Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert I'm Dan Shepherd, I'm joined by manager Miles. Hi there. I'm Manager Miles.

We have a new set up. Oh, I know. We have really low while I have really loud headphones now we've got like an amplifier that will be wab snuck in and put on the desk. Very fancy.

Are you liking it more? I have everyone turned down pretty low. Yeah. You'd like to have no noise. I don't like it when it's screaming in my ear. No. Yeah. You, myself or anyone else. You don't like it. Oh I guess it's not for you.

You know who is for you. Who. Adam Brody he is.

Oh, Adam Brody. He's an actor, a writer and a producer. You know him. He's so damn cute and talented. He was on The O.C. Gilmore Girls, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. And of course, Chipps, of course, scores.

And he's so good. And the best part and he has a new movie out called The Kid Detective that I've only seen the trailer, but which is a phenomenal trailer.

I'm just going to say that. Yeah. And I cannot wait to get the link and watch it.

So please enjoy. Adam Brody. We are supported by policy genius.

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He's in charge. You know, the reason I was like, I want to apologize, I should have had my coffee prepared at 11 a.m. on the dot and I did it and I'll tell you why, because as I was reading about you, I kept thinking like, oh, my God, that's right. I was in Lovelace. And then I would be like, I want to watch someone love life. So I was like watching trailers of weird shit and I just kind of got distracted.

But ultimately, because I like you and in fairness, you are probably one minute late. OK, thank you so much. Can we start by saying and maybe this is one sided, but I don't think so. We just genuinely like each other so much, right?

Yes, correct. Yeah. For not spending a ton of time together. I know that I always cherish every time I get to sit down and chat with you.

I appreciate that. I remember when you first introduced yourself to me, it was at that a premiere for something. And you came up and we started talking about Strange Angel, the Jack Parsons book written by George Pendle.

And anyway, you were just always unfailingly nice to me. And then you cast me in your movie years later.

So I begged you to do it for very little money.

No, that's not true. We reached out and said, we want to get on this part. And he said, we do it.

And he said, well, I think what's helped is we have connective tissue, which is your agent, Kevin? I'm friends with through my wife's stylist, Nicole Chavez, who's the best stylist on the planet.

And so we know them very well. And then I think I need to, Kevin, that you like that book. And it's a very I guess it's like a litmus test book, right? If someone's into that book, I guess I think I'm going to just assume they're a very interesting person. Tell us about Strange Angel.

So I had the rights to this book for like seven years, eight years. Try to get it made as a movie. It's a biography about this guy, Jack Parsons, who was a rocket scientist. He pretty much invented rocket fuel out of his garage. Yeah, yeah. Home trained explosives expert in Los Angeles in the 30s, 40s, and then blew himself off and died in the in his garage in the spectacularly right like that.

The blast was heard blocks away. Yeah. And simultaneously while doing that and being in this ragtag outfit offshoot of Caltech, inventing rocket fuel that got co-opted into being the first jet propellers to help World War Two planes take off from short runways and aircraft carriers and stuff.

Anyways, he did that while simultaneously getting very involved in the Alamo, which was like a black magic outfit worldwide. And a major part of that was sex magic. So devotee of sex, magic and explosives. He's basically Ted Nugent, I suppose. But Nugent, one of the things I loved about it, that's not as thematically important.

But it just in terms of L.A. history, it just touched on every great thing of L.A. history. L. Ron Hubbard figures prominently into it as a romantic and intellectual rival early on and formidable, you know, like when he's young and formidable.

Not that he wasn't formidable when he was older, but anyways, it touched on all this great stuff. And we were trying to make the movie for a while. And, you know, it was it was going to be a contender. You know, I couldn't see it less than ten million dollars, which is very hard.

And yeah, because you're going to have to do the science aspect. You're going to have to do the period piece aspect. There's a lot of hurdles that you can't shoot it for a million bucks. No can.

I had a couple of things about him too that I love. Shoot. I think we would all imagine that the birth of Rocket Science and Jet Propulsion Laboratory was like people who had graduated with degrees in that and then became employed. But of course, there were no degrees. And this guy was basically he was super into science fiction and he was kind of like a model rocketeer, right? He was like blowing shit up in these arroyos in Pasadena. And as you say, you find out this awesome history of Pasadena, which was yes, it was kind of like the sexy playground for people on the East Coast in the winter.

So the Wrigley family. So there was these mansions and. Yeah, what a juicy ass. Oh, fuck.

Pause for one second. Hi, Monica Padmini. Hi there. Oh, they're not plugged in.

Hold on. I to do one more silly thing and I'm really, really stumbled into a technically adverse episode of the show.

OK, we're full party mode now. We're full party mode now. Nice. Hello.

Hi. Have you ever met Adam. No I know. Well you were both in chips. I thought maybe that you had bumped into each other.

Crossed paths. No, I didn't know that. Oh, cool.

Can I say that I hope this doesn't offend you, but it sounds like it will. Adam was the best part of chips. Yeah.

Oh, there's no question he was the best part of chips. And I and I tend to publicly state that in numerous different ways.

I guess I don't know my dad, but I did have like the two best jokes in it, one getting shot in the arm.

A second time came the people with a car, with a Winnebago, not me, but saying they're paparazzi. It's fine. That's solid, solid joke and a solid gag.

Yeah. You're basically the king of the pay off, like there was all these setups and then you just kept getting to pay everything, like wrap everything up the third time set up for success. Well, OK, I'll say we haven't talked about I don't think I've really I've seen you, but I've been talking about your show yet. I'm a huge fan. I listen to a lot.

Oh, no shit. Yeah. Yeah.

It's so funny because as soon as I dialed in, I was like, why does an atom have a podcast? You're the kind of the perfect person to have one. Or do you have one.

I don't have one and I don't know I but let me paint the other pictures for why I think you'd be a great candidate for a really compelling podcast. But we were just now talking about Jack Parsons.

Marvel Whiteside Parsons, I believe was his full real.

Oh my God, you have an encyclopedic knowledge of him. So the foundation for why we liked each other so much as he had read this book, Strange Angel. And I had to in almost no one's read the book. And if you're in if you like it, I guess I assume about you you're interested in just very eclectic weirdos like Gaiam because the guy was so weird and we were just talking about that. He was very obsessed with sex, magic.

He invented modern rocket propulsion. He blew himself up in his garage.

Right. We talked about him on a previous episode.

Yeah. And he had some friendship with Aleister Crowley. Is that as well, Will, that Aleister Crowley was the leader of the Lama, if I'm saying it right. And so, yeah, he was like his spiritual godfather and then some orgies.

Right. They had orgies. Orgies were the thing. It was you derived a lot of your power from sex. It was weird. It wasn't I wasn't looking to, like, try and produce a starring vehicle for myself that was in many ways like a sex film. But I just think that's out. That's what happened.

It'd be dishonest to ignore that part is what I do. Are you crazy? And I mean, I thought the link between rocket fuel and explosions and orgasm.

Yeah.

And also, like, they're dreaming of having man escape the planet when people fall like, oh, rockets can't even work in space. There's no air. So there's no vacuum. There's no way to propel yourself. Right. So just like he was very in the early sci fi and in terms of like history that Clifton's cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles, and I don't know if his 30s, 40s, I guess then it was it's like Isaac Asimov and just a cross-section of all the most famous early sci fi writers.

I think that's where he also ended up crossing paths with Elron.

And so you if you listen to the podcast, Monica, what is it about the Black Dahlia murder?

Oh, no, you haven't. What is it? Root of evil. Adam, listen, when you're done here or maybe even leave this interview right now and listen to it, because it coincides so perfectly with all that stuff, which is this guy who ironically lived four doors down from where we're currently at in the Mayan house.

Do you know that house?

Have you ever been to it on Franklinton? Been to it. But is it like a Lloyd Wright house or.

Yeah, I think it's his son designed it. So this guy owned it and he was the head of the STD program for L.A. County Health.

And so he was in this crazy position where he knew info about all kinds of the city's leaders who had gonorrhea, who had this Matlow.

He was a doctor with very questionable morals, and he became obsessed with surrealism, which kind of overlaps nicely with all that occult stuff of the same time period. And he ended up killing this woman and positioning her body in a manner that was later found out to be an exact replica of an image in one of his favorite surrealist paintings. And he was trying to show the surrealist painters that he worshipped, that he was even next level, that he would do this in real life.

But same kind of crazy fun L.A. history.

Is that the Black Dahlia one you're talking about that? Yes. So they go, wow, yeah. They know now who he was.

And he was this doctor who had this bizarre motivation of being recognized as a surrealist artist. And again, the history, the Frank Lloyd Wright of it.

Let me pitch. All right. Let me just follow that one thing. My dark place is the James Ellroy book, where he's trying to solve his own mother's murder. She was killed in the 50s, very much like the black doll. She was strangled in her car, something horrible. And he has this weird relationship with women. It's one of two non-fiction books he's written.

The other one is more recently about the same stuff. But he teams up with a cop is in the 90s. He teams up with a retired detective and tried to solve his mother's murder. That really got him fascinated with the Black Dahlia. And so it's really.

Oh, so this is a story this is identical because this in real life, a very decorated L.A. detective was the son of the Black Dahlia murderer.

And he kind of heard this rumor and he set out to exonerate his father and then kind of discovered, no, there's no exoneration to be done here. He did do it.

So that's wow. That's what's it called again. Root of evil. Root of evil. Cool. I'll check it out. Coming to TBS, starring me.

It's gnarly dark.

OK, so this is great because what immediately is exposed about you in this ten minutes of talking to use your super smart you can retain, I would say on an. Cyclopedia level details, in fact, credit, I don't know, no, no, but it begs the question, which is what I had when I knew I was going to talk to you, is you are a shitty student, right? So you grew up in San Diego and you kind of were a crappy student.

And having read that about you and then knowing you personally, I have to imagine, did you have a learning disability like myself?

No, I think I was just on very wildly uninspired. And I don't want to blame, like the schools I went to exactly. But I just kind of sat in the back of the class. I surfed a lot in high school, like before school. So I literally slept through a lot of, you know, I can sleep pretty well pretty quickly. I can power down. I can fully fall asleep with my head up in my hands on the desk.

And so, yeah, I mean, for whatever reason, it just didn't click with me. I mean, no disrespect. I can remember like one teacher's name in my entire through high school.

Most people can name a lot of their teachers and it just it didn't have an impact on me.

How about ADHD? Do you have any ADHD qualities? Well, I don't know the total definition of that, but certainly a little OCD tendencies. I am a huge figure.

You know, I'll I'll find myself fingering the remote for no reason and a pattern, you know. Yeah. And I find myself you know, we have a baby now. We have an older daughter, too, and I'll be holding them and I'll be bouncing them. And she's like, you don't need to bounce. I'm like, this is for me. I need to. Yeah, let me let me work it out.

This isn't for him. Yeah. Oh, that is really funny. So I do a weird pattern thing on my fingers. So I go pinkie ring, middle index and then back down and I have to double click on either bookend of that. And that's just kind of a weird. Did you do any kind of repetitive hand stuff in the car for some reason.

And again, lighting always makes fun of me. Two things I do one one zero Khedive anyways in the car. I'll want to change the rearview mirror a little bit more.

It's always not perfect and I wanted a little better. But if I move it, like with my whole hand, it's going to overcorrect. So I just tap it with the finger. I just give. Oh oh wow. Wow. What a system. Yeah. To do so little imperceptible shift and it's not premeditated. I'm not even really conscious. I'm doing it charge and then this isn't quite OCD, but I talk to myself a lot.

I just have conversations, past conversations. I'm going to walk around later today and talk to you.

Oh, this conversation, you know, things I said or could have said, hey, don't get caught a lot.

And, you know, mostly it's under my breath, but it's still I'm mouthing it and she'll catch me and literally be talking to and the most embarrassing. But it's still a joke around our house. This is years ago. She's like, who are you talking? I'm like, I'd rather not just tell me what you're talking now. It's like I was calling a horse. Don't ask me how I got there, but I was talking to a horse and now my daughter knows late and catches me on it.

So now she thinks it's fun to gibbous me on it because who are you talking to?

Isn't it wonderful how quickly your daughter becomes your second wife? I was just in Michigan and somehow my daughter overheard me telling my wife that I had gone to for Seiter and eight twenty eight doughnuts with my friend and I didn't I only eight fourteen. And then also I was vaping because why the fuck not. I'm in Michigan and so my daughter busted me both those things and I got probably nine Markopoulos within two hours. Daddy, you cannot eat like that.

You know, that's not how you eat. And I see that you have that green thing and you're supposed to not vape. You told me you weren't going to vape when you were there. So just getting blasted. And I'm like, great. Now there's there's two coal pilots and Delta is probably about to be old enough to be a third.

I love it so far.

Anyway, last thing I do, I you know, you can see me on video and I have a beer now and it's just a gift to my fingers and I'm in it all day. I have a lot of hair touching as well.

Is very compulsive in her thinking. Obsessive obsessive compulsive, I guess maybe. Right. Obsessive is the operative word.

Obsessive compulsive, I would say.

Let's see, though. I'm trying to think if I can think of some compulsive stuff.

Yeah, some like you pick your face or anything and you know, you shouldn't be, but you just keep at it. It's human, OK? That's just human.

All right. So she has human levels of compulsion. Also your drummer, which I discovered today, which I don't think I knew previously, and I, too, am a drummer. I'm I'm a very average drummer. Me too.

Me too. I even saying I play the drums, but being a drummer is definitely a misnomer. I, I would never claim to be a drummer, but oh you might like this I one time.

I don't know why this came up but Chris and I were oh we were watching the last Nolan movie, Christopher Nolan movie Dunkerque. Right. And I said and just in the middle of the movie, I leaned over to her and I said, you know, if Christopher Nolan and I went on a news show in Detroit, they might introduce both of us as directors. And that would be it would be so incomplete and so offensive to him.

Well, it's kind of like an actor, you know. On one hand, you grapple with like, am I an artist? I mean, I do make creative choices for a living. But where does that line stop? Because I can think of some actors I wouldn't necessarily classify as artists, and then I definitely would.

That are all actors, artists I've always wrestled with ever calling myself an artist. I, I don't think I'm in that category. I'm more like a blue collar kind of get it done.

Yeah. I guess I would say more of an entertainer myself. I mean if I had to. I can live with that for sure. OK, so you grew up in San Diego and Dad was an attorney and mom was a graphic designer.

What type of attorney was Dad?

Good old dad worked for security Pacific Bank. And then he was just he was like a litigator. Never trial, never. You know, I got to preface this all by like my parents are for sure going to listen to this. OK, great.

On top of it. Hi, Mike. Hi, guys.

Let's start with saying how much you love them. You just love them, right?

I love them to pieces is as will be evidenced by this tribute I'm about to pay. My dad then was a general counsel for like a community college. I don't think I'm talking out of turn when I say never seem to love it.

Well, let's just be fair and say I've known dozens of lawyers. They all hate that job. Every lawyer. In fact, I did a movie one time with a comedian who had been oh, what do they call it, trademark attorney like? It doesn't matter. He had been an attorney and then quit and became a stand up. And then I was in a movie with him and I said, wow. And I was broke. At the time.

It was my first thing I'd been. And I was like, I can't believe you quit being a lawyer. And he goes, you know, it's funny. Every lawyer who I tell, I quit and became a stand up. Not one is ever asked, why did you do that?

But every layperson does. Right, right. Right, right.

It's a hard time suck of a job. Yeah.

You know, I don't know. I think there's clearly so many different avenues and branches of it, you know, and I think he was in a particularly dry corporate kind of middle of the road branch. And I think he even you know, if I have my history correct, it's been 20 years since we've talked about it. But I think he did it to avoid the draft. OK, I went to I went to law school to be a good Jewish boy of a but also to avoid the draft.

So that's what he did. But what I took from it a little was I don't think I want to do it. And inadvertently, I kind of rebelled against it because it didn't seem appealing. It wasn't sexy enough for, you know, did he have a point of view of like, yeah, I played it safe.

Why don't you go crazy?

Or did he very much have the same fears for, you know, he had a very much like old fashioned understandably. I mean, I wasn't a kid actor just like just get good grades. I'll leave you alone if you just give good grades and it's like, I can't do it. Yeah. You know, we had a pretty contentious relationship through high school and.

Yeah. And then I, I decided to be an actor, like at the spur of the moment, I'm just like, I'm going to try this thing. When I was 18 I was like, I wanna move up to L.A. for a year. Just try this thing with a friend. I'll be back. He was scratching his head.

He wasn't super pissed, but definitely it didn't seem like a well laid plan. No. And he had every reason to be skeptical. And then I actually found success pretty fast, like, yeah, really fast, at least as I define success at that time. And then he was my biggest champion right away. And as he said to me, since I learned a lot, I learned that there's many unconventional ways. I have two younger brothers, and I think both my parents have been much more supportive of their journeys, whatever they may be, because of it.

Well, now that you have kids, you immediately see the how differently you raised the second from the first like the first. It's a thousand percent of your attention and energy at all times. And then when the second one comes, that's not available because there's already a first one. So it's like you quickly realize this birth order thing and you being the oldest.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course they were the most worried about you and. Yeah, yeah. And yet the second one seems happier.

It's universal but I am a second one.

Oh I don't even mean me, I mean even my kids, I mean my, my, both my kids are very happy but it's like the baby comes out like the second one going like I'm just happy to be here. Yeah. It seems the thing I know you're busy.

I'm just watching the dad go to U of M Law School. Yeah. So very smart guy. And then did mom, did they meet in college.

My mom went to Michigan State. My mom is sixteen. My dad was nineteen. I guess they got together and broke up every year for like then get together in summer because he would come home for summer and then break up for the year. And then a short three years later they got married and then all of their friends, like their best friends, just coincidentally all moved west to San Diego or L.A. or San Francisco, but weirdly, mostly San Diego, not planned just just like Exodus.

That is interesting. So it sounds like you and I have a similar thing as well, which is like I'll be in interviews with co-stars. Right. And they'll say, like, when did you know you wanted to be an actor? And generally the people we act with are like eight, nine, ten.

I always. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was confused by that answer solely because I'm from Detroit and I had never met a working actor. So I'm. Just like, how would you even think that was possible, but aside from that, so I had a certain arrogance and I don't know how to explain it, which is like I did not want to be an actor yet. I constantly practice being interviewed by David Letterman in my mirror.

So did you have any level of self-importance like I did? Like, of course, I'll go to L.A. and give that a shot.

I didn't I mean, it's funny. I can there's a brief period in, like sixth grade where I flirted with it like it was kind of seen kids my age do it.

Seen Macaulay Culkin made me go like, oh, and it was between, like, the slapstick.

And it's funny because I think almost tonally, it's maybe a little where I ended up. But like the slapstick of Macaulay Culkin and the like James Dean ness of River Phoenix, I was like, oh, I'm attracted to both those.

Yeah, seems really cool.

And I asked my parents, and this was at the time when I thought, like, it was conventional wisdom, like if you want to be a professional actor, you start modeling and JC Penney catalogs and.

Yeah, and I said, like, I kind of want to try acting, how could I do that? And they said, well, you know, we work full time. We can't drive up to drive you up to L.A. for auditions, but you should do a play or something. And I said, OK. And so I signed up for like my suburban community theater to be in Inherit the Wind. And it was an adult play. And I just played the newspaper boy.

And I think I went to a bunch of rehearsals for like two lines. And I remember the performance. I just remember, like going there's a lot of work and I don't do anything. And I, I just put it out of my mind and never even, like, flirted with it as a possibility for the next six years of my life and on a whim, I had like a roommate, surf buddy when we were 18.

And I was I was so aimless. I blew off a state school I got into and I was like, I just want to do community college. I just want to take two courses and just do it real slow. And like, I don't know I don't know what I want to be. And I'll have all this time to surf and it'll be great. And then I was so it was so anticlimactic and I was so bored by that. By September I was working at Blockbuster at the time, so I was getting more influenced again by move.

I was more of a focus on movies.

And my friend who is older, is like three years older than me, had a former San Diego surfer friend who had moved up to L.A. with his parents and he had done it time, which seemed like wild success and acting.

I mean, the top of the credits are a guest star, bad guy on the Power Rangers. But, you know, so, yeah, we had such low ambition.

I'm kind of proud of that blue collar aspect of, like, me, too. I wasn't about the work. You know, I auditioned very early on for Blue's Clues when I was coming out, and it was like this. Oh, amazing.

Amazing. If I could be this guy. Did you. Hold on.

Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Hold on.

So I basically got the role to replace whoever they are.

The first the original Blue's Clues guy. I can't remember if he aged out or he had a scandal.

I can't remember. But they yeah, they replaced him and I was going to get Blue's clue.

You pronounce it right when I got punkt. I mean, like, if the timing had gone even like a week different, I would have been on Blue's Clues. Yeah. And stoked. Right.

I just wanted to see myself on TV. I got interviewed one time in Traverse City on the news at the Cherry Seed Spitting Contest because I had one. And that to me was so exhilarating. So if I just repeated that, like saw myself on TV would have been pumped and then, yes, I would. The notion of making money to do that after ten years of being in L.A.. Yeah, I wasn't like bummed to get the Blue's Clues job.

It just luck had it that I got punkt at the same time. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah.

We went we did an exploratory visit. We're like, let's go up, stay with him for our friend and his mom for a day, two nights and we'll just see is for us and then we'll come back in a month and grab an apartment and just I don't know, dive in, go to a class or whatever. And I'm nineteen and this is nineteen ninety eight.

Nine ninety eight. And so you would have all your Vox's from the student films that you auditioned for in the back stage West to to build your real to guy, you know, to get an agent stuff.

Do you ever go to someone's weird apartment to like Oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah. And so yeah he showed us we, we did a little tape viewing like you live in Marina Del Rey and like I just remember watching the tapes, I remember the two are his his guest star and the Power Rangers and then this black and white student film where he's a kid getting anally raped by his dad. OK, well, thinking this is the coolest thing I've ever seen, I would die.

I'd be able to break down film forever.

And then I remember. And then he took us up to the Sunset Strip and we like we're going up to Sunset Strip and we see like John Popper from Blues Traveler, just walking up the street on our right to the coffee bean, get my first ice blend.

And we're like, oh, this is so ninety eight, man. You just seen in such a picture for me also, like swingers is out around that time, right. So you're like this. One of the most influential movies in my life for a lot of reasons, something about going, oh, that's kind of my life, I go to these parties in the hill, you can't find parking. I just felt like, oh, even though I'm failing at this acting thing, that's pretty cool.

I'm immersed in this world.

Well, look, swinger stories. So when I was working at Blockbuster, I saw it and it didn't even register with me. I think I was like, oh, that's cool. And it didn't land with me at all. I move up to L.A. and like I said, I did have some success pretty early, but I was still I was like 19, 20. I didn't know anyone took me like three years to really meet some friends and and be working consistently where I was like kind of busy, not mostly hanging out at the Beverly Center by myself.

Yeah. And I rediscovered swingers and I was like feeling like this is a very unglamorous and kind of sad life. I'm living in lonely particularly. Oh yeah. Yeah.

And went like, oh my God, this is the most glamorous, coolest thing you can do. I went the thousand times like I know all these spots and I'm going to go to all these spots more. Vince Vaughn became my like acting idol for the next five years. I just sort of like to copy him as much as possible.

I literally did The O.C. mostly because Doug Lyman directed the pilot.

Uh huh, sure. And I was like, oh, he's my favorite. Yeah. This is going to have some edge. Yeah. So that influenced me a lot.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

We are supported by Squarespace Monica, can you list a couple of reasons why someone might want a website?

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Yes, so you start working a bunch and you're on Gilmore Girls as a love interest, and that's a big thing, right? You're on a hit show that you can tune in and watch. That's got to be one of the first kind of really fun things.

Honestly, I've had some fun before. One of the most fun things I did earlier than that was an MTV show that we did 13 episodes of in like three months.

But somehow, because of their weird contracts, I was on for two and a half years. And it kind of really seems the first time I got free that pilot season to do like a pilot season.

I had the same contract on punkt, right? I bet. Yeah. Now.

And I've aged out of it. So the teen stuff isn't on my radar now. And I know they make a lot of it.

But I still have to imagine the early 2000s and the late 90s where the golden era of like teen movies and shows and everything.

And so it felt like I got scooped up into that world pretty fast. And even by the time I did Gilmore Girls, I mean, like, I've been doing this for three years and like.

Yeah, yeah, teen stuff.

Anyways, that MTV show was just a full on American Pie, the series, but I was, you know, one of the leads on it and it was a blast.

So I felt like a veteran weirdly of that make sense of team television by then, you know. Yeah.

Yeah, that's only make sense. You did growing up, Brady, which I only bring it up because weirdly, we just interviewed Kaley Cuoco yesterday who was also in that. Do you remember being in that with her?

I sure do. Yeah. That was my I'll never have a job that felt like as much of a leap forward as that job. I moved to L.A. like two weeks before my 19th birthday. No acting experience, no agent, anything.

And I celebrated my 20th birthday on the set of Paramount, the paramount lot being the lead of this like NBC TV movie.

You know, I had a five million dollar budget or something. I don't know. It was like I had a big crew and yeah, I got that. It's not that anything changed for me.

Were you number one on the call sheet? Yes. Oh. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I can't it was kind of the saddest thing ever. I mean, I still remember driving through the gates of the paramount lot every day for four weeks going, is this real?

And then it ended. And I didn't know. And it was so sad because, like, I don't know if I'll ever work again and I don't. I made friends there and now I don't know and back to, like, knowing nobody. And but she was 14 when we did that kind of now, even though we're love interest in it and it's like far too sexual for for sure today, it wouldn't be made the same way.

No and no. And I don't think the camera would linger in quite the same way. They they'd be out a little quicker.

It was a good experience at the time. I was curious because you clearly must have read Barry, who was Mike Brady?

Was that the oldest known? Barry Williams? Was Greg OK?

Maybe Mike was the dad anyways. Yeah, the old the dad. Yeah. OK, so Greg Brady wrote the book. Who? Barry. Yeah.

Is it the history of that show a little bit bonkers. Like did did Greg make love to the mom.

Oh no, no. He tells it and I don't know how he if it's if he's embellishing or sanitising.

But yeah, he was in love with Maureen, the oldest sister, the hall, the actress kind of off and on the whole time she kind of play him hot and cold. They had a romance, they kissed, but then she maybe broke his heart a little. And the mom, feeling sorry for him, if I remember correctly, took him out on a date and gave him a very sweet kiss on the cheek, you know.

Oh, OK. So not not coitus. No, no, but I don't know.

OK, so let's talk about those for a minute, because knowing you and all these conversations we've had generally, just so people can know this is what you and I talk about, I think from my perspective, I clearly remember one like sitting on a stoop in downtown L.A., just going through like the decision making process when you're an actor and like kind of evaluating opportunities and trying to stay on some trajectory and then maybe overthinking it and sometimes under thinking and all and just kind of the stress of that.

And when I gleamed immediately from you is that you're just very mindful. So and maybe by your own admission, maybe sometimes too mindful, like too concerned about what this thing's building up to as opposed to like, I don't know, just doing shit sometimes. Is that a good summation of our. Yeah, very much.

I mean, you know, talking about it every day of like well, I mean, you know, you got to assess every opportunity that comes your way and goes like, what's it for me in the moment practically. But also how does it get me to the next thing or get me closer, farther away from that, whatever that is. And I'm mostly the same guy and have the same mindset that I had when I was twenty years ago when I started.

But I I've loosened up to be sure there's a lot of different motivations.

Right. There's one is like you don't want to take yourself out, like you just want some sustainability and some longevity.

I would say the biggest thing I've learned over this is that that's the worst thing you can do. You know, a few actors besides Daniel Day Lewis can afford. To be like, I'm out for 10 years, I'll be back. You'll want me, it's even more coveted because I've been gone almost everyone else except the select brilliant few like me to stay visible and kind of thought like, well, if you have a spotless record, then you just you're still pitching a no hitter or whatever, you know, and it's like not the case.

It's just impossible to navigate in that you're forced to look at other people's trajectory and maybe kind of map on your skill set to theirs and think, well, they did it this way, so maybe I should do it that way.

And really none of it's all that applicable, but it feels like it. You have nothing else to kind of base these decisions on other than like, well, who do I admire and what do they do?

Yeah, yeah, very much. It's where it all works out. You know, it's like most of the things you do, you don't regret and most of the things you didn't do, you don't regret.

Yeah. Or or as I say, often the things that went exactly as I had hoped didn't bear the fruit that I was certain it would. Yeah. And then a lot of the things I was reluctant to do, say parenthood, turns out to be probably the best thing for me.

Yeah. So I guess I'm wrong. I found out more often than not that I'm wrong when I get my way.

Well, I mean, I didn't have a lot of wiggle room with the that was when I had a lot of maybe the most like, hey, they're going to offer you some studio stuff by.

We film that show like nine and a half months a year. So for starters, it was like, I can do one thing in this one window if it shoots in that window and it's small enough. So even though I had all this capital or heat or whatever, it was very hard to spend it, number one.

And number two, as much as I liked that show creatively, I knew as a teen show I was twenty three when I started somewhat reluctantly to go back to high school for while, because the cool thing to do is to be an adult, you know.

Yeah. So I was like, if I'm doing this in the day, I want to be very careful and make sure that whatever else I do differentiates and I can live or die with it. And it's just, you know, is speaks for me a million percent.

And there's a few opportunities, nothing I regret too much, but I was probably a little too precious, you know, and and now it's literally liberating to have a family go, I need to make money.

And now I can just do stuff for money, because the truth is, I don't want to put bad stuff out in the world. I want to make sure that, like, what I'm doing has, if any, effect a positive one besides. Sure. But even just you know, they're all stories are messages too coded messages to and I want them to be good ones, but like, I can separate what I love as an as an artist, if you will, or what the art I love from like what I'm going to go do.

I can have fun and crap.

I think the lesson you can also learn at times I've overthought stuff and I'm like, I don't want to be on that show. I don't like that show. Right. I've I've worked on the show I didn't like. But then I had to remind myself, well, the people that watch the show love the show. So I guess my fear of like people who have my taste will see me in this thing. That is not my taste. Well, guess what?

They're not going to see you on that because they're not fans of that show. So that's a weird aspect of very real thing, though.

That said, and you know, and my wife and I talk about all time, there's a very real thing of like there is a cool club.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I've never felt I've met Pinki and it kind of but like I felt always on the outs.

You want to fight and be there if you can, but at the same time you got to go to work. And like I said, visibility is better than none of his invisibility and it's fun. You make a great living. It's like you won the lottery. I mean, I'm so all this said, like not a day goes by that I don't audibly say how lucky we are. And I can't believe we won the lottery of getting to do this for a living and play for a living.

Well, that's why I wanted to have this conversation before we talked about The O.C., because I would never want someone to interpret anything we're going to talk about as a lack of gratitude, because that's not really it. It's you can be horrendously grateful for the thing you have and also appropriately concerned that you might not get to do it ever again because of the gold Katrín.

So for you and I, I'm five years older than you. We grew up with nine oh two one. Oh, you going to be bigger? Like, I would have cut off an arm to be on that show. And then we started working in an area where we realized, like, I don't see those people much anymore.

Like I loved them all and I didn't see them get to work a whole bunch, or at least Johnny Depp being the only exception, right?

Yeah. Maybe the only one who like and threw again a force of nature. I don't have. I can't. Yeah, right. Sure. Fucking Jack Sparrow. I can't do that. So, yeah, I saw him. Man, the data would suggest that it's a little dangerous to be on a show that gets such a huge youth following. And for you, I wonder, you've always been cute. Did people think you were as cute in high school as they did on that show?

Was that a transition? I mean, because you really did become a teen idol, right? Like L.A. Times called you TV's sexiest geek. That's I mean, that's such a unique. Back I back doored it into, like, Hungnam, you know, like, yeah, no, I didn't, I didn't, you know, I had like I mean, I have some I have plenty of vanity, you know, and I really do. I mean, this is an embarrassing thing.

But like, I've always been able to stare in a mirror for a long time, like even as a very young kid, like I remember just like I'll be in the bathroom for an hour later taking it in.

So that's weird. But it wasn't it wasn't necessarily all that my beauty just fascinated by, like, my face.

Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't thinking any bigger than like, OK, you've got Ryan Phillipi and I know you did last summer. On one hand he's like your hand and then you got Jason Biggs doing the comedy and American Pie, like, I gladly do either of those. And yes, they're both goals.

But I wasn't dead set on being Skeet Ulrich. Yeah. Yeah. At all. And then even The O.C., like, I had no vanity about it.

I mean, he was the dweeb and I was like, great. And I think I can make this loose and I'll have a fun time with it. And it'll be whatever it is. I don't know. We'll see where it goes. But I was I had no problem playing the the bottom, if you will.

Well, here's my really only question about that is you often can know things intellectually, right. Like so you clearly knew intellectually that you were maybe a teen idol, but was there any experiential aspect of that? Because probably not. Right. You're just living in L.A. and you're going to work and you're in your bubble.

You're such a bubble at that time. You know, in twenty three that came out pre social media. We're filming in Manhattan Beach, which might as well be another planet. You know, the stages down there off on their own. I was dating my co-star. We were only hanging out with, like people on her friends, my friends, the people and the bubble around the show.

And I mean literally my agent at the time, still my age, and Kevin married our costumer, who is Anna Nicole, who is now Christens, does her styling. So it was a fully contained ecosystem. And so I would I did a few things for voting. You know, we do a few for the couple of elections that came around that. And so I did some college stuff. I was in a band for a minute. We went on, did like one little summer tour and could draw a crowd just based on the show, obviously.

And I was familiar with it, but I never felt so inundated, like, oh, this is like the Beatles or I can't get a break. I don't even remember, like, really being hounded by photographers or anything. It all seemed to be a little removed. Yeah. The one thing it wasn't teen idol done, but I did have some opportunity, very little, but I wasn't ready for the time. I'm pretty new to movies. I'm new to like I'm new to reading books.

And like I'm in a room alone with Dustin Hoffman on a general, like, what do I have to offer and things like that. Or I'm like, well, no, I still wouldn't blow them away, but at least I could, like, come up with an idea or something. I'd have something to say to the guy.

OK, this is another incredible parallel I to weigh before I deserve to be.

I was attached to a movie with Dustin Hoffman and so what it amounted to is me meeting him at the Coral Tree Cafe.

Oh, it's his favorite restaurant. Yeah. Meeting him there and having breakfast and I think I still smoked then he was like telling me how I could quit smoking. I got along great with them. And then Shawn Levy came on to potentially direct this thing. And there was a moment where Sean said, let's have a read through of the script like a table read. Great.

So I go there and at the end of the table read, we go into Dustin's office and Sean's like, look, this script there, which I don't even have a barometer for. I don't know if that thing went good or bad or whatever, but he doesn't seem to know that we are attached to a stinker.

So the meeting then transitions into Sean saying that moment in Rain Man when you touch Forehead's with Tom Cruise. Was that in the script or was that improvised? And Dustin starts recreating the scene and I'm seated next to him on the couch.

And now I'm in the role of Tom Cruise. And before I know it, I'm like just leaning forward and touching the heads with Dustin Hoffman. And I just remember having seen the whole scene from far above my head thinking, how the fuck am I on a couch reenacting this scene in Los Angeles?

I mean, who cares if that movie ever got me? I just remember leaving there going like, yeah, I guess the movie isn't going to happen, but holy shit, I just reenacted.

Oh, it's great. And every time I do that and I have that out of body experience, I'm also like, shit, you're offering nothing right now. You're the most uninteresting fucking person ever. Tom Cruise is talking.

You say something interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so but you had to have been getting offered at that time, leading roles and probably like coming of age, you rom coms or kind of party movies, you had to have turned down a slew of like leading roles and instead opted to be like in. Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Well, that was a no brainer. That's Doug Wineman again. He called and said, you want to be in it?

I was like, yes.

And then another surreal moment was, you know, so I did that movie with just like Brad and Angelina and me in a box in a big city like empty stage where like they have the kind of money where they're like, let's just talk about this for six hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then and then we went Doug Lyman flew. They called me in or like, would you, Doug, like, we'd like to fly you and Vince Vaughn to like a test screening in Long Beach and his little prop plane.

Can you meet at Santa Monica Airport and like. Yeah, and so did that.

Oh, wow. Again, no fun pinch me moment. Oh, wow. Here I am on an airplane with Vince Vaughn, this guy.

Yeah. I mean, ordinarily I'd be scared to die, but I was like, this can't happen.

And then when I saw you and thank you for smoking, I was like, oh, I think I like this guy. He's taking his capital and this is the choice he's making. I remember just being intrigued by that, for whatever that's worth. That's nice.

And did you didn't you didn't have an adverse reaction. Let me ask you to me in the being, because I know some very funny actor friends who I've since become friends, know since become friends with. And like me very much, I went in there with I didn't have an improv background.

I wasn't improving up a storm. It was very easy to take a melodrama and puncture it with some humor, very easy sarcasm. Here goes a long way and when everyone's serious, but then, like, word got around, like this kid's hilarious, you know, this kid's Mr. Improvs coming in here and is and is just a comedian. And I know some of my friends before they knew me, kind of chafed at that. Rightly so, yeah.

Did you have that reaction?

I can tell you the only reason I did it was that that was was that twenty six was like twenty three to twenty seven.

So that was when I was getting all my opportunities. So I was like the lead of let's go to prison at the time. I just don't Idiocracy. I was about to do employee the month I felt so filled up. Yeah. Yeah. But had I thought I missed the opportunity to the guy from those you got to do it and I'm a groundling. What the fuck. Yeah. It would've drove me crazy but I have this feeling, I was feeling myself so I wasn't so threatened.

I'm sure if it had come out like three years later in my law I would be like, what is happening?

Why does this guy OK, but we just have to talk about one other role of yours before your movie, which is houseflies. Well, let me just set up that Houseflies was a show on Showtime that had Don Cheadle and my wife, Kristen. They were the leads of that show. And then so hit me with your experience on that, that well, I played as funny, funny character.

I played at er and new boss of like a dildo fortune, the biggest dildo company, and we filmed it, a real dildo factory, which was the trip.

Yeah. They sent everyone home with a bunch of dildos. All right. I mean Chris not me but Kristen came home with like a gift bag. But we had if I can talk about our love scene, that's exactly what I hope you'll talk about this with your first daughter, Kristin, like like eight months pregnant.

You know, I think later I honestly. Oh, I think she was nine months pregnant.

I mean, she's pregnant, as you can be. And we have a sex scene where we, like, break up during. And, you know, she's on she's on top of me.

The only way you can be. And it was pretty weird because, like, your child is on my stomach.

I mean, very truly, like, yeah, they're like trying to shoot around the fact that she's one hundred months pregnant. And then now you guys have this fucking scene. When I first talk to you about it, I describe it as my only three way on camera. Yeah, I guess it was three of us very much in that was.

But I'll tell you the more awkward part, quite honestly, it didn't even involve your wife. So we shoot the close ups, the three of us. And then and then for the wide shot, they bring out her like, I don't know. Twenty one year old stand in body double, right? Yeah. Or maybe it wasn't her standing just a body double.

And this other girl has Pastis has to sit on me. We're like trying to avoid eye contact. I mean she's very awkwardly just slow, kind of gyrating for the wide shot. We're both like, no, hi, nice to meet you. Oh, man. That was actually kind of brutal for both of us.

Oh, my God. I'm so glad you brought up that part of it, because, you know, when you have love scenes, it's awkward for everyone, but you at least go, well, my scene partner is very incentivized for this.

She's in an awkward position, too. But then the reward is she'll be in this scene and hopefully it looks beautiful and bla bla bla bla. There's almost no reward for the body double. So like you feel like this is a bad scenario. Yeah.

We'll also, like, you know, you have no rapport. You don't know them. They're not allowed to speak. Right. Like on camera.

So it's like because they'd have to pay them just so people know, then they'd have to bump them up to another bracket and also.

Just not Kristen's voice or whoever they're doing, it's not disrespect, just like technically we need you to be completely silent. Oh, you know, and and also they're often not actors or certainly not the same Kalanchoe all the time. It's just unfortunate. I mean, is this from Crafton? I'm a gentleman but but yeah. Think of myself as one. But but still, you know, it wasn't fun. OK, ok, great.

I just want to talk about chips for a second. From my perspective, as Monica said, you're probably the best thing in chips and this is a sincere compliment. It's not because you're here and I think I've already told you this, but you're the funniest actor I've ever directed. Wow. And there was so many good people in hit and run and there were so many good people in chips. Isaiah Whitlock was really fun to direct as well.

But aside from that, I had so much fun working with you because you were perfect at getting the written thing out.

You would always be great in one or two takes.

And then we had time on our hand and then you and I together had this great rapport where I would scream kind of maybe what I would have improved in your situation. And then you would somehow immediately put that through your filter and then you would make it this other thing.

And every time I was elated, like I was just watching it on a movie where I would get lost in watching you do your thing. And it just would be fun. It would be like if there was no time constraint, I would have probably just had you do those scenes for five or six hours because it was so fun to watch.

Well, that's that's quite the compliment. I was like, please, let's make this as funny as it can be. I'll do anything you want to say. And I'm not always like that.

I mean, I'm always down to try a joke unless it's I think it's like too crass or something. But in general, I'm not like, you know, I trust the director implicitly. And just whatever you tell, you know, that's crazy.

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're wrong sometimes. Yeah, yeah.

It depends on the director and depends what we're doing. Sometimes it's all about defense, you know. But no man, I just wanted you to help me make it as funny as it could be and it was a blast. I just really appreciate that.

I remember at that time because I thought I was very much on a trajectory where I would go on to direct ten more movies. And I remember calling Kevin and just being like, I'm so in love with him. I want to do something where he and I get to fuck around like that for the bulk of the shoot.

Well, don't write that trajectory off yet. OK, ok. OK, tell me about Kid Detective. First of all, I watched the trailer today. I have not seen the movie. It truly looks fucking awesome. It's the exact kind of role I want to see you in which is like apathetic. I think you're a perfect candidate for apathy and then getting triggered to be re-engage. So how did you come across this? You clearly were part of putting it together and getting it made.

How did that assess my my good good friend now didn't know him at the time, approached me like 2012 at Sundance and was like, hey, I got a movie down the street and I really like I what we should talk and I'm like, OK, I know why. I gave him my number. And then I checked out his movie that he was very involved with. He didn't direct it, say, but kind of this movie, The Dirties, he was a producer and a bit of a writer and it was an editor and just has his fingerprints all over it.

It's a special movie. And I saw and I was like, wow, that's that's special. And it's it's a found footage, high school comedy that turns into a school shooting.

Oh, wow. And it does it. And it does it well. So it's a very daring it's very it's very real while being funny and so talented. So then I met him a year later out here, told me this idea.

I liked it a lot, shared with me six months later, the first act. And he was like, I don't know where it should go. We talked about that a year later, sent me the script is like it's amazing and then tweeted a little, but it was just like very meticulous and great. Evan Morgan is his name and the writing is fan fucking tactic.

And so anyways, that's why I try to get it made for five years because he's he's so talented and yeah. Script is so good.

And it's the detective genre particularly is a very written genre. You know, it's a screenplay. And so you can really appreciate it on the page. And also his language without aping any of these and being very much his own thing.

It's a very heightened, stylized language.

The Coen brothers with Stillman, Wes Anderson, you know, I was going to say just based solely on the trailer, it felt very Wes Anderson adjacent to me. There's like some production design stuff. There's some some specificity with that. You when you were a kid, detective, like, yeah, there's a very Wes Anderson is like Rushmore meets Chinatown.

Oh, yes. And it's not as stylized as Wes Anderson stuff, but it has that heightened reality otherworldliness.

And, you know, anyways, try to get it made for four years. You know what it's like trying to get a movie made. And when you're the star and it's like hard to get something greenlit. And the problem is there's a lot of other parts and none of them are for anyone like to be famous.

And so it was it's such a journey that I kind of thought, oh, it's not happening. Finally, the money just came through Telefilm the Canadian, because it's total Cannes. I'm the only American in the movie. So Telefilm gave us some money and then. That opened the door to get money from elsewhere. We got it made, I couldn't believe it was so surreal to be on set going. I can't believe this movie's real because I've tried to get other things made.

And this one, that was a long journey that actually happened.

Also, like, it's funny because I had four years to think about it and then all of a sudden we're going on a low budget in two weeks. And I'm like, OK, what does he look like? Fuck, I don't know.

Yeah, I still got to make all these huge creative decisions in like a minute.

It's been that way with this movie since we made it because we filmed it in October last year and then all the film festivals were canceled basically. So we got to do a long preproduction of editing and then music. I've been on the phone with them, you know, this whole quarantine. And then at the last second, it's such a weird zombie apocalypse release. So find out like ideally we'd like to shop it around or see.

We think we believe in it and we're informed that, no, Sony has the first look deal and they're buying it and we have to take it and just be happy.

And we're like, well, what do they want to do with it? Right. And we hear like, well, we can't ask. It's just theirs. Just shut up.

All right. And I guess it was always the case the way we got our finance, we didn't even know, but that was always the case. And so we're like, OK, well, we'll hope for the best. I mean, they have a lot of outlets. They they got it for peanuts. They can dump it anywhere but their big company if they want to do something.

And so we got this is like a month ago. Aha. Less than two weeks before the movie came out, they're like, OK, we're going to go, we're going on eight hundred and fifty screens and half of the trailer in 48 hours. You guys can have input like call for a note session. We'll send you to send you some poster ideas and like a rough cut of the trailer and let's all talk and we're like, this is amazing.

And again, talk about making those decisions super fast. I mean, we only had so much input, but I was expecting the worst. So I'm usually surprised when they sent us the first trailer, when they sent us the trailer is fantastic. Yeah. And then I'm now I'm here doing press reviews have been awesome.

Oh, man, that's quite satisfying. Yeah. This movie, it kind of goes for broke. Like when you see it, it doesn't play it safe, like it's there's some strong choices. And by and large it seems to be connecting with the majority of people and it's very, very satisfying and happy to have to talk about it.

Has a VOD release. It will. It's on a bunch of theaters for me. It's like I'd like people to see in the theaters, of course. Yeah.

Hopefully we can take these reviews and take some of the awareness and it gives it better placement when it comes to Apple or whatever it does.

Is it at Arclight? No, because I don't think those theaters are open yet. I know it's in Thousand Oaks.

I was going to say maybe I'll mask up. No one will be there. No, no. I mean, so missing.

I haven't seen a movie in the theater nine months or something.

I mean, I will send you a link. And I love this movie, man. So for what's worth like, it's my favorite thing I've ever done. No shit.

Yeah. Yeah, that's wonderful. Partly it's my investment in it, but partly it's like my friend, I think he's so talented. He really he wrote it for me, knowing what I do if I can do anything, it is this, you know what I mean. This is me on my A game like, you know, it's a bullseye and. Yeah.

And I'm just it gets very dark and I think deals with some subject matter in a very interesting weighted way and at the same time is also great escapism and still despite some brutality.

And it is a happy place for me because it's this heightened world and most of it's a comedy.

Well, you know, from the couple of things I've made, my favorite thing is comedy and violence in scary.

I want all of it in one moment. Yeah. Yeah, me too. The premise is, is you were a kid, Detective, right? You are like a gumshoe child. Yeah. Yeah. And then now you're your age. Are you a principal of a school or something?

I don't work at the school. I'm doing the same thing. I'm still a detective, but like for five bucks I'll try and find your cat. And there was a kidnapping. My thirteen year old secretary got kidnapped when I was like twelve and that is did on me a lot. And in a way, the town you see the town twenty years later. What was this like? Gleaming Leveritt Leave It to Beaver Town.

Yeah, very pleasant. Well, when they go flashback stuff. Yes. Has now fallen on hard times as well as the character. And he gets a shot at redemption when a teenage girl comes in and says, my boyfriend was murdered.

It works on a lot of levels. And it's one of those scripts I don't want to, like, necessarily oversell it. But I will say this, 90 percent of scripts I read, even if I like them at first, then you get the job and then you start reading it again and that luster wears off and you start seeing the holes more. Yeah.

Deficiencies and with ass for me. And I know because I was with it for five years and I kind of revisit it every year and a half, read it again. It got better and better and even on set I was finding subtext in it.

I didn't even know was there. And even still even reading reviews, I'm like, oh yeah, yeah. I like to give you this is such a small example and it's not a home run. It's just like a little flavor. But like I go to this girl I go to, I asked a question, some high school girl and her mom answers the door smoking and is very like dismissive and like she's in the basement and I go down.

And she's got she has a name, Paul, written on her head, and she's getting paid by some guy, 50 bucks to have his name on her head for a week and just that kind of like fucked up stuff.

And I go, your mom seems nice.

And she says, yeah, she's getting to that age where she thinks she's too cool for me. And I say that's like a that's not a huge punch line.

It's just the script is full of that. Like, oh, it's funny. It's a funny and clever inversion of, like, the regular way. It also makes sense. And this is 20 years later, 20 years earlier, the old town. It would have been the regular description of, you know, the kids getting to school for the parents. But now things, you know, up is down and down is up.

So often scripts have all these placeholder characters where they're just literally there to drive exposition. And then when you read stuff for like that moment, that's a real point of view that someone has. That person's not there. Just to dump some info on you, someone took the time to give them a point of view.

I love detail and comedy's good at that because comedy helps with that because it makes most characters funny. They're either the punch line or the straight set up for the punch line. So in general, I think comedy most characters have something to do.

Yeah, yeah. I also think that's a product of getting older and having done it for a while. You're just starving for something either authentic as a point of view or something you've not heard or seen before. You're just dying to have something get your juices flowing.

Yeah. And then sometimes magic happens and you get to do both.

You know, you're in a really smart storyteller's world and they gave you something great to do and a lot to chew on. That's a dream.

Well, I'm head over heels in love with you. Adam Brody Armonica. Are you feeling love? Monica doesn't.

I don't lie. Oh, she knows she will not give it up.

In fact, I want to say no because he's encouraging me to say yes.

I normally hear you weigh in a lot more. No, that's not true.

Yeah, but I guess most people I listen to a lot of like the doctors and stuff you have on and I guess that's a little more open for debate. These are my anecdotes of being a twenty year old actor, which may be no, I don't spawn as much discussion sucked in.

I was just sucked in like me when I direct him. You were just kind of like watching the show. I was not joking about. I mean, I'm proud of everyone and chips, but you really did blow everyone out of the water. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've also been the worst thing in things, so, you know, we've got to balance it out. Your wife also has a very funny role in chips.

Yeah. Very fun for her that.

Yeah. Yeah. We don't really get to see her be an asshole very often. Yeah. Yeah that's good.

Then. You know what's funny is of course in some of the few reviews I made, the mistake of reading, we're like so misogynistic. He has her being this one no bitch. And it's like no that was exciting for her. She's never the one. No, it's like she was she begged me to be the one. No bitch. You fucking assholes.

Any who. Adam Brody. I love you, kid. Detective, I'm genuinely excited to see Monacan are going to watch it together.

OK, well, you'll have to text me when you have my email. Yes, it is. Until I get that. I know you didn't see it. And then listen.

Well, she's now I've been given a kind of an ultimatum. And again, you're one of the handful of people I just I wish I saw more often. Well, let's do that.

I love you too, man. And let's let's work together again someday. Yes. OK, thank you for having me. Bye bye. Till late. And I love her. I miss her too. We'll do all right.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

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We are supported by NASCAR, what a pleasure it is, that was a good Foley of the mouth. Thank you.

It's so nice to have a motorsports sponsor. You guys all know I love motorsports. I love riding my motorcycle. I love working in my car. I'm even the host of Top Gear America. I mean, anything that involves cars, motor sports or racing. Count me in. If you put gas in it, it's got a gas pedal. I'm there. But if I'm being honest, there's really no better place to see the best racing on the entire planet than with NASCAR.

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You're not going to want to miss this. Be sure to tune in on Sunday, November 8th, at three p.m. Eastern on NBC for the NASCAR championship race. Again, the NASCAR championship is November 8th at three p.m. Eastern on NBC. Can't wait. And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soul mate Monica Padman. Adam Brody down to Brody. His name is Adam Brody. He was fun. Oh, what a cutie pie.

Very cute. I came in a little late, so I missed the very beginning, which he was really waxing on about his knowledge on what's his name, the propulsion guy.

Oh, yes. Strange angel. Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. He really retained a lot of that book.

Yeah, he blew me away. I know. I like it when people have a niche.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He really is encyclopedic. Well, I also think it's interesting because you know, this guy, what's his name. Yeah.

Buck Parsons.

Jack Parsons, I think Jack Parsons, Jack Parsons, Jack Paar, Jack Parsons has come up in multiple episodes, which is so odd that some people just make their way around.

He did a much better job of of painting the picture of how bizarre he was.

Like, I'll just kind of mention that he blew himself up.

Sometimes I'm interested in that or that he was into the occult, but he had like a full he came up in the Beastie Boys conversation at JPL Propulsion Laboratory. Adam had been there.

Right, right. Right. Oh, my God, Adam.

Ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh, the Adam's love JPL. Yeah.

So JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Speaking of high tech. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Dingle's, I got to tell you again about another Delta, far more.

I've probably already blown your mind to the point of I didn't know there could possibly be more. It doesn't stop.

Oh, my God. Again, I know. I know. Look, there a sponsor. But it's it's laughable how much technology that they've come up with that you would have never even thought to question.

Here's something I took. I just took as fact, OK, when you wash your dishes, there's going to get splatter all over. Sure. It's going to get wet. The counter is going to get wet. Splatter is a fact of doing your dishes. Yep. I hate it. I've got news for you. It's not a fact of doing your dishes anymore. Delta created this shield spray technology, OK, and it prevents splashing on average.

It has 90 percent less spatter than the standard spray 90. Ninety nine percent less splatter.

And it's just activated by a button. And here's what happens. It's got a concentrated jet, right. That that powers away all the messes. It sprays it off.

But then there's this shield of water around that jet contains all the splatter, like when you're washing dishes.

These guys are wizards. Honestly, when you look at a picture of the shield spray faucet, it has this amazing orb around the jet.

It's like a force field and you won't believe it.

You're just so used to getting spray and splatter everywhere that you it almost feels like.

Is this not because I should be getting doused everywhere.

Oh. Oh, my God. Delta did it again.

They did it again. And I think they're like one step away from just you'll never even think about your dishes again or anything.

Do you think they're Gryffindor?

I think they might be Gryffindor, Delta Force. This is Gryffindor. I mean, between the glass jet sprayer. Oh my gosh. The retractable hose in my bathroom sink and the voice and the voice activated and now the bump.

And now you don't have to get spray or splatter anywhere out.

Well done, Delta. Well done. I'm so happy your daughter is named after these forces.

Me too. I also think they would have definitely hired Jack Parsons to work on their design. Definitely he would have blown some stuff up.

Maybe that's the next step, is that they just explode all all the stuff off your dishes and there's no water at all. It'd be great for wow. That be interesting if they converted to an explosives company.

Oh, I like the beginning of disciplines because you get a lot of rowdy characters. Like once it becomes something that's taught in a college, then it kind of homogenizes the group. But when you just got to like find a guy who's good at blowing shit up, which is what Jack Parsons was good at.

Yeah, it's just makes for a more colorful history. I think the beginning of all these things are the most colorful.

Well, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. People who are at the beginning of starting disciplines. Frank Lloyd Wright.

OK, well, very well. But he's three thousand years an architect, but he is a huge pillar of architecture.

Yes. Big time. And a lot of people have derived their stuff from him. Yeah. So his son, Lloyd Wright was the architect of the Mayan house.

It's called the John Soden house. Oh, OK. It's called the John House, also known as the George House or the Franklin House. Um, yeah. And it was the Black Dahlia House.

Oh, maybe the Mayan house is a different house altogether anyhow.

So his son, though. It was the architect, Lloyd Wright, eldest son of Frank Lloyd Wright, tough shoes to fill to go into architecture. I know, but he did it. He succeeded and then someone was killed there. Yeah. Fortunately for his good for him.

Keep him in history.

And also what is so he was telling us about the book My Dark Places, which is like virtually the exact same story. It's so strange, is it not? It's it's not it's not the detective. No. I'm going to read a little bit, do a little reading.

OK, Janiva Elroy's strangled body was found by a roadside in El Monte, California. She was found by children and Babe Ruth baseball and their coaches on June 22nd. Nineteen fifty eight, the road lay beside the playing field at Arroyo High School. Mhm. I feel like I know that high school.

I don't. It's somewhere here, ok. Officers from the El Monte City Police Department handed over the investigation to the L.A. Sheriff's Homicide Bureau. They chased down leads gathered from the scene and from anonymous tip sent in by area citizens. Newspaper accounts about the murder were scarce, as well as the television news accounts. There were three murders that had occurred in El Monte in nineteen fifty six by that time, and all had been resolved very quickly. After all, the leads went dry, the case was eventually abandoned and never solved the murder of Geneva.

Ellroy, who was more commonly called Jean, later contributed to her son's fascination with another unsolved murder in Los Angeles, the January 15th nineteen forty seven murder of Elizabeth Short. The killing, later called the Black Dahlia case, had some similarities to Jean Elroy's murder. Both had been body dumped by the roadside to be found by a passer by. In his book, Ellroy describes the discovery of his mother's body as a classic late night body dump. Yes, that's not a good crime to be able to add the word classless to me that it's happened throughout history.

Yeah, those are good old fashioned roadside body dump. Jean Elroy's murder would not be remembered because it lacked the media attention that followed the Dolia murder. Elizabeth Short's body was found cut in half, and the newspaper accounts, which described it as a beautiful Hollywood aspiring starlet, drew more interest and attention, including Elroy's bisected weight in the black.

Dahlia Elroy created a fictional story around the murder of Elizabeth Short in My Dark Places. Ellroy writes a true crime memoir, chasing down the facts of his mother's murder as a cold case. Huh, if I'm understanding this correctly, which is so interesting level of quinson, so it sounds like the son of one of the victims turned out to be a detective and it sounds like the son of the murderer turned out to be a detective. That's the difference, right?

One person wrote a book about investigating their mother's murder. Yeah.

And the other guy investigated his own father to exonerate him, but discovered he was dead. So what are the odds that both. Well, no, I guess it's high odds if, like, your mother was killed. Yeah. You're probably going to law enforcement as people whose parents die of cancer, going to oncology or whatever.

Well, he didn't go did he go into law enforcement? Didn't that guy say that the writer of the book was a detective in L.A. detective and then wrote a book?

I don't think he's a detective.

Yeah, we know less now than we knew. He didn't listen to my Wikipedia story. I did. I did. But when Adam brought it up, he was referencing a detective who wrote a book. I thought, which is why we're now talking about it. None of us have time to figure this out. He's a detective. He's just the other one was the guy who exposed the Black Dahlia murder. His dad was a detective. Yes.

He was a very decorated L.A. detective. In L.A. in this case, stands for Louisiana. No, Los Angeles, yes. Yes, I have bad news for you.

Oh, great. I'm sorry about this. Tell me down the hatch and out the stach is taken people by surprised.

Yeah. People are embracing it. Yeah. Great. Oh, I thought it was funny, he said he talks to himself. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do you talk to yourself?

I don't think I don't talk to myself, but it's not something that I like. Like it sounds like he does it quite a bit. I'd love to have a camera in his house to hear him talk to himself. Yeah. So I don't think so.

I have. I feel like you would. Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you said we were talking yesterday about my pension to embarrass myself in the mirror, drive myself to embarrassment. Yeah. And then you said you don't do that, but you do get embarrassed in your apartment and it's generally when you're talking.

Yeah. Loud, right. Yeah.

Talking to myself or singing. Yeah. But not in front of the mirror. Just more like moving through life.

Correct. And you'll start laughing at yourself. Yeah. Or I'll just think I'm glad no one's here. Right. Right. That's the moment you're looking for.

Yeah. In the mirror for me at least. I really want to see some of those faces.

I mean you make crazy faces, so I can't imagine you would be insufferable for you because the things that make you uncomfortable when I'm doing characters, they're like a two out of where I go in the mirror to a attend.

I would love to see it like this is a common voice like, oh, like really annoying gross voice.

I mean, just does that voice all the time.

Yeah. I mean I was always impressed with justice, confidence in doing that. It's it's mind blowing. Yeah. He does several of the things in public that make me break in the mirror. Oh. Interest.

So you've got to applaud that confidence don't you. The commitment to do. Yeah, it's impressive.

Oh, Jessica, also the fact that he showed us his butthole that took so much confidence.

You know what? That's actually that is a cliffhanger for Monica and Jess in our first episode. Me, it's me, you and him. And we dangle a cliffhanger about the dude. Oh, right. And we say in the last episode, we'll tell you what that is then we did not even know. Oh, my God.

I wouldn't feel ethical about talking about to do that without him here to me that he.

What level of comfort. Yeah. Just well what level of detail he wants to do that. OK, so it's still a mystery. It is. But it involves his anus.

Yeah. That's a hint.

So and it wasn't pooty it was not, it was a duty fortunately.

And everything's he'll also have that because I don't want to think is a permanent doodle not doodle doo doo that.

Yeah. And we had a lot of fun imagining that the doctor would actually say, well what you have here is textbook doodad, so are in Latin and due to this that'll do.

Dad is just such a funny word. It's like beauty, it's like beauty. And it's also like what's the other word?

I like giblets for tiny little poops. Poo poo lends itself to a lot of funny word. It does. We should move to Germany. OK, speaking of Pooty Blue's Clues.

Oh OK. That is Pooty because Blue is a dog and he makes pooty. Oh ok. Yeah that's right. Dog's make. The original pooty story came from the little puppy dog that was making pooty everywhere four or five puppy dogs making pooty and there was definite pooty.

Yeah. So Blue is a dog. He has clues and the guy's name is Steve Burns. The original house. OK, his character name or the actor's name. Both.

Oh wow. I think he was name he went by Steve. Yeah. OK, yeah. Right. And you wondered if there was a scandal or did he age out. Yeah. Someone do some more reading. Oh great. After nearly six years and one hundred episodes, Burns announced that he would be departing Blue's Clues and two thousand to one hundred episodes. That's a lot of episodes. Wow. According to Johnson, Burns never wanted to become a children's host.

He loved kids, but stated he could not make a lifelong career out of it. Burns went on by saying, I knew I wasn't going to be doing children's television all my life, mostly because I refused to lose my hair on a kid's TV show and it was happening fast.

OK, that's the thing I'm remembering. It wasn't anything unethical. It's just he was going bald now I remember. Yeah, yeah. OK.

The day following the filming of his final episode for the show, he shaved his head, something that he wanted to do for many years. But the show's producers would not allow it on the fake U. Section of his Web page. When asked why he shaved his head and if he had been trying to make a statement, Burns replied, Yes. The statement is we have male pattern baldness.

Uh, good for Steve Vernes. Departure caused the resurface of the rumors that had circulated about him since nineteen ninety eight. Oh, OK, Burns replied.

The rumor mill surrounding me has always been really strange. Some of these claims included death from a heroin overdose being killed in a car accident. Unlike what was rumored to have happened to Paul McCartney in 1996, him having been replaced with a lookalike. Oh, that's weird. Yeah.

After Bern's departure, the Blue's Clues actress and replaced by Donovan Payton as Steve's younger brother Joe could have been.

You could. Yeah, I guess that's who I was reading for.

Joe Burns made an appearance on The Rosie O'Donnell Show to dispute these rumors. And he and cocreator Angela Santomero appeared on The Today Show to help concerned parents extinguish the fears of kids who may have heard these rumors.

Oh, Steve, poor Steve went through the ringer.

Yeah, almost replaced by d'Arc Schepper. Could have been. Then I would have to shave my head. You would have used him for men. Yeah. Yeah. In fact.

Well, I was just about to start using him for men. Yeah. Yeah. Because it was the punkt pilot where I discovered that I was balding on the wrong trajectory.

Yeah. I discovered I was bald by somebody else.

Almost got Blue's Clues, you know, I think like two other people got Blue's Clues.

I think the thing Bateman and I share is that we both were almost. Can you hear me now, Guy? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. Like, I had gone on a callback for it and then a second callback for it. And I think he did as well. Yeah, but was it.

Was it. Boy, it couldn't have been I forget who it was, but you're right. You know what, we're going to have to go back and listen to all the episodes. Yeah, we'll see you in six hundred hours. OK, so Adam's MTV show was called Undressed. He couldn't remember the name, but it's called Undressed.

Couldn't remember the name.

Also, he mentioned that Johnny Depp was the exception who worked again after nine 00 to announce well, do not remember, he was on to and nobody was on 21 Jump Street, which was also a teen show then.

Yeah. Then when I Googled Johnny Depp, Manocha, and it came up saying what I mean, I very much think he was referencing being the lead of a very popular teen show.

Twenty one jumpy Beverly Hills I to know which introduced Johnny Depp and Beverly Hills on a two hour primetime soap opera in the fictional West Beverly Hills School. I mean, this is according to Botanica.

Well, we could go to IMDB and see if he has any credit for nine or two, and I'll do it. Now, I do know the origin of Johnny Depp's acting, which is really a good, fascinating Hollywood story.

Yeah, he was an unknown, too. And because he was on 21 Jump Street from eighty seven to nineteen ninety. And then Edward Scissorhands is his next movie, so he's definitely not going back. OK, do some scrolling, just.

No, I did OK so I can read them all to you. No, no, no. Nightmare on Elm Street Dummy's Private Resort Lady Blew RPG Slow Burn Platoon Hotel RPG to Cry Baby, then 21 Jump Street than Edward Scissorhands.

Hmm. All right. So you ready for the fun Hollywood story?

Yeah, so apparently so. He was a musician and Nick Cage befriended him.

They were buddies. OK, and I want to say that they were even in apart for some reason. I have this notion that they were in a parking garage and they were daring each other to hang off the side and then climb back up.

And then on this evening, Johnny Depp was having some financial issues as a struggling musician. And Nick Cage said, you should be an actor and I'll introduce you to my agent. And that's how we got into acting. Wow. Yeah.

Nicolas Cage, one of his other contributions to film and television. Yeah.

Wow. Unsung hero. He was right, he should have been an actor, he was damn right. Thank God he's so good. He's so right. He's so right. He's so mysterious. Nick Cage or Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I'm nervous talking about him now. Why didn't he have some allegations?

And she's I don't know. There's some there's some sticky there.

Oh, he's still an actor. Jonathan Demme. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he is still an actor. What was he in recently? I don't know.

I just mean, like, we can talk about him as an actor. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I'm just, you know, any time someone has been associated with any kind of abuse and then you're like, oh my God, I love him, I love him. And then people write like, how could you love him? He's an animal. I don't I don't even know anything about what I'm saying. I just know that in my head I got a little bit of a red flag like, oh, be careful.

I think there's some weird.

OK, so we're not saying anything about his personal. No, I have no opinion other than I did bring up the other day that he got arrested in Australia, I believe, for bringing his dog in. He's come up a lot lately. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Batur Mine joined up just text frequency illusion. Oh no. I was just about to give a fact about Kristen and Kristen texted.

Oh my gosh. You know what she said. Yeah. Because I said, what are you doing during the day to day? Because I know she's off. I said, want to play spades with me and Matt and Laura. We can do rotations if Dex wants to play. And then she said, hey, sorry, just seeing this. I'd love to play spades, DAX and I plan to catch up on Ratchet, but let me check with him when he gets home.

Uh huh. I was curious to see how that was going to unfold because we did have a ratchet scheduled.

OK, yeah, well, sounds like she got it all in. She'd love to play and she had a prior commitment of ratchet and let's see how it all unfolds.

Great. The fact about her is how late did she go on House of Lies? She wrapped 11 days before giving birth.

OK, so pretty dark all the way. Yeah. Very, very tippy top.

And the three way funny joke. I'm sure some people didn't like it, but it's very funny. I think it's very funny.

That's all for the Browdy. Oh OK. Well sure love Adam Brody made me miss him. Yeah. I hang out with them. Do it.

I love you. I love you. I love you baby. I love you. Bye.