Are You an @$Hole in Real Life?

In this episode, Gandhi chats with Jeremy Piven about a LOT: his career in stand-up, why he became “unhirable,” a strange celebrity encounter, and so much more. We also hear a behind-the-scenes story from Diamond about the making of this episode.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Why did you just drop?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
I knocked over a headset? A headset?

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Oh nice, okay, welcome to Sauce on the Side. Episode something.
I'm not sure what it is. Today we have a guest.
Even though people tell us all the time they really
prefer when it's just us and Andrew or close friends
or family. I find that fascinating. But like, okay, I
get it.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I like when you have guests.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
I like a combo. I honestly wish that you guys
would just sit in here when I had guests and
also interview them with me and ask the questions you
wanted to ask. I don't know why we don't do
it that way. And like usually I just say, Diamond,
do you have something to ask? And you'll yell it
from a corner. But I would like you to be
on a microphone and ask the questions because I think
you guys have a lot of really interesting stuff to
say that maybe you don't get in there all the time.

(00:49):
Like today we've got Jeremy Piven. You know who Jeremy
Piven is.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I do, but I don't think I know enough to
have a question for him that like it's super interesting
or anything like.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, but I feel like the way it's, well, at
least the way I think it's supposed to work, is
as the interview goes on, then you come up with
questions based on the conversation that's already being had. I
see so many people do it the opposite way, where
they're like, these are the questions I'm going to ask,
and it doesn't matter if he talked about his mother dying,
this is my next question, right, yeah, we're not going
to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, how do you know nowadays these publicists and stuff
are They probably were doing it back in the day too,
but they like want to approve questions and like, yeah,
I don't know that though, well, no, you definitely we've.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Gone down some murky paths with that one on.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
But like, how do they expect for like interviews to
be conversational if they want to go over questions like
why did we as an industry start leaning into that
and letting them dictate what to ask and what not
to ask.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
So I think that's actually a very and I'm not
saying this in like a shitty way that it's going
to come out. I know how it's going to sound,
but I think that's a very small market way of
doing interviews, because I know that there are definitely people
who when you hand them, hey, these are your approved questions,
they'll be like, please get that out of my face.
I'm never going to do that good. Absolutely not. But
there are other people who want the interviews so badly

(02:09):
that they're like, yes, no problem, tell us what you
want to ask, but we're going to get into it.
And then we get to say, oh my god, we
had Taylor Swift or whomever it is, yeah, on the podcast.
I just think that that's such a bummer way to
do it. Yeah, I don't like to do it that way,
but I wholeheartedly understand why people do, because you also
have to build up a reputation and a rapport with people.
And I'm not sure where I stand on that.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, I guess my thing is like say you, I
don't even want to say you, because I know you
ain't doing it, but like say you were just trying
to get started, yeah, and you decided, Okay, in order
to get this person, I'm going to ask the questions
and then you start your platform starts to grow. Yeah,
when is the time that you decide that you're not

(02:53):
going to do it? Anymore.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
That's a great question, because I think we've been down
this path. We've had people come in here. I won't
the names just yet, but they've handed us a list
of do not yet ask these questions, don't go down
this path. And I say, okay, I'm okay with understanding
that you're not here to talk about this giant controversy
that happened seventeen years ago in your life. You're here
to talk about the thing that you're promoting right now.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
But then they open the door, right And if they
open the door, they're publicist. I haven't seen at least
somebody step in and say, hey, don't talk about that.
We have had somebody come back and say we want
you to cut this question out of the interview. And
if you listen closely enough to this, you probably know
who that person was. Drove me up the freaking wall

(03:35):
with that one because it was so stupid. It was
such an inane question that didn't even matter, and wasn't
a bad answer or a bad question. They just got
all weird about it.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
It's very weird.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
It'll be part of my tell all when I get fired, inevitably. Yeah,
A bit to belye because I can't speak.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
You say you're going to get fired.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, huh, I think we're all going to get fired.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
I think, oh, I'm sure I've already been fired once. No, no, no,
not here. What did you get fired from? iHeart, what
did you get fired? I was laid off, but I
still take it as a fire. The rifts, like the
budget cut back thing, Yeah, no, no, it wasn't a
budget cut back. They just hired a whole bunch of
like recent college grads who listened to radio like terrestrial radio,

(04:18):
and we had to like listen to the digital stream
and try to tell them all the things that we
felt like made it sound differently, and once they fixed
all the shit, they let us all go.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
For that so they'll never hire them again. Was more
like a seasonal position.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Well I wish I knew it was seasonal, temporary position.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Wish they didn't tell you. Yeah. So I think that
entertainment in general, like definitely these jobs. I think there
are a few people who are going to go out
the way they want to when they want to. On top,
I think for the majority, you ride this way till
you get fired and they tell you do not come
back in tomorrow. Yeah, yolo, because who voluntarily walks away
from this? There's the easiest job ever.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Oh you know, I met a woman once who did that,
walked away this. Yeah, but I didn't really. She's on
my list now, but at the time I was like,
oh wow, cool, you left on your terms. Not really.
You know how people get laid off and then they
decide like, I'm gonna make a career change, so like
kind of because you could beg to Like there are
a lot of people who get laid off full time
and they come back part time, like you know, like

(05:19):
just to stay around. I did that, but like there
are other people who are like, I'm just gonna try
something new now.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
I am one hundred percent positive. I say this and
laugh all the time, but I'm gonna say it not
laugh my tell all, whence I get fired, Oh God,
will be lit?

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Do you just say like nice things about me? Because
I'm nervous about everybody? So tell all.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
I'm telling all the good and all the bad or
all the things that I have observed. And this is
what I'll say again and again. This place doesn't really
have a lot of crazy, like where I'm at right
now here in New York, city. With this team, there's
not really a lot to like expose the places I
was before. Oh my god, there's so much. There's so much.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
What if you had to write a tell all about
people in this specific building on this.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Floor all to find out more about people?

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Oh, I know it all.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
See you. I would like to enlist you in helping
me with my teh.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Please please just give me a percentage and I'm great.
I'll give you all the tea. Absolutely, it's been like
ten years. I know everybody's back.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Who okay? Who on the show? You don't have to
give any details. Who on the show do you think
has the craziest Like if people found these things out,
they would be like, holy shit, tell all content. You
can do a rhymes.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
With rhymes with see Okay. There are two people that
I'm thinking of right now. Ok rhymes with Schmelvishmran Okay.
I think it's just in the like you know. And
then I think I'm saying this because I feel like
there's so much more under the surface that I don't

(07:04):
even know. But Nate, for sure, I didn't even have
to rhyme his. I think that he has I want
to know what he does when he goes home because
it doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
I think the serial killer thing came from a place
for sure. He's going to make tendencies.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
See, that's why I try to just in life in general,
like not really keep secrets and just be kind of
open and honest with my life and how things are,
because I'm like, I don't ever want to put myself
in a position where someone can expose me for something.
I just want you to all know that the bar
is very low. And if you hear something incredibly trashy
or stupid that I've done, probably do it is probably true.

(07:43):
And guess what, all of us have done something stupid
and trashy at some point in our lives, something wildly embarrassing.
But you know, I just like to put it out
there first so that you can't come for me later.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
What do you think is the most embarrassing thing that
you've ever done? Like you wake up, you know, sometimes
you wake up in the middle of the night thinking
about the more SI.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
I can't talk about why it's embarrassing, but it is
a person that I made out with publicly. I forgot
about that wow for a very long time, and I
can't say why it's embarrassing because people will just like
light me up. But it's very hilarious and it will
be in my stand up routine at some point. I

(08:21):
just I didn't see the signs.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Apparently that story precedes you. I know. I love that
for you.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Can you imagine don't love that for me? Because the
story that precedes me is not what actually happened.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
But then it's a it's a conversation starter. So like,
have you ever cared? I don't think you really care, right,
but like I.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Care that I care about the not true story that
people have heard about it. Oh, because my story and
what actually happened is it was a very extended makeout
that went for a really long time, slightly more than
a makeout.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
The story that precedes me is that we were like
banging all over town, which definitely did not happen. For sure,
that did not happen. Because I have witnesses to the
whole thing. And that's why I'm kind of like one
of these things I wish. I wish I could talk
about it honestly because it's so funny.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Ten out of ten, ten out of ten can't talk
about it? Oh, I love it.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
I love your most embarrassing moment. I know we've sort
of talked about it before, but something that I mean,
you probably won't say it now, but if you were
to think, Wow, that's really embarrassing, and this is the
one thing that I really would like to keep buried
in the closet, what would it be.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
I don't know. I've had a lot of embarrassing moments,
and I feel like a lot of them are like
people know about them. I'm trying to think I do
something embarrassing that keeps me up all the time. Anyway.
A lot of the times, it's just like something that
I say that I realized after the fact I shouldn't
have said out loud, and I'll think about it randomly,
like something I said in like sixth grade or something

(09:52):
like nothing. I don't. I don't. I get embarrassed easily,
but I do embarrassing things all the time, so I
don't really, I don't really.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
I kind of think this job kind of breeds it
out of you because we're live and you can't go
back and edit something that you said. It just goes
out there. Like example, today, I used the word anatomy
when I meant to use biology, and I thought about
it for like twenty five minutes. Nobody said anything about it,
nobody texted anything about it. I don't even think anybody
else cared. But in my head, I was like, I
meant biology, yeah, and I said anatomy stupid.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
And you'll wake up tomorrow morning thinking about it. Yeah,
I'm trying to think. I don't know all the time
that I called voilage that too. I thought about that
the other day, and I like, she meant.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
To use the word foliage. She had thought her entire
life it was foliage, and she didn't like a guy
that she was dating because he didn't correct her about it.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
I was so that was the beginning of the end
of our relationship. I want you to know that I
really do mean that, because like, why wouldn't you correct me?
I called Elvisden someone else but buddies, and I just
thought it meant like bets buds. I did not know
that there was like another meaning, And to this day

(11:03):
that's very embarrassing. Yeah, nasty.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
I just think that when you're on live radio for
four hours a day, at some point you're gonna say
something incredibly stupid and embarrassing and incorrect. Everyone's gonna let
you know, and you just have to like let it
roll off your shoulders and move on, or you're back
whichever party rolls off of see.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
I don't know, man, what are you gonna do?

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Nothing? But we are gonna have Jeremy Piven in here,
and I'm mildly nervous about it. Why because speaking of
reputations that precede you, he definitely has one, and I
have interviewed him previously and he can be spicy in
a very fun way. But it's always been like me
and a team of people. That's why I wish you
and Andrew were in here also doing this with me.

(11:44):
But now it's just one on one and we'll see
how this goes. I'm excited, though, because I think he's
a fun, entertaining interview.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
I think it's gonna be great. I'm excited.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay, Well, here we go. Hello, Jeremy Piven.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
I'm fantastic.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
All right, I'm glad you made it over here. Oh yeah,
from where you hopped out of an uber. We're ten
blocks away.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
You know I've been. It's listening. It doesn't matter, it
doesn't matter, you know what. Thank you so much. You
know what. The great thing about complaining is tell me nothing,
absolutely nothing. No one wins. As you know more than anyone.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
How do you figure I know more than anyone? Do?

Speaker 2 (12:24):
I look? Well?

Speaker 3 (12:25):
I feel like were you named after Gandhi?

Speaker 1 (12:31):
It's actually a relative of mine. He's my great grandfather.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
Oh yeah, Okay, So in the spirit of your great grandfather,
I will not complain and I will bring in a
higher the highest vibration that I can be accessible to. Okay,
fair enough about that.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
I'll take it. That sounds great because you're a man.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
I hated that wall. I'm just kidding. That's comedy. That's
what you can expect.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
And right there, because you have a comedy tour that
you are currently in the middle of right now, and
you're going to be in town this weekend.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
You're Sony Hall on Sunday eight o'clock. Sony Hall is
a beautiful, beautiful theater. I just I'm you know, the
thing that one of the reasons I'm here I wanted
to talk to you. But also, you know, I grew
up in Chicago, and I grew up in a theater family,
and we I watched my father backstage literally with a

(13:25):
rotary phone calling people out of the phone book, and
that's how they used to do press before all this,
before you know, we had podcasts and all these great
ways to get the word out. So for me, I
don't take any of this for granted because I saw
my father grinding literally cold calling people and trying to

(13:46):
get them to the theater. So that's where I come from.
You know, you're you. You come from gurus, and I
come from you know, a theater family.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
And yours works out a lot better than minded.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
No, I think we're all we're it's all working out
for all of us. Everything is going to work.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Out about this. This is good, This is a fun gig.
But you are doing stand up comedy. And I know
this is not new to you because I actually had
you on our show in Boston years ago when you
were doing stand up then as well, Yes, at Laugh Boston,
So you've been kind of on this circuit for a minute. Yes,
you've come from a theater background. You've done obviously all

(14:24):
of Hollywood movies, TV. What is it about stand up
that keeps you going back to this thing that to
me seems like it could be torture some.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Scary, It is scary and that's because you're smart. If
you're smart, you're going to realize that it's you alone
up there. And I was dumb, so I just assumed. Oh,
I've been on stage since I was eight years old.
I've been in over eighty movies. I have no rust
on me as a performer. I come from an improp background.

(14:54):
I started Second City in the nineties with Chris Farley
and all the Madness of Chicago, So you know, I
I've done it all. I've studied Shakespeare overseas and my
background is improv. And I'm going to jump up on
that stage and I'm going to crush it. I make
all my friends laugh. Let's go, and you get up
there and suddenly the I'm not used to a stage

(15:16):
that's small, so I'm used to you know, usually when
you're doing plays, it's a big old theater and you
can run around and use the space. And suddenly I'm
at the Laugh Factory and I literally I'm pinned up
against the wall and I can't move. I'm frozen. And
that was my first experience with stand up. I've I've
been touring for about ten years now, so you know,
I'm a stand up and I love it and I

(15:37):
can just let it all go. But it's very interesting.
You can have a lifetime of theater experience comedy in
terms of like sketch comedy, but when you're alone with
that mic, any person would be terrified. And then it's
your choice. Okay, am I going to walk through this?
And on the other side of that, fear is everything.

(15:58):
And I know this sounds like a talk right now,
and I apologize for that, yeah, but I do. I
do believe that's the way life is.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Like.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
We we can spend our lives running around fear and
trying to figure out how to be comfortable, or we
can meet that head on and walk through it. Because
on the other side is you learn a lot about
yourself and it's pretty glorious. And now you know, if
I'm going to work as an actor, I got to

(16:28):
make sure the dates work, the money is there. I'm
co they co sign on me. You know, wait, there's misconceptions.
What's going I mean it does one hundred and sixteen
things have to go right. But with stand up, it's like, oh, yeah,
I'm going to be at Sony Hall Sunday night at
eight o'clock. Nice transition. You're welcome, and I can just

(16:49):
walk up and grab that mic in my street clothes
and just crush a set, make everyone laugh, talk about
what's what happened that day. So it's it's to me,
it's the dream, whether it was Entourage or any movie
I've ever done. I'm always pitching jokes and so then

(17:11):
so much energy goes into okay, Like my mother who
was my acting teacher, it's like you got to figure
out the best time for whatever you're saying to be received.
You know, is that person in a bad mood? Is
he distracted? When when is the right time? So that's
so much energy involved, like okay, is this the right

(17:31):
time to pitch this joke? Okay? And so with stand
up there's none of that. It's just all you. So
when you're saying it's terrifying for me, it's like the
ultimate freedom where I can get up there and just
go okay, it's all me and people, you know, they
want to know. I guess because I played Ari Gold
so authentically and won three straight Emmys, who's counting me

(17:55):
that people think I had an agent of mine? Say
I can't get you any work because everyone's saying it's
too good literally he said that. To me, I was like,
what you're kidding, right, He goes, No, they don't think
it's acting, that's what they said. They don't think it's acting.
And I was like, I can't quite do the mouth
on that. But thank you.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
You know to me that everyone thinks that's who you
are now.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
So I'm not gonna work as an actor because the
last performance was too authentic. I I you know, I'm stuttering.
I don't even stutter, so that makes no sense. So
that like, okay, you can hold on to that and
be angry, resentful or whatever, or you just let all
that go and you just find a way to express yourself.

(18:38):
And this has been incredible to me.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
I have a feeling I know what you're gonna say here,
but in retrospect, looking back at Ari Gold, how successful
that was and what a great character was you want
three emmis? Who's counting you? But knowing what you know now,
if that made it hard for you to book gigs
in the future, would you still do it?

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yes, Because again we're gonna we're gonna start getting very
philosophical right now. I think I do think these challenges
are essential for growth, you know, and you know I

(19:16):
didn't everyone everyone there isn't a person that doesn't have challenges,
and it does kind of force you to step it
up and evolve. So it's it's a gift ultimately. It's
hard to see it that way, but uh yeah, you
just kind of, uh stay focused and don't let things

(19:41):
get in your way. And you know, because I've been
grinding as a stand up, when I go back and
and jump into a film, I'm a better actor. So
now what that did was that helped me to evolve
as a creative person. So that that's a gift. And

(20:02):
now again I don't need all of these things to
go right. I can just go and perform anywhere at
any time, you know, locally, I can just you know,
get up and jump up any anywhere and grab a
mic and make people laugh. And that's also selfishly immediate gratification,

(20:22):
you know, because everything else is on tape delay. You know,
when I was shooting Entourage, I'm I played that like
a Greek tragedy. You know. I studied here at NYU
and at the National Theater of Great Britain in London,
and you know, people don't care, and they never asked
me where I've studied, but there is a method in
my madness, and I think that there's a reason why,

(20:43):
you know, you you see other No, I don't. I
was gonna give some examples about what I did in urage,
and it's not worth it. I can't talk about myself
like that. It also do it. No, It'll just sound insane,
like I've gone insane.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
I just appreciated.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
No, No, no, I can't. I can't go there because
I study the Kabbala, which is I think, a beautiful
form and of spirituality, and one of the things is
to really words are powerful, and I was gonna get
I was going to juxtapose some things, and it might

(21:18):
sound like I was being negative, and I'm not even
going to go there. I do go there on stage
because the goal is to be funny and there's no
judgment on stage. So that's that's one of these zones where,
like you know, you can you can't second guess yourself
or think, oh, okay, how is this going to land?

(21:40):
Am I going to offend anyone? You just kind of
go for it, which which is another gift, you know,
And I love it. And I've seen people out there
folding their arms and just furious at me and while
laughing at the same time. So it's like you think
I'm offending you, but you're laughing because we're having a

(22:00):
shared experience as human beings where what I'm saying is
reaching you and something is true about what I'm saying,
even though you think you're mad at me, if that
makes any sense.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Absolutely, when it comes to stand up comedy again being
in my opinion, mildly terrifying, and you've done this, you
venture into it. Yeah, how much did you practice before
you actually went on stage? And have you bombed yet?
Stand up comic is absolutely okay.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Chappelle said to me, Man, I had a bombed that
I ran into him. He goes, you all right, and
I go, yeah, man, I'm good. A bomb last night.
He goes, dude, you got a bomb, but you have
to bomb at the right time. And he's right. And
even even Chappelle to this day, he's the he's the
youngest old comic in the game. He started at fourteen,

(22:51):
so you know, I think he's been on stage almost
forty years, which is insane if you think about that.
But I mean, yeah, you know, you get paid, like
he says, you get paid for the attempt like evil
and evil. So yeah, there, listen. I I there were
a lot of different turns that I got to skip.

(23:14):
But when you say skip, it's like I didn't skip
anything as an actor. In fact, starting at eight years
old and grinding the entire time and never making more
than fifty dollars a week ever as a stage actor,
and then you know, and staying in Chicago and having
a theater company and not going to LA until I
was brought out with a job was my plan and

(23:36):
that you know, thank god, it all kind of came
to fruition, but so I paid my dues. I won
the Fresh Face of the Year at forty years old.
I swear to you for entourage, and I said, thank
you so much for this award. There's nothing fresh about
my face, but thank you. So yeah, I mean, I
was thirty two years into the game and won the

(23:56):
overnight success, so I know what it's like to grind.
And so with stand Up, you know, I do five day,
eight shows a week, two hundred plus shows a year.
So that's what I do, and that's what you have
to do in order to work on your highest level.
So I in the beginning and still do we'd go
to these dive bars and get up there and you know,

(24:19):
there's a handful of people in the audience and they're
all on their phone and they're waiting for the DJ.
And it's the toughest, heaviest lifting you're gonna get. And
that's you know, So I remember bombing so badly on
stage that I was starting. Your body. You start, you
start panicking and you can't breathe, and your body's going

(24:42):
just get off stage. You need oxygen. This is not
a safe space. Get out. And if you can work
through that, and then you start doubting, your brain just
starts working against you. Not only your brain is going,
oh no, you're not funny. And by the way, you've
never been funny ever.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
So it's like a devil and a devil on your shoulder.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, there's it's like a devil inside a devil. It's yeah,
it's like a little Russian toy of devils. No, what
happens is you got to go the other direction. Instead
of wrapping it up, you have to go you have
to stay in it and dig your way out, and
it's terrifying. But once you do that, and then and
then you realize Okay, I'm just going to admit what's

(25:23):
happening right now, and then you start speaking about the
truth of what's happening at this moment. You know, they
say the end of the road for actors is dinner theater.
That's not the end of the road. This is the
end of the road right here. I need to crawl
back into the womb and start this life again. You guys,

(25:43):
I don't you know. And then they start looking up
and you start getting them, and you start, you know,
and suddenly you're like, oh, okay. Then there's a little
crack of light. I'm getting them. I'm getting them. And
then once you get them and you've dug your way
out of that hole. Man, the next time you get
on stage, you're like, oh, I've already seen the darkness.
This nothing can compare to that. You know, a couple
people in a dive bar hating you. I remember the

(26:06):
first time I got up, I said, you guys are
probably wondering what I'm doing here, And some comic in
the back goes, yeah, man, what the fuck are you
doing here? And I was like, oh my god, this
is the happiest place on earth. This is Disneyland. Hi everyone.
You know, you just got to like use it. You
just use it, and then they see you using it.
And also they can sense your vibration, and the highest

(26:26):
vibration is authenticity. So if you're authentic, you're going to
get them. Welcome to my ted talk and listen.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
I'm taking notes because I have set a couple of
goals for the next year year and a half, and
one of them is I want to do a stand
of routine one time somewhere. You have talked me into
it and out of it a few times during all
of this.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Okay, So all I'll say to you is grab your
friends and just keep running your jokes to them organically,
and if it hits, it hits, keep it going. And
put yourself in awkward situations during my life every day. Yeah,
don't shy away from a situations so that by the
time you get up there, it's like you've at least
walked through it, so it's you're not just gonna be

(27:06):
overwhelmed by the moment.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
So what makes me nervous is this, And I imagine
you probably dealt with this slightly. I have a lot
of friends who are in the comic world who are
some underground comedians, some established comedians, and all of them
are like, if you don't pay your dues, they're gonna
shit on you. They are gonna say this girl came
from radio, she just stepped into this.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Yeah. Yeah, they're all gonna say that.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, which is true for sure.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
They're all going to say that.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
But here not at all.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
When you started, oh, one thousand percent. But I was
very lucky because I've been through so much and I'm
so grateful for all of it that I really understand
that what they say or what they feel about you
is not your concern at all. As nothing that's not

(27:52):
needed information at all. So whatever they say is great.
And by the way, they're all coming from a different
place as well, their pain, they're hurt, their unhealed trauma, whatever.
They're going to dump it all on you, but that's
not your concern.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
How long did it take you to get there?

Speaker 3 (28:07):
That's a good question. How long did it take me
to get that? Oh my god? Uh, I would say
thirty seven years.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Okay, So, and I'm asking that because you have spanned decades.
You've been in this business for a long time. You
said you started when you were eight. You got a
Fresh Pace Award when you were forty. Yeah, and you're
still going and doing this. And from the time you
started till now things have changed durstically. There used to
be a time when you didn't necessarily have to hear
what other people thought of you. You didn't have to

(28:37):
see it written down. Now we have social media. Now
it's in your hand, you know what.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
It's It's so funny you say that, you're absolutely right.
And as I was walking over here the thirty eight
minute walk from because I looked at my photos, like,
if I get out and run and walk, I'll make
it there in time. But I was thinking about this
on the way over here, that you're absolutely right. There's
a huge variable going on right now. That is, we

(29:06):
all have access to each other, and we have access
to a lot of information and disinformation more than before.
And I just Michael Jordan popped into my head and
I thought, you know, growing up in Chicago and watching
him play, and he's the greatest of all time and
it was before social media. So he is this kind
of icon that is different than anything today for many reasons.

(29:31):
His play that will like no other, six appearances in
the in the Championship and went six for six, and
I don't know if it'll ever be matched what he did.
But also because we just don't have a lot of
information on him, because it was before social media, where
you know, I walk out right here and you know,

(29:53):
I almost get hit by a car. Whatever you're gonna
you're gonna have that video immediately. Everything is documented. So
so I think there's an added level that we're all
navigating right now that's in people's heads, even athletes, you
know where they're You know, the goal is to get
out of your own head and be in the moment

(30:13):
and get in the zone. That is the goal for
all of us, no matter if you're a creative entity
or an athlete. But if you're thinking about all that
other stuff, I think it's just an added level of
difficulty to drop all of that and don't worry about

(30:38):
what people say, what the comments are, any of that
stuff doesn't concern you. If you make stuff that makes
you laugh, and that's all that matters. You don't do
it for them. You do it for yourself and they'll
sense your authenticity and it'll all work out.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
So you don't look at the comment section. Are you
on social media?

Speaker 2 (31:08):
I am, Yeah, you behind it.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
It's a little blue check Jeremy Piven my Instagram, Jeremyslashpivot
dot com for tickets, Sony Hall, You're welcome this weekend,
this weekend Sunday. And uh yeah, you will definitely see
me in my element. Everything that I've ever done will
be up on that stage. And and I talk about
being on sets, I do impressions, I do observational stuff.

(31:34):
So I touch on everything that you can do and
stand up. Uh and and I absolutely love it. And
I'm all over the map. But yeah, and doing lines
with my mom, I mean running lines. Don't do lines
with your mom, kid, I run lines, run lines. I
read lines with her Azari Gold, and I unpack all
that what it's like to just go on these Ti

(31:56):
raids and you know, swear in your mother's face. And
she was totally in the pocket. She's an actor, director,
teacher and never flinched ever. And her notes to me
is Ari Golder, just wild. And so I unpack all
of that on stage and it's it's just a gift.
It's like, you know, people want to know how much
you really like Ari, which is, in other words, how

(32:19):
much of an asshole are you really and what this
show is. It is just me. This isn't a fictional character.
I'm not speaking to someone else's words. It's all coming
from me. And people say to me, we didn't know
you were this funny when they see me, which is
a backhanded compliment.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Great, you will take that. How much of you do
you think is an asshole? I won't say ari, because
I would imagine that some of you. I see that
you're almost joking.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yeah, I want to just spit. Take good work. There
you go.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
How much of an asshole do you think you really
are when people see you on public so they approach
and say hi and take a picture with you? Or
would you rather not not happen?

Speaker 2 (32:53):
You know?

Speaker 3 (32:53):
My biggest challenge to be honest with you is I
get angry, like I'm hungry right now, I haven't eat
I haven't eaten, and I'm having one of these moments.
I did Monday Night Football last night, that the Countdown
with Jason Kelsey and the Boys, Ryan Clark and those guys,
and it was an absolute honor to chop it up

(33:13):
with them. And then my Bears played and we won
and the game, yeah, the game ended at a million
o'clock as you know. And then I got anewber and
came here and I'm starving and I'm on the street.
I have to watch it. That's when I have to work.
The hardest is when I'm angry. So that's probably the
when I'm most like Ari Gold if I haven't eaten.

(33:34):
I mean, unlike your great grandfather. I don't think I
could do a hunger strike.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Nor could I. I can hanger too, DOMI can attest
to it. Not the nicest one.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
See there, there's so much comedy you could you can
you can just lean into that that you just you could.
You could do it a tight twelve minutes of just
your stuff on your grandfather and misconceptions.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Absolutely, yeah, I wonder with you though, when you I
wasn't even going to bring up Ari Gold because I
imagine for you that has to get kind of annoying
after a while, that people keep wanting to talk to
you about something that you have maybe put behind him.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
No, No, look, look, the reality is I used to
get angry that people confuse me for him, because the
reality is Ari Gold exists. His name is Ari Emanuel.
He is you know, Mark Wahlberg's agent. He runs Endeavor
and he owns the UFC WWE and he's going to

(34:30):
own the world, and he's a great businessman and that's
exactly who he is. He was my agent and I'm
a stage actor from Chicago. So when you confuse the two,
it used to make me angry, and then you grow
up and you go, Okay, I've been in these people's
living rooms for decades, pouring my soul into my work

(34:51):
and they're confused. That's not I can't get angry at that.
A good job, yeah, I did a good job, and
they're confusing me.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Now.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
The irony is in other countries. When I go to
the UK, excuse me, mister Piffin, I have to say,
do you have a moment? Sir? Yeah, So, like they
call me by my name, you know, and and it's
just they see me. Their reference for actors is you've
been to drama school, which I have went to NYU
and everywhere else and I've been grinding and that's a character.

(35:21):
That's their reference here. It's I re you douchebag.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Bro.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Let's take a pick. Bro, take a pick.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Bro.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
I'm a douchebag because of you, bro. Like that's what
it is here. And you have to go oh God, okay,
let's go, and you're at the Urino and your pants
are down and it's awkward, but you just got to
play through.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Man.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
So the fandom here, you would say, is definitely different
than it is overseas. Why do you think that is?

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Uh, that's a great question. I uh, you know, I
can only theorize because I'm not I'm you know, I'm
not other people, so I don't know what's going on
with them. Whatever I did, and my mother warned me.

(36:05):
She I remember she was running lines with me for
the pilot of Entourage, and she knows how much I commit.
She put me on stage at eight years old, and
so she, uh, she said, you know, people she watched
me play this, and she goes, oh, they're gonna think
you are this character. And I was like, way, she
goes yeah, and she was right. And I was like, Mom,

(36:27):
you're a lunatic, you're delusional. And she was right. She
was right because she knows how much I commit. And
so that's just life, man, that's life.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
I mean, there are worse problems to have, for sure.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
There were. There are definitely worse problems to have. And
you know there are people out there you know the
I don't mind being mistaken at all. The variable for
me is if I I love to work, I love
to act, and if you don't want to hire me
because you think that's the only gear I have. We've

(37:03):
all got YouTube. I played the gay Versaci salesman in
Rush Hour, so I played Lloyd before Lloyd and then
played Ai. So I mean, you know you want to
talk about range, And then I went right into mister
Selfridge that I shot for four years on PBS, where
you know what I mean. So, and by the way,

(37:26):
it's led me to this moment where for fifteen years
I've been putting together this movie called The Performance, where
I play a Jewish tap dancer. My mom gave me
a short story out of The New Yorker that Arthur
Miller wrote, and I had my sister adapted. I got
the rights from his daughter, Rebecca Miller, who's married to
Daniel day Lewis, and I got the rights from her,

(37:48):
and she was kind enough to give it to me.
And it took us fifteen years to make this film
and find the money and we're done and we'll release
it soon. And it's the best work of my life
by far, and you'll see it. So it took me,
you know, like you can rail against the universe for
being misunderstood, or you can take matters into your own hands.

(38:08):
And that's what I did. And so you know, my
sister directed the hell out of it, and she adapted
it brilliantly. And I learned tap from a tap teacher. Here,
one of the best tappers in the world, Jared Grimes,
who's a New York ey' is on Broadway and he's
just incredible, and he had patience with me and taught

(38:29):
me out of tap. And every year I heard no,
they're not going to fund the film, I just got
better at tap until we made the film. And it's
the best work of my life. And it shows you
the absurdity of anti semitism or racism, and it does
it in such a way that only storytelling and film
can do. So I'm very proud of it. No one's

(38:49):
going to come to save you. You have to save yourself.
And so when people are like, isn't he just ari,
It's like, here's the performance and not just selfishly showing
my It's a story that I've waited my whole life
to tell. Because I play a character that hides his
identity for momentum and success, And so it's about how

(39:12):
much of yourself will you compromise for success? Which everyone
can relate to. And I'm willing to hide the fact
that I'm Jewish and dance for Hitler in nineteen thirty seven. Wow,
So it's heavy.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Do you feel you've hidden parts of yourself to be
successful in Hollywood up till now?

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Compromise? I think the message is how much of yourself
will you compromise? Yeah? And you know, it's interesting because
you asked a great question. You know, how long did
it take you to kind of evolve and stop being
petty and stop be you know, taking things seriously or personally, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Stop listing to other people? How long does that take you?

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah? I think one of one of the turning point
moments in my life was when I was auditioning. I
wanted it so badly and I had so much rejection,
and then once I realized, oh, okay, if I just
go in there and do my thing and that that's

(40:23):
the completion of the mission. What they think, whether they
hire me or not, that has nothing to do with me.
And I don't care because I'm going to give everything
I have walk in there because they can smell desperation.
It's a vibration. So if you're like God and I
really want this shop, guys, really, it's like you get away,
you know what I mean? So I just I'm just

(40:44):
gonna go in there and give it. I was always
off book, always you go in because I can't be
the guy with the script in my hand. I got
to like dig in so and even then I wouldn't
get the roles. So so that turning point moment of like,
I put everything into it. If you like it, great,
I'll see you guys soon. If not, take care, it's
all good. No desperation, and that energy trans transform my life.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
The law of attraction, right, what you put out is
what you get back? Very important. What about roles that
you actually got? You performed, the piece is finished. Have
you looked back at any and thought, shit, I wish
I didn't do that one, or didn't like the way
that it came out.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Oh, you know there's that. That's a that's the metaphor
for life. Yeah, because you can't regret anything ever, you know, Uh,
it's an experience. It made it made me better.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
You know.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
I did a movie called So Undercover with Miley Cyrus
that I guarantee you haven't seen. But these two little
kids came up to me the other day and they
were so excited, you know, because they're huge Miley Cyrus fans,
and you know, they get to see the guy who
was in a Miley Cyrus movie. And it was really
cute and I touched their lives and you know, was
it the best work of my life?

Speaker 1 (42:07):
No?

Speaker 3 (42:08):
But by the way, I never phoned it in. If
you were to go watch that movie, it's me digging in.
I dig in no matter what I'm in, I'm not
going to phone it in. So I'm going to give
everything that I have to a fault.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
So on that note, then, when you're digging in and
you're giving it everything to a fault, are there roles
that you've played that have changed you as a person
because you gave so much to it?

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Oh? One thousand percent the performance that I told you about.
I had a reviewer, this very kind woman who's been
in the game forever, older old school icon and she said,
you know this is going to change your life. And

(42:52):
I said what she goes, you know it's going to
be different now and your choices will be different, and
you have to do you understand that, right, And I
think what she meant by that was this one meant
so much to me. And I knew that if I
could pull this one scene off in the movie where

(43:13):
I confront this Nazi and by the way, we're shooting
in Slovakia, which is the first place they sold the
Jews out and put them on trains, and I'm playing
opposite this guy in a real Nazi uniform and he's
digging in is in the great Robert Carlisle and it
was so brilliant, and I'm just having this incredible moment

(43:36):
with him, and it's just there's no escaping it. It's
I knew that if we didn't get that scene right,
the movie wouldn't work and the message wouldn't be crystallized,
and it was all for nothing. So you know, you
do everything you can and then you're as present as
you possible, and then you leave it up.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
You know, you.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
Just do everything you can and you have to let
go of control. And we got lucky and he's a genius,
and I just happened to be present and I did
the best work of my life. And from that I believe.
And I know it sounds pretentious, but I think storytelling
there's nothing more powerful. And you know, I can send

(44:21):
out a tweet about anti Semitism or or do a
Ted talk or whatever, but when you tell a story
and people are lost in it, and they're wrapped in
the story and they see, oh, because a lot of
people you know what racism or anti semitism is not
knowing about someone else's culture. And then you know, so

(44:43):
this is a way to educate them, but through storytelling.
And so it's not didactic. You know, it's not dry.
It's like while they're lost and I'm tap dancing, it's Brooklyn,
and while they're in Germany, what's going on? And I
want this guy to win. You may even hate Juice,
but you want this guy to when and then you
see his journey through you see it through someone else's eyes.

(45:04):
And so we pulled it off. And so that will
change my life, if nothing else. From my perspective that like,
I never gave up Broke Eight Ribs while filming it,
didn't give up. I was producing the film, so we
were running a little behind, and so I ended up
doing my own stunts and I shouldn't have. Yeah, there

(45:25):
was a guy that was there that was younger and
stronger and better looking that could have stepped in and
done my stunts.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
And you're like, no, no, allow me to do this.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
Yeah, but it was all in the name of time.
But the reality is when you do that, you end
up losing more time. So a lot lots of lessons learned.
But I again was all in. And it's in the
movie I'm getting beaten up and those are my ribs.
That sounds are my actual ribs breaking.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
The screaming is real.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yeah, Jaws, it was all real.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Okay. Do you think that storytelling has changed over time
because now that we have social media and TikTok and
everything is in short form? Do you think it's harder
to get people to sit down and focus on a
longer version story.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
I do, but I think you can also if you
let that affect everything you do. It's up to us
to grab people's attention. My mother, I remember as a
child watching her perform and I could understand everything she
was saying. How a child I'm watching her do check

(46:38):
off for Shakespeare? But she told me, if you're doing
Shakespeare and they don't understand you that's your fault, not
their fault. So you have to make everything you're saying
like right now if they were filming us. My point
of concentration is to make you understand what I'm saying.
That's all I have to do is literally focus on
you and make you understand what I'm saying. So if
you start going, oh, oh well, no one's watching films anymore,

(47:00):
we got it's just eleven second TikTok. Guys, that's all
we're doing. Let's go okay, let's shake our asses. Let's
go grind, grind, grind. Oh my god, look at the views.
Look at the views. Look at the views.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
That's what it's like now though I'm sure that you
hear it and it's around you that is like constantly
what I mean, I'm sorry, I can't.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
I gotta do a TikTok. I can't finish this number. No, yeah, man,
you know it's up to us. You know people aren't
going to the movies. Well make a fucking great movie, man,
make a great movie that'll break through. And I did.
I did, like you know, will everything align? I have
no idea, but I know that I'm proud of it.

(47:36):
And when people see it. They're going to get it,
and that's all. That's all I can do. I can't
second guess myself and think about what do they want
to see? What's their attention span?

Speaker 1 (47:44):
We all know that.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
You know, everyone's talking about the Paul Thomas Anderson movie
right now. He's a genius. He's always done it his way, always,
and I'll go see anything that he does and and
you know, so just do what you connect with and
don't second guess it or think about what people want
to see. That's that's a slippery slope in a way

(48:09):
to homogenize whenever you are as a creative entity. I
like to use big words.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
I appreciate the big one. It up after we're done
and hopefully makes sense to me. No, I get it.
I totally understand what you're saying. What's the last movie
you saw in the theater?

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (48:25):
What is the last one? Miss?

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Are you at the point where they just send you
the screen or you just watch it at home so
you don't have to deal with the gen pop No.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
I love. I love going to the theater. Last movie
I saw in the theater was a Q and A
for F one. If you can believe it, okay, and
it was, it was fascinating. And I mean there's another example. Okay,
you know on paper, they're going, wait, you're gonna spend
one hundred and eighty million on a movie right now?

(48:54):
They're not going to the movies. Well, it's like they were, Okay,
everyone loves F one we'll get Lewis Hamilton, he'll be
our drama tour and we'll get it, all right, and
everyone knows Brad Pitt aging F one star and you know,
coming back and and just a great story and and
they shot the shit out of it and everybody wins,

(49:15):
and you know, breaking box biggest biggest box office Brad
Pitt's ever had in a time when no one's going
to the movies. Okay, so they're they're doing their thing.
I went to a premiere the other night of a
movie that I have out right now on all the
streamers called Primitive War. And it's basically a Vietnam War

(49:36):
movie that then suddenly jumps timelines and we're battling dinosaurs.
And uh, I played Colonel Jericho. This is kind of
southern old school general. You know. Again, you know something
that no one on paper would be like Piven isn't
a southern old school general. It's like, I'm an actor.
Just give me anything, Yeah, give me the fatigues and
yell action and let's go. What are we doing? And

(49:58):
I had so much fun and suddenly I'm just shooting
dinosaurs in the rain, jumping on helicopters and flying out
and it's it's so, that's the actual last movie. I
didn't want to say my own movie, but you know, people,
it was supposed to be in the theaters for a
week and ended up being, you know, five weeks in
the theater, and everyone's talking about it and our rated
blood and guts dinosaur movie that people have been waiting for.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
I'm glad you brought up dinosaurs here for a second,
because my lovely producer, Diamond, she just said, oh god,
she has a tough time believing in dinosaurs. So now
your work with obviously weren't working with real dinosaurs. What
are your thoughts on dinosaurs? What they look like? And
do you think we've been sold a bill of goods
about dinosaurs. Diamond is at the point where she doesn't

(50:41):
exist at all.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
I the Diamond. I think you just need to get
on a plane and go to Florida and just take
a look at an alligator. Okay, what is an alligator?
Look at a platypus. I mean, I don't know. There's
there's stuff out there that you can't even explain, Like
what just this what is a direct Yeah? Exactly seen. Yeah,
we still you know, we still have remnants of that time.

(51:06):
You know, tortoises lived to one hundred and twenty years old.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
There's a shark out in Greenland somewhere that's like four
hundred years old. Really, yes, the Greenland shark. Wow, I'm
living forever. Her thing is actually I don't want to
speak for you, but I will I will say I
don't think the dinosaurs look anything like what they try
to tell us they looked like because hair doesn't fossilize well,
feathers don't fossilize well, so we don't know if they
had hair, feathers in fur, we don't know that.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
Well, it's funny you say that, because in primitive war
they have feathers. They have so yeah, they're being very
very true to to the dinosaurs. Okay, for sure you
can geek out on that movie, and you should actually
interview Luke Sparks, the guy that he didn't Indie dinosaur
movie in Australia isn't a big studio movie, and he
pulled it off and it's incredible and his journey is amazing,

(51:52):
and you should you should definitely have him on the
show too, because he's a fascinating dude. And like his
wife's parents, it's like, you know, have a company where
they have all the army fatigues and everything, so it's
like this kind of mom paw like family effort. You
get there, and he just did it all himself in
his backyard and it looks amazing.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
Okay, we're going to Australia, Diamond, that's to Australia Dinosaurs.
She just every time we bring up dinosaurs, she's like, don't,
don't do it. I don't want to hear about it.
She has a really tough time.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
What about the what about the bones that we see,
you know in all the museums?

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Yeah, what about them, Diamond, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
We know that they weren't it's not just like rocks
that are in the shape rocks.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
When did you turn into Kyrie Irving? This is crazy
and the world is that.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
This may be the one thing that I'm embarrassed. Yeah,
but I'm confused.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
It just doesn't.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Yeah, it just doesn't. It doesn't make it all the
way around in my head. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Absolutely? But yeah, I think I suggest Look at there's
something called the toad and Mike Tyson talks about it
a lot. It's pure d MT. Frogs emit uh. They
secrete uh venom for any of their predators, so that
when you bite into a frog, they release his venom

(53:23):
and then it kills any predator. And so they take
this venom and they crystallize it and they dry it
and they you smoke it. It's called the toad. And
Mike Tyson is the first person that told.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Me about it.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
And I was doing his podcast and he was taking
handfuls of mushrooms and just eating them and goes, it's
it's a microdose. I go, no, no, sir, that's a macrodose.
Threw me, throw me through me, you go. He goes,
I don't understand. Where's your entourage? I go, I don't
have an entourage, man, It's just me.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
You know.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Fear it with you know, fear with with your friend.
Fear can cook your food, Fear can keep you warm
at night. You know what I'm saying the one hundred
and fifteen pounds. I'm a path of fifth. You know
what I'm saying. I want to I'm connected with God
but also devil with within your ear. And you know
understand what I'm saying. You know, forgive it's the very
powerful God. Brother, this is too much information. Anyway, he
told me. He told me that he took the toad

(54:20):
and it changes life. And if you look at Mike
and the trajectory of his life, he's like a different
person now, he's like a Buddha, you know. And he was,
you know, the youngest heavyweight and a different person. But anyway,
the reason I brought bring that up is I think
I did the toad. And what happens is your soul
leaves your body and you die, and all of a sudden,

(54:43):
you're like you because it thinks, you know, this is venom,
but they've gotten it to a point where it doesn't
actually kill you, so you have a perspective on life. Now.
I'll be totally honest with you. I didn't fully I
literally didn't fully commit to the trip because I was
listening to the music and I was staying grounded in

(55:03):
the room because I could feel immediately, Oh, you're too
tied to this life. You care too much about your
ambition and all of these things that don't matter. I
saw it immediately, but I couldn't commit to it because
I knew in the back of my mind, Oh, I've

(55:25):
got to get the performance out. I need to stay
in my ambition and get the performance out to the world.
And then and then I'm gonna go and take the
toad and I'll probably put on a long right robe
and you'll never hear from me again. I swear to you.
It may I'll just go into a spiritual life and
I'll it's incredible. I will caught me in. But I
got to get the performance out first. So I think

(55:48):
if you I'm not telling you to do drugs, but
I think you did something like the Toad you because
the thing about you know, there are so many different
timelines going on at the same time. My mother passed
away this year and she was going in really sorry
about that, thank you. She was going in and out
of consciousness in the hospital and I was like, Mom,

(56:08):
where were you and she was like, oh, just in Vietnam.
I was like, well, that's crazy. And so we were
talking so I do, she and she was being straight
with me. I do think that, like there's a lot
of different timelines going on at the same time, so
you might manifest and then all of a sudden you're
just like running from dinosaurs, and then you're gonna come
back into this room and you'll be like, Okay, they're real.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
All it takes it the Toae Diamond, We're on it.
We're gonna, We're gonna. She's gonna one of these days.
She hasn't even smoked weed in her life. Oh oh,
I thought you should do having full weed.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Maybe you should start with mushrooms.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
I've been trying. Yeah, I'm fascinated that you were able
to do the toad and not completely like, oh, I
didn't even know you had control or something like that,
So you didn't. This wasn't a time where you saw
the spirit guide that everybody talks about and it walked
you through whatever realm everybody says they go to. You
never got there.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
I didn't get there because I was holding on to
this three D reality with everything that I have because
I know I need to see the performance through. I
need to see it through.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
And the performance you're talking about is the movie that
you just finished.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
The adaptation of the Arthur Miller piece that I star
in and my sister I had her adapt and direct it,
and you know it's going to be out as soon
as we can tie up some loose ends, and yeah,
I'll send you. I'll send you a trailer. Maybe you
could play a little trailer to give people a little

(57:37):
reference for that.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
I would love to. The more you talk about it,
the more I keep thinking, when is it going to
come out? But you've already said you don't have a
date just yet, so when you do have one, we
would of course let to see back and talk about
all of that. But I'm just fascinated that you were
somehow able to control the toad in any way, because
from everything I hear, you know, it.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
Wasn't no, it wasn't a it was to be honest
with you, it was more of a macro do micro dose.
And had I done, I probably would a lot harder
to control, had I gone fully deep. But I'm a
pretty clean person, you know what I mean. I don't
do man made drugs, cocaine or any don't really drink,

(58:16):
and so my system's clean, and so that thing hit
me like I was shot out of a cannon. Crazy, Okay, he.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Will return after that. It sounds amazing. When you mentioned
when we were talking about earlier, how I thought stand
up sounded terrifying. Yeah, I will reassess because you talking
about sitting in a room with Mike Tyson as he

(58:45):
is eating handfuls of mushrooms actually sounds more terrifying than anything.
Stand up.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
A great. He's you know, he's smoking weed and it's
you know, it's very while doing his podcast, Oh absolutely.
You know. We had Saquon Barkley on and Saqua was
sitting and he goes, he goes, Sequon, who are you?
And Seque goes, oh, man, I'm a I'm a running back.
I had a He goes, fuck all that ship man,
He goes, who are you? And I was like, oh, ship,
Mike's peaking. He started, he started peaking. Saquon looks at me.

(59:13):
He goes, it's just normal. I go, yeah, man, it's
all good. You're good, You're good. And so you can
look up this episode on Hot Boxing. He was crazy
and mikeels, what maddest to you when this life? And
he's and Saque's like, man, I'm trying to get back
I'm on a long journey with my a cl He goes,
fuck that, who do you love in this life? And
Mike was just going deep and uh, to his credit,

(59:38):
like bless him, he he, he really went there and
it was an amazing episode. But Mike did talk about
and taking the toad and losing it and uh, really
going crazy, and you know, people around him being terrified
because he is still Mike Tyson. Sure you know what
I mean, But I don't want to speak for him.

(01:00:00):
He talks about this openly and publicly. He's a really
really sweet guy. I mean, he was on Entourage and
he was this is before he made this kind of
transition into this more enlightened version of himself. And I
just got to work with him as an actor and

(01:00:21):
that was just because I was such a fan, and
you know, his journey as a boxer is just absolutely incredible,
and so I got to I got to work with
him as an actor and help him to become the
best version of himself on camera, and that was very
gratifying for me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Speaking of that, we were talking about the fandom in
other countries versus here, and how it is a little
bit more serious other places here it's just, Oh my god,
I'm obsessed with you. Take a picture with me. It's great.
Are there any people that you would meet today that
you haven't met already that you would feel a little
bit of fan girl about.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Yeah, I mean it would probably be Daniel day Lewis.
And just because you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Kind of have access with the Rebecca Miller's you, you
would think.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
I think I think she's very protective of him, as
she should be, you know, but I just know he
and I I'm not going to go so far as
I mean, we both he commits so fully and it's
just so admirable what he does and who he is.

(01:01:26):
And I'm just fascinated by him as a as an
artist and as a human being, and he just feels
like such a decent person. So yeah, I think there
will come a time where we do a screening and
and he gets to see this film and that that'll
mean everything to me. So maybe I'll manifest that. And
he's working with his son, and one of the reasons

(01:01:48):
he wanted to do that is to spend more time
with his son. I mean, like, it's just so beautiful,
you know, twenty seven year old director who's crushing it.
And I can't wait to see that. And I, you know,
work with my sister and been directed by my father
and my mother, so I understand all those dynamics. And
you know, this is an adaptation of his wife's father,

(01:02:09):
Arthur Miller, who won the Pulitzer Prize and was married
to Marilyn Monroe. And it's just you know, craziness. So yeah,
I would, I would, I you know, maybe I would
love to manifest a Daniel day Lewis meeting.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
All right, Well, I hope that happens for you, but
you have a lot of really cool stuff still happening
on your own for you. Stand up happening this weekend
right here in New York City, nineteenth at Sony Music.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
Hall, Sony Hall. Let's go. Let's go, Jeremy Dashpivot dot
Com for tickets. Don't worry if the vip are sold out.
It's a beautiful, little, intimate, five hundred seat theater. There
isn't a bad seat.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
It's a great space. I'll live.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
If they mentioned you, let's give them some free meet
and greets so that you know you don't have to
pay extra money, absolutely all right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
So if they mentioned Gandhi, you can get a free
meet and greet.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Just gandhi, eazy name to remember.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Hopefully when they come through it will work out. I
get to come meet you and greet you and say hi.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
So last question for you, because I've kept you for
a long time, which I really appreciate. By the way,
thank you. We talked about kind of tuning out the noise,
keeping social media out of your brain if you can.
Have you ever heard a rumor about yourself that was
so fantastic you wished it were true, or one that
was so outrageous that you felt you had to address it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
You know, it's so interesting because I believe when when
it's one of the great lessons of life. It used
to really affect me what people thought of me, and
you used to really affect me, And once you release that,

(01:03:48):
it's just it's it's so incredible. It's such a gift
to release all of that. But I, you know, I
think that there are are you know, I've played all
these roles. So I did an actor who I think
is a brilliant actor, and he and he asked me

(01:04:08):
to do some blow with him, and I was like,
oh no, I don't. I don't do blow. He's like, mate,
I saw, uh, you know, I saw, I've seen you
do it. I go, did you see smoking aces? Yeah? Mate,
I saw you don't do a little Charlie May. I
don't know, bro, I don't wait. You saw you're an actor.
You're a brilliant actor. I was acting that was powdered

(01:04:29):
vitamin C. So like I somehow convinced this actor that
I was snorting cocaine in a movie Like wow, I
convinced that guy, so like, I have to see that
and realize, Okay, it's out of my control. Even highly
intelligent people who are artists who know the process are

(01:04:50):
confused by me. So it has nothing to do with me,
And I think it's a lot of wasted energy. I
don't want when you do your comedy, the only thing,
the only way you could do go is to look
at the comments or listen to people. I remember getting
up on stage and I heard this comment this comic
who I just celebrated. I was like, hey, man, I
saw you on this show. You're doing great job. And

(01:05:11):
I was just trying to just encourage him. Now he
has no background as an actor, and he's taking on
my roles. God bless him. Do I sound bitter. Yeah,
I'm bitter. Okay. So I'm getting on stage and I
hear him go, anyone thinks that they can do comedy now.
And what he doesn't realize is that fuels me because
he's got to watch me, not because he wants to,

(01:05:31):
but because he's got the next spot. So he's got
to sit there and watch my spot. And I love
comedy and I respect it and I grind. I'm going
to make you laugh and I'm gonna have a great time.
So him doubting me, it really inspires me to work harder.
So let it fuel you, don't let it overwhelm you.

(01:05:52):
Welcome to my ted talk.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Thank you. I appreciate it. I think I've done a
good job thus far.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
You did a great job doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Because when I started here who people did not like me?

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
And I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
I guess you'd have to ask them. I think that
I was the newest one in I have slightly different
opinions than a lot of the people here.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
I come maybe spirit, yeah, maybe see whatever triggers them
has nothing to do with you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
No, And even if it does, I actually don't care.
It took me a minute to get there, but then
I was like, you know what, I'm really happy. I
go home every day and I'm really happy, and I'm
happy with the work I put in here. Like you said,
I fully commit to my job. I commit to things
outside my job, even my side hustles. This podcast means
the world to me, and it's doing really well. And
if people have a lot of shit to say, let
them say it. That's fine. I don't care. As Taylor

(01:06:41):
Swift and Lady Gaga said, I am not the art police.
You don't have to like me. It doesn't matter. I'm
still gonna do what I do. It did take a
minute to get there, though, so I wish I would
have had more conversations with people like you who have
actually been through it and can say it doesn't matter. Definitively,
this doesn't matter, because sometimes it can really feel like
it does.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
Yeah, but you need to feel that to learn from it,
because you can theorize it about it, but it's not
as impactful as you being brought to your knees. Damn,
that was deep.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
I want a good note leave people with that. If
people want to find you online, where they can find you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
My Instagram is this the Blue check. Jeremy Piven, and
I'm on X and I think I'm on Facebook. I
don't know. I'm a cave man.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Good for you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
Let's hug it out.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Hugging it out, and you have flyers, there have flyers.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
This is what I do.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
By the way, I'm gonna leave you and then go
hand out flyers on the street. Yes, yeah, three consecutive
m means, and I'm still heading out flyers. That's either
tragic or inspiring.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
Inspiring. We're gonna go with that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
Okay, all right, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
All right, time after that, What are your thoughts on
Jeremy Piven. We have some behind the scenes stuff that
we should address.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
He's a very interesting man.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
Yeah, to say the least, he's a lot to say.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
He does.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Let me tell you, I appreciate that more than people
who come in here and you feel like you have
to drag answers out of them. I didn't even get
to like half of my questions because I'm not sure
what's going on. I will tell you, I am excited
to see this movie. He's been talking about the performance.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
Yeah, I want to. I want to see it too.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
It sounds interesting. I think that he's very serious about
his craft and the things that he does. I think
he is all over the map, and you can maybe
enlighten me on what the fuck happened. So he was
supposed to be here at a certain time, as we
have talked about on this podcast before. I don't care
anymore who it is. If somebody takes too long to

(01:08:47):
get here and they're late, and they also are not
updating me about what's going on, I don't care. I'll
call it, which is what happened. So we got to
about forty minutes past when he was supposed to be here,
and I said, uh huh, Diamon, just go ahead and
tell his publicists like, we're done, we're not going to
do this, which you did. Publicists apparently passed that message
on because somewhere somehow he got lost in the city,

(01:09:09):
which he referenced a couple times in that podcast. What happened, Diamond?

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Okay, So from my perspective, yes, I let his publicists
know that we were just gonna have to cancel the interview.
He's like, Diamond, I don't know what to do. He's
on his way, He's telling me he's almost there. He's
walking up now, and I'm like, Okay, well, do you
have his number? Like, can I have his number? He
sends me his number. I go downstairs because as we

(01:09:35):
were hanging up, he said, oh, he just texted me
and said he's walking in now. So I run downstairs.
I can see from our lobby a man that I
could not tell if it was him or not. He
had a baseball cap on, so I'm like trying to look.
He's on the phone and he's freaking out. He's like, well,
you know what, man, now mind you. I'm in the lobby.

(01:09:55):
The doors are closed, but I can hear him screaming outside,
so you know what, man, if they don't want me?
And then I hear him say, here's what we're gonna do.
Here's what we're gonna do. And I'm like, what were
they gonna do?

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
It's him like it's starting to like click, and.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
I'm like, there's no way that this man is like
yelling on the street. So I call him and I
watch him and hang up on his publicist and answer
the phone and he's like hello. I'm like Jeremy. He's
like hey, So I'm like, this is Diamond, Like is

(01:10:31):
this shoes standing? I was like, He's like, it is
and we're and we're about to have a good time,
and he walks in. He gets on the elevator and
he squats on.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
The elevator on the he was about to take a ship.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
Yes, in the corner, just squats and not it's me, him,
Andrew and Maxwell to the four of us are just
standing there and he's like, not engaging in conversation. This
was probably the longest elevator ride in my life. But
you know what, it was a great interview. I did

(01:11:07):
not have high hopes for it. I never really didn't
because I was freaking out, like, oh my god, this guy.
At first he's screaming on the streets of New York
and then he's squatting in an elevator with people he
doesn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
He was angry.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
I hope he gets something to eat.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
But he was great. It's great, Oh man, good times,
the things that happen in this job. And then I
was thinking with him, like when he was talking about
Mike Tyson and doing a podcast with him where he's
eating handfuls of shrooms and then interviewing Saquon Barkley at
the same time, I'm like, that sounds like an acid trip.
That doesn't even sound like something that actually happens in

(01:11:43):
real life. And I think about the things that we
deal with in this studio that I'm like, I can't
believe that just happened. And I can't even imagine what
it's like for people at that level. They just have
to be doing the wildest shit all the time. Well
for him to think that he could just squat in
an elevator, and like, was this an explanation? No, I
didn't ask, none of us even like we all like looked.

(01:12:04):
At one point, I saw Maxwell look Andrew looks at me.
Maxwell then looks at the both of us. He's like
looking around and he's just.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
In his own world.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
We have to get the footage from our building. Oh
they have cameras in those ole leaders. Oh yeah, the
funniest shit. I would like not to actually do anything
with it, because what are we gonna do with it?
Who cares? I just want to see it because I
know the three of you were holding it in so bad.
I can tell Andrew is getting nervous. When I was like,

(01:12:32):
I'm done, I don't want to do it, I don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
This is fine.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
And then Jeremy Piven called my phone no, Yeah, what
do he say? He was like, Hi, it's Jeremy. I
was like hello, because I have the screener thing on
my phone where it asks you and it said whoever
is calling their name?

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
So I was like.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
I answered it and he's like, Hi, it's Jeremy. I'm
all my way up. I've been walking tennis blocks maybe more.
I'm on shore. He was like, but the good thing
is my publicist freaking out, and it would be nice
if he just knew that there are a lot of
problems in the world, tons of them, and this is
not one. I was like, do you need someone to
come find you? He said yes, please, And that's why

(01:13:11):
I said Andrew, also because I was like, I don't
so where are you. He's like, I don't know, maybe
in front of the building. And then I think he
was maybe having a conversation with someone, yeah, or himself.
But he's like, oh, that's right, I've never been here before.
I'm like, what, Okay, they're coming, I.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Will have them come kidding.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
It was just funny to be like, hello, Hi, it's Jeremy.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
I was like, okay, that should be recorded.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
Well, let me tell you I all the shit that
I talked about I'm not doing it, it's taking too long. Clearly,
I watked right back on that because I was not
about to be incredibly rude. After He's like, I'm hustling,
I'm out here, and then that was fun. It was
it was a good time. I think that was. Yeah,
we got to get you the toad.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Never, never in my life.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Never are you kidding? No, you try that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
I want to so bad, You're insane. I'm sorry, I
want to be like I want to be down. No,
I really do, just like, oh this whimsical vibe. I
want to.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
But no, okay, that's fine. We will not have you
do the toad. Okay, But picturing Mike Tyson eating all
those shrooms and then trying to talk to Saku Barkley,
who are you? I'm a running back?

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
No, who are you?

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
I'm scared of him? No, I'm Jerry. I'm scared of
him for other reasons. But but uh, Mike Tyson scares
the shit out of me.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Well, all in all, how are you feeling? Are you
glad we stuck around for that?

Speaker 3 (01:14:39):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
Yeah, okay, even though I'm starting to get angry. Now, okay,
we'll just competing about it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
Made me angry, I thought when he was saying, I
was like, I'm fucking hungry right now. Yeah, oh my god,
and I ate I don't even know the power of suggestion.
All right, Diamond, if people want to find you online,
where they.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
Canna find you at Diamond?

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
Sincere yes on threads as well, She's yes the dumpster
fire that is thread I love it. I am at
Baby High Saus. Please like, review, subscribe, follow this podcast,
leave us a talk back, and hopefully you can go
see Jeremy Piven this weekend. He'll be in New York
City and then he's also literally touring around the country.
He didn't mention any of those dates, but he's gonna

(01:15:15):
be all over the place, so by all means, go
check him out wherever you can. Thanks for listening to
this and his Ted Talk. We appreciate it.