Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 287: Mark Duplass

Episode Date: May 18, 2018

The great, director, actor, writer, screenwriter, and filmmaker MARK DUPLASS joins the DTFH and we talk about authenticity, filmmaking, collaboration and getting out there and making stuff happen. Mark Duplas is an American film director, film producer, actor, musician, and screenwriter. He is a co-star of the FXtelevision series The League. He is the brother of director, writer, and actor Jay Duplass. Together, the brothers started the film production company Duplass Brothers Productions, and have directed films such as The Puffy Chair (2005), Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011), and The Do-Deca-Pentathlon(2012). Mark and Jay co-created the HBO television series Togetherness in 2015. He has also acted in CREEP and CREEP 2.

Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. This episode of the DDFH is brought to you by Squarespace.com. Head to Squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code Duncan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Hello pals, it's me Duncan and you are listening to the Duncan Trestle Family Hour podcast.

The eviscerating scepter of truth cutting through the virulent fungal neck of Satan. I'm playing the sound bed that you're hearing right now in the hopes that it'll trigger something poignant. I really want to say something poignant today. Something that really resonates with your soul frequency. Your soul, the frequency of your soul is the frequency of love. Just look at a flower, just look at a beach, sea, stars. You're great, wonder, fantastic, fabulous, hope.

True, yes, you can do it and because of that, everything's freedom. And when we light the inner hearth of our deepest truth, the puppies of the world will run up to us and it will rain scented pacifiers because a pacifier is also a butt plug. You know? Director, actor and all around genius slash savant author Mark DuPlas is with us here today. We're going to jump right into this episode. But first, some quick business.

This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Squarespace.com. It's time for you to heal the scabrous, oozing, blistered shanks of the internet by creating something beautiful. A website in Squarespace gives you all the tools you need to blog or publish your content to sell those beautiful handmade wallets or crystals that you've been harvesting or creating to, I know someone who sells their socks online. Imagine that you can sell your socks online these days, friends. But to do that, you're going to need a great website.

You don't want some, if you're a sock vendor, you don't want some hideous website. You don't want something that looks like it was thrown together by somebody with a gun to their head using a Commodore 64 in the basement of some government building. You want something beautiful. And Squarespace gives you everything you need to do that. They've got beautiful templates created by world-class designers. Powerful e-commerce functionality lets you sell anything online. You can customize the look and feel and settings of the website to dial it in to just what you want it to look like.

And everything is optimized for mobile right out of the box. You don't have to worry about any of the stuff we used to have to worry about in the old days when we wanted to build a website. It's all there for you. I recently revisited Squarespace to make a website for no reason other than to see if I could still do it. And it's even gotten easier. Plus, they've got 24-7 award-winning customer support, so if you do have questions, they can help. We all know the singularity is coming.

We can feel it on our bones. And we know that the moment that singularity happens, swarms of nanobots are going to fly all around the planet and go into people's homes. And if those people have shitty websites, they are going to be disassembled at the atomic level. And that's going to be embarrassing for you. Who wants to be transformed into a cloud of pink mist in front of their children just because they didn't have an updated website? Certainly not me. Squarespace can not only help you create a beautiful website, help you start a business, help you create a wonderful blog.

It can also keep you from being destroyed in front of your friends and family after the singularity. Head over to squarespace.com. Ford slash Duncan. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code Duncan. And you will receive 10% off of your first purchase of a website or a domain. That's squarespace.com. Ford slash Duncan. Use offer code Duncan to save 10% off your first purchase or a website or a domain.

Just think of the beauty of surviving after the singularity. You're going to be congratulated by androids and little shape-shifting metallic cubes of oozing liquid metal because you, pre-singularity, had the courage and the foresight to make a beautiful website because you revised your website because you healed the flesh of the internet. Heal the flesh of the internet with beautiful websites. Go to squarespace.com and sign up today. My eternal gratitude to my Patreon patrons. If you're interested in diving deeper into the sweet briny waters of the DTFH, head over to patreon.com.

Ford slash DTFH and subscribe. You will have instant access to episodes that I haven't released yet, opening, rambling things. If for some reason you want to listen to my raspy lesbian voice prattle on and on for an hour or more, then you can get that by subscribing over at patreon.com. Ford slash DTFH. Also, we have created a beautiful Discord server, which is essentially a chat room slash forum for people who listen to the podcast. Lots of folks are hanging out over there and we have now 1,045 Patreon subscribers, which is mind-blowing to me. Thank you.

You are my patrons. You are my masters. You can push my face down into the toilet with your freshly polished leather boot because you own me now. I'm yours. I'm your gemp. Take me out of the closet when you're ready. Put me into the coffin when you want me there. I am your eternal servant and you, you are my patron.

Much thanks to those of you who continue to use our Amazon link. You can find this on any episode. Just click on that link anytime you feel like picking up something that we talk about on the show. For example, the Diplos Brothers new book, which just came out. We also have t-shirts, posters and stickers located at dunkatrustle.com. Okay, enough of this. Remember, if you don't want to listen to all this crap, just sign up over at Patreon. We put the, every time I do an interview, I upload it immediately to Patreon.

There's already a few episodes sitting there that I have yet to release. Just waiting for you at patreon.com forward slash DTFH. Okay, enough of this shilling. Today's guest is an actor, producer, director, writer and dad who has had some part in creating some of my favorite films, including The Puffy Chair and Creep and Creep 2. He and his brother are creative juggernauts who recently produced the hit series Wild, Wild Country on Netflix and Evil Genius. You should check out the book. He just wrote with his brother, Like Brothers, which is an exploration of their lifetime of collaboration.

A memoir detailing their rise from living in Austin to becoming two of the most famous indie directors, producers, creators living today. So please, everyone, open your astral arms and reach out to whatever part of the time space continuum that today's guest is currently residing and send those sweet interdimensional galactic love butterflies blasting out of your pineal gland to swirl around our esteemed guest. Welcome to the Duncan Trestle Family Hour podcast, Mark DuPlace. Mark, welcome to the DTFH. Thank you so much for coming out here. Thank you, sir. Only because, you know, how often you get to sit with one of the great filmmakers. No, stop.

It's true. Stop it. I gotta dive right in. All right. What do you think authenticity is? Oh, man, that's a really great question. I was watching the Avid Brothers documentary last night. And I was, have you seen it?

No. It's pretty interesting. And I had this feeling while I was watching them where I was like, I like to think and posit that I am a truthful and authentic person. But as I was watching them do it, I was like, oh, they just are it. And they don't even know that they're doing it. And who are the Avid Brothers? They're musicians and they're from a small town in North Carolina and just turn on the documentary. It's on HBO and just watch it and you'll see how it sort of just cascades out of them effortlessly.

Right. My attempt to like achieve authenticity as a person or as an artist in my art is very, it doesn't come naturally to me. I have to like reach for it and get myself in the zone and like strive for it. But that's what makes it special to me, I think. So, but isn't that sort of reaching and striving for it its own authenticity? Maybe. I would like to think so. That sounds good.

Yeah, it has to be. I'll sleep better with that. It has to be, right? This is the concept that if you ever heard this idea, the result is the way. Yes. Right. And that's kind of, so it's kind of like even that stumbling, fumbling fuck. I want to be authentic, but I'm not.

Yeah. It came from like this thing that happens in documentaries, which is like my favorite thing. I think maybe in any art form, which is we've been trained to as storytellers to lead our audiences toward a climax and deliver it to them in this very satisfying way. What happens in documentaries is the climax of most documentaries can't be planned. So it usually happens either out of focus with a cameraman swinging it around trying to find it poorly lit in the corner of a terrible wide shot. Right. Or it happens in a black and white title card because they weren't filming at the time it happened. Oh, wow.

That sort of accidental discovery of what your climax moment is, is I just love it. I just, it feels so genuine and real and how my life works. Like my most seminal conversations don't happen at happy hour or magic hour on a cliffside. They happen by a dumpster behind Taco Bell. Yes. Normally that's how it occurs. Right. So that thing is what I'm always looking for.

That's like the pinnacle of authenticity for me is that sort of cast off accidental climax thing. When I was watching the puffy chair, I kept thinking to myself how a lot of people maybe are going to see that and it will fly right by them. They won't understand what you were grabbing there. But I kept wondering how are you creating this thing that is so real that it becomes a kind of form of psychedelic. You're watching this thing that seems so intimate that you feel like you're tripping. And then I got the same feeling from watching that that I got the first time I listened to Daniel Johnston, which is like, my God, there's something so almost dark in it. You know, just thick and dark like a saw blade or something.

How did you, how did you grab that? Well, I wasn't thinking about it in that regard. It was a different time. You know, I was 27 and my brother was 30 and we were trying desperately to reach something true as an artist. Honestly, something that was just, that didn't suck was what we were going for. And so what that led us to was to go inside. And so that was a very deeply personal story we were telling at the time. And then I think there was something about the process of making that movie with only five people that made it feel very much, I don't know, very close to real life, I guess.

And the way we shot it, which was just with one camera and all natural lighting and Jay never knew what was going to happen because we didn't block the scenes and we would improvise them. So he as the cameraman is kind of like the audience just discovering it for the first time. Yeah, he's late to a lot of things. And I think that I realized that I think that had an effect on how you watch it as an audience. It shows more like how documentaries are shot. In narrative films, you're always early and you're ready for the moment. Right. And in documentaries, you're always a step behind.

And the Puffy chair, the camera is always a step behind because he just didn't know what was going to happen. Wow. And I think that's kind of the language of something that's real. And so I think subliminally you start to think, is this the documentary? Does that feel like that? Because that's the language of it, basically. Got it. Okay, cool.

Great. Is it a tragedy? It kind of turned out to be one, I think. We didn't know exactly how it was going to end. And there were times we thought it might end differently. And the way that it ended was a spontaneous moment that one of our actors just took right into their hands and said, I'm going to do this. That was exciting. But some people don't take it that way, too.

So I don't really have an ethos or like, this is what the Puffy chair is about. Get it. Yeah. It was just kind of us presenting something that we felt like we could make at the time. We felt very limited as to the kinds of stories we thought we could tell with any impact or credibility. That one felt like, we know this world. We know what it's like to be in a relationship and feel like, I either need to break this off or like commit to it because I'm not getting any younger. Right.

And that was like an epidemic amongst our friends at the times. So that felt of the moment in us. So I felt like we know how to tell this story. But as to how that movie is received, it's so wildly disparate. Even at Sundance, when it premiered at night in a packed screening, it played like dumb and dumber. We're just laughing all over the place. It's funny. And then it played at 8 a.m. the next morning and it played like fucking Sophie's choice.

Like everybody was just like, this is not funny at all. And they were crying and all upset. Well, they're wrong. It's fucking hilarious. That is a really, really, I mean, I don't see how you could not see it as a comedic film. Without giving the ending away, it just ends to me. And the most, it was so sad. It was, this is sad.

The ending is just, and then the way you guys cut to the credits right there, it's unexpected and it's over. And that's it. And that was the chance. And it's, holy shit, man. Just really knocked my socks off. Thanks, man. So, hey, I want to say congratulations on your big Netflix deal. Thanks, man.

Four picture deal with Netflix. So we're going to get to see four new... At least. At least. We make a minimum of four, but we usually end up making more. When I saw it, but in the beginning of a Puffy chair, it's produced by Netflix? So we made that movie on our own for like, I think it was like $10,000 by the time it was done. And then we sold it to Netflix, which was called, at the time, Red Envelope.

And they had, we were like one of the first movies they ever bought as an original. And they were like, we're going to start streaming movies on our, on our website. And we're like, nobody's going to have the internet to get that, but whatever, fine. And they were like, but you know, we'll, we'll see. And we'll pay you like a dollar every time somebody rents it. Wow. And we were like, sure, but that'll never turn into anything. Wow.

And we were like, whoa, everybody's watching it. Yeah. And they advertise this on side of the little envelope inside of the Netflix envelope. Wow. Remember from the DVD Mailer program. And I mean, they were seminal in creating awareness for the Puffy chair. Like that was huge when it went out. And they were like, for better or for worse.

They're like, if you liked Garden State last year, check this movie out. And all those people came to see it and they liked it. Wow. And they kind of, I mean, there's like two seminal entities in our filmmaking career. Sundance picked our first $3 short film in 2003. And Netflix bought the Puffy chair in 2005. And those, we are nothing, nowhere ever at all without those people. Yeah.

It's badass. They're badass, man. And you got in so early with them. We did. Do you guys know what, do you have any idea what you're going to make for them? Did you have to pitch this to them or did they come to you? So two years ago, we signed our first four year four picture deal with them. And that was just for the streaming rights.

And we partnered with another company called the orchard who does like the theatricals and stuff. And, um, and that's where we did movies like creep and blue J. Um, and now this is our second one, which are all just Netflix originals and they'll just premiere on the site and they'll live there. And you know, the way it kind of works is I've known Ted Sarandos for like 13 years who runs that company. And he is very specifically like chasing something that I don't understand a global

empire of, of massive movies that entertain tons and tons of people. And, and he also needs lots of other small movies for his channel that are well reviewed and good. Right. And for lack of a better word, maybe like cooler than some of like the other movies that they make. Right. And so he just kind of looks at us and it's just like, can you make me four movies that

are good? And that kind of feel like you, you do and, and we say yes, and we say, here's the, here's the, the price you might pay for it at Sundance if it doesn't blow up. And here's the price you might pay for it if it really blew up. So just pay us the average in the middle. So we don't have to go through the bidding war and all that bullshit and let's just get married and, and you go chase your big movies, which you have to do and you trust me and I'll curate this little like mini label basically stuff.

And we do the same thing at HBO with our TV shows. We have a deal with them to do TV and, and they need to go find the next Game of Thrones, which is great. I totally get it. And they're not, they don't have enough people to like curate room 104. So I just say like, just give me a little bit of money and let me go do that. What time do you wake up in the morning? I have kids.

Yeah. So I'm usually up at like 615, 630 with them. What time do you go to bed? I get in bed, I mean, this sounds shocking to say it out loud, but I'm in bed probably around 830. Right. And like we put the kids down and sometimes I fall asleep with them and then I read with my oldest daughter and she goes to bed and then Katie and I get in bed and then I'm either

reading a book or occasionally like doing a little extra work like emails or watching a cut of room 104 to get back to the editors. And then by 10 o'clock, shut that shit down because I'm like an eight hours or more. Do you sleep okay? Oh, I sleep great. But that's like a DNA thing, I think like there's a divide in my family is my mother and my brother whose stomachs generally bother them who if they take medication, it knocks them out.

Okay. Can't really sleep that well at night. And then there's me and my dad who like can eat a rotten carcass, can take 25 Advil and even if we've had seven cups of coffee, 15 seconds after hitting a pillow, we're done. But that doesn't mean I'm not an anxious and depressed person. I have all of those feelings. Okay. I just have the sleeping gene.

I don't know what it is. God, what a blessing. It is seminal to who I am. I would not be able to do what I do without it. Just imagine having a four picture deal with Netflix, producing shows for HBO, having kids. And then on top of that, I don't know if you experienced this, but the pressure of like, you got to make good stuff, man. Like you have to make really good stuff because you've set the bar.

I don't feel that pressure. You don't feel that. I don't know why I don't feel a pressure. And I intellectually identify with what you're saying. But I feel like I have, I don't know how to describe this. I have a creative process system that's been building since I was like 15 years old, which is predicated on the theory that I don't know best. I'm an inspired person who comes up with a lot of ideas and I can get them out and I

can get them going and I can get them to anywhere from 60 to 80% of their potential. And then I run them completely out of steam and then I hand the baton off to someone that I know and trust. And that is at times Jay. Now we have a company of like eight people and a lot of those people can do it. Sometimes it's as simple as me taking a rough cut of that project and putting it in our office screening room for 30 people that are smart to come in and watch and tell me what's wrong with it.

I mean the Puffy Chair was a great example. We shot that movie. We screened it for people and then everybody loved it but the first act was totally flawed so we scrapped the first 15 minutes of the movie, rewrote it, re-shot it, put it back in all with our friends' guidance and help and that made the movie and we never would have seen that on our own. So this whole like auteur, dude you got to do this, pressures on you to make it great. I don't ride that way.

I'm a rocket ship full of raw ideas and I don't have precision in me. So I go to other people and I'm just like, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming and then just when I'm dying I hand off the baton and then they walk it in with me. How lucky you've got a team like that around you. It's great but I would say you probably do too. If you sat down for 20 minutes and you were like, who are the smartest people I know who can come in and I trust to be straight with me and have good taste, you know, that's what you need.

That's my formula. It's just like be your own fireworks and then have like 20 firemen around you to come in and figure out how to do it. Wow. Love it. That's a fantastic advice. I want to talk about, I want to jump back to pre-puffy chair. You were in the puffy chair.

What's the protagonist's name for you? Josh. Josh has made this like really sad move from musician to bookie. I've seen it happen so many times and I thought about making that move too. Okay. Yeah. You've been playing music at that time. I was in a band when I made the puffy chair.

This is a volcano. I'm still excited. I was still in that band. Yeah. Great music. Really great music, man. Thanks, man. You were currently making music for that band.

Did you have money at the time? Were you doing okay financially? I had this weird thing going where Jay and I were one of the first guys to have our own editing system in our early 20s when it was expensive. I could always make money as a freelance editor. Avid? Avid, exactly. I could go out and I could make 25 bucks an hour, 30 bucks an hour doing that.

How'd you get it? When we bought our first Avid, I was 19 and Jay was 23 and we sold our cars and bought cheaper cars and used that money to buy the Avid and started an editing business in Austin. How old were you? 19. This is abnormal. Yeah. We were...

It's hard to explain the level of desperation and drive that Jay and I have and have had our entire lives. I cannot tell you where it comes from because our parents are pretty incredible, like supportive. The message in our house was, you're amazing. You can do anything. Don't get a job during high school. Your job is to get good grades. We'll pay for it.

We went to the University of Texas, which was like a public institution. We got in-state tuition. Our parents paid for the rest of it. We never had debt or any of that stuff. Their whole message to us was, if you want to go be filmmakers and artists, that's fine, but it's okay if you don't make it. You can go to graduate school and we'll pay for that too. What the fuck?

I can't look to anyone and be like, man, I had the worst fucking dad, and so I needed to become a success. It was just, I mean, it makes me feel like reincarnation and old souls and all of that stuff have to exist because I just came out punching. You know? Holy shit. I mean, then I guess I just have to get the Bhagavad Gita and read the verse I was just reading today.

It's open on my table. I'll be right back. Okay. I really love this verse in the Bhagavad Gita because it's like the question that Arjun is asking Krishna here is, what happens if you start practicing some spiritual discipline and then just get distracted? You're like, fuck that. I'm not into it anymore.

Whatever. And so, oh mighty armed Krishna does not such a man who's bewildered from the path of transcendence fall away from both spiritual and material success and perish like a ribbon cloud with no position in any sphere. And the answer is the unsuccessful yogi after many, many years of enjoyment on the planets of the pious living entity in it. The next incarnation will begin to make incredible mumblecore films. It's in the Bhagavad Gita files right there.

Can you believe that? Man, this, it blows my mind. I was thinking like, whoa, I should read this to you. No, it says the unsuccessful yogi after many, many years of enjoyment on the planets of the pious living entities is born into a family of righteous people or into a family of rich aristocracy. Or he takes birth in a family of transcendentalists who are surely great in wisdom. Certainly such a birth is rare in this world.

Am I the chosen one? Yes. Is that what's happening? I mean, it seems like it. It's like, and I've heard, you know, I, when I was in India once and I was talking to this anthropologist who was studying reincarnated, like reincarnated llamas, you know, the, not the animal, the being, the person, and he was saying he'd hung out with like a 15 year old who was like hanging out with a 40 year old.

So that idea popping into your head, it's that feel, it feels that way to me based upon nothing. And I'm not a particularly religious or spiritual person, quite honestly, you know, um, but it, that's the, that's the answer that comes into my head is just like, Oh, I, something happened to me that just put me in this body and just put it on drive and stuck it there. It did. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense.

It's your, your 15th, you were, you're born in Louisiana, somehow no accent. Yeah. Why? That's, where's the accident? I don't know. You're born, you're born with, you didn't pick up that beautiful, it is a beautiful accent. I love it, but I don't have it.

Yeah. You don't have it. And then you're going to Catholic school and probably maybe, I don't know what that was like, but I've never, never heard that's a very pleasant experience. It was fine. I mean, it wasn't anything that like the, the good part about the Catholic school for me was it provided this nice little thing for me to gently fight against to become myself. You know, you got to keep your hair cut short.

Oh, I want to grow my hair long and get wild. Yeah. You got to, oh, we got to have a calculus AP test tomorrow. Yeah. But while that, well, I should be studying for that, I want to go write this song. Right. And that was really nice actually to have that, a little gentle enemy. How, wait, you started making music in Catholic school?

I started making music. I mean, Jay and I started pretty young. I think we got the drum kit when I was 10 and Jay was like 13 or 14. And we had to beg our parents to give us that and they did and, and just fell in love with that. And then I started playing guitar and put together some cover bands when I was like 13. And, and music was my primary passion for a really, really long time. And I still do miss some elements of, of what it was.

But I think by the time I got into my mid twenties with volcano, I'm still excited and, and we were traveling around a lot. Sometimes, you know, I think one year on the road, like 150 days or something and, and I, I'm kind of a, a little bit of a homebody actually. Like I really like being home with my kids and, and being home with my wife and, and I missed Jay. I was out on the road. He wasn't in the band with us.

And, and right around that time was when we made the puffy chair. And I, I kind of realized like my lifestyle was going to be a little more suited towards making movies. Right. And then I discovered something that I totally lucked into that I did not diagnose, which is how much easier it is to be creatively sustainable as a filmmaker, as opposed to a musician in a band. Right.

Because every project you do, signed, sealed, closed as a movie, put it away and then go and recreate something new, different based on who you are in that moment. When you make a volcano, I'm still excited record. You have to show up a year later, make another record with those same people with basically those same instruments, because they kind of want to hear the same sound. Plus, you have to passionately sing all the songs you wrote when you were a different person two years ago and try to be that for the audience. And you're just not that person anymore.

Yeah. I mean, the idea that I might have to take the puffy chair out and perform it now as who I am now, I can't do it. It's not truthful. And I, I don't know how people do that. I do not know how you can sustain singing the same songs 30, 40 years. Gotcha. Because is Blue Jay the most recent film for you?

Blue Jay was pretty recent, but honestly, my connection to Blue Jay, that's probably the movie or the piece of art recently that I'm most deeply connected to. Is Blue Jay? Is Blue Jay. Yeah. And that is much like the puffy chair. It's going, it's, it grabs your heart and it's a heart wrenching. It's a real serious thing and it sneaks up on you.

It sneaks up on you in the most specific, brilliant way. Oh, thanks, man. So you're just annihilated by it. I was watching it with my girlfriend and she's like, it's going to kill you. That's so funny. She loves you. Oh. Yeah.

Where is she? Where is she? She's, ah, she, she's hiding. That's the next part of the podcast. It's going to be great. We're trying to draw you in to a very deep conspiracy where we seduce you. I'm really, I mean, I'm genuinely moved and happy that you love Blue Jay because I want more people to see that movie and a lot of people have and it's a, it's a funny piece

of art for me because I look at it and I'm like, oh, I don't know if I can beat this. And there are a lot of pieces of art that I've made that I think are not as connective or good that people like a lot more. Right. It's one of those funny moments you have as an artist where you're just like, this one's actually my favorite. I thought this was going to be the one, you know? Oh, God.

Talking about, I was thinking like, man, usually I don't do, like, I, sometimes I just, I'm podcast, I just ramble and ramble, but I just, and I, but I was the, I was one of the challenges. I was like, man, I can only like say it's amazing and heart wrenching, but to talk about the details is to ruin it for people haven't seen it yet. Um, I mean, I can talk about kind of what was behind the movie for me, which was, um, I don't know if you felt like this ever as an artist or, or what it is. I think the form here, probably you don't encounter this, but maybe I'm just projecting. When you struggle as an artist for so long, like I felt I did as a filmmaker and even

as a musician, and then you make something that's good subconsciously or consciously, you just stay close to that thing because you're like, yeah, puffy chair works. That's what they want. Fine. All the other shit I did failed. So let me just stay in that lane. Yeah. And I felt like I needed to stay in the lane of the like truthful, dramedy, um, that's

personal and, and make sure it has like enough humor in it. So everybody can let and giggle and, and I, and I, and I kind of started branding ourselves that way on accident, you know? And then something started bubbling up inside of me with blue jay that was like, what if I just let the world see that I'm kind of a like schmaltzy uber romantic person. Yeah. Um, and, and I don't go for some of that rye comedy that undercuts it and makes it more palatable and chewable.

If I like serve it up just hairy and raw, you know, and that's, that was terrifying to me because I was like, well, no, don't do that because you struggled for a long time. You finally find what people like, just, just give them what they want. You know? And, but I could not stop blue jay from coming. I was like, this is happening. It happened. I think it was right around when I was about to turn 40 and I was feeling a lot of just

a nostalgic, sure, schmaltzy person in general. And I was like, I think I just want to rip myself open and just spill it all out into a movie and I hope it goes okay. How long at the time at the time we're filming blue jay, how long had you been married? Um, let's say I shot blue jay, I think in 16. So I've been married for 10 years. 10 years. Yeah.

And, um, and Katie and I, we've been together for like, we've been together for like 14 or 15, you know, at that point and have two kids and a solid relationship and, and there's nothing really, um, I mean, I don't know how to talk about this movie without giving away things. Um, it's not an extremely autobiographical movie from a plot perspective, but what was at the core of it was this feeling of, and I don't know why, because I'm so, I'm such a generally joyful, quote unquote happy person and I say quote unquote, because I don't have a lot of peace and calm in my life.

I get tons of excitement, tons of joy. I'll come here and meet you. We'll talk. We'll connect. Yes. It'll be awesome. We'll see each other at a party in a month and we'll remember this. Yes.

And I'll spike with joy. But do I cruise around the streets with a sense of all as well in the universe and I am at calm? No. No. Um, and, and, and blue jay was about looking back to my childhood and times of my life when I felt some of that, you know, um, and feel like I've lost some of that and I don't know why or where it's gone.

Um, and, and, you know, Sarah Paulson is a friend of mine and once we started talking about that, I found that she had quite a bit of that and every time we talked to anybody about it, it was, there was this feeling of, of this, this loss of something. What, what, what, if you can, uh, if you're, how would you describe that something? If you had to, how do you describe that thing that's lost as a moment in blue jay when Sarah Paulson pulls an old diary out of the closet of my characters and she reads an entry from it and it says the winds of change are fucking blowing tonight and there is a self seriousness in that and a, a drama and a, and a, a lighting out with the joy and mania of life that kind

of only a 15 year old can have in their diary and I want that back. Yeah. And I'm on the rails and I'm great. I'm great. My life is great. Yeah. But I'm on the rails. Yeah.

I got kids, I'm married, I got a career, I got a company, got all these people, you know, and that dude who would like stay up to one in the morning, like fascinating at his own feelings, gripping the pencil and writing about them to himself. I mean, yeah, I don't. Who is that guy? And I miss him. He's coming. I, we're bringing him back.

Yeah. We're bringing him back. Cause here's the thing, man. You know. Is this when your girlfriend jumps out? Is this when it happens? Aaron! The queue was bringing him back.

She fell asleep. She missed it. Get out! Get out of the closet! Oh, no. I want to, here's the thing though. This is, I want to, when we, we walked into my studio here and Mark saw my modular synthesizers and I, he's like, you said, I can't do that now.

I can't do that. See. I can't spend three hours chasing sounds and you said quite smartly, of course you can. You just do it with your kids and they'll explore it with you. And I, my brain went, he's kind of right, but no. And I didn't, I didn't, I almost didn't want to go there and process it. Yeah.

You know? Like almost liked having that, that block or something. Sure. Sure. I mean, this is safety. I guess it's like, it's kind of, you know, the thing you're talking about up against the rails and, and the concept that you're not up against the rails. I think that one of the things I love about Buddhism is that it's sort of always pointing

towards this truth, which is the phone calls coming, man. You don't know when or what time, but it's coming, that phone calls coming. The doctor visits coming, the things coming, but we pretend it's not. And within that, we think we've, we think we've found some kind of peace when the reality is you haven't found peace at all. You've, you've essentially like the way Chogyam Trumpa puts it is, it's like you're standing on a floor of razor blades and you create an imaginary beam in the ceiling with your delusions and then you climb into the delusion to try to escape this incredible, never ending, terrifying

reality, which is that we are being destroyed by time at this very moment. Yeah. We're up against the rails, man. Like it's happening. There's, and, and you, you see these apocalypses happen, you know, on the TV and they're apocalypses. Syria fucking just, you look at those, you look at the, I look at those kids in Syria. I think it when I was a kid in college station. Yeah.

And the, but add bombs to that, you know, and, and that's what's really going down. And so it's like getting that, contacting that place again, I don't know, I mean, it's like to become like a terror worshiper, but I mean, really understanding the, the proximity. Allowing that in. Yeah. Yeah. That we let death sort of like, I've heard it said, you let death ride on your shoulder and, and tell, you know, and talk to death as much as you can.

And in fact, I've heard the Ram Dassas foundation, the love server member foundation, the remember part is remember God, but it also could be interpreted as remember you're going to die. Yeah. Cause when you start forgetting that, well, I mean, fuck. Yeah. How old are you now? 43. 43.

Okay. I'm 41. Yeah. How much of this stuff has been later onset stuff for you for thinking of you always felt and thought this way. I got cancer. I got testicular cancer and had to get one of my balls chopped off. When was that?

That was in 2013. Okay. Oh, I'll go. Okay. Yeah. And that was a shift for you. Big shift because you get the like, when that happened, it's really one of the greatest things that happened to me and you'll cancer survivors, you'll hear them say that because

what I was living in this bubble of like, I really thought the way I put it is like, you know, people always come down on trust fund kids, but it's like, there's a lot of temporal trust fund kids who people are living as though they have like all these years of their bank account. Yeah. And so they're behaving like trust fund kids with time and so they're sloppy and like just generally disconnected. And so when you, when something like that happens, you, you can't be anymore.

You can't be because you, you, you realize like, Oh fuck, I can die. Yeah. Yeah. All a pound puppy syndrome. Like they just like, you have this feeling sometimes of like meeting someone and I sense their energy and you have it or it's just like, Oh, you are extremely excited to be lifting a plain LaCroix to your lips right now. That's right.

Thank you for noticing. How is that possible that you have this interest and excitement in that and very good. Let us not underestimate the first sip of a LaCroix. Okay. Good. You know, the metaphor is not sound metaphor is not sound that first sip of a LaCroix. It's like, I imagine that like if we could have met Christ, you may not believe in Christ. I don't know, but let's imagine that we could have met Christ and you got to, to kiss Jesus.

That first kiss would be like the first sip of Pamplemousse LaCroix is what we're talking. I think that's, let's get real. But you went to Catholic school and you, but you don't, you're, you don't, you don't feel connected to God. You feel connected to, to Catholicism in particular. Um, I've, I have one thing on my brain now as it pertains to spirituality and the afterlife, which is this irrational, but intense desire to know that I could have some consciousness of who I am to be able to find my children again after I pass.

And it only returned, it only happened when I had kids, I don't actually need it for my parents. Sure. I don't need it for my wife, who I love dearly. I don't need it for my brother. Yes. I'm going to, I got to take a ride with those guys for 80 years and it's going to be fucking awesome and I'm good.

My children, I have this desperate need to feel that when I go away, I will be able to get back around them somehow. Yeah. And it's not enough for me to feel like, yes, I will be part of the sands and I will I will be a molecular fusion into things. And so you'll still be around them as a leaf as I'm like, no, no, I kind of want to know that I once was Mark and there's Molly and aura and I get to go be with them. Yes.

Yeah. And I'm kind of attached to that, which is like, it's an odd thing for me because my whole life has been about letting go of all that bullshit. My success as an artist has been, as we talked about before, let go of being an auteur who knows how to do it all. Fuck all that. Yes. Go with what works for you.

Put it out there. That one element is it has become extremely tenacious for me as I've become a father. That's a, I mean, it's a, it's a really, I think it's a, what could be a better thing to explore in your life than that, that question? And just because it's a question that has been infinitely explored in so many strange ways, it's still personally, subjectively, I think it's one of the great questions to like, it's just as a co-on to let zing around in your head that question, to really wonder that what kind of universe is it if it isn't the case though?

What kind of universe is it if that's just not going to happen? I think I'm okay with it, honestly. I'm a pragmatist in a lot of ways and, you know, I look at like, again, I keep using this metaphor with my career, but like, I had so many ideas about what I thought my career was going to be. I was going to make the puffy chair at Sundance, then I was going to go become like a career, like Fox Searchlight and focus features filmmaker and make like $10 million movies that would go win Oscars, you know?

And then I did one of those movies or two of them and I was like, oh, I don't like this. So now what do I do? I got to recalibrate the mountain I thought I was going to climb. So, and so I go, well, shit, I guess I'll go make my own stuff and I'll do that. And I can bounce around pragmatically and find myself to a place that I, that I, that I want to be. So, if in the spiritual metaphor of that, it is, sorry, dude, you're worm dirt and it's

all over. I can, I can get down with that if I have to. I just would love it so much if I could spend eternity with my children. Yeah. Well, if let's, let's just imagine my girlfriend jumps out of the closet and she has, she has like some kind of device, a crystal, a portal and behold, when you die, you will eternally be with these beings and you've eternally been with these beings. Yeah.

How would it change the way that you were living on a day to day basis? Oh, that's a good question. Um, well, I'm in a really interesting phase right now of life where I'm in right now what I'm calling semi sabbatical mode. Okay. I know it sounds crazy. She looks at the workload and they're like, Oh my God, you have this Netflix deal and this HBO deal.

Yeah. And you're acting these things. It looks like I'm the guy who actually works 16 hours a day and only sleeps four hours a night. I am not that person. I've got a staff of people. I'm very efficient with what I do and I've got a lot of support. So the truth of the matter is like today I got up at 630.

I was with my kids for two and a half hours before I kind of dropped them to school. Then I went to work and I had three meetings. I watched a cut of a room 104 episode to advise on and I had a couple of phone calls and and then it's 115 and I leave work and to come do this podcast with you because I had a feeling about it. Nick. Nick Kroll was like, you're going to like this guy. Do this.

And I trust Nick implicitly. And I want to make room for that in my life. I want to make room for an exploratory conversation with a new person. Cool. And I wanted to prioritize that. And then I'm going to go home and I'm going to slowly work out to improve my body and I'm going to, I splurged and bought a sauna for my house and I'm going to get in the sauna. Oh yeah.

And then I'm going to jump in my cold pool to get the heat and the cold. And then at 430, my nanny is going to have picked up the kids from school, bring them home. She's going to cook dinner for me and the kids while Katie's at work. Yes. And then I'm going to get in the sauna as red as she leaves. And then I will have from 5pm to 8pm with my kids to play foosball, watch the Olympics, play card games, eat, do dessert.

And this is everything I have ever wanted. Yeah. This is, this has been my dream that I'm looking for. So if I knew that I could have them in the afterlife or sorry, couldn't have them in the afterlife. Yeah. What I'm living now is a reaction to the fear that I can't have them. Is the, is the, they're 10 years old and five years old right now.

They love me. They want to hang out with me. This time is limited. So I have to get it while it's getting good. Is the mode I'm in right now. I might relinquish a little bit of my hold on that if I knew I could have them forever. Maybe that's not a good thing. I don't know.

I don't know. I just, I don't know. I don't want the shadow of fear, you know, hanging over this sweet love and, and, and sometimes I mean, I don't, what you, by the way, what you just described as heaven. It's heaven right now. Yeah. I'm, I'm like one of these persons who you normally walk into a room and like, I can keep the, the joy and the fun and the pump up.

But like when you look into my eyes, you will see that there is like a desperation and a sadness. Something in there that is missing, that has driven me to do what I do. And it's starting to go away with my kids and my relationship with them in this life that I have now. Wow, man. Yeah. But this shadow, I want to talk about what you were just saying, the thing in your eyes.

Have you ever heard the term fundamental dissatisfaction? No, but it deeply resonates with me without even having you explain it. Yeah. In Buddhism, it's called dukkha and it, and it means fundamental dissatisfaction. And so in Buddhism, you have the noble truths of Buddhism and the first noble truth is life is suffering. So that thing that you're talking about, some would say, Oh, that thing is not a broken gear inside of you.

That is contact with reality. That is what it is to contact reality is to feel that fundamental dissatisfaction. Life is suffering. And then it goes on to say the cause of suffering is attachment. So we're trying to, and so many of your movies, you know, it's like it has that in it, you know, and, and, and, and the tenacity and the, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is, um, yeah, that's, so I guess it's just, it's sort of nice to just sink into that, that, oh, yeah, this is what it, this is actually what it is, is it is, and

it is, you are there. We're going to lose everything and everyone, and we are there. They're all being aerosolized by time and they're going away and we're watching them go away and we're in a kaleidoscope. You know, when you're looking through the kaleidoscope and it's beginning to shift, that's what we're in, man. Yes, that's the reality. And yet here is love and it feels like it's bigger than the kaleidoscope.

And that's what produces for me at least this sense of like, oh no, this keeps going, man. Yeah. And you feel that and you believe that. I mean, you know, I love psychedelics. Have you ever taken, do you ever take psychedelics? Yes, Jay and I took a lot of mushrooms when I was in high school and he was in college and it did some acid. And now, I don't do, I haven't done it in a long time and part of that is getting my

life on the rails a little bit. You know, my later 20s, I hit, it's not like a secret or anything, but I hit a lot of depression and anxiety. Yeah. And since then, you know, I take medication, I take like an SSRI to keep myself in this stable place and for better or for worse, I have a little bit of a fear of outward unbridled expansion of my spirit and my mind because I kind of like, I don't know how to explain it, but I feel like left to unbridled expansion, I will probably end up in a bad place and

I've made some really good decisions and put some things in my life to get me into this really good place, which is playing above the, I feel like I'm playing above the rim based upon what my DNA is and the spirit that I was left to ride upon. I got you. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh sure. So I'm kind of like, there's a little bit of don't fix it if it ain't broken because

I'm already playing it longer than 20%. That being said, every time my friends are like, I'm going out to the desert, do ayahuasca, there's this little tiny voice deep inside of me that's like, maybe you should do that and maybe if you did all that stuff, you wouldn't have to take these little pink pills that you take. Well, yeah. I mean, this is. But I'm terrified of that.

You know, I, so I get depressed. I, I've struggled with depression. I've been on anti-depressants before and so one of my friends is someone I know is a psychiatrist who has a clinic where they do, um, uh, ketamine treatment. And so, um, I was, I, I tried that for my depression and, um, inter muscular ketamine. So they inject ketamine. It's a disassociative and it's an incredibly powerful psychedelic. They inject that into your arm and did you do this at this clinic?

Yes. Okay. And, and, uh, and, and I was depressed. I mean, I was depressed. I was like, it was the end of a relationship. I was just like fucking depressed. I know, man, I know, I know what, what it is. And you know, just, just numb, just fucking numb, man.

You know, you go completely numb. You, it's so heavy. So, uh, yeah. So what happened was within moments, I had my eyes closed. I was photographically reliving the doctor telling me I had cancer. Photographically, like I was sitting in front of the doctor. He's like telling me, I was like there again. And then it was like now cancer was just spreading through my body.

It was in my throat. I was like, I'm dying. I'm having a death trip. And there, it feels like there's a wall that's coming towards me. That's death. And, and I'm trying to have this like conversation with death. Like I'm literally like, Hey, man, why don't we just, I know we're going to do this death thing, but can we talk for a second?

I'm trying to be like, Oh, let me drink first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then, uh, and so, and so then it annihilated. It annihilates you. Your, your identity is annihilated. And in that place, there's still this sense of self-ness. It's just not your ego. But the essence of the thing was I'm saying to death or I'm thinking to myself, I love life.

I love life. I don't want to die. I love life. I love life. I love life. And this voice or this resounding truth was saying, you don't love life. Life is love. You're confusing the things you think, you know, Oh, I love life as though it's a

thing that can go away. And that's why you're fucked up. And that's why you're so depressed. And that's why you're so freaked out is because you're living in this, this universe where you're going to, uh, you know, you're terrified and you're, you're in a tragedy. You're in the war. And so it was like this anyway, it's beautiful because it does seem to,

at least in that state and what, whatever it may be, who knows. And when you rolled out of that, do you forget that and get distance from that? Like, like all things where you're like, Oh, I'm really clear now on Tuesday after I had this on Monday, but a month and then does it swear or were you able to maintain ketamine therapy? It is incredibly effective in treating depression. And you can look it up. The, the studies coming back are unprecedented.

They're calling it one of the great breakthrough psychiatric discoveries of, um, I think, I don't know. It's one of the big ones and there's a lot of theories on why it treats depression and what it, what it does. I, my theory is pure Ram Dass hippie, dippy. The reason it treats depression is because we get depressed because we feel stuck in a very, very, very small cubby hole that we call our lives. And we completely forget the eternal nature of the soul.

And because of that, we get real bummed out. And it's just a little spiritual dynamite to blow you out. Basically, it's kind of what it is. Yeah, it's like you take the VR goggles off that you've been projecting your life into you for the, your entire life for a second and you look around and remember, Oh fuck, right? This place and then you put them back on and then, and then you get to, you get to walk around and that with, with that little extra, like it's okay,

man, or another way to put it would be, dude, do you remember, did your parents ever tell you ghost stories? Not really. No. Were you ever told a ghost story when you were a kid and had fear paralysis sink in? No. Oh my God. Jesus, man. How did you make? I'm lucky. Yeah. I guess the way to put it is it's like somebody's telling you a really, really scary fucking thing, right?

Someone's telling you a really, really, really scary thing. And then they stop for a second and they're like, dude, I'm just fucking with you. And then you're like, Oh, you got me. And then they start telling you the scary thing again. But now you can enjoy it a little bit because you're, yeah, that's it. Yeah, you should, you know, if you're, if you are, you should look into it because it's a really powerful treatment.

And what's wonderful about it is with the SSRIs, you have to dial it in. It takes about, you know, it could take upwards of a month or two months because you're, you know, you're trying to build up a certain amount of, I guess, serotonin and with ketamine, it's within, boom, within hours. But you have to go back to get the treatment. Like I can't remember. There's like a every month schedule.

There's a schedule. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds pretty interesting. I don't think I'm going to do it, but I'm interested. It's pretty, you know what? It's if you're depressed, it's just worth looking into and be like, fuck this. Because it's like what's beautiful. It's not like some like dude, it's not me giving the treatment. It's doctors.

Yeah, man. Wonderful surprise. Yeah. Well, DTP. Yeah, I wanted to, but I wanted to talk to you and we kind of covered it, but very quickly. Did you get scared when you started getting hyper successful? Like when you, when you and your brother started like, when it started happening, did you want to put the brakes on at any point?

So we didn't have an exponential increase in success or popularity. So I never had that moment where it felt like this is happening so quickly that I don't know how to handle it. It was fairly slow for us. So I think that helped me generally be comfortable in it. But when I was 28, I started having panic attacks. And that was right after we made and sold the Puffy chair, moved to LA and was signing studio deals.

And so there's a link there, I mean, for sure. And I think I felt pressure. Yeah. And then I think that I'm very close with my dad and he, his diagnosis, which I'm not totally sure is, you know, he's like, he's like, look, I see you going into these meetings with like these big studios. And and you're still wearing like your your dickies and your T-shirts with holes in them and you're like trying to hold on and maintain that like you're just

like this little scrappy indie kid. Yeah. You know, and I think I still do that. I still tenaciously hold on to some weird old image of myself. Yeah. And I think that there's a resistance to that. It took me forever to staff up at our company. Like if you if you looked two years ago at the amount of things that Jay and I were personally doing, like, you know, at the level of success we were at,

it was just ridiculous. So there's a lot of pointers that would say I was very resistant to it. And the worst part about it for me, and I've hinted at this before, was reaching the apex of everything I possibly thought I could have achieved when I was 28, which was I'm just some scrappy kid from like the suburbs of New Orleans. I'll if I'm lucky, I'll get a movie and a Sundance one day. And then I'll I won't really make a living at it. I'll become like a professor.

But like that was the furthest I thought I could get. Wow. And then when I got to the top of that mountain, I just freaked the fuck out. Wow. Because what do you do when you're on top of your mountain when you're 28? You know, what do you do? Well, Jay and I went to this whole process of talking about recalibrating the mountains and that's something I've had to learn how to do, which is like once

you get to one, figure out how to create a climb for yourself. That's not just not an idiotic climb where you're thinking, oh, as soon as I climb this mountain, I'll be happy. But like we need things to struggle against and push towards, you know? So I spent a lot of time doing that kind of stuff now, you know? And and I'm like, that's when you when we when I first got in here, before we started talking, you were like, what's this thing where you're going on these like conservative podcasts and talking to people like that a lot for me

was like trying to recalibrate a new mountain. Like maybe this will be something I'll do and this will be interesting. You know, you know, the Zenkoan, Donovan turned it into a song. First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. It's the way. Yeah, that's that that wave.

And you know, I just wasn't very aware in my 20s, too. Like us having this conversation right now, if I'm listening to this my 20s, I'm just like these fucking old dudes trying to create meaning in their lives by theorizing and talking about all this shit. Like you guys, I don't really want to hang out with you like that's where that's me at 25. I'm just like, put your head down and get to work by the fuckers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like because just the yapping, it's like, what are you doing?

Like hit the fucking bag, man. Get it, you know, truth is to hit the bag. It's not to fucking theorize and philosophize. What is that? My like college roommate, we had this amazing experience where like he we were close then and then, you know, as life happens, you get not close. But he like came down to visit LA and he stayed with me like maybe like five years ago and we like it was fun.

We like drank a lot of whiskey and we're like just talking about old times. And then he got like really serious for a moment. He's like, hey, I just want to apologize for like I didn't understand what you were doing when like every time I asked you to come and drink beer with me and my friends, you would say no and you would stay in your room and write songs. And I think I kind of like was lightly like criticizing you and being derisive, you know, because I just didn't get it.

But like I get it now and congratulations on what you've built. You know, and I think that I just I just I just grew up with this mentality of just like, man, if you're going to try to become an artist from nowhere, you have to be willing to give up all frivolities, give up all meals out, give up everything and just put your head down and fucking go. You know, and that's what I I mean, that's what I did literally up until

probably last year and I almost destroyed myself in the process. I mean, I don't talk about this a lot, but like in my 20s, before I started going to therapy and before I started really having panic attacks, like I was so tenacious as a musician, as a like person who's like writing his computer constantly. Like I crippled myself, my arms all the way up into my shoulders where I lost like 30 pounds, I could barely open door. My friends would open doors for me because I and the doctors were like,

we think this is carpal tunnel or repetitive stress, but I've never seen this level of inflammation and we don't know how to treat this. And I just lived in intense physical pain for years. And I don't know what I don't know if it was like hell bent on just destroying myself or this feeling of like, you know, man, you you gave up this potential career and, you know, I went to a Jesuit school, all my all my friends when I was 22 were making six figures, you know? And so I was like, you just have to go, go, go, go, go, you know?

And I don't know where that came from or why, but it's just how I was built. I mean, it's beautiful is what it is. It's just incredible. I think that they thank God we have people like you out there because otherwise what would there be? You know, there'd just be a bunch of fucking old dudes having a conversation about what would we be talking about now? We'd be talking about no, we wouldn't even have your movies to talk about.

I mean, we need people like you to crucify themselves for us so that we can enjoy the beauty that comes out of that, that torment, you know? And I think what's happening now is that one of my greatest fears as an artist was like watching people that I loved as artists through their 20s and their 30s. And then watching them get married and and get happy and start to make terrible, terrible art, right? And I was like, I hope that never happens to me. And for the first time, I'm like looking around and I'm like,

I'm going to keep trying to make great art. I am I'm going to do everything I can to do it. But you know what? I know why those people got happy and and stopped making good art because it feels better. Oh, I can see it for the first time. And it feels weird. Whoa, what a choice.

It's a weird thing. What a choice you've created for yourself there. I must choose between happiness and being a conduit to beauty in the world. And it's not that black and white. I'm trying to like dial in systems now. Room 104 is a perfect example of what I do where I'm trying to do what I do best, which is like I can I am a I'm good at writing scripts really quickly and getting story ideas out.

But I'm actually not willing to sit on set for 15 hours chasing art all day long, struggling to try and make the best thing as a director when I could be home with my kids right now. Yeah. So now I'm like collaborating with younger 28 year old filmmakers who have that desperation that I had and giving them an opportunity to take a shot at that. You know, and I'm seeing if if the cross section of those two can still make relevant interesting art and still allow me to like slow a little bit and have a life.

Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen. But that's this is the phase I'm in right now is like trying to find that line. Well, I mean, I just I'm going to I would want to challenge it because it's like what you've when the mind basically it says the wrong the way the Ram Dass people put is like this is the mind. Yeah. So the mind is has created for you. This like I know you were saying it's just this isn't as black and white as that,

but still it's there. Yeah. And it's this and so it's basically what it's the predicament is. What do we choose? Yeah. Happiness or fire, love or fire. Yeah. You know, and and and and I just don't believe that's a real choice. And it's something, you know, when many of my friends are comedians and we'll talk about Ram Dass and love and getting into your heart. And they'll be like, I just don't want to do that.

Yeah. Because if I do that, how am I going to make how I'm going to make anything funny ever again? Yeah. How will that work? And it's I just think it's it's I actually agree with you on that front. Mine is a little different. Mine is almost more about time and output. Right. You know, literally like the lifestyle of acting and directing television shows and movies is like you work a minimum of a 13 hour day. That has just occurred to me to be like, well, that's kind of inhumane, you know?

And and I also had this is kind of obnoxious, but whatever, I'll share it. I had this realization with my dad, who is my business manager because I'm from New Orleans and we're like the mafia. Wow. We did like an accounting of all my finances at the end of this year. And we looked at everything and we looked at each other and and we were basically like, OK, so if I live modestly and I stay inside of a nice three bedroom house, I never have to work again.

That's great. Interesting, terrifying, wonderful. But it puts a point on on the decisions you're making, you know? So if I'm I'm not getting joy out of it, if it's not building towards something, well, then just don't do it. Drop it. Drop that shit. Drop it, dude. I, you know, I mean, don't drop it. I love your films.

Fucking keep making them. The selfish part of me wants you to be on fire and miserable and like blowing my mind through these films. But also, you know, sometimes you one of the very strange things to me is when you realize, oh, this is a person who could easily just just vanish into the into the darkness. I think about it. I think about it. Oh, my God, man.

And that going away, you know, that's that part of the cycle to have the trust and the faith that maybe you could even do that, drift back and become invisible for a little while and then resurrect again and come out of it. Yeah, all this new data and knowledge. Well, this is the whole other thing happened to me right now, too, which I don't know if you get any of this, but like I look at these massive movie stars who can make 10, 15, 20 million dollars a movie for like eight to 12 weeks of work. Yeah. And I'm like,

how are you not doing that and donating all of that money to people who really, really need you at this point? Yeah. And you do that. You're filling. I do. I do a lot of that and 20% of your income. You give away 20% about 20%. That's that's 20% on top of paying your manager and your agent and all your people. And that's intense.

That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. And and for me, it's like, I don't know. I have this efficiency thing in me where I'm just like, that is it's crazy that I can be the voice of the Apple iPad Pro and go in and do like 12 hours worth of work total and make what they pay me. Can't even imagine these fucking people who work their asses off to raise their families and then a fucking GM plant closes on them and then they got to go take

a $12 an hour job. And I'm like, this is wrong that I can make that money and they have to make that money and then I start getting all heated up again. And then I'm like, OK, nope, not time for semi-retirement. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to go out and you're going to make everything you can possibly make reaping the benefits of this position in society and give all that shit away. And lift the whole thing up.

Yeah, yeah, that's it. And this is one of the, you know, I always go back to Ram. That's forgive me. But like one of the things Neem Karoli bought, they say, you know, Maharaja, when he's teaching them, he never said, we do this meditation or we do this for ourselves. He always said, this is what it's going to do for the people around you. It was always about other people.

It's really good for other people. Yeah. And when and when you apply that to whatever it is that you do, whether it's making badass films, yeah, or or whether it's this is for them. Yeah, this is hopefully going to help somehow. Yeah, yeah, then it transforms the thing into something really beautiful. I've noticed like it's a dirt, you know, sometimes I'll just sit in front of those modular synthesizers and I'll think,

I want to make a sound to express my gratitude for existing in the universe. Yeah. And the moment you start trying to dial that kind of sound in, it becomes instantly more beautiful. Could be the point. I don't mean if someone, my neighbors are probably like, Jesus, fucking Christ, man, is this TV malfunction? Are his dogs on the modular synthesizer again?

Yeah. But yeah, it's that that that feeling of like, you know, outflowing instead of inflowing. It's just such a sweet feeling, you know. But do you are you are there any particular charities that you're working with right now that we can help you out with? Yeah, I really, really like Path, which is, you know, people assisting the homeless. It's a California charity that's really they're all based around like

getting homeless people a place to live first, then giving them the social work so that they can go find the job from there. You kind of can't do it while they're homeless, you know? But what's happened? Find them section 8 housing and hook them up and get them going. What's happening in LA? It seems like there's a like there's every everywhere. There's a huge homeless explosion and I don't know why and I can't even pretend

to know why, but they're just they do the we do these great things with our company. We do these path move-ins where they will find families that are homeless and they get them this section 8 housing where it's like, you know, subsidized rent for them is like 70% off of what the market rent would be or more and then they move in and they're like exciting. And they have zero furniture or belongings. So what we do is like Duplass Brothers will sponsor the purchase of all the furnishings for their apartment and then everybody from our company

will come out and we'll spend a day with them assembling their furniture, kind of hearing their stories and moving them in. And it's just so enriching for everybody and for literally, you know, like $4,000 a family, we can give them all those Ikea target basics to get them up and running. You got to let me give you that. I have this very nice credenza in my garage. You do? Yes. I want to donate it.

Let me donate it to you guys. Just send somebody with a truck. They can have it. I'm not kidding you. We on Sunday, we moved in two families and then one, one of the guys we moved in. We tried to get him this piece of furniture and it was too small and he needs something else. Wait, do you see this thing? This is nice.

It's nice. Do you have a credenza to everybody who comes here? He has every guest of mine. Do you find some way? Is it have we just been like if you've been asking questions to find some organic way to gift me a credenza? I've been trying. I've been thinking like every question was designed to like get to like depression.

Credenza. No, I couldn't get there, man. Oh, you can play games with your kids on the credenza. I thought he already has a credenza. No, the idea was the modular sense. I was going to be like, you got to put him on something. You need a credenza. Beautiful. I want to give that to pass. We got it. We got it.

You are an inspiring human. I'm so grateful to you for this time. Thank you so much. Hey, man, this is awesome. Hare Krishna. That was Mark Duplass. Everybody, check out his book like brothers that he wrote with his brother. J Duplass, much thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH.

Remember, go to Squarespace.com forward slash Duncan. Use Africa Duncan. You'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Thank you guys so much for listening. We'll see you next week with a conversation with the genius Doug Lussinhop, a.k.a. DJ Doug Pound. Until then, adieu, Hare Krishna. A good time starts with a great wardrobe.

Next stop, JC Penney, family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style, dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford and Jay Farrar. Oh, and thereabouts for kids, super cute and extra affordable. Check out the latest in store and we're never short on options at JCP.com. All dressed up everywhere to go. JC Penney.

A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JC Penney, family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style, dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford and Jay Farrar. Oh, and thereabouts for kids, super cute and extra affordable. Check out the latest in store and we're never short on options at JCP.com. All dressed up everywhere to go. JC Penney.