The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1537 - Matt Walsh Interviews Zachary Levi

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Matt sits down with actor Zachary Levi to discuss the art of acting, AI in the film industry, and the future of filmmaking.   Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/4bEQDy6   Ep.1537   - - -   DailyWire+:   Our Presidents’ Day Sale starts now—get 40% off a full year of DailyWire+ with promo code DW40! https://dailywire.com/subscribe   "Identity Crisis" tells the stories the mainstream media won’t. Stream the full film now, only on DailyWire+: https://bit.ly/3C61qVU   Find my exclusive collection at The Candle Club: https://bit.ly/4heYAgF   Get your Matt Walsh flannel here: https://bit.ly/3EbNwyj   - - -   Today's Sponsors:   Balance of Nature - Go to https://balanceofnature.com and use promo code WALSH for 35% off your first order PLUS get a free bottle of Fiber and Spice.   PureTalk - Switch to Pure Talk and start saving today! Visit https://PureTalk.com/WALSH   - - -   Socials:    Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Rv1VeF   Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3KZC3oA   Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eBKjiA   Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RQp4rs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Matt Wall Show, we got something a little different and special for you today. I have an interview with Zachary Levi. He, of course, is a Hollywood actor. And in this interview that we're about to show you, we cover a lot of grounds, a very interesting conversation. We talk about Zachary Levi coming out of the political closet endorsing RFK Jr. And then Donald Trump and what that experience was like and what the reaction has been from Hollywood. We talk about the state of the movie industry. We talk about AI and what that is going to do to movies and to art in general.

Very interesting conversation. And here it is. Zachary Levi, how you been? I'm well, thank you. I'm busy, but very blessed. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I last saw you at an inauguration party, DC.

Yeah. I was literally writing the Daily Wired Coatails into that party. I was very grateful that I bumped into you guys on the street. I hate the events where you have to mingle with people. It's not my deal. Do you love those? Are you a mingler? No, no.

I love people. I love socializing, particularly with my friends. love a good party. And I can make do, but I'm not someone who's ever felt comfortable, just like cold stepping up to a stranger, even somebody that I really admire. In fact, the people that I admire the most, I probably have even more of an intimidation about that because I don't want to come across as someone who's like, can I get some of your time? I want some of your time, knowing, or at least in my mind thinking, they probably have that happening all the time, you know? Yeah. Although I'm sure a lot of the time, when it has happened, they've been super gracious.

but yeah, it's weird. You know, a couple of those events. Fortunately, there were people that I knew. I would gravitate toward who I know when we hang out and we have good time and good conversation. And then eventually new people, you know, will be met. But I'm not good at networking. I've never been good at it.

I find it to be a very inauthentic type of a thing. Would you say you're an introvert? No. No, like a really hardcore extrovert. But the idea of networking just rings so inauthentic. It rings untrue. It's like we're not having just a natural organic. We bumped into each other.

We started talking. It's like you're at an event, the amount, particularly at a thing like inauguration weekend. I had gone to this other event before the one that we bumped into each other at. It was midday and it was lots of like tech people and finance bros. And they're all just like wanting to, you know, whatever the next deal is. The thing, Sam Altman was there. And everyone's like wanting to hit him up because he's.

Sam Altman. I'm like, I don't even know what I would say to Sam Altman other than are you about to destroy the world? Like, that's how I feel about AI right now. But so, yeah, I don't know. That stuff is not. I mean, I'm assuming that's not your bag either. No, no, not at all. Not at all. But I, it's interesting you say that you don't like it because it feels inauthentic, but that's also, I mean, acting is about making inauthentic things feel authentic, right? So does that, does that pull on that at all? Yeah, no, I understood what you're saying, I think that the difference in acting is that everyone knows that it is an act, right? Like, it's, you're not coming in as a person as you and then trying to act authentic.

You're trying to take an inauthentic thing on, not an inauthentic thing, but a thing that you are, the whole purpose of it, the engagement of it, the craft of it, is to make it as authentic as possible. While everyone understands, it's a story, it's a show. You know, so you're never starting from the presupposition that, oh, no, I'm just me. You know, it's like, no, I'm a character. I'm in a story. And the goal as an actor is to just make that as authentic as possible so that people resonate with it, you know? You know, you've been in Hollywood for what, 25 years. 25 years. Yeah. What got you into it to begin with? You know, honestly, man, I'll try, I'm verbose and tangential, so forgive me.

But I'll try to make it as brief as possible. around three or four, all of us as kids, we, like our awareness first comes online. Prior to that, you're alive, but you're bouncing off walls and people are laughing and you don't know why. And then around three or four, the movie really starts. Like, you're aware of things, you're clocking things. You're taking in information. Also, you're kind of tuning into knowing in your soul, right? And around four years old, I knew things in my soul, not cerebrally, but I knew them in my knowing. I knew that there was a God that loved me. I knew that I was going to be an actor, more than even just wanted to be an actor, although,

I also wanted to be an actor. I didn't even know what an actor was, but I knew in my knowing, like, I'm supposed to, like, I could feel this thing. And then a few years later, I'm watching television and I'm putting together, oh, that's what that thing is. That's people pretending to be other people to invoke laughter and happiness and emotion and stuff. And at a very young age, I also knew that a smiling, laughing person felt good on the inside. And I was hooked. I was like, I want to do that. I feel a call to do that, make people feel good. make people feel loved. So that all started very early, that desire. I also knew that I was supposed to go build communities. I think that was, you know, big kind of spark point of that was

the first time as a child, three or four, whatever, I saw a cul-de-sac. And I remember having this massive aha moment of like, well, that's it. Like, that's what we all want. Like, not that specifically, but what that represents. And I think that's something quite literally evolutionary in us, like in our hunter-gatherer ourselves for thousands of years. were tribal community people in these circular, you know, villages or whatever. And there's strength and protection and sustenance and education, all those things that are right there. And all of these things, I mean, I have these little specific moments. They're flash moments, but I mean, I just kind of knew all that stuff in my knowing.

And then, and I really believe that God called me to be an actor. And I did that. I pursued that my whole life. I was a ham for all of my friends and family for years, much to their chagrin. I didn't have an off button. I learned that a little bit later, still working on it a little bit. And then found theater, and I did theater for years in school, community theater, all that stuff.

But I always knew I was called to, like, really do it as a profession. And then I was very blessed that I was, I was doing a play in Ohio, California. I grew up in Ventura, California. Oh, hi, is nearby. Community theater play. I was 18 years old.

This woman, who was a retired manager, saw me in it, believed in me, got me to a manager, who got me to a casting director, who got me to an agent. and that was one of the best agencies in Hollywood. I was 19 at that point. And so for 25 years, I've just been at the television and movie grind.

And, you know, it's, as you can imagine, and as you probably know, because you know other actors and people, you know, it is not a, it's not all rainbows and butterflies. But it's also very rewarding. And I've been incredibly blessed. And I've got to be a part of so many really interesting and cool projects and things that have blessed me personally, even beyond just the fact. that I get to have the platform that I do and make the money that I do, but the ways in which God has worked on me and my soul and the community that I've gotten to build and all of that and ways in which I can step up and be a leader, hopefully, and stand for my cast and my crew. And as you said, that platform led me then ultimately into feeling the need to speak up louder

than ever at this point in human history. At what point do you declare, well, I want to be an actor as a career at what point? And when you declare that, people are, I imagine most people are like, yeah, okay. Yeah, that's the reaction. I mean, I declared it when I was four or five or six. I mean, I was telling my parents at that young of an age, I'm going to be an actor. And I'll, you know, I can't wait to buy your house, mom, and all of these things. Like I, like I knew it. And my parents, I mean, I know that they loved me, but it was, it was a lot of head petting. And I know, that's nice, you know. And no matter how much I would go. And I would. and do community theater or things and have other people,

either strangers or other kids' parents or other people in the community, who would be like, you've got a real gift. Like, you need to keep pursuing this thing because you actually, you know what you're doing in this world, you know? And I know that my parents saw a bit of that, but I also know that they were kind of struggling through their own life and all of their own mental illness and things like that. So I think that made it difficult for them to be more than just kind of patting me

on the head about it, you know. What's, uh, there's no way to phrase this without sounding super pretentious. I am just curious. I'm curious about the, the craft of acting. So, so when you're, you know, when you're doing a take, when you're on set. Yeah. Like, what's actually going on in your mind? Are you, this might be less pretentious and more just a dumb question? Are you just pretending you're the guy that's in the script, or are you imagining yourself in this situation and response to emotionally as you would. Does that question make any sense? Absolutely, and it's neither dumb nor pretentious. Listen, I mean, what's interesting about acting being subjective, being art

on some level, right, performance art, is that every actor has a different process, right? Like Daniel DeLewis, that guy, from the time he gets the job or like decides it's go time, he goes and becomes that person and insists that everyone call him that person. So like when he was Lincoln, when it was go time for Lincoln, he started dressing in period garb. He went and apparently built himself his own cabin,

period cabin to go live in the entire time they made the movie, had everyone address him as Mr. President or Mr. Lincoln. Very method, a lot of people will call that method actor. I am not that guy. I will absolutely try to inhabit the character as authentically as I can.

And so when the camera's rolling, when it's action, I am pretending to be, to the best of my ability, in that moment as that particular person going through whatever they're navigating in that moment, trying to feel what they are feeling, you know? And I've been doing it long enough where it's interesting.

I think that our mental and emotional capacity, you can fine-tune it like the muscles of your body, in that if I were an NBA player playing basketball my whole life, a certain move or a certain juke or a jump or whatever, it's so second nature and you can tap it whenever you need to. And the same way as an actor, having done it as long as I have been doing it, I can just get myself normally. Sometimes it's more difficult, depending on the situation. But normally I can just get myself into an emotional or mental state that mirrors what is written on the script

and therefore can be that character in that moment. So you're not faking the emotions? Are you actually feeling the emotion? Oh, I actually feel the emotions. Sometimes you know, sometimes it's, you're trying to get there, but you get a little bit of it or you get half of it.

Sometimes you get so much of it that it's overwhelming. Because you're, it's, I mean, for me, it's all about empathy. and God's always given me a really deep serving of empathy. Like I have always my, and it's been difficult. It's something that I've had to actually like get a handle on because empathy without logic and without reason to kind of help govern it, as we've seen in our country and in this world, a lot of people are deeply empathetic, but they get so empathetic that it takes them to

these completely illogical, irrational places of then how do we solve this problem to help these people. And so I've always just always had a really deep empathy for human beings. And so I just try to tap into that and just, you know, fluctuate when I can. But like I was saying, like sometimes, you know, you're on a set. You're trying to pretend to be authentically present in this moment with this other actor who's pretending to be this other person. But you've got a bunch of cameras and lights and boom mics and crew. And even though everybody's like dressing in black and trying not to move around to distract or whatever. It's not not there. So you have to be able to kind of block all that out, pretend it's not a part of whatever this moment is. And sometimes it's distracting and sometimes

it's not. But you just give you're all in that moment as best you can. I haven't really thought much about this, but I just, I was talking to Michael Knowles about this actually last week. And his take is that acting is, it's almost like it could be a spiritually dangerous art almost because you have to open yourself up. It's like, I'm probably not doing a good job of representing his viewpoint here, but let's say you're playing a serial killer. It's like, you know what you're saying.

Yeah, you have to, you have to inhabit that mentality so completely that it could almost, it could be dangerous. You have to... Do you feel it at all? No, no. I completely understand the sentiment. But I think that... Sure.

There are absolutely people who have not done enough work on themselves, who are still, I would say, more psychologically fragile or traumatized or whatever. They're just not... They don't have a really robust and strong... Again, it's like,

if you work out all... the time and then you go and lift heavy weight because you've already been lifting heavy weight, you're going to be all right. If you're trying to go tap into something super deep and emotional and take on a serial killer and you haven't done a lot of work at really working the muscles in your own emotions and in your own spirit and soul and mind to be strong, then you might fall into some darkness. And there definitely have been people who have lost themselves in roles where it's been very difficult for them to either, A, not take that stuff home with them, There's a lot of method actors that they commit to it so much,

and then they go home and they're playing a dark character at work, and now their family is receiving this kind of weird dark energy. I just don't believe in that. I believe that you can absolutely turn on the switch. Like, Meryl Streep is famous for this. Meryl Streep, like everyone, all the stories I've ever heard about her, and I consider Meryl Streep, honestly, to be one of the best actors that's ever been. from a technical standpoint, her ability to lose herself in characters, I think is incredible.

But famously, she's like, oh, no, Merrill, she'll be having a conversation with Merrill, and they're laughing and talking, it can be a drama that they're doing. They're laughing and talking and they're talking about whatever's going on in the world. It's like, oh, okay, and action, and she's there, you know. I mean, you might need a moment to kind of like, you know, get your mind there or whatever. But so I think it's maybe perhaps it can be dangerous, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, for people if they are not practicing it in a way that's more responsible. But I don't think in and of itself it's something that one needs to fear. More than that, I think that, you know,

particularly from an energetic spiritual standpoint, like, you know, that's work that one needs to do in order to have connection to and covering from our creator. And I believe that we need to be able to trust in that and not be like, oh, God, I'm afraid that if I go and do this role, that somehow I'm going to be evil or I'm going to take on the evil of that character. I mean, listen, if we were afraid of doing that, then, and if there was some, you know, absolute truth to it of, like, never play a role that's, you know, been engaged in any darkness, well, then by God, no one would play David in the Bible, which I'm so grateful that is now actually happening, the House of David on...

Amazon Prime, it's my friends over at the Wonder Project and John Irwin and John Gunn and Jeremy Lachman, all those cats. I've been waiting for somebody to make the story of David and a real story of David, not some whitewashed, you know, like, oh, because there's some, you know, lovely kids kind of versions of King David and slaying Goliath and all that stuff, and that's fine. But I don't think that the Bible should be whitewashed. I think that in order for us to understand the redemptive power of God, we need to understand the darkness that so many of these characters go through. And in order to play David authentically, one must show those parts of his journey. You don't have to be like egregious with it, right?

But you've got to talk about how he basically had a dude murdered and was having an adulterous affair with that murdered guy's wife. Like, that really happened. But it was still a man after God's own heart. And so anyway, like I understand the sentiment, but I'm not something that I particularly fear. When you're on set making a movie, do you know if it's going to be good or bad? in the final product? Hmm. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right.

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No. I mean, yes, but no, because there's so many variables that can ultimately make. I mean, it's honestly, it's a very, like being an actor, even one 25 years into a career that's been reasonably successful and I've gotten to, you know, be a superhero and a franchise and all that stuff, I'm still at the mercy of so many other people when it comes to even what my performance is. Like, I could be giving a performance doing what I think I'm supposed to do based on the script and the direction or not direction that I get. whatever it is, they'll go take all of that and all those takes and they will edit it to different timing from what I was giving initially, like so many ways that you're just at the mercy of those, you know, that are above you in the power, you know, structure and an organism that is a movie or a TV show. So like I could say, man, I think this is going to be great,

but then in post-production, they don't know how to edit it or they, They do know how to edit it. They edit it in a completely different way than I thought what we were shooting or something like that. But I do think that there are some constants that you can rely on. Like, for example,

I was a recurring character on this show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon, and that show was excellent. And you knew you were making excellence. And part of the reason I knew I was making excellence while I was working on the show was in part, I suppose, because I had seen the first season.

I came in the second season. I'd seen the first season, and it was excellent. And the showrunners, the creators, Amy Sherman Palladino and Dan Palladino, are about excellence. They're very talented human beings, and they don't suffer fools, and they have a very intelligent way of going about how they write and direct and produce, and how they hire their department heads. And all of that, it's not a guarantee, but with every good choice you make, you're giving yourself a higher probability of excellence. So then, jumping into that show into the rhythm that they had already set, I was like, okay, yeah, I think this is going to be pretty darn good, you know. I mean, I thought Shazam 2 was a, I actually liked Shazam 2 more than I liked Shazam 1 in different ways.

I thought it would do better. It didn't. There's a whole bunch of reasons why. What do you attribute that to? Well, I mean, where do I start? And the internet's just going to come after me again. Listen, I, the, well, superhero fatigue, that's one. Yeah.

I mean, we just were inundated with so many superhero movies. And I think that after a while, people are kind of like, okay, like I've seen this. And we had moments in our movie that were repetitive or had been seen in other movies. There's nothing new under the sun, right? But we also had, I think, some really fun stuff. I did my best. I did what was on the script. I did the best that I could.

people wanted to tear me apart for it anyway because there's a lot of people on the internet and that's all they do. That's their whole MO. That's where they find their identity. That's where they find their power. It's so sad that the online specifically social media has empowered people in that way because it's so toxic and destructive for everyone involved, particularly them

because they could be doing something much more productive with their time. So there was a lot of that stuff. There was a lot of DC itself as as a comic book studio, you know, there's all this weird, you know, fandom war between Marvel and DC and then even within each fandom, there's like fractions and factions of those fandoms

and all that stuff got really crazy. I don't know at the end of the day all of the pieces just came together in order for it to be the best film, the very, very best film that it could have been or that we got the word out the best we could to everybody. I don't know, you know. But at the end of the day, I just have to lean back and be like, all right, God, if that's what you saw fit for that film and how it ultimately hit the world,

then I have to receive that. I have to radically accept that that's what that was, you know. Yeah. I mean, what you said about, you know, movies are an art form, but unlike pretty much any other art form I can think of, there's just so many people involved. Hundreds. in bringing this to fruition, which is why, you know, we've made, I've made two movies. They're both documentaries. But I remember our last one, which went out in theaters. I was at the, we were at the premiere, talking to Jeremy Boring as the CEO of the company. And he said, it's basically miraculous that this movie exists. Like, anytime a movie actually exists, it's a miracle. Good or bad, just because so many things can go wrong for it to not even exist in the first place.

Oh, absolutely. And even just getting it greenlit to begin with, you know, here it's a little bit different because it's internal and you guys are all working together and you have an idea and it's a good idea and it's like great. And also from, you know, documentaries tend to be significantly less expensive than a future film. So it's a slightly easier role of the dice. Fewer people involved. Yeah, exactly. A lot fewer. But yeah, in the feature world, I mean, to get an actual feature film greenlit to go make it, 20 million, even just 20 million, even just 20. I mean, 20 million is a lot. lot of money, but it's nothing compared to lots of other budgeted films. But, you know, the studios are like, I don't know, I don't know, you got to get this whole package together. Who's your talent? Who's your cast? Who's your director, writer? Da-da-da. You know, there's a lot of things, you know, involved in all of that. And so it can be very difficult, and it can. Absolutely, it is a miracle. It's a miracle to get it started, and it's a miracle to finish it. And then it's a

miracle on top of that if it's actually successful. You, so you talked about social media. I'm thinking about, so you've been in the business for 25 years, so you came in, right, at basically the turn of the century. The changes in the movie business in that time, one of the big ones is, I guess when you started out, there was no social media. I started with a beeper. Right, so the difference there is pretty enormous

because I guess back in the day before social media, you put a movie out and it does well or it doesn't do well. You hear from the critics, but you basically don't hear from anybody else. I mean, you know, there's no forum for everyone to tell you how much they love you or hate you based on the film. But now it's this instant feedback from everybody. How, you know, what's that like? I mean, because you kind of, you saw before and after. Yeah, yeah.

Well, well, we're the, when were you born? 86. 86, yeah. So I'm a little bit older than you. I think I think I recently saw something that is something like the Goonies generation were being called the 19. 75 to 85 or something like that. Or, you know, there's other zenials and whatnot because we're apparently the most concentrated generation of having like solid analog life before then solid digital life. And so, and that applies very greatly to the entertainment industry and

kind of navigating all of that. I, man, I don't know. Like I think that, again, as somebody who really loves people, humans, and really love kind of interacting with and engaging with my fan base. I've always found ways to be able to do that. I think social media is a really cool way of being able to do that. And I'm grateful that it allows us to do that and to tap into our audience, right? There's a lot of really cool ways that we can engage and incentivize them now, you know, whether it's things like Kickstarter or, or even like Patreon, and I need all of it. I think that there's some really cool things that have come out of technology, social media, the marriage of all of that, and entertainment.

But I would say that, unfortunately, it's probably, well, I don't know. I was going to say it's probably more negative. But then I realized that even like, with, let's say, you know, coming out of the political closet recently, 75% of the comments that I was getting were for people that were kind, were not hateful and toxic. 75%. Well, it's surprised. I would say. But also, I mean, you know, I think most of the people who've been following me, even though I wasn't fully out of the political closet, I was still being as vocal as I could be, walking that razor's edge of speaking the truth as I saw it, and being vocal about certain things that I thought were important enough to be vocal about without going so far as to get myself canceled or

whatever. But I don't even know if that's, we can talk about that, like cancellation and all that stuff later. But yeah, it was, I think overwhelmingly it was more positive. The problem is, and you know this, the negative is so much more negative than the positive is positive. Because it just plays at everything in you, things that you, insecurities that you have, or like, oh my God, did I miss step? Like, you know, I'm trying to speak something that I think is right and good for this world, but, you know, whatever,

all the things that it might play on, the positivity, sometimes it's difficult for it to outweigh the negative, but I would say that it did. But, you know, honestly, I go to, like, conventions. I go to, like, you know, comic cons and things like that, fan conventions, and I've been doing it for years.

And I love them. And I love them because, other than being a great source of ancillary income, whatever, it is actually where you get to close the loop with your fans in real life, in person. If I go do Broadway, I'll go after the show, after every performance, I'd go to stage door and sign play bills and take photos and stuff like that. Bring a speaker, play some music. And it was awesome. In that one performance, not just did the audience tell me what they thought of the show by their reaction to the show, but then also the people at stage door. So in one performance,

in a few hours, I get to close the loop of what I gave to people versus what they took from it. Conventions allow us who work mainly in film and television to go and close that loop with people right there. They wait very patiently and pay us very good money to scribble on pictures of our own face and take selfies and stuff. And really, I see that philosophically deep down. I see the whole process as me getting paid to love on people, really. People that go out of their way to support me and believe in me. And spent a lot of time watching our films and television shows and things like that. And so I think it's a really cool. way to, like I said, close that loop, see what people really think of things, you know,

which is not to say that sometimes people aren't just being nice and saying something nice, but most people aren't waiting that long just to come up and give you niceties. So that's how the kind of the audience reaction has evolved over the years, or at least their access to you basically as well. But then the product itself, you know, if you look at the top films of the last year or the year before that, a year before that, but going back basically this whole century, there are almost always sequels, remakes, IP, you know. Is original storytelling just dead in Hollywood? Does it exist anymore? Is there a future for it? Man, I hope so. I mean, if I have anything to do with it, absolutely. I mean, it's one of the

reasons why I felt very strongly 25 years ago when I started working in the industry, and I just saw how broken it all was. I mean, even then, there was the beginnings of this trend of, let's just go reboot this long old series into a movie. That was the big thing back in the late 90s into the 2000s, right? That was the kind of the beginnings of the reboots was, well, we're not going to just remake a movie or whatever, or bring back a whole TV show. we're just going to find IP that people knew from TV and then we'll give it a new skin and new cast and we'll make it a movie event.

And I remember looking at that and I was like, and by the way, which is not to say that every remake or sequel or, you know, reimagining is bad. I think that there's been some really cool sequels and really cool reimaginings and reboots. it's when that is becoming more and more, as you're saying, more and more the well that's being drawn from. And I think that's because more and more,

I don't know exactly when it started. 25 years in Hollywood is a long time, but it's nothing compared to a lot of the people that have been there, let's say 50, and who have seen this insane transformation of what the studios used to be and used to do and who used to be the leaders of those studios and how I would say overall they had more vision, more creativity, more balls to be able to take big swings and be like,

no, we're going to go do this thing. And they're like, but no one knows what that is. It's like, that's the point. We're going to go make something entirely fresh and new. We're going to blow people's minds. And we'll average, and we'll do good marketing for it so people understand or whatever it is. And did some of those things blow up in their faces all the time? But they still had the hoods, but to be like, let's go and actually try to be this industry that we, you know, pretend to be, which is creative and therefore creating creation should be constantly, if not, not it doesn't have to be entirely, but mostly new things, new ideas. Taking this and that, maybe things that existed, but make a new thing out of those things.

And I just think that, unfortunately, though there are some lovely, and good executives that still inhabit Hollywood. I don't know that they're in the majority. I think that a lot of executives in Hollywood, when the lawyers and accountants started to kind of take over, when capitalism run amok kind of started really being like, well, let's just monetize the heck out of these things. Well, then, of course, they're going to start hiring a lot of executives

that are more towing those lines, and not the lines that are in contrast to those, which is, no, we want to go, we actually want to spend money a little more recklessly. We want to go take a swing at a thing that's not a guarantee. That's all just slowly kind of shifted over. So I think that there's a lot of executives that, honestly, are not creative or not visionary, and are kind of scared deep down, probably are even dealing with some kind of imposter syndrome because they're in a position where they are being asked, what's the new big idea?

And they're like, Johnson, I don't know, you know, and then they're looking around for all, the underlings and they're all scared because they don't want to say the wrong thing. And I don't know, man. But I hope that, like, you know, I'm building a movie studio in Austin, Texas. I'm not the only person who wants to go build an independent studio. I think my concept is quite different than a lot of other concepts. But still, at the heart of it, I'm trying to create a place where independent artists, kind of like essentially what Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks and all those OGs back in the day,

Because Hollywood's been broken since the beginning. They knew it. And they were like, let's go do our own thing. We don't need these guys. Unfortunately, the way it was all set up, they actually did need those guys back then. It was a different system. But now we don't.

We legitimately don't. And I think we need to cleave off of it because trying to get a new idea, trying to get an idea that doesn't get so mangled in the problem. They might say, hey, that's a great new idea. We love it. But we're going to change everything about it. And it's going to start towing some agenda. that we want to infuse into it.

And you're like, well, but that's not the story that I pitched you guys. No, no, no, we love it. We love it. We just want to change everything about it. But new thing, right? So there's so many reasons why we need to get off the teat of the broken system. So the movie studio that you are going to start, how is it going to be different from? Well, I mean, first and foremost, if you look at business, any industry, whatever,

but you look at it almost like a living organism. And you imagine that the workers are the muscle of the organism, right? Very important piece of the organism. The skin also very important. Imagine that the skin is the money, and the money that the muscle needs to interface with in order to keep making more muscle and be healthy, whatever it is. Well, you want a little layer of fat

between the muscle and the epidermis. That makes for a healthy person. When people are like no fat whatsoever, it's actually not so healthy. But also what you don't want is pounds and pounds and pounds of fat that are separating the muscle from that money. And that's the executive class. That's what's going on. I think that first and foremost, we need to create an ecosystem that is far more artist forward, like United Artists once was, where you have a collective of artists that are all, by the way, very good at what they do. And not just that,

being an actor or a writer or a director or a producer. Like, we all understand how to make movies. We also all understand, you know, how much a movie should cost. And we also understand how to go lean and not pay everybody exorbitant fees in order to go make a great thing and everybody can do well on the back end. We know how to take care of our casts and our crews because we are amongst them. We are in the trenches with them.

In Hollywood right now, we have far too many generals and all of us are, and they have no idea what it means to fight in the foxholes and the trenches. They have no idea. They're just like, yeah, send them the Eastern Europe and feed them cheez-its. And we're going to go make a movie.

We're going to save 50% on the movie. And we're going to tell them it's really so we can give them a bigger budget, but we're also kind of lining in our own pockets because we want to be out less money. I mean, it's just the whole thing is, it's obese and it's unhealthy. It's metabolically, metabolically unhealthy.

So changing that is, you know, know, I think important. But then there's other things, like for example, I think that one of the biggest things we've lost in Hollywood is we've lost community. In fact, not just Hollywood. Around this entire country, in every industry, in every state, and every city around the world, we don't, I think most people don't understand what it means to actually have community. Some people get their community at church, some people, but even that, by the way, there's a lot churches that don't really emphasize community. You go once a week, maybe twice a week. A lot of people don't connect with their church friends beyond that. You might have community at work. A lot of people

get their community from work. I think that's actually where most of us have always gotten community. And that's one of the reasons why it's important to foster that. If you're creating work environment that is actually conducive to human thriving and health and happiness. And in order to do that, building a living community kind of into the campus of the movie studio, which also kind of harkens back to, well, lots of things. I mean, Hollywood used to be that. Hollywood, if you were to go up to any of the major Warner Brothers studios, there wasn't a wall around it originally. It was a bunch of soundstages and offices, and I was surrounded by a bunch of bungalows that everybody lived in.

And you would go walk there. You'd walk to work, and you knew everybody that you worked with. and you would constantly bounce around it because you were a studio employee, right? So even as an actor, like, I'd show up and I'd do a Western for a couple of weeks, and they're like, all right, Levi, you're going to go to stage 10,

and you're going to go be an astronaut, and you'd go down there, and you'd go work on a new thing. And there was a lot of problems with that system. I mean, that was still the executives at the time, the Louis B. Mayors and everybody, just like screwing everyone, taking the lion's share of the money,

and, you know, that's not what we want. But you can still find, you know, using another industry, Hershey's, for example. Why does Hershey's Pennsylvania exist? It's because Mr. Hershey was making chocolate and needed a lot of people to make the chocolate. And he was like, well, you know what? Probably great for my workers is to build them a town

where it's easy for them to get to work. It's good for me and it's good for them. They can walk to work. We can build schools here and health clinics here. And we can make sure that they have all the things that they need to just live a decent life. Why not do that? So the type of movie studio that I'm building

is one that is inclusive of all of that. It's not just a place where we work. It's a place where people can live full-time or part-time. It's got hospitality aspects to it because I want to give everybody who lives there a five-star experience. And then people, if they have friends or family or other people that want to come visit for various events and things that we'll have there, we'll literally have live performance amphitheaters and three sound stages all in the first phase that all can be for event space. So, you know, people from the public can still experience it, but like in a very curated way. People can live there and have better lives because we have literally school for their kids that's education and not indoctrination.

We have regeneratively grown organic food because that's a real thing. And that's a thing that I'm very grateful that Bobby Kennedy hopefully is going to start turning around and making America healthy again and all these types of things. But we can do it privately. I don't need to wait for the government to start fixing that. It's like, all right, well, let's go grow our own food and make sure that. I mean, by the way, the Amish have had so much right for so long. It's incredible. But getting back to that, getting back to what it means to know and trust your neighbor again.

You know, a lot of people live in neighborhoods and they're nice neighborhoods, and you might know this neighbor and you might know that. Because you happen to see each other as you're leaving for work or maybe your kids go to the same school. But do you know everybody on your street? Do you all get together and have like barbecues, everybody, everybody in the cul-de-sac inviting everyone down? Some neighborhoods do that. Most neighborhoods. Being a husband, father, and host of my own show means life never slows down. Imagine trying to eat 31 different fruits and vegetables.

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Not to belabor the point. Belabor it. Well, about the original storytelling, which you want to help bring the movie industry back to. Because I was thinking about this, when I was thinking about this interview, because everyone complains about this. Everyone complains, oh, they don't make original stories anymore.

But then you hear other people say, well, it's always been that way. So I went back and I looked, just, and this is not any kind of great shock, but if you look at the the number one highest grossing film by year for the last, let's say, the last 10 years, 2014, it was Transformers, 25 to 2017,

it was all Star Wars, 2018, Black Panther, 2019 Avengers, 2020, Bad Boys for Life, 2021, Spider-Man, 22, Top Gun Maverick, 23, Barbie, 24 Inside Out. So every single one is a sequel or IP or, you know, a remake, Then I thought we'd go back to the 90s, top film of each year.

1990 was Home Alone. 91 was Terminator 2. 92 was Aladdin. 93 was Jurassic Park. 94 is Forrest Gump. 95 was Toy Story. 96 was Independence Day. 97 was Titanic.

98 was Saving Private Ryan. 99 was Star Wars, Phantom Menace. Only two sequels on that list. The rest are all original or based on a book. Yeah. So it seems like this is a very real thing that has happened. 100%. It is very real.

If you go back this past century, or not past century, but this century, starting 2000, there's been one movie that was the top grossing movie the year that was an original story, which was Avatar. All the rest of them were this. Is this what's happened? I mean, you talk about the studio system. Is it in the current studio system, and if you were to start at the top and work your way all the way down, the executives all the way down to the people are actually working on the movie,

how far would I have to go down the ladder before I find someone, who actually cares about the story itself. Because I feel like probably in the executive meetings, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like there's no one saying, well, is this a story even worth telling? Does this story matter? I feel like they're probably not thinking about that as much. Is that part of the problem?

There's just not as many people involved who actually are worried about whether, forget about whether it can make money. Is this story, should it even exist? Is it worth telling this story? Well, like I was saying, I mean, I think that's part of the problem. think that within the executive class at this point, I think that there has been a real changing of the guard in the mindset of what it means to be an executive today. And this is not an indictment

of who they are as human beings, although I think that people that allow for it are lacking in some, like, I don't know, like, bottom line, like just the integrity. to say like, hey, let's not go do this. Let's not go down this road, right? But there's pressures. And the pressures are all either monetary, right? Like, that's kind of always been money, money, money. How can we make money? But then there's also been this insane, I don't even know what you, what, you know, sociopolitical agenda to pressure that comes from lots of. different places, but that ultimately starts shifting cultural perception, and the studios become victims of that, too, I think. I don't think, you know, a lot of people want to say that

Hollywood is the one who's pushing a lot of the agenda that they don't like, whatever that agenda is. Certainly, Hollywood is massively complicit in it. But I don't know that these agendas even necessarily start in Hollywood. Some of them might, but some of them are them thinking, oh, what's the hip-cool thing to do? What do we got to do so that people like us? And we don't get canceled and that, that, that, that. They're not immune to those same things. And so you have a lot of executives who might mean well, but they're like, guys, we got to, we got to do this thing. We got to go make this thing because that's what's going to comply with the expectations of us as a company. Otherwise, people are going to think we're racist or we're

sexist or, you know, whatever any of those particular things are. So I think because of that, it's, you're drawing in an executive class that's going to serve those two. two masters. It's money and and agended appearance, whatever that is. And in lieu of them, we used to have, and what I wish we would have in lieu of them, are the executives of old, which were much more about the creative and the story and the vision of understanding what makes a great story. This is why a lot of them, the new executives, are terrified because they don't know what to do. And so they just go, bring back that old TV show that people really like that we got to a point where we didn't think the ratings were good enough to even keep going.

But now, because network television ratings are so low anyway, it doesn't really matter. And people like it, but they did, didn't they do a focus group. Screw the focus group. Bring it back. They're literally running scared. And we all know it. We see it. We're like, what are you, you have no original ideas? There are so many original ideas that people have every single day that are fantastic ideas. If they just had an executive, they could help that saw it, and then fostered them through the process.

And then believed in it all the way to the end where they're like, guys, we know this is new IP. We're going to put money behind it because it's awesome. What about a remake of a film? I've been waiting for Hollywood to try this and probably never will. But if you're going to do a remake, what about a remake of a movie that was a good idea but not executed well? So then you remake it. I think this is part of the criteria of why I think remakes are actually good or at least passable in some exceptions. Yeah. What movie would you suggest?

Oh, that's a good question. I'll give you one. I'll give you one. Okay. My criteria for remakes is simple. I think it's like, you look at the source movie and you're like, was it incredible, like incredible truly in every way, shape, and form the first time? Leave it alone. If there are aspects of it that a remake would really help, one of those might be, hey, it's so old that a lot of people, younger audiences are sleeping on it. They're not, and you can't just show them. Like, it's a wonderful life to me.

I love that movie. Most people love that movie. Even younger audiences will still still find it because it's on television, you know, every holiday. But the black and white, a lot of younger audience, they kind of tune out. Black and white, they start tuning out. Even the color version is soft and, you know. So I go, you know, maybe there's something there, but it's also an incredible film. And do you want to touch it?

I don't know. It's worth the conversation. But the other reason for a remake is absolutely great premise, really, like, awesome in its kind of cheesiness or corkiness or something that, like, to me, the last Starfighter was a sci-fi movie from the 80s, that the CG is so old, you know, like early 80s, bad, primitive. At the time, as a kid, you're like, oh, my God, this is the most amazing thing ever. But even like a lot of the special effects and makeup effects and whatever, it's like, you know, it's kind of a cheesy 80s sci-fi movie. But it's so great and would absolutely be worthy of, I think, making a remake. I've tried to go do it.

Other people have tried to go do it. I think there's a problem like a lot of people get really weird with IP and like we don't want anybody else to touch it and I don't know, stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, I agree with your basic philosophy. I will say that it's a wonderful life. firmly in the don't touch category for me. Understandable. That's understandable.

Because to me that is, like you said, if a movie is basically perfect, just hands off. Because you can't make it better. That movie is, I would put in the perfect category. And listen, I'm with you. It was, like I said, it's more, because I think the message is so important. Like, not to tangent too much here, but it's A Wonderful Life was essentially the first movie that ever really tackled, like, suicide and mental illness.

And what does it mean if you disappear yourself from this world and what would happen to the people around you? And, like, it is so powerful as a film. And God's intervention in all of that. And, oh, man, it just gets me overwhelmed. But more than that, that movie was a miracle that it was ever made. Like, it wasn't basically, it almost never happened. Frank Capra barely got the money, barely got Jimmy Stewart to do it.

Jimmy was fighting a tooth and nail because he had just come back from World War II. And Bro had the most insane PTSD. He was a bomber pilot in World War II and watched hundreds of his fellow airmen die, either falling literally from blowing up in midair, like all the things you've seen in Memphis Bell and all these other war movies. Like he did that. He saw it. He almost died multiple times.

And he came back from war and he was so messed up. and that movie, God literally used that movie to save Jimmy Stewart, like to help him in his mental health to start working through his PTSD. God used that movie to do it. There's entire scenes where he was so off script because he couldn't remember his lines and Capra was like, just speak from your heart, just like say. And he would say stuff that made no sense,

but it was like real and in the moment and they kept it in the movie. Like his scene at the bar where he's praying to God was one take. And he didn't remember all the words. He said what he was in his heart. And he fumbled around in it. And the script supervisor was like, he missed all this. And Kapper was like, it doesn't matter. Print it, we're done.

Because Stewart didn't even have another taking him. And he was looking at the, oh, man, I get over what I'm thinking about it. He was looking at the list of these names of airmen. They were like missing in action that he was still responsible for as their like commander. And he had written letters to their parents and stuff. And he like pulled that out before he's going and doing this scene. Anyway, and then, sorry, last bit about it's a wonderful life, the reason why it's actually so successful around the world in all of our hearts and minds.

And this is such a great, I think, example of how God redeems things. And we forget the power of God's redemption. The movie failed. It bombed. It was not well received, critically a little bit, but it did not do well in the box office. In fact, it did so poorly in the box office that the secretary at the production company, I can't remember what it was at that time, they had bought out Capra's production, Liberty Film. It was somebody else. They were looking at all their IP, and they were looking at what they were going to re-up their trademark or copyright on. And she thought that it was so invaluable that she didn't even re-up their trademark.

or their copyright on the film, so it became public domain. So the reason why we all got it on every TV station since, like, the 70s, and why it's so a part of our life and our culture and when God gave us this beautiful film, is because it first failed at the box office in order to then be in and put through our televisions our whole lives. Like, isn't that amazing? Yeah. Just blows my mind. Anyway, sorry.

And I didn't know that about that movie. We watch it every Christmas Like, you know, every American family does or something And it did strike me recently I don't know why One of the more recent times watching it with my kids Yeah, this is pretty dark You've got a guy that's about to kill himself

And it's just something that like modern Christmas movies Would never go there They would never go anywhere near suicide as a plot point which I think is one of the reasons why modern Christmas movies are often quite bad, but that's a whole other thing. I want to talk a little bit about the political side of it. Before we do, there's one of their, when it comes to the film industry, because I know that you feel strongly about this,

and we've talked just for a second off air about it, and I do too. So AI in the film industry, is this where things are heading? Are we heading to a point where they're just going to type in a prompt and generate a movie and throw it out there for the masses? Are we going there? And how do you feel about that if that's where things had? So the short answer is yes, in my humble opinion. I've been banging this drum for a long time. I've always been quite nerdy when it comes to futurism, technology, like where we're going. the available technologies right now versus what they're going to be versus what they're going to be.

I love it. I just, I love how things work. I have kind of an engineer's brain, and I love understanding all of these things. And also because I love to engineer new ideas and things and like, oh, there's this new, whatever, you know, LED panel and this new solar panel, but you can make this new, you know, whatever, like, things like that. So, as I've been tracking it, my opinion about where we're headed, my prophecy of where we're headed is in very short order, by the way. Everyone debates a lot of these details.

Some people debate what, I mean, you know, not for nothing. Well, we'll get back to the recent Jeremy's Razors commercial. Jeremy and I have very different ideas of where we think AI is going to go and what it's ultimately going to do as far as disruption. I believe that in very short order, AI will be so good that it will be indiscernible from human content, meaning graphics engines will get so good. Invidia graphics engines will get so good.

They basically already are right now. It just depends on how much time you want to spend in the render and everything. but you can get short clips, video clips, of human beings that are entirely generated by AI moving and talking and doing now. So the more compute power we start putting toward all of these AI models, which is the arms race of today, everyone is like compute power. They're opening back up three-mile island reactor so Google can have the compute power to go build more AI. This is where we're going.

Moore's Law, I'm sure you're familiar with the graph of like, here's, you know, technology, fire, the wheel. It's like big spans of horizontal movement and then microchip. And then we go straight out. That's a vertical line of just exponential growth. So people saying two years ago, it's going to be stupid. Look, the pictures got like six fingers. Then it did. Now we're a hundred times better than what that is.

And the next step will be a thousand times better. So if I believe that to be true, and I do believe that to be true, then all of a sudden now you have a technology that allows anyone, studios or Joe Schmo, to sit at home and work with an AI model to then creatively curate whatever you want. A movie, a TV show, a video game, a song, just by prompt, just by saying, you know, I want these elements to it, these types of characters, this feel, this tone, this. style, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, details about it, enter. What in moments you have a one-of-one of any of those types of things that you, by the way, this also plays on people's hubris because now you are the creator. You're the filmmaker. You're all of these. I don't need anybody else. And I get to, and I get to take the credit for this thing. And by the way, rock and roll. I don't begrudge anybody, you know,

activating their creative powers to go make something cool. The problem is, I don't think anybody's thinking through truly downstream of what that means. Because if you give everyone the power to make whatever they want, whenever they want, they don't want what you want or what you make. Not nearly as much. And if it's indiscernible, you know, it'd be one thing if watching a movie made by real humans, you could really tell that's real humans. And there's a lot of people that argue you'll always be able to tell because, you know, emotions are a human thing. and I'm sorry, but even we are replicating what we learn and see. We're all regurgitating some version of something that we've learned. And once AI models, their computing power, thinking power,

is able to scan all of these movies and see where all of these moments of tears and emotion and how those all interact and work through a story, it will, with NVIDIA graphics, it will simulate that on a screen and you will feel it. you will feel it. So I think that we're all in for some really, really dire straits, to be perfectly honest. It's one of the things that I am very, I've been trying to build a studio for years to fix all these other problems in Hollywood. But this is like a whole new level of like, guys,

we got to build this and we got to build it now. And I do think that when we do, we will have created a place that safeguards certified organic human-made content. And when we do that, there will still be a niche audience for it, but it'll be a niche audience. It's like the audience that buys vinyl right now, or shop set a really nice health food store. It costs a little bit more, but it's better for you, you know? Well, let me say, because I agree with everything you said about all of it, except for the last part about it being a niche audience. And that, you might be right. You might be right that down the line when AI just completely takes over and you can just generate a movie by typing it in. And you're also right that if you can do that, then like, why do it?

we need. None of us need to make movies because they don't need to watch ours. That's your point. Yeah. But so maybe that happens. And then people who are making actual art become, they're just playing to this niche crowd. Maybe that. I am cautiously optimistic, or maybe I should say at least I want to be optimistic.

Sure. That it won't be a niche audience because it'll be much great. it'll be still a mainstream audience looking for real art, because that's what art is. Art is, I think there are a lot of legitimate applications for AI. I think that it's a very impressive technology. Sure, absolutely. There are a lot of ways you can use it that are totally legitimate.

But it cannot make art. Like, it literally can't. It can do the thing that looks like it, right? It can do that, but it can't actually make art because art by definition is an expression of the human soul. That's what art is. It is someone conveying something that's deeply within them through an art. That's what makes it art.

So if it's a computer, it's not art. And so what I'm saying is that I think just as art is an expression of human soul, human beings have a deep yearning for art in their own souls. And so they're not going to want to actually go watch the AI-generated movie. For the same reason, this is the comparison I would make. It's not a one-to-one, but it's close. any even slightly advanced computer can make a right now can make a really beautiful painting. Like you could have any computer can make a really gorgeous image, right?

Well, if some art museum out there said they were going to have an art show with a bunch of computer-generated AI art, I don't think anyone would go see it, go look. Maybe as a novelty, but no one's going to act. Because who can? I know that a computer can make a beautiful image. I know that. I'm not impressed by that. The thing that makes the painting impressive is specifically that a person made it. It is specifically that a human being, the brushstrokes. The fact, you know, the statue of David is only impressive because a human being carved that thing out of stone. And if it wasn't that, if it was just made by a computer in two seconds, all of a sudden it goes from being one of the great works of art of all time. to being absolutely nothing. And so that's how I feel. I think it's apparently how you feel. I also think that everyone kind of feels that way.

So I don't know that this can have an audience. I totally hear all that. I would first say that I wonder, I posit if perhaps people have less of a desire specifically for art and more for, creation. And art is a part of creation. But what the audience is now going to be given is the power to create. Now, this is part of the folly, which is it will make people think that they are an artist because they creatively typed in these words. Now, what is a book on your iPad? It's somebody

typed words and it's on your technology. It's on a computer. Would you say that's not art? Because it's on your computer? No, you'd say that's still a book. It's just in a different, right? People are going to type full paragraphs of what they, I mean, it's not coding. It's not like traditional coding, but you're coding creatively coding by telling the computer, this is how I want this book, this story to be represented on this computer as either a film, television show, video game, or song. So we're in a weird no-man's land where, yes, we can all kind of stand a bit more altruistically, those of us who stand altruistically and be like, never.

I'm not going to want that more than I want human stuff. And I would say most people want to pride themselves as being like, now, I'd never do it. But then they're going to be given the opportunity to go create whatever they want whenever they want. And they're going to feel very creative in doing that. But again, I think that it will be, Not only will it be indiscernible, right, but there's so many other parts of human nature that are at play that literally erode our ability to stand that ground. And one of those things is money, bro.

A human-made movie, 20 bucks, right? Let's say, round number. You've got to sell tickets for 20 bucks to make back your money in a decent enough way and a decent enough time to pay off the movie that you made. Okay. You're going to be hit with, want to go see this thing for two bucks? And it's, again, you know it's not made by humans, but oh my God, it looks amazing. It's got all this IP that I already know.

It's Fast and the Furious 21. And, by the way, none of the actors even had to show up because they just use past performances and all that stuff. They CG'd all them in, but half that movie is CG anyway. They're driving cars to the moon. I mean, whatever, you know what I mean? Like, it's already super surreal and out there.

So you're just going to fully, you'll just fully CG it. And the CG will all look better because it's next level AI CG. And on top of that, you'll be able to, you'll get a menu. So it's like Fasten the Furious and you get to even decide which characters you want to be in it. Because like maybe there's something you don't really like and something that you do. And sometimes you want to bring back that character that wasn't that, okay, yeah, it's going to be Vin, and I'm going to bring back, and I want Paul Walker back, and you're going to get Paul Walker back. And on top of that, you might be able to bring back other long-dead actors that were never in a Fast and Furious movie.

You'll be able to go, I want Gene Kelly in this. And because an agent, and these exist, went to the estate of Gene Kelly and said, hey, I'll give you a couple million dollars to use his NIL in making movies and bringing him back to life. They go, give me the money. So now you got Gene Kelly singing in the rain in Fast and the Furious 20. And on top of all of that, you get to scan your face and your voice and you get to be the star of the movie. Or your kids do. And you're telling me that a new Superman movie or Shazam movie or whatever comes out and your kid has the ability to go be Superman? Maybe.

But to me that's all. Well, I think we fundamentally agree because we seem to agree that this is bad. Yeah. Right. But your point is that it's bad, but it is going to take over, and people will just... You think that people's humanity will hold out and it won't give AI? Humanity, yes, but I think it's just, as a spectacle, like that scenario you're describing, sounds like a spectacle that...

And maybe it becomes its own category of thing that people will want to go see, because they could go see their kid as Superman. But it's still not... It's just, it's not what actually makes people connect with the film to begin with. It's why, it's why choose your own adventure books, okay? The most analog version of AI, choose your own adventure book. Those are entertaining for kids. There's no such thing as a choose your own adventure novel that adults read.

Because it's like what I'm reading, Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, I don't want to pick the end. I want to know what the end was for, I want Dostoevsky to, tell me his story. If I'm sitting around a campfire and someone's telling me a story, now if you're sitting around with kids, and if you've told a story to a kid, they might, and you're telling the story, they might chime in and say, oh, no, well, make this happen. Or what, okay, well, what if a monster shows up here? Like, they want you to take their, but with adults, when we're listening to a story, it's like, no, I want to hear your story.

I don't want to, I want to hear your story. Tell me your story. And so I think that maintains, and it's why, here's what I'll say. I think the AI-generated movie can only be successful if we get to a point, and I think this might happen, where they're just not honest with us about whether this is real or not. So if it's so sophisticated that you can't tell and they don't tell us that it's fake, well, then yeah, maybe it could be successful. But if we know that, the problem is that you can go, you watch the movie and you see the spectacle, and you're very impressed with the spectacle. But there's just no way to become emotionally invested in it because no human is involved at all at any level. level and the only reason. Except of the person that created it.

Well, but all they did was just type it into a computer and the computer did the rest. So that's understood. But to them and to everyone like them, I mean, Matt, we don't live in the world that we grew up in. We live in the world that our kids and younger people are growing up in right now. And why are television viewership and even film viewership down is because they all have a smartphone and they're all creators. They're all making TikToks and YouTube videos. this is just going to amplify that to the next level.

Now they get to go make their own... By the way, and keep in mind, unless you tell it specifically what the ending is, it's a surprise to you. You're just giving it some elements in saying, run. And then you get to watch the thing. It's new to you. You gave it a few...

You put some ingredients into the stew and you mixed it up, but you don't know what that stew's going to taste like at all until the end. And people will start getting just enthralled with, well, what is the AI going to do? I wonder what the end will be. And I'll go, and even just for the gimmick alone, people will spend more and more time doing that. If everyone, listen, if everyone only watched two movies a year and everyone chose to now just watch half of their movies as the gimmick of AI, because oh my God, wouldn't it be funny to go to bubaba?

Well, now 50% of the market's already gone. But I don't think it's even going to be half. I think that there's going to be lots and lots of people that are enthralled with the shininess of, and again, this, this, this, this, this, this lure, I think a false one, but that you're the movie maker. You're going to start seeing this all over the place, by the way. The messaging's already starting. It's like, what an amazing way to democratize filmmaking and let everyone have access. It's like you are going to destroy the industry. Like, it will not survive. It not survive in a large way. I mean, it will. I do think it will become more of a niche thing. By the way, and I hope I'm wrong, bro. I don't want to be. This is not a

Nostradamus, I think that, like, I genuinely want this to be wrong. I want people to wake up and recognize not just for Hollywood, every industry around the world. If we're not careful, and by the way, even if we are careful, that's the crazy thing. Even if we are careful, it's going to start disrupting workforces all over the world and very soon, man. So is there any way, let's say that your vision is correct about the inevitability of, not just the technology, but people actually glomming onto it in the way you're describing. Because, again, in my view, what you're describing is just simply the death of art. It's just the extinction of art.

And art is one of the things that makes life worth living. It's one of the things that makes us human. And so in my mind, fighting against the extinction of art is, if that's not worth a fight, then nothing is. you can't just give into it and allow it to happen. I completely agree. So is there anything that can be done in your somewhat darker vision of the future? Is it anything that can be done to stop that and to preserve art in a very real sense in the culture? Absolutely.

So, and again, I'm biased, but this is part of what I'm trying to do in the process of creating Wildwood Studios, which is this vision that God gave me many years ago. It's not just build a movie studio, and it's not just build a living community within that and taking care of people and giving people better lives, right? That was already baked into it. But what's dawned on me is that as we move into this new world where AI will, in fact, start to displace everyone in every industry, I do believe eventually. How long per industry, I don't know. I think Hollywood is we're the canary in the coal mine, basically. But there's a lot of jobs we don't want and never wanted, right? Like a lot of grunt stuff, a lot of, like, you know, being in a factory and doing some

monotonous thing or pushing a lot of people. So I think collectively will be, it won't be great for people that are now looking for a new job, but, but like as a society, we will be able to start to minimize jobs that are not ones that are, you know, help people flourish in their happiness or whatever it is. And then as I was kind of breaking that down, I go, well, where do we flourish? What do we require as human beings? Like, what did God create us to do? And I think there's two general fields that we are suited for, that God created us for, that we thrive in when we're doing it well and with other people that help us to thrive in it. And that's creation and discovery. And to me, that's basically all of the arts and sciences. So what we need to do is figure out ways to

actual places, campuses, if you will, that are fostering, safeguarding, strengthening as many jobs within the arts and sciences as we can. And continuing to give humans more opportunity in those places, because those are all the jobs we're ultimately going to filter down, too, I think. They're the only ones that make any sense to me. Because AI will, you'll want, every industry is going to replace people with anything that's this or anything. anything that's just nothing but thinking and computing and like all of it immediately.

It's all happening right now. The faster Elon makes cars and actual robots that are awesome and the faster those get AI in them that's even more awesome, the faster every job gets replaced. Why would you have anyone hammering anything or cleaning toilets if you can have a robot do all of that stuff, right? Like this is where we're headed. But forget all of that stuff. Like let's help people to just stay within these features.

and be like, go create, whether it's art. By the way, and I think that they're both linked to the arts and sciences, because you are creating new things while you're discovering new things. And you're discovering new things while you're creating new things. And so all of these are kind of very Venn diagram together. That's what I intend to do. I hope other people go and do the same thing. But I'm about to welcome my first child into the world the beginning of April,

and I'm so excited to be a dad at long last. but there's not a chance that I would ever think that they're going to go to some traditional school at this point. I already have a lot of issue with traditional, not even just university, but like traditional school as it is right now. And there's a lot of, whether you want to call a conspiracy or whatever, with Rockefeller and how all that stuff was set up in order to just kind of make factory workers. I mean, make kids do the thing exactly at the right time and that, da, da, da, da. So we're already, we've been crushing, I think our children. in spirits for a long time when it comes to being outside, particularly young boys. Like, let them go run around and get all that stuff out of them. That's not just ADD and

all of that stuff all the time. That's them being a boy. And let them learn about the earth and learn about making a fire and, you know, whatever. And girls too, whatever. I mean, allow them to go create and discover, create and discover. And their educations will be just fine if we focus on those things. Freedom runs deep in our nation's DNA. It started when we stood up to unfair British taxes and their overpriced tea. When they tried forcing us to pay, we threw that tea right into the Boston Harbor. And you know what? It worked out pretty well for us, I'd say.

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Again, that's puretalk.com slash Walsh to claim your new iPhone or Galaxy with qualifying purchase from PureTalk America's wireless company. Visit puretalk.com slash Walsh for details. Well, I only got a couple minutes left, and I wanted to talk about, we ended up talking about AI, which to me we could talk about that for five hours. Oh, man. I find it to be not only fascinating, but perhaps the most important, one of the most important subjects at the moment. But I did want to ask you just a little bit about this, because you've mentioned referenced it a couple of times, sort of coming out of the political closet. that you came out and endorsed RFK Jr. Right first and then Donald Trump.

What propelled you to do that? So I've always been very politically, I don't know, like aware or tuned in or savvy, but, you know, like trying to track what's going on. Enough that I know what's going on, right? There's so many things, as we're now learning with Doge, like the amount of just layers and layers of obfuscation and corruption that personally I've known about my whole life because my parents, one of the great things they taught me and my sisters,

was to have a healthy level of distressed for the government and for all large industry because absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that's absolutely what we've been seeing, unfortunately, for a really long time. So I've looked at every administration through a lens of like, well, what is really going on here? Right? This isn't just red versus blue because the reality is there's people on the red and blue that actually are decent human beings that actually do want a better world. They disagree on how to get there, but there's decency within them. And there's people on the red and blue who are not decent people who are absolute swamp monsters and who are pulling secretly together toward these other agendas and whatever all that is.

loads and loads and loads of corruption. And so because of that, I haven't really found any presidential candidate to be all that inspiring all of my adult life. I was intrigued by Trump in that he wasn't a career politician, but I had enough about him in his brashness and kind of bulliness and, you know, the things that most people take umbrage with. I was not a fan of and, you know, other things that he has said or done or his style. I was like, no, this isn't, when I imagine a president of the United States in every way, shape, and form, you know, not that we ever get a perfect one, but like, we have our standards, and we have these things that we look for. That's not the guy that I was looking for. But it certainly also wasn't Hillary or Biden or Kamala. Because I think that

while they might, you know, be more eloquent, I guess, I mean, you know, one could say that Hillary was, a more eloquent candidate, maybe even Biden before his decline. I don't think Kamala was very eloquent at all. Lots of word salad there. But that whole apparatus, the underpinnings of that whole party, you know, had Bobby Kennedy run as a Democrat, I would have absolutely voted for a Democrat in this last election. Because to me, Bobby was finally, at long last, not a perfect human being, but somebody that I absolutely believed was a decent human being who had gone through a lot in his life and was very honest about what he had gone through in his life

and genuinely has a heart for wanting to not just make America healthy again, save this country, save it from itself, save it from the corruption that he saw firsthand in the Democratic Party, which is what ultimately kept him from being on that ticket in the expedited primary that nobody voted in to put Kamala in that spot, and then for them to just shut him out,

but they shot him out because they knew that he could not be a puppet. He would not be a puppet. He would not be controlled in that. he actually has integrity. Tulsi Gabbard as well. So I was like, listen, I don't know where this is going to go. An independent candidate hasn't won since, I mean, was it Lincoln, right, or something like that? Something crazy? I don't know.

Lincoln was Republican. He ran as a Republican, but he started as an independent or something, I thought. Anyway. Been a long time. Yeah, it's been a minute. But so just from a human standpoint, right? Didn't agree with everything, but agreed with a lot. particularly when it came to a lot of the health stuff and things that I think we all need to be

very concerned about, and it's very real. At the very least, at the very least, we should all have full transparency. Let us see all of the studies and all of the data about all of these drugs and all of these vaccines and all of these food additives and everything. Why is that so hard to see? Because of lots and lots of corruption. So I'm like, okay, I'm all in with this guy. Like, wherever he's gone, I'm going. And I had the pleasure of meeting him and talking to him enough and knowing people around him very personally. And I was like, he was vetted. He was vetted to me.

He was who I really fully believed would have been the best president this country has ever seen, probably since his uncle. And who also had his own foibles. But then the Democratic Party made that impossible for him, suing him to keep him off ballots,

and then suing to keep him on ballots and all of the chicanery. And then, you know, Trump is nearly killed. And there, I think all of us, in every party, on every level, every end of the spectrum, That was a massive, massive moment for Trump particularly. But in that massive moment, I and many others like me saw this incredible, I think God-inspired

shift. I think that was a miracle that Donald Trump lived. I think that there is no doubt the, I mean, like it's crazy to think about that just that, just that. And like, wow, wow, wow, wow. But it brought a humility to Donald Trump that I don't think existed in him before, at least not on that level. And that's something I need in a leader. I need somebody who has at least some kind of humility to recognize that they are fallible.

They are completely human and killable and debtable. And that we have an opportunity and a responsibility as leaders in this country to make this place better, to make other people's lives better, not just our own vanity, not just our own riches, which I feel like in the first one, in his first, you know, run, there was a bit more of that. And I don't think that's happening. I think he recognizes that a lot of people saw in that and saw him do it. Like, dude, why weren't you more effective? And there was a lot of things against him, understandably. But this time he's like taking no prisoners and he's signing orders and he's like taken charge and he's doing what he promised he was going to do. And when was the last time any president really went in that hot and was like, we're doing it.

And he made promises to the Maha people. And for Bobby to go and join him, I trusted Bobby. So Bobby said, and I talked to, I said, have you talked to him enough? I asked him and Tulsi both, have you talked to President Trump enough to have vetted to know that this is real. This isn't just some play. This isn't just some political move. Like he means what he's saying. And they're like, he means it.

I'm like, great. Well, then if that's what's happening, then I, vote for that man, and I will do everything that I can in order to get him into office. Because the alternative to me was not an option. In the way that I know a lot of people on the other side felt the same way about Donald Trump, I get that, you know. Based on the way that the media has been working and operating and propagandizing for so long, I understand why a lot of people were made to fear another Trump presidency and are still made to feel fear another Trump presidency. and that's why I felt like it doesn't matter what happens to me.

It doesn't matter what happens to my career. If I save my career, but Kamala gets into office and we continue down this death spiral to the bottom that I fully believed that we were on, and I knew that I just sat on my hands because I was afraid I might lose this movie or that or whatever. I was like, I can't. God did not build me to do that.

build me to fight. God built me to lead. God built me to sacrifice if need be. Far too many people make way too many decisions nowadays for self-preservation. I get it. We should be smart and not do stupid things. We want to preserve our life and go live it as long and healthy and strong as we can. But damn it, man, this country is literally built on people that said, I might die today. And then they made it through that day and they said, I might die today and today. and today and today and today. And I'm like, what good is my faith in God if I'm not trusting that, let's say my whole career in Hollywood goes away?

Well, I'll find other work. There will be other things. But I am not going to go to bed. If I sat on my hands and she got elected, for the rest of my life I would be kicking myself. And more than that, I would feel like those, I'm sure, very well-meaning Germans in 1930s Germany that were like, you know, maybe it's not going to get so bad. You know, he's very yelly, but maybe it's all good.

don't say anything, don't want to. I'm sure there were very good Germans that were like, it's not going to go totally off the rails. And it did. And it happened because enough of them didn't actually just stand up and go, nope, no, no, sorry, no, not going to happen. So what has happened? It's been, it's been, it hasn't been that long,

but maybe to feel the full effect. But have you been canceled? I mean, what's happened to your... No, I mean, I haven't been canceled. Try as some might. I haven't been, you know, canceled. canceled in whatever that traditional sense of the reward would be, where it's like, my agents have dropped me.

And, like, I am in very good standing with everyone on my team. I let them all know. When Tulsi called me and was like, hey, would you do this town hall with me and Bobby as they were endorsing Trump? I was like, can I think and pray on this for a second? Because this is fully crossing the Rubicon. And I felt that. I felt that conviction from God.

And I was like, okay, let's go do this. So, you know, that, that, I told my team. I said, I'm probably going to go do this. and I need you, I need to let you know, and I'm hoping that you are going to support me in this. And they said, listen, it's probably not the best career decision and that there will probably be some blowback, but we will support you and whatever you feel like you need to do. And I'm very grateful for them for that, you know, because I'm sure a lot of other agents and managers would have been like, no, no, no, that's, you know, not just career suicide, but how dare you go and whatever it is.

So my team's all with me. I still have very good relationships with lots of people in the industry. I've lost some friends. There are people that stop following me on social media and don't return my calls and stuff. And it's a bummer, but I still love them. Again, I empathize with a lot of people on the other side who I think have been lied to for a really long time. And if I know they have,

how can I be angry with them? Because they might be believing something that I know to be not true. Have you heard from other actors, people in Hollywood, who agree with you, kind of whispering like that? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, lots, actually.

And, you know, no doubt there are others. I know that there's a lot of people in Hollywood that voted for Trump, but they didn't and couldn't say anything or felt like they couldn't. And again, and I don't begrudge any of them. Like, everyone's got to do what they feel God calling them to do. And I knew that I had to do that for myself. I don't know if, like, I don't know where I stand in, I'm sure there's plenty of casting meetings that are going on

where they've got a list of names like you normally do. and they're going through the names, and my name will come up and somebody be like, not that guy. Sorry. No, not that guy. You know, he's a trumper or he believes in Wackadoo, Bobby Kennedy. No doubt. There are people that feel that way about me, and they're going to keep me from getting hired in those rooms.

But that's okay. I still have plenty of other jobs, film and television and some podcast stuff that's coming up and building the studio, and I got my baby on the way. and, you know, I'm busy and blessed and grateful, not just that I followed the conviction that God put on my heart, but that it wasn't ultimately in vain. And we actually did it, man. Like, I remember, I was shooting a film in the Republic of Georgia while the election was happening. And I was on my phone. And we were up, you know, hours before everybody else in the States. And I'm looking at my phone. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, we actually are going to do this. We're actually going to avoid going off the cliff right.

now. Is there still a lot more work to do to keep, like, we're back paddling right now. You know, the waterfall's still up there, but we're getting away from it. We're getting away from it. We've got to keep back paddling and get over to shore. But I feel so much more inspired and it's all worth it to go fight for what's right. And speaking of everything you have going on right now, one of them is the new film, The Unbreakable Boy. Yes. Yes. The Unbreakable Boy comes out February 21st. Man, I'm proud of everything I've done on some level, very grateful for everything I've gotten to do. But I am particularly proud of this film. It is a very grounded slice of life film. No superheroes, no big, you know, bang and anything like that.

But it's a true story. It's about a family. The husband and wife, on their third date get pregnant. They're like, oh my gosh, what do we do? And they're like, all right, well, let's keep it. Let's do this. Let's, you know, let's see this through. And we'll figure out our relationship as we go. And they did. And it was hard. and learning how to love themselves and love each other and then love their two sons that came into the world, the first of which Austin, when he was born, like just was crying incessantly, like far more than a regular, you know, situation. And they, like two years old, they hadn't tested. And he had brittle bones disease, osteogenesis imperfecta. And that was already a massive curveball for the family, as you can imagine. They're kind of navigating that. They had a second son. He's good. No health ailments or anything. But then

a few more years goes on and Austin starts presenting in a very atypical way. And I'm like, what's going on with this? And so they take him to another doctor. And the doctor's like, and this is, you know, 30 or let's see, Austin was probably, so I don't know, 20 plus years at this point ago. And the doctor's like, your son is on the autistic spectrum, what we call autism. And so, you know, this is going to be his life. And another big curveball, particularly for Scott Lorette, who I play, the father and husband, who is just an example of someone who is fighting, fighting, accepting the life that God has given you and trying to numb it in self-medicating through booze and his wife's also going through self-medicating through like, you know,

retail therapy and they're at odds and the kids are struggling. and, you know, so it's, but it's got so much love and so much heart and so much redemption. And it's honestly, I've never heard of or seen a film that tackles autism, maybe at all, but I know they're out there, but certainly not as authentically and as beautifully as we had the opportunity to in this film. And listen, autism is ubiquitous at this point in our lives, right? Like either we have it, our kids have it, our friends' kids have it, or, you know, whatever. And I think that to the extent that we can be telling a story that does shine a light on that

and also honors those who do have it and shows the beauty in this kid and how this kid really saves his dad's life. And that through Austin's eyes and his heart that he has this big, beautiful heart, Scott learns how to love his own self and love his own life and love his family better. And, you know, there's faith underpin through all of it. It's a beautiful film. Bring some some cleaning. I don't know if you ever get Terry edit movies. You seem very stoic, but if you do, then bring some Kleenex.

And I would love for anyone out there watching, please go see it. And if you like it, tell your friends, it's the little movie that could. We shot it like four and a half years ago, and it's been sitting on the shelf. And finally, we get to get it out to the world. So very excited about it. Is it going to be in theaters? Yes. In theaters, February 21st.

And that's the best place to go see it. you know, aside from supporting us as a film, that's always a big thing for us as a film. But I do think that movie theaters, there's something that's special about them that I think a lot of people don't talk about, which is we used to go to big communal things, right? Like a movie theater was one of those things. You're sitting in a theater full of a bunch of people that are not you, that are not like you, that believe in completely different things. And you know that. and yet you all laugh at the same jokes and you cry at the same moments and it shows that, oh yeah, we actually are more alike than we're not alike. The more we go sit at home

and don't go to movie theaters, the less we're conditioned, I think, to feel that empathy with our neighbor and people that are different from us. So I just think that there's something beautiful about that in a movie theater as well. Well, I don't want to take up any more of your time, but it's a fascinating conversation. Thank you, man. Really appreciate you having me. Yeah, thanks for stopping by. Hi, this is Andrew Claven. If you like American flags and automatic weapons and shaking your fist at homosexuals

while fighter jets fly over in formation, come to the Andrew Claven Show. We don't have any of that. But we will be making fun of idiots and praising God and laughing our way through the fall of the Republic. It's like an insane asylum for happy people. That's the Andrew Claven show right here on Daily Wire Plus.