Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Dominic Monaghan

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

Dominic Monaghan (Lord of the Rings, Lost) discusses growing up in the tough city of Manchester, getting slapped across by a stranger in Thailand, and how to correctly pronounce the word “herb.” Dominic opens up about his views on climate change, listening to the Lord of the Rings storybooks with his dad as a kid, and landing the job that changed his life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please play responsibly. You're listening to Inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum. Rob Hollis is here. Rob? Yeah, hi, Michael. Dude, I just love, we got a new room. You can't see it right now, but you might in some pictures, but we're filming out of a new room in the house. I like to call it the library, the library.

What do the English call it? The library. I don't know. They might have another name for it. A lot of hockey jerseys in here. A big hockey fan. Maybe we should get some movie posters because we do have a lot of actors. No?

You like the hockey because you're a big hockey fan. Rob. You do. We go to hockey games together. I'm taking you to a Bulls game. This is fun. And hopefully a Hawks game. Yeah. Our guest today has been in so many things. You might remember him from Lost. I think he was on a season or two, a very memorable role. Lord of the Rings. He's got his own animal show. Call wild things. He comes down and play softball with me and my friends. He's just a down-to-earth guy. He's a great guy. We get into everything. He seems pretty fear. I mean, he's not a big guy. You look at him, but I guarantee he can kick my ass, definitely your ass too, right?

Yeah, he would kick your ass. And your ass. Yeah. He'd kick our asses. He would kick our asses. I don't think at the same time, maybe. I'd grab something while you were getting the shippie daddy. I'd grab like this, uh, Radoes of the Lost Dark Hunt, uh, what's his name, Dr. Jones's a statue.

And it's smacked him in the hell. I'd kill him right there. Dominic Monaghan. Let's get inside of Dominic. It's my point of you. You're listening to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum. Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum was not recorded in front of a live studio audience. I have a friend who I did this Midsummer Night's dream thing with last year

who does a filmed podcast where they watch a classic wrestling bout and then they talk about it. He's a wrestling freak. Like, like, like, Snooka, Jimmy Fly, Jimmy Superfly, Snooka versus like, uh, whoever, right. I don't, because I don't know those people. You don't know the names? You remember Andre the Giant? Yes. You got to remember him.

I know, Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan. What's the name? Randy, Super Randy, Randy Randerson. Machio Man, Savage? It was a like a handsome boy or something, some like. Yeah, the natural. Yeah. Mr. Natural?

Uh, there's some, there's probably three wrestling people right now are going, these guys are fucking morons. Oh, I don't know what I'm talking about. So he wanted me to do it, and I said, I'd love to do it, but I would be inadvertently disrespectful to your medium because I know nothing about it. Yeah. And I kind of, I'm not crazy on the kind of fakery of it, you know? Well, it's art. It's an art like anything else.

Do you think it's good at it? Look, I grew up in a small town in southern Indiana, Dominic. Okay. And, you know, people dipped, you know, what dipping is? The tobacco? Chewing tobacco. And they drink Bud Lights and they drink Bud Lights and they always. watch wrestling and, uh, we, uh, drink out of garden hoses and, uh, we liked our wrestling. And I kind

of got into that in a little days of our lives. I don't know why. Maybe I was a little effeminate. It was the art. No, dude, I did that. I did soap operas in England, you know, I mean, neighbors came from Australia. That's where Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan came from and Guy Pearce. Really? So all soaps. You know why? Because they're all beautiful people. Yeah, yeah. See, I never got, they would never cast me on a soap because I wasn't handsome enough. Right. I was just kind of like, yeah he's not really good looking but he's not bad looking right he could be the handsome guys best friends about all that right right well a little bit hey dominant we don't have a choice either do no we don't have a choice right i feel like if you can't if you can't change it you have to embrace it

you know i think the best thing you do is embrace it unless look for instance my friend rob not this rob this is rob producer rob who has a child he's 28 years old he already has a kid good for you rob thanks yeah i mean 28. What was I doing? I was not, well, maybe I was having babies. I just don't know about it. I was having babies in a, in a dish towel that sat next to my bed in college. Yeah, I was practicing. You were in college at 28? No, it was a joke. But maybe. Maybe I was. I wasn't the brightest. I mean, it took me an extra semester or two to, to graduate Western Kentucky University,

which I think you had to have a 2.2. That's not a high score in the state. What do you study? What did I study? You know, acting, of course. communications might have taken a psychology course. I think I bold. I wish you to let me guess because every act of that I know, you say, what do you study at college? Drama, communication studies, English lit, maybe, theater. Well, you, you, first of all, I want to say, Dominic, thank you for allowing me to be inside of you today. Rosie, thank you. This is a tree. Because where do we meet? Do you remember where we met? I do actually. Where? Well, if I get it right, we met at a Lakers game. You were with our agent, mutual agent. Right, who's a big basketball fan.

Huge basketball fan. Six-three? He played college. He played college, got injured, but still loves the NBA, loves the Lakers. And he had spoken about you a few times, and he actually said, I think he'll be here tonight. Let's see, because we'll probably go to a sweet-type situation. It's called the chairman's lounge, the chairman's room. It's at halftime.

It's a Jerry bus has this room, and you'd go there, and there'd be other people looking at each other going, oh, that's the guy from, and that's... There's that famous person. Yeah, that's, yeah. Yeah. So we met. And, you know, he did that great agent thing, which is like, you guys should meet because he's always going to be working. You're always going to be working at some point. You guys will cross paths.

And then I came to, I think, two, possibly three. Softball? Softball. You came to play softball. You're like, you know, in Hollywood, a lot of times people go, hey, why don't we go do this? And they're like, yeah, and they never do. Yeah. But with this, it was like, hey, man, you want to play softball?

You're like, totally mate. But I don't know you sounded like that. Say totally mate like you'd say it. Totally mate. See? I wasn't way off. Totally, mate. You weren't way up. But what I was impressed about you in that regard was, because that was, you put that together, right? That was your thing.

I'm like the Clark Riswold. You know, Clark Rizwald? He's like, the vacation. He's the father. I organize things. And people always expect me to get the group together. It's a lot to handle. It's a lot to put up, a lot of pressure to put on someone. I appreciate it. Oh, I like your Christmas story lamp right that. Oh, thanks, man. I just saw that. I, uh, fragile. It just came in, fragile. Fragile.

It just came in two months late. supposed to be here for Christmas, and I got it in late January. Fuck, I ordered one of these little mini, I'm not going to do this again. I ordered one of these little mini projectors. Yeah. You know, yeah. Those work. From Instagram, they do work.

But it was on Instagram for like 70% off sale. And I was like, boom, I'll get that. You still haven't gotten it. No. It's like to what you like about me. I want to hear that, Donald. Okay. Keep talking about me.

No, what I appreciate Tid, hello, what I appreciated about that gesture and about it in practice is, I agree with you. I think most people don't do that. Most people don't show up, but most people don't rally people to show up because not only is a little bit of pressure, it's a little bit of hassle, but you're also like sticking your neck out for a little bit of a failure. Because if you say, we're in a softball game and there's going to be drinks and we're going to have a team thing and we'll all get together and maybe go for lunch afterwards and three people show up. It could scare people off. Then it shows that people are like, we're not really that ends up. But I think the inner child in me, I think people see that rather quickly. It's

something in me that, you know, since I just sort of never wanted to grow up. I want to keep that fire burning. I want that fun. I don't want it to be all work. And I think we all get caught up in so much stress in our lives that were like, work, work, work. And I have to do this and I have to do this. And I'm like, you know, I'm set in a couple days, sometimes more, for myself and my friends. And I do it for me. I want to have fun, but I do it for my friends too, because I know everybody works. And I think when you get a good group of people together, consistently it just changes the psychology of like how you look at things yeah yeah and that's why i you know when i don't do that i seem to get caught up in stupid shit yeah so i'd like to be a little

free spirited and go hey let's get together we're gonna have a softball game we're gonna go get some lunch afterwards at the peasant it's a couple hours of your day you know and it's funny because people you know do show up there's been a lot of different folks that show up throughout the years and some older some younger and uh i Everybody just has fun. But yes, you're right. You set yourself up for failure. I think if I invited a whole bunch of people and they never,

nobody showed up, I probably would play with myself or something. We all do that. Yeah. It was good. I've not played softball that many times before. That was fun. You're good.

Thank you. You were good. You're an athlete. Well, yeah, I can use my body, you know, so I like that thing. And also, do you have that thing where as an adult, one of your go-to social things is the cinema, right? What are we going to do tonight? Oh, let's go out and do something.

Okay, we'll go to the cinema. We've got that. Everyone knows they can go to the cinema. Then you have like bowling, maybe. It's kind of a gimmicky thing, but I'll go bowling. Right. Maybe laser tag. Yeah.

Museums, I've been doing this thing. Or put it into my head recently of like, okay, every weekend, I'm going to go online. The 15 best free, because I'm cheap. Sure. Museums, art galleries in L.A., go there in the morning, set yourself up. Maybe you could write me a list to do that. Yeah. Do you recommend it?

Have you been consistent with this? I've only just started. but went to an incredible it's not really an art gallery, it's more of a installation that's the word I was blushingly groping for her. Installation, which is a tiny little room, much small than this, half the size of this room, which doesn't really work

because we're not on video. Small, it's a small room. It's a small room. And it was, it's called something like before I was born. So it's kind of, you walk into someone's dream. The entire space is, Phil. with so the floor that you're walking on is clear but the walls the ceilings it's very uh dream state

so there's things kind of floating in air do you smoke any grass when you go into this i think smoking weed would have been helpful did you like it still loved it really i should go to this yeah yeah i don't know if it's still around i'll find out it might be in its last way yeah let me know uh um but the weekend the weekend before that i did a ton of mushrooms and it very much complimented the mushroom mushrooms i never done mushrooms i'm afraid that something's going to happen yeah actually that's not true i did mushrooms i tried to forget it thanks for bringing oh it was a bandit experience well uh my friend rob once not this rob he took mushrooms and we were with his wife and at this cabin and her friend and he took mushrooms and he flipped the

fuck out he went jack nicholson he went jack nicholson shining day 16 yeah and all of a sudden it was like i'm gonna fucking kill you and i go let's go lock our in the bedroom downstairs and we did and then finally we waited an hour I put a dresser behind he's just like out of his mind but is he a slightly out of his mind he's a slightly out of his mind but he's like just a he's brilliant but he just flipped his lid and uh finally after yeah get comfortable man but after about two hours I said I'm gonna go check on him they're like be careful and I went upstairs he had completely rolled himself up on mushrooms in an area rug and I peeked in through the you know it was wrapped up like a little naggy sushi yeah

And I looked at him inside and I said, hey, buddy, are you okay? I want to go home. And it was a tough time. And I enrolled him. I said, are you ready to be unrolled? And, you know, I gave him a hug. You birthed him. I birthed him.

That's beautiful. And it worked out. But I don't, I don't like going into something. You have to go in with the right frame of mind, pal. Yeah, you do. Right. You might have to have the right frame of mind, period, not necessarily have one for that day. You know, they talk about set and setting in these situations.

situations once you're getting into a psychotropic world or yeah anything that changes your experience set and setting like I you know I think alcohol is probably the first thing that I expose myself to that has the ability to change your mood and I didn't realize until years into drinking alcohol but it's going to amplify that mood so if you're coming in excited you're going to get more excited if you've had a shitty day it might potentially make your day a bit shitty psychotropic plants will get to a point sometimes if you expose yourself to enough of them where they have more of an influence over you than you have over them So they'll just say, oh, thanks for the opportunity to be at a higher percentile than you are in your body.

And now we're going to expose you to this pain, this shit, all this joy. But the pain thing is also going to help you learn as well. I mean, my experience with these things has been... Hallucinogenics. Hallucinogenics has been one of... I mean, when I first got into it as a kid, it was more like a goof. Like, oh, let's take... First time I took mushrooms.

16. Rob, was the first time you took mushrooms never did never you haven't even had one in your salad

have you turn you into a fun guy to be honest yeah I've eaten mushrooms in my salad yeah okay great

you're a stud that's it have you ever done any marijuana I have yes you have and you're a drinker

not a heavy drinker you're crossing your arms are you uncomfortable with these questions yeah no I just the mic well you don't have to turn to me and look at you

how he's really uncomfortable he wants to have a conversation with me well I'm just curious because I mean I drank in college but I was always a bit of control freak where my brother he drinks and he can't stop and he wants to do the next thing and the next thing and it alters his personality and I told him one day I fucking love you

I love you when you're sober and when you're out of control I don't want to be near you and there's some people are you like that where you become a different person or are you just more of a jovial fun? It's difficult to have a perspective on your own sense. Have your friends said something to you in the past?

Like, hey, Dom. I mean, I've had my moments. Are we talking about alcohol? Are we talking about alcohol? Yeah, sure. I've had my moments on alcohol where I've been a little feisty. Certainly in my younger days, it just may be more playful and silly. I'm a little mischievous.

I'm a little. I want to get in trouble. What can we do? Where can we go? Yeah. Or like, if, if, if, they're drunk and I'm drunk and they say something like

ah that thing really gets on my nerves you know that thing that subject that you're talking about then I'll well why why does it really let's oh yeah that does it because I want to do that thing and it's like my dad told me years ago and like I don't want to make out like I've been in a ton of fights because I haven't but my dad said years ago

no one wins a fight which is completely true you know no one gets out of that shit alive there's always some cost that you're paying either physically or mentally you've taken yourself to a weird place. And it just doesn't, it doesn't serve you, you know, it doesn't do anything. It sounds like you had some good role models growing up? What'd you say that? You grew up in Germany?

Yeah, well, both my parents are Mancunians. They're both from Manchester. But there was a program, which I think still exists, but at a slightly slim down level, where if you were a teacher, the British government would pay you to go to places where they have English forces stationed around the world, Hong Kong, Australia. different places in South America, educate the army forces kids, and they'll pay you. You get a great life. You get your mortgage paid. You get your car. You get a free car. So my parents were like, yeah, let's go do that. So we went to Berlin. Well, they went to

Berlin. I was born there. We then moved from Berlin to Dusseldorf, then from there to a place called Munster. Dusseldorf or Dusseldor? I was just there. Yeah, no shit. I was just there a couple months ago. We have a little band called The Sandwich. We went there on tour to Frankfurt and Berlin and then we took a drive, we took a train to Dusseldorf the castle. Right. And we just hung out there all day and I bought a little knight, a miniature night. And

I love castles. Okay, good. Well, he went to the right place. He went to Europe. Oh, my God. I just fucking lying all over there. Spechens yet for Stoich. Cannes he and write them in Schraven? Where did you learn that? I did this terrible, terrible movie in Germany years ago and no one's ever seen it. And no one should.

Um, no, it's just, we had to dub the whole movie because the sound was lost. Right. And so it just, you can't, it's unwatchable. And that was your biggest line. But I don't know. Well, Nico is my driver. And every morning, Nico would pick me up and go, good morning. Good morning, Mr. Rosenbaum.

I'm like, hey, Nico, how do I say I shit my pants in Germany? He's like, Michael, why do you want to learn that? No one wants to hear that shit. And I go, come on. Just tell me, man. I'm only here for a short time. I'm an American. This is what we do.

We want to learn bad words. All right. So it's like, I've been de chosin'amacht. That means I shit my pants. So every day, how do I say, hey, uh, asshole,

my gull, ashoch. How do I say? That's great. You learned some German. I hate you. I hate you. I'm hazee you.

I love it. That'll get you. I love. Hey, de hoopche. Right? Hey de hoopche. It's like, hey, pretty girl. Right.

Kyrie, bye. Did you learn Gaile? Do you know that thing? Gile is like, Gile's like, cool, but with a sexy kind of slant. And Germans don't say cool. They say cool. Yeah, cool.

Cool. But Gile's really, really a nice word to know because it's kind of what the kids say. Like if something's cool but sexy, kind of funky, you need to listen to it, whatever, or watch it. Oh, that's Gile. Oh, that's Gile. Now, did you partake in any German food? Because some of the German food, for me, is the best in the world. Yeah, I think I had a brat worst.

Okay. Some of that stuff. It's amazing. I think they made the best. Bread on the planet. Really? Our German bread, man. It's just full of seeds and nuts and it's really kind of good food.

Just fattening stuff, right? There's a lot of fattening stuff. Yeah. Like the big main meals that they do, I'm not as crazy about because it's kind of gravy and soupy and stodgy and heavy. But they make amazing bread. They do really good candy. Do you have candy over there?

I didn't. Dude. Like the sour candy. Really? Best in the world. I'm a big sour candy fan. I don't know about you. Like the gummy, chewy.

You like that shit. Oh, fuck. How old are you? Forty-one. See, I'm 45. Maybe it's just... Are you really? You look great for 45.

Do I? Like 25. Oh, thanks, man. But, you know, I, you know, what happens is with the, you know, the gummy things. One time I had a bad experience, I had a bit into a gummy bear, and part of my tooth got caught in it or something. Something happened. And I just had some, you know, sweet and sour problems. Sweet and sour moments, yeah. Well, I just, I like those things.

But, you know, I don't do them. I don't do them all the time. I don't do him hardly any of the time now. But when I do them, I fucking do them. You fucking go balls out. I house them. And I want the best in the world. Because I figure now, if you're going to, like, I'm pretty much vegetarian now, you know, with every so often if I see something.

Is that because of working with all these animals so closely and your love for animals over the years? Was it more of that than it was something else? No, I think it's more along the lines of a nutritional digestive feeling, not to say that I don't. love animals and not say that there wasn't an influence on it i found and i don't know if you found the same but one of the more sobering things about aging is things just don't work quite as well as they know they're not automatic anymore yeah it's like remember the old days not to be you know spoiler alert uh when you had a perfect turd that came out and then now it's like fucking patty cake sally come like you know it's just you know what i'm saying rob you know what i'm talking about

your diet. Maybe I'm eating too much, too many different meats and things. Yeah. I just, you know, I crave burgers. I crave these things. But maybe if you stop, like, eating them, you'll eventually stop that. And there's other things to eat, you know. Dude, I thought I would crave it for the rest of my life.

I was very much meat-oriented, pretty much meat for lunch and dinner every day since I was a kid. And I remember thinking, I don't know how I can be vegetarian because I'm basically just going to be eating sides. I'm going to be eating like broccoli. That's what I think, too. But you get to a point where it, because. comes automatically. It becomes a meal. I felt better. I felt lighter. Waking up in the morning. I felt better. And it's just, what's good about it is, because I'll eat meat again at some point soon, it makes the meat more special because it's a treat, you know. And when I do it, I go fucking

balls down. And you don't have any sort of adverse reactions if you're not, you know, if you're a vegetarian, then all of a sudden you eat meat. So you're saying every once in a way you'll have meat. And it doesn't affect you. It does. You know what I mean? Some people have a and then they'll just be ill feeling for it. Yeah, I probably wouldn't just dive into like a cheeseburger or something. I'd get something, you know, a nice piece of meat. But yeah, it does, it does affect me. Yeah, yeah.

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them you heard about them from my show inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum. Rocket money. I take a lot of these like cool and groovy, whatever, very actory tinctures and, you know, herbal medication. What's a tincture? Like, it's basically like herbs in a liquid in an alcohol

form. I love that you say herbs. Thank you. Because there's a fucking H in the word, right? Well, there was a band called Herbs and Peaches. Right. Rob, look it up. What was that song they saying? Peaches and peaches and herb. His name was Herb, I guess. Yeah, Herb, Albert.

So it was supposed, no, Peaches and Herb, they sang, Reunited. Reunited and it feels so good. Yeah, yeah. I don't know why we went off on that. I did second chorus. You did first chorus. Yeah. I like that you knew that song.

Well, I was talking about this the other day, and Eddie Isard, who's probably my second favorite stand-up comedian after Bill Hicks, but I think he's... Bill Hicks is my favorite. He's extraordinary. Rant and E-Miner. Yeah, Rant and E-Miner. Arizona Bay. Oh, that's a genius.

But Eddie Isard. says this thing, which is true, that, like, we pronounce it herbs and you guys pronounce it herbs, because there's a fucking H at the start of the sentence. You guys don't follow your own rules. You don't say, hello, or how are you? Yeah. You say hello, how are you? So you guys just suddenly...

Oh, wait, you say hello. Hello. Yeah, we go, hello. Yeah, you do the opposite. All right, mate. And you guys suddenly chose to be Jamaican, because that's the Jamaicans do, right? Erb. We want some herb, man.

Yeah, I've got some herb, terrible. And then not only... Then not only that, but the whole herb embargo has been fucked up by you guys, because then you do oregano, oregano, basil, and fucking cilantro, which is coriander. So I don't know why you guys suddenly went into the herb market. That's pretty smart. You guys went into the herb market and just said, we're going to completely rip up all these words because we don't like them and start again.

It becomes confusing. I'm going to start saying herb. You're the only country in the world that just Fahrenheit. You're the only country in the word that does pounds, not on the metric system. Fuck. I mean, I love the States, but... We already have some major problems going on right now, okay? There's another school shooting, and now you want to bring up our how we say herbs.

Yeah, it's terrible. For fuck's sake. No, it is. It's terrible. I mean, do you guys, do you, as someone from the United States, has someone who's dealt with this since as a kid, the debate, do you see any way of solving that situation? What situation? The gun situation? Man, you want to get into gun control.

Just how it would actually get solved. Well, the NRA has just, there's so much money. there that you just you know it's never it's always going to be an issue because the rich the elite they're always gonna you know they're backed by these people and you know there's so much i can get into the whole thing about the second amendment but the reason the second amendment with guns was even you know right to bear arms was it's archaic it's like it's wild west it's a wild west when you go like okay you could have a your the right to have a a gun at your house not a m16 or whatever And also a gun at your house at a time where potentially there might be a coyote or someone coming to your door that could do that shit.

Yeah, it made sense. But now it's like things change. I mean, we had slaves then. We don't now. Things evolve. We evolve. Thank God. So why can't we evolve with this? I think one of the issues going on with the states is this version of the United States, the United States that came over from Europe due to religious persecution is there's. A lack of a deep, long-lasting history. And one of the longest-lasting pieces of history for your country is the amendments. So you cannot fuck with the amendments because that's what you've got. That's what you guys are hanging on to. That's your scaffold. Yeah, right.

So when someone says, but it's in the amendment, well, yeah, but so is another bunch of ridiculous rules in the amendment. You have to at some point go, these don't work. Let's write new amendments, you know. Exactly. I mean, Australia had mass shootings as bad as the United States up until 1984. or they banned automatic weapons. They've not had a mass shooting since then. None.

So why isn't that? You have a lot of people in the new administration saying, we're not going to do it because if you look at these countries, it doesn't work. I mean, healthcare clearly works in Canada. Healthcare clearly works in Europe. It's slower. You know, my mom has neck and back and hip problems and all that kind of stuff.

She had a choice of going private and probably having a hip surgery within six weeks or doing it through the National Health Service. She was a nurse. She worked for the National Health Service. health service for 35 years. So she went through the National Health Service. That took about six months. But she was happier to do that because she wanted to say, I support the National Health Service. It's supporting that system. What terrifies me about the health service in this country, you know, I have gardeners that work on my yard and stuff, a lovely Mexican guy. And he doesn't

have insurance. If he falls down my hill and breaks his leg, what are his options, you know, like? You? Yeah. You're his option. What can he do? Tom, can you help? my leg today. Right. Right? Yeah, I think so. No, it's true. It's scary. I don't want to diss America. I love being here and you're not dissing America. I think these are just important things to talk about, you know? It's funny because I rarely talk about these things on my show. I just, I go, you know, because it's all we hear. It's all we hear is everywhere. It's like it's so you wake up. Twitter is like the inquirer now. It's like all these topics and they just smash breaking news, CNN. So it's hard for me. Like I'm a pretty liberal guy, except for, you know, capital punishment. I have different theories on that. Oh, you do? I do. I'm more conservative on that. But that's like my only one. Yeah. I just...

What's going on? I just, I'm not, we don't have to get into it. I'm just saying, you know, I just... You think that people... I think that... I think that it takes too long, and I think there are some, there are a few mistakes where someone's innocent. That rarely happens, but it does happen. But I think if it's clear that someone just killed a family, went in

and raped someone and killed them and took the... You know, rape to me, is like you're taking someone's life even if you're not sure would they have to deal with that for the rest of their lives and to me why do you need trash what do you put him in prison and so we're paying for it and it's like and they say capital punishment but it's more money because they wait and they wait well let's let's fix that there's put them on the fast track i'm weird like that that's the only thing you want to get like you know like i said i'm pretty liberal with everything but with that i just i can't imagine somebody if i had a girlfriend or you know when i had a girlfriend somebody raped or my mom or killed my family. I'm like, oh, yeah, the judicial system, they'll just put them in prison for the rest of life and they'll have meals every day and they'll have structure to their life. And they're like, no, why not just, and you don't feel this way? I don't believe in the death penalty now. You don't. Why? Because I don't think that we are in a position where we can make that decision. Why? They were in a position to make a decision. They're obviously mentally ill.

Well, what's the difference? If somebody says, he killed someone and they say, yeah, but he was mentally ill but don't you have to be mentally ill to kill someone yeah but i think there's a little there's that's easy to say they're mentally ill they're this i mean there's there's obviously different types of mental illness you you can be you know fucking sticking sausages in your air and playing with your own shit and then go and then go rape someone and you're mentally ill or you could be someone who looks like a normal person and still rape someone there's still it's still mental illness i think those type of people potentially are holding a secret as to what is happening inside their brain to allow them to think that this thing is good

and potentially studying those people to stop this from happening in the future. How many do we have to study before we figure that out? Well, if we start finding congruent things going on with their brain, we can isolate it and then we can see it in kids and work with them before that thing happens, then that's helpful, I think. I mean, obviously the whole eye for an eye thing, we all go blind seems to kind of follow through, right? It's just something for me that's always stuck where it's just like, I see your point. I really do.

But there's something inside of me that somebody, I mean, look, the initial reaction would be kill that person. I want that person dead. And then you hear about people that they learn. And I'm shocked by some reactions in how people are mature enough and are just somehow forgive and say, I forgive them. And they're able to go to the person. I forgive you. And I can move on. And maybe, God forbid, that doesn't have.

happen to me where I could, you know, one day say, yes, I, I just can't wrap that around my head. It's difficult. I can't wrap it around my head that if you kill someone, you go in someone to a store and you kill a pregnant mother and that we're going to study your brain because you're mentally ill. Right. I don't buy that shit. And then also the next step, which is the father of that pregnant mother visits them in prison and says, I forgive you, I'm sorry for your struggle.

But if you think about it, if you, it's challenging, and I feel the same way if someone were to do something to someone I love, my initial reaction is like, give me 10 minutes in a room with them and then do whatever. But you don't get that 10 minutes. Right. You don't get that 10 minutes. But what you do get as an opportunity is the ability to genuinely say to that person and feel it in your own sense of self, I'm over that.

I'm past this. I love you. Well, do you not think that that is the next level for you? So let's say, let's say, it's a hypothetical situation. It's tough. Someone who you love gets attacked and they get murdered. Right. You have an opportunity to go see the person that did it.

So there's two traveling points here. One is you go to that person and you go, you're a motherfucker, you're an asshole, you're a con. I wish he could kill you. I can't. Okay. Doesn't really get you anywhere. Doesn't really get him anywhere. He knows he's a fucking asshole when he looks.

Right. The next thing, the journey for him and you is to challenge him on the idea because he thinks you're going to come in with all this. rage right you can me say i'm sorry that that happened to this person that i love i'm sorry that something must have happened to you for for you to have done that i love you i forgive you i hope that you improve i wish you well you're free you walk away in some way you are free of that you're always going to be that person but in some way i'm not fucking out acting like i would be there right that is the journey that you need to i i don't i don't disagree with your theory the theory

is i mean i think that helps a lot of people i think that there are very brave people out there who have survived tragedies where their families are killed or something has happened. And they've found it deep inside their souls to somehow attach themselves to the thought, the idea that if I can forgive this person, I then can be free. And to me, that sounds like too much of a fucking job, too much work for someone who's dealt with a loss of someone they love now i have to slowly start to accepting when i just like just first of all kill that person okay kill that person let them believe the death and then they're dead and they're gone and they can't hurt anybody else and they're not aware and the idea of that person still being alive

that killed someone i love that idea now could be put to rest because they're gone and then i can start to mourn do you believe that there's a psychology maybe to that yeah i hear what you're saying i don't know how much relief there is for you and if you read about these people that show up at the execution of their daughter's murderer and they think this is it, this is the moment for me, I'm gonna fucking watch him die

and they go, it's still there. You know? It has to come from you. I didn't say I want to watch the person die. I don't know if that's what I'd want, but you don't think that person can change at any point if out of rage at 18 they accidentally kill someone.

That's a different story. That's a different story. You know, what I'm talking about, I'm not talking about one of those things that if someone in an act of rage, something happens and someone's killed and it's an accident or it's, you know, it wasn't premeditated or savage or whatever that is, there's a big difference. But someone that comes in with a knife and stabs people to death or shoots the whole family and there's a different, each case is probably you have to think it through. And you're saying, no, they're all the same, really. But it's hard to draw that line, though. I think if you start differentiating like that. You have to differentiate if like, you know, two people get in a fist fighting.

Some guy falls and he hits his head and the other person's family is like, that guy should know. They got in a fight and that guy died suddenly. And that's a different case. You have to sort of understand that that's a different. A different minute. How did we get into all this? It's a different matter. Tom, I applaud you.

I applaud you for getting me into this. We never talk about this stuff, do we? Yeah. Do you like what we're talking about? this stuff? I do. Why? You sick? Fuck. Why, Rob? I don't know. It's just a different topic than we're normally covering. Let's get back into you. Okay. Let me finish this one thing. Go ahead. Go ahead. You know, I mean, first of all, these are these are the type of conversations that I want to have. I'm never interested in surface level conversations. So this is cool for me too. Secondly, I have a friend called

Slocum who lives in, Slocom. Slocum. He lives in Peru. He's from South Carolina. And he told me a story, He travels all around the world, travel to South America. And he told me a story of going to a group of indigenous people in the jungle at a, on a day that he wasn't told that it was going to be this specific day. But this day, they all drink this plant that gets them a little inebriated. And if you have a fucking beef with someone, that is the day when you get going with it physically or mentally or however you can't kill him. Can't kill him. But he was there at this party. And suddenly these people started having a physical.

this woman and this woman and this guy and this woman and this woman and this other lady and he turned to his facilitator you know chieftain type guy and said what's going on and he said well today is the celebration of this and we drink this thing which is why we've got a guest here but everyone is able to fucking kick off with each other and the next day they woke up and had breakfast nothing everything's fine that to me if I had to give you an analogy a sport that reminds me of that that would be hockey all right okay two guys getting a fistful fight. They beat the shit out of each other. And after that, they see each other out of bar and they're usually like, hey, man, what's up? That's how hockey players are. Right, right. But wouldn't that

be great with real life if everybody could just say, hey, we had an argument, whatever, and the next morning, you're like, hey, sweetheart, I love you. Yeah. And that's how it should be. A lot of times it's like that when you get into a physical thing with someone. I live with a pro surfer and we got into a physical fight one night after, you know, getting up to shenanigans. And I'm kind of fast, you know so he he and I kind of like started shadow boxing a little bit and I had open hands but I started like knocking him around the room he was trying to get to me and I was just like pow pow pow pow pow pow and he's a much bigger dude I got mad yeah and he like broke through and grabbed me and like threw me over his head UFC star like split my elbow split his lip

I chipped his two did you start fist fighting yeah we're like we're kicking off each other and eventually we were like okay stop stop because there's fucking blood all over the hardwood floors and it got hectic I woke up in the morning and my sheets were all coming in blood and I saw him the next day. Yeah, I saw him the next day, we went for breakfast. And it was a huge turning point in our relationship because you'd broken through that moment and you'd survived and it was okay. You knew a little bit more about yourself and him. I don't want to do that. I don't. I didn't want to do it. No, it's like, I think alcohol probably had, it never would happen if you were sober. Um, there's been times where I've had a friend where, you know,

something's happening. They're being passive aggressive and it just won't stop and it's building. It's something that I'd like, and he's like, he's pushing all my buttons, the point where it's like, oh, my God. And I know right then in my head, I'm like, it's not going to be physical. I'm not going to allow this to be physical. I'm not going to do it. Do you find, would you describe yourself as a confrontational person? No, I'm not a confrontational person, but I don't like, it's daddy issues. I don't like being told what to do.

I don't like when people act like I'm beneath them. I'm not smart. It's all childhood shit. it's all behavioral shit it's all like you know saying i'm dumb or something like you know it gets you know it hits a nerve i just don't like i like people to treat me with respect as i do them and if i'm disrespecting them they should say hey you know i don't like what you said and i'm oh my god okay i'm sorry i didn't mean it that way people should talk more but uh but i wouldn't say confrontational i think i'm competitive and i'm like um i think sometimes people think i'm yelling

and i'm not like i think when you raise your voice yeah well sometimes I'm just a loud person I'm a New Yorker and so my dad's like that and I was always afraid of his voice because he always like when he yelled it just always scared me it's still to this day if he yells

I'm like oh my God what the fuck the way he's just excitable is that what it is? I don't know man he could just turn like that and it's just like he's just talking like this and then he's just like

what did I tell you about that? Wow. And it's just like whoa and that voice just resonates in my little childlike face and I you know so but I'm not confrontational I don't start fights I don't start I don't want to fight I'll do anything I can to get out of a fight I've been in fights I've got my ass kicked I kicked some ass here and there I'm not a big guy I don't love it I don't go after it but I try to have control of myself yeah I try not to take do things that put me out of control I don't want to be in certain situations like if I feel something's weird like this isn't a good environment I'm amazing at feeling something like that going we should leave now I'm not comfortable I want to get out of here where I think you're different.

You're tougher. You're probably, you don't think about that stuff. And you're like, you don't maybe feel that sort of. No, I think I feel it. I just like the edge. I've always liked the edge. You like the edge. I like living in that place.

I'm the guy in my social group that, like, is, I'm the guy that says, come on, let's have one more. Come on, let's go at this place. Let's talk to that guy. Let's ask. If you were an Aerosmith's song, what would you be? I don't know Aerosmith. You live in all the year.

Is that an Aerosmith? All I know is walk this way. I was never an Aerosmiths. But that was a Batman run DMC. Right, right. But I see that about you. I see that you're sort of like, and that's why I wanted to get into the childhood thing

because I want to see where this started. See, that's why I like to go, like because I see sort of this picture now of who you are, but were you like that when you were growing up? Were you sort of like a tough kid? No, no, not at all. I was a class clown when I was a kid. The girls like you?

Yeah. I mean, I had massive ears when I was a kid. Massive ears. Massive ears. Which, like childhood photos, it's ridiculous. My ears are still pretty big now, but I slightly grew into them, which was a godsend because I, you know, it was struggle when I was a kid. I was quite precocious, quite gregarious. I was a big fan of Monty Python at a young age, and I would memorize it, like you memorize all that stuff.

I just memorized it. I memorized like we were forced to go to mass when we were kids. and I would memorize the entire mass I could do it I could sit there and the priest would be talking and I'd be like playing with my toy cars or whatever and I'd be mouthing what he's doing next. Wait, wait, stop for a second. Do you have photographic memory?

I have good memory recollection for stuff like that. Wait, if you read something and someone, like for instance, as an actor and you have five pages of dialogue, is there no question in an hour you'll have it down? Oh, I can do that in 15 minutes, no doubt. If I listen to a song three or four times, I bet you I know 70% of the lyrics. It just goes in. I used to know all of a new hope up until the point where he goes into the Death Star and starts going around.

My brother used to test me on it. He'd be like, okay, it's the scene where Peter Cushing is about to blow up Alderan. Your Peter Cushing, go. And I just do it like that. And then that gets replaced by other stuff, you know. So I've always been interested in animals when I was a kid. It's whatever you're interested in. So things that I'm really interested in with animals, insects, reptiles specifically,

that doesn't feel like I ever really learn it. It kind of comes in through osmosis, you know? Or if someone asks me something, there's almost like a predictive element now to my ability to know stuff with animals because I'm problem solving. If it's an animal in front of me, I can actually look at the animal and know what's going on. Or if it's not, I'm able to like go. back into these encyclopedic things when I did. Something you read, something you watch.

There's just innate stuff that you know once you start learning stuff about an animal. Like other people might be like, I don't understand that. Like, why do reptiles tend to be still? You notice that? Most reptiles, you see a lizard. Why is that? You just sit still. You go over to it, runs off.

Right. Sit still again. Runs up. So the way to think about that is you have to. Can I guess? Go. I'm saying, I'm going to go, Rob, what you guess? I'm going to say, it's.

It's for energy. They want to maintain their energy, so they save it. Is that right? They're cold-blooded, right? Yeah. Cold-blooded means they don't get their energy in the same way that we do. We're warm-blooded. We get our energy, you know, from the fact that we eat energy, we eat food.

It keeps us going. But we don't need to warm up our blood to get moving. These animals at 7 in the morning, their blood is cold. It's thick. It's like syrup. So they come out and they're like, oh, fuck. Fuck this. And they sit in the sun and it warms up and it gets fast.

So when you go over to a lizard, a lizard knows, like a lizard knows, like a If that water bottle in front of me is a lizard, a lizard knows, if Dom's here, I'm set. I don't need to burn my energy. If Dom's here, I'm going to think about it. I'm going to look at him. But if he gets here, I'm going to go. But I'm only going to go to the edge of that table

because I need to keep my energy. Because what if a fucking big elephant comes along and picks me up? Then I need that energy. Is there a chance I'm cold-blooded? Because I feel like my energy levels are that of a reptile. They're incredible at conserving their energy

because it's important. So when you think about these animals, what is important to them. I was talking to a friend the other day about, you know, pointless animals, which is an oxymoron. I said, there is no point in this animals. They say, oh, what about wasps? What about mosquitoes?

What about this? What about that? You can give a reason why every animal on the planet exists because if they didn't have a reason, they wouldn't exist. Nature is the ultimate filing away tool, you know? It needs something. Termites. For trees, right?

Termites control the propagation of different trees, you know? If you didn't have termites, it would be too many. Bees, pollen, and, you know, flowers and plants. Right. Yep. I mean, insects are the most important species of animal on the planet. Now, it feels weird to us because we're very biased towards human beings because we built a computer and we went to the moon and we can record a podcast. That's great what we can do, recording a podcast.

It doesn't really do anything, certainly on a global scale for our planet. You think about a beetle, an ant, a worm, a wasp. What they're doing on a cosmic level for our planet is way more important than what we're doing here. They're creating cleaner air. They're creating cleaner soil. They're not leaving the carbon footprint. They've been around a lot longer. They're smarter.

They're cooler. They don't cause harm. You know, we think we're incredible because Alfred Hitchcock, because Wizard of Oz, because Star Wars, that is incredible. The art thing doesn't really get us anywhere. Do you know what I mean? The smartest thing that we can do now as a species is know every animal on Earth, know every tree, in the forest, know every plant, be able to live in harmony with our planet. Because once we can do that, then yeah, let's create art.

We've got time on our hands to do stuff. But until that point, until we're like not spitting out noxious fumes and... Destroying our planet, period. It's just bizarre to me. I've been watching comedians in cars getting coffee. I fucking love Jerry Seinfeld, man. I saw that, yeah. Incredibly charismatic.

I saw the one with him and Jim Carrey. Yeah, just really. Just, he's a great comedian and I find him really engaging. Favorite line. of Seinfelds. Grape nuts. You open the box, no grapes? No nuts.

What's the deal? I like the bloopers where he can't keep his shit together. There's an amazing, it doesn't involve Seinfeld, but there's an amazing moment with Jerry Stiller and Julia Louis Dreyfus, where he thinks that she physically can take him. And he says, you want a piece of me? And she's like, I could drop you. And they laugh, right?

And they start laughing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so funny. But so Seinfeld is talking to Bill Burr. And up until this point, everything that Seinfeld said, I'm like, yes, I agree, I agree, I agree, you're radical, I agree. He's talking to Bill Burr and he says, I don't know, I drive a fucking Prius. He's like, you drive a Prius? He says, yeah, and he starts laughing.

And he says, what's so funny? He's like, do you not think that's taking something away from your soul, the fact that you're driving a Prius? And I wanted to pause the thing, and I wanted a direct line. to Jerry Seinfeld and say, you've got it the exact opposite way around. The fact that you're engaged in, yeah, I want a gas-guzzling thing that, like, it's powerful and says, hey, ladies, and spits out shit. And no responsibility about my planet, no responsibility about setting an example on my planet because people fucking listen to Jerry Seinfeld.

And he said, oh, so you kind of have this cool and groovy idea about being, you know, an eco kind of guy. And I was like, no, you got it the wrong way around. He sets an example. a friend of mine had said years ago he was going to buy a car and I said what are you going to get he was getting some

fucking Japanese car I know nothing about cars some Japanese car and I said why don't you get because at the time there wasn't electric cars in the same way that there is now

I said why don't you get a Prius and you said why and I said because you have kids you've got two kids he's got a five year old and an eight year old he went I don't care not that he didn't care

about his kids no I'd rather get a car now that burns fuel and the kids will worry about later that breaks my heart and it keeps me up awake at night that's why I drive a Prius it's good for you

I'm great I'm surrounded by Priuses I feel like you're Tesla now for you though I got a Tesla now for you though I got Tesla's sexy as fuck man It's like a spaceship Yeah For me

Rosie have you been in a Tesla Yes they're amazing They're fast but they're too fast I think those are too dangerous You press the thing It's like you're fucking on a roller coaster It's Space Mountain and Disney World Fuck that we don't need to be that fast

I have a big truck It wasn't expensive truck. Is it a gas guzzler? Is it great for the environment? Probably not. But until Prius or Tesla or someone designs a fucking truck where I feel like I'm driving and if someone hits me, I'm not going to implode, I'm not going to drive your Prius. I feel safe in my fucking truck.

I'm not going to get killed unless a tank hits me. Well, hey, man, I'll drive a semi if Tesla's going to fucking make it. My Tesla, I drive a Model S. It's a pretty robust car. Like, if I got in a car accident, you know. I respect that. So your preference for a car is you want to feel safe? I just, I like a truck.

I like being higher up. I got some back issues, some older. You know, I got a lot of space. Tesla has an SUV. I can put my scooter in the back. Mercedes has an SUV. These are all electric. Enough.

Lexus. You can put it in the front. Dude, Lexis has an electric car. Volvo has an electric car. All right. Mercedes has an electric car. You know, you and I are going to work on getting me an electric car. I'd like that, Rosie.

I would. Because I care about the. environment I really do and I want to I want to help out and I donate and I do things and I think you know Seinfeld you might say what you just said which is he shouldn't have said that because you know it's like it's how he feels it's you know and maybe who knows maybe he gives millions of dollars to the environment every year I'm sure he does but you know it is educating and it's it's changing things and everybody thinks that he can change and that I think sometimes it's overwhelming for people to think like everybody's going to drive this until it starts to

really happen and they see it's more commercialized and they see it's more people wait for everybody else to do it before they jump on that it can be incremental people ask me all the time well you know because i you know i make mistakes as well but people ask me all the time well what can i do there's nothing i can do like fucking global warming such a first of all the word global warming is one of the real crimes that was created by some fucking conspiracy theorist about this situation it's not global warming although it can be global warming at times it's climate change climate change what happened with global warming and fucking donald trump's a perfect example

of how stupid people can be. He was in New York a couple of years ago now and it was snowing. He went, hey, what do you mean? Global warming? Like, it's freezing. Like, shut the fuck up. You've got it wrong.

It's the fact that the climate is changing. It's supposed to be this. It's now this. And yes, the climate does naturally go through different waves. But it doesn't happen over the course of, you know, 8,000 years. It happens over the course of 50,000 years, 20,000 years.

It doesn't happen over the course of, you know, 200 years. The Industrial Revolution is a great, little peak on a graph to show we were doing okay, suddenly we start burning coal and fossil fuels and oil, and now we got a problem. So the whole global warming thing needs to get stopped talking about. We need to talk about climate change. But what I do say to people, and I do it, and like I said, I make mistakes, is if you think a little bit more responsibly about two things, what you buy and what you do with that thing that you buy, then you're making a big difference. If you go into a

shop. And I know you might not have the same amount of money, but that, you know, there are situations where you have choice. Let's say, I bought an electric blower. Electric blower. I blow leaves and shit outside every day. One of the best gifts I got for myself, $79. And you can recharge it. It's right there. You can take a look at it afterwards. It's a remarkable thing, and it's electric. And I feel like I'm, I'm doing something. So there's three, let's say you walk into a shot, and there's three options there. There's an electric blow with rechargeable batteries. there's a, there's a, uh, a, uh, a, a, a, a, a gas, right? And then there's one that you plug into the wall. And, and you can stand and do a little Google station. Or maybe just blowing the leaves with my

lips, right? Yeah, yeah, that would be the best. You stand and you go, okay, they're all about the same price, which, what are my choices here on Google? Who, who are the most cool and groovy? Who give to other people and stuff like that? And they say gas, but you still say no. I'm not going to do that. Right, right. Right. Is that the right choice? It sounds like that's the right choice. Yeah, I would think that's the right choice. As long as the electric is powerful enough to really take away some leaves in the backyard folks and then recycling recycling recycling is a big thing i'm doing that and sometimes i forget like i have to recycle this and my is yes right you have to do that you know so i'm doing that i do i do all that stuff did you always like animals and we're so uh all about nature growing

up was just something since you were young you were like i mean because when you're growing up was it like i want to be an actor i'm the class clown people really respond to me do i want to be an actor or Or was it both, like, deep down, you wanted to be more than an actor. You sort of want to be an activist. You wanted to be, I mean, how young were you when you wanted to get in all those? Yeah, yeah. I do like both things in kind of tandem. I always wanted to be an actor.

I didn't want to be anything else. There was a point when I was a kid where I thought, oh, I'll be a zookeeper. And then I thought, oh, you have to have a degree in biology. It's very difficult. A lot of studying. I wasn't the greatest student in terms of my application. I always wanted to be an actor. But my dad was a biology teacher.

We had some animals in our house. He's a great garden. And my dad has a really good green thumb. But we had animals in our house when we were kids. He'd bring home a lizard far after him. He'd bring home a snake far after him, you know, a tortoise. And he educated you on them. Right.

Lots of respect, you know. My dad kind of, he doesn't chat. He doesn't like trumpet about how he behaves. He waits for someone to ask. And I remember him being in the garden one time. And I was asking him something about an animal. And like something that most people think is indiscriminate and an spider or something. And it was like, well, yeah, but they breathe, they live, they move, they walk, they

feel things, they, you know, they want to get to this place, you're stopping them from getting to this place. Who are you to do that? Like, help them on their way. If we suddenly found ourselves living on a planet where there's now a huge breed of giants and the giants seem peaceful and we're okay with it, but if the giants every so often were just for shits and giggles like putting their foot in front of the cars just to cause traffic, you'd be like, well, why are you doing that?

What does that do for you? And what does that do for us? You're just fucking with our shit. Help them on their way. By the way, I got to tell you this is the truth. I'm going to tell you the truth right now. Go on. I will not.

I'm not laughing at this. This is true. I know you're starting to laugh. Like you think something funny is going to be said. Yeah. It's not. I refuse to kill a spider. Oh, good for you.

I won't fucking do it. Can I tell you water? Huh? Yeah, it's yours. And that one's yours too. Thanks, buddy. You could drink all the water you want. You can piss on my couch if you want.

Thank you. Do whatever you want. but what's your reasoning behind that because they have a purpose yeah and like you were talking about earlier and they you know they kill other bugs and other things that are around my house and they kind of maintain the balance if you will like the force and star wars and more probably i don't know i just i i read something about it and i just felt like you know and i heard it's bad luck and i'm superstitious and i heard it's bad like to kill a spider and even to this day when i go brush my teeth, which is at least once a week.

And, no, I'm upstairs. Before I go to bed, I'm brushing my teeth. I always see these little spiders that somehow get up the drain, and they're just trying to hang out. I can see, they're helpless. They've got nowhere to go. They came out of this tunnel. They're, like, looking for the light, and they see it, and it's just this sink, and there's no way up because it's too slick. The porcelain, they just keep sliding down, right? And I look at them, and I'm like, and I keep brushing, you know, I'm brushing my teeth. I'm probably in the mouthwashed stage right now. That's a good stage.

Yeah, it's a good stage, refreshing, refreshing. And I finally go, this is too much, man. I got to save you. And I get a piece of tissue, and I pick the little fucker up. And I bring them outside, and I set him in a plant. And I feel better about myself. Good for you. Yeah, I do that.

So a couple things, too. Rob, don't laugh. Don't scoff. You fucking... You don't save spiders. You kill them if they come down. No, I don't kill spiders. You don't kill spiders.

Good, Rob. Good for you. Are you saying that because Dom's up here, and you already hear he's a little feisty, and he'll fucking smack you around one night when he's drinking too much Yeagermeister. Is that what's happening? So a couple things to talk about here. First of all, spiders don't climb the drain. Spiders don't find themselves in, they don't like wet, moist environments like that.

Yeah, how'd they get there? They'll fall in. Oh, he fell in. That freaks me out. No, it's okay. So they're walking around on the surface. They see something down below. Maybe there's some warmth coming up from the drain.

So they think, oh, I'm going to go investigate. And then the next part is, you're right. They fall in. They can't get out. So a lot of times I say to my friends who are scared of spiders who are like, you know, the classic spider in a bathtub, I don't know what to do. What you do is take a towel, take a bath towel,

put it on the base of the bath, put it over the side of the bath, spider will work it out for himself. Don't help them? No, Spider won't be there in the morning. You just put, just give it an opportunity. These guys are smart fuckers. Yeah, but then he's in my lip balm. I want to make sure this fucker's outside.

Okay, well, I like them. I don't want to hurt them, but I don't want the, you know, because you hear about, bites people get bites in the middle of the night on their bed there's nothing you could do about that yeah i've been fortunate i haven't had a lot of uh spider bites when you eat them while you sleep too right they crawl into your mouth uh i think that's a little bit of a myth as well is it a myth i hope it's a there's a lot of those things like you know you eat eight spiders a year really by the way difference in childhood because i feel like you're you're a really good person and i feel like your

parents had an influence on you but the difference i think is also and we get into behavioral stuff we get in like it becomes therapy for me i don't know if you've noticed that but it becomes a little therapeutic. So when I hear about your dad bringing home animals and biology and teaching you and educating you, my dad wasn't like that. My dad was like, why can't you catch the ball? You know, your dad taught you stuff that my dad didn't teach me. Why don't you know this? This is easy. This is geometry. Why don't you know this? I could do this with my eyes closed. He was always the smart one. I was the dumb one. So, but so were they supportive of you like for acting? Yeah. I mean, they don't know anything about acting. I mean, they know more about it now that I've been doing it.

They didn't know anything about it. They, I remember on my 12th birthday, turning 12, and wanting to ask for an agent for my birthday, but I didn't have to, an agent? Oh, an agent. That would be really weird. An Asian. What the hell? That's really fucked up.

But I didn't have the, I mean, in Manchester, there's not a huge amount of agents. But I remember turning 12 thinking, I really want to ask my parents for an agent, but I didn't. But my parents drove me to audition. So I, the kind of the second biggest youth theatre in England is Manchester Youth Theatre. You got National Youth Theatre in London. And then Manchester Youth Theatre, I went, did a Monty Python sketch that I loved to remember. They loved it. And then being very cocky as I was at the time, they offered me a part in the company.

And I said, I'll only do it if I have a good part. And they were like, it's your first year. You might want to wait until year three. And I was just stupid and naive and cocky. So they gave me a good enough part. From there I got an agent And then from there I had two auditions

Which my parents My mum took me on one For were they One was for a soap Which still exists At the time it was called Emmerdale Farm It's now called

Emmerdale And it was It still is a very Backwood Soap About things happening In an English country Like

I've lost my sheep Do you know Where my sheep are And then a gal I'm not I don't know A sheep are But I've got two chickens

If you want the chickens I don't know I don't have a chicken I'll come back And see you on Friday All right come back if you want the chickens. Okay, I'll have the chickens.

Have you seen my shit? I did see his sheep. It's down the alleyway. It's always about lost animals. And you were on that. No, I didn't get the part. You didn't get that one. First audition ever didn't get to.

What was the other one? The other one I got, which was the first job that ever did, which is called a very catchy title for a TV show. Hetty Wainthrop Investigates, which was a show about a regional detective, lady, retired, busybody. And instead of going into shuffling into retirement with dignity, she becomes a detective she catches me shoplifting in episode one and instead of turning me in she says if you become the person who does the legwork for me because i'm 65 and you have a

scooter and you can you know you can chase that to criminals then i won't turn you in so we become this unlikely pairing how many episodes did you oh fucking hell we did four years of it four years so that you became successful at acting pretty quickly yeah and that is the way that that was how old were you i was eight i just turned 18 god and that was where i learned i honestly thought that you walked on set and they said lights camera action. Oh, wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be nice if you walked on set? And they go, and Michael's here, action.

It's more like, tell Michael, we need them on set. We need them on set. And then I get on set and they're like, oh, we got another 25 minutes. Yeah, yeah. I got another setup. Would you like a coffee? Yeah, sure. And I remember going for my first lunch break, getting lunch and then giving him money.

And the guy went, no, no, you don't have to give his money. You work here. And I was like, free lunch. I would have been the dick that goes, okay, thank you. I'll get your change. Oh, you know what? You own me, but you don't. Yeah, yeah. Get me tomorrow.

Every day I get fired. It's like, that fuck's been taking my money for like a year. But I tell you what, though, my dad, my dad doesn't know anything about acting, but he's giving me some really shrewd advice over the years. And the best piece of advice in terms of acting that my dad gave me, I don't know where he got this from, because it doesn't speak to his job at all, because my dad's done three different teaching jobs in his life. He wasn't like you and I in and out of rooms, in and out of rooms getting told no.

you know if you're having a successful week in terms of auditions getting told no seven times in a week it's fine for an actor you know my dad told me when i was like 17 before i started working he said look if you're going to start going on auditions what you need to do is you need to go into the audition have the experience and as soon as you walk out it's done you forget about it rip up the pages anybody could ever give you how could he found that i don't know where he got that from but it's it's spoken through my entire adult life when I've gone into meetings and what I'll do is

I'll either take immense joy in leaving script pages in a room when I'm done I'll say I'm going to leave these here for security purposes so that it doesn't get out I always throw mine away yeah or just that ripping thing Rosie where you just go fuck that you know advice my dad gave me

it's a little different than yours it was don't do this don't act we're throwing away money for college you're not going to make it How's your relationship with your dad now? You know what? I feel like he's trying.

You know, we all had daddy issues. There's all things, I'm sure. Sure. And I think my dad, now that his father has Alzheimer's, he knows his father can't remember them so he's almost forgiven him. He's allowed him to be his father again. And he's sort of, this is my psychology. I'm not a psychologist, but I've been to enough therapist to kind of get an idea

of what's happening. But I feel like also he went through a second divorce. He retired. And he's like kind of taking a deep breath and going, And I also wrote him a letter because we had like an altercation where it was almost physical a couple years ago. And it was just like, I go, I don't ever want to feel like that again. I hate you. I really hated him for the way he made me feel.

And I just wrote a letter and I told him how he made me feel six months later after not talking to him. And it was a while. And then I got an email and it was like, all I could say is just know I love you. That's it. That's all he could say. And it wasn't good enough. but it was whatever months passed and i started noticing him trying in that letter it said you know hey dad you never even asked who i'm dating how's work what's this like how's your dog

how you how's your best friend tom how's the band how's the nothing it's always how's the rangers uh they won last night it's just so surfaced and like it just felt like a fake relationship so i would just sort of like this is what it is and that's it but i noticed that he is for whatever reason all these things including the letter maybe turning over a new leaf in the letter i said you got two good kids out in los angeles who have a great life and you could be a part of that and you choose not to and you choose not to care about anything it's sad it's fucking sad it's sad it's sad no that's what i said to him i'm not just saying to and then now i see a change i always keep people people at arm's length. I'm always, I just have to get to know someone before I could really

trust them. But, you know, after all the years of being the same person, I just decided, hey, you know, I don't know when this can turn off. Is this, is this, is this an act? Is this going to be who he is now? I hope so. It's a better version of what he was, a way better version and pleasant to be around. But I don't know if we're at an honest relationship or anything like that. But I mean, if he's making incremental changes, that's all you can ask for. Yeah, yeah it's difficult to work out the journey that your dad has gone on right because you're having your own journey i have absolutely see that's the thing i have said to him i forgive you you're in a great father you're 18 when you had when you got married you married my mother with two kids oh five and a seven

year old at 18 and then had me a year later and then had my brother six years later you worked your ass off you broke our whole lives so i i get it i go look i know you have you have a tough time. I forgive you, but you should understand what I went through to. Just because you went through a bad time in your life. Yeah, he's not in a position where he's rightfully allowed to just dump it on you. Yeah. Like, you know, Michael, I got married young. And so whatever, however I treated you, whatever, or this or that, or mistakes I made, hey, you know, I don't, I think he knows. I think he's. I'm sure he knows. Yeah. I'm sure that's what's paying for him. Do your parents love your success? Are they really excited about your success? Are they,

I think they're proud of you? I think, yeah, I think they're proud of me. I think they're excited about it in the way that seems the most mature and I think I would really struggle if it became hysterical. I mean, obviously there have been times in my career where it's been big and difficult to deal with and I'm a big fan of the Beatles and one of the, you know, I've read a lot about the Beatles and kind of study them. And one of the things that I love about the Beatles is they talk about this eye of the storm idea, that there, the eye of the storm, absolute chaos is going on around them at all times, but there's calm in the middle. And I felt at certain times in my career that I can handle it, I know it, because I know that I have to talk to this guy

from the New York Times, and I know that there's going to be 10,000 people at this premiere, and I know that this newspaper is trying to get this story on me. I have all that information. I have the truth, but my parents don't. My brother doesn't, and my best friend doesn't. So it comes at them from left field and also they're not equipped to know about those things because they don't they don't they haven't thought about this since they were 10 they've not thought okay well if i get to a point where people are going to recognize me then i need to be pleasant most of the time because what if someone just sees me and doesn't want to come over and take a picture but he's just going to talk about me for the rest of the life you know oh yeah i saw that guy at the

grove and he was a fucking asshole to that waiter and that they feel like that period for the rest of their life about you or i saw that guy at the grove and yeah he seemed really It seemed really nice. He gave me a little smile as he walked off. That's how they think about it for the rest of your life. You have a responsibility. My parents don't know that stuff. So there's been times where they've been a little,

they've had people, they've had journalists knocking on their door saying, you know, if you tell us this, this and this about Dom, you'll get X amount of money. And I've had friends that have had that too. And I've always just said the same thing to those people. Come to me first. And if you need money, let's talk about money. And then you won't have to sell a story.

You won't lose a friend. I won't lose a friend. Sure. We'll be okay. But in terms of the question that you ask, meet initially, they're proud in a way that makes me proud. They're happy, but they also take a huge amount of pride in the fact that my brother's a teacher and he's a great job and he has a great job and he has a beautiful kid and

he has his own triumphs and failures. They don't see it. I have uncles and aunties that only ask me about me at parties. And my brother stood next to me and it hurts my feelings and I'm sure it hurts my brother's feelings. But my mum and dad are never like that. They're like, oh, that's great. You did that TV thing.

That's cool. So Matt, what about this? There's no hysteria. you know so yeah but you're also a very humble person and you're close and you i i see that too if i'm around friend i i get really weird about you know people are like hey blah blah blah and i'm always you know you always i'm always nice and but if i have like a you know a friend with me i always feel we i don't know yeah i get it i always feel weird i always i have always an energy with people and just sort of like uh just deal with it and act like i'm a

kid like no no it's not a big deal it's like it's always weird when people come up you know You know, and they're like, hey, do we know what you're like? Do we go to college? No. I do that all the time. I know, I know. Good, goop on people. Yeah, I know exactly what's going on.

Hey, where do I feel like, I mean, my favorite one that I do. But what have you been in? Yeah. Well, that's a fucking nightmare. That's a nightmare. But when someone can't, when they go, I don't, yeah, I feel like I can. And I go, hmm, where did you go to college or something like that? But my favorite one that I do and it's done best in airports or places that you're leaving pretty

quickly. You don't want to be lingering in these places. But if someone, if someone sees me from a distance and I can tell that they kind of recognize me, but they just can't work it out. You know that face where they're like, what do you do? You just go, Lord of the Rings. No, no. No, I don't. I don't take it.

Wild things on. I don't, I don't put them out of their misery. Did you imagine? That would be a genius. Yeah, that would be amazing. I don't put them out of their misery. I make it worse. I go over to him as I'm about to board my flight.

And I go, hey, how's your mom? And then I walk off. And they go, he knows my mom. What's my mom? It's just got really weird. Are you banging fucking dominant Monaghan? What? Yes.

I love that. What? You should try it, Rosie. That's a great way. I'm going to try it. How's your sister? They're like, he knows my sister. And then you're out.

You're a fan team. I always like to do the one where it's like, what were you in? Especially when they're drunk, I'm like, ah, I feel stupid. Like, what am I going to, you know, I don't want to name my resume. Half of it's not even good. It's just not good for both of us. It's going to be a weird time. Like, no, come on.

What were you in? So I'm like, oh, did you see. private Ryan, like, yes. I'm like, I was not in that, but I wish I was. I tested for it, did not get that one. You know, this is flown by this time. It's already like, it's already like after one. And it's like, but, you know, there's so much I want to get to. And I'm glad we did all these things. But go ahead. We're going to say something. We can get to it. I want to say this one thing. Only actors understand that thing of like, dude, I don't want to tell you my resume. But the worst thing, the worst situation for that for me is customs

officers. So I go in. I'm not, I don't have, I'm not an American citizen. So I go to the fucking line with all the other immigrants and he goes because I have this 01 visa that's done by our agency APA so we can see that it's an agency you can see it's an artistic agency oh what do you do for a living this is this is how it goes what do do you do for living I'm an actor are you been in anything I know probably what do you do TV or film I do both yeah tell me a film that you've been in I don't really I don't really want to well tell me a TV show that why I'll arrest your ass what is it tell me Why do you need to know this?

No, I just want to, I've been, I've been in quite a bit of stuff that you'd see. How long have you been working? 20 years. Okay, name the biggest thing. I don't know, because I don't know what the biggest thing would be that you might like Lord the Rings or you might like this. I never say it. Because also, like you, like you say it, now you're a jackass. Now you're like, do you see Lord of the Rings?

No. Do you see a lot? But there's a way to do it. Go on. Go on. There's a way to do it. I want you to be, I want you to be the guy at the customs. Be Canadian.

Yeah, okay. Okay. I want you to ask me questions, what I'm from? Okay. Keep hammering me. Yeah. Where you're from or what your job is? Where you're from?

We go into, like, what movies have you been in? Yeah, okay, Michael Rosamombe. So what do you do for a living? Entertainment industry. Entertainment industry? I act, all that stuff. Oh, you're an actor. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. I love acting. Oh, thanks, man. Have you been in anything I might know? I'd probably some good stuff, some bad stuff. You've done TV? Oh, yeah, yeah. I watch a lot of TV.

So just tell me a TV show that you've done. What's the thing that you've done that you're the happiest with you, the most proud of? I'm never happy, but I would say, you know, look, you probably recognize, if it was any, I was on, it was on, only on one big one. Yeah, it was probably, it was small, I was bald, I was back, yeah, yeah, I never saw it, that's fine, that, leave me alone now. Yeah, okay, I want you to fuck off. Okay. I've given you what you wanted. But, you know, it's almost like, sometimes you're like, almost, you just want to just spit it out and just be done with it. It's like, do I know you ever, yes, it wasn't in small, awesome. Lord of the Rings. Okay, there you go. Love that show. Thanks. Yeah, I've done that too.

But it just, it's nothing ever works. You just gotta, it's just part for the, it's better than saying, I don't recognize you at all. If you brag a docio. I don't know. Right. If you braggadocio, you're a douchebag. Right. If you're keeping it under your hat, you're a douchebeck. You can't win. The one in, I mean, I don't go to bars anymore, but the one in bars of like, I don't even know who you are, but my friend, I should take a picture with you. Get the fuck out of my face. That's the worst thing ever because. Go away then. Yeah. Why, why you coming up. So negative. It's so negative. I don't care who you are. I don't even fucking watch television or fucking what a fuck you. But who are you? My friend said

you're on something that I fucking didn't. Right, right. And I'm like, this happens. I don't, I hope we're not sound like dickheads, but we are fucking because that's the shit that we have to deal with. That's reality. It's all like, dude, I got you a Jaeger. That's cool, man. I'm actually just with my friends. I'm not drinking. No, let me buy you a drink, man. You don't drink Yeager? I'm not. tonight, man. Come on. Come on. Come on. I bought this for you. I know, but I'm sorry to my friends. I don't drink. And this, right. Well, you fucking leave me alone. Right. And the whole rehypnal thing, like, they give you a Yeager and they fucking, I think I got roofied in Vegas,

by the way. You did? I think so. You never fully know, right? I ended up, like, losing my memory after two drinks. And a whole bunch of stuff happened. And I woke up the next day with this girl. And I was like, what happened last night? So what do you mean? We went to see the black keys. She was like, what do you mean? I said, I had two vodka cranberries. And I don't remember anything. She was like, oh, we hung out with the band. We went to another hotel. We had food.

That's the scariest thing ever when you black out and you don't know what the fuck. Two drinks, Rosie. Two drinks, dude. I had, I think I got Rufie two years ago. Really? Where were you? I was at a bar in Hollywood. This was many years ago and I was with a couple friends.

And it was a drink. One drink. And I go, I don't feel well. Something's really weird. I feel a little dizzy. You guys got to take me home right now. Yeah. And my friends took me home.

And you were peaking in a lot? I went to bed. I peaked once. but then I was just kind of Disney and I passed out. Wow. So I think I probably get Roofie. Either that or I got the 12-minute flu, which I don't think happened. Look, you talk about this fucking ad nauseum about your success.

What was it like? Because I know your dad, I read about your dad got you the Lord of the Rings, the books, right? And something about he said, you have to read this. You have six months and you read it quickly. Oh, well, wait. So that's like a combo of two stories. So first of all, yeah. Yeah, I want to hear this.

The Hobbit. Right. My dad was a big Lord the Rings fan, and we used to travel from Germany to Manchester and we were kids for Christmas in a car and then across the English channel on a ferry, and we would listen to Lord the Rings storybook tapes on the way. So it's like a six, seven hour drive, all that kind of stuff. So my dad, I grew up knowing about Gandalf and Frodo and Gallum and all this kind of stuff. So, you know, when I got Lord the Rings, it was a big deal for my dad.

But I said to my mom, this is where the story kind of molded a little bit. I said to my mom, it was like six months before they were coming out to New Zealand. and I jokingly said to my mom, but you have to read the books. I'm like, ah, it's like 1,500 pages, you know. I was like, I don't want to read about goblins and swords and magic. It's really not my thing. And I was like, Mom, just read like the first 100 pages and see where you're at. And then, you know, I'm not going to force you.

She read the whole thing. She loved it. Oh, she's like one of her favorite books ever because it's, it is a fantasy book. Yeah. But it almost feels like a prehistory. It's like an earth. I've never read them. I should read them.

They're superb books. Should I read them? Yeah, you totally should. I was the narrator, the second installment, which was a tower, two towers, and they asked me to be the narrator for a TV special, a two-hour TV special. So I was the narrator like, in Tower of Terror, what was it called? The Tower of Terror. That was a ride at the fucking Disney World. The two towers is like, in two towers, Gandalf decides to, whatever.

And I do this thing. And I was like, they gave me a whole bunch of premier tickets and I got to hang out with Brad Dorff. And I might have met you. I don't even know. It was just a really big treat. but so when you had to audition for Peter Jackson, right? Yeah. How many times?

Twice and then once just for the casting directors. Did you kill it? I think I did all right. I think my first audition was probably the best, which was with the hobbits who were like the biggest cast and directors in England. How big was the audition? How many pages? It was the scene where, because all the Hobbits read for the same,

read the same scene. It's the scene where Gandalf knocks on Frodo's door and asks him if the ring is safe and all of them. Obviously, Elijah read for that. but Sean asked in Billy I think even Orley probably read for that and then he said you're more of an elf because you're very particular are you nervous going into the audition

because this is something you had been it was a part of your family it was a part of I always have a good handle on my nerves in auditions I was probably a little bit more nervous than normal but I was working at the time I was doing a play in London playing a skinhead and I got hit on a on a tube cold cocked like was just heading on a tube on a subway someone just punched me and I was like

oh what the fuck and then they jumped off So I had more of a yellow eye than a black eye. Who gets punched randomly on a two? Dude, I was a skinhead. I looked like, I had no hair. And someone just looked at me and like, he's a skinhead. This is probably one of my Jewish brothers going, you son of a bitch.

I hate you. Okay, go ahead. So I got punched. So I went for my audition with the Hubbors with a little bit of a yellowy, purpley black eye. And I think there was a little kind of devil may carey type attitude to my personality. I was just like, I'm not going to get this. This is such a huge audition.

I'll just fucking do it. And I did it. And John Hubbard, who ran the Hubbard's casting agency, he was like, that was really great. He said, if you're interested, hang around in the waiting room because David Bowie's going to come in in the next, like, 15 minutes or so. And I was like, yeah, I'll totally hang out. Are you fucking kidding me?

You told the story. Yeah, yeah, I've said it. David Bowie? Yeah. Let's dance, baby. I sat like reading a magazine. And then the fucking thin white dute came in, and I was like, oh, shit. Did he walk in singing, let's dance.

No, of course. So did you say anything you know or he just looked at him? I didn't say anything. He just looked at him. I met him years later with Elijah went to a concert and he just had the best hair

I'd ever seen on the man. And he was wearing like a silver gun metal suit and he'd just come off stage and he was all sweaty on stage and now he was like, no sweat, beautifully turned out, you know, just a great voice and he was just strikingly charismatic and his hair was ridiculous,

this big like pomp hair on his head, you know. He once said he was tri-sexual. and try anything. Try anything. That's what he said. Yeah. It's good. Good for him.

Yeah. So you saw David Bowley. And then I left and then I went and did this play. Skinhead. His skinhead. Great play. And then I finished the play. And then I went to France to do a TV show where I played, interestingly enough, I grew my hair out,

but eventually he gets his head shaved because he gets killed by firing squad. I played a young French boy when the Nazis move into his village in the Second World War, his girlfriend takes up with a Nazi soldier and he gets all pissed off and annoying and all that kind of stuff. And when it was coming right down to it, I got a phone call from my agent saying, hey, you might need to fly to Los Angeles next week when I rap or New Zealand to meet them one more time. And I, you know, make sure that you're ready. No, because the next phone call that I got, he said that you don't have to go anywhere. They just offered you the part. So I was like, all right, cool.

What? Now, when you're doing the deal, they say this is a three-picture deal. Yes, unfortunately. So you knew what you were getting, and they became a blockbuster, which you knew it would. But if they would have done movie after movie, you would have made 10 million times more. Yeah, I mean, I always tell the story about Mark Hamill. Mark Hamill got paid, I think, $10,000 to play Skywalker in The New Hope. By the time he's doing Return the Jedi, I think he got two and a half or $3 million.

So we got a job lot deal. But myself, Billy and Orlando got the same deal. And my agent spelled it out for me. He was like, look, this is a phenomenal opportunity. You're going to be working. You're going to get a lot of residuals. You're going to make millions and residuals. Great residuals.

What? What? It's part of the deal. So, but it's all right. He was like, you're going to work with one of the world's great directors. It's going to be everywhere. It's going to be a big movie. But he said, you know, it's not a lot of money.

It's not a lot of stuff to do. Not a lot of money. When you say not a lot of money. Well, to put that into context. Are you talking, hey, we're going to give you $100,000. for the first. Come on, it's got to be more than that. It's more of the range. A little bit more than that, but not that much more. To put it into context, when I did

last, by the time I did the third season, you were making more in an episode probably than you were making on that movie. I did. That's fucked. I hear these stories all the time. I hear my friend who was Napoleon Dynamite. John Heeder, I think, was playing softball with us. He didn't get paid anything for Napoleon Dynamite. People think he's a billionaire from Napoleon Dynamite. He had nothing. They gave him

nothing. He got some residuals. Maybe he made 20, 30,000. He didn't make anything. So I think the theory is like, Lord of the Rings It's one of the biggest blockbusters of all time. You must have made $2 million for the first film, $4 million for the second one, $10 million for the third. These are lies.

Someone made money. I mean, it's out there that obviously they paid Pete. He had points on the box office. They pay Pete something like $280 million off his residuals. Bob Shea, who ran New Line Cinema, and Michael Lynn, who ran New Line Cinema. I went to their houses. They had Picasso's on their wall and Salvador Dahl.

Was there any... Did you have any... There was a point where we were all a little bit like, well, everyone seems to be getting paid around us and were not, which was kind of a bit of a fuck off. But, you know, the movies were amazing and the opportunity was amazing. And it got me to, you know, it's been a priceless experience in terms of where it then took me. But yeah, I've been in bars and with customs officers where they're like, you're in Lord of the Rings.

Holy shit, why are you still working? You're like, well, dude, it didn't really shake out. But by the way, they can't take away the experience and the friends and the, you know, camaraderie that you had. because when I read about that stuff, you guys got all, it was your idea to get a tattoo? Right. What tattoo was it? We got the number nine because there's nine of us in the fellowship.

So we got the number nine, but it's in, there's different languages in the fellowship. Tolkien, who was the professor of English at Oxford University, was also a linguist. And he actually invented languages that you can speak. So you can speak hobbitish. You can speak dwarfish. You can speak elvish.

When I go to conventions, there are people who speak elvish. They'll come over to me and be like, In Gwenanley. And I'm like, oh, okay. Namare. That's amazing. How many of the nine of you got the tattoo? Nine of us?

All nine of us. Were there a couple you need a little... Go ahead, go ahead. So there's a language called High Elvish that only the royal family are able to speak. And we were like, oh, that's fucking epic. So we found out what nine looked like in High Elvish. And everyone was in, everyone.

Dude, Ian McKellen, Vigo, Sean Ashton. They all got him. Yeah, but Sean Ashton, who was kind of like, eh, but he still did it. Billy, Orley, Lige, Sean Bean. We all did it. John Rhys Davis, who played Gimley. He was like, I'm not getting a tattoo.

No way. I'm not interested. But John Reese Davis was played for a lot of those movies by a scale double because obviously the dwarfs are smaller. So his scale double stood in for him and got his tattoo for him. Isn't that great? Wow. So I love that story.

And then another kicker to that, which I found really beautiful, really special was when we went back for reshoots, which would be six months after we've wrapped principal photography, Peter Jackson and Mark Odeski got the number. number 10 as a way of saying you know we're not in the fellowship but we're kind of with you guys they got number 10 tattoo that is fantastic isn't that cool yeah i love that shit um yeah i mean we can go on forever about this i want to do a little spitfire real quick yeah yeah because you know hey i know you've been here for a while and i appreciate it because i didn't think of you know some of these interviews you just get carried away yeah and for this i feel like i could talk to you for forever

because your mind goes in so many different places yeah yeah yeah yeah and i like it's it's really nice to say because i get to know you get a little better yeah well you inside me i'm inside you. I'm inside you right now. Rob, are you enjoying this? Yeah. Did you watch the Lord of the Ring movies? Yeah, my wife's a big fan. She reads all the books. Who about Lost? I watched the first two seasons of Lost and that was it. Did you watch Perry? What was it called the show? Perry? The show with the woman, the 65 year old woman, did you? Oh, I've seen all of them. Did you see that? Classic. Classic. Have you ever got any diseases from animals or a tick bite for Lyme disease or anything that you had to,

you were worried about? I had quite a few parasites. I came back from one of the seasons and did like an overhaul kind of medical and my doctor said, you're fine, but he said your digestive system is just full of parasites. And you fix that now? Yeah. You eat lots of raw fruit and vegetables, no, no salts, no naughty foods, salt sugars, processed foods. You just basically starve them of the things that they want, which is cheap stuff. Okay. Was that flying lizard in the Philippines just amazing? Yeah, that's really cool. Did you get to hold one? Yeah, yeah.

That's the great thing about these shows is you get to be closer to those animals. They're quite small. I mean, as big as they get is probably, what is that? Five, six inches. That's 15 inches. I don't know what that is. I wouldn't know. Neither would you, Rob, so don't fucking smile about it.

Have you ever had someone go on the show with you, a friend? Billy Boyd came with me. I'm seeing after this. We're going down to the West Side to hang out. Really? Yeah. So we'll be all over Instagram. Yeah, we went back to New Zealand.

So we did this really cool thing When we went to New Zealand They have Hobbit in They've kept it Bag end The Hobbit things The Hobbit holes And where is this in New Zealand

This is in a place called Hamilton in New Zealand Dude go to this place For an autograph thing I'll go to this place See if you can get like Give yourself Ask if they'll just push your trip

Two days extra And just go down and see this place It's extraordinary I'll fill you in about New Zealand If you're not being Oh yeah So what we did was There was a Korean coach trip

That was Excuse me Was waiting to come in And we didn't tell them that we were there. So we hid, they have a bar, prancing pony. We hid underneath the bar. And when they came in, we stood up, we were like, hey, what can we get here? Come on. We're like, yeah, we have two little bedrooms. We just stay here all the time. And they were, like, losing their shit, you know. I mean, what are the odds. It's like one

and a million. Slim, slim, slim. Yeah. Oh, what a beautiful story. New Zealand is an incredible country. You have a lot of tattoos. They're meaningful. One, um, Casper Van Diem gave you. No, that was Kat Von Dee. Kat Von Dee gave you. That's of Yoda, a Yoda quote. What's the quote? It says, luminous beings, are we not this crude matter? It's from Empire Strikes Back when Luke says, you know, I can't lift up the X-wing, I'm really struggling. And Yoda has that amazing moment where he says, it's not about this, it's about this. What does it say about try?

No try. Yeah, do or do not, there is no try. I love that. Even when I watched Empire when I was probably nine or ten, and I remember that moment in the film, kind of having that shivery moment of, I don't, I can't fully understand it, but I know he's just said something really important. And then when I went back to it when I was older and wanted to get a tattoo of something to do with Star Wars, that line's always struck out for me. We're luminous beings.

We are this, but we're also luminous. We're glowing. We're bigger than all this. You know, we're not just this skin and, we're not an ingrownia. We're not like flaky skin. We're bigger than all that. You're one of those guests that make me think. Oh, well, that's good.

So I thank you for that. I don't often think. Rob. I feel like that's true. Do you concur? He concurs. This is a real treat. Wild Things has been going on for six years?

No, three. We've not done it for a little bit because it started to take up a huge amount of my time. It started out as eight episodes, then became 10, then became 14. What is it now? Now it's just in stasis because I kind of said to him, look, guys, unless you're going to pay me danger money because it's dangerous and you can get really fucked up. Sure. We're going to stop doing it. So we're thinking about doing kind of wild things specials and there's certain stories that I still want to tell.

But do you, is that a, is it really hard a trek of sort of a, emotional, physical, you know, when you're going to all these countries and out in the middle of nowhere and what's it like? Do you sleep like intense and shit like that? Sometimes we sleep intense. More often than not, we'll find some sort of building that we can sleep in. I mean, we've slept in brothels before when we've been in like the middle of nowhere. We slept in people's houses before. But more often than not, we try and find a hotel because the research team is really good. I don't think any of the, for me, I can handle, deal with the travel, the jet lag, the, you know, in and out of airports, all that kind of stuff.

And I can also handle the next challenging stuff, but I would say the most challenging thing is that you're working with animals that can kill you, and you have to show up because, you know... You have to be mentally prepared. Yeah, I don't drink in the way that I used to, but when I was younger, I used to, you know, drink

and then go, look, you could not drink around a monocled cobra. It would kill you. If it didn't kill you, you'd have lifelong problems. You have a doctor with you. Yeah, we have a medic with us at all times. And he has venom, like, uh... He has anti-venom, but that's...

It's kind of a strange one because you probably don't want to administer anti-venom unless someone's dying. Right. You don't really suck it out. That's a myth. That's a myth. What I would do, if I got bitten by a venomous animal, I would go to hospital, monitor my heart rate, monitor my blood pressure, go to hospital and just try and dilute the venom by flushing my entire system with saline. But anti-venom, because if you get bitten, there's one of the most dangerous rattlesnakes here in California is the... Ralecoose?

No, the Western Pacific rattlesnake. Okay. It's one of the most dangerous rattlesnakes in the whole country. One of the more medically significant rattlesnakes in the world. If you get bitten by Western Pacific, they're going to give you anti-venom for Diamondback. So now you've got two different types of venom in your body, which is not a good idea. They don't have one for a Western Pacific. And that could kill you, right?

Definitely kill you. So it's better to get nothing? It's full of heavy metals. It's full of mercury. It's full of lithium. You don't want to be put in... So what happens if I get bitten by a West Pacific? And by the way, are there any on Lookout Mountain or Laurel Canyon?

Yes. I know friends that have seen them on Runyon, Laurel Canyon, Griffith Park. Those, but how long do you have before you die? I mean, I would get to the hospital as quickly as you can. Before you die, I mean, a lot of people survive it, but you'll have. And I'm colorblind. What color was the snake? I don't, green?

No, there's no green snakes. Yeah, there are a gardener? No, I'm colorblind. I'm fucked, man. Right, right. I mean, if you get to a hospital within 40 minutes, you're going to be okay. It's important to see if you can find out what. the type of rattlesnake is. It looks like my friend Isaiah's penis. It was black and long and thick.

It is challenging. It is challenging. I can't differentiate a lot of colors. I'm probably colorblind. Prevention is the best cure, which is what we talked about is a buzz phrase on wild things. Prevention is the best cure. You don't want to get bitten. I got bitten a couple of times. The big lizard was the major thing that got me. But, you know, I would not put myself in a situation because that big lizard that bit me is mildly venomous. It's going to open up your skin. It's going to cause a few problems, but it's not going to care. I would not get bitten by a black man, but I would not get bitten by a monocle cobra

or an Egyptian cobra or a king cobra. I would not put myself in a situation where I'd do that. I would err on the side of caution. With that lizard, I was pushing it a little bit because I was like, well, if it bites me, it's going to hurt, but it's not going to be a nightmare. But that's probably the most mentally challenging is I would go to sleep at night and I'd think,

okay, tomorrow I'm going to work with a monocle cobra. I'm going to work with an animal that could kill me if I don't have my head on a swivel. and that can kind of get in your head a little bit, you know? This has been a real treat. Yeah. I mean, this is, honestly, this has been a great time. Cool, dude.

I've learned so much about you. I think the one thing that, you know, I'm thinking an environment. I'm thinking spiders. I'm thinking all these things, the guy at the customs. Lastly, briefly, the one thing I'm also thinking, I always think of these things. Like you say, I don't really let nerves get the best of me. Just talk to everybody out there about nerves. Are you just one of those people that have just, you never get nervous?

Or what do you do to deal with nerves? what do you deal with the deal with anxiety or big situations where does your mind go where do you not allow it to go i think if you expose yourself to it as much as you can you get less nervous you know i think it's important to be a little nervous on opening night of a play or you know a big audition it's all about breath you know for me what i've learned is if your breath is shallow and it's panicky then you're telling your whole system this is shallow this is panicky i'm in panic mode you know, but if you give yourself an opportunity to take those deeper breaths that ground you. Take a deep breath for me.

Show me what it's like. Your stomach has to stick out like a pregnant woman. Yep. So you have to go diaphragm. So you're inhaling right there? Yeah. So your stomach comes out when you breathe. Three or four of them.

Like I'll sit in my car. I'll have my lines or whatever. I'll have a four o'clock meeting and I'll think, oh, this is a big guy or a big woman that I'm meeting. Nice. Is that good? Yeah, it's great. Should they be deeper? They could be deeper.

cover your mouth as you're breathing. My breath's not great. Then you're getting a lot of nice calm and darks that in there. Carbon darks that naturally calms you down as well. But I'll have that moment, you know, 10 minutes before an audition, five minutes before an audition or a big meeting, well, I think, okay, I'm going to meet this person. I don't want to embarrass myself.

And just compose yourself, you know, look in the mirror. Do I look all right? Do I have shit on my face? He's a person, I'm a person, you know? Going with a joke. Did you get nervous about seeing me this morning, Dom? No, I was a little nervous. You know, I've had moments.

I get nervous. nervous because I'm like, hey, you know, what if this guy thinks I'm a dip shit or more of a dip shit after this encounter. You know, I've had moments where I've met someone that I didn't, I didn't know it was going to happen and I've like flop-sweated. So I have had that. I had this moment once, I don't know where this came from. I was in JJ Abrams's office. We were talking about something and Jennifer Garner walked in and it wasn't expected. And Jennifer Garner's as lovely I got flustered. I just got flustered. I get flustered.

Dude, and I was like this. I was pushing sweat. Did you acknowledge it? Don't acknowledge it. No, I do. Oh my God, I'm sweating, Garner. It's just your luscious briefcase handle lips that she has. And then Manchester, I'm a huge Manchester.

I know. We didn't even talk about that. It's okay. But Manchester United fan. You hate leads? I do hit leads, yeah. So they just loom large in my life. I spend all week listening to football podcasts.

I watch them at the weekend. If they have a good game, I feel good. If they have a bad game, I feel bad. So they're legends. they're on these pedestals. And when I, I'm much, I'm better now than I used to be, but when I used to meet them in my 20s and 30s, flop sweat.

Yeah. And I'd apologize. I'd be like, I'm sorry, man. I just, you're a big deal for me. They're like, yeah, it's fine, because they're used to it, you know. Dominic Monaghan, thank you for allowing me to be inside of you today. Thank you, Rosie. This has been a great time.

Let's do it again. Will you please do it? How far away are you? I'm like 15 minutes. When you get to a point where you're like, I could probably. touch that guy again. We'll do it again. Hi, I'm Joe Saul-Chi. Host of the Stacking Benjamin's podcast. Today, we're going to talk about

what if you came across $50,000. What would you do? Put it into a tax-advantaged retirement account. The mortgage. That's what we do. Make a down payment on a home. Something nice. a vehicle. A separate bucket for this addition that we're adding. $50,000, I'll buy a new podcast. You'll buy new friends. And we're done. Thanks for playing everybody. We're out of here. Stacking Benjamin's follow and listen on your favorite platform.