Best of Mondays 2023

Because I wanted to give a little more time to the clips and shorten the amount of them. Yeah, I like this direction a lot. I think it was a good adjustment. So you'll just be hearing Mondays right now, and it will be longer, more protracted clips, and we think it'll be more impactful. And it goes without saying, or should, that there are many on here that didn't make the list that belonged on the list.

This is not an easy. I capped it at 10.. Yes, that was an arbitrary number. Well, it felt round. Yeah, it's really good.

I like it, round features. When I was going through them, and when ultimately, looking at this list, what a year. Yes. Really incredible. Yeah, beautiful year, lucky.

We're so lucky. Oh, my God, it's ridiculous. Thanks for listening, guys. Thanks for listening, and thanks for all the people that are on this list, because you're the show. That's right.

Thank you, and please enjoy.

He's an object's friend.

I have gotten fired a couple of times. Oh God, me too. I want to hear about your being fired. This would have been stuff that I had actually auditioned for, the To Serve With Love, Part Two story. It was something they were doing in Chicago, and it was a TV movie, and Peter Bogdanovich was directing it, and Sidney Poitier was reprising his role.

I auditioned for Peter Bogdanovich, and he said, yes, you should do it. And so we had a rehearsal, and they set up all these little desks, like a classroom, and then the teacher's desk in front, and all the kids who had been cast were assigned desks, and we were all sitting at our desk, and then this door flies open and unlocks Sidney Poitier, and sits down on his desk, the teacher's desk, and Peter says, this is Sidney Poitier, and everybody claps, and Peter said, let's dive right in, and we'll start with a scene featuring Michael Shannon, and it was the scene that I had actually auditioned with. We do it one time, and I was a little nervous being in front of all the other kids for the first time, being in front of Sidney and all that, but I had done the scene in the audition, so I knew it, and I pretty much, I felt like, did it the way? I did it in the audition, which Peter seemed to enjoy, and then, when the scene was finished, Sidney didn't look so happy, and Peter walked up to him, and they were conferring with one another. Oh, God.

Oh, my God. I was still in my teens. Peter walked up, and he said, yes, Michael, and he gave me some note about how my character, even though he was from the wrong side of the tracks, he was still very charming, and a really smart kid, or something, I don't know, and I tried to process what that actually meant, or how it would affect my performance in a discernible way, and then did it again, and it was basically like a Groundhog Day scenario, where the same thing just kept happening over and over again, and then finally, Peter says, let's take a break. Oh, this is my nightmare, oh, my God. And all the kids are watching all these takes, yeah, your peers.

There's a little craft service-type table with coffee and tea and snacks on it, and Sidney walks over, and he's making himself a cup of tea, and I realize that I need to do something. And I'm also just really curious, because the man has made no direct approach to me. It's all been kind of a third-party situation, so I'm kind of curious to hear from the horse's mouth just exactly what I'm doing. that's pissing him off so much. So I walk up, and I say, excuse me, Mr.

Poitier, I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but I'm really happy to be here, and I'm trying really hard, and I'm paraphrasing. I can tell you're frustrated. I wanna do better. I just don't understand what's happening right now. Babbling on and on.

And finally, I'm like, shut up, shut up, just stop talking. Just let him say something. And so I stop talking, and there's this pause, and he stares at me, and he says, I don't know what your technique is, but you're weird. And he turns around and walks away from me. Wait, what?

That's so rude. Yeah, that's very rough. And you're 16 or 17?? Yeah, I was like, maybe 18, yeah. Oh, what do you even do with that?

Yeah, you have to retool my genetics. Let me just go into the genetic scrambler backstage. So then Peter comes back in, and he says, well, I think what we'll do is everyone else can go home, except for Michael. Michael, stay here. By the way, this is a really long story.

I don't know if you have other- We have nothing. We love long stories. The longer, the better. You've got a lot of papers over there. No, no, no, no, no.

Those are just-in-case papers. I have two. It's the safety net I don't even need. So there's a kid sitting behind me, and he taps me on the shoulder, and he says, hey, I'm just an extra. I don't even really have any lines.

Maybe add a line or two or something. He's like, I actually work at a bank, but I was interested in getting into acting, and I got this opportunity. But anyway, what I really wanted to say is that I don't know why they keep making you do this over and over again, because I think you're doing a good job. Aw. And I don't understand what they're saying to you.

It doesn't make any sense. Oh, thank God for that, banker. And he said, I hope I see you tomorrow. I hope this guy's listening right now. I hope he's-.

You don't know his name. Like, 10 dances? Hold on, yeah, yeah. Who knows where this story goes? Okay, okay, okay.

So everyone leaves. Peter says, this is what we're gonna do, Mike. We're gonna go through all of your scenes in the whole movie. Just me, you, and Sidney, and I'll read all the other parts. So we did that, and then Peter said, okay, you can go.

Can I ask really quickly, are you even able to perform any of the rest at this point? Are you not in your head, like, feel like you're disassociating? I was in a bit of a fugue state, probably. A fugue state. But I mean, if I can lash back here, it wasn't like it was Hamlet or something.

I mean, it was some crappy TV movie. I mean, it was a real piece of shit. So it wasn't like I had to use all of my powers or something to pull it off. So anyway, I walk home, and by the time I get home, there's a message from my agent, and it says, you've been fired. Oh.

Oh, my God. And then, years later, I was in New York doing Killer Joe off-Broadway. Peter Bogdanovich came to see it one night with Sidney Poitier's wife. No way. Oh my God.

Yeah. What? And we're in the dressing room afterwards, and the stage manager's like, yeah, Peter Bogdanovich is here. He'd really like to meet everybody. And there he is with his little cravat on.

He always wore it. He's like, just extraordinary, lovely, blah, blah, blah. I'm just standing there staring at him, and I'm like, mm-hmm, I'm glad you dug it. I'm like, do you remember me, man?

Like, what the fuck? And he's like, Michael, I don't know. I don't know what he was talking about. He just didn't like you. I don't know why he didn't like you.

There's Sidney Poitier's wife standing there. I'm like, what are you doing? hanging out with Sidney Poitier's wife?

And then I moved to LA. Killer Joe is what actually got me to move to LA, because when I did, Killer Joe, I got a manager, and the first thing the manager says is, you gotta go to LA. I said, I don't wanna go to LA. He said, you got to. I'll take care of you.

And that was Lee Daniels. The Lee Daniels of Lee Daniels, the butler. Wait, he was your manager? Yes. What on earth is happening right now?

What is happening? Sidney Poitier has weird spidey senses that people are fired on. Lee is your assistant slash manager. What? He saw the play and he said, I wanna represent you and I want you to go to LA.

And so I did. And then, when I was living in LA, I went to Coachella once. It was the year that Iggy Pop and the Stooges played. Back when Coachella was, I might offend somebody. I don't know.

Be careful. Yeah, yeah. You don't want the Coachellas after you. The coochies. I was standing out there in the mob and a guy walks up and he taps me on the shoulder and I turn it on.

He says, hey. I'm like, hi. He's like, you, don't remember me? I'm like, no. He said, dude, okay.

You remember To Serve With Love, part two? I'm like, yeah. He's like, you remember that day where they made you do that scene over and over again, and then they sent everybody home? You remember the guy who sat behind you and tapped you on the shoulder and said you were doing a good job? I'm like, yeah.

He's like, that's me. No way. I'm like, oh, man, I'm sorry. It's been a minute. Yes.

Frankly, it was a traumatic experience and I tried to block it out of my memory. I'm like, well, so what are you doing? Have you become an actor? Are you following your dreams? He's like, yes.

I quit the bank and I came to LA and I'm going for it. I'm like, how's it working out? He's like, it's tough, but I think I'm making some progress. I said, yeah, well, good luck. Nice to see you.

So then, a few years later, I'm going to meet Oliver Stone, read for World Trade Center and I walk into the lobby and there's a cat sitting there and he looks at me. I say, hey, hi. He's like, don't you remember me? Oh, God. Poor guy.

I'm like. I'm starting to think you deserve to get fired from that movie. I'm like, I'm sorry. He's like, dude, I saw you at Coachella. Oh, my God.

I was the guy, I said nice things to you when you, that day you got fired. I'm like, all right. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm going to ask him. From his third will be the charm.

I'm like, hey, you're here. Are you going to meet Mr. Stone? He's like, yeah. I'm like, well, he's doing great.

You can audition for Oliver Stone. He's like, yeah, I am. I'm doing pretty good. I'm like, yeah, well, congratulations. And it's Michael Peña.

No.

Yeah, you guys are, we're all the same age. Oh, my God. Do you know? I directed a movie with him in it? Oh, really?

Yeah, Chips, he and I. So I ended up coming to know him very, very well. I can't believe that was Peña. The fact that it's him. How sweet of him too, to say, of course he said that.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Did either of you get World Trade Center? I can't remember. Yeah, it's him and Nicholas Cage.

Wow, what a story. Fucking A, that was Peña. I like want to text him now and say I'm so proud of him. I don't know if he will cooperate. Well, we did this movie together, 12 Strong.

We were in Alamogordo, New Mexico, which is where they used to test the bombs. It's supposed to be Afghanistan. And we were all staying out in this holiday inn in the middle of nowhere. And the only place to go at night was Chili's. Safe port in a storm, Chili's.

Yeah, things got a little out of hand at the Chili's sometimes. Oh, that's bad. By the way, you know, in Bowling Brook, me, Koechner, and Arnett were blasting the Chili's every night. That's where we were at every night. Same set.

You can't eat there. No, it's, yes, yes, yes. I don't want to rule them out. You can't eat at Chili's every night. Arnett and I were eating the salad, thinking we were winning.

Like, oh yeah, we'll just have a salad. We'll just keep it low-cal. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have no idea. It was like 3,600 calories.

Yeah, with a little sour cream. Yeah. 3,600 calories? I don't know. They're astronomical.

when they started printing the calories on the menu. Okay, I'm going to tell you something, but if this winds up on the show. Trust me, we would never, ever do that. We cut anything out. No, because it's actually very incriminating of me.

Actually, you could put it in the show. I don't know how he'd feel about it. Things went a little south with me and Michael. Because one night, we were at Chili's,

and I did this thing. I can't believe. I'm telling you this. It's so mean. We'd had a very long day, and I was a little out of sorts.

I think I might've had, like a sunstroke or something. I don't know. I suddenly got this wild hair up my ass to put a little jalapeno scene on my thumb. Uh-huh. And Michael was talking, and I was like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

You're going to make me leave after I tell you this. No, no, I won't. And I just rubbed the seed on his eyelid. Not on his eyeball. Like something like that.

On the lid. And he's like, ah, ah, ah. And he was like, what did you just do to me? And I'm like, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I don't know why.

I'm losing my mind out here in the New Mexico desert. And he's like, we're going outside, man. We're going outside right now. And we went outside. And he was just like, you.

piece of shit. What the fuck's wrong with you? I'm like, man, I'm sorry. Yeah, that was. He's like, we're gonna go.

We're gonna go. I'm like, no, man, I don't wanna fight. We gotta go to work tomorrow. It'll go away. You'll be fine.

The sting will subside. Yeah, so that's Hollywood, baby. Yeah. What a rascal. What could be more fun than working at that Chili's in the first, it's exciting, there's like.

some actors from Hollywood are here. And now, all of a sudden, the actors are on the parking lot. It's like they're squaring up to fight. This is curious. This is how they hold down.

Well, he's probably like, what is wrong with you? Like, I was nice to you. Right, and now you're rubbing it out. And you forgot me two times. Now I'm famous and you're now hurting me.

Yes. No, he's got justifiable grievances. There's no doubt about it. Oh, my Lord. I mean, you can put it in the show if you want.

Okay.

He would say something and I would say, no, no, no, no. You told me that on October 11th and you got that script on October 19th. And I still remember these days. I had it all in black and white. And there was still part of me.

when he said, I don't know what you're talking about, that my body wouldn't believe that I'd seen the proof.

Like my whole body just went, okay, you can grieve. You're not crazy. You're safe. You can grieve. You can have nachos and you can have a glass of wine.

And it was also a moment where I went, oh, I had like a deeper understanding of addiction and the people in my life that deal with addiction, because I was like, I just happened to not get the gene. That's all that happened. Because I would have done anything to make that feeling stop. And if I happened to have the gene that meant that using anything would have stopped that feeling, I would have fucking done it. And I just happened to not have that.

And it was like my whole body got whatever it is that it needed. It at least stopped that total panicked state that I'd kind of been in for a year. Did the switch happen in him? You know, like the light switch? After he got rejected by her?

That's a really good question. And for somebody who's cataloged so many dates, I'm surprised I don't have a perfect answer. Like he was also mourning another relationship. Right, right. A fantasy of.

I'll be with her and I'll be wonderful. And now I'm not. And so then, two things are happening. He's living, he's being with you and he's mourning another thing. I just want to say one thing, which I'm sure you already think of and thought of, but a trick I use is, I imagine that a stranger at an AA meeting is telling my story.

Because I know if you had a friend that had your whole story, you would be like, oh my God, sweetie, of course that happened. You'd fucking dedicated five years of your life to this person. Of course that happened. Well, I think I got so convinced that I was not a credible person or a sane person that I expected that anytime I told any of this to anyone, let alone on a podcast with people that I have a parasocial relationship with, with that's all, that I would be interrogated and not believed. And I end up holding all this tension in my hands.

And it's because I want to reach for a journal, a computer or something to go, no, no, no, no, no. It was this day. I'll find it and I can prove it and that I'll be called upon to prove it. And so, as you were saying that I was going, not only would I have compassion for that person, I would believe them. This has actually helped me a lot in terms of understanding why people stay.

is that I know that no matter how compassionate and wonderful your listener base is, A, I know that there will be people that are like, girl, why didn't you just fucking leave? I don't think so. I really don't think so. I think that's a voice in you. I mean, that might be something that's triggered in them.

Maybe it's people who read an article about the podcast or whatever. Yes, but equally, I think there will be someone who reads a tweet about the article, about the podcast or whatever, who goes, she's probably fucking lying. I can't wait for you to watch the Stutz thing. And I'm sure you're already very familiar with the shadow. That really is the shadow talking to you.

That is the voice that we all have. that says, don't dare be truthful, honest and genuine, because you'll be rejected and they'll laugh at you and they'll judge you. I don't want to say it's not true. Perhaps that's possible, but I have found out countless times through experimenting on here, it hasn't happened to me. It happens in my head all day, every day.

If I go digging, great. Sure, I could find some stuff, but in general, it's not truly a part of my reality. I'm wondering as I'm going, oh, I feel certain I've seen really terrible, dismissive things. I mean, not about this, I haven't talked about this, but I wonder if I have actually seen those things or if I've misread, or if, anytime that I do, I catalog it as proof for my shadow self. Sure, it just corroborates whatever you're already feeling.

But no, women get the. why did you stay question? a lot more than I think men get the. why did you stay question? if that's even a question that men ever get asked, I don't know.

You might be right, but I do think that when men are in abusive relationships, there's even less sympathy for them sometimes. And it might be in a different way, in just more of a, but you have the power, so why didn't you leave? Or, like you're pussy whipped or something like that. Totally, totally, totally, that is really true. I bet also there's an even deeper reluctance to come forward with that if you're a man.

I think a lot of men are in similar relationships and the shame that you already feel, not that one's better or worse, it's just A, dudes aren't supposed to feel anything, period. And then, yes, they're supposed to have the power and societally it's emasculating. It's complicated. Again, I'm not saying one thing's worse than the other. I will just say one thing that compounded me being molested was it's a dude.

So I have whatever gay stuff that I'm afraid of as a kid. On top of the other thing, it's like, well, I can't say this because everyone will say I'm gay. On top of that, I was a victim. It's like, well, now I'm gay. I've done stuff with a man.

I don't know, it's just complicated. It's not just societal. It's for everything. Everyone's in a fucking trap. For girls it's like, then I'm a slut or then I'm, it's always, but just because I feel obligated to tell you that, yes, some people are going to think that.

Who cares? It's just not your responsibility. And if they're invalidating abuse, I have actually had enough examples now that the first thing that I end up going to is, I'm so sorry that you endured something that you were told was fine. So I take that back. I've read a couple things after this Day 7 episode we released.

And a handful of people said, that motherfucker's full of shit. He's a junkie. In truth, I could care less. Like when I actually said my truth out loud. and there's five people, I actually don't give a fuck.

Yeah. There is something- This is nothing to defend. There is a force field around telling the truth. I don't know to what degree you guys talk about Day 7, more on the show. Because I have felt like I haven't heard you guys talk.

And I didn't know if that was intentional. Again, just this like shining beacon, heart opening thing of these two people having this conversation around accountability and compassion for each other. Reception and lying. But you used the word gaslighting. And I remember thinking this was not gaslighting.

I don't know. I wasn't there. I wasn't there. But whatever it was, I was like, this is- Okay, great, great, great, great, great. Because I don't know I wasn't there.

And so there were things that maybe didn't get discussed. But there was part of me where I started to think about, is there another word that we can use for this kind of year long chemical grade gaslighting? Yeah. Where I literally stopped my life to fix the mental problem that I have. It's a big word.

There's some words that are pretty big catchalls and it is a gradient. But that affected you deeply. Yeah, I mean, when you know something. Yes, yes, yes. And you're saying, I know this.

And they're saying, no, what are you talking about? Did it rise to, I mean, you'd be happy to cut this out, if it's whatever, but I'm very curious if that's okay. Like, did it rise to the level of, there's something wrong with you? With me? Yeah.

Oh, in those conversations. Yeah, like you see this everywhere. I never called you crazy. I think there was implications of that. Like, why are you always asking me this?

Because you're in survival mode. You're doing everything you can in that moment. I'm not denying it at all. To survive the situation. No, I lied directly to your face numerous times.

I will say, which was in the episode was, my tolerance for that used to be years. I could do that for years. Right. The only thing the long sobriety had bought me was it was pretty insufferable to do it. I hated doing it.

And it's what made everything escalate really quickly. And it was a pretty short timeframe where I couldn't do it. That week leading up to it was like, I was starting to detox. I'm now saying I'm in a psoriatic arthritis flare up. Now more questions come about.

that, which now is more lies. So it escalated pretty quickly. I feel kind of put on the spot. I know, I'm sorry.

You just used a term that had never occurred to me in the context of my relationship, which is that you're in survival mode. That the person you're interrogating is in survival mode. That is exactly the feeling was I'm threatening your very survival. And even though there wasn't a physical addiction going on in that relationship, it's actually helped me to think of him as an addict, in a way to just go like, oh, there's something that's being touched, that feels like it is an actual threat to your survival. And I've heard not that this means anything cause lie detector tests don't actually work.

But you know, if there was such a thing where it actually detected deception, that there's a phase when you're going through addiction that you could easily pass a lie detector test, even though you are clearly cross the threshold into addiction, you can just totally self-deceive. And I think that was definitely like that pre-awareness phase where it was like survival mode. And I think if he'd been hooked up to a lie detector test, if such a thing existed, he would have passed. No, you believe it. He believed it.

Yeah. Cause he had to, to survive. Yes. The best example I've ever seen of it is this show where these people have to be up in the Arctic and they're gonna drop off one by one. They are out there for like a hundred days, living off nothing.

It's called Alone. Okay. I've heard of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you watch people come up with, ultimately, some story right before they quit.

that would have left them no option but to quit. And you recognize that their brain, the whole 38 days they're sitting there freezing, is trying to come up with a reason to quit. that's not that their will has failed them. Most of them come up with these medical conditions. They're not real.

And then they'll, this one, I'm having a heart attack. I gotta get out of here. I tap out. Oh, that's fascinating. He's not having a heart attack, right?

But yeah, the addict brain, it's like a writer's room where the joke's not good enough and you keep going, you keep going, you keep going. You finally latch onto one thing. So now, if Monica asked me something about that day, it's like, well, she sucks me out of the story. And by me saying yes, now the whole identity's in jeopardy. And now what?

If I'm saying yes, I'm doing this. Now it's like, then I'm gonna admit I've relapsed. Then I have zero days. Then I gotta what? I gotta tell people on the show.

Seemingly, my whole life is somehow at risk, because she's the reality that brings me out of my story, which is all my brain does is come up with stories until I believe in one of them. The addict brain is so smart. It's actually really obnoxious that we can't take that brain and put it towards something like wonderful and productive and humanity saving. A lot of addicts are doing both. But I was just thinking about my shame brain will do that.

I think that's even why I was asking about your journey with yelling at the guys in your yard. How long did your shame brain tell you a story that you had no choice but to yell at them? Because that's what my shame brain will tell me when I do something I don't like. It will work so hard. I've never been smarter than when I am coming up with a reason why my bad behavior was justified.

It's a drug. It puts you in an altered state. Because you're in survival mode. Because it's like, if I admit that and my shame takes over, I might as well be fucking dead. I'm a bad person.

I'm a bad person. I'm a worm. Verdict's in. Yes. You're a piece of shit.

Yeah, walk of shame. You're everything you feared you were. You're gonna die alone in a pit. We've all decided. Everyone voted.

I was thinking about you going out and apologizing. I'm so sorry. Thank you. I'm so sorry. I know that there's residual pain and hurt.

And I'm so, so sorry that I put you through that. And I'm happy to tell you the rest of my life. I hate that. I told you I was not when it was clear to you that I was. It breaks my heart.

And I'm still sorry. I'm sorry, too.

I was not a good friend. Yes, you are. Well, yes, you are. You're the best.

Sucks. That was so beautiful. It's a bummer. You don't get the closeness that I'm so grateful for without that. sometimes.

Gotta take the bad with the good.

What was the second time he cried? It was soon before he died. And I was alone with him. And I thought, this is my chance. He was sitting in a chair and I knelt at his feet and I apologized for not being a better daughter.

I apologized for making him worry about me so much. And I told him that I knew that he had done his best as a father. And he started to cry. And I knew that he didn't like to be seen crying. I stayed for a while and then I left.

That's the best gift you could have given him. That's so lovely. Yeah. Am I right in that? that came directly after you guys had shot a scene?

This was about two, three months after he'd won an Oscar. So you guys did On Golden Pond, but he died five months later? No, he died five months after it was released. After it was released. So he had won his Oscar already.

Okay, and then you had that moment with him. Okay, I had a very complicated relationship with my dad. He was an addict as well. They got divorced when I was three. He was around, he wasn't, he was whatever.

What'd he do? He was a car salesman. That wouldn't shock you, right? You could see me selling cars somewhere in the Midwest. He died of cancer and I had this three month window, which I'm so grateful for, which was, here's your time.

If you don't do it now, it's not gonna get done. And I did it. And that provided a good deal of relief over the last 10 years since he's died. But I've now reached a different phase of it, a greedier phase where it's like, yeah, I did that. And now I really wanna be friends with him.

It felt like closure, but actually, now, more than anything, I want that resolution to backtrack and I want now time with him post-resolution. Do you have that feeling? Yeah. Because the beautiful thing you say in Golden Pond, which he wasn't prepared for, is, I wish I was your friend. I wanna be your friend.

He hated to have anything happen that had not been rehearsed. And so I reached out and I touched him, which he wasn't crazy about either. He wasn't a very tactile person and no one in the world would notice, but I did. I touched him. He turned away a little bit.

I get emotional and he ducked his head and put his hand here to cover his face. But I saw, I saw him tear up. It meant the world. I believe that those feelings that you have of now you wanna be his friend, I think that that does something cellular to you, and I think that's known. I think there's a connection.

I do, I do. I feel my mother and father very present, especially my dad. And I sort of know that they know that I've lived longer than they have and that I've done really well in life. You carried the torch well. Because especially my dad never ever thought I would when I was just a fuck up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.

Okay, I know why you peed when you did. Because we're talking about romance and you're getting nervous. You don't wanna acknowledge that your options went through the roof. When that power hits you, in so many ways, it's the fairy tale one's been having since they were 12 years old. That girls would like you.

Definitely. I'm still not very good at believing that. But you have to be aware of what's happening right now, right? We're like on. Do Moi.

Like, go to this bar. Cousin Greg is at this bar. Yes. Tell me about that. I don't know about that.

What's Do Moi? CNBC account? Kind of, yeah. They'll post like, this person was here. It's like kind of gossipy, I guess.

He was with a girl or he was making out with somebody. It's like, shoot your shot, Cousin Greg. Oh, wow. Yeah, because I own this bar called Ray's. I'm a part owner in this bar called Ray's.

Oh, in real life? In real life. So that was the first bar I was invested in. And so I would go there a pretty good amount. You gotta keep them in business.

Yeah, exactly. That was in July of 2019.. So that was kind of as things were taking off with the show. Yeah, I guess it was a place that I frequented and they knew I could be there. You're so nervous.

I know, I'm really towing the line here. Just tell me your fears. Like what is it? you're afraid of that? you'll sound like what?

A player? Not a player. I've seen it so many times where you say a thing and then it gets snatched up and thrown into the internet, Twitter, culture and TikTok videos. People who go to Ray's to find me put up TikToks and stuff. So it is nice when I'm like, okay, well, that girl's looking at me or that girl's looking at me, that girl.

Yes, of course, you're a person. Of course it's gonna feel good. But I trust almost no stranger girl that I meet. It definitely has happened since 2019, because I was sort of like, oh, cool. Like we're at the bar and I meet this girl, or I'm somewhere else and I meet a girl, whatever.

I want you two to talk right now. Great. Because you guys have the same thing and I'm always mad at Monica about it, which is she's like, oh, that guy's in love with you. And she's like, he likes the show. And I'm like, yeah, but you're you on the show.

So like, what's the fear? Yeah, what I wanted to say was that in 2019, I was sort of like, cool, this is fun. We can hook up or we can date. It can be the common route of dating or just hooking up. Let's add, you're 31 at the time in 2019..

Yep, that was fun. And yeah, Dumas would see me and things like that, but I didn't really care that much. It's not shameful for me to be with a girl as a single man. Exactly. God, they saw me with a girl, no.

Well, that's the thing I don't think we should succumb to. There is this weird bent right now, which would be like being sexual, is somehow predatory. And I fucking hate that. It's like, no, no, first of all, we look at the statistics, and the younger generations are having sex less. That's not a good thing.

That's a very bad thing. In exploring all these different power dynamics that needed to be explored, it did put a whole haze over anyone just fucking, which is a lovely activity for single people to have. Yes, or people are fucking, they're out there, they're doing it, but men can't talk about that. they did. It's way better for men in general, but for me, as a person of some level of fame, to just keep my mouth shut, never talk about it, because it is just this dance right now.

And you say one thing about like, that was cool, that that happened. It's like, oh, you know. This guy's a misogynist. He likes sex with women. Yeah, exactly.

Wow. What an animal. What a sicko. Yeah, this fuck gets his jollies off by having intercourse with women. But can I tell you one thing?

I'll just add? A lot of it you participate in. I don't know this about you specifically, but what people really sense is they can smell if someone's shameable. That's also part of it. If I sense you're shameable, then we start up the shame machine.

It's almost like when it appears someone's trying to keep a secret from all of us. that, I think, is what actually gives it its fuel. Does that make any sense to you? 100%, it does. I think about a version of being myself, where I just say like exactly what I do, and I say it pridefully.

Yes. And I'm just not there. There is too much at stake to be that guy. To find out. To risk it, exactly.

If it would weather well or not. That's it. Yeah, I mean, if there's objectively nothing wrong, it's not like someone's not consenting. I mean, I think that's the fear that people put is like, oh, he's somehow made people have sex with him, and that's not true. The reason they're posting it is so that they can come find you.

Well, that's where we got really very-. They're seeking you too. They're seeking you out. Yes, yes, yes. They're literally coming to a place to meet me and whatever.

And it is weird that I have to sort of not acknowledge that or be aware of it. Or I guess I'm pretending to not be. It's very curious. Here's what happened. We conflated some shit.

So I think in the Me Too movement, we started looking at power dynamics. Obviously, bosses, employees, that's a rough one. That probably does need to be checked pretty regularly. Although I do absolutely think a boss and a subordinate can fall in love. I think if you reverse it and it's a female, that's the boss, then it's, I don't give a fuck.

No one gives a fuck. Definitely bad situations out there. But we go to work, most of us, for 50 hours, 60 hours, 70 hours on a set. It's 14 hour days, 15 hour days. sometimes.

It's your whole life. Really hard conditions. But you're getting to bond with people and see them do the thing they love. Having a relationship with someone you meet at work makes total sense. Not everybody's at the same level.

Right, you gotta pray that you meet someone you like. that's exactly on the lateral line you're on. Right. Because if they're above you, then they're in trouble. If they're below you, you're in trouble.

That seems a little insane to me. It's nuanced. I mean, I think, yes, all this can happen and it totally makes sense. But the problem is when the superior, when they fall out of love, or if the subordinate breaks up or does something, quote, wrong, that can then affect their career, because the other person has full control and full power. It's very hard for people to separate their personal lives and their professional ones.

I agree, but to me, that's the zone that needs to be policed, not the hooky knob. It's human nature. I'm just saying, if you've had an affair with someone at work and then you guys break up and then you fire the person, that's the issue to me. It wasn't the falling in love. It was the how you then treated the person post being in love.

Right, but can we tell someone to completely compartmentalize? I don't even know if it's possible for that boss, even if they don't fire, if they are cold, if they, I mean, anything normal, like a normal thing that would go down between two people in a relationship, if that's your boss, that makes you really uncomfortable at work every day. That sucks. So I guess you just can't break up. If you're gonna hook up at work, our new rule, we just figured it out.

You better get married. You gotta stay until the job ends. That's right. Yeah. That's right.

And that solves everything. We figured it out. But at any rate, so I think that power dynamic, which is totally true and needs to be monitored, got applied to anyone in life who has status, which I think is bullshit. because someone at the bar that likes you, because you have status, they don't work for you. Yeah, now, that's true.

You don't have any power over their life. You're not offering them opportunity. No, I agree. But they somehow wanted to shine that light on anyone that just has status, like implying you could only be with someone of lateral or superior status, or you would somehow be predatory. That's the thing that I think got weirdly planted in all this.

Yeah, you're right. I think it's complete horseshit. Well, it's also attractive to someone that someone else is successful at what they do. Yes. Yes, I'm attracted to people with high status.

Every human being is attracted to people with high status. Yes. We're a social primate. The notion that we're not attracted to status is preposterous. so then, what you're saying is, well, you can't explore your attraction because it's based on this status thing.

That's not how it works. Yeah, I'm so scared of this conversation. I am so scared. Monica, you can say everything and we will agree. No, I'm with you guys.

Dax, I know you're saying things that are true too. When some person from the world, not a celebrity, has an experience and has had an experience with me, they talk about it. Of course. And then it's their story and it's not something they're gonna keep secret. because, oh yeah, it was just like dating another guy from a dating app or something.

I don't need to tell that story to anybody or lots of people, but when they have hooked up with a celebrity, it's a great story for them to share with all. Absolutely. That's part of the reason why I've had to be increasingly kind of paranoid, because if you have a hookup and maybe it's weird or maybe it's awkward. Yeah, as many are. Which is the nature of dating.

Exactly. And hooking up is that two people are not always good for each other and the chemistry is not always there, and they kiss horribly and they don't know how to touch each other, and one's really sweaty and one's not, they don't care. And one, you know, at some point, one of them doesn't wanna be there anymore, and that goes both ways. Remove the fame aspect from it. I'm a man attracted to or hoping to date a girl and we're allowed to fail at it.

Yes. But when adding the fame back in and we fail at it, now they have a story and they can say any story, really, because I'm not there to be like, actually, she was a bad kisser. Right, right, right. Actually, I was really tired that night. And your character is so specific on succession.

So there's maybe an inclination for some people to wanna know is he like him or make that connection? and then that would make me paranoid too of like, why are they here? Are they here to see if I'm cousin Greg, or are they here to hang out with me? Yeah, they sometimes say, hi, Greg. Right.

First, they don't know I'm Nick. They don't know there's a person behind it. Right. They've watched 30 hours of me on TV. They go, hey, Greg.

And I have to be like, oh yeah, name's Nick. I mean, those are the ones to just really stay away from. Yeah. Yeah, that's a pretty easy filter. Yeah.

I guess what's gotten harder about it.

is, you don't want there to be any disappointment. Talk about driving home from set, worrying about whether you said your line correctly. Gosh, that was a weird one or we had a bad vibe or whatever. And if you just wanna stop talking, it feels like I have to have kind of a breakup. You wanna leave them totally good, no matter what extent.

you had a thing. And so it's just not for me right now. I mean, you're in a different phase. You're a person who, like, speaks their truth every time you sit down in this chair. I guess I would imagine I've never even done a long form podcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is my first one. I haven't spoken about the nuance of it and it's, I don't know. Scares you. Totally.

By the way, I'm in a relationship now. Oh, you are? There we go. I moved on from this chapter of my life, and hopefully for a long time, because we have a very good thing.

So much of me doesn't wanna bring it up because not to pat myself on the back, but when it all happened, when the slap happened, I was triggered in a lot, a lot of ways. I actually had to do a couple therapy sessions about that. So here's my baggage. I watched my mom get beat in front of me. What always happened before getting beat was you insult her.

That's never happened on my watch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know his story, but I just know I was there. I was like, I can't say that I'm not doing the same. Yeah.

In fact, my therapy session was like, I'm not gonna try to get you to not be that guy, but can you do it in the parking lot? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, okay, I think I can aspire to doing it in the parking lot. Again, I don't know Will's story. I'm projecting.

There was such racism immediately. Yeah. If Leonardo DiCaprio smacks fucking Tobey Maguire, we're not calling assault. We're calling embarrassing. I didn't like that.

But why I wanna bring it up is what I hoped we would get to in Chris's synthesizing of that whole experience, I really didn't get, and I was really bummed. And I love him. I have so much respect for him. That's not what I expected from him. Yours was.

When I read your account of it, and I thought you, beautifully, never made an attempt to tell Will's story or Chris's story. You're just like, here's my experience through it all. And then what fucked me up was just, I'm walking out here with him. Like, no matter what. Yep.

No matter what. And that's where loyalty is fucking beautiful. And you should hope that on your worst day, when you do your most regrettable thing, that someone grabs your hand and walks home with you. It's so fucking beautiful. Yeah.

I was like, I didn't come in there as his wife, but I left. Yeah, that's what killed me. Yeah.

Oh, even you saying like, when he said, keep my wife's name out of your mouth, you're like, I haven't even heard him call me his wife in so long. Yeah. That's a hard way to learn a lot. I know, I was like, goddamn. No, that's a heavy price of entry, but what an experience you guys shared.

Yeah. Fuck, all the other stuff. Yeah. You wanna talk about having been tested? Yeah.

That loyalty? That was it. I just have to be honest. That was the moment where I was like, this is my guy. Yeah.

I can't leave his side. He's so lucky. This is gonna be hell. And you know what? What's so clear throughout the whole book?

and him going on Red Table, he too. Yeah, exactly. There won't be a day. There won't be a day. You will die on this planet.

There'll not been a day. he wasn't there. That's right. And that's what we know. So all the judgment and all the fucking bullshit, you should be so lucky to have that.

But that's why I can deal with all the judgment and the bullshit, because- You have a real thing. I got a real deal. ride or die. What, you needed your whole life? You got it.

And it's not pretty. No. And it's not perfect. Y'all are gonna love this.

We both share the same brain disease. We both have the same kind of semi-tamed, wild, manic energy. I'm always happy to see you, because then I realize I'm not the only one who looks bugged out half the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think there's just a lot of similarities.

But I think more than anything is this power of partnerships. Your whole life is built around these very central, deeply significant partnerships. you have. Powerful. Yeah, and they tend to come from things that happened organically and morphed into something else and morphed into something else.

And then it's this realization of, all I fucking need is us. Do you think there's something, for me there is. I can bond and share with Kristen or, in this space, with Monica. I have maybe a harder time doing that with men. Like, there's probably been a lot of men that have come through my life that could probably have helped me in many ways that I couldn't either avail myself to, or it would look like cowardice or weakness.

Whatever it is, I've been able to accept women's power and allow that to help me in a way I can't with men. Yeah, I was in a couples therapy session with Susan night before last. And maybe for the first time ever, I realized about 40 minutes in, I hadn't really said much. And it was going great. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

And they were kind of figuring me out. And he was going, you know, I never really put it together. You know, with Robert, he doesn't really that bad. And I was kind of like, this is great. I'm not starting a fight to show that something needs to come up and be addressed so we can find some homeostasis.

I'm not trying to state my opinion with a righteous indignation. And basically, the good doctor, who's, I think, in senior, he's just that blurry voice. Yeah. Oh, I was curious if that was you on a Zoom with your therapist. Yeah, because he respects himself.

He's not, he's not trying to. I wondered if it was your therapist. Me too.

Because it mirrored my sessions pretty well. Anyway, Kenyon said, you know, from the outside, it looks like you had this series of missteps, and then you were in jails and institutions. And then you did a superhero movie and your life turned around. He goes, I track that as just a by-product of. you finally got into a relationship with somebody who understood how to meet your needs without coddling you and how to have separateness within your unity and how to have definitive black and white boundaries with you.

I've observed this, spending time with you and Susan. When I'm around the two of you, I go, these two were really made for each other. Certainly, Robert needs her. She was made for each other.

How does she implement boundaries? Can you give an example? Here's my favorite one. I'll say this. When I'm in one of my moods, she will not engage.

She will not follow me down a rabbit hole. Oh wow. And it comes off to me as neglect. This was one of the big kind of breakthroughs. I mean, you'd think we'd have gotten to this before, but you know, like you hear it and you say it and you feel it and you agree to it, and you sign off and you check all the boxes, but you still haven't processed it and integrated it.

She is just naturally not prone to enmeshment and dysfunction. And it is stunning. It's like she's staring at the teacups at Disneyland. She's like, yeah, I'm not getting on that ride. I'll get nauseous.

Why the fuck would I get on that ride with him? Not to assign roles. And again, I just think relationships are everything, particularly if the relationships are based on a deep trust in how consistent we will be with each other. It doesn't mean that we can't fall away a field and be admitted back, but we're not admitted back with the same rules as before. We're constantly updating and integrating this thing because we're hell bent on improving ourselves via each other.

So when you find someone that really can do that. So we also try not to assign roles, that she's the sequential thinker, and I'm the associate of one, because we're always combinations of those. But generally there are lanes. So it's not uptight. It's just super consistent.

Have we started yet? We're about to. We're just, we're only, I only have three more. I only have three more questions and then we'll start.

Speaking of partnerships, I initially started thinking of conceiving, letting senior happen kind of as a defense mechanism and an avoidance technique, I realize now. And then, at a certain point, between Chris Smith and Kevin Ford, and then really Susan had this moment where she goes, you can't make a senior documentary like a senior movie, like The Last Hour for us, this very disjointed, nonlinear kind of fest. She goes, you have to think of this in a three-act structure and you have to start thinking about your closure with your dad, whether it's monitored or not, because otherwise forget that it won't make sense to anyone who ever watches it. It won't make sense to you. And so that last trip to New York and the fact that Exton, our son, wanted to go, it was almost like I got to do it with a generation of Downies that are untouched by the ugliness of addiction.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's almost like I needed to be filmed, monitored and graded doing it in order to do it. And, by the way, so did your dad. Yeah. Which is even deeper.

It's wild to see how much movies is your dad's life. He couldn't frame anything outside of that. Well, that's what we realized too, was he was only going to talk to us through the language of what film he was doing at that point in his life. And because at the end, the film he was doing was the film about his life, he needed to do something else because it made no sense. It wasn't a film he was doing.

Yeah. I mean, look, it was very Pirandello, play within the play, all that stuff. But the crazy thing is being at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, where he had gone up for one of his films or premiered, there might've been Greaser's Palace in like 72.. And I realized that that film had screened there. And now I'm watching a screening of Senior from the back, looking at it on the screen, with these kind of like set pieces and stuff back there.

And I had one of those definitive quantum moments. And sometimes you have these on set, sometimes you have them in life or you have them at transitions to life where you just go, just stand here. If you can understand this, because this is actually what life is. If you're lucky, you get to actually just stand there for a second and see this thing and you hold space and time and grief, nuts. Yeah.

Yeah, it's really beautiful.

You gotta say, I've never taken drugs. I've never been drunk in my life. I don't drink, but do, oh my God. When I opened up this chest of porn and I was like eight, I play the flute. And I learned from my uncle, who knew how to play the flute.

And he's a jazz guy, but he's also a porn guy. And all those guys, he would smoke, weed and do all that stuff. And I went in that basement and this is a non-religious household. And remember the Zodiac symbols with all the sexual positions? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

It was in a lot of trailers that I did. Kids birthday parties, they're like. And I couldn't keep my eyes off the freaking Zodiac thing because I'm like, look at these people having sex. I want to visit November, that looks fun. Aries looks like a good time.

That was a thing in Michigan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember pulling out all this porn. Being very religious, no one talked to me about sex. No one.

My father, I've never to this day, ever had a conversation about sex with him. My mother, anytime it came up, she was like, you, trying to have sex? I was like, nope, nope, nope, not at all. I don't want sex, who wants sex? It was a bad thing, it was supposed to be, yeah.

But all of a sudden, when I opened up those mags, I was like, I forgot all the stress, all the problems, everything. I went into another world and I was like, that's so beautiful, it's so amazing. And I didn't even know what it was. Like, I didn't even know what sex was. Right, you're not even trying to jerk off or anything.

No, because I don't know how to do it. I don't know what this is, but I know it's. It's just a great distraction from the other racket. Oh, it's, that's what everyone's talking about. And I was hooked.

It's funny, because you mentioned Highway 23.. I remember going from Flint on 23.. There was a truck stop. They had these little X-rated places. Yeah, yeah, coin operated.

The little bookstores off the highway. And I remember to get away from Flint, I would be like, oh, I'm gonna go work out. And then I would drive. And they were shacks, I can see all of them. Adult sign, and you go in there, and it was the truckers.

The best of the best are in there. Oh my God. The workers would look at me like, what's that story? You know, like, who is this black dude? I was just going in and looking at porn.

And it was a secret. I would die before anybody knew. I would lie straight out, but that also started guilt. So I was walking around a human pile of guilt. And so my wife would be like, so where were you?

What do you mean? Why are you always checking where I am? I mean, what, are you scared? No, no. So I'd start an argument so she wouldn't ask more questions.

Poor woman, she just, whoa, what's the deal? I'm trying to check in with you. It was horrible. My kids, I would be angry at them for getting in the way. And listen, it was magazines.

Then it was on the cable box. I figured out how, as a kid, I had porn in my house at high school, because I would take the channel and move it in between and it would come in clear. Escapade channel. Yeah. WKBD, maybe?

Yes. Yeah, UHF 50. at eight o'clock at night. It would be all wavy, but that's good enough for me. But it's nothing.

They had subject matters that were like, kid stuff, Cinderella, naked, Snow White, naked. Always fairy tales. Look how subtle this stuff was, and that got into my brain. You know what's interesting is we met in Austin, greatest place ever. You and I are on the exact same ride because we've both just popped.

You and I had an enthusiasm for what was happening that I wish you could bottle. But there were a couple things that I was like, what's Terry wrestling with? Because you were reading a certain book I saw you were reading. It was kind of like, maybe, on how to repair a marriage or how to be a good husband. And I was like, oh, I wonder what's, I was like, I see you at sea.

Yeah. I had gotten sober before that. Well, let me tell you this. I went to the table, read, supposed to be sober. Then went out and did coke.

I had been trying to gain all that weight to play Frito. Ripped lines for three days, lost like 14 pounds right before we started. I did stay sober the whole movie, but I'm like in the midst of trying to wrestle that thing to the ground. And then I see you reading this book and I'm like, okay, I think maybe we're both kind of struggling a little bit. Well, a lot of time in hotels alone, I would be on the porn channels and then I would feel super guilty.

And then I would read a bunch of self-help. Okay, let me get back to even here. Cause I felt bad about myself all the time. I am a failure in my head. For both of us probably, I'm just regularly checking in with how my mom would feel about all this.

Oh, my mom saw this whole thing. My whole thing was I didn't mess up with another woman. So I would justify it. I'd be like, oh, well, you know, that's what men do. I was told that, man, you can't be addicted to porn, man.

It's just natural. It's just who you are. It's no big deal. Your wife's got to understand that, that you're just a man. Now, if you agree together to go do something and watch something or whatever, that's fine.

But if I got to keep it a secret. Well, and by the way, when I heard you talking about it and knowing that you would go from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Crazy. When I just told you the 23 highway story, what are you doing out here?

Yeah. Like to go that far? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where are you going? Yeah, yeah.

The whole ride home, you're in a shame spiral. In a shame spiral on the ride home. What am I going to say? Early in sobriety, I found it hard to transition. I got really good at this extreme, on both ends.

I fucking disappear for three days. I come out of it. I'm fucked. I'm behind. I have a test.

I have a term paper. I have a sketch. Now the catch up. And now I'm a superhuman because I'm running on. shame.

If I drop the ball in these next four days, it proves that what I'm doing has to change. So this weird energy source from it. That's how I became an overachiever. That's how you get to the NFL. Because that energy, it's like a bullet.

The comeback. It's for your life. Oh my God, I got goosebumps. You know, it's funny because I heard underachievement and overachievement is almost the same thing. Underachievement makes you live under a bridge, but overachievement, you live under a bridge you own.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.

Can you tell us the new information? Yeah, but if you haven't read the book, you should stop listening now. Spoiler alert. Oh, you think it unravels if we know this? No, but if you don't want to know, I think the book is still readable.

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so, this is great. So for the next, we're going to put 30.. We'll know what we're going to talk about. Well, yeah, tell me.

I think it will make people want to read it more, to be honest, to get more detail and more. Yeah, my parents sat me down a few years ago and told me that my dad is not my biological father. That I was born from a sperm donor. Whoa. Wow.

Wow, wow, wow. Can I be dead honest with you? Because I refuse to lie to you. The book is seven hours and 48 minutes and I'm six hours through. Oh no.

So I didn't know that. No, no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, this is very relevant to a lot of stuff we talk about on here. We had a show called Race to 35, where I froze my eggs. We talked to a lot of people in this situation.

Whoa. Now it's so common. Our kids, half of their friends, are sperm donor, egg donor, surrogate, adopted. AI. even, some have some fully functional robots.

Some are robots. Yes, robot children. In the class. But my parents were like renegades. You know, this was 76..

There were no sperm banks. They had tried and tried and tried. I usually thought it was my mom's issue and then, when my dad became part of the process, they said, okay, now that we've seen what's happening, you have two choices. You can either adopt or do this new thing. that's very experimental and kind of secretive, but we'll try it if you're interested.

And so my parents took a leap. They got to screen the app? No, there was nothing to screen. There were no applications. There was no nothing.

Did they at least know the ethnicity? They could say, we want a black parent. What my mother said was, we just want him to be black and we want him to be healthy. Okay, great. That was it.

But also, what did they know about healthy? There was no DNA testing. They should have thrown Parallel Parker in there. Like good Parallel Parker, healthy. Ivy League education, something.

No, no, no, no, something way more practical. Now you can. You can do all of that. Now you can, but back then. But you lived in Brooklyn.

Parallel parking, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Bronx. Parallel parking was tantamount to breathing oxygen. I mean, it would have been a skill that could save years. And I'm not great at it. Neither am I.

That's where they, that was the big mistake. Yeah, wow. So my parents told me this thing. It was a family secret that completely changed my sense of who I was and who they were to me. And so a lot of me, writing the book, was about me trying to make sense of that.

And answered this nagging question you had had since you were very young, which is, you felt like there was some distance. Right? Some weird emotional distance between my parents and I. We were actually doing an interview together for the book and somebody said to my parents, like, what's your advice if a family's trying to work through family secrets? And you know, what would you say?

And my mom was like, you know, I would say it's really important to talk to somebody, whether it's a pastor or a therapist or a good friend, to talk to somebody you trust. And therapy's really important. My dad was like, I disagree. Oh God. He was like, the best therapists are bartenders.

Ah, wonderful. They hear your stories, but you don't ever have to see them again if you don't want to. And I was like, but dad, where's the healing in that? Right? Like the family healing, where's the reward?

And he was like, I'll tell you the reward, when the bartender's like next round on me. Like you, hit him with such a breakthrough. Oh my God, it's kind of true. It's great. And that's, I think, a lot of what, for me, has been kind of the result of this book and this process.

really, with my family of this secret being told and us working through it together and going to family therapy, is, I think that would have in the past devastated me. I would have been like embarrassed and ashamed and would have been angry. And now I just see the magic in who he is. And I don't want to change him. I just want to love him.

Well, look, you know what's so funny is those kinds of things, yes, all of our parents are extensions of our own identity and ego, and when they visit set, it's always nerve wracking, but it's just universal and it's kind of sweet. But what's funny is you could brussel up against that he's being uncouth or low brow, or something. What you're aspiring to in the book is knowing yourself, is to be authentic to yourself, is to be fully integrated with who you are. And this mother rocker is just doing it, right? He is who he is.

In some ways, I had to deal with the betrayal of my mother differently than my father, because, in my opinion, my mom actually kept a secret from me, but my dad truly bought into this alternate reality that I was his and he was mine. There was no secret for him. I didn't really understand denial till being in this process with him, but it's so beautiful. It was just like that thing got locked in a section, I don't know, out of his brain, out in the world. And there was no secret to keep from me, because it just didn't happen.

He just placed that somewhere. Yeah. When I sat with my parents and I said, I just spoke to the doctor. He said that there's a 0.000001% chance that we are biologically related. He's like, there's a chance.

Right. Like that's his- Last one millionth hole. Yes, that is his truth, you know? I would imagine if I were him, I see the motivation, which is I meet you, I fall in love with you, I love caring for you and being in your life, and I can feel how much you love me. And the scariest thing in the world would be that you would find out I'm not your real dad and you wouldn't love me as much as you do.

That's a powerful motivation. I know that their choice, particularly because it was 77, it wasn't the world we live in today, where everybody's freezing eggs and going through catalogs of donor sperm. They were renegades, they were so courageous and so innovative and took this risk. And I know that their decision to not tell me was not meant to hurt me. It was to try to protect me.

They made a call and it was the wrong one. maybe. I mean, it was what it was. You know, back then the doctor would say, like, you have this sperm and then go home and have sex, and then there's plausible deniability and nobody thought there would ever be DNA tests. So for him, he really was like, that kid is mine.

Yeah, okay, lovely. So everyone's trying to foster this idea. And I think for her, it was like, why tell her? Why stress her out? And then she says, then, when I was in my 20s, she was going to tell me, but I had this crazy eating disorder.

And she was like, I'm not going to tell her now. She's crazy enough. There was never a right time to tell me. It's really complicated. Look, you are who you are and we love who you are and you like who you are and your children love who you are.

That's very kind. I can relate. I wouldn't want to erase any of my trauma. No, it's the journey. But secrets are palpable.

You feel them. We're as sick as our secrets. You feel them even if you don't know what they are. There's that sense of not feeling safe, feeling unmoored. I knew that I wasn't getting the real.

I didn't trust the environment that I was raised in. And, I'm sure, had a very hard time, probably still have a hard time trusting. But the gift of them being forced really into telling me is that it has, I think, given me back a sense of trusting myself. I feel like in these years, I've been able to mend that pathway with my own intuition to say, like, I fucking knew. I was right.

I'm not crazy. It can reconfirm the trust with yourself, which is great. Huge. And that is to me the most important one. That's the huge gift of what they've given me is this ability to trust myself, to know the truth of myself.

Whenever anyone asks me what my favorite job was, I always say Parenthood. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. For what reasons? It was the warmest reception.

Well, we were all huge fans. There were signs in the hair and makeup trailer, welcome to Parenthood, Lila Garrett, everything. I just was received so warmly and lovingly. And I just felt so at home so quickly. And it's also where I found confidence, because one of the directors, I'll never forget, when I would get notes, I used to respond with, oh, I'm so sorry.

Okay, I'm sorry. And I remember he pulled me aside one day and he was like, when I give you a note, it's not because you did anything wrong. You have nothing to be sorry about. I'm telling you because I know that you can do what I'm asking you to do. And you belong here.

You're here because you're good. Was that Larry Trilling? Yeah. Oh, God. You're gonna cry now.

And I cried. He looked at me and was like, you're good, makeup. He is the most beautiful person. And I just was like, I am? I never felt good.

I never felt worthy. I never felt like I belonged here. I just felt like such an imposter. From then on, I learned to go, yeah, you got it. Let's try that.

As opposed to, I'm so sorry. Yeah, it's so subtle, but it's so deep. The layers of unworthiness. I'm still shedding. Will you tell Monica the bag lady sketch?

Sure. My mom really loved musical theater and musicals, in particular, West Side Story. She wanted to be an actress and it didn't really work out. So she would choreograph her own sort of dance numbers, sometimes with girls to West Side Story. And sometimes she would have her own sketches.

So one of them, the bag lady sketch, she would burst into the club dressed in rags and just start making a bunch of ruckus. Knocking shit over. Knocking shit over and going, what's this? Drinking out of people's drinks. Yeah, is it?

Take a sip, throwing it out, sizing up, someone, giving a lap dance. You're cute. What's that? I can do this. Oh, my goodness.

And everyone being like, what is going on? Like a comedy routine. Yeah, completely. But people there were actually calling for security to remove the lady. Well, yeah.

The patrons would be very confused. Meanwhile, of course, the DJ and the girls all know it's Mom. And then eventually she'd be like, let me up there. I can do this. They'd be like, all right, let's give her.

And then it'd be like the ba-da-da-da-da. Oh, yes. And then eventually, once enough layers have come off and you see, this gorgeous 5'11 blonde bombshell start moving a little bit more sexy. Less unhoused, more sexy.

She was playing with character. Because I see a lot of nudity on the streets, to be honest. Me too. I see all kinds of nudity. It's not always my favorite kind.

But of course at that point, then little me was taken back into the dressing room so Mom could finish her show. But by protective coworkers, not necessarily that your mother figured out how perfectly to shield that part of it. Maybe my mom was like, bring her back before I become totally naked and gyrating in someone's face. Yeah. But then Minka falls asleep inside the strip club.

And then when she wakes up, she has no clue where she's at. She's on a couch somewhere. Oh boy. Which is kind of regular, right? Yeah.

And then she tries to wake her mother up to take her to school. She's a little girl who knows she needs to go to school. Wants to go to school. It's the only place that feels normal. Normal and safe, and fun and free.

There's good food. There's predictable adults. Those teachers act pretty much the same all day. What a mystery. So nice, yeah.

What planet are they from? I wanna go there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, were you like a super good student because of that? Yes, I really was until I got to high school because I ended up going to high school in a place where it wasn't cool to be a super good student.

Right. I wanted to fit in with the cool girls. I didn't have the confidence to not need that. Same. I get it.

There's a line in there early on. Oh, let me just say you wake up in this apartment and she can't get her mom to wake up. And then the dude who the mom slept with that night has the decency to take you in a cab to school. Yeah. Total stranger.

You're with strangers all the time. But you have a line that says, I was an observant child noting every shift in her, an amateur meteorologist trying to get a bead on the change from high pressure to low. You're living with an addict who's either at a drug-fueled 11, enthusiastic, or coming down or dealing with the wreckage of. There's really probably no zone in between. High highs and low lows.

Yes. As high as you go is as low as you go. Jekyll and Hyde. Yeah. Yes, learning all of these little spidey senses, as I call them.

Man, do you get good at predicting behavior, don't you? Way too good. You become hypervigilant as an adult, always looking for danger. It gets you in trouble as an adult because you're not really in danger anymore, but you're assuming everyone's gonna trick you, or lying to you, or gonna hurt you or abandon you. And so you're looking for signs of it so that you can go, ah, I'll do it first.

An example of that, your phone call yesterday. Yeah, tell me about that. You were just like, I'm almost finished with it. And I was like, oh, oh, that's okay. We don't have to do this.

I'll let you off the hook. I know, that broke my heart. After we hung up.

I'm like, I'm letting you off the hook before you have to ask to be let off the hook. You're free. And I hung up. and I'm like, Minka, Jesus, relax. No, I knew all that when I hung up.

Cause, I just said like, oh, my God, I'm halfway through your book. I'm on my way home. I'm going to read the rest of it. But it's so incredible. I just want to tell you how impactful it is.

Yeah, and you interpret that as me saying like, we need to postpone or potentially. I'm, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, that was great.

48, 42.. Well, cause you won't be let down. Yeah, yeah, still doing it. But at least we're talking about it and we have the awareness of it, right? So you can go, ah, I'm doing that thing.

Yeah.

You were kind of close with him, yeah? Or you guys had racing in common? He's been gone long enough that, I will tell you. he and I were pretty much best friends. You were?

Yeah, pretty much best friends. We were like brothers. Oh, my God. That's awesome. No, I hardly knew him.

Oh! Oh! We're so gullible. Oh, my God. We were really, you really got us.

I don't, you know, fuck you, because not only did you get me. So much for the circle of friendship. Not only did you get me, you actually like drenched my heart. Yeah. It grew two sizes.

I was like, Dave actually had a connection. Okay, let's try it again. Let's try it again. Paul and I. We're acquaintances.

We got to be friends. You did. Yeah, but I would never presume to insinuate myself into his life. I knew him. He and I purchased a car together that I still have, the Volvo wagon.

We knew each other from racing. We talked on the phone. So we were friendly. I went up to the hole in the wall gang once with Paul, a life-changing moment, to be sure. I always felt, not that my opinion counts much, but that's the way people are supposed to be, was Paul.

So, once you announced you were gonna retire, you had a year of doing the show where people, when they were on, they pretty much knew this was gonna be it. I mean, the level of discomfort you experienced while people told you how much you meant to them was obvious. I can tell that's really not your favorite thing to receive. Ironically, right, we just want validation and approval, and then, when it comes, it's painful for some reason. So I didn't say any of this until the end, but we're at the end.

You're the first thing I started watching that I became obsessed with. probably 11 years old. I had zero dreams of being in show business. I didn't wanna be a comedian or anything, but I would practice being interviewed by you in the mirror all through my teens. I would just think about what it'd be like to get interviewed by you.

And the reason is you were irreverent. You weren't a jock, but women liked you. You were sarcastic, but you weirdly stood up for things that you valued. You were incredibly brave, but not machismo. You really gave so many of us permission to like who we were, identified with you.

I was like, oh my God, maybe through being smart and thoughtful, I can have value and be loved. And it was so encouraging. And I dreamt about being on your show my whole life. I was on your show. I've been in show business for 20 years.

It was the best moment of my whole experience. I know you hate that. That was it for me. Sitting there, staring at your real face, you were kind to me. I could tell you kind of liked me, and I know when you like people and you don't.

It felt so incredible that when I look back on it, that's the moment for me. And I just need to say to you, in my wildest dreams, never thought you'd then come to my house and let me interview you. And this will be with me in my heart forever. And I just want to thank you. Well, Monica, don't you have something to add?

You know, I got the research yesterday and I was like, okay, this is interesting. This guy's in comedy.

It's a dream, it's a dream come true. That's very, very sweet. And it's meaningful because, connected to your childhood, that's pretty powerful. And why it's meaningful to me is because we've been here in this room for, geez, it seemed like six, seven hours. But I kind of feel pretty strongly about this experience.

And so to have you say that to me now is very nice. Thank you. Yeah, I know it hurts, but I just wanted to say. It doesn't hurt. Something about the hospitality and the fun that I've enjoyed here makes it palatable and believable.

Was it as good as that dinner with Morgan Freeman?

Well, thank you, Dex, and thank you, Monica. Thank you.