The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 150. Greenlights (and Darkness) ｜ Matthew McConaughey

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00:00:57.540 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

00:01:02.640 Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.

00:01:08.920 We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be,

00:01:12.300 and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.

00:01:16.260 With decades of experience helping patients,

00:01:18.480 Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.

00:01:23.520 He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy,

00:01:28.140 it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.

00:01:31.520 If you're suffering, please know you are not alone.

00:01:34.680 There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.

00:01:37.960 Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.

00:01:43.640 Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.

00:01:47.140 Welcome to Season 4, Episode 1 of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.

00:01:55.100 I'm Michaela Peterson.

00:01:56.500 Dad is doing interviews.

00:01:58.280 Ideally, his podcasts going forward will all be new interviews,

00:02:02.260 but we may revert back to some old pre-recorded stuff from time to time.

00:02:06.420 Here's to a new year.

00:02:07.660 He's kicking off the new year with none other than Matthew McConaughey,

00:02:11.320 amazing actor and now best-selling author.

00:02:13.720 He sold over a million copies of Green Lights, a memoir I quite enjoyed.

00:02:18.420 Very humble, funny, and has incredible stories in there if you want to check it out.

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00:03:49.840 This episode is also brought to you by Smart Asset.

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00:05:13.440 If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe.

00:05:16.820 I hope you enjoy your week.

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00:08:22.260 So today I have the good fortune of speaking with Mr. Matthew McConaughey, who's one of America's most recognizable actors.

00:08:33.640 And I guess, according to his peers, also one of America's best actors, as he's won an Academy Award and multiple other awards.

00:08:44.560 And we started to communicate about a year ago, and he's also been on my daughter's podcast.

00:08:52.980 And Matthew recently wrote a book, Green Lights, which we're going to talk about today.

00:08:58.520 I've read that, and I'm looking forward to discussing it.

00:09:03.900 There's all sorts of things I want to talk to Matthew about, and so hopefully we'll have a stimulating conversation.

00:09:11.460 That's my guess.

00:09:12.800 So let's start with, well, we can start with whatever you want to start with, but let's start with the book, I think.

00:09:18.340 Tell me why you wrote it, and when you wrote it, and what you want people to know about it.

00:09:26.680 Yeah, so I've been keeping journals since I was 14 years old.

00:09:30.840 And so I guess starting 15 years ago, I always carried this treasure chest full of the journals I'd been keeping, and they were filling up that treasure chest.

00:09:42.940 And I would take it with me to any place that we went for an extended amount of time, put it over there to the right of my proverbial desk, and go, have it there.

00:09:49.900 Because if you get the itch and you get some time, I dare you to go in that treasure chest and see what's in there.

00:09:56.360 Well, I've threatened to open up that treasure chest and see what those journals held for the past 15 years.

00:10:01.360 Didn't have the courage really to open it up.

00:10:04.460 Didn't want to make the time to go in there because I was intimidated of looking back at 50 years or however many years of my life.

00:10:12.800 I'm not one for really liking to look back over my shoulder.

00:10:16.100 I'm somebody who likes to, you know, I'm still someone who rather enjoys making the sandwich more than eating it.

00:10:21.220 I like making my movies more than I even like watching them.

00:10:23.660 I like doing things, moving on, and heading forward.

00:10:27.940 Well, you must have had some idea, too, when you were making those journals, at least in principle, that you owed an obligation to yourself at some point to look back over them.

00:10:36.740 And I can see that that would be intimidating because you're creating a task for yourself, a task of reconsideration and contemplation, I suppose.

00:10:46.980 Well, my excuse was, oh, when I die, Camillo, open them up, and if there's something worth sharing, she'll do it.

00:10:56.260 Which was an excuse in martyrdom, you know, if there's something worth it.

00:11:00.960 So maybe it was coming across 50.

00:11:04.680 Consciously, I didn't think about 50 as a number of a time to be retrospective, but I had some time on my hands, and I had read an article in the New York Times that a young man had written, and I liked the article.

00:11:18.060 I go, oh, this guy gets me.

00:11:19.740 In a way that it was the first article I read where he had weaved all different times of my career life into a thread instead of sort of like saying, he was this then, and now he's this, and this then, and now he's this.

00:11:33.300 So he'd strung them all together, and I liked his style of writing, and I asked him to come on and be a ghostwriter for a book.

00:11:39.320 We met one time.

00:11:40.900 It was a good meeting.

00:11:41.740 We thought it was going to be a book, a little hardback book that you could put on the back of the toilet that every college kid could take to school and could open it up any page, maybe read a truthism or a bumper sticker or something and have a little aspiration to head about their day.

00:11:57.160 Well, the New York Times pulled him off because evidently they weren't allowing the writers to work with celebrities.

00:12:01.860 And just as he got pulled off, and I was in the room in my office with Camilla, my wife, I said, oh, I think I need to find a new ghostwriter.

00:12:10.860 And I stopped at the same time she stopped, and she said, you know what this means.

00:12:16.320 I went, yeah, I do know what it means, which is I need to go off and write it myself.

00:12:20.780 So she said, I packed up all the journals.

00:12:24.780 She said, don't come back until you got something.

00:12:27.160 And I headed off with 15 gallons of water.

00:12:31.780 I don't know how many pounds of red meat and my favorite libation.

00:12:37.300 And I went away to the desert.

00:12:39.740 The first 12 days were sort of no electricity, me with my journals, no cell reception, nothing like that.

00:12:46.780 I wanted to be forced with nothing but my past and find some entertainment in that at least.

00:12:53.760 And I feared being embarrassed.

00:12:56.580 I feared feeling ashamed.

00:12:58.660 And I feared seeing an arrogant little SOB that I was in the past. 0.56

00:13:03.240 And I crossed all those things in looking back at my last 50 years.

00:13:07.980 But what I noticed was that a lot of things I thought I'd be embarrassed about, I giggled at.

00:13:13.100 A lot of things I thought I'd be ashamed about, I had already forgiven myself for or now forgave myself for.

00:13:19.440 And a lot of the times where I was an arrogant little SOB, what I realized is that if I wasn't the arrogant little SOB at that time, I may not have had the confidence to put myself in a situation to get absolutely humiliated and humbled.

00:13:31.740 So I sat down with the journals.

00:13:38.080 I remember thinking, going into thinking it was going to be more academic, thinking that that's what it was.

00:13:43.660 That's what it was.

00:13:44.600 After day five, I realized, no, there's actually more folk poetry in here and stories to tell than any academia.

00:13:54.360 So I backed off and said, let's just see what the journals reveal themselves to be.

00:13:59.520 And I ended up with eight stacks of all the journals.

00:14:02.020 I said, where are some themes?

00:14:03.380 I had a big stack of stories, a big stack of people, a big stack of places, a big stack of prescribes, a big stack of poems, prayers, and bumper stickers.

00:14:11.880 So I had these eight stacks.

00:14:12.980 I said, OK, now let's sift through those and see if we find a central theme.

00:14:17.180 And that's where green lights came from.

00:14:18.840 I found that I had engineered green lights in my life through responsibilities taken yesterday, which bore me freedom today.

00:14:27.380 I found that I'd gotten just plumb, have no reason why good fortune landed in my lap.

00:14:33.440 There was no reason why, but I said, well, let's make some rhyme out of this and do something with it.

00:14:38.260 I found that also a lot of my yellow and red lights, those things that we don't really like that slow us down or make us stop,

00:14:45.780 all had lessons that they revealed to me, which then enhanced, made them green lights or at least gave them green light assets.

00:14:55.520 And then I also found that that the art is sort of in approaching the yellow light.

00:15:03.140 All right. So we've reestablished ourselves in a wind free zone.

00:15:07.680 So, look, one of the things you struck me as an intensely likable character as a consequence of what you revealed in your book.

00:15:15.580 I mean, I kept thinking it would be a pleasure to spend time around this man.

00:15:20.740 And I certainly saw no sign of arrogance in it.

00:15:23.640 And I thought I saw a lot of thankfulness and a conscious thankfulness and I think implicit thankfulness as well.

00:15:32.020 And a lot of a lot of love for your family, your parents and your current family and gratitude for that as well.

00:15:42.560 And also, one of the things that struck me, too, was your integrity and decision making with regards to your career.

00:15:50.860 You talked about taking a break after being somewhat typecast in romantic comedies.

00:15:57.640 I mean, very successfully typecast.

00:15:59.500 And so there's nothing negative about that.

00:16:01.680 But feeling that you had taken that as far as it could be taken productively and creatively and then took a risk of really being bounced out of the system.

00:16:12.940 I mean, one of the things I think that people perhaps don't understand about a society or a situation as intensely competitive as Hollywood is that it's virtually impossible to be successful there.

00:16:26.820 And the probability that you'll fail, even if you are successful, is extremely high because the competition is beyond belief.

00:16:37.040 No help wanted signs.

00:16:38.420 No, definitely not.

00:16:40.320 And so if you decide to do something like think, well, I've been successful in romantic comedies, but I don't want that anymore.

00:16:46.960 You're throwing away something that's virtually impossible to attain.

00:16:49.920 And then to imagine that you might recreate yourself in a different guise and be successful.

00:16:54.600 It's a it's a big risk.

00:16:56.160 You see this often when actors fail to make the transition from television to to the big screen.

00:17:01.260 And that that happens far more often than it doesn't happen, even if they have a very successful TV career.

00:17:06.580 So all of that was extremely interesting.

00:17:10.980 Now, OK, so you were out in the desert writing your book.

00:17:13.400 How long did it take you to sort through the material?

00:17:16.800 I went off in a solitude five different times for 10 to 12 days apiece.

00:17:20.600 The first.

00:17:23.300 Trip out was to the desert for the first 12 days, and that was basically to see what I had.

00:17:28.080 And I came back from that feeling like I had something that was that was personal that might be worthy of being between, you know, two, two hardback covers. 0.91

00:17:40.840 I remember writing early on going, OK, now you're going to have a lot of people that are going to buy this book, even if it's the words are crap on the page because of who you are.

00:17:52.760 And I said, you're going to have a lot of people who are not going to purchase this book, even if what you put on the page was awesome, because you're Matt McConaughey.

00:18:00.020 So I remember saying to myself, one of the first things I wrote down, I was like, the words on the page need to be worthy of being put on the page if they were signed by anonymous.

00:18:09.800 But at the same time, need to be words that only Matt McConaughey could have written.

00:18:14.440 And that was sort of my little bubble gone, because this is not about you've read.

00:18:17.900 It's not about a celebrity book.

00:18:19.420 No, in fact, there's very little in it that's celebrity like.

00:18:23.600 I was actually struck by how infrequently you made reference to your to to the milieu that that that you inhabited while you were while while you've been pursuing your career as an actor.

00:18:36.200 There's there's no celebrity gossip in it.

00:18:38.440 It's very it's it's it's family centered and very intimate.

00:18:42.520 I actually I actually wanted it left me wanting to know more about your career.

00:18:49.080 And so we can also talk about that today, flesh that out.

00:18:53.000 But so that was quite remarkable for, you know, a celebrity memoir, let's say it's a terrible way of phrasing it.

00:19:00.440 A memoir by someone who happens to be a celebrity.

00:19:03.120 Yeah. Yeah.

00:19:04.560 Yeah. Well, it wasn't a celebrity memoir.

00:19:06.260 It was a it was a an autobiographical meditation, I would say.

00:19:12.320 Heard. I like that.

00:19:13.780 So I went away.

00:19:14.860 I went away.

00:19:15.880 I came back the first 12 days.

00:19:17.160 So I was like, OK, I think I got something.

00:19:18.820 And then I'd come back, handle my honey dues at home, get everything back, make sure I didn't fall too much in the deficit of being a father and a husband back home.

00:19:26.040 And then as soon as I could head off again, I was fortunate to have a wife who was like, get out of here each time. 1.00

00:19:33.560 You know, when I came to tell how, you know, the first the first 12 days were like a purge.

00:19:38.420 I mean, I came back and no family like saw me.

00:19:42.800 I mean, I came back shedding tears.

00:19:44.800 I had just sort of.

00:19:46.920 Gone back and looked at 50 years of my life and had them down and all of a sudden was crying.

00:19:50.760 There was a joy of this love story that I was seeing and to face certain things that I looked at in the past or forgot in the past or thought I forgot, but noticed that actually I'd remembered was all.

00:20:02.280 It was a very earth shaking.

00:20:05.100 My floor was moved in a good way.

00:20:07.300 Yeah, well, that's great that it was moved in a good way.

00:20:09.780 You know, I mean, that's a lovely thing to have happen to you when you're 50 and looking back.

00:20:14.940 Yes.

00:20:15.960 And then four other trips.

00:20:17.940 So 52 total days.

00:20:19.800 I was in solitude.

00:20:21.140 And then the next year and a half was basically editing it.

00:20:25.280 It and, you know, I didn't have as many of the stories in there early, which I would say served as sort of the narrative backbone throughout that string the whole piece together.

00:20:36.580 Yeah.

00:20:37.940 Intermittently in there, I'll put a poem, a prescribe, a prayer or something that will either call back.

00:20:43.940 I looked at me like in movies, like they're a flashback or a flash forward.

00:20:46.880 And can they coming out of a story tell the reader, oh, this is how I saw the situation that you just read?

00:20:54.520 Or can it propel you into the next story?

00:20:58.080 Because the story, the stories are really more chronological.

00:21:01.500 They take you from four years old to 50.

00:21:05.100 And I didn't have as many of the stories in there.

00:21:07.860 And so the next year and a half is going, OK, I've got these stories.

00:21:11.720 My my editors, I would tell them she was like, oh, geez, you got to put that in there. 0.97

00:21:15.120 And that's when it became again, I was I was hesitant about the word memoir.

00:21:19.540 I don't have a great relationship.

00:21:20.380 The word memoir always seems like goodnight, everybody.

00:21:26.160 I'm heading off into the twilight of my career.

00:21:28.560 The sun setting.

00:21:29.760 Have a look.

00:21:30.880 And I was like, because I need these stories to be active because they are still active.

00:21:36.400 And so right.

00:21:38.000 Telling them as long as they had a vitality that they felt active, which they felt like they were.

00:21:42.540 And then I had that that that thing that is so obvious when you say it, but it didn't seem obvious to me at the time, which was the more personal I got, the more I started to notice that it was probably more relatable.

00:21:55.460 The more into the eye that I went subjective, the more I noticed that, oh, it's actually relatable to more of the human condition.

00:22:01.440 And that was my hope.

00:22:02.160 And yeah, well, you have a there's a there's a it's a it's a it's a great it's a collection of great stories.

00:22:09.960 And part of the good fortune of your life is to have had those.

00:22:15.080 Experiences that.

00:22:17.500 Transform themselves into compelling stories.

00:22:21.300 Without.

00:22:22.680 What would you say without undo editing the African story, for example, the dream story, that's quite that was quite remarkable for me.

00:22:29.580 That was a highlight of the book, I would say, where you related the dream you had, a recurring dream, or at least one that recurred twice.

00:22:36.660 And and on the basis of that dream voyage to South America and to Africa.

00:22:42.720 Is that I hope I've got that right.

00:22:44.620 The second time I had the dream, which was the exact same dream, 11 frames, 11 seconds.

00:22:50.720 The second time I had it is when I chased down the first half of the dream, which was South America.

00:22:54.880 I thought I'd finish it in five years after that, I had the dream for the third time, which made me say, oh, I got to chase down the second half, which was their African tribes been on the banks of the river to the left. 0.72

00:23:05.680 And that's when I went to Africa.

00:23:06.860 Any idea why?

00:23:08.300 I mean, you staked a lot on the pursuit of a dream.

00:23:11.980 And I mean, maybe we could say that's the motif of your book that you staked a lot on the pursuit of a dream, but it's much more concrete in that episode.

00:23:20.480 You had an actual dream, a literal nighttime dream that recurred.

00:23:24.800 And as a consequence of that, you you took a large risk or a series of risks.

00:23:29.980 Merely going to Africa was a risk, I would say, and not something that would be expected.

00:23:34.960 It's quite out of the ordinary to do that, obviously.

00:23:37.640 Well, I've never had, I've had dreams that are similar to each other, but I've never, it's the only dream I've ever had that one was so specifically, I mean, it was exact.

00:23:48.500 When I say 11 frames, I mean like film frames, picture one, two, three, or 11 seconds.

00:23:55.360 The exact same frames, exact same editing sequence in my mind, 11 seconds that ended in such a, I don't know if ironic's the right way word, ended, it was the elements of a nightmare, but it was the opposite of a nightmare.

00:24:08.300 It was a wet dream.

00:24:09.580 And so the fact that it was the exact same dream that I've had once in 92, again in 96, whoa, I had that twice.

00:24:17.000 That's the first shakeup.

00:24:18.000 Well, that was the exact same dream I had four years ago.

00:24:21.900 Exactly.

00:24:22.720 First time that's ever happened.

00:24:24.240 Oh, that's, maybe that's a celestial suggestion here.

00:24:27.820 Some lady, something is telling me.

00:24:30.260 What do you think you specifically learned in pursuit of that?

00:24:34.100 And have you had the dream again?

00:24:36.280 My guess would be no, that you probably exhausted it, but I might be wrong.

00:24:40.820 No, I have not.

00:24:41.740 To this point, it seems that I fulfilled the dream in the trip to Africa, which was the two elements of the dream.

00:24:50.680 One was the Amazon River, one were African tribes.

00:24:52.800 Those are the two geographic elements that I knew that were crystal clear in the dream.

00:24:57.340 So that's why I went to South America.

00:24:58.660 That's why I went to South America.

00:24:59.280 I have not had it again.

00:25:02.480 I mean, one, I'll say this.

00:25:07.540 I'm always looking for a good reason to go for a walkabout.

00:25:10.020 So I found a really good reason, a concrete reason there.

00:25:15.300 And why were they wet dreams?

00:25:17.380 There was nothing overtly sexual about them.

00:25:20.220 There was, you know, so they were, you know, spiritual in that way is how I took them.

00:25:27.360 Now in Mali, I can say, and I've been back to Mali.

00:25:30.280 I went back to Mali, as I write about in the book, five years later after I fulfilled the dream.

00:25:35.300 Not because I had the dream again, just because Mali, I've never felt more at home in a place than Mali.

00:25:41.720 Now you're in certain places, you're like, I've been here before.

00:25:43.860 This is my, the gravity here is right.

00:25:45.760 I've been here before.

00:25:46.580 Whether it's another life, I don't know.

00:25:48.200 But Mali was where I felt, this is home.

00:25:53.400 This was the original home.

00:25:55.180 I've been here.

00:25:57.600 And so that's when we went back.

00:25:58.700 So that's my favorite place to go.

00:26:00.360 And I've been back and did the exact same trip I did when I chased down the second half of the dream.

00:26:05.140 And you shed, you shed your identity to a great degree when you went to Africa. 0.56

00:26:10.600 Yeah.

00:26:11.320 And so that may enable you to exist in a way that would be much unlike the manner in which you have to exist where people know where you are or who you are.

00:26:22.400 What do you think that did for you?

00:26:26.460 Like the dream, you took this dream quest, let's say, and you paid a price for it.

00:26:32.280 The risk would be the price.

00:26:36.400 What was the consequence of allowing yourself to do that?

00:26:39.060 That it was, one, that it was on me, that it was my doing.

00:26:47.300 I could own it at a time of becoming famous and go through, at least I did, and still do at times, go through, wait a minute, what's mine?

00:26:55.360 What am I getting based off of my worth?

00:26:58.240 As the man I am, as the person I am, forget my fame.

00:27:02.780 And it becomes challenging.

00:27:06.400 What is it's real?

00:27:07.740 What is it not?

00:27:08.360 How many of those I love you's or mint or how many of them were just following because I just had a big box office hit?

00:27:13.140 And wait a minute, the person that I've had dinner with their kids and spent Christmases with who have shared I love you's and hugs, then now I have two movies that didn't do well and that person won't return my call.

00:27:23.900 Wait a minute.

00:27:25.400 What all matters?

00:27:26.400 What do I want to do?

00:27:27.300 What are we doing here?

00:27:28.380 Well, if you have a reputation that has a life of its own, it becomes very difficult to distinguish between yourself and that reputation.

00:27:41.300 And that's one of the pitfalls of fame.

00:27:44.420 And lots of times you see people sacrifice themselves to their reputation.

00:27:48.780 You see celebrities becoming impersonators of themselves.

00:27:52.920 Yes.

00:27:53.100 And that's a tragic fate, I would say.

00:27:56.780 Well, that's when you go, yeah, who's wagging who?

00:28:00.640 I've never wanted my fame to wag me.

00:28:02.580 I mean, like, no, no, no, I understand.

00:28:04.260 I got famous because of who, for whatever extent, because of who I am.

00:28:08.760 And what did I do?

00:28:09.800 Yeah, well, I could see in the book that you were snapping yourself out of your fame, even while you were doing things like the motorhome adventures, because you were living a life that certainly wasn't what I expected to read.

00:28:23.240 That you would voluntarily abandon what so many people value as, like, the pinnacle of cultural achievement, say, at the popular level, and shed all that and set out, like, any person who doesn't have that.

00:28:48.380 Right.

00:28:48.480 Well, what I was, like, for instance, in the South American trip, and it happened in the Molly trips and all the walkabouts, it was, I needed to go to a place where nobody, I had just become famous, too.

00:29:03.080 I mean, my world was, like, all of a sudden, all the options were mine, and two days before, none of those options were there.

00:29:10.480 And now it was a world of yes, and I'm going, I only got 24 hours in a day, and I would do any of this work, and you're now telling me I can do it all?

00:29:17.360 Yeah.

00:29:17.600 I mean, you're asking me to be discerning right now?

00:29:20.860 And, again, I went away to go, I need to go where someone doesn't know my name.

00:29:25.400 I need to go away where no one's seen my movies.

00:29:30.180 I want to go where there's no electricity.

00:29:31.660 I want to go someplace where those hugs and tears, when I say goodbye 22 days later, are based only off of the man they met 22 days ago.

00:29:40.000 Well, you managed to abandon them, too.

00:29:43.840 One of the problems with being famous is, and I suspect this is particularly the case with the kind of fame that you have, is that it must be very difficult to distinguish between people wanting something from you and people enjoying your company and liking you.

00:29:59.840 And it might even be difficult for them to distinguish between those things, because fame is a very difficult thing to deal with, even as an onlooker, even as a family member.

00:30:11.940 You wrote about your mom's reaction, for example.

00:30:14.600 She became a fangirl to some degree.

00:30:17.760 And that would be definitely disconcerting.

00:30:20.460 Yes, it was.

00:30:23.280 Yeah, I had eight years there where my mom and I, I couldn't, I needed a mother. 0.92

00:30:28.580 And what I, on the other end of the phone, was a fan of my fame, somebody who wanted my fame more than I did.

00:30:35.900 Right.

00:30:36.340 Well, it shows you the power of that, too, because your mother obviously cared for the person you were before you became famous.

00:30:43.020 But she was overwhelmed.

00:30:44.920 And it's not surprising.

00:30:45.960 I mean, to some degree, the entire Hollywood apparatus exists to manufacture fame that's overwhelming.

00:30:53.960 That's its whole, I can't say that's its whole purpose, but that's what it uses to drive, let's say, to drive people to the theater.

00:31:03.580 So to be victimized by that, no, no, to fall under the sway of that is unsurprising.

00:31:09.960 It's surprising that it could be resisted.

00:31:12.680 And that was certainly, you could certainly see that with your mother's response.

00:31:17.740 Oh, for sure.

00:31:19.320 And that has that, I'm sorry, I don't remember your mom, is your mom still alive?

00:31:23.780 She is, she's 88, 88 years young and with us right now.

00:31:27.140 Ah, so, and has that, has that situation rectified itself?

00:31:31.320 Did she adapt to?

00:31:33.220 We both adapt.

00:31:34.920 Yeah.

00:31:35.160 You know, I, I got through enough time where I felt stable enough in my career that I was like, her loose lips aren't going to sink my ship.

00:31:45.000 And actually, I let her know the reins.

00:31:47.020 And as soon as I said, you go, mom, here's the mic, hit that red carpet line. 1.00

00:31:52.280 You can talk to anybody.

00:31:53.240 You tell, no filter, sell whatever stories you want.

00:31:57.040 99% of the time, it's awesome.

00:31:59.420 And I'm like, you know what, let her enjoy it.

00:32:02.960 And I was able to enjoy it.

00:32:05.540 And then come to that, you know, realization that, you know, I wasn't going to change her.

00:32:11.120 So because I couldn't change her, it's kind of like the sabbatical I took from the rom-coms.

00:32:15.140 I wasn't going to change her.

00:32:16.340 So I just had to kind of block her out for a certain amount of time that ended up being eight years until I was stable enough to go, go for it.

00:32:23.580 And yeah, our relationship's great.

00:32:25.260 You know, all through that time, she didn't love me less.

00:32:29.840 She just loved me in a new, different way, as well as being her son.

00:32:32.960 What I was needing was just, I needed her to double down on being a mom to me, where instead of, she didn't double down, she didn't even cut it in half. 0.96

00:32:41.040 She kind of was really wanting to know about the fame part.

00:32:44.880 And I remember telling her things like, well, you keep wanting to come out here and see me, but what if I was an accountant in Chicago?

00:32:49.820 Would you want to come see me as much?

00:32:51.220 And my two brothers were like, you don't want to come see us as much.

00:32:54.400 You want to see little brother?

00:32:55.640 And we were like, yeah, we get it.

00:32:57.940 You know, so we call her out. 1.00

00:32:59.520 And yeah, it was a strange date years.

00:33:03.760 I never questioned her love for me, though.

00:33:06.600 I knew we were going to be fine.

00:33:08.060 I knew we weren't going to like head to our deathbeds going on a bad note.

00:33:12.520 I knew we were going to come out the other side.

00:33:14.200 It was just a matter of when.

00:33:15.180 And we did.

00:33:15.560 Yeah, well, it's nonetheless a good example of one of the unintended consequences of fame, right?

00:33:21.420 Is that this very profound alteration in the nature of your personal relationships.

00:33:28.620 Yes.

00:33:28.820 So, I want to switch topics a bit.

00:33:35.900 I've been watching you in True Detective, which my son recommended, and I'm really enjoying.

00:33:47.180 I believe you said in the book that the script leapt off the page for you.

00:33:51.160 It did, especially the words of the character Rustin Cole.

00:33:56.220 Right, right.

00:33:56.980 Who you play.

00:33:57.820 Marty Hart role that Woody played.

00:34:00.200 Yes.

00:34:01.120 You were offered that role.

00:34:02.840 Yes.

00:34:03.440 Yeah.

00:34:04.200 And I read the thing, and I remember telling him, I said, guys, I understand why you're coming to me for Marty Hart.

00:34:09.040 I go, but the guy who I cannot wait to turn the page to see what comes out of his mouth is this guy, Rustin Cole.

00:34:15.020 And they were a bit surprised.

00:34:16.860 Yeah, well, they're both complex characters.

00:34:18.660 So, you could see that either of them might have been attractive, but I was quite struck by your characterization of Cole.

00:34:30.660 It reminded me of Heath Ledger, and that's why I wanted to talk to you about it.

00:34:37.580 You play a dark character very well, if you don't mind me saying so.

00:34:41.680 I mean.

00:34:42.600 Thank you.

00:34:44.780 It's believable.

00:34:46.540 I've known some dark people.

00:34:49.220 And your portrayal is believable, very believable.

00:34:53.160 And so, that makes me wonder what price you pay for that.

00:34:56.820 It's kind of a cliche, you know.

00:34:58.060 You play a dark role, and it invades you.

00:35:00.000 But it isn't obvious to me how you can play a dark role without it invading you.

00:35:04.580 And then, or at least you have to allow something dark in yourself to come out and respond to that.

00:35:10.760 And you're very different on the screen playing Rustin Cole than you are in a romantic comedy role, clearly.

00:35:18.880 And it's somewhat surprising to see that transition, which I guess is why other people might be surprised by that too, which is why you actually had a bit of a hiatus when you stopped taking rom-com roles.

00:35:31.820 But I'm curious, like, what did it, what were the consequences for you of playing that character in particular, but dark characters in general?

00:35:40.280 The dark characters, the baddie, usually has so much more identity than the white knight, than the hero in stories that I read in scripts and things.

00:36:00.640 The dark characters, and they're also, they're always usually outsiders.

00:36:09.660 And I, the consequences that I'm really going to portray one of those well in that part of myself, I'm putting myself on an island.

00:36:19.360 And I love, and I'm, and that excites me.

00:36:22.500 I want it to be, I want to feel like the underdog.

00:36:25.380 I want to feel like I don't have to pander to manners or graces.

00:36:28.560 I'm living by different rules.

00:36:31.280 And not even to prove a point, but just to say in a Rustin Cole's position, someone who just, you know, I didn't make big acting choices with Rustin Cole.

00:36:41.520 I just did what I could to understand the text so well that I could just say it and not have to solicit it.

00:36:48.380 Or again, Rustin Cole was a guy who preferred his own company to anyone else's.

00:36:55.680 And, and, and, and, and, and that solidity.

00:36:57.100 That was a vacation for me also to, as a person who is a believer, to have to, to, to, to be in a, in a, in a, inhabit a character who is not a believer at all.

00:37:08.580 And here's why.

00:37:09.580 Um, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I've always thought this was odd.

00:37:18.340 But at the time that I chose and wanted to go and inhabit Rustin Cole was the time that my faith was strongest.

00:37:26.220 And if my faith would have been as strong, I might've been a little more fearful of going so deep into this man's mind, spirit, and ethos.

00:37:37.620 And so you had some protection, but, but I trust very nihilistic, the character Cole, he's, he reminds me, there's a philosopher in South Africa, who's an anti-natalist.

00:37:48.820 Um, unfortunately, his name escapes me for a moment.

00:37:52.600 I, I had a debate with him a couple of years ago, but his basic premise is that.

00:37:57.740 Conscious suffering is so morally untenable as a phenomenon that all life should cease.

00:38:06.980 And if we were making the proper moral choices, we'd stop reproducing.

00:38:10.840 But not only that, that we'd, we'd also do what we could.

00:38:14.840 Well, we can leave it at that, that we'd stop reproducing because if you sum up a life, it's, it's bitter and, and the bitterness overwhelms the sweet.

00:38:23.340 And so it's cruelty to perpetuate.

00:38:25.540 Yes. I, I think that is, is, is beautiful and in many ways true.

00:38:29.880 And I think it's also hilarious.

00:38:32.140 Um,

00:38:33.260 What strikes you as, as comical about that?

00:38:38.580 You, you laughed about it.

00:38:39.960 And because that's where, of course, of course, we're on the way to dying.

00:38:46.800 You talk about it all the time.

00:38:48.380 It's tough. It's cruel. It's hard. We're out here.

00:38:50.320 This thing is okay.

00:38:53.140 I'm in.

00:38:53.860 And so if that's inevitable,

00:38:55.260 That's the strange thing, you know, and I felt too, I mean, I can certainly understand the argument.

00:39:00.920 I, I, I, I hear it and I, and it adds up, but if that's inevitable, which I think we can all say that's inevitable.

00:39:10.980 It's like, we're on the way to dying. It's over. What's that? We don't, we'll never know if this is the end or not.

00:39:16.240 So hell, you know, or, or, or if there's anything after it and it is, it's hardships and overcome.

00:39:21.200 Okay. Since that's inevitable and we got to do this thing anyway, if we're choosing to stay in life another day.

00:39:27.300 So what's a better way to go about it? Say that it's all for nothing or realizing right there when you go, it's all for nothing. No, that's why the fuck can it's all for everything.

00:39:35.660 Yeah. Well, it also seems to me that if your objection to life is it's suffering, adopting an attitude that will make that suffering worse is probably not a reasonable solution. 0.97

00:39:51.340 And that's, that's where that grounds out for me. There's no construction in there. What, what, what, what, I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing affirmative or like giving a bath.

00:40:02.420 It's not making the best of the situation if the situation's doonday. So, you know, I'm not for Hallmark cards and, and delusional optimism, but I mean, and, and in this way, I would say optimism is survival.

00:40:14.260 It's like, well, okay, if it's all for nothing.

00:40:17.000 I think optimism is courage. If it's not naive. And one of the things I liked about your book too, was that your optimism wasn't naive.

00:40:26.960 And, you know, cause you had enough harsh experiences so that any naive optimism would have vanished.

00:40:34.220 Right.

00:40:35.020 Even your, even your, the way you grew up. I mean, it wasn't traumatic, but it wasn't, it wasn't, uh, it had its harshness about it.

00:40:44.220 Sure. Yeah. It was, it was immediate. It was physical. The same hands that hugged are the same hands that could harm.

00:40:52.080 Yes. And you all, there was also very little sign of, and maybe none, no sign of bitterness about that.

00:40:58.160 And, and, and no sign. I didn't think of any excuses for it either. Like when you portrayed your father, like you said, he was a man who could hug and hit and both of them were meant and they weren't casual.

00:41:11.600 I never got the impression from, from your book that your father's actions were casual, his physical altercations with you and, and your brothers.

00:41:20.700 Um, it was a different, it's a different ethos. That's not an ethos that's well understood today, I would say, or one that's, that's ever appreciated.

00:41:28.260 And I didn't, I suppose that's because of its harshness, but I didn't detect any sign of bitterness from you emanating towards that.

00:41:36.440 No, and I, and I, and I have, I have none. Um, while I choose to maybe give consequences to my children in different ways than my father and mother did, um, there was absolutely no casualness to why and when he did punish us.

00:41:56.480 None. None. I talk about in there, you know, the values that were instilled even by the antonyms of the words that we got in trouble for saying to not to, to get my first butt whooping for saying, I can't.

00:42:11.660 Oh, geez. Okay. I need, you know, can't brings the thought of can't brings pain. Oh, don't think can't. Okay. You have trouble. There's a difference.

00:42:22.000 And to say the second butt whooping for saying, I hate you to my brother. I didn't know what the hell I hate you meant. I heard it from older kids at school and I thought it might be cool to throw it out there. I hate you. 0.98

00:42:32.100 Well, that was my own birthday party. My mom stopped the whole party and said, what'd you say? You don't ever tell your brother, anyone you hate them. Bent me over right there. Embarrassed the heck out of me. Again, the next one for lying. 0.97

00:42:45.700 So what do I learn out of those? Don't say I can't. Don't hate. Don't lie. Boy, when I did those, I felt pain. So what are the antonyms of those?

00:42:59.760 Love instead of hate. Understand you're having trouble, but don't believe you can't. And tell the truth, don't lie. Those are three great values.

00:43:07.320 He was preparing me for, you're going to need this in, in life. You know, it was also the time when I called, when I called him to go to tell him I want to go to film school instead of law school. And he tells me, don't pass it.

00:43:20.900 That was a striking story.

00:43:22.320 And you know what happened? I've realized now, many years later, I think what happened in that moment is he heard in the conversation that lasted 25 seconds.

00:43:34.840 What do you got, little buddy? Don't want to go to law school. I want to go to film school. You sure that's what you want to do? Yes, sir.

00:43:41.340 Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Well, don't half-ass it. Boom, sent me into flight.

00:43:46.660 But what he heard in that conversation was his son, who we were brought up in a very structured family, disciplined.

00:43:55.180 You work your way up a ladder. You follow the rules. He heard his son calling him to tell him he could tell I wasn't asking for permission.

00:44:03.720 He could tell I wasn't calling kind of, well, you know, I was thinking maybe. No, he heard my voice.

00:44:09.920 I want to go to film school instead of law school.

00:44:11.960 You also weren't calling because of failure, because you'd worked at law school.

00:44:16.660 Right. But he heard that I was not bluffing. I was not really calling to ask his permission.

00:44:22.180 And in that moment, I think he heard what all parents want to hear. Yes, my child's going their own way.

00:44:29.380 They broke out the mold.

00:44:31.740 Yeah, well, what you'd hope every parent would want to hear.

00:44:35.480 I hope so. But you know what I mean? You can't come.

00:44:38.260 I had plenty of times before that that I asked him for things where I was bluffing.

00:44:42.020 And he could tell where, Dad, can I, will you please give me the skateboard elbow pads and knee pads?

00:44:47.600 I really want to be a skateboarder. Are you sure, son? Yes, sir.

00:44:51.000 Shit. I did skateboarding for three weeks and then they gathered dust and got cobwebs. 1.00

00:44:54.900 Damn it. That was a fad. 0.99

00:44:57.140 You know, I talked my dad into doing something and I didn't follow through on it.

00:45:00.600 But he heard this time a resolve and a clarity in me.

00:45:05.800 And I think on the other end of the line, he was going, that's my boy.

00:45:09.860 Yeah, well, for him to make the, to give you the green light that rapidly,

00:45:15.580 the situation must have been set up properly.

00:45:17.660 And for the green light that he gave you to be accepted by you is exactly that, as encouragement.

00:45:24.080 Yes.

00:45:24.920 The situation must have been set up properly.

00:45:27.160 Okay, so you talked about playing Cole in True Detective and that you were protected from his dark excesses,

00:45:34.000 let's say, by your faith.

00:45:35.860 Why did that provide you with, in what way did that provide you with protection?

00:45:41.000 It's a striking thing to say, especially given his, his attitude is, is Mephistophelian.

00:45:48.200 There's a character in Goethe's Faust, Mephistopheles, who's Satan himself.

00:45:52.300 And his essential credo is that everything that lives should perish because of the, the sin of its existence, essentially.

00:46:01.580 And so that's Cole in a nutshell, right?

00:46:04.580 Yeah, and, and, and, and that's, it is a, it is, it's a logically tenable argument,

00:46:12.940 but it's one that needs to be rejected holistically.

00:46:16.800 I shouldn't use that word, I hate that word, but you don't reject that argument rationally

00:46:21.100 because it's a rationally tenable argument.

00:46:23.040 You have to reject it with your whole being instead and say, well, despite this, I'm going to live

00:46:27.600 and I'm going to try to live in an appropriate manner.

00:46:31.160 Yes.

00:46:31.600 But you said your faith protected you from Cole.

00:46:35.760 Well, it was one of the things that, that allowed me to fully go into Cole and fully believe Cole

00:46:43.140 and get down and live it and, and look at the world through that lens.

00:46:48.320 Right.

00:46:48.940 I had already had year, a few year run of my life where I was quite agnostic.

00:46:54.680 It was, my agnosticism was not about trying to prove the disbelief of God's existence.

00:46:59.860 My agnosticism was about me going, you sure have been letting yourself off the hook,

00:47:04.360 McConaughey, Mr. Fatalist.

00:47:06.180 Oh, I'll forgive you again because you're being a repeat offender and I'm kind of tired of it. 1.00

00:47:09.880 Put your damn hands on the wheel, man. 1.00

00:47:11.780 Talking to myself. 1.00

00:47:13.440 You're driving here and quit going to this.

00:47:16.120 I can pray and be forgiven, but you're repeat offender and cut it out.

00:47:20.120 I had gone through a few years earlier in my life of, of agnosticism where I was not so much

00:47:25.880 trying to prove a non-existence of God as I was trying to have more, understand more self-reliance

00:47:31.420 and self-determination on myself because I'd been letting myself off the hook.

00:47:34.500 And how was that related to the agnosticism, do you think?

00:47:40.380 Because you, you, you put those together in the way that you're relating this story.

00:47:44.060 Well, I needed to have, I needed to, I needed to feel like I was wholly responsible for myself

00:48:00.120 and what happened to me, that, that I was not going to let myself slide.

00:48:09.340 There's an ideal calling to you then, eh?

00:48:11.800 Like when, when you experience yourself as ashamed by your own behaviors, what that means

00:48:18.120 is that there's an ideal inside you that's trying to manifest itself, right?

00:48:21.840 Because you wouldn't be ashamed if you weren't comparing yourself to something better.

00:48:26.180 And the question then becomes, well, what is that better thing that you're comparing yourself

00:48:31.500 to?

00:48:31.780 And it's an ideal.

00:48:32.880 And then the question becomes, well, what is the ideal?

00:48:36.100 You know, and that's the sort of fleshing out what that ideal is, is the, that's the

00:48:42.060 function of religious thinking.

00:48:43.980 And so that's why I was interested in your comment about agnosticism.

00:48:47.380 You know, in, in Revelation, in the book of Revelation, Christ comes back as a judge, even

00:48:54.220 though he's a figure of mercy, let's say he comes back as a judge.

00:48:56.960 And the reason for that, this is from Carl Jung.

00:48:59.500 The reason for that is that any ideal is a judge.

00:49:02.340 And so if you posit the highest ideal, then you put yourself in a position where you're

00:49:07.780 judged.

00:49:08.280 And that's when your conscience tortures you.

00:49:12.420 And so you can discover your ideal that way by having a dialogue with your conscience and

00:49:16.840 say, well, I'm not living up to who I should be.

00:49:19.260 Well, who should that be?

00:49:20.360 Like, where, where does that figure come from?

00:49:22.680 That's a great mystery that it's, it's, it's your higher, it's the higher form of being

00:49:28.120 that you're capable of manifesting.

00:49:30.160 That's calling to you.

00:49:31.260 And let me say this.

00:49:33.020 It was a version of when my father, mortal father died.

00:49:39.760 I write about this, about being less impressed and more involved.

00:49:43.960 I sobered up.

00:49:45.240 I think it was time to become a man.

00:49:46.460 It was time to quit relying on the fact that I knew he had my back.

00:49:49.880 He was above government, above law.

00:49:51.360 I really got in a pickle and now he's physically gone.

00:49:54.280 So this was, I'm going to discard my spiritual father.

00:49:57.380 And say, we're racing to the red light, buddy.

00:50:02.640 That's all it is.

00:50:03.600 So what are you doing while it's here?

00:50:05.000 There's one play and you go until you die and that's it.

00:50:07.680 So what are you going to do?

00:50:09.360 Don't be giving yourself, let yourself off, thinking, well, there may be life after this.

00:50:14.140 Stop it.

00:50:14.900 So that's what I'd been, I'd gone through that.

00:50:18.720 A feeling come out of that and was, and I didn't feel this till later because I allowed

00:50:26.140 myself to stay in the midst of being really scared of, oh my gosh, am I going to get struck

00:50:29.940 by lightning here, was that my God was going, thank you, yes, wish more of us would put

00:50:40.940 our hands on the wheel.

00:50:42.860 Well, we take, we throw this fate card out there really lackadaisically, like, oh, inshallah,

00:50:48.780 say it's la vie, I believe, well, you know, okay, if that's it, then ride around and run 0.99

00:50:54.100 all the red lights, get your damn hands on the wheel. 0.99

00:50:56.460 Yes, you are supposed to be self-determining. 0.99

00:50:58.380 So that got me and woke me up and sobered me up into that position.

00:51:04.020 Now, going into the rusting coal, I'll say this.

00:51:07.340 So I found that in my, it's, I call it like almost like a boomerang reverb.

00:51:15.380 Wherever I am strongest in my own life, I find a, I like to go to the, I actually can inhabit

00:51:21.780 the opposite, even better.

00:51:24.460 The deeper I go into whatever would be the creative, the opposition.

00:51:27.000 Meaning when I played prosecuting attorneys, I actually usually believe in the defense's

00:51:33.400 position more and study their defense more, their position more, which then makes me again

00:51:38.580 feel like an underdog over here to go, well, I really got to know what my argument is because

00:51:42.160 I actually kind of agree with them.

00:51:43.560 When I played defense attorneys, I'll usually agree or push myself to a point of agreeing with

00:51:49.360 the prosecution.

00:51:51.480 Well, at a time where my faith was the most fulfilled, Rustin Cole was like, ah, here's

00:51:56.420 another great, here's another, what I call a boomerang reverb.

00:52:00.200 Here's another time to go way over to the opposite side because I'm so coming out of here with

00:52:05.220 so much steam and where I am and what I really believe and how I'm feeling in life.

00:52:09.240 And you got newborn children and all the things that were opposition that I have in my life,

00:52:14.060 opposition to what Rustin, who Rustin Cole was.

00:52:17.860 That was, I don't know why that is, but I've all, I look back and I have had a consistency of

00:52:23.600 that, of wherever I am in my life.

00:52:26.200 Sometimes I'll lay in and go play a character that I'm calling, but I'm also feeling like

00:52:29.460 I'm drawing something.

00:52:30.560 Well, now that you're so secure here, let's test it.

00:52:33.320 Let's go all the way to the other side.

00:52:35.700 Because over there, here it goes, because I feel so strong in the position, say at that

00:52:41.600 time with my faith, now I have the strength to go inhabit somebody over there that is

00:52:47.620 on the opposite side and not have to keep my eyes open to make sure the door's open.

00:52:53.400 I can trust that the door can be shut and I'll still be there when I'm done with this.

00:52:58.680 I'm still, it's still happening.

00:53:00.360 You don't have to see it because I don't want to see it.

00:53:02.300 If I'm peeking over there going, hey, are we okay, God, are we okay with what I'm saying

00:53:06.380 and doing here?

00:53:06.860 No, no, no.

00:53:07.320 Well, now I'm half-assing it.

00:53:08.620 Now I'm not really inhabiting the part.

00:53:10.060 I'm playing Rustin Cole going, I believe everything he says.

00:53:13.160 I actually thought Rustin Cole was hilarious, which you probably would now understand by

00:53:17.160 I've laughed at two comments from things that you said about the other people that spoke

00:53:22.260 like Rustin Cole.

00:53:23.020 Yeah, well, things can be dark enough so that the immediate response to them can be laughter.

00:53:29.560 Yeah.

00:53:30.460 So that may help explain what you're asking, but I don't know why that is.

00:53:37.840 I don't know why that is for me.

00:53:39.340 It's not a straightforward thing to sort out.

00:53:44.140 Let me ask you a little bit more about fame.

00:53:47.940 So, you know, now and then you see stories, true or not, about Hollywood celebrities who

00:53:56.740 are irritated with the consequences of their fame.

00:54:00.580 And it's very easy to be judgmental about that because there are obviously the benefits to that fame appear obvious.

00:54:12.380 Monetary gain, access to opportunity.

00:54:17.540 The benefits, I suppose, of the ego benefits, perhaps, of being known rather than unknown.

00:54:24.820 And then, especially in the Hollywood community, I would say it's more difficult to generate sympathy for celebrities who are hurt by their fame because.

00:54:37.540 The price, it's so obvious that that's the price that has to be paid to be successful in something that's mass marketed like a movie where your face is associated with the product.

00:54:50.620 Right. You can't extract out the success.

00:54:53.920 You can't distinguish between the success and the fame.

00:54:56.460 But, but I don't think it's possible to understand what fame does to your life until it's happened to you.

00:55:08.880 So I'm curious, like, and you protect yourself, you hide.

00:55:13.780 I don't mean in a withdrawing sort of way, but I mean, you live in Texas, you don't live in L.A.

00:55:17.940 And you go on these sojourns where no one knows you.

00:55:20.960 So you, you set up escape mechanisms, let's say, or.

00:55:26.520 Yes.

00:55:28.020 So what, tell me about fame and about the impact that it's had on you.

00:55:32.600 So initially fame and fame happened to me extremely quickly.

00:55:36.860 Happened over one weekend when a film of Time to Kill came out.

00:55:41.220 The Friday afternoon before Time to Kill opened that Friday night.

00:55:49.920 I'm walking down a promenade in Santa Monica to go get my tuna fish sandwich that I always like to get.

00:55:54.960 400 people on the promenade.

00:55:57.840 396 mind their own business.

00:55:59.060 Four of them looking, staring at me.

00:56:00.680 A couple of girls thought I was cute.

00:56:02.340 Somebody liked my shoes.

00:56:03.140 A hundred scripts out there that I want to do.

00:56:07.320 I'll be ready of those.

00:56:08.440 99 no's.

00:56:09.640 One yes.

00:56:11.380 Now, within 48 hours, Time to Kill opened up that weekend very, very good.

00:56:15.900 Get the reviews, et cetera, et cetera.

00:56:17.700 That Monday, following Monday, 48 hours later, I got on the same promenade.

00:56:21.420 Everything inverted.

00:56:22.660 Now, 396 out of those 400 people are staring at me.

00:56:25.900 And four weren't.

00:56:27.140 And I.

00:56:29.840 No's.

00:56:30.400 Check and fly.

00:56:30.980 What have you.

00:56:32.060 Now, those 90, those 100 scripts that were 99 no's and one yes inverted.

00:56:36.640 99 yes, please do this.

00:56:39.020 And one another.

00:56:40.600 Whoa.

00:56:41.460 The roof has been taken off.

00:56:45.000 Oh, my God.

00:56:45.700 You're so good.

00:56:46.220 I love you.

00:56:46.960 Oh, my God.

00:56:47.500 I'm so sorry about Miss Hud.

00:56:50.620 Number one, who are you?

00:56:52.320 How'd you know I had a dog?

00:56:53.320 How'd you know her name was Miss Hud? 0.92

00:56:54.360 And how'd you know she had cancer?

00:56:56.120 Whoa.

00:56:56.440 You just skipped four things.

00:56:58.260 Nobody's a stranger anymore.

00:56:59.520 Everyone seems to have an inherent biography of me.

00:57:02.960 I'm feeling trespassed on her.

00:57:04.500 Is this okay?

00:57:05.380 Does that I love you mean something?

00:57:06.860 Well, they say that a lot out here.

00:57:08.140 I've only said that to four people in my life.

00:57:09.880 You shouldn't throw that word around here a lot.

00:57:11.920 Maybe that's how it's supposed to be.

00:57:13.560 Yeah.

00:57:13.940 Jesus.

00:57:15.080 Oh, yeah.

00:57:16.060 So trying to take that in.

00:57:18.040 I learned a great lesson after year seven of fame.

00:57:25.360 And it's probably year seven for a reason.

00:57:27.480 How old were you when that happened?

00:57:30.020 96, 18, 88, eight years later, 26 years old.

00:57:36.700 26.

00:57:37.420 So you're still pretty young, but you weren't 17.

00:57:39.700 So you had some maturity.

00:57:42.280 You had some maturity at that point.

00:57:44.520 Thank you.

00:57:44.800 Yeah.

00:57:45.120 I know more of what I'm not than maybe more than what I do or what I am.

00:57:51.460 But I'm aware enough of who I don't want to be.

00:57:55.940 And I'm aware enough that I don't want to, that I need some discernation in this now optionless yeses that are coming at me in my world.

00:58:06.000 I'm aware that I need to, again, be less impressed and more involved and go, hey, now that I have the chance, now that I've got the wheel and I can go wherever I want, where am I going to go?

00:58:16.840 Which was the first unbalancing sort of very scary proposition, which is why I took off the first couple of times to the monastery and then to Christ in the desert. 0.91

00:58:26.760 Hear my damn self think, try and decipher and disseminate what matters from what, who am I in this, what I actually want to do, what I not want to do, what I want to make stands on.

00:58:38.980 Look, I remember for a while there, I had such a, my life was so many like things on top, the frequency of events were on top of me, from just walking, walking down the street to interviews, to talking to somebody. 0.99

00:58:54.540 My life was being recorded.

00:58:55.740 The world was now a mirror.

00:58:57.060 And I remember telling my feeling almost numb.

00:58:58.920 I couldn't put a demarcation between the life, the fame I'd just gotten and myself.

00:59:04.400 So I remember telling myself, well, since you're kind of numb, just, I took the old Abraham Lincoln thing.

00:59:11.120 I was like, just be a gentleman and don't lie.

00:59:13.920 All right.

00:59:14.340 Just stick to these two things. 0.86

00:59:15.780 And I gave some boring ass interviews, but I was a gentleman and I didn't lie.

00:59:19.520 But I just said like, don't even try and get colorful. 0.93

00:59:21.280 Don't even try and have an opinion on anything.

00:59:23.140 Just, just right now, ride through this and be a gentleman and don't lie.

00:59:26.100 And I gave the same interview 50 times in a row over a few months. 0.96

00:59:29.720 Yeah, well, there is something to be said when you're exposed to that degree, to adopting a strategy of don't do anything stupid for a while. 0.98

00:59:40.780 Yes. 0.78

00:59:41.860 So I was, it was, you know, surviving on the way to what could possibly become thriving.

00:59:46.900 But it was holding my head above water and going, just keep knocking them down.

00:59:50.560 You'll take some time off.

00:59:51.660 You'll get some time off to let your memory catch up with you later.

00:59:54.760 So to begin with, it was a shock and you've, you've developed some strategies for dealing with it.

01:00:00.880 What about over the longer run?

01:00:02.820 Now it's been, you've been, you've been well known for, it's got to be 20, 25 years, eh?

01:00:09.400 So 32 or 33 years old.

01:00:11.800 I wake up and it clicks for me one time that, oh, you got to get the joke in Hollywood.

01:00:18.800 And the joke is, it ain't personal.

01:00:21.280 It's business.

01:00:22.180 Right.

01:00:22.520 And that's not a particular joke to Hollywood.

01:00:25.080 Maybe it's a particular joke in, in, in, in, in life a lot.

01:00:28.560 And, but that made me go, ah, okay.

01:00:33.460 Don't take it so personally when that person I talked about earlier, won't even call you, won't even call your, call you back because your last couple of movies have failed.

01:00:42.480 And you spent, you know, you were on the list to be their children's godfather five years ago.

01:00:46.780 Don't take that personally or don't take it personally when that person now, because you did get hit, is calling you and wants to go out and hang out again.

01:00:55.900 Don't even bring up that, hey, you wouldn't even answer.

01:00:58.740 Don't even, don't even tell them you understand the score about how they wouldn't call you then, but now they do.

01:01:04.000 Well, that's a good, that's a good technique to avoid resentment.

01:01:08.440 Yes.

01:01:08.980 And resentment is so toxic.

01:01:11.320 It's so toxic.

01:01:12.840 Well, that's what the, that's what getting the joke of not understanding that wasn't personal.

01:01:16.660 Well, yeah, I've done that with people who are looking for work, you know, because it's difficult to find a new job.

01:01:25.940 And you're going to get turned down a lot in all likelihood, you're going to send your resumes out to 50 places and get one positive reply.

01:01:32.560 If you're, you know, you can expect that it might not be that bad, but it could be, it's not personal.

01:01:38.520 Most of those jobs don't even exist.

01:01:40.480 It has, it doesn't, it has something to do with you, but not that much.

01:01:44.420 There's a huge situational factor there and you have to take that into account.

01:01:49.640 Yes.

01:01:50.220 Well, it's similar to we lose, I loved him for me.

01:01:54.100 I lose my father.

01:01:55.100 Well, after he dies, after he moves on from this life, I find out some facts where the message and the messenger were not simpatico.

01:02:03.280 You know, what he was teaching me and what he was actually doing, there was a gap between those things.

01:02:08.300 And I was like, what?

01:02:10.940 Inevitably, right?

01:02:11.900 Inevitably.

01:02:12.460 You actually want that from your father.

01:02:14.420 You want your father to teach you better than he is.

01:02:18.440 Yay.

01:02:18.980 You know?

01:02:20.080 Yay.

01:02:21.240 But the first feeling can be, and I've seen people get a lot of resentment.

01:02:25.580 Oh, yeah.

01:02:26.220 Betrayal.

01:02:26.840 Yeah.

01:02:27.120 And it's true. 0.56

01:02:28.240 It is a, it is a betrayal, but, but what do you want your father to put forward the worst version of himself and use that as what he teaches you?

01:02:37.040 See, this goes back to that nihilistic view.

01:02:39.440 If it's all for nothing, then come on, let's make it all for everything.

01:02:42.420 I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm with you on that.

01:02:44.480 So my father moving on, I, it happened pretty quickly for me of going like, oh, I get it.

01:02:49.500 He's wanting me to be better than he is.

01:02:51.860 He's wanting me to do better.

01:02:52.840 I get it.

01:02:53.480 Bravo.

01:02:53.800 So, but I could tell maybe if that had happened two years earlier, I wouldn't have been in the emotional space.

01:02:58.820 I might've been, because it was flabbergasting. 1.00

01:03:01.080 It's like meeting a hero and they turn out to be an asshole. 0.99

01:03:04.500 And you're like, well, they're, and they're very likely to turn out badly in comparison to your idealization of them. 0.99

01:03:10.640 A hundred percent, which, and, but, but at the same time, you know, you go talk to your favorite musician who you followed, who you performed, who your version of patriotism and fairness in the world. 1.00

01:03:21.460 And you go meet them, they turn out to be an asshole. 0.99

01:03:23.100 And you go like, they don't even believe in what they wrote. 1.00

01:03:25.940 You're like, what?

01:03:27.800 But you.

01:03:28.440 Well, if flawed people were incapable of creativity, we wouldn't have any creativity, you know?

01:03:35.460 And so I think what you have to do when you're dealing with creative people is realize that, or people who are creative and accomplished even, is realize that the fact that they've managed that despite all their flaws is the thing that's truly remarkable because they have as many flaws as the next person.

01:03:53.080 So, so, so thank God there, this is why, you know, when I see someone like Louis CK, for example, pilloried terribly, I think, well, yeah, he did some things that were unseemly, certainly even by his own standards, obviously.

01:04:12.640 So what do we make of that?

01:04:14.080 Well, there's plenty of people who do unseemly things, but not, but very few of them are as masterful a comedian as Louis CK.

01:04:23.440 So do we want to lose him because he's flawed?

01:04:26.240 Right.

01:04:26.960 Seems, it seems inappropriate because we'd lose everybody that way.

01:04:31.660 And then we just have loss.

01:04:33.620 That's not helpful.

01:04:36.060 Yes.

01:04:36.900 Yes.

01:04:37.400 I mean, I think you're leaning into, you know, a lot of what we call cancel culture today.

01:04:43.060 Yeah.

01:04:43.400 Now, is, can that, you know, in the name of rehabilitation, does it, do we have to have a world in which we are able to grow and evolve if that's what we're trying to do now?

01:04:59.960 Oh, I mean, you know, I'm not for repeat offenders or tyrants, but if someone screws up and they have sincere, they sincerely want retribution.

01:05:10.320 I think it's fair to give people.

01:05:14.740 Well, it better be because otherwise we're all doomed.

01:05:17.520 Right.

01:05:18.420 Well, absolutely.

01:05:19.420 Like, there's not a person among us who hasn't made repeated errors.

01:05:22.600 And if contrition and repentance aren't sufficient, then we're all damned.

01:05:29.680 No doubt about that.

01:05:32.120 So, all right.

01:05:33.280 So, so we were continuing our discussion on fame.

01:05:37.280 So you've, you're 25 years into being famous and you seem to be doing, handling your success.

01:05:46.000 Right.

01:05:48.560 In a manner that allows you to be pleased about the way your life has unfolded.

01:05:53.460 And so thank God for that.

01:05:54.720 And here you are, you're still here after all these years.

01:05:57.220 And so you've handled your fame well.

01:06:01.140 How come?

01:06:01.760 How could you manage that?

01:06:03.140 Okay.

01:06:03.340 How can I manage that?

01:06:04.160 Well, big, big thing for me.

01:06:07.400 And it works for me in my life like this.

01:06:08.780 Just getting a click of a word or an understanding will completely change my perspective when I go,

01:06:13.540 Oh, that's it.

01:06:14.340 That's true.

01:06:15.420 I'm going to quit banging my head against the proverbial wall.

01:06:18.700 Oh, now I understand.

01:06:19.660 That one big click for me at seven years was getting personal in this business.

01:06:23.160 That helped a lot.

01:06:24.320 So now I'm like, okay, I understand the impermanence of this.

01:06:27.700 Just real dance, dance with this guy, dance with it.

01:06:30.300 Next one that was just sort of a behavioral perspective, even though it sounds like a cool one liner,

01:06:37.280 was when people would ask, or I would have myself run into an inconvenience of fame,

01:06:44.420 a paparazzi or whatever, someone looking over the wall, not being able to go outside.

01:06:48.840 I was like, I'm not going to gripe about it because that check is already cashed.

01:06:56.360 Right.

01:06:56.620 That's right.

01:06:57.280 I can't go back.

01:06:58.540 If it's inevitable, I'm going to figure out a good way to get through this.

01:07:02.340 I then started to say, okay, well, when you're watched in life, Matthew, and a camera's on you,

01:07:07.360 notice how you speed up and you get a little nervous.

01:07:09.600 Well, why don't you look at this like a good, the master acting class.

01:07:12.860 See if you can go out into the world with eyes on you, uninvited eyes, cameras recording,

01:07:18.840 and actually behave and do just the behavior that you went out to do.

01:07:24.320 Yeah.

01:07:24.560 You know, okay, we're in New York City, makeup artist doing my face.

01:07:29.840 My son's three years old.

01:07:32.220 He's talking to his favorite things, fire trucks.

01:07:34.160 He goes, well, my husband's a fire captain.

01:07:36.840 He's actually blocks away.

01:07:38.020 He wouldn't bring the fire truck over downtown New York.

01:07:41.220 Well, that means a lot of paparazzi are going to come, right?

01:07:44.120 But my three-year-old son doesn't know what paparazzi are, and he gets to see his first fire truck live.

01:07:49.380 Do I go down there and show my son's first fire truck, or do I tell him, no, son,

01:07:53.740 we're not going to see the fire truck because you'll understand it later.

01:07:56.340 There are people with cameras.

01:07:57.420 I'm like, F that, man.

01:07:59.400 My son wanted to see his first fire truck is much more important than came before any right

01:08:03.540 that anyone's got that inconvenience and comes with my fame. 0.99

01:08:06.720 We're going to see the damn fire truck. 0.99

01:08:08.560 Well, we go see the fire truck. 0.99

01:08:09.580 He sees the fire truck.

01:08:10.360 Camera's all around.

01:08:12.460 He didn't understand what it was.

01:08:13.800 I'm sitting there going, like, this was about letting my son see the fire truck.

01:08:17.560 I'm trying to live my life, and I check with myself.

01:08:22.200 I'm not foolish with my fame.

01:08:23.960 I don't open the doors and invite the devils in or open my, you know, self up and say, yeah,

01:08:32.700 I'm going to open the book.

01:08:33.220 Have a look.

01:08:33.700 Come on in.

01:08:34.120 Now, I understand.

01:08:34.940 I could be fully taken advantage of, and there are plenty of people who would love to take

01:08:37.660 advantage of that, but I often tell myself, again, who's wagging who?

01:08:42.720 What are your rights, McConaughey, as a human, as a citizen, as the man you are?

01:08:49.680 Don't let those be taken away from me because of something you've got along the way, which

01:08:54.780 was fame and inconveniences that come with that.

01:08:57.280 So while I don't advertise, and my wife and I say this, we do not advertise ourselves,

01:09:01.060 but if we want to go for a walk in the park or go see that proverbial fire truck and show

01:09:09.500 our child that, we're going to go, let's do it, and we're doing it.

01:09:14.360 If you want to record us, I call them the Discovery Channel.

01:09:16.640 Record it.

01:09:17.620 You know what?

01:09:18.200 Good use of film.

01:09:19.460 Good use of recording.

01:09:21.420 So I'm chosen.

01:09:21.960 Well, there is advantages to having eyes on you, too, because it does force you to behave.

01:09:27.760 You can leave your keys in your car in a lot of places, because if he was going to come

01:09:31.120 rob your car, they're going to document the one behind the rob it.

01:09:34.220 It's a bit of a security blanket on that, too.

01:09:37.180 So you see where I've spun a few things here in perspective, not denying inconvenience,

01:09:42.740 but saying, hey, if this check is cash, here's how I'm going to try and get constructive and

01:09:47.600 do it.

01:09:48.560 And so fame.

01:09:50.340 Now, it gets me in certain doors.

01:09:55.500 I've had to watch this.

01:10:00.160 Things that I'll say as a famous person can come out in bold print.

01:10:04.780 Not just on the printed page, but two people.

01:10:09.720 So I've had strongly and actually hurt people with my words, where maybe I didn't have the

01:10:18.020 emoji to put on the end of what I wrote with a wink.

01:10:21.840 And they heard it like I was throwing a dagger at them.

01:10:24.520 But I was going, no, no, I was just tickling you.

01:10:26.880 I didn't mean to hurt you.

01:10:27.800 But, you know, and what tickled me may bruise somebody else.

01:10:32.480 And my words come out with that weight sometimes.

01:10:34.560 So I have to watch that.

01:10:35.660 I remember when I was a teenager, I got put down by someone who was reasonably well known

01:10:44.760 in public.

01:10:45.700 And it was a misunderstanding, but it burned itself into my memory.

01:10:50.380 And I thought, if I'm ever in a situation where I'm well known, I'm going to remember

01:10:56.000 this so that I don't.

01:10:57.260 And like, had it been a normal, had he been an everyday person, let's say, what he said

01:11:05.040 wouldn't have had nearly the impact on me that it did.

01:11:07.600 So, and that is a strange thing to have to realize and to weigh your words that way.

01:11:14.620 I'm cognizant of your time.

01:11:16.580 I know that you have another obligation coming up.

01:11:19.220 And so I thought it might be useful to move towards closing this.

01:11:25.880 People are going to wonder how it was that we came to have a conversation.

01:11:30.740 Yes.

01:11:31.220 And so maybe you could shed some light on that.

01:11:34.160 And because I'm curious, I'm curious about it as well.

01:11:39.480 I got turned on to you from a friend of mine about four years ago, maybe three years ago.

01:11:45.460 And I started listening to a lot of what you were saying.

01:11:48.980 And many of the things you said, I had been thinking about, but I heard you putting them

01:11:54.900 into words and context.

01:11:56.120 I was like, what?

01:11:56.780 That's what I'm talking about.

01:11:58.780 That's what I'm trying to get to.

01:11:59.700 I found, I think a lot of it goes back to talk about self-determination, which we've

01:12:05.480 talked a lot about, self-authoring.

01:12:08.040 And you hear, you see a lot of those threads through my book, maybe in a different way,

01:12:12.780 in a more folksy way.

01:12:14.080 But a lot of what you've said gave me confidence to go, I'm going to put my story on paper.

01:12:22.880 So I thank you for that.

01:12:25.480 And that's why I thank you in the back of the book.

01:12:29.300 You know, I reached out to you, I guess a year and a half ago or so, and you and I chatted

01:12:35.560 and I've stayed in contact with your daughter.

01:12:39.520 You know, your definition, one of the great simple things I said earlier, sometimes just

01:12:43.680 to read, understanding a word differently.

01:12:47.020 Like I've always had trouble and have been in a tough relationship, an awkward relationship

01:12:54.320 with many words, but my late, my two that I've had the longest trouble with are vulnerability

01:13:00.740 and humility.

01:13:05.620 Yeah, those are tough ones.

01:13:07.520 They're tough ones.

01:13:08.420 So humility, I, you know, okay, be humble.

01:13:12.140 Well, for, for, for, for decades, be humble.

01:13:16.260 I lost confidence when I was humble.

01:13:18.320 I, I, I feigned false modesty, which I felt, which I knew at the time, that's arrogant.

01:13:23.600 What are you doing?

01:13:24.300 Right.

01:13:24.860 Absolutely.

01:13:26.100 It's very difficult to, to be, to have humility without being arrogant about it.

01:13:32.420 Weirdly enough.

01:13:33.300 You said, and correct me if I, if I misquote you, it's humility is knowing you have more

01:13:38.280 to learn.

01:13:38.960 You're either in love with what you know, or you're in love with what you don't know.

01:13:42.140 And there's a lot more of what you don't know.

01:13:44.440 So pick your love carefully.

01:13:47.120 Oh, well that I went, Oh, I purchased, I'm in on that.

01:13:53.460 But for the first time, when I see that I'm not shrinking, I'm actually standing taller.

01:14:00.080 My heart's higher.

01:14:01.400 My chin's higher.

01:14:02.940 My shoulders are further back.

01:14:04.240 Right, right.

01:14:04.840 I have more courage going forward because, Oh, a hundred percent.

01:14:08.860 I, I can rely on that until I'm gone.

01:14:11.340 And maybe even further than that.

01:14:13.060 Yes.

01:14:13.320 I have more to learn.

01:14:14.260 I purchase, but now I can go forward with confidence of actually what I do know, what

01:14:18.740 I have built.

01:14:19.720 I can add more courage.

01:14:21.160 I can forgive easier.

01:14:22.980 I can, I can, I can take responsibility with more courage.

01:14:26.500 Um, I can take care of the things I've built and to attend those gardens better with, with, with, with that understanding of humility.

01:14:34.960 So for that, I thank you.

01:14:37.000 I appreciate that.

01:14:38.500 It's a humility.

01:14:39.120 It's a form of courage.

01:14:40.600 I, I, I, I want to throw a little funsy out there for you. 0.99

01:14:44.660 Okay.

01:14:45.380 So while I was writing and I've, I've become a fan, which I'd love to continue talking with

01:14:54.240 you more about this subjective eye and objective.

01:14:56.660 We, in the third eye, sort of the jumbotron of our life, we hop out of ourselves and have

01:15:01.960 a look or we project forward in our lives and say, who am I in 10 years?

01:15:05.840 Or what would my eulogy be?

01:15:07.220 You see, I write a lot about these things in, in, in the book, but while I was writing, I

01:15:14.700 hopped out, I gave myself the pleasure one night after a, a few sips and it was late at

01:15:21.800 night, mind you, the most trouble I was, I'm happy to say this, the hardest thing about

01:15:25.580 going to write this book for me was making myself go to bed.

01:15:28.640 I was putting 17 hours a day, 17 hour days in.

01:15:31.740 And I was just like, you've got to get some sleep.

01:15:33.620 But anyway, one of these nights where I was in the fever pitch on fire writing, I wrote

01:15:38.620 down some, I hopped outside of myself and said, I'm going to write reviews from people

01:15:44.600 that I think this is what they would say about this book after reading.

01:15:48.840 And this is one of them.

01:15:53.120 That's a great way to become aware of your audience or of the audience you want to have.

01:15:58.060 Well, then you have to speak to an audience when you're writing, obviously.

01:16:02.280 Well, it's, you know, it's, it's a very subjective experience, but I think there's, there is another,

01:16:08.860 as you said, that's the good thing about talking to oneself in the third person is it's a different

01:16:15.120 view of awareness.

01:16:15.960 It's an objective awareness back at like, oh, am I actually doing what I intended to do

01:16:22.560 is what I intended actually being recorded is what being recorded actually what's being

01:16:27.720 received.

01:16:28.520 There could be a lot of gaps in between those things.

01:16:30.780 And I'm trying to create those gaps.

01:16:33.440 Right.

01:16:33.620 So, um, I hopped outside of myself and wrote a, uh, um, a, wrote a, uh, um, which, what I thought

01:16:44.140 you would say about green lights and Matthew McConaughey, the author.

01:16:51.520 It's entrance level understanding to masterclass psychology delivered in a folk song.

01:16:57.540 I mean, the guy's got the gift to gab, man.

01:17:00.940 What can I say?

01:17:02.240 Jordan Peterson.

01:17:04.760 That's quite remarkable because that is very close to what I thought, you know, so I think

01:17:11.640 you nailed it.

01:17:12.540 Um, you did a, it's very difficult to put forward a message.

01:17:20.620 Without being propagandistic and the best way to do that is to tell stories and your book

01:17:27.160 is full of stories and, and the stories seem to me to add up to a life well lived and that's

01:17:33.460 a good model.

01:17:34.860 And so it's a model, but it's also not put forth as a model.

01:17:40.380 So it doesn't suffer from the flaws of the flaws that might come along with that putting

01:17:46.500 forth, you know, it's, and I guess that's because you stayed contemplative.

01:17:49.920 I mean, one of the things I've tried to do in my lectures is to remember that I'm lecturing

01:17:53.900 to me as well.

01:17:56.180 You know, I'm part of the audience.

01:17:58.000 If I'm talking about how we might behave, I mean, we, I don't think that I'm outside

01:18:05.440 of the problems that I'm discussing.

01:18:08.060 Those two are not a contradiction.

01:18:09.880 More of us can understand that we're talking to ourselves as well.

01:18:13.480 Yes.

01:18:14.120 Well, it takes the sting out of things and it keeps you on the ground.

01:18:17.400 So, well, I think that's quite funny that you wrote that review.

01:18:21.340 And it's also quite funny that it is in alignment with what I thought when I read the book.

01:18:26.040 I should show the book again, since this is a good time to do that.

01:18:29.620 And, and, you know, that's the cover of, of, with my picture on it.

01:18:32.660 But underneath that is, is the really cool thing that sort of is the, is the, is the symbol.

01:18:39.300 That's the metaphor that I'm playing with, which is all the red and yellow lights that

01:18:43.660 we have in our life, the hardships, the crisis is in the rear view mirror of life.

01:18:47.880 At least via lessons learned, we're, we'll reveal green light assets that we needed.

01:18:53.060 Um, it's not denying the crisis, you know, of even the death of a loved one, but it is

01:18:59.940 saying, oh, there were lessons even in that.

01:19:02.060 And I would offer, I wonder, you know, Jordan, if some of these lessons, we know we're going

01:19:06.740 to learn them when we're in the crisis.

01:19:08.220 Some, we don't know till next month.

01:19:09.640 Some we're probably not going to know to our deathbed.

01:19:11.500 And I would argue that some will never be realized until maybe our great, great, great

01:19:16.060 grandkids realize them three generations from now.

01:19:18.420 And there's a green light in this year we're in right now, big green lights in this big

01:19:25.240 red light year of COVID and social unrest and, and, and political distrust and, and, and people

01:19:31.640 having to redefine who they are and what politics is and what's fairness and what's equality and

01:19:37.100 all the, this in the extremes that we're in, there's a big, there's big green lights that

01:19:41.280 will be revealed out of this year.

01:19:42.820 I don't know when, but more than optimistic, I think realistic that that's going to be

01:19:50.560 true.

01:19:51.580 That's an excellent place to end.

01:19:55.180 I would say thank you very much.

01:19:57.520 It's, it's been a pleasure talking to you and I deeply appreciated the acknowledgement and

01:20:02.940 I'm very pleased that my work has contributed to what you've produced.

01:20:11.000 I also get a kick out of the fact that our books are chasing each other on the top 10

01:20:17.920 list on Amazon.

01:20:19.160 So I think that's quite, well, it's a privilege and it's an impossible privilege.

01:20:25.640 And so I'm very pleased to see that.

01:20:27.700 And I wish you the best of luck.

01:20:29.240 I hope that we get a chance to talk again.

01:20:31.580 I enjoyed that very much.

01:20:33.380 I did too.

01:20:34.760 Good, good.

01:20:35.680 And hopefully the audience will respond in the same way.

01:20:40.480 I think so.

01:20:41.780 So thanks for taking the time, eh?

01:20:45.080 My pleasure, Jordan.

01:20:47.180 I very much appreciate it.

01:20:48.420 I look forward to the next time.

01:20:50.660 Good to see you, sir.

01:20:51.860 Good to see you too.

01:20:53.920 Ciao.

01:20:54.840 Ciao.

01:20:55.060 Good to see you too.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - January 10, 2021

150. Greenlights (and Darkness) ｜ Matthew McConaughey

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