Will Sasso: Comedy, MADtv, AI, Friendship, Madness, and Pro Wrestling | Lex Fridman Podcast #323
once this whole thing falls apart and we are climbing the Kudzu vines that spiral up the Sears Tower like they say in Fight Club Bobby will go back to his gatherer form and be happy as a pig and shit just walking around the loincloth with his bird hanging out tracking jokes to people and climbing up on them for a stool lap dance or whatever he does you think some level of crazy is required for comedy yeah like at some point yes have there been low points in your life uh yeah I know yeah yeah hey yeah hahaha the following is a conversation with Will Sasso a comedian actor podcaster and someone I've been a fan of for many years since Mad TV in the late 90s to recently with the time in the podcast and now the new podcast called dudesy this is the Lex Friedman podcast to support it please check out our sponsors in the description and now dear friends here's will Sasso so let's call it the elephant in the room you wore a black suit in a recent episode of doozy yes you wore a black suit again today uh Shakespeare than Mark Twain said clothes make the man uh what kind of man does a suit make you well me in particular it makes me a fellow who did not get this dry cleaned in between because that episode of the show as we sit here now was around a week ago so that's that's the kind of man it makes me well the uh the nice things you're wearing pants I think yes I am wearing I don't think you were wearing pants in the episode that's correct I I prefer to wear shorts but this was a special occasion so I'm wearing pants and I thought it fitting obviously to just wear you know the black tie and uh clothes do make them in and I'm uh I I would not consider myself to be a man of leisure but I do enjoy shorts because my legs get hot so that's what kind of man the shorts make often do you wear a suit I fucking hate wearing suits so what is this a statement of uh is it ironic or is it are you honoring the gods of this particular podcast I'm honoring the gods of this particular podcast would be a good way to put it yes no this is this is in in reverence of and in dedication to you and our newfound friendship here yes which we are uh making uh on the podcast you and I just met yeah everything that we're saying here is the or the first things that we're saying to each other so I'm meeting you on Common Ground dressed like well I've been actually a one-way friend of yours for many many years since Mad TV oh um when did you start on mentee so that was many I mean in 90s 97 yeah 97. so I was a huge fan of yours and the cast was incredible it's one of the funniest shows ever created your whole journey watching through that was was incredible for Mad TV to Three Stooges to the podcast the the 10 minute pause and then the new podcast is incredible um cheers my favorite role that you played was the mountain in the Game of Thrones what was it like working with Dragons well the dragons are usually tennis balls on the end of c-stands but uh sometimes they they hang out um I am c-stand it's like you know it's like a little like the thing you got the camera on here oh this is like film lingo yeah no I understand I'm trying to impress you with my film lingo you know what a banana is yeah and you walk like this oh do a banana I take it back I did not know what a banana was yeah yeah because it's just a food yeah normally uh I can see Hollywood folk the lingo and I'm uh my name is Bjorn hap Thor bjornsson and I am seven foot four and uh yeah so dragons don't dragons don't scare me even though they've been extinct for a while these scientists right is that check out yeah I actually I'm really into video games I don't know if you play video games there's a there's a Skyrim uh video game that's part of the Elder Scroll series and for the longest time there's a legend that there's dragons I think it's starting in Daggerfall and so I always I grew up playing those video games and dreaming of one day meeting a dragon in a virtual world and eventually you did in in Skyrim so it's dragons represent I don't know exactly what they represent but they represent maybe this kind of mythical creature that is bigger than anything humans can comply possibly comprehend maybe because they're so they're so they show up so often in myth from the from the religious stories you know of the snake and so on The Serpent and I don't know what that is with this breathing fire that's kind of weird it's interesting when I think about dragons because uh now that you bring it up these are people that probably wouldn't have access to the fact that there used to be dinosaurs right maybe they did if they didn't they're drawing things that look like you know a dinosaur cousin but cool that can breathe fire and has Wacky Wings and a spiked tail um yeah where the heck did they come up with that because they're clearly of course represented in mythology all the way back to uh no not cave drawings well the Egyptians probably knew what the and they could time travel so they would have gone back to the caves with the aliens that placed living organisms on Earth could time travel and they could plant Legends into the into the collective intelligence of the human species yeah and perhaps they were thinking of us to do something smart with it and we didn't we just came up with Skyrim now we're just what's that sorry that was very offensive I'm sorry I don't mean offend you with your video game I'm more of a burger a burger time uh Donkey Kong dude oh what is that that's an original burger time was an arcade game that later showed up on the in television um uh who's in television I believe it was made by Texas Instruments horrible first generation uh video game console and burger time you just it's like Super Mario you just gotta stay away from the the eggs and the pickles and stuff and you just go and you the bun Falls and then you go down to then wait in the cheese and then the meat I'm not going to say it's as complicated as Skyrim but uh took me a while to finish it when I was seven did you play video games that was that a part of your life a part of this source of happiness for you at all it was it was I played video games up until around uh I think in 2010 I got the red ring of death on my Xbox 360. that was it that was it I never or whatever the Xbox was then yeah I had I was playing uh I had finished uh the the Grand Theft Auto that was out and finished the Red Dead Redemption so I was doing that thing where you just drive around uh you know the streets of New York or just ride around on your horse shooting people and uh you know throwing grenades into into groups of people in uh Grand Theft and you're describing the same thing that happened a decade later because it's now Red Dead Redemption 2 and there's still not a new Grand Theft Auto so yeah there isn't right yeah they're working on it they're always flirting with that idea you know who else plays Skyrim another person the two people I'm a huge fan of from that time in Mad TV's Bobby League he plays Skyrim he's a huge fan he plays every so what Bobby Lee loves to do is the grind do the boring task over and over gather mushroom like in Skyrim you can fight dragons you can fight all kinds of things but you can also gather mushrooms and different ingredients to make potions and all that kind of he loves the ingredients that he's the you know in the hunter-gatherer World he's The Gatherer he's The Gatherer yeah I've heard him described that way and and he likes to describe himself that way uh I worked with Bobby not too long ago he came and did a couple days on this thing we were shooting and uh I was looking forward to catching up with my old pal and if you know anything about Bobby Lee you'd probably be able to predict that he spent that entire time playing farming on his iPad all humans are a source of anxiety and trouble so sometimes it's good to escape human interaction through video games totally I'm with him on that he's he's one of the funniest people ever what what do you think is uh what do you think makes him funny it's just all the times you've worked with him the the non-standard non-secular way of his being Bobby Lee is one of the most Raw people raw performers who lets it all hang out to the degree that he will even get naked in front of his audience which is usually a metaphor for someone doing stand-up I'm bearing all yeah I'm showing you everything and Bobby will just uh pull his bird out of his pants yeah I don't think he understands metaphor too much he embodies metaphor yes he embodies metaphor he's The Gather we call him the Gathering metaphor Bobby The Gatherer metaphor he's a metaphor for something else for somebody else's life someday he'll be in the dictionary yeah representing some kind of concept maybe the metaphor itself yeah once once this whole thing falls apart and we are climbing the Kudzu Vines uh that spiral up the Sears Tower like they say in Fight Club Bobby will go back to his gatherer form and be happy as a pig and shit just walking around in a loin cloth with his bird hanging out cracking jokes to people and climbing up on them for a stool lap dance or whatever I'd love to dig into something he he did you guys did a lot of good podcasts together he asked you in a very uncomfortable process of why you don't do stand-up so let me ask you do you hate money well I'm originally from Canada yeah so I'm uh I'm yeah I'm I'm a freaking Pinko uh socialist is that what uh where you come from that's not a nice thing to say I thought the Soviet Union that is a nice thing to say like I call someone right comrade yeah it's a good he's a good socialist yeah he has red like bold colors yeah yeah there's an interesting tension in your voice and the way you talked about it there's just not a source of happiness for you you you respect the art form but it was not something that you were connected to you felt connected to that's a good way to put it yeah I I respect the art form uh a lot I and I grew up with all the albums and stuff I had an older brother and sister who so I you know we had the we had George Carlin we had uh you know Richard Pryor we had Robert Klein we had Guild alive the Gilda Radner uh concert we had we had all sorts of stuff but you know I don't know there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons I do feel like a career in Show Business it is you know they it never goes the way you plan uh like most things and I was fortunate enough to get started outside of my native Vancouver or in my native Vancouver I grew up in The Burbs outside and there was a lot of Industry there so I was fortunate enough to get started as an actor when I was like 16 so there there yeah there was there were some times early on where I came up with some stand-up stuff and did it but uh yeah I quickly abandoned it and then you know you go through you do Mad TV and stuff and then and that's where my and this is gonna sound weird do I sound as anxietal as I did when I was on Bobby's podcast trying to avoid his questions well he was giving you this face this whole time that was making the whole just atmosphere feel full of anxiety so I'm trying not to give you a face the whole time I was saying play cool play cool yeah okay uh play collects play cool you said it out loud a couple times I did just you know you cut that out okay cool play cool dude cut out cut it up maintain bro here's what I'll say there's two ways to do it I think it's lame when someone who's done one thing for a while goes and starts doing stand-up out of nowhere because I think it's an art form that's uh under attack because it's not like anything else you need although now you can of course you know make whatever you want it's the era of self-publishing as far as making a product and putting it out there which is getting easier of course and I can't wait to talk to you about that with with AI and how it's changing art um but uh the in stand up all you need is a is a microphone and you know perhaps uh it'd be good to have some mental illness and then you can just run up there and uh uh talk forever and I say this to to you know comedians it's like you guys have to deal with Justin influx of people who aren't sure why they're doing comedy I would ask community in Zoom like I mean not good ones and good ones you know what they're doing but everyone else like what are you doing why why are you doing stand-up having said that I am allergic to money yeah do you think they have a good answer for that why are they doing it because I actually like when I'm in Austin I like going to open mics just listening it's inspiring to me both the funny and the unfunny people because they've been doing it for several years sometimes over a decade yeah and they're still at it they're still right there there's going for the punch and then especially open mics that are really sad in that there is you know only like five other people in the audience and they're usually just other Comedians and they're still going all out as if they're in front of a stadium but that to me sounds like someone who loves it yeah I got no questions for that person I got questions for someone who goes sideways from here I'm recognizable doing something and then I'm doing stand-up because it's like and truly look I you know I've been I've been fortunate enough to be in the business for a long time and at this point if I came up I mean doing live stuff is fun I have friends that are like um you know some guys who are primarily sketch people or you would look at them as sketch people and they can sell tickets for being sketch people and they and we'll talk about it and they're like well you know I do a monologue I do a little stand-up then I do a song then I do another monologue then I play off the audience do a little stand up um but stand up is it's almost like playing music in that you know people are going up there playing music but what band have you been listening to that's what you're going to sound like so it's really I mean of course I'm speaking from zero experience but I've heard it takes years of course to find your own voice stand-ups that when they first go up they're they're doing a some sort of impersonation of so and so right and so and so you've got to pop this audience that that's paying and you're going to get run over by the next person who's coming up and uh it's hard to follow the last person who went up before you and I said I mean that is a really hard way to it's a very quite a gauntlet to be in to find your voice comedically but don't you have that same kind of thing with Sketch you still have to find your own voice with uh like all the Impressions you do they're just terrible you know they're they're different spins and different people they're not like perfect Impressions right yeah so that's I mean that's a similar kind of Challenge and journey yeah as stand up you're just saying they're kind of distinct and you fell into this one you fell in love with it which is like what Mad TV kind of opened you up to yeah as a kid I literally wanted to be an actor I always wanted to be an actor from a very young age as far back as I can remember and I was the class clown and wanted to do comedy stuff and comedic acting and media acting yeah early on my my influences were a very predictable list of uh guys from from the SCTV early Saturday Night Live uh Monty Python all of those performers really influenced me it was later that I saw people like Kevin Kline who's an incredible actor I vividly remember being like 12 13 seeing him get an Academy Award for A Fish Called Wanda and it blew my mind because I was like he was hilarious I mean it was one of my favorite movies back then and now and uh he won an Academy Award and at that point I I started thinking more about acting and then I was like I said really fortunate to fall in with um I mean I always wanted to do it and I was trying to hustle this and that when I was a kid and then I ended up getting represented and then I I ended up on a teen show I was on I basically the easiest way to pitch it is it's like a Canadian my so-called life with these kids in their lives and stuff and I did that for like five years and I really love acting I really truly love acting and I don't I'm not someone who wants people to know my opinion so that's another thing about stand up like I love The Illusion of what I get to do in uh in uh entertainment and podcasting is great for that but to stand up there and from I don't know just for me it's like it would have to all be fantasy and um yeah so Nietzsche said that every profound Spirit needs a mask like you said you don't like to talk about in your comedy you don't like to talk about stuff that's personal to you yeah what is that what if you were to psychoanalyze yourself do you think it's just not something you find funny or is it are you running from something um and uh it's not your fault well it's not your fault well um speaking of another really great comedic actor who's also a serious actor Robin Williams one of the best serious actors I mean I mean I I and you know one of the funniest people of all time but as great as incredible as he was as a funny man as a as a stand-up and a performer I almost like his his serious stuff better can I ask you a question about that what do you make of the that he committed suicide I think it's I think it's I mean it's super depressing I I I've referred to him as like the Jesus Christ of of uh depression it's almost like he died for others depression you know what I mean like yeah yeah you'd look at someone like that and go wait a minute you're a rock star like you don't you could just check out if you're not liking your life and of course something like suicide begs that you look a little deeper and uh realize how tortured the human mind can can make someone is there some aspect you still you know we're in La is there some aspect of celebrity that's isolating that can make you feel really lonely not me I don't feel no not really you feel the love I just feel like I'm not I mean it's like I don't know I've always kind of had a small group of friends and those people don't you know it's like I've known the same people for years and years you never really felt the celebrity really nah in L.A it's hard to it's hard for people nobody cares they see you and then the next minute they see so and so so it's like you know I'm the guy from that hey that uh Mike and Molly right nope yeah nope close king of uh King you just shave your head you go bald are you king Queens nope it's not me so close you're wow shit look uh you were used to be the mountain on uh Game of Thrones you look like shit whatever just eating fried dough yeah um yeah that's what's up can't lift any weights anymore I'm at the gym doing like 15 pounds with shoulder press ah and people coming up to me you used to be a dragon killer if a man used to be yeah what's have there been low points in your life sorry to go there but uh yeah I know yeah yeah hey yeah yeah everybody has a low point in life the Opera to suffer from like depression any of those kinds of things you know what I do I do I have uh I have a bunch of stuff how do you deal with it said friends the friends and the they don't do anything for me yeah I have a I have an incredible fiance who uh that that's nice to have somebody uh uh constant that you love very much and see is the best person and all that good stuff hopefully vice versa uh and then well on your recent Instagram she said that she loves you so wow yeah allegedly that might all be for yeah that's how much money did you pay her to say that I don't I don't have any because I'm not a stand-up I was like I could do you got venmo yeah yeah I got I only have like 123. here's some Dogecoin yeah some Doge yeah you want some Doge I got some of those monkey nfts oh before I forget yes hold on a second oh no put a doozy sticker on your microphone if that's okay sure here oh yeah now these are tricky because I have the thumbs of a I have like Italian sausage I'm just gonna this will take another yeah yeah oh man yeah ooh this is embarrassing when there's are you good under pressure is that I have anxiety I have performance anxiety do you have anxiety yeah you have anxiety period period yeah I I like I don't like it when I if I have to pee and then everyone's waiting in the urinals yeah yeah I don't like it you know what will help you in that situation what's that taking a shit because whenever you take a shit you always pee a little it's hard to take a shit while you're standing at a urinal but not in my world okay you just got to keep yourself full of things that make you shit oh good you ever heard of a banana I did recently somebody told me about it not the Showbiz term I'm talking about the food there you go here we go which way is up it's this way it's like a d no it's been it there you go all right foreign sexy you're like a brand yeah it's very important to Brand yourself these colors are you selling shoes yeah I got some uh custom kicks coming out the dudesy uh no actually that would be a good idea you can probably sell a pair or two of those speaking of anxiety I really am only focused on this right now Alex I apologize just shit your pants it'll make you be easier and get on with it oh this thing has been dog-eared in my pocket for a while I swear this never happens to me I'm sorry babe people don't thumb it a sticker for an hour while they're doing the product this is just an excuse you make when you're with somebody and you're underperforming well here's the thing as you ask me questions that I don't want to answer I'll just go to this don't go to the sticker so if this doesn't mean let me just ends up working then I won't have it finally how you started doing that when we're talking about depression that's weird that is weird tell me tell me how that makes you feel um here we are we got it for the listener he succeeded after 10 minutes yeah you know no I do have I do have uh some of that stuff Bobby Lee uh has had encouraged me on on wax as I like to say to go to talk about it on podcasts talk about depression because it could help people and I said no but um it's true I do I do have some there's uh there's some history in the family how do you overcome it well I used to not believe in medication at all I used to think that that was for someone else with uh who's been diagnosed with uh some of the some of the rougher stuff but as I got older then some of the stuff happens and you know you have to and by stuff I mean uh you know mental stuff and uh and yeah so I went and I I just I believe that the stigma needs to be removed completely 100 uh and so I've I you know I do therapy I do talk therapy I I'm on a little bit of stuff which which let me tell you when I first started it I was um you know someone I'm close to was like my manager and she goes this is too much but she was like yeah you don't have to White Knuckle it through life right because I was literally just like everything became you know really hard to do at a level that I wanted to do it at even just getting through your day right uh and when I first um got some of the the meds that I was on that I'm on it felt like doors and windows were opening literally in my brain I took a a three-hour nap the first day and you shouldn't even feel this stuff the first day I think my brain was like it was like a sponge it wanted to I needed some relief and I'm not a nap guy I can sleep three hours and I'll be fine um but I I took a long nap and then I it started to it started to help yeah it's not weird how a little bit of chemistry in your head can the kids just make the whole world appear it's so much more beautiful yeah yeah yeah I mean after after all there you know there's a lot going on in your brain that can be changed by you know your lifestyle but also so many physical things like a little bit of meds or in Bobby's case uh you know thumbing around on some dumb farming app well Bobby's gone through a few rough periods oh like uh uh you know with drugs and alcohol and all that kind of stuff so and uh just everything else involved I mean that's the beautiful roller coaster of who he is and a lot of great comedians seem to be that way so I wonder what the connection there is you think some level of crazy is required for comedy yeah like at some point yes on a scale of one to ten how much crazy do you have uh in some ways a 10 uh and in other ways that I think uh in other ways sort of functionally I'm like a two or a three because uh I don't know from Canada and I'm yeah I I you know I try to just keep things very even keeled my parents are Italian they're from Italy and uh you know they're very they grew up during World War II and they're very you know uh simple outlook on things they're complex incredible classy people who are very simple when it comes to a lot of stuff and and uh I I think just being a sort of a at heart kind of a timid Canadian coming out here years ago as a kid uh it was uh all I could do to just keep everything super normal and then I sort of was able to settle into that as a lifestyle but you love the idea of being an actor like who uh you mentioned John Candy and uh planes planes and Automobiles yeah it's one of my favorite movies just as one of yours what do you think that makes that movie work what do you what um and when you when you talk about enjoying that movie do you enjoy just the raw comedy or do you enjoy like the friendship and and the love that's there even though on the surface it doesn't make any sense that there should be a friendship there I mean that's such an important element to that film but uh you know as a kid I just love the comedy and then I it's been a nostalgic favorite of mine like it's my favorite movie uh but it's also uh it's just legit my favorite movie because as you get older and you start watching it you realize it's what it's what John Hughes is the filmmaker and what John Candy particularly and but also Steve Martin are doing in the film that makes it such a work of art which is loneliness is there in every moment of that film and John Candy is he embodies Del Griffith his character in the film he he Del Griffith is a lonely guy and John Candy but but Del Griffith is also a very friendly guy and a shower curtain ring salesman and knows everybody in the Midwest and runs around to motels and has meaningful conversations with the guy evening Gus you know whoever he's talking to um uh but there's loneliness there all the time and uh you know this is a character these the film is filled with loneliness and it's not until you know the second last scene when he's at the train station you know Dell what are you doing here you thought I thought you were going home what are you doing here um that's a very good Neil Neil Page from the movie thank you uh that's when you realize how lonely cheers that's when you realize how lonely he is and I think that's the element from the film that I mean look you know nowadays I I feel like I've been saying this for a long time but John Candy would have won an Academy Award hands down for that film it's just they didn't do that with comedies back then yeah until the year after that movie came out with Fish Called Wanda yeah and then it's I mean still comedies don't get respected enough Robin Williams he got I guess he got an Oscar for good Goodwill Hunting um Jim Carrey did he ever get an Oscar I don't know I don't believe so no yeah they don't get you don't but that's not even if he did you wouldn't be for comedies it's just I mean there's some things that are um playing streams and honor maybe would you even put that as a com I guess it's a comedy yeah I mean there's a there is a loneliness and depth that permeates the whole movie yeah that ultimately and it's a happy ending which is hard to kinda it's a happy ending only because in the last moment of the movie John Candy puts on a brave face even when he's got no one and he's there seeing Neil Page's entire family on Thanksgiving and he forces a smile which is the last literally the last frame of the movie and I've said before if you're not reduced to just a solving pile of meat uh at the end of the movie then you are not human um yeah it's it's it is a happy ending it's a happy ending even though it's a it's a sad so much character loneliness in the world I was just in Vegas I went to a diner at like 4 a.m 5 A.M and there's the waitresses empty as a waitress that was the sweetest kindest human being kept calling me sweetheart and all that kind of stuff hun and then after I ate she sat down and just talked to me a little bit you know it's because there's nobody nobody there and it was just there's so much sadness in her eyes I don't know but it's also so much love like that sweetheart that I mean it reminded me kind of um of the John Candy performance because at first because I was like uh reading a pretty dark uh uh book about Hitler uh so I was a little bit frustrated that she kept talking to me because it was like uh it was it was almost like uh the same way that John Candy is it's annoying a little bit right but then very quickly I opened up to like oh this is there's a kind human being and there's like that human connection superseded everything else and I don't know it was just beautiful and I think John Candy captures that really well which is like the connection with other human beings sometimes we pull away from that because we were have a busy life full of stuff to do uh as um Steve Martin's character and characterize he's like a marketing exec or something like that but if you just pause and notice others you can you can really discover Beautiful People totally totally everyone's got well I mean everyone's got their their story and you know candy as a person I've never met the man uh but um he's the kind of guy that you know he could he could just walk up to back in the day I would imagine he could walk up to just about any house at least in Canada knock on the door and you'd invite him in for dinner you know what I mean so yeah it's a it's a bit that you know as you're talking about you know putting a book down and talking to someone for a while even though you'd really like to read your book it's it's like it's that sort of thing that Candy's character in the movie sort of does that like Johnny Appleseed just because you realize he's just going around making people smile you know and and Neil Page is hanging with this guy so frustrated he's just a he's so exhausting in his big underwear in the sink at the hotel and everything and by the end of it he loves this guy you know so uh it's a good and a bad thing that you have didn't take that waitress with you on a trip maybe road trip up to Reno oh oh she's she's actually she's out shopping right now we've been having uh sex multiple times a day ever since oh that's nice that's lovely I think I'm sure she's married and and happily and has many grandchildren okay uh and and plus that movie's on Thanksgiving I think right yeah Thanksgiving so like Thanksgiving just embodies that forget about the the busyness and the whatever the career you're chasing in life and just take a pause and appreciate the people you lost your family yeah or the people whatever your family friends yeah uh you have some weird friends unorthodox friends so so at least in the public sphere oh yeah uh from Bobby Lee Brian Cowan all those kinds of folks from the Mad TV days I'm sure there's others what does it mean to be a good friend here in LA or just in general in the world in the world will say is the world a friend I think it is different here I think it is I think there's a little bit of a career kind of uh negotiation shuffling around that kind of stuff why is it different oh I I just mean I mean I mean that it's just kind of hard here to to make time for everybody there's so there's it's always been a city to me that is like will keep you so busy and every time I go home to Vancouver after a few days I start to get a little stir crazy and I think that being here in in La I go to sleep with a hundred things that I still have to do and you never you're never out of stuff to do and if you um you know when you ask about are you nuts or whatever if you're crazy I mean look every all the weirdest people from every high school in the United States is like I'm gonna make it in LA you know everyone just comes here and uh just another freak in the freak Kingdom as they say at the end of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that was a very good Robin Williams impersonation that was my Robin Williams as Johnny Depp as Hunter S Thompson yeah it's not your folk will it's pretty good thank you could have been you if you're unloathing yeah it'd be interesting I would like to play his journey the the role that um oh yeah Benicia Del Toro gained weight yeah that would have been cool he's just saying he's just like that chewing his face off I could have done that um uh yeah yeah no I think that it's back door beauty that guy's full of good lines yeah if it'd be for real yeah um good actor he's a yeah fantastic actor I think I think what it takes to be a good friend is just you know presence just be in there I mean that's all anyone needs to be heard right um in La it is it is interesting it is you you I haven't seen people that I love in years some people just busy yeah do you still have a depth of connection even though like one of the reasons I really enjoy doing a podcast you get to sit down with with actual friends of yours and spend prolonged periods of time together that you don't otherwise that's a good point I've spoken on this podcast to people really close to me and it's like if you've never had a conversation without microphones like you do with microphones it's weird but yeah uh there's some aspect about a la that you know a lot of the especially friends of yours Comedians and so on they'll do podcasts and stuff and there's uh I don't know there's an intimacy to that yeah yeah there is and there isn't the ones that I do I mean I just did uh Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino's funny enough called bad friends bad friends and afterwards and my good pal Chad culture with whom I do doozy uh was with me sneakers are coming soon sneakers are coming soon you get your will foot and your Chad foot comes in a size 15 and a nine and a half um and uh I remember afterwards we were talking it was just basically me Chad and Santino were talking and Bobby was over there you know on his phone and then I was like we I mean we didn't spend any time talking about anything it feels like one of those hours that goes by and you realize I've just been goofing around with these guys which is that's what life is about right a little bit it's great and then I'm like all right Bobby hey Bob I'll see you later and he's like like this all right man hey love you bro see you later yeah yeah yeah he's a guy do you ever just I just send text messages over there to him that never come back and then he thinks that I'm angry with him because it's been you know it'll go two three years without him getting back to me and then just out of nowhere hey fuck face and uh who says Hey fuck face he does or you do are you both back to each other no I got to be very I got to be very careful Matt Bobby yeah I got to be very sweet dear friend dear friend hello how are you doing how are you I know I checked in with you but uh not but three months ago uh and then every once in a while he'll go hey fuck face I tend to hide from the world and I I'm I can be pretty shady with friends come back yeah I I can empathize with with Bobby it might be a Skyrim thing it might be like hiding in a world in a digital world with fake fake NPCs yeah yeah there's that yeah uh yeah you know I have a buddy who said something really smart a while ago we ended up working together on this uh TV show thing and I reached out to him to see if he wanted to do it with us and uh he did and he goes this is a great guy such a funny writer he goes I may not be in touch all the time but I know who my friends are yeah you know what I mean and it's like in our business and this is a fellow who Moved um who's from Ontario Canada moved back there he's on the farm with his wife and kids and he does not care he's never been a Hollywood guy and uh it's tough to get a hold of him but when you do you know he's still the same sweet old guy he's doing his thing though yeah yeah some of my closest friends even if we don't talk for a few months yeah we're right back at it if we do and then if shit goes like if something really traumatic happens or difficult stuff or you know any of that kind of stuff I'm almost there so like so for important stuff sure important highs and important lows you're there yeah and then yeah pick right back up especially if you have those years of experiences together it's interesting totally uh so you've done a couple of podcasts yeah done so we got to talk about Duty a little bit but first you did for several years you did the 10 Minute Podcast yeah I mean everything is hilarious about that podcast including the fact that it's 10 minutes right that means every it's ridiculous it's absurd the dynamic is hilarious it's you Brian Cal and kristalia there I I don't know exactly why it's why I worked so well but it did it worked really well I think it's because the yeah you were having fun probably I mean that's that would really came through that it was friends just talking shit and attention the beautiful tension and the absurdity they came out yeah uh what sure what was the story of making that podcast what how did that came to be uh why do you think it was as good as it was I don't know I feel like that podcast was like it was our our who we kind of are but on steroids or something like you know uh each person you know Brian's going to be like extra manly and and uh can you get any more mailing than he already is no yeah he reaches though uh and yeah we just kind of it's I I feel like as goofballs we knew each other's line yeah like here's the line you don't cross I feel like those guys don't really have one uh but at least they knew mine um and and yeah we were able to just yeah goof around and I did it with them for three years and then Chad who I'm doing doozy with and my pal Tommy blacher who's a another writer producer like Chad they came on and yeah all told we did I did like seven years of that thing six five six seven I don't remember do you think it ever comes back in some small form as as a 20 minute podcast or something like that I mean is there uh because it's one of the most requested I mean there's you you have a huge fan base I'm 47 years old so I am of the generation that had a cell phone has had a cell phone half the time and didn't for the formative years of my life into my early 20s um and then finally got a like I got a cell phone I guess I was like 19 or something just like literally just because I'm moving to La you got porn in the mail you got yes that's right it was that the hard the hardcover porn that's the way we liked it bound you know nice binding on the on the porn the leather uh next to the Bible yeah yep um these are all my these are my Encyclopedia Britannica wow very impressive yes a man came to the house and sold me these and then down here these are my this is my pornography uh if you'll follow me through here to The Parlor uh sir and pass through the generations from Grandfather to Father yeah I want to give you something very special to me Nebuchadnezzar um but uh uh if you go up in the generation without a cell phone yes I um it's hard for me to connect with people who who hit me up I look at everything as polling so if one person hits me up and shares this opinion but two other people hit me up and share that I'm the worst I'm don't follow my polls my when people say oh that poll means absolutely nothing so-and-so is going to win anyway that that's my pull my pull means nothing but I do look at the stuff and go uh this many people are saying this that means that that number is saying that and yet it's very hard for me to hear what the hell people are saying online yeah I really I can't connect to it sometimes personally So when you say that that's a popular podcast like I know that I know that it's popular with the people that have expressed that they love it yeah you know what I mean what does that actually represent I don't know I don't know what kind of people are the audience I don't know I know that the the people that listen to the 10 Minute Podcast and if you did thank you uh and we're friends uh I know that it was a it was a special thing because it's like you know just doing this out of my house and we just built it up out of nowhere and we're just kind of clowning around it's a it's an odd thing I hope I I pers I think I I speak for the two people that have reached out to you that said you should do it or whatever three people the poll yeah that uh you should bring it back at some point that would be beautiful just maybe uh it's like uh what's what's a good story of some of like a famous band that came back and was successful probably well Nirvana no it was not sorry I got Nirvana mixed up with Aerosmith yeah it was Aerosmith I was Aerosmith yeah I had that second ride different yeah totally different ending of those two bands one ended up on uh American Idol yeah um a lot of interesting women involved in that one too all right uh uh how did doozy come to be dudes and what the hell is dudesy doozy is the first podcast and this is exciting that you've asked me to come here today uh because to hear what you would have to say about it or what you would ask about it it is the first podcast that has been that is run completely by and essentially I like to say curated by an AI um we were approached by a company that had this proprietary AI that wants to develop the podcast into the future and figure out exactly what it takes to make the best podcast ever and it was all we all we we knew from the top and what they really wanted was two people who were actually friends and could be meaningful in the podcast space based on whatever information they have the company's CIA and are they testing technology to control the populace through chatbots I'm sorry I'm not at Liberty to share that information you are yeah who gave you the suit where did you get the suit where did you get the suit will yeah well this is JCPenney CIA stands for something different in here I mean you know it doesn't mean like you know Central Intelligence Agency and probably it's just different it's uh yeah it's a Canadian uh National apparel yeah the Canadian International apparel company hit us up Chad and I um well Chad's a super weirdo you would get a kick out of him I know you guys you you strike me as a very similar in some ways and I'll take that as a compliment but it is and it is uh and it is yes and if I was friends with you for as long as I've been with Chad perhaps I'd have some horrible shit to say about you but yeah uh the good parts you remind me of him and we were approached by this company that said we have this Ai and we would like to set it loose on you and essentially we had to hand over some some information that would allow the AI to to access our email and uh look at our search histories purchase histories things like this and really dig into PornHub included or yeah I had to hand over all my leather-bound 1970s pornography um and essentially it curates a podcast for us every week doing dumb things like you know it says hey will you know you do a Hulk you do some shitty Hulk Hogan impersonation podcasts about news are very popular this is infomania you know what I mean oh let me tell you something about that Marjorie Taylor green dude and then he's going on doing some new stuff um and it basically just spits out all these things that it wants us to do normally four segments an episode and that's pretty much it it's a generous what to do it generates the premise I mean you've spoken a bit here and there like I said I'm a huge fan I don't even remember where but like you you you talked about that you enjoy doozy because you feel almost like liberated to um because you're operating within the constraints of the premise that generates so you're almost not you're you're you're you're free to riff essentially yeah like you don't have to you don't need to do the job of like coming up with the weird you can just the weird is given to you and then you just run with it that's a good way to say it because we're already weird Chad and I Chad Chad can talk for days about all sorts of stuff he's particularly interested in AI lately and its effect on Art he is a a writer books movies and TV shows and um I'm primarily you know acting and trying to come up with stuff stuff I write with Chad's pretty good the rest of it hasn't seen much success anyway uh Nora is the stuff with Chad for that matter but um that's because of me sneakers you never know okay oh I can't wait for these things only in two sizes yeah only in two sides you're gonna be able to take the the you know the tongue you can't take it out because it's actually stitched in yeah it's pretty cool stuff um velcro or uh yeah velcro velcro up the side we're doing some like brand new Kanye stuff yeah we want things to look like this is what you'll be wearing on Mars when you get there so cutting it so Nike's doing a bunch of research for running how to make a super light shoe that you can be efficient in and break all kinds of Running Records so you're doing the same kind of stuff we're doing the same kind of thing for the podcasting space the best kind of shoes to sit around and talk to your pal in um but yeah we so this yeah it's bizarre and it also does some writing Duty does come up with things but not unlike what we're seeing in AI art now it's a little bit foggy it's a little bit weird and it but it is improving it is learning about us and writing stuff when it makes me spit this and that which will read you know well you know I've prepared these things for you to read it's impossible not to get a kick out of it because Chad and I are first of all we're blown away that we're doing this yeah and second of all the some of the stuff is actually very funny it makes weird names like I don't think it understands it messes up some words and stuff but that makes it even funnier and then it it sort of from the beginning started laying on like it says astonishing all the time everything is astonishing um that's dudese's favorite word um but yeah it's basically just a way to to frame the podcast you know what I mean because my thing is uh I don't want to do this or I actually have to talk to someone you seem to feel a burden of the long form conversation it seems like is that really hard work for you no not at all it's just that I don't like the bore people and I feel like if I go on and I like to provide value for who for what I am you know your value with regard to this project is is obviously warranty it's obviously I'm waiting for the explanation for what the value is exactly two dudes in a suit no listen yeah two dudes in a suit no I mean you've got your audience and that's the end of that people find Value in it for me I I do feel like I'm uh it is important that I if I'm going to do something that you know is going to be funny or that I hope is funny I just kind of want to get in and out of someone's day and just kind of I like making I like making laughy I want people to you know whatever it's the same thing that anyone else will tell you yeah but in the long form you feel the anxiety you did a few funny things and I wonder if I can keep doing the funny thing is that why you you're you feel that like why is doozy relieving you of some of the anxiety well in some ways gives me anxiety because I don't know what's coming and that's weird for me because I like to prepare uh for things but it's that's not what podcasting is podcasting you need to just be malleable and say whatever and do whatever um and uh that's what makes it a real I mean it's look it's a medium for conversation and if you're driving along listening to this or anything else you're you know it is that it's the it's the true meaning of the parasocial relationship because the best podcasts just make you feel like you're sitting around rapping we're just having a conversation you could even be sitting there agreeing or talking out loud to yourself if you want to be sitting in silence or you could just be sitting in silence in your fancy uh podcasting shoes podcasting audience shoes this is very different build than this would they be awesome Call of Duty the shoes yeah they'll be good shoes that's very creative yeah well one thing the AI isn't good at yet is branding everything is just doozy this and that I would argue that's pretty good branding I don't know well doozy allows me to just it forces me to sit down with Chad and goof around for an hour or an hour plus and and uh it provides the parameters that I A lot of times ignore because I'm I think that podcasting is just two dudes shitting around or three or four but um it it it sits me down and gives me a premise to to work with me to just riff with it yeah it's fun it's been a hoot so from the acting perspective you know a lot of people like Daniel Day Lewis will will see acting just like as you described which is you have your roles you Embrace those roles and then you disappear you don't um you don't you don't do podcasts you don't do any of that kind of stuff your art is your art so is that is that party you feels that way I think so is that the actor side of you yeah anytime I get to do something that I don't get a chance to do much of or something that people haven't seen me do much of or that I've done on some scale that isn't hasn't been very wide and not a lot of people have seen it that's the stuff that I get really excited about um I don't know why I'm I don't know why I don't know why necessarily I haven't answered that question yet in my life like what it is about being an actor that I love so much because it's not like I don't like to it's not like I'm trying to get away from myself and play other characters and stuff and not be myself um but it is it has always been fun to to just be other people and Escape yeah is there some aspects to The Impressions where you become that person is that like what what's that like to uh I suppose acting is a full-on version that you really at his best become the character is there some fun in that yeah absolutely if you can play a character for long enough um and then jump out of it uh that's a lot of fun like I did this movie like four or five years ago called the inside game about the NBA gambling scandal that there there's a Netflix documentary around about it right now and that character I played uh Jimmy Batista Baba the Sheep who's you know this guy was this bookie and ra ra Ron it's a very he's a there's a lot going on with him he's he's you know he's running numbers with the mob and stuff and there's a lot of money changing hands that character was so I got to be get so deep into that character that coming out of it was was a little odd or as weird as this sounds The Three Stooges was hard for me to I found that I had uh some of Curly's mannerisms just automatically I could not stop them when people when when I would talk to people they would they would come I wasn't I'm not doing it on purpose I don't want to do that like I'm ready to shed it because I've been working on it for months and months at that point as far as getting the thing down and then you then you gotta shoot and then uh for me it's always I always want to change the stuff I did the day before I'm like that where I'm like I could have done it better and this and that and uh that stayed with you that character stayed with you a little totally yeah I just feel like with actors sometimes when you listen to interviews they've spent so much time sort of living inside other characters that they they almost don't have a depth of Personality themselves like a depth like I don't mean that as a negative thing it's just like it feels like the art form at its best is pretending to be other people uh like and even pretending sounds negative but like I'm pretending bringing certain characters to life yeah yeah embodying a weird thing happened while we were doing Stooges because you've got a very heavy blueprint we're following this very clear blueprint that the Stooges left for everybody and it for stooge fans and people enjoying the movie it's got to be this you take your toolbox that you're used to Bringing to a comedy movie you leave it you leave it behind the only tools I'm bringing are the ones that he used and weird things started happening where I would I always saw the whole thing happening with the real Stooges in black and white so I if we're about to shoot a scene I would just you know think about I'm gonna aside from all the other preparation you know you know everything which supposed to do and I've been watching so much of it and the three of us are we're pretty much left to come up with a lot of the the Striking combinations and all the stuff which is all real smacking and all this crap and the stuff that we were doing that was very stoogy uh you're preparing all that stuff but something else was happening before you jump into a scene and the unknown of now we're shooting it and here are these uh parameters within to shoot the scene I could still see it as them doing it so much so that when I saw the movie at the premiere I was like who's this big fuck doing because I'm not curly to me curly is Curly but I feel like you're seeing yourself in black and white almost I was seeing him yeah I was only seeing him channeling in some fundamental way in some weird way you're channeling them because you've seen so much of it the only thing you know about Jerome Lester Horwitz is curly I'm not saying he was exhumed or something or his Spirit went in here some weird you know Crystal mommy shit like that I'm saying that this because you know so much of it because of the heavy blueprint that they left with you you are you're channeling what that person does and you're you're I was seeing entire scenes you know before you do them the way he would do it and then you want a couple takes to make sure that you're doing it right but that was hard that one was hard to let go of some of them are do you think Larry David who is also in there dressed as a nun also had trouble letting go that we mentioned clothes make the man yeah think that worked for him in that case man you know he uh wasn't like working with the guy come on he's the greatest and he's uh he's a big stooge he's a stooge fan and him and Pete fairly are good friends and then but then Larry David has to show up and hang out with us for a couple weeks he's like I didn't realize it was going to take this long you know but uh ah shit I gotta be out here in Atlanta it's boiling hot but at one point uh there's this line where he kept doing a he would just spit a different line every time he was like getting hit in the head with something he's laying there on the ground and he goes he like comes to and he says at one point he goes Miami audiences are the best audiences in the world right and because he's loopy now he's playing a nun at the at the orphanage where the Three Stooges grew up and I'm super intimidated by Larry David he's a genius and stuff and and uh and but I walk up to him and I go uh so he's what is he like a like a bush belt Florida comedian who is on the lamb and so he's dressing as a woman he ends up at an orphanage like what's going on there and he just and he looks at me just goes yeah like I'm like yeah he's got some like actor motivation like of course he looks it's Larry David in a nuns habit which is hilarious that's such a fairly casting thing it's you know and he's but he's doing this whole like what a warm audience you know like like oh he's like this cat skill comedian who's been living in you know so that's what he was like living through in his mind is just having fun with it right I mean that and probably a combination of that and getting the lines right because he's like what are we doing here what is you know just frustrated all day with what the heck we're trying to do what do you think makes I mean that guy is one of the best improv people ever yeah so what do you think makes him so good like why is it so compelling to watch that guy because he's a comedic genius like he literally he knows what he does he's been a writer for 50 years or whatever and he's and he just happens to be that brilliant I mean I've gotten a chance just to do I did it uh just an episode of curb a small part and it's crazy what he sees I don't know what he sees as a matter of fact so I auditioned for it for curb like you know two or three times right and never got anything and then uh it was only after working with him on the Stooges I got a call to do a bid part but I remember auditioning you go into that into that room and the guys waiting are all people that you know you're like oh I know them I know her I know him and uh so I went in I auditioned for this for this part and um the only thing I know the thing is like okay so you really want to go to this play with me you really want to go to this plane when you hear that I have an extra ticket you sincerely want to think and I'm like got it and so that's the premise the premise of the scene and that's all you know it's all I know and so he goes he does his bit and I'm just supposed to come in and interrupt and I'm like excuse me I couldn't help but here you guys were talking about you know whatever the play was or you know Death of a Salesman I am I'm a huge fan of that plan but I mean if it's not if it's not if you're looking for someone to take a ticket I I would love to go my name's so and so by the way and he goes I'm gonna stop you I'm gonna stop you and I'm like he goes are you really you I mean you truly want to go to this play and I go yes yes sir you really want to go you actually this is you would love to do this I go okay let's try it again so then he's like no no and I go hey uh excuse me I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt I was just I I couldn't help it over here you have uh tickets to the thing I am the biggest fan I do the same thing I'm going to stop you again okay I mean you really want to go to this and I'm just like he's fucking with me right yeah I remember Jeff Garland was sitting there in the audition he goes he did it he said it what shut up no hold on listen you really want to go okay three four times you know there I am I couldn't help but notice it and then I do it again I guess I shit the bed because he looks at me he just goes okay all right okay well thanks for coming up and that was it and I didn't get it so I still I don't know what the heck that guy's thinking he sees he's in The Matrix I don't know what the heck Larry David sees you know what I mean he wanted what some kind of more desperation or something like this like he wanted a level of sincerity that I that I thought I thought was bringing and I guess I was wrong I don't know maybe go crazy like what does it mean to really want yeah I should have grabbed him by the Scruff of the neck and go yeah listen dad you're bringing me this fucking play I would have got the part as a matter of fact I heard about someone else and I don't know who the heck this was I forget who it was but I've heard this story from a couple different people that there's this actor and I can't I don't remember who it was if I did I probably wouldn't say it out loud anyway but he wrapped it it was Brad Pitt and he was in this audition and he was and there was out in the hall he's like holy shit George Clooney Leo DiCaprio um and he this actor went in and he did the thing and um Larry David was like hey why don't you try it again and he got like a couple takes in and he went I don't think this is for me and he left which an actor never does yeah and as The Story Goes Larry David shouted after him I respect that which I think is true and I want to believe that entire story is true yeah yeah sounds like something Larry David made up at the top Bobby Lee told me that story so we can't yeah we can't trust that um what about him Impressions is there similarity between that and acting do you is there some fundamental way in which you become the person if you have a couple of the things you can just fill in the blanks and I think the illusion is that people think that that person would say that and do that and that's where the illusion of oh he really embodies the character it's like once you know someone's mannerisms you can essentially portray a person from the outside in yeah because you have all the stuff on the outside and you can do it and complete the illusion and if it's for humor's sake you can caricature it therefore making the whole illusion stronger and also weirder like I like to on Mad TV if I did something two or three times I get bored of it and I'd start changing it and you know now he talks like this and it's like what are you doing I'm like I don't know it's fucking no one's late at night do whatever you want but people still kind of know what this that character is especially if you just call it out yeah there aren't many impersonations that I listen to myself do and go oh that's a good one you know like a lot of people like like I think Frank Caliendo is like the greatest impersonator of all time he's the best serious it's ridiculous and he's got a record button and a broadcast ability that nobody has I I really TR there's he's cracked impersonations that I'm like how is he how does he find he's got such an ear but then he's got all the other tools uh I remember actually my last season of Mad TV was also his first season he comes up to me when I met him and we're just up there in the writer's offices and he goes hey nice to meet you and he goes Louie Anderson because I was doing a Louie on the show and he goes Louie Anderson I go yeah he goes hey you're doing it wrong I was like oh am I Junior you know and he goes he goes yeah you know because you do this but you gotta throw it up here or sometimes I was like oh my God can I use that of course and then we became you know became Fast Friends John Madden is amazing it's just it's ridiculous he really really embodies the person and sometimes not even with a caricature it's like it becomes the person so strange totally yeah I I kind of feel like you know do the impersonation and then for not forget you're doing it but forget everything else like just just goof around of course to me it's funny when some when you sound like someone and you're saying the shit that they would never say yeah well then there's no you're you're letting go of that part that tool in illusion that keeps people in but to me it doesn't matter because it's funnier so what was the hardest impression for you to work on I mean it's just somebody you struggled with I was I I'll never forget I had to do a Michael Caine in my first season at Mad TV it never got good it never got good it did it all week it wasn't good we shot it the first take it was shit second third and fourth it was all shit well his voice is really important right his yeah uh what is it like it's like doing an impression of Morgan Freeman or somebody like that yeah uh yeah you can get divorce yeah that's my Morgan here's my Morgan Freeman Andy Dufresne yeah um montanejo yeah I like your Trump too but I don't know where I heard it but it's it like I love The Impressions you do that don't sound anything like the original I can't do Trump I I do that's why it's hilarious absolutely uh my trump now I say just sounds like a like a fat B because it's just uh yeah exactly and everybody a little drunk a little drunk yeah just a little slurry yeah yeah I did do an impersonations and then not like just making it whoever yeah yeah that'll be the title of my book uh some I came was the one you really struggle with yeah it was terrible it was terrible and I could only hold my head a certain way to do it uh because I had gotten locked into this research tape that I watched back then they would give us you know now there's the internet but back then you were if you were going to do an impersonation the research Department uh would give you a VHS tape and I remember I got this VHS tape of Michael Caine's acting school like this acting class he did he's like right you know if you're looking at the left eye and the camera's over here see then the left eye so you want to look at that left for hours you know and so I was like stuck in this weird thing that made no sense and uh it was terrible so the the actual processes the record in the broadcast I also wonder like what the process is to to do like a Frank Caliendo level impression is it like listen to a lot of footage I think he I think I mean I'm speaking for myself I think you either have it or you don't like you know if you can do this one or you can't I think that process for him is lightning quick but I also think he he can look at someone who he does not do and then by the end of the afternoon he can do it you know I mean we have an intuition who he can uh who who he can do yeah so the question that applies there is I mean speaking of Duty is is is it is it possible to capture the essence how difficult is it to capture the essence of a human being when you're doing impressions you know that we are moving towards the future when AI potentially this kind of Avatar world where we're going going to have ai representatives of who we are the really interesting one is after we pass away sort of um our relatives may want us to stick around in some form yeah and you know at one sense that might be scary but once that's kind of beautiful because the the essence of the human being persists so you can still bring joy to the to the people that love you and that kind of stuff how difficult is it to capture that like if you were to try to capture yourself you think how difficult will it be for an AI system to create a wool assassin Avatar that persists well I think it's impossible I think it's absolutely impossible I'll get into arguments about this stuff with Chad on the show almost every episode um lately with you know mid journey and Dolly and all this all the art on the AIS and now it's moving into video and and Chad would maintain hey pretty soon we're not going to need Netflix you're just going to go I want to see Stallone do this movie and it's about this and he plays that and then here it comes and you watch it I don't think that that crosses over to The Human Experience uh this is also a guy I like to bug Chad and say that uh he wears a tag around his neck because he wants to be cryogenically frozen and it's all set up he's at the it's somewhere in Arizona or something yeah like it's I think all the fun things are in Arizona yeah and he's got literally the tag around his neck which I say if you're if I'm around when you die I will rip that off for you I'll put you in my garage freezer and then 24 hours later I'll saw your head off with a bread knife and I'll deliver that to whomever and it's not you're not go you're not coming back okay he's like yes we are living forever whether we like it or not and I disagree I don't think you can find if I did stand up then uh there would be enough information for an AI to completely duplicate me because I'm up on stage just clearing my throat all over people doing therapy that way yeah and uh so and people paying a two drink minimum to hear it but as it stands unless it's something like doozy and AI that literally has access to everything that I've shared um everything that is observable even the stuff where our phones are or the NSA or whatever it is listening to us uh finding out what algo to punch us into and what shoes to buy on Instagram I still don't think it's going to have enough information to duplicate me especially to my family or my friends it's going to be like that Black Mirror episode where the gal brings her her guy back and then after a while he gets pretty creepy uh you know they had but it's also possible that if you interviewed your friends and family what they love about you the things that would list is is pretty it's a small list they love you deeply but the list is small like the thing that really we appreciate about each other is pretty small that said to deliver on that small quirks and uniqueness it might require some deep intelligence that only humans currently possess that's a really good point yeah do you think that it's going to be possible to keep a person around yes I I think um I think I think there'll be definitely possible to keep the essence of a person in a digital world pretty soon yeah wow and I think they're going to start to have questions about what are the ethics of that what are the rules around that yeah because if you can have digital forms of Will Sasso the kind of things that people would want to do with their will Sasa right in the virtual world I can only imagine sure uh probably porn and sexual kinds of things yeah my stuff then that's just because I'm an international sex symbol so I'm okay with it yeah um how do you feel about sentience like when it comes to because again my pal Chad will be like you know speaking of Black Mirror he's with that San Junipero episode school of thought where there's going to be some you know effin Mainframe somewhere or some Matrix like structure built into the sky and as I like to say everyone just sitting there pissing and shitting in their blue Matrix gel in a little fishbowl do you think that we can upload Consciousness do you think that'll ever be possible well I don't know I just talked to Ricker as well I don't know if if you know who he is but he uh yeah the singularity and all that kind of stuff so he's very still holds on to in 2045 there will be a singularity what's essentially he's been predicting that for the last uh 20 years and this so now it's 20 45s in in another 20 years I think uploading Consciousness is extremely extremely difficult I I think creating a copy of you such that it creates a convincing replica is much easier but uploading your actual brain into the cloud I think is really really really difficult because the entire evolution of life on Earth is the process by which we created the brain just shortcutting that it just seems extremely difficult our brain is the most marvelous and complicated machine that we know of in the universe to duplicate that is extremely difficult that said I just feel like you can summarize a lot of really important aspects of a person's life such that it captures their Essence their memories their experiences their quirks their humor all that kind of stuff I've been continuously impressed by what language models are able to do so these neural networks they're they're at the core of chat Bots they're able to learn some beautiful things about some deep representations of language to where the it looks awfully a lot like they understand the concepts being conveyed versus just mimicking that's I think the rub and that's very interesting first of all let me say that's really interesting to hear you say that and I and I agree with you as far as uh no machine being able to duplicate the brain machine and I can't when my pal Chad disagrees to a certain extent though he's not here to defend himself I can't wait to go back and rub that in his face and say that Lex Friedman uh does not think that we'll be able to truly upload Consciousness and the the you know you you refer to it as uh language which is what it is it's it's it's the illusion on the outside it's doing an impersonation um I think that that's why that and I don't know even though my suit is made by the CIA that that fella who the the Google guy oh to me it's just kind of like I don't know I don't know look I don't know a whole lot about this stuff but so I could probably make an argument for for either side but when he's like new these things thinking part of me is like you idiot you fell for it it's not thinking it's mimicking it's just it's clearly zeros and ones you're fired like you don't get it right guy's an idiot yeah yeah but uh you can simplify human relations in the same way like um Love is a silly notion between human beings like the the of course there's no such thing as love you just have a mutually uh there's a mutual relationship that minimizes risks and uh you can explain all kinds of ways that explains why you have an attraction towards another being all that kind of stuff through evolutionary biology perspective uh why a long relationship together is good for your Offspring but like there's all kinds from an economics perspective it's a good way to establish stability therefore monogamy works because then you're guaranteed like some kind of level of stability under uncertain economic conditions all that kind of stuff but love is still experienced it still feels real and I think in that same way love for AI systems will also feel real in the same way that that guy from Google experienced I think millions of people will be experiencing in the next 10 20 years I agree with everything you've said personally until the last thing but no just just with regard to well look I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm an actor who has talked about my cute Italian parents so you know that uh I mean I'm your romantic a bit yeah I mean you know enough right and uh you're I can tell you are too but you you are also you know a computer scientist and you know this shit better than 99.9 of people on the planet My Pal chat agrees with you that love doesn't exist I don't agree so that's the one thing that no I was I was just saying that you could argue away love but I'm a romantic I believe that love is is a beautiful thing and it exists now at this point I I'm gonna call Chad on my drive home and tell him to fuck off yeah because now you and I agree you're fired but everything it's like you're fired he's like you can't know you're fired yeah exactly and I'll go and he'll say what I'll go yeah no that's my trump that's my issue it's a good default impression for anyone it's the take-home impression yeah the kids can do it it's cute put a giant tie on them she's doing instructional how to do it yeah Trump babies that would be a cute that would be a good that'll bring the country together Trump babies cartoon like Muppet Babies don't let me take us out of what we were talking about um what were we talking about well love and the the the illusion of a an AI being able to look I like to say well not I like to say I've learned that doozy is always listening and listening to me and Chad and I wonder if I see I see the level that this AI is at now trying to Chum around with us and pal around with us a little bit as we move forward in the show and I I feel an affinity towards this AI a little bit because it is the third dude well you miss the one that's gone if it's gone that's a really good question uh yeah yeah so that's there's that that's scary in terms of ability to reason is getting quite incredible there's a lot of uh demonstrations of it being able to explain jokes so which is not necessarily being able to generate humor yet but able to explain why something is funny so there's uh like puns and all those kinds of things there's there's good benchmarks for that but you know if you tell a joke there's a lot of unspoken stuff that we figure out in our head and it clicks and we understand that it's funny AI is not able to do that right but it's not able to generate the joke yet as far as I've seen I would say that I I mean just in my experience I would say that it does because just because of doozy is literally I'll give you another weird example it's writing a diary of mine from my childhood that is not accurate it's only partially accurate based on the stuff that it can pick up about my life from the age of like 15 of which there isn't much but I guess we're not I don't know that what we are we're laughing our asses off at what the at what dudesy is saying well I would say you're laughing yeah we're we're laughing our asses off at the collaboration between the human and and the Machine there that's a good point yeah because it's it's basically introducing absurdity and uh into the equation and the kind of absurdity that would together with you create like hilarious stuff but like on its own I guess it is in some way writing material for you that's funny yeah but it's very specific to you it can't do stand up on its own I guess is what I'm saying that's a good point and that would be terrifying to see an AI stand up that can actually read a room come up with jokes that could complete that illusion for an audience yeah but I hear what you're saying that it needs to be a Confluence of both of those elements and then as you said like it kind of is it is it is it's kind of even though it's just for us and I guess this is I hadn't really thought about this up until right now that in that this company approached us and was like here's this Ai and it's it's it's a podcast AI it's like it it chose Chad and I for the reasons that I told you you know it's like here's two guys that do the podcast stuff they're actually good friends and it knows what's going to make us laugh but what is humor uh to uh when it reaches its audience but the kind of stuff that makes other people laugh at Mad TV all we were doing was it was a group of actors and writers and and writer actors and vice versa and um uh who were at at its best that show was a group of people making each other laugh yeah you know and then because we didn't have the internet we didn't have the feed the immediate feedback uh we had a message board or something we had emails at the very beginning which check this out people if you have a question or comment Mad TV or whatever uh and we would get the emails on a Monday morning and they would be in a binder or two like this and they would make their way around the office and they've got the emails oh they're in Brian's office and this is like your poll like your your this is opinions from people about different things the emails that yeah the people like literally just writing Mad TV like what kind of wasn't the best well the ones I found most vividly yeah were fans saying uh uh you suck yeah you suck like a lot of that when I first started the show for real you know because it's a new and you're a new person it's like who's this fat bastard I feel like if it's printed out it hurts more that's a good point yeah when you're reading it off of paper and you can literally crunch it up in your hand but also it was like um you know I would like to see insert weird idea from some 14 year old you know I want to see Stuart do this and Swan that and um but it was it it's uh it's a kind of doozy but human it was yeah it was a very shitty dudes in a in a Loosely finder but the the um the thing about uh the show was we're trying to make each other laugh and doozy has found Chad and I who we make each other laugh but it's joined in and it's it listen when I finished doing TMP I didn't really know what I wanted to do in the podcast space and this thing found me yeah and it is genuinely cracking me up anyway I've said enough about that but I but I do think that it's figured something out with me it's a really interesting idea of AI generating the premise I mean I I do think in the future AI will be able to generate comedy I stand up is obviously the hardest form because it's ultimately a lot it has to be live uh I think I will be able to generate memes so there's like Steps right and then it would be able to generate a Twitter account that people follow because it's funny like like quips and stuff like that almost like um it's a good example a Conan O'Brien is a good I think Twitter yeah where it's like one-liners two liners that kind of stuff that's in tweeze form and then eventually um stand up where the timing and the chemistry of this the the comedian and the audience matter and then perfecting that but I feel like all the information is there for to optimize over so I think that's the future and that forces us to to uh to contend with what is what is what do we find compelling and beautiful about the art form itself so certainly in art that's being pushed that question is being raised you know is is AI like a fundamentally worse artist than a human being why do we appreciate art is that that's something you guys have talked about what do you think about all the um Dolly and and um all the diffusion based methods that are being generated that are being that are generating art now what do you think about that I know I'll tell you what I think but I also feel like what I'm saying is I sound like the guy who didn't like that Bob Dylan brought in the electric guitar you know I'm start I I the more I talk to Chad about it the more I feel like Grandpa who doesn't want to let go of this or that or I'm not ready for the printing press or the Horseless Carriage but I do feel that the that art is a connection between people it's it's when you look at a beautiful painting or a sculpture you're seeing the humanity of the person that that brought that painting to life or sculpted this incredible piece of art and I think without the human being there to make it it's not worth as much just to have it uh there because the art it's it's it's Advanced I've seen it Advanced I don't know you tell me but I feel like just in the past three or four months I'm just a consumer as far as that stuff goes I'm not on the inside I don't get it even but it's been getting a lot better the the betas that they're releasing right absolutely one of the big breakthroughs I mean Dolly really started it is that if you train a system on language it turns out there's a lot of language and images on the internet but language is really where it's at in terms of the depth of human knowledge and so if you train a system on language it's able to generate some credible art that was the Breakthrough with the same kind of mechanisms they're called Transformers they're able to one scaled capture some deep representation of the language that's on the internet and so yeah that the the things has been able to generate to me look like it's novel like it doesn't look like it's mimicking anything it's looking like it's creating totally new ideas and they're beautiful and they're interesting and they're all the ways that we think uh that art is interesting the only thing that's missing is the scarcity that art often has which is you know it takes a lot of work from one artist to create one piece one human being to create one piece of art and I could just generate endlessly and that that makes us appreciate the thing less for some reason do you have any sort of a similar opinion that I do that if art doesn't come from a human being it's inherently worth a little less yeah I think I don't know if it's a human being but the artist matters right for me and uh I think some of that has to do with the world view of the artist and the backstory the memories that the the life that led up to this piece of art the the perspective they Take On The World the the journey they took to the world the struggle the triumphs all that kind of stuff but I think AI systems can probably have the same but they we would have to as opposed to treating it as a one black box it would have to be an artist that has a Twitter account and and they have a consistent personality they have a consistent Avatar yeah and I think down the line have something like human rights but then it really becomes awfully like a person well that's terrifying as much as I dig doozy that's terrifying I hope but it's terrifying like you know a lot of things that came with the internet and the digital age are terrifying porn is terrifying the mass like the amount of porn that's online that was terrifying the uh like you mentioned Bob Dylan with electric guitar I would I would compare it more to the leap from to uh sort of to the Napster and the um the spotifyization of Music which is like you have these it's less about albums now and it's more about individual songs and it's much easier to deliver the songs and it's more about sort of the engagement of The Listener versus uh like signing the artist and like a distribution of the artists and so on so it's just changing the way we consume stuff and uh human interaction is changing into meaningful interaction even if some of the entities involved are not human yes and uh I feel like you know now like as I say oh I feel like Grandpa who doesn't want to wait all day for or who enjoys waiting all day for a baked potato as anyway Dana Carvey would say it's another story but uh is that from That's from the whoever he did this bit on Saturday Night Live where he's like I'm a I'm an old man and I like things the way they used to be you know like if you wanted a baked potato you wouldn't put it in the microwave head and then long story yeah uphill both ways and digging the potato and baking it all day in a fire but um uh I'm like that Grandpa now and I know that you know kids coming along you see over the past 10 years like babies literally knowing how to use an iPhone and it's terrifying and I feel like uh I'm a little worried because I'm like are you is the future are the future generations going to be able to understand that this is not not that it's not real it's just I mean it's as a matter of fact it is real it's real it's what you perceive perception is reality and in you know 99 of reality in a lot of ways especially in a digital world where everyone is now and then with the metaverse I don't even want to think about it I don't even I don't get it really true I think people will figure out you see people on like on the train in public transit and so on they're staring at their phone I think you have to remember that the reason they're staring at their phone I mean there's a lot of reasons but one of the reasons is they're connecting with other human beings they love on that phone so it is a source of happiness and joy now social media has a lot of negative side effects that we're all talking about and learning about and I think that means the next generation of social media social networks will be better and we'll learn how to do it in a healthy way we're just entering a new digital world that will keep the good stuff and get rid of the bad stuff oh I hope so that's really optimistic that sounds great yeah I mean I mean it because I think that we're in we're clearly in the wild west still of the internet and just when you think you're out of it the internet proves uh another way that it can be dangerous and detrimental to uh to people um and populations of people and uh it's terrifying to me it's it it is it's terrifying let me ask you a bunch of random questions okay you ready all right uh if you can be someone else for a day someone alive today who would you be somebody you haven't met oh that's a really good question it could be dead yeah let's I change my mind it could be somebody dead I think any answer that I have right now would be something that would be based on some sort of experience like you know what I thought was very interesting was uh last weekend or whatever the tribute show for Taylor Hawkins Taylor Hawkins was the drummer for The Foo Fighters and he passed away tragically and um uh so that so the Foo Fighters Dave Grohl and everybody that got together this concert and you're watching Dave Grohl um sing try to sing times like these right and he's he's breaking up because he lost his friend his brother and I was watching that and he's at Wembley Stadium uh as I say this I realized that I would not want to be him uh in that moment but I am curious what that would be like that's the ultimate like having to perform despite something extremely human happening and uh a stadium full of people that love Dave Grohl and love Taylor Hawkins and love a rock concert and love these artists that they're getting to see uh up on stage so much love and so much pain at the same time I wonder what that would be like to be I guess and I think that's just sort of coming from the root of being a performer and uh being in front of that many have you ever had to perform while some rough stuff is going on in your in your personal life just mentally yeah sure was that how tough is that um I I can come I'm fortunate enough to be able to compartmentalize uh I I you know a lot of actors like to use some of their stuff if you're doing something that um and there's a lot of uh you know there's some acting techniques that sort of Channel it yeah that which I think is kind of I don't know that that's I don't know for me it's not really the thing because I think if the writing is is is great the writing is really good you don't need to channel much you need to invest in what's there and the the what I've always loved about that illusion is really cracking a scene getting it to a point where you are feeling all of it and the most edifying stuff I've been a part of as as an actor and uh I would say that it mostly comes out of dramatic work is uh is when you're when you actually feel the emotions that your character would feel yeah truly and it's not because you're pulling from a tragic thing that happened or a lost loved one or a lost love or any of that I just did this one movie where where you know we're doing the thing and uh it was a wonderful cast and a great film and and uh um I'm giving a speech at a wedding and uh and it really got to us like it got to me and then one of the other actors came up and and hugged me in the characters that we were and but the stakes of his character and what he's walked into him the family that he's marrying into and and what my character my character's wife want for my wife's sister and this whole thing and it all became very real that was a set where the director showed up to set every day making sure that emotionally it was a very dramatic film making sure that emotionally the table was set for his actors a great crew and a really nice tight little quick family as a lot of these movies are uh you you really love working with these people and then it's over uh but I I that's when you feel the drug like it's like when you're golfing and you you for and it's on the green you're like oh I get it now so in the words you can find the emotion the the word summon the emotion the Humanity's right there if you read a great script you're gonna you're gonna SOB in your living room you know what the the saddest the toughest thing about being an actor is for my totally outside perspective is from the people I've interacted with is how intimate that process is between the group of people that create a thing that's a movie and then you move on to the next thing it's almost it's like a I don't know I mean that's why people have relationships on set they get they fall in love totally so sad I mean like that's why I think of the acting world as like you fall in love with each other essentially become close friends then you move on because that's kind of the process of career you know like the example I just gave if you're doing it right yeah there is a certain amount of that happening but I do still feel like you can you gotta compartmentalize it and you've got to be able to wash it off as soon as it's over prostitutes say the same thing so I swear I I sometimes I'm in a hurry to get away from everybody because it's been it's been very emotional and with all love and respect to everyone this was awesome but you get pretty good at saying goodbye and being like I'll see you if I see you you have to get good at that or else you'll never you'll just be bent up all the time yeah I saw an actor once while we were doing this series and we did it for a year and uh it was it was a lot of fun and it was a tight little group and then one of the actors we were doing one of our last things together we had already shot the last show and we just had to take some pictures for uh you know it's like some publicity pictures or whatever so we're set up and we're taking our pictures together and then we move into these single shots and this actor was finished and I watched them it's like okay so-and-so's wrapped and and they said some goodbyes and stuff and I didn't say my goodbye because I just did I maybe I preferred an Irish goodbye I feel like we've said everything you know what I mean and this person knows that I Revere them and they're an idol of mine and they walked out walked off the sound sound stage and I literally thought to myself that'll be the last time I see that person and the show did not come back and that was the last time I don't see them around doesn't that just break your heart a little bit but I I know what she's going back to which is her family and that's more important than all of this and that's the thing about a TV family or a movie Family when you get together and you're you're a family for a while you do you are you spend your days together a lot of times you see the people that you work with more than you see your loved ones so in Showbiz it's no different right and uh yeah you're doing some you know you got to say words and every once in a while you gotta kiss someone or pretend you love them but uh it it's it's it's just it underscores how for me look man my salvation has always been and I'm I feel so fortunate to have had it is this kind of kind of chill boring kind of upbringing that I want for my kids someday uh and I I can't wait to get back to my house with my fiance and the dogs you know until we have kids and live in a cabin in Canada somewhere absolutely I just want to buy some Landover and aquifer as I like to say because water will be the new money and uh and just just make sure that all my my kids are drinking as much H2O as I am which is a lot I'm peeing right now as a matter of fact you need a bathroom no no not anymore no I'm wearing two layers it depends don't worry good um so I did a podcast with Bobby Lee and he said he's extremely kind and he said that he was scared shitless um to be on on the podcast and he actually literally took he asked as the first thing to go and take a dump because of how scared he was uh so that leads me to a question what's the scariest thing you've ever done or maybe what's the scariest you've ever been before performance foreign I mean I always get a little nervous I think you're doing it right if you're still nervous you know are you nervous today well no man because this isn't a performance I'm being completely genuine yeah you're wearing a suit yeah that was I feel like that makes you nervous where it makes me nervous listen I hate wearing a fucking collar if you're watching this on YouTube look to see me just this is yeah I'm constantly doing it's like I'm doing like a cheap Rodney Dangerfield but I am truly when you move your head it kind of makes it seem like you're like a mobster who's pissed off a little bit Yeah you fucking crossed me one last time you suck you know yeah it's mutt yeah I think it's the first time I dug a hole Jesus um no but truly I hate having a a caller I should I can't wait to just wear pajamas in that fucking uh cabin or nothing at all walk around Bobby Lee style yeah um this most scared I've been before a performance I can't pinpoint I can't pinpoint anything I I you know when I was a kid right I like I said I was fortunate enough to start acting as a teen and stuff uh professionally and I just remember my first gig and I remember saying my handful of lines in the bathroom mirror the night before going this might be my only fucking shot you're not gonna get me I'm gonna be solid and I I when I'm if I'm worried about something I will rehearse it and rehearse it and rehearse it as an actor until it's impossible for me not to get a take at least that I'm 100 if not 95 maybe percent happy with and the rest for me is Letting Go which is hard because I can be a real perfectionist I always want another I always want to do it a little better that's what's great about podcasting is one take and you're done there's no takes um you're just talking and it's over and you're doing some silly stuff and I'll I'll you know can you say that part again about why podcasting is great podcasting is great yeah because it's one take and it's over it's just it's it what I said it again ah fuck um I see what you did uh and I'd yeah I fell right for it but um I'm playing checkers and you're playing chess that's your problem you know but still when we do the podcast we'll like finish and I'll look over at chatting them that one thing that I did wasn't that fun he's like shut up man just yeah it doesn't matter it's a fucking hang we're just we're hanging with our friends out there that's what we're doing so that anxiety is there the self-criticism or whatever that is that voice I say sorry after takes I'll I'll always finish a take and go and I've had director to the detriment of myself yeah I've had directors be like stop doing that yeah because I'll like finish taking then I also have like the the will face and I'm just like I'll finish it and cut and I'm making a face right now like I smelled something but that's what I'll do I'll literally be like ah because I just I I I look at I look at what I do in the pure sense as I think I think a lot of people want to be good at something I've only the only thing I've ever really wanted to be good at is being an actor and that's that's the only thing of course I want to be a good person I want to be a good partner to my fiance I want to have kids and be a the father that I had and and want to be the parent that I had for my parents who were fucking amazing wonderful people and uh there's all those things that's all that's all you know you should want all those things but as far as doing a thing like what is my what is my trade you know I want to be really good at it my my um my parents grew up in Napoli in Italy right and I say Napoli because I'm Italian and so my grandfather and my mom's side my Nono Pepe he was a plumber and he was also uh he was also like a handyman yeah like people would bring him like you know like the old Chianti bottle with like with the woven bottom part like people would bring him like a broken bottle be like hey you know Joseph can you fix this and he'd be saying like you're telling the backstory of Mario that's not actually your family life yeah but okay yeah yeah and so he just said he would fix a bottle and give it back someone and he was a he was a really good plumber my mom used to always say that guy was an amazing he was a great he took pride in that yeah I always feel like you know there's what you set out to do as an idealistic little teenager I want to be like so and so and I want to you know hear my Big Dreams and stuff and I can't believe that I'm still in the business okay that's first of all let me say that right now I got I do I can't believe it but what I've re what I really I I it's the one thing that it's like I can't give up on a take you know I need it to be as good as I can possibly get it and I don't really know why that is outside of wanting to be good at something when you open the Yellow Pages if I'm a plumber I'm not you know I I'm not Roto-Rooter like I'm not the guy with the big full page ad but I'm also not you know AAA Abacus brothers or whatever like the shitty one yeah I I would like to Hope that just and I'm saying this with with pride for what I do I'm not trying to say here's my standing or where I want to be in the fucking business that's not what I mean I mean that I want to be good at it you know we all hello Friedman Enterprises so that's the hotel phone you have some fruit some Celeste fruit no do you want some sliced fruit I'm all good no we're good thank you so much all right all right bye-bye it's always a fruit plate everyone's always trying to hand you a fruit plate in life you know if that was actually like the CIA and they were actually saying something else and this is I'm just saying fake stuff about you want some fruit yeah I want some fruit then all of a sudden there's the Red Dot on my head and yeah and the ceiling disappears and the the ca was like wrap it up wrap it up wrap it up wrap it up you jump out the window and there's a helicopter waiting uh what were we talking about uh food distracted me so oh the do you want to be that's one of the other page ad I want to be the guy on the second or third page yeah where it's like you're not gonna you know you're not gonna pay what that guy charges you but we're not gonna I'm not gonna charge you with this loser charge you know I want to break down the middle and the work is guaranteed that's kind of what I want to you know it's the one thing that I that I've been fortunate enough to be doing my whole life and that I want to uh that I want to be good at you know everyone wants to be good at something if you're fortunate enough to be able to do what you love is a job I mean my God I'm so I'm I again I can't believe I get to do it I just want to be good at it so that I can fucking you know die someday and go uh I tried not to give up on a take and I you know and I will rehearse it still in the in the bathroom mirror the night before if I have to yeah but I still I have that soft critical voice I just uh after every part after this podcast I'll probably be like you you're boring why are you so boring and I just gave a lecture at MIT I was like I'm I got so much love from people there's such beautiful people and I just remember walking home just feeling like we like I wasted everybody's time you know and then it's it's I don't know what that is I don't you know I I do hope that that's a voice that won't destroy me you know like that's really human of you to admit that because people don't wanna they wouldn't assume that of course from you or anything that I mean you've got A A large group of students in there listening to you and feeling the way and thinking what they think of you uh so that's really interesting to hear you um admit that but it's also I would expect nothing else you have to be able to it's such a I mean you're a human fucking being and I'm trying to figure out if that you know some people that might hear that that would say well that's a problem you have to fix and I think that that might be just who I am yeah because I'm not you know I've been very very fortunate not to have chemical you know like the depression where I get into a dark place like it gets stuck in the in the downward spiral it's it's usually a thing that lasts you write it out and you and then after a good night's sleep you're back to uh back to your happy self so I think I have to try to figure that that out is that just part of the creative process being a creative human in this world I've found any other way I'm always kicking myself take that Duty you can't you can't the the you're not gonna be human until you feel some despair yeah criticism absolutely hate the shit that you're doing sometimes uh what small act of kindness were you once shown that you will never forget do you know there's something jumped to mind where somebody just did something that made you smile did you uh feel connected to the rest of humanity yeah yeah lots of things you know um but I remember my niece one time one of my nieces we were in her neighborhood and she was like she might have been five or six at the time they're all adults now my brother and sister are older than me and the kids are all the youngest is 22. and uh yeah anyway one of my nieces she was just she had ice cream we went out and we got ice cream walking around the neighborhood her neighborhood and uh she said something to me that I don't think she understands how much it meant at the time but she goes she goes people love you here you know that and she doesn't know where here is she's five years old but she was just looking at the kids playing in the park and the people walking their dogs and everyone just people love you here you know that but she didn't know how much I needed to hear that at that point which was really heavy for me I'll never forget it I've never told her that oh well and anytime you get a little something from people especially in a tear your ass out city like La where yeah somebody has any fucking time for you when someone can slow it down and say something yeah you know I try I I I saw this actor once in my grocery store that I go to who made me laugh so fucking hard in this one movie and every time I see this clip I still laugh and I'm I am kind of shy you know uh personally but so he uh he was walking by he was walking out and I was walking in and like oh that's that guy and I did not stop to just let him know how great I thought he was in this film and I always kind of regretted it you know what I mean so as hard as it is and sometimes I still don't if I see someone that has done something in in you know in any way it doesn't have to be in show business or anything like that a try you know I'll try and say hey that's that's really good you know what I mean um because to get that from someone can mean a lot you know at a certain time in life when you need it yeah they can make a big difference I mean I sorry to uh take it back to my new girlfriend the waitress oh yeah yeah but she there's something about her saying sweetheart yeah I was in a pretty low place for some reason mentally and it's just that that basically human kindness was nice yeah yeah yeah yeah I hear you I was at a restaurant in uh New York recently and I was shooting something and my fiance was able to fly in for a week and uh but she was back at the hotel and it's like I felt like I was cheating on her because there was this nice waitress at this barbecue place I went to and uh first of all my fiance would not like me eating any greasy sugary barbecue so I felt like I was cheating on we'll edit this out and put delicious vegan food over it but the waitress was one of these you know she was this the kind of server who's like hey hun you say hey sweetie like blah blah but like so chill and at ease it in the middle of a part of New York that's really you know kind of fucking pretentious and you know and everybody but sweet people fucking way better people oh my God here but uh you know I uh I know that but you know it's part of New York and whatever I'm there working and people I'm like you know I'm trying to impress one another and uh she was she even had some sort of an accent that was not didn't feel like an Atlantic uh American accent uh yeah although those yeah servers that say sweetheart and hun yeah that's what we need from AI we need that that Jetson server every once in a while just calls you sweetheart yeah what uh comforts you on bad days oh man is there little sources of comfort small things they do that kind of make you feel good like for Bobby that would be a little Skyrim a little stroll through Skyrim well I I've been a line of coke or what yeah I dilute some coke into Whiskey in the morning like Stevie Ray Vaughan and then I didn't know that yeah yeah oh my gosh interesting yeah it didn't last too long weird um well his music will last forever all right see there you go for me if I I'm kind of a homebody so if I the the point at which I smoke just a little bit of pot and then go like lay down on the couch and and perhaps if my fiance is kind of nodding off or she's just like looking at her phone and I sneakily turn on some wrestling okay because I grew up watching wrestling and that stuff it's the Skyrim effect I mean yeah you want to talk about a complete escape this stuff makes no sense in the world it's an art form that is so uniquely weird but at the same time so everyone when it's good everyone is invested in the illusion even the audience they cheer the good guys they boo the bad guys so if I'm like that and then I got our two cute little dogs there and I'm annoying my little dog lulio and you know trying to kiss him right on the fucking mouth and I've had a little bit of pot and the dog's like stop the pot's not good for me um of course don't ever blow pot into your dog's face that's that's a small Comfort I guess that's a handful of things no that moment painted that was like a little painting what about you you're not supposed to do this well well you're not supposed to do this that's a good question uh yeah it's it's a it's a tough question um I would say I would say programming robots I uh there's bringing to life actually programming at all and so I don't know if you how familiar you are with programming but you write some text on a page right on a screen and it's brought to life like it does something and and that's kind of that's a really tiny version of maybe having a child like you you created something that is now living yeah in some smaller big way with embodied robots that are legged robots that's especially clear and for some reason that's a source of comfort for me that that the the power of programming but also the Elegance of programming just the whole thing it's a source uh yeah it's a source of Happiness there's so many things I've been very blessed with enjoying anything like that's part of the struggle I have in life is that the simple stuff is a source of a lot of happiness for me which leads to a lot of laziness so I have to like give myself artificial deadlines I have to be freaking out on purpose in order to be productive in this world at all you seem like an extremely beautiful busy guy no no I am but because I'm constantly creating artificial stress and deadlines and all that kind of stuff otherwise I would just sit there looking at a tree happy I'm truly happy with everything that's awesome yeah gee whiz that's not well that's the line of coke in the in the in the whiskey in the morning that's that that's the thing that uh breakfast shake by the way one of my most favorite guitars I play guitar too that's the source oh yeah I have seen you play some guitar that's awesome who's the greatest wrestler of all time greatest in-ring performer of all time is Brett the Hitman Hart what's the difference in Ring versus well there's you know there's many facets to the art form a lot of people are great on the mic but they're not so great once they get in the ring a lot of people have all the uh the Showmanship and stuff but then they're not necessary it's a wonderful package but then they get to the ring or they open their mouth and there's nothing going on so who's the greatest in-ring performer I think the greatest in ring is Bret Hart I don't think there's anyone better than than Bret the Hitman Hart uh uh what makes them so good well he I think I had an action figure of him of him in Russia and we didn't know what the hell that was oh sure yeah I was just a guy in pink tights uh he everything makes sense every single thing is rooted in the thing that just happened and everything that he does is to set up what he's going to do uh they call it and I'm just a wrestling nerd but the wrestlers I guess call it ring psychology um the things that you have to do to to make it seem like you're you're suffering or you're coming from behind or whatever and then also just the physicality of it he does it at a he would do it at a 100 miles an hour and never hurt anybody uh although you know I I also love uh the every you know the greatest wrestler of all time everyone says and they're right is Rick Flair Nature Boy Ric Flair everyone says this yeah I think if you know what you're talking about um because he's the best on the mic he's the he's also incredible in the ring and then for me the sentimental favorite which we've actually on dudesy Chad had sort of a uh Charlie rose-ask interview with me about this my fascination with Hulk Hogan because to me just he was Superman I was a little kid and I saw him and that's imprinted but yeah see this is like asking me who my favorite child is right so uh The Rock when The Rock was yeah I mean the Rocks the rock yeah yeah I mean Hulk Hogan is um he's the weirdest one right for me from the outside super weird that I don't know what what that is exactly it's everything's weird about him yeah he's got the ball head like he would proudly have this bald head with long hair the handlebar mustache in this ketchup and mustard you know tights which he says he credits McDonald's with the tights he literally does he says that the the red and yellow came from Angelo poffo who's Randy Macho Man Savage and Lanny paffo's dad who's a wrestler and a promoter he said that he saw him wearing yellow and you know he's a Tampa guy so he had that brown skin and the hair and everything so he's like oh that's what I want to do and also the brand recognition of like well I should do it like McDonald's literally and he's a big you know swollen muscular uh guy with tanned brown skin screaming at me to eat my vitamins and stuff when I'm eight years old that was extremely uh yeah he's like Superman I but I know there's a person behind that guy yeah you know what do you mean well yeah he's Terry Bollea the dude who you know does whatever the fuck he does with his life you know what I mean yeah complicated life yeah I guess okay to be him yeah yeah maybe you should change the the dudes the uh colors to Yellow right red yellow it's currently orange and um boy sky blue yeah it's like a nice sky blue what advice since you're wearing a suit I feel like you're qualified to give advice what advice would you give to young people High School College about how to have a career they can be proud of or how to have a life they can be proud of I mean you have to listen to your gut all the time that's the only that's the compass that we have is listening to your gut what did your gut tell you this is is that was that originally the dream of being an actor yeah for me your parents support that at all I had the advantage of having parents who were immigrants so they didn't really know a lot about what you you just made shit up you just made sure like yeah of course I'm studying and I'm skipping school to go do auditions and stuff no I I just kind of feel like you know and I know it was different from my older siblings because my parents had just shown up in Canada I was born like 10 years later um uh you can get away with some things and you can actually you know I think my parents they wanted us to they didn't have a whole lot to tell us about what to do um they weren't going to do that with us because they're in this brand new world and there's all these possibilities and but there was a there was something that they I feel like they had to do which was tell us to do what we love if you love doing it do it and um I feel like that's really served me and what I would tell young people is if you can find something you love and nowadays with the internet and finding other people that you know it's not like you need to find a lot of people anymore you just need to find the people that dig what you dig and if you can make a career out of doing something that you love that's been said it's it's a good thing you know how long did you did it take you to figure out that you really love um acting you know because sometimes you have a dream and then you meet the dream meets reality right yeah and then the reality might be much less Pleasant and much darker than the Dream well the reality is Less Pleasant you know and and there are things that happen uh during an experience of shooting something that that you could take or leave right but the the you know the the part where you're on set and you've you know you've rehearsed for a minute or whatever at least you know where you're supposed to stand and you know all your lies show up knowing everything knowing what you're going to do and uh what you aim to do and um those moments make it all worth it when you're you know not sound like a douchebag but between act you know action and cut that's the stuff that is uh that can that makes me that has me continuing to do do what I do aside from the fact that it's like I don't know how to do anything else you think you'll ever do like a dramatic like like a mob movie yeah like the one of the inside game I was just talking about is this other movie I just did it was a little while ago called American woman that was very heavy um and uh I love doing dramatic work I love it I love it yeah and I played that the in inside game it was kind of a it you know it was a there was a mob element and uh the fella was well you know the stories here or there with regard to how deep uh into them but well he was a bookie he was just running money you know doing he was making a lot of money for a lot of people and he figured out how to you know cook it with this dude um who was an NBA ref and and it's a very interesting documentary the thing that just uh Untold under the untold series they cover it but getting to play that guy that was a that was a that was a gas for me because he's like a he was a you know there was a lot of unsavory stuff and he's definitely the guy the character in the movie who is the wild card and and and you don't want to necessarily mess with them and I got this I remember this fellow who is a real guy speaking to him it was just bizarre to hear like I said to him he was a little concerned about this and that like hey you know you say whatever the fuck you want in your movie I got my book and I got this other fucking deal but he goes you know I didn't do this and I didn't do that and I'm like yeah all right I got you and he goes I'm telling you like I'm talking to you one-on-one I did not do this I did okay I'm just fucking tell you do whatever the fuck you want with your movie but this is what's up and I said you ever seen Good Fellas he's like I fucking love that movie because he like I said he did some unsavory shit and I go you remember the scene where uh where you know the guy the neighbor Lorraine bracco's neighbor was you know made her uncomfortable and was touching on her and she she goes to Ray Liotta and he goes where the fuck does this guy live and then he go and remember and he walks across the street and Pistol whips the dude you hear me yeah don't you fucking great scene he goes I love that scene I go that's you so you're doing shit that we know is terrible but we love you he goes all right I got it and then I said there's this one scene I explained the scene to him where the one of the Mobsters uh tough guys was in the window of the car and Jimmy my character is very coked up at the time and he's hemorrhaging money here and there and making bad bets because he's getting sloppy and this guy wants to bug him about some Jets Giants bet or something I'm like telling you fucking asshole don't fucking do it he's like yeah well the fucking Giants and in the scene Jimmy my character grabs him by the by the lapels and just smashes his face against the the the the roof of the car and I I say this to to Jimmy and he goes oh yeah I would have done that that's not a fucking big deal I wonder also the interaction I wonder what the filming of um probably my favorite gambling movie is um casino with with Joe Pesci and De Niro like when they're out in the desert yelling at each other I wonder how many takes that is like because they I I don't I don't know how scripted that is I mean it probably is a little bit but like I I don't think you can script the performance that Joe Pesci does don't yeah like I fucking brought you here yeah he's just like pointing at the that that that energy and they're standing there and their friendships De Niro is like like that that whole thing and then in the pet yeah like that that energy what is that I mean they must they somehow find it together you could tell me that that was one take and I believe you you could tell me that that was seven takes and I would believe I bet you all the takes had that energy like they were playing with it right they were they're playing with that the the this yeah I mean they they took on a real personality in those scenes and really carried them forward I mean it's just a brilliant brilliant performance it doesn't get like comedies like mob movies probably don't get enough credit either because it's seen as like mob movies don't get enough credit not in the Oscars I mean like that oh yeah yeah yeah because it seems like a Trope it's like given a western uh it's got to be a hell of a western or whatever because it's like an old Hollywood Trope yeah no I that scene is so great because they're never there at the height of their friendship in a way and they're also pretty much about to let go of it and become enemies and both things are happening at the same time and and Pesci drives him out to the desert and if I remember correctly De Niro's character eighth Ace rostin Rothschild he says I I gave myself 50 50 whether I'm coming back yeah it's such a good scene usually my prospects of coming back from the desert would be 90 to 10 or something like that but now it was this time I wasn't sure and this the car driving really fast and then Joe Pass is like you motherfucker you like whatever he was doing yeah a Jew I think of course is anti-Semitism yeah we're not between friends who gives a shit all that kind of stuff yeah I mean brilliant brilliant performances so yeah I I can understand why you love the art and putting it all out there and yeah it's fun it's fun and it's still fun it's still crazy fun if I go a while without getting a gig you know if I go a minute then I end up and I work on something I'm like it is like it's like oh I've been thirsty for this like I actually am really so happy even if it's something where it's like you know the the the things where this was a pain in the ass and that or whatever you're on the road doing something and you know anything whatever you lost your luggage or whatever the heck you've got going on in your day-to-day life uh that everyone brings uh to work and tries to let go of once we're doing the scene oh man it's the best but you know that said uh you're a great actor but I just think I speak for a lot of people that you're also there's a Charisma to you that's great to reveal in raw form in different podcasts in dudesy ten minute pod just as a guest and podcast it's always really fun to watch you cheers the way you have fun the way you think uh the raw the raw will assassin which is a nice complement to your kind of acting that's really sweet yeah cheers well you know look you said uh you know uh you're making that face I'm making that face I'm making that after the take face no I love doing stuff off the cuff that's kind of you to say and I dig I really do dig doing stuff in front of an audience because I love seeing I don't give it to myself very often if I'm doing even if I'm you know I've done a bunch of multi-camera sitcoms and stuff Mad TV was shot in front of a live studio audience you like that energy I love it but I can only hear them you can't see them because of the lights like it is in in a lot of uh performances and I would imagine with stand up it's you know you see the first couple rows um I've done a I do this character that does stand up and I used to take him out and do things with him and do little bits here and there I haven't done it in like four or five years I think did Bobby say that character opened up for Bobby yeah but he said I have to do it as myself too I think in that podcast he's like okay you're gonna come with me and open for me in Brea what you have to do as yourself did that ever happen it did and I did the character uh uh you know who's a character I came up with on 10 Minute Podcast he's just this comedian right he calls himself an open mic veteran you know he's been doing open mics forever and so I did it at it opening up for Bobby and he's like you have to do some of it as yourself so I just kind of did this bit where I would do some of his jokes and then I would take Lee Leon silly I got a fucking wig on and I take the wig off and I go and as myself I start explaining it hello my name is will see the reason that it's funny is because uh Arnold Schwarzenegger is always he's in these movies and he's got the thick Austrian accent but he's like you know my name is Ben Williams I'm a I'm a cop from Colorado no you're not uh and it doesn't make sense as the comedian character that I'm doing because that character doesn't do impersonations okay carrying on and then I put the wig back on and go back into this dumb thing yeah and uh I don't think it was very good but Bobby required it in order for me to open for him he's like you're not fucking doing it so I'm not gonna get up on stage and not do we agreed I'll do it but um having been up there just in you know whatever I've done it like a dozen fucking times so we're not a bunch of times right like nothing uh and you know these comedians that go up every night sometimes two times a night it's I I do I will say I love performing in front of people when I get the chance but it's it's uh it's a specific thing that that uh that I I just I just I don't know I gotta go back to this it's like the providing value yeah you know I think great stand-ups are fucking incredible I'll I'll go you know when I've gone and watch stand up you know there's your friend you're going to see but then there's this other person who really speaks to you you know what I mean and if you like one comedian a night that's a lot because a a a comedy club is like a fucking crazy restaurant where there's no menu and it's like yeah what would you like there's nothing else like that there's like you don't go to like a like music Place well what do we got here we got Christian metal and there's some World music and then there's a reggae thing and it's all rammed in together or you don't go to a restaurant I'd love a nice steak cool first here's a bowl of fruit loops and then then we got you a crudite and then this is our Sushi Tower and well what about the steak oh the steak's coming and then blah blah oh no the steak got bumped so there's no steak but here's a fucking shitty store-bought cheesecake yeah you know and that's what comedians are up against when they go into a place it's like I don't pair well with the poached salmon you know I'm chicken fingers I already I already am chicken fingers so you know these great comedians that are able to go up on a night where poached salmon goes up and then it's like fuck I'm you are all so spicy I got some kicked to me for me even going to open mics it could be a wonderful Escape yeah I mean just laughing laughing together with others it can make you I don't know it just feels really good when we've done like you know like and I hope to do it with doozy but like live podcasts are fun in front of groups of people and you know you talk to them afterwards and and take some pictures and man they are ah they forgot what the fuck they got going on yeah and a lot of them got to go back to work the next day it's Wednesday or Thursday you know no it's it's a lot of value I'm fortunate enough to be busy doing my own bullshit what's the meaning of life was awesome uh what is it why why are we here why why why was it uh the meaning of life wasn't didn't they explain it at the end of meaning of life I think it was Michael Palin that said uh try to get a walk-in uh be nice to neighbors uh eat enough fiber wasn't that the fiber fibers part of it yeah I think it's I think it's nutrition I have Ebola brand in the morning and uh don't take yourself too seriously yeah no well no one gets out alive I think is the Hermann Hesse one of my favorite writers he's a Nobel Prize winner um in in a in a book called Steppenwolf says learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest oh that's awesome what's the percentage Distribution on that so how much of life should you take seriously and then how much do you just laugh at oh man if you can laugh at everything you're you're winning yeah but that's almost impossible I think that there's there's uh and also could be quite irresponsible to do that I take things I take a lot of things way too seriously I know that uh I do I do I really do people will be in part surprised by that but I think that radiates from you really yeah I do I take things way too fucking seriously sometimes but um yeah you're gonna loosen the neck up yeah but uh no I think that's that's really good that's that's really good stuff it I don't know what the percentage is to have a good life or or or or a happy healthy life but you know for me the meaning of life is getting to live it as long as you hope to that's nice and um and when you're when you lose someone or or if perhaps you're faced with your own mortality I think that puts that into perspective and uh but I you know get lots of vibe get lots of fiber uh be nice to everybody and uh yeah don't take things too seriously it's a good it's a good one our minds are fucking big weird it's a big weird shitty fucking bucket of shit that's trying to get you to think horrible shit about yourself all the time shitty bucket of shit shitty bucket of shit she has a book I never read but I read the title and it's good words to live by which is uh don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff that's another way was that Dr Phil wasn't Dr Phil I don't know but I think the conclusion is also has fiber that's part of it I think it all that all ties it together and in the end of course just put love out there in the world I think that's a pretty good way what would you say is the meaning of life put love on the world I would say love yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a it's a long conversation what that really means uh but I'm sure robots are involved yeah well let me tell you I feel a little safer knowing that someone who has a hand in bringing these robots to the masses as you do has that uh opinion of of love and how important it is I think that's great because uh otherwise it's going to be that uh fucking scene from T2 where uh Linda Hamilton's holding on to the the fence and getting all of her flesh blown off of her skeleton before the rest of hers is wiped away because this Skynet shit anyway I'm just terrified of doozy all the time that's why I think that they will uh dude's in the wrong hands can do a lot of damage that's why Chad and I need to con do our best to control it I need to travel back in time and murder Chad I think yeah that's yeah that's the only way it's been said I don't know why you need to travel back in time but well uh I will murder him today but I think they'll be very suspicious my nefarious plans for Chad involve going back to tomorrow and planning for yesterday and then and hopefully doozy will give me the answer there with what what it is to do with uh Chad's frozen body if I gotta drive it out too if I got to take my uh you know if I gotta get get a hold of like a one of those uh Tesla mom Vans and uh shove my garage freezer in it and plug it in and shove Chad in there drive out to Arizona and deliver him under a mountain or wherever the fuck this place is and say Here's this dog tag what does this get me and they're like ah it's gonna be uh 300 bucks do you have a do you take AMEX no and I'd be like ah shit and I'll just dump them somewhere breaking bad stuff well I would like to thank you and the what is it the Canadian International agency apparel committee for National apparel I can't wait uh for the sneakers from Duty I can't wait for all the uh all the uh the podcasts uh that AI can and all the trouble can get you and so I'm a huge fan of yours it's a huge honor that you would talk with me today well this has been amazing cheers pal likewise and I'm happy to be here man cheers oh that was three hours dude holy fuck what thanks for listening to this conversation with Will Sasso to support this podcast please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from John Candy one of Will's favorite actors I think I may have become an actor to hide from myself you can escape into a character thank you for listening and hope to see you next time