Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Stand By Me’s WIL WHEATON: Breaking the Cycle

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

Wil Wheaton (Stand By Me, Big Bang Theory) joins us this week to share his brave story of coming to grips with the trauma of his childhood, breaking the cycle so it doesn’t carry on to future generations, and understanding that part of his healing process may lead to a lifetime split from his family. Wil is an open book as he talks about problematic introductions to the world of child acting and how his career was propped up from parental projections onto him. We also get into his annotated look back into the past with Still Just a Geek, his amazement of being in Star Trek as a trekky, and how he manages his anxiety depression and PTSD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Conjuring Last Rites. On September 5th. I come down here, I need you. Array! Array! Array! Array! Array!

The Conjuring, last rites. Only in theater September 5th. Long-bendy Twizzlers candy keeps the fun going. Keep the fun going. You're listening to Inside of You're listening to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum. We've gotten told me so many episodes. I think we've done like 210 or 220. Ryan, good to see you.

You want to look it up? If you want to. Sure. I'll look it up. I hope you guys had a good week or having a good week. If not, there's always tomorrow. I just had an energy healer come to the house and work on me. And some of my friends were really skeptical and like, energy healer, dude, really?

Come on. And then some people were like, hey, it really helped me. And, you know, I feel like it did give me a little energy. calmness and at the same time uh you know uh i don't know yet uh he says in the days to come i'll notice more but i gave it a chance i'm trying different things i think that's the good part about you know when you when you have anxiety or depression or whatever you've got to sometimes try things out not everything works sometimes it works worse than you're feeling it makes you feel bad and uh you know i know that therapy helps me and i know that you know um exercise helps

so hopefully you're having a better week Ryan number 230 was last week 230 episodes that might include bonuses but according to the podcast app I don't know last week was 230 oh man I can't believe I've done this many episodes I want to thank all of you guys for listening 230 episodes thanks I mean

without you without patron and my patrons who follow the podcast and support the podcast they will get their name shouted out at the end of every episode of course I couldn't do it We couldn't do it. I couldn't afford to do it. But thank you for supporting the podcast.

Go to patreon.com slash inside of you. If you want to join, I'll send you a message. Also, the inside of you online store. Tons of fun merch and autographed Lexmas scripts and new inside of you glasses and mugs and tumblers. And the Sunspin album is coming. I know I've been saying it, but go to Sunspin.com and follow us at Sunspin Band on the socials.

And that album is coming out soon. We've worked so hard on it. I hope you guys all get the album and enjoy it because I'm really proud of it. It's something Rob Danson, my buddy, my bandmate, we did it, and I'm really proud we had some amazing musicians that we hired, and it was fantastic. If you're just listening to the show, the handles are, Ryan. At Inside of You Pod on Twitter, at Inside of You podcast on Instagram and Facebook. Please subscribe, write a review. It helps the show tremendously.

Also, I mentioned this in the Talkville. in a soon-to-be-air talk film episode. It won't be airing now, but my grandfather wrote a diary that my father found after he died, a journal, if you will. And it just says a little excerpt of like, my grandson Michael is, you know,

doing a show Smallville, they're in the sixth season. He's a small success. And I took it like, small success. He was being, he was probably being cheeky. Because he is a cheeky guy.

He was a cheeky guy. I loved him, but he was a, smart ass. He was a smart ass. I love that guy. Uh, the guest today is Will Wheaton. I'm so glad he came over to the house and boy, did he pour out his guts on that couch where you're sitting right now, right? Right here. He really did. Full of Will Wheaton guts. He talks about his career. He talks about life. He talks about his new book, which is awesome. Uh, I think you're really going to love this episode. I know you're going to love this episode because we get into it all. This is one of

my favorites. Let's get inside of Will Wheaton. It's my point of view. 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 make sure that that, that, that, that, uh, that I always look slightly less awesome than the guests. it's important it's hard to do when you look as awesome as I do all the time I mean you just really have to lower lower it down of it just like geek down geek up or geek down uh you know I try to find a nice neutral place that lets people really be their best selves right that's good I do too I always like my best guests look better and they do whether I like it or not do you understand that's just the way I appreciate I want to say thanks to Seth Green for hooking you and I up yeah for real is it you and I or you and me. It would be you and hooking me up with you. It would be you and me. You and me. Hoking you and me up. Yeah. But then I ended on a preposition. Is, yeah, well, I think, but up's one of those weird English words that can also be a verb. That's, can it be used as a verb? You lift it up.

He went. Lift is the verb and then up is the direction where it went. So I guess up is. Maybe it's not. Maybe is up a direct object? Is it a, you're talking to someone who did not excel in school? It's been an extremely long time. You're talking to a professional writer who doesn't know all the rules of English grammar. So yeah, you've, maybe we just gently close that door and walk on down the hallway and act like we never opened that door closed. How many books? You've written two books? Um, I've, I've, I've mainstream published two books. I've written and indie published like four or five more maybe um and then probably like another you know whatever like half a dozen or so kind of like little one off saddle stitched chap book things just like short stories and

little collections and junk that I would uh sell over the years we're going to get into this still just a geek this book um I just was sent it so I haven't been able to read it but I've talked to some people who have read it oh that's cool they said you could either read it or Rosenbaum with your ADD, you could listen to it. You do the voice for the audio book? I did, yeah. Wow. You do a lot of audio stuff too. I do. We can get into that. That's ridiculous. But, you know, the thing is my friend Christy, Christy Cambers, hello, Christy. Hi, Christy. She says, you talk so raw and honestly about the past, but it's more than that. It's like you take responsibility for your actions, whatever those actions might be. And it's just you go deeper. And it's just, I can't wait to

read it because there's similarities that I see or at least parallels that I want to get into that, you know, I think I would have jumped off a bridge if I were at your age with the success you had because of my immaturity. And I didn't blossom until years later. In fact, I'm still blossoming. As am I. And we're both going to be 50 in July. I turn 50, one month from today. One month from today, you will be 50 years old. How does that feel? I was thinking about it last night when I couldn't sleep and it just feels kind of weird. I do not necessarily emotionally feel the way that I expected I would feel as I was turning 50. I feel like way more of a kid than like I thought, oh, I would be like 50 is you're like an adult. When we were 15, 16 younger or even

older, even when we were in our 20s, someone who is 50. Ancient. Ancient. My grandmother visit us in Indiana and Evansville in 1980. And I believe she was like 54 years old. And I thought she was just ancient. Yeah. And I'm going to be 50. Yeah. And the thing is like, it's actually really great. Why?

I love it. Why? Because I have so, a lot of it came with writing this book. And a lot of it has to do with like, I quit drinking alcohol six years ago, almost seven years ago. And like the clarity that that gave me and the like, um, uh, the focus that it allowed me to put on myself to heal a very traumatic childhood and invest time and effort into caring for myself and finding like all the places where I hurt and trying to figure out why. So as I'm like turning 50, I'm not worried about like what other people think. I accepted and and and and and have

worked on living in the reality that my dad never loved me and my mom made me a thing she could use to get attention. And I eventually, after years of trying to have a healthy, loving, familial relationship with my family of origin, I had to end it because it was so unbelievably painful. So at this time in my life where I thought like, well, I mean, it's over, you know, it's the middle. Everything's done. You're boring. You don't do fun stuff. You just like, you go to work. You come home. That's it. I'm having more fun than I've ever had in my life. And honestly, like, I feel like I'm me instead of constantly playing a role. Let me back up a little bit and give you a little context. By the way, yes, I could open up to this. I just, I feel like my whole

life, I've been playing a role. And I think this podcast has given me the opportunity to open up and be more vulnerable and have purpose. Writing did the same thing for me. I've been really trying desperately because I think I covered up. And this is a podcast about you, but it's about everybody. It's about people. And I think a lot of my listeners, they're really. going to be able to relate to a lot of the things you say but i i felt like you know whether it was it was a reality to me but i feel i felt like i didn't fit in same when i grew up when i was growing up and i felt like the only way to fit in was to be outlandish funny michael ridiculous michael trying to make everybody laugh because i didn't feel comfortable being me nerd me

little me totally me who didn't mature me who was a smallest kid in my high school yeah so i feel like I covered something up. Something changed when I was a little boy. I don't remember how old I was, but it was almost like that me I covered up for so many years. And now I'm starting to take off layers of that and try to find who I really am as a human being.

And what I've read and what I've heard and what you've already said in just a few words, you can probably tell me a lot about that. So my, I want to, I'm interested about this because we're both nerds who were kids who loved nerd stuff and I've had this conversation

with Seth too we're nerds who love nerd stuff and now we're adults and each of us was part of something that's a big deal to our nerd culture right

like each of us like has managed to do something that is going to matter to future generations of nerds right right is it

so like for me that's super cool super cool real real weird and like impossible to wrap my head around i never thought no one would ever think that little rosembaum little me would ever amount to anything period the end that's just the reality and nor did

i i really thought i always had this death wish that i thought i was going to die young i thought i i wasn't just i wasn't going to make it to high school i thought i was i just i remember thinking these things i can't i can't fit in i can't i'm not smart enough i'm not good enough i can't and i don't know how it happened, but then jumped to now, looking back, it's like, dude, you did all this things. And it's learning how to sort of go, hey, you accomplish this. You did this. Be proud of yourself. And it's all these things, but it's certainly still a little disbelief. Yeah. And it's hard to accept that. But go on. So I was seven years old and my mother was a kind of like moderately successful commercial actor had like had booked a few commercial jobs not a lot but in the late 70s

if you booked a national network television commercial you could buy a house so she did and we did and then she wasn't working very much and took me with her to an audition where she was like to be the mom and took me to play the role of the kid now I didn't want to do this none of this was my idea and that is extremely important and how old are you I'm seven seven she takes me we book the job i'm seven i'm just doing what i'm told to do none of this is like i want to do this okay are you terrified i just i don't remember you don't i just remember like i'm doing what mom says to do right um and uh that we did the commercial and uh i had fun it was you know i enjoyed it and she said okay so now you're going to go to the agency you're going to have a meeting with

the children's agent and you're going to tell her i want to do what mommy does and she's going to have you do, and she walked me through, this is how you get an agent. And you remember that. And I remember that. And I'm seven and I'm like, okay, I'm doing what you'd want me to do. I still don't understand. This is never presented to me. Like, you have a choice.

Do you want to do this? It was, this is what you're going to do. And this is in California. You grew up in Burbank? I grew up in Burbank. Right. Yeah. We actually lived in Sunland, which is kind of like up in the North Valley, which then was to

Los Angeles, what like Valencia is to L.A. now was like the frontier of the North Valley. Right. And shortly after that, the agent signed me. I was, I was extremely good. One of the reasons I excelled at being a child actor is I'm very, very good at taking direction. And I was very much a people pleaser. The environment in my home was extremely abusive and really unhealthy. Abusive how? My father was, is the most emotionally abusive person I've ever known in my entire life. Wow. I didn't have a dad. I had a bully. that I had to live with. And he loves and worships

and adores my brother and my sister. Anything for them. From my earliest memory, nothing I could ever do was good enough for him. I was never, like nothing. At one point, I was one of the most famous actors on the planet and it wasn't enough for him to love me,

which is a really important thing for me to figure out as I get older because it helps me understand that it was never about me. It was just about whatever his problem is, you know? Inside of you is brought to you by Rocket Money. I'm going to speak to you about something that's going to help you save money, period. It's Rocket Money. It's a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings.

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Yeah. And this is a really important thing that all of us who survive trauma and especially those of us who are scapegoats in dysfunctional families, we have to understand that it was never about us. It has nothing to do with us. We're unfortunate. It could have been our brother or sister, right? Like it, if it's, if it's not in a family relationship, if it's in a business or romantic relationship, it would have been the person that was in that seat before you or it will be the person who's in that seat after you. But why does it never about you? Why does it take so much time to figure that out? Because, well, I mean, I know for me being in the family, right? I was gas lit by

my mother my mom about a year after within a year of her sending me to the agency right i'm going on auditions every single day after school you know what la traffic is like i'm sitting in la traffic every single day after school i'm seven eight years old i want to be home playing you know i want my star wars figures i want my he man i want my bike like that's what i want to be a kid i keep saying to my mom please let me be a kid please let me be a kid and she's telling me over and over again this is what you wanted to do. I gave up my career for you. Like, I remember that so clearly from being so manipulative. So manipulative. And then spending my entire childhood stand by me, Star Trek, all the way until I'm like in my 30s and deciding I don't really want to do this. So you've never

really loved what you've done. No. I mean, I enjoy being on the set. I enjoy being around other artists. I love being around other artists. It is where I feel the, most at home. It's where I feel the most safe. It's where I feel like I'm around people who have the same weird expressive thing that I have. So I love being on the set, right? Getting to the set sucks like traffic and travel sucks. Auditions suck. Being on the set for 14 hours. It sucks. All that shit sucks. You know, when you're in the last eighth of the day and like for whatever reason they bring you in before lunch for some reason that you don't understand, like all of that sucks. But when you're in a scene, when I'm in a scene with somebody and something cool happens,

something happens in an improv moment that neither one of us expected or the director's like, you know, I think we're going to try this in a oner and let's see if we can make it work. And you pull it off, right? Like just that stuff feels so good. The overwhelming joy for me of being on Star Trek as a Star Trek fan and walking into, there's a place on stage nine, where you could walk in the corridor of the enterprise, that kind of the curvature of the saucer section of the enterprise, you could walk into it between the transporter room and engineering, and you could get in there,

and there's this point in the corner where you can't see anything else. All you can see is I'm inside the enterprise. 15-year-old me, 16-year-old me went there as often as I could to stay there and pretend that it was real. Like, I loved that. I loved all of it, but everything else. The auditioning, the politicking, the inherent predatory, toxic nature of so many people who are in positions of power in this industry. I hated all of it.

And you expressed this to your mother. I did over and over and over again. And there was a point in my life. I just gave in. I just gave up. And it would have been, it would have been like stand by me changed everything. And it would have been right after stand by me. I literally went to bed and woke up the next morning.

I went to bed totally anonymous and woke up the next morning. And the four of us were like the stranger things kids. Like it happened literally overnight. And what is that feeling like that you recall? Could you walk down the street? Yeah. I mean, that eventually changed, right? You know, that took a little bit of time.

Right. I don't remember exactly when this happened. But it was after Stand By Me and it was before Star Trek. I went to Magic Mountain with some. some friends right and kind of got mobbed by teenage girls and I didn't like it you didn't like I didn't like it at all and how old are you I'm probably I'm at least 13 I'm maybe on my way I'm maybe a little bit closer to 14 so you just want to be with your friends and enjoy it right here's the thing about that right I have a friend who is a legitimate tour the world rock star right front man for a

band, right? Like a groupy fucking dude, right? Like that's just like he has had that life. And the stories he tells are crazy. All right. When I was young and I was famous and I can remember now the occasional person kind of like really sort of throwing themselves at me. I never was receptive to that because I felt like that person doesn't see me. That. That. person sees the thing from TV and the movies and I'm tired of being that thing I don't want to be that thing I'm that thing in my house I'm that thing wow you felt this young age yeah I was super aware of it I was super aware I was aware of it when we were doing you're uncomfortable extremely uncomfortable and I didn't like it and I was like you know what I understand now you know

as I've been married for 25 years and and and and it's great and like my wife is my favorite person in the world and we were talking the other day about how when we were younger like we just weren't people who were kind of like I don't know sexually adventurous or like you know fooling around with tons of different people and stuff like that and it turned out that we both came at that from a place of like I just want someone to see me right like if you could see me instead of your idea of what you want me to be this would be really great yeah let's fool around it'll be fun right yeah but like i don't want to be your thing and that was how i felt for so much of of my entire childhood so when when that was all i felt like and i felt like the only way i

mattered in my home i knew i didn't matter to my dad but i thought was it was it with the what did he what do you what actions would he have that made you feel like that it was relentless nonstop undercutting me, humiliating me, mocking me, teasing me until I would get upset and then laughing at me for getting upset. What would he tease you about? I mean, what wouldn't he tease me about? Was it a competitive thing? I think it may have been. I, you know, I tried super hard to have have honest vulnerable conversations with both of my parents for years to understand where this all came from in the hopes that maybe as as a family we could find a way to kind of work through all of this stuff yeah my my parents are both narcissists um uh and um when i they're the

kinds of people that you can't confide in and you can't talk to because when i would try to to talk about these things with my mom, right? It was always turned around and twisted and like if I said, let's say I say a hundred deeply meaningful, emotionally vulnerable words and two words that as it turns out are factually incorrect. It wasn't a green sign. It was a yellow sign, right? All we talk about is the color of the sign, because if I don't remember the color of the sign, how do I possibly remember everything else? That was sort of how they were, right? So I have to write things down. So I wrote out this extraordinarily long like here is my heart i'm pouring it out to you how old are you sent gosh this was only a few years ago it's just like five years ago oh so you gave them a chance oh yeah big

like this is your opportunity to acknowledge the things that you've done and maybe we could salvage this yeah and i was like i really want this you know like here is my reality i feel like dad doesn't love me and never has i feel like mom made me a thing and i want to be your son and i want to know how we can make that happen and I want to know what we can do together to like to to so I don't have to hurt anymore. I sent that email to both of them. It was four months before my mother responded to me. So I sent an email that said, I think my dad doesn't love me. And my mom waited four months to reply to me.

My dad waited six months to reply to me. So just that spoke volumes to you. It told me everything I needed to know. Just after just like a couple of days, I was like, you know, if either one of my kids was like, I'm concerned about our relationship. You'd respond immediately. When my mom finally replied to me, it was classic her. It was this enormous list of all the things that were just so important. She didn't have time to talk to me.

And what I'm supposed to do is feel guilty that I'm taking her away from like her horse, right? But what I'm reading is, here's all the things that are more important to me than you. The email from my dad, which I did not read, came with the following subject line. Your mother wants me to email you. Oh, okay, cool. So it's not you don't want to you don't care about this. It's not important. Your mother wants me to email you. And you just threw your heart out on the table. Yeah. With all these things. And this is the response you go. Yeah. And what was your first feeling? I was really hurt. I was angry. Um, I felt depressed. Um, I have mental illness. I have depression and anxiety and PTSD. And, uh, I'm really aware of all of that. And like, I know. I know. how my brain interprets things in ways that, uh, that then turn around and express themselves, uh, in ways that are like sort of hurtful to me, you know? So like, I have to think

about like, okay, I understand what's going on. And I'm not the person dad said I was. So like, don't react to that invented reality from all the gas lighting and stuff. You know, you know who you are and know what's going on. And it's hard because when you, a lot of the response, I know from, I'm not comparing myself at all but I know that with my parents it's more like um oh stop it you're being you're you're being melodramatic you're so dramatic it's all deflecting it's all defliting oh come on we were boy it's amazing how your parents at least my parents they just they think that they were just they were just these great parents they they they don't they don't accept or acknowledge any of their like never I'm so sorry for the way I made you that's all you wanted to hear

For your whole life, all you wanted to hear from your mother was like, I am deeply sorry and wounded that I made you feel like this. What can I do to fix this? Your father is saying, you never heard those things. No. And I didn't and I never will. And I had to just accept that. And I had to accept that it's not about me. And this is a thing that I've worked on.

I struggle with. I know a lot of trauma survivors work on it too. Like, it's just not about us. And it was never about us. So there's really nothing we can do to change this thing. It's like, you know, if you draw a circle, you put yourself inside the circle and you put all the shit that that people are putting on you outside the circle, I can only take care of what's inside the circle. I can't deal with any of this stuff. I can't change the fact that my dad hates himself.

I can't change the fact that my dad resents me for earning money to support the family when we were kids. Like, I was supporting the family when I was like 10, 11, 12 years old. like all of that resentment and and uh it's stuff it's just like when i talk about all of this stuff you know it's not like he does it help it's yeah because it's sort of like i spent my whole life participating in a thing i knew was a lie i knew that you wanted to be an actor will was a lie and that's the giant lie upon which my mother built her entire life and and sort of held me on it too right but it's like sand you know And as soon as I touched the sand, it all started to fall apart.

And I was like, I'm not going to do this anymore. And that's why I started writing. When I initially wrote just a geek in 2004, and that came out of the blog that I started in 2000, I didn't know that what I needed to do was just tell my truth, right? My whole life, other people had been speaking for me. When I was a child, it was always my mom. She was in charge of everything. then when I was then from after stand by me it was the studio publicists who were like moving me through

you never had your own voice uh never had my own voice when I was on Star Trek I had my own voice on the set my cast who have become my family were always there they always showed up they loved me and and nurtured me and cared for me that was the place I was allowed to be real but the instant I was out of the set and it was teen magazines and Star Trek conventions and publicity and all that. I had to say what was put into my mouth by other people. So around 2000, the internet's really making its way into everybody's homes now. And we suddenly have this ability to kind of like speak for ourselves. Like all of us online have this ability to do that. And that's why I started my blog. I didn't know it at the time. I was just like, I just want to

write a diary. And like, I want to like be online. And the websites I like reading are people's journals and their regular lives and like I want to do that so I did that got the pressure to do a book which I felt I wasn't ready to do you weren't ready to divulge were you not at all so I wrote just a geek when I was like 26 or 27 and wow so this follow-ups 20 something years later it's 18 and a half years later wow and I am so grateful to my editor David Pomerico at Morrow because David we submitted a manuscript, my agent and I submitted a manuscript that I had written for a fictional, semi-autobiographical fictional story. And I knew that this book needed something.

I didn't know what it was. I knew that it wasn't quite complete. And I was like, if I can find an editor who wants to work on this together, this is going to be a cool story. I know it. And nobody really wanted to do that. But David was like, I really liked just a geek. And I recently reread it. And I've been listening to you now.

And you're such a different person. Just look at it and see if you would want to go back and annotate it and revisit it and, like, finish that story, which was started and left incomplete 18 years ago. Did you feel like it was incomplete? Is that somebody or hearing that from someone? I was like, oh, my God, you're right. I didn't know that it was incomplete until I sat down to do it. So I sat down and I started annotating it, right? Right.

And immediately I'm like, oh, my God, dude, you make a stupid homophobic. joke because it's like a lazy high school joke, right? And I had to annotate that and immediately talk about like why that is not okay now. It wasn't okay then. Why younger me thought it was okay. And why it's like really gross and offensive, right? Right. Then I get into like, oh my God, I just turned like, oh, I just took this, this woman who's like doing her job and I made her a punchline because it makes me the hero of the story. And I was like, that's not okay either. And it's lazy writing. It's bad writing. So I on annotated that. Then I got to a place where, and I don't remember specifically what it was, but I got to a place

where I read what was in the original Just a Geek, and I got to the end of like that paragraph or that chapter or whatever. And I knew all of this was happening because I desperately wanted my dad to notice me. And I need to talk about that. And I started writing about that. And then I started writing about all the other things I held back. And I kind of revisited all of this stuff. And there's moments in that book. Things that were massively consequential at the time that they happened, like, you know, kind of almost getting a job that I had completely forgotten about. Auditions that were like, I worked so hard to prep the auditions. And then the auditions were awful. Like, you know, you work really hard. I don't, I don't know how long it's been since you had to

audition, but like, do you remember you work really hard to prep a role and you feel good about it? They're like, there's six scenes. You prep all of them. You go in. They don't care that you're there. And you start and they go, oh, we're only doing the first scene. Why the fuck that I prep six scenes if we're only doing the first scene? I'm like, look, man, just tell me the truth. We've cast this yesterday and we didn't want to cancel the session. You know, like, cool. I'm here. Like, this is what I look like. This is what I sound like. Maybe you keep me in mind for something else. But don't put me through this, right? That happens a lot. Yep. So, and I was just like, I hate this. And I hate that I had to act my whole life like, it's awesome. You know, like, well, you just got to keep on going.

And I was like, no, it's bullshit. And it sucks. And I hate it. And I started telling that part of the story. And then I just, in the process of doing all of this, I was simultaneously doing a lot of therapy and a lot of academic research into childhood trauma and how it affects the developing childhood brain. And I began to very clearly see what a traumatic childhood I really had and that it was so much worse than I thought it was. And in these different, like in the different, the different kind of online support areas for people who were raised by narcissists, the thing that I started seeing was all these other people who are not me, who are not in the entertainment industry,

who are of different generations than me, well, their parents said the exact same things to them that mine said to me, you're too dramatic, you're so sensitive. Well, that's not how I remember it. Well, why didn't you say anything then? You know, you're just, why are you all against me?

It's all of these things. It's all narcissistic deflection and all that. Um, the biggest one, the number one, the most effective manipulation tool my mother ever used on me and it worked every single time. And I hate that it worked as effectively as it did. My mom would say there's nothing more important than family when I didn't want to do a thing. When I didn't want to go apologize to my dad after he hit me. When I didn't want to like go do a piece of crap movie because I hated the script. But like they were offering some, you know, slightly overscale or whatever like that, right? Whenever anything came up, we're like, oh, no, that's not, you know, that's not for me, you know, like this individual doesn't want to do that. My mom would say, nothing's more important than your family. Why aren't you looking out for your family? And I learned that the, that's not unique to my mother, that that is extremely common in manipulative narcissists. They say, they tell you this thing they are in,

that they are demanding you do is about supporting the capital F family and they weaponize the family against you. You know what my mother said? You only have one mother. Same thing. It's the exact same thing. You only have one mother.

Yeah, and it gets you right. I mean, it's just like in the center of your heart. When I die, you're going to be very sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see, I can remember, I mean, I still hear it. the thing that was actually really helpful and healing and validating for me was knowing that I'm not the only person who has experienced that and that these things that that that I that I was sort of like subjected to by these two people are horribly common which means it was never about

me and there is nothing I could have done to make it different and what I rather than and this is the decision I made years ago when it was time to just end contact with my family of origin was like I can keep doing this. I can keep like hitting this wall and hoping that this time, you know, the brick's going to move. Right. Or I can just walk away. How hard is it? First, two questions. First is how do you know you're being raised by narcissists? What, what is, you don't know. Well, I mean, when you're, how does one know? I don't know. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't know. I mean, it's just like, I think when you're in the middle of it, right? There's this I talk about, I've been talking, I've been using this a lot. I'm hoping that a lot of people who are like maybe paying attention to me for the very first time will hear me talk about David Foster Wallace. So they're going to go read this essay. It's a beautiful essay. It's called This is Water. And it's this speech that he gave at a college graduation. And he starts it out by saying there's these two fish cruising in an aquarium. And the one fish looks at the other fish and goes, hey, how's the water? And the fish goes, what's water and then David Foster Wallace goes on to say all of this is water all of the garbage

in your world is water and then he talks about it right wow and it's beautiful and it's really incredible and it's just about like learning to see and experience and be aware of whatever the water is right so that you're not just like floating in it right you're like moving through it with purpose okay so i grew up in this environment where the water was yeah you have to earn love and affection you have to earn feeling validated and seen in your home um so nothing's unconditional nothing's unconditional at all um and uh i just really i got so used to that that i didn't i could not wrap my head around, this isn't normal. This isn't how everybody is treated.

Because we all want to believe that our families love us and cherish us and are a safe place for us. And when we're told over and over and over again, nothing's more important than family. And the thing that my mother did was she would point at people doing exactly what she was doing and say, I'm not doing that. Look at how unhappy that kid is. Like, I'm not a stage mom like that kid's stage mom is. It wasn't until like maybe three years ago.

I saw a movie with a, with a kid in it who was one of my contemporaries when we were kid actors. And this kid, if I said his name, every single person of my age group who was going on auditions would be like, oh my God, that poor kid. And that kid's awful fucking mother. Like we all know this kid. There are, if our mutuals are listening to this, they're like, they know exactly who I'm not. you're talking about right i saw him in a movie and i had a flashback like um all of time compressed and i was not sitting on the couch in my game room watching this this kid in a movie i was a little boy in the auditions just hundreds of auditions where this kid is every single time and i can

see the fear and the sadness and the pain in in everything about him i i remember his mother smacking him physically slapping him in the hallway outside auditions and screaming at him that he wasn't whatever you know he just wasn't enough one way or another and my mom always making a really big deal about how like well i'm not like that right isn't that something you could have it worse yeah you could have it worse you have a house a roof over your head yeah you don't eat every night it makes you feel like oh my gosh i'm I'm acting like an asshole. So in the midst of this movie,

I suddenly realized that there's just no difference between me and this kid when we're little kids on auditions. The only difference is my mom is on better behavior in public. My mom doesn't hit me, but my dad does. My dad hits me all the time. But like my mom doesn't, you know. She is protecting her like investment, I guess. You know, she's like making sure that this.

Or making yourself look good in front of the people to the outside world. Yeah, like one of her defining characteristics is like, what will the neighbors think? You know, like it doesn't matter what the truth is. What do they think? Yeah. So I had this, I had this flashback that was, it was terrible. And I spent a few days in like a massive, massive crisis because of it. And when I came through it and got through the other side, it was like I had.

I had admitted to myself and I had confronted this thing that was really painful and had been like looming over me my entire life, which was that huge lie. And that was when I realized and it became and it really crystallized inside of me that I was never wrong. It was never your fault. It was never my fault. I was no different than that kid. Like he didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be there. Our mothers were making us be there.

The only difference is that he, like his path took him into like, you know, B movies. And my path took me to someplace different. But like as far as it goes as it relates to our moms, there was no difference there. And I had been told my entire life, you're not that kid. I'm not that kid's mom. And it was like my brain or like this physical manifestation of like a like, you know, higher will spirit from another dimension. And just grabbed me and was like, dude, look, look and know and like see this. And it was real hard and it was really painful and it was really traumatizing.

That's all from really watching and seeing this former actor that you had your peer. Yeah. And all these things came to you. All of it. It was like and I had never had like an actual flashback before, you know, like I felt like I was six, seven, eight years old sitting on the couch at like. Did you cry? So much. I went into the house and my wife was like, what's wrong?

And I just crawled onto her and sobbed. Oh, my God. And she was like, what's what's going on? And I talked to her through it. She's been wonderful, like from day one, real supportive, really sees me and, and, and has always, like, just been supportive of, like, the true things that happened to me. And then like also pointing out, you know, like, yeah, I remember, you know, your mom said this and your dad did that, you know, like when the kids were younger and we were like trying to like bring my parents into our family and have like, you know, a multi-generational family.

Yeah. You know, I absolutely commend you. And, you know, this book, the honesty that I can tell comes through it. And the thing that I keep thinking about is like how brave, the hardest thing I have to imagine, is making that decision to finally cut your parents out of your life. That had to be the toughest decision out of all the decisions. And how did you do so? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people that, you know, have thought about that,

have this, this, these demons and these, these parents that they're like are just toxic and they don't know what to do because they're just, it's a cyclical thing they go through. I think that it was mostly, um, it was that choice was facilitated. by by my arrival at acceptance of of the two people who are my parents but they're also human beings in this world and they were human beings in this world before they were my parents my paternal grandmother was a monster just a john birch racist um a horrible despicable person so cruel to my sister my mom and me worshipped my brother worshipped my dad that never protected

us from her. My dad didn't become who he is in a vacuum. He became who he is because of what he experienced. He wasn't able or willing to do the same kind of work that I needed to do to be the dad my kids deserve. He wasn't able or willing to do that work to be the dad that I deserve. You needed to break the cycle. I had to break the generational cycle. Yeah. My maternal grandparents, I don't know very much about my mom's an unreliable narrator and she very much substitutes the world she wants to tell the story about for what actually happened and there's just not a lot of family alive on her side of the family that I'm close to that I can even reach out to to find out like what the truth is right but the way she tells it my maternal

grandfather was an alcoholic um and uh my maternal grandmother who died when I I was very young, but who I remember as someone who loved and adored and cherished me and made me feel safe and cared for and all of that, right? My mom presents her as this woman who was unsupportive of her. So it was very important to mom that she was really supportive of me and, you know, my dream to be an actor. The reality is my mom wanted to be a model, wanted to be an actor, couldn't pull it off and blamed her mom for not being supportive, right? Rather than, you know, and then like just it was always somebody else's kind of thing. understanding all of those things that these people were not created in a vacuum and that when I

worked real hard to like kind of be the adult in the relationship and say could we please work on this they they chose to behave the way that they chose to behave that's not going to change ever and there came this when I reached this this point where I was like I got to heal this on my own they're not going to be part of it with me it's sucked. It's hard. Like, not having parents sucks. To this day, when cool things happened to me, when this book made the New York Times bestseller list, my instinct was, oh, I should call my parents. Oh, wait, I don't have parents to call. So I called my Star Trek cast. So I, that's your family. That's my family. That's who you call. Yeah. And they're, you know, it's, have your parents reached out to

you have they've not even reached out to you no or they are they are they so hurt and damaged from what you know you've said in the press or the or the book or that they've just they've just shut you out as well um i blocked their contacts in my cell phone uh which is pointless to do with my dad because before i stopped before i ended contact with him he had not called me or texted me or made an effort to communicate with me for four years. I looked in my phone. Four years. Four years. He did call me once because he misinterpreted a thing I wrote on Facebook and decided it was about him and called me to yell at me about it. And I was like, that's, you're, you're, like, none of this is, I'm, you know, I don't know what you're talking about.

And then he was like, it was weird. It was like, I want you, it's like you imagine like a dog losing its shit at the door. And then you open the door and there's no one there. And the dog goes, oh and then just leaves right that was my dad's attitude and i said i got to tell you when i saw your name on my phone i was really excited because you haven't called me in such a long time i would love it if you would just call me and my dad says well you know the phone works both ways so like okay when people tell you who they are believe them you've done everything you can do you've sent the email i did absolutely everything and you know that right yeah yeah yeah and then i had to um I had to block them because my mom would just text me bullshit.

And then a whole other part of this in the dysfunctional family dynamic is my brother, the golden child, like, got angry at me years and years ago because I wouldn't, it was a thing with me like not giving them money and like he got really angry at me and was like, you're dead to me. And my brother had stopped talking to me years before I stopped talking to my parents. So I haven't talked to my brother for like, it's going to be about 10 years or something like that. And in, like, in all of that and that whole thing, my mom was constantly texting me, you know, like, trying to make it my responsibility to repair a relationship with my brother who told me I don't want a relationship with you, right?

And I finally, like, even after I had said, I'm going to go and heal these things on my own, she was still doing it. And I was like, I'm a, I don't need this invasion of my life over and over and over again. So I had to block both of them. How many years has it been since you haven't talked to your parents? Five or six, I guess. No contact. None. I did an interview with Access Hollywood for just as part of this whole thing, you know,

the promotion and all that stuff. And they were talking to like a couple of us that were child performers who have since gone on to do something different with our lives. We found our own form of success, our own form of happiness, our own form of like fulfillment in the world, right? And like, what's our story? So I sat with Access Hollywood and I told the story and I, you know, my story is that my dad was emotionally and physically abusive. My story is that my mom forced me to do a thing that I didn't want to do and then gaslighted me about it for my entire life. And like, I'm sorry that they don't like that story. A real good way to not have me tell that story is to have written it

differently. Their way. Their way, right? So Access Hollywood, after I did this interview, Access Hollywood said I, we need, you know, we're a journalist organization. We need to give them an opportunity to comment. And I said, okay, my dad's going to say no comment because he doesn't care. And my mom is going to say, I had no idea. And I'm shocked. And I said, go ahead. But that's what's going to happen. And then they're both. And then she's going to, he won't say anything. And she's going to lie and lie and lie and lie. And it is exactly what happened. I like almost down to the words that I predicted. I was like, I just know these people. And I know what they're going to do. And I know what they're going to say. And the thing is, it's not unique to me. It is common

among narcissists and it is common among emotionally immature parents all of this stuff to go on taken as a whole i'm left with how much it sucks to not have parents you know it hurts there's a black hole in my life absolutely there is a giant black hole in my heart that will never be filled ever i have good close loving friends in my life who have assembled themselves into the same shape as the puzzle piece that is missing from me and they can go in there and they can fill in that that shape but they can't fill the hole the whole is always going to be there because my dad chose to not love me and i will never know for my entire life what an unconditional father's love is because it was deliberately withheld from me that sucks and it hurts all the time having

My parents is more painful for me than having no parents. Wow. And that really sucks. It's really sad. And the part of me who's like compassionate and empathetic and the part of me who's the writer, the storyteller, the actor who has to understand characters and motivations and all of that stuff, I'm also sad for what they're missing out on. Yeah.

You know. It's so easy. it seems like it would be so easy i guess not for them not for these particular people to if you know again if you meant that much to them to reach out and say this needs to stop i do love you you are my son i am wrong i but it's not worth it to them obviously and that's that's what hurts probably the most yeah yeah um uh it's it sucks it sucks and it's super sucks and it's a super giant bummer And like, you know, I spent a lot of time feeling really sad about that. Yeah.

And there are days where it kind of punches me in the back of the head a little bit. Or if you see a movie and with parents and it happens. I mean, can you deal with like, you know, not to be sound macabre, but like, you know, there's going to be a time that comes when, you know, your parents will have gone away. They'll have passed away. And I, you know, that happens for everybody. Yeah. And it's got to be like, you know, it's probably going to still hurt because there's these unresolved things. But like you have to know, at least, look, I'm not a therapist,

but I've been through a lot of therapy. And I've been through a lot that we can talk about when it comes to parents and I've gone through stages where I'm like crying and emotional and then realize, I forgive them. And I'm like, what? How did you just say that? And it just comes out of you. And you're like, I forgive them for, you know, they did the best they could. They did, I give, you of my i give them too much credit perhaps but i also have let things go and sort of said hey this is the relationship i'm going to have this is the but it almost not almost it seems impossible to have any kind of relationship with the people that you're talking about yeah because they don't want to have a relationship that's exactly the right they want mom wants to own a thing

i've i've said that my mom loves me the way like a nine-year-old girl loves her dolls she loves them so much she cherishes them she takes really good care of them like is constantly setting them up and having them play out scenes and and like living out what her dreams and fantasies are and like she's projecting everything that she can't get herself into these dolls and and like she loves the dollhouse and just wants like the best dollhouse that she can put them in and that is all I ever was to her And I think it's all that she was ever capable of expressing because there's stuff within herself that's unresolved that she never addressed, that she never took care of. And I don't know what that stuff is.

And, you know, you've talked about forgiveness and like letting go and going forward and all that. And I cannot forgive the cruelty and the gaslighting and the theft of my childhood, but I absolutely do not need to live in, like, live there anymore and move past it. Like, I'm talking about it a lot now, right? I have talked about this more in the last two months than I have in the last 10 years. It's just part of this whole process, right? Yeah. I have worked really hard to not let this be the thing that, like, is constantly buzzing around my head.

Like, I've described my anxiety as a little swarm of bees that's kind of always around my head, right? And sometimes they're really loud and they're really swarming. And other times they're like super cool and relaxed, you know, but they're always there. I can relate. They're always there and they're always ready to swarm and go bananas. Like, that's just part of, you know, the way my brain takes care of itself. like all of this stuff is just it's going to be part of me no matter what and i have to think about like what am i going to do and how am i going to move forward with all of this i don't forgive it

because it's unforgivable like it's in the book i don't want to talk about it because it's really upsetting and re-traumatizing but it's in the book they participated in my sister and me being abused on the set of a movie they allowed it to happen they did not take us off the set they did not protect us they failed in the number one responsibility that parents have for children which is to protect them and keep them safe and they didn't they sold me to this production company uh and and then just kind of threw my sister in also like because they wanted the money and my mom wanted a trip right it's it's unforgivable stuff it's just it's terrible inexcusable things traumatic moments that like for decades i was like i really need to talk about

this thing that happened on the set of this movie because it was super upsetting to me and the way that mom would reply to it was well that was really hard for all of us oh okay i'm sure it was really hard for you as a woman in her 30s and an adult who's not being forced to work three units at the same time when they're 13 um and and they're being like regularly abused by by like the direct or the movie. I'm sure it was really hard on you. It all becomes about her. It always goes back to them. All of it. And I write about this too. There's a thing in the book where I directly address her. And I say, like, listen, I really want to believe so much that part of you is saying, oh my God, I got a, I just hadn't thought about it this way or like, or like, yes, that that is, or I'm sorry or whatever.

But the reality is the woman I knew for 46 years is just so heavily invested in her victim. narrative that always a victim always a victim and and that and that in their version of the story I'm just angry and like yeah part of me is angry and it's super justified it's super super justified it's really okay you know yeah I hear I hear you as this little boy yeah that's just crying for someone to just fucking listen to them yeah to confide in yeah someone to just be loved by unconditionally and it's been something you've been searching for your entire life and at least now you have a family and you have that because that's all you've ever wanted and it was not reciprocated and that is devastating and you have to I mean you have to be proud of yourself for taking these

steps even though it seems look you you wrote this book I mean this is therapeutic this is I think you write because it helps get things out. That's why we do a lot of that. That's why we write. And I think that's that you have to be proud of yourself. Are you not? I don't spend, I'm not, I don't spend time. I'm not proud of myself.

I'm grateful that I have had the opportunity to express these parts of myself. And I'm grateful that I have had the support. to tell my truth and I am grateful for all the wonderful good things in my life that I have worked really hard for like I've done this and my wife and I did all of this together we worked so hard we were just um she and I took a little tiny little uh a couple a day little vacation um uh I guess it was earlier this month and we were like in a fancy place and it was really beautiful and really quiet and peaceful and wonderful and we were out for a walk and i said you know i just want to take a minute and and honor and be grateful to like 35 year old us that we decided that our marriage and our

family and our partnership was worth whatever it takes and that we faced every face down everything together and that we never gave up and that we really kept working and with my wife's support and the like the guidance and the understanding and the professionalism of my agents and my manager we were able to like go okay well what do you want to do with your life like who do you want to be what do you want to do and it's like I want to be a storyteller I really want to do that I want to like, I want to be the person in the world who was never there for me, right? I want to be a person who, for whatever reason, is, like, inspiring and helpful and dependable and reliable and supportive and inspiring. Like, I want to be the person I need in the world. And we got there. And we're there

right now. And this is beautiful and incredible. And like, in the midst of the world being just absolutely on fire and things being terrible right now, we're really lucky. And we need to not take that for granted. And I want to remember the younger version of myself who was ready to give up, who absolutely didn't. And when either one of us was like, I don't know, the other one was like, no, we got this. And we pulled through all of it together. So I don't know why like feeling proud of myself as a thing I can't do seriously. I can do it as a joke, right? Like, when I got on the I'm super proud of doing it. When I got on the New York Times bestseller list, I called every one of my friends. And I was like, hey, what's up? How many New York Times bestselling authors do you know?

Add one to the list. And I was like, guess what I'm going to do for the rest of our lives? I'm signing all your cards from your friend will New York Times bestselling author, right? Like, it was just, it's a joke thing. And I've done it. And my friends think it's really funny. It's a bit. It's awesome. That's your way of being proud. Yeah. But really honestly, right? Feeling proud to me feels like I'm up on a precipice and like I might get knocked off

of it, right? But feeling grateful puts me in a place that feels more like I am comfortably in like a really safe. Like I'm not on a precipice. I'm like in a really beautiful lush verdant valley. Right. And you have a little relief. Yeah.

You know, there's got to be some relief of all this. This is the therapy. This is the. Um, what do you do for your anxiety? What do you do? But you should obviously go to therapy. Yeah. But what else helps you? Um, I take medication. Uh, so I take, uh, so I take, uh, I take a antidepressants every morning. And that helps my brain regulate its chemical curiosity. And, um, uh, I specifically do not talk about the, the, the meds I take. Cause they're all for different people. I do, I do not want to influence someone else's choice. But afterwards, I want you to tell me. Okay. Okay. I'll tell you. Yeah, we can, we can, we can talk about the meds. We can, we can talk about. Um, we can. We can. We can, we can. We can. We can. We can. We can about it, for sure. Yes. And I have found tremendous relief from, like, cannabis therapy here in California. Just like CBD and CBN, chemically in my brain, they take that hive of bees, and it just,

and it's like bee smoke, which is a funny joke, right? Like, it just sort of, like, goes around them and it, like, settles them down. and it breaks my cycle of catastrophicizing. Like, that's a thing that I used to do all. That's a thing that I used to do all the time. Like, I would go from, huh, we're out of milk to, and the house is going to burn down. Like, I mean, like, everything is such a big deal.

Everything is, I tell you that, Ryan, all the time. Like, why is everything a big deal? Yeah, why does not? Yeah, it doesn't need to be like this at all. So, everything is, yes. Yeah. Also, for me, keeping things. inside and not talking them out, not writing them down, whether I'm talking them into a recorder

for myself in the future just to have, or if I'm writing it in a journal so it's not like living present in my head or whatever, not letting it sit inside of me like really helps. And then I've also had to learn that like, I want to say nine out of ten times, but like 10 out of 10 times that my anxiety is like, everything's the worst thing in the world and like the plane's going to crash blah, da, da, da, da, da, right? Every single time it's like that, it literally only exists in my head. I know.

It's not out in the world, you know? Like I was, when I was, I was just traveling and I was so stressed about it and I just kept saying to myself, dude, you're invisible, nobody even knows you're here. How many people have you paid close attention to since you walked into the airport? Zero.

Guess what? Nobody's paying attention to you. Stop being so anxious about shit. Like, don't worry about stuff. It's really okay. We really think that everyone's, aware of us and they're not. Well, and that is also a thing that happens in our business because I know, like, it hasn't been this way for me for a really, really, really long time, right?

And I'm sure it was like, and I don't know if it's still this way for you, but I know that it was this way for you at least recently. There are places that we go and people are like, holy shit, I see you on TV and they get excited, you know, and that's just part of our lives, right? I actually really like that. It makes me feel really good because I know when I like somebody's work and I just want to say, oh, man, thank you for that. that record or thank you for that TV show. It just, I loved it, you know. And that person, if that person is like, go away. I'm massively bummed out and it's like, oh, man. So I make an effort to be the person I want to encounter, right? So I like want to reciprocate and honor and like

really like, you know, give that back a little bit. That's great. But it also means that when, like, when I was on the Big Bang theory and my episodes would air, I would have to be kind of hypervigilant for about seven days because I really have to be aware of people like clocking me and like you know just sort of like aware of someone going you know how you go into a place you're like oh that guy just made me like he's not saying anything but he knows like we who live in genre television like that that's just what we do right because because nerds watch genre television and the thing that nerds do that we love like and I include myself in this group right is like we just know everything about what we're doing you know we know all the actors we know all the

characters. We love it. So when we see somebody from a show that we like, you know, it's like, ah, like, I know. It's, and I don't ever want to let somebody down ever, ever, ever. Yeah, that's the worst thing. One time in my life, I had a really bad flight, a terrible transatlantic flight landed. I was exhausted. I was in the one of the worst mental places I've been in a really, really long time. This is like 25 years ago, 26 years ago. And this group of girls was like hey we want to take it with yay we love you we're here for a thing want to take a picture and i was like i cannot do that and anne who was my girlfriend at the time was like listen i know you're having a bad day but those girls don't know that and this is their only encounter

with you like do you do you want to do you do you want to leave them like that and i was like i absolutely don't and i went up to and i went over to the girl who had approached me and i said listen um uh i i i apologize um uh i told her what you know i was like i just had a terrible flight. But yeah, let's do this. And, and, uh, and, uh, and I'm sorry for, for just sort of like, forgetting for a moment. And this girl, you know, the teenage girl was like, didn't really know what to do with that was just sort of like, okay, let's take the picture, you know? Yeah. I'd be interested to know, because it was so long ago, like, she's an adult woman now, right? You know, does she remember? I'm curious to know, like,

does she remember? And if she remembers, like, what was her reaction then? Wow. This, this is, this is, uh, this is called shit talking with Will Wheaton. This is rapid fire. Okay. This is, this is, these are from my top tier patrons i love you uh thanks for supporting the podcast go to patreon slash inside of you if you want to become a patron i'll message you uh raj what do you consider the key to maintaining a happy and lasting relationship with your significant other respect mutual respect uh open honest and clear communication step a what's your favorite memory of being on star track you you mentioned it earlier walking in that little place where you could see the the whole ship right i

uh god you know the thing is like there's so many there are so many incredible memories i'm trying to pick one that's really cool that that will that will that your page that your patron will be like yay i'm glad that they chose that one on stage nine the stage where the where the corridor is right it's where the transporter room is right more than once teenage me walked in there walked into the transporter room, pretended to be beamed into the enterprise, walked down the corridor to engineering, and turned on the engine. It's just neon lights, right, on a timer. So like they strobe, you know, but I knew where the switch was. And I was like, yes, I will activate the engines for the enterprise. And I did that. So from one point of view, teenager walks down the wall, walks through

the set and turns on the lights okay that's great that's not what that was for me that was for the little boy who at five years old listened to star trek records in the on the little fisher price record player because i wanted star trek all the time i wanted i just i wanted nothing but science fiction when i was a little boy that's all i wanted um uh yeah like i was super primed for star wars when Star Wars happened because I was already in the, like, I was already way into science fiction. But like, when I did that and I turned that on, I was a person making the engine of the enterprise start. I love that.

And that was pretty, and that was pretty great. I love that. Nico, really quickly, my two boys were fortunate enough to create and publish a comic just like you. What did you enjoy about the process? I really enjoyed collaborating with artists. When I write a comic book script, and I'm writing one right now, I will, when I'm talking about, like, setting the scene and doing visual references and things like that, I always tell the, I try to communicate to the artist in the stage direction, you know, and I have these conversations with them ahead of time. This is a collaborative process.

You have your ideas. I'm not directing a thing that you're like making happen, right? We're doing this together. So I think this place looks like this. I think this creature kind of looks like this but like what do you think right? And each time those artists have been

just like they've blown me away. I got to work with Jamie McKelvie when I wrote when Felicia Day and I wrote the Fox comic for the run in the guilt and Jamie is a friend who I've known forever but like I was able to give him some direction and he brought this thing to life in a way

I was just like the comic nerds are like wow you got Jamie McKelvey from Phonogram to do that for real? Like, that's a really big deal. That's awesome. And then, like, on the, uh, I, we had two covers done. Emma Rios did one cover, uh, and Paul Duffield did the other cover. And I got to just give Emma Rios and Paul Duffield artists who I just, I stand them, right? I was like, I would kind of like it if this, it liked like this and it looked like that. And then they both like took my idea

and made it like even better and like made it their version of it. Just love it. I. absolutely love that it's really fun i have the thing that i have always enjoyed the place that you know i talk about how like i never wanted to be an actor i don't like i know people who are actors and artists who just like boy they cannot wait to get up on that stage you know they cannot wait to like get into the material like it is it's their thing i have a friend my friend of mine right now is about to start doing grease and she's so excited that she's playing rizzo in Greece, you know, and I'm watching the pictures of the table read. She loves every bit of it. And I'm seeing her, she's like crazy about it and loves it, right? If I were there, I would love

the camaraderie, being in a cast, the relationship before, when we're, when we're lucky enough to land in a cast where we genuinely like each other and we, and there are no divas. And we form those really great meaningful friendships that for us from next generation have lasted for 30 years, right? Like, I love that. I don't necessarily need the like being on the set thing that like my friends who really really want to this right do it right i get that when i'm writing when i'm storytelling when i'm hosting ready room for cbs like i get it in all of those different places so like it is the camaraderie and that the artistry the all of us kind of working together to generally row an enormous enormous ship that none of us could move by ourselves

but if all of us row in the same direction we can move it a little bit that's cool i love that uh the book is still just a geek uh it's the follow up to just a geek will weton i uh this is the book it's amazing should i read the book or should i the audio i would strongly encourage you with you narrating i would encourage you to grab the audio yeah if you've enjoyed this conversation i've loved then then i believe you will i think i hope that there will be some familiarity in the audio version of it i can can't wait. It just feels like I'm going to learn so much. I've learned so much from having you. I hope one day you'll come back. I would love that. And look, man, no, no fantastic.

No pressure, no expectations. I'm curious to know what you get out of it when you're done with it if you wanted to. I'm just curious. I could tell if it's anything like this conversation. I'm going to just love it. Because this is just, it hits home in a lot of ways that you, you wouldn't know because I haven't expressed. But there was so many times where you, you were speaking, where I was just going, wow wow and another thing is i was looking at ryan who was like going wow because he didn't have this kind of childhood he had unconditional love oh dude that's the best so coming from someone who's had and he's just like it's so foreign to you right and it's and it's tragic it's tragic but it's also wonderful that you're here and you're so open and forthcoming and i just i'm glad you came by

and i thank you for allowing me to be inside of you today yeah what's your handle what's your Instagram handle. So it's, uh, I am. It's Will Wheaton. It's Will Wheaton. It's Will Wheaton. Um, and if, and if your listeners want to find me and don't want to remember a ton of information, will weaton. net is my blog. Great. Everything is where everything is there. They're blog and they can find out everything you're doing. Everything. Everything. Everything is there. Because you're doing so many things. This guy is full of ideas, full of great things. So what is again, the website? Willweaton.net. Willweaton.net. Folks. And check out this book. Still, just a game. geek. This has been an absolute joy. Thanks for being on the show. It's been a real privilege.

It's been awesome. I mean, I didn't expect him to be that open. I mean, yeah, you didn't have to do much. And that's, that's always nice when the guest is willing to come in and really go for it. Yeah. It makes my job so much easier when I don't have to pry shit out of them and they're just open to talking about depression. That's what you want. And all in their parents, boy is, what a relationship he had or lack of with his family that makes me really sad i mean we all have relationships with our parents whether they're bad or good or somewhere in the middle but his was was south of bad yeah it was rough it was rough i appreciate you well for uh being so um for vulnerable forthcoming um it's nice it's good it's good to hear it's not good to hear that it happened to you

but it's good for other people to hear your story and it will help them i hope um uh thank you guys for listening today um it's been a really crazy week crazy week i'm still dealing with my anxiety um ryan how are you doing just still dealing with it as well yeah i'm just in a different way yeah you got to keep talking yeah you always feel free to call me dude yeah seriously i go through it every day so you know i'm here i always i know i know i know it's like i freaking know exactly what anxiety feels like and depression i know what they feel like so if you ever have any issues and you're like i need somebody who besides better help of course because uh you know they're your therapist but if you ever want to talk to a friend yeah about hey did you

ever try this drug or did you ever try this medication or have you ever felt like this just to relate sometimes that helps well i'll take you up on that take me up on it dude yeah seriously yeah um thank you patrons we're going to read the top tier patrons patron dot com slash inside you to support the podcast uh i love you and become a patron and i'll send you a message here are the shoutouts here we go nancy d lea s sarah v little lisa ukeko jill e b bryan h nico p robert b jason w sophy m christin k not to be confused with christin crook correct raj c josh josh d jop jennifer n Stacey L. Jamal F. Janelle B. Kimberly E. Mike E. L. Don Supremo, 99 more. Ramira, San Diego M. Chad, W. J. J. M., J. M., J. J. H., Dave H., Tabitha, T., Tom and Lilliana. A. T. T. T. M. Betsy D. Chatt, L. Marion, Dan N. Big Stevie W. Angel M. Reanne and C. Corey K. Dev Nexon, Michelle A. Jeremy C. Andy T. G. Gavanator. David C. John B. Brandy D.

That's a bong hit. Yvore. Camille S. The Chief. Joey M. Design OTG. Eugene and Leah. Hi guys. Nikki G. Corey K. Or no, Corey, just Corey. Katie B. Nicole, Patricia, Heather L. Jake B. Megan T. Mel S. Orlando C. Caroline D. Christine S. Sarah S.

Eric H. Jennifer R. Shane R. M.R. R. M. R. Jeremy B. Andrew. M. Robert G. Zatoichi, Zatouichi, 77. Hello again. I've screwed it up again. Andreas. An or Andreas. Andreas. Oracle. Chris R. Michael F. Karina N. Samantha W. Michelle D. Amanda R. Lovecraft E. Amanda S. Gen B. And Kevin E. Those are the top tiers. I thank you for listening. If you really enjoyed Will Wheaton, you're still listening right now. Tune in next week. Please subscribe. please follow us on our handles. You know them by now.

They're right here if you don't or just rewind to the beginning of the show. We love you. From myself in the Hollywood Hills, California, Michael Rosenbaum. Brian is here in the Hollywood Hills, California. A little wave over to the camera. We love you.

Be good to yourselves, all right? I'll see you next week. Hi, I'm Joe Sal C. Hi, host of the Stackin' 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. Buying a vehicle. A separate bucket for this edition 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. Stacky Benjamin's, follow and listen on your favorite platform.