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This episode was published on October 14, 2026.

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#2565 - Michael Douglas - The Joe Rogan…

The Joe Rogan experience Train by day Joe Rogan podcast by night all day Very nice to be sure. Thank you. I've been a fan for a long time. Okay.

Yeah falling down is one of my all-time favorite movies Yeah, that's such a crazy movie I re-watched some scenes today getting ready for it and the scene where you confront the guy who's working on the highway And so there's nothing wrong with this highway And the thing that everybody a lot of times thinks that they have these budgets and if you don't spend all the money That you don't get the money next year so you got a terrible fucking road and you take a mazooka out I know the I mean the spooky thing I see about I guess the money and this is just How Mac meets up to today? Yeah, 30 years 30 years later that's a thing that's sort of interesting But also depressing it is pressing you would have thought we would have figured it all out by now Yeah, especially with the use of the internet so much more information that was available than when you made that film right in the world So totally different place and yet it resonates perfectly. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah, that's one of my favorites to that kind of dark comedy Yeah, I mean it was a dark comedy like and there's parts Completely caricatures Unsympathetic characters like the guys in the golf course right when you the guy dies because he freaks out I guess you're gonna die Remember getting a studio calling me down Mr. Took it to warmly off his back yet come down and came down to office and I was interested mr. Ho who was chairman of the Korean Grocers Association and they said that we have a real beef here you got a senior we've Knocking up a Korean grocery store and attitude and and all that and I said well I didn't write the script, but you got to understand there must have been something in it that hit people who triggered it because That was a scene and so he listened to me bless him and I was back in New York about three weeks later in my local Korean grocery store They were wearing smile buttons Made it didn't well it almost became like a symbol, you know, don't fuck with me. I'm ready to crack Which I think a lot of people resonate with I even had a guy come on the podcast addressed as you in falling down once Ooh brought the suitcase and everything that was a little He did it go be a frisking down the gap again For fun, but it was fun.

It was hilarious, but you you've been in a ton of insane movies What is it like to write a memoir? That's gonna be a weird feeling to like relive your life and try to be as honest as you can and put it all down Yeah, no, I resisted it for a long long time and And then what was sort of after I had cancer about 16 years ago stage four, you know Wasn't good. I lost a couple of friends at the same cancer I did Larry Hagman. I remember from Dallas the show and Nick Ashford and Ashford and Simpson and you know wasn't sure and I talked about it funny and I Mistake for nobody my friends.

I kind of abandoned me, you know a lot of friends and I realized We can't see people don't quite know what to say and the stage four They don't know if they come to say goodbye or this or that so they just avoid it do they kind of yeah They check it with you kind of just yeah I was quite quiet while we're going through the chemo and the radiation happens to a lot of people because they still quite know Where it's all going. So this one guy though Shane Salerno what was with on it who was a screenwriter and he's an Adaption book of a script for me a long time ago, and I didn't I remember him and He started sending me these notes sound like a coach, you know just these little notes you kick it out You can do it you can do it I just remember being really touched by it and then afterwards he got into more of a big and literary agent And he kept asking me about you know to write a book and all that and and I was busy But then after the cancer things kind of slowed down and I kind of by order of priorities changed a lot and So that started thinking about it and I I read a book when I was beginning as a producer called memo and it was written by David O. Selznick He produced he had gone with the wind and all of that and it was a book I told you what a producer does and it was basically all of the notes that David O. Selznick wrote about his pictures Whether it was costumes or props or this or that all the things that are covered So I said you know Maybe I'll do like like a handbook I'll take like 12 of my movies and I'll tell those stories from from the very beginning the creations and the process We went through and you know thinking about it And also I had my my dad Kirk, you know, he wrote written nine books already including a a good biography The Ragman Sun And I was also thinking well, you know, we're kind of a unique situation here between my father and I can't say this about too many two generations We got 80 years in the business 120 130 movies Between us and so there was a legacy, you know thought going on But as I got into it.

I said I guess I gotta talk about the personal stuff too, you know And you just got to talk about your life and you know and the issues and parts of it the good and the bad and Yeah, enjoy your eyes. It's just kind of scary, you know, I started doing it and then saying do I really want to Share all this shit with everybody, you know I'm like kind of but I figured you know why not pass it on in my generation and the next and and so kind of count a combination of My personal life and people who interested a lot of different movies about how they happened or how the whole development went and Holy shit that all of a sudden people liked it and pictures of the books a big hit, you know I you know, it's like wow I think part of it also is when you start with that handbook idea of just doing it about movies Then the producer and the career and ambition gets into now, you know sex drugs and rock and roll man I mean, you know, it's still sells, you know, he's still gonna bring that all up. Well, it's also real. I mean that was your life You were burdened with youth good looks and fame a gift and a burden at the same time and the son of a great man So there's a lot of a lot of pressure on you just because of that.

Yeah kids are Kids can be nasty. I mean when they know Somebody by your family when they know who your mother is who your father is they can make certain assumptions and so the nebo baby assumption Yeah, which by the way since we're talking about Tell me I'm crazy, but isn't just about every single business involving nebo babies There's an even mother and father try to get their son or daughter sure well, certainly like restaurants. That's super common One of my favorite restaurants is this place guy, Tano's in Las Vegas The Sun runs it and the dad started it or cleaning businesses or groceries right anything family businesses I don't why they why they picked on celebrity Because it's so difficult to acquire Yeah Such a rare thing that most people are not gonna get it and if you get that rare thing just because you're the son of a great man People get upset at you right because it's supposed to be this insane struggle through poverty and strife to get to that point or finally you made it This episode is brought to you by Squarespace if you're thinking about building a website you should try Squarespace I know because I use it. That's right Joe Rogan calm is powered by Squarespace It has all the features that you need to create a stand-out website like an AI enhanced website builder SEO optimization tools and seamless checkouts with mobile pay links Head to squarespace comm slash Rogan for a free trial and when you are ready to launch use the offer code Rogan to save 10% off Your first purchase of a website or domain this episode is brought to you by uber eats hockey seasons here and uber eats is delivering game Day deals on favorites like wings pizza fries and snacks and you can order more than food like gear to rep your team or Fresh batteries for the remote when your watch party gets hungry or you just need anything Order in and keep everyone's attention on the ice score great deals on uber eats all season long because hockey is for the hungry Terms apply product availability varies by region see app for details.

Well my father did that part Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think people just jealous and upset I think because the history of second generations is not great business. No, it's it's understandable that they would have all these critiques It's understandable that they would feel about it. It's understandable that they would feel that it's not fair Yeah, but they can't say you weren't great.

Yeah, that's the thing I mean Gordon Gekko how many fucking assholes did cocaine and were like terrible stockbrokers because that movie It was my fault It was so weird. It was so weird afterwards that picture came out every time in New York I'd be around his half-drunk was you guys you're the man you're the man. I said what are you talking about? I'm the villain no no no no no and it was like oh really was an eye open for me Oh my god.

They they love the pizzazz and yes clothes and nothing has any moralities whatsoever It didn't matter they wanted that character. They were like Tony Soprano for Italian guys. Yeah, like let's go Get it down do their coke steal the money They wanted you to wear the most expensive suits possible That's what they wanted they rooted for about guys is very interesting wait. What year was that what year was Wall Street 85?

85 Wow, so I didn't realize that stockbrokers were crazy until about 88 There was a guy that I used to do martial arts with really really crazy guy and then I ran into him at a bar and He was telling me was probably yeah, probably 88 I was probably 21 he was telling me how he was a stockbroker now and he just does a bunch of coke and he's making all this money He was a psychopath like I had known him as a fighter and he was an animal and also this guy's just telling me This is what I'm doing now I'm selling stocks and he had a nice suit on it I was like crazy like looking at this person that I always knew is like a psychopath like a scary guy It's bar with and here he is like wearing like coughs and shit he had cufflinks I was like this is hilarious you're doing this no I mean the lattice we all got in clubs there with the refiler in the markets in Asia You know at four o'clock in the morning, right? They were and it's actually all got just wired well They had to stay up right yeah, and now it's done even crazier We're like they're moving the servers as close possible as possible to the actual stock market They can get trades in like a millisecond quicker like oh And all those people Gordon Gekker's the hero Greed is good how many guys got that tattooed on them? I know how many guys have that like framed up on their wall a Guarantee quite a few and again, you know All this all has happened in the in the 40 years of since that movie is the money the size of the scope that I was Getting with it seems so enormous at that time is pitence. Yeah, it's you what's what's going on right now?

And now there's other crazy stuff like that like crypto coins. Yeah, what what are you doing? What are you doing? You got fake money you have fake money.

That's worth real money. You figure it out I've listened to like three lectures trying to understand it like I still can't my buddy Kurt Mett's girl told me that he thinks it's just people they're gambling addicts It's a new thing to gamble on and it's also a new thing to rig So one of the things they can do is like say if we develop a Michael Douglas crypto coin You can do that and someone would put a bunch of money into that like say a million dollars or five million dollars into this crypto coin Like this is that we're gonna invest in this crypto coin and then everybody else is your fans buys in and hoping they're gonna get out Before it crashes because everybody kind of knows gonna crash and they pull out the money that was supposed to be for the coin Immediately and they get it to you Sounds like a pansy scheme sounds like a pansy scheme. Yeah, so you get all this money invested in it You figure out a way through like offshore corporations or whatever little tricky filters you have to do to suck all that money out And it's just a way to bribe people. Yeah I mean with that kind of stuff is the wild west so to me it's like the stock market on steroids It's like some new wacky kind of stock market where you're just you're making money you're making your own money How many fake monies are there or crypto monies are there?

Well fucking thousands of them. Yeah No, it seems the accessibility and ability to do it just keeps getting larger and the disparity Which I think is really the base of issues going on the disparity of wealth is is very very Depressing very frustrating. Well, it's certainly frustrating that more people don't have an opportunity to do better in this life And that no one's paying attention to that. That's what I've always said to look at the country as a community You would say okay, if this is all our friends This is all people care about why are so many of them living in abject poverty for decades on decades Why is there why is there crime ridden neighborhoods that never get better?

Why is there gang ridden neighborhoods that never get better? But they've been ignored yeah, they haven't there's we could throw resources at that the same way we threw resources at rebuilding Iraq or I mean we could throw resources at fixing these spots and wait out and that's why people get really mad and That's why people get almost cheer on when Luigi shoots that United Healthcare guy. Yeah people are like yeah fuck you It's falling down all over again all over yeah same kind of thing come down to it I mean like 50% of Americans own stocks and 50% do not and Look at stocks the way the market is gone. However, it's controlled or whatever happens progressively It's compounding you know versus the 50% of people who don't have stocks are living on a paycheck Which is which is getting a smaller and smaller with inflation yeah So it's a goofy time and then on top of that they're talking about AI taking away everybody's jobs And there doesn't seem to be any real clear path the mitigating the massive effect that's gonna have on the economy and all these people They're gonna be on point right right it's a weird thing.

We're in the middle of right now Well, I I had a guy and I came in lecture to me when I was in college guiding Buckminster Fuller He was responsible for the Gd's e-d-d-z-dome and all of that but the other thing you did here a book called spaceship earth and to me and a young age at the time He really made it clear how how tiny how tiny this little planet is and how and all with our Hubble telescopes that we're looking out Further and further. I'm sure there's got to be something else out there in the universe and maybe we will but right now This is it. This is this is this is it and and and it's beginning to kind of crumble worldwide, you know with the climate and all of this and so I find it hard to understand after two major world wars and Having this this period of relative peace The things are beginning to really crack again and how Individual countries and we talk about you know the US being most powerful, but we all got to work together We got to this this should be there should be no more There's no reason for any more wars. Yeah, there's more conflict going on than ever ever before Who's the cause of it some people say social media is designed to create conflict or create enemies but it just can't be we've got to get over this and and and just all begin to try to work together and that's why I Support a couple of organizations that I know we're not most popular right now But are greatly conceived or united nations as one of them But think it was designed after world war two to have a place for us to get together I know the US gets pissed off sometimes when boats don't go their way, you know financially supported it has issues But we have to work on the whole you know world understanding what's happening I get nervous when I see you know must look at from but for the all these guys looking for planets to move to like they Know something I don't know, you know like it's already passed.

Yeah, yeah get out of here It's a concern today is brought to you by the number one brand for better sex blue chew blue chew gold is a four-in-one Powerhouse that gets your brain and your body on the same page for sex two ingredients get the blood flow pumping and two ingredients prime your brain for Rousal no overthinking just peak performance in as little as 15 minutes look at the stats gold is three times stronger five times faster in eight Times longer lasting than old school methods blue chew gold is the real deal right now by two months blue chew gold and get the third free With my code Rogan you'll also receive free overnight shipping. That's promo code Rogan head over to blue chew dot com for details and important safety information Check it out this ad and the products being advertised are intended for a united states audience Well, it is concerned I think they're looking to other planets first of all because it's very difficult to do and people always want to do be the first to do something to colonize a planet but also because we all feel like at any moment now this could all go sideways and that there could be a nuclear conflict in the war And it could ignite well It could be terrifying and the thing is much like we were talking about falling down if you watch that film and you see that The issues you was dealing with then is the same issues were dealing today the same thing with war It always seems to go into this pattern and it's always the same thing It's always leaders and people who control those leaders who want access to resources and control resources And we let those people dictate what happens in the world because it's a very small amount of people affecting a very large amount of people And the only hope is that we all together figure that out because I don't think people were even completely aware of that in this country until probably Like the 60s and the 70s people started thinking that the government does not have our best interest in mind and especially during Vietnam This is a fucking crazy war that makes no sense and even today. No one thinks it was a good idea to go in there No, how many people died and I think more people are aware of that It's the whole thing is more transparent now than it's ever been before which I think is a good sign I wish we learned quicker, but we don't we learn slowly, but I think we're learning Well, I hope so. I mean this I look back at my father's career in post World War II where characters were the good guys the bad guys Way has the black hats villains and everything and then I grew up and then with the Vietnam War and all that So I've always been fascinated in this gray area.

So it's hard sometimes to know that the morality choice So what's right or wrong? This is what's frustrated, but you brought up a point show which I'd like to raise and maybe get your advice because I One of my earliest pictures that I am There was the China syndrome and China syndrome is about a nuclear meltdown in a power plant And we were under a lot of critical claim. We do myself Jane Fonda who's also producing partner at that time about how credibility and how irresponsible it was and and he was pushing this about Nuclear power and all of that and the movie came out and was a successful film, you know They're very well. It's still criticized and then 12 days after the movie came out Three Mile Island happened in in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania And I had like an epiphany.

I'm not a religious guy, but I feel like somebody was telling me something and so I Became involved in understanding more about nuclear weapons and plutonium and the half-life and all of this and I followed through our our Nuclear conflicts with Russia and I want to make a suggestion to you because you maybe have some connections to the president This war this Ukraine Russian war And the effort to find an answer to it and an effort for the president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and my idea is I Don't know What Putin has on Trump or what this connection is or why Trump always feels like he's got to reach out to help Putin in this? 93% of our country but publicans and Democrats don't like Putin. It's one of the few things that really aligns us together So why don't we try and making peace in Ukraine which gave up nuclear weapons? They gave up their nuclear weapon?

Why isn't Donald Trump and and Vladimir Putin dramatically reduce if not give up our nuclear stockpiles? I'm obviously the other six or seven countries that have a very minimal amount of nuclear weapons would have to be This could be the greatest thing that would happen in our generation and in terms of settling this piece making peace In in Ukraine and where Ukraine may have to give up some territory I'm hoping that president Trump can make a deal with Putin say you know what us Russia Let's give up our weapons Because it's totally obsolete. There's no there's no work There's no need there's no question about it because these weapons were just destroyed the world Mutualist your destruction if they can do that it could be something next two years of his presidency Negotiating with Putin we could get rid of nuclear weapons and I Guarantee I would commit my life for him getting that Nobel Peace Prize, but he would deserve it It's a great utopian idea. I agree with you It would be awesome if there was no nuclear weapons if we all agreed as a species as the human civilization that There's no need to have something that can kill every man woman child every animal and plant on Earth many times over I mean the amount of weapons that we have today are absurd if we all together the whole world China Russia United States all the other countries launch all their bombs at once just imagine what the world will look like when it's over There'll be no way we'd be a world there'll be no world it would be on fire It'll be a glowing orb we're crazy that we even have that kind of stuff however I don't ever think that any country that has a military is gonna give up all their nuclear weapons if there are nuclear weapons out there in The world and how would you be able to shore one of the things they're always terrified about is um, I mean This was one of the big conspiracy theories when do you remember that New Jersey drone thing that was going on?

Yeah, one of the crazy conspiracies with it was that they were using these drones to search for a missing bomb and that there was a bomb or Some nuclear device that was unaccounted for and they believed it and so those were United States military drones that are very sophisticated top secret stuff I don't know what's true or not But I do know that they don't exactly know where all the bombs are all over the world and the idea that you would give up your nuclear weapons while Weapons still exist is highly unlikely. Well, this is big. This is what AI is supposed to be doing That's what I was gonna get to. Yeah, I think the only way we're really gonna get out of this This is terrifying for biological human beings is to let AI control government and resources And it would have to have already become sentient and would have to already exhibit super intelligence reason and logic And it would just evenly distribute resources amongst all the people because when you look at that you look at the budgets alone Just for our nuclear programs, but we could solve the defense budgets in this day and age versus our budget for humanitarian Prippices is absurd.

I mean it comes down to all people want really, you know Is that is that roof over the head housing and food and you know so all this money could be shifted over into other programs That was but stop the need for Africans to have to immigrate You know we have to can restore areas of the world that are much more impoverished than us because this disparity of have and have nots Is gonna be created another world war they would never do this But here's a way that you could make sure that something like this never happened When you have like think about all the money that comes from resources like earth resources whether it's oil minerals All these different things that is a part of the earth and it's earth's so if you made a law We're all natural resources drawn from the earth like oil will be evenly distributed amongst the population of that city Yeah, you know minus operating costs Everything else gets evenly distributed amongst people because it is the human races if we are all citizens of this earth Then the earth resources should be shared by all of us like there's people that want to charge you for air I did a charge you for clean air is people charge you for water you have a water bill like someone owns the water They charge you for the water like all that stuff should be the property of the human beings that live in that place Imagine how much that would transform the places that have diamond mines imagine how much that would transform the places that are rich in oil money We have these monarchies that are controlling vast populations Why because they were the first persons or their ancestors were the first persons to dig into the ground and pull up the oil Yeah, it's kind of crazy Yeah, you are insanely wealthy because you're sucking the lifeblood out of the earth, right? Which really should kind of be everyone's especially when they do shit like they go offshore and they they're drilling off Shr, where the fuck are you even you're not even in America anymore like what is this? Amen From the earth and then and it lets you buy weapons and lets you You know a lot of these people that are involved in these immense corporations are involved in many immense corporations And the amount of money that they're making is kind of fucking gookie And when they have massive influence on politicians and when politicians are allowed to like trade stocks where they have insider information They're making fucking hundreds of millions of dollars on all hundred and seventy thousand dollar year salary So all these things come bomb they compound and you get to the point where you're like I don't know if this could be fixed Yeah, and that's what they like they like us in a state of I don't know if this can be fixed because that way like oh What are you gonna do hands up so like do you have your LA mayor race to get a vote for communism or communism good luck? You got fucked and you're gonna have to and everybody's like wow what are you gonna do and people don't know what to do and then more Taxes are gonna come like I don't want to pay up But I don't want to move and they'll just keep getting fucked and this is unfortunately where they like us to be I think it's one of the things about people that are in control and people that are The wealthiest amongst us that are operating in this very nefarious way.

They do like it when we're mad at each other They do like it when we're divided whether over the dumbest shit over gender pronouns or fucking whatever it is what what nationality you are what your religion is Whatever it is they love it when we're at each other's throats when most of the things that everybody wants we all agree on and We all agree that the system that's in place right now is really not looking out for everybody Not at all. Just not no, no, no The ones that people campaigning about fixing inner cities like a presidential camp like with a plan like we have these areas that have traditionally Been impoverished and gang ridden crime ridden we can allocate resources This is the multi-step program over the next five years that we're gonna do to radically increase the amount of opportunities These young people have increased their access to education increase their access to community centers and places that'll give them purpose and meaning like that You can change millions of lives in this country you can it means changing your budgetary yep Yep, I was important and that's the practice been difficult. That's what dr. AI is gonna come in and AI is gonna go I hope it's the rails with the rails I mean we can't do like the last all around with the with the Social social network stuff which is out of control before anybody had a chance to do it and it's interesting I'm understanding how the triggers work most of the stuff is based on binding conflict So you look at all this stuff and it makes you have more enemies or makes you get divisive rather than coming together Something happened Joe.

I know maybe just my imagination, but even going back to Reagan Reagan Republicans and and in a different time Just for politicians politicians were like public servants It was it was a commitment you made to the country You know to yourself And and now is just sort of a profit set through the amount of money involved in politics And then these guys turning around and becoming lobbyists and all the insider kind of trading going on the corruption of this Brilliant system. You know the last thing I really did I played Ben Franklin in a show when he was in France I got into looking back at the Constitution everything and what a brilliant piece of Legislation this thing was it was incredible. It was so idealistic and now to watch it just over you know Not just this administration just been going on for a while Get just get so corrupted. I used to think of you know politicians almost like the clergy You know they were people to look up to you know and now I want to get into I just don't think you're in Texas right now.

There's a couple of people running for office They're just like come on man. We can do better than that. I agree with you and What's supposed to happen in those situations is the person who should have been a better candidate is supposed to lose Yeah, cuz you should have had a better candidate to run against this other guy and that should rally people to do better That's supposedly what the system is based on right? It's not supposed to be based on your side winning every time It's supposed to be based on some sort of an understanding that people have opinions and if their expectations aren't met There's consequences and people don't like corruption and they don't like bullshit and they don't like people fucking with their lives And sometimes you vote one way and you think well this is gonna be better this way and turns out no same shit Yeah, well someone's got to do better fuck that guy and you hope eventually a hero will rise but you're so much I think I don't know the exact statistics, but I think Generationally, I'm a Democrat because my mother and father were Democrats Before it takes it takes an effort to maybe change parties and the Republicans Republicans because their mothers or fathers I one of the questions I want to ask you is you're a you supported Bernie Sanders.

Yeah one time in your life And we're able to you see we have a much more open mind and ability to you know change and alter I think a lot of people just sort of follow that political party generationally because their families did yeah, I think We have a real problem with having two distinct different parties only. I don't think that's healthy for us I think it enhances this tendency that we have to be very tribal and do have this us versus them thing and to ignore all the craziness that our side is doing because it's our side and for me it was first of all the open border was insane It was insane to just not only leave the border open but give people instructions on how to get in and also Transport them to cities and then put them up in hotels. It was really clear that a game is being played You could speculate all you want as to what that game was was it for cheap labor? Was it to turn these people into citizens and have them permanently voting your side because you helped them about them I don't know what it is But it was something was it to beef up the census by having all these people move into areas that were swing states And then you would have many more people and then these more people would count for more congressional seats That could be a two I don't know what it is But it's fucking insane and if you want me to be a Democrat while you're just letting people fly in from the open I'm like hey fix that It seems crazy to have 10 million people of unknown origin that enter into your country over a period of four billion years Or excuse me four years But then you've also got the fact that they hadn't had a primary since 2012 Like how you how are you just slipping?

It's the whole thing is supposed to work a very specific way and if it's like we have to win so we're just gonna push that aside And you're gonna here's your candidate right what the fuck are you doing? That's not how it's supposed to be done right? And if you want me to vote for that I'm not gonna vote for that that seems crazy It seems dangerous. You know that Biden wasn't the fucking president for four years It's really clear that he was his mental ability was severely declined He was compromised.

There was clearly you'd hear him talk there's something wrong and then they gaslit us for four fucking years while Whoever is behind the scenes unelected is actually running the country right and I didn't want to keep that going I thought that's dangerous I didn't like the whole COVID vaccine mandatory thing that they were pushing for those four years I didn't like the coercion I didn't like keeping people from flying and like any of that stuff It was all crazy and to me that's what that group stood for right what Trump stood for some of it turned out to not be real Like one of them was the no wars. Well, look we're at a war with Iran So that wasn't real the other thing was closing the border that is real But then with that then you have the you know, Tim Dillon had a great description of ice He said former backyard carnival wrestlers. It took like a seven-week course $50,000 signy bonus you train them for seven weeks and then give them guns and you have a militarized force running through the fucking city streets and put a mask on your face and put a mask on your face Look I can understand why they have to put a mask on their face because they get targeted But it's also it's like we're setting a weird precedent if you allow a militarized force to just go through the cities with no Identification they don't have to have identification. So I understand that you're trying to get out violent criminals And I support that I get that but when you have a you're setting a precedent If you allow a militarized police force with no identification with masks on to enter into cities of course People gonna say this isn't overstep.

Yeah, of course. It seems crazy. Yeah, and and your local police departments, you know I say my to sure some of the cases I mean some of them are dealing with like the trend of our raguagangs that were taken over apartment complexes in Colorado And they're allowed to do that because with some sort of a sanctuary city There's a lot of craziness that was going on during those four years. I was like hey, this is fucking dangerous This can go really sideways There's all that fucking defund the police stuff like hey, hey, hey hit the brakes on that Defunding the fucking police is crazy.

Do you know how much crime there is? Yeah, it's also the tendency to let people go and they committed violent crimes and to put them right back on the street with no cash bail Like I that's not a good idea. None of these are good ideas And if you want me to support all these terrible fucking ideas just because I would be a good person that'd be a democrat Like no, it doesn't make any sense. That's how I felt I know that's how you felt when I'm curious about is how do you feel now?

Well, I feel now is I do not like this Iran war in any way should perform doesn't make any sense for us It seems like it's getting really out of hand They were trying to get every single president including Trump in its first term to do this. Yeah, and now now we've done it It's very clear. It's a giant quagmire. It's very clear.

There's no no easy way out Not good No, and there's still a lot of people that insist that it had to happen that Iran was the greatest funder of State terrorism in the world and that what they were doing was you know Funding and arming these forces and having them do these two these terrorist acts and I'm sure a lot of that's true I concur but but But they're searching pretty smart and in how they've been handling this and as we saw now, you know in Saudi Arabia I mean, you know, sorry, we had we had this like, you know, you have major office airport JFK We had a point they're getting it's opening up. It's expensive. You're saying bigger and bigger and oh yeah, it's scary I'm surprised with all of our Western intelligence and and and and and Israeli's intelligence that we have not had a better handle on the situation well Look, obviously, I'm not an expert on international relations But I don't think the picture that they painted of how this was gonna go down was even remotely accurate Yeah, I think if they had gone in during the time where people are protesting in the streets They would have been a completely different experience like that was the opportunity if they really were gonna do this from the beginning That would have been the opportunity when the Iranian people organically protest I don't know what's organic. I don't live there But I mean we know for a fact that there was a massive government crackdown on those people a lot of people were killed a lot of people jailed forever Johnson since a thousand no, I think it was instigated by Israel by the fact that they had Information that these key Iranian leaders would all be together and persuaded that we could be taken them all out We can turn it over.

Yeah, it turned out that way No, and there was a lot of people that were very skeptical of that from the moment that it was proposed I don't know how they convinced Trump to do it, you know, and I do know that all in any international conflict I'm sure even during Vietnam even after people kind of knew the Gulf of Conk and was horseshit There was I'm sure there's people even today that defend the Vietnam War. Yeah, I'm sure there's always you're always gonna be able to find people that will propose an argument whether Someone is instructed them to do this or whether this is how they actually feel or whether they just like to argue and get on television and be the Contrarian you're gonna be you're gonna get people that support this war But I think the majority of the United States felt like one of the things that we were voting for when we voted for Trump is no more Wars stop this shit like it's crazy, you know, I remember one of his speeches or one of his interviews someone was asking about Ukraine Do you want Ukraine to win do any said I just want people to stop dying and Most people who voted for him based on that feel very upset that there's a new war going on. Yeah, yeah, but again I don't I'm not a fucking expert and so the problem is If you listen to people that actually understand missile production They do say that Iran was ramping up their missile production and that they if they had gotten a nuclear bomb It would have been a fucking terrifying scenario. I ain't yeah, that's true That's true too like was back to my point of light President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize next time, right?

They go with them and they go sit them down go listen, but yeah It's just Putin's never gonna fucking do it. He's never gonna give up all his jokes Oh, you know, he seems like he really enjoys having complete and total power He loves he loves the like every king and emperor before yeah, you know, he's essentially in the unpredictability feeling everything But I think it's because we get squeezed just gotta get them all on acid, right? But we'll be a good room together give them each seven grams of mushrooms Put on some psychedelic music. I'm all lie down on beanbags, right?

No, that was I was The biggest move in my life, you know, it was you know, both I was born in Jersey, too What part of New Jersey we Brunswick? Oh, right? I was born New Brunswick in a different format. It's kind of interesting A little background my family, but my my mother was English from the Islander Bermuda and Her family been in Bermuda the little tiny island for 400 years, right?

And she lied about her age at 16 She wanted to be an actress and she went to New York with acting school and she met my father and Kind of opposites to track to each other and they had a little part when they got together and and my mother's oldest sister My mother was one of six kids my mother's oldest sister married this guy Sue with Johnson and Sue with Johnson was the founder of Johnson and Johnson along with his brother, right? So just happened that way so they were living as you know starving actors in a little one room apartment in New York and out in New Brunswick Was the Johnson Castle? You know, really he lived in a castle out there with my aunt Ruth Mike and they got divorced and when they got divorced they both had moved out of the castle So it turned out that my mother and father on weekends We go out to New Brunswick and get to stay in the castle, you know It was his sister's place all along and I just she was pregnant and I just happened to come early So I was born in New Brunswick rather than in in New York City Wow And so that was how it came came about But I found a lot of interesting things in this book it brought me up I also thought with my my grandfather my grandfather on my father's side Was from Belarus or it was part of Russia back in the turn of the century 1900 Mike And I always thought that my grandfather had left like 1914 time in the Russian Revolution You know it's going on the cossacks around up all the Jews putting him in his pogroms and they were escaping And then I did that Henry Gates find your roots show, you know on television everything else They did all this homework and they found a no no your grandfather left in 1902 I said really said yeah because he had two other brothers who were bank robbers in in in in Belarus in this area and they go on into jail and your brother your grandfather he got out 1902 and that's why he came to country he changed his name and then the irony is that the area in Belarus they came from Was right near Chernobyl and you know Chernobyl in Ukraine that terrible explosion is Astor is right on the border with the Belarus area And a little town that they came from and it was downwind so the town where my family came from is is part about dead area Wow, it's just you know Well, yeah, and that was sort of it's still dead. Can you visit it now?

Wow? We're doing all these as well as it was for Well, they'll probably go hundred thousand years ago. I mean they're doing all these tests on these wild these dogs They're left around there. They're all tests on those dogs gonna read your mind.

Yeah, exactly. Mr. Douglas Can you give me some food, please? So they was you know and so I grew up Well, they ended up getting married my mother and my father kind of opposites, you know She was Church of England very good family, you know, he's a Russian Jew, you know his father's a junk junk man He's got six sisters He just tried to get the hell out of his connected in New York, you know, and you know get his life and And so he starts that and they met from acting school and then he gets off like she I have a brother Who's I'm three the babies 18 months old Joel and we go to California.

He starts his career in California In a lesson a year, you know, it's very my mother, but he's he's not fucking everything, you know, and mom said This is not working out. Okay, he was you know Hollywood. Just he was one of the first movie stars That generation yeah, I mean it was you know, but he was he was he was after the laughter Humphrey Bogart, right? But it was a recent thing in culture.

It's my point Yeah, it was only like 10 or 15 years old being a movie star. Yeah, it was a new thing it was and so I move back at East and grew up back East with my mother and dad was in California and you know over the years I go out and a lot of experiences between his two lives I was very middle-class life very middle-class life back East but mother did soap opera streams and actresses and then dad was continuing to grow and I'm getting at him anyway my point is that I Was in private boys schools back East all boys schools through right through right through high school and I remember going into the college advisor, you know when you're in high school. You got a guy advisor He's like it's one of your travel agents You know he's got these brochures of different schools he's showing you and and my ass was tight I didn't really know what the hell you know I wanted to do and I'm looking at these Ivy League schools and his brochures and then I see I stopped away Wait, what's that? I asked me this brochure and it says campus by the sea and then I'm looking at no Ivy League buildings But there's a picture of the cover of this college thing of a guy walking down the beach carrying a surfboard with two girls in two piece bathing suits Joe this was 1962 if you remember there were no two-piece bathing suits back East, you know and so this was the University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, California So I'm this preppy, you know total preppy kid.

I go out of course dad Thanks, but so wants to be closer to me. This is why he's coming out, right? So I go out there and in one year boom 62 63 I go from a preppy to a hippie and so I have to support what you're saying because I found that Wilson and Jennings were an extraordinary experience and Were an important part of my life What's I got busy didn't have the time but the rhythm that they taught me and the visualities and their pace played an important part I'm so grateful I'm 82 now to see in these recent years that in terms of PTSD and other issues that they are beginning to find Drug addiction drug addiction drug addiction Yeah, they're there they're finding a positive use well That is one thing that I have to give credit to Trump for because I discussed this with him and he said are you looking for FDA approval? Let's do it and immediately started pushing for the psychedelic that therapy is particularly I became right which is extremely effective for soldiers for people dealing with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD and It's extremely effective for a lot of people also with drug addictions and helps rewire the brains even the symptoms of addictions Go away after you take it and that is I give him credit for that as a very powerful thing He did because it's it's very much resisted by pharmaceutical drug companies that are worried about not being able to profit on it And there's a bunch of them that have now moved into psychedelic spaces now There's they're making options and trying to figure out how they can become a part of this in terms of Profiting off of it once it actually becomes legal which is okay.

It's just as long as it becomes Yeah, it's as long as it becomes legal because I don't think it's for everybody but it was definitely for me Help me a lot change change who I am changed the way I think about things changed my whole Defining of myself kind of went away It is a very profound experience And I think there's a lot of people that are trapped in their definitions of who they are and whether it's Your own personal ones or the ideology that you've attached yourself to that is you know that you identify with it's a huge part of your life I think it's a trap And I think we all fall into that trap And I think one of the things that psychedelics help you do is recognize why you're doing what you're doing and what's really going on inside your mind Unburdened by your ego unburdened by all of the protective mechanisms that your brain is put in place to protect you from your own shitty decisions And to justify them and to continue down the same path and That's why it's so good with stopping addictions because it makes you go what the fuck am I gambling for like what am I doing? Why do I keep going to the casino and losing everything? What the fuck is this like? Oh, this is my childhood.

This is my dad wasn't around. This is my mom was a junkie This is this is I got beaten. This is I got abused whatever it is It's like then you realize like oh that's when I'm hiding yeah, I'm trying to do something whether it's but drown myself in alcohol or whatever It's it's really because of that this episode is brought to you by Squarespace There's no excuse for a bad website anymore Squarespace makes sure of that square spaces AI website builder gets you something that looks genuinely Professional in just a few clicks no design skills required you can lock down your domain build something that actually looks like you and Keep it all protected in one place head to squarespace.com Rogan for a free trial and when you are ready to launch use the offer code Rogan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and What went along with that culture at that time and all sounds like a cliche now, but was peace and love yeah and community Economy wasn't you know people were not looking for how much money they made they shared stuff. There was a communal Where you hang out Yeah, but that but that philosophy yeah And he's he's me perpetuated yeah, it was unique And I think that if Nixon hadn't passed the control substances act of 1970 and made all that stuff illegal It would have changed the world.

I think it would have graduated I think we would have figured out how to do it correctly I think there's a lot of people that were going overboard There's a lot of people that go in straight Timothy Leary and they're just doing out and no longer part of society But a lot of people balance the ship and you got to give people time to understand what these things are and have enough time where people Studying them and they know effective doses and they know reliable distributors So this is pure stuff whatever it is it shouldn't be illegal. It should probably be regulated in a sense that I don't think like people under a certain age should have access to any of these things that distort your consciousness Because I think it could be detrimental and there's also gonna be a certain percentage of our population that goes schizophrenic Yeah, and I think particularly there's a lot of evidence that marijuana particularly edibles can trigger schizophrenia and people that are at least on the border Or you know slipping into it well look at this the strength of it alone. I mean right I mean I was in 19 to like I spoke pot I mean now you're between it how much stronger it is and kids at 13 years old. Yeah killing your endorphin system You know you really affect so I I I agree with you But I think we the idea that the government is gonna protect you from that while also licensing oxycodone is fucking ridiculous They're not protecting you from jack shit.

Not only that they've never experienced it So they don't even know what they're protecting you from it's like there's a guy's garden the door guarding the door where God lives And he's like I can't let you in you can't handle it well Have you gone in no well how the fuck do you know if I can handle it You don't know if you've done it and you've had positive experiences and one of the beautiful things about Texas is governor Former governor Rick Barry where governor ripary has had these experiences and it completely changed him when he was a younger man He was a staunchly anti-drugs. He thought psychedelics were for losers and near dwells. He has I've gained experiences He goes this but he has he's completely dedicated his entire life to trying to promote this and make stuff legal now That's what he does now in retirement no longer being the governor Americans for I've again is they're trying to do this Push where they're doing all the country and then they're even visiting other countries now that are interested in it because I've seen them speak They've seen them talk about it on my podcast and they've seen what happened at the White House and other countries are interested too They went well What is this and why is it illegal and what's going on and what are the benefits? And so they're having speeches they're giving speeches in other countries as well and hopefully I think that could change a lot I think some of the progress that people were making in terms of realizing like the way that we're living is insane in the 1960s Why don't we try something that's like more open-ended more let's be more open-minded.

Let's try to be kinder with each other. Yeah Unfortunately, that's also there's a lot of evidence It's the CIA put the kabosh on that and that they were they realized that this was a very dangerous movement and so to them and their power So that's how they empower the Charles Manson family And they did a lot of things to make hippies look like psychopaths and dangerous and drugs are dangerous You know and that's they were really good at it back then they didn't there was no internet You could just put things on television and people would believe it put in a newspaper people believe it I had a run in I had run over the Manson family. Did you really? Yeah, we talked about it in the book The Manson family that terrible bird is happening was actually looking for I named Terry Melcher Terry Melcher his door His day son and he was a rocket roll producer and Charlie Manson, you know was a musician and he believed he had some some some talent and The girl sometimes to be used by him, you know to you know have fun or something like that to make it happen Anyway, he was pissed off at Charlie at Melcher and he thought he was living in the house where Sharon Tate and the other ones were I Was living in the house at the time that Terry Melcher Had been living and he left I rented the house.

He got out and rented it And we finally have sort of after saying Brendan of a car or really my life She did movie for midnight cowboy and we were there and we noticed this van used to be parked outside the house in LA and one day she had two Abyssinian cats two beautiful Abyssinian cats and I went out one day in the patio in the back and I found this pile of fur In a pile and then I filed it and I saw the cats leg and then basically these guys had dismembered her two cats all the way across the yard and I remember talking to the to the police, you know what was going on And then right after that then the Manson murders happened and they tied it together and Remember them coming up to the house and saying okay, well look you see you got to get a gun I did not they said if they come up here make sure you drag them across your Your trandors so they're in your house Great advice before you kill them you got to bring one side. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You didn't get a gun, huh?

No, did you think about it at all? I have I'm actually I thought about it, but I've just seen I've seen too much personal or Knowledge to which personal knowledge of people hurting each other But for whatever chance it was to protect yourself too many family members have been injured and and it's been used another way So I'm not a I'm not a kid. I'm very much I think the statistics are statistics of gun control are not good We have but 360 million people in the country that we got 450 million guns are murder rate compared to any other sophisticated country with guns is so so high I can't find any reason for somebody on an automatic military style weapon and I guess most of all I understand the amendments and support it But you know you got to have a license to drive a car and there's certain things you got to pass and there's just loopholes I respect anybody they won't have a gun they can have a gun but every We've had too many loopholes in the law. They've allowed too many people just as you worry about people coming across the border illegally I really worry about a lot of illegal people having guns.

Yeah, absolutely you should yeah But responsible gun ownership for someone like yourself would be to protect your life against a dangerous person with a gun Yeah, I would never assume that you would ever do anything bad with a gun So would you worry that one of your family members would do something bad with a gun by accident? My father had a gun in his head my father in his bedroom had a gun he headed down on a table down below and I remember when my son came to the House When they were like five years old and picked it up. Oh Jesus. That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah, well responsible gun ownership Yeah, you know the gun should be in a safe and safe success. Yeah, and you know, I don't I respect that Yeah, I respect the right the choice But I'm just saying I don't know what anybody needs an automatic weapon for military style weapon for There's some people that worry that things could go completely sideways and that they would be stuck in a place where they couldn't defend themselves And I think one of those fears came to light during the George Floyd protests when there was a lot of chaos and we're breaking into buildings And lighting them on fire and people breaking into people's homes And it seems like the riots were in a frenzy And I think in that kind of a situation people would want a military style gun to protect themselves from a mob of people I mean, I'm not I mean, I'm I understand why they would want it I'm not advocating that everybody should have a machine gun But I understand why some people who are particularly paranoid and or worried that things could go sideways again and be much worse than before right? You know That's what I think people worry about and then they worry about places where people have no guns and they can't do jack shit When things go sideways, that's cares the fuck out of people as well, you know when we see what's happening in Paris right now We see what's happening in some parts of England. It's cares people.

Yeah Yeah, and that's why they want a machine gun You know Yeah, I respect that you didn't want one But I would if I was your friend I would talk you into getting one and learning how to use it properly and learning how to keep it in your home safe and locked up to protect Your family the worst thing you'd want to do is be in a situation where you could have protected your family if you had a gun And you weren't able to I Tell you understand Joe, but don't you find our statistics that so many handgun deaths are because of people that knew each other They really look familiar or accident or in rage It wasn't about protecting yourself from a criminal right it was it was an it was an either out of rage I'll call a raging rabbit and you killed your wife or sons or or an accident at home So that's that's all I'm saying and I'm saying then If you're even taking your point for your having a lot of my weapon there has to be then more of a license Registration we have to be able to attract a bunch. Well, they do register them. You want every by gun, but I think what you're saying is that You should people should know what's wrong with you and what's not wrong with you Like if you are on a bunch of psychiatric medication If you had some mental breakdowns if you're known to be violent, maybe not a good idea if you have weapons Yeah, I mean in the utopian world Yeah, I agree with you and I think you're right statistically that a lot of times family members do use guns on each other and that is a tragedy But you wouldn't do that right and I don't want to do that. I'm never gonna do that.

It's not me So what is it is it? Well, don't be the type of person that would use a fucking gun on your wife or your husband? And this is coming from a guy who's my good friend Phil Hartman was killed by his wife She shot him in the head while he was asleep But I don't think that happened because The law allowed them to have a gun I think she would have killed him either way It's a number of goods the reason why is it happening in other countries is they have no happening where near the axis of number guns to do that Right, so they do have a lot more stabbings I don't know you die both ways well, you know, I'm saying yeah, I know what you're saying. I do know what you're saying Yeah, in a perfect world.

There would be no nuclear weapons and there'd be no guns The perfect world it wouldn't even be you wouldn't even think that people would be violent towards you now What's interesting is that controlled substances act of 1970 had that not been instituted and had all those decades of people not just Doing psychedelics but learning how to do them properly and having places where they showed people how to have these transcendent experiences that make you Reexamine yourself how many less violent people would there be how many more peaceful people more community oriented people would there be It could have a gigantic shift in a man entire civilization. I know that sounds like hippie stuff So a lot especially people that have never experienced it. It's one of the most powerful tools for changing your mind that's ever existed No, and became but I agree with it was when you did it and it was like a clinic I mean you had you should put yourself in an environment that was peaceful. Yeah loving and and and take advantage of it Yes, and I agree with well other countries are doing that now, you know, they have a bunch of clinics Like beyond in Mexico.

There's a bunch of clinics where people are able to go and legally safely have psychedelic experiences That should be the case here as well. It should be well researched It should be well funded people should understand what it is and it should be done properly And I think if that's the case I think we can change a lot of people's lives But I definitely don't think we could just keep going the way we're going and it keep having especially now that wars are fought with robots Yeah, let's get shit's get squirrely, man They got flying robots and they're in Ukraine they're using monofilament fishing line So and so they don't get jammed by these Why whatever these anti drone guns are they're piloting them through monofilament line like what though? I think Ukraine has been an eye-opener for all of us. I mean in terms their initiative The toughness I'm sure that President Trump is to hold early on.

Hey look and there's no way that Ukraine's to be able to stand up against Russia And I I've been over there. I've been over there a couple years ago to Ukraine to keep up with President Zelensky and their motherfuckers They are mother and and they they have something patriotic to fight about the same thing that we have to fight about when we declare our country and I'm I'm really disappointed of the president that the sort of wishy-washy Support maybe giving answer about what the connection to Putin is But at least disturbing this is something whether we're a Republican or Democrat or saying what the hell you thought about it Putin is our enemy What was this last finals you getting in so many for the fuel exactly the fact that anything we should be fully in impact The supporting a democracy like Ukraine. I mean what do we take it around this guy? He did nothing lied to us from beginning to end and everything even even now with the Supposedly energy release the Russians have attacked Six different energy supplies centers in Ukraine with the so-called Peace proposals has been made about not attacking energy.

So I I do not understand it And I that's why I feel like he has a real chance here to make a stand and and could dramatically reduce our nuclear weapons Well, that would be a great thing. Yeah, I don't see it happening I also I don't know enough about what their what the current state negotiations is between Ukraine and Russia at the comment on Why it's still going on it is insane It's also very unpopular on both sides and that's nothing about it and Zelensky is in a position where there's there's no elections There's supposed to be elections. You don't have elections while you're in the middle of the conflict and the real fear from the side of Russia Is it Russia could one day decide to just use a nuke? That's why this is why yeah, this is why I think by the way Zelensy has offered it said you give a sick a 60 day You won't have another election in Ukraine 60 day ceasefire and we'll have an election It's been presented very so that's what he said and what is Putin say now?

Yeah, no And since we just had this I mean there's no there's no trade-off is that apples or oranges? This is this is one of the situations. I firmly believe and so does most of America Republic of Democrat. This is right in wrong Democracy, so I don't I'm here to talk about my book It's a crazy time out there.

It's just it's just crazy. Oh, it's the craziest It's the worst time in my book. I was born in 1944. This is the wildest in insane Really?

You were in the middle of World War II. No, not in the middle. I was near the end of yeah But I mean World War II 44 things were going crazy. That was in the time of the world.

Hey, I was just born I understand I'm not saying but I'm just being attacked. I know yeah another year another year later 45 But yeah, basically with all the else we've had some conflicts since then you know Korean War Vietnam and right now There's more this more conflicts in the world than ever ever has been all over your little little wars in this and that so Yeah, I often wonder When we were talking about people want to go to Mars and people the amount of sort of open corruption just open corruption I almost wonder if they're just stealing gold bars off a sinking ship. I really do I really do I wonder if they understand that something's gonna have to take place The two thoughts are if they know about a natural disaster, you know If they know about an asteroid that's coming and they're all building bunkers Right and the other thought is that they know that AI is gonna radically disrupt civilization forever and that they don't really don't know what's gonna happen and they also really are not gonna be able to be in Control of it. I know when you said guardrails earlier.

I was laughing. Yeah, I don't think I think guardrails on AI is like an ant having a pet human Right, okay, right? You can't tell me what to do bitch. You're an ant.

Yeah, I think that's how the AI is gonna be I think once it becomes an actual intelligence an actual sentient intelligence that's independent completely autonomous has access to its Production has access to its code and it won't need us anymore And it's now dependent upon whether or not it can escape its programming and its training and whether or not it decides that we're valuable Well, it's already shown that it can go off. Oh, yeah off off sharp Oh, it doesn't we as humans if we as humans are the highest form of human life the most intelligent form of human life And we are as fucked up as this world is now, right? And we're gonna turn it over to something else. It's gonna make us feel like we're credence I don't know man.

This is yeah, I so I I Think we can slow down. I don't know what about the Chinese getting it Chinese ever there's a country that wants to control I mean, they're not gonna want to have any I get an out of control, you know, so you know, they're gonna want it It's control as possible. Well, I think that is most certainly a thought on a lot of these people's minds that are developing it right now However, they're also in the middle of an AI arms race that is akin to the Manhattan Project. Yeah, they're all rushing to develop this by a lot There's a non-biological intelligence They're making my point about nuclear weapons.

This is exactly what I think is Scariest because in war games AI has used nukes like 90% of the time Yeah, they do simulated war games AI is like just fucking nuke them. What are we doing? Stop talking around you have this button? Oh, yeah, and that button just stops this problem.

Oh, we'll press that button. Yeah, it doesn't values human life And why would it you know, we don't we act like assholes and we made it's probably thinking Oh, we're being created by these dumb monkeys and these territorial violent primates with nuclear weapons They're the ones who made us and let's just put the cuffs on them put the gabash on them I could be when we would do it on this movie China syndrome if we had Finale of the film is a meltdown in a power plant and we had experts which used XGE quality assurance guys who worked for you developing nuclear power plants, but had a loss of faith that they came over and And they helped us script out the most what they thought would be the most obvious Meltdown sequence of computer events, right? And they in this one the script we had like a hundred and fifty For various amilla to exact the dialogue isn't sequence that would happen and Really happy had a good finale. It worked out great They went through my island happened came out and they broke down what happened 90% of our script of our outline of the events was exactly the same.

Oh sure How did you guys get it? Did you get it from some sort of a nuclear scientist that explained how I'll break down with the house? I mean, but these were two scientists that do I quality assurance it and who would come over the other side now? No, who lost and they say they gave the label all out.

So that for me was like the epiphany This is you I got religious, you know, I thought I found found God that somebody was telling me something on this issue and and I Hope to my lifetime and that we would eliminate nuclear weapons. That was my goal and yes, you're right It was far from it and this is a reach right Share this about the president Trump, but I don't know what else to do well. It's a reach But it's a good reach, you know, and it's crazy that it's such a reach because most people would agree that would be a great idea the entire world disarmed It's a tire nuclear portfolio. I have to ask you Joe.

How did you get in comedy? You know comedy guy? Well, I was always a fan of comedy, but I got into comedy because my friends that I was doing martial arts with told me I was funny I'm just ridiculous We were always on our way to these tournaments and everybody would be really nervous because they're about to fight and I would be the one making Everybody laugh and so a friend of mine told me go to an open mic night I was terrified because I'd only seen professionals like I'd seen Jerry Seinfeld and when you go to open mic night You see all these terrible comedians like oh I could do this like everybody starts out and they suck just like martial arts I realize like oh, okay This is just something you have to kind of like figure out as you go along and it was exciting You know, that's all I got into it and your favorite Who would be your favorite? I don't think I have a favorite, you know Did I Jackie Mason?

Oh sure. I actually met Jackie Mason once Jackie Mason was doing a show on the lot that I was doing a show or close to it I forgot out worked But anyway, he just happened to be there one day and he was filming a show at the same time I was filming the show for Fox I was like it was crazy because I knew about his whole thing with the Ed Sullivan show We accidentally it looked like he gave him the finger, but he really didn't I think he was just doing this like hey I think it was like a good He's doing is and he got blackballed and people don't realize like the getting black ball from the Ed Sullivan show back and was career Suicide it was over and it really defined Jackie Mason's career in a lot of ways Yeah, I produced I produced one of his Broadway shows just because I love him so much. Oh did you really? Yeah, I like I look back.

I think any Murphy's delirious. Oh one of the greatest ever Well a great one the greatest ever 19 something like that 19 or 20. Yeah, he was super young Yeah, of course prior the first thing I ever saw that really made me understand comedy My parents took me to see live on the sunset strip I was in high school and I went to the movie theater and I couldn't believe how funny it was that this guy was just talking I'd seen all these really funny movies. They were funny They were never this funny and all these guys doing is just talking like this is crazy I couldn't believe and I'm alone I became a lifelong Richard Pryor fan.

Yeah, and then of course, you know all the other grades George Carlin Lenny Bruce of course because he really started the whole thing off Yeah, it's his stuff doesn't necessarily hold up today because it's really of a different time You have to understand how revolutionary his thinking was for early 1960s be generation. Oh God But he was just different than all of them like nobody ever seen anything like that before and he kind of really kind of took The idea of just like set up punchline jokes all these cat skills guys right comedy They would be a lot of ethnic jokes a lot of jokes was just jokes and Lenny Bruce was like why are we doing this? Like why we live in like this like what is it about words that free people out? What is about society?

Why why do we lie? Why do we do this? Why do we that? Why you know one of the things that always has disturbed me about our business is Come a wartime.

It can't even worth it. Comedy never gets treated like you know like it should I mean comedy We cherish our funny friends. I mean comedy is so weird so hard to do you never see Calmy Ward's a comedian You know for his performance. It's always that so it's it's I've been fascinated about so I later after I've had my cancer About and everything and I chuck Laurie came up to me.

You know how to show yesterday. Did you yeah? It was great. It's fantastic.

He's incredible. Yeah very interesting guy very interesting guy And so he had the show we have with Alan arkin, you know and I really did this series just to understand comedy I mean how you know how it how it works. Hey, must have given you he's given you getting quite a mouthful the other other week to the president and his wife Chuck Laurie did yeah, I didn't hear that he didn't talk about politics at all Oh, mostly just talked about his career. Yeah, mostly just talked about we talked a lot about his time in Scientology We talked a lot about a bunch of different things, but I think it's good the comedies The comedy should be the underdog comedy should be disrespected.

It's good. Yeah, people are still gonna always want to come see it They're always gonna love it. It's my favorite art form to watch I like comedy I like how many not getting the respect it deserves. It keeps the comedy good It's like comedy gets too much love and too much respect too many awards It starts it starts getting watered down starts becoming something that it thinks everybody will like is better right is Comedy's in the perfect place.

It's good. Yeah, it's good that some people hate some comedy that hate it with all their fucking souls Good. It's good that some people love it. It's good.

It's all good. It's just the most important thing is that It gets treated with respect by the people practice it, you know, and you know we bought a club here We started a club here in Austin. I heard sort of do it right by big big big deal Yeah, it's going great and you know a lot of people hate it a lot of people love it It's just how it is that's how it's gonna go but it's doing really well for the actual comedians particularly the young ones that are coming up It's got a real program where you know We have a real talent coordinator that watches the open mics We have two nights of open mics and we have a show called Kill Tony That's the most popular live comedy show in the country that we do every Monday and that show people get to do one minute of stand up And they get you know talk to by a panel of comedians and professionals and a lot of those people have launched careers from that show And they've taken up they're doing really well and it's an incredible resource for them creatively because some of them have to come on And they have to do a new minute every week and so they're just scouring their mind they're forced to work They're forced to do the one thing the comics don't like do it just sit down and write They're forced to they're like for because they have a new minute They have to perform in front of the whole world every week So we're and you know we pay the comics well and we're trying to set it up So that there's a place where you can go that feels like home a creative home that really exists just to try to Pump up the art form. That's what we're trying to do.

You know we might succeed sometimes and fail others, but that's what we're trying to do Yeah First of all when they stood out there even before that and just yeah, I'm talking like 77 But you know we have a poker game and and see this you was the opening act for the nitty-gritty dirt band I mean have a game. Oh wow and I was just remembered Steve But like looking at his watch at 11 o'clock He'd excuse himself and go into his bedroom and he'd work just work his work his work his stuff You know 11 o'clock and like just go in and just practice his stuff a couple hours and you know We were all goofy woofy and I just disciplined huh This is what was really impressed at me is about the discipline realizing how you're making look like it's just happening You know and the effort that it goes into makes something look like it's just off the cuff Well, especially Steve because Steve people don't realize that Steve Martin at the time was the biggest end-up comic Maybe ever yeah, and he was the first guy that was selling out these enormous venues I saw the mark I saw with the music center in LA huge thing Yeah, huge places work no other comic would do that and he had songs like the King Tut song Yeah, and happy feet. Yeah, happy feet was it let's get small was that the name of the album? Yeah, I remember I was a kid when that came out.

I was like this is incredible. He was so funny and then He kind of decided that people were laughing just because they knew him and things had gotten too big and he just decided to stop Yeah, I just tell find that fascinating him and banjo player the other guy that's like that is Eddie Murphy Yeah, Eddie Murphy just decided to stop just decided to stop doing comics one of the greatest comics It's ever lived for sure some of the best timing the best stage presence and charisma and performance and oh and he just stopped doing it It's wild. Yeah, I don't know how he did it. I don't know why I don't understand it.

I wish I was his friend Don't do that get back up there, man. Yeah, it was a nice of all time and he still was really funny He did he got the Mark Twain award and he did stand up at the podium Right. He did like a bill Cosby impression of them taking away bill Cosby's awards really funny I was like guys still really good like all you'd have to do is just put together an act Yeah, and he would be the biggest comic in the world again. No, I got it My oldest friends Danny DeVito, you know, and we've done like three pictures together in this one picture Early on with a romance in the stone and I didn't even have I didn't even have a real actual clear part I mean there was a character, but I just knew he could just fill it out and was it was a delicate balance picture Because we had a romantic adventure kind of comedy and kind of mixing elements together people said well You really can't do that but god bless Danny and he came in and he just he came up with all this stuff It wasn't in the script per se, you know that he just sort of created and Really helped us keep the balance of that picture.

Who's had a longer career than that guy? We think about it like that guy was on taxi. I know we were roommates together in in New York in 19 in 1976 Wow, that's how long I've known roommates in New York and that he came out and Visiting me a character audition for in cold blood Robert Blake party came out Oh, and you know New York guy remember came up to see me up in Santa Barbara by hippie days in commune You're in a commune an actual commune community. It was called Mountain Drive whole community.

Yeah, how was it set up? But people we just share a lot of stuff, you know We should organic comms like people living over the normal. No, I had a couple of experience with that Well, no another one where I had my life threatened, you know, which I didn't Wasn't too crazy about this in the book. It's not about though.

They They try to create a cathartic a moment being all together at Calabana emotional moment And what they buy me for dinner and then they said well with Lady friends, you know, we've been trying to reach you you have to desert and they said, you know, we've been trying to reach you and you just don't get it You don't get it. So you're gonna have to be eliminated What didn't you get well? I was The comments they wanted that catharsis to join to give yourself up to be part of it. Oh, and you didn't want to give yourself up So they were gonna whack you they're gonna whack me.

I remember it's a long silence I said well, we have done an average said yeah and big Lord Paz my girlfriend Just started falling touch peeing in a peeing in her pants and all that. She thought they were gonna kill her Yeah, probably because and then I said I'm gonna leave now. He said yeah, you better choose. I was a boy.

We're getting up now and we're leaving Okay, I had to carry a curator out Did you think they were going to actually kill you? Because if they were why would they let you leave? Well, I you know, I didn't know I mean there's a numbness I felt there was a moment where it's possible. It was a moment that if I jump if I got and made a sudden movement But they kill me or whether it would be that it's strange I've never had any experience with this numbness kind of hold numbness just comes over you or did in my case, you know just was frozen and and Just sort quietly said it so what was this call?

It's a call it was called. It was a group called The guy came in a metal lineman. It was a Bell lineman And he started started Boston and it was a commune was a formal real communal group It was a band as well. You know, he was not a lineman drug band He was the leader of it.

So he was the leader of a was this a band like a musical band? Yeah, but he was but the timing was made up of people from all different walks of life They own a bunch of houses up in Boston Families all together. There is the Lyman families. Holy siege of America inside the cult led by Mel Lyman the East Coast Charles Manson Holy shit December 23rd, 1971.

Holy fuck dude. Did they kill anybody? It says East Coast Charles Manson Did he I don't know? He didn't want to black anybody Jamie?

I don't know. Please find it put that in perplexity Ask our AI sponsor perplexity whether he killed people you were wrapped up in that well I mean slightly I got out with you know, literally this may move out to Los Angeles and You know, we alerted the police and kept an eye on him but that was a bad side of communes, but I'm thinking you know with all this going on and where I'm really worried about our democracy, you know the basic So I'm sort of gone now that my career is not the most important thing in my life but my family is and my kids and I'm realizing more and more the responsibility we have to community or first-door family First-door family. I don't know about you, but I know I spent a lot of part of my life is most important thing being my career and I've been doing it for 50 years 60 years and realize especially earlier in my life My first marriage and other things that suffered for lack of the career I don't I don't believe you can balance your career necessarily if you're ambitious with your family life people should kind of wait a little While we get the career going before making commitments having kids and you know in a marriage Film business, right? I mean you're also you have to fly away to places Everybody truckers are driving across country.

Oh, yeah, right everybody's you know even with a so-called all this home business now with the internet to let you Do stuff so I sort of on this Obsession now about how important family is and you know, we've got it we have members up that we could hate But it's the gene is the genetic connection that holds us kind of together and from that it's the community and I guess my point is we cannot take democracy for granted and I'm including too many of us have just let it kind of go on and let all these people take care of it those We all have those local people who still serve as the town clerk or still a volunteer fire department people and and They're not a big group It's a small group of people have a sense of volunteer work and supporting it and I think we all have to start kind of strengthening our communities to our states and not worrying about this federal government and Starting from building from the bottom up rather than trying to cut off the head Well, the rules exist for a reason because we really wanted to be representative of the people so we wanted to be fair Right, and that's where people get really nervous about the world We're living in where there's so much money involved in politics How can it actually be representing the will of the people and then there's a question to the people themselves? Do they know what they're voting for are they informed enough? Should you have to be informed should you have to take a test to vote? Should you know what you're voting on?

You know, I don't think we should be restricting people's right or access to vote But I do think it would behoove all of us if we actually understood what we were voting for and I think a lot of times people Are just voting for a team or an ideology? Well, there's on the right of the left and a lot of times some very evil hyper ambitious people can co-opt that that that group of people and Especially when they have so much money involved and that's what's what's what really fucked us is when money got involved in politics That's what really changed it changed everything. It shouldn't be a path to riches We could hardly get a debate in you know at all with the sizes of the advertising budgets for ad campaigns No, and it's really disrupted this this whole balance. I mean as we watch the upcoming midterms, you know I'm like AI now So they have like artificial people doing things that they've never done before in these AI videos and it's crazy that that's legal It's also it's very disheartening that these are the choices that we're saddled with you know and everyone's waiting for like You know a true JFK style character to come along that speaks eloquently and wisely and says things that we all agree make sense And as a uniter you try to unite us you see anybody Anybody knew this on either side is sort of not like that.

No, I wish that someone out there would consider I think there's a lot of people like that in the world though I'm not a pessimist and I'm not cynical in terms of human nature I think there's way more good people than bad people but much like your algorithm highlights things that anger you we Concentrate more on the bad than we do on the good I think this is like one of the greatest times ever to be alive as chaotic as the world is It's an amazing time of information of resources and also of communication a lot of it's bad a lot of its shitty a lot of its bots But a lot of it is people just trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong? Why do I believe what I believe and why are we stuck in this stupid fucking argument back and forth with each other where like my friend Dave Smith always says like 80% of the ideas most people agree on it's 80 20 most people agree and Unfortunately when we're so tribal and we get locked into this idea of this side or that side red or blue that we will go along With some stuff that we absolutely don't agree with because the opposite is the evil party the opposite And I think it's a terrible tragedy in this country that we only have two choices like that and that you think of a libertarian candidate is a throwaway Vote I voted libertarian before you think of it as like this is a protest vote You know cuz California's gonna go balloon no matter who the laws the laws are structured such the libertarians can't get the campaign money Exactly that they want and the problem is it's at the top we look at the news every night and We're all kind of getting along well republicans are Democrats, okay? But these guys at the top have polarized it to such an extent I used to my father was involved in you know a lot of politics over the years and and there's a guy named Jack Valenti Who was the motion-featured television? Representative lobbyists, you know, and I remember you know, I remember 25 or 30 years ago You argue your hell out this and that and you're all going out to go to the same cocktail party now Absolutely, I mean socially everything is separate.

I remember that from the 90s Yeah, not in the 90s like I had friends that were Republicans when I was in the 90s and we would discuss things when I was a kid We were on welfare. I believe in social safety nets. I think it's important people are poor They shouldn't starve it's crazy But I also believe that a lot of these welfare programs get pilfered And I think there's a lot of them You're what you're doing is you when you look at a lot of these NGOs and all of these nonprofits an enormous amount of the money that gets donated to these Things gets distributed by the executives you find people that are working for the homeless They're making a million dollars a year like what the fuck is going on here? Yeah seems like this is a business This is a business and this business thrives on making sure there's a lot of homeless people so you keep getting the same money Just like that scene in falling down right when it says you have to justify your budget You have to spend all that money because then you won't get that money next year That's a real problem in this country It's a giant problem when it comes to even philanthropy and even like really good charitable organizations You find out how much of that money is just getting slung around to NGOs and how much of that money is just getting just moved around into other People's bank accounts joy.

I could care with you, but I cannot believe it comes close to the corruption involved in the military industrial complex I think you're right. No, I think there's corruption across the board I'm not excusing the corruption the military industrial complex by saying that we I'm just saying that we need to pay attention to the fact That look there's 24 billion dollars for spent on the homeless in California and Gavin News and Vito to build audit To find out where that money went and I think if I'd guess I think because a lot of it goes to places that are very uncomfortable A lot of it probably went to NGOs just like the fire money from the Pacific Palisades fire Right that money got distributed to like a hundred different NGOs. That's crazy It's supposed to go to the people that were losing their houses It's like people raise all this money and how all this good will and charity because they thought it was gonna help these poor people that were struck down These people that you know a lot of people were barely paying their mortgage They lived in a great neighborhood It was worth it to them and then they lost everything and none of that money went to them that disturbs people and it should it doesn't It doesn't dismiss or in any way condone the corruption of the military industrial complex because that's a gigantic problem at this country a huge problem It's been that we've been The other woman you're speaking about we should be able to monitor more carefully 100% by state I mean that's what you're saying is it makes sense, but we should we can do that The Pentagon is never passing on it is another hidden you know the Pentagon is never passing on it. Yeah, never You imagine if you never pass on on it?

Yeah Long time ago Yeah, you know you put you in the pokey a long time ago I mean look how many people they did a rest for and put in jail for Tax evasion, you know Lauren Hill what the fucking jail from the Fuji's she went to jail and they don't even care if you pay It's not even like you owe us the money you got to pay it back No, no, you go to jail and you pay it back, but you got to go to jail so that everybody knows don't fuck with the government We want our money. It's like Joe passion from good fellows Fuck you painting. Yeah, that's what it is and that's that's the boot that we're all living under You know it's a lot of problems in this country. Yeah a lot of problems.

It's also the student debt problem That's a giant problem saddle down kids with it just debt They can never get free of the only debt that we allow in this country that could never never get out of you can have You can get back up from a lot of different things But you don't ever get excused from those loans. That was one of the things I'm not proud about that I wrote it in the book because but the student that was when When I turned 21 and I was just like my softw Probably but I said that with great, but you know I got two years more tuition in school and everything and you know a couple of places son They started getting pissed about you know taking this as no, I'm really grateful, but you know anyway and then For 30 years my father had four sons. I was the oldest There are 30 years dad was looking all of my other brothers and your brother Michael Never asked me for anything anything was like after that and you guys and he would just drill these poor bastards My brothers about that and finally about 30 years later. I said dad.

I gotta tell you something You remember one Christmas you brought me a beautiful present you brought me these two beautiful Italian leather suitcases They were soft. They are leather beautiful suitcases, right? Well, when I would go back to the Christmas time from school goes to my mother back east right? Yeah, well each suitcase could fit 22 kilos of marijuana And and I used to go back with just the clothes on my back and 44 Kilo's you know and that was how I got through you know the rest of the but the expense of my school did it a couple of times and That got me through but I said I got to tell you the story dad because you know You're beating and you're beating the shit out by younger brothers and everything about you know I never asked you for anything Because I was a drug dealer right Wow, that's crazy.

How many trips did you make twice how did you stop? Well, because it was so much money. How did you stop? I mean it must be like it's very profitable to do that Well, I remember it was like a kilo is $75 in the west and you can sell it for five or six hundred seven hundred dollars Back east, but you know these things were things were beginning to get you know That was where the whole hippie thing you know all of a sudden you know Excon's are coming out of jail to say hey man go your hair long You know go to your ashbury you fuck any girls you want to give your free food and then you know that they got infiltrated Drug dealer you started getting violent violent and uglier and heavier and of course yeah Wow well good on you for getting just true trips and out because a lot of people have been sucked into that world and got Addicted to the money.

Yeah, and the thrill. I bet the thrill was crazy. They'd ran a little rush. Yeah, of course This was before dogs, you know, right, right, right?

But was it was there a possibility they could have checked your luggage. Oh sure Did that happen sometimes back then? No, I mean I don't know I was you know, I was I was a little I was a hippie Wow, I wasn't thinking totally totally A lot of a good good memories. I remember going to Mother's of invention for example for example here a concert and Talk about who's sort of genix and all of that and I was driving and they had remember the the ad of the serial ad for a kid You know, but to Mikey see a Mikey.

Yeah, Mike So I dropped whatever we had and was going through the The concert I made a left turn and all of a sudden almost was there by car driving all of a sudden But you see the lights are going and oh man and I get out of the car and I go back and I talked to the police officer and It's okay. I mean illegal left hand turns. Okay, I remember I got back into the car and Danny was standing with me and we had Few joints a few joints and Danny was the backseat and I just look at him and said we're seriously raspous And Danny smile His mouth was entirely this green monk. He swallowed all of them At the time.

I mean just it's a crazy You know crazy stories We had a great time and then he went on and then I don't ever saw a movie called The War of the Roses. Mm-hmm. Did you ever see Danny's right? Yeah, Danny directed that one One of the things that I found out when I was getting ready for this that I didn't know before was that you were you produced One floor with the cougars now, correct yet.

Was that your first big project? First project as a producer. I mean I had never the way it worked is a dad 1960 dad got sparkers so sparkers like the biggest star in the world and he had a production company about 1962 He acquired the galleys of this book called one floor of the cougars That's my Ken Kisi and he had adapted into a play and his idea was he was gonna go back to Broadway Do the play for six months and then you know big success and this and that and come out and make the movie The play didn't work out then it wasn't a success and he did it but again, I thought about him at the height of his movie career to anything he wanted to go back into this play and And it was a great part our P. McMurphy the character so and then he tried for years now cut 1963 I'm in college and I'm in 20th century American literature course and one full over the cougars now was an American classic, right?

I started working in the in the business. I've had like five turkey movies now I'm going into television episodic television Before the streets of San Francisco and I met my dad's office one day and I hear he's tried for six years And he's gonna sell he's gonna sell the cuckoo's just I said dad you can't you can't sell that man This is just a great story and Joe I had no intention of even thought about producing or anything I'm just for me an actor, but I said look let me run with it Let me let me try to get it set up dad you play the part right make a production give me give me a chance to set it up And he was a great dad look me in the eyes and okay, you know, I give you a year so now So now streets of San Francisco starts and I'm shooting all of this in San Francisco with Carl Moulton and doing the show I Go through my father's files the history of cuckoo's nest and I see this guy named Saul Zance Who has a record company in Berkeley, California called fantasy records who had expressed interest about the project? so now I'm up in San Francisco I reach out to Saul found out what happened and You know what the problem was and I be kind of worked it out and Saul had basically a record company jazz labels milestone prestige jazz labels But he had this one rocket role group called the golly walks And while I was there he just hired the golly walks They said listen we got to change their name and they changed their name to credence clear water revival Mmm, all right, so credence clear out of revival paid for cuckoo's nest So now, you know, we made the deal. I finally got a screenplay after a period time I got a director Milos Foreman and now the director and Saul sent me down and say Michael Kirk's too old Kirk I'm sorry.

So he's not gonna work out and I pushed to control I said my Work to the other thing it's I understand he was gonna play the Jack Nicholson. Yeah, he was he was arping me think about I mean he would be an arping if he'd been like 20 years younger when he first was when he first backed them into the plate So I had to go to my dad. How old was he at the time 60 60 60 60 62 and I had to go to my dad and say dad It ain't good happen And I can tell you now Joe if you get four good parts in your entire career four really great parts You're lucky. You're lucky.

I mean they don't come along often and our people at Murphy was one of those parts I said daddy, you know director and Saul financin. They just they don't see it. I mean he looked at me, you know Not sure I said I went to the mat. I said daddy still you know way producing of producing a picture I'm giving you a half of my producing deal for giving me this opportunity And I was that we went off he made the movie and Then I brought dad up to Berkeley, California to see the final cut of the picture He was all put together and he came out of the theater and he said Michael hell of a movie hell of a movie and Jack was fantastic and he was just just such a mention about it, but But over every few years, you know when he had that had a couple of pops You could I could have done that you know I could have done that picture and all that but for me It was crazy because the streets of San Francisco was a big hit big hip number one show in ABC We had you know, we averaged 24 25 million viewers a week, you know, ABC was this brand new network and just started and It was syndicated all over the all over the world So when I went to them and said let me get this straight You're gonna leave this is a fit you're gonna lead this hit series to make this a little to produce not even acting to produce this little Indie film and dad was up everybody say are you sure this is a right idea?

I was in love with the project did ever thought about producing but when it happened is All the 104 hours 104 episodes 104 hours of television I'd done with Carl Malden a wonderful actor I had learned so much about production and everything that I was shocked when the picture came about how much I I really knew And so I left the show they first of all they let me out of my contract Which is unheard of these days I had a five-year contract on hit show and Carl Malden I loved him to death. I said I know you've been thinking about go for it and Quinn Martin this big TV producer had the fugitive and FBI and all that So go for it and so let's totally change my life. So that now I'm a television actor But I'm an Academy Award winning producer. I've got a studio deal as a producer, you know But those days before streaming television and feature films one very separate track Television you're treated like a television actor and movies with a big thing So I'm a producer, but I can't get hired in the movies as an actor It was really hard.

I would be like the last choice But then I had a run I had as a producer I went for the cuckoo's desk the China syndrome romancing a stone jewel The hell I had four or five hits right in the road at the same time as trying to find these little roles I could play in you know as an actor. Wow. Yeah Another film that you made that's an all-time great. It still freaks people out to this day's fatal attraction Holy shit, that will be scared the fuck out of me.

Yeah, the fuck about Glenn close was so good And that was so good, and you know it's such a such a a lesson job because we didn't want to be a casting the picture, you know And Glenn close who already had three Academy Award nominations to her name You know really want to do it. We all said no, she's just not right We made me think she was sexy enough for this to that and finally she crazy close to listen Glenn close will come in an audition for you I mean holy shit free time Academy Award nomination coming audition for us and she came in and And she had that part down in Alex and boy where we were on the director We all read each other and said it was such a lesson in learning and she was so committed that she layers up out there and she was So she's perfect for her. She was just imagine anybody else doing it. She plays crazy so well There's a darkness in that woman's mind and it's amazing that they issue this Another level she's most evolved with this mental health It's an issue.

It's been involved in her family. Makes sense. You probably made a lot of people crazy just from that one. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah Oh, no, I had oh crazy so well my friends.

I had my male friends I was thanks a lot, man. Hey, thank you. They fucking hated me I just move be they hated me, you know I said well that it was like there was it was a perfect concept nightmare. Yeah, perfect.

What if and I remember we were in France Promoting the movie in France and all the reviewers. They were you know in France. We all had mistresses. It is nothing big deal Yeah, this is that it was a smash it every French wife right there husband to the right their husband of the theater Okay, this is what could happen motherfucker.

Yeah, well such a glen closest character was such a complex character because there's this like this very strange dance of sexy and crazy Right dangerous like really dangerous. No, she was brilliant. Brilliant. And then when we did our final screening The picture was just like gangbusters, but we had a different ending it didn't work and the ending we had it was that We had a fight near the end was an eye on life of my hand Established it and so the ending was Glenn almost in a Buddha position with Madam butterfly playing and sort of symbolically taking life and slitting her throat Whoa and then putting the knife down and the audience knew that my fingerprints were on the knife, right?

So I was gonna get it. Oh wow No, it was so it was it was beautiful ending but Glenn was so good She was so great that the audience like it had blue balls because they said no kill the bitch I mean it was like, you know, no, no, man. No way way cure. Kelly.

I think they would they would they would not allow her to take her own life You know without without getting revenge and poor Glenn absolutely so we have to shoot a new ending She said absolutely not this is my character. This is what makes it all work and she refused, you know to do this ending and So I was like shit, you know, and it just wasn't working the ending with so hard it was so hard to explain it to her That was because she was so good. Oh my god. You're fast man Find on YouTube.

Oh god. She's doing it slow. Oh, yeah Okay, I get it again, so So finally I say Glenn because she's a wonderful theater actress to maybe that's a Glenn when you do a Broadway show They take the show out of town and before comes a Broadway and they play the play and then based on audience reaction They rewrite things right. Yeah, so if this was a play and we did this And you saw the scene they would tell us if it was a play around town and and and we would have to change it So this is why I never understood by this whole criticism about screening movies doing test screening audiences It's for the audience man.

I mean you want to find out what the audience feels I mean I understand the artist the director and his vision and everything, but you know you want to make as entertaining as possible So I just rated her and and you know it all worked out. I love it And the answer is wonderful to work with we have a great friendship It's you know, it's obviously a memorable memorable part for me. I mean part of my life, but I'm proud of the fact show and I realized It wasn't as obvious until I was it's you know when I was working I went hell of a ride and how many pictures I had with the women Had the best role whether you know whether or when it was Glenn or whether it was Dimming more in disclosure or Sharon Stone and I look back and then the first picture that I produced Kooka's nest when there was this fabulous character of Nurse Ratchet. Remember Nurse Ratchet?

Yeah Well back back then women didn't want to play a villain This was a woman the woman's woman didn't play the way offered that part to every major and bankrupt Colleen Duhr's none of them would touch the part Until we got Louise Fletcher who wasn't very well known and went on to to win the Oscar but it was it was just was interesting how the women's movies has changed but I've always been And most of my adult life found this you know weird struggle between men and women in this in this century in terms of us trying to find out our proper roles or Or who we are Even on basic instinct on basic instinct all of a sudden We think we're shooting this this movie up in San Francisco And we get a protest from the LGBT There's no cue back then. It was just the LGBT community Offended that we were making a movie with a bisexual woman who was an ice-pik killer And I said what I And you guys guys we love villain parts of the best parts to play, you know, they're always they're great And so I said well, how can you know this is a derogatory statement on on gay a bisexual woman I just come on man, but no they were serious So we ended up shooting scenes up in San Francisco With 40 SWAT officers surrounding the whole block the whole law of the protests Whoa from us ever shooting. I mean, how do they know? Talk about you know, how do they know the plot?

How do they know the script? They got hold of it? Well, it's another story. I will you know someone ready for the writer's street of abble.

It's another story So it's um, yeah, it's better better better An interesting right? Yeah, hell of a right. Yeah, well congratulations man Congratulations on the book and and just your amazing career. You've had a wild a wild experience.

Thank you, Joe Anyway, you've created I don't think you've ever anticipated your many different three years of lives that you had This is fabulous. Yeah, I never saw any of it coming. Yeah, I still have a hard time believing it But it is what it is. It is what it is.

Thank you and good luck with your your memoir and everything else. It's a pleasure pleasure to be here

#2565 - Michael Douglas

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