New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce - Record-Breaking Signings, March Madness Mayhem & A Severance Waffle Party with Ben Stiller | Ep 130

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

92%ers we are back with another episode of New Heights presented by Nike! When the world says you can’t win, Nike says, “So Win” On today’s episode, Jason and Travis weigh in on the latest news from NFL Free Agency including revealing how much players snitch on their old teams, why the Cowboys are fighting online, and if the Bengals made the right call by signing Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to record-breaking contracts. We also have an incredible conversation with Ben Stiller. We get into everything from the guy's love of “Heavyweights”, what really happens at NFL training camps, who’s idea it was for Tom Cruise to dance in “Tropic Thunder”, if Ben would give up an Academy Award for a Knicks Title, and all of Jason and Travis’ biggest questions about “Severance.” Finally, we have potentially the least helpful March Madness breakdown of all time. If your criteria for picking teams involve fighting ability, if they shoot underhand free throws, higher GPAs, or any other broad generalizations, this bracket preview is for you! You can participate in the New Heights March Madness Bracket Challenge with the links below: Men's Bracket Link: https://bit.ly/NHMensBracketWomen's Bracket Link: https://bit.ly/NHWomensBracketYou can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. ...Download the full podcast here:Wondery: https://wondery.app.link/s9hHTgtXpMbApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-heights/id1643745036Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1y3SUbFMUSESC1N43tBleK?si=LsuQ4a5MRN6wGMcfVcuynwFollow New Heights on Social Media for all the best moments from the show: https://lnk.to/newheightshowCheck out all of our new merch’ at https://homage.com/newheightsSupport the Show:  NIKE: When the world says you can’t win, Nike says So Win! https://www.nike.com/w/college-teams-2wq2g AMERICAN EXPRESS: For full terms and to learn more about the powerful backing of American Express, visit https://americanexpress.com/withAmexAUDIBLE: Visit https://audible.com/newheights and sign up for a free 30-Day TrialTHE FARMER'S DOG: Get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food at https://TheFarmersDog.com/newheights. Plus, you get FREE shipping! ALL STATE: Checking first is smart. So, check https://Allstate.com first for a quote that could save you hundreds.DRAFT KINGS: Don’t miss out on all the action this week at DraftKings! Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up using http://dkng.co/newheights or through my promo code NEWHEIGHTS.GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, [phone] or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY).Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD). 21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT/OR/NH.Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). 1 per new customer. $5+ first-time bet req. Max. $200 issued as non-withdrawable Bonus Bets that expire in 7 days (168 hours). Stake removed from payout. Terms: dkng.co/dk-offer-terms. Ends 3/30/25 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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It's my favorite scene in the movie are you doing Tony bad well everything's falling down around me so they can do about everything falling down around me so they can do about it you know whose fault is it it's not it's not my fault it It's their fault. That's right. It's their fault. You have failed! Let's do this thing. Welcome back to New Heights, ladies and gentlemen. A Wondry Show produced by Wave Sports and Entertainment and brought to you by Nike. When the world says you can't win, Nike says, so when? We're your hosts. I'm Travis, this is my big brother Jason. Out of the University of Cincinnati,

unfortunately the Natty didn't make it in the fucking bracket, man, but still proud of the gang. Is the other bracket still a thing? They still do the second tier bracket? The NIT? Yeah. The second tier bracket? You're fucking hilarious, Jason.

What am I, I'm just being honest. What else is it? I don't know. Yeah, no, I think they do still doing the losers bracket Dude I used to hate that when we were little in like baseball Yeah, I travel baseball if you didn't make it into like the final four or something you went to a losers bracket Just yeah play on Sundays exactly I'm not trying to be in this fucking losers bracket. Fuck losers. Pretty sure that's how everybody feels in the NIT.

Subscribe on YouTube. Where wondering plus wherever you get your podcast, follow the show and also social media at new heights show with one s for fun clips throughout the week. Jason, tell the people what we got coming up. Oh, we got an incredible episode for you guys. First of all we're gonna look into some of the biggest news around the NFL including free agency which is pretty much the only news happening right now in the NFL. We're also going to kick off our first ever New Heights March Madness Bracket Challenge. That's right you guys will be playing for the coveted New Heights Golden Cup. That's right the winner is going to receive

for the coveted New Heights Golden Cup. That's right, the winner is going to receive this 14 karat Golden Cup. Look at that, that thing's pretty. Why is Jason the only one that has one of these? We've got a bunch of them, do you want one? Can I fucking have one, Jason? Why are you asking me? Is Ginnemos sent to your house?

I don't control these one bit. I want a fucking Golden Cup. Who's in charge of the Golden Cup? Everybody just sends all the trophies to Jason. You get the Stanley Cup, the Larry O'Brien, the fucking New Heights Cup. Yeah, I don't know who controls the Golden Cup shipments, but we can get you a Golden Cup.

We also are going to be getting the winner of our March Man as bracket challenge, a Gold Cup. I think there could be two Gold Cups. There's going to be a Gold Cup for the men's NCAA bracket and a Gold Cup for the women's NCAA bracket, but we'll get into that in a second. We've also got an amazing conversation with the one, the only. Oh yeah. The Audi of Ben Stiller is coming on our podcast. That's right. The director of the hit show Severance is coming on New Heights to talk about that among all of his other career accolades that we enjoyed

growing up and since then we talk about heavyweight, Tropic Thunder, pretty much everything that you'd want to know from Ben Siller. We're going to get into it. Hell yeah. Also happy Saint Patrick's Day for those of you that weren't here at the top of the show tuned a little bit late. It is Monday, so we are filming this on Saint Patrick's Day, although it will be releasing, I guess while you're watching this, it's Wednesday. Let's get it started, Trav. Let's get it going, baby. Time for new news. New news.

New news is brought to you by American Express. Yeah. Well, let's get to the biggest piece of new news, which is that we are once again an award-winning podcast. That's right. We are the iHeart Heart Radio 2025 Best Sports Podcast Award winners. Thanks a lot. I heart. Yeah, baby.

And most of all, thank you to all United to percentage for tuning. I just we centers and getting us to win this award. This word is really just a representation of all you people that tune in each week to listen to us to idiots talk about nonsense. So thank you for tuning in. We sure love doing this podcast. And the only reason we're able to do it is because all you guys listen. So very much appreciate it. And it's an honor I heart that to receive this award on behalf of the 92 percenters who make this podcast happen, as well as ours amazing, our amazing production crew, Wondery, Wave,

everyone involved in actually making this thing watchable. Well done, guys. So yeah, let's move on to some free agency news. What do you think, Trav? Yeah, let's dive into it, big dog. Alrighty, first week in NFL free agency in the books. Again, this is being recorded Monday. So if something were to happen, perhaps Tuesday or even Wednesday, when the show comes out, we will not be talking about it in the show. And really, it's Wednesday at about 1230. So something is that or this is Monday, a lot of shit has Monday 1230 Eastern. So there could be something that

happens later today that we don't want to know about. But either way, today, there have been some interesting things. We have a fan question about free agency from Jenna x KC. I think that's Jenna at KC. Okay, so I've wondered this. Do players not go to their new teams and tell their old teams plans? Like how does that work? Actually, is there a rule or just common knowledge to respect the situation and nothing is discussed?

I don't know if there's a rule that you're not allowed to disclose information, but I can tell you that everyone does disclose. And this is absolutely something that happens in the NFL, Jenna. Yes. Actually, a lot of the times you will see teams sign practice squad players one to two weeks

before they play an opponent for this very reason. They wanna get code words. They wanna get information on no huddle plays coverage signals. All of these things are being tried to figure out keywords that are set at the line. There's always information that they're trying to get out of players that have been in other organizations. Yeah. I don't know if it gets to the point of like you're sharing all your notes that you took.

It probably does. It probably does. It probably does get to this. I bet guys will bring in binders. I've never I've never seen it to that point. Yeah, I've never seen any of it, to be honest with you. Yeah, this all happens behind closed doors or something like that. We're like a coach or the player is going to meet with somebody. I've talked to certain guys on other teams like, hey, like I noticed that you do

this blitz like what happens You know, is there a tell when you guys are doing this game or there nine times out of ten? It's not that useful what the defensive player is trying to give me I will say this I was playing I was playing I forget who it was and I think chase Daniel was on the sideline I think he was Chicago. We might have been playing in Chicago Nagy was there maybe Tyler brave might have been on the sideline as well. I'm trying to remember who it was that that called it out but either Alex Smith or or or Pat Mahomes was up at the line of scrimmage and he signaled a quick route to me. I like a hot route to me essentially or or verbally said something to

me to tell me to like break off my route differently. And on the sideline, I see both of the quarterbacks screaming what that route was going to be. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just in my head, I'm like, you, you son of a no. Yeah, I think it was preseason. But at the same time, like you're, you're gonna do whatever you have to do to win in your current situation. And if that's you know, finding a tick here and there from your previous situation and helping out your teammates in that regard, you're gonna fucking do it, man. And I don't think there's any like,

Bush leagues, like I don't think it's like, going behind someone's back or doing it like in a, yeah, I'm with you. In a like, I don't know, I don't think it's wrong. If you hand over the entire playbook, Yeah, that's different. I think that's a little weird. Yeah.

But if you're just talking ball and you're trying to give your guys a heads up on like a audible or something like that. I think that's all fair game. I think stuff that happened. I think I'm with you, Trav. Stuff that happens at the line of scrimmage, verbiage, signals, all of that stuff is usually fair game.

That does happen in the NFL. Good question and glad we got into it. All right. We also got some Cowboys Twitter fighting. Love when people fight on Twitter. Just out in the open. It's the best, isn't it? To Marcus Lawrence, signs with Seattle, shits on Dallas on his way out the door. He's just kind of being honest. Clearly, a little bit unhappy with the way things ended. I believe he was quoted as saying,

Dallas is my home. My kids are in Dallas. My family's in Dallas. But I know for sure I'm not going to win a kids are in Dallas. My family's in Dallas, but I know for sure. I'm not going to win a Super Bowl. Strong words, strong words. I mean, I think he's just being honest, but yeah, Micah Parsons clearly didn't appreciate that this what rejection and envy look like this some clown shit. Perfect.

Perfect. Good way to respond. Marcus Lords calling me a clown won't change the fact that I told the truth. Maybe if you spent less time tweeting and more time winning, I wouldn't have left. Oh, man. Yeah, that's um, you'll Twitter beef. Let me get you going. What is the point of fighting on Twitter?

Like just out in the open for everybody to see? Well, you know, Jason, you're professional. Nobody fights on Twitter, right? It's like when we were in high school and the kids would pull the fire alarm just so they could go out in the street and fight in front of all the students. You remember that?

They were the best. In front of the entire city. Yeah. Cleveland Heights is on Cedar and Lee, two of the biggest streets on go east side of Cleveland. You guys could just go fight. You don't need to do this. I need an audience. I need I want everybody to see the whoopies. They would do it in the middle of the street. Street Cedar.

Like the biggest, like one of the biggest ways in the downtown Cleveland is just completely blocked. I got so bad they had to put the cops at the intersection. Yeah, no, well, it was stopping traffic. People were trying to just you know, do their cars, daily areas, cars lined up blocks down trying to do things 4000 kids out front watching a fight unfold in the middle of Cedar Road. Gosh, man. And then we just go across the street over to Wendy's and get a frosty and

some then they then they start it. Then they had to close Wendy's to they wouldn't let kids walk into the windows. You have to go through the drive through. Oh, better times. Better times. Love Cleveland Heights. Got to love the Heights, baby. Got to love the Heights. We got a breaking Contract news we got some news in the contract world the Bengals have fucking unloaded Brinks trucks

Love it and have signed both Jamar Chase and T Higgins. So four-year deals Jamar getting 161 with 112 guaranteed, making him the highest paid non quarterback in NFL history. And then T Higgins getting 115 mil respectfully for in his first two years guaranteed, fully guaranteed. So good for the bangles. I did not think they were going to be able to keep both these guys and they're paying a hefty price tag to do it. For those who were wondering, yes, Joe Burrow making $55 million per year, Jamar Chase making just over 40 mil a year and T Higgins making close to 30 million a year. That's over $125 million per year in new money on just three offensive players. When you say it like that,

that is fucking, it's bonkers. It's, I'm not gonna say it shouldn't be done. It's just never been done. Yeah, but all of these things, there's gonna be a never been done in a year or two years after this. The salary cap keeps going up. I think people don't realize often how much these,

the contracts continue to go up for players over time. When I first got into the league, league minimum was 375,000. That's still a lot of money. Now it's over 700,000, this league minimum. The average per year for the highest paid centers when I was getting my first deal done, my third year in the league was like $6 million a year. Now the average of all the top centers is over 12. So in 10 years, it's doubled. News flash. This is going to get broken in another year or two just on how the salary cap keeps going.

I've never heard of this much of the salary cap being allocated to three offensive players. The Cowboys did it with C.D. Lamb, Dak Prescott, and they're going to do it with Micah Parsons. That's three offensive players. Okay, three offensive players. Sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah.

Well, the Eagles got to be pretty dang close with AJ Brown. Devontae Smith is going to be up for a contract soon, and Jalen Hurts, get ready to see that one. Or they're going to let Devontae Smith go. I don't think that's happening. Yeah. Devontae Smith isn't making 50 mil. You don't think Devontae is going to get close to what T Higgins is making?

The only reason AJ isn't making 55 is because AJ got redone a couple years ago, or last year. I hear you. All right. He's still only making 30. They're going to be up again here in another year or two. And I bet it gets close to this. Find out.

Yeah, we're going to find out. I don't think they stay. But it all it all happens like this, dude. I'm telling you, this is only going to I bet this I bet this very metric gets broken within within three years. I bet you I bet you it never gets close that 125 mil per year to three offensive players. To note and that percentage of what the cap is right now. Well, we don't know.

Percentage. Well, and this is another. It will never be just three players ever. Well, and this is another thing that I would like to stipulate. We don't even know what the percentage is for this year. These are the numbers of this arbitrary tweet that Brandon and Jake have decided to put into average per years. Nobody right here knows what they're actually being accounted for for the cap.

Nobody knows what the cash is. Nobody knows what the guarantee is. Somebody can figure that out. It's all going to be on paper. Yeah, and they will. But I hear what you're saying. I'm just saying that. All I'm saying is there's a huge disservice to the NFL free agency. It pisses me off so much

listening to all of these people just say the average per year is this when all they did is divide the total money by three. Look at this. Look at this. By extending Jamar Chastain's bangles, bangles will actually lower both players cap hits this season. Okay, so this is my whole point. People have no fucking clue what these numbers mean. And they just want launch into these arbitrary things of like how much money. Anyways, just saying don't be misguided people. You got me. You got me.

It sounds pretty ridiculous, but you got me. I really do. And we travel. We talked about this. I think it'd be good to bring on somebody who really understands the salary cap and all cause I want to know it. I want to hear like what all these structures mean. Cause I was talking to somebody the other day and they said, it's all about cash and like how much eventually that cash comes

due and whatever you're paying, but there's ways to manipulate it and it gets manipulated in signing bonus and roster bonuses. Every team does it. Some teams have more cash to divvy out upfront. I don't really know all the ins and outs of it, but I would love to have somebody on to explain to me, you and the 92 percenters what all these numbers mean. Should we do a NFL salary cap educational episode or should we go and find somebody else or should we just have a fun conversation with the former player and just stick around like always? Yeah. All right.

You guys let us know if you guys want to learn this stuff. All right. Cool. All right. Last bit of new news. Shout out Kyle Frazier, the kid who puked working out with Aaron Donald, but still finished to work out according to him. He tweeted referencing the social clip that we released about Aaron Donald, him working

out. He said, definitely a workout I'll never forget, but you forget the part where I got back and finished. Ooh. Yeah. That's what I'm fucking talking about, Beat Dogg. I fucking love that, Kyle. That boy, Kyle.

Apparently this guy, this guy freaking plays college football now. That's pretty awesome. Where's he at? I don't know. Brandon, do we have that information? Georgia Suther playing college football down there. That's pretty awesome. Where's he at? I don't know. Brandon, do we have that information? Georgia Southern. Playing college football down there. That's hot. Tell you what, I don't want to be in a Georgia Southern training camp. That's for Dan. I'd be puking a lot.

Nice. Well, he had some experience about fighting through the pukage. Oh boy Kyle. And that does it for new news. Brought to you by American Express. Yeah baby. Alrighty, March Madness is here. And while the men's tournament always draws massive attention, the 2025 women's bracket is shaping up to be historic. Yukon's very own Paige Becker has been crushing in.

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I think it's time to check out this interview you guys have been waiting for. Let's do it. Just so you know, this interview was taped before episode nine came out of Severance. So, yes, we won't have anything from the most recent episode, but we do have some nice talking points and show references as well as a whole lot of other Ben Stiller anecdotes in this episode. So you're going to want to watch this. Enjoy. Our guest today is from New York City. He's a 12 time Teen Choice Award, 13 time MTV Mewie Award, MTV Generational Award and

Emmy winner. You know him from Heavyweight, Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, Dodgeball, Meet the Parents and now the executive producer and director of Apple TV's hit show, Severance. Please welcome to New Heights, Mr. Ben Stiller. Let's go. Thank you, thank you. Welcome to the, Ben, appreciate you jumping on. This is great to be with you guys.

It is so hard to figure out these intros when you have as much of a, like, Yeah. As much of a inventory of just hit movies. Well, let's just say those are some pretty heavy awards credits there. I didn't. You know, I mean, there is nothing there. Not screwing around there.

It's great. Yeah. You guys, you guys are doing good with this podcast. You're having fun. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. We started this thing up just trying to get our brotherhood out there. Not a lot of people see us as complete opposites, but you get us in a room, you'll see we're a lot more similar than what we are.

And you're a little bit older? What's the age difference? Two years. Two years. Almost exactly. October 5th, November 5th. All right, I'm November 30th. Nice, Scorpio right up there. We just talked about we're big astrology guys.

Oh yeah. No? No. Yeah, talked about we're big astrology guys. No? Okay. Yeah, I don't understand the astrology thing because it's like you have your sun sign but then there's the rising sign and the moon and it can, right? You got like really three signs or something like that. And I don't know and how does it really, I mean let's not get into it. My sister is really into it. Oh, okay.

I guess we can move on from astrology and move over to, we are gonna give a, at some point, we will talk about Severance. Yeah, we got to. So, and we might have some, so if you're, when we get to that section, we'll give you a warning because we don't want to ruin anything. The show is absolutely fantastic

and there's tons of things going on. We don't want to spoil anything for anybody who might be just getting into it or isn't all the way caught up. But before we get into that, we're gonna talk about your first bit of cinematic excellence, which maybe it's not, but it's definitely the one that sticks with us the most.

And we quote nonstop, which is heavyweights. Yeah. Did you know, first of all, before I said the movie, did you know I was gonna say heavyweights? I had seen, I think I saw you had like a Percocis Power Show. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Sounded to Brad Beecher that one.

And I'd heard some rumblings that you guys were into it, which was pretty cool. Oh, into it? It was my life. Listen, I was a heavyweight growing up. Jason, he didn't get fat until he went to office one. We switched places. We switched places growing up. So Jason is more newly founded into it.

So seriously, you were dealing with weight issues as a kid. He was chubby. I wouldn't say he was chubby. Yeah, I was dealing with my love for honey buns. I think that's what I was kind of dealing with more. But no, I saw heavyweights and was like, oh man, Camp Hope is like, if there's a camp out there like that, I want to go to it. Just kids that can be fat together and hide candy in their beds and, you know, kids that

never like really lived up to the excellence of their brother and just the expectations that their parents set for themselves. Yeah, yeah. Are you kidding? The blob? Was it go-kart? That was everything a kid wanted to do it. It was sort of, yeah, like a dream camp. But then this guy comes in who's never really dealt with children before.

Yeah, that's one of the funniest intros. It was really fun to do. We had a great time. I mean, I remember the summer shooting the movie very well. We shot it down in near Asheville, North Carolina. I'm still buddies with the guy who was my trainer when I was doing the movie. Mickey Moreno, shout out to Mickey, who's

down in East Hendersonville. Yeah, it was just, but like, yeah. Today, first of all, the fact that that was a Disney movie Yeah, it was just but like, yeah, today. First of all, the fact that that was a Disney movie is it is. It is kind of crazy. Yeah. That was I chuckle at every time I see Disney across the top. Yeah, it's a it's an edgy Disney movie. It's not Little Mermaid.

You know, it's it's and I don't even think they were aware of it at the time. It was a different time, right? It was pre social media. It was, I think there was less of a sort of a moment to moment awareness of, you know if you're doing something right or wrong and all that. So it was, you know, and Judd Apatow and was producing it.

Judd and I were friends and had been working together on a show we had done and had gotten canceled. And I had gone and directed a movie, my first movie, and he said, hey, we're going to go down. Steve Brill is the director, really funny guy. We're going to go down to Asheville and do this fun, you know, this camp company. You can play this like mean guy who, you know, is mean to these kids who are overweight. And it seemed fun and funny.

And I'm in. Yeah, it's right there. And it was fun and funny. And I'm in, I'm in. Yeah, it's right there. And it was like, and it happens to be Disney, whatever. And I think they went off and they made the movie and Disney looked at it and was like, uh, this isn't quite, you know, this is down the middle for the Disney brand. And they kind of put it out there or whatever.

And then that was it. You must've seen it on video, right? Oh, 100%. A few years after it came out or something. right? Because it's 30 years old, right? Exactly. Yeah. But then it's had this life. I saw it later in the 90s for sure. But yeah, it never would have gotten made today and-

Why do you say that? I think just because- Why do you say that? No, seriously. Because the characters being so mean to these kids who are dealing with weight issues that I don't think that's getting off the drawing board these days. I understand but I feel like the movie also inspired more people that were overweight.

It really ends up being something that most of the people that I knew that were overweight, or it was like a healthy relationship with that at the end of the day. I do agree that Tony was not the nicest of the kids. No, I think Tony is dealing with his own weight issues. Oh, for sure, yeah. Which is very clear.

And his own feelings towards his parents and also that he's a kid who never interacted with other kids. And he wants to be famous. And I feel for Tony. I feel like he's the most sympathetic character. Where did Tony come? Where did you find him?

Is there any inspiration? There was a little bit of Tony Robbins in there It just in terms of the voice and how he talks And his kind of weird sort of like he you know Tony Robbins had this thing where he gets sort of like Yeah, he could kind of like hypnotize you with his eyes And I don't know and then we just sort of like played around and it's funny like cuz I look it back at clips I saw a clip like behind the scenes on it And I was like god we were so young back then to just like kind of just doing it You know what I mean?

and just kind of going for it and you don't really think about it that much and the kids were so much fun and It was you know kind of like every day were just in my folks were in it playing my parents So we had we had just had the best time. Somebody signed your checks. Oh, yeah, don't let it. That's the advice I ever got. So I guess how much of that movie was of Tony was being scripted and how much of that is you off the cuff just riffing it? Yeah, I don't remember. I think like we were we were improvising all the time.

It's sort of I feel like there were some improv moments there. I think like that little moment where Tony goes and talks to himself when he's weighing the kids My favorite scene Well, everything's falling down around me there's nothing I can do about I'm sorry I don't want to do your Why you, why you, why you? Well, everything's falling down around me. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm sorry, I don't wanna do your brain for you. No, no, do it, please, please.

Everything's falling down around me. There's nothing I can do about it. Well, you know, whose fault is it? It's their fault. It's not my fault. It's their fault. That's right, it's their fault. It's their fault.

You have failed! You have failed! You have failed! Dude. The thing that's kinda funny to me about that scene is it was improvised. But you know, if you've ever been in therapy or gone to therapy, that's all, you know, a lot of people talk about talking to your inner child, you know, and finding your inner child.

Yeah. Connecting with your inner child and in over the years I have, I've been in a therapy session where the therapist says like you should go like let's talk to your inner child and I literally feel like I'm just doing a scene from Heavyweight's Nightly Therapy. So, I always feel like it's talk to your inner child. And I literally feel like I'm just doing a scene from Heavyweight's Nightmare in Therapy. So I always feel like it's just, this is kind of silly because I've literally done this in a movie where it actually made sense that Tony was able to talk himself into understanding

that he is not the problem, they are the problem. And he helped himself. So in a way it's a very healthy connection that he's having, you know, with himself. 100%. Well with himself, maybe not having, you know, with himself. With himself, maybe not with the kids. Yeah, no. And I think, you know, the kids also like, you know, let's face it, the kids were cheating. They should have been following the rules. Right. It's a way to reevaluate this movie.

They were the problem. Everyone's hiding candy and not hustling. You go to a camp where you want to lose weight. You got to play by the rules, right? It's like you guys show up at training camp, right? If you're not hustling. If you go to a camp where you want to lose weight, you got to play by the rules, right? It's like, if you guys show up at training camp, right? If you're not going to put the work in, right? Nobody's going to be able to force you to do it, right? You got to have the mindset. Yeah, I definitely go to Chick-fil-A during camp though.

I'm not going to lie. I don't go to the meal room. I know some guys that are probably hitting some stuff in their beds. So it is kind of like being at camp when you go to camp. Oh, 100%. It is a little bit like. 100%, well, he still goes away for camp.

Right, right. Most teams don't go, like, you just don't go away anymore. I'm living in a dorm room. Yeah. Cement wall, white cement brick walls. You get a single or a double or? They actually put the double together. Two singles together to make it.

That's what I mean, two singles together. So I'm like, it's kind of a bit of, it's a bit of like a, it's an experience like back in time. And I'm not like a super football guy, but I know you guys plays, you have to like learn all the plays at training camp. And then those can be the plays for the rest of the season.

For the majority, for the majority of it, yeah. Do you learn like the base installs so that everybody can get brought up to speed. And from there, you still create plays based off of the team that you're playing and what they've been doing. You try and scheme them up week by week. So the playbook definitely expands after training camp, but for the most part, you get all the verbiage

and all the, you get the understanding of like formations and stuff. And then from there, all the plays kind of just get added onto. Is it different every year? Like the coach will come in with a new yeah, I joke about coach Reed coming in with like a Index like stack like this big just like a rubber band around and you just see plays Drawn up on him and he's just like I got some good stuff

But there is there is a lot of carryover the made the majority of your staples are still say the same. And the way the football coaches do, they have to teach it to all the new guys as well. So especially when you've been there for a long time, you start from square one in the off season and during training camp. So at two different times of the year, you'll learn what we call this gap, what we call this technique,

what we call this play in every minor deep. So he's had Inside Zone installed to him over 35 times. You know what I mean? What is Inside Zone? Inside Zone is when you give it to the running back at a more steep angle, downhill, he reads the front side B gap to the backside A gap, reads the really, they're trying to run it

towards a three technique to where we can get a double team up to the mic back here, hopefully you're. Yeah, no, no, no, I knew that. I was just saying, for this kind of inside zone. Yeah, for me, I'm typically on the backside of the inside zone. And you definitely double back every time to the- There we go. That's right, that's right.

There's always a double back. There's always a double back. There we go. Okay. It's incredibly complicated, isn't it? I think it's- Or is it? It's complicated-

We're still football players. It's not recent science. I thought you listened to a lot of football players talk. It's not that complicated, isn't it? I think it's in. Or is it? Or is it? We're still football players. Listen to a lot of football players talk. It's not that complicated. But no, no, but honestly, I did. I did once when we were doing Zoolander to Aaron Rodgers came to Italy and complicated man. Yeah.

Yeah. But I asked him like, OK, you know, how do you do that on the line when you're having to make those split second decisions? And he said, like, it's really not it's not as like complicated as they make it sound on TV. And I was like, yeah, but you're Aaron Rodgers. So it's probably a little bit. But it sounds like the same thing you're saying, which is kind of like you guys just have for

so many years, instinctually, you know, there's a lot of carryover. You learn it over and over again. So it becomes second nature, especially the verbiage aspect of it. But it's a speed. Aaron is another level of the intellectual ability for the game. So obviously it's very much easier for him than a lot of other guys.

But I do think that at the end of the day, a lot of there's carryover, the plays, you've run them a long time now, whether you start in college or high school or high school or even before that. So you you tend to retain all that knowledge. So it sounds complex to somebody who doesn't understand it. But I mean, a lot of it's just common sense.

Like if you're running a play where there's too many guys who run a play, yeah, we shouldn't run the ball over here. Right. Let's go run the ball over here. It's like numbers and leverage ultimately come down to like what makes a foot and surprise of it. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's a huge aspect of it. Catching the defense off guard, not being predictable. Can I ask you one other question about football?

Are you kidding me? Yeah. I love this. This is one. No, this is as a fan. It's the the pain aspect. OK. As we watch numbed out, watching our TV sets, being entertained all across America and the world, you guys are just like smashing into each other and you just take it for granted as an audience member. But when you really look at it.

Oh, I enjoy it. But like what is, I mean, like what is the reality of that in a game because you know, you see it when you see the play where a guy gets twisted around and you see God forbid an awful, you know, brain is on it and you see, God forbid, an awful brain is on, and you're like, oh my God, this is horrific. But first of all, what does that feel like? And second of all, could a normal human being,

and you know, guy like me. Yeah. I don't know if you're my opponent. There's only one way to find out, Ben. I don't know if you could do it, I don't know if you could, but Tony Perkins could definitely get out on that field. I would Tony Perkins do it.

He has the insecurities necessary to achieve his football gig. Yeah. But like seriously, what is the level of like what's happening there? Well, I like like especially when you get the ball, it's like you're like you're, you have ever seen the bird scooters that go like 15 at 17 miles an hour and you're just kind of flying around town? It's like riding one of those and then jumping off. And it's just like you take little collisions like that

throughout the day and it's just fun. It's fun. And I feel like when you have pads on and you have the excitement of like the team and everything, you don't really think of like the camaraderie of the team and doing something for a bigger purpose other than yourself. Like you find like fun in competing with guys doing this.

And I don't know, I think when I when I when I was playing quarterback growing up, I didn't really have that much love for it. But once I moved to tight end, obviously, my skill set was more suited for that. But I had more fun catching the ball and like kind of enjoying those moments where I could be physical. I could I could kind of like hit a guy because you don't get to just walk down the street and blindside a guy. Right. You get to have fun. You're allowed to assaulting somebody, you know, it's like. It's encouraged. Yeah, it's encouraged. So it's like you don't really think of it as like pain,

although you do feel the discomfort after a game and after like a season, you feel the wear and tear for sure. But there's, so the adrenaline is. That's what I was saying. In the middle of a game, the adrenaline is so intense. You'll feel a little bit of pain, but it's not something that's going to be like that. But you're like on the line. You're just every play. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have any joy. You see this guy's neck. What's wrong with it? It's pretty thick. It's barely there.

Oh, yeah. It is just oh, it's arthritis. You're showing off right now. Well, I also think about the concentration that it takes to catch the ball, knowing there's a guy coming. I think that's more intimidating than anything. Fun with it. I like to make them think that I don't know he's coming. OK. Interesting. I reverse it on him.

But I'm also known for like not even running my route. So I always like to keep the second guess. The surprise. Right. Yeah. Even surprises. Would you ever want to play football? You know, I grew up in New York on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, not in a sports oriented environment. I used to love to play basketball. Nice.

You've had some pretty iconic basketball scenes. Yeah, yeah. I love basketball, but I didn't have the height or the, you know, I'm Jewish. I can't Yeah, I mean so I wasn't like in that kind of environment small Upper West Side private school didn't even have a football team I had a basketball team. I didn't make the basketball team I think 14 kids tried out and they 12 kids made it and I didn't make it It's okay it and I didn't make it. But it's okay. I've been cut before too. Jason's never been cut. He doesn't understand this. I've never been cut.

But then Owen Wilson's a buddy of mine and he played sports growing up and he always said I could have been like a little scat back type of guy. You think you could get a yard in the NFL? I could not. No, I literally wonder what would happen if I could survive a play. Well, I think we could get you a yard. Really? I think so. Oh my God. You got enough athleticism to get a yard. You guys couldn't get Judge survive a play? Well, we I think we could get you a yard. The only way I could get you a yard. I think so. Yeah. You got enough. I've learned you guys couldn't get just.

I know. After that yard, I don't know what's happening. If I'm behind you. All right, man. To push push with me. There you go. We'll get that. I was about to say, that's a for sure yard. It's got to secure the snap. We were like, push, push me, just pick me up and throw me into the end zone.

Push tush throw over the top. Just turn Ben into the football. You might have just invented a new version of the tush push. Still are tush push. Okay. So, we talked about heavyweights and you said it couldn't be made today? Well, it could. Yeah, I don't think it would be made by Disney today.

You know what I mean? But I think it could be made independently. Sure, if somebody wanted to go out and do it. Bob Iger's not backing that. I don't know, man. We should go and see. See what he's doing. Yeah.

What about Tropic Thunder? Tropic Thunder, yeah, I've been asked this question before. I think it would have a tougher time getting made today, for sure. I love it. Yeah, just because, first of all, like big comedies with big budgets like that aren't really being made as much, if at all. And and Tropic Thunder did, you know, have some pretty edgy elements to it.

At the time, it was edgy. Edgy is a great word. Did anybody? Did anybody complain? I don't ever remember anybody complaining. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Really? You didn't worry. Never mind. I'm going to go back over here. No, no, no, no, no, no. You didn't think that? No, complaining about it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Really? You didn't worry. Never mind. I'm gonna go back over here. No, no, no, no, no.

You didn't think that? No, no, no. There's a bubble. But in a different way, it was again, this is what is it? 15 years ago or something? Yeah. It was 2008 or something. It was like a different sort of reaction to things that wasn't as in the moment and as much of a kind of a waterfall of you know, reaction immediately. Yeah, no, I mean, my character that I played, Tug was, you know, playing this character of simple Jack.

That was, you know, that that that got some blowback. Yeah. From from people. You know, we I showed the movie to the NAACP in L.A. before we released the movie because of Robert's character. Of course. And to me, the the joke in the movie always was that these actors are trying

to do anything they can to win an award and be taken seriously. So that to me, that was why it was always clear to me. That's the joke of the movie. And I think people who get the movie get that. But you know, you definitely want to like get a sense of how people are reacting to it.

So, you know, we did. But that's what comedy, you got to take chances. You got to put it out there. And yeah, we got a little bit of blowback. But as long as you're clear, you know, where the where the joke is and that you're clear about your intention, you can, you know, then I think you can hear criticism and it can be valid. But you know where you're coming from and you can stand by it, which I do.

I still stand by the movie. And I would hope that we could make another Tropic Thunder. Oh my gosh, this is so good. I tried to show it to my kids. My oldest is five. Jesus, sorry. I wasn't trying to show it to them, I was just putting it on.

The girls walked into the room. What was the review? It was not good. It was during the, Tucker just lost his hands. Oh my God. It was early on. Intestines are all over the place. I forget Kylie's exactly. Do you remember what Kylie said other than turn this off right now? You'll be getting the therapy bill from your kids in about 15 years. No doubt. Do you have a favorite comedy movie you've made? You'll be getting the therapy bill from your kids in about 15 years. Do you have a favorite comedy movie you've made?

Oh, that I've made? I mean, Tropic Thunder for me was like one of the most fun experiences just because we were all together. It was such an amazing cast just to be with those guys and it was an idea that I had had from back in like 1987. Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. And then we finally made the movie in 2007.

So literally had had had been sort of gestating that long. So to actually be making it was sort of surreal that we were finally doing it. So for me, that experience was one of my favorites. And yeah, but like, you know, doing Meet the Parents with Robert De Niro will always be an incredibly exciting thing that happened, you know, to just and kind of surreal because I just love him so much. And yeah, and then getting to. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's it's every time you're in it, it's always different.

I don't know if you guys are like this when you're, you know, when you're doing your thing, but like you're in it. And it's sometimes it's hard to appreciate it when you're in it because you have to be focusing on what you're rolling. Yeah. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I don't know, because they always say like football players or even any athletes say like go out there and have fun. Is that a real thing? I feel like I play my best when I'm out there just enjoying the moments with the guys.

And it's 100%. I don't like to kind of look at things as it's complete or like I'm more in the moment trying to think about the next play, trying to think about the next like way we're gonna attack them, how I'm gonna handle this situation and think about that than I am like, man, this is sweet. I do think though, that's why they tell you to have fun

because it's so easy to lose track of the fact that we're all playing a game and this should be fun. You get bogged down on where you're at and trying to remember the play or the moment, let's sit down and distance, all these things. You lose track of the fact that like if you guys are genuinely enjoying being out there and having fun, there's an enthusiasm and an energy that permeates and makes everybody usually perform better. Yeah.

And I think that's one thing that I watched Trav. I've always been like, for some reason, it always looks like he brings that out on the field. And there's certain guys that have a tendency, you just watch a game and people gravitate towards them and it makes them feel like they're kids again. And as a player where for me, I oftentimes wasn't that, I always appreciated playing with those guys

because it made me feel like I was playing in the backyard of by buddies again. Right, yeah. And even though we're in front of this huge stadium or whatever, yeah. And you see the joy that you have when like, I mean, obviously end zone celebrations or just when first down or something like that.

But I think that enjoyment of connecting with your teammates and doing the work in the moment and like it working when you like, you know, complete a play that works. I have that same appreciation when I'm working on a movie that the enjoyment of the process. And actually, for me, that's my favorite part of all of this is the is being in process with something or sitting in the editing room and cutting together sequence, putting some music on it and feeling it come together.

That to me is the best. Yeah. And that and that is important, I think, to have that appreciation of the process because, you know, with a movie or something like that, it comes out and then people either like it or they don't like it. And you have no control over that. Mm hmm. Right. It's just going out into the world. But the process is what you experienced and what you own. And so, you have to enjoy that because the rest of it is sort of then you're at the whim

of like what people thought. And that's, by the way, that's like trial and error for me over the years. Oh, 100%. I've learned that throughout the course of my career. I came in wanting to have all the stats, wanting to have all the acknowledgement of he's a great player. And I mean, I've been fortunate to like get a lot of those stats and have successful years and win Super Bowls. But at the same time, when I'm like kind of like in it, like I find more love building that piece

than I am just kind of looking back like, oh, man, that's awesome. Like it was more just like the the feeling of doing it with them in the moment. That's just like really that's where it's most enjoyable for me. I actually remember when we were doing Tropic Thunder talking to Robert Downey about it, because at that point, I think he had just done Iron Man, but he it hadn't come out yet. You know, and he had this interesting trajectory to his career where, you know, he had a lot of acclaim and he went through a lot of challenges.

And then, you know, and then Iron Man came out and kind of like revitalize his career. Yeah. But as an actor, he's always been like one of the best actors ever. And I remember talking when we were doing the movie about this sense of sort of like we've worked you and you. You and I, we've all worked really hard over the years because this is, you know, we'd already been doing it for whatever, like 25 years probably or whatever. And so the enjoyment of knowing that you put in a lot

of work and then having a freedom to then go and put something out there and try things and do your thing with a sense of. Oh man, that had to be such a relief to just be able to cut it loose like that Yeah, an appreciation of that say like yeah, I have put this work and it's not like an ego thing It's more like hey, okay We're here and we've done this a lot and it's what you were saying about putting those working on those plays your whole life

then you kind of can go out there and let go in a way and Appreciate the fun of that too, right? Well, you still are locked in and trying to do something new and hit the next level. And I think that's an important thing in the process to appreciate. You fucking hit it, dude, because that movie is classic. How did you get Tom Cruise to jump in on this? I mean, the star started. Yeah. Like, this is a crazy one.

I mean, Tom and I knew each other a little bit because we had done. Yeah. Kind of fan my whole life. Yeah. You know, just watching his movies forever. And I'd met him a few times over the years. And we did a little short for MTV Movie Awards. This is like 25 years ago, I think, because I was on my honeymoon. We came back from our honeymoon in Australia to do this thing with Tom where I was a stuntman.

I pretend. Oh, yeah, I remember. Yeah. And it was a mission possible, too pretended I was a stuntman. Oh yeah, I remember this. It was so good. And the submission of possible two. And we had so much fun doing that and then a few years- Finish your own sentences there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was so fun and weird doing that. And then, you know, we stayed in touch and this was again, a few years go by and actually,

I, we'd been talking about trying to figure out something to do but hadn't figured it out. And then I was working on the Tropic Thunder script and I had actually done a home movie for my wife for her birthday that was a takeoff on the show 24. And it was called 17 or 17 minutes long and it starred my brother-in-law Brian Taylor who happens to be here today.

Who's not an actor. Set out the Brian, set out the Brian. Yeah, Brian is the worst actor ever. Which can also be really good at times. Yeah, they have an alarm company in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He's not a professional actor. So the fun of the joke was let's put him in a movie with like real actors and he was obsessed with Tom's speech

from A Few Good Men, you know, or the obsessed with Tom's speech from A Few Good Men, you know, or the Jack Nicholson speech from A Few Good Men that he gives to Tom Cruise where he says, you know, you can't handle the truth, right? I said, Tom, we're doing this home movie for Christine, would you maybe come and do like a scene in it where my brother-in-law is going to recite the Jack Nicholson speech to you? And he said yes. And there's video evidence. Yes, there is video evidence. And he came down and he was so professional and like it blew my mind. He was so good. And Brian did the speech to him.

And then we had so much fun doing that that the Tropic Thunder came up. I called him. I said, look, let's maybe are you interested in this movie? And he looked and he said, you know, you have you make fun of the actors. You make fun of, you know, everybody in the agents and all that. But you don't make fun of the studio heads. You should have a studio head. So his it was his idea. Oh, my gosh.

That character, what that character did not exist before he suggested it. I feel like it is such a good. And then it became such an important part of the story. And this was three months before we started shooting the movie. And we rewrote, Justin Theroux and I were working on it, and Etan Cohen, and Justin and I rewrote these scenes and put them in. And then Tom said, also, I feel like I want to dance in the movie.

I just want to dance. So this was purely like, put a painting- We have a body suit on. So this was purely like, interesting. We have a body suit on. And then we did a makeup test. And go crazy. Yeah, and we put him in the makeup and he started dancing in the makeup test.

We gave him some Diet Cokes to crush. And then we put, and then I think I put Get Back by Ludacris in the makeup test. And I was like, this could be really fun. So good. And yeah, he came in and just, yeah, so it was pretty crazy how that happened. That's awesome. That is crazy.

How did Brian do in his speech? Brian, well, he was perfectly bad as he should have been. That's the way Brian. God damn, that's good stuff. I gotta ask you more about your basketball level, your sports level. So, you were at the Oscars not too long ago, getting hype about the Knicks win. Let's go.

Not sure if it was even an important game. It was just like, you watch every game like that? I do watch every game. I do, yeah. I'm, you know, the last few years, like I've, my whole life I've been a Knicks fan. Last few years have been pretty exciting. It's been so many years in the wilderness,

especially like the last like 10 years before this. Yeah. Yeah. I watch it. Try to watch every game. And I now have realized I have to actually put the games into my schedule. Even if I'm not going to them just to watch them. Just to catch them. Not like plan a dinner. Because I start to resent them at dinner. Yeah. So I knew that the game was happening during the Oscars. And then I but I was focused on doing the thing at the Oscars. And then, like once it was done, I was leaving. And after I done my thing, I was going back to my hotel and I realized,

oh, my God, the Knicks game is on. So then I like checked it because I hadn't checked it the whole day or even been aware of it as much, to be honest. I wasn't I knew it was happening. And then I saw the Knicks had won. I was like, oh, this is great. I just finished the Oscars and the Knicks won. I'm happy. Knicks win again.

Yeah. And then I guess somebody picked up the fact that I have been like your backstage right now. But I mean, I genuinely do. You know, I went to the Lakers game where Brunson got injured and, you know, I genuinely love going to the games. I feel like I've always told myself I want to go to a game in Madison Square Garden. There's actually a big reason why we went to or I went to Cincinnati because the Big East Championship is in the garden.

I've always imagined the garden as like obviously the Mecca, but it is like the top of like the basketball culture where it gets right. No, I haven't been to a game yet. Oh, OK. And I've been telling myself I'm going to go when the Knicks are good and it's rocking and it's just been like you have to come to. I have to. I know. I want you come to a game. I'm going to I'll tell you what the Cavs meet the Knicks in the playoffs.

Yeah, because that thing I wanted to be like the Knicks. I don't know if it's like that every single game, but I know when it's an important game, that thing is like it. Honestly, like you see it on TV when it honestly when any game, if it's a good game, it goes crazy. Yeah, like it's just so intense. Yeah. But you know, the playoffs, there's like nothing like when they beat Philadelphia in the playoffs last season. Oh, yeah. And Dante DiVincenzo hit that shot.

I don't know if you've ever that play, but like it was just it was I never felt anything like it. Yeah. Yeah. Me and Jason talk about it all the time. There's no better ticket in sports than courtside at an NBA game. There's nothing better, right? You're so close to it. Yeah, you're right.

That was the first time I ever, I went back, Travis had courtside tickets at the Cavs for the second half of the season every year. Yeah, when Brown was there. Yeah, when the Browns, so. I haven't been able to get back since. He lets me borrow a couple of the tickets. I go there, and that was my first time Brown was there. Yeah, when the Browns, so.

I haven't been able to get back since. He lets me borrow a couple of tickets. I go there and that was my first time realizing, oh my God, these guys are like so much better athletes than football players. They are moving so fast. It's like they have springs on their feet. Yeah, and it was just in the size.

Yeah. Like I think it's harder when you're brought back from it to really realize how big an athletic those guys are. You don't, yeah, for sure, for sure. But when you're on the court, it's easy. It's harder when you're brought back from it to really realize how big an athletic. You don't. Yeah, for sure. But when you're on the court, it's like, oh, that guy is high. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, even just seeing LeBron in person, you know, like I was watching the other night, I mean, it's just he's just so big.

And he's so strong. And he gets the ball. And all of a sudden, it's just like the tension level goes up and the defender gets up on whoever it is because it's like LeBron's got the ball and he's like he can impose his will still. And he's 40 years old doing it, which is insane. He did a spin move in a dunk and I was like, I've never seen that before. It's like, whoa!

Yeah, it's very impressive. Would you rather win an academy award or Nicks win's win championship? I don't know. I mean, I think the Knicks, you know, realistically, I think the Knicks winning a championship is in the cards. All right. So, I'm definitely down for that. Yeah. But if I was forced, like if I was forced, definitely. And I've heard John Stewart was asked this question and he said Knicks too. So, I'm not going to not say Knicks. But I also feel like I really think like at the end of the day, if I knew that I had the

choice, I would give it to the Knicks because I knew at least I had the choice in this weird non-real situation. This weird hypothetical. What it means a lot to a lot of people too. Like it's like you're it's like this. Yeah, the Knicks winning a champion like it's so it's still a little bit like it seems a little bit like, oh my God, I can't imagine that. But we're just starting to feel like it.

But then always something happens where. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, Cleveland was there for forever, too. So I get it. Cleveland is having an incredible year. I'm fired up. Yeah. And we're just talking about it. Jason's kind of like here right now with basketball. And I'm just like, dude I get it. Cleveland is having an incredible year. I'm fired up. Yeah, incredible. We're just talking about it. Jason's kind of like here right now with basketball. Yeah.

And I'm just like, dude, just watch the cast. You keep selling me. I gotta get back. And Donovan Mitchell is a New York guy too. Yeah. He's just incredible. Stud. Yeah, so, and they've got a great thing going on.

See, we kind of got on the basketball kick. I gotta talk about one of my favorite scenes that you directed in Cable Guy with Jim Carey, him coming into the gym. The basketball. Yeah. The basketball scene with him coming into the gym. I want, I, I don't know if you understand, you had everybody trying to jump off of their friends back to dump the basketball. And I just remember it never worked. It's not like in the movie, he was like a trampoline.

Like I was like, oh my gosh, if I could do that. I was I thought that was a little bit heavier. I was always like twice the size of all my friends. And I was like, dude, just get on all fours. I'm going to jump off your back. It really makes no sense at all. That move. Yeah. It was so funny. I remember we we had well, we were like, you know, like Jim, we wanted to come up with

like some insane set piece where Jim would just be, you know, just the biggest kind of asshole guy comes in to play a pickup basketball game. Yeah, and Jack Black, I guess, is like he runs up on Jack Black but I remember we put like an Apple box or something next to Jack. It was very low tech. There was no like, like like we did it today. There would be like CG and it would be like, oh, yeah, probably. It was just a very like kind of like simplistic way of doing it, where he's

like on an apple box right behind him when he jumps up. But then, yeah. And then he shatters the backboard. Oh, my gosh. But we had such a good time making that movie. And Matthew Broderick is so funny in it. And yeah. Yeah. and Jim is just insane. Have you ever had him on the podcast? He's so, he's so funny.

I mean, he's like one of those guys who'll just do something to make you laugh and then he'll just keep doing it until you stop laughing. It was fun to just be working with him at that moment where he was just sort of like willing to like take any chance and just do whatever he thought could be funny. And we were just having a great time together. Hell yeah.

We kind of touched on it before. In terms of writing for yourself or for guys, they kind of just have those instincts of improv. How much of it is hard as a director to control that, to try and keep the script the script, you know. How much like, how much do you juggle with that as a director? I did a movie once, Mystery Men. Dude, are you kidding?

I just did it, yeah, just one time back in the day. I forgot about that movie. It was not a blockbuster at the time. But one of the actors was not as into improv and A lot of the other actors were and we were kind of figuring it out as we went along and that ended up sometimes being a thing Okay, yeah where that actor would want to just like hey, can we just do what we planned? And by the way a great actor just it wasn't his process as much. Yeah, you'd be surprised you do it on the football field, too Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah Like you said, I'll improv and yeah on the football field too. Really? Yeah, oh yeah. This is a king improv right here.

Dicton improv. All improv. Does the coach get mad or not? Oh yeah. Sometimes. You get that look, he gives you the eye-brow look. But daddy gets happy sometimes. Never do that again.

When it works. He's happy when it works, right? I'll come to the side. A little lateral on the side. Oh yeah, just don't ever do that again, Travis. Got it. He's got a good commercial career going too. Yes he does. He's a Hollywood guy right there, you know what I mean again. Got it. He's got a good commercial career going Hollywood guy right there. Yeah, I mean he gets it. He gets the entertainment aspect. Sure. Yeah

Speaking of severance it is time that we put this disclaimer out. All right. We're at the point of the show We're gonna talk about severance folks We're going to do it in a second called we gotta ask You don't have to answer. Okay, which I think there's gonna be a lot of these you probably aren't gonna answer. Basically, we're gonna ask you a bunch of questions you tell us whether, what you think of it, you tell us fuck off, whatever you want. And since you've been a great guest,

we're gonna get to this section while having our very own waffle party. Oh yeah. What was the inspiration behind the waffle party? This is Dan Erickson who wrote the pilot and is the creator of the show. And we've been working on it together over the years. He has a brilliant mind and waffle party being some. I don't know where that came from.

His mind as the, you know, the celebration when you have the reward. When you get to a certain point, it's not a pizza party. It's a waffle party. These might be a little raspberry time in season one. You know, we didn't know what the waffle party actually was. Eventually, we defined it in the, like, I guess like the second to last episode. But it was fun to think about like, what is a waffle party? What's the metaphor? What is the, you know, what does that mean? Yeah, for sure. What does it mean?

Well, I mean, I think it's more than just waffles. Yeah is what I feel Like what would be the best reward you could have if you're working in this place every day and you don't get to leave and You know, you're a human being and so somewhat party aspect. I don't know there. Yeah, I mean I love it I'm about to start having waffle parties all the time now with no underlining Great. Wow. It was just so funny because it felt like childlike. Yes. And these are grown adults who are subjected to in some way slave labor as innies. Well, they're kind of like kids because they've only had consciousness for a short amount of time. Right. And they don't really have any freedom and they're told yeah, a waffle party is like

the best thing. This is it. These are good though. I'm just gonna butter it up just a little bit. Are waffles on your training camp menu? I'll tell you what, there was a waffle house next to Lehigh Valley where we had training camp back when it was remote. That was our Chick-fil-A. That's where we would go. Now a lot of the shots in 7- in Severus, we're talking about symmetry.

That's, I mean, the opening episode, everything is just so like, I just feel like it was so thought out in the colors that you chose. The building blows my mind. Is that a real, how much was it was, of it was like a studio set and how much of it was like an actual building that you guys found? Because the was of of it was like a studio set and how much of it was like

An actual building that you guys thought because the inside of that building was so big the shots Yeah, it seems so massive and it seems so epic. Yeah, that building is a real building It's and it is huge It even is bigger in real life when you go there and then it feels I think when you see it on the show Because it's just ceilings are so freaking it's in New Jersey. It's in Holmdel, New Jersey. And it's it was it's now like kind of like an office complex and a mall. But it used to be the head of Bell with the headquarters of Bell Labs.

And they they developed the transistor chip there, I think, in the 60s. So it's pretty that's why the water tower there has that interesting shape where it kind of looks like a transistor. And when we found it, Jessica Lee Gagne, who's our cinematographer, we were Googling stuff and she found this place and we looked at it from above and it looked like this giant sort of like almost like an egg shape with this. The building was there and then the parking lot was like an egg shaped oval around it. And we're like, this is so crazy, this view and this shape.

And then we went there and it was just gigantic and kind of empty. So, and nobody had filmed anything there. That was the, that's, so when you're making movies and you find a location, you get so excited when you find a really cool location that nobody's ever filmed at, because you don't wanna have something

that's been in another movie. And so when we found that, that was the first thing we found. And then we designed the sets and all the interiors and everything are on sound stages that we shot up in the Bronx. But, um, but that was like the design, sort of, uh, the first sort of, um, inspiration for the rest of the show. And yeah, it was, it was a guy named Aerosarnin who's an architect in the 50s who made that building.

Did you always imagine the characters having that fun kind of comedy banter or like because it's such a it's a very serious show or at least it feels very like. No, you're right though. Like in the when I read the script that Dan wrote, it was a pilot. He wrote a spec pilot on his own that he brought to our company. When I read that banter, it reminded me of shows I love like The Office or Parks and Rec, this back and forth thing that they had. And what was so fascinating to me was, oh, these guys are like doing this kind of funny office humor, but yet they don't know who they are, why they're there, what they're

doing. It's so good. Yeah, they don't know anything. It's like, so that's like this weird sort of Twilight Zone aspect to it and it's very surreal and kind of Abstract in a way like well what what is going on here? So that humor and that office workplace thing is actually for me always been sort of the core of what the show is and then It's definitely developed into oh, yeah into what it is. That's awesome. Are you surprised by the fan base? The show is built up Sorry, I do not want to take away from the waffles, yeah.

No. That raspberry butter. Sweet check. Strawberry butter. I haven't had a waffle in, I think since we shot the waffle party. I was about to say, yeah, you had to jump in there at least one time. When we shot the waffle party, we had these waffles and I was like, I gotta have a taste of one of those waffles and that was like three years ago.

For old times sake. Yeah, it's crazy because we were off the air for three years. Oh, I remember. Yeah. And it was incredibly infuriating as a fan of the show. Well, I appreciate that you were a fan from the first season because a lot of people didn't discover it until now. I told so many people, have you guys seen this show on Apple TV?

It was like all I could think about. Thanks. And you did a great job believing on that cliffhanger with Mark at the birthing cabin. Yeah, he's at Devon and Rick and he's like, she's alive. Yeah, that's right. And the, I'm like, when is this next episode gonna come out?

When is the next season? I know, I know. When we got hit with the strike, there was a writer as an actor strike. And it took us a little bit while, a while to kind of like regroup after that. And the show, I think we shot for 186 days on season two. Yes, there's a lot of shooting and editing and editing takes a while.

But thank goodness that the audience was like was there when we came back on. And I mean, almost built the suspense up even more. Yeah. And I think we just kept talking about it. Yeah. And the challenge was just to get people who hadn't seen the show to watch the first season. So Apple did a really good job, I think, of getting the word out,

and we did as much press as we could. But also three years later, Apple TV Plus is actually a different, it's a different situation there now because they have more viewers too. Because when we started out, we were one of the first shows. That's a good point.

Yeah, I think. I didn't even think about that. That's pretty cool. Talking about kind of doing some promo for it was the the art museum set up wasn't even at an art museum. It was like a pop up like office set up. Oh yeah. Is that like the weirdest promo you've ever done for a show?

Yeah, that was really crazy. We set up the office cubicle in a glass cube in Grand Central Station. That's where it was. Yeah. And it was an idea that they had and Adam Scott said, well, if the actors, the real actors can go in there and do it. And the fact that they were willing to go in there.

So cool. And I said, they have to do it for like at least three hours because like it just has to be enough time that people can be walking by and just go, what's that? Yeah. Oh my God, people going home from work. Like, wait a minute. Like people who knew the show,

people who didn't know the show. And of course people started filming with their phones and stuff. And it became, it did become a viral thing. And that, I think, ended up probably getting more attention than if we had just done a press run or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And because it was so organic and it was so much fun to watch them just in this cube because the actors just started improvising and I was going to say,

was there a script where they were they even told talk about it? Or could they even be heard? They couldn't be heard, so they knew that. So they had that freedom, and they knew that they were gonna be in character. So they were actually doing Dylan and Mark, and Patricia came in as Miss Cobell, and she started throwing stuff at Adam, and made him stand in the corner.

And there was just so many funny moments. But I knew as actors, I knew they were just gonna sort of fall into it, because it's like what you do. moments. But I knew as actors, I knew they were just going to sort of fall into it because it's like what you do. So like it's like for them, it's like, OK, this is like a performance art piece. And and they had so much fun with it. And I was just like watching, taking pictures. And yeah, it was it was awesome.

What's it like directing something as complicated in some ways? Meticulous as severance. I mean, it just becomes, you know, I've been directing for like a lot for most of my life, I guess. And I love it so much. It's such a collaborative experience. You're working with cinematographers, you know, the production designer, costume designer, actors, editor, all these people.

It's a it's a group effort. And I just I love the process we were talking about earlier. So for something like this, when you have everybody who's sort of like focused on this vision that Dan laid out in his script, everybody's working sort of like towards the same goal. And and you want to get people to just be as creative as possible and work with people who you want to bring as much of their own personal sort of inspiration to it. So I think that's like a big part of it.

And then it's become it's basically been my full time job for the last five years. And I've loved it. It's just you go to work every day, you know, and you have your, you know, whatever scene you're going to approach. I think acting is is harder, honestly, you know, when you have to get in front of a camera and like show up in the morning and do an emotional scene where you're going to break down crying in your car or whatever it is, that's you know, that's challenging. As a director, you can come set up the camera, try to help the actor as much as

possible, create an environment, but they have to do that thing. And so for me, using that part of my brain as a director, I really enjoy because in a way I feel like, every day I kind of know what I'm gonna be doing. Acting stresses me out a little more because it's like, oh shit, I have that scene today where I have to pull that up. And I really admire, it's made me admire actors

so much more as a director, just working with them. Because I just see when you're doing both, because a lot of over the years I did it, I acted and directed in a lot of movies I made. When you're really just directing, I think you can just focus on what you're doing, be there for the other actors more, and be connected to the crew and sort of adjust things.

And I love the process of it. And by the way, I just have to say, we have other great directors, Jessica Lee Gunnay, our cinematographer directed our episode seven. So many cool shots in this. Like I'm just blown away by some of the. We have amazing people working on the show and. Come back to Harmony Cabell.

Yeah, Patricia Arquette. Oh, my gosh. That was I don't know if anybody saw that portion of it coming, because there wasn't a lot of hints to that. Oh, to her going back to her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What is. I don't know what we but yeah. Yeah. What is I don't know. I feel like there's more questions now than there were before.

Exactly. But that's how that's kind of the fun of and I can only imagine how fun that is trying to keep that question in the air, like the underlying meaning of everything and the theories. Have you heard of any like fan theories that you're like, oh, that's a good one. Didn't even think of that. Yeah, there are. There's so many on this show. Yeah. People and people put out There's so many on this show. Yeah. People and people put out there's so much fan art and fan edits and and and theorizing and podcasts about it that I don't I try not to get into it.

A lot of. Yeah. Yeah. I try not to because we have to focus on what we want it to be. But of course, you hear ideas that are like really interesting. Yeah. You go, oh, yeah, that could actually be something. But you don't want it to really influence like what we're doing. But yet you are aware of the audience. You want the audience to enjoy the show. But everybody seems to have a different way into the show, too,

and different things that they they love the Mark Kelly relationship. They love the Mark Gemmer relationship. They love Miss Cabell or Milchik, you know. So it what's interesting is you make the show. We made the season. We basically locked the season finished in, I'd say, like September, October. And I was doing some mixing and visual effects stuff through the fall. But it's done.

So, you know, as you're watching people react in real time, it's not like, you know, like, oh, you're watching a sports team where you go, you know, they really should have this guy play that position or you can't make any changes. It's all set. So I'm watching people react and they go, to, you can't make any changes. It's all set in stone. So I'm watching people react and they go, oh, this episode was the best episode or I really didn't like that episode or I wonder what's gonna happen,

or they should do this or that. I'm like, well, it's just, it is what it's gonna be. Next week is gonna come out. You're gonna find out, I mean, that has been something, especially you go knee deep in the theories each week and it's fun to watch, oh, well, that didn't end up panning out, now we're onto the next theory, right? Right, exactly. Yeah. And it's fun to watch. Oh, well, that didn't end up panning out. Now we're on to the next. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And so we know what it is and like what we've done for the season.

And I'm just watching in real time because it's not a binge show, too. It's coming out week week to week. So that's very different, too, as opposed to, you know, if you're watching something where you can watch every single episode. People can then go like, oh, that frustrated me. I'm going to watch the next episode and I get the answer I wanted but here you get people for like a whole week Going like oh, you know, that's is gonna go this way is gonna go that way or that frustrated me So it plays out differently than I think once the show's out

In a couple weeks and people will be able to binge the whole thing and that'll be a different experience for them watching it, too Yeah, I have two people three people who I show the show to when we're in process, which is my wife, my son and my daughter. Nah, he's okay. So they get the family, yeah. So they- They have all the answers.

Well, they see it as, like I'll show them a rough cut. Oh, Brian too. Brian I've showed, right, yeah. And so I'll get feedback from them, but you can't show everybody the whole series, so you can only pick a few people who you go, okay, do you wanna watch cuts as we go along? Yeah. Oh, that's gonna be exciting. along yeah talking about some characters uh Adam Scott yes

absolutely kills it he's amazing was he always kind of the first try to want to yeah bring that what he was always the first choice for you he was always the first choice for me from the second I read the the pilot script that Dan gave me and and I think Dan had been thinking about him too, and I reached out to him immediately. And then Apple had some other ideas about casting it, and I was very firm, like I really felt Adam was the guy, and Adam luckily stuck with it and stuck through with me and ended up doing it, and I'm so happy because I go again for that same reason,

I like the office workplace comedy vibe that he brings. But I also know he has this deeper thing underneath. Oh, yeah. And to watch him really embrace that over the course of making the show. And even just the way he approached playing Audi, Mark and any mark, his voice, his physicality, it's all so different, you know, and he really works so hard to do that. And he's also like this crazy, like, robot actor guy who can do anything, like he, and I mean that in a good way

because, like, somebody say robot actor, but, like, he is so specific and so precision in terms of being able to make an adjustment, you know? Like, he can make an adjustment that's sort of just like a, you know, a thing where, like, you know, a thing where you're like, you know, if you could just like lean a little to the right because the camera sees this behind you and still do the moment or, you know, just he's amazing.

Yeah, that's awesome. All of the actors are fantastic. Yeah. And John Turturro and Irv never worked with him before. And he's just an intense, great guy. The outdoor episode. Oh, yeah. Cat skills. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Catskills. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That moment with Helly.

Yeah. And speaking of like even Helly and Helena. Yeah. The facial expression change. No, Britt this year. Oh my gosh. Yeah. This year, Britt having to play Helena and Helly.

And again, the same thing Adam has been doing. But these actors are thinking about the characters so deeply that they always come in with so many great ideas. And I really listen to them, even just on story level, you know, just tone, everything. They understand it so well. So, you know, we'll be talking about an idea for a scene, and Adam will say, like, you know,

I don't know if that really feels like severance to me, you know, it's hard to define it sometimes But it's that kind of thing also when you're trying to push the boundary a little bit and take some chances like we've done in season Two, you know, you're trying to define like, okay Does this still feel like the show and I think when you trust your actors and you know that they have a sense of Who they are in the show? Yeah, you know, I really rely on that a lot. Yeah Yeah, well, let's ask the biggest question made. Would you get severed? Would I get severed? You have potentially more information for where this goes.

I personally, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The idea of it does not seem like a great idea. No, it's a lot of control you're giving out. Yeah. I feel like, you know, yeah. So, for me, it's no, because like I want to remember, I want to experience my life. The life that I have left to live, right? Because like we're here for not so long, like I want to feel it all. I feel like there's so many metaphors for severance in life though, right? In terms of how we suppress or cut off, you know? Yeah, yeah, fundamentalize things. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like, you know, people do that in all different sorts of ways.

And I, you know, and I probably do that in my life in a lot of different ways. I had a great text from a really good buddy of mine who played in the NFL, also served the United States Army. He said, you won't accomplish anything worth having in life unless it was hard getting it. And it's kind of like, I feel like severance, a lot of the themes are like,

and it seems where it's going is being severed from all of these painful, traumatic things. But you lose sight of the fact that these painful, traumatic things are part of living life and they're necessary to have. And it's it's undoubtedly no answer for that reason. But yeah, I think that's very much about what the show is. You know, like this, it's this life, you know, pain is such a big part of our experience. And of course, there's that duality thing of like, well, you can't have, you know, pain and enjoying life. You know, these things are separate, right?

Yeah. Pleasure and pain. But like you can't have pleasure without pain. What is pleasure without pain? Yeah. What is it, Jason? I don't know. Please tell me.

I believed you when you said that. Is Cobell officially a character we're rooting for now or is this still a part of the evil? Again, I think that's the fun of the show is that you have people like Milchik and Cobell. For sure. And Helena and you know, all these people that you don quite know Yeah, right. Yeah, and I like that She's always kind of had her own severed version of even though she's not severed that she you know that she's miss Selvig and playing His you know, she's kind of imagining a life as a normal person too when she's living next door to yeah mark So yeah, the the duality thing is a big part of the of the characters And I think that's fun for the audience to sit in.

Can I ask you one more? Is there more to the Irv and Burt relationship that hasn't been, I'm assuming yes. OK. I'm sorry. I don't want to push you. I don't want to push you. I really don't.

Because you're- When is this thing going to be on? It'll be on the day the last, or the week the last episode comes out. Oh, yeah. OK. We will have answers by the last episode comes out. Oh yeah, okay. We will have answers by Wednesday. Yeah, yes, all shall be revealed. Okay, fair enough.

Nice. That is good. That is good. Yeah. Because it feels, I mean the elevator painting with the Gemma episode all of a sudden reveals more like oh, there's another floor to this that, all right, all right, I'll stop, I'll stop. I'll stop, I'll stop. I'll stop. I'll stop. Listen, I'm telling you, I'm all over the city.

I can't tell you. I have the spoiler thing but I... Yeah, I have, I just had an idea but I'll tell you about later. Okay. Okay. I will tune in regardless. Yeah, are we gonna have to wait for three years for season three to come out or? No, no. The plan is not definitely not Yeah, no the plan is not and hopefully we'll be announcing what the plan is very soon. That will not be that All right. I'll be a Grand Central Station for it Let's go sit in a cube together and see what happens Don't you threaten me with a good time?

I'm just gonna have it courtside at the Knicks game. By the way, I went to a Knicks game with Taylor. She was there, this was like 10 years ago, and I was there with my son, and she literally, we FaceTimed my daughter, who's a huge Swifty. Oh, nice. She's 23 now, and we had the best time. She was incredible. Oh yeah, I appreciate that.

I think the same thing, so it's perfect. Yeah. You're right, and maybe we can get Taylor to another Kn. I think the same thing, so it's perfect. Yeah. You're right, maybe we can get Taylor to another Knicks game. Yeah, well, this is the time. You should definitely come though if you want to. I mean, I can hook that up. Say no more, say no more. You're the man.

I'm sure you would need help getting it. I mean, it's always a little smoother when you get. I need help. All right, well, let's do it. Come on. All right, there we go. Man, dude. Dude, thank you so much for coming along. Thanks man, it's so great talking to you guys. This is a dream come true, man. You've been one of the idols of everyone from the 90s

growing up and all the amazing movies you did. But now it's just so cool to see that you're every bit of a great dude as you are a great actor and director. Thanks man. Well, it's fun for us. I was talking like the Sandler, like we were working on Happy Gilmore and it's a kick because like you guys, like when you were kids watching this stuff and that it resonated and we enjoy watching you guys do your thing. Yeah. Super cool. I can't wait to see what Hal's got in store for us and Happy Gilmore 2 again.

It's insane. I can't wait, dude. Well thanks again, brother. Thanks man. Yeah, great again brother man. Thanks man. Yeah, great talking to you. Great talking to you and- Thanks for the waffles. Nice.

Great waffle party, my first one. Look forward to that. Next time we'll have a cantaloupe with your face on it. Exactly, no one will. Watermelon, yeah. Long live dogs. Yeah. That's what they say over at the farmer's dog because they want all dogs to live a long healthy life

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responsible gaming resources see DK ng.co slash audio. Yeah, thanks for stopping by Ben Stiller. How about that? Man, what a guy, man. There's just some people that it's just it's fun as hell to talk to. And the whole time you're talking to me like I can't believe I'm talking to him. Yeah, Ben. It's amazing, dude. I love how he brought up mystery, man.

Right at the end of there. I forgot all about that. I even told him I forgot you did that. Like, but that was a funny movie. I actually on it's on cable TV a lot more than than you would expect. I'll just be searching the guide on like a cable network. And I'll come across mystery men every now and then it's just fucking press presses click. You know, this isn't a Ben Stiller movie. But whenever I think of like the superhero movies, the ones that are like off the beaten trail

like it's like Clearly they were like kind of poking fun at the superhero movies. What's the was a mr. Blank man? What's the one? That's my favorite superhero movie of all time Ways brother dude. Yeah, I'm sorry to segue out of Lake man was fucking hilarious That movie is fucking amazing Now that's one that's what I'd have to rewatch I know we're on Ben Stiller I know we're on Ben still I'd have to I'd have to rewatch blank man. I haven't seen that one and fucking forever What's blank man on Rotten Tomatoes? Oh, it's got to be through the roof

12% Critic review It's only funny because I didn't expect it to have a high Like Rotten Tomato review, but still a classic. I don't care what the critics say that movies fucking great undeniable classic. Oh, anyways, Mystery Man. Great movie. Ben Stiller is the best. All righty. Let's get into some March Madness. The March Madness Brackets brought to you by Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. That's a Kelsey favorite right there. I definitely did get my Reese's Backpacks and my Reese's

Varsity Jacket. I am not in Kansas City though right now. I really like the seasonal Reese's cups that are the egg version. Yeah, I don't like white chocolate. These. Oh no, these. There they are. There they are. Yeah.

Any of the, they're a little bit thicker, a little bit more protein, a little more peanut butter to chocolate ratio. You tried these. We tried these. I am. I haven't seen that one in there. We're going to try that one out. All right. If there was a bracket of Reese's Jason, what's in your final four final four of Reese's? Everybody keeps saying like, why do they say Reese's? I don't know guys. That's why we that's how we fucking say it. I don't know which is how I've always said it everybody knows what we're talking about so can we stop like acting like it's

that big of a deal just because we are accent Reese's that I'm saying it I'm not sorry I'm not sorry at all obviously original Reese's peanut butter cups have to be in it yeah I think they're the number one and they win it I don't think they win it Reese's pieces or think they win it. Reese's pieces, or as we would call it Reese's pieces, Reese's pieces. Reese's do not sleep on Reese's. I like Reese's pieces better. I love Reese's pieces. I like Reese's pieces in like ice cream and shit. I can't just do them just straight up. You're fucking out

of your mind. Go eat some Reese's pieces. You'll fucking I know. I know. I'm in my mind and my mind is telling me that's not how I want to enjoy my Reese's Pieces. I mean, it's great as an additive as well, but it's also great on its own. They're fantastic. Reese's Pieces, Fast Break, are you putting that up there? No. No? Take five? Is take five a Reese's? I think it is, right? Yeah, but it's not up there.

Take five is great. You guys are out of your mind if you're not putting. I'm not saying I'm not. It's not a disease product. I think it got switched. I think Reese's bought it. Yeah, Reese's. I think Reese's take five now. Yeah, now. But that's just because they own the market.

It literally says Reese's take five. Yeah, Reese's take five in my top four because the take five is fantastic. You're out of your mind if you don't have it up there. You put Reese Reese's take five. 5 is fantastic. You're out of your mind if you don't have it up there. You put Reese's... So Reese's Take 5, you're right, you're correct. I'm just going off what the nice people at Reese's sent me as a document. God damn it. Jesus, today...

I know my Reese's! I know my Reese's! Have you said eggs yet? Have you said eggs yet? Not yet, that was going to be my fourth one. All right, all right, all right. I was going to say Reese's eggs, not like the actual egg. I'm talking about like the...

See, this is where you're tripping. It's like the Reese's eggs, not like the actual egg. I'm talking about like the see this is like Reese's cup. But the one thing you ate the most of Reese's was Reese's puffs. So you have to put Reese's puffs in there. You ate you. That was the only cereal you ate, Jason. No, you're right. I did not. In my brain, I did not equate Reese's peanut butter puffs as the candy bracket.

But I think you're right. We didn't say it was a candy bracket. You're right. We said it's a Reese's bracket. So I think you're right. All right. So I got Reese's original Reese's Pieces, Take Five and Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs. Dang.

But I like the specialty holiday Reese's. The egg is nostalgic and it's the best. The egg or the Christmas tree, any of that stuff where it's like a new, because it becomes a little bit thicker and I just like the ratio better. But I can't take out the original and I'm definitely not taking out,

I guess I'll take out take five. Gosh, I like to take five though. Back to basketball. March Madness is coming up, man. Sports fans, we love filling out these brackets, baby. And as we said last week, we're doing it for the first time ever. New Heights Bracket Challenge. That's right. It is brought to you by Reese's or Reese's.

Reese's who want to fucking get mad at us. The men's bracket deadline is this Thursday, March 20th at noon Eastern and the women's bracket deadline is Friday, March 21st at 1130 Eastern. I don't know why we didn't just make them both the same time on two different days, but fill those fuckers out. Yeah. Have some fun, ladies and gents. I think we've limited it to one person per bracket or one bracket per person. So it's this isn't just you fill out a hundred brackets and improve your odds. Yeah. Yeah. Improve the odds. Yeah. Just put in fucking one bracket, guys.

Don't be weirdos. Jason, have you filled out your bracket yet? I have not yet. Good. Well, you have till Thursday. Yeah, I got time, but I would like to go over it. Do we have a bracket? Yeah, we got some brackets. How do you make your picks that you don't watch any college basketball? Well, as you know, playoffs always come down to the same things like it's all, you know, taking care of the basketball. You got to like, you know, how well you operate

end-of-game situation two-minute drill like this is what it comes down to and play off Basketball, so you're going you're going turnover margin. I go physicality. All right toughness height Physicality you look at the height of the roster Like I already know where's Michigan State at where's Michigan State? I'm putting them all the way through to the final four I don't even need to see where they're at. I don't even need to see because I know Tom is going to have those guys playing hard and physical. I saw that they aren't the best

three point shooting team. So I was like, they're in because every all college basketball wants now is to fucking shoot these three pointers. And Tom is going to come they're going to undercutting their legs like, dude, you know, you stop a three point shooting team. You file the fuck out of them on their first report. Let me give them a couple free

throws. It's going to throw off the rhythm and it's going to make them nervous every time you come out there. Right. Yeah. It's a good, yeah. You got to make these guys pay. You suppose your will pay. You got to impose your will on finesse

players. This is true. Don't let these small shooting guards beat you in the tournament. How physical the fuck are these dudes? Jason, you're the three point equivalent to an offensive lineman though. Yeah, that's what you might think. I'm not though.

I am the undersized center. I'm the Dennis Rodman of offensive line football. That's right. I'm the Draymond Green of offensive line. Nice, Michigan State. Yeah, that's right. I'm not the biggest guy, but I'm gonna fucking, I'm gonna get in a mental capacity and I'm gonna impose my will on you in a weird way.

J Mon Green. Who else we got? We got a bunch. So this is the East. East. Okay. So obviously Duke. Yeah.

I mean, well, you got the four playing games too. So can't can't forget about those. I never worry about the playing games. You got to make it into the tournament on a playing game. I'm not interested. Go back up. Go back up. We're starting to eat.

It's the 11 seeds. They're like, they're not just the worst. You gotta be a play in. You're out. I'm not talking to you. There shouldn't even be playing games. All the players get eliminated in my bracket round one after they get in. Well, Texas and Xavier might have something to say about that.

Damn it. Texas is in there. I like Texas a lot. Fuck rules rules rules. I don't make them. They just are what they are. Texas is out in round one. All right.

So we got Duke against American doesn't even have a logo in there. It's just a game. That's why there's a play in game. I'm not talking to you. I'm not talking to you. I'm not talking to you. I'm not talking to you. I'm not talking to you. I'm not talking to you. I'm out in round one. All right. So we got Duke against American doesn't even have a logo in there. It's just a play game. That's why there's a play game. Jason. All right. I don't even need to see who they're playing in. Duke's

advancing. All right. It's all massive. So I'm gonna I'm gonna have to fill out a bracket and figure it out. But I will make sure that you guys know I'm a big fan of the SEC games or SEC teams. We're doing it right now Travis. No, we're not. That's what this is. No, this is us just kind of going over our bracket from here. I'm telling you who I like in these.

I'm not going to tell you exactly who I haven't coming out though. Okay, fine. All right. I'm not going to let you fucking just copy my bracket, Jason, because you know nothing. I don't want to copy your bracket. I'm not I know more about mentality and physicality and that's all that comes down basketball is all about physicality. Well, just like Aladie Florida is one of the most is one of the biggest teams Florida Florida Florida Florida is back

the gators are back Memphis Colorado State Memphis is solid. I am I think the Terps. Ooh, so this is the West has one of my favorite teams in the Memphis, Colorado State, Memphis is solid. I think the Terps. Ooh, so this is the West has one of my favorite teams in the NCAA right now. And that's Drake Drake Drake University. Yeah, Drake is Drake. They have a fun story. They're their coach is there and really for at least four of their players are from Division 2. I think it's Northwest

Missouri. Yeah, Northwest Missouri State coach brought them all with them. Yeah, they had a lot of transfers. When the Drake coach from last year went to West Virginia. A lot of the players that were on that team kind of went on their own or did their own thing. And then the new head coach was looking for players to bring in. So he brought in his D two guys and a couple guys from Wyoming. They got some guys that could play. Although I think Missouri is a really good team. That's going to be a tough game for him. I mean, I got a lot of that's like my Cinderella. They're also for them. They're also older for a lot of the better teams in NCAA. Is that correct? Yeah.

Yeah. And then on top of age, watching Texas Tech, I know Patty Mahomes is going to love hearing this. If they can stay healthy and if they could, I think they got a fucking great coach. They got great players, a lot of athletes. They can make a run at it. What about them? Jayhawks down there. They're usually pretty good. Yeah. Hunter Dickinson. I think, you know, Kansas build self, they're always going to be a team that you got to you got to account for, man. They could they can they can pull it together and make a run against anybody. So you got to keep them in mind. Illinois, Kentucky versus Troy, UCLA, Utah State, Tennessee. Wolfhard. Yeah, dude, you'd love this. Wolfhard has a guy that shoots the ball, shoots free throws on her hand.

No way. You were going to love this. I mean, I love that. But for that alone, I'm picking Tennessee. They're getting too, they're being too, they're going against the trend too hard for me to go with them. They've gone. They're a little bit too gimmicky. Got to pick Tennessee in that matchup.

Man, you're hilarious to Texas A&M versus Yale. Listen, as a rule, I might almost fill out my bracket. Based on GPA, if a team has a higher GPA, I'm picking them to lose. And I might do that all the way through to the championship game Jason We know the GPA is don't reflect actual Intelligent. Oh, no, I think it I think GPAs reflect athleticism and typically speaking Yeah, it takes listen If you're too smart

You're you're too hesitant to do stupid things. And you have to be willing to do stupid things. You have to be willing. You gotta be willing to take a risk and take a chance and do something like. You gotta be stupid enough to believe it. There's no way that guy's doing that. You gotta be stupid enough to believe it.

There's no way that guy's gonna try that move. Oh my God, that shit just worked. What the fuck? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha That guy's gonna try that move. Oh my god, that shit just worked And that's I mean that's how I got to the NFL so yeah, well I'm picking Texas A&M versus them silver spoon fucks at Yale What is Yale's what is what is their mascot is it just just like a pencil? The Yale, the Yale 2% the Yale Bears. It's a bull. What is a Yale? It's a bulldog. Bulldog. Handsome Dan, Georgia. Handsome Dan. All right. Texas a.m. That's enough shitting on you. All right. Texas a.m.

What's this? They they're going to be just fine. I think those Yale people are going to be just fine. Yeah. Okay, Ole Miss Iowa State Lipscomb, I'm gonna go with Iowa State. Lipscomb, yeah, Iowa State is sneaky. They beat, they're the ones that Kick the Bearcats out of the Big 12 tour. I tell you what I always fill out my bracket based on what school I think would win in a fight. Like if I think

Iowa State would beat Lipscomb, I'm going to go Iowa State. In a fight? Yeah. I just think at the end of the day, the mentality of the university rubs off on the mentality of the team a lot of the times. And I just like the mentality approach because I don't know shit about basketball. So that's my only thing I can go off of. Marquette versus New Mexico. New Mexico's tough one because New Mexico is probably pretty squirrely. Strikes me as a squirrely group. Marquette strikes me as.

Well, it's got one of the best basketball players in the country. Marquette strikes me as a little bit of a silver spoon. Where's Marquette at? What's Chicago? Chicago? Chicago? No, no, no. Is it? It's outside of Chicago, right? Wisconsin. There's constant. It's close. Close. I don't know why I said Chicago. All right. I kind of respect market if they're out of Wisconsin. One of our favorite actors ever went to

market. Played rugby there. Denzel Washington. I'm not even close. Oh god. What? I don't know. The answer is Chris Farley. Oh, shit. I should have known that one.

I was now. I got to know where did Zell go? I'm pretty sure. Oh, man. Denzel went to Fordham Fordham. Fordham is Patriot League. Oh, man. Thatzel went to Fordham. Fordham. Fordham is Patriot League. Oh man. That's fucking hilarious.

I know. This is so fucking funny. Ah, plays a hooper at Fordham. He was a hooper. He didn't play rugby. He was a hooper. He's a basketball player. That pinky says he played football.

Yeah, you've seen that pinky. Wait, so Jason, we've only talked about the men's bracket Do you use the the same metric system to figure out who's gonna win the women's bracket? Like do you just look at who who would win the brawl? Oh, wow. I haven't thought about it that way No, I don't use the same metric women's I just go with I just put you Khan is the winner every single year I just put you con is the winner every single year. I don't know who they're the same. I put you count as the winner every single year and that'll be until Gina retires. And then I just go based on overall team height average, whoever's the taller team. And I just fill it out.

You're a fucking hilarious. I haven't even I haven't picked at the women's as much worse case date. I know they won the big 12. Nice. They're up there. Five seed? Solid. Solid five seed. We do know that Juju Watkins is at the top of her game. Texas is, God damn, they're the other number one seed. I think it's kind of fair to say they're, the number one seeds are- I feel like there's less upsets in the women's bracket usually than there are in like the men's bracket.

Is that fair to say? I think it's fair to say at least for the number one seed. You don't see the number one seeds get kicked as much as you do in the men's brackets. In my extensive knowledge of both men's basketball and women's NCAA brackets, I like to make broad sweeping generalizations. Yeah, can't forget South Carolina.

They've been at the top for quite a while now. They're kind of like the Yukon of the modern day. They have a lot of talent there year in, year out. Who's the tallest team women's college basketball? Jason, this is supposed to be 45 minutes. He did 45 minutes. Well, there's no single team in women's college basketball. Duke and Florida State are often said as having some of the tallest players.

Both teams are six, seven and a half. While there is no definitive tallest team in women's college basketball, Duke and Florida State are often cited as having some of the tallest players. Both teams averaging around seven, six and seven, six foot seven and a half per player, putting Duke and Florida State. Where are they at? Those are my top two teams of women's college basketball outside of Yukon. Where the fuck is Duke? I think they're a two seed. Yeah, Duke's two seed. No, they're one seed in my bracket.

Okay, great. Who's your other team? Florida State? Florida State. Four sixes six. Dude, I feel really good about this. I don't know. Jason's going with height. I'm gonna pick the stars. Putting Juju in the final four.

I'm gonna pick the stars as well. I'm picking the stars. There's like five or six real bonafide stars in that woman's bracket. I'm gonna go ahead and slide them on forward. They're gonna be a star till they meet that height. Let you know that right now. Get that shot swatted.

No, my girl is gonna go in for that late. He's gonna be just fine. He's gonna be just fine. No, no. All right, now that does it for March Madness Bracket Challenge brought to you by Reese's or Reese's, whatever one you wanna call it.

Winning never tasted so good. Whether you're watching the games or filling out your brackets, feed your fandom with Reese's This March Madness. Hey-o! Again, to enter, go to the link in the description of the episode. Fill out your bracket and you can win

a new Heights Golden Cup. Man, who knows? Maybe I can fucking win one or get one one of these days. And it will be filled with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Hoo-hoo! Mine be filled with Reese's peanut butter cups. Hoo hoo. Mine's filled with playing cards. I think they threw in some Reese's eggs too.

Who knows, maybe you'll get some puffs, some Reese's pieces. But yeah, make sure you guys fill those brackets out. Men's bracket again, Thursday by noon, women's bracket Friday by 1130, all Eastern time. Yeah, good luck to the crew, to the 92 percenters. That wraps up another episode of New Heights. Thank you to Ben Stiller.

Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube to the New Heights channel and follow New Heights on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Please go check out our incredible guest episodes from last week, Matthew Stafford and Jason Sudeikis. You can also listen to new episodes of New Heights early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts.

Once again, New Heights, a Wondry show produced by Wavesports and Entertainment and brought to you by Nike. When the world says you can't win, Nike says so when. Follow the show on all social media, ad new heights show with one F for fun clips throughout the week. Ben Stiller, thank you, dude. That was a fucking blast. Thanks to our production and crew for making us all look great. Like we actually know what we're doing into the 92 percenters. We'll see you guys next week. Appreciate you tuning in.

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