Happy Sad Confused - Chris Pine, Vol. II

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

Chris Pine is back and this time it's for a true labor of love, his directing debut in POOLMAN. Chris opens up about why he loves this quirky debut so much, dealing with cirticism, and what the future holds. SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! ZocDoc -- Go to ⁠ZocDoc.com/HappySad⁠ and download the Zocdoc app for FREE! Storyworth -- Go to Storyworth.com/HappySad to save $10 on your first purchase! UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS ⁠Cabaret (Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin) May 20th in NYC -- ⁠Get tickets here⁠ Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes, video versions of the podcast, and more! To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh's youtube channel here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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D.C. high volume, Batman. The Dark Nights definitive DC comic stories adapted directly for audio for the very first time. Fear, I have to make them afraid. He's got a motorcycle. Get after him or have you shot? What do you mean blow up the building? From this moment on,

none of you are safe. New episodes every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. You probably don't get misidentified for anybody at this point. But, yeah, last celebrity you were mistaken for. Everybody, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Matt Damon, George Hamilton, which was really great. George Hamilton.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, George Hamilton. It shows you how well I'm aging. Yeah, it's the tan. Oh, Joey Lawrence. Most recently, Jeff Daniels. Okay. The things, yeah, that's what's happening in my life. No one knows who I am.

No one likes my film and they think I'm Jeff Daniels. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. I'm Josh Horowitz and today on Happy Say I Confused, Mr. Chris Pine is back, but this time he's not fighting dragons or clean-ons. He's just trying to make his beloved Los Angeles a better place, or at least his character in Pool Man is. It's a big moment for Chris.

Not only is he the star of this film, but he co-wrote it. This is his directing debut. It is the one and only pool man himself. It's the great Chris Pine. Welcome back, sir. Yes, that's all I needed. You know the weight of my heart. Long and prosper, Josh.

It's good to see you, buddy. Am I visiting you in Casa Pine? Is this the homestead? This is the homestead. I'm meeting a tremendous bagel. I have my spirit animal, Pablo Picasso and his giant, underwear with his giant dog.

I'm just blissfully not giving a fuck. This is exactly what I had in my fanfic about you. This is what your house would seem to be. Yeah, perfect. I guess I maybe have a not-so-safe-for-work. What is it? What is it? Now I'm intrigued.

What was wrong with that? That was just a flower. A very beautiful, zafting woman. I see. They're behind. Well, that's a lot. happen. So canceled in the first 90 seconds. Oh, well, it was a good run. Which part of the house, is there a bungalow with my name on it when I'm staying at your place? Is there a room or a particular

part that you would recommend I stay in? Well, Josh, great question. I have a nice garden out front. We could certainly get you pitched on a tent out there. I have a little trailer in the front, which is quite cozy. Love it. I have an eight-person sauna if you want to... Wow. Sweat it out? Sweat it out on the daily. So there are options.

There are options. There are not too many options because I'm quite specific, but you can take a gander at the household and see what works for you. All right. We're building to that in our long, illustrious relationship. We'll see if we get there. Exactly. Like 10 pals. In all earnestness,

congrats on this. This is a moment. man. I mean, look, you've been doing this a while, and I know this is a passion project. Cool, man, is wild. I always talk about on the show, I want to see wild swings. I want to see people go for it. And you went forward on this. And the people that love this are really going to dig it. So I hope you're feeling good about it. I appreciate it. It's been, uh, it's been, it's been a, it's been a wild year, man. I'll tell you what. It's having done it for so long now and been around it for so long with my dad and whatnot, you know, there's, there's like the, you get inured really fast to, uh, criticism as an actor. It's like it's just a part of the game, right? But there's a lot

of stuff to hide behind there. There's the director and there's the writer and it's the release pattern. It's the, blah, blah, blah, blah, and as an actor, you get to, you come on set and you do your, you do your dance and then you go off and by the time the film comes out, you've done X amount of other projects. So I've been, I think the closest thing I would imagine this is like co-writing and directing and starring in something is what like, I guess a stand-up comedian must feel like kind of standing on stage and feeling utterly naked.

So it's been a real come-to-Jesus moment for me in terms of seeing how resilient I am. I'm certainly like when the film came out and Toronto just got fucking panned. Yeah. It was like, I guess I wasn't totally surprised. I wasn't totally surprised

because even in making it, I was like, well, God, you know, I wanted to make a, I tried to make a joyful film that I thought very much. I was not trying to make some sort of niche film, albeit there's a lot of like L.A., deep L.A. references to it, but with so much joy behind it to then be met with like this kind of

cavil, you know, this fuse a lot of not so joyous stuff was like, oh my God, so the cognitive dissonance there was quite something. But it's been really ultimately kind of the kind of the best thing that's ever happened to me because it's, it's forced me to like double down on on joy and really double down on what it is I love most about my job which you kind of forget as an actor

sometimes which is fundamentally it's about play right like you do is essentially like become children for hours a day and make believe and there's a spirit in a the word that I've been thinking about is impish

there's like an impish quality to it that that I don't ever want to lose. And so that's kind of my my five-minute answer to the process of the art of having made it. Well, I will say, like, by the way, I was at Toronto. It was such a weird experience. I'm sure. Sorry. I wasn't even there. I was on a plane flight. I couldn't have gone anyway, I guess, because of the strike. Well, that's what I was going to say. What a weird circumstance for a premiere where I got to go to your premiere and you, and you didn't. And yeah, look, I mean, I think it sounds like you kind of like reconciled sort of like the importance which you knew in your heart of hearts in any actor does, which is like you

didn't make this for the box office or the critics. You made it because you felt passionate about it and it connected with you and you had something to say. And it's easy to say like that's all that matters. But there's also the reality of like seeing the stone cold like review come in and be like, oh, you're human. Oh, my God. Yeah. I've been talking about it to my therapist. Like, I think in my mind, I have this, like, this vision of it, like, some sort of artist samurai, you know, that's, like, able to.

Right. Like, Neo in the Matrix, just sort of like, as, like, you know, piles of thorn shit get thrown at you. You're, like, somehow nothing. like phases you water up a duck's back. But no, I'm, I fully own the deep kind of hurt of the, of that process. But again, like I said, I guess in the reframing of it, I'm so, one of my favorite quotes that's in Latin, and I forget the Latin, but it's vigor, grows from the wound, right?

I love that idea of that, and it's been true in every part of my life, is that in everything that it feels like a setback, yes, there's the hurt of the cut. There's the hurt of the moment. But as the scar tissue forms, as the healing process happens, you do benefit from a growth and resilience, a growth in sitting in your own, sitting in your being of what you're trying to say and are you going to be taken off course by people that don't understand or whatever. So that, but it's been a wild process. Like I watched my film, I've seen it so much now, and every time, you know, like after the

reviews in Toronto, I was like, maybe I did make just a pile of shit. So I went back and I watched it and I was like, I fucking love this film. I love this film so much. It like, it actually, it, like, when I set out, I was like, you know, you asked yourself these questions

as a, as a creator, you're like, well, what do I want the, what do I want people to feel at the end? I knew exactly in this contextually, it was happening during COVID and it was happening a lot of kind of global, socio-cultural, like, wait. I was like, I want people to walk in and feel lighter than when they walked in. And it's not a lull movie.

It's not like a gag movie. It's supposed to be like a delight. It's just supposed to, like, tickle the back of your cheeks kind of thing. Yeah, it's a vibe movie. And honestly, like, I, you know, I've seen it a couple times. And you have to key into it. You kind of have to, like, let yourself go with it. If you resist, if you bring in the cynicism, it's going to, yeah, it's not going to be free.

That's 100%. And, you know, it's, it's, you know, there are two brains at work, right, making something. And there's the analytical brain and the structuralist brain and the cognitive brain and the brain that's like, well, how do I achieve X and Y? And what is story structure and what's the correct narrative path and what's the hero's journey? me and what's the, you know, save the cat, and what's the Joseph Campbell, what's all of it. And certainly you, and certainly certain techniques and parts of the craft that you bring to it, having done it so much, I think I was just at a certain point having used that brain to create this, I just basically threw it out the window.

And I was like, I just want to feel good. Like, I want to follow the instinct in my body of like, well, this delights me. right this this makes me feel lighter this is this is where i instinctually want to go despite whatever anybody's saying about like should you really have a scene with your three characters talking about the the pros and cons of frozen meat in a japanese takeout meal like that's just what i wanted to do and it right to have the liberty to do it and i have a financier that said go make your film was incredibly liberating

and in fact was probably the most joyful I've been in the entirety of my career. So for those. To that regard to you to answer your question, yeah, there's certain sacrifices I think you make of like it is a, it's a, it is my vibe film. So it's like you either get on the train of that energy or you don't and there is a story and a plot

but really it's all kind of a mcuffin to hang out with these people to follow the journey of this this oddball well and as people will see when they see the movie it owes a lot to a lot of the classic movies that are like you know in my DNA I'm sure in your DNA and of course Chinatown is like the granddaddy of the mall and like you said kind of plot wise like if you ask me like what happens in China town I would bail that term paper like it doesn't really matter right this is the I mean it's China kind of sounding so far as like my character watches the film in order to learn ostensibly how to be a good detective right sensibly because it's about water ostensibly because it's about

los angeles and water etc etc but i think my my spirit animal deeply was strangely enough was being there okay yeah i saw being there and um in this beautiful film about an innocent walking through this insanely jaded, cynical, corrupt world. Right. Just remaining innocent the whole time and in the end, walking on water and disappearing as they're having some weird, you know, Masonic temple ritual for the burial of the rich guy.

That was my spirit animal. What's Up Doc? I was watching a lot of films over the COVID to up my AFI cinephal brain. And so the kind of the screwball comedy aspect to it, I wanted to play with tones and see how broad and small I could go. There's certainly like lynching aspects to it.

There's like, it's like all of the films I've ever seen kind of collided into one into this crazy, this crazy soup. Obviously, there's the little, oh my God, how is. Were you gonna say, Lobowski? Yep, it is Lobowski, but... I think that's actually the easy way, because Darren is actually... It's a misnose.

Well, Lobowski's not... Is not motivated, A. Darren is motivated. First of all, he's like determinedly passive. Right. He's... And I find... I love... Obviously, I love the dude,

but there, I find in it, there's a cynical edge to that film. Oh, yeah. My film is, like, not. trying my film was trying to be like basically as if an eight-year-old boy named Darren Barron made a film with all of his friends

that's kind of the vibe of the whole so that mine is like not mine's trying to own the heart of the innocent yeah try to be like the wide-eyed Buster Keaton threw him through, you know? Yeah. But I can understand with the beard and the no yeah it's a... I get all

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self-made billionaire. An official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival, the Hulu original film Swiped, is now streaming only on Disney Plus. Can we talk a little bit about your amazing cast? Because any first-time filmmaker would kill for the folks you gathered. They're not even necessarily people you've worked with for the most part. Like, I mean, you know. I knew Annette a little bit.

Annette Benning, I'd met Warren years ago. and um so i knew her a bit socially um danny's kids went to my high school and more like a year like gracie i think where it was three years younger than me um the great jennifer jason lee i mean i grew up obsessed with jason lee come on you didn't i mean everybody has their own version of jennifer i loved her in hud sucker proxy and you're speaking my language i love that fucking move me. There are definitely shades of sucker in this for sure.

So yeah, she was I mean, she's an L.A. native and right. DeWanda Wise, who's incredible and just stunning and I guess apparently at film school studied noir and it was like that was her

focus, which was wild. Clancy Brown is one of my favorite character actors. Stephen Tobolowski, who plays councilman, Stephen Kornkowski. We wrote it for Tobolowski because I did a film with him years ago and fell in love with him and just thinks, I think he's the sweetest. John Ortiz. He's one of those guys, oh, his money in the bank.

You haven't lived until you've seen Chris Pine cry over losing a woman to John Ortiz. That's my vibe. That's what I like in a movie. Yeah. Yeah. he's, look, he's moving to Palm Springs and getting a food cart. Yeah.

Can't blame her. So, yeah, I mean, I've watched John Ortiz forever, but specifically in American household, I kind of fell madly in love with him. There, we just have a, we had a great cast and we really had a great time.

And, um, um, and everybody asked like, well, what's it like directing? What's it like directing in that Benning and DeVito? And I think because we had no, we shot it in 21 days in L.A. on film, so it's not, you know, the easy as digital. You have to be a gamer to like want to do that. And no one's getting paid for the thing. And everybody showed up as if it were like, you know, a major, major motion picture. So it was a, I just got, I got really lucky. me talk about talking about the reception with your therapist how much time with the therapist has been spent talking about casting your dad as the voice of a lizard

I feel like that's a whole fucking that was a no-brainer I maybe we talked about other people but it seemed perfect I'm sure there's some there's some deep psychoanalysis to be done on on why that's the case we had so much fun. We had so much fun doing that. I mean, everybody came out to play. My buddy Will Greenberg is in there, and he plays the secretary to one of the main baddies, and he's wearing this ridiculous outfit. And then my buddy Robert Baker plays an FBI agent. Another one of my friends plays the waiter at the restaurant. Our other friend plays my mother as a voiceover in a a thing. So we had a, we had all the friends come out. You mentioned clothing. Look, I feel like all our

conversations go back to the unique Chris Pine style and certainly your character in this. Like where does it, where does Chris end and Darren begin? It's a little fuzzy for me. Yeah, Darren is emotionally, certainly deeply a part of me. I think in getting back to what I was saying before, I, there's an innocence to Darren that I find incredibly appealing in an age where I just saw this movie the other night. It was so violent. It's just like overwhelmingly violent. Revenge, revenge, revenge. And I totally get it. And it, you know, it's part of the, it's part of our DNA and I'm not saying

violent movies shouldn't be made but I don't know maybe I'm just emotional and sensitive to the world today so there's a part of me that really wanted to live in Darren's shoes of like nothing can get this guy down he's like lover through and through

he hits a guy in the film and he feels incredibly depressed about it and that's not cool like it's not it's really a lot of cool look there's no like smoking cigarettes and deep stoic looks into bad guy's eyes before you take him down you know there's none of that stuff um so a lot of him is me the shorts are me like his corduroy shorts are like these shorts have had forever um uh what else uh you know like when he gets

dressed up to go be a detective. He's wearing Carrie Grant's outfit from To Catch a Thief. To Catch a Thief's one of my favorite films. Then he dresses as Gittes from Chinatown and his version of Gittes. He's wearing Capizio dance shoes

because I remember Capizio growing up. That's where my sister got all her ballet stuff off of Coenga. Diane, I dressed Diane Esplanade who is Annette Benning, who's my best friend and Jungian analyst in the film and surrogate mother.

She's an amalgam of my high school English teacher, Lynn Cohen, and my mother, she wears these bangles that my mother always wore as a kid. And I have this, and burn in my memory, this, this, this picture of Jackie and Assis Kennedy wearing what I call the Jackie O's. So it's, that was that. DeVito, who plays Jack Dennis off, he's partly my father, partly this father of a kid I grew up with, he used to make horror movies for Universal. My production designer was incredible Aaron McGill, so in the deep background of this apartment

that they live in, you can see all of these old posters for these B-movie horror films that Jack made, and the whole time he's wearing a Victorville Film Festival hat. Um, and, uh, it, yeah, every, every single thing is, is a reflection of either an interest of mine or, you know, yeah, it's also like, I mean, yes, it's teeming with, with everything LA and everything, yeah, like this, this genre is. And, you know, it, you know, it tickled me when you mentioned that you, like, you know, you knew Annette through Warren, who is like, you know, the epitome, living epitome of like the Hollywood history of the last 60 years. right and so have you like you know you grew up there obviously you were born and bred and you're part of this world to a degree though like your your parents were working actors not like the you know the nicholson Warren Beatty level but like have those run-ins with Warren I don't know if you have you ever run into Nicholson over the years like what does that do to you as someone that's just so steeped in this and it's just so like obviously loves this shit

This is just the first thing that came on my mind. When my father was shooting chips, he shot at the old MGM studios, which is now Sony, which we should all just call MGM because it sounds sex here. And he was taking a leak in this urinal, and he's like, God damn it, this is exactly where Kerry Grant could have peed. That's L.A. in a nutshell, basically, right? That's why going to all the old studios is really fun, especially like Warner Brothers where, you know, as a seat of the industry,

I don't know if Hollywood has the same kind of jeuge as it did back then. Films are made everywhere and all over the place and whatever. But, yeah, to like walk at certain points in Warner Bros. on the lot and know that, like, Jack Warner, that's where his tennis court was. Right. like to go into the cafeteria and know, like, I don't know, this thing's always turned me on. I just think it sounds more like feeder or summer stock than it does what it is now,

which is like, yeah, black shoe. Corporate. Yeah. Corporate and, you know. But Warren, I met Warren years ago after I did Star Trek because he wanted to meet me and I went over to his house and I sat in the, foyer and uh or in a living room waiting for him and he came out like 20 minutes later and warn and i just sat for like four hours this is the warmbady experience apparently i've heard

this it's like yeah and so unbelievable yeah so i just super chuff thinking i was like this fucking i was the shining anomaly of like no he really wanted to meet me and then you know I think we may actually talked about this before, but he meets everybody and has done this. But what I love about that with Warren is that, like, we are an oral tradition, right? A lot of this is like shit that you learn on set from the older actors that then had worked with so-and-so, and then it worked with so-and-so on down the line, on down the line. So, yeah, when Warren's telling you about working with Ilya Kazan and Splendor in the grass, or when Warren's talking to you about having met Marilyn Monroe,

or when Warren's talking, I mean, you don't, you're getting stuff that is, because the man's probably never going to write a memoir. It's like gold dust in the air. Yeah. Like I'm reading the Hollywood oral history right now, this incredible tremendous book that I forget who compiled it, but it's all of these interviews that AFI did collected into a narrative form beginning with the beginning of the industry all the way until now. And it's delicious, man. It's like to hear about what it was like to work for Daryl Zannock or Harry Cohn or Warner, and the difference between Warner and Louis B. Mayor.

Right. I don't know. It's, I don't know why. I love it so much. But to your initial question, I really met Warren. I never met Jack. I had a Harrison Ford moment. That is really, that's really it. That's a good amount.

Yeah, I always say, I warranted the podcast a few years ago, and I've never been more. I mean, and I had an hour, and that was like, I think I might have the only Ishtar poster ever signed by Warren Beatty. I have it proudly, which I unironically love that movie, by the way. Not going to lie. It's a great movie. Wayne May, come on, people. I know. Okay, but how about that? Another one. Yeah. Some random stuff for you, if you'll indulge me. How are the dogs? We bonded over dogs last time. You got two? How many got?

Great. They're not here. Okay. Right now. Wednesday, Walden, Babs. Wednesday is great. She's seven and a half. She's getting a little slower. It's kind of making me sad. She's got a bit more gray hairs, but she's as elegant as ever. Babs is absolutely adorable. I've never met a happier dog. Wednesday's a bit mercurial. She's a bit moody in a very sexy sort of poetic way, you know. Yeah, just like her dad. Yeah.

Yeah. It's very Chicobian. I can just hear just like, I don't know if I should go back to the city or just stay in the country. It's just so hard, you know. And Babs just wants to cuddle 24-7. So I get the best of both worlds. Yeah. I was very happy. Our last conversation, the part of it that went viral, I know you don't visit the interwebs too much, but was your talking about how pits are awesome. So I'm glad that like registered in the world. I, in here, I remember then I found out you had a pit. I mean, I, I could talk about that forever. They are the sweetest creatures.

And, you know, I've worked in England a lot and I love being over there. But the fact that they banned this fucking breed because they think that the breed is like, and it has nothing to do to the people that are raising them. Yeah. Makes me angry. You know, makes me really angry. I've met, as I said before, chihuahuas that are a billion times more dangerous than my dog. Yeah. We'll have a full-on dog conversation one of these days. While other money managers are holding, Dynamic is hunting. Seeing past the horizon, investing beyond the benchmark, because your money can't grow if it doesn't move.

Learn more at dynamic.ca slash active. Dynamic, actively different. Hey, Michael. Hey, Tom. Well, big news to share it, right? Yes, huge, monumental, earth shaking. Heartbeat sound effect, big. Mait is back.

That's right. After a brief snack nap. We're coming back. We're picking snacks. We're eating snacks. We're raiding snacks. Like the snackologist we were born to be. Mates is back.

Mike. And Tom, eat snacks. Wherever you get your podcast. Unless you get them from a snack machine, in which case, call us. We call us. Okay, it's official. We are very much in the final sprint to election day. And face it, between debates, polling releases, even court appearances.

It can feel exhausting, even impossible to keep up with. I'm Brad Milkey. I'm the host of Start Here, the day. daily podcast from ABC News. And every morning, my team and I get you caught up on the day's news in a quick, straightforward way that's easy to understand with just enough context so you can listen, get it, and go on with your day. So, kickstart your morning. Start Smart with Start Here and ABC News, because staying informed shouldn't feel overwhelming. On a much sadder note, and I don't know if this might be touchy, the cast.

thing the director of the OC talked in a book about your audition way back when oh yeah my bad skin yeah is that PTSD is that more therapy that might bring up a source point no i mean it's a part of my it's a part of my life look do i wish the man didn't have to talk about it i mean he decided that's fair that's hard uh it's his prerogic uh no i had an awful skin as a teenager and then i when i came after college my skin started breaking out again and look, I was going out for the O.C., like a teenage melodrama. It's like I can understand that they wanted to have pretty people doing pretty things. And, you know, bad acne is not a key to.

It's a shame. If you had gone on the O.C., the career might have worked out. You might have amounted to something. I don't want to say I'm grateful for not having landed there, but I'm a different path, different path. All right. But it is a little PTSD. It's no fun having bad skin. It's no fun going when you have bad skin.

And it was one of the most traumatic points of my life. But it is my story, man. Yeah, I mean, on a flip side, I mean, again, being earnest for a second, young people hearing about that and that big time movie star, Chris Pine, had that and went through that. Like, it's actually very, you know, it's probably helps people. I really talked about this on, I think on a podcast, but it's so strange. Like people talk about obesity and obviously I understand the difficulty of that or they talk about any sorts of things. And I feel like acne is regarded as this thing of like, oh, it's just like what you go through as a teenager.

And it's like it can be and it can be kind of just like you get a pump on your front. it can also be like tremendously debilitating and like really seriously emotionally incapacinating which it was for me yeah for anyone out there that is experiencing that i get you i hear you i've been there i know it i know how depressing it can be and the kind of depths of sorrow it can it can drag you to but there you know there is a brighter day and and you know i i know you think that i enjoy asking you about star trek after all these years I don't. This is trying my patience at this time, Chris.

I mean, it must be trying yours. Like, it's like, do it or don't do it. Let's just, what's going on? Come on. How many directors? How many scripts? First of all, it's not trying. I mean, it's like it was one of those opportunities that gave me an incredible...

No, no, I don't mean that. I just mean, like, doing another one at this point. That's what I'm all in time. So that... It's the same answer. I know. I'm too. I literally were our costume designers that have found out

that know more about what's going on than I do. I have no idea what I... Oh, yeah, bab! There we go. This is what I've been waiting for. Oh, come on. Lucy. Lucy.

Lucy. Huh. Lusie. One day. Lissy. Go ahead. Yeah. Talk for you.

Yay. This is what the internet wants, Chris. Come on. These guys need to meet. We just had our viral moment. That's a good way to go viral, I would say. That's a great way to go viral. Tric.

So all the scripts, all the directors. The only stuff I know about is the same as you do. I heard that they're making a show. a movie for a younger cast and then, I don't know. Madness. It's madness. Okay. Well, we'll figure it out one of these days. Other, yeah. Last time we spoke on the podcast, actually,

your comfort movie was Gladiator. Did you ever get a chance did you go up for the sequel? Sequel happens with no, no? I think maybe my days of, see, I think maybe I'm too old, quite honestly. I'm fucking 44 to, man. Like, yeah, it's such a trip. Is there something freeing about that?

Like, we had a long conversation about kind of like the dissonance of being like pretty boy leading man, which were like you were never that inside growing up. And like, you know, I would think part of you likes to be character acting guy. I think there's something simultaneously freeing and at the same time like completely unmooring because for so long you've come. kind of occupied a certain space right and no matter your discomfort whether or not it's like you occupy a certain space and it's not that like i'm it's just a different moment with like these young bucks coming up like you know the awesons of the world and whatever the um um the shallamaze you're having there they're that kind of moment albeit in a far kind of seemingly bigger way than i ever did. But yeah, it's kind of, I don't know, it's, yeah, it's unmooring. It's also exciting

to see what comes up. I haven't really figured out what, uh, what's next or what I really care about. But it's all good. Yeah, it's all good. It's fine. So what, what is, okay, we talked about some warnings at the outset of kind of like how you approach or how you receive material and receive reactions, et cetera. But like out of this, does it make you want to get back? in the director's chair again? Like, are you writing? What are you thinking? Fuck, yes.

Yeah. Absolutely. As I said, like, look, only like 20 people have seen it. The more people see it. Do I think it's going to be like a global hit? God willing, it will be. It should be. It's a beautiful, blissful film, and everyone should go out and watch and buy tickets for it multiple times.

That being said, I understand that's a little bit of a Pacifician task to, you know, move people maybe out of, you know, you know, the turd cloud that the critics have launched up. But it's very freeing in that I can't do any much. The freedom of like a sophomore effort now to me is like, fuck it. And now maybe I will make that film about, you know, animated origami dinosaurs I've always wanted to make and see how that works out.

So I don't know if you're being serious or not. This is the beauty of having the internet. I think about the Internet, too, and now God knows what's going to happen there and then show up on my IMDV Pro page. Unsightled animated origami picture, yeah. That's funny. It's quite funny. It actually probably would be really well,

so I probably don't like it. So, no, my writing partner and I have come up with an idea that we're working on that's totally different than, but really exciting and cool. yeah the joy of it really it's like the it's the first time in my career where i to be an actor for hire where you shoot and then you wait for hours and then you shoot and then you wait for more hours you spend the majority of your day waiting right to make a phone with no money and no time it's like you are in for 12 13 hours a day absolute flow state unbreakable

unfettered flow state because that is what you need to be in in order to do you need to be in in order to to get the job done. So decisions are being made without thought. Acting is done without thought. You are moving, moving, moving. And it is like, it's the best tie I've ever had. And so, and then having watched, you know, in prepping for this, I watched a lot of Chaplin and Keaton and a lot of the early guys that were writing and performing their own stuff. Yeah. And you can see it in the spirit of the film. It's like they have their imprimatur on the entirety of that cinematic visual piece of art is Keaton. And that is like

that's so cool. It's so invigorating. Like, oh my God, there's a whole new world for me to play in, you know? And maybe, you know, I make films that are more kind of commercially minded to fund this

like fun little endeavor I have on the side of making whatever it is I want to make, which could be really cool, God willing. Do you think in looking at all the filmmakers you've worked with you either consciously or unconsciously emulated anyone in particular. I mean, I know Patty's a producer on this and clearly you have. No, and I honestly, I had no fucking time.

Again, just instant. Yeah, yeah. I kept for as much as I could and had, you know, there was intellectual reasoning and logic behind the directorial choices I made. And just like that, and I got a lot of advice from a lot of people and just like acting, you walk on set and you throw it all away. You keep what you need to, you adapt and move. It's all about being as supple as possible.

So the best ideas get thrown out and you end up with option C. Option C leads you in a whole different direction than you thought for scene 12. And in terms of talking to actors, I had a lot of ideas. and what comes out tends to be way more organic and in the moment. And the bliss of like being off camera for Annette and knowing that I'm working with like a Ferrari of like of actresses that I can I can run a moment again

and whisper a note and then she's right in it. Right in it right in it is like, whoo! Yeah. far let me end i don't think you've done the happy second fuse profoundly random questions one of which is very apropos to what we're talking about i always ask folks lately what's the worst noted director has ever given you does anything jump out as dear god you can't be saying this to me what does that even mean i mean i have plenty of those i would i i couldn't i couldn't bring up one now but I did have a casting director tell me for a film.

I did a reading of a scene, and she said, that was wonderful. Now do it again and make me believe you. That was, that was legit. That was legit. This fucking hardcore. Was that meant as constructive criticism? Exactly what you fucking make me, man. You get the job?

And don't suck so hard. Do you try to lessen the suck factor and improve the quality factor? Do you collect anything? I collect I collect I do like cars, I like photography. I'm in a real phase of I love handmade suits. I love suits, general.

Those are good, yeah. That works. It's a life of luxury, I will say. I know we've had the back and forth on the phone situation, but what's the wallpaper on the phone if there is a smartphone in your life? Hold on. We're going to check it.

Real time checking. We're going to corroborate this for real because we're not going to fake it. There they are. Babs and Wednesday. Wednesday, well. Love it. Love it.

Oh, love some more lives. There you go. What more do you name? Nothing. That's all I need. Not that there's anything annoying about you, but what's the most annoying thing that your friends and loved ones would say about their beloved Chris? Oh, that I'm an awful communicator text-wise, just the worst. That checks out.

Yeah. That's all good. That's all good. You probably don't get misidentified for anybody at this point. But, yeah, last celebrity you were mistaken for. Oh, I do. Oh, I just had this happen to me. I mean, I'm sure I've told you, everybody, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Matt Damon, George Hamilton, which was really great.

George Hamilton. Yeah, yeah, yeah, George Hamilton, shows me how well I'm aging. Yeah, it's the tan. Oh, Joey Lawrence. Most recently, take a guess. Just take a guess. I can't even. After George Hamilton, it could be like RuPaul. I don't know. I don't know. What do you mean? No, Jeff Daniels. Okay.

The things, yeah, that's what's happening in my life. No one knows who I am. No one likes my film, and they think I'm Jeff Daniels. But I have two dogs I love. And, you know, there you are you. I feel like that's a good place to end our session today, don't you? Yeah, plenty of time, because folks, this lovely man doing the Q&A for my for my film at the Angelica in New York come on come on out and

support not support no congratulations man honestly I'm happy to see you take this crazy ride with the film and like like I said just people need to let themselves give themselves over to the joy go with the vibe let Chris Pine give you some joy in your life for a hundred minutes thanks as always for the time man and I'll see you in New York soon absolutely And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressured to do this by Josh.

I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times. And I'm Paul Shear, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from the league, Veep, or my non-eligible for Academy. Award role in Twisters. We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives. Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't. He's too old. Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dude, too, is overrated.

It is. Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspool, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits. Fan favorites, must-season, and case you misdums. We're talking Parasite the Home Alone. From Greece to the Dark Night. We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks. We've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look.

And we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of like Ganges and Hess. So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure. Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to hit the follow button.