March 30, 2022 • 32 mins
Minnie questions David Duchovny, actor, writer, musician, and director. David shares the creative introspection that comes after a loss, a dream about his grandmother, and stories of being on set with Minnie (even when Minnie wasn’t there).
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Do you remember when we did that show and you
had to go find a mini driver? Oh my god,
Oh my god in London and I had to go
out of the studio. It was really bad, and they
had to go out onto the bridge and like find
someone driving many and not only that, they like, I
did it. I love it. You didn't. That to me
is wonderful that you did. That's your curiosity and you
(00:23):
you're being a game. Hello, I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to
Many Questions Season two. I've always loved Crust's questionnaire. It
was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where players would
ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the
other player's true nature. It's just the scientific method really.
(00:46):
In asking different people the same set of questions, you
can make observations about which truths appeared to me universal.
I love this discipline and it made me wonder, what
if these questions were just the jumping off point, what
to depths would be revealed if I ask these questions
as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all
(01:07):
these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I
wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a
pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where
were you happiest? What is the quality you like least
about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
What question would you most like answered? What person, place,
(01:28):
or experience has shaped you the most? What would be
your last meal? And can you tell me something in
your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And
I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that
I am honored and humbled to have had the chance
to engage with. You may not hear their answers to
all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to
(01:51):
which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising,
or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest
today on many questions is actor, writer, musician, and director
David d Kovney. Dave and I made a movie a
little while ago, Okay, a lot a while ago that
(02:12):
remains one of my favorite movie making experiences, largely because
he is so clever and funny and such a good company.
I usually measure a good time by how much I
have laughed, and that time was a solid nine point five.
Most people at this point know that David is a
writer as much as he is a brilliant actor, and
(02:32):
I've actually longed for him to finish the PhD he
began when he was at university because its title has
always been so incredibly satisfying to me. It's called Magic
and Technology and Contemporary American Fiction and Poetry. I mean,
it's a mouthful, isn't it, But you know, a good one.
Spending time in close proximity to David's brain has only
(02:53):
ever been a good and rewarding thing, which is why
I would urge you to read any of the novels
he's write, my favorite of which is called Miss Subways.
I think it's a crucible for some of my favorite
strands of Decovneyism, the ideas of myth and mythology, time, love,
(03:14):
and of course New York City. It's always a pleasure
to speak to someone I've known for a long time,
but it was extra interesting getting to ask Dave these
questions at this point in our life, and what I
hope is a long continuing friendship. Where and when were
you happiest? Don't laugh unless it's because it's a really
(03:40):
happy memory. I mean my relationship to the word happy,
it's pretty fright, you know, I don't know. I mean
it's a question my mother used to ask me all time,
are you happy? And I would always think, well, I
don't know how to answer that question. There are times
I've felt fully engaged. Those are the times I'm happiest
when I'm fully engaged, and usually either with family, with
(04:01):
my kids, or with work. When I'm fully engaged to
work and just kind of the monkey brain has turned
off and it's just like creation, creation, creation, go to sleep,
wake up, trying to create some more. Those are the
best moments, and you can have that with kids as well,
But an actual specific instance, No, I think that's what
(04:21):
I mean, because sometimes it's attached to a thing that
we do, But it's really what are the tenets of
I'm interested in and what the tenants of happiness off
for people? Because it's a weird one. Yeah. For me,
it's it's bringing something into being that wasn't here before.
And that's even a person, you know, that's a child,
that's a book, that's a song, that's a movie, that's
(04:43):
a it's a joke. I don't know, it's just like
that to me, that feels happy, like not that I've
been kind of basking it, you know, like, oh, now
I've done it, I've created something. No, it's just that
feeling of you know, that secle vortex when you're kind
of in the middle of creating something and it's it's
just this wonderful kind of unseld feeling and what you're
doing as I go with your instinct, and that's that's
(05:05):
a lovely feeling for me. I completely agree. The more
I've thought about it, and the more that I've lived
and the more death that I've come up against, you
really do realize that that moment where you can be
completely engaged in making something that is part of life,
that is really as good as it gets, because I
think either everything else. Since my mother died and I
(05:27):
do bang on about this a bit, and she would
get so annoyed that I kept using it as an illustration.
But it's a good one. There's this brilliant pointlessness when
somebody dies. There's this existential kind of nihilism which is
awful to begin with, and then if you're lucky, it
grows into a proper appreciation for what it might actually
be about or what it seems to me to be about,
(05:48):
because when you watch somebody die, you really see, oh
it's it just ends. So those moments I totally get
that of distilled creation, and in that moment of birthing something,
of paying attention, of being engaged, and even if it's fleeting,
or if it lasts for five minutes, or maybe it's
five hours of sitting writing something or watching your child
being born, Like, I completely agree with that. My mom's
(06:09):
ninety two. Now are you kidding me? You met her?
You met her and oh my god, I did. I
met her in Edinburgh? Yeah, exactly. She's fantastic. She's got
dementia and she recognizes us. But no, she's she's not
all there at all. And that's the other thing. It's
not just life ends. It's like identity ends sometimes before life,
(06:31):
and identity ends. And that's a really weird question, like
what did that mean? That identity? What was that construct
of character of personality? Was it a lie or was it?
What was it? You know? Is it just a screen?
What's the real thing? It says? Essential? Like you said,
it's as wow, identity is flimsy. It's super flimsy. It's
built on sand, as demonstrated by what happens when it
(06:54):
begins to disappear. But I do believe in something more kinetic.
Let's beyond that. I really really do, having having watched
the intellectual side and the body diminished, but still felt
the presence of that kinetic something. There was something amazing.
It was just particularly when my mom died, it was
almost like just the tiniest beginning of a breadcrumb trail
(07:15):
that she left as she left. I think about that
a lot, and I don't know if that's just the
wishful thinking of of missing somebody or hoping that there
is a life. It was a year on mondaysolutely not
that one. Yeah, it brings up a lot of just
a lot about the bulwark of that you didn't realize
was there between you and your own mortality. When your
parents die, it's suddenly like, oh my god, I am next.
(07:38):
If you're lucky, you're next, You're lucky. Yes, what person, place,
or experience has most altered your life? Person, place, or experience? Well,
I think my mother probably the most formative person for me,
both going bad you know, place probably New York City.
(07:59):
I grew up there, spent last like eight years there
raising my kids that I remember you gave me like
a whole when we did that screening of Return to
Me Edinburgh Edinburgh Castle, right, I remember, I remember you
gave me like a massive prep on your mother, like
maybe the whole day before we were doing pressed and stuff.
You were just like just dropping things like, now listen
(08:21):
if she's really unimpressed and doesn't smile when she says
hello to like, don't worry, it means this. Now do
talk about this with her. And there was a whole
like you knew her so well, you were saying it
all with a smile. She was so brilliant and she
was I remember we went on a tour of Edinburgh
Castle and she was the mistress of the acerbic asides.
(08:42):
She also like out of shot, which I thought was
quite kind of her. Of the tour guide filled in
the massive bits of history that they had missed out
that she knew about the castle, which was brilliant. So
I just hung back like the naughty kid with the
really sort of smart acerbic teacher. Yeah, my mother is Scottish,
you know. But but I didn't fight out. And here's
(09:04):
here's the weird thing about one's parents is I didn't
find out till maybe ten or fifteen years ago. My
mother was actually born in Queens, New York. What Yeah,
I did that show, who do you think? But I didn't.
I didn't learn it there, but I learned other things there.
But my grandparents came over from Scotland in the late twenties.
(09:24):
They came to Queens where my grandfather worked as a superintendent.
That's what I learned in the show. He was super
for building. They had three kids and then they went
back to Scotland. So they enjoyed the depression here in America.
Depression was lifting here, so they decided it's still going
on at evening. We love the impression so much, we're
(09:45):
going to continue this good thing in Scotland. So that's
what they did. Everybody packed your bags were going aback
for more depression. We're no depressed. One para shute for
ten years is enough. Mother would als also told me,
you know, she was in a small town in Scotland.
She was raised in called White Hills, I believe, and
she would say that the Germans on their bombing runs
(10:08):
would take off from I guess Finland, what is closest
to Scotland and it's right there. It's just so is
it is it Norway or is it Finland. It's just
I'm going to go out on a limb and say
that it's Norway. But quick, someone look at a map.
I think it's Norway. Yeah. So the Germans had annexed
whatever country it was for that reason, so they could
be as close as they could get to London and
refuel and just go on their their bombing on. So
(10:30):
they would go on these bombing when I'm taking off
from Norway on our way to London. And sometimes if
they hadn't dropped their payload, they would just kind of
like drop little bombs because any self respecting German aviator
can't come home with some bombs still in the tank barry.
They would try to bomb bridges. You know, they're trying
to trying to create a havoc whatever. You know, they
didn't drop Willie Hilly. But she says one time she
(10:52):
was out playing as a young child and this German
bomber came screaming in low and she made not an
attach with the pilot and he kind of gave an
odd and went on his way. Oh my god, It's
like wow, that is such an eerie story. God, that's
a really weirdly cinematic image here. That's like when I
(11:15):
asked my dad he flew in the Second World War,
and I remember saying, why was going to the Berlin
Film Festival? And I called him up and I was like, Dad,
you know Berlin and he was like, only from twelve
thousand food. I was like, I was more thinking along,
where could I get a good old schnitzel. That's amazing
that she remembers that. It's amazing that it was our
parents generation. I mean, my father was really my grandfather,
(11:39):
Like I mean, not literally, but he was the same
age as because he flew in that war, but got
those stories. Yeah, right, because my dad he was eighteen
and so he was entraining when the war ended. He
was lucky. He's really lucky. Yeah. My daddy was eighteen
and flew the first great and Terrible bombing raid, the
first and the last day raid that the R A
F flew, and he was one of only four survivors
(12:01):
out of twelve planes, five man apiece. There was the
Verde ron Braun, who was the inventor of that you
two and instrumental in the creation of nuclear mom he's
he's a Nazi scientist who re appropriated after the war.
I remember, I remember they took him in. Yeah, I
wanted all his intel. Yes, so he you know, he
got to live his his autobiography. I believe it's called
(12:25):
I Am for the Stars, and Lenny Bruce said it
should have been called I Am for the Stars. But
sometimes I hit love. Oh my god, yes, exactly. Wow.
What stories, what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
(12:54):
I mean, I'm just gonna go with my first thought.
But I think of Jesus Christ, who is not my
lord and savior, but I do recognize him as a
good teacher, and in the myth he gives his life
the aga. The Greeks had two notions of love. They
had aero sexual love romantic love, and they had agape,
which was friendship or spiritual love. And Jesus to me
(13:15):
his self sacrifice whatever it is on the cross, you know,
so that we in the Christian traditions, so that Christians
may be absolved. The original sin moves me. It moves me.
It's a kind of a loved one has for what's children.
You would lay down your life for them. It's a
complete selflessness without a possessiveness of erotic love. I guess
that's my definition of that's so lovely. I didn't know
(13:38):
that aga. I've had friends who go to gatherings where
I guess that is the particular teaching, like a form
of worship, like a worship on a Sunday. I didn't
know that came from the Greek. I think you're right.
I think that the eros the erotic side, which is different,
but I think that kind of it's more encompassing the
unconditional love of a child or a dog. Well, you know,
(14:01):
I think we confuse ourselves because people in relationships are
always talking about unconditional love, and I'm thinking that doesn't
sound very smart. I mean, I feel like he is
totally conditional for the most parts. You know, the conditions
are you know that you are when you say you are,
you know those kinds of things you know. So it's like,
I just think it's completely impossible for a human to
be unconditional. We create these conditions, and whether they come
(14:23):
from like reptilian brains survival, or whether they come from no,
I think it really is from that, Like, you can't
be unconditional as a human being, but you can, I
suppose be aware of how you can sort of maybe
release those conditions to let love in because it is
better like that. Yeah, and you know, when you're lucky
enough to have children, you realize the different kind of
(14:45):
love as possible in one's life, you know. And it's
a scarier one for sure, but it's also it's less turbulent.
It's it's less subject to conditions. It's not subject to conditions.
It's no, I know, there's so much letting go. No
one told me that. It's no one told me how
much letting go that was with your children. I was like, oh,
(15:06):
but it's like we say, we have children. You know
I have a child. It's like, no, you don't. But
I think it does make you a nicer person. I
think it's made me a nicer person to stand at
the side of it. Yeah. I'm always amazed that how
how easily they can do without me. You know, I
know I thought I was indispensable. I really really thought
(15:28):
that were It's so annoying because now that my mother
is gone, I just so wish I could say you
really were right when you were like, you'll be sorry
when I'm gone. I really am, But I think that's
a kid's journey. They have to think that they can
completely do without us. Yeah, well you want that, But
at the same time, it's it's terribly painful, suppalling, it's appalling.
(15:51):
It is to be so entertaining them, you know, unlike
the coolest, the coolest. Yeah, I guess having children it's
got some kind of great marketing, like built in marketing campaign,
because nobody talks about the stuff that is just brutal
aver how hard it is and how much you have
to let go of this beautiful thing that used to
love you and adore you and then has to individuate
(16:13):
and has to kind of cut ties with you being irrelevant. Yeah,
at least for a minute. But you know, I'm still
thinking about your mom. And my dad died in like
two thousand and five or saying quite a while ago.
And it's weird because you say so and so died,
you know, that's the way we say it. We say
(16:35):
my dad died, and you say my mom died. But
my experience of it was more, oh, he's still dead,
you know what I mean. It's like he dies every day.
In a way. Oh my god, Dave, that's exactly that
is exactly fucking it. That's it. I've been trying to
articulate this with these surges of grief, like I had
(16:55):
one yesterday and I was trying my poor neighbor who
found me on the beach, just sort of like just
having a proper moment, and I was trying to explain
to her exactly that it's that she's still dead. There
are these moments where my brain simply cannot comprehend that,
and I think it must be that's the human that's
the reptilian brain, going that it only exists in and
(17:17):
of itself, and only when it is gone can the
heart or the spirit or whatever it is. I got you,
But we've been having to deal with this extraordinary machine
in our head that you know, I can't comprehend of
a lot of stuff beyond it. Well, time from one
without getting too heavy, because I don't know what I'm
talking about when I talk about time, Well, who does stay?
That's why I had you on the show. Who then
(17:38):
knows anything? But every you know, all the all the
brilliant physicists and scientists will tell you that time doesn't
exist in the way we experience it, But it's some
kind of a simultaneous past and future at the same
time deal going on and the only thing that's going
forward is kind of entropy, like things breaking apart, but
there's no like linear from the past to the future.
(18:00):
And I think when you have such a strong connection
with another human being, like with a parent, it obliterates
that illusion of time that starts in the past and
go straight into the future and kind of put you
in this weird flow, you know, which is where I
Sometimes I know my dad's dead, and sometimes I don't know,
and so I'll go through a day where I didn't
(18:21):
know it, I don't realize oh, you know what I mean,
or a month where I don't think about them. And
then there were months where I felt I was closer
to him than I was in life, you know, that
I needed him to die for me to get really
close to him, And that was a weird feeling too.
I'll tell you that I had this novella coming out
in June called The Reservoir. Because nobody wants to buy
a novella much. They don't even really want to buy novels,
(18:44):
but they really don't want to buy an avella. But
I had this kind of gimmick but cool thing, which
is a bunch of poems and photographs that I've taken
and written over the years that you get as like
a bonus if you buy it early or something. But
one of the poems I wrote about my dad, and
I'm imagined him in the poem I think it's called
seven years Dead, but I was imagining him growing in
(19:06):
that in death, the way we grow in life. You
know that he was a child in death somehow and
in some other consciousness, and I was a man, and
and does he need me? You know, does he need me?
Like does that dead child growing in the consciousness of death?
Does he need to to hold his hand? Or you know?
You know what we're talking about is like poetry can
(19:28):
kind of address things like that because it's not sensical,
it's not scientific, but it tries to get at those
paradoxes that we're touching on, you know. So I will
say that I kind of have thought about that, just
in the sense of, oh, does it grow? Does he grow?
He was born into that death that that year and
now he's this many years dead, and is he is
(19:49):
he growing? Is he you know that kind of a
question that's so funny. I just I had a conversation. Well,
I don't know whether it's with her or with my head,
but I asked Mom something and she went, I, you know,
I'm newly dead. And it was so funny, and it
was what makes me think that it was her, because
it was both annoyed and funny, which was a distillation
(20:09):
of her. I had the dream a long time ago
about my grandmother, about my dad's mother, who was dead
at the time, and she loved Fire Island when she
had a house there and a summer home there, and
you have to take a ferry there, you know, you
can't really drive there. And I dreamt that I was
on this ferry with Julia. I had to call Julia
(20:31):
because she wouldn't allow anybody to call her grandmother because
she was eternally and uh so she was out at
the front of the boat with you know, she had
a scarfon on her head in the wind and her
face and she was clearly like loving this moment, being
on the ferry and the sun, going out to a
(20:52):
place that she loved. And I was withst some people
and they were like, you've got to go tell her
she's dead, And I was like, why me. I mean,
like she needs to know, she needs to know she's dead.
It's not right. So I went and I sat down
next her, and I just sat there for a bit.
Eventually they said, Julia, I have to tell you something.
(21:14):
I have to tell you that you're dead. And she said,
but that's such a great dream. Yeah, it was a
good forget it. I love that she knew. Yeah, the matter,
it was incidental. Maybe it is, Maybe it is incidental. Yeah,
I just I don't know. Having felt my mother so
(21:35):
keenly throughout my entire life and lived so far away
from her for most of my adult life but felt
her as keenly and tuned in, I feel her as
keenly now and I can feel like I know she's
absolutely fine. I don't know whatever form that takes, but
there is nothing disturbed, and I know that isn't mind made.
And maybe that's just from having kind of explored feeling
(21:57):
as a currency in my life, not just as a
post the actor, but just in general. Do you talk
to your sister about your Yeah, we do, and we've
started to laugh more like we would do, like we
used to laugh at her a lot. And then we
call her and go we were laughing at you so
hard because we were remembering when you ate that rotten
lamb and you said the green stuff was mint sauce
(22:18):
and we were like, no, it's not, its mold, and
then you ate it and you almost died. Remember that.
But now we've just started telling stories. And even though
there's this weird, this adjunct feeling of like falling off
the cliff because we can't then call her and say
we were just having a laugh at your expense, it's
now becoming clear that there can be a different exchange.
(22:41):
So what quality do you like, at least about yourself?
I think impatience impatience. I'm impatient. Are you impatient with
yourself or you impatient with other people or both? I mean,
I'm aware of my impatience with other people. I'm aware
how torrible it is, so I really try and keep
it to myself. But you know, I feel it, and
(23:02):
it's something something I wish I didn't have. You know,
I don't know, I don't know where it comes from.
I don't think it serves the purpose, but it's there. God,
movie sets and television sets exacerbate that. I'm sure, Yeah, certainly, yeah,
I felt that a lot waiting around on a movie set. Sure,
I don't know. I think I'm so often in my
(23:23):
head like in some kind of whether it's a creative space,
I'm maintaining that I'm protective of it. And therefore if
somebody is kind of knocking in a little bit and
with information that I'm not crazy about or I don't
care about, I can I just stop. I don't want
to hear about that. So it probably made me a
(23:44):
bad father from time to time. You know, when you're
living a creative life and you have children, there's no roadmap,
you know, like to a creative life. It's like you're
always doing it when you're off. So it took me
a while to figure out how to be a decent
person and not carve out all this time in which
I'm supposed to be creating, even if it's just being quiet. God,
(24:05):
that's a good reminder, is that being quiet and appreciating
the pines against the blue sky is being creative. You
certainly know that when you've spent a winter in London,
I must say where it's like, Oh the slab, gray
against the slate, gray against the pigeon, gray against the
gray gray. Yeah, well, I remember doing the X Files
(24:27):
in Vancouver and we would always say, you know, we
go to work in twilight and we rapid twilight, and
then we sleep and we wake up in twilight. It
does get to be a weird state of existence. But
you know, I don't know how much protection I need,
you know, to do the things that I do. But
sometimes I air on the side of quiet. Please, you know,
(24:47):
leave me be, be be. I think it's interesting if
you know what it's in the service of. Like I
started querying, like why does this get me so bent
out of shape? Like why am I being so impatient?
Because I think impatience is one of my worst qualities
as well. And I was like, what is it you're
trying to get to you? And I think it's normally
that if you're busy wanting to get on with the
thing that you thought everybody was focused on doing, because
(25:08):
it usually happens for me at work and it's like, oh,
but no, it's about someone spraying a little bit of
something on my ear and then tugging on my pant
leg and having a whole conversation about the buffet at
lunch and suddenly I've forgotten what I'm doing. I had
this rule, like, it's going to make me sound I'm
(25:29):
a bit of an asshole when I made it up
and when I use it. But I say it only
in the nicest way. But if somebody on set is
super like into their job and they're doing it super
super well, but it's getting in my way, I'll say,
you're giving a ten percent and that's really admirable. But
what I need is like se from you right now.
(25:50):
Oh my god, Oh my god. I can so imagine
a teacher saying that to me. It's cool, it's horrible.
I can see that you're giving and you already think like, oh,
that's a good things. Been is a good thing. And
then you're like, what I need from you? Oh ship,
I gotta let some air out of tires. Okay, last
(26:20):
question in your life? Can you tell me something that
has grown out of a personal disaster? Oh? Everything, anything worthwhile,
anything worthwhile. But specifically, the only specific thing I can
think of is when I was getting divorced. Obviously I
had a lot more time because I was living away
from my kids and my soon b ex wife, And
(26:42):
that was when I took up guitar started writing songs.
I never would have done that if I hadn't had
that particular disaster unfolding and slow motion as divorce does.
It's like a it's a it's a very slow moving disaster,
regardless of who wants to do it, who doesn't want
to every it's a disaster for everyone. I started write novels,
I started to write songs on guitar, and these are
(27:03):
things I never probably would have done had I not
been so uneasy. The cliche that the sand and oyster
just so kind of irritated, irritated all the time, anxious,
irritated left what can I do? What can I do?
And that was my answer was I'm going to do
things that I haven't done before. Actually think, however, agonizing
and this sort of guys across the board conflict is
(27:25):
is ultimately creative. I mean there's a lot of collateral
damage often along the way, but I do think it
is creative. I do think that's the other side of it.
And this being the last question, it's sort of the
antidote to that first question, because I think we do
pursue this notion of happiness, probably completely erroneously as human beings,
when in actual fact it's about not really where were
you happiest? But where was it shittiest? And what grew
(27:48):
that was good out of that? I now think the
person who wrote these questions, which was me, is just
like dog loving idiot, which was you. Yeah, as me,
you solved the mystery. I saw the miship and wondering
which asshole which asshole wrote? It was all yeah, but
(28:12):
that's it. That's it. Conflict. Conflict is creative. I mean
way more kind of fundamentally or or literally, divorce or
any the end of or losing a parent or you know,
any kind of irrevocable split or loss makes you redefine yourself.
You have to. You're no longer defined in this way.
(28:33):
You're no longer defined as a daughter. Necessarily, you're not
more defined as a mother. What you said like closer
to mortality, any loss that I could go through, this
just happens to be the thing that came to mind.
But in my life, any loss, you do have to
then look at yourself in the mirror and though, well,
who am I now? And what does that person do?
That's exactly it, Like what the sort of evolution of
(28:55):
identity like on what do you take? What survives that loss?
What has gone, and it's a good thing. It's gone.
What am I going to go back and sift through
the rubble to salvage? But that also takes inquiry, that
takes interest in inquiring into that. You have to be curious,
everybody's favorite word. You have to be resilient. Without those things,
(29:15):
life I think is miserable. I think if there was
anything that I ever tried to impart to my children,
it would have been curiosity and resilients. Although it's you
can't really do that, you know, that's something they either
have or they don't, or they learn on their own
or they don't. But I see it all around me,
especially as I get older, you know, I see the
people that have given up, and I see the people
(29:36):
who haven't. I see the people who remain curious and resilient.
And I'm not judging it. I'm not saying it's easy.
I'm not saying one way is better than the other.
I just think for me, I couldn't go on if
I didn't think I could bounce back in some way.
I couldn't take chances if I didn't think I could
bounce back. That's a really good thing to think about.
That's really interesting. It could be very sick too. It
(29:57):
could be like, ah, you still have need, You still
have need to be seen or to give, to make
something that somebody consumes or you know, appreciates, Like I
haven't chat enough, motherfucker. You know. It's like I've certainly
had enough. But there's something in me that once they
keep doing it, it could be an illness or it
could be beautiful. I'm not sure. Oh I hope it's
(30:19):
something beautiful. All right, Love, I'm going to text you
later loads of love and thank you so much. Thank
you really appreciate it. D see you, lovel by bye.
Dave's newest book, The Reservoir, will be released on June
seven and is available for pre order now. Dave's in
the new jud Apatow movie The Bubble, which comes out
on April one on Netflix, but I'll let Dave tell
(30:42):
you about it, and also how I came to be
in the movie without actually being in the movie, because
I'm not in it, but I sort of am, which
is lovely. Wait when is the Bubble out? It's so funny.
I was just watching the trailers because like obviously I'll
watched the trailer with the new jut uptown movie and
you're in it, and then what happens. It's Kate McKinnon.
(31:05):
K McKinnon is the movie studio bars. She's like, there's
Mini Driver. I love her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It
was really weird. I wonder why that came about. I
mean because Jed wal just sit there on the mic
and I can just hear him saying, there's a really Driver.
Just say something. I can't wait. I'll be first in
line on the Netflix queue. You don't have to be
(31:26):
on my actual work. It'll jump right ahead of the
cake shows, straight to number one in my wish list?
How many times can you watch season? By the way,
it turns out a fucking lot, because I've done it
many questions. Is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
(31:54):
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver. Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison, No Day, Lisa Castella
and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate
(32:15):
Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support.
Henry Driver
Do you remember when we did that show and you
had to go find a mini driver? Oh my god,
Oh my god in London and I had to go
out of the studio. It was really bad, and they
had to go out onto the bridge and like find
someone driving many and not only that, they like, I
did it. I love it. You didn't. That to me
is wonderful that you did. That's your curiosity and you
(00:23):
you're being a game. Hello, I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to
Many Questions Season two. I've always loved Crust's questionnaire. It
was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where players would
ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the
other player's true nature. It's just the scientific method really.
(00:46):
In asking different people the same set of questions, you
can make observations about which truths appeared to me universal.
I love this discipline and it made me wonder, what
if these questions were just the jumping off point, what
to depths would be revealed if I ask these questions
as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all
(01:07):
these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I
wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a
pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where
were you happiest? What is the quality you like least
about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
What question would you most like answered? What person, place,
(01:28):
or experience has shaped you the most? What would be
your last meal? And can you tell me something in
your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And
I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that
I am honored and humbled to have had the chance
to engage with. You may not hear their answers to
all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to
(01:51):
which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising,
or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest
today on many questions is actor, writer, musician, and director
David d Kovney. Dave and I made a movie a
little while ago, Okay, a lot a while ago that
(02:12):
remains one of my favorite movie making experiences, largely because
he is so clever and funny and such a good company.
I usually measure a good time by how much I
have laughed, and that time was a solid nine point five.
Most people at this point know that David is a
writer as much as he is a brilliant actor, and
(02:32):
I've actually longed for him to finish the PhD he
began when he was at university because its title has
always been so incredibly satisfying to me. It's called Magic
and Technology and Contemporary American Fiction and Poetry. I mean,
it's a mouthful, isn't it, But you know, a good one.
Spending time in close proximity to David's brain has only
(02:53):
ever been a good and rewarding thing, which is why
I would urge you to read any of the novels
he's write, my favorite of which is called Miss Subways.
I think it's a crucible for some of my favorite
strands of Decovneyism, the ideas of myth and mythology, time, love,
(03:14):
and of course New York City. It's always a pleasure
to speak to someone I've known for a long time,
but it was extra interesting getting to ask Dave these
questions at this point in our life, and what I
hope is a long continuing friendship. Where and when were
you happiest? Don't laugh unless it's because it's a really
(03:40):
happy memory. I mean my relationship to the word happy,
it's pretty fright, you know, I don't know. I mean
it's a question my mother used to ask me all time,
are you happy? And I would always think, well, I
don't know how to answer that question. There are times
I've felt fully engaged. Those are the times I'm happiest
when I'm fully engaged, and usually either with family, with
(04:01):
my kids, or with work. When I'm fully engaged to
work and just kind of the monkey brain has turned
off and it's just like creation, creation, creation, go to sleep,
wake up, trying to create some more. Those are the
best moments, and you can have that with kids as well,
But an actual specific instance, No, I think that's what
(04:21):
I mean, because sometimes it's attached to a thing that
we do, But it's really what are the tenets of
I'm interested in and what the tenants of happiness off
for people? Because it's a weird one. Yeah. For me,
it's it's bringing something into being that wasn't here before.
And that's even a person, you know, that's a child,
that's a book, that's a song, that's a movie, that's
(04:43):
a it's a joke. I don't know, it's just like
that to me, that feels happy, like not that I've
been kind of basking it, you know, like, oh, now
I've done it, I've created something. No, it's just that
feeling of you know, that secle vortex when you're kind
of in the middle of creating something and it's it's
just this wonderful kind of unseld feeling and what you're
doing as I go with your instinct, and that's that's
(05:05):
a lovely feeling for me. I completely agree. The more
I've thought about it, and the more that I've lived
and the more death that I've come up against, you
really do realize that that moment where you can be
completely engaged in making something that is part of life,
that is really as good as it gets, because I
think either everything else. Since my mother died and I
(05:27):
do bang on about this a bit, and she would
get so annoyed that I kept using it as an illustration.
But it's a good one. There's this brilliant pointlessness when
somebody dies. There's this existential kind of nihilism which is
awful to begin with, and then if you're lucky, it
grows into a proper appreciation for what it might actually
be about or what it seems to me to be about,
(05:48):
because when you watch somebody die, you really see, oh
it's it just ends. So those moments I totally get
that of distilled creation, and in that moment of birthing something,
of paying attention, of being engaged, and even if it's fleeting,
or if it lasts for five minutes, or maybe it's
five hours of sitting writing something or watching your child
being born, Like, I completely agree with that. My mom's
(06:09):
ninety two. Now are you kidding me? You met her?
You met her and oh my god, I did. I
met her in Edinburgh? Yeah, exactly. She's fantastic. She's got
dementia and she recognizes us. But no, she's she's not
all there at all. And that's the other thing. It's
not just life ends. It's like identity ends sometimes before life,
(06:31):
and identity ends. And that's a really weird question, like
what did that mean? That identity? What was that construct
of character of personality? Was it a lie or was it?
What was it? You know? Is it just a screen?
What's the real thing? It says? Essential? Like you said,
it's as wow, identity is flimsy. It's super flimsy. It's
built on sand, as demonstrated by what happens when it
(06:54):
begins to disappear. But I do believe in something more kinetic.
Let's beyond that. I really really do, having having watched
the intellectual side and the body diminished, but still felt
the presence of that kinetic something. There was something amazing.
It was just particularly when my mom died, it was
almost like just the tiniest beginning of a breadcrumb trail
(07:15):
that she left as she left. I think about that
a lot, and I don't know if that's just the
wishful thinking of of missing somebody or hoping that there
is a life. It was a year on mondaysolutely not
that one. Yeah, it brings up a lot of just
a lot about the bulwark of that you didn't realize
was there between you and your own mortality. When your
parents die, it's suddenly like, oh my god, I am next.
(07:38):
If you're lucky, you're next, You're lucky. Yes, what person, place,
or experience has most altered your life? Person, place, or experience? Well,
I think my mother probably the most formative person for me,
both going bad you know, place probably New York City.
(07:59):
I grew up there, spent last like eight years there
raising my kids that I remember you gave me like
a whole when we did that screening of Return to
Me Edinburgh Edinburgh Castle, right, I remember, I remember you
gave me like a massive prep on your mother, like
maybe the whole day before we were doing pressed and stuff.
You were just like just dropping things like, now listen
(08:21):
if she's really unimpressed and doesn't smile when she says
hello to like, don't worry, it means this. Now do
talk about this with her. And there was a whole
like you knew her so well, you were saying it
all with a smile. She was so brilliant and she
was I remember we went on a tour of Edinburgh
Castle and she was the mistress of the acerbic asides.
(08:42):
She also like out of shot, which I thought was
quite kind of her. Of the tour guide filled in
the massive bits of history that they had missed out
that she knew about the castle, which was brilliant. So
I just hung back like the naughty kid with the
really sort of smart acerbic teacher. Yeah, my mother is Scottish,
you know. But but I didn't fight out. And here's
(09:04):
here's the weird thing about one's parents is I didn't
find out till maybe ten or fifteen years ago. My
mother was actually born in Queens, New York. What Yeah,
I did that show, who do you think? But I didn't.
I didn't learn it there, but I learned other things there.
But my grandparents came over from Scotland in the late twenties.
(09:24):
They came to Queens where my grandfather worked as a superintendent.
That's what I learned in the show. He was super
for building. They had three kids and then they went
back to Scotland. So they enjoyed the depression here in America.
Depression was lifting here, so they decided it's still going
on at evening. We love the impression so much, we're
(09:45):
going to continue this good thing in Scotland. So that's
what they did. Everybody packed your bags were going aback
for more depression. We're no depressed. One para shute for
ten years is enough. Mother would als also told me,
you know, she was in a small town in Scotland.
She was raised in called White Hills, I believe, and
she would say that the Germans on their bombing runs
(10:08):
would take off from I guess Finland, what is closest
to Scotland and it's right there. It's just so is
it is it Norway or is it Finland. It's just
I'm going to go out on a limb and say
that it's Norway. But quick, someone look at a map.
I think it's Norway. Yeah. So the Germans had annexed
whatever country it was for that reason, so they could
be as close as they could get to London and
refuel and just go on their their bombing on. So
(10:30):
they would go on these bombing when I'm taking off
from Norway on our way to London. And sometimes if
they hadn't dropped their payload, they would just kind of
like drop little bombs because any self respecting German aviator
can't come home with some bombs still in the tank barry.
They would try to bomb bridges. You know, they're trying
to trying to create a havoc whatever. You know, they
didn't drop Willie Hilly. But she says one time she
(10:52):
was out playing as a young child and this German
bomber came screaming in low and she made not an
attach with the pilot and he kind of gave an
odd and went on his way. Oh my god, It's
like wow, that is such an eerie story. God, that's
a really weirdly cinematic image here. That's like when I
(11:15):
asked my dad he flew in the Second World War,
and I remember saying, why was going to the Berlin
Film Festival? And I called him up and I was like, Dad,
you know Berlin and he was like, only from twelve
thousand food. I was like, I was more thinking along,
where could I get a good old schnitzel. That's amazing
that she remembers that. It's amazing that it was our
parents generation. I mean, my father was really my grandfather,
(11:39):
Like I mean, not literally, but he was the same
age as because he flew in that war, but got
those stories. Yeah, right, because my dad he was eighteen
and so he was entraining when the war ended. He
was lucky. He's really lucky. Yeah. My daddy was eighteen
and flew the first great and Terrible bombing raid, the
first and the last day raid that the R A
F flew, and he was one of only four survivors
(12:01):
out of twelve planes, five man apiece. There was the
Verde ron Braun, who was the inventor of that you
two and instrumental in the creation of nuclear mom he's
he's a Nazi scientist who re appropriated after the war.
I remember, I remember they took him in. Yeah, I
wanted all his intel. Yes, so he you know, he
got to live his his autobiography. I believe it's called
(12:25):
I Am for the Stars, and Lenny Bruce said it
should have been called I Am for the Stars. But
sometimes I hit love. Oh my god, yes, exactly. Wow.
What stories, what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
(12:54):
I mean, I'm just gonna go with my first thought.
But I think of Jesus Christ, who is not my
lord and savior, but I do recognize him as a
good teacher, and in the myth he gives his life
the aga. The Greeks had two notions of love. They
had aero sexual love romantic love, and they had agape,
which was friendship or spiritual love. And Jesus to me
(13:15):
his self sacrifice whatever it is on the cross, you know,
so that we in the Christian traditions, so that Christians
may be absolved. The original sin moves me. It moves me.
It's a kind of a loved one has for what's children.
You would lay down your life for them. It's a
complete selflessness without a possessiveness of erotic love. I guess
that's my definition of that's so lovely. I didn't know
(13:38):
that aga. I've had friends who go to gatherings where
I guess that is the particular teaching, like a form
of worship, like a worship on a Sunday. I didn't
know that came from the Greek. I think you're right.
I think that the eros the erotic side, which is different,
but I think that kind of it's more encompassing the
unconditional love of a child or a dog. Well, you know,
(14:01):
I think we confuse ourselves because people in relationships are
always talking about unconditional love, and I'm thinking that doesn't
sound very smart. I mean, I feel like he is
totally conditional for the most parts. You know, the conditions
are you know that you are when you say you are,
you know those kinds of things you know. So it's like,
I just think it's completely impossible for a human to
be unconditional. We create these conditions, and whether they come
(14:23):
from like reptilian brains survival, or whether they come from no,
I think it really is from that, Like, you can't
be unconditional as a human being, but you can, I
suppose be aware of how you can sort of maybe
release those conditions to let love in because it is
better like that. Yeah, and you know, when you're lucky
enough to have children, you realize the different kind of
(14:45):
love as possible in one's life, you know. And it's
a scarier one for sure, but it's also it's less turbulent.
It's it's less subject to conditions. It's not subject to conditions.
It's no, I know, there's so much letting go. No
one told me that. It's no one told me how
much letting go that was with your children. I was like, oh,
(15:06):
but it's like we say, we have children. You know
I have a child. It's like, no, you don't. But
I think it does make you a nicer person. I
think it's made me a nicer person to stand at
the side of it. Yeah. I'm always amazed that how
how easily they can do without me. You know, I
know I thought I was indispensable. I really really thought
(15:28):
that were It's so annoying because now that my mother
is gone, I just so wish I could say you
really were right when you were like, you'll be sorry
when I'm gone. I really am, But I think that's
a kid's journey. They have to think that they can
completely do without us. Yeah, well you want that, But
at the same time, it's it's terribly painful, suppalling, it's appalling.
(15:51):
It is to be so entertaining them, you know, unlike
the coolest, the coolest. Yeah, I guess having children it's
got some kind of great marketing, like built in marketing campaign,
because nobody talks about the stuff that is just brutal
aver how hard it is and how much you have
to let go of this beautiful thing that used to
love you and adore you and then has to individuate
(16:13):
and has to kind of cut ties with you being irrelevant. Yeah,
at least for a minute. But you know, I'm still
thinking about your mom. And my dad died in like
two thousand and five or saying quite a while ago.
And it's weird because you say so and so died,
you know, that's the way we say it. We say
(16:35):
my dad died, and you say my mom died. But
my experience of it was more, oh, he's still dead,
you know what I mean. It's like he dies every day.
In a way. Oh my god, Dave, that's exactly that
is exactly fucking it. That's it. I've been trying to
articulate this with these surges of grief, like I had
(16:55):
one yesterday and I was trying my poor neighbor who
found me on the beach, just sort of like just
having a proper moment, and I was trying to explain
to her exactly that it's that she's still dead. There
are these moments where my brain simply cannot comprehend that,
and I think it must be that's the human that's
the reptilian brain, going that it only exists in and
(17:17):
of itself, and only when it is gone can the
heart or the spirit or whatever it is. I got you,
But we've been having to deal with this extraordinary machine
in our head that you know, I can't comprehend of
a lot of stuff beyond it. Well, time from one
without getting too heavy, because I don't know what I'm
talking about when I talk about time, Well, who does stay?
That's why I had you on the show. Who then
(17:38):
knows anything? But every you know, all the all the
brilliant physicists and scientists will tell you that time doesn't
exist in the way we experience it, But it's some
kind of a simultaneous past and future at the same
time deal going on and the only thing that's going
forward is kind of entropy, like things breaking apart, but
there's no like linear from the past to the future.
(18:00):
And I think when you have such a strong connection
with another human being, like with a parent, it obliterates
that illusion of time that starts in the past and
go straight into the future and kind of put you
in this weird flow, you know, which is where I
Sometimes I know my dad's dead, and sometimes I don't know,
and so I'll go through a day where I didn't
(18:21):
know it, I don't realize oh, you know what I mean,
or a month where I don't think about them. And
then there were months where I felt I was closer
to him than I was in life, you know, that
I needed him to die for me to get really
close to him, And that was a weird feeling too.
I'll tell you that I had this novella coming out
in June called The Reservoir. Because nobody wants to buy
a novella much. They don't even really want to buy novels,
(18:44):
but they really don't want to buy an avella. But
I had this kind of gimmick but cool thing, which
is a bunch of poems and photographs that I've taken
and written over the years that you get as like
a bonus if you buy it early or something. But
one of the poems I wrote about my dad, and
I'm imagined him in the poem I think it's called
seven years Dead, but I was imagining him growing in
(19:06):
that in death, the way we grow in life. You
know that he was a child in death somehow and
in some other consciousness, and I was a man, and
and does he need me? You know, does he need me?
Like does that dead child growing in the consciousness of death?
Does he need to to hold his hand? Or you know?
You know what we're talking about is like poetry can
(19:28):
kind of address things like that because it's not sensical,
it's not scientific, but it tries to get at those
paradoxes that we're touching on, you know. So I will
say that I kind of have thought about that, just
in the sense of, oh, does it grow? Does he grow?
He was born into that death that that year and
now he's this many years dead, and is he is
(19:49):
he growing? Is he you know that kind of a
question that's so funny. I just I had a conversation. Well,
I don't know whether it's with her or with my head,
but I asked Mom something and she went, I, you know,
I'm newly dead. And it was so funny, and it
was what makes me think that it was her, because
it was both annoyed and funny, which was a distillation
(20:09):
of her. I had the dream a long time ago
about my grandmother, about my dad's mother, who was dead
at the time, and she loved Fire Island when she
had a house there and a summer home there, and
you have to take a ferry there, you know, you
can't really drive there. And I dreamt that I was
on this ferry with Julia. I had to call Julia
(20:31):
because she wouldn't allow anybody to call her grandmother because
she was eternally and uh so she was out at
the front of the boat with you know, she had
a scarfon on her head in the wind and her
face and she was clearly like loving this moment, being
on the ferry and the sun, going out to a
(20:52):
place that she loved. And I was withst some people
and they were like, you've got to go tell her
she's dead, And I was like, why me. I mean,
like she needs to know, she needs to know she's dead.
It's not right. So I went and I sat down
next her, and I just sat there for a bit.
Eventually they said, Julia, I have to tell you something.
(21:14):
I have to tell you that you're dead. And she said,
but that's such a great dream. Yeah, it was a
good forget it. I love that she knew. Yeah, the matter,
it was incidental. Maybe it is, Maybe it is incidental. Yeah,
I just I don't know. Having felt my mother so
(21:35):
keenly throughout my entire life and lived so far away
from her for most of my adult life but felt
her as keenly and tuned in, I feel her as
keenly now and I can feel like I know she's
absolutely fine. I don't know whatever form that takes, but
there is nothing disturbed, and I know that isn't mind made.
And maybe that's just from having kind of explored feeling
(21:57):
as a currency in my life, not just as a
post the actor, but just in general. Do you talk
to your sister about your Yeah, we do, and we've
started to laugh more like we would do, like we
used to laugh at her a lot. And then we
call her and go we were laughing at you so
hard because we were remembering when you ate that rotten
lamb and you said the green stuff was mint sauce
(22:18):
and we were like, no, it's not, its mold, and
then you ate it and you almost died. Remember that.
But now we've just started telling stories. And even though
there's this weird, this adjunct feeling of like falling off
the cliff because we can't then call her and say
we were just having a laugh at your expense, it's
now becoming clear that there can be a different exchange.
(22:41):
So what quality do you like, at least about yourself?
I think impatience impatience. I'm impatient. Are you impatient with
yourself or you impatient with other people or both? I mean,
I'm aware of my impatience with other people. I'm aware
how torrible it is, so I really try and keep
it to myself. But you know, I feel it, and
(23:02):
it's something something I wish I didn't have. You know,
I don't know, I don't know where it comes from.
I don't think it serves the purpose, but it's there. God,
movie sets and television sets exacerbate that. I'm sure, Yeah, certainly, yeah,
I felt that a lot waiting around on a movie set. Sure,
I don't know. I think I'm so often in my
(23:23):
head like in some kind of whether it's a creative space,
I'm maintaining that I'm protective of it. And therefore if
somebody is kind of knocking in a little bit and
with information that I'm not crazy about or I don't
care about, I can I just stop. I don't want
to hear about that. So it probably made me a
(23:44):
bad father from time to time. You know, when you're
living a creative life and you have children, there's no roadmap,
you know, like to a creative life. It's like you're
always doing it when you're off. So it took me
a while to figure out how to be a decent
person and not carve out all this time in which
I'm supposed to be creating, even if it's just being quiet. God,
(24:05):
that's a good reminder, is that being quiet and appreciating
the pines against the blue sky is being creative. You
certainly know that when you've spent a winter in London,
I must say where it's like, Oh the slab, gray
against the slate, gray against the pigeon, gray against the
gray gray. Yeah, well, I remember doing the X Files
(24:27):
in Vancouver and we would always say, you know, we
go to work in twilight and we rapid twilight, and
then we sleep and we wake up in twilight. It
does get to be a weird state of existence. But
you know, I don't know how much protection I need,
you know, to do the things that I do. But
sometimes I air on the side of quiet. Please, you know,
(24:47):
leave me be, be be. I think it's interesting if
you know what it's in the service of. Like I
started querying, like why does this get me so bent
out of shape? Like why am I being so impatient?
Because I think impatience is one of my worst qualities
as well. And I was like, what is it you're
trying to get to you? And I think it's normally
that if you're busy wanting to get on with the
thing that you thought everybody was focused on doing, because
(25:08):
it usually happens for me at work and it's like, oh,
but no, it's about someone spraying a little bit of
something on my ear and then tugging on my pant
leg and having a whole conversation about the buffet at
lunch and suddenly I've forgotten what I'm doing. I had
this rule, like, it's going to make me sound I'm
(25:29):
a bit of an asshole when I made it up
and when I use it. But I say it only
in the nicest way. But if somebody on set is
super like into their job and they're doing it super
super well, but it's getting in my way, I'll say,
you're giving a ten percent and that's really admirable. But
what I need is like se from you right now.
(25:50):
Oh my god, Oh my god. I can so imagine
a teacher saying that to me. It's cool, it's horrible.
I can see that you're giving and you already think like, oh,
that's a good things. Been is a good thing. And
then you're like, what I need from you? Oh ship,
I gotta let some air out of tires. Okay, last
(26:20):
question in your life? Can you tell me something that
has grown out of a personal disaster? Oh? Everything, anything worthwhile,
anything worthwhile. But specifically, the only specific thing I can
think of is when I was getting divorced. Obviously I
had a lot more time because I was living away
from my kids and my soon b ex wife, And
(26:42):
that was when I took up guitar started writing songs.
I never would have done that if I hadn't had
that particular disaster unfolding and slow motion as divorce does.
It's like a it's a it's a very slow moving disaster,
regardless of who wants to do it, who doesn't want
to every it's a disaster for everyone. I started write novels,
I started to write songs on guitar, and these are
(27:03):
things I never probably would have done had I not
been so uneasy. The cliche that the sand and oyster
just so kind of irritated, irritated all the time, anxious,
irritated left what can I do? What can I do?
And that was my answer was I'm going to do
things that I haven't done before. Actually think, however, agonizing
and this sort of guys across the board conflict is
(27:25):
is ultimately creative. I mean there's a lot of collateral
damage often along the way, but I do think it
is creative. I do think that's the other side of it.
And this being the last question, it's sort of the
antidote to that first question, because I think we do
pursue this notion of happiness, probably completely erroneously as human beings,
when in actual fact it's about not really where were
you happiest? But where was it shittiest? And what grew
(27:48):
that was good out of that? I now think the
person who wrote these questions, which was me, is just
like dog loving idiot, which was you. Yeah, as me,
you solved the mystery. I saw the miship and wondering
which asshole which asshole wrote? It was all yeah, but
(28:12):
that's it. That's it. Conflict. Conflict is creative. I mean
way more kind of fundamentally or or literally, divorce or
any the end of or losing a parent or you know,
any kind of irrevocable split or loss makes you redefine yourself.
You have to. You're no longer defined in this way.
(28:33):
You're no longer defined as a daughter. Necessarily, you're not
more defined as a mother. What you said like closer
to mortality, any loss that I could go through, this
just happens to be the thing that came to mind.
But in my life, any loss, you do have to
then look at yourself in the mirror and though, well,
who am I now? And what does that person do?
That's exactly it, Like what the sort of evolution of
(28:55):
identity like on what do you take? What survives that loss?
What has gone, and it's a good thing. It's gone.
What am I going to go back and sift through
the rubble to salvage? But that also takes inquiry, that
takes interest in inquiring into that. You have to be curious,
everybody's favorite word. You have to be resilient. Without those things,
(29:15):
life I think is miserable. I think if there was
anything that I ever tried to impart to my children,
it would have been curiosity and resilients. Although it's you
can't really do that, you know, that's something they either
have or they don't, or they learn on their own
or they don't. But I see it all around me,
especially as I get older, you know, I see the
people that have given up, and I see the people
(29:36):
who haven't. I see the people who remain curious and resilient.
And I'm not judging it. I'm not saying it's easy.
I'm not saying one way is better than the other.
I just think for me, I couldn't go on if
I didn't think I could bounce back in some way.
I couldn't take chances if I didn't think I could
bounce back. That's a really good thing to think about.
That's really interesting. It could be very sick too. It
(29:57):
could be like, ah, you still have need, You still
have need to be seen or to give, to make
something that somebody consumes or you know, appreciates, Like I
haven't chat enough, motherfucker. You know. It's like I've certainly
had enough. But there's something in me that once they
keep doing it, it could be an illness or it
could be beautiful. I'm not sure. Oh I hope it's
(30:19):
something beautiful. All right, Love, I'm going to text you
later loads of love and thank you so much. Thank
you really appreciate it. D see you, lovel by bye.
Dave's newest book, The Reservoir, will be released on June
seven and is available for pre order now. Dave's in
the new jud Apatow movie The Bubble, which comes out
on April one on Netflix, but I'll let Dave tell
(30:42):
you about it, and also how I came to be
in the movie without actually being in the movie, because
I'm not in it, but I sort of am, which
is lovely. Wait when is the Bubble out? It's so funny.
I was just watching the trailers because like obviously I'll
watched the trailer with the new jut uptown movie and
you're in it, and then what happens. It's Kate McKinnon.
(31:05):
K McKinnon is the movie studio bars. She's like, there's
Mini Driver. I love her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It
was really weird. I wonder why that came about. I
mean because Jed wal just sit there on the mic
and I can just hear him saying, there's a really Driver.
Just say something. I can't wait. I'll be first in
line on the Netflix queue. You don't have to be
(31:26):
on my actual work. It'll jump right ahead of the
cake shows, straight to number one in my wish list?
How many times can you watch season? By the way,
it turns out a fucking lot, because I've done it
many questions. Is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
(31:54):
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver. Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison, No Day, Lisa Castella
and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate
(32:15):
Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support.
Henry Driver
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