Woody Harrelson & Ted Danson

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman.

We have a twofer today.

This one was fun.

Yeah, very.

Flirty and fun. Flirty and fun. They're so different, and yet their combined rapport is so unified.

It's got a good vibe.

It's got a good aura. Good rhythm. Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson. So Ted is returning, which is lovely, because it's been quite a while since we talked about Ted. And that was great.

He's up there.

He's truly at the tippity top.

Yeah, I liked him a lot.

We had so much fun. He liked you a lot. Woody Harrelson is an award-winning actor. Ted Danson is an award-winning actor and producer. They have a podcast together.

He's an objects man.

He's an objects man.

He's an objects man.

Welcome to the attic. This is a vibe, right? Well, hello there. Oh, Ted.

I think this is one of the first podcasts I ever did. Yeah? Was this with you?

It was early days, yeah.

I think it was, yeah, within the second year, maybe.

Probably first.

First? Wow, then that was a big favor. No, it was first. Yeah.

Tristan had done one.

Yeah, we did a good place week.

Almost had a fight on air.

No, no, not almost.

Now we edit, so if you want anything out, you tell us.

Well, we'll edit anything. Ted says out, but not Woody. So there's two different sets of rules.

You don't want to lose anything that Woody says. Are you okay? if I don't? Of course. As long as I stay close?

You're such a wonderful codependent. I adore that about you.

I am a codependent. That's like a wuss. Is that what we're saying? No.

No, no. No, you could be an ass-kicking codependent, for sure.

But he is a wuss codependent.

Yeah, one could be a kick-ass, but if one were so inclined.

You have beautiful houses and places. Yes.

So, here's to the wusses of the world.

Your interview was years ago, but there are a couple of things that still cycle through my mind.

Besides psoriasis.

Well, that we knew, going in, that we're psoriasis. brothers. Woody, do you have any kind of autoimmune issues that you could bond with us over?

No, he's the healthiest human being on the planet.

No.

You're not wrestling with any kind of health issues currently? Okay, good.

I had a little accident, but once that gets all mended.

What were you riding, like a bicycle or a motorcycle?

Electric motorcycle. You know, my daughter just had her 18th birthday party Sunday night at the bike shed, which is a place I love. It's like for people who like motorcycles. You'd love it. Oh, yeah.

Okay, so you were on an electric motorcycle, riding in what, you were, in someone's blind spot?

He seemed to be going really slow. Why is he moving so slow? So I'm going around him, but I'm passing him on the left. Okay. Which is when I realized.

Making a left turn. Making a left turn.

Preparing to turn left. Yes. Like I said to him, it would have been so bad to see a blinker.

So he turns left, I'm assuming you kind of t-boned him with the motorcycle. Okay, and he gets out and Woody Harrelson's there. How quickly does he notice?

He didn't notice till my helmet came off. He was chastising me. Why are you passing me on the left? I'm sorry, I didn't. You're right, but you shouldn't do that.

Then we were on pretty shifted temperatures.

We were doing some laughing before it was all over.

Yeah, I bet the temperature changed a bit.

People recognized you.

Well, I don't know, but a lot of cars were slowing down, but also we're like in the middle of the road.

I did take a picture with five people. I don't know if they recognized me or they just wanted to get a photo with the guy in an accident.

See the idiot who passed on the left.

But it sounds like you were really gracious while he was scolding you. That would have been hard for me to take the lashing.

Yeah, you would have been like, I haven't taken enough of a-.

I got my punishment. I just crashed and I'm all fucked up. You're good. You don't need to administer any further.

My bike needs to be towed. My hand-.

He was driving a Tesla, right?

Tesla.

Oh, you guys deserved each other. Yeah. Electric motorcycle and electric car. Yeah.

That reminds me of Laura was driving and she kind of cut somebody off and kept going. And anyway, naturally, you know how it works here. They catch up. Yep. He's right there.

He keeps going.

I bet until he saw you, he was thinking of saying something else.

Yeah, exactly.

Sure, sure, sure.

No, I don't think he-.

Really? If you get cut off by somebody and then you catch up.

You've gone through the effort to catch up.

You're probably going to unload on them, aren't you?

I thought it was a perfect unload. Tesla people. It was poetic.

Two words. Also in a courtroom, being read back, you're like, so what? I said, Tesla people, they are. That's what they are. It's like deniable, but aggressive.

No one's talking about the car I pulled up in. It's a very manly Rivian.

Oh, what is it?

I saw that. Oh, yeah.

I like the Rivian.

Me too.

It's right out of Detroit.

It's a manly electric car instead of those little Teslas.

Pussy ass Teslas. Teensy Teslas. No, I like the Tesla. To me, it's great that he's changed the whole landscape because of those Teslas.

Yeah, he fast forwarded everything. about 10 years. Undeniable. He forced everyone's hand.

We need to convince him to let the rest of us use his infrastructure, because that was brilliant on his part, but now we need to be able to buy our way in, or else it's going to slow down.

Well, he listened.

Oh, you mean, because all those charging stations only work for Teslas?

It was clever, but now we need in. Yeah.

Okay, so what I was going to say, I remember from that interview that I do think sums you up in the most beautiful ways. You came up with the analogy that you feel like your life has been riding in the back of a pickup truck, looking backwards.

Enjoying what I'm seeing, but never really choosing.

All of a sudden, like, oh, what's this? This is Cheers. I didn't see it coming, but I see it now.

Until I met Mary. It was the first time I hopped out of the back, the pickup, and grabbed the steering wheel because I wanted that.

Yes, yes, yes.

Big time.

You couldn't just roll the dice and hope it appeared in the rear view mirror. But the codependency, when you're afraid to stick up for yourself. last night, whatever that issue was, do you go so far as to work through what happens when you do this? They're going to think what? That Ted's selfish or not a good person?

I'd say 10, 15% of it's altruistic, where I really do care about not hurting somebody else. This is a lifelong thing, too. If somebody kind of bumps into Mary or insults her, or does something, not insults her, she'll haul off and take care of herself. But if there's something where I should stand up and be manly, I'll look at her and go, you're all right, this is fine, don't worry. Ow.

Not today.

Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen that.

Shut up. It's happened once.

Well, the other thing I discovered through researching you both today, and I didn't know this when I was a guest on your podcast, we are all exactly 14 years apart. Wow. Woody, you're 14 younger than Ted, and I'm 14 years younger than you. This is to the day. There's a symmetry here.

Divisible by seven, it's a good number. Seven's like a spiritual.

It is even. Yeah. I prefer seven. I prefer it even.

That's amazing.

It is kind of, right? And then almost Monica's 12 years younger than you.

Yeah, I don't fit in.

We almost did.

Almost. If you could only have been born two years earlier.

We can reduce my age. I'm happy to be 34..

Later, yeah, yeah.

We would have liked to see you come out in 89 instead.

Wait, so let's go around the room. How old, Monica?

36.

49.

Speak up. It's your turn.

We're going youngest to oldest. Have you not seen the pattern?

You're 62.

Until next month.

But July, he's going to hop up to 63 and that'll put us at 14.

In December, I'll be 77.

77.

That's so funny.

How does it feel?

Can't you tell?

No, we can't. That's why we would ask. It doesn't seem like it's having any effect on you.

The joints, you know, the joints hurt.

Oh, I thought you meant less.

My joints hurt less when I smoke a joint. Actually, that's not true.

It's a rare case where the cure is also the problem.

I will say it feels like it's dessert time for me. One of the things I'm not going to mention, but it was nothing. It was me approving a photo or not approving a photo that we both loved. And then we're starting to get talked out of it, or I was. What hit me when I was finally back in my body and saying, nope, sorry, this is what I want, was I'm 76..

Are you feeling at all the lifting? And I'm not sure how much you had it anyways, but the weight and the pressure to succeed and produce and to conquer.

I found a way to keep that going by building a house and going so far into debt, it's almost a joke. I'm too embarrassed even to tell you. Oh my, I will not tell you.

How underwater you are. How underwater.

So it's like, you have to go out and work. It's not an ego thing. It's just, boy, you better.

Did either of you have the weight of like, I gotta fucking do everything. I gotta get this done. I gotta succeed.

I wanna hear your answer, Woodrow.

You have the appearance of just kind of floating through these magical successes. On the outside, that's what we think. But I don't really believe someone can float through accidentally and have your career.

It's a funny thing, because you hear people who say, oh, you know, I never wanted to be an actor. I never wanted to be famous. Music, whatever it is. And I'm like, that is such bullshit. Yeah.

Sully.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

I was gonna say the player.

We still go to Sully. Who's now Tom Hanks in my mind.

Yeah, right, me too. But literally nobody just becomes famous other than those rare examples. You really have to work at it. It's not easy, even to pop above the froth, you know.

Calling us froth.

That's a very nice way to put that. All of you frothers out there.

Take no offense, frothers.

Those little frothers. But no, I suppose I had felt that certainly in my life, where I felt really ambitious. And now I feel ambitious, but in a different way. Things that I really care about, I want to do. I don't want to just, oh, let me do that, because I think it'll be a successful project.

Do you guys ever succumb to this fantasy where it's like, okay, I'm gonna do X. And after X, I'm gonna relax and enjoy. And then, once you're relaxing and enjoying, you go, I'm kind of miserable. relaxing and enjoying. What the fuck is this story, I'm telling?

I did. When I turned 70, I, in hindsight, realized that I was looking for a nice kind of gentle, grassy field to land on and make sure all my eggs were in order, and da, da, da, da, and all of that. Eggs, ducks, something.

Mary has the eggs. Sorry, go ahead.

Hey, man, that was just uncalled for. Then I met Jane Fonda. I was turning 70 when she was turning 80 and she had her foot on the fucking gas pedal. beyond belief. She's 86..

She's astounding.

She is, she's a force of nature. We interviewed her and I was completely blown away and fell in love with her. And I was like, yeah, I would definitely, if I were single, I would marry Jane Fonda right now, at this age.

She, by the way, I think, would take you on. I know, I think there was some sparks.

I'd like to see that little power duo.

It'd be fun, right? Okay, so I see the symmetry here, because, Ted, you are attracted to people.

who aren't codependent.

Yeah, they need my help, but go on.

There's a funny dynamic, Woody, when the four of us all hang out. Mary and Kristen pair off, and Ted and I pair off because Kristen's very much like Ted, and Mary and I are very similar. But, Woody, you two have no problem, from what little I know of you. You don't have any problem saying no or telling people what you need.

What do you mean? Like in any context? You're doing it right now.

You're already disagreeing. You can't even go along with that. No, no. You just proved my point.

No, but I didn't know.

Yes, just generally, you mean.

Yes, you don't have a hard time advocating for yourself.

Yeah, I guess you're right.

It's a good thing.

You two are a good pairing in that way.

Very much so, huh. Next question.

Okay, great.

From the time I met Teddy and I always felt there's something interesting where he'll play this weakness or this codependence, but he's also very strong, very powerful, great mind.

Indomitable.

Anything he wants you to do, he could manipulate you into doing. The most ridiculous shit. Do you want to go help him build the wall? Yeah. Yeah, oh, okay.

Yeah, no, I agree. All false humility aside, which is boring. I'm discovering that my self-deprecation through this podcast, when I hear back some of the bullshit I say that is so annoying, you know, maybe once you can get away with it, then it's like, fuck off. You know? Yeah, enough of this.

Isn't it funny when you go back and hear.

Yeah, oh, it's horrible. And I've actually said, can you cut out 90% of my self-deprecation, which left us about 10 minutes of podcast.

Yeah.

I'm horrible. But anyway, let me go back to Woody and me. I grew up trained to be sensitive and I didn't have a brother.

You had an older sister.

Older sister, but totally simpatico and old enough that it was no competition. So along comes Woody, and it was like, all of a sudden I had an older, younger brother. With brothers, you can beat the crap out of each other because you know there's love at the bottom and you're going to be safe, even though you will take it to the brink. I got to experience that in some ways with Woody, and it was just astounding to have that in my life.

Well, your guys' childhoods are so radically different. So you're in Flagstaff with an archeologist father and an older sister and you've got two brothers. I assume you think everyone knows this. I had no clue of this history until today that your father was a hitman and was convicted.

Supportedly.

Allegedly.

Allegedly, that's the word.

One acquitted trial, one convicted trial, and then the assassination of a federal judge.

Wow, I love this. That he did not do.

I don't know if he did it or not. I think that the government did a lot of nasty shit in the trial and pretrial and everything, but that's a good summary.

Yeah, I mean, suffice to say, the opposite of a professor, archeologist. Right. Ted's father.

We'll leave it at that.

Yes.

Wow, that's fascinating.

Isn't it fascinating? So you, Woody, were born in Texas. You grew up in Houston. Dad left early, though, right?

Yeah, he was gone a lot of the time, but then he was incarcerated.

And then you moved to Ohio. at what, eight or so? Or no, 12-ish?

Yeah.

Okay, and you go up to Lebanon, Ohio, and you're a kid from Texas. Your dad is incarcerated, and you've got an accent. How did that adjustment go?

Well, it was a little more complicated than I'd anticipated, because I kind of imagined this Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer type of environs in the Midwest in Ohio. But then I got there, and it didn't change much from when I'd been in Houston. It seemed like everybody wanted to fight me.

It really felt like they were doing it. You don't look back and go-.

I wasn't provoking, no. And back then, I was quite shy and very low-key, but I don't know why the tension would come my way, that I wasn't wanting, not like later in life. Sure, sure. So I did a lot of fighting.

Yes, I'm from Michigan, and a blue collar, a lot of Kentucky transplants, a lot of violence. If you came to my school with a Southern accent, it was on. I know what your experience was like. There's no way you didn't get fucked with nonstop.

A lot, yes.

Were your brothers older or younger?

Both. I was in the middle.

Okay, that's a dangerous man.

Right.

The middle brother's a dangerous man.

Middle child's dangerous.

Yeah.

Needs a lot of attention, that middle child.

Sure, eventually. We gotta go get him. How were the brothers faring? Were they getting fucked with as well?

Well, my older brother, who was quite small,

Did you hate school? I would've hated it.

No, I didn't hate it. There were people in the school I didn't like.

Sure, but who were you in high school? What kind of kid were you?

Well, I became kind of a model student, and I was always a mama's boy, and I did really well in school. Other than, ironically, drama. I took a drama class. I thought I did very well. I memorized Casey at the bat, presented it to the class.

Oh, wow.

Baseball hater.

Yeah.

Southern hate, a Yankee.

Yeah, that's what it was.

Yeah, yeah.

Some Northerner. Yankee hate.

Yeah.

You go to Hanover College, so you're a good student. This is fascinating. You were pals with Mike Pence there? Is that true or not true?

I wouldn't say pals, but he was there. He was a couple years older, and he did kind of help me. I gave a sermon there. I was considering being a minister. I was Presbyterian.

Well, you had the charisma, we found out. That's a prerequisite.

Well, clearly you have a ton of charisma. Yeah, that's not really a question.

It's oozing out of every fucking crack and scab you have on your hand.

I don't talk about it much.

Can you tell me why? I don't have to. I'm just curious.

Because there's a lot of sensational stuff in there that I just feel like, you know, it's sensationalism.

It's low-hanging fruit.

Yeah, and I had a hard time, but there's a lot of people who have much harder times. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. There's something about that, kid, you must feel it too, where you look back at the child, you were, just the incredible innocence. And what is it that creates a loss of innocence?

Safety.

Yeah. So, but in college you start acting. That's where we give it another shot. You study theater and literature. And then do you move immediately to LA.

We went to Houston to make money, construction. Me and my buddy Clint.

Who I just met.

No, that was Frankie. Oh shit, okay. By the way, I was working construction with Frankie and Clint. But Clint went to Hanover College. During that time, he ended up saying, okay, I'm auditioning for Juilliard.

And he got in and did he have a career?

He did quite well. He did two years, but then he left to do a Broadway play, which he did for a year and a half.

Okay, yeah, that's huge.

Which, by the way, was Big River. He played Huck Finn.

Oh, no kidding.

And wait, who was the lead? He was in Shenandoah. Well, shoot. Anyway, nevermind.

I forget. How did you know that?

I was around, what year was that?

That was about 84.

Yeah, you graduate in 83.

Well, I did 17 jobs in a year.

17?

But mostly, I'm gonna be a restaurant because I got no skill. And they're like, you gotta go clean up. Someone threw up on table 10.. And I'm like.

Tell them to fuck off.

You go clean it up. I'm the guy who drew up to clean it up. Why would I clean it up? Okay, you're fired. You know, that kind of thing.

So when you auditioned for Cheers, it's already been out for a couple years.

It had three seasons.

Yeah, had you seen it?

I hadn't seen it. When I went to college, I was a TV addict prior. So don't take this personally. And so when I went to college, I just got completely away from television, never watched it. I kind of broke that addiction.

No kidding, he just was doing you a solid. Oh, it was called Woody before you arrived. Yeah, and he was from Indiana,

which is where we went to college. The only thing that I asked them to change, and they did, was the name was something like Podunk, I forget, Indiana. And I said, can you make it Hanover?

After the college.

And they were like, yeah, but that sounds a little too. Lofty. Yeah, yeah, and yet they were finally like, okay, we'll do it.

So, was it easy for you to get that audition? Your friend calls and goes, you should read for this. Did you have an agent and everything at that point?

Yeah, I had an agent.

And what was your dream at that moment in time?

I didn't want to do television. I had in my mind, I wanted to do Broadway. And I was going to do Broadway, because the guys I was understudying got fired, because they were horsing around on stage with Matthew Broderick and a friend of Neil Simon's happened to be in the audience. Of course, they didn't fire Matthew Broderick, but they were getting rid of those other two guys. And when could I come in and take over one of the roles?

Yeah, that's a great way to audition, when you just do not want it. It really is. If you could trick yourself every time to every audition to go like, I absolutely don't want this, let's go.

That was lucky. So then I did the audition and Laurie opened. She was like, come with me. You know, and she took me into the room with all those guys, with Jimmy and the Charles brothers. But it seemed to me to be more labyrinthine than it probably was.

Do you think they thought it was a choice?

They pretty much decided on this other guy. You read with them.

Oh, I did. I do remember him vaguely.

So then they came to networks. It was between me and this other guy. And I just remember Teddy came in and he had some kind of, I don't know if he had a Coke or whatever. It was something from Fast Food Place with the straw. And he just relaxed as could be.

Well, TV had gotten better in your hiatus. Right, right. Cheers dons a whole new genre.

Taxi Cheers, yeah.

It starts a new paradigm, which you had missed, the transition.

And then Teddy actually helped me, because Jimmy or someone was like, I don't know if he's too tough, kind of. And you were like, no, that's what makes it interesting.

I vaguely remember that.

You did, because they just weren't sure. if I was too, you know.

Well, they were seeing the same thing. the bullies on the playground were, like, this guy's mad-dogging me. What the fuck's on, what's this? look on this guy's face?

That's the contradiction of Woody. that makes, to me, you absolutely fascinating. Because we were all like 37, 38, and he was 24, 25.. So as soon as he came in Monday morning, we'd all go, come here, tell us what happened. Tell us your weekend.

Sure, sure, sure. Kind of.

Yeah, yeah. He's more of a redneck gearhead. Yeah.

Sure, sure, sure.

No, but it's the same thing on face value.

But he does have the, yeah. Yeah, there's intimidation.

The sentimental, poetic soul underneath.

An intimidating facade.

Give me a big motor.

This is all artifice, how about that?

So's mine. Well, it's all artifice.

I would have loved to have just hugged everyone I met. But that didn't seem in the cards. So I went the other direction.

And I discovered early on that if I said, hey, it's me, Ted, one of the girls. Let's take our clothes off. It worked. Yeah. So I went that route.

There's no going back.

You do, you get some validation early on and then you just sort of steamroll in that direction.

You run with that, yeah. 1000%.

But did you get in a lot of fights? Yeah.

You had violent family relatives around?

Yeah, stepdads. Violent town. I didn't have a dad around. I was like, how does one prove they're a man? You do this.

Yes, no question.

And I'll die. I don't really give a fuck. I'll just be the guy that's like, stops here today and I don't really care the outcome. It won't happen on my watch.

That's how I could never work with a guy like, what's his name? Mike, what's the guy who's always so cruel to the crew?

There's several of them.

Okay, yeah.

Mike, we're gonna work on this.

Yeah, I'm dying to know. The only Mike I can think of is Nichols. I'm like, I don't think that was his name.

What's his name? He does...

Oh, Michael Mann?

Michael Mann would be one. Yeah.

He doesn't have the greatest rep.

I heard he's terrible to the crew. But there's another, Michael Bay.

Oh, sure, sure. There's some stories.

You know what? Let me jump in here with Mary. Mary's, one of you guys. She won't stand for a bully. You can fuck with her, maybe.

Yes.

For real. I mean, directors have tested her and she will smack down Oliver Stone in front of everybody else.

Good for her.

Because Oliver said something nasty about me. Right. Testing her. It's usually about testing. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the thing with bullies. A friend of mine, his daughter, was being bullied and he wanted me to talk to her, and I didn't talk to her. The reason I didn't, it's because I would have told her the only way to deal with a bully is to punch him in the nose, or her in this case.

I found that if you say squirrel.

And run.

And point elsewhere. And then run.

And confuse them.

No, you don't have to run. You just confuse the shit out of them. Yeah, they're not known for their brilliance.

You can also nice them to death too. I would pick out the nastiest people sometimes, smacks of cowardice or not wanting to get punched or something, but I'd make them laugh.

Yeah.

I know. No, no, no, no. There's a downside to it.

No, there isn't. Listen, I'm not advocating for how I have gone through life. In fact, Kristen said something to me that was the most poignant thing that's ever been said to me. Because in my story about myself, I'm gonna confront the bully to protect everyone else. And I think what people love about me is they feel protected by me.

Yeah, but now the way you put it makes me realize it a little more. But if you feel like someone's, you know, it's very difficult to not do something.

It is. I think it's like maybe the hardest thing to resist.

But also you said you're a mama's boy and you are a mama's boy.

Yeah, mom was getting hit. So when I was a kid, I was like, soon as I'm big enough, this will never happen again when I'm around.

You finally took him on, I imagine.

I was too little. He was out of the picture by the time he was seven. But when you're watching that and you can't do anything to protect mom, you're like, you're fucking a coward and you should be doing something. So that just starts this thing where like, well, the second, I'm big enough, that's not gonna happen again. Because the amount of shame and regret for not protecting her was so much more painful than any broken nose would ever be.

We're all soaking that up because I have experienced shame. It's the worst. The worst.

Nothing hurts as bad as the beating you can give yourself.

Thank God I handled this mini situation between me and Woody last night. With the photo. I'd be sitting here in shame.

Right? Yeah. And you'd be abusing yourself and flagellating.

What a dark light to get saturated in. Shame.

Shame's a tough one.

It is. It's the darkest one.

Another tough one is guilt. Guilt, just fries your circuits.

See, I go to the bathroom in the morning out of guilt. I eat out of guilt.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

So really quick, I can totally see how, being 38 and having a 24 year old, especially Woody, and not just any old 24 year old, like a guy who's wandering around the city and getting into some shit, would be endlessly fascinating and fun.

Oh my God. First, we tried to beat him. I've told this a hundred times, but we'd take him out on the basketball court. He kicked our ass and we fancied ourselves good.

Yeah, you were actually a very good basketball player in your youth.

No, I was a very medium basketball player, but I loved it with a passion. Nowhere near as good as Woody.

Didn't? we just agree that there's no more self-deprecation?

No, but it's true. Okay. All right, here's the truth. Basketball championship in our league at Kent School for Boys, 300 boys. So a school of 1200, like normal high schools, would have killed us.

Where's the acting buddy? auditioning?

No, but he was a rower. He went on to crew and he was happy.

So Woody, every time you guys would try to dominate him- And he would just kill us.

Even chess, motherfucker.

He would kick my ass in chess.

You know, I thought, okay, no more physical stuff. It hurts. You're right. He's hurting us.

He's got age on his side.

So, but what it did was it made you want to, because you're also loving him, you want to beat him at something, or you want to just prank him to death. So anything that came our way, you wouldn't aim it at anyone else. It would be a wasted shot. You'd wait for Woody.

Were you aware of any of that at that age?

More. so after Teddy told me, but he's always up front about these things. He's always saying, yeah, I'm gonna beat you at this or that. But then he did get me really good when, where he pants me in front of- Oh, wow.

Because, Monica, you'll understand this, because he was clearly wearing sweatpants or sweat shorts even, and no underwear, which we found highly annoying and silly.

Yeah, that was a look at a time.

And this was purposeful. In the script, we were rehearsing and there was a full audience by then, because we were famous and people came to watch us rehearse. Woody's character steps on a chair and up on a table to make a huge announcement. And I'm sitting right there. So his jockless self was right at eye level.

They can't ever get better.

There's no funner job ever, I think. It's impossible. It was a playground every day with the funniest people you ever met telling you all kinds of hysterical shit.

The writing was brilliant. And then you had a director, Jimmy Burroughs, who was so able to embrace as much insanity, as long as you showed up, when the cameras are rolling in front of the audience, he lets you do or be anywhere.

Don't you think that's his confidence? A lesser man would have been threatened.

Writers who came later on to the writing staff would be, wait, what the fuck? How do we know this is gonna work? They haven't said my lines once. And he'd go, relax, they're there. It'll be fine.

Right, he knew.

He knew.

Wait, I wanna say something really quick. This is super interesting, what Teddy just said that everyone on set was like, we wanna get him, kind of, right? Because he has all these things going for him and he's beating us. It's kind of exactly what you're talking about. when you first moved schools.

But in this case, it was kind of fun. And I was always trying to get them to. Well, you are competitive.

People say you're one of the most competitive people they know. And it works for me because I love to compete, but I don't really care. I only compete with people who I know will kick my ass. Sometimes, if there's not a man around to compete with, I'll compete with a woman. For some reason, I don't like the idea of having to win or lose be part of my day.

Is that dad? Is that tall poppy syndrome? Why would it be wrong for you to shine and to be number one?

Well, first off, I do shine and I am number one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Now we're talking.

I mean, finally. Yeah. I'm Sam Malone, mother fucker. I have to go now.

I feel really ashamed.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I got to be embraced by, and you would, in essence, say to me, it's gonna be okay, because I'm not gonna really kill you, but we're gonna take it to the edge. And I got to experience that, which is part of being man. Yeah, he's one of three boys. Yeah, and I didn't get that. So I think that's one of the many reasons I adore you, Woody.

Yeah.

I adore you, Teddy. And you, you have this very similar thing.

Don't lump him into my single dude. No, no. I'm so flattered.

I just mean a younger version of you, Woody.

Ah, 14 years younger, Woody.

I understand your reservation, but I'm like a pig in shit that you've just called us the same. I'm flattered to no end.

They're a big similarity.

What was the experience, Woody, from aiming at Broadway to, and for the history of the show, first, three years are good, they're climbing in the ratings, but then you arrive season four, and it really has a huge bump. It takes off, and then season five, it's the number one show, and it's like apex ratings. You had to have the light switch experience, where it's like total anonymity, and then 40 plus million people that week see you and learn your real name.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. That was a wild transition from poor and anonymous to, well, I wouldn't say rich, but, you know, famous. Relative to what I was. Yes.

For sure. You could buy a Corvette.

Yeah. Well, I had a Porsche and then a Corvette.

Which one got carjacked?

The Porsche.

Oh, good, he had good taste.

It didn't actually get carjacked. He wanted my keys. I was thinking that as I drove here, because I went past Bronson and Franklin, and, yeah, the guy put a gun to my head, and he's like, give me the keys. I couldn't find them. He's like, give me the fucking keys.

I don't, I can't, I don't know where they are.

I'm counting them. Is that true?

Did you not know? Yeah, and he counted to five.

Oh, fuck me.

And I'm thinking, you don't know. Is he going to pull the trigger? He sounds pretty convincing. And then, luckily, the person I was waiting for, this is like two in the morning, this gal had gone in to get something in her building there at Bronson and Franklin. The door opens of her finally coming out, and he just looked and ran.

Oh, thank God.

Thank God, because he was like on four. Oh. Not that he would have pulled the trigger, you know, I'm sure it was a bluff. Or not, you feel the muzzle against your head.

You have to assume the worst, let's just say that.

You'd be really stupid, not to assume the worst.

Yes, yes. Oh, this is great, though. You're 25, and you got a Porsche, and you're on the show.

24.

You got the Porsche first year.

I got it just before I started the show.

I'll get you another one.

I was actually 23.

Wildcats. That's right. Yeah. First movie?

Wow. He's researched.

Hey, by the way, you do your own research, don't you? You don't have a research team. Pretty cool.

Something to be said for that.

Something to be said for that.

Well, that was gonna be one of my questions when we got to the podcast. We're almost there, I'm still curious, were you the type that when it happened, it was a party, or was it discombobulating, or was it all the things at once?

Yeah, it was definitely a party. Yeah. But I didn't stop to think about whatever the deeper ramifications of what is fame, and do. I deserve it? I'm just like, I'm gonna lap this up, because who knew this would happen?

It happened to seven of you, or however many people. It's a very rare occurrence.

You also jumped into a pool. that was pretty cool in that. There were enough adults in the room that somebody would be an asshole one week, and all the rest of the cast, and we'd take turns being that asshole, would look at him like, wait, what? Don't do that. Your behavior was moderated by the good work.

Were you having any fears, Woody, if your sights were set on Broadway? As the show carries on, are you getting nervous that you're gonna be typecast as Woody?

Certainly, and back then, I think it was much more difficult because that was such a huge show, and we're so known for these parts. Like Fringe, it's weird to not get typecast. Even today, something pops huge, it's very hard. You wanna be able to get out from under any kind of typecasting, but yeah, it was, because I was on it six years before I got anything else.

Yeah, so I think the two things that are highly improbable in your life story is one, you get on that show, that's bonkers, and then two, and I don't know, was it hard to get White Man Can't Jump? Do you have to convince them that, no, I can play this street hustler guy?

I just remember when you first auditioned, it wasn't an audition like acting. It was, we're gonna meet down at this gym, and either you can play or you can't play. If you can't play, you're not in.

We don't need to hear you say any lines. Right.

First of all, I played a lot of basketball, and I'm like, oh, I am gonna shine today. Aha. I am gonna crush it, and I did.

You had to show that you had competition oozing from your veins, and you had both.

And savvy. You're the opposite of Woody on Cheers. Your character in White Man Can't Jump is conniving, and calculated, and smart, and street. smart, and savvy. You're not playing a dum-dum in that movie.

I might have been too dumb to realize that.

Yeah, yeah.

So it actually played in my favor, where I was supposed to do some commercial, which I'm glad I didn't do, but they canceled that.

That was a dangerous time.

A dangerous time. But I was supposed to do the thing in New Orleans, the Mardi Gras, and nope, canceled me from that.

You had an early round of canceling back at the beginning. Yes. Were you panicked at all by that? Were you scared? For a moment.

Yeah, I think. I think it landed.

People did say, you know, you don't need to, now people know your views, you don't need to.

Yeah, yeah, you made yourself clear. Everyone knows where you stand on the 91 war.

Oh, jeez.

When you were watching that happen, Ted, I can only compare the experience to, I was in a movie called Zathura, there were young actors, those young actors pretty promptly went on Kristen Stewart to just be this enormous star, and Josh Hutcherson went on to be in multiple franchises. Oh, you worked with Josh Hutcherson on all the Hunger Games.

Love Josh.

I have this immense pride and happiness for them. I didn't experience any jealousy. What was your reaction to him? breaking out in a way that you knew he was probably getting himself out of being typecast, and you yourself had to have been wrestling with the notion of being typecast at that time?

I have same reaction with unspoken competition, but what happens to me is, because I, by then, love him wholeheartedly. Yeah. I think it's more of checking myself, going, oh, wait a minute, Teddy, where are you? It's not envy. Envy means if you can't have it,

you don't want him to have it. It was jealousy.

It was just pure jealousy.

Sure, sure, sure.

But by then, I had already learned the hard way that you can't really compete with what he, you know, so. What year was that? Was that towards the end of Cheers?

Yeah, it was 92.

The last couple of years.

Oh, 92, all right. By 92, I had set up my personal life to the point where somebody had asked me to be in, you know, I don't know, Godfather 4.. It wouldn't have mattered to me, because I had made myself such a hot mess that my hands were full.

Right, you were distracted enough that probably you didn't have the bandwidth to worry too much about Woody. Not new career, no. Did you, Woody, when you had that kind of breakout success and then indecent proposal right after, are you now itching to get on with that?

I was never planning on leaving Cheers, but I felt like the writing dropped a little bit toward the end. I think Teddy felt that too. We'd done everything.

270 episodes or something?

Yeah, so there were just more sight gags and it wasn't quite as great as it had been. And then Teddy just kind of unilaterally decided he was going to move on.

All right, let's back up just a hair.

That's kind of how I remember it.

We as a group, I remember the last two episodes. No, no, no, no, I pulled the plug, I pulled the plug. But for two years before that, the conversation right at the end of each season was, oh, come on, how much longer are we going to do this? But no, I pulled the plug.

There was no such conversation.

By the way, I didn't know this until you told me a couple of years ago that as soon as I pulled the plug, they immediately turned to Woody and went, okay, Woody, how about you take over the bar?

Right. Oh, that's true. What's his name, John Pike or something?

John Pike. So it really wasn't Les and Glenn, it was Paramount.

He took me to dinner one night, and this is our last year and he's just like, so Teddy will exit, but then you can become the person who runs the bar. It'll still be cheers, it'll still be, everyone else will still be, and I said, listen to me, without Teddy, there's no cheers. You cannot do cheers without Teddy, period. That was over appetizers and we still had the rest of the meal.

You got right to it.

A little awkward, entree.

I'm going to cut to the chase here. Do you think, had you not had White Man Can't Jump and Indecent Proposal, that would have been a more tempting endeavor?

No, there was never even a remote chance.

You just have conviction about it.

No, I mean, come on. No way, it just wouldn't make sense.

But a lot of people would have.

I would have. Yeah, finally. It's about time you guys fucking asked me to own this bar. Okay, so the show ends in 93, and how much contact do you guys maintain over the next years before you guys start the podcast?

Irregular.

Yeah, it was always at a party. Mostly it was, hey, how are you? Let me have a talk of that.

Yes, of course.

Or a few other times, but in person, a couple of times a year. maybe, maybe a phone call here and there.

Go to Martha's Vineyard, see him.

I was going to say, have you been out and had the Ted and Mary Martha's Vineyard experience? We did last summer, and it was like, eat it.

So nice. I don't know, I don't see how you get a better life than that. Why go on working? Just say, okay, everything I need, I got. Let me stop all the bills and the new shit and just live in fucking Martha's Vineyard.

Well, you guys have both found your ways to islands, which is interesting. You're on Maui, you're in Martha's Vineyard. So you have all these kind of-.

Maui and Texas.

Well, and he has LA, I guess. But you have on the surface all these differences and different childhoods, different personality types, but also your lives kind of mirror each other. I mean, you'll have been with Mary for 30 years next year.

Married 30, together 32.

And you've been with Laura, I assume, for 30 plus years.

I met her 87 and we started bumping uglies in 90.

It took three years.

So yeah, it took a little time. Well, it did seem like you don't want to do, that's my assistant. Right. The more I examine it in my own, like the way you do, you do a thorough self-examination. I think I was probably attracted to her right as soon as I met her.

Damn, you got us beat.

Yeah, so 30 years and 34 years, these are both pretty unique outcomes in this show business town. So that's similar. You have three daughters? Yeah. Spectacular.

My memory was somebody came to me and said, would you be interested? And then it was either the strike or COVID or something. And it was like, huh. And I knew you and you're doing this and everything. And I remember enjoying our conversation.

You're like, if he can do it.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. But they said, you're not good enough on your own. You're going to need a partner in crime. And I didn't even know if it was my idea first, but somebody said, Woody. And it was like, oh, you should take the story from them.

Yeah. And you're not bummed that it takes that. I get disappointed in myself.

It's just the truth for me, yeah.

That's good.

And even after, it's like, yeah, let's go do lunch, Teddy. He's like, I gotta get back.

No, no. What I usually say is, yeah.

I haven't seen Mary in 90 minutes.

No, I've said for the last 40 years that we've known each other, the joke is, I will say, go ahead and start without me. I'll be there. I'll be right there. That is the way it goes.

When you guys get started, yeah, I'll be right.

Well, that's why the hack is the double date, though. I only see you when it's a four-way date. Yeah. Your only access to Ted is you gotta come with a partner.

You're not gonna ride motorcycles with him.

No, no, no, no, no.

Do you guys interview people? What's the format?

I've been a guest, and I have been interviewed by them, and they do a great job, but we gotta really quick, forgive me now, I'm gonna tell you some stuff about yourself, Woody, that you might be, or aware of or not, and Ted would have already known this. Someone said, Woody, and most certainly, you were like, good luck nailing Woody down, because I tried to get Woody in a movie once, and then we even chatted on the phone about it, and the web of confusion, you are the most unpredictable man. The notion of nailing you down and getting you to commit to something is daunting.

First off, if you wanna nail somebody down, they have to have a phone, or you can't approach them to nail them down.

Let's start there.

So if you don't have a phone, you know, I've grown to love it, quite frankly, and I'm trying to learn from it, but if you're in a jam, need an answer, you're not gonna get it.

Wait, you really don't have a phone?

No. Straight don't have a phone.

What is that?

It's like looking at a unicorn, right?

No, but it's also how brilliant.

It is brilliant. I wanna do that.

Clearly, you can go off and work around the world forever, and are, and then, when you're not working around the world, you don't wanna have to be picking up the phone. You wanna tune out. I can't do it, but I think it's brilliant.

Well, yeah, in a way, it's been one of the great things for me. I gave it up about five years ago because my daughter said she was giving hers up, and I'd already been doing this thing, where I would ask people, okay, if you could go back to the 80s, and it doesn't even have to be the 80s, it's just in the sense of there's not this technology, would you wanna do that? And a high percentage, maybe 90-something percent, say, yes, I would do that, no problem. And then here's my daughter says she's giving up her phone, and I says, I wanna do that. When?

It's almost braver for her because she's at the point of her life where she wants to be social and be connected with everyone. You're at the like, let's unplug some of these things, but she's like plugging everything in.

Hey, I'm gonna give you all a chance to talk amongst yourself about me.

Oh, is this the bladder?

No, no, no.

No.

You young whippersnapper.

Are you brave enough to use that?

I can step out.

I don't think Ted cares.

Don't worry, Teddy. I'll step out. No, Teddy doesn't care.

Would you like?

You two can step.

Are you micing my voice?

Teddy, I can see your penis from here. Literally, I can see your penis.

I've heard it's gorgeous. Yeah.

Yeah. It's gorgeous.

Youthful. You have a youthful penis, Ted. I am so proud that I'm actually peeing.

while this is on. There's so much of it that it almost seems unnecessary.

Yeah, there's a lot of extra.

That's true. I took a picture of him one time. Frequently, when we're getting ready for the show, we had more people than bathrooms, so it'd be like, Teddy, do you mind? I gotta come in. Well, I didn't do it because he'd know something's up, but I think Georgie or someone said, can I come in and brush my teeth or shave?

Okay, wait, so do you just use email?

Email, so I have an iPad, but the cool thing about it is once I leave the house, I don't carry my iPad. Wow. If I'm out anywhere, I'm not doing what I used to do five years ago, which is even a slight lull in the conversation. I'd be down here on the device. You see it all the time.

Yeah.

Now, does this burden, Laura?

Of course it does burden her.

It's so funny to talk to Woody's agent and manager and ask them a question about Woody and they just raise their hands like, we don't know. We don't have the secret connection to Woody. They're unplugged from him as well, right? I mean, when you're unplugged, you're unplugged.

This is similar to the apocryphal stories of Bill Murray, right, which is? he just has an answering machine. You might get lucky. Yeah. There's something enchanting about that.

It's either that or you go through his lawyer, one or the other.

Right. So if someone wants to hire you, what do they do? They call your agent and your manager, and then they, at some point, get an email to you.

Well, this very thing happened with Bill Murray for Zombieland. I was the conduit that kind of got Bill into it. It was going to be Matthew McConaughey, but Matthew wisely said, I don't even say anything. You could use anyone for this.

Can we act out the conversation? Huh? Can we act out the conversation?

Pretty good.

I gotta give him a more whistle, Mr. Dax. Mr. Dax, what's going on with this movie? You going to do this?

That's good, dude.

That's good. when the best friend laughs. Yeah, it is.

That's very good.

Anyway, so he bailed and then it was like two weeks out or something. And so I got ahold of Bill and we were in Atlanta, I think. And he had just left that day. And I was just like, fuck. But we talked about it and he said, well, send it, you know, sent the script.

And you're like, that's what McConaughey said.

And that's when they had the idea to make him that he was pretending to be a zombie, so that he could talk and everything.

That's a great movie, Woody. Oh, it's so good.

It was a great fucking movie.

God, that is a good movie.

I won't get into all the movies that Woody's done. that I absolutely love. But talking about jealousy or not, especially if he gets nominated for something, I haven't seen it. I will watch it on my cell phone just so I can say, yeah, fuck you. I'm watching Big Movie Star.

Which sucks, because you've had to deny yourself the cinematic experience of like No Country for Old Men. You watch all these on your phone and you're really hurting yourself.

I don't, I like to pretend.

I agree with you. As I was researching, I was, like, you, forget. It's fucking outstanding. You really are a good actor. Especially coming out off of Cheers, the one I gotta say that I just, Triangle of Sadness, A, that was the best movie of the year.

No, they had a gimbal. And so it was a huge stage. Because ironically, I couldn't be there. I never told this to Ruben, but I honestly was like, I'm having so much fun in Maui. And it was during the pandemic, which of course I don't fear, the Reaper.

but I could use it as an excuse.

Of course. I did use it as too dangerous. I don't know what they said. But anyway, so I said, you know, I could come in June or something. And they were shooting like in April.

He hasn't heard from any of the cast members that had to shoot with the first AD.

They're like, what's it like working with Woody? You mean Frank, the stand-in? He was there.

I would never do that anymore. And I don't know why I did it at the time. I just didn't want to leave. Pandemic, man. The pandemic.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

So on the podcast where everybody knows your name, which I was on, and I loved it so much. It was so fun. I was one of the very first guests.

You were, because we needed to learn. We wanted to pick your brain.

Your wife was the one before, and then you.

Right, and I was like, well, this works. This immediately works. And I said to you, Ted, you either have the chemistry lottery with your co-host or you don't. You can't do anything about it. And you guys just have it.

Yeah, it is fun.

How do you divide up responsibilities? Who does what? I have a hunch Woody shows up. Well, first off, first off,

everybody who works with Woody or has ever met with Woody will do anything Woody wants. He brings in a different crowd than I have mingled with in my life. So in comes some of the most fascinating people that I get to meet and hang out with. When the microphones roll, the part of Woody that I'm so different from is perfect. Everything fits.

Yeah, big time. I'm guessing. then, Papa Ted, as we call you in our household, you're doing the research. It's out of respect.

It's not an age thing.

Go on, please.

No, we have a team of people who research.

But I don't think they do the perfect job.

No, but who does? And it's the same thing. you can glean on your own, if you wanted to Google it, whatever. But what I like about it is, I read it, read it, read it, read it. Then I go, wait a minute.

Same, yeah.

And let them know. But by the time we're actually seated and with our little muffs on, I'm now wanting to be with that person. I think that's probably true for you too.

Have a conversation and not think about, oh, I got to have this directive about, I need to tackle this subject, that subject.

Yeah, well, you have a great curiosity about people. You're a very good question answer.

I do want to know what makes people tick. And I've always wanted to know what it's like to be you.

I'd like to know what it's like to be Dex too.

Yeah. I think you know.

We could swap for a minute. Talk to Laura. I'll talk to Kristen.

Well, there's some conversation that we had there. I'm just not sure Laura's going to want me back. That's the thing I worry about.

She's like, eh, let's keep this arrangement. I'll keep this one. He has a phone. I can fucking ask him to pick something up on the way home for me. Even if everything else sucks, that's kind of worth it.

Different. Well, I mean, career-wise. it's different because, by default or blessing, I happen to love the fact that I get to be in town. Most of my career has been television in LA. I've been so blessed.

Yes, I love it. It's great.

Because I'm home. So sometimes I will do these podcasts without Woody.

Was that a nerve-wracking?

Well, yeah. Woody's an extraordinary draw and people love being around him. But I got to hang out with W. Kamau Bell, who'd spent the day.

Yeah, impressive dude.

Yeah, we'll find out. We haven't aired yet. If all of a sudden the needle dips when Woody's out of town.

You did an interview with Martin Short without me.

Yeah, I did. Some things that you kind of were irritated about.

I'm irritated about that one.

Like, wait, I wanted to be there for that one.

Yeah, with that just said, I don't know who they're asking in my absence. Who?

What? And there's virtually no way for you to find out either. You can't even listen to a podcast.

Exactly.

Oh, my God, it's so charming, the whole. Yeah, how warm. Does it scare the shit out of you, Monica? Like how unpredictable he is and hard to nail down?

I had an idea of you before you came in here, as is often the case when we have people in here. I was intimidated. And you're just so easy and fun and lovely.

I find you a little daunting.

I am, that's appropriate. I'm just pretty scary. Speaking of tiny but fierce.

You know, it's kind of cool.

People don't maybe know this, but we're looking at Monica and Dax sitting in these gigantic, comfortable, rocking leisure chairs, and it's very relaxing.

Yeah, that's nice.

To see us be so comfortable. Yeah, it really is.

I mean, that's happened over time, though. But the comfortability.

He used to sit you over in the corner.

I was in the bathroom, yeah. No, I was in your spot. When you were here last, you were in Woody's spot. I was in that spot.

And can I just apologize?

For?

I didn't ever turn and say, hey, Monica, so what do you think about such, I was into Dax and never spoke to you during that whole thing, and I really felt like the toxic male.

I'm glad you apologized.

Yeah, you wouldn't have done that.

Well, that's very sweet, but that's not really your fault.

It's Dax's fucking fault.

Well, for sure, 100%. Somehow, it's my fault.

It's always Dax's fault. But no, I mean, the way-.

That you didn't look at Monica as my fault? No. The way-.

Because you were mesmerizing. Sorry.

The way it was set up was a problem. This having to do this was uncomfortable.

Did you have to bring it to his attention? I bet you did.

No, you know who did? Jake Johnson. We had Jake Johnson on, and in the middle of the interview, he said, I don't like this. I can't see her. Can we rearrange?

Yeah, I feel like I have to turn my head and be off mic.

So did you rearrange it right then, and that's how it stayed?

Yeah, and then we were like, oh, duh, this is what's been broken. We had no idea. We only had one lazy boy and we had a couch, so it made perfect sense. There was no lower status thing going on. It was just like, oh yeah, it's a triangle.

Yeah, also, everyone knows Dax, right? Like, he's the movie star. It's also his name on the-. Thanks for introducing that, Lizzie. Yeah, I know, you love it.

Yeah, because it wasn't something we were unaware of, and I, of course, am best friends with Monica. I want her to be engaged, and we're like scratching our head, like, I guess it's. they come here, they already know about me, that's what's going on. Literally, it was like a physicality issue.

You had to feng shui this mofo. Yeah, we did. Thank God, Monica, because, and I know you've probably felt the whole time, even in spite of some of the awkwardness, like I'm definitely his intellectual superior.

Well, I don't know about superior.

Why am I not included more?

I feel like I have something to offer, but we've figured a really good balance out, and I wonder about you two, but you guys are co-.

Dependent?

No, we know Ted is co-dependent, just Ted.

Which is a good thing, but gone. I just want to keep putting them in.

Nine out of 10 bachelorettes say they would prefer a co-dependent, we have.

I know when I don't talk, it doesn't mean because I have nothing to say. Like, we figured out a real flow. Dax mainly interviews, and I come in as the audience. often. I like sit in their seat, and I think, oh, they're not going to understand something here, or if I have my own questions, but we've figured it out, but it's taken a long time, and you two, I assume, equally ask questions.

This is being presumptuous, but I feel like I'm having so much fun with Woody that the guests better be deserving of me taking my focus off of Woody and onto the guests, and I think people get that in play. They jump in and swim.

I feel that way too, like a lot of times, we do just have a banter for a while, and then they're like, am I in this thing?

Am I free to go? You guys seem to have this.

I love that phrase. I hope you can swim, because we did it on chairs. The first four or five years, guest stars would come, and we would take them to lunch. We'd give them a mug. We'd have their armory.

Good luck to you.

Good luck. The last few haven't worked out.

Nah, we do not rehearse. You're right.

I remember that one lady came in before they had cell phones. She had one of these big things.

Big honking phones.

And she was like super, super rich, which I think she was playing. a character like that. She's dripping in gold. She's on the phone.

Right in front of the stage.

Like right in the middle of things. Jimmy's like, what? So she didn't last. She came in literally one day. Yeah.

We also got fired once by somebody who was going to play, somebody who had an interest in Rhea, Perlman, Carla, and it was Jim Arness's brother, who was Mission Impossible. Peter Graves. And he was there and we had a read through on Wednesday, the night after a shoot. And then Thursday came in and it was a bit of a rewrite, funnier. And he looked at it and he looked at Jimmy and he went, this is not what I signed on for.

Damn, that's a first.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, it was actually kind of cool. Yeah, something new happened.

Do you remember that? No, you were probably visiting the Berlin Wall. It's my favorite Woody story. When people ask me Woody stories, it's like sitting around 40 minutes late, where's Woody? This was like a Friday and we were going to shoot Tuesday.

Oh, that's incredible. You were there? Yeah. Did you get a chunk of the wall as memorabilia?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a few chunks. Really? I also got cobblestones that they used to throw at the wall. It's not like a big successful effort in bringing it down, but it was just symbolic.

When you were coming home through customs and they said, do you have anything declared? Did you say, I have a bit of the Berlin Wall with me? I don't know what the policy on that is. I've got about six ounces of weed and the Berlin Wall.

There are a handful, really, truly, but one of the first ones that knocked me out because I didn't know him, and he and Woody are buddies.

I know what you're gonna say. Yeah.

Flea. Flea, yeah.

Oh, you had Flea. Wow.

That was maybe the greatest interview I've ever seen of anyone.

You know what he looks like? By his own description of his life, he should not have lived past 12 or 13 or something, and music saved his life. But the first thing he did was we sat down. He said, excuse me, I need two, three minutes. And he sat there and he meditated right in front of us just to center himself so that he did not bring anything to the party other than just being there.

Oh, he's a radical dude, huh?

Astounding.

Oh, that's exciting.

He's telling to do our show, yeah.

Yeah, pass it along.

Next time you're bringing down some wall.

You know, he lives right near here.

He's got a sweet car collection too, right? He's got a bunch of funky, like 70s, Lincolns and stuff. You don't give a fuck. I don't know about that. That was a bad question.

I don't know about those things. What the fuck is, Patrick? He had the same thing as me, where someone came up with a really, really fast car when it was first coming out and they let us drive around in it. And can you invest? I don't think so.

Tesla.

Oh, I thought I'd just thrown a few shekels that way.

Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't have even noticed it.

I wouldn't have to be doing this podcast right now.

Then you'd really be Tesla people if you invested.

Right, that's true.

Well, Tad, from the bottom of my heart, you know I love you to death. I can't wait for our next, you cooked me burgers last summer, it's the highlight of my summer. And then, Woody, now this is our second time being in a room together. No violence is broken out. This is very encouraging.

Thank you. Thank you so much, man.

This has been awesome. Oh, good. I really have enjoyed it.

Well, next time you gotta sell your wares. You're always welcome.

Okay, but also, I wanna come over, have a little dinner. Oh, yeah. Teddy can come with his wife. I'll ask Mary, but I'm not 100% sure.

Three couples. You start without me.

Three couples.

Monica, it's nice to have you in our eyeline.

Thank you.

That should be your podcast, Start Without Me.

Yeah, that's funny.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes.

That's what it's called?

Yeah, Copenhagen, Mark, Den Hagen. That's hard to do. I've been fucking with the kids because we're in Copenhagen, Denmark. Oh. And Delta said, is Copenhagen in Denmark?

That's hard. That's hard for me to process, yeah.

You up at 8 a.

Yeah, it's early. We're doing an early.

Early bird special.

On my side of the pond. What time of it, time is it at your side of the pond?

What time of a pond is it on your side of Den Hagen? It's 5 p.m., nine hour difference.

Prime time.

Oh, the witching hour for podcasting. Okay, here's the fun part. So we're staying at a hotel that is right next to, I don't know if you pronounce it Tivoli, I think it's Tivoli Park, which is where Walt Disney came and got the idea for Disney World. Really cool. Disneyland, sorry, Disneyland.

Oh my God, and that doesn't scare people. Is it like, is it kind of babyish?

I mean, presumably you need the person with the brake. No, no, it doesn't. It's very much like a mine car ride, you know?

Okay, yeah.

But the notion that there's someone in the middle, I said a man, it can be a woman. It happened to be a man when we were there. But they have this huge lever in front of them and they're slowing it down, which I find to be hilarious, because generally, when you go on a roller coaster, what you tell yourself is no reason to be afraid. It can't go wrong. But this has a human element.

That's what I'm saying. That's scary.

I liked it because it was a pretty docile or tame roller coaster. But because there was a human on board, it made it feel very treacherous. And he was older. I thought, what if he has a medical condition in the middle of this ride?

Well, yeah, I don't, trusting humans is tough.

I also then thought too, wow, this guy must ride this roller coaster like a hundred times a day. I think they're swapping out. break people, but stills, I think these people are riding this roller coaster tens and tens and tens of times.

They must swap out a lot because he could cramp up.

Yeah, that's right.

I hope he's stretching.

It's a very beautiful park. It's pretty big. And you can definitely see that Walt ripped it off for Walt Disneyland.

Oh, no.

Yeah, the architecture is kind of the same. It's very, very similar vibe.

Is there a Mickey Mouse?

There's a Mishy Mosh.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

He's a thief.

What time did you go to bed last night? You knew you had to get up early. Did it give you stress?

No, I woke up late because, I mean, oh, I went to bed late because I had a dinner. My friend Sally from Argent is in town. Uh-huh. She put together a little group of peeps for a dinner on the West side.

Ooh, no, thank you.

Yeah, but for Sally, I'll do anything. So I went, I brought Ana with me, and it was fun. And it was a fun little group of people. You know, I was thinking on the way home, I don't like going to things with new people. I always prefer just my normal routine or seeing people I already know.

I have that same thing, but what's funny is the second. I'm around new people, I remember, oh, I love being around new people. That's actually probably my favorite thing, but I think I don't. So confusing.

Yeah, I don't think, it's definitely not my favorite thing, but I did think, oh, it's fun. It's fine. It's nice.

Who was the most interesting person you met? An astronomer?

No, well.

Ornithologist? No. Herpetologist? What's that? Anyone with herpes?

Not for me.

Okay.

That's not gonna be my second life, herpetology. No, it was a cool group of ladies.

When, what time? did this conclude?

Late, and then we had to get back to the side of town. And then I started the Simone Biles doc.

All right, before you tell me about the Simone Biles doc, did you finish Sprinter?

Yes, loved it.

Oh my God, I finished last night. What a juicy last episode.

What, which one was the last episode again?

Sha'Carri competing?

Yeah.

In the 200, and then Noah Lyles competing in the 200.

I am too, it definitely, I think they should have done that for every sport.

Yeah, I love Sha'Carri so much. I wanna have her on so bad.

She'd be great.

Do you love her?

I do, I love her, and I'm excited to see her in the Olympics.

But when she's doing media events, you're stressed out? Is that what you're about to say?

No, no, I just also, I'm gonna be pegged as anti-American, probably by you, but I tend to do this, I love the Romanian gymnasts as well.

Sure, sure.

I really like the Jamaicans too, a lot.

Of course, that's fine. It's not a betrayal at all to root for them, because you're going back and forth from our training camps to their training camps.

I know.

And they're at like a rural high school kind of a track, and you know- And they're the best. Yeah, it's so disproportionate how much they've won, and I love their runners, all of them, I'm rooting for them. I was really concerned about one of their diets, so I don't wanna single any one of them out, but one of them was eating fried chicken and drinking wine, and I was just like, that cannot be turbo fuel for this. Wine while you're competing-.

It's working.

Well, think how fast she'd be without that on, like a very clean diet.

No, that's a very limited opinion. It could be the key to her success. Also, I think what I took away, because I saw some other people eating food, some Americans, and I was like, yeah, if you're working at that level, I think they can do what they want.

Well, they can do what they want, and they definitely eat a ton of carbs, and there's even that scene where they're saying, people think we eat a lot of protein, but we eat so much carbs, but they're eating like big plates of pasta. You're right, though, our great 200 meter sprinter, what's her name? Harvard grad. Gabby. Yeah, Gabby, she's awesome.

She's so good.

Yeah, day of the race.

Yeah, she had barbecue.

Well, she was eating ice cream. She was with her friends, and she was out like pounding ice cream. I don't know, Monica. She should. Dax.

They know more than we do about- Or? No.

Are they fallible humans? I'll tell you, because I can give you a point, match set, which is when our 200 meter and 100 meter, our other guy, who's also great, besides Noel Lyle, the big guy who was a football player from Texas.

Oh, I loved him.

I did too. I loved him so much, but his coach, when he lost, he had a really underwhelming performance, and his coach said, do you want gold bad enough to stop- Eating candy. And drinking Red Bull. And I was like, yes, you can't be drinking, you can't get all wired on Red Bull and then expect your body to perform. You need water and macros.

You're always talking about water and macros.

Noel Lyle is eating and drinking correctly, and it shows.

No, I saw his plate.

He's got a lot of carbs. That's fine. That's fine.

It looked like there was cheese.

He's not eating a ton of sugar and wine and fried chicken. Let's just say that.

We don't know that. Part of it is their age. The guy who has to stop eating candy, he's a little older.

Okay, all the more reason.

Well, yeah, so I do think maybe you hit an age where you do have to pay, not, I think, this is life, unfortunately. Everyone hits an age where they have to start paying attention a tiny bit more to what they're putting in their body. But the others, I think, are young enough that they don't.

Okay.

And it's really working. Sha'Carri, I did not realize, they reference in the show a lot that she's been through a lot.

Well, yeah, she got disqualified from the last Olympics for weed.

I know, and I remember hearing that story, but I didn't put two and two together that it was her because I didn't watch sprinting last time. I didn't really pay much attention because her biological mom had just died. And then I was like, what is going on? that we care about that?

If anything is not a performance-enhancing drug, it's marijuana. I mean, they should let them, they should pay their competitors to smoke weed.

I agree.

And eat tons of candy and fried chicken and wine.

No, that works. You never want your competitors to do that.

I know, I felt like I was so mad when I looked it up, because you do learn in there. she was disqualified, but you don't know what for. So I looked it up and my worst fear was that it was gonna be, she was on some performance-enhancing drug, but no, THC in her system, get out of here. Drives me nuts. I love her so much.

Yeah, I think she's grown a lot in how to handle the pressure. I saw her on Vogue.

Oh, you did?

And she was great. Like. there's a little video on Vogue and behind the scenes, she's getting ready for this shoot. And she was talking to makeup artists and she said, please make sure to match my color. Like, don't make me lighter.

Oh, I love her. I love her so much. Oh, and by the way, they keep going to Felix in that show, which we interviewed. And I'm so mad we didn't get to interview her when she was pregnant because she looks so cute. Oh, my God.

She looks so cute. And actually, okay, this is a ding, ding, ding. And an Easter egg. We have someone coming up also in this world.

Yes, yep.

Incredible episode. And after you were like, I raced Allison and she said, oh, was she pregnant? And we laughed. I think she might have been.

Oh, no. Well, yeah, it's hard to know when this doc was filmed, because we had Felix over a year ago.

But this was world championship time. That was a year ago.

Maybe she was pregnant. Maybe I raised a pregnant woman. What a terrible.

How embarrassing.

Also, just what a terrible idea. Don't challenge a pregnant woman.

I know when she fell down.

Oh, it's grass. It would have been okay. We're in the yard.

Anyway, yeah, she looks so cute. I did on our armchair on a stories, I reposted that episode.

Felix's.

Yeah, I was like, in case anyone's watching this show.

I saw that. I thought that was a very good idea. I know you don't care, but I posted the OCD expert Allegra's episode today. And I know you don't care, but just outpouring of people saying, money, we love you exactly the way you are. Don't you dare be different.

That's nice. No, don't say that word. That's a bad word now.

Her mess.

I guess you could say her mess, because that's not correct.

I'm going to buy some from her mess. Well, we drove very far yesterday. Yesterday was a long day in the car.

Molly told me.

Oh, she did. Yeah. Yeah, we drove from Oslo to Den Hagen. And if you don't stop at seven hours, we stopped seven or eight times to pee. Ew.

It might be anxiety. Do you think that now they're used to the bus toilet? So now it is like going to be impossible for them to ever hold it?

I don't know, Monica. I'm very pessimistic. And when I'm driving, I just have you. I don't know. I don't know.

Yeah, I think peeing is practice makes perfect, because I never pee.

Well, I will say, now I'm gonna tell them myself. So the last hour and a half of the trip, I had to pee, so bad. Like. all of a sudden it hit me. I was also exhausted.

What?

You do? What's your guess?

Is it have to do with what I read this morning?

What'd you read this morning?

Your text. Your text to the connections group.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, this is wild. We pull into a gas station. My American credit card will not work at the pump itself. So I gotta go in the station to pay.

I hate that.

Yeah, so I'm in the station to pay. We're in Sweden at this point. And the whole family's in there and they're throwing crap on the counter. So I'm gonna pay for all this stuff. And then I'm gonna have them put like 25 liters on the card and then I'm gonna pump.

Oh, my God. Oh no.

And I turn around and he's yelling at me in Swedish.

What?