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Joe Rogan Experience #2565 - Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas is an actor, producer, writer, and philanthropist whose film and television credits include "Wall Street," "Fatal Attraction," "Basic Instinct," "Behind the Candelabra," and "The Kominsky Method." He has won two Academy Awards, multiple Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He is also a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award and has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His new book, "One Helluva Ride," is available now. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-douglas/one-helluva-ride/9781538782224/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000140/ Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Use code ROGAN at https://BlueChew.com to get 10% OFF + Free Overnight Shipping on your first order. Visit https://squarespace.com/ROGAN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Joe RoganhostMichael Douglasguest
Oct 14, 20262h 10mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:02 – 2:48

    Why “Falling Down” still hits: rage, bureaucracy, and cultural flashpoints

    1. JR

      Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

    2. MD

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. [upbeat music] Very nice to meet you, sir.

    4. MD

      Thank you.

    5. JR

      I've been a fan for a long time.

    6. MD

      Oh, wow. Okay.

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. MD

      Appreciate that.

    9. JR

      Falling Down's one of my all-time favorite movies.

    10. MD

      Ah, yeah.

    11. JR

      That is such a crazy movie. [laughs] I re-watched some scenes today, uh, getting ready for it, and th- the scene where you, uh, confront the guy who's working on the highway-

    12. MD

      Right

    13. JR

      ... and say, "There's nothing wrong with this highway."

    14. MD

      Right.

    15. JR

      And the, the thing that everybody a lot of times thinks, that they have these budgets-

    16. MD

      Yeah, yeah

    17. JR

      ... and if you don't spend all the money, then you don't get the money next year-

    18. MD

      Right

    19. JR

      ... so you gotta tear up the fucking road [laughs] and you take a bazooka out.

    20. MD

      I know, the, I mean, the spooky thing I see about, I guess, so many of them is it just how, how mad meets up to today.

    21. JR

      Yes.

    22. MD

      You know, through 30 years, this is 30 years later. That's the thing that's sort of interesting but also depressing. [laughs]

    23. JR

      It is depressing.

    24. MD

      You know?

    25. JR

      You would've thought we would've figured it all out by now.

    26. MD

      Yeah. Yeah.

    27. JR

      Especially with the use of the internet.

    28. MD

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      Just so much more information that was available than when you made that film.

    30. MD

      Right.

  2. 2:48 – 7:52

    Writing a memoir after stage-four cancer: fear, legacy, and honesty

    1. JR

      But it w- it was fun. It was hilarious. But you, uh, you've been in a, a ton of insane movies. What is it like to write a memoir? That's gotta be a weird feeling to, like, relive your life and try to be as honest as you can and put it all down.

    2. MD

      Yeah. No, I, I resisted it for a, a long, long time. And, um, [sighs] and then, um, well, it was sorta after I, I had cancer about 16 years ago, stage four, uh, you know, wasn't good. I lost a, a couple of friends to the same cancer I did, Larry Hagman, I remember, from Dallas, uh, the show, and Nick Ashford from Ashford & Simpson, and, you know, I wasn't sure. And, um, and I talked about it, and it's funny, and I, it was stage four. Nobody, uh, my friends, I, th- they kind of abandoned me, you know? A lot of friends, and I realized with cancer, people don't quite know what to say, and if it's stage four, they don't know if they're coming to say goodbye or, or this or that.

    3. JR

      So they just avoided you?

    4. MD

      They kind of, yeah, they check in with you. You're kind of just, yeah, it was kind of quiet while we're going through the chemo and the radiation. Happens to a lot of people, but they just don't quite know where it's all going.

    5. JR

      Oof.

    6. MD

      So, um, this one guy, though, Shane Salerno, who I worked with on it, who was a screenwriter, and he'd done an adaption of a, of a, a script for me a long time ago, and I didn't, hardly remembered him. And, uh, but he started sending me these notes, sort of like a coach, you know? Just these little notes, "You kick it at it. You can do it. You can do it." And I just remember being really touched by it. And, and then afterwards, he got into more of a l- being a literary agent, and he kept asking me about, you know, to write a, write a, a book and all of that. And, and I was busy, but then after the cancer, things kind of slowed down. I kind of, my order of, my order of priorities changed a lot. Um, and, um, so then I started thinking about it. And, um, I, I read a book when I was beginning as a producer called Memo, and it was written by David O. Selznick, a pr- big producer. He'd Gone With the Wind and all of that. And it was a book, it told you what a producer does, and it was basically all of the notes that, uh, David O. Selznick wrote about his pictures, whether it was costumes or props or this or that, all the things that are, and he sort of covered. So I said, "You know, maybe I'll do, like, a, like a, like a handbook. I'll take, like, 12 of my movies, and I'll tell the stories from, from the very beginning, the creations and the process we went through," and, you know, thinking about it. And also, I had my, my, my, my dad, Kirk, you know, he'd wrote, written nine books, uh, already, including a, um, a, a good biography, uh, um, uh, The Ragman's Son. Um, and I was also thinking, "Well, you know, we're kind of a unique situation here between my father and I. Can't say this about too many, two generations. We got 80 years in the business, 120, 130 movies, uh, between us." And so there was a legacy, you know, thought going on. But as I got into it, I said, "Yeah, I guess I gotta talk about the personal stuff too," you know? And you just gotta talk about your life and, you know, and the, and the issues and the parts of it, the good and the bad. And, um, yeah, Joe, you're right. It's, it's, it's kinda scary, you know? I started doing it and then saying, "Do I really wanna share all this shit with, with, uh-

    7. JR

      Right

    8. MD

      ... with everybody?" You know, I'm like kinda... But I figured, uh, you know, why not? And pass it on to my generation and, and the next. And, and so it kinda com- it's a combination of, of, uh, my personal life, um, and, um, people who are interested in a lot of different movies, about how they happened or, uh, or how the whole development went. And, uh, holy shit, then all of a sudden [laughs] peop- people liked it, and Pictures of... The, the book's a big hit, you know? I, I, you know, it's like, wow. And I think part of it also is when you start with that handbook idea of just doing it about movies, then the producer and, and the career ambition gets in and you say, no. You know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, man.

    9. JR

      [laughs]

    10. MD

      I mean, you know, [laughs] it still sells. You know, you still gotta bring that all up.

    11. JR

      Well, it's also real. I mean-

    12. MD

      Yeah

    13. JR

      ... that, that was your life. You were, uh, burdened with youth, good looks, and fame [laughs] A gift and a burden at the same time, and the son of a great man.

    14. MD

      Yeah, that-

    15. JR

      So there's a lot of, a lot of pressure on you just because of that.

  3. 7:52 – 9:23

    “Nepo baby” debate: privilege, jealousy, and proving yourself

    1. MD

      Yeah, kids are, um, kids can be nasty. I mean, when they know something about your family, when they know who your mother is, who your father is, they can make certain assumptions. And so-

    2. JR

      The nepo baby assumption, right?

    3. MD

      Yeah.

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. MD

      Which by the way, since we're touching that, tell me I'm crazy, but isn't just about every single business involving nepo babies?

    6. JR

      Quite a few.

    7. MD

      Doesn't every mother and father try to get their son or daughter...

    8. JR

      Sure.

    9. MD

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      Well, certainly, like, restaurants, it's super common.

    11. MD

      I mean-

    12. JR

      One of my favorite restaurants is, uh, this place, Gaetano's, in Las Vegas.

    13. MD

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      The son runs it-

    15. MD

      Right

    16. JR

      ... and the dad started it. And-

    17. MD

      Or, or cleaning businesses or groceries, right? A- anything.

    18. JR

      Yeah. The family businesses. It's a normal thing.

    19. MD

      But I don't know why they, why they picked on, um, celebrity, uh, ch- you-

    20. JR

      Because it's so difficult to acquire.

    21. MD

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      It's such a rare thing that most people are not gonna get it. And if you get that rare thing just because you're the son of a great man, people get upset at you.

    23. MD

      Right.

    24. JR

      'Cause it's supposed to be this insane struggle through poverty-

    25. MD

      Right

    26. JR

      ... and strife to get to that point where finally you made it.

    27. MD

      Well, my father did that part. [laughs]

    28. JR

      Yeah, I know.

    29. MD

      He did.

    30. JR

      But look, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think people are just jealous and upset.

  4. 9:23 – 13:49

    Wall Street’s villain becomes a hero: Gordon Gekko and the culture of greed

    1. JR

      That's the thing. I mean, G- Gordon Gekko, how many fucking assholes did cocaine and-

    2. MD

      Mm-hmm

    3. JR

      ... and, and were, like, terrible stockbrokers because of that movie? [laughs]

    4. MD

      [laughs] It was my fault. Yeah, right.

    5. JR

      Gordon Gekko was a hero.

    6. MD

      It was so weird.

    7. JR

      It's so crazy.

    8. MD

      It was so weird afterwards. That picture came out, and every time in New York I'd be around these half-drunk Wall Street guys, "You're the man. You're the..." I said, "What are you talking about? I'm the villain." "No, no, no, no, no, no." And it was like, oh, it really was an eye-opener for me. Oh my God, they, they love the pizzazz and the-

    9. JR

      Yes

    10. MD

      ... the clothes and, and the... Not that, not that it has any moralities whatsoever. It didn't matter.

    11. JR

      They wanted that character. They w- you were like Tony Soprano for Italian guys.

    12. MD

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      Like, let's go. [laughs]

    14. MD

      Right, right, right. [laughs]

    15. JR

      Go, go get it. Take it down. Do the coke. Steal the money. They, they wanted you to wear the most expensive suits possible.

    16. MD

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      That's what they wanted. They rooted for a bad guy. It's very interesting. What, what year was that? What year was Wall Street?

    18. MD

      '85.

    19. JR

      '85, wow. So I, I didn't realize that stockbrokers were crazy until about '88. There was a guy that I used to do martial arts with.

    20. MD

      Right.

    21. JR

      He was a real, really crazy guy.

    22. MD

      Right.

    23. JR

      And then I ran into him at a bar, and, uh, he was telling me, it was probably, yeah, probably '88. I was probably 21. He was telling me how he was a stockbroker now, and he just does a bunch of coke, and he's making all this money. And he was a, he was a psychopath.

    24. MD

      Right.

    25. JR

      Like, I had known him as a fighter, and he was an animal.

    26. MD

      Right.

    27. JR

      And all of a sudden, this guy's just telling me-

    28. MD

      [laughs]

    29. JR

      ... "This is what I'm doing now. I'm selling stocks."

    30. MD

      Right. [laughs]

  5. 13:49 – 15:48

    Crypto, inequality, and the neglected “community” problem at home

    1. MD

      Yeah. No, it's just... And, and the, seems the accessibility and the ability to do it just keeps getting l- larger. And the disparity, which I think is really the, the base of issues going on, the disparity of wealth is, is very, very, um, depressing, very frustrating.

    2. JR

      Well, it's certainly frustrating that more people don't have an opportunity to do better in this life, and that no one's paying attention to that. My- That's what I've always said, like, if you look at the country as a community, you would say, "Okay, if this is all our friends, this is all people we care about, why are so many of them living in abject poverty for decade upon decade?"

    3. MD

      Yeah.

    4. JR

      Why is there, why is there crime-ridden neighborhoods that never get better? Why is there gang-ridden neighborhoods that never get better? Well, they've been ignored.

    5. MD

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      They, they haven't... There's... We could throw resources at that the same way we threw resources at rebuilding Iraq or-

    7. MD

      Right

    8. JR

      ... you know what I mean?

    9. MD

      Absolutely.

    10. JR

      We could throw resources at fixing these spots, and we don't.

    11. MD

      No.

    12. JR

      And that's why people get really mad, and that's why people get, almost cheer on when Luigi shoots that UnitedHealthcare guy.

    13. MD

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      'Cause people are like, "Yeah, fuck you. It's falling down all over again."

    15. MD

      All over, yeah.

    16. JR

      Yeah, same kind of thing.

    17. MD

      Come down to, I mean, like 50% of Americans own stocks, and 50% do not. And, uh, the, the, if you look at stocks, the way the market has gone, however it's controlled or whatever happens progressively, um, it's compounding, you know, versus the 50% of people who don't have stocks are living on a paycheck, which is, which is getting smaller and smaller with inflation.

    18. JR

      Yeah. It's a, it's a goofy time. And then on top of that, they're talking about AI taking away everybody's jobs, and there doesn't seem to be any real clear path to mitigating the massive effect that that's gonna have on the economy and all these people that are gonna be unemployed.

    19. MD

      Right. Right.

    20. JR

      It's a weird thing we're in the middle of right now.

  6. 15:48 – 20:51

    Spaceship Earth, climate anxiety, and why global cooperation keeps failing

    1. MD

      Well, I, um, I had a guy, and he came and lectured me when I was in college, a guy named Buckminster Fuller, and he was the guy responsible for the geodesic dome and all of that. But the other thing he did, he had a book called "Spaceship Earth," and to me, a- at a young age at the time, he really made it clear how, how tiny, how tiny this little planet is [laughs] and how... And all of our Hubble telescopes that we're looking out further and further, and I'm sure there's gotta be something else out there in the universe, and maybe we will. But right now, this is it. This is it. This is, this is it. And, and, and it's beginning to kind of crumble, uh, worldwide, you know, with, uh, climate and all of this. And so I find it hard to understand after two major world wars and having this, this period of, of relative peace, um, that things are beginning to really crack a- again, and how individual countries, and we talk about, you know, the US being the most powerful, but we all gotta just kind of work together. We got to. This, this, this should be, this should be no more, uh, um... There's no reason for any more wars, and yet there's more conflict going on than ever, ever before. Um, who's, who's the cause of it? Some people say social media is designed to, uh, create conflict or create enemies, but it, it just can't be. We've gotta get over this and, and just all begin to try to work together, and that's why y- um, I support a couple of organizations that I know are not, uh, most popping right now but are, are, are greatly conceived. The United Nations is one of them. I think it was designed after World War II to have a place for us to get together. I know the US gets pissed off sometimes when votes don't go their way and don't, don't financially support it. It has issues, but we have to work on, on, on the whole, you know, world understanding what's happening. Um, I get nervous when I see, uh, you know, Musk looking for B- for the, all these guys looking for f- uh, planets to move to. Like they already know something I don't know. [laughs] You know? Like it's already passed.

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. MD

      We gotta get out of here. Uh, it's, it's of concern.

    4. JR

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    5. MD

      Right.

    6. JR

      It's the same thing with war. It always seems to go into this pattern, and it's always the same thing. It's always leaders and people who control those leaders who want access to resources and control resources, and we let those people dictate what happens in the world.

    7. MD

      Dictate.

    8. JR

      Because it's a very small amount of people affecting a very large amount of people. And the only hope is that we all together figure that out, because I don't think people were even completely aware of that in this country until probably like the '60s and the '70s, people started thinking that the government does not have our best interest in mind, and especially during Vietnam.

    9. MD

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      This is a fucking crazy war that makes no sense. And even today, no one thinks it was a good idea to go in there.

    11. MD

      No.

    12. JR

      How many people died? And I think more people are aware of that. The whole thing is more transparent now than it's ever been before, which I think is a good sign. I wish we learned quicker, but we don't. We learn slowly. But I think we're learning.

    13. MD

      Well, I hope so. I mean, when I look back at my father's career in post-World War II, where characters were the good guys, the bad guys.

    14. JR

      Mm-hmm.

  7. 20:51 – 26:03

    Nuclear weapons, Ukraine-Russia, and Michael’s “Nobel Peace Prize” pitch

    1. MD

      White hats or black hats, villains and everything. And then I grew up, and then the Vietnam War and all that, so I've always been fascinated in this gray area. So it's hard sometimes to know the morality choice or what's right or wrong. This is what's frustrating. But you brought up a point, Joe, which I'd like to raise and maybe get your advice, because one of my earliest pictures that I did was The China Syndrome. The China Syndrome was about a nuclear meltdown in a power plant. And we were under a lot of critical claim, we being myself, Jane Fonda, who was also a producing partner at that time, about our credibility and how irresponsible it was. And GE was pushing this about nuclear power and all of that. And the movie came out and was a successful film, you know, did very well, but still criticized. And then 12 days after the movie came out, Three Mile Island happened in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And I had like an epiphany. I'm not a religious guy, but I felt like somebody was telling me something. And so I became involved in understanding more about nuclear weapons and plutonium and the half-life and all of this. And I followed through our nuclear conflicts with Russia. And I want to make a suggestion to you because you maybe have some connections to the president. This war, this Ukraine-Russian war and the effort to find an answer to it and an effort for the president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And my idea is, I don't know what Putin has on Trump or what this connection is or why Trump always feels like he's got to reach out to help Putin in this. 93% of our country, Republicans and Democrats, don't like Putin. It's one of the few things that really aligns us together. So why don't we try in making peace in Ukraine, which gave up nuclear weapons. They gave up their nuclear weapon. Why doesn't Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin dramatically reduce, if not give up, our nuclear stockpiles? Obviously, the other six or seven countries that have a very minimal amount of nuclear weapons would have to be. This could be the greatest thing that would happen in our generation. And in terms of settling this peace, making peace in Ukraine and where Ukraine may have to give up some territory, I'm hoping that President Trump could make a deal with Putin, say, "You know what? U.S., Russia, let's give up our weapons." Because it's totally obsolete. There's no need, there's no question about it because these weapons would just destroy the world. It's mutual assured destruction. If he can do that, and he could, if he spent the next three years of his presidency negotiating with Putin, we could get rid of nuclear weapons. And I Guarantee I would commit my life for him gu- getting that Nobel Peace Prize because he would deserve it

    2. JR

      It's a great utopian idea. I, I agree with you. It would be awesome if there was no nuclear weapons, if we all agreed as a species, as the, the human civilization, that there's no need to have something that can kill every man, woman, child, every animal and plant on Earth many times over, when the amount of weapons that we have today are absurd. If we all together, the whole world, China, Russia, United States, all the other countries just launched all their bombs at once, just imagine what the world would look like when it's over.

    3. MD

      It'd be over. There wouldn't be a w- there'd be a world

    4. JR

      There'd be no world. It would be on fire. It would be a glowing orb. We're crazy that we even have that kind of stuff. However, I don't ever think that any country that has a military is gonna give up all their nuclear weapons, if there are nuclear weapons out there in the world, and how would you be able to assure? One of the things that they're always terrified about is, um, I mean, this was one of the big conspiracy theories when... Do you remember that New Jersey drone thing that was going on?

    5. MD

      Yeah. Mm-hmm.

    6. JR

      Uh, one of the, the crazy conspiracies with the, was that they were using these drones to search for a missing bomb, and that there was a bomb or a nu- some nuclear device that was unaccounted for, and they believed it. And so those were United States military drones that are very sophisticated, top secret stuff. I don't know what's true or not, but I do know that they don't exactly know where all the bombs are all over the world, and the idea that you would give up your nuclear weapons while weapons still exist is highly unlikely.

  8. 26:03 – 44:29

    AI as savior or extinction-level risk: guardrails, arms races, and war-game nukes

    1. MD

      Well, but isn't this maybe what, this is what AI is supposed to be doing?

    2. JR

      That's what I was gonna get to.

    3. MD

      Yeah.

    4. JR

      I think the only way we're really gonna get out of this, this is terrifying for biological human beings, is to let AI control government and resources, and it would have to have already become sentient, and it would have to already exhibit super intelligence, reason, and logic-

    5. MD

      Yeah

    6. JR

      ... and it would just evenly distribute resources amongst all the people.

    7. MD

      Because when you look at the, you look at the budgets alone just for our, our nuclear programs, w- we could solve... The defense budgets in this day and age versus our budget for humanitarian purposes is absurd. I mean, it comes down to all people want, really, you know, is a, is a, is a roof over their head, housing, and food. And, you know, so all this money could be shifted over into other programs that was, uh, would stop the need for Africans to have to immigrate. Um, you know, we have to, can restore areas of the world that are much more impoverished than us because this disparity of have and have-nots is gonna be, create another, another world war.

    8. JR

      They would never do this, but here's a way that you could make sure that something like this never happened. When you have re- Like, think about all the money that comes from resources, like Earth's resources, whether it's oil, minerals, all these different things. That is a part of the Earth, and it's Earth's. So if you made a law where all natural resources drawn from the Earth, like oil, will be evenly distributed amongst the population of that city.

    9. MD

      [laughs] Yeah.

    10. JR

      S- you know?

    11. MD

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    12. JR

      Minus operating costs, everything else gets evenly distributed amongst people because it is the human race's. If we are all citizens of this Earth, then the Earth's resources should be shared by all of us. Like, there's people that wanna charge you for air. [laughs] They think it's a good idea to charge you for clean air. There's people charge you for water. You have a water bill.

    13. MD

      Right.

    14. JR

      Like, someone owns the water. They charge you for the water. Like, all that stuff should be the property of the human beings that live in that place. Imagine how much that would transform the places that have diamond mines. Imagine how much that would transform the places that are rich in oil money.

    15. MD

      Amen.

    16. JR

      We have these monarchies that are controlling vast populations. Why? 'Cause they were the first persons, or their ancestors were the first persons, to dig into the ground and pull up the oil.

    17. MD

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      It's kind of crazy.

    19. MD

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      You, you are s- insanely wealthy because you're sucking the lifeblood out of the Earth-

    21. MD

      Right

    22. JR

      ... which really should kinda be everyone's, especially when they do shit like they go offshore, and they, they're drilling offshore. Where the fuck are you even?

    23. MD

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      You're not even in America anymore. Like, what is this?

    25. MD

      Amen.

    26. JR

      [laughs] You're stealing from the Earth, and then, and it lets you buy weapons and lets you... Uh, uh, you know, a l- a lot of these people that are involved in these immense corporations are involved in many immense corporations, and the, the amount of money that they're making is kind of fucking kooky. And when they have massive influence on politicians, and when politicians are allowed to, like, trade stocks where they have insider information, and they're making fucking hundreds of millions of dollars on a-

    27. MD

      Yeah

    28. JR

      ... $170,000 a year salary. So all these things combom- they compound, and you get to the point where you're like, "I don't know if this could be fixed."

    29. MD

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      And that's what they like.

  9. 44:29 – 1:00:09

    Psychedelics and the 1960s: healing, regulation, and the backlash narrative

    1. MD

      No, that was, that was, um, the biggest, um, move in my life, you know? It was, you know, both... I was born in New Jersey, too.

    2. JR

      What part of New Jersey were you born?

    3. MD

      New Brunswick.

    4. JR

      Oh, right. Okay.

    5. MD

      I was born in New Brunswick, um, in a, in a different format. It's kind of interesting. Um, a little background my, m- on my, on my family, but my, my mother was English, uh, from the island of Bermuda. And, uh, her family had been in Bermuda, this little tiny island, for 400 years, right? Uh, and she lied about her age at 16. She wanted to be an actress, and she went to New York and went to acting school, and she met my father, and, um, kind of opposites attract we- to each other. And, uh, they had a little apartment, and they got to- they got together and, and my f- my mother's, uh, oldest sister... My mother was one of six kids. My mother's oldest sister married, um, this guy Seward Johnson. Seward Johnson was the founder of Johnson & Johnson, along with his, uh, his brother, right? So it just happened that way. So they were living as, you know, starving actors in a little one-room apartment in New York. And out in New Brunswick was the Johnson Castle.

    6. JR

      [laughs]

    7. MD

      Uh, you know, a real... He lived in a castle out there with m- with my Aunt Ruth, uh, Mike. And then they got divorced, and when they got divorced, they both had moved out of the castle. So it turned out that my mother and father, on weekends, would go out to New Brunswick and get to stay in the castle. You know? It was his sister's place d- all along. And I just... She, she was pregnant, and I just happened to come early, so I was born in New Brunswick, uh, rather than in, uh, in, in New York City.

    8. JR

      Wow.

    9. MD

      And, um, so that was how it came, it came about. But, um, I found a lot of interesting things in this book. It, it, it, it brought me, uh... I also had thought with my m- my, my grandfather, my grandfather on my father's side, uh, was from Belarus. Uh, or it was part of Russia back in the, in the turn of the century, 1900, Mike. And I always thought that my grandfather had left, like, 1914, time of the Russian Revolution, you know, was going on. The Cossacks were rounding up all the Jews, putting them in these pogroms, a- and they're escaping. And then I did that, um, Henry Gates Find Your Roots show, you know, on television-

    10. JR

      Uh-huh

    11. MD

      ... and everything else, and they did all this homework, and they found out, "No, no. Your grandfather left in 1902." I, I said, "Really?" They said, "Yeah, because he had two other brothers who were bank robbers- [laughs]

    12. JR

      [laughs]

    13. MD

      ... in, in, in, uh, in, in Belarus in this area."

    14. JR

      Whoa.

    15. MD

      And they, they'd gone into jail, and your br- the other brother, your f- your f- your grands- your grandfather, he got out 1902, and that's why he came to the country and he, uh, he, he changed his name. And then the irony is that the, the area in Belarus that they came from was right near Chernobyl. And if you know, Chernobyl in Ukraine, that terrible explosion disaster, is right on the border with the Belarus area and the little town that they came from. And it was downwind. So the town where my family came from is, is part of a dead area-

    16. JR

      Whoa

    17. MD

      ... now. It's just, uh, you know, close up.

    18. JR

      Whoa.

    19. MD

      Yeah. And that was sort of-

    20. JR

      It's still dead? Can you visit it now?

    21. MD

      No.

    22. JR

      Wow.

    23. MD

      No, it's still, it's, it's, it's weird. You know, they're doing all these atomic tests-

    24. JR

      How long is it fucked for?

    25. MD

      Um, well, they'll, they'll have a-

    26. JR

      Probably like 100,000 years or something.

    27. MD

      Oh, yeah. But they, they-

    28. JR

      Isn't that wild?

    29. MD

      ... they're, they're doing all these tests on these wild, on these dogs and everything-

    30. JR

      Dude

  10. 1:00:09 – 1:02:41

    Dark side of counterculture: Manson proximity and a cult that threatened his life

    1. MD

      I had a run-in, I had a run-in with the Manson Family. Um-

    2. JR

      Did you really?

    3. MD

      Yeah. We talk, we talked about it in the, in the book. Um, um, the, the Manson Family and when that terrible murders happened was actually looking for a guy named Terry Melcher. Terry Melcher was Doris Day's son, and he was a rock and roll, uh, producer. And Charlie Manson, you know, was a musician and he believed he had some, some, uh, some talent. And the girls sometimes would be used by him, you know, to, um, you know, have fun or something like that to make it happen. And anyway, he was pissed off at Charlie M- at, at, um, Melcher and he thought he was living in the house where Sharon Tate and, and the other ones were. I was living in the house at the time that Terry Melcher, um, had been living and he left. I rented the house. He got out and rented it. And, uh, we finally, I was with a, a actress named Brenda Vaccaro early in my life. She did a movie called Midnight Cowboy and we were there.

    4. JR

      I remember her.

    5. MD

      And we noticed this van that used to be parked outside my house in LA. And, uh, one day she had, uh, two Abyssinian cats, two beautiful Abyssinian cats, and I went out one day in the patio in the back and I found this pile of fur in a pile, and then I followed it and then I saw a cat's leg And then basically these guys had dismembered her two cats all the way, uh, across the yard. And, um, I remember talking to the, um, to the police, you know, what was going on. Um, and then, then right after that, then the Manson murders happened, and they tied it together. And, um, I remember them coming into the house and saying, "Okay, well, look," he said, "uh, you gotta get a gun," which I did not. Uh, but he said, "If they, they come up, you know, just make sure you drag them acro- across your, uh, your, your front door so they're, they're, they're in your, in your house."

    6. JR

      [laughs]

    7. MD

      Uh, but-

    8. JR

      What great advice. Before you kill them, you gotta bring them inside.

    9. MD

      Yeah, [laughs] exactly. Exactly.

    10. JR

      You didn't get a gun, huh?

  11. 1:02:41 – 1:36:05

    Gun control vs self-defense: accidental harm, mass access, and ‘going sideways’ fears

    1. MD

      No.

    2. JR

      Did you think-

    3. MD

      No, I didn't

    4. JR

      ... about it at all?

    5. MD

      Um, I, I have, but I, I'm, uh, um... Yeah, I've, I, I thought about it, but I've just seen, uh, I've just seen too much, uh, uh, personal or, or, or, um, knowledge, too much personal knowledge of people hurting each other. Um, but for what, for, for whatever chance it was to protect yourself, too many family members have inj- been injured and, and guns have been used in other ways. So, um, I'm not a, uh, I'm not a gun... I'm very much, um, I, I think the statistics, our statistics of, of gun control are not good. Um, we have, what, 360 million people in the country. I think we got 450 million guns. Um, our m- murder rate compared to any other sophisticated country with guns is, is so, so high. Uh, I can't find any reason, uh, for somebody to own an automatic, uh, military-style weapon. Um, and I guess most of all, I understand the amendments and s- support it, but, you know, you gotta have a license to drive a car. Uh, there's certain things you gotta pass, and, um, there's just loopholes. I respect anybody. They wanna have a gun, they, they can have a gun. But, uh, we've, uh, you know, we've just had too many loopholes in, in, in the law, uh, that have allowed, um, um, too many people just as... You worry about people coming across the border illegally. I really worry about a lot of the legal people having guns.

    6. JR

      Yeah. Absolutely. You should.

    7. MD

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      Yeah. Uh, but responsible gun ownership for someone like yourself would be to protect your life against a dangerous person with a gun.

    9. MD

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      I would never assume that you would ever do anything bad with a gun. So would you worry that one of your family members would do something bad with a gun?

    11. MD

      By accident.

    12. JR

      By accident.

    13. MD

      My father had-

    14. JR

      But you have a safe

    15. MD

      ... my father had a gun in his house. My father, in his bedroom, had a gun, and he had it down on a table down below. And I remember when my son came to the house, um, uh, one day-

    16. JR

      Yeah

    17. MD

      ... when he was, like, five years old, and picked it up.

    18. JR

      Oh, Jesus.

    19. MD

      That's what I'm talking about.

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. MD

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      Well, responsible gun ownership-

    23. MD

      Yeah

    24. JR

      ... uh, you know, the gun should be in a safe.

    25. MD

      Yeah.

    26. JR

      Uh, and safes exists.

    27. MD

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      And, you know, I don't-

    29. MD

      I, I respect that.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  12. 1:36:05 – 1:41:30

    Democracy under stress: money in politics, tribal parties, borders, and war fatigue

    1. MD

      and where I'm really worried about our democracy, you know, the, the basic group. So I'm sort of gone, now that my career is not the most important thing in my life, my family is and, uh, my kids. And I'm realizing more and more the responsibility we have to community, well first to our family. First to our family. I f- I don't know about you, but I know I spent a lot of, part of my life as the most important thing being my career. And, um, been doing it for 50 years, 60 years, and realized, or especially earlier in my life, my first marriage and other things that suffered for lack of the career. I don't, I don't believe you can balance your career necessarily if you're ambitious with your family life. People should kind of wait a little while, maybe get their career going before they're making commitments to having kids and, and, uh, you know, and, and, and, and, and a marriage.

    2. JR

      Especially the film business, right? I mean, you're also, you're, you have to fly away to places for long periods of time.

    3. MD

      You gotta go different places. It is hard. But you, everybody, truckers are driving across country.

    4. JR

      Oh, yeah.

    5. MD

      You know what I mean?

    6. JR

      Right.

    7. MD

      There's e- everybody's, you know, e- even with the so-called all this home business now with the internet that lets you, uh, do stuff. So I, I sort of on this c- obsession now about how, how important family is and, you know, we've got na- we have members of family we could hate, but it's the gene, it's the genetic connection [chuckles] that holds us kind of together. And from that it's the community. And I guess my point is we cannot take democracy for granted and, and I'm included. Too many of us have just let it kind of go on and let, oh, these people will take care of it. Those, we all have those local people in our community who still serve as the town clerk or still are volunteer fire department people.

    8. JR

      Mm.

    9. MD

      Um, and, and they're not a big group. It's a small group of people who have a sense of, of volunteer work and supporting it. And I think we all have to start kind of strengthening our communities to our states. And not worrying about this federal government, uh, and, and, and, and, and starting from building from the bottom up rather than trying to cut off the head from the top.

    10. JR

      Well, the rules exist for a reason, because we really want it to be representative of the people, so we want it to be fair.

    11. MD

      Right.

    12. JR

      And that's where people get really nervous about the world we're living in, where there's so much money involved in politics. How can it actually be representing the will of the people? And then there's the question, do the people themselves, do they know what they're voting for? Are they informed enough? Should you have to be informed? Should you have to take a test to vote? Should you know what you're voting on?

    13. MD

      Right.

    14. JR

      You know, I don't think we should be restricting people's right or access to vote. But I do think it would behoove all of us if we actually understood what we were voting for.

    15. MD

      Mm-hmm.

    16. JR

      And I think a lot of times people are just voting for a, a team or an ideology, whether it's on the right or the left. And a lot of times some very evil, hyper-ambitious people can co-opt that, that, that group of people, and, um, especially when they have so much money involved. And that's what's ... What really fucked us is when money got involved in politics.

    17. MD

      That's what-

    18. JR

      That's what-

    19. MD

      Amen. Amen

    20. JR

      ... really, really fucked us.

    21. MD

      It, it's changed, it's changed up everything.

    22. JR

      It shouldn't be-

    23. MD

      I mean, it-

    24. JR

      ... a path to riches.

    25. MD

      It, it can-

    26. JR

      And it is

    27. MD

      ... you know, we, we can hardly get a debate in, you know, at all with the sizes of the advertising budgets for, for c- for ad campaigns.

    28. JR

      No.

    29. MD

      And, and, and it's really disrupted this, uh, this whole balance. I mean, as we watch the upcoming midterms, you know, and how the-

    30. JR

      They're using AI now, so they have, like, artificial people-

  13. 1:41:30 – 1:46:56

    How Joe got into comedy—and why comedy thrives as the disrespected art

    1. JR

      think the ... It's a terrible tragedy-

    2. MD

      It's-

    3. JR

      ... in this country that we only have two choices like that, and that you think of a Libertarian candidate as a throwaway vote. I've voted Libertarian before.

    4. MD

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      And you think of it as like, "Oh, this is a protest vote," you know? 'Cause California's gonna go blue no matter who.

    6. MD

      Well, well, the, the laws, the laws are, are s- are structured such that Libertarians can't get the campaign money-

    7. JR

      Exactly

    8. MD

      ... uh, that they, that they want.

    9. JR

      Exactly.

    10. MD

      And, and, and the, uh, the problem is, is it's at the top. We look at the news every night, and we're all kinda getting along, whether Republicans or Democrats, okay, but these guys at the top have polarized it, uh, to such a, an extent. I used to ... My father was involved in, in, you know, a lot of politics o- over the years and, and, uh, there was a guy named Jack Valenti who was the motion picture and television, uh, uh, representative, a lobbyist, you know? And I remember, you know, I remember 25, 30 years ago, you know, you'd argue your hell out, and this and that, and then you'd all go on out, and you'd go to the same cocktail party now.

    11. JR

      Absolutely.

    12. MD

      I mean, socially, everything is, is, is, is, is separate. And so-

    13. JR

      I remember that from the '90s.

    14. MD

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      It was, uh, that ... in the '90s. Like, I had friends that were Republicans when I was in the '90s, and we would, uh, discuss things. When I was a kid, uh, we were on welfare. I, I believe in social safety nets. I think it's important.

    16. MD

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      When people are poor, they shouldn't starve. It's crazy. But I also believe that a lot of these welfare programs get pilfered.

    18. MD

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      And I, I think there's a lot of them, you're, you're ... What you're doing is you, when you look at a lot of these NGOs and a lot of these nonprofits, an enormous amount of the money that gets donated to these things gets g- distributed by the executives. You find people that are working for the homeless, and they're making a million dollars a year. Like, what the fuck is going on here?

    20. MD

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      It seems like this is a business. This is a business, and this business thrives on making sure there's a lot of homeless people so you keep getting the same money, just like that scene in Falling Down.

    22. MD

      Right.

    23. JR

      When he says you have to justify your budget, you have to spend all that money because then you won't get that money next year. That's the real problem in this country. It's a giant problem when it comes to even philanthropy and even, like, really good charitable organizations. You find out how much of that money is just getting slung around to NGOs, and how much of that money is just getting j- just moved around into other people's bank accounts.

    24. MD

      Joe, I, I, I concur with you, but I cannot believe it comes close to the corruption involved in the military industrial complex.

    25. JR

      I think you're right. No, I think you're right.

    26. MD

      I, there's, there's-

    27. JR

      I think there's corruption across the board. I, I don't, I'm not excusing-

    28. MD

      Yeah

    29. JR

      ... the corruption in the military industrial complex by saying that we ... I'm just saying that we need to pay attention to the fact that look, there's $24 billion was spent-

    30. MD

      Yeah

  14. 1:46:56 – 1:52:22

    Building a comedy ecosystem in Austin: clubs, Kill Tony, and forcing reps

    1. MD

      than 95% of this country can be. But-

    2. JR

      What was that in those days? Like, what is that equivalent to in today's dollar?

    3. MD

      I don't know. I don't know. But I, but-

    4. JR

      100?

    5. MD

      No, I don't think. Maybe 10. I don't know.

    6. JR

      Probably.

    7. MD

      But, but, uh, I don't know. But I said, "Dad, uh, it's great, but, you know, um, I got two years more of tuition in, in school and everything, and y- you know, a couple of..." Then he says, "Son." Then he started getting pissed, like, you know, you're, you're taking this as... "No, Dad, I'm, I'm really grateful, but, you know..." Anyway, um, and then for 30 years, my s- my father had four sons. I was the oldest. For 30 years, Dad would look at all of, of my other brothers and say, "Your brother Michael never asked me for anything, anything in his life after that, and you guys..." And he would just drill these poor bastards, my brothers, about that. And finally, about 30 years later, I said, "Dad, I gotta tell you something." He said, "What?" "You remember one Christmas you bought me a beautiful present? You bought me these two beautiful Italian leather suitcases. They were soft, you know, leather. These beautiful suitcases, right?" He said, "Yeah, yeah, I kind of remember." "Well, when I would go back, like, at Christmas time from school and go see my mother back east, right?" I said, "Yeah." "Well, each suitcase could fit 22 kilos of marijuana."

    8. JR

      [laughs]

    9. MD

      And, [laughs] and I used to go back with just the clothes on my back and 44 kilos, you know? And that was how I got through, you know, the rest of, uh, my, the expense of my school. Did it a couple of times, and, uh, that got me through. But I said, "I gotta tell you the story, Dad, because, you know, you're beating, you're beating the shit out my younger brothers and everything about, [laughs] you know, I never asked you for anything, but, you know." [laughs]

    10. JR

      [laughs] 'Cause I was a drug dealer.

    11. MD

      Right. [laughs]

    12. JR

      Wow, that's crazy.

    13. MD

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      How, how many trips did you do, did you make?

    15. MD

      Twice.

    16. JR

      [exhales] How did you stop?

    17. MD

      Well-

    18. JR

      'Cause it was so much money. How did you stop? I mean, it mu-

    19. MD

      Well-

    20. JR

      ... it must've been like v- ... It's very profitable to do that.

    21. MD

      Well, yeah, I remember it was like a, a kilo was $75 in, in the out west, and you could sell it for 5 or $600, $700, um, back east. Uh, uh, but I, you know, things, things were, things were beginning to get... You know, that was when the whole hippie thing, you know, all of a sudden, you know, ex-cons were coming out of jail and saying, "Hey, man, grow your hair long." You know?

    22. JR

      Uh-huh.

    23. MD

      "Go to Haight Ashbury. You can fuck any girls you want. They give you free food." And then, then the, you know, the, the-

    24. JR

      It got infiltrated

    25. MD

      ... then the drug dealing started getting-

    26. JR

      Violent

    27. MD

      ... violent and uglier and, and a little heavier and, and, and-

    28. JR

      Of course

    29. MD

      ... yeah.

    30. JR

      Yeah. Wow. Well, good on you for getting just two trips and out.

  15. 1:52:22 – 2:00:44

    Hollywood producer lessons: Cuckoo’s Nest, Kirk Douglas, and career reinvention

    1. JR

      Um, one of the things that I found out when I was getting ready for this that I didn't know before was that you were, you produced One Flew Over of the Cuckoo's Nest.

    2. MD

      Correct, yeah.

    3. JR

      Was that your first big project?

    4. MD

      It, yeah, my first project as, as a producer.

    5. JR

      First-

    6. MD

      I mean, I, I had never... The way it worked is that Dad, um, b- b- like 1960, Dad got Spartacus, so Spartacus is, like, the biggest star in the world. And he had a production company. About 1962, he acquired the galleys of this book called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, and he had it adapted into a play. Uh, and his idea was he was gonna go back to Broadway, do the play for six months, uh, and then, you know, big success and this and that, then come out and make the movie. It, the play didn't work out. It didn't, it wasn't a success, and, a- and he did it. But again, I thought about him, the, at the height of his movie career, he could do anything. He wanted to go back and do this play. And, uh, and it was a great part, R.P. McMurphy, uh, the character. So, um, and then he tried for years. Now, cut 1963, I'm in college, and, uh, I'm in 20th Century American Literature course, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest now is an American classic, right? I start working, um, in the, in the business. I've had like five turkey movies. Now I'm going into television, episodic television. This is before The Streets of San Francisco. And I'm in my dad's office one day, and I hear he's tried for six years and he's gonna sell. He, he's gonna, uh, sell, uh, Cuckoo's Nest. I said, "Dad, you can't s- you c- you can't sell that, man. This is just a great story." And Joe, I had no intention of th- I hadn't even thought about producing or anything. I was just gonna be an actor. But I said, "Look, l- let me run with it. L- l- l- let me g- let me try to get it set up, Dad. You play the part, right? We'll make a production. Give me, give me a chance to set it up." And he was a great dad. He looked me in the eyes and, "Okay, you know, I'll give you a year." So now, so now, uh, Streets of San Francisco starts, and I'm shooting all of this in San Francisco with Carl Malden. I'm doing the show. I go through my father's files, the history of Cuckoo's Nest, and I see this guy named Saul Zaentz, who has a record company in Berkeley, California called Fantasy Records, who had expressed interest about the project. So now I'm up in San Francisco. I reach out to Saul, found out what happened, and, uh, you know, b- but the problem was... And we kinda worked it out. And Saul had basically a record company, jazz labels, Milestone, Prestige, jazz labels, but he had this one rock and roll group called The Golliwogs. And while I was there, he just hired The Golliwogs. He said, "Listen, man, we gotta change their name." And they changed their name to Creedence Clearwater Revival.

    7. JR

      Hmm.

    8. MD

      All right? So Creedence Clearwater Revival paid for Cuckoo's Nest. So now, you know, w- we made the deal. I finally got a screenplay after a period of time. I got a director, Milos Forman. And now the director and Saul sit me down and say, "Michael, Kirk's too old. Kirk, I'm sorry to tell you, Ki- uh, Kirk is not gonna work out." And I pushed it, 'cause Joe, they said, "Michael, w- we're working together, it's, I, I understand."

    9. JR

      He was gonna play the Jack Nicholson role.

    10. MD

      Yeah, he was, he w- he was R.P. Mc- I mean, think about it. I mean, he, he would be R.P. McMurphy if, if he had been like 20 years younger when he first was, when he first backed them and doing the play. So I had to go to my dad.

    11. JR

      How old was he at the time?

    12. MD

      60, 62. 60, 62. And, um, I had to go to my dad and say, "Dad, it, it ain't gonna happen." Um, and I can tell you now, Joe, if, if you get four good parts in your entire career, four really great parts, you're, you're lucky. You're really lucky. I mean, they, they don't come along often, and R.P. McMurphy was one of those parts. I said, "Dad, they, they, you know, the director, it's all financing, they just, they don't see it." Um, and he looked at me, you know, not sure. I said, I, I, I went to the mat. I said, "Dad, we still, you know, we're pr- we're producing of, producing the picture. I'm giving, give you half of my producing deal for giving me this opportunity." And that was that. We went off, we made the movie, and then I brought Dad up to Berkeley, California, to see the final cut of the picture. It, it was all, all put together, and he came out of the, uh, theater, and he said, "Michael, it's a hell of a movie. A hell of a movie." And, uh, Jack was, was fantastic, and he was just, just a, such a mensch a- a- about it. But, [laughs] but over every few years, you know, when he had, Dad had a couple of pops-

    13. JR

      [laughs]

    14. MD

      ... he said, "You coulda, I coulda done that, you know, I coulda done that picture," and all of that.

    15. JR

      Oh, no.

    16. MD

      But for me, it, it was crazy because The Streets of San Francisco was a big hit. It was a big hit, number one show on ABC. We had, you know, it was the, we, we averaged 24, 25 million viewers, uh, a week. You know, ABC-

    17. JR

      Wow

    18. MD

      ... was this brand-new network. It had just started. And, uh, then it was syndicated all over the, all over the world. So when I went to them and said, "Let me get this straight. You're gonna leave..." This is the fifth. "You're gonna leave this hit series to make this little, to produce, not even acting, to produce this little indie film?" And Dad was up, everybody said, "Are, are you sure this, this is a right idea?" But I was in love with the project. Didn't ever have thought about producing, but what had happened is all the 104 hours, 104 episodes, 104 hours of television I'd done with Karl Malden, a wonderful actor, I had learned so much about production and everything that I was shocked when the picture came about how much I, I, I really, uh, knew. Um, and so I left the show. They, first of all, they let me out of my contract, which is unheard of these days. I had a five-year contract on a hit show, and Karl Malden, I loved him to death, uh, said, "I know you've been thinking about it. Go for it." And Quinn Martin, this big TV producer, had The Fugitive and FBI and all that, said, "Go for it." And so this totally changed my life so that now I'm a television actor, but I'm an Academy Award-winning producer. I've got a studio deal as a producer, you know. But those days b- before streaming, television and feature films were on very separate tracks. Television, you were treated like a television actor, and movies were the big thing. So I'm a, I'm a producer, but I can't get hired in the movies as an actor. [laughs] I mean, it was really hard. I would be, like, the last choice. Uh, but then I had a run. I, I had, um, as a producer, had One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The China Syndrome, Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the... I had, like, four or five hits, uh, right in a row, and at the same time was trying to find these little roles I could play in, um, you know, as an actor.

    19. JR

      Wow.

    20. MD

      Yeah.

  16. 2:00:44 – 2:10:25

    Fatal Attraction and beyond: casting shocks, alternate endings, and protest-era filmmaking

    1. JR

      Another film that you made that's an all-time great, and it still freaks people out to this day, is Fatal Attraction.

    2. MD

      Yeah. [laughs] Right.

    3. JR

      Holy shit.

    4. MD

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      That movie scared the fuck out of me.

    6. MD

      It did, didn't it?

    7. JR

      Scared the fuck out of... Glenn Close was so good in that movie.

    8. MD

      She was so good.

    9. JR

      Ooh.

    10. MD

      And, you know, it was such a, such a, a, a lesson, Joe, because we didn't want her. We, we, we, we were casting the picture, you know, and, um, Glenn Close, who already had three Academy Award nominations to her name, uh, we didn't really wanna do it. We all said, "No, she's just not right." We didn't even think she was sexy enough or this or that. And, uh, and finally she, her agent called and said, "Listen, Glenn Close will come in and audition for you." I'm like, "Holy shit, this is a three-time Academy Award nominee. She's gonna come in and audition for us." And she came in, and she had that part down in Alex, and boy, were we wrong. The director, we all looked at each other, and we said, "It was such a lesson in learning," and that she was so committed that she'd lay herself out there and, and, and she was s- so good.

    11. JR

      She was perfect for the role.

    12. MD

      She, she was just per-

    13. JR

      I couldn't imagine anybody else doing it.

    14. MD

      No. No.

    15. JR

      She plays crazy so well.

    16. MD

      Yeah, she-

    17. JR

      There's a darkness in that woman's mind. [laughs]

    18. MD

      And it's amazing that the, that the, that the issue that, uh, uh, on, on another level that she's most involved with is mental health.

    19. JR

      Ah.

    20. MD

      And she's, it, it's an issue that's been, been involved in her family.

    21. JR

      Makes sense. She probably made a lot of people crazy just from that movie. [laughs]

    22. MD

      Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. [laughs] Oh, no, I had-

    23. JR

      She played crazy so well.

    24. MD

      Oh, yeah. My friends-

    25. JR

      Ooh

    26. MD

      ... I had my male friends all s- "Thanks a lot, man. Hey, thank you." They fucking hated me for this movie.

    27. JR

      [laughs]

    28. MD

      They hated me. You know, I was like, "Well, th-" You know, it was like... 'Cause it was, it was, it was the perfect concept nightmare.

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. MD

      A perfect what if. And I remember we were in France, um, promoting the movie in, in France, and all the cr- uh, reviewers said, "Well, you know, in France we all have mistresses. It is not a big deal." Yeah, this and that. It was a smash hit.

Episode duration: 2:10:25

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