Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Suicide Squad’s DAVID DASTMALCHIAN: Keeping a Healthy Baseline

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

David Dastmalchian (Suicide Squad, Animals) gives us the pleasure of joining the podcast this week to bravely discuss the intensity of his previous battle with heroin addiction and how he was able to channel his experiences into doing massive roles like Polka-Dot Man in The Suicide Squad. We also talk about his new Dracula themed movie, living on a boat, and stigmas of mental illness and drug use. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Light the path to a brighter future with stellar lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for SLR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. You're listening to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum. Thank you for listening today. I always say it. Thanks for tuning in without you. Where are we, Ryan?

God. God. I don't know. The infinite space between us and God. Yeah, I think that's where we are. We need you. We love you. We love that you tune in.

I hope you're having a glorious week. Hopefully you're taking care of yourself, doing something productive, having a little purpose in your life. Yeah. you know um my uh good buddy preston christensen he's 16 years old he has terminal cancer and uh i love the kid and uh going to visit him and his family and uh it's tough man you see a little kid so bright so cheerful so lovable so smart and creative and uh it just sucks man but he's so strong it's like i god i wish i was half as strong as this guy but i want to give a shout out to him

He's a beautiful, beautiful soul. And we probably have to play one of his songs. He has a song that he's never really saying other than playing a little guitar, but he recorded a song. So, actually, I have to edit this. Is it streamable? No, it was just, he did a cover of a Blake Shelton song. Oh, cool.

He's 16. He's never been in a recording. recording studio before. Do you do this at home or do you listen to a studio? No, studio, but he just sang. They already had the music right. Pretty good, huh? it's really good

I'm so proud of them listen to this chorus here we don't have to be lonely tonight we do want to be lonely tonight Anyway, big shout out to Preston. He's a killer. He's a man of many talents. And I love him.

And I love Michelle and Chris and the family thinking about you guys. And, you know, hey, I'm thinking positively. That's what I'm doing. Thinking positively. Great guest today, David Dostmalsh. If you don't know him, you should. Great story. He's polka dot man in the suicide squad.

movie he's he's in dune he's uh he's always working now and he is such an amazing person aunt man the crazy guy from dark night yep that's a very famous scene done he's just done a lot of great stuff and he's going to get big and big i see his instagram just exploding and after a suicide squad so i love having him in the podcast we're going to get right into that but first thank you for joining me uh this last saturday on stage it we had two shows we had my buddy tom lally who was in Left on Laurel with me. And he joined Sunspin and we sang some old Left on Laurel songs and it was a blast. Also, I'll be in Detroit with Tom Willing and we'll do a small little nights on December 15th,

that weekend, Saturday and Sunday. So make sure you get tickets for the Detroit Con. And also, if you want to give back to the podcast, some people really support the podcast, so many great patrons. But go to patreon.com slash inside of you and join patron. And so many great friendships have, have what, have spawned, materialized. There we go. Come to be.

Our handles are at Inside of You podcast on the Instagram and Facebook and at Inside of You pod on the Twitter. I hope you'll continue to support us and listen to the podcast. There's so many podcasts out there, but hopefully every week you're listening to this one at least once or twice and telling all your friends, please do. We're also available on YouTube if you want to watch it, which is always fun. But right now, let's get into my dear friend, great, great guy. David Dussmulchin.

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. Dude, it's great to see you. Where are you? I'm in Malta, the beautiful island country of Malta, which is about, I don't know, 100 miles, maybe not even, 50 miles south of Sicily. So we're in the middle of the Mediterranean,

and I'm on my last leg of a very long and exhausting shoot. So it's so nice to see you. This is like you're the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel for me. I'm coming home. Yes, yes. we all miss you. What are you shooting? It's a film called The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and it's an interesting story. It is lifted from a chapter from Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it's actually a story because I write as well,

and it's a story I've always wanted to write into a screenplay. It's a fascinating tale. It reminds me of kind of like alien except set on a schooner in 1897, so it's the bow. that travels from Bulgaria to London and the crew doesn't realize that in the hold is the Prince of Darkness himself, Dracula and all of his belongings because he's moving himself to Carfax Abbey in London. So the whole film takes place on this ship

from beginning to end and we've been living, we've been living the life. It feels like I've been at sea for four and a half months, man. How often, how many crew members got sick? Oh, you know what? We did a sailing thing, but most of the time we're on a control. There are, we're in this giant tank on the edge of the sea. So, and it's like an infinity pool, like optical illusion.

So I don't know because if someone got sick, they weren't stuck with us. They could just hop off and get away. But I saw at least four or five people. And we're on, what do you call them? you know, the things that make something shake. So they're always like, you know, doing this number and... Right, effects machines or whatever, that just kind of turn the boat and things like that. Wow, and you wrote this.

No, I didn't, sorry. I didn't, I, I always wanted to write this film. Then, about two years ago, I pitched the idea to a friend, who's an exec who said there's already a script and it's amazing and it's being made by amblin and then I just did everything I could to get an audition for the film which I did and miraculously I got cast so you're serious what are the odds of that you want to do something you find out there's a script you get an audition and you get the part I went I hadn't gone this hard and heavy after something in I feel like since maybe like theater like I I

chase this thing, fought for this thing, I put together the best, because this is COVID times, you know, I had to tape this audition with my lovely understanding and patient wife, who helped me as three massive setups for the audition, big dialect work, it's a period piece, it's a character that's very much not like anything I've had the privilege of doing before. He moves differently than I've ever moved. He speaks differently than I've ever spoken. and so it was like I almost built a whole character just for the I mean I did I built I built a whole role for just the audition and when when I sent it off I honestly had a lot of peace because I said there's just no way there's just no way and then lo and behold like a few weeks later well what did you do though like when you said like you're yourself what we do here if you're listening you don't understand the process is a lot of times you tape, especially with COVID, you put yourself on tape. Now, your background, a lot of people would just use the background. You have a hotel room or wherever you're staying, and they'll just

read the scene and hopefully they get cast. But you did more than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we were we were renting a house in Burbank because there was some emergency construction that we were having to do at our house. And so we were renting this house. And the bedroom, for some reason, and they had these drawstring curtains. I never figured out what they were for, but not for the windows, like going over the closet or going over one of the walls.

I don't know. But there's three scenes that they sent me. Each one was three to five pages. It was a grandchild of, like, 12 pages of scene work. And the first scene is my character, who is the first mate of this ship. He's trying to round up a crew. and it's a very loud, you know, abrasive kind of scene.

Then there's a very confrontational scene which takes place in the hold of the boat, which I wanted to do a completely different setup. So I did that against like a big wooden, you know, dresser. It looked like I was maybe, there was some wood, maybe it felt like a boat. And then for the last one, it was a really emotional scene and we framed the camera like as close as probably I am here with you.

And, and I just, you know, you got to just shoot for the fucking, sorry, you got to shoot for the, dude, we F all the time on this show. Oh, okay, you got to shoot for the fucking fence. You got to go, you got to swing. And I reached out, the character I play is Polish, so I reached out to my friend who is big and he's a linguist and he's connected to people all over the language community because I didn't want to go to a dialect coach. I wanted to actually work with a Polish speaker to get some specific nuance. and when that wonderful person agreed to work with me for the audition, I said, if I book this, I'm going to hire you as my dialect coach. I put it out in the universe and I booked it and then I hired them to be my dialect coach

and they've become a good friend. Do they come out with you or they have to just... They live in Poland and they, we did all of our work through Zoom, but they are, they have a background in theater and they love, they just, they never work professionally as a dialect coach, especially for a movie. Are you kidding? And they were like, this is so cool. So we had them down to Berlin because we were shooting in Berlin for the first few months.

So they came down to Berlin and they got to come to because of COVID again. It's like so ridiculous. Like they can't come within 400 feet of whatever, but they got to at least go to, we shot the Berlin stuff at Babelsberg Studios, which anyone watching, look it up. It's one of the most historic film studios in the world. I want to say it's the oldest. I could be wrong. I have my little book on 100 facts about Babblesburg.

But it's really amazing place where they filmed Metropolis, Fritz Lang's Metropolis. They filmed tons of, you know, Marlena Dietrich stuff. And so anyway, yeah, they came and hung out. You really do the work. Like I hear a lot of actors and a lot of times we'll just, you know, we'll just do it, whatever, but you really dive into something and especially an audition that you don't know you're going to get and you're probably thinking, eh, I probably won't get it. I don't know what your mindset is, but to work so hard on 15 pages of dialogue and different setups and working with a dialects coach, I mean, that's extreme to try and get a role, but you think that that's the way you get roles. That's what you're saying. what works for me

and I think this is everyone's journey as you know is so specific to the individual it's so weird what we do and the whole path is so strange and elusive and it feels so much like the lottery so often so the things that are within my control

which I can have some say so in is my energy and where I'm going to put the energy and I when it comes to something that I want to go after like doggedly like there's something that I I just I know I I will I will focus the energy on that and possibly maybe not do you know five or six auditions in a month but maybe just

focus on that one or that two thing but give it all I've got which is really tricky and it's risky and it takes a lot of a lot of overcoming my fear because you second guess yourself a lot and you go, oh, maybe I would have done better. Maybe that other one would have been easier. Maybe that, but you just, I try to make really, you know, and this, like I said, this was a story that when I first read Dracula, 20 years ago probably, I've read the book numerous times since. I always said, Rosie, like, what a story.

I mean, it's like, it's like alien at sea in the 1800s, you know? It's like, it's so scary. And I think that the guy who's directing it, his name's Andre Overdahl. He made a film called Troll Hunter. Oh, my God. Guys, if you have not seen Troll Hunter, it is awesome. It's a movie. Oh, God, dude.

He's such a visionary. He did the autopsy of Jane Doe, which I loved. He did scary stories to tell in the dark, which I went and saw when I was in by myself in a movie theater. Oh, wow. You're in good hands. he is yeah and and and to go by the way just saying going along with the the audition tape I wrote a letter to the director telling him not only my you know passion for the material but um you know that I'm that how much I loved troll hunter and um also I don't know if

you know this about me but when I was in college I went to the theater school to which is where Sean Gunn, which is where Michael Rooker, which is where Judy Greer, a bunch of our friends went. But when I was there, I was on a scholarship for academics, but I didn't have any money to pay for my housing. So I had to take a break from school and I went to Alaska and lived as a fisherman on a boat for a year. And then I did it several times after. And being at sea is something I always thought was going to be part of my life. And then obviously acting became my my and you told him this you told him this i did i said i've lived on a boat i think i could offer some insights i um wow i think you're amazing and i you know and i of course tried to be as

gracious as possible like obviously you know um i cheer for this film no matter what whether i'm involved or not i know you're going to make an awesome movie and um and then i got the call 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.

This is just a wonderful app. There's a lot of apps out there that really, you know, you have to do this and pay for and that. But with Rocket Money, it's, they're saving you money. You're getting this app to save money. I don't know how many times that I've had these unwanted subscriptions that I thought I canceled or I forgot to, you know, the free trial ran at Ryan. I know you did it. That's why you got rocket money. I did, yeah.

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Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from my show. Did you have, was it more than that one audition? Or was that it? Was that enough? That was it. And so to give your viewers a little context to, I have been without the benefit of representation, either management or agent for it was about four

years when I booked this job. It had been since the end of 2016. Wait a minute. You represent yourself? I did. I did. And then just in the last month, I've actually found a partnership that I really like for management. But I did represent myself. I have a great attorney who handles my, um, you know, contract negotiations. And he is when I land the job, then I pass everything over to him. But I have been kind of hunting and chasing. So with this particular job, I found out who was casting it. I reached out to them directly and sent my materials over. And then they said, you know, there's really nothing for you in this film. Um, but, You know, and that was all I heard.

And then about two weeks later, I have a mutual contact with the director. I had said, please, you know, let Andre know if there's anything I could do. And the friend said, he said you're a fantastic actor. There's nothing for you in this film. What? And then I said, okay, I tried. I did my best. Another week later, I got an email from the casting director saying,

we know this is not your normal wheelhouse but if you want to take a stab at this character we'd love to see what you would do with it and again I read it and I was like holy crap I've never done anything like this in my career this character is so I understand him but yet I've never had the opportunity to get to bring someone like him to life and so I threw myself into it

I sent that audition tape the letter and everything to casting about a month went by and at that point I was starting to look at okay what's my next passionate thing is there is there something else out there that I really want to fight for or go after

and I wasn't nothing was definitely coming in my whatever radius and I just I sent an email to the castor director and I said just checking in and I go back and they said actually the director really loved your material but we are we're still a ways away from making a decision well a TV show a very cool

seeming TV show emailed me and said you know we are our producers and director interested in having you be a part of this a show and I was like oh that's amazing thank you and I immediately went back to the casting director and I said this offer is coming in now to go and be I'll be out of the touch for like five months so I just want to make sure you know and they wrote back thank you but there's no way we can't make a decision for I like the I like the sort of like the way your mind works how you did that it was kind of a manipulation in a in a good way like hey I just got hired for something I really want to do this project are you sure you're but okay so go ahead this is this is good and and then Friday morning

I got to, I was in the shower. I had a phone call ringing from a 310 Beverly Hills number. And I answered it. And it was the business affairs office from Amblin Entertainment calling to say they wanted to start contract negotiations on the movie. Holy shit. And I was butt naked and I ran out of the shower and I grabbed Eve. And, um, yeah. My God.

The work, by the way, can I hear it? Or, I mean, I know most actors don't want to do this, but can I hear a Polish accent just a little? Here's the thing about Polish. What's different with, because if you've seen any of some of the recent years' work I've been doing with, like, Eastern European characters, there's, I've definitely done Russian in several roles. And I've done, actually, like a, it was because the character

was kind of disguising himself, but like a very blanket Eastern European. And so with Polish, one of the things that's... I found to be quite different was some of the rounding of the vowels. And even the way, like, if you're thinking about something, you and I might go, you know,

when you're in character and you're trying to, like, communicate that, like, you're considering something. There's these little minutia details that I was so grateful, to have Han, my friend, my, my friend who dialect coached me, because I'd be like practicing a line and be like, hmm, uh, and they would be like, no, no, no, no, no, we don't do that. We say, eh, eh, no, I do it, eh.

I want to learn, like, give me a sentence, see if I could do it. Go ahead. Okay. Um, um, um, how about this is a simple one? Pull, you bastards. Pull. He's just saying pull, you bastard. Poole, you bastards, pool.

You bastards. And roll that R. Bastards. Pool, you bastards. Pool. Come on, man. Join the boat. Join the boat.

Oh, man. That's... It's a cool cast, too, because it's got... I'm the only Polish character. There's a Russian character. There's a Norwegian character. There's several English characters. Two Irish characters.

I want to see this. This sounds so cool. What's it called again so we could look out for? when it's going to come out because you're just still filming it. What's it called? So people put it on the radar. It's called Last Voyage of the Demeter, although who knows what it'll be called when it comes out a year from now, you know. It might be called like vampire boat.

Who knows? Or it could be called Dracula's journey or the prince's journey. The S.S. Dracula. S.S. Dracula. I am Dracul. Remember Gary Oldman. I am Dracul. He was so good in that.

Mina, I have, what is it, Mina, I have, what is he, what is the big saying? I have it on my poster because he signed it to me. I have crossed oceans of time to find you. Didn't you love him in that? He's so great, man. He's so great in everything. But Dracula, Coppola's Dracula is like go-to for me. And there is, if you go back and watch the movie, there's a little snippet where you see the boat come into port in London.

and you see a wolf jump off of the deck. That's Dracula. And that was, so this movie is about that whole journey of that boat. Because in the book, the boat comes to port, and there's nobody on board except for the captain who's lashed to the wheel. And so you've got to see what happens. Wait a minute, though. You're saying that the Polish guy dies?

I just became a Jew. My character was too Jewish, there. I would never say that. I am, I look at every movie as if I'm the hero of the movie. So my character never, my characters never die. You know what's funny is that, you know, I was talking to my engineer Ryan, Ryan, say hi. Hi.

Hi, Ryan. And you can't see Ryan, but you should. He's a very handsome man. But, you know, I was like, you know, if you say David Dalsmultz, a lot of people would know who you were talking about. If you said Michael Rosenbaum, a lot of people wouldn't know what you were talking about. If they saw your face, though, that's what he said. Because when you see his face, you're like, oh, I've seen him.

I've seen him in a lot of things. And you're kind of like that guy who's done a lot of great work, but like this character actor. And then you start to dissect it and you're like, okay. And how old are you? I'm 45. 45. Wow, you don't look 45. You look younger.

I'm not hitting on you either. Thank you. Yes. It's all the Evian skin cream. But a movie comes along like Suicide Squad. and we'll get into that. But, like, I look online and there's a McFarlane figure

of you now. Do you know that? And it looks like you. I don't have any doll that looks like me. I mean, you know you've made it when McFarland makes a doll of you. I mean, it's a huge thing because you've been doing all these characters. You're a writer.

You're a director. You've been through it all. And at 45, you land a role. And I noticed this because I kept checking because I'm weird. that your Instagram just kept going up and up. It was like 120, 140, 160, 200, 220, 240. Like, all these people are following you

and your IMD pro meter number was just going down and down and down and down's good because the lower numbers is. And I'm like, good for fucking Dave Dalsmaltzmaltian. I mean, how do you feel right now? And we're going to get in this because I want to go back in time a little bit. but how are you feeling about all this? Thank you for asking. Thank you for the compliments.

I love you. You know, I'm a huge fan of your work, and I've been a fan of your work since long before I actually met you in person on the back porch at James Gunn's house. I've been a fan of yours for a very long time. So that's very nice and touches my heart.

Thank you very much. I, two things. The first is I have been in a bubble. for since june i was in berlin with my family and then to malta come you know beginning of um august and in both of those bubbles we are not only in a covid bubble bubble for production but also the bubble of like my reality has been being on this boat fighting dracula or being with my family and completely out of touch with everything that's going on in the rest of my life including you know family back home and my things happening with my career back home and so my kind of context and

connection to all of this has been through social media and like texts and my phone and so that has been weird but nice people have been very nice and thank God people have been very supportive of some of the stuff recently that's you know blown up but um the other thing and I'm And I hope we can talk about this today because I know you're not going to shy away from talking about, you know, the stuff that is a little more, you know, awkward or uncomfortable. And I've been wrestling with this. I've been in kind of a, I've been definitely below my baseline, airing towards the depressive because I can go down to deep depression and I can go way up into, you know, high anxiety and manic modes. So finding my baseline is kind of part of my daily journey, if you will. It's my lifelong journey.

Just being at peace and serene with like that baseline. I'm struggling with the fact that I feel so grateful that like you're saying, like my followers all of a sudden doubled and tripled and quadrupled. And people were being so gracious and kind and neat, professional opportunities were kind of flowering and lots of exciting, wonderful, neat things happening. And yet my family had to leave and go back to the U.S. about a month ago, and that's really hard for me. They are a big part of my, not only my support system, but kind of just probably in an unhealthy way. I am insanely dependent upon even the kids for a lot of.

of my settling and baselining, and I need to work on that because I am a grown adult and I should be able to do that without, you know, leaning on others. But they are. They're a big part of that. And I faced some really difficult moments in the course of making this film that I'm working on that made me feel dark. And those were both creative moments and also just production moments to be quite frank and someday we'll have coffee and I can download you on all of it, but it's just needless to say, you know, sometimes this business can really make you really hurt. And so all these wonderful things are happening. And then at night, I'm laying there feeling really blue and dark. And I've been wrestling with this kind of a sense of guilt

over not just being like so happy all the time that like James's movie turned out so awesome and people loved it and you know, Poca Dot Man so cool and the Dune stuff looks so cool and so many neat things are happening and so that I've been wrestling to be honest lately

In other words you're wrestling with the fact that you have so much to be grateful for but you feel so down which is making you upset that you're feeling so down about all the good that's happening around you and you can't quite understand it or wrap your head around it. But maybe is it something that you've dealt with your whole life where you know you have ups but you're still feeling down?

I mean, this isn't something that's just happened on this movie set. Absolutely not. And I've definitely been, it's been some insanely challenging, you know, things and just some chemical things, I'm sure, you know, just my brain naturally, some reaction. to I think the overwhelming sense that a lot of people were like looking at you. You know, that's a weird thing when you're in a TV show or when you're in a movie

and all of a sudden you realize how many people are just like looking at you and you become, you can become like grossly self-conscious. I mean, I'm sure you, I'm sure all of us experience that as actors. And so I am, as we speak, doing the work like, getting up early, trying my best to make sure I get out of bed when I don't have to, even though I would be tempted to stay in it for too long, trying to eat well, trying to do my yoga, trying to do my meditations, doing my therapy. And I guess I just always look at these public conversations as like an opportunity to hopefully,

if anybody's listening, that seems like, my God, I have a beautiful partner. I have a job that I love. I have things that I love. and yet I still feel like I've got the blues. What's wrong with me? The answer is nothing. Nothing's wrong with you. This is just an unfortunate paradox of, you know, the human psyche sometimes.

And I think I just happen to be in it. So that's a, you were not, you did not ask for that. No, I welcome. You know that I welcome that on this show, especially with people listening. Because I think everybody just assumes that we all are happy and we should be grateful and we are. but there's there's a thing called mental illness there's a thing called depression there's a thing called anxiety there's a thing that a lot of us get and a lot of my guests that are big stars and they they get it and it's it's sort of we've got to sort of break the norm of of you know what's

you know supposed you know we're not supposed to be deprived of course we are we're a fucking human beings this is just life ever wonder how dark the world can really get well we dive into the twisted, the terrifying, and the true stories behind some of the world's most chilling crimes. Hi, I'm Ben. And I'm Nicole. Together we host Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast that unpacks real-life horrors one case at a time. With deep research, dark storytelling, and the occasional drink to take the edge off, we're here to explore the Wicked and Reveal the Grim.

We are Wicked and Grim. Follow and listen on your favorite podcast platform. and but you've been dealing with this your whole life i mean you you know we could go back to and i didn't know this until recently but you're so open about it that you know you had a you had a heroin addiction i mean and you how old were you when this happened i first started using um when i was around 18 um and that evolved into full time usage by uh i mean 18 was like an experimenting and experimenting with all different kinds of opiates but then i started using full time um from 21 20 21 to 26 uh which is when i got clean man i got to do the math but yeah i

I want to say 26 or 27. Wow, that's a long time because most of the time you hear if you do heroin once, you're going to die because you're going to, because you're going to, you know. I am so lucky and I use that word delicately because, yes, I did work hard. Yes, I got the support of an amazing recovery support group and, you know, I had family that even though they had to like write me off and tough, not write me off, they had to cut me off and tough love me and like not pick up the phone. they never gave up on me.

If that makes sense. You know, I think in recovery, it's so tempting to like let the person crash on your couch, let the person borrow 50 bucks, let the person get a new phone. They had to cut that shit out, but they always said,

we're here, we love you, blah, blah, blah. And friends too. But so, but luck, I do feel this immense, and that's one of the things

that helps me on this journey of battling my blues is every day taking an inventory of things that I'm grateful for, and I have so much to be grateful for, not least of which is the fact that I'm just alive, that I didn't end up in prison, that I didn't end up dead, and I'm here. So it's nothing short of a miracle. And so you say your gratitude every day. You say your gratitude's in the morning. I do my best. I fail sometimes, but I, when I'm pissed off and feeling resentful,

sometimes I'm like fuck why blah blah blah you know and then take some great breathing if you can just if you can just give five minutes to shift the way you're breathing and the way your body's like contacting space it always helps again anybody watching like this sounds so ridiculous and new agey but like if you can give yourself a time out and just take five minutes to change the way you're breathing the way your brain is getting it's oxygen everything then I can go over and be like, oh my God, Eve married me. That's all I've ever to say for the rest of my life. She fucking married me.

Like, that's gratitude forever. That's an endless fountain of fucking gratitude. I have beautiful kids. I have incredible friends. I have, I'm clean and sober, you know, miraculously for another day. I'll never wave a victory flag or say that I've defeated the monster that is addiction. I believe that, you know, it lives around, always kind of waiting, you know, and that's just a good metaphor for me to keep it in check, you know? I, um, and it's one of the

reasons why I used to fuck around a lot back when I first started getting clean and I'd be like, I was so resentful that like I could hang out with people I really dug and they could just put away three glasses of wine and then they'd walk away and they maybe drink next week. I'd be around people who could smoke pot, you know, for me, my disease, it like, it just it never worked. Every time I would just pick up the one thing, it would just ultimately spiral really fast and lead back to me copping. And so I, you can never have one drink or one smoke. It'd be like you'd have to. I just don't, I don't see the point in, it's been 19 years now, Rosie. Jesus. Congratulations, man. I don't see a point in.

and spinning that roulette wheel, you know, and like, why would I? I just, but that's like I say, I would never be like, I've got that. Because I feel, I bet the house that I could drink a glass of wine tonight and not use tomorrow. I would bet the house. Am I going to take that risk, though? Am I going to make that bet? Oh, no, dude, because it just, it would, it makes no sense.

Well, because then it probably starts, I did it then, I could do it again. And I can do it again until you really fuck up and you go down that hole. Yeah. And I was also treating undiagnosed, you know, mental issues that thankfully as I got into recovery and I came up against a lot of, you know, conflict in the recovery community. And anybody who has been, who has experienced the recovery community or anyone who's ever been privy to it, knows that there's as much inner um infighting and different opinions about how things work as there are in like religious religions you know what I mean it's like it's so crazy and there

are people that are we're like taking psychiatric medications was some form of you know drug use and I was like well tough shit I'm taking I I work with a great psychiatrist and I found a medication that worked incredibly well for me. after you know a lot of work and um that's a part of my journey as well you know um so yeah that's the only uh that my allergy medicine i take something for cholesterol uh some vitamins some fish oils um some proteins those are the only things i'm ingesting it do you think that you were like you know were there reasons sometimes people just get into something like you know drugs but was there depression then? Was there some sort of imbalance before that kind of prompted you to get

into that? For certain. And I think I've always wanted to talk to you about your experience considering, you know, what you did within pastor, like how much research or digging you did into the religious world or where that, you know, affected you personally or if you had any experience with that, I was raised very religiously to the point that when I started exhibiting suicidal ideation and depressive behavior at a pretty young age, pre-pubescent. Like 10-11, I was, you know, I had my first, like, full-on planned suicide. And I was treated with religious counseling, like Christian counseling, where, you know, you sit with the guy and he tells you that you're, you know, feeling anxiety because you've been whacking off

and he gives you some scriptures to read, and that's your treatment. And God love, my parent, they just didn't know better. I'm not blaming them, but I think then when I first got my hands around a Budweiser bottle, and I felt that sweet, sweet elixir hit my lips. And I was like, oh, I feel like kind of normal. and then it was like what else could make me feel normal and then it was just the quest you know wow i mean so so at early age you were already getting these suicidal thoughts you already knew something was not quite

right and your parents didn't know how to help you so it just kind of uh you went into a tailspin i guess eventually right yeah and they couldn't control i was i was what you call high functioning in the sense that like i was definitely uh scholastically you know above average throughout high school. I participated in extracurricular activities. I loved theater and the arts. I also loved sport and I loved having a good time, obviously. But, you know, I was, it was a dangerous concoction because I was very good at, I mean, I was a good actor. It was good at pretending like, you know, I was okay. Yeah. How did you get off it? What was the final? Because you used to have to hit, I guess you have to hit rock bottom before something happens, right?

I was homeless. Anybody who is checking out this conversation and, you know, wants to, I wrote and acted in a film that my dear friend Colin Schiffman. Animals. Animals, yes. And if you guys ever get a chance to check it out, it's not my biopic, but it is definitely inspired by the reality. And in the film, you know, a guy and his girlfriend,

live in their car. And I did. I lived in a car for quite a while. I was stealing anything I could to resell to support my habit. I was, it was terrible, man. I was thoroughly ashamed of myself. As soon as I would start to get sick or come down and withdraw the shame and the guilt of what I had done with my life and all this opportunity, having been a privileged white kid from Kansas city who had gotten to go study acting at this amazing school was spending his throwing his life away on like smack i was like i was so ashamed and so embarrassed and i the voices that were like you're no good to the world you're no good to anybody who loves you because all you do is continue to bring them misery and suffering why why don't you do everybody one solid in your life

like finally do that one solid and actually think think about everyone but yourself for a minute and just be done and just end it. And so I made the most serious, I made several, I mean, I've made several attempts in my life, but the most serious attempt, which I came, you know, as close as you probably can come, um, uh, to committing suicide. And by a miracle, nothing short of a miracle, I survived. I was put into a, um, uh, state psychiatric facility in Illinois. I there was able to spend 30 days without drugs because I was kind of strapped to a cot. And then as I came out of that, I had learned some basic tools and I had gotten a taste of recovery and the potential of what was there. And my family was right there to say,

we love you, we're here to support you. And I realized that all that illusion that my brain had been, you know, tricking me into was, um, was just that an illusion and that I was going to use these tools that I had started to learn. Um, and I fucked up numerous, it took me a whole other year from that point to continue to relapse, continue to disappoint myself and others continue to like screw up. But I, I got there, man. And, um, I spent a numb, uh, like three or four years in Chicago, just working a day job and smoking cigarettes and writing. And I never thought I would get to act again. I never thought I would get to, um, you know, be creative in a professional sense. But I definitely was grateful because I had a futon and a TV and a cat. And, um, and then sure is

shit. Some friends of mine from the old theater days saw me working in the movie theater where I was working at nights and we're like you got to be we're doing this Oscar wild player we're doing I'm starting a theater company and they kind of pulled me lovingly back to where I belonged which was up on up on stage up you know memorizing text and creating characters that's it's where you belong it's amazing how your mind when especially when you're on something can just go to one one place which is let me do the world of favor by ending it as opposed to let me get clean and be successful and that way let's go that way but you don't think of that way

there's nothing left you know what i mean it's that's that's what it does it just cloud your thoughts and just it just it just depresses you even more and more it is a miracle that you're i'm so glad you're alive thanks man i mean jesus but you know animals i hear there was a rumor that for a long time you didn't want to associate yourself with the character exactly is that right like you didn't want You thought that where you didn't want people to think, oh, this is me. You're like, this is just the character I wrote. And it's not me and it took you time to really sort of say, hey, this actually is based on me. That's true.

I felt like once I started to work as an actor that the stigma around both mental illness and addiction were going to cloud or impede my ability. to get opportunities, which is probably just me projecting my own still shame that I was working through onto myself. So when we went into making animals, I said to Colin, I said to Mary Pat, Mary Pat Bentell,

who was one of our producers on the film. I said to Eve, my wife, and everybody else. I was like, we don't need to talk about the fact that I was an addict. Like, I'm here as a resource, if we have any questions, but I don't want people to know. And they all gently would say, you know, why? Of course.

Well, first they would go, we respect your anonymity. And anybody, again, who's watching or listening, know that, like, if you choose to get clean and sober, your anonymity is sacrosanct. And you never have to tell people. You don't have to. And I didn't have to at all. What was beautiful was the reassurance from, like, Eve and Colin and Mary Pat and all my other friends that were like, We think this movie is going to be really powerful. We think there's an opportunity for you to, you don't have to preach to anybody.

You don't have to tell them how to do it. You don't have to tell them where to go to rehab. You don't have to tell them which meeting to go to. Just seeing, because at that point, I would have been, I don't know, 10 years, 11 years clean. Just seeing that in itself is an example that can inspire people. And so we were filming a particularly challenging every day on that movie was so hard. And a reporter from the Chicago Tribune came to set, to do like a set visit and an interview about filming in Chicago.

And we went for a walk around Uptown and she said, we had a really lovely conversation. And then she said, you know, where did this story come from? And I was, you know, standing on a corner of a. neighborhood and uptown where I had first started to live when I'd gotten clean and I kind of saw it all come into focus and I said what the hell uh here's my story and ever since then it's been nothing but beautiful but again you're not required to do that I mean 13th stepping 12 stepping however you choose to go about sharing your message if you are you know in the road recovery is beautiful, but it's not required. You can always keep your privacy and go to meetings. You

don't have to tell anybody for me. It has become one of the great gifts speaking, doing interviews, talking about it, and giving people hopefully just a little glimmer of like that it can really happen. I love that. I love that you're so open about it because there are people out there that need help that need to hear this. They have to know that they don't have to say anything if they don't want to. And if they feel open to talk about it to help other people, they can do whatever they want. um not to say this is funny but it kind of amused me um is it true that in the premiere of the movie you were sitting next to eve's dad and there was a scene where he's inject the character was injecting heroin in his own penis and uh you sat next to your wife's father during this

how uncomfortable was that on a scale of one to 10 it was about a 450 um and get this. I was by myself. So Eve, Colin, and the rest of the team was in, we had a, uh, uh, we released in like 14 cities through oscilloscope when we came out. So the premiere in LA happened the same night as the premiere New York. So I was the only person reppping the film in New York. And Eve is from New York. So her incredible family who loves me so much and they're so supportive. And I'm like, God, can you imagine? When I started dating Eve, you got to know, I was a an ex-junkey, a divorcee, an actor, like, like you, Matt, and her dad and her mom, they were both so open to loving me and getting to know me, and I'll always be so grateful.

So I'm sitting there next to her dad. And we had, you know, he had said, you know, like put the hand on the show, like, I'm very proud of you. I know you've been through a lot. I'm really proud of you, you know, I'm really, really glad you're, but we'd never, like, gotten into it, you know. But we're sitting there. there's a scene where I'm jamming a needle in my groin.

There's a scene where my butt cheeks are out. There's a scene where this guy's asking this girl if he could come on her face. I mean, it is like a rough ride. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. And what did you have? You know what? They had tears in their eyes and they gave me big hugs when the movie was over. And I'll always be so grateful to Eves family because I think that would have freak me out as a dad.

if I came walking in the door. Yeah, I could just imagine her father sitting there and it's just like his eyes are like, no, stay straight. Keep looking forward. Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't put your hand on him. You're thinking about patting his leg.

Like, it's okay, don't do it. Maybe he didn't do that. I don't know. Let's just keep it going. Let's just keep watching this film. But wow. I mean, I know my parents, I couldn't have done that. My parents, it sounds kudos to her family.

And they accept you. That's the whole part. of the two is being accepted for your flaws or whatever um i think it's a beautiful thing look they do they accept me and they love me and they've never made me feel like anything other than and i'm not i don't fit in great with you know i mean her dad's a golf guy and um you know he's sports guy and he's very you know he's he's run nursing homes his whole life and um but you know what love about them they always try to find a common ground with me and they always connect with me and i i try to do the same and and they you know they're they're my family you know they're like um i'm just so

lucky i married um i married a woman who has such an amazing family and i've got an amazing family too and i love um i love eve's relationship with my my family as well that's great it's rare it's rare i mean you've done dune aunt man you've done all these roles Suicide Squad comes up, and I remember that James Gunn, there was a video that was made. It was where James Gunn and Dave, Dave, our good buddy Dave, were singing a song from what? Set it up. Blue Velvet. Blue Velvet.

The In Dreams sequence from Blue Velvet. Yes. And who directed it, Dave? Dave directed it. And James played the Dennis Hopper. character from Blue Velvet and Dave played the Dean Stockwell character. I played the Kyle McLaughlin character and they basically Dave wanted to recreate that incredible sequence from Blue Velvet and yes. And it was amazing. It's really captivating, riveting. I love it. I laugh

my ass up when I saw it because it's all my friends in the video. And James says that it's from this little video that you did, tell me if I'm wrong, but he said you had, like, the way you were filmed was so unique and you had such an incredible face that that's where he, you popped in his mind about polka dot man? Is that true? I believe that is true. I believe that he, uh, he, I heard him say that, that, that he was watching me that night when we were filming and he was like, I, that's, that that's, that's, it's either that's my polka dot man or that guy, uh, he, he, he, has got such a crazy look on his face that I got to do something with him. And what a gift, man.

What a gift. Like, you know, it's such an interesting thing. Like, I don't think I've ever talked about work with you. I don't know if I've ever talked about work with James. I think most of my friends who do what we do, it's like when we get together, we're either playing games or we're talking about politics or who knows what we're talking about. But it's never like work stuff. So you just don't think the opportunity to get to collaborate with your friends,

which now, after the last couple of years, I am so fucking committed to like creating stories and opportunities where me and my friends can collaborate because it's just... I'll remember that. I'll remember that. I mean, seriously, dude. Me and Steve, Aegee, are like writing stuff right now. I've got, I write all the time.

I'm always now from, I'm committed to this because life is so short, man. It's so short. And I, I love what we do, but I would love, I love it even more when you're getting to, like, do it with people that you love. And not to say that there's not wonderful people you meet on the journey and you meet strangers and they become your friends. But, like, how great would it be if we got to, you know, go to a scene. That's exactly right. To work with your friends is something special. To be able to hire your friends on something is just, it's unique, it's hard to be able to do.

And, I mean, not really. I mean, you could shoot things for free and just hire your friends and keep doing it and have fun on all different levels. Give me the conversation when James called you and told you you want to play. He texted me. He texted you. You texted me. I was in Scotland. I wrote another film with a mutual friend of ours.

I didn't write it with her, but she starred in it. called All Creatures Here Below, which Karen Gillen stars in. Yep. And so I was in Scotland at the Glasgow Film Festival presenting the movie. So we were like six hours ahead of, maybe seven hours ahead of James. And he texted me. It's kind of late for me, like 11 or 12 at night. And he said, I want you to be part of the Suicide Squad.

And I was like, because I knew he was making the movie. And I was so exciting because I like just love. the idea of James Gunn making the suicide squad. So then I called him right back. And, you know, he was like, I want you to play Pocodont Man. And I was like, you know this about me. I'm a huge comic nerd. I've been collecting comics in my whole life and I know nothing about the Pocodont Man.

I mean, nothing about it. I was thoroughly embarrassed because I've always been excited at the prospect that if I ever got like a big role in like a superhero movie, I'd be the guy that would be like oh well which phase are we talking about was it you know and which writer would be what was the inspiration and I was like But you knew nothing

I knew nothing and then he sent me the script and it was just it was so beautiful man it was so incredible and I he didn't know this about me but I have Vitaleigo these spots

can you see them on the camera? A little bit yes yep and um i so it's kind of a white patch like white patches right i have white patches basically all over my body that haunted me as a kid and were you know the things that we think others are judging us by or care about you know are so just we're so wrong so much the time but that that was something that really i got i did get picked on about it And I had Pocodots, spots, milk mustache. I had a lot of bad nicknames.

But I said to him, like, you don't even know how incredible this opportunity is. And not to mention the fact that I had these five, and he was like, I don't even know about him. He's like, I've been friends with you for at that point, five or six years, maybe. And he was like, I had no idea. unbelievable you you know it doesn't know that i'm talking to you she's trying to call me say eve i'm talking to rosenbaum you know this because i told her last night um i'm not saying this because you're just with me but i've told everybody when i see the movie that you steal the movie entirely i thought that your character

it was absolutely my favorite character it was touching i just the way you played it if you haven't seen Suicide Squad, your character, polka dot man, is superb. It's superb the way you play it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Well, I just had to trust myself. James wrote, I mean, he, he created something so beautiful in all of his character. He never underwrites a character. Obviously, it's James Gunn. He's going to, like, write every one of his characters with like 360 degrees, fully, you know, dimensional. But I felt such a special connection to this. And anytime I was trying to put me English on it, any time I was trying to really, you know,

gleam it up or anything, it was so great because he could come in and just be like, you ain't got to do nothing. Just be honest. Just say the lines. And he knew, you know, I felt the way that Pocodot Man has felt a lot. Maybe not in such extreme ways.

Maybe I don't have an intergalactic virus, but I do have things that I'm ashamed of and I have felt, you know, obviously depressed. And so, yeah, it was, and you know what? Thank you for saying that, too. I just, I feel like everybody steals that movie. I know. There's a lot of great characters, but you're the one that touched me the most.

You're the one that I just, I immediately gravitated towards. And at the end, I was just like that, I mean, there was a lot of great characters, no doubt about it. I just, your character resonated with me. It just, there was something, you have magnetism. You have that, whatever it is, you're drawing. to you on screen. And especially in that role, I feel like a lot of people, that's why you're seeing the, you know, the rising in your Instagram numbers and all these things, because I think that you're such a great character. It's memorable. You're a McFarlane toy for God's sakes, but

it's, yeah. It's so crazy. It's so crazy. I face-timed with Arlo and Penny. They just got back to L.A. from New York yesterday. And I face-timed with them earlier. And the McFarlane toy and the Funko had arrived at the house in our absence and that we had ordered and so they were playing with them on FaceTime for me showing me. It was surreal to say it was so weird.

How hard is it honestly to work on a, I don't want to say James Gunn film but a movie with so much action, was so much, with so much going on. Like how exhausting is it on a day by day basis? It's hard. It's exhausting.

Luckily, it was such a huge ensemble that there was definitely downtime in between like you would work really hard for a few days on a scene and then maybe they'd be on to some other piece or it would be on to someone else's part of it you know and um but and and they were really good i mean james plans everything so thoroughly before you go into shooting and he works so intimately with his AD and his producers so they knew they had such a great of what we were doing, that even though it was so huge and so massive and so overwhelming, like every day was 10 hours, we would get in there, we would work our asses off and make discoveries and then go. I had not done anything physically like that before. There's a scene where thousands of gallons of water come flooding down on us and we're trying to swim against this massive torrent of water. There's stuff that you don't really see.

sea where we get dropped into the ocean um and had to swim through like this crazy ocean that james had built uh leave it to only james got he could build an ocean in the middle of georgia like holy shit dude it was so crazy um running with a cable and trying to like jump through the air uh like i'm leaping from building to building like it was crazy dude yeah it is insane all right this is called shit-talkin with Dave Desmaltian Dasmalkin. Okay, shit-talking. This is rapid fire.

Lee-Anpe, these are my lovely patrons. They support the podcast in many ways. I love them and they just have quick questions. Leanne P. What has been your favorite character to portray besides Pocodat man? Probably Jewed in animals.

Rightfully so. Razzie, what's your favorite moment of the set of Suicide Squad? My favorite moment on the set of Suicide Squad was when I had my big, I'm a superhero moment and I got really scared and I didn't know if I could get where I needed to get and all the moving pieces were going. It was a huge day in Panama. There's hundreds of crew. There's maybe 500 extras. There's Idrasilba standing next to me.

It's like, oh, my God, the pressure's on. And James, who is booming voices coming through the god might, which is, you know, reverberating all over just like comes to me. We have this really beautiful conversation, just the two of us kind of underneath an awning where nobody could hear. And it got me really in the most beautiful way, like where I needed to be. And then I yelled, I'm a superhero. I'm a motherfucking superhero. And it was a, it was just a great moment. And then boom.

Yeah, that was it. That's awesome. Matthew Jay. Hey, David. How is working on Dune been compared, how has working on Dune been compared to other projects you've worked on in the past? Did you read the novels before you got cast? And thanks.

I love your performances, especially the one in Prisoners. Ah, thank you, Matthew. I, um, working on Dune as with every Deney Villanume experience is, um, something that's very hard to quantify. It's a dream as an actor. He is an actor's director for certain. He loves nurturing and giving you clues and bringing you along,

but also allowing you to make discovery. He's intensely imaginative. And I've been a fan of the Frank Herbert novel for a very long time. I also loved the movie when I was a kid. And I hadn't seen it in a very, maybe when I was in college, I should say. I loved it when I was in college and I would get stoned and watch you. and I haven't watched it in a long time, but I had read Dune, Children of Dune,

and I was very excited. That one, just out of the blue, fell into my lap, and when he told me he wanted me to play Piter DeBreeze, I was so excited, and it was hard. It was hard, I will say, because the character is a Mentat, who is a human, who from the moment of, birth has been raised to basically be a human computer computational brain functions enhanced by

the spice that is, you know, very data-driven and just strictly computing and almost, and because he's twisted and he's been twisted by the bad guys by the Baron, my character is also like just it's kind of like a clinical sociopath computer and that was hard because it's like emotionless oh yeah

if you're even torture somebody it's emotionless there's no like I'm getting revenge on you're right but and I'm glad you liked prisoners I think that's a beautiful film and again that's the movie I met Denny on and I've been so lucky that he's now continued to cast me in his in his films

Raj what is the biggest I think we know the answer well maybe What's the biggest sacrifice you've had to make to pursue an acting career? The biggest sacrifice I've had to make to pursue an acting career was early on, you sacrifice all sense of stability and constancy. And as you're getting into recovery and mental wellness, one of the tenets of that is building for yourself a life. that has a great deal of structure, constancy, consistency, because that's a safe place to exist when you have, you know, vasculating moods when you have a propensity towards addiction.

So I took that leap and I'm really grateful. I did. It can be hard, as I told you earlier in the conversation. Sometimes it's really hard, but I think that is it. And you're exercising, you're doing all these things. things to like, when you get depressed, when you get down, you're at the last leg of this film. You force yourself to get out of bed, like you said. I remember my therapist said, what are you doing in the morning?

I go, I lie in bed. Well, how long do you lie there? And I'm like, well, I just keep lying there. And she goes, do you feel better? I'm like, no. What happens? I get anxiety. Why are you lying in the fucking bed?

Get out of bed. Go do something. There are a little basic things. You're like, you know, so now I'm like, stop out. You're out of bed now. now it's not you're not tired now you're just thinking you're in your head now it's time to get out of bed there's certain things you do what else do you do yeah first thing i do right when i get out of bed is i have this youtube channel that i subscribe to yoga yoga by cassandra 10 minute daily yoga i took the 10 minute challenge uh a long time ago and i've been doing it ever since i hate yoga are you kidding me i fucking hate it but i now i love it it's been great i love it and you meditate and And that's great.

Well, look, this has been awesome. I'm so glad you were able to talk to me. You're like, how many hours ahead of me? Nine. Nine hours. So what time is it there for you? 9 p.m. now. Do you work tomorrow?

I might work tonight, actually. I just saw a bunch of texts from the A.Ds that I've been ignoring. We're on overnight. You might work tonight and you're doing this podcast? I might. We're at that point, too, where they're like, we had to move 233. to, you know, now we're doing 241, and I'm like, I hate when they do that. Like, you're supposed to know what 2.41 or like, what scene numbers are one?

Like, is that the one where I'm fighting Dracula? Is that the one where? So you have to learn your, you have to pretty much learn your lines, the whole script. You learn it before you get in there, so in case they switch around? You know what was helpful for this movie? And I do have a good number of lines in the film, even though my character's kind of a quiet guy, working with my dialect. coach meant we were going through the script before we even went into production.

So I was more familiar with my text than I've been in a long time. That's great. Yeah. It's really nice. So when things would flip flop and when they would go, oh, you're doing that scene where you give that fucking speech today instead of next week, I'd be like, okay, okay, cool, you know. Isn't that something? And my dialect coach, they also, um, they recorded. all of my lines them saying it so whenever if i couldn't get a hold of them or if i had to do a

scene like that i would just skip ahead to like and listen and be like oh that's right debil not devil devil devil or whatever the devil the devil said this jesus well hey man this has been awesome real quick i got something because we i feel like we breezed by this earlier we were talking about gary oldman uh david very famously had a scene with gary oldman in the dark night and uh i just want to hear what that was like oh god what was the like work was with Gary Oldman. Great interjection. Because David had to play the unhinged one, and Gary Oldman had to be the straight man. Wow.

Well, two stories of my, so the first day I was ever on a film set was the Dark Night in Chicago. I went into hair and makeup, and along the makeup line was Heath Ledger getting his Joker makeup put on, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, me, Maggie Gillen Hall, and Nestor Carbone out. It was this really long hair and makeup. I was like, so, and I met him briefly. He was super nice. He had the mustache. He was, you know, he was Gordon through and through. And then when I was in London, I got to go to London to shoot the second part of my stuff,

which is where Harvey Dent, you know, tortures me and, or interrogates me. And Gary's trailer was nice. next to mine. And I used to smoke cigarettes. And he was smoking cigarettes at the time. So every time I'd hear him open his door to have a smoke, I would happen to just be open. I would be listening at the window. And then the door would open and I'd be like, oh, fancy running into you again. How's it going? And he was super cool, super nice, very chill, very, you know, unassuming as Gordon is. I mean, he had that energy. kind of well and I don't know if that's how he always works but he definitely felt you know like

just this nice quiet midwestern guy even though he's that's not who he is in real life at all he's my hero he's my favorite actor of all time there's no doubt about it he's a master i remember i my friend was working at carmines in new york carmines restaurant it's Italian restaurant he and he calls me on the home phone because you know they weren't selling phone. And I'm living with three guys in a one bedroom. And he says, Gary Oldman is here. He just came in with Isabella Rossellini for dinner. I go, I'll be there in 20. So I didn't have much money, but I got a taxi, went across town. And I waited until they were done with dinner. And when they were done with dinner, about to get the check, I just walked up. And I said, I just got to tell you,

hi, Mrs. Rossolini. Mr. Romney, you're my favorite actor of all time. And, you know, I just, I really love you and uh i just you know flew here from kentucky from college and you know and he's like you're an actor i said yeah yeah he's like you know i've flown over kentucky a few times and i said oh that's great he goes and we'll work together we will and he just but it was an intensity he had that in that gary old intensity gary oldman intensity that he just looked at me because I said, I really want to work. He goes, we will. We will work together.

And I just, I'll never forget it. I'm like, to this day, I'm like, one day I'm going to work with Gary Oldman. I'm going to say, hey, you said we'll work together. And he goes, yeah, I don't remember that. It's going to happen. Manifest it, man. I mean, he's the best. He is the best.

Favorite Gary Oldman movie. You're the best. This was like, I love that I got you inside of me, finally. Finally. I feel like it feels really nice. it does warm and toasty

yeah listen you are so engaging you're so open you're so you're welcome to come on any time I love this it's a long time coming I wish you continued success

I love your family I can't wait to your back please invite me to a game night I'm double vaxed I'd love to hang out with you cannot wait cannot wait all right

say say goodbye in Polish with a Polish accent okay this was very nice conversation thank you very much and for me. Bye. I love you.

Love you, man. Bye. I hope you enjoyed that. He got really personal, talked about his heroin addiction, which was pretty mind-boggling how he got out of that, how he survived.

He's a survivor, and he works every day on himself, and it just comes to show you that, you know, you put the work in and you change your patterns and you change your behaviors that you can change.

You can change for the better, and he's got a pretty great life. But it's a work in progress. He's always working. on himself he says it never it's not it's not like it's easy you have to do the work yeah so thank you and once again if you want to join patreon patreon dot com slash inside of you give to the podcast a little more i love sending boxes and little notes to uh all the top tier patrons i love uh doing an occasional youtube live i like doing all sorts of shit with my patrons i love you guys um and remember i'm

going to be in detroit the weekend of october 15th with tom welling so we'll do a small little nights we'll do some signings and all that jazz and another last shout out to my good buddy Preston Christensen. Love the guy so I just want to give a shout out to him. And here are the top patrons, let's do it. Cool. Nancy D. Leah S. Trisha. Sarah V. Little Lisa, Y, Uquico, still with us. Look at that.

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Ray H. Tab of the T, Lilliana, A, Turd K. Tird K. Yeah, that's Michelle. It's Tird. It's Tird. Something. It's Tird Burglary, Tird, Ferguson, maybe? Yeah, I said that last week. Tird Ferguson.

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Here's the last list. Super Sam. Coleman G. Dev Nexon. Michelle A. Liz I. Is it I? Yeah. Straight line. Okay. Jeremy C. Hi, Jeremy. Andy T. Cody R. Sebastian K. Gavanator, N.H. David C. Elliot M. John B. Brandy. Brandy. Carlyle. D. Yvore. Yvore. Camille S. Bono or Beno. Bano. Bano. Bano. Bano. The C. Joey M. Willie F. Christina E. Adelaide. N. Jeffrey M. Bridget A. Omar. I. Lina N. Design. O.T. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. Without you guys, I don't know what I would do. You save the podcast. You help the podcast by being a patron and every patron out there that gives to the podcast. So thank you very much.

This has been a glorious episode. I loved having Dave Dussmaltz on the podcast. And anything you want to say, Ryan, are you doing well? I'm doing okay. You're doing okay. You've been traveling a little bit. I want to say, I went to a concert for the first time. I saw your shirt.

And this band Lake Street Dive. I saw them at the Wiltern. It was heavy. Proof of vaccination required and masked the whole time. and it was wonderful. Thanks for clarifying. It was wonderful. They were great.

Yeah. Lake Street died. Giving them a shout out. Giving them a shout out. Also, God, just, man, I'm going to brought a friend who had never heard of them before and he was dancing the whole time. So it was really fun. Awesome.

I like hearing that. Good shout out. Also, so you know if you want any Sunspin merch, my band merch, or want to Zoom with me, go to sunspin.com. You can get on your merch there. And if you want any inside of you merch, go to Inside of You online store, you can get Lex Luthor stuff small but small the lunch boxes you can get all sorts of shit and a lot of inside of you cool stuff tumblers autograph stuff thank you for listening thank you for spending

an hour of your day with Ryan and myself um that's about all I got today guys so um you know life's good keep keep moving keep going ahead uh let's just say a friend had some major problems this past week and it got pretty dark and uh I'm glad I was there for that friend and um but it really, really was tough on me. It was tough. I don't want to get into it, but I just say it's good to be a good friend. If you got a good friend and you see some behavioral things

and you think they're kind of sliding, going down the hill, talk to them. People just need someone to talk to, someone who actually sounds like they give a shit, not just like, how are you? You know how people always say, how are you?

Oh, I'm good. Oh, great. Next time someone says, hey, you doing, then pass her bys, I'm going to go, eh, I'm all right. Excuse me? That was weird. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for allowing me to be inside each and every one of you from Michael Rosenbaum. And Ryan Tails. Tayas up here in the Hollywood Hills of California. You guys, much love to you. We'll see you on the flip side. Football season is here. Oh, man. Believe has the podcast to enhance your football experience.

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