A Penguin, A Nun, and an Ostrich w/ Shia Labeouf and David Mamet
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You two are bad! Who are these two idiots? White dude and an Asian dude. You two are disgusting. Well, you two are something. We're bad friends. You know what's really not good? People who come on these things and don't wear the cans because they're... because, um, whatever reason. Yeah, some people don't like them. Yeah, but David Mamet's wearing cans, so... You like the way they feel? Yeah. When David Mamet wears cans, we wear cans. Everybody has to wear cans. Exactly. Whatever David Mamet do, we do. Do you want to wear your cans? Yes.

I might be better without him because I'm deaf. And none of us. This show is going to be crazy if anybody cannot wear cans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Dave Mamet. Exactly. You want to take yours off now? No, I'm just a regular guy. We're just a normal guy like us. Just a regular guy. No, it's Dave Mamet. What the fuck have you been? You never call. You never. Because I don't want to mess it up. Yeah, we got a good thing going. You know when you when you got a good relationship with somebody who you really respect and then you never want to talk to him. Oh, yes, except for the respect part.

A good relationship. Yeah, I want to fucking yeah, I understand we talk only when we need to talk Yeah, we're like a really smooth married couple. Do you fight about the kids you gotta fight about? He's never around. Yeah. I just take yeah the kids. Yeah. He's never around. Well. We adopted David Yeah, we're one dwarf one little tiny little little black dwarf. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we got it We got lucky with that's winning the lottery right it really yeah. Yeah, and he started to see oh

He's so small. He's so tiny. Who are you talking about? Our adopted child. Our adopted child. Ladies and gentlemen, to Bad Friends fans, it is an honor, a privilege, an incredible moment in our time with this show.

We have two unbelievably well-respected, accomplished, amazing people. Please remember their names. Please remember. Shia LaBeouf and David Mamet. Hey. What a duo. What a duo. Yeah, yeah. Abbott and Costello we'd rather not have. That is nothing like this. So not close to what this is. Simon and Garfunkel. He does this a lot. What happened to Garfunkel? Nobody gives a shit. Is he alive? Is he alive? He's alive? Dave?

I don't know. Is he really alive? Is Garfunkel still alive? And that's how dark and mean this is. And you know what happens on this show? We shouldn't say anybody's name. We talk about people on this show, and within how long? Six months, they die. Yeah, yeah. We did that to the Pope. People think J.D. Vance killed him? No, we did. No, we did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, but I'm not kidding. We literally just talked about the Pope. We were just talking about him. Nothing negative. And then, boom, he dies. So all of our fans are like, please don't talk about people anymore on the show. May I read it for the room? Yeah, can you read it?

Yes, Arkham Falcon is alive. He was born on November 5th, 1941. Isn't it incredible that you're, David Mamet, such an incredible writer. I'm a terrible reader. A Pulitzer Prize winner. Yeah, yeah. You can't even read four words without anything complex inside of it. Yeah, well, give me a complex word. I can say it right now. Yeah, but that's his genius. Give him a complex word. I'm a genius, right? I know you. Yeah, I know you too, dog. I've

I've given you so many compliments. If I give you another one today, it'd be uncomfortable. Yeah, please don't. I got to do it. It's the best t-shirt I've seen in 85 years. Oh, the t-shirt. Oh, really? Where'd you get the t-shirt? It's magnificent. Well, there was a, not dwarf, but he's a small man, Dean Del Rey. We know a small man who collects t-shirts and I was over at his house and he goes, do you want this for 50? And I go, yeah. Have you gone to a vintage fair lately? $50? Yeah.

Yeah, is that too much? That's too much. No, man. No, no, no. If you go to a vintage fair now. Oh, he's big on the fashion though. He spends on this stuff. Look at that. Yeah, but this is a remake, David. This is an original. This is like a print. That's a lithograph. I love Exile Main Street. I love Let It Bleed. I like the band. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's called Made Worn, guys. So he goes to these, there's a company called Made Worn. They do this, it's like fake retro shirts. It's great. I love it.

You know, I knew when you were going to come on, you were going to do this. You see those shoes, Bobby? Those are actually worn. Those are earned. That's earned worn. These aren't earned. These aren't earned.

These are called golden goose and they come. No, Bobby. He likes pre-worn bullshit. He loves it. I understand it though. Yeah. I get it. Well, you explain it to me, Shia. Well. If you understand it. I know you very well, Bobby. I feel like I grew up with you in a weird way. You did? Yeah, in a weird way. Well, I met your dad first. Well, I met him. So Radford Hall used to do these big comedy things like where they'd bring in all the comics. Can we talk about sobriety? Yeah. So I met him in a recovery. Basically, we're in a big Radford Hall.

I remember. Okay. You were with a hottie. I was. Let him finish. My father. Fuck, dude. And Bobby was like the headliner for three years in a row. And I remember the first year at Radford Hall, I really wasn't looking forward to it. And then Bobby got up in about two minutes and his dick came out. And all the drunks in the hall loved him.

And it's been like that for three years. And then I think on the third year, I remember I went up to Bobby and I tried to talk to him. You were very busy and you had a beautiful woman with you. But I remember telling you, you're my favorite comic ever.

And then I said it to you three or four times from then on. I saw you at Lijah's thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was really nice for you to show up to that. You took your dick out in front of all these people. Yeah. Yeah, but it was that kind of party. It was that kind of party. You've never done anything like that before. That's like a big, that's a new. Well. This was 2004 or something like that. 2004, dog. Oh, let me tell you something. He's still doing that bit. Yeah.

He's still using that fucking bitch. David, I have to say to you. Any male nudity in any of your films, David? Any male nudity? That's a very good question. I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, yeah. Do I like attractive people bringing each other up? Yes. Yeah. But on the other hand, it's a cheap way to get out of a scene that you don't know how to fit. Right. That's right. I think if you're well endowed, you can't do male nudity.

I think it's only good if you're three inches and under, and then you can get away with it. That's what I say to him all the time. The only reason he gets away when we do live shows- Because it's brave. Because then it's brave. Because then it's brave. You look at Bobby do that, and you go, that man is so brave to do that. Yeah, I think you're close. I think if your penis is too big, and you show your penis on a live show, it's rude. Yeah, it's rude. I think if your penis is too small, it's fun. Yes. But if you have a regular penis, that's brave.

Am I regular? You are. You're a regular. Oh, thank God. My dad used to say I was small the whole time. Well, your father was an alcoholic. My dad did that. He beat you with golf clubs. So what does he know? My dad did that. Guys, am I in a fucking time war? Sorry. When I was a kid, I started doing this shit. They'd say, what do you think about Mark Twain?

Now we're talking about your dick? Sorry, Dave. That's my fault. I'm sorry, Dave. That's why I brought it up. Things change, right? What do you think about Mark Twain? I love him. What about Mark Twain's dick, though? He's a sloppy kisser. Did you know that? Mark Twain? Did you know him? A sloppy kisser. No, I didn't. He was a little bit before my time. He met General Grant, and General Grant said the motherfucker stuck his tongue down my throat. That's what he said about Mark Twain. Twain made out with Grant.

What? Yeah. Wow. Wow. He said he was a shit kisser. Yeah, that's right. Great writer, shit kisser. Whoa. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. It was that thing from a kiss hello is polite. You have to receive it. You have to receive it. What if you're not in the mood for a kiss hello? Exactly so. Yeah. You got to turn your head. But that's always, don't you find that that's always, you feel like it's a put down. You're going to say, oh, I guess it's the thing we kissed this person in the lip. And they turn their head a little bit.

You want to fucking die Well the other day I went on a date with Five times this girl, remember the hot supermodel And the fifth time I went in To have a kiss And she turned her head shot Is this the girl that I met at the movie theater?

No. Somebody new. He's got a new... It's amazing. It's a rotate. It's like... What do you mean? Shia, you don't... I never was... Never like that. You're in a relationship. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you're married. Never like that, though. It's bingo balls for him. It's like the rotating. He just pulls a new one and then puts it away. You weren't like that either. What? You're a bit like me. You're a little bit prude-like. Right? It's like one girl for a long time. And you're not dating five, six women. Yeah, but define a long time.

Long time. Years and years and years. Well, yeah, I've been married to the same wonderful broad for 35 years. But even in your young life, you weren't doing this five, six different days. Were you a coxswain when you were young? I feel like you were. It was the 60s. Okay, all right. Everybody was free. That's an easy answer. William H. Macy, my great friend, we grew up together, used to say in the 60s, you were terrified that somewhere there was some woman you hadn't had intercourse with. Oh, okay.

Wow. Different time. Yeah. I'm afraid if I was in that time, I'd still be like not doing well. Nothing would change. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, you in the 60s are probably harder to get laid. Oh, that's probably, yeah. A little Korean boy. I'd be the first incel. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And they'd go, watch out for that guy. Talking shit on a new Reddit. Yeah. Knock,

Nah, what are you talking about? Yoko Ono? Come on. There was a whole thing going on. Everybody was like, I gotta get me one of those. Asian women were fetishized back then. For sure. But not Asian men. Not Asian men. We were fucked. This is a new revolution. Maybe you're right. Yeah, yeah. We were like, oh, yes, all right. You're right. This is new what's going on for you now. It's heavy. You're at the cutting edge.

Of this new thing going on. What's the new thing? Well, he's got five, six different beautiful women a week. He dates. No, no, no. Chaya. You just said that. I know. Dates. Dates is dates. Not sex. Not. Okay. You mean just like a corned beef sandwich?

Let me think about that. He loves corned beef sandwiches. I do love it. I don't know how you got that, but yeah, it's just like that. Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, because I figure where you hang out, you probably hang out at the places where you're very famous. Yeah. Yeah. He's the type to go to the corned beef sandwich spot next to the stand-up club so he can get that social currency of the, hey, Bobby, good to see you again. Want a corned beef? Yeah.

Shia, it's so good to have you here. I'm pretty dead on here, right? You're on fire. He pretends that is not the case, but you see the idiots in the booth nodding. This is 100% him. He will position himself specifically in places where he knows he will be recognized, and he knows he will be fawned over. He loves it. I want to say something because you guys have interrupted me before, but if I may get this information. Yeah, go ahead, please. If I may. My brother and I. Shia, let me ask you something real fast. What's that? Go ahead. I apologize. Sorry about that.

You're really going to make me mad today. I'm stuttering. Woo!

All right. I got some muscles on that. Yeah, dude. Go ahead. He's on Ozempic, so he's on this kick now. Yeah, you do look thinner. Yeah. Stand up and show him. Do the thing. All right. Lift up the shirt. He lost a bunch of weight. Oh, real good. Real good. Looking good. Good. Looking good. Yeah. You didn't need to rub. I didn't. That's one of my powers. Talk about your brother. No, but my brother and I, it's a favorite movie. I'm Glenn, Larry, Glenn Ross. Yeah? No way. Yeah.

I would have never pegged that. It's our favorite movie. I see you liking it. In fact, there's an Asian lady that's at the coat. I worked with her before. Oh, in the movie? Yeah, in the movie, there's an Asian lady that gives people, like, I think Pacino, a coat or something. Like a coat check. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I worked with her once, and I kept bombarding her with, like, what was it like? You know what I mean? How embedded in the zeitgeist is Coffees for Closers? It's such like a...

Yeah. It's a thing that literally everybody knows.

Yeah, I wrote this play, Glen Gary, Glen Ross, and I did it as a movie, and I put in this extra scene for Alec Baldwin that says coffee is foreclosures. It's all anybody remembers about the stupid thing. It's funny. It's weird when things get picked out. I work with Pete Fairley, same kind of thing, and Fairley says the thing that you think people will pick out of it is probably the thing that they least will recognize, and the thing that you can't fucking believe they took is...

like the coffees for closers, you never thought that that was like a moment that people would steal and then it would be like used over in other things forever. Because it is. They put it in fucking like Family Guy or other shows will reference it. Yeah, that's great. And what everybody loves, everybody loves, everybody adores you and- Yes, not everybody. Yes. Oh, wait a second. Everybody in this fucking room. So my, wait, my producer calls me up today. Fuck off, man.

My producer calls up. He says, Dave, you've been doing this forever. I don't want to tell you your business, but don't forget to plug the movie. Let's do that then. The movie's called. We'll do it later. Yeah, okay, later. We do it later. We don't do it now. We'll do it fucking later. But here's the thing. In the movie, he's got a line. He plays a prisoner. And the other guy, Evan Jonakite, who is the guy who he's turning out as now, he's

punk says but how do you know all this shit and his line is baby i do this for a living so that's everybody's talking about yeah i was gonna say i i think you're being humble i think dave does know no i think you know when we're doing the play he's there it's not like dave's gone and the play's dead and then we're just putting it up he's in the crowd he's he's not watching us for the most part i mean i don't know what you're watching but what what what i'm what i what i when i'm backstage watching you watch it's a whole lot of

you know, he's in the back. He's all the way in the back watching the backs of heads. Wow. And so like when heads start to like start looking around and stuff, he's got to fix his script. Yeah.

At least what it feels like. The stuff that gets revised, we don't get much of it and it happens pretty quick and it happens pretty early in the process. But he'll come to the first five, six, seven different shows. He'll watch the crowd move around. You'll get these little revisions and that'll be the last of it. See, that's the thing. A lot of movies, most of the people who make movies never see their movie with a live audience. None of the executives do. What they're doing is completely theoretical.

Because you've got to sit in the audience and say, where did the attention fade? Why? And how can I fix it? Because if not, what the hell are you doing? But focus groups, that's why they're there, right?

But it's so rare. No, focus groups are bullshit. That's for marketing departments. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah. I'll tell you good focus groups. Because what you do with the focus group is you ask the people to become critics. So you're bringing out the worst in them. Just like you bring out the... Think about it. Think about it. We go to a restaurant, right? And we have a pretty good time. And then the chef comes out and says, we're going to sit down for half an hour. And we're going to talk. What did you like? What would you like different? Well, I don't want to feel stupid.

So I'm not going to say I had a good time. Yeah, you've got to have something. Maybe a little bit more salt in that thing. So there was a guy called Joe Farrell who invented this, like in the 70s, 80s, I was doing a bunch of studio movies, this thing where the people would sit and watch the movie on a screen and they'd have dials.

Oh, right. And if you put the dial this way, it means I liked it. And you put the dial that way, it means I don't like it. And they would have graphs and graphs and graphs. And all the P&A, production and advertising money, would get allocated based on the graphs. And Joe Farrell made this huge amount of money with these stupid fucking graphs. And I was talking to him one day. I did a movie and I said, well, you know, Joe, I guess the...

numbers aren't quite as good as they could be. And he said, well, how good would you like them to be? Mm-hmm. It's all a scam. Yeah, we can make the dials only lean one way. No, the dials are a fucking scam. A smarter man would have said, Joe, wait here a second. Oh, my God, is this your $50,000 or mine? All right. He was just bribeable. Yeah. Oh.

Oh, wow, wow, wow. Brilliant. It is fucking brilliant. It's gross, but it's brilliant. Yeah. But that's the throes of this business you've seen 100,000 times. You've seen all those tricks. You've seen them come and go, right? Yeah, exactly so. But the thing is that we just did this movie very cheap, very...

Let's talk about it. But the thing is, we made it with ourselves because Shia said, we just did the play, the play's over, let's do a movie. So now the business has completely changed and the studio system is just completely over. It's just dead. It doesn't exist anymore because the technology has changed, which is kind of great. Unless you have an interest in the old technology and you want to spend $250

million dollars remaking a bad version of Snow White. And you know, you could take all the people who saw it and stick them in a fucking school bus, but nobody's taking responsibility for that because they're all bureaucrats making bureaucratic decisions. David, did you see Snow White? I didn't see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He doesn't watch movies. Oh, you don't watch at all. I understand there was a lot of anti-Semitism in it from this one girl, but if I want to see it, I'll just go to Columbia University. Ha, ha, ha.

Is that true? It's got a bunch of anti-Semitic stuff in it? No, one of the girls came out and she said, you know, free... Oh, the main girl. Rachel Zagler. Rachel Zagler, yeah, yeah. Snow White girl. Zagler. She apparently also said that the prince was fucking stalking her. Yeah, that's right. I remember that. Isn't that great? The fucking...

We're going to make Snow Red where he's a murderer. He stalks her and actually gets her and kills her. Yeah, yeah. And he uses the dwarves as little slaves. We wrote it. I don't know if we're ever going to make it. Yeah, yeah. But we're going to, we'll fucking try. But you've, when you say that the studio system is so fucked and you guys made this movie now,

And you did it for cheap. When you say cheap, what is cheap now? The same amount to mount the play. It would just be like mounting the play in Chicago. Instead of spending that money mounting in Chicago, we just filmed it with data. Yeah, because the secret is, what does it cost to make a movie? You can make the 500 grand movie for $100 million, and you can make a $100 million movie for 500 grand. Yeah. The reason that I'm curious, I don't need to know the number, not the price.

It's just we're creating our own shit a lot now, right? Like we built this little world. We did an animated show. We did a game show. We're doing it on our own and they always want to know how much and we don't really divulge because we don't really know. We don't know. We'll tell you what it cost us to throw it together. They shot it in one week meaning like the actors are very prepared. Yeah, one week is incredible. Shut the fuck up. He's taking shots at us. He's saying we're not prepared. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what? Fuck you, dude. Dude, you'll go back to Spain. You will go back to Spain. Different genius, dude. Different genius. I couldn't do this. No way. C. Shy, I love you. Yeah, thank you so much. By the way, let me call him up. We have allies. You know what? We have allies.

We have allies, my friend. These are our dogs. You want to get destroyed? You're fucked. So, David, this guy in the white shirt is a film student cinephile. He wants to be a director. I knew the shoe was going to happen. Let me tell you something. This guy. That's a director. He loves and respects you. Hold on, hold on, hold on. He loves and respects you. That's a real one. That's a real one, right? From the old school, right? He loves and respects you. You don't got it.

And he brought your book. Show him the book. Show him the book. Oh, my God. And here's what something he said to me. He said- Did you bring the lube, too? Yeah. Because he wants you to roll it and put it up his asshole. Yeah, yeah. He writes good books. He asked me, would it be okay if I have Mr. Mama sign that book? That's what he said. With that accent? That's his accent. Say it.

Would it be okay for Mr. Mamet to sign the book? And I said, I'm going to tell you something. If you're good on your good behavior, yes. Now you fucked up. You're not getting shit. You're not getting shit. Shove it up your ass. Right now, without the lube. Without the lube. Mr. Mamet will not sign. No, he will not sign. He will not sign. By the way, sorry to enter in this world of chaos. We love these guys. We love them. This guy went to the hospital four days ago. The guy in the yellow shirt. He called me at three in the morning. I'm throwing up blood. I know. This is so great. He didn't call you.

I was throwing up blood. Why? What? They don't really know, actually, but McCone over here took me to the hospital. McCone, he picked him up. Whoa. He was sick as a dog. He called me. He had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night. Wait a second. One guy's in the hospital. The other guy can't. Does everybody over there have a disability? Yes.

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You read that? That's so good. David, the man in the back, can you see that gentleman in the back? What do you think his disability is? I bet you could put it together just looking at him. Dude, well, he's got very good taste in clothes and he's got that Harris Tweed jacket on. Yeah. He's got on the hat, wearing it in the correct direction. That's right. That's right. Oh, my God. So his disability seems lower than the other two is what you're saying. He seems to be a little bit more put together. Well, I don't know. Come on. Mystery guests, come in and sign in, please. What is your disability?

I'm just a little slow.

You what? He's a little slow. Good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, good. You got a thumbs up. Slow and steady wins the race. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Smart to rock that jacket today, though. Yeah. He did that deliberately. Of course he did. Yeah, of course. How do you feel about that? About the jacket? Yeah, David Mamet's coming. It's a little whack. I mean, I respect it. Hats off. But, you know, it's like a weak point. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You win a weak point. That's right. Okay. Awesome. There you go. Congratulations. Yeah.

Dave didn't give me any compliments on my outfit today. I don't think you ever have. For the first time, you didn't look like... He's very fashionable. You didn't look like... This first time, you didn't look like you dressed from the dryer in the dark. No, no. I knew you were coming. I wanted to be respectful. I tucked my shirt in. Dude, dude. You really did. Yeah, yeah. And he got a belt. Dude, I even tucked my belt in. Oh, that's good. Well, wait a second. That's how...

serious. I'm taking this today. I was talking to Jay Moore yesterday. Jay Moore podcast. Yeah. And he loves the movie and he loves you. And he talked for like a half an hour. I love Jay. About the way you tuck your shirt. I love Jay. Jay's a big part of my life. What a change. That dude saved me in a lot of nights. He saved me, that guy. Dude, people don't talk about it, but he's a big... No, he was talking about it. He's a big... He's a very... He's a good man. He's changed. I've never seen anyone change that dramatically. He's...

He used to be terrible. But he lives service now. And his life reflects it. He's the nicest, most mindful, open. And his life changed so positively. Like miraculously. Everything went up. Yeah, man. It's pretty great to watch. It really does work.

Yeah. When you see that, you go, it works. Yeah. He's that example for me. Yeah. You know, when I was I was doing this play, I was still low. I would drag him to meetings with me. He would show up to me. Well, he's loved stories. So our rooms got stories for days. So he would just go in there to listen to these stories with me. Yeah. Because I wouldn't want to go by myself. I said, Dave, come with me. You know? Yeah. That's the kind of cat he is. So my life, I was going through a real, real difficult, really difficult. Yeah. We met at a good time. He saved my life. And I would go to the meetings and the guy, one guy would say, you know,

My wife left me and she took all my money and then I realized that she'd given me a very bad disease and I couldn't even go dating anymore and I bought a gun and there were people in the room going, fuck!

laughing laughing I did the same fucking thing get the fuck out of here to tears to tears am I lying no it's the only way yeah it's the only way because we were late yeah you know what I mean I've been in and out since I was 17 yeah I had 17 years at one point pshh

You were in the rooms when I first came in. Yeah. At Moorpark. I remember seeing you at Moorpark even before Radford. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, but at 17, what a gift as a kid to get that. I wouldn't be here without it. How did you even get in? Because your dad wasn't family. No, my dad was a violent alcoholic. Sure. Among other things. Thanks for bringing that up. Well, you sure? Yeah, you're welcome. But he didn't bring you in the rooms.

No, I went to... I mean, when I was in high school, I went to a bunch of rehabs. Yeah. And then I think the third one, it clicked. Yeah. And I met this old Korean man by the name... You know Dan? Yeah, Dan. Yeah, yeah. And when I was a kid, and he had 17 years at that point. He was at this...

long white hair, tattoos, full Korean. He was adopted long ago and he was my sponsor. It was my junior year in high school when I met him and I just gave him a, what, 50, 60 year cake or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he's still like a part of my life. Yeah. I mean, but...

Yeah, without that, I'd be dead, I think. Like, Lijah's like that for me. I got a bunch of these, like, Jay, Lijah. There's like 40 guys I would tap and say, oh, man, if not for them. Yeah. That's the beauty of it. I mean, that's why you're here is Lijah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. While you guys were shooting the movie or the play is when you were going to these meetings? Well, no. When we were filming, we were filming. When we were filming, we were always grind mode. And then I would catch my meetings when I can get him at night usually. He's...

Way overwhelmed. Trying to mount, especially the way we did it. It was just, there was no like extra time. Yeah. But before all that, you know, because he is who he is and maybe it's just my thing. There's a getting over Dave Mamet process. Yeah.

You know what I mean? You got to get over it. You just got to get over it. It'd be like being asked to play Batman. Like you just got to get over and get to the work. It's like you can, you can scare yourself to complete a mute. You can terrify yourself. First day he walks in and you know, you're about to be in a play that he wrote. It's,

one of the scariest moments of my life for like the first table read. So like I showed up to the table read, I don't know really what I'm doing. I never did a play. I know it's a David Mamet play. What I know is like, that's the pinnacle, like get every word, every punch. So I show up at the table read, I'm off book. That's not normal. Normally, you know, you're reading. Yeah. I'm scared. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that fear helped me, but the fear had to wear off at a certain point. And I don't know if it ever wore off during the play. Hmm.

But we became friends in the midst of that, like close, close, like closer than I'd been with most any director I'd ever worked with. You were the only one off book? No, no. He was so nervous. He was so nervous. So like Evan has done plays before. Plus Evan and him already have a relationship I didn't have with Dave. I met Dave through fan letter.

I've been trying to get the day for 10 years. There'll be a project that pops up and I'll do anything. What do you want me to do? And then it'll come, it'll go, or somebody will take it from him. Like we were going to do this JFK movie and they just took it. He was going to play Oswald. And I was psyched. Oh, it's going to be so great. Yeah, Oswald, that's one of the great roles you could ever have. And in the midst of grinding on that, they took it from him and then he fell into a dark spell because it's like somebody taking your baby from you.

And, uh, and then, and then it was, and our play was still up as all this was going on. So it was a matter of like me and Evan, like, ah, we got it. Cause he's captain. We got to get captain back up. You know, we got to get his spirits back up. So we almost threw it out. Like, like no way. Maybe he'll bite. Cause usually we throw ideas to him. He doesn't have no, he's no interest. Right. He'll say something like, yeah, no, I hear you. Unless it's, unless it's to the work.

If it's about the work. This was such a great idea because we did the play. It was fucking great. And we could have run it forever, except you can't ask the actors to come in and work for $19.95 a week. We would have, though. We would have. But anyway, and so Shia and Evan come and say, let's do a movie. So I say, no, we can't do it. Fuck it. What are you talking about? It takes forever, and we have to go and talk to the assholes in the valley. And they say, no, no, no, no, no.

Dude, we're going to do it ourselves. We're going to raise the money ourselves. We're going to do it ourselves. So I say, how are we going to do it? I say, fuck it, I don't know. We're just going to do it. And so like a lot of the great things in my life, I got dragged into it kicking and screaming. Yeah, yeah, he wasn't into it. It turned out to be the best thing that I've done in decades. The most changed my life. We were prepping this behind his back, actually.

Oh, wow. Yeah, we were prepping the thing, trying to get it mounted. Obviously, we couldn't hire nobody, but we're trying to get everything, me and Evan, trying to get it, mostly Evan, trying to get everything sorted so he could come in and sort of, you know, turnkey go. And then he had to pick his DP and then that was his whole thing. But I remember there was like a month where we were trying to sneakily get this thing prepped and mounted behind his back because he thought, no, no way you could do it. And I kept like pushing towards Louis CK content.

I kept saying, oh man, Louis CK, boy, Dave, Louis CK matters, Dave. You know, he matters for a bunch of reasons, but he should matter for us a lot right now. He's kind of the guy, he's doing it and he's winning independent. You know, he's pushing through all the BS and he's getting to the crowd, you know, he's getting... And you, like...

I just came off of Coppola land. This is a guy who's got power. He can make the entire industry flex. Like he'll make them all turn based on. Did you like the movie? No, but I love him, you know? Yeah. And we fought all through the thing because it wasn't my dream. And I was trying to learn his dream, which you're always trying to do when you're on a movie. You try to learn your guy's dream. Sometimes those dreams aren't easily accessible. Sometimes you feel like you're not old enough to get to the dream. With me and him, it felt like that. It felt like, oh, you know shit I don't know about.

you know, because I'm a baby and you don't live the life, you know, so I would acquiesce to him. But I remember he could, he could make the industry move, you know, because he had that kind of power. And then I look at his accomplishments and then I look at Dave's accomplishments and I don't see this drastic divide. I feel like, you know, I respect the stuff Dave did as much as I respect the stuff Francis did, but Francis had the shot to get to the audience that kind of made a clear path for him. You know, he was like the darling of the industry. Yeah. And so, um,

I don't know how many resident geniuses you boys have, but I don't have any, you know? The fact that I know Dave feels like some kind of miracle. So then it was like, oh, well, if I could just work on Dave's stuff forever, that would be a dream come true. Wow. Yeah. So then it was like, how do we get Dave a channel?

How do you get his own Dave Mamet channel? Yeah. That's how the conversation started. They dragged me into it. So what we discovered is you don't need Hollywood. You don't need a bunch of money. You need some talent. You need an idea. And you need a fucking telephone. Funny to hear you talk about talent because that's very funny to hear you talk about talent. Anybody who's a David Mamet fan, talent's not a big David Mamet word. Persistence. Ah.

You know, like just like grinding, throwing water at the same fucking mark on the stone for long enough. And eventually it'll happen, I think. Even with you, because I feel like with you, it's like I have to be careful. I can't really tell you all the way how I feel. I respect you too much. You know what I mean? I kind of have to, through Evan. Evan, because Evan and him have something I didn't have. You know, I'm not spending every weekend all the time, you know, with Dave like that. So Evan was good at translating things that I couldn't like,

I would just come off too thirsty. I think I would scare you because I'd be too ambitious, too thirsty. Because when I say stuff like, Dave, I'll do anything you ever want to do. I think you're the greatest writer. It almost sounds like bullshit. No, it's not bullshit. Listen, the first moment... No, he goes, this is not bullshit. I am the greatest writer. Facts, facts, facts. Best response ever. Listen...

From the first moment, we had a mutual friend who eventually sold both of us out. And my mutual friend was having a lunch with Shia. And I'd always admired Shia's work very, very much. And I sat down and my mutual friend says, oh, sit on Shia LaBeouf. I say, hi, Shia LaBeouf, why have such... I so admire you. And Shia says...

That's not necessary. And it just, it was fucking shocking. It's like you were, it's fucking shocking. It's like I saw into who this, this wonderful man is in a second. I'm a human being. You're a human being. It's a pleasure to meet you. Remember that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's the movie called?

Oh, Henry Johnson. HenryJohnsonMovie.com. That's how you get it. Oh, it's out now. Everyone can watch it now. Yeah. And then what, can you give us a brief synopsis of what it's about? I mean, Dave would be better at it. The way I see it. These two lifelong friends, an old guy and an old woman, they've been high school sweethearts and they've both grown old together. But they meet again and their lives seem to be older, but they go on a road trip. What fucking movie is that?

No, no. This is some other thing going on in his head. That's not the thing we made together. As he said it, I was like, this isn't it. It's about like empathy. It's about like overdosing on empathy. If I was going to put it in a sentence, that's what I read when I read it. It's about overdosing on empathy. It's about how empathy can actually fuck you fully if you overdose. Or like, you know, sometimes, you know, the dog eating trade in China. I'm just giving you an example of empathy.

when I think the movie's about. Hold on. Wait, we're getting a dog eating now? No, no, no. Let me see you through. He doesn't eat breakfast. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, I hate these people that, you know what I mean, do this to these kind animals and then I go to China, right? And I'm like, oh my God, look at this puppy. And the puppy goes, and eats my face. Yeah, like that. Just like that. Just like that. How do you think about...

Am I right or no? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a...

So we did this thing as a play. We're doing it as a movie, and it's about a guy who is so compassionate that he ruins everything around him, and everyone takes advantage of him. He ends up going to prison, and he ends up getting his life changed by the boss, Khan, over there, and then some shit happens. Wow. Some shit happens. Yeah. Yeah. Pull up the site just so we have it for everybody. What is the shit happens? You get like a little fondled or whatever?

What do you mean, me? Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. You mean, oh, you went right there, huh? It could have been 5,000 things. That's the movie I want to see. Anyway, um...

Okay, how long- Henry Johnson. Shia, how long, when you're done filming this, how long does it take you to kind of clear your head out of it? Well, I've never done a play, so I still, I run these lines in my shower still. You do? Oh, yeah. They're so tattooed to your head. I don't know. I mean, I never prepped anything like that. Lines never really mattered to me. And now, you know, after working with Dave, they kind of-

I don't know. They don't matter to him either. I didn't know that walking in, though. Walking in, I thought, you better get every fucking comma. Right. Well, but see, that's the trick, is the best thing in the world if you're rehearsing a play is tell everybody, show up learning your lines. Don't show up if you're not letter perfect. And most actors don't know that anymore because they've been badly trained and badly rehearsed for you, and they want to sit down and talk about where they went to school and what their character had for lunch and all this.

It's true. So shy up because he don't know any better, knows better than any of them. Just show up learning the fucking lines. Because if the actors show up in a rehearsal late day one, learning, knowing their lines, what do you do? You block the play. It takes you three days and then you put it on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's it. Do you say anything? Someone like me, right? I don't know my lines ever. You know what I mean? Say what? I never know my lines. Yeah. Yeah, but would you yell at me? No, I'd say learn your lines. Oh, that's it. And you would. No, he wouldn't. No, you would. Yes, you would. I'm telling you, Bobby, you would. And you'd be great. Even the magic of Mamet couldn't get this guy. No, no, I think the both of you would be great. Wait a second, but you're a stand-up comic. Yes. Wait a second, two guys go into a...

Whorehouse. Whorehouse. Of course it's a whorehouse, but you're going to grow up on the... The bar. The bar. Well, you got to know your lines, right? Got to know your lines. If you're telling jokes, you got to know your lines. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not even lying, but you memorized the bit.

You know what I mean? We memorize where we need to get to, right? Yeah. Exactly. The words around it, as long as we can get to the joke, what actually makes it funny, that's fine. But you guys do line by line, like word by word, right? Yeah. Only because it's better.

If I could ad-lib better lines, I would. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And have on every other show. Yeah. But when you're here... With him, of course. It's like Aaron Sorkin, him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't... There's no need to help. Yeah, I understand. I understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it hard to... I mean, I'm just gonna sound stupid. I just need to throw it out. Because I'm dumb, you know what I mean? Is it hard to write a movie? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Hey, listen. If you had Stormy Daniels on, would you say, where do you get your ideas? Yeah. Actually, she's coming on after this. She's later? Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Is it hard to write a fucking movie? Dear David Mamet. Is it hard to write a movie?

I'm not Hotoy Shonani or whatever his name is. Shohei Otani. Whatever his name is. Write it down. I can't hit it every time. Hoche Anani. Hoche Anani. I can't hit it every time, dude. You know what I mean? I'm sorry, dude. I just throw it out there. Yeah, well, don't throw either. Just fucking underhand. Ask him what you really want to ask him. Be honest. That's not a bad question. There had to be some... I got you. There had to be some harder than the others.

Well, it is very hard. Shia, protect it. I'll tell you. I wrote this play a long time ago called American Buffalo. And it was a series of sketches about these thieves I was hanging out with playing poker. And they were really good. And I did it off Broadway. A bunch of sketches. And a guy called Ulu Grossbard, who was a great director. You should see his movie Straight Time. Ulu Grossbard comes to me and says, if you can figure out the plot.

I'll put it on Broadway. So I went from being an out-of-work cab driver to I had to sit down and figure out how to write a plot, which is very difficult. And then he put it on Broadway. So I said, oh, I get it. I know what keeps the asses in the seats. A plot, which means making the audience wonder what happens next. That's a plot. If you can write a plot, the dialogue doesn't have to be good.

Which we know because we see films in translation. Right. We want to know what happens next. Oh, wow. So it's very hard to write a plot because it's an equation. And the mind always wants to come up with the easiest thing. Right? But the easiest thing is probably not the best thing because if you can beat yourself to the punchline, the audience can beat you to the punchline.

So in comedy, what you got to do is you got to beat the audience to the punchline. Give them enough to wonder what happens next, right? A penguin and a rhinoceros go into a whorehouse. Yeah. Yeah.

They want to know what happens next. I do. Yeah, I do really want to know. Of course. So what does happen? What? What does happen? You know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You climb inside the rhino butthole. The penguin fucks the nun and the rhinoceros eats them both. I'm wrong. No, that's not it? No, I was saying we climb inside the rhino butthole. But let me tell you, a penguin, a nun, and an ostrich go into a whorehouse. Where's the rhino? An old... He's taking tickets. Oh, my God.

And they say the whorehouse is an old brick building on a quiet residential street. The kind of street where maybe your grandfather and grandmother were. I want to know what happened in the whorehouse. I don't want you to tell me how it was built. Right. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Look at me.

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in Kansas, 21, plus age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bet must win to receive a reward. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash audio. But do you ever write with other people, though? Or do you just... Okay. I'm trying to help you, bro. I'm trying to help you from the...

A couple of times I wrote with other people, but at some point I stopped doing it because even when I wrote with them, I'd say, you know, thanks a lot, go sit down. Tell us about your time in Chicago. Can you, though? Because we talked a little bit off air about when he was talking about, you know, prior to Steppenwolf and prior to theater in the city. Yeah. What were you doing? I was, well...

I got out of college and I was unemployable because I didn't know anything. I didn't know anybody. And the idea that someone was going to support me, meaning my parents...

was unheard of, both in my generation and in my family. So I came back and I got a bunch of jobs. I worked at everything in the world, because you could always get a job in Chicago. And I got involved in theater, and I saw some stuff that I found very provocative, so I started writing plays about it. One was, as I said, I used to play in this poker game with a bunch of thieves, and I

And then I used to work in a boiler room selling land over the telephone. Boiler room used to be you put 20 guys on a phone in a room and they have to call up the people and say, oh, you know, Mr. Lee, I see that you were interested in land because you wrote in for our brochure about land in Arizona. Well, it's kind of like Glengarry, no? Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I saw these things that interested me. Wow.

And then I started reading Chekhov's plays, Anton Chekhov. Is that the Star Trek guy? The other one. Star Wars, not Star Trek.

Star Wars. Okay. Yeah. I just threw it out there. There's a guy called Chekov in Star Wars? No, no. Hey, wait a second. I got a question for you people. How do you remember the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars? I can tell you a million things about it. What are you talking about? He can tell you. He can tell you. He's obsessed with Star Trek. They're completely different worlds. Which is Star Trek? Star Trek is based in Earth, on Earth, like the society that we live in. Yeah. But like hundreds of years from now. Yeah. And then we have a... What's so funny?

It's a crew. The Enterprise, it's a crew of explorers from Earth. Is it William Shatner? Yes. It's William Shatner. It's Shatner, yeah. Did you like him? Well...

Yeah, because I'm mad at him because he fucked me once. Not literally, but in a job. How? Oh, my God. It was the worst. I get a call from the Billboard Awards. Remember they used to have these stupid award shows, these annoying award shows? I don't remember that. Okay, we want you to do a sketch with William Shatner because they knew I was a Star Trek fan. And I go, yeah, I'll do it. So they fly me in. It's basically a scene with me and William Shatner at a poker table.

So I'm sitting there waiting for William Shatner, right? And he comes in, and there was another guy that they hired too from L.A. I forgot. It was a black guy. I love black people. Anyway, Willie Shatner goes in, and he goes, you're out, you're out. And then they dragged me out of the tent, and he goes, he just rewrote it just now. So I got back on the plane and flew back to L.A. Wow. Yeah. William Shatner, no blacks, no Asians. That's his way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now we know who he really is. No Aurora and no fucking cop. No, no, no, but wait a second. I got a question about William Shatner, okay? Yeah. It just occurred to me. Yeah. He's reading his newspaper out in the back by his swimming pool, right? And his wife, who's an Olympic, like an AAU swimmer, is swimming around the pool, swimming around the pool, swimming around the pool. And she comes over and apparently, according to him, he put his foot accidentally on her head.

And she drowned. She died. Yeah. My question is, what was he reading? I'm sober. I'm a good guy. But speaking of... Wait, wait, wait, wait. Speaking of Louis C.K., dude, speaking of Louis C.K., we talked about Louis, that when we were doing this JFK movie, I know him from around, right? And he was considering playing Jack Ruby against his...

- Oswald? - Lee Harvey. - Wow. - How awesome would that have been? - You guys know him too, huh? - Oh yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Nice guy? - Yeah. - I get so nervous around him, dude. - Also one of the greatest comedic writers that we've ever seen. - That's what I'm saying, it's to be the same thing that I initially, it's the same kind of thing. - Sure, sure, sure. - So wait a second, so I called up Louie, so we're starting this new thing, right? We're going right to the people and called up Louie 'cause I knew he was doing it. I said, "What's the secret?" He said, "There's no secret."

call up my guy I call up the guy the guy says yeah there's no secret you go online henryjohnsonmovie.com you put up an Instagram wherever the fuck that thing is and you go out and you talk to people like you and people buy your product that's the secret yeah that's the secret

You don't have an Instagram? Louis cracked that code. Yeah. Yeah. Louis learned very early on. When he did the first iteration of his Louis show, I don't know if you ever saw it. Yeah. But it was almost mocking multicam. It was like a clever kind of spin on shitting on multicam. And I don't think people got it, right? So then when he did, yeah, lucky Louis, that's what it was. And then when he did his second iteration of it, which was Louis on FX-

He kind of just stopped all the bullshit and was like, I'm just going to give you my world, my way without any fucking directional notes from a studio and a thing. And the deal they made with him was he got to write it, direct it, produce it and edit and push it out the way he wanted. So they didn't touch it. So he was really the groundbreaker for, to be fair, what we do too. Like this podcast shit, it's because of those formats. Because he was like, fuck it. Nobody tells us what to do.

And if you did, I don't want to work with you. So every time FX was like, you can't do this or you could do this, he was like, I'm telling you again, either I'm going to do it or it just doesn't happen. That's okay. So we kind of did this because this was our answer to...

you know, him and I going through the business and either not getting roles or auditioning a lot and getting tired and being like, we want to make our own. I've had enough waiting in line. Yeah, he's waited too long. I can't do it anymore. Audition, audition. I'm done. I'm done. He's done. I think Rogan and Marc Maron also paved the way in terms of like having this format be something that we can just be like, you know, like fuck Hollywood. Yeah, but we wanted to be goofs.

We just wanted to be goofs. We wanted to goof all the time. Yeah. Which is hard to do now. It's not easy to do. It's not easy to do. Well, I think we just don't take our... This was a fantasy town. I mean, we painted this to look like a fucking child's room. It's so hard to do, you can't actually talk about it without kind of destroying the magic of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah, we don't want it. Yeah, we don't want it. Yeah, yeah. We keep it rolling. This has been such a blessing. You know what I mean? Yeah. For me, too.

Well, thank you. I told you, bro. Yeah, you told me. I told him the bond that was kind of crazy for David that you may not know was that Bobby went to rehab when his dad died, and we started this show because of his...

Because his dad passed away and then he got clean again. And we just wanted something to like fuck around and go make something. And we started this and then the pandemic hit. And terrible to say, but it was the greatest fucking thing that ever happened to us. Because then we could just be free. And we got a little. So no one was making anything. No one was doing anything. And we were in the studio every fucking week and just doing our shit. And we had no rules and no. I got tired of being dead.

Yeah. I really did. Yeah, yeah. I got sick of it. You know? Right. COVID hit and then the fucking theater died and I got blacklisted and nobody wanted to do my plays and nobody wanted to do my movies over there. I just got fucking tired of being dead. And somebody called up and said, let's do the play. And then we did the play and he said, let's do the movie. And now I'm not dead anymore. Right. We're about to do another movie. Wow. Many more movies it sounds like. Yeah. What's crazy is that he has that feeling. You know what I mean? It's like a- Yeah, it's, yeah.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Which is comforting to hear. Yeah, but don't we all feel that? Well, that's the thing. You think guys like that don't. No, I know. I think the older I get, the more I learn that everyone has that weird feeling. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's gone. It's over. Yeah. But it's not. He says that fucking weekly. Yeah, but that's almost a shtick. You know you're not going nowhere. Thank you. Yeah. God, should I be here every week? Yeah, no. I'm not, Dad. Yeah.

Did you know Picasso? Picasso, yeah. No, he did die in the fucking 80s, right? That's what I'm saying. He could have known. Dolly, he could have known. Did you ever hang out with Sam Shepard? You guys ever go, hey, you know, man, I like your shit. Hey, let's, nothing? Never in passing? No, we all want each other dead, man. Wow. Wow.

We're worse than anglicists. Wow. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They say, okay, the money that you're making with your shit is...

is taking food out of my children's mouths. Yeah. I hope you die. It is sport. It's sport. It is. Well, comics used to be like that, but then we realized because of the New York comedy scene that we banded together, you know what I mean? And we just live within our ecosystem and we help each other by doing each other's podcasts. They all grow. Yeah. Right? So we... I think...

10 years ago it was dog eat dog. The difference became we all were fighting for the same slice of pie and the business blinded us to think that there was only one slice for us. And then once we kind of cracked this code, we were like, oh fuck, we can all eat and we can eat different shit. We don't have to eat the same fucking, I don't even like that kind of pie. That's just like Chicago in the 70s. All these little theater companies sprang up

Right. And we each had our own flavor in it. We each had an audience and we worked with each other. It was great. That's exactly what we are now. That's literally what we've discovered that we were like, oh, we don't even want to fucking eat that shit anyway. So we'll make our own. And then we found that we had our own audiences that liked it. And so the gatekeepers, as they were,

slowly kind of you know fucked off I hate it in that power well they had they had less and less power because we weren't singing for our supper anymore we were like we're gonna go cook our own fucking food I don't I don't want to do it anymore and so comedy did used to be that way it was cutthroat we hated each other because you know back back Carson was the spot those guys wanted to fucking slit each other's throat for us tonight show do

Doing Letterman, you know what I mean? Getting those, then getting a Comedy Central half hour or maybe getting an HBO special was impossible as a young person. So I think it just cracked. It recently cracked, which is what you guys are doing with the movie. Same thing. Completely. It's over. I say it's like the Erie Canal, right? However great the Erie Canal was in 1825, you can't put enough money into it to make the Erie Canal work again when the railroads come in.

You can't put enough money into Snow fucking White to make the studio system work again when the podiverse exists. Nobody's watching. What's the last great thing that you've watched that's new?

Last great thing that I watched was new. I liked Casablanca. That was pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was looking at you, Ken. I mean, he just learned about it yesterday. That's right. Who do you think is someone that you don't have to dance if you don't want to? Who's someone that you were excited to work with that let you down and then vice versa? Who are you? Who are you? He's going to say that. Well, he might do. No, I don't think...

Nah. My first react was talking about actors. Anybody, anybody and one. All the producers let me down, every one of them. That's right. That's what I want to hear. Scum. Trash.

But at least back in the old days of the studio system, you got betrayed by a better class of people. Right. You got fucked politely. Exactly so. Okay, I'll give you the opposite version of that then. Who's someone that you kind of were surprised by? Yeah, you were happily surprised. You worked with them and you thought, I respect and like them, but you were blown away by their work.

Shia's sitting right there, by the way. I've worked with the greatest actors over the last 50 years, including Shia, and I've never worked with a better actor. Yeah. Ever. What about Gene Hackman? Same thing. Never worked with a better actor. Shut the fuck up. For real, dude. Shut the fuck up. Let him rest in peace, you fucking bastard. Piece of shit. Shut up. How come you never mentioned the internet?

to the Asian lady either, his wife. You didn't talk about her. It's always Jean. What about... Wait a second. Chang Chang. He went on a big rant. What's her name? He went on a big rant. So Jean, I never worked with a better actor than Jean. Oh yeah. So Jean introduced, the first time I met him, he introduces me to his wife, Betsy, who was a concert violinist, an Asian woman. And he says, this is my wife, Betsy. I met her in a massage parlor.

How would I laugh so hard? Well, that's why she killed him recently. That was that. That joke lasted long enough. How did you give Al Pacino notes? Did you give him notes? I never give anybody notes. All right. I never give you a note. No, not notes. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the thing. You work with great actors. If you know what you're doing, what you get on opening night in the theater is the cast and the script.

That's it. Oh, right. The direction, the staging through, nobody fucking cares. So when you work with actors who know what they're doing, you say, okay, how do we rehearse the movie except for blocking? I've never rehearsed a movie. Wow. Right? You work and say, you know what you're doing? You got any questions? Let's play the stupid fucking scene. Right? That's all that there is. Did you ever have a big fight with Pacino? No.

No, no, I had a big fight with De Niro. What happened? What happened? Well, it was just over the phone. He was doing The Untouchables, right? Yeah. And I wrote The Untouchables, and he calls me up. He says, I got some questions about the script. He's shooting. I said, well, hold on. Aren't you supposed to ask the director about the question? No, no, the director, Brian De Palma, said talk to you. He said talk to you. I said, you have questions about the script? I said, yeah. I said...

did you read the script before you took the part? He says, yeah. I said, why the script got worse? Because they're paying you two million bucks for a week's work. Slam. So we didn't talk for years and years and years. And then I ran into him. He did like four or five movies that I wrote, De Niro. And he said, you know, blah, blah, blah. He said...

You know what? I called you when you called me when I have the greatest respect for you. I said, Bob, I have the greatest respect for you. So we're going to have to do a reading of some film. I think it was The Edge that was originally, eventually played with... Sean Connery? No. Alec Baldwin. It was Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins. And Alec Baldwin. So one of the great secrets about when anybody asks you to do a reading is they're never going to do the movie. Right.

Never. Right. Because they use the reading unconsciously as a way to get out of doing the movie. And so the movie star, the main guy is going to mumble and everyone's going to come to audition at the reading. So it's garbage. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, we do the reading and I talked to Bob afterwards. So what do you think? He said, it's good. It's really good.

But it's just not, for me at this moment, it's just not it. I only have so many of them, and it's got to be it for me. It's got to be great for me. Yeah. It's got to be great. He said, is that okay? I said, of course. He said, are you mad at me? I said, of course not. He said, are you sure you're not mad at me? I said, no. He says, good, because I got this piece of shit I'm supposed to shoot on Monday. I wonder if you could take a look at it. I'm sorry.

But wag the dog they came in for the table read wag the door. Yeah, but I wasn't there you didn't come in for the table It was just Hoffman and De Niro whoever it was, but we did wag the dog Barry Levinson called me up He said I got this idea. It's in a book president gets in trouble. He's got to go to war I say oh, I got it He's getting in trouble because they caught him in the closet fucking a Girl Scout He says yeah go write it so I go write it and two months later. They were shooting it Wow two months Yeah, fuck that'll never happen again

That kind of shit. That was great. Do you like the new, I mean, the Bill Burr, I mean, the Glenn Glenn, have you seen it yet? Yeah, I think they're great. The reason that shit will never happen again is because those conversations aren't happening like that anymore. Correct, yeah, they're gone. You never have a Levinson call a guy up and be like, hey, like two craftspeople be able to have that conversation unadulterated without any of the keepers, you know, the minders. God, you're a bright kid. All right, stop it.

Oh my god, even since I met you back in the day, you're a bright kid. Hey, thanks, folks. Yeah, yeah. He's a grown man. No, but he's brighter than us. Yeah, but he always knew me as a kid. I met him as a kid. I met him on a razor scooter. He was riding Bumblebee. You don't dare refer to me like that. No, you're not as bright as Cheyenne. There's no way. I think also because you'll physically harm him. I do want to harm him all the fucking time. But it's hug love. It's love. I love him so deeply. No, you have rage love.

It's rage. Okay, be honest. David doesn't know us well enough to know. How much do I love you? David, have you ever been in a fist fight? Yes, he has, for sure. Yeah. For sure. I've been very involved. He's like a black belt, dude. Yeah, yeah. I am a black belt. Yeah, he's a jiu-jitsu black belt. Really? Yeah, yeah. Wow. But...

I actually got, yeah, when I was a kid, I got in fights. But the only fight I actually got into, you know, outside of the mat and boxing, is I was walking down Fifth Avenue. These guys were playing three-card Monty. And so, as my great friend Ricky Jay, the great magician, said, three-card Monty is not a game of skill. It's not a game of chance. It's not a game.

So the guy says, okay, put your money down, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The red you get ahead, the black you get back. 20 gets you 40, 40 gets you 80, 80 gets you little lady. Where's the red card? Where's the red card? He does this thing, right? And so he says, oops, we'll take that. That's not the red card. That's gone. Where's the red card? So I know where the red card is. It's where you're not supposed to look.

So I take it and I go over there and I turn the card over, which you're not supposed to do because they never let you win in three-card Monty. Because if you say, I want that card, oh, he upsets him and you have to start again. So I turned the card over and the guy punched me in the fucking face. Really? Yeah. Did it hurt? It's on Fifth Avenue. Oh, sure. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was Fifth Avenue and right near Rockefeller Center. You swung back.

No, I just... They disappeared. Ah, right. Right. Took your money and ran. Wow. Yeah. Did you know Kurosawa? I didn't know Kurosawa. I saw him once. He was at the premiere of Ran. You were at the premiere of Ran? Yes, in New York. Oh, my God. And he was there. He's a...

beautiful man he's big man he's like 6'4 I think and he was there he was that big yeah he's a big man he had black feet too something right happened where he was in the snow or something frostbite frostbite yeah yeah yeah probably got it on Deer Sousala yeah yeah what's your favorite Kurosawa film

I'm a huge fan. I know I bring it up a lot. Go fuck yourselves, all right? He does love Kurt. He's obsessed. Let me say four of them, right? There's Sir Uzula, certainly. Yes. Stray Dog, because it's got Takashi Shimura, who was the greatest actor who ever lived. Yeah. Takashi Shimura. And then Seven Samurai. Yes. Which is perfect. But then...

God forgive me, I think he screwed up the end of Rashomon because he had an extra scene after the movie's over. Oh, really? Yeah. These guys trying to hit each other. A lot of them were guys wearing diapers trying to hit each other with sticks or swords. Oh, right, right, right, right, right. You see High and Low? Sure. Not only did I see High and Low, I rewrote it.

But that I was, who was it? See, Scorsese came to me and says, you know, high and low. I say, yeah. He says, you want to redo it? I say, yeah. He said, what do you think of the movie? I said, it's a great movie, but they missed the ending.

It has the wrong ending. So I figured up the ending and I wrote it to Scorsese and Scorsese wrote it back with a bunch of scribbled notes. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. And then a bunch of stuff happened. I think Spike Lee did another version now. Yeah. I don't think it has anything to do with my script. Hey, Andreas. Wow. Yes.

Director. This is a director. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Andreas, behold your eyes, right? I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you bow to him on the way in? Yeah. You're fucking better. Whatever he wants, you do. Whatever he wants. Footstool. You're the footstool. Okay? He wants to spit in your mouth, he gets to spit in your mouth. He spit in your mouth, right? He did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, wow. So can I ask you something, Mr. Mabbitt? Yeah.

On this podcast? He wants to know, yeah. I've had a great time. You guys, I mean, come on, get out of here. Okay, here's one for you, Andres. I'm a man who enjoys talking to a man who likes to talk. It's Sydney Green Street in Casablanca.

Way to go, fuck up. He's not ready. Hit him again. He's not ready. You're not ready. You're not ready. And this is why you are what you are. You're not ready. Hit him again. Hit him again with something else. Give him another one. Give him another one, please. Okay. Fiddle-dee-dee, I'll worry about it tomorrow.

Who's that? God, this feels so... You're not ready. You're not ready at all, dude. That, I believe, is the last line of Gone with the fucking Wind. Come on, dude. The fucking... Maybe you could be boom operator for that. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. By the way, he's going to go home tonight and talk to his wife. Oh, he's going to kill himself. He's going to kill himself.

Yeah. He's like, David Mamet insulted me in front of the crew over and over. I got one. Two million people watching. It's the best I've ever read. Okay. Well, that happened. You're not ready. He wrote it. He's not ready. He fucking wrote it. He wrote it.

It's in, it's in state and main. Well, Alec Baldwin is in a car with Julia Stiles and he's drunk. He turns the car over the drunk out of their mind. She's underage. He crawls out. He looks at the car about to blow up and he says, well, that happened. Yeah. We all know. You know what I mean? I don't know, man. I apologize. How do you not know that? Just for good measure. Yeah. Just for, to sink it in for everybody. Uh,

please go see the movie right now. It's available now, right now. We command as a duo. Henry Johnson. Watch it. Henry Johnson. If you listen to this right now, you watch it right now, Dan. Please go see Henry Johnson. We're going to put the link in the description down below because it means a lot to us. Support our friends and our family. That's kind of the big thing about our fan base. They do like to support our family. We love that. Continue on and please go watch Henry Johnson. A Henry Johnson podcast.

Movie.com. We really appreciate you guys coming. That was so fun and enlightening. Fucking amazing. Yeah, and fuck you, Andreas. No, no, no. Be nice. Oh, yeah. I love you. I love you, and we'll do your zombie movie. Thank you. Oh, he's got us a zombie movie he wants us to do. What do you think about zombie movies? I love them. Yeah? Yeah. Train to Busan. You ever see that one? Which one? Train to Busan. Nope.

It's a Korean one. Before 1980. But I thought it was really interesting that we have all these things about zombies and vampires because it was about a culture that was dying. Right. Oh, wow. Western culture is no longer dying anymore. It's like the Japanese have a term, amatsu or matsuko means pine tree, but it also means vigorous old age. Ah.

So that's what I think we're looking at now. And you thought you were looking for a dismount. Yeah. We're digging a new hole, baby. We're digging a new hole. Keep rolling. Keep rolling.

I thought you guys needed to go. Now you're really going to have to cut out the line about William Shatner's dick. You overlapped. No, no, no. But now we need to keep going to make up for it. Old, old, old, old, old. What is it? Old and what's the pine tree? Vigorous old age. Vigorous old. Vigorous old age. Vigorous old age. Can you say the word one more time in Japanese? Matsu or Matsuko. Matsuko. Means pine tree. It's also a name. Is that true?

I'm Korean, you fucking asshole. Really? Yeah, yeah. Oh, shit. David, you know a lot of Koreans or no? Do I know a lot of Koreans? I don't think I know a lot of Koreans. Of the Asians, how do Koreans rank? Of your Asians. Oh, they're up there. Are they up there? Tip top? Japanese, Chinese, Korean. You like Koreans up there or no? I like them all. Yeah. Yeah, he likes all the right. We lump them all. You know what? Koreans are fucking tough. They are.

- What? - I'll tell you like this. The difference for me is you get off the plane in Japan and no music is playing in the car. - Right. - Right? And maybe they'll ask you if you'd like to listen to your music in the car. In Korea, you're listening to their music and they don't give a fuck what you're listening to. - Yeah, I like that. - And there's something about that. - Yeah, I like that. - Yeah. - They tell you what's-- - We're stubborn. - You're in my fucking car. - Yeah, yeah, I like that. Then you know you're in Korea. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Koreans are the fucking best. - We're the best. - That's Bob's mom, by the way. That's his mother right behind him.

that's his mother his beautiful mother beautiful that is her she has cross eyes she does she's cross eyed in real life trying to fix it guys thank you so much before you guys go look this is like a dream of mine so we have a script for you for you that's gonna be it guys thank you so much oh thank you oh oh oh okay give me the fucking give me the shit who did this is this your shit we

whose script is it? Oh, wait a sec. Wait a sec. This is like a make a wish. Yeah. Yeah. We have enough time. We just want to make sure you guys don't. Oh yeah. We have all the time in the world. We have nowhere to go. So anyway, so my mother rest in peace was ill for a long, long time. I mean, there was a woman who was her caregiver and, uh,

She saved, she elongated my mother's life by years and loved my mother and was just marvelous and made a lot of personal sacrifices. And my mom died. And this woman came up to me and I said, I don't know how to thank you for, I mean, it's beyond what I, it's godly what you've done. It's beyond generous. If there's anything in the world that I could do for you, anything ever that I could do for you,

And she said, well, my nephew wrote a film script. I said, anything but that. Ken, so one of you guys look into that camera and go, thank you for being a bad friend. Yeah. Thank you for being a bad friend. Love that. Dude, thank you, guys. So good. Amazing.