Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 032 - Max Thieriot

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Actor, producer, hunter, badass. Max. The. Riot.     Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com   Connect with Max: https://www.instagram.com/maxthieriot/ Thank you to our sponsors: Santa Cruz Medicinals: scmedicinals.com use code KeepHammering for 15% off Ketone IQ: https://hvmn.com/CAM use code CAM for 20% MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Leupold: https://www.leupold.com/ Black Rifle: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv Bass Pro/Cabelas: https://www.basspro.com   Timestamps: 0:00:00 Intro 0:01:40 Television being an escape 0:05:00 Creation of “Fire Country” 0:17:00 Getting back to classic filmmaking 0:18:05 Training for inmate firefighters  0:26:10 Growing concern for wildfires 0:31:30 Is it helpful or hurtful? 0:32:57 Getting started in the film industry 0:34:38 Go Ruck 0:35:15 Breeo 0:38:00 Transition from child actor to adult actor 0:43:00 Struggles of acting 0:51:50 Cam on the set of “Seal Team” 0:54:00 Highlighting the small town life 0:59:40 Working with true professionals 1:04:00 Classically trained vs. not 1:13:20 Meeting some of the Greats 1:23:10 Max’s hunting journey 1:30:57 Connection to the land 1:42:40 Closing

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All right, welcome to the Keep Hammering Collective. I'm here with Max Terriott. How you doing? I'm good, man. I'm good. I'm excited to be here, you know? Yeah, man. This is awesome that you made time.

I know you're busy. Maybe not as busy because you guys are striking, right? We're on a big strike right now. So this is the most downtime I've had, I think, since the start of COVID. Yeah, it's been different. You know, I've been kind of running hard for the last two years straight. And it's nice to get a little fan. family time and a little time to get outside a little bit, have a little bit of a fall for once.

And then I get to come and do fun stuff like this that normally I'm missing out on. Oh, man. I really appreciate you coming down, lift, run, shoot. It's been, we've had so much fun. And you gave me a sweet Fire Country Challenge coin. Thank you for that. Of course. It's a pretty badass. One thing that I realized quickly, once I put up a couple pictures of us, is, Man, you got a big fan base. People are invested in your characters, you know, for, I think everybody knows, but you're an actor. And you know how people latch on to TV and movie personalities or actors or their favorite people, and you got a bunch of them. Yeah, I think, you know, the cool thing about TV and film is, you know, I think if it's done right and it can really be an escape for people.

It can really be a way for people to just sit down. relax, shut out, you know, their everyday life and, and, and just become invested in a show and characters and storylines and actually just be entertained, right? That's what it's all about. It's all about entertainment. It is, but on one hand, I see the characters you play, and I don't want to really say un-sung-sung heroes because our military, we should appreciate them every day, but you've played characters. You're on seal teams. Then you're talking about, you know, fighting fire, those guys don't get a ton of attention, you know, and even soldiers in the grand scheme of things compared to saying athlete don't get the credit they deserve, I don't think.

But so, I mean, you say it's entertainment, but what I see is you playing roles that they're so important to our, are protecting our way of life. Yeah. And I mean, so what does that mean to you? It means everything. Honestly, I know, I know the way that you said it is really kind of the way that I look at it. And I realize that I have a large platform and, you know, I can do a lot of good through it. And for me, one of the most important things is that not only do people like the show and they like the characters, but they take away something.

And, you know, I think it's about humanizing these people. And also, you know, if there are ways that we can bring attention to certain causes or organizations or struggles, that these folks go through, real life struggles. You know, these people are heroes, but they're human. And, you know, they bleed and they have emotions. And, you know, a lot of these people have struggles that they go through when they're done because the stuff that they see and the stuff that they do is not the stuff that, you know, the average person sees every day.

And these folks are doing it every single day. Right. You know, when you're talking about our military, our veterans, when you're talking, about, you know, first responders, you know, you might drive by a car accident when they go, man, that looked terrible. Well, these people are going every single day. Yeah. And they're, they're looking at kids and, you know, young people and men and women, just everyone, right? And they're looking at families. They're looking at stuff that is really, really devastating, hard stuff to see and deal with. And they're having to face that. And it takes its toll. And so,

for me, a big part of it is trying to find a way to help those people. What can we do to help their lives and bring awareness to some of these things that need to be brought up? Yeah, that's well said. It's like, because you say that, you know, these people have to deal with it. And, you know, we drive by and then it's over. You know, we saw it. And people were like, oh, my God, I can't believe I saw this terrible accident. All you did was drive by.

You know, the people that deal with it daily, that has to take a just, whole. But I was as curious, where did that impetus behind fire country start for you? I mean, because you're, you were the creator, one of the creators of the series. So why? Why were you inclined to do this? I mean, it all kind of started, you know, at the beginning of COVID and I'm always trying to challenge myself, right? I think that's the big thing in life is like find ways to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and do something that scares you a little bit and and and see it through and and for me you know I had directed I had I had acted for a long time and you know writing was something that I'd never done and you know basically being a barely a high school graduate you know a lot of

folks said that I couldn't do it and for me that was kind of the biggest motivation was people saying you can't do this right you know you're an actor you can't right and that just kind of fueled the the fire and you know I grew up in northern California with a lot of friends who who do this job who work for these departments and I'd always just kind of been around it and and you know had a lot of respect for what they do and and it felt very timely you know California and not just California the whole West Coast honestly it's it's everywhere now it's all it's all a lot of the states, it's Canada, it's Europe, it's, you know, it's Spain. We're having these

massive wildfires and it just felt like the right time to tell these stories. I realized that nobody had told, you know, the stories of these, these inmate firefighters as well. And I think that that kind of also felt timely. And for me, it was about also just showing people in a different light, right? It's, you know, normally, normally we see inmates or cons in a, in a movie or TV show, they're always the bad guy. And, you know, a lot of these people made mistakes, but it didn't, it's not who they are. Right. And showing that people can actually, you know, be rehabilitated through programs like this and actually come out and get a, you know, get a real job. And, and, and, have that life that they should have.

It was about just telling those stories, you know, and I think I started writing. I sat down like every night at midnight. I tell my wife, I was like, hey, I'm going to go write for a couple hours and just kept working, kept working. And, you know, it was fortunate to have some really great partners along the way. And Tony Phelan and Joan Rader, my writing partners in the show are, you know, very smart and experienced and just you know i was i was lucky to have a lot of great people that i worked with the bruckheimer team um and thankfully i had the support of cbs and man uh here we are it's crazy

it's crazy to think like you know this this this little idea kind of started out is this uh this small seed and it's grown into this show and i'm just i'm blessed i'm super thankful you know i'm thankful people you know have enjoyed the show and you know but that doesn't mean that we can be complacent. You know, we always got to keep pushing and making the show better. I believe we can always do better. Right. I'm curious how the tie-in, because I get the firefighting, the wild-on firefighters deserve a lot of credit. Where did the tie-in to the inmates come for you? So my wife's cousin is a CEO at an inmate fire camp. And so I knew about it. And, you know, I hadn't heard of that, to be honest. Yeah. You know on me before this. It's a crazy. So it's a program they started

I don't know if it was World War I or World War II, but, you know, we didn't have enough resources here, enough bodies to fight the forest fires. And so they started using inmates to go out and fight these forest fires. And they realize, you know, eventually is all politics do. You know, at some point they're like, hey, we can't just make prisoners fight our fires. You know, we've got to come up with a way to, like, get them to want to do it. Right. And so they came up with the two-for-one program,

which was you get two days off of your sentence for every day served on a fire. Okay. You know, and I've heard a lot of incredible stories from people who have been through the camp are actually rehabilitated now, have changed their life, you know. And for a lot of these people, you know,

I've talked to young guys who, you know, grew up in gangs, you know, really didn't know a different way of life, had never had a job. And went and they started working as firefighters on inmate crews and literally I've heard stories of them telling CEOs, you know, thank you. Thank you for this. This is the first job I've ever had. And just having a purpose and feeling like they were doing something.

Right. Was changing that. And for me, like, isn't that what life is? Like, when you have purpose, everything makes sense. Or it's like, that's why you get up. That's why you give your best. because it's for this thing. So I could see an inmate,

I mean, you're just serving time just getting through the day, but yeah, you add that purpose factor in. It's like changes everything it feels like. Totally, yeah. They start all of a sudden seeing that they're having, that what they're doing, seeing the outcome. And seeing, you know,

when they get a cruise through in their buggy in a small town that's just been saved and they're seeing people with signs outside that say, thank you firefighters. Oh, man. They look at that and they realize that's not just those those men and women who are in those other uniforms. They're talking about us too.

Yeah, they're included. And it's inspiring. And for me, a big, big thing, a big, big thing for me with this show that I sort of, you know, set out to do from the beginning. We're dealing with a time right now where as a country, we're so divided. And I think people are always looking for ways to pull us further apart. And this show, you know, we have inmates from all walks of life, fighting fire alongside blue collar firefighters, right alongside shoulder to shoulder.

It's like one team, one purpose, and that's to save lives, to save towns, to save property. And so a big thing is really trying to remind people that we're all human. Right. And we can all come together with one purpose and remember that. And that sort of is my underlying message of the show is to remind people of that. And I think through firefighting, you know, which is to me, firefighting is a, it's like a not anti-political, but it doesn't have the same political surrounding.

I think most people just view firefighters as heroes. And so for me, it's an easier avenue to use that, right? And to remind people that, hey, look, here are all these heroes coming together with one goal. They might all be different, but that's fine. That's what makes us unique is that we're different. That's the point. It'd be fucking boring if we were all exactly the same. You know what I mean?

Well, and to your point, you know, if you think about that just in the broader scheme of things, an inmate to a guy who's just a firefighter's whole life, those are a lot different type people than say your next door neighbor. And we argue with our next door neighbor about politics all the time. And we're living next door. So that gap really to your next door neighbor isn't that big, but we make it big. Whereas an inmate to a regular 9 to 5, you know, firefighter,

that could be potentially be a very big gap in the different types of people. And they still come together for a common cause. So if they can do it, to your point, that's what I'm trying to get at is like, if they can do it and you're illustrating that in there and it's happening every day in real life, it's not just a show that happens. Yeah. If they can do it, yeah, I think the message is a good one that we all should be able to do it. Exactly, exactly. I just think it's a time where we're, you know, it's like everybody needs to take a breath and a step back and and, and, you know, treat each other, you know, as, as, as. brother and sister like we were intended to you know and just you know but sometimes it's I think

that's the way the world is and that's the way that life is is that sometimes you need to you have to go through hard times to be reminded of those things exactly yeah and I think our differences are highlighted and featured and those those are the stories really the differences but there's a lot a lot of good and commonalities between us that don't get the attention. Totally. Yeah. I mean, and that's the unfortunate reality of the world. It's like, you know, I sort of laugh. I was like thinking about it the other day and, you know, when you watch, you watch Anchorman, right? Yeah. And Ron Burgundy is reporting the news and it's the car chase. And nothing is happening at the end, right? You find out it's like some old woman who,

you know, just didn't know she was being tailed by the cops or whatever. And it's this big, extravagant car chase, and it has these huge numbers. And, you know, we're guilty as a society of being obsessed with the chaos and the drama of everything. And, you know, and I think about that movie, and that's, it's very much how, you know, how we are as, as people. But I also see positive messages and positive storytelling. and, you know, positive news, things that we see, is also really effective and uplifting. And so, you know, I feel like instead of showing the highlighted extravagant drama,

we need to focus on the positive of the world and, you know, try and get people to embrace that. Yeah. No, that's definitely a good goal. Like, what about Veronica Corningstone? Remember her? I definitely remember Veronica Corningstone. I love that movie.

As an actor, you have to. It's one of the greatest film works of all time, I think. Oh, dude, I mean, Ron Bergen, just all of those characters in that movie constantly kill me. And the panther, what is the panther piss or whatever? He's wearing the cologne. Oh, yeah. 60% of the time works every time. Yeah, I know.

It's all, dude, all of it. Yeah. I know. I feel like we need some more comedies like that. And we haven't had one in a while. And I feel like, you know, I feel like people are so worried about about upsetting anybody. I think everybody has such thin skin that nobody wants to like write a comedy like that because they're worried that somebody will be offended by anything.

I know. And it's like even my daughter went saw Barbie last night and she said that, you know, it's good as like a unique storyline, this and that. You know, there was a little bit more political undertones. Like that's what's like, it seems like there, that has to tie in with every whatever movie nowadays is they got to get their little political stuff in their tune. And it's like, can we just freaking watch a movie? I just want to be entertained. Just want to be entertained.

I mean, does it have to be so anyway? I'm like, I told her, I said, well, yeah, that's every movie these days for whatever reason. But, yeah, I mean, I feel like a lot of these things too. you know, a lot of, a lot of stuff like this always seems like it's a trending thing, you know, it's, you go through these, these ebbs and flows. Yeah. It'll be back to classic filmmaking, I hope. I believe it will. I believe, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of this stuff is business and, you know, when you eventually realize off of numbers that, you know, folks want to be entertained. Yeah. They just want to watch, you know, a comedy or they just want to

watching old Western that's the same thing that, you know, they loved about Tombstone. And I think eventually, you know, we'll get back to that. And that's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think so too, because right, as you said, it is a business. They're not going to look at these budgets and take in the ass and be like, no pun intended there. But it's like, and like, okay, well, I guess we didn't serving that political message didn't serve us well in business. So hopefully, but I don't know um i i was thinking something else too before i got distracted um so the the inmates do they when they fight fire do they get all the same gear and the same training because i would like i would think somebody who's got like looking for you know the devil's advocate of are they just thrown out

there and say good luck or how does that work with inmates no so they they get the same training i believe is an f2 uh which is a seasonal firefighter and so they have um they go through training um you know, they definitely don't have the same level of gear, but they have gear. And the thing about these folks, if you talk to a lot of firefighters, a lot of these inmate firefighters are, dude, they're busting their ass. They're doing some of the hardest work on a fire line. They're cutting hand line. And they're hiking into some of the shittiest, most remote, grueling country.

And you don't see them complaining. Yeah. They sit there and they're the sled dogs. Yeah, explain cutting a handline because I don't think people, a lot of people probably don't know what that is. Yeah. So, you know, the big thing about big wild land fires is you can't put them out. It's just they're out of control and that's not something that you can do. What you do is you contain it.

You try and basically get ahead of this fire, predict its direction and create a big enough break to where you can contain it to an area and you let it burn out in that area they can use you know fire retardant drops water drops but a big thing they do is they cut handline and it can be you can cut line with a dozer if the terrain allows it

but a lot of these remote areas a lot of these remote fires have to be cut with hand tools so basically they use a and the cloud as a common tool looks like a big hoe that you would hoe your garden with it has a sort of a reiki looking side and then it's got a huge blade on the one side and basically the idea is to

the idea is you have to create a break that is what is it one and a half times the fuel height align back and you're trying to go down to raw material so you're trying to go down to dirt and you're basically cutting a looks like a road between that. that fire and the new fuel. So if it's a 40-foot tree right there, you have to cut a 60-foot line. Yeah, yeah, 60 feet back, and then you'll be running that, you know, as much of the whole perimeter as you can, basically. And they use Planskys and.

Yeah, Pulaski's, McLeod's, you know, they'll have other sort of like hoe type. It's just hard, hard manual labor. It's serious manual labor. Hot as fuck. Dirty, plus you're wearing all the gear. That's got to be hot. Yeah, that Nomex is super hot. I mean, you know, you're carrying your pack.

A lot of these folks are carrying saws. You know, you're hiking your ass off. And, you know, I've been in the outdoors and hunted and hiked around with, you know, my redneck buddies who still wear, you know, like logging boots in the back country with a three inch heel. And I'm always in there going, like, man, those things weigh five pounds each. Yeah. And those are the boots they're wearing. Yeah. You know, they're hiking in those things and eating these terrible little to-go meals

that they're warming up on, you know, fire engine blocks and exhaust pipes and trying to get their shitty burrito warm. And there's nothing, nothing glamorous about it. It's serious, serious, hard manual labor. And, you know, a lot of times what they do is the inmates will be also assigned to clean up at the end. So they'll be out there on the fire. and then they'll have to go and do cleanup, mop up.

And so, you know, if that's probably because the crew gets sent somewhere else, but the inmates must be based fairly close to there, I would guess. Yeah. So they're the ones, yeah, tasked with the crew. Which is not a fun job either, right? Because you're going through this, there's little, you know, hot spots that they have to put out, you know, in the middle of the fire. And, you know, if they run a hose lay, fucking mile and a half long,

long fire hose they they're picking all that up and hauling it all back that hose is heavy too it is no joke what these what these people do is um is intense you know and it's not it's not for like even aside from the inmates it's not for money like the firefighters aren't it's not like anybody's getting rich off this shit not at all you know I think and that's a big issue that is kind of going on right now I know um there's an organization called the grassroots wildland fire federation i believe or something like that and and a lot of these organizations a lot of these uh like hot shots and you know wildland firefighters right now are trying to advocate for for higher pay because you know if you read stories all these people and there's guys who

you know do this job for 25 years and they're away from their family for months at a time you know and work an entire fire season and they might make you know 20 grand and there's a lot that they sacrifice again you know mentally um you know PTSD is a big issue in this community um you know the the the rate of divorce is extremely high the rate of cancer that they is like 70% higher than the average person like they're exposed to a lot of things and you know I think uh I think just as we need to do better helping our veterans, we need to do it better helping these folks as well. Yeah, I agree. I mean, to me, it's the same category too because in the military, they're not doing it for the money either.

You know, mostly soldiers aren't making hardly anything. They're doing it because they're serving the country. If I was, if I was looking at, you know, objectively, I think military is doing a better job once our soldiers get out of evaluating maybe long-term. you know, whether it's disabilities. But I wonder that's probably not happening with the firefighters. No, and I think with the military, I think that's even a newer thing that we're doing. Like, we're starting to get better at that, you know. And I think for years, you know, they were really struggling to deal with that,

which is why, you know, folks come back and we see a lot of these men and women become homeless and have drug issues. and, you know, a lot of problems because they weren't being taken care of. Thankfully, I think people are starting to realize that and shed light on that and go, look, these people gave everything. They sacrificed everything for you, for your family, and you need to do better. Yeah. Once they do their four years, eight years, however many years, even if it's 20 years,

they're still not that old. You know, if you go in when you're 20, 20 years, you're 40. I mean, there's a lot of life left that you're dealing with. whatever happened as you served so yeah i mean we owe it to them to do better and i'm glad i know it's going better um but it's been a process i would think that you know the wild on firefighters deserve the same type of consideration because as you said it's it's it's not for the money it's it's serving a greater purpose and there's a lot of risk associated it's hard work too yeah exactly it's it's it's all those things it's there's a just like the military there's a lot of

tremendous amount of sacrifice. And it's for everyone. These people are serving, you know, they're serving our country. Yeah. I was also curious to get your opinion on. You mentioned that fires are, you know, worse than they have been or like all over the West. Why do you think that that's happening?

Why do you think these fires have been, it's been changing as getting worse? Well, I mean, I'm not a, I'm not a fire scientist or any scientist by any means, but I think it's, I think there is a lot of contributing factors. You know, I don't know if it's a, if it's a,

partially a climate change issue, if it's a, timber management. Timber management issue. I kind of think it, maybe it's, maybe it's a combination of, of all these things.

And I think, unfortunately, again with a division, you know, I read a, I read a, not an essay, but a letter that a gentleman wrote down in Northern California to the politicians.

And he was a, he was a rancher, a cowboy who had been cowboying up in the national forest, running beef cows for, you know, his family for 150 years. and he wrote this really incredible letter to them basically you know this is a grown man cowboy who you could tell was basically in tears when he wrote this thing because he said you know he's like I weep for the mountains I weep for you know the livestock he's like you know my family's been here for 150 years and in one fire we lost everything their their cattle were all burned in the fire

and he's like you know he's like I'm mad at everyone and no one at the same time time. And he said, you know, a big problem is you have all these people who can't agree on something. And so instead they fight over it. You know, there you have you have one side that's saying, no, this is just global warming. And then you have another side that says, you know, we need to, we need to burn more often. We need, you know, we need timber management. We need to to selectively cut and go through because there's too much fuel. And because of that, they, can't come to some sort of middle ground agreement. And, and, you know, the simple fact is, obviously, there is a problem.

There's a reason these are here, you know, and I've seen different sides, too, that have said that for so long we were too good at putting out fires. Because I guess they used to have an old rule where a fire had to be put out, you know, by X amount of hours from it starting. And by doing that, great, you put the fire out, but you weren't allowing sort of the natural cleansing process of the earth to burn itself. And a lot of these burns are actually healthy for the ground, right?

If they don't become these megafires. Right. They, you know, new seeds, you know, can germinate. All of a sudden you get rid of this undergrowth and there's no line brush. hunting when i when i hunt in the wilderness if you're you know go to like a five-year-old burn it's going to be good yeah you know that's where the animals are because of that exactly there's all this new life in there there's new growth and there's there's you know healthy plants and so i think um you know i have to look at the people who who i believe you know didn't actually just learn it out of

of a book, you know, I believe that while you can learn a lot that way, one of the ways you can learn the most is by actually being boots on the ground and living in a place, experiencing it firsthand, seeing it. And I think a lot of these firefighters and a lot of these folks who have learned about, you know, doing prescribed burns have realized is that this is kind of the best way to manage these things, is to burn these things. And again, with timber management, you know, you look back and while we were able to harvest more lumber and, you know, obviously not clear cutting, but like selectively harvesting and going through, you look at those areas and photographs and those areas don't burn the same as the ones that have never been touched.

Right. You know, and I'm married to a woman whose family was in the timber industry. And so I've spoke to a lot of those people and, you know, have a lot of experience being around them and seeing a lot of these pictures. Yeah. And hearing their stories. Yeah. You know, they make it this bipartisan issue.

And it's like, I mean, I know you're, we'd only get too political, but I see you got your, your hat on there, your favorite candidates. That's right. No, but I saw, I saw a post today from Hillary Clinton. And she said something like how hot it's been. And if, if you're, you know, sweltering in the heat thing. a magna maga republican it's just like what are you talking about it's hot so it's donald trump's voters fault yeah i mean what do we you know so you say i just feel like stuff like

that it's just divisive again what's the point yeah so yeah you say it's like can you just focus on the issue and what how to resolve it no it's always got to be like taking shots from one side of the other it's like hot weather and and somehow you know no mega republicans did it hey guys you want to be as smart as famed neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, PhD at Stanford. Well, sadly, that's probably not going to happen. But I did find something that can help, and that's HVMN, ketone IQ. I actually down one right before reading this. So if I sound decent, it's probably why. Because I'm not sure if you guys realize how much brain power podcasting takes. But whatever I can take, that will at least make me sound smarter, I'm in. Ketone IQ is a clean,

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that I tell my seven-year-old all the time, right? And my wife is the one who's in charge of this, who actually came up with it, so I have to give her the credit because like all moms really deserve, they're really the champions of the house. Yeah. But we always tell them, you know,

when he says something to his brother, when he says something to somebody, we say, Bo, helpful or hurtful? Yeah. And it's as simple. It's as simple as that. Is what you were saying helpful or is it hurtful? Right.

And that's it. It's like if you're not being helpful. That would change a lot of discussions we have out there right now. But I think it's as simple as that. It's like think about what you're about to say and is what you're going to say, is it actually going to be constructive? Is it helpful? Or is it negative?

Is it hurtful? Is this actually just, you know, causing more division? Right. Yeah, I know. I mean, I get, you know, I think everybody's burned out on the political infighting and back and forth and the mudslinging. But, man, I don't know, hopefully just like the movie industry, hopefully it's like it ebb and flow and we're just kind of, you know, getting through the worst of it and it's going to get better. Yeah. So I was curious. Let's, let's, we talked about your latest show.

How did, I mean, I've, seems like I've seen you in your name forever. in movies and TV. How did that, how long you've been doing? When did you start? And how did you get started? I started when I was, I think I was 12. Totally fell into it. You know, I grew up in a town of 1,000 people in Northern California.

You know, being an actor was not something that even seemed real. It only happened in the movies. And I went to like an improv class with a friend one day after school. because I was bored and we had nothing to do. And, um, like middle school then? Middle school. Yeah. Met this guy who said, hey, I think you'd be a good actor, you know.

One of those weird stories is that everybody, you know, everybody has that person calling them off the street kind of thing, you know. And, um, and my parents were really supportive. And, you know, I didn't know what being an actor meant. And I flew down to L.A., walked into an agency, read a Reese's peanut butter cup cereal commercial audition for these folks. That sounds good. I can crush that right now.

And all of a sudden they were like, yeah, we'd love to represent you. Went on a couple of auditions, and I got lucky, man. I got really lucky. I know that this is a job in industry where it's really difficult to break into. And so I don't take it for granted.

I know that I got lucky. You know, I got the second lead of a Fox movie like really soon. You know, I know I was also super fortunate and, you know, fate would have it that at the time, I wanted to race cars growing up. So that was like, that was what I wanted to do. And I was carting. I was racing go carts, you know, dreamed of racing indie cars, you know, Indy 500.

And- Who's your favorite driver? Oh, man. I mean, I have a lot now. and I know a lot of these guys over the years from just spending time with the races but you know Jimmy Vassar Max Pappas are good buddies

and I love those guys think they're super talented you know and if you look at a lot of the talent that unfortunately went through some struggling times you know Alonzer Jr. guys like that you know obviously the Andretti family's legendary and open wheel racing the Ray Halls but yeah I was racing carts and this movie happened to be about three kids who rob a bank on go carts.

Really? Okay. So I went in and I'm like, this is me. Yeah. I'm like, guys, this is, I'm the guy. You're not going to find somebody else. I'm the guy. And so they brought a go cart in and like, we'll tell us about it. And I looked at it and told them everything about it.

And they're like, holy shit, this is the guy. And, you know, I don't even know if I could really act then. I think they just knew I was the most authentic thing that they were going to get. And that sort of, you know, it was like proof of concept, right? I mean, and that's how the industry is. It's difficult to break in. But once you get in, then it kind of becomes easier. Once you continue to prove yourself.

You know, so I did that movie and I did The Pacifier with Vin Diesel. Yeah, that Tanner just mentioned. that the other day. Oh, he was talking to Tyler and you know, it's like, because you're talking about what you've been in and mentioned that. It's like, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, they looked it up. And it's like, yeah, that's right. Of course, everybody's seen that one. Yeah, like a little bleach blonde hair. Yeah. I did the, I did the Nancy Drew movie, the kid, kid, like I did all these family movies, kid movies. Um, you know, I played everybody's son at one point. And then as I got older, you know, I was, I was, I have great agents who were helping me make these decisions along the way.

But, you know, the transition from child actor to adult actor is a difficult one. You know, and it's, it's hard to make that jump. I mean, you see folks like Haley Joel Osman and McCulley Colkin and all these people, you know, they're like this rock star kid actor and then making that transition to an adult. it's it's I don't know it's hard for an audience to I think sort of see them as that different right age is that different character and um I sort of like led into those so it was like I had these child you know kid actor roles and I eventually was still playing like the son of people but they were more adult movies you know I did this movie called Chloe um which is like an erotic

thriller as I think it would be titled and it was I played Liam Neeson and Julian Moore's son and Amanda Seafreed was in it and uh it's a dark twisted you know intense movie but I was still playing you know this 19 year old like the son and so that was kind of I think helped my transition to an adult actor and finding those awkward that one role kind of the mid the mid mainstream role yeah it's like it's how do you how do you feel that that that awkward age that every guy goes through, you know, and where does that fit into TV? Yeah, I get that. I see, I feel for the women who were the like the lead, the star sex symbol type role, and then they have to go to the mom. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's that same.

They're a little later than probably you were from going from the son to the to the lead, but going from that to the mom. And I see, I see those actresses. and I wonder that I figured that's got to be hard. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think it is. I think that I think that first transition that I'm talking about is difficult. And I think that transition from, like you're saying, from the hot sex symbol, you know. Starlit.

Starlet, like to becoming the matriarch character is a difficult one. And I think it's, you know, it's difficult on people's ego, on their self-esteem on all these things because you start going like, man, I'm not that, I'm not that girl anymore. I'm not the big picture on the poster. You're like the little, there's a big character and then you're the little one. Totally. That's got to be hard. I think it's, I really think it is difficult for some people who are better at dealing with it than others.

And I think, you know, I have a buddy who's an actor on, on my show right now, Kevin Alejandro. And he said something to me just recently that I think, you know, know, is important, but it also sort of relates to stuff like that. It's like, instead of looking at the negative side of it or, you know, this scene, you know, could be better, whatever it is. He's like, my job is, it doesn't matter how what the scene is, how good the scene is. The role, he's like, my job is to make it better. My job is to make it something. And so I think if you look at it that way and, you know, you are one of those mom characters, if you look at it and look at it as the challenge.

Look at the challenge of it. And how do I take this thing that, you know, maybe my first instinct is it's not that exciting or I'm not that character that I really want to be? And how do I take that and make it into something great? Right. And I think that's one thing that great actors do. Like really, really exceptional actors

are able to take something that is, you know, maybe already pretty good. But either way, they take that and they make it better. They make it brilliant. Because yeah, you could, you always say, like, no matter what you're doing, elevate the situation. 100%. Make it better.

Even if you're a role player or maybe, yeah, I don't know what that would be termed in acting, but you can still make the scene, you know, and so people remember that scene. And maybe it's like you got a small part in the movie, but that one scene, whatever, you killed it and the picture. Totally. Yeah. No, I think that's, I think it's, man, that's a, it's something that relates to life, too. You know, it's like, you know, your job, whatever it is you're doing.

It's like, you know, instead of looking at the negative side of it or it not being as great as you wish, like fucking make it great. Yeah, yeah. There's, you know, in a business, there's only one CEO, but even the Jenner could make a difference. 100%. It's a, I was curious about this too. I was thinking because I freaking suck like memorizing lines. So I was thinking like if I was an actor like you and you got somebody on set who just, keep screwing it up.

How frustrating is that? I'm sure you've had that. You've had a long career. But there's people who, yeah, they just kill it. And you're probably learning from them all the time. Then there's people who are like, holy shit. This guy fucking sucks. You can't remember anything.

Yeah. What happens? Like, do people get frustrated? Yeah. It's hard. I've, I've dealt with that quite a few times. Because if you kill, I'm just like envision it.

If you kill a scene and you know, like you just did it. And then they fuck that up. and then you got to do it again. Yeah. That would piss me off. I think it can be really frustrating. And I think that for me, the hardest part about it is not so much that, you know, I have to do it again because their stuff was bad.

What usually happens is in those moments, you know, as an actor, what you hope, right, is that a scene essentially becomes real. So those words that you've memorized basically become a part of you. They're a part of your dialogue, your conversation. So when you're in this scene, the acting kind of goes away and you're just, you're really listening and communicating with the person and you're having this conversation, whatever it is. And I think the hardest thing is when people don't know their lines or they're struggling

with that, you see them thinking when you're talking to them about. what their lines are and you start realizing that they're not present and when somebody else isn't present in the scene it's difficult for you to stay present it's really easy to fall out of it and sort of look around the room and see all the camera operators and crew that are standing back there when this person is like what is my line like you know all of a sudden you're taken out of it and that to me is the most frustrating part it's like when you feel like you're really right there and you're present and you're emotionally you know totally in and then this person keeps bringing you out.

Yeah. That's when it gets frustrating. I bet. And you're like, you know, and it can be really frustrating when it's, you know, I mean, scenes are always, you know, they're like a tennis match. Like you need somebody to sit there and, you know, volley with you. But sometimes scenes will be heavier handed for one character, right?

Like you might have a really emotional scene for your character and the other person is kind of just coming into it. Yeah. And so that's usually when it's really frustrating is because I try and feel like even if I'm a small part of a scene, then somebody's having a really important scene for their character. I'm going to give you everything that I have because I want you to get to the place that you need to get to emotionally.

And so if I do that, I expect you to reciprocate. And so then when I have that scene for me, I want you to be there and be fully with me. Well, you lock me in. Yeah, you almost have to. You're serving up the meatball so they can jack it out of the park, right? And I think a director would have to notice that or whoever's running the scene. They'd have to notice that, yeah, you fucking killed this part, which allowed them to nail their part. You know, and it's like a symphony a little bit.

But you know what reminded me? I was just, as you were talking like, and one thing that I love about it, too, is when you're talking about this, business like you're locked in like talking to me i can tell like this is your passion you know what i mean you're like so into it's the business but um i was thinking about there's a new show out and i only watched like maybe one and a half episode but it was pretty good and it's called it's johnny depth's daughters in it okay do you know that show i i haven't seen the show but i know you're talking about but so she was singing right in this scene and um she was i think making a music video and she was up there singing and she'd been struggling and she said no I've been going through a lot my mom this and

that so she'd been distracted then she nailed this one take just fucking killed it and everybody did great but the key was she did great and the camera was fucked up and so she came over she's like do get it do get it everything how did I look you know because she knew she'd done good and then the camera operator said we got to do it again something with the focus whatever that would be you know and then she sat down and she was crying and like her feet were bleeding had like the costume was rubbing her raw and uh that i could just see like when you put yourself out and everything goes perfect then somebody else or something else takes away from your perfect performance i mean how frustrating is that as an actor i mean i'm sure that happens right yeah no that totally happens there's always i'm trying

to think of like certain situations where i've like personally experienced it but I've been through it all. You know, I've seen, I've seen focus be soft or, you know, I've seen somebody, somebody come in and ruin a take. They walk in at the wrong time or, you know, all of a sudden, the weirdest one every once in a while, and we had this one night on SEAL team. And it's this weird thing of like when you're shooting so many hours and

you become exhausted. You know that feeling of when you basically start to become a little delusional, right? Like you're so tired, you get past the tired point and you kind of start to go crazy. There's this thing that happens every once in a while where you start to go so crazy and your head is filled with all these lines and you've been doing them over and over and over and over and over again. And for whatever reason, the only thing you can do is laugh. Yeah. And we were filming SEAL team one night and we had this director who was tough. I'll just, I'll say that.

And we're sitting there and it's the middle of the night and we're doing the scene. We're loading on this bus to go out in an op and we're waiting in between setups and we're starting to get ready to roll and it's a scene with me,

AJ, Neil and David. And the four of us are getting around and we're coming up with a plan. And for whatever reason, AJ had his beanie on really low and he looked like, it was like Gordon Fisherman or something, you know?

And we all kind of looked at him as he started to talk in the scene. And all of a sudden, one of us sort of just started to just laugh, like this uncontrollable. It's like as if you were like a high school like kid stoned laugh, you know? Or in church and you're not supposed to laugh.

Dude, you just get like the giggles, like the bad giggles. And one of us started and then it set everybody off. And so then for about the next fucking 30, 45 minutes. Oh, man. Every time we would start to roll, one person would go, the next person would go. And I'm sitting there. I shit you not. And I'm biting my tongue inside my mouth.

I'm biting my lip. I can't look anybody in the eyes because I'm going to start laughing. Yeah. And it went on and on. on and on. And so that's a, that's a weird. Was it director pissed? Yeah, you could tell he really started to lose his shit. And I think, I think we felt, we all felt a little bad for the crew for having to deal with it. Yeah. Because, you know, these folks sit there and work their ass off and they want to go home. I don't think anyone's felt that bad for the director at that point because he was kind of

pissing everybody off anyways. Yeah. But, uh, man, that's, that's one of those things that happens. But yeah, like you said, you definitely have times where it's a really serious take and some sort of something goes wrong. Yeah. And it's hard. But I think there's also weirdly enough, there's also the times where that thing goes wrong. And then it pisses you off so much and you're so frustrated that then you deliver a performance on the next one that's even better. Yeah, tunnel vision focused. Yeah.

Like you have this, all of a sudden there's this new emotion that gives you. it's kind of poured into it that's different from what you were doing. And the director of somewhere was like, that was fucking great. Like that was even better. Yeah. And you're like, was it? And like, yeah. And then you watch it back and you're like, oh, shit.

Yeah, I guess whatever it was that just happened that sort of got into my head actually made me even more like there. Yeah. Well, what I'd probably find myself doing is watching it back. And like if everybody else kicked ass and then I didn't look that great because I made some weird face or whatever. be like, no, let's do that one again because I don't look great. Yeah.

That was a really bad take for me, guys. Yeah, yeah. But you only had one line. I know, which wasn't good. I need to go more. I need to flex more. I didn't flex enough. Well, you, that was fun for me because one time I was in L.A.

and you invited me to the set of SEAL team. Yeah. And that was cool. I mean, I don't know, watching you guys shoot that. And I think it was, I think the scene was on a plane. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was, I mean, I don't know. It's on AC-17.

You probably don't remember it, but I remember. No, we're packing gear. I know. I'm going to have to get you. Yeah, packing gear. That's right. I'm going to get you on a fire country now because I know, you know, that's the hard thing is like, you know, you never know what's going to ultimately make a cut. And obviously that scene got super truncated. I mean, pretty much, you know, we have a 50 page script, right? And we got 42 minutes air time. And it's basically a page a minute. And so inevitably, every episode stuff ends up. on the cutting room floor. Right. And it's usually anything that is filled with with time. It's anything that this is dramatic moments. It's the pauses. It's anything that, you know, isn't like super important information story-wise, you know,

or gaps between, you know, dramatic pauses between lines, like stuff like that will get cut in television a lot. And so I know. Yeah. we had that gear packing scene but now we're gonna have to get you like you know in an orange in an orange jumpsuit on the fire line or something that that'd be i mean i have a lot of respect not i think just growing up here but for the the the wildland firefighters of course but also the loggers all the timber industry that is such a hard way to make a living in the mountains and i you know

that's what i grew up in a small little logging town here out outside of town springfield but uh yeah i I mean, those guys worked their asses off. So I love that you're highlighting that. Yeah. Not the lifestyle, but like, I guess it is a lifestyle, but it's also a job. But it's serving an important need for our communities and for us. That's a big thing, you know, I think that we're doing on our show. And I think, you know, I think other shows too, like even, you know, Yellowstone, right?

like Yellowstone was like a real sort of phenomenon like blew up you know everybody thinks for a cowboy now of course yeah yeah everybody's got a cowboy hat and thinks there a button but uh aside from that i think it opened a lot of people's eyes to nature and to the outdoors and to the beauty of the mountains and you know this rural lifestyle of living um in small town america living you know something that obviously a lot of people in this country, as soon as you leave either coast experience almost every day. But a lot of people in the cities don't. And, you know, it's something that we sort of depict as well in fire country, you know, is what it's like to live in a small town. And because I think those of us who grew up in it, you know, maybe at first when you live and grow up in one of those towns, you're like, oh, I want to, I want to, you know, go out and see other things. Yeah.

But then you do and you realize how great it was. Yeah. And you come back and you're like, oh, there's a reason, you know, there's something about this place that is so special. And it's, you know, there's something that's really nice and wholesome about being able to walk down the street and wave at your neighbor because you know them. Mm-hmm. And being able to go into town and go to the grocery store and, you know, you know, you know,

the woman who works behind the cash register and the person behind the meat market and whatever it is. And, you know, that's a big part of this show is just showing, you know, having a lot of that rural scope and showing the woods and the outdoors, but also just that small town community and seeing again, people come together. Well, I mean, you mentioned it where you're living now. You talked about how, you know, high, or sports, football, basketball is so popular. And that's what that's the biggest thing I remember about being in a small town. I mean, I only had 24 kids in my graduating class or 28, something like that is very small.

But if you had a good football game on Friday night, the whole town was there. So you'd go to the grocery store to get a Mountain Dew the next day and you scored a touchdown and guys, you know, you see somebody there and like good game last night. That fucking feels good. Yeah. You know, and that's that small town community where, yeah, we're all watching the high school compete. And it's like, you don't get that. You know, we always wanted to go, hey, you want to go to town, go to the movies, go to pizza. And so going to town is like a big thing, right?

It's 20 miles into town. But then when I look back on it now, I'm like, thank God for that small town life. Totally. Because it's so pure. It's like we didn't have anything. What were we going to do? Let's go play catch with the football. That's what we did.

Or go to the swimming hole or, hey, you know, to make money. And, man, I'm so glad that, you know, I don't know, you said your town was a a thousand is pretty small too so i'm sure you had that same type of vibe totally yeah it's like i you know most of my friends who i'm still really close with i've you know i grew up with since kindergarten like i i have businesses now with buddies who i went to preschool with and yeah it's you know the town that we're we're in here you know and up in in washington now is also like that it's this uh hardworking, you know, farming community of folks who really come together for every event. And any win in the town, any win at the high school, it's not just the high school that wins

or those kids, it's the town that wins. Yeah. And everybody rallies behind that. Yeah. And for me, like people, you know, I think some people look at that as being small. Mm-hmm. But I kind of just see it as being wholesome and, you know, and having. like a lot of heart and just getting to see everybody celebrate that and the smile on people's faces

for me it's just positive it's good stuff you know it's like that good sort of uh it's that good like get get your kids out and let them play in the dirt you know i know like let them touch the trees and eat some shit off the ground and leaves and stuff you know it's you know the fabric of that small that holds that small town together is like i think the country could use a lot of that you know because you're more you're more tied to the land because you're out in it or you work in it you're more tied to the community as we talked about because of sports and because of the school and it's like that's what's you know i guess you can't change we'll never change big cities you can't make a big city small but what's important to that those small town communities and values

man that would help the whole country yeah we're lucky to have grown up in it it's an it's an important it's important that they that they maintain that and they hold on to that you know i think um like you said you know i think it's a blessing to be able to be able to experience that and obviously not everybody does. And so we're fortunate. But, you know, I think those values and that stuff is good. I think, you know, that's how I want to raise my boys. And, yeah. Yeah, I could have done without all the drinking that I did in a small town, but yeah, but we got past that. There's some shenanigans that come with it for sure. Yeah, I mean, when there's not much to do and you're old and everybody's like, hey, let's go to the rock pit, build a fire and drink

beer. I mean, it sounds pretty good, but it doesn't lead to anything. postage. That's right. I was, I had to weather that storm. I was curious. So I, I hate to keep bringing up the acting, but it's like I've, you know, I had one actor in, Joel Courtney, and he was in the, what was that movie? Oh, Jesus resurrection. And it was good. But if, so over your career, who's been the best actor that you've worked with that you feel like you've learned the most from? Who was like, because I know there's people who you watch, you watch like an athlete, say, run the hunt, like you say in Bolt. And it's like, just like, whoa, that's poetry motion.

Who's been an actor like in that regard? Hmm. I mean, you know, I've been, I've been, I've been super fortunate throughout my career to work with, um, with a lot of really, really talented people. Um, and so I, you know, I'm not taking anything away from any of. of them. Right. No. They're all great. They're all great. Somebody might be the greatest. Somebody might be the greatest. But I, you know, I think when I did, I think when I did Chloe, working with, with specifically with Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore. And I know Liam Neeson now,

you know, you see is more this, you know, the taken guy, the taken guy. But even he sort of takes the piss out of himself for that. Like I remember at that time, he was like, He is, but he was even saying he's like, you know, in his big, thick Irish accent, this big, giant, tall, dude's got legs like lily up to my shoulders. Really? But he was sort of like, you know, he's like, yeah, like, I'm not some action stars. That's not who I am, you know. But if you, if you watch that guy, like, you watch him in, um, um, um, uh, Schindler's List.

Yeah. Like, you watch him in Schindler's list in that performance that he gives, uh, you realize what that guy is capable of doing and how talented he is. And in that, in that experience of doing that movie, I got to see two phenomenal actors who sort of approach their craft so differently. Because for him, it's such a raw and natural thing that he just does, that just sort of bleeds out of him. And then there's Julianne Moore, who I think is an incredibly talented actress.

You know, he's done so much great work for so many years. And what I was amazed by her was, was her process, was very different. But I went into her trailer one day to go over lines for a scene. And she had every scene with, she had all these sticky notes all over her, her script. And they were all sort of like categorized by different colors. And they meant different things. And it was just how much work she put into the work. Like she really, really, really put in the work.

And then seeing how that translates to her characters was really incredible. And I think for me, what I realize is that everybody has their process. And, you know, I guess it doesn't really matter how you get to that end result as long as you get there. And it's finding your process and, you know, what works for you. but those two actors for me are our next level you know i think when i did bates motel vera farmiga i think is a incredibly underrated actress who's insanely talented you know she was great obviously like in you know people know her from up in the air or the departed um and again she's she's kind of i guess like more like how i approach it like like

from a natural sort of standpoint, but she's far better. And she makes it look so easy. Like she'll go into a scene and, you know, she's not a method actor. She's not like, I have to be this way.

Don't talk to me. She can be laughing, giggling, fun. And all of a sudden, the cameras start rolling. And you see her just turn. And it's like she all of a sudden

makes this instant switch to the character that she is. And in baseball, she played a really, really crazy. Cookey mom like that had so many layers and you watch her make that turn and I think that she's just I think she's a really special actress Hmm. Is there a difference between like because you weren't classically trained so to speak in acting is there a difference between classically trained Actors and people who came into it like you did later just kind of just fit the the you know you got that opportunity. It's like you knew go carts and it's like

that was your break. But then there's some people who have studied their whole life in theater. I mean, is there a difference between the two, do you think? Or all that matters is the end result? I think there is. I think there's a huge difference.

And I think both have, you know, have their setbacks and their positives. I think that, you know, for me, because I wasn't really trained, I approached everything from just a natural place. You know, and I feel like ultimately, when you watch a movie,

you don't want to feel like somebody's acting. You want to feel like this is a person. You know, this isn't a character. Right. Who they are. This is real. Well, I see that even people like look at you. You know, they saw a picture of you yesterday and say, oh, your legs back.

You know what I mean? They're so bought into your role. Was it Bodie? That was Clay. Or Clay, no, Clay lost his leg. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, whatever you're doing works because people are believing it. You know what I mean?

No, for sure. But that's taken years from me, I think, because, you know, I think what I've found is that, you know, for the people who aren't the train actors who kind of come at it from this natural place, you can bring so much of that. But then you need to then you need to figure out how to like find the nuance and act beyond it. Right. And so it's like, you know, that gets you so far. That's the basics. And then you got, yeah, and then you got to figure out ways to add things, you know, to your quiver, right? You got to have extra stuff to go to then and adds that nuance to your performance.

And I think that vice versa, I think that a lot of theater and trained actors come in already going to their bag of tricks. And so sometimes they lead with that. And you see it and you go, that's great, but you don't need to do that. You don't need to do that much. Just do the natural thing and then work that in. And so they're kind of like a backwards order. I see. It's how I usually see it, at least with folks who haven't been doing it a really, really long time.

I think that once you've been doing it 20, 30 years, you kind of, you stop realizing right away when you're acting with somebody like, oh, this person was trained or this person wasn't. Once they've been doing it long enough, it's harder to see those differences. Yeah, no, I understand. I mean, you reminded me something else. I can't remember the actor, but he was in gangs of New York. Daniel Day-Lewis. Yeah, and he was so, I remember reading that he was so in the role and, like, he couldn't turn it off. Like, he'd go to a restaurant and still be like the guy from the movie.

So you said Julianne Moore can just, you know, switch, but, or you said method acting. What's that? What does that mean? So it's pretty much like what you just said, you know, and Daniel DeLewis is kind of, he's sort of the king of it. You know, I have to say, you know, since you brought him up, I mean, I feel like I'd probably argue that guy is the greatest actor, I believe.

He's incredible. Yeah. When you see him in a character, he's, he is that character, and they're always so different. And the performance has so much nuance. and you know and it can be like the tiniest little thing it could be like a hand gesture that he might do you know but like just to think of that thing right and to me is like oh man it's next level yeah i can't i can't my brain doesn't even work that way you know like i'm trying to

just focus on the one thing um what was the one where he is in about oil did you see that one that was there will be blood there will be blood i mean yeah that wasn't he was incredible well dude yeah so he so basically what he does, you know, being a method actor is, I mean, the basic idea is you becoming that, that character. Okay. Is you're so invested in the character that you, you pull your own self out of it and you, you become that character throughout the process of filming until you're done and fully commit yourself. And you, you know, he goes as far as, you know, when he did the crucible, like, and he's a cobbler, he became a cobbler. And he learned to make shoes. And he built the house that he

lives in in the movie with his hands. And like he really and you know, he didn't get paid extra for doing that shit. Right. Like he does it because he's like, this is what I need to do. Give life to the role. Yeah, to become this person. And I think that, you know, he's, I mean, the dude basically gets nominated for an Oscar for every movie that he's ever done and usually wins. And then he has to like retire, I think, for like five years just to like try and get himself back, which I think can be hard on, you know, your family. If you're going to go home and all of a sudden you're the guy from there will be blood to your wife.

Like my wife would kick my ass. Yeah, it's not going to work out. Fuck you, buddy. You're sleeping on the couch. Yeah. But he, yeah, I mean, I don't know if you've seen, he did a movie called My Left Foot, which was fucking incredible. And I can't remember what he had, what his disability was.

But essentially, he, like, only had the use of his left foot. And he's, like, painting with his left foot. Wow. And he fucking does it in the movie. Like, you watch it, and you're like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. You're like, this dude is fucking talented and committed. Yeah, and it seems like, so the roles that we just talked about, very different.

I mean, because I see a lot of actors, they play a lot of similar roles. You know, like if you see Jason Statham, he's pretty much going to be the same guy. Yeah. Right. But Daniel Day Lewis, we've talked about a few different, I mean, crazy different roles. That's, that versatility is, must be tough. It is. And I think, you know.

Because you wanted to be natural. So like you, you fit the roles you've played very well. I mean, the most recent ones, the kids, I'm not sure about. but you want it to be like pretty close to who you are. Yeah. And that makes it easier, I would guess. Yeah, you want to find, you know, it's obviously easier when you have some things in common with the character. But then, you know, inevitably you want to try and make each one their own, like make each one different and unique from the next.

And I think, you know, something obviously that just happens in the industry is people see you, you know, in a role in a movie. and they go, we, you know, we love Max in this role. We love him as this character. So we're doing this movie. And we think he'd be perfect for it. Yeah, and you kind of get typecast. You know, and it's hard, it's hard to get the opportunity to prove that you can do something that's very different from what you're currently doing or what you've done.

And when you're given that opportunity, you got to give it everything you have and you've got to show people that you can do something totally different. Right. You know, like even. like Brad Pitt, right? Like I, for me, I love Brad Pitt's career. Like, he's had a awesome career. You know, I, like, I think his roles and the movies he's been in have been fucking cool.

Like, you look at, you know, even like Troy and Snatch and Fight Club and all these movies, Legends of the Fall, like, he's always the dude. He's always like the stud. Once upon a time in Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah. Still even old, still a stud. Yeah, and they're all pretty different.

But, you know, I think unlike Daniel Day Lewis, where you watch a movie and like Daniel Day Lewis isn't there anymore, you always sort of see Brad Pitt. Yeah. Like, he's always still sort of there, you know. I think, I think Johnny Depp also has had a tremendous career. I think he's, he really gets into a lot of his characters, you know, if you watch, you know, I mean, like Edward's his hands and, yeah. And, you know, they're always a little off the rails and kooky.

Pirates of the Caribbean. But they're great. Yeah. I think his greatest performance was Scream. Or was it Scream? Or no, Friday the 13th? Friday the 13th. Yeah.

I think, wasn't that Tanner? Was that it? I think it was. I think it was Friday. I think we were just watching it the other day. Maybe it wasn't. It was Taron that we were looking at. With Freddie Kruger?

I think so. I think so. the original Friday of 13. Yeah. But I worked with actually, I worked with, or no, Nightmare on Home Street. I thought, what is it? Or was it Friday of 13?

I don't know. It was one of those. But I remember seeing him young. I worked with, I was fortunate to work with West Craven, who was genius director who did Nightmare on Home Street. Right. And scream. And, you know, he wrote, came up with Nightmare on Home Street.

And I remember when I worked with him, you know, I've always seen his name. And his name even sounds creepy. Yeah, it does. Wes Craven. That's a badass name. Yeah. And so, you know, I remember going to meet him for the first time.

And I'm looking at him. I'm like, that's Wes Craven. And he joked. And he said to me, I was like, hi, Wes. He's like, oh, no, no, no. He's like, I'm not Wes. He's like, we keep him in the back. We don't let him out.

And I laughed in the alter ego. Yeah. And I quickly realized that Wes, he was, really just a very sweet, simple, kind, gentle, and incredibly, incredibly smart man, like that you'd see and you'd look at him, like, this guy could be my grandpa. He's just like a sweet, great dude. And, you know, he was kind of quirky and quiet. You know, every day on set, he would do the New York Times crossword in like, you know, seven seconds. Like, he's a genius. He was like, he was a professor at John Topkins.

Oh. So obviously smart. You know, he told me he came up with Nightbrown Elm Street. He had the idea for this character in the shower. And I was like, Wes, I'm like, I wouldn't want to take a shower after that. Like, if I couldn't bathe ever again, if those are the ideas you're having in the shower. And he read this article about a kid who was afraid to go to sleep because he thought he would die if he went to bed. and this kid freaked himself out so bad that he stayed up and he forced himself to stay awake

and he wouldn't go to sleep and he forced himself stay awake for like like a week or a couple weeks and then ultimately his parents went into his bedroom and found him dead and I think he was you know he had stressed his body out so bad or whatever um and west saw that and was like had this you know that was all he needed to give him this idea of like what happened if the guy in your dream comes and kills you and then you die like you know and now it's a franchise yeah now it's like one of the biggest you know horror genre freddie kruger icons of all time yeah but west graven was uh yeah he was a sadly he passed away at a uh of brain cancer a few years back and uh but he was just a lovely lovely human just great dude yeah so you had a cool name

yeah definitely how about have you ever met tarantino I have not meant Tarantino. He seems a little quirky. He seems quirky. And I like his movie. He's, yeah, he does some crazy, bizarre shit. There are usually a lot of blood. He loves blood.

But I do love, I mean, he's one of my favorite directors. I mean, I love all his movies that seem like. Dude, and they're intense. His movies are intense. Yeah. You know, like Django is like, man, like you feel uncomfortable the entire movie. and it's fucking intense. Oh, yeah, great movie.

I mean, but yeah, you're right. It is like, it makes you cringe sometimes when you're watching you because it's so, what they're doing and they're saying is so painful. Yeah. But yeah. But it's raw. It's what's good. It's storytelling.

Storytelling, man. It makes you feel. Yeah, definitely. You know, you're affected when the movie's over. And so I think like, you know, that's one of the important things. It's like you want to leave either, you want to leave being affected in some way, emotionally, you know, feeling warmer, happier, you know, laughing your ass off. Like you want to just, you want to come away with something, take something away.

Speaking of feeling, so who's been the biggest celebrity crush of your career? I would imagine being a young actor, like you had some actresses. You're like, oh, man, she's beautiful. Biggest celebrity crush. I feel like, unfortunately, it's usually just a left. down. I feel like it's hard because you put everybody on this pedestal. Yeah.

And then you have this idea of who they are. And, and you meet him and you're like, oh. Yeah. She looked better in the movie. Yeah. That's what everybody says about me, though, too. Biggest crush.

I don't know. You know, I started acting so early, but I also, my wife and I've been together, said we were 16, so I didn't, I didn't ever really have the crazy 16. Did you guys go to school together? We went to different high schools. Oh. She went to an all-girls school in town and we met on vacation in the Caribbean and happened to live like 30 minutes apart. Mm-hmm.

So we've been together for, that's random. 19 years. Whoa. Yeah. Wow. That's a long run. It's a long run. And so, you know, I didn't.

have a lot of dating time before then just due to my age. But, you know, I've, I've worked certainly. Yeah, name who have you worked with. I've worked with a lot of young actresses who people definitely see as being, you know, like those young, hot celebrity icons. You know, I worked with, I worked with, the first actress I worked with was Kristen Stewart. I worked with Kristen on Catch that Kid. And then I worked with Emma Robert. Um, I worked with, um, Olivia Cook, who's now, who is in, um, she was in the, the Spielberg video game movie and I can't remember what it's called right now. Ready Player one. Hmm. I haven't seen that one. She's in the new, uh, Game of Thrones as well, House of Dragon.

Um, she's lovely. Um, you know, Britney Snow was my sister in the Pacifier, um, sweet, beautiful girl, you know what else is she been in I can't remember that her name she was in pitch perfect oh yeah and uh

I actually liked that movie for some weird reason I know the first one I know the first one's pretty good yeah I think because it's it's unassuming you're not sure I love good singing you know what I mean so

yeah you're not sure and it has the right amount of comedy yeah um I worked with uh I work with Jennifer Lawrence um She's probably the biggest name actress that, you know, people look at as that starlet.

She seems a little like on the hand. It seems like her role in Silver Lightning's playbook was maybe too close to how she is. She's quirky. She's hot but crazy. She's from Kentucky. Yeah. You know, strong, opinionated, loud. but we had a lot of fun though she was honestly great to work with um just like a fun fun

personality and you know like again one of those people that can you know even though she's obviously incredibly talented she can separate characters from from real life on set so she can kind of you can be there on set and still have fun and be joking and have a great time and then she can kind of just turn it on. Yeah. She's a pro. She's a pro. Yeah. She, uh, probably one of the most natural, um, and the gifted, you know, naturally talented actors I've worked with. Hmm.

Um, just like raw sort of had the thing. Right. The it factor. Yeah. Yeah. She seems like it. Um, and I think too, like, you know, I think what people really responded to with her, especially in the beginning of her career was that she, you know, she, she didn't really filter herself. And she, and she, you know, you know, if you look back at like old interviews and really when she was starting, she was, she would say shit that, you know, other people might hold back in. But she was like, this is who I am. You know, what you see is what you get, which I think is great.

It's a really nice quality to have and it's nice. You know, I think people, it was refreshing for people to feel like, you know, what they saw was what they got. And I try and, you know, maintain that attitude is like, this is me. I'm not going to, you know, sugarcoat anything. I'm not going to bullshit you. Like, you know where we stand. You can or leave it. Yeah, I'm just like up front, honest.

And, you know, I'm a simple dude. And this is who I am. Okay, well, I'm going to pick then. I say Kristen Stewart out of them. Kristen Stewart? Yeah, she's got like that. I don't know. Eyes are a little different.

Pretty, yeah. Out of those that you mentioned. Yeah. Jennifer Lawrence is up there. because of course I'm a big Catnus fan. Yeah. But with the bow, got to. Well, yeah.

So I texted her actually, right when that movie came out and gave her a bunch of shit about how she was shooting the bow. Really? Yeah. In the beginning, I was just kind of, I was just pushing her a little bit. So we have an archery instructor. I'm like, I'm just the shit, you know? Yeah, I did a review of that movie for GQ.

Yeah. And it's like, I liked it just because she was a badass in the movie. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I think she had, I think she might have had a Hoyt bow and she had somebody who was coaching her on it. I know I read that. No, she did a good job. Yeah, yeah. So you said, but to your point, you said you're a simple guy. I want to, I want to touch on this that you love hunting. Small town. You're, I don't know, you know, how accepted it is in Hollywood, but you hunt a lot. Yeah. And what is it? Have you always hunted? Yeah, I grew up, you know, my dad, my dad didn't hunt, didn't fish. You know, my dad, it's interesting, my dad likes the outdoors. He likes being outside, but he's not an outdoorsman, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

He loves spending time. Birdwatching. Working outdoors. Like, he loves getting his hands dirty, working on a tractor, working in the vineyard. Oh, I got you. Yeah, that's fine. You know, he can do all that stuff. He, you know, is very handy.

But he's like, my dad has no patience for anything. And so to sit anywhere and wait for anything, forget it. And so fishing, hunting, you know, like playing golf, like any of those things slow, yeah, fucking outboard, gone. See ya, he's like a little, he's a little, he's like a hummingbird. Yeah. You know. He was active.

And so, you know, my mom is from, my mom was born in Iowa, raised in Minnesota. And so, you know, I grew up around it out there, all my cousins, my grandpa, you know, You know, out there in the Midwest, you know, opening weekend of deer season is a holiday. Yeah, yeah. Take off school. That's important. And for me as a kid, I just, I always loved being outside. And I was, I was obsessed with nature and wildlife and how everything worked.

And, you know, I had a neighbor right down the road from me, a Native American guy who was, I can't remember if he was like what tribe he was part of but he was he was half black and half Native American this guy George and he was he built his bows like out of scratch

you know hunted traditionally and you know had written some articles in the paper and stuff and he would hunt wild boar and turkeys mostly was he like a local legend back there because of all that yeah Yeah. And it was and he lived right. He lived a few houses down, which is, you know, on the country, it's like a, you know, half a mile down the road. Yeah. You know what I love about that is in the same type of situation where hunters back for us were revered and looked up to. If you were a good hunter, that's who people wanted to be. Yeah. You know, and that's what's great about an environment or a small town like that is like hunters are, you know, yeah, they're looked up to. And so it sounds like he was.

Totally. Yeah. It was because, you know, you. I looked at this guy and thought, man, like, he's, like, really connected to the land. This guy is really, he understands it all. Like, he's, he's taking everything in. He's looking around and really, really taking in the world. And, you know, being a kid who was super inquisitive, like, I would go down there and talk to him. And he had, he had all these, you know, he built all these different things out of feathers and had, like, headdresses and all this really cool. shit that I loved. And so then I would go down there and start making things with him.

You know, he bought me a drum and we drum together. He bought me a drum that was, I forget what kind of height it was that was stretched over. But we would drum together and I would paint skulls with him. And then that sort of, that sort of like sparked it, right? So then instead of being the kid that was collecting toys and stuff in my room, I would go out and find dead animals. whatever. Yeah. And I would, I would get the skull and the bones and bring him back. And so my room as, as an, you know, eight, nine year old kid was filled with like coyote skulls and bobcat schools and raccoon and deer antlers with feathers hanging off of them and like very sort of tribally, you know, just like, I don't know, you know, for most people they'd look at it and be like,

that's weird. Yeah. You know, why your son is obsessed with death. But it wasn't really that. It was just I was obsessed with these animals and understanding him. And, you know, and then I got older. You know, I got my first, my first shotgun when I was nine. Before that, you know, I had a BB gun I'd run around the yard with. And my mom, being from the Midwest, her rule was always like, if you kill it, you eat it. And that was what she always told me. And so I said, okay.

And, you know, so here I was running around our property. Shooting and stuff. shooting robins and blue jays and everything and you know i think she thought like well this will this will make him be responsible but we'll probably deter him from like killing the neighborhood population right but no like instead i'd kill him i'd bring him in breast them out really and cook and cook them right there like a robin oh yeah robins are actually great really yeah okay i've never so i'd be sitting there cooking like robins and she's like you know she's like well i told him if he you know you got to eat it so she's like you know she kind of had to had to had to

to eat her words there a little bit. I guess they're about the same size as a dove, aren't they? Yeah, about the same size. I know a lot of the Italians in the area I grew up in, they used to make them with polenta. It was like a thing. Really? That reminds me, I was like, I had, I remember we killed a pheasant when I was a kid,

maybe grade school, like maybe third grade. And I took the foot of the pheasant and I like had a long sleeve shirt or jacket. And then I had my hand pulled in and was holding. And I went to school with like the pheasant claw. basically. And so I get what you're saying. And then another time I brought, I found this big hornet's nest and it was in the winter and I brought it in my room. I'm like, oh, sweet. This hornet nest. It's like badass big fucking paper thing. And then it got warm in my room. And then the hornets kind of woke up. Oh, shit. Because they were just in there, I guess for the winter. I didn't know anything about this. And I had hornets all over my room because it got warm and they woke up. So yeah. I get that my room too like yours, the dead animals and different parts. And, But I think that's, you learn, you learn real quick about that connection to the land and what it means. Totally. The pluses and minuses of it.

Yeah. No, exactly. You know, and as I got, as I got older, I just, I learned more. And, you know, I got my honey license when I was 10. And again, my dad didn't go. I, you know, found people that would take me. Did that George take you? So I never actually got to hunt with George.

George, George passed away. Unfortunately, he got cancer and passed away. And I remember it was a pretty emotional thing. And I really looked up to this guy. And he had a teepee in his backyard. And I remember his wife lighting this fire in the teepee. And then everybody going over and putting wood on the fire. and continuously, you know,

the neighbors would come over and bring like a piece of wood to put on the fire. And I'm probably botching like the meaning behind it all, but I think it has to do with, you know, setting his spirit, you know, sort of free. But it was like a pretty intense and emotional thing because it was about keeping this fire going for a certain amount of time.

But just a great, just sweet, quiet guy and just a great dude. How old were you when he died? How was it my team? means. Yeah. And we had, we had always talked about it was going to take me wild boar hunting with a traditional bow. But, you know, I've been fortunate to have a lot of people like that who I've learned a lot from, you know, and not just about how to be, you know, a better hunter, a better fisherman, a better outdoorsman. But like, you know, from a, from a tactical level, you know, from, but from a, like a, a, like a respect. and emotional level as well, like how to just be, you know, a better sort of steward of the land

and how to find appreciation for all of it and, you know, and understand all of it. And to me, that's like one of the biggest things, you know, I think, you know, there's something about being in the outdoors and, you know, certainly in today's day and age where, like, you don't really know where your food's coming from. But like harvesting, you know, and I still, like, I'll raise animals too, like on my property. Like, I'll raise pigs and, you know, raise, you know, like a beef cow, you know, every once in while and stuff like that. And like I, I like the responsibility of harvesting my meat and, like, understanding where it comes

from. And I feel like I have a greater respect for what I'm, for what I'm putting in my body and I'm not disconnected from that thing. And I think it's hard for some people emotionally. Mm-hmm. But I think it's life and, you know, it comes from somewhere. Right. And, you know, and a big part of it for me, too, is, you know, hunting-wise is not necessarily, you know, obviously every hunter wants to be successful. Mm-hmm.

that's like, you know, the ultimate thing. But you quickly realize because it is hard and, you know, and it can be very, very challenging, you quickly realize that the experience is really, is really what makes it what it is. Yeah. It's the time, you know, with people, you know, who also have this same feeling and same appreciation and being in the outdoors and really being in wild and remote and rugged places and experiencing these things that you don't experience anywhere else. And man, it's, I said, it's hard to explain to somebody if they haven't done it.

Right. And when the thing that I love, and I'm sure that you've done it plenty of times is when you take someone for the first time and you see them, like, and you see their mind and just kind of like explode. Yeah. And you see that realization of them going like, fuck, this is not only way harder than I imagined,

but just being out here is kind of incredible. Yeah. And this experience is something that I didn't imagine it was going to be like, you know, and I even like, it's funny. Like even duck hunting, you know,

is one of those things where I feel like when you explain it to somebody's like, so you just go and you walk out of a pond and you sit there in the water and then you shoot ducks when they come in. I'm like, in simple form, yes. But when you do it, it, it's a totally different sort of outdoor wild experience than you can actually describe to

somebody. Like when you go and you walk out there in the dark and you hear the wings of all these migratory, you know, waterfowl flying over, you know, and you hear the different calls they're making. Yeah. And you sit there and you watch, you know, the sun come up over the Sutter Buttes and the sun rising and you see the fog, you know, on the water, the tully fog lifting. And all of a sudden the marsh comes to life. Right. It's like that to me is what makes it so magical.

Like I could sit there and not pull the trigger all day. And, you know, and at 10.30, my wife's texting me like, the ducks, I know the ducks aren't flying anymore. Yeah. When are you coming back in. Right. But there's something really peaceful and just, I don't know, that I love about being out there. And so it's really the combination of all those things that I love about, you know,

being someone who eats meat. And then, you know, of every form, you know. And, you know, and I also like will forage. Like I'll go, you know, go mushroom hunting and do all. Like I love to, you know, for me, sort of the ultimate is if you can make like, you know, you put together like a surf and turf. Yeah. With, you know, wild mushrooms and shit off the land.

That's the greatest. You know, you make this meal. that's like you've gathered that we've been doing as you know as humans for like hundreds of thousands of years yeah that's like the ultimate right exactly I think people who don't know they it's very simplified is the the version is simplified you go out you see a deer you shoot it you got you know hiding a blind and shoot a duck it's like yeah I mean I guess the basics are there but you're missing so much so there's so many layers to it there's so much to learn there's so much to be part

of to appreciate. You know, it's like, that's what it is. It's appreciating all life, what's going on. And I think that's a big reason why hunters respect life so much more than maybe an anti-hunter would who's never killed because we know what's at stake. As a hunter, we know what's at stake. We're killing something and that means something. Or even if we're not killing something, we're seeing life, you know, in its greatest form

out there living. And, you know, unless you're in it, how would you know? But, yeah, I mean, you wish you could spend the day a day out there with everyone. Yeah. You know, because then they would, it's almost like you're pulling the curtain back and saying, here's what's going on. Look how amazing it is. Yeah, experience it.

That's the best part of being a hunter. I mean, people see the trophies and the heads and all that. And all that is is that's just to honor the memories and the animals that, you know, I've killed. So they made a sacrifice. And, you know, it's just to. to honor them but uh people see they probably don't understand all that because they are hunters but but with us being hunters and you being so passionate about it i mean yesterday we spent a lot of

time talking about hunting as we were doing our lift front shoe but you're showing me videos of these bucks you have coming in to your uh clover and yeah i mean that's just you can tell that's what you love you know or one of the things you love yeah i mean i'm sure you love many things but But hunting is such a, it's who we are. Yeah. You know, it's all man has that connection somewhere, but we're just still doing it. And it's like, totally.

Yeah, a lot of people have just kind of disconnected and become further from it. Yeah. You know, and I think also like, I'm super thankful for you and, you know, a lot of other folks as well in this, you know, and the hunting outdoor community who have been able to,

to try and help bridge that gap and have people understand. And I think, you know, I think we're at a time now too where people are starting to question more what they put in their body from a health standpoint. And, you know, and the protein and, you know, the stuff, you know, not having hormones in it and all these things, right? And I think one, it's like from a green standpoint, like there's nothing more green and, you know, pure. Pure than wild meat.

Yeah. And, you know, certainly through bow hunting, I think people are starting to have more of an appreciation for it and understanding and acceptance. And it really is because of people like you, opening their eyes and trying to show them, you know, what it really is. Yeah.

You know, and people are really, you know, become more about sustainability and, you know, living off the land and there's, there's, you know, things are trending that way. And so I think people are starting to open their eyes to, to, to, to bow hunting. And, you know, my hope is that more people will, will learn about it. And, you know, I mean, like anything, not everything is for everyone. They might not do it, but do they understand it? I mean, It's no different than you said, you know, the work that you're doing, you know, you mentioned me with bow hunting and other others also, but it's no different than the work you're doing on your TV shows to humanize the military, to humanize the firefighters. So we're humanizing hunters. And not all hunters are just drunk rednecks out there driving around shooting shit out of the truck.

You know, there's some people who this is their, they dedicate their lives to be in the very best that can be it. To me, it's bow hunting. And so, yeah, you tell that story. you humanize it, you explain it a little more. You know, as I said, pull back the curtains and people are like, okay, I think I get it a little more. I think I understand what you're saying. I'm not going to do it, but I understand. And so that's what we're doing with discussions like this.

And you sharing, you know, being, you know, part of Hollywood and you share your passion for the hunt, that helps bridge eye gap also. Yeah. And, you know, we're not expecting everybody to go out there and kill a deer. Yeah. But just understand why we do it and the benefits to it and how it. and how it affects, you know, the conservation of habitat and all the other animals that share that habitat.

And it's, you know, once you look at it like that, you're like, okay, I can, I understand now. I can deal with that. Yeah. Exactly. And I think, you know, I think it's like with anything, right? People want to find, like, and there's going to be, there's, there's, there's, you have bad seeds and everything, right?

There's going to be like, you look at any, anything. And there's going to be negative people associated or, things that maybe are done the wrong way, whatever. And that's across anything. I don't care what it is. Definitely. But I think it's like again, it's like going back to, you know, but I think instead of focusing on that, like maybe look at the positive side

and look at the positive things that people are doing. And, you know, going back to what I tell Bo, it's like focus on the stuff that's maybe helpful, not hurtful. Exactly. And you'll see things a little differently. I mean, if you want to, if you want to, want to look at things negatively your whole life, you're only going to see things negative. Yeah. And you're not going to have a very fulfilling life. No. And it's hard to, it's just like,

you know, you got to have an open mind. And I think that's, uh, you know, I'm sure we're all guilty of it at some point. But, you know, being close minded to things. But it's, uh, it's important to always remind yourself to, you know, try and open mind and understand things better and, you know, find ways to be helpful. But, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's, uh, It's a pretty amazing experience once you understand it and you do it. Yeah, I agree. Well, how I always end the podcast, because what I'd say is I come and I like to have discussions with outliers.

I feel like I'm the average guy who somehow have access to stars like you. And so speaking for average people, I'm like, okay, this is outliers. Here's their story. Here's how I can help tell that story to people just like me. Well, how I end it is giving a brand new bow to my guest of the week and outlier, and that's you. Oh, man. This week. Dude.

Here's your, here's the bow that you set the record with yesterday. How about that? Thank you, brother. So you're taking that home. Dude, I'm so appreciative. I seriously cannot wait to get out there and fling some more arrows with this thing, but also just. You shot it so well. yesterday. Just to have respect for what this thing means and, you know, what it's capable of. And,

you know, it's a, it's a lot of fun, but, you know, there's a lot of responsibility. And I don't know. I mean, obviously, I can't ask to have a greater bow hunting and just, you know, all out legend of folks who use and understand these things than you to give me one. So I'm, I will, I will cherish this. and man, I can't wait, can't wait to teach my boys how to shoot a bow and get them into it. Well, I have all the faith in the world. They're going to be great hunters just like you. And that bow is, that's a great bow, the old Ventim Pro. I like those long axle-to-axil bows.

That's 33 inches there. But yesterday, 143 yards, you were freaking dialed in. And it was awesome to watch. I mean, I'm so thankful, Max, that you came again. You did the lift run shoot with me. You shot the bow so well. I really appreciate just what you stand for and who you are and the fact that we've become friends.

So thank you for coming. No, thank you, man. I really appreciate you having me. And honestly, just the whole experience, you are a, you're a badass, dude. You're a beast. I mean, every more than I expected, honestly. I'm humbled.

And I'm going to go out, have to. go home and get my ass running a bit more. But I can't wait to come back and do it again and shoot some more arrows and hopefully Souter and later hit the mountain together. Yeah. You know, and spend some time out there in the great outdoors. Wow, you did great. Thank you again. And thanks for listening to all the people tuning in. And thanks for your time. Max, drive safe, head and home. Keep hammering. Thanks, brother. All right. I have teamed up with Mountain Ops and Black Rifle Coffee. For the best hunt giveaway I have ever seen. One premium milk tag, one premium deer tag, and one lucky person. Yes, one lucky person gets both those tags. This hunt is with wild country outfitters in a unit.

I hunt year after year in Utah. It is not only some of the best elk hunting in the state, but hunters take giant deer there year after year as well. How can one win this hunt, you may ask? It's as simple as going to mountainops.com slash hunt. If you make a purchase of on the website, make sure you use code CAM for 20% off and free shipping. Keep hammering and may the odds be in your favor. It's time to gear up for summer at Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's. Time for trips to the lake, stories around the campfire, and memories with friends and family. Shop Bass Pro Shops and Cabellas for everything you need to enjoy your summer. Save on top brands like Asin Clothing and Camping Gear and Johnny Morris Rods and Reels.

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