The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1411 - Robert Downey Jr.

00:00:02.000 Boom.

00:00:03.000 So we're talking about losing eyesight.

00:00:05.000 Yes.

00:00:05.000 You actually take comfort in the fact that your eyesight is starting to dwindle?

00:00:09.000 You want to chase it?

00:00:11.000 At first I was like, I'm fine.

00:00:12.000 Then I'm 42. Then it's like, let's try some ones.

00:00:15.000 Then it's one two fives.

00:00:17.000 Then it's one fives.

00:00:18.000 What do you know now? 0.99

00:00:19.000 I stopped because I have so many fucking glasses. 0.99

00:00:21.000 Some of them are ones, some of them are two fives. 0.99

00:00:24.000 It's like, you know what I mean?

00:00:25.000 Yeah, I do know what you mean.

00:00:27.000 But what I appreciate is you know where you're at by what you're able to retain if you fight for it and the things that are going no matter what you do.

00:00:36.000 Now I've heard there's some Israeli guy who's got this app, probably from Laird, got this app and you do it and you get your eyesight back.

00:00:45.000 Sometimes it's about I don't need to try to use something to hold on to everything.

00:00:52.000 I want to pick the five or seven things that I definitely want to hold on to and I want to watch the rest of it go in and out with the tides.

00:01:02.000 I agree with that in some ways, but if there was a real thing where you could get your eyesight back, I would definitely be on that.

00:01:09.000 I don't think there is a real thing.

00:01:11.000 Lasix?

00:01:11.000 That's not real.

00:01:12.000 Well, Lasix has several problems.

00:01:15.000 You can get it if you have problems with your vision, but we have macular degeneration that's coming from age.

00:01:20.000 Age-related macular degeneration.

00:01:22.000 Lasix doesn't really fix that.

00:01:25.000 But I know people who are wearing glasses And then got Lasix and they don't wear glasses anymore.

00:01:30.000 Yes, that's a fact.

00:01:31.000 But we never wore glasses.

00:01:32.000 They get one eye too close up and one eye for distance.

00:01:36.000 It's even more fun. 0.99

00:01:37.000 Half the eye exams I've gotten wind up fucking me. 0.98

00:01:40.000 Two weeks later, you're like, these don't work. 0.99

00:01:42.000 What about the loss of a sense that you're accustomed to being fine annoys you?

00:01:50.000 What about it?

00:01:51.000 I like being able to see things.

00:01:53.000 Read labels in particular. 1.00

00:01:54.000 How many of these fuckers am I supposed to take? 0.99

00:01:57.000 And what's in here? 1.00

00:01:59.000 How many milligrams?

00:02:00.000 What does that say? 1.00

00:02:01.000 Are you doing this shit? 1.00

00:02:02.000 But it's also funny to go up to like a little Lutron pad and have to go... 1.00

00:02:08.000 Like that to me, it's a gas.

00:02:12.000 Really?

00:02:12.000 Interesting.

00:02:14.000 Except the things you cannot change.

00:02:15.000 Now, if someone comes in and says, Joe, Bob, I got it.

00:02:18.000 We're done.

00:02:18.000 Come over here.

00:02:19.000 It's easy, or it's a supplement, or do this for two weeks, or stop doing this, this, and this, then there's a trade-off.

00:02:26.000 Yes.

00:02:27.000 Well, I'm down for anything that actually works to make your eyesight come back, but I have heard of nothing.

00:02:33.000 Everybody that I've heard of...

00:02:34.000 This might be our project then, because you care and I don't, so we have a nice balance.

00:02:39.000 There's a guy named David Sinclair that I talked to.

00:02:42.000 He's a professor at Harvard.

00:02:44.000 Is it MIT? Where the fuck is he? 1.00

00:02:46.000 It's Harvard. 0.99

00:02:48.000 They're doing some work with people that have serious eye diseases and serious injuries, and they're actually injecting some form of bacteria that has been encoded with some miracle cure for degeneration, and they can detach retinas, fix things.

00:03:03.000 Incredible.

00:03:04.000 Yeah.

00:03:04.000 So they're working on some stuff.

00:03:06.000 Yeah.

00:03:06.000 So maybe in the future.

00:03:07.000 You won't have twos and ones and 1.5s.

00:03:10.000 Yeah, what am I getting?

00:03:12.000 I've alighted to greener pastures. 0.99

00:03:14.000 I'm sure there's going to be other issues and hurdles that you're going to go, eyesight, I don't fucking time to have real shit going on here. 0.98

00:03:21.000 Yeah, I'm sure too. 0.96

00:03:22.000 I'm concerned about that.

00:03:24.000 That thing that you're wearing around your neck, being as you are obviously known as being Iron Man, are you concerned with wearing a large thing in the exact same spot?

00:03:33.000 No.

00:03:34.000 Did you ever think of that?

00:03:36.000 Life is funny because I was doing this before I ever got fitted for the RT. So it was more of art imitating oddball stuff I was doing anyway.

00:03:48.000 Oh, really?

00:03:48.000 Yeah.

00:03:49.000 Oh.

00:03:49.000 Well, but Iron Man, this is even more interesting because maybe you were born to be Iron Man because Iron Man obviously had that from the comic books.

00:03:57.000 Loosely prearranged destiny.

00:03:59.000 And what's incredible is how far afield you can go from it and still find your way back.

00:04:06.000 Yeah.

00:04:08.000 Well, there's been...

00:04:09.000 The whole superhero genre thing is so interesting to me because there's so many reboots and there's so many... 0.70

00:04:15.000 Like, how many fucking Spider-Mans have there been? 0.58

00:04:17.000 How many Hulks have there been? 1.00

00:04:19.000 There's only one Iron Man, though.

00:04:20.000 You got that.

00:04:21.000 Thus far.

00:04:22.000 What year is it?

00:04:23.000 Thus far. 0.99

00:04:23.000 Get the fuck out of here. 0.99

00:04:24.000 You're Iron Man, man. 0.99

00:04:26.000 It's just like...

00:04:26.000 Certain dudes just own a role.

00:04:29.000 And if anybody else tried to be Iron Man, we'd be like...

00:04:32.000 Well, interestingly enough...

00:04:37.000 East Coaster, a dad of some renown, very different.

00:04:43.000 My dad was a kind of an underground filmmaker, auteur maverick.

00:04:49.000 I grew up definitely being Bob Downey Sr.'s kid.

00:04:54.000 Spent time on Long Island, which is I think where Tony was raised.

00:04:58.000 But when Stan Lee was really thinking that through, it was the Vietnam era and he was thinking about the military-industrial complex.

00:05:08.000 He was thinking about how about if I can throw a little bit of not politics in here but karma and he gets shrapnel by the own thing and it becomes – So – and then of course there was the whole demon in the bottle.

00:05:23.000 I think he was the first superhero who ever like had the – almost like hang up his jersey because he was hammered.

00:05:30.000 So I mean yeah, there was obviously – but again, once something goes your way, you can draw all the parallels you want and you can call it destiny.

00:05:39.000 But it was something that I definitely felt drawn to and I definitely fought for.

00:05:44.000 And looking back on it, I go, why was I fighting for that?

00:05:48.000 Because it turned out to be a pretty special thing.

00:05:51.000 Well, it was an amazing thing.

00:05:52.000 I mean, you embodied it in a very strange way.

00:05:56.000 I mean, it's inexorable at this point.

00:05:58.000 Which is why I thought it was cool that you're going to do Dr. Doolittle.

00:06:02.000 Because I love the fact...

00:06:04.000 Like, I'm a fan of your work.

00:06:05.000 You've done a lot of great stuff.

00:06:07.000 Likewise.

00:06:07.000 And you...

00:06:09.000 Doing Dr. Doolittle is like a cool...

00:06:13.000 I want to say you're not taking yourself seriously.

00:06:16.000 But you're taking a risk.

00:06:18.000 Trust that I'm not.

00:06:18.000 Yeah.

00:06:20.000 I mean, this is a fun kids movie about a guy who talks to animals.

00:06:25.000 I mean, that's a great break.

00:06:27.000 Because if you're Iron Man, there's certain people that, for whatever reason, become a role and that is it.

00:06:34.000 That's what we will accept.

00:06:36.000 You are that guy.

00:06:37.000 And you're not doing that.

00:06:39.000 You're able to, through your talent and through your ability to take chances, you're able to be a bunch of different things as well as be the Iron Man.

00:06:50.000 Yeah, I mean don't we – I don't know.

00:06:53.000 If I'm noticing anything now, it's that we need to shift and we need new challenges and just like MMA and society and politics, things are moving and morphing and the information age is making things so – everything is learning and growing from everything so quickly and improving or disproving or discounting whatever is happening next.

00:07:17.000 But for me – I heard that this was on the table.

00:07:22.000 My missus, who's my creative partner in all things, said, Steve Gagin.

00:07:28.000 I was like, I know Steve Gagin, Siriana.

00:07:30.000 Really?

00:07:30.000 What did he do?

00:07:31.000 He wrote, wow, that's a big turn for him.

00:07:34.000 And then I said, but why do I want to?

00:07:36.000 And I looked out and we live on a rescue farm.

00:07:39.000 We have alpacas and goats and cooney cooney pigs and it's just crazy. 0.80

00:07:45.000 And I was like, okay, same way I did with Iron Man a little bit.

00:07:49.000 I was like, all right, there's something here.

00:07:51.000 And then before I signed on, I was just Googling like weirdest Welsh doctor. 1.00

00:07:57.000 I just want to think of – I don't want to just do another English accent.

00:08:00.000 So there's this guy, William Price, who's a nutty Welsh doctor. 1.00

00:08:05.000 He was a neo-Druidist. 0.94

00:08:06.000 He was someone who believed like we could communicate with all nature and all that stuff.

00:08:11.000 I sent a picture of this wild looking guy wearing like a suit with stars on it and like a staff in his hand.

00:08:18.000 I sent that to Gagan and he goes, that looks right to me.

00:08:20.000 I was like, great, let's do this movie.

00:08:23.000 And literally that's it.

00:08:25.000 It's always it.

00:08:26.000 You know what I mean?

00:08:28.000 It's always that thing of you click and you go, here's my sense.

00:08:33.000 What do you think?

00:08:34.000 And then the other gal or the guy says, yeah, let's lean into that. 1.00

00:08:38.000 And then you go, but do this and that.

00:08:39.000 Hey, will you give me some of this?

00:08:40.000 And you go, yeah.

00:08:41.000 And all of a sudden you're in a synergy.

00:08:42.000 It's like a good interview, like a good fight, like a good dinner.

00:08:47.000 It just kind of happens.

00:08:48.000 There's the gentleman right there.

00:08:51.000 That's a crazy look.

00:08:52.000 Yeah.

00:08:53.000 To me, I just thought, can Doolittle be like that?

00:08:56.000 He goes, does he have to be that way the whole way through?

00:08:58.000 I go, no, no, no.

00:08:59.000 When they find him, he's a recluse, and then the animals clean him up, and then he looks less unhandsome or less weird for the kids for the rest of the movie.

00:09:07.000 But let's find him like that.

00:09:09.000 This concept of things just sort of falling into place.

00:09:15.000 I'm a big believer in that too.

00:09:17.000 What is that though?

00:09:18.000 Is that you getting out of your own way?

00:09:21.000 Like what is that?

00:09:23.000 Isn't that 70% of it?

00:09:24.000 Yeah.

00:09:25.000 Yeah.

00:09:25.000 I'd say it's 70% maintenance of what can I do to do my part to stay out of the way.

00:09:33.000 And then the other part, I always think of it as like this little super thin, invisible thread.

00:09:40.000 But you can feel the tug and you just kind of, you have to be really gentle and you have to pause when agitated and you have to go for it when you're going to like, there's four walls in here, which one has the map behind it?

00:09:52.000 It's that one.

00:09:53.000 And you knock down the wall and it's there, you know.

00:09:56.000 Yeah, what is that though?

00:09:58.000 Synchronicity?

00:10:00.000 Intuition?

00:10:01.000 But labeling it is very dangerous because it's so filled with woo. 1.00

00:10:06.000 There's so many people that are hucksters that have made a career out of sort of like labeling it.

00:10:14.000 Sure.

00:10:15.000 Defining it or teaching you how to get to it.

00:10:17.000 It's great because it's the commodity that you can't capitalize on and yet if you don't show proof of its existence, you shouldn't even be qualified to speak on it.

00:10:28.000 I don't know.

00:10:29.000 It's the big I don't know.

00:10:31.000 But when it happens, whether it happens with love or with friendship or with a career or with a path you're taking, you just know there's a smile.

00:10:40.000 There's an inner smile like, yeah, this is it.

00:10:43.000 Well put.

00:10:43.000 I found it.

00:10:44.000 This is it.

00:10:45.000 I'm supposed to be doing this.

00:10:47.000 Here we go.

00:10:48.000 Yeah.

00:10:49.000 And I really feel it's so funny at this point in my life and being, you know, kind of middle aged and all that.

00:10:55.000 Well, I know I'm going to fly around the world.

00:10:56.000 I'm going to sell some soap.

00:10:58.000 And I know I have a new project and I know I've just retired my jersey on this 12-year journey I've been on.

00:11:04.000 And how do I want to start?

00:11:06.000 And it came up.

00:11:06.000 Would you like to go, yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

00:11:09.000 I'm going to go have the Joe Rogan experience and kick off this year and this season and this new chapter by doing what I love, which is an interview as we're looking at each other.

00:11:22.000 And there's a give and take.

00:11:23.000 Is the door to Iron Man totally closed?

00:11:25.000 Because I don't believe it is.

00:11:27.000 You guys can go through time now.

00:11:31.000 You already opened up that door.

00:11:32.000 Let me ask you the question. 0.97

00:11:34.000 If I pick the jersey back up and put it on, wouldn't you feel a little bit like, oh, crap? 0.98

00:11:40.000 No. 0.96

00:11:41.000 Here's what I think.

00:11:42.000 They go through a few semi-lackluster Avengers movies without you.

00:11:48.000 Ready for this?

00:11:49.000 I'm ready.

00:11:49.000 Here's a scene.

00:11:50.000 There's a moment where the world's fate is at stake and they've realized they need a super genius.

00:11:56.000 And then they figure out how to restart that time machine.

00:12:00.000 Great.

00:12:01.000 Come on, man.

00:12:02.000 The audience sees you when you step out of that thing?

00:12:06.000 Do you want a little arc on it, too?

00:12:09.000 Because if this is your idea, then you've got to show up for it, too.

00:12:11.000 I'll do it.

00:12:12.000 I'll show up.

00:12:13.000 What do I have to do?

00:12:13.000 I don't know.

00:12:14.000 I'll do whatever I have to do.

00:12:15.000 We all have to do whatever Kevin Feige says.

00:12:17.000 I'll hold the clap thing.

00:12:19.000 Do they still have that?

00:12:21.000 They do.

00:12:22.000 They do.

00:12:22.000 It's digital.

00:12:23.000 I'll hold that digital thing.

00:12:25.000 I'll do it.

00:12:26.000 But the way people would freak out if you came back, come on, man.

00:12:32.000 Think about it.

00:12:33.000 Take a few years off.

00:12:34.000 A few Dr. Dolittles, a couple more Sherlock Holmes.

00:12:37.000 You know, it's interesting watching Eddie Murphy in this last little period of time.

00:12:44.000 I was talking to Colin Jost last night who got to sit next to him at the Golden Globes and who was there on the show and writing for him with him when he hosted recently and I go, it's just incredible.

00:12:59.000 Our culture… Never encourages taking a break.

00:13:05.000 Never encourages saying, don't chase that thing because you've got it in your hands.

00:13:12.000 And I love the idea that if you're good at what you do, then it's not about time.

00:13:18.000 It's about it doesn't matter when You decide to pick up the mantle again.

00:13:27.000 It's just about – but it's scary, isn't it?

00:13:29.000 Could you imagine?

00:13:30.000 Like if they just said, hey, Joe, just don't do the show for four years and then come back and do it again.

00:13:34.000 You'd be like, that's a lifetime.

00:13:35.000 Who knows what's going to happen?

00:13:37.000 Well, with Eddie, what's interesting is – He was arguably the greatest of his era and just stopped.

00:13:46.000 Just stopped for 30 years, and no one does that.

00:13:49.000 No one who's that good.

00:13:51.000 And then when you see him, I don't know if you ever saw him, he received some award, and he was on a panel, you know, sitting in front of a podium, rather, and he was talking about Bill Cosby, and he was doing this routine about them taking away Bill Cosby's awards. 0.89

00:14:04.000 And it was fucking brilliant. 0.82

00:14:05.000 And the timing was so good in all of us. 0.98

00:14:08.000 Comics were just sitting there going, he could do it tomorrow. 0.99

00:14:11.000 He could just get up there tomorrow and he'd be fucking murdering. 1.00

00:14:14.000 Yes. 1.00

00:14:16.000 But it would be different.

00:14:17.000 It'd be different.

00:14:18.000 He's a different human.

00:14:19.000 Yeah.

00:14:19.000 You know, that's one of the more interesting things about it.

00:14:21.000 It's him talking about some of the more homophobic stuff that he did in the past.

00:14:25.000 Now it makes him cringe and he just can't believe he was that person.

00:14:28.000 But, you know, when he did Delirious, I think he was like 22 or something crazy like that.

00:14:34.000 Which is just bonkers that he was that good.

00:14:37.000 Anyway, I've been thinking about him lately in relation to a bunch of things, but also just that particularly nowadays, giving yourself permission to not have to Jump because, you know,

00:14:52.000 strike the iron's hot, all that stuff.

00:14:55.000 And maybe it's just as a bit of an anxiety to the times, which I remember too, speaking of past generations.

00:15:01.000 I remember growing up, 1974, Nixon's black and white TV getting impeached.

00:15:07.000 My dad and his buddies are whooping it up, but they're still pissed.

00:15:10.000 And I'm going like, wow, it's not worse or better.

00:15:15.000 It's different, but now it's on us.

00:15:18.000 So there's a bit of an urgency.

00:15:21.000 And that whole thing and just being able to say – like so to answer your question, to me, starting up again is off the table.

00:15:28.000 I feel I've done all I could with that character.

00:15:30.000 There would have to be a super compelling argument and a series of events that made it obvious to it.

00:15:39.000 But the other thing is I want to do other stuff.

00:15:41.000 Right.

00:15:41.000 Of course.

00:15:42.000 Yeah.

00:15:42.000 Of course.

00:15:43.000 Yeah, what you're talking about, about Nixon and – People can lose themselves in current events.

00:15:49.000 And what I mean by that, it doesn't necessarily completely...

00:15:53.000 Your life is more than what's going on in Washington.

00:15:56.000 Hunter Thompson talked about that when he was running for sheriff in Aspen.

00:16:01.000 He was talking about how local politics, like your neighborhood, that's real.

00:16:05.000 This actually can affect your life.

00:16:07.000 What's going on in Washington, how much does that affect your day-to-day existence?

00:16:11.000 It's very little.

00:16:12.000 But for some people...

00:16:14.000 It becomes an enormous portion of the real state of their mind.

00:16:19.000 It takes over most of their day-to-day consciousness where they're consumed with it and it becomes a thing they're cheering for or they're rooting against and then, you know, your life revolves on something that you have very little power over.

00:16:36.000 Teams, turf wars, interests.

00:16:41.000 Think globally, act locally.

00:16:43.000 Yes.

00:16:44.000 I mean, it's a beautiful statement.

00:16:45.000 It really is.

00:16:46.000 It's one of those cliches that you don't even think about.

00:16:49.000 I didn't know that was Hunter in that picture out there.

00:16:52.000 To me, it looked like Joe Walsh.

00:16:53.000 Could have easily been Joe Walsh.

00:16:56.000 I mean, he moved to Colorado, too.

00:16:58.000 Oh, wow.

00:16:59.000 Yeah, the Rocky Mountain Way. 0.99

00:17:00.000 Oh, damn, if he didn't. 0.99

00:17:02.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:17:03.000 He once told me, I'll speak out of school, he said, Nowny, you should just watch TV for a year, bro.

00:17:12.000 I was like, thanks, Joe.

00:17:16.000 And by the way, he was probably right.

00:17:17.000 Probably right. 0.98

00:17:18.000 Look, if you just hung back and just did nothing but watch TV for a year, the fucking ideas you would have, you'd probably have a really rock-solid idea of what's going on. 0.98

00:17:29.000 His was more trying to have enough things going on that I wouldn't have any ideas for a year. 0.98

00:17:35.000 And then I'd give myself a break for a year.

00:17:36.000 Maybe that's good, too.

00:17:38.000 See, I've taken it differently.

00:17:39.000 I'm thinking like analyze the landscape. 0.99

00:17:42.000 I think Joe Walsh is one of the most underrated guys ever because he changed the fucking Eagles. 0.97

00:17:47.000 The Eagles were one thing and then Joe Walsh came around like victim of love. 0.96

00:17:51.000 That's Joe Walsh.

00:17:52.000 He came around and all of a sudden there was a rock to it. 0.99

00:17:56.000 It's like they were kicking down doors and lighting shit on fire. 0.97

00:17:58.000 It was different. 0.99

00:17:59.000 There was an edge to it.

00:18:02.000 He added crazy.

00:18:04.000 He added crazy to this beautiful harmony.

00:18:06.000 And I love it when the guys that added crazy go up to the thin veil between dimensions and say, I think I'm going to stay put.

00:18:16.000 And then all of a sudden, they represent stability.

00:18:23.000 They represent being okay, hanging up your guns, and just being...

00:18:31.000 You know?

00:18:33.000 Everyone has to accept that at some point in time, right?

00:18:37.000 Maybe that's you and your glasses, right?

00:18:39.000 Yep.

00:18:39.000 Because everyone has to accept that at one point in time you're going to have to get off the ride, but when you're doing great and you're kicking it, like, boxers are a perfect example.

00:18:47.000 They always last too long.

00:18:49.000 There's only been a small handful.

00:18:51.000 Like Andre Ward recently, Marvelous Marvin Hagler in his prime.

00:18:55.000 They just go, that's it.

00:18:56.000 I'm done.

00:18:56.000 And they actually are done.

00:18:58.000 Almost every one of them comes back and almost every one of them chases that dragon.

00:19:02.000 Here's why I love you.

00:19:03.000 You're making an argument for and also the argument against me coming back and doing another movie.

00:19:08.000 Yeah!

00:19:09.000 Listen, I'm not married to anything.

00:19:10.000 Except my wife.

00:19:11.000 But I'm not married to any ideas. 0.99

00:19:13.000 All the ideas that I have are just like, hmm, maybe that idea sucks.

00:19:17.000 I love you as Iron Man. 0.98

00:19:20.000 If they opened up this time machine and you popped out, I just imagine the moment where everybody goes fucking crazy. 0.88

00:19:27.000 It would be amazing. 0.96

00:19:28.000 It would be great.

00:19:29.000 I would love that.

00:19:30.000 But I would also love you hanging it up.

00:19:33.000 Yeah.

00:19:34.000 Look, it's just – first of all, it's 2020 and I'm not an OCD guy but I keep thinking see clearly.

00:19:42.000 See clearly even if your vision is going and it's difficult because I feel like we all just get buffeted by – Feelings and ego or fears or little chips of resentments or intuitions that are tied to something maybe higher but you think is out of your reach.

00:20:03.000 Whatever.

00:20:04.000 So it was a perfect time and I got to go have dinner with a bunch of the Marvel folks last night and kind of have just a little bit of extra closure because the movie came out and it was bananas and the directors were sending me pictures of like people flipping out in theaters when Tony snaps and I was like,

00:20:23.000 whoa, this is kind of like a really big cultural thing.

00:20:26.000 But then like Victoria Alonzo, who's the head of VFX for all these movies, a literal super genius or – Kevin Feige or Favreau or Scarlett or some people that have just been there with it for a long time.

00:20:41.000 We were there experiencing it all when it came out and then we see each other on a red carpet and it's not intimate and then we kind of hadn't really had a chance just to – Do nothing. 0.92

00:20:53.000 Just hang out and have some crudités and kind of talk shit.

00:20:57.000 So it was really interesting being here today because yesterday was this kind of – last night was this kind of real – felt like closing the circle on things a bit. 0.92

00:21:06.000 That's got to be bittersweet.

00:21:08.000 Yeah. 0.98

00:21:09.000 But I like that you want to move on and I like that you're doing something like Dr. Doolittle because that's – You've done a lot of wild shit in your life. 0.99

00:21:21.000 You've done a lot of wild shit in your career. 0.86

00:21:24.000 You sort of embody every new chapter with the same kind of energy, although there's a different result and a different piece of art. 0.99

00:21:32.000 It's all the same you.

00:21:34.000 And that's one of the more interesting things about people, and particularly actors.

00:21:38.000 Because actors get to be a bunch of different things.

00:21:41.000 And it's one of the weirder things about that craft.

00:21:44.000 Like when you see a guy who's like Daniel Day-Lewis, who embodies these different humans, like literally becomes different humans.

00:21:53.000 It's...

00:21:54.000 But it's always Daniel Day-Lewis.

00:21:56.000 You know what I mean?

00:21:56.000 Even though he plays the There Will Be Blood guy and all these different psychopaths and various fascinating characters, you're pumped to see him do it.

00:22:09.000 I feel the same way with you.

00:22:12.000 I know you're an interesting guy. 1.00

00:22:15.000 There's a lot of shit going on in your head. 0.99

00:22:17.000 So when you dive into something, whatever it is, whether it's your character from Tropic Thunder or whatever it is, it's going to be Robert Downey Jr. diving into something. 0.99

00:22:27.000 So I would imagine it would be kind of annoying, even though you were brilliant at Iron Man, to stay Iron Man.

00:22:36.000 Yeah.

00:22:37.000 Well, fortunately, I don't have to find out, right?

00:22:40.000 It's just interesting, too.

00:22:42.000 You know, life is doing something.

00:22:44.000 And, you know, I'm at this place.

00:22:47.000 It's also...

00:22:50.000 It baffles me, confidence.

00:22:52.000 What does it really mean?

00:22:55.000 There was a period of time where I felt like I did the first Ironman and then I went and did Tropic Thunder and then I was doing the first Sherlock and I had my shirt off and I was doing Marshall.

00:23:05.000 I was all over the place and it just felt like I was hitting triples no matter what I did.

00:23:12.000 And then people are like, are you really as confident as you seem?

00:23:16.000 And I was like, I guess right now I am, yeah.

00:23:19.000 And then, and I think this goes, I mean, this reminds me, we were just talking about the McGregor-Cowboy fight coming up, you know?

00:23:27.000 It's like, it's...

00:23:29.000 You gonna go to that?

00:23:31.000 I'm gonna watch it.

00:23:32.000 How can you not watch it, you know?

00:23:34.000 Two brilliant souls who cannot lose.

00:23:42.000 Neither one of them can afford to lose this fight.

00:23:44.000 Wow.

00:23:45.000 That is a matchup.

00:23:47.000 Yeah.

00:23:48.000 Particularly, Cowboy doesn't want to lose.

00:23:50.000 Heck no! 0.96

00:23:51.000 But there's this guy who's the poster child, the guy who's the one, right?

00:23:57.000 The chosen one.

00:23:58.000 That's Connor. 0.99

00:23:59.000 And then there's Cowboy who's like, I think I can fuck that guy up. 0.99

00:24:03.000 The journeyman. 0.99

00:24:04.000 Yeah.

00:24:05.000 So confidence, you know, there's been times when I felt I'm in possession of it.

00:24:11.000 And then you want to let go a little bit because it's only ever the moment in life Guiding you.

00:24:18.000 The wind is so at your back that you're like, wow, are you just jumping over the waves and all that by yourself?

00:24:24.000 And you're like, you bet I am.

00:24:26.000 But there's a physics to the moment, man, moment, machine, whatever, and the wind is at your back. 0.96

00:24:32.000 And then the wind does what the fucking wind does and it changes. 0.72

00:24:36.000 And if you're left there thinking what – so I think it's great to be in full possession of what you would call supreme confidence. 0.98

00:24:44.000 And then see what happens if you don't hold on to it so hard because it's great.

00:24:50.000 But it is a bit of an illusion because like everything else, it's always changing.

00:24:54.000 And every day the reset button, the space bar gets pressed and it's like, now what?

00:24:58.000 Yeah.

00:25:00.000 The reset button.

00:25:02.000 Yeah.

00:25:04.000 You kind of have to have a confidence to jump into some of the roles that you've taken though.

00:25:08.000 But I see what you're saying.

00:25:10.000 Like that you don't want to hold on to it.

00:25:13.000 Because it could come and go.

00:25:15.000 I remember Warren Beatty, who I learned so many amazing things from.

00:25:20.000 I was doing a movie called The Pickup Artist with Molly Ringwald.

00:25:24.000 I remember that movie.

00:25:24.000 Okay, and he was kind of the de facto producer of it, uncredited.

00:25:29.000 And he taught me a lot about just acting and what it was.

00:25:33.000 And he said, what's your action in this scene?

00:25:36.000 And I was like, oh no, he's asking me.

00:25:38.000 I was like, my action, I'm picking up girls.

00:25:41.000 He goes, what's your action in this scene?

00:25:44.000 And I was like, I'm driving a car and he asked me like, you know that thing sometimes when someone asks you a question and just – you get caught flat-footed and he goes, no, your action is you're trying to go to work but you're getting distracted by this addiction you have to trying to get laid.

00:26:01.000 So your action is you're trying to get to work and I was like, oh yeah, he's right. 0.99

00:26:06.000 And he said, always know what your action is because then when you come in in the morning confident or when you come in in the morning and you can't hit your ass with both hands, you know what to do. 0.97

00:26:17.000 So to me, one of the great lessons I learned from him was, oh yeah, Just boil down what it is you're doing, whether there's a camera around or just what am I doing today? 0.98

00:26:27.000 Today I'm showing up and I'm trying to be honest and also to listen and learn.

00:26:40.000 But really my action today is I'm beginning a process of promotion.

00:26:48.000 Warren Beatty is another guy who learned how to put his guns down.

00:26:52.000 I remember watching that Madonna movie.

00:26:55.000 Remember when he was dating Madonna?

00:26:56.000 Truth or Dare.

00:26:57.000 Yeah.

00:26:57.000 And he's hanging around with her.

00:27:00.000 She's in the throes of fame and everything. 0.99

00:27:02.000 And he's like, what in the fuck is going on here? 0.99

00:27:04.000 Yeah, like he's never seen it. 0.99

00:27:06.000 Yeah, but he's an older gentleman now.

00:27:08.000 He's the best.

00:27:08.000 And, you know, he's hanging out with her and just shaking his head.

00:27:13.000 And, you know, that kind of marked it for me, where Warren Beatty just realized, all right, let me step away real quick.

00:27:19.000 If I had to talk to him, one thing I would ask him is, what was it like when Carly Simon writes a song about you?

00:27:24.000 That's got to be a trip.

00:27:29.000 So many.

00:27:30.000 I mean, we should do a whole session just about things I learned from Warren Beatty.

00:27:36.000 Yeah?

00:27:36.000 I'm telling you.

00:27:37.000 I would imagine.

00:27:38.000 He's a brilliant guy.

00:27:39.000 Clearly.

00:27:41.000 Do you think that you could do Tropic Thunder today?

00:27:43.000 Would that be possible?

00:27:45.000 Oh, you could do it.

00:27:49.000 And again, like Eddie, you know, I look back to me...

00:27:54.000 That movie to me was a circle back to my dad's movie called Putney Swope, which I highly recommend anyone who hasn't seen to see about a black guy who takes over an ad agency in the 60s because everyone votes for him when the head of the company dies because they think no one else will.

00:28:14.000 And it's about what happens when someone who is free-spirited takes over an essentially corrupt endeavor.

00:28:20.000 And then he realizes and confronts his own corruption.

00:28:24.000 But I remember I was probably two or three when that was being shot and when it came out and it was so a part of my...

00:28:32.000 And I just remembered some of the folks that were around my dad at that time.

00:28:36.000 And so when Ben called and said, hey, I'm doing this thing and, you know, I think maybe Sean Penn had passed on it or something like that.

00:28:45.000 Possibly wisely.

00:28:46.000 And I thought, yeah, I'll do that and I'll do that after Iron Man.

00:28:50.000 And then I started thinking, this is a terrible idea.

00:28:53.000 Wait a minute.

00:28:54.000 And then I thought, well, hold on, dude.

00:28:55.000 Get real here.

00:28:56.000 Where is your heart?

00:28:58.000 And my heart is, A, I get to be black for a summer in my mind.

00:29:07.000 So there's something in it for me.

00:29:11.000 The other thing is I get to hold up to nature the insane self-involved hypocrisy of artists and what they think they're allowed to do on occasion.

00:29:24.000 Just my opinion.

00:29:25.000 And also Ben, who is a masterful artist and director, probably the closest thing to a Charlie Chaplin that I've experienced in my lifetime.

00:29:35.000 He writes, he directs, he acts.

00:29:37.000 If you had seen him when he was directing this movie, you would have been like, I'm watching David Lean, I'm watching Chaplin, I'm watching Coppola.

00:29:45.000 He knew exactly what the vision for this was.

00:29:48.000 He executed it.

00:29:49.000 It was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie.

00:29:55.000 And 90% of my black friends are like, dude, that was great.

00:30:01.000 What about the other 10%? 0.88

00:30:04.000 You know, I can't disagree with them, but I know where my heart was.

00:30:10.000 And I think that it's never an excuse to do something that is out of place and not of its time.

00:30:18.000 But to me, it was just putting a...

00:30:19.000 It was a blasting cap on...

00:30:22.000 And by the way, I think White Chicks came out pretty soon after that. 1.00

00:30:26.000 And I was like, I love that.

00:30:27.000 I was like, that was great.

00:30:28.000 So, you know.

00:30:30.000 Well, it might be the last time we see that.

00:30:34.000 Unless things change, it seems like no one can really...

00:30:38.000 I don't think you could do blackface anymore.

00:30:40.000 I mean, we almost lost the Prime Minister of Canada because he did brownface. 1.00

00:30:44.000 He pretended to be Saudi Arabian, right? 0.96

00:30:47.000 He did Arabian Nights in high school or something like that.

00:30:50.000 It's an interesting and necessary meditation on where is the pendulum?

00:30:57.000 Why is the pendulum right?

00:31:00.000 Where is the pendulum maybe cutting a little into what could be perceived as heart in the right place, openness of its time?

00:31:13.000 I mean, you know, there's a morality clause here on this planet and it's a big price to pay and I think having a moral psychology is job one.

00:31:24.000 So sometimes you just got to go, yeah, you know, I effed up.

00:31:29.000 Again, not in my defense, but Tropic Thunder was about how wrong that is.

00:31:38.000 Yes.

00:31:41.000 I take exception.

00:31:43.000 No, I think you could do it today.

00:31:47.000 I think you could.

00:31:49.000 I think it could be done today.

00:31:50.000 There would be so much outrage, but there would also be people cheering. 0.97

00:31:54.000 And if we boiled down all the bullshit and got to the actual result of what the film did... 0.99

00:32:00.000 It's fucking hilarious. 0.99

00:32:01.000 I watched it again about a year and a half ago. 0.98

00:32:03.000 It's a great movie.

00:32:05.000 It's a great, fun movie. 0.71

00:32:07.000 I mean, it's ridiculous, over-the-top, hilarious, and it worked.

00:32:14.000 And your portrayal, I mean, it wasn't egregious. 0.93

00:32:18.000 It was necessary.

00:32:19.000 It made sense.

00:32:21.000 All of it fit.

00:32:22.000 There's square pegs and square holes.

00:32:24.000 I was just thinking square pegs.

00:32:26.000 I don't know why.

00:32:26.000 Oh, I was thinking about Sarah Jessica Parker on the ride over here.

00:32:29.000 Isn't that crazy?

00:32:30.000 I think I drove by.

00:32:32.000 Is it that Warner Park near here?

00:32:34.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:32:34.000 I think she went to school over there when she was doing a show.

00:32:37.000 Anyway.

00:32:38.000 Interesting.

00:32:39.000 Yeah.

00:32:39.000 It worked.

00:32:41.000 But it might be the last time we'll ever see a studio take a chance on a guy wearing blackface and the prolific use of the word retard.

00:32:52.000 Those are two things.

00:32:53.000 And by the way, Ben, the funny thing too was all the heat got deflected to Ben and Simple Jack.

00:33:00.000 Yeah.

00:33:01.000 That's what people were pissed off about.

00:33:02.000 And I go, woo!

00:33:04.000 Great!

00:33:06.000 But you never know when it's going to be your time in the barrel.

00:33:09.000 You know, sometimes life just says, you know what?

00:33:12.000 And I've been on both sides of that coin.

00:33:14.000 Sometimes life just says, you're a symbol now.

00:33:18.000 Did you have anybody that was telling you not to do it?

00:33:20.000 Were there agents or anyone?

00:33:22.000 My mother was horrified.

00:33:27.000 Really?

00:33:28.000 Bobby, I'm telling you, I have a bad feeling about this.

00:33:34.000 I was like, yeah, me too, Mom.

00:33:38.000 Anyway, how are we?

00:33:39.000 First day on set, when they're putting the makeup on you, how hard are you sweating?

00:33:45.000 There's been a couple times.

00:33:46.000 I was all the night before and we were on Kauai and I was like, well, here we go.

00:33:53.000 And I was just running.

00:33:54.000 I think I had six lines that day.

00:33:57.000 But I knew that there was going to be choppers.

00:34:00.000 There was going to be squib fire.

00:34:02.000 There was going to be choreography.

00:34:04.000 There was going to be, you know, it was going to be cacophonous.

00:34:08.000 And the only thing that mattered to me Again, what's my action?

00:34:12.000 My action as an actor in this movie is to know what I'm doing, even if what I'm doing is insane.

00:34:18.000 So I ran those six or eight lines I had a thousand times lying in bed over and [...

00:34:27.000 So the next day...

00:34:29.000 I was free to enjoy myself and not be struggling to wonder what it was I was supposed to be doing.

00:34:36.000 And then that's what it is.

00:34:37.000 It was just, you know, it was one little mosaic after the next.

00:34:43.000 By the end of it, I had some pride that AI had made it through – forget that it was blackface. 1.00

00:34:50.000 It was special effects makeup day after [...

00:35:14.000 So when you memorize lines, that's an interesting thing that you said that you were free to do it.

00:35:20.000 Like when you memorize lines, is there ever a part like when you're acting where you have to think like, okay, what am I supposed to say next?

00:35:29.000 And how much does that get in the way?

00:35:32.000 Look, I have a very broad band of tolerances.

00:35:37.000 I don't care if the people I'm with happen to not know what they're doing or don't know their lines or stepping on my lines or whatever or want to change their lines and my lines.

00:35:48.000 And it's always a different thing.

00:35:51.000 It's like reading the room.

00:35:52.000 It's like, you know, if I was a fighter, you go into the octagon and they go, you ready?

00:35:56.000 You ready?

00:35:56.000 And you go, and then you just do it.

00:35:59.000 You go in but – so I've had it where I would try to be off book before everyone else.

00:36:05.000 I would get it down to an acronym.

00:36:06.000 So if there was a thousand words I had to remember, I would just remember the first letter of each and I would put it on a piece of poster board and then I would stand away from it.

00:36:17.000 Not as far as you and your archery setup over there but far enough away to where I can see it but kind of can't see it back when my vision was a little more clear.

00:36:25.000 And I would just run it and run it and run it.

00:36:28.000 When I did the first Sherlock, we were rewriting it so much and I would have pages and pages of stuff.

00:36:33.000 I was like, give me an earwig.

00:36:34.000 And it helped me with my accent.

00:36:36.000 And then I started getting into like, you know what's so great?

00:36:39.000 I can finish work, go home, hang out with my kids or do whatever I want to do, go train.

00:36:44.000 And in the morning, they can change it all they want.

00:36:47.000 I don't have to trip if at all.

00:36:49.000 Unless it's some monologue that you want to really be committed to that's not going to shift.

00:36:54.000 I just go like that.

00:36:55.000 So you'd put one of those little earpieces in and they would feed you the lines?

00:36:58.000 Yeah.

00:36:59.000 And now I've kind of gone as far as you can go with that and I'll probably go back to a new method or a new version of the old method.

00:37:07.000 So it's basically improvisational.

00:37:09.000 Like you decide with whatever preparation you're going to do for each role how you're going to do it.

00:37:15.000 Whether you're going to go and memorize everything obsessively or whether you're just going to be a little bit more loose and free with it.

00:37:21.000 Yes.

00:37:22.000 It depends on the script too.

00:37:23.000 Like Tropic Thunder, Justin Theroux wrote that script with Ben.

00:37:27.000 It was a really good script.

00:37:28.000 I mean my missus who next to my mother was – probably more so.

00:37:33.000 It was the opinion I was really waiting on.

00:37:36.000 And she was reading in the kitchen laughing her ass off. 0.71

00:37:38.000 She goes, this is so wrong. 0.91

00:37:40.000 This is so wrong.

00:37:42.000 And she goes, and it's so true. 1.00

00:37:45.000 If you do this right, you're doing something that's about a bunch of self-involved idiots somehow or other becoming heroes. 1.00

00:37:56.000 And she goes, I love that. 0.99

00:37:58.000 If that's what it stays, then it's going to be good.

00:38:00.000 And so, like for instance, the, you know, never go full blah, blah, blah.

00:38:05.000 You don't want to say it.

00:38:05.000 No.

00:38:06.000 By the way, I guarantee you, I'm getting out of here.

00:38:09.000 My stock is not plummeting when I leave here.

00:38:12.000 I'm not smoking dope.

00:38:12.000 I'm not doing a musk.

00:38:14.000 I'm going to do everything right.

00:38:14.000 His stock went up the next day.

00:38:16.000 All right.

00:38:17.000 Drop six, went up nine.

00:38:18.000 With who?

00:38:19.000 I don't know.

00:38:20.000 I don't understand it.

00:38:21.000 I love that you now have it.

00:38:23.000 Now it's a piece of art.

00:38:25.000 Yeah.

00:38:27.000 With 6% in the smoke.

00:38:30.000 God bless his heart.

00:38:32.000 Yeah, it just changes.

00:38:33.000 It just changes and I also know that I don't really know that much and it's different every time anyway.

00:38:40.000 But some – I really like when you have a loose concept of what you're doing.

00:38:45.000 There are certain parts that aren't going to change much and the rest you discover.

00:38:48.000 So the first Iron Man.

00:38:50.000 I mean John and I and the writers or John and I, we were – just would write – you write a line, I'll write a line and then we would – We were literally watching the puppies be born as we did it.

00:39:02.000 Frustrating for people who – not Gwyneth because she can look at a piece of paper and then go, OK, I get it and she's got it all memorized.

00:39:09.000 She's amazing.

00:39:11.000 But what's for the highest good?

00:39:13.000 Sometimes it's very self-indulgent to come in and like hand out new pages or say, oh, I'm not saying that so feed me that.

00:39:21.000 You know what I mean?

00:39:22.000 You need an environment of respect but I like discovering things.

00:39:28.000 How much of acting is managing those weird relationships that you have with these other people that you're acting with?

00:39:35.000 You've made some references to people changing other people's lines and not being prepared.

00:39:41.000 I got out of acting for that very reason.

00:39:44.000 That was the thing that I... I went from a world of stand-up comedy, which are just a bunch of crazy people, to actors, which are a bunch of crazy people but in a different way.

00:39:55.000 And managing all the different characters and all the different personalities, how hard is that?

00:40:01.000 That seems like that could really get in the way.

00:40:03.000 Well, yeah, sure it can.

00:40:04.000 And it's like a thumbprint.

00:40:05.000 Every time you're on a new project, it's a completely different fingerprint.

00:40:13.000 You never know.

00:40:14.000 What you're going to get and sometimes projects seem blessed and sometimes you could say they're cursed.

00:40:21.000 But again, my – Susan Downey Esquire was talking about this yesterday.

00:40:26.000 She goes, it's the only thing you can't overcome as a creative producer on a big movie or anything is.

00:40:33.000 In principle, no matter what happens, you can fix it.

00:40:36.000 Oh, we lost the light.

00:40:37.000 Oh, the thunder of the weather came in.

00:40:38.000 Okay, he got sick.

00:40:39.000 Oh, she's pregnant. 1.00

00:40:41.000 Okay, great.

00:40:42.000 I changed the costume.

00:40:43.000 You can't overcome personalities.

00:40:47.000 Yeah, the relationships that people have with each other.

00:40:50.000 Do you meet up before you commit to a role? 0.99

00:40:53.000 Do you ever say, like, I want to meet Captain America and find out what the fuck that guy's really like? 0.99

00:41:00.000 By the way... 0.99

00:41:03.000 I mean, I love that you think I'd have the authority.

00:41:06.000 Did you cast this guy?

00:41:07.000 All right, let me get a taste of him.

00:41:08.000 I'll tell you if he can stick around.

00:41:09.000 I'm really interested in doing that, but can we all have a group dinner or something like that?

00:41:12.000 Can I meet these guys?

00:41:14.000 My MO is always, let's mind meld, let's get together, let's work weekends, let's spend time together, because you can't replace that familiarity, so you have to try to build it.

00:41:26.000 And sometimes it happens very naturally.

00:41:29.000 Like, I adore Chris Evans.

00:41:32.000 I can't even tell you why.

00:41:34.000 He's a Boston guy.

00:41:35.000 He's technically such a brilliant actor but he also doesn't take himself seriously.

00:41:40.000 He's flaky but he's the first guy you would want to have your back if something went down.

00:41:46.000 And yet we're different enough where I feel like by being who we are and then both having those characters, we were able to – I thought Civil War was a special moment in the arc of the Marvel films about turning one against the other and what it meant.

00:42:04.000 And so sometimes you just get lucky.

00:42:09.000 As a matter of fact, the whole Marvel universe, possibly without exception, just happens to be a really well – what do you call that when you put together something curated group of souls?

00:42:25.000 Well, it's interesting because people take superhero movies seriously now.

00:42:31.000 Like, now superhero movies are films that happen to be about superheroes. 0.98

00:42:36.000 Whereas, you know, for the longest time, superhero movies were bullshit. 0.98

00:42:41.000 You know, the TV shows were kind of clunky. 0.99

00:42:44.000 They were campy. 0.97

00:42:46.000 It was Batman with the silly pants on and Robin. 0.96

00:42:50.000 I bought it. 0.94

00:42:51.000 Everything was bang, boom, bang.

00:42:53.000 Remember?

00:42:53.000 You'd see the big boom in front of the screen.

00:42:55.000 And yet, who was in the first Superman?

00:42:59.000 Brandon.

00:43:00.000 Yes, right.

00:43:00.000 So there was always a seed of an attempt to legitimize something that was otherwise two-dimensional.

00:43:08.000 Right.

00:43:08.000 Superman was probably the first film that really did that, right?

00:43:11.000 And then Batman.

00:43:13.000 Yeah.

00:43:13.000 And then the Batman series.

00:43:14.000 But again, how many goddamn Batmans have there been? 1.00

00:43:17.000 Right. 0.99

00:43:18.000 I want to see what Pattinson does.

00:43:20.000 Oh, that's right.

00:43:21.000 He's going to be Batman now.

00:43:23.000 I like that guy.

00:43:25.000 How many Spider-Mans have there been?

00:43:27.000 That's the most, right?

00:43:31.000 Three.

00:43:31.000 Only three?

00:43:32.000 Yeah.

00:43:33.000 And three Hulks, right?

00:43:35.000 At least.

00:43:36.000 One, two, three.

00:43:37.000 Not counting the TV show.

00:43:39.000 Counting the TV show?

00:43:40.000 Four.

00:43:41.000 Counting the TV show.

00:43:41.000 Oh, you're right.

00:43:42.000 Eric Bana.

00:43:43.000 You're right.

00:43:43.000 Yeah.

00:43:44.000 Norton.

00:43:44.000 Yep.

00:43:46.000 Mark.

00:43:47.000 Mark Ruffalo.

00:43:49.000 He's my favorite.

00:43:50.000 He was just born for it.

00:43:52.000 Yeah, it's perfect.

00:43:54.000 You believe him.

00:43:55.000 And again, his whole thing was, what's my action?

00:43:57.000 It's like, you know what?

00:43:58.000 I've got an anger problem.

00:44:00.000 How do you guys manage this giant CGI thing?

00:44:04.000 Like, how does that work?

00:44:05.000 Like, when you're on the set.

00:44:07.000 That seems like one of the weirdest parts about acting in some of those Avenger films, is how much of it is actually digital.

00:44:14.000 Yeah, you just kind of get used to it.

00:44:19.000 I'll digress.

00:44:20.000 They did a movie with Richard Linklater called A Scanner Darkly and it was rotoscoped. 1.00

00:44:26.000 Great fucking movie. 0.99

00:44:27.000 I love that movie. 1.00

00:44:28.000 Love him.

00:44:30.000 And Keanu and I and Woody and Winona and it was this cool thing and we would shoot these scenes and he would say, you can just leave your body mic on the outside because we're just painting the whole thing.

00:44:42.000 So that rotoscoping is a great metaphor for essentially what the Marvel movies became when sometimes you would even go and I'm supposed to come in and like throw something.

00:44:53.000 It was off camera but everything else was great.

00:44:56.000 Oh, we'll just move your arm later and you go, wow.

00:44:59.000 So you never want to rest on your laurels and say – but after a certain while, I was like – Why am I wearing this football suit?

00:45:09.000 Just put some dots on my shoulders so I can move more freely.

00:45:13.000 And they'd be like, all right.

00:45:15.000 I go, honestly, what are you really using all this stuff I'm wearing for?

00:45:19.000 They go, for reference.

00:45:20.000 I go, great.

00:45:21.000 So I'll wear it for one take and then I'll take it off and I'll relax a little bit. 0.99

00:45:24.000 But then other people would be like, I'm stuck in this fucking thing, Don. 0.98

00:45:29.000 Paint it purple. 0.97

00:45:31.000 So everybody got to join in on the joys and the miseries of the technical challenge of doing it.

00:45:40.000 And speaking of Ruffalo, by the end, because he's a smart hulk, He literally – they were just making him big wherever he was and they put a little – a piece of PVC with a big Hulk head up about five feet over where his head was and he was just there in a green suit.

00:45:57.000 So in a tracking suit with like his package out, you know, and he'd be like, let me just at least tie like a little sarong around my, come on guys, whatever, you know.

00:46:07.000 And so I think Mark went about as far out into the ionosphere of CG as you can.

00:46:16.000 I didn't get the whole smart Hulk thing.

00:46:19.000 I didn't get how he figured that out.

00:46:22.000 It wasn't really, like, Hulk is supposed to be Hulk.

00:46:27.000 Right.

00:46:27.000 It's supposed to be the altar.

00:46:29.000 It's like one you can control.

00:46:31.000 One is the genius scientist.

00:46:33.000 Exactly.

00:46:33.000 And one is the beast.

00:46:34.000 But after so many times – and again, this is the genius of the people who break and shape stories over there.

00:46:41.000 Feige and his team as they go, oh, he's Hulk and then he's not Hulk.

00:46:45.000 He's Hulk.

00:46:45.000 It's a big battle.

00:46:46.000 Oh, he's so conflicted.

00:46:47.000 What if he could meet himself in the middle?

00:46:50.000 And then what corner have we painted ourselves in by having him meet himself in the middle because then you can't – if that doesn't work, you can't go back to the way it was.

00:46:59.000 You've done it or you can go back to the way it was.

00:47:01.000 So I just think that the real genius of the Marvel creative team is they – and the Russo brothers who did the last few – Avengers Infinity War and Endgame is they go, we love writing ourselves into a corner.

00:47:14.000 We love it.

00:47:16.000 Because then it activates all of those, how do we get out of purgatory juices, and then you get the next right idea.

00:47:24.000 Now, when you guys sit down and when you first receive a script for one of these things, do they consult with you?

00:47:33.000 Do they discuss this with you?

00:47:34.000 Do they just lay it out and say, this is the character arc?

00:47:37.000 How do you feel about this?

00:47:39.000 What do you think?

00:47:40.000 Yeah, but it's changed over time.

00:47:43.000 I think if you're one of the folks who has their standalone movies like Scarlet has Black Widow coming out, I think you take a – I would.

00:47:50.000 You take a bit of a different – I think the legal phrase for actors and studios is meaningful consultation, not script approval, because then anybody could hold a studio hostage because I don't approve this $30 million that you're trying to spend right now.

00:48:12.000 So your schedule is fine.

00:48:13.000 When you say I don't approve, I picture a bathrobe and I picture fine china and teacups.

00:48:18.000 That's what I picture.

00:48:19.000 I don't approve.

00:48:20.000 And then just storming off.

00:48:22.000 I've had my moments too because I'm so passionate about story.

00:48:27.000 But again, after more seat time with the same people and new people coming in and getting a pretty brutal education on what kind of process these movies require, you just start trusting more that they're thinking on your behalf.

00:48:47.000 And also, little things are easy to change.

00:48:50.000 Big things become an inconvenience to the higher good.

00:48:54.000 And at what point do you want to pull the air brake on something where the train's already leaving the station?

00:49:04.000 Well, I would imagine it would be a fine line.

00:49:07.000 They want the actor to be comfortable with the character, and maybe some feedback would be beneficial.

00:49:15.000 But they also have a path, a vision that they've created.

00:49:19.000 They would like to see you somehow or another at least morph slightly to get on this path.

00:49:26.000 Yeah, and by the way, after I had my second round of kids with Susan, I became both artistically, I had a bit of a renaissance when I was doing the third Iron Man.

00:49:38.000 And then after that too, I was like, well, now I'm going to do this Avengers and there's so many moving parts and it's so difficult just to get all these schedules to coincide and get everyone together that I'm not going to be like, I'm not feeling it.

00:49:51.000 So again, it's that thing.

00:49:54.000 It's sometimes...

00:49:56.000 What do they say?

00:49:57.000 Faster or alone, further together?

00:49:59.000 Sometimes you can only think about further because you've got to get downfield.

00:50:03.000 Other times, you're thinking, hey, this is my moment to run and I need a little help and a little approval and I need a little leeway.

00:50:11.000 But that's any creative endeavor.

00:50:13.000 I would imagine when you're involved in something that's so epic, when it's actually over, it probably almost seems surreal.

00:50:19.000 Because the production is so massive, there's so many moving pieces, there's so many special effects, so many things that you have to sort of visualize while you're doing it.

00:50:28.000 And then after it's all over, you're done.

00:50:31.000 What is a big Avengers movie?

00:50:35.000 How many months are you involved in this for?

00:50:38.000 Well, I mean it could be some part of 18 months to two years depending on how far out you are and then four to six months of principal photography and then additional photography and then post and then I always include promotion.

00:50:53.000 Yeah.

00:50:56.000 From soup to nuts I think is the phrase.

00:50:59.000 Soup to nuts?

00:51:00.000 Yeah.

00:51:01.000 How does that work?

00:51:01.000 That's a Joel Silver phrase.

00:51:03.000 One of my great, great friends and probably one of the greatest big movie producers of all time.

00:51:12.000 We did the Sherlock's with him.

00:51:14.000 We did the Matrix series.

00:51:15.000 My missus was running his company for 10 years.

00:51:18.000 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is I think in some ways the best film I've ever done, wound up being a calling card.

00:51:26.000 It came out and it bombed.

00:51:28.000 But Jon Favreau saw it and he said this guy could do an action movie.

00:51:32.000 And so that wound up being my calling card into the Marvel universe.

00:51:38.000 But to answer the question, it can be anticlimactic like anything.

00:51:41.000 I mean this is surreal.

00:51:43.000 I've maybe seen you around a little bit but I feel like I know you.

00:51:48.000 Because I see you all the time and I listen to you and I'm a martial arts nut.

00:51:59.000 Yeah, isn't it?

00:52:00.000 Sometimes when you get outside of the fortunate, interesting, creative experience you're having, you kind of go like, it's very dreamlike.

00:52:09.000 Yeah.

00:52:11.000 Yeah, my whole life's a dream.

00:52:13.000 Except for the ramifications, the ramifications.

00:52:15.000 Just for real! 1.00

00:52:16.000 When those come back and bite you in the ass, you're like, yikes, this isn't a fucking dream at all. 1.00

00:52:20.000 This is dangerous. 1.00

00:52:22.000 Yeah, I remember the first time I met Phil Hartman. 0.99

00:52:25.000 I was stunned that I was actually sitting, we were at a stable read, and I was sitting across from him, and I'm like, how the fuck? 0.98

00:52:34.000 You're a famous guy. 0.99

00:52:35.000 You're a really famous guy.

00:52:36.000 I've seen you in movies, man.

00:52:38.000 I've seen you on television.

00:52:39.000 Here you are.

00:52:40.000 Right there.

00:52:41.000 How weird.

00:52:42.000 And it seems it's very hard to be normal.

00:52:47.000 And then after a while, that becomes normal.

00:52:49.000 And then the fact that it becomes normal becomes surreal.

00:52:53.000 And then it really feels like a dream.

00:52:55.000 When I meet people like you, we've just met an hour or so ago, yet instantly I feel like I know you.

00:53:02.000 Yeah, it's very strange. 1.00

00:53:03.000 But also you're not full of shit. 1.00

00:53:06.000 You know, when someone's not full of shit, it's pretty easy to get to know them. 1.00

00:53:10.000 You say something, I say something back, oh, I know how he works. 1.00

00:53:13.000 I see what's going on in there.

00:53:15.000 This is an actual human.

00:53:16.000 Here we go.

00:53:16.000 We're talking.

00:53:17.000 There's a good litmus, too, because you watch your show pretty quick.

00:53:21.000 And I just love it, too, because in your show, you literally, you just, you start, it's a rolling start with you every time.

00:53:26.000 You come into the show and you're already kind of thinking about stuff.

00:53:30.000 So it feels very organic.

00:53:34.000 And part of me even this morning was like, I hope he looks into my eyes and doesn't see a complete and utter foolish fraud because I would probably believe him if he mirrored that back to me.

00:53:45.000 Oh no, that's a danger, right? 1.00

00:53:47.000 Yeah, if you respect someone and they think you're a fucking idiot, you're like, oh no, I might really be a fucking idiot. 1.00

00:53:53.000 But there's been times when in just Being myself, someone who I respect has looked at me and said, what are we talking about? 1.00

00:54:01.000 What are you even saying?

00:54:02.000 And you remember that because it kind of stiff arms you. 1.00

00:54:06.000 But part of those are good because it realizes, well, you're probably off on a fucking stupid tangent. 1.00

00:54:10.000 And that's part of being a person. 0.99

00:54:12.000 Part of being a person is like, I don't know what the next word out of my mouth is going to be right now.

00:54:17.000 No one ever does.

00:54:18.000 Unless you do.

00:54:19.000 And if you do, it's kind of weird.

00:54:20.000 Some people are poker players.

00:54:22.000 I respect some people that are that because there's an ability to – maybe it's fear-based.

00:54:34.000 But I always appreciate people who – there's people like their icons are big shots or they hold a certain esteem and all of their texts are very simple.

00:54:44.000 It's like, yes, yes.

00:54:46.000 Yes, we should fix that.

00:54:48.000 Sure.

00:54:49.000 Yeah, sure is my favorite.

00:54:50.000 Sure.

00:54:51.000 Okay.

00:54:51.000 On it.

00:54:52.000 Yeah.

00:54:53.000 Yeah.

00:54:53.000 No periods either.

00:54:54.000 You don't have time to make a period.

00:54:56.000 Beats the all caps texts.

00:54:58.000 Oh, I don't like those at all.

00:54:59.000 Those people are weird.

00:55:00.000 Although C.T. Fletcher, he sends me all caps.

00:55:03.000 I love him.

00:55:05.000 But he's shouting at everything.

00:55:06.000 Everything is a shout.

00:55:08.000 But yeah, the surreal part is...

00:55:11.000 I think part of the reason I'm still so interested, not just in life, but also getting to do what I do, is I'm a fan.

00:55:21.000 I love movies.

00:55:24.000 I love creativity.

00:55:25.000 I love music.

00:55:26.000 I love culture.

00:55:28.000 And the fact that I actually have a place in it while I'm observing it and digging it, it's an honor.

00:55:39.000 Well, that's a beautiful perspective, and that shows in how you carry yourself, and it shows in the work that you do, that you do appreciate it.

00:55:48.000 One of the saddest things is someone who's in an amazing position who doesn't appreciate it.

00:55:54.000 And that drives other people crazy, too.

00:55:58.000 Like, prima donnas drive people crazy for a variety of reasons, but one of the big ones is you don't appreciate how fortunate you are And people love when people appreciate good fortune and appreciate a well-earned position and are engrossed in a beautiful life of something that they really enjoy and something that really inspires them.

00:56:22.000 Well, I need to be kept right-sized because I can easily fall into self-seeking and depression and self-pity and judgment and all that stuff.

00:56:33.000 It's kind of a...

00:56:35.000 It's a bit of a default, but I spend enough energy and I've had enough help over enough years to actually just say, oh, that's just awful, destructive behavior.

00:56:49.000 You're entertaining in your head, you know?

00:56:52.000 Bad patterns.

00:56:53.000 Just bad thought patterns.

00:56:54.000 Yeah.

00:56:54.000 I think we could all fall into those.

00:56:56.000 I'm ruthlessly self-critical.

00:56:58.000 For me, sometimes it's very hard to step outside and just...

00:57:02.000 Just take a pause and recognize that not everything's going to be right the first time you try it.

00:57:08.000 I think that a lot of people that are really great at things, it's one of the things about them is that they're not very satisfied with their work.

00:57:18.000 They're always looking to improve it.

00:57:19.000 They're always looking for it to be better.

00:57:21.000 And then that can start that cycle in their head of self-loathing and anxiety and anger at their performance or their work or whatever it is.

00:57:30.000 And then that can lead to depression.

00:57:32.000 That can lead to just self-hate.

00:57:35.000 Yeah.

00:57:35.000 And what are your tolerances?

00:57:39.000 I'll be the first to tell you, like, you know, do certain movies, or we were doing Tropic Thunder, one of the first, you know, Iron Man movies, I was like, I'd go over to the monitor, I'd be like, play that back again.

00:57:47.000 That was so good.

00:57:49.000 Dude, let me see that again. 0.63

00:57:51.000 I need confirmation.

00:57:52.000 Yeah.

00:57:52.000 Because it's always a miracle.

00:57:54.000 You stayed in frame.

00:57:55.000 You got the line right.

00:57:57.000 Your eye line was right.

00:57:59.000 The lighting was right.

00:58:00.000 The sensibility was right.

00:58:02.000 And you just look at it and you go, oh...

00:58:06.000 I don't know.

00:58:06.000 For me, it's like the playback of the perfect Superman punch KO and just go, show me that again.

00:58:13.000 Or when we were shooting Tropic Thunder, I had a little teaser clip for Iron Man, but it wasn't coming out until the next year and we were going to go to Comic-Con.

00:58:24.000 So I got to see it and show it to people and they're like, oh, I think that movie's going to do pretty good.

00:58:30.000 And then when we went to Comic-Con, we saw it, but It used to be like that with music too.

00:58:35.000 I write music.

00:58:37.000 I haven't for some time, but you would write something and then you just listen to it on the loop because you go, wow.

00:58:43.000 I know that I was here and I did that, but it feels kind of inspired and you want to get all that stuff.

00:58:50.000 Yes, self-critical is important as long as it doesn't bleed out into and over the edges and just make everyone miserable.

00:58:59.000 Right.

00:58:59.000 Again, get out of your own way.

00:59:01.000 Again, I mean, that's one of the many tenets of life.

00:59:04.000 Learn how to get out of your own way with everything, including with creative endeavors.

00:59:08.000 It seems like that thing that you said about music, most people who write things or create things say that.

00:59:17.000 They know they're doing it.

00:59:18.000 If you make a great sculpture, you know you're doing it.

00:59:20.000 But where is it coming from?

00:59:22.000 What is the idea that manifests itself into this perfect thing that you could step back and look at and it seems surreal?

00:59:29.000 How did I create that?

00:59:31.000 Did I? I don't know if I did.

00:59:32.000 I mean, I definitely made my fingers move, but I don't know if that's me.

00:59:36.000 Who wrote that music?

00:59:37.000 Who performed it?

00:59:38.000 I know you did.

00:59:41.000 But there's a thing inside you that sort of like tunes in to this energy of ideas.

00:59:47.000 And then it comes through you.

00:59:49.000 And again, you kind of have to get out of your own way while you're writing something.

00:59:53.000 And then when it comes out, it's a weird feeling. 0.90

00:59:55.000 It's not like if you hammer a nail into a board, you fucking are very aware you did that. 0.96

01:00:01.000 You're very aware. 0.78

01:00:02.000 But there's something about the creative process that's not totally there.

01:00:08.000 It's weird.

01:00:10.000 Yeah.

01:00:11.000 Because it is you and it isn't you.

01:00:13.000 Right.

01:00:14.000 What does you even mean?

01:00:16.000 I love it.

01:00:18.000 You always hear it too in sports.

01:00:20.000 It's like, you know, oh, you know, How'd it go today, Federer?

01:00:25.000 Oh, I was out of my mind.

01:00:27.000 I was not in my mind.

01:00:28.000 It was a beautiful day, and I think you saw the results.

01:00:31.000 Yeah, sure.

01:00:33.000 Fluid, effortless, poetic.

01:00:35.000 Well, fighters talk about that all the time, especially a counter shot.

01:00:39.000 They land something, and they don't even have any idea they're going to do it, and they did it, and then it caused the knockout.

01:00:45.000 It's their training manifest itself in this one special beautiful moment where bang this thing happens and then they see the guy drop and like holy shit and then they walk away and it's the work it's it's there's so many things involved right there's so many moving pieces you have to be working on your own mind to learn how to get out of your own way you also have to be like really engrossed in whatever the activity is that you're doing like obsessed in love with it passionate about it And then you have to have the discipline to show up and actually do the

01:01:15.000 work.

01:01:15.000 There's so many different moving, and it all has to be managed, and it's not solid.

01:01:20.000 It's like a fucking raft on the ocean. 0.98

01:01:23.000 It's moving around. 1.00

01:01:24.000 You're always trying to figure out how to keep it moving and functional.

01:01:28.000 And it always seems unmanageable. 0.87

01:01:30.000 And after it's over, you're like, oh, how the fuck does that even work? 0.94

01:01:34.000 Yeah, we call it the fader board. 0.56

01:01:36.000 It's that weird thing about how to get it all.

01:01:39.000 And honestly, particularly in the last 15 years when I started really taking martial arts seriously, half the stuff that I've been able to do right in my creative life are principles that I learned on the mat with my Sifu.

01:01:58.000 Guard your center.

01:02:01.000 Keep your eye on the lead elbow.

01:02:04.000 Get to the blind side.

01:02:07.000 How often do you do that?

01:02:09.000 I started...

01:02:10.000 I think I'm in the 15th or 16th year.

01:02:15.000 Sifu was over the day before yesterday.

01:02:18.000 So, you know, a bunch of times a week.

01:02:20.000 And if I'm working on something or if he can make it to location, we'll have long stretches where we're doing it every day.

01:02:27.000 And there's gratings.

01:02:28.000 So you've got to prep for those, you know.

01:02:32.000 So what are you doing?

01:02:34.000 Kung Fu?

01:02:34.000 Is it a very particular style?

01:02:37.000 Traditional Wing Chun.

01:02:38.000 Really?

01:02:39.000 Yeah.

01:02:40.000 Which is...

01:02:41.000 Very underrated art form.

01:02:43.000 Yes.

01:02:44.000 Also, so many trade secrets and so different than how I see it when I'm looking at videos.

01:02:52.000 In that in UFC, everything is out in the open and it's discussed.

01:02:57.000 And you see in a lot of the Eastern stuff, there was a turf wars and we're not really going to show them our footwork.

01:03:05.000 We're not going to do this.

01:03:06.000 But anyway, it's been a real deep dive with my sifu, Eric Orem, who's sifu, my si gung, is Grand Master William Chung.

01:03:16.000 Renowned kind of Hong Kong rooftop fights, all that stuff.

01:03:20.000 Amazing lore.

01:03:21.000 But...

01:03:23.000 Very technical, difficult to build, and easy to use.

01:03:26.000 You know, you very rarely see that in the UFC. One of the best fighters in the UFC uses it regularly.

01:03:34.000 Tony Ferguson.

01:03:36.000 Tony Ferguson uses trapping hands.

01:03:39.000 The mukjung. 1.00

01:03:40.000 Yeah.

01:03:41.000 He grabs wrists and comes over the top with elbows.

01:03:44.000 He does straight wing chung. 0.97

01:03:45.000 He does it all the time.

01:03:46.000 And he even practices on a wooden dummy. 0.98

01:03:49.000 I got My ass kicked by a wooden dummy for about three years and then I finally understood the principle of don't fight force with force. 0.99

01:04:03.000 It's just nuts. 0.99

01:04:04.000 So anyway, half the time If I would be in a critical artistic situation, I would just say – because Wing Chun problems are life problems.

01:04:17.000 Life problems are Wing Chun problems and I would just go back to how did this kind of relate to – because I don't like getting clocked and getting my teeth knocked in because we tend to – sometimes we glove up but we're not wearing mouthpieces.

01:04:29.000 It's very – Why are you wearing a wild piece?

01:04:32.000 It's certainly not because he's very good at pulling his punches and he's also even better at making sure that I don't accidentally hit him.

01:04:40.000 But we get as close as we can to what the real experience would be.

01:04:47.000 But again, it's like everything.

01:04:49.000 I'm sure a few clicks back down the road, there's things that instructors were doing that would be considered illegal to do to a group of students nowadays.

01:04:59.000 Yeah, for sure.

01:05:00.000 Not just a few clicks while I was coming up.

01:05:03.000 That's what I would imagine.

01:05:04.000 Yeah, they'd hit each other.

01:05:08.000 Students would get beat up.

01:05:09.000 It was a normal thing.

01:05:13.000 So did you start training for Sherlock Holmes or you started training before that?

01:05:19.000 I didn't.

01:05:19.000 It absolutely coincided with my recovery.

01:05:23.000 And the two things just somehow or other seem to lock in and talk to you off the record and afterwards about any and everything to do with my recovery as far as – It locked in with this.

01:05:40.000 It was an apprenticeship, and it was an apprenticeship that was contingent on me being in a certain headspace.

01:05:49.000 Well, it's a good thing, too, because it's a very addictive thing.

01:05:54.000 People get very addicted to martial arts, and it's a good substitute for sometimes negative addictions.

01:06:00.000 Bourdain, before he died, he was obsessed with Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

01:06:04.000 Yeah, became really obsessed with it at 58 and got really good.

01:06:09.000 He was training every day and he was training twice a day every day.

01:06:13.000 So he went from when I first met him, he was chubby, he was smoking cigarettes, he drank every night, still kind of still drank every night.

01:06:20.000 But, you know, he just did enough healthy things to keep his body together.

01:06:25.000 And then his ex-wife got really into jujitsu. 0.65

01:06:29.000 And then he decided to follow her one day to classes.

01:06:32.000 And he was kind of mocking it and laughing at it at first.

01:06:35.000 And then became obsessed.

01:06:37.000 And then really got good.

01:06:38.000 I mean, look at how he won in a tournament.

01:06:42.000 Oh my gosh. 0.99

01:06:43.000 Yeah, he's fucking 60 years old. 0.99

01:06:44.000 Jesus H. What's really crazy is a picture of him walking down the street in, I think they were in Rome, and he has no shirt on, and he's fucking ripped. 0.99

01:06:52.000 Anthony Bourdain, full six-pack. 0.93

01:06:55.000 Yeah, dude, he was obsessed.

01:06:57.000 He would take a private every day.

01:06:58.000 Look at him.

01:06:59.000 Look at that photo.

01:07:00.000 That's crazy.

01:07:02.000 He's like 60-something years old there.

01:07:04.000 So he would take a private lesson every day, and then he would take a class.

01:07:08.000 So he would take a private lesson, sharpen up techniques, and then he would take group classes, too, which is very critical.

01:07:15.000 You've got to roll with different people.

01:07:16.000 100%.

01:07:16.000 Yeah, and so he was in there.

01:07:18.000 And it became a good thing for him to sort of become addicted to this positive thing.

01:07:24.000 Yeah, I mean for me it wasn't going to be golf.

01:07:27.000 It wasn't going to be something passive like that.

01:07:30.000 Even though I hear it's great.

01:07:31.000 But it's been – it's just been a great gift and it's also the thing where you're just – you're never done.

01:07:37.000 I made Black Belt five years ago for another grading and now we're doing a lot of weapons stuff and it's just – I just adore it.

01:07:45.000 That's awesome.

01:07:45.000 Congratulations.

01:07:47.000 Yeah, my Taekwondo teacher said something to me when I was very young.

01:07:50.000 He said that it is a tool for developing your human potential.

01:07:55.000 Yeah, and I never forgot that because I'm like, yeah, it's because it's really difficult to do.

01:07:59.000 Like all martial arts are really – it's really difficult to get your body to move that way and to be able to be effective in a conflict situation.

01:08:06.000 And if you can do it and you can do it over and over again and you can overcome that difficult thing and you thought it was insurmountable and then you figured out how to do it, eventually you get to this point where you realize, well, everything in life is like that.

01:08:17.000 Everything in life is like something, it's a puzzle.

01:08:19.000 You have to figure out how am I approaching it wrong?

01:08:22.000 What can I do to make it better?

01:08:23.000 How do I get more competent at this particular skill or this particular discipline?

01:08:29.000 Yeah, and just the humility too.

01:08:32.000 I mean if I've noticed anything in the last couple years just in In UFC, which by the way, I was doing a Robert Altman film called The Gingerbread Man back in the 90s and UFC had just started off and I was getting the VHS tapes and watching them.

01:08:47.000 And so when they go back on the 25 years ago, I was like, I've been there from jump.

01:08:53.000 That's awesome.

01:08:53.000 But we watch, it's just that thing of no matter what you think, the tides are changing quickly.

01:09:05.000 Yeah.

01:09:06.000 And you've just got to keep working.

01:09:09.000 Well, that was a real wake-up call for a lot of martial artists was the UFC because a lot of the stuff that they were doing really wasn't effective.

01:09:16.000 Yeah.

01:09:16.000 They thought it would be if everybody was playing by the rules in the dojo and sort of following along the...

01:09:22.000 But once you really saw an actual caged event where people were just going balls out, you realize, oh, a lot of this stuff just doesn't work.

01:09:31.000 Yeah.

01:09:32.000 And I love how messy it was at the beginning, too, because the style of matchups were almost laughable until you saw the violence.

01:09:39.000 And no weight classes.

01:09:41.000 You and I share another passion, restomods.

01:09:45.000 Yes.

01:09:45.000 Was it a 1970 Mustang?

01:09:49.000 Yeah, I got that 302. I did have a Speedcore, a couple other ones.

01:09:53.000 Speedcore does amazing stuff.

01:09:55.000 They're great.

01:09:55.000 Yeah, and when I saw that they were doing your car, I go, oh, this is going to be good.

01:09:59.000 You picked a unique color, too.

01:10:02.000 Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the only...

01:10:04.000 Look at that thing. 0.92

01:10:06.000 Yeah, that's back east right now.

01:10:07.000 That's a good car for straightaways.

01:10:10.000 That's a nice Long Island car.

01:10:13.000 Yeah, it's beautiful.

01:10:15.000 But the beautiful thing about something like SpeedCore is they're going to take that car and make it so that it's manageable.

01:10:21.000 You can actually drive it.

01:10:22.000 If you drove a real 1970s stock car, it would be...

01:10:28.000 Horrific.

01:10:29.000 And it's amazing how far we've come.

01:10:31.000 Those cars, it's like you're blindfolded as you're driving.

01:10:35.000 You're sort of aware of what the car is going to do as you turn the wheel, but not really.

01:10:39.000 No.

01:10:40.000 To me, it's like a crop duster without wings.

01:10:43.000 Every time I start, I just...

01:10:44.000 You go, Jesus Christ, man.

01:10:46.000 I got kids.

01:10:48.000 I got kids.

01:10:50.000 And also, since I threw my hat in the ring with this kind of green technology initiatives, I... I'm probably going to wind up auctioning them all off, to be honest.

01:11:00.000 Right.

01:11:01.000 You know?

01:11:01.000 Drove a little BMW electric car here.

01:11:04.000 I saw.

01:11:05.000 I started laughing when I saw it pull into the park.

01:11:07.000 I'm like, oh, okay.

01:11:09.000 I get it.

01:11:10.000 You got to do what you got to do.

01:11:11.000 I have a Tesla.

01:11:13.000 I'll hold on to a few.

01:11:14.000 Yeah, you have to hold on to that one.

01:11:16.000 You got to.

01:11:16.000 What is this?

01:11:17.000 That is a tarantula hawk that Maynard Keenan from Tool sent me from his farm in Arizona.

01:11:23.000 Oh, that's fantastic.

01:11:24.000 We were talking about it on a podcast, and he's like, have you ever seen one?

01:11:27.000 I go, no.

01:11:28.000 And then a week later, one arrived in the mail.

01:11:30.000 Hold on, let me see what this says.

01:11:33.000 Yeah, you can't read it.

01:11:36.000 By the way, have I been too far off, Mike, this whole time?

01:11:39.000 No, you're fine, man.

01:11:40.000 We're good.

01:11:40.000 You could give me a sign.

01:11:42.000 Jamie's a master.

01:11:43.000 He knows how to handle this. 0.91

01:11:44.000 I know you have a lot of other shit to do, so I'm going to let you get out of here. 0.69

01:11:48.000 But I just want to say it's an honor. 0.92

01:11:50.000 Honor to meet you.

01:11:50.000 A real pleasure to sit down and talk to you.

01:11:52.000 I appreciate you taking your time, and best of luck with everything.

01:11:55.000 It just flew by, pal.

01:11:56.000 Yeah.

01:11:57.000 I'll be back.

01:11:57.000 Trust me.

01:11:58.000 Okay.

01:11:58.000 I hope you do.

01:11:59.000 I hope you do come back.

01:12:00.000 Bye, everybody.

01:12:04.000 You know what I wanted to get to?

01:12:06.000 There's a guy named Bran Ferrin.

01:12:07.000 Have you heard of him?

The Joe Rogan Experience - January 15, 2020

Joe Rogan Experience #1411 - Robert Downey Jr.

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