Transcript of Olivia Wilde

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Hello.

And today we have Olivia Wilde. Olivia Wilde. I'm such a fan.

Yes, me too.

I've talked about her a lot on here. I think she's such a gangster director. She directed Don't Worry Darling. The name— the name alluded to a few times that I never get right in the interview. Booksmart. She also directed. It was incredible. And then as an actor, Tron, Cowboys and Aliens, house. And she has a new movie out, her third movie that she's directed, uh, called The Invite, which you and I saw, and we fucking love it so much. And we're doing a little The Invite week, so this is guest one of The Invite week. Please enjoy Olivia Wilde.

How are you?

This is so great.

I'm so grateful.

Oh, come on now.

Hi. So nice to meet you. We have so many friends in common.

I know.

Start the list.

Go, Barb. Barb.

Who's Barb?

Barb is our old dog.

Terrible dog we had.

I hate Barb.

The fucking best. She was so adorable. She had never done the Met Gala. And then she came with me, and I was like, "This is the whole reason I'm here." And you looked incredible. It was all Barb. And she was, like, really giddy.

I bet. It's a huge deal.

She's a hairstylist.

Hairstylist?

She's very good.

Has she got into your mermaid?

She has. She's gotten in there many a time.

Do you know Monica was an Herbal Essence mermaid in a commercial?

With the orgasmic— Did you have to have, like, an orgasm?

I did not have to have an orgasm. I was a mermaid in the commercial.

Oh, you actually were a mermaid?

I did have to swim, and I don't really know how to swim, so that was bad.

Yeah.

Wait, you don't— We don't know if I can swim.

You don't love it or you don't know how?

It's somewhere in between.

Olivia, I've observed her swimming, not to—

I'm not the best.

Not believe women, but she has swam in front of me several times.

I'm okay.

You're not confident.

I'm not confident. And I do think if I jumped in, I would drown.

Right. You need to be prepared.

If I'm already in, I can like get across the pool.

Right, right.

But the jumping in, I don't want to do that.

So you never swim for fun? It's not like I'm going to go swimming. Never. Wow.

But I do like a pool. I like to, like, be by the pool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pool culture.

Be in. Pool culture.

Yeah. This is like how I like skiing. I don't like to ski. I like to après ski. You like après pool.

That's right.

Wait, what's après skiing?

Après ski is like drinking culture, basically.

Yeah.

You just like go to the lodge. Yeah. It's the lodge life.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's all the stuff except the actual sport.

Yeah, you know, now that you're saying it, you're reminding me of my father, who was a drunk but did get sober when I was in 9th grade. He got into skiing for a minute because he had a wife who was into skiing.

But really?

Yeah, he just loved it. Yeah, because he would get all of his gear and then go straight to the bar. Oh yeah, and sit there, and we just visit him coming off the slopes.

Yeah, it's like golf. I think people golf so they can drink.

Yeah, the 19th hole.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they call the golf culture.

I understand. All right, I need to start by saying I'm like beyond thrilled that you responded to my Instagram message. I was so flattered that you responded.

Splendid. Right into those DMs.

I sent Monica a screengrab immediately, and I was like, you are not gonna believe it.

You know what's so funny is I took a screenshot of it too, which I showed Kristin, 'cause I thought it was so authentic. It was so sweet. People assume that someone in your position doesn't do any of that, that someone, there's a whole team.

No, he doesn't. That's why it is flattering.

Very flattering.

Oh, oh, me. I thought you were referring to yourself.

No, no.

Like you might assume.

No, no.

But yeah, I'm making assumptions. I'm like, you're like a bona fide auteur now, and you don't need to do press, and there's no reason you're gonna say yes. But I'm just gonna tell you that I have been, for whatever reason, really cheering from afar. I appreciate that. Uh, from Booksmart.

Speaking of our other mutual friend, Katie.

Katie. Katie Silberman.

Katie wrote Booksmart and Don't Worry Darling. Yes.

Yes. And is very, very good friends with everybody.

And she's just the best.

And she's now basically running Netflix.

I know!

Oh, she is! She's like the in-house—

house writer, producer extraordinaire, and she's a genius.

She is a genius.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I saw that, Don't Worry Darling, and Monica and I both, we had a field day with that movie, right? We were so into that movie. And there was so much accomplished in it visually, story-wise, acting, all of it. The swing, the execution. I was like, "This bitch can fucking direct." She can direct. And then we saw The Invite.

We got to see it, and then I went ballistic.

I don't know if Edward shared with you my feedback from it.

He just said that you enjoyed it, which made me so happy.

I immediately was like, this is a Mike Nichols movie. This, this woman made a Mike Nichols movie.

Wow.

That's so kind of you. That's my actual dream review. And it's definitely the best thing I've ever made.

It's so good.

I'm so proud of it. It proves everything we've all been taught from the beginning, which is like The more personal something is, the better. Specificity, making something personal, authenticity, taking risk, all those things. And doing something for the process rather than the result.

Yes.

Yeah.

All of the ingredients to a great experience that I had known, but only now do I fully understand why that's so valuable.

This is a challenge. This is a play. And how will this play be riveting on screen? And why aren't I watching it in a theater?

Exactly. That's always the question, I think, when something is an adaptation. An adaptation, which this was originally a play, I think the question is always, "Why adapt? Why make it a movie?" Or if it's a book, like, "Why not just leave this as a great book?" And I think it has to be that the medium you are adapting it into has to be taken advantage of. So, like, what can you show in a film that you can't show on stage? And then you better take advantage of that, or else we'd all just like to sit and watch a great play. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was the kind of north star for me in terms of inspiration because— Mike Nichols took this play written by Edward Albee that had been done to great success on Broadway. Everyone loved this play.

Probably isn't the one to fuck with.

No! Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tyrant right out of the gates.

Exactly.

And he decided to shoot it in a way that made it so visceral, so kind of emotionally vivid, and really bold choices, really making you feel like you were getting, in their case, like, drunker with the characters. The cinematography really kind of took you on this journey, which, you know, sounds so hokey, but it is a real challenge when you're never leaving one set, which, of course, that movie's also in one house. And we were so inspired by that. So, the whole crew, we took a lot of cues from Mike Nichols in every way. It was a reminder that we could be just as ambitious with a single set, single location film as you would with an action movie. So, we had— this extraordinary cinematographer, Adam Newport-Berra, who also shoots The Studio, and that's where I met him, and he's crushing it there. And shot Club Kid, which is Jordan Firstman's movie that just got bought at Cannes. Adam is just incredible. And then we had this extraordinary production designer, Jade Healy. She's just one of the best. She had done Marriage Story. She had done lots of films that showed that she could turn a space into a character.

And so, Adam, Jade, and I put our heads together, and we were like, "Okay, how the fuck do we make a movie that takes place in one room?" not boring. And it became about using architecture to become a barrier in between people, using mirrors a lot, using glass, and creating a very designed approach so that then when I brought the cast in there, I could say, like, "Go nuts. Just have fun." Right.

"We have figured out how to do all this. You be free." Yeah. Oh, it's so good. But we'll get into even more detail. But let's start in New York City. You're a little tiny baby. You're brought home from a hospital to New York City, but you're quickly whisked away to DC. DC to Georgetown?

Pretty quickly. When I was 5, we moved to DC. Yeah.

Where did you live in Manhattan up till 5?

Upper West Side.

Okay.

93rd and Central Park West.

Do you have any memories?

I can't tell if I've made them up. I like to pretend that I remember one thing just to traumatize my mom, because when I was 3, we were walking around Central Park and a flasher—

Whoa!

—came up to us. Classic. And I definitely don't remember it, but I like to just say to her, like, I don't know, I guess ever since that day, I haven't really gotten over it.

Set you on a trajectory, really. Yeah. Yeah. Still kind of deal.

protected me. But no, my memories are probably all informed by photographs and stories. My sister and I like to also, like, steal each other's memories. You know, you do that with siblings? Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep. I'm so curious about how our kids, who have photos of every moment of their lives— Yeah. —will react to that. Will they have clearer memories or worse memories of their childhoods?

Well, I think objectively there'll be more proof one way or another.

More proof. But does that stop us from having to remember anything or still creating the story that you want to have? Right. But you will be able to, like, check the tapes.

Exactly. I think about this with my kids. I'm like, okay, well, let's just start with the fact that they're going to resent something I did. Yeah, they have to. They can't be on planet Earth and not reflect on something I could have done better. Yeah. And I'm always like, what's the thing they're going to pick? Because I'm calling bullshit already in my head. I'm already defensive. Like whatever thing they think they're going to launch on me. But I will say the thing that's been sweet— have you had this with your kids where you're looking at old videos, you go to find one picture, and then all of a sudden you're in the wormhole of watching Delta say insane stuff? Our littlest one always was saying the craziest stuff. And what is nice, I've benefited from this, the girls will watch it and like, it's hard to find a video of us where I'm not dancing with them when they're little babies. Like, I just held them and danced with them. You can't find a photo where they're not strapped to my chest. So I do think that's helped me in that they do go like, oh wow, yeah, you were clearly always doing the thing.

Yeah. Which I like because that would be my hope. That's amazing. That they think.

And they will feel like they remember that even if they don't really have memories of being like 1 strapped to your chest. They will think they do, which is so nice.

Yeah. They see that they were laughing and giggling as a little baby and I'm dancing around.

My parents took pictures as though it was like the 18th century. Every photo looks like it was taken underwater with like a tin type.

Like, I don't know why. A daguerreotype.

They really did not document and so we have a few pictures that all my memories are really based around those photos. And then I feel like I started remembering things, I guess around like 4 or 5. But oh, my kids love looking at old videos of themselves. And it's funny because Otis, who's 12, his sister is 9, and everything she does annoys him now, but he has this interesting, like, love for the baby videos of her.

Oh, interesting.

He just will sit and watch videos of her and smile. And I'm like, huh, so you do love her.

You love her. Yeah.

And I have to like, I have a whole file ready. So when he's like, mom, I hate her. I hate, I can be like, look, look, look, look, look. First steps.

You remember? Oh yeah. Like, oh, she's so cute. Remember when she couldn't pronounce ketchup? Yeah. You loved that.

I love her so much.

There should be some sort of experiment where there's a kid and the mom takes videos of all the good moments and the dad takes videos of all the bad moments. Okay. Maybe it's two kids. Okay.

I have to work this.

Identical twins. Keep working on this. Identical twins.

It's always gotta be identical twins. And if the person that's always getting the bad moments, if they remember their childhood worse than the person who's always getting the good moments. Because when we were little, it was only just like happy pictures of birthdays, right?

Yeah. Only vacations. Yeah.

Random happy moments. Yeah. Where now you could definitely get someone like falling down. And we have proof of them being shitty.

So another great thing is like Delta watches and she's like, oh wow, I was a handful, right? I'm like, oh yeah, we loved it. But my God, you were a handful. That's good. It's good that they can He can do that.

Otis likes to do something where he frowns, even if he's having a great time. The second he senses the camera, he'll do a sad face because he thinks it's really funny that the record of his childhood will look like he was, like, horrible. He's already an artist. Yeah. He can snap into a frown so quickly.

And I'm like, "Otis, come on!" The pictures thing, okay, could be a little telling because I have both envy and perhaps not envy. Because Mom and Dad, Andrew and Leslie— Yes. —are gangsters. The Cockburns. They are. They're both journalists, right? I'll tell you something.

And there's no way you would know this. It's pronounced Coburn, which I want you to imagine being a kid.

Well, that, of course, I'm curious what it's like to be a young girl with the last name spelled Cockburn.

It's spelled Cockburn.

You're claiming it's Coburn?

It's a Scottish name. Okay. And it is very much like boy named Sue. You know what I mean? Like it's character building. I think it's important. We should all give our kids devastating middle names. Yeah. Yeah. Just so that you can grow up with like, something to be totally bullied for.

Were people burning you for that last name?

But I think it was an early important lesson in laughing along, not in a way that was like giving in to the bullies, in a way— I don't know. I thought it was funny too.

I was like, oh, I get it. Funny name. That's funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not just called— I mean, there's a verb. There's a verb. It's a painful verb. Yeah. You're hoping it's from rug burn, but it could be a pan.

Yeah, it really could. It was never a diss. Exactly.

Oh, I, I hear it as like a diss, a burn. Oh, okay.

Yeah, there's that too.

And it's up for grabs on who— is it worse if you're a girl or boy? Like, did my brother get it worse?

He's 9 years younger than you. Younger. And so life was nicer 9 years later, a little bit, right? We've gotten, I think, marginally better every— I don't know, have we? Well, I'm basing it on— I see kids living out loud every version of themselves in the elementary school my kids do, and they're not getting destroyed over it. That's true. They couldn't have gotten destroyed in the late '70s, I promise. Yeah, so that seems better to me. But then again, I don't know, just because we're in LA and I'm not in Detroit anymore. But no, my buddy's kids, they're nicer boys.

I think having a last name that looks like Cockburn in any city in any decade, it's too easy.

Yeah, it's gonna—

in fact, it's kind of comforting too. It is. It's like no matter how involved that's what we get. If your last name's Cockburn, you're gonna take it on the chin. You're always gonna learn to laugh early. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But no, I was so proud to be a part of my family because I come from multiple generations of journalists. And so I grew up with my grandmother, my grandfather, my uncles, my dad, my cousins. Everybody was a journalist on my dad's side. And my mom has this really interesting family too.

They're shipping people? Yes. From Hillsborough?

Yes. Very impressive. Yeah.

So she grew up with money, yeah?

She did, yes. My mom. My mom grew up and couldn't be more different from my dad's childhood, who— my dad grew up in Ireland, had polio as a kid along with his two brothers. They lived a completely— I mean, the two childhoods of my parents, when I have done, like, deep therapy on this, it's been so interesting to think, like, what did they find in common? Right?

Well, it seems like this ferocious appetite for the world and documenting it and investigating it. Yeah.

Speaking truth to power. I think they both have a very strong sense of questioning authority and telling stories and— Justice. Yeah, justice. And going to places nobody else wants to go. Yeah. And just living outside the box. And they both do it. I mean, my parents, when I was little, were war correspondents working in the most dangerous places in the world. And they'd both go to Baghdad on either the same job or on separate jobs, and they'd go on separate planes and then, like, stay in separate hotels and meet in the middle of the night. Like, rendezvous.

Rendezvous! Oh, fun! Whole plane to Baghdad.

That is sexy. And then, like, put on their bulletproof vests and go out to work. They lived a very cool life, which now I sometimes think about. You know when you come back from shooting a movie, and at first you get home and it's a little bit of, like, shell shock because you're like, "Whoa!" You come from a set environment, and then you come home, and there's always a day of adjustment of, like, remembering this world. And I think about how crazy it must have been for my parents that I come back from, like, Afghanistan—

Oh my God.

—to me being like, "Where are my ballet shoes?" they must've been like, "Wow, this is a big change." I've seen a lot of your mom's work 'cause she's both a producer on 60 Minutes and Frontline.

I've seen many of her Frontlines. I love Frontline. I'm addicted.

Yeah, me too. She did extraordinary things. And my mom was the first Western journalist to interview Saddam Hussein's sons. Basically, her thing was that she could get an interview with people who would not talk to Western journalists.

And do you think 'cause they were underestimating her? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like leveraging that. Oh, yeah.

She would also go to places that were more dangerous than other people, and she would sneak a camera under a burqa to go into a place. She was incredibly bold, and she had a lot of respect for the people she was interviewing. I mean, there were some questionable people she was interviewing that she wouldn't agree with, but she had respect for the process and was incredibly well-researched and just very, very— curious and smart. And I think that kind of curiosity they both have. And we grew up in this household where it was all about asking questions. Mm-hmm. And I think that had a really great effect on us.

She probably had on a platter, she could have had a kind of comfortable life in San Francisco with rich parents.

I think so. Although, you know, we live in a—

But kind of admire that. We live in a patriarchal society.

And I think as a woman born in the '50s, She felt that, yeah, there's probably a life she could have chosen that was way different and maybe comfortable, but not at all taking advantage of her intelligence and her skills. And so she left. She was one of the first women at Yale.

Second class ever of women at Yale.

Yes, exactly. Second class ever.

Oh, that's amazing.

And she went, and then she studied anthropology, and she graduated early, went and lived in Kenya for a year. Wow. Then went to grad school in London. Psychoanalyze her. What was going on with her? I think it was proving herself. Yeah. She was the youngest of 3 kids, and my grandfather was a wonderful guy, but very old-fashioned. And it wasn't like she was gonna take over the company. That wasn't something that a woman was going to be given the opportunity to do. So I think she was proving that she could forge her own path and that she was capable of much more than just being, oh, wife. And she then ironically got married really young, which is funny because I think she was like, "I'm not gonna be a wife," and then married my dad at 24. But in a way that was really rebellious because he was not the guy my grandparents had envisioned at all. I mean, he was basically the opposite. He was Irish, he came from no money, came from this socialist family of journalists who were just very, very, very bold. And yet, the families came together beautifully and ended up really blending and loving each other.

How was it decided whether they would live in Ireland or live in the US?

I don't know if they ever thought they'd live there.

Because you spent summers in Ireland, right? Oh, yeah.

We spent, like, every time we weren't in school, we were there, which was great. And I actually, as a kid, felt just as Irish as American. Wow. And you have dual citizenship. I have dual, yeah. I actually have triple. I have British, Irish.

Well, don't brag. You know what? Let's just cap it at Irish. Were you in Northern or Southern Ireland? Southern Ireland.

So it's in the Republic of Ireland. Very, very different.

Yes, yes, yes. Especially then.

Did you come back home with accents? I'd come back with an accent.

I mean, how insufferable? It's embarrassing. Just the worst. It must have been so annoying. And I feel like my sister still does it. I mean, she'll kill me. She comes back. She lives in London now, but anytime she comes back from Ireland, I'm like, "Oh, no, don't. We're not doing this." But my parents did a great job of making us feel culturally very connected to our Irish roots. Also, when you're a kid, I think your personality is forged in the summer. Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Like, that's who you are.

There is an Irish rascallyness. Yes. I just don't know what else to call it, but where I'm from, it'd be white trashness, but in a prideful, wonderful way.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, when you are a country who were the victims of such unbelievable oppression for hundreds of years, and really, they tried to wipe out the Irish. They were treated horrifically. And I think that will never leave the Irish spirit. There is a survivor— you see it in, like, the Australians too. That's why they're such badasses. They have this— little chip on their shoulder. Chip on their shoulder. Like, you can't really mess with us. Like, we will survive anything. And I think the Irish have that. And it's a great attitude you see in all Irish artists too. Like, I ended up going to acting school there in Dublin when I was older, and I loved that the attitude towards acting in Dublin was so humble. Like, you go see a play in Dublin, and then you'd go have a drink with whoever's in the play afterwards. You're like a tradesman. It's a tradesman.

You're a crafts tradesman. You're not a star.

No. And it's like humiliating to even think about it that way. And I think there's a respect for things much bigger than yourself. For instance, like we come from this little fishing village and for a long time in that village, the fishermen didn't learn to swim. You'd love it. Oh my God. I couldn't be a fisherman there. And the idea behind it was that if the ocean wanted you, it would take you. And now, you know, it's different times. People learn to swim and luckily far fewer people are drowning from this. But I always thought there's this respect for things more powerful than yourself, this understanding that, like, the ocean and nature— and then there's just a humility to people there that I really deeply respect.

Okay, now, so the upside of your parents is like, oh, I'd love to have parents that interesting, that engaged, always bringing home topics. But also, these are very involved in their own lives parents.

Yes.

So like when you said the pictures, like, I'm not shocked there's not a ton of pictures. What's the trade-off? They're pretty self-consumed, I'd imagine, to have those careers?

You know, they were, but they did something that I try to learn from, where they were very social people, and they brought a lot of that to our house, so it felt like this kind of salon all the time. You know, there were all these interesting people around, and they brought us into that. "Sit down and have a conversation," or, "Listen to this conversation," or, "Be a part of this." So we felt connected to their work and their lives because they took us seriously as little people that bridged the gap between these very full careers that did take them away a lot and being at home, that they incorporated their lives into the home life in a way that I have to remember to do all the time. Sometimes I think people think you have kids, and so that means that when you're with your kids, like, you don't go out, you just hang out with your kids. Yeah, yeah. But I read this interesting thing about how your kids learn to socialize from you. So observing your social life is an important thing. And so you have to, like, to like bring them to things and kind of like bring the party home.

We just had an expert last week. I was talking about, yeah, that this phenomenon of the last 40 years where it's like most kids had to go with their parents to the hardware store, they had to go with their parents to work on a day and sit there bored. Yes. Like the amount of times you had— and then just comparing that with hunting and gathering societies who are almost always— you're not joining the kids' world, the kids joining your world. Yes. Yeah. And they're learning so much. I see my 13-year-old all the time just eavesdropping. On me and my friends, and I love it, and I don't care, but I can see how interested she is in what's going on.

And she's learning so much from the way you interact. I used to crawl under the dining room table and like lay down under the dining room table during their dinner parties and just listen to the hum and like listen to their conversations and think that they didn't know I was there, although of course they did. I wasn't very good at like crawling quietly. But I think it's true, and every time I see how close my kids are their friends. I feel so proud that we have modeled for them this idea of your tribe, your friendship community as being super important. Yeah.

Now, with all that said, did you ever long for— did you have a friend whose mom was always at home when you got home from school and she had made shit?

Oh, totally. I also used to watch, like, sitcoms and almost fetishize the suburban environment because we lived in the city. The whole idea of what felt like the nuclear family at home and parents home every day every night, eating dinner with your parents. It was so foreign to us. Right. And so I used to just watch hours of sitcoms and just think like, "Wow, I want that." And I did have a friend whose house I spent a ton of time at, whose family was really sweet to me, and it was the opposite dynamic as mine. But of course, all my friends wanted my parents. Yes, exactly. My girlfriends would just sit with my mom, and she would take them seriously and take their— took her dreams seriously, and that was kind of the superpower she had. For me, when I was young and I was like, "I want to be an actress," it wasn't like, "Okay, sweetie, every little girl wants to be an actress." It was like, "Okay, where do you want to study? What career do you admire? You need to then watch these great movies with these great actors." Like, took us seriously.

"What's the game plan?" Yeah. And just in a way that just reflected a kind of respect and a different way of thinking that I think a lot of my friends weren't finding in their homes. So they'd come over just to feel that vibe.

Yeah. Do you think maybe though you could have been adult too young? Were you precocious? And do you think you maybe missed out on some—

Oh, I thought at 12, I was like, why am I still hanging out with all these children? I need my own apartment. Did you like older dudes?

Oh, yeah. Like how bad?

Oh, I mean, I grew up basically on the Georgetown campus, which is a terrible thing if you—

What a smorgasbord.

And I would just walk around and try to make up different majors that I could say that I was in. And I don't even think I looked older. I just, in my head, I was like, I was like obviously very mature, but I, I remember when I had braces when I was 13. I told the orthodontist he had to take them off because it made me look young. Yeah, honey, you're young. Yeah, but I know I was like getting tattoos at 13. I was a terror. They sent me to boarding school because I was a—

okay, I was gonna ask about boarding school because again, it's hard not to get judgmental here. I have a friend who just— so no, no, I just, I have a friend who just told me he sent his kid to boarding school and I'm like, I can't comprehend it. Like, I'm already panicked that they're leaving in 5 years. I know. What are you talking about? Send them out now. So I just can't relate. And I recognize it was a totally different time. But anyways, how'd you end up in boarding school?

It's just so funny because like, I went to boarding school and I would never send my kids to boarding school.

Yeah, there you go.

Which is no disrespect to the people doing it. And like, my sister's sending her kids. I think they love it. I mean, her one son is there. The daughter will probably go and they love it. Had a hard time. My sister went, my brother went after me. My brother went to— 5 years older than you? She's 5 years older. He's 9 years younger. Yeah, my mom had kids in her 20s, 30s, and 40s. Wow. So funny to run the whole gamut of like experiences with motherhood in different decades.

You guys all had such different childhoods, probably.

Completely different.

Yeah, because I'm sure your mom, after 14 years of experience— Yeah, with your brother, totally different.

But I think, okay, boarding school, here's my take on it.

What did you do that had landed you there? What kind of naughtiness were you up to?

The way my mom describes it, I think she said I would have, like, torn the wallpaper from the walls. I was just so completely uncontrol— I mean, I don't want to say uncontrollable because I wasn't. There are far worse cases than mine.

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I was cagey and I like couldn't— I mean, there was there was no curfew that I would take seriously. Were you partying?

Was it boys? Was it shoplifting?

It was partying, but not in a, like, drugs and alcohol way. It was like, I couldn't understand that if there was a concert— like, so DC was a big music town at the time. Sure. And so there was the 930 Club, which was an iconic music venue. I spent time there. And the idea that I wouldn't be allowed to, like, go see any show I wanted and stay out and go and hang out, I couldn't fathom that kind of boundary. Yeah. And I like to think that it was me just like wanting to plug into everything a little too early. But really, as a parent, they must have just been like, she's gonna get herself in trouble.

Yeah, she's gonna end up pregnant or in jail.

I'm really happy that I went away because I think I just would have grown up way, way, way, way, way too fast. Also, DC, it was a fun town, but for a 12, 13-year-old who thought she was 24, probably not the safest place.

I will say too, I remember Kristin and I went to like the Correspondents' Dinner. I don't know what it was, 8 years ago, 10 years ago, whatever it was, but I had not been there since I was in high school and went to the 930 Club. And then on an earlier trip with my mom where we stayed at this, like, fucking gunshot motel across the street from a greasy— like, it was a shithole. Marion Barry was— yeah, smoking crack on TV and he's the mayor.

Yeah, we had the highest crime rate in the country. Yeah.

So I think when people go there now, it's that same chasm between New York when I was a kid and now. So you go to New York and it's like Disneyland. You feel like you're in Europe. It's so clean and beautiful. Every storefront's nice. But yeah, DC used to be a shithole. Now it's so nice. When we were there for that correspondence I'm like, "This place is Eden." It's so nice.

Despite what Trump likes to say, it is incredibly nice now. And I think that it was also a time where it was impossible to, like, track your kids. It was like checking in from the payphone, which, by the way, now when I think about how much we used payphones, like, the idea— for me, it's just like the bacteria.

Ew! That's what I think about.

It's like how often we were just, like, snuggling up against the phone. You could smell it too.

You could smell it. Like, if you first got on it, on it, the receiver smelled. Yeah, yeah.

And then 10 minutes later, you're like holding up against your—

you've forgotten everything, checking your pager, cigarette, it's touching the thing. Exactly. Pager, Bravo Two.

Oh, the pager. Yeah, I loved it. But I went to a boarding school, it was very nice, so I didn't get sent to like reform school. I went to a boarding school that had this unbelievable theater department, which to me was extremely exciting. In DC, I went to GDS, Georgetown Day School. It's a great school. The theater was like in a gym. They did their best. But Andover, where I went to high school, had a main stage theater, several black box theaters, studio theaters. They had a student theater producer program so you could learn to produce plays. I produced like 12 plays in a year. Oh my God, it's like college.

Like college.

I was so lucky.

And this is in Massachusetts. Is it like beautiful?

It's beautiful, like Jeffersonian architecture in the suburbs. You could imagine.

This is like— this attracts— this is like global, right? Yes. It's like a very fancy private school. It's very fancy. Fancy.

Did you have crazy classmates?

I did have crazy classmates. I mean, it was a lot of people who've all gone on to do very impressive things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would say most of the people there, they were very focused on, like, going to Ivies and becoming, like, titans of industry. I found my home kind of with the theater kids.

Did you covet any of that wealth? Clearly, people are taking, like, private jets to Aspen for spring break and shit.

Well, the cool thing about boarding school is it does equal, like, realized that. So even though you'd hear someone, they had crazy opulent lifestyles, but in boarding school we were all in shitty dorm rooms. And it was like, this really puts us all in the same— and it was co-ed. It was co-ed.

So you could have lovers.

Oh yeah, it was all about like wonderful making out in the stacks. Which now I'm like, do they even have libraries anymore? What do you do? Where do you make—

they're also designing all these places to be safer against sexual abuse, which is a good thing, but it really hampers how much—

yeah, where do you make out?

Trying to get more—

yeah, we just expert on about the architecture. Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah. Like book stacks that are low. Oh my God. All doors have a window so you can be caught and be observed from a hallway. It's all great stuff. Wow. But again, where on earth is one? Go up there, go up on his shirt for the first time. Exactly. You can't do it at home.

But it's amazing how kids will find a way. Of course. Isn't that nuts? Like, we're all just animals. Like, you'll find a way. And it was like, you know, you had to leave your door open and sign people in, but everyone was escaping in the middle of the night and running across campus. Love it. It was all that.

That. So you liked it, then you got accepted to Bard. Yes. But you delayed, delayed, delayed. Oh yeah, I deferred for like 3 years.

I met someone later in life who had been there when I was there who said that I was the most requested roommate because they knew— oh, you wanted to show up? I was never going to show up.

Oh my God, that's funny.

So it was like, oh, you're going to get a 2-room single.

Yeah, so you were kind of a legend and you didn't even go.

Yeah, of course now I'd love to go. What sounds better than college now? The best. Read books and then talk about them in groups.

Yeah, debate in class. Oh, it's so good.

I would pay a lot of money.

I have fantasies of going in retirement back. What would you study? Probably physics.

Oh, cool. What did you study when you were there? Anthropology.

Oh, very cool. Yep, that was really fun. I have a fantasy of just picking up degrees as I'm an old man.

I tell myself I would study neuroscience, but I think that would involve such a foundation of, like, mathematics and science that would take maybe, like, 18 years of college to get me a degree.

That would be the beauty of it. Like, you could just take classes. You could skip organic chemistry. You'd be like, "Fuck that. I don't care." Exactly.

"I'm not gonna practice." You can take, like, everything online. All those classes are online now, which is amazing.

Yeah, but it's all about being in that classroom.

Yeah.

I love any opportunity to sit with people and debate things and talk, like, any kind of book club, movie club. Yeah. I have this fantasy about starting a debate club, like, debate club dinners. Oh! Because I think we've lost the skill of disagreement. Yes. Yeah. And like discourse. And, and my favorite thing was debate in school because you had to learn to argue. That's right.

Other person's side. You're assigned the position you take.

Yeah. Which is such a great skill. So don't you think it'd be fun if you came to debate club dinner and under your plate was your position that you had to argue? And it is probably something that you don't believe at all, but you now have to argue that belief. I love it.

Oh my God. I love it. Will you invite us?

Let's do it. Yes.

I am committed. Admitting fully to this dinner party.

Me too.

Because my hobby is forcing myself to mount a really solid argument for something I don't agree with. I love it. I go, okay, I feel this way. No, I have to sincerely imagine I feel the other way. Yes. And most of the time, if I take the time to, to consider that, I recognize everyone has a pretty cohesive opinion and they're pretty well-intentioned, and I just disagree on the best route there. I do think that's how we have to respect each other. It's like this notion that we're not friends because we don't agree on something, or that we can't talk, or that I can't have you as a guest. All that stuff is so corrosive and wrong.

It's only becoming worse with social media and everything because I think now there's this curated socializing that's happening across generations. We don't gather if we don't know who we're gonna be with and what their opinions are and what will be discussed, and we can have— be reassured we will all have the same opinion.

Yes, we're safe.

There's no real kind of randomness that allows for the opportunity for you to be in a conversation with someone who disagrees and for that to be kind of great.

Yeah. And also, I also think just as an ethos, people think their goal is to end our conversation and convince the other person to think like them. And I would just urge and beg people, it's like, actually, it's so much more rewarding to leave a conversation with a totally different— we just had someone on, we had a schizophrenic on who tried to kill his father. Wow. And prior to that conversation, I had such a hard fast opinion. I'm like, all these people who are schizophrenic or any of these bipolar, like, take your fucking medicine. Why does everyone go off their medicine and then go on these big, you know? And it's just frustration with that. And then through talking to this person for 2 hours, I was like, I totally get it. And I definitely acknowledge there are a lot of people that maybe the medicine is not the solution for them, or it's yet one of 8 things. I don't know. I love going, whoa, I 180'd on that. Yes. And that's Lovely.

I think that curiosity is such an incredible trait that you have, and that it is something that if we can just get people to see the value in it— like you said, it's not about convincing, but it is about learning. And it can be super frustrating when it comes to many things, but like when it comes to politics these days, it's frustrating because you feel the stakes are so high. Yes.

You're convinced. Yeah. It's very emotional. If you lose this, someone's dying. Yes. And that's just not the case. Context for a good conversation. Everyone's arousal setting is just like fucking pinned.

Yeah, well, that's cortisol'd out. Debate dinner is good because if you're handed your topic or your stance, then you can really do it without emotion.

Exactly. And like go hard on it. So if I handed you like, the moon landing was fake, right? And you had to be like, listen, the flag was waving. Exactly. Or like you just think of like all the things you've heard, but then really have to dig in. Yes. It allows for it to become an exercise that I think just works works a muscle that we've lost.

100%. I love that.

I think it would be— I'm in.

Me too. That's how we started our friendship. Debating. Debating. Yeah. We did kind of put a pause on some of the debates.

It got too— everything got too political.

Everything got—

yeah, we had to. Well, again, things get emotional. The closer you are with someone, the more stakes, as you said, and like the more emotions come into play where it's like, you don't even trust me, or you don't hear me, or— Yeah. That's the sweet part of the motivation.

Foundation underpinning it is we don't think if someone thinks differently than us that we can coexist or love each other or be there for each other, be friends. So it starts getting scary. Like, wait, you think that about that? Can we even be friends? Is what you're thinking, which is preposterous. But I think that's where we've gone underneath.

Yeah.

This is why I think when my kids argue with me over something, as opposed to— I think we were raised, or at least I was, with a don't talk back. Rule. And for me, it's like, oh, they're learning on us how to debate, how to argue with people out in the world. So, so if they say like, well, I don't want to brush my teeth, or I don't want to do my homework, or whatever it is, as opposed to like, do as you're told. Yeah, yeah. It's like, let's train them to be better. So sometimes I'll be like, you got to make a better argument than that.

Yeah. So we're the same. I'm constantly like, I'll lay something out, I know they're not gonna like it. Yeah. And I go, okay, counterpoints. I always go counterpoints. Love that.

I really think that even the hormonal spikes that cause them to be more volatile, that that is the training ground for later conflict so that it's like, "Okay, I'm glad it's me you're arguing with because—" You know I love you.

Exactly.

And I think about that particularly— I think it happens to boys too, but for girls being around, like, 13, and then there's this idea that you become enemies with your mom. Now, my mom and I definitely had some battles, but I'm kind of relishing the opportunity to have this. And Daisy's only 9, and she's, like, the nicest person in the world. I'm waiting for her to have this. But I think of it as like, yes, let me train you in this. I'm not going to tell you not to argue, but I'm going to make you better at it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I reject that they have to do a certain— I loved my mom the whole goddamn ride. That's good. I was delightful to her. My father, my poor father has to deal with all the generic shit.

I know, I know. Yeah, but boys definitely. I just took Otis to Japan, just us for a week for spring break. And it was like the best week of my life. Aw. I was like, I didn't know a couple's trip could be so— Delightful. It was really sweet because I realized he was giving me— like, some activities were definitely for me. We went and like meditated at a temple with a monk, which is not something he would have suggested.

God bless him, he got through that at 12.

He did it. He came and like meditated and learned. Afterwards I was like, did you love it? He's like, I mean, no, but I, I can tell you I did.

You could never get a dude to do that. No, on a trip with a dude on a vacation, if he didn't want to meditate, if he went, you'd hear about it the whole fucking time.

Exactly. Yeah, I'd be like, I did this for you. Yeah, you owe me. We also just laughed so hard. He's really into manga, and we went and took a class, like drawing class, manga class.

What's manga?

Tell me. Oh, like Japanese anime drawing. The class was entirely in Japanese, and we were pissing ourselves laughing, like trying so— like crying, like hiding our faces. And look, every time we caught eyes, we just laughed so hard. Oh, and at one point we had to draw each each other, which was the funniest thing in the world because he drew me in a way that was so hilariously weird. And I drew, I thought, like a perfect depiction of him, but I'm not at all good at drawing. And we were laughing so hard. He knew that that was me doing an activity that he loved. He felt so, I think, like just really seen and respected. But then at the end of the day, every day, I'd be like, "Okay, Rosenthorn, like, what was your favorite part of the day?" And he would surprise me by saying like, he was like, "I liked walking through the cherry blossoms with you. That was really fun." And I was like, "What?" Like, in LA, he would never be like, "Oh, Mom, I'd love to go for a stroll in the park." But it was like a whole different— on the other side of the world when it's just us.

Yeah, the rules were all different. And he also just kept spontaneously grabbing me and hugging me and being like, "I love you so much." Oh, and I was so happy. I was just like flying high. The entire time.

Did you always know you wanted them? Yes, you did.

I didn't like fantasize about motherhood in the way that a lot of my friends did, but I did always know I wanted kids. I didn't realize how fun it was going to be though. It's way better than I could have possibly imagined, and I think every stage of it I love more than the last stage. Now of course, when we look at those old videos of them as babies, I'm like, God. And I was working a lot when they were really little, and I'm like just destroyed with guilt about that, as like so many of us are. But I didn't realize that it was a friendship that was so deep, it's so profound and so fun. That is different than what I imagined it would be.

Yeah, I think for me it just exposes a lot of the limits I have given relationships, really, because they're just a product of my undying commitment and devotion and unconditional love. And I do wonder how many of my relationships could have been— and not just even romantically, just if you treated people the way you treat kids. I do wonder what the sky is. That's so interesting for relationships. Yeah. I just don't think you can.

It's biological.

Yeah. I don't know that you can.

Yeah. But it does— introduces you to your own capacity for love, patience, empathy. The forgiveness, all the selflessness I didn't think I possessed.

I think I was pretty honest about my selfishness, and so I was like, I don't really know I saw this level of it coming.

Also, it humbles you so completely, like brings you to your knees in such a real way that I think that is something that just makes you definitely a better person. But in relationships, being humbled is a very important thing, to have been humbled. Yeah. And I think to understand your own frailty. We all need to, but parenting does it different.

Okay, we have to get back to the overarching story of your career. I'm gonna ask you the questions Leslie asked you, which is after you do the acting school in Ireland and you come back and you get yourself on The OC. Well, which is really quick.

Yeah. And before then, so I was a casting intern and And it's so funny, I wonder if you ever came into our office. It's highly possible. So many of my friends now, I served coffee to.

Would you also read or no? Oh, I would read.

I mean, that was a little bit higher than my pay grade. If I was really lucky, if other people weren't in the office, maybe I'd get to read. But I was really low. I would bring you coffee and water, and I would kind of keep the sign-in sheet and just be behind my boss at all times. And she was Mally Finn. She was one of the best casting directors in the business. Hardcore. She did everything from from, like, Titanic to David Gordon Green movies to, like, 8 Mile to The Matrix to Elephant. And I got to just observe and learn everything in that office.

That was in LA?

That was in LA. First, when I was 16, I came out for a summer, and I worked for her for, like, 4 weeks as an intern. And then I came back when I graduated high school and worked again. I was like, can I do another summer working for you? And most casting directors will not let Actors be interns? Because you're like a spy. You could easily, like, steal material. I don't know.

And you can just feel that you want to be auditioning.

She was like, "You should go and audition." And I went and got this pilot, which was for this show called Skin. It was a very short-lived show on Fox. But it was like a ridiculous experience because it was like my first audition for a pilot. Then I got it. Then it got picked up.

This is when you were wearing the wool turtleneck, and she was like, "You gotta get realistic about your fucking outfit." Yes.

I came from, like, a Northeast boarding school, so I was dressed like a professor. There was, like, a lot of corduroy and wool. And she was like, "What?" First of all, it was 95 degrees, and I took 2 city buses to work, so I was, like, really sweaty.

I have to ask it, and I know it's gonna be so hard to answer, but you're so beautiful. Oh, thanks. You're so beautiful that— Were you trying to downplay that you were fucking beautiful?

Oh, no, 'cause I did not feel beautiful at all. And in fact, coming to LA, I don't know, does anyone get to this town and feel beautiful? I was like, "This is crazy." The first waiting room I sat in as an actress, I was like, "Ah, I gotta go. This is a different species." I think that it took me a while to understand that what made me— I guess we all kind of go on this journey, but like, what made me different was good, and I didn't need to try to make myself look like the other girls. But I really felt unattractive. You did? I was like— And it was like, they all really knew how to dress. And again, the aforementioned turtleneck is indicative of what my vibe was. I dressed like Johnny Lee Hooker. I wore a lot of vintage. I look back, I'm like, "You were cool, girl." But at the time, I didn't know.

I know!

It sounds cool. But it's hard to get on The OC show when you're dressing like—

Yeah. And my boss, Mally, was like, "What are you doing? Go change before you go to your audition." Wow. But I also saw the bad side of that, where we had girls come into the office to audition, where she would turn them around and be like, "No." She'd say, "Did you think I was a male casting director?" Actresses would show up in outfits clearly designed for— Male directors. Boners. Casting couches. Yeah. And we had directors who would be really unspecific about what they were looking for just so they could meet every hot actress in LA. And we were, like, having to read hundreds of girls, and then none of them were right for it 'cause he didn't know what he wanted. So I learned the bad side of that really quick. I definitely just felt such imposter syndrome. And I remember a casting director early on when I went to an audition, audition told me I had a pie face. Oh, tell me what that means.

Is that a compliment?

She kind of said it in a way that sounded like she was trying to be nice. Oh, you got a pie face? She said something like, you'll be fine, you've got— I think she might have said apple pie, pumpkin. There was maybe a flavor attached to the pie, but I think she was trying to say something nice. I took it as like a hidden flat face.

Flat. Maybe it was apple pie and it meant all-American. Yes, maybe that's what she was saying.

That seems— but I just felt, oh my God, when I think about the drawer of push-up bras that I had for auditions because I thought maybe Maybe that will help, and it doesn't, and it's so sad. Being a 19-year-old going to auditions is rough, and you're just like driving to the deep valley to go to this reading with like 1,000 other girls.

I was inclined to think you might be like Lake Bell, who I worked with on a show forever and we're friends. Yes. I love Lake. And what I realized is that Lake was so hot her whole life that she liked to date ugly guys. Like, you know you're so hot.

She did not say it like that.

No, I called her that. Called her out on it. I'm like, I think you, like, you, you know, it's cool that you'll date ugly guys. And she's like, she kind of knows. And I'm like, that's how you know you're so hot that you don't even need the validation of the hot guy. Would you date the hot guy or the ugly guys? Oh, it's been a real range.

Really hard to figure out the common denominator. I felt like such an outsider always because as a kid I would go between the States and Ireland, and Ireland obviously super weird outsider, American kid showing up in the summers, weirdo outsider. Then back in the States I felt like an outsider because I just felt we were different, family was different, coming back and forth different. Then boarding school, total fucking weirdo. I felt again, even just with clothes, I like had never seen such preppy clothes. I felt like an outsider there. Then LA. So I never had the thing of like, I'm so attractive that I'll date a 3 because it looks punk rock, just to even it out.

Yeah, that's not why she did it.

We'll call her in the fact check.

Personalities were good. And so yeah, she's not just gonna date someone hot just so that she feels hotter because she doesn't need to.

She wasn't trying to compensate.

She was not susceptible to a higher status person validating her, which is a real unique—

so she has to date people she really like.

Yeah, who often you're like, wow, that's cool she's with that dude, right? Yeah. I just call it like it is.

Don't look into her.

But does anyone— Is it impossible? Wow. I mean, talk about humbling. I think about all of our friends who went through that cattle call experience, and I'm like, "It's actually great because being rejected that much does something very good to your character." If you live.

For all of us who live. Yeah, yeah.

You live, you are not unscathed.

And what's great is we all have our unique version of why it was terrible, and it can't be all true, right? So my issue was I would go to the commercial auditions, audition, and it's like, that dude's bald, that guy's overweight. I'm not goofy enough, yet I'm a comedian, so this is what I'm supposed to get. But I don't look goofy enough to play the guy at the muffler shop who's crazy. Then I would go to the attractive shit. I'm like, I am not nearly good looking like these guys. Caught in between. I wasn't character looking enough and I wasn't handsome enough. I'm like, what are we gonna do with this? Yeah.

And then you realize that that is exactly what makes you so special. Take It takes a long time if you're lucky.

Yeah. Okay, so who though were you at that time wanting to be career-wise? Did you have a North Star?

I wanted to be Catherine Keener, which is why I— ah, great pick— got the job as a casting intern because I read that she had been a casting intern. I was like, I will emulate that experience. Yeah, yeah. And I still want to be Catherine Keener.

She's a good role model. Have you become friends with her? No. Have you met her?

I met her once, and I think I said something like, oh, I've modeled my life.

Here's a compliment you'll never be able to accept. Exactly.

You don't have what you're supposed to say in return. And she was very sweet to me.

So you want to be like in indie movies and do cool things? Yes, completely. Okay, so then when you get on The O.C., were you like, oh my God, grateful, but this is the opposite of what I'm trying to do?

It was funny because this is very classic me to not understand what I'm getting into and then be in it. I had no idea how big that show was when I joined because I think I joined the second season. Josh Schwartz was like, "Do you want to come and do the show?" Well, first he said, "Do you want to come play a bartender?" Because we had a lot of musical taste overlaps. Like, we knew each other through that kind of world. And I remember I was talking about music a lot. And then he said, "Come play a bartender because we'll have real musicians are going to come on the show and perform in the bar, the bait shop." And that was the sales pitch.

Yeah.

And I was like, "Absolutely." And as a joke, I was like, "Only if I get to make out with Mischa Barton." And he was like, And he went, "Who told you?" And I was like, "Oh my God! For real?!" I was like, "Josh, I'm in!" But it was so fun. Everyone was so great. We had all these amazing musicians around, and it was so fun. But I did not know how big the show was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And after the first episode aired, I was like, "Wait, what is this?" And I remember Adam describing at the time, anytime he could, like, sense teenagers in any place he was in, crossing the street to get around to walk around anybody who might be be young. And I quickly understood what that meant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you interface with Ben McKenzie at all? Yes, I loved—

he was so sweet to me.

We met him for the first time a couple weeks ago. He was a crypto expert. He was on our experts. Yeah, he's— and I left that going, I think that's the smartest actor I've ever met. Yeah, he always was.

He was always very unactory. Yes, it just felt like he, in the best way, was doing it for fun.

Yeah, which is great. He belongs in the Austin State Assembly. That's his heritage. Like, he's supposed to be to be doing that. Yeah. Okay, so then you quickly get on, or by my estimation, pretty quickly, you get on House. Right. Were you replacing Jen Morrison?

Not really replacing. Also joining a show late.

Season 4, maybe?

Season 3. Okay. It was, like, expanding the cast, and then we were all on it together. That show had such wide reach in a way that I had no idea. And even now, anywhere I am on the planet, there's a House fan.

Fan. So I've never liked one of those medical shows, and I loved House. Yeah, it was— I love Hugh Laurie. The whole thing was just that. Were you fucking smitten with him? Is he smitten-worthy in real life?

He is so smitten-worthy. Smitten-worthy. Oh no, he's so smart. He's like a crime novelist.

He had all these careers. Yeah, and a motorcyclist.

I loved him on Jeeves and Wooster, and he had done all sorts of interesting comedy in the English comedy theater world that I was obsessed with. Meeting him, oh, I mean, the dreamiest dreamboat, and so gracious, and had all these kids around him, really, that he was so sweet and encouraging. And we spent a lot of time together. I mean, that's a hard show, right? We did, like, 19-hour days. I think the show went 8 years. I did, I think, 4 years. 4 years. And then I started doing movies in the off-season. I had a deal with them where I would get paid less, but it meant I could go do movies. Yeah. It was really nice. It was really nice of them to let me do that, but I knew I couldn't stay. And it was 'cause the hours were— I mean, poor Hugh.

The dialogue he had to fucking memorize.

He had my favorite quote about acting with an accent. Someone said, "What is it like acting with an accent on that show?" And he said, "It's like everyone else is playing with a tennis racket, and I have a salmon." Ah! So perfectly evocative. He's so good. I learned a lot from him. And yeah, we were good friends. But we're buddies. He's the coolest.

You gotta get him to the debate dinner that we've committed to. Oh my God, we need to watch us all. That would be amazing.

Now, okay, so you booked a pilot, then you booked The O.C., then you booked this. You are booking. Well, there was stuff in between.

I went back to New York. I did an off-Broadway play, and I did indie movies. While I was doing The O.C., I did this Nick Cassavetes movie called Alpha Dog, which kind of had a lot of the people from our generation in it. That movie was crazy 'cause it was a— about a murder that had happened in LA only a few years before. It was a real story. And the real guy was on the run. And the movie initially ended with, like, he is the youngest person on the FBI Most Wanted list. And by the time the movie came out, I think they had found him in Brazil. Whoa. And then they reshot the ending to incorporate his capture. Wild experience.

Well, also, Nick Cassavetes. So this dream you had of being, like, Katherine Keene cleaner. This is the right vehicle. But did it deliver to your romantic notion of it?

Yes, I loved it. I felt the experience of being on The OC and being on the set of Alpha Dog, and I was like, I want to do movies. You want that? And so they very kindly offered me a chance to stay on The OC or to leave, and I left to go make zero money. So you're booking stuff. You don't have imposter syndrome? No, I mean, I think I still have imposter syndrome. Maybe it's starting to wear off. Well, yeah, I I think that I was gaining confidence, though, by that point. I think I started feeling I was earning my stripes. But at that point, House really changed things.

She did Tron on the off-season, and then she did Cowboys and Aliens.

Oh, yeah. This is like movie movie shit. Yeah, now then I was like, okay.

Once you were in Cowboys and Aliens, I was like, okay, I'm now aware. I'm making space in my mind. There's a new movie star. That's nice.

In a way, if Cowboys and Aliens had done what they thought it was gonna do—

By the way, you and I have had a very shared experience, which is rare, which is I did his movie Zathura. Oh yes, Favreau. Yes, it's the best movie I'm in. It's a phenomenal movie. So good. Everyone's like, well, everyone just wait for the $500 million to arrive. Exactly. And it just never came. So you and I are probably the only two underperforming Favreau movies. Totally, totally.

And also like Tron, they thought it was going to be like the biggest thing that had ever been. I think it's very healthy to have these experiences because it just showed me that nobody knows anything. You don't know what's going to work, and you better love the experience of doing it. Yeah. Cowboys and Aliens had every brilliant person in it, and Favreau is so good, and we were produced by Spielberg and Ron Howard, and it didn't work. And yet the experience was the most fun I've ever had.

Was it?

Oh, good.

Yeah, it was like riding horses with Han Solo. Yeah, it was literally Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig and me and Sam Rockwell, who became one of my best friends.

Yeah, truly the best human being we have.

And Paul Dano, another amazing guy who, when I was a casting intern, he was the only really the nice actor who would come in and not bitch at me for the fact that they were waiting too long for their audition. Everyone else treated me like low-level staff except Paul Dano, the nicest person in the world. Then being able to work with him on Cowboys and Aliens, we just had the best time. Walt Goggins. Oh my God, Walt Goggins saved my life on that movie. What happened? He did. I had a very bad horse accident and he saved me. Basically, we were galloping across— I've ridden horses whole life. I have a lot of confidence with riding English style, but this was Western, different. And we were at that point like 2 months in, and we'd gotten real cocky with it, and we were pretty competitive. Oh boy. And it was me and Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford galloping like full sprint across the desert. Oh boy. With like 40 horses behind us. Oh my God. And it was like we were like leading the charge to fight the aliens or whatever.

And, you know, whatever what we were doing in that movie.

We got to a part where I could see ahead of us that there was a large ditch, like a 6-foot ditch. And I was like, this horse is gonna jump that ditch. And I'm on this Western saddle, no helmet, because I'm playing, like, an old-timey lady. Yeah. Spoiler: I was actually an alien. Oh! You find out? I know everyone's seen it, but still. So sure enough, this horse jumps and bucks me off in the craziest way. I fell off, I hit my head and my back, and I was laying. But unfortunately, I was on the other side of this kind of lip of in the dirt. So, meaning that the Lordi wolves behind me couldn't see me. No! And there was also a lot of dust. No! And I remember having my ear to the ground, and I could hear it, and it sounded like thunder, like they were coming towards me. And I had the thought— sounds so dramatic, but I thought, "It'll be quick." Yeah. It'll be like pulverized applesauce. Out. Oh! And I was waiting for it to happen. And then Walt Goggins had seen it ahead of him, and in a split second, thought to turn his horse sideways right in front of me and let everyone kind of bash into him.

No! And he's a great rider, so he was able to handle that. And people split the two sides around us thinking he had just, like, gone insane. But he was protecting my body on the ground. Wow. And so I owe him my life. It's crazy.

Wow. He's a real-life hero.

He's a real-life hero. He is.

He didn't even bring that up when he was on the show. He is.

He's probably done it to so many people.

He saved so many hides.

He probably saved 3 women on his way here.

He does not save men. That's what— no, no, he lets them go. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Okay, so I guess I want to fast forward now to Booksmart because we've had you for a while already, even though it feels like 5 5 minutes. I know things lead up to it, right? You direct a music video for a band I don't know, but then you do a Chili Peppers.

Yes. So yeah, I did Edward Sharpe, the Magnetic Zeros. There we go. And then the Chili Peppers was my first big gig, which I only got because a brilliant director named Mark Romanek, who is all-time music video director king— he also directs movies and television shows, but he famously directed many Nine Inch Nails videos, Michael Jackson. He's the top. The Scream video, which is still, I think, the most expensive music video ever made, Michael and Janet. But he was supposed to do the Chili Peppers video, and then he was directing me in a show we did in New York called Vinyl, an HBO show, also short-lived, also one that everyone was like, this is gonna be big.

Also the second thing you did with Juno Temple. Yes, I'm obsessed with her.

Love Juno. Fucking powerhouse. Oh, has always been since she was like 16, and I met her on Year One and knew that she was going to be a superstar. Then we We did Vinyl. Mark Romanek directing an episode of Vinyl, hears me talking about how I just want to direct, decides to throw me his gig on the Chili Peppers video. He's like, you should do it. I'm going to tell them they should hire you instead. He gets me that job. I go direct that. Time of my life. And then I took myself seriously. I was like, okay, I want to do more. And directed a short film.

You did the glamor thing, right?

Exactly. Through a grant, which is the only way people can really get going is through some sort of grant program. Then Booksmart came about, and I was so lucky. You have a real point of view.

I mean, I guess it's as simple as that. How did you get to that point that quickly?

Probably the most valuable acting lesson I learned from working for Molly Finn, my casting director boss, was that the person who got the role was the one who made the choice. Someone who came in and with a choice, a choice that risked being the wrong choice, but a perspective on the scene. Mm-hmm. And people who came in and just tried to be sort of vague—

Give you what you want.

They never got the job. So I had I'd learned this lesson that made a lot of sense to me. And I think with directing, it felt the same. Tarantino says, "Make the movie only you can make." And I think it's really true. It's like, don't even try to please everyone. Make it really specific, 'cause it's going to be your obsession for several years. You're gonna be married to this process, and you have to really, really love it and have something to say. And I think with Booksmart, I felt so passionate about telling a story about shame and judgment in high school, and female friendships, and the intensity of that platonic love. I felt like I had so much to say that it felt like felt effortless in a way, 'cause it just felt like a place to put all these stories and opinions and ideas. And I think that all the high school movies that I grew up loving— I mean, really, Booksmart was really heavily influenced by both Dazed and Confused and The Breakfast Club, which those two movies really raised me. What's nice about it is there is a— this kind of came up with the invite too— there is a shared language of when it comes to high school and adolescence.

That people are very fluent in. So you only have to reference certain things. For instance, a high school bathroom and, like, stalls. All you have to do is, like, show that, and people are like, "I got it." "You're there." "I got it. I know why that's scary. I get everything involved." And there's that shorthand with the audience. And I think that's why something like a high school movie— happens with anything that's like, okay, buddy cop movie, hospital show, relationship movie. There is this sense of like, "Got it." There's a shorthand.

Shorthand.

It was like an opportunity to lovingly poke on everyone's trauma from adolescence. And it was— Ugh!

Did you have a soulmate in the boarding school that got you through?

I've always had very close friendships and really always had like a group of girls that were my sisters. And certainly in boarding school, I had a tight group. Also, we lived together. I mean, you couldn't have gone closer. And before then, I had my ride or die, and I still have those relationships. So I think I was pulling a lot from that. I also formed this incredible friendship with Katie Silberman, who wrote the film, and we really felt like the two characters. So much of those characters is modeled after our dynamic. And Beanie and Kaitlin were starring in the film, and they would often just say that they would look over at us and sort of be—

Check in with what they're playing. —Hey, you inspired this.

It was like a film about friendship being made by people in this intense friendship, and it was wonderful.

It's so good. It's in the 90s. I covet this. I've never been in a movie that had 90-some-plus Rotten Tomatoes.

Oh, I mean, I also made one that has like a 35, so— Yeah, that's all I meant.

Yeah, yeah. If they're about 40, I did something wrong. Alas, you made it for $6 million and made $25 million. This is fucking premium start. Don't Worry Darling.

That would've been a better title.

It's always been a hard— Don't Worry Darling. That one, it's a major departure from that. And so what inspires that? I love psychological thrillers. Name a few of your favorites.

I mean, Hitchcock is the master of all psychological thrillers. I love Vertigo. It was always my top. But then I grew up loving The Sixth Sense. I also love Stephen King novels. Seven? I loved Seven. Oh!

That's our movie. Best of all time.

Silence of the Lambs. I had a library in my room when I was a kid of all like horror fiction. Like, I loved scary stories, ghost stories. I, as a kid, loved like Tales from the Crypt. Do you remember Tales from the Crypt? That creepy little guy? I loved Goosebumps, like those kind of books. I always had a fascination with that genre, and I was fascinated by the kind of like early rumblings of the manosphere. Oh yeah, it was kind of incel-inspired, right?

It's like the beginning of the incel culture. Disturbed.

By incel culture meeting technology in a way that I was like, ooh, somebody could take advantage of that and put us back into this time. And obviously as a metaphor for what's happening, which is like putting ourselves back into an era where women are stripped of all rights. And I think it preceded— I wasn't really thinking about tradwife culture yet, cuz that wasn't happening.

It kind of popped during late COVID, right? And this was smack in the middle, November of 2020 or something. September or something?

Yes, exactly. Okay, so the fun things about this—

well, I just loved it.

We had this extraordinary crew. Like, Matty Lou Boutique, who shot that movie, is such a gangster. We made that movie for $30 million. It looks like a $100 million movie because of him and because of Katie Byron, our production designer. We were also shooting in Palm Springs and in LA on stage, but during lockdown. It was crazy that we were even outside. And this crew worked so hard. Hard on this movie together. And it was this Herculean effort to build this world and this time. And for me, getting to do car chases in a '60s Porsche, and it was just like catnip, catnip. I mean, I really just want to shoot car chases. I really just want to get hired to do Fast and Furious 27. The most exciting thing for me on Don't Worry Darling was that the stunt team, who were our stunt drivers, I realized at one point that I wanted to be wanted them to be in the movie because we were about to go hire actors. The stunt guys were going to double the actors to drive. And I was like, why don't you guys just be in the movie?

Yeah. And they were all so excited, and they gave it everything. I had to keep reminding them that they didn't have to hide their faces because, you know, stunt guys hide. Yeah, famously, that's what they do. And they were all so brilliant, and they gave these great performances. And I was so happy when the stunts category was added for the Academy. Yeah, yeah, because the whole business is built on there.

That's a fucking movie, by the way. Fall Guy. Oh, I love it. Do my kids have watched it 25 times? I think it's a perfect film.

And then the director of that film was our stunt coordinator on Tron, David Leitch, and taught me many things, including what to do if you ever fall off a high bridge or building. I'm going to tell you guys right now because it's important. You have to make yourself into like a tilted line, put yourself at an angle, because if you go straight down, your spine will shoot up through —because we were shooting on a really high bridge, and he's like, okay, if you fall off— and I was like, what? And he's like, if you fall off, just try to land at an angle. And I always think about it. I'm like, impossible.

Collect yourself, take a minute, learn a lot about aerodynamics.

Okay, yeah, point your toes at an angle.

But I love stunts. I loved shooting those stunt sequences.

Oh, blowing stuff up. Anytime I was at work, I was like, are you kidding me? My job needs to blow up the 6th street bridge.

Fuck, yes! I think you're an adrenaline junkie.

Yes. Okay, maybe from your parents.

Yes, totally. The idea of like, are you really alive if you're not experiencing something at like full tilt?

Okay, now I went back and some of the stuff I read was you doing press around the time of Thank You, Darling. So don't worry, darling.

Don't worry, darling. No, why is it Thank You, Darling? Thank you. It's much more gracious.

I've been doing a good job until now. Don't worry, darling.

You impress everyone so much, and then it all falls apart.

Isn't that the fun part for you though? Like, when will I fall off the balance beam? And now I'm off the bridge.

Yeah, yeah, I'm all at an angle. Okay, don't worry, darling.

Don't worry, darling. Yes. At the time, I could tell you were sick of talking about— like, people were making a big deal of the sex stuff. Yes. But I'm here to tell you, that was great stuff. It was worthy of talking about. Like, Monica and JASON] And I, we both saw it. We were like, "Oh, do you like it?" "Yeah, I loved it." Almost on cue, the dining room table scene.

Oh yeah, we loved it.

I had wanted to shoot— That was like a scene in my head for so long, the idea of basically turning the idea of a feast into like— Yes! I love food so much. It's really just me bringing food into every possible scene.

I like the notion of showing up to the table, like you're gonna devour all that food.

Yeah!

Yes, it's wonderful.

And I also was really passionate about it like showing you like female pleasure. I wanted it to be about that. But obviously, yes, it overtook the conversation in a way that was a bummer because there was so much else to talk about.

But here's a fascinating conversation. There is some tricky obscurity with feminism and sexuality in film because clearly women were objectified for a long, long time, and then clearly that's a cause to confront. And then also like feminists are fucking sexual. You want to see sexual fantasies Yeah. There can be this weird balancing act, I feel like, if you're a feminist. Like, are you betraying feminism by having nudity? Which I don't. I reject. Right.

Of course.

But there's some weird tension there about how you do the female-driven, sexy fucking movie, which I want you to do. Totally. Without any stress.

Well, I know we both love Esther Perel. Yes. And I love how she writes about how there's nothing very politically correct about eroticism. Eroticism. She talks about women's sexual fantasies and allowing for them to veer into a territory that is not something that you would necessarily ever experience in real life, or that you feel is like politically correct in how you think things should be. But your curiosity, your imagination, is allowed to veer into that territory.

You might want a power dynamic in your life. Exactly. And want a different power dynamic when it's time to fuck.

And I love She writes about how, like, it's so important to let your mind go to these places. And Gillian Anderson compiled an incredible book of female fantasies called Want, which is a book of anonymous fantasies from women around the world. And all you learn about the woman at the end of each fantasy is like what they do, where they live, and if they have kids or not. And it's a lot of, like, powerful women who have fantasies about being objectified. Yes.

As there are these powerful men.

Yes. I made a movie about BDSM culture last year, and I learned so much about that. And it is all, like, super powerful. Powerful men who on their lunch break go to the dungeon. It is true that when it comes to sexuality in film, this question of, like, are you making the problem worse by showing women in any way? Is nudity and female nudity a part of the problem or solution? And this has been written about for many decades, and Gloria Steinem wrote about, like, self-objectification. There's so much to think about with it, and I think it's the The way it's done is always what makes the difference. But I think for a long time, we weren't even seeing female orgasms in movies. It wasn't a part of it. It was all about the man. So I think even that feels revolutionary.

Completely unrealistic female orgasm, which is Michael Douglas starts plowing you from behind without any warm-up, and 2 minutes later, you're screaming in ecstasy.

It's really training men unfairly to have, like—

Slam a girl against the wall.

Back of her mind and just buckle up for the orgasm.

She's like, thank you, this is all I need.

But at the same time, movies are allowed to be a fantasy, and they kind of—

the idea that they should be your fan, it should be the fantasy. We just need both parties making their fantasies. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to see males get rid of their fantasy or females. Exactly.

Yeah, I want everyone to like explore a little bit more. And I think for that movie, I was like, I just really want to focus on it being about female pleasure and that that was actually part of this male kink. This world was about men who have created a utopian society for themselves. And I was like, well, what happens to female pleasure within that? These were topics that were very interesting to explore.

That's fascinating.

Yeah. Okay. Now I have directed Kristen in scenes with a male lover. Yeah. And I'm fine with it. I think for the male lover, Josh Duhamel, in this case—

I love Josh. He's the sweetest guy. He's perfect.

To have your wife hook up with him. Yes, he is. But I remember just being like, I felt like I needed to be extra smart about that dynamic. Like, to make her feel— has been brought in to make out with my wife, and I'm directing the thing. Yes. Did you feel any of that weirdness? Oh, on Don't Worry Darling? Yeah. No, no, that wasn't tricky.

That wasn't tricky. Okay. My thing is, and maybe this comes from being such a theater nerd as a is like once you're kind of in that dynamic of making something, making a play or a movie, like everybody becomes part of the same effort to just, like, make it as good as it can be. And I feel like that eliminates a lot of the anxiety that exists in a regular sort of dynamic. I do think that, particularly when you're directing it, I remember we had to have the camera spun around very slowly during the scene where she's on the table. And Maddie, the DP, and I are just standing there, They can't. We're like, "Is that glass in the way? Fuck, the glass is in the way. Move the glass. No, okay, get ready for the glass." Like, we're just looking at what can be seen. I think that any sort of weirdness and nerves around what's actually happening are eliminated by the obsessive focus on the shot and, like, making it work. And I was so happy with how it was all looking and feeling. I felt so proud. I was just like, "We fucking nailed that." We're not in, like, the 1940s anymore.

Our kissing— I do appreciate when people really go for it.

Well, you can feel— Think about it. We can remember these moments is incredible. Like the fucking Tom Cruise-Kelly Top Gun makeout scene, you're like, exactly, let's go.

I mean, 9½ Weeks was a huge influence. You can feel real passion just like you can feel any emotion. And like you said, like, the stunts, we try to make them as real as possible. Why wouldn't we go for it? Yeah, I think as long as everyone feels great, then it's awesome. That's the nuance of the whole—

that's the nuance of the whole thing.

Because I don't know, when you're friends, it can be so funny. Like Sam Rockwell and I, we did this movie called Better Living Through Chemistry where we had to have the craziest sex scenes. It was like montage, and it was so funny. Like, we would just cry laughing because we were two good buddies. Yeah. The idea of thinking of each other in a sexual way was just so ludicrous. So I think sometimes it's harder when you're best friends.

You were talking about when you got to direct, one of the incredible things was recognizing, oh, you can design these situations differently. Yes. And in particular, you were talking about a closed set. So there's an illusion of a closed set, set, historically, which means they're gonna clear out everyone that doesn't have to be in the scene, and then you're gonna rehearse in private, and then you're gonna have a minimal crew to film the whole thing. But in your experience—

So often, it was not really a closed set. And there's all these little sneaky monitors that are around. Like, there's a monitor on the sound cart that just always mysteriously stays on. And it was when we were shooting Booksmart, we were shooting a scene with Kaitlyn Dever and Diana Silvers, and they're in a bathroom together, and it's like a sexy scene. And I was so fiercely protective of them, them, of course, I shut down every monitor. And we had an amazing crew, but people don't realize that a closed set can be even more closed and can really be closed.

And in the defense of the crew, let's also be honest, all of it's white noise. Like, they gotta run cable, then they gotta throw the dolly down. It's not even like— they're not paying attention to any of the scenes, so they don't even know that they've wandered into one that's sensitive. Exactly.

Yeah, they're like, "I don't know what's going on." It depends on the comfort of the actor too, 'cause I did this movie last year with Cooper Hoffman, this Gregorocchi movie, that basically I play a dominatrix in that one. Called I Want Your Sex. And that movie, I would like get up in the middle of the scene basically naked and walk around the monitor, be like, hey guys, do you guys think— like, like, because I just felt comfortable with it, and I at that point had no nerves about it. So some actors are like, it's fine, I don't care. And they can feel like it's weirder if everyone gets weird, which is a thing for some people. So it's like based on what they want. But I do believe that the value of being an actor who has turned into a director is that you can empathize with every part of the experience, from when it's cold and they're the only freezing ones and everyone has thick winter coats on, to the sex scenes, to bringing them in too early, to not giving them enough time to prepare. So, I like to think that that's, like, the value of having been in their shoes, is that I can make, particularly sex scenes, a little less weird.

I have a quick question about that movie.

Well, it was funny. I had drinks with Katie recently, and she was talking about— I guess maybe we were talking about Fame Sick, Lena's book or something. And we were talking about how the movie things get very blown out of proportion. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She specifically referenced that movie. She was like, "It was so crazy because there was all this stuff around it and all this crazy," quote, "drama that was not real." And she, as the writer, was like, "I don't understand how to tell people that it's not real." And you were at the center of a lot of that. How did you handle— were you like, "I hate everyone"?

You come to realize that it is so far from reality 'Cause it's about clickbait, it's about selling tabloids. And, okay, a long, long time ago, I remember Jen Garner giving me advice when I was just a baby actor, and she said, "The thing about this business is that you get unwillingly sort of cast in the soap opera of the media." Once they cast you as your character, that is your character, and that is the narrative, and it really has nothing to do with you, but it exists, and they will keep it on the way that, you know, One Life to Live will stay on, "for 150 years." And that was such great advice because it allowed me to understand the separation between reality and what the media presents. And I think we all have lacked, like, critical thinking when observing tabloid stuff because you're like, "Ooh, snap!" It's also, by the way, the world is so overwhelmingly difficult and grim, and when you can sink into a juicy tabloid soap opera, it's a lot more fun than thinking about how difficult the world is. It's a relief, yeah. And so I was aware aware that we had been kind of turned into this tornado of drama that had so little to do with reality.

Yeah. And that nothing was gonna change that. Like, at one point, our crew wrote this letter, like, this beautiful letter, basically saying, like, signed by the entire crew, being like, none of this shit that you're saying in the press is real. Like, there was no fighting, there was no drama, and we all had this great time. And the crew did that on their own. Yeah. And, like, nobody cared. Exactly. Because it doesn't fit the narrative. It's not as fun. It's not as fun.

I know, but it drives me crazy. Oh, yes. It's maddening.

And I think that having a healthy understanding of what that is, and that it's a machine, and just understanding that is essential, I think, to surviving in this business. But for that movie, the heartbreak for me was that the crew had worked so hard on this movie, and we were so proud of it, and we, like, never got to talk about the movie. Yeah. 'Cause it was always this, like, other stuff that was just fictional drama that titillated people. And I mean, I get it. Like, shit's rough. It was COVID. Yeah, people wanted juicy stuff. They wanted something. It was hard. Life is hard, and tabloids feel like junk food, and you're like, don't tell me that it's not good for me. Like, let me eat it. I don't care. Don't tell me that the flavor isn't real flavor. Let me eat it.

It's so good. It's red dye.

It's red dye. Don't talk about the red dye. Just let me enjoy my—

I have a moment where I'm at an airport and I look at the COVID of a magazine and it says Ashton and Mila are getting divorced. And then I literally go, man, I was with them 3 weeks ago. They seemed really good. Could this be true? It's on the COVID of a magazine, right?

If it's on the COVID it must have some—

yeah, like, did I miss something, right? They're fine. They've always been fine. They're just not gonna get divorced. It's also—

it's impossible for them to keep up with the need for so many more stories. I mean, these Tabloid people have to come up with something every 5 minutes.

They're in the same content inferno that we all are. Yeah, you got to shovel it in there.

Exactly.

Okay, so the premise of The Invite, it just got tastier and tastier because thank God I didn't know anything about it, which is lovely. That's good. So at first I'm just like, okay, I'm meeting this couple. It's you and Seth. Yes.

Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen.

But it starts with a quote. What is it? It's an Oscar Wilde quote about being married.

Yeah, it's a bunch "Always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry." Which is very cynical. I put that quote in there because it, I think, represents the perspective we were talking about earlier of a director having a perspective that you feel. I like quotes that contextualize the kind of director's perspective. It's like the same thing when you read a book that starts with a quote. I'm like, "All right, I see your kind of—" I see your vibe. And the movie is both romantic and cynical. I would argue.

It's both romantic and cynical. And then also, because it's Oscar Wilde, it's like an astute observation that's also clever and funny. So you go like, "Oh, I can kind of say this rough thing, but I'm also putting it in a package that it's still fun." Yes. Yes. So we meet you guys, and although I'm not in one of those relationships, I'm so aware of how easily all relationships fall into this.

Yes. And that relationship being one that has, I would argue, slid into a kind of rhythm of resentment and a complete inability to hear or see one another. Yes! And you are just sort of coasting along on inertia and obligation.

And your partner now somehow is the cause of every malady you have. Oh, yes. You're not responsible anymore for any of your suffering. Completely. It's fully on your partner. Yep. That's where we start. And Seth's so fucking funny, and you're immediately great. You guys are so good together. Did you know him?

I knew him only a little bit. When he asked me to come and do the story, studio, and I came and did an episode, and we had so much fun together. He reminded me that I had actually screen-tested for Knocked Up. Oh! 170,000 years earlier. Great movie. And I was like, "Oh my God!" That was our first time acting together, and I had been a fan of his forever, but we'd never really gotten to play. And so the studio was immediately so fun, and we recognized something in each other right away. We were like, "Wait a minute. We have a real fun time finding a rhythm with each other." You're after a similar thing, maybe?

Maybe. Yeah.

There's a similar goal to the way we approach it. And he's a genius for so many reasons. He's so sensitive to the audience's experience. He can feel what the audience is feeling at any moment. So putting this movie together with him, he was so helpful in reminding us at all times as we come up we kind of workshop the script together, of how the audience would be feeling. And within a scene that you're improvising with him, he can feel where it needs to go. And it was so fun. But, like, the thing that I'm so proud of is that everyone knows Seth's a genius. Everyone knows he's one of the funniest people, smartest people, so stylish. This movie, I feel very proud of him in the way that he, I think, has shown an additional dimension, which I call sad dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he's so good at playing that.

Someone who's kind of hit midlife, and it didn't work out for him. He plays a guy who was in a band.

He had a little pop at the beginning of his life, and now he's living off his parents' legacy.

Like, a real fucking loser. He feels an incredible imposter syndrome within his relationship, within his life. He lives in the apartment that he grew up in, his parents' house. He's bottomed out, and he's reached this kind of, like, numb space that he has decided to settle into, and he may settle into and live in forever. His wife, who I play, has hit a similar place of dissatisfaction with life, but is way more anxious about it.

Well, I was gonna say, it is the yin and yang you often see play out, which is like the dude just bails out. Yes. Surrender. And then the woman gets so much anxiety and is trying to control every fucking thing. No one's prospering in this dynamic. And then we meet the neighbors, which are played by Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz. Cruz. I mean, Penélope Cruz.

She's so powerful and she's so beautiful. Oh, and so— why does she look like that? I know, it's unfair. Do you know she has a twin sister? No, no, identical or fraternal? Fraternal? I don't want to get that wrong, we'll check. But she just has this incredible warmth to her and this power, but I've never felt anything like it. I mean, I knew that I was in love with her, but it really was taken to, to new heights. All of us. And the chemistry that she's able to create with a houseplant, like, she can do anything. But she and Seth genuinely had amazing chemistry. Like, it was so fun. Everybody on set— because one cool thing about this movie is we shot it in order. The crew was more invested than they typically are because they were watching it play out. So they were like, "Uh-oh. Oh, what's gonna happen? Oh, no!" Like, they would watch the rehearsals and clap at the end of rehearsals like kids watching a theater production done in several different bits. Like, they were so invested. Everyone was feeling like, "Wait a minute, Seth and Penelope are in love." Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it was— And maybe they were.

They were in love, and you heard it here first, Penelope. It was so extraordinary to see the pairing of two very different actors just like boom! Boom! Clicking. And man, I mean, she just is unlike anyone else. The fact that she wanted to do the movie, I felt like I was being punked.

Yeah. Tell me, how'd you get her, and how intimidated were you to guide her?

First of all, on our Zoom that we had, she read the script written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormick, and she loved the script.

It's also based on a Spanish movie?

Yes. It was based on a Spanish movie called The People Upstairs, which in Spanish was called Sentimental, and that was based on a play. And this play turned into a movie in Spain. It was also made into a movie in South Korea, in Germany, in Italy, in France. Like, so you know, it's a tasty premise.

We got sexy neighbors, sexy neighbors coming over for dinner. What will happen?

How will you handle that if your marriage is falling apart? I love the idea that every culture has this basic question, and every movie is very different. And so Rashida Jenelle wrote the English version. And then we approached it in this really fun way, which I'd never done before. It was always my dream to shoot it in order, shoot it on film, workshop the script together as a unit, the writers and the cast, for 2 weeks before we shot the film, and then to continue workshopping it as we were filming. That sort of, like, high-intensity adrenaline that I love, the risk of it, involved was that we would, I suppose, go off the rails and lose the tether of the story. And yet, with these people, I knew we were safe because we had some of the best storytellers in the business putting their heads together. And I loved that we were taking big leaps, and we were making it more and more specific.

So, like, we would approach every scene and think, "How can we make that more personal and more specific and more unexpected?" I mean, the example I think about a lot is that big little moment Little Lies show, when we got into that twisted relationship with Alexander Skarsgård and Nicole Kidman, I've never been in that dynamic, but what I could sense was, oh, this is the real dynamic. There was a level of specificity in the way the pattern and the cycle went was like, oh, I get the trap of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can see how people are trapped in this. Yes. And it's just through how specific it really was.

I think that's when the actor actors are allowed to infuse real experience into the performance, into the characters. And that takes writers who are really open to a process that is not traditional. Because we were taking the script far from its original structure and making it more and more specific to these actors and their choices. We were thinking about it as we went. We were very careful to make sure that everything set up in an authentic way what was coming next, and that everything Everything that happened would only happen based on what had happened before it. So, like, we would finish a scene and then say, "Okay, well, then tomorrow's scene, we have to rewrite it because it would never happen that way anymore." Right. Because we've already crossed that boundary. We played that beat, so now we have to do something different. So, it was like constantly engaging in the process of workshopping the script as we went along. We didn't know how it ended a week before we shot it. Whoa! We had an idea of the intention of how we wanted it to end, we wanted to end, but the way we wanted to do it, Seth and I felt really strongly that we would actually not say very much in the end.

And anyone who's ever been through an experience that sort of creates an eruption, a conflict in a relationship, knows that sometimes the speechlessness is the most devastating feeling. Which we were so passionate about the idea, like, people who are very quick to be snarky, you know things have shifted when they actually can't say anything.

If you can be speechless, like, some shit's hitting the fan. Some shit has hit the fan.

Yeah.

When you're fighting, you're still engaged. Fighting is— you're fighting. You're at least fighting for it in some way. But when you're done talking, you've resigned. You're done now. Yeah, exactly.

This pause on the battlefield, and it's like, "Oh, no. This is different." So, we were able to do that because we had this group of unbelievable— I mean, I've never felt anything like this dynamic. And I can't believe that I got to act with them, which was not the original plan. I was not supposed to be in it. To be in the movie. I was putting all these ideas in front of the cast of, like, actresses who could play this part, and all incredible people. And they kept, like, not getting back, or, like, not answering, not coming up with a decision together. And I was like, "Well, guys, we gotta figure it out." And then they got together, and then they came to me, and they were like, "We want you to do it." The 3 other actors? And I was like, "Yeah, right!" Weirdly, I had the confidence to direct Edward Norton, but the idea of, like, acting with Edward and Penélope and that, I was like, "Are you kidding me? I can't. Not me." And Edward was the one who was like, "You obviously are telling this story for a reason." Yeah.

"And maybe you need to play this character." But who do you think you were in that quartet? Like, who am I in real life? Who are you really?

I am a combination of all four of them, for sure. I have the kind of resistance to social situations like Seth's character. The idea of a surprise dinner party in my house is my personal hell. Okay. But I have some of the people-pleasing anxiety. Of Angela. In my dreams, I want to be like Penelope's character. So I think I have the aspiration to have the kind of wisdom of Penelope's character. And then Edward's character has this incredible ability to have reinvented himself and this kind of almost infant-like openness, this sweet kind of openness to change, which is something that as I've gotten older, I've learned. I'm a combo of all four, I think.

No. There's a very fine line between mutiny and collaboration. Yeah. 'Cause Edward was telling me, how much of it you guys all did together, basically. And so I'm imagining myself directing that. Boy, I want just the right amount of them helping, and then it has to be a singular vision. I do believe a director has to bring to bed—

I think actors want that. They want to feel there's someone grinding.

So how are you navigating the line? Was like, okay, that's enough ideas for the day. I know what I want. You guys might not think this is the but I know that this is what I want.

They were all incredibly respectful of that exact thing, of the need for it to all—

You to be deferred to, ultimately.

Exactly. So they would give me many ideas and then allow me to kind of say, "That one feels right.

That, not so good." Is that hard for you to say, "That one's not the best"?

Hmm, it's interesting. I think initially I just wanted everyone to feel really comfortable giving me every idea. I was like, "Give me everything." opening it up. But then I knew by the time we shot, I was like, "At this point, I'm gonna start kind of pruning the multiple ideas and say, like, we're going there." But they also really respected that and would say, like, "What do you think? What do you want?" I mean, it was so surreal for me the first day Edward was like, "What do you think? How do you think I should approach this moment?" I was like, "Oh, my God." All I could see was, like, primal fear and be like, "You're so good." They're all such professionals that they just understood that I had a very specific vision very clear vision. It was not specific to how things would play out in scenes at all. I knew that was gonna be a full discovery. But I did have, like, the intentions always in my head. And so they would check in to be like, "Is that fitting the intention that you have for it? Does that feel right?" And that was so, so professional of them to always kind of know that.

They're all filmmakers too. I mean, they're all directors. So that helps. It was so far from a mutiny. It was a complete collaboration. I've never felt anything like it. It was like we were all all in rhythm with each other. I hope Edward tells you the story, but he'll probably be overly humble about it, so I actually wanna tell it. Was there's a scene where his character tells a story. Oh, his backstory.

His backstory. It's so good.

And he came up with that entirely on his own, and I didn't hear that until we were rolling cameras because there was nothing there before, and we needed a ramp, an emotional ramp to take us from one place to another in the movie and to shift the weather in the room. Edward said, "I have an idea. I wanna tell a story." And he said, "Do you wanna know what it is?" I said, "Don't tell me because I want to hear it on camera," which he couldn't believe, especially 'cause we were rolling film, didn't have a lot of money. And I said, "Just tell me, like, roughly how long so I know what kind of mag I need on the cameras." He was like, "Do you think maybe you could have 2 cameras that day, put them on you in sets so we can film your real reactions?" And I had no idea where he was gonna go with it. And he started telling the story that was so different than anything I could have imagined. And I just burst out crying. Yeah. He brought this— He was telling this story. It was so powerful, and he's so good.

He's so convincing. You're like, "This is a real story? This happened to you? I believe it." And Seth is having his completely different reaction, which is perfect for his character. It was such a gift, and now that's one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

Oh, it's incredible.

And everyone was doing that.

Esther Perel's very present in this movie. Esther was our consultant on the film. Okay. I mean, there's even direct quotes that Penelope's saying.

Oh, yes. Esther's whole perspective.

Perspective is, like, her. Yes. Penelope basically plays Esther.

Yeah. Yeah. Had they had a friendship prior to this?

No, I introduced them.

Oh, they feel perfectly matched to one another.

Oh, my gosh. I know. That's the podcast that I need. I need them to link up forever and ever. Penelope had heard of Esther, but she had never met her. And then I introduced them on Zoom, and it was fireworks. And Penelope and Esther then had long conversations about the character. And every time they had a conversation, Penelope would be like, Penélope's character would get more specific, and I could feel her, like, slowly morphing. And 'cause Penélope in the movie is not at all Penélope in real life. She is just such a good actress that you'd believe that's exactly her. She is the sweetest, most kind of adorable, giggly, hilarious— But she's not a stare, and that is a huge testament to her talent. And those direct quotes you're talking about, really, they became like goalposts in the film that we were kind of working towards. Working around these philosophies that we cared so deeply about that we wanted to be able to hit. So it was like making sure we could justify getting to that place in the conversation. So the whole idea of, yeah, you can have a new relationship with the same person.

When I first heard her say that in a TED Talk, whatever it was, almost 20 years ago, that blew my mind. I had never even considered that concept.

It's so beautiful. It is. Yeah. This relationship is over. Have another one, or you may go your own separate way. Right. But a new one or no one is what's next.

And allowing for that, that maybe that's something that can allow people to change within a relationship and let go of resentment for maybe things that have happened or the person you just don't want to be anymore. And that you're allowed to reintroduce yourself to each other and decide, are you in love with who your person is today? Exactly. Would you like to meet them where they are now and have a relationship relationship with them now.

Yeah, it's so hard for people.

Yes, of course it's hard.

It's hard because I think it takes a lot of courage to get rid of that resentment that is in some ways convenient because it takes away the agency to have responsibility in your own life. It's much easier to be like, ugh, this old ball and chain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone's in a relationship that the only flaw is the other person.

Exactly.

We were just talking about this last night. So many people have this notion that there are not two people doing the exact same thing.

I mean, Esther talks about people come to couples therapy like they're doing drop-off. Yeah, yeah, fix this person, please. Thank you. And she's like, uh-uh, this is a 50/50 thing. This is a system. Yeah.

That you guys are both in. Yes. And you're both playing roles in this system.

I mean, Mating in Captivity, that book, when Esther released it 20 years ago, now it's a 20-year anniversary and she's reissued it with a new foreword. And it's fascinating. And I think it's required reading for anybody in relationships.

Or just listen to her podcast too, which is so mind-blowing, the way she can just drop in to these most horrific scenarios that couples deal with and like navigate it perfectly.

Did you hear the one she did about the guy who's in love with his AI?

Oh yeah, so I started listening to that one. It was recommended to me, and I was having a hard time understanding the guy. A rough connection anyways.

But yeah, it's wild, and it's, it's so crazy that Spike Jonah Hill made Her, whatever it was, 15 years ago.

Which you were in.

I play the nightmare date with a human that really makes him think it'd be better to be with an AI.

Yeah, it might just be easier. You push him over the edge.

Yeah, he's like, "Nah, I choose my phone." But I think that the way Esther takes that relationship apart— And by the end of the podcast episode, you actually think you're listening to a couple on a couch because she keeps inviting the AI to share. Stop!

She's like, "Ask me." She's so fucking open-minded the way she approaches this whole thing. Yes, that's the thing.

It's open-minded.

You know, like, my instinct is to be like, dude, as convenient as this is, you gotta have a human partner.

But she's curious about, is he getting what he needs? But when I asked her about it, she said people can live without sex, they can't live without touch. And that that guy, when she asked him, what do you miss about having Astrid be human? And he said, I just want to, like, cuddle on the couch and watch Netflix. Yeah, I mean, this is so relatable.

So relatable.

Yeah. And that's the thing, and the universal experience of, like, how How do we survive in relationships? That's what's been so interesting about taking this movie out now to audiences is people connect with it that I didn't expect to connect with it. Like young people. We're all middle-aged people.

Yeah, we've been through it.

There's like 17-year-olds watching the movie and they're like, "Oh, that's me.

That is me." And I'm like, "What?" Yeah.

I was talking to these college kids and they were like, "Yeah, I felt really relevant." I'm like, "Really?

That's fascinating." Now, were you nervous at all that this is gonna open up so many questions about your stance on marriage? Are you open to that?

I'm not nervous at all. I'm interested in all those questions. And what was really fun is that everyone making the movie has completely different kind of relationship histories. And Seth and I, as the main couple in the film, you know, Seth has been with Lauren for 20 years. They are doing it their own way, in a way that I just so respect. They respect each other as individuals. They admire the hell out of each other. They are best friends, but they still have this really sexy dynamic. They're nailing it. It was really interesting to put him in a relationship that only made him more clear on why he was so in love with his wife and why he was like, "Oh my God, people live like this?" Bickering and not having sex, which he couldn't believe that people don't have sex. So cute. He was like, "What do you mean? This is science fiction." I think all of us were pouring our own experiences into the pot in a way that was like therapy.

Yeah. I think the most romantic movie I've ever seen, or I cried the hardest of, and it was because I had broken up with the girl I was with for 9 years. Years. And then I saw the movie. But Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it's really just the one exchange where they're deciding whether or not they're gonna be together again. She's like, I'm gonna do this and you're gonna get annoyed, and then I'm gonna do this and you're gonna do this. And he goes, okay. And I'm like, oh, fuck, I could have just said okay. I could have, like, loved that and honored and appreciated that. I went into this whole zone where it's like, oh yeah, I met Brie when I was broke and we were in the tent with the light. Like, we had that relationship.

Now I have money and I'm famous.

Like, like, will I ever have anything that's that genuine? So in a weird way, that movie made me deeply sad. Oh, devastating. I could relate to that. Like, yeah, okay, I'll take all that, you know? Right, right. So did yours give you any sadness at the end? Because your couple— well, we can't give away the end, but you know, there's hope in your story.

Well, it's actually interesting you see it that way because it's sort of ambiguous by design. Yeah. And, and the audiences we've taken it to so far, I do a little poll at the end in the Q&A, and it's been 50 50/50 every time.

I had an argument with someone about the end. I was like, no, I disagree with you that it's hopeful.

Yeah. Yes.

And Seth and I disagreed when we were filming it. He was like, ride or die, felt like these people are together forever. He was so sure of it. But isn't this—

it's so obviously— well, it's also reflective of all of us in the room. Totally. I believe— fuck, I've been doing this for 19 years. There have been periods where it's like I wouldn't have bet on us. And then here we are.

But you've also had breakups that you're like, "Yeah, that ran its course." That should have been the end.

Exactly.

That was the end.

And that, for me, is how I was like, "That's done." Often when we see breakups in movies, it's devastating in a way that makes us afraid in life of ever seeing an ending as maybe a healthy result. And we don't have a lot of examples lot of movies about a divorce that should happen. I remember being amazed that Mrs. Doubtfire was made in the '90s, and it ends with them not getting back together. Yeah, you think the whole movie, like, okay, it's Hollywood, it's gonna work, and the ending is just like, no, but they actually find a way to live separately really happily. And I think that was very bold for that time, but it's still something people are uncomfortable with, particularly when there's kids involved. There's still this idea that like, no, no, no, you make it work no matter what. Yeah. And 50% of marriages end. So clearly there's a lot of people coming to a different conclusion, but can we kind of change the conversation around it? But what's interesting is that now I've watched the movie so many times that I, at the end, sometimes I start to feel like maybe I have hope.

I'm like, oh, am I changing my opinion? Yeah. Based on how I feel today. But offering the opportunity to end a relationship allows for you to make the choice to be in the relationship. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that is very Esther. This is a choice. And if people take away the obligation to be there and the resentment and the paperwork, and it's like, get rid of all that. That's all easily undone. You can get rid of that. You're allowed to leave. So if you're here, make the choice to be here and actually be here. Or don't. And maybe that's okay.

That's also okay.

But also, we have a good time pressure testing this relationship they're observing from upstairs. Yes. That seems like a blast.

Seems perfect. Seems great.

But then, which I like, is you're truthful enough to go like, oh yeah, and then that happened. Has problems. All of this shit has problems.

Yeah, conflict isn't the problem, it's the inability to be honest about it and resolve it. So we wanted to show an example of like rupture and repair. Yeah, because we're not saying like you're only happy if you never fight. It's how you fight, how you recover from the fight. And fighting's actually really healthy if it's honest and you're not letting this resentment build up over time and secrets and all those things that come if you don't communicate.

There's also this delightful thing, and I think a lot of people thought this about Bri and I By the way, because we were in an open relationship all 9 years. And I also think there's this thing when you meet the couple that seems to be totally fine with everything, they're so intelligent, they have thought through everything, and they're unaffected by all this. When you get to see those people affected, yes, it's really rewarding. It kind of confirms this hunch we have that no, no one can transcend those feelings. Now I'm on the other side of that debate, right? Which is like, no, we really did, and it was really fine. And I know everyone thought thought we were full of shit.

Well, it's also very threatening to people to present the idea that it's possible that you could just love each other.

Yeah, they don't even want to let that into the room. Well, because they know they've experienced jealousy before, and it's just such a dark feeling.

The best thing I ever heard about jealousy is that if you take— I'm ruining a Buddhist adage— but it's that if you take the ego out of jealousy, you're left with admiration. I think about it all the time. The other one is if you You take the ego out of anger, you're left with determination. So it's not about, like, eliminating the feeling. It's transforming it by removing the ego from it. The ego. I like that. Which is so hard to do. But it's like, if you're jealous of somebody, it's usually because you actually admire them. You recognize. You recognize something.

There's something about them.

They have an offering people would like.

Also, another thing that's really from Meeting in Captivity, from Esther's book, is the recognition of the third. She calls it the shadow of the third, which is that when you're in a relationship with someone, it's important to recognize the opportunity they have to be with someone else. And that's not a bad thing. It actually keeps the erotic charge alive. If you remove that, then you lose this kind of separateness that is important. You've traded safety—

what you think is safety— for death.

Exactly. The idea of, like, acknowledging maybe if jealousy is just a use beautiful way to be like, you are desirable. Yeah. And you desire others, and that's actually a charge I don't want you to lose. I don't want you to not have that. Polyamory is a whole other step in that direction. I'm critical.

I'm just like, I want to see this work out, right? I know how hard one relationship is. I don't know how you— that's the thing.

Multiple people, for me, it sounds exhausting.

Yeah. Everything was like, if I never know about something, I don't care. That's amazing.

And worked great for us. Until it didn't. I always have to say that.

But 9 years is not long. I don't think that is the reason I feel guilt-free framing it that way is that just wasn't—

it wasn't the thing that ended it.

It wasn't the thing that ended us.

Yeah. Which people would probably assume. Yeah. Think of how many couples were so happy when you guys broke up.

Oh, sure. I know. Exactly. They're like, yes, I knew it. See? Yeah.

We talk about also the concept of compersion in the movie, which is also an asterisk.

What's compersion?

Compersion is experiencing joy within your partner's joy. And we're using it specifically in terms of, like, sexuality. So they say they transferred jealousy into compersion, the idea of if you are being sexually pleased, then I'm experiencing it because you are. Seth and my characters, we were like, "What on earth? We can't imagine." But I think that this whole point of this is we stop recognizing our partners as whole people, and we stop recognizing ourselves as whole people. And I want people to leave the movie feeling like, am I blaming my partner for all my unhappiness? Am I fully realized, whole person? Have I really thought about myself in that way? Not just someone who completes someone else or someone who needs to be completed. Do I recognize my person as a separate person? And I think that would be a healthy thing to put out there.

A good line of thinking. That's useful.

I feel like with comedy, my favorite kind of laugh is the laugh of someone recognizing themselves and the sense of like, oh my God, I thought I was the only one. And you can hear it in the theater when they're like, ah! And it's like, that's the best because it takes the shame out of an experience, and you get the sense that people are less alone, and they're just like, "We're getting to laugh at how ridiculous we all are." And the movie is really just having fun with that. It's like, "Look, we're all just awkward humans attempting to relate to each other." Coexist. It's impossible.

Olivia, I have had you for so long.

Wait, really? I can't believe this is your second— This is your second of the day.

That's okay.

Thank you so much. Oh, such a joy.

I think you're so good. I'm so excited to watch all the movies you'll make. Thanks. Yeah, I'm really a huge fan. I'm so grateful.

And I feel like when I heard that you guys liked it, it was very exciting because I think there's this feeling of like very, very funny, talented people can be very critical of comedies. Sure. So it meant a lot to me when I heard you liked it.

It's so good. It comes out June 26th. June 26th in New York and LA.

626262. Kind of cool, right? 626262. I wish that was like a hidden clue. Like, I wish it was like a Taylor Swift thing where like—

You could unlock 4 crystals or something.

—the coordinates will lead you to a show. No, it's New York and LA, June 26th, and then it goes wider from there. So it's fully wide July 10th.

Okay, July 10th. Great. Get your Fourth of July blackouts done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when you're just thinking like, I got to tighten it up this summer, maybe I'll go to a movie.

Movie instead of Blacking Out Tonight? It's a great date night movie, and I think it's a great double date movie. And my fantasy is that people will swing after yourself, but people will think like, who's the other fun couple you know to go see it with and then have dinner and talk and argue?

It'll spark so much conversation. Oh yeah, it really will.

It's great. I think that's assured. Olivia, this has been a blast. I'm so grateful you said yes. Thank you. The next movie you direct, we'll do it again.

Sweet deal. Thank you.

Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

Oh, thank you, Rob. Moved my coffee over. Oh, he's a very, very, very nice— We did something earlier. We tested a theory.

Oh yeah, we were between, we were between recordings And, um, I hate to admit to this, but I was very, very tired. And then I just, soon as the episode was over, I just laid down on the carpet face down in the studio. And then I said, if I were on railroad tracks and I was unconscious, non-responsive, could you move me off the railroad tracks? Yeah. And I said, of course. Yeah. You were like, no problem. And then I said, okay, give it a shot. I want to tread lightly here. I want to be honest, but I also don't want to hurt your feelings. Go ahead. I was like, is she even trying to lift me up? Ah, fuck. I was— I knew I wasn't going anywhere. Like, from when you first gave it your first thrust, you're— you get— you went for it and I didn't move at all and I didn't come off the ground at all.

Even— it was weird.

I was like, oh, she's not even gonna be able to get me an inch off these tracks. Like, you know, I gave up immediately.

It was really pretty bad.

It was pretty bad.

Really, like, could not get you to at all.

And I wasn't doing anything sneaky, I was just laying there.

I know, and then so heavy.

Yes. And then we went up to see Lincoln in the gym. Yeah. And, um, you said— but you kept saying, which I think is hilarious, is you're like, it's fine though, because you get super strength.

I do. I'm like, when we're really in this position, I'm gonna get super strength.

I know, you're certain of it. And I'm nervous. A lot of people think they hear about the one story from the '50s where a mom lifted a car off a baby or whatever.

So often the moms always can lift the car off the kids.

But yeah, you're so confident. You're not even worried. I'm not. Which is— that scares me. Well, I mean, Lincoln did better.

She— no, but I wanted— I also want to say something. Okay. I was like, well, if we're really doing this like for real role play, I can't do for real what I would do because I would just be yanking your arm like out of its socket. And I knew I couldn't, so I couldn't give it my full— I also didn't scrape up your whole face.

I was on carpet, but okay.

Yeah, but ow, rug burn. Okay. Um, and I know that, and I know you'd be upset if I scraped—

oh my God, you don't know anything. I wouldn't be upset. I wouldn't even acknowledge my face was scraped. I almost— I couldn't admit I was tired. What are you talking about? I'm not— well, I wouldn't have been like, ow, Monica. Would you— you think you'd ever hear me do that?

Of course. I mean, it happened 5 minutes later. We were— oh shit, it did.

You make Great point, but that's my child.

Either it hurt you, so then we asked her to do it. She really got in the most. She didn't do what I did, which was half strength.

She thought about it a little. Maybe it's from her 18 months of jiu-jitsu training. Yeah, but she immediately thought to just grab one arm and get me rolling.

Like, don't, don't try to lift me, but I did say before we went up there, I said it was hard because you were on your stomach and I would want you on your back, but you got to get me on my back.

And then, um, yeah, Lincoln was so keen to impress you that she was running into me, like, not looking where her feet were going, and she got, um, my side of my, uh, side skin, which is very tender, in between the rubber mat and her fucking tennis shoe sole. Yeah. And it felt like she ripped all the skin off my sides. And I did say ow the second time because I was like—

you said ow the first time and you said ow, that's the second. You did have—

I was like, stop that, that's 2 for 2.

Yeah, and I was like, this is why I only went half strength.

I lost that one, but it did really did hurt.

I know, I'm sure it did. But listen, if you're on the railroad tracks, um, I'm gonna— you won't feel it because you'll be non-responsive, as you said, but you're gonna be very injured after that.

What have you said? You're gonna be very happy with where you wake up. You're not gonna be on the tracks. After Monica tried for a few times. I was like, that's it, you're good. I'm in 3 pieces. Like, well, you know what, I was also making the stakes hikes.

I was going— I know, that was really scary. I hated that. You know what though, you know, I would die too because I wouldn't give up.

You'd have to give up. No, I wouldn't.

I would just keep— stay there. I wouldn't know. My superhuman strength would happen at the last minute. In the movies, it always happens at the last minute. It does. Yeah. So I would be like, it's okay, it's gonna happen at last minute, and then we'd both get dead.

This does remind me of— and I know you've heard it— but, um, Aaron and I's death pact, which is if I die first, he's obligated as the funeral— the funeral will be held at a railroad crossing.

Oh yeah.

And he's going to put me in a full Superman outfit, right? And then put me in a chair and tie me with rope to the chair. And then when the train's coming, you're, you're like, it's no problem, it's Superman, he'll, he'll get out of those ropes, but, but, and then I just get smashed. I mean, it would be such a good joke.

No, it's a bad— it's so funny. In this case, you've already been hit by— yeah, I think you need a plan B in case you, you do die by railroad track.

Oh, I would then need a different— yeah, we have to go to— we have backup plans for that, actually. You know, there's, there's 3 different scenarios.

Oh my God, I hate this.

You know, the, the dream is we die at the same time. Oh, I don't like And then our— in our funeral, we have opposing cannons that are 100 yards apart. Yeah. Again, we're in superhero outfits. Yeah. And they explode the cannons and we're flying through the air. You're like, it's a bird, it's a bird. Look at— we would look like superheroes in our capes and everything flying. But then we would collide midair. Yeah. And then we would just fall like wet sacks of cement. Mm-hmm. So what a joke. That would be so funny. So funny. Yeah. Really funny stuff.

Oh my God. So funny. Yeah.

The whole family would be laughing, I think.

They'd be laughing. Trying so hard.

So you fly across— your dead body fly across the air and collide into the air and smack into Aaron.

Yeah, hilarious. Tumble to the ground. Hilarious. And then everyone just turns and gets back in their car and leaves. That's in a field.

But then, oh, somebody has to like clean that up.

No, leave it out for the scavengers, for the jackals and the coyotes. Just had a brainstorm. Okay, you get— you can on your license elect to donate your body to science and to organ donation. Would you donate your corpse to get eaten by a polar bear?

Well, have they taken my organs out and given them to people?

Sure. Then yeah. Yeah, wouldn't that be great?

Well, I don't know if it'd be great, but I just—

yeah, like, think I'll stoke the polar bear. It's like one at the zoo, and then they just throw this— they throw your corpse in there. Oh, that's such a sweet gift to that polar bear.

I mean, yeah, I don't really care about the vessel. Afterwards. But I do want to give my organs to people.

This is a fun topic because we just watched that crazy documentary about the woman—

I haven't seen it yet—

who's faking a pregnancy. Munchausen.

I know. Do we want to spoil it for people?

No, just— I guess this is inadvertently— anyways, at the end of the thing, which we watched with the family, the kids were asking me about, like, how do they kill people when you get sentenced to death. And, um, I was like, well, you've got electric chair, I think is still functional maybe in a state or two, lethal injection most common, and then firing squad still.

This comes up in an episode too soon.

Oh, right. I probably made the same point in that episode, which is— that's my pick by far.

I think that's crazy. Well, I'll tell you why.

Um, the bullet's moving faster than the speed speed of sound. Did you know that's actually the bang you're hearing in a gun? You're hearing some bang from the gunpowder, but the big bang is when it breaks the sound barrier. Oh, isn't that cool?

That is cool.

So you're standing there, the bullet's traveling faster than the speed of sound. You would never even hear the gun go off. You'd be standing there like thinking like, oh, this sucks, this is how I'm gonna go. And then that's that. There's— you're not watching someone hit a syringe to initiate the lethal injection. You're not watching a guy go over to that fucking archaic switch on the wall for the electric chair.

I just hate it all. I hate it. Yeah, I hate it.

It was fun for me because the kids are now— I mean, you, you'll remember, right? High school is probably the first place they have you debate the death penalty, as, as I recall.

Yeah, I don't remember the first—

it's a very like, it's a perfect philosophical debate to launch onto young minds. Yeah. And I had a very specific opinion in high school too that I don't now have too. Oh, Interesting. So were you pro-death penalty? Yeah. So what changed your mind?

I just learned about the world. I mean, one is I've learned, well, too many people could be innocent. Uh-huh. And I'm too afraid of that. Yeah. I recognize that there is less choice in the matter than I used to think. Like, I used to just think like everyone was making these bad decisions and bad—

everyone had the same childhood as you did and then they made the decision with your brain.

Exactly. Yeah. It's like, oh no, like all of this is a crapshoot and sometimes things happen. Yeah. And yeah, if I do it, I've made a choice. Right, right, right, right, right. And a bad one. And maybe I should be killed for that. Yeah. But I can't, I can't.

People don't have that same faculty. Yeah. So I'm just against it. Mine was fiscal. So my whole point in, when I was a senior, I remember debating people all often about it was, okay, we're spending $30,000 a year to keep someone incarcerated. So this man has just butchered this family, and we're gonna go spend $30,000 a year to keep this piece of shit alive when we could be giving that $30,000 to, like, the fucking inner city kid who's got no leg up. I was just like, why? Why? Of our limited resources, why on earth do we honor this fucking person. But what changed my mind is I learned that almost all death row inmates will exhaust all of the legal moves they can make. So they're entitled to X amount of appeals. They can do clemency declarations, all this stuff. All told, I forget the number exactly, but all told, the average legal expense incurred from someone on death row by the time they put them to death is like over $1 million. And the second I heard that, I was like, okay, well then my normal objection doesn't even make sense. That's even more money we're spending on the monster who murdered everyone.

And I did always object to the notion of killing someone to show that killing's wrong. It just always felt like a flawed premise. Yeah, it just felt like, how can that be a premise? Yeah, but if I were right, like if you got sentenced to death, they knew it was person. Yeah. And they killed them the next day. I think I would be in favor of not spending $450,000 on a person who butchered someone's family over the other people that could benefit from it.

It's hard. It is. I, I just—

also, there's some cases where— I forget what case we were just watching— and they weren't getting the death penalty And I was like, what's weird is this person is in so much discomfort with their psychosis and their mental health issues, it feels almost more torturous to keep this person alive for another 35 years to suffer in prison.

I used to also say that. I used to say, like, I think it's worse for them to be in prison. Like, if you really want punishment, death isn't really a punishment for them. If you want them to suffer. Yeah. So I used to also say that. I now no longer really feel like that. Like, I don't want them to suffer. Yeah, exactly. I don't really want anyone to suffer on this earth.

Yeah. I don't want to hurt the people that hurt people. Yeah. I just want to keep them away from everyone. Everyone.

Yeah. Which I guess some people would say then, yeah, remove the— I just, I can't, like, I can't get on board with— it's messy.

The bottom line is it's so fucking messy because I'm of the same opinion as you are. And then I just— we just interviewed someone who it's like the fucking person was out for 5 days on parole after raping a bunch of other people and fucking breaks into— it's like, I know, then there's that. So it's like, ah, it's so inconvenient.

I know it is.

And that's why the people who want them thrown away forever, they have, you know, everyone's got a— we've got a bunch of innocent people that didn't belong there, or their circumstances were going to land them there no matter what. So we have a healthy dose of people we can point to for that. And then the people on the other side, they're going to have a really healthy dose of the people that were let out and then immediately killed more people.

I know. It's just, unfortunately, you have to choose the lesser of what do you want this country to be against people who are innocent in jail or people who are guilty out, and like killing innocent people sometimes.

Sometimes, which is— it's just, I think that's more— to me, the solution is more about that, each side admitting that, than one side or the other getting their way. It's just like, let's, let's just all acknowledge this is fucking really messy, and it's not great when the person could have been better doesn't get to be. You can see that if you're on the throw away the key side of the argument. Even they would be able to acknowledge for the person who got out and turned their life around and never hurt anyone again, it would be a shame to keep that person. Everyone could admit what's going on on both sides and start with the notion, like, whatever solution we agree upon, it's going to be very far far from perfect, and we have to accept that to some degree.

Yes, I think we do. But you know, I am not like— I'm a, I'm a pretty fearful person, and I also think that's where people who— well, there's two— there's a lot of variables, but I think fearful people are often for it. Uh-huh.

Yeah, because it's like, let's get rid of people, get rid of them, flush them down the toilet.

Doesn't matter. The tiny chance that they could come out and do something like, no, not worth it. Um, so I think that's also part of why I used to want it, of just like, no, that's like a bad guy, they got— why wouldn't you just kill them? Yeah, let's just get rid of that. Um, and now I'm like, I don't know, maybe I'm just less scared. I'm not scared at all anymore.

Oh wow, congratulations, that was quick. It was really quick. I didn't even see all the baby steps. It's just You just like went from fearful to not fearful at all. No, I just— You should write a book on how to overcome fear. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

I have overcome a lot of fear, I think.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not cured. Yeah. But I think a healthy dose of fear is okay.

But— I think whatever you're doing is great for you. I think it's great.

But anywho, I just don't— well, what did the kids say? Did you ask them about this?

Well, that's why it became a conversation, because I was interested and fascinated with the notion that Lincoln was very much like, yeah, that person should probably get— He did. Yeah. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Tell me more about that. And then I got to say my whole journey with my opinion on it. But I left it thinking, like, I wonder if that's just a more natural conclusion for kids or when you're young.

Exactly. But again, because life is a little more black and white when you're young. Yeah.

They're good and bad.

And you can't have the nuance and the exposure to other people's experiences and how people got where they got and all their time.

Skinny and scared. Uh, of course.

Yeah, it's scary. But my, my parents watched it. I haven't watched it yet, but they— we were chatting on the phone last week and they're like, have you seen this thing? You shouldn't watch it. This is what happens. I was like, oh my God, okay, you shouldn't watch it.

This is what it—

you know, she was like, she's being sentenced to death. And I was like, oof. Like, I— that was my reaction. I was like, oh. And she said, as she good. And I was like, look, I, I get it.

I get it. It's, it's about as—

it's as dark as you can get. Yeah, it is.

I mean, it's Dear Zachary, still much worse, but, uh, it's on the— it's on the far end of the spectrum. Should the Mom Did It— the woman had like killed her husband, and, uh, then the friend came to make like a video to pass on to their child. And while he's making this like video trying to tell— he's a documentarian, his friend. Yeah. And he's trying to build this whole story of his life so that the kid will know who his dad is, he starts kind of realizing that the wife killed him, right? And then this custody battle ensues, and then the end, she kills the kid herself. And yeah, it's just— it's, it's so brutal. And I— and it's like, yeah, it's so—

also, the guy who, um, put his kids in the water tower, killed them and put them in the water tower. Do you know that story? Oh my God, just like, what is happening out there? It is, it's so— it's horrific. Anyway, um, so they told me, and then she was, you know, happy that she was— that was her sentence. Yeah. And I was like, um, and you know what, yeah, different opinions. And I respect. I get it.

But then, and I always want to say this because I think a common response is like, what if you're— let me be clear, someone fucks with my family, I want them dead. I'm not claiming that I wouldn't personally want them and be happy if they were killed. Anyone who hurt my family. I agree. But I think societally we can do better than what we individually would want.

I also am for, like, obviously I'm I'm not like, this woman should never get out of prison. I'm like, she should never have the ability to get out. Like, it's not— I, I don't— but I don't feel unsafe knowing she's in there for life. Like, I'm not—

right, you know, she weirdly was the person that I was like, is it more torturous? Yeah, like, this person is in such a fucking totally different reality than everyone else that I just don't— I don't know. I don't know how this person recovers in any way. I mean, you also have to look at the—

like, that woman has children, right?

Yeah, that she didn't raise or have anything to do with.

Sure, but I just mean that person has children, and that regardless of how fucking horrific their parent is, you are passing down trauma by murdering them. And they're already so fucked up, I'm sure.

Already the kids in town whose mom did this.

Exactly. They already have like the biggest up and down.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you add this, it's just like, it's just— they're— it's not just the one person. Like, there are repercussions. And I I just wish we could just like get ahead of all of this mental illness.

Yes, that would be great. But back to— I don't know, I don't really know how to say it. I know what I feel about it, and I know I can feel it very strongly that part of our problem is people have not admitted what's possible to themselves. They want perfection. They want a policy. They want a law. They want some government action that's just going be perfect, that their people won't get accidentally shot and people won't, you know. And I think the more you have that view of the world, the less you can compromise or be flexible, because you believe in a fairy tale. You believe there's a version that's going to be— there's not going to be a version where we police citizens, which has to be done, that shit's not going to go sideways. It's just, that's the reality of it. So let's work backwards on our solution with us all admitting this first.

It can still be worked and it should to minimize, of course, the wreckage and the accidents and the things like that. And there are things I think when people are— well, people are upset for a million reasons, but when people are upset, it's because they feel there isn't enough being done prevention-wise for things. Yes, things go wrong. And things will always. Yeah. But when it's like repeated or it's the same thing happening over and over again, or there's ish, you know.

Yeah. When it is the results of a system that's flawed and it's producing those results, then yeah, you got to tinker with the system. Yeah. But I'm saying even when we— when AI designs the system right where it is the most efficient, best— in that event, you know, these Waymos are still going to crash. Yeah, right. They are. There's like no— there's no world in which vehicles aren't going to crash even when robots are driving them. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say other than I just think it creates a situation where you could never meet in the middle because you think something's possible that's not possible on both sides. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'll do some facts. I want to fact about it.

Yeah, let's do some facts. Sorry, Olivia, that this was— that was a real death head, real downer, huh?

I mean, look, this—

we just— we interviewed someone yesterday with a fucking crazy— oh yeah, story. I really hope everyone listens to that one. It is so inspiring, and it is so— I guess that it's like, how can you hear that story? I mean, he wasn't on death throw, but like, he could, he could have been, he could have been. And how can you hear that and also hear this person like speaking, being brilliant, and think like that's someone to throw away? Like, it's very—

it's a great counterfactual to all the— it's—

yeah, there were a few in there. There were the— he— I mean, we— I guess we'll save it for— oh, will it come out? We're not doing a fact check? Probably. Damn. Well, we should say that. So we're doing a little fun thing this summer. Yes, yes, yes. We are going to— we asked you guys what your— some of your favorite old fact checks were.

Some classics, some blasts from the past, perhaps some origins of lexicon. Exactly.

Who knows how you catch up at this, baby. Yeah. Um, so, so we're gonna rerun some old fact fact checks this summer. Yeah.

Um, and curated by the Armchair Reader's favorite fact checks. Yeah, that'll be fun. Yeah.

Um, so sorry you won't get facts for the next little bit. Yeah. And that's when we get back though, we'll have so many stories for you. Too many stories. Way too many stories. All right, Olivia, origin of Cockburn last name. Uh-huh. The last name has Scottish origin, but it pulls from the British word cock, meaning C-O-C-C, meaning wild bird, and berna, meaning brook or stream. Oh, wild bird on a wild stream.

Peaceful.

Where did Olivia's mom, Leslie Cockburn, sneak a camera under her clothes? What other high-profile interviews has she done? She smuggled contraband video cassettes after Afghanistan passed the Taliban by strapping it under national traditional Afghan Robs in '96. The video cassettes contain interviews and footage of the regime that were strictly forbidden by the government and the UN. Wow. Other notable research projects or interviews include Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein's son, and deep investigative work on Escobar.

Whoa. Oh, I could have a dinner with her.

Definitely. Um, what number female student at Yale was her mom? She was in the first class that included women at Yale. She was one one of the first 570 female graduates of the class of 1974. What season did Olivia join The OC? 2. How many years did she do on House?

5. Wow. 5 years speaking medical jargon. Woo! That'll burn you up. Yeah.

Does Penélope Cruz have an identical twin? Online it says that she has a younger sister of 3 years who looks very similar. They're often mistaken for twins but are not. Who is this? Penelope Cruz.

Oh, but maybe they fooled Olivia.

Yeah, that would be weird. If—

is she younger? It says she does not have it.

Oh my God, her name is Monica. Oh wow, Monica Cruz. Wow, then Olivia got duped. We should tell her. They do look extremely alike, but she does look older.

She looks different and old. I don't know, older or younger, but but I do know different. But I mean, look, I would not think they were twins.

I will say their features do look very— look at if you— I— if you isolate—

yeah, the tip of their nose and stuff. Yeah, and their mouth and their eyes, which is funny because they do objectively have the same features. And yet— oh wait, wait, wait, Rob, that's a different submission. Are you sure that's not—

yeah, those are different on the right. No, that's not her, but they could definitely be twins. Here they are again. Okay, I mean, that's them younger.

Yeah, go back to the first one, Rob. I, I— they're far more—

this one's from now, clearly, right?

But what I was going to say, Monica, is despite the fact that they do have very similar features, they have come together in a completely different way.

Yeah, but that's how twins do it, okay? To differentiate. Like, they've done their hair differently, and it's a different— one of them's dyed their middle part and different color hair.

I have a special feeling about Penelope that I've had for 30 years.

Yeah, join the rest of the world. We all do. She's— she's— imagine being her twin.

Ah, that would suck. I would rather imagine being Javier Bardem than her twin, who's also a— I don't know.

Yeah, I want to be—

I want to be her. That's the three-way of all three-ways right there. That's the dream. Dream three-way.

Ding ding ding, this is so on point. She is the most beautiful person alive. Oh, she's— I mean, it is something else.

Crazy. If I got to be her, all I would do is look in the mirror. Like, if I got to spend a week in her body, I would be in front of the mirror the entire time.

Temporarily?

Yeah, one week in Penelope Cruz. What would I do?

Oh, we've— Jess and I played this game a lot. Like, if we could switch bodies, what will we do? And He, and you know, he's pretty nasty. So he has some ideas. No, he wants to just take my body out on the town.

Yeah, really to get it going.

Yeah, and I was like, oh my God, once I get back in my body, oh.

You're gonna be sore.

I'll be so sore and have so many diseases. You'll have a stomachache. I'll have so many diseases. It'll be, I'll be, he'll really mess me up.

And what are you gonna do when you're in his body? Go play basketball? I'll break tall things, yeah. Go play pickup basketball. Yeah, exactly. You're not going to masturbate with his penis?

No, I will. Yeah, I'm curious what that feels like.

Of course. But I think step one for anyone that switches bodies into the other gender, step one should be immediately that.

But I only want to do that. I don't want to have sex with a man or a woman in his body. Right, right. I just want to masturbate and see what it feels like to have a penis. Yeah. And mainly reach tall things and play some basketball. Ball.

Um, complain about your back, or—

yeah, I mean, they'll give me a lot of gratitude probably for the things short people have that I, you know, take for granted, right? Okay, what is the Esther Perel AI therapy episode? The episode title is My AI Loves Me Better Than Anyone Ever Could. Dangerous sentence for you to read. Dangerous. Just looking at her again. Yeah. How can you— how can you stop? I can't, clearly. What a couple.

I was going to say, I don't— they're perfect. I reject what I'm about to say because I don't like when people do it to any— oh, Daws. Yeah, but I don't know how they don't just stare at each other like, hon, let's go in the living room. There's good light in there and let's just look at each other.

People do that. They say that about you and Chris.

No, but they have some fantasy of what the relationship— life is. Yeah. So I'm not trying to perpetuate that. That, but at the same time, I feel like that couple, they could just stand in the living room nude and be so entertained.

And also, apparently he's so nice. Yeah, remember someone told us a really good story about him?

Who was it? Was it a chef or something?

No, and they were at a pub and he was there and they were all hanging out, and then some girl was getting kind of—

he walked someone back to their apartment.

I love him and I love her.

Great couple, great couple alert. Couple goals. All right, all right, love you, love you.