanna say like, we have this because you guys, in particular the people listening to the fact check, you're all so consistent and you've just made so much value for us. And it's impossible and thank you so much. It's hard to accept what a wonderful gift everyone that's been so loyal has given to us. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, it's very special. We're very grateful.

Okay, and now on to something not so special. So a very long, we were on, as you pointed out on Thursday's fact check, Eric booked us on a tour. It started on a train ride at 10 a.m. That was a two-hour train ride. We got off, we got onto another train that was smaller. That was another hour and a half train. Then we got off that train and got onto a ferry and that was a two hour ferry. And then we got off that and we rode on a bus for an hour and a half. And then we got back on a train and then went back to Bergen where we started. So that was like an 11 hour thing. Well Eric vapes and there's really not a lot of places to vape for him. So Molly and I happened to get up to go to the bathroom on the ferry at the same time.

And as we turn the corner, there's like five bathrooms that all have their own door. And as we approach, there's like five of the ferry workers, people with walkie talkies, official gear. And I just immediately, I just have a hunch instinctually, Eric has something to do with this. There's so many workers have congregated and they're knocking on a door and they're going, are you okay? And I'm like, oh fuck.

And I turned to Molly and I go, that has to be Eric. He has to be in there vaping. Cause it's not, it's illegal there. Well, yeah, especially bathroom. So I go, do you think that's Eric? And she goes, oh my God, do you think he's in there vaping? And right when we're like debating this, they open the door and oh so much smoke starts pouring out of

the bathroom. If you were directing the scene in a movie, you'd go, that's guys, it's way over the top. There's no way someone could have created that much smoke. And the second we saw all of that smoke billow out, we both ran. We got out of there. We didn't want anything to do with what was going on. And so we like go around the corner

and we don't want him to see us and we can hear everyone talking. Now they're talking to a passenger and thank God he wasn't in there. But he had been and he left. And now a passenger is going, a man was in there. He left. This isn't me. This is another man. been and he left and now a passenger's going a man was in there he left this isn't this wasn't me this and I then turn the corner now the doors all the

way open and it's just an impossible amount of vapor coming out of the I go to air I go back to her seat, Eric's sitting there, like no big deal, he's on his phone. I go, Eric, did you just fucking hotbox the bathroom? And he goes, why, yeah, what happened? The whole staff is there right now investigating, they're like talking to another passenger. And he's like, oh my God,

so then he puts on Kristen's purple hat that says like deja vu on it. And then he puts on like Molly's puffer jacket. And then- Wait, why? To camouflage? Yes, all he had on was this tie-dye shirt. Like he was so identifiable.

Oh my God. Madagascar, this is not the most Eric story you've ever heard. Oh my God. You know, this also happened to him on an airplane. Like he vaped on an airplane, almost got kicked off. Mali brought that up and she was saying, Eric, you have to now admit you can't smoke in these bathrooms. There are detectors in there. Yeah.

So now Eric is like in full disguise, like he's in a movie. And he's crouched down, we have another hour and 15 minutes on this ferry, and he is truly panicked. He's like, I'm sure, yeah. He's like, they'll arrest you for that here, right? And we're all thinking like, oh my God,

what happens when Eric gets arrested in the middle of this tour? And we're all thinking like, oh my God, what happens when Eric gets arrested in the middle of this tour? And we're on all these, like catch a ferry, then catch a train, like if we're dealing with an, I don't even know how we begin to get home. Anywho, he kept the disguise on and he kept his low profile and then we got off the boat successfully. Everything blew over and he kept his disguise on the,

on the bus. On the bus. It's not a disguise when you're wearing a bright purple hat. Oh my God. But anyways, he kept it on on the bus, and then he kept it on the final train ride, and I said to Eric, are you gonna keep this on till we get to Denmark? Like, do you think there's an APB out for you nationwide?

Oh my God. That is so funny. Oh, Eric. I know. So if they're mad at us, they have a right to be, I guess. Yeah, stupid Americans breaking the law. Vaping in the can. Is it illegal here?

I mean, I don't pay much attention because I don't vape, but is it illegal to do in a public? Well, it certainly is in the airplane bathroom. In like a commercial airline it is. I don't know, I don't know. I assume if the whole staff was there, it was. Yeah, I mean, it might be, definitely probably there, but I mean even here,

because obviously smoking in a bathroom would be illegal. Yeah. If it's a non-smoking, but- Even though there's a song, Smokin' in the Boy's Room. No, it's still illegal, still. You know that song, don't you? Smokin' in the boy's room.

I think it's Motley Crue. What's been happening on your side of town? Oh, I'm reading a very sexy book. It's called All Thors. Oh, I better be sexy with that title. It is, it's by Miranda July, incredible author. And it's kind of the book of the summer. Everyone's reading it.

Everyone's gonna be horny this summer? Yes, it is sexy. Great summer to be a single dude. Definitely. Or you can be- And is it mostly about doggy style or? No, it's about a woman who she's 45 and she is going to meet her friends in New York.

Her husband suggests that she drive there and like, you know, take a road trip and she doesn't make it there. She stops like an hour away and stays. Oh, wow. And stuff happens. It's a midlife crisis, see, but it's hot. She just pulls the eject button on her life.

Well, I'm like 100 pages in, so I don't know how this will end, but she stops basically an hour outside her home, gets a hotel room, and is planning on going back after the, quote, trip is over. Yeah, but she meets someone in the lobby. She meets someone at a gas station and yeah,

trouble ensues. Whoa. It's so good. Well listen, if people love that book and they've already read, that reminds me of a couple other books that are great that are older that are like that, but Erica Yong, Fear of Flying.

Have you ever read that? No. Supposed to be one of the most seminal feminist works and it introduces the concept, I've brought this up on here before, of the Zipless Fuck. This is her. Oh yeah, you have talked about that. Yeah.

You should really read Fear of Flying when you're done with this. If you wanted it to be a horny summer. Horny summer, yeah. Also, I started following the New York Times book review Instagram. There was a book that I'm really excited to read also after this that also sounds horny.

I definitely recommend it. I'm enjoying it. Okay, Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, there was something I wanted to add to our previous conversation because last night Delta and I watched, well the last two nights Delta and I watched two more episodes.

I've completed it. You're all done. Yeah. I think the thing we left out of our first conversation about it, which is really important, is they love it. I think it's so important. Like they love it so much. Like when that girl who's been injured is like,

it's the best five years of my life and I'm afraid the rest of my life's not even gonna live up to it like she loves it. You know we had our own criticisms of certain or not you know observations but I want to be clear like the reason I don't mind any of it is like they want to do it so bad and they're so happy doing it. Does it destroy their body? Yeah, probably, but so does football, you know? Yeah, I mean, that's why I said I think

it's a very interesting depiction of being attached to an identity because they do love it, but there are real issues. One being that they're 23 and have to have hip surgeries. That's rough. And some of them, as you keep watching, you know, they like it, but they know it's not good for them, like mentally even, but they can't put it down

because who are they if they put it down? Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is like I have to I have to be fair and make it equivalent to any other sport Where people are really deciding like yeah, I mean I could get CTE That's very common or I'm a wrestler and I have to fucking lose 12 pounds in a week or I'm a boxer and I have To destroy my body, you know, I think people want to write it off as something frivolous, but if you're going to write that off as frivolous, then I think you have to write off all sports as frivolous. I think it's like either you think it's fine to basically trade your body

for this pursuit or not. Yeah. Of course, I can't relate at all. You know, I'm like, oh my God, I want to, you know, to be judged. And it's God, they're like in the military. It's like your kick sucked. Yes, ma'am. Like excited to hear it.

Yes ma'am. Ooh, is so triggering. I mean, I can relate. I can relate to it more than probably most people can. And in the last episode, it's the end of the season and it's so sad it's over and they're gonna have a new team next year and some of these people won't be there. And I just was like, yeah, it's a testament to identity

but also community. This thing we keep learning over and over and over again which is that is the most important thing. And that's what they're sad to lose. Sisterhood. Deep kinship and idea that only this group knows what this is like. I still feel that when I was watching,

I was like, oh God, I was thinking about my squads. I still feel that, like only those people on earth, those like 20 people will know what that feeling was in that moment. 36, they're still cutting on my end. Oh, I mean for me. My squad was small. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Still, when I think about all those people, we all had a shared experience. I don't know what most of those people are doing right now anymore, but we had this very special thing and it's beautiful. Yeah. we had this very special thing and it's beautiful. Yeah, I think the craziest thing, there's the two craziest things are first, the flying up in the air down into the splits, landing straight into the splits is insane. I cannot believe it.

It's in. It's like they're trying to break their hips. Yeah. But I think even crazier than that for me was the notion that they all have to report to a hair salon. And here's where the cultural thing is really wild because you have one girl from New Jersey, which every city's got its look, but she's in Dallas.

So they just send them all to the salon and then they let these three human beings decide what color hair they should have. And they really have no say in it. And this gal was blonde and they're like, you definitely need to be chestnut brown. And she's like, okay. And they're just chopping and dyeing people's hair

however they fucking want. And then you see them looking at the pictures later. It's like, they're not even sure they made the right decision. The coaches are like, oh, I don't know. Was that the right color? I know. Not to mention, this is before they've made the team.

Yes, they could still get caught. And they do. And it's just like, oh my, who is, it's a fine buck. It's a real all in, man. I've never seen an all in where you actually also have to get like whatever hair do they tell you to get. Other than the military, you should get in your head shaved and basic.

Yeah. But fuck, they love it. Oh my God. I was watching it with Delta and I said, you know, when someone gets cut, all the gals come around, they hug the person and they're all crying. And I, of course, was like, oh, I was panicked.

I was like, God, if I was in that situation, I don't cry very easy. I'd have to like really be trying. And I said of course, was like, oh, I was panicked. I was like, God, if I was in that situation, I don't cry very easy. I'd have to really be trying. And I said to Delta, do you think anyone's fake crying? And she said, oh yeah, I think half of them are fake crying. No, they're sad. And we were really looking and there was no tears. Some of the people that were sobbing the hardest,

their faces were bone dry. I think that they're not all crying, they're all, you can be sad and not cry. I think they're being really nice, but I don't know that they're, well, Delta and I think only about half were actually crying. Was that? I think you'd be surprised what happens

when you're in that, that much of a pressure cooker. Everyone's emotions are just like ready to brim for anything. And so- True, true, true, heightened, heightened, heightened. Whether or not you actually are that sad, anything off kilter is gonna make you cry. It's such an intense environment. Yeah.

Yeah, okay, the other crazy moment, and I don't know, and people probably not like that I asked this, but there's a storyline where a girl goes back home and you're meeting her parents and the parents are being very honest about the fact that they only stayed together for the kids and then the second the kids moved away, they got divorced. And so we're watching this whole thing and Delta and I are snuggling in bed. And I said, if mommy and daddy didn't like each other anymore, would you want us to stay married or would you want us to get divorced? I said, because I would definitely stay married for you. Luckily, I like mommy, so it's not an issue.

But I would do that so I could wake up in the same house with you every day. And I'm totally assuming she's going to say, yeah, I'd want you to stay married. And she's like, no, you should never be with someone you don't wanna be with for me. And I was like, how is this kid at nine years old, like this fucking emotionally like. Stable. Yeah, I blew my mind.

It was almost like a rhetorical question. I just wanna know how she felt about this dynamic. Like there's two adults crying. I don't even know that she's ever even been introduced to this concept that parents might stay together. And so I'm almost like, well, if this is a kernel in her head, like, let's talk about it now. And she's just like, no, I would want you to.

I also, I don't wanna say that, she is, she is very emotionally stable, but I don't want to say that if somebody had another opinion that that means they're not emotionally stable because I think both are very valid opinions. Yes, Lincoln, I didn't ask her, we didn't watch it together, but I know Lincoln would have said she would want us to stay together no matter what. Yes, exactly. And that's fair and correct too.

Yeah, there's not a right or a wrong answer. It was just kind of shocking to hear her say, I want you to be happy. Especially to their dad. Like it's one thing if you're just like having a philosophical debate about it, but like telling your dad like, oh, it's okay. Like if you wanna go.

If you wanna get out of here. If you wanna ditch this popsicle stand, go ahead. Blow this joint. I 100,000% would have said stay together. Yeah. Stay together. I think that's most. Be miserable. Yeah, for me, because I need you. And I need you guys, yeah.

I still kind of feel that Sure, like I rather you guys just be together Yeah, even if you don't like it, I want to come I want to come home three times a year and you better be there. You better be there as a unit one unit I know it's really selfish and as someone who wants to One unit. Yep, I know, it's really selfish. As someone who wants to overcome those feelings, I would now say, yes, of course, everyone should be happy.

But innately. It was kind of cool too, because it almost felt like by the parents divulging this whole history of theirs, what I was initially interpreting was that, that was hard that she had to do that. But the final message the mom says is she's like, I'm so glad I did that and I do it a thousand more times. Like the mom has zero regret that she did that.

And that was a little unexpected. I thought that was kind of interesting. Yeah, but Delta is wired interestingly in that way. Like you said, when you watch Parenthood, during like the Cosby Jasmine thing. But Delta is wired interestingly in that way. Like you said, when you watch Parenthood during like the Cosby Jasmine thing. Yeah, Lincoln wanted to slit my throat. Of course, she's so nice. Delta's like.

Of course he cheated on her. I like Gabby, I would've done it too. I know, I wonder, I really wonder like how she's gonna be as an adult Yeah, like in a relationship if she's gonna be so laissez-faire or not. Yeah. Yeah, and then you wonder is like is their genetic Component, you know, I mean this is definitely is kind of my position I know which is weird, but I wonder if that's learned also from you and in some way I mean, I guess say anything I don't that's the also from you in some way.

I mean, not that you say anything explicitly. I don't. That's the thing is like, I'm not ever talking about having been in an open relationship. I mean, the only thing that I have said to them, which is naturally they see TV shows, a parent cheats, and then the family gets divorced. And what I've told them numerous times

when they bring that up is like, I would never divorce your mom for cheating on me. It's not a fear you need to have. This would never do that. But that's the extent of it. I've not gone like, hey, you know, anogamy's a rare, kind of a new concept in humans. No, I know, but I don't think she's like,

oh no, my dad thinks this. But sometimes there's a vibe and an essence you can pick up on from people that I wonder, I don't know. Well, there's no jealousy being displayed. We're not very jealous people, so they're not really witnessing that. You better not wear that out, or who are you with? None of that's even in the atmosphere, so.

Yeah. And mom goes to work and kisses guys, and we see it on TV, so, I don't know, maybe that's, who knows, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, anyway, really interesting. But yeah, you gotta keep watching. I can't believe the Indian girl is an orthodontist. I know.

It's so hard for me. That is so, she's like, when they catch up with her, I'm like, oh, she's a for real orthodontist. She's like, I gotta go, my patient. It's like, I feel like she should have such a confidence at the Dallas Cowboys, like, hey guys, I'm an actual fucking orthodontist. Like, I'm kinda here, hopefully it'll work with my schedule.

Exactly, and that's why. That for you must be. That's what made me a little sad. Absolutely. You're everything, girl. Yeah, you don't need this. And again, not that she needs it, but she does. Like she wants to be accepted by,

I think, that's my read on it. Yeah, I think she has the same thing you had, which is like, oh, cheerleader is what white girl, but she had previously been a Golden State Warriors. I know, I just really relate to her. I'm like, oh my God, you grew up with the mentality that I had that led you here, you're an orthodontist. You're like, you're killing it,

but it's not enough until you're accepted by this hegemonic group and it keeps escalating. Yes, exactly. You're almost putting yourself in a position where it's like, nobody's gonna be accepted. And on top of it, an Indian woman's gonna be even harder. Like, yeah, like even the skinny white chicks are gonna get blasted, you know?

Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I can really, really relate. And then again, I don't know, people haven't watched it or think of us talking about it, but last thing is just like, now here's what, here's. I'm not judging her by the way, I wanna be. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well, here's where I am. So I'm like, this is where my, what do you say when your cackles go up or something? The notion, this gal, the one girl who loves Jesus, she's engaged, she's like 21 or two, and she's engaged, and she keeps saying it. This is my first boyfriend. I know.

This is my first boyfriend. Like, you can tell she's nervous about it. It's coming out. It's like, even if she thinks this is fine, it keeps percolating out. She keeps reminding everyone this is her first boyfriend. And I wanna go, yes, exactly. This is your first boyfriend.

We don't marry our first boyfriends. But some people do, some people do. But she liked him because he was in a church group she saw online. And my thought there is like, well, she can't have sex until she's married. This is the crazy trap that's created by this, you can't have sex till you're married.

Is you gotta get married cause you're in your 20s and you're horny and you're gonna marry the first guy. He's gonna marry cause he's not having, he'll do anything to have sex. He'll marry his brother. He actually by the end I was like, he's sweet. I liked him, weirdly. When, by the end I was like, he's sweet. I liked him, weirdly. Yeah, when they first showed him, I was like,

oh wow, that wasn't what I expected. I thought she'd be with the high school quarterback. Yeah. And she's with the number one fan, the guy who paints himself up and everything. But you're right, the more I saw it, I'm like, his personality's pretty great. And they're cute.

You start seeing, you see more of them as it continues. and I was like, oh man, like I also, I grew up in that. I know so many people who married their first boyfriends and are still together and are happy. And we're again looking at it from a very specific lens to say like, oh my God, that's nuts. It's not for a lot of people. It's not for a lot of people. It's not for a lot of people. It's not for a lot of people.

It's not for a lot of people. It's not for a lot of people. It's not for a lot of people. It's not for a lot of people. It's not for a lot of people. and are happy and we're again looking at it from a very specific lens to say like, oh my god that's nuts. Yeah. Not for a lot of people and especially in the south and in the Bible Belt. It is common. I was weird. Like it wasn't that they were weird. Yes.

Yes. I was the odd man out. Yeah. I just I'm having I'm trying to imagine, but you know, even as I say this, like any one of my girlfriends, if I had ended up married to, that would've been fine. I had all really good girlfriends.

Yeah. So I take it all back. I don't know. I don't know, I mean, she is such a real-life Lila Garrity. Yes. She sounds like her, she is such a real life Lila Garrity. Yes. She sounds like her, she kind of looks like her, there's this very religious component and dedication to goodness.

It's really sad. Although if you remember, Lila was plowing. She was riding rigs like a rented mule. Ding, ding, ding. Parenthood. Yeah, anyway, I think it's a great show. It is, I love it. I also love the women who run it. I have very complicated feelings about them.

Yeah, I'm mostly just like, whether I agree with any of it or not, the level of professionalism, like you are watching people that really take their job as seriously as it can be taken. Yes. And they are like so meticulous and on it. I always like seeing that, no matter what the thing is.

100%, and you're right, if it's a football coach doing that, or a basketball coach, a male, it's like, oh my God, they're incredible. They are, they are really good at what they do. And they're right, when fucking they play Thunderstruck, them broads come out and let it rip, fuck me, that's as cool as any touchdown that happens.

It is, it's really cool. And they know it, they know it too, and they feel it, they're doing a touchdown, so I'm like, yeah, this is all. Yeah, I know oh the coach Kelly has a lot of vibes of my coach also named Kelly I'd say she's got coach vibes period like that's a coach vibe it's a winner's vibe I mean that's really what it is an excellence oh and the in that show we love the cheer show. Same, same. Yeah, Monica.

And also I get really interested in how practiced they are at giving people bad news. Like the way they phrase bad news is like, it's a science. I feel like I could have been that. Oh, for sure. It is very type A, kind of on it, on it. It's very perfection driven. Yeah, yeah.

But you do have to, like, you really have to be on people to achieve that. I'd be terrible at it. You have to be on people, but you have to also earn respect. Like, they have to respect you and fear you a little bit, but also know you really care about them. Like, it's a real odd combo that they have to serve.

But I think it's actually, to me, those are the best leaders or the best bosses, the people who can do all of that at once. Good combo for leadership. I only have one fact anyway. This is for Key. Oh, fuck. Let's just take a second.

I know. It's so inspiring. I mean, I'm gonna say it, he's the sweetest person we've ever interviewed. And that's saying a lot, because we've had a lot of nice, best good boys. But he is by far the sweetest. Yeah.

Sorry, Jimmy. Sorry, everybody. Almost need a new category. I think we need, we need an, oh no, I'm not gonna, that's mean, I'm not doing that. Okay. But I was gonna say we need a new statue with Key's face. What if we made another statue that was like

four times as big and we put Jimmy's on the bottom of it? So it was like, it was Jimmy's that we already made that size, but then we put one that was four times as big on top of it, just to like, to show everyone the proportion of how good of a good boy this guy is. It'd be like if you built one president's head like six times the size of the others at Mount Rushmore,

like the message would be like, forget about those four we did. This is the one, we kind of blew it earlier. Yeah. Oh, just the whole story is such an epic tale. It is. It's such a ride, so many angels in it. Hearing all that stuff about Spielberg,

it was so, so beautiful. I can't, oh man. I gotta be a better. It's a really good way to be. I'm gonna be a better guy. You don't. I mean, I'm not gonna tell you to not be a better guy because I think being a better person

is a good goal for all of us. Being a better person is a good goal for all of us. Being a better guy is a good goal for all of us. Yeah, being a cookie boy is a good goal. Ha ha ha ha. The fact that he sent him presents. Every year. Every year, would check in on him. And I mentioned this in the episode,

but I really, I think he is smart enough to know that he changed his life in a dramatic way, especially him, someone who like did not really speak English plucked out of an elementary school and his life changed. And I think he felt some responsibility for that, good and bad. And I think it's really admirable, because I think it'd be easy to say,

oh yeah, hell yeah, I brought you up and I gave you this incredible opportunity. Yeah, you're welcome. Yes, exactly. A lot of people would be like, you're welcome. You're welcome and that's that. And that's how he took it, right? It's just like, oh my God, he gave me this incredible thing,

he owes me nothing, which is true, but I think it shows real character that Spielberg can see the whole picture there. Yeah, well also we're forgetting too that Spielberg was dealing with Key as a little boy, like think how much we liked him as my age, but imagine dealing with him as, I'm sure he just legit fell in love with him.

Of course. Yeah. What was the fact? Oh, well it was about that actually. It was about Lucas giving- Oh, all the Star Wars people merch? Yes, and he did. He gave a percentage of the $8 million picture

to the film's little known young actors. It said, I feel terrible that it has been kept a secret that we were given a gift of a small percentage of the films at Harrison Ford. I've never heard of anyone but George Lucas doing that, so we might as well tell people about it now. What Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher received was a salary for at least 12 weeks each, plus one quarter of a percent. If this doesn't sound like a lot,

compute it into the last report of the Star Wars grosses and it's opening two weeks, 6.5 million. You know, it's so sweet. Like for Harrison Ford, whatever, it didn't mean much, but for Carrie Fisher, she continued to live a really comfortable life while she was alive. She lived very well and she didn't work a ton,

I think by her own choice, but yes, that movie gave her the freedom for the rest of her life. Yeah, really lovely. Yeah, so that was that. There's just no facts, it was just a lovely story. Human story, yeah. Feel lucky that he got to tell us that.

Me too, it's such a good one. I really hope people listen, I really, really do. It's very inspiring, it makes you feel so much gratitude, I hope, makes me anyway. Yeah, same. All right, well I love you, this has been a blast. And you know, next time we talk, I may or may not be bailing Eric out of jail,

but you know, we're not done with the trip. I was saying what if this this smoking incident went to trial here in Norway and then out of nowhere a representative from Hertz rental cars showed up as a character witness to say. Oh my god. That's great. That is great. Alright. Alright. All right. All right. Love you. Love you.