In this episode, Sean and Joseph talk about the movie they made together, Sex Drive, and how they adopted three human children at the ages of 3 and 6 years old. They also talk about what it's like being a single dad at the age of 6, and what it was like raising three kids while working a 9-5 job as a construction worker. They also discuss how they went from working in construction to becoming a full-time director, writer, producer, and screenwriter. And they talk about how they ended up adopting three human kids at a young age and how it changed their lives. Joe talks about how he and his wife adopted their three kids when they were just 3 years old, and Sean talks about the process of adopting a full family at age 6 and how he ended up with three kids of his own at age 9 and a wife who was 7 years older than he was when he adopted them. Joe also talks about his first movie, which is a teen road trip comedy starring James Marsden and Clark Duke, and why he thinks it's one of the funniest movies he's ever made and why it's probably one of his favorite movies. This episode is a must-listen-listener-listens-listened-to episode! Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the podcast, and we hope you enjoy it! Cheers, Cheers. Cheers! Cheers Cheers from The Chew and Chew Chew, Chew! -Jon & Joseph -Sean and Joseph! Chew & Joe ( ) Chew's Dad, Joe's Dad and Joe's Mom and Dad, Too Effing Goodness, Joseph's Dad & Joe's Brother, CHEEEEEEK CHEEK, Joe & Tom's Dad's Mom, Too Good at It? , Joe's Girl, Too Bad We're Not Good Enough? - Chew Good At It's Not Good At This, Not Good at This, Chet's Dad? CHOOT CHEY'S Gonna Do This, CHEEEEEH? Chet, CHEOTCHOOTCH, CHOT CHEE CHEEHEEH, CHOOD, CHOW CHEECHEEK CHEEOTCH CHEEKE CHEEECK, CHIEK, CHEEEECK, GOT A BECAUSE YOU'LL DO THIS?
00:01:37.000And so we went in and we wrote it and we turned it in and they greenlit it.
00:01:41.000It was just this crazy process where we got this movie greenlit and I think we wrote the draft in like a month and we turned it in and they loved it.
00:03:48.000And then finally, when I felt like I was doing better, I was starting to get a career together, I just started to feel like I was going to be one of those old dads, you know?
00:03:56.000Like by the time the kid was a teenager, I wasn't going to be able to play with him.
00:04:08.000Anyway, so I made this dumb joke to my wife.
00:04:12.000I said, look, why don't we just adopt a five-year-old?
00:04:14.000It'll be like I got started five years ago, and I'm right back in the game.
00:04:18.000And she was like, you know, that's actually a really interesting idea.
00:04:22.000And I was like, no, I'm I was totally kidding.
00:04:24.000Didn't mean anything about that at all.
00:04:26.000And then she went to a website, and she showed me the website.
00:04:30.000And then when I saw the website, I was like, oh, wow, you see these kids, you see their faces, you start to learn a little bit more about it.
00:04:35.000And we just started having conversations, and it went from there.
00:04:58.000I mean, I know that there were issues with drugs, and I think there was some kind of a fire at some point, but it's all pretty sketchy as far as what you hear.
00:05:07.000So you learn a lot about the kids themselves, but not that much about the situation.
00:05:48.000So John had been hearing all these stories and one day he just said, I don't know why we're not doing a movie about this because nobody really knows how this works when you go into foster care and adopt kids.
00:05:56.000So we started talking about it and then there was the conversation of whether We're good to go.
00:06:25.000Frighten people and they make people think that these kids are all damaged and unreachable.
00:06:30.000Do you worry that it would be like that movie 101 Dalmatians that a bunch of people start getting foster kids now and just screw them up?
00:06:56.000A lot of people just got scammed out of their fucking pocket money.
00:07:00.000I'm sure there was some of that going on.
00:07:02.000I think the crazy thing about this too was that on the set you realize, when we're doing this, you go like, Oh yeah, I always thought of people who do that, like you know they exist, but you're like, those are nameless, faceless angels.
00:07:23.000And then you start, like on the set, there was...
00:07:26.000You know, people visiting or consulting and there would be like, oh, you know, they adopted or they run some foster care thing.
00:07:32.000And then you're like, oh, this is actually something that people really do.
00:07:35.000Well, even like dudes on the crew that somebody would come up, you know, who's in the electrical department and be like, oh, hey, bro, I got I adopted two kids, by the way.
00:08:09.000We talked about that video that went around online of this little girl that realized that she's opening up a box and there's something in it that tells her that she's been adopted by these two people that are with her.
00:08:47.000But no, I mean, there's what you were just getting at as far as, believe me, I'm not that guy that I didn't feel special or like any one of those sort of heart of gold angels.
00:08:57.000We have the line that's in the movie where Mark just says that's for the kind of people that volunteer when it's not even a holiday and we don't do that.
00:09:03.000Yeah, you should probably tell the audience that I'm not starring in this movie right now.
00:10:18.000Because I don't do, this is the thing, when you direct a movie, especially movies like the kind of movies that I make, comedies and, you know, big, broad comedies, people don't really care who directed those movies.
00:11:01.000They don't want you to feel left out or whatever.
00:11:03.000But on my first couple movies, I thought, oh, I have to do this stuff.
00:11:06.000And then I realized, I actually had this experience where I was in this red carpet thing, and they brought me up to this reporter, and they said, this is Sean Anders.
00:11:13.000He directed the movie, and she had this big look on her face, and then she went like, oh, God.
00:11:18.000And I was like, no, no, no, it's cool.
00:11:52.000You have that where I've seen them where I'm at baggage and they're looking around and then they're like, hey, Tom.
00:11:59.000And they'll ask me like one thing and they're like, they're obviously not there for me, but they're like, they're like, we got time till fucking whatever.
00:12:13.000I had it happen only one One time, because this obviously doesn't happen to me, that I was flying into LAX and I was getting off a red eye and I was so just tired.
00:13:05.000Well, what's interesting, too, is it's like sort of an impromptu Interview that you have to do, right?
00:13:11.000Like if someone said, hey, this guy's name is Mike, he lives in Studio City, he wants you to go to his house and he's gonna film you, he's gonna ask you wacky questions.
00:13:21.000But if Mike just shows up at the baggage claim and puts that camera in your face, hey Sean, Jennifer Aniston, man, what's up with the Botox?
00:13:48.000Because she put it on her Twitter that I'm going to do it, and we talked about it, and then they tried to show up at the podcast studio.
00:13:56.000So they had all these news people standing outside the podcast studio with their microphones.
00:14:01.000We're out in front of where Joe Rogan does his podcast, and they thought for some reason, just because they're there, people have to talk to them.
00:14:29.000If they said, hey, you know, KW Fuck Yourself wants you to come in and sit down for an interview, you'd be like, no, I don't want to talk to them.
00:14:42.000Well, but, and also, if you're, I mean, I'm in the business, but again, I'm not somebody that does a tremendous amount of press, or at least not until a couple of weeks ago.
00:14:52.000And if you're not accustomed to that, it's terrifying.
00:14:55.000Because somebody puts a camera in your face, because immediately you're thinking, like, well, if I just go, you know what, man, fuck you, like, I don't have time for that.
00:16:14.000And then all these MAGA fucking morons, protesters, they were all sending these tweets like, POTUS, you know, he's threatening POTUS. It was so strange.
00:16:34.000And that's the thing right there is that clickbait articles are – they all make it – it will say like so-and-so said this and they make it sound like somebody like called a press conference to say something ridiculous.
00:16:44.000And really it was like – like you said, it will be some offhand remark and then people out there that are judging – They never have anybody walk up and put a camera in their face and they just think, well, I would never say anything like that.
00:16:56.000It's like, you don't know what you would say.
00:17:02.000So how many of these things did you have to do to promote this film?
00:17:05.000Because this film is based in a large part of it on your actual life experiences of adopting these kids.
00:17:13.000How many of these things did you have to wind up doing?
00:17:17.000A lot, because we did our press junket in New York, and I've done junkets, and usually I do like 6 or 7 or 15 or whatever.
00:17:25.000I did, in two days, I did like 90, 95. So do the same questions keep coming at you over and over again, and you start developing these canned...
00:17:34.000You have to, and this is a mistake, and this gets back to what you were getting at before, is that when I would do press on my movies in the past, I'd go to the junket, and people would come in, and they'd ask you more or less the same questions.
00:17:45.000And I always felt weird, because I just felt like, no, I just want to have a conversation with you.
00:17:49.000I don't want to be like this disingenuous guy.
00:17:52.000And then I would be sort of changing up my answers and trying to kind of...
00:17:55.000And it just essentially just made it boring, and I wasn't really making any kind of a point whatsoever.
00:18:18.000I've done interviews and I've been fine before, but I got this guy sitting across from me who's interviewing me doing this mock interview and then I've got the publicist and my writing partner and they're just staring at me and now all of a sudden I can't do it at all.
00:19:09.000And so – Man, that guy can talk, man.
00:19:14.000So the thing is, I got this guy sitting across from me, really nice guy, and he's the guy who's coaching me, but I know I'm going to get in trouble.
00:19:22.000So does he give you like fake interviews?
00:19:33.000Like everything he's saying that I shouldn't be doing, I'm like, oh yeah, that's, I always do.
00:19:37.000Like what is he saying you shouldn't be doing?
00:19:39.000I mean that the main thing – it's kind of like what we were getting at before that when somebody is setting a trap for you.
00:19:45.000Because so much of right now media training is just about don't go out and get yourself into trouble by going in and just talking about some ridiculous area.
00:19:53.000Because that's what people – that's what everybody is trying to do now.
00:19:56.000Like just as a – for example, I did a Time Magazine interview about adoption about a year before we even made the movie.
00:20:04.000And it was just because I was in the process of working on the movie.
00:20:08.000And anyway, so the whole thing was just about adoption in my family and whatever.
00:20:12.000And it was right when the Harvey Weinstein stuff was blowing up.
00:20:15.000So the lady's really nice interviewing.
00:20:17.000And then at the end she says, hey, you know, since I'm talking to a Hollywood director, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask, did you know about that Harvey Weinstein stuff?
00:21:08.000I would have, like you said before, I think a year or two ago, I might have made a joke, you know, and been like, oh, yeah, I was there, you know?
00:21:17.000I would have said something stupid, just kidding.
00:21:23.000So a lot of it is just to kind of teach you how to just sort of stay on point so that you don't get dragged down these weird roads into these things that people are looking to get you in on clickbait.
00:21:35.000So did you bring up that instance when you went through the training?
00:21:42.000I think, and really what they teach you, it was funny, because believe it or not, he said, I'm going to show you some clips of, you know, sort of doing it right and doing it wrong.
00:21:51.000Oh, they have disaster clips they saved?
00:22:25.000There was one with a guy who was threatening to kick the guy's ass.
00:22:28.000The one that I saw didn't go that far, but I actually kind of liked what he did, because he was like, no, I'm not playing that game with you.
00:23:55.000And more than anything for me, because I'm from Wisconsin, and I still have that kind of everybody's nice, everybody has good intentions kind of vibe, you know?
00:24:05.000And I had this experience on my very first movie where I talked to this reporter, because it was a movie about, it was a road trip, you It's just a silly road trip comedy.
00:24:16.000And I talked to this reporter and he says – and he was just being – he was being really cool.
00:24:20.000We were just kind of hanging out after this thing talking and he's like – and gas prices were really high.
00:24:24.000And he goes, so you – he's like, you feel weird about making a road trip movie when gas prices are so high?
00:24:32.000Maybe if the movie tanks, I can just blame it on that.
00:24:34.000No one could afford to go to the theater because the prices were so high.
00:24:38.000And I don't think, and then this article comes out that just, the guy literally said I was swarthy looking and it just, he just painted me like an absolute piece of shit.
00:24:57.000I remember one, too, who did it to me.
00:25:00.000When I was just doing a phone interview for press before I was selling any tickets, and the guy was just a really nice guy and totally twisted things and made it seem like...
00:25:13.000Just, like, he knows what I was saying, and he purposely twisted things around.
00:25:18.000And it had real no impact, but I remember reading that and being like, oh, fuck this guy.
00:25:24.000And be careful when you talk to these people, because he totally, he knows what I was trying to say, and I read this article, and I was like, he misrepresented everything.
00:26:23.000And that's the thing is that if it was every single person that came along, it would almost be easier because you could just kind of be like, okay, here we go.
00:26:31.000But you get like 30 really good reporters with integrity and good people and then somebody jumps in and you're like, oh, and then they catch you not looking because you're not looking for that guy.
00:27:17.000But it's just like one, even if it's only one out of ten, you run into that one, you're like, fuck these things.
00:27:22.000I don't want to do these things anymore.
00:27:24.000It's terrifying because you think about your family, your friends, like anybody who's going to, because now there is this, and I know you guys talk about this a lot, there is this culture out there where people are completely reduced to like one moment or one statement or whatever it is,
00:27:42.000Whatever that thing that happened in that one moment.
00:27:45.000And, you know, you see it happening to people all the time.
00:27:48.000And you think about – so when you're there and you feel like you're just a regular guy, you don't feel like, you know, that it's really scary because you think about your kids and you think, you know, so it's a scary situation.
00:28:13.000And so they're reduced to these online publications, and they have to compete with a bunch of These clickbaity bullshit things, and that's where the money is.
00:28:23.000The New York Times is resulting to a lot of clickbaity shit now, and you're like, wow.
00:28:27.000Well, do you guys have that feeling, like, when you're online, that you're on, like, a clickbait diet where you see things where you're like, oh, man, I totally want to eat that right now, but I'm not going to do that.
00:29:14.000I mean, and this is the reason why I think podcast culture is coming on strong, because it's a place where people just talk and have a conversation.
00:29:23.000And I think that fear of slipping up and people always like out there trying to get you to slip up or whatever, has people not having as much of a free exchange of ideas.
00:29:33.000Yeah, but through these podcasts, one thing that does happen is people will take a very small clip out of context and then write a whole article about that small clip with a big click-baity headline like Tom Segura shits all over people in Somalia.
00:30:01.000And a giant overall discussion of a topic that took place over 45 minutes, and they'll take 30 seconds of that and put a YouTube clip up, and then you get a bunch of angry people tweeting at you.
00:30:14.000But the flip side of it is that I feel like in this time, we're developing more of an audience that is quick to call that shit out.
00:30:23.000So while there are going to be people that take the bait and be like, what is it, and get angry, there's a bunch of people who are really quick to recognize that that's taken out of context.
00:30:33.000Well, it's because people like you and I and a lot of other people that do podcasts talk about that all the time.
00:30:39.000So people hear it all the time and they see the examples of it and they go, wow, that's crazy.
00:30:57.000I use the word journalist, air quotes.
00:31:00.000Podcasts, this medium is just going to grow and people are embracing more of this long-form conversation and understanding things by talking about it for a while.
00:31:11.000Well, and the other part of it that I think, Pete, that gets lost sometimes is that, you know, like right now we're talking about like journalists, but the great journalists are just as hurt by this stuff as everyone because the people that are really out there being thoughtful, really researching their material,
00:31:28.000really talking to people, getting to the bottom of things, that whole journalistic work ethic that we all grew up hearing about, those people are just as threatened by this cheap, The sort of attack journalism that happens because they can't even compete with it with a really thoughtful,
00:31:45.000And then somebody's like, he touched a boob.
00:31:47.000And then there's like, they get all the clicks.
00:31:49.000I was talking to Matt Taibbi, who's a real journalist.
00:31:53.000And Matt Taibbi was discussing the pieces that he wrote on Wall Street.
00:31:57.000And the crash of 2008 and all of the fucking shenanigans that went on with that and how much just crazy shit they're allowed to do and what they can't...
00:32:09.000What a Ponzi scheme a lot of that 2008 crash was.
00:32:40.000You know, betting on things falling apart and moving money around and how fucking chaotic it is and how crazy it is.
00:32:47.000And then you think of how much time put on that and then in proportion how few people actually read that and how little it affected the actual economy itself.
00:32:56.000Like how little things changed and how little people were outraged.
00:33:01.000Like his article, I don't know if you ever read the Rolling Stone piece on it?
00:33:55.00050 times more people are paying attention to that.
00:33:57.000Well, let me ask you this, because I think in a weird way, this weird time that we're in right now could actually be the rebirth of that kind of journalism that you're talking about.
00:34:07.000Because I know that when everything was getting kind of crazy and people were talking about all this, I did subscribe to the online version of some papers because I thought, I do want to support people that are actually...
00:34:25.000People with integrity that are out there chasing stories and informing the world and helping us out.
00:34:31.000Also, they fuck you over if you don't do it.
00:34:33.000You can't read like 10 New York Times articles and they cut you off.
00:34:54.000I subscribe to a few of them, and if I go to the app, obviously everything's fine, but if I try to read it through another link, it's like, ah, you already...
00:35:33.000I mean, I just saw that whoever the editor-in-chief of New York Times doing an interview about their recent subscription model, it was impressive.
00:35:58.000A real – a well-researched take on a particular situation.
00:36:04.000When somebody does it like that guy did about like the subprime mortgage – You know, and they spent all that time, and they write that story.
00:36:12.000I mean, it's like reading, like, a good book.
00:36:21.000Man, and now they're making a—they have, like, a miniseries coming out about it.
00:36:24.000I remember reading it and not being able to stop reading it, and it was, like, an eight-part series in the L.A. Times about— This guy who was a sociopath who would go on to dating sites and basically bait women who were,
00:36:43.000He was posturing as a doctor and, like, would pretend to have this really successful life and just be a pariah that would, like, suck onto these people.
00:38:28.000Well, there's still – I mean for all the people that are into just short attention span, clickbait nonsense, there's still – and there's some sort of a market for actually real stories and real journalism.
00:38:44.000I wouldn't say that that's what most of it is out there.
00:38:48.000I mean, there's such a stockpile of that stuff every day, but when it comes to the actual stories that you're reading, I don't know, maybe I'm Pollyanna about it, but I feel like there's a lot of great stuff out there.
00:38:59.000I think there's plenty of great stuff.
00:39:01.000Can you think about the actual amount of content versus how much time you actually have to read?
00:42:24.000Well, I mean, again, like I said, when I was doing my limited experience in doing this, the vast, vast, vast majority of the people that I've been talking to have been really interested in just talking about adoption and really interested in foster care and all that kind of stuff.
00:43:06.000You know, you have friends that join the military, and when they're in high school, they think they're really tough, and they're like, yeah, yeah, it's going to be awesome, and then they go to boot camp, and then they're like, oh, shit, this is really hard.
00:43:17.000And then they get on top of it, and then they're good again.
00:43:19.000But they have to go through that transition of like, oh, man, maybe I'm not as tough as I thought I was, and then they get tough.
00:43:58.000And even what happens is you go – so for us, we had a really interesting experience where we went to an adoption fair, and that's in the movie.
00:44:07.000It's a real thing where they – because they – You know, their budgets are stretched so tight that they'll have these outdoor events.
00:44:15.000Not every county has them, but LA County has them, where they'll bring a bunch of kids that are in the system and a bunch of prospective parents, and they'll just have, like, games and stuff going on.
00:44:40.000We just want to find like some cute little kid.
00:44:44.000And then the teenagers are all off to the side because everybody's afraid of them.
00:44:50.000And it's the most heartbreaking thing you've ever seen because they know why they're there.
00:44:53.000Like they chose to be there and they know that everybody's scared of them.
00:44:57.000So I was there and I was like, oh my god, this is the worst thing I've ever seen.
00:45:00.000And we ended up sort of inadvertently meeting this teenage girl and her brother and sister.
00:45:07.000And they just seemed cool and they just seemed like really good kids and just scared, scared, scared.
00:45:13.000But we wrote them down on our sheet and just, again, not what we had planned on when we did this, but we wrote them down on our sheet and we went home knowing they were going to match us with them because no one else was going to put them down.
00:46:41.000And you want there to be, or I shouldn't say, I mean, I wanted there to be a certain amount of randomness, like when you have, You know, biological kids, you don't know what you're going to get.
00:46:50.000And go into that event where you're sort of like meeting kids and it feels weird.
00:46:55.000And so when she said there's these other three kids, we said, okay.
00:46:58.000And then they turned out to be younger, you know, 6, 3, and 18 months.
00:47:03.000But I never forgot meeting that girl and her brother and sister.
00:47:07.000So when the time came that we were going to make a movie about it, that was the genesis of the Lizzie character.
00:47:13.000I wanted to make sure there was a teenager in this movie because they're so misunderstood.
00:47:19.000And in the process, I went out and met with a bunch of families that had adopted teen girls and then met with a lot of those girls, some of whom are grown up and some of whom are still with their families.
00:47:31.000And this is the thing, you know, the scariness that we're all talking about.
00:47:35.000Every one of these families that I met with, just great stories, like amazing great stories, like hard times, you know, trying to make that connection and whatever, but everybody with the same story wouldn't have it any other way, changed our life for the better, met these incredible kids,
00:49:01.000And there was this one moment, you know, and she's telling us everything, and there's this one moment where she slides the picture across to my wife and says, here's a picture of them.
00:49:09.000And there's this long pause, and my wife goes, oh.
00:50:26.000And we touch on this in the movie that I was really scared when we were getting there because I wanted so much to walk in, see these kids well up with tears, know it's for real, know these are my kids and just have that like cosmic connection moment.
00:51:11.000Because it just felt so obtrusive to the kids, you know?
00:51:14.000And so we would go there every day for five straight days.
00:51:18.000We would go there when the kids were off school and we'd go and play with them first in the backyard and then you'd take them to the park and then you'd take them to the park and you'd take them out for ice cream and you're just kind of like getting to know these kids.
00:52:41.000Well, and that touches on something that is really difficult when you're doing this as an adoptive parent is that you're trying to walk this line all the time where you need to claim these kids for your own.
00:52:54.000You need to be the person who's like, you're with us.
00:53:03.000This thing that we all take for granted.
00:53:05.000We have these parents that love us no matter what knucklehead things we do.
00:53:09.000So you're trying to do that, but at the same time, you're trying not to impose your world on them because they're coming into it with their own personality and their own culture or whatever it is behind them.
00:53:20.000So you're always trying to kind of be careful and walk this line between just completely bringing them in but not trying to change them into who you are.
00:53:29.000Did the six-year-old already have things he was really into or sports or activities?
00:56:19.000But you got no shot if you're a lacrosse player.
00:56:21.000I love when they interview all the guys in the NFL. They're like, the young guys, they're like, You know, all this evidence is that your lifespan is going to be way shorter and it's going to be probably horrific at some point because of the impact of what you're going through playing football.
00:56:38.000You know, what do you think about that?
00:57:01.000But there's still, you know, there's no shortage of guys who are like, I'll take the guarantee, whatever my signing bonus is, and take some brain damage.
00:57:09.000I mean, look, that's how our brains work.
00:57:11.000Our brains are designed to not have that kind of foresight until you get much older.
00:57:18.000And I don't know what that is, but you can tell people, hey, whatever it is you're doing right now, this is really going to cause you irreparable harm.
00:58:34.000But I just feel like, you know, you have definitely some big, in an amateur career, you have some, you can think back, like, man, I got my bell rung there.
00:58:43.000How many times did you get your bell rung?
00:59:14.000I mean, those are the kids that will eventually go on.
00:59:16.000But you play teams and there's weeks where you're just like, no one is really good on this team, you know?
00:59:24.000And you'll have a game where you'll feel like, yeah, I mean, there's a couple, I got a couple good hits and there was nothing really of impact.
01:00:48.000Okay, the average study found that 211 players who were diagnosed with CTE after death who played tackle football before age 12 suffered from cognitive, behavioral, and mood symptoms earlier than those players who didn't start to play until after age 12. Wow.
01:01:50.000You get hit to the body and your head snaps back and you don't even get hit in the head.
01:01:54.000And you're like throwing up and your head's all fucked up and you're trying to figure out what's going on.
01:01:58.000It's because your brain's been moshing around inside your head.
01:02:01.000Yeah, the thing that I remember too, the thing that stands out is when you, because such thing is like bracing for a hit and then feeling it and you're like, fuck.
01:02:08.000But when you don't see someone coming.
01:03:25.000Alright, look, I don't know anything about this stuff, but I've thought for a long time, hard helmets gotta just make it worse, right?
01:03:32.000Well, it makes you more confident that you could slam your head into somebody, and then you don't realize how bad you're getting fucked up from that.
01:03:40.000It's your head, when you get hit in the head, even though you have a helmet on, it's not going to crack your skull, your brain's still substantially...
01:04:11.000In terms of being there live when someone got the fuck beaten out of them, I've probably seen more people get the fuck beaten out of them than almost anyone that's ever lived in history.
01:05:26.000This is what we're finding out about brains.
01:05:29.000There's a good friend of mine, Dr. Mark Gordon, who specializes in CTE. He deals with a lot of soldiers coming back, and a lot of them that are, like my friend Andrew Marr, where they would blow open doors.
01:05:41.000So they'd set up a charge on a door and step back, and boom, the door would blow.
01:05:46.000These guys, I mean, he didn't even get hit with anything, or maybe IEDs that are nearby.
01:06:14.000When you stop and you look at those, like when they're going to commercial on a college game, and they throw that girl up in the air, and you're like, man, to get that right.
01:09:45.000HBO's actually tapped into it a lot with that Real Sports show for years now.
01:09:50.000They've been doing follow-up pieces on...
01:09:52.000CTE, and man, it is devastating to see some of those guys.
01:09:57.000Those guys are like in their 50s, you know, 60s, and they're not there at all.
01:10:04.000Dude, I put a video up on Instagram or on Twitter.
01:10:07.000I retweeted it, and it's Boxers, where it shows the boxers when they're young, and they're talking, and then it shows them at the end of their career.
01:10:14.000They're retiring, and then they interview them, and you see them just completely gone, like a shell.
01:10:20.000Yeah, I saw an interview with Riddick Bowe a while ago.
01:11:37.000Barely making it through these these sparring sessions and you know, I mean he would he need these guys he had to fight, you know Yeah, he had to fight well, especially towards the end of his career.
01:11:46.000He took a fight in the UFC. He did yeah Yeah, he's the only like real world champion boxer that ever fought in mixed martial arts in the UFC Randy Couture ankle-picked him took him down strangled him right away.
01:12:39.000Because it was just, you know, he was talking about how these guys just don't know how to handle his hands and every fight starts standing up, which is true, but Randy Couture will take you down all day, anytime he wants.
01:12:53.000And then he got him in an arm triangle and just smushed him.
01:12:57.000I mean, even when he's punching him, he's not even hitting him that hard here.
01:13:00.000He's just trying to force him to give something up.
01:15:45.000It's, you know, the part is Russ, and it has like all the, you know, Mark Wahlberg's agreed to play this, and Rose Byrne is attached to play this, and then here's the sides.
01:15:55.000And it was like one of those things where it'll say, you know, so Thursday at 11.15 a.m.
01:20:24.000And when I saw his stand-up, I was like, this guy's perfect because we want this guy to just have this kind of swagger and this confidence, but he can kind of say these jackass-y things, but just sort of own them.
01:20:34.000And I'm like, this guy's perfect for this.
01:20:37.000I keep saying this guy because I didn't know him at the time.
01:20:39.000And so Tom comes in and I watch the Skype audition.
01:20:43.000Now, I'm going to shit-talk you a little bit here.
01:21:07.000I had no idea what, here's the thing, every audition, this is actually fascinating if you audition, because you literally leave auditions and you go, sometimes you go, that was great, and you'll never hear anything again.
01:21:23.000Sometimes you go, I bombed, and you get a call, hey, guess what, they want to see you again, or you booked, you're like, what?
01:21:43.000No, it was just that you have this very specific thing that you do that I wanted to bring in and be a part of this character, and you left that out.
01:22:36.000Because basically, so then what happened is we got together and I thought, and I was like, God, I don't want to- Did you meet him for the second audition?
01:22:42.000Well, we got together because I called him because I really wanted him to be in the movie.
01:22:46.000And I called him and I said, would you be willing to just come over to my house and we can just talk through it and work through it a little bit?
01:23:07.000I remember leaving that audition, that now you're telling me this, the first one, and telling my agent, like, There's no way I could have done better.
01:23:23.000I understand that because you had energy and you were funny, but you just didn't have that thing that I wanted so badly to be a part of this character.
01:23:32.000And so there was this one thing that was missing, and then you came over and we talked about it, and then you did it.
01:23:38.000And then also we got the chance to, because when he read it, he's just reading dialogue that we wrote for anybody.
01:23:44.000But then once you have somebody's voice in your head a little bit, you can adjust it and make it a little more comfortable.
01:24:17.000It's actually, like, it's the thing, though, like, that's the big bummer about, in general, auditioning, is you walk out and you go, sometimes you follow up with your agent, and you're like, so what's the feedback?
01:24:29.000And they're like, they always tell you, they loved you.
01:25:01.000We spent a lot of time working on it, and then when I found out I booked the role, then I go there, and I feel like it's a second part of a contest, because he has all great actors in the movie, for all the parts.
01:25:15.000I mean, you know the stars, but like, Margot Martindale from The American...
01:27:28.000Well, see, in Spanish, the masculinized version of these words is considered gender neutral, but that obviously doesn't work for some of us, like myself.
01:27:34.000And so I think it's appropriate to assign masculinity as gender neutral when it isn't.
01:28:10.000We thought one, and it sort of turned into that.
01:28:13.000But you're open to it, and they ask you, well, what about ethnicity?
01:28:18.000You know, and you just go, yeah, you know, whatever, you know, wherever the need is, you know, whoever needs parents, you know, let us know.
01:28:27.000But then when it happens and your kids, in my case, my kids turned out to be Latin, then you have the, you know, you start to kind of think about, like, oh, well, you know, is that okay?
01:28:40.000Is that going to look like the white savior thing?
01:29:01.000But you ultimately are just going to think about who the kids are, what their need is, and how obviously wonderful they are.
01:29:11.000But all of those things come up, and that's the kind of thing that wouldn't even be, you know, why would the Latinx thing have anything to do with my house?
01:29:59.000And how do I do without getting called a racist?
01:30:01.000Well, and it gets back to what I was talking about before, where you're trying to just put your kids' needs first and just deal with them as children, as individuals, as human beings, you know?
01:30:12.000But at the same time, you're also – you're with other parents and there's – in the adoption community – and really in every direction, there's mixed-race families in the adoption community – Sure.
01:31:25.000Even when I travel abroad to Spanish-speaking countries, even there, even though Spanish-speaking countries are also melting pots, they still look at you like, oh shit.
01:32:47.000How long did it take your sister to learn?
01:32:50.000When you get into that Naval Institute program, they have you going, I think it was something like eight hours a day, five or six days a week.
01:33:17.000And, you know, she didn't reach the level of super, you know, fluent, like we're speaking English, but she was able to communicate in Mandarin.
01:33:29.000That's the thing is, she was telling me one time about...
01:33:31.000How many characters and, you know, it was just unbelievable.
01:33:35.000And, like, there's sounds for expressions.
01:33:37.000Like, I'm going to screw up because I don't remember it, but she was like, you can do something like, oh, and that means, like, means an actual phrase, you know?
01:33:49.000And that there's characters that mean entire expressions as well.
01:33:55.000Our brains are so married to our alphabet and way of speaking that it's a real jump to learn that, you know?
01:34:04.000It's just, it really is fascinating when you travel and you listen to people speaking their native tongue and you realize how strangely different languages are across the entire planet.
01:37:29.000My mom told me that she was in Argentina when her youth traveled there and was with a bellhop, and she was like, cogeme la maleta, which is like, pick up that suitcase.
01:37:40.000But he was like, okay, because she was basically in slang saying, fuck my suitcase, you know.
01:38:26.000And then, you know, we went over that one.
01:38:30.000And then, like, six months later, they were like, you actually do curse a lot all the time.
01:38:33.000And I was like, yeah, that's probably right.
01:38:35.000Do you do stand-up in Spanish when you...
01:38:38.000I've done bits and stories where I involve both English and Spanish, but I haven't done...
01:38:44.000There's a show now here in L.A. that they're doing...
01:38:50.000I think even at the stores had it once where some of the Spanish-speaking comics here have done a full show in Spanish here in L.A. Francisco Ramos, Felipe did it, Esparza.
01:39:45.000And I was doing stuff and talking to this lady, I would hit a punchline in Spanish and then say something back to this guy in Spanish, then go back to English.
01:39:53.000Do, like, your best bit and then something else in Spanish.
01:39:56.000And it was so crazy for me at the time.
01:39:59.000Like, I never experienced a 20-minute set like that, that the guy, the headliner after me, did 35 minutes and split.
01:41:26.000There might have been dozens of people at any point in time walking around, coming and going, going outside to use their phone and then coming back in.
01:42:25.000But there's some people that just want to film everything, too.
01:42:28.000You know, when you get on stage and you see people just standing there while you're doing your set and they're holding a phone up, filming you, and you're like...
01:42:34.000You're making this whole thing so much weirder.
01:43:06.000But it was more about that if you have that phone out and you're looking at that screen and you're doing that, it sort of keeps everything else out.
01:43:13.000It makes you feel like you're having this little moment instead of having to be this awkward thing of like you're dancing in front of these other grown men.
01:44:35.000I think she was probably just a little over one.
01:44:37.000And we're walking through the airport, and I'm pulling one of those little roller bags, and she's behind it, pushing it, because she liked to push it.
01:44:47.000And her legs are like that tall, and she's a little diaper butt, and she's pushing this thing, and we tell her, hey, we're going to go to a toy store.
01:45:11.000We were starting to get there earlier in our conversation.
01:45:13.000But there's an interesting thing that happens when you adopt kids, particularly kids that are already walking and talking when they come into your life.
01:45:44.000We went on this trip back to Wisconsin, where I'm from, and things were really starting to come together before this trip.
01:45:51.000And then when we went on the trip, the kids, like you're describing, the kid pushing the suitcase, they have to stay a little tighter with you because you're in airports and you're driving and you're going to a cabin and doing these things.
01:46:01.000And by the time we got back, we were a family.
01:46:03.000We knew, my wife and I were like, wow, we're like a A real family now.
01:46:08.000We love these kids so much, and we can tell they love us, and it's an amazing thing.
01:46:12.000So we have videos from that trip, and those videos, like you're saying, are just like gold.
01:46:59.000We had that period where we were like, you really feel like for a while there, like, okay, we've done a good thing here and we're going to suffer for it for the rest of our lives.
01:47:09.000But then as it comes online, I had this one moment.
01:47:11.000I think I told you this, but I had this one moment that...
01:47:21.000And the kids would wake up really early every morning and they would be out in the hallway throwing things at each other and arguing and whatever.
01:47:29.000And you're so sleep deprived and you're just so like, you know, over it.
01:47:33.000And one morning I woke up, I think it was a Sunday and it was quiet in the room.
01:47:37.000My wife was still asleep and it was like around the time where the kids are normally up.
01:47:41.000And I woke up and I thought, oh wow, it's quiet in here.
01:47:44.000And then I had this just overwhelming feeling that I couldn't even identify at first.
01:47:48.000And then I thought, oh shit, I miss them right now.
01:47:52.000Like I'm actually waiting for them to come in the room and wake us up.
01:47:55.000And that was really a big moment for me where I was like, wow, I've turned a big corner here.
01:48:00.000And what you get from them and those kinds of feelings is pretty incredible.
01:48:06.000Like thinking that this is based on not just your life experience, but also based on your interaction with some kids that you never wound up adopting.
01:50:24.000It is really fun to watch with an audience because they do get emotionally caught up in it, but we're always coming back and giving them a laugh where they need it, you know?
01:50:58.000And it's just, you know, when this happens, you know, and you become part of that adoption community as well, so it really becomes a big part of who you are and who your family is and that kind of thing.
01:51:21.000Because, you know, I was talking about Sex Drive before, and the reason why that one always has a special place in my heart is because it was my first real Hollywood movie, and I was just...
01:51:28.000It was just such an amazing experience to just be this bumpkin from out of nowhere making this movie with all this budget, and it was great.
01:51:36.000But I've had great experiences on all the movies that I've made, but this one's totally different.
01:52:24.000People I mentioned, like Margot and them, and Julie, Michael, Alan, Britt, Jody, and we would just like, it was like, it is kind of like being in a camp or something, you know?
01:52:35.000Which, for me, was the first experience.
01:52:36.000Well, and what you don't know is that, and what a lot of people who work in movies a lot of times, that so much of the...
01:52:44.000The camaraderie of the set is set by kind of number one, number two on the call sheet.
01:52:49.000Whoever the big movie stars are in your movie, sometimes you hear these stories, a lot of stories about people.
01:52:59.000But just people walking on eggshells around, you know, whoever the...
01:53:03.000And when you have people like Mark and Rose who are really cool and just really easy to deal with, everybody just is so much more relaxed and having a really good time.
01:53:12.000And then, I mean, I'll take some credit for it myself, too, because John and I try to run a really happy set and we just try to have...
01:53:27.000I took you, just to show you how unpretentious he is, when I got the part, I was like...
01:53:34.000We'd been speaking about the part and other things, and then I'll get an email about rehearsal at Paramount, and I would just call Sean, the director.