The Bill Simmons Podcast - Matt Damon! Plus: Giannis Cards and COVID Confusion With Mike Gioseffi and Derek Thompson

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Mike Gioseffi of The Ringer's 'Sports Cards Nonsense' podcast to discuss changes in the market for Giannis Antetokounmpo's rookie card following his first NBA championship, as well as other changes in the sports cards landscape (6:45). Then Bill talks to The Atlantic's Derek Thompson about the COVID-19 delta variant, vaccine hesitancy, new policies for universities and sports teams, and more (35:05). Finally Bill is joined by Matt Damon to discuss the lingering pain of losing Mookie Betts to the Dodgers, Tom Brady's seventh Super Bowl win, the upcoming Patriots season, '90s movie eras, 'Stillwater,' why Tom Cruise is the ultimate stuntman, future projects, and more (1:02:35)! Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Matt Damon, Derek Thompson, and Mike Gioseffi Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ringer Films is premiering its first of six films in our Music Box series, Woodstock 99, Peace, Love, and Rage, on Friday, July 23rd on HBO. Woodstock 99 tells the story of the infamous music festival promoting unity and counterculture, but devolved into chaos and collapsed under the weight of its own ambition. Watch or stream Woodstock 99, Peace, Love, and Rage on HBO or HBO Max now. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks

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We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com as well as The Ringer Podcast Network and Ringer Films. We're brought by them too, because we have the first film from our Music Box documentary series that is on HBO in 2021. Sneak preview going up on Friday. Woodstock 99, Peace, Love, and Rage,

directed by Garrett Price. Really proud of this one. The reviews have been really good. I think it's excellent. I can't wait for you to watch it. You can watch it on HBO at nine o'clock ET on Friday, July 23rd. As soon as it becomes available on HBO, as soon as it starts rolling, it's also available on HBO Max, so you can catch up on it on there all weekend. We've supplemented that on theringer.com with this is the end week where we've had a couple of different pieces about,

you know, if the theory is Woodstock 99 brought the 90s to an end, what other things came to an end? And some good pieces on there as well from Katie Bakes and Brian Phillips and others on Rob Harvilla's 60 songs that explains the 90s podcast. He broke down Limp Bizkit's Nookie. Limp Biscuit

is in this movie. I am going to be interested to see what your reaction is to Limp Biscuit in this movie. It is a lot of ways. They're apex mountain, but they also contribute to a lot of the problems that this festival had. So, cannot wait for you to

watch this film, and the rest of them will be available later in the year, in the November, December range. But we are really pumped about the whole series. And HBO has been great. They've been a great partner. Excited for you to watch. So there you go.

Before we get to the podcast, which includes our guest Mike Giuseppe from our Sports Cards Nonsense podcast on The Ringer. He's going to talk about Giannis cards, the explosion there, and all the twists and turns the hobby has taken. So we have him at the top. Derek Thompson from The Atlantic is going to tell us what's going on with these COVID spikes, what's true, what's not true. Some of the fallacies, we go into it like always with Derek. And then last but not least, Matt Damon, for the third time ever on this podcast.

And every time it's been great. He has a new movie coming out. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk sports. We're going to talk movies, all kinds of things. So action-packed podcast. Before we get to all of it, I wanted to mention really quickly,

I left out Walt Frazier. Russel and I did the podcast on Tuesday night. It was right after the Bucks won the title. And I was trying, I was frantically writing down like the greatest closeout performances I'd ever seen and all that. I somehow left out Walt Frazier, 1970 finals, the Willis-Reed game.

Willis hits the first two shots. Here comes Willis. It's known as the Willis game. And then lost in history was that Frazier was the guy who actually won the game. And he was amazing. 36 points, 19 assists. He's all over the place.

It's the greatest game he's ever played. It's honestly one of the greatest games any guard has ever played. I would put it up there with Magic's triple-double and a nudge below Jordan against the 98 Jazz. But in general, an all-time classic. And I think I even wrote when I did my book, like this has been forgotten in history.

And then I ended up forgetting it on Tuesday. So I was really mad that I forgot that. I remember that a couple hours later. I was like, oh my God, I didn't have Walt Frazier in there. The other thing, just to be honest, I was thinking about his ability to defend on the other end. Because we talked about that a lot when you're talking about the great finals performances. And you usually gravitate toward the offense with that, right?

Shaq had 38.17 rebounds. Probably wasn't as disruptive on the defensive end. But just thinking about Giannis the last couple of days since that title and his ability to be able to guard any single player on the floor. It didn't matter who it was. His one through five versatility on defense when he's really playing at the highest possible level.

I was thinking about that a lot. Like that kind of got lost with the 50 points and 35 and 13 for the series and all the great stuff he did and how he evolved in his free throw shooting, which is just out of control that he made that many free throws. But his ability to guard Chris Paul in game six, but then could also guard Aiton,

could basically he'd guard Kevin Durant, you name it. He could have defended it when you really needed it. And I think as I spend the summer thinking about him historically, that piece of the ability to guard anybody on the planet one through five, not to mention the chase down blocks and the intimidation. And I was thinking about that play when it seemed like he got hurt on the Booker chase down block when he was just flying down the court, really for no reason. You throw away that play. You're going to play 45 minutes that night, whatever it ended up being.

And it's like, sometimes it's okay if you're not going 120%. And he just was in that mode and he's flying down like Randy Moss, trying to block Booker from behind, doesn't get it. It seems like he gets hurt, but that was just an amazing game. I've been thinking about it for two days. Obviously, I love basketball the most out of all the sports. I love sports, but basketball is my favorite. And to watch a guy just go all in like that in every sense of the word and will himself to become better, will himself to mentally solve these things, even the free throw shooting. It's one

of those things where I actually feel like we didn't make enough out of know, even the free throw shooting. Um, it's, it's one of those things where I actually feel like we didn't make enough out of it, even though everybody talked about it for two days. It's like, man, this is just one of those rare times. It's like when LeBron beat Boston that time in 2012, and he just went to another level and that was it. He was a different player from that game on. And I do think Giannis is a different player. So we're going to talk about him in a second with Gio from Sports Cards Nonsense. But just amazing. Giannis. I think he owns the

league right now. We'll see if somebody can take it back from him. All right. Gio, Derek Thompson, Matt Damon coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Our friend Gio is here. One of the hosts of the Sports Cards Nonsense Podcast. Big convention coming up in Chicago next week. I'm not going. It's the same day as the draft. Sorry, people at the convention. Wanted to talk basketball cards, specifically Giannis cards or Giannis as your partner Jesse calls it on the podcast. Sure. Janice. Janice. Janice Soprano. Yeah. So Janice goes from a two-time MVP, top like 70, on pace to be a top 50 guy, but seems

headed toward like a Patrick Ewing kind of type of ceiling as a player, where it's like really great, awesome. We'll totally remember him, but there's not a lot left. Goes, blows through the last two rounds after he gets by Durant and now is like kind of. Ten times better than Jordan? Is that? Well, just seven times. No, but I think if he stays healthy now, he has a chance to at least be on that level with Hakeem, maybe Shaq, if he can get one more title. So what happened to his cards? Because we've had this up and down year with cards where there was a boom, then it faded down a little bit, it came back.

What was the impact? Yeah, so I mean, we've seen kind of a steady climb over the past few weeks. I mean, when they beat Brooklyn, it was a nice bump in his pricing, no question. The Atlanta series, very little movement until the very end. And it was like, okay, now he's going to a finals. That's cool.

Goes down 0-2 and he kind of starts to slide again you know the suns and four nonsense starts but after last after tuesday night's win i mean almost across the board we saw a huge spike for about 24 hours like anything rookie that was high graded you know or people it's been professionally encased it was just this craze for about 24 hours today we saw we saw that craze taper off, but we're still up at almost about 20% across the board for his base rookies from where they were pre-finals win. So it's come down from the spike, but still way up. So it's 2013 Panini Prism is the big one for him. Sure. And then there's the Silver Prism, which is kind of the high-end rookie card.

Huge. $8,000. So one of the things that's happened since you launched your podcast with The Ringer, what was it, last fall? Something like that? February. At some point last year.

Was it this year? February of this year, yeah. I feel like we were talking about it last year. All right. So we launch it. There's a boom, and then it goes down, then it comes back up. But

the real thing that happened was base cards of these rookies from the last 10 years dipped a little and people started going for more of like, what's a little rarer than a base card, a base card for people listening is like, if I buy a pack of panini prisms or tops, Chrome, whatever, and I get the normal standard card of yannis that is called the base card if i get like a refractor card or a black prism or a red prism whatever those are harder usually it's like maybe there's 300 of them 200 whatever and it seems like this year the market drifted toward those more unique kind of cards right yes all of a sudden it went from hey the base is the big thing and we saw really that peak So a lot of this stuff peaked in basketball in August. And then we saw kind of

another crazy resurgence February, March, and then the narrative just changed. It was like, Hey, there's too much base. Everybody hates it. There's, there's way too much supply, not enough demand. And so it really tanked, you know, all of a sudden people started looking at population reports and Hey, there's 20,000 literally Lucas and 20,000 and growing Zions. And then kind of like what we've I think I talked about the first and remind you the only time I've been on the show before. It was like, hey, I dig that was it. Now I'm going to get back in line here. No, but it was like, hey, Zion is not Hakeem Olajuwon.

Zion is not. He had one good year, you know, and it was like, people are paying this. This is crazy. Let's take it out on the base. And those prices fell dramatically, which they probably should have. I mean, it just, there was too much hype for no reason. Well, it peaked last year in the bubble when we had, what was, Luka was 1,800 for his base rookie at one point, but there was a lot of them out there.

Yeah, so the night he hits the game winner against the Clippers, 2,0002,000. Instant sales. Even Giannis, Janis Prison PSA 10 hit $7,000 last year. Now it's just that three and come down again. It's not a $7,000 card. So if you were smart,

you sold it, but that same card was $1,500 two weeks ago and it topped out at 3000 yesterday so you know i think sometimes it's like the narrative is everything's booming which was never the case it was really good hot market and then it was everything's crashed again a lot of things have come down but there's still plenty of areas where it's like you know things are balancing out and they're still good buys the honest being one of them dude played unbelievable and his prices reflect that now.

The only thing that made me nervous for the hobby, and as you know, I'm all in, but it just seemed like the last year or so, there was so much more graded stuff from like maybe summer last year all the way through March this year when we finally had the PSA shutdown. And there were days where it was like

in a week they were grading more cards than they graded in a year. And a lot of the cards people are sending in are these cards from the last 10 years in any sport that they're pulling out of packs, immediately putting in holders. And they're always going to be PSA 9, PSA 10, which are the top two grades for people listening. And there was just a lot of stuff. It it wasn't hard to find a Luca rookie Panini prism card. It wasn't hard to, it was everywhere. Even I got to say, it wasn't even that hard to find like a PSA nine Jordan. They were always out there. It's the, one of the great cards of the hobby, but always available. Any auction you went to, you can find them. And I think everybody kind of collect the smarter people like us kind of

collectively realized, well, wait, if I can always get a card, then why am I paying premium price for that card if it's always available? So it feels like that shifted, correct? Yeah, it's finally in the Jordan's a great example. And it's not a knock on Jordan. He's the goat. That card is the greatest basketball card of all time. But psa9 i mean one of our first shows we did in february was when i documented my sale of that card for 70 000 you can buy that now for 20 grand right that i mean so if and if you bought into the hype and that's why like uneducated people came in and i feel bad because you get a lot of loudmouths who have no knowledge of this hobby but they're given a microphone and it was like hey and i'm a loud

mouth but i have a little bit of knowledge so it it works. But it was like, you know, Oh, anything you buy is going to go up and guys bought it in February and March. And it was like, Oh, a Jordan, you can never go wrong with a Jordan rookie. I'll tell you right now, if you bought that Jordan rookie for 70 grand and it's worth 25 now or 20 people got hammered, but it's because of that sentiment. It's like, guys ride the wave wave, make some money, turn your profits when you can. If you're a true collector, fantastic. Don't ever leave. But if you came in at the wrong time, it's like any other market.

You got to be smart about it. Well, in 60s, 70s, and early 80s, vintage has been the stuff that has not only gone down, but it's gone up. And there's been runs on all kinds of different stuff. You did a thing on your podcast a couple of weeks ago about six superstar football guys from six of the biggest names of all time. You left out LT. LT is going to find you by the way. I'm going to say, yeah, I love the call, but great show. Two text messages from Bill. Great show today. You forgot LT. I'm like, okay, here we go. Well, you did. Who'd you do? You did Jim Brown. You did Staubach and

Bradshaw. Unitas, Jerry Rice Montana Bradshaw. Unitas, Jerry Rice Montana. Jerry Rice Montana. And the thinking was, for some reason in football, it hasn't transferred like it has with basketball, where it's like Giannis has the playoffs like he did. It's like I have to get Giannis. But there's 75 to 80. I

have to get this guy, guys. In basketball and football, there's like 12. Football's weird. That vintage market to me, it never so it's spiked some but not like basketball legit 10x i mean the just to give a reference the psa 9 jordan we talked about his rookie card you could get it all day for 35 to 5 000 three years ago four years ago jumped up to 70 000 yeah no jim brown card has ever taken that leap. No LT card has ever. So football's kind of been like a slow and steady gain, but never anything crazy like

that. LT is 82 tops, which is right around when they started mass producing cards. And one of the problems with football is a lot of the iconic guys are in the 80s when there's just more inventory. The 70s guys, not nearly as much inventory, but you don't have the guys that you're telling your grandkids about, which is why the 76 Walter Payton card is kind of the best card of that decade.

It's the hardest one. It's priced like he's an all-timer, which he is. But it's weird that that card is way more valuable than like Jerry Rice. Yeah. Like in relation though, even that, like I have a PSA nine, Walter Payton rookie. It's worth like, I don't, I haven't checked like this week, but roughly five grand call it. I mean, give me another guy from the seventies, 60s, seventies with that, who is, I mean, top three at worst running back.

If that's a baseball star, that's Nolan Ryan, a Nolan Ryan PSA nine rookie. Now granted he's in the sixties. It is X, but I mean, just all these other sports and vintage, even basketball, that card would be way bigger. Football to me just has never gotten that attention. I think it's the next one, but I don't think we're going to see overnight Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Montana go up by 10, but I think they're very safe buys right now. Well, we saw it with the newer years, right? The last year's set was a monster.

And there were all kinds of different things that came out of it, but we had initially it was two in Burrow, then Herbert emerges as the guy, but then there's all these amazing receivers in it as well. And that's like, it has a chance to be a borderline iconic football set because it's all skill position guys and Chase Young.

Yeah, I mean, so we just, I mean, of course, we had to bump you off our podcast. So AJ Dillon was on our podcast. We just finished taping and he said the same thing. He's like, dude, 2020, I'm all in. He has sealed wax. He's like, I'm all in on 2020. And I agree.

Quarterbacks run the hobby and you've got, I mean, Burrow and Herbert, I don't think anybody's arguing or faces of the game. Potentially. I'm high on Tua. I think he's an exciting player. I think he's going to win games. And Jalen hurts played pretty well. You got in CD lamb,

Jerry, Judy, you know, Justin Jefferson, um, the kid who I can never remember from the Steelers who had a good year. Um, yeah,

I'll never, no, we don't, don't, don't compliment the Steelers. You said this last time too. I know we don't, we're not complimenting them.

I think I complimented Colby on here once. It wasn't. They're going to go six and ten again. That's why I haven't been invited back. I complimented Colby and the Steelers. No, you're invited back when it's super relevant. Now basketball playoffs are over. Now it's time for niche programming again on the BS Podcast.

Fair. So football this year is also going to be awesome. Because we have more quarterbacks. We have all kinds of skill position guys again. There's some fun possible sleepers. Like, who knows? What if Mac Jones is freaking incredible for the Patriots? He was the 15th pick.

He'll go nuts. His prices will be insane. I actually like this set as much as I like last year's set. Last year's set has the Herbert card, which I think has a chance to be the best card of the last, I don't know how many years, if he does what I think he's going to do. Yeah, so last year the talk was we had never seen a prospect. And again, just in hobby terms, Elway is probably the greatest prospect or Andrew Luck. But in terms of the hobby, because of the timing, we had never seen a hobby prospect like Joe Burrow ever.

I mean, when product first started releasing, which it always releases months before they step on the field, the prices were astronomical. But we've seen that shattered now with Trevor Lawrence. I mean, all the other guys are almost on par with Burrow and Herbert last year. Zach Wilson, Fields, the hype around them is enough there. But oh, by the way, we also have the number one prospect value-wise ever.

It's really since andrew luck yeah yeah and andrew luck like in 2012 there was no hobby market for football so it's like this kid is like skill is there but then like the hype and he's he's the zion of the nfl like that's the effect he's had on cards already uh for 2021 football product it's it's nuts and then you have the trey lance piece as well, where who knows, like he's the one who's like Shanahan was in on him apparently really early and knows quarterbacks really well. And he could be a sleeper too, but it's fun to see the rejuvenated football market. And then baseball is another one. And they always talk about how there's no stars in baseball, but

it certainly hasn't been reflected in the hobby. The 2019, which was it? The Bowman one is like this iconic rookie set. Now, who's in that one? One of them? Yeah, so 2019 Bowman, which is one of the first products that comes out every year that has like the prospects is Wander Franco's first card.

Monster money. Also has a guy named Julio Rodriguez. And now we're getting to prospects, but monster bat coming up. You call him J-Rod. Yeah, J-Rod. Absolute monster. And I like him better than A-Rod. Yeah, J-Rod. Absolute monster. And I like him better than A-Rod

because he was a Yankee. You know, you've got Marco Luciano. You have these kids who have an incredible hype and they come up in these products and the products just go through the roof. And Bowman always is like kind of the name brand in baseball

for those kids. You and I have the same theory on baseball rookie cards. I'm out on all pitchers at all times. I don't trust pitchers. It's the same thing for this AL Keeper League I'm in. We always try to just draft hitters because you draft this pitcher and it's like,

oh my God, he's the best college arm. And then the guy's hurt a week later. Whereas like at least the hitters, there's some sort of injury stability. Now like somebody like Eloy got hurt this year. So it's not like hitters can't get hurt. But Eloy's coming back this week. But it seems like the last five years or so,

at least with Vlad Jr. and Tatis, and it just seems like we're in the middle of a boom. I don't know how. How has it translated to cards compared to what you thought would happen? Yeah, so I've notoriously been down on Otani. Because I got burned the first year. I bought him as this phenom. He's going to be great. And then I just held because I got burned the first year. I bought him as like this phenom.

He's going to be great. And then I just held because I thought, hey, we'll see the Ruth comparisons and the hype. And he got injured the first couple of years. So I got murdered, sold off, cut my losses and was dead. You were like bitter about it. Oh, of course. You're angry at him.

Oh, yeah. I hate Otani. I don't like California now. How dare you to say healthy Otani. Yeah, just dude, go break your leg. Take one for the team here, you jerk. Yeah, I just, totally wrong, but Otani stuff now is

unbelievably expensive. I mean, it's, and it should be. Tatis. And what's cool is now, not only do we have, like, these guys hitting and playing great, arguably some of the best, not arguably, they are the best names in baseball, but it's like baseball's kind of fun again. Yeah. I mean, I'm younger than you,

and so to me, Griffey was the only guy who was fun to watch. The rest of it was a bunch of stiff guys who didn't care. They cared, but they were just boring. Even Trout. What's Trout ever done that's interesting? I know he's great. Talent, no question. Otani is so much more fun than Ted Trout.

But you nailed the Otani thing, and then you somehow lost money on it even though all of your instincts were correct. the entire show. Oh, Otani is? It's weird though. So is Vlad. But you nailed the Otani thing. And then you somehow lost money on it, even though all of your instincts were correct. You went all in on him. He just got hurt. A year early. And then guess what?

You quit. You're a quitter. There's no room for quitters in this hobby, Gio. Here's the tough thing. You quit on a guy. You didn't trust your instincts. I don't know. How do you even,

like if this, you were a friend, I'd tear you apart. And I can't. It's a boss relationship. I just sit, I gotta sit here and take it.'t trust your instincts. I don't know. How do you like if this you were a friend, I'd tear you apart. And I can't. It's a boss relationship. I just sit here and take it. Yeah, I was. So, yeah, I was too early selling.

But then it's like, I don't know if you held it for a year and a half. Hats off to you. But if it ties up your capital, I never know what to do with. I'm always one. If I think it's going downhill, I'm cutting my losses and I'm leaving. Well, your batting average has been pretty great with this. The highlight is the early 2000s Brady stuff. Yeah.

That's how you should be. If you ever get famous for this stuff, they write the giant magazine profile. That'll be like the lead of the profile, how you were just all in on Tom Terrific. It's just going to say Simmons Lackey got lucky. There's your headline. Lucky Simmons Lackey. Do we have a writing team at The Ringer? Sign me up. I'm done. It's just going to say Simmons Lackey got lucky. There's your headline. Lucky Simmons Lackey.

Do we have a writing team at The Ringer? Sign me up. I'm done with the podcast. Tell your Brady story. Yeah, Brady, I just held onto forever. I grew up watching the guy, so I would be buying his stuff forever. I mean, it's been very good to me.

The classic sell-off early is I sold a card for $7,500 that just closed it. And this was eight to 10 years ago. It closed at auction last week, or not last week, last month for like 1.3. So yeah. You sold it for $7,500?

Yeah, which was huge money back in the day. That was great. Yeah. But a lot of the stuff I've held. That was three Super Bowls ago. Yeah. After Seattle, his stuff went crazy. So I was like, hey, let me get my win. Like, cool, happy to do it. But then I've held my Bill Russell and Bird rookies and stuff,

and those have done nothing but go up. That series of basketball is finally getting the attention it deserves. Yeah, one of the things you talk about on your pod, which I 100% agree with, is like the all-time legends, A, are never going down. B, you're never going to regret being like, oh man, I bought this Jim Brown PSA 7 rookie.

You're just not going to be kicking yourself on that 30 years from now. And it's like, so we think the guys are Russell and Wilt, Jim Brown. Yeah, I love Jim Brown. Brown and Russell are my two number one and twos. To me, those are the best and safest buys in all of sports for vintage guys.

Mantle, Koufax, and Jackie Robinson are all high, but still, I just don't feel like you're kicking yourself getting in on any of those guys. By the way, you've made this point many times. It's not like you have to get the PSA 9 Mantle. No. Just grab one. Even if it's a PSA 3 or 4's not like you have to get like the psa9 mantle no but just grab one just even if it's like a psa three or four like at least you have one there's only so many in

decent condition go check there's uh what's that what's that site that has the population of all the cards you'd be shocked by how oh yeah the population is they're super low and willie mays another one of those guys like people talk about willie mays rookies and i was getting crap for this but like the living legends there's more value because there's always a spike when they die not that you're rooting for that but it's like hey we've like hank aaron stuff if you bought into a year ago my goodness you you are up so high in your position that's why willie mays jim brown bill russell like to me even nolan ryan's getting to that point he's like unbelievable we're finally starting to think, wait, how many strikeouts does this dude have? And he was beating the crap out of Robin Ventura.

Like, yeah, Nolan Ryan's a beast. Like, just you don't see that now. I like on your podcast, you always qualify the statement of you don't feel good about it, but this is just the reality of the Hobbit-y. When people pass away, there's a spike. And there's, for whatever reason, that is the moment that some people go, oh, I got to get that guy's card now. Right. And it's just the way it is. What are you expecting from this collector's convention in Chicago next week? Because I went, obviously, I've been probably

like seven, eight times over the years. I've done photo essays from there. I've done all kinds of stuff from there. But it was always, I always felt like it was a little underground, right? The people that were there, it was like this own community. And it was never haywire. But now you've seen the last five years, especially with new wax and stuff like that. People, I just don't know what to expect. I don't know how fast stuff's going to fly off the shelves.

Like, how crazy is it going to be? Yeah. I mean, the first thing I was expecting was you to be there and on our live podcast, and then you bailed on us, which is fine. And be a draft. That's the most important day of the year. Here's the deal. First thing, it was you had to take your kid to something. Now it's a draft.

That's fine. You know what? I'm moving on. But to put it like, I expect, I really think it's going to go one way or the other. You know, we talked about in February, March, a lot of things are way down since then. So guys are upside down. Are dealers smart enough to realize it doesn't matter what you paid in February. Here is today's value if you want to sell it.

If we see that, then fantastic. People are going to sell things because to me, it's finally become a buyer's market again. I think a number of people will be in that position. Hey, even if we're upside down, we're cutting losses. Let's be realistic with pricing. Fantastic. But yeah, it's not the nerd convention now. The only reason we even got any time at all, me and Jesse, to do our podcast on the main

stage is because I practically told him I was your son. I mean, it was unbelievable. And he told us, he's like, any other year, no problem. You come for an hour. We had to plead for a half an hour on Friday Friday and we couldn't even get on there on Saturday. Like the media coverage will be crazy there. HBO is filming a big documentary there that we're going to be a part of apparently. Like there's just so many things now that are happening. And I think the buying is going to be crazy. I think you also have a lot of people on the selling side, like, Hey, I've tied up a lot of money. Either I'm way up or I'm cutting my losses. I think you'll have a lot of people looking to sell and a lot of people on the selling side like hey i've tied up a lot of money either i'm way up or i'm cutting my losses i think you'll have a lot of people looking to sell and a lot

of i just think it's going to be super active and 46 percent of people according to the poll they just took are going to their first national ever that really not even close that is the biggest positive indicator to me almost half the people there are going for the first time. That's great. Over, under women? 20? 6? My wife has already told me. My wife and Jesse's wife are going. I said, do you want to make a... I didn't even finish the sentence. I was like, no. I'm not going in there.

So, yeah. I am really excited for the reports. I'm excited to see... I just have a feeling stuff's going gonna fly off And like for me I love the vintage basketball stuff And it seems like that market's

Also exploded And we'll see what happens there The boxes have really taken off Yep And boxes have become affordable again You know like some of those Vintage boxes now You may have had a couple

Huge sales months ago But now it's like Man in comparison Still way higher than ever before But it's way lower than that So it's like Maybe you take a stab at it now. I think a lot of guys are going to do that. All right. So we think with Giannis, probably wait a month. And if you want to invest in him in some way, maybe wait until like we get toward football and that that's when people take their eye off the prize of basketball, right? mean there's no rush right like he's come he's come down off the spike from yesterday

but he's still so much higher than he was if you're buying now just wait yeah patience with him to me is there's no reason to rush into it and i just don't think we're i also wouldn't wait too long because the kids floor is never going to be lower than now i mean you can't get the type of hype i mean now he's i mean people talking the second best power forward ever. You can argue that, you can not argue that, but his card value has reflected not only the on-court, but also the hype. So be patient. Well, and also, he clearly jumped a level, which, and at his age,

it just feels like there's more coming. So to me, it's the equivalent of like, if you could have gotten in on Hakeem in 1994 before he wins the second title, or if you get in on Shaq after 2000, it's like, oh, I was late. Shaq won a title. I missed it. It's like, no, you actually didn't miss it because he's going to win three more titles over the next six years. So I think with Giannis, any sleepers before we go? You could give me like two in any hobby that you're looking at. Baseball, football, or basketball. Yeah, so you name one guy. Eloy has become a value buy to me. I mean, Eloy has legit major league power. That team was, I don't know today, but close to 20 games above 500.

The White Sox. He was supposed to be a 50 homer guy this year. He's on my keeper team. His pectoral, all of a sudden, he had the red flag next to him. I'm like, oh, no. Eloy, what happened? And here's why it's team. His pectoral, all of a sudden, he had the red flag next to him. I'm like, oh, no. Eloy, what happened? And here's why it's a perfect storm for him. Which, first of all, that injury was such a weird fluke thing. If he was on my bench, that wouldn't have happened.

I'm telling you right now. He had my pecs. No injury. But here's what's perfect. He's coming back. The team is hot. They're going to the playoffs. No question.

And Luis Robert, whatever you want to call him, is out. He took away so much attention because of his hype. It hurt Eloy prices. Instead of it being the Bash brothers, it was like, no, no, no, here's Steph and here's Clay. But now Eloy is going to come back. And again, legit power. I think he's a great buy. There's a prospect in baseball, Bobby Witt Jr. for the Royals, who just got promoted. That kid, I talked to a couple of guys at the MLB Network. They just say he is unbelievably talented. And we may see him in the majors this year, which would be insane to see.

I think he's a good buy. And I am still very high on two quarterbacks. I'm high on Tua. Tua lost so much favor last year, and a lot of guys say he can't play. I just, Tua has that weird thing where I just think he's going to be a winner. I think Miami's a good team.

Tua's pricing, too. It makes sense to me. The gap and the price disparity between him and Burrow, him and Herbert, is so great right now. And I think we see, because the new quarterback class coming in is unbelievably priced, you can't touch Trevor Lawrence for X amount of dollars. But, oh, I can get a nice Tua for that, and if he performs, it can. So I like Tua, and then I hate this.

I don't know. I complimented the Steelers. I guess this is just as bad. I think Dak Prescott's a good buy. Again, compared to the top guys. Dak Prescott, come back. Yeah, he's low. I mean, his foot's in 97 pieces.

So I don't know if he can still play. But the amount of hype. I mean, like last week, the story was, does Dak challenge Mahomes for MVP? Like just these ridiculous stories. But there's so much hype around him. The market is reflective of two things. was does Dak challenge Mahomes for MVP? Like just these ridiculous stories, but there's so much hype around him. The market is reflective of two things, on-field performance and hype.

And lately, quite frankly, hype is more important than anything else. I just think that's a perfect storm for him in Dallas. So I like 2016 Dak Prescott rookie stuff. I'm in on Jerry Judy on the Broncos. There's some really good advanced, there's some good advanced metrics with him, though, that if you look at the quarterbacks he was forced to play with versus the stuff he was doing,

that he was as good as Jefferson, just with a way worse quarterback. I like Jefferson, too. Yeah, see, that brings in C.D. Lamb, too. I mean, Lamb can play. He played very well with no quarterback. If Dak comes in and just naturally I like Dak, I have to like CD.

I think that could be a good duo. For this new draft coming up, Pitts is the guy for me. You think like Gronk and Kelsey as tight end. Well, think about the Gronk. The Gronk run that went on, right? I just, yeah.

You don't like tight ends? I mean, look at the... What if he has a generational tight end? Like that's got, like Kelsey, I still feel like Kelsey is a good deal. Kelsey's like 31. He's going to have a couple of years left. You know, he's going to be in the playoffs a few more times.

And it's going to be like Gronk, Kelsey, Tony Gonzalez, Shannon Sharp, and probably this Pitts kid is like the five most productive tight ends we've had. You don't like it. I don't like his spot either. Atlanta with no Julio. I like Calvin Ridley enough,

but again, now Calvin Ridley is solely the number one. New offensive coordinator? I mean, sorry, new head coach? He used to be

the Titans offensive coordinator? All right. Yeah, I don't know. Last time I told you it was Trey Young. Last time I went on your podcast, I predicted the Trey Young. You also said Garner Minshew.

You laughed at me. Garner Minshew? Garner Minshew was your football deep sleep I predicted the Trey Young. You also said Gardner Minshew. You laughed at me. Who did I say? Gardner Minshew was your football deep sleeper. I stand by it. You're standing by the... I stand by the Gardner Minshew sleeper call. He's going to have a moment on somebody's team. If he has a big moment starting,

I'm going to grill the same Fu Manchu he has. And Trey Young was tough. You were right about Trey Young on the court, but there's a contrast. Never affected the cards. It never affected the hobby, which makes no sense in the real world, but that's how it plays there.

I'll tell you the one super deep, not super deep, but deep sleeper. I love is Rondale Moore, the kid for Arizona second round pick. I think that's a perfect spot for him next to those receivers. Do you know why the Trae Young had never affected his card? Cause the card was already too high.

Cause everybody bought in like these guys are already superstars. And we see that every year with the high-end guys. It's going to happen with LaMelo this year. I mean, think of the raw LaMelos. We're going for crazy numbers. People don't even know if they were graded or not. I just like Trey Young's a villain and embraces it. He's my favorite basketball player right now.

I love it. Well, Larry Bird, I guess, number one. Then him. Yeah, the legend. Before we go, the PSA stuff is going to get sorted out over the next six months, you think? No. It's going to take a year? I'm just off the PSA train is going to get sorted out Over the next six months you think? No It's going to take a year? I'm just off the PSA train

I've been using SGC They have the most valuable cards ever sold now There's a Honus Wagner going up They just sold a $6 million Ruth A million dollar LeBron Wow For guys not new to the Professional grading is a huge thing

PSA the lowest entry level is $200 a card It's just We did a big thing on our podcast today I just don't think it's realistic SGC for $25 you wait three weeks to get your stuff back I just think it's a much more I think it's a much better value play for almost anything right now

alright good luck at the convention you can listen to Gio on the sports cards nonsense podcast which goes up on Monday afternoons and Thursday afternoons. It's my favorite podcast to listen to and then send backhanded compliments to the hosts about.

The text messages. Perfect. Thank you. That's my new NFT, Simmons Text Messages. See you later. Thank you, sir. This episode is brought to you by Movember.

The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support

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All right. Our guy Derek Thompson is here from the Atlantic. I trust his opinion on a lot of this stuff. And by this stuff, I mean the things that are in the headlines, things you wonder what's true, what's not true. It's happening again with the Delta variant of the COVID virus. We're seeing a lot of stuff, a lot of habits, a lot of rhetoric, a lot of rules being changed, a lot of stuff just happening. Here in LA, you got to wear masks when you go inside restaurants and stores again, things like that. I'll just ask you, what is happening? What's happening? Well, the line that everyone is using right now is that we are experiencing a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

That's the line that everyone is using, pandemic of the unvaccinated. And typically, when a line like that becomes so ubiquitous, I tend to think it's a sign that it's wrong. Like, that's my bias. If everyone's saying this, it can't be entirely true. Nine times out of 100, the most popular narratives are a little bit off somehow, and I try to zag off of it. But I checked this one out, and it's basically true. This is the one in 100 time that the national narrative has it right on. Since February in Louisiana, unvaccinated people have made up 97% of COVID-19 deaths. Since April in Alabama, unvaccinated people have made up 96% of COVID deaths. In June in Maryland, 100% of COVID deaths

were among the unvaccinated. So what's happening here is that you have all these people who haven't gotten a vaccine and they are crashing into this wave of the Delta variant, which is significantly more contagious, maybe more deadly, maybe not. It's a little bit more uncertainty there, but definitely more contagious than the OG strain of SARS-CoV-2. And as a result, you essentially have in this country, you know, 80, 90, 100 million people who don't have natural immunity, who don't have a vaccine, they're extremely vulnerable. And we're seeing it now in the case growth. And frankly, we're seeing it around the world. You know, you look to a country like the UK, which just had its

huge freedom day. They're seeing a surge in cases that is enormous. They're basically right back to their highest caseload on record. It's just that deaths are still very low because they did such a fantastic job of vaccinating their senior population. You're seeing in the in the Tokyo Olympics. This thing is unbelievably contagious. And it's why we need to rededicate ourselves to the cause of vaccinating as many people as we can as fast as we can. Last time you were on, you talked about, could we reward people to get vaccinated and things like that? At some point, if people don't want to get vaccinated, they're reading the news and they see this stuff. And the way it's presented by a lot of different news

outlets, they're going to sensationalize as much as they can. It's not a COVID surge, it's a COVID death surge for the people that aren't vaccinated. The numbers are still way, way down because we have so many people vaccinated. But what's happening is over the last couple of months, we're seeing more and more deaths every day. And that's what's surging. So I feel like there, I don't want to say dishonesty, but it's almost like incompetence the way it's the story is being presented to everybody.

What do you think about that? Yeah. One of the things that's bugged me is that I think it's important to point out that cases right now aren't a proxy for death the same way that they used to be. So that, for example, you see sometimes in headlines, you know, cases rising here and cases rising here. Cases have really just gone crazy in Britain. But that doesn't necessarily mean that deaths are rising at the same rate. Deaths are rising at the same rate among the unvaccinated share of the populations that are included in those cases. So, you know, it's kind of funny in a weird

way that people like me were fighting against the narrative that COVID was just a flu, right? That it was just a bad cold in 2020. The magic of the vaccines is that they kind of turn COVID into a bad cold, a bad flu. There are people who get COVID, who are fully vaccinated, sometimes who get quite sick. Sometimes it makes them sick for a few days. These are rare cases, rare breakthrough cases, but they aren't dying. The most important thing that we need to continue to communicate to people is that these vaccines do several things. One, they make it less likely that you get COVID. Two, contingent on you getting COVID, it makes COVID significantly less severe.

And three, among cases of severe COVID, you are less likely to die. So I think that's a really important case to get across with the vaccines. Because sometimes I think with the media and the headlines, people see, oh my God, there's these breakthrough COVID cases that proves the vaccines aren't working. No, well, follow the story a little bit further.

What happened to those people with breakthrough cases who had already been fully vaccinated? In 99.99 times out of 100, they are not dying. And that needs to be, I think, the emphasis to people who are in this sort of wait and see mode, trying to figure out if they want to get this vaccine. We need to communicate to people that those scary headlines should not be keeping them on the sidelines. Well, you almost have to think of COVID like a rattlesnake, right? The vaccine takes the fangs out of the rattlesnake. And then if the rattlesnake's in my room and I get bit by the rattlesnake, it's like, oh shit, I got bit by a rattlesnake. But the rattlesnake's in my room and I get bit by the rattlesnake, it's like,

oh shit, I got bit by a rattlesnake. But the rattlesnake didn't have fangs. It might hurt. It might take two, three minutes to get the rattlesnake off my arm. But ultimately, nothing's really going to happen because the rattlesnake doesn't have fangs. And I don't know if they have communicated that correctly out in the public. It's like, yeah, you can still get COVID if you had the vaccine. Cause it seems like a lot of people have said like, oh, my friend had, he got the vaccine. He still got COVID. It's like, yeah, nobody said that was never happening. Right.

It just made it a lot less likely that you're going to get COVID. And by the way, if, if you're hanging out in some room for an hour, some hotel room with bad air conditioning with 25 other people and two of the people have COVID, you might get it, but you're not going to die because you got the vaccine. And then people are like, well, the two people had the vaccine, they died. It's like, all right, well, if we're just going to play that game, it's like, well, people die in car accidents. Should I drive to San Diego this weekend? There was two car accidents yesterday. Do I go? At what point do we just go nuts with this?

I think it's an absolutely brilliant metaphor. I love it because I think a lot of people, for some reason, thought of the vaccines as a rattlesnake elimination program, that it would end the existence of rattlesnakes. Yes. Your metaphor makes so clear in a useful way is that, yes, there are still some rattlesnakes around, but there's no poison in the few that have fangs. And in the vast majority of the rattlesnakes that are around, there's no fangs either, right? So there's this sort of three-step program. It eliminates a lot of rattlesnakes. It takes some fangs out of some rattlesnakes. And even among the few, tiny, tiny few rattlesnakes that still do have fangs, there's no poison

in the fangs. So almost no one's dying. So I think that's actually a really, really lovely way to talk about that sort of three part, those three levels of protection. Well, and then think about this. The Delta variant basically is like a drop of just more rattlesnakes, right? Across America, it just tripled the amount of rattlesnakes we had. But it doesn't change what the vaccine does.

Like the vaccine works. Yes. For people who are vaccinated, the Delta variant essentially amounts to an airdrop for some reason of many, many toothless rattlesnakes, right? Yeah. Like the threat is still there. It hasn't entirely disappeared, but it is not the same tooth full, fully loaded with poison

rattlesnake that vaccinated people were facing in 2020. Do you feel like at this point, we're not heading into August? This is an either or thing. If you didn't get the vaccine by now, you're just probably not getting it. You are who you are. You believe what you believe. And you're not changing your mind in August. Because I was thinking, could there be more ads being done? Could there be financial incentives, which you brought up one of the previous times you were on the pod. But ultimately, I just feel like people have decided

one way or the other, and that's where we are. And they're not going to change their mind. So the gold standard of COVID surveys, which is Kaiser, just came out with a poll in February. I'm looking at it right now. And they divide the no-vaxxers, the not-yet-vaxxed category,

into three subcategories. Wait and see, only if required, and definitely not. Now, when people say they definitely won't get the vaccine, some of them might be mistaken, but I'm willing to trust what they say. I'm willing to believe that there's a share of Americans that just consistently have said they're not going to get this vaccine, and they're just not going to get it, basically no matter what we do for the most part, unless we do something really, really dramatic, which might incur the risk of a backlash, like mandate vaccines for entry into restaurants and things like that. The most fruitful category of focus,

I think, is wait and see. 10% of Americans say wait and see. Another 6% of Americans say only if required. So what this tells me is that there is a group of 16, 20% of Americans that we really can still nudge. And I've thought a lot about what's the best way to nudge them. And I've kind of broken down that strategy into two components. Strategy number one is that we just need the FDA to approve these vaccines. That might sound really technical to some people and not particularly important, but it's really, really important. And I want to just explain why for a second. So a couple of months ago, I wrote the story

about no vaxxers, about I asked people who hadn't gotten the vaccine to please get in touch with me and have a respectful conversation about what they were thinking. And I was really surprised how many of them said it mattered to them that the FDA had only issued an emergency authorization of the vaccines. And I said, well, so what? COVID is an emergency. And they said, no, it's not an emergency to me. I'm 35 and healthy-ish. I'm 45, I think I already got COVID. I'm 26 and I think the clinical trials were rushed and synthetic mRNA gives me the heebie-jeebies. The FDA hasn't approved this vaccine and I'm not going to get it until it does. So now it's four months later. And I feel like in the last four months, it's as if almost every single institution and individual has been screaming, get the fucking vaccine, except for the FDA, which still hasn't approved the vaccine.

These are still under emergency authorization. Why do we think they haven't approved it? There is a process that they are not curtailing for approving these vaccines. And you could, I suppose, argue that the fact that they're going through a semi-normal process with approval might give some people confidence that they're really doing their due diligence. But here's why I think approving it would do a lot really quickly. Number one, if you look at this sort of wait and see category, half of them say that full approval would make them more likely to get the vaccine immediately. Second, there's a lot of groups, institutions that are waiting on approval. The MTA in New York, Metro Transit Authority, said that they can't mandate vaccines for their workforce until it's approved by the government. L.A. County, I think, is waiting to approve,

to mandate vaccines potentially for their police force for waiting until the FDA fully approves. So I think there's a lot of governments, a lot of institutions that are waiting on the FDA to fully approve these vaccines. And for that reason, approval, I think, would go a long way toward this sort of, you know, a kind of mini acceleration of vaccines. And then that reason, approval, I think, would go a long way toward this kind of mini acceleration of vaccines. And then number two, and this is something we talked about, is we need to nudge the cost-benefit analysis here. And to me, that nudge looks like, number one, more lotteries, more states trying out new things. And number two, this was one of the first things that you said to me, more PSAs. I want to see a moonshot style project, a Manhattan project style PSA from the federal government. I want them to get LeBron. He's

already done some televisual stuff already this summer that may or may not have been high quality. After Space Jam, let's follow it up with some kind of vaccine message. Let's get celebrities from a lot of different ethnic groups and a lot of different parts of the country and a lot of different political persuasions, a really, really diverse Avengers-style group of pro-vaccine people putting out PSAs all over the place, get the vaccine, get the vaccine, get the vaccine. I think it would help. I think people have totally tuned out Tony Fauci, like who haven't gotten the vaccine. Like his one millionth and one appearance on a Sunday morning talk show is not going to do a damn thing. Yeah. They need to pass the torch. They honestly do. I think people have decided on him one way or the other and that's it. And

they need some different person to rise out of it. I just wonder, like, you know, I've talked to smart people about this who didn't want to get the vaccine and they ended up getting it, but they talked about, like, what their issue with it was. And it was basically like, we've had so much issues with big pharma

and they violated the trust of people so many different times, why should I trust that they were able to speed rush this miracle vaccine? Now, the answer is the vaccine works. We've seen it work. We have a bunch of data and, and, you know, I think we should just count our blessings that it exists. It certainly makes me feel better. But at the same time, I get it. It's like if you get burned by a certain group more than once, your distrust levels are going to go up. I don't know how they fix that. And I don't think you have the answer either. I don't think I have the answer for everybody, but let me try on an answer for some of those people. Okay. I hear them. I don't trust big pharma, like in the abstract, like I don't trust big pharma. I trust that they're going to look out for their own bottom line and their own profit. Absolutely.

At the same time, I trust results in the real world. I trust what's happening in Israel. Israel had, I think, one death yesterday from COVID, two deaths in Israel. I trust what's happening in the UK. Deaths have fallen by, I think, between 95% and 99%. I trust what's happening in America. We are seeing so few deaths among fully vaccinated people. So even if you're the sort of person who came into 2021 thinking, I don't trust Pfizer, I don't trust Moderna, some pharma startup, Jesus, I've never taken any drug from Moderna. I don't trust AstraZeneca. I don't trust BioNTech.

I don't trust any of these guys. Fine. Put yourself in the wait and see category. Consider yourself a scientist, an empiricist. Follow the data. Well, where's the data? What's the data showing you in Israel and the UK and America and Canada and all over the world where you've seen high shares of fully vaccinated people? You see the same graph in every single country. It's the same hump. It's a straight line down when it comes to

deaths. And that's what ending a pandemic looks like. It's a straight line down in deaths. So what I would tell those friends and those people is I don't need to persuade you that pharma is good. I just need to persuade you that these therapies work. And they do. The 2020s are going to be remembered for the pandemic. We're only two years in, but the pandemic will end up being hopefully, just because I hope nothing happens that's worse than the pandemic, but I hope it's as bad as it gets in the 2020s. But I think it'll be, for that, but also like really the big picture thing would be distrust, right? It's the theme over and over again. It's distrusted in the 2020 election results, distrusting big pharma, distrusting Jeffrey Epstein, hanging himself in a cell over and over again, all these things, uh, is Facebook selling my data is, is Twitter

working in my right interest? Nobody trusts anybody. And it just feels like, oh, that's getting worse. And I don't know how that's going to get fixed. I think there has been so much let down in so many different ways. Just with individual human beings, I'm like, this happened to me. So now I don't trust blank. And I don't know how we fix that.

And I do think it ties into the vaccine stuff. This is a much harder question for me, I think, than the last one. I have no idea how we fix this. I mean, I think the internet has done two extraordinary things. Number one, it's providing an amazing microscope into the behavior of elites. And the closer that we've looked at a lot of these elites, the more distrustful we've become of them. Because in many cases, they have been corrupt. They have been doing terrible things. They have been lying to us. And it's easier now, I think, to uncover those lies because of the kind of panopticon that we live in now. Number two, the internet makes everyone feel like an expert. How could it not? How could it not? All week as I've been watching the NBA finals, I've been listening to you and listening to Ryan and assists in his last game.

I thought, ooh, the 69 Club, is this a thing? I tell you my own little research. Who else got a 69 in an NBA Finals? I'm participating in the same media that I'm listening to. And everyone feels this. Everyone feels like they belong on the stage that in past generations, they've nearly been a spectator watching the elites

or the authorities play act on that stage. And because at a time of elite distrust, the internet is also giving us the power to feel like they don't know shit and I'm smarter than them. You have a total leveling effect where people don't feel like there are institutions that stand above the fray, that they can truly throw their trust into. They all feel like that guy at home going on basketball reference,

trying to create his own radio segment. And there's just no way back from that. And trying to roadmap a way back from that, I think, is frankly hopeless. I think we just have to plan on navigating a low-trust world because that's what we've got. That's the only world that we have to play with in the next X decades, as long as this plan is around. Well, it seems like big companies, the biggest companies, and also like big corporations like the NFL, for instance, they almost have to get sharp elbowed now to keep business

going. Like you saw, there was the announcement today, the NFL, they basically said this was, we're taping this. It is our early Thursday afternoon Pacific time, but they basically said like, Hey, if you have a COVID outbreak heading into like your week six game, you're going to lose paychecks and there's going to be a forfeit. Like, that's just how we're doing it this year. And if that, if you're not cool with that, sorry. That is pretty aggressive. And then if you're like, all right, what do you do if you're a football team?

You have a 53-man roster. 50 of your guys are vaccinated and three guys are like, I'm not getting vaccinated. So now what do you do? What happens if it's your star running back? What happens if it's your middle linebacker? What do you do? Yeah, these are really hard questions.

And I've looked at them most closely at the level of colleges. So look, I don't like mandates as a general principle. I really think that people should have the freedom to make their own choices and live their own lives. But a super infectious disease really scrambles the definition of freedom. Yeah. Like thinking about it from the perspective of like college, which is what I was writing about, like an equipment manager for a college team with a medical condition should be free of risk of getting a disease that kills him. And like a 60 year old groundskeeper at that college should be free of the risk of getting a disease that kills her.

So when you're thinking about college mandates, which are similar to sports mandates in a lot of ways, at some level, it's like I get that a lot of parents and kids might say it's my body, it's my choice. But like we haven't lived in that world for decades. A lot of colleges, most colleges, I think, have required on-campus students to be vaccinated against measles and mumps and other diseases. I went to Northwestern University, so I decided, okay, I'll take a look at what they have required. I pulled up their vaccine requirement page. They require immunizations, I think they're required by the state of Illinois, against measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, tuberculosis, meningitis.

This is not new. We've done this. We have lived in a vaccine mandate world for decades, and it hasn't been A1 news. It hasn't been A block news. This is a pandemic that has sundered the country politically. And so of course, the mandates are going to be unbelievably contentious. But I strongly believe that at institutions like universities, and maybe also for sports teams, we should set really, really high thresholds or basically mandate entirely. Because it's not just about the running back. It's not just about Saquon. It's about the older equipment managers that Saquon, I don't know if the Saquon's an anti-vaxxer.

Yeah, right. Yeah, he's the star running back. Right, the star running back. It's about the people they're going to interact with that are probably much more vulnerable than a 26-year-old who's in the best shape of basically any human being in the world. It just seems like we're still all over the map. I flew back from Boston a couple of weeks ago, got to take my mask off on the plane for like a half hour while I ate to put the mask back on. It's like, I'm pretty sure I would have gotten COVID in that half hour. It's like, what are we doing? We're wiping off everything. It's like, we've known this for a year. I'm not getting COVID from the tray from the last person that was sitting here. You know, it's, so it just seems like

there's, there's still a lot of misinformation out there. I'm going to be really interested with offices too. Cause what happens if you have the one COVID case on the office that has 200 people on it? And then you have three other people being like, Oh my God, my company's making me go. We just had a COVID thing. And then they're on Twitter and it becomes a thing and it's a news story. And now the CEO is like, looks like a dick because he's making all these people go to work when they don't want to go to work. I think that all that's going to be happening. And I just feel like it's going to get ugly over the next couple weeks and months in a different way than it has. I totally agree. It's a new phase and it's going to be in some ways weirder than the experience of late 2020 when a lot of people kind of got used to what they were doing. The idea was, I stay at home, I stream on Netflix, I work online. Have you read about cave syndrome where it's like some

people didn't want to get reacclimated they just kind of got used to what they were doing yes and a lot of people have cave syndrome because they're afraid even after being fully vaccinated that if they go out they're going to catch it and get super sick to me you know last year the the biggest piece i wrote was about this idea hygiene theater And hygiene theater was this idea that a lot of institutions like a restaurant, let's say, was like spending all this time scrubbing down tables and spending no time thinking about ventilation, and I'm sort of trying on this phrase, it's hygiene polarization. The same way in political polarization, you don't just have Democrats and Republicans, you have extreme Democrats and extreme Republicans.

Yeah. This pandemic has polarized our germophobia. Like you have people who might've been like a little neurotic in 2019 about germs. Now they're crazy neurotic. Meanwhile, you you have people who might have been like a little neurotic in 2019 about germs. Now they're crazy neurotic. Meanwhile, you also have people who are extremely un-neurotic about germs. They're like, whatever, I'll eat it after it falls on the floor. And they're basically behaving the same way.

So the gap between Americans' health and hygienic neuroses has been crazily extended. And navigating this world where our health preferences are so, so different is going to be really interesting. And that shit is going to hit the fan when you have, for example, what you said, a company that employs a lot of vulnerable or low-income people that has one COVID case and forces all of them to come back to the office because the CEO is sort of low-health neurosis. And then all the people attacking him are like, I don't want to ever be anywhere near the site of a COVID infection in late 2021.

This stuff is going to be everywhere. I think you're totally right. The other thing is if, because I got this email or text from the place I got my vaccine where it's like, here, here's your digital footprint that you got the vaccine for your wallet. Right. So it's almost like you could, well, like you're scanning a boarding pass in the airport. And it made me think like, oh shit, are we going to head to this world where it's like, I can't get into this restaurant

unless I scan my Vax boarding pass. And then what the fallout is going to be that, but it's conceivable. And then that will open up the narrative for all the people who are convinced that this is a George Orwell book that's going on right now. I'm like, oh, look now, now it's, now it's on our phones. Now Apple knows and they're tracking and, and, uh, God only knows. Well, you, you come on here every two or three months and it seems like every time there's new stuff to talk about, but I love reading your stuff

and, uh, and it's always helpful. You always make me feel weirdly better and worse at the same time after we talked. It makes you feel weirdly better and worse too. All right. All right. Derek Thompson. Good to see you. All right. Matt Damon is here. We're taping this on a Monday, running it later in the week. So who knows, who knows what will happen over the next three days in sports and life.

Let's talk sports first. Cause last time you came on, we did, we went movies deep and then late. I felt like we, we did the sports at the tail end. We did. Red Sox,

Yankees. How are we feeling? Okay. So, well, first of all, I got to qualify all this. I have never been less connected to the sports world than I am right now. I just got back from Australia and then I went to France to debut this movie and then came. So, I've been following, I'm looking at the box scores. And the other thing I kind of hold you mildly responsible for is when the last time we talked, we had a whole thing. It wasn't clear what was going to happen with Mookie.

And you said, and I really stuck with me because you were articulating how I felt. You said, you said something great, which was, I've planned to watch this guy. Like I've made plans to watch this guy for like the next 15 years. Like this is a thing that I've been counting on. Like you can't take that away from me. Like we actually have the once in a generation talent. Like we got him. He's ours. You can't possibly take this away from us. And I was so pissed off when,

when we lost him. Yeah. I, I'd obviously never break up with the Red Sox, but like, you know, I was,

I was happy to be in Marseille making this movie and just be away from it for that scene. Like I was just like, and then the pandemic hit and, uh, you know, and, um, and so I'm kind of, I'm out of it. I'm following in the box scores. I know we're great. I know we're doing great. And, and I think, and I,

and I think, and I think we're going to win our division. I mean, I know it's very early, so, but, uh, but I'm, but I'm still reeling from the Mookie thing. I got to tell you, I had the same thing. I stopped following them last year. It was the first Red Sox season that basically took off. I knew it was going to come back.

You did too. I did. All right. Okay. I don't feel so bad then. Well, it was pandemic season. It was 60 games. They were clearly tanking.

And it just seemed like, it's like both of us are married to the Red Sox that's going to be our one way for our whole life but this was definitely the I'm going to move out of the house and get an apartment and I don't know if I'm coming back or not moment I think we need some time apart

right just a couple months just a couple months it was a legit separation you weren't in LA when Mookie was kicking ass for the Dodgers a couple of months. Just a couple of months. Like it was a legit, a legit separation. Yeah. Well, the way you weren't in LA when Mookie was kicking ass

for the Dodgers and all the Dodgers fans are like, I can't believe we get this guy. How'd you give him up? And I'm like, I know. Every single,

I mean, I had, when I turned 50 last year, my good friend, Sam Jones was nice enough to record Mookie, you know, sending me a personal message

because of course he wears number 50 and it was all about how 50 is such a great number. And I was like, oh, fuck you, man. I did. It was so, it's just, I just, I'm, I just, I'm not going to, it's not going to, we're going to have to forgive the Red Sox and move on. Right. I've got there. That's because, because we'll net, you can't, there's, you have to get past it on your own. You know what I mean? You have to find it in your heart to let it go. Because the violation is just too great.

It's like you have to come to your own peace with it somehow. Well, they had the fourth pick in the minor league draft. They drafted this high school shortstop, Marcel Omer from San Diego, who was supposed to go first. And it was super exciting. And my guard was like 10% up. It's like, all right, so we're going to have this guy. I'm going to get all, I'm going to feel like he's going to be part of my life until I'm in my seventies. And then you guys are just going to trade him when he's 28. Is that how this is going to play out again? But you know these guys. You know the owners though. Would it ever be a situation where you would text or email

John Henry and be like, what the fuck? What are you doing? Listen, remember in 2004, that Nomar move seemed to be so insane. And yet we all there was this deference

to Theo and we all just went, oh, hang on a minute, hang on a minute, like let the kid do what he's got to do. You know what I mean? And obviously that I mean, you can't argue with the results they've had. It's just that Mookie himself was just so insanely likable. He just seemed like the

guy, you know what I mean? It was like, he's the guy and we got the guy, you know what I mean? It was like, he's the guy and we got the guy, you know what I mean? I loved every, I still love everything about the guy's game. Of course he went

and won a World Series. That's what, that's what he, that's what he does. Well, and also what he could have meant to the city too. I think the Celtics

are in the same spot with Tatum and Brown right now. And Brown, I don't think they're, I don't think they're trading Brown, but Brown gets just thrown into trade rumors

every time Dave Lillard or Ben Simmons, like any... I'm like, I don't want to trade Jalen Brown. The guy loves the city. He's going to do a lot of good stuff off the court. Plus, he's really good on the court. Why do we have to trade him? Yeah, why do we even talk about it? I hope those are just rumors.

I think they are. Why would you mess with those guys? I mean, they're amazing. Well, what about your guy, Brady? Because the last time you were on, I think he was still a Pat. And now he goes to the Bucs. I know you're filming movies and stuff, but I know you were following this and watching. I watched everybody's game last year.

So you jumped on the bandwagon? It's not even a bandwagon. I love Tom. I love him. He's, he's a, he's, he's a once in a lifetime athlete for all of us who were lucky enough to be able to follow his entire career. I'm riding it all the way to the end. It's not a bandwagon. I'm all in on that guy. I don't, you know, the Patriots, I don't, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm following Tommy. Like I just, I want to see, I'm just so,

the fact that he did that last year on a torn MC, I mean, just stop it. You know what I mean? It's like, it's just awesome. It's such a great story. And I was always a believer, you know, everybody does the, was it Belichick or was it Brady? Belichick's an amazing coach,

but I never doubted that it wasn't Brady. You thought that seesaw was tilted more toward Brady? Yes. Yeah, because he's on the field playing the game. I was hurt. I was hurt that he left. I felt like he ditched us a tiny bit. No, I got over it. I got over it by halfway through the season.

I mean, they could have kept him. They could have. That's why... Yeah. Yeah, it's like I don't begrudge that guy anything. They could have. That's why, yeah. Yeah, it's like I don't begrudge that guy anything. I actually want him to go win another Super Bowl. I think that would be, that's just such an awesome story. Did you think that he was hanging on too long? Was there any part of you that was like,

oh, this is, you're pushing a little bit, buddy? Do you look at the guy's arm? Like he's got, he looks like a 30-year year old out there. Like there's no part of like, like I never understood that Max Kellerman thing. I mean, I guess Kellerman was kind of doing the actuary tables was kind of how he described it because you'd be, you know, there really is that fall off a cliff moment for, for athletes at that level. But Brady showed no, He was making every throw. He still is. And never with the collection of wide receivers

that other quarterbacks had. I mean, 07, they gave him... When Welker showed up in Moss, you were like, oh my God. And I mean, the dude literally almost went 19-0. You're starting to scare me. You weren't like wearing a Bucs hat,

were you? Like, how far did this go? No, no, no, no, no. I don't think I... I felt like this was like full-fledged sports bigamy going on here. No, no, no. Just, just I'm just rooting for him, man. I'm just rooting for him, you know? Do you talk to him? You have a relationship with him?

Occasionally, you know, like every once in a while, I'll send him a text and stuff. But don't say I said, we did a bit for Kimmel a couple years ago. You know, so, but we're not in the same town a lot. Ben bumped into him last year, before last season, before he decided which team he was going to. But no, we'll see him sporadically.

He seems relentlessly positive, like a relentlessly positive person to have in your life. He's, he's just the nicest guy. Like he's as nice as he seems, uh, in those, I mean, he's just a relentlessly positive guy. I mean, it just, you know, I mean, maybe it's, maybe it's when, when, when you've created this like virtual, this, this virtuous cycle of like goodness, everything goes right in your life. And it's easy to,

you know what I mean? And it just keeps going. And you're like, damn, every time you walk away, like that guy really is that nice. So he's the guy you root for. I am worried about,

you know, we had, we had a nice run with the Boston teams. Now that's 2020s. Now we're one year in, we haven't won a title. I'm starting to get itchy. It's been like a year and a half.

The Sox look good. The Celtics are right there. Patriots, it's going to be a while. I think. If you ask me, that's my, I don't. Depends if the rookie QB can be good right away

because I think the rest of the team is really good. The rookie QB is good and like, are they going to? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, our defense will show up, but you know, you got to spend right away because I think the rest of the team is really good. The rookie QB is good. Yeah. You know a defense will show up, but you got to spend some of your resources on people to throw the ball to. True. Well, maybe you should text

the rookie QB and tell him you're in his corner. Maybe he needs a confidence boost. Maybe you and Ben should both text him. Hey, listen, we'll be all for that guy. He's got to go get the job, right? Because it's him and Cam. Aren't they going to... them. Hey, listen, we're, we're, we'll be all for that guy. I mean, I'm, you know, if he, look, if he, he's got to go get the job, right. Cause it's him and Cam, aren't they going to, aren't they going to, they, they haven't figured out who's going to be. Yeah. I think they're going

to sacrifice Cam for a few weeks and then bring the rookie in once, once they get to an easy part of the schedule. I love Cam. I love his game. He's a great dude too. I, you know, I, I definitely pull for that guy. I'd like to see him complete passes that are more than eight yards. So if he can do that, maybe he keeps the job. Last year, he was bouncing passes all over the place. The last year, Brady was there. Didn't they do a stat that we had the worst separation of any? I mean, you look at them.

It wasn't great. Yeah. I mean, you're throwing into toaster ovens every time. Like, that's really hard to do. You did. You know, schoolies is on. I don't know what kind of running back you were in that movie.

Were you a three-down back in that movie? What were you supposed to be? Were you like a LaDainian Tomlinson or more like a Darren Spurls type? We ran out of the wing T. It was a little different kind of running. That's 30 years ago now, I realized. Over 30 years ago we made that movie. Is that true? a little different kind of running. But yeah, yeah, that was, that was, that's 30 years ago now,

I realized. Over 30 years ago we made that movie. Is that true? So you've been making movies for 30 years though? Yeah. Yeah, I turned 21 on School Ties.

So, I'm 50 now. I'll be 51 in October. We did, we went through, we went back and did a lot of your movies the last time you were on. There was,

we did for the rewatchables this week, we did fight club cause so, but there's this whole vortex where it's like you and Ed Norton and who, who were the other guys you were, you were fighting for movies with at the time. There's one, well Ben, and there's one other one cause it was like fight club talented Mr. Ripley. And then there was a third movie and everybody was jockeying and it became like this merry-go-round where it ended up being, you did talented Mr. Ripley. Ed Norton was going for that. He ended up doing fight club. And then somebody else who was supposed to go to fight

club went to another movie. I didn't even, I don't know if Ed was up for Talented Mr. Ripley. He was up for Rainmaker, I remember. And then by the time we did Rounders, he was telling me about Fight Club. He was the first person to tell me, so he was already attached to it. And I remember walking through New York with him and he talked about it for like 45 minutes. And I was like, this is going to be the most amazing movie.

And it was. I mean, you know, David Fincher, what a director. It's such a fun time for movies, that mid to late 90s stretch. You have so many young filmmakers coming in. You have your whole generation of actors. Yeah, man, that was it. I was talking to Ben about that recently. I wonder how we would have felt about movies if we were that recently. Like, I wonder what our, how we would have felt about movies if we were that age

and, you know, if, if we, if we were coming kind of of age in, in the business as it is now, because it's just so different. Like it's just completely different. All those movies that we love that were kind of our bread and butter and were the movies we wanted to go see, even if we weren't in them, are the ones that don't get made anymore, or it's very hard to get them. And so, and so that's, uh, so I wonder if I would have, if, you know, I mean, I feel like I still would have wanted to make movies. I've never really wanted to do anything else, but, um, but it's just a very, very different business. Well, what, it seems like there would have been a pressure on you to do, I don't know, like your fourth movie ever would have been like some superhero movie where

you're trying to get into the quick of like the six superheroes. You're, you're like the fifth guy in the billing and that, that will catapult you to something else. Right. Right. Right. That seems to be, that seems to be the way forward now for, you know, and then I get it. I mean, you know, the, the, it's steady work. It's like, it's kind of what I had with that, the Bourne series. Yeah. You know, I always,

I was kind of inoculated from business strategizing, right. Because I always knew I had another Bourne movie, so I could kind of do whatever I wanted. Like I'll take a shot with this movie or that movie and, you know, I'm not going to worry about it. Like if, if, you know, which, which I think is actually the best way to approach this business and just like see who's directing the movie, you know, see if it's a story you want to be a part of telling and then,

and then just go do it. And on balance, you're going to have like, you're going to make more good movies than bad and you're going to survive versus like the kind of, well, I need to do a, you know, quote unquote, big movie now, or this has a big budget or the IP on this movie is really, you know, it's a great graphic novel or whatever people think. I've never found that way of approaching the business to be any more, you know, I don't know. I guess I'm saying people who think they have this business figured out,

you know, there's the great quote of William Goldman, which is nobody knows anything. Right. And I really find that to be true. And so if you really want to do this and survive, it's really about making the movies that you want, that you think are good, not that you think other people are going to go see.

Well, you do the one for me, one for them strategy, basically. Not really. I mean, that was something we talked about in the 90s, but I've never really done one for them. You know, every movie I've made, I've wanted to do it. And I've wanted to, you know, some are bigger than others, but I didn't kind of approach it with, oh, this is a movie that I'm going to. How about one for the wallet and then one for me?

Look, I was lucky. Like that's another part of the business that is different, right? We get paid a lot more. Um, there was way more money in the movie business at yeah that's true in between 2000 and say 2010 it was a totally different business um and and we lost the dvd and so that kind of cut the business in half and um well now it seems like it's changing again because now it like the if these movies are premiering on the streaming services and also in the theater then how do you figure out the back end they gotta it always seems like there's some new wrinkle yeah i mean netflix was was paying a lot of money up front i think they were kind of saying we'll give you you know you know we're i haven't done a movie at netflix but but it looked like that's they were kind of they were kind of buying you out of yeah they overpay for

it yeah right right versus but you know back in the day, those were like, you know, the Tom Cruises of the world and Bruce Willis and those deals those guys were making were like, you know, you got a huge boatload of cash up front and then you got 20% of the movie no matter what.

So, you know, I mean, it just... It's a lot of money. We did a podcast on Terminator 2 on the rewatchables. And one of the things Schwarzenegger got, they just like,

they literally just gave him a plane as part of, yeah, he got a jet as part of his salary on top of like all the other shit. I'll give you a plane. Yeah,

I'll tell you, it doesn't have to be a new one. If you used one, it's fine. Sure. He's reasonable. So he got, he had like points, he had the salary and then he got a jet. And then they just gave him a plane.

Yeah. By the way, great deal. That movie made like $400 million or something. So that was probably, probably worth it. Yeah. By the way, they were happy to do it. I'm sure like, you know, that movie was amazing and, and you can't make it without him. So you haven't really dove into the whole streaming TV universe or like the H the HBO prestige show, anything like that.

Have you ever thought about doing that? Yeah. I mean, if the right thing comes along, um, it's really just about what, what they're making and, and, uh, and you know, is it, I mean, I feel like a lot of the really good stuff is migrating that way. Yeah. So it's probably, you know, it's probably a matter of time until, you know, I do something.

I just haven't found something I want to do yet. Like Big Little Lies Season 4, it's in Nantucket. You've got some sort of drinking problem. Right, exactly. Yelling at people, thinking better than me. Exactly. Exactly. All right, we'll throw your hat in the ring for that. right exactly yelling at people thinking better than me exactly exactly alright we'll throw your hat in the ring

for that so you're still doing the thing where you gravitate toward the good filmmakers and McCarthy's been I think one of the

most original guys the last 10 years so what pulls you into this one that was it Stillwater yeah Stillwater I've been dying

to work with him and I read the script I just thought it was great it was it looks like it's going to be one thing and then it's something else entirely. And I really like that. And and I just believe, you know, it's about a really specific thing, which is a which is a roughneck from Oklahoma. And, you know, even within the context of Oklahoma, like somebody works out in those oil fields and does that as it's a very

specific, um, guy. And so it was a great role that, you know, a great role that I got to, um, to play. And then, and you transplant that guy to a place like Marseille, which is a very, very specific city in France. It's not Paris, it's Marseille. It's, it's its own thing. And that guy, like, trying to blunder his way around Marseille,

I thought was a really interesting, you know, to help his daughter, I thought was a really interesting movie. I like how he approached it where he got a French screenwriter to help him, like, realize that, all right, I can't just Wikipedia different parts of this and patch it together. I should

actually get somebody who understands how this whole world works. Yeah. Tom's obviously one of our best screenwriters in America. And then he went to two of the best screenwriters in France and they wrote together. And that's what kind of makes it special. How much weight did you put on? I don't know. I don't know. I just, because Kimmel was calling you fat Damon. I don't know.

I don't know if you heard any of those, those, those bars. Yeah. It's like, you see Matt lately, he's fat Damon now. Of course he was.

Of course he was. But, but yeah, no, those guys all going down there. They all, that job is really physically tough. Yeah.

You know, you got to lift a lot of heavy shit. They're very strong, strong guys. So you have to be like Husky Matt Damon. Yeah,

but they don't, yeah, they don't have six pack abs. I mean, I mean, the guys my age don't. Some of the young guys, like they,

they know all about CrossFit and they're like workout guys and they do look like that. But like, but my generation, you know, they're, they're like workout guys and they do look like that. But my generation, they're beefy, strong dudes. And so I was just trying to get that body type. So I just changed my diet and then I lifted really heavy weights and didn't do any cardio because that's kind of their –

there's a lot of heavy stuff that those guys got to lift. And it's an incredibly hard job. Like there's no way I could do it. I was on an oil rig for 15 minutes and I was like, absolutely no way. Yeah, you kind of looked like an old, like ex-right tackle who played like semi-pro. You had like one of those kind of bodies. Right. That's exactly, that's exactly right.

So it was more, so I didn't weigh myself as much as just look in the mirror and kind of look at what was looking back at me and try to make it feel right. And that whole look, that goatee and the wraparound glasses and the hat and all that stuff is very specific. Like our wardrobe supervisor was talking directly to these roughnecks. And so the jeans I wear, they'll have like fire retardant on them. You know, it's like the very specific, you know, every little detail was kind of came from them. Did you grow the facial hair yourself? No, no, that's a handlaid beard that they, that the, and that's a trick that only the Italians know, believe it or not. Really? Passed down through, uh, as like a trade secret from, in my case, the guy who did mine from his father. And it's a very closely guarded secret that the Italians specialize in. The first time I ever saw

it was in 93 on a movie called Geronimo that I was doing with, and Robert Duvall was in it. And Duvall had this great old makeup artist who's now passed away.vall was in it. And, and Duvall had this, uh, this great old makeup artist who's now passed away. His name was Mon Leo and Mon Leo. I watched him hand lay a beard on, on Bobby Duvall and I couldn't believe it. I mean, it's like you, you could, you could be, you know, like right up in his grill and not know. I mean, it's, they're really, uh, it's really something to watch them do it. Did this movie break, did you break the record for most career body

transformation roles? Because I feel like this is at least five. Courage Under Fire, you were like, what were you like, 130 pounds? You almost died.

Yeah. That was bad, right? I definitely screwed my system up. Like, I had to, I was on medication for about a year

or a year and a half after that just to try to re-regulate my system. What kind of medication. Like, um, I had to, I was on medication for about a year or a year and a half after that, um, just to try to re-regulate my system. What kind of medication? Like blood pressure stuff? My adrenal glands. I was, uh, I, I, I got depressed. I got, I mean, it was all like a, I got anxiety. Like basically the way the doctor explained it to me was I, I tricked my system into thinking a bear was chasing me for like four months. All I was doing was like not eating enough and running because I didn't have a trainer. I couldn't afford one.

So I just kind of I talked to this guy. This guy was a friend of ours at the time who was actually an Austrian bodybuilder. He actually sounded a lot like Schwarzenegger when he talked. And this guy gave me his bodybuilding routine that he would do three weeks out from a show. And that's a really, really hardcore routine. But I did it for like, I don't know, 14 or 16 weeks. And, and I didn't see him. I saw him at the end. And he was like, you did that for 16? He's like, you can't do that. Like, I didn't think you would do that. And I was like, that's what you told me to do. And it was basically just not taking in enough calories and then just running, you know, 13 miles a day. It was six and a half miles in the morning and six and a half at night. I'd wake up and I'd run and then I'd not eat enough. And then at the end of the day, I'd go run and then I'd go to bed. And, um, and I just did that every day for, I don't know, however many days.

So you were like a UFC fighter trying to cut weight the day before the fight, but you did it for 13 weeks. Yeah, exactly. It was really stupid in retrospect. You lost weight for The Martian too, right? Not really, because we shot out of order. So they hired a dancer to come in and body double me for one of those scenes. Cause it was what I asked Ridley about it.

I was like, if you want me to do it, we have to build the schedule around this. And he was like, no, no, it's actually in this new draft. It's really one scene.

I can get away with it just with a, with a body double. So I didn't have to. What was the most weight you've had to gain in a, in a movie? Probably the informant. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But I didn't, again, I didn't weigh myself. It was more, Stephen didn't want any, how do you describe it? He didn't want any defined lines, right? You can't quite put your finger on where the edges are of the guy. So I think it was probably about 40 pounds. What happened with the Fritz Peterson, Mike Kekich thing? It's sitting there.

I mean, the script is pretty good, actually. But no, we haven't revisited that one in a while. So you and Ben, it's not, you you guys aren't there's nothing in the works we're way too old now but there's no other anything you guys can do anything we can do together it's not the last duel coming out in October we're both in that one

oh that's actually coming out yeah man it's coming out in October oh that's exciting yeah it's man it's coming out in october that's exciting yeah yeah it's really exciting we wrote it with nicole hollis center who's just an amazing writer so the three of us it's basically a it's about the last sanctioned duel in medieval france fought between these two knights one of whom claimed the other raped his wife yeah so we thought as a story of these different perspectives so ben and i wrote the male perspective and the two male perspectives and nicole wrote the male perspective and the two male perspectives

and Nicole wrote the female perspective. And really, Scott directed it. So we're both in that one. How much time did you spend with him as you were putting that together? Were you back? Was it like a mid-90s? You guys were back like every day doing the whole thing again?

What was really funny was we had anticipated this kind of grind because when we wrote Good Will Hunting, it took us, I mean, the way we wrote it, because we didn't really know what we were doing, we wrote thousands of pages. We really understood the characters.

We didn't really understand structure. So we put them in different scenes. Well, what if this happened? All right, and we'd write these scenes. And then we had all these scenes and we kind of mashed them together and eventually made some kind of structure out of it. This time, we've both been making movies for 30 years. All we've been doing is telling two-hour stories and three acts.

Nice structure. Right. And so we wrote so much faster. It had kept us from writing all these years because we were like, well, we don't have time. And it just takes, it's too time consuming. And now we found that we did it really fast. So now we are looking for other stuff to, to write together because we had a blast and it was really fun.

You guys are back. Yeah, man. How many, how many times have you found out something about him that he didn't tell Yeah, man. We never left. How many times have you found out something about him that he didn't tell you, but you found out through the news? Like when your best friend is somebody who's super famous, how do you know what's going on with them? What they're telling you versus what the world is saying. Well, I don't ever believe the news over what he would tell me.

You know what I mean? Like those kind of things would happen if I was working, say, in another country. Right. And a report would come out that said Ben Affleck X, whatever. And I'd go, oh, is that happening? And then I'd just text him and be like, hey, man. So you have to recon on it and see if it's true. Yeah, and then he'd write back, no, that's bullshit. Or, oh, yeah, hey, man. So you have to recon on it and see if it's true. Yeah, and then he'd write back,

no, that's bullshit. Or, oh, yeah, that's true. Or, here's what really happened. You know what I mean? But it's never like I read... The number of times I've had to tell my... I mean, I remember this, particularly when we started out. Like, an entertainment story would come out about

me, and my mother would write to me and say like, is it true that you're, you know, right. You broke up with so-and-so or you're dating so-and-so or you're, and I'm like, mom,

I don't even know that person. And don't believe anything that you read. The thing about entertainment reporting is that there aren't really any consequences. Right. You know what I mean? If you get the story wrong, it's just like, everyone kind of goes, man, that doesn't really any consequences. Right. You know what I mean? If you get the story wrong, it's just like everyone kind of goes,

meh, that doesn't really matter. Yeah, it just disappears. It just goes away. And so you can kind of say anything and oftentimes, you know, people do or they Google something and the last thing that got reported, which it's like my wife,

her husband, she was married before me and her husband's last name is Barroso. Uh, her, her ex-husband, she's been, that's been her name. Like it says Matt Damon and Luciana Barroso were together. And she's like, that's not even my name. That's been for 18 years. We've been together and they haven't got that right. They've also been calling her an interior designer all that time. She's not, she never has been, but there's no, it just got put into the, it's been repeated so many times that that just, when they look it up, they go, okay, here's her name and this is what she does. And they go, you know what I mean? So it's like, you know, if we were in politics, that would have been corrected a long time ago

because they can't make mistakes like that. Because like you fuck up enough things and suddenly, you know, it's kicking off in, you know, between Israel and Palestine based on being misquoted. You know what I mean? Like there are real world consequences for misquoting somebody. Not in celebrity culture. No, no, it doesn't matter at all.

Your kids are old enough now to Google you, research you, all that stuff, right? How old is your oldest kid? Well, I mean, when I met Lucy, she had a four-year-old from her first marriage and she turned 23 yesterday. And then 15, 12, and 10.

So yeah, they're more than old enough to kind of look up. Yeah, I have a 16-year-old. They definitely get savvy somewhere between 13 and 15. And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, you're actually an adult who is really thinking about shit. And in that

regard, they're digital natives. So they really understand that world better than we do and a lot quicker than we ever did. Well, you've been in Australia for at least a year, right? Well, no, for like the first part of this year. And then you were in France for how long? Because you'll take your family, you'll go away for like four to six months on stretches. Yeah.

If the timing, if the timing works out, it's all, it's all about if it can work with their schedules. Less so now that my 15-year-old's in high so they boarded the movie so that I would go work for two weeks and then go back to LA and then go work for two weeks. You know, we make it work somehow. But no, my kids have traveled a lot, which is great. In fact, Stillwater was the first movie where we violated

our two-week rule. Really? It's the last one, yeah. I mean, I won't do that again. Do any of them want to act? Uh, I don't think so. I mean, maybe, maybe we'll, we'll see. I mean, maybe, maybe my youngest one will be into that. They're, they're very much into, uh, you know, music and, you know, Taylor Swift and songwriting and that, you know what I mean? Olivia Rodrigo. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And, uh, and Harry Styles and, you know, it's, uh, I, I, um,

but it's cool. Like they sit around writing poetry and then, and then tinkering around on the piano or with the guitar. Like it's, it's, uh, it's, I love it. TikTok's the first thing that has just made me feel old. Because it's just like, all right, so you're filming yourself. You're doing this dumb dance in four different locations. You add a song to it, and then it might go viral. This is how it goes? It's like, yeah, pretty much. That's what TikTok is.

All right, cool. I don't know what this is. We're old. We really are. We don't know what this is. We're old. We really are. We don't get it. I'm surprised you haven't been sucked into a TikTok background appearance with one of your kids yet. No, no. My daughter would be mortified.

That's good. There's nothing I can do that's cool. What do the next 10 years of your career look like? You're decade four now at Make a Movie, as we revealed earlier in the pod. What are you thinking? I'll tell you what, the feeling that I had on this movie and on The Last Duel

is the feeling, kind of creatively speaking, that I want every time. Like, it just, the feeling of, I'm just very much at peace with the work that I did. And and it just feels great. It feels like, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. And, you know, as you know, you get better at it. Yeah. And that's a really good feeling to love your job and feel like you're getting better at it. Um, I remember talking to this man. I don't know if I told you this story

about, about Mike Lansing years ago when I was doing the burn ultimatum and there was a, I did a, you know, a, for, for charity, a, uh, uh, a come visit, a set visit thing, right? Like you can come visit the set and, and Mike wanted, and his wife wanted to go to London. So they bought the thing and Mike came and visited me on the set. And for anybody who's listening who doesn't know, Mike Lansing was kind of a journeyman second baseman, played for the Red Sox. And we were the same age and we were walking around at Pinewood in London. And he had retired recently. And I asked him like the circumstances under which he retired. And he said, well, man, he goes, I was up and the pitcher threw me a 95 mile an hour fastball.

He goes, and my eyes lit up. He goes, cause that was my bread and butter because that's how I made my living because I never was great hitting the breaking ball. But he goes, he goes 95 mile an hour fastballs, you know, I'm getting a hold of that thing. And he goes, and I swung and I was late. And he goes, and I looked down at the catcher and the catcher looked up at me. Boom, I get another 95 mile an hour fastball. He goes, and I'm late again. He ends up striking out on three pitches.

And he goes, it was like, you know, two weeks, four weeks before he was out of the league. Like they just, everybody was like, it's a jungle. They were like, you can't hit it anymore. He can't, he's, you know, he hit that point. Right. You know, he hit that cliff. Right. Which is like that. It's like the wafer thin margin, that level. And what Mike said to me, which always stuck with me was he goes, I'm, he goes, the irony is that if you took my 36 year old brain and put it in my 21 year old body, he goes, I would be in the hall of fame. Right. He goes, I know so much more about hitting.

I understand at such a deeper level about hitting right now. And he goes, and yet I can't play anymore. And I remember thinking like, oh my God, like I'm 36 years old. I feel like I'm just hitting my stride, right? You know, I've been doing this as long as he's been playing baseball. Like this is the time that gets exciting. Like we're getting good at this now.

You know what I mean? And how devastating it would be to just be told, you know, that's it, you know, right when you want to really understand it. Um, so anyway, that, that always stuck with me that, that, uh, um, because we, you know, you grow up, you know, kids go, I wish I want, you know, I want to be an athlete and you go, well, the downside of it is there's a finish line to that. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and downside of it is there's a finish line to that. Yeah. Um, and,

uh, and you're not in control of when that is. Yeah. Actors have like different finish lines. Cause you have your like young star finish line and then you have your like middle star finish line. And then you kind of gravitate toward semi older roles as you hit your fifties, I think.

Yeah. And it's different for men and women, and it depends on who you are. It's, you know, it's... Except for Cruise. Cruise would be doing Mission Impossible when he's like 88. He's unbelievable.

Yeah. He's unbelievable. He's like Brady. He's like Tom Brady. Yeah, he's the Tom Brady of actors. I was just watching, I was flying back from Australia, and I was just watching one of his Mission back from Australia and I was just watching,

uh, one of his mission impossibles, you know, where he hangs off the side of a plane. Yeah. And I was just like, you gotta be kidding me. Like,

he's amazing. What was the, what was the craziest thing you did in a movie? Like athletically? Uh, other than the black and school ties I mean crucial black in school ties you win the big game you know Brendan Fraser yeah in front of him um uh but no I mean I you know the one of the Bourne movies I jumped off a bridge you know I was attached to a harness and

I mean nothing nothing remotely connected to did I ever tell you my story of having dinner with Tom Cruise? No, please do. Oh man, this is 10 years ago or something. And we were having dinner and I was visiting, it was right after Krasinski and I had written Promise Land. And Emily was shooting that movie, Edge of Tomorrow with Tom in London. Excellent move, Doug Liman movie, really good.

Yeah, great one. And we went over there and we all went out to dinner and it was right after Tom had done the scene where he ran outside the building in that Mission Impossible. Remember the one where he

runs sideways around the tallest building in the world? So I go, let me, like, dude, what happened? How did that come to pass? And he goes, well, I mean, I've been dreaming of that stunt for 15 years. And he starts to tell me the story. He goes, so I go to the safety guy and I go, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to attach myself to a cable and I'm going to run around the outside of the building about 1,500 feet up or whatever it was. He goes, safety guy looks at the gag.

He goes, no, no, it's too dangerous. So I get a new safety guy. Wait a minute. Stop. Hang on. That's how your mind works? Like the safety guy says it's too dangerous. So we get another safety guy.

I'm like, that's where I'm like, see, you win. I tap out right there. When the safety guy says it's dangerous, I'm like, well, he probably knows. You're a one opinion guy. Exactly. I only need to hear that once. But he's just built differently, you know? And I mean, he really is at this point, you know, one of the great stuntmen in the world.

I mean, right. You know, you look at the stuff that he's done, it's incredible. Have you thought about like other A-list actors over the years and how their career progressed? Like even in the old days, like the Newman Redford guys and studied like the choices they made as they got older?

Not really. I haven't really gone deep in that. I mean, I always just think if you make good movies, you keep going, you know, and it's, and that's it. And it doesn't have to be any more complicated. It's just really hard to make good movies. Well, that involves attaching yourself to the next generation of filmmakers, which you just did a couple of times. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's a collaborative medium, right? So you got to find great people to work with. And the more great people you're working with, the better chance you're going to make a good movie.

Or, or Ridley Scott, who's like 85 and could still crank out movies for some reason. He's another one. I don't understand him either. No, isn't he like legitimately 80? He's 83.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He'll be 84 in November. No, he's going to make three. He's doing. Yeah. Yeah. He'll be 84 in November. It's impressive. He's going to make three... He did our movie, which is a big-budget medieval movie, and then he did Gucci, which is

another big-budget movie, and in the fall, he's doing this Napoleon movie, or I think it's either Netflix or Apple, I can't remember, but it's twice the budget of the other two massive movies he already made during a't remember, but it's twice the budget of the other two massive movies he already made during a pandemic.

No, it's ridiculous. It's like, he's completely indefatigable. The guy, he's, you know. I don't get it. All my parents are over 70 and most of my relationship with them now is just explaining why

whatever technology they have isn't working and how to fix it. Like, well, no, no no just reboot the wi-fi router it should work or no no they probably changed your netflix password just put put the one in from the last time that's like 90 of my conversations yeah yeah no he's and in fact he's like look i've seen it with clint too like clint's 91 and he's still working 91 yeah yeah oh my god i worked with him when he was when he was 79 that was in 09 yeah and uh and look it's great from for somebody who loves this job to see somebody doing it that well at that age. Right. I mean,

watching Ridley, it's so fun watching him direct. He's, you know, again, that's where it's not athletics, right? There's not,

there doesn't have to be a cliff. Yeah. If you're still, if you're still bringing it, you can still, you can still do the job. Well, you have a couple that you haven't worked with yet,

right? Have you, you have not worked with Fincher? No. You have not worked with Fincher. No. You have not worked with PTA either, right? No, no, no. I would love to work with either of those guys. I'd do the phone book with either of those guys.

Because Ben worked with Fincher. Yeah, I love him. Absolutely love him. Yeah, yeah. Fincher's tough because I went to watch him shoot one day. Fincher's, he's got that Kububrick um kind of gift and curse which is he can't unsee what he sees which is why his movies are so great um yeah that was a good one i mean and then what's really incredible about david is the performances in his movies are great

too which sometimes when somebody is is doing that many takes, the performances can really suffer. For some reason, they don't. And David's like, part of his genius is understanding what great acting is on top of his kind of visual genius. Yeah, Gone Girl, which is a movie that because everybody knows the book, it's always

hard when they make the movie out of the book. People kind of know what's going to happen, but they can still make it interesting. I always respect that. By the way, I thought I was on the Affleck corner for Oscars last year with the, with, uh,

with the well back. Yeah. He wasn't even in the conversation. And I was like, all right, well, he's, I felt,

I sound like a Homer. I sound like I'm defending like Jason Tatum for second team. But I was like, this is one of the best performances I saw all year and he wasn't even mentioned I never understand the Oscar thing like why some people get momentum and other people don't but I thought he was really good in that movie

I thought he was great and that's all you can do is just be great in a movie and you know do your you know do the best job you can and because you never know if you're going to catch that wave that's all that's down to a bunch of other stuff. And, and, uh, you know, I think you just keep saying, I mean, he's just doing great work. You should see him in the last school. He's amazing in the last school. It's a supporting part and he's just so good. Um, it's one of the best things

I think he's ever done. And, um, but you never know if the, if, if that kind of conversation is going to break your way, you know, I've always thought that they should do those awards like 10 or 20 years later. Like when you remove all of the kind of campaigning and money and marketing dollars out, right. And just go, what's still here? Like, you know, we know what's good. If you, I mean, if we were doing, what would this year be? 2001, right? I can't remember what came out in 2001, but like we could see what got nominated and we could see what else came out that year. And we, you know what I mean? We'd probably have a different list. I thought it, I always used to say five-year Oscars, where it's just way five years. Cause

in sports, you know, right away you do the five years. Because in sports, you know right away. You do the MVP, you have a sense. Sure, sure. But I think in movies, you really have to get some distance. This is something on the Rewatchables pod we do. We're always amazed by... We did Boys in the Hood last month.

And it's like Fishburne didn't get nominated. I know. You go through the five supporting actors, you're like, what the fuck? You're like, what the hell is that even? How did he not get nominated? And then the movie didn't get nominated either. I mean, they only had five back then,

but Singleton did get nominated. But just in general- That's the odd thing about that is that it's not that people didn't see that movie. I remember that movie being a phenomenon when it came out. It was. I don't know why Fish didn't get nominated. That's crazy.

Yeah, there's some egregious ones in the 89 to 94 range. And then I think because Premiere Magazine was starting, there was different people writing about it. So at least they got a little better, but it was still pretty bad all the way through really. For the most part,

there's always like travesties, right? But stuff like that, when you go back or or Spike doesn't get nominated for Do the Right Thing and things like that. Did he not get nominated for Do the Right Thing? You're kidding me. Singleton was the first black director ever nominated.

No way. Yeah. There's some really bad ones when you go way back. It's gotten better recently. I think five years, I would even double there's some really bad ones when you go way back. It's gotten better recently. I think five years, I would even double down and say 10 years. I think that would solve a lot of that. It would certainly make the travesty part go away.

Well, because we were doing Fight Club. Brad Pitt did not get nominated in Fight Club. Neither did Fincher. And Fight Club got bad reviews when it came out in certain circles. It was very polarizing. And then 10 years later, people appreciated it. But like Cider House Rules

is all over the map in the Oscars for the 1999 year. And it's like Michael Caine wins. Cider House Rules and Talented Mr. Ripley did not get a Best Picture nomination. Jude Law was the only one, right? And you didn't get one.

No, no. Jude Law and I think the screenplay. yeah, no, it was Cider House Rules was because Ripley was Miramax and Paramount. And Cider House was Miramax. And Cider House

got in. I remember that. Well, there was definitely, and I think it was because who was voting. But every year you can see it. There's always like, let's give this one to the old guy. Let's give this one to the old lady. Let's give this one to the old movie.

Like that movie was always taken care of. So there's always like only 80% of the pot. Now we don't do that. I think people are so afraid of backlash if they screw up on the votes or if the wrong things happen. It does seem like we're gravitating toward a better selection, I would say. Hopefully, hopefully.

Because the MVP is like that too in NBA where it's like, we're just getting better at it versus you go back 30 years ago and people are like, ah, I vote for Kevin McHale. You know, I work for the Patriot Ledger. He seems nice to me yesterday. I'm voting for MVP. Those days seem like they're over. I hope so. I hope so. I mean, I wish they took all the campaigning out of it. Like that always struck me as insane. Like why, why does your going to a cocktail party or showing up for a brunch change the way someone's going to vote for your performance?

The two have nothing to do with one another. Yeah. You know what I mean? It was just always odd to me. Yeah, how do you campaign for art? No, exactly. Exactly. It doesn't make sense to me that that would, you know, because it shouldn't, if I'm voting for that, it's not going to be because I met you and you talked to me.

And I mean, it shouldn't be because I like you. It should be because that work was really something that I want to be a part of giving you an award for because I thought you were awesome. Well, screeners, I think, have changed a little too. Just because I think the movie you just made is a really good example. I would have rather seen that in the theater. It's like big sprawling. There's cool. I'm in different, I'm in Oklahoma.

I'm in Marseille. I get to go to all these different places and there's a pace to it. And when you're screening something, I never feel like I have a hundred, I'm like maybe 95% attention, but there's always that 5% when you're trapped in a theater where you're just locked in on the movie the whole time. Well, going to the theater is more like, you know, church. Yeah. Like you show up when it starts, like you're not, you know, I really worry about that in terms of the viewing habits of like my kids and this next generation. Yeah. They control the movie.

You know what I mean? They've got a remote control. They can stop it and start it. They're just kind of acculturated to kind of like, I kind of feel like I'm going to go make some popcorn or I'm going to go to the bathroom right now. I'm going to stop it. Whereas when we grew, it was like, that thing is going to play. It's playing at 2.15 and you got to sit there and it's not going to be over till 4.20. And if you have to get up, you got to make six people move. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And that's a very different relationship to the thing you're watching. It's a much more respectful

relationship. You're really giving the art the movie it's due. You're really paying attention. Yeah, and that's why I think with the prestige TV stuff, that's one of the reasons people are gravitating to it right

because like these like I'm watching White Lotus right now which I like on HBO it's like one hour a week I'm with these people I'll concentrate

they have 94% of my attention then then I get to move on I don't have to like go to a movie theater sit down I'm not trapped in the seat

because we're used to having all these options now but I kind of miss the days of not trapped in the seat because we're used to having all these options now. But I kind of miss the days of being trapped in the seat. And I'm with you, I think about it with my kids. You know, I want them to concentrate when they watch stuff. And I never, I'm always worried about their 100% attention.

So am I, yeah. I really, I notice it with my kids, like just talking during, you know, we were watching like, like we love the show alone. I don't know if you've seen, if you've seen alone on Netflix. Who's in it? Oh, no one. It's survivalists. It's the real survivalists and they put them in these survival situations. They have like 10 contestants and they have to live alone by

themselves. It's amazing, man. It's just amazing. They film themselves and it's just, you know, they have to survive for 90 days. And what's incredible is, I mean, I think they're like 10 seasons into this thing and like, it's, it's almost impossible to survive 90 days on your own in a hostile environment. And these are like seer specialists and like, I mean, every hardcore survivalist goes on there. And anyway, it's a really fun show to watch. But like most TV with my kids, like my 10-year-old will just start talking. And I'm like, no, no, no.

Quiet, quiet, quiet. Like it's not, it's, and I think that has to do with being in total control of the thing you're watching like you can just pause at any time you can just you know what i mean it's kind of there to serve you rather than you being there to serve it figure out what it is so you said you just gave an interview you said you wouldn't let your daughter watch goodwill hunting no she doesn't want to i would totally let her watch it she she does she literally doesn't want she does she's like thinks it's funny i I think. She loves giving me shit and she's like...

She won't watch anything she thinks I might be good in. She doesn't want you to win her over? I don't know what it is. It's like... Whatever it is, she's in control of it and it makes me laugh and she's fine with it.

She calls that movie The Great Wall. I did The Wall. And I'm like, it's not called The Wall. It's called The Great with it. Like, like she calls that movie, the great wall. I did the wall. And I'm like, it's not called the wall. It's called the great wall. And she's like, dad, there's nothing great about that.

So she's like definitely mass old DNA. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. You, yeah. She, she wasn't,

she wasn't born there, but like she's got, it transferred. Cause my son, my son has lived in LA his whole life, but it's like just a prototypical mass hole. And I'm like, I don't know how this happened. It's genetic.

Yeah, it might be. But really funny. She didn't see The Martian? So she won't watch that one either? Actually, she did see The Martian because her friend saw it. She was like 10 when The Martian came out. So I thought she was way too young. And then when I was at school, like doing the drop-offs and pickups like the other parents and other kids were

coming up and they and her classmates had seen it so I was like okay well so I thought it was a little too advanced for her but I sat and watched it with her I got a DVD and sat and watched it with her and you know there's a part where like i get an antenna in my stomach at the beginning you know so the kids wanted to see it i showed them that i was like dude that's a that's a prosthetic stomach i'd like pause the movie and like lift up my shirt and go they built this whole piece over here and you know try to walk them through it so they weren't traumatized seeing their dad like but uh but no so she did see that one.

So I think she concedes that occasionally I can make a good movie and she's not interested in seeing any more of them. She's interested. If she hears it's a disaster, she wants to see it. That one, that's like a perfectly rewatchable movie. That one, 30 years from now, it'll be the same experience for whoever's watching it.

I hope so, man. I'm proud of it. Those outer space movies, like that could easily come out 30 years from now and hit a lot of the same beats, I feel like. I hope so, man. Assuming we're all still here. Who knows? It's so hard to make a good movie,

man. I always tell, like I say to my 15-year-old, I'm like, you know, we don't get to see the movie before it's made. You know, like we just, it's, you're kind of betting on these ingredients and you know ingredients. Take The Great Wall. That director, his name is Zhang Yimou. He's one of the most brilliant directors in the world. And I love the man and I would work for him again. I hope he calls me again for a job.

Yeah. Because he's great. But for whatever reason, the alchemy did not, it just didn't happen on that one, you know, and it wasn't anybody's fault. It was just the kind of, the attendant pieces didn't kind of cohere.

And it's like you make a souffle, but it doesn't rise. You know what I mean? You had great ingredients, but just didn't quite happen. Was that, is that your number one? I don't understand why that

didn't come together movie or is there another one? No, no, no, no. I don't understand why it didn't come together. Or like, I don't understand why this didn't hit the way I thought it was going to hit movie. No, I would say that my number one didn't hit like I thought it would. I mean, downsizing just because it was Alexander. Oh, yeah.

We talked about that the last time. Yeah, you made a good case for that. But after we talked about that, there's a downsizing hive that I think next five years is going to be interesting with that movie. I think it's coming around. Yeah, I do.

I don't know. I don't know. I heard a radio guy one day, I was coming home from dropping the kids at school. And as I pulled in, this guy starts, I forget which disc jockey which he's like man i just saw the worst movie i've seen in a really long time and he starts to watch and i pull the car over because when i go into my garage i lose the signal and i'm like ah shit i bet he's gonna be talking about my movie like i had to i had to see it through i had to to hear the whole rant. And this dude went on a five-minute rant

about how bad this movie that he saw was. And then he goes, and then, of course, it was downsizing. And I remember thinking, why would you hate this so much? But some movies are polarizing. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Here's a good story for you that Scorsese told me

when we were making The Departed. He told me a story about when he made The King of... I brought up The King of Comedy, which is one of my favorites of his. That's an all-time most polarized movie. Right. And he goes... And his... The first story that jumped to mind for him

was he was... It was New Year's Eve, and he goes, I was putting on a tuxedo. I was going out to a New Year's Eve party. It was a black tie party. He goes, and I was trying to tie putting on a tuxedo. I was going out to a New Year's Eve party. It was a black tie party. He goes, and I was trying to tie my bow tie in the mirror and the television was on. And back then it's, you know, three channels, obviously.

And whatever channel he's on, the entertainment reporter goes, and the competition for the worst movie of the year is over. The king of comedy. Marty said he just tied his bow tie and he sat and he just looked at himself in the mirror and then untied the bow tie and took it off.

Took the jacket off. That was it. He wasn't going anywhere. He went and he just crawled into bed and went to sleep. And that movie's brilliant, right? And it's one of his great movies. But sometimes you can get laid low by these things. Well, when he did Departed, it's interesting

because we did a whole podcast on Goodfellas and we were trying to figure out was this- That movie's perfect. Yeah, we went two and a half hours and I think it was the most listened rewatchables we've had. Because everybody loves that movie. Everybody loves that movie. I think

that's his best movie. So we were arguing about, because there's this category of Apex Mountain, where it's like, is this your apex where you have the most juice, all this stuff? And we were like, definitely his best movie that he's ever made. But I do feel like departed career wise after departed, it felt like it was the first time in his career where he could literally do

anything he wanted. Like he, like he ascended to some higher power. You know what I mean? I don't know. I don't know. Like he's, it was like revenue every time he was doing, I mean, he doesn't mean streets and then he does taxi driver. I mean maybe within the business but I don't know like he's it was like revolutionary every time

he was doing I mean he does mean streets and then he does taxi driver I mean my god right and then major I mean it's just he's just on such a tear like in that time frame and

then it's like what could he possibly do and he does good fellas and you're like that movie's aged perfectly because the first time I remember the first time I remember the first time I

saw it, the last 20 minutes, which he's intentionally trying to fuck with you. Right. And you leave the theater like, wow, I don't know about those last 20 minutes. I,

but then you see it the fifth time you're like, Oh, I get it. It's, it's just, it's so, it's so damn good. Um,

but yeah, departed. I don't know. I think maybe, maybe, maybe like, because common perception kind of caught up with his genius by that point. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

So kind of accepted as, you know, the departed, I'm very proud to have been in that movie, but it's not, it's not, it's not one of Marty's best movies, but there was no way he was going to not win being anointed the best director by the Academy it was so it was cheapening the award at that point

that he didn't have one it was like doing more damage to the Academy than it was doing to Marty because it's so absurd that he didn't, after what he had given to cinema, to American cinema he didn't have this. Oh, that's speaking of Oscar travesties. So he loses

for Goodfellas. Yes. Costner wins for Dancers Wolves. Costner, great guy. But I think in retrospect, we might do that one over. You never, never, you never, but the people who win, it's like, don't punish them for making a good movie. You know what I mean? It's not their fault that they were also

nominated that year that, you know, and, and, and they're not the ones who it's thousands of people doing this voting. So it's not, it's not, I always,

it's always weird to me when people kind of like take out their disappointment on the person who did win. Yeah. You're like, well, all that happened was they made a movie and they, somebody gave them an award and they showed up and got it. Like,

you know, the, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your an award and they showed up and got it. Like, you know, the, your, your, your, your disappointments a little misplaced. Well, the two travesties that were underrated.

Cause everyone remembers the Scorsese thing. De Niro did not get nominated for that movie. Oh, wow. See, but again, that's something that like, that's the other thing.

Like, and neither did Leota. Yeah. Wow. I mean, think about that. Well, and that's why you like,

cause if you told me that they both did, I would, I would say today and I love that movie and I'm, and I work in Hollywood. I would be like, well, of course they did. They both deserved it.

Yeah. Yeah. There's just no question that 30 years later, that movie is what it is. It's like, it's so, yeah, that's why it's not worth getting twisted. It bent

out of shape about the nominations because nobody's going to remember if somebody backed into the nomination by campaigning really well and like Ray Liotta didn't get nominated. It's not like in 30 years that's going to mean anything. It's what, you know.

It's going to mean the Academy got it wrong. I think Stillwater is going to be a little polarizing. I was into it. I liked it. But I think there's going to be some people that are going to be like, fuck this movie. Yeah, I mean, it's not what you think it's going to be. Right?

I hope, you know, I would want them to sell it as a drama because that's what it is. It's a drama. You know, it's got elements of a thriller in it. But those elements are going to make it look more like a Liam Neeson movie. And we fail entirely on the grounds of it being a satisfying action movie because it's not. It's about a guy who doesn't have any of the requisite skills

he would need to do what he wants to do. He's completely overmatched by the situation. He doesn't understand what's going on around him. He doesn't speak the situation. He doesn't understand what's going on around him. He doesn't speak the language. He doesn't understand the culture. And he's just trying to repair this relationship with his daughter that he's done terrible damage to over the years because of his own problems. And so it's very much a drama to me. And I always approached it that way. But yeah, if it's sold as an action movie, then no.

It will be polarized. It should be polarized because it's not that at all. The little girl in the movie is really good. She's great. And ironically, the girl who plays your daughter in the movie had a great little girl performance, a little bit of sunshine, and has now grown up.

And it was totally totally disoriented. It's like, oh my God, she's an adult now. What the hell happened? She's a real actress. Yeah, she's good too. Yeah. Yeah. And the little girl had never acted before.

And she's really good. She's amazing. She's one of those kids, like sometimes you just get lightning in a bottle with a kid. Like after the first day of work, Tom and I sat down and we're like, okay, like this is this. I mean, we literally said, you'll appreciate the reference we were like, cause I've been trying to explain it in Europe. It takes a minute.

I'm like the kids throwing, this kid's throwing a no hitter. Like after day one, we're like, you know, she basically struck out the side in the first inning and we're like, all right, this isn't a fluke. Like she, she's, she's incredible. So how do we, how do we protect her? How do we, how do we keep it fun? You know, and keep, you know, keep, keep it really playful and fun and light for her so that, so that, so she, so, you know, the last thing you want is for her to realize she's like,

you know, pitching a perfect game. And, and so we, we did, we were able to do that. And, and the, the, the French laws were really helpful because they have these kind of draconian laws around child labor, um, which is a good thing because we only had her for a few hours a day. So when, so when she was there, she was eight at the time, eight years old. And, you know, we, everybody was very focused and we made sure to get everything we needed with her and we kept it really fun and, and light. And, uh, and she didn't get, she'd never got burned out. She had a really good time. So you have, this is out last duel is coming October. I wonder if what, I wonder if that's a movie theater movie or a hybrid movie, who knows what the world's going to be like with this stuff in October.

And then it's a big movie theater movie. And then what, so what's next? What's after that? I don't have anything. We're moving to Brooklyn. So I'm going to, it's a big move for the family. So I'm going to take the rest of the year off and,

and just be there to kind of be around. We just want to be around for, you know, as we make that transition. And then next year, I'll just look and, you know, maybe Ben and I will write something. Or if something comes along, if some of those great directors you mentioned, you know, have something. Big Little Lies season four in Nantucket. You got that? You got that in your hip pocket?

I was thinking Pinscher or PTA. Either. Wait, you can't. I'm or PTA, but either. Wait, you can't, uh, I'm worried about your family in New York. You just,

just monitor the New York sports thing because we don't like, we don't like any of the New York sports teams. So just be careful. Just monitor with the younger kids,

especially. I might, I might have to go to a couple of Brooklyn games. That's a, that's a really, that's a fun,

that's a fun team to watch play. All right. Just make sure your kids aren't wearing the hats or anything. No, no, that's a fun team to watch play. All right, just make sure your kids aren't wearing the hats or anything. No, no, I wouldn't let that happen.

Yeah, all right. Good to see you, Matt Damon. Yeah, you too. Pleasure as always. All right, man, hang in there. You too. Go Brady.

All right, that's it for this BS podcast. Don't forget about Music Box. First film, Woodstock, 99, Peace, Love, and Rage, which premieres on HBO Max and on HBO on Friday night as well, if you have HBO.

I don't know why you wouldn't have HBO Max. It's pretty great. But you can check it out there. Hope you enjoy it. Hope you enjoy the weekend. I'll be back on Sunday night with a very fun idea for a podcast that I'm excited for. So see you next time.