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The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #2280 - Peter Berg

Peter Berg is a writer, director, and producer. His latest project is the Netflix series "American Primeval." https://www.netflix.com/title/81457507 Save $20 on your first subscription of AG1 at http://drinkag1.com/joerogan 50% off your first box at https://www.thefarmersdog.com/rogan

Joe RoganhostPeter Bergguest
Feb 27, 20252h 55mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:003:20

    Workout debrief: warmups, stretching, ice baths, and training as meditation

    1. JR

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. NA

      The Joe Rogan Experience. (drumming music)

    3. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music)

    4. JR

      Are those black coffee for coffees? Are we up?

    5. NA

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      All right, we're rolling. Those, those are a lot.

    7. PB

      Is this too much?

    8. JR

      They're delicious.

    9. PB

      Am I making a- am I making a rookie mistake?

    10. JR

      No, I love them. They're too good, though. They're- they're- there's a lot of sugar in them. They're trying to make one with no sugar. They're pretty close. But right now, that- that's got a ton of sugar in it. But damn, it's good.

    11. PB

      Yeah, they taste good.

    12. JR

      We did the full thing today, dude.

    13. PB

      Thanks for the workout.

    14. JR

      My pleasure, it was fun.

    15. PB

      Thanks for the work- you're a- you're a beast. For anyone that doesn't know, you are a fucking beast. And I suspected you would be, you know. That's why I wanted to work out. Um, and I was smart enough, and I told you right away, I'm not gonna keep up with you. Um, but man, you go hard for anyone-

    16. JR

      You did a lot of the things, though. You did all the stuff, you know? Like, and stuff that you'd never done before, like windmills and-

    17. PB

      Yeah, those windmills were like, you could really get in trouble with the windmill.

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. PB

      For people that don't know what that is.

    20. JR

      You certainly can with heavy weight, yeah. It's something. But it- all those things, like the push-ups and body weight squats, it's all just a- you have to build to it. You know?

    21. PB

      I love the way you warm up, you know, 'cause I- I'm the same way. Um, I do a long warmup every day.

    22. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    23. PB

      Uh, and my buddy Ari got me into it, and- and just try and stretch absolutely everything. And I was telling you, I got thrown off a horse in Africa a month ago, and when I was in the process of getting thrown off and I was, like, in the middle of the air, and I'm about to come down and I'm like, "Oh, shit. This is gonna be a problem." And I thought about those warmups, and I landed and rolled and didn't hurt myself. So, I think those are really smart.

    24. JR

      Yeah, if we could just appreciate when your body works well without having to be injured, it would be so nice.

    25. PB

      Right?

    26. JR

      'Cause you really only think about your- oh, God, I hope my body heals, when you get injured. If you get fucked up, then you think, "God, I can't wait to get healthy again." But if you just appreciate- and the best way to appreciate your body working well is to keep it working well.

    27. PB

      Yeah, man.

    28. JR

      Is to work on it. Like, stretch out, work out, li- lift weights, get some cardio in. Do the stuff that's uncomfortable, like stretching. I- I like that you started off your workout with a nice long stretch.

    29. PB

      We had a good stretch.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  2. 3:206:27

    Why 'American Primeval' hits: brutal realism and the Western Joe’s been waiting for

    1. JR

      ... obviously I'm a huge fan of what you do, and fucking American Primeval is so good, dude.

    2. PB

      Thank you, man.

    3. JR

      I feel like you made it just for me. (laughs)

    4. PB

      (laughs)

    5. JR

      I've been waiting for a- a realistic Wild West series like that forever. And that is, I'll just say it right now, that's the best one that's ever been made.

    6. PB

      All right, thank you.

    7. JR

      It's the best representation of the Wild West that's ever been made. It's so good, dude. It's so brutal. My wife checked out after episode one.

    8. PB

      Did she? Yeah, 'cause I'm-

    9. JR

      She's like, "I can't."

    10. PB

      ... I wonder.

    11. JR

      'Cause we watch- we watch shows before we go to bed, and we were in the middle of Severance, which is excellent.

    12. PB

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      Really good show. And Severance is, you know, I mean, there's some brutal moments, but it's- it's just really complicated and it's really engaging and thrilling.

    14. PB

      You've got to pay very close attention.

    15. JR

      Yeah, yeah. Really good show.

    16. PB

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      And then I said, "Hey, baby, we've got to watch, uh, American Primeval." I go, "Peter's coming on. Please sit and watch with me." This was a couple weeks ago. (laughs)

    18. PB

      (laughs) Do I have to-

    19. JR

      That first episode, she's like, "Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you doing to me? It's like 10 o'clock at night, I got to go to bed."

    20. PB

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      "I can't, like- people are getting tomahawked in the fucking head and I got to go to sleep."

    22. PB

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, if I have to call her or send her flowers or anything, I will.

    23. JR

      (laughs)

    24. PB

      I've had to send a few people flowers and give them, like, uh, massages and stuff, like therapy, uh, treatments, because it's traumatizing.

    25. JR

      Because you did it right, that's why.

    26. PB

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      'Cause you did it right. You- you did it like it really was. It was a fucking barbaric time in a barbaric place. And it's never really been- other than 1883, Taylor Sheridan's series, which is also excellent.

    28. PB

      Excellent.

    29. JR

      Excellent. He- he did a fantastic job. And, uh, how crazy is it that, like, Faith Hill and, um, what's the other guy's name? The-

    30. PB

      Tim.

  3. 6:279:47

    Berg’s inspiration: 'Jeremiah Johnson' and “inch-by-inch” survival filmmaking

    1. JR

      You just believe. But American Primeval, back to that. What, what, uh, inspired you to do such a realistic interpretation of that time period?

    2. PB

      So, do you remember a movie called Jeremiah Johnson?

    3. JR

      Yes.

    4. PB

      Did you ever see that with Robert Redford and-

    5. JR

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    6. PB

      ... you know, he-

    7. JR

      A long time ago.

    8. PB

      He, so Redford plays this city man who goes out west looking for gold and ends up sort of stuck somewhere around Montana and, and is trying to survive out there, and when the Indians first find him, he's so inept. He's trying to catch a fish in a frozen river with his hands. I mean, it's just, he's completely inept, that they don't even waste an arrow on him. They don't kill him. And by the end of the film, he's a warrior, and he's learned how to survive, and he marries a, a Native American woman, and his wife gets killed, and he goes on a, a vengeance spree and kills a whole bunch of people, and ends up getting this incredible respect, um, from the Native Americans. And my dad took me to see Jeremiah Johnson, and that movie always stuck with me. Um, and I'm good friends with Taylor Sheridan, and we work together a lot, and I obviously know everything he's doing, and I kinda wanted to see if I could play in that space. But, you know, he's doing it so well and so specifically, I kinda thought, "Well, what if I just did something that was really about the survival?" And I like to call it inch-by-inch filmmaking, where you think about how hard it would've been just to go 50 feet and take a piss, and how there might've been 15 different things that could've killed you on the way to taking that piss. Instead of just jumping through those 50 things, let's, let's really try and stretch it out, and try and show people and capture the brutality of moment-to-moment living back in, you know, that part of America in 1850s. Um, and-

    9. JR

      And you're used to doing films, so is, what is the process like transitioning from something that's two or three hours to something that's long form?

    10. PB

      Yeah, man.

    11. JR

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  4. 9:4712:21

    From feature films to long-form: 145-day mountain shoot and the cost of authenticity

    1. PB

      Yeah, it was, it was a massive, uh, job. You know, a mo- a movie, a big movie is generally, like, 85-day shoot. Um, American Primeval was 145-day shoot. And I had, um, one of my, my th- my ideas, and with Mark L. Smith, who, who wrote the episodes and is very talented, was let's not shoot in sound stages. Let's not, you know, make parking lots look like forests, and, but let's go up into the mountains. And in this case, we went up, uh, onto some different Indian reservations in New Mexico, and we're like, "Let's really go out there for 145 days. Let's do it." You know, we were talk... This was all prior to us going out and actually doing it. And it's kinda like be careful what you ask for.

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. PB

      It's like, we are... You're actually really fucking on the mountain for 145 days, and there's lightning storms and snowstorms and wind storms, and we had rattlesnakes everywhere, and we had to have all these dudes going around pulling the snakes out of the, um, out of the, uh, the rocks, and stuntmen breaking ribs. Joe Schilling was with us every day. I think we killed Joe five times.

    4. JR

      (laughs)

    5. PB

      Uh, thanks, Joe. Uh, and-

    6. JR

      I saw Tait Fletcher. I was telling you too.

    7. PB

      Yeah, Tait-

    8. JR

      Since episode two.

    9. PB

      We only killed Tait once, but thanks, Tait, for that.

    10. JR

      I love that dude.

    11. PB

      But these stuntmen were so tough, and, you know, breaking bones, and all kinds of horrible things. But the creative, uh, experience of getting to do basically six movies at once, you know, 'cause I directed all of them, um, and being able to go that deep in characters, and to be able to bring in elements like Brigham Young and the Mormon religion, and have big themes circling around just very visceral, violent moments, um, as a filmmaker, is fucking awesome. And it's, it's a, it's different, you know, because it's not... Directing an episode of a television show is its own experience, but that's very quick. Directing a movie is really, really wonderful, and very, obviously, creatively demanding. But that's... This is six movies all at once.

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. PB

      And having to keep that in my head, um, and kind of figure out how to keep myself...... functioning and not wasting energy, and, you know, I built a gym in my house in New Mexico with an ice bath and a sauna. And I'd get up at 4:00 every morning and just have that time for myself to keep myself fit and, you know, mentally and physically ready to, to, to go at it, because-

    14. JR

      When you're on, when you're... I'm sorry to interrupt you.

    15. PB

      No.

  5. 12:2117:12

    Improvisational directing and Netflix trust: letting “divine magic” into the process

    1. JR

      But when you're in the middle of a project, and you're doing your workouts and so on, are you just, like, constantly going over the show in your head?

    2. PB

      Uh, yeah, ki- I mean, I, I try to... I, I do go over it, but in more of an abstract way. I, I'm a, a bit of an improvisational filmmaker, meaning I don't like to have everything super planned out. I, I think kind of the way you conduct your podcast. You, you have some ideas, and then you just sort of allow whatever happens to happen. And I, I try... I know what I'm gonna do that day. So, you know, particularly with American Primeval, because, you know, we had so many big battles and stunts and, you know, kind of dangerous, complex filmmaking, you, there has to be some plan. But even within that, I try to loosely think about what I want to do, and then get out there, uh, and, and l- and let the actors kind of start doing what they do, and see what kind of creative vibe gets going, and allow the cameramen... You know, I just shoot handheld cameras, so we have a lot of flexibility, uh, with how we can work and capture. And my feeling is, rather than plan it all out, go out there knowing kind of what you want to accomplish, but allow kind of creativity, allow that kind of divine magic to enter the process.

    3. JR

      Mm.

    4. PB

      Which, um, can kind of be freaky for, like, my bosses at Netflix, because they're spending (laughs) a whole lot of money.

    5. JR

      (laughs)

    6. PB

      And they're like, "What are we doing today?" And I'm like, "I don't really know what we're doing today, but we're gonna do something." Um, but I've done it, and-

    7. JR

      Well, they're pretty good at staying out of the way, aren't they?

    8. PB

      They, they actually are, uh, fantastic about it. And, and, you know, I, I have to give, um, you know, my boss, uh, there's a woman named Bela Bajari at Netflix who... And people talk a lot of shit about Netflix. I'm not one of them. I mean, they're giv- giving so many people so much work. And they, you know, once, once you convince them that you have a vision, they let you do it. And-

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. PB

      ... um, she was great, and she let me do it. And, um... And it was interesting, because there was a scene in, um, in the second episode of American Primeval where, uh, a Native American cuts the throats of five women, who-

    11. JR

      Spoiler alert.

    12. PB

      Sorry, spoiler alert, I guess, sort of.

    13. JR

      (laughs)

    14. PB

      There, there's a lot other bad things that happen, but there is this scene, right?

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. PB

      And, you know, N- Netflix is a very busy company. They're making a lot of stuff. And we were deep in the edit process, and I got a call from Bela, the, the boss, my boss, and she's like, "I want to see this show." And I'm like, "Well, you... It's your show, so please come in." And, you know, it's hard for her to keep track of all these shows and all the scripts, and I was impressed that she even wanted to come in. And so she came in, uh, to the edit room, and she's like, "I'm gonna watch one episode." And it's kind of a big deal. She's, you know, very influential person in, in our world. And so it's me and Hugo, the editor, and Bela comes in, and we sh- we're showing her the first episode, and we're just sitting in this kind of dark screening room, and I have no idea what she's gonna say or do. And it's pretty violent. And it ends, and she goes, "I want to see another one." And I'm like, "O- okay." We started playing the second episode, and we're getting right to the moment where, spoiler alert, these women are about to have their throats cut. And I'm starting to have a-

    17. JR

      (laughs)

    18. PB

      ... a full fucking panic attack-

    19. JR

      (laughs)

    20. PB

      ... because I'm pretty sure that she doesn't know what's coming up, right?

    21. JR

      Yeah.

    22. PB

      And, and Hugo, the editor, is kind of looking at me like, "Should I stop it?" I'm like... And I d- I really didn't know what to do. And we're... And I... We get to the moment where this event happens, and my body heat was, was literally rising. I'm ready for her to, like, fire me and take the show, and I don't... And the scene happens, and the girls get their throats cut, and she says, "Stop." And w- we stop. And she goes, "Peter, I can sense you're concerned about my reaction. Let me tell you something. I'm here for this violence. I'm not afraid of this violence. As long as you make it emotional and connect me to the emotion, do it."

    23. JR

      Wow.

    24. PB

      And I'm like, "Thank you, Bela." And she left, and she allowed us to explore the kind of grit and intensity that people have reacted to. And I tip my hat to her for that, you know? It's, um, it's not... You, you need that kind of support, ah, to get something like, uh, American Primeval made today, because it's not, you know, it's not your grandmother's Western.

    25. JR

      No. It's critical that you do it that way, because if people want to really know what that was like, if you read the historical accounts of what happened, that's what happened.

    26. PB

      For sure.

    27. JR

      It happened that way.

    28. PB

      And, you know, the-

    29. JR

      And it's... It was horrific.

  6. 17:1227:51

    Mormon history on screen: Mountain Meadows Massacre, Brigham Young, and backlash

    1. PB

      One of the things that, you know, a lot of people have, have talked about, and I had... You know, the LDS church issued a statement sort of critiquing the show and critiquing me, um, which I appreciate, and I understand why, um, members of the Mormon community would be offended by the portrayal of Brigham Young, um, and the Meadows ma- the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which was the event that, you know, we use as kind of our inciting incident, um, for the first episode. Which was a real massacre that the Mormons committed on a group of, uh, pioneers who were heading out West, where, um, m- uh, Mormon militia with some, um, uh, uh, Paiute Indians attacked and murdered about 140 men, women, and children.... and we present that, uh, in the, in the film, and we present Brigham Young in the film. And most, m- many Mormons, it's interesting if you start reading all the debate about it, but a lot of Mormons were saying, "Yeah, this is exactly what happened, and this is a part of our history," and then other Mormons, particularly the, the seniors in Salt Lake City were saying, "This is not what happened. This is not fair." But what I, what I find interesting about the Mormon, uh, Church, and, and about kinda how we present it, is I've had a lot of people come to me and go, "Dude, I never knew the Mormons were such savages."

    2. JR

      (laughs) So gangster.

    3. PB

      They were fucking gangster.

    4. JR

      Gangster. (laughs)

    5. PB

      Brigham Young was, in my opinion, a gangster, a survivor, a warrior. And for anyone who follows, um, Mormon history, you know, they started in Upstate New York with this young kid, Joseph Smith, who found these tablets and basically rewrote the Bible, and started getting this following. And then they moved to Missouri and they got popular, and then there was an extermination order, and it was, "Kill all the Mormons." So they fled to Illinois and, and tried to survive up there at this place called Nauvoo that was gonna be their, you know, peaceful place to live. And, and Joseph Smith was murdered, and they were run out of, uh, Illinois. And Brigham Young led these dudes, men and women, on foot across the plains in the winter to Salt Lake Valley, which was this desolate wasteland, and he said, "Oh, we'll stay here. They'll never come for us here." And they started coming, and Brigham Young basically said, "Fuck it. We're not taking it anymore." He built his own army, the Nauvoo Legion, and he said, "We're, we're staying here. We won't mess with you, but if you come after us, we will fight." And that, that point, I think, is interesting, and I think Brigham Young, uh, who survived more, longer than all of them, and if you go to Salt Lake City, he did a pretty good job.

    6. JR

      (laughs)

    7. PB

      Right? Like-

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. PB

      ... that's a big city, man. And-

    10. JR

      It's a great city.

    11. PB

      ... and, and I don't know. I, I, I respect the Mormon religion. I respect Brigham Young, and I feel like we make him look like a gangster in American Primeval, and, um, I don't know. He's, he's a survivor, and I respect that.

    12. JR

      Well, this is the reality of historical figures. You're, you're talking about a different time in the world, and it was a particularly barbaric time. And if you wanted to survive, this is what you had to do. And this is n- we're not talking about the United States in 2025. We're, we're talking about the Wild West, and, and you're talking about a persecuted group of religious people. Like, if you wanna survive, you want your children to survive, like-

    13. PB

      You gotta fight.

    14. JR

      ... you gotta take up arms. That's just how it is. Like, you know the story about the Mormons in Mexico, right?

    15. PB

      Remind me.

    16. JR

      Well, um, there's Mormon sects in Mexico that moved there when they made, uh, poly-

    17. PB

      Polygamy?

    18. JR

      ... polygamy legal.

    19. PB

      Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

    20. JR

      And this was, uh, homeboy from, um, Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. His family is from Mexico. His father was born in Mexico, and his father could never be president because he wasn't born in America. And then he was born here in America, ran for president and the whole deal, became governor of Massachusetts. But there's still these huge groups in Mexico that are armed to the fucking tits-

    21. PB

      Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

    22. JR

      ... because they're always constantly battling with the cartel, and there was, uh, a series of murders a few years back where women and children, like family were slaughtered. And there was some confusion as to whether or not the cartel targeted them or whether it was a case of mistaken identity or what happened. But, you know, there, there's been documentaries about them. They're fucking ... They live in armed compounds.

    23. PB

      The Mormons?

    24. JR

      In Mexico. Yeah.

    25. PB

      Yeah. Well that, that would be-

    26. JR

      So it's a similar sort of a situation with them in Mexico now.

    27. PB

      One, I mean, the, the polygamy was a thing, and, you know, we, we do touch upon that a bit in, in Primeval. I think Brigham Young had 40-odd wives.

    28. JR

      Nice.

    29. PB

      And, and- (laughs)

    30. JR

      (laughs)

  7. 27:5134:57

    Research trip to Salt Lake City: Mormon openness, memorials, and primary sources

    1. PB

      Yeah. I can't figure out, like I, when I was doing my research for, uh, American Primeval, I went to Salt Lake City, and the Mormon Church gave me a tour. And, and you know, I told them what the film was about, and that the Mountain Meadows Massacre was in the book, or was gonna be in our show. And they took me to, um, the theater. Have you ever been to the theater, the Mormon Theater in Salt Lake City?

    2. JR

      No.

    3. PB

      Holds like 20,000 people. It is the most beautiful, incredible theater, um, where they have, you know, weekly, you know, events and meetings. And they took me in there, and there's a huge pipe organ. And I had a private, you know, concert with their organist. Yeah, it's that.

    4. JR

      Whoa. Look at that place.

    5. PB

      Uh, and they, and I sat by myself in the, in the center of that theater. And, and you see the pipe organs.

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. PB

      Uh, and they, they gave me a, a private ch- you know, concert. And then they took me into the museum and showed me, you know, the history of the Mormon Church. And I told them about the Meadows Massacre, which, you know, I've taken heat for in the show. And at the end of the tour, there's a bookstore, um, in the, in the, in the museum, the Mormon Museum in Salt Lake. And the book Mountain Meadows Massacre by this guy Turley was there. And I'm like, "I wanna buy this book." I read the book, and I'm like, "Oh, for sure we're putting this, this story in our film." And it, it was for sale in the Mormon bookstore.

    8. JR

      Whoa.

    9. PB

      And I met with the author, uh, Turley, who then took me to the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. And he had written the book with the, um, support of the Mormon Church to get their side of the story out.

    10. JR

      Did you film at the actual site?

    11. PB

      No, we didn't. That was in, the actual site was in Utah. But I went and toured it.

    12. JR

      So you filmed in New Mexico?

    13. PB

      Yeah, we filmed, we filmed everything in uh, uh, on different reservations around Santa Fe. Um, but if you go to the m- the site of the Mormon Meadows Massacre in Utah ...... the Mormons have built a big memorial there honoring the, you know, 130 pioneers from Arkansas who were, were killed there. And the Mormons have, have o- have owned this event, and they were very willing to talk about it, which is kind of like them buying a full-page ad in-

    14. JR

      (laughs)

    15. PB

      ... in Book of Mormon.

    16. JR

      Right, right.

    17. PB

      They're like, they're like, you know, "We know you're gonna make a film about the Mor- the Meadows Massacre, that's probably gonna be inflammatory in some ways. However, come visit us. We wanna meet you, we wanna show you, we wanna play music, uh, for you." And, um, I don't, I had an incredible time with the Mormons that were, you know, involved with us doing the research for, for Primeval.

    18. JR

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    19. PB

      The biggest, the biggest single issue if you get into the weeds, and I think it's an interesting point of debate, is whether or not Brigham Young knew and authorized this massacre. And the way the massacre played out in real life was different how we did it in the film. In the film, we did it in, you know, one swell move. Like, it just happens, and you know, we, we filmed it in one shot, and it's, you know, pretty intense, visceral, very fast events, and then it's over. In reality, this, this wagon train was surrounded by the Mormon militia, the Nauvoo Legion, and some of these Native Americans, and it went on for about four or five days. And the Mormons dressed up as Native Americans. This is where it gets kind of... The, some Mormons aren't thrilled that we pointed out the fact that they were trying to put the blame on the Native A- Americans. So they literally, Mormons dressed up as Indians to confuse the pioneers, and in case there were survivors to say, "Oh, it wasn't Mormons, it was the Native Americans that did this." So, they don't love that. But what, what the Mormons claim, or some in the Mormon Church claim, is that during the three or four days that the siege took place, before the actual massacre, uh, and the details of the massacre are really fucked up, because the Mormons pretended they were accepting a surrender. Uh, so they went in with white flags, and they said, "Okay, the men walk this way, the women and children w- we're gonna walk you to safety, because the Indians are gonna kill you." The Mormons said, "We're here to save you." So they started walking them out, and then on a, someone's signal, they just killed everyone. It was really bad. Um, but the issue of whether Brigham Young knew about it or didn't know about it, we imply that he knew about it. We never say that he authorized it, but we imply that he did know about it. And what many of the, the, the defenders of Brigham Young will say is that there was a letter written where Brigham Young said, "Do not harm the, these pioneers. Don't, don't kill them." But the letter was sent by horse while the massacre, while the event was already occurring, so I've had people say he knew that that letter wasn't gonna make it there in time. He was covering himself. "Oh, hey, I wrote a letter."

    20. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    21. PB

      "I knew it couldn't get there in time, but I wrote a letter so there's plausible den- deniability." No one knows. It's hard to believe if you really start getting into this, and obviously I did, and know it's not on the top of everyone's list of things...

    22. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    23. PB

      ... to give a fuck about. But it's really hard for me to believe that in 1857, a group of Brigham Young's soldiers would on, act unilaterally on their own and commit a crime this horrible without somebody approving it. It's hard, it's hard for me to...

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. PB

      ... to imagine. But, um, so that's the single issue that tends to, um, you know, if, if I do, and I really try not to, like, um, my girlfriends turned me on to Reddit. I never even really knew what it was.

    26. JR

      (laughs)

    27. PB

      Oh my God. Like, I don't-

    28. JR

      Like, what? Uh.

    29. PB

      Like, like, Reddit is fucking crazy.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  8. 34:5743:00

    Critics, Reddit, and surviving reviews: 'Very Bad Things' and the new feedback ecosystem

    1. PB

      Um, I was talking to, uh, you know Jack Carr, right?

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. PB

      You know, and he's, uh, he's getting into, you know, making movies, and he's doing all this cool stuff with The Terminal List, and, and I think he's a great guy. And he was talking to me about, um, reviews, 'cause it was the first time he was ever getting reviewed, right? And, you know, any filmmaker who says they don't read the reviews is lying, okay? They're just fucking lying. And, and they, we do read reviews. And we care, it, and they hurt, you know? And, and he's like, I guess he'd gotten, you know, read something he didn't like on, um, The Terminal List, and he's just called me, he's like, "How do you handle this shit? I wanna kill this mother- I can't," (laughs) I mean, "Ah, ah, ah."

    4. JR

      (laughs)

    5. PB

      And he's freaking out, and I'm, I mean, I'm not, he, he wasn't really freaking out that bad, but he was pissed. And, and I'm like, "Jack, you know, welcome to the world of, you know, what we do. You, people are gonna, are gonna talk."... and like, and like, you don't understand what ... Like, before Reddit, and, and comments, and all the things, back when we first put movies out, man, there were three critics that mattered, like, when I first started making movies. There was this guy, Kenneth Turan, in, uh, in the LA Times. There was Janet Maslin in the New York Times, and then there was Siskel and Ebert, right?

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. PB

      Thumbs up. And like, they had so much power, right?

    8. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    9. PB

      So you'd, you'd make a movie, and you'd spend, you know, tens of millions of dollars, and you'd put your heart and soul, and ... And like, we never tried to make bad movies, right? Like, that's, that's never the goal. We're always like, you know, we wanna win. Some ... It's hard to make a good movie. But you'd put all your, your heart and soul into these movies, and then it's fucking three critics that control your fate, right? And I was telling Cara about, um, you know, my first movie was called Very Bad Things. It was about this bachelor party that goes haywire, and-

    10. JR

      That's a great movie.

    11. PB

      Appreciate it. Thank you.

    12. JR

      I love that movie.

    13. PB

      So that movie got, hands down, the worst review ever given to a movie-

    14. JR

      (laughs)

    15. PB

      ... in the history of film reviews. Please don't pull it up right now.

    16. JR

      (laughs)

    17. PB

      But feel free. Anyone listening, Kenneth Turan's review of my film-

    18. JR

      Wow.

    19. PB

      ... Very Bad Things, in the Los Angeles Times, okay? I read this review. I literally vomit. Like, people talk about vomiting. Like, I don't know if you've ever vomited when something bad happens. I puked. I went into, like, shock. I'm like, "I ... He tried to destroy my career." And he, like, it was ... And so I'm telling Jack, and I'm going, "Pull it up right now. Pull it up." And he starts reading it, and he's like, "Oh my God."

    20. JR

      (laughs)

    21. PB

      "Oh my God."

    22. JR

      (laughs)

    23. PB

      I go, "Don't fucking tell me about bad reviews, okay?"

    24. JR

      Okay.

    25. PB

      "Because I got the worst." And Kenneth Turan, who like, after I'd gotten that review, I was in a bar at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, getting drunk with a couple of my friends, and Kenneth Turan was in the bar. And I got up and started moving towards him. Like, I was in a blackout rage.

    26. JR

      (laughs)

    27. PB

      And, and, and my friend, Joe, and, and, uh, Mike Mendelson held me back 'cause I was gonna get him, you know?

    28. JR

      (laughs)

    29. PB

      And, and for, for three films after that, Kenneth Turan, he just had it out for me, this guy. Hated me. And finally, on, I believe it was either Friday Night Lights or Lone Survivor, he reluctantly gave me a good review. But it was more like, "A broken clock is right tw- twice a day-"

    30. JR

      Ah.

  9. 43:0053:46

    Attention bandwidth, quiet, and deep work: protecting creativity from distraction

    1. JR

      You definitely need feedback 'cause you definitely need to know if you're on the right track, but you can get lost in feedback. You can get lost in positive feedback too.

    2. PB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. JR

      You get lost... You can get lost in people approving you and, and, and jo-... You, you can get drunk in it. I don't read anything. I don't read anything about me.

    4. PB

      No Reddits ever?

    5. JR

      Nothing. I don't read anything. I just... I get it. Like sometimes I'm good, sometimes I'm not as good. That's... I get it. I do my best. That's all I can do. And I feel like if you're really self-critical, which I am, and you're, you're objective and you, you analyze yourself and you... and, and you're brutally honest. If you're brutally honest about what you've done and how it is, like could you have done it better? The... Is there anything... Did you cut corners?

    6. PB

      Yeah, yeah.

    7. JR

      Did you... And if you don't, if you don't cut corners and if you do your best and you really prepare, that's all you can do. You just do your very best. And if you haven't done your best, that's when the critics really sting. If you know that you kind of slacked off or you weren't focused or there's something that was wrong with what you... Then it's gonna sting.

    8. PB

      Or you did it, did for the money, like-

    9. JR

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    10. PB

      ... that, that can often...

    11. JR

      Yes.

    12. PB

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      I, I agree with that. The do it for the money is a real, real one, you know. I mean, that's the, the downfall of Robert De Niro.

    14. PB

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      Right? He needs money for divorces, his... You know, he's got marital problems and so he spent a lot of money and he starts doing these fantasy movies with Michelle Pfeiffer.

    16. PB

      (laughs)

    17. JR

      And it's like bizarre shit-

    18. PB

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      ... where he's like... You're like, "What is Robert De Niro, one of the greatest actors of all time, doing in these fucking"-

    20. PB

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      ... "goofy-ass movies?"

    22. PB

      Yeah. You get extended... I, I agree with you that like... What I always say is I do a lot of research for my films and, you know, have... Went to Iraq with a Navy SEAL platoon and lived on an oil rig and went back to high school for Friday Night Lights. And I found that if I... Whenever I put that work in and I put that research in, um, and I really re-... With the exception of Very Bad Things, which was a fantasy about a bachelor party gone haywire, which Ken Aturan didn't like.

    23. JR

      (laughs)

    24. PB

      And it, it did, it did hurt me. It did, that review, but I was younger. Um, but if, if I do stay true to my instincts and my passion, and I follow it, A, the work seems to connect much, much better. And I don't, I don't feel... If somebody doesn't like it or wants to talk about it or debate it-

    25. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    26. PB

      ... okay. It's... I don't... It doesn't hurt me.

    27. JR

      Yeah, that's experience, right?

    28. PB

      I think so, yeah.

    29. JR

      Yeah. That's-

    30. PB

      Yeah. And any time I've done a job for the money, and there have been a couple, it's, it's backfired horrifically.

  10. 53:461:00:47

    Writing rituals compared: Berg’s pre-dawn discipline vs Rogan’s late-night post-show flow

    1. PB

      Yeah, so my, my creative, uh, (clears throat) process, like, I just... I just wrote a script, um, that, that'll be my next film. And I wrote it in a very locked-in zone. I, I try to find a way of locking myself into a s- uh...... a pattern when I'm writing, but it involves... The, the key for me is getting up about 4:45 at the latest, but usually right around. I, I'm crazy about it, so I'll set my alarm for 5:45 to the same song every morning that wakes me up. This script was Van Morrison. And from, I will go right, I'll take a piss, and then I'll get a cup of coffee, and then I'll go right to my writing room with no phone, no stimulation, nothing until I've put in, you know, usually about two and a half to three hours of just pure mental focus.

    2. JR

      Hmm.

    3. PB

      Un- No distraction, no conversation, no news, no phone, no nothing.

    4. JR

      Why do you like to do it in the morning?

    5. PB

      Because I think when you... Uh, I actually, um, like studying writers and their writing habits. I believe that, um, you know, if you've had a good sleep, a sober sleep, um, and an intentioned sleep, meaning you go to bed with some plan of what you wanna write tomorrow. So, I wanna wri- I'm making a film about marines, I wanna write, um, the landing at Okinawa, um, in World War II, which is part of this story. I know I'm gonna write the actual landing scene. I go to bed with that intention. I might even write that intention down. You wake up, your mind is like at, at its most fertile. It's like a calm pond, you know? Like a mountain pond that's absolutely flat and like glass and reflective and, and beautiful. And in the morning, it's at its most calm, your mind. And then I believe that every bit of stimulation you put into it is like a pebble or a rock being dropped into that water-

    6. JR

      Oh.

    7. PB

      ... until the water starts getting all churned, and that's what happens to our minds. By, you know, 11 o'clock in the morning, if you've been, you know, plugged in and communicating, your mind is just a fucking feral r- you know-

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. PB

      ... boiling, uh, cauldron of acid.

    10. JR

      (laughs)

    11. PB

      This is how I think of it. So I like early morning, super calm, I can find the ideas. And I tend to, if I lock in like that, um, I write at a, at a high level. And kind of to your point about like critic proof, I know it's good. I, 'cause it, I know it, it came from the deepest place I have.

    12. JR

      Right.

    13. PB

      And it's like, well, okay, if you don't like that, then you don't like me. Sorry.

    14. JR

      Right. Which is fine.

    15. PB

      And I'm... Yeah, I can handle that.

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. PB

      But like, I know that, you know, versus, you know, writing a little bit here, working a little bit there, and then going out to lunch, and then sitting in a cafe, and, and, you know, or a coffee shop and kinda writing but being on the phone, I just don't think that's deep work.

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. PB

      And I, I, uh, I have noticed though that like rappers and a lot of people in the hip hop community... I've been working on a documentary about, um, Rihanna for quite a while, and spent a lot of time with her in the studio. And it's amazing the hours that, um, hip hop performers, you know, musicians, and rappers keep. 'Cause they're going into the studio at two o'clock in the morning and working till, you know, one in the afternoon, and then sleeping all day. And that, that wor- that nighttime, and I've talked to her about it, she's just extremely creative late at night. Almost for me the exact opposite. But like I-

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. PB

      Like do you like to work creatively at night? Do you-

    22. JR

      Yeah.

    23. PB

      Do, can you write comedy at night?

    24. JR

      Yeah, I write when I get home.

    25. PB

      Wow.

    26. JR

      Yeah. So what I do is I do shows, and then I come home and everyone's asleep. My whole house is asleep, so it's quiet.

    27. PB

      And you can access y-

    28. JR

      Yeah, because my mind is really stimulated 'cause I just performed, you know? And, you know, I just, maybe have had a drink or two, and I just sit in front of the computer and I just start thinking.

    29. PB

      Really?

    30. JR

      Yeah, I just start thinking, and I just start w- try to freestyle with thoughts. And the way I write is I just, I have a topic and I just start with e- just a, essentially an essay. And not an essay that I think anybody's gonna read. An essay who's just like my thoughts, just r- rambling thoughts, and then maybe I'll rewrite a paragraph, but I'll keep the same paragraph above it to reference, and then I'll rewrite it again in a different way.

  11. 1:00:471:03:36

    The muse and the mystical side of making things: Pressfield, Blake, and creative euphoria

    1. PB

      And do you experience, like, euphoria when you're writing on occasion?

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. PB

      Do you blow your mind?

    4. JR

      Well, you know these ideas are not... They're coming from fucking the ether.

    5. PB

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      They're coming from somewhere. I know that creativity is an individual thing, and it varies. But for me, my best ideas seem to come outta nowhere. It's like, I don't even know if they're my ideas. They're, they're coming from some place, and this is the concept of the muse, right? Like the muse is bestowing upon you these beautiful gifts of creativity. And if-

    7. PB

      Steven Pressfield stuff, right?

    8. JR

      Yes, yes. The War of Art, amazing book. I have a stack of them out there I give to people.

    9. PB

      Yeah, I love him. He's a big inspiration to me.

    10. JR

      Yes. He's incredible. And he's just, he's just a brilliant guy.

    11. PB

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      But that, that's where, where it's at. It's just like setting this table, showing up, and then trying to pull these things from this other dimension, this, wherever the fuck they're coming from. And then I get these little nuggets, and then the nuggets I transfer to my phone.

    13. PB

      I, I feel bad for people who never get to experience that.

    14. JR

      Yeah.

    15. PB

      You know? I, I keep a, a necklace, uh, with, with a dog tag and a quote from a William Blake poem, and he said, with... That, that, uh, has always just helped me quite a bit. And it's, uh, "The only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful and exalted things."

    16. JR

      Ooh.

    17. PB

      And I remember the first time I got to experience the power of writing, and, and something... It was like literally a religious experience. I, I don't know what happened. I kind of blacked out. I lost track of time, and I wrote eight pages, and I looked at it, and I'm like, "I don't know where this came from." And I read it, and I blew my mind, and I felt like I was having almost a religious experience.

    18. JR

      Wow.

    19. PB

      And, and that quote, when I read it, "The only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful things." The creation, being creative, and being able to, um, please God through creativity, uh, or, or have a religious, a mystical experience, um, that's not drug-induced, um, through your power of your, your creativity-

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. PB

      ... um, I, I think it's the greatest thing in the world. And it kind of saved my life, because if I hadn't found writing and filmmaking, I don't, I don't know what I would've done. I, I wouldn't have been... I, I mean, I don't know.

    22. JR

      Well, that's why it's for you, because it feels so real and so powerful that without it, you feel like your life would be lost.

    23. PB

      Yeah, man.

    24. JR

      Yeah, isn't that amazing? That's an amazing thing to find as a human being, if you can find something that you love so much that you can't imagine life without it, like that you would be lost.

  12. 1:03:361:08:14

    A sudden geopolitical detour: a boxer’s partner imprisoned in Russia over a $51 donation

    1. PB

      Um, can I tell you about, um... It's sort of a non-sequitur, but, um, I did wanna, I, I did wanna mention, and it's sort of related to something I love, because I love boxing, and I own a boxing gym in Los Angeles, which was hands down the stupidest thing I ever decided to do in my life.

    2. JR

      (laughs)

    3. PB

      Was, "Oh, it'd be cool to have a boxing gym and manage boxers and prom-" You know, no. Don't, don't. (laughs)

    4. JR

      (laughs)

    5. PB

      It's awful. I mean, I love the fighters, and I have so much empathy. But, um, one of my fighters, Chris Van Heerden, um, his girlfriend is a girl named Ksenia Carolina, who, who I think I told you a little bit about earlier when we were working out. And, and this is just a, a fucked-up story. She's a 28-year-old American Russian citizen who made a $51 donation to a Ukrainian charity. She went home a year ago to visit her family in Russia, and Putin got her. And she's in prison now for 12 years. And her name's, uh-

    6. JR

      What was the charity?

    7. PB

      The charity was a Ukrainian, uh, uh, uh, charity based in America for Ukraine that she thought was gonna give, um, uh, money to children that had been, you know, hurt by the war in Ukraine. Um, it's all, it's all very researchable. Um-

    8. JR

      And so she got put on a list because she-

    9. PB

      She got... Somehow they... Uh, she's a dual citizen. She's an American citizen and a Russian. She went to visit her parents a year ago in Russia, and on her... Somehow the Russians were able to figure out, like if anyone with any Russian, uh, citizenship, even if it's dual, makes donations to certain charities, they get flagged. So she came in, um, got to her parents' house, was called to the police station the next day, um, came in, and they arrested her. Uh, and, and said, "You donated $51. You're, this is treason." And she's now a, almost a year into a 12-year sentence.

    10. JR

      Holy shit.

    11. PB

      So, um, President Trump has been super cool. Dana White has been, um, helping, um, just trying to get, like... You know, it, it's so... It's such a crazy chess game, right? That-... that, you know, someone like ... look, and, and I hope things go really well between us and Putin, and I think Trump's doing some great things and I'm glad we're talking, but the way they do business is different, and they will grab somebody, you know? And they've done it to, um, to, to, um, Brit, Brittney Griner, and they just released this guy, Fogel, who they'd gotten for smoking weed. If they can get you, um, and hold you and use you as a bargaining chip, they will. And, and we don't do that, you know?

    12. JR

      Right.

    13. PB

      It's one, one of the things that the US doesn't do. But you end up having to make these kinda crazy swaps. It's all about swapping, right? So, they get Ksenia and, and, well, who do we have that, that, that's gonna, you know, get Putin to say, "Yeah, all right, yeah, I'm gonna let her out."

    14. JR

      Right, release that arms dealer for Brittney Griner.

    15. PB

      Yeah. But, uh, but the people that we have are, like, pretty serious criminals.

    16. JR

      Right. The merchant of death.

    17. PB

      The merchant of death for a basketball player smoking weed.

    18. JR

      Right.

    19. PB

      It's crazy, but, you know, if you love Brittney Griner, like, or know, like I know Ksenia and my, you know, good friend is engaged to her, and he's in hell. And it's like, we need someone to trade, you know? And, and so, it's not gonna feel right for, you know, people... We're gonna have to trade someone that's done some pretty bad things to get this girl out of prison, and that's the game that these guys are playing. And (clears throat) it's not a game that you ever, ever want to get involved in, and I wish I hadn't, but I have. And, um, you know, Ksenia is a, a beautiful girl and she's in a really bad way, and she doesn't deserve it, so.

    20. JR

      And it's, it's so true that we don't do that in America, because there's a lot of Russians that fight in the UFC, and they don't even get booed. No one even cares, like-

    21. PB

      They love them.

    22. JR

      Especially when they're really good. People get excited that they're there.

    23. PB

      Khabib is, is-

    24. JR

      Sure.

    25. PB

      I mean, we don't, we don't do it. And, and that's, you know, we, we take... Our country, America takes a lot of shit, and I, I don't know, maybe what we deserve and what we don't, but we don't do that. We don't detain 28-year-old-

    26. JR

      Right.

    27. PB

      ... you know, uh, ballerinas for, um, smoking weed and throw them in prison for 15 years, 20 years.

    28. JR

      Right.

    29. PB

      We don't take people and say, "Well, you donated $50 to a charity that we're not, um, aligned with. Um, we're throwing you in prison for two years."

    30. JR

      It's treason. Wow.

  13. 1:08:141:18:26

    Boxing obsession and chaos: owning a gym, sparring Canelo, and the sport’s broken incentives

    1. JR

      Well, you were telling me about how when you met Canelo, and Canelo came to your gym to train. I thought that was almost worth owning a boxing gym just to have, isn't it?

    2. PB

      Yeah, well, Canelo, Canelo saved my gym. Uh, Canelo, I sparred with Canelo. Did I ever tell you that?

    3. JR

      Oh, Jesus.

    4. PB

      On my birthday, uh-

    5. JR

      I hope he was nice to you. (laughs)

    6. PB

      Uh, I was, I was flying, I had landed, uh, in LA from ... and I had a few drinks on the plane. I wasn't drunk, but I wasn't sober. Walked into the gym, Canelo was training for ... he was in camp. I don't remember for which fight. I walked in, I announced it was my birthday, and I wanted rounds. Okay?

    7. JR

      (laughs)

    8. PB

      And I wanted rounds. And Eddie and Chepo just turned-

    9. JR

      And you called it on yourself? (laughs)

    10. PB

      Yeah. Oh, I called my own ... "It's my birthday, and I want some fucking rounds."

    11. JR

      No, no, no, no, no.

    12. PB

      And he just kind of stared at me and, and I ran up, didn't warm up, got my stuff on, Pedro wrapped me up, I put my gloves on, I waited 'til one sp- sparring partner was out. I go, "Me." And to Canelo's credit, he th- only threw one punch, okay? I went two rounds with him, he threw one punch at the end of the second round, but it was a jab. And the way it landed, I've never been hit like this.

    13. JR

      (laughs)

    14. PB

      He locked my jaw, and my whole neck cracked. He locked my jaw down. It was a perfect jab, and he threw it at maybe, I don't ... 20%.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. PB

      It was just this one perfectly placed jab. Um, but I did spar two rounds with Canelo, uh, and, and I, I can say that honestly.

    17. JR

      (laughs)

    18. PB

      Uh, he went extremely easy on me. Um-

    19. JR

      Well, that's very nice of him.

    20. PB

      But yeah, um, I'm, um ... It was cool, 'cause we got, I got to see his whole journey when he came into our gym, and he was just starting, and I think he was fighting a guy named Lopez. And he was just this little redhead skinny kid, and to see his progression, um, you know, he, he's one of, like, the only good stories in boxing, that if you ask me, like, "Name two good boxing stories," I'd be like, "Well, I think Alvarez is a pretty good story. He's, you know, stayed with his trainers, he's a, you know-"

    21. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    22. PB

      "... family man. He's ... you know, carries himself well. He's made a lot of money." Okay, that's one. And two is, there is no two. (laughs)

    23. JR

      Well, Floyd Mayweather's a pretty good story.

    24. PB

      (sighs) Yeah, all right.

    25. JR

      (laughs)

    26. PB

      All right, all right. I'll give you Floyd Mayweather. You're right, you're right.

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. PB

      And I-

    29. JR

      50 and 0, all his faculties-

    30. PB

      You're right, you're right.

Episode duration: 2:55:46

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