Happy Sad Confused - Justin Long

Episode Date: September 14, 2014

The always affable Justin Long stops by Josh’s to talk about the horrors of being turned into a walrus in “Tusk”, getting his start in the classic film, “Galaxy Quest” and that time he saw Britney Spear’s boob pop out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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or go to explorevolvo.com. The new BMO ViPorter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit BMO.com slash ViPorter to learn more. Hey, guys, welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. I'm Josh Horowitz.

If you didn't know it by now, you're listening to my podcast. So thanks for that. This week on the good old podcast, a super-duper, awesome, affable chap by the name of Justin Long. He is somebody I've talked to only a few times, But each and every time, you know, there's certain people you get to kind of get a sense, you share a sensibility, a worldview, a sense of humor, most importantly, and Justin certainly fits that bill. He is, of course, starring in a new film that belies that sweet demeanor. He's in a gloriously insane movie called Tusk, which is about to come out in which he is, he is,

the star alongside Genesis Rodriguez and Haley Joel Osment and the amazing Michael Parks and it's directed, written and directed by Crazy Kevin Smith. I say crazy because you'll hear us talk a little bit about the film in this, but suffice it to say, this is a film in which Justin goes through hell and is turned into a walrus. Yeah. So look forward to that. It is crazy, bizarre, and really disturbing and has haunted me for the last few weeks.

So if that's your bag, go check out Tusk. It is certainly unique and fun. And, oh, also has Johnny Depp in it, which the cat's out of the bag. That's public knowledge. So I'm going to say that because that's kind of cool. He's got a sizable role in it. So anyway, Justin popped by the office. Did a crazy little bit for me for an after-hour segment you guys should check out next week.

starring Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy and a little cameo by Justin but the main event here was the podcast a long conversation here about all things Tusk and Galaxy Quest and our mutual love of Woody Allen movies Justin's a good dude so I hope you guys enjoy this conversation

as always hit me up on Twitter Joshua Horowitz so many cool guests to come next week if all goes to learn to plan one of my favorite favorite filmmakers I don't want to jinx it but it's going to be a good one

But for now, here he is, Mr. Justin Long. Welcome to my creepy white big office. This is not normally where I do my conversations, but because we're making you do a green screen bit after this. We're the ether covered rags. Exactly. He said THX-1138, the office. It is a pleasure to be here.

Exactly. Thanks for coming by, though. Thank you. Thanks for having me. We were just talking. We were both in Toronto. Sadly, we did not cross paths. No. But I was telling you I was privileged enough to be, I think maybe even the first journalist,

I don't know what that says about what they think of me, to see Tusk. That's it on Josh. If he doesn't like it, we're just not releasing it. Exactly. In what may be the most fucked up movie of the year, Tusk. Yeah, I hope it is. Let's hope so, right? Yeah.

Because the new step-up movie had already come out. Right. And How to Train Your Dragon Too Disappointed. It wasn't as far as people were expecting. Exactly. Yeah, this one's pretty, it's out there. I don't even know how to encapsulate of people in them. Oh, so is it a comedy, it's a horror.

Right. It's a little sprinkling of everything, but it's really just, it's weird. And it might help to explain a little bit about how it was conceived. Yeah, this is a new one. Yeah. Twitter, it was really involved in this one. Yeah, very much so. Kevin Smith, who wrote the writer-director, Kevin Smith, he had been, since his last movie,

he's been doing pretty much just podcasting. And on one of his podcasts, they started talking about a story that was about an ad that was taken out in this British version of Craigslist called Gumtree. And the ad was something along the lines of, I'm looking for someone to come stay at my place, free room and board. The only stipulation is you have to dress as a walrus for two hours during the day. A very common request. And I guess enough people respondent so that he had to post a follow of one that said, And thank you very much for all the submissions, but I found them horrors. So the whole thing turned out to be a hoax, but before Kevin knew that, he just thought it was the greatest thing.

And he started, because it kind of is. And he, in a fog of THC, he kind of expounded on it a little bit and thought it would be just make a great movie. But he couldn't tell. He said, would this be a great horror movie if this happened? instead of a suit for two hours, it was like permanent. And he said, if you think this will be a great movie, hashtag walrus yes, and if you think this is ridiculous and should never be done, hashtag walrus yes.

And the next day on Twitter, there were like an unbelievable amount of walrus yes. But then you think, like, well, yeah, but they're his followers. Right. So there's that bias, and, like, I'm not second guessing it. It's a little too late for that. This is the greatest thing to come out of Twitter outside of the ALS chat. and stop coney and all that, I would put this in the top three. Yeah, okay, yeah, and maybe the Arab Spring, maybe the situation in Tunisia is similar.

Let's say top ten. Top ten, okay. Let's come to an agreement. I don't want to split hairs here. But what do you think it says about Kevin that he comes to you, like he writes a script, he humps up the story, and he comes to you, and what do you think it says about you that you say yes? Because the first part of that, I don't know what it says about how he sees me, and I'd

like to think it's a positive thing, but I'm also, I also don't necessarily have the highest, the greatest self-esteem. And so I think it, there have been moments where I thought, is, does he just like, does this mean maybe subconsciously that he doesn't really like me, that he would subject me to this kind of thing? Because what happens to this, my character is, is, is pretty gruesome in a creative way, but it's very, it's horrendous. Yeah. It's like, I have to say a worse nightmare is to not even, like, who would have this nightmare? Exactly. That's. That's giving way too much value to nightmares.

That's insulting to nightmares. Nightmares are like, we're not just fucked out. We wouldn't do this. Yeah, it's that. But then, of course, I was also really, I was so flattered that he asked me to do it. And if you ever want inaction to do anything, you just leave with flattery.

And he sent me this email that was very much that. It was just flattering and flattering that he had asked me. And so I went into the script knowing that I was going to do it regardless. Because I'd also worked with Kevin, and I just loved working with him. And he would give me something. He was just one of those guys. He would give me a lot of freedom, and I trusted him. And so I was going to do it regardless.

Do you think it's just he has lucky body chemistry in that, you know, the old adage is that pot doesn't necessarily make somebody ambitious. And yet he is like, he's six podcasts, like a week. He's got like a movie a year at least. He's the most prolific, yeah. Yeah, as is Seth Rogan. Seth is an incredibly productive guy. They've just got the right strain of it.

They must be, because Kevin started smoking again. Kevin never smoked before Seth, Seth introduced Kevin to weed. And so I've actually smoked, I think, Seth's stuff, and it's really strong, as is Kevin. Like, the night I went to meet him to discuss the movie, and he, you know, I took just one hit of this stuff just to kind of fit in and, like, be cool. Because it's Kevin Smith, and like, it would be rude not to.

Right. It's like when you go to a foreign, you know, country and you turn down. The custom. It's rude. And out of respect to Kevin, I smoke. And I was like, and he just went through like two and a half blunts. Like, they were, just like there were cigarettes. Like, he was.

Does he do that during production, too? I'm not going to say no. Well, then you kind of just said yes. I'm not going to say yes. But, yeah, I don't know how he does it. I mean, like, I was, the next day, I was like, oh, and we had, like, I had these ideas about some of the things in the script,

and so we were discussing a lot of, like, a lot of the script, and the next day I thought, oh, he's not going to remember any of that. Like, that was just such a waste of time. It was fun, but, like, and within four or five days, he had implemented all of these things we talked about so perfectly, in such a funny, great way.

I don't know. I don't get it, because I wish I could, I smoke and I'm like, let's watch Seinfeld and go to bed. What's amazing to me about the movie, because you hear like the log line, you hear the description of it, it's like your mind can't even fathom what it looks like. It's the specificity of like what happens to you that is like, it is beyond the pale. Yeah. I don't even know.

I mean, like, so did you guys like go through like when you saw like what it was going to, how it was going to happen? Yeah, like what did you think? It was Robert Kurtzmann, who's an incredible special effects guy. He's worked everything from Evil Dead to Dust Till Dawn. So I was like a nerdy fan of his going into it, and he did it so fast. It also, from the time the idea was conceived to the time we showed up on set was a couple months. I mean, it was like, it was nothing. And so he had very little time to work on this, which makes what he did that much more impressive.

of, uh, but the issue that they had, um, that, that was prevailed up until like a couple days before we shoot about the suit, about the whole thing, because I don't want to get too much away, but, uh, the issue was about the mustache and, um, because I, not mine, I had grown my mustache, uh, A, because I just felt like he was like a mustache kind of guy, right? He was like, kind of like a, like, a Bruno Kirby, like, gay, I don't know, he struck me as like he was like a DJ and kind of smar me and like I just think that was the persona that he had created for himself was a mustache guy and I always wanted to have a mustache in a movie and and I thought it was like good foreshadowing for

any potential walrus related trauma that I might suffer and what I realize is that walruses I was the something that I do have in common with walruses is that we grow similar facial, we have similar facial hair patterns. I have very strong follicles, very bristly, like wiry follicles, but they're sparse. Right. And if you look at a walrus, you see that they have a similar, and nothing down here. Oh, interesting. I can't grow a thing down, I'm sorry.

I don't know if you're sorry. I don't know what it's, it worked for them. I didn't know what the problem response was. I just feel sympathy. God bless you. No, no, sympathy is right. Sorry. It's right.

Because it's weird, and it's like, and God bless my girlfriend for hanging in there the whole shoot, because it was... Well, this is actually literally was my next question. It's like, has your girlfriend seen the finished film and has she touched you since seeing it? That's when I knew she loved me. That's true of. Yeah. Even worse, she had to suffer through for this pilot I did. I had a bull cut.

I was like, but it was one of those great old, like, 70s style, like Janice from Three's Company. Right. It was under here. Connie Selica, she had one of those? Yep. And that was even more horrifying than the mustache. It was a perfect bowl cut going in the back. And the hairstylist kept, his name was Calvin.

He kept saying, look at you, you're bouncing and behaving. I was like, what is that? Finally, I said, is that your catchphrase for things? He's like, oh, it's a commercial from the 80s. Don't you remember that one? From like 1980, 1979. I was like, how old do you think I had asked this? Thanks a lot.

It's bouncing and behaving. But it was. But the mustache was, she put up in. So the, like I said, so Toronto, which you and I both just came from, it had its, like, big world premiere there. It's got to be, like, immediately involved one of the top five premieres of one of your films ever. From all accounts, it was, like, insane, right? Yeah, it was the best. It was so fun.

It was the perfect way to watch that movie. It was a midnight madness screening, so people were, it was midnight, and people were, in fact, there was a lot of madness. Right. It was great. And they gave away all these tusks. Walrus masks and yeah I mean they're doing a lot of interesting tie-ins with with the movie 824's distributing it and they're just geniuses with the marketing they're doing are we allowed to talk about by now the gentleman in the film also I think so yeah it's out now

okay so Johnny Depp is in it and so there's been rumors about this prior to me seeing it a little while back but I wasn't it's not just a cameo like he's like full-on like major role It's a big, he's it in the movie. He only worked two days, but... That's amazing. Kevin really made it, you know, stretched it out, and he used him to great effect. He's in it. So you didn't get to do too much with him, sadly.

No, unfortunately. I came both days they were shooting just to watch, because it was like how many opportunities you have to see that. Not only was it like Johnny Depp, but it was Johnny Depp doing a great, crazy Johnny Depp character that I hadn't seen him doing a while. And it felt like, I don't want to speak for him, but it felt like he had a lot of fun doing, it seemed like he did. Right. He really relished doing this,

he was weird character. Great, though, really inventive and what you saw. Yeah, totally. And apparently that character is continuing in the new film he's doing now. Yes, so he had such a good time doing the character and working on it, that Kevin's doing a kind of a continuation of the movie.

He's taking two of the minor characters from Tust and giving them their own movie. and Johnny's character from Tusk is going to play a more prominent role. He's like, you know, obviously there was the view askew universe in the beginning, and now it's like this whole separate. It's very askew. Yes. This is a super skew.

This is the fucked up with skew. Eskew is such a gentle word for what it is. Wait, I heard you invoke Vince Vaughn as inspiration a little bit for this guy. Yeah, well, I was thinking about the guy I'm playing. I play this guy Wallace Brighton, who's a podcaster, and he's a born storyteller. He's just a great storyteller. And I kept thinking about Vince Vaughn because he is, of all the people I've ever known, he is the greatest storyteller I think I've ever met.

It's just a natural, you know, he's always going on about it. He spins a great tale. And he would get mad at me for saying that, tail, I don't talk. Like, you're trying to make me sound more interesting and weird than I am. But I kept hearing his voice. And I kept, we would do a fair amount of improvising. And for some reason, when I think about great, when I think about great improv and great funny improv, I'd go right to Vince because he's the best. I mean, he and Fred Armisen, some of these guys are just their geniuses, you know, and he's just got that very fertile mind.

And so I tried to, I think I was, I didn't know I was doing it, but I was listening to some of the movie, even hearing it, seeing it for the first time. It's like, I hear Vince in there. It's funny, even from my perspective in talking to Vince over the years, like he's the best, like, passive, aggressive, slow build, even in my interactions with him. It's just like, I never know. The first time I talked to him, I was like, I think he might hit me. Like, I'm pissing him off because I'm trying to give it back to him, and I feel like he might hit me.

Yeah. And I'm still not sure. Yeah, but it's done in this, there's a warmth to it that when you get to know him, you'll see it comes out in very subtle ways, but it's there. I mean, like, it's all done. If he, you know, if he goes with you, like, down one of those rants. Yeah.

It means he likes you. He's like going toe to toe with you. Yeah. He's a treat. Okay. So last time I spoke to you, you came by, we talked about among other things, probably a big cultural touch for both of us. We're virtually the same age.

So Back to the Future was a big one for both of us. Yeah. The biggest. Right? I mean, yeah, I've been talking a lot about, so much so that I forgot about this, but people, a lot of Canadian, we were just in Toronto with movies. You mentioned, a lot of Canadians. There were some Canadian jokes in the movie because it's about American that goes to Canada to do this story.

And there's a lot of sorry, sorry, not even jokes. I'm just commenting on how a Canadian say sorry. And this one journalist kind of took offense. I think they were lighthearted, but she kept bringing it up to the point where I think she may have really been offended. And she's like, I'm not, I'm just joking, but like seriously, we don't say, we don't say . And I really, I said, well, we're not really making fun of sorry.

I, in fact, when I was a kid and I had forgotten this, I used to say sorry, like sorry. I would say it like Canadians because I was such a big Martin J. Fox fan that I just tried to, I emulated him in every way. I tried to, like, sorry, like that kind of like, he would say sorry because he was Canadian. So, you know, in family times or whatever, he, you listen. I don't think he said Aboot. I think he had corrected, but corrected. He had changed that.

He now does it the right way. Not like some crazy backward people. What are you saying? Oh, about? But I think the story is something that I, even to this day, I, sometimes we'll slip into it. And a lot of his, even his hand motion, like, I do this a lot. I use my hand.

Doc, are you telling me? Like, there's a lot of, yeah. I don't know what it is. Because I remember, I saw, I think, this is my memory of seeing it. This was crazy. I had this tradition. I would go to sleepaway camp, and I would get back, because I miss all the summer movies. I would pack them in the one day.

And I think I saw these three movies in one day. This is like a hell of a summer. I think I saw Back to the Future. Teen Wolf, and Real Genius, all in one day. Oh, wow. This is when movies were made the right way. Yeah. Teen Wolf, I loved, I mean, I still, those movies still hold up for me.

I don't know what, I, uh, since seeing you that time, I actually lived out, like, a real childhood fantasy, like, maybe, like, the top one, and I got to, I got to work with Michael J. Fox. Really? I got to, I did a part on his show, and, um, I, I tried so hard. My big fear was that I would try so hard not to nerd out on him that I would like overcome him. Be able to offend an asshole. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Because that was, that's the only direction I can head. If I had, if I went in a natural direction, I'd be like literally all over him. Right. I'm not misusing that the way people do. And he was, you know, but he was, he was telling a story about casualties of war. And I know, I know, I don't. And I tried to hold myself back from being too, but everything he said, I, uh, I, I, uh, I, I read.

And then I realized, like, that I was being weird. I was, like, being, like, over-listening. And so I tried to modulate behavior. You were, like, picking way too much in this moment. Just a lot of, like, uh-huh, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, your reaction comes a little bit too quick. Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Yep. Brumontel, right, 1987. He's of war. Of war. Yeah, I know that. Yeah, and I didn't want to reveal that I knew too much about him. I didn't write his books, and I know. But, uh, just the story.

raise you tell where they are. Great, it was surreal. And the other thing, I had had an opportunity to meet him, but I always hesitate. That's why we were talking about Woody Allen and you got to sit down with him. But meeting your heroes how dangerous it is. And I usually don't jump at the chances. So if you're in a party and, okay, so who's another one outside of like Michael Jay Foxy, you put at that pedestal, you think? Well, yeah, I guess Steve Martin, I would say he's up there. Martin Short. Yeah. So again, do you see Steve or not a party, you would never go up to him? I don't think, just because he does seem like he's a real intellectual.

He in particular, yeah. I don't know what you would, like where do you go? Because the places you want to go, he doesn't want to go. Exactly. And I've heard that about, that's why I'm so excited for you slash jealous that you got to have the Woody Allen thing, because I've heard that too about him is that he's, you know, I would never go up to him and it would be too tempting to, like, really want to have a conversation.

So was Woody a big one for you growing up? Oh, huge, yeah. Lower the big ones. Love and Death was always one... That's my favorite comedy. Oh, really? Of his. No kidding.

My mother, ladies and gentlemen. The greatest, Olga Hampton was younger than Youngerhampton. It's genius. It's genius. Not enough people have seen Love and Death. I feel like it's a little bit... I mean, people know it, but like, it's not in the Pantheon. It should be.

And my dad was a philosophy professor, and like, he was into the existentialist, and all of that stuff. Fields of Wheat, Whites. Rifting Wheat. Oh, it's so good. I tell everyone about it, the Village Idiots Convention. Welcome, idiots. Welcome, idiots.

It's so good. People forget, like, the great, kind of lower brow humor that Woody exhibited and the slapstick, like, played against Sam. There's, the funniest sequence of things in that movie when he flings the record, remember that?

He goes, he flings at any points. He does this stuff. It's so good. I recently rewatched Take the Money and Run, and I think that can, contains the single best physical comedy gag when he plays the cello in the marching marching band. Keep sitting down.

He has to keep sitting and play and running for it. It's so good. That's brilliant. Also, I would venture to say brilliant, taking it back to your amazing illustrious career. You talked to one of our guys recently about the film we all love, Galaxy Quest. It got a lot of attention, like that article that we did kind of like a, what is it, 15, 20 years on some kind of like stone. Yeah, that's great.

That you guys did that. That was awesome. Yeah, I was like that I had nothing to do with it, but I was like that someone was smart enough to do it with you guys. So that was the first film, Galaxy Quest, right? That was it. That was the first one. It's crazy.

It was I had done a pilot and the sister of the woman who cast the pilot was casting Galaxy Quest. And so I, I think it was maybe the first movie, one of the first movies I auditioned for and the first time I remember being in an audition with like, what I, at the time, I thought I considered to be movie stars. be movie stars. There was like Eddie K. Thomas and Kieran Culk and Tom Everett Scott. Those were the guys in the room. I was like, I'm, there's, I've no chance. These guys are like, and, yeah, I was huge. Were you into Trek or Star Trek at all? Not really. No, I was a Star Wars guy. I was really Star Wars and never into Trek. But I remember the day before we started

shooting and I've been, we've been rehearsing a little bit with the director, or maybe I'd just done my first scene and I said to the director of Galaxy Quest, I said, Dean, I think, I feel like I'm doing a little too much. Or like, because I was doing a little bit of, I was obsessed with Phil Hoffman in Boogie Nights at the time. I was just, you know, that scene was like, fucking idiot. I'm fucking idiot. That, like, I was just out of college because I saw him in that

and then like happiness and I was like, I got to, this is not got to try it. I just see if I can do it. And so there was a little bit of Phil from that and like comic book guy I was doing, like, you know, best episode ever. There was a little, I was, but it felt like sort of extreme. I look at it now, and I'm like, it's not that extreme. It's kind of me.

I'm just kind of playing myself. But at the time, I was like, am I doing too much? And Dean gave me a documentary. He gave me trackings to watch. Amazing doc, yeah. Amazing documentary. And he said, take a look at this kid. And there's a kid in it whose name Brandon.

Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. His name's Brandon as well. And they kind of modeled the character after him. And I saw him, I saw this kid who's so committed to the show. into, you know, if the epaulettes or two millimeters of the left, there's a big problem.

And I thought, oh, gosh, I'm not doing enough. Right. This guy's, this is a real guy. Yeah. You met the great Sam Rockwell, I assume, on that one. Was that where you, the friendship began? That's the best part of that movie was that I got to meet Sam and Sam and I've become, yeah, he's like, he's like a brother.

Sam has become a real good friend. And then we actually became good friends. He was the one guy in that movie that kind of took me under his wing and, you know, because I had never been to L.A. I had never, forget being in movies. I didn't never been, I don't think I'd been on a plane. I was like, and he took me out. He introduced me to Phil Hoffman, like, who was, you know, here. And, yeah, he really looked out for me, Sam. Still does. I mean, you two share something that, like, I mean, we kind of alluded to in the beginning of talking about Tusk, is like, you'll go to extremes. Like, there's, you

throw vanity out the window, you're willing to make a fool of yourself if it will serve the scene. Any comparison to Sam is very flattering. Yeah, yeah, I feel like I've learned from guys like that from watching, I mean, look how I'm, there's no vanity in the performances that I really liked, like Sam's, like a green, he had just done Green Mile, which is like, he's disgusting, and Phil and happiness is like, jerking me off on the bed. And like, there was no, these guys had no, it was almost like the uglier, the better, you know, and I never had any vanity. I've always, I've always admired that and, you know, and striving for something like that. So was it relatively soon after that that you did, Ed? Was that the next kind of like extended, obviously big gig for you? Because it was the Galaxy's Quest came as a result of the pilot that I did and that pilot didn't get picked up. But the following year it did and that became Ed.

Got it. So it was that character, I got to play it on that, yeah. So were you going out for, like, just like, was the goal at that time, like, get on a series? Was it, like, get anything? Was it just sort of, like, what were you going up for when you first kind of, like, out of Galaxy Quest? When I first started out, my mom was a, actress and so I grew up with a mentality that you just take the jobs you go

you whatever job wants you you like immediately say yes and I don't know I had no like delusions of grandeur I had no ambition outside of you know doing plays and maybe occasionally getting commercial to pay the bills and because that's what I knew that those are the actors all my mom's friends lived that life and you know so and so the first few jobs were like radio voiceovers and I was like so ecstatic about that then the pilot happened and the galaxy and then it was and then it was just i want to keep working i want to keep doing this yeah i did galaxy west then at summer camp movie called happy campers right that we all thought would be all of us

you know actors playing counselors we all thought it would be our big like this is it we got it was american pie look what happened of those guys like we're set and i remember they they played it at sundance i think a year or two later and um We were, it was a studio movie, it was a new line, and we were up against, uh, Wet Hot American some of this movie called Wet Hot America. And I was like, whatever. And I was, so snobby about it. I was like, oh, this little indie with this like big studio movie. And, um, and wet hat is like, to this day one of my favorite movies. And like, I don't, you know, having cameras kind of came and went. And, uh, so, so after having cameras, I went, the show

got picked up and I, I started doing it. Does it become easier to reconcile, like, when you get some perspective on the business? Like, when you see a finished product and it's not what you imagined to be and you know, God, I still have to do the velocity and I know it's not going to, it's not going to resonate because it's not working for me. I mean, does that ever get a little bit easier or is it always just a slog? I really do try to separate it when that happens. If you're promoting something that you're not, you know, I try to find the positive in it

so it's not complete bullshit, so I'm not like, I try to really hold on. But it's, some of these things are much easier. This is really easy to do because it's such a fun, great movie. It's one of the, it's something I'm more proud of than anything in a long, long time. And so it's kind of like a relief to now finally be able to talk about it. But yeah, on the flip side, it's like, I don't know, I have fun doing whatever I find. I always try to find some joy in. And I always think like, God, I'm so lucky to be.

Sure. You know, I do have that. I know that's a thing that, like, you know, I always. have to stop and take a second. But I have it almost constantly, like, in the back of my mind, like I could be in Syria. I could be, you know, I go there. So I'm always, so it makes me a lot happier.

I'm going to say I could be out of work. I could be in Syria. I could have Ebola. I mean, on a series still, but in Syria. Right. No, Netflix is doing a lot in Syria now. Yeah, I go to those places. Is the effort, because I know in recent years that you wrote a movie,

I think you're working on another one now? I mean, was that something that you've been doing all longer, again, is at a certain point, we're like, you know, it'd be a smart thing for me to start developing my own material. It was a bit of both. It was that. It was like, this is what, and people I looked up to were doing that and they were generating their own stuff.

And it was helping, because I think it's, you know, the business and acting, it's all, it's such a, you know, you're hot one side and you're cold. It really does fluctuate. And I was getting, I am, was getting a little tired of being at the mercy of that, you know, and the currency of cool in Hollywood, which is like, which dictates everything. I mean, like, which is why I was so appreciative of Kevin for reaching out to me, because Kevin is one of the few people who get to make movies who, I feel, are not necessarily beholden to that, right, cool factor.

And I just don't think he, no, I don't know, it just doesn't subscribe to it. But I feel at this point, it's just, in order to keep doing what I love doing, you kind of have to generate it on your own a little bit. And I found I loved writing. I mean, I really, I love to improvise. I love it. And I have been doing it in several movies leading up to the one that we wrote. And the one that we're writing now, I'm actually really excited.

Do you feel it's a badge of honor that you're probably the only actor that's worked with both Britney Spears and Lindsay Lowe. Yeah. Some woman I did the Andy Cohen show last night and somebody in the audience said, you know, they had questions from the audience and she said, and she was assigned like a very sweet southern lady and she said I just hide and hi to everyone I just have to ask you if you could in one word

just tell me what was it like making out with Lindsay Lohan and I was like that took the weirdest turn I thought you were going to ask me about like do I bake how would you describe her breasts in one word what

are they as buoyant and friendly as I imagine what did you say Um, I said something like, it was some weird sound. I couldn't think of a word, just one word. Um, but yeah, Brittany and, and, and, you know. I mean, both of them were also, the timing was,

especially probably Brittany at the time. That was like the height of insanity for her. Yeah. Did you, well, did it feel like you were in the middle, like you weren't working with an actress who were working with a brand at the time? And it was, um, I, yeah. Well, it's funny. It does, it did.

There was a buildup all around. all around it and when I met her she was in the makeup trailer she was so just sweet and southern and kind of just yeah it was disarming yeah all of that went out the window I was just talking to her and we were making fart jokes and whatever you do and you know as you do and um so you win the hearts of the actresses you're gonna make out with really charming hey nice to me on Britney Speed one day I for like 10 minutes. All right, nice to meet you.

Yeah, that painted a weird picture of our first meeting. But I saw her years later at, I saw her out at, it was some burlesque shows. I remember when like burlesque was like a thing from in life. And she was having a rough time, was during that, you know, that whole time. Yeah. We all know about it. You can flash to the images of it. It's chronicle.

And I like, I have such unbelievable sympathy for. her because just having gotten a sliver of a fraction of the people that the top rise falling you around I can't imagine what that does at a certain level to your psyche because I just can't imagine so I'll preface this story by like saying I fully understand so we were I'm watching the show and I and Brittany comes in with I hadn't seen her since we shot Crossroads this was like four years in she comes in with her with a bunch of friends and she's in my eye line to the stage, almost.

She's like off to this side. And I'm watching the stage. And she's not even face. She's facing away from the stage. She's facing out. And she's with her friends and they're kind of trying. And my friend was like, you should go over and say something? I was like, I don't know, I'm not going to say anything.

And I kind of glanced over and the strobe lights going. So it was a little hard to see. And I was looking at her and I was, I realized she was wearing. Her dress seemed a little odd, just different. And I was like, huh. Like noticing the dress and the strobe light. Again, it was like hard to see. And then I realized, and this all happened within maybe two seconds.

I realized that it wasn't her dress that was weird. It was that her boom was just out. Her friend realized that I was watching her dress and tried to immediately put it back into the thing. While I was somehow from across the room with strove lights and realized trying to convey like, I don't know it was a boom. We worked together. Crossroads, there was a dress, I thought it was a design. So, so my, so my friend afterwards is like, you got to go say something, or like, and at this point, I'm not, I'm not like, I want to, like, see her, because it's been so, like, I want to almost maybe apologize to one of the friends.

Right. So I went up to her and the friends just, like, closed in on her, like, as I walked out, like the imperial guards, you know, like when the emperor's just like, nope. and I was like oh no it was one of the lamest moments in my life I was like we actually worked together I just wanted to and as I was like I don't know how I was going to explain to the friend that I was just looking at

I didn't realize her food was a written season and she's like he's like oh hey she was so sweet and I remembered and nice person wow thank you to take this down a horribly awkward road that has ended in the sweet play

no it was I just felt cathartically in pain during that I needed to get it out. Okay, good, good. Clearly you have Star Wars on the brain. We've talked about it a couple of times. What do you think about episode seven?

How are you feeling? I am so excited. So much so. After hearing, I've been listening to Kevin Smith's podcast now, and he does one. Oh, about gut visiting set? Yes, where he describes how emotionally he got from being there. And I trust him. Kevin's a very honest person.

Like, I don't think he would have, he'd be, like, overselling. He has no reason to, like, overspot. And Oscar Isaac's and. The people that got to do are, like, great actor. I just, and JJ Abrams is awesome. So, anyone, how could it not be? I know. I have high hopes.

Are you, how negative are you on prequels? Because last week's podcast was with Simon Pegg, who I've battled with over the years because, and this is going to sound controversial, I don't hate the prequels. I don't love them, but there are elements that I find all right. Like I said earlier, there are, I can always find the good in things. Look. You're like Luke, you see the good in your father that has turned. Exactly.

When I'm watching the prequels, I think, ugh, with the Jar Jar, but like, we're out in Syria. That's what I hear. Michael Ian Black used to call me Jar Jar Bing's, which is the most insulting thing. Why would he call it? He thought I looked a little bit like, I guess, which I guess I do, I like sort of a... I'm just going to say it, I'm not going to do it because I've done it for so many people, but I do a really good Jar Jar Bing's. Maybe I'll do it afterwards, because I feel like I do it too much on camera now, and people are starting to hate me for it.

Okay, now I'm so, okay, don't do it then, but, um. Mesa Heer. Can you say me, me so horny? Me so horny. Oh, me so horny. That's amazing. Yeah, I know. That's really good.

Thank you. Do you do any, the Frank Oz, voice, any Muppets? No, not really. Because it sounds like, you know, there's, I need to work on it. I've spent a lot of time developing, though. That's really good. Thank you. Shit.

Well done. You do voices quite well. You're a good mimic, clearly. I enjoy it. The only people that I really like, it's the highest form of flattery. I got, yeah, I got in, not in trouble from Matt Dillon, but a little bit like... I feel like Matt Dillon wouldn't have a sense of humor about... He does, but he's a little serious.

He is serious, but he was... We were on set and I had been... He was talking to me about something... Team America, World Police had just come out. Right. was saying you know hey man I don't think it's I think it's too soon I thought he had a problem with the movies and and and one of the makeup ladies came over to to get me to go back to the trail and she said just we need you back into the trailer oh okay she's

oh by the way did you do your impression for Matt for Matt oh he doesn't impression and he's an intimidating yeah so I was like no I don't what's this yeah you do an impression and I was like no I don't let me see it man I want to see it so I I did my impression of Matt format and but I didn't like a half-hearted you know you don't want to be like Matt does this a lot it's keeping his bodily like everything in place or yeah I don't know if it's a grabbing at him I don't know what it is he did it and he's like she's laughing and he goes it doesn't sound anything like you man hey Sheila come over here And he called somebody over to do it again, kid.

Hey, listen to this. Does this sound like me? And I'm happy to do it. And then all these people kept coming. Yeah, guys sound like that. No, man, it doesn't sound like me, man. But I've worked with them. I love them.

I only do people that I like. You must do Rockwell. Yeah, do a good Rockwell. Let me hear Rockwell. Well, you asked me something as Rockwell. So when did you meet Justin? Do you remember the first time? We met on Galaxy Quest.

Yeah, yeah. Are you proud of that movie? It's fucking awesome. The movie's fucking awesome. Yeah, we, that was a good, I just did Green Mile. Oh, right. And it was, yeah, it was different, man. It was cool, it was cool.

Yeah, I feel like every time I see him, it's always like, hey, man. Oh, hey, yeah. Hey, man. Hey, man. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I know that guy, Josh.

Yeah, he's a good guy. He's a good guy. That's disturbingly good. Yeah. That's amazing. In our remaining moments, you notice the sketchy weird Indiana Jones Fedora. I don't just keep this here for, this is not part of my fashion. This has some random questions in it.

Okay. Should we do a few random questions? Let's see what happens. You get to choose your own fate. Oh boy. Oh boy. When was the last time I cried? I got teary.

I didn't openly weep. But I did get a little teary during. During boyhood. Yeah, I can see that. A few moments when Patricia Arquette says, I thought there would be more. I'm just thinking about, yeah, Richard McFedner. We'll do a couple more?

He got me again. I wish I were better at pool. I wish I could play pool well. I wish I were better at the guitar. A lot of things. I feel like ski low. I wish I were a little bit taller. I wish I could grow better facial hair.

Yeah, exactly. off those yeah I really do though I mean all joking I wish I could grow the great to wait it was conspirator did you have any everybody had that was crazy was it was it fake yeah and that was redford approved that you're throwing Robert Redford I'm not he Bob he made everyone call him Bob that's how cool he was he that's the one thing when I showed up to set I was like and everyone said the same thing like he's gonna make you call him Bob like when you meet him that the first thing he says please call me Bob so I I met him and

I had the mustache on, they were testing it, and he came out saying, hey, Justin, hi, Mr. Redford, thanks for being here, looking at the mustache, and he never corrected me, and made me call him Bob. So, first day on set, I'm, like, overusing his name. I'm like, okay, Mr. Redford, thank you, Mr. Redford, right over here, Mr. Redford, waiting for, like, him to, and I'm, like, getting paranoid. Like, does he not, what is it about me? I mean, like, everyone, P.A.'s, craft service guys, like, hey, Bob, hey, Bob, and I'm

still living Mr. Redford, and, like, a couple days in, he said, Mr. Redford, he said, he said, Justin, in front of her, Justin, please, it's Bob, I told you. Call me Bob. He was, like, kind of offended. Wow. As if he had told me, and I was like, oh, oh, you didn't tell. Anyway, what's your question?

But he had, he had never told me. I would have remembered. I was screaming. Call me my Bob. The one time Redford Woods was upset. A fucking kid won't call me Bob. It's too goddamn formal. Sorry, man.

Finish strong. Oh, okay. Kiroki, question mark. Please. Really? Yeah. Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash. Are you competitive?

Or is it about the fun? No. No. It's just about, I do a version of Jolene. Got up a deeper version. You and Dolly basically have the same vocal range, right? Yes. We've often been compared.

Have you ever been to Dollywood? No. I got a question about her wrong. On some other show they said, Dolly pardon's boobs. How big are they? I guess triple Ds, and I guess they're just double Ds. So I thought, I never thought I'd, I never thought I'd have that moment where I thought,

the only part is flatter than I thought. She's a little flatter. Those too often don't go in the same, those thoughts don't go in the same sense. Which show was that? It was Sesame Street. What was it? Yeah, it was, it was blue's clues.

Yeah. It's always a pleasure to see you, my friend. I don't know. Always a blast talking to you. For no other reason that we spread, we prostitolatized love and death today, as well as Tusk. Yeah, good. Both important.

Both important movies. No, congratulations. Tusk is honestly, it's insane, it is unique, it's fun, it is super disturbing. Yeah. And you guys did a great job with that. Thank you. It's good to see it, buddy. It's good to see it.

Thanks, ma'am. The Old West is an iconic period of American history and full of legendary figures whose names still resonate today. Like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and Butch and Sundance, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo, Wyatt Earp, Batmasterson, and Bass Reeves, Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, the Texas Rangers, and many more. Hear all their stories on the Legends of the Old West podcast. We'll take you to Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City, to the plains, mountains, and deserts for battles between the U.S. Army and Native American warriors, to dark corners for the disaster of the Donner Party,

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