Casey Affleck

Welcome to our expert I am famed golfer to the Rodriguez I'm joined by bingo stretchy bingo. How are you that real person bingo stressy yeah now I made that one up on the floor. She she Rodriguez is that would be a good task like which one of these is fake I know they both know you probably guessed you should be Rodriguez who was I bingo I've already forgotten bingo something bingo bingo bingo bongo yeah I'm joined by bingo bongo bongo we have an incredible actor on the program today Academy award winner Academy award winning actor he's also a director yeah he's also one degree of separation away from Monica's to love yeah you might have already guessed it unless you think Matt Damon has a brother as well that's one Academy award but no in fact it's Casey Affleck you know him from Manchester by the sea good will honey and gone baby gone the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford he is just a powerhouse of an actor he has a new movie called light of my life out August 9th I hope everyone will check that out yeah Casey was wonderful yes you little crushy crushy do you feel a little crushy yeah yeah yeah I like when you get a little crushy crush anyways for the rest of you please enjoy Casey Affleck and do you also participate I do but kind of like as a robin I just pipe in when I need to have to call yourself a robin that's an esteem yeah you can just say you can be your own person your own version of someone who's on the show and contributing she is but I am definitely a poor man's Howard I mean that's who I'm trying to be you want to be Howard of course yeah you like Howard yeah I do what an interviewer have you done his show no would you definitely as I'm sort of late to the party on podcast this is the first that I've done I hate my voice I have a weird voice people said I've got a voice for film and a face for radio anyway I would be I would be honored to be a great interviewer yeah I did it and the night before I went to do it which you already got to wake up at whatever five or six in the morning and I was on a lifetime and then I just started I was sonarotically preparing for every question that might be scary for me you know like I wanted to have a good twist to kind of dodge it because I had that I've done with you you already map this whole thing out but I got there and he did bring up like some famous girls I had dated mind he was wrong about almost all of them but I just went into my addiction stories and that was tasty enough meat for him so the whole night being up all my planning didn't come to pass right which is most of the arguments I have in my head in planning a fight that's eminent they never go down the way I scripted them it's true man yeah even in like third grade people are like he's waiting for you out in the back of the school he's been told that you were waiting for him yes one of you want to fight 100% that was nice to throw yourself under the bus and not discuss the women that you've dated yeah I mean a couple I couldn't avoid who no here we go what's funny is like you know you'll end up in you this happened you I'm sure you go to something you end up in a photo next to somebody there's a website who dated who that they're pulling from in the research and so he has a list of people he thinks I dated but they're just people like one time I was literally walking across the street in Hollywood by just happenstance Tara Lipinski's walking through the same crosswalk it kind of appears we're together walking and that's someone I dated yeah according to that website I've been in photographs standing next to people who I am dating and they still people wouldn't believe it I wonder who she's dating next to the next the case yeah yeah male pal no it's what you and I is that we have been neighbors for 15 years you realize that no yes I thought you just moved into the hood this is the most I live directly behind you and I have for 15 years that can't be true yes it's true why do you think I would see you pushing my children around in a stroller I thought because you were moving in here in the construction and you're renting some other spot no I moved into the house behind yours 14 years ago my shed opens into the little alley across the from your house that's why I'm always coming up from that alley I still don't know what you're talking about great so you know if you're in your garage you're in your garage you look to your left right I see you in there all the time you look to your left is a little alley that goes downhill yes downhill is lemon tree yes that lemon tree is on my property there's a shed door there and that's the door into my property amazing yes we've been neighbors for 15 years and this is exactly what I'm getting that this is what's so funny is we have the neighbors I've been aware of it for 15 years I had to learn about you for today and it's a very unique experience to I guess investigate your neighbor so like you know like to a deep dive on your neighbors let's see so we've talked I'm gonna say you and I have chatted in the neighborhood seven times over the last decade thoughts yeah and then we are one time in DC do you remember this no White House correspondent Center okay you in summer we're staying at the same hotel Bell and I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in the house I'm in my work and we sat down and had like a tea in the lobby detectives do you remember that okay so nice that's a nice yes now in general is your memory what would you give it out of 10 really great thing you have a great you know what you're memory oh my memory for an if getting was it yes or 44 I can sometimes I'd forget my name is the people who are know and love for a long time yes I do you think a being a parent has something to do with it because I've noticed my ins in the nose dives since we had kids yeah I think so I just owed stresses you out a little bit there's a worry Michael and I'm able unless you're like boot up, parents is all that that we're involved in the sleeplessness. No, all that stuff contributes.

Like, if you want to live long, be healthy, you know, keep your memory, like get some rest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But so over the years that I've bumped into you, I've been always trying to got to have everyone's approval. Oh, okay. Everyone's Uber driver, you name it. I got to have it.

Must have been. Yes. Monica, who spends most of her week with me gets tiresome. I'd like to think I've gotten a little better, but you just by nature, you have a very even temperament, right?

You're crazy. No. I mean, maybe that's a bit near. Okay.

You know, a practiced appearance of trying to stay, seeing like, do they know I'm crazy? I mean, just hold it together on that side. Yeah. Because here's the blanks I filled in in my insecurity.

All the times I've met, you know, I'm like, look, he could be a very laid-back guy or option B and I can put some real time into this. He thinks I'm a hack. He thinks I'm not a serious actor and he is a serious actor. He thinks I'm money-hungry and I'll do anything, which is, by the way, completely true.

Uh, these are when I walk away, sometimes I'm like, I just think of the list of things you're going through. We're like, oh, my God, he's so arrogant. He's because he's tall. What's going on with this guy?

I didn't notice what's all. Let me tell you something. We are those two kids who have been set up to fight in the back of the school. I don't have those opinions.

The one interaction I can remember with you or had a similar experience in my own head. It was Christmas Eve, I think. Okay. And I was walking in my kids and sometimes what we like to do is go around and sing for the neighbors, which I've been asked to just mouth the words, but we were on our way back.

And I was straggling and I think I saw you. You were coming up that same alley you're talking about. I said, I called out. I said, Merry Christmas.

Sort of within some holiday enthusiasm. And you, you sent back a kind of what to me. I thought was remarking me. You went, Merry Christmas.

Oh, like it's not cool to say Merry Christmas. Like this guy's going, oh, Merry Christmas. But maybe that wasn't the case. Not at all.

I've wanted your approval and friendships since I moved in behind you. In fact, I probably would have laughed, but I just hadn't gotten that yet. So I will not leave this neighborhood until I know you like me. I like you.

There'll be a lot of projecting in this because I'm stuck in my own point of view. But a lot of parallels you and I first of all, we're the same age. Well, I'm maybe six months older than you. We both have older brothers.

We both have alcoholic fathers, both have single mothers raised by. There's a lot of stuff. And I wonder the fact that we would both have those assumptions, is that just the price you pay of being a younger brother, because my brother was looking for any way in to fuck with me. And so I just had to get really good at a assuming his intentions were the worst.

And then having some kind of prepared defense at all times, I could not possibly just mosey around my house peacefully expecting benevolence to come from him. Is it a little brother thing? Maybe Ben and I were pretty, um, I was tortured like any younger brother, you know, but I was pretty like cutting out avoiding it and finding my own way to like see it coming and sort of sidestep in different ways. So I don't think back on my child that was being traumatized by someone older, bigger, stronger, you know, I do think back on us as being like really good friends.

Right. Well, you guys are a little closer, right? Cause what are you two years apart or something? Three or three years apart.

Okay. My brother's five. I was a tag along for much more than maybe you were. Right.

I was probably more of a tag along than I felt, which is a nice thing. Yeah. You know, nevertheless, I do definitely have those feelings. You know, you could spend a lifetime and I probably will, analyzing your childhood, what led you to become this person you are now.

And then at 75 thinking back in your 40s, you know, seeing yourself as a kid of sorts and wondering how you got to become a child at 75, it'll never stop probably. Right. But I asked my mom when she turned 65 what it was like and she said, everything glows, which she was being like intentionally cryptic, I think. But also I interpreted that as being that it's sort of all the bad parts sort of were softened, but also memory itself was sort of blurring everything into a really nostalgic vision of her past, just in general.

Yeah. I sort of hope that that's what happens because I still, although my memories are four out of 10 now, it feels that way my memories have a sharp edge to them. Do you know me? Sure.

And those sharp edges, I think are the things that cut in to your ego when you think about a yelled Merry Christmas and then yelled it back in the same tone. And I'm just like by everyone in the community. I totally agree with you. When it's funny, I'm always kind of trying to debate in my head is just not thinking about that childhood.

You're here. You like where you're at for the most part and just be in today and forget about that. But all roads lead back to it. It's like if anything, I'm triggered by a defensive by it really is embarrassingly simple that it's really all based in those maybe even 10 years, those first 10 years.

Like it's ridiculous how hard it is to escape that. So part of me is like, oh, just put it to bed and move forward. Another part of me is like, there's no moving forward until I can kind of be concerned that are unraveled at all and just notice when something's like, I think you're judging me for being a bad actor. You know, that that's not really happening.

What's happening is something from when I'm 10. That's kind of relevant for me to right size my interactions, you know. Yeah. And it's helpful to move through your day.

You know, I mean, if you can go like this, it's not judging me for being a bad actor. You probably don't care who's a good or bad actor, right? Like I don't really care. No, not at all.

And like I also don't think of myself as being a good actor. We were great actor by my estimation. Well, thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. But I think one thing it does is when you feel punished by the thoughts of others, you start to think a little bit about, okay, how do I perceive people? What are my inner thoughts about people? It's probably not so dissimilar to the experience that they're having.

People are more similar than they are dissimilar. So I'm probably feeling mocked. Maybe he's feeling a little bit mocked by me. And you know, one thing that I do is to remember that like when you see others, you are looking through a dense fog of your own insecurities, of your own ignorance and inherited prejudice, all these things before you have any thought that you're going to hold on to.

Yeah. Think about that first, that like fog that you have to look through before you see someone else and everyone is having the same experience. Yes. Even physiologically, your eyes aren't functioning on the same levels.

Mine could be better. It could be worse. Our ears aren't perceiving the same, all the same registries and stuff. You know, we're actually taking in different information to begin with.

And then we're putting it through this fucked up software we've developed over the last 44 years or used soon to be 44 years. But it's hard to remember that. Yeah. I had a moment yesterday.

I visited my wife on set for her birthday. I was like talking to this guy, I love DDA who I worked with on another show. And he was showing me some motorcycle videos and I was quickly trying to tell him about my motorcycle stuff. And I realized in this moment, I was like, you're not eight trying to get the approval of the cool guys like, he wants your approval and get out of your own way and give this guy approval.

Yeah. But I was blinded by my own like, well, I did this. But I was just like, oh, it's really easy to not be aware of who you are in the world. To kind of forget about how other people are seeing you or even like I was the boss on two different movies, I directed two different movies at no point, although clearly and logically and intellectually, I was like, well, I am the boss, but I am still 12 in my head and there's no way I'm the boss of anyone and there's not like they're all in on the joke and I'm just not seeing myself as a boss.

And then of course, no, years later, I'm like, oh, I was the boss and I didn't take that in and I should have some situations that you see come up. You're like, oh, I have a power over someone. I would have never thought I had a power over somebody. Yes.

I've been a boss and not been aware of exactly what the responsibilities of that role entailed and not also thought of myself as the boss being aware of how others do see you or just specifically in a professional environment is important. Even if you are sort of behaving the way you should or have good intentions or you're aware that like everyone feels fine here, like your sense of decency as a human, your radar is intact. If you're not sort of abiding by or aware of the guidelines of a professional environment, you're vulnerable to people saying like, you know, you're not behaving responsibly. And that has all kinds of tentacles.

And so, yeah, being a boss means a whole ton of things that like I was not prepared for something like the first movie that I directed here. I wish that I had understood that better. That doesn't mean to say that it wasn't a messy situation. It's complicated, but certainly I try to look for like no matter what is going on, like even if I feel like my angriest, most offensive and most victimized myself look quick to feel how other people might feel victimized.

Yeah. Like do the dig that deep dive on like, what is the other person's point of view? How does that other person feel? Yeah.

And what could you have done to make that experience better for them? Yeah. That's the lesson in it for me. And on that, on movie, I directed, I learned a lot of that.

And then I did another movie recently and I took a lot of that to heart. But I can give an example. I we were watching the 60 minutes special about some issues at Spotted Pig in New York, which is a restaurant I fucking love. And I mean, there are a million times.

And so Kristen and I were watching it. And this woman, an employee of one of the guys there was saying what happens. They were in a car together and it was late at night. She was going to drive him somewhere and then he leaned over and started kissing her.

And she said, and I just froze. I completely froze. I didn't know what to do. And then we heard like the account from a couple of other ladies that had the same reaction.

And I had to think to myself, wow, that's new information for me. I never would have assumed when I went to kiss a girl, if she didn't say, oh, no, thank you or move away, that would be my signal. I never an option for me that I never would have thought it was like, well, she might freeze. That might be the reaction.

And so I got to really check in with that. That's not something I again, trapped in my own perspective, or as if you lean over to try to kiss me right now. I think, oh, no, thanks. Right.

Move my body. And those are what I that's what I think the options are. And then I just learned I'm fucking 44. I learned a year and a half ago that an option is to completely get paralyzed with fear and freeze.

And I was like, wow, when I start running my whole life through the fucking camera now. And I think of that, I'm like, oh, did, was that girl just freeze? Like, you know, I take on new information and I get a little scared. I now know going for what fingers crossed I won't have to find out because I'm married.

But wow, that's good information for me to have going forward. I mean, every lesson like that, when you're like honest with yourself, if processed properly, is good information going forward. And like a lot of people go like, what's the new rule book? And we don't know what's what's right.

What's what people, how people should behave anywhere. They kind of throw up their hands as a sort of underhanded criticism of the, of the cultural shift that is happening. And I think that's not fair because there's always a kind of new rule book and some people are always learning new things. And yeah, you are becoming a more thoughtful person.

And just culturally, that's the way it goes. People realize there are lessons that they were taught, ideas that they were reared on that were deficient. And like you and I might have been taught, well, no means no. That's a slogan, you know, like you ask somebody if you want to kiss you and if they say no, you leave them alone.

And by the way, that was the bar for me. That was the bar growing up. Right. And why is that deficient?

It's important for people to understand that not just to be told that, but to understand, well, it's the vision because as you point out, someone might just be freezing. They might be uncomfortable. Or because even if you just ask once and you ask very nicely and they say, no, and you leave them alone after that, it still might be wrong because you're in an environment where it's inappropriate, like, for example, you both work in the same office or something, you know, whatever it is. Yeah.

So reexamining the things that we were raised on. And, you know, it's sort of what I feel like we're all about. Yeah. I mean, keep getting better a little bit culturally.

I can tell you right now, if I were single, I would not be operating the way I did 15 years ago. I have learned a lot in the last 15 years and my behavior would not be the same. Like I was raised in a paradigm where you tried to get laid as much as you could. And she was in charge of the brake pedal.

And when she finally let up, you were good to go. That was the cat and mouse I was raised on. And that's not how it is now nor should it have ever been or going forward. Should it be?

But I recognize like, I wouldn't live my life going forward the way I had in the past, which, you know, good. Yeah. I mean, I think it's also okay that people are a little unsure of what's acceptable behavior. It's good that people are walking around on eggshells a little bit for the time being.

Yeah. That's like a sign of like, there's some growth happening that conversations are happening that are making people feel like they aren't really totally sure if they should be, as you say, just like out there and trying to get laid and someone else's responsibility put the brake pedal on. But I think that like one of the problems that has, and this has probably been said by a million other people, but like one of the things that is so blindingly dumb about the Make America Great slogan is that like America has always been great because it was an idea. What makes it great is that it keeps getting better.

So going back saying we're going to a regressive point of view, make America great again. Yeah. Implies that it was better back than some other time, which is antithetical to the whole spirit of the country and our culture, which is to always try to be a little bit better. Yes.

The great thing about America is the declaration of the virtues it's going to pursue. And we just haven't achieved them at the levels that we still all aspire to. So yeah, it's all working towards this great declaration of what we're aiming towards. And also it's like when they say that if you have the distance between yourself and a door, you'll never reach the door because you're only getting halfway there each time.

And so the improvements may become teeny tiny increments, but there's still improvements. We elected Barack Obama. What a giant leap forward. Still, he could not openly support gay marriage when he was a.

Now we have 72 different selections for gender on Facebook, even in the past eight years or taking a huge step forward there. And it's just going to continue that way. Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, please. Thank God. Finally, I'm here. Yes.

All that's true. And the only way to move forward is to listen to people and have conversations. So there's a current sort of negativity happening where people just don't want to hear the other side or they don't want to allow people to learn and they just want people to automatically know the right thing to do. And I think we have to be like mistakes are going to happen in this process.

And you can't ostracize everyone who's made any mistake. It's a problem, I think, because everyone makes mistakes. There has to be a pathway to redemption and forgiveness and all those things. Yes.

Yeah, we can't just like once you're out for life. Yeah, which it sort of feels like right now, which I think is stifling some of the actual conversation. I think the only way to move forward is like really be talking about it in a real way, not in a fearful way. I agree with everything you're saying completely.

I would only add to that just like from personal experience that in addition, there has to be a sense of curiosity about other people that what you think you know about them. You might not actually know about them. Yeah. That's it's not just should we forgive this person who've decided has made a mistake or should we also allow for the fact that maybe we don't know people as well as we think we know them when they're just presented in the public sphere.

Right. Right. Right. So let's go back to Massachusetts.

Do we have similar dads? Dead love drinking? Yeah, he's sober now or yeah, his mom like the most perfect human being never live. Pretty great.

Pretty great. Yeah. So for me, mom is the number one gal of all time and always will be in this man who fucking left her and in paid child support and kept the family home. Of course, he had to be the antagonist in this story in this narrative, both through his own actions and then just my desire to punish him.

I did not give him a chance really at all. You know, it takes time and having kids in perspective to like allow that person to be human and stuff. I was just wondering if you had any of those complicated feelings about your dad. My feelings about my dad are less complicated than they used to be because about 15 years ago, after doing a lot of thinking about it, I decided to confront those feelings and myself, talk to him about it, talk sort of in my own like 25 year old version of that.

I wanted to talk to both of my parents about everything that happened in my childhood. We're going to talk about it kind of thing. And things got a lot easier. You know, I don't have any hard feelings towards my dad at all.

I really love him. And I know that getting sober effort. I was working on it. So it was a very, very hard thing for him to do.

And I didn't understand it then. I didn't understand what he was going through and how painful his life must have been for the first 14 years of my life. I didn't know anything about his childhood and learning about the things that he experienced, which are way more traumatic than things that I've had to go through. I see that he sort of moved him out and to make my life a little bit easier than his.

He had a very, very hard childhood. And I thought my childhood was a dramatic, full, scary things. And I see how what he's done to be able to come through and be the person he is now. And he was about as bad as an alcoholic as you could possibly get.

He just went from like the time I could remember, which was around five or six years old, he just went straight downhill. He was homeless for period and no idea. He was just a guy living on the street. Wow.

You couldn't find him. You know. He was getting accelerated by getting forced. I'd imagine that maybe the last five years when you were nine to 14, he knows that maybe maybe that was what sort of what was holding it together a little bit, or it started to happen.

And that was what precipitated the divorce. I remember the apartment on our third floor above us. There was a stairway up and a finding a mountain of empty beer cans and things hidden under the stairwell. So I know that even then at that age, I knew like this is a secret, you know.

Yeah. That was the first realization that like, why is the drinking of beer a secret? You know, I was probably six or seven or something. And you develop?

Do you? I feel like I developed a spidey senses from not only my dad, but then I had a string of alcoholic stepfathers in the mix. And I just developed this very cute, like reading everyone's temperature at all times. Who's about to turn?

How do I break the tension of where this is going? I can feel it coming. And I just have this sixth sense now about when things are about to turn, gnarly. I'd call it a spidey sense is like a really putting a real positive span on.

I think it's a kind of PTSD of unpredictable behavior when you're a little kid. Yeah. I mean, I saw the plane hit the tower and 9 11. I was there.

I watched all the plane go into the building, explode the other side. And for years afterward, the sound of a plane or a loud truck or things like that, we're very jarring. That isn't a spidey sense of something bad happening. That is just like dealing with the trauma of something bad that did happen.

Yeah. You were physically standing in lower Manhattan and watch with your own eyes. Watch my own eyes. Holy fuck.

And did you go through the same thing? All of us viewers did where it was like, oh, the first thing was like, wow, what crazy accident? And then the second one, you're like, oh, this is not an accident. Or did you feel when the first one you're like, oh, this is not?

I saw the second, I saw the second one. The first one was on fire and I was standing at the window of my apartment and I was looking at the building on fire. We were facing south and we saw the plane coming up from the south. And I just thought that plane is so low.

It was no connection between the two. Right. That's too low. And then the banked at the last minute, it went into one side of the building and did not come out, you know, just a fireball comes out the other side.

And it was so strange. It was like watching, you know, your dog just walk up and eat the couch. Right. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't seem to physically be possible that like, how can a plane go into a building? There was nothing in my past experience to put that in context.

And I just went, I think I'm not proud of this, but I think I just kind of chuckled at the like it didn't fit as a real I went like that's so weird. That plane just disappeared into the. Well, that's funny. I don't get it.

You know, yeah. Well, I don't know. Yeah, even as like a little kid, I was always kind of waiting for the fabric of reality to tear, you know, and I imagine a situation that, you know, rare and extraordinary would make you a little bit just be like, Oh, am I in reality? Like what's happening to reality?

Cause that's not a possibility in the physics of the universe I live in. Exactly. Yeah. Wow.

Stay tuned for more of armchair. If you dare. But yeah, I guess I mean, Spidey senses in the way that I have been able to avoid and predict a lot of things that probably ultimately would have been tragic. Had I not predicted and seen it coming.

Yeah, right. You know, so in that way, it's probably saved me in some ways, but it's also made me, you know, it's colored how I'm reading everyone. I think everyone's up to no good. This thing I say about my wife and I, the difference between us is if we see a stranger coming at us on the sidewalk, I think like those guys going to try to stay on my wallet.

And she's like, I think I'm like, here cancer. Look at the look on his face. And we are literally seeing the world in that opposite of a way. That's really funny.

You're minding me. It was totally unrelated story. I have the same kind of thing about myself and about like basically a negative outcome is that like 99%. You know what I mean?

That's probably what's going to happen. Maybe something else will happen. But I was, you reminded me of something different, which is that I was walking down the street in New York City one time and there was this guy in front of me. I was much younger.

This is why I was so stupid and judgmental and I'm following this guy. And he's hit the toe, lack leather boots, leather pants, a leather like trench coat. It's the middle of the summer in midtown. He's carrying his guitars kind of long hair and I was like, this guy, you know, like he's lived his life trying to be like a rock star and he just didn't make it.

And he's not going to like face the reality of it. And every time he turned, it just so happened that I was turning to like it's just one of those weird things where you're not following the person, but they keep going to the root. And I was like, so I had a long time to take him in. And I was like being really kind of in my head.

Sure. Very, very judgmental and just imagining what his life was and how hard it is, like over dreams and how good it looks to like hang on to it all. Yeah. And he finally, and I'm sort of good to play.

It's a feeling like really sorry for him, but also like, bro, and then I get to the corner like he stops because he's waiting to cross. I finally catch up to him and I get up there in the corner and I sort of glance at his face. It's Kevin Bacon. Oh my God.

Okay. Couldn't possibly be more wrong. Right. Yeah.

I think, you know, I think it says a lot about what we fear will happen to us. For sure. Right. You're just like, you're just fucking projecting.

That's very ironic because the first thing you ever did, right, was with Kevin Bacon. You were 13. I was like 13. You were 13.

Did you say like, maybe you knew him or you didn't feel like that had been fun to say, like, hey, I was 13. I know. I did that once. I ran into him because on that set he met here, Sedgwick.

I was a little kid and I was only there because my mom's family friend was making it. They just needed like a little kid to be in this PBS show. It was shooting in our hometown. And so they let me do it.

I was sort of like aspiring to. Yeah, I had no concept of a career. So he was there and here that's where he met here, Sedgwick. And they were both really lovely.

And I remember them being super nice to me. And anyway, I saw them years and years later. This was about like three years ago. I kind of saw them the first time and I went up.

They were in a car and I said, hey, I'm Casey Affleck. And I was a little kid and I was in this thing with you. And when Kira was like, nice to meet you. And I said, no, no, I was in a, we met before.

I was in a TV show that you did. She was like, she was kind of distracted. She was like, Oh, great. Well, really nice to meet you.

And I'm like, I'll never mind. Yeah, I guess then if you get kind of burned once, you're probably not going to bring it up again. You also then did another thing at 15, right? The Kennedy story.

My mother's best friend was a local casting director in the city that we grew up in. And her daughter and I were kind of best friends growing up, and I were kind of like sister and brother bit. And so anytime there was like a job in Boston, came just to us. It's what used to be not very often now.

It is very often, but they would just bring us in for like a day off from school. You had to be an extra on a thing and occasionally they'd give us bigger parts if they needed little kids to say something. Yeah. So that's how I got that.

Well, never having met your mother nor heard a thing about her, just two things, two clues I'm going by. One is your birth name is hyphenated, right? You have her last name? So with that clue and the fact that she was Harvard educated, I guess in the 70s, 60s, 60s, that makes me think your mom's a beast.

Yeah, she's a beast. He's a beast, right? She raised the two of us. She did it sort of on her own, not only on her own, but dealing with a difficult relationship that ended when I was around seven or eight and they got divorced and then having to drive us over to see him.

He's passed out or we can't find the apartment that he's saying and now or taking us to, you know, all on meetings, all that stuff. That's the other insane parallel we have. I don't think I've met anyone that's also been to a lot of team meetings. Those are horrible.

Oh, man. Well, I started to go like I moved in with my dad for ninth and tenth grade. You had no rules for me. I was like, I want to whatever.

The only rule was you have to go to a meeting once a week. So like that you're involved in this process with me. So the first thing was I go to Alintein. I went and I was like, this is terrible.

This is like an after school special. I'm just going to go to a meeting because I have relied to those people. So I weirdly was in AA before I ever even became an addict because I thought Alintein was laying. Yeah.

I mean, looking back, it was like, this is the only thing that's just don't drill me off. It felt like Bible study or something. It was always in the basement of a church. I mean, which also like I'm not dropping my kid off of the basement of a church.

And you have to do like role playing. You'd have to pretend to be your parent in front of a bunch of kids. I was always younger. I felt like they were teenagers and I was like 11.

So I was embarrassed and they were cooler and kind of victiminess was rewarded there. It was like the more, you know, the shittier situation you were dealing with. It was kind of elevated. You status wise and I just didn't identify with being victim either.

So you were a kid sitting in AA meetings with a bunch of addicts. Hardcore to try to identify is, you know, you got to say your name and that you're an alcoholic and it was clear. It wasn't yet. So I would say I'm Dax.

I have alcoholic tendencies, which proved to be very true. But I was like, I need something to be invited to this. They were fine with it. Everyone was fine.

I think they thought it was next. We want one more question about your childhood before we move on to stunning professional career. You guys went to Mexico for a year. My mother was a school teacher, fifth grade teacher.

She was the tutor for a bunch of kids who were on a PBS show. There was a bunch of kids. There was a doc series. There was like an educational series to be shown in classrooms that my brother was one of the kids on.

I was just dragged along because my dad wasn't taking care of me and my mom had to go and do this. And so we went to live in Mexico for a year. So I wasn't on the show. I was just there in Mexico for it was amazing.

It's one of the best memories. Is it? What was great? That was amazing.

What part of Mexico were you? We were all over. A lot of parts that have now become sadly like really just ripped apart by like tourism and destroyed ecologically or just culturally. But we were in Mexico City for a really long time and we were in all over the Yucatan.

We were in places like Palenque. It was like ruins inside a jungle that hadn't even been cleared. You know what I mean? We were like not a place people were going to.

And I'd have to get up because it was a set and they were making a show. They're still getting up before dawn and stuff and I'd have to do that too. So I'd get up at dark and go into this jungle and spend all day like just hanging around the set where they were making this kind of just my memory at least, just being on my own, you know, right? Kind of supervised.

Yeah, the way the kids used to be. And it was a great experience. They can more checks into your mom being a beast category because taking two boys down to Mexico for a year is a pretty bold move. Yeah, she did it all.

She was great and she was very well educated. She probably could have done other things, but she was a schoolteacher and underpaid as they all are overworked. They all are given a bunch of shit constantly through the bureaucracy of the school system. You know, and so she was a kind of a superhero.

But you as a kid, you weren't aware of that. You know, you still resent your parents. And part of when I got older, I realized, you know, I unfairly resent my mom as being the person who was constantly correcting us, never letting us do stuff. Never, you know, always punishing us and making me do my homework and making me get grades and all that stuff.

And in a way that I don't feel about my dad, but just because he wasn't there. Yeah, yeah. Completely unfair. Yeah.

That's it. I love my father. I love them both. And I think he's become a guy and a great friend and a great grandfather.

But definitely was absent, you know, yeah, he must be really charismatic. That was my other deduction. And she's like Harvard educated. And he was like going from job to job to job.

He must have been real charismatic. Yes, though. I mean, you know, your brain gets and he's so good in booze. It leads us a lot of charisma.

You know, I mean, when he got sober, I was like 14 or 15. He went into this place called the ABC club, which is basically for people who it's like state mandated, like go there or go to prison, go spend six months of the ABC club or you get locked up. It's not cushy. It's pretty hard.

And I went out to visit him, you know, and I was like a junior in high school. I got to go out and visit him and he was a different person. It was like meeting a stranger, someone I never knew. Yeah.

It just didn't remember getting a personality when he was drinking. Yeah. So when you graduated high school, you moved to LA briefly, right? I moved out here.

I got into doing theater and high school and I thought, OK, this seems fun. I want to do this. And then I didn't really know anyone, whatever really worked. So I got in a car with my best friend and we drove out to LA and we lived in Eagle Rock, which we thought was like, you know, boom, here we are.

Yeah. Angeles. I didn't. Mission accomplished.

Yeah. And tried to find an agent. It took me all year to find an agent. It was a tough go.

I was working as a busboy because I wasn't yet 18. So I couldn't serve alcohol. And then I kind of got a couple of additions and miraculously I got one of those parts out of like the five additions that I got that year, you know, most of the say by the bell, say by the bell, say by the bell. Yeah.

Yeah. Some movie that happened. We were looking for kids from like the Northeast or something. I got that job.

And so I was planning on leaving LA and just going to try to go to college and do other stuff. I got the job and I went and did it. It was a movie called to die for. And then after that, which is Gus Van Sant, right?

This starts at friendship between you guys. Totally. Yeah. Sometimes luck, right?

Just kind of happens for your first thing to have been with him. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

It was luck. And also lucky that he was the kind of person who like likes being a mentor, you know, a beautiful guy. He was like, you know, very open to he let me be an editor on one of his movies. And you know, he really taught me a lot.

He was actually other than my neighbor who came down and knocked on the door at 9.11 and said, Hey, that we were all trade centers on fire and got me out of bed and I went and looked at the window. So we stayed close friends and I did a bunch of movies with him. But after that movie, today, for I did not intend to keep working. I was kind of out of money at the time.

I thought it was just going back to LA would be more like auditions or things I didn't want to do. And I didn't feel like I was having a ton of success. So I went to school to school, right? I went to George Washington and then you went to Columbia.

Yep. I went to George Washington, my high school girlfriend. I was going there. Sort of why I just wanted to go.

So I went there and I spent about a semester there. I'm glad you said that because there's like I could feel a missing piece to this puzzle. It's like you just do a movie. And then your first thought is like, I don't like audition.

I'm going to. There has to be some other variable in the equation. OK. And I also thought like political science, I like that like politics.

I go B and D C and go be with her a little bit. And that seemed to make sense to me at the time. And then that didn't work out. You know, I kind of fizzled a bit and then I was like, I'll go live in New York.

So I applied to school in New York. I went there off and on for a couple of years. Sort of going doing a semester, taking a semester off to try our money, which was at the time, or a lot of independent movies. And so it was kind of easier to find like little jobs.

I didn't have to make much money. So you just go and take whatever job, literally anything that they would hire you on. You do it and I'll go back to school and I love that things are going well. I got a preface is by saying that when I say it's her favorite movie, I don't think you'll ever really comprehend to what level it's her favorite movie.

Monica has both seen Goodwill hunting in the hundreds of times in all through high school, she would sit in class and just watch the movie on VHS. And I would just watch it and then rewind it and watch it and rewind it and watch it. I watched it so many times that in school, I could just watch it in my brain. Brain for brain.

Yeah. And I would just zone out and just be there. Enjoy. It had such an impact on my life.

What was it about the movie that like? All the cute boys. I was eighth grade. So that was part of it.

That was part of it. I guess it was I was used to seeing teen movies at that time. And that was like saccharin. Yeah, like rom-coms and those things.

And I liked all those movies, but then I saw this and I was like, Oh, this is a movie. This is doing something to me. I'm feeling something. I'm invested in these people.

Yeah, I guess it was probably the first time I felt that but still my favorite movie. And when I watch it now, man, it holds up. Yeah, it's one of my favorites too, but I have an actual theory on why everyone liked it. And why it's so good.

Also, I just want to have my first date with the girl I ended up being with for nine years was sitting on the floor of the AMC in Century City because all the seats were sold out. And we just sat on the floor and watch that movie on the carpet. But theory is we all feel we hope were special and that it just hasn't been discovered. Like I think it's the ultimate wish fulfillment that we all have something really unique and special and brilliant about us that's waiting to be discovered.

I mean, not to reduce it to this, but we all feel like we're a genius that no one realizes is a genius on some level. Even if you're like, you recognize you're not a book genius or something. Would you do you have a theory? That seems like a good theory.

OK. I thought that it really had impact culturally and so many individuals just because of my character. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that goes about saying. Yeah. Sure.

What's no one complain about the movie is that you weren't in every frame of it. Only criticism of it. It's a beautifully written story. And also, I think that like what Gus took a script that was one thing and he really like found a way to make you root for the characters and root for the friendships in a way that he always does with his movies.

The score, these are sort of remarks. I think that both of you have articulated better than I am about why it sort of caught by her in that way and why it still holds up and why it can still be very moving and watching it even after 25 years. But like the little things as I saw it sort of develop from like a draft, there was a screenplay to Gus coming on to making the movie, all those things, all the little things that he brought like the score and like what he'd sort of done with my own private Idaho of making those characters like these beautiful outsiders. Yeah.

Beautifully misunderstood people. Forgotten looked over. Yeah. And that's sort of what you're saying is that like it captures that feeling of somebody feeling overlooked or feeling like there's more to them than other see.

Mm-hmm. Well, I don't know if this is lore, but I had heard through the grapevine that the original script, there was a whole third act where Matt goes to work for like the NSA and there's like almost an espionage aspect to it or a destruction from within fighting the system. Like was there a whole? There was that.

Yeah. Oh, it was in there. Yeah. And then I don't think that was in the version that Gus was ever going to do.

Like it wasn't shot and cut out. Okay. It was just one of the many drafts that they wrote. It's a great example of how a movie can go through like a million different lives before it finds its way to the screen and that movie was a Michael Mann movie or this person movie or that person movie and they all looked completely different.

Mm-hmm. Luckily it became what it became and found its own like the best possible path. Sometimes I see movies and I think I bet there was a better movie in there. Sure.

And I just see what sort of had the wrong parents and sort of took a wrong turn. So when you did that, is that now the first, that's a hugely successful movie and you must now be thinking like, oh, I have my foot in the door now in a big way or did you think that? If I was smart, I would have been aware of that. You know, but like looking back on my career, I have never ever had that kind of self-awareness and or professional sense.

I just didn't think like, okay, now let me use this to my advantage. This is an opportunity. I didn't even want to do that movie. I had sort of to be cajoled.

I was in school at the time. I was like, I didn't really love the part. I was like, I'm not coming. I was in the leave school for a semester and go do like three scenes of the guy who just is also sitting at the table.

Do you know what I mean? It wasn't a ton to do. But I was like, I really loved Gus and my brother and Matt and they were like, just come do it. It'll be fun.

It'll be, it'll be, get to be in Boston for a while. It'll be a good thing. You know, and so I went to do it. And I had no idea that like Monica was out there.

I was walking a movie over and over. Yeah. And I didn't have any sense afterward that like I ought to be capitalizing on success. Right.

And I still didn't think that way. I was, I did another movie that was like, this has some Jesse James, which was a complete failure in some sense. And I had been like singled out as being like, oh, that was a good performance. And then I didn't work for two years or something.

You know, and I went and did like some stupid homemade movie with my friend instead. Yeah. I've never taken those kinds of opportunities, been a careerist or thought like a career in a way that never mind being shrewd or just even like common sense. I lacked in that department.

What I feel like I share with you is, I didn't move here because I thought I was going to be successful in this. I was like, I'll never make it, but I'm going to prevent a regret. I'll be very mad at myself if I have not tried this. I unknowingly or unwittingly manifested a lot of stuff, which you can do because you find what you're looking for.

You're looking for confirmation that the story you've told yourself is correct. You will find it. Yes. Your brain is evil.

Because in fact, I said this to Monica before you came here today. I was like, I watched the assassination of Jesse James. And I think like a lot of people was like, oh my fucking God, I cannot believe how good you are. You're incredible in that movie.

This guy is a Christian balic. Like that movie for me made me a huge fan of yours. That's very nice of you. You got nominated for a Golden Globe for a sag for a right.

And then you do gone, maybe gone right then as well, right? 2007. I did that movie before assassination of just James came out. Okay.

Okay. Again, I see that movie and I'm like, now I not only go like, oh, he's an amazing character actor. I'm now like, those guys, I'm a movie star. I can follow this guy through a whole movie.

I can watch him walk on a street. I can watch him sitting at a table thinking about whatever's on his mind. I'm all in. I'm buying stock in you.

You lost a lot of money. But then at that moment, to your point, a moment that you could have probably really capitalized in some way, you decide to go make a movie. And I wonder looking back with the perspective of today, I mean, even the premise of the movie really is self sabotage. I'm a huge self sabotager.

It's my hobby. I made an art form of it. I wonder, do you think on any level there was, this is too good to be true. This can't be happening.

This is going to go away tomorrow. And somehow I'm going to prove that. Yeah, probably on some level. Yeah.

Again, never knowingly, right? You're not like, oh, no, go. I wasn't like, I'm going to ruin this. Good will.

Yeah. But I also didn't see, I didn't see the opportunity sort of blossoming in front of me. I just didn't see it. But by the way, because you're not optimistic, right?

So you're not thinking, oh, now great things are going to happen. Right. But let me go back. I'm not thinking about things about me.

And I don't mean this with like any false modesty. But I think it's just bullshit. I mean, I think that basically like anybody could have done those parts and you would be thinking exactly the same thing about them. No, my theory is, I disagree.

My theory is that there are people who it is largely like the director, the context, the whole thing is making that and there's evidence of this. Like like the movies that people have never worked before and you put them in the right context and the performances are spectacular. And you think, oh, is it a performance? Is it just this person?

I don't really know. It is mostly all of it. It's like the director, it's the DP being aware of what their photograph. Everything is working in their favor.

I know for a fact that there are 50 people that could have done those same things. That Jesse James was a movie that was handmade by this director who knew every detail of what he was doing. And he would have gotten that performance out of a lot of people. By the way, I was like the fifth choice.

Same for gone to be gone. Ben asked if I could help him get in touch with Mark Ruffalo. He was like, do you have a phone number for this person, that person? I don't think that's true.