Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Roar - The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made W/ special guest David Dastmalchian

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

We are so pleased to be joined by a special guest for this week's episode! In this one, we talk about Roar, an insane movie from 1981 that featured over one hundred untrained lions and tigers and that resulted in pretty much everyone involved in making it being injured. Massive thank you to David for joining us, we are all huge fans of his and are so grateful that he was willing to join us. And thank you to you listeners, too :) Watch here: https://youtu.be/TLbU-rjZqaw ~ Veracity - For up to 65% off your order, head to https://VeracityHealth.co and use code TOOTH. Hims - To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://hims.com/TOOTH for your free online visit. Rocket Money - Find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitor your spending, and lower your bills with Rocket Money—join at https://rocketmoney.com/CLAW Mint Mobile - Get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month at https://mintmobile.com/TOOTH. $45 upfront payment required for new customers on the first 3-month plan. Miracle Brand - Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/TOOTH and use the code TOOTH to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. ~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone. Welcome to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We are a wildlife podcast. We have a wildlife biologist who knows everything about bears and most things about all the other animals too. And then I'm his brother, Jeff Larson. And we have Mike Smith, who really needs no introduction. And we have a very special guest today. David Delt, I knew I was going to, I'd practice. I love it. I love it. Got nervous. Don't you dare cut this out either? Yes. David Desmaltz. We're keeping it. And you may know him from a variety of different things.

I typically go like suicide squad, you're Mr. Pocod. And then you were Mr. 3 in the one piece live action. Wes and Mike, what do you think of when you think of David? I honestly go to late night with the devil. that was one of the ones that I think about first. And then Dune and Prisoners, I think, are the other two that I think of right off the bat. I also just watched Boogie Man this week. And you were really good in that.

I really enjoyed that movie too. Thank you. I think of you getting dangled off the ledge in the dark night because that's the first time I remember seeing your face. And I was like, that guy has a good face. And then little did I know the next third. years of my life would just be like David. So I randomly this past week I started watching a movie with Mads Mickleson, Dust Bunny. And you showed up in that. And I was like, oh wow, this is meant to be. And then just last night I started watching Murder Bot, which you were also in. I'm like, I can't get it.

I can't escape David. I can't get away from this guy. Well, but it's always such a pleasure to see you. As a super fan of the tooth and claw podcast, I'm glad. that I can stock your viewing experiences. The thing that I probably still get recognized for the most, which was the first time I was ever even on a film set, if you think about it, it's kind of mind-blowing, is the dark night still. To this day, people would be like, you're the guy from Batman.

And I want to say, like, and many other things. But yes. So much more. And then, and late night. with the devil, Wes, you win, because that is my most like, my dearest, my dearest to my heart. It was a starring role. It was also the first time I got to co-produce a feature film with my company, Good Feed Films. And it was, every role has been honestly a dream from the first one all the way through what I'm doing today. I've been so lucky. And getting to make a living as an actor is like

winning Powerball. It's so you can be the most talented, well trained. beautiful, hardworking person in the world. And if you just aren't in the right place at the right time, at the right role in front of the right casting director, the trains just keep going. It's so hard to like time that and get lucky enough to start building a career. And so I do genuinely like I've loved and I've gotten to place so many like, so many directors have given me so many opportunities to like bring life to like real

oddballs. And yeah, I really, credit all of it with going back to like my Chicago theater days and the experience that I had in training there and just being like you fully invest because I grew up as a fan of like genre and horror and sci-fi and comic book stuff. So I always thought like the coolest stuff was when people just went whole hog and committed 110%. I think late night with the devil, that was a really smart role of you to take because like you can transition maybe into a late night TV host when you're done being like the premier character actor of our generation.

You're set for life, you know? Thanks, man. It is funny. I feel like it's such a crapshoot if like someone walked up to you and was like, hey, I know you from like you're known from so many different things. So it's like actually Danielle are friends with National Park after dark. I was like telling her that you're coming on our podcast and telling her like the movies I know you from and none of it was like ringing a bell. So I sent her a picture of you and she's like, oh, he's from, oh my gosh.

Grave conversations. Yeah, he's from grave conversations. I was like, yeah. So like not only are you breaking through in movies, but you're breaking through in the podcast world as well. That is a dream experience for me doing grave conversations, honestly. Like my friend's-it- Such a cool premise. It was my friend's idea. He goes, what about a podcast?

Like, get your friends and then other guests. and they lay in a coffin with you. I was like, that's a terrible. No one would ever want to do that. He's like, let's just try like one or two. So we did it with Matt Lillard. We did it with Mike Flanagan, Kate Siegel. And you guys, it was like, it's such a gift.

And there's one in particular coming up that is just going to, if you ever get to watch the show, I don't know if you guys get to watch it, but it really is. Of course. It's to me, it's like there's one coming up that is like what it's all about. have somebody who is actually confronting the potential of their own expiration date. And it's really fascinating to be able to have that and share that space with someone like that.

I do want you guys, we're working on expanding the size of caskets. We want to get in a coffee. Yeah, I was like, we're trying to do a double casket. Maybe we can do a triple. But here's my thing. I kind of want to get like, I want to get Jeff in a casket with like, and West gets to choose the wild animal that goes in the casket with him. And then he has to survive.

while Mike's keeping commentary on the side. And it's a special edition of crossover. Or we put a venomous snake in the casket with you for the 10-minute interview. The first episode of Grave Conversations where someone actually dies in the coffin. No, I feel like it's almost like hot ones where like eating the spicy wings, like it just brings out answers that they wouldn't normally give in an interview. But like something about them laying in a casket, like brings out these unique answers. Like I was watching Anthony Kerrigan on your podcast. And I loved how you guys were like, if more people thought about death,

maybe people would be less dicks all the time. I thought that's a great line for me. But anyway. Anthony's amazing. Well, thank you guys. Yeah. And I'm very grateful I make podcasts. I make comic books.

I make movies. But one of the things that I like to do the most in my life is to sit in the car. with my incredible kids, Arlo and Penny. Arlo just turned 12. He's a video game master, a Magic the Gathering, Jedi in training. And a Paduan. Really brilliant kid. And then Paduan, yeah.

And my daughter, Penny, who is the most passionate animal lover, I know. She's kept numerous exotic pets. She's obsessed with animals. And we love the show. So one of my favorite things to do is just listen to you guys with Arlo and Penny. Well, it sounds like we had the wrong, the wrong desmaltions on then. We should have had your kids on instead. Next time.

I actually recorded, I recorded an episode with my daughter of grave conversations that I someday will put out into the world. But it was, I got so choked up. And we weren't doing anything serious. We were being silly as shit. we were like, I think one of the questions was, I said, oh, if you had a law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? And I thought she was going to say, you know, everyone has to give me candy. Everybody has to, you know, give me all the animals.

And she goes, oh, free medicine for everybody. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah, that's my kid. My kid's a good kid. Yeah. I think the candy would be Jeff's answer. It's kind of a form of medicine in a way for some people. For today's story, we're actually going to talk about a family that use their kids in a very different way in their careers, much less responsibly and much less beautifully, in my opinion.

When we knew that we were going to have you on, I was really racking my brain trying to think of the right story to have you join us with. And I think at first I was just thinking of doing, you know, a typical tooth and claw fare, like a bear attack or a shark attack or something. But then I started thinking about the movie industry and about some of the famous things that have happened in the movie industry around animals. And there's really one story that is just above and beyond when it comes to any story about movie animals, about movie attacks. And that is the story of the movie Roar from 1981. And this is a crazy story. It's one that a lot of people are familiar with. Every so often there's a viral video that comes out about this movie.

And the details behind it are so unbelievable that I think that content tends to go viral just because people can't understand how this happened. It is possibly the craziest movie ever made. It's often considered the most dangerous movie ever made. And then some people also call it the most expensive home video ever made. made and we'll talk about why that is. But before we get into it, briefly, I want to talk about my sources. I used a documentary called Roar, the most dangerous movie ever made. I used Tipy, which is the Tipy Hendren Memoir. I'll explain why that is. And then there's a lot of different articles about

this movie. So just some random articles from all over the internet. Amazing. All right. Are we ready to talk about Roar? Roar. All right. Now, a quick disclaimer, because this movie starts with a little disclaimer. If you watch this movie at the beginning, it says that they decided to use untrained animals in the movie. And I think that kind of gives the impression that they just, like, caught wild big cats and threw them in this movie. And that's not necessarily true. What these are is kind of like Tiger King animals.

These are animals that were raised in captivity. A lot of them lived in roadside zoos or something. circuses or whatever else, but they weren't necessarily trained. They weren't animal actors. They didn't know how to like go on a queue, how to follow certain commands. They were habituated to humans. They were used to humans, but they weren't trained to be actors. And that's a really important distinction to make. And we're going to talk about animal actors a little bit later with David, because I know David, you have some experience with animal actors. I do. I do. Yes. All right. And you all watched the movie. A little bit later, probably,

in a subscriber episode, me, Mike and Jeff are going to do like a full review of the movie, kind of break down some of the craziest scenes, talk about some of the, just the tone of this movie is so wild. It's insane. But for this episode, we're really going to go into the behind the scenes and the history of this movie, because I think that is the most interesting part of all of this. Was that pre whatever that title card at the beginning of the movie? Is that where they said that the big cats are going to be.

credited with co-producer. I don't know if they have their own IMDB page, but I forget where I saw that exactly. It's at the beginning of the movie. It is. They ended up giving like some of the cats producer roles. Yeah. Because honestly, this movie kind of feels like it was written by Lions.

No, it was like that experiment where they say if you put a monkey in a room with a typewriter, eventually it'll type Hamlet. Like the screenplay for this film was just typed out by. monkeys that were just hitting every key. There is no. Yeah. I don't understand what's going on in this film whatsoever. It is wild.

And we definitely recommend people watch it. This episode and the review episode are going to be more fun if you watch the movie first. Because I had heard about this movie a lot and I knew that it was crazy. But when I watched it, multiple times I had to just like pause and shake my head because I couldn't believe the stuff. that I was seeing. It's so crazy. Are you guys fans of kids in the hall at all? I've watched a little kids in the hall, but not a lot. Anyone who was listening who's old like me, who was, I mean, that's an old, I guess,

an older generation thing now. To me, like kids in the hall and the state and stuff like that were like big, you know, comedy sketch groups. But the other night I was, I was only home for a few days and we were playing this game that I love called Blood on the Clock Tower that my friend Brian Fuller, who directed Dust Bunny, by the way. Thank you for the shout out there, Mike. So good. It is. Big Shark in that movie, by the way, swimming in the restaurant where we shot that in an aquarium.

They built, no, that was in an aquarium. That's real? Oh, my gosh. In Budapest. That's a Budapest aquarium. And then they built a fake Chinese restaurant in front of the aquarium. But I was going to say he invited Scott Thompson over the other night. And I said I was excited.

I was talking to the group of friends that were hanging out. And I was like, I'm really excited to go on this podcast. I was telling them about you guys. And they said, What are you talking about? And I said, Roar, you know, the Tippy Hendron movie. And Skytops was like, oh, my God. And he went off about it. People who know this movie have a very strong reaction to it.

Yeah. I couldn't believe it. I wish it would have snowballed more and like more directors would have used this. Like life of pie. Put a real. Lundering tiger in the boat with the kid. You guys would have a lot of content for your show, but there would be a lot of traumatized crew, artists out there.

Make sacrifices for art. It opens with a bang, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Doesn't it Rory just kind of open on like a, you're like, yeah, it opens with, um, with them in Africa and Noel Marshall on a motorcycle. That was just kind of lucky that he's on this motorcycle and suddenly a bull giraffe just breaks off from the herd and decides to race with them a little bit. And that was actually the only scene of this entire movie that was filmed in Africa.

And even though the entire thing is set in Africa, that's the only scene that was actually filmed in Africa. I believe they shot it in Tanzania. That's a cool scene. All right. So we did mention that Tippy Hedron is in this movie. It really, you could say it starts in 1969. And Tippy Hedron, she's most famous for her role in the birds.

And at 1969, she's in Mozambique filming a movie called Satan's Harvest, which is a really cool title, but the movie didn't seem quite as interesting as the title. But anyway, she's there with her previous agent and now husband, Noel Marshall. And one day they decided to go on safari. And while they're on the safari, the guide shows them this big abandoned house that a pride of lions has ended up taking over. And this scene of these lions in this big house really staked. with Tippy and Noel, especially with Noel. As they're driving away from the house, he turns to Tippy and he says, we should make a movie about this.

And this turns into a dog with a bone for him. He just can't stop thinking about it. And while they're in Africa, they decide to go meet an animal handler that has a trained lion named Dandelion, which is a great name if you have a pet lion. And after they meet Dandy Lion, they get to spend some really close time with this big cat, and this has a massive effect on them as well. Just the energy radiating off this huge, powerful animal really intoxicates them, and they decide that they're actually going to make this movie about lions in a house.

Did that house with the lions just have a billion lions in it? It had a lot of lions in it. It was like a pride of like 30 lions. Yeah. Okay. So the movie is starting to make a little more sense how it ended up the way it is. It's totally based off like one thing they saw one. in their life that just really affected them.

So, and those were wild lions in the house? Wild African lions living in this like, make all the other lions homeless? Like once a group of lions get a home. We say unhoused now. Yeah, yeah. Those are unhoused lions, the big cats out on the Sermedgeti who are unhoused. Yeah, they started, they turned into like landlords and they're being predatory in a different way, renting out. In her memoir, Tippy does talk a lot about how they ended up learning some basic training,

lion training, from this handler that they met in Africa, and that he did warn them that his lions could kill him in a second, and that you can never feel totally safe about these lions, and that part of understanding lions is knowing when they're going to revert to their instincts. But you can still tell in her memoir that she's so smitten with these lions, and especially the relationship between the lions their handler that this warning that this handler gave them didn't really sink in. Nah.

Which is crazy considering this is Tippy Hedron because she was locked in rooms while Alfred Hitchcock threw Ravens at her. She almost lost her eye while they're filming the birds. And she was traumatized for life. Like she hates Ravens because of filming the birds. And she even said in her memoir that she preferred working with big cats to working with Ravens. Like Ravens felt a lot more dangerous to her, which I don't know if she, like she said that before the part about Roar. Maybe that changed afterwards. I mean, she, she would know best.

They're both very smart animals. I'm going to give Ravens the edge when it comes to like cranial intelligence, but I still like lions are very smart creatures. Sometimes I think they're smarter than us. They might be. I mean, they can count, which some of us can't even count anymore. You know, there's plenty of really impressive things that they can do. Once, I've said it before, but once animals can fake a moon landing, then they'll be smarter than you. Until then, I'm so excited to get into your conspiracy. I want a whole separate, I want a side stories. Oh, man.

I want a side stories. You could start a whole new show about that. That's going to be great. And I'm a conspiracy. Like, I grew up on coast to coast A.m. obsessed. but like you're you're that next you're like the one room over Jeff and I appreciate that from you and I sometimes hear the chagrin in your brother's voice when you go deep on stuff I love it look I sidetracked another episode I'm sorry it is sorry it's not it's not chagrins so much as I know

that if I don't cut it off we're about to go on a 30 minute detour you got something that I don't want to learn about. There is another anecdote in Tippy's book where she says that she and Noel talked to this lion handler about their idea of making this movie. And they were really stuck on this number of having 30 captive lions in the movie. And he pretty much laughed at them. He said this was a death wish. He said that he was nervous about putting two lions together, much less 30 lions.

And I think she probably would have listened to him at this point. but Noel Marshall, her husband, was so impulsive and obsessive that he just absolutely could not be told not to do something. Passionate. Yeah, very passionate. Visionaire. You know, I'm going to be a little hard on him in this review because he did, I do agree that he was very passionate.

He really cared about making this movie, but he put a lot of animals and a lot of people at a very high level of risk to try and accomplish this. And the reviews from his, his crew and coworkers and stuff weren't always gleaming after, after this all was said and done. All right. I don't, I'll be the, I'll be the critic. He was ridiculous. It was completely wholly, wildly irresponsible, inhumane and stupid.

Oh, yeah. And like, we are actors. Our whole job is to manufacture and recreate states of emotional being and realities so that, when you look at it through the camera or through the TV or at the cinema or even on stage, you go, wow, that feels so authentic. That feels real. The whole purpose of what we do is not to actually really. That's what one of my, I started out as a method actor, why I gravitated away from it,

both from my own mental health and physical health, but because I realized that the work isn't even good when you exist in that space. So, you know what? I'll say it. He was an asshole. He was an asshole. And he was verbally abusive and physically abusive. And there's a lot more about all of it. To his family. This is like his wife and kids. Be crazy to be like HR on this movie and just... You imagine? Nowadays, I think I'm calling my sad rep. Yes, this movie could not be made nowadays. Wait, a lot of attacked you and you had to keep shooting? Guys, I'm in Maine right now and I just want to eat so much food.

The food out here is amazing. And let me just tell you, it's really nice having something that helps with my cravings. I've struggled with food cravings for as long as I can remember. And I used to think about food constantly. It was exhausting. And honestly, I used to think it was my fault. But these days, unhealthy food is everywhere you look. It's genuinely just hard to avoid.

That's why I'm happy this podcast is sponsored by Veracity. Welcome to an all-natural way to reduce cravings, get energized, and sharpen your focus. Veracity is revolutionizing health by tracking the root cause of so many issues. My business partner said, let's get tacos today. And let me tell you, I'm glad I had a veracity because I could ate a thousand of those things. So what is in Veracity's metabolism ignite? Lemon, verbena, and hibiscus extracts, green coffee bean extract, and magnesium. This unique blend aids in boosting your metabolism and helps with appetite control.

So before metabolism ignite, sells out again, control your cravings and boost your energy the natural way. Head to Veracityhealth.co and use code tooth for 65% off your order. Once again, that's V-E-R-A-C-I-E-Halth.C-O for 625% off your order. 65% off and make sure you use our promo code tooth so that they know that we sent in. So when they get back to California after Africa, Noel and Tippey decided that if they're going to make a lion movie, they're going to involve their family, of course. So Noel's kids, Jerry, Joel, and John wanted to be involved. And so did Tippy's daughter, who is now a famous actress, Melanie Griffith.

and was actually starting to be kind of famous at the time. And Noel starts working on this script. He first calls at Lions, and then he later changes it to Lions, Lions, and More Lions, which is a great title. The idea was this movie is going to be self-funded. Shocked if the script didn't turn out better, you know, with that kind of writing. They're going to self-fund this movie,

and something kind of lucky ends up happening to Noel when he acquires the rights to a little movie called The Exorcist, after meeting the author of the book at a party. He becomes the producer of one of the most well-known and successful horror movies of the 20th century. So a bunch of Exorcist money starts coming in and it makes it a bit easier to fund lions, lions, and more lions, which was still his overarching obsession.

This guy kind of sounds like Coppola, but just like fixed on lions. Yes. It's like, I'm going to do other projects so I can make a movie about life. Instead of the Roman Empire. Yeah. But movies are very expensive to make, and even with this money from The Exorcist,

to be able to afford the high costs of shooting this movie with a bunch of very potentially dangerous animals, they needed to cut some corners. And boy, did they cut a lot of corners for this movie. They spoke with more animal trainers. These ones laughed at them even harder than the one in Africa, but it seemed like every warning from animal handlers just made them more and more determined

that they could make their movie with 30 lions. And they did end up making it, but over 70 people were injured in the process. And a lot of animals lost their lives. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Because the big tagline was like, a lot of humans were injured, no animals,

whereas what they were pretty assisting about. I think the reason they say that is because maybe while actually shooting, like rolling film, the animals weren't injured. But a lot of animals died because of the production of this movie. Some might say that the curse that is thought to have followed the production of the Exorcist, followed Noel to roar as well. Yep. But from David's all in on that.

Yeah. For sure. You know, that little statue they found in Iraq. Pazoozuza. Let me tell you. It was. Pazoozoo's coming. That is an interesting thing to look into.

But after you look at the history of what happened in those two movies, it's really not a bad argument. But in my opinion, the real curse here was a bad case of Hollywood hubris and a deep misunderstanding of wildlife and animal actors. Yeah, I feel like you don't need a curse to explain this one. I agree. No, maybe it's like the 30 lions that was the real problem. I think also like, I think Jeff and I are going to have our own show and drive West crazy because all the side stories. but I just got to say there's this amazing documentary called cursed films if you guys get a chance it's a series so there's like maybe 10 episodes of it but at the end of the day because it's always I was always

excited like what's the curse I want to know about the curse like what caused the curse at the end of the day they're just sad tales of irresponsible humans cutting corners it's often tied to like rabid capitalism where people are just trying to put profits so far ahead of any sense of humanity that people humans, animals, even children, lose their lives or their sanity in the making of these things. So I think it would be more fun if it was like this ancient tribal curse from deep in the caves of the crescent circle. Now, it was like irresponsible, selfish idiots. Yeah. Well, this is actually a perfect segue into something I wanted you to kind of teach us a little bit about David. Since you work in the industry, with your experience,

and knowledge with the film industry as an actor, as a writer, as a producer, what generally goes into having an animal actor in movies in both modern times? And then how was it back in this time, like in the 60s and 70s? What's the difference? Well, I want to say that, like I pointed at this earlier, but I think it's really important. I want to strip away this romanticized notion that we have of like people like putting themselves through literal hell for the sake of the performance because oftentimes what that ends up doing and I see it in real time is that the performances actually aren't as good

as they could have been if the craft had been more diligently adhered to. And to be in a safe space, I truly believe at the end of the day the best place. I would never, like you hear the stories about how Hitchcock put Tippy or Janet Lee or others through like weird, just abusive, strange scenarios to get these great. And then people go, well, would the performance have been as good? I think those people had that potential in them. You could direct that in people. You can pull that out of people in a way that is sound and healthy. And I can give you a great example.

I did it on the set of the film Prisoners. Like I was a survivor of at that point two, very serious suicide attempts. And here I was playing a character who's taking his life and doing it in the safe arms of a director who really took special care or to create that environment is important. and I look at animals the exact same way I look at humans. And I've been on film sets. And some people out there will laugh at this. Even on the set of Ant Man, the way in which the real ants were utilized in our set, there was a lot of care and thought that went into.

And the people who were there in handling them cared deeply. If anybody's a fan of James Guns, the Suicide Squad, which is one of my favorite projects I've ever got to be on. Yeah. James is the most passionate. animal rights activist that I know personally. He puts so much of his... Galaxy 3, that's like a huge theme of it.

Huge. He put so much of his own money into the support of organizations that care for animals from both wildlife to domestic. And in fact, the care that went into Sebastian, the rat performer that we had. And everyone, I'm sure on this Zoom knows how intelligent rats are and what incredible communication is potentially possible with rats when it comes to like performance stuff. But like I got to watch in real time while professionals coordinated with camera, with direction, with other actors, with lighting, with the studio, with the stage, the temperatures.

And everyone was safe. And everyone felt supported. And at the end of the day, I think that's the best way to make art. and I personally produced and wrote a film that there was a centerpiece to the movie that I was very important to me, which involved a really horrendous practice that is common throughout all different corners of the world called cockfighting. And I had my character that I was playing, bets the small amount of money he has at an event. And so to recreate that, we actually found.

this incredible animal rescue in Western Kansas, which is near where I grew up. And they had, they had foul that were, had been rescued or, you know, even trained for, in a sense, for performance, it's hard to get them to actually perform. But they were like just more maybe docile. And there was a way in which we could affix rubber spurs and keep them very safe and shoot them in a way that they weren't agitated. They weren't mentally distressed. And it's all camera angles.

And it's all about kicking up dust in the right place. And it looks violent. It looks awful. And that was the artistry of all that is the coolest part to me. What's not cool to me is like, let's do this thing and see what we catch. Like I love jackass. Don't get me wrong. That's its own thing, though.

I have no interest in doing that on set. And sometimes they cross the line too. Like the bear one and the new thing. Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I guess I meant like in seeing people endangered. Yeah, yeah. So you don't think they put the same amount of care into the movie Roar.

You know, I just, but I, when we first started chatting too, I was, I've been obsessed with this. I'm obsessed with so many different things when it comes to like weird Hollywood effemorrh and just the corners of Hollywood. Jane Mansfield is somebody who I've always really both admired and revered and also. it's a tragic story and a beautiful story. I think she's an incredible person with a really wildly complex journey. And she had this really fascinating relationship with the founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LeVay. And that's actually a story that I've been shaping into something that I want to tell at some point.

And in my research, interestingly, Anton LeVay also kept animals illegally, including big cats. and he had a big cat at one point that was named Zoltan. Ironically, one of Jane's sons was also named Zoltan. And Zoltan, when Jane and her boyfriend at the time, Sam Brody and their kids were on a visit to jungle land. Zoltan was mauled by a lion in front of the family. His brain and his head like chomped in the jaws of a lion and was basically like, I mean, I think they were giving last final rights. miraculously he

did survive after this is Zoltan the little boy What the little boy Is that wild So Jane's son Zoltan Was mauled by a lion At Jungleland

And then miraculously saved Meanwhile Anton LeVay Who would become friends With Jane up in San Francisco Has a pet It was his lion That was Zoltan

Or it was his He had a number of difference He had like a jive bar at one point of Panther. But anyway, I always thought that was just such a fascinating and bizarre and dark chapter. You got to be taking notes right now. I got to. Yeah, in my head, I'm like, that's crazy.

That's like when Sharon Stone's husband got bit by that Komoto dragon, you know. Actors be getting bit by animals. Can't help that. The one I could think about with you, I mean, we're getting derailed here, but the prisoners with all the snakes. So the snakes, they kept, the one thing I was like, But it's humane. It's not inhumane. They do change, though.

They bring the temperature down of their containment, which I'm always like, I want the animals to be in their prime setting all times. Just obviously because they are cold bloodied animals, it slows them down a little bit. And it's not harming them. Their handler was very proud of his work. and he took good care of the snakes

and I as an animal lover was excited about it I wasn't the only animal genuinely that I have a deep deep fear of is our sharks and when I was filming one piece in South Africa

last year a year and a year and a half ago I went we were in Cape Town and I went and and did cave dives with sharks just to help myself overcome my fear and it was really special beautiful

beautiful animals P. It's so hard not to ask follow-up questions about One Piece right now. I want to talk about One Piece. Sorry. Sorry, Wes. No, it's not right. Stay on target. Stay on target. Yes. No, it's nice. You're like the first person we've ever had on that's like as famous as Wes. So you can kind of bowl me. He's much more famous than Wes. Wes has a whale named after you. You have a whale named after you. You have a whale named after you? I do. I do. It's very nice. Well, after my Instagram. handle, which isn't quite the same thing. I'm really glad you brought up just how careful people are nowadays, even with something as small and people might say as insignificant as an ant. Because they're not insignificant.

These are animals that we're taking advantage of to use in movies, and they deserve to be treated with respect and with decency and with love. And that is something that was kind of missing in this movie. The love was there, but not the respect. and we're going to talk about that quite a bit. And I think with big cats, often the feeling that they're getting from this is a feeling of power, a feeling of control, because this is a huge powerful animal that they feel like they're in charge of. And that's definitely what was happening here with Noel and somewhat with Tippy as well.

And another thing about Noel is he didn't want to worry about any rules whatsoever, so he made the first of a series of what I consider really reprehensible choices. And that was that he decided not to hire any. union workers for this film. No union actors, no union writers, cinematographers, animal handlers, set designers, etc. And that was an idea to help them save money, but also to help them break rules without getting in trouble. So the basic idea about this movie was that they were going to put lions in a house, but the actual theme and tone of the movie was pretty undecided. And honestly, after seeing it, it doesn't feel like they ever really settled on one either.

But at times they were kind of imagining it as an adventure movie, sometimes as kind of a horror movie. And then they thought maybe it would be a family comedy. A family comedy. A family comedy. Finally they settled on a mix of family adventure comedy. And behind the scenes is where you could really call this, though, a horror movie. So Nolan Tippy started inviting Ron Oxley, who was a Los Angeles animal handle. over to their house, as well as his full-grown African lion, Neil.

And they spend a lot of time with Ron and Neil at their house in Sherman Oaks, and Ron is kind of teaching them about the ways that they can interact with lions. And he tells them, really the only way you're ever going to have a solid relationship with these cats is to raise them from cubs, and that they should start finding cubs and raise them in their house. And the first cub they got was pretty big. This isn't like a tiny cub. It's like an 80 or somewhere 80, 90 pound cub.

And it would actually sleep in Melanie Griffith's bed. And it bit her one night, but they're still just hooked. And they decided that they need. Now they were thinking 50 lions and now they're like, we need it. Or 30 lions. Now they're saying we need at least 50 lions for their movie. More. We need more.

Yeah. More lions. Imagine you like are going on a trip and you just go on like rover or something to get someone to pet sit for you for a few days. You're like, yeah, I need someone to watch my cat. My lions. Can you sleep with it, please? So Nolan Tippy start buying and adopting lion cubs.

They would get them from circuses or road-sized zoos or exotic animal dealers. And by 1972, they had six cougar-sized lion cubs living in their house in Sherman Oaks. A few of them end up escaping. They terrify the neighbors. Animal control shows up and tells them what they're doing was a least. Eagle and they need to find a new home for the Lions. So Noel ends up buying a big property in Soledad Canyon, and that's actually the property that they end up using for the set of the film. They build a house on the site. It's built to resemble this house that they'd seen in Mozambique,

and they also create a lake around the house. And I just want to take a quick aside, there is so much more detail in TIPI Hendrens or a Hedron's memoir, Tippy. So if you're really interested in this story, I do recommend reading the chapters about it because there's a lot that I have to kind of skip to fit this into one episode, but there's a lot of detail in there that's really, really interesting. So, in order to make this house and this river bottom look more like Africa, they plant a bunch of African plants and trees all over, which I shouldn't have to tell you isn't a great thing to do in an ecosystem. And then they start collecting a lot more cats. They get togar, the lion who plays the villain in the film. It's a lion that they adopted

from the San Francisco Zoo because the zoo found him too aggressive to being a zoo. So they might as well put him in a movie. Can I just insert here that Togar was also the name of one of Anton LeVay's lions, which was taken. It was taken by the San Francisco Zoo. Oh, there's no way is there that that's the same Togar. That's impossible because they would have taken. I don't know. I this from Anton LeVay in in 1967 or 1968 I believe is when they took the same lion from

Anton LeVay to the San Francisco Zoo. That's crazy so not only is this lion aggressive but he's likely a Satanist. Let's do some research. I don't want to get I don't quote me on all of this I'm just I'm hypothesized but he did absolutely have a lion named Togar that was taken

from him. That's probably it. I think Satanists are a little misunderstood though. I'm not going to I do too. I agree. Lions actions on. I wasn't saying that in a disparaging way. You were encouraging it. Noah then builds, Noah builds enclosures for the cats on the property,

but sometimes these cats get out. They would escape. They mix in with the other cats and they end up injuring each other. So again, this label that you see at the beginning of the film about them not being harmed is not true. Not only were a lot of them harmed, but some of them would die from disease and from disaster. Around this time,

Noel and Tippy start taking in other species too because they just simply could not turn it down when people offered them big cats. Some of the... Some of the animal handlers they were hiring had their own animals that they brought, and then they're really just taking in whatever. And this presents a problem because they are taking in cats

that aren't native to Tanzania where this movie is set. And Noel decides to rewrite this... Who cares? Yeah. He's like, you know, There's like one line in the movie where the guy's like, you have tigers. They're not if it's supposed to be here. And he's like, so what?

Yeah. And that's like it. That's them like. I was happy they at least mentioned it. Yeah, they did. They covered themselves on that. But I like the idea that this was like bring your pet to work day and someone just showed up with an elephant. It's like, all right.

We'll write them in, I guess. We'll put them in the movie. Yeah. I mean, that's cool. Yeah, we got one. So now the movie. That's what convinced me they were in Africa, though, is they had like a elephant. They have to have them.

Yeah. The giraffe scene is in Africa. But the movie is now about a big cat researcher in Africa that wanted to learn about big cat behavior. So he decides to live with as many wild big cats as possible in a house in order to study them and how they behave around each other. Method acting. Yes. So he was a doctor, right? He's like a researcher.

I think they never really make that clear. like a biologist. He's kind of like you, Wes. He's like you with bears. It's very similar. The approach is. I actually have seven grizzly bears in my house right now. I thought so.

Trying to figure out what they do if you throw him in. His name was Vess. He was obsessed with the grizzly bear. They were his friends. Oh, was they? The grizzly kid. So the three main conflicts in this movie are going to be a violent wild lion that's trying to take over the pride, a group of grantees that's.

somehow includes poachers that are withholding money from our researcher, and then the researcher's family making an impromptu visit to the house, but them getting their wires crossed and the family's showing up while the researcher's gone and finding a house full of lions and other big cats, which they have no idea about. Such hijinks. Where is Don Knox when you need him? When you say full, like, it is literally these lions can't even move because they are stacked on top of it.

I was shocked when I was watching this movie. It's so funny, too, Wes was just saying, like, the family gets to the guy's house and he's not there. And there's leopards in the house. And they're like, oh, that's interesting. And then once the lions come in, they, like, are afraid. And it's like, well, there were leopards in there when you got there, too. Like, you should have been afraid right away. Yeah.

When you watch this movie, however many lions you're picturing in the house, it's more. many more. Quintop. Yeah. When you watch the movie, you pretty much learn immediately that the plot is meaningless. Both the movie and Noel Obsession are really just about what happens if you put an insane number of untrained big cats into a house. Which is interesting. Yes, it is very interesting.

This movie, I was riveted, and even though there's no plot. By the end of this animal collecting phase, they would end up having over a hundred, 32 big cats with the lion share being lions. Ah, Wes. Good joke. They also had a lot of tigers, a handful of leopards, some cheetahs, and a few mountain lions. They did have two jaguars at one point, but they found them too unpredictable and difficult to work with because they almost immediately tried attacking people that they decided to put those in a zoo. I also took an...

Those would be the most problematic. Yeah, they also took in an elephant and a bunch of birds, and they did change the title of the film finally to roar. ED is actually a problem, and it's way more common than most guys think. Millions of guys deal with it at some point, and that's exactly why Hymns offers a straightforward way to handle it. Hymns will connect you with a licensed healthcare provider online, which gives you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from home. You don't have to have an awkward appointment. You don't have to wait at a pharmacy. You just get sent the prescription that you need right at your house.

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is that I am completely uninterested in keeping track of my finances. I don't like it. I find it stressful. I find it kind of boring and I just don't like tracking it. That's why Rocket Money has been so helpful to me. Just show me a graph. Show me what I'm spending. But what I really loved about Rocket Money is I'm the type of person who gets on a subscription, forgets about it, and pays that amount of money every month forever. And Rocket Money helps with that. And I'm kind of nervous telling you guys about Rocket Money because some of you might be subscribers and you might cancel your tooth and claw subscription right when you pull up Rocket Money because you forgot about it. But that's okay. No, but really, I've saved so much money

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So Noel and Tippy starts selling all of their other properties, all their valuable stuff to fund this movie. Like Tippy sells a fur coat that Alfred Hitchcock gave her. They're just pawning this stuff off. Like they're literally going to pawn shops and selling priceless Hollywood artifacts to pay for this movie. They decide they're going all in. Under over budget before you even start is just crazy. It's wild. And they're at this point where they have to turn a profit because they've leveraged everything.

So they need this movie to be successful. And one of the craziest thing they leverage is their own safety and the safety of their kids. Noel decides that he's going to play the lead in this film, the researcher. Tippy plays the wife. Melanie, John and Jerry would play the kids. And Joel, who's like the one smart member of this family is like, nah, I'm just going to work on set. Like, I'm going to be a set designer or something.

I don't want anything to do with these lions. And they even learn how to be like veterinarian, like give some veterinarian care and do some basic animal handling to try and save money. Filming starts in 1976, and the idea is they can film this thing in six months. It ends up taking four years, likely due to all of the injuries that happen to cast and crew and the time they need to recover from those injuries. The film is shot by Jean de Bonn, the Dutch filmmaker, who also famously shot Die Hard and Flatliners. Oh, wow.

Directed speed, dude, don't forget. Directed speed and twister. Yeah. What? What? Yeah. Have you guys ever seen that movie Pop Star? Yeah, yeah.

The one with, there's this really funny scene in it. Yeah, there's this scene in it where Bill haters, like, a roadie, and they're talking about how he's, He's really into flatlining. And then he's like, yeah, we got the movie from Flatliner shot by Yonda Bont. It's like one of my favorite lines in that entire movie because he brings up the cinematographer immediately. Anyway. This is early for Yond DeBond then. Because his first Hollywood movie.

Yeah. He's like 20. Yeah. He's a kid. Yeah. It's crazy. He's Dutch. It's his first movie.

They really couldn't have picked a better DP though because he also has this reputation. of being kind of difficult, really eccentric, and really likes making his cast kind of take some crazy risks in his movies. Like, especially Twister, he was, like, throwing things at them and stuff. But he's about to risk his life for Roar, and he's really into this idea. So let's talk about the injuries. This is what everyone came for. This movie is famous for over 70 people being mawling, being mauled by these big cats.

and if you even watch a few minutes of this movie, you'll understand just how crazy it actually is. There are dozens of untrained big cats being forced together in small spaces, and then the human actors are just kind of thrown into the mix. They're constantly being tackled and chased. Just tackled. The tackling looks so uncomfortable. Noel knew that if you made someone run from these cats, it would trigger them to run after them.

tackle him. So he's constantly telling his actors just to go in the scene and start running so that they would get tackled by these cats. I can't believe it. Like literally every single scene in this movie that involves cats and actors, which is pretty much every scene, looks like someone is struggling for their life. Like they're truly scared that they're about to be killed by these cats. And it's true. They were really scared that they're about to be killed. They're still like half trying to act, you know? Yeah, exactly. Like, it's. Like they're still like half in character, but then definitely like not completely. Exactly.

They had to go full method to stay. There's a lot of good improvising. They would get legitimately injured while the camera was rolling. And he'd just be like, oh, it's just a scratch. Don't worry about it. And it's like, yeah, it looks like, you know, Sissy Spaceic at the end of Carrie with the blood dripping down her face. And he's just like, oh, don't worry about it. That's just big John.

Johnny's just doing his thing. So good. He especially like, we're going to, again, we're kind of hard on him. He is very tough in this movie. Like, he gets mauled so many times and he's kind of just doing it because he knows it's going to make for good footage. And it does. All right. So this movie, like I mentioned before, is often considered the most dangerous movie ever made, ever made

because pretty much every member of the cast and crew ends up getting injured by these cats at some point. Yeah. And here's some of the most noteworthy mawings that happened while they're filming Roar. The first one happened before principal photography, before they ever started shooting. They're shooting a promo for the film. And Tippy is supposed to trip on a log and then lay on this log while a bunch of the big cats run over the log and jump over her. So they're hoping to get these shots of her on the log with this parade of big cats like jumping over her. And it's actually going pretty well until one of the last cats, a lioness named Cherries,

decides to investigate Tippy on the log. This investigation becomes more and more aggressive, and then Cherries leans down and bites into Tippy's scalp. And Tippy would go on to explain in her book the feeling and the sound of the lion's canines scraping against her skull. Noel rushes in, he pulls the lioness off of Tippy, but the damage had been none and blood is coursing down her face as they're shooting a prolo for this film. Dude.

Do any of you know about lion mouths? Like, how do you think, do you think they're very clean? No. No, is the answer is looking for it. Not a trick question. Is there a single animal in human included whose mouth is clean? I mean, it's one of the gnarly things about a bad snake bite. Snake's mouths have got gerbs.

humans are the worst. You'd never want to get bitten by a human. Yeah. So big catmouse are absolute cesspools when it comes to bacteria. And infection almost always occurs instantly. So when she's bit, they immediately pour hydrogen peroxide on the wound, which kind of ends up becoming their main way of caring for any injuries on site. It's like my mom when I was a kid. Dump hydrogen peroxide on it. And then they take her to, to the hospital and she is treated. All right, one of the first scenes they shot was a scene where Noel wanted to show this house to potential investors to grantees.

And then he's also showing it to investors that are actually trying to fund the movie. And it's going to be a scene where some of the big males are fighting and Noel's character, Hank, would run in and break up this fight. And getting a bunch of untrained lions to fight on camera turns out isn't very hard. but what was hard is stopping it. On take three, Noel rushes in to break up these lions, and one of the lions bites him completely through his hand. And the scene is still in the movie.

You can see the lion bite him, and then you can see his hand bleeding, and then Noel trying to kind of shake it off. But when they stop rolling and they actually go to look at his wound, this bite had gone all the way through his hand. It had ruptured an artery, and blood was spraying over 10 feet in the air from the wound. God bless America.

That's amazing. So what do they do? I noticed that in the movie and it's like, I can't believe he's still pretending this scene is working. Yeah, it's like that. That's all anyone's going to focus on now. That scene in Jango where Leonardo DiCaprio cuts his hand open and he just keeps going. It's kind of like that.

Yeah. Two of our finest actors, Noel Marshall and Leonardo. So they throw some hydrogen peroxide on it and then in. Ambulance takes an old to the hospital. His whole arm ends up becoming infected. They said it was like just radiating red lines all up his arm from blood poisoning. And for a while, doctors think they're going to have to amputate his arm. He spends a week in the hospital and then immediately goes back to filming as soon as he's released.

What a maniac. All right, this is one of my favorites. While shooting a scene that involves a bunch of lions running out of the house and over a camera, Yonda Bont decides to put. himself under a tarp in a hole with the camera lens sticking out and then they're thinking we'll just have the lions run over top of the camera and over this tarp with yawn in the hole underneath. He's warned by the elephant trainer about how tempting this is going to be for all these big cats, but he berates this trainer and he says, I need to get this shot. And Noel tells him to at least put on a helmet, but when he puts on this helmet, he can't

get close enough to the eyepiece of the camera. so he takes the helmet off. Now, David, do you have any cats or any pets? I'm a... I've always kept cats. We have a very pet-friendly house. The cat who lives constantly at the house who's an indoor cat.

Her name is Bubblegum. Bubblegum was actually a rescue from Panama when we were shooting the Suicide Squad. It's a whole episode, but I tell you guys the story of her journey and how I got her from Panama to Los Angeles. We're going to have to make you our fourth host so we can hear about these stories. I'm in.

I'm in. But she is, I love cats very much. Have you thought about getting a lion or two? You know, so I grew up in Kansas and I was dating a girl at the university of my high school. I can't believe you have a story. She went to the University of Kansas. And there's a town in between Lawrence, Kansas and where I lived called DeSoto. and this guy kept a lion in a big cage.

And I thought at age 14 and 15, like how cool it would be. But then after all the time I spent working at this Shawnee Mission Environmental Science Laboratory and like learning about that stuff, I was like, oh, that animal's not happy. And so then I decided, no, I don't want to ever have. But when I was younger, I absolutely wanted a big cat pet because I love cats. and I romanticized the idea. But this guy in Desoto, most of us grow out of it.

Yeah, in the 90s and 2000s, his animal would just roar and roar and roar. Sorry, back to the story. Oh, yeah, that would be like a terrible. Yeah, so that like, I'm glad we took this diversion, but my question for you, David, is if you were to put a blanket over your hand and kind of move your hand quick underneath that blanket in front of your hand.

We know. I've done it many times. It's a blast. It's such a fun game. to play with the cat because my cat sleeps with me in debt. So we play that game all the time. And she likes the counts. She thinks it is a groundhog.

Yeah. Well, and Mike, you're a big proponent of helmets. I'd say we all ought to be wearing them at all times. So the time mistake to take his helmet off, you think? Yeah. Including Yon. Come on, Yon DeBond. Poor Yon.

So that movement underneath the blanket or underneath the tarp in this case really kicks in that predator instinct. and the curiosity that these big cats naturally have. And that's exactly what would happen in this instance too. Cherries, who again was the lion that had attacked Tippy, and she refused to work with anymore after that attack, noticed movement beneath this tarp and pounced, immediately tearing into what was just an unknown moving target for her,

but was actually Yon DeBond's head. And in her book, Tipi Hadron says, In less time than it took to say it, cherries grabbed Yon's head in her mouth and ripped off his scalp from the nape of his neck to his hairline all in one piece literally peeling his head

he would end up needing 220 sutures to stitch his scalp back on but he resumed filming as soon as he recovered three weeks later which is crazy like when I first heard about this film and they said 70 people were injured

I kind of imagined like little bites some scrapes nothing too crazy. This is a big deal. 220 sutures is a lot of sutures. His scalp was torn completely free from his head. And part of the reason there are so many injuries is because kind of like we mentioned,

Noel Marshall was an asshole. People would obviously be uncomfortable or panicked in scenes, but he would force them to take after take after take. And sooner or later, the cats would get bored or frustrated and they would just end up attacking. Whenever anything bad happened or mistakes were made, he would aggressively, verbally, and physically abuse whoever was involved,

and truly no one seemed to like him while making this movie, including his wife and his kids. There's a scene where the family's escaping. They're trying to get away from this cat house. And while they are, they're paddling away on this boat, and an elephant sees them and destroys their boat, which it does very convincingly. If you've seen this movie, this elephant really leaves. Yeah, it destroys this boat. And they decided, Noel decides, that he wants the elephant to pick Tippy up.

And Tippy had a really good relationship with this elephant. It had picked her up a lot. But again, he starts making them do just tons of takes. And in one of these takes, it picks her up and she kind of grabs onto the side of its head. She's almost holding onto this elephant's ears. And then she falls. And as she falls, her leg gets caught between the tusk and the trunk of this elephant. And it breaks her ankle.

really severely. They actually use this shot in the film. You see her fall off this elephant, but they play it backwards, so it looks like the elephant is picking her up and putting her on its head. It looks weird as hell. Oh, wow.

So strange. Yeah. But she would end up going to the hospital. She gets gangrene from this wound and needs to spend a lot more time in the hospital than she should have. They're in California, right? Right.

Imagine they go to like the same doctor that she went to with the lion biting her head. They do. It's the same doctor They like I fell off an elephant There's a really funny shot in that sequence where I don't know what they were trying to show But what it looked like is they did a quick little

Shot over towards a bunch of tigers that were hanging out over on the coast of the river And the tiger's faces look like they're like This is insane What is going on right now Like even the tigers are just like I can't do this This is a little too much here. So assistant director Doron Copper was attacked by Togar

after he unintentionally queued an attack. Togar bites him on his head and his throat. And copper feels the massive canines of this huge African lion, enter the front and back of his neck, and then Togar adjusts his grip, he tears off copper's ear, and his tooth grazed his skull, and then one of the lower canines enters his cheek just below his eye.

So again, this is someone who's been in the head multiple times by a male African lion during the filming of this movie. Is that in the movie? No, this is someone that wasn't on screen. He was like an assistant director. He's taken to the Palmdale Hospital. He has to undergo four and a half hours of emergency surgery. And his injuries were actually reported as being near fatal. They thought they were going to lose this guy because he was attacked so severely.

All right. One of the more famous ones from the movie involves Melanie Griffith. She was only a teenager when Rora was shot. And as the first attacks start happening, she's like, I'm out. I'm not doing this movie anymore. And Tippy, who's her mom, is kind of relieved. She's like, you know what? That's probably a good idea.

And Melanie's reasoning was she's like, I'm going to get my face ripped off. And my whole career is going to be over. And I don't, like, I don't want to take that risk. She steps away. They cast one of her friends in her, in her, role. And then she kind of gets FOMO, I think, because she calls a little while later and she says, you know what, I want to be back in the movie. And Nolan Tipier are like, yeah, come on. You know, like probably 10 people have been mauled by this point, but they're like, yeah, come shoot her a movie.

So one day they're shooting a scene where a large lioness has Melanie pinned down on the house. And while the cameras are rolling, this lioness readjusts her grip. She puts her paws on Melanie's face on her face. and then rakes the paws horizontally across her face. No. Tears open a large gash pretty much the entire width of her face, almost rips out her eyeball. She has to be taken to the hospital. She receives 50 stitches,

and she would have to undergo facial reconstruction surgery and plastic surgery to fix her face. Melanie Griffith? Melanie Griffith. Yeah. We're talking about working girl, Melanie Griffith. Body double. Oh, man.

I feel like I never know. noticed that scar. No. Even a job. Plastic surgeon did an amazing job. The freaking Mark Hamill showed on to them after the Star Wars. Oh, pretty gnarly, though. Both John and Jerry Marshall are both mauled as well.

A lion jumps on John Marshall and begins to bite the back of his head. It took six men to separate the lion from him, and his wound would require 56 sutures. Jerry Marshall was bitten in the thigh by a lion. while he was in a cage on the set and he was taken to the hospital along Hendren for a month. Joel Marshall had opted out of being in front of the camera, so he was never mauled.

I think he was the only one that escaped a serious malling in the family. Yeah. There were so many mallings that a new wing at the Palmdale Hospital was nicknamed the Noel Marshall wing. There was pretty much always an ambulance on set taking someone to the hospital.

It was so regular that many of the crew ended up quitting the film because they knew that their turn was coming sooner or later. A small defense of Noel Marshall is that he did seem to get the worst mallings out of just about anyone. He was bitten over a dozen times on the chest, the face, on his limbs. He had several serious infections and complications. In one scene, he's running around in his underwear talking to Mativo, the Kenyan actor in the film, and he wants the lions to be fighting behind him.

So he's doing all these takes, getting the lions just all riled up, and the crew said they could feel the tension getting higher and higher as these lions are just getting more and more and more aggravated. And finally on take 21, one of these big male lions comes up to Noel's leg, bites into the back of his leg around the knee, and drags him off camera. The handlers rush in to separate him from the lions, but blood is already coursing down his leg. So they pour some hydrogen peroxide on it.

He's taken to the hospital. It's not a joke either. That's what they do. They take him to the hospital. He ends up spending weeks in the hospital because of these eight puncture wounds. And they're starting to get really infected. They become gangreness and he gets blood poisoning. I like the idea of takes for wild animals.

Like they have any idea what's going on. It seems like they just kept shooting until they got mauled. That's kind of what it was. Noel just wanted the cats to be as aggressive as possible. Well, it's no surprise it took so long to make the movie because it's not like, like the animal, there's some like really impressively choreographed for lack of a better word sequences in the movie. And that just has to be like a million takes until you get the animals to do what you want

them to do. They were just throwing stuff at the wall. I mean, they literally. Spaghetti. It's spaghetti. But I hate to bury the lead here, folks. But guess what? The movie is not good.

Like if they made a masterpiece, maybe we'd be sitting here scratching our heads being like, wow. But yeah. We'll get to that. A crazy thing happens now, though. Noel's in the hospital, and while he's there, disaster strikes, an actual natural disaster. They'd built the set in a canyon that was designated as a floodplain. What they didn't know is that to divert water in a flood, there's a berm and a pipe that are literally directed right at where they built this house. In case the flood water got too high to get it off the highway and stuff, they direct it right down this canyon.

So in 1978, record rains lead to both the berm and this pipe bursting, and they send all this water down the canyon toward the production. I retracted my earlier statement that there was not a Pizzou curse on this whole organization. Noel carried the curse. It's definitely a curse. The cast and the crew scrambled to build a dam to stop the water from hitting the set, but they see a 10-foot-high flash flood heading toward them, and they know there's nothing they can do.

This flood slams into the house, into the cat enclosures, into all the other infrastructure that they'd built. Stop it. It destroys almost everything in its path. Fifteen of the cats escaped from their cages and run out into the surrounding area. Three of the lions that got out were chased down by sheriffs. They're obviously very intimidating animals to these cops, so they end up shooting them and killing them.

including Robbie, who is their star hero lion, one of the lions credited as a producer in this film. Noel hears about the flood while he's in the hospital. He leaves the hospital, even though he still has like blood poisoning, travels to the set to help. Even though he's scheduled for surgery, he helps round up some of the other cats, and they kind of take stock of what had happened.

The flood had destroyed the set. It had destroyed all the African vegetation, the enclosures, and even a lot of the extra film that they had left was destroyed. Luckily, the stuff they had already shot they had already sent in, so it wasn't there, but it's a huge setback. They're about 95% done with the film, and they'd leverage their entire lives to make this movie. So by July of next year, Noel had raised $3 million from investors and a disaster grant. They're able to film the rest of the movie, and they wrap about 10 years after they had

originally seen those lions in Mozambi. And like David said, this film was a huge flop. In fact, they couldn't even get North American distribution for this movie. And the leading theory is because they had skirted the union so much during production that no one wanted to touch this movie. It was finally released in a few international markets. It's billed as a ferocious comedy. And they make about $2 million on a movie that costs them about $17 million. to make.

Oh, good ROI. Not a great, not a great movie. It kind of ends up destroying all their lives, aside from the kids. Noel Marshall and Tippy. Noel never makes another movie. It leads to the end of their marriage. They just break up like a year later. Noel would suffer pain and issues from his injuries the rest of his life.

He never directs another movie. He dies in 2010. They could have gone to like Roger Corman or, you know what I mean? Like they should have put it out on like the grind house. circuit. Like faces of death or something. Yeah, absolutely. Producer in me is just looking at this tragedy, just being like, how could we have salvaged

this into something more profitable? But I'm glad. I don't want it to be successful, you know? Yeah, exactly. So Hedron actually establishes an actual accredited wildlife preserve for a lot of these cats in the movie. She names it Shambala. It's located not far from where they made this movie.

And I do think her heart is now in the right place. I think she's kind of learned that this wasn't a good thing, that these cats weren't subject to good conditions. And in kind of the wake of this movie, she has done a lot of good for exotic animals following the absolute disaster of what Roar was. Now, David, kind of what you just mentioned, this movie was rediscovered by Draft House films in 2015,

ends up having a theatrical run finally in North America, and they release it on home video, and it now has a cult following. So that is the story of Roar, the behind the scenes. We're going to talk more about it on that other episode. The movie, The Room, the iconic. Tommy Weizzo.

Yeah, Tommy Wiseau, where it's like, they kind of end up making money off of just the legend of the movie and, like, the things, like writing books about Roar and stuff now maybe more income is coming, you know? Yeah, I think, you know, at the beginning of this movie where they say animals weren't harmed, there was a different standard for harm back then, too, because these animals were stressed out

the entire time they were filming, which does harm to them. There was a lot of harm done. And again, something to mention, they lost 14 cats from disease because they were in these pens. They were too close to each other. There was all these problems. And then they also had three that were killed in this flood by the sheriffs that had. to kill them. And there's for sure scenes in the movies, too, where animals are obviously harmed, including one scene where the cats are shot by poachers and you see them, like,

obviously heavily sedated to get these shots and, like, twitching and their eyes are all big. You can tell they gave them something to get those shots. So there was definitely harm being done to these animals. And I'm really glad that this doesn't happen anymore. Do you know if her sanctuaries, how long it went on? Did it evolve into something else still operating? There's a number of them in Southern Cal. A lot of really well-intentioned ecologically sound wonderful organizations. In fact, I just, for my daughter's birthday, there's a really great one in Silmar that we went to visit.

And the thing that is so annoying and frustrating to me is at this point with the information age that we live in, there are still so many people, both people of wealth and otherwise, it doesn't really matter, but often it is people of privilege who think like, well, I know the rules are such and such, but I can get a thing because I've got the resources to keep this thing and they get these and this place, as fun as it was for me and my daughter and her friends to like see these wonderful animals, they do tell you how they acquire them. And then you're just like, oh, dear, geez, like this beautiful, big alligator. that was basically spent all of its life in a bathtub until it was rescued and brought to this place.

It's crazy. And I'll say the good thing about her rescue Shambala is that it's a no contact rescue. So if you ever go to a big cat rescue and they're letting you hold cubs or touch the adults or whatever, that's like a roadside zoo. That's a tiger king thing. That's not, those animals are not being treated well. Her rescue is a no contact rescue. It is accredited by this big kind of rest.

rescue and rehab association. So I do think she turned a corner and she realized that there was a better way to help these animals and that having them in your house in L.A. isn't the way to do it. So good for her. She's still alive. She's like 97 years old, but she's still alive. Good for her. Good for her. Yeah. Okay. I've always been grateful. I just want to say shout out to my Shawnee Mission Environmental Science Laboratory in Kansas and Shawnee, Kansas. So grateful. I think every school should have a program like that. It was for the entire school district, but it was just a place where we got to learn about animals and appreciation for animals and ecology in a way that was so hands-on. And I wish every school district in America had that. Yeah, that's amazing.

That like we, in my school, in my high school, we had a wildlife biology course and we got to go out and like catch eagles with an ornithologist, or not eagles, owls with an ornithologist and do like some really cool hands-on work. And that's a big part of what. made me want to be a wildlife biologist. So courses like that are so, so important. Oh, yeah, it's awesome. All right. So for our categories, oh, categories. Here we go. Let's do it. I feel like if I was a lion, though, I'd want, in captivity, I'd want to be in Roar instead of just sitting around. I don't think so. I get to be in a totally stressed out. Yeah, I guess for one nice part is you get to lick a bunch of honey off

of Tippy Hendren's face. That was an amazing moment. Crazy scene in this movie. Pretty cool choreography on there. Incredibly dangerous. In her book, she talks about how terrified everyone was during that scene. But yeah.

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that we're all going to answer. And then we're going to have a bit of an interview for David, because David, I do want to hear a little bit more about your experience with animals, about your passions. So actually, let's do that part first. Let's go to that interview. And David, we're all really, we're looking forward to learning more about you. We've seen you on screen, feel like a friend already. But I'm excited to ask you a few questions. Then Jeff has a for you too, which... Oh, boy. I'm nervous.

I'm very nervous. I got one that I don't feel comfortable if you're asking, but... Oh, you've got to do it now. Put it in the chat and I'll read it out loud. All right. My first one for you is I want to hear about your most memorable experience with an animal actor. My most memorable experience with an animal actor was on stage.

interestingly I trained in Chicago at the theater school DePaul University is very grateful to be a part of some really incredible productions but one of the most incredible productions was a part of a professor my at the time Peter

Hobart he had acquired the rights to produce an unproduced play that had been written by Clifford Odette's who was one of the founding members of the group theater and was just a core American dramatist of the 20th century and like a major socialist who was a big part of like philosophical drama and and what was going

on especially mid, mid century and earlier in America. And he had written this play that was originally titled, I Got the Blues. Well, when Harold Clermann and the other members of the group theater read this play, they were so devastatingly depressed by it. Like there's no way we could put this on stage in Broadway. Like this is even though we do dark, we can't go to this dark. So he went and reworked the play, and it became a very successful and famous play called Awaken Sing. Now, the dog in the play, I play a one-legged mobster who's in love with the daughter of the family.

He's a veteran of the First World War, and his name is Mo Axelrod. And he talks in all kinds of wonderful. The language of this is so beautiful. but the dog's name was named after the lead character of the place the dog was named Henny in the play I just called the dog Stinker hey stinker come here stinker no one calls the dog dog a dog doesn't have a name but we used a Australian sheep dog that was trained to find me and treats on stage and come to me and I had the best it was such a beautiful experience working with this dog and this dog was beloved and was

was ultimately adopted by the director of the play. That's great. I love one that happens. I will say like previews first time in front of press interview. You know, there's press in the house, a packed house. Henny came on stage and she's supposed to run right to Moe as I'm sitting there with my cigarette and my cards. And she just went right into the audience.

And I got to improvise my one-legged walk to retrieving this dog from the front row. where the audience was very excitedly playing with her. It was pretty wild. I love that. I thought for sure your answer was going to be Batman. Right? Just a Batman? Yeah.

Acting with an animal on. No. I was so, it was such an insane experience. The first time I was in a scene with Batman and like he's, you know, Harvey Dent has me tied up. He's torturing me. We shot that scene in the Battersea Power Station in London, which is actually. actually the same building that's on the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals album for anyone who likes

the deep cuts. And so now Batman rescues me. And I was trying not to look at Batman because I wanted the first time I saw Batman, you to see it on my face, like the effect that it had. And I'll never forget, like, looking at Batman and then thinking like, oh, my God, it's like rubber and, like, felt. And like, none of this is, it's the magic of movies that the thing is like up close to the naked eye. It doesn't once it's on camera and it's lit it look the materials they use they're geniuses. It looks even I don't know how to describe it's incredible. All right next question. Your favorite animal. Cat domestic domestic domestic domestic cat domestic house cat. Let's say cats in general. My favorite wild animal is I'm obsessed with the mong goose. I think it's such a fascinating mammal. I love the way they exist. I really love the timber

rattlesnake. I think it's a beautiful creature and I think it's like evolved into something so special and I love the way it like what it how it is. I think that the whale shark is like God on earth. Yeah. Like when I think about like some like divine entity floating in space. Even though I don't believe in that, it would be a whale shark. Like an installation on it. Yeah, Jeff doesn't believe in space either. Hovering. And we both love whales shark.

All right. Yeah, that's a good answer. We're going to accept that. What do you think is the biggest or most impressive animal that you think you could take in a fight? And I, you know, just we sometimes put a little disclaimer. This is all hypothetical, obviously. You know that I would never fight an animal. Yeah.

I would never fight an animal. The only time I would engage in violence with an animal would be in the defense of one of my children. And to be quite honest and like everything that I know about how to handle a violent animal, violence is probably not going to be the answer or solution. Now, all that being said, there's no way I'm waiting for the cops. And this is the most common one that happens. but like a dog attack

I get I scare it it scares the shit out of me I've seen dog attacks I've been bitten a few times but I think if my instinct kicked in and I had to go full you know predatory mammal I would I'd be able to stop I wouldn't if a dog were attacking me

I would I just fetal it and wait until somebody got me help and I probably have a bunch of stitches on my back and my neck but I would survive. But if it was one of my children, it's like the Matrix program that they put in, you're not actually hurt. Yes, yes, yes. If it was, if it was, if it was, if it was if it was if it was if it was one of my children, I could take a dog up into most dogs.

It would be awful. I'd be really hurt. But like, yeah, I think that's about as big as I could I could go. Yeah. That's a good answer. Yeah. And we, you know, someday we're going to do a dog episode, but it's it's a hard one just because they're so dear and near to our heart. But we don't I don't even like to think about the statistics because then you start to do math And you're like I don't want it so everybody close your ears okay move on let's get through a fun question wess yeah okay we'll have jeff do his three because his are okay jeff to be hit me well first it's kind

of a category west and mike feel free to chime in if one pops into your mind too but do you have a favorite pop culture casket from a movie or tv show just like a casket that you think of Oh, you know what? I do. I absolutely do. For anybody who is, well, now he's national and international, but anybody who grew up in the Midwest and was familiar with the show, it's still very popular on Me TV. Now it's syndicated, but Sven Gouli has a casket that he lives and comes out of. The great Sven Gouli, he's one of the greatest horror hosts of all time. I mean, right up there on the Mount Rushmore of horror hosts with Vampira and, you know, Gulardi and Zachary, like, I would say Spanguli's casket is probably, that's a big one.

Mine would be coffin floppers from, I think you should leave. I just, I just got to know him. And I think he's so funny. He's a genius, man. And he's a really nice guy, too. He's really cool. He seems awesome. Yeah.

All right, I'm going to save my deep one for last. So next, I got, what's up with ghosts? I feel like you're into, like, spiritual things. And so with, like, more people dying every day, is there, like, our ghosts getting overcrowded, you think? Are, like, I feel like, if I was a ghost, I would haunt the same people. A lot of other ghosts are haunting.

Like, are ghosts hauntings getting to me, ghost haunting the same people? I mean, that goes down to my belief system on what is a ghost. I think that ghosts exist in here. I think if you see a ghost and you're experiencing something, then you are, there's some unresolved issue deep in your psychology that's yearning for connection. And that's communication. So yes, there's, yes.

I love the thoughtful, the thoughtful, beautiful. answer to Jeff's our ghost overpopulated question. It is a nice thought, though. If I become a ghost, I'm going to go find someone who's not haunted. They might be a little lonely. Yeah. And also, guys, think about, like, when it does come to, like, interdimensionality or, like, the stuff that we just don't know.

I got a chance to write this run of Creature Commandos. It was one of my lifelong dreams. It's one of my favorite superhero teams of all time, D.C.'s, Creature Commandos. Obviously, James has this amazing animated series. But the comic book I wrote, and there's a whole volume of it out now. But I always love the idea of a doctor that really, really wants to get into the nitty-gritty of that barrier and boundary between the science and the supernatural. And I'm that person that, like, wants so badly for someone to document, and I need it

to happen in my lifetime. It's got to happen. I want to believe so bad. Jeff is my guy. We're going to have a show. Yeah. I'm like the person who like even when I'm getting killed by a ghost, I won't believe it. I'm really excited for you guys to do this show because then when Jeff comes back to tooth and claw, he'll just be like, yeah, I don't really talk about any conspiracy theories or anything. All right. Is this your, is this your tough? one? Yeah. Let's hear it. So you play a variety of different characters and I think you do like a really big range of roles like credit to you. So my question is that each new character you play take a piece of your soul away until you're left with no soul or does it give you all of your or does it give you all of the souls of all of your characters so that you got like a boosted up soul now. Yeah like

Shaqan. Oh, that's interesting. It's neither. My, my, my, I thought that might be right answer. My soul, my, whatever soul is, whatever spirit is, whatever this quest, this journey or this purpose for me, why I was chosen or chose to live this life, um, and experience like matter and reality through the perception that I am, I will say every time I've been given the opportunity to create a character, it's always connected in some weird way, sometimes in a very minimalistic way, but sometimes in very profound ways. And I'm excited now that you're watching murder bot because that one really touches the character graph and touches into, it coincided kind of almost in a hard to believe way with like a particular personal journey that I was on.

I learned something. If I'm, if I'm willing to, like, let it all down and, like, be open to it, I feel like I've learned something from each of the characters that I've gotten to play.

And they do become their own kind of living, breathing, real things. So it's kind of more like... That sounds like you got a boosted up. So, turbo soul. Sure, but I don't, like,

tape them. Like, my soul grows hopefully. I mean, I'm sure there's the, there's pitfalls out there. But, yeah. Wasn't that the,

the, the, John Cusack movie where he had like a bunch of different people inside his brain. That didn't go well for him, right? Like he had a pretty bad experience. By the way, I think we all have a bunch of different people inside of our brain. I think we're all composed of parts. I think it's like time for us to stop looking at ourselves as these singularities of like,

I'm depressed. Like I'm ADHD. I'm this. It's like, no, there's all these different parts of yourself. Like, you know, the famous quote. Like I contain multitudes, obviously. But I think we do. I think each of us is so many different parts.

Jeff's got a monkey playing symbols up there. Yeah, he's got at least one other. So my mom, she was a therapist, actually, and she was talking to me about this really interesting practice where, I forget what it was called. It's like an inner family or something that they call it. It's called. Do you know what this is?

Yes, it's called IFS internal family systems. And I actually, it's a model of therapy that I think is so brilliant because you've got these. exiled parts of yourself, most of us had, whether they were like what people in mainstream would consider like, that's true trauma. To children, trauma

is trauma is trauma. So like, just going to get your parents' hand and then turning away at a point when they didn't even realize they were doing that all the way to that moment when you really needed somebody there and maybe they weren't there for you or you got so scared by an event. All these things,

exiled little parts of our emotional states inside. And as we grew, we develop these parts, which we call managers within the family system inside of ourselves. And so we've developed all these different parts of ourselves. And the process of doing that therapy is you developing and working on tools to relax enough, to be conscious enough that when those managers, those different parts of yourself, the firefighters flare up and they start to try to control because it thinks it's going to keep you safe.

You become conscious inside and then you try to become the pain. to those parts within you and help them relax. And it's a practice that I use now for managing my own anxiety. When I'm in a circumstance where I feel myself wanting to bolt because my anxiety is getting so intense, I've practiced going inside and being like talking to myself the way that like an incredible parent would talk to a child in distress. I highly, I highly, if anybody is listening, I highly recommend Dr. Richard Schwartz wrote a book called No Bad Parts, and I think it's a really interesting model.

There's so many great therapeutic models. I'm never going to say this is the one that you should do. I think there's EMDR fascinates me. That was my mom's practice is EMDR. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you know the science behind that? It comes back to birds.

It's crazy. You guys know about EMDR, West? Do you know about EMDR? I know a little bit about it. Yeah. Oh, the theorist was just walking home after trying to deal with this trauma. and watching these murmurations of birds, and then she felt better.

She was like, what is this about? What was going on that I... And now we can help treat veterans who are in serious... Everyone get out there and watch some birds, you know? Yeah, go for watching. And Wes, you can be more than just a bear guy without losing your soul, it sounds like. Yeah, you can do sharks, you can do cats.

Newest member of the Audubon. All right, David, you said that you're a horror fan. We know you're a horror fan. The three of us all like horror movies on different ends of that spectrum, you know, or different parts of that spectrum. But if you were to make a horror movie about a specific animal or animal attack story, what would you pick? And will you make it with us?

You got it. Yes. There's already, they've been utilized in horror before to, really good effect. In fact, I really loved the recent Sam Ramey film that utilized this animal. But I think that a wild boar is terrifying. The other one that I think there, somebody stole from me because they're doing it right now. Have you seen Razorback? We have to ask them. Oh, Razorbacks great. I love it. Yes. Thank you, David. Thank you. There is a there is a hippo movie coming out and I've always thought hippopotamus were the most

scary critters out in the wild. They're so terrifying. And I love the idea of one of those. I don't know. I think too, where hippos look so small when they're in the water and then they have this gigantic body when it comes out, it's kind of like plays well for that. There's a reason that people down there are nervous about them for sure. Hippos and the Cape Cape Buffalo because when I was preparing to play M. Bison in Street Fighter, I actually studied the Cape Buffalo quite a bit because that is a mother effort of an animal. The Cape Buffalo is a very territorial beast.

Yeah, it's great answer. All right. This has been a heated debate on this here show, but Tiger versus Lion, who are you picking to win that battle? I know. I can't believe I didn't think about it more because I was listening to you guys

and I go back and forth. I'll say lioness. Okay. A lioness. Interesting. I mean, Cherry is wrong, but interesting.

Cherries did sound like. Do you think of what's tiger? Which tiger do you think it is? I pick tiger. Lioness, they do a lot of the hunting. They're very active animals. They're really great at it.

But when it comes to fighting, male lions can beat a lioness, like pretty handle. they don't have much of a problem with it. But the big question is like a big male tiger versus a big male lion. And after watching this movie, I will admit that I feel a little bit less confident in my tiger pick. Those lions were controlling that. They were big too, like just massive.

So we'll have to debate it a little bit more. All right. Another really contentious topic is cake and ice cream one dessert or two desserts? It's two desserts. You're welcome to combine them unless it's an ice cream cake an ice cream cake is one dessert But cake and ice cream served together is two desserts, which is fine. That's like saying ice cream and apple pie. That's two desserts.

I actually think it's three desserts because you got the if you got your cake, you got the chocolate bread, then the chocolate frosting. That's another dessert. Wrong. Wrong. No, no, because it's prepared. It's prepared as a thing. Thank you. Yes.

Thank you. Oh, that was the perfect answer. You're invited back any time you ever want to be in the show. Good. All right. And then, you know, let's go to some categories that we can all answer. I think this will be fun. First of all, I want to hear your favorite.

Your favorite example from pop culture of a dad putting his family in danger. So anything from movies, TV, books, games, et cetera. I've got a good one that I can start with. Um, Wes always starts. The mosquito coast. I was going to say the mosquito coast. Harrison Ford. When he takes his family to that island and they don't have any resources, he's like,

we're going to learn how to make ice. We're going to do this great. I mean, it's so, and it's, it was a hard movie for me to watch because I'm a lot older than you guys. At that time, I wanted Harrison Ford to be my dad. Like, I wanted nothing more than to be River Phoenix and for him to be my dad. And so when I saw the movie, I was like, I don't, I don't like this character. I don't like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Bad dad. I also think about the step dad that Robert De Niro plays in this boy's life. Like he's just constantly putting his family in, like psychological emotion. There's a lot of like horrible dad movies, but actually putting them in danger being like, come on. That's what I was going for. Yeah.

Noel Marshall definitely put his kids in danger. That's a perfect. Big guy. Bad dad. Based off a David's cinematic universe, I want to go one piece. Dole Flamingo takes his whole family out of like the elite society and tries to live with like the people they've been taking advantage of and it creates one of the best villains ever. It's true. I love what a diehard you are.

It makes me so happy. It's so good. I'm so you. I want to have like you and Arlo have like a one piece. You know it's fun when when the kids came to Cape Town for season two at one point. was like sitting at monitor watching filming and the producers were like consulting with him about like

what do you think about this? That's so cool. Speaking of one piece and no spoilers don't worry anyone. I'm not sure Luffy's dad is that good of a dad? Dad kind of leaves and yeah we know

for sure. And even his adoptive dad just kind of tosses him out into the jungle for a while. So a couple of tough dads for Luffy but I'm actually in line with a little bit M. Bison with Street Fighter. I'm going with Hay Hachi from the Tekin series,

because he's always messing around with like Kazuya and Jin. He basically just throws them into volcanoes, hoping that they have the devil gene. And sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they don't. Bad guy, pretty bad dad behavior is throwing your children into it. That doesn't sound great.

Volcanoes. All right. Next category, what would be your price to take a role in this movie as one of the family members? So you were going to be on scene shooting shots with these big kids. Roar? Yeah, in Roar. Oh, I don't think there's a price.

I mean, it would be like, I would want to know that my family and every environmental, artistic, social justice organization I care about is flush forever. Like, I'd be like, oh, yeah, like $100 million. Because I'm sure, I'm going to die in the making of that film. Like I would it would be very very very high They could not afford it their budget was what what did you say was a it was a six million They ended up spending 17 million dollars on this movie Their budget was far less than that they thought they could do it with like

It's 2026 and I can't raise 1.5 million dollars to try and make a very low budget indie film And yet they could get 17 million got to sell some plotless I mean jean got to be a producer for the exorcist or something The price is like is as high as it goes whatever the amount is. I will say in Tippy's book she said that that Exorcist money never fully came through too that it like got taken away from them. So a lot of this is just

completely self-funded. Wow. Let's say for the purpose of answering this question let's say that the animals are still as dangerous as they are but they're not going to be harmed because I don't think any of us would do this movie if we knew that they were going to like die and that there was going to be animals dying. But um

10 million dollars. 10 million. I like it. I was along the same lines as David, I honestly don't think I could do this movie. Like, no matter... I remember when we were in India and we had a huge male tiger walking towards our car, our vehicle.

It was the most powerless I've ever felt in my life. Like, this tiger could kill me so fast and easy and there's nothing I could do about it. So I think after a day on set, I would just be literally incapable of, like, staying on set. But if there had to be a number, it'd be like 100 million. 100 million.

I like that number. I love that number for you. More than Will Smith. The highest paid actor ever. I think I would end up paying some of my own money into funding. I was going to say, I'd want to be in it. I could talk about this the rest of my life. If a conversation gets boring, I'll just be like.

You could match Shanks. I was in a movie where everyone got mauled by lions, you know. Yeah. You and Shanks could look the same. Wes, why don't you fund David's movie? You got a million dollars. I do not have so much money. I don't like your new bit of making people think that I have money since I don't.

I don't. I do love this new model. I love this new model of like, well, late night with the devil was for us that experience, but where you make a movie for a small amount of money and then it just becomes like really successful. Like obviously so exciting to see what's had with obsession and backrooms. I want to

The guys who Were producers on late night With the Devil with me A company called Spooky Pictures They also did Like barbarian and weapons And they There's a model for

For doing stuff And there's a way You can do it safely And yeah I've got I love it I'm all about it All right

We're going to do an animal Encounter horror film We're going to make this happen guys Let's do it I love it. We're in. I think my price is $500,000. Next category is your favorite real-life or fictional curse.

Dealer's choice. You guys can pick. I guess not dealer's choice, players' choice. Pick if you want to talk about a real life or a fictional curse. I can start. I got the Chicago Cubs, the Curse of the Goat, the Bill of Goat, where they like to kick someone out of the stadium because he had a goat, which is completely reasonable. And he just cursed him. And they finally broke it, but it took a while.

To me, to me, hey baby, to me, the one that is the most, and like I said, it's something that I'm very passionate about trying to bring to cinematic life. When Jane Mansfield visited the Black House in San Francisco after she was ejected from the San Francisco Film Festival, they were meeting, it was kind of a bit of a publicity moment, but they were meeting. Anton LeVay and visiting the Black House. And in a really bullish, drunken, jerky way, Brody, who I think was feeling some jealousy about the kind of bonding that was happening between LeVay and Mansfield, he went into the ritual chamber at the Black House and started degrading the ephemeral and knocking things over and making

fun of things. Anton LeVay famously walked in front of the people who were there in front of all, and he said, Sam Brody, you've touched the death candle within one year, you will be dead. And within a year, Sam Brody and Jane Mansfield were killed in a terrible car accident, which I personally believe Anton LeVay did not believe he had the power to curse people with death. And I think when he got that phone call, he probably had a neur like a psychotic break. I can't imagine getting that phone call. But yeah, that's a curse that I think is my favorite curse. It's a good one.

That's wild. I picked a fake one. Have you guys ever seen the movie or read the book thinner by Stephen King? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's about a guy who's cursed by like a Romani woman, I believe. And the curses that you just can, you get thinner and thinner and you're still really hungry and you can eat, but you never feel full and you slowly just kind of

get thinner until you die of amaciation. And the movie's not that great, in my opinion, but the book I really enjoyed. And it's just kind of the psychology of like someone breaking down over time. And it's a really interesting curse. Isn't it Joe Mantania? I think it's Joe Manetian. I think it might be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The curse of Godfather three, Joe Montania. Yeah. Baby's Day Out. I'll go with the curse of the black pearl. Keep things simple. I like that.

Good one. Love that. All right. Next category, make up an alternate title for this movie. They went with lions, lions, lions, and more lions, and then settled on Roar. What are you guys naming this movie? I settled on Big Cat Tastrophe, which is really stupid and bad. I don't know how you did it, but you came up with something worse than Lions, Lions and

more lions. Not that I did any better I just, there's a line in it that really just took, not that there was like, this movie is really walking on a real fragile balance keeping me like, you know, but there's a line, Tippy says, look what the cat dragged in

during just like, the most cat, like, disastrous scene in the movie. It's like, is this really, you were probably so proud. I don't know, maybe she improvised that, but I'm just going to call the movie, look what the cat dragged in. I love that. That's good.

Because it'd be so terrifying, but she just has like, crack a joke off really. Yeah. I think Roar is a great name, so. Okay. What about like, we call it no animals harmed and we ain't lying. Oh, we're getting somewhere.

I guess that's more of a poster. Hold on. That's a poster. Yeah. All right. My final category here, I want to know what your guys' personal roar is. So something in your life that you were so obsessed with that is definitely going to drag you.

down if you let it. And you can be funny, you can be real, however you want to answer this one. It's the Padres for me. It's just every year. And I won't belabor the point. I've talked about this before, but it makes me sad every year. And then at the beginning of every season and spring, hope blossoms anew just to come crashing down.

You get pulled back in just when you thought you were away. For me, I think it's not accepting the passage of time. like I am a very nostalgic person and I also like June is my favorite month because it's the beginning of summer and I love summer so much and I just like day after day in the beginning of June the month that I should be the happiest I think about how summer's going by too quickly even though it has just started and that is like a constant battle in my head where I just can't be happy that like listen you're like you're at the point right now that you're the most excited about. about and you're worrying about it going by too quickly. I just need to kind of chill and be happy with the passage of time. So that's my personal roar. Yeah. I honestly thought about it, but didn't.

I just feel like Noel was like a unique character in that he was so dedicated to this random thing that I just want to give him credit. Like, dude, I don't think I'll ever be as passionate about anything as Noel was about the McRibb. The Villain Lions in the house. The McRib. The McRib. It's not the best.

I don't have anything on his level. It doesn't have to be on his level. Just your personal roar, something you're obsessed with that'll drag you down. That's my answer. I'm just like that. All right. I have a number.

I mean, look at this deck I built. I was so proud. I play magic together. So I built this deck. And I is so proud of this commander. and my son makes fun of me and my friends who I play with big fun of me because any of the cards that I really love are like so dense there's so much reading and writing to be done with them and yet then I go play after proudly putting together this deck and get creamed in like

four rounds so maybe it's magic that's cool I like it yeah I got so many packs I need I got the final fantasy magic crossover it's like a whole case man waiting for a rainy day you know what want, I have a birthday coming up and I'm going to treat myself because I see that they're very expensive. I also like Warhammer and the army that I've been building, the miniatures I've been making are Necrons. And there was a Necron's magic set that came out a number of years ago and it's a mono black deck that looks so awesome. I want it so bad. So I'm thinking like maybe I'll treat myself to that. And I'm very excited about the Marvel deck, which by the time this episode airs will have just come out. The Squirrel Girl card and that is supposed to be like

game changer. Squirrel Girl. Marvel Rivals really awakened a lot of us to the charms of Squirrel Girl. Love squirrel girl. My writing, my writing partner, I'm going to plug some stuff that's coming out right now, guys. I was about to give you that. Please. Thank you. Thank you. I just took it. I have two. I have a book that's out right. now a graphic novel called Threw from Z2, which you can get it here. I got it. I got it. Thank you.

It means a lot. I really appreciate it. It's great. I really enjoy it. I'm really proud of that. And it deals with IFS actually in a way. Like I was really working on IFS when I was writing that book. And this summer from Dark Horse comics have got a new series called Kingdom of Earth,

which if you like Magic to Gathering, it's kind of there's a similarity because it's all the monsters that have literally ever existed in literature. and pop culture in mythology, all taking over the earth and fighting for supremacy while humans are relegated to food and slave class. And they're just looking at the way that we've done things and they're trying to figure out how to make sense of it all. And then we have another book coming out that's called The Accessories, and that is from Panic.

And that's all the great monsters, sidekicks or henchmen who've had enough one day. and decide to break up with their co-dependent relationship with, you know, Igor and Dr. Frankenstein and Renfield and Dracula. Mrs. Hyde is a new character we've created. But anyway, my co-creator on these, Leah Kilpatrick and I are very excited for those to be coming out. So you can go check those out at your local comic shop this summer. Cool. I'm going to get them.

We'll do. Thank you. Do you have, and then I was going to ask. about one piece but one piece is on one piece season two is on netflix i don't know what you can say about season three but please see and meet please well mr three is mr three so it would be very sad if he wasn't in season three but i don't know anything yet i can't i don't know so we'll cross our thing okay yeah we'll cross our fingers but um uh street fighter is coming out from legendary uh paramount this this October,

very, very, very, very, very lucky and honored that I get to be a part of bringing something to life that is such a part of, like, my entrance into video games, and that is so important to so many people, and I'm playing a character who is kind of like the video game world, had their own idiomene kind of thought about it, the context of cult leadership

and what does Shadalu really mean? And we'll see. I hope people like, Like, it's really scary to be quite honest with you guys because you're, you're, you're, you're, you're embodying a character that people have such a strong opinions about. And we're trying to tell a story about who he is and how he gets to where he's going. But honestly, it's, it's pretty nerve-wracking. I try and tune out. I can't, though, because, like, what I do isn't for myself.

I don't do it in a vacuum. What I do, I do, I do for others. It's, it's supposed to be entertaining. It's supposed to, like, bring joy to people. and when you know people have such high expectations for something, it really does, it puts you through a weird headspace and you have to do your best to let go of it because otherwise you're not going to be able to bring

what you've got to bring. When you were preparing for that role, did you look back on Raoul Giulios, back like the old street fighter and Bison? Sure, absolutely. I mean, he just nailed it. He's so, and it was, that was very, so not only is it intimidating to look at the video game and go,

well, I know I don't look anything like the prowess, the physical prowess that M. Bison has in Street Fighter 2 and beyond, nor do I have the acting chops that Raulul Julia has in Street Fighter the movie. But what I do have, and hopefully will work, is this perspective on my fascination with Colts and cult leadership. And, you know, we're going to have to go on a journey with Bison in the film anyway, because he's not the big powerful person that we will come to know. So, yeah. It's really excited. I love the director.

I love the cast. Just the trailer got me so so hyped for it. It like seems so fun. Yeah, I'm really excited. When you guys were all standing up on stage, I think it was at the Game Awards last year. Oh, man. I was just like 50 cent and Cody Rhodes was up there.

And just to everybody who's anybody, it was like, this is like the most stacked cast. of any movie coming out. It's insane. It's a special experience making that. I love all the cast. They're really wonderful people and a lot of them really shocked me and blew me away with their commitment to like showing up and going

for it. It's like Cody, Roman, I knew and I'd seen him perform before on stage, but Orville Peck, oh my God, I'm insanely so talented. He's a big guy on. I think Noah is a movie star. Andrew Cogee is

movie star and boy he's so talented in martial arts and he's so committed calina who's our chun lee she's so great um getting to see mammoa bring blanca the life is like just it's a sight you've never gonna forget it's so fun yeah and yeah i'm nervous i'm scared i i want you want it sounds so dumb but it's like you want people to like you yeah i do want people to like me i but if i remove my ego from it I just want people to enjoy the experience of getting to see something they care about so much brought to like cinematic life and and I'm a nerd so I've gone and seen things my whole life where you can tell the difference between people who really gave it their all and people who were collecting a paycheck you know and I and I and I and I always was like oh so I hope

I really hope people enjoy this experience we hope so too well David I think this might be our longest episode today. I think we wrap it up here, but it was so much fun talking with you. We'd love to have you on again to just keep going into it. I can't wait to hear your podcast talking about moon landing with Jeff.

I can't wait to have you guys in the grave conversations. Yeah, we gotta get in a casket. Oh, I love it. It'll be you in one casket and three of us and another. We're all greenlighting that right now, so just let us

know and we'll get in there and uh but honestly just like three friends who like started a podcast what six years ago to have someone who like we're a fan of we've seen a lot of your movies tell us like hey i really love your podcast really meant a lot to us that like we created something cool so thank you for reaching out to us oh this was so much fun thank you so much thank you guys i want to give a shout out again to my co-listeners arlo and penny and um yeah there's there's there's There's so many amazing podcasts out there, but you guys really do stand out. I love the passion you have and the care that goes into it. This is not an exploitative.

Like, we're just going to tell horror stories of people getting, you know, mulled. It's really beautiful and it's really thoughtful and it's really emotional. It's very funny. You guys' chemistry is so great. When people are so passionate about a thing, it's what you need to make these work. So thank you guys for the space that you've created here. and thank you for giving me and my kids so much joy for what you're doing to educate people and protect animals because I know you're not trying to villainize animals in any way, shape, or form.

You guys love animals, and that's really beautiful. We sure do. Well, thanks for joining us, and we'll look forward to seeing you in all the rest of the movies that we all love. All right. Thanks, everybody. See, David. Thanks, David.