The Tim Ferriss Show - #119: Kevin Costner on Building His Career, Positive Self-Talk, and Making Dances with Wolves Happen

Episode Date: November 16, 2015

Kevin Costner (@modernwest) is an internationally renowned filmmaker. He is considered one of the most critically acclaimed and visionary storytellers of his generation. Costner has produced, directed, and/or starred in such memorable films such as Dances with Wolves, JFK, The Bodyguard, Field of Dreams, Tin Cup, Bull Durham, Open Range, Hatfields & McCoys, and Black or White, among many others. He has been honored with two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and an Emmy Award. This episode also features Jon Baird, the author and illustrator of the novels Day Job and Songs from Nowhere Near the Heart. He is the co-developer, along with Costner, of the Horizon miniseries. Their first book collaboration is a beautiful tome -- The Explorers Guild: A Passage to Shambhala. Kirkus described it: "With its colorful cast, exotic locales, and intertwined fates, the book slowly addicts. A rousing throwback whose spinning plates never stop, even at the end." Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by TrunkClub. I hate shopping with a passion. And honestly I’m not good at it, which means I end up looking like I’m colorblind or homeless. Enter TrunkClub, which provides you with your own personal stylist and makes it easier than ever to shop for clothes that look great on your body. Just go to trunkclub.com/tim and answer a few questions, and then you’ll be sent a trunk full of awesome clothes. They base this on your sizes, preferences, etc. The trunk is then delivered free of charge both ways, so you only pay for clothes that you keep. If you keep none, it costs you nothing. To get started, check it out at trunkclub.com/tim. This podcast is also brought to you by 99Designs, the world’s largest marketplace of graphic designers. I have used them for years to create some amazing designs. When your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99Designs. I used them to rapid prototype the cover for The 4-Hour Body, and I’ve also had them help with display advertising and illustrations. If you want a more personalized approach, I recommend their 1-on-1 service, which is non-spec. You get original designs from designers around the world. The best part? You provide your feedback, and then you end up with a product that you’re happy with or your money back. Click this link and get a free $99 upgrade. Give it a test run… ***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hello, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I'm on the road playing road warrior going from hotel to hotel, attempting to do interesting things. And of course, my job is to deconstruct world-class performers in each of these episodes. I interview many different people from various fields and try to distill what makes them great, the lessons learned, the habits, routines, etc. And that ranges from four-star generals to chess prodigies to scientists, startup CEOs, and in this case, a world-class storyteller, Kevin Costner. Of course, I grew up loving Kevin Costner films. He is an internationally renowned filmmaker across

the board, considered one of the most critically acclaimed and visionary storytellers of his generation. Costner has produced, directed and or starred in such memorable films as dances with wolves. One of my favorites, JFK, the bodyguard. Remember the kitchen scene?

Amazing. Many scenes in that field of dreams, tin cup, bull Durham, open range Hatfields and McCoys and and Black or White, among many others. He's been honored with two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and an Emmy Award. This episode also features John Baird, the author and illustrator of the novels Day Job and Songs from Nowhere Near the Heart. He is the co-developer, along with Costner, of the Horizon miniseries.

Their first book collaboration is a beautiful tome. It's really quite something to behold. The Explorer's Guild, a passage to Shambhala or Shambhala. I've never known how to say that. In any case, we get into all of that and more. And this episode is really split into three parts. The first part explores Costner's background, lessons learned. And we dig into a lot of his specific films and roles.

And I think at some point, I refer to The Big Chill as The Chill like a dum-dum because I think I was just a wee bit nervous, honestly, since I've really only seen Kevin on the screen before. And he is a very, very focused man with intense eye contact. We had a great time, and I really enjoyed it, but it's weird going from screen to in-person had a great time and I really enjoyed it, but it was, it's weird going from screen to in-person for the first time, I got to say. But had a great time. I hope that translates to your experience of the conversation. We had it at his home and we touch

on a lot. The first, like I said, is his background, the history. Then we get into his current projects, including the book project, among many others. And then we do the rapid fire questions that many of you are already familiar with. And those are always fun. And that's what we wrap up with. Kevin has an opportunity to get into some stories that I don't think he's really told anywhere else. And had a blast. You can say hi to him on Twitter. And he doesn't use social much, but I'm going to encourage him because he makes a couple of requests of the audience. And I'm going to point you guys to Twitter. So there are some opportunities,

requests that come up here at Modern West on Twitter. At Modern West is Kevin Costner. And please enjoy this long and broad conversation with Kevin Costner. Kevin, welcome to the show. Thanks. I really appreciate you having me out here. This is a beautiful spot you have. I guess we're outside of Santa Barbara. Yeah.

And this is one of my favorite parts of the world. But you did not start out here, did you? I mean, where were you born? I was born in Linwood, California, lived in Compton in 1955 and was there for about six, seven years and then ended up actually moving up in this general area here between Ojai and Santa Paula. Lived on a single street, went to a one-room schoolhouse. How many students were in that schoolhouse?

I don't know. It was like, I think, the first through the sixth grade. So I don't know. There could have been 60 of us. I'm not sure. Maybe not even that many. How did going to such a small school or growing up in that way impact you? Well, I didn't for very long.

I actually didn't like it because of that idea that all these kids were in the school and the teacher's impact could be the best it could be. I was way ahead. When I went into that school, the school I had come from in Los Angeles, I was really far ahead. And my parents picked up on that really quick. And since I was such a rascal, they thought, man, he's not doing anything. And I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut about being way up on this stuff. But they moved me right out of that school really quickly back into, I think, a parochial school, which is they don't mess around, as you know.

And so your parents were concerned that you, you were further ahead would kind of sit on your hands and and coast through it i don't i don't think they were worried about that i think they just my parents i tell you really you know i mean a lot of people i know they look back on their childhood and you know maybe wasn't the greatest or what mine was pretty good mine was very huckleberry finn if it. And a lot of that had to do with my parents were very focused in on their kids. I mean, my dad and my mom were at every Little League game, everything. You know, so when people aren't able to, you know, when I've talked to people, you know, my dad never came to one thing and probably a reason for it, but I didn't have that experience.

You know, we didn't have a lot of money, but my backyard was my kingdom. And when my dad got home, we went to work in it. And I read, and I don't know if this is true, that you were raised Baptist. Is that true? Yeah. How did that sort of affect the lens through which you viewed the world or now view the world? Good question. I tell you, it obviously affected it. It came up in a really conservative background. My dad's from Oklahoma, tough guy, fist fighter, very hard-knuckled people,

and came during the Dust Bowl. I mean, if you think of Tom Joad, that's my family. They lost everything and had to come out here. So my conservative foundation was right in place. My dad would put me in my place right in the middle of church. You know, I mean, I could be launched right out of that seat for, you know, for whatever, you know, and also, you know, when you drink the blood of Christ, it was that grape juice. And, you know, I loved pretending it was whiskey after church was over

because they had those little glasses that you'd see in the cowboy movies. And I'd like to just knock it back. And boy, I tell you, my dad was just a no-nonsense guy about that. But I also grew up with music in the Baptist church. And so that was a real first love of mine, music. My grandmother taught the piano. My mom was in the choir. Her sister was in the choir. So I grew up with music, was in all the little things we did, the Christmas play. So I liked singing. And eventually my mom made me take the piano lessons. So I was trained classically on piano for about three and a half years. Did you always maintain that practice of music, or is it something you've only revisited much later? I revisited it in my 20s, because I tell you, I was always staring out the window.

And I was taught by a teacher that wanted to train a concert pianist. So there was no boogie-woogie. There was no, you know, it was all, I mean, the closest thing I got to rock was green sleeves. You know, everything else was the classics. And my mom, being in a conservative background, she goes, no, that's what the teacher wants. You don't step outside that line. And so after about three and a half years of staring out the windows watching everybody play ball, which is what I do, I'm a sports guy. My mom really got tired of feeling that she had pinned me down to that chair. And she said to me, she said, you're going to be really sorry you gave this up. Because I was pretty good. I was able to

transpose anything. So I really could. I mean, if they would have let me play a little rock song, and some little girl would have sat next to me, I probably never would have given it up. But, you know, no one wanted to sit next to me playing Mozart. So the music came out of the church. I think my conservative outlook came in it. Also, it also probably clouded me. I was a late learner on things because I would adopt my parents' point of view. What was talked about at that kitchen table was mine. Vietnam was going on. If you were against the war, you were bad.

If you had long hair, you were bad. My brother went into the Marines. So if somebody hated the Marines, I hated them. Now, I was like 13 or 14. And so as I was moving into high school, I wasn't very evolved in a sense. There's nobody who would say, no, just because somebody has long hair doesn grab onto my own ability to look at the world in a more gray way. Was there any experience or person who comes to mind early on who helped you develop that? No. Helped you develop that? No, but I can remember really being behind the curve a few times, you know, because my parents would say, hey, look, you've got to be able to speak your mind, you know, in these circles, whatever you need to do.

But what I found was I was speaking my parents' mind and I was not coming off very well in a way. I was militant about things I didn't even know about. And I began to sense that, that I didn't have a bigger view. I had their view. And it hasn't hurt me in my life to have a conservative view, – the scales came off my eyes a long time ago about things. So I'm going to jump around chronologically a little bit. But before we jump beyond high school. So in high school, you were 5'2", is that right? Well, I was a sophomore.

I was 16 years old. And the reason I can say that is because when you get your license, the first thing people want to do is look at it, especially the girls, right? They want to look at your picture. And of course, I handed my picture over and then there is 87 pounds, five foot two, 16 years old. I was looking below the wheel of my Datsun pickup when I drove. I was itty bitty. I began to, you know, grow in my senior year and grow into college. But I wasn't not a senior. I wasn't 5'2". But it was kind of humiliating after about the fourth or fifth girl said, hey, look at this.

That's really cute, 5'2". And I took my license out. I never let anybody look at it again. Were you athletic? You mentioned the playing ball uh before you hit your growth spurt so while yeah yeah i was i was yeah i i was really i played a lot and i played till the till i had to come home when those street lights came on and of course i didn't and here come my father dressed almost like i am right now in blue jeans and blue shirt

he was a lineman for edison and when they were faded jeans, it wasn't because they were designer jeans. They were faded because they just got washed a billion, zillion times. And he was as handsome as Paul Newman, I got to tell you. And he'd come looking for me, and I'd see that finger man, and I'd, like, be running across the street trying to get around him to get home. I just couldn't keep certain things in my head. And you mean by that the sports? I couldn't keep track.

I was like any kid. Oh, got it. Keeping track of time. Look, when you see those streetlights come on, you come home. Or when I'd go build a fort, you bring my tools back. Or when you take your sports stuff out, you don't leave your ball out. The hammer, the saw would be left at the fort. But my dad would go down to where I'm building the fort and back came the saw and it was all rusty. You know, he'd look at me and I was like, I was thinking, man, I'm a bit of a fuck up.

You know, I just, I don't get it right. You know, it's like I know to bring it back, but I'm having so much fun. I was a classic 10-year-old, 12-year-old. Just you have so much fun, you almost can't think of the consequences. Well, I think that a lot of adults then spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture that feeling in a way. Well, Mark Twain said it. You know, he said, look, if a man lived his life correctly, he's never forgotten his childhood. He's never given it up. When you were 5'2", you said 87 pounds?

Yeah, yeah. Wow, that is small. Did you, I mean, were you kind of a rough and tumble kid? Did you get picked on a lot? Yeah, I was really rough and tumble. I mean, I remember they asked me to go out for the wrestling team because I could get my, the varsity letter, right? You get a varsity letter.

And I said, no, I'm going to be a basketball player because I had always dreamed of doing the layups with the Hawaii 5-0 theme because that's what I saw when I was a little kid. I was a good athlete, but I said, no, I'm going to be that. And they go, well, you're not going to make the varsity at 5'2". They go, you could wrestle at 96 pounds, right? Get your varsity letter.

And I thought, I don't want that. But they go, well, just go try. So I went out and wrestled the one kid that was 96. I just threw him all over the place. Dragged all the way. I didn't get him in any classic wrestling. I got him in a headlock and he whined. He was like whining.

I wasn't going to let him up. I really dominated him. But I thought, big deal. I don't want my letterman's jacket in this sport. And I want, big deal. I don't want my letterman's jacket in this sport, and I want it in basketball. And my mom promised me I'd grow. I mean, I literally was running around the house, jumping up and touching the header on every door going, what in the hell? Five-two.

Cute. I can't be this. I can't. And I'd say to my mom, which you do, you go, Mom, am I going to grow? I swear to God, am I going to grow? And she goes, I promise you, you're going to. So, you know. And you, I had read about a, I guess a heart-to-heart that you had with your father at one point.

I want to say in the bathtub or you were in the bathtub. Am I getting this right? Could you describe that exchange? You know, that was, it was an? I had been working up in Aspen. I have a ranch up there and working very much like I work here. And I've got to put a little bit of it into context, too, a little bit. It was, you know, my dad was a worker. And when he would try to teach us to work, it was like we'd mow the lawn and we'd be done at an early age.

And he'd go, well, did you edge it? And you'd go, didn't edge it, right? So the next time we mowed it and edged it, he goes, did you wash it off? He was a bit of a taskmaster in a way. So it was very difficult to get it exactly right. You know, man does a job right. And a lot of that came from the dust bowl because he saw when 100 guys would be in line to dig the same ditch. And he used to say to me, he said, there'd be 100 guys dig this thing if you don't dig it.

So I understood that a guy had to work. That's what I was about. And I had a real big problem up on the property. And they literally watched me solve it all day long. I never stopped working. And at the end, I was actually going underwater and plugging something. I mean, I was like in that cold water up there, and he watched me. This is your property.

This is on my property. But to be honest, it was a typical day other than the fact that something broke and I really had to fix it. It just was he watched. He watched me work. And now the day was done, and I was up, and I don't take baths for the most part, but I was up in my room, and I'm taking a bath. I'm really beat to shit.

I'm really beat up. And the door opens, and my dad walks in. So imagine, you go, what the hell is going on here? And he walks in, and I'm in the bathtub, and I don't know what a – I'm not going to sink down, but I'm thinking maybe – I don't know what it is. And kind of like a dog who can't find a place to stand, he kind of walks a little bit in a circle and finally puts his arm on the hearth or up on the mantel. And I say that because when I designed this house, I always wanted a fireplace in the bathroom. I always wanted to get out and have the fireplace in the bathroom. So he had had his on a mantel and so i'm i'm like look at him yeah and he starts to talk to me he says you know when you you're young you had all the things you wanted right uh and i

go yeah of course i did he goes and you never felt like you there was anything we didn't provide money he started going down this trail of of did did we have enough? Did we, you know, and, and he looked at me because he was always so worried that I would go into acting. He thought, you know, a guy should work, work. And I know he was unsure. And then he was able to see the success that I had. And, and so I think, I wonder if he was thinking at some point, I hope I never derailed you. But nevertheless, he's going down this path. You had what you wanted. Your mom and I did the best we could.

And he looked at me and he said, you know, I never took a chance in my life. And I was almost in my own field of dreams moment. And it's like there was like some tears coming down he goes you know i i hope you know he goes i came out of that goddamn fucking dust bowl and i just when i got a job kevin i didn't want to lose it i was going to hold on to that because i knew there would always be food on the table and i said there was there was i mean and there was a really kind of just an amazing moment my dad sitting there going and i'd long since been able to take care of myself i didn't need gas money from him when i'd go visit him and it was just a you know and i don't know if you ever had a moment like that

but i i had that and and uh you know i didn't want him to tear up he'd given me everything that he could give me and it was just one of those moments and um you know i won't you know i'll always remember that has uh they just want to know that they did right by you do you uh as a father yourself do you uh has that mentality carried over to you as well? Were you, you, are you ever? Well,

I probably talked to my kids a little bit more than he talked to me. And I probably, maybe even a little bit easier on them than he was on me. You know, man, he was tapping me on the shoulder in the morning. I said, here we go.

We're going to work. I don't really do that to mine. I, I let them see me work. You know, they can come work side by side. But I don't know who's right. I don't know if he's right. I don't know if I'm right.

You don't know until the end. I do know that early on my dad thought, you're lazy. He'd say that to me. You're lazy. And I just, I work more than anybody I know. You know, I mean, and maybe I have that in my head. It's not uncommon for me when I come out with the guys that are working on the property. I'm here before they are, and I work with them all day right next to them.

In fact, the ones who don't even speak English go, is he going to be here all day? And the other ones go, I think so. And then later on they go, I thought he was in the movies. Maybe he doesn't need to do that. And somebody says, hey, Hefe, he likes it. You know, he likes to be out here. So my own children, you know, I tell my children I love them every day. That's what I tell them. And I tell children I love them every day. That's what I tell them. And I tell them they're special every day.

But I always finish that sentence with, it doesn't make you better. Okay? It doesn't make you better being special. Because people out there, their sons or daughters, they're special. You can feel special yourself. But even if you do something that the world acknowledges, you've to be really, you got to really relax because it doesn't make you better than anybody. And I, and I need, what they need to learn in life is different than what I do. I never was in a limousine until I was 28 years old. They ridden in limousines going with us wherever we go since they were, you know,

in diapers. So their lessons are going to be different. And part of what I anticipate for them is to be able to share their good luck. How are they going to share their good luck? How are they going to have a sense of balance? And there's no book on that, but it's something I think about it and work at every day. So I have a friend who is also on the podcast

named Chris Saka, very, very successful venture capitalist. And when he was growing up, and he does this with his kids now, his parents would put him through what he called the sweet and sour summers. So he would have some fun experience that his parents would expose him to, but then the sour was they would be required to go do not a thankless job, but a hard manual job, like cleaning, making this up, like oil refinery equipment with some taskmaster that dad or mom had decided for them to spend time with to give them both perspectives. Do you, what is the, what are the jobs, the hardest jobs that have taught you the

most? Well, my dad was the hardest on me. He couldn't be harder than my dad. So, you know, maybe that put me in a position to work. I, my dad said, if you can outwork, if you can stay long, if you can, you'll, you just have to outwork someone. And, uh, it was really very, very basic. So, um, you know, my own outlook for my own kids is they see that I'll work side by side with somebody. There's no difference between who I'm working with. Is there anything when you were, uh, and we're going to come back to,, actually this is a good time to sort of shift gears a little bit with acting, talking about acting and that entire career. Can you talk a little bit about your experience with Rumpelstiltskin?

Yeah, well that was a, it was a moment in my life. I was in my, I think I was in my senior year at college, the start of it, and I was in night school. And if you know anything about night school, you know that the people in night school are really serious. So the bell graph is really hard there as opposed to a bunch of 18-year-olds or whatever you are. If you're in night school, it's serious. Those dudes are all drinking coffee. They're all still in their suits. And I'm in accounting class.

And it's not happening for me. I know I'm not supposed to be there. I know where I'm at. I'm at the wrong end of what was going to happen when a test is taken because I don't like it. But, again, because of my conservative background, you graduate high school, you go to college, and you get a college degree, and you get a job. I wasn't really, again, very advanced in my thinking, or my eyes weren't open to the real possibilities. I mean, the greatest things I did was when I would go drive trucks or frame houses or

I worked on commercial fishing boats. I like that work. I like the exoticness of that life or the you get what you get because that's what you just earned right and so academia was not a thing for me and there i was smack deal smack in the middle of it and realizing that i was just like pulling sand down i couldn't get out of this hole but i saw i what do i do i turn off to the teacher i open up the little student newspaper and i'm winging through the newspaper, which is all three pages long at a college, right? And on the back of it was a play, an audition for a thing

called Rumpelstiltskin on an off-campus area. And I don't know why I just thought audition. I'd like to try that. And when I closed that newspaper, I listened to the person drone on. I saw the latest pop quiz and I was last. But what I knew at that moment, I was going to that audition the next day. I was excited about the next day. It's been a long time in my college life where I was excited about the next day. And I drove down. I almost was killed literally doing it.

I was going down the 55 freeway, which is in Orange County. And at that time, the freeway hadn't been finished all the way. So stoplights were on the freeway at a certain point, like where they were going to build. That sounds so dangerous. And as I'm going down there, everything's fine. That's not a big problem. Except my accelerator broke and went to the floor on this old Datsun pickup. And all of a sudden, I saw the brake lights up ahead,

like where those eucalyptus trees are way out there. Yeah, a couple hundred feet from us. Brake lights. And my speedometer's going from 60 to 70 to 80, and it's not slowing down. And I'm probably going to hit those people at about 90 miles an hour and kill them kill myself and i'm just in the engine is just it was i don't know why it was designed that way but the floor like some ghost pulled it straight down to the bottom so i had my wits about me at one point halfway through when I realized I didn't want to die. And I threw the clutch in. And there was never such a terrible whine.

But I thought, oh, my God, it did engage. But the engine was revving. I was able to turn the key off. And I coasted to a stop, pulled over into the emergency lane. Didn't kill anybody. I jumped out of that fucking car, hopped over that fence and hitchhiked to my audition because I wasn't going to miss it. Wow. I left it on the wasn't going to miss it. I left it on the freeway.

I left it because I had some place I wanted to be. I had a place that something was going to happen. And of course, nothing did. I wasn't good enough. I didn't have enough skill. I didn't really know about Rumpelstiltskin. I mean, I didn't know my fairy tales, okay? I figured there was a prince, I would just leave it at that. I'll go out for the prince maybe, you know? But I didn't get it. But my imagination started to burn about the possibilities. And when you had those possibilities then in your head what were the the next steps

i mean the next steps were to to the reason i didn't get the part because i wasn't very good i could tell the people like in accounting they were better than me they were better than me but i thought the difference was i didn't want to try to improve in accounting. But in acting, I thought, I'm going to go to school. I found something I think I want to learn. And so it was one night, they started to have classes there. One night a week turned into two nights a week, turned into three, turned into four. I suddenly started to become the student that I wasn't in college. I went to UCLA and took two classes in film financing, film budgeting. I showed up for the first day of class. I had already read the book, the entire book. I wasn't in the mood to do an all-nighter. I was interested.

So at this point, you'd graduated from college at this point? I graduated from college. I was framing houses out in Orange County. I would go, and that's how I would make my dollars. I wasn't very good, but I could work all day. If you could frame one house by yourself a day, you could get another house. But what guys were doing that were really experienced in eight hours, I was doing in 12. So I was usually out there, and I think about this time of year because the sun goes down quickly. Guys are going home at 3.30.

Sometimes they'd work in teams. Some guys could frame a house by themselves. I'd do it by myself. But I wasn't finished at 3.30. I wasn't finished at 5. And I had that pickup truck, the same one almost killed me. I'd have the lights out, and I would frame with the lights on until I was done so I could get a house the next day. And the classes, you took the classes during the day?

No, at night. Those are at night. Then I would go at night. And I was, all we can say without beating this to death in a way or boring anybody with it, it was just suddenly I was interested. I was interested in my own life the way I used to be interested in it when I was a kid, when everything, when tomorrow was exceptional. And for me, every day was exceptional when I actually realized I wanted. Now, I wasn't telling people what I wanted to do because half of me was going who's going to believe this especially my dad how so let's see how old were you at the time so let's say i'm let's say i'm probably 20 yeah 21 you know and

you know in in my mind i thought why how come at 21 i don't know what i want to be you know i there's this kind of thing i thought i was actually getting old i don't know what I want to be. There's this kind of thing. I thought I was actually getting old. I don't know what I want to do. Seemed like everybody else did. I didn't have anybody to tell me to relax. Just keep moving. You're doing fine. A lot of what I got was, what are you going to do?

And so I just like the rat in the maze going after the cheese, I just kept going to class, kept going. I was going to graduate with a degree that I didn't care. I did care about the acting. And I started to fall in love with something. Didn't know if I was going to be able to make a living at it. But I finally got rid of the whispers in my head, which was what are you going to be able to make a living at it. But I finally got rid of the whispers in my head, which was, what are you going to be?

And I thought, it's none of your business. I'm going to be what I want to be. I finally shook loose of, I guess, my parents. And this is not a session about therapy, but I finally got rid of the whispers. It didn't matter. I knew, I somehow figured out, if I didn't make myself happy, I would never be happy. If I didn't, you know, if I didn't pursue what was whispering to me, I would absolutely be a failure.

I would absolutely be an unhappy person. And believe me, when I could articulate that, which maybe many people could, I couldn't. But when I articulated that I didn't care anymore what anybody thought about what I did except me, all the weight of the world came off my shoulders and everything became possible. It shifted to everybody else that they were now worried. Now they're worried, but it didn't shift. Everything for me had shifted to a place where i felt free the how did the chill come to be that can't experience yeah well that was a um it was the one part that lawrence casden could cast without permission from the studio um uh he'd you know already done Body Heat and people recognized it was a special talent. And a casting director named Wally Nesita, who was a very tough casting director,

a no-nonsense kind of person who really, really actually helped her directors. Instead of she would offer up people that she thought she put me up in front of him saying that she was i was somebody that she thought was very good and uh i was lucky enough to get the big chill and um i knew immediately that my life would change as a result of that movie and a lot of people talk about well you're cut out you know then you know were you disappointed i i guess i had a small measure of disappointment but none to the grit not not anything like what i think people thought i should have um because i realized at the moment that i was hired that somehow i was on my own yellow brick road and that appearing in that movie wasn't nearly as important as being in it. I knew I was in it.

The people I was around knew I was in it. I had suddenly found my footing that had probably taken from the point of that accounting class probably taken six years, seven years. You know, people talk about entrepreneurs, you know, and the idea of being an entrepreneur is being willing to do a job that nobody else wants to do, to be able to live the rest of your life doing whatever you want to do. And so the idea, how I can correlate that a little bit would be to try to be an actor when you don't, there's no guarantee that it's ever going to work for you, but that you're willing to really work at it for a long time. When all the other responsibilities that followed you at being married, trying to provide, but still not giving up on your dream. It, it, it, it sustained me. I, I, I, I was able to,

I was lucky. I was able to make it. And when I got to that point, I was a better actor. I would not have been a better actor. Even though I made a check and everybody had been really happy, I wouldn't have had the foundation. I had to re-educate myself. And I love the idea of educating myself. What did, over that course of six or seven years before you were cast for The Chill, what did you say to yourself to keep yourself going? Well, it's hard because if you want to be practical, and you need to be, it's very difficult to be around people that don't see themselves clearly. When your parents tell you you're the fastest little runner, you believe that. But, you know, by the time you get to the sixth grade, there's people blowing by you. And your chances of being in the Olympics, they're not good. And so somebody says, well, I'm going to make it anyway.

Okay. That's a hard person to be around a little bit. But, you know, in the world of acting, you have to say you have to think where you would fit so i was looking out at the landscape obviously i was going to class at night doing everything i would do and you know you know hating everybody i saw or being around other actors who i realized hated everybody on television that had parts i mean there's like bitterness i mean actors bitterness among actors who don't have jobs looking out there and the people that do or whatever and i was like i didn't really feel that but i i could understand that but as i was moving along i there was a

moment in time where i actually thought i wasn't going to make it i i did and i and one thing i did once i decided that i become an actor is I didn't want to put a clock on things. So I didn't. But I was also a practical person. I mean, look at me. I know what time it is. And I'm starting to think, you know what? The people I'm supposedly going to be going up against are getting more parts.

I was going up against Sean Penn and Nicolas Cage and Ken Wall and Mel Gibson and Richard Gere. And you can think of all the people that were already on the landscape when I actually decided that I would act. So they not only had those credits going for them before I started, some of them, you know, they had, you know, 20 films behind them. And so these were the parts, this was the category that i was in and so if i would go up for a part there'd be four or five of these names being thrown around and they would just work their way right down and suddenly and so my chances of getting those parts weren't very good but somewhere along the line they started using me on certain movies going well if you want too much money we're going to go with this unknown guy well who's this unknown guy kevin and that i i was a bit of a stalking horse for some you know

for some people you know to either take less money or we're going to give this good part away by stalking or something like a bargaining ship or uh like we'll go with this unknown i see we'll go with this unknown they continue to go with the known so i actually thought you know what i'm not going to be able to jump over these guys timothy hutton you can just go right down the list but then the big chill happened for me and you know i was working as a stage manager at raleigh studios and for three years and i would be taking cable and working late late late at night and I didn't tell a lot of people that I acted because nobody wants to be around a pining actor so I

just didn't say it but what happened was all of a sudden when I did start to emerge Big Chill moved to Fandango moved to American Flyers moved to Silverado suddenly it seemed like it was happening very fast for some people. It's like, what? Where did this come from? And then when I decided I would direct, which was about two pictures later, people thought, wow, he's moving really, really fast. What they didn't know was I had been dreaming this moment for six, seven years before that. Then when it was starting to happen, I had already been planning for these things. So what was fast for other people wasn't fast for me.

Well, that makes perfect sense. I mean, you hit a certain escape velocity in a sense, and then, or you'd use maybe a different metaphor. I mean, you got, you'd been cranking and cranking, got to the top of the roller coaster, but you'd been sort of thinking of that descent all along. I've heard you say that the big struggle in acting is staying loose. If you were to have the opportunity to go back to yourself, say, at the Silverado point, what advice, acting advice or otherwise, would you have given yourself?

Well, I just wanted, I tell you, I would give myself almost the same advice as I did, which was I'm going to try to hold out for the good movies. I'm not going to just try to go to movie after movie. You know, maybe what I should have given myself, which is be really ready to do the sequels. At 30, I would say just be prepared to do Bull Durham 2, Tin Cup 2, Bodyguard 2.

Get in the mode of making these movies later on. What are some of the scenes that have scared you the most and that I've heard you talk about after you've read a script and sort of picked up on the secret, right? Something you can't wait to hopefully portray or share with an audience or tell in a certain way. What are some of the scenes that come to mind that you're most scared of in any film that comes to mind? Well, I'm usually scared of the scenes. Number one, there's got to be a scene in there that you really want to do, you think you can do, that you really, really want to say, that you want to be known. Listen, I remember seeing Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind and watching Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. Stand up. Your father's walking.

You know what I mean? And I thought to myself, I mean, I love McQueen and I loved Newman and they were minimalist. And so I understood how to work with a lot of economy. I knew I would do Westerns, but I was never afraid of language either. So I wasn't, you know, I remember, you know, I read a lot about McQueen and something. It's like just always ripping lines out, ripping lines, didn't, you know, have any, any elongated anything. It was just not going to happen. Me, I wanted to have the inherit the win speeches i wanted to have those things and i've been able to have four or five of those in my career you know had one with uh black or white

in the courtroom um the problem is when you see them written so well you know the thing in bull durham you know i believe is is that you realize you're also the person that can mess them up right you're also the person that can miss take a big whiff at something that was so great. And so I usually know when I'm on to something, which is when I'm a little bit afraid of it, go, wow, I could mess this up. And I put myself there a lot of times in my life, and I've often asked myself, why have I tried so hard to be in a place where I could fail so badly in front of so many? And I have gone to bed at night knowing the next day I have to deliver. And if I don't, everybody else is going to know i uh i'm recalling uh a commencement speech that was given

by one of my favorite writers neil gaiman an amazing fiction writer and uh it's called make good art but at one point he says you know when you feel like and i'm paraphrasing here you're walking down the street naked extremely uncomfortable about what you're about to say, then you might just be getting it right along those lines. When you're tackling a scene, like the I Believe, say, in Bill Durham, how do you prepare for that? How do you practice beforehand? Or how do you...

Well, you know, I never thought that I did that scene as well as it could have been done. The writing there was so great. I just did the best i could um um and i had a great director and ron shelton and i and launched me in another movie called tin cup but you know how do you prepare like let's take the let's take the scene in um jfk um which was about 11 pages long you know, it was a really intense thing. And I started on that probably a month and a half, two months before we ever started filming.

I'm really slow. I'm a, you know, I can memorize, I think, as well as anybody, but I can't perform with memory. I have to perform when I actually own the words and I can do them in any, you know, in any state. And so to do that, I know that I have to get off book, which is a term for, you know, I don't need the script anymore. I do that before every movie. I'm off book. I don't trust myself to learn lines the week of, the night of. I just don't do it. And it's kind of anal.

But for me, it makes me more prepared to step through what I call a window of opportunity if one presents itself on the set that day. You know, a lot of people, they come, they go, no, I'll just wing it. I like being fresh. I like being, you know, open to the spontaneity. I would never trust the work that I do to that. And I couldn't do that to a movie I was working on. I wouldn't trust myself. I think going in really prepared makes me really confident to do anything that happens that day. I'm not just stuck there. I'm just prepared to do that. It seems also that your familiarity with the material allows you to

make some very intelligent suggestions. You brought up JFK. I mean, the let us suppose, maybe you could explain the conversation with Oliver Stone. We did. You know, Oliver comes under a lot of scrutiny. You know, he really has a really active mind and is really, you know, a patriot in his own way after a truth. And he's willing to go at it very, very hard. And people have questioned him on it. And the directions he goes down, the roads he'll, the rabbit holes he's willing to go down and what gets said and who said it. And I knew I was going to be the voice of all this. And as I was going through that script, I wanted to serve Oliver, but I also

wanted to serve myself a little bit too, which was to make sure that I wasn't so far out on the limb saying explicitly, you know, what Oliver is saying. And when I came to certain things that I was unsure about, and some other people questioned it a little bit, I said to Oliver, I go, I'm not comfortable with saying this. I said, I would be more comfortable saying, let us suppose, as opposed to this actually happened. Because the let us suppose is framing things for people to see. Because if there's no actual eyewitness there, you go, let us suppose this happened. You know, and Oliver didn't fight that at all. To his credit, he said, that's fine.

Let's just paint that picture. Because that's the picture I believe that's there. You know, because you could turn and say, and now let us suppose that didn't happen. Boom. And you go down that thing. And I thought it was a fair depiction. And and I was I was I was proud of Oliver instead of fighting that. No, we're going to say that's fact.

It is fact because this guy said it wasn't. And I said, well, let's just think about that a little bit. It was a good collaboration. You mentioned something, but Oliver, I hope he doesn't burn himself up. What did you mean when you said that? I said what? I hope he doesn't burn himself up. I hope he hears this. I don't know where I said that, but that's just one friend to another, one colleague to another.

And listen, we all burn pretty hot and bright and go pretty hard. And I don't need to let people know anything more than that other than this is a guy that was good to me. And I know he plays hard and I know he works really hard. And I want to see him have as long a life as he possibly can and do the work that means a lot to him. So I'll just kind of let it go at that. And the reason I ask is, quite frankly, because I think that it's out of personal interest. I mean, you've had a very long career and you've lasted. I feel like I burn the candle at both ends quite often, particularly when I get immersed in a creative project and can't kind

of pull back to 30,000 feet. Have you, do you feel like you've ever been at risk of burning out? I mean, you've had some, for instance, I mean, water world, massively long shoot, right? What do you do or how have you contended with that if you've had to? Yeah, well, you know, I was also going through a divorce, which was something that I didn't see happening to me, you know, kind of from a conservative point of view, how you're raised, that you think, well,

this is how it's going to be the rest of your life. And you kind of know even before that, that it wasn't really working that way. But all the planets lined up with this incredibly long movie, a very tough thing.

And I actually went through that entire movie divorced, separated and then divorced before the movie started. People don't know that. They happen to think that somewhere halfway through that that happened. It didn't. I was going to work every day with feeling a bit like a failure. But, you know, to me, you know, I just go back. You just, you put your head down, you keep working. And you keep doing the very best you can.

And you don't let the people know around you that your heart's on the ground. But, you know, my life is so much more than acting. So I've never, you know could i stop sometimes because i just want to stop not because i have to stop please you know it's not like i'm you know i remember in college when we do like black beauties you just be up all night you know just somebody needs to come in and stop me you know what i mean and i i didn't have that i have my own governor uh and i have my own energy level which might not be the same as somebody else's. I think you need to slow down.

I kind of know when I need to. Got it. You have some type of limiter. Yeah. And I have other interests that actually almost force that. Right. You know, I have my own seasons as a man, so to speak. I got to go hunting.

I got to go fishing. I got to go be with. I got to be hunting. I got to go fishing. I got to go be with, I got to be back for Little League. I got to, you know, I have these things that are important to me and important to my family. This is a bit of a non sequitur, but I'm so curious because I've spent just a little bit of time in Aspen doing some work with the Aspen Institute. And I bumped into somebody at one point and they're like, you know what? I actually bumped into, and this could be totally false, but they're like, I walked into this bar in Aspen and Kevin Costner was bartending. Have you ever bartended in a bar in Aspen or anything like,

even as a, just a... I have friends that bartend. Maybe I jump back to help them for a second. But I haven't, you know, I don't know how to make change. My nightmare is when something costs $8 or something and I give them a certain amount of money and the guy goes, can you give me 10 more cents or something like that? And I go, no, I'm only giving you – It's like PTSD after accounting class. Yeah, yeah.

It's like please don't do that to me. My temples start to pound. It's like, hey, man, why are you asking for more money or something? Because you want to make life easier on me? You're not. You're humiliating me. Stop. I just like, I literally kind of throw the money down on the counter and just like walk

out. It's like some reflex, like don't have me do math at the chalkboard. I had this little creep and I was in fourth grade, and you know how sometimes the teachers will tell you, hey, the fifth grade teacher needs you to take this note over, right? Well, if I look back in my life, I've got a very, very sound life. But if I really look back at it, I do have moments where I have real problems as a result of certain things. You just don't realize it. And I remember I would go to this.

So I'd go to the fifth grade class, and there was this little prick. His name was Mr. Chapman. And he was short, and he had a flat top like a Marine, a flat top. And he wore a bow tie, all right? Sounds like a handful already. He was a prick tie all right so you know he sounds like a yeah this handful already prick already right and so i walked in and and i brought the paper and he goes what are you doing in class and i go oh we're doing clay or something goes well we're doing math here you know we're doing

you know whatever kind of math oh that's really great he goes why don't you show us the math you know how to do oh god can you believe that this guy would do this to a fourth grader, and he would have me try to do their math. And he laughed at me. Oh, what a mess. And the kids laughed. And I remember that teacher told me another time, can you take this over to Mr. Chapman? I go, no, no. And she said, look, you just have to do this for whatever reason.

I wasn't able to say no to her either. Again, maybe that's a conservative background. Into that class I went. Chapman, this little prick, did the same thing again. He humiliated me, and he allowed his fifth graders to laugh at me. And I, believe it or not, I could never go to the chalkboard again without that fear of being laughed at. So the truth was I could go to the gas station now and give the guy the money. And he goes, give me an extra dime and I'll make this even on you.

And that's the chalkboard to me. It's the chalkboard. And that guy was cruel. That guy shouldn't have been a teacher. Somebody should have jerked him on his ass. And so you don't talk to anybody like that. You don't humiliate anybody, let alone a kid lower grade coming into your class just to give you something. There was something really wrong with him. I probably conjured that story up for the first time, probably about 10 years ago, telling somebody about it. And because I always wondered why everything would go into a fog with

me when I would go up to the chalkboard. I couldn't follow the directions that anybody was saying to me. They go, this is really simple. It wasn't simple to me. Why? Because I couldn't hear it. My brain was pounding. That's horrible. I mean, it's incredible how just even – I mean, that sounds very sadistic. It's wrong. I mean, I've got this life where I have this fame, worldwide fame. Somebody's listening probably going, Jesus Christ. Listen, we're all bruised in this world. We've all been kind of um you know that wasn't you know not the kind of abusive home thank god you know it wasn't you know somebody

said hey gee kev that's pretty mild i would agree with you but nevertheless you realize if you take that and see how it affected me and then maybe add on heaps of the stuff that happens to other children my God, we really can ruin people. And it could just be an off-the-cuff remark. I mean, I remember my mom, for instance, at one point was in a music class, I think it was, singing, and the teacher said, yeah, you should just stop singing. Or it was some off-the-cuff remark.

Maybe that teacher was just having a bad day, whatever it was. But my mom has carried that throughout her entire life. Exactly. She can't sing or she shouldn't sing. And I had a similar experience with a math teacher in high school, just was constantly kind of heckled or, or needled in this class. And so my choice of college was partly determined by where I wouldn't have a math requirement.

Right. No, I tell you, you know, and so we understand how we affect people. And that's followed me with my whatever fame I carry around the world that I know I come into contact with people. And there's a moment that I can have an impact on them. It's very with me. How have you learned to contend with I I mean, for instance, and I mean, this is just in my small startup world space, but I'll have people who will come up to me.

I'm at a urinal and they'll come up and want to pitch a startup behind my head at a urinal. How have you learned to contend? Because it must be difficult for you to go out to a lot of public places, I would imagine. I go anywhere I want. I tell you the problem, you know, because I never wanted my kids to be limited, oh, daddy can't go here because daddy's too famous. I tell you where I can't go very well is to the bars because there's alcohol. When there's alcohol, people get loose. They get too free.

They say things and under the guise of it or whatever. And a girl will say something and somebody will say. So that's not a good place for me to be honest and I'm not a drinker so it's not really a loss for me. The other place that's more difficult is like Disneyland where people

think you're part of the ride. But I go to both places regardless because if my friends are there I'll go and I'll make sure that my kids go to both places regardless because if my friends are there, I'll go. And I'll make sure that my kids go to Disneyland. I have determined to not let fame affect them. So you mentioned you have many different interests. One I'd like to touch on before we talk about some more recent projects is directing.

And specifically, Dances with Wol with wolves which is one of my favorite movies of all time uh as a side note but um could you describe uh how that got started and your interactions with michael blake yeah you mean the the story of it being written the whole thing uh well specifically what i was thinking of is sort of how Dances with Wolves started up on a wall. Oh, yeah. Well, Michael, and we've lost Michael. Michael passed away. Michael was a real total child of the 60s.

He was on the newspaper staff. He was against the establishment. He was with Jane Fonda. Just imagine everything, Berkeley, the long hair, the newspaper staff. You know, he was against the establishment. He was with Jane Fonda. Just imagine everything, Berkeley, the long hair, the whole thing. But Michael was really after the truth. But then Michael got to a point where he wanted, you know, as we moved into the 70s and, you know, wanted to write screenplays, wanted to write books.

He did write books, but he really wanted to write screenplays and that's how we met and uh in a little downtown off the la river near the coors well the coors plant used to be down there and there was this chemical plant and that's where michael slept and we you know uh we met and there was an acting group that none of us had to pay any money and it was a very eclectic group of people a lot of rock and roll people a lot of of screenwriters, people who wanted to direct, people who wanted to produce. And so we could all do what we wanted to do every night, which was act, and which was hear our own writing. And at one point, the big chill thing happened, and I started to emerge.

So I was the one person in the group that started to emerge, and things started to go well for me. And so I was quickly dragging along my friends, if I could, to get them interviews, and Michael was one of those. And I got Michael eight or nine interviews that I could never get when I was struggling, and every one of them went south. Every one of them, I'd get a phone call. Michael insulted us.

Michael told us, we don't know what we're doing. You don't know good writing. And so those calls were getting very difficult for me because I was trying to help him. And pretty soon, some of the people I was sending him to were actually as good a friend to me as he was. And so now he insulted them. And so I was losing patience with him and losing patience with him really putting down Hollywood and everything and putting this down. And somewhere along the line, I mean, I'm shortchanging this because I don't want to bore the audience, but he really crossed the line with me and said something about some

people and about this. And I kind of was letting him know, Mike, maybe the writing's not good enough right now. I just get this. And then he said one more thing. And the next thing you know, I had my hands on him and I had him up against the wall. He had really crossed a line with me. And basically what I said, I said, well, then quit. I said, quit pretending you want to be in Hollywood because everything you're writing is ending on page 120, which is code for screenplays about 120 pages.

And I said, why don't you start writing things that mean something like a short story or a long story, something that ends on 88 or 188 or 888 and quit trying to write these. And I literally had him off the ground and there was scripts under his feet and I kicked them and they went dramatically sliding like a deck of cards out there. And now I let him down. And I just, I said, why don't you quit pretending this thing you want to be in you actually hate? I thought really our relationship was over there because I'd put my hands on him. And that would be hard for me to come back from. And, but, you know, Michael, three weeks later says to me, typical writer, he goes, I don't have any place to live. And so I said, well, all right, come live at our house.

And every night i would come he goes i'm writing something and he goes you want to hear it and i go no and every night he goes you know i'm right can i read whatever is a no why did you say no because i was sick of him i was i'd almost beat him up yeah and so now i'm having to look at him have cereal in my house and everything in the morning and at night. And I got one spare bedroom of a house I bought. And my wife's even beginning to wonder about him. And she's saying to me after two months, hey, he's down there reading to our kids in his underwear. So my kids are like five years old.

They can't understand this story he's reading. And I said, Michael's fine. There's nothing going on down. She goes, well, I'm not so fine with it after about two months. So I say, Mike, you're going to have to go finally. So Mike goes and spends a little bit of time at another one of my friends for about three weeks. And now he's done. And he gives me this manuscript.

And I said, I hope you read it. I go, I'm not sure I'm going to. I was pissed at this guy. But I'm also softy, right'm not sure I'm going to. I was pissed at this guy. But I'm also a softie, right? I let him live with me. And I just didn't want anything to do with him for a while. He was so, bugged me so much. And so he split.

He went down to Bisbee, Arizona and worked at a Chinese restaurant, washing dishes at night and then killing raccoons in a day at this ranch. And he would call me up and say, did you read my thing? I said, no, no. And this went on for about three weeks. Then I get a letter. He goes, I'm cold. And I said, ugh. And so I'd send him down sleeping bags and Coleman stoves.

I sent him some stuff. And he goes, did you read my thing? I go, no. One night, I pick it up about four months later, five months later. And I start reading. And I read it all that night. It was Dances with Wolves. And I was really proud of him.

I was really, really proud with him because when you live in this town, there's people always giving you things, giving you their last best work. This is my best work. And so you're honored to be able to read somebody's thing, but you're also in the position of having to turn around and tell them if you like it or not. And that can really take the air out of somebody. So unbelievably, Michael, without, I was right not to try to listen to any of his stuff. I didn't want to edit any of his stuff.

I didn't want to influence it. I wanted him to go till he was done. And it just took me six months to read it. And it was dances. And I was really proud. And I called him up. I said, I'm going to make this in the movie. I said, I don't know how I'm going to do it because I didn't have that kind of money. I said, but I'm going to do it. And you're going to write the screenplay and I'm going to pay you more than you've ever been paid. I'm going to find out what the Writers Guild is instead of working for $3,000 for all these goombas in town writing, you know, low budget films. I said, I'm going to find out what the Writers Guild is instead of working for $3,000 for all these goombas in town writing low-budget films.

I said, I'm going to find out. It was like, I don't know what it was, $27,000. And I went and figured out how to get $27,000 and paid Michael. I said, let's do this. And we made that movie about two years later, and Mike won the Oscar. It's such a fine movie. Was it originally titled Dances with Wolves? Yeah. It was right won the Oscar. It's such a fine movie. Was it originally titled Dances with Wolves? Yeah. It was right from the

beginning. Yeah. How long did he give it to you in basically novel form? It was all written out in manuscript. It was about as thick as a phone book. When you mashed it down, it was, I don't know what it was, 200 pages. I'm not sure. How did you end up

directing that movie? Well, I actually went out to three really important directors i'm not going to use their names i know that would be interesting but they were the top of the heap guys and all of them had things that they wouldn't do to the movie some would get rid of the opening civil war sequence some thought it was just too long. Somebody thought that probably it shouldn't be a white girl, that that seemed like a cliche. And I said, well, it really wasn't on the frontier what people were traded. There was a lot of that going on.

And so once I got past them, I thought to myself, you know, I think I should direct this. And I'll probably, you know, going back to earlier in our discussion where you talked about were you ever afraid, I really had a good script. I knew it. I worked with Mike. In fact, Mike said, man, he didn't have a lot of fun working with me on the script. He said it was like having to clap because I made him rewrite himself until we got it

right. Because I would look and I said, well, look, you're either going to write it or I'm going to do it. I think you should do it. And, you know, Mike never rewrote himself after that. And he never had another produced screenplay. But I – So that was his only produced screenplay? Own produced screenplay.

And I was hard. Not hard, but I knew when it was working in my mind and when I didn't think it was working, I knew we had to fix that. And it just came back to either you're going to do it or I'm going to do it. And I said, I think you'd be wise if you did it. Then you would always be able to say it's yours. And he did. And, you know, that's how that happened. What mistakes did you make early on directing, if any come to mind?

Yeah, I think the, you know, I thought I had to make up my own shot list every day. So I'd be, you know, working late at night after a long day of like how I would do the shots. And I don't, you know, I had Dean Simler, this really world class cinematographer. And I, I think I made a mistake worrying about that aspect of it, you know, because if I, you know, look at directing is kind of like, you know, you know, unless you don't, you know, unless you watch a lot of porn, it's like, it's like you kind of, you don't really know how other people make love, right? You don't know how other people direct. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know how other people directed, you know, I'd only been on a few movies, right? So I wasn't sure how I was supposed to direct, but I had my own idea about how, but it's like, so if you don't see see anybody do it how do you know if you're doing it right yeah you know you just you kind of like yeah maybe that was a maybe you'll edit that out you know you're just how do you know it makes perfect sense you're kind of trying to

your own way i i actually direct sometimes with a chalkboard and that has a lot to do with my athletic background sometimes when i have really big scenes i'll pull out a chalkboard, and that has a lot to do with my athletic background. Sometimes when I have really big scenes, I'll pull out a chalkboard, and I'll look at somebody, because a lot of times they'll be doing what you're doing, which is they're giving me some chin boogies like that. But what I realize is they're afraid. The actor's afraid, and he's going like this. He's me at the chalkboard when I'm in the fourth grade. He's nodding, but he's not hearing me.

So when I go out to do a really big explosive take, and he's supposed to be somewhere, and he's like over there. And I go, hey, what happened? I was looking right at you. And he's going, so a long time ago, I go, wait a second. Maybe he's a visual guy. Maybe he's basically his head's bobbing up and down because he's saying, please don't look at me. Please don't talk to me. So I found that that chalkboard helped a lot of people.

They physically understood. And would you use the chalkboard to storyboard or what would you be doing? No, mostly in big action sequences where you got to be here, you got to be there. I wouldn't use a chalkboard in a sit-around thing, but I would find that when I had to communicate with a lot of people. Got it. So almost like a football playing. I mean, you have the X's and the circles, right? This is what's going to happen. And I go, you know, don't forget, if there's a shooting and you're over here, you're going to have to be ducking your head.

You're going to have, I need for you to be doing that. You know, don't, you know, and so it was like that. I think, you know, I compensated for how I learn with other people. So you have. I mean, there was other mistakes. I think when we kill the one Native American, the Pawnee, finally in the river, they're chasing him down the river. I think I wouldn't have gotten such a circle around him. I think I would have just had them look and then pour in on him.

There was a moment, though, where they were glad they caught him. I just felt like the circle was too... It was just too perfect. I just thought there was this kind of thing where he realized he couldn't run anymore. They look, they look, and then they just descend on him.

So I look at that, and I think, that was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that. Such a great movie. I was really struck by it. I only saw Dance with Wolves for the first time a few years ago. I was becoming very interested in the Lakota Sioux and looking at a lot of Native American heritage and mythology and whatnot. But anyway, I mean. That movie was different than a lot of movies

in the sense that that was a journey movie. It wasn't a plot movie. It's like, how are we going to rob the bank? Well, you get your crew, you get your plan, and then something starts to go wrong with your plan. And, you know, you didn't know where the movie was going. And I think people were able to just go for the ride. Oh, just the entire oh just that I mean the

entire transformation uh of the protagonist throughout the movie I you don't need the extra kudos but it had a real impact on me so thank you for helping to put that out into the world you have so many different interests like you'd mentioned you have uh the long-standing interest in music you have uh obviously the the acting and the directing very manually literate. I mean, you know how to work with your hands, framing houses, et cetera. And I'm holding here in my left hand, this is the Explorer's Guild. And this is sort of a book after my own heart in a way. This is a thick tome.

But why writing and why the Explorer's Guild? How did this come together? Well, it came together. It wasn't on my agenda to do this. As I go through my life, I'm always really open to meeting people. And since there was a writer and a couple of his friends wanted to meet me. And I was told that he was very, very talented, but that they wanted to meet me at some point and talk about some story ideas that they might have had.

And I had a level of trust in the person that told me they were good and that kind of thing. And I like, you know, my mind's always open to things. So we met not with the idea that we were going to write a book. We met, I was going to listen to what they had to say. And that person was John Baird. And we met at the Four Seasons. Actually, John's with us.

I mean, you were nice enough to invite him in and let him be part of this. Of course. Hey, guys, thanks for letting me crash. Yeah. Although, you know, I think I can be a more effective salesperson sometimes when I'm out of the picture. But thanks for having me. Of course.

No, I'm just so curious how something of this magnitude manifests. Yeah, it was. Yeah, so I mean, I'd just love to hear you expand on what happened at the meeting and then what followed after that well we had he came in and kind of had this uh idea that i was i couldn't get my arms around really what he was saying and uh yeah there was a thing you know anybody has to hard sometimes on a cold meeting to get traction and john was having trouble getting traction and but but it turns out he was you

know in his favor the story he was talking about was pretty elaborate but so it was like how do you do that really really quickly and i couldn't get my arms around i said why don't we talk the following week you come up to santa barbara uh we won't be in the four seasons we'll be in my backyard and um i i have to admit that the story was still a little bit unclear. I think John was still working it. Strike two. But I had a bigger feeling about who this guy was. And I thought, I want to be around this guy, John Baird.

What gave you that feeling? I can't always say it. I can't always articulate it. But you feel you're around somebody that has a different voice, thinks in a different way, has a wicked wit. And it was just, I believe the story was there underneath the stuttering. So, John, maybe you can tell me, because obviously there are two sides to this story, right? It's kind of like the Rashomon of the birthing of a book. So, why did you want to meet Kevin?

Well, I'd like to tell you that we had some really well worked out plan, and it was just a question of communicating it to him. I think we had a general idea of a secret society of explorers. You know, we thought that this would be a gateway to just innumerable stories. And it was, we were presenting it as a kind of throwback to that classic epic adventure storytelling. And, you know, given an opportunity to meet with someone of Kevin's stature, of course, we wouldn't say no. But the fact is, he has, what we discover is he's got, he's sort of a fan of those same old classic stories that we actually love. And so things kind of took off from there. We both found that we love that big canvas storytelling. We love the idea of secret parts in the world and hidden histories,

and the collaboration took off from there. But he's not he is not mischaracterizing the our first couple meetings at all and it had less i think to do with with being starstruck and more just you know this is a very anti-hollywood story it we didn't have an end game we didn't have even a format that we liked i had a couple of sketches a couple of storylines it wasn't right it wasn't aliens meets diehard or i don't person down it was uh my pitching is today it's still terrible um it you know so and i don't know if that was part of maybe the allure for kevin because he this wasn't something that was presented to him fully formed by any stretch it just had some elements and some things that he i think he may have sparked to,

and it was always going to be something that we formed together. And then, so when did you decide to actually pull the trigger and work together on this? I think it was that second time, or did you come up one more time? Well, and again, to Kevin's credit, it was – and it was – we're recording in a place right now and it was maybe five feet from where we're talking. And he said, yeah, you know what? I still really don't get this, but let's do it. And as a testament to – you probably heard him as he's recreating some of his biggest successes and people always see him. When the rock is rolling down the hill.

That's the part they see. What they don't see is all the pushing. And he's pushing it downhill, no mistake. But I think by the time, you know, people see him, it's, you know, you kind of think he's got it pretty easy. I've been witness, you know, myself now to the, this is eight or nine years ago when we met and um there was just all kinds of all sorts of misfires all sorts of you know uh trying some things then scrambling back reformulating trying it again before about four years ago we we sort of i came to him saying look let's just do this as the book okay so initially was the plan to do a whole collection of of multimedia properties? Or was it intended to be a film initially and then decided to be in this iteration of the book? It was always a book. That's my background

in sort of minor books. But we think that the story, the structure of it is so expansive, it lends itself. And I think 360 degree media was a popular thing at the time, perhaps still is. And we saw a lot of opportunity there. I think we tried animating it for what could have been in these very small chunks. Kevin put some of our smaller animations together and thought maybe we'd go from a web series or maybe this is an animated TV series or something like that. It was really cool. We did animate it.

And everything I saw about it, once we started working i just i just picked up the momentum of loving it and you know we talked earlier about some of my films that i haven't done the sequels to i saw this as something that had innumerable stories you know it just was going to it could be it was big storytelling it was big canvas so i thought to myself gravity is going to just fall right to our everybody's going to come right to our door this is what people are looking for and so we did this and I think John's alluding to the fact that no people didn't they wanted to know

well you know who's the boy in it you know there's a little boy and he goes could he have a magic watch make him fly because our boy doesn't have a magic watch or fly yeah we could get a lesbian in here too and so we said, yeah. Are these Hollywood people giving this feedback?

Yeah, well, John heard those versions, and I heard the magic watch version, which is we can put them in because they exist in the world, but maybe not in our world in this particular moment. So we think our boy's better off having a hole in his head than having a watch in his pocket. Magic watch and lesbians. So what happened was it didn't work. And then we went on and we kind of – that was like, again, that was probably five years ago. And we stopped.

And I think John felt that I was humiliated by all the no's, by executives. I wasn't. But I appreciated him. That's the only time I ever saw John get really mad. He goes, these people shouldn't be saying no to you. And I needed to look at him and think, well, who am I, John, other than a storyteller? They can say no. It is what it is.

But I loved his defensiveness for me. But we stayed the course. We went off and wrote a Western together. And John came back and said, I'm going to write the book because that's my background and i said go man go and uh so this is um this is a beautiful book i i mentioned before we started recording that i wanted to be a comic book penciler for a very long time uh aesthetically how did you think about putting together the book uh because i mean just the it's clearly very very consciously decided i mean the paper stock the tint of the paper i mean it's it's just a a physically beautiful yeah well my my i

have a long background because as you might know writing books is not a great way to make a living and you know though though i had a couple i had to support myself doing other things and i was always a an art director and a designer and wanted to be a an illustrator um and i got to i had a couple, I had to support myself doing other things, and I was always an art director and a designer and wanted to be an illustrator. And I had a lot of experience in not just design, but right through press. I got very into the – because I really like the sort of ins and outs of paper stock and printing techniques and finishing techniques. So the two things I had done before this, you know, that they didn't find much of an audience, they were very, same thing, very carefully done. Each page was, you know, well thought through. And this always is going to have a graphic element in it. Before we leave the,

you know, the idea of Kevin just sort of, you know, saying go man go on the book, it's true that that was the initial brief, you know, where we'd kind of ping pong some story for many years. And then when it came format wise, he was doing his things and I was going to run off with a book. It started that way. But the thing I really always need to say, because I think people will make certain assumptions when they see there's a celebrity, someone of Kevin's stature and someone who's me, I think the thought is probably that here's a guy who's probably reading it along with the rest of America and wanted to sort of show up when it's on press, make sure his name is in the right place. This was really, you know, it may have started, he may have started in more of a backseat role on it because this was a book and not a film and because it was something I brought to him.

But as pages started coming in, it was very natural for him just to slip into it like he has on any other project. And I mean, it started in a general way, kind of shaping it like you would bounce material, but then it was, he's bringing characters and storylines and dialogue, and then he's page by page with me, always making time, knocking these out, getting through it. And at a certain point, it was no longer something that was mine that he was giving input on, this was ours, and we were collaborating on it what um what would a jam session look like in other words to organize those inputs and try to synthesize it this is something i've always been fascinated by because i've never had a writing partner which i quite frankly envy a lot and i've i've come to know a lot of comedy writers who work in film and they're almost always at least a pair.

In this particular case, how did you guys collaborate and sort of capture and decide then what would be drafted? There's a third component too, as you kind of alluded to, I didn't illustrate this thing myself. It's just, it's way beyond my talents and certainly my endurance. There's a guy named Rick Ross, who's's the who is the major part of making this book what it is um you know we joke like we'd like to characterize it for you as like a you know sort of an extended keyboard that we're both kind of you know jamming on in our berets my process is very very solitary uh generally and it's i think you know probably a lot of people who hack their way through especially this kind of writing um it starts in just a room alone. And, you know, there were long stretches like that.

But the rewarding part for me was getting to bring product up here. Kevin, I think, has a little more of a kinetic type of process where, you know, he, I think it's the actorly directorial sort of mindset where he envisions sort of living in these people. And he can sort of from character to character and he knows how certain people would act and how certain people wouldn't. He knows where he wants things to lead and how best to get there. And so where I might be following up on his ideas from last time and bringing them up in a certain form, he would kind of springboard off of that, and then it was kind of following him around

and burning through notebooks while he just goes. So that, it was very different from what I am used to doing, but it was sometimes very hard to keep up. Did you capture that flow of ideas in, say, a single Word document, on a board, on paper? How did you capture and then process? I'll occasionally come up. Because something like this, there are just storylines on storylines and wheels within

wheels. And every once in a while, even just for me, I need to whiteboard it. And he always sort of takes shots at me for being sort of an egghead. But he's always very indulgent. No, no, I'll go with this. I'll go with this. Not bring up some sort of chart or at me for being sort of an egghead. And he, but he's always very indulgent. No, no, I'll go with this. I'll go with this. Not bring up some sort of chart or something that,

that, that will go through. But mostly it was, it mostly it's sort of theater of his mind. And, you know, like, you know, I can kind of be there,

you know, sort of rolling with it and trying to, trying to get what I need out of it and sort of, you know, give and take some of that. So mostly it's, it's really just conversations. There would be a level of point-by-point thing.

Sometimes I would have to write down everything that I'm thinking about what I was actually thinking about, and that would go to him. And then sometimes out of that, when we'd come up, then we would really begin to rift. Because it's made up of five books. People call them five chapters we call them five books and we would advance down the line even though we were in in book two sometimes we dealing with what was going to happen in four and five and actually then circle back to something

else so it was like that sometimes it's written down. Sometimes it's on my feet. What do you mean by that? Oh, just I got it. Improvised. Well, not improvised. Not improvising, but trying to break it down. It's John's voice, absolutely. And I think it's really appropriate that when you talk about the book and you look, it was really important that John's name stand alone up top there. That was very important to me.

I had a lot to do with the cover versus what was on it versus what is, you know, what people wanted. You know, Rick Ross and I, we always wanted to, Mark Twain, Conrad, the kind of books that have that heft that sit up on the shelf, that's what we wanted. Now, whether we got there or not is nearly as important as what it was we wanted to do. I liked the idea of taking something off the shelf that has the heft of this, actually having to blow the dust off it. And that's what this book is. This book is almost an heirloom for me, a book that who reads this goes, I'm going to pass this down to my little brother, my little sister. I'm going to get this book for them because there hasn't, you know,

where are these books? I mean, we're looking in our last century, in the century before, for our classics. Who's writing them for us now? That's what we wanted. That was our love of it. And so I brought, I guess, the love of that to the characters that I liked in this and where we wanted to go with them. But only John writes in this specific way.

I can't write the way he writes. I can see my stories in there, but I can't see them as beautiful as how John has written them. And who is the target audience? Who is your sort of ideal reader or type of reader? Who would like this book? What type of person, what type of reader? I think we're not always the best equipped. I think, I'm sure our marketing gang at Simon & Schuster, at Atria Books

who've been really excellent partners too, might have a real good spiel for you on the demo for this. But when you were writing it, who was in your... That's exactly it. I think when we were like anything, and especially when you're talking about four years of just there's not going to be any feedback from the world while you it makes a big movie or not. Don't worry about the movie. Don't worry about all that stuff. Worry about doing something that's meaningful to us

that he says, like he said, that can sort of sit on the shelf. I mean, this is a big, big statement. I don't necessarily say we delivered on it, but the aspiration was always sit on a shelf with Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, Conor Kipling, try to hold a place up there. And if we feel like we're at least trying for that and we feel like we're being honest to the ideas that we have and true to that, we're going to reach maybe not everybody, but the people we do reach, those 10 percenters who feel it and who are going to feel like this was really written for me. I've been waiting for something like this and it hasn't been in the market.

That's going to be our success. You can quantify. You can actually put an age, okay, a 12-year-old, you know, a 12-year-old who's pretty, you know, really wants to get with it, who loves reading. But six-year-olds are going to become 12-year-olds. So when we were also doing the book, there was a notion of, well, can we simplify the language? Can we, I don't want to use the word dumb it down, but there's a, I don't know how else to explain it. What do you mean? Simplify it. Yeah.

This is how we want to talk. Because when you think somebody's going to travel through time, people are going to find it. Yeah. And they find it when they're probably – look at when you make Bull Durham or you make Tin Cup, there's R to it. Okay. So the 12-year-old can't see it, but he's going to see it. Right. So there's something about trying to be true. The problem that we deal with, I think, in the world artistically is that everybody's got this little meter on their shoulder, something

like go faster or somebody's like a pace. It's going too slow. When we decided that we were going to make a book, we weren't going to have anybody tell us how to do it other than how we felt about it. And we felt that this could become perhaps a classic in our own time so this is not not maybe directly related but for you kevin after after all of the accolades the awards uh the box office success how do you continue to develop yourself as an artist how do you think that? I just move towards the things that interest me. And if I get really interested, if I'm not doing a movie and I'm really interested in Little League, I'm going to do Little League with my kids in the spring and I'll be really interested. I move towards the things and towards the people that interest me. And, um, and story usually has a bit of a attachment to almost all of those things. The poetry of telling a story. What, um, John, for you, what type of, um, fiction or

nonfiction writers, uh, have most influenced your thinking about storytelling? I think we mentioned a few of the canon. When we talk about more recent comparables, just generally to put this in a framework for people, go to Raiders of the Lost Ark, but what we're really doing is drawing from the same well that those guys drew from, which is, I mean, that specific, it was probably more the H. Reiter Haggard books,

The King Solomon's Mind, The Outlander, The Quarterly Mysteries. But so for me, they're the, you know, the Treasure Island, you know, Moby Dick, like all these classics filtered through kind of Thomas Pynchon. You know, you'll see that kind of layering and sort of creeping into a surrealism toward the end that I always dug in him. But I think there's a reason that those stories of Conrad and Kipling stay evergreen. And they may be thought of now as kind of required reading. But I think our idea was there's a reason why these stories still thrill us today. If we can, as Kev says, well, more metaphorically, blow a little of the dust off it and bring it to

a new audience, we felt that that would succeed. There's also just, you know, parenthetically, when you mentioned the graphics, that was another decision, too, of, I think, because what you'll see when you open it is it's a little bit of a hybrid between a traditional novel and not just an illustrated novel, but a paneled sort of graphic novel. But, you know, sort of, I think it was a little more of a problem than we would have anticipated just with the gatekeepers of. I heard a lot of,

it's kind of between two chairs was a phrase that pecked at me for a while. Was it heads between two chairs? This kind of lands between two chairs. The idea is, are we going to put it

in the graphic fiction? Yeah, I was the first one to say, huh? I know, I know. Which I know. There are a lot of knee-jerk things. People's job is, you've got to classify it one way or the other. And something that's difficult to classify is usually like, thanks, but no thanks.

Well, it's a very anachronistic element of old-school publishing, right? Where they think in terms of a retail store and not a search algorithm. Where it's like, N word of mouth. So it's unfortunate. My feeling was if you put it in front of somebody, they're going to get it. And there are people who will stumble when it's going from a straight paragraph into paneled graphics who are you know not going to get it i feel like after the third or fourth time though you know the idea was always that this was the graphics weren't going to be ancillary there

weren't going to be something you could skip the story would go right through them you know i wanted the art to be really integrated in in a way that you don't see in a lot of places. But I also wanted our story to have a lot of heft when it went right to the text. So yeah, it's a bit of an odd doc. We heard a lot of that and we're like, you know what? We think when people see it, they're going to get

it. And that was more. I always remember the joy of when I'd have one of those books, Treasure Island, that I could see in the middle of that book that there was pictures. Yeah, yeah. That you'd see the glossy pictures. And I wanted to get to them. I did.

And I somehow knew in my heart that I wasn't supposed to just go to the – you know, it's not like the centerfold of Playboy. Let's just get right to it. But, you know, and you had to earn your way. But I was always – you know, maybe this was the jock part of me, but I was always like, I wish there'd be more pictures. You know, because that always let you really imagine the duel on the beach, you know, with what those guys had cutlasses and they were going to go and who was going to win. And there was something about that. And so, you know, I kind of wanted more.

I wanted, you know wanted more of that. But the reality was when you came to those pictures, often you just stopped and looked at it. You just stopped. And here it's not that same experience. You can stop and enjoy, but the story is going to travel through those pictures. So it's not just that you're feasting on it although the the drawing of of rick is is that spectacular and i think but really the the pictures are you're you're you're still in the middle of story yeah it's uh it's a cool combo i mean i am i remember with you know my last book decided to make multi-sections, illustrations, photographs,

and I'd never done either before, really, in my previous two books. It's a huge undertaking. I mean, from a production standpoint, I can imagine it being quite challenging because when did Rick start on the illustrations? Was it after the primary text was done, or was it concurrent? Yeah, well, in the interest of getting it in in a sort of finite time frame, I think after the first chapter, we brought Rick in,

and there's sort of an interesting story behind that, our finding of Rick. Well, hey, I like interesting stories. Well, I mean, look, you know, John, he said, look, John's a beautiful drawer in himself, an illustrator. He mentioned that and really good. But he understood that the volume of work that was going to be here was just unbelievable. It was epic. Yeah. It's epic.

And I hope that people out there, however we've managed to bore them, go, the book is better than this interview, at least on our part. I think, Tim, you're doing great. But the book is really special. And it's a great thing to give yourself and to give a young friend. It's a stocking stuffer, if you will. But we knew that this was going to be an amazing task to illustrate this. Probably should have been four guys. But he wanted somebody to be able to draw in the vein of Windsor McKay. Now, I don't know if you know who Windsor McKay is. And

we've been to big, giant book signings. And I always think I'm going to be blown away by the intellectuals. And usually only one of them out of 400 knows who Winsor McCay is. You know, that always makes me happy because my problem was, you know, when John said, well, we've got to get somebody that draws like Winsor McCay. If you're me, you go, then why don't we get Winsor McCay? Well, Winsor McCay's dead. He was, you know, doing this in the 20s. You know, he was really the father of this kind of work, if you will, or whatever. And so John, I said, so how do we find this Windsor McKay?

And John said, let's get him in Craigslist. And that's what we did. He put an ad in Craigslist. He threw out that bait, knowing that only a few, you know, like the dog who can only hear a certain sound out there. Yeah, no, that's genius. Only a few people are going to know who Windsor McKay is. So we knew the line out in front wasn't going to be that long.

And out of that, great artists culled down to one fabulous artist. And Rick happened to be in between jobs. He thought he had a month to kill, and he ended up working on this for almost three years. Did every bit of art on it including the cover it's really it's really a um it's a jewel of a book that was a beautiful piece of work i mean and i haven't yet had the chance to read it but uh it's it sort of combines a lot of elements and and uh aspects or genres of storytelling that i find very appealing and you were talking about the genre and the slotting, which the categorization, which I'm really disillusioned by in a sense,

because for instance, I mean, you have these books, you're talking about age earlier. There's some fantastic books out there, whether it's, you know, the never ending story or Philip Pullman's, his dark materials, I think it is, like the Golden Compass, where that's in the young adult section, which in my mind meant, oh, this is written for young adults. And I picked up the book, and I had to look up probably 200 words, including a lot of nautical terminology. I was like, how can a 12-year-old read this? But this is great writing. It's really compelling. And I think the fact of the matter is that if you put something out there that is truthful in so much as it's what you wanted to write, that younger readers will rise to the challenge if it's – That's right. There's no ceiling on who's going to be able to –

Yeah, you don't have to dumb it down. Yeah. So I'm very excited to dig in. I assume people can find this everywhere in terms of Amazon bookstores. I think so. Barnes and Noble, Amazon. The usual. And I think a lot of the independent bookstores are picking it up. It's selling. And six days in, we were able to jump to the New York Times bestseller, which was kind of a surreal moment. And really, you know, when you have partners, you're really glad for them.

I was really glad for Rick and for John to be able to say that one day. I do think these guys are going to be, you're going to be hearing about John into next century. That's what I believe. And, you know, and I'm really glad that you gave us a chance to talk about this, this book. Yeah, absolutely. So where can people find this, uh, online? I, I'm going to put all the show notes for those people listening. Uh, there'll be links to everything we've discussed, uh, including the book, obviously, uh, in the show notes at fourhourworkweek.com forward slash podcast, all spelled out. But for those people who want to find it on social, the web uh where are

the best places for them to look there is a welcome to the explorers guild.com uh that is set up by the publisher and that has links there to not only the places you can buy it online but also our various sort of social media feeds i think there are i haven't got them memorized i'm that's okay we also have our own – we created a website. What's it called? Well, we've got our Facebook thing, our Instagram. What do you say? What do you call our Facebook thing?

You know it. I don't know. That's the beauty of the internet. You know what it is? If you can find it out there, this is like a treasure hunt for everybody listening. This is like a treasure list. But if you find it, you're going to see exactly how we start it. We have all our starting materials. Oh, you do. our starting materials and we did our own kind of the making of interviews about our own process.

So it's, it's almost as long as a book now, you know, you see our drawings, we do time-lapse drawings. Oh, nice. So if you really want to see how this book behind the scenes,

um, if you, I don't even know when my own website is. Well, that's, that's the beauty of the show notes. So, folks, I'll provide links to all of that. But, Kevin, do you have a few minutes to do just a handful of more sort of rapid-fire questions? Yeah.

My lawyer's standing by, and my other lawyer's standing. I have a legion of lawyers, so go ahead and shoot. All right. We have – I'm getting the green flag. Tim's eyes got big for a second and they just normally don't do that. The good news is my eyes are already kind of fishbowl size, so they start off big. Well, you keep wanting to go outside like me on the piano. It looks fun here.

Oh, it's gorgeous outside. So everybody, take a look at the show notes. We will come back to that before we take off. Just a handful of questions here, Kevin, and obviously very much appreciate the time. When you think of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind and why?

The first person, I think Steven Spielberg is really successful. And I think Thomas Jefferson was successful. I guess I'm not leaping to the giants of today. But, you know, as you drill down on that list, you know, then you start to go to Bezos and you start to go to Jobs and you go to Bill Gates. Really successful. Really found their way. But I guess at first blush, I don't know. I just said Spielberg. I mean, here's a guy that's probably not so dominant in his personality that has been able to do everything he's wanted to do.

Is there anything else about how he's led his career or otherwise that you particularly admire? I don't think Steven has limited himself. I think early on people tried to say, oh, we can only make this kind of story. This guy is really gifted. He's a really gifted filmmaker. And I think he has challenged almost all genres. He really has. From Sugar Land Express to Minority Report and to these different things, besides the obvious ones, you know, that really changed the way people look at film.

You know, Jaws and E.T. and Close Encounters were giant, giant movies. And I think that he has really bounced around. I think he's been incredibly successful. A very diverse canon of work. I do. Do you have any favorite documentaries? Yeah. It was called Coney Island.

Coney Island. Narrated by McCollum, David McCollum, and it blew me away. It blew me away to finally understand that Coney Island was so much more than just roller coasters. It was the most popular place on the earth at the turn of the century.

It was bigger than Paris. It was bigger than Chicago. And it was because all the inventors were going there. They were allowed to do things. The medical profession, which wouldn't allow this guy who said, hey, I think I know how to keep babies alive. You know, I can heat them, incubation. And they just ran him out on town. Coney Island

said, do it here. And so he did. And it was the most popular exhibit. You could walk in and see these babies that were kept alive. Edison, all these guys were hanging around Coney Island. We think of it in terms of the warriors, like decrepit roller coasters and things falling apart. Coney Island, there was three competing parks that were all as big as Disneyland. Luna Park, Coney Island, and it was the place to be in the world. And so look this documentary up, Coney Island, narrated by David McCollum. I was blown away by it. When do you go to bed and wake up in the morning?

When do I go to bed? I don't have a regular schedule when I go to bed, but when I wake up is pretty specific. The alarm starts going off, and one, two, then the dog, three people end up in bed. There's five people in bed, dog, and now the cat coexists there too. It's really a problem. My kids are really hot, way too hot to be around. It's like warm. The bed's not comfortable.

It's just now it's just too hot. I want out. What time is that usually? Well, that's probably around 7 around seven and we got to be in the car at 10 to 8 or i got to sign this crummy little sheet that says why you're late our name is in it so much at their school they all go to the same school uh and you know there's tears before they get there sometimes because they're five six six, and seven. There's backpacks that are like all over. My kids are just like me.

They can't keep their shit together. It's everywhere. Tools and baseballs and everything. It's just everywhere. It's just everywhere. And when you say, where's your sweater? They'll say it's in the car, which is a bullshit answer. But I hope people understand that my life is just as cluttered as theirs probably. But my wife

and I both, if I'm not making a movie, and I haven't made one since last November, just taken a year into my own life, we drive together. We did this morning. We drive them and we drop them off. I don't know why. I look like a dorky dad in that seat and I get out and give them their backpacks and my wife's driving and it's like, I don't know how that looks, but it's how my life plays. Do you have any, well, this is a, I suppose you could choose either one of these questions. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? And or is that, do you have any bad habit or bad habits that you're currently working to get to overcome in any way? Yeah, I wish I was more disciplined, you know, about wanting, you know, to work out because I need to. But I hate it. I hate thinking

about the clothes you have to wear if you go to a gym. I hate the idea of picking up lead. It makes no sense to me. I don't want to run with headphones. If I'm going to run, I want to make sure I'm watching the news. I'm not disciplined about taking care of my body. I wish I could, but exercise is just a drag, man. I'll do some thinking on that. I might have some ideas for you. Is it true that you've done all or most of your riding, equestrian work in your movies? Yeah, I've done most of it.

I've always had stunt guys in my movies, and they have done some really, really difficult things. But because it's important for me to put the camera as close to the action as possible, I've done most of my riding. But I have been covered by excellent stuntmen. I've had stuntmen make me look faster and make the jump look farther, but I have put myself in the middle of stampedes. I don't know why, with no reins and going. So I like that part of it. I always think, who wouldn't want to go after the bad guy yourself? Why do you just automatically give that up? I heard Roger Moore, who I think is great, but used to say, oh, no, that's too far. I don't do that.

And it might have been just a step over. No, I'm not going to wrestle here. You know, I kind of wanted that. You know, I wanted to jump on it and save the day. Who wouldn't want to swing, you know, from rope to rope in Robin Hood. Who wouldn't want to swing from rope to rope in Robin Hood? Who wouldn't want to do that? I had a stunt guy help me, but whenever I can, I do it. Are there any particular historical figures that you identify with?

Not that I identify with, but Mark Twain is someone I think about a lot. He's amazing. Lincoln I think a lot about. And Jefferson, you heard me mention him. He's somebody I think a lot about. You know, I would have liked to have met Crazy Horse. I would have liked to have met Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. I would have liked to have known how fucked up they must have felt about at the end going, Jesus, we're just going to have to fight for our life.

And we've been here for thousands of years. And who are you people that would make me run for my life and watch my brothers and sisters and my children die who the fuck are you uh this used to be the garden of eden what happened and um i i know we don't have time to get into it today but uh tatanka the story of the bison that uh can you describe that briefly for people so they can sort of look into it it's a very humble little information center i had bigger ideas for it that it could be a hotel that it could ultimately be a museum if there's anyone out there uh entrepreneurial enough i'm an entrepreneurial guy but i'll put about as much as i can if anyone thinks there's something missing in this country

like where where the first people went especially on the plains, I have a place where we could make a great museum together. And I fear that I've long chased everybody away from this interview a long time ago. But if there's somebody out there, there's somebody out there that, Vernon, to keep that story, which is our story, alive, I have the place to put it. And along with it, I'll put these incredible statues, the story of the bison, these bronzes that are amazing. Right there in Rapid City, right there in actually Deadwood. So I need a partner now. I've done all the heavy lifting I can, but if somebody is in love with our history

and has a way through money and love of the history to keep it alive, you come be my partner. So I will – do you recall your Twitter handle offhand? My what handle? Your Twitter. I don't do Twitter. Okay. All right.

We don't do Twitter. I will – I don't do Facebook either, though. I'm told I have an account. Okay. I don't do Facebook either though I'm told I have an account okay so I will do some detective work and put in the show notes perhaps how you can track down Mr. Costa

I just need one guy I don't want a bunch of partners I need one guy that goes I like this stuff and I got a ton of money and we are going to remember this stuff I'm going to do it in a really classy way if you could put one billboard anywhere and we are going to remember this stuff. I'm going to do it in a really classy way. If you could put one billboard anywhere,

what would it say? What would you have on the billboard? Not the book, but just in general. I'd put it in Washington. I'd say no term limit. Oh, no term limit. Yeah, I'd say enough. You know what?

We don't need more experience. We need a work ethic that by the time you're done there, you're so tired you don't want to go back after one term or two terms. You're done after two. Experience is not helping us. It's clogging us up. Two more. That's it. What advice would you give to your 30-year-old self?

To my 30-year-old self? I'm going to say something. We talked about the conservative upbringing I had, the idea that you were going to do this, this is how a man makes a living. My turning point was at 22 when I said I'm going to be an actor and I don't care what anybody else thinks. So I wish I could have got that advice earlier, but I had to actually give it to myself.

So what would I give myself at 30, I think I would have stayed in more control of the projects that I lent my name to. Good advice. Because I'm 38 now. That's the conclusion I just came to last year in retrospect. And last question is, do you have any asks or requests of everybody listening to this? Is there anything you'd like them to take away with them? Obviously, everybody will see in the show notes and elsewhere, the Explorers Guild. But is there any message or any kind of parting comment or suggestion that you'd like to make?

Well, one, obviously, whatever audience it is that is out there supporting you likes the long form of communication. And I hope your audience understands that we like it too. You know, the thing that's hard for us is to go on these nighttime television shows and come up with some small pat joke. And then you introduce your movie and then you're done. So this has been good for me. And I do want to return to the book for those who have waited through this interview with us. This was something that I didn't know that was going to be in my life. And this book, which I hope you read,

it turned out better than I thought it ever could. It was really something that I'm proud to be a part of. And I hope you not only get the book, but the book does something to you which I think all stories or art can do, which is, and it's something we all have in common. I know that when I read something great, the first thing I want to do is share it. I know that when I hear a great song, the first thing I want to do is share it. If I hear a joke, the first thing I want to do is share

it. I hope it's the same with movies. And I hope that when you read Explorers Guild, your first instinct will be, I need to share this. And that really is what I hope. And my advice out there for people who get so completely overwhelmed by

Christmas, it's a great way to stuff your stocking. Take the thinking out of things. You don't know what to get somebody. Get them the Explorers Guild. Let them go on their own journey. It's a beautiful book, and you're a wonderful creator. I really appreciate all the time.

Thank you. And I'm a huge fan of your work, so please continue to create and collaborate with other people. And I'm waving to John just a few feet away. Also, thank you. I appreciate you guys making the time. And to everyone listening, you can find the show notes, links to everything at 4hourworkweek.com, all spelled out, forward slash podcast, or just go to 4hourworkweek.com and click on podcast. And as always, thank you for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one,

this is five bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And five bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the, uh, the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's

fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.