#424: Brian Koppelman on Making Art, Francis Ford Coppola, Building Momentum, and More

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Slash Tim. Check it out. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and gyms, this is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show where it is my privilege, pleasure, and obligation to deconstruct world class performers of all different types, and my guest today was in fact, I believe, the tenth ever guest on this podcast, and I had to have him back. He was so nice.

We had to do it twice. Brian Coppelman. on Twitter at Brian Cobelman, B R I A N K O P P E L M A N, is a screenwriter, novelist, director, and producer. He is prolific. prior to his hit show Billions, which he co created and executive produced and co wrote on spec. He was best known as the co-writer of Rounders and Oceans Thirteen, as well as the producer of The Illusionist and the Lucky Ones. He has directed films such as Solitary Man starring Michael Douglas. Brian also hosts the very popular The Moment podcast. Brian.

Welcome back to the show. Uh such a pleasure, Tim. I you know, always so happy to talk to you, man. And You are also, I would consider Aside from being a friend, a mentor of sorts. I have sent

drafts of various things to you for feedback. And you are a real master of your craft. And I appreciate your help when I need the help. And I and I recall Just as a quick Personal anecdote when I sent you a draft of one of my blog posts. I can't recall which But

You said I will give you feedback because I believe you actually want feedback or something along those lines. It was the first one. First of all, this is great and it's something that I'm really eager to talk about, which is the importance of connection, but also how how to um How to expand your reach. Because you know, Tim, you asked me a question last night because um and I I think I like to declare this kind of thing on a pot. I mean you and I are friends. Like we're We've been in touch for a long time and we text and talk and like we can lean on each other if uh for for stuff.

And last night you you said, Hey, let's try to not just uh ramble since we you know, the danger of having someone you're friends with on a podcast is it can ramble and suddenly just be for the two of you. So Uh but I was thinking about uh the last ten years because that is great sort of prompt you gave me you said uh Think about between twenty ten and and twenty twenty. And one thing that occurred to me

Is Mm-hmm. It's super important. To me to expand my world. And because that's the way that

I learn and grow. But in order to expand my world And uh and you do the same thing. I the key a key thing is To improve myself, со да I have something to offer. As I try to expand my world so that

Uh by doing work on myself, by trying to grow, by trying to read more and learn more. I then am prepared to uh engage when I reach out. It uh to somebody I admire. So you might say I've been a mentor of sorts to you. Obviously, even though you're younger than I am, you've been a mentor to me in various areas too. And part of that is because each of us are trying

Um in whatever way. To do the work on our own so that when we meet again, we're meeting uh as versions of ourselves that are um in a place of momentum, not inertia. Now Sometimes you're in a place of inertia and if you've built real relationships, you can then go to somebody and say, Hey, I'm stuck.

Help me figure out why I'm stuck. Help me figure out how to move forward. But Yeah. for for me, I've realized that can't be the all uh only place that I'm in. And the reason that I've come to know that is As you have

I've spent years feeling stuck at various points in my life, and so Tried to find ways. to um unstick myself, expand my world so that I can have helpers to help me unstick myself. And When you sent me It was your first of these new blog posts and you'd sent a note I think to a few of your friends. I think it was I think it was single ply. It might have been where in your life are you still using single ply?

That's correct. It was. And it was you said I'm doing this new thing where I'm gonna start blogging m more in a certain way. And uh you were like, would you be willing to give me notes? And I remember where I was. I was actually heading to the airport and uh in LA coming back to New York. And I knew you were coming to me As a professional, that you were a professional, and I would define that.

As somebody who just it whether you're making money on it or not didn't matter. That's not what I mean by professional and this I'm using more sets. Gotten's definition of it, which is you know, you were taking this work seriously. You were trying to communicate for other people something uh uh strong you were trying on the page to figure out your strongly held belief and then to share that with other people. And I could tell what you wanted was Um A gut check. Am I communicating cleanly enough?

Is it entertain is am I entertaining enough to get the message across? And when I receive something like that from a fellow professional It's an honor, man. You feel like Uh what a joy to be able to because then you know I knew I would give you feedback. I knew you would be able to throw out the stuff that didn't apply, but I knew you'd be able to Take'cause I gave you some harsh notes. I was like you can cut to section. Um an amateur

Or even someone who gets paid to do this work, but who isn't in a professional mindset Uh default to instead of hearing the notes they asked for as from A peer or a mentor or someone trying to help you. They make that.

uh note as though it came from the teacher Who hated them the most, or the parents who they could never please, and so they react emotionally instead of from a place of uh professionalism and quality check. And so Yes, I was in the middle I mean, I was so busy when you sent me that thing, meaning

I was on a trip that was uh twenty four hour trip to California. We were in the middle of making the show. I was Um had gone out there for a a specific Uh to do Bill Simmons'

Two three podcasts in two days with Bill while still writing billions. And you sent me that thing. And and I thought Oh well this is really a valuable thing to do because Tim is Actually in the middle of trying to grow, right? You said I'm trying to

Reshape the way I think about my posts. And I was like, Well, this is great. I'm so fucking proud and happy for Tim. And I know my this is the key. I know my efforts won't be wasted. I know if if I Dig into this as though I wrote the piece.

Tim is gonna react to it. in kind. And and that is exactly what I'm talking about. Uh And it's the kind of thing although Um you've written many books and I've done the things that I've done. I believe we would have in interacted in the exact same way.

In the moments before our professional successes happened And and I think that's part of why we were able to manifest and have some professional success, be because of that. desire to get the work right. Does that make sense to you? Is that r It m makes perfect sense. And uh you are also not to turn this into like a

Whatever whatever it might be, but You are and I I think this is really important to underscore for folks who perhaps want to explore different creative paths

And uh whether that be professionally in the paid sense or not, as you said, the professional mindset is one I think you reflect in s in so much as you You take feedback. Extremely Well and unemotionally. Uh, as does Seth Godin, who you mentioned earlier. And I I really find that to be a hallmark of someone who can

make a lot of Progress. Uh in terms of their creative endeavors or otherwise. Let's but let's take a second and slow down this is such a crucial point. Um

And it's one that I've given a tremendous amount of thought to because I don't take feedback well. In the instant. It's given. So what happens privately and I think

I think it's like when you watch an Olympic athlete perform, even though part of your brain knows all the years of practice, all you really think is Geez, Michael Johnson's fast. And yeah. So Here's what I'd say. When I get feedback sometimes. My initial reaction

might actually be all the things I just said to avoid. My initial reaction might be rage. Might be sadness. Uh might be uh self pity. might be wanting to beat myself up. Uh uh and I'm not exaggerating. I might have twelve really bad hours where

I go through a range of Purely emotional responses where what I want to say to the person giving me the feedback is go fuck yourself. But When I was younger, I did say go fuck yourself, right? Now what I tr and by the way, we all have bad days where we could say the wrong thing. But what I now know because I've trained myself to notice it through meditation and journaling

is Okay. This is you shaking off. The bad reaction to the feedback. You're not gonna do anything with e that material or that approach.

Until You've shaken this emotional response off enough. That you have intellectual clarity. And then you can look at the feedback. And say

Okay, these three things make a lot of sense. I know what to do with them. That fourth thing А сі вот та міз. uh I can address it a different way. And and this bundle things over here, while that's really the person giving me the notes issues, I I don't think that makes it better. But until I can get to that place, I won't even deal with it. So Like we went through this process and I'll I'll talk about this more later with um COVID and when to leave New York City. You and I had three or four conversations.

And I had to uh get to a place where I could uh take my emotional response out to get to my pure uh intellectual response. And that process, the more one can learn to accelerate the process, so that if I've had this experience, someone will will Call me someone I know and they'll say.

Will you look at this cut of something I've just shot? Or will you look at this thing I've just uh written or will you listen to this song. Because you know, I was um uh I'm I made records for a long time as a producer and A and R person, right? And They will they will want feedback and so the thing I said to you I I now have learned to say to somebody

Describe the kind of feedback you want. Is this finished? If it's finished Penjolette said this to me once uh where he he said, If you tell me it's finished, all I'm going to say to you is congratulations, because you can't do anything about it and I don't wanna and and this is important, right? But I'll say this one, is it finished if they say right?'Cause if I show you something and it's finished, a finished that I've just made, but it's not out yet. Honestly, what is your feedback? Your I really all I need at that point is a pat on the back for accomplishing something, right? But If somebody sho so the first thing I say to somebody

Is What kind of feedback are you looking for? Now you preempted that because your initial note you said, I want harsh feedback. That's great. So I'll better say somebody. Do you want the kind of feedback I will give to a peer? Because when I the feedback I give to a peer has very little positive in it, not a lot of praise. Uh it's it's Right, because we don't need that. If I if I send my friend Craig Mason, the the you know uh the great creator of Chernobyl uh on HBO

If I send Craig, if I'm gonna waste Craig's time and ask him to read a script. I don't need him to also spend Um a half a page of response to me telling me what I've done well. What I need him to do is tell me where the thing has fallen short, right? So I will say that to somebody. Are you prepared for that? If you are not a good idea, I'm not I will give you those notes, but you have to be willing to do something with them. So

Before you ask for feedback, you have to get yourself in a mindset that is open to taking action. Based on the feedback. This is in any area of life. Except if you're um partner asks you if they look good. If they ask you if the sweater fits them well, they are not asking for this kind of feedback. So I just want to be clear about that.

that is an entirely different feedback loop that you have to figure out for yourself. Uh but because the answer can wildly vary. Uh the response. But this is one of the keys, I think, to becoming successful in any area of The arts, but I would expand it to in any area of business. How to ask for feedback. And how you respond to that feedback. When it's given. That's something I've spent a lot of time thinking about, and it's something that I think all of us should think about because it's an incredible shortcut.

to growth. Because if you take the feedback the right way, you don't only improve the thing you're working on then, you improve the next five things you're working on because that feedback has led you to Uh uh understand how to iterate the next thing. Makes perfect sense to me. And I I wanna I wanna jump back to a few things you mentioned and then ask a follow up question. You mentioned meditation and journaling. We don't have to go into great depth with that because we spoke about it in our first conversation on this podcast, but transcendental meditation and

Morning pages. Allah Julia Cameron uh are both Yeah. I want to talk about the uh the initial response to feedback. So if you have the say up to twelve hours of rage, denial, sadness, whatever it might be, in the moment, if someone delivers that feedback to you, not in writing, but verbally or on the phone, and Do you are you are you responding

like the ice skater in the Olympics who falls down and just steps back up and has a huge shitty grin on your face and you sort of play nice until you get off the phone. Is there something you say to get off of the phone so you can buy yourself time and a clean exit so you can experience your emotions? That's a great that's a great thing to think about because Uh that what that really is is a great aspiration, right? The the and I and it's important to keep that aspiration in mind. Now I have a creative partner, David Levine, and so when I think we're gonna have uh Uh. A call with somebody

who's gonna give us feedback and I'm concerned that my emotions are too engaged Sometimes I will say to David. Hey man, I think you should do most of the talking on this phone call because I can feel myself amped up. So part of that is taking stock of your look a lot of success in interpersonal relationships Involves.

Understanding your own complicity in how the engagement is gonna Turn out. So a lot of this growing up The responsibility

From The other Yeah. That doesn't mean oh I'm responsible for my own success. What it means is Uh uh instead of saying

That's Dick. treated me poorly and it made me feel a certain way. Before the interaction, I try to prepare myself. So that

I'm gonna react in the right way in the moment. because I've learned to know myself probably through the meditation journaling. Also honestly through the relationship I have with my wife. We celebrate our twenty ninth anniversary in two days and she's also a a writer and filmmaker. And we talk about this stuff all the time and have, and she we're very good at being honest with one another. And so Amy will Um, as the Brits like to as the Brits she's not British, but as the Brits say, you know, she'll pick me up on that stuff and Help teach me.

But I can be a total asshole if I'm not. Ahead of time. Prepared. I often say people who listen to my podcast

Hab uh they're listening to the most understanding version of me. The the me trying to be that ice skater where I'm I'm so uh uh directed, outwardly directed on on being there to listen to the other person. I'm incredibly patient. I'm fulged in their journey. I've taken myself out of it. And I try really hard.

to be that person in all the interactions that I have. But as you know In that hour That you're doing this You are able to manifest it. It's really hard to manifest it at the end of a long day when you fail during the day, because we all fail during our day sometimes, when you've had to manage four flame ups on set that happened for a variety of reasons. Um a director that you're you know, for me in my life making our show, you know, there could be an issue with a director um

a cut. I could give notes on a cut. The editor could have done what I wanted. I got the cut back. I made four different mistakes. Uh the cuts taken a step backwards, not a step forwards. And then I have a notes call at seven o'clock at night. And I've had day where I've felt like I've been in in in in the ring. with Mike Tyson And someone says the wrong thing, and I could

Absolutely tell somebody Somebody I respect Like uh value I could absolutely, in the way that I take their note, make them feel shitty and ruin their night.

And I I've really worked hard not to do that. But you know what we I will say One thing I've learned is if I do that, if I if someone gives me feedback and I think it's stupid let's say someone gives me feedback, it's actually a bad note. Because I'm Yeah, and and uh it's a note that I know won't

A help. And I know why and it's something I've thought of before, and Dave and I have gone down that road. And if I do react by saying just a curt Nah, that's not gonna work. Which is by the way the worst I'll be now. I mean, I won't I never would call someone I I would never um

actively insult somebody, but as you know, we pick up on on con when someone's condescending. And so let's say I'm Uh Few of us do and we should do much more frequently. Let's say I am a little bit of a dick and I'm like, nah, that's not gonna work. Nope, sorry.

Ten minutes later, I'll fucking pick up the phone and I'll call and I'll go, Listen Uh I reacted. I know how I reacted. I know that that Probably made you feel bad. Sorry that I reacted that way. I've had a weird day today and uh I'm gonna take those notes and think about them and tomorrow I'll Respond. And I'll

I am so willing to own my behavior. And that's something that I've I've learned too. Again, I wanna be super clear because I don't want to paint myself uh worse than I am. Um Really close to the guy that I am on the podcast. And um Uh

As I say we never insult anybody. But I've become much more aware. that again Yeah. We all have a responsibility if we can to protect the feelings of those that we're interacting with. We can be truthful without being an asshole. We can be

constructive and corrective without making someone else feel worse. And so if if if I can uh find a way to not uh leave somebody that I've engaged with feeling worse. I'm gonna do it. Sometimes it's impossible.

A writer's room sometimes we have to say no to ten ideas in a row from the same person. Nobody feels good hearing their tenth idea rejected, no matter how much You um take the time to listen to it and make them feel better. So sometimes in all of our interactions we're going to No matter what we do.

But where you can Where you can Fix that. It's incredibly worth it to fix it.

Yeah, that's uh It's something that I've tried to work on. a lot in the last handful of years since I I'm uh I've definitely thrown some Molotov cocktails unnecessarily into the mix. I remember a few years ago. I

was doing my first handful of experiments with extended fasting and I realized after the fact that if you're doing a long fast on day two is not when you should be sending a lot of very nuanced emails and as one of my uh One of my employees put it at the time, he woke up and checked his inbox and said, Holy shit, you guys are throwing haymakers. That took a lot of cleanup. Uh but the cleanup you you you're not always gonna be your best self. So you do it it behooves one, at least it behooves me to to become a practitioner of the art of cleanup. I wanted to ask you about being stuck. You mentioned that you've been stuck many times in your life could you tell a story of one time when you were stuck and how you got to the other side.

Absolutely, man. Um There are a few of them. In in various different In various different ways. You know, I but and I think it's important to talk about it not just in terms of the arts.

Because Momentum and inertia. Are uh these counter forces. Uh you could probably define the terms better than I could in terms of what you know what they exactly mean. Also everyone can just, you know, Google it on your phone.

Um But I can even look at it in terms of Uh So so certainly in terms of writing, like I've been Stuck.

And Uh spent a lot of my life stuck before I became a little bit more. Somebody can Did this stuff for a a living. But

You know, Tim, I mean two months ago I was Two hundred and fifty pounds. And that was and today I'm two thirty. Now two thirty for six feet is still too big. But It's a w I can't tell you the difference between being two fifty and two thirty in terms of the ability to move around and also the momentum of moving in the correct

Direction. And I was so stuck. At where I was and it was a feedback it was an awful feedback loop because at two fifty you can't sleep well. So you can't sleep well, so your discipline is less, so you're feeling you have a headache all the time.

And I I felt Helpless to change it even with Someone like you on my speed dial. Uh where I could ask you because I had to find a way

to make an internal change. And I'll tell you actually what it was. I say two fifty, but it really was stepping on the scale of being two forty nine point four. And I hadn't stepped on the scale in a while intentionally because When you're someone who wrestles with weight. you kind of instinctively avoid the scale sometimes.

But I was journaling and in my journal I Remember writing about Not sleeping well, knowing that I probably had sleep apnea from being too fat. I'm someone who loves playing sports. I'm an exercise in particular. I wasn't playing sports because my knees and ankles hurt too much and my if I because I was so Big.

And I was like You have to get on the scale, and I got on the scale, and I saw that I was two forty nine point four. And I just sat down on the edge of my bed. I just said Brian, if you go over two fifty.

There's a real chance you're gonna be one of these assholes who hits three hundred pounds. And The thought of that even that's an artificial line. The f two fifty the thought of it, Tim. was so painful to me. And the picturing myself

Three. hundred pounds. And right around that time. Um Uh so about a year and a half ago I lost a lifelong friend.

to opioid addiction, a late in life opioid addiction. Um this is someone was like a brother to me. Uh David and I dedicated the first episode of last season's billions to this person. His name's Dennis Shields. And um Uh Dennis w was someone who had never had a drink. and then in his forties went for back surgery, became addicted to opioids, and was dead by fifty.

And His daughter had posted Right around when I got on the scale, like within a day. His daughter had posted something about missing her dad.

And I looked at the picture of and it was a picture of Dennis. And I looked at the picture of Dennis. And I read Tyler's post. Tyler's the daughter. You know what I read Tost.

And then I thought about my kids. And then I thought about the fact that I was two forty nine point four. And I was Absolutely. Trapped.

And stuck. And had been stuck. And I just right then Uh Made the decision and called a couple of my friends and I

Um did a few different things. Uh I went and found um A and so I took steps, right? I read a book. Call I wrote you or called you and said to you, um What do you th where do you think I should start? And you said slow carb uh you know, I said should I do keto or slow carb? And you said here are the reasons I think for you slow carb right now.

Uh I got rid of the carbs and I saw uh I started seeing a food addiction therapist. I took these steps. And Immediately

just began getting a momentum the first couple days of not eating uh carbs. Very difficult. Also the failure that I'd had over and over again. Was just on my mind that self criticizm, right? You know of Of well, this isn't gonna work because it's failed in the past.

So I'm hearing that voice. But I Then because I journal And because I Um

Meditate. And because of this thing I started with, which is trying to expand my world. I made a decision a bunch of years ago. That a lot of the stuff we keep very private. I don't want to keep very private anymore. I want to be able to fail in public or succeed in public, to live as I am, to be Meaning

To not to try to have very little difference between the public and private version of who I am. Which meant that I could tell people in my life I was struggling with this. They knew they could see that I should get bigger size pants, right? But By engaging in that conversation with people. And by by then taking the step of saying, okay, I so I called this um food addiction person who someone I know had gone to. She's a nutritionist and food addiction specialist. And I'm not gonna say her name now. She doesn't want me to until we're done with this.

Um because it's a therapeutic practice, but Um she said to me We're gonna have to talk once a week. And you're gonna have to commit to once a week for a year. And because

Uh I You're gonna have these ups and downs and you're gonna have to this has to be important enough to you that you make a verbal commitment to me. And I made that commitment because I was so stuck. I needed a force of momentum. And that once a week check in I knew was going to be momentum because one week was going to become two, was going to become four, was going to become six. And I lost at least a pound week every week. And it's been steady and constant. And more than that. I feel better about myself. So I now have this momentum in that area where I was stuck for two for

Анастлі а єк. At Just gaining weight. Knowing it. Going to bed.

disliking myself. Now that feeling which you can get, I had that feeling when I was a blocked writer. I've had that feeling at various times in my life where I would go to bed at night. No Things I had hoped to accomplish that day.

I didn't accomplish. And in fact, not only didn't I accomplish them, but I went backwards. As soon as I really started dealing with the food, meaning tracking every single thing I take a picture of every single thing that I eat now. Literally if I take a bite of one slice of an orange. I take a picture of it. I and I record it. And I share it with the person that I see. And

Each time I do something like that, I'm creating this momentum and I'm fighting inertia. I'm moving myself forward toward the goal. And uh it's really hard at the beginning, but then the amazing thing about momentum, and I'm sure you understand why this is the case scientifically in a way. I don't But The power of momentum is so great that it stops being hard. In fact, it just starts being the way that you live. And that's what I found with journaling, and that's what I found with meditation. And that's what we find when we start exercising. And that's what I find when I start um eating better.

I would love to ask you about the I have so many follow up questions. This is uh this is this is f this is fertile territory. Uh the first of all, I'm I'm extremely sorry about your friend and the opiate addiction. Uh and uh premature death. Uh My I was. It's the worst. Yeah, I don't know if you knew this, Brian, but my uh best friend from childhood

Almost identical story. Never did any drugs. Uh had a hangover. From uh Alcohol he did drink. And a friend of his who was already an opiate addict gave him a synthetic opioid

Well, fentanyl, very powerful. Yes. And Said this will help with your headache, took a nap, never woke up. And uh my that was just a few years ago and my aunt also died of percocetin alcohol uh about a year and a half ago. So uh dangerous dangerous things topic for another. Let's spend one minute on it because so I had to I had to get uh Root Canal two days ago, or half of a root canal because the only the emergency part was just getting the nerves out. I I can finish the root canal in a month. They said they can

But I this I saw it was I swear to you the worst pain I've ever been in by A factor of any factor you want. Like the kind of like writhing around on the ground pain. before I went to the so I had to go to the dentist. It was so bad I couldn't live.

But the first thing I said in the very first so I found this dentist, I texted with him And the first thing I said is I don't want Vikaden and I don't want Percoset. I need to be out of this pain without taking either of those things. And the reason is and I've taken those things. I'm not uh

You know, some people have the gene for it. My gene is for addiction to pizza and donuts. I don't have gene for addiction to opioids. But I still don't want to fuck with those things. I want to find a way. to deal with this Without it. I'm not I I have no Issues in that area.

But I think those substances are so powerful in ways we don't understand that some percentage of the population uh is j they're just built to be addicted to them. And those things should be prescribed. unbelievably rarely and they're still prescribed way too frequently. After the Root Canal.

The doctor gave me a prescription for Tylenol three, which is Tylenol with codeine. It's far, far less powerful than the synthetic opioids. Um I took one Tylenol three and I threw the bottle out. And that Uh my f literally my friend Dennis really and truly we would go to dinner. And he he was like a state champ wrestler in high school. We would go to dinner our whole lives. He would order four ginger alees. Everyone else would be drinking. He'd have four ginger ale and uh he was not a drug or alcohol guy. He really didn't drink. And then the opioid started

And there was nothing anybody could do. So you know he was dead in two years. So that stuff is so powerful. And and I miss the guy every Every fucking day of my life. So Um yeah. I it's never a mistake to tell people to be careful with opioids. Yeah, you should be very, very careful. You don't know also in advance what your

molecular kryptonite is going to be. So you you may say, I've never been addicted to anything, and I know a lot of people have become addicts Starting. with that type of overconfidence. Uh, that's also why I'm so involved with

say opioid dependents studies at places like Johns Hopkins and looking at psychedelic compounds for treatment of addiction. Uh But I wanna talk about your check-ins. We've been talking about creating

Positive momentum. In behavioral change. is the nature of the weekly check in. What is the format? What does that look like? When I so well it's it was until this it was an in person check-in. I would go Uh like a therapy session, right? So I would go to her office.

So even if I was on now. This all created an import to it, right? Because I don't Oh, this is also very useful, I think. It is amazing how much more time you have than you think you do. Time's finite. It's our most th this is not a cliche, right? It's our the most valuable thing that that we have. Um

But One of the things is I committed uh that I was gonna go in person to see This therapist.

Once a week. So that might mean Being at a rehearsal onset in Brooklyn Getting in the car. you know, uh being driven to the city. Going to the therapist Manhattan.

Spending forty-five minutes talking about I'll tell you what we're talking about, talking about The food that I ate that week. what I was feeling like around eating the food. What Uh

In the beginning, you know what it felt like not to eat the things that I was dependent on? Right, for me not eating sugar and flour, because that's her her her sort of her sort insight. Um is that sugar and flour. Or Uh

for people who are food addicts in a certain way, that sugar and flour are these real triggers. So Eliminating sugar and flour completely. From um my diet. You know that's a huge change and So

figuring out how that felt. So that's part of the check in is All right. Were you angry this week? Or did it Did you feel deprived? When did you feel deprived? Did you want to uh eat something wrong? And then also, Tim. Um getting uh the

So getting the volume of food also under control because as you know, you start one starts with the idea like I loved in the slow carb thing, your initial one pager. And then Once someone buys into that, it's like, Well, okay, but now let me just give you a few more ways that we ought to be thinking about this. So the same kind of thing it's like No, but that's really important, right? Because what you're doing is you're getting it's all about momentum, Tim. It's like okay, you do these five things, you're gonna actually improve. This is gonna be better. Now if you're if if I've now gotten you um engaged

Let me tell you how to really amp this up. And so she did the same thing, right? It was let's eliminate flour and sugar. And then we did three weeks of that and it was great. And then she said, Well now we have to talk about volume. And I was like, you're changing the rules on me. What do you mean volume? And she said, Well Uh I mean you know, right? She's like well you know You hit a gallon tub of almonds yesterday. Let's talk about that. So we gotta talk about volume now. I mean you n so then it's like yeah, you know, listen, maybe maybe the right amount of Uh steak is six ounces, not twelve ounces. And and I'm like

Well, what do you mean? A New York's strip steak is sixteen. If I'm eating twelve it's a win. And and But But the process of that conversation And of changing a core belief, right? A core belief I had. All right, we'll get granular,'cause everyone cares about this food thing.

So I immediately was like okay. If I'm not having flour or or sugar. So no ketchup, by the way, eliminating catch up is a huge thing, and I I highly advise people to eliminate catch up if they want to lose weight. Uh because it I I I you know, uh

You will just eat less but Uh I would get turkey burger for lunch, right? So I said well if I'm not getting a turkey burger, let's say, I'm gonna get two turkey patties. And I really couldn't with a salad, like a big salad and two turkey patties. And I really I swear to you, Tim, I couldn't believe that I could just eat one turkey patty. I was like, That seems ridiculous. Like one turkey patty for lunch

And she said, Okay, well what if you try it tomorrow? Uh And just see if this belief you if you're certain that you're gonna be so hungry, order two turkey burgers. Save one for later the next day. Put it in the fridge.

Have one and see how you are an hour later. And it ch And I'll tell you, I had certain core beliefs about the amount of food I had to eat, and of course it turned out not to be true now. Turkey burger dogma. Ha ha. He the the the And I'm I'm loath to even talk about this because

I could I know like an alcoholic, I could backslide at any moment. I will say that I've been in this quarantine now for three weeks. I've been eating Perfectly. And and I'm so glad that I started this. Ten weeks ago because

I know if I hadn't The momentum the other way would be I would be pounding like peanut butter and jell sandwiches and I would be eating figuring out ways to get pizza and I would be obsessed with food during this and instead I've been Able to do it.

to just be completely responsible about it, which means my mindset is able to be calm, which means I'm able to go to bed at night. Feeling like I don't have to hate myself. And and going to bed at night feeling like you don't have to hate yourself. is the greatest gift you can give to yourself. And so The ways to do that are like contributing like you know them. We've talked about them before, but they're all valid, right? It's like finding a way to do for others, being uh responsible for your own behavior so that you're not a dick to other people.

uh and not letting yourself down on your core values. And so this is for me is a huge area that I'm able to handle in that way. And Um I'm really grateful that I I I found this person who's been helping me. And that I'm in my journaling and meditation I wasn't able to hide from myself to get Full circle.

originally was to become a creative person, meaning to work professional life from my most creative place because I felt that was That was the way I was going to Um

V feel right. Uh and But now these things serve as ways to keep myself Honest. There's no way you can meditate for twenty minutes twice a day and journal in the morning. And not Check in with yourself. So

I had enough days of being mad enough That I made myself Get on the scale, but I saw that I was point six pounds away from being two fifty. And in that instant.

It was like I had to take action. Y you mentioned I think it was maybe a few years ago that you decided to close the gap if there was one between your public life in your private life to share more of the things that we tend to feel we cannot share.

What led to that? What catalyzed that? Why it How did that come to be? I think it's I think it has to do with well

One has to do with the podcast and then being on so many podcasts, right? It has to do with Wanting To connect as deply as I can. When I'm connecting with people.

And I would prefer That if someone knows me They know who I really am. Now there are certain things it's it's harder and harder. Like

Um There's a fine line. Between Putting on Instagram. The uh nice car you might be driving.

That's not what I'm talking about, right? I'm not talking about like putting in your face. Um success or anything like that. But I what I am talking about is allowing My own insecurities

My the way uh allowing the way in which I grapple with my own insecurity or my own fear Or my own imposter complex should that surface. Та if I can grapple with that publicly, it's a service.

to other people. You know, I often think about Francis Fort Coppola making the god. And I think about that because it's I think The Godfather Two is the greatest movie ever made. Uh I think The Godfather is the most important probably in American cinema.

And uh I think about the fact that He was racked with doubt. throughout. В мич<unk>Гофатер, висі а мастерпіс.

But We don't see Is it. All the days that Coppola thought it was gonna to be a failure, that he was a failure, that The dialogue that was written the day before didn't work.

Uh. All that stuff. Um That's not there makes the Godfather seem not only like a masterpiece, but makes it seem as though it showed up fulmant. And a large part of my life is about

Disambiguating that stuff. looking at that stuff and saying Well how did that come to be? And I think so. Part of that is if we could have followed Coppola when he was making it. If Coppola was on Twitter, then Because uh people are have a lot of different thoughts about Twitter, but to me f Twitter is the most amazing

creation, you know the it's the the icing on the cake of well the internet. Because it allows to get right inside of all these different processes. We can reverse engineer by looking at somebody who accomplished something. We can track what the process was that got them there. And so I want to be able to say to people, You're watching billions now and if it's your favorite show that damn that makes me so happy. But If you go through my Twitter feed

You will be able to see how hard it was. to get to a place where we were able to make that show. And I'm really happy about that, that that's there for people, that they can see when I felt lost, that they can see When uh I felt like Um it might go a different way.

a failure before that, the movie Runner Runner, which was a terrible disaster. When that movie bombed, how I felt. Uh, they can look at the vines that I did where I was making these six second vines, you know, sixty million loops on those things, Tim. And Because I was talking to people about uh the creative process and giving themselves permission and I was really talking to myself. About that. And I found through doing that a few things happen. One

I started getting Letters from people. About how uh in seeing what I was going through, it allowed them to go through something similar without beating themselves up. And look you're

more than anybody to understand How sing that stuff drives you forward to do more of it. And so Uh I

I I feel like The more I'm just who I am. Also, dude, faking it's hard and sucky. And the more you can just be like Hey. Is why I am I mean that's why like you know Um I do this thing in the in the morning. I know you're gonna ask me about it, but I do this thing in the morning over this where I I named the first cup of coffee of the day the Rayelle because

It's so sp I feel like the first coffee of the day is such a special thing that it deserves a special name. And so and and over this we're talking about quarantine. Yes. So I had named it the Royale a long time ago, and then That was just for yourself? You named it the royal? I named it the Royale for myself. And then I would talk about it on the podcast, you know, and um online and people would

Other people really liked it and started talking to me about it. And then a friend of mine named Tom Kretchmar, who's a great guy. Um he said You know, you should I bet you people Oh, he was having coffee and he sent me a picture and he said This is me with my Royale and he said, I bet you people

would want to share their Pictures. Of them. drinking their first coffee the day. I was like So I quote tweeted Tom

I said, And I posted my own picture of me having the Royale in the morning and I said something about us all being isolated and this is the way to connect. Let's have our first coffee of the day. Together. And I hundreds of people started posting their responses to me. Um they would either send me message me pictures, send them on Instagram or post them on Twitter. I started retweeting them. And

Suddenly All these people started taxing and I'll say the first this is one of those examples. The first couple days of it, I got super self conscious. I lost probably Three hundred followers. Because I was just tweeting. Picture after picture of

And so I did. I flaked off like hundreds of follower. You know, it doesn't mat I did it, but I noticed it. I'm again living honestly. You know, you notice if you lose five hundred followers or three hundred followers, like you're like, oh what the fuck? Maybe I shouldn't do you know,'cause you're like, Well that's but then I just thought No, I want to do this. And these people who were sending me these pictures'cause we can start to tell so then Like two, three days later, I started getting all these tweets from people saying

I haven't posted my picture, but I want you to know I go to bed at night. thinking about the pictures I'm gonna see in the morning and it makes me feel less alone. Now if even just one person had said that to me, it'd be worth losing hundreds of followers because that is one of the ways I think about the world like Holy shit. If you could just If doing something stupid and simple

can actually make somebody alone in Kansas City feel even two percent better for one hour. What a fucking powerful thing that is. Like that uh that is honestly what like fires me up. Then Dude, so many people started telling me that and sending me emails. So I just decided

If I lose ten thousand followers, but the hundred thousand people who were there Are getting something out of it. I'm doing it. Hey, you should make a mug. Someone actually designed it. So this is one of those things I had nothing to do with it. Someone on Twitter said

There should be a mug with your face on it that says the Royale that we can have our coffee and then give it to your favorite charity. And I tweeted like well that sounds fun. And then some other dude goes how's this design? and he just designed it and sent it to me. And so then I made I made the mugs and you can get a mug at The Royale B K dot com. Just the Royal T H E R O Y A L E BK

dot com and all proceeds go to my favorite charity, which is the food bank of New York, which is um a uh Uh the f the the food bank that feeds every food pantry in the city. And for a long time what I would do is when I would go to dinner in New York, because going out to dinner is expensive. Um I would try whenever I could, I would try to kinda give the same amount to the food bag. And and I it's a great charity. They I love them, I've spent time with them, I know that they're the real deal. And um

So now um all these people have ordered these mugs. And It's become so that that's one of those things where I named it the right because to me it was special. I talked about it, someone else responded. And then through this openness. as you've experienced many times with your stuff, but through this openness suddenly I I had nothing to do with it. This my community of people

Came up with the idea to share the mugs, c to share our pictures, came up with the idea that I should have a mug, and then came up with the design of the mug. And Um That's for me the reward. Of this idea of trying to live

without being self conscious, just trying to live As close to who you are. Uh in in public it also Um allows you To create

real relationships with people on Line. Again, thinking about between twenty ten and twenty twenty, the the things that have Changed the most, and this idea of trying to expand my world. By talking about my enthusiasms, by talking about what I care about. I

People from those worlds have reached out to me so that When I was a kid, man, I was such a big MBA fan that It was like you know the most important thing to me. Now I have Many friends who are like running MBA teams or on MBA teams.

And that all happened just from doing the work that I do, being on Twitter, talking about it, connecting in a real way with people. And I I think one tangible thing and and this is gonna sound crazy this is True is um

Everyone makes fun of the Or not everyone, that's not true. It's kinda hip in some communities to make fun of people on Twitter who have blue check marks. But I do think If in your area of the world, if within whatever you do

You can find a way to make a goal for yourself to be somebody that Twitter verifies. It is a it's one of the biggest value ads that you can have in the world. It is It's it may not be fair, but we have to accept that it's real. So I'm willing to say it's not fair, but it is

It is a gigantic advantage. It enables you to surf Twitter in the way that the best board and lessons from the best surfer would give you. Because It immediately allows Um

people of note to notice you and so Uh, even though that's a weird kind of goal to have. I actually think it's worth. Having as a goal. Let's let's talk about so I wanna mention a few things. One behind the scenes. And that is

Uh It's a story from my own experience with you and of in observing you, and that is you have Uh Maybe we call it facilitated serendipity. Right. So you have these these moments of serendipity where someone designs

A mug for the Royale. And I really encourage people to see this hilarious mug, the the RoyaleBK.com. Check it out. That's for Brian Kobman, not Burger King, by the way. And Yeah. So people should just check that out. But that was that was facilitated by you. Does that make sense? Like there there was a lot of serendipity, but the And I can't remember who first used this phrase, but the surface area upon which luck could stick was increased by certain actions you took. Similarly, with billions. and possibly other projects.

That you've worked on. You've been very proactive about reaching out to people you might want to get to know. I And even before that, thinking about how you might say integrate them, like Jocko Willink.

for for instance Deon De Wilder. And You're very proactive. In using your крафt. as a vehicle for expanding the Yes the your circle of friends and your circle of influences.

Right. So people who can a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I mean so this I'm so glad you brought this up. So Jako, right? So this is this is a great sort of i e example of this. You write your first book. 'Cause we didn't talk about this on any of the podcasts. So you wrote your first book and you were writing your second book. And I read the first book. And I loved it. I just thought you were you know, it was just so smartly written and that you were

uh world view was so fascinating and I remember I wasn't in a particularly hot time in my career. I don't know. I mean we can both figure out what year it was. It was, yeah. Well when did you write the second book? Second book second book I would have been writing in two thousand eight, uh probably l last part of two thousand eight, two thousand nine was published in two thousand ten. So the first book was Four Hour Work Week. That came out two thousand seven and then Four Hour Body came out in two thousand ten. So this is before Body came out. So I wrote you a letter.

To somehow and I knew in you know in the book you made it clear it was hard to reach you. And I and and this is something that I always always have done. So I was like, you know. This guy I think maybe there's a movie or a TV show in his life, but more than that I thought I wanna meet this guy. And I think that we would have kinship of some sort. And so I wrote you a letter.

And I don't remember what it said, I could probably find it, but I wrote you a note. And I and I said, Hey, I'd love to talk, or I wrote it to your assistant. And the thing you gave you know you had a virtual assistant or whatever. I wrote to wherever that was. And I didn't just write a note because uh uh I get as you do every day, can I take you to coffee. I did not write a can I take you to coffee note, because a can I take you to coffee note is useless. Um I wrote you a note that was sort of like here's who I am, here's what I do, here's what I got out of what you did. I think maybe there's something in this in movies, and if it's not that story, there's something And we set up a call and we got on the phone and then you came through New York.

Right as you finished the book. And um the second book and we went and had lunch together. With Dave. And Um

So then you and I had a correspondence and like friendship that began then before you had a podcast, before I had a podcast. We had connected. I wrote you I wrote a a note that was uh I I thought about the note that I wrote, right? That's another thing. I didn't just write you, hey, let's have coffee. I thought about Well I read this guy's book. I think we'd have a kinship.

I'm gonna write a note that might express that so that when he reads the note He too might think there's some value. in this, not in a transactional way strictly, just like, oh, this might be an interesting person to meet. So then we met. Ten years later when I um

We had this idea to have Jocko on the show. I It wasn't that you and I just had that one meeting. We then stayed in touch, checked in with each other, hung out in different places. Uh became friends when I was interested in having Giacomo on the show. I uh I called you or wrote you and I was like, Hey

Dude, I I want to invite Jacob on the show. Will you connect us? You connected us to Jocco. You connect me to Jocko. Then I got to know Jocko a little bit. Jocko comes on the show and this was huge. So this is the precursor, and I want to point this out about momentum. Uh Right around that time I had also Um through Twitter

met someone who invited me to um I don't want to An event that involved um athletic endeavor. And I it was three months away and I was And I sat there on the set talking to Jocko, because Jocko was there, right? Jocko one of the foremost authorities on a certain kind of physical fitness, and I explained to Jocko what I was gonna have to do. And Jako said you should start doing these exercises and you should do this kind of cardio.

And so even though I was two fifty and horrible From that day. Tim, I've done exercise four to five days a week and haven't stopped. From the day I sat with you and Jocko on stood with you and Jocko on set outside that boxing ring, like I started doing those exercises because I picked Jocko Willing's brain and I decided If I'm gonna bother Jocko To tell me

These things. I'm gonna do'em. And That's another part of what you're talking about the serendipity. So it wasn't serendipity. But

Like uh I definitely put that stuff in motion, but I didn't put it in motion so that Jock O'Willink would give me an exercise plan. Right. But when when I was standing there with Joc o Willink I was then gonna say to him Hey dude, look, I know I'm a fat buck, I'm never gonna do your thing. I'm never gonna be you. But I have to go do this thing in three months. What would you suggest?

And he looked at me and he and and and similarly to what I said to you, he's like All right, you really want me to tell you? And I Yeah. I remember that very I remember that conversation very, very clearly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, he did. He did say effectively the same thing that you said to me. Uh

In reviewing the blockchain. He's like, Do you really want feedback? Yeah. If you really want me to tell you what to do, I'll fucking tell you. But and and I will say I then have check.

He doesn't follow me on Twitter, but he checks in because once in a while somebody'cause he was on my podcast and once in a while he'll he'll tweet something about me keeping it going. And so like a month ago or two months ago I was home And I really didn't want to go uh work out. And I was like whining.

I said okay, this is what I mean about living who I really am. I just really wasn't in the mood and I just put on Twitter like, Oh, I've had a shit day. I'm tired as fuck. I don't want to go exercise. And somebody in Twitter Um at mentioned Jocko. And they were like, Jocko Willie, take a look at this. Like

I knew so I saw that somebody did that and I like immediately just put on my sweats and went out. And then A day later, Jacko wrote, I'm watching, you know, with eyes on it. And then I got to write back. I did it. I went to do the exercise. And then Jako texted me with something like Good Man. Well

That's all silly, of course, and and unnecessary on one level. But on another level, the fact that um just like Uh willing To P

uh expose myself as being too lazy to go to the gym But also, as you're saying, that I took a whole bunch of actions ahead of that, right? So that in some weird way Jacko Willig The the the toughest, most fit, most uncompromising motherfucker in the world. It's sort of loosely paying attention. to whether I'm getting my reps in.

is the perfect combination of what you're talking about. Setting a thing in motion and then letting serendipity do its part, right? Yep. Is that a good example? It is. And that's that's also why I asked about the check in format with your uh I suppose food addiction therapist because accountability works. You don't have to rely Purely. on some internally generated

willpower which will have moments of frailty Yeah, it's it's helpful to develop that. Discipline equals freedom, as Jocco would say. But that discipline can also be reinforced. And cultivated through accountability. And I I very you know this, Brian, I very rarely would say what I'm about to say, but for those people who are interested, I mean the four hour body does cover how to engineer that kind of accountability. And I'm sure a bunch of it is available for for free on the blog as well, Tim Dotblog, but the The

The accountability, the power of it is really hard to overstate. Now you mentioned The food bank. earlier. And that is a perfect segue to talk about process. But before we get to your process with the monologue, because I want to talk about the monologue. Before we get there, do you have any favorite Books.

Or uh websites or documentaries that come to mind for you is showcasing the messiness Of Process.

Uh for instance, I'll just to to buy some time, I remember seeing his documentary about Spielberg. I think it might have just been called Spielberg, actually. And they talked about A how he effectively seemingly had a nervous breakdown slash heart attack or m or or had those multiple times in the making of Oh no, that might have been Lucas. That was Lucas. Lucas was was killing himself and like hospitalized during Star Wars and then Spielberg during Jaws. uh created the iconic uh buoys slash barrels on top of the water

uh imagery for The shark because the The goddamn Animatronic shark they were gonna use. Broke. Oh of course. No, I know. So do you have any do you have any favorite movies or documentaries or anything? Yeah, there are three. There there are three. Um

The the documentary about Apocalypse Now that Francis Varcoppola's wife made is amazing. You should find it and watch it because is clearly more and more of a masterpiece every year. And sort of incredible because it It's still an unfinished work, like Coppola released I think the best version of it last year.

Mm-hmm. Mm. Five years ago he released another version of it, but the one from last year is really incredible. Um purports to be the final version, but that movie was impossible to get made, and it is truly a uh an artistic masterpiece and worth uh uh watching. Uh the documentary and the movie together.

I would say that Steven Sonerberg's book about The making of sex lies in video tape is Spectacular for anyone interested in any of these things. He takes you through From its inception as an idea.

Starting with other ideas that he had, through the inception. I'm not sure it's an easy book to find, but it is worth it. Overpaying for the And um he takes you through every day of production, post production, sundance, selling the film, and then the script for the film is in there. Uh and you would be in great shape. Uh is

A book I I read about once a year. Called Making Movies by Sidney Lumet. Which brings you through each part of the process from a true master, one of the greats whoever did it. And then I've mentioned this book before, but I I try to mention it every chance I get. And that book is what I talk about when I talk about running.

By Haruki Murakami. fiction. It is a book about running, but it is really a book about the discipline it takes to become great. And it's all about process. It's about

The process of figuring out. What the most useful breakfast you should have is If you want to write ten pages and run forty miles. In a day. And it is uh

A stunning A stunning short book that is Incredibly easy to read. And It is the most empowering book.

I know of. Um about try to live as an artist. Incredible. Alright, taking a lot of notes here for myself. My my goal is always to have you not read uh what I talk about when I talk about running? I have not. I've read I think Hardboiled and Wonderland or I've read one of his uh I've read one of his book. Hardboiled is a great book. That's fiction and it's great. His fiction's amazing. Tim, you'll freak out. There's so much of you in that book. You'll freak out. Oh, you gotta read it. But I you'll freak out from it. Like you'll blog about it. It's

It's so amazing what this guy did to to turn himself into 'Cause he was very late in life when he became a writer. It's really, really worth reading. I'm in. What I talk about when I talk about running. I'm into it. I'm into it. I uh I'm reading a a really Incredible. novel right now, which is gonna take me a little bit of time to get through. It's it's uh little big. I don't know if you've ever seen this novel. It's uh little comma big and I'm blanking on

The author's haven't embarrassed. Fiction. It is one of those novels that is so complex and the prose is so painstakingly beautiful and subtle and

quite frankly, difficult at points that you have to finish this book. You cannot put this book down for a month and just pick it back up, in part because there's a very complicated family tree to keep track of. But once I f once I finish that, then I will I'll check out some more markets. I've just had that experience I've just had that experience reading exhalation by Uh good. Oh my God. Yeah. And I mean

The long novella in the middle of it is just one of the greatest Uh feeds of imagination, isn't it? Just incredible. Yeah, if yeah incredible. Yeah, if anyone is looking for they they vary tremendously in length, but if anyone is looking for it in an incredible collection Of Short stories. that and we're talking about fiction here, uh somewhere between or a blend of science fiction and fantasy.

Ted Chiang, C H I A N G exhalation is his latest uh his latest collection is just incredible. And for those of you who may have seen Arrival, the movie, uh Uh The which is is one of my favorite movies, the last many years in part because it foc d the hero is a linguist who studies this

very uh uh the sort of orthography based alien language that ends up relating to the nature of time itself. That was based on one of his short stories in his uh previous collection. So that is a top recommendation. So let's talk about a personal example. of process this and and tell us about the monologue, which is fucking amazing. I just watched it uh this morning because it just came out. I mean it was just put up. But could you just walk us through the origins and the process? Yeah.

I'd love to'cause it was it's Um it's sort of a perfect encapsulation of all this stuff, and also something that would have been impossible. Ten years ago In twenty ten The whole confluence of events would have been

Impossible and also It wasn't the way the like um The business we even worked where people were willing to sort of do this right. I mean Vincent is doing so what we're talking about, sorry, let me set the table here. Is that Vincent D'Anofrio, one of the world's great actors, I mean that's like literally one of the greatest actors of our lifetime. Um

Vincent D'Anofrio Uh During the coronavirus quarantine isolation time. has started posting

m monologues of himself reading some Shakespeare and some old classic plays, just little two and a half minute bursts. And Uh He's just doing it to give people something to amuse themselves, to feel connection, and probably to do his work. Like he's this is the work that he was born to do and he

But Uh the other day I um And and this was right when I was having this terrible tooth pain, which it matters because when you're doing the work that really matters to you. Everything recedes, including pain. So

Vincent And I are not close friends or anything like that. We know each other professionally. We've always liked each other. We've always wanted to work together, but have never quite been able to Have it come together. And he messaged me and he said Um hey.

I want to do something for the food bank. What I want to do is I'm going to ask three writers to write me a short monologue. I'm gonna perform the monologue. And encourage people to give I'm gonna put the monologue up on

Twitter. And The thing we haven't talked about, Tim, and part of the thing of We talked about it on the first podcast, so people should go back to it is I I really was a blocked writer for a very long time and

Um Most of my life until I was thirty was Uh Filled with the disappointment of Not being able to complete

A creative assignment not believing I really had it in me. to Pull something like that. Awesome. And so Vincent was like, I would love to have this monologue from you like in a day.

If I could, if you're up for it. So I instantly wrote him back and said yes. Uh I'll do it. And I

I will tell you that I had no paddock. I had no panic because of everything we're talking about. The this idea of process, this idea of being willing. To live Um

As openly as I can. Because I suddenly a word popped into my head, because you asked about process, so A word popped into my head. The word was reputation. The word popped into my head because Uh I was thinking about Vincent. I was thinking about the way an actor can have uh reputation to as being a perfectionist. U or

I was thinking about all of our reputations on online because I knew I was writing this for Twitter, right? I knew what I was writing this for, it had to be A contained. Two and a half minutes that if you knew nothing going in.

would be compelling. I knew Vincent would crush it. I had to do something that would Turn Vincent on artistically. And Uh that

would have some kind of throw, power, weight to it. that would make you want to keep watching. And I thought well Uh even though and I thought

Vincent doesn't really address this stuff in life and by the way, I didn't talk to him about any of this, right? We had no conversation. I didn't say I'm gonna write about reputation. So the word popped into my head. Suddenly I had three lines. I I I it was in a car, so I got I got to the house I mean, I was just getting gas in the car. I got to the house.

I immediately opened my laptop and I said to myself Just do it. Just write this thing. Go with it. And Tim, I just blast it out. At first I thought, do I say Vincent or this is the way a writer thinks about this kind of thing, because I'm writing for an actor now, right?

So I realized it would be different. If I wrote um under the the name of who spoke Vincent Or A man.

And so I decided to write a man so Vincent could make the choice about how close to him this was or not. And then I I wrote this piece. And uh I wrote this piece was like a page and a half. And I finished it. I worked on it let's say for an hour and a half straight.

And for an hour and a half I was just in it. The world when that when I'm in that kind of a state process wise. The world disappears. Nothing else exists. I'm just in this place that's in between

That's like hyper present, but also kind of floating in the air and you're kind of tethered to the page. So I I I wrote this page and a half. I re read it. I Walked around. Mile and a half or two mile walk.

I came back. I looked at it again. I made a couple of changes of words. Then I sent it to my creative partner, David Levine. And I said, Hey D

Uh Vincent asked me to do this thing. I wrote it. Everything is written by the two of us. Take a look at it if you think you can make it better. Um and I said and even if you don't make it better.

If you don't feel like you have any ideas for it or you think it's okay. Um I'll just put both our names on it'cause everything's from the two of us. No, you nailed this dude. Don't put my name on it. There's no reason. You wrote it. Do it.

Which is You know, I could do a long podcast about successful partnerships, but Like That whole thing of Um me sharing it with him first.

Appreciating it. Um writing me back about it. telling me not to put his name on it, not want even though it would have been my pleasure to do it, him wanting to give me that for myself like all that stuff was really beautiful, incredibly generous of Dave and like'cause he could have totally just rewritten it, added six lines, it would have been written by the two of us, but he wanted he was like no no no come on, you did this thing. I'm not gonna take Partial credit for it.

So I said it back to Vincent. He immediately wrote me back and said uh And and but then He said, uh, hey, but I think this won't fit in the two and we only have two twenty.

Because I don't want to put it on YouTube, I want it on Twitter and I'm limited by two twenty. Can you cut it? If you can't, do you want me to try to figure out how to cut it. So this is one of those notes things, right? I really liked what I'd written. I really thought it could work.

Now he's saying, Well you cut it. I immediately said of course I can cut it. Because you can always make cuts. You can always cut to make something better. So then I started cutting it, but I'll tell you what else I did.

I wrote two additional monologues that night. Uh so I cut down the monologue, sent it back to Vincent, and then I thought You know, I want to give this guy real choice. So then I wrote two more monologues. I sped four hours, knowing that in all likelihood. They would be for nothing, right? They're not gonna be for billions because they're very specific things for Vincent and Ofrio. But

As a professional I wanted to give uh once I decided I was in this with Vincent I wanted to give him the option to Like Hey man, I don't want you so I wrote him two more monologues.

He But by the time and I sent them by the time I sent them, he had recorded the version of the real thing. Um that he was going to post. He sent it to me. He's like I'm really happy with this. Do you like it? I loved it. And and I said, I can't wait for you to post it. This seems great. So

I it was an amazing process, but I I it was an I it was here's the thing. There's nothing professional about it on one level. Vincent's not getting paid. I'm not getting paid. You you have I'm someone who's under contract to showtime. I make shows for Showtime or CBS only. Vincent's Um on his show on Uh stars. Or on um Epex, I think, is the godfather of Harlem.

Vincent in his movies. Years ago There's no way that this could have come together, but because we're both on social media, we're both Um put our self out ourselves out there

We were able to do this thing. And now We put the thing into uh Into the world. And

Got to have a a day of watching Vincent Danafrio An actor I've wanted to work with for over twenty years. I got to see him do this monologue that I wrote for him. I got to see people show me their receipts of money they gave to the food bank. It was an amazing thing that Vincent also thought of the food bag, which is my charity. He didn't do that. That's his own on his own, that's his charity that he loves too.

Um And so it was this great like you're I I guess This is exactly what you're talking. Somehow this fits into what you're talking about, where it was serendipitous, but also all the groundwork had been laid, right? Yeah, absolutely. And for people who want to see it, they they can see it uh uh If they go to Vincent's Twitter account.

That would be at Vincent D'Anofrio, which if you want a mnemonic, it's like do no frio, right? Vincent D'Anofrio. And if you don't recognize that name, you will recognize his face and voice. Uh certainly early, early on, although he probably had many, many, many years prior to this. People may have Seen him in

for instance, uh full metal jacket. As Private pile. Who uh who had uh had quite a memorable role in that film and so much more. He's just spectacular. I was uh I was really, really

Uh impressed with the monologue and wanted to ask you about the the process end, I I also want to ask you when you When you put together your first draft, did you do that by hand on computer, if computer, what kind of app? And then when you made the changes you made, you said I changed a few words.

Yeah, go ahead. And then when you when you made your when you made your changes, what do you remember what any of those changes were? Might be too mi m micro, but I'm curious. So final draft is how you draft it. Yes. Final draft. Yes, I open final draft. Well, and in fact someone yesterday asked me if I would post it. I want to let it live this way for a week or so, meaning let let me know. Let Vincent's interpretation of it be the thing that's out there in the world.

But then next week I'll probably put up on my blog like the script itself so you can see What What it looks like when someone writes a monologue for an actor. I think that might be useful to people. So I'm gonna put that up. But Um

Yes. Tim, it it was It was uh When I went back to it I think there were just some phrases that I felt were lazier. Like often what'll happen is I'll find I use I ha this is a particular quirk. I don't like

If o if the same word is used a few times in a piece, I want it to be used Uh Mm. Really for a perpass. Uh I don't like how it sounds if a word is

repeated without there being a real clear reason for it to be repeated. So often I'll go through and just try to spot where I've sort of fallen into cliché or repeated myself. And so I probably went through and um cut some of that stuff. And then often when I go through something a second time, I'll be able to find where the breaks in it are, where the natural moments so like in it when Vincent kinda interrupts himself. It's written that way. You'll see when I Do it when when I posed it. And and then I probably added a line of description just to give the actor something to think about in that in that space.

You know, but that's just from years and years and years of writing for actors now, right? I've been writing for actors for twenty five years. So Part of that is the the first blow at it is the artistic inspiration, and then each c each draft after is the sort of Craft. Mm. We've covered a lot of ground, my friend. This is this is fantastic.

I uh Yeah. Yeah, I'm having fun. I have tons and tons of notes. I'm gonna have to pick up Murakami also. That's I have to say one thing, lastly, which is I I know you don't like praise, but if you cut this out of the podcast I'll be mad at you, which is You I'm just gonna say it quickly. I just want people to know that you are who you say you are, that that the person you are on the podcast, even if you don't quite live as publicly as I do, I will say Um You called me when I was wrestling with the COVID question. I was in New York City and I was trying to decide what to do. Um

You uh uh'cause I was very ear on it. I posted a list January thirty first of all the smart scientists on Twitter. I told people this was gonna be a problem, but I had an emotional problem with leaving New York because I was making the show there. I love New York City. There were all sorts of ways I was trying to bargain with myself and You called me. Twice. And you were like Brian?

You go you basically called and you were like, here's what I'm seeing, here's the the problems. I thought you were calling me to calm me down and you were calling me to do the opposite. And I said, Well, dude, make sure when you really feel it's the like the time I gotta get out, you tell me and you go This is that. This is the call. I'm making the call to you. I was like, definitely tell me when it's bad. And you go, It's bad. It was great. But that I will say and then you posted it, this is the thing. You didn't hoard that or keep it to yourself. You posted it that night, um or the next morning was when you released your your post to people about um the seatbelt. And so you are in real life who you uh purport to be um in this stuff. You're On top of things, you're taking the actions that you want people to take and You were a good friend to me and I really uh I appreciate it. Sorry, I've said the nice thing. Now we can move on.

Thank you, Brian. I really appreciate that. Yeah, it's uh What a journey. And uh it's uh we find ourselves in exciting times and it's gonna be. The old Yiddish curse, right? That's an old Yiddish curse. May you may you live in interesting times. It's an old Yiddish curse.

Ha ha. It is. Um Tim, I I I thank you so much for for this. You know, I I Uh I love talking to you and and somehow talking on a podcast you do get to get to very um Deep and real and directed stuff. So this was very valuable To me, I'm I did have to go see the dentist three days ago, so my quarantine was broken. So uh I may reach out to you to help fix me up if if I somehow caught it.

So I'll do my I will uh I will do my best to not lie to you. So I will uh Yes, I will I will not improvise. Uh so I will t I will fully explain the limits sort of parameters past which I'm deep in the ignorance pool. But happy to help any time. But you can reach out to here's the thing, if I really am in that state, I will ask you to reach out to Peter Atia for me and you will do it. I will I will I am happy to help my friends. On Twitter. The moment podcast. Anything else you'd like to mention? Of course.com. I wanna see people drinking their coffee in the morning. Let's have coffee together.

The Royale and um go to the Royale BK dot com. The money goes straight to the food bank. Awesome. And for everybody listening, you can find links to everything we've talked about, the docs, the books, the this, the that, and the other thing in the show notes. As per usual at Tim Dotblog. forward slash podcast. And thank you for tuning in. Thank you, Bob. Tim, great talking to you.

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