Kevin Costner 01:51:36

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman. Good morning. Good morning. You have copped to this once or twice. I feel like this one caught me off guard. I got a little starstruck. Yes. Could you feel it?

I could. You could. Yeah. I thought it was nice. Yeah, I really was. I was a bit starstruck. Yeah, it's cute. Kevin Costner delivers. Well, first of all, let's just say. My goodness. Fuck. I mean, the pictures will be up. You could go look. But I don't even know. It couldn't possibly do it justice.

He looked so fucking good. Yeah, he looked so, so good. Oh my God, in real life? He was so stylish. Yes, and so tan. Yes, very suave. God, he had a nice tan. I kind of just was like charmed right out of the gates. And he had a real rascally smile every now and then he'd let rip. He did. He was fun. He had a great energy. I do feel like I get why you were a bit...

Off kilter because he's old school. He's like an old movie star. He is. Not old. I mean, he's like a- A legend. Yes, he's a legend. And I think I was reminded of that when I researched him before he got here. I kept looking at credit and going like, oh my God, of course. It's like when you're looking at Spielberg's and you're like, oh right, and he did that and he did that. Right. So yeah, Costner, I was just like, oh God, the bodyguard. Right.

Yeah, we get into that and it's so good. Yeah, Dances with Wolves, The Untouchables, Waterworld, Yellowstone. He has a new film. He has two new films that are coming out called Horizon, An American Saga. And it's broken into two. The first one comes out on June 28th.

And part two comes out on August 16th in the movie theater. It's so huge and grand in scope. It's a Western. And this is going to be four parts. Yes. This might be the most ambitious movie project I've ever heard about. Really, really cool. Boy, did he charm the slacks off of us. Please enjoy Kevin Costner.

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- Is that chair too big for you, Monica? - No, it's perfect. - 'Cause your feet don't touch. - You should see me in this one. - I feel like you have a timeout. - Who's this? Hi.

Okay, great. Come have a seat. We're just talking tour buses. I'll hide in the corner somewhere. Oh, no, you're right there, boss. Yeah, you're fine. Are you the cleaner? When he kills us, are you going to... I'm the fixer. You're the fixer. Yeah, there we go. What's your name? Arnold. Arnold. We've been together a long time. Hi, Monica. Nice to meet you. How long? 23 years. Wow. 23 years. Wow.

That's lovely. That's pretty nice. Have you ever done a podcast? I did one this morning. You did? Whose did you do? IndieWire. IndieWire. And I've done Adam about five years ago. Corolla? Corolla, yeah. Okay. We're pals. He's just a funny guy. Stern? Yeah, have you done Stern? Yeah, is that a podcast? It's not, but it's long form. I've never done Howard. Oh, you haven't? I don't think I have. Next. You can do it in an hour. Is it next? Next.

Jesus Daxone. Stop. They've got you booked until midnight. I'm going to work today. I just got back from France and I'm going to do this. And I've got to do something for Memorial Day Parade. I'm not really sure what that's about. Then I'm going to see Jimmy Kimmel. Yes. And then I'm flying back to Utah to Direct 3. You start next week?

No, I shot three days, stopped everything, went to France, screened the movie because it was important for us as kind of essentially an independent movie to throw as much light as I could on what we've been doing because people have been wondering about it. So it was out there for the film festival. It was something I had imagined a couple of years ago earlier that I was going to need to do that. And thank God they took the movie and gave us a really nice placement on the weekend. And I was able to bring out seven of my actresses.

Yeah. The movie is very heavy on women. And wow, talk about girls who know how to walk the red carpet. Jesus, when they had their moment, they really had the walk, snapped their hair back. Oh, yeah, yeah. One leg goes out. It's an art. Well, when I walk the carpet with my wife, she's got about seven different poses. And I stand there with the same confused look on my face. And I'm like, am I supposed to adjust with her? Get your hair going right. Yeah, well, occasionally I'll throw it over my shoulder the way you do. But the thing is, you can wreck your neck.

You can really injure yourself. This was at Cannes? This was at Cannes, walking out. You got a seven-minute standing ovation. Wow.

And you got, rightly so, emotional? I did. It was about 11 minutes, actually, because the first four, they were clapping when it was dark. And finally, I thought, you should maybe turn the lights on and find out what's happened. Right, right, right. Have they arrested someone? Maybe somebody fell, they got up, and they kept clapping. And what happened when the lights came up, it kept going. I did get emotional, actually. My eyes filled. There's 2,500 people there.

in that theater. Oh my God, really? And Bertolucci said so accurately, it's like the last place where 2,500 people can sit in the dark and dream the same dream. I don't know exactly what's happening and I can feel the balcony. And all of a sudden, I went back in time. They kept clapping, but suddenly the sound went away from me.

And I went back to—this started in 1988 for me. I couldn't make it in 2003 and decided that in 2003, since nobody liked it, I'd make four more. So you don't want one? No. It's like from a therapy point of view. Kevin, did you hear they didn't like the first one? You heard that, though, right? And you did what? You wrote four more. Yeah.

You know, that big question. Why? Yeah. We hope to uncover that today. Right. And so what happened was I started going backwards and

I got emotional and my children were there. I had five of my children. Two of my boys were in tuxes and my three little girls were all dressed up. And they were watching too. And they got a little startled by it. My son had not ever seen me be that emotional. You know, what's ironic, right, is you and I would pray that when that camera's on us in the scene, that we could get to that spot.

But then there it happens in real life and there's this hesitation, right? There was a hesitation. I was holding back because here's the camera, but I can see this 100-foot screen behind him and that's me. And I looked and I could see my eyes were full and I thought, good fuck.

that's not crying good. But I walked backwards. And finally, I thought I should bring this to a stop. So I didn't know there was going to be remarks. I didn't know that that was expected. And so I was a little bit caught there too. I guess the screen behind you is the big part. That's basically like doing your scene in front of Video Village, like watching yourself. Right. Yeah, did you walk back in time, not just...

from the story of the movie that then came to fruition so many years later. But did you have that kind of awareness of like, wow, this has been a pretty long walk I've taken and to land here...

minimally you got to recognize well this is a unique experience not a lot of people get to have this moment yeah that's a whole town focused on film and at that moment it was focused on us it was lots of ups and downs and just trying to stay true to it trying to not let it be manipulated and

wondering why I'm such a nod head, but there it is. There's no apologies for it. I don't know if you've gotten to see the movie. I did. I watched it two nights ago. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's also at an interesting time in history, and we'll get into that, where we have a lot more layers of accepted behavior. These people are out in the middle of fucking nowhere, having not gone to school, having not lived anywhere where they would have observed anything

elders passing anything on. These are like renegade, lone wolf, crazy people in search of something. The thing I was trying to do with this movie is that historically, movies, the towns are already there. It's like, what? What, do they pop up after a rain and they're mushrooms? Yeah, you're right. They're building like one church generally when we arrive. These towns were built and burnt down. It's a 200-year experiment. I think we're getting a little deep into it. Monica, maybe you didn't see. She's the voice of the audience at all times. I actively don't watch

- Watch the movies so that I know when we're getting too esoteric or not. And I am a bit confused, so we should-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So in general, this is a really, really expansive story, and it's following three or four different sets of people in three or four different areas of the West during the four-year span of the Civil War. - Actually, what happens is it's before it a little bit. It's a 10-year thing, and we start a couple years before the Civil War starts,

We don't really deal with the Civil War, but what we're saying is when you historically know the West, you realize that when the Civil War was actually going on, the people that were coming West were way more exposed. Why?

Because there was no army. The army was busy fighting the Civil War. Yes, the military had a presence out there. They were actually scared too. This one guy says, look, you can count the indigenous, you count us, and you don't have to wonder at the logic. Yeah, we'll be killed in a second if they decide. That's right, that line in there. They could rid us in one day's work. 15,000 people.

Apache or a hundred and whatever. So it's a saga. And then it passes that time. And of course, in about the next 20 years, the West shut down after the Civil War. So it's a migration West of people who don't know each other all headed

to a spot that looks like maybe they can have a life because a salesman put pretty pictures on it, said they can catch trout. And none of those things, of course, are there. But if you watch television now on the 800 channel, people are selling shit all the time. Well, think about you in California and its history. We were sending huge train loads of oranges east to go like, look what we have in the middle of winter.

Begging people to come out here. Now we're like, please stay away. Yeah, I actually didn't know that, but that makes a lot of, we're showing off. All these people where I'm from Detroit are in the middle of winter. They haven't had a fresh vegetable or fruit in three months and this train car of fresh oranges arrives. Do you know Mike Binder? Funny enough, I have him on my list to bring up. Yeah, Binder and I are friends and it occurred to me during my research that you guys are buddies.

Michigan is really big for him. Yeah, I enjoyed watching you play a retired tiger in Upside Anger. Mike, it was a brilliant screenplay. So you are going to have to get out of that big chair someday and go see the movie like a big person. Of course I will. I'm excited. One thing you'll notice right away that in American West, women are dominant in my movie.

I think you'd probably agree with that. Surprisingly so. So there's a few different groups we're following. And of course, their stories are slowly being funneled into this place, Horizon. We have some things set in Montana. And then we have Luke Wilson driving a convoy or caravan through Kansas and that trail. And then we have where Horizon is, which I'm guessing is Utah? No, it's down in Arizona. Arizona, okay. Off the San Pedro River. So it's the first hundred pages of a novel, if you will.

You're setting your story and you're setting these people. And some people are getting there on purpose and some will get there by coincidence. There's a bunch of themes, I think, being explored. But it's really fascinating that the characters in this movie, the Civil War is not even happening for them.

They are so far removed. It makes me think about our access to everything currently. Like you could be anywhere in the world and you can be actively watching a couple different wars happening right now. But there was this ability to exist in whatever little pocket of reality you were in back then. You couldn't follow something. You might get a newspaper at some point, but it would be so old. And by the way, there was never a safe day for them. Every day was work.

Every day was keeping your family fed, keeping them clean if you could. It was nothing but work. Women for that 200, 300-year span were working themselves to death. I mean, one of the fascinating things I learned about the Old West, which is really telling of how scarce everything was, is when they built structures and then they moved on, they burnt down the houses to reclaim the nails.

Nails were so rare that they had to burn down the house just to gather up the nails so they could build again. No, it's true. I mean, a little girl passes a biscuit to the boy and he takes it. He's going to put it in his pocket. She goes, no, my mom needs that cloth. She'll know that it's gone. Nothing's disposable. That's why the sharing of food, probably nothing more important in life. If you want to have a bond with somebody, share food with them.

Yeah. Yes. And what they started to understand was maybe if they're going to exist on this land, maybe they need with their technology to like leave a deer that they shot out to the indigenous and say, thank you, this is rent. A little act of good faith. Right. And we were kind of willing to do that when our numbers were, you know, please don't hurt us. But the minute there's a tipping point, we just treated the indigenous like they were an inconvenience in their own country. Yes. Okay, we're going to dive into the movie a bunch, but I do want to go back to Cannes.

in the moment there because I am gonna guess that through the course of this really illustrious and incredible career, it's fun to research someone like you, to be reminded. For me, "American Flyers," that is a seminal movie for me that my brother and I watched over and over and over again on on TV. It just played and played and played and played. I remember how much time I spent with that specific movie. And then going through all of them, so many incredible projects.

Throughout that ride and the journey, I'm imagining you're human like all of us and you have different periods of feeling worthy of that and feeling perhaps imposter syndrome-y or not worthy. Before I proceed, those feelings, have you had those in the past? I had the feeling that I was never going to make it.

And then when you do, it's kind of like, well, this feels a little too good to be true. You're kind of waiting for them to knock at the door and go like, big mix-up, so sorry. Once I got through the door, I kind of went pretty fast. You sure did. It wasn't Tom sliding across the floor at 18. It was, for me, 27, 28. And so I was a stage manager at Raleigh.

working for $3.25 and Richard Gere and Mel Gibson and Nicolas Cage and Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn, at a certain moment, maybe I wasn't going to get a part. So far out of reach. So at one point I even said, they can only do two movies a year. I need to see everything that somebody's turning down. I drove my agent crazy. I want to know if they've walked past something great or they just can't get to it because they've committed to something down the line. I said, let's chase that idea.

And so my agent thought, what are you thinking about, buddy? Actors all want to have agents, but you've got to realize that you get 90% of the money. Maybe you're supposed to do 90% of the work. Yeah, true, true, true. I had an idea about myself. You know, when you do look at the breadcrumbs of your life, when you walk it back,

You measure your life different, certainly, than anyone else does. And so somebody who looks at the tips of these icebergs of whatever you want to say, when do you think it happened? I have a different view of when it happened for me. For me, when I got the big chill, driving down the freeway, knowing I got the part, I knew my life had changed. Well, guess what? I didn't even end up in the movie. But the point was— Well, your hand did, I think. But I knew—stop with that. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Stop with the research. Unforgettable hand. If you don't have a real grasp of your career, then you're kind of wandering. When I got that part, I knew I was with the right people. I was with the right director. I would absorb everything. Yes, I had a moment I wasn't in the movie, but I realized that wasn't going to be my last movie in my own mind.

Well, you made an impact on Larry Kasdan, clearly. He made a big difference in my life, both watching him behave, watching the rehearsal process. We made Silverado. It was a very flashy part. That part had a lot of juice. It was set up to win. And so what you have to do is embrace it, walk right into it, which was a little hard for me because I was prepared to play the laconic Scott Gellar.

Glenn Roll, Peyton, who Kevin Kline played, because I knew this era. It was already my thing. And so I thought I knew how to do the minimalist. Here I got this guy that was raging and climbing like a monkey and picking fights. And I thought,

I wasn't prepared to play him at first. Yeah, were you nervous? I was because I knew how to do this other thing. This guy was as big as the horizon so that's how I ended up trying to play him which was play to the horizon. It's not like anybody else is in the room. Right, right, right. It's like you're not value for value on shit. It's your world everyone else is passing through it. That's right. But,

that moment of the big chill, I wasn't wrong. Silverado happened. But sometimes being on the yellow brick road is as much about getting where you're going. Listen, I can relate to that greatly, which is the biggest hurdle is being invited into the fucking room. Yeah.

Because you're on the outside of the room for so long that that moment where you go, oh my God, I got a call time. I'm on my way to a movie set is very, very special. You go, well, now I'm up to bat. I just had never been up to bat.

And I know I can't hit if I don't get called up to bat. That's correct. So I agree with you. It's really maybe the most profound. We're in a real spot as actors because even musicians can stand on the corner with a guitar and their case open. They can make a little dough. They can play. As an actor, if you're fumbling your lines on some street corner, you're going to jail. Yeah.

They're moving your way. So the ability to practice your craft, granted, you have the theater, but you realize it's limited. And so what you're talking about is how am I going to step through that door? You need permission to do the thing you want to do. Yeah. Unlike writing, you can sit down. They can't stop you. So when it did start to happen, when the American Flyers turned into No Way Out, I found that movie.

I had done Silverado. Orion thought it was a pretty catchy part, asked me to come in, showed me all their movies. I said no. And that was a big word that has followed me. And you had that from the beginning? I developed it where I thought, I need my career to be about something at some point. I just went like, you know what? I'm trying so hard. I need to be able to look

back. And so I did have that. And so they had their movies and I'm sure they all thought they were good. I didn't see a fit for me. And they said the right question right after that. Well, is there anything you want to do? All this back work I had been doing about who's turning down what, what's going on, constantly reading on my own. I'd found this movie called Finish with Engines. It's a naval term for shutting down a ship. You ever see those things on the Titanic? Full head, one third. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you look at it on the brass, you can look at it, I think, on sand pebbles.

If you pull it all the way back, it says finished with engines. It's the shutting down. Those are big ships. You got to be really sure about shutting it down because you can't get it started right away. And I said, I read the script. I'd do this. And it was at Warner Brothers. It was in turnaround. So they said, okay, we'll do that with you. And it was no way out. They changed the title. Oh, wow.

But I knew how it read. It matched up with the sensibility that I had. So after that, then The Untouchables happened. After about five or six movies, then The Field of Dreams came and The Bull Durham. But then I wanted to direct. I knew where I was headed. I knew what I wanted to do. And I was a terrible student. It was only when film really took hold of me that I invested and understood what it was like to be a good student. Because I saw good students in college. I wasn't one.

You went to UC Fullerton. What was your degree in? Marketing. And you discover acting in college, right? In college, last year. And so prior to the dream of doing that, did you have a fantasy of going into marketing? I didn't. I was a rat chasing the cheese in a maze. I was very conservative growing up. You go to school, you go to a college, you get a job, and you raise a family. They were Dust Bowl. Dust Bowl people. Yes. Grew up in Compton. Here. Here.

Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah, for the first seven years and then moved to a little Santa Paula and then up between Santa Paula and Ohio, a little one street and there was a two-room schoolhouse up to the sixth grade. So you're in with a lot of kids. And I thought to myself, it was a little harder and confident. This is all right. Bunch of kids. I can deal with a sixth grader. Come on.

But you moved a ton. I moved a ton too as a kid. And I think it either makes you or breaks you because, man, reintroducing yourself constantly. It almost broke me. I found I lost confidence in 11th, 12th. I was also an undersized kid. I'm looking at my boys right now. One just turned 17, but he's 6'2", going on 6'3". And I was 5'2".

My middle son is 15. He's six. I didn't have that thing. So when you took the moving, you took being undersized, you took girls wanting to look at your license. And after the fourth one said, five, two, wow, you're cute. And I thought, I've never shown that license to anybody. Yeah, and you suck at school. Yeah.

And I was not good at school. I could play sports. And that gave me one leg up. At least you had a built-in set of friends a little bit. And you're going from pretty radically different cultures. Compton to Visalia. Last two years of high school is Orange County. I'm really proud of you for digging in. Honestly, you're starting to say some things I forgot. You're worthy of it. Well, thank you. And the first girl that kind of liked me that I dated, I didn't have dates in high school, I married her. Wow.

Okay, this may be too revealing, but I'll go first. So elementary school, I love girls. I'm in love with girls from the day I'm born. None of them like me. I get to junior high, my older brother gives me a really cool punk rock haircut. I get a skateboard, all of a sudden girls like me. And there has never, ever, ever been a better drug than that.

for me. Well, I think it does make the world go round. I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. And I wanted that. It wasn't that I didn't like her. It was just like, if I walk across there, ask her to dance, she is going to say no. I wasn't a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's just, I wasn't going to be the guy

Kind of an ironic twist with the career you had and how big and handsome you turned out to be. It wasn't going to happen, and I was lost. I got this little hunting dog up in Visalia, and all I did was just got that dog. I would go and not come home. Did you live in fantasy world a lot? I daydreamed, which was a little bit hard on my dad. I was always a worker. I worked since I was little, but he confused my daydreaming with me

not knowing how to work. And I really knew how to work. You know, my dad finally came to me, said, your mom and I have been talking. We were wondering, did we help you in college? I said, no. He said, you paid for it. I said, I did. I worked on commercial fishing boats. I really liked people, but I wasn't afraid to go someplace myself. Well, but can I say you had already experienced exclusion. It was terrible. And then you live through it. And I think that's a weird gift. You can stomach it.

You can go be odd man out for the rest of your life if you need to be. You've done it. - I can exist where I'm at. It's like the movies, there's a pattern in my life. I'm a bit of a plotter. It took me a while in high school. I didn't understand women. I didn't understand our own industry.

It took me a while to get everything I have. It comes late to me. I am a late bloomer in all of it. Like your growth spurt. Yeah, quite honestly, even as I exist in the industry today, people under the illusion that I can do whatever I want. The truth is I do whatever I want.

But I can't do whatever I want in a sense that some of these movies they have not wanted to do, have not been popular in their mind. The Dances of the Field of Dreams and the Bull Durham's were movies that just had to take them around, push them uphill. And in some instances, use your own money. Even Horizon is this long journey. No one was going to make this movie.

But I wanted to go fishing. What's the harm in that? Who am I hurting? And I'm not Ahab. I know what obsession is. Obsession is willingness to take other people down to fulfill your dream. But for me, what I maybe sacrifice is the wealth that I built up. I might lose it. Ooh.

It doesn't scare you? It never has. Wow. I have a sense of responsibility because I have children. There's a core that I'm not going to let go. But this pile that has meant a lot to me, I'm not going to let that inform my decisions. Well, you're probably rightly going, okay, on the deathbed, do I want to stare at the pile as I go or do I want to go, oh, yeah, and I got that across the finish line.

Even the idea of I got that across the finish line, I realized at the end of the day, we're still going to have this big question. What was our life about? What's on my grave marker? I hope it says, and I made movies too. Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. So maybe that's a trick. I mean, we don't know what this is about. We know that it has to do with love because that is a thing you can go to bed with and wake up with. And I have the love of my children. I have a love of a profession that I finally understand. I don't have to be considered the number one person, but I am in that room.

I decide what I'm going to do. It just isn't easy and it doesn't unfold for me. I have to go, okay, this is what it is. Nobody wants to go. I'm going to go. Yeah. When you get to at 32, when you have this crazy string, the untouchables, all these things, and now you are officially a leading man, you are going to make decisions. You're driving the boat. You know, you're globally famous at that point.

Is that an easy transition for you or is that hard? Did that take a minute? That's an easy transition because I wasn't concerned with it. Just once I realized what it was, just the same way I realized that when I was on the freeway at the Big Chill, I said, this is happening for me. This is fucking happening. Yeah, yeah. Here we go, baby. And everybody said, you're not in the movie. You're not in the movie. Like John Lovitz was talking to me. It was nothing like that.

Bryce, it didn't happen for you. I love this guy. Where is this guy? Oh, I just saw him at the Hollywood Bowl. He came out during Bill Burr. No way. We need this guy. But anyway, it's not how I define things. So when that happened, I didn't have that moment with my head out doing cocaine on the hood of a car. I was like down about what I...

I should have followed you around. There's a lot of people that say I haven't lived my life correctly. I would have driven us straight into a ditch, I promise you. You would have said, Kev, with me, we can be on the rope. Your nose looks dry. Let's get something in it. Here's the thing.

I had that actually happen, believe it or not. When I was a stage manager, Raleigh, it was called Producer Studio because the roofs leaked. The only thing we got there were commercials and low-budget movies that didn't have enough money and then didn't even pay the studio. I mean, it's like we were constantly changing. Eventually, another group came in, Raleigh Studios, and they started to pour money back into the studio. But we were still just doing commercials, and ultimately, it was the wave of MTV.

And all of those things started being played there. I saw all the action stuff, but still no movies. And I was dying to see a movie. And finally, we got to a point where there was studio space and Evita was coming over. Faye Dunaway played Evita, the television version, Marjan Chomsky. I was thinking, I'm going to see some acting. And I didn't really tell a lot of people I was an actor because who wants to work next to a pining actor? Yeah, yeah, it's rough. So in mass, they came over and started rewiring our stages. And the electricians came over like rock stars.

They were prepping it strong like you, you know, the whole thing. Oh, God bless. And they were there for three weeks just stringing cable, and then sets were being built, and they took all seven stages. But I was a non-union lot, so whenever they needed something, I got it for them, whether it was grip, whether it was electrician, it was anything. And they were always saying thank you for me. And at one point, they would always take me back into the grip room and say, here, and they'd put out a little line of code. Sure, sure, sure. You know, and they'd say, like, thank you for all the shit you're doing for us. So I, what, what?

So I do that, right? You don't want to be rude. No, and nothing. And I do it a second time, and I do it a third time. And finally, I said to them, I said, hey, look, how much is that? And he says, that's about $20 right there. And I said, can I say something to you? He says, yeah, fuck, of course, man, what? What?

And I said, look, I'm trying to buy my first house. And I said, if you think what I'm doing is cool, I could use $20. Yeah, I'll take the 20. I could take a 20. And I was out of the club immediately. Sure, sure, sure. So I said, you know, I'm an actor. They go, well, we'll come swim in your pool someday. And I remember these guys very clearly. And I was suddenly out of the club. I had done them many, they weren't favors in my mind. It was just how I worked. Yeah.

And so I saw myself excluded because I didn't want to do this. I was kind of lucky for me that I didn't like Coke. Yeah. Oh, truly. There was nothing there for me. But because I said, I'm trying to build something from my wife was wondering what in the world I'm doing. You're not pursuing marketing. You're working $3.25 an hour and you're happy. Yeah. I said, I was happy, but I don't know how we got on that jag. But I think there's people out there going, I'm kind of glad he did.

coke yeah it makes you much more human yeah and they know i've done kilos of it so at 32 though when you have all this opportunity was there somebody's career at that point like you have a very apocryphal fun story on the way home from your honeymoon at 22 years old you meet richard burton on an airplane that's wild at 32 when the sky's kind of the limit and you have opportunity was there someone's career at that moment that you thought oh i wouldn't mind having that

career. No, I had this idea that I knew inherently no matter how fast I was going, there was going to be a moment where somebody else is going to be the number one actor or something. You did know that. I knew that easily. When I actually knew the way I was going to run my career, that was probably going to happen.

because I was frustrating people by not making the second Bodyguard, not making the second anything. And I want to just say, I'm not an elitist. I would have done it had I thought that the next script that was written was really good. And they go, well, no, let's just make it. I said, no, let's see the script first. Let me see if it is as good as the first one, and then I'll make it. But no one wants to do that. They just want to green light that second one as fast as you can go. So what I felt was...

I just want to be in that room where I do what I want to do. I can see who's having a nice run. That's okay by me. It's just, can I do what I want to do? Because I feel like I have a relationship with the audience and I was going to bring them a brand of movie that was maybe not in the same genre. It was moving around. That was another little problem for me that no one knew what to expect on the next one.

It wasn't in a vein that they could see. If you could just make this movie again or one like it again, we know how to market that. In a way, you're a boxer who you've got a great right cross, and they're like, keep throwing that. Right. And Hollywood inherently knows that they want something new, but they're afraid that it's not going to make the money that something old does.

And we've weaned an audience off that. We've created the conventional wisdom that they got to be this long. They got to be this. They got to be that. Stay tuned for more Fire and Fire Expert, if you dare.

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Dances with Wolves. That's your first time directing. I wanted to direct the movie in front of it. I wanted to direct Revenge. I had actually helped write a 106-page script, so not everything I was going to do had the length that people think that I desire. When I met Ray Stark, I don't know if you remember who Ray Stark was. He's a legendary tough guy. Done a lot of movies with John Huston. Writer or director? No, a producer and a meme

guy and John Houston was his partner and helped him on some of these movies and he didn't listen to Ray very much but I had to get past John Houston John Houston yeah yeah yeah and he thought I was too young to direct oh

Oh, really? Yeah. He says, I think the boy is too young. That beautiful voice of his. And I thought, well, fuck you, John. I'm going to grow up and not hire your son, Danny, he said, because you were mean to me. There's worse guys that get told no bye. I've gotten to work twice with Dan, which is so great. But John just felt that I was a little young. So I acted in that. And then the very next movie, I directed Dancers with Wolves.

Okay, now I want to ask if it's a blessing or a curse to have the first thing you direct get nominated for 12 Academy Awards. You win two. It makes a fucking fortune. In the same way that Pulp Fiction comes out and it's a little bit like, I'm a little scared for this guy. How do we follow this up? Did you feel any of that or did you just enjoy the fruits of it? I just enjoyed it. But what a

Even in your wildest expectations. Yeah, but I'm trying to be square with you because you've been square with me. We're talking about drugs and stuff. What it was is the validation of the movie

encouraged me to do better, not rest. Yeah, but tall order. I guess it has been, but I still think the play is the thing. Yeah, I was looking for a big movie and I'm trying to do revenge and I get into this giant fight with them because they keep postponing, keep postponing. And I read this little movie and I finally said to Ray, I said, look, if you don't finally do this movie, you know, it kind of made it so I can't direct it. Now you're

fucking around. Now we're a month into it and there's movies coming by me and I want to do them. And I read this little movie. And if you don't get this shit together in the next week, I said, I'm going to do this movie. The week came and went. And if he didn't believe that I was what I said, I said, guess what? Hey, Ray, I'm doing this movie. And it was Field of Dreams, the movie in the corn. I thought it was special. That's just what I felt. And we went to war over it. And everybody kind of moved away from me, even

agents because Ray was kind of a volcanic, difficult personality that would try to ruin careers. And so now I'm like the mongoose in this cobra bullshit. Rikki-tikki-tack. I get on the phone with him. He goes, you know, I'm going to sue you. And I said, that's the first words out of your mouth, isn't it? He said, what? And I said, I heard you were a smart guy. And then I just stayed silent. He was like, what? I said, I heard you're a smart guy.

What does that mean? I said, that means you can figure this out.

You come to me four days after you finish this fucking movie in the corn. That's how it went down. I feel like this business we're in is plagued by gatekeepers and intermediaries and things keep escalating because no one's actually talking directly to one another. And every time you do pick up the phone and call the person directly, shit gets done in like five minutes. It can. And sometimes it can't. But let's find out if it can.

I think that's what you're saying. So, dances. I knew that that was a moment, and I just had to enjoy the moments that would come after that, and I would make sure that the movie that I would pick sustained me. You can't always tell what a massive movie is going to be, but I can tell what a good movie is. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you have playback back then? Not really, no. I had it on dances, though. I needed it. So I've directed a couple things I starred in as well. And playback's essential if you're in it. It's totally essential. Yeah, and I was just curious if back then it was readily available.

I use playback with my actors. I bring them all in. That tent, I don't treat that place sacredly. I don't even the crew look because I love everything about a movie. You want to watch a great take? Watch this. I'll even put music on my little stereo to play music against it. But that's where I work. But I don't make it like...

This is sacred. Well, there's a lot of things you can't explain when you're directing. No, so you have to bring the actor over and go, this is why it looks weird when you're doing this dance. You see what you did? It's a tool. Somebody said, well, it slows things down. Well, I think it speeds things up. How old were you then? I think I was...

34 when I made it and then edited it. I became 35. At the moment, you probably felt old. But now looking back, do you not recognize like, that's pretty fucking young to take on that movie? There was a lot about it that was funny. I just knew that the movie was what I wanted to make. You were on a mission. In the sense that, let's just follow this script. I'm pretty anal about script. I'm not somebody that goes out there and wings it.

I will leave what I call a window of opportunity, which is I go out there, stick with the script. It's the Bible. It's going to work. I know it works. But if somehow there's some opportunity that I sense, I will step through that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Don't you find—now, I've only directed things I've written, and I would never want to direct something I hadn't written.

Because I think when you believe in something from the beginning, you understand it from the beginning. I think that ends up being infectious to people around you. Because ultimately, as the director, you're really getting everyone to buy into the same fantasy that you have created. Right.

And I think you have to infect people with it. I can see where you're coming from. I come from the place that I could direct every movie that I said yes to. But where the problems exist is when a director comes on who is directing it and starts to go, well, I never really liked that scene.

Or I didn't like the way I shot that scene. Well, isn't that the actual origin of dances? Which was there was a director and he wanted to cut some scenes. I went to three directors, pretty good directors. And each one of them had a difficulty with some of the issues, whether subtitles should be there, whether maybe we should just start with them out at the fort, screw the Civil War thing. Studio's going to cut out that first film.

15 minutes anyway. Let's start with him there. Don't meet the guy at the fort, the crazy guy who pisses his pants. Let's just get you out to the fort. Well, I thought, okay, I hear that, but no. It's the subtitles. I get that, but

No. And all it did was I just looked at myself and I said, I need to direct this. I have one movie to ask you about, and this is self-indulgent, but I happen to be kind of obsessed with her because I've watched two documentaries about her, Whitney Houston. And I'm curious on that movie if that was a special experience. Was she nervous? She's really smart. It was a movie I probably should have directed. I just thought somebody could do a better job, but he was uncomfortable acting.

with her. She was my choice. So I was the actor. I produced it. I picked her. So you probably have the same fascination I have with her. Listen, the first girl I thought was pretty was Diana Ross. I saw her on Ed Sullivan's show and I thought, fuck yes. Let's go. That's pretty. And I'm like,

10 years old. I know what pretty is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved her. So it's not like this giant mystery. So I knew that she should be the one. So in producing it, I produced Whitney in the movie, meaning I put her there. I didn't let the director, well, I'm directing, we've all decided places. I said, no, she's in the movie. You can direct this movie to Lawrence Kasdan's script.

Just try to stick with it. There was a flaw in that script, and even Larry talked about it, and I talked about it. And about three weeks before the movie started, remember, it's 17 years old. It's the first script that he'd ever sold. So it'd been around for 17 years. Really? Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Bodyguard's the first script that Lawrence Kasdan saw?

So really. Right. And Sidney Pollack was going to make it. Somehow it fell through the cracks. He goes on to write Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire Strikes Back, Body Heat, Silverado. But that was the first one. So I kind of asked him about it. He goes, yeah, I did this movie. And the way he talks is always so distinct. Yeah, yeah.

And I said, well, I want to read it. And so I read it and I said, I'm going to make this, Larry. I wanted him to direct it, but I think his mind was somewhere else. And I didn't think I should. I just thought somebody can do it better than me. But I really knew who I wanted. There was a moment where she trusted me. And as I looked at her and I could see the director was afraid of her and he was shooting her late in the day when he just didn't want to get to her. I would rather shoot her walking than talking. He was nervous he couldn't get out of her. I started crying.

Yeah.

For sure. And to the movie. And as a scene partner, you want to lift. And then editorially, we had a real problem. That movie was not testing how I was testing in the 60s. No way. And I had promised Whitney that she'd be good in it. So now we're sitting in Warner Brothers. And have you ever been in that round room at Warner Brothers where they talk to you? Oh, yeah. So I'm in that room with Terry Simmel and Bob Daly. And the director's there and just goes, well, I guess.

It's as good as the movie's going to get. So it's at a 69. I thought, no. And everybody was like, what? And I said, we need to put about 15 minutes back in this movie. Kevin and I, I hardly believe this is a problem. This movie's getting shorter and you want to make it longer. And I said, yeah. I said, I'd like to put 15 minutes back in this movie. I said, because I'm going to take out about, I can remember this to this day. I'm going to take out 28 minutes. Why?

How are you going to do that? I said, about 15 seconds at a time, I imagine. Because we're not going to lose any scenes. We're going to put back in scenes. He says, well, I don't think you'll be able to do that. I said, watch me. So I went home, and I remember I sat in my bed for two days on the weekend looking at the numbers. Just writing down time code? Yeah, cut this, cut that, start here, cut this, cut that. And it came out to 28 minutes. No.

No way. That's freaky. It did. And we barely got out of Dodge, and that movie went up, tested a lot higher. I'd made a promise to Clive Davis that Whitney would be good. I made a promise to her. Clive was managing her? Yes. And we got it. Larry actually went in with me, but I worked this thing, and I think we barely got out of Dodge, but...

we had this movie that worked. And that was my promise to her. She's always going to love me in the song. I was always going to keep my promise to her. A, did you sense...

There was a ton of pain there, and B, did it break your heart? No, but I eulogized her, and I didn't want to. When she passed away, there was a steady drumbeat to hear. You know, she was such a big personality that everybody was going on the air talking, and that was not my first instinct. Even Arnold, after about five or six days, he goes, Kevin, you need to say something. You're seeing people capitalize on it.

That's right. Which is gross. And yet you are close enough that it would seem crazy you didn't. So you're in a very weird spot. Arnold tried to explain that to me. And then the BET Awards said, well, would you come and give her an award at least and talk? And I said to Arnold, well, how long is that? And he goes, well, it'll be two minutes. I said, I can't do it. Now there was this like, where is he? But about two days later, I get this call and it was Dionne Warwick. And she was putting together the memorial for,

And she calls me and she said, Kevin, I'm putting this thing. I said, yes. Yeah. The exact thing I didn't want to do, I just said yes. I could feel the weight on her. Now it's shifted to me. What am I going to say about this little girl? Yeah.

and went back to that church in Newark, and it was filled. It was electric. There was two bands playing. The church was alive. It was like, boom, and there was a bunch of people. And I had been working on this speech. I talked to a friend of mine, Armie, and we'd both written down notes about it, and I tried to compile everything I wanted to do and finally crafted this speech. Now I'm in there, and I'm thinking, wow.

I really stuck out. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. And I'm sitting in this row and somebody said, CNN's here. I go, CNN's here? And they go, yeah, they wouldn't mind if your remarks were kept shorter because they're going to have commercials. And I said, they can get over that. They can play the commercial while I'm talking. I don't care. But I've come here when I didn't want to speak. You know, I didn't want to do two minutes. And I crafted...

this speech. I was riding on the plane. I was riding for a week. And I look back and I see Oprah and Diane Sawyer. And I swear to God, I must have been like 13 years old. I said, would you do my speech for me? I didn't feel like I was the right guy to go up there, but I did. And there were some people that really wanted to speak and they're kind of staring daggers at me. What was I going to say? And I started and about 17 minutes later, I was done. Wow.

Wow. And you said everything. That I felt I needed to say. I watch those docs and I think...

A, the talent is so once in a generation, but the fucking work ethic. When she was juggling the full-blown addiction and still doing the shows, she was a force of nature. I can't help but be enamored by the whole thing. It was a moment where I knew when Whitney came, I said, look, you can't have an entourage, but I'm going to take care of you. If there's a person important to you, turned out to be Robin Crawford, I said, let's have Robin with you. But I said, I don't have one, you're not going to have one.

And that's how we started. And I knew that it would never be the same for her when she left me. And I purposely wasn't a pen pal to her. But there was a couple moments where somebody said to me, would you write her, please? I did. You must have made her feel really safe. That's what the entourage is all about. I mean, there's a lot of fear. I don't know what it was, but we had a moment and I realized that the world had a

higher idea of who we were. So I basically embraced it. I was her imaginary bodyguard. Yeah. It's so sweet. It works on all these levels. And I think there was probably real things that were happening that really helped in what we ended up seeing. You were her bodyguard. I mean, it's not even metaphorical. Okay, quickly, listen, I'm going to say this as someone who's directed something that overperformed and I've directed something that's underperformed.

And it's a very unique experience. To go from mega hip behind your wildest dreams to do The Postman, and it didn't do as well financially as I imagine you hoped.

And then to do open range again and then be right back in the swing of things where it overperforms and it's critically acclaimed. When you're evaluating that phase, I can already tell from every story you've told me, you're very big on intuition. And it doesn't seem like you're shaking easily with your conviction. But are you having a little head-scratching moment like, well, hold on, I had the same conviction about this thing and it didn't connect. What the fuck happened?

What did I miss? I didn't miss anything. It just didn't catch on. But the hostility that kind of came behind it, people that came out to throw an extra dirt clod. Yeah, well, unfortunately, we tell stories and you're the victim of stories, which is you're at the very top of the mountain and there's only one chapter left in the story. It's not that they build a higher mountain next to you and you climb it. No, you're right. It's unavoidable. So I saw that. But the good thing about

for me is if someone watches the movie again, they're gonna see what I wanted to do in the postman. - Yeah, you executed what you hoped to do. - Exactly. - Which is the thing you have to prioritize the most. But also sometimes you go like, well, I'm confused why sometimes my conviction is widely appealing and sometimes it's narrowly. I don't know why, 'cause I'm just following this gut that was the same on that thing. - That's right. - And that's a little confusing. Okay, last question before we get to "Horizon," which is, this sounds like a silly question now in 2024,

Because all the great stuff is happening on TV. But was it a difficult decision in 2012 to do Hatfields and McCoy? No, but it was a trap. I remember my agent called me and said, hey, look, these people have this thing, Hatfields and McCoys. They know everything.

that you like this era and they were just wondering if their script was any good. That was the pitch. - Oh, that's a good trick. They just want your opinion. - Yes. - Yeah, 'cause they value it so much. - So two things happen. One that'll have a little bit of meaning to our things 'cause we'll give your show a little poetry, a little kind of like circle back moment. I said, it is good. It reminds me of something I have. I have this Western. I think it's really good. And this writing, I think matches that in a certain way. Would you direct it?

You know, like that was the next question. Like, got my hands over it. I was like, no. What? I said, I fucking read it. They got this hand on me and started trying to pull me in the door. I said, I can't. I mean, it was like going fast. And I said, well, this person could probably direct it. And they go, would you act in it? And I said, what just happened?

And I said, look, I will. But when you ask me that, I'm going to tell you something. I'm not shy about saying if I don't like something, if I think something's perfect. And I've had about 10 or 12 scripts where we never changed the line. That's maybe nine more than most people. So never did change Silverado, never did change Untouchables, never did change Fandango or No Way Out, didn't change Bull Durham, didn't change Tin Cup. They were these scripts that had been written and rewritten, and I stick to them.

This is written really well. I believe in that. So I go, I'm not trying to manipulate something, but I think that the character needs about five more scenes. They go, you know, we'll have somebody write it. I said, you could spend too much writing this and all of a sudden I don't like anything. You don't have that time. I said, do you want me to sit down with your writer and I'll do it for you? So they had trapped me pretty good. So anyway. Now I know how to get you in a movie, by the way. So four days later, I wrote.

the scenes and i said do you like them and they said yes what else are they gonna say yeah it's hard to trust that so now i'm with dancy dubuque she says do you want to do this and i said i can do this but do you like every scene in these scripts and she said yes i said so do i but this isn't two nights and she said well that's our model and i said yeah but this is four nights meaning four night shoots four nights of viewing it had so much content i got you i did my own trapping

Yeah. What don't you like? Do you like my scenes? Yeah. I said, well, it's easily four nights of thing. Well, we can't do that. I said, I can't either. So that word no really helped me there. We ultimately, like I said to Ray, I heard you're smart. Let's figure this out. Finally, the compromise is I said, why don't we show this over three nights or four nights with no commercials? And then you can cut it up however you want after that. But at least the audience will see this thing in its fullness. And that's ultimately what

happened. I always respect Nancy because she followed through because she could have bailed on me and said, you know, I tried really hard, but the networks finally crushed me. And then they've edited this movie and it never turns out to be what it turns out to be. And again, this is one of these bolts of lightning. It sets records. But it's the movie. I know what a good movie is. I'm not sure what a hit's going to be. I could tell it was good. But

one funding thing that happened and it's not so funny but you would think that I'd have enough experience so this movie actually had an art director going they were so far down the line it all happened fast and then they told me it was in Romania oh fuck wow talk about a trap talk about a last minute and I had agreed to do a movie that I thought was going to be in Kentucky yes or Caroline and

course it was how could you miss that one how could you miss that fastball and I go I just did so I like really major fuck up for me to be gone for three months in Romania like is not not the first question you ask when you're doing a movie and I go well maybe Michael Caine does and

But not me. But you just dealt with it. I dealt with it. It was such an enormous hit. It went beyond. And it went beyond not because of me. All I did was protect it. It went beyond because it was what it was supposed to be. Yeah, but still, 14 million viewers on cable just doesn't happen. So I think you're a little piece of that. I accept I was a piece of it. I accept that I protected it. People love watching you. Sorry.

That's how it works. Just get over it. That's what we've learned. It was a good story, though. I can fit in a good story. I can't be charming for three hours. Try it. Your movie will fail. Well, you just did it. That movie will fail. Yeah, yeah. So does that make Yellowstone a little easier? I see why you occupy that chair. Yeah, you know. I kind of like that line. I come in every now and then. You just did it.

That's great. Does that make Yellowstone easier to say yes to with the great success of Hatfields? Yellowstone was just a really great script. Boy, here comes this boring song from me. It was just a great script. Again, it's so fucking enormous. Are you shocked by that?

I thought it was kind of good. Yeah, I watched the shit out of it. Right. It hadn't been made. And all of a sudden they said, would you go over and sell this to the buyers in Europe? You know, because I don't want to make a Western about ranching. So I'm on a plane. There's nobody on the plane with me. I land there about seven in the morning. I'm whisked to a theater. Now it's 930 and it's filled with like 300 buyers from different countries. I said, look, I think it's kind of pretty good. Are you going to be in all?

I looked over the guy that brought me and he's wanting me to say, yes, you'll be in seven, you'll be in whatever. And I said, no, I've agreed to do three. And I said, but I think this is good enough that it can carry on. I'm doing it. And I was the only one there. It hadn't been made. And they liked how that discussion went. And they go, there's this little thing called the advertisers.

down in Cannes, they're all there, you know, all the different restaurants, Builders Emporium and anybody that sponsor movies. So I have the same conversation with them. You're going to be in this thing. And so sold this one season for them and I had finally agreed to do three. I thought it was going to just be

one long one. I'm into long, but then it turned out it was going to be a series and they first said to me, you want to be in seven? I said, no, it ain't happening. Well, five, it ain't happening. I didn't want to bait and switch. I said I would do it. So I said, I'll give you three. Three seasons. And then I ended up, you know, making five. I'm not going to make you trudge through that. No, I don't have to. What happens is I just believed

in the world. I knew it was a soap opera. I knew we should all be in jail. We've all killed people there. And so you throw logic out the window, right? A little bit. But he has a great ear and he just wrote that stuff really authentically and it was good fun. And he wrote my part especially well and Kelly's part. So listen, I had a lot of fun with it. It's a great example of plot.

The plot is fucking moving in that show. Like a breakneck pace. It was really good. I recognized that. So I did it the best I could possibly do it. That does set us up. Okay, so as we look deeper into Horizon, obviously you've had a lot of success in the sports world, but definitely what you seem to have this crazy connection with is the Western. And I know as a kid you watch a movie that's really impactful, but I'm more curious, what is it about the West that,

that captures your imagination just geographically? What does it symbolize? And then also historically, what is so endlessly interesting to you about it? You have a place in Montana? Colorado. I think there's something about how big the country was and all the possibilities that go with something big and untouched. That was a unique thing. I could feel it as a child.

and to live by your wits and to be resourceful. You know, you look at the cowboy and the only possessions he has are on his back and on his horse. And I thought to myself, yeah, that's me going to Canada, getting on a fishing boat. I have to look to myself. But the West was like the Garden of Eden. It was untouched. Compare Europe with the buildings.

thousands of years old already and civilization and Middle East pyramids and great great cities but what happens is Westerns for the most part aren't very good in my mind for as much as I love them I go long and hard trying to find one that challenges me and I see behavior in Westerns

both good and bad guys that I identify with and realize that in real life, there was no law out there. The promise was you could go and it was how tough for you to be able to hold on to it. There's a great scene where the reality of that hits you. You have gotten yourself ensnared in someone else's

by accident. And you reluctantly have to shoot a guy. And you're in this tiny little mining-ish town. I love that you single that out because people think the West is simple. It's way harder than L.A. or Cannes. It's like, if you have a problem, you can go to the store. And if that store doesn't have any food, you can go to another store. Yeah.

And if you got a real problem, you can get a lawyer. You can get the police. When you were out there, there was nothing there. You can't emphasize enough how difficult that was. It wasn't simple at all. How do I arbitrate the life of myself, my family? Who is across from me? What do they want? And you're talking about a guy who just killed somebody and then was humiliated by his brother. He is just...

Yeah, he's trying desperately to claw some masculinity. And he picks me, and he has a history of probably dominating people, and he just picks wrong. And I love the idea that you don't always know who you're dealing with. Oh, don't we love that? What is that from being 5'2"? It's from me thinking, when I know I'm on solid ground, I know this happened a million times.

Not this time in this movie, but this happened in some form. We have bullying now in our schools. What you had out there were bullies with guns and nothing to stop them. They're words that have absolutely no meaning in our culture. And back then they were absolutely finite, like the word stranger. When you saw a stranger in the West, it was like the boogeyman. I don't know anything about you. I don't know if you want my water. I don't know if you want my wife. I don't know if you want my property.

Oh, my God. Yes. Okay, so really quick. You shoot this guy, and the folks in town have heard a gunshot. They come upon this scene. One guy's dead. We don't know. You're going to presumably tell them, yeah, he drew a gun on me, and I had to defend myself. And that's kind of where it ends. And people have to decide in town how they're going to take that. You shoot this guy, but the problem has just begun. You have to immediately reload because we don't know what the reaction of all these other strangers is going to be.

Did they know this guy? Are they gonna side with him? Do they think you're the maniac? Sky's the limit at all times. - It is. I get the nod from this guy. I just loaned him some money and all of a sudden he goes, "The only favor I can give you is a head start, 'cause you're on your own." That's part of this four-part series, is these people are relentless. These people will not stop chasing him. - Yeah, they're crazy. You have killed a member of a criminal family who's already on the warpath.

because the patriarch got shot by this woman. I also love how many questions you leave. I'm like, I don't know why she shoots this guy at the beginning. I'm going to have to fill in the blanks. That's all? Yeah. I'm going to have to assume the worst about this gentleman. Would you want a five-hour fucking movie? Ha ha ha.

I know it was 350 at one point. That was my editor. I love hearing you talk. It was 350 and you knew for sure you couldn't get five minutes out of it. At first I couldn't. And then finally I got it down to, it's so funny. I love you. I couldn't. Then pretty soon there it went. But yeah, the West is terribly complicated. There is no one to arbitrate your problems. And when you create the correct organization,

architecture of dilemma. Dilemma by definition is you don't know what you're gonna do. So if you create dilemma in an audience going, I don't know what he should do. If I'm sad, the drama is, is he gonna cry? And if you want to kiss her but you don't kiss, when I wanna hit you so bad, there's drama. Is he gonna hit him? It exists in not doing something.

Yes. Drama exists in that moment. For me to try to continue to find those moments of architecture and create that, and it can exist. And if you're lazy, you don't find it. You have to work hard to find it. You know, Luke Wilson's really good in this part. Yeah, he is. I'm really excited. I did a movie with him, Idiocracy, and I fucking adored him. He's worked really hard and he really holds it. Big time. And the words support, people on that wagon ride, they do not know each other. Right.

It's a bunch of strangers. Luke Wilson is unqualified. He just was six feet. They voted him the captain, and now he's starting to pay a price for it. It's beautifully shot. I think part of the West, when I asked you about the geography, right away we start in Horizon, and you have these plateaus behind everybody, and you know those things are miles wide. If you like fantasy, and I love fantasy—

That to me is the weird magic of the West and Westerns. It's like, my God, it's big. And it's still there. Yeah. There's no set dressing for you. It's still there. That's the one thing that we can keep in mind. That's probably a little bit to do with Yellowstone. Those mountains are still there. There's still work being done on horseback. Those rivers have not stopped flowing. So if we put drama in front of those...

You do have an opportunity to create something that people revisit. I don't know what the other offerings are in the quote-unquote marketplace, but I think when you see Horizon, this is about space. Now it's up to me to not let it become obvious, to find a level of surprise and do that in language, because language is what drives a Western to me, not the gunfight. But there's also a unique architecture to Westerns. I was thinking about it a lot while watching it.

And the Westerns have a lot more things unsaid. And there's a lot of visual storytelling. But Horizon is heavily written. Danny talks about Manifest Destiny. That script between me and that guy isn't, you better leave me alone. No, it's a lovely dance that goes, yes. And again, back to your dilemma. But you are talking about the kind of Westerns that you've seen that bother you and why that would be hard on you. Because we aren't just about, yep,

And nope. There is, should be dialogue. It was a Victorian age. And that's why I lean heavily on dialogue because I believe it has its place in Horizon. Those big, long scenes. That little boy in the trading thing, is he going to kill that man? That's a long scene.

Well, that was the other thing I wanted to bring up that I loved about it is people setting out with good intention. I just like the multidimensionality of everyone. So there's this raid on this settlement. A bunch of people are killed and murdered. Then there's kind of a vigilante group that's going to go out and seek retribution. But also there's some bounty related. So it's already a little murky. Well, it starts to turn into commerce. They said, does it really matter to you who the fuck you're going to kill? Yeah. Will anyone be able to tell what scalp is what scalp?

That's right. And that's the reality of these situations. And who says it doesn't matter?

The little boy says, no, it doesn't. That's the other thing that gives it such stakes is there's little people involved. And you remember, oh yeah, there were kids along for this ride. These are almost impossible challenges for adults to make their way from Kansas all the way out here. And I've always hated movies where the kids were stupid in an adult world. Yeah, I felt pretty savvy at that age. I did too. Yeah, I'm like, I would have lived. Well, I did live. I lived through some shit. Yeah.

Yeah, so the dollar sounds like you navigated some heavy shit, too. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

We are supported by IKEA. You know, I was just in Scandinavia, Monica. Yes, you were. Home of IKEA. And I was on keen alert to see some native IKEA's and I did. Wow. I think we have the biggest IKEA in the world. You do in Burbank? I think so. It is a monster. You know what's better than a pretty good night out? A

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This summer, during the biggest sporting event of the year, Peacock turns to two broadcasting legends for the Olympics coverage you can't find anywhere else. I think they mean us. With an incredible duo sure to take home the comedy gold. Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson. New episodes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, only on Peacock.

So how did you come out being so evolved and fun? Well, I quit drinking at 29. So I had a good decade of total addiction. AA. But who helped you go to AA? Well, I had a father who had got sober when I was 15. So I had seen someone go from a full-blown addict at the height of the crack epidemic to a full-blown addict.

I watched an uncle go all the way. And then both of them came out the other side from this thing. So I at least always knew where I would have to go. You like went to a meeting with your dad when you were young. I lived with my dad for a couple of years in high school. And yeah, I would go to meetings with him. So I had a total awareness of it. I certainly did not want to join that club. No one's striving to join that club. So right before I turned 30, I got sober.

and haven't drank since, but I've done all the shit. It was a busy decade. The last thing I wanted to talk about Horizon is just, this has not been done. To my knowledge,

I'm not a film historian, but no one's attempted to make four feature length films as a series and release them theatrically. So I'm reading interviews with you. You're in the middle of promoting the movie. You own the movie. If you want to bring people to can, that's on you. There's so much stuff on your plate. You've got a 10 acre parcel you've put in the clutches for this. At any point during this, did you think, Mike,

God, I made my life really complicated again. Yeah, I did. And what I can't do is let go of the rope. I can't let my obsession with doing this take people down. So I have to just suck it up when I start to feel sorry for myself. Or if I can't get something solved, I have to dig deeper. And I have to risk some of these things in my life. Promises are big things. My promise to Whitney, it's a big thing.

My promise to Hatfield and McCoy is when I find out it's fucking Romanian. I still have to follow through. And that came from watching movies because for as phony as movies are, we realize there's behavior in there that we need to emulate in our life. We wish we were that.

Well, we're telling the story of our lives, and some of us want to be that person we saw. We need to be that person. Somebody asked me about big moments in cinema. I said, you know, one of the most important moments for me was in Giant. I don't know if you know the movie. Yeah, yeah. Rock Hudson, so handsome. Elizabeth Tater, so beautiful. Comes from the East Coast and ends up in the middle of fucking Texas where there's diners or whatever it is. And she's like aristocrat. She's aristocrat. Yeah.

But she's like, this is it. But she's in love with him. And he's a big Texas deal, money and the whole thing. And his son marries a Mexican woman.

And he reveals what a bigot he is. And his wife is mad at him. You do the architecture of this movie. It's a saga. It's three hours long. My favorite kind of shit. So you wonder how I got formed. Anyway, you get to the end of this movie. He's still a big deal, but he's not the king of the hill anymore. He's got gray hair. So does Elizabeth Taylor. And they find themselves in a diner where nobody knows him really. And the guy's a Korean vet and he won't feed them.

Have you seen this movie? He's confused. And he says, what? And the guy goes, I'm not feeding it. Your daughter-in-law who's Mexican and your little Mexican papoose. You know, I fought in Korea. I can do whatever I want. And he's been a bigot his whole life, Rock, but now he's seen it firsthand, the ugliness of it. And he sees his daughter-in-law who he really hasn't noticed it.

start to cry, and he gets into a fist fight with this guy, and they play the Yellow Rose of Texas. Da-da-da, da-da-da-da. Kind of corny, but they fight, and the unthinkable happens. Rock Hudson is defeated. They're cutting back to the daughter-in-law, wishing they never went in this diner because now her father-in-law is fighting. She's crying. The baby's crying. Liz Taylor is watching Rock Hudson get beaten to a pulp, and finally he is beaten. He's laying. He's crumpled. He's in the corner.

The guy looks at him and walks away from him. We don't like that in America that that happened. Elizabeth Taylor walks over to him and she gets down on her knees and she looks at him. She said, you never stood taller.

Yeah, girl. That line is so informative to me as a young man that he was who he needed to be. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I find myself going, why have I tried so hard to be in a place where I could fail so miserably in front of so many people? No, it's true.

It's truly incredible. And so here I am again. But I have a movie. And I may be up against the wall, but I have one thing that I know. I give this movie freely in my own mind to people because I know this is the kind of movie –

I wanted to watch. Fuck yeah. It's the kind of movie that I needed to see. Well, you know, I actually hate learning about your journey on this because my irresistible fantasy is I will be done. I've accomplished what I needed to accomplish. It's time to rest. It's time to stop trying to succeed and trying to be great. The weight of that will disappear. And then another voice is like, well, then what's the fucking point?

And you're demonstrating, no, you keep fighting. Forget the fucking finish line.

If you're here, you keep at it. It's wildly inspiring. You might as well be my horse whisperer because I'm thinking the same thing. When I get this fourth one done, I need to go find a beach and an umbrella and then go see some solar eclipse somewhere and then drift over and see a Kentucky Derby one time. And I have to check in with the fun stuff a little bit. I'd like to do that. And I think I will, but I will never give up

my work until I realize it doesn't matter to me anymore. Right, but the story of your life, at 69, you've taken on probably the biggest battle of your life, which is just fucking wild. You frame it really well. I dig it. It's really cool. It's really admirable. Well, what happens is it's a UFO moment. I desperately hope I never see one.

Because what the fuck do you do when you've seen one? You can't not see it anymore. You can't not see it. So when you tell your friends, all you're hearing is, poor Kevin. Did you realize he's... He didn't like Coke in the 80s, but apparently he does. He actually talked to me all day today about how he saw it. He came over the thing, and he knows people aren't going to believe him, but he said he saw them. There was four of them, and one came to him within inches, and then...

Blue in his face. And so what happens is if you've seen one, you can't walk it back. Now you got to get on the ship. And so what happens is I've kind of seen my UFO. I made up my mind it was going to take anybody else down but me. And so I go.

I've heard many great things about you from mutual friends and it's been a delight to meet you. So thanks so much for giving us so much of your time. I hope everyone checks out Horizon in American Saga chapter one and two. The first one is out June 28th. That's part one. And then you'll be running on August 16th to see part two. I myself cannot wait to see the conclusion. Well, a midway. Yeah, chapter two in this great saga. Thank you so much for coming. This has been great. Thank you.

Stick around for the fact check Because they're human, they make lots of mistakes Do you like corned beef and pastrami? I don't know. You don't know? I don't think I've had it. Really? Yes, but that's funny that you bring it up because Callie and Max went to Langer's last weekend. That's what this is. And you've never had Langer's. Want a little bite? Yeah. What is it? It's just beef, right? Why is it called corned beef?

I think it's bad branding to call it corned beef, if I'm being honest. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Large grains of rock salt or corns of salt that are used to cure the meat. That's nice. Good, right? Now you want to try pastrami? That was corned beef. Oh, they're different? Yeah, yeah. I like pastrami better, I think. Okay, hold on. Let me get this taste. Yeah, clear your palate. Mm-hmm. Ready?

I'm not really tasting a dip. That wasn't a great... None of these pieces of pastrami I put in this thing were the good pieces. I ate those yesterday. But pastrami is a seasoning, right? Yeah, they're both like... I think they're the same probably cut of meat. Right. But they're prepared different ways. And yeah, it's a unique seasoning. Yeah, they need a rebrand. I mean, they don't because they're classic and it's working. But I always thought pastrami was...

a type of meat. Okay, like a cut? Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. And corned beef was a type of meat. And the corned beef one had something to do with corn, and I had no interest in that. Not that you don't like corn, but not in your meat. I'll say it. I don't love corn. It's in my teeth.

Okay. How have you adjusted to the time? All in all, I have to say it's not bad. Yesterday, pretty drowsy again, as we just talked about. I got a humongous platter of Langer's

And just totally indulge myself. I had this platter of meat. And then I had the sprint race, MotoGP sprint race on my DVR. And the race race. So back-to-back races while I was just pounding corned beef and pastrami. And then very drowsy, Monica. Drowsy. That sounds like a recipe for drowsy. And on day one, back to no DCs. Oh.

Oh, my God. So I didn't have my... Because I can't drink a cup of coffee at four. I'll be fucked. But I can sneak in a DC for just a little pick-me-up. That was off the table. Okay. So I was nervous about the show we attended last night. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Because I was like, what was up so early? And I was not on DCs in the afternoon. What's happening with DCs? Why are you removing them from the table? Aspartame? Well, two things happened. One was...

I had a day where I drank, I mean, fucking 100. I don't know. It was the day I went to Monster Jam and I had drinking a bunch in the day and then I got there and I was just slugging them. And then I had like a real intense...

Oh. Episode. Okay. And so I was like, oh man, what the fuck? And the only thing I could point to is like, I had a hundred and I've never tried stopping. I can't get my hands on this psoriasis thing. Everything else good, you know, with the diet, the joints are good, whatever. So I was like,

Interesting. Real big flare up right after that. So that was the kernel that was in my head. But then by accident one day, I like had my morning coffee. We weren't recording. The day got completely taken away. And all of a sudden it was like four and I hadn't had one, nor had I had a second coffee. And I was like, oh my God, I got to seize this opportunity to dial back my caffeine. Okay. Yesterday back to zero. Today, day two. All right. And you don't think instead of just maybe doing like-

as opposed to 100. Like instead of doing zero, you could do three. Yes, but you know me so well. I do. I can do zero quite easily. Yeah, you're right. I cannot do one. You're right. One is way harder than zero. It's asking too much. It's just not, it's not a great plan for my disposition. Yeah. It's like sugar. It's so easy for me to not eat sugar as of just a policy. Yeah. As opposed to eat sugar on the weekends.

I can't do that. I don't feel like you're a very big sugar boy. You're not a cookie boy. Oh, man. If there weren't gluten in it, I love cookies. Chips Ahoy Oreos. When Nate and I lived together, we were in this constant cycle of like we'd eat Oreos every night until we were finally exhausted of them. And we'd switch to Chip Ahoy's palate cleanser, run those into the ground for like three weeks. But I'm talking every night Nate and I would get on the couch with our little glasses of milk and turn on our TV shows. I know, but you've grown.

grown like i mean you have to be aware that that was a long time ago but i was a cookie boy since i okay i won't take away the title okay you were a cookie boy um but since i've known you i've known you before you went gluten-free yes yes i i've never known you to be like like a massive consumer of sugar i'm not and not sugar like i don't fuck with sour patch kids and suckers candy yeah

But I do love a chocolate candy bar. I love a molten lava cake. You know how I feel about a blizzard. And you've seen me- And a blueberry donut. Oh, yes, a fritter. And you've seen me in action at a Dairy Queen. So you know when I do eat sugar-

It's pedal to the metal. To me, that's not sugar. That's like Dairy Queen. Like it's a thing that clicks in your head of I can't get this very often, so I have to get everything. But to me, that's separate from sugar. You could have sugar right now. Like you could have it all the time and you don't. Right, but when I have it, I want it. Okay. And when I don't have it, I don't want it. I get it. You know? It's like on day one of any trip to Austin, I go to DQ. Yeah.

And then the next day at like seven, I start thinking like, oh, we're going to Dairy Queen again. Yeah. And then I just, I do that every single night while I'm there. And then, you know, I get two things. And once in a while, you know, have you ever seen me get after the Oreos? Because when I do it, it's a full row. Yeah. We go like, yeah, we're doing this and we're going to do a full row. Sure. Again. Yeah.

Tell me. No, I can't because you're right. And I think you're smart because you know yourself. And I'm asking you to be someone you're not by asking you to do two or five instead of the whole box. And it's good that you know you can't do that. Yeah. And let's say I could. It would require so much willpower that it'd be uncomfortable. Right. Right.

No, I've seen this. You drink two or three glasses of wine and you're fine. You're not like, you're not slaying the dragon to resist the fourth. I'm not. I am. I know. I want the fourth worse than I wanted the third. And I want the fifth worse than I wanted the fourth. Yeah, I know. That part's really interesting. Because for me, it's the first. That's what I struggle with is I need the first one. But once I have the first one, I've like, I've done it. Yeah, yeah. I feel calm. I often will get a second one.

And I guess the third one depends on what kind of conversation is happening. Right, right. If you're going to enter the zone. Yeah, or if it's like we're really in it and we want to be here for another hour and a half, then I'll do that. Yeah. It's not the alcohol that's keeping me there, I guess. You get—I get less satiated the more I do. I know. I know.

I guess if I were you, that would be very hard to not just comprehend but almost believe. No, I believe it. And I believe it also because I have seen it in other people too. Right. And I also have been with people who I can see the struggle of, I shouldn't get another one. Should I get another one? Yes. I can see it. And it is taking up all of the brain space. It's exhausting. They can't even be present.

Right, because listen, I have done this. It's not like I'm the type of alcoholic that 100% of the time I drank, I drank alcohol.

a fifth in a case, there were times where like I relapsed with one week left of without a paddle and I'm like, okay, I have to drink every night but I have to drink in a way that I don't fuck up the next day. So I was like allowed to have two glasses of wine in my apartment. Oh, and that seems fine. And I could do that for a week but it's not a win. It's like, it's such a battle. Like glasses one and two are fine and then I'm in the cage with the tiger. Yeah.

battling not to have a third and stay up later and be fucked for work. Right. And then at the end of the week, I'm smoking meth out of a broken light bulb in my apartment and I take nine hits of ecstasy within two days. You don't have to convince me that you're an addict. I believe it. I've seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it. And I apologize that I've asked you to try to be someone you're not. You don't need to apologize. No, but I do to anyone who...

The only thing that's triggering to me is actually the wordage of like, why don't you just? Exactly. It's so loaded to me. I get it. It's like, it's nothing. Like, why don't you just do this simple thing? I know. But when you're not in it, that's how it feels. It's like, well, why don't you do this? Like, that's what I do. It's easy. But of course, it's a different brain chemistry. And I feel that way too. I don't think I vocalize it, but it's like, why don't you just journal and work out for an hour and a half a day?

To anyone that's like struggling. Right. But I know that that's not on the table for people. But for me, it's as obvious as that. It's like. Well, I think it's okay advice. But if I said, why don't you just? That's the part. Sure, why don't you just is tricky. Like it's basically like you're lazy that you're not. This is so simple. Why don't you just make a gratitude list every day, journal and work out for an hour? Yeah.

Right. I mean... I think you would feel a little, like, weirdly judged in the layout of that. I would feel judged, but I think I would also... That one feels slightly different to me because it's the specific protocol that works for you. And it's, like, assuming that that works for everyone. Whereas, like, moderation for most... Well, the one-hour exercise...

Per the England's NHS. Yeah, one hour. Hour and a half journal, gratitude list is specifically your concoction. Yes, but the workout. For sure. That's not anyone's opinion. I agree. That's a better antidote to mild depression than antidepressants. Except not when you're, like, I was working out. I was wogging every day for two weeks. And I...

Because, like, I'm not feeling it. And that is how I knew, oh, I do need to adjust. Right. Because these other things aren't working anymore. Yes. But I recognize that for whatever reason, that kind of—

The routine that I can do obviously is easier for me. I mean, I'm not a hero. Now, again, I remember when I first wanted to start working out and it was the third glass of wine battle. Like, okay, I said I was going into the gym on Tuesdays, Thursdays and whatever. And Tuesday comes and literally I'm sitting in my apartment.

for an hour trying to talk myself into doing the abs. And then I came up with the hack of like, okay, really all I have to do is put on my workout gear and drive to the gym. Anyone could do that. And then you're allowed to turn around when you get there. Yeah. But once I was there, I always did it. But I did have to trick myself along the way. I don't know. Yeah. Wow. That was a really great little detour.

So the show last night? Oh, yeah. So we went to the Reefer Madness premiere, the stage production. Stage production. For people who don't know, 1930s like scare tactic government film, Reefer Madness. It was like a news release show and was warning people of the evils of marijuana. And if you smoked it once, you'd go crazy and you'd like jazz music and you'd get pregnant, blah, blah, blah.

And then that became a fun thing people used to watch and get stoned to, kind of like Rocky Horror Picture Show. Right. Then there was a musical made out of that that started in LA. Then it went to Broadway. Yeah. And then Kristen was in this. Yes. And they were supposed to open two days after 9-11. So it didn't happen. They were starting on Broadway. I thought she...

I didn't know that. Yeah. I thought she was in it on Broadway. But it didn't happen because of 9-11. It never happened on Broadway? No. Oh. Like all of Broadway shut down and then it didn't. Got it. But was she in the movie? So then they made a movie of that that Kristen was in. Okay. Got it. Yes. And now it's back as a musical once again. Yes. And hopefully it'll end up on Broadway. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Kristen's a producer on it. Yeah. And so you and I went. Yes. It was VIP. Very...

Very interesting Portuguese. That's what I was calling the people in the VIP section at Taylor Swift. Very interesting Portuguese. That's great. Okay, so we see each other at the entrance. We talk for quite a while up there. Yeah. Then we go and we see the show. That's another couple hours. Yeah. And then I'm saying goodbye to you and I go, oh, Monica doesn't have pants on.

I was wearing, I was not wearing pants, but I was wearing like a, basically like mini shorts. Yeah.

But there weren't really many. Like, they were basically like a dipe. They were a dipe. Silk dipe. They were Dior. Silk dipe, Dior dipe. Yeah. And a blazer. And tights. So I was covered. Right, right, right, right. But it was very funny when I stepped up at the end to chat with you as you were about to go. Yeah. And then I was like, oh, Jesus, Monica's not wearing any pants. Did you think maybe I lost my pants in the middle? Yes, I was like, something happened to her slacks during the performance. She must have spilled some.

pastrami on them or something and had to quickly get them in cold water. Yeah, but we went- Super fun. It was super fun. It's very campy and funny and it's a scene. And you were triggered because you were at a table with all Indians.

I wasn't going to bring it up, but I'm glad you did. Yeah, I love that boy so much. Karan? Yes. Yeah, he's incredible. Oh, my God. I love him, too. He's the sweetest. You know, I've known Karan since UCB. Oh, really? We did UCB at the same time. We were all in groups, and his partner is really awesome, too. And then there was another Indian man there. Uh-huh. And, yeah, it was racist. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.

And then Kristen felt guilty, so she tried to reverse racism me and say I was racist for calling it out. Right. You're supposed to be colorblind. I guess. It was funny, though. Yeah, if you didn't know anyone in the mix. Yeah. And you walked by that table, you'd go, oh, this family's here watching. A hundred percent. I was like, they think we're all together. But kind of flattering because Karin is, what a good family member to have. That's what white people say. Yeah.

To make themselves feel better. But it is kind of funny because that is true, right? Like you would, anyone would think that. I would think that. Yeah. And then. Well, you would think they were together, whether they were all friends from college or they were family members, but you wouldn't think that.

Oh, there's four random Indian folks seated together. Because that would be segregation, which it was. Which it was. But I think it was inadvertent segregation. I don't think anyone thought like, oh yeah, they're all Indian, stick them together. Well, we were an unbeatable table. You guys would have fucked everyone up. I think if there had been any kind of test of-

Oh, can I talk to you about something important? Yes. About connections? Oh, that was a way to delivery. Yeah. It's been brewing. Oh, wow. For like three days. Oh, wow. I'm sad about something. What? I feel like now when you have made mistakes, you don't send it in. But I... You would say it. I come on and say it. I know. Can you even send your... Of course. Oh, you can? Yeah. I mean...

I mean, I do. Like if mine is a big old mess, I still send it. I send it if it's six and I get it. No, you can still send. Oh, you can. Yes. Literally, I was like, oh, when you run out and it's like maybe next time, I don't even think there's anything to send. I see. So then I quickly go onto the thread and own up to the fact that I didn't get it entirely. You do own up. I'm not saying you're like hiding it because originally when we first started playing, you would send not getting it.

And then like early, early days. Wait, wait, wait, though. But not getting it, meaning I would send in the results or I would send in the results. Yeah. And sometimes you wouldn't have got it at all. Oh, so you're saying I have sent in. You have. Oh, I thought I have sent in the time. Whatever. I get we're on the same page. Sure. So that has that happened.

And I was always very proud that you said, especially when you first joined the group. Yeah, yeah. I had a feeling that you weren't going to send it if you didn't get it. And then you did and I was happy about that. Right. Because that means we all are aware that we're on the same level and we're fine to show when we just can't get it. Yeah, safe. Safe space. That's right.

And so I got worried some days ago. That's truly a confusion because again, I do immediately go on and go, I couldn't get it. So I'm not hiding it.

All right, this is good to clear up here. But I think way more important than that was the fact that you and I were soul sisters reverse back. That was huge. I don't think that's happened yet. Now I can tell, I can own up to a shortcoming I have, which is once I fuck up once, I almost don't care and then I just am very reckless. I don't try to salvage it much. That's fine. Like I care when it's gonna be perfect.

Well, in order, I care the most if I get purple first, then blue, then green, then yellow. Which we call a reverse back, which our listeners, our longtime listeners will know that's a word we invented here. Yes, which was some kind of curious, but yet to be defined sexual act. We just knew it sounded sexual. But we didn't know what it was. We weren't sure. But now we've coined getting reverse order on connections. So getting purple, blue, green, yellow.

a reverse back. Right. Do you hold off if you then see the easy one before guessing? Yes. Well, that's exactly how I, my method is to go on, I click the four easiest ones. Now I'm only looking at 12. Then I try to find the next and then I whittle that down to the remaining eight

But then once I get that and I submit it and it's like fucking green, I'm so pissed. So already level one of me starting to care less. That's silly. I know, but I'm owning this. And so... It's still good if you don't get a reverse back because we also tried to get unipes, which means each one of us in the group has a different order. That's also very exciting for us. Yes. Yes.

Yeah, once I get the error, and it's high likelihood because I'm only going for purple.

Yeah. I like a reverse back. Yeah. I'm not going to act like I don't. That's my goal. Yes. But I'm still very happy if I get it, no mistakes. Me too. I'm kind of like detailing the levels of my interest and dedication to it. If I get purple first, I'm fighting to the end now. But even if I get blue first, now at least it shifts to, well, I got to get out of this thing perfectly. Right. But if I make a mistake on the first one going for purple, I almost...

don't want to play anymore. Yeah, because today... And I get really reckless. There was a potential... Yes. Literally, Rob was a clue. Yeah. And I got a little excited. I did say if they ever says Wobby on there... That's obvious. It's done. Yeah. Then we know. Because it doesn't mean anything, Wobby. There's no... Wobby's sobby. But...

Well, it'd have to be- Oh, W-A-B-I. But it'd have to be, what's the name for that? When you spell a word differently, but it makes the same sound. And homonym. Homonym. She does that. So it could be a homonym for Japanese food. So it could be wabi. Oh my God. Although wabi-sabi is not Japanese.

Okay, it's the first... It's a homonym for the first part of an Asian phrase. I don't know. She's cheeky. If anyone could figure it out, it would be her. Yeah. Okay. I did something yesterday before Reefer Madness. I went to this event. It was sort of a marketing event, but then they had panels and...

and speaking. And I got to interview Jason Sudeikis. Yes. How long was the interview? 45. And did you come in with a bunch of set questions? I did. Okay. We barely, we got to like- One of them? A few. Uh-huh. Because we just started chatting. Lovely. And-

And it was really fun. Wonderful. And I really liked him. Good. Yeah. Yeah, he's very charming. He said he sends his love to you and Kristen. Ah, lovely. And he said he hadn't seen you in a really long time. Very long time. Very charming. Yeah. And the day before, I thought it was in Palm Springs. Yes, you did. That's what you had told me the first time. Right. Turn.

Turns out it was in Carlsbad, which is San Diego. That was a yikes. And I had already invited Jess. And I said, oh, you know, I have this thing tomorrow. It's in Palm Springs. And he was like, do you want me to go with you? So it was unethical. Well, it's just a big bait and switch. It was. And I felt unethical once I learned it was in San Diego and I didn't tell him. But this all happened very fast. It was the day before he said, do you want me to go with you?

And I said yes, and then he came with me. And it was so fun. How long was the drive? Two and a half hours. It wasn't too bad. It was not terrible because you left at rush hour. Yeah, we left at the worst timing possible. But it was only two and a half hours, and then two and a half hours back. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it wasn't bad. Well, we were in the whole— Yeah.

Which was fun. I heard motherfuckers saying they made hove. I heard hove say, okay, then make another hove. I like Jay-Z. Me too. We listened to some. We listened to music. Oh. On the way. Of course. He said it like it was like the most novel thing. You know, we rolled the windows down a little bit for a portion of it. Yeah, that did happen. And he put his hand out and I said, put it back in. Because I thought maybe he would get it.

It's hand chopped off. Very long arm, yeah. If anyone might lose an arm. Exactly. Yeah. Music is a joke between Jess and I because he picks me up from the airport a lot too, which is very nice. And he always says, we'll play music as an incentive. Carrot. Yeah. Speaking of carrot, the restaurant had a steakhouse, which we went to, and it served one carrot. Oh, really? One enormous carrot? Yes. Yes.

Anyway, so that was a fun little 24-hour adventure. Yeah. Okay. Now, this is for Kevin Costner. Oh, man.

The cost. Okay, I have a couple facts. You said that California would send oranges to people on the east to get people to come. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Train cars full. So that made me want to look up state fruits. Oh, interesting segue. I'm going to read some. This is a list. Okay. If you want to guess, feel free. I only know three. Okay, Alabama. Okay, Alabama.

Alabama fruit, not vegetable. Fruit. Fruit. Alabama's fruit. The pineapple. No way. That is a huge swing. Blackberry. Weird. Okay, Arkansas. Ooh, you're not gonna like the answer. Apricots. Nope. Vine ripe pink tomato. Oh, vine ripe.

I guess they say it's a fruit. They do. They do say that. Florida. By the way, so specific. Vine-riped pink. Come on, guys. It's a pretty-looking tomato. I bet it is. Okay. Florida. Orange. Yes. Georgia. Peaches. That's next. Oh, look how pretty. Idaho. We can't say corn. No. It's not a fruit. It's gonna be a berry or something. Yep. Blueberry. Close. Huckleberry. Yes. Huckleberry pie. Yes.

What is a huckleberry? It looks like a kind of... It looks like a blueberry on this picture. Oh, it does? Oh, I was thinking it looked more like a raspberry or a bosom berry or bosom buddies.

Is Michigan cherry? God, I hope. Hold on. Illinois, gold rush apple. Kentucky. I love how specific these are. Half-eaten gold rush apple. Kentucky's a blackberry. Louisiana, Louisiana strawberry. May.

Maine, wild blueberry. Yeah, great pick, Maine. Massachusetts, cranberry. Really quick, you know, I think a lot of this does reflect what order they joined the union. Like, if you're Maine, you're the first one in. You get to pick. Or Connecticut or whatever. Yeah, you grabbed blueberry or something. I don't think

Isn't it what grows there? Yeah, but these things grow everywhere. So these apples grow in probably 15 states. Michigan's got a big apple industry. But if they see Lady Bird or Lady Smith, little lady, pink ladies already taken, they can't take it. There is an available list. But I don't think the P.

I think the peaches in other areas are as good as in Georgia. I don't even know if they make the best peaches. Yes, they do. But they definitely claimed it first. They make the best. I think California makes the best of everything. It does. I do think that. No, it really does. Like, I remember my brother's father-in-law owned grocery stores and he would go to these grocer conventions once a year. And he said that at these grocer conventions, 49 states would make up about half of the hall. And then just California was always half the hall. Well, do you remember when we were in India? Yeah.

And we were at the market. The nuts. Most of the nuts came from California. Yeah, we crank out the food from the San Joaquin Valley. I'm proud of us. Okay, Minnesota, Honeycrisp Apple. Missouri, Norton Cynthia Grape. Nope, Norton Cynthiana Grape. New Hampshire, Pumpkin. That's cool. It is, but not very appetizing. But they thought outside the box. Yeah. New Jersey. Again, fruit?

I guess so. New Jersey, highbush blueberry. New York... See, they had to say highbush blueberry because Maine already said blueberry. I know. But guess who... Okay, New York. Are you reading the same list? No, I'm not reading the list. Okay. Rob's having impulse control issues today. But he is right. Apple. It's just a general apple. They got the original apple. Right. That's why they call it the big apple. Exactly. I just learned that though. Just as you were saying it? Yeah. Okay, North Carolina...

Ooh, you're not gonna like this. Cherry. Scuppernong grape. North Dakota choke cherry. Ohio tomato. Regular tomato. I'm sorry, Ohio. Although, look, they just agreed. They were early on, too. So they were able to just say tomato. What if they're responsible for us thinking tomatoes are fruits? Because I still have a very hard time with that. You think that's worse than pumpkins?

Pumpkin is like a fucking tuber. I know, but a pumpkin I could see in a salad more than a, I mean, opposite, opposite, sorry. A tomato I can see in a salad, a vegetable salad, much more than a pumpkin. Let's just say that all fruits universally, I think this would be the best criteria to define a fruit,

Is if you would want them on a hot summer day. I agree. Like a fresh plate of blank. Yeah. It's fruit. A fresh plate of pumpkin on a hot summer's day. No fucking way. Love that. Okay. Oklahoma strawberry. Regs. That's cool. Oregon pear. Did you skip Michigan? It's not on here. What the fuck? It might be. It might be. I just don't hear you. Well, they're not going alphabetical. Rhode Island.

Rhode Island greening apple. South Carolina peach. Wait. There you go. Double up. MCO. Oh, no. Now I don't touch this list because I was saying Tennessee's tomato also. Oh, Tennessee. Texas, Texas red grapefruit. Hold on. Let me see if Michigan's on here. It's not on here. Oh, my God. What a shitty list. How dare they leave out Michigan? Michigan fruit. I'm going to type it. I think it's about the 12th most populous state.

Michigan doesn't have an official fruit. Apples, cherries, and raspberries. Oh, my. Oh, boy. Oh, my is not a fruit. You never heard of it? Okay, I think we have to pause. Big fresh plate of oh, my. No, no, let's just wrap it up. Are there any big... He's here. I know. He'll stall him for a second. Oh, my God. Okay. I have another list. Okay. Well, I guess we'll resume afterwards. Yeah, we can pause.

For, we're not going to spoil, but we did Easter egg. Just interview someone who's now at the top of the best boy list. I mean, like maybe past Jimmy. Sorry. Yeah. Might've flown by. Shit. That might be the number one best boy we've ever interviewed. Good thing we have an extra. Yeah. It won't look like him. Here's a clue. It doesn't look anything like Jimmy Kimmel.

No, that's right. Okay. But you were saying, BTS, we had to pause because we were going long and we had a guest, but now we're back. Now we're back. And you have another list. And now I have another list. And so Kevin said, finished with engines, and it's a naval term, and he was talking about that. It was a movie. And that made me want to look up what are some military sayings that have become popularized. Oh, great. Okay.

Roger that. Roger that rather than yes. Under the old NATO phonetic alphabet, the letter R was pronounced Roger on the radio. Radio operators would say Roger to mean that a message had been properly received. Received. The meaning involved until Roger meant yes. Today, the NATO phonetic alphabet says Romeo in place of R, but Roger is still used to mean a message was received. I'm going to start saying Romeo that.

Okay. To stay updated. Also, bite the bullet. Okay. Why would you bite a bullet? Fighters on both sides of the American Civil War used the term bite the bullet, but it appears they may have stolen it from the British, British Army Captain Francis Gross published the book Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue in 1811 and used chew the bullet to explain how proud soldiers stayed silent while being whipped. Oh.

- Oh, wow. - Yikes. - Okay, so time to put the thing in your mouth and get your whipping. - Yep, balls to the wall. - I know this one. - Going balls out, okay.

But even deeper, because that's even not military. And I only know this because I toured Jay Leno's garage and he collects steam engines. Okay. And steam engines would have these set of weighted balls that were on little pistons and they laid flat. But as the steam gained momentum, it spun it. And then when it lifted through centrifugal force, the balls directly out horizontally, balls out. So balls from the walls. That was full throttle. Oh.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. It says for military aviation, where pilots would need to get their aircraft flying as fast as possible, their control levers had balls on the end. So this is a little different. Ooh.

Pushing the accelerator all the way out, balls out, would put the ball of the lever against the firewall in the cockpit, balls to the wall. When a pilot really needed to zoom away, they'd also push the control stick all the way forward, sending it into a dive. Obviously, this would put the ball of the control stick all the way out from the pilot and against the firewall. Very phallic experience. Big time. Bought the farm.

Oh. It means to die. I know that part, but why? Thought to date back to 1950s jet pilots, there's no clear agreement on exactly how the phrase came about. It could be from war widows being able to pay off the family farm with life insurance payments or farmers paying off their farms with the damage payout they'd received when a pilot crashed on their land or the pilots who wanted to buy a farm after they retired being said to, quote, buy the farm early when they died.

The first one feels most plausible to me. Oh, caught a lot of flak. Flak is actually an acronym for German air defense cannons. The Germans called the guns boy. No way. Okay. I'm not even going to try. Okay, I can try. Fliegerabwehrkanone. Flieger means flyer. Abwehr, abwehr, abwehr.

That's...

That's cool. Had you read Catch-22, which you haven't, you would be super aware of Flack. It's all over that book. Like in the German way? He was a gunner on a plane in World War II and they were constantly flying through Flack. FUBAR, snafu, tarfu. Hmm.

We've talked about snafu, I think. Systems normal, all fucked up. All three words are acronyms. FUBAR stands for fucked up beyond all recognition. Love it. Snafu is situation normal, all fucked up. And tarfu is things are really fucked up. You know one that I learned while in Africa with a dude that was an active Green Beret is they would say things were a real soup sandwich.

Because you can't, it's impossible to eat a soup sandwich. Too hard to eat it. Yeah, yeah. And I really like that one. Well, this is a fucking soup sandwich. Okay, I like this. Geronimo. Geronimo is yelled by jumpers leaping from a great height, but it has military origins. Paratroopers with the original test platoon at Fort Benning, Georgia, ding, ding, ding, yelled the name of the famous Native American chief on their first mass jump. The exclamation became part of airborne culture and the battalion adopted it as their motto.

Okay, we know in the trenches that's obvious. Mm-hmm. Got your six. Mm-hmm. Military members commonly describe direction using the hours of a clock. Whichever direction the vehicle, unit, or individual is moving is the 12 o'clock position, so the six o'clock position is to the rear. Got your six, and the related watch your six comes from service members telling each other that the rear is covered or that they need to watch out for enemy attacking from behind. Mm-hmm.

No Man's Land was widely used by soldiers to describe the area between opposing armies in their trenches in World War I. It was then morphed to describe any area that it was dangerous to stray into or even topics of conversation that could anger another speaker. Nuclear option, that's obvious. On the double...

Anyone who has run into a military formation will recognize the background of on the double. Quick time is a standard marching pace for troops, and double time is twice that pace, meaning the service member is running. Doing something on the double is moving at twice the normal speed while completing the task. Okay, screw the pooch. Oh, here we go. Screw the pooch was originally an even racier phrase, fuck the dog.

It meant to loaf around or procrastinate. However, by 1962, it was also being used to mean that a person had bungled something. Bungle. Now it was more commonly used with the latter definition. Bungle's a great word. Yeah. I don't use that enough. Maybe that'll be my new over index. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay, that's all for that list. That was a fun list. I know.

I know. You did not bungle it. Thank you. I feel like I learned something. He mentioned Ahab. So son of success for, was this, I bungled that. You bungled that. Was the son and successor of King Omri. Do you know it? No. Because he's referring to the lead character in Moby Dick. That's what the reference is. About a man who becomes crazed and obsessed with killing this whale. But it says.

Okay. And he brings people down in his pursuit of that. Well, he was the son and successor of King Omri and the husband of Jezebel of Sidon, according to the Hebrew Bible. He was widely criticized for causing, quote, moral decline in Israel, according to the Yahwehists. And he was talking about moral decline when he was talking about this.

So I'm not sure. Oh, I am because I heard him give the exacts. This one I happen to actually know. He gave the exact same analogy in a different interview talking about Ahab from Moby Dick who was named after this Ahab. Okay, yeah. So it's all about, it's the same thing. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. But he's been saying to people basically, Horizon is not my Moby Dick. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's it. That's everything. What a blessing he was.

Yeah, legends are cool. Legends are legends for a reason. Legends never die. Legends be legending.

Similar to your pants, I just realized your whole shirt is ripped off in your armpit. Yeah, it has a rip. My pants are not ripped. Okay, great. Phew. I thought you were telling me they were also ripped. With as much shopping you do, it's shocking that you are in tattered clothes. This is vintage. It's a look. Was that intentionally put in that huge hole? No, but vintage items get holes because they're old. Yeah, my shirt that I'm currently wearing is my very favorite velvet by Graham and whoever. Yeah.

They made a cut that they don't make anymore that the side is cut like this. And I only have one left and I wear this frequently. And in the back, just below the label, it's starting to get real cheeseclothy. But it's okay. I think it's cool to have holes like I have. I had a shirt that was my favorite shirt from high school. It was my ex-girlfriend Stephanie's junior high athletic shirt. You would be hard pressed to find a photo of me between 92 and 96 where I'm not wearing that shirt. Have we said bye yet?

Are you about to notice something new in the room? No, I just, I thought we said bye and I didn't know if we were still recording after we were just talking. Oh, no, we hadn't said bye yet. You said that was it. Oh, sure. And then you did a, well, you did maybe like a cue for me to say goodbye. But then I told you about a t-shirt. Well, no. You saw my hole. Yes, exactly. You were yawning and stretching and then you had this pancake size hole. It is large. Yeah, it's a very big hole.

And again, I saw at the very end. Even though my hole is small according to the chocolate we had. From David Sedaris. All right. Love you. Love you.