Going Deep with Chad and JT - EP 175 - Actor Ron Perlman

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

What up Stokers, this week we've got Ron Perlman, star of Hellboy, Drive, and Pacific Rim. He's a cool dude and a legend.      Sign up for new merch here: http://www.shopcgd.com​​��​     Sponsored by Manscaped: Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code GODEEP20 at Manscaped.com. If you wanna trim your pubes during a contagionSHOW LESSSHOW LESS

yeah that's that's interesting too because you seem like the kind of guy who could throw up anything you know thank you yeah okay well we'll just talk about all the things i've built yeah should we kick it off you ready to rock oh you mean we weren't rolling i was giving you some of my my wittiest witticisms you were giving us the show i think i might keep this in but uh you gotta keep it bro but we don't it's all gold it's gold solid but what we chad normally kicks it off with a uh an intro well chad don't kick it off. A man of my age, we don't talk about kicking off. No kicking off. Start cruising.

With all the medications I'm on, the phrase kicking off is just a little too close to home. The doctors advise against it. Yeah. They don't want me to get too excited. We'll leave out the podcast segment

on the pod where we all do 50 burpees together. All right, Chad, what do you do to kick it off? I'm very busy. I have four podcasts lined up right after this. Do you really? No.

Oh, sorry. I'm very gullible. What's up, Stokers of Stoke Nation? This is Chad Kroger coming in with the Going Deep with Chad and JT podcast. Guys, before we begin, I want to remind you once again that we are brought to you by Manscaped. Manscaped, thank you so much for keeping our trims pubed, for looking after our hogs, for making sure that we're looking fresh and clean. Use code godeep20 at manscaped.com. I'm here with my compadre, Jean-Thomas. What up? Boom clap, Stokers.

And we're here with actor, producer, Ron Perlman. It's an honor to have you on the podcast. Thank you for joining us. You know, I was told I didn't have a choice. So, you know, whatever. Well, it's good to have you here. My people said, no, I said, can I get out of this? And they said, fuck no. So here I am.

I appreciate that, though. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank my people. Yeah. Well, thank my people. Yeah, big thanks to your people. Shout out. Patrick, right? He seems like a good dude. He's all my people right there in one two-syllable

phrase. Are you guys tight? It depends on what they ask. Sure. How about today? No, me and Patrick is tight. He's good people.

Who's your best friend in the whole world? My girl that I'm living with. Oh, that's nice. How long have you guys been together? A couple of years. Nice.

I'm going through a rough patch right now with my girlfriend. Well, I have a business on the side. I can fix that for you. And I won't even charge you full price. What's the biz? I just have, you know, advice to the love learn, shit like that. Yeah, that's what we do on here. We give a lot

of advice to the love learn. It's hard to be in there. You got to take your own advice every now and again, bro. All right. Yeah, just got to sit What would you say to you? See, I don't know. I've counseled a lot of people and I don't know what the answer is.

I think the answer is just to wait and see. It's always hard when it's you. Yeah, I think it's just wait and see, right? Just hang in there and just do the best you can, and if it's meant to be, it'll be. Kind of all those truisms that I think are so cliche, I think there's a lot of validity in them, right? You just kind of kind of... It's a fortune cookie kind of reality. Yeah.

Have you gotten any really good advice on love that you kind of... But it seems like every relationship, you need new advice, right? Because every one of them is so distinct. Yeah, no, I mean, I find that other

people's opinions about love are basically useless. You know, it's such a subjective sort of thing. It's so ethereal. You know, there is no, it's like oxygen. You know, you can't see it or feel it. You just know it's there when it is and um so you know i mean you know that there's centuries and centuries of poetry and great music and stuff all about people that had their teeth kicked in you know through through the organ that's, you know,

mistakenly called the heart. And, you know, I'm a huge fan of saloon songs, all of which are generated by the problems that exist between lovers and the chaos that it can invite. And when I hear these songs, I recognize them as things that I have experienced. And what this why I know that these guys who write these things are not writing them just to write a song there. They're digging down into the deep well of their own experience. But that doesn't ever prevent me from making the same fucking mistakes over and over and over. And stepping into the same

quicksand and you know, tripping over the same rocks and you know, and over again and stepping into the same quicksand and, you know, tripping over the same rocks and, you know, tripping over my own dick, you know. So there you have it. I mean, it's not something you can take a class for and say, okay, I got this now. I got this. What else you got? Right. this now. I got this. What else you got? Right.

Is there anyone you know in your life that has a good grasp on love, or do you find that most people are always searching for or just walking through the dark trying to figure it out?

I think it's a very kind of mercurial and elusive thing. You know, it's one of those, it's like holding onto a bird, you know, if you hold onto it too hard, you damage it. But if you hold onto it too soft, it it flies away and it's always like an exercise in um in um you have to take so much out of it in order to really get into it you have to take out your ego you have to take out your um desire to control things,

then you have a shot at experiencing the things that are beautiful about going places that love will take you without deciding this is my agenda. The minute you, I think, I mean, I'm just riffing here. I had no idea you were going to ask me this shit and i and frankly i've never even given it much thought so i'm just i'm just bullshitting you right now um but i'll keep going if you know please please it's helping

me like yeah i got nowhere to be for at least 20 minutes. Well, let's empty the tank in those 20 minutes. You bet, baby. Anything else besides love? It's interesting you touched on sort of letting go of your ego and letting go of trying to control things. I guess have you found that to be uh the most helpful thing in this business as well is when you just sort of um you know let let whatever comes to you come to you and that's usually the best thing or um are you what am i trying to say i guess because this this this business is so difficult and so

tough to sort of see where you're headed but it seems that when you sort of let go and sort of you know let your your your soul guide you i guess that that's how you can really find your way does that make sense well this is this is what I'm about to say is an absolute true statement. There's absolutely nothing exaggerated about what I'm about to say. I am so blessed to have been involved in not a handful,

but like a multitude of phenomenal projects with phenomenal people over all of the decades that I've been doing this. And it's actually just even getting better. I just turned 70, and I just did two of the coolest parts I've ever played for really cool people. And while all of that was happening, I was trying to plan out what my career would look like. None of those things that I mentioned were planned upon. None of them were stuff that I generated or controlled or, I mean, not none. Because in the last few, I'll get to where I'm going in a second.

But they were just things that were acts of God. You know, they just fell out of the skies and into my lap. I have no idea why they happened to me. You know, incredible series of happenstances, great, great things to have anybody bestow upon you. Just real gifts if you do what I do. And none of them were planned on um and uh so you start to believe in in um destiny you know and things you know we talked earlier about you know unquantifiable

mysterious things that you know you can't prove they exist. You just know that they do. But I'm a big believer that, you know, somewhere along the way, my life was written on the wind and it just unfolded. And it unfolded in such a way. I sat down to write a book about seven or eight years ago, just so that I could grapple with these things that we're talking about, like, what part of all of the great things that happened to me that I have control over? They all just came. Which, if you know, to answer, to maybe come close to answering your question, it's a hard question to answer.

But yeah, I mean, it's like Carlos Castaneda says, you know, in the Don Juan book, you know, just relax and pay attention. That's the ultimate, like, you know, all the peyote and all the things that they're doing, you know, expand their mind and figure out, you know, how to grab life by some sort of balls. And, you know, basically, it comes down to just relax and pay attention. And those are hard things to do, because they require trust. And they require the fact that you are, you do have good things coming your way,

even though you can't foresee them, even though there's no proof of them. And not everybody is that lucky. I mean, that's why I consider myself an incredibly lucky, blessed human, because if I was to sit down at the age of 17, when I started to feel like maybe I'll be an actor and write out what kind of career I wanted to have,

I had it exactly, exactly like I would have written. Exactly. And continue to. And none of it, even though it seemed like it was a plan, it was more of an envisioning. I think that that is very helpful in terms of if you want to do something that's going to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be,

visualization is something that I've always always been deeply deeply um dedicated to and continue to yeah because i i i was listening to past interviews and you talk about that that point in your career after beauty and the beast where the phone didn't ring for three years that point in your career after Beauty and the Beast where the phone didn't ring for three years and then it's sort of and then you met Guillermo del Toro and it's sort of was there a point in those three years where you sort of let go and then and then things started unraveling or is it just kind of uh how did you feel at that at that point in your career horrible i mean i i wish i knew then what i know now um now i'm able to um because of just the living proof of having been alive for as long as i have the fact that i'm you know a lot of the um the frenetic energy of a young man you know especially when it comes to ambition

has kind of disappeared a little bit in me so i'm able to ride out um but i'm still not happy when there are these big lulls but that was excruciating that was excruciating. And I took it very, very personally. And it wasn't until Guillermo swooped down and literally jumpstarted the second half of my life, literally, where I realized, oh, fuck, that was supposed to happen. I was supposed to go down to ground zero to absolute nothingness, to be stripped away of everything in order to restart again

and in order to with all the things that come with restarting to appreciate things in a way that I never did before, to understand destiny in a way that I never did before, to understand learning how to trust that you're going to be okay if you just don't sit on it too hard, if you just don't fuck it up.

You're going to be okay if you you just, you know, don't fuck it up. You're gonna be okay. If you if you just relax, pay attention, keep doing your work, keep doing whatever you got to do to keep your mind right. No, that's going to the gym. That's whatever that is. That's, you know, building an arc, whatever that is, that keeps you going until something swoops down and lifts you up. until something swoops down and lifts you up. Was that Hellboy? Or did you guys do a film before that together? We did a film called Kronos.

It was Guillermo del Toro's first film. It was a very, very, very low-budget film, which we shot in Spanish in Mexico City. He was 26 years old. I was 41, maybe. And he'd never made a film before. And so I was there to see the coming out party of what turned out to be one of the most profoundly brilliant, unique voices in cinema. How did you guys get linked up? He had been doing a lot of research because he liked to do monster movies. So he was doing

research in prosthetic makeup so that he could create, he could get the facility to create his own monsters um because there was no there weren't a lot of um special effects makeup artists in mexico so he figured if i want to create these these these creatures i'm gonna have to do it myself he came to the united states he studied with lick baker dick smith stan winston and i had already done a shitload of special effects makeup jobs so he kept seeing me over and over and over again and he wrote me this beautiful letter and he sent me this script of Kronos

which is the most sophisticated elegant vampire movie I'd ever read and told me how important it would be if I was to help him, you know, do this. He didn't realize how desperate I was when, you know, I mean, I would have been a mailman at that point, you know, if that was just going to bring in a paycheck.

But yeah, that was the beginning of it and we we fell in love with each other you know uh not in a sexual way although you know i wouldn't rule that out but anyway um we uh we became hermanos you know um kind of opposite sides of the same coin. And in the way we thought, in our aesthetic, in the way we like to grab life by the balls and eat our way through it. So we kept doing it to the point where I just finished my sixth movie with him a couple of months ago called Nightmare Alley, which is about to come out sometime this year.

What's it like now that you guys are doing these huge budget movies together? Is there like a stop and kind of smell the roses moments that you guys have where you're like, dude, I can't believe we've come this far? I don't know. Do you guys ever just like look out at the ocean? You're like, holy can't believe we've come this far i don't know do you guys ever just like uh like look out at the ocean you're like holy we did this i do privately quietly because if if i if i said that out loud he'd go you you piece of pussy you know um so so i'll So I'll sit there and be a fan boy and go, I can't believe I'm here. I mean, you know, I still do that. I'm still a complete fan boy. I'm writing another book right now.

I'm working on these chapters where I'm grappling with what happens to me when I have to work with movie stars and how fucked up I get and how short-circuited. It makes you insecure? Totally insecure. It intimidates the shit out of me. When I'm a huge fan of somebody's work, that distracts me more than it should. Like Albert Brooks on Drive, was that a tough one?

Yeah, that was a tough one. I mean, I had... If Albert Brooks had fans in the beginning of his... When he first started appearing on television. Like Real Life and Saturday Night Live and stuff like that, and Carson.

Yeah, if he had fans back then he never had one as as voracious as me uh or more voracious than me so when i finally get to meet him and found out that we're just going to be doing this movie together it was a big adjustment and it was uh it was a challenge um i yeah i'm a fan boy is that tough too because you're playing the heavy in a fanboy. Is that tough to you? Because you're playing the heavy in a lot of stuff. So you got to kind of have the status in a lot of scenes. But then you're playing opposite, you know, Ryan Gosling or Charlie Hunnam or someone like that. Does that...

You know, it helps when these guys are so generous and so beautiful as humans. And they can sense that you're beating yourself up a little too hard and they help you along. You know. And I have found that with very few exceptions, most of the guys who I worship are also great guys and put you at ease really quickly. So you get beyond it and you start to be able to give a performance and then little by little, the butterflies get replaced by the job at hand. But I'm a fan boy. I'm not ashamed to say. There's a lot of beauty in that too and being so sensitive and feeling that so acutely even with all the success that you've had i don't know um i don't know do you do i was just i was i just did a movie called uh don't look called Don't Look Up. And the cast is Leo, Jennifer Lawrence,

Meryl Streep, Chris Evans, Mark Levin. And I'm on my way to work. I only have one scene that I'm in with Meryl, Leo, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jonah Hill and Rob Morgan. That's the only scene I'm in with the heavyweights. And we're shooting in Boston in December. And the teamster picks me up, puts me in the back of the van. And it's 27 degrees Fahrenheit.

And he keeps looking back to wondering why I'm wiping the sweat off my face and wondering if I'm okay, because he's freezing in the fucking van. And that's what happened. I mean, just the notion of having to go to work with those people, I got the flop sweats. I got the Albert Brooks in broadcast news. Flop sweats on my way to work. I mean, once I got there and once we rehearsed, I realized these people are just as fucking concerned about being good as I am, you know, and they're beautiful

and helpful and generous and human. And, you know, it're beautiful and helpful and generous and and human and you know it immediately got replaced but it happens does it uh do you get thrown off in terms of your process sort of like uh do you start to like i wonder what merrill's process is like am i am i prepping enough all that kind of stuff? Do you have those kinds of nerves? Or are you still able to stay in your own, trust your own process and trust your own gut with regards to that? Well, that's another thing that kind of has evolved over the course of time. You know, and I trust my own ability

to get to where I want to go more than I used to if you'd asked me that question 20 years ago I would have said yeah and I did I did having to work on a scene with Marlon Brando

say to myself he's probably thinking, what a fucking amateur I am because of his ability to get to where he wants to be as an actor. And I'll never, ever, you know. So I was applying all this pressure on myself that was insurmountable. But these days, and, you know, it goes back to that big thing of trust.

You know, it takes a long time to learn i mean if you're a young guy and you and you have learned uh the big lesson of trusting in the universe then you're way ahead of the game you're way ahead of where i was it took me forever to start to learn how to go man, you've done your homework. You read the script. You have a lot of strong opinions about what's going to make this scene commensurate with what the writer and the director intended for it to be.

You don't know what you're going to do when the camera's rolling, but you better just fucking trust that something good is going to come out. And the hardest thing to do is like, you know, like a bungee jump, you know, you just jump off, off, you know, the Baranzano narrows bridge to your death and hope that that cord doesn't snap. Have you ever acted in a scene with someone you really disliked?

How does that affect the scene? Can it make it better? No, you just do your work. I mean, you just do your work and you reserve all that personal stuff. Did that get harder? Could you always do that? Or when you were younger, would you be like, all that personal stuff. Did that get harder? Huh? Could you always do that?

Or when you were younger, would you be like, oh man, I don't know if I can like. No, no, it was always, always,

always about, it was always about performing, you know, your, your task at hand, which is to be your character in the scene, regardless of what you think about who you're acting opposite. character in the scene regardless of what you think about who you're acting opposite sometimes you realize that um you have to work a little harder to to maintain a chemistry because there is real hatred between you and the person you're acting with and and and and so that becomes

part of uh the little exercise of the day. But at the end of the day, the only thing you're there to do is play your character in the scene and be true to the authenticity of what it is you're getting at. What is your process, if you don't mind getting into it? Do you write a character bio? Do you go extensively into their backstory and all that kind of stuff? Or do you primarily just analyze the script and sort of look to see how you can deliver what's needed in the scene? Like is there a bunch of a ton of prep beforehand or are you kind of mostly focused on the scene at hand? If you're playing somebody who has a skill set that you need to research then that's what you do. You know, if you're playing a pilot, an airplane pilot, or an FBI agent, or, you know, or school teacher, you're going to want to do research, you know,

you're going to want to immerse yourself in those people's approach to doing their job. to doing their job. But I would say like 90% of the time, I'm just relying on the made up world that the writer has come up with. And my process varies depending on how close I feel I am to the character. If I feel really close to the character,

I basically just read the thing and then read the thing over and over again. And then as we get closer to the shooting day, read everything leading up to the scene you're about to do so that you know your backstory. And then you come in with, you know, you're informed about who you're supposed to be in this moment, in this big pastiche.

And I don't learn my lines until I've had my first rehearsal. I know my lines pretty good because I've had my first rehearsal. I know my lines pretty good because I've read them over and over again, but I have not sat and memorized them prior to coming to the set. Once we have our first rehearsal and they're lighting the scene, I learn them.

But I want to reserve judgment on learning the lines by rote until I've interacted with the other actors and seen how they're going to play it and find out. Maybe there's more of the dynamic of the scene than I thought there was. And I won't know that until I get it on its feet with the other people I'm with or in front of the director who might have his own ideas. And once I get, okay, I know what we got to do here. Then I'll sit in the trailer while they light the scene and finish learning the lines. That's my process. I know an awful lot of actors who would never work like that. So there's no one

right or wrong way. You've got to find out what's right for you. And when you say you're nervous in a scene, especially when you're playing off all these really talented people, does it manifest itself more like when it's your close-up? Are you more comfortable? For me, I've done in the limited acting, we did an episode of Hawaii Five-0 um and i was good in the wides but then when they'd be like hey par it's

your close-up now and then there was like the 40 person crew and i knew everyone was focused on me i'll sometimes find myself tightening up well that's natural you know because that's that's kind of the money shot and you know the unfortunate thing about anybody who's in a performance-oriented profession, whether it be singers, dancers, you know, musicians, actors, or athletes, you know, any athlete in any sport, all performance oriented. And you're going to have, there's no science that's going to, you can depend on to get you through it. You're going to have good days of your performing and you're going to have shitty days of your performing.

And the idea is to be good on a shitty day because the one constant is pressure. And the idea is to be good on a shitty day. Because the one constant is pressure. And the pressure is different in the first inning with nobody on base than it is in the eighth inning when you're down two runs and you got two men on base. And that's your close-up. You know, all kinds of shit are going to work on you to get in your way because you feel so much pressure to be good. But the trick is, how do I push all that aside and just relax and trust that I'm going to be as good as I was

in the wide shot when it was the second inning and there was nobody on base and there was no score yeah did you ever when you were feeling discomfort did you ever turn to like like drinking or anything like that to help kind of like loosen you up um I'm a needle guy you know I like to just mainline you just go heroin you just go straight in there no chocolate no oh wow yeah dark chocolate no no milk chocolate that's that's by downfall dark chocolate is actually pretty good okay to main okay to mainline they say yeah uh she gots come like oxidants or whatever they're called would you ever be embarrassed embarrassed when the AD would come into your trailer and you're just fixing yourself

up with all this chocolate? That's what I'm wearing. They'd kind of turn a blind eye to it. They'd be like, oh, it's just Ron. The great thing about these ADs is that they know their ass is on the line. And if they show any kind of judgment whatsoever, they know that they're moments away from having their career shattered.

Yeah. Did you just look at me? Did you not read my contract? You don't look in my eyes, ever. What is that? I don't know when some people don't want people to make eye contact with them? It's just they're too empathetic and entranced. I have no idea. I mean, we're in a collaborative. I mean, you know, if movies and theater and music or anything that unless you know, you're a solo artist,

it's hard to be a solo artist when you're making a film. You need at least two, three guys, at least, to make a movie. So how do you put in your contract? If I catch anybody looking in my eyes, they're fired. I mean, don't you want to know what the other guy is going to be doing

if you're in a collaborative kind of thing where your life is depending on his? I don't get it. Anyway, there's an awful lot I don't know. But if you ask me about chocolate, I'm good. How did you prep for a role like Sons of Anarchy?

Did you study biker gangs or did you feel like you're somewhat close to the character? Well, first of all, they're called clubs. Okay, not gangs. And this is the first thing I learned because I call them gangs too. Everybody does. But they're clubs, Everybody does. Yeah. But they're clubs, motorcycle clubs. Gotcha.

But yes, strangely enough, I was very intimidated to play Clay Morrow, even though I had already done all these things where i was completely covered in makeup and you know having to uh do stuff that would seemingly be very challenging and here's clay morrow i just go and comb my hair and walk on set and start saying my lines you know there's no real but the adjustment to clay mororrow was, for me, was profound because he possessed a kind of a value set that I didn't understand. You know, he was ruthless. He was at times amoral. He was at times violent and explosive.

He was dishonest. He was incredibly capable of doing things that were completely heartless. And I wasn't sure I could do him. I wasn't sure I could do him. And I read every book I could on the Angels and every other motorcycle club you could. And I saw every movie I could watch. And I ultimately realized you just got to get the guy's psychology. You have to really, really... And that was that was that was an imagination game that was like what what part of me can do all those things that i just

listed to you the ruthlessness and the violence and the amorality and the blind ambition, even if it means destroying people. What part of me is in there that's capable of those things? Because that's really the only thing you have to go on when you're an actor. And, you know, it was uncomfortable and it was a stretch, but it was at the same time very very challenging and you want

to be uncomfortable every now and again you know when you're acting you want to be not sure about do I got this because it makes for a really great engagement between you and your job. What about when you're when you because a lot of your work

has involved you know tons of special effects and makeup and stuff and like when you're Hellboy for example did, was it challenging? Did you find it challenging to emote the way you wanted to with like all that, you know, covering your face? Or did it come naturally to you? Was it easier than you thought? Hellboy was probably the easiest part I've ever played in my life because Guillermo you know he's taking a character that was in a graphic novel that only spoke in one word sentences two words was

a monologue for him so he had no he had a veneer in the comic books but in eking him out and making him three dimensional and human for the movies, Guillermo had to find his humanity and his point of view and his personality.

And he chose me. He basically wrote it for me. And if anybody knows how I speak and how I'm always, I'm always just fucking around and sending shit up and, you know, just, you know, completely degenerate in a situation. People go, come on, this is serious. Okay. Okay. Watch out for that banana peel. You know?

Yeah. I mean, Guillermo took all that stuff that he knew of me and made his Hellboy that. So it didn't matter how much makeup I was wearing for that. It was it was like they said action. And I just I just was wrong. I was just wrong. You know, I mean, except when it came to the superhuman stuff. But in terms of

his psychology and his his his sense of humor and his distinct, underachieving kind of ways, which is what made him different from any other superhero you've ever seen in a comic book movie. He was a guy who would rather sit home and eat pizza and watch the Three Stooges than go out and save the world. But they kept grabbing him by the arm and go, come on, you're here and save the world. But, you know, they kept grabbing him by the arm and go, come on, you're here to save the world. Come on. All right, fine.

But he was, you know, that's me. I don't want to, you know, I want to stay home and shoot chocolate up into my veins and watch Marx Brothers movies. Nice. Who's your favorite Marx Brothers? It varies.

You know, like, I've been watching the Marx Brothers for 70 years now. So one day it's Harpo, and one day it's Chico, and most of the time it's Groucho. Yeah, he's got most of the witticisms, right?

He's just... I mean, he's got most of the witticisms right yeah he's just I mean he's emblematic of why we love the three stooges if any one of them is emblematic it's Groucho it's his sensibility it's his you know but they're different than the stooges

right there's no comparison yeah I love my stooges butes right there's no comparison yeah although i i love my stooges but you know there's no comparison i love laurel and hardy too but again they're not the marx brothers was your dad a big comedy guy my dad was a big movie guy all of the all of my taste in movies came from sitting and watching movies with my dad who I didn't have for very long in my life. He died when I was 19. He was 49.

That was a long time ago, but thank you. But he was a movie freak, and he loved all the good shit. I mean, he really loved the Marx Brothers. So whenever they were on, I wanted to hang out with them. My dad was a fun guy to be around. So I just, whatever he was doing, I was doing it with him, you know, and a lot of it was listening to Sinatra and watching old black and white movies. Was he supportive of you becoming an actor? He was, I mean, he never saw me as a professional professional he saw me only in high school and college when

i was getting the bug to be maybe explore it he never saw he didn't live long enough to watch i was still in grad school when my dad passed away so he never saw me as a professional but what he did see when in the early early goings was he was very encouraging nice that's awesome he did see when in the early, early goings was he was very encouraging. Nice. That's awesome. You did stand up too. That was the first thing you did in your career. Is that right?

I didn't know that. For about five minutes. Yeah. Five minutes. Yeah. How was it hanging out with other comedians? They're pretty brutal, huh?

I never, I never got that far. I never hung out with other comedians. I had a partner named Spencer Schwartz. And this was back in the day where Jews didn't use their own name. So I was Perlman. He was Schwartz. So we were Stewart and Perry. And the reason why our careers didn't last was because we never wrote anything.

We just stole. We just stole Rodney Dangerfield. I did that at the beginning too. I would just do other people's jokes. I'm amazed no one ever caught me. You know, the reason why nobody caught me is because I caught George Carlin before he was famous and I was stealing all his stuff and nobody knew.

Everybody thought I was being original because George Carlin hadn't really hit the big time yet so I got away with it but for five minutes literally five minutes was this like Carson uh Carlin or was this like seven dirty words Carlin or somewhere in between Carson Carlin the hippie diman. Okay. You remember the Hippie Dippie Weatherman? Vaguely. Well, that was his first bit. Hey, man, it's the Hippie Dippie Weatherman with the Hippie Dippie Weatherman. You know, hot smoking TV weatherman. That's hilarious.

Very funny shit. Yeah. Do you still watch a lot of comedy? Oh, yeah. Who are you into now um well that's a tough question who am i into now or who do you revisit I am not up on the current crop of stand-up people. And I'm horrible with names.

Bill? Oh, Bill Burr? Oh, my God. Yeah, this podcast is on his network. Well, if you ever read Bill Burr. Yeah, this podcast is on his network. So, yeah. Well, if you ever read that book. Yeah, okay. He's fucking... He's somebody who I'll go out of

my way to listen to. He's fucking hilarious, yeah. Yeah. They just produced a doc, this company, about this comic Patrice O'Neill. He's a good guy to check out, too. And then there's... Is he Australian?

Is it? Jim Jefferies? Yeah. Awesome. So you like that raw cultural commentary. Yeah. And it was only, my brother was a jazz musician. And all the jazz musicians, you know,

like were obsessed with Lenny Bruce. This is when Lenny Bruce was still alive, you know, and he was still being dogged by the cops and the law for being dirty and, you know, and political. But I would say my early comedy chops, because my brother was another one who, you know, whatever he was doing, I just wanted to tag along. And he was listening to lenny bruce like every every single word of lenny bruce he'd get his hands

on he was listening to it 24 7. and so um i guess maybe that's where the whole kind of cultural commentary thing um got awoken. Yeah. It's interesting listening back to Lenny Bruce now, because it kind of like, it's almost hard to see what made him so unique in that moment, because I think he broke the ground. So you can't really, I can't put myself in the context before that ground was broken.

You know, the, I like to point this out to people, but Gangsta, with an A, was Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. because they were drinking and smoking on stage. This was our version of Gangsta. stage. This was our version of gangster. Even though they were all dressed impeccably in a black tie, Brooks Brothers or whatever, but they were bad boys because they dared to have a cocktail while they were working and fuck around and use you know loose language in vegas you know and they captivated the mind of the oh i mean this was back when you know um censorship was you know you couldn't say damn

you couldn't say hell you couldn't say god in any public forum so a guy like lenny bruce comes along and he just shatters everything and because of the times he lived in it was big news but nowadays it's like nothing is sacred anymore which is one of the things that I read

about in my first book which is like watching this things that I read about in my first book, which is like watching this such a dramatic shift in what one said and what one didn't say compared to now in my lifetime is I'm not sure it's a good thing as permissive as we've been allowed to become. Yeah. Who'd you run with? Were you like a hippie or were you like a, like a jock or who?

I could see it going any which direction. I was dressed like a hippie. I mean, I had bell bottoms and tie dye and, you know, I had a big Jewish Afro and, and I had a big Jewish afro. But I was a theater guy. While all my friends were going to Grateful Dead concerts and listening to Rolling Stones and shit, I was a theater guy from a jazz family. So my music, even while I was being dressed like a hippie,

was Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Bill Evans. Right. Cannonball Adelaide Mingus and Monk and shit like that. And everybody else was going to Shea Stadium to see the Stones. What about theater? Were you like Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill? And then were you... I had a real classical education in college. What about theater? Were you like Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill? I had a real classical education in college. I had a guy who insisted that I read everything, starting from Aeschylus to Greeks, all the way up to Samuel Beckett, who was still writing contemporaneously while I was studying.

Oh, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, and as was Harold Pinter. I was going to see world premieres of both their plays while I was going to college. But he insisted that I read the greatest stuff that was ever written. And so the writers of my day, when I was first throwing down... Like Mamet and Shepard and those guys? No, no, no.

Mamet wasn't even fucking born yet, bro. No, it was Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee and Arthur Miller. Great writers. And Gunter Grass, some other amazing European voices. But Tennessee Williams was still alive when I was in college, still writing plays, still having world premieres. But those were the godheads. Godheads, Williams, O'Neill, Miller, and Edward Albee, and Eugenie Inesco, Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett. So did you do all their stuff? Did you do like Waiting for Godot? I did

I did the other one. It's the only one I know. Also two characters. I'll think of a name in a second. Endgame? Endgame. Nice, Aaron. Aaron, coming in.

Aaron with the saves. That was huge. Do you have any great Nicholas Whining Refn stories well I have one to tell you the truth there are probably a million of them but I can't recall any of them right now but I have one that harkens back to I think it was a question Aaron might have asked

about preparation and stuff. But I was one of those guys that had seen the Pusher trilogy. Oh, no. I had seen Bronson. And then I was so blown away by Bronson that I went back and watched the Pusher trilogy. Then I hear this rumor that when Refin is coming to make his first American

film and Ryan Gosling is attached and he's casting right now. And I said to my people, I never, ever, ever lobby for a part. I never have lobbied for a part in my life, except for this one. I said to my people, you got to arrange for me to at least have a conversation with Refn. And I want to tell him why I need to play Nino. And so I was on location someplace and he was in L.A. And he agreed to have a phone conversation with me. And I was so insistent on the phone that he said, well, when are you coming back to L.A.?

And I said, I'll be back next week. He said, come up to my house and we'll sit and talk about it. But I'm interested in your enthusiasm. I don't know what it is about, but I'm interested. You're very enthusiastic and it's a little annoying, but let's take it a step further. So I go up to Re reference house and we meet and we sit out but he's got a rented house in the hollywood hills and we sit out in the back and we're having a really cool conversation and he says to me um i could tell that the meeting was winding down but he says to me, I could tell that the meeting was winding down,

but he says to me, let me ask you this. Who is Nino? That was the character that I wanted to play. And I paused, and my internal monologue was, if I answer this question wrong, I'm fucked.

And I don't know wrong, I'm fucked. And I don't know what the right answer is. So what's it going to be, Ron? So that was like a 10-second pause. And then I said to him, you know, Nick, I don't know who Nino is, but I'll tell you one thing. When you say action, shit is going to happen. And he and he said okay i'll see you on the first day that was that was the right answer wow and i really didn't you know the fact of the matter is when we had that meeting nino was like a stick figure. He had no personality whatsoever. He was just an idea.

He hadn't been fleshed out. And the one beautiful thing that Refn did do on Drive is that he had all of us sit in his living room with the writer and bullshit about who we thought our characters should be, might be, might want to be. And that guy implemented mostly our own ideas. And Nino was developed like right in front of me. But when he asked me the question, I didn't know who he was. And I thought that the best thing I could do was to just be honest. And it worked out. Because later on, you said that Nino was basically you in the sense that he's a jewish guy who wanted to be an italian gangster right right well that was the original concept i mean that that part of it had been established very early on even though the character wasn't born out in the writing yet

but um he was nino whose real name was uh you, I can't remember what his real name was, but it was like Arthur Schwartz or some shit like that, you know. And he was like this Jew from Queens. And when we spoke over the phone, when I was out of town, we were just talking on the phone. He said, why do you want to play the part so much? And I said, because i'm a jewish guy and when i wasn't thinking of myself as italian i was fantasizing about myself being italian and i was eating like an italian i was fucking like i was doing everything like a fucking italian how do you fuck like an italian trust me that's in my my next book you're gonna have to pay retail

if you want to know you're gonna have to pay retail. If you want to know, you're going to have to pay retail. I won't charge you tax. Copy that. Sounds good. I'm going to be selling them out of the trunk of my car at Dodger Stadium while I'm getting vaccinated for COVID. Have you been vaccinated yet? I got my first one. My second one was supposed to be

Friday. Because of the storms and all of the airport closures, they were postponed to an undefined day in the future. You ready to get back out there? You feel good? I've been doing okay during the pandemic. I've been going out pretty much doing something every day, you know, do all the shopping. I can't sit around and do nothing.

And then I got really lucky because Nightmare Alley, which they interrupted in March when COVID first hit, was 40% shot already. And then they decided that they could remount it and finish it. So mid-Septptember i was back up in toronto working on a big movie as if nothing had happened i mean we were all wearing masks and shit and you know getting covid getting your nose swabbed every other day but the making of the film as it always is. Yeah. I got a question. What makes you most stoked in life?

Hitting the club face right in the middle on a golf shot is up there. Because it's pure and it's rare. It doesn't happen very often. I'm a big, I've always been a huge fan of the hunt. I like being in the hunt. It's why I'm never going to be able to retire. I mean, I'm just going to keep doing this till I die. Because I love to be in the hunt. I love to know that there's a project that I'm working on that might happen, or that there is a project that people are talking about and they are interested in me doing that might happen.

I love the fact that I hear about, I got a job and it's in two weeks. And so I got some time where I'm in this beautiful state of grace where I don't have to worry about where my next job is coming from. But I really, really love being in the hunt. And I love, love developing stuff. Even though most of the stuff I develop,

like I said, doesn't happen. Other shit happens while I'm, you know, you make plans and God laughs, you know. Like, while I'm making plans, other shit is usually takes its place and makes it impossible for me to finish where I started.

But I love being in the hunt. I love being in a kind of a creative state because it makes me feel more alive than pretty much anything else. Yeah. Nice. Should we answer some listeners' questions?

Oh, sure. Yeah. You have listeners? A couple. I was told that this was completely just between us. Yeah, just between us. This will be internal.

We'll let them know. God, I hope I didn't say anything super revealing. I got to pee just real quick. Dude, quick dude pee yeah you can handle listener questions yeah we might just chat until he gets back okay how's your day going otherwise you good it's pretty early you know um but yeah it's beautiful day here where are you i'm in west hollywood yeah i'm in pasadena. It's beautiful day. Sun is shining. It's in the 60s, 70s, whatever. It's nice. Where were you born?

New York City. Oh, in the city? Yeah. What does your family do? My dad had been a jazz drummer. And when he started having kids, he didn't feel like he could And when he started having kids, he didn't feel like he could put food on the table doing that. So he went back and got a kind of a vocational degree as a TV and radio repairman. Oh, wow. Did that most of his whole life.

At 45, he went back to school and became a substitute teacher for electronics and did that for four years until he had a heart attack and passed away at 49 so if your dad was a jazz musician you're 70 so you're born in like 1950 so your dad was drumming in like the like like he was he was he was done by the time i came along so he was pretty early in jazz though, right? He was in the swing days. Right. So it's like Duke Ellington kind of stuff? Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller,

Harry James, the Dorsey Brothers. A little more big band. There's more people on stage. Yeah. But it was the beginnings of the articulation of jazz. I mean, you know of the articulation of jazz I mean you know the early days of jazz was like way back in the

20s with Louis Armstrong and those cats you know and like New Orleans but the big bands in the 30s and 40s but like cool jazz and like free jazz are about to kind of spring out big band jazz,

uh, uh, uh, swing jazz was replaced by bebop, which was Charlie Parker, Miles, John Coltrane, Monk,

Mingus, um, Stan Getz, all those guys. That was bebop, but it was also, it was the next iteration of American jazz. It's hard for me.

My brother was a bebop jazz musician, whereas my dad was a swing jazz musician, swing band jazz musician. Did your brother play the drums too? Yeah, and he died at 38, so I lost both of them very young. i'm so sorry. sorry. was buddy rich like... he's the guy... buddy rich was my dad's hero. my brother had disdain for anybody that my dad loved.

so your brother didn't like buddy rich? He didn't like Buddy Rich. He liked Elvin Jones and Philly Joe Jones, Tony Williams, the bebop guys. Any tip on how I could kind of understand like kind of blue better when I try to listen to it? I don't understand. I just think it's beautiful. No, I mean, I don't mean like understand like you know the theory of it or what not but I even have trouble listening to it sometimes

I'll give it another shot today I'll give it another shot today I mean there's no right or wrong what you're tasting in music I mean you know like I came to grips with that when all my friends were you you know, discovering rock and roll in high school and college. And, you know, and I just went, that's shit.

It's just so one dimensional, you know, unmusical. Felt lowbrow to you? Felt lowbrow to me. felt low about me you know because i had come from a family where harmonics and progressions and real sophisticated musicality was went into the recipe and you know rock and roll always had this just one driving kind of like you know one dimensional thing to it that i i didn't relate to until i was much later much older like I just three weeks ago I just downloaded The Last Waltz you know which is the Martin Scorsese movie the band last performance. you know the famous Neil Young thing

right that he had cocaine on his nose and they wrote us they edited it out of the DVD but if you watch the original you can see it all over him no but I believe that you know the story that you know I used to see Satchmo William Strong with a white handkerchief you know you know the story was that that thing was laced with

cocaine oh really yeah he wasn't really sweating. He was snorting. Hilarious. They said about Jimi Hendrix, too, right? The old folklore story that he put a tab of acid under his bandana when he did like the Star Spangled Banner or something like that.

So when he sweat, it would seep into his pores. Jesus, what a way to go, man. I don't know if it's true, though. I think maybe it's just I's true, though. I think maybe it's just... I only ever heard that. I think it's more true than not, probably, because those cats were like, you know,

they were heavy druggies. Yeah, they burned the candle at both ends. You never got into drugs and stuff? No. I mean, when everybody else was... You know, I mean, when everybody else was discovering marijuana, I was smoking pot. I never took to it

like a lot of my friends did. I never took to cocaine, even though I tried it multiple times because I said, this has got to be better than what I'm experiencing because everybody is so fucking selling their house for it and shit.

I kept trying and kept trying. I don't get this. I never fucked with hallucinogens though other than really good ones. All right. You guys want to answer some questions? Why not?

This is a long one some of these questions can be long so uh it it can be kind of hard to sit in the pocket and hear all of it run but we'll catch you up after if it if it floats by a little bit all right what up bros want to start off by saying thanks for boosting my stoke levels on a weekly basis your socal vibes and shiny demeanors have really made me covid my covid canadian winter a little sunnier thank you sorry for the long really the long email i really hope you enjoy it over the past year i've met a couple girls who i seem to really connect with over a couple dates and frequent texting calls however each time after two dates i got the dreaded this isn't working out text with both

girls claiming they just weren't feeling any chemistry. The most recent example was this week and it led to some frustration and introspective analysis of what I think has been a recurring problem in my life. To put it shortly, I'm a pussy ass bitch. I've always been scared of being fully vulnerable with potential partners. I always get really nervous of what my family and friends would think of potential girlfriends. In intimate situations, I get really nervous and to hide that I become very distant and avoid making a move. This has led to me being a 28-year-old virgin who has avoided dating almost entirely out of fear. I've been told I'm good looking and quite the catch, but I feel like when my friends try to encourage me and they mean well, I just feel shame for still being in

this situation and feeling added pressure. In the two aforementioned dating situations, there was no touching or kissing whatsoever as I was too scared to make a move. I feel like this is a reason no chemistry can manifest. As I continually avoid it and don't show my interests, or maybe the girls just didn't like me, as I get closer to 30, I'm really worried my lack of romantic experience is going to hinder my chance at meeting someone special. Also, dropping the virgin bomb this late in life seems like a sure way to put extra pressure on a potential relationship.

Do you have any tips on how to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable? Steve Carell sorry that's funny no no listen I I feel I feel for this person

and understand it. And it's one of those things that goes back to pressure. I mean, you're digging yourself into a grave deeper and deeper and deeper by putting this amount of pressure on yourself to score. And the longer it takes you to score without success, the more pressure you're putting on yourself. So it's kind of like a complete self-defeating.

But what you're going to have to do, I'm sorry, you're going to have to fucking man up and grow a pair and say, at some point when you're out there with a girl who you want to kiss, you're out there with a girl who you want to kiss you're going to just have to actually repeat after me are you listening repeat after me can i kiss you and if she says no just okay sorry chances are she's going to say yes and then the minute you do um you'll know what to do from

that point on i love that i i agree i think um you just gotta you gotta put yourself out there and you gotta just bite the bullet and uh uh the the more pressure you put on yourself the more you you build up this you build up this sort of uh anxiety in your head or just this you know it's uh you once you do make that step towards you know just saying hey do you want to kiss that kind of stuff it you're going to feel so much better about the whole situation about yourself so it's just taking that first step you just got to you got to get on stage and do it and something real will happen when you when you say that even if you fuck it up but something real will follow she's she's gonna be real with you one way or the other because you were just real with her you were expressing something real and

usually good things happen when when you go from the the the that you're imagining in your head which is where all the pressure is coming from to shifting the conversation to something real like i i i really want to kiss you right now is that okay with you and she's going to tell you but her answer is probably going to be pretty real it may it may be a lie but it's going to be a real lot you know or it may be a little game that she wants to play well oh i'm gonna kiss this guy but not right now not on his terms you know but real shit will happen and it'll replace the the um the imagined horrible pressure you're putting on yourself which is getting you nowhere for sure and dude also if it if uh if you go for that kiss and it doesn't work,

then you could just tell her like, hey, sorry, I don't have that great a game. I'm a 28-year-old virgin. And then maybe that honesty will not only disarm her, but it might disarm you to just put your truth out there. Yeah, I agree with that. And she'll probably go, aw. Yeah. Come here. and yeah i agree with that and she'll probably go oh yeah yeah come here oh yeah if she's a nice person yeah she's gonna she's gonna help you along and she might find it endearing i know i would

um all right we got another another long one fellas what up chad and jt and any other legends on the pod shout out to aaron the stick, Strider the relationship guru, and Joe's hog. Our friend Joe's normally on here, and he's got a huge dick. Apologies for the semi-long question. It's a bit complicated, one that has been tearing me apart. I've been listening to y'all for over two years now and always appreciate the stoke and wisdom

you provide for me and the rest of the stokers, especially around relationships. I'm ready to get some tips on how to approach an upcoming trip I'm going on with friends from college at the end of the month. We graduated last year and have a dank squad of 12 homies. I'm so hyped to see all of them, but there's one problems. One of the homies is my ex. Her and I dated for our senior year,

but call things off back in October as we drifted apart from distance about an eight hour drive apart. And the lingering fact that we're moving to cities on opposite coasts of the U S once COVID chills out. Ever since this split, my stoke has not been nearly as high. She was so great for me, and I truly was in love with her. But we made a mature decision to end things before we got sucked in too deep and moved on to new cities.

This was mainly her idea, unfortunately. Since we didn't break up over any sort of dispute, I'm filled with so many what-ifs and constantly think about how it would be if we were still together. It also doesn't help that we're in the same text and Snapchat groups. So I see her on the phone all the time. She's on my mind every single day since we broke up over four months ago. And a big part of me wants her to move back more than anything. But a smaller part of me thinks that I just need to keep looking forward to moving on to my new city and finding other potential

dank GFs. I know this for sure. I'm still insanely attracted to her i want her to be my girlfriend again and i still love her but i also know that if i tell her this i risk getting my heart broken even worse than it already is should i pull her aside on the upcoming weekend excursion to confess this to her should i just keep my composure and not take that risk any advice y'all would have would be super appreciated and if you could let me know if and when you're including this in episode that would be clutch since it's sort of time sensitive. Time sensitive. Yeah, I think we actually missed the window on that if I'm being completely candid.

But I'm really glad you took the time to read the whole thing then if we missed the window. We should get somebody to bet these emails, bro. I mean, you guys are probably pulling down seven figures on this fucking podcast. We're not quite there yet, but we could have someone do that for us. I'll actually, Ron, I swear to God, I'm actually going to do that after this episode. I think it's about time I had some. But I don't trust somebody else to pick the emails. Their sensibility could be different. You know, all is a question of did you miss the window or not?

That's the only thing that matters. Because you just took three minutes out of my life that i'll never get back but ron it's still this is still this is advice that could uh relate to the fucking train left the station bro but dude it's not i don't think don't think of it so linearly oh okay i'm sorry rock with me here bro i'm sorry i'm sorry look i know i know i know it wasn't a great tag to put on the end of the email but i think i think there's still some stuff here that we need to dive into well no fucking you know he's probably he's probably blown it by now you know so like what next case there's plenty of people out there that really need us

wait no i gotta give this dude some advice though i'm sorry i'm sorry i like what you're saying though dude i think you should just go for it i think she's gonna reject you but i think you should just go for it i think just tell her you love her and just take that heartbreak on and and we'll suffer together we all suffer through this stuff Do you have any advice for her? No. I don't know where she's at on this. I don't know if she should say. She should say whatever she thinks.

I think she wanted to break up, and then moving to different cities was a good common sense reason why. But I think if she was truly into him, she would have stuck it out, right? I don't know, man. He's probably not even on the internet anymore. I just picture him hammered at a park. He's in a 12-step program, bro.

He doesn't have time for you now. Yeah. I've been waiting for this podcast to tell me what to do and they fucked me. Yeah. Yeah, I think I agree with JTt i think you got to go for it or or uh if not uh take like a moratorium from you know seeing her on your phone like i would i would bail out of those group chats i would uh uh you know maybe just like mute her on social media so

you don't see her because the more you just keep seeing her and you know it's just gonna keep torturing you so i think you just gotta you just gotta you know bail from that yeah you can't be on all those those constant reminders of her you're just torturing yourself and i appreciate the masochist in you but uh it's just uh i don't think you're getting much out of it but i would tell her just tell her you love her and see what happens and dude honestly i was being a little cynical saying she's probably going to say no but dude crazy shit happens she could say yes so i think you got to always be optimistic that these things could work out um all right last question from zachary my dogs i have a serious issue at hand literally me and my girl have been doing the horizontal hokey pokey every day for the past two months and i also really like to hit the gym in my free time this guy's just i mean let's see why it was okay but i also

take t boosters i got off them because i forgot to take them but i don't know i think they messed me up. A few nights ago, we were in the middle of it, and I got softer than Charmin toilet paper, and I looked defeated. Then the next night, I couldn't stop thinking about the incident, and it happened again. Please, my dogs, help me become an absolute unit and maybe someday a legend. What do you think I should try to do?

Viagra. Yeah, dude, that stuff works. But I don't know. I get headaches when I take it. The next day, I feel kind of odd. We're not talking about you right now are we you write your own fucking email if you want me to you know i can prescribe something else i'm saying it from personal experience because i'm looking out for him i'm like yeah it's a quick fix but you know there's no free lunch this guy's gonna

be he's gonna have a fucking headache i don't give a shit whether you have a headache or not, motherfucker. Just drop the Viagra. You'll be harder than Chinese algebra. And you will have moved past this, whatever this writer's block you have right now. So you think it's first hole jitters. You think the Viagra will get him there, but because I'm worried he might get independence.

I think he needs to remind himself of his power. And if he can't do it on his own, don't get in a rut. You know, use a substance. Yeah, that works. Why is he taking T-boost? Like, how old is this kid? He's in college, I think. Sounds like it.

Yeah. They say that your testosterone goes down commensurate with how much stress you have in your life and to me right now if you look around at what's happening in the world it's amazing testosterone at all yeah right yeah i think dude i think also like i don't know i've had boner problems like a million times in my life but and i got a nice boner i would just i just wouldn't i think you're you're thinking that this moment's gonna last forever but it's just a moment it happens to the best of us you'll be fine you're just a little sensitive which is nice pop a little blue diamond baby i used to i i i was like addicted to that stuff that's why i get wary about it because i was i was chasing that power,

but it wasn't real power. You're only supposed to take one a day. That's probably why you're getting headaches. Now I can't even take it. If I take 12 milligrams, I get a headache the next day. I'm just sensitive. I would say

do some squats and take an ice bath. That's healthy. You do squats, Ron? Squats and take an ice bath. That's healthy. Yeah. You do squats, Ron? Squats? Yeah. I can get down. I just can't get back up. You get that out.

I try to avoid them. That's what's up. I have bad knees. I'm maybe going to go get a knee replacement pretty soon. going to go get a knee replacement pretty soon. So I'm trying to work my core. Never mind, this is bullshit. But I appreciate you trying. No, I don't do squats. I just do curls. Curls for the girls. Right. Yeah. Edward Burns, the director, he says you put a dumbbell by your toilet. You just do curls. Curls for the girls. Right. Yeah. Edward Burns, the director, he says you put a dumbbell by your toilet. You just do curls when you're on the toilet.

Mm-hmm. You're talking about squeezing one out. Jacking off? No, I didn't say that. You did. No, you innuendoed it. No, that's rubbing one out. What did you say? He's talking about it. No, that's rubbing one out. What did you say?

He's talking about taking a shit. Squeezing one out. Oh, that is taking a shit, huh? Yeah. Well, I don't know. Depends on what neighborhood you came from. Yeah. All right. I think that's good. I think that was a good final question to end on. Fine with me.

You want more? You want more? I said fine with me right you want more you want more i said i said fine with me i'm good i'm good i'm really good all right ron thanks for joining us yeah thanks for coming on man it was really a pleasure it was fun it was fun guys it was fun you're a lot of fun to talk to you appreciate you thank you bro thank meeting you guys. Yeah, you as well. Okay. Have a great Sunday. You do the same. All right.

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shipping by going to manscaped.com slash go D20. Put Handsome on autopilot with the new Peak Hygiene plan from Manscaped. Oh, you guys are back. What's up, dawg? Good to see you guys. Good to see you too, brother. Chad, let's get into it. Who's your beef of the week? My beef of the week is something i'm not mad about um

hold on let me just uh write this down my beef of the week is something i'm not mad about but something i discovered yesterday so yesterday i posted a photo of me at home depot i'm becoming a you know a a home repair guy. Yesterday I was getting a pump for my ice bath so I could pump out the water. And it's manual, guys. Got to keep that. I'm going to use my muscles to get the water out. I don't need a fucking gas-powered pump.

And so I posted a photo of me next to some pretty sick pipe equipment i was really pumped on the valves and everything going on with the pipe equipment and i was like yeah i'm becoming a home depot guy just making the announcement to the universe and um i got a bunch of messages that were like whoa dude home depot you should be going with lowe's you should be a lowe's guy and i would say that the majority of the messages were like what are you doing in home depot you should be going to lowe's and i had no idea that this kind of beef existed um and i frankly i don't really know why people have this beef because, you know, I talked to my brother about it. He's, you know, big handyman.

And he's like, he's like, Lowe's is for housewives. So, you know, I just, I just want to, you know, maybe some people can write in and tell us why they prefer Home Depot or Lowe's because I've been going to Home Depot and it, it really tickles my fancy. And it, it, um, you know, it spurs my gooch, uh, in a good way. So, uh, yeah, just let us know what, what's the deal with Lowe's versus Home Depot and do you guys have preferences? I don't cause I don't know shit, but I saw Aaron making some head gestures. I thought

that they were objecting the Home Depot because the owner apparently donates a bunch to Trump. Oh, is that it? It's political? I would say so does Lowe's, so it's fine.

Yeah, both of them do, so it's fine yeah are people still donating to him did you guys see he no i mean this is before you see he stiffed rudy giuliani on the bill the lawyer bill yeah he's only done it his whole life so i guess he's not paying rudy it's so funny aaron who's your B for the week? My B for the week is with Spit Up. I don't know if you've ever encountered this with a baby, but

man, you think you're wearing a cool shirt for the day, and just out of nowhere it's got white shit on it, and it sucks. You still love your baby, but your wardrobe is ruined. Dude. My Beef of the Week is with Trevor Noah.

I was watching something on Comedy Central for the first time in a while and I had to watch a couple Trevor Noah commercials. And I just think he's awful Chad who's your babe of the week dude I love that was my favorite beef I think you've ever done am I a legend of the week is that what you're asking

babe of the week this is the one I couldn't figure out but let me just go off the top of my dome here um a broth a liver what about that pit bull yeah you know i was gonna go with that so i'm looking for dogs i i met i met a pit mix yesterday story and uh super cute super affectionate needs a home and um but i think that she's so cute the demand is high but the the lady was telling me that um she's like she's super high energy super high prey drive you know you'd have to i'd have to train her essentially and i'd have to worry about you know i don't know

if i'd be able to take her to the dog park i don't know she she's just like too high energy um i'd have to do like crate training she said and and so and and that's you know a part of me was like i don't think i'd have the time to handle this another part of me is like i think it'd be really cool to learn how to train a dog and to learn how to you know be the leader of a dog i think i think the bond would be pretty sick um so i'm just trying to figure that out i'm still you know looking around for dogs and maybe i want one with a little bit milder uh a little bit lower energy. But I love Story. I mean, she's super cute.

I just, I wonder if I'd be the right owner for her. But I think it's a challenge that I think I'd really enjoy, I think. I don't know if I'm at the point in my life, maybe if I lived with someone, then we could both handle it um but the idea of of having like a bond with a dog where i've trained a dog and you know we have this like connection it really just gets my gears going so that's that's the status of my dog search at the moment nice dude i think it's gonna end up exactly as it should oh thanks man there's a dude the quads on that dog were powerful they were incredible so she has a

she has a she's a lab mix so she has a labrador head and then the beefiest quads you've ever seen like the most inspiring they were incredible so i was so pumped on stoked on that i mean i think you look at that dog you're gonna want to lift every day you know what i mean that that's exactly i i didn't get like a good photo for you but i was like if jt saw these he would be i think he would just go straight into burpees boom yeah that. Aaron, who's your baby of the week? Well, I have an example of why you need to train a dog. My mom's, during this podcast,

while we're recording with Ron Perlman, which is a joy of my life, my mom's dog scratched my baby's face. Whoa. Is your baby okay? She's okay. I'm sorry, man. Is she bleeding?

No. Okay. Did that make you angry at the dog? Yeah. But yeah, it is lack of training. I'd find it hard not to do something. Well, luckily, I wasn't there to see it i was uh in here when distracted so all i heard was crying and assumed it was kind of normal and then coming to find out so is that

why you had to jet when chad was doing the ads yeah dude you're such a pro. You came right back in and you were dialed. Respect. Yeah. My babe of the week is my wife, Leah. She's been here at my parents' house for a week while I went up back to LA to work. Just kind of letting the baby hang out with the grandparents a little more.

And I just miss the hell out of her. So she's my babe of the week. Nice, dude. That's so lovely. My babe of the week is a patrice o'neill so uh all things comedy where we do our podcast um produced and directed a a special about patrice o'neill who i think we can all agree is one of the i don't know the greatest comedians of all time a true original and i found the documentary it was first of all it's way sweeter than i thought it was going to be you know what i mean because we all know him for his like kind of his braggadocio but he backs that braggadocio up with intelligence and performance chops and commitment and so it's well learned but i i wasn't expecting how sweet it would be and that that was really nice but the thing that always inspires me the most about him is just his honesty,

you know? And he, he always says like, you can't fuck with the truth. And like, and he lived it. And just watching him be that way made me want to be more honest and more truthful. And I think the thing is sometimes I'll think that means I have to be honest and truthful like him, you know, which is kind of like this, like almost like pimp honesty that he would kind of have when it, especially when it came to male, female relationships, him you know which is kind of like this like almost like pimp honesty that he would kind of

uh have when especially when it came to male female relationships but that's not my truth you know what i mean that was his truth and it was well earned but my truth is different so i just have to but but i but i still took the inspiration to be like all right but be your truth and my truth is more like crying in front of a girl and just being vulnerable and stuff like that and i'm sure patrice would have made fun of that but i think i think like that's how i'm more formidable when i'm living that truth so so i just i don't know i love patrice o'neill i loved watching that special so much he's so funny and but yeah the truth thing is really what i just i think will be my biggest takeaway from him and his legacy it's just it's it's always better to just be honest and truthful yeah hell yeah chad who's your legend of the week uh my legend of the week so uh it's it's more just sort of what happened yesterday

it was the afternoon and i was like gonna work out and uh i was gonna do sprints sprints at the hill but it's be get i've been doing them so much that it's become kind of monotonous for me sure and so i did like one sprint up the hill and i was like i'm not feeling this like and i've been trying to listen to my body more i'm like i'm not gonna force i'm not not feeling this so i kind of just like took this moment of like of like what do i want to like what what is my like intuition telling me that i want to do right now so i just walked i straight up just walked and i walked you know i walked like up the hill and then like down and then like i found this this this football field with a track around it and um it was close so i just hopped the fence and i just did sprints around the track

and i listened to a ron perlman podcast and it just kept walking and it was like the best two hours ever it was incredible i don't know what it was i was just like walking i was like this is like and i like got back home i was like that was amazing and that was sort of like a uh i was like i was like that's a breakthrough yeah i was sort of like i was like i was just like i was like wow when you just sort of like listen to you know your your body and what your sort of intuition is telling you to do in that moment you know you don't like force things that's when like the most incredible things in life happen i think dude that's beautiful man that's pretty amazing yeah it was i got back i was like because i was like i was kind of like

just like trying to sprint i was not in a great mood. And I just did that. And it totally, I wasn't having a bad day, but it totally just like, made my day great. It was cool. That's awesome, dude. Yeah. Beautiful. Who's your legend of the week? Beautiful. Who's your Legend of the Week? My Legend of the Week is this week's guest, Ron Perlman.

What a fun guy to listen to. What a fun guy to hear talk with that voice. And just what an amazing career he's had. To kind of start it all behind makeup the way that he did. Where his big break was as like a caveman in the quest for fire. And, and then his big, you know,

his big role as B as the beast on beauty and the beast, which I contend like for every person who complains about wearing a mask right now, like this dude had to wear four hours of makeup every day for gratitude. He's being paid handsomely. I'm sure it was a network soap opera, basically primetime soap opera, but like that dude's been in a,

had to be uncomfortable way more than you have for sure. Just for having to wear a little cloth on your face. But between that and all his roles with Guillermo del Toro, he's in Pacific Rim, which we quote all the time. And he's in a great... If you don't know it, I'm going to talk about it in my quote too, but if you don't know The City of Lost Children, the French film by Jean-Pierre Je jeunet the guy who did amelie oh nice if you don't know that film like he he's the star of the movie he doesn't even speak french

eddie's fucking jacked in it it's 1995 so i don't know how old he was then 45 jacked he sure was the whole movie so beast check it out for your fitness goals let's go and yeah sons of anarchy and all the all the stuff he's done it's just uh and i'm glad you guys talked about drive because he's really good in that too i think his character is pivotal. Like that whole movie is smooth sailing if that guy doesn't have the ambitions he has. And puts things in motion

that he does. Nino. Nino, man. I was watching clips too. He's like what fucking family? He's like, this guy's a driver's kid. He's got to go.

He's got to go. Yeah, so good. My legend of the week is the boys. So I had a tough day yesterday, and I was feeling really out of sorts and just, I wanted to wallow in my emotions, but I was like, I'll hop on the sticks and play some call of duty. Got into some war zone action with Greg, Joe and Ross, gave them the rundown. They gave me some good life advice, you know, grounded and empathy and kindness

and, and strength. And then we started balling, pick up a dub. We get a quick dub. Everybody's feeling good. We're laughing up a storm. Then we get like a 17th place. Then we get into another game. We get to final circle. Now I am horrible in final circle.

Anytime it's come down to a 1v1 to get the W in war zone, I have come up short and I've gotten melted. It's me joe versus two other dudes joe takes one of them out he takes joe out it's me and one other guy they're all like let's go par par you got this guy jumps around the corner i got my tricked out mac 10 i mow them down the boys went so ballistic for me like they were like yes par you did it we knew you could do it you came through ross was like you've become the man you were supposed to be let's go and like we were all so fired up and i was just like my body was on fire i felt like i was shaking i was shaking and they knew it too ross was like are you shaking i'm like dude i'm jittering all over he's

like he's like he's like you deserve it bro you deserve it anding all over. He's like, you deserve it, bro. You deserve it. And we all went clip. They were like, clip it, clip it. And we just went bananas. And then we run it back, and we picked up a back-to-back dub. We had three dubs on the night. Third dub. I didn't get the final kill, but I was in final circle. We brought Ross back, final circle. There was a buy box there.

He comes in. Ross is a killer. Wipes four of them. And you got a Greg unbelievable tactical guy unbelievable uh uh combat guy Joe same deal and then they're all amazing on the comps fun to talk to they can balance strat and conversation but Ross wipes everybody and then we get a third victory on the night and literally it's what I needed I was like I needed this like this really helped me and I was like I know it was huge so thanks to the boys for being there always been on the sticks and and uh

for not only being proficient with the uh with the loadout but also being uh i don't know proficient with the friendship i appreciate it yeah that's good stuff chad what's your quote of the week so yesterday after I looked at this dog I started taking a master class on dog trainings by this guy Brandon McMillan and he goes the first step is all about trust without this essential element

in your relationship with your dog you cannot be an effective trainer nice yeah Aaron what's your quote of the week so my quote of the week is ron ron perlman he was being interviewed and being asked like if he was afraid he's being typecast as a tough guy and he says i don't bear any label i perform very extreme characters but at the same time, men with an enormous goodness. Take, for example, the Hercules from City of Lost Children,

which I spoke about earlier. One is the character's name. He's a child in an adult body. One is pure, simple, and innocent. My character in Beauty and the Beast had enormous generosity. Far from this world, the Beast was too good to be real. It's true that I hardly play ordinary people due to my appearance. Anyway, I'm not a captive on any register.

I don't systematically play tough and not very bright people. I congratulate myself for varied filmography and for being able to do all those roles. Awesome. True. Nice. Vincent on Beauty and the Beast is like maybe the nicest character that's ever been on film.

You can't put Ron in a box. No. My quote of the week is from a Pacific Rim, but it's not one of Ron Perlman's lines. It's Idris Elba and the final dude that he goes into the drift with. I forget the dude's name. Good looking like, I don't know, British guy, Australian guy.

And they're talking about whether they're going to be able to drift together because your brain has to connect with another person so you can operate the kaiju, these giant robot fighters. And Idris Elba turns to him and he goes, and as for you, well, you're easy. You're an egotistical jerk with daddy issues

a simple puzzle i solved on day one but you are your father's son and uh and he's like i forget what the last line is but i know you'll fight well and then the kid goes works for me very badass very cool sweet yeah what's your phrase that we forget after it let's give this night some lumbar support nice and what's your phrase that we forget after it let's go shoot some chocolate nice mine is i have trust you got this man i'm trying bro yeah i think i do i think i do i can't i can't fail i gotta figure it out i'll have not that you should think about it that way but i can't let my insecurities dictate the outcomes of my relationship so i'll i'll do it i'll have trust

yeah i think uh yeah just experiment with for a week just to be like i'm completely letting everything go and whatever happens happens i'm worried i'll like it'll cost me some like personal power like i won't feel strong but what kind of strength is that if it's so fragile so let's go i think that's i think that's stronger than trying to control it i think you're right i know all right i'm gonna i'm gonna drink a little bit today and i'll feel better I think that's stronger than trying to control it. I think you're right. I know. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to drink a little bit today and I'll feel better. I'll be around though.

I'll be around if you need me. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. All right. Good stuff. Thanks guys. Are we recording tomorrow?

If you need advice. These guys are really nice You wanna know What to do, where to go When you need someone to guide you Just stand out, the throat's beside you Go free Go free Watch the half-blood beside you Go in deep Go in deep

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