Actress Patricia Heaton - On Hollywood, the Jewish People, and Humor (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_760)
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Length
1 hour and 2 minutes
Words per minute
176.59048
Harmful content
Misogyny
14
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Toxicity
19
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Hate speech
44
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Summary
Patricia Heaton is an Emmy Award-winning actress, best known for her roles in the TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and The Middle. She s also the author of How to Get a Job Like Myself, a book about how to get a job like mine, and she is a professor at Northwood University.
Transcript
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Hi, everybody. On the heels of having recently Rob Schneider, another comedic genius, today we have
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another superstar of comedy, Patricia Heaton. How are you doing?
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I'm very well. Thank you. I'm delighted to have you. I won't mention your whole filmography and so
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on, but I'll just say that you are an Emmy award-winning actress. Of course, most famously,
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Everybody Loves Raymond. The Middle would probably be your two most famous jobs and a whole bunch of
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other stuff. Oh, I want to mention your book from 2002. Maybe a lot of people have forgotten about
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that. Motherhood and Hollywood, how to get a job like mine. Anything else you want to add before we
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get going? No, I think that's it. Oh, no. We have one movie. My husband, I produced a movie. It's on
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Amazon Prime, an adult comedy called Unexpected with Anna Camp and Joe Mazzello. Unexpected.
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This is currently on Amazon Prime. Yeah. Oh, okay. So maybe we could start there. Has your career or
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that of most, you know, actors radically changed as a function of having all these new platforms where
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you can practice your art, all the streaming services and so on? I don't know that it's
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radically changed. It's made me have to, you know, you have to learn how to, how to behave,
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I would say. There's a whole, so there's actors, right? And we go get jobs and we're supposed to
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disappear into these characters more or less. And you have 150 people working on this project.
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And so if you come out and you're very political, especially, but only if you're a conservative,
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you could lose your job, you can get your show canceled. That's a lot of people that were depending
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on you, right? So you have to, when all these things came up and it's like, oh, good, we all get to talk
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and make jokes and say stuff and say our opinions. And then you learn, you know, not so much. But mostly
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if you're a conservative. So that's, you know, that's the thing I think that I've had to learn to
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navigate. Because there's a whole industry of people. And they run the gamut from someone like
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you, who is a professor, you have this other life and that what you're teaching, you're bringing into
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what you're talking about. So there's all you kind of experts like, like Eric Weinstein and Heather
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Haring, Haring, Haring, Haring, and you know, the wife of Brett Weinstein. Yes. Yeah. And, and then
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there's like, just pundits who are like, let's say, Megan, and Ben, and all those folks. And that's
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their job is to be provocative to get out there. So that's how they make their living. And I think
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sometimes the mistakes, and I had to learn this a little bit, the mistakes you can make as an actor,
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is you go on these shows, and they're kind of fun, and they get you to say all this stuff.
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And then they use that for like clickbait. And then they get all these viewers, and you can't get a
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job. So, you know, you have to kind of figure that out. And it was like the wild, wild west when all
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this first started. And so, and I think just, you know, you, what do you want to contribute to the
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culture? What do you want to contribute to society? Do you want to be a divider? Do you want to be a
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unifier? How do you unify and still be able to express your opinions about things? Should you always
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be expressing your opinions about things? Is there a time when it's like it doesn't, you don't need to
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add to the dialogue? So, there's a lot to learn as far as being an actor in this space. I could,
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I could just dump acting and make a whole living on being just a, you know, a talk show person about
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like the view type of thing, right? You could do, I could do that. But it doesn't really, it's not
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where my heart is. There is an opening apparently in the view, because they're looking for more
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conservative voices. Is Miss Heaton putting her hat in that ring? I have not put my hat in that ring.
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Um, I used to like going on that show quite a bit. That was way back in the day when Barbara
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Walters was still there. And they had some really fun co hosts like Sherry Shepard or Jenny McCarthy.
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And it was this mix of serious and silly. And it was fun. And now it just is so divisive. And it's
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so one sided that I've just, you know, stopped, I stopped going on it a very long time ago, because it
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So I'll come in a second to sort of your, your political, I mean, I think you were public and
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now you're independent, but just to kind of stick with the acting ecosystem. I mean, I just mentioned
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the introduction that Rob Schneider was on the show. And of course, it's because he shares some
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of the positions that I might also ascribe to, not that I wouldn't want to have someone who doesn't
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ascribe to my views, but unfortunately they don't want to talk to me. But in any case, so we've got
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James Woods, we've got, you know, John Void, we've got Clint Eastwood, yourself, Rob Schneider,
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who are some other names that have the testicular fortitude to actually come out against the group
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think of Hollywood? Can you think of any other ones?
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Well, I think what the most recent and interesting voice that isn't completely categorizable is Justine
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Bateman. Yes, I actually, sorry, before you go on. Yes, I did. I mean, I knew her from her days,
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you know, when I was a kid, and then she disappeared. And I saw her, you know, her resurgence
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somewhere. And so I don't have direct access to her. So I just retweeted, or sort of tagged her and
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said, Hey, if you want to come on the sad truth, let me know, maybe you could help make it happen.
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Well, I would just say about her that she's been a real voice for like, for the Screen Actors Guild
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about AI, you know, during the strike, that was kind of her area of concern. And she did a lot of
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research into it and tweeted a lot about it. And her other area was in, you know, not having plastic
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surgery and Botox and fillers. And she talked a lot about that and just letting herself age naturally,
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which, you know, for me, as an extremely vain person, I find very courageous and admirable,
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you know. So, but then she, you know, the day after the election, she posted a picture of
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herself in front of that Washington monument, I think, with an American flag and said, I love this
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country or America's great or something. And I was like, Justine, what are you saying here, girl?
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What are you saying? Now, I we've met, we worked together on a pilot that didn't go anywhere. And
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she's really a wonderful person. But I haven't talked to her since then. And that was years and years
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and years ago. And I thought, this is interesting. And then she started doing these sort of tongue
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in cheek commentaries on all the crazy videos that women were posting, weeping and renting their
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garments, you know, over the election results. And she started doing these kind of funny directorial
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critiques of their videos. I'm like, she is just taking the mickey out of these, these people.
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And, and then she finally started talking about it. And she said, she felt a sense of relief
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with the results of the election, because she's been walking on eggshells for four years.
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And, and I think that so many people, including myself, felt that way, felt just like,
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I was prepping myself to, for another four years of, you know, Harris and Walls and of that
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administration continuing on. And just sort of stealing myself for that kind of atmosphere that
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we've been living in, which is oppressive, and you can't say anything, and you're labeled racist,
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bigot, transphobe, whatever that is, whatever they're saying, if you want to discuss things,
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right. And so I think she's been the most interesting new voice that I've seen, that's
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been unexpected. And it's refreshing. And I think more and more people are feeling that relief. I
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Well, listen, I'm, I'm Canadian. And yet, of course, the the election of or the win of Donald Trump,
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I would exactly use the same R word as you, the sense of existential relief that I felt. Now,
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in my case, you know, if there is, if there is one ecosystem that is more woke than Hollywood,
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it would be academia, right? Because all of all of the parasitic ideas, as I explained in one of my
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books, they all originated from academia. So imagine being me, and I really I've never modulated my
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speech, I never give a damn. I mean, from the start, way before it was cool, to actually be a free
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thinker, I was standing on top of the mountain and saying, Look, we've got a problem. So for me,
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that Trump won. I mean, it's as if I lost 200 pounds of actual physical weight. And I suspect
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Yeah, I felt the same way. I saw I happened to be in Israel when the election results came out. And
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that was my first visit just two weeks ago, the first time I've been.
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I was, oh, just amazing. I think I said to my husband, I think we need to buy burial plots there
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if they'll let us because it's so wonderful. Our boys are never going to visit our graves,
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no matter where we go. So we might as well go to Israel.
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Because we'll have a front row seat to the resurrection.
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Ah, I see. Okay. I see. I see. Okay. I missed that religious element. Okay.
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It's just beautiful. And it just felt it felt great. I mean, the downside, you know,
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of the war is that there's no tourists there. But for someone like me to go for the first time with
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no tourists there was fantastic. You know, you just felt like it was just in your city. You know,
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it was yours to explore. So that was fantastic. But anyway, I was there when the results were
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coming. I didn't even want to look at my phone. Like, I just like, I was thought I'm having such
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a good time in Israel. I don't even want to look because I'd seen that women's march that was
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just right before the election. And they were banging these drums and screaming. And I just
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thought, wow, there's a lot of them. I think we're going to, you know, and I want to say we're
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going to lose. I've never been a Trump supporter. So I didn't vote in the last two elections.
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But, you know, I went from growing up a Democrat, like Kennedy Catholic, you know, boycotted grapes to
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support migrant farm workers, did like civil rights activities, and then got to the 80s.
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And the Democrats just made abortion part of their platform. So I'm a Catholic before I'm a Democrat.
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And my sister's a nun. And my grandmother was Catholic Mother of the Year for the United States
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and got a medal from the Pope because she had 15 kids. My mom was one of 15. And I have like 100 first
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cousins on my mom's side. And we, you know, my mom went to mass every day. And, you know, so that that
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takes precedence over political party. So then I moved to being a Republican. And then things have
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just things really started getting crazy. And Trump came in. And I was like, what's going on?
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And I thought, I'll just be an independent. So that's kind of where I've landed. But I'm still
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more conservative at heart. Right. So. So yeah. And then when I saw the results, I was just so taken
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Have you? I mean, you said, and I think I've done a bit of homework prior to us chatting. And I noticed
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that you weren't a Trump supporter. And you just stated so right now. Have you come around? So
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because you mentioned earlier, Megyn Kelly, I think you said Megyn, you were referring to Megyn Kelly,
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right? So as you know, Megyn was not a huge Trump fan. And now she's, you know, one of his biggest fans.
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Are you in the Megyn camp? Or you're just tepidly, you know, into the Trump wagon?
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I think he has better people around him this time. I think he seems to have learned a lot. But my main
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change is I support Israel. That's really, I find one of the most important things that America needs
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to do. And I don't feel that the Biden administration was doing it as fully as they should have been. And
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they were putting restrictions on Israel, and they were leaking stuff. So that got to the point where
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Israel just was not even telling the administration what they were going to do, because they couldn't
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trust them. And so so that to me was where my loyalties lie. So I voted in line with is to the
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protection of Israel is your your support of Israel? Is it largely rooted sort of in Christian Zionism,
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or religious based Zionism, or independently of your religion, you would have been as much gung ho into
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your support of Israel? You know, my dad served in World War Two, we knew Nazis were bad. And we knew
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they tried to exterminate the Jews. And we learned all about the Holocaust. And we all read all about
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Anne Frank, this was just common knowledge. And, you know, you always thought, like, as a Catholic
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Christian, like, and I posted this the day after October 7, on my Instagram. Do you ever have the
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thought, gee, if I were a German during World War Two, would I have been the good German that hid my
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Jewish neighbors? Would I have been that person? Because you don't know, right? And I said, today's the
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day, we get to be good Germans, and we need to come alongside our Jewish neighbors. Today's the
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day. Because then they could say you could have used the excuse I didn't really know. But today,
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we saw it. They posted that Hamas body cam footage online, and they were joyful and gleeful and proud
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of what they were doing. So I was so aghast at what I was seeing. And I currently my primary residence
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is Nashville. And there's like three churches on every corner, lots of evangelicals. And I sort of
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expected, I don't know what I expected them all to raise the Israel flag, or to have hostage posters
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on their lawns. And there was nothing. And I thought, why do I feel this intense need to do
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something about this and to sort of like, like, Paul Revere, like ringing, riding through town,
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ringing the bell saying this is they're coming, they're coming, this is happening. And so I got
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together with a friend of mine who's Christian, and her husband's Jewish, and we decided we needed
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to help Christians find ways to visibly and vocally support the Jewish people and Israel's right to
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exist and to fight anti-Semitism. So we created the October 7th Coalition, or O7C. And so that's
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what we do. And I think for the last year or two, the business has been slow for me. And I'm a doer,
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and I need something to do. And so I, I was just praying, just like, Lord, give me give me something
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to do. Like, it doesn't have to be acting, but I need to, I want to be of service. And my heart was
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just, like grabbed when October 7th happened, in such a way that we put this organization together,
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I have never ever thought that I would be putting together a nonprofit or working with the Jewish
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people. It never came across my mind. The outpouring that we received, just the two,
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were just two women saying, Haneni, here, here I am, right? And the outpouring of people weeping,
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like waitresses in restaurants seeing, you know, me wear the star and just saying,
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you don't understand what it means to see outsiders stand up for us. I've been to so many places all
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over the country, speaking at synagogues and, and Jewish Federation events and Israeli consulate
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events. And, you know, it's, it's, it means a lot for people to, for non-Jews to stand up for,
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for the Jewish people. And I, I believe that it's our duty as Christians, because our biological
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Jewish savior, his family is being attacked. His biological family is being attacked. And so,
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you know, to just honor him and his mother and his father and the Jewish people,
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Well, amen to that. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm assuming, you know, that I'm Jewish.
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I mean, I'm atheist. It's a complicated story because look, I'm, I'm, I'm about as Jewish as
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one can be, but that doesn't mean that I subscribe to all of the rituals in my faith. And that if I
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don't do them some, so, so for example, I don't care.
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It's not really atheism. You're not just using some practice or you believe in God or maybe put
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it as agnostic. So I don't know what they're out there. Maybe they're, but in other words,
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but being Jewish, as you know, is a multifaceted construct. We are a shared heritage people. We
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are a distinct people. We are a historical people. And so I can be profoundly Jewish without
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necessarily being as observant as a Hasidic Jew. Does it, does it, does it make him more Jewish
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than me? Probably not because I was almost executed for being Jewish. He wasn't. So who,
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who, who really carries the, the upper Judaism card? So it's a complicated story, but I'm certainly
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not from, from your earlier point. I'm probably not as religious inclined as you are, let's say,
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right. So some of those narratives, I may not believe, but there are very earthly reasons why
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I believe in Judaism, right? Uh, there are a lot of philosophical teachings and moral teachings
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that are beautiful that have stood the test of time. You know, we're almost 6,000 year history. So
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does that answer your question or? Yes. Yes. But, okay. So I wanted to, did you, you talked about all the
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beautiful, uh, feedback and responses you get, but once you go Jew, even if you're only an honorary Jew,
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you set yourself up for a lot of hate. Did you, were you the recipient of a lot of that or has it
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pretty much? I mean, you know, that's sort of part of life on Twitter, um, on X and, you know,
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the first time, uh, somebody called me, I can't really say it. I can't say it, but I was a little,
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I was kind of thrilled. You know, I thought, Oh, I'm hitting a nerve. Then I blocked them. I mean,
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my timeline is a thing of beauty because you just block people. I don't understand people say it's
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such a cesspool. I can't be on here. You don't keep your DMS open and you block people. That's how
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you do it. And then you can have a lot of fun and you meet wonderful people and it's hilarious. I
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mean, it can be so much fun. So, um, and you know, this is the thing, like I'm Irish Catholic and
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there's just a sort of a DNA of looking for a fight. Like I'm, I've had to kind of, you're a
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brawler a little bit, a little bit of a brawler. Yeah. Um, you know, when, when I was over there,
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you could hear the iron dome taking rockets out of the sky. You would just hear this like boom,
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boom. And then you'd see these puffs of smoke in the air, like in near Capernaum where Jesus
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gave a sermon on the Mount. And, um, and so, you know, I, I, I was not at all bothered by that.
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It didn't frighten me. In fact, I was like, where's that coming from? Where can we go see? Um,
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so I think, you know, God gives everybody their personality and, and it can be used for good. And,
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you know, it can be used for not so good things. So I try to try to channel that sort of fighting
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spirit into something that is, um, constructive. What are some, what are, I mean, our worlds would
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have never collided were not for the magic of social media, right? 100%. Yes. And I can tell
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you stories of people that I've had, uh, the privilege and pleasure of meeting that again,
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I would have never met. Can you share with us, you know, the, the, the top few that come to mind,
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it doesn't have to be professors. It could be anything, but someone that you would have never
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crossed paths were not for the magic of X. And in that sense, we are further promoting the incredible,
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uh, power of Elon Musk. Thank God. Well, I think Elon Musk, I guess this, I mean, this sounds crazy,
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but I feel like he saved America. Like free speech is everything. Free speech is everything,
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even terrible, awful speech. You still have to be able to be free. And what the Democrats wanted to
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do and what they had been doing before Elon took over, you know, was so amazing. He, uh, you know,
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he's, they said, why don't you, you know, uh, he, Oh, he's, he said, I'm just gonna, I'm just,
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I'll buy X. And then he realized, Oh, I'm paying way too much. I'm going to back out. And then all
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these, you know, liberals said, you have to buy it. You have to buy it. Now you said, you're going to
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do, you have to do it. And so he did and he saved the world more or less. So I, I mean, we, we just
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really owe him. Um, I'm just trying to, I mean, just generally speaking, um, I, you know, I,
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oh, I would say like, um, Brett Weinstein, who I, I listened to his podcast all the time and
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occasionally, uh, DM him. Um, and now is he studies, is he the same field of study as you?
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So let me, that's a, thank you. That's a great question. So he, he is an evolutionary biologist
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through it. I mean, he wasn't a terribly active researcher in all frankness, but that's his
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training. I apply evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology to study human behavior.
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Right. And so, for example, so you might say, well, what does that mean? So let's suppose
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I want to study how hormones affect our economic choices, right? So I've done studies, uh, where
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I've looked at, uh, how women beautify themselves as a function of where they are in their menstrual
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cycles. The idea being that in the maximally fertile phase of a woman's cycle, you're more
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likely to engage in sexual signaling, right? And when you are in the luteal phase, you're
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less likely to, to have mating concerns, right? Well, you find this behavior, not just in, in
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human females, but you find it across many other mammalian species. And so I'm taking an
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evolutionary biological principle that applies to other species. And then I'm demonstrating
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its effect in the human context. Whereas in the case of, uh, Brett, he's not necessarily
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a behavioral scientist or a psychologist, but he is certainly an evolutionary biologist.
00:24:32.780
Yes. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, that's so far out of my field. Same with, um, Jordan Peterson,
00:24:38.560
where, um, we went to see him early on when he and Dave Rubin did their first tour together.
00:24:43.800
Oh, right. Yeah. And it was just so shocking. And, and it was, this was, it was in Los
00:24:50.160
Angeles and it was almost all young men. And it, yes. And it was, that was really kind
00:24:55.220
of cool and exciting. So I think those are the kind of, of people that, um, I come across
00:25:00.880
that have really been enriched my life. Um, and also being in the Jewish space has really
00:25:07.540
enriched my life because, you know, you, you understand why God chose the Jews because they're
00:25:14.900
really smart and really stubborn. And that's what you need to survive for 6,000 years, right?
00:25:19.840
When the whole world is attacking you. But I remember seeing some, some, uh, you know,
00:25:25.060
video saying, well, the Jews, they think they're superior to everyone. And I'm like, they are.
1.00
00:25:33.960
I actually posted, I put, I put up a figure from the Nobel foundation showing the number of
00:25:41.220
Nobel prizes won by Jews as a function of their per capita, how many Jews are versus
00:25:48.440
Yeah. But it's almost a quarter at 20 something versus in Islam, which constitutes one fourth
1.00
00:25:54.960
of humanity. And they have like four Nobel prizes and people accuse me of Islamophobia.
00:26:00.920
So simply sharing an actual fact is considered as Islamophobic.
00:26:06.880
Well, it's kind of like, I don't know if you ever watched the show, the amazing race, but
00:26:10.520
there was an inordinate, inordinate amount of Mormons who won that show year in and year
1.00
00:26:16.820
out. Yes. Because the Mormons have this particular work ethic and family ethic and, you know,
00:26:22.240
whatever. And they would always, they were winning the amazing race all the time. So, and I don't
00:26:26.880
think, and actually a friend, a friend I met recently, um, had shared that he and his, he's still
00:26:33.520
friends with all his childhood friends he grew up with in Boston. And they know, they sort of noticed
00:26:38.640
recently there's nine of them and that they all became very successful in their chosen fields.
00:26:42.380
And he goes, we were trying to figure out why that is. And I said, are you all Jewish? And he
00:26:51.460
I got a good story for you. So first semester as a doctoral student, I was a doctoral student at
00:26:57.440
Cornell. Uh, and, uh, at a time when Cornell used to have a heavy Jewish influence. Now you're,
00:27:03.880
you're in danger if you go to Cornell wearing a star of David, as I think you, yes, you were going
00:27:08.600
to visit Cornell, weren't you? Yeah, we were going to, I wasn't able to do it because of this real
00:27:12.380
trip. Yeah. I actually returned, uh, to my alma mater this past April. I gave two talks, one on the
00:27:18.960
parasitic mind and one on global Jew hatred. But in any case, my first semester at Cornell, I was taking
00:27:25.100
a doctoral course with a Jewish professor named Richard Thaler, who ended up winning the Nobel prize in
00:27:33.300
economics. And as we, as we were sitting there discussing possible projects that we might
00:27:39.240
collaborate on, you know, I'm a young doctoral student. I'm maybe 25. Uh, he says to me,
00:27:45.820
you're God, you're, you're Jewish, right? I said, yes. He goes, oh, I'm sure you're going to be
00:27:51.060
successful. I said, why do you say that? He goes, so then he went through the list of like the top 10
00:27:55.420
psychologists that study economics or decision-making. And every single one of them was,
00:28:01.020
I mean, everyone was Jewish. Yes. So, well, Dennis Prager has this funny line that he says,
00:28:07.560
because he said, you know, the way the universities are now, he said, Jewish people need to stop giving
0.99
00:28:12.080
their money to these universities that hate them. And he said, but you know, this is the thing with
00:28:16.860
Jews. He said, when you ask a Jew, how are you doing? The answer will be my daughters at Dartmouth.
00:28:22.360
You know, he said, we've put so much emphasis on their education, which is, you know, part of the
00:28:30.760
reason that everybody does so well, you know, and I was just on this tour of Israel with these three
00:28:36.400
young Jewish men and, you know, one seventh generation rabbi. And, you know, they're just,
00:28:42.260
he speaks five languages and they're just the most, you know, wildly educated and fun and funny and
00:28:49.200
great people. So, you know, I had, I had one, one person came up to me and introduced himself and I
00:28:56.460
said, where are you from? And he said, I'm from here. And then he named all the schools he went to
00:29:00.800
and all the degrees that he had. And I said, oh, I said, well, I was a blackout drunk for four years
00:29:06.980
at Ohio state. And yet here we both are. At the end of the day, you know, we all have our gifts,
00:29:14.280
you know, that we, you know, you hopefully use to, for the flourishing of humankind and,
00:29:19.360
but the Jews are very good at that. Well, I'll mention one more story about the importance of
00:29:23.400
education within the Jewish ecosystem. And then we can, I'd like to talk about humor in general,
00:29:28.780
something you're obviously very adept at. So I tell the story in the parasitic mind. So I hope
0.57
00:29:35.220
anybody who's heard it before is not going to be upset to hear it again, but it's, it's a,
00:29:38.920
it's a well-worth story to retell. So I did an undergrad in mathematics and computer science.
00:29:44.920
I'm only saying this not to talk about my CV, but it's, it's relevant to the story.
00:29:49.100
Did I mention I was a blackout drunk at Ohio state?
00:29:51.280
You did. So undergrad in mathematics and computer science. Then I did an MBA with a mini thesis in
00:29:58.980
operations research, which is an applied mathematics field. And then I was, I went on straight. I wanted
00:30:04.140
to go on to pursue my MS, my master's of science and PhD at Cornell. But as I was visiting different
00:30:10.360
schools that had invited, that had accepted me for my PhD, one of them was university of California,
00:30:15.560
Irvine, uh, where my brother lived in Newport beach and he was a very successful entrepreneur.
00:30:21.000
And so he was trying to convince me to maybe take a break after my MBA, you know, work with him for a
00:30:27.740
few years, put on the proverbial suit, get some industry experience before I went on, you know,
00:30:32.860
to pursue my, my doctorate at, which I really wasn't interested in doing, but he's my older
00:30:37.720
brother. So I was, you know, entertaining him and trying to pitch that idea to me. Well, when my
00:30:42.860
mother catches wind of that attempt by my brother to influence me into putting the pause on the PhD,
00:30:50.640
when I returned to Montreal, the first day that I go to their house to see them, uh, she says,
00:30:56.140
come, I want to talk to you in a very, very sort of ominous. So I, we go to another room. I say,
00:31:00.160
well, what's up mom. She goes, I'm hearing that you're thinking of, uh, maybe leaving school for
00:31:05.140
a while. So no, no, not really. She goes, well, if you are, do you want people to remember you as
00:31:10.360
somebody who dropped out of school? So I already had an MBA, but from her perspective, I would bring
00:31:17.000
terrible shame to the family as an illiterate dropout. Cause I wouldn't have a PhD. So that gives
00:31:24.300
you the sense of, uh, uh, expectations that, that come with being, but do you feel like,
00:31:30.840
but did you feel like pressure and anxiety from that? Not at all? Because I wanted, so from a very
00:31:37.960
young age, there was only two things I was interested in ever being. One was a professor
00:31:42.400
two was to be a professional soccer player, very different things, brainy and brawny. And so I always
00:31:48.520
knew that I was going to go on to do a PhD, but it gives you a sense of your general ecosystem is we
00:31:54.600
expect huge things from you, right? Don't be. And is that, is that because you are always being
00:32:02.220
attacked in the world as a people? And so you have to show, you know, be your best self.
00:32:07.780
That's a great self. There are several theories as to why learning is so important in the Jewish
00:32:14.240
context. One of which is that in, in cases where you can't own land or you can't do the, the, the
00:32:22.000
capital that I can always transport anywhere is my mind, my brain, my knowledge. In French, you say
00:32:29.240
carte de visite, your visiting card, your business card. Well, once I have all that education, you could,
00:32:35.800
you could steal my land. You could take my home. I mean, right. We lost everything in Lebanon, but yet we
0.93
00:32:41.060
can go elsewhere. And because we've got minds, because we're good business people, because we're
00:32:46.420
highly educated, we could restart without wallowing in endless victimhood, right? Few people as strong
00:32:53.180
a story of victimhood as what I went through and what my family went through in Lebanon. Yet, you know,
00:32:58.240
we came to Canada, we went like this and we said, okay, you know how we're going to defeat those guys.
00:33:03.260
We're going to be super successful. And that's what we did.
00:33:05.820
Right. And do you think that, that, that Israelis are different from like American Jews or Jewish
00:33:11.840
people that live in America? Is it the same with Israelis? That's a great question. I mean,
1.00
00:33:16.100
it, it, there's a difference. I've really noticed. So for example, we, so we are Mizrahi Jews,
00:33:22.700
meaning Jews from Arab lands, right? Right. So I may have a lot more in common, Patricia,
00:33:28.940
with a Lebanese Christian girl in terms of our culture than I would with an Ashkenazi Polish Jewish
00:33:38.340
woman. So yes, we share a Jewish heritage, but she's Polish. I'm Arabic, right? And so,
00:33:43.960
so there are differences and, and in Israel, you do see it. So for example, the, the, the Mizrahi Jews
00:33:50.860
are called the Jews of color, right? Or the black Jews, even though we may not be black, we're the,
00:33:57.100
we're the desert Jews, right? The Iraqis, the Egyptians, the Lebanese, the Yemenites, right?
0.89
00:34:03.400
Those are, and so there is a bit of tension historically between the Mizrahi Jews, the
00:34:09.080
Sephardic Jews, and the Ashkenazi Jews on a cultural level, I would say. So, and that, I think that would
0.76
00:34:17.180
be the main distinction, but what did, did you see any different dynamics depending on where you went in
00:34:23.060
Israel? Oh yeah. I, it was so interesting because obviously you have the ultra Orthodox everywhere
00:34:28.880
with all the kids and, you know, that's very special. And then there's Orthodox, but it's like
00:34:33.900
they were Orthodox from the 1970s. So they look like hippies, like the women's hair is wrapped in
0.98
00:34:38.620
these huge scarves that go up like a big turban and they're kind of in flowing things and you could
00:34:43.380
drop them in Topanga Canyon in LA and they would fit in perfectly, you know? It's like the Jewish
1.00
00:34:49.560
version of Jesus freaks from that time, right? And the, you know, the Kibbutzim kind of have that
1.00
00:34:55.420
vibe of like kind of community, communal nature, peace and love and, you know, which is, you know,
00:35:01.740
very interesting that they were the ones that were attacked, you know, shameful. And so, and just the
00:35:11.980
intensity that you feel there because of what's happened and, and over there, like there's not
00:35:20.160
six degrees of separation. It's, there's almost no separation for them and, and what happened and
00:35:25.340
the people that they know who died or who, who are hostages. So there is that kind of intensity,
00:35:31.460
but then there's also just, you know, the ability of Jewish people to just live in the,
00:35:38.480
in the midst of like war and terror and to fully live and to fully enjoy and to, to seem joyful,
00:35:45.760
but thoughtful. They're not, it's not like they're, they're trying to pretend like nothing's going
00:35:52.960
on. They're very aware of what's going on. And so that's why they're living life to the fullest.
00:35:57.820
I mean, it's this really interesting thing and there isn't a sense of victimhood at all. It's just,
00:36:02.800
it's a, it's just, it's an incredible identity that I would imagine must have some weight to it that
00:36:11.680
you're, that you carry that identity, whether for good or for bad, that there's a weight to having
00:36:16.160
that identity. You feel that yourself because you escaped from Lebanon. Yeah. I mean, I would say on a,
00:36:22.620
on a less ominous note, another thing that I love about Israel is the beauty. I mean, the physical
00:36:29.200
beauty of, and people don't appreciate that. I mean, I think the, the, the, the, the main analogy
00:36:35.840
that I would compare to Israel historically would be Brazil, because in Brazil, what you're having in,
0.96
00:36:42.260
I mean, in French, you say metissage, the mixing of races. So whenever you have a mixture of races,
00:36:48.920
the outcome of that oftentimes is a, is a phenotype is a physical manifestation. That's even kind of
00:36:55.400
more beautiful, right? Cause yes, uniquely exotic. So in Israel, what you now have are,
00:37:01.040
as I mentioned earlier, you know, you've got the, the Jews that sort of look like me, Middle Eastern
00:37:05.360
Jesus looking Jews. You've got the Ashkenazi Jews that are much more fair skin. You've got the Falasha
1.00
00:37:10.840
Jews, the Ethiopian Jews and the Yemeni Jews that are much, and now you cross all those together and
1.00
00:37:16.720
you get this kind of, uh, I mean, I think the men too are gorgeous, but I certainly know the women
0.99
00:37:22.220
are ridiculous. I mean, you're like, I know I was like, I, you know, somebody like me, this little
0.91
00:37:29.200
five foot two Irish pasty Irish person feeling like a toad over there, but no, you know, it's,
00:37:36.140
it's great though. I mean, it's, it is really wonderful and, and such a mix and, you know,
00:37:40.500
all in Jerusalem, you have to build everything with that Jerusalem stone. So it's just that beautiful
00:37:45.280
glowing kind of thing. True. And, and the, and the history, what's, what's really cool about that,
00:37:50.920
especially as a, as a Catholic, um, instead of it, like, oh, this happened way back then. And,
00:37:57.720
you know, these ancient ruins and everywhere you go, they're digging up and they, they keep finding
00:38:03.300
more, more things that correlate directly with the stories in the old Testament and the new Testament.
00:38:09.220
And so history gets more compressed. It doesn't feel so far away. It's, it's more,
00:38:14.140
it becomes like this river and we all get to be part of this flow of history, this river that's just
00:38:19.820
continuous and it's all heading somewhere. Um, and we don't know how it's going to end or where
00:38:25.020
it's going to end. Well, I mean, Christians have an idea of what's going to happen. Right. Um,
1.00
00:38:31.400
and it's actually Christians and Jews have the same, more or less the same idea. Although that's
00:38:35.440
very interesting to me, the different views about the afterlife that different Jewish people have.
00:38:40.620
Because some don't believe at all. Some are waiting for a Messiah. It's very interesting to me.
00:38:45.220
Um, actually very close to where I live, uh, are some ultra Orthodox Jews who believe that
00:38:52.980
Rabbi Schneerson is the, is the coming of the Messiah. And so, right. But, you know,
00:38:59.100
the Messiah is coming and they put a picture of Rabbi Schneerson, other Jews,
00:39:03.160
but there's been a couple of those, right? There have been a couple of those throughout history.
00:39:06.420
Yes. From different communities, like in Brooklyn or yeah. Yes, exactly. Uh, I'm going to come back
00:39:13.060
to humor as I promised, but since we're on the religious stream, did you see, and you're Catholic,
00:39:19.020
did you see the recent release of Conclave? I haven't, I know that Bishop Barron, I don't know
00:39:25.920
if you know Bishop Robert Barron. Um, he's, he's quite a spokesperson for, for Catholics and a media
00:39:32.080
person for Catholics in the U S and he's thought it was terrible. Um, oh yeah, you agree with him? Yeah.
1.00
00:39:38.820
Because everyone was a scheming, you know, political, not even that. I'll tell you what
00:39:45.240
it was for me. I actually released a, a, an episode of kind of a film critic. Uh, what
00:39:51.140
were the name of those two film critics in the eighties? Oh, Ebert, Roger Ebert. That's
00:39:55.160
right. I put on Roger Ebert and yeah, right. Exactly. Uh, yes, exactly. What one sort of
00:40:01.020
heavier guy, Siskel and Ebert, Siskel and Ebert. That wasn't exactly. Uh, so I went to see it
00:40:07.060
because, so you're going to like this. Well, I love Ray Fine. So like, I would go just to see him
00:40:11.460
cause he's so good. I agree. I actually like Stanley Tucci too. He's, he's, he's. Oh yeah.
00:40:15.720
Stanley's great. Yeah. Right. But so I've always been fascinated by the mystery and regalia and,
00:40:23.920
uh, you know, pomp of, you know, the, some of these religious rituals, right? Yes. Uh, so I had
00:40:31.760
had a fantasy straight out of my PhD. So my PhD was in psychology of decision-making and I had always
00:40:37.780
been interested in studying the decision-making processes in the conclave, which, but of course,
00:40:45.240
I knew that that could never happen because it's not as though the, you know, yeah, the Vatican's
00:40:51.660
going to say, Oh yes, let, let the, let the Lebanese Jew come in, uh, who's an evolutionist and let him
0.98
00:40:57.480
study us like the lab rats that we are. But it had always been a fantasy for me to actually,
0.54
00:41:02.860
what all the machinations that must be happening, the group dynamics, the decision-making and so on.
00:41:08.900
And so I went to the movie really super excited if, if only for that. And then the movie was gorgeous.
00:41:14.900
And the last 20 minutes, can I ruin it for you? And you can ruin it for me. Okay. And anybody who
00:41:21.080
wants to see it, spoiler alert, look away. If you don't want to see it, it turns into the biggest
00:41:26.940
orgy of wokeism that you could imagine. So I'll tell you two quick, you know, stories for the last
00:41:34.480
20 minutes. So there's a bomb that goes off and it's, it's Islamic terror. And some of the hardline
00:41:43.180
cardinals are sort of rallying up the Catholic faith that, you know, Islam is coming after us and
0.99
00:41:49.400
they're antithetical to us and so on. And then this one cardinal stands up and does this beautiful
00:41:55.880
monologue of how beautiful Islam is. And so now I turn around to my wife, she looks at me and I go,
00:42:04.380
Oh, Houston, I think we have a problem, but hold on. I'm nowhere near finished.
00:42:09.120
You have got to be. I'm so glad you told me. It's not that I won't go, but I, I would have,
00:42:14.460
I would have jumped out of my seat in the theater.
00:42:16.980
I'm going to get you more upset. You ready? So now as a result of this very powerful and moving
00:42:23.560
Islamophilic speech, right? Love of Islam inside the conclave by the cardinals of Catholicism,
00:42:31.660
right? So everybody is so moved that they decide to vote for this person who was completely an
1.00
00:42:39.800
outsider who came out of nowhere. He had been a cardinal in Kabul. There isn't exactly much of a
00:42:46.320
Catholic community of, you know, in, in Afghanistan. And then they vote him in. And as they're about to
00:42:54.700
announce it to the world, you know, they, the white smoke comes out, we have a new Pope, a new Vicar of
00:42:59.520
Christ. Yes. It turns out that that Pope is drum roll. You ready? Yes. It's a woman.
1.00
00:43:08.100
So you are not quite transgender. It's intersex that the, that the chosen Pope had gone secretively
0.95
00:43:20.760
to Switzerland to have an operation, to have her uterus removed, but she always presented to the
0.99
00:43:27.880
world as male. I said, and this is, this is before Donald Trump won. Right. And so I thought to myself,
00:43:34.160
there isn't a single nook or cranny of society that these assholes have not found a way to get
1.00
00:43:43.040
into. Not, we can't even be safe within the confines of the conclave from them. And so I got
0.99
00:43:50.140
really pissed. So that night I went and I did that film review, which you should go watch. Although I,
00:43:54.520
Oh, I have to go watch. So you're not even Catholic and you're enraged. That's hilarious. That, okay. I,
0.99
00:44:04.160
I all, it's almost, I'm so shocked. I thought you were just going to say, I don't know what I think
00:44:09.400
that is insane. And I am shocked that somebody like Ray Fiennes would do that role. I mean,
00:44:16.100
it's ridiculous. It's who wrote it. Was it a Catholic that wrote it? I don't know. I don't know that the,
0.95
00:44:22.400
okay, now I'm going to have to look into it. That is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard in my
0.86
00:44:27.360
life. Like it's ludicrous. I think I saved you an increase of blood pressure and about 15,
0.99
00:44:32.920
$20 per ticket. So, uh, you're welcome. Oh my gosh. That's, you know, these people,
00:44:40.460
I have, I have a, I have a book next to my bed. Uh, it's called the, the new book of Christian
00:44:49.800
martyrs. And the original was called Fox's book of Christian martyrs. So there had some British guy
00:44:55.680
years ago had compiled, you know, the story of Christian martyrs. So now this is the updated
00:44:59.260
version and, and you go and, um, you know, you can read a story at night, just, it's a page about
00:45:06.740
this, you know, and when you see what people went through for their faith, you know, there's a,
00:45:13.440
there is a French Jesuit named Isaac Yogues, spelled J O G U E S. And he, and a bunch of black robes
00:45:21.080
went to upstate New York to, to preach the gospel to the Iroquois and they cut off his tongue. So he
0.96
00:45:28.760
couldn't preach the gospel and they cut off his right hand. So he couldn't write anything. And he
00:45:33.440
went and they killed some of the other ones. He went back to France, got healed and went back again
00:45:39.720
to continue. And then they tomahawked him and he died. And, you know, so to have somebody,
00:45:46.020
some interloper come and take a look at the church and this is what they do with it.
00:45:51.300
Right. It's just ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. And by the way, if you did that with anybody else's
0.99
00:45:57.700
religion, they would be burning down the movie theater. Well, not everybody else is certainly
0.98
00:46:03.360
Islam. They wouldn't do it. Mormons, right? There is a play called the book of Mormons.
1.00
00:46:08.360
Book of Mormon. You know what the Mormons did? They stood outside the theater and handed out
0.78
00:46:11.760
the book of Mormon to people. So that is okay. Now I'm really intrigued. I'm gonna have to look
00:46:19.620
this up. I mean, let me just say, I think, you know, the church in ancient times and, and, you
00:46:26.760
know, through medieval times and onward was such a patron of the arts and you see the beauty in all
00:46:32.660
the churches and the writings. And, and, and I think we, at some point we gave that up. And so you
00:46:38.760
have people coming into the void, creating crap like that. Yes. And, and, and the stuff
0.98
00:46:44.200
that, that on the conservative side that people have tried to make, a lot of it is
00:46:48.600
not good. And so you have these really gifted, talented people who have a very
00:46:54.520
different viewpoint, you know, and maybe a, well, I would say in that case, a really
00:46:59.360
distorted viewpoint. And so, and they have the skill and the financing to bring that
00:47:06.020
out. And there is a, there is now a sort of a movement of what they're calling values-based
00:47:12.620
content that a lot of studios are looking for, because a lot of the stuff they're churning
00:47:16.520
out is not connecting with people. And I think the election showed that people are sick of all
00:47:22.460
that stuff. And so, so, but it's, it's a hard time right now financially. And, and these studios,
00:47:28.620
they kind of come to faith-based people or conservative people or Christian people for content.
00:47:33.660
And yet they don't, you know, they don't really, it's just kind of a bit of a mess. And we're,
00:47:39.520
it's trying to, people are trying to create stuff. And it's hard right now because we're in a downturn
00:47:45.540
in our industry. But I think part of it is we let, we let it go. We let go of making great movies.
00:47:52.340
My, my favorite movie, what I think is the greatest of all time is a movie called On the Waterfront
00:47:56.500
with Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint, Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, and the guy, the guy that
00:48:09.340
plays the priest, Carl Malden. Have you seen it?
00:48:17.140
Okay, you have to, this is the greatest movie ever made. I'm putting, staking my artistic
00:48:22.300
reputation on it. The greatest writing, the greatest directing, the greatest acting,
00:48:27.600
the greatest music. And it's a story of a guy having to make a moral decision that is going
00:48:33.020
to cost him. And it's so beautiful. And the, and, and it, it's, it's not a faith based movie.
00:48:39.700
It's not a Christian movie, but there's a, a speech that Carl Malden as the priest has to make.
00:48:45.160
Um, and it's one of the most beautiful speeches, uh, in a movie. And it's, he's talking about Christ
00:48:53.020
in this speech. And it, and it was, you know, a Jewish writer and a Jewish director that made the
00:48:58.100
movie. And it's not a faith based movie. It's just a great movie about the human condition and
00:49:04.020
making hard decisions of your life and, you know, making the right decision, even though it costs you.
00:49:09.240
And we used to make that, that kind of stuff just used to be out there. And now it's, and it's not a,
00:49:14.420
it wasn't a preachy movie. It's a beautiful movie. And, you know, now we get stuff like this. Yeah.
00:49:20.060
I'm the waterfront. Like you will love it. It's wonderful. I'm sure I will. So about 15 years ago,
00:49:26.680
before my wife and I had our first child, we embarked on a project where we, we went and downloaded,
00:49:33.260
uh, the list from the AFI, the American. Okay. Best hundred movies.
00:49:37.880
Best 100 movies. And we thought, you know, we, we, if we're going to be serious,
00:49:42.840
seriously cultured film people, we just have to at least see each of them. Well,
00:49:47.020
we didn't get through the whole list because we ended up having children and then, you know,
00:49:50.660
how that goes, but I did see it. I mean, to your point about what, what are the greatest movies?
00:49:55.840
I mean, my favorite, my, my all-time favorite movie is 12 angry men. The original one.
00:50:01.020
But what was interesting in going through that exercise of trying to go through the AFI,
00:50:06.280
some movies we would watch and we'd say, Oh my God, how did we live life? Not having seen that
00:50:11.100
movie, but then other ones we would watch it and look at each other and go, that really sucked.
00:50:16.500
So I'll give you an example of both. Okay. Yes. Okay. So all about Eve. Unbelievable.
0.51
00:50:22.240
Did you see that? Yes. It's funny. Cause it's, it's, it's like, they just filmed the play.
00:50:28.120
Yeah, exactly. It's, it's done like a play. It is. They didn't make it into a movie really,
00:50:33.240
but yeah, it's, it's really great. I loved the apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine.
00:50:40.060
Yeah. Double indemnity. I love right. Uh, now here's one that I didn't like Roman holiday.
00:50:47.380
Right. Yeah. It's a little bit of a breakfast at Tiffany's such a comic movie. I looked at,
00:50:53.720
I said, this sucks. What am I not getting? Am I, am I, you're, I'm the layman. You're the
0.99
00:50:58.960
professional. Is there any value to what I'm saying? Or am I missing the whole both?
00:51:03.860
Right. I felt that way. This is going to be sacrilegious for an actor to say, but the one
00:51:09.660
that I just had a hard time really getting the greatness of it. And now the one with Rosebud,
00:51:17.500
what's the movie Rosebud that with Rosebud, he, you know, it's a Orson Welles. Oh,
00:51:22.740
Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane. I've never seen it. Okay. I just, I, his, I have to say his acting was
00:51:30.100
so naturalistic, which was very unusual for the time. So that I stood out to me, but I didn't,
00:51:36.200
um, I think you kind of have to understand what movies were like at the time that movie came out
00:51:44.780
and what it was trying to say, because I think it was about Hearst, I think. Yes.
00:51:49.120
Right. And so, I mean, I think it was very groundbreaking because of the time it was made
00:51:57.140
in and stuff. So it's harder to see it, I think from, um, to watch it now and see what the big
00:52:04.020
fuss is about. I mean, I know I sound like just a mongrel for saying that about that movie, but
00:52:08.180
I really remember the first time I saw it and I thought, I don't, I don't get it really.
00:52:12.660
Yeah. I think I, I haven't seen it, but I feel that my evaluation is going to be close to what
00:52:18.860
you just said. So that's why I always preferred not to see it. So it could kind of remain as a
00:52:23.540
mythical thing. That's not attainable. Uh, okay. I, we're almost running out of time.
00:52:27.600
Okay. We have, we have a little more time. Oh, we do. Okay. Yes. Yeah, we do. You think we
00:52:32.140
can go 10 more minutes? Yes. Okay. Okay. So, uh, switching to humor and comedy. So in evolution,
00:52:42.640
psychology, you asked me earlier what I do. So there is a theory in evolutionary psychology that
00:52:48.000
humor is a sexually selected trait. And let me explain what I mean by that. Meaning that
00:52:53.380
there is a sex difference in humor ability precisely because men use humor as a peacocking
00:53:03.700
signal to women. That's why you find usually that women who say, Oh, I'm, I'm really attracted to a
00:53:09.900
funny guy. Now I explained that as humor as a proxy for intelligence, because it's very unlikely
00:53:17.580
that you could be sarcastic and witty if you're not intelligent, right? They may not have all the
00:53:24.180
degrees from the Ivy league, but he's probably more intelligent than many of my colleagues who are in
00:53:28.020
the Ivy league. Right. Right. And so do you, you are a woman, you are a funny person. You've been in
00:53:34.580
a car. Do you subscribe to the idea that on average men are funnier than women, or you think, no, there is
0.98
00:53:46.240
Well, I get canceled for saying, no, there's no Trump world.
00:53:51.260
Right. Yeah. You know, I'm thinking about, well, in our line of work, I mean, you see so many
00:54:02.860
funny women in comedies and multicams and yeah. So in my world, I would say it's about equal. It's
1.00
00:54:13.280
just, I think men, and I'm not like a big, I am woman, hear me roar kind of person, but men do tend
00:54:20.540
to just get more of the gigs and have longer careers than women and in comedy and generally
0.99
00:54:30.220
speaking, but definitely in comedy and us. And I think it wasn't Christopher Hitchens. Didn't he
00:54:37.180
write something about it? And everybody was up in arms and all these women came out. That's why
0.91
00:54:43.640
I'm trying to get some funny. God damn it. You know, being the least funny, you know, if women
1.00
00:54:47.540
responded in a funny way, that would have been great. They just got pissed off, which just sort
00:54:51.960
of, you know, ruined it for them. So, yeah, I mean, well, let's put it this way. I'm going to,
00:54:58.540
I'm going to make it easy. If, if anybody gets into trouble, direct your hate mail to me,
00:55:03.220
right? Very few men say, Oh my God, you are so gorgeous. You're so sexy. You have such a
00:55:11.440
beautiful body, but frankly, you're not really witty or intelligent or funny. So no sex for you,
0.98
00:55:17.620
Linda. The other way around happens often, right? There's a gorgeous guy who physically fits all the
00:55:23.860
ideals. And then he opens his mouth. He's not intelligent. He's not funny. He's not witty. He's
00:55:29.300
not sarcastic, right? Worldly. And so many women have said, no sex for you. You're a dolt.
0.91
00:55:35.640
The other way I've never heard it said ever in the history of humanity.
1.00
00:55:38.940
Yeah. That that's kind of the difference between men and women though. Like men don't really need
1.00
00:55:44.080
necessarily an intellectual giant, right? They're not wired that way. I mean, yeah. And then you always
00:55:53.400
see like Woody Allen always had the most gorgeous women, right? Picasso. Yeah. You know, short little
1.00
00:55:59.940
guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a long lineup of ladies getting. Yes. Have sex with them. Yes.
1.00
00:56:06.820
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I agree. I mean, when I just look around at, you know, women I've worked
00:56:12.940
with and they are really, really, really funny, but men seem to get platformed more. So I think we just
00:56:17.840
see more men than, than women. Got you. Okay. Last question kind of on a, well, not personal
00:56:24.600
level, but what are some projects you're currently working on? Not that you need my platform to
00:56:29.800
promote them, but anything that you're working on that you'd like to share with us, take it away.
00:56:34.640
Tell us all about it. Well, I would like everybody to go watch Unexpected, our movie that we produced.
00:56:39.820
I'm not in it, but we produced it on Amazon prime. It's just a wonderful, funny comedy, but it has this
00:56:45.180
very moving heart to it about a couple who can't have kids and the wife wants to adopt
00:56:48.860
and the husband doesn't and sort of their journey in their marriage through that issue.
00:56:53.060
So that's great. And then I actually did a movie recently called The Ritual about an exorcism
00:57:02.140
that happened in 1928 in Wisconsin and Al Pacino's playing the exorcist.
00:57:08.180
So that, so that was really fun. And I got to play the Polish mother superior of the convent
00:57:13.280
where the exorcism- You can't throw at me that you met Al Pacino
00:57:22.240
He's so kind and wonderful and, you know, and so talented.
00:57:27.940
And he, I was thinking, okay, well, when I, and I actually met him a long time ago
00:57:33.320
because I did a script reading with him at our agent's office, but, you know,
00:57:39.880
I don't know that he would remember. He probably knew me from Raymond, but, um,
00:57:43.920
so I just thought, well, I'm just going to be like very deferential and calm when I see him.
00:57:48.800
And then he walked in and he goes, I know you. And I'm like, Al, you're my,
00:57:57.420
I was like, like a fawning sixth grader, you know, a middle school crush.
00:58:02.500
I mean, I just, you know, he's, he's just been great. He's always been great and he's kind and
00:58:10.040
he's lovely and he's generous. And yeah, it was just, you know, an honor to work with him. I had
00:58:14.760
a very tiny part, but I thought I need to be in a, especially for a Catholic, I need to be an
00:58:21.400
So I'm going to tell you a fantastic personal story involving Al Pacino.
00:58:25.520
So I'm 15 years old, I think on one of the rare times that I've ever gone to the movies
00:58:32.640
with either of my parents, I had gone to see, I think my parents had just returned from Lebanon
00:58:37.640
for the last time they had gone. So my mother and I went to see Cruising, which was, do you know that
00:58:45.560
Watch, hold on, hold on. This is going to get wild.
00:58:51.420
You were obviously not reading the Catholic newspaper that rates the movies and that movie
00:58:59.840
So, yes. So I've always been fascinated by, you know, serial killers and, you know, crime
00:59:07.260
things. And so this movie was about, I know, you know, but maybe our viewers don't. So it's
00:59:12.360
about Al Pacino playing a character of an undercover cop who goes into the heavy leather gay world
1.00
00:59:18.560
of the late 70s, S&M, you know, wild sex, anonymous sex to find the serial killer.
0.95
00:59:26.780
Now, I didn't know all that part. I just knew that Al Pacino plays a cop. He's going to see.
0.63
00:59:31.200
So we're watching the movie and now I'm getting very, very uncomfortable because there are some
00:59:34.700
really wild scenes. And then as we leave the movie, the same mother who was worried that
00:59:40.740
I might bring shame to the family because I'm going to be a school dropout with only an MBA.
00:59:45.900
She says to me, are you, did you bring me this movie to tell me something? I said, no, mom,
00:59:52.280
this is not my breakout. I'm gay scene. So that, so if you ever speak to Mr. Pacino,
00:59:59.920
tell him that my mother thought I was coming out as a gay boy because I saw that movie.
01:00:04.540
Oh my gosh. I can't even imagine sitting with your mom. Oh my gosh. That's hilarious.
01:00:12.880
So he was, he was a manifestation of the opposite of the adage. Don't meet your heroes in your case.
01:00:22.800
Wonderful guy. Yeah. Wonderful guy. And then I have a small part. There's a movie coming out on Amazon,
01:00:27.120
a nice Christmas romance movie called Merv about a dog. And it's, it's just a really jolly. It's
01:00:36.280
Charlie Cox and the actress. I'm, I didn't have my coffee this morning. So I'm the wonderful actress
01:00:43.500
from a single, what is it? Single girl. Chloe, Zoe Deschanel. Oh, yeah. Charlie Cox. Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:53.400
The offbeat girl, right? Yeah. She's beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful blue eyes. She's wonderful. It's a
01:00:58.300
really charming little movie. And so, yeah, so that's coming out. And there's one coming in
01:01:03.620
February. And also I have a very small role in it though, called Unbreakable Boy that's coming out
01:01:08.260
too. So there's a little couple, a couple of little things here and there while I'm trying to find
01:01:12.020
another TV series to do. So. Wonderful. Well, listen, what a pleasure it is for our world staff,
01:01:17.620
Collider. Thank you so much. Stay on the line. Okay. And you're in Michigan now, right?
01:01:21.960
Yeah. So I, I've taken a one year leave from my Montreal university, but I commute. Concordia?
01:01:28.480
Concordia. But I'm currently in Montreal, but my official job is in Michigan, gorgeous university,
01:01:36.620
Northwood university, gorgeous little town. I don't know if you've ever been there called Midland.
01:01:41.620
It's, it's a little, it's, so the, the, the, the unique feature of Midland is that it's the place
01:01:47.980
where Dow chemicals has its global headquarters. So because of that, over the past hundred years,
01:01:54.580
they've pulled, they've poured millions, billions of dollars into the town. So there's this little
01:01:59.880
town that's incredibly cultured and sushi bars and Italian restaurants that you would never imagine
01:02:05.540
exists in rural Michigan, but it's actually gorgeous. So I couldn't be happier, but yeah.
01:02:10.560
Oh, great. Thank you for knowing that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stay on the line so we could say goodbye
01:02:14.660
offline. Thank you so much for coming. Okay. Thanks for having me.