Will Sasso: Comedy, MADtv, AI, Friendship, Madness, and Pro Wrestling | Lex Fridman Podcast #323

Will Sasso 0:00 ... once this whole thing falls apart and we are climbing the kudzu vines, uh, that spiral up the Sears Tower, like they say in Fight Club, Bobby will go back to his gatherer form and be happy as a pig in shit. Just walking around in a loin cloth with his bird hanging out, cracking jokes to people and climbing up on them for a stool lap dance or whatever he does.

Lex Fridman 0:18 You think some level of crazy is required for comedy?

Will Sasso 0:22 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 0:22 Like, at some point. (laughs)

Will Sasso 0:24 Yes.

Lex Fridman 0:25 Have there been low points in your life?

Will Sasso 0:27 Uh, yeah, you know. You know, hey, eh, eh?

Lex Fridman 0:30 Eh?

Will Sasso 0:31 You know. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 0:35 The following is a conversation with Will Sasso, a comedian, actor, podcaster, and someone I've been a fan of for many years, since MAD TV in the late '90s to recently with The 10-Minute Podcast, and now the new podcast called Dudesy. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Will Sasso.

Lex Fridman 1:04 So let's call it the elephant in the room. You wore a black suit in a recent episode of Dudesy.

Will Sasso 1:10 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:12 (laughs) You wore a black suit again today. Uh, Shakespeare then Mark Twain said clothes make the man. Uh, what kind of man does a suit make you?

Will Sasso 1:22 Well, me in particular, it makes me a fellow who did not get this dry cleaned in between, 'cause that episode of the show as we sit here now was around a week ago. So that's-

Lex Fridman 1:33 Okay.

Will Sasso 1:33 ... that's the kind of man it makes me.

Lex Fridman 1:35 Well, the, uh, the nice thing is you're wearing pants, I think. Yes.

Will Sasso 1:38 Yeah. I am wearing pants.

Lex Fridman 1:39 I don't think you were wearing pants in the episode.

Will Sasso 1:41 That's correct. I, I prefer to wear shorts, but this was a special occasion, so I'm wearing pants.

Lex Fridman 1:46 Thank you.

Will Sasso 1:46 And I thought it fitting, obviously, to just wear, you know, the black tie. And, uh, clothes do make the man. And I'm a, I, I would not consider myself to be a man of leisure, but I do enjoy shorts.

Lex Fridman 1:58 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:58 'Cause I, my legs get hot. So that's what kind of man the shorts make me.

Lex Fridman 2:02 How often do you wear a suit?

Will Sasso 2:04 I fucking hate wearing suits.

Lex Fridman 2:05 So what is this? A statement of, uh... Is it ironic or is it, are you honoring the gods of this particular podcast?

Will Sasso 2:12 I'm honoring the gods of this particular podcast would be a good way to put it.

Lex Fridman 2:15 Yeah.

Will Sasso 2:15 Yes. No, this is, this is in, in reverence of and in dedication to you and our newfound friendship here.

Lex Fridman 2:21 Yes.

Will Sasso 2:21 Which we are, uh, making, uh, on the podcast. You and I just met.

Lex Fridman 2:27 Yeah.

Will Sasso 2:27 Everything that we're saying here is the f- are the first things that we're saying to each other. So I'm meeting you on common ground, dressed like-

Lex Fridman 2:33 Well, I've been actually a one-way friend of yours for many, many years, since MAD TV.

Will Sasso 2:38 Oh.

Lex Fridman 2:38 Um, when did you start on MAD TV? So that was ma- I mean, in '90s?

Will Sasso 2:42 '97, yeah.

Lex Fridman 2:43 '97. So I was a huge fan of yours and the cast was incredible. It's one of the funniest shows ever created.

Will Sasso 2:49 Oh, cool.

Lex Fridman 2:49 Th- your whole journey watching through that was, was incredible from MAD TV to Three Stooges to the podcast, the, The 10 Minute Pod, and then the new podcast is incredible.

Will Sasso 2:59 Yeah. Oh, that's great. Cheers.

Lex Fridman 3:01 My favorite role that you played was The Mountain in the Game of Thrones. What was it like working with dragons?

Will Sasso 3:08 Well, the dragons are usually tennis balls on the end of C-stands. But, uh, sometimes they, they hang out. Um, I am-

Lex Fridman 3:17 What's a C-stand?

Will Sasso 3:18 It's like, you know, it's like a little, like the thing you got the camera on here.

Lex Fridman 3:21 Oh, this is like film lingo.

Will Sasso 3:23 Yeah, no, I understand. I'm trying to impress you with my film lingo. You know what a banana is?

Lex Fridman 3:27 Yeah.

Will Sasso 3:27 It's when you walk like this.

Lex Fridman 3:29 Oh.

Will Sasso 3:29 You do a, a banana.

Lex Fridman 3:30 I take it back. I did not know what a banana was.

Will Sasso 3:32 Yeah, see? It means something different.

Lex Fridman 3:33 I misunderstood.

Will Sasso 3:34 Yeah, 'cause it's just a food.

Lex Fridman 3:36 Yeah.

Will Sasso 3:36 Normally. Uh, I am-

Lex Fridman 3:37 You fancy Hollywood folk-

Will Sasso 3:39 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 3:39 ... with the lingo.

Will Sasso 3:40 And I am, uh, my name is Bjorn Hapþór Bjornsson-

Lex Fridman 3:44 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 3:44 ... and I am seven foot four. And, uh, yeah, so dragons don't, dragons don't scare me, even though they've been extinct for a while. You're a scientist, right? Does that check out?

Lex Fridman 3:54 Yeah. I actually, I'm really into video games.

Will Sasso 3:56 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 3:56 I don't know if you play video games. There's a, there's a Skyrim, uh, video game that's part of the Elder Scroll series. And for the longest time, there's a legend that there's dragons. I think it started in Daggerfall. And so I always... I grew up playing those video games and dreaming of one day meeting a dragon in a virtual world. And eventually you did in, in Skyrim, so it's... Dragons repres- I don't know exactly what they represent, but they represent maybe this kinda mythical creature that is bigger than anything humans can compli- uh, possibly comprehend, maybe? 'Cause they're so, they're so... They show up so often in myth, from the, from their religious stories, you know, of the snake and so on, the serpent, and I don't know what that is. Well, they're breathing fire. That's kinda weird.

Will Sasso 4:42 It's interesting. When I think about dragons, 'cause, uh, now that you bring it up, these are people that probably wouldn't have access to the fact that there used to be dinosaurs.

Lex Fridman 4:49 Right.

Will Sasso 4:49 Maybe they did. If they didn't, they're drawing things that look like, you know, a dinosaur cousin, but cool-

Lex Fridman 4:57 Yeah.

Will Sasso 4:57 ... that can breathe fire and has wacky wings and a spiked tail. Um, yeah, where the heck did they come up with that? 'Cause they're clearly, of course, represented in mythology all the way back to, uh... No, not cave drawings. Well, the Egyptians probably knew what the... And they could time travel, so they would have gone back to the caves.

Lex Fridman 5:15 Well, the aliens that placed living organisms on Earth could time travel and they could plant legends into the, into the collective intelligence of the human species.

Will Sasso 5:27 Yeah. And perhaps they were thinking of us to do something smart with it, and we didn't. We just came up with Skyrim.

Lex Fridman 5:32 No.

Will Sasso 5:32 We're just, what's that?

Lex Fridman 5:33 I'm sorry, that was very offensive.

Will Sasso 5:35 I'm sorry. I don't mean to have-

Lex Fridman 5:36 It's not.

Will Sasso 5:36 ... offended you with your video game. I'm more of a-

Lex Fridman 5:38 Yeah.

Will Sasso 5:39 ... Burger Co- Burger Time, uh, Donkey Kong dude.

Lex Fridman 5:42 Oh. What is that? That's an original?

Will Sasso 5:45 Bur- Burger Time was an arcade game that, uh, later showed up on the Intellivision. Um, uh, it wasn't Intellivision. I believe it was made by Texas Instruments. Horrible first generation, uh, video game console.

Lex Fridman 5:58 Oh.

Will Sasso 5:58 And Burger Time, you just, it's like Super Mario, you just gotta stay away from the, the eggs and the pickles and stuff, and you just go meep, meep, meep, m- and you, the bun falls, and then you go down to the reem, weem, wehm and the cheese and then the meat. I'm not gonna say it's as complicated as Skyrim, but, uh, took me a while to finish it when I was seven.

Lex Fridman 6:16 (laughs) Did you play video games? Was that a part of your life, a part of the s- source of happiness for you at all?

Will Sasso 6:23 It was. It was. I played video games up until around, uh, eh, I think in 2010, I got the red ring of death on my Xbox 360.

Lex Fridman 6:31 That was it?

Will Sasso 6:32 That was it. I never, or whatever the Xbox was then.

Lex Fridman 6:35 Yeah.

Will Sasso 6:35 I had, I was playing, uh, I had finished, uh, the, the Grand Theft Auto that was out.

Lex Fridman 6:40 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 6:41 I had finished the Red Dead Redemption. So I was doing that thing where you just drive around, uh, you know, the streets of New York-

Lex Fridman 6:48 Mm.

Will Sasso 6:48 ... or just ride around on your horse shooting people and, uh, you know, throwing grenades into, into groups of people in, uh, Grand Theft.

Lex Fridman 6:55 And you're j- you're describing the same thing that happened a decade later 'cause it's now Red Dead Redemption 2, and there's still not a new Grand Theft Auto, so.

Will Sasso 7:04 Yeah. There, there isn't, right?

Lex Fridman 7:05 Yeah, they're working on it. They're always flirting with that idea.

Will Sasso 7:07 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 7:08 You know, who else plays Skyrim?

Lex Fridman 7:10 Another person, the two people I'm a huge fan of from that time in MAD TV is Bobby Lee. He's a-

Will Sasso 7:15 He plays Skyrim?

Lex Fridman 7:15 He's a huge fan of Skyrim.

Will Sasso 7:16 He plays every...

Lex Fridman 7:18 So what Bobby Lee loves to do is to grind, do the boring task over and over, gather mushroom, like in Skyrim, you can fight dragons, you can fight all kinds of things, but you can also gather mushrooms and different ingredients and make potions and all that kind of s- He loves the ingredients that, he's the, you know, in the hunter-gatherer world, he's the gatherer.

Will Sasso 7:38 He's the gatherer. Yeah. I've heard him, uh, described that way. And, and he likes to describe himself that way. Uh, I worked with Bobby not too long ago. He came and did a couple days on this thing we were shooting, and, uh, I was looking forward to catching up with my old pal. And if you know anything about Bobby Lee, you'd probably be able to predict that he spent that entire time playing farming on his iPad.

Lex Fridman 7:59 Yeah. Well, humans are a source of anxiety and trouble, so sometimes it's good to escape human interaction through video games.

Will Sasso 8:06 Totally. Totally.

Lex Fridman 8:06 I'm with him on that. He's, he's one of the funniest people ever.

Will Sasso 8:11 Totally.

Lex Fridman 8:11 What, what, what do you think is, uh, what do you think makes him funny? Just all the times you've worked with him. The, the non-standard, non-sequitur way of his being.

Will Sasso 8:22 Bobby Lee is one of the most raw people, raw performers, who lets it all hang out to the degree that he will even get naked in front of his audience, which is usually a metaphor for someone doing standup. I'm bearing all.

Lex Fridman 8:36 Yeah.

Will Sasso 8:37 I'm showing you everything.

Lex Fridman 8:38 Yeah.

Will Sasso 8:38 And Bobby will just, uh, pull his bird out of his pants. Yeah. I don't think he understands metaphor too much. Uh-

Lex Fridman 8:43 He embodies metaphor.

Will Sasso 8:44 Yes. He embodies metaphor. He's the gather- we call him the, uh, gathering metaphor. Bobby, the gatherer metaphor.

Lex Fridman 8:50 He's a metaphor for something else, for somebody else's life. Someday he'll be in the dictionary.

Will Sasso 8:56 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 8:57 Representing some kind of concept. Maybe the metaphor itself.

Will Sasso 9:00 Yeah. Once, once this whole thing falls apart and we are climbing the kudzu vines, uh, that spiral up the Sears Tower, like they say in Fight Club, Bobby will go back to his gatherer form and be happy as a pig in shit. Just walking around in a loin cloth with his bird hanging out, cracking jokes to people and climbing up on them for a stool lap dance or whatever

Will Sasso 9:19 he does.

Lex Fridman 9:19 So, uh, I'd love to dig into something he, he did... You guys did a lot of great podcasts together. He asked you in a very uncomfortable process of why you don't do standup. So let me ask you, do you hate money?

Will Sasso 9:33 (laughs) Well, I'm originally from Canada. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 9:36 Yes.

Will Sasso 9:36 So I'm a, I'm, yeah, I'm a, I'm a fricking pinko, uh, socialist. Is that what, uh, where you come from? That's not a nice thing to say.

Lex Fridman 9:44 I, I thought the Soviet Union, that is a nice thing to say. Like comrade-

Will Sasso 9:48 Could call someone a pinko (laughs) socialist.

Lex Fridman 9:50 Right? Comrade.

Will Sasso 9:51 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 9:51 He's a, he is a good, he is a good socialist.

Will Sasso 9:53 Yeah. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 9:54 Wears red.

Will Sasso 9:55 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 9:56 Likes some bold colors. Yeah.

Will Sasso 9:58 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 9:58 There, there was an interesting tension in your voice and the way you talked about it. There's just not a source of happiness for you. You, you, you respect the art form, but it was not something that you were connected to. You, you felt connected to.

Will Sasso 10:09 That's a good way to put it. Yeah. I, I respect the art form, uh, a lot. I, and I grew up with all the albums and stuff. I had an older brother and sister who, so I, you know, we had the, we had George Carlin, we had, uh, you know, Richard Pryor, we had Robert Klein, we had Gilda Live, the Gilda Radner, uh, concert. We had all, we had all sorts of stuff. But, you know, I don't know. There's a lot of, there's a lot of reasons. I, I do feel like a, a career in show business i- is, you know, they, it never goes the way you plan, uh, like most things. And I was fortunate enough to get started outside of my native Vancouver, or in my native Vancouver. I grew up in the burbs outside and there was a lot of industry there. So I was fortunate enough to get started as an actor when I was like 16. So there, there, yeah, there was, there were some times early on where I came up with some standup stuff and did it. But, uh, yeah, I quickly abandoned it. And then, you know, you go through, you do MAD TV and stuff, and then, and that's where my, and this is gonna sound weird. Do I sound as anxietal as I did when I was on Bobby's podcast trying to avoid his questions?

Lex Fridman 11:18 Well, he was giving you this face this whole time that was making the whole just atmosphere feel full of anxiety. So I'm trying not to give you the face. Um, the whole time I'm saying play cool, play cool.

Will Sasso 11:28 Yeah. Okay. Uh-

Lex Fridman 11:30 Play it cool, Lex.

Will Sasso 11:31 (laughs) Play it cool. You said it out loud a couple times.

Lex Fridman 11:33 I did.

Will Sasso 11:33 Just so you know. You cut that out.

Lex Fridman 11:34 Play it cool.

Will Sasso 11:35 Play it cool, dude.

Lex Fridman 11:36 Cut it out. Cut it out.

Will Sasso 11:37 Maintain, bro. Here's what I'll say. There's two ways to do it. I think it's lame when someone who's done one thing for a while goes and starts doing standup outta nowhere 'cause I think it's an art form that's, uh, under attack because it's not like anything else. You need... Although now you can of course, you know, make whatever you want. It's the era of self-publishing as far as making a product and putting it out there, which is getting easier of course, and I can't wait to talk to you about that with, with AI and how it's changing art. Um, but, uh, the, i- in standup, all you need is a, is a microphone and, you know, perhaps, uh, it would be good to have some mental illness and then you can just run up there and, uh, uh, talk forever. And I say this to f- to, you know, comedians, it's like, you guys have to deal with just an...... influx of people who aren't sure why they're doing comedy. I would ask comedians and, like... I mean, not good ones. Good ones, you know what they're doing. But everyone else, like, "What are you doing? Why? Why are you doing standup?" Having said that, I am allergic to money.

Lex Fridman 12:40 Yeah. Do you think they have a good answer for that, why they're doing it? 'Cause I actually, like, when I'm in Austin, I like going to open mics, just listening.

Will Sasso 12:47 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 12:47 It's inspiring to me, both the funny and the unfunny people, because they've been doing it for several years, sometimes over a decade.

Will Sasso 12:56 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 12:56 And they're still at it. They're still right there. They're just going for the punch... And then, especially open mics that are really sad, in that there is, you know, only like five other people in the audience, and they're usually just other comedians. And they're still going all out as if they're in front of a stadium.

Will Sasso 13:14 But that, to me, sounds like someone who loves it.

Lex Fridman 13:16 Yeah.

Will Sasso 13:17 I got no questions for that person. I got questions for someone who goes sideways from, "Here, I'm recognizable doing something, and then I'm doing standup." Because it's like... And truly, look, I, you know, I've been, I've been fortunate enough to be in the business for a long time. And at this point, if I came up... I mean, doing live stuff is fun. I have friends that are like, um, you know, some guys who are primarily sketch people, or you would look at them as sketch people, and they can sell tickets for being sketch people. And they... And we'll talk about it, and they're like, "Well, you know, I do a monologue, and I do a little standup, then I do a song, then I do another monologue, then I play off the audience, do a little standup." Um, but standup is... It's almost like playing music.

Lex Fridman 13:58 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 13:59 In that, you know, people are going up there playing music, but what band have you been listening to? That's what you're gonna sound like. So it's really... I mean, of course, I'm speaking from zero experience, (laughs) but I've heard it takes years, of course, to find your own voice. Standups at... When they first go up, they're, they're doing a, some sort of impersonation of so-and-so-

Lex Fridman 14:19 Right.

Will Sasso 14:19 ... and so-and-so.

Lex Fridman 14:21 Definitely.

Will Sasso 14:21 And you gotta, you gotta pop this audience that's, that's paying, and you're gonna get run over by the next person who's coming up. And, uh, it's hard to follow the last person who, who went up before you. And I've s-... I mean, that is a really hard way to... It's a very... It's quite a gauntlet to be in to find your voice comedically.

Lex Fridman 14:38 But don't you have that same kinda thing with sketch, where you still have to find your own voice-

Will Sasso 14:42 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 14:42 ... with, uh, like all the impressions you do, they're just terrible? You know, they're, (laughs) they're different spins on different people. They're not like perfect-

Will Sasso 14:51 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 14:51 ... impressions, right?

Will Sasso 14:52 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 14:52 So, that's the s-... I mean, that's a similar kind of challenging journey-

Will Sasso 14:56 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 14:56 ... as standup. You're just saying they're kind of distinct, and you fell into this one and you fell in love with it-

Will Sasso 15:02 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 15:02 ... which is like what MAD TV kind of opened you up to.

Will Sasso 15:05 Yeah. As a kid, I literally wanted to be an actor. I always wanted to be an actor from a very young age, as far back as I can remember. And I was the class clown and wanted to do comedy stuff and, uh, comedic acting, and lark-

Lex Fridman 15:17 So, comedic acting?

Will Sasso 15:18 Yeah. Early on, my, my influences were a very predictable list of, uh, guys from, from SCTV, early Saturday Night Live, uh, Monty Python. All of those performers really influenced me. It was later that I saw people like Kevin Kline, who's an incredible actor. I vividly remember being like 12, 13, seeing him get an Academy Award for Fish Called Wanda. And it blew my mind 'cause I was like, "He was hilarious." I mean, it was one of my favorite movies back then, and now. And, uh, he won an Academy Award, and at that point, I, I started thinking more about acting. And then I was, like I said, really fortunate to fall in with, um... I mean, I always wanted to do it, and I was trying to hustle this and that when I was a kid. And then I ended up, uh, getting represented. And then I, I ended up on a teen show. I was on... I, basically, the easiest way to pitch it is it's like a Canadian My So-Called Life-

Lex Fridman 16:17 (laughs)

Will Sasso 16:17 ... with these kids and their lives and stuff. And, uh, I did that for, like, five years, and... I really love acting. I really, truly love acting. And I don't... I'm not someone who wants people to know my opinion. So, that's another thing about standup. Like, I love the illusion of what I get to do in, uh, in, uh, entertainment, and podcasting is great for that. But to stand up there and, and... For, I don't know, just for me, it's like, it would have to all be fantasy. And, um...

Lex Fridman 16:49 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 16:50 So, Nietzsche said that every profound spirit needs a mask. Uh, y-... like you say, you don't like to talk about s-... In your comedy, you don't like to talk about stuff that's personal to you.

Will Sasso 17:02 Yeah, I do not-

Lex Fridman 17:03 Uh, what is that? What... If you were to psychoanalyze yourself-

Will Sasso 17:06 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 17:07 ... do you think it's just not something you find funny or is it s-... are you running from something? Um, and, uh, it's not your fault, Will.

Will Sasso 17:16 (laughs) "It's not your fault, Will." Um-

Lex Fridman 17:18 Speaking of another really great comedic actor who was also a serious actor, Robin Williams.

Will Sasso 17:23 One of the best serious actors. I mean, I mean, I, I... And, you know, one of the funniest people of all time, but as great, as incredible as he was as a funny man, as a, as a standup and a performer, I almost like his, his serious stuff better.

Lex Fridman 17:39 Can I ask you a question about that? What, what do you make of the, that he committed suicide?

Will Sasso 17:43 I think it's... (sighs) I think it's... I mean, it's super depressing. I, I, I've referred to him as, like, the Jesus Christ of, of, uh, depression. It's almost like he died for others' depression. You know what I mean? Like...

Lex Fridman 17:55 (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

Will Sasso 17:56 You'd look at someone-

Lex Fridman 17:57 Yeah.

Will Sasso 17:57 ... like that and go, "Wait a minute, you're a rock star." Like, you don't... You could just check out if you're not liking your life. And of course, something like suicide begs that you look a little deeper and, uh, realize how tortured (laughs) the human mind can, can

Will Sasso 18:12 make someone.

Lex Fridman 18:13 Is there some aspect to s-... You're, you know, we're in LA. Is there some aspect of celebrity that is isolating, that can make you feel really lonely?

Will Sasso 18:21 Not me. I don't feel... No, not really. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 18:24 You feel the love?

Will Sasso 18:25 No, I just feel like I'm not... I mean, it's like...... I don't know, I've always kind of had a small group of friends and those people don't... You know, it's like, I've known the same people for years and years.

Lex Fridman 18:37 You never really felt a celebrity, really?

Will Sasso 18:38 Nah. In L.A. it's hard to, it's hard for people. Nobody cares. They see you and then the next minute they see so-and-so.

Lex Fridman 18:45 Yeah.

Will Sasso 18:45 So, it's like, you know, I'm the guy from that... "Oh, are you that, uh, Mike and Molly, right?" No.

Lex Fridman 18:52 Yeah.

Will Sasso 18:52 No. Close. King of, uh, King... You, you shave your head? You go bald? Are you a king of Queens? Nope. It's not me.

Lex Fridman 18:58 (laughs) .

Will Sasso 18:58 So, close. "You're... Wow, shit."

Lex Fridman 19:01 Uh...

Will Sasso 19:01 "You look, uh, you used to be the Mountain on, uh, Game-"

Lex Fridman 19:04 Yeah, exactly.

Will Sasso 19:04 "... Game of Thrones. You look like shit. What happened?"

Lex Fridman 19:05 (laughs) .

Will Sasso 19:05 "You been just eating fried dough?"

Lex Fridman 19:08 Yeah.

Will Sasso 19:09 Um, yeah. That's what's up. Can't lift any weights anymore. I'm at the gym doing, like, 15 pounds with shoulder press, "Ah!" And people coming up to me, "You used to be a dragon killer, dude."

Lex Fridman 19:20 Half a man you used to be.

Will Sasso 19:22 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 19:23 What's... Have there been low points in your life? Sorry to go there, but...

Will Sasso 19:27 No. Uh, yeah, you know. Eh, you know. Hey. Eh?

Lex Fridman 19:31 Eh?

Will Sasso 19:31 Yeah, eh?

Lex Fridman 19:32 (laughs) .

Will Sasso 19:34 (laughs) Yeah, there's... Everybody has a low point in life. The operative-

Lex Fridman 19:39 Do you suffer from, like, depression, any of those kinds of things?

Will Sasso 19:41 You know what? I do. I do. I have, uh, I have a bunch of stuff. (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 19:45 How do you deal with it? Said friends? The friends and the-

Will Sasso 19:48 They don't do anything for me in that sense.

Lex Fridman 19:51 (laughs) Yeah.

Will Sasso 19:52 I have a, I have an incredible fiance who, uh, that, that's nice to have somebody, uh, uh, constant that you love very much and see as the best person and all that good stuff. Hopefully vice versa. Uh, and then, uh...

Lex Fridman 20:04 Well, on your recent Instagram, she said that she loves you, so...

Will Sasso 20:09 Wow, you were just on-

Lex Fridman 20:09 At least allegedly.

Will Sasso 20:11 Yeah, allegedly. That might all be for... Yeah, that's all-

Lex Fridman 20:13 How much money did you pay her to say that?

Will Sasso 20:15 (laughs) . I don't- I don't have any 'cause I'm not a standup.

Lex Fridman 20:18 (laughs) .

Will Sasso 20:18 I was like, "I can do..." (coughs) You got Venmo?

Lex Fridman 20:20 Yeah, yeah.

Will Sasso 20:21 I got...

Lex Fridman 20:21 You could-

Will Sasso 20:21 I only have like $123.

Lex Fridman 20:23 I'll give you some Dogecoin.

Will Sasso 20:24 You got some Doge? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 20:25 Yeah.

Will Sasso 20:25 You got...

Lex Fridman 20:26 Yeah.

Will Sasso 20:26 You want some Doge?

Lex Fridman 20:27 (laughs) .

Will Sasso 20:27 I got some of those monkey NFTs.

Lex Fridman 20:29 (laughs) .

Will Sasso 20:30 Oh, before I forget.

Lex Fridman 20:31 Yes.

Will Sasso 20:32 Hold on a second.

Lex Fridman 20:33 Oh, no.

Will Sasso 20:35 Gonna put a Dudesy sticker on your microphone, if that's okay.

Lex Fridman 20:38 Sure.

Will Sasso 20:39 Here. Oh, yeah. Now these are tricky 'cause I have the thumbs of a... I have, like, Italian sausage thumbs.

Lex Fridman 20:45 I'm wait, I'm watching this happen.

Will Sasso 20:45 Yeah, just wait.

Lex Fridman 20:46 I'm just gonna...

Will Sasso 20:48 This'll take another...

Lex Fridman 20:49 Yeah. Yeah.

Will Sasso 20:51 Oh, man.

Lex Fridman 20:52 Yeah, ooh, this is embarrassing, when there's...

Will Sasso 20:54 Remember Bubs?

Lex Fridman 20:54 Are you good under pressure?

Will Sasso 20:57 Sure, look at me.

Lex Fridman 20:57 'Cause I, I have anxiety. I have performance anxiety.

Will Sasso 20:59 Do you have anxiety?

Lex Fridman 21:01 Yeah.

Will Sasso 21:01 You have anxiety, period?

Lex Fridman 21:02 Period.

Will Sasso 21:03 Yeah. I, I-

Lex Fridman 21:04 Like, I don't like it when I, if I have to pee and then everyone's waiting in the urinal.

Will Sasso 21:10 That's nice.

Lex Fridman 21:10 Yeah.

Will Sasso 21:10 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 21:10 I don't like it.

Will Sasso 21:11 You know what'll help you in that situation?

Lex Fridman 21:13 What's that?

Will Sasso 21:13 Taking a shit. 'Cause whenever you take a shit, you always pee a little.

Lex Fridman 21:18 It's hard to take a shit while you're standing at a urinal, but...

Will Sasso 21:21 Not in my world.

Lex Fridman 21:22 (laughs) Okay.

Will Sasso 21:23 You just gotta keep yourself full of things that make you shit.

Lex Fridman 21:25 Oh, good.

Will Sasso 21:25 You ever heard of a banana?

Lex Fridman 21:28 I did recently. Somebody told me about it.

Will Sasso 21:29 Yeah. Not the showbiz term. I'm talking about the food.

Lex Fridman 21:33 Oh.

Will Sasso 21:35 There you go (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 21:36 (laughs) . There we go.

Will Sasso 21:37 You just...

Lex Fridman 21:38 Which way is up? It's this way, right?

Will Sasso 21:39 It's, it's like a D. No, to spin it... There you go. There you go.

Lex Fridman 21:42 Ah. All right. Ah, so sexy. You're like a brand.

Will Sasso 21:50 Yeah, it's very important to brand yourself. These colors-

Lex Fridman 21:52 Are you selling shoes?

Will Sasso 21:54 (laughs) Yeah, I got some, uh, custom kicks coming out, the Dudesy, uh... No. Actually, that would be a good idea. You could probably sell a pair or two of those. Speaking of anxiety, I really am only focused on this right now, Lex. I apologize.

Lex Fridman 22:08 Yeah. Just shit your pants. It'll make it easier.

Will Sasso 22:10 (laughs) . Get on with it. Oh, this thing has been dog-eared in my pocket for a while.

Lex Fridman 22:14 I swear this never happens to me. I'm sorry, babe.

Will Sasso 22:17 People don't thumb at a sticker for an hour while they're doing the podcast?

Lex Fridman 22:19 No, this is just an excuse you make when you're with somebody and you're underperforming.

Will Sasso 22:23 Well, here's the thing. As you ask me questions that I don't want to answer, I'll just go to this.

Lex Fridman 22:28 Go, go to the sticker.

Will Sasso 22:29 So if this-

Lex Fridman 22:29 Ah, let me, let me just-

Will Sasso 22:30 ... if this ends up working, then I won't have it as a crutch.

Lex Fridman 22:33 It's funny how you started doing that when we were talking about depression. That's weird.

Will Sasso 22:36 That is weird.

Lex Fridman 22:37 Hmm. Tell me, tell me how that makes you feel.

Will Sasso 22:41 (laughs) Um, here we are. We got it.

Lex Fridman 22:44 (laughs) . For the listener, he succeeded after 10 minutes.

Will Sasso 22:47 Yeah. You know, no, I do have, I do have, uh, some of that stuff. Bobby Lee-

Lex Fridman 22:52 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 22:52 ... uh, who has, had encouraged me on, on wax, as I like to say, to go, to talk about it on podcast, talk about depression, 'cause it could help people.

Lex Fridman 23:03 Yeah.

Will Sasso 23:03 And I said no. But, um, it's true. I do, I do have some. There's, uh, there's some history in the family.

Lex Fridman 23:09 How do you overcome it?

Will Sasso 23:11 Well, I used to not believe in medication at all. I used to think that that was for someone else with, uh, who's been diagnosed with, uh, some of the, um, some of the rougher stuff.

Lex Fridman 23:22 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 23:22 But as I got older, th- then some of the stuff happens and, uh, you know, you have to... And by stuff I mean, uh, you know, mental stuff. And, uh, and yeah, so I went and I, I just, I believe that the stigma needs to be removed completely.

Lex Fridman 23:38 100%.

Will Sasso 23:39 Uh, and so I've, I, you know, I do therapy, I do talk therapy. I, I'm on a little bit of stuff, which, which, let me tell you, when I first started it, I was, um... You know, someone I'm close to was like my manager, and she goes... (laughs) This is too much, but she was like, "Hey, you don't have to white-knuckle it through life." Right? 'Cause I was liter- literally just like everything became, you know, really hard to do at a level that I wanted to do it at.

Lex Fridman 24:08 Yeah.

Will Sasso 24:09 Even just getting through your day, right? Uh, and when I first, um, got some of the, the meds that I was o- that I'm on, it felt like doors and windows were opening literally in my brain. I, I took a, a three-hour nap the first day. And you shouldn't even feel this stuff the first day. I think my brain was like, it was like a sponge. It wanted to... I needed some relief. And I, I'm not a nap guy. I can sleep three hours and I'll be fine. Um-... but I, I took a long nap and then I, it started to, it started to help.

Lex Fridman 24:43 Yeah. Isn't that weird how a little bit of chemistry in your head can, can just make the whole world appear so much more beautiful?

Will Sasso 24:51 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 24:52 Yeah.

Will Sasso 24:52 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 24:53 Yeah.

Will Sasso 24:53 I mean, uh, after, after all there, uh, you know, there's a lot going on in your brain (laughs) that can be changed by, you know, your lifestyle, but also so many physical things like a little bit of meds or in Bobby's case, uh, you know, thumbing around on some dumb farming app.

Lex Fridman 25:09 Well, Bobby's gone through a few rough periods-

Will Sasso 25:12 Oh, yeah.

Lex Fridman 25:12 ... with like, uh, uh, you know, with drugs and alcohol and all that kind of stuff, so.

Will Sasso 25:16 Totally.

Lex Fridman 25:16 And, um, just everything else involved. I mean, that's the beautiful rollercoaster of who he is. And a lot of great comedians seem to be that way.

Will Sasso 25:23 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 25:23 So I wonder what the connection there is. You th- you think some level of crazy is required for comedy?

Will Sasso 25:29 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 25:29 Or like-

Will Sasso 25:30 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 25:30 ... at some point. (laughs)

Will Sasso 25:31 Yes.

Lex Fridman 25:32 On, on a scale of one to 10, h- how much crazy do you have?

Will Sasso 25:36 Uh, in some ways, w- uh, a 10. Uh, and in other ways that I think, uh, in other ways sort of functionally I'm like a two or a three 'cause, uh, I don't know.

Lex Fridman 25:48 Oh, see-

Will Sasso 25:48 I'm f- I'm from Canada and I'm-

Lex Fridman 25:50 Yeah.

Will Sasso 25:50 ... I, I, you know, I try to just keep things very even keeled. My parents are Italian, they're from Italy and, uh, you know, they're very, they grew up during World War II and they're very, you know, uh, simple outlook on things. They're complex, incredible, classy people who are very simple when it comes to a lot of stuff. And, uh, and, uh, I, I think just being a sort of a, at heart kind of a timid Canadian coming out here years ago as a kid, uh, it was, uh, all I could do to just keep everything super normal. And then I sorta was able to settle into that as a lifestyle.

Lex Fridman 26:33 But you loved the idea of being a- an actor. Like who, um, you mentioned John Candy in, uh, Planes, Trains-

Will Sasso 26:40 Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

Lex Fridman 26:42 ... and Automobiles. Yeah.

Will Sasso 26:42 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 26:42 It's one of my favorite movies.

Will Sasso 26:43 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 26:43 You said it's one of yours. W- what do you think that makes that movie work? What, what do you, what, um, and when you, when you talk about enjoying that movie, do you enjoy just the raw comedy or do you enjoy, like, the friendship and, uh, and the love that's there even though on the surface it doesn't make any sense that there should be a friendship there?

Will Sasso 27:05 I mean, that's such an important element to that film. But, uh, you know, as a kid I just loved the comedy.

Lex Fridman 27:11 Yeah.

Will Sasso 27:11 And then I, it's been a nostalgic favorite of mine, like, it's my favorite movie. Uh, but it's also, uh, it's just legit my favorite movie because as you get older and you start watching it, you realize it's what, it's what John Hughes as the filmmaker and what John Candy particularly and, but also Steve Martin are doing in the film that makes it such a work of art, which is loneliness is there in every moment of that film. And John Candy is n- n- he embodies Del Griffith, his character in the film. He, he, Del Griffith is a lonely guy. And John Candy... But, but Del Griffith is also a very friendly guy and a, and a shower curtain ring salesman and-

Lex Fridman 27:54 (laughs)

Will Sasso 27:54 ... knows everybody in the Midwest and runs around to motels and has meaningful conversations-

Lex Fridman 27:59 Yeah.

Will Sasso 27:59 ... with the, uh, "Evening, Gus." You know, whoever-

Lex Fridman 28:01 Yeah.

Will Sasso 28:01 ... he's talking to. Um, uh, but there's loneliness there all the time. And, uh, you know, this is a character, the, these, the film is filled with loneliness and it's not until, you know, the second last scene when he's at the train station, you know, "Del, what are you doing here? You thought, I thought you were going home. What are you doing here?" Um, that's a very good Neil, Neil Page from the movie. Thank you. Uh, it, that's when you realize how lonely he is.

Lex Fridman 28:30 We'll add applause in post, yeah.

Will Sasso 28:31 (laughs) Cheers. That's when you realize how lonely he is. And I think that's the element from the film that... I mean, look, you know, nowadays I, I feel like, and I've been saying this for a long time, but John Candy would have won an Academy Award hands down for that film. It's just they didn't do that with comedies back then-

Lex Fridman 28:48 (exhales) Yeah.

Will Sasso 28:48 ... until the year after that movie came out with A Fish Called Wanda.

Lex Fridman 28:51 Yeah. And then it's, I mean, still comedies don't get respected enough.

Will Sasso 28:55 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 28:55 Robin Williams he got, I guess he got an Oscar for-

Will Sasso 28:59 Good Will Hunting.

Lex Fridman 28:59 ... Good, Good Will Hunting. Um, Jim Carrey, did he ever get an Oscar?

Will Sasso 29:04 I don't know. I don't believe so, no.

Lex Fridman 29:06 Yeah, they don't get... You don't... Well, but that's not even, if you did, it wouldn't be for comedies. It just, I mean, there's some things that are, um... Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, would you even put that as a com- I guess it's a comedy.

Will Sasso 29:21 Yeah. I mean it-

Lex Fridman 29:21 But there's a, there is a loneliness and depth that permeates the whole movie.

Will Sasso 29:25 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 29:26 That ultimately, and it's a happy ending which is hard to kinda.

Will Sasso 29:30 It's a happy ending only because in the last moment of the movie John Candy puts on a brave face even when he's got no one.

Lex Fridman 29:43 No one.

Will Sasso 29:43 And he's there seeing Neil Page's entire family on Thanksgiving and he forces a smile which is the last, literally the last frame of the movie. And I've said before if you're not reduced to just a sob, sobbing pile of meat, uh, at the end of the movie then you are not human. Um-

Lex Fridman 30:01 Yeah.

Will Sasso 30:01 ... yeah, it's, it's, it, it is a happy ending. It's a happy ending even though it's just, it's a sad-

Lex Fridman 30:07 (sighs) So much-

Will Sasso 30:08 ... sad character.

Lex Fridman 30:09 ... loneliness in the world. I was just in Vegas. I went to a diner at like 4:00 AM, 5:00 AM, and there's the waitress is empty. And it was a waitress that was the sweetest, kindest human being. Kept calling me sweetheart and all that kind of stuff. Hon. And then a- uh, it, af- after I ate she sat down and just talked to me a little bit, you know, 'cause there was nobody, nobody there and it was just this, so much sadness in her eyes. I don't know, but it's also so much love. Like that sweetheart, that it, I mean, it reminded me kind of, um...... of a- of the John Candy performance because, at first, because I was like, uh, reading a pretty dark, uh, (laughs) uh, book about Hitler, uh, so I, I was a little bit frustrated that sh- she kept talking to me 'cause it was like, uh, it was, it was almost like, uh... The same way that John Candy is, it's annoying a little bit, right? But then very quickly, I opened up to like, oh, this is, there's a kind human being and there's like, that human connection superseded everything else. And I don't know, it was just beautiful. And I think John Candy captures that really well, which is like, the connection with other human beings, sometimes we pull away from that because we're, have a busy life full of stuff to do, uh, as, um, Steve Martin's character kind of characterize, he's like a marketing exec or something like that. But if you just pause and notice others, you can, you can really discover beautiful people.

Will Sasso 31:39 Totally, totally. Everyone's got, well, I mean, everyone's got their, their story. And, you know, Candy is a person, I've never met the man, uh, but, um, he's the kinda guy that, you know, he could, he could just walk up to, back in the day I would imagine he could walk up to just about any house, at least in Canada, knock on the door and you'd invite him in for dinner. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 32:03 Yeah.

Will Sasso 32:03 You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's a, it's a bi- that, you know, as you're talking about, you know, putting a book down and talking to someone for a while even though you'd really like to-

Lex Fridman 32:13 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 32:14 ... read your book. It's, it's like, it's that sort of thing that Candy's character in the movie sorta does that, like Johnny Appleseed. Just, you realize he's just going around making people smile.

Lex Fridman 32:25 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 32:26 You know? And, and Neal Page is hanging with this guy.

Lex Fridman 32:29 Yeah.

Will Sasso 32:29 So frustrated, he's just a, he's so exhausting and his big underwear in the sink at the hotel.

Lex Fridman 32:35 Yeah.

Will Sasso 32:35 And everything, and by the end of it, he loves this guy.

Lex Fridman 32:38 Yeah.

Will Sasso 32:38 You know? So, uh, it's a good and a bad thing that you, uh, haven't, didn't, uh, take that waitress with you on a trip, maybe road trip up to Reno.

Lex Fridman 32:47 Oh, oh, she's, she's actually, she's out shopping right now. We're-

Will Sasso 32:50 She's shopping. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 32:51 We- we- we've been having, uh, sex multiple times a day-

Will Sasso 32:53 Okay.

Lex Fridman 32:53 ... ever since. Uh-

Will Sasso 32:54 Oh, that's nice. That's lovely. How cute.

Lex Fridman 32:55 No, I think sh- I'm, I'm sure she's married and, and happily and has many grandchildren. Okay. Uh, and, and plus that movie's on Thanksgiving I think, right? Or Christmas.

Will Sasso 33:06 Yeah, that's right.

Lex Fridman 33:06 Thanksgiving. So like, Thanksgiving just embodies that, forget about the, the busyness and the whatever the career you're chasing in life and just take a pause and appreciate the people you love most.

Will Sasso 33:18 Just be with your family, yeah.

Lex Fridman 33:19 Yeah.

Will Sasso 33:19 Or peop- the peop- well, whatever your family looks like.

Lex Fridman 33:21 Or friends,

Lex Fridman 33:22 yeah. Uh, you have some weird friends, unorthodox friends. So, so at least in the public sphere.

Will Sasso 33:29 Oh, yeah.

Lex Fridman 33:30 Uh, from Bobby Lee, Brian Callhan, all those kinds of folks from the MADtv days, I'm sure there's others. What does it mean to be a good friend?

Will Sasso 33:38 Here in LA? Or just in general?

Lex Fridman 33:40 In the world. In the world.

Will Sasso 33:42 In the world. Will Sasso-

Lex Fridman 33:42 Is LA somehow different?

Will Sasso 33:44 ... world friend. I think it is different here. I think it is. I think people are-

Lex Fridman 33:46 I think there's a little bit of a career kind of, uh, negotiation shuffling around, that kinda stuff. Why is it different?

Will Sasso 33:52 Not... Well, I, I just mean, I mean, I mean that it's just kinda hard here to, to make time-

Lex Fridman 34:01 Oh.

Will Sasso 34:01 ... for everybody. There's so, there's, it's always been a city to me that is like, will keep you so busy. And every time I go home to Vancouver, after a few days I start to get a little stir crazy. And I think that being here in, in LA, I go to sleep with 100 things that I still have to do. And you never, you're never out of stuff to do. And if you, um, you know, when you ask about are you nuts or whatever, if you're crazy, I mean, look, every, all the weirdest people from every high school in the United States is like, "Oh, I'm gonna make it in LA," you know? Everyone just comes here. And, uh, "Just another freak in the freak kingdom," as they say at the end of, uh, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Lex Fridman 34:41 (laughs)

Will Sasso 34:41 That was a very good Robin Williams impersonation. That was my-

Lex Fridman 34:44 Yeah.

Will Sasso 34:44 ... Robin Williams as Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson.

Lex Fridman 34:47 Yeah.

Will Sasso 34:47 "It's not your fault, Will."

Lex Fridman 34:49 Good. It's pretty good.

Will Sasso 34:50 Thank you.

Lex Fridman 34:50 Could have been you, Fear and Loathing. Would that be interesting?

Will Sasso 34:52 In Fear and Loathing?

Lex Fridman 34:53 Yeah, it'd be interesting.

Will Sasso 34:54 I would have liked to play his attorney, the, the role that, um, that-

Lex Fridman 34:58 Oh, yeah.

Will Sasso 34:58 ... Benicio del Toro gained weight for.

Lex Fridman 35:00 Yeah. Yeah.

Will Sasso 35:00 That would have been cool. He's just say- he's just, "One stroke over the line."

Lex Fridman 35:04 Yeah.

Will Sasso 35:04 Like, uh, chewing his face off. I could have done that. Um. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 35:09 (laughs) Yeah.

Will Sasso 35:09 Uh, yeah, no, I think that it's-

Lex Fridman 35:11 Backdoor Beauty. That guy's full of good lines.

Will Sasso 35:14 Yeah, ƒ, f it be for real.

Lex Fridman 35:17 Yeah.

Will Sasso 35:17 Um-

Lex Fridman 35:18 He's a good actor.

Will Sasso 35:18 He's, yeah, fantastic actor. I think, I think what it takes to be a good friend is just, you know, presence. Just being there. I mean, that's all anyone needs, to be heard, right?

Lex Fridman 35:28 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 35:29 Um, in LA it is, it is interesting. It is, you, you, I haven't seen people that I love in years. Some people, you know?

Lex Fridman 35:37 Just busy.

Will Sasso 35:38 Yeah, just busy.

Lex Fridman 35:38 Can you still have a depth of connection even though, like, one of the reasons I really enjoy doing a podcast, you get to sit down with, with actual f- friends of yours and spend prolonged periods of time together that you don't otherwise.

Will Sasso 35:53 That's a good point.

Lex Fridman 35:53 You know, I'd, I've spoken on this podcast to people really close to me, and it's like, you've, you've never had a conversation without microphones like you do with microphones. It's weird. But-

Will Sasso 36:02 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 36:03 ... uh, there's some aspect about, uh, LA that, you know, a lot of the, especially friends of yours, comedians and so on, they'll do podcasts and stuff. And there's a, I don't know, there's an intimacy to that.

Will Sasso 36:13 Yeah, there, yeah, there is and there isn't. The ones that I do, I mean, I just did, uh, Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino's podcast.

Lex Fridman 36:20 Funny enough called Bad Friends.

Will Sasso 36:22 Bad Friends. And afterwards, and my good pal Chad Kultgen with whom I do Dudesy, uh, was with me.

Lex Fridman 36:30 Sneakers are coming soon.

Will Sasso 36:31 Sneakers are coming soon. You get your Will foot and your Chad foot, comes in a size 15 and a 9.5. Um, and, uh, I remember afterwards we were talking, it was just basically me, Chad and Santino were talking and Bobby was over there, you know, on his phone and (laughs) -... and then I was like, "We, I mean, we didn't spend any time talking about anything." It feels like one of those hours that goes by and you realize, "I've just been goofing around with these guys," which is fine.

Lex Fridman 36:58 But that's what life is about, right? A little bit.

Will Sasso 37:00 It's fine. It's great. And then I'm like, "All right, Bobby. Hey, Bob, I'll see you later." And he's like, like this. (laughs) I'm like, "All right, man. Hey, love you bro. See you later."

Lex Fridman 37:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Will Sasso 37:10 He's a guy, do you ever just, I just send text messages over there to him that never come back.

Lex Fridman 37:17 Yeah. That's awful.

Will Sasso 37:17 And then he thinks that I'm angry with him because it's been, you know, it'll go two, three years without him getting back to me. And then just outta nowhere, "Hey, fuck face." And, uh-

Lex Fridman 37:27 Who says, "Hey, fuck face?" He does or you do?

Will Sasso 37:29 Yeah, he does.

Lex Fridman 37:29 Or you both talk to each other?

Will Sasso 37:30 No, I gotta be very, I gotta be very careful with Bobby.

Lex Fridman 37:33 Mad.

Will Sasso 37:33 Yeah, I gotta be very sweet.

Lex Fridman 37:35 "Dear friend."

Will Sasso 37:36 "Dear friend, hello."

Lex Fridman 37:37 "How are you doing?"

Will Sasso 37:38 "How are you? I know I checked in with you but, uh, not but three months ago." Uh, and then every once in a while he'll go, "Hey, fuck face."

Lex Fridman 37:45 I tend to hide from the world, and I, I'm, I'm, I can be pretty shitty with friends texting back.

Will Sasso 37:50 Yeah?

Lex Fridman 37:51 Yeah. I, I, I can empathize with, with Bobby. Mi- it might be a Skyrim thing.

Will Sasso 37:55 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 37:56 It might be, like, hiding in a world-

Will Sasso 37:58 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 37:58 ... in a digital world with fake, fake NPCs.

Will Sasso 38:01 Yeah, yeah. There's that.

Lex Fridman 38:03 Yeah.

Will Sasso 38:03 Uh, yeah, you know, I have a buddy who said something really smart, uh, a while ago. We ended up working together on this, uh, TV show thing, and I reached out to him to see if he wanted to do it with us. And, uh, he did, and he goes, and this is a great guy, such a funny writer. He goes, "I may not be in touch all the time, but I know who my friends are."

Lex Fridman 38:25 Yeah.

Will Sasso 38:25 You know what I mean? And it's like, in our business, and this is a fellow who moved, um, who's from Ontario, Canada, moved back there. He's on a farm with his wife and kids, and he does not care. He's never been a Hollywood guy. And, uh, it's tough to get a hold of him. But when you do, you know, he's still the same sweet old guy. He's doing his thing, though.

Lex Fridman 38:46 Yeah, yeah. Some of my closest friends, even if we don't talk for a few months-

Will Sasso 38:50 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 38:50 ... we're right back at it if we do. And then if shit goes, like, if something really traumatic happens or difficult stuff or, you know, any of that kinda stuff, I'm, I'm always there. So like, so for important stuff.

Will Sasso 39:01 Sure.

Lex Fridman 39:01 For imp- important highs and important lows, you're there.

Will Sasso 39:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman 39:04 And then you pick right back up, especially if you've had those years of experiences together. It's interesting.

Will Sasso 39:09 Totally.

Lex Fridman 39:10 Uh, so you've done a couple podcasts.

Will Sasso 39:13 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 39:13 Do- Done, so w- we gotta talk about Dudesy a little bit. But first, you did for several years, you did the 10-minute podcast.

Will Sasso 39:20 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 39:21 (laughs) I mean, everything is hilarious about that podcast, including the fact that it's 10 minutes.

Will Sasso 39:26 (laughs) Right.

Lex Fridman 39:27 I mean, every- every- it's ridiculous, it's absurd. The dynamic is hilarious. It's you, Bryan Callen, Chris D'Elia. There, I, I don't, I don't know exactly why it's, why it works so well, but it did, it worked really well. I think it's because the, yeah, you were having fun probably. I mean, that's, that would really came through, uh, that it was friends just talking shit, and the tension, the beautiful tension, and the absurdity that came out.

Will Sasso 39:53 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 39:53 Uh, what-

Will Sasso 39:54 Sure.

Lex Fridman 39:54 (laughs)

Will Sasso 39:55 (sniffs)

Lex Fridman 39:55 What, what was the story of making that podcast? What, how did that came to be? Uh, why do you think it was as good as it was?

Will Sasso 40:02 I don't know. I feel like that podcast was like, it was our, our, who we kind of are but on steroids or something?

Lex Fridman 40:12 Yeah, yeah.

Will Sasso 40:12 Like, you know, uh, each person, you know, Bryan's gonna be like extra manly and, and, uh-

Lex Fridman 40:19 Can you get any more manly than he already is?

Will Sasso 40:21 No, yeah. No, it's-

Lex Fridman 40:21 It's very difficult to imagine.

Will Sasso 40:22 ... he reaches though. Uh, and yeah, we just kinda, it's, I- I feel like as goofballs, we knew each other's line.

Lex Fridman 40:30 Yeah.

Will Sasso 40:31 Like, here's the line you don't cross. I feel like those guys don't really have one.

Lex Fridman 40:35 Yeah.

Will Sasso 40:35 Uh, but at least they knew mine. Um, and, and yeah, we were able to just-

Lex Fridman 40:40 Yeah.

Will Sasso 40:41 ... goof around. And I did it with them for three years. And then Chad, who I'm doing Dudesy with, and my pal Tommy Blaccio, who's a, another writer/producer like Chad, they came on. And yeah, all, all told, we did, I did like, uh, seven years of that thing? Six, five, six, seven? I don't remember.

Lex Fridman 41:02 Do you think it ever comes back in some s- small form, as, as a 20-minute podcast or something like that?

Will Sasso 41:08 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 41:09 I mean, is there, uh, 'cause it's one of the most requested. I mean, there's, you, you have a huge fan base.

Will Sasso 41:15 I'm 47 years old. So I am of the generation that had a cellphone, has had a cellphone half the time, and didn't for the formative years of my life into my early 20s. Um, and then finally got a, like I got a cellphone, I guess I was like 19 or something.

Lex Fridman 41:33 ... when you were here.

Will Sasso 41:33 Like literally just 'cause I'm moving to LA.

Lex Fridman 41:35 You got porn in the mail.

Will Sasso 41:36 You got, yes, that's right. It was that, the hard, the hardcover porn.

Lex Fridman 41:40 Yeah.

Will Sasso 41:40 That's the way we liked it. Bo- bound, you know-

Lex Fridman 41:43 Yeah.

Will Sasso 41:43 ... nice binding on the, on the porn, uh, leather, uh, cover.

Lex Fridman 41:46 Next to the Bible, yeah.

Will Sasso 41:48 Yep. Um, these are all my, these are my...

Lex Fridman 41:51 (laughs)

Will Sasso 41:51 ... Encyclopedia Britannica. Wow, very impressive. Yes, a man came to the house and sold me these. And then down here, these are my, this is my pornography. Uh, if you'll follow me through here to the par- parlor room.

Lex Fridman 42:03 (laughs) Yeah.

Will Sasso 42:03 Uh, sir, and-

Lex Fridman 42:04 It's passed through the generations from grandfather to father.

Will Sasso 42:07 Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman 42:08 Yeah.

Will Sasso 42:08 I wanna give you something very special to me, Nebuchadnezzar. Um, but, uh (laughs) , uh-

Lex Fridman 42:14 So you grew up in a generation without a cellphone?

Will Sasso 42:15 Yes, I, um, it's hard for me to connect with people who, who hit me up. I look at everything as polling. So if one person hits me up and shares this opinion, but two other people hit me up and share that, I'm the worst, I'm, don't follow my polls. My, when people say, "Oh, that poll means absolutely nothing, so-and-so's gonna win anyway," that, that's my poll. My poll means nothing. But I do look at the stuff and go, uh, this many people are saying this. That means that that number is saying that. And yet, it's very hard for me to, uh, hear what the hell people are saying online.

Lex Fridman 42:53 Yeah.

Will Sasso 42:53 I really, I can't connect to it sometimes personally. So when you say that that's a popular podcast, like, I know th- I know that it's popular with the people that have expressed that they love it.

Lex Fridman 43:04 Yeah.

Will Sasso 43:04 You know what I mean?

Lex Fridman 43:05 But what does that actually represent?

Will Sasso 43:07 ... I don't know. I don't know what kind of-

Lex Fridman 43:08 Yeah, I don't know either.

Will Sasso 43:08 ... people are the audience. I don't know. I know that the, the people that listen to the 10-minute podcast, and if you did, thank you, uh, and we are friends. Uh, I know that it was a, it was a special thing 'cause it was like, "Yeah, just doing this outta my house," and we just built it up outta nowhere and we're just kinda clowning around. It's a, it's an odd thing.

Lex Fridman 43:27 I hope, I, I pers-, I think I s- I, I speak for the two people that have reached out to you that said you should do it or whatever, three people, the poll-

Will Sasso 43:36 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 43:36 ... that, uh, you should bring it back at some point. That would be beautiful.

Will Sasso 43:39 Oh, my God.

Lex Fridman 43:39 Just maybe, uh, it's like a... What's a, what's a good story of some, of like a famous band that came back and was successful? Probably, well-

Will Sasso 43:47 Nirvana? No.

Lex Fridman 43:49 (laughs)

Will Sasso 43:49 It was not. It wasn't Nirvana. Sorry, I got Nirvana mixed up with Aerosmith.

Lex Fridman 43:54 Yeah.

Will Sasso 43:54 It was Aerosmith.

Lex Fridman 43:55 It was Aerosmith. (laughs)

Will Sasso 43:56 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 43:56 It was not Ni-

Will Sasso 43:56 Yeah, they had that second ride.

Lex Fridman 43:58 Nirvana different, different. Yeah, different.

Will Sasso 43:59 Totally different ending to those two bands.

Lex Fridman 44:01 Uh.

Will Sasso 44:01 One ended up on, uh, American Idol.

Lex Fridman 44:04 Yeah. Um, a lot of interesting women involved in that one too.

Lex Fridman 44:09 All right. Uh, how did Dudesy come to be?

Will Sasso 44:12 Dudesy?

Lex Fridman 44:13 And what the hell is Dudesy?

Will Sasso 44:14 Dudesy is the first podcast, and this is exciting that you've asked me to come here today, uh, because to hear what you would have to say about it or what you would ask about it. It is the first podcast that has been, that is run completely by and essentially, I like to say, curated by an AI. Um, we were approached by a company that had this proprietary AI that wants to develop the podcast into the future and figure out exactly what it takes to make the best podcast ever. And it was, all we, all we, we knew from the top and what they really wanted was two people who were actually friends and could be meaningful in the podcast space based on whatever information they had.

Lex Fridman 44:57 Is the company CIA and are they testing technology to control the populous through chatbots?

Will Sasso 45:03 I'm sorry. I'm not at liberty to share that information.

Lex Fridman 45:05 You are, yeah, who gave you the suit?

Will Sasso 45:08 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 45:08 Where did you get the suit? Where did you get the suit, Will?

Will Sasso 45:11 Yeah. Well, the C-

Lex Fridman 45:11 JC Penney?

Will Sasso 45:12 CIA stands for something different in here.

Lex Fridman 45:14 Okay.

Will Sasso 45:14 I mean, you know, it doesn't mean like, you know-

Lex Fridman 45:16 All right.

Will Sasso 45:16 ... Central Intelligence Agency.

Lex Fridman 45:17 Okay.

Will Sasso 45:17 And probably it's just-

Lex Fridman 45:18 It's a different, it's a-

Will Sasso 45:19 Yeah, it's a-

Lex Fridman 45:20 ... Canadian, uh, information-

Will Sasso 45:22 Canadian International Apparel.

Lex Fridman 45:24 Yeah.

Will Sasso 45:24 Yeah, the Canadian International Apparel company hit us up.

Lex Fridman 45:27 Yeah.

Will Sasso 45:27 Chad and I. Um, well Chad's a super weirdo.

Lex Fridman 45:31 Yeah.

Will Sasso 45:31 You would get a kick outta him, I know. You guys, you, you, you strike me as very similar in some ways. And-

Lex Fridman 45:36 I'll take that as a compliment by the way.

Will Sasso 45:37 It is, and it is.

Lex Fridman 45:39 (laughs)

Will Sasso 45:39 Uh, and it is.

Lex Fridman 45:40 Yes.

Will Sasso 45:40 And if I was friends with you for as long as I've been with Chad, perhaps I'd have some horrible shit to say about you. But-

Lex Fridman 45:45 Yeah.

Will Sasso 45:46 ... uh, the good parts, you remind me of him.

Lex Fridman 45:48 Yeah.

Will Sasso 45:48 And we were approached by this company that said, "We have this AI and we would like to set it loose on you." And essentially, we had to hand over some, some information that would allow the AI to, to access our email and, uh, look at our search histories, purchase histories, things like this. And, um, really dig into-

Lex Fridman 46:11 Pornhub included or no?

Will Sasso 46:12 Porn, p- (laughs) yeah. I had to hand over all my leather-bound-

Lex Fridman 46:15 Yeah.

Will Sasso 46:15 ... uh, 1970s pornography. Um, and, uh, essentially it curates a podcast for us every week, doing dumb things like, you know, it says, "Hey Will, you know, you do a Hulk Ho- you do some shitty Hulk Hogan impersonation." Podcasts about news are very popular. This is infomania. You know what I mean? It's, "Oh, let me tell you something about that Marjorie Taylor Greene dude," and then he's going on doing some news stuff. Um, and it basically just spits out all these things that it wants us to do. Normally four segments an episode.

Lex Fridman 46:45 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 46:45 And that's pretty much it. It-

Lex Fridman 46:47 So it generates-

Will Sasso 46:47 ... just tells us what to do.

Lex Fridman 46:48 It generates the premise. I mean, you've spoken a, a bit here and there. Like I said, I'm a huge fan. I don't even remember where. But like you, you, you talked about that you enjoy Dudesy because you feel almost like liberated to, um, because y- you're operating within the constraints of the premise it generates. So you're almost not... You're, you're f- you're free to riff essentially.

Will Sasso 47:14 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 47:14 Like you don't have the, you don't need to do the job of like coming up with the weird. You can just, the weird is given to you and then you just run with it.

Will Sasso 47:23 That's a good way to say it. Because we're already weird, Chad and I. Chad, Chad can talk for days about all sorts of stuff. He's particularly interested in AI lately and its effect on art. He is a, a writer, books, movies, and TV shows, and, um, I'm primarily, you know, acting and trying to come up with stuff. Stuff I write with Chad's pretty good. The rest of it hasn't seen much success. Anyway, uh, nor has the stuff with Chad for that matter. But, um...

Lex Fridman 47:48 (laughs)

Will Sasso 47:48 (laughs) That's 'cause of me.

Lex Fridman 47:49 Sneakers, you never know.

Will Sasso 47:50 Oh, I can't, oh, I can't wait for these sneakers.

Lex Fridman 47:52 Mm-hmm. Only in two sizes.

Will Sasso 47:54 Yeah, only in two sizes. You're gonna be able to take the, the, you know, the tongue, you can't take it out 'cause it's actually stitched in.

Lex Fridman 48:00 Yeah.

Will Sasso 48:00 It's pretty cool stuff. Um, no, the-

Lex Fridman 48:03 Velcro?

Will Sasso 48:04 What?

Lex Fridman 48:04 Velcro or, uh-

Will Sasso 48:05 Yeah, Velcro. Velcro up the side. We're doing some like brand new-

Lex Fridman 48:10 Interesting.

Will Sasso 48:10 ... Kanye stuff. Yeah. We want things to look like this is what you'll be wearing on Mars when you get there.

Lex Fridman 48:15 Yeah. So cutting edge. So Nike's doing a bunch of research for running, how to make a super light shoe that you can be efficient in and break all kinds of running records.

Will Sasso 48:23 Oh.

Lex Fridman 48:23 So you're doing the same kinda stuff.

Will Sasso 48:24 We're doing the same kinda thing for the podcasting space. The best kinda shoes to sit around and talk to your pal-

Lex Fridman 48:28 Hmm.

Will Sasso 48:29 ... in. Um, but yeah, we, so this, yeah, it's bizarre. And it also does some writing. Dudesy does come up with things, but not unlike what we're seeing in AI art now. It's a little bit foggy, it's a little bit weird, and it, but it is improving. It is learning about us and writing stuff when it makes me spit this and that, which we'll read. You know, l- you know, I've prepared these things for you to read. (laughs) It's impossible not to get a kick out of it 'cause Chad and I are, first of all, we're blown away that we're doing this.

Lex Fridman 49:01 Yeah.

Will Sasso 49:01 And second of all, the, some of the stuff is actually very funny. It makes weird names. Like I don't think it understands.... that, it- it messes up some words and stuff-

Lex Fridman 49:11 Uh-huh.

Will Sasso 49:11 ... but that makes it even funnier. And then it- it sort of, from the beginning, started laying on, like, it says "astonishing" all the time, "Everything is astonishing."

Lex Fridman 49:21 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 49:21 Um, that's Dudesey's favorite word. Um, but yeah, it's basically just a way to- to frame the podcast, you know what I mean? Because my thing is, uh, I don't want to do this, where I actually have to talk to someone.

Lex Fridman 49:36 You seem to feel a burden of the long form conversation. It seems like... Is that really hard work for you?

Will Sasso 49:45 No, not at all. It's just that I don't like to bore people.

Lex Fridman 49:47 Ah.

Will Sasso 49:47 And I feel like if I go on and... I like to provide value-

Lex Fridman 49:51 Yeah.

Will Sasso 49:51 ... for who, for what I am. You know, your value, uh, with regard to this project is- is obviously warranted, it- it's obviously-

Lex Fridman 50:01 I'm waiting for the explanation for what the value is exactly. (laughs)

Will Sasso 50:04 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 50:04 Two dudes in a suit?

Will Sasso 50:05 No, listen. Yeah, two dudes in a suit. No, but I mean, you've got your audience and that's the end of that. People find value in it. For me, I- I do feel like I'm, uh... It is important that I, if I'm gonna do something that, uh, you know, is gonna be funny or that I hope is funny, I just kinda wanna get in and out of someone's day and just kinda... I like making, I like making laughy. I want people to, you know, whatever. It's the same thing that anyone else will tell you from my perspective.

Lex Fridman 50:38 Yeah, but in the long form you feel the anxiety. You did a few funny things and I wonder if I can keep doing the funny thing? Is that why you- you're, you feel the... Like, why is Dudesey relieving you of some of the anxiety?

Will Sasso 50:52 Well, in some ways it gives me anxiety because I don't know what's coming.

Lex Fridman 50:56 Ah.

Will Sasso 50:56 And that's weird for me because I like to prepare, uh, for things. But it's... That's not what podcasting is. Podcasting you need to just be malleable and say whatever and do whatever. Um, and, uh, that's what makes it a- a real... I mean, it's... Look, it's a medium for conversation and if you're driving along listening to this or anything else, you're, you know, it is that... It's the- it's the true meaning of the parasocial relationship because the best podcasts just make you feel like you're sitting around rapping or just having a conversation.

Lex Fridman 51:30 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 51:30 You could even be sitting there agreeing or talking out loud to yourself if you want.

Lex Fridman 51:34 I could just be sitting in silence.

Will Sasso 51:35 Or you could just be sitting in silence in your fancy, uh, podcasting shoes. Podcasting audience shoes. It's a very different build-

Lex Fridman 51:42 Mm-hmm. Dudesey?

Will Sasso 51:43 ... than running shoes. Yeah, Dudesey.

Lex Fridman 51:43 Would they be also called Dudesey, the shoes?

Will Sasso 51:46 Yeah, they'll be D- Duesey shoes. Um-

Lex Fridman 51:47 Dudesey shoes, that's very creative.

Will Sasso 51:49 Yeah. (laughs) Well, one thing the AI isn't good at yet is branding. Everything is just Dudesey this and that.

Lex Fridman 51:55 I would argue that's pretty good branding. I don't know.

Will Sasso 51:58 Yeah, well, Dudesey allows me to just... It forces me to sit down with Chad and goof around for an hour or an hour plus and- and, uh, it provides the parameters that I, a lot of times ignore because I'm... I think that podcasting is just two dudes shitting around, or three or four.

Lex Fridman 52:18 Yeah.

Will Sasso 52:18 But, um, it- it- it g- it sits me down and gives me a premise to- to work with creatively.

Lex Fridman 52:25 And then you just riff with it.

Will Sasso 52:26 Yeah. It's fun. It's

Will Sasso 52:28 been a hoot.

Lex Fridman 52:29 (sighs) So from the acting perspective, um, you know, a lot of people like Daniel Day-Lewis will- will see acting just like as you described, which is you have your roles, you embrace those roles and then you disappear. You don't, um, you don't- you don't do podcasts, you don't do any of that kind of stuff. Your art is your art. So is that- does that part of you feels that way?

Will Sasso 52:51 I think so.

Lex Fridman 52:53 Is that the actor side of you?

Will Sasso 52:54 Yeah. Any time I get to do something that I don't get a chance to do much of or something that people haven't seen me do much of or that I've done on some scale that isn't- hasn't been very wide and not a lot of people have seen it, that's the stuff that I get really excited about. Um, I don't know why I'm... I don't know wha- I don't know why necessarily (laughs) . I haven't answered that question yet in my life, like, what it is about being an actor that I love so much because it's not like I don't like to... It's not like I'm trying to get away from myself and play other characters and stuff and not be myself. Um, but it is, it has always been fun to- to just be other people and escape.

Lex Fridman 53:37 Yeah, is there some aspect to The Impressions where you become that person? Is that, like... What- what- what's that like to, um... I- I suppose acting is a full-on version of that, you really, at its best, become the character. Is there some fun in that?

Will Sasso 53:55 Yeah, absolutely. If you can play a character for long enough, um, and then jump out of it, uh, that's a lot of fun.

Lex Fridman 54:05 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 54:05 Like, I did this movie, like, uh, four or five years ago called The Inside Game about the NBA gambling scandal that, there- there's a Netflix documentary arou- about it right now. And that character, I played, uh, Jimmy Batista, Baa-Baa the Sheep, uh, who's, you know, this guy who's this bookie and ra-ra-ra. And it's a very... He's... There's a lot going on with him. He's- he's, you know, he's running numbers with the mob and stuff and there's a lot of money changing hands. That character was so... I got to be, get so deep into that character that coming out of it was- was a little odd. Or as weird as this sounds, The Three Stooges was hard for me to g-... I found that I had, uh, some of Curly's mannerisms just automatically. I could not stop them. When people, when I- when I would talk to people, they would- they would come ou-... I wasn't... I'm not doing it on purpose, but I don't wanna do that. Like, I'm ready to shed it 'cause I've been-

Lex Fridman 55:05 (laughs)

Will Sasso 55:06 ... working on it for months and months at that point as far as getting the thing down and then you- then you gotta shoot. And then, uh, for me it's always- I always wanna change the stuff I did the day before. I'm like that where I'm like, "I could have done it better," and this and that, and uh...

Lex Fridman 55:21 That stayed with you, that character stayed with you a little bit.

Will Sasso 55:23 Totally, yeah.

Lex Fridman 55:24 I just feel like with actors-... sometimes when you listen to interviews, they have spent so much time sort of living inside other characters that they-

Will Sasso 55:35 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 55:35 ... they almost don't have a depth of personality themselves. Like, a depth. Like, I, I don't mean that as a negative thing. It's just, like, it feels like the art form at its best is pretending to be other people. O- or, like, I d- and even pretending sounds negative, but, like-

Will Sasso 55:49 No, pretending.

Lex Fridman 55:50 ... bringing certain characters to life.

Will Sasso 55:52 Yeah. Yeah. Embodying.

Lex Fridman 55:54 That's the art form. Embodying.

Will Sasso 55:55 Look, a weird thing happened while we were doing Stooges, 'cause you've got a very heavy blueprint.

Lex Fridman 55:59 Yeah.

Will Sasso 55:59 We're following this very clear blueprint that the Stooges left for everybody. And it, for Stooge fans and people enjoying the movie, it's gotta be this. You take your toolbox that you're used to bringing to a comedy movie, you leave it, you leave it behind. The only tools I'm bringing are the ones that he used. And a weird thing started happening where I would... I always saw the whole thing happening with the real Stooges in black and white. So I, if we're about to shoot a scene, I would just m- you know, think about... I mean, aside from all the other preparation, you know, you know everything and what you're supposed to do, and I've been watching so much of it. And the three of us are, we're pretty much left to come up with a lot of the, the, the striking combinations and all the stuff, which is all real smack and, and all this crap. And the stuff that we were doing that was very Stooge-y, uh, you're preparing all that stuff. But something else was happening before you jump into a scene and the unknown of now we're shooting it and here are these, uh, parameters w- within to shoot this scene, I could still see it as them doing it. So much so that when I saw the movie at the premiere, I was like, "Who's this big fuck doing..." 'Cause I'm not Curly to me. Curly is Curly. But I feel like-

Lex Fridman 57:09 So you're seeing yourself in black and white almost.

Will Sasso 57:11 I was seeing him. I wasn't-

Lex Fridman 57:12 Him?

Will Sasso 57:12 Yeah. I was only seeing him. I c-

Lex Fridman 57:14 You were just channeling in some fundamental way.

Will Sasso 57:16 I- in some weird way, you're channeling him-

Lex Fridman 57:19 (laughs) Yeah.

Will Sasso 57:19 ... because you've seen so much of it. The only thing you know about Jerome Lester Horwitz is Curly. I'm not saying he was exhumed or something or his spirit went in me or some weird, you know, crystal mommy shit like that. I'm saying that this... Because you know so much of it and because of the heavy blueprint that they left with you, you are, you're channeling what that person does, and you're, you're... I was seeing entire scenes, you know, before you do them the way he would do it.

Lex Fridman 57:50 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 57:51 And then you want a couple takes to make sure that you're doing it right. But, uh, that was hard. That one was hard to let go of. Some of them are.

Lex Fridman 57:59 Do you think Larry David, who was also in there dressed as a nun, also had trouble letting go of that? We, we mentioned clothes make the man.

Will Sasso 58:05 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 58:06 You think that worked for him in that case?

Will Sasso 58:08 Man, you know, he, uh...

Lex Fridman 58:10 What was it like working with the guy?

Will Sasso 58:11 Oh, come on. He's the greatest. And he's a, he's a big Stooge, he's a Stooge fan. And him and Pete Farrelly are good friends. And then, but then Larry David has to show up and hang out with us for a couple weeks. He's like, "I didn't realize it was gonna take this long, you know?"

Lex Fridman 58:25 (laughs)

Will Sasso 58:25 But, uh, "Ah, shit. I gotta be out here in Atlanta. It's boiling hot." But at one point, uh, there was this line where he kept doing a, he would just spit a different line every time. He was, like, getting hit in the head with something and he's laying there on the ground and he goes, he, like, comes to and he says, at one point he goes, "Miami audiences are the best audiences in the world." Right? And, 'cause he's loopy. Now, he's playing a nun at the, at the, uh, orphanage where the three Stooges grew up.

Lex Fridman 58:55 (laughs) Yeah.

Will Sasso 58:55 And I'm super intimidated by Larry David. He's a genius and stuff. And, and, uh, and, but I walk up to him and I go, uh, "So he's, what is he, like, a, like a Borscht Belt Florida comedian who-"

Lex Fridman 59:06 (laughs)

Will Sasso 59:07 "... is on the lam and so he's dressing as a woman and he ends up at an, at an orphanage?" Like, "What's going on there?"

Lex Fridman 59:12 Yeah.

Will Sasso 59:12 And he just, and he looks at me, he just goes, "Yeah."

Lex Fridman 59:16 (laughs)

Will Sasso 59:17 (laughs) Like, like, I'm like, ah, he's got some, like, actor motivation.

Lex Fridman 59:20 Yeah.

Will Sasso 59:20 Like, 'cause, of course he looks, it's Larry David-

Lex Fridman 59:24 Yeah.

Will Sasso 59:24 ... in a nun's habit, which is hilarious. That's such a Pete Farrelly casting thing. It's s- you know. And he, but he's doing this whole, like, "What a warm audience." You know? Like, I'm like, "Oh, he's like this Catskill comedian who's been living in, you know, Boca Raton."

Lex Fridman 59:39 So that's what he's, like, living through in his mind as he's having fun with it, right?

Will Sasso 59:43 I mean, that and probably a combination of that and getting the lines right. 'Cause he's like, "What are we doing here? What is..." You know.

Lex Fridman 59:50 Yeah. Yeah.

Will Sasso 59:51 Just frustrated all day with what the heck we're trying to do.

Lex Fridman 59:53 What do you think makes... I mean, that guy's one of the best improv people ever.

Will Sasso 59:58 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 59:58 So what do you think makes him s- so good? Like, w- why is it so c- compelling to watch that guy?

Will Sasso 1:00:04 Because he's a comedic genius. Like, he literally, he knows what he does. He's been a writer for 50 years or whatever, and he's, and he just happens to be that brilliant. I mean, I've gotten a chance just to do, I did a, uh, just an episode of Curb, a small part, and it's crazy what he sees. I don't know what he sees. As a matter of fact, so I auditioned for it, uh, for Curb, like, you know, two or three times, right? And never got anything. And then, uh, it was only after working with him on The Stooges, I got a call to do a bit part. But I remember auditioning. You go into that, into that room and the guys waiting are all people that you know. You're like, "Oh, I know them. I know her. I know him." And, uh, so I went in, I auditioned for this, for this part. And, um, the only thing I know of the thing (laughs) is like, "Okay. So you really wanna go to this play with me? You really wanna go to this play? When you hear that I have an extra ticket, you sincerely wanna..." thing. And I'm like, "Got it." And so-

Lex Fridman 1:01:04 That's the premise.

Will Sasso 1:01:05 ... the premise of the scene.

Lex Fridman 1:01:06 And that's all you know.

Will Sasso 1:01:07 It's all I know. And so he goes, he does his bit and I'm just supposed to come in and interrupt. And I'm like, "Excuse me, I couldn't help but hear you guys were talking about..." you know, whatever the play was. Or, you know, Death of a Salesman? "I am, I'm a huge fan of that play. I wou- I mean, if it's not, if it's not, if you're looking for someone to take a ticket, I, I, I would love to go. My name's So-and-so, by the way." And he, and he goes, "I'm gonna stop you. I'm gonna stop you." And I'm like... He goes-... "Are you really, you, I mean, you truly wanna go to this play?" And I go, "Yes. Yes, sir." "You really wanna go? You, actually, this is... You would love to do this?" I go, "Okay. Let's try it again." So then he's like, "No, no, no." And I go, "Hey, uh, excuse me, I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt. I was just... I- I couldn't help but overhear. You have, uh, tickets to the thing. I am the biggest fan of-" Then I do the same thing. "I'm gonna stop you again." "Okay." "I mean, you really wanna go to this?"

Lex Fridman 1:01:59 (laughs)

Will Sasso 1:01:59 And I'm just like, "He's fucking with me, right?"

Lex Fridman 1:02:01 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:02:02 And I remember Jeff Garland was sitting there in the audition. He goes, "He did it! He said it! Well..." "Shut up. No, hold on, listen. You really wanna go?" "Okay." Three or four time- you know, there I am. "I couldn't help but notice that..." And then he, I do it again. And I guess I shit the bed, 'cause he looks at me and he just goes, "Okay. All right. Okay. Well, thanks for coming out." And that was it, and I didn't get it. So I still, I don't know what the heck that guy's thinking.

Lex Fridman 1:02:25 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:02:26 He sees... He's in the Matrix. I don't know what the heck-

Lex Fridman 1:02:28 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 1:02:29 ... Larry David sees. You know what I mean?

Lex Fridman 1:02:30 He wanted, what, some kinda more desperation or something like this?

Will Sasso 1:02:35 (laughs) Like, he wanted a level of sincerity-

Lex Fridman 1:02:37 (laughs)

Will Sasso 1:02:37 ... that I s- that I thought I was bringing, and I guess I was wrong.

Lex Fridman 1:02:41 Hm.

Will Sasso 1:02:41 I don't know. I don't know.

Lex Fridman 1:02:42 Maybe go crazy? Like, what does it mean to really want-

Will Sasso 1:02:46 Yeah. I shoulda grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and gone-

Lex Fridman 1:02:48 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:02:48 ... "Listen dad, you're bringing me-"

Lex Fridman 1:02:50 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:02:50 "... to this fuckin' play."

Lex Fridman 1:02:51 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:02:52 I woulda got the part. As a matter of fact, I heard about someone else, and I don't know who the heck this was. I forget who it was, but I've heard this story from a couple different people that there's this actor, and I can't, I don't remember who it was. If I did, I probably wouldn't say it out loud anyway. But he-

Lex Fridman 1:03:07 Brad Pitt.

Will Sasso 1:03:07 He was Brad Pitt, and he was in this audition, and he was at... And there it was, out in the hall. He's like, "Holy shit, George Clooney, Leo DiCaprio." Um, and he, this actor went in and he did the thing, and, um, Larry David was like, "Hey, why don't you try it again?" And th- and he got, like, a couple takes in, and he went, "I don't think this is for me." And he left.

Lex Fridman 1:03:27 Wow.

Will Sasso 1:03:27 Which an actor never does.

Lex Fridman 1:03:28 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:03:29 And, uh, as the story goes, Larry David shouted after him, "I respect that!" Which I think is true, and I wanna believe that entire story is true.

Lex Fridman 1:03:38 Yeah. Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:03:40 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:03:40 Sounds like something Larry David made up. (laughs)

Will Sasso 1:03:43 Bobby Lee told me that story so we can't, yeah, we can't trust that.

Lex Fridman 1:03:46 Um,

Lex Fridman 1:03:48 what about im- impressions? Is there similarity between that and acting? Do you... Is there some fundamental way in which you become the person?

Will Sasso 1:03:59 If you have a couple of the things, you can just fill in the blanks. And I think the illusion is that people think that that person would say that and do that. And that's where the illusion of, oh, he really embodies the character.

Lex Fridman 1:04:12 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 1:04:12 It's like, once you know someone's mannerisms, you can essentially portray a person from the outside in.

Lex Fridman 1:04:20 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:04:20 'Cause you have all the stuff on the outside, and you can do it and complete the illusion.

Lex Fridman 1:04:25 And if it's for humor's sake, you're gonna caricature it-

Will Sasso 1:04:28 Totally.

Lex Fridman 1:04:28 ... therefore making the whole illusion s- s- stronger.

Will Sasso 1:04:32 And also weirder. Like, I like to-

Lex Fridman 1:04:35 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:04:35 On MAD TV, if I did something two or three times, I'd get bored of it and I'd start changing it and, you know. Now he talks like this. And it's like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "I don't know. It's, fuckin', no one's... It's late at night, do whatever you want."

Lex Fridman 1:04:46 But people still kinda know (laughs) that it's that character. Is- es- especially if you just call it out. Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:04:52 There aren't many impersonations that I listen to myself do and go, "Ooh, that's a good one." You know? Like, a lot of people, like... Like, I think Frank Caliendo is, like-

Lex Fridman 1:05:03 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:05:04 ... the greatest impersonator of all ti- he's the best, period.

Lex Fridman 1:05:07 It's ridiculous.

Will Sasso 1:05:08 It's ridiculous.

Lex Fridman 1:05:08 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:05:08 And he's got a record button and a broadcast ability that nobody has. I- I really tru- there's... He's cracked impersonations that I'm like, "How is he... How does he find... He's got such an ear, but then he's got all the other tools." Uh, I remember actually, my last season of MAD TV was also his first season.

Lex Fridman 1:05:31 Hmm.

Will Sasso 1:05:31 And he comes up to me when I met him, and we're just up there in the writer's offices, and he goes, "Hey, nice to meet you." And he goes, "Is this Louie Anderson?" 'Cause I was doing a Louie on the show, and he goes, "Louie Anderson." And I go, "Yeah?" He goes, "Hey, you're doing it wrong." And I was like, "Oh, am I, junior?" You know? And he goes, he goes, "Yeah, you know, 'cause you do this, but you gotta throw it up here sometimes." I was like, "Oh my God, can I use that?" "Of course." And then we became, you know, we became fast friends, but-

Lex Fridman 1:05:54 His John Madden is amazing.

Will Sasso 1:05:56 Ridiculous.

Lex Fridman 1:05:56 I forget. It's just, it's ridiculous.

Will Sasso 1:05:59 Ridiculous.

Lex Fridman 1:05:59 He really, really, really embodies the person. And sometimes not even with a c- caricature. It's like it becomes the person. So strange.

Will Sasso 1:06:06 Totally.

Lex Fridman 1:06:07 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:06:08 I- I- I kinda feel like, you know, do the impersonation and then for- not forget you're doing it, but forget everything else.

Lex Fridman 1:06:15 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:06:15 Like, just, just goof around. Of course-

Lex Fridman 1:06:18 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:06:18 ... to me it's funny when som- when you sound like someone and you're saying the shit that they would never say.

Lex Fridman 1:06:23 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:06:23 Well then, there's no... You're- you're- you're letting go of that part, that tool in illusion that keeps people in. But to me it doesn't matter 'cause it's funnier.

Lex Fridman 1:06:32 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:06:32 So

Lex Fridman 1:06:33 What was the hardest impression for you to work on? I mean, s- somebody you struggled with the most.

Will Sasso 1:06:37 I was, I- I'll never forget, I had to do a Michael Caine in my first season at MAD TV. It never got good. It never got good. It didn't... It, all week it wasn't good. We shot it. The first take it was shit. Second-

Lex Fridman 1:06:53 Mm-hmm.

Will Sasso 1:06:53 ... third, and fourth, it was all shit.

Lex Fridman 1:06:55 Well, his voice is really important, right? His-

Will Sasso 1:06:57 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:06:58 Uh, what is it? Like Mo- it's like doing an impression of Morgan Freeman or somebody like that. It's-

Will Sasso 1:07:01 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:07:02 Uh, yeah.

Will Sasso 1:07:03 "If you can't get the voice..." (mimics self-piano music)

Lex Fridman 1:07:05 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:07:06 That's my Morgan- here's my Morgan Freeman. Andy Dufresne.

Lex Fridman 1:07:09 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:07:10 Um, ............................ Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:07:12 I like your Trump, too. I don't know where I heard it. But it's, it... Like, I love the impressions you do that don't sound anything like the original person (laughs) .

Will Sasso 1:07:20 I can't do Trump. I- I do-

Lex Fridman 1:07:22 That- though, that's why it's hilarious.

Will Sasso 1:07:23 Absolutely. Uh, my Trump now I say just sounds like a f- like a fat bee, 'cause it's just ..........................

Lex Fridman 1:07:28 Yeah, exactly. That's the...

Will Sasso 1:07:30 "... and everybody." ..........................

Lex Fridman 1:07:32 A little drunk, a little drunk.

Will Sasso 1:07:33 Yeah, just a little slurry.

Lex Fridman 1:07:35 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:07:35 Yeah, I dig doing impersonations and then-... not, like, just making it whoever.

Lex Fridman 1:07:42 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:07:42 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:07:43 It's just ******* with-

Will Sasso 1:07:44 That'll be the title of my book.

Lex Fridman 1:07:45 Muck. (laughs) Uh, so Caine was the one you really struggled with?

Will Sasso 1:07:50 Well, yeah, it was terrible. It was terrible. And I could only hold my head a certain way to do it, uh, 'cause I had gotten locked into this research tape that I watched. Back then they would give us, you know, now there's the internet, but back then you were, if you were gonna do an impersonation, the research department, uh, would give you a VHS tape. And I remember I got this VHS tape of Michael Caine's acting school, like this acting class he did. He's like, "Right, you know, if you're looking at the left eye, and the camera's over here, see? Then the left eye, so you want to look at that left-" for hours, you know? And so I was, like, stuck in this weird-

Lex Fridman 1:08:29 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:08:29 ... thing that made no sense. And, uh, it was terrible.

Lex Fridman 1:08:32 So the, uh, the actual process is the record and the broadcast?

Will Sasso 1:08:36 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:08:36 I also wondered, like, what the process is to do, like, a Frank Caliendo level impression. Is it, like, listen to a lot of footage?

Will Sasso 1:08:46 I think he, I think, I mean, speaking for myself-

Lex Fridman 1:08:50 Or someone that's just-

Will Sasso 1:08:50 ... I think you either have it or you don't.

Lex Fridman 1:08:52 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:08:52 Like, you know if you've-

Lex Fridman 1:08:53 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:08:53 ... can do this one or you can't.

Lex Fridman 1:08:55 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:08:55 I think that process for him is lightning quick, but I also think he, he can look at someone who he does not do, and then by the end of the afternoon he can do it, you know? It's weird.

Lex Fridman 1:09:08 Maybe have an intuition who he can, uh, who, who he can do.

Will Sasso 1:09:12 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:09:13 So the question that applies

Lex Fridman 1:09:15 there is, I mean speaking of Dudesy, is, is, is it, is it possible to capture the essence... How difficult is it to capture the essence of a human being when you're doing impressions? You know, that we are moving towards the future when AI potentially... This kind of avatar world where we're goi- going to have AI representatives of who we are. The really interesting one is after we pass away, sort of, um, our relatives may want us to stick around in some form.

Will Sasso 1:09:44 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:09:44 And, you know, at one sense that might be scary, but in one sense it's kind of beautiful because the, the essence of the human being persists so you can still bring joy to the, to the people that love you and that kind of stuff. How difficult is it to capture that? Like, if you were to try to capture yourself, you think... How difficult would it be to, for an AI system to create a Will Sasso avatar that persists?

Will Sasso 1:10:07 Well, I think it's impossible. I think it's absolutely impossible. I'll get into co- a- arguments about this stuff with Chad on the show almost every episode. Um, lately with, you know, Midjourney and DALL·E and all this, all the art-

Lex Fridman 1:10:22 And the other stuff.

Will Sasso 1:10:23 ... AIs, and now it's moving into video and, and Chad would maintain, "Hey, pretty soon we're not gonna need Netflix. You're just gonna go, 'I want to see Stallone do this movie and it's about this,'" and he plays that and then here it comes and you watch it.

Lex Fridman 1:10:36 Hmm.

Will Sasso 1:10:37 I don't think that that crosses over to the human experience. Uh, this is also a guy I like to bug Chad and say that, uh, he wears a tag around his neck 'cause he wants to be cryogenically frozen and it's all set up. He's at the, it's somewhere in Arizona or something?

Lex Fridman 1:10:54 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:10:54 Like, it's, I forget what it's called.

Lex Fridman 1:10:56 All the, all the fun things are in Arizona.

Will Sasso 1:10:57 Yeah. And he's got literally the tag around his neck, which I say, "If you're, if I'm around when you die, I will rip that off for you. I'll put you in my garage freezer and then 24 hours later I'll saw your head off with a bread knife."

Lex Fridman 1:11:09 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:11:09 "And I'll deliver that to whomever. And it's not, you're not gonna, you're not coming back, okay?" He's like, "Yes, we are living forever whether we like it or not," and I disagree. I don't think you can find... (laughs) If I did stand up, then, uh, there would be enough information for an AI to completely duplicate me 'cause I'm up on stage just clearing my throat all over people doing therapy that way.

Lex Fridman 1:11:34 Yeah.

Will Sasso 1:11:34 And, uh, so, and people paying a two drink minimum to hear it. But as it stands, unless it's something like Dudesy, an AI that literally has access to everything that I've shared, um, everything that is observable, even the stuff where our phones are, or the NSA or whatever it is listening to us, uh, finding out what algo to punch us into and what shoes to buy on Instagram, I still don't think it's gonna have enough information to duplicate me, especially to my family or my friends. It's gonna be like that Black Mirror episode where the gal brings her, her guy back and then after a while he gets pretty creepy. Uh, you know? They have-

Lex Fridman 1:12:13 But it's also possible that if you interviewed your friends and family what they love about you, the things they would list is, is pretty, it's a small list. They love you deeply but the list is small. Like, the thing that really we appreciate about each other is pretty small. That said, to deliver on that small quirks and uniqueness, it might require some deep intelligence that only humans currently possess.

Will Sasso 1:12:41 That's a really good point.

Lex Fridman 1:12:42 Yeah. I-

Will Sasso 1:12:42 Do you think that it's gonna be possible to keep a person around?

Lex Fridman 1:12:47 Yes, I, I think, um, I think, I think there'll be definitely possible to keep the essence of a person in a digital world pretty soon, yeah.

Will Sasso 1:12:56 Wow.

Lex Fridman 1:12:57 And I think they're gonna start to have questions about what are the ethics of that, what are the rules around that?

Will Sasso 1:13:03 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:13:04 Because if you can have digital forms of Will Sasso, the kind of things that people would want to do with their Will Sasso-

Will Sasso 1:13:09 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:13:09 ... in the vir- virtual world, I can only imagine.

Will Sasso 1:13:11 Sure.

Lex Fridman 1:13:12 Uh, probably porn and sexual kinds of things.

Will Sasso 1:13:16 Yeah, my stuff tha- then that's just 'cause I'm an international sex symbol so I'm okay with it.

Lex Fridman 1:13:20 Yeah, yeah.

Will Sasso 1:13:20 Um, what, how do you feel about sentience? Like, when it comes to... Because again, my pal Chad will be like, you know, speaking of Black Mirror, he's with that San Junipero episode school of thought where there's gonna be some, you know, effing mainframe somewhere or some matrix-like structure built into the sky. And as I like to say, everyone just sitting there pissing and shitting in their blue matrix gel in a little fishbowl.... do you think that we can upload consciousness? Do you think that'll ever be possible?

Lex Fridman 1:13:51 Well, I don't know. I just talked to Ray Kurzweil.

Will Sasso 1:13:53 Uh-huh.

Lex Fridman 1:13:53 I don't know if, if you know who he is but he, uh-

Will Sasso 1:13:55 Yeah, the hoo- the, the-

Lex Fridman 1:13:56 Singularity and all that kinda stuff. So he's very, still holds onto in 2045 there'll be a singularity what's ess- essentially, he's been predicting that for the last, uh, 20 years and that this, and now