Camila Mendes

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Hi. Hi.

Very fun name to say today. Camila Mendes. It sounds good, doesn't it, Camila Mendes? It sounds smooth.

She's great.

She's great, but the name is also really nice. Camila Mendes is an actor and producer. She, of course, was in 26 seasons of Riverdale.

So many.

Due Revenge, Dangerous Lies, Palm Springs, The Perfect Date, but she has a new movie out. If you've been on Prime recently, as we have, you certainly have seen it, Upgraded. Upgraded, a new rom-com with Camila. We had a party with Camila.

This was a really fun episode.

It was a very sweet one. It reminded me of her best friend a little bit when she was here.

Oh, Lily Reinhardt.

Yes. We've had a couple of younger actors on where I'm nervous. it's not gonna go well. Oh, also, ding, ding, ding, Easter egg, Duck, Duck, Goose. If you've heard me say, Hollywood, wine o'clock, this is the birth of that.

And so confused. Yes. Also, if you heard us say pews, that's this episode as well. We started a lot in this episode.

This is a fertile, fertile episode.

It was really, really fun.

And after you watch Upgraded and you fall in love with it, please also check her out in Musica on April 4th. Also on Prime Video. Yeah. She'll keep you busy on Prime Video. Oh, yeah.

Thanks for coming.

This episode is brought to you by Vital Farms. Gosh, I love Vital Farms. I did too. I was just traveling with a catrillion pack of Vital Farms eggs.

Yes, I just purchased Vital Farms eggs yesterday. You did? Yeah, and I made eggs this morning.

Do you know what was incredible? I made eggs on the grill in pans and bacon on the bus. Oh! And we ate outside. And everyone was like, this is the best egg breakfast of all time.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

Hello! Hello, welcome! It's so nice to meet you. I'm so sorry, traffic was really rough.

It's okay, I'm chronically late.

You were early, you were very early. You were early? Fuck, so you've really been waiting.

Are you a late person?

Well, Monica's probably about as good as I am.

No, you're not.

Not like habitually. Not habitually, like probably one in five.

You're not. I mean, also, this doesn't count.

This is so weird, because it's like the house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in normal life.

I've never been late to a lunch to meet an executive or anything.

Good for you.

It's solely Rob's fault, though. Oh, okay, yeah. This particular situation.

It's all Rob's fault.

I didn't have squirrels.

No, you should have been,

you should have anticipated the worst.

We had squirrels.

I'm a Silver Lake girlie.

Oh, I was gonna say, what side of town are you on?

Silver Lake. Yeah, that tracks. I'm moving to Studio City soon. To get a yard? Well, I'm moving in with my boyfriend, so.

And he already lives there.

And he, yeah, and he has a yard. But I actually have a yard, too. Not that I ever go out there.

Will you be keeping your home and renting it out?

I highly recommend this. I will be keeping my home and moving my mom into the home. Oh, that's.

Nice. And when are you gonna charge her for rent?

Yeah, I know, I heard.

Okay, you already know.

Yeah, for five years now.

Boys get sad, too. Yeah. I told you a story about, we traveled on Christmas Day and I got into a real dust up with three construction workers. And I was wearing this. This past Christmas?

This is like a movie that you're wearing this.

It is. In fact, it's too silly for a movie. You'd be like, this is a cheap, cheap joke. So yeah, it gets heated. I'm yelling.

You need a red one that says boys get mad too. Exactly.

It says boys like to fight each other.

And duh.

Yeah, it was not the right outfit for that.

I love it.

I'm gonna guess minimally, maybe you listened to Lily's episode. Did you listen to?

Of course. Reinhardt? No, I was telling Monica, I'm a diehard fan.

Oh my God, it's so flattering.

I was telling her that when my publicist was walking me through all the press that we're doing to promote my movie. She's like, yeah, and then Dax Shepard. I was like, what? I freaked out. She's like, is that the thing you get the most excited about?

How long ago? This is self-indulgent, but I hope to make something out of it.

I wasn't that early. No, I was before Lily. When Lily told me she was going on, I was like furious. I'm like, what? Okay.

Well, it's enormously flattering. And then also a curiosity stems from it. And this is where it gets a little self-indulgent, but Lily also liked it. Nina really likes it. I'm just curious why the younger female actors seem to like it.

How old are you? I'm 29..

Okay, I just feel like younger people are more evolved. Even we had Jenna Ortega, and she's just already so evolved.

Absolutely.

That I think this is a draw.

Working in the industry when you're young makes you grow up really fast.

And there's a new crop. Your generation is speaking about things. The musicians are acknowledging their addicts in their songs, right?

There's an openness.

Sam Mendes, you share a last name with. He was on, I'm like, this guy feels like he's-.

Sean, Sean.

Sam Mendes, he's a great director, but Sean Mendes is the boy I'm speaking of. Great musician, Canadian. But yeah, he felt like he was 30 years into therapy at 24..

Exactly.

This kind of your generation having some tools and some awareness and some willingness to, I guess, be vulnerable.

I think it's also. a lot of people, like actors in the industry, have this thirst to dig deeper and get to know themselves and understand why they do the things they do. But I also feel like I know tons of people who aren't creative, people, who don't have as much interest in going to therapy. Yes. I just think maybe we see those people online a lot more.

Yeah. I think too, though, you're right in that. I feel like artists over-index. I think that's why they're able to access emotions. We just interviewed Juno Temple.

I didn't.

We were just talking about it. You guys covered everything. I thought you were recording.

We already recorded the episode.

Yeah, we're done. You have to watch it.

It's so good. I know.

It's a tour de force, insane kind of. A tour de force. A tour de force. Yeah, a force majeure. She can access some stuff pretty quick and you don't have that when you want to on a set and then the rest of your life, you're like, no, I'm as stable as they come.

I also think we were acting every day. for 10 months. We were in the habit of constantly emoting and digging deeper than the average person, and also Riverdale is a show that was high drama. all the time. Every scene, there's something, like we're always making this face and it's like.

You're kind of raw and exposed. Even reading about the fact that you guys did seven seasons and you were doing 22 a year, you really don't even read that anymore.

No.

I think maybe one season of Parenthood we did 20 or something.

We're the last of its kind.

Yeah, I don't.

Like. I think it ends with Riverdale. That network teen show.

Right, in a one hour show. Yeah. Which means the hours are insane. What's an average day on that show?

The earlier seasons were definitely longer. 16 hour days. Then it was like 13 hour days.

That was the standard. They kind of perfected the machine a little bit.

Yeah, they kind of knew they couldn't get away with 22 episodes of 16 hour days.

And how many days were the episodes? Seven or eight?

Nine business days and we'd have two tandem days.

Tell me about tandem days.

Tandem days is when there's two units going on at the same time. Sure. So as you're finishing one episode, you're also starting the next episode.

You're so young, but you're kind of like a grandma in this industry, because you know what it's like to shoot 22 episodes a year and those hours.

It's like a bootcamp. It's training. I feel like I can do anything now.

I'm glad you feel that way because, similarly, my very first movie, we were in New Zealand and we were shooting very long days and we were in water. that was like 39 degrees and we were freezing all day long and it was incredibly hard. I loved it. Best experience of my life. But everything after that has been easier.

Oh my God, yeah. That's the dream. And then you join Riverdale. I know. And they got paid so much money.

It's funny you say that because I just did Jesse Tyler Ferguson's podcast.

Oh yeah.

And it's hard not to think about how much money. I'm like, we're chatting, chatting, chatting. I'm fully connected. And then, once in a while, I'm like, yeah, three points of that show.

You'll just doze off and think about.

Of what a few points of that show is worth, yeah. Are you ever distracted by that? Follow up question. Yeah. These other young actors I know of your ilk, you're unique and wonderful and special.

Oh yeah. Okay, great.

Wait, really? Have you been on a boat? This feels standard. What?

Yeah. Why? 100%. I don't, wait, what? Too many.

Well, cause all these people are young tech billionaires, right? And they want to hang out with people.

That's the thing with billionaires. They just want to be cool. Yeah. They want to have friends and they want to be liked.

They want to be movie stars.

Yeah. I know, that's the irony of all of this life. Everyone just wants to be somebody else. Yeah. But who do you know?

We'll cut it out. By the way, we really cut everything out. We're not scandalous at all. I don't know. You can say anything you want and we'll cut it out.

We'll ask you after.

Okay, yeah.

But the reason I'm asking, if you know them, is do you find yourself distracted by it as well? Because even when we're interviewing like Brian Chesky, who started Airbnb and I happen to know he has like 38 billion.

I know him.

Of course, yeah, he's dialed in. So every now and then, when he's talking, it crosses my mind, like, if he gave me a billion dollars, he wouldn't notice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What?

That's crazy. Right. That someone could just give a billion and not even think about it?

No, because they'd be like, did I have 37 or 39?? Whatever, I have a ton of billions.

Yeah, like at that point, you can't even comprehend the difference.

It's not even real anymore. No. Money is not real. It's just a concept.

You're just mildly tracking it. Yeah. Or we know Bill Gates.

We know Bill Gates?

Yes, we've interviewed him twice. He's flown to do a live show.

He did this podcast? Yeah, twice. I need to listen to that episode.

He flew to Seattle to join us on a live show on a stage in front of 3,000 people.

Obsessed.

What a party animal. I couldn't believe it.

Who do you get nervous interviewing?

Great question. Letterman.

Oh, my God, yeah.

Hyper idols of mine, but more often it is Sapolsky, this genius professor, who's written my favorite book.

Like hyper intellectual people that you're like, I want to keep up with you and be on your level.

I don't want to be the dumb dyslexic kid. I really want them to think I'm smart, which is a terrible motivation to have, but I have it. And maybe their topic is really dense too. So I've got to research it and be able to have an understanding.

You've got to do your homework.

Exactly. So. those tend to be the ones. Would you agree? Who do you get nervous around?

Obviously. Your childhood loves of your life.

Of course. Your soulmates, your twin flames.

My twin flame.

Yeah. I've been nervous a few times. He's probably the most. I think I was nervous for Letterman because I was nervous for Dax.

Yeah.

Nervous by proxy.

It meant so much to him. This was such a big deal that I felt like, oh my gosh, I just hope this goes the way he wants it to go.

GP made her nervous. I do recall.

Oh yeah, Gwyneth Paltrow. Oh my God.

Gwyneth P.

The goop entrepreneur. I'm obsessed with Gwyneth Paltrow.

Does she make you nervous?

Have you seen her in real life?

Do you feel like you've got a tinkle when you think about interacting with her?

Okay. Maybe not.

Can you think of someone who does make you?

Oh yeah, I'm sure I can. I'm just terrible when people put me on the spot with things. so then, 20 minutes from now, we'll be talking about something and I'll be like, oh, that's someone that would make me nervous.

Perfect. And that is obviously, as you would know, the vibe of the show. So you're free to bring that up at any time. Did you have a childhood idol?

Did you have a childhood?

Have you ever been a child?

Kind of a fair question.

Yeah, honestly.

Did you have someone that you were like, that's the actor I want to be? Who was it and have you met them?

Yes. It was Rachel Bilson from the OC because I loved that show as a teenager. I've met her multiple times and I always tell her, she's like, no, I remember her. I know, you love me. But she's so sweet.

Do you know? Wabi Wab produces her podcast?

You do?

And he's often in the videos with her, and he's a better actor than all of us.

I was invited to go on the podcast, but I couldn't go because I was filming, but I'm like totally go now.

Oh yeah. Just spending it out there.

Spending it out there.

Camila's only second podcast ever.

I've only done one before this.

I listened to the other one.

Okay, homework. You were great.

Thanks.

She talks about mental health in a very casual, relatable way. Yes. Feels like you're just talking to, like another girl. There's something really nice about that.

And she's a teacher of some type? Cause. she was saying, oh no, I'm getting confused. She was saying the students in her class were products of divorce at a rate of 80%. But I for a second thought she meant her own students, but now I'm remembering she just meant her classmates.

Maybe you're confusing it with me saying that I took a children of divorce class in college.

That was when you were talking about it. And then she said that in her high school, 80% of the people she was in high school with, which felt high.

That's a very good memory, Dex.

Oh, thank you. It's pretty fresh. Don't get too excited.

That's why he was late. He's like, divorce, got it.

Can we go back to Charlottesville? Let's start in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Well, I don't have much of a memory, cause I was like one when I moved out of Charlottesville.

But didn't you move back?

I did, also for like a year.

You lived 16 times? Yeah. So we share this in common. Yours were more dramatic. Charlottesville, Atlanta, Charlottesville, Brazil, Orlando, South Florida.

I don't actually remember having a conversation about moving until I was like a preteen when we were leaving my neighborhood in fifth grade. I was devastated. But at that point we were already in South Florida. So the move wasn't that drastic, but I was leaving the school. I was moving an hour away, but that was the hardest part was just saying goodbye to my friends.

Okay, here's a fun question. It's a Machine Gun Kelly one. What place do you say is home? Because I have a place. I say that's home, but I was only there for three years.

Miami and Fort Lauderdale, I'd say. Just South Florida, really. Cause it's all kind of one big city. When I moved to South Florida in fifth grade, I was actually in Coral Springs, which is where Marjorie Stillman Douglas is, the school with the shooter and everything. Yeah, so that-.

What's the vibe down there?

My sister went to that school and she was like, she wasn't very happy there. She was older. I never went there. And then, in sixth grade, I started at one school and I stayed there through senior year. Oh.

How did you entertain yourself? It was the radio?

Music.

Did you also love South Florida, because obviously there's a huge Latino vibe there. You're finally gonna bump into some Brazilians probably.

It took me so long to embrace my Brazilian culture. when I was younger. I didn't wear it proudly for a long time. Oh yeah.

I'm still working on it.

Yeah. I was in the South for a lot of my childhood and I know South Florida is still the South, but it's not. It's like Latin America. But in Georgia and Virginia, we had some family friends that were Brazilian, so I did have a little bit of that presence. But for the most part, all my friends were white Southern girls, and so I didn't ever really have anyone to share my cultural identity.

I wouldn't even argue you're incentivized to not.

Exactly. Yeah. Also, because guys didn't have a crush on me. I was like the unibrow, hairy girl with glasses. It was so-.

If I were only Sarah Korn.

Exactly.

Shout out, Share Korn. I'd love to-.

Share Korn.

Share her Korn with me. Where in Atlanta were you?

Alpharetta.

I'm from Duluth.

Oh, cool. Literally. No, don't have any neighbors.

I don't know what that is, though. It's the same. essentially. Was Johns Creek a thing yet?

Is that the school?

Johns Creek is an area, but it's a piece of Alpharetta.

Because I remember my school was called Something Creek. It's like Big Creek, Old Creek Elementary, something like that.

Chattahoochee Creek?

A lot of creeks.

I like Chattahoochee Elementary. Very, very close.

Yes, so you were Indian and you were Brazilian. And both of your parents immigrated here.

Exactly. Both of them together.

At what age were they?

I actually don't know, because my dad went to college in Brasilia, but then went to University of Tokyo for grad school. And then my mom went with him.

Degree in?

Mechanical engineering.

Oh, I'm so horny for that. Guess what? Monica's father.

Structural engineer.

I think it's a big immigrant thing. It is. They love engineering over there. I have so many engineers in the family.

Yes, and I had two engineer stepdads, and at the risk of offending them, there's a vibe. I think, if you're going to be already from a different culture, that's the dream environment. Because everyone's talking numbers, they're getting onto brass tacks. It's not sales. It's not public relations.

Well, also just practically, I know, for Indians, it was because that's how you could get a job here. Engineering or computer science.

If you wanted a work visa, that's the move.

Yeah, you had to.

Yeah, my dad started in GE and then worked his way up really fast in GE.

Very great company.

Yeah, and that's why we were in Charlottesville, Virginia, because that's where GE was at the time.

My father-in-law was just making a very hard sales pitch for me to check out the GE Monogram series of ranges and ovens. He swears they're the best in the world, and this was a two-hour sales pitch. Wow. I've never heard someone that loved a product more than he loves his Monogram series. GE.

What French thing?

We're not gonna disparage it. Okay. You're not gonna disparage it? It is impossible to use. I'm so glad you guys got it, because I would have bought it for my house because it's gorgeous.

What's the appeal?

It's beautiful.

It's just beautiful.

I'll give it that. It's the centerpiece of the house, and it's astronomically expensive. And to light the burner, you have to hold it for 25, 30 seconds.

I'm too scared to use it.

Yeah, it's dangerous. So the Monogram by GE, apparently very friendly.

User-friendly, yeah.

Thank you so much. I'm glad you come from this background. Did you ever go to work with dad at GE?

No, I didn't.

Did he end up being like a manager of things?

I'm totally gonna butcher his story, but I know that he quickly got promoted to higher positions and then eventually started working for a completely different company that had nothing to do with engineering, and he just became like a CEO. He like transferred over into corporate world in business.

Is he a babe? Who of your parents is a babe? They're both. You're so objectively attractive.

They're both objectively attractive. They are.

Yeah. I wanna see the mom.

I'm sure you do, dad.

I do. Oh my gosh, she would be so flirty with you.

Oh. Really? She's single.

Let's get her on the FaceTime.

She's like a really bubbly personality.

We're probably the same age. No. How old is she?

She's 60 almost.

Yeah. No.

She's gonna kill me for saying that. She's 59..

Okay, great, great, great. That's nothing. That's a 10 year gap. I'm 49..

I'm 49..

Let's follow up on this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what did she do, and did they know each other in Brazil, or did they meet here?

They met when they were 14 in Brazil. So they were high school sweethearts who stayed together. She went to Japan with him when he graduated school, and she was a housewife for most of her life. And then recently, you know, my parents divorced a long time ago. You were eight?

Awesome. Oh my God, this would be the dream if I bump into her up at 30,000 feet.

Maybe. If you travel American, she'll be there.

She must tell people that you're her daughter.

Oh yeah. No, she does. Like. if anyone's watching my show, she'll be like,

that's my daughter. Good for her. How fun for her. I know.

No, and she's like a celebrity at American Airlines. Like people know, they know that she's my mom. Yes. And she loves it.

I love that for you. I would bump into her. So my mother, she had this business, and it did public relations for General Motors, and they would have these big events. One of them being GM, would sponsor Sundance. So they would provide transportation for all the actors that were in town.

Why didn't she drive me at Sundance?

when I was there a few years ago?

She probably did. Well, I guess you'd remember, because she would have told you she was my mom. But it's funny, because when I hear about your mom doing it, I love it, and I love it for her and you. But with my mom, I was a little embarrassed.

She's basking in the attention. She loves it. Good for her.

Even paranoid when I met Peter Krause. First thing he said to me is like, I know your mother really well. I rode with her three times in Sundance. She told me your whole story.

Oh, my God.

I have yet to have someone meet my mother before they meet me.

I do wonder if I've met her. Maybe.

She has gray hair. She let her natural hair grow out. She's embracing aging. I think it's beautiful. Oh, I love that.

Say it in Portuguese, please.

She's like chef de cabine, which means cabin chief, maybe, or manager of the cabin.

Like queen of the cabin.

Yeah, she's queen of the cabin. That's the formal term. I love this for her. I love her.

Queen of the cabin. Yeah, I was going dictator of the cabin,

but queen of the cabin is much better.

And what's her route?

Well, right now she's commuting from Arizona.

Well, she's about to live here.

So she moved to LA, but it's really hard to transfer to the American Airlines base in LA. It's a highly desirable base.

And tell me why.

Because everyone wants to live in LA.

Well, that would be my guess, but also what's tricky is, I imagine the salaries are based across the nation.

But LA is just a lovely place to live for a lot of people.

Yeah, and if your daughter is Camila Mendes, you get a house.

She was in Miami before, which was a great base. And she got, like, a lot of good flights going out of there, especially to Brazil. She was living with my sister for a long time. My sister finally moved out and is now living in Ireland with her husband. So my mom's an empty nester.

So-.

She's 33..

Okay, so this is comforting, because even though you were moving around a lot, you minimally had her. Are you guys tight?

We're tight. We're both terrible at texting. We don't have that kind of dynamic where we are texting and calling all the time. But when I see her, we're like sharing tons of stories. You know, we're super open with each other.

But she's also four years older than you?

I was starting high school when she went to college. Right. So like not around for most of my high school experience.

Did you like her boyfriends?

We have very different types.

Okay. And what's her type?

She's like, my sister's a- No, it's fine. I don't know that she also has like- Maybe it's not.

Maybe I just pressured you. It sounds like it's not, according to Monica.

I have an answer. And it's that she-.

Well, cause I know your type, or at least I know who you're dating currently.

Do you know my type?

I think I do.

It's all over the place, though. No guy that I've dated is the same, I feel.

I bet you, they have a quintessential quality that you're attracted to. Maybe.

Let's talk about your sister's type first. Maybe some of them, but my sister's type. More importantly, my sister's type. I'd say she likes a nerd because she's kind of nerdy herself. Like she's so fucking smart.

Yeah, I like that about her.

I love her. She was a gamer girl for a long time. She was like really good at League of Legends. She's in that world.

I got my arms around, what I think she is and who she likes.

You know everything about her.

Who I like or my sister?

Your sister.

Oh, okay.

Because my fear was you're gonna go like, who's my sister? And in your head, you're like, she likes dumb, dumb jocks. And then you were like, how am I gonna say this in a non-offensive way? But this was ideal. I love when girls like nerds.

Yeah.

Nerds run the world. I love nerds. Billionaires. Yeah, they're all nerds.

Back to billionaires. They're all nerds.

It all goes back to billionaires. Wait, so your type.

Let's find a through line. I don't think there is one. I really don't.

Funny?

Are they all funny? Definitely funny. But I've dated non-funny guys. Oh, how boring. Didn't work out.

But your current boyfriend, Rudy?

Very funny.

Of course. Successful as someone who's funny. Do you know her boyfriend?

I know who he is.

Okay, back to eight.

We were on something.

We were talking about moving around a lot. We were talking about what's home, and home is South Florida, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Georgia, kind of running from your Brazilian-ness.

Oh, that's what it was. Being in the theater department in high school, I could see how me, being Latina, was limiting. And so I would literally wear sunscreen all over my body in high school. Oh boy. Our school was kind of outdoors.

You got ahead of the game.

But it was motivated by a desire to have lighter skin.

Did you think for a second, when she said that about the sunscreen, that she was trying to make her skin white? Oh, no, did you? Yeah. Oh, wow. For a second.

You want to hang it on me?

I just wondered if you thought that. But also, when I was a teenager, there weren't that many opportunities for Latina actresses. So I think this has changed a lot. Part of that has helped. I feel like I'm so appreciative, and I embrace my culture so much now.

What was the year you lived in Brazil like? And what city were you in?

I was in Brasilia, which is the capital. I loved it. It was the first time I got to live close to my extended family and see them regularly. But Brasilia's not really a representation of Brazil, because it's so man-made. It's so new.

Because it's modern, obviously.

Very modern.

And what age were you when you lived there?

I was 10, 11..

And obviously when you were there, I'm assuming the people that lived there saw you as an American.

I'd say so. I went to the school called Escola Americana de Brasilia, which is an American school in Brasilia. So because Brasilia is the capital, everyone that went to that school, their dad or mom or whoever worked at the embassy, it was like an international school. So I was surrounded by people from all over the world. I didn't necessarily feel like a fish out of water there, because everyone was a fish out of water.

And how were you doing moving around through the streets of Brasilia?

Brasilia's so safe and chill. It's not like other cities in Brazil.

Right, not like Rio de Janeiro, where you're-.

There's definitely still violence and things happen.

And you already spoke Portuguese, I presume.

Yeah, and then this made my Portuguese stronger and better, because then I was learning grammar and speaking it regularly. So I feel like now my level of Portuguese speaking is so much stronger.

Two questions, which do you prefer speaking? Like, if you got to only speak one of the languages for the rest of your life and everyone would be able to understand what you're saying, what would it be?

I mean, I have to say English because it's such a universal language.

But in this scenario I'm painting, you're communicating with everyone.

Okay, then Portuguese, absolutely. I love speaking Portuguese. My English is stronger. Yes. I feel more confident.

Because to me, it appears to be like if you gave me the choice between driving a Ferrari and a Land Rover. The musicality to the language. I mean, things are popping. There's a flow. I would way prefer to speak that.

There's a lot more expression in Portuguese. There's a lot more emotion. Anytime me and my mom get in a fight and I'm speaking in English, she's like, can you speak Portuguese, please? She's like, when you're speaking English, you sound like a robot. She's like, I feel like there's no emotion in your voice.

Iconically, it sounds more passionate, more romantic, more everything.

Now I'm dating Rudy and he is Brazilian. So, for the first time ever, I'm dating someone who I can speak Portuguese with. And it's amazing, because now there's like a whole side of me that was like dormant, that I didn't get to bring out and show people. And now I get to share that with him. And we make jokes in Portuguese all the time.

Monica's gonna erupt in flames with this question, but during the lovemaking, we must be speaking Portuguese, right?

Absolutely not. Oh, English!

I also, I can't. No! Really?

No. Oh, my God.

Wouldn't you laugh?

Doesn't that seem natural?

It's still not my dominant language, though, you know?

It's a big swing.

I don't even know what I would say in Portuguese. Remember, I learned Portuguese from my family, so.

I don't know what I would say.

Huh.

How about, okay, forget lovemaking, but how about, like this, when things are getting romantic and you guys are having a drink together in the evening, we'll transition into Portuguese, and that is more connected and more emotional?

Yeah, we speak Portuguese with each other a lot.

Okay, what percentage, would we say?

I'll be realistic. I'll say it's like 30%. That's great. Yeah.

And then, incredibly, every time you're around people, you guys can openly gossip about people right in front of them. Yeah, totally. What a superpower for a couple to have.

But it's also, as soon as you do that, people kind of know you're, there must be something you're hiding.

They can feel it.

Yeah, I like that. Have you heard? the one, comparison is the thief of joy?

Yes.

That's a good one, too. It is.

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It's ubiquitous, which is really nice.

Yes, and you get cash back.

I also like it because you can send money with PayPal to friends.

Oh, yeah.

Which means going halfsies when your BFF visits this summer, or Callie and I live in the same city, so she's not visiting, but we are going on a trip, and so we're gonna have to do a lot of splitsies.

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You know how couples have a voice? Mm-hmm. You have the way that you speak. when you're being cute with each other? We switch to Portuguese.

Yeah, because if you think about when you're in public with your partner, half of what you're doing is connecting, like, oh my God, did you hear that? Yeah. That you have a very specific look on your face. It's the nudge of the knee. So to have, like, a language you could actually articulate.

I also am proud of you, because if you grew up trying to stifle that part, to now choose a partner where that's a big part of your life and to bring it back out and understand that it's okay.

Totally.

That's a big arc.

It's like we can understand each other in ways I've never felt understood, especially around family and the relationship to family. I think Americans have a lot of boundaries with family. I've struggled in therapy to talk about this because Brazilian mothers, and, you know, Rudy made a movie about this that's gonna come out, Musica, in April. And in the movie he talks about, it has to do with having these overbearing Brazilian mothers who just love too hard. And that's very normal in Brazil.

They had a boundaries vaccine. Yeah. They're completely inoculated from boundaries.

My mom was like, boundaries, boundaries are toxic.

She might be right, by the way.

No, boundaries are important.

But I think Rudy has helped me embrace that type of familial dynamic, because he experiences it too, and we can connect over that and make peace with it instead of fight it.

And I bet there's so much more understanding for what each person's going through with their family and tolerance when the other person's.

feet on the ground. And helping each other exercise patience.

Yeah. Was he born there or here?

He was born in New Jersey.

Okay, great. And both of his parents also?

His dad's Italian.

Oh, wow.

And his mom's Brazilian. But yeah, they both immigrated.

This is a passion atomic bomb. Oh, yeah. Wow, wow, wow. I wanna see him fly off the handle, or something. What's his type?

Let's talk about his types now.

A fire extinguisher? You just said something that was intriguing. Oh, I think we could-.

That she's proud of me?

She is proud of you. Our very close friend, Ana, is Venezuelan. So I think we could stereotype here. The whole Latin family world is so much closer in, I think, a very enviable way. I think it'd be a big pain in the ass at times, but overall, I think that's what a family should be.

Yeah, it's a support system. It's a community of people. And I'm so envious of my family that lives there because when I go visit in Brazil and I see my family, they have the closest relationships and they see each other every weekend. There's such a family vibe there. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I wish I had that.

Oh, in COVID, Ana would get on these Zoom calls with 16 members of her family. They'd all get hammered. They'd be on a Zoom call for six hours. They'd be partying together. And I'm like, fuck, that seems fun.

And her girlfriend just went with her to Spain for a family wedding. And she came back and she was like, I'm so jealous of that, what happens when they're all together. I noticed that too, because I think it's a lot of places, not just Latin countries, but Indian families are like that too, super tight, and everyone's living with each other until they're old. I have distanced myself so much from it that I can see it from a bird's eye view. America is so closed off, family-wise.

Well, the WASP-y Protestant history, yeah, the English. We'll go to England. Everyone's still so polite.

That you send your children off to college at 18.. Sometimes I'm like, 18-year-olds, they're so baby and they're gonna live by themselves. That's crazy. But I did it, I guess I'm fine.

Well, that was my next question. How long before you got into Tisch? You went to NYU Tisch. That's where my wife went. Oh, really?

Big fan of your wife.

Well, I'll pass that along to her. I'm hoping some of these things still occurred there. that I've learned occurred while she was there. When did you set your sights on it and what was the fantasy?

I had wanted to go there for a long time, but I also wanted to go to UCLA, but I didn't get in.

Ah, well, I can't wait to report this to my wife, because we fight all the time about-.

Because Dax went to UCLA. You went to UCLA.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very good school.

Go Bruins.

And out of high school. I could have never got in out of high school. I transferred.

But I mean, I'm glad I went to NYU because I got to study acting with a BFA and not a BA. The BA, I would have had a lot more gen eds. Even the amount of gen eds I had at NYU, I was like, I'm over it.

Okay, so if you do a BFA, you don't have to do all these prerequisite-.

It's a Bachelor of Fine Arts versus just a Bachelor of Arts. There's less of all the math and all the regular stuff you have to take.

Yeah, it was more concentrated. And I still had certain requirements, but not as much.

NYU's a better school for liberal arts education.

We love a liberal arts education.

I remember I had gotten to Emerson on a full ride and my dad was really stoked about that. And then I got the NYU acceptance letter with no scholarship.

Ouch.