The Joe Rogan Experience - #2280 - Peter Berg

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Peter Berg is a writer, director, and producer. His latest project is the Netflix series "American Primeval." https://www.netflix.com/title/81457507 Save $20 on your first subscription of AG1 at drinkag1.com/joerogan 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com/rogan! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Joe Rogan Experience. Jo Rogan podcast by night. All day. Black craft for coffee. Are we up? All right, we're rolling. Those are a lot. Is this too much?

Am I making a rookie mistake? No, I love them. They're too good though. There's a lot of sugar in them They're trying to make one with no sugar. They're pretty close But right now that that's got a ton of sugar in it, but damn it's good. Yeah, they taste good We did the full thing today, dude. Thanks for the workout my pleasure. Thanks for the work You're your beast for anyone that doesn't know you are a fucking beast and I suspected you would be you know

That's why I wanted to work out And I was smart enough and I told you right away. I'm not gonna keep up with you But man you go hard for you did a lot of the things though You did all the stuff, you know, like in stuff that you'd never done before like windmills and yeah Those windmills were like you could really get in trouble with the windmill. Yeah for people that don't know what that is You certainly can with heavyweight. Yeah, it's something but it's all those things like the push-ups and body weights grouts It's all just to be have to build to it. I love the way you warm up, you know, cuz I'm the same way I do a long warm-up every day

And my buddy Ari got me into it and and just try and stretch Absolutely everything and I was telling you I got thrown off a horse in Africa a month ago My buddy Ari got me into it and just try and stretch absolutely everything. And I was telling you, I got thrown off a horse in Africa a month ago. And when I was in the process of getting thrown off and I was like in the middle of the air and about to come down and I'm like, oh shit, this is going to be a problem. And I thought about those warmups and I landed and rolled and didn't hurt myself. So I think those are really smart. Yeah, if we could just appreciate

when your body works well without having to be injured, it would be so nice. Because you really only think about your, oh God, I hope my body heals. When you get injured, if you get fucked up, then you think, God, I can't wait to get healthy again. But if you just appreciate, and the best way to appreciate your body working well

is to keep it body working well is to keep it working well. Just to work on it. Stretch out, work out, lift weights, get some cardio in, do those stuff that's uncomfortable, like stretching. I like that you started off your workout with a nice long stretch. We had a good stretch and a good ice bath, man. Yours is colder than mine. That blue cube is brutal because it's always running. That's like a flowing river. That's hard. Great. It was a great way to start. Appreciate it. Yeah, it gets you fired up, man. And also, like we were saying, your workout's done.

Your day can... You're free. You don't have to think about doing it. Just get it out of the way early. You're good. Well, and the sauna and the way you approach... The way I think you approach all of it is kind of a meditation. I know that that's probably really an important part of your creative process. It is a mind when I'm writing or directing to be able to have that time alone. It's a moving meditation. And I think one of the secrets to your success, in my opinion, is that you know how to take that time

for yourself. Lock in, focus, get mentally and physically ready, because it's not easy to do what you do every day and to be this present. So I respect it so much. Well, thank you very much. Well, obviously, I'm a huge fan of what you do. And fucking American Prime Minister is so good, dude. Thank you, man

I feel like you made it just for me I've been waiting for a realistic Wild West series like that forever And that is I'll just say it right now. That's the best one that's ever been made I think is the best representation of the Wild West that's ever been made. It's so good, dude It's so good, dude. It's so brutal. My wife checked out after episode one. Did she?

Yeah. I can't. Because we watch shows before we go to bed, and we're in the middle of Severance, which is excellent. Really good show. And Severance is, you know, I mean, there's some brutal moments, but it's just really complicated. It's really engaging.

You've got to pay very close attention. Yeah, yeah. Really good show. And then I said, hey,. You've got to pay very close. Yeah, really good show And then I said hey, baby, we've got to watch American Primeval I go Peters coming on please sit and watch with me is a couple weeks ago So I have to first episode she's like Jesus what the fuck you doing me it's like 10 o'clock at night I gotta go to bed. Yeah, I can't like people getting tomahawked in the fucking head and I gotta go to sleep If I have to call her or send her flowers or anything I will I've had to send a few people flowers and give them like massages and stuff like therapy

Treatments because it's traumatized because you did it right. That's why because you did it right you did it like it really was it was a fucking barbaric time in a barbaric place And it's never really been other than 1883 Taylor Sheridan's series, which is also excellent excellent excellent. He did a fantastic job and how crazy is it that like Faith Hill and What's the other guy's name? Tim. Tim McGraw. They're fucking great actors. Sure. Tim was in Friday Night Lights. Do you remember him in the movie? He played the father, like the mean alcoholic father who used to beat up his kid. And Tim was great in

Friday Night Lights. Tim's a very good actor. Isn't that crazy that someone who's a great singer can all just slide into this other thing and be amazing at it? He's an artist. I mean, he's a very good actor. Isn't that crazy? Someone who's a great singer can all just slide into this other thing and be amazing at it? He's an artist. I mean, he's a really deep thinking, deep feeling artist. Yeah, clearly. And Taylor, Taylor Sheridan has a knack for getting great performances out of people like McGraw.

Or did you see Jerry Jones, his cameo in Landman, which I think is the best cameo ever? Have you seen that yet? What episode is it on? I'm not sure because I don't know each episode, but he's got, Sheridan has a sequence where Jerry Jones basically playing himself just tells the story of how he got into business and how he started up and it's just beautifully done. Sheridan's very good at getting people to do cameos and pulling it out of them.

I think that that show was like Billy Bob Thornton was built for that show. It was born for it. Yeah, that's his perfect role. He's so goddamn good in that. In Landman. Yeah, in Landman. He's so god. I mean, he's been good in a million things but in land man. It's like you just believe he's that guy I mean you just believe but American Primeval back to that what what? inspired you to do such a realistic interpretation That you remember a movie called Jeremiah Johnson. Did you ever see that with Robert Redford? Yeah

Yeah, so Redford? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A long time ago. So Redford plays this city man who goes out west looking for gold and ends up sort of stuck somewhere around Montana and is trying to survive out there. When the Indians first find him, he's so inept, he's trying to catch a fish in a frozen river with his hands. I mean, he's completely inept that they don't even waste an arrow on him. They don't kill him. And by the end of the film, he's a warrior and he's learned how to survive and he marries a Native American woman and his wife gets killed and he goes on a vengeance spree and kills a whole bunch of people and

ends up getting this incredible respect from the Native Americans and my dad took me to see Jeremiah Johnson and that movie always stuck with me. And I'm good friends with Taylor Sheridan and we work together a lot and I obviously know everything he's doing and I kind of wanted to see if I could play in that space. But you know, he's doing it so well and so specifically I kind of thought well, what if I just play in that space. But he's doing it so well and so specifically, I kind of thought, well, what if I just did something that was really about the survival? And I like to call it inch by inch filmmaking,

where you think about how hard it would have been just to go 50 feet and take a piss, and how there might have been 15 different things that could have killed you on the way to taking that piss. Instead of just jumping through those 50 things, let's really try and stretch it out and try and show people and capture the brutality of moment-to-moment living back in that part of America in the 1850s. And you're used to doing films. So is what is the process like transitioning

from something that's two or three hours to something that's long form? You have all this time and multiple episodes to lay out the story but you're doing it with the quality of an excellent film. Everything starts with good health. That's why AG1 is a great addition to any morning routine and why I've partnered with them for so long. One scoop, once a day, simple, research-backed and designed to support your whole body health. And it actually tastes great. You can forget juggling multiple pills and supplements. AG1 is a more in one solution that combines a

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So try AG1 for yourself. And right now AG1 is offering new customers a free $76 gift when you subscribe. You'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2 and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drinkag1.com slash Joe Rogan. That's drinkag1.com slash Joe Rogan. Check it out. Yeah, it was it was a massive job. You know, a movie, a big movie is generally like 85 day shoot. American Primeval is 145 day shoot. And I had one of my my ideas Mark L. Smith, who wrote the episodes and was very talented, was let's not shoot in sound stages. Let's not make parking lots look like forests,

but let's go up into the mountains. And in this case, we went up onto some different Indian reservations in New Mexico. And we're like, let's really go out there for 145 days let's do it you know we were talking this is all prior to us going out and actually doing it and it's kind of like be careful what you ask for it's like we are you're actually really fucking on the mountain for 145 days and there's lightning storms and snow storms and wind storms and we had rattlesnakes

everywhere and had to have all these dudes going around pulling the snakes And there's lightning storms and snow storms and wind storms. And we had rattlesnakes everywhere. And we had to have all these dudes going around pulling the snakes out of the rocks and stuntmen breaking ribs. Joe Schilling was with us every day. I think we killed Joe five times. Thanks, Joe. I saw Tate Fletcher. I was telling you too.

Episode two. We only killed Tate once. But thanks, Tate, for that. I love that dude, since episode two. We only killed Tate once, but thanks Tate for that. I love that dude. But these stuntmen were so tough and breaking bones and all kinds of horrible things. But the creative experience of getting to do basically six movies at once,

because I directed all of them, and being able to go that deep in characters, and to be able to bring in elements like Brigham Young and the Mormon religion and have big themes circling around just very visceral violent moments as a filmmaker is fucking awesome. And it's different, you know, because it's not directing an episode of a television show is its own experience, but that's very quick. Directing a movie is really, really wonderful and very obviously creatively demanding, but that's, this is six movies all at once. And having to keep that in my head and kind of figure out how to keep myself functioning and not wasting energy and you know I built a gym in my

house in New Mexico with a nice bath and a sauna and I'd get up at four every morning and just have that time for myself to keep myself fit and you know mentally and physically ready to go at it. When you're in the middle of a project and you're doing your workouts, are you just like constantly going over the show in your head? Yeah, I mean, I try to, I do go over it, but in more of an abstract way. I'm a bit of an improvisational filmmaker, meaning I don't like to have everything super planned out. I think kind of the way you conduct your podcast,

you have some ideas, and then you just sort of allow whatever happens to happen. And I know what I'm gonna do that day, particularly with American Primal, because we had so many big battles and stunts and kind of dangerous complex filmmaking that there has to be some plan. But even within that, I try to loosely think about

what I want to do and then get out there and let the actors kind of start doing what they do and see what kind of creative vibe gets going. And a lot of the cameramen, you know, I just shoot handheld cameras, so we have a lot of flexibility with how we can work and capture. And my feeling is rather than plan it all out,

go out there knowing kind of what you want to accomplish, but allow kind of creativity, allow that kind of divine magic to enter the process, which can kind of be freaky for like my bosses at Netflix because they're spending a whole lot of money and they're like what are we doing today and I'm like I don't really know what we're doing today but we're gonna do something. Well they're pretty good at staying out of the way aren't they? They actually are fantastic about it and you know I have to give you know my boss

there's a woman named Bella Bajard, Netflix, who and people talk a lot of shit about Netflix. I'm not one of them. I mean, they're giving so many people so much work. And once you convince them that you have a vision, they let you do it. And she was great. And she let me do it. And she was great and she let me do it. And you know, it's interesting because there was a scene in the second episode of American

Primeval where a Native American cuts the throats of five women. Spoiler alert. Sorry, spoiler alert. I guess, sorry. There's a lot other bad things that happen, but there is this scene, right? And Netflix is a very busy company. They're making a lot of stuff. And we were deep in the edit process. And I got a call from Bella, the boss, my boss. And she's like, I want to see this show.

And I'm like, well, it's your show, so please come in. And it's hard for her to keep track of all the shows and all the scripts. And I was impressed that she even wanted to come in. And so she came in to the edit room and she's like, I'm gonna watch one episode. It's kind of a big deal. She's, you know, very influential person in our world. And so it's me and Hugo, the editor, and Bella comes in and we show her the first episode, and we're just sitting in this kind of dark screening room and I have no idea what she's going to say or do and it's pretty violent and it ends and she goes, I want to see another one.

And I'm like, okay, we'll start a plan the second episode and we're getting right to the moment where, spoiler alert, these women are about to have their throats cut and I'm starting to have a full fucking panic attack I'm pretty sure that she doesn't know what's coming up, right? Yeah, and Hugo the editor is kind of looking at me like should I stop it? I mean and I really didn't know what to do and we're and I we get to the moment Where this event happens and my body heat was was literally rising I'm ready for her to like fire me and take the show and I know and the scene happens and the girls

get their throats cut and she says stop and we stop and she goes Peter I can sense you're concerned about my reaction. Let me tell you something I'm here for this violence I'm not afraid of this violence as long as you make it emotional and connect me to the emotion. Do it." And I'm like, thank you Bella. And she left and she allowed us to explore the kind of grit and intensity that people have reacted to and I tip my hat to her for that, you know, it's um, it's not you you need that kind of support to get something like American Primeval made today because it's not you know, it's not your grandmother's Western No, it's critical that you do it that way because if people want to really know what that was like if you read the historical

accounts of what happened, that's what happened. For sure. It happened that way. It was horrific. One of the things that a lot of people have talked about, and I had the LDS church issued a statement sort of critiquing the show and critiqu in me, which I appreciate and I understand why members of the Mormon community would be offended by the portrayal of Brigham Young and the Meadows, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which was the event that, you know,

we use as kind of our inciting incident for the first episode, which was a real massacre that the Mormons committed on a group of pioneers who were heading out west or Mormon militia with some Pied Indians attacked and murdered about 140 men women and children. We present that in the in the film and we present Brigham Young in the film. And many Mormons, it's interesting to start reading all the debate about it, but a lot of Mormons were saying, yeah, this is exactly what happened, and this is a part of our history. And other Mormons, particularly the seniors in Salt Lake City were saying, this is not what happened,

this is not fair. But what I find interesting about the Mormon church and about kind of how we present it is I've had a lot of people come to me and go, dude, I never knew the Mormons were such savages. So gangster. They were fucking gangster. Brigham Young was, in my opinion, a gangster, a survivor, a warrior. And for anyone who follows Mormon history, you know, they started in upstate New York with this young kid, Joseph Smith, who found these tablets and basically rewrote the Bible and started getting this following. And then they moved to Missouri

and they got popular and then there was an extermination order and it was kill all the Mormons. So they fled to Illinois and tried to survive up there at this place called Nauvoo that was going to be their peaceful place to live. And Joseph Smith was murdered and they were run out of Illinois and bringing young Leddys dudes, men and women on foot across the plains in the winter to Salt Lake Valley, which was this desolate wasteland. And he said, oh, we'll stay here. They'll never come for us here. And they started coming. And Brigham Young basically said, fuck it. We're not taking it anymore. He built his own army, the Nabu Legion. And he said, we're staying here, we won't mess with you, but if you come after us, we

will fight. And that point I think is interesting, and I think Brigham Young, who survived longer than all of them, and if you go to Salt Lake City, he did a pretty good job, right? Yeah. Like, that's a big city, man. It's a great city. And I don't know, I respect the Mormon religion. I respect Brigham Young. And I feel like we make him look like a gangster in American Primeval. And I don't know.

He's a survivor and I respect that. Well, this is the reality of historical figures. You're talking about a different time in the world, and it was a particularly barbaric time. And if you wanted to survive, this is what you had to do. And this is, we're not talking about the United States in 2025. We're talking about the Wild West. And you're talking about a persecuted group of religious people

Like if you want to survive you want your children to survive like that a fight you gotta take up arms That's just how it is like, you know the story about the Mormons in Mexico, right? Remind me well There's Mormon sects in Mexico that moved there when they made Polygamy. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. And this was a homeboy from Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. His family is from Mexico. His father was born in Mexico and his father could never be president because he wasn't born in America. And he was born here in America, ran for president the whole deal, became governor of Massachusetts. But there's still these huge groups in Mexico that are armed to the fucking tits because

they're always constantly battling with the cartel. And there was a series of murders a few years back where a woman and children like family were slaughtered. Was some confusion as to whether or not the cartel targeted them or whether it was a case of mistaken identity or what happened. But you know, there's been documentaries about them. They live in armed compounds. The Mormons. In Mexico.

So it's a similar sort of a situation with them in Mexico now. I mean, the polygamy was a thing and we do touch upon that a bit in Primeval. I think Brigham Young had 40-odd wives. Nice. How do you fucking keep up with two? I don't understand how someone could have two wives. That's a whole other conversation. I mean, I have a friend who lives in Saudi Arabia,

and a long time ago I was in Saudi Arabia doing some work, and I'd asked him, because in Saudi you can have multiple wives, Saudi men, and I'd asked him about that and sort of like, wow, that's amazing, multiple wives, that's so cool. And we were leaving Riyadh Airport, and he was walking with me, and there was we were leaving Riyadh airport and he was walking with me and there was a man in front of us and he was holding like five suitcases and he could barely walk and there were four women around him and kids everywhere and he just looked like he was about to collapse and fall face forward on the ground at the airport in Riyadh. And my friend looked at me and said, Pete, this is the reality of what having five wives looks like on the ground if you want to see what it really feels

like. So to think about Brigham Young having, you know, 45 wives, okay, good luck, I guess. Right? Yeah. But that was one of the issues, the polygamy that people that were non-Mormons back in the 1850s were using to attack the religion, and that was something that was the... The polygamy has obviously been since outlawed, and the church has cut itself off from that policy. But, you know, the Mormons were...the whole idea that this kid, Joseph Smith, I believe he was a young teenager, 14, when he and his buddy walked into these woods in like 18...late 1830s, right? Like... I think it was 1820. Okay.

When did he find...when did Joseph Smith supposedly find these golden tablets? The tablets. 18, late 1830s, right? Like. It was 1820. Okay. When did he find, when did Joseph Smith supposedly find these golden tablets? The tablets. I believe it was, but either way. Early. 56 wives. Bring him young, had 56.

There's a photo of him. This is 16 he forgot about. See, I didn't wanna oversell it, so I undersaw it. I kinda knew it was in the 50s. He had 56 wives. 46 kids, only 46, excuse me, only 46 kids made it to adulthood. That's part of why.

Oh wow, only 46. He's basically Genghis Khan of Utah. 1823, he was visited by an angel who directed him on the Mokdo Berry Book. 1823? And how old was he, like 14? 14, So this kid at 14 comes out of the woods and says the angel came and told me that the

Bible's almost right but it's not quite right so I'm gonna rewrite it, which he did, the Book of Mormon, and look at where we are today. It was not that long ago, right? And in the course of that journey from Joseph Smith coming out of the woods to where we are today with Brigham Young University and the beautiful city of Salt Lake City, Utah, there was a lot of bloodshed. And Joseph Smith was murdered. Smith was murdered, Brigham Young fought. Another interesting theory that isn't proven, but I believe it holds, is what saved the Mormons. Because in 1857, when you had the Mormon wars, Brigham Young was fighting President Buchanan

and when the military was coming after him in 1857, and he was holed up and prepared to fight in Salt Lake City, and Buchanan wanted him out. And then right around 1858, 1859, a little thing called the Civil War popped off, and the entire focus of the U.S. military was not on Brigham Young and Utah, but it was on fighting the Civil War. the Utah church was able, and Brigham Young was able to grow the Mormon church and survive and thrive, and he was able to politically negotiate a place in the government so that by the time the Civil War ended, Brigham Young was deeply entrenched and was able to lead the Mormon church to the great power that

it is today. I think if the Civil War hadn't occurred, there would be no Mormonism in the United States. Wow. That's crazy. What a fortuitous turn of events. And I'm going to probably get ripped on for that one, but I believe it's supportable. Yeah, you're going to get ripped for everything.

That's okay. That's just how it is. Mormons are the nicest people. My next door neighbors used to be Mormons. They're the nicest fucking people. I agree. I completely agree. They're so nice. I know a ton of Mormons because I know a bunch of people in Utah. And Salt Lake City, Utah is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful state. Salt Lake City is a cool city. And like I'm down with the Sundance Film Festival, so I'm down with the whole state.

Yeah, no, I love Utah, but it is a fascinating story. It's a, and it's, you know, look, they have a great sense of humor, because the Book of Mormon, when Matt Stone and Trey Parker did that musical, they took out a full-page ad in the playbook. So they're like, if you want to know more about Mormonism, come visit, like find out the real thing. So instead of protesting and suing

and attacking them, and they just took out a fucking ad. So when I was doing, I think that shows incredible character. For sure. For sure. Because that fucking you've seen the Book of Mormon, right? Yes, I have. Hilarious. And pretty brutal. And they're like, well, if you like, you'd like to find out more about Mormonism. Yeah, I can't figure out like, I, when I was doing my research for American Primeval, I went to Salt Lake City, and the Mormon Church gave me a tour. And I told them what the film was about

and that the Mountain Meadows Massacre was in the book. Was it gonna be in our show? And they took me to the theater. Have you ever been to the theater, the Mormon Theater in Salt Lake City? It holds like 20,000 people. It is the most beautiful, incredible theater where they have weekly events and meetings. And

they took me in there and there's a huge pipe organ and I had a private, you know, concert with their organist. Yeah, it's that. Wow! Look at that, please. And I sat by myself in the center of that theater and you see the pipe organs. And they gave me a private concert. And then they took me into the museum and showed me the history of the Mormon church. And I told them about the Meadows Massacre, which I've taken heed for in the show. And at the end of the tour, there's a bookstore in the museum, the Mormon Museum in Salt Lake, and the book, Mountain Meadows Massacre, by this guy Turley was there,

and I'm like, I wanna buy this book. I read the book, and I'm like, oh, for sure we're putting this story in our film, and it was for sale in the Mormon bookstore. And I met with the author, Turley, who then took me to the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and he had written the book with the support of the Mormon Church to get their side of the story out. Did you film at the actual site?

No, we didn't. That was in, the actual site was in Utah, but I went and toured it. You filmed in New Mexico. Yeah, we filmed everything on different reservations around Santa Fe. But if you go to the site of the Mormon Meadows Massacre in Utah, the Mormons have built a big memorial there honoring the 130 pioneers from Arkansas who were killed there. And the Mormons have owned this event, and they were very willing to talk about it, which is kind of like them buying a full-page ad in Book of Mormon. They're like, you know, we know you're gonna make a film about the Meadows Massacre

that's probably gonna be inflammatory in some ways. However, come visit us. We want to meet you. We want to show you. We want to play music for you. And I know I had an incredible time with the Mormons that were involved with us doing the research for Primeval. This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. I've been asking dog-owning friends what they feed their dogs, and most of them are surprised by the question. And I get it.

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of debate, is whether or not Brigham Young knew and authorized this massacre. And the way the massacre played out in real life was different how we did it in the film. In the film, we did it in, you know, one swell move like it just happens. And, you know, we filmed it in one shot and it's, you know, pretty intense, visceral, very fast events. And then it's over. In reality, this this wagon train was surrounded by the Mormon militia, the Navajo Legion, and some of these Native Americans, and it went on for about four or

five days. And the Mormons dressed up as Native Americans, this is where it gets kind of – some Mormons aren't thrilled that we pointed out the fact that they were trying to put the blame on the Native Americans. So they literally, Mormons dressed up as Indians to confuse the pioneers and in case there were survivors to say, oh it wasn't Mormons, it was the Native Americans that did this. So they don't love that. But what the Mormons claim or some in the Mormon Church claim is that during the three or four days that the siege took place before the actual massacre, and the details of the massacre are really fucked up because the Mormons pretended they were accepting a surrender so they went in

with white flags and they said okay the men walked this way the women and children were gonna walk you to safety because the Indians are gonna kill you Mormon so we're here to save you so So they started walking them out. And then on someone's signal, they just killed everyone. Really bad. But the issue of whether Brigham Young knew about it or didn't know about it, we imply that he knew about it. We never say that he authorized it, but we imply that he did know about it.

And what many of the defenders of Brigham Young will say is that there was a letter written where Brigham Young said do not harm that these pioneers Don't don't kill them, but the letter was sent by horse While the massacre while the event was already occurring So I've had people say he knew that that letter wasn't gonna make it there in time. He was covering himself Oh, hey, I wrote a letter. Mm-hmm knew it couldn't get there in time, but I wrote a letter so there's plausible deniability. No one knows. It's hard to believe if you really start getting into this, and obviously I did, I know it's not on the top of everyone's list of things to give a fuck about, but it's really hard for me to believe that in 1857, a group of Brigham Young soldiers

would act unilaterally on their own and commit a crime that's horrible without somebody approving it. It's hard for me to imagine. So that's the single issue that tends to, you know, if I do, and I really try not to, like my girlfriends turned me on to Reddit. I never even really knew what it was. Oh my God. Like, I don't know. Like, what? Like, Reddit is fucking crazy.

Yeah. I was talking to, you know, Jack Carr, right? Mm-hmm. And he's getting into, you know, making movies and he's doing all this cool stuff with The Terminalist. I think he's a great guy. He was talking to me about reviews because it was the first time he was ever getting reviewed. Any filmmaker who says they don't read the reviews is lying.

They're just fucking lying. We do read reviews and we care and they hurt, you know, and he's like, I guess he's gotten, you know, read something he didn't like on the terminalist and he's just called me and he's like, how do you handle this shit? I want to kill this, I can't, I mean, he's freaking out. And I'm, I mean, I'm not, he wasn't really freaking out that bad, but he was pissed. And I'm like, Jack, welcome to the world of what we do. People are going to talk.

I'm like, you don't understand what, like, before Reddit and comments and all the things, back when we first put movies out, man, there were three critics that mattered. Like, when I first started making movies, there was this guy Kenneth Turan in the LA Times, there was Janet Maslin in the New York Times, and then there was Siskel and Ebert, right? And like they had so much power, right? So you'd make a movie and you'd spend tens of millions of dollars and you'd put your heart and soul in.

We never try to make bad movies, right? That's never the goal. We're always like, we wanna win. It's hard to make a good movie. But you put all your heart and soul into these movies and then it's fucking three critics that control your fate, right? And I was telling Kara about,

my first movie was called Very Bad Things. It was about this bachelor party that goes haywire. That's a great movie. Appreciate it. Thank you. I love that movie. So that movie got, hands down, the worst review ever given to a movie in the history of film reviews. Please don't pull it up right now. But feel free, anyone listening, Kenneth Turan's review of my film, Very Bad Things in the Los Angeles Times, okay? I read this review, I literally vomit. Like people talk about vomiting,

like I don't know if you've ever vomited when something bad happens, I puked. I went into like shock. I'm like, he tried to destroy my career. And so I'm telling Jack,. I'm like he tried to destroy my career and he like it was and so I'm telling Jack And I'm going pull it up right now pull it up, and he starts reading it. He's like oh my god Oh my god Don't fucking tell me about bad reviews Okay, because I got the worst and Kennethan, who like after I'd gotten that review, I was in a bar at the Four Seasons

Hotel in Los Angeles getting drunk with a couple of my friends. And Kenneth Turan was in the bar. And I got up and started moving towards him. Like I was in a blackout rage. And my friend Joe and Mike Mendelson held me back because I was going to get him, you know? And for three films after that, Kenneth Turan, he just had it out for me, this guy. Hated me. And finally on, I believe it was either Friday Night Lights or Lone Survivor, he reluctantly gave me a good review but it was a more like a broken clock is right twice a day but like nowadays like as I

said to Jack it's like okay if you the crazy thing about if you are focusing on how your your work is being perceived and it matters and it does matter and I could say anyone who says it doesn't, I think is kind of lying. Don't you think it matters more about the audience than about the critics? 100%. My perspective on critics is that no one wants to be a critic.

Generally, they wanted to be creative, but they're not good enough to contribute. They don't have anything to contribute. And they're using a different standard that doesn't really apply to just like the working human being. It just wants to be entertained. And that's why I said to Jack, I go, dude, like, you know, we have rotten tomatoes, right? Which is a way of, you know, critics if you get 61% good, you get a fresh tomato. If not, you know, you've got a rotten tomato and that sucks. Okay, you've got a rotten tomato. And that sucks, okay, I've got a rotten tomato. That sucks, oh, I got a fresh tomato, that's great.

But now they have the audience score right next to the critic score. And that's the one that I said, Jack, don't look at the critics. Look at what your audience is saying. And that's when I learned about Reddit and all that stuff. And I'm like, fuck the critics. I'm down with this Reddit shit because you get such interesting conversations.

And they're much more thoughtful, I think. And they've taken away the power, you know, and I'm not shitting on critics. I get it. You want to be a critic? Whatever, you know. I do like the quote about critics and life doesn't go to the critic, it's the man in the arena.

I like that quote and I believe in that. And I've used that to justify my mood when I get a bad review. I'll just read the man in the arena over and over until I feel good. Is that Theodore Roosevelt? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great quote.

Great quote. Fantastic quote. And it's true. It is absolutely true that to do, to do, people that do. I was just talking to Dana White about something that I actually want to mention to you. My love of a guy like Dana is the doer of it all. The guy who just says, I don't care what the critic says, I'm going this way.

I am fucking going this way. And if I win and you're with me on the ride, you're part of me. If I lose and you're still with me, you're my friend, if not, I don't give a fuck. I'm going to do it again. And I have so much respect for that. And I'll tell you another interesting thing about my business. It always surprises me how real it is. But when you make something, a movie,

or you do something, whether it's American Premiere, or almost anything I've done, and I don't know if you've ever experienced this, you put yourself on the line so intensely, and you believe in it with your heart and your soul, and you go for it, and as it's getting ready to come out, there's this weird thing that happens where everybody separates from you and you're the one that's kind of now you're about to be judged it's going to be determined to be successful or a

failure and it's going to get reviewed and everyone's kind of like good luck Pete good luck and I could like like the day or two before it comes out, all the people like, and this is when you know who's got your back. Okay? Because there's a few, you look around and like, wait, well, all these people were with me for this journey and I'm all by my fucking, where'd everybody go? And it's, you know, like my sister, my best friend, Ari, my dog, my son, there's a few people who are really right there.

And then when it comes out and it works, man, you have a lot of friends. And that's, you know, just one of the things that you have to do in this business. And it's why the critics fuck them, and it's why Dana and people like that, you, who do create it and build it and make it, and it's real. You definitely need feedback,

because you definitely need to know if you're on the right track. But you can get lost in feedback. You can get lost in positive feedback, too. You get lost you can get lost in People approving you and enjoy you can get drunk in it. I don't read anything. I don't read anything about me No, reddits ever nothing. I don't read anything. I just I get it like sometimes. I'm good sometimes. I'm not as good. That's I get it I do my best That's all I can do and I feel like if you're really self-critical Which I am and your your objective and you analyze yourself and you and your

Brutally honest if you're brutally honest about what you've done and how it is like could you've done it better? Is there anything did you cut corners? Yeah? Yeah, and if you don't if you don't cut corners And if you do your best and you really prepare That's all you can do you just do your very best and if you haven't done your best That's when the critics really sting if you know that you kind of slacked off or you weren't focused or there's something that was wrong With what you then it's gonna stay up for the money Yeah, that can often yes, I agree with that to do it for the money is a real real one You know, I mean that's the the downfall of Robert De Niro. Yeah, right

he needs money for divorces as you know, he's got marital problems and so I spend a lot of money and he starts doing these fantasy movies with Michelle Pfeiffer and like Bizarre shit where he's like like like what is Robert De Niro one of the greatest actors of all time doing these fucking goofy ass movies Yeah, you get extended. I agree with you that like what I always say is I do a lot of research for my films and you know have went to Iraq with Navy SEAL platoon and lived on an oil rig and went back to high school for Friday Night Lights and I found that if I, whenever I put that work in and I put that research in and I really, with the exception of Very Bad Things, which was a fantasy about a bachelor party gone haywire, which Kenneth Turan didn't like, it did hurt me, it did, that review, but I was younger. But if I do stay true to my instincts

and my passion and I follow it, A, the work seems to connect much better and I don't feel – if somebody doesn't like it or wants to talk about it or debate it, okay, it doesn't hurt me. Yeah, that's experience, right? I think so Yeah, yeah, and anytime I've done a job for the money and there've been a couple it's it's backfired Horrifically and the money was never worth it, right? the the

The crit the reviews did sting worse Cuz you agreed with them. Yeah, they were right. Yeah, I was lazy. I didn't give a fuck I was you know, I cared I still I didn't give a fuck. I was, you know, I cared. I still, I didn't phone it in, but I wasn't locked in. Right. That's the difference, right? Yeah, and I think one of the reasons that you don't have to read your shit is because you know you're locked in. You just are. And that's why you're connecting. And locking in, and I say it to filmmakers now because, so kids are so confused, young kids that wanna become filmmakers, that they think they're gonna work hard and they're gonna make these movies and they're gonna put

their heart and soul into them and people are gonna watch them and then they go on and they see TikTok videos that are getting 400 million know, 400 million likes and someone's just, you know, live streaming them like making toast. They're like, wait a minute, what the fuck is happening? And I say, look, all you can do is control your passion, your work, your discipline, and believe in something and put the work in and I believe that the results will take care of themselves. But it's weird for filmmakers today to try and figure out what's going to penetrate and what's not going to penetrate. And I remember when I did that series about opioids,

painkiller. And that pretty heavy issue, and we worked really hard on that. And I was very, very proud of it. And we came out number one on Netflix, and we were number one for like six, seven days around the world. And on the eighth day, we were number two. And the number one show was a documentary made

on cell phone footage about the Johnny Depp, Amber Heard divorce trial, where people were just in the parking lots. And that was the number one show on Netflix in the world. And I'm like, whoa, wow, like, you know, they probably made that for $25,000. And everything is sort of, there's this great parody now. And I'm like, and it's confusing.

But I'm like, dude, you just have to work harder. And if you're not telling the truth, you're going to have a harder time. You can't be in the business of getting the most attention because human beings are easily distracted, easily amused. We like a lot of things that have zero quality and just because we're watching it doesn't mean it resonates with us. Just because you're watching the Amber Heard trial doesn't mean it's changing the way you feel about things, really entertaining you and not just entertaining you

but stimulating you in a way like wow, like that was a fucking masterful piece of cinema. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a difference, you know, and yeah, there's going to be a bunch of people that just watch people unbox cell phones or eat octopus, you know, there's like, there's weird videos that get a lot of likes. But you're not in the business of attention. You're in the business of art.

And I feel like when it comes to paying attention to comments and critics, I feel like if you're locked in and if you're doing your best, if you're one of those people that don't need to be checked on, some people need to be checked on. Some people get off the rails, they get a little full of themselves, and they need a little something to just like set them back. You need someone to say, that one sucked. Like, God damn it. And then you work harder. But if you're working as hard as you can, this is my advice that I give comedians when it comes to comments and things like that and negativity. You only have so much attention. And think of your attention as if it was a number. Like you have 100 units of attention. Now, if you're spending 30 units paying attention to comments and negative articles and criticism, that's 30 units you can't use for something that you love. And then also it probably bleeds into your thoughts

when you're doing those things that you do love, particularly like devastating negative reviews and comments and things that are like really hurt you, that hurt your feelings. It takes a lot of numbers. Yeah. It takes a lot of numbers. It's just bandwidth.

You're robbing yourself of your ability to do the things that you love. You're robbing yourself of your ability to do the things that you love. You're robbing yourself of your ability to pay attention to your family, your ability to contact your friends and reach out and to be present. Because you're thinking, oh my God, I can't believe he hated my movie. Oh my God, I can't believe I bombed. Oh my God, I can't believe this podcast sucked. Whatever it is you you're robbing yourself You can only do your best and if you're doing if you're not doing your best You probably need those comments you need something to wake you the fuck up and get locked in But if you're locked in you don't want it. You should know I know if I talk too much

I know if I interrupt too much. I know and I'll drive home and I'm like, I hate it. You don't need to be reminded of that. I don't need it. I fucking hate me. I'm my number one critic. So I don't pay attention and this is something that I had to figure out over the years. But when I knocked it down to a formula of attention bandwidth. That's when I really understood it. Because

I'm like, okay, the times, even distractions, like the times that I'm spending, just scrolling through Instagram and looking at nonsense, like that hour is a valuable hour to me. I could have been doing like real good things with that hour where I feel good about it. Or I get nothing, just distraction, just nothing, which is fine sometimes if you're on a fucking airplane or things with that hour where I feel good about it or I get nothing just just distraction just nothing which is fine sometimes if you're on a fucking airplane or something they gonna do like who cares is it really ever fine do you think I think it's okay sometimes barely barely as a comedian I think there's a value in having your thumb on the pulse of culture and even the chaotic you know

fucking unboxing videos and food and stupid shit and people just sticking their ass out and Insta-hose. Like there's a value in keeping your thumb on it. You just have to know when your thumb's getting burnt. I don't think there's a value in Insta-hose. Nah! I don't. I don't.

I actually don't and I've gotten pretty good at like just removing that from my life, but I was challenging Yeah, the boxing. Okay. Yeah people put in shit boxes Maybe eating eating asparagus. I guess I do enjoy cooking videos. I think there's value in that I love watching chefs prepare food. Where do you stand on and this is something I talked to a lot of writers and filmmakers about, like, just being quiet is really important. And being, for me, the most creative experiences I've ever had have come far away from any stimulation, from any controlled thinking from allowing ideas to come to have like the divine spirit, the angels that are creativity that require a certain amount of quiet and space for those to emerge, at least for me they do.

And I try to make space because I so agree with the bandwidth and you're right, but more than anything Just turning it all off. Yes can be so Inspiring for me creatively Yeah one of the most disappointing things that I've ever done the most is some of the most disappointing things is when I sit down from My computer to write and I wind up looking at my phone. And I just scroll and bullshit and then I start writing but I'm distracted and then I get an email or a text message comes through, I'm like,

oh yeah, I'll text him. And I'm just distracting myself. And then I realize like after an hour and a half's gone, I just fucking wasted an hour and a half that I could have written something that could have been a new brilliant bit. It could have been a new thing that I'm really excited about.

Instead, I just fucked off. Yeah, so my creative process, like I just wrote a script that'll be my next film. And I wrote it in a very locked in zone. I try to find a way of locking myself into a pattern when I'm writing, but it involves, the key for me is getting up about 445 at the latest, but usually right around, I'm crazy about it, so I'll set my alarm for 545 to the same song every morning that wakes me up. This script was Van Morrison, and from, I will go, I'll take a piss, and then I'll get a cup of coffee, and then I'll go right to my writing room with no phone, no stimulation, nothing until I've put in, you know, usually

about two and a half to three hours of just pure mental focus, no distraction, no conversation, no news, no phone, no nothing. Why do you like to do in the morning? Because I think when you, I actually like studying writers and their writing habits. I believe that if you've had a good sleep, a sober sleep, and an intention sleep, meaning you go to bed with some plan

of what you wanna write tomorrow. So I wanna write, I'm making a film about Marines, I wanna write the landing at Okinawa in World War II, which is part of the story. I know I'm going to write the actual landing scene. I go to bed with that intention, I might even write that intention down. You wake up, your mind is like at its most fertile. It's like a calm pond, you know, like a mountain pond that's absolutely flat and like glass and

reflective and beautiful. And in the morning, it's at its most calm, your mind. And then I believe that every bit of stimulation you put into it is like a pebble or a rock being dropped into that water until the water starts getting all churned. And that's what happens to our minds by you know 11 o'clock in the morning if you've been you know plugged in and communicating your mind is just a fucking feral you know boiling cauldron of acid this is how I think of it so I like early morning super calm I can find the ideas. And I tend to, if I lock in like that, I write at a high level and kind of to your point

about like critic proof, I know it's good. Because I know it came from the deepest place I have. And it's like, well, okay, if you don't like that, then you don't like me, sorry. Which is fine. Yeah, I can handle that. But like, I know that, you know, versus, you know, writing a little bit here, working a little bit there and then going out to lunch and then sitting in a cafe

and, you know, a coffee shop and kind of writing, but being on the phone. I just don't think that's deep work. Yeah. And I have noticed that like rappers and a lot of people in the hip-hop community, I've been working on a documentary about Rihanna for quite a while and spent a lot of time with her in the studio and it's amazing the hours that hip-hop performers, you know, musicians and rappers keep because they're going into the studio at two o'clock in the morning and Working till you know one in the afternoon and then sleeping all day and that that were that nighttime And I've talked to her about it. She's just extremely creative late at night

Almost for me the exact opposite but like I like do you like to work creatively at night? Yeah Do you can you write creatively at night? Yeah. Can you write comedy at night? Yeah, I write when I get home. Wow. Yeah. So what I do is I do shows and then I come home and everyone's asleep. My whole house is asleep so it's quiet. And you can access...

Yeah, because my mind is really stimulated because I just performed, you know, and, you know, I just maybe I've had a drink or two and I sit in front of the computer and I just start thinking. Really? Yeah, I just start thinking. I just try to freestyle with thoughts. And the way I write is I just I have a topic and I just start with just essentially an essay and not an essay that I think anybody's going to read.

An essay is just like my thoughts just rambling thoughts and then maybe I'll rewrite a paragraph but I'll keep the same paragraph above it to reference, and then I'll rewrite it again. But like what kind of subject? Like anything, whatever it is, technology, how it's affecting our lives, and what our future is going to be like. And then I'll sit down with that and think about the pros and cons and like what do I really, what hasn't every society faced this like would you want to go back and live in the caveman days again no definitely not would you want

you do you want to live in a time with no penicillin no no no no no like so how much technology is too much technology and I'll just start writing and out of that I'll get a bit out of that I mean not always maybe one out of 10 times something's useful. Like there's a lot of times I'm just throwing shit against the wall. But the key is throw a lot of shit. You have to throw a lot of things. You know, Hemingway famously said, my friend Ari Shafiri has this on his laptop. It says the first draft of everything is shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard it. Such a great quote. It just sits on his laptop and I love it. I love that. It's so true. And I just write. I just write. But when you're when you're writing, like, because I was just watching you as you were

speaking, you were you were looking up at the sky, like for an idea. Do you do you think about your your writing intellectually? Okay, I'm thinking this thought, okay, I'm gonna write it down. Or are your hands on the keyboard and you're just channeling? It's both. Sometimes I'm just sitting there thinking about it before I write or in the middle of writing. Like, is this right?

Am I correct? Is this how I'm looking at this? Or am I trying to force this? And then I also write on a computer that is not connected to any apps. It doesn't have anything on it. The only thing it has on it is it has, it's a think pad. So it has a-

So you can't distract yourself. Right. I am allowed to Google things to find out if something's correct. That's it. I've never, I don't go to websites. I don't look at it. This laptop is just for writing. It's connected to the internet

Which is a tricky thing, but there's a rule. So my home computer is there's no rules I might watch YouTube videos. I might fucking watch a little Netflix. It's you know, I'm ax so it's big screen I might do all kinds of stuff on that computer Yeah, but when I'm writing my laptop is is only for writing. And so there's, I don't allow myself, there's no TikTok, there's no Instagram, there's no nothing. I don't ever look at anything else. I just write. And I use the browser, I use fucking Bing, which is like who searches shit on Bing? You know, it's good enough to find out what's real and what's not real.

That's the only time I use it. That's it. And do you experience euphoria when you're writing on occasion? Do you blow your mind? Well, you know these ideas are not, they're coming from fucking the ether. They're coming from somewhere. I know that creativity is an individual thing and it varies, but for me, my best ideas seem to come out of nowhere. It's like, I don't even know if they're my ideas. They're coming from

some place. And this is the concept of the muse, right? Like the muse is bestowing upon you these beautiful gifts of creativity. Steven Pressfield. Yes, yes. The War of Art. Amazing book. I've got a stack of them out there. I love him. He's a big inspiration. Yes, he's stuff. Yes, yes. The War of Art. Amazing book. I've got a stack of them out there. I love him. He's a big inspiration to me. He's incredible. And he's just a brilliant guy. But that's where it's at.

It's just like setting this table, showing up, and then trying to pull these things from this other dimension, wherever the fuck they're coming from and then I get these Little nuggets and then the nuggets I transfer to my phone I Feel bad for people who never get to experience that yeah, you know I I keep a necklace with with a dog tag and a quote from a William Blake poem. And he said that has always just helped me quite a bit. And it's the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful and exalted things. And I remember the first time I got to experience

the power of writing and something, it was like literally a religious experience. I don't know what happened. I kind of blacked out. I lost track of time and I wrote eight pages and I looked at it I'm like I don't know where this came from and I read it and I blew my mind and I felt like I was having almost a religious experience and and that quote when I read it, the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful things. The creation, being creative,

and being able to please God through creativity or have a religious, a mystical experience that's not drug induced. Through your power of your creativity. Yeah. I think it's the greatest thing in the world and it kind of saved my life because if I hadn't found writing and filmmaking, I don't know what I would have done. I wouldn't have been, I mean, I don't know. Well that's why it's for you because it feels so real and so powerful that without it you

feel like your life would be lost. Yeah, man. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? That's an amazing thing to find as a human being, if you can find something that you love so much that you can't imagine life without it, like that you would be lost. Can I tell you about, it's sort of a non sequitur, but I did want to mention, and it's sort of related to something I love because I love boxing and I own a boxing gym in Los Angeles

which was hands down the stupidest thing I ever decided to do in my life was, oh, it would be cool to have a boxing gym and manage boxers and, you know, no, don't, don't, it's awful. I mean, I love the fighters and I have so much empathy, but one of my fighters, Chris Van Heerden, his girlfriend is a girl named Ksenia Karolina, who I think I told you a little bit about earlier

when we were working out. And this is just a fucked up story. She's a 28-year-old American Russian citizen who made a $51 donation to a Ukrainian charity. She went home a year ago to visit her family in Russia and Putin got her and she's in prison now for 12 years and her name's... What was the charity? The charity was a Ukrainian charity based in America for Ukraine that she thought was going to give money to children

that had been hurt by the war in Ukraine. It's all very researchable. And so she got put on a list? She got somehow, she's a dual citizen, she's an American citizen and a Russian. She went to visit her parents a year ago in Russia, and on her, somehow the Russians were able to figure out if anyone with any Russian citizenship, even if it's dual, makes donations to certain charities that get flagged. So she came in, got to her parents' house, was called to the police station the next day, came in and they arrested her and

said you donated $51, this is treason. And she's now almost a year into a 12-year sentence. So President Trump has been super cool. Dana White has been helping, just trying to get like, you know, it's so, it's such a crazy chess game, right? That you know, someone like, and I hope things go really well between us and Putin, and I think Trump's doing some great things, and I'm glad we're talking, but the way they do business is different, and they will grab somebody grab somebody you know and they've done it to Brittany Greiner and they just released this guy Fogel who they had gotten for smoking weed if they can get you and hold you and use you as

a bargaining chip they will and and we don't do that you know it's one of the things that the US doesn't do but you end up having to make these kind of crazy swaps. It's all about swapping, right? So they get Ksenia and, and well, who do we have that, that that's gonna, you know, get Putin to say, Oh, right, I'm gonna let her out. Right. We released that arms deal. Yeah. But the people that we have are like, pretty serious criminals. The merchant of death, the merchant of death for a basketball player smoking weed. It's crazy, but if you love Brittany Greiner,

or know, I know Ksenia, and my good friend is engaged to her, and he's in hell, and it's like, we need someone to trade. And so it's not going to feel right for people. We're going to have to trade someone that's done some pretty bad things to get this girl out of prison. And that's the game that these guys are playing. And it's not a game that you ever, ever want to get involved in. And I wish I hadn't, but I have. And, you know, Ksenia is a beautiful girl, and she's in a really bad way and she doesn't deserve it so it's it's so true that we don't do that in America because there's a lot of

Russians that fight in the UFC and they don't even get booed no one even cares they love them especially when they're really good people get excited to be business sure I mean we don't we don't do it and and that's you know we we take our America takes a lot of shit and I don't maybe you know What we deserve and what we don't but we don't do that. We don't detain 28 year old, you know Ballerinas for Smoking weed and throw them in prison for 15 years 20 years

We don't take people and say well you donated $50 to a charity that we're not Aligned with we're not aligned with. We're throwing you in prison for that. It's crazy. Wow. Yeah. So it's, but yeah, owning a boxing gym and I mean- You were telling me about how when you met Canelo and Canelo came to gym to train.

I thought that was almost worth owning a boxing gym just to death. Canelo saved my gym. Canelo I sparred with Canelo. Did I ever tell you that? On my birthday, I was flying. I had landed in LA and I had a few drinks on the plane. I wasn't drunk, but I wasn't sober. Walked into the gym, Canelo was training for, he was in camp. I don't remember for which fight I walked in I announced it was my birthday and I wanted rounds okay and I wanted run and Eddie and chef I called my god it's my birthday and I want some fucking rounds and he

just kind of stared at me no no and and I ran up didn't warm up got my stuff on Pedro wrap me up I put my gloves on, I waited till one sparring partner was out, I go, me. And to Canelo's credit, he only threw one punch, okay? I went two rounds with him, he threw one punch at the end of the second round, but it was a jab, and the way it landed, I've never been hit like this. He locked my jaw and my whole neck cracked. He locked my jaw down. It was a perfect jab and he threw it at maybe, I don't know, 20%. It was just this one perfectly placed jab. But I did spar two rounds with Canelo and I can say that, honestly.

He went extremely easy on me. That's very nice of him. But yeah, I mean it was cool because I got to see his whole journey when he came into our gym and he was just starting. And I think he was fighting a guy named Lopez and he was just this little redhead skinny kid. And to see his progression,

you know, he's one of like the only good stories in boxing if you ask me like name two good boxing stories I'd be like well I think Alvarez is a pretty good story he's you know stayed with his trainers he's a you know family man he's you know carries himself well he's made a lot of money, okay, that's one. And two is there is no two. Well, Floyd Mayweather is a pretty good story. Yeah, all right. All right, all right. I'll give you Floyd Mayweather. You're right. You're

right. Yeah, 15-0, all his faculty, still making millions, doing extramissions. Dude, just bought all the real estate in New York. Yeah. Okay, you're right. I'll give you Floyd. For some reason, it's always hard for me to put in your right Floyd. I got another one. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. Current? Yeah. Sugar Ray Sugar Ray Leonard. No, Andre Ward. Andre Ward, Olympic gold medalist to the two division world champion retires undefeated brilliant analyst has they offer him millions of dollars to go and fight Canelo After he's retired he says I think I can serve boxing more as a commentator

I will give you Andre Ward, but I would I would submit that nobody knows who he is Boxing fans of course yeah, but I mean he never right he didn't achieve super Boxing fans of course. Yeah, but I mean he never right he didn't achieve super He never he never crossed over. Yeah, but but yes Sugar-ray Leonard is necessarily the great example either because he saved his money though He took a lot of fights that he shouldn't have taken later in his career like against Terry Norris and those kind of fights like I Just put him in I Put him in a slight like like a positive story, just because I've been to his house, he's rich, he's still sharp, he's handsome, and he's well spoken, and it didn't take

his brain. Right, he didn't take his brain. The stories of working class boxing gyms, like like Churchill Box in my gym in LA, which I technically don't own anymore because it just was turning into such a headache. If you could see the day in day out trials and tribulations that these fighters go through, and you know it from UFC, I think that boxers have it like harder, I think, I can't prove this but boxing is a more dysfunctional state than UFC mainly because of Dana and you know the fact that

Dana's been able to monopolize it and that there's a system that you're a huge part of that that makes sense And there's good people involved at the top and and and on the I'm broadcasting and all of it Boxing has none of that right and so it's this broken dysfunctional at the top and and and on the broadcasting and all of it boxing has none of that right and so it's this broken dysfunctional mess that is just what begging for someone hopefully Dana to come in and and organizing yeah they are talking about doing that and Turkey Alashik who is running Riyadh season has done a phenomenal job of putting together these incredible fights.

He's basically just said, there's a lot of resistance getting these top fighters to fight each other. What's the resistance? They want to maximize their earning potential by staying undefeated and avoiding the really tough challenge. Just give him the money now. Yeah. And he's having all these fighters fight these dangerous fights.

And it's incredible for boxing. Do you think that there's a way for Dana and UFC to work with him? Yes, I mean they're talking about doing that. How would that go do you think? What would it look like? Well, I mean he obviously has an excellent relationship with them because you know Riyadh season helped promote the big event at the sphere which was an insane so cool right have you fucking been to I haven't been there but I watched the UFC fight just the greatest you weren't there I was the greatest venue in the history of anything but it doesn't overpower the

experience I don't know man it didn't overpower the fights the fights were insane they were so good but it was was like the arena itself is so spectacular Yeah, I would say go to see any band there you possibly can go to see anyone there. It's so good Yeah, the graphics are so mind-boggling. It's like you're on a drug. Yeah, it's like you're having a psychedelic experience I mean the moment I walked into it. I was like you gotta be be fucking kidding me it's so... actually there's a video of me like the I made a video I wanted to film the my very first reaction the very first time I walked into it and it blew me away. What kind of drug what kind of drug would you compare it to? It's like a you're in a different dimension it's like this is

mushroom like a DMT. Well it's like it it's it's so this is this is actually me walking and give me some volume. This is my first time ever being inside this fear. Oh, and this is just they're just practicing and doing rehearsals of all the graphics packages. This isn't even the audience is even in yet. This is insane. And this is nothing compared to when they had the graphic packages running. And I mean mean it was unbelievable It's just the amount of money that it cost to put on a show there though

Do you think that like is it gonna be profitable like like like how do you make that money back? Like it's I don't know how much did it cost? I think the UFC spent something like $25 million over a normal budget for an event. But I was just thinking, I think it was Dolan, it was the Madison Square Garden folks that put that deal together. And I just am like, well, OK, it holds how many?

$35,000? I don't think it's even that much. It's not that big. And someone spent a lot of money on that screen Right. Yeah, that's a lot of technology Yeah, but so you thought you thought that Turkey he did a great job But was Turkey involved in the UFC fight at he was involved in Riyadh season was a part of the sphere event It was co-promoted by Riyadh season. So in theory Dana could work with him in some

way and start... That's the plan. And they own Ring Magazine now. So the reason why that's significant is the Ring Magazine belt is one of the only belts that has kind of been... There's a bunch of different organizations that are sanctioning bodies is the WBO the WBC the IBF there's all these different it's very fractured right but ring magazine as always been like Roy Jones jr. was the ring magazine middleweight champ of the world the ring magazine super middleweight champ of the world like that's the gold standard is ring magazine so there would be one belt in this right if they can do that and then overpower everything else with

money and then really put the compelling fights. Like did you watch this past weekend Artur Bitterbeev and Dmitri Bivol? What a fucking fight. Yes. Probably the greatest light heavyweight fight of all time. Incredible. Bivel trains in our gym by the way. Does he really? Churchill boxing. The hardest punch I've ever seen anyone throw in my life was in our gym. David Benavidez was sparring Bivel. Whoa! And Bivel, and Dave Benavidez is a great fighter, but Bivel caught him and dropped him with the jab. In sparring. Whoa. In sparring.vel, an incredible fighter. Amazing. So is Benavides, by the way. He's an example.

So they're both are. Those are actually two guys that I feel like could do it right. But just having so much trouble getting a recognition that they deserve. Well, Benavides has been chasing Canelo forever. Won't fight him. Yeah, for a good reason. Won't fight him. That's a hard fight.

That's a hard fight. And you want that fight, you gotta get fight. Well, you gotta you gotta get paid But but I'm hoping that with Riyadh season Turkey would make that fight right because he signed a multi-fight deal with Canelo for 400 million dollars. I think it's a five fight deal for 400 million dollars. I think that's what's been reported I don't know if that's accurate. I mean, but but Terrence Crawford's the first one Which is not really is that really happening as a proper canela fight happen? Yes, it's happening. So what was going to happen was? Terrence was Canelo apparently had made a deal with Jake Paul to fight Jake Paul ridiculous

Ridiculous, but I bet it was for a significant amount of money still ridiculous. Yeah, but Fun, I'd watch it. Look, Jake Paul wants to test himself against actual, not just world champion, but one of the greatest of all time. He would be, if Canelo really fought and it wasn't fixed, Jake Paul would not survive 45 seconds. I don't know about that. I think it would take a few rounds. Really? Yeah, first of all, Jake is a lot bigger. Jake's a lot bigger. But what weight would they, what weight would they find? Well, I don't think Jake is getting anywhere lower than 205 pounds.

He's a huge guy. But so Canelo would let him fight at 205. I think that would be the case. I think Canelo, when he got to 175, when he was fighting light heavyweight, and he still fluctuates between 68 and 75, I feel like it probably weighs 190 when he's walking around so he would probably weigh 190 and Jake would weigh over 200 they would probably fight either at cruiser weight or they would fight at heavyweight didn't Tommy Fury like take Jake Paul no he beat him but it was a very good fight as a very good but that's

what I'm saying but yeah I mean fury versus compared to canel it You write different levels different levels. Yeah, no doubt. Look who's favored for sure the greatest of all time I mean one of the greatest boxers of all time and canel offers He's the favorite but I'd like to see what happens. It would be crazy I I like a little freak show every now and then I was the trace like would you like to see I like a lot of Freak show look if Jake Paul wants to fight for the title I would like to see him beat top contenders in the light heavyweight division or whatever division he chooses to compete at and then Eventually fight for a title. Yeah, but are those are the fights even real like the Tyson fight like I saw video breakdowns of Tyson

Not throwing punches early on in that fight on I don't know if you've watched any of those videos where like, there's a left hook is a hundred percent available, Tyson in training 99% of time releases that punch and he held that. Do you think that that was a real, was that a real fight? It looked like sparring to me. That's what it looked like to me. But like with an arrangement beforehand? I wouldn't want to speculate because I haven't talked to anybody about it. But my educated assessment. Agreed. Yes. Agreed. It looked like sparring. It didn't look like a fight. And you think if Canelo and Jake Paul agreed to do it? I don't think that would be that. I think that would be a fight. That would be a fight. That would be a fight. Like a sanctioned real non-initiate?

It would have to be a fight. Yeah. I don't. That would be a fight. Like a sanctioned real non-initiate? Yes. It would have to be a fight. Yeah. I don't think Canelo Alvarez is making any agreements where he's not going to knock you out. Well, he's not taking the fight though, right? No. Well, this is what happened.

So they had this agreement and Jake Paul actually told me about the agreement when I met him at the inauguration. We were talking about it and I was like, holy shit, it hadn't been announced yet. I was like, that's crazy. And then Turkey came along and said, fuck all that. Let me throw some money at you and said, stop with all this bullshit. You need to be fighting the greatest fighters in the world right now. You need to be fighting Benevides. You need to be fighting Terrence Crawford. So Terrence Crawford is first on the list

and a lot of second on the list, according to reports. I thought it was first on the list. Now let's fight Crawford in September and they're gonna have him fight Cinco de Mayo weekend against like a no-name, right? William skull SCU ll that's why I was asking I don't strip Canelo last year or unnamed Do they have a date for Canelo Crawford is just a number 13 supposedly? But yeah, see that's kind of crazy that they're gonna have another fight beforehand But it does give Crawford time to bulk up so Crawford got on scale the other day he's 185 pounds really yes and he's doing deadlifts he was doing deadlifts with 450 pounds Crawford is a strong dude I'm gonna put

Crawford in another success story of boxing I'm totally just contradicting myself now I remember you're right's the... I love the guy. He's fantastic. I know you've had him on, right? He's so... a couple of times. He's so good. And he's the best switch hitter in the game. Maybe the best switch hitter since Marvin Hagler. He's phenomenal. And he's so intelligent. Like his boxing is so clever.

He sets traps. How old is he? 36, I believe. Canelo's like 30... 37. So, Crawford is 37? Is he 36 and canelos like 30? So Crawford is 37 how old is Canelo I think he's 35 34 35 He's still on his front what's crazy is fucking better be of his 40 and went 12 hard Rounds where they never slowed down once.

Yeah, that's because people like you are getting us all in crazy shape, Joe. Like these guys are living forever. You're like teaching us the way to do it. Look at that. Very likely Terrence Crawford faces a fighter with 90% KO rate after Canelo, says De La Hoya. Who would that be?

That's what I was looking at. What weight class would that be after? So he must have fought a oh That's such a boxing headline isn't it like 90% sure. So Ortiz jr. Okay, Virgil Ortiz jr. Is a savage That would be a phenomenal fight. That would be an absolutely phenomenal fight. Yeah Well, I saw his fight with Madrimov who's very difficult who Crawford struggled a little bit with two But beat and Virgil walked him down. He was he was battering him towards the the last rounds Why is Oscar de la Hoya offered an opinion on who?

Crawford would fight Oscar de la Hoya is not Crawford's manager. Is he I don't believe so no I don't think he has anything to do with it. Do you watch? Oscar seems like he's a little off the rails these days. Do you watch? Okay, for sure. God love him. It's like he's having a good time. Do you watch his clap, like, okay,

I know social media, I said don't scroll, and certainly like Insta-hoes are bad. My favorite Instagram account is Oscar De La Hoya and his clapback Thursdays And then he rips into Eddie Hearn basically and it's Deranged it's absolutely deranged but it's funny and Oscar clearly doesn't care He does like tell you to your point earlier. Yeah, he does not give a fuck and He just rips apart anyone and everyone

and he does this thing every Thursday called clap, I think it's called clap back Thursdays and and that's my secret guilty pleasure. My secret guilty pleasure is watching him dance around with a thong on. Oh that was out of his fucking mind. The best. That was the best. With his fake abs. It's a hell of a drug cocaine. It's a hell of a drug cocaine. I mean, he's, I mean I like to say we've all been there, I haven't been there. I haven't been there. I haven't put the fish nets on. I've been here, but I haven't been there. I've been here, but I haven't been there. Okay. And, you know, like, I do respect him. Oscar was a great fighter. Phenomenal fighter. Phenomenal fighter. But, I mean, come on now. It's like Oscar De La Hoya and all that's

coming with him and Eddie Hearn, who I also like quite a bit, and then you've got Al Heyman and Bob Arum, you know, and is well into his 90s and is just going, it's chaos. Yeah. And, and- That's the problem, is that they're represented by different promoters and it's very difficult for people to co-promote, very difficult for people to decide, like, who's the A side, who's the B side, you get ridiculous deals where, you know, this fighter wants 75%, the other fighter was 25%

They have to figure out whether or not they can make this happen and the fighters like fuck that I want it 50-50 and then the promoters get involved and they don't want you to fight that guy fight the number one mandatory contender and then these some great fights never take place or they take place too late like Floyd Mayweather and Many Pacquiao they fought too late I mean if that fight could have been arranged by Riyadh season, they probably would have caught them both in their prime and it would have been chaos. Yeah, Manny was done before that ever started.

Yeah, and he also had a blown shoulder going into the fight. Yeah. He needed shoulder surgery before the fight even started. Yeah. Have you, I have a little regret that I never had a professional fight and I was just in Mexico and my driver, so talking about boxing, and my driver told me his son was a pro fighter and that if I wanted to and he told me how much it would cost I could come have a professional fight and

his son would would let me win the fight. No, that's not professional. But then I could have, well, it would be a sanctioned fight and I would have a box rec score of 1 and 0 or 0 and 1. I mean, I could have not paid the money and taken the loss, but at least I would have had it. And I did think about it for like about, I don't know, maybe a minute. I decided not to do it.

But like you and I were talking, like, I just can't take getting hit in the head anymore. And you know, when I was younger and I had the gym, I would I would spar more. You know, and Canelo I sparred and that was controlled. But I sparred Cam Cam Newton once, you know, the football player who's six foot five and he was in the gym and he wanted to work and I'm like, well, let's spar and we'll just spar light. And he wasn't a boxer and I have basic defensive boxing skills, but I'm like, well, just let's work Cam. And he's like, okay. And we started kind of sparring a bit and he didn't really know what he was doing, but he's a very, very physical specimen.

And I lightly kind of jabbed at his face and maybe hit the gloves, and he just went insane. I started punching me across the ring, and I'm just like flashes of white. I lost all feeling in my hands. And then I didn't spar any other athletes until Steve Nash came into our gym, the basketball player. And he wasn't as big as Ken Newton, so I'm like, well, all right, I'll spar with Steve Nash. And he doesn't know how to box, so we'll just gentleman spar. So we're sparring a bit, and I hit him, and I underestimate how fucking athletic he is he just fucking

cracks me hard with a solid right and it's my hands go numb I see nothing and then I'm like that's it I'm done and then Saquon Barkley comes in origin real safe do you know who Israel Barkley was was? A pro fighter, had his uncle, had an incredible career as a pro fighter. Is that Iran Barclay? I'm sorry. My bad. Iran Barclay. Thank you.

Wow, that was a political slip. Israel Barclay. Oh, shit! Sorry, everybody. Thank you, Joe. Iran Barclay. Do you know who Iran Barclay is? Sure.

Okay, good. So that was Saquon Barclay's uncle, right? Did you know that? No, I did is sure okay good so that was sick one Barclays uncle Did you know that no I didn't know that was his uncle So say Kwan comes into our gym, and I'm like oh, I'm I'm gonna spar and I'm like no I'm not I'm not gonna fuck with this guy after cam Newton and Steve Nash and say Kwan Barclay is a Fucking stud right like this guy's like Mike Tyson, but bigger, just his body type. So I'm like, well, I'll hold mitts for him. I just want to see.

And that guy could fight. Like his uncle, I ran Barkley. Legend. Legend. Taught him and he started throwing punches and Saquon Barkley could move and counter and had balance and you know, head movement. I'm like, dude, if you had, instead of playing football, gotten into this at and you know head movement. I'm like dude if you had instead of playing football gotten into this at you know 12, 13, I'm assuming

that your brain stayed on you would have been one of the great heavyweights of all time. He could say Quan can box. Wow. And so but I learned but I thought about taking the fight in Mexico and I decided I'm not good. Would you ever yeah, hell no, right? No, no, not now. I'm 57. There's no way I'm fighting anybody now Dude, you're in shape. I did agree to fight Wesley Snipes like 20 years ago Yeah, there was happen. Well, he will you remember what happened with him with taxes? Yeah, of course we went to jail, right? Yeah He will you remember what happened with him with taxes? Yeah, of course. We went to jail, right? Yeah, so I think they were trying to figure out a way to make money to try to pay the government off and the UFC They contacted

Well this guy camel mcclaren who was one of the original producers of the first UFC before Zufa bought it He he I he knew me because I worked for him at the time. I was the post fight interviewer in 1997 and 1998. And that's, that was when I first started working for the UFC. I remember I started again as a commentator in 2001. So in 1997, when I knew him, he knew that I did martial arts, he knows obsessed with this. And then so he contacts me, like, I guess it was like 2004 or five or something like that somewhere around then and he says this is gonna sound crazy but Wesley Snipes wants to have a UFC fight and he wanted to fight Jean-Claude Van Damme and we didn't think that that would be compelling and so we offered some other names and we said what

about Joe Rogan and he said yes and I said, what about Joe Rogan? And he said, yes. And I said, well, what do you mean? Like, when are we talking about? Like how, cause I had been training. I was brown belt in jujitsu and I'd been training kickboxing still. I was regularly training. And so I would have had to really ramp everything up.

He was kind of a martial arts guy, right? He's a martial artist, but I don't think he's ever had a fight. And I don't think he has any ground game. And that's a giant problem No, and you would have gotten a hold of also. I was a national I competed nationally in taekwondo for Five-six years traveled around the country like and I had three kickboxing fights

I was a good stand-up fighter like and I I can kick very hard I'm very good and even then I was even better because I was in my 30s. So what happened? He didn't want to do it You just said as you would have killed him as time went on I think he kind of understood that it was a bad idea I think initially he thought he brought me who knows it could have been fucking Chemically fueled these these conversations with the desire to have it was chemically folded and then he sobered up But I trained every day I trained for six months annihilated

I was kickboxing with Rob came in in the morning and I was doing jujitsu at night. I was fucking Prepping for the Wesley spider just didn't call we were in negotiation So the first negotiation was 50-50 they were gonna split a 50-50 this and that blah blah blah and I said, okay great and then a Couple weeks went by I had lawyers involved the whole thing And then it was like Wesley wants 60-40 And this time I'd already invested so much time training I go okay, I just give it to him I'm like I'm gonna fuck this guy up

I go just give it to him just give it to him and then it got to point where just give me a half a million Dollars, I don't care what you give Wesley right I go I want give me a half a million dollars We'll go and we agreed on that I said I don't care what you give Wesley I go I want give me a half million dollars and we agreed on that I said I don't care what you give him just give it to him. I'm gonna I'm going to fucking strangle this guy I'm gonna get a hold of them and there's not gonna be a goddamn thing He can do about it. I was convinced and I was like it was Wesley But it was so engrossing like it took up all my energy in my time Right like one I my mind shifted into like what it was when Igrossing. It took up all my energy and my time. My mind shifted into what it was when I was younger and I was fighting.

It was wild. It was weird. I became a different person for almost a year. So when you hear the name Wesley Snipes now, there's not a little part of your brain that still flips? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think he did a smart thing. I think he did a smart thing I think he did a smart thing by not doing it it's just so interesting and and that

the idea that you got to experience a version of what it feels like to prepare to fight someone yeah people just don't get it right well I had fought a bunch of times you know and when I was younger mean, it had been more than 10 years since my last fight, but I knew what it was like. I knew the experience. I knew what training and preparing was like. And I also knew that, like, I was a, like, legitimate brown belt in jiu-jitsu. I had been training jiu-jitsu for a long time. But it was like, I think he had had this idea that he was going to be able to hit me when

I was trying to take him down. I was like, dude, I'm fucking happily stand up. Do you think the Zuckerberg Musk was ever real? Was it ever even slightly real? I don't know. That to me is the most so. Could you ask him, please? Zuckerberg is legit.

He trains hard. He trains with legit guys. He trains all the time. He's very smart and very obsessed by it. And he's like legitimately training. He's significantly smaller than Elon. Elon's a big guy. But that only goes so far, especially if you don't have any endurance. But does Elon, what do you think Elon's fighting skill strategy would be like? But he took karate when he was younger. So would he come karateing?

I don't know. I don't think it was ever gonna happen I mean I was entertaining it because I think it would be fun if it did happen and Elon said he would do it and Zuckerberg said He would do it But like how can I don't know how the guy tweets as much as he does how the fuck could you train for a fight? I mean, how do you how do you run? SpaceX and Tesla and the Department of Government Efficiency and Starlink. Joe, he's your friend. You know him better than we do. How the fuck does he do it?

I don't know how he does it and I'm his friend. I don't know how he does it. I don't understand it. He's... I've never seen anybody who knows how to manage time better than that guy. Yeah. And he also has like a hundred kids. Like I don't fucking... I just... He's a different type of human. I just love the idea of people that don't ever fight having to suddenly have a fight. Just like, you know, because people who've never fought but suddenly get them so, okay

here's another secret. Like when I do scroll, I look for street fights with people who don't know how to fight. Or drunk people fighting is funny too. But like, you know, okay, Elon and Mark are going to fight. Okay, let's say it's going to really happen. They both train, but they're not fighters, so however much they train, they're still running their other businesses. Now the fight starts, and for about 20 seconds they're gonna have some tactics that

their trainers have been and then it's all gonna go out the fucking window it won't go out the window with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg is a real martial artist. But has he ever really fought? Yes he's had jiu-jitsu matches. He hasn't fought a kickboxing match but he's had a lot of sparring. So he could do a two minute or a three minute? 100% no doubt yeah no doubt and also he's very disciplined. And stay true to He's had like a full sparring. So he could do a two minute or a three minute round. 100%. No doubt. Yeah, no doubt. And also, he's very disciplined.

And stay true to his what style of fighting. Well, he trains in jiu jitsu, but he also trains in mixed martial arts. So he does muay thai. He does everything. He's really obsessed with it. And he has been for years. OK, so.

He's a legitimate martial artist. But now, Ilan's going to come out, and Ilan's running SpaceX, and he's got to dodge things And now he's gonna take some time and focus on the fight. It's not gonna do it No, no, you don't have that There's no way as the time Like if you want to really prepare properly you train twice a day and you have to have recovery in between so you have to Get massages you have to do red light therapies do you have to do everything?

Especially if you're at his age you and you have to take hormones you have to be on the ball. You have to take peptides You have to you get you have to really watch your nutrition You have to really make sure you get enough sleep all those things are out the window He's not doing any of those things. He doesn't have the time to do any of those things No, it would have to be a like a demonstration where they agree to how it's gonna go even then there's no way He could be in condition for it. Yeah. There's no way. And so he did train with some of my friends. He trained with Lex Friedman.

I think he trained with George St. Pierre as well. So I think he realized early on. His cardio wasn't gonna get him there. His cardio is non-existent. What is harder on cardio than boxing slash UFC, do you think? Like, I always say boxing boxing people don't understand how exhausting 40 seconds of sparring is like and I'm yeah, I've never fought UFC I've I've always felt the boxing for some reason is actually harder on the on the cardio. I'm sure I'm wrong

I'm sure yeah, definitely wrestling is the hardest okay, but but but the what what else? compares in terms of cardio and physical demanding to Wrestling UFC boxing what maybe ultra running maybe really crazy things where guys have to run like 300 miles But they don't have the anaerobic no exhaustion and the soccer soccer takes incredible conditioning credible conditioning those guys are Unbelievably fit have you ever followed? Ozzy rules football. Yes, so, you know, I'm doing a my next films about a football game That's some Marines played in World War two and we're filming it in Australia It's called the mosquito ball and in the middle of true story about this football game It was played on Guadalcanal before

the Battle of Okinawa, but these Marines all played it. These Marines were good college football stars, and then they all died in the Battle of Okinawa. It's an intense story. But we need to film this tackle football game. There was supposed to be a touch game, and the Marines ended up playing tackle, and legend has it that it was the most violent football game ever played and so we got a film a tackle football game in Australia, which is we're gonna make the film and like Stunmen are tough, but like playing tackle football You know is hope is a fucking painful thing to do right imagine You know even like turkey bowl touch football games on Thanksgiving,

like people are in the hospital. So I was just in Australia and I'm, I had the idea that well, like Aussie rules football, it's perfect. We'll just take a bunch of these guys and teach them how to play tackle football and, and they'll really do it. So I just went to an Aussie rules football practice in Brisbane, Australia, and those fucking dudes are tough. They are tough. If you ever just watched the highlight reels of Aussie rules, I mean, the notepads, full smash, and I put that... Yeah, here it is.

I mean, yeah, these are the guys we're gonna use Collisions oh Jesus, I think these are the toughest athletes. I Think this is how they should play regular football. I do too I feel I feel like the pads are bullshit But there's only way the only way you can pay American style football is with pads Because like the collisions that these guys have like your career because you're this guy look at how cold is done stiff Look at us. Look at the hitting is just fucking nuts

And I'm sure a lot of head-to-head collisions do so I went to this practice of one of these teams I just got back and they were And I brought in American football and I'm like, all right, do you guys have any idea? And they're like, zero. I'm like, come on, you, you, you sort of have to know something. And they're like zero. So I get, they just know nothing. Like how much of cricket do you know? Zero. Okay. If you, if, if I had a gun to your head and said one rule of cricket, could you do it? No, could you do it?

No, you couldn't You're saying I think I've seen him try to throw back in the what the ball has to stay in the what? We don't know shit, you understand how fucking popular cricket is gigantic like bigger than football huge go to India or Sri Lanka I mean like these people go nuts. So in Australia popular cricket is? Gigantic. Like bigger than football. Huge. Go to India or Sri Lanka. I mean like these people go nuts. So in Australia they have 100,000 people stadiums for Aussie World's football. So I go and I'm like, you know, I'm meeting these guys and these guys I think are big stars.

I don't know them but you know this is a major Aussie World's football team and I got the football and they don't it so I line them up 11 against 11 and I'm teeth and they're really kind of starting to get into it and they're lined up center guards tackles and Court and I'm like, alright, so what do you think? They're like, yeah, we don't like it I go let me let me help tell me what this does for you All right You're the center in you if you were doing this in American football, you'd be making six to seven million dollars a year You're the tackle on blindside. You're making forty million dollars a year protecting Patrick Mahomes

Okay, you're Patrick Mahomes and I'm telling them how much money they would make because you guys make no money, right? There's no money in it, which is crazy crazy. And then they have Do you know tall poppy syndrome? Have you heard of heard of this right like yes there's no ego like these guys they're huge you know they're members of these super successful teams but they don't have the ego of American athletes and they don't get the attention and it's tall poppy syndrome they're culturally you know conditioned to not brag and to not boast and to be humble. And I don't know. I'm... They like to see people get knocked down when they get too big.

Yeah, for sure. That's tall poppy syndrome. Tall poppy, they cut, the tall poppy gets its head cut off so they stay humble, which I kind of thought was kind of cool, you know, just realizing that I was hanging out with like the captain of an Ozzy Rules team and I had dinner with the captain of the New Zealand, the All Blacks, the rugby team. And this guy, this was a little while ago, a couple of years ago, this guy in America, you know the All Blacks, the most popular rugby team, and the most humble dude ever, and you go to a restaurant and nobody bothers him,

he, you know, no security, no nothing. We don't, that would never exist here, but seeing how hard these dudes hit and trained made me think, well, maybe they're working at the level of athleticism that fighters are working at. I mean that's a hard fucking sport. It seems like it especially if you watch that video like that's that's unbelievably cruel. The difference between fighting and anything else is there's no one there to assist

you. There's no other teammates, there's no rules, there's no timeouts. You know you have round breaks but fighting is very individual. And if you didn't prepare properly and your opponent did, you're fucked. If he's better than you and he's more skilled and he's got better genetics and better training and he comes from a better background and he's more, he's more technical, you're fucked. You know, it's a crazy sport where you're literally putting your health on the line. Let me ask you this question. And this is something I don't talk about, but it's another secret theory that I have, okay?

Just between you and me. I feel like, and I've seen a lot of boxers train, and I've seen a lot of great trainers. Eddie and Chepo are great trainers. Abel Sanchez is a great trainer. Pedro Nema from my gym. Lots of great trainers out there. And I've watched entire camps where trainers, like if I'm your trainer, I figure out, okay, this is our opponent.

These are going to be our tactics. We're going to do a lot of jabbing with overhead and rights, and we're going to take our head offline consistently. We're going to counter this way. We're gonna and Every and I've really watched this and paid a lot of attention to it And this is I'm not in any way shitting on trainers But I'm kind of at making your point about how alone fighters are I see all this training and I watch it and I understand the strategies and the tactics, and the second

the fight starts, none of it has any relationship to how the fight goes down. All the strategy is rarely employed, and it becomes this moment where a fighter has to adjust and adapt and improvise incredibly. And yeah, the conditioning matters a lot but I often think that like the training doesn't do shit. The trainers are they can help you get your head right and get yourself in a warrior's mindset and I do respect that but tactics sometimes I think that they're like am I wrong? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you're definitely wrong. All right.

At the highest level, it's the most important thing. Okay, but do not... At the highest level, like at a Terrence Crawford level, tactics are everything. But he just does it. Yeah, he just does it, but it's also because he spent so much time working on the fundamentals and the technique and the movements and counters and positioning and he understands boxing so comprehensively. He knows where the punches are coming from. He knows where he's gonna be vulnerable to get hit. He knows when he's not. He knows when he has to take a risk and to give one he has

to take one. But how much of that like his trainer Boheim, I might be saying I know him. I know his trainer, just like Eddie and Chepo, and they've got, who's got to have Canelo, they have lots of other fighters. But like Eddie and Chepo have never had another Canelo Alvarez, including all of his brothers. And I'm like, okay, how much of it is just God given talent like Terrence Crawford has that's then trained by trainers? Versus how much credit does a trainer get training gets some credit, but a trainer with a bad fighter is never going to create a world champion like you have to be an extraordinary individual to be a championship level fighter,

no doubt. And then there are some championship level fighters that have, they have emerged from gyms that don't have any championship, like Marvin Hager, one of the greatest of all time. He came out of the Petronelli Brothers gym. They weren't known for having like a giant stable of multiple world champions. Who is the, who are the top, who in your opinion, the best UFC trainers? Well, there's quite a few. There's a few there's some really elite trainers out there And I don't want to miss anybody right for us. The hobby is probably one of my favorite. He's because he's very very intelligent and very analytical and he does a fantastic job also of breaking down fights both before the fight and

After the fight and after the fight and telling you like what tactics didn't work and why they didn't work and what went wrong in the fight and what was very effective. He's just a brilliant human being and also just so intelligent about the way he makes his fighters prepare. And he trained George St. Pierre, who's one of the greatest greatest if not the greatest of all time. So there's him. There's Greg Jackson and Mike Winklejohn from Jackson Winklejohn in Albuquerque, which is a phenomenal gym. That's where John Jones came from. Multiple world champions have come from that gym. Those guys are phenomenal.

John Crouch in Arizona. He's phenomenal There's there's just so many fucking like top of the food chain And how much how much of that skill is and if it's it's all equal I get it But how much of that skill that makes a great UFC trainer is okay if I'm your trainer I'm getting you ready for a fight we're gonna study your opponent I'm gonna stay your opponent strengths his weaknesses his tendencies his tells and I'm gonna train you in relationship to that and and and be right right so I you can anticipate where there's gonna be an opportunity and take it how much of it is that and how effective is that like versus how much of it is Joe I got to is that like versus how much of it is Joe?

I got to keep you fucking ready for anything. I got to keep you in shape I got to keep you mentally like good Mm-hmm, I got to remove distractions and I got to be like your father your uncle your brother And everything else in between do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think there's both. But I think for some fighters, every fighter has a different approach. John Jones is famous for studying tape and devising game plans and strategies that are based on what he sees

about his opponent's tendencies. Yeah, yeah. And that's how he caught Daniel Cormier with that left high kick. Like he knew that Daniel dips to the right. Yeah. And you know, and Daniel even called it out before that, you think you're going to hit me with that head kick.

And he actually did hit him in the fight. Because Daniel had a tendency. And John exploited that tendency. And he does that with everybody. He's famous for not just doing that, but also not taking fights on last minute notice. Like he's had some opponents fall out and the UFC offers him an Alternative opponent in a short period of time and he says no, I didn't train for that fighter He goes I'm the greatest of all time for a reason and that reason is I'm fully prepared for every fight

I'm not gonna take a fight against someone who I'm not fully prepared and as he had the same coach his entire career Yes. Yes, so that's a real Jackson Winklejohn and been with them forever and that's an incredible pairing well it's incredible Jackson in particular is fantastic at devising strategies to deal with opponents and you know he trained Holly home and she knocked out Ronda Rousey there they are you were in Australia for that that was in Australia no I wasn't there I watched it I was I felt like I was there because I watched it. Yeah, and it was shocking. That was crazy Yeah, that was a crazy fight, but they trained her you there. Yes. Yeah shocked, right? Oh, it's credible

Yeah, but Holly was good man. She's a multiple-time world champion in boxing and then kickboxing She was very very legit striker. Oh, you were surprised. Yeah, it was shocking. But it was also like Holly was good. She was really fucking good. And when she landed that head kick, like holy shit. I remember Rhonda's face, just the shock in her face. And she just, it was, yeah, that was, I literally felt like I was there because it was a piercing moment.

But they knew that Rhonda had a very specific entry that she used to try to take people down and they avoided that every single time. Kept her out. They circled away, they fought off Ronda's takedown attempts and kept the fight standing. And that flustered her. Yeah. Well, it was just more effective. And so it really depends on the athlete. Like I said, if you get a person that falls apart in the heat of the moment and just throws it all out the window and starts brawling, yeah well then your training has kind of gone to waste and then they're relying on instincts and hopefully skill. But if you have a really good fighter and a

really good trainer then you get a Mike Tyson. What was her trainer? Edmund or Rhonda's trainer? I can't remember his name. But I wonder whether he under prepared her for that. Right? I don't know. I mean, she was very stretched then when that was going on because she was doing movies and she was a superstar and she was like constantly being courted. But you know, you know, she did a movie for me. I'm part of that problem Oh really? What was that? It was mile 22, but she had kind of retired by then This was after her. This is after the fight

Yeah I think that the distractions when you're a superstar are huge and if you give in to all those distractions you say yes to everything Yeah, and you have agents they want you to be and you think like you're so confident you could do anything Anyway, you could I don't give a fuck I'll beat everybody and that's how every champion feels sometimes I think about like what I've seen with with coaches and and you know, I I do appreciate a coach and And I've just seen different success stories in different ways that coaches have really impacted fighters but I think about like, why don't life coaches work better? And like, I wouldn't mind having a coach that would be like, Pete, here's our enemy, here's

our opponents. And like, I actually had a therapist for a while who actually, when I first started seeing him, his name's Barry, and he's a great guy, and I love him. But you know, so much of my relationship with him was unpacking my shit, my parents and my trauma and my fears and all this stuff. And for years, Barry would talk to me about my dreams and all this stuff and the dreams that I had that night,

not my goals. And then I started realizing, well, OK, I feel like I've talked about my mom and my grandma and my grandparents, and every fucking thing, the bad that's ever happened to me. And, and like Barry, what if we start talking strategy? Like, could you coach me? And he started coaching me a bit. And I found that like, with my business decisions, my creativity decisions, like you're so disciplined. You know, like, I don't know, do you ever think like, why don't life coaches work better? And if you had someone like John Jones' coach

in your life every fucking day, would it be better? I think for a lot of people, yes. Yeah, if you could find someone who could devise a strategy that you could follow and you could help because it's a collaboration, you know, you could collaborate with this person and go, yeah, there's definitely value in that. But you could also be your own coach. Yeah, but you can. So many people can't, right? Like, don't people ask you or, I don't know, they ask me for, you know, advice and how do you do it? And I'm like, well, you know, you got to go to bed,

you got to get up early, you've got to have self-motivation, you have to not make stupid mistakes. And you know, sometimes what you don't do that helps more than what you do. And I, I'm aware of people struggling to figure out, like more than ever, especially with, you know, all this perceived success through social media and the glorification of billionaires and all this stuff. Everyone's like, I'm not happy where I am and I want, and I'm like, well, you know, are you following these basic rules? Like the basic rules that I believe you follow you Joe follow and

People seem to have so much trouble Getting on a program. Well, you got to pay attention to the people that are successful. Like what are they doing and without doubt Everyone who is really successful and has longevity has discipline and Discipline is maybe number one Discipline is showing up with a desire to improve and work hard every day What do you think the source of your discipline is martial arts for sure 100% learning when I was young that focus and and and drive and attention to detail and obsession leads you to get excellent at something. And there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

The more time I put in, the more I trained, the better I got, the more I was really locked in and focused, the better I performed. And I learned that at a young age. I learned that as a kid. And so I developed discipline when I was very young. But so thousands of young people, at what age did you start martial arts? I started fighting when I was very young. But so thousands of young people, what age did you start martial arts? I started fighting when I was 15.

OK, but you started fighting. When did you start training? I started training when I was like 14. OK, but so. I took my first karate class when I was 14. That's actually older than I would have thought. But so many thousands of kids take boxing classes or lessons or mixed martial arts or whatever and they

don't find the level of discipline that you were able to find right? Yeah it's not for everybody. So but what made you able what made you like was it your parents was it insecurity was it someone that gave you shit when you were eight that made you be like fuck it I'm gonna learn this shit and I'm gonna master it? Well when I first started doing it I just wanted to figure out how to fight and I wanted and I was very lucky that I found a gym that was filled with incredible fighters. They were very high level.

One of the guys my friend John Lee was a national champion and he was like a mentor to me and you know I was a white belt and he was a black belt and competing in the World Cup at the time that's when I met him. And you know he just took a liking to me and helped me out a lot. So white belts you're a total novice. Complete beginner but I got a black belt in two years. I was obsessed. I trained every day of the week. I had a key to the gym and I could work out anytime I wanted because my instructor at some point in time realized that I had potential and made a deal with me and offered me I could teach classes and if

I taught classes and I taught private lessons like teaching beginners like when they first come in you have to take a certain amount of beginner classes private lessons before you're allowed to enter into the group class. So I would teach people from the very beginning and so so because of that, I was able to be at the gym all day long. And whenever I wanted to be there, I could be there. And I also from teaching really broke down technique, which is the most important thing to like if you have bad technique, even if you're like a good fighter, you have flaws in your you can get pretty far with bad Technique if you're just tough eventually you get you get caught

It's just not you're not gonna be the best the best have excellent technique like without doubt Especially when it comes to martial arts, it's but kicking and jujitsu Like it's technique is everything in technique and and drive and training and focus and I realized early on like I thought I was a loser and then till I started doing martial arts and getting really good at martial arts I'm like oh I'm not a loser like I'm really good at this like I have a propensity to it I have a genetic propensity I have like very good I'm fast I hit really hard and I really loved it I love getting better I love the fear of it too. I love being terrified. I love overcoming the fear of competition. It was so fucking

scary. It was like religious for you though, wasn't it? It was like a massive experience. It was so religious that my girlfriend at the time wanted to fuck in the gym because I had the keys and I wouldn't have sex with her there I'm like new why it's a sacred space we can't fucking the church even when no one was there I would bow that might have been a mistake I should have you should have fucked her plenty all right so we're keeping it but like like okay so I think that's so interesting that to trace the origin story of your fuse being ignited because people look at you and they're like okay that dude is fucking on he's in it um i've had people tell me that i'm in it um you know

some of our friends mutual friends are in it you know when you're in it you know when you're in it because people can't find that well they don't have the thing whatever like not everybody's gonna be great at Everything they're just not it's just some people just don't have the discipline the desire They don't have the willpower to push through when they're tired They don't have the willpower to show up when they're feeling tired and lazy or when they're uninspired I just yes You have to learn that and you have to learn that through like if you want to get great There's only one pathway. There's only one pathway. It's hard work and discipline

There's no other way and you might not get there still yeah Because if you're a hard work and you have discipline, but you're you're competing against Mike Tyson He also has timing. Yeah, he also has hard work and discipline but but superior genetics and superior training, hypnotized from the time he was 13. You're fucked. You're fucked. Yeah. I can remember when Canelo Averez first came into my gym, and he was young.

He was just starting to have a rep. Everything about that guy reeked of exceptionalism the way he put his bag down the way he took his shoes out right the way he drank his water every rep every you know when he started to stretch every single stretch intentional intentional as fuck yeah him starting to just lightly warm up on a heavy bag felt he was absolutely exceptional. And I try to tell other fighters in our gym and other people in general that like, you don't understand. It's not something, you know, you see other pro fighters, I've seen a lot of them come

to our gym and they're talking to people and they're joking around and they're sort of, you know, taking a moment or two off. And then you look at all of them and these are good fighters. I mean these are pro fighters But they're not exceptional and they don't have that intention and when I would see can Canelo Alvarez or certain elite Crawford's done media days at our gym they from the moment they walk in Everything about them the way they take their sweatshirt off and fold it up and put it down, I'm like, that dude's a world fucking champion. Has nothing to do with the fighting.

The way they hold their hands out when they're getting taped, it's almost like every breath from the moment they walk in to walk out is so fucking exceptional. And I look at all these other fighters and go, no you don't understand, you don't, he's got something you don't have. And you can still lose with all that because you're, you might be, yeah, you might be competing against a guy who has a slightly better strategy and maybe he's better at one thing that sets you off. Yeah, and you want to beat that guy? Well, you got to

work even harder. You got to go back and figure out what you did wrong. You got to figure out where your flaws are and improve upon them, whether it's an endurance issue, whether it's a technique and strategy issue, whether it's pacing, whatever it is. Floyd never lost, right? And I do, I have, I totally agree with you, what you said earlier, that Floyd deserves. That's a great story. I just, for have, I totally agree with you what you said earlier, that Floyd deserves. That's a great story. I just for some reason have in my life over the years sometimes hated on him a little bit for a variety of reasons, mainly because of how defensive he was. Now I know how great he is, but I do sometimes look for inspiration in random places. And if I'm feeling like I need a

reminder of what excellence is, I'll watch training videos from Vegas with Floyd, just him and his uncle or his dad just doing the mitts, doing these like 15 minute rounds, just so smooth and effortless. And what does he say, hard work, easy work, hard work, or I can't remember this phrases, but the the beauty of like Mayweather Training in in a gym and I I just find that so interesting to look for people who are exceptional And in it's a long road, man It's a long road You're making a mountain one layer of pain at a time and you're you're competing against other people that are doing the exact same

Thing and if less you set yourself apart from the pack Unless you're a guy like Marvin Haggard that goes to Cape Cod and trains in the winter runs on the fucking sand Unless you're that guy that like pushes it past everybody else You're not gonna be exceptional and it's a it's a fucking struggle That's why some fighters they reach a certain level of success and they sort of slack off. A lot of people thought Canelo was doing that when he started playing golf all the time. Like they're like, oh, he's not completely focused anymore.

And maybe this is why he doesn't want to fight Benavides. Might be. Might be a little true. It also might be a money thing. It might be like, look, I'll fight that guy, but I know what that fight is. And I want 200 million million for that fight. How about just like, how hard it is to stay hungry when your refrigerator is that fucking full? Oh yeah.

Like you're Ken Alvarez, you're a good looking dude, you have a beautiful wife, you've got this hacienda in Mexico that like Pablo Escobar would have killed for, with the stallions and the cars, and you gotta go fucking deal with David Benavides right like like that's like when you know Rocky when you go fight I can't remember who and he's all rich.

Klubber Lang. Yeah go fight Klubber Lang rich. Yeah. Like okay Canelo however is I fight you poor but I gotta fight you rich. Right. I gotta wake up for like I. Hagler always just say it's very difficult to wake up in the morning when you're sleeping in silk sheets.

Yeah. Yeah. And like, and I do think about that also, like, I have people asking me, like, like, you know, we started talking about making American pride beautiful. That was 145 days up on a mountain, you know, in standing on ice with clamp-ons, your shoes, because we're in ski mountains and there's fucking wind and it's fucking miserable, I'm like, people are like, why are you doing this shit? I'm like, because I fucking love it. Because you fucking love it.

I love it. But they're like, but we could like, you know, I got a boat, we're gonna go on to the Mediterranean. I'm like, nah, could like, you know, I got a boat. We're going to go on to the Mediterranean. I'm like, nah, I'm going to be up on the mountain. And like staying hungry is a, I don't know. But it all depends on what your motivation is. If your motivation is just get wealthy and then once you reach that point, now you're fucked because now you don't have this motivation anymore. If your motivation is the big house and the big cars and all that bullshit, but if your motivation is excellence, you can maintain

that motivation no matter what your financial state is. Forever. It's an unlimited source. I mean, that's the necklace I wear pleasing to God as a creation of beautiful. That's what it says on your necklace. Yeah. The only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful and exalted things. It's that quote. It reminds me dude like okay I don't I'll enjoy like you want to take me to a fancy Michelin restaurant here in Austin. Okay you want to take me to Guero's and fucking have some ribs. Okay like I don't care and I mean I appreciate it. Right but it's not your primary Fucking no not your primary motivation is not to show up at the big party and have everybody kiss your ass No, no, it's creation no creation of great art correct. Yeah, and if you're a fighter, it's the same thing

It's like to to be excellent to be unstoppable To be the best of the best and if if you have that motivation, you can maintain that with wealth. You can still get hungry to be Canelo and come out and fight David Beninvites. But it's obviously very hard to do, which is why most fighters don't maintain it once they achieve wealth. Who's the best? Who's the best? Like, I think Tom Brady is a great example of like someone that was able to just, like, reignite the fucking beast. Yes. of like someone that was able to just, like reignite the fucking beast.

Kobe Bryant, I guess, you know, yes. But like fighters or people that you know that, I just think it's interesting to think about. It's a different thing though. Sports and fighting are a different thing because. You don't play boxing? Yeah, you don't play it. It's like you could decide that you're gonna still maintain

a very high level of basketball and you enjoy, you wanna't play it. It's like you could decide that you're gonna still maintain a very high level of basketball And you enjoy you want to just be excellent, but no one's kicking you in the legs You know, no one's taking you down strangling you who's the is George St. Pierre? That's been able to like who who is it John Jones that in your mind is like Curious in that they were able to With a full fridge and comfortable sheets just keep fucking. John Jones is exceptional because John Jones beat a lot of guys when he wasn't training. There was times in his life where he was fucking off and

partying all the time and still beating the best guys in the world. That was like the the when he had that press conference with Daniel Cormier and he goes I beat you when I was doing coke. Coke. Yeah That's such an insult. What's a worst insult than that? I was doing I was high on fucking eight balls and I beat your ass. Well, John talked to me about it He said I used to when I was younger I used to give myself an excuse so I would party really hard like a week before the fight Which you should never do and it's like well if I lose, you know, maybe it's cuz I partied But he doesn't he doesn't do that now now do and it's like well if I lose you know maybe it's because I partied but he

doesn't he doesn't do that now now he thoroughly prepares and he went through a time when he was the light heavyweight champion when he was kind of like playing with his food because he was just so much better than everybody else he wasn't he wasn't threatened by people so he wasn't putting on the performances that he did when he was younger like when he won the title against Shogun he lost some of motivation, but then gained it later in life when he went through a bunch of legal struggles, a lot of problems, and realized, like, this could all be taken away from me.

I got to get back to what made me great. And then, you know, won the heavyweight title, defended against the greatest, and Stipe Miocic, and you know, now he's the heavyweight champion of the UFC. What do you think? He's been fighting. he's won the title in what like 2008? When did, what year did John Jones win the title? Which is just fucking crazy. And he's 40 now? No he's in his 30s, he's 36, he's the youngest ever champion in the UFC. He won the title at 22 years old. 2011. 2011. Okay. So he has been a world champion for 14 years. That is unheard of. So he has to be the greatest fighter in the history of

the UFC. Greater than George St. Pierre, I mean, right? I think on paper, for sure. I think the problem with that is, like, who did he fight versus who did George St. Pierre fight? Who did Khabib fight versus who did George St. Pierre? Like it's like who did Mighty Mouse fight versus... Okay but so according to that, who do you put number one based on those metrics? Well out of just the sheer longevity and the accomplishments I say John Jones, but I could see the argument for Mighty Mouse being the best martial artist I've ever seen. I think he's the best expression of martial arts talent and technique that I've ever seen. But then George St. Pierre's right up there too.

And George St. Pierre was multiple division world champion. He won the welterweight title, then he won the middleweight title. And then he came back after four years off and beat Michael Bisping for the middleweight title. Like he's in the argument too. I just think there's a real problem with saying the number one of all time, the greatest of all time.

But if you were going to give it to somebody, I would say give it to John. When you think about John and how he's been able to do it for this long and go through these highs and lows and get, I mean fighting and doing blow, that's fucking- Yeah. Well, he's that talented. I mean guys that good He's an intelligent psychopath like like but what what's in there, you know, like to what we're talking about What's the like? Yeah, what's driving that motherfucking? Oh, you can't you can't you can't manufacture that You either are that guy or you are not that guy. So that's pure nature. That's like it's a lot of things

It's how he grew up is two savage brothers. Both of them are NFL players superior athletes They beat each other up all the time. Sure. Yeah, you know, it's like you're in a competitive environment from the time You're young you have incredible genetics on top of that Then you go to a place like Jackson Winklejohn that is superior training with world-class sparring partners, world-class coaches, world-class recovery training facilities, technique strategy, all the above. It's like you need a perfect storm to be a real true all-time great. Do you think that because sometimes I think we're that having of being fucked up can work to your advantage. And having addictive tendencies and being like, being able to harness addictive tendencies

into something as violent as, and to be able to apply those to a sport, versus just being, well, I'm a well-adjusted human being with no addictive tendencies, not a lot of trauma, I'm gonna fight you. Oh no, I'm a fucking beast that grew up in a fight, and like Mike Tyson, who grew up, I don't know, I don't even understand if you grew up inside or outside, dealt with fucking ignited torments, drug addictions, violence, and I will kill. And I guess Be that's always interesting to look at how well adjusted

People do versus people that have real trauma when it gets fucking brutal I think there's some real value to being out of your fucking mind I do I really do and I think some of the greatest artists some of the greatest athletes some of the greatest some of the greatest artists, some of the greatest athletes, some of the greatest accomplishments were achieved by people that were out of their fucking mind and just had pushed it to a level, to a level and into an area that other people weren't willing to go.

And that's how they became the best of the best. And you don't get to be a Michael Jordan unless you're out of your fucking mind. I don't- Or maybe an Elon Musk, I don't know. I don't know if- Right, yeah. Similar Similar similar in that regard It's not a normal person that chooses to take on four or five jobs like that

And then runs the Department of Government Efficiency like who is that? And a very few people are willing to put in that kind of work or have that desire to do anything like that You have it has to be real you can't be forcing it because if you're forcing it and it's like oh god This is like I don don't really wanna do this. Well, there's someone out there that wants to do that, they're gonna get better, they're gonna be better at it, they're obsessed, they're all in. You have to be all in, and when fighters aren't all in

anymore, that's the worst stage of their career. It's horrifying, and I say that about, people ask me about my job, or how do I get a job working in Hollywood? I want to make movies. I'm like, well, are you sure you want to do this? Because like, you're not going to have an office, you're not going to have a boss, you're not going to have someone saying, hey, Joe, get up, time to get up. And you're going to have to be totally self-motivated. You're going to have to deal with, and yeah, like reviews,

I feel what you're saying there, but you're going to be judged. You're going to be only as good as your last job. You have no fucking job security. And you're going to be up at 4 in the morning in some mountain filming someone, cutting someone's fucking head off, having no idea whether you're on the right path or the wrong path.

You've got to be a little fucking crazy Yeah You have to be crazy to think that you can do it Right because most people don't get a chance to do that delusional thinking you have to be able to be delusional Well, I don't even think it's delusional my business a little bit You have to be willing to go through everything that it takes to get there and that is not an easy road And it's not an easy road to be a great filmmaker it's not an easy road to be a great athlete no matter what you're doing to be a great author you have to be willing to go down that road and it is a long road with trials and tribulations and errors and

and successes and you have to learn from your successes and learn from your failures and not everybody has their shit together enough to pursue a path consistently for a long enough period of time that you achieve greatness. Yeah, and having the combination of having your shit together and being fucked up, because you've got to be crazy, but you've got to be able to functionally crazy. But I always say delusional thinking because I made the point to people asking about my job. I'm like well okay think about it this way. You have to have the ability to look someone in the eye. So if I'm a young

filmmaker and you're the head of the studio I have to look you in the eye and say hey Joe here's the deal. I need 1355 million. I'm gonna make up a story about a bunch of cowboys and Indians fighting in a mountain. I'm gonna bring all these people up there. I'm gonna film it and move people around and I'm gonna edit it all together and I'm gonna, for your $130 million, I'm gonna build this thing. I'm gonna make it all, put music on it and edit it and make it all, and I'm gonna put it out. I'm gonna make it all put music on it and edit it and make it all I'm gonna put it out Into the world and people are gonna stop doing what they're doing and they're gonna watch it They're gonna love it and it's gonna bring you value. But why is it delusional if other people have done it?

Because it just doesn't like you you're right, okay, it's not Totally delusional Okay, it's not Totally delusional, but it's a little bit of magical thinking maybe take the word delusion a lot of it We like, you know, like the idea of magical thinking that like oh, no, I can do something That that's very doesn't quite make sense. It's not like I'm gonna make this table I'm gonna measure it and cut it and nail it and attach it to a frame and no, it's like I'm going to, I've got this abstract vision that I'm going to attempt to put together in a way that costs somebody a lot of money and yet I'm going to aspire to touch people's hearts and souls with this. It's just a weird way to think. It is, but I love it, but it obviously works.

Like it can't be dilu- like there's a lot of bad movies out there. Yeah, that's true. There's a lot of bad everything. There's a lot of bad books, you know, but is it delusional to want to write a book? No, it's been done forever. You know, it's just like filmmaking is fairly recent in terms of human history. You know what my dad told me when I told him I was going to Hollywood to learn how to make movies? What? So my dad was a business guy and I loved my dad very much but he, right when I was getting ready to come to Hollywood, he said, Pete, I've secured you a job at Lehman Brothers.

You're going to work on a desk and you're going to learn about finance. It's done. And I had studied theater in college which which was making my dad very anxious, because I was starting to get into making his little movies and all this stuff. And I'm like, I'm in LA, and I'm getting ready to move to LA. And he stopped me. He said, we're not moving to LA. I've got you a job.

This guy, Barry Frank, who's a friend of my dad's, who knew someone at Lehman Brothers. And I think they're out of business now, by the way, big money company, and I'm like, Dad, I'm not doing it. He's like, what do you mean? I go, Dad, I'm not. He said, you're really going to go to fucking bullshit Hollywood? I go, I am. He goes, you're not.

I go, I am. He said, OK, I'll tell you what, good luck out there. You know what's going to happen? You're going to end up making them gay pornos. Imagine like that's the only thing that can happen if it goes wrong, you make gay pornos. Gay pornos. That is hysterical. And he's staring me in the eye and he's not fucking kidding. And I'm like, I'm like, dad, I'm not.

And I fucking left. And in the back of my mind for the last 30 fucking years has been that warning. Don't do gay portos. Be careful, you better fucking work. But it's not magical thinking, but to my dad, the idea that you were his, you know, cause I had no artists in my family.

My dad was a business guy. He was like Mad Men advertising, worked for Grey Advertising, like Jif Peanut Butter and shit. Like the account guy, he had to go get the Jif Peanut Butter guys drunk twice a week. And that was his job, you know? But the idea that, wow, you can make a career in the arts, yeah, people do it. But most people

don't fuck with that. Most people don't make it. Yeah, fuck with it. But that's just because it's hard. Yeah. If it was easy, everybody would do it. It was easy. Everybody'd have their own fucking movie. Everybody be making movies. Everybody has their own fucking podcast. If it was easy to have a podcast, my favorite. I think everybody does. I think everybody does. Gavin Newsom just started one. Yeah, well, you're right. You're right. But so like, well, like, so this is the other thing, right, that I think is so interesting. And it's true with podcasts. When I tell people who, like, come to Hollywood and they're like, I don't understand this business. I'm, what do I do? What do I do? I'm like, fuck off.

Let me tell you something. There's no barrier of entry for my business or podcasting, meaning anybody in the world can move to LA. You don't even have to be in LA anymore. You can be in Austin and be like, I'm an actor. I'm an actress. I'm a writer. I'm a director.

I'm a producer. I'm a podcaster. Any motherfucker can do it. You don't need a degree. Get on an airplane and look to the left when you're getting on like do you can anyone fly a fucking plane if your toilet is Fucking backed up and you need it fixed as kids pull anyone off the street or does a plumber have to have a fucking degree right, right like But we want to exist

This is where I say magical thinking you want to thrive in a job Or are you doing is talking Joe? You're just talking anyone can fuck everyone has a mouth and two ears, but you're doing it on a different fucking level That's magical thinking in a way if you a little bit I know well if I set out and said I one day want to be the biggest podcaster on earth. That's magical thinking but I didn't. You just followed your instinct and who was your first one? The guy you were telling me about? Brian Redbent, my buddy Brian. Yeah we just started out with snowflakes falling from the screen and we did it on a webcam. We were just being silly

and we just did it all for fun. But people move to LA or get into my business thinking I'm gonna smash it. Yes. Like they're not. That's a little bit delusional thinking. Delusional. Yeah. Like I was sort of people. Or aspirational. Because it's delusional and aspirational. Yes. Like because I'm like dude if like you come you want to in, still call it Hollywood, even though it's not really Hollywood anymore, which, because so decentralized, but it's fucking show business, motherfucker. It's money and art smashing together in this very bizarre way.

And you gotta get so good at art that the money people trust you. Yeah, and you gotta know how to play the money game. Even when they trust you, you still have to know how to play it. Even if you're Tarantino or Christopher Nolan, you still have to understand for the most part that there's financial parameters and you have to be able to accept that and play that because you're playing in a serious game

Like our bosses they don't give a fuck. They're all publicly held now and they're looking at stock prices And I say to people bro If you just want to be like an artist and just pure and think about like oh I just you know Like you actually were when you were doing your podcast Like I kind of was when I was in Minnesota making little movies and doing all this idiotic shit that got my dad to say, oh, you're gonna make gay porn,

you fucking idiot. Like, this little phase of, oh, isn't, I was in Minnesota, in St. Paul, in this small school, and I'm like, I just fucking love this shit. Just like your first podcast, I just loved it. But I'm like, I tell people if you just want to be an artist Go write plays in Oklahoma City and just stay over out there but if you want to like step into this arena like

It's tricky, you know You have to be all in and you have to realize that this is a very high failure rate And yeah, even-in just like fighting You still might not make you might not make it. Yeah, I mean the acting is the best example that there's I mean We talked about Tim McGraw being amazing how many amazing actors out there that don't act. There's a lot There's a lot of people that can act you can take them and they can figure out how to do it It's a weird skill that some people either have or don't have. Some people have the ability. You can definitely get better at it. There's definitely like people that train very hard and there's method acting and there's

all sorts of different strategies. But the reality is there are a small number of roles and a large number of people and they're auditioning for these things. And if you don't get into one, you probably won't get the other. And it might be five, 10, 15 years and you've had no success and you don't get into one you probably won't get the another and it might be five ten fifteen years And you've had no success And you don't know what the fuck to do and you can quit or you can do with Billy Bob Thornton is and you make sling blade

Right and then all of a sudden boom he takes off well that that's what um Though the reason I got into directing was I was trying to act and I was having mixed success And I was getting very scared that you know, like, prepare for an audition for five days, and I know everything, and I'm ready, and I'm all in, and I go in, and I get 30 seconds of the director's time, and you find out, like, oh, you look like the dude that the director's girlfriend cheated on him,

and who the fuck? And he's like, you were dead before it started. And I was, um... I was on this TV show, Chicago Hope, it was a hospital drama. And I was kind of getting a little famous, I played a TV doctor, Billy Cronk, and people kept calling me Billy whenever I walked down the street like, hey Billy, what's up, Billy, Billy, Billy. And I'm like, oh my fucking God, this is going to be my legacy is being this TV fucking doctor, Billy. And I was on an airplane going from LA to New York and I'm sitting there and this guy

walks by me and he stops, he goes, Hey, Billy. And I'm like, My name is not Billy. My wife has this rash. Show him the rash. And she pulls up her shirt and she's got this fucking rash and she's sticking it in my face he's like Billy what's the rash and the other people on the plane are like what's the rash and I'm like fuck this shit I've been busting my ass I'm barely making it as an actor and people are showing me their rash I'm like I gotta fucking do my own sling blade and I did very bad things and

still got the worst review ever in the history of reviews but it started my career. It was a good movie man. You know what saved me? So I get the horrible review. I throw up and I'm literally on death's fucking door like I'm done. I have no career. I get a phone call at night from a woman named Kelly Chapman Myers. She was married to Ron Meyer who used to run Universal. And she's like, he was a huge fucking guy, Ron Meyer was a big, big mogul in our business. And I could hear these guys laughing. And she's like, Pete, Pete, I'm on the boat with Ron and Steven and David Spielberg and David

Geffen. And they were watching your movie and they're laughing like little fucking frat boys. And the fucking, Ron Meyer gets the phone and he's like, this is fucking great. And I'm holding the review of Kenneth Turan. Like I just got it. And I'm like, what?

Hold on, Spielberg, this movie's fucking great. It's great. And I'm like Let's go That's awesome. Yeah, so they say well. They were right and the critic was wrong I appreciate it but I think a lot of those critics probably wanted to be you and they didn't didn't get the chance and they failed and they got This job, and then they shit on everything and you got to be able to take the hits

Yeah, I took the hit you you know, like it strengthens you It's like as you resolve go as it get knocked down seven get up eight Yeah, I believe in that like like if it's just all good all the time. I Think you get knocked down seven to get up seven. I think you have to know you could you knock down? Seven no, you get knocked down seven seven get up. You get up for the eighth time Seven no you get knocked down seven seven get up you get up for the eighth time No Seven times you get knocked down the seventh time is the phrase is the phrase very sucks get knocked down seven get up seven or Get knocked down seven well whoever made the phrase they're wrong

No, because you every time you get knocked down you get up right but one time if you start up and get knocked down one one Yep, you're one ahead of getting up because you started up no no you get knocked down one you get up one you get knocked down one one yep you're one ahead of getting up because you started up no no you get knocked down one you get up one you get knocked down to fall down seven get up eight yeah they're retarded so you're saying you're saying that Denzel Watson Japanese proverb yeah that's great that's great but you're saying this is wrong yeah every time you get knocked down you get up you can't get up if you haven't knocked down that's stupid if you get knocked down seven times you get up seven times period't get up if you haven't been knocked down. That's stupid. If you get knocked down seven times, you get up seven times, period.

It's like math, man. You're making me do math. Well, it's just delusion. This is just like, this is just like pump you up talk that doesn't make any sense. So this has been misquoted. You can climb any mountain. No, you can't.

There's certain mountains you're not gonna climb. Shut the fuck up. This is stupid. I believe I can fly. Well, you fucking can't, R. Kelly. Jump off a building, see happens you can't fly okay? You get knocked down seven you get up seven times Because otherwise there's no way to get up when you're already up. Did you hear that right am I right?

You have to get up the first time to be Sorry no no no you don't get credit for a startup. You don't get credit for not getting neck knocked down and getting up That's stupid. You don't start up. Yes, you do you start standing up you get knocked down now You're up you get knocked down once you get up once. Yeah, but then you get knocked down to get up You have to start but you start on sense. You start point You don't get extra credit for fucking standing up but getting in the ring you have to have courage You get knocked down You get that's the challenge is getting knocked down you fight

You don't you don't get credit for thinking you're gonna fight You have to actually do it when you actually do and you get knocked down you get up you get knocked down once you get Up once I get knocked down seven times you get up seven fucking times Well, I can't get up eight times what I what I like about what you're saying is it just like oh I can climb any mountain No, you fucking can yeah, like get knocked down get up who fucking gives you shit. Just get up get up Like that's the kind of advice I'm a fan of advice I'm a fan of, it's like life is not fair. You're gonna you're gonna come into the whatever if you want really to have success. You're gonna see people

that work less that have luck or you know connections or who fucking soar past you and it won't be fair, deal with it. Yeah. Fucking deal with it. Well, you can't compare yourself. You know, that's the great quote, comparison is the thief of joy. You can't compare yourself. You can look to other people for inspiration. Have you always felt that? Have you always been that way?

Like back in the day when Fear Factor days and before you were Joe, like you are now, were you competitive? Were you? I wasn't competitive with other TV shows. You were just playing your own game. Well, Fear Factor wasn't an example because that was just a job. Fear Factor was I didn't want to work with actors anymore.

What about doing stand-up? You were doing stand-up then. Yeah, but stand-up was just a thing that I loved to do. And I did it. I mean, I certainly compared myself to other people that were doing better than me. Like, wow, why are they doing better than me? Why are they more successful?

Why do they sell out everywhere and I don't? Yeah, but then eventually I caught up. You know, you just keep working. That's all it is. All it is is like keep improving and working. And if you don't have the desire to keep improving and working, you should get out because you're in the wrong business.

Because there's gonna be a bunch of people that do have that desire. And if you wanna live a life of mediocrity and half-assedness and just fucking, kind of showing up and doing the bare minimum like what kind of a fucking life is that that's not fun that's not exciting that's not stimulating when it wouldn't but it seems some people don't have drive they don't have this design you can't you can't like you can't make a championship fighter out of someone who doesn't like working out like you can't it a championship fighter out of someone who doesn't like working out. Like, you can't. It's not gonna happen.

Like, you have to have something inside you, a calling to whatever you're doing. For you, it is filmmaking. You have a calling to this thing. It's a passion project. It's love. It's art. It's intensity. It's discipline and focus. And you're trying to make the best fucking thing you can make. And if you're not doing that, you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. Or you need to come to Jesus moment. You need a refocusing. You need something that real, that like Pressfield had. Where he realized he was kind of like 40 years old and like half-assing his life. He turned it around and he talks about how he turned it around by deciding that he's a professional.

Amazing career since then, right? Which is kind of spectacular. For anyone that doesn't know Steven Pressfield and they're like they want to do anything like writing sports podcast that motherfucker has laid it out and I'm not a big fan of like self-help tell me shit like the war of art that that dude in my opinion and I think yours that's the real deal. Yeah it's a guidebook it's a guidebook for creativity and discipline and becoming a professional you know and he he really laid it out and he laid it out also with his own personal examples of failure which I think are very important. Like you need to know like that this struggle that you're experiencing when you feel

like you're fucking up everybody has that. Nobody is just like gung-ho the best of the best right out of the gate you learn you improve. It's a long Slow journey, you know, it takes a lot of fucking work And if you're not interested in doing that well You better find something else and there's a lot of people that aren't interested in that a lot of people just want to do A job where they make some money and then at the end of the day they can go play video games, hang out with their kids. That's great. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to do something that's extraordinary, that's very hard, it's going to take extraordinary

effort. It's going to take extraordinary discipline and willpower and it's going to take objectivity. You're going to have to have introspection. It's going to be a lot of things. You're going to have a lot of soul searching. And you still might fucking get your ass kicked. Still might get your ass kicked. Yeah. Right? Yeah, but that's why when people do succeed and someone can put together something like

American Primeval, it's so fantastic because we know how hard it is to do. It's not easy. Are you gonna apologize to your wife for me or do I have to? No, no, no. She's used to watching. She fucking freaked out in Nosferatu too. She hated that. You have to watch that movie, the climax that I was telling you about. I'm not gonna watch that with her. No, no, no definitely don't watch it with her. So the climax, tell everybody you were telling me about it in the gym. Last night I watched this film called the climax. It's made by this French director who's made some really fucked up, Gaspar Nau his name is.

He's set up from, my son made me watch this film. And this guy's made some really fucked up films, and I don't recommend them if you have like any sensitivity because this guy is the hardest filmmaker out there right now, in my opinion. Like these are fucking intense movies. There were one called Irreversible, then one called Enter the Void,

and they're about drugs and death and sex, and they're very experiential. So you feel like you're, yeah, so this is it. This is the climax. And it's about these dancers who accidentally drink a bunch of fucking LSD and This is the hardest film I think I've ever seen in my life And you feel like you are on a very very very bad LSD trip is this in subtitles Yeah, it's French. It's French, but its language is almost irrelevant.

But if you want to, I don't recommend LSD because I'm not a doctor and I think it's very dangerous. And I've done LSD and I've had some pretty intense experiences on it. But this is a brilliantly deranged trip into, have you ever had a bad trip, like a really bad trip? Not really. So I haven't either. And I've done some of the DMT and the 5-MeO and mushrooms.

I've had powerful experiences, but I did have one bad experience on LSD the first time I ever took it. And none of us had ever taken it before, so we didn't feel it. So we took another hit, thinking that. So we all basically were a bunch of high school kids in New York City trying to go to a Santana concert, and we just started fucking tripping out. And it was scary.

It was actually really, really scary. This movie is a experientially, it becomes, and this is something that is one of my strategies when I'm making movies, is I don't want my movie to be a spectator sport. I don't want you watching it, I want you participating. I want to try and grab you by the throat and make you watch and be like, come on bro, watch, put the fucking phone down I want to own your heart and your mind and your pulse while you're watching my films that's just a goal some sometimes I do better than others but that's

always the goal I don't want you kind of sitting back watching this motherfucker Gaspar no he takes you into it in a way that I'm sure a lot of people will hate it. I mean, people- Is he the guy that speaks to you the most right now? No, I don't. I mean, there's a part of me like, so I'm getting ready to make a film called Mosquito Bowl, this war movie. And these young kids went through, I don't know if you know, the Pacific Theater campaign and what the battles of Tarawa and Guadalcanal and Okinawa, these were hellacious, awful fucking violent

fights. And the Japanese wouldn't surrender and they believed in Emperor Horigito, so they would fight to the death. You know, Banzai charges and Sepikko, they would kill themselves before they would be taken prisoner. In World War II, you had these young American kids who, in our movie, were college football players who Pearl Harbor hits, and they immediately join the military, and they have to go fight these fucking horrific battles. Like just people's throats getting blown out and torturing and killing and suicides from the locals. And so to me, one of my goals with this next film is I want to try, because there have been a lot of good war films, and just

like there have been a lot of good Westerns, and I always said, well, I never got to make one, so I want to try and make a Western. That was American Praying Evil. There have been a lot of great war films, great war films, but I never got to make one. So my take is to try and bring people into the experience of how... But you have made war films. World War II. Oh, okay.

See, you're right. I made I Made Alone Survival, but I never made a World War II film. And there've been a lot of great ones, you know, from Private Ryan to Hexer Ridge. Private Ryan was probably the first one that was realistic though, right? Yeah. I mean, that opening scene. Yeah, yeah. Holy fucking shit. Private Ryan was probably the first one that was realistic though, right? Which is like why Steve for anyone like you asked me who I look up to Steven Spielberg He is so far and ahead the goat of my business to think that the guy who did fucking Jurassic Park and ET God love both close encounters then is like Oh, you know the in Spielberg was always like the good boy of the, because

it was like he was growing up with Coppola and Scorsese and Michael Mann and these guys were like fucking- Pretty. Yeah, they were just fucking hard partying motherfuckers. Right. You know, hard drinking, hard drugging, hard fucking filmmakers. And Steven was like the goody good kid, right? Like, well, little Steven, he's gotta go home soon.

Put the, wait, don't, keep the girls in the garage. Stephen's still here. And then Stephen's like, oh really? And then he makes, you know, Saving Private Ryan, or Schindler's List. And these moves, like, he goes, oh really? You don't think that I know how to do war? Saving Private Ryan was like another fucking level.

Another level. So to answer your question, Spielberg's who I look up to still the most. And I think he's on a whole nother level based on the scope of his work. But Gaspar Noh, if I'm thinking about the thing I got out of watching this film that I would try and use in my own way for Mosquito Bowl, for a war movie, is the idea that you want to try and

take the audience into what it would have been like to try and get on that fucking beach. In the case of my film, there was a battle of Tarawa and they were trying to get ashore, but they fucked up the tides, so they came in and the tides were too low, so those landing craft all got stuck on the tides, on the coral reef, and they started getting bombed by the Japanese who were hiding in the caves, and they brought their big guns out. So these kids were getting blown up before they even got to the fucking beach. They were getting killed, and they're, you know, before they even got to the fucking beach, they were getting killed.

And their best friends or body parts are floating in the fucking oceans, and there's sharks, and there's giant surf waves, and they're getting rocked before they've ever even got. So I'm like, OK, well, how do I want to show that? And I look at a movie like Climax, and I'm like, all right, different horror, bad acid, bad LSD. But my God, you're like I had to stop watching it. And I knew I was coming in here today.

And I'm starting to have an anxiety attack because I want to get sleep to do, you know, to talk to you. And I'm fucking watching this movie and I'm all worked up because he's taken me into the fucking experience. And he does his movie, Into the Void is about DMT. And he takes you into the experience of DMT. So for anyone who doesn't ever want to experience and you know, things that you've touched and I've touched, you can watch these movies and you can be like, whoa,

I'm getting that feeling and that's a that's a real accomplishment for a filmmaker and I it's immersive So watch it, but don't let your wife. I'll definitely watch it. Do not like I don't want to shit. She won't I don't want worry She's not going to it is not for everyone. I can't talk her into watching anything that she doesn't want to watch She only watched American Primeval because I told her it was gonna be really awesome And she loves Yellowstone in 1883, but there was like We're violent. It's violent. Well, it's also it's that time period. I think we do have We do have a bit of a problem Culturally because a lot of the films that were created

in the early days about the Wild West were very glossy. They were very whitewashed. It wasn't an accurate representation of what actually went down. You know, film in the 1960s and 70s in particular when it covered that subject like spaghetti westerns, you know, great films, but it just never really quite captured the reality. I don't think filmmaking was really ready for that experience because I think the settling of the West and making their way across the plains in particular and dealing with the Comanche and the Plains Indians, like it is one of the most brutal experiences in human history.

They couldn't look at it in film back then. There's no way. Right. People have asked, like, well, you know, when I was making it, is there gonna be sex in the film? Like, Isaac and Sarah, are they gonna fall in love or are they gonna have sex?

I'm like, are you fucking... Can you imagine what they would have smelled like? Just think about just odor from head to toe. There's no way these people were gonna have sex. There's no way they were gonna smell each other or taste each other in any fucking way. And that was like you know when we were talking, when we were putting it together and we were writing it and you know Mark and we're like well should they have it, and we're like, well, should they have sex? And we're like, there's no fucking way.

Just that alone would have been... It's amazing to me that people did have sex. Right? That we wanted to fuck each other. Like, get the fuck away from me. Yeah, they barely washed back then. Barely. They never brushed their teeth. And making their way across the country. There's, I mean, you're months on end.

Same clothes, no sanitation, women didn't, there were no tampons. Like there was no toilet paper. They didn't have Japanese toilets that blow water up your ass and you can fucking dry yourself. Like, this was a messy fucking world and there. We're not gonna make... I wanted to do a scene where Taylor Kitsch's character has to shit and he's constipated and he's gotta use sticks to help him get it out. Because that we had read about that. That was how you had to shit because you were constipated all the time.

So you would have to stick wood up your ass and probe and break it up and force it out. And we had that scene written. And I called that one off. But... By the way, Taylor Kitsch is fucking great. He's a beast. He's a beast. That scene in the first episode, when they first meet him and he has to take off his

clothes and he's changing and you see the scars all over his body, like holy shit. He's really good in that show. He's really fucking good. Taylor is such a great guy and a great actor and you know like Really proven because he had some big fucking misses one of them was my film battleship, which I'm proud of I love all my movies But I'm kind of made him do that film and he was didn't quite work and he kind of had some other Misses, but he stayed true to himself and has built an incredible career. That's a guy who truly does.

He used to live here and now this city got too big for him, so now he's up way up in the crazy hills of Montana just tracking wolves with cameras all day long. I looked at some of your pictures on the lobby of the wolves. He sends me pictures all the time He's just so true to himself in that way. That's awesome. But yeah, he plays a bad man He he plays it so well. I think this is his best work ever I mean, he's been in a bunch of phenomenal projects, but this is this is his best. It's so good, dude I appreciate you should really be proud of it. Thank you, man. It's because it's it's not just

really good. It's really good about a very unique time. When you have this convergence of American, you know, this this emergence of these settlers trying to make their way across this country and dealing with the Indians. And it's just phenomenal. I mean, it's a crazy time in human history and a very brief time. If you really think about the impact that the West has had on American culture, we think about Wild West.

Every kid grew up playing cowboys and Indians. Like, this is a time that was a very short window. It was only a couple hundred years. And it really changed the entire world. Because the successful settling of this country by the Europeans changed everything. The establishment of America changed everything. And the only way it was going to happen

was you got to get through the Indians. So we're doing the next one on this is a this is a announcement. Yeah. The next American primeval is going to be on General Custer. Yeah, man. And we're going to focus on. Well, period short period of time leading up to Little Big Horn and how when, you know, because he is a very misunderstood character from American history and I'm sure you know a bit are you a customer fan yeah yeah I mean he was a fucking beast and he was a you know warrior in the Civil War who was leading in the front of the cavalry he started cavalry charges and I've never like you imagine being in a cavalry charge,

fucking 500 guys on your side, 500 of mine, and we're just galloping full fucking speed at each other and just fucking smashing. And he just kept doing it all through the Civil War and was just a badass. The war ends and he's a warrior, like he starts losing his mind because he doesn't know what to do with himself so they send him out west to

deal with the Indian problem. So have you thought about multiple versions of American Primeval with different characters throughout history? Yeah so the goal would be to do like one of the things was cool about American Primeval and reactions people like whoa I didn't know that about Brigham Young. I didn't know this about Jim Bridger. I didn't understand. Right? And so you get something that works, hopefully, as an entertaining, cool fucking show that's

just fucking awesome. But you're also like, oh, wow, I'm going to fucking learn about the country. Right? So I like the idea of taking moments in American history, not necessarily all about the West, although Custer is something that Markle Smith and I are both kind of obsessed with, and there's so much cool shit around the story of General Custer and Crazy Horse and building a fictional story around those characters and having some great actor play Custer's exciting. But I could see doing the third one on something like the Attica prison riot,

which has always obsessed me. And if you followed that, there's an incredible book by Tom Wicker, who was a journalist, called A Time to Die, that dissects that event. Because I like events, you know, like I'm good with events. If you give me a contained event over a short period of time and I can tell that story and it's emotional and visceral, that's, and Attica was fucking wild. And how it started and how it escalated and the players involved and the negotiating to try and calm it down and the corrupt governor Rockefeller who wouldn't negotiate because he don't want to appear weak, and then finally it just goes off and everyone's dead. And it was a great look at the American prison system,

racism, negotiations, religion, because the Black Panthers were in there, and the Muslim Brotherhood was just so I like the idea of taking moments in American history that are probably pretty fucking violent and sort of presenting them and being like wow this is thrilling and deeply entertaining but I never knew that and this is night like in with Attica oh this might get me to think a little bit about prison reform and the state of incarcerated

American men today in America. Because that story of Attica is deeply rooted in like abuse of prisoners all over America. Have you done anything on that? No. I mean incarceration. Well I have done some shows with Josh Dubin who used to work with the Innocent Project and now Ike Perlmatter Sir. And you know because of the show we've gotten a lot of people actually that were wrongfully accused, released. The prison system is a fucking disaster. It's fucked. It's it's uh prison systems are fucking it's fucked. It's a fucking disaster. I mean look you got

Going back to kissen. Yeah, this girl who's now in a fucking Working prison camp in Siberia for like that you like we have fucked up prisons Russia South America imagine being in a Venezuelan prison right now South America, you imagine being in a Venezuelan prison right now? And so I like the idea, and America has its own unique flavor of fucking hell within prisons. Not to make light of prison, right? And I'm not, but I actually had an idea a while ago

for a show that I wanted to do, like Surviv or fear factor it take take three guys Three like take the three of us in this room right now three fucking tough badass American men Right and put three. Yeah, there's three of us in here In my mind you are You're a fucking legend you're alleged Jamie legend Jamie fucking legends in but you put each Man in a maximum security prison somewhere in the world like the worst so you're in Thailand Jamie's in Venice and I'm in Russia Okay, and you go in by yourself right and you just are put in a general population

And the deal is you can get out anytime you want you just have to say the code word Blue vase and the warden knows and the prison knows but nobody's telling that nobody knows that everyone thinks you're a prisoner Whoever stays in the longest Gets ten million dollars and you have no idea when the other guys have gotten out right so like right you could stay in for five fucking years and me and Jamie got out in three minutes but just like how you would survive prison and what a horror prison is today and so that took me down a rabbit hole of I assume maybe doing it as a

film but um it'd be a good squid games movie yeah like squid games did you ever see the movie That took me down a rabbit hole of, I assume maybe doing it as a film, but. It'd be a good Squid Games movie. Yeah, like Squid Games. Did you ever see the movie Brubaker with Robert Wilford? Yeah. Which true story about a warden of a new prison who went in undercover as a prisoner

to see what was going on. But I think to do something like Attica, something like we're gonna do Custer next. But if you have any good ones, man, send them over. I will. All right, buddy. Well, hey, brother, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate you very much.

You're a fucking beast. Your work is amazing. Thanks for the workout this morning. My pleasure. It was fun. I was so pumped when you wanted to do it. I was like, yeah, let's go. I appreciate it.

It was fun. It was a good time. Thank you, Jamie. Merrick from Primeval right now on Netflix. Can't recommend it enough. Absolutely fantastic. Peter Berg, you're the fucking man. You too, buddy.

There it is. Damn. All right. Goodbye, everybody.