"David Duchovny"

(upbeat music) - Hey guys, this is, welcome back. This is the first time, this is the first time I've done this that we're doing the show since we made the, well, no, we made a, didn't we make a blood pact? - Did we not, I mean, I would, - Did we not that I know of? - Did we not make a blood pact, who did I make a blood pact with? Oh, no, I'll figure that out later. - All right, in the meantime, let's go to the whole news, part of this. (upbeat music) - Hey, you know, JB, somebody said to me the other day, you've become like the Jack Nicholson of the Dodgers. - Oh yeah. - You're at the Dodgers, you're on the broadcast. - Oh, what a high compliment. - I know, I know. And Shawnee, you were there with him and the guys were like, somebody said that the guys were like, "Hey, there's two thirds of the, the smart list crew." And where's our money? - We really, we had such a, we had such a joy. Didn't, I mean, Willie, if I had three tickets. - I know, sure, sure. This was last week of his dinner, this week it's the game. I mean, most people would be like, "Hey." - And Shawnee, no, no, no, no. We're still good for Rome, right? - Yeah. - Oh, this is what it is. This is like, you're getting me back for all the holidays that Shawnee and I went on. - I mean, stamps on your passports. (laughing) - No, we missed you, Willie. - We really did have a nice time, didn't we, Shawnee? - Oh my God, it's so easy. - We haven't, we haven't done that in a lot of time. - And you know, reminded me, Willie, of, I took you to the, was it game one of the World Series last year, one, yeah, ready Freeman, hit that Walk of Friends. - Oh, yeah. - How good was that? - We were jumping around like, - What was the last game contest? - The last game of what? - Is that where, is that the famous last game last year where you got hit? - It was the last game, I believe it was the first game. - It was the first game, and it was the World Series. - Yeah. - Where he just like got a basis loaded home run like he had last. - And then the series continued for the Yankees to go ahead and they kind of dropped the ball on the whole series, got it? - Yankees fans will know that pun. - Oh gosh. - Well, you just, you're alienated 50 million people. So listen, the Yankees are gonna get another chance. Well, who knows when this is gonna happen, but we don't know what this is going to happen. - It seems like they might get another chance. - I also, look at what I just fucking did, like five minutes before we came on, which came with the dog outside, and I ran inside and I fucking tripped over him. And to break my fall, I grabbed the door, my fist finger went all the way back here. - Oh God. - Really? - Yeah, just like five minutes ago, I was like, "Ah, wait, so you're on ice right now?" Well, just in case, yeah. - Yeah, well luckily, I'm no joke, luckily you're done with the play. - I know, can you imagine, can you imagine? - No. - No, can play. - Won't be able to play. - I know. - Oh, that Ricky. - It would be good night, Oscar. If that were the case, you know. (laughing) - Wait, Sean, why have you asked me, and then my wife separately, if my dogs are good with other dogs? - Because I want to bring Ricky over, but I don't want to bring him if your dogs are good at that. - Why would you be bringing Ricky over? - Because I might come see a movie this weekend. - Okay. - But you spend three hours plus over Jens every week. - Look at the, you don't bring Ricky. - Look at the judging face. - I just don't understand like, what's going on? Is Ricky having separation anxiety lately? - No, no, it's just a thing. And as a dog owner, I just don't like to leave him alone for like three or four hours. - JB, I would describe your face as a scowl right now. It's a scowl. - I would like to bring him over to Jens, but they don't get along. - Well, yeah, but so I was like, oh, if your dogs get along, it'll be great. I could just bring him over. And if not, by the way, that's fine too. - But the bigger issue is why do you and Scotty feel like Ricky needs so much constant, like dogs can be left alone. And by the way, you just spent almost a full year out of the country. - I know, I don't know how he fed himself. - He fed himself, I don't know how he drove himself around. This is gonna be controversial, but we live in an era where people bring their dogs over to other people's houses a lot. And I'm not judging you Sean on this, but people do it just, and they're like, I got my dog with him, like what do you mean you got your dog with you? - It's not okay. - Yeah, and I'm a dog, I love dogs. I've had lots of dogs, I have a dog. But you don't need to bring your dog with you when you go to somebody else's house. - I like the dog. - I'm not saying that you don't. - Then continue having more morning play time with them then. And people show up, I got my dog with me. Oh, you got your dog with you? - Yeah, I love it. - Everybody brought their dog everywhere. It would be mayhem. - This is what I love. - You're like, well, I'm a dog presenter. You must be, you're a monster. - Oh, sorry, he keed. Where are your paper towels? (laughing) - No, this is what I love. - No, that's not what I mean. - I love the conversation that I know happened this morning and Jason's face as he was having it with Amanda. - It was a couple days ago and I've been really stealing on it. (laughing) - Sean, Amanda's like, Sean just texted me if our dogs are okay with other dogs. And you turn with your cup of coffee or just sludge, your cup of sludge. And I said, "Fuckin' what?" - What? (laughing) - By the way, he's in his chair in his little study with the wire going and he's going in this and he's saying. - What the fuck did he say? - And then he barely moves and he looks at her. And she's at the door 'cause she's too scared to come in 'cause she's the pre-scale. She sees the pre-scale. Who knows what stage of gummy he's at. (laughing) - You know what I mean? - Yeah, I will say. - He's afraid of dad. - Yeah. - You know. - She does a very tentative little, you know, little knock. - Yeah, honey. - Sorry, are you, are you not on commercial? Is it not commercial? - I tell you what, tell you who's not tentative. Is it always today? - Oh, nice, nice. - Oh, let's get into it. - Yeah. - Uh, I'm going to say I could check the chat. - Hang on a one second, what is it? - Oh yeah, here you are. - Oh, by the way. - Yeah, sorry, before we go, before we get into our guess who we want to talk to immediately. - Yeah. - Tickets to the Hollywood Bowl November 15th. - Oh. - For smartless lives. - Wait, wait, do I need to buy tickets for that? - I do, I do. - I'd really like to go to that. - Do I need to buy tickets? - Yeah, no, we're giving you two cups. - We're going to give you two cups. - One for you and then plus one. - You got a plus one. - I'd love a stage seat. If you have a stage seat. - A stage seat. - You got, you go to smartless.com/live. - You go to smartless.com/live for the Hollywood Bowl show on the 15th of November. Guys, this is gonna be, it's gonna be very nerve wracking for us 'cause what are we doing up there at the Hollywood Bowl? - We can barely do this. - We're barely doing this this year. - I will tell you that my guest is one of our biggest stars in the movie industry. - So is my guest? - Really? - Yes, my guest also is one of the biggest stars out there. - Let's have a little side bet. You and me. - You and I. - I can't wait. I'm gonna have a single up on a camera. We're gonna single up on you. - When JB, when my guest comes out, gets announced. - Oh, and you think, oh yeah, it's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. - It's gonna be a guest that's gonna make me nervous. - It's gonna be great. - It's gonna be so great on so many levels, I can't wait. - All right, you can be the judge between Will and I's guest. Will, let's you and I have a little side, ten dollar bet of who is the bigger guest. And Shana, you get to decide. - All right, we're just doing like oh, we'll do 10, 10, 20. - That'd be right. - That'd be a big reveal. - We'll do a 10, 10, 20 in the impresses. - We have broad mathematics. - Automatic presses. Okay, all right, I'll tell you what we are. We're pressed for time because we wanna get into our guest who is, get this, award winning actor, writer, director, New York Times bestselling author, podcaster, singer, songwriter, multiple albums, multiple Golden Globes, multiple Emmy nominations, SAG Awards, he's known for his iconic TV show, which was his sort of breakthrough, even though he'd been doing it for a long time. He's got a degree from Princeton, he's got a master's from Yale and literature. - Oh, wait a minute. - He's the unfinished D that I wanna ask him about. - He's one of the all-time great guys. It's David Ducovny. - Oh, David Ducovny. - Well, that was A David. - Was that not who you were gonna guess, Shani? - No, I thought it was David Ducovny or Louis CK. - Oh. - Oh, wow. - Often, often. - I don't think Louis has a degree from Yale. - I don't think Louis has a master's in literature. I'll do respect from Yale. - Yeah, but you said Princeton. You said Princeton as well. - And Princeton? - And Princeton? - First, isn't that true? David, welcome. - Is it true? - Yes, it's true. - Thank you. - God. This is so wonderful. - David, why would you, why would you, you're such a, I remember, we spoke about a year ago and we just said, I don't like the tone of that. Why? Immediately. Why? - Why would they give you a degree? I don't know, it wasn't that. It wasn't that. - Why? - It wasn't that. - No, it wasn't that. - The why would I what? - The why would you, because you graduated, you were, you were ahead of your class in high school and then you go to Princeton and then you go to Yale. - Jesus. - And then I feel like you lowered yourself to come into show business. A little bit, you know, a little bit. Why would you do that, David? - Clearly, I have a, I can deem you a heaping hole. - A gaping hole inside me. But yeah, it feels decided to slump it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Slummed it with us morons. - Yeah, what is that? - What, go ahead. - No, that's it. - No, I wanna, I just wanna, I want you to walk me through your academic prowess. I'm fascinated with all this stuff. - Well, at Princeton, I majored in English literature and I wrote my thesis on Samuel Beckett's novels. - Come on. - Wow. - Because, well, let me tell you why I wrote on the novels because nobody writes on the novels and I didn't have to do that much work in research 'cause I could just make the shit up myself. - All right. - This is pretty cool. - This is nothing to compare it to. - Yes, no chat GPT cheating. It was an open field. And then what happened that was Princeton or that was Yale? - That was Princeton. And then I took a year off and I traveled and I didn't really know what I wanted to do at all. I just knew I wanted to be a writer. And then I thought I applied for a melon fellowship which I got from the Melon Foundation which they were trying to lure people that might go into money-making businesses and steer them towards academia. So it was for people to get PhDs who might not be able to afford staying in school. So I got one of those and I went to Yale and I thought that I'd become a professor of English literature and then write novels in my summer times. - Wow. Wow. - And forgive me, have you written like a hundred novels and I'm an idiot? - I've written four or five novels. - Wow. - Yeah. - And I just had a book of poems come out. - Oh, that's cool. - Oh, that's cool. - Oh, David. - By the way, he's also, he's emitting the fact that he's put out a number of records. He just finished a tour. Am I right? You just finished a tour in Europe. - Oh, no, this was in the States. This one, but go ahead. But last year you were on tour in Europe. - Yeah. - And I listened to your records. By the way, your music is great. - Oh, thank you. - And you know, sometimes, and I mean this, sometimes when you see people who do multiple disciplines there, like, I'm gonna put a record out. You listen to your, yeah, it's pretty good. Your records are really good. I mean, these aren't just-- - Well, it's got very good musical taste. - And I'm a music lover, really, really good stuff. I mean, thank you, Will. - I love that tune, "Heller High Water." I think that's a great tune. Yeah, it's super good. - What type of, is it rock and roll? - Yeah, I guess it's rock and roll. - Yeah, like 70s rock, you know, late 60s rock. - Like, like yacht, yacht rock? - Not quite like yacht rock, I'm not very jazzy. I stay off the water. I try to stay off the water. - No, it's kind of like indie rock in a way. I mean, sorry to forgive you for saying that, but I'm a 90s indie rock dinosaur music. - Yeah, it's, well, the 90s was kind of like the garageification of 70s rock in my mind. - Oh, interesting. - And so I think 70s and 90s have a lot in common. - And you're playing the guitar there, and you're singing this one. - I don't play the guitar on stage, because I'm kind of self-taught on the guitar. So I have an inability to play it the same way twice, which does not very nice for my band. So I write the songs and do you sing them? - And I sing in my fashion. - So on stage, you have no guitar as a crush. - Nothing new with my hands, I think that's where you're going. - Oh, you just kind of work the mic, and the corner. - You know, if you're onto that fucking mic stand for dear life, it's what happens. - I wouldn't know what to do. - It's like a life jacket. - You're like Liam Gallagher, does that, you know, with the-- - Liam is amazing, because you know, when I first, when I first started performing live, I just thought, well, I'm like the MC. I want people to have a good time, you know? And I'm dancing around and making a fool of myself. I'm just dancing. It was actually my wife said to me, you know, you don't have to move around so much. - Oh no. - And then I saw, you know, then I saw Liam, and Liam is just still. You know, he's just still in his hands behind his back for the most part, kind of leaning up in a way. - And it's really, it's really powerful to be still. - Yeah. - Do you close your eyes a lot? Sometimes, sometimes I close my eyes and then I go, this isn't good, there could be shit happening out there that I need to keep an eye on. - Do you ever go full-sea and just turn your back to the audience? (laughing) - But David, I just want to say, so you were, David, you were self-taught on guitar. I think, do you only started playing guitar a couple years before your first album? Is that true? - True, yeah. - So you barely started, you basically teach yourself how to play guitar for a couple of years. Then you have the audacity to be like, all right, well, I'm going to write a record. And how are you, do you know how to read and write music? How did you do, how was that process? - I don't know how to read and write music. But here's something that you guys might appreciate as actors, when I decided I wanted to learn guitar. I'm not 100% self-taught. When I decided I wanted to learn, I was doing California Cation at the time. And I said to Tom Capino's the producer, I think Hank Moody should learn how to play guitar. - So I could get the free lesson, free lesson. - Oh, that's amazing. The intelligence, it permeates everything you do. - I know, I know, it's not easy. He's playing four-dimensional chess if that's a thing. - So I also was singing. I'm not like Sean, I'm not that kind of a singer. - Oh, I'm not either, which is similar. And it's been a journey to try and put over the song, 'cause I can hear melodies that I can't necessarily sing, which is weird. I never thought that was a possibility. - Well, you know, I'm just really quick. Sometimes the best singers are the quote, untrained singing. Because you don't think about it. You're not in your head about it. - You know, David, when we had Michael Styper, a friend from R.E.M. on here a while ago, and he was talking about that wonderful singing. - I'm so good. And that first record that he made when he was down in Athens, Georgia, with those guys, Radio Free Europe, I think was their first single. And he was talking about, he basically was singing gibberish, and he didn't know how to sing. Do you remember that guy's name? He was talking, he was like, I just kind of winged it. - Yeah. - And he kind of taught himself how to, and he got better. - I think the correct term is Wang. He won it. - He won it. - He won it. - He won it. - He's wrong. - Sorry, Jason. - I don't know if you know what Barry's gonna say. I'm so sorry. - Stickler. - Now David. - Now David. - He got an answer to the English from the school bus. (laughing) - So, hey, hey Sean. Hey. - Yeah. - Okay. - Really, speak a music struck accord with you. - Now David, this is, I don't read, and I'm not proud to say that. You strike me as a reader though, I'm surprised to hear that. - I appreciate that. - He reads scripts. - But it's just the glasses. - But, to be an English major, and to say you wanna be a writer, and you are a writer, and to be a perfect, it just, it sounds like a lot of reading. A lot of, of sitting down. - Can't get anything by you. - Nothing else going on. There's total silence in the house. Maybe there's a little bit of classical music or something, nothing with lyrics, 'cause that'll distract you. - No, right, right. - But, like, and Will, I wanted to ask you about this too, at times, and then I just, fuck it, I don't wanna talk to Will. How do you do that? How do you just say of all the things I could be doing? I would rather just sit in this chair, and shut out the world, and stare at this stack of paper, and go left to right, top to bottom, word after word after word after word. - So, I'm not reading Hebrew at all. - That's what you're saying. - I mean, I wish my parents for all the good that they did. I wish they had somehow tricked me into really loving that process, because there's so much that I've missed. - Read time at writing or reading? - Reading. - Reading, I've got. But it's the reading that's, I don't know. - Have you ever loved reading a novel or reading a novel? - I have, I've backed into a couple of those, but it wasn't by choice. I do not read for pleasure. - All the jokes, JB, that I make about you not reading. I will say of the handful that I mentioned that you have read. You've always said you really enjoyed reading them. So that's what's surprising to me. - No, it is the time allotment. It is the decision to go sit in a chair in a quiet corner of a house, and shut everything out, and do that. There's so much discipline that I have for other things, but I just don't have for reading. I'm so envious of that. - Yeah, I think it really just comes from my parents, I think, on my mother's side, she was a, from a small town in Scotland, and the only way to advance for her family, which were generations of, I did that, I did that root finding a root show. So I found out that I come from a long line of fishmongers. - Oh yeah. - Oh wow, that's wild. - So the only way out of the fishmongering business, in fact, one of my ancestors' occupation was widow of fishmonger. - Oh, that's like, I know that was a job, I think. - I was like, how does that pay? How does that pay? Not well, it's my guess. - Well, you need the person to die, first of all. I mean, that's, you need to be included in the well. - And so the only way out of, the only way out of that place and society was education for my mother. So my mother was the first woman, first person in her family, and a woman in the 1940s to go to college. And so she was very much just somebody who believed in the power of education and of reading and writing as a social climbing tool. - Is also the appeal of reading sometime, like the pure escapism of, 'cause I do remember, this is one book I really enjoyed reading once I was once on a job that I didn't enjoy. I wasn't, I didn't like what it was. I was on location somewhere and that was lonely. And it was great to just like, I was dying to get back into the book any chance I could because it would travel me from where I was. - That feeling is amazing. - Well, it used to be, you know, I think the place of books. has been taken by TV and movies, you know, that escape. But before there was that technology, you know, this was what you had. - Right, and people used to read books on set, I think way back in the day you did. But JB, I would say that you, as somebody who travels a lot, you're on a lot of, you're on planes a lot. - Yeah. - It's such a great time to get that escape where you're not watching. - Can I send you one of my books? - Yes, please. - Yes. - Yes, and you're one of my books for playing ride. It's baseball contingent. - It's near baseball. It's called Bucky Fucking Dent. I made a movie of it, but I want you to read the book. I'll send you the book. - Now, well, that sounds like non-fiction. - No, no, it's fiction. - Is it? - It just uses that moment in time. - Okay, and then does that make you a big Yankee fan? - I am a big Yankee fan, and I heard what you said earlier. - You got a big, you got a big day today, big day today. - So David, so David, all of this to say. - So my father's family, his father wrote for The Forward, which was the only Yiddish daily newspaper in America, the longest running one, and he wrote kind of in a Dickensian way. He wrote cliffhangers for the paper. He wrote stories about Little Nell or whatever. Some, you know, somebody being tied to the train tracks, that kind of a thing. So, and my father, his entire life, my father had to work, kind of a nine to five job. But he always said he was a novelist. He always said he was a novelist. And at the age of 73, two years before he died, he published his first novel. So he was a hot young novelist at the age of 73. So I'm coming out of that kind of history of respect for the word, respect for the efficacy of the word, respect for education. Just it was all, it was all, that was part of my growing up. That was part of my foundation. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. - That's funny, my dad also, who worked forever and he's been retired for a while, but since COVID has written two novels. - Amazing. - And he wrote his last one, he came out when he was 86. He's just written in his last year, yeah. - What is the name of it and where can purchasers find it? - Yeah, well, his latest is the Monmouth Manifesto, which is an interesting novel. And it's sort of a historical fiction, if you will. - I love that. - This is about when caterpillars change into. - No, it's about, it's sort of pre, it's about the American Revolution in a way, Monmouth County, New Jersey, is a reference at about loyalist going to Canada based on one of my ancestors and about really at the heart of the revolution. And I was just trying to do a mouth choke. - Okay, sorry, you don't want to get into it. - No, really, this is why you're committing it. - Let the readers buy it and discover it. - What's his name? - My dad's name is James Arnet. - Are you sure? - Yeah, Emerson James Arnet, if you will. - Oh, yeah. - My dad wrote, my dad wrote, me off. - Oh, no, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, he was having so much fun. - He wrote me off, no, Sean. - All right, he wrote a good buy note. His way wrote, Cia, that's where a buy came from, by the way, it came from Sean's dad. - Wait, wait, David, David, David, David, so I do want to, so you get it, you graduate, you go to. - I don't think he's Sean, but we've done a lot. Anytime you have a question on Sean, please interrupt me. But you decide, and you're studying English lit, and you get a master's. And then what's the moment you go, like. All right, I'm gonna put this down for a second, I'm gonna dip my toe. What was your first acting job and why did it come about? - I was at Yale, I was getting my PhD or so, I thought. And Yale is famous for its drama school, and they have a lot of productions going on all the time. So I decided I was gonna start trying to take classes over at the drama department, and they were very loose about it. They would just let me walk in and do writing classes, 'cause I thought, maybe I'm gonna write plays, because the idea of writing novels or poems seems so very lonely to me. And I was 22, 23 years old, and I was just sitting in a room, all day long alone, trying to write. And I was like, this is fucked up, you know, this is not. - You know, I like people. - That is romantic as you thought. - No, but I like collaborating, I like. So I thought, okay, I'll write plays in that way, at least I'll get out into the world. And so I met all these actors, and they're always looking for bodies, 'cause there's so many productions going on around, and they said, hey, you know, come and do this thing, there's Arthur Schnitzer play, Schnitzler play we're doing, which name escapes me. But you can play the count, do I trim away or something? I had one or two lines, and I liked it. It wasn't like, oh, this is a revelation. In fact, I thought, oh, well, I'm comfortable, and I was so comfortable in between the first of the second performances I smoked to join. (laughing) - How'd the second one go? - Yeah, yeah. - Not so good. (laughing) - That's really funny. - I was so cocky. I was like, I got this. And then I was like, oh, I don't have anything. I got people looking at me. Did you then sign up for acting classes? - I started taking classes in New York with a woman named Marsha Howe Fracto taught Strasbourg Method. She was associated with the actor's studio, and that was wonderful 'cause she was completely supportive, you know, it was all about the interior world, all the things that are so difficult to work on when you're actually a working actor. - But were you thinking about it in terms of like informing your playwriting? Was that part of it? - Yes. - Yes, that's what I was talking about. - So it wasn't like this is gonna be my, this is gonna be my future occupation. - No, I thought if I'm gonna write plays, I should probably know what it's like to say these, whatever lines I'm gonna write, see if they're sayable up on stage. - Yeah. - And so that was my approach. And then at some point I was just like, I liked, I'd played sports my whole life, and I liked the team aspect of acting and of making things. I liked the high-wire kind of, you know, put up or shut up feeling. - Did it ever frustrate you that it didn't hold the same sort of academic rigor that because it is not, with all respect to our colleagues that are actors, it's not, it doesn't have this sort of high-brow, sophisticated reputation that a playwright would play. - It's just a different game. It's just a different game. It's like baseball and basketball, whatever. It's just, I look at life as a series of games or setups and this was just another game. And I knew it had different rules, and I knew that I would have to examine different strengths in order to- - Yeah, and probably less constraints to the writing, and because it is such a different discipline, it probably started exercising a different muscle creatively that you were like, oh, this feels good. - Yes, it was the emotional aspect of my life, which had been neglected because I was, you know, I was in academia, which doesn't really prize, you know, the volatile. And that's right. - So the emotional side of it and the teamwork side of it is being satisfied, but do you feel like this fucking academic superhero that you have inside of you has been satisfied, it's been utilized properly in your life thus far? - Now that I, when I started writing novels, I've got about 10 years ago now. And, you know, people, I go on good reads and I'll read, I'll read, you know, people's suggestions. - Yeah. - Are you will? - I stupidly, yeah. But people, I will, I will be accused of showing off my learning. But in fact, I don't write with any books around. It's all in my head, you know. If I'm quoting something or if I'm referencing another great work of literature, it's coming from my head, it's coming from my memory. So I'm not doing this to show up, but it's part of me. And I really feel like I finally joined in the conversation with these people that I grew up reading and loving and feeling like, this is the conversation I want to be involved with. And I'm sure you guys have had this as actors where you're like, okay, now I'm in conversation with the people that I want to be in conversation with. - Yeah, that's true, that's true. - And then what about, did you, sorry, Shiny, did you ever end up writing any plays or any screenplays? Have you kind of married the two? - Yeah. - Yeah, in fact, the novel writing came out of not being able to make a screenplay. Bucky Fucking Dent, I wrote as a screenplay probably in 2005 or 2006. - Yeah. - And then I couldn't get it made. You know, these are usually my soul goes towards like more independent kind of stories. - Yeah. - And so Bucky, I couldn't make. I got close, I got close, I got close. I couldn't make it. - Then I finally did. Then I was like, I'm gonna write it as a novel and then I made it as a movie. So you flipped it, you went the other way, so you wrote it as a screenplay. - Because we'll always talk about it, this is IP now, because now your book is IP. So they love that, right? I don't know if we've heard-- - I don't know if we've heard that. - Reverse engineering. I mean, no, Holly was loves that. It's it was it a book first? Then why? - I'll just say that as a director, you know, writing the novel of the screenplay was the best preparation I could have done as a director. - Yeah, sure. - Because I just knew. - So now I mean, I'm just guessing that you have to do that next time. - No, no, no. - Yeah, I'm just saying for me that worked. - Is there a genre that you like writing more of than not? - Oh. I mean, I'm just of the, I guess, I go back to the movies when I started acting, you know, like James Brooks, just these movies that can live in a real, in terms of a dearman, you know, sobbing, but also laughing, yeah, great. David Russell's stuff. - Yeah, yeah. - It's just like a real emotional stuff, like emotional, but fucking funny. - Yeah, yeah, it looks back and forth. - Yeah, so that's always the balance that I'm looking for, as an actor too, it's always the balance I'm looking for. That's where I live. - So what ended up, so to go back to my favorite, what ended up becoming the first professional acting gig that you had, that you went up for and you got? - Professionals are funny words. - Well, you know, that you got a paycheck that you had to fill out a W-4 or whatever, you know? - Well, I'll tell you about two. One, the first one I got paid for, and then there's the first one I did, which was even better. But the first one I got paid for, I believe, was a Michelot beer commercial. - Well. - And I got on set and the guy told me, "Okay, you're at the bar here, the guy, the director." - So you're at the bar here. - The guy. - Yeah, the guy, some guy, said you're at the bar. So this guy says, "I'm at the bar." And you run into an old professor of yours and you guys have a conversation and you're happy to see him. And I was so fucking tight. I was so nervous. I mean, I'm 26 years old. I mean, I'm not young, young, you know? And I had kind of staked my life on this path. Like I wasn't gonna get my PhD. I wasn't gonna be a professor. And I just thought, "Okay, I'm gonna do this thing and I'm gonna be good at it." Now I get on set and I'm like, "I'm just tight." - Because you feel like you needed to do so much? - I just didn't know, I didn't know it was gonna be so fucking tight. - I know exactly what you mean, man. I know you needed that joint. - It wasn't that, I didn't even, it wasn't, it wasn't like, you know, "Oh, I'm in the right place." - Yeah, right. - It was like, "No, I'm in the wrong place." - Yeah. - The camera's pointed at you. - What? - The one guy comes in, yeah. - I can't do, I can't go on, I can't lie on the ground, I go, "Ha!" (laughing) - All right. So there's pretzels there and I start, I toss one up, you know, catching my mouth and the director's like, "That's, I love that, I love that." - Oh no. - And I just remember, again, that was my life line and I was like, "So I did it for like 10 minutes "and then I just remember the director going, "Okay, with the pretzels, we got the pretzels." (laughing) - I thought you were gonna say you could never get it in your mouth again. - No, no, I was doing that, I could do. - Yeah. - So that was the first paying job was, Michael Obe. The first job that I remember was my acting class went and my acting class put on a night of one acts and I decided to adapt this Charles B. Kowski short story called The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, California. - Sure. - Sure. (laughing) - Sure. - As one does. - Sean's always referencing that. - Yeah. It's a painting, Sean. - I just call it mermaid. - Yeah. - Yeah. - In this story, these two guys, kind of unemployed guys, watched the hearse unload at the Venice morgue. This is not a true kind of geographical thing, but they can see it from the beach. And they know the timing of it. They know when the guys are gonna come around, they know when the body's gonna be unattended and they're gonna steal a body. So they do, they steal a body. And they, you know, and here's where, you know, it's B. Kowski and it's like the logic kind of fails you. But they open it up and it's a beautiful woman and I decide I'm gonna have sex with her. And then I'm so ashamed of myself that I force my buddy to have sex with her and then he's, I'm sure you have this on your wall, Sean. I'm not, yeah. - I don't know. - It's how I get to see the poster. - Yeah. - So then I, I said, we go, what are we gonna do to the body? I don't know. I swim her out to the ocean to get rid of the body and then I come back and I say, she wasn't dead. She turned into a mermaid. She was beautiful. She swam away. So it's just like beautiful, not beautiful after this. It's this gross, horrible necrophilia and then coupled with this high romantic, it's just Yucowsky. - Yeah. - So we decide we're gonna do it. And I ask the class, you know, which of the women in the class is gonna be the corpse? And everybody's like, yeah, it'll be me, it'll be me. But then when the time comes to do it, nobody shows to be the corpse and we're stuck. And we had been the place where we were making these plays was a, it was an SNM dungeon. - Sure. - Well, you know, of course. - They're not used during the day. - No, they're not used during the day. And we got to use it for two nights by cleaning up, we had to clean up. That was a whole other different story. - Really? - Yeah. - But there was the, the madam there was named Magda and she heard that we didn't have a body. So she said, why don't you use one of my blow up dolls? - Oh my god. (laughing) - This is how things happen. So they're Yale. - Say, oh, she, yeah, right. And I'm thinking, maybe I should have stayed a year. (laughing) - So I, I put up, I had always put up like a bulwark on front of the stage to lay a body down. So nobody could see the body. They couldn't see what was going on when I was supposedly making love to this body. And so I had this blow up doll. And would I, I hadn't been able to rehearse with her. - Sure. - And she wasn't available. - So she didn't wear lines or anything. - As I was populating with her. Her arms and legs started flying out. - About it. (laughing) - 'Cause she's only made it there, right? So, what do you see this? - Sure. - Like a used car lot, the things that you do a lot. - I'm trying to do this most intense scene, young actor, like I'm really like sure, I'm fucking edgy. - Yeah. (laughing) - And the audience is laughing and laughing. And so in between performances I went to Paragon. I hope you know it. It's a sporting good show. - Sure, very well. - And I got four ankle weights. And I weighed down her wrists and her ankles. So the next time she didn't, she didn't have as much movement. - But you still had the squeaky. (laughing) - The other part of it was when I walked through the audience and I go, I put a pale of water off stage where I was gonna go 'cause I swim around. I gotta be wet. And so I walk through the audience, I'm sure the audience is like, "Oh my God, this is the worst thing I've ever seen." (laughing) And I'm thinking, "Yeah, that's right, I'm an edgy motherfucker." And I go around the corner to, and I realize it's totally quiet. There's no door. They can just hear me sponging myself down. (laughing) They can just hear me. Oh my God. - Dude, that was my first play. - How long did it last? - It was two nights. - Okay, great. - Two full nights. - Two full nights. So you do the Bukowski, where you're, as you describe making love to a inflatable doll in SNM dungeon. - Yeah. - You do the Michelin-- - You threw away a PhD at Yale for this. - That's right, I hear my mother saying. - Yeah, your parents must have had this point. They're beaming with pride. And so then, but then what's the sort of the first, 'cause I'm leading up to X-Files. So I want to get into X-Files a little bit. We'd be remiss if we didn't get into X-Files because I was a fan of X-Files and I watched it. - Yeah. - So you get that, and that leads to what? You meet, 'cause what was the first film you did? - An old girlfriend of mine whose name is Maggie Wheeler. That's her married name. She's a terrific actress. She was on-- - You haven't addressed your friends quite a lot. I've got first and last, okay? - She was on friends. - She was Janice on friends. - Oh yeah. - Janeler's-- - Yes. - Oh yeah. - So Maggie was doing this film with Henry Jaglum, who just passed last week. And Henry's this Maverick independent film maker. And Maggie was gonna be one of the three stars of this film called New Year's Day and she asked Henry, you know, can you David's acting now? Can you see if you can put him in? So Henry did, and I had a couple scenes in the movie and they were good at it. They were kind of notable enough to kind of get me going here in LA and get an agent. And you know, at that point it was like, it wasn't like Get Your Sack Heart. It was like, how do I get film on myself? - Yeah, right. - How do I show people that I'm not a vampire and I don't disappear when I'm alive? - Well people didn't have, they didn't have phones and you couldn't put shit on YouTube the way kids can now and create their own stuff. - Right. - So it was really this one long scene in New Year's Day that really kind of opened it up for me in LA and then I auditioned forever here and didn't get tons of stuff and would get, you know. - So you moved LA back? - You moved LA to do it to go all in. - Exactly. - What were you doing to pay the bills while you were swinging a missile? - I was doing commercials. - I would get commercials. - So no waiting tables, no bartending. - I bartended, I catered. - Where did you live when you were here? - In LA. - I lived on Forth Street in Santa Monica. I got a subway there, an efficiency apartment, which means it didn't have a kitchen, which means I did my dishes in the shower when I had a shower. - David. - Yeah, wow. - I mean, dish washing liquid is pretty good. - Wait, fourth and what? I lived on Ocean Park in second for years. - A fourth between California and Washington. - Yeah, right by the stairs, you know, like you get. And that was my gym, I'd go to the stairs and finally half. I catered to, I catered for a wedding at Anthony Edwards House when I just moved here. And I was like, oh my God, it's the guy from ER and I'm in his kitchen. Yeah. It was so wild. Yeah. And then you were shooting pretty much next door to him when you guys were doing willing grace, right? That's right. It's crazy. Yeah. Oh my God. And you did a lot, Sean, you did a lot of commercials too, back in the, I mean, tons. Yeah. It's the only way to pay the bills. We talked about, remember, you had those commercials that you were doing like when willing grace was on some of them came out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that was wild. I had two, I had two commercials, two on the Super Bowl in 1998. What was it? One was a bud, um, bud light commercial. I did a bud, I did a bud light commercial. Oh, really? When? 87, 88. Well, you did Miller light and bud light. Yeah. Michael. Look at you. No, Michael. I make love and bud light. That was all of the beers. I love the beers. I love the beers. When did you, I mean, because I was a, I'm a big sci-fi nerd. So, so X. Yeah. So X files. How did, that's what you're getting to, right, Johnny? How did that, how did X files, I know you're sick of talking about, I don't know, you are. And forgive us. Forgive us. We're just fans. I didn't ask. But I'm ready to listen. Um, Jason read the books. Yeah. It was, it was just an audition and, um, I remember at that point, I was not wanting to do television, you know, at that point, there was a real divide between television actors and movie actors, which has been erased in the past few years or the past 20 years. So it was really, um, you know, I'm not a TV actor. That was my sense. I'm, I'm going to, I'm, who was your North Star in film? Who did you want to be? Well, I mean, I didn't want to be Brando, but he was my North Star. Okay. Yeah. Right. Right. Did you ever, did you ever write any of the X files? I wrote it. You did. I run directed two or three of them. Yeah. That's one of them. It was a baseball one. Jason. Oh, I can't believe we haven't made this. I know. We'll be right back. So wait, so you get this gig and, and you sign, you sign the five year or seven year standard thing before you go in and you test, um, so you know that if you get, um, so you know you get this, you're stuck with something that you're not really kind of excited about. Then you get it. Was your. Yeah. Are you excited when you get it because of that? Yeah. Well, you know, you, you're not excited to think it's going to go forever, which is a blessing when it does. But you, you get competitive, you know, you're just like, if I'm going to do it, I want it to, I want it to win. I want it to go. You do the pilot. You want it to get picked up. Yeah, sure. Every step of the way. Then it gets well received. And you're like, well, all right. No. Can I just, can I just stop for Tracy? Can I just say so the testing process? You don't know Jason just alluded to and David knows we all know you used to be. I don't know if it still is the way, but what, what happened is you'd go in for a show whether it's X files are willing grace or whatever it is. And you get the audition and you'd go through and then you get a call back and you'd read for producers, then what they do is they sort of take for any given role they might have three or four people who they decide that they're going to, as they call it, bring to the network. Yeah. They're kind of, they're, they're select pick three or four people for each, each role. And before you go and do this final audition, usually like in a, in a conference room or something in an office building, the most uninspiring place you can imagine. Before you do that, for a day or two before your agents in the, in the show, negotiate your contract, a five year contract, and you sign it before you go into the final audition in the lobby before you walk. So they got it. And so you're broke and then your agent goes like, here's your contract. We've agreed you're going to get $25,000 in episode for the next five years. So lottery ticket. Yeah. And you're like, oh my god, I'm so broke and I'm going to get $25,000 in episode for the next five years. And you're doing the math. You're like, and then I'm going to buy. I'm going to buy a new one. And if you weren't nervous before, you're petrified. Yeah. And sign it. And then you go, once you sign it, they take the signed, executed, uh, country. So that you have no leverage if they give you the job. You're going and then you then audition for all the execs at the network and then you're waiting and they decide whether or not you got the part. So they have you so over the barrel, you never realize you're never not over the barrel in that in that process. And it's really on inspiring and it's a very specific thing to get good at that, to be able to block that part of it out, to then go and deliver at the final moment. It's you're kind of. You're kind of. Yeah. You're fighting out of a hole, right? What? What if after that, David was like, it was an offer, but anyway, it wasn't an offer. So David, so David, your process is you're kind of, you're a little conflicted about doing a TV series, but you wanted to, and it's a great paycheck. So you go in and you sign the contract, you do the test now, you, and then you do the pilot, right? And so then now they've got the extra executed thing. And then the network, sorry, again, for Tracy, then they decide from all their pilots what shows are going to make it on the air next year. So you're waiting for a month or two for that, and then they go, great, your show is happening, you're in it, and we've got you for five years. And then what happens a lot is you go, oh my God, this is so great. I'm going to make 20 or $25,000 right episode. And then two years in, if you're lucky enough that it's going, you're like, hey, man, I deserve way more than $20,000. Yeah. I got it. I got to get out of here. I'm going to stay available for all the feature opportunities, I think, are out there waiting. David, so you know that process, right? So you're, you're, you're there and you're doing ex-files and you guys come out of the gate pretty hot. It's a, it's kind of a hit. Am I going to run? Well, it's a hit on Fox. And if you can remember that far back, Fox was really like not, not a real network at that point. You know, just started. There's like 93 when 93, they didn't have programming, you know, across the board all day long, really. And, you know, they had married with children and I can't remember, you know, they had made nice. I know too much. Tracy Alman. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. But they're really the upstart network. They didn't have a big drama kind of like, no, not at all. And we didn't need to get like huge numbers to be a hit for Fox, which was nice because we Fox wasn't even in all the homes. Who was running Fox at the time when you guys were there, do you remember? Who was running it? Yard's here. Who was it? I don't know. Who's that NBC? I think. Yeah. He was one of the starters of Fox. Yeah. I can't believe you remember that name, Jay. What was it? He didn't want me for a gig and I had to re audition. You ready for this? For my buddy, Michael Malley, show we did the pilot. I get the pilot. We do it. We shoot it. It gets picked up to series. And then he didn't want me. And I had to go back, Sandy, two months later, I had to go back two months later in re audition for a part and do a scene in the conference room, a scene holding up pages that I had already filmed terrible that existed on film to get my job terrible. That's crazy. In a conference room in Burbank. That's crazy. Wait, you don't need to see me do this in the room. Do you remember what year that was, Will? 1999. That's when I first met you. Yeah. I met you at the up front. Yeah, that year. That's right. Did you get it? Well, did you get it? I did, actually. Yeah. Well done. I got it again. You've been imitated yourself. What a fucking victory. Do you think I had? I think I counted. I think I had a thousand beers that night. That's not enough. That's not enough. Wait, David, were you a sci-fi fan when you got it or are you now not at all? No. Wow, how about that? No, not really. So, you get ex files. You go up to Vancouver. You guys start doing it. It's a hit for Fox and then it really starts to, when's the moment you can feel that it's kind of pushed through to the general. Probably like the third year just globally. No. It felt just huge. You know? Yeah. I mean, it was a global hit. Yeah, massive. Did you like relocating up into Vancouver for so long? Well, I loved it at first, because I didn't really have any roots in Los Angeles. You know, I just, I come here to try to get work. And you weren't going to, the blow up doll wasn't going to start crying. I mean, they can perform a lot of duties, but tears are not one. I'm not going to speak for her. But I will tell you, but so I hear this is what I hear here. Yeah. Oh, my God. So, I, you know, I don't know how you guys feel about Vancouver, but it's a beautiful part of the world. Beautiful. And I've never been. You've never been. I've never been. I want to go so bad. Oh, it's incredible. It's the greatest. It's so beautiful. So I loved it. And yeah, I didn't mind being out of LA at all. Yeah. I just love being up there. And in a way, we got to just focus on doing the work. There wasn't any kind of LA around us. There wasn't any kind of, that whatever heat that was happening, we were kind of cut off from in a really good way. And in many ways, it was my education as an actor, having to go to work every damn day for 14 hours. I mean, these were really long days. And I really taught myself how to act. How soon into the run of it and the success of it, did you start thinking, all right? Good here, ready to move on and maybe parlay some of this into, you know, what would you have your eyes on? Was it still features? Yeah, I mean, that was really, you know, I had that kind of bias, you know, that was kind of baked in from a young age, you know, the TV shows that I watched when I was a kid, it was quantitatively different. different acting in it, you know, it's not the way now. But you, you saw, I just remember that you had very much a movie style of acting. In other words, you're very subtle. - Well, that's how I would not get, that's why I didn't get, I would audition and not get any roles in television. - Right, exactly. - I would say, he's a movie star. And I was like, who's fuck, I can't, I don't know about the pissing either. - I don't know. - Can you get good that you didn't change? Please play Puppet Man. Can I get that part from the Puppet Man? - Right. - David, I want to ask you about like time management because you're a musician. You're literally right novels, which is amazing. You act, you do some other stuff. I'm sure you haven't mentioned. How do you manage all of that on a daily basis or weekly or monthly, whatever? Do you pick a priority that you focus on? - Whatever's like in front of me. This is what I'll do. Songwriting can happen at any time, pick up a guitar. But with writing a novel, everything has to stop and I have to work on that for a few months. I write really fast, but it's an intense experience of like eight hour days doing that. And then of course, I can't write when I'm acting. I can't write when I'm directing. So that, do you have a goal in your mind that is louder than all the other goals and that then informs how you allocate your time? - That's probably the problem that I have is I don't really have a goal except to satisfy some kind of itch or-- - And that's a daily itch? Not a weekly or a monthly or? - No, it's a lifelong kind of a thing. It's just, for instance, like I want to make a series out of one of the novels that I've written. And that's really my greatest ambition at this point, but there's also a movie I'm shooting in February that I wrote, but I'm not directing. I'm just acting. And so-- - You've got a new series airing now. I think we're in November. - Oh, Malice. Right, Malice. - Yeah. - Don't really think that. - Hey, thanks for not having me on the live show. - I mean, dude, that's from movie stars, bro. - I'm pretty good on my team. - Yeah. - Yeah, Malice, it's Amazon comes out. I'm not sure in November 3rd or something like that. - What's it called again? - Malice. - Malice, okay. - Yeah, it's coming November on Amazon. And by the way, David, we'll get you to see one of the-- We have these new stage seats that we're on the live show. - Yeah, I was listening. - I was listening. - I was listening. - But if I was one of this, I think we've had people on who have been part of something that's sort of really struck a chord, culturally, the pieces, as Sean would say, IP, but part of-- X-Files obviously over a number of years had this intense following, and I was one of the followers. I used to watch it religiously back in the '90s. When I saw the film, I saw the first film, I didn't see the second film. The first one was a big hit. Is there that thing when you run into people who are big fans of it? Do you ever feel a response, weirdly? I'm just like a responsibility as the sort of the, as the caretaker of that thing of X-Files, is does that, I don't want to say there's a burden, but you're the guy, you're the front facing face person of the-- - You feel that, yeah. Well, of course there was a time when I wanted to leave it behind, you know, and reinvent myself. But then over the years, you begin to respect the power of the show and the size of the show. And the meaning that it has for people, at first when you're younger, you think, oh, it's not because of me, but it's personal. And then you realize it's not personal. It's just that this thing has a place in people's lives and I represent that to them. - Yeah, and I'm going to ask all if I don't respect that. - I say that all the time. I say that all the time. - You're also not getting it. - No, I do say that a lot. - I do say that all the time, I said it before in here where you become famous for playing a certain role or in a movie or whatever it is. And then you spend several years trying to distance yourself that because you want to be able to play all these things. And in doing so, you alienate the fans that made you kind of because they are in love with you because of the thing that you just said that you made them feel. And you're doing it to service. And I always say that. I'm an asshole. If I don't embrace the character Jack from Will & Grace and what it did for so many people. - So all that character is that. - Exactly. - Exactly. - And you have to depriving yourself, the tree that you deserve, right? - Yeah. - It's like how lucky, how rare it is to be a part of something that holds it right here. - Exactly. - Right, it is rare. And you get old enough to appreciate that, you know, that you got to do something that was great, that did strike a chord with people. - And when you're young, you don't think like that. It takes a few years to go, "Oh, I need to appreciate that more." - No, it's funny. I read somebody. I made the mistake, David, of reading a comment a while ago with somebody saying like, he thinks that he doesn't, that he should have had more of a thing or whatever about me and I was like, "Motherfucker, I'm so grateful for any time that I was able to do anything that I even-- - For sure. - Anybody liked for a moment when you're in a joke? - Yeah, right. Yeah, and I'm a guy, I don't even have my high school diploma, like the fact that I'm still like-- - I think I need to stop bragging. - The world doesn't owe me, I don't like that. The world doesn't owe me a living. We're so lucky that we've been able to do this at all. - Yeah. - It's so not the way I think about it. - Now I'd like to ask a question that Sean's too shy to ask. Did you ever learn anything doing the X-Files? - Here we go. - This is sort of confidence that we are not alone. - And Sean, promise us not to tell anybody if you could just-- - Yeah, yeah. - Just us four talking. - I never learned anything, no. But I have the same kind of sense as when I went into it, which is, it seems to me that the impossibility would be that we are the only sentient life. - Yeah, yeah. - I mean, there's just too many galaxies, too many planets, too many Goldilocks planets. - Right. - So the odds to me are slanted way in favor of the existence of extraterrestrials. Whether or not, we haven't advanced technologically enough to reach out to them. - Yeah. - And they might be all around us and we just don't know the technology to see it. - Right. - They don't want us to, I always think, look at it, you know, when you see all these things, these congressional hearings and stuff about pilots who run into these shapes or things that are moving in ways that we can understand. I always think, oh, we're so dumb. We think that they want a, that we need to, and they're like, no, no, no, you guys, you guys, we're good. - We're good. - Yeah, we're good. We're watching you. You know, we're just watching you guys. - We don't want to have anything to do with it. - Rip it over yourself, like a bunch of ding-dongs. - Didn't we have, we had a guy on once that had, and I'm paraphrasing here. But he said something that was really sort of interesting that makes a lot of sense to me, that perhaps they are all around us in a way that we can't see, just like our cell phone service, or radio waves, you know, from like television with gravity waves. - Yeah, it's right here. - It's just flying all around us. You don't see any of that, that the ones and zeros or whatever the hell it is that fly around that make our phones, they could be all in that stuff. - Yeah, they live in the space, between the space. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - The dark matter. - The dark matter. - The dark matter. - I used to say this thing with, are you aware of like the phenomenon of like a ship of fools? Do you remember that from the Middle Ages, where a great rubber plant song is that? - Is it? - It was. - It could be. But the idea was that they would take their deviants and criminals, their incorrigible criminals, and they'd put them on a ship. You know, they didn't have space for them. They'd just put them on a ship out to sea. - Floating Australian. - Like, sometimes, well, sometimes, you know, you'd encounter a ship of fools and it wasn't a fun thing, right? Well, they weren't armed, they shouldn't be armed. - No, no, they made sure they were-- - But my theory about, because so much of alien abduction, testimony has to do with being probed, alienly, and having a teeth drilled. - Sure. - My theory was that alien civilizations were putting their deviants and dentists on a ship. - Oh, I see. - Okay, I'm very good. - Sending it out into the galaxy and somehow they've come in-- - We can cut this, we can cut this. - Why are aliens so obsessed with anal? Okay, so-- - Why would you want to cut that? - I don't want to offend them when they get any comments from me. - So if you're not reading, and you're not writing, and you're not writing music, and writing screenplays, and doing all this stuff, what is this is sort of the Sean question that he would ask? What are you doing? Is there anything you do in your downtime that you're like? What's your guilty pleasure? - It would be surprised to learn. - What do you do in the space between the space? Is it gardening? - Nice. - Anything dumb that you do, you go like, oh man, I'd be embarrassed if people knew I did this stupid thing. - I don't really, I'm so bad with hobbies. I really should have a hobby. - Not one. - It's really a problem. - You do 25,000 days. - Are you playing basketball? You're playing golf? - I wish. - Cross-country skiing? - I wish I was playing basketball. - Yeah. - No, no, I feel bad. - I don't have a hobby. - And when people like me, when dummies like me are watching television, you're reading so you're not watching TV. - No, no, I watch TV. I watch them Black Rabbit. Come on. - Oh, yeah. - Black Rabbit. - Black Rabbit airing now on Netflix starring Jason and Jude Law. - What if I get Phil's brings you Black Rabbit? - So it's not like you're not watching below deck or anything like that. - No, but I do watch, I watch the Levi. but then I realized 45 hours, I mean, it's not like a 15-hour season. They make, somehow they make 45 fucking hours out of that. You get stuck in there. But so you watch baseball, is there another, is that your number one sport to watch? Basketball is probably in a basketball sport. You're the Lakers, they're going to be good this year. That could be. Okay. Who's your team? Next? Oh, the next. Yeah, I'm in there. New York. Now, where do you live? I live in LA. Okay. Why the next? Because I grew up in New York and it's just, when you're not awake, when we started the podcast, you said that. Well, there was, there was, there was some doll fucking and stuff like that, but it just put you in kind of a state. That was just like an hourly thing that you were going to skate with you, huh? How are we going to side to show this is terrible. I'm just glad he's not flying. What if the next time we watch Jason on TV at the Dodgers game, he's sitting next to a blow up top? He was the other day. Well, the next year I was too sure of. Well, wait, David, I have an idea for you. Okay. Come on. So because you write novels and you're not a sci-fi thing, you want to sell a lot of copies of something. Do like, you know, Bucky fucking dent was baseball adjacent. Do whatever you do brilliantly and just make a little sci-fi adjacent thing. Just a little bit. Right? Well, this is that episode of the X-Files that I wrote and directed that I want Jason to watch because it's called the unnatural and it's a baseball. Oh, I like it. All right. So you'll have to, I did that. Wilford Brimley do a cameo, I don't know, but Wilford Brimley. MM at Walsh. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. That's pretty, that's it. Wilford Brimley adjacent. Yeah. I love MM at Walsh, by the way. Just as a quick aside. Yeah, he was fantastic and he, uh, did he give you a $2 bill? He didn't. No, he does that with a lot of folk or did. Uh, I had one and then we just made David feel bad again. Yeah. This is before $2 bills were being made, probably, but he replaced an actor who got ill. So he was a, he had short notice and it was a lot of dialogue. And his, his character was really the exposition man in this episode. And at one point he turned to me, because I think he had a couple of days with the script. He got, you know, and he said, this isn't writing. It's typing. I was like, well, I did the typing. So, and at one point, he, he fucked up. It was so great. Instead of calling me Agent Mulder, he called me Agent McGiver. And I kept it in. I kept it in. Did you really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was too good. That's great. That guy was so good. I just remember, uh, what was the one that he did with my phone? He didn't know, uh, you know, the great cleaning sober. Yeah. And he was also in Fletch. Yes, right. She was the doctor in Fletch. That's great. Yeah. He was a fantastic guy. Um, David, you're fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. We've gone over. We rarely go over. We've gone over with you because we, we love talking to you. Um, so, uh, um, Malice is out Amazon Prime, where we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that again. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, uh, we, can I, can I plug, uh, black rabbit again? Should I do this? Please? Yeah. Please. What service is that on? And we had, you know, what do we find that? Yeah. Um, very, very nice of you to share some of the time. Yeah. I'm sure that we did this. I'm so happy. What a joy. Thank you for coming on. You know, I love your show. And, uh, thank you. Thank you for having me. Uh, actor, writer, screenwriter, novelist, academic, musician, and all around great guy. David, do a company. Thank you so much. David, for your time. Thank you for enjoying having you. Thank you, David. Thanks, David. All right. Bye-bye. All right. Double D. Double D. Come. Double D. To the Smart List. Um, studio. I guess is what this is. Yeah. Well, this is my studio. Yeah. Um, um, yeah. It's a shot in front of a live studio audience. He's real slick and cool. He's just, well, he's kind of smart. When you're smart, you're confident, and he's very confident in the, uh, I didn't know half that stuff. That's amazing. Because you're not smart. You're not smart. I mean, it is true. I mean, it is true. I mean, he's thinking about it. He graduated like head of his class in high school and, you know, he's, and then he goes to, he goes to Princeton. Then he goes to Yale and he gets a master's in English literature. And then he starts to work on his PhD. And while he's working on his PhDs, like, it's a Michael. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but could you imagine being his parents, you like, oh, boy, baby, we hit the lot of it. Look at this. We're, we can't wait to brag about this with our friend, and then they go see his first job. That's becoming an act. Let's go see it. And he's fucking it. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, there's nothing more disappointing than just going, I want to be an actor. Yeah. All right. Well, maybe he's good. Hopefully he's good. And then they go see his bang in the stall. I know. I know. Well, he landed on his feet. He did. You know? Boy did he ever. He landed on his feet a few times. Yeah. He's such a, we didn't even get into California. Cation. We just, he's just done so much. God. And he did some movies, too. He did a bunch of movies and he's, he's got this new show, new show called Malice. Malice. What do you think it's about? What do I think? What do you think Malice is about? Is it about? Is it about a guy's girlfriend who, and her name is Alice, and it's like, it's, it's Emma Posterfi, Alice. Oh, oh, Alice. Yeah. No, this is Malice. No, she, this is Malice. This is Malice. This is Malice. Yeah. Maybe it's about that. It could be. Why don't we just throw everybody off? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Ben, it's suggesting, this is, I'm calling, Jason, you said he landed on his weight, maybe, maybe on his bite, bite, bite, sesame, white, which is, what is this? The symptoms and treatment options are, it's from the Melbourne, Pediatrist. No. Beland. You're not going to take bite part height? No. No, no. No, no, no. I have you, by the way, have you seen the no, have you seen the no show by chance? By. No, no, we're not doing that. How are you doing that? How are you overruling with that with just like us? Come on. I'll try to teach you guys up with, you know, what do you think Malice is about? I thought maybe one of you ding-dongs had a bio. Oh, you know, well, I thought you'd be, you know, I don't know what it is. Is it a biopic about a guy who's girlfriending Malice? Who's whistle was that? Who's that? Who's that? Who's that? Who's that? Who's that? That's really good. SmartLess is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Rob Armjurf, Bennett Barbaco and Michael Grantary.