Hi, everybody. How was your day today?

Are you asking us or the audience? And you were expecting an answer from the.

You know, the audience is not Mike, you guys.

Yeah, sorry. Well, no, I was asked. Oh, they're not?

Since when you call me and JB, everybody?

Yeah, no, I call you guys the audience.

Cause you think that's the only people listening to you? It's just us, too. Yeah, you've got higher responsibilities than that. Let's come with the good stuff.

Judging by this opening we're after, it's gonna be a great smart list. Welcome to it. Smart less. Smart less.

Smart less.

Sean, what's on your cap there? Is that a college?

It's ISU. Illinois State University, where I have an honorary doctorate and a scholarship fund set up for people who want to go into music or the arts and, sorry, acting.

Are they still accredited? I mean, after that you got a diploma. I heard that after they give you a diploma that they were stripped of their power.

Like a real on. Is that an online university?

I still wear my sash to bed.

Once they did an assessment of your intellect, they're like, we gave this guy a fucking diploma.

Did you really go to ISU?

I went to Illinois State University.

Yeah.

It's one of the greatest colleges ever.

Okay, well, hang on. Let's quickly google that because I don't think you're gonna like that.

For a theater. For a theater. By the way, you know who went there? Me. Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson and I were music majors together.

I know. We. We've had him on the podcast.

I know.

We talked about that. We talked about it for, like, half an hour.

Hey, Arnett, where'd you go to school?

I didn't. I dropped out, man.

No, but you did.

You went to boarding school.

You know where I went? I went to fucking hard knocks, dude. Oh, bro. The streets.

The hard knock. Life with Annie of Toronto.

The streets of Toronto.

Did you go. You went. You went to.

Excuse me.

You.

Excuse me. You went to additional voluntary school?

I did. For half a half a year. I know. I love you.

Volunte. No access should invert that voluntary additional school. And I just didn't understand the concept of that, you know?

Well, yeah, I mean, I now have.

An option to not go, so. Taking that option.

Sure.

Got a good joke?

Yeah, sure, love.

Jump in. I didn't realize that you were grabbing the reins here. We were just merrily going down a path. But let's talk more about your school. Let's just go fucking. Okay.

Let's talk more about your school.

I didn't go.

No, let's not.

Here we go. Ready? The best gift I ever received was a broken drum. He can't beat it.

Okay.

That's all right. That's okay. He doesn't claim that these to be great jokes.

I got a couple laughs in the background.

There's.

You should say, do you want to hear a dad joke? If you say, no, I don't like the joke. Ready for something good? Dad joke means it's not.

I don't like the term dad joke. I think that's. I think that's lazy to call it a joke.

How about bad joke? Just say bad joke so people aren't expecting to lie.

Like a pun. Yeah, that's okay to say.

I got one more. You got one more?

Are there any mom jokes?

Here's a mom joke. What's faster, hot or cold?

Hot.

You can always catch a cold.

That's good.

That's good.

It's pretty good. I guarantee you at least one of our listeners will be using that today. After they get out of their car, of course, or off their subway or done with their jog, you know, it's fun.

You're welcome.

I love just. No, hang on, Sean. I love Jason. Trying to imagine what regular people do. They get on the subway and then they kiss their kids goodbye, walk out door, go to job, say, hi, boss office.

Want to hear joke?

Want to hear joke at water cooler with me? I love succession two.

And what are you watching?

I'm also watching succession. Are you watching it? I am also worried about saying that I don't like it. You're worried that you're saying, I do like it. I'm just making the joke.

Real, real good opening patter, everybody.

Did everybody sleep well? I slept really well.

Patter's over. Let's get to our high level guest. Really good, though.

Did you for the first, actually, that is worth a day.

You want to talk to us about your sleep? Guess it's not going to wait for your sleep report.

Well, it's very rare that he has good sleep before we get into it. It is true, Sean, and I'm happy for you and there's nobody. We talk about it all the time, right, Sean? Yesterday morning, JB Sean. I said to him, hey, you got a second? Let me know when you got a second. Like seven. I'm up at six. I said, let me know when you got a second.

It was like seven.

It was at seven. He calls me and I go, and I thought that he was back, you know, his usual thing. He wakes up in the middle of the night, and then he goes back to bed at 630 until ten, it's whatever. And he was up, and he'd been up since 333 30. He's been on a bad run of not being able to sleep. So.

So I slept all through the night. I got up to pee, and I went right back to sleep.

And why do you think that is? Did you load up on a bunch of sugar before you went to bed?

I did a little bit, but because of yesterday, I think that what Will's talking about, I think I ran myself around in circles like a little child being up at 330. And then I just crashed, and it made me sleep all night long. It was awesome.

You nap, what a fucking story.

I'll nap like ten. I'll nap like ten minutes. Anyway, so good that we stopped for that.

You were right, Will. Silly me. So today's guest is so immensely accomplished.

We'Re gonna see Bateman's face.

What a fucking story. God. Who else slept through the whole night? Make sure you call in. Our lines are open and love to hear about it. So our next guest is so accomplished and so universally loved. Okay. He's done everything. He's done television, film, theater.

Wow.

It's even got a Grammy, I believe. It's been comedy, it's been drama, it's been popcorn movies. It's been academy movies. I just don't know what else to say about this fella, except he's a new friend. Oh, okay. Okay. We met online, and he is also a Capricorn. And no, he is a new friend that I'm very excited about. He swings a mean golf club.

The way that started was, he swings.

I know, I know. I was like, uh oh.

What?

He'll take you where you want to go on the weekends. Okay, Will. That's what I'm saying. But listen, I love him. He's here. Very kind of him to say yes. Cause this is a big shot. Ladies and gentlemen, Mister Don Cheadle.

Hello.

I love Don Cheadle. What's happening?

Good morning, Don.

Don Cheadle's Don Chead.

No, I was trying to remember. Don, what is that great nickname that you were given because you're so smooth? I couldn't remember it. You told me this on the golf course.

I think Kelly Slater said that was very donchalant.

Yeah, Donchelant.

Is that a new nickname? That's really clever.

It's. I'm trying to put it out there. You know, I was going to try to trade market, but I was unsuccessful.

Speaker one Donchland is out there now. Just. Just FYI, it's. It's fully out there. And if you happen to run into Don Cheadle on the streets, just immediately. Don Shalom. Yeah, let him know.

Mister Shalon, you can single gun it or double gun it.

Don.

Don Cheadle. Hi.

Good morning.

What's up, gang?

I love Don Cheadle.

You know, the team was like, you've got to do these guys podcast. It's. You're gonna love them. I love all of you, individually and collectively. Not as much when I set through.

The banter, the early banter, it's like, remember that. Remember the joy that this Regis and Kathy Lee used to give you with that first ten minutes of coffee powder? Yeah, that's what we're reaching for, Don. You know?

No, it was a strong. It was a strong six minutes.

Don, where are we finding you right now? Because. And the reason I ask is because you look like you're either coming from or going to the golf course because you're wearing a zip up. But I want to say, which is surprising, because you are such. You're so busy and rightfully so. Cause you're always. You fit in that category for me, too, of people who are always good, no matter what the project is. You're so consistently awesome all the time.

You see this one? Who's gonna take that down?

I don't know.

You know what? I. Scotty, I appreciate that. Yeah, Scotty and I just watched just last week, not even knowing, obviously, that you were gonna be on because you're Jason's guest. We watched mission to Mars.

I was in there, and I was.

Like, there's Don again. And you're brilliant in it.

Always.

Yeah.

Cause, you know, I'll watch anything Sci-Fi.

I am picking up on surprise in Sean's voice, though, right? When he says, and you're brilliant, it.

Was like, no, no, you were pretty good.

No, I meant to Will's point, I.

Didn'T know you were an actor.

You're. And that you could grow facial hair. I thought it was only Jason who could.

This is not really facial hair.

This is disgusting. No, it was great.

You're great, Don.

I'm in Atlanta. Well, to answer your question, I'm in Atlanta.

You're in Atlanta.

And what's happening there in Atlanta? Working on something, no doubt.

I am working on something. It's a project called Fight Night. And I am in this wonderful project with who you guys had on the show. Kevin Hart, Sam Jackson, Taraji Henson. Terrence Howard. Wow. Yeah, it's, um. It should be.

It should be.

I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah.

I just. I've shot one day, so I'm, you know, I'm looking forward to.

You can still be fired. They can still easily reshoot one day early enough. Yeah. So watch it.

I've been replaced before. It wouldn't be the first time. No.

Have you?

I've been replaced before.

Oh, I have.

I didn't mean to bring something pink.

I love the duds. Like. No, I have. Sorry. I was just kidding. Of course.

Mine was a league on my new ship.

Mine was the cruelest, though. Cause I worked my nards off on this pilot. We shot the pilot. It went well, so I thought. And then, like, a couple of days before the big announcements happen about whether pilots are gonna get picked up to go to series, I get a call from my agent saying, you are going to good news, bad news. Good news is the show got picked up. And I said, unbelievable. He goes, here, let me finish. The bad news is that they're going to go a different direction with your character. And I said, okay. Two days later, found out they're actually not picking up the show. So, I mean, it's just like the worst 48 hours.

So good.

Bad, good.

Well, but I agree.

I agree with don't. I could have been spared all of it by just them saying, well, we're not picking up the show, but basically we're all fired, you know?

Are you still with this agent?

Yeah. That's good.

Exactly. No, no, that's three or four.

But it's good to know. I like it is personal a little bit. Cause they were like, hey, we know the show's not getting picked up, but let's let Bateman know that even if it did, he wasn't coming.

Yeah.

In the event that this is going forward, not you.

I got fired off a pilot the year that went to series, the year before we started arrested development.

Oh, God bless.

And had I been. Had I not been, I would have been stuck on that show. Don, wait a second. So you're in Atlanta. You're doing this thing with Sam Jackson. Are you potentially playing golf with Sam today?

You know, Sam has been on IR for a minute. I hope he comes off, because I would love to. We used to play a lot, but what's. He's nursing an injury or two reserve. Fingers crossed.

How's his game?

Sam was like a four.

What?

Wow. Yeah.

Damn it.

Wow.

All these people games. Just so easy to so many people.

Well, you know, Sam famously, you know, whenever he would get a gig, a part of his contract was they had to get him a membership to whatever local course there was, because he's such a freak about it.

Really?

No shit.

Yeah, he played everywhere. I was like, you can do that. Sam also was, you know, mister, if you force me, you're bringing me $900 in cash in an envelope the next day. Like a drug deal. I was like, this. This dude's my hero.

Yeah.

That's, by the way, Jason, you could. Jason, right now. You see, he looked down.

He's.

He's got. He's just gone on his phone, speed dialed to CAA right now. He's like, what the fuck?

About twelve country clubs short. Damn it.

Yeah.

All right, now, how do you like. How do you like Atlanta? You know, I've worked there a lot, and I always. I always thought that it was not gonna be a place for me. And every time I work there, I just love it more and more and more. Do you enjoying yourself there? You've worked there a bunch?

Yes, I've worked here a bunch. Because a lot of the Marvel stuff was here.

Right?

Oh, right.

And I've kind of been around it a little bit more, but this is probably the longest stretch that I'm gonna be here, so I'm looking forward to, like, getting up to the mountains and lakes and just checking it all out.

So. So I did a movie there a long time ago in Atlanta during the summer. Did you guys shoot those. All those Marvel movies in, like, the summertime because you can't breathe. It's so hot.

Hot.

Lana. Hot lantern.

Yeah.

Yeah. And how do you. You're in those costumes and running around in that heat. Is that what.

And you're in space.

Yeah. I mean, I think that was the. Oh, I. There's a callback.

No, but I mean, isn't that brutal?

Yeah, it's brutal. I mean, I was. You know, I'm from Kansas City, Missouri, where, you know, 98 degrees and 98% humidity. So I was.

I was.

I was born for this.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

But.

Yeah.

It's not. It's not fun, but right now it's very cold, actually.

Yeah, it gets cold. I like it. I like it, too. I like JB. I spent the last few years, about last year, I spent six months, I think, almost, in Atlanta. And I really liked it. I really liked the people. Once you find a kind of a good zone where you can find your stuff and whatever, I liked it a lot.

I find a zone.

But I was down in, like, I was down, like, right near sort of little five points. Like, all in there. Like, that's where I was staying. It was awesome. A lot of great, like, restaurants and.

Okay.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, Jason, have you had enough?

Yeah.

You opened it? You opened it. This is like. This is like the fucking court case.

Good sleep last night, don?

You know what's hilarious? When Sean was talking about that is I was very jealous because I did not sleep well last night.

That's what I'm saying.

Worst episode we've ever recorded.

Right?

We're right.

17 minutes from what I did.

No, no.

It's all my fault. All my fault. I'm talking about fucking Atlanta. We're talking about the weather. We're talking about sleep. It's like, let's get to something hard hitting. Now, somebody told me the other day that Kansas City.

Here we go.

Kansas City is actually so split right down the middle. The border between Kansas and Missouri.

You still don't have it, JB. You still don't have it. You still haven't got it.

That's a whiff.

No.

No.

Help me, people.

No, no, no.

There's.

There's one in Kansas and there's a Kansas city in Missouri. Two different. I mean, they're close.

Wait.

There's two different places called Kansas City?

Oh, my God.

No, honestly, I know Don's about to leave, John.

This is. This is every day, by the way.

This happens.

54 years old. And this is.

This is.

I'm just now getting clarity on this.

This. Let's.

Let's. Let's do it publicly. There are two. Two places called Kansas City. One's in Missouri, one's in Kansas.

Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

And which one's got.

There is a border.

Which one's got the Royals?

Missouri.

Missouri.

Missouri's got what?

Let me just say this, Don. Take a look at JB's face. Now, JB walked on through the gummy routine. This is going to explain a lot. Walk him through the timing and the still up.

I'm still up from last night's chew.

No, now this a little bit on the golf course.

I don't remember.

I don't know if you remember you. I'm sure you don't remember, because your gummy program.

No, never.

Never.

When I'm golfing. Golfing. Serious business.

We.

You said that.

Now, wait a second.

What.

But what sports team does Kansas City, Kansas have? The Royals.

He's still. He's here.

Is it the Royal.

It's crazy.

No, honestly. Is it the Royals? Are in Kansas.

That's also Missouri.

Do we want to just ask?

Go to, like, the Kansas City, Kansas has nothing. Is that correct?

Yeah.

No sports teams. No professional sports teams.

Yeah, man.

I'll let it rest now.

Look it up.

Okay.

I hope.

Honestly. Honestly.

They're all looking it up. America.

I've never looked into it this deeply. You might be absolutely right. I just know.

Kansas City, Kansas has the Royals.

Are there any sports teams in Kansas City, Kansas?

I'm so sorry, America, and specifically Kansas.

City, has had teams in all five of the major professionals for six. Three major leagues remain today.

Is that Missouri or is that Kansas?

That's Kansas City, Kansas.

Okay.

Wait, who's in Kansas City, Kansas?

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know. Foy, this is.

Again, this is Kansas City.

We're gonna pick this up. Hey, don, how'd you get started in the business?

No, I wanna know.

JB.

Fuck you.

You have.

I wanna know that.

A little porn called Don Shalantis.

No, I do wanna know, because to me, I've seen you in so many things, and like will said, always brilliant. Like, to me, you were born on screen. Like, I don't know anything about you. Other than the.

I was born on screen.

Yeah.

Other than we run into each other a few times and had lovely conversations. But tell me, how did you get, like, you were in theater and high school?

Well, sidebar. We almost. We played around with doing a movie together at one point. I know. I don't know if you ever got that off.

I did.

It didn't.

Did you get it off?

Yeah, it didn't do well. But thank you for your consideration.

Next up, next.

Way to dodge a bullet, Don.

I was trying to give a compliment and went right in the trash bin.

No, but did you. Did you. Were you interested in high school? Like what? How early were you.

Did you get the bug?

So I kind of got the early acting bug. I think I was in 6th grade. I was Templeton the rat in a production of Charlotte's web that was written about extensively in the Denver, Denver, Colorado periodicals. You can look it up. I'm sure it's still.

No, I don't have to worry it about.

And I was singled out. I'm just saying I was singled out.

The standout was the rat.

Yeah. And when Cheadle hits the stage, hold on to your. Yeah, so I did that. But I was also doing music kind of at the same time. That's when I got involved in playing my saxophone and instrumental jazz. And so I kind of was on these two tracks of really studying music. And when I went to high school, I had a great acting coach, a great acting teacher, a great drama class, and I was in a really good jazz band. So I was kind of on these two tracks. And when I graduated from high school, I had applied for both things to go into music, to go into vocal jazz, to go into instrumental jazz, and also to study acting and theater acting. And I got some scholarship money from a bunch of different places, and I.

Kind of made for acting or music or both.

Both. I got.

I had both. Wow. But I kind of made not only a weather choice, but I think I made a choice based on what I believed I was going to be able to actually do because I grew up with musicians now who are like professional musicians and who are hugely successful and incredible. And I knew what it was going to take to actually be able to do that, go down that road and shedding and learning theory and doing all of those things that I was like, I know I'm not going to do that.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I think I'm probably going to spend my time more being out of the house, being with other people and pursuing acting. And I loved it equally. So I kind of went up that road.

There's definitely science and math to music that you have to want to.

And I think it kind of, I was intimidated by it a little bit, to be honest. I think I was a little, you know, I'd gotten by, I had really good ear and I'd gotten by on really being able to hear music rather than understanding how it broke down. And I was kind of wide eye when I'd get into the weeds on that. So I get that. I kind of ran to something that I felt more comfortable with. But it's funny that the music has kind of come back around, and that's become a bigger part of my career now, too.

But, Don, did you ever, and, Sean, forgive me for taking your question, but did you ever think about, you know, kind of like when that guy dropped the chocolate in the tub of peanut butter and they came up with the Reese's? Did you ever think of taking the music and dumping that into the theater and going into musical theater? Sean, 5678, did that ever, did you ever get into that stuff?

Oh, he sure did. Let's talk about the Tonys. Go ahead.

Well, I've never gotten one. You produce something that's Tony Award winning show called strange Loop.

Yes.

Oh, my God. That's right. With, with Barbara. Barbara Whitman.

Yes.

Right. And she produced the play I just did. That's right.

Yeah.

Congrats on that.

Thank you. Thank you. Crazy. Great show.

But did you yourself, were you yourself at like in high school or afterwards? In college?

Absolutely. Yes, 100%. I mean, I. When I graduated high school, the choice I made was to go to. I came to California and studied at California Institute, the arts. And we, you know, did everything there. Musicals and dramas and classical pieces. We did everything. It was really a great experience for me and a place to be able to try everything and make a lot of mistakes and not get fired for it as a result.

Get ready because I love horrible theater stories, things that go wrong. So just get one ready.

Oh, yeah. They're the best. You can't wait.

Before we get to one of those, can you guys extend your tolerance for my lack of intelligence again, is Kansas City.

Are you going to go to the Chiefs and the Royals again?

It's worn pretty thin at this point. It's tripped very, very thin.

So if I'm on the border between.

No.

And we will be right back.

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It's important to keep the social battery going, to keep our brains going. But when it gets a little drained, it's a good time to maybe talk about why and how much you're spreading yourself a little too thin, especially with social gatherings picking up after the winter, right? What's the right amount of socializing for you? And how do you recharge? Maybe you thrive around people, or maybe you need some more alone time. Therapy can give you the self awareness to build a social life that doesn't drain your battery. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Find your social sweet spot with betterhelp. Visit betterhelp.com smartless today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelph help.com Smartless Smartless is supported in part by Delta Airlines. So I'm flying home today from New York to Los Angeles and I'm really excited and I know I'm excited because I'm looking forward to a real comfortable, memorable in flight experience. And I know I have gotten that before with Delta Airlines.

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So jazz, talk to me about jazz. Now. I'm a big music fan and specifically classical music. And so I feel like if I love classical music, I could really love jazz because it's a little easier to love. It's a little bit more toe tappy, but I gotta understand it a little bit more. And I'm hearing that jazz, its real appeal is knowing that for the most part it's improvised. Is that correct? Or is there, is it more traditionally written out in their sheet music?

That is a component of it. And I think the umbrella of jazz under that are many, many subdivisions and categories. It's a huge sort of a blanket term, especially by now. You know, if you think of somebody like Robert Glasper, who I won the Grammy with for producing. Anyway.

Sorry, your cough sounds terrible. Your cough sounds really. You got a really terrible cough.

Yeah.

Thanks, Bill. Let me get water to it.

Wait, are you close to an egot?

Two Grammys.

Oh, no, it's clear. Your throat's clear now.

Get that looked.

Okay, that's good.

Now you have.

You have.

Do you have a. Do you have a nomination egot? I think you do.

Yes, I have a nomination.

You got. Yes.

But not.

Wow.

I only don't have them all.

Pretty fucking good.

But. But like Rob Glasper, you look at his music and he stood, you know, he spans the globe of what his musical knowledge is and his experience, and he does popular stuff, black radio, which is sort of, I think you would think of more as, like, r and b influenced. And then he does straight ahead, you know, jazz and standards, and he does everything in between. So I think if you were to ask a musician like that what jazz is, or even if you were going to go back and ask, you know, Miles Davis what jazz was, he hated that word. He was like, that's a word to box somebody in. You know, it's about good music. It's about social music. So I think there are different, like, when I get in the car and, you know, the driver taking you somewhere is like, let's put on some jazz. And he puts on smooth jazz. It's like, I want to shoot him.

Yeah, I hate.

Right?

Yeah, I'm done. Don, you have to. Done. You have to forgive Jason because they don't do explanations of jazz on the Hollywood Reporter homepage. So he wouldn't read it. But. But let me just. Let me just say this. We did this bit in our show. Flaked nothing, huh?

Okay.

So where we had. Where we did. This guy's getting ready to have this girl over for a date, and then his buddy suggests he put jazz on, and they look at each other and they're like. And they're unsure, and he goes, I'm not sure where I fall on jazz. And our joke was always that, like, I can't figure out if it's cool to say I do like it or if it's cool to say I don't like it. And I'm still trying to decide where I land on that.

Me too. I feel like everyone says you should go to New Orleans for the jazz festival or when you should listen to.

And that's a very specific kind of jazz. Yeah, right.

I'm more like, I'm open to it. If there's a melody that I can hum back like a song. I'm not open to the.

Fair enough.

The jazz. That's just people just playing sort of.

Fusiony, improvised fusion, is that I can't.

Latch on to anything.

You can't whack off to anything.

What?

What did he say?

I love it all because if you're really. You know, if you're jazz, you can wect.

No, latch onto.

Grab your thing and have some fun.

Yeah.

New channel.

You heard it, JB. You heard it, too, right?

So, Don. So you're learning the saxophone at an early age. That gets you into music that's eventually you find an appreciation for Miles Davis, and then that project comes about. That was a. What was that a documentary that you produced or.

No, no, no. A movie.

A film.

And you played him. Yes, yes, yes. We're not good journalists.

Brilliantly. And I remember you telling me when I ran into you, you were working on that. You were so.

Nominations or even some wins for that, I believe.

Well, that was the Grammy that we got for the soundtrack, which is really cool. That one we put together with Rob Glasper, he and I put that together, so that was really cool. But, yeah, I think it's a big category. Talk about jokes on shows. We had one on Black Monday where I'm talking to. Thank you very much. I'm talking to Regina Don. Her name, the character's dawn about it, and she goes, yeah, I can never get into jazz. It just always sound like a bunch of instruments thrown down a flight of stairs.

Yeah.

Now, in my incredible research, did you really work on the Fresh Prince?

Funny enough. I did. I was on one of the first episodes of Fresh Prince, and I have a funny pilot firing story, too. I love about a pilot that didn't go. So I did the. I think it was the second or third episode of the Fresh Prince where will was still super green. He's, like, mouthing everyone's words, you know, along with his. So he'd say his line and he's staring at you, and you'd say your line and he.

Yeah, he's mouthing it.

That's such a thing. We've all. We've all worked with people who do that. It's such an actor thing, right?

Yeah.

Mouthing my dialog to me as I'm saying.

Yeah, so he was so studious, you know, he knew everybody's lines, and then he would, like, mouth everybody's lines.

But.

So we did that one. And by the third or fourth show, the creators, Susan and Andy Borowitz, who were the head writers on the show. They said, we want to do a show around you.

Uh oh.

Not necessarily based on the character that you're playing on this, but we just want to do a show around you. And I was like, okay, that's cool. So they wrote this show. How old were you when I did fresh Prince?

Yeah, early twenties.

That really germane to the store. I mean, he's just gonna come in your own show? It's like, I was six, okay?

Fucking six.

No, he's just jealous. He's just jealous. He's like, when are you getting offers for your own show? And he's like, I worked my whole life. Michael Landon didn't create a show for me. Sorry, JB.

I know that Michael Landon. So third day, they come down, they're like, we want to do the show. I said, okay, great. So they wrote the pilot. We shot the pilot. It's called in the house. I wrote the theme song to the thing. It's just everything was great.

Heavy saxophone.

It had super, super heavy saxophone. It was on the schedule. And I'm pretty, like, I don't believe it until I see it. And I just kind of wasn't believing that it was real. And also, it just was a huge. It was the biggest thing that had happened in my career at that point. I was like, I don't. Something's telling me this isn't real. But it was on the schedule. It was going so, like the day before I got this fateful call, I gave my brother my car. I was like, hey, it's on. Take the cards. I'm about to have this huge windfall.

Yeah, it's.

I'm ready. And the next day I got a call and they said, it's off the schedule. It was. How old I was, was. Brandon Tartikoff was still running NBC at that time.

Okay, we're late 80.

I don't know if people are listening. Yeah, no, but he. When he stepped down and Warren Littlefield came in, he killed all the shows that were under Brandon. And that was one of them.

That was one of the casual, you know. Sean, Sean, you told me a story, and correct me if I'm wrong about where you shot the pilot because they had mignonette sauce instead of cocktail sauce for your oysters. Is that true? And you guys were about to leave Van Nuys and you shot. You were so mad. You shot. Because you're like, I hate minionettes sauce. I like cocktail sauce. You shot the pilot.

But I spared the co pilot as.

A lesson so he could live to tell the story. To other pilots to get the sauces right now.

All right, so now, Don, could you imagine if that show had taken off, became a big success? You would have been a big sitcom star. I wonder where your career would have gone.

I was thinking the same thing.

But, like, even so, going back before that, was there another significant fork in the road, either where you grew up, like a fateful move to a certain city or what your parents were doing or saying or siblings, where you could have easily seen, oh, if I just simply gone right instead of left, I would be a veterinarian today, or I would be an architect today. Or was there, was there a fork?

That's a good question.

Thank you.

I mean, you know, it's crazy that, that my fallback was music. Like, if this acting thing doesn't work out, I'll be a jazz musician. That'll get me there.

It's like.

So, I mean, that's where I was trending. That's what I wanted to do. And quite honestly, it's. There's still no greater pleasure that I have, you know, in any sort of performance capacity than being with musicians and creating music.

Really? Really.

That's the, to me, the highest. I love it is. It really is. I think because of, as you were talking about improvisation, that you're creating things spontaneously. I don't know what it's doing biochemically to you, but I'm sure if you have electrodes on and, you know, they were testing you, you're getting dopamine hits that are just through the roof because it's just so alive.

Yeah.

And it necessitates this connection with these fellow, pardon the term, artists that you're kind of communicating without speaking, and there's a handoff and a yes and thing. You get that also in acting, but, yeah, you do.

And there's also that thing you do when you perform live, when you, you also get that, when you get that feedback from an audience when you're on stage and you get that thing and it starts to inform you a little bit, they become part of your creative process. Could you get juice from that?

I think, yeah, absolutely. You do.

And it transcends language and it transcends, you know, the English, Spanish, we can all speak this language. And so there's a big unifying thing that it does that's just like, beyond.

I had the same thing, Don. You know, I was, always had music to fall back on, should the, you know, the acting thing, and I still have the music to fall back on if the acting thing doesn't work out, but I always thought my fallback was gonna be, oh, I'll just be a pop star.

Well, you can string your ass off, so add a shot.

Well, no, but let's play it.

Could we just play a little bit of it right now? We do this every once in a while, Don.

Yeah.

No, now, Don, do you find it for us? He's going to play before Don leaves.

Bennett or Robert Needle Bennett.

Hey, Don, do you have a place where you go, like, Woody Allen famously took his clarinet out, I don't know, once a week or whatever. And that's not a euphemism, right in.

There, Will, but you're my new favorite guy on the podcast.

Do you have a place where you go whip out your sacks and go play it, Rocket?

Hang on, man.

I just said, will got that one. You don't have to jump.

I'm trying to piggyback on that.

Hey, did you hear what I did? Jump on top of Will's thing. Your turn, Sean. Get in there.

Ooh, that was a good idea.

I'll take it off.

Like. But, like, do you have.

I'll take it off.

There it is. Do you have a band that you play with or a jazz club that you go to every once in a while?

No. And I've been, like, bounce bouncing around on diplomats. So I played the sax, and then I didn't do that.

I.

You know, when I went to Cal arts, it was. It was kind of like a conservatory. The amount of time that you had to spend on all that, there was no time, really, to do anything but theater and voice and movement and dance and all that stuff. So I just kind of dropped it. And then I was in New York doing a play, and I walked by a pawn shop, and I saw this beautiful tenor sax. I was like, I'm gonna pick it back up again. I'm gonna see if I have any facility, because, you know, you lose your embouchure. You lose that musculature. To be able to play it, it's hard to get it back. So I started playing it again. It sounded terrible. I was like, no, just hang out. Just, like, stay with it. So I started doing that, and then I took a gig, actually, the rat pack movie and playing Sammy Davis junior, who play drums and play trumpet, and, you know, gun twirled and could play piano. And so I kind of went back to school again, having private, you know, having lessons from all of these teachers to learn how to do all these different things.

And that's when I started trying to pick up the trumpet, which became something that was gonna. I didn't know I was gonna need later when I did the Miles Davis thing. So I've been playing bass more than anything lately and piano more than anything lately. I haven't gone back to the sax.

I did.

I did bring up. I bought a really beautiful, brand new sax and let this dude play. And he just recorded an album with it. And it's like. So it's always in the periphery somewhere. But I haven't, you know, I think the most amazing experience I had in musical experience in the last couple years was Rob Glasper was at his. He was recording something. He said, hey, come by. Come, come listen. And I said, yeah, keep a track open because I'm going to bring the bass, and I'm just gonna, like, you know, kill you guys with some shit. So just keep the track open. I was completely joking. So I came over and I listened to him for a while, and he goes, okay, here's the bass. Let's go. I said, no, no, no, I was joking. I don't. I don't want to play. He's like, oh, no, you're gonna play. And it became sort of like, you know, trial by fire, and I don't play like that. But when you play with great musicians, you know, they lift you up.

Yeah.

And they.

It's just like, I wish I could find that.

Yeah, it's fucking.

I believe I'm just dragging these two.

You seem to be like, like, so great at surrounding your life with the things that mean, you know, have great value to music, acting, family. You always seem to be in a great mood, too. Like golf.

Yeah.

How do you do that? How do you. For people who don't know how to do that, where they're like, I'm in this rut. Like, to us, we've all found the thing that we love to do or things we love to do. How did you learn how to gravitate towards the good versus the bad? You know, the things that are good for you, the things that fill your soul rather than.

This is a question. This is an interviewer, Will. This is somebody who knows how to shape a question. Okay, sorry, go ahead, Don.

I love the comment.

I'm just here for the pot shots from the sideline, man.

You know, that's Will's killing, and you're killing the potshots from the second, by the way.

I appreciate it, man.

Don't encourage him.

I honestly have to attribute it, a lot of it. I have to attribute a lot of it to my upbringing. I was very fortunate to have, and people get to it however they get to it. I was very fortunate to have really solid parents, really sort of corny, traditional picket fence, 3.5 kids and the dog and the whole thing. I really was able to grow up like that with parents. That never dissuaded me from going after what I wanted to go after.

That's great.

I think it was really fortunate that my mom was sort of a frustrated performer, a frustrated singer. So when I wanted to be an actor, she was like, yes, go after that.

Do you have an older sibling that knocked the crap out of you when you got too, too big?

Yeah.

Well, she's a, she's a girl. So I, like, took advantage of the different muscles, you know, I had. I was stronger than her. And then we moved into weapons, and that's when I was like, oh, she's leveled the playing field. So we got to chill out. And that's when we stopped fighting. But just really close knit family. And it's something I think I just wanted to replicate in my life. And I'm really lucky that, you know, I have friends from when I was in elementary school still and from college, and the people that I'm close to are still, are still in my life. And I think we all know people who have gotten to a certain place and have looked around and they don't know anybody. That's no one that around them has been around them for five years. And you go, that person's probably going to have some problems. So you need people who will laugh at you and say, you're not important, chill out.

I don't keep those people around because people can't breathe the air up here the way I can.

Yeah, you're one of the, you're one of those people we were talking about.

Will, the air is so thin up here. It's so, it's so, so rare that I can barely, I'm handing out masks to these two because I'm like, guys, we're going on a ride. We're going somewhere.

We're going down, or we're going down.

No, it's so important. I love that. It is, it is a measure of somebody, by the way, how many old friends they have from back in the day. And I think I'm with you on that. I think it's really great. I've got a lot of my old buddies, too.

Now. Now, don, I got a question here. You've been a part of so many incredible projects. I want to know, I want to know if any of them felt or smelt like turds right in the middle of it, and you were shocked at the end of it that it turned out so well. Projects like crash oceans 1112 or 13. Traffic out of sight. Boogie nights. I mean, yeah. Any of the marvel stuff. Did any of them just, like, go, oh, Jesus, what did I do here?

I think I've had the opposite, where I'm like, this thing's going to crush, and then it comes out and like, yeah, yeah. Not so much.

Not so much. Right.

I mean, we don't know. Right. You just go in with, you know, your best. You know, you've made the best decision you could, and you go in and throw everything into it, and then sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. But I've never. You know, I've always. I've always believed that the thing I've said yes to has value, and it's gonna be good, and the experiences. And then it turns into being what it's gonna be. I've been really fortunate to have really, really great experiences. I've had very few experiences where it's a toxic set and people are horrible. You know, I've just been very, very. I've been. The things I've gravitated toward have gotten made, and I've just been very, very fortunate. I've had a very blessed career.

You've clearly got a nice connection going with Steven Soderbergh. Yeah, yeah.

I heard the set of Chernobyl is toxic.

Nice.

Well, hey, but you fucking.

You and you and Soderbergh have a great. A great rhythm going.

Yeah.

You see. You see. Working with him again in the future, probably. Yes, of course. Right?

Yeah.

I mean, we. We have stuff. We. Trying to develop things as we speak.

I love out of sight is such a great fucking movie, man. I.

Isn't it good?

So underrated and overlooked.

Such a good movie.

Yeah.

God damn it. Despite Clooney's looks, it's good to get.

Around, but Soderbergh's just. He's the. Soderbergh's such a beast. So a good guy, too. But, I mean, like, writing and directing and camera operating and editing, and I just. I would imagine that's got to be an easy voice to follow, considering he's kind of this.

Are you trying to dovetail into you? Because.

No, no, no. That's what I'd like to do, but.

Can I take a minute to honestly.

Oh, yeah. Spike it. He served it up.

Guys. Take us. Take a spike.

I do want to spike it? I'm big. I'm a big Jason Bateman fan. I'm just gonna say I'm a big Jason Bateman fan. Really? I love everything that I'm seeing you do. And I saw you in a roundtable talking about understanding as an actor what you were going to be doing as an editor and knowing when you get into the editing room what you're going to be able to, to use and not use. And how do you kind of craft your performance based on that? And I was like, well, fucking smart and such a cheat.

But it's really fun because he lives his personal life like an editor, too, so he's always thinking about the results.

Trimming you. Well, now what don's doing here is he's dovetailing into his accomplishments as a director as well.

That he has.

I wanted to get into it.

Yeah, he has gone. He has gone ahead and he's taken all the incredible set experience he's had and lent that to the directing experience. Right. And made everybody's life a lot easier, I would imagine.

Never do it again, do you go?

Come on, why not?

Bullshit.

I don't anticipate ever doing it again.

Come on.

You've done it a handful of times at least, and that was enough. It's really, is it the workload or the pressure or the time commitment or what?

It's the pressure, honestly. It's the pressure. It's, I think, you know, my agent one time said, you know, good actors are just like, can be and sometimes need to just be hard sons of bitches. They just have to be able to, not necessarily in how they deal with people, but you have to have the ability to have stuff kind of roll off and be thick skinned and not have it be, you know, penetrate and keep moving. And I think I have more. I'm more, like, sort of bandied about by the things that happen and the things I wasn't able to get. And I just, and it's something that I learned about myself going through that experience. I'm like, oh, I'm a lot more porous in that regard than I thought I was.

As an actor, you can ignore a lot of drama or problems or complications with the production, and you just kind of sit in your trailer and then someone else will figure it out. As a director, you can't hide from anything.

None of it.

Yeah.

We'll be right back.

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Hello, I'm Emily, one of the hosts of terribly famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. Some of them hit the big time overnight, some had to plug away for years. But in our latest series, we're talking about a man who was world famous before he was even born. A life of extreme privilege that was mapped out from the start but left him struggling to find his true purpose, a man who, compared to his big brother, felt a bit, you know, spare. Yes, it's Prince Harry. You might think you know everything about him, but trust me, there's even more. We follow Harry and the obsessive, all consuming relationship of his life. Not with Meghan, but the british tabloid press. Hounded and harassed, Harry is taking on an institution almost every bit as powerful as his own royal family. Follow terribly famous wherever you listen to podcasts or listen early and ad free on wondery plus on apple podcasts or the wondery Apple.

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And back to the show.

John, you bring up a really good point, though. It is true. You know, actors, as we know historically, you take a lot of heat and people go like, oh, fuck an actor. Or you hear people write, like, even people you grew up with, like, what's your life like now you're an actor. You see that people have this sort of thing, and I always say, and they're like, oh, yeah, but you're just an actor. And I'm thinking, like, yeah, I I am friends with. I am an actor. I'm friends with tons of actors, some of the most creative, amazing people. And on top of that to what you were saying there also, it is a tough road, as you know, from when you're younger, to. To start to do the things that you want to do, and you have to, you do put up with a ton of disappointment. You get kicked in the Nards on a daily basis. You know, my own experience, I lived in New York for ten years and was trying to get fucking work and just got kicked in the Nards. And then as I'd go down to wincing in pain from getting kicked in the nuts, I'd get kicked in the face like, Jason, like you saying, the show's, here's the Ben, you're fired.

And then the next day, the show's fucking gone. And you're like, fuck, I didn't need those two kicks.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And by the way, and it's not once a year, it's like two, three times a week for years.

That's if things are going well for you, because those two or three, those two or three rejections each week mean you got two or three auditions that week, which is really good.

Yeah.

And I'm not saying to feel sorry for it, but. But it is, right, Donna?

It's.

It's a tough. You do have to have a little bit of, you know, you show your mettle a little bit.

Well, for me, I really could. I sound like an idiot, Aaron, you know, complaining about anything about my acting career, because, again, I was super, super fortunate. I've never done anything but this to support myself. I, you know, got my first job when I was still in college. You know, my junior year, I got a gig. Oh, I did get fired from a job. That was actually the first job I got an at and t commercial where a kid was supposed to be on the phone and sort of trying to dodge the questions that his mom was asking because he was not doing so well. She goes, how are your grades? And he's like, uh, my grades? I can't hear you. This connection is bad. She's like, no, I can hear you. Great. And it was at and t. You know, you can't fake the funk, you know? So I was running on my. I was going out of the door to do this audition, and the phone rang in the hallway, and I just kind of knew it was for me, and I picked it up. It was my agent. She goes, ah, don, bad news.

They're not. They're not gonna use you in the spot. I was like, what? Why? She goes, they don't want to portray a black kid as failing out of college. I was like, so they're gonna give a white kid my job?

Wow. Yeah.

The irony of that.

That's what's gonna happen. So, I actually did get fired from a job that was the first one, but, yeah, but for me, the acting thing has been. I've been, like I said, I've been very blessed, very fortunate. But the directing part of it. Yeah, it's. It's really just.

It's.

It's been these particular experiences that I've had. Not when I've directed my show that's a little bit more of a comfort zone, a little bit more support I've had and little bit more resources and people to rely on. But, you know, I made. We made miles ahead for $8.5 million in a town that had, you know, only done one other movie before that where we would show up and there was, like, no redundancy in the departments. You know, we'd have two cameras and only one cameraman. I'd be like, where's Phil? It's like, oh, he took a commercial in Dayton, you know, yeah, yeah. Coming in one day, and I was like, where's the. We had her in the scene. She's like, yeah, she didn't want to come today. I'm like, but we shot. She's in the scene. They're like, yeah, yeah, she doesn't want to come. So I'm like, put this woman in the dress. Turn her back to the camera. Like, every day. It was something like, always solving problems, just. But the problems that didn't make sense, like the fire alarm going off and then the fire, then the actual firemen coming and coming in while we're shooting the scene.

And so, okay, I'll guess we'll shoot this mos and just mime all these things. We'll do it in post. I get, you know, just every day it was something like that. My wife came out to see me, and she. She said, you can't do this anymore. You know, I lost weight.

It was just bad.

So I have a lot of scar tissue, so maybe if I get some sort of procedure where I can scrape that off, I'll try it again for the emotional scars.

I have a question just about your acting style and approach, because when I first saw oceans eleven and which you were brilliant in, I'm not making this up, like, halfway through the movie because of your accent, I was like, oh, wait, is that. Is that Don Cheadle? Like, you didn't do anything to your appearance. You just changed your kind of way. I don't know how to describe it. And it's amazing what an act just an accent can do. How did you find the trust to do that? Why that character like that? And how do you do that? Like, in any character you approach, it.

Was written like that, and I was going to change it, and my manager at that point said, there aren't black british people. I was like, oh, I mean, yeah. She's like, so why don't you just do it as how it's written? And I was like, yeah.

Oh, so it's written as well.

And so while I'm in my trailer with, you know, a vocal coach, a speech coach, going over, like, diphthongs and shvas and stuff, they're out playing basketball. I'm, like, sitting watching them play poker and have fun, and I'm like, no, this works. No. Uh, no, I. No. Uh, Sean, stand up.

Sean, stand up real quick. He's. Sean's wearing a diphthong. Let's stand up real quick.

Oh, that's nice. That's a nice diphthong. But I was famously murdered. You know, people I hate. People are split right in the middle on that. The people that hate that hate it. When I was in London, I almost had to get security because people wanted to kill me. Your accent, how bad? They thought that.

Oh, the accent. Why?

They hated it. And me. People literally drove. They would see me and come across four lanes of traffic to pull up next to me to scream at me about how bad the accident was.

Oh, my God. I totally bought it. I totally bought it.

It's safe to say you'll never do another british accent again.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah.

Doing an accent, I believe that would be.

It takes a lot of games.

It's very, very tough for me because you got. You're acting twice, right? You got to do performance, and you.

Got to do the act somehow.

Would you make them pay twice, Jay? I know Jay very well. Would you make them pay twice? I would like to.

I would like to.

Are we gonna say that?

No, I'm just gonna say. And some of them, you know, fit better than others that I've attempted to take on, you know, but they're all, like you said, it's all tricky. Like, you're kind of acting through a mask, and you're trying to make that mask be as real and as facile as you can. It's tricky.

Right?

Right.

Now, all of these incredibly high profile films, which one do you think gave you the most useful bounce? Was it devil in the blue dress?

Yeah, I would guess devil in a blue dress was probably. I was on picket fences for a couple years before that.

Oh, wow.

You know, I was 12th on the call sheet. And you guys know what that is? I'm sitting in the trailer all day, and they're like, we're coming up to you next. We're coming to you next. And then, like, oh, no, we're not going to use you today. And you'd been in the trailer for 12 hours. So I started writing. That's when I started writing. And just as survival, right, just to not go crazy.

But then along comes this film with Denzel Washington. And it was. Did you leave that project with. With any pearls of wisdom from Mister Washington?

I mean, it was an incredible experience. It was directed by Carl Franklin, who I did his AFI thesis project, you know, his Asi, his graduation project. So I had known him from before, so that was really old home and felt great. And Denzel and I, from the audition on, which is online, actually, our audition is online.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

And so is that pilot that I mentioned, by the way, people find shit and upload everything. We just had a great time. And of course, I was just in awe of him. And, you know, worked as hard as I've ever worked on anything to make sure I was in the pocket, you know, when I was with him, I didn't come out. I was super methody. I was not great character. I was mouse all the time. You know, I just stayed in it. And, yeah, I had a great experience. I loved that movie and I love that experience.

Would you, if you had. If you had, say you had a scene with a. Because, you know, you're Denzel now, to a young actor, if you were to do a film with it, what, what would you say to a young actor today that you wish you'd known back when you were just starting out, you know, fucking light. Right? Would you upstage me or shadow me?

But we do, we do have a.

Tendency to overcomplicate things, right. And things get more simplistic as we get older, you know, I wonder, but aside from just that generality, what. Is there anything specific? I'm trying to think myself, what I would tell somebody, you know, probably.

Probably a step away from my BMW.

Which of your bmws, mister guy?

That's a great.

I just think that, you know, like we, I think people underestimate, you know, to, what will was saying earlier is what, what we really do. I think people think it's super, super easy. And then they try it and they're like, oh, you're actually trying to be very naturalistic inside a completely unnatural environment where somebody's standing in your eye line chewing gum and, you know, making noise off somebody's, you know, walkie talkies going off. And you've got to act like this is the first time you've ever done or said any of these things. And I think that you only do that well if you're really prepared and you've really done your homework and you're not here just because you think it's going to be cool to cut line at a restaurant. You know, it's like this is, this is a, this is really. I'm not, we're not rocket scientists and we're not, you know, jumping out airplanes or whatever, the hardest shit there is to do or ditch digging, but there is play them. That's what we play the shit out of them and we learn about them. That's another thing. Good actors are students, so we're always in the lab, right?

We're always trying to. If I play a doctor. I'm gonna read up on doctors. I'm gonna follow doctors. I'm gonna go to hospitals. I'm gonna try to sit next to them. If I'm playing a cop, I'm gonna do a ride along. I'm gonna. So I feel like that part of it often gets overlooked, that we're always in school. You know, we're always trying to learn new things.

So true.

I think that's a great boon for us as artists, that we're always expanding ourselves.

Yeah.

Now, Shawn doesn't want you to get away without searching your memory for a really tough theater story, like forgetting your lines or trying to get rob.

Anything going wrong.

A sandbag fell from above, and I landed in the first row in the woman's lap, and she said, you think you're drunk? Wait till O'Toole comes out. Or something like that, right, Sean? Is that what you were.

Oh, you were at that performance. You were there.

That's exactly right.

I said, wait till my tool comes out. Double guns. Double guns.

Donchalant Donchelon strikes again.

Is that you, Sean?

Oh, this is me singing. Yeah, it's horrible.

Here we go.

It's so bad. Okay.

Is that tabla? Is that some tabla?

Okay, that's good.

You know what it is? It's like Jimmy Somerville from Bronski Beat was put in the back of a van and driven to Beirut and forced to make a fucking Middle eastern dance record.

Jimmy Somerville and Beirut. That was the name of the album.

Yeah.

Did you ever see, by the way, Jeff, Ricky Gervais is music videos or anything?

Oh, yeah. Those are brilliant.

Yes. Yeah. That's what.

That's similar path. Oh, my God. But, yeah. Do you have any, like, tragic, horrible theater gone wrong?

My tragic. The most tragic thing, other than a real injury that I suffered during a play. Same play, by the way, we were doing cymbeline at the public that Joanne Acolytis directed, who, you know, is experimental director from Mabu minds. If people want to go back and look at all that stuff, she's great. But we had an actor, Stefan Schnabel, who played the doctor in this play. And, you know, it's kind of a stereotypical Shakespeare fifth act wrap up where one character knows everything that happened in the play. Like, you're his niece, and she actually has the potion. And this king knew him as, like, they unwrapped the whole thing, and we're all on stage going, oh, that's how I did it. So he had this last, you know, speech that he had to give Stefan was, I think, 98 at the time.

Uh oh, wow.

So it comes time for him to wrap this up. And he goes up.

That forgets his lines.

Yeah, forgets his line. Goes up. Forgets his lines for those who. With the theater vernacular. And he starts stammering and making up words and basically just sort of like, trouble, you know, standing in place and teetering and no one. You can't give somebody in Shakespeare, you know, it's not. We're not doing something naturalistic. You can't come up with some. You could try to come up with some iambic pentameter and, like, slip a line there to help him along the way. But it went on so long that first the audience sort of laughed and then realized, oh, it's not a bit, and stop laughing. And then the other half the audience laughed, and then half the audience shushed that part of the audience that laughed. And then the actors on stage kind of were starting to laugh. You know, those two that would start to laugh, and everyone's like, shut the fuck up. And everybody stops laughing. And he's still kind of trying to pull it off.

He doesn't think anyone's noticed.

Trying to pull it off. This went on for probably two minutes. You know how long two minutes is?

Yeah.

I mean, you guys have died for two minutes for sure, collectively on this show.

It feels like a long time.

Yeah, it's a long time. And finally, it's not. Joan Cusack, who was the lead in it, who played Cymbeline, just finally just started saying his lines. She just couldn't take it anymore. And he kind of revved up and got through it and then got off stage, and he said, I want to kill myself.

Yeah.

I have to quit. I've never, like, you're 98.

There's no point.

Yeah, you're gonna be dead soon, I guess, is what is what Jones said to try to, like, you know, bolster his.

Good Lord.

Yeah.

That's the scariest thing.

Wow. Fuck.

It was really sad going up. Going up in your dialog like that on stage, right.

There's just nothing.

You don't need that crap at 90.

There's nowhere to hide.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's nowhere to hide, right? But now, don, you're, like, one of the sweetest people ever. What pisses you off? Because I can't. The few times I've met you, even today day, you're always just Barry in the middle. Very cool, calm, collected. Is there. What's that?

I said, I'm on that gummy. Program.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I bet he's not happy when he blades a bunker shot, right? You hit that ball right in the belly coming out of the sand trap. It's just. You never have.

Pisses you off.

Yeah, immediately. But then I kind of let it go, you know, I think, like, stupidity without any desire to not be stupid pisses me off. I don't mind if you're stupid. People can be stupid, but when there's are, like, incurious and don't want to actually look under the stupidity and see where that stupidity are better themselves, that kind of pisses me. And, you know, as we can see, it's incredibly dangerous. And, you know, we're in a sweet spot of stupidity right now for a lot of people.

And would that. Would that. And that. Would that extend across all sort of areas? That sort of stupidity, like, whether it's history or language or just geography, even basic geography of states and cities within the country that we live.

Uh oh. And uh oh.

Like, people didn't know where. How a city was.

Yeah.

Like, they don't know where a city is. It's been explained to them, like, five times.

It feels like a shot. This is definitely.

Hey.

No, no, no. I think Will is just trying to use general.

This is very general. I'm just trying to get a general sense of what.

Because, Sean, remember earlier in the show.

And I had a problem with cancer?

Well, ignorance isn't stupidity. You know, ignorance is. Anyone can be ignorant. You know?

That's true. Anybody can be ignorant. Thank you, Jason. So don't. Done. Honestly, you've been a dream. You're just an. You're such a cool guy. We've never hung out. We threatened once. I was on a. I was. Joey Russo wanted me to get into football fantasy league, and I said no. And Joe said, we'll just stay in the chat and talk shit, even though you don't want to play. And I did for about six months.

Really?

Yeah.

You were in there? You were in there.

It was great. Yeah, it was fun.

It was a lot like this. Just like, pot shots from the side.

It was a lot of Will.

Well, you know, Will, Will, you and Don should go out and play some golf while. I know my golf hiatus. And. And then I'll read you many guys in the end of.

Yeah.

Why are you on the hiatus?

I got some hiatus because he's working. He shot us. He shot an even par 70. Yeah.

Who cares?

Really?

It's not a big deal. But listen, thank you for joining us today.

Don.

Will you make me this pledge, when you come back, that you and I will play. Can we do that? Can we say that'll happen?

100%.

Okay, great.

He's the absolute.

Do you play? This should be the foursome.

I could. I always say I can drive the cart.

He loves to drive the cart.

It's a day, it's so much fun. We get him a soda. We get him like a float, like a root beer float.

And he drives. Next time you're.

Sometimes. It's early temple, but it's a lot of sugar. It's a lot.

He's very groggy and by the 17th old, he's kind of, kind of irritable a little. Guys, it's good.

Just pick it up.

We gotta go.

That's totally me.

Love you, Don. Thank you for saying yes.

Love you, pal.

Enjoy the rest of your day down there in Atlanta and say hi to our friend, Mister Hart, please.

I will.

Thanks, guys.

Great seeing you today.

You dude.

Thank you, Don. Bye, buddy.

Yep, yep.

I love Donchalant.

It's so good. JB.

What a great, what a great.

Shoulder. Just drop when you're talking to him.

Yes. Yeah, he's cool. Yeah.

He's such a mega talent. He falls into that category, mega talent.

And universally love.

And we. Yeah, we say this all the time. It seems like the people who work all the time also have wonderful personalities.

Yeah, I agree. You know, you're a director. It's a big part of your career now and your life. And when you're deciding between, you have a lot of options to do stuff with a lot of different people. And part of the calculus, I imagine, is who do I want to spend the next four months with?

Huge.

And it's, it's before I even start to get excited about the idea of them coming on. And that's cast or criticism. I'll do, I'll do, I'll do zooms with people that I may not even see on the set. And I just need to know that they're not going to, you know, wreck it with their not being nice people important. But he is. He's amazing. And when I could, I could have just gone on forever and ever. We didn't get to much of anything, which is what we do on this show.

Sorry, we get a lot of complaints about that. I think that some, from some people who say, like, oh, you guys, didn't you just. And what they forget is like, we're just so excited to see Don.

Yeah, right.

So it kind of like Don. So we just start talking.

We're not journalists. We're just three dummies that want to just talk a little bit and can't believe anyone's listening.

So if you're like, oh, why didn't you, why didn't you get to what Don's favorite dog type is? We're like, sorry. We were just excited. We just wanted to talk shit with them. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Like, that's on the spot. Smartless extras. If you want to know his favorite dog type exactly.

Or talk about, like, vacation spots. Like, I don't know, like, has he ever been to Thailand or Mumbai?

Or Mumbai.

You glaze right over it.

Mumbai.

Smart less.

Smart less.

Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Rob Armjarf, Bennett Barbico, and Michael Grant. Terry Smart less if you like smart less, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey@wondry.com.

Survey it's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people with a touch of humor. I just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called malevolent deity, that is pretty great, a dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother lied like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the way back machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, morbid. Follow morbid on the wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.