Jason Bateman

Welcome to Armchair Expert, I'm Dax Shepard. I just took a very deep medicinal cleansing breath. It's very guttural sounding. It was, I got down to my cockles and my coccyx.

And I got, and I just cleansed, and go ahead, if you're in your car or you're on a treadmill, take a nice deep breath, because this is gonna be an enjoyable ride. A doozy. A doozy, but before we tell you about our guests, I just wanna for a second, just say how much fun we had in Texas. Oh, oh my goodness.

It was so special. It was really special. Austin and Dallas, they were so fun. The crowds were so, so fun.

I don't know. Humbling to see all the arm cherries gathered, and they're all nice people. Not one of them is mean. No one threw a tomato at me, or anything like that.

Nope. They went bonkers when Monica came out. It was so exciting. And you.

Well, whatever, they had to do that. And then a guy had a sign that was in love with Monica. And he was a babe. He was like a six foot four babe.

He was a babe. He was a babe, and he took a jab at me, which was a very alpha move. So I really appreciate that. You really respected him for that.

I did, because the sign said, I love Monica the way Dax loves bragging about having an anthropology degree. I had a door bragging, but that was the gist of what he said. It was, I love Monica as much as Dax liked talking about his anthropology degree. Yeah, so smooth move, excellent.

It was good. And then he was really cute. And then when we talked to him after the show, he got even cuter for me. Yeah, he was really cute.

He was a little young for you. He was a little bit of a hurdle. He was a few years my junior. He was a junior, but you know what?

If you were a man, you wouldn't think twice. That's true. Yeah. So I don't know if that's good or bad.

I don't know if that's advisable. Anyways, we sold out our September 22nd show in Brooklyn, but we've added a show. And there are some seats left. So if you want to rally and party with other arm cherries, go to our website armshareexpertpod.com.

And there's a link there to go get tickets. We would love to see you. And if you're in love with Monica, bring a fucking sign and let her know. You don't have to you guys.

For me, not for her. I enjoy seeing those signs so much. Our guest today is so talented. He's one of my, I mean, definitely top five comedians ever.

He's so unique, right? So unique. He has a rare comedic sense. Yes.

Sensibility. Sensibility. And I would label that shittiness. And we're going to talk about that with him.

And he gave a really profound explanation of how it gets pulled off. It was fascinating. Yeah. He's also a good pal.

He also directs one of my very favorite shows, Ozarks, which comes out season two, August 31 on Netflix. Jason fucking Baven. Enjoy. We are supported by Airbnb.

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I always start by checking out guest favorites. They're the most loved homes on the platform consistently highly rated by guests. Some trips really do feel better when you have the right space. He's in our chair.

He's in our chair. You are literally warm chair. Yes, right. Well, hi, Jason Baitman.

Welcome to our chair. Hi. Are we rolling Jimmy? We all.

That's an accent I can't do. You can't do it. The problem is I could do a few different accents that are from disenfranchised non-white members of our community. Imanica has been kind enough to point out that I'm not allowed to do that anymore, which I now don't.

But it just blows for me because I can't do most of the white accents. Like the English. What do you not love to do? Stuff that would be insensitive?

South Korean. You know, it sounds like cartoon character. Although the English ones also sound cartoon character. Yes.

It's kind of what you do. Not quite as racist. And I'll have to determine what I'm looking for, where it's overly caricatured. Anyway, don't come to me.

You have the you really do have incredible diction. Oh, diction. The word recall. You're very well spoken.

I was watching an interview with you the other day. You were on some panel. There were a bunch of hot shots. I know you were being celebrated for something as you would hope.

And like you were kind of like you weren't being asked any questions. Stereotypical. Oh, it's still come back. Sure.

We're going to need a lot of editing. So we're going to keep sliding everything you say back 300 frames. No, I'm not young anymore. But you listen, I was watching this and it's useless to you and bring it up.

I can't remember. But it was legit with some hot shots. Like I don't know if you remember being on a panel recently where it was like other hot shots and they were getting a lot of questions. And I kept thinking because we're friends like, oh, is he bailed out mentally?

Like is he now thinking like, I want to my way home. I got to pick up because I wasn't talking. You weren't talking and then out of nowhere, it just they wrapped to you and you were on. And you just exploded out of the gates with this very eloquent statement.

And I just was blown away because in my mind, I was like, oh, he's got to be completely checked out right now. He hit in relaxing. Yeah. But no, you had the afterburners were just winding up.

Sometimes I back into something that makes half sense. I tell you, it comes from having watched a lot of MSNBC. There's some people, some smart folks on there. But you've also been getting interviewed at this point for 30 years.

They're more. You're well, you're banging on. I don't want to expose your age. Well, it'd be 50 in January.

Right. You're knocking right. So it'll be I'm coming up on 40 years. 40 years have been interviewed.

So that's helpful. It is. If you can't pick up the cues of an interview in 40 years, you've chosen the wrong people. You know, the main thing I think, not that anyone's asking for any tips, but I'm here to give up.

Yes. We usually end with tips, but please. In fact, somebody actually did ask me for one. This actor I was doing some interviews with and she didn't think she was doing very well.

And I said, I said, you're doing great. We don't basically just don't overthink it. The first thing that comes to your mind, as far as an answer goes, go with that. Let it out.

Well, because you're going to need all the other time kind of around it to make that thought even better. You could go on your instinct and then try to try to talk to that. Either policy or walk it back. Right.

Have you ever made a joke that was wildly misconstrued in an interview? Because I have a very specific one. I have on online interviews because there's no there's no nuance. There's no sarcasm.

There's no. We're like it's written. You've filled out some questions or? Yeah.

Yeah. Like I'll get a question and then type an answer or ask somebody to type because I don't know how to type. Sure. I sort of pack a little bit.

Yeah. But yeah, all those sort of sarcastic or snarky or sly responses just sound like a dick. But yeah, it's not like a dick. Well, no, that's well, your brand, your brand is shittiness.

And I didn't create that, aren't that right? So accurately pointed that out. If ever there, by the way, I learned from our show, but you have all people. Right.

And by the way, Dax, your doctor, she is why you always hang out with addicts worse than yourself so that you can always like that shitty look at your own. But that's my point, right? You could say something shitty, but if you've got some kind of shit eating, eating grin on your face, then you can kind of earn it back. Are you kind of an aintly have a glint to your eye?

Like there's a sparkle. Those are contacts. No, they must be diamond based. But you if ever there was a sense of humor that probably doesn't translate to print, it's yours because mine doesn't quite often it doesn't.

And I think yours is even more sarcastic. By the way, it's my very favorite sense of humor in movies. I can't get enough of your. Thank you.

I think it's mine too. And my mother is British. And so that was always sort of my favorite sense of humor. And then I didn't really have a chance to do it specifically until I was given a rest of development.

There was some in the shows that I did before and the sitcoms and stuff, but that brand of humor, that rest of development, it's very small and it's soft and it's quiet and it's shitty. Even when you drop down there just now, I put my arm on because I knew something was coming. Yeah, because you're the king of like, okay, so now what you're going to need to do is you need to get a pack that fat ass up and whatever mean thing you're going to say, you go down and active. Yeah, but I guess the guy, the only way you get away with it is if you seem like a guy who is twice as tortured as the person that they're talking to.

That's a great point. You may have a big fat ass, but you're not nearly as miserable as I am. Yeah. But there's like, and I don't know what that, what the math of all that is, right?

But somehow you have to look dumb and torture and pathetic in the eyes as you're saying it. And to your point, a long-winded way to come back around to it is that you can't see those dumb eyes or that, or that earnest or broken face in print or online or, or in animation. I mean, you have to be very, very reliant on the artists in animation. Yeah, are you good at that?

I don't think so because all I'm doing is- At this point, you would have a couple cartoons. Meaning just map like where you are at professionally. Do you have a couple cartoons that I'm missing? Well, the Zootopia was a, was a, did, well, but I don't think, I mean, I'd love another whack at that.

I did not know what I was- You're back in the booth? Yeah. I mean, thank God it was for such a great company and they kind of had me covered down stream. So stupid because I loved it.

And yes, you're not stupid at all. I mean, it's not like Jason Bateman in Zootopia. I was like, we got it guy. No, no, no, no, no.

Zootopia is a Disney film and- Well, Disney is the star generally, right? Always. Yeah. I mean, look at- My wife.

Exactly. I mean, she's not above title. And you would, you know, once you kind of dig in a bit like, oh, well, she's like, in fact, me watching it with the girls, like, second, that sounds like K-Bell. And then she started singing and I'm like, no, that can't be K-Bell.

I don't know. How long have you been friends? I didn't know she could sing. Right.

But yeah, but that was your first one, though. I guess I'm saying, like, you know, most comedian, let me start by saying I'm terrible at it, which is why I don't have any of those things. How's my- I'm not good at it. I sound like I'm just leaving a message for someone on their answering machine.

I mean, seriously, I go play it back and it's like, I don't even need a note. Let's just go again. So look at us. Just a couple of dads.

Mm-hmm. What I'm curious about is because you started so young, there's so many things. I'm already- I'm immediately met with the fact that I know all these tremendous stories about you that, of course, I will not bring up. I mean, you've had a real wild ride.

You try and I'll go. Yeah. I'll have my hand on the buzzer. Yeah.

I mean, it's my hope that we'll leave here having heard just a bit of you in Leaf Gear. It's fucking ski trips, right? It's late. First of all.

Okay, thanks. He was here. He'd correct you and not in a shitty way. But I guess if you've got that name, I mean, there's a difference between Leaf and Life.

Yeah, but do you think I'm in the minority? Don't most people think it's Leaf Gear? It's not. I think you're probably right.

Okay. I think it's spelled. No. No.

But there's Andrea and Andrea. Like how would you know the difference? Right. Yes.

And Dave's, how often do you get dates? All the time. I'm going to order a pizza or anything. Oh, Dick Shepherd.

No, I'm not a racist. No, I'm a loner. No, that was very typical. No, that was Australian.

I think I'm allowed to do that. Weirdly, I think I can do Australian, but I cannot do English. Really? I mean, you see, I said, I think I can do all that.

Why don't you just say Aluminium? Aluminium. No, you put in another vowel there. That's just because he can't say that word.

You should give him a different word. How about gasoline? Oh, okay. How about this?

Thank you for calling Lisa for Spites. We now have two locations for all my roads to all press one. We're all heels. Press two.

I swear that's all the message. That's a southerner that spent too much time in Melbourne. Blonky, flonky for calling. I could just watch your face turn as I was getting into it.

That was me switching to another podcast. More and more. But I am curious because you started very young. You started the first time I say, of course, on Silver Spoons.

I loved Silver Spoons. We've talked about this before. We should have brought that. I wrote a very heartfelt essay in seventh grade about Silver Spoons and why it taught such good family values.

You wrote an essay about your dissertation in seventh grade. In seventh grade, I thought this was the best show families could be watching in America. I wrote a very long essay about it. In what year of the run were you referring to?

I was only there for the first two, I think. What's the first two? Then Alfonso Rivera came in. Well, I wrote this in 87.

So what year was? I wrote dates now and I could answer this. I think I was gone by then. I did its own move and then Hogan family started in 86.

I think I was gone in like 85. And I very well may have written this while it was in reruns. I'm not even positive I was catching it first airing. Right.

I was supposed to say I loved it. And then also people would tell me I looked like Ricky Schroeder as a kid, which was a huge compliment. I loved getting a compliment. He was good looking kid.

He was good looking kid. He was good looking. He also wore a white swatch. He sure did.

I believe he could pop out the face on that bad boy. You could swap the face. It depends on what kind of night you're going to have. What kind of signal you want to throw?

But when you start putting options around the table, was he going in like teen nightclubs and stuff? I think he did pretty well. Yeah. He had a white 944 I believe.

Memory serves. White 944. And 16. Yep.

Turbo. He didn't go 928. Yeah. They'd never drive in one of those.

Never. Those were muscular. Very heavy car front engine. Yeah.

V8. Which is only V8 at the time. I look at those sometimes online debating. I'll sell myself for a full afternoon and then I need one.

Oh, you should get one of those. And then I imagine trying to get it worked on. Like some engine they only made for seven years. There's no parts for.

It's not like they're, you know, their boxer motor. It's in every single car. There's probably a trillion. I'm just, I just for saw myself on the phone with somebody in Austria.

You know, asking about that one. Let's hear that one. Okay. Thank God.

Sports and I got to say I can only do sports and I got to qualify. Go ahead. I'm looking right now in the car. That's great.

I'm looking in the catalog. All right. I see that you do have the four liter V8. The carb rated.

I got good and bad news. The bad news is there's eight individual carb rated. Well, that's worth a messed up. That's the good news.

The bad news. I only have six of them. So I immediately went to that conversation. I was like, get another car.

But I do want one just from risky business. They're pretty great. Stay tuned for armchair expert. If you dare.

I smashed a man is thumb in the fridge door yesterday. Oh, really? Yeah. And you say fridge door.

You think, oh, you can walk away from that. Something about these fridge doors. You've got an industrial fridge. It's a heavy door and it's got one of those little fronts that are built on it.

You know, so it kind of like looks like the rest of the walls in the kitchen. Oh, it's a wood. Yeah. It's created a lot of weight and a bit of an edge.

Okay. You could cut a lot of paper. You know, paper cutting machines. Buddy, the whole tip almost.

Oh, I mean, it didn't cut. I mean, like, but I don't know how she didn't lose a whole tip. Oh, my goodness. And what was the sound she made?

I don't remember. I remember me yelling, baby in a real pathetic way. I'm going to help this way. Oh, you were like warning her.

Let me just ask you the mechanics. Did you slam it from like, well, I was angry at her. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

So yeah, so she was, I was leaving the fridge as she was going into it and I kind of closed it as I was walking away. And as I was walking away, her face turned away from the fridge as she was putting her arm in the fridge to get something. It was just like a perfect storm. It's the kind of thing you'd see in a movie and go, that can't happen.

Why did she turn her face the second she was inserting it? Right. Exactly. It was just, oh, God.

Anyway, sorry. Were the children present? They were in the other room and this is part of the miracle of Amanda. She was able to hysterically cry silently over the sink with the cold water rushing over it and a bag of frozen blueberries on it.

It took five minutes for the kids to come in and see what's wrong. What a beautiful mom. No blood. There was weeping from under the nail bed.

Oh, no. She's going to lose the thumbnail. She's going to lose the thumbnail. She's going to lose the thumbnail for sure.

Oh, boy. Wow. I'm really impressed you made it today. Right?

Given that that happened. Yeah, I should be. That was Sunday morning. This was Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon. Everything had been going smooth. Yeah, she had her sister and new baby over and she was posting. You weren't getting enough attention probably.

That's it. That's it. What about me? I can cry.

Well, I made her cry. Right. But then you could come rescue her. Yeah.

That's so nice. But I do want to ask you, when you started, first of all, your very first acting job, if Wikipedia happens to be my single favorite cereal of all time, probably eat more of this cereal than any other cereal. Golden grams? Yeah.

You're going to put $200 on the board. Golden grams is up there. Life cereal is a real sneaky pleasure. It's a staple.

It's a real... Oh, great nuts is a sneaky pleasure. Okay. You tell me why you like great nuts and I'm going to tell you why you're about to get me out of here.

It's a box of bottles. A box of sand. I used to see the commercial as like a very hardy man in overalls with a flannel shirt on and he would chop a tree down and then he'd just turn to his left and eat a huge fucking bowl of great nuts. He'd just chop down to the three stomp.

He should have turned to his left address camera and go, this is what's going on in your colon. You eat a bowl of great nuts. It'll be like this 40 foot tree running right through the lower GI. But it looked so good in the crunching, in the commercial.

The foley work was off the charts. I don't know what they were popping in the studio, but it sounded so good. And I would give it a try like every six months because the commercial would get me. You weren't letting it saturate enough.

Over and you do an overnight brew basically. You need to marinate them for 12 hours. It's like making jam. Yeah.

You just pour it in right before bed. And then when you wake up and it's just... It's like a completely normal cereal. They might be out of business now.

I haven't seen a lot of that. You're right nuts. Right? Well, they're certainly not advertising the way they were.

Well, they certainly lost that guy who was chopping down the trees to old age. He blew his o-ring out. He should quote Tom Arnold. Too many bad.

Yeah. What movie? True Lives. And the stalls coming full circle.

Yes, Mr. Sheapp, but I'm just looking right now through the catalog and I'm seeing that there are mini spark plug options. I cannot recommend one particular spark plug. I would recommend that you order all of the spark plugs.

So eight spark plugs times seven options, 56 spark plugs. It's amazing what happens to people's faces. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I'm assuming mine looked ugly. Is that what you're doing? Different. Not ugly.

That's part of that animation minefield you have to watch out for. Right? All those big faces and stuff that you don't want to do when you're acting but you need to get there. Right?

But they've also added a video component to most of these things to promote it and then your caught a lot of egg on your face. Right? Can I see the face you would make for that Fox? Was there one in particular?

A lot of high eyebrows. Oh, my brows got to go up high. Yeah, you look like the Fox when you do it. And then I have to get down into like Arnetland.

Oh, really, bunny? Yeah, that kind of that kind of. Yeah. Arnetville.

Yeah. So, okay, you dig old grams. That's awesome. And then you do silver spoons.

You're a standout. You're on that for two years and then they give you your own show. I want to know at that time, are you too young to even be aiming at? I'm going to be a comedian or a dramatic actor or neither.

Do you remember thinking? Yeah. Because I feel like the revelation that you're hysterical to me felt like a revelation. Like in Arrested Development, I think I was like, I know him.

He's a good actor and I've known him since I was a kid. But I didn't know he's a comedian. In fact, I think the first time I saw you in a comedy was dodgeball. Was that all overlapping with the Arrested Development?

Yeah. A lunch hour from Arrested for half a day. Yes. And when you first popped on screen, I was like, wait, this doesn't make sense to me.

It's all straight comedians in this movie. And then there's Jason Bateman and then about four sentences later, I was laughing really hard and I'm like, oh my God, he's super funny. But I imagine it took some convincing. What dodgeball?

Yeah. Yeah. You had to talk about the dashboard smoking on that one. No idea what kind of tone they were going for with that one.

And I had to say, you know, what is this too much? You're sure this isn't too much? No, no, no. Let's put a necktie on you.

Like, okay. Oh, you're giving me signals now. And that was Rossin's first movie. I think so.

I think it was a commercial with the linebacker that was not Tate. Yes, I know what you're talking about, but I'll never remember. Yes, he had had some success in the commercial world. But still you must be, have you never seen anything of the person's?

You're also probably thinking, oh boy, I'm really going for it. And there's really no way to know whether or not. Yeah, but there were many of them. You've got Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller and that and you're like, I'm lucky to be there.

Yeah, I guess that's true. But I do remember reading that that, you know, apparently the Cohen Brothers, the only actor they never got along with well was Nick Cage. You know, this whole thing. Yeah, they infamously did not.

That's why he's never returned to another. Really? I love that movie. It's my favorite of theirs.

It's my number one comedy of all time. I wonder what the problem was, what the story was. Well, I can tell you both people's problems because I've since read a lot of interviews about that topic in Nick Cage's argument, which is very legit, is that he said everyone after me had the benefit of raising Arizona. All he had was blood simple, which was a great movie, but it was not this crazy heightened world that somehow works believably.

So he's like, I didn't know if I could trust these guys and it was so crazy and his outfit was crazy and his tattoo of the road. You know, so I think that's a lot of the things that I've been doing. And it was so crazy and his outfit was crazy and his hair was crazy and there's tattoo of the road. You know, so many, again, red flags.

And so that was his complaint. So they were asking him to go along with their plan and he was nervous, which I get to be big or just a whole world. I mean, imagine shooting that fight scene in the trailer and like, wait, so you're putting the camera in there and it's going to spin around and then someone's going through the wall into the toilet and watching John Goodman. Like I bet it was a hall.

And you've never seen it. They created a paradigm. That movie didn't exist until that movie. I do remember watching that going, oh, wow yes, sequence when he steals the huggies was The very first time as a young person, I was like, something's happening different with the mechanics of this filmmaking.

Like I've never seen anything like this. When he goes through the window of the truck and all that and the dog's point of view running through the house. Yeah, very son of a fell, right? Yeah.

And then now from their point of view, apparently Nick, his character was obsessed with time. I guess because he had been in prison a bunch or who knows why any of us think these things are important, but his character was obsessed with time. And he insisted on having this watch. And I guess he checked the watch like throughout every scene, every take, all the dialogue, he's just constantly checking his watch.

So I totally understand why he was nervous because he'd never seen anything. They had never done anything. And then from their point of view, he was obsessed with time and he kept checking his watch the whole movie. They couldn't get him to stop checking his watch.

And I guess it was hard to edit because he's checking there. And once you know that, you give it a rewatch and you do see him looking way more than you noticed in the past. He is all over that watch. We gotta watch that movie again.

Yes. So that was their issue. But did you think, who are you aiming at? Were you aiming at anyone?

You have that kind of... When I was a little kid, I was dumb and arrogant enough to think that I was where I wanted to go and be a character actor. I wanted to be Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino. And then frankly, I started getting like kicked out of schools for being a wise ass.

And I was like, oh, maybe I'm kind of funny. And then auditions started coming for guest spots on TV shows and then ultimately the pilots and like Zilber Spoons and getting a nice reaction from that. And so I thought, oh, well, I'll just kind of be a smart ass on film. And then thank God I kind of had a bit of a, well, maybe I'm young enough.

I'll sort of try to build up some sort of notoriety or success or capital or access or whatever it is, relevance in this lane and then diversify that into, I'll be De Niro later kind of thing. But through the side door, right. I'll be able to ask for a dramatic role or something like that. Which ironically is what happened, but it certainly didn't happen on the timeline you were thinking of going to.

And were it not for arrested development would have never happened at all. In fact, there was a big gap there in the 90s where I was working, I was making a decent living, but nothing as high profile or as lucrative as the 80s. And was pretty close to kind of out of the business. Well, and then along came arrested and I had a great appreciation for a new moment and didn't want to disrespect it.

Yeah, and I remember early in the meeting, or maybe you told me this in Bora Bora, which we'll get to because you and I had a great honeymoon there. We had something that most people never get to share in their life, which is like four straight weeks on an island together. It's pretty great. It's ridiculous.

And I didn't even have to go to work. You had to go to work occasionally. Not at all. If you want to call it that.

But you said at one point, and I want to get the wording right because I always think about it is that there was a period where it's like, you need a name to get roles, right? In that you at some point were weirdly you had a name, but then that was the problem. That was a hindrance. Yeah.

And I had never even considered that. Because my thing was so opposite of yours that like all I wanted was that. Like, oh my God, I've known that name Jason Bateman for 30 years. And then you just pointed out there was a good 10 year period where that was a deal break.

That was a barrier. It didn't matter if you went in and crushed an audition. It was like a conversation like, oh, do we want Jason Bateman for this? Yeah, because with that comes a certain amount of history or perception that might be counter to the product we're trying to sell, right?

I mean, like single camera comedy was coming into Vogue in the 90s. And I was known for a multi-camera comedy, right? Sitcoms. So that was a problem.

And plus just the whole sort of thing of not being fresh. You know, there's something really attractive about having somebody who you had not seen before. And yeah, well, we've seen him, we know him. Certainly the people in the community, you know, the people who are running the networks and the heads of casting and like, yeah, no, we get it.

But. Yeah, you weirdly feel like you're inheriting all this branding almost. And you're trying to launch an entirely new show. Right.

By them hiring you with that comes something that is almost inherently tired, right? As opposed to another profession, it's like, oh, well, that's credentialed and that's experienced. It's actually a detriment in this business at times, you know, not to sound pissed off about it at all. Because I'm happy with, you know, I've no regrets, but it was frustrating at that time.

Like, well, I can't, I've been working hard. But I guess I have to apologize for that. It's in my way. And then, you know, fortunately I got a chance to put a good use.

Now, do you think, like, had it, if it was just a TV show, it was probably, would it just continued rolling? Is it Teen Wolf to that like, versus some stink on you? At the time, I think I was not as savvy or my head was not up out of the sand enough to know that that was a bad thing. Only later did I see, oh, that's in the long list of things that just aren't great about the stuff that I've done.

And it might be at the top of the list. And then, fortunately now, it's sort of in sort of a separate category of, of kitsch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fortunately, there's a, there's a, there's a stinker in my past that I was able to live through and now it's, it's fun to talk about.

Well, and also I, I say this about you all the time, both to your agent who I'm friends with, anyone who will listen, I've never watched someone navigate an opportunity as well as you navigated a rest of development. And I think a little, that came from having learned the hard way. Yeah. Yeah.

Because when you were on a rest of development, all of a sudden everyone there had some opportunities, right? Yeah. You were going, no, no, make me the fourth lead of many things, which I, did that take? Because you were certainly getting offered the leads and things, right?

Was that hard to turn down and to stay the course of like, you know what, I'm going to do it differently. This go around. It wasn't, it wasn't difficult because the, the, the, the, the pain, but it was still very fresh in my mind that what my name means to my ability to get employed is not helpful. And I need to do something to help kind of reconstruct, rehabilitate what, what that name means.

Right. So I need to have that name associated and be adjacent to, better, more credible names. And so let me work in things if I'm invited with people who are, you know, to put it oversimplified cooler than me, that have more credibility that are more artistically viable, blah, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, if I'm invited to be in, in a, in a prestigious project, great.

I mean, I'll, I'll pull cable. Stay tuned for armchair. While you were doing, because you were in the breakup, I'm trying to think of the many things that you did in that period, which was so smart of you, because yeah, you, you had four scenes you had to worry about and you consistently stole whatever four scenes you were in, not that you were aiming to do that. But I would leave these movies.

In fact, when I think of smoking aces, which by the way, people haven't seen smoking aces. You must not just because it's a great movie, but you, you, you, you have this reoccurring throat nodule thing or something. What is he, you have your neck aids or something? That's what it is.

It's probably human papillomify right now. It's going to turn. It's going to smell. I don't smell good.

You can just no matter how much you brush your teeth. Yeah. It's deeper than that. Yeah.

It's the, yeah, I had, I had some nodules on my vocal cords during that week and I had to get those removed after shooting, but it ended up working out well for this degenerate lawyer I was playing. I don't think I'm saying anything funnier. It's almost like you hear about people pulling their teeth for roles and shit like that. People just give themselves vocal modules because you couldn't have done what you did in that movie without a real impairment to your throat.

Joe Carnahan was, he had a great idea to put what looked to be a herpes on my lip. It was basically like a hamburger that played nicely with the vocal quality. We really did. I mean, in real life, yeah, I was just nodules or whatever you said, but, but your character definitely had HPV on their, on their voice box.

Yeah. We were trying to communicate that my guy had been up for a few days. Boxer shorts and dress shirt, a hamburger and vocal papillona. Whatever it's called.

Now, papillona vocal, vocal, pelposis. Oh my God, that made me laugh so hard though. But when you when you have the second chance, you're definitely saying no to some money though, right? Aren't you getting offered like some leads and you did it?

You really you took your fucking time. It's really admirable. I'm so greedy and impatient. I don't remember any like, Oh, good God, we're walking away from a huge check here.

I don't ever remember being a difficult decision. Right. But I do remember trying to at some point the equation of respect will equal longevity as opposed to fame or fortune. Right.

That we got to build a sound foundation here. Yeah. We got to pour the cement before we start. Let's put some rebar it in there.

Yeah. And very bad news for you. I'm looking at the catalog right now. They seem to be the rebar.

But this car is only kind of made with rebar. From someone bring that back one more. Yeah, no, it'll be back. Oh, yeah.

He's in a revolving door. But you did get lucky though at one point because one of these smaller roles was he did for no money happen to be Juneau. Yeah, good point. That worked out well, right?

Yeah, that that that I was not super keen or eager or aggressive to grab a hold of until it was clear that my first born was Colicky. And then I did I went ahead and finished the script and then asked asked my manager where it shoots. He confirmed it was out of country for about three weeks. And I said, let's go.

Let's go ahead with this one. So you were just dodging a colicky, baby. Yeah. She was just funny that way because you would think you'd be penalized for making that decision.

But in fact, you were rewarded for it. Well, you know, and I put it all in an account for her. OK, and I made sure that anything I made on that movie would go towards my beloved angel who worked through the abdominal kinks. She's come out the other side.

She couldn't be more beautiful and spunky. We were just on a camping trip together and I was like, OK, she got your sarcasm. She's funny. Yeah, she was really cracking me up.

She was like giving you a ton of two to certain moments, but all within the zone of it was funny enough. I was looking at her yesterday and as we digress for a second of parental happiness, but I started the well up just looking at her. It doesn't that happen with you? Like, I just I didn't think I'd ever be that soft, but I have kids now.

Like I cry in commercials. Yeah, they really do melt all that. I'm not going to be good when they go to college. I seriously will be that pathetic.

You know, I'm not going to be OK with being an empty nester. It's going to be deep, deep sorrow. Maybe we could start like an empty nest dads club or just start adopting children. Oh, OK.

Yeah, that's an option, I guess. Yeah, I just want to keep the assembly line going. Uh-huh. But she's so fucking cute right from day one and she's really just thinking she's holding the line because my kids are really cute right now, but I am very scared that it's going to turn.

I think you're stuck with a couple of real beauts. You think so? Yeah, I don't think you can get away from that. But weirdly, and I don't even know if I've told this to you, but you've been really instrumental in my own life because, A, let's get right to Borobor.

You did a movie. My wife and you did a movie in Borobor, a couple's retreat. And I was just there exercising and writing and stuff. And Bell and I, I guess, were together for maybe a year at that point.

You and Amanda and Bell and I kind of potted off and played a lot of Scrabble. Yeah. You're the smallest Scrabble player in the world. You know, I don't want to make any mistakes.