The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Do Inflated Stats Lead to NBA Playoff Failure? Plus Mark Wahlberg

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

Russillo shares his theory of how players with historically high usage rates correlate to their team's performance in the NBA playoffs (0:28). Then Ryen talks with actor-producer Mark Wahlberg about his new film, 'Uncharted,' his start in the music industry, some of his past works, including 'Fear' and 'Boogie Nights,' the casting process for 'Entourage,' and more (9:39). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (30:45). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Mark Wahlberg Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A little different today on a Wednesday. I'm going to take a look at something that's happening historically in basketball. We haven't had this kind of run before, but actually why it doesn't work. Mark Wahlberg on a new movie coming out. His career, I asked him about fear. It doesn't go well. And life advice. I've talked about usage rate before on the show, and I was working on something here, and it's kind of a theory, and I think it's been proven, and it's a little nerdy, but I want to get into it because I think it's actually very important with what we're seeing

in today's version of the NBA, where the best player during the regular season is getting the ball more than we've ever seen at any point in the history of this game. Now, just to remind everybody, without getting into all the math of what usage rate basically is, it's a player's field goal attempts, the free throw attempts, their turnovers,

the team's total minutes, and then you divide that by the team's attempts and all these different things and team turnovers and the player's minutes into that. So basically, Russell Westbrook in his triple double season is the highest usage rate we've ever seen in the history of the NBA. Because if you watch those games, he had the ball in his hands as much as any player we've ever seen. All right. So I think it's pretty simple. And I'm going to run through some of these players. Now,

what I mean by what it's doing to today's game, which I think sometimes too, with with a force of analytics behind it, because I've also said this, I don't think there's ever been a bigger gap between what we see in the regular season, the regular season version of basketball and the playoff version of basketball. But it's a pretty simple concept, right? Hey, this guy's the best player. Let's make

sure he has the ball in his hands the entire time. I haven't always loved the Harden stuff, but at the same time, he's a terrific shooter. He's a really great passer. You have to defend him a certain way. He was great on those lobs when they would play with a big, when they were five out. He was tough to deal

with because he's getting to the free throw line a ton. So I think if you're Darryl Morey and that front office, you're going, well, why would we be running different stuff where he doesn't have the ball in his hands? I think at the playoffs, it becomes a problem because I also think as we go through some of these numbers, when you're very predictable as a team offensively, it's just easier to defend because you become easier to defend when you're playing each other, maybe four to seven games in a playoff series. Now, let's look at what we've had happening here now recently.

If you go through the last 10 years, 12 of the top 20 usage rates in NBA history have happened in just the last 10 years. Only two of the top 30 individual usage rate seasons have not been in the last 20 years. The only 90 season that I could find, I had to go all the way down to Michael Jordan in 92, 93 and his usage rate, not the highest for him, but the only actual one that registered was the 40th highest usage rate. So the highest usage rate from a 90s at the decade from 90s basketball player was MJ. And that ranks 40th all time. We've had 10 top 20s in just the last five years.

Okay. So what does that mean? Well, what does it mean for playoff success? Because if my theory is that I think that you can play this way in the regular season, put up huge numbers, get a couple MVPs out of this deal, I don't know that it's actually turned out to equal any kind of playoff success. And it's actually maybe a warning for one team. It could have been two, but we had a trade.

All right, so let's run through it. The top usage rate season in NBA history is Westbrook in 16-17. They lost in five games in the first round. Harden, so this is one through 20. Harden, 18-19. They lost in the second round at Golden State. Kobe, 0-5-0-6. They lost in the first round at Phoenix.

Westbrook, 14-15. Remember, KD only played 27 games that season. They didn't even make the playoffs. Michael Jordan, 86-87, first-round sweep. Iverson, 0-1-0-2, lost in the first round. Giannis, 19-20, lost in the second round. Luka, 19-20, lost in the first round. Embiid, 21-22 season, so an active season here.

We obviously don't know what they're going to do in the playoffs, but pre-Harden, as great as Embiid is, as much as I love watching this guy and that he may win an MVP that he's certainly deserving of, it wouldn't really mean much historically for playoff success. You wouldn't bet on that. DeMarcus Cousins follows him in 16 and 17 with a high user rate season. He got traded that year and both of his teams missed the playoffs. Harden, 2019-20. They lost in the second round to the Lakers in five games. Dwayne Wade, 2008-2009. They lost in the first round. Jermaine O'Neal,

2004-05. Lost in the second round. Harden, 17-18. Western Conference Finals. That's when they lost in seven games to Golden State. Michael Jordan, 2001-2002. Missed the playoffs. Luka, 2020-21, another first-round loss. Those are those Clippers series. Iverson, this is the only one that made it to the finals. The 2001 season where they lost to the Lakers in the finals. Luka, 21-22, that's his active season right now. Iverson, 2005-2006, missed the playoffs. Kobe in 11-12, second round.

So we have 20 seasons, two are active, Embiid and Doncic now. Seven first round exits, five second round exits, one Western Conference Finals, and one NBA Finals without an irons. There's no real debate on this. It's a pretty damning trend trend and it's something that we're seeing more often players having the ball in their hands more often during the regular season than at any other point and there is nothing historically that tells you that this works out the overall playoff record for these teams is 64 and 78 now you could you could argue, well, wait,

they have high usage rates on these teams because the teams weren't that good, so what else were they going to do? That's true in some cases, but it's certainly not true for every one of these 20 teams that we had. I just, I don't understand if you watch one person have the ball

a historic level of time, that just becomes easier to defend. I don't know that anybody playing against it would argue. Like, yes, this player's great, but if I know that he's the primary all the time and there's not a ton of ball movement, it's just somebody at the top deciding what they're going to do the entire time,

then we can all shade towards that person because their tendency is that they've been playing this way for six months, The teammates have been playing this way for six months. And then all of a sudden have ball movement and people cutting like crazy. And now more people are taking shots in tighter spots, bigger pressure games. That doesn't really make a lot of sense if we didn't ask you to do that for six months. Let's take this further. Now, I also think historically we really dump on previous generations, but some of it's understood.

I don't always have a perfect answer for how we should deal with historic numbers compared to the evolution of a player today. Many times I've argued with people or even players themselves that played in those eras about what today's game is versus the time that they played because basketball players are very protective. I think all people are, but basketball players to an extreme,

that doesn't really make any sense because the evolution of all athletes is proving that people are just better. We keep playing these sports. They get better at doing it. The shot-making alone in today's game is absurd. But I'll also defend a previous generation, if you want to go way back decades and say, okay, well, yes, people didn't make a lot of shots and that led to a lot of rebounds.

I mean, some of the numbers, right? Some of the numbers when you go back are nuts. The rebounding numbers are crazy. You know, like how did Wilt and Bill Russell average 23 rebounds a game for the playoffs? Like how did that happen? Like, well, people brought the ball up. They played at a really fast pace and they took a lot of shots and they weren't that great at making them. I mean, Bob Cousy gets dumped on all the time because he never cracked

40%. I think he's like in the thirties for his entire career. I looked at it even further. If you go back and look at the field goal percentage leaders historically year by year, the first NBA season we had somebody lead the league at over 50% shooting was Wilt Chamberlain in 60-61. I mean, hell, there was a season in the forties where the leading shooter in the league at over 50% shooting was Wilt Chamberlain in 60-61. I mean, hell, there was a season in the 40s where the leading shooter in the league, the highest field goal percentage in the league was just under 35%. If you go look at 1969, and I'm just kind of picking out different stuff, the player who finished 10th in field goal percentage in 1969 shot it at 44%. If you looked at that today, LaMarcus Aldridge is that guy right now, 10th, he's at 56%. If you looked at that today,

LaMarcus Aldridge is that guy right now, 10th, he's at 56%. If you go through all the historical year-by-year stuff and look at the top 10, the 60s, 70s, it's littered with guys finishing in the top 10 that don't even crack 50%. That's impossible now. It doesn't happen.

But it's just kind of the way that the game was played. So we can be both dismissive of it, but also understand it. And when I look at some of the single season numbers that we've had, all of these triple doubles, these guys putting up stuff we've never seen before. Remember, I was always joking how like I'd see some playoff number or, hey, this hasn't been done since Kareem Wilt and then it'd be Lou Dort. You're like, what the hell is going on here? I think you always have to look at it and go, okay, what was that era? Because when I look at the lack of success combined with the individual success, that statistical success, we could be years from looking back at what we're seeing right now going, yeah, that's when they just put the ball in one guy's hand the entire time.

The guy put up huge numbers, won awards, but they didn't really do anything in the playoffs. Two teams, two teams out of the 18 that I have that are not active seasons, only two got out of the second round. Uncharted comes out February 18th. Some crazy backstory to this movie and the star Mark Wahl, joins us on the podcast. Before I get to all this stuff, kind of the obligatory Massachusetts to Massachusetts guy stuff. You've been out in L.A. a long time. I just moved here a few years ago. It's been a pretty incredible run by these teams.

How do you deal with that, knowing that you just don't want to come straight out and tell what could potentially be a lot of your fans that you can't stand this run? You know what? I wasn't mad that they won yesterday. We've had an unprecedented run. I mean, I was sitting there with Mr. Kraft yesterday and it was like, it was so weird being at a Super Bowl and not having like the stress and the anxiety of you know the slight possibility that we may go home upset but you know I and I was I was playing for the Bengals I I love Joe Burrow and I thought you know it's good for the league it's good for small market teams but I was I wasn't mad about them that was that was uh certainly not the worst thing yeah see I thought that was the that was kind of the answer i'd expect is you know you just sit there and go it's the rams like you're gonna be mad about it right

yeah all right i love it there's a bunch of guys that are on the team that i'm friendly with too so what happened this movie is in development for 12 years which if you know anything about hollywood you're like yeah it's about right it's about average um the shift from this is that you originally were going to play the younger guy and by the time this came to light you had to change how did this all go about it was crazy and i was obviously i was blindsided by it a little bit i was you know not expecting that i figured i had a couple more good rounds left in me but i'd get the call originally we were supposed to do it right after The Fighter, David Russell and I. We had pitched an idea at Sony,

so they were gung-ho about it. He turned in a script that they didn't want to make. So various directors came on board, and I was always kind of loosely attached. And then I get the phone call that they're going to make the movie. So I'm like, oh, cool. This is great. I'm like, who's the guy? Who's the other guy? And I figured, you know, maybe it would be Jack Nicholson,son or maybe Gethner, who was originally attached when I was there.

And they said Tom Holland. I was like, I know Tom Holland. The kid Tom Holland? And then, of course, it dawned on me that, yes, I have now transitioned into an age step into the older guy. step into the older guy but uh of course right away i thought you know what it's an advantage for me because he's gonna have to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to the stunts i'm the kind of slick savvy old guy who's basically barking orders and getting everybody to do all the the heavy lifting for him you know so so it was uh it was a plus for me you know holland's had a nice little run here.

Cause you know, originally I was thinking about how I wanted to map out the questions of you. He did. You pull them aside, you say, Hey, but you get a few Spider-Mans under your belt. I,

you know, I don't know. Can he, can he even be talked to anymore at this point? Yeah. You know, I mean, he's, he definitely,

he's, he knows that he's successful. Right. But he also knows that, you know, there's a, there's a, knows that there's a long road ahead of him and he's doing things that have big IP attached and he wants to do small, smart acting pieces in between to kind of prove himself as a really strong, dramatic actor and show his talents on that front.

But yeah, he was definitely into the action because most of the Spider-Man stuff he's got the mask on. It could be one of any three doubles that they have. And he really wanted to show that it was him doing a lot of the stuff, which I found to be annoying because it's Saturday. And I'm like, I don't care what action looks like. You know, I'm worried about the chemistry and the humor and the energy in the scene. But but no, he's he's got his head on right for for that much success that early on he's he's he's in a good place yeah i mean i guess i probably should have phrased that differently

if not that he's he's kind of like a jerk or anything like that no no no it's all good but but it's if there's going to be moments where you're kind of you know you've been around you've done everything you've done all these different genres been incredibly successful it's worked out where you look at him going you know it's not entirely the same blueprint but i don't know it just must be a weird kind of almost observation from your success to now see somebody in this next generation kind of like hey all these things are going to be in front of you man and trying to keep this thing going yeah yeah and but we we had many many a talk about kind of the long haul the marathon marathon approach as opposed to you know so much

success comes so quickly and that really becomes hard to maintain that um you know you want a nice solid foundation underneath you but he's he's definitely been very smart about the other choices that he makes and he realizes that it's a it's an opportunity to have that platform being spider-man to give him these other jobs and really showcase his talent. So I think he's going to be good. He's grounded. He's also, he's an athlete. And so he's cocky and confident

and he'll challenge you. And he's the pesky. It's weird for me because I'm the youngest of nine. I was always the younger brother chomping at everybody, nipping at their heels and always trying to one-up everybody. And so when he was, chomping at everybody, you know, nipping at their heels and always trying to, you know, one-up everybody. And so when he was doing that with me at first,

I was like, wait a second, what's going on? And, you know, I was ready to kind of just be the mentor, but then I got it. And we actually really utilized that in the movie and the chemistry is fantastic. Even if you had a great script and lots of cool action and, you know, shots that you can put into the trailer that would intrigue people, but it's the chemistry that i think will uh will really set people

uh the movie above uh you know what what people expect people love the video game i mean obsessed with it uh yeah right right incredibly so it's it's it's a bit like you know the marvel world's been around a lot longer but when you are doing something creatively and taking this thing that people care about this much uh how concerned are you with that challenge and how it plays out eventually yeah i mean you definitely feel the responsibility to get it right you've got the loyal diehard gamers who have it's also because the game itself is very cinematic um it's great storytelling but also the the player is in control of the characters. It's theirs. They own it.

And they, you know, they really feel like, my God, if you don't get it right, it's going to be a problem. So we were definitely focused on making sure that we did the characters justice for the diehard gamers. And we also wanted to attract an audience that might have never played the game and doesn't know that it's a video game because it does lend itself to be adapted to the screen because it's so cinematic were you ever close and grabbing any of those marvel bags because i i'm worried about how many roles there are left for you no no no i listen i've always said i was i was developing six billion dollar man for a while that was as close as i could get

to doing the superhero thing guy still wears normal clothes and you know just can you know do all those wish-fulfilling things that all of us would want to be able to do running faster jumping and having these powers but i don't think i could walk out of the trailer with the cape and this band-aid suit on it's not it's not really my my thing so i don't know maybe if a cool villain or something came along, but I've never been kind of in pursuit of something like that. Although I was up for, and I dodged the bullet with the role of Robin years

ago when they did the Batman and Robin movie. Was that Chris O'Donnell? Yeah, Chris O'Donnell ended up playing the part. I was in talks with Joel Schumacher for a little bit, the filmmaker, but it didn't pan't pan out so lucky uh lucky for me hey so there's no regret is what you're so we can break that news now no no you know i've been fortunate in that you know i mean there were some parts that i could have played that i was attached to at one point that ended up

becoming hits but nothing like it was like oh my god if i only had done that uh in my my whole entire career would have been different so i've been fortunate that way yeah the reason i've you know i'd like for a bunch of different reasons but the the thing that i've always admired is you do try a bunch of different stuff like i've seen interviews when you did ted you were talking to your wife and then she would say like if this doesn't work you know so what what goes in it's kind of like you were talking about with holland you're the long game here, but you probably have tried different things, not only just behind the scenes and everything else, but how do you kind of put it together? How do you figure out like, okay, I can try this, although this may be more risk here,

but I know that you need to go back to some of the other stuff that everybody's expecting from me. Yeah. I mean, I've always been kind of put in a little box, whatever it was at time, you know, before I did comedy, people like, oh, he can only do action. Or I actually started more with dramatic roles after Boogie Nights and Basketball Diaries and roles like that and Fear. So it was like I was just kind of challenging myself and trying to defy the expectations of, you know, so I always wanted to do something a little bit more challenging, a little bit more out of the box. And always the complete opposite of the last thing I did as well. If I'm doing an action movie for six months and I'm like, okay, I don't want to do this anymore. I'd rather go do a comedy. You know, make myself and other people laugh. And then it's just about also kind of being older, embracing, getting older, playing a dad, playing the elder statesman, all those things.

I always want to do something different. You brought up one of my favorite movies ever, and that's Fear. First Date was somebody, and they were like, he brought me to Fear. She wasn't super into that choice. I read something.

Do you know this? Oddly enough, it's really, you know, that movie is more beloved by females than anybody else. I don't know. I guess I gave off a weird vibe. So I don't know. I'm going to tell you. It was a long time ago. But she, all right.

So I don't know if this is true or not. If it just becomes one of those things that's on the internet. So then everybody just repeats it. It's over over over again that the original script of fear was that your character your your father your biological father was actually the dad reese witherspoon's father who had assaulted your biological mother in college and that this was revenge but that also meant that the revenge entailed you dating your half sister which is why people were like no this doesn't make any sense you have this look on your face that none of this is true no i never heard that before no the only the only the the the interesting

story about that whole process was when i met the director i had i'd made three movies but none of them had come out so i did renaissance man i did basketball diaries and i did uh there's the other movie i did they hadn't come out yet and so um when jamie foley had met leonardo dicaprio uh you know they were talking leo about playing that part he was like this is not really for me but you got to meet this guy mark wohlberg and he was like who's that he's like all right well just you know the rapper marky mark he's like yeah he's like he's him and he was like, who's that? And he's like, all right, well, just, you know, the rapper Marky Marky's like, yeah, he's like him. And he's like, what are you out of your mind? I said, he's not an actor. He said, no, I made a movie with him. He's really good. You should check them out. So just out of curiosity, he set up a meeting with me. We hung out in New York.

We hit it off. I mean, we must've spent like seven, eight hours together, met at a bar, hung out, had dinner. And by the time I i got home he called me and he was so apologetic he was like dude i am so sorry i want to be your friend but i i mean i can't cast you in this movie i said dude i only hung out with because i really thought you're a funny cool guy i said it's all good don't worry about it you know maybe we'll do something down the line and then he felt bad so he was like he knew that there was these other parts of the kind of friends and you know the rest of the gang so he was like let me give you one of these parts of the friends and the rest of the gang. So he was like, let me give you one of these parts.

But the parts are so small. Why don't you just audition you playing the lead? Because we can actually see what you can do. And so I went and auditioned for the part. And then he literally said to me in the room, he goes, I'm going to tell the studio, if they don't hire you to be the star of this movie, then I'm doing it and i was like okay i guess you know if you want to put yourself on a limb like that and that's that's how i got the part by no no connection to the dad being related and none of that stuff yeah i don't know that was i was like i could see how that was taken

out of the script because it was kind of a weird comeback move be like hey i'm also my half sister uh yeah was it was it difficult i mean at that point you're probably making money so maybe it wasn't too expensive but to get the nicole forever tattoo removed uh yeah no it wasn't a real tattoo it wasn't a real tattoo all right i my research sucks on that one too. I had all my other tattoos removed. You did? You've been asked about this, but I've never had the chance to sit down with you because with ESPN, it'd be so quick to turn and burn. You have this music part of you that's so successful, but I would imagine deep down, you're much happier doing what you are doing now because the return to music has never felt like something you want to do, right? No, no. I think initially when I started in music, I was like, all right, this is what I'm doing. And then I was getting approached by people to be in movies and act.

But I was just kind of reluctant until I had that first experience with Penny Marshall and Danny DeVito. Once I had that experience, I was like, oh my God, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I always had a love of cinema. My dad and I would go to the theater all the time. He'd introduce me to all the greats, Steve McQueen, Jimmy Cagney, John Garfield, Robert Ryan. I was a student of cinema, even though I never thought I would have an opportunity to make movies. Once I found it, I was like, this is what I'm I never thought I would have an opportunity to make movies. So once I found it, I was like, this is what I'm going to do. I did continue to do music overseas and tours and stuff like that.

So I could, you know, make money to kind of fund my my pursuit of a film career. But I never planned on going back and making another record, putting it out. I know, like even in sports, you know, we'll get typecast like, all right, hey all right hey he's good at this but we never ever want to see him do this and then you're always feeling like the person that's in front of the camera like now you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong and then you know the people that would work behind the camera tell you know we're actually right way more often and that's why we are the way we are and you've had so many roles in on the producer side of things are you more understanding or do you find yourself at times typecasting somebody like, hey, that person can't do that, realizing that's what everybody was saying about you

decades ago? I have. I mean, I certainly try to be more mindful of it because of my own experience and how that affected me, although it made me just more and more motivated and determined to prove people wrong but the thing was that people the look the expectations of me at the time were so low that it was like if i did anything even remotely decent then i was going to be applauded for it and so um you know that's kind of how i got my way in the door but i you know i always try to give

people the benefit of the doubt you know i remember when we were casting entourage and it's like you know we brought in kevin dylan and we knew he was perfect for drama and we thought him and jeremy pippen were the only guys for those particular parts and just because of that the network insisted that we put them in the room or against like three or four other guys which which I felt uncomfortable about because, you know, we just knew that they were the guys, but they were able to still kind of show, uh, that despite the fact that other guys were going up the same role. So boogie nights though, that had to be the thing that totally changed it.

Yeah. Yeah. That was, well, that was the time, you know, it was, it was also for me as an actor, it was like, all right, I read the script and I thought this could be great or this could be you know showgirls had just come out and that was a disaster it was kind of you know same kind of idea pushing the envelope in a world that was a little risque so when i uh when i decided to do it i just felt like it was a real opportunity for me to play something that was unexpected because i played the tough guy the cool guy and guys that my friends would you know applaud me for playing and this could be something that could uh you know show me in a different light that was showing

vulnerability and you know so it was uh it was a bit of a risk but i was willing to take that i really wanted to commit as an actor and not worry about what everybody else thought but that's that's a really good point because i remember being a loser in college and we rented showgirls thinking we were being devious. Like, hey, Tim's got showgirls. He rented it. We're like, oh, okay, we're going to shut it down for the rest of the day.

But you can read something. You can be pitched something. You can hear this idea and you go, and then it's falling apart. And we're boogie nights. I love that you just said that. You go, this could be really go, and then it's falling apart, you know, and we're boogie nights. Like, I love that. You just said that you go, this could be really good. How does it happen? How, how does it happen from the moment of like inception casting and everybody,

and then it just, these, these things can take two very divergent paths where one becomes praised and generational like boogie nights and other movies. You're like, like it just didn't work. How does that happen? I mean, look, it really just comes down to execution, right? It's hard to get a movie made, never mind how difficult it is to make a great movie. But I think you start with the level of talent that it attracted him. Paul Thomas Anderson's script, his talent as an actor, I mean, as a director, he had already made Heart 8, which was, you know, a small movie, but you definitely see greatness in it.

And by the time I came on board, for me, it was weird because I'd already done the underwear thing, and I'd done the Marky Mark thing, and it was like... I had been in rooms with other people where they literally just were like, okay, now it's time to take the underwear off. And I was like, what does that mean? But I read the first 30 pages of the script. I was like, oh my God know what is what does that mean but i read the first 30 pages of the script i was like oh my god this could be great or this could be terrible and i know why does he want me does he think i can pull this part off and then i met with him and then read

the rest of the script but you know you had deniro at one point attached to playing uh jack horner and then you had like sydney pollack and it was just great people were always kind of hovering around sean penn was attached to play the alpha Pollack and it was just great people were always kind of hovering around. Sean Penn was attached to play the Alfred Molina role. It was always like really serious actors at one point or another flirting and playing various parts in the movie. So you knew it had potential.

And then by that time it was like, all right, we're going to take a swing. Let's just go for it. I had made another move with New Line and they were making the film they were financing it so i was like let's just let's just take swing no pun intended what were the scenes like with john c reilly like they're my favorite scenes in the movie when you guys are losing your shit and you're yeah you're doing the music and it's funny because you have a musical

background so it's almost like you know DiCaprio on purpose being bad. And once upon a time in Hollywood, some people, some people think that that comp is a little too aggressive. But you having to be so out of touch, like what were those moments like? Because I think Riley's is as malleable as anybody going right now. There has to be a funny story from that. Oh, gosh, there was there was many a funny story. I mean, every day we were just kind of we would shoot what was on the page and then we were doing a lot of riffing you know there was

lots of improvising like when we're at the studio and we're just like going nuts on robert downey senior and um i mean it was just michael penn who played the engineer it was like just tons of riffing and us pretending that we were all whacked out on blow and you know and all the like documentary stuff like i do an interview and and then john would be sitting there like oh my god he's tearing it up i gotta really one up this guy and but uh you know we were always really kind of pushing each other and challenging each other and paul was encouraging us to be as crazy as possible, which was great. And it was crazy because Paul and I were both 25 at the time.

And there was no real studio interference or anything. We kind of just left to our own devices. It was a lot of fun. Those days were fantastic. Last thing here. Have you felt like you've done everything you wanted to do?

Absolutely not. I mean, there are days where I'm like, you know, the difficult thing is obviously the sacrifice that you make being away from your family, going off and being on location. Because most of the time, I love making movies, and I think I'm more excited about potential roles in the future. But it's the sacrifice that you have to make being away from home. So what I love to continue to do lots of great things.

I have really cool stuff in the pipeline that, that is really unexpected. Absolutely. Am I going to make some of those movies? Yes. Am I going to get to make all of them? I don't know. I just made a movie called father Stu, which I think is the best movie that I've ever been in.

Financed it myself. It's coming out on Good Friday. The trailer's out, actually. You should check it out. And, you know, I've actually financed the movie myself. Like The Fighter, it's a true story. I had to get it made, really push it up a hill. But, you know, those movies kind of reinvigorate my excitement and my drive and desire to do more as an actor and as a,

as a producer. So a filmmaker. So I'm, I'm as fired up as I've ever been. I've been hungry as I've ever been. And, you know, I think,

uh, you know, the best is yet to come. Uncharted February 18th, Mark Wahlberg. Thanks, man. Thank you,

bro. Appreciate it. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine.

And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com we've had a lot of people following up on the lost lebrons and what to do uh it was overwhelming that people were like take the shoes which which yes this really jumps in i think that's just kind of where we're at.

And again, I kind of knew the guy was going to take the shoes. I hope he emails in and tells us what he did. And then we had a couple people chime in that they lost shoes somewhere. So here's the thing. As much as I enjoy any participation, anybody that's engaged, you know, like, hey, let's get involved. I don't know that we're going to pivot this part of the podcast to a lost and found. So I could just see Simmons in a month going like,

hey, are you doing anything different on the pod? I was looking at some of the numbers. And be like, yeah, actually, we're not doing life advice anymore. We're just doing lost and found at the end. Trying to help people find their stuff. Yeah. Just trying to pay it back. Pay it back.

Just building a community here. Like, oh, okay it back, just building a community here. Like, oh, okay. Yeah, I would, uh, I would stop doing that.

Um, okay. So we have a couple that I want to get to, but off of the van Pelt story stuff, and there were a couple of people that were there that heard the, uh, the recap of, of some of the van Pelt interactions.

And they said, you were, you did a really nice job of, of, of being nice about everything that was happening. Poor Van Pelt. Poor guy. So I'm going to present this one

because then I had people, a couple of Chinese, and one guy in particular was like, I wanted, because now guys are fascinated with the move of their open to somebody that is famous and how to handle it so we get a lot of different people telling different stories about their interactions

with famous people and they want a ruling on it i don't know maybe that'll be a special that could be a fixed baseball late july pod and and how to handle you sound like you want to jump in here suri no i would just love to hear the success stories, if there are any. I mean, I don't know how we can tell if they're true or not. But if you cold-assed a famous person and struck up a conversation, it worked out, and you guys hung out for a bit afterwards, I want to know about it. Well, there's a guy who apparently ran into me, and he wanted to know if he did a good job or if he did a bad job.

All right. So, hey, guys guys 57170 short fit decent size oh okay he's talking about his dick cool wow yeah i don't think we need this you failed buddy yeah yeah this is we definitely don't want that trend ever we don't that's the only if you do that now we're not going to read the email um so yeah i'm the guy who bought riscilla with sam adams during intermission to kill a mockingbird in new york city a couple years ago i remember this part one of my question is about famous person etiquette again i'm going to clarify to everybody i know how little fame i

actually have compared to people that are actually really famous because I've seen it and I've been with those people. So I, despite a healthy ego at times, I do think I keep myself in a relative, I like to be on reality Island with a lot of the perception that I have of myself. Okay. All right. I thought you really wanted to jump in, maybe add to that, but all right. Part one of the question is this,yan told the story on monday's pod about people coming up to svp after the super bowl and not passing the test so i'm wondering how i handle our interaction at the play i wanted to see to kill a mockingbird sorkin i think redid it and then jeff daniels was saying it was terrific i recognized ryan instantly sat down next to me before the show started i tried very hard not to react overreact i could hear my wife's voice in

my head leave him the hell alone he's just here to watch a play uh was i by myself yes when the first act was over i was going to grab a beer from the concession i was there working i think i was still doing get up so i would just shoot up and i would try to do stuff on certain nights um and considering you're getting up for get up i'd be up so early does that make you more approachable if you're like obviously by yourself it's like wow you mean God doesn't even have anybody to go with. Probably not me. Of course he needs a beer. Yeah, maybe not.

Yeah, probably not me. And then it's also a play. If you're in the play, it's like, you know, unless you see me rolling in ahead of time or whatever. All right. So when the first act was over, I was going to grab a beer from the concession anyway. So I figured, what the hell? When will I get another chance to buy Ryan Russillo a beer? I brought the beers back and handed one to Ryan Ryan at which point it was now clear I knew who

he was I think you probably knew that ahead of time but I told him I was a big fan of the pod we shot the shit over a beer for a few minutes about sports why he

was in New York and that he had seen Gruden downstairs in his way and that's right Gruden was it to kill a mockingbird Ryan could have been nicer second start

second act started play ended we started to shuffle out make conversation that awkward slow exit for like a second I considered asking him if you wanted to grab Ryan could have been nicer. Second act started. Play ended. We started to shuffle out, made a conversation on that awkward slow exit for like a second. I considered asking him if he wanted to grab a beer somewhere,

quickly realizing there's no way he was likely to agree. I decided not to do that and we went our separate ways. So did I do it right? If I didn't, what should I have done? And lastly,

there's zero fucking chance Ryan would have taken me up on the beer offer, right? There's another part of this too where he was caught in a real conundrum. He goes, not sure if Ryan remembers, but he was seated at the end of the row and my seat was right

next to him. There were two empty seats to my right and then a woman by herself. Ryan, me, empty, empty woman. The seats were really small with very little leg room and I thought of moving to my right to give us some more room when the show started, but you never know if people are going to arrive late etc but when intermission was over and the second act was about to start these two seats were still empty and so i moved one seat to my right put an empty seat between me and ryan i remember this it was awesome

i love that that was my favorite part of the play about 10 minutes into the second act the folks in the row behind me leaned forward and asked me to move back because i was now blocking their view so i was faced with a choice one move back next to ryan and have them wonder what the fuck my my story was to move to the right uh next to the woman and have her wonder what the fuck my story was or stay put force those folks to just deal i elected for option three so as not to weird out ryan or the lady and instead just slid down a little bit in my seat to try to block their view less it wasn't super comfortable but at least I didn't weird out my favorite podcast host or some random woman in the theater. What should I have done there? Well, I appreciate

what you did. I didn't know you were dealing with, by the way, if you're five, seven and they were freaked out because now you're blocking your view, there's no way you were blocking their view. Like they were psyched that they had the two empty seats in front of them, not realizing that the people in the row have empty seat priority over the people behind you and if it were a normal full theater because it was pretty packed because it was a pretty big deal that this play was happening when it was happening uh you know like what do they expect so i'm sorry you were uncomfortable all right so anyway yeah i remember this guy was really nice grab me a beer that was it uh there's pretty much no chance i was gonna go out with stranger i don't think i went out with anybody that was friends with um because when it comes

to get up that's just the last thing you're going to do i think i was there for get up because i used to go back and do get up i don't know once every few months which was kind of fun because i like stay in the city for a week and then bouncing and come back to la or when i was still in connecticut it would come down so yeah i don't think there's a lot to add to this one but yeah just wanted to let him know because he put so much time into this and he still been thinking about it years later. Maybe this wasn't worth reading. I'm not sure now that I've read it out loud and spent this much time on it. Yeah, I mean, it's like it's a successful interaction, but it's not a successful like

you guys hit it off and wanted to hang out afterwards. Like that's that's what I'm looking for. It would have been near impossible because I would have had to have wanted to do that. And I know that when I'm there during the week, I just, you know, I'm going to wake up at 4 a.m. and talk about sports. I probably didn't want to stay up until 10 and talk about sports. So there you go. All right. Let's get to some of these.

Guy has a moving away party. I love the efficiency of this email. 29, 510, 175. Goofy athletic and could dunk before an ACL tear. That's awesome. I recently accepted a job that will have me moving multiple states away from the place I've lived for the last 10 years. I started telling my friends and naturally we're planning a going away party. But my friend who's organizing it wants to make it a going away party and a meet and greet for his new girlfriend they

just became facebook official last week context this guy hasn't had a girlfriend i've been in a relationship for a couple years are people still doing facebook official i have no idea bud that's the one i i cut it i went off easy i'm gonna work on my way to get rid of the other ones but facebook was an easy drop so i don't know, Rudy, what's your status right now? It's complicated? Wife and I are both on Facebook. We don't have an official we're married kind of thing.

I remember back in the day, people would jokingly do that. I don't think anybody took it. If you did take it seriously, you were kind of frowned upon. I thought it's complicated was hilarious. That was my favorite one. It's like, what are you talking about?

Why are you telling us? Why are you airing out the fact that you're having relationship problems? It's complicated. It's complicated complicated it's one of the greatest technology improvements of like when i first was aware of what is i'm like wait there's an option to say it's complicated if you're thinking about these dms go ahead basically like if you're thinking about it yeah open to open to other people yeah but then if it were the the couple and both of them were like it's complicated it was a lot like oh you guys fight at happy hours in front of other people you just changed this didn't you all right all

right so but what's weirder though what's weirder it's complicated they're like back the day when you used to poke people like thinking like they got rid of that one pretty quickly that was I think it's equal weird I think it's equal weird because I would have pokes from like all the girls I had crushed on and also my aunt and it's like wait what's this list what is this list how'd you guys

meet he poked me and he wouldn't stop yeah it was great just kept poking away all right here we go he was great. He just kept poking away. All right. Here we go. He was persistent. Yeah. Just, you know. Was there a way to reciprocate?

Did you have to poke back? I don't remember. Yeah, you could poke back. Yeah, you had to. Oh, I thought you had to. Yeah, I was very short-lived. No, you could just leave it there. You could just leave it there, but you can't poke back.

I got rid of it as soon as somebody else commented on what I did, and it was a girl. And then the person I was with was like, what fuck I was like I can't control this I can't I can't control and then she was like say something I'm like argue with somebody on the wall for saying something nice about me I'm out of had uh it's complicated. That's when you switch your relationship status. Yeah. Okay. All right. So anyway, this guy is asking, is it weird that I'm annoyed that his friend who was going to throw him a going away party

is hijacking, semi-hijacking the going away party so that we can all meet his new girlfriend? My first thought is, why do you care you care like who gives a shit man now if i'm fair to the the emailer here in the question i do think that even those of us like see how there's that guy that goes out of his way to make you know that he doesn't think anything is cool right like oh i don't i don't want to do that like oh you come to the reunion no way you know but i think i think people actually more people more people than not enjoy a time where they're the center of attention and it's like no we're doing this going away so i can i can kind of

understand but as a guy i don't think you're allowed to get that mad about it. And I definitely wouldn't say anything to them. So yeah, your feelings are okay. But what do you actually want to do? Do you want to tell them? No, it's not about her. All right. She's invited, but she can't be featured because I'm the main attraction. They think how weird this is.

How do you feature somebody like that? Do you just like, excuse me before we get started, and then you present her like a PowerPoint? I don't understand. Yeah, why can't it just be your going away party, and then his new girlfriend is also there? I mean, it's probably weirder that your buddy who's hosting you the party was like,

I'd like to kind of hybrid this deal and have this be an announcement to the community that I'm seeing somebody right now. So I get your annoyance. You know, I'm actually on the emailer side here a little bit, but I'm telling you, don't do anything. There's no there's no like, hey, tell him this and then do this. No, I don't think that exists. I would just shut up about it and enjoy your party. Yeah, it sounds like your buddy, he can't throw a normal party

to introduce everyone to his new girlfriend. So he's like obviously using you to do that. It is kind of a shitty thing to do. I wouldn't personally care, but it's not quite at the level of like proposing at someone else's wedding. It's not that like much of a dick move. I don't know. I think you just kind of let it slide

and if it gets out of hand, maybe say a word or two to him. Be like, hey dude, calm down. This is my event. But let it happen because if you don't let it happen then you're kind of a dick. Did you have a going away party from ESPN? When somebody was going away the ESPN going away

party tour could be strong you could be getting like a one good one a month especially towards the end of my run there because it felt like everybody was but those were those are the kind of parties you're a little bit younger in the espn social community you live for those things you're like wait yeah what are we what are we doing we're going over you know yeah we had a little bar taco deal we're gonna cuvee maybe little little little drinks and dancing after yeah we did the bar taco scene couple drinks couple bosses showed up it was a good scene but it was like the people that i would have wanted to be there like i you know i don't even know if i invited that many people it was like the it was like it was like

tight crew of a dozen or so people did you go to big attention guy i don't i don't want that kind of stuff no and i believe it with you Did you go to mine across the street? No. I don't think so. Did you go to yours, Ryan? I feel like maybe you didn't even go. I don't remember you having one. Did you have one? No.

What happened was after the last show, there were some people in the department that were like, we'd like to take you for dinner and drinks. And I was like, where? Oh where oh at the mexican place yeah across the street yeah which is like that restaurant changed like a hundred times nothing ever stuck for like six months it used to be a mcdonald's yep and so i went in and i probably was like yeah i'll do it right after work and then i was like I probably want to work out though. And then I,

I think I had a beer and then I was like, all right, see, see you guys. It was very anticlimactic. And I felt like some people showed up that maybe I didn't totally vibe with. It felt like they had to show up. And then I felt like I had,

and the person who organized it, very, very sweet person. And she was really thoughtful of her. So I don't want to sound like a total dick, but it was not going to be like a crew you weren't gonna let it you weren't gonna let it be a thing yeah it wasn't it wasn't gonna be like an all like all right we're doing it folks you know i just kind of like in my own like hey i'm out of here and by that point most of my close friends

were already gone anyway at least ones that i would have gone out with. So I, it wasn't going to happen. All right. Anything else on that? Kyle, you ever have a going away party? The only one I had was when I moved out here to California and we got all the New York city kids,

all the Poughkeepsie kids got in the middle of a field and just fucking got after it. It was great. It was just so, it was so good. They never, they never, they were like seeing deer.

They're like, what the fuck was that? But they were, it was great. It was so good. They were like seeing deer. They were like, what the fuck was that? It was great. It was a good time. I think there's still a couple beers from that in the deep recesses of my mom's garage fridge from 2016.

A couple keystones. I'll tell you, a field party post-college or post-high school. That was always to go to a parking lot somewhere and have a couple beers. I don't think I ever did that post-college or post-high school. That was like always to go to a parking lot somewhere and have a couple beers. I don't think I ever did that post-age 21. Kyle, were you guys in the field being like, I can't believe you're going to take over LA?

No, they were like, I think they were like, well, when am I going to come see you? I was like, buddy, I'm moving in with a girl who needs a roommate right now. I'm worried about how that's going to go. I don't think you're allowed to tag along for at least a year, pal. You were letting guys know immediately. Yeah. Yeah. 35, six foot, 330, athlete. Yeah, you are.

During a recent road trip, I got my fiance into your show by listening to old life advice segments. Thank you. During one of those segments about a guy's insecurity with dating taller women, my fiance tells me that when we take our engagement photos, she wants left her mouth, I refused, stating that I was already taller than her at six feet, to which she replied, I don't believe you. Two years into this relationship, she was questioning I was actually six feet tall. Hey, man, I know the feeling. As soon as we got home, my back was to the wall of a door

frame. She measured me five feet, 11 inches and one half, no shoes shoes i explained that you always round up and that i almost always wear shoes i'm six foot tall walking around bro you're way over six foot tall shoes you're like jack reacher just town give me a break have you guys watched reacher yet no no the movie no the tv show on amazon oh no the guy's tall they make tall references like he can fly like he's the only person that's ever been and he's six foot five somebody goes oh he's six foot four he's like foot five. And then there's this other scene

where they, he's checking into jail and they're like, we don't have anything that'll fit you except a circus tent. And it's like, dude, he's just a pretty big Jack guy.

And he is. Wait, is this one with Tom Cruise? No, there's a, there's an Amazon series that's out now. Here's the plot. Yeah, but wasn't it Krasinski? Wasn't it Krasinski first

or was that a different guy? No, Tom Clancy. That was, Krasinski's tall too. No, that's Jack Ryan. Oh, but wasn't it Krasinski? Wasn't it Krasinski first, or was that a different guy? No. Tom Clancy. Krasinski's tall, too. No, that's Jack Ryan. Oh, sorry. Jack Ryan. I can't believe I answered that one right. Sorry. He's tall, too, but no, this Reacher show, which I'm sort of

just enjoying because it's, I don't know, it's just a decent watch, and I'm checking it out. The plot line is kind of like, Reacher, did you kill those people? No. Did you? Yes. Are you did you kill those people? No. Did you? Yes. Are you going to stop killing people? No.

Are you? Probably not. Reacher, you need to stop killing everybody. Okay, I promise. Do you? No. There you go. There you go.

Okay, so. And scene. And scene. But it's a fun watch. It's a pretty great review. Yeah. I'm saying watch it. I'm saying watch it. But just, you know, it's not The Wire. All right? Let's get that out of the way. But yeah, a fun watch. That's a pretty great review. I'm saying watch it. I'm saying watch it. It's not The Wire.

Let's get that out of the way. But yeah, he's 6'5 in the show. Apparently he's 6'2 in real life. And he's huge. I mean, he's kicking dudes' asses left and right. Don't get me wrong. But the way they talk about his height in that show, you would think there's never anybody who's been walking around that's ever been 6'5 in the history of people. Alright, back to our guy.

He's rounding up. He's 6' tall walking around. We're saying you're way over that in shoes. She measured 5'10". So wait, who's lying now? All right. Now, I don't feel like I'm insecure about my height. You shouldn't be, by the way. But I'm also aware that if I was an inch shorter, I would have never gotten a first date with

my soon-to-be wife. But I'm not interested in wearing moon boots to our engagement photos so she can wear heels. I told her that she's the abnormally tall one. Nice, dude. Fireback. That I want to wear my normal dress shoes, which have a little bit of heel anyway. We can't agree,

so we want to let the life advice crew settle it. The shoot is on St. Patty's Day. Your thoughts? All right. Just wear whatever she wants you to wear. It's the engagement photos. That's what I would do. I love everything you said.

I'm happy for you. It's not like she's asking you to where inserts or lifts the rest of your life. It's just for the engagement photos. She wants you to be taller than her. Do you want to be shorter than your wife in the engagement photos? Now, again, some people chime in. What's wrong with that? A ton is wrong with it.

Okay. Not really. But I think if we all had a i think if we all had a choice if we all had a choice but you do want to be taller than your wife in the engagement pictures i just don't know how many people are checking the no box i think it's a low number if i'm just guessing so if she's going to wear heels like this is just a picture these are for her what are you sending them to your buddies well that's right it's going to be in your house and she's going to make a ton. You're going to pay for a ton that you're never, ever going to use.

And then maybe you use it for the save the date or whatever. I don't, I would just give in on this one. There's going to be so many other fights that you're going to get into when you're married. Just concede this one. And you know what? Maybe it's a chip later on, you know, when you decide to do an addition by yourself to save money. And she's like, I don't like that idea. And he goes, goes hey i wore your moon boots for the engagement photos hold it over her head

yeah forever forever so that's what i think i think she just did you a favor so rudy i think aren't there i think there's a compromise here you can wear the shoes you want and they make those like gel insoles to add like an inch to you that you could put in regular shoes so just wear those and i actually think she's kind of right even if she's being a little bit of a dick about it like do you want to be shorter than her in these pictures too think about that like everyone's going to see this and what's the first thing they're going to say oh my god she's taller than him that's is that weird and i'm not saying it is weird because we just talked about that but i think you're actually doing yourself a favor if you just do the insole thing wear the shoes you

want to do then you're an inch taller than her, and then everything's fine. Everybody's happy. The other problem is because you're 330, people don't realize how tall you are, right? It's just the way it works. When you're thinner, you look taller, and you're a thick dude, but you're an athlete as well. But maybe the bigger issue

is that she never believed him, and they had to go home immediately and check the tape. And I don't have a problem. She's technically right, though. Oh, so Rudy, come on. I know you do round up. I know you do round up,

but his thing of like, unless you're a basketball player or like at the NFL Combine, no, you don't get measured in shoes like I know my height not with shoes I'm 5 10 I'm a I'm a I'm a true 5 10 I don't round up I don't round up to 5 11 I'm 5 10

but I don't also put on like you know like a player of Clark's to add an inch to my height and say I'm 5 11 I don't think that's realistic I don't think that's fair when I was at ESPN radio in the early days I had never met more guys that claimed six feet that weren't. Now, Greeny, Golick, tall guys, Cowherd's tall. I'm all right.

Van Pelt's tall. But then there were other guys that were definitely not tall that were like, yeah, I'm six feet. And I was like, I think you're in that 5'10 range. But I'm not marrying any of those guys, and I'm not standing next to them in an engagement photo. So none of that's even that relevant. I think him saying five and 11 and a half going to six feet,

I think that's fine. But that might be the bigger issue. That might be the bigger issue. You could always claim shrinkage too. Yeah. Squats. I just got a lot of pressure on my tailbone and spine. And we'll get it worked out one day.

But for right now, it's 5'11 and a half. So what do we rule here? What were the votes? I say just do it. Get it over with. I think you do it, too. Yeah. All right.

My initial thing was going to be no. But you talked me into it. Yeah, that's fine. It's one time. Yeah, there are better fights. There are better fights, as we say often. Okay. Hope you enjoyed that. Please subscribeyan rossillo podcast spotify ringer thanks to steve and kyle back on friday Thank you.