0
SPEAKER_01
My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything.
0
SPEAKER_01
It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you re never going to be enough.
0
SPEAKER_01
Our brand new book, The Greatness Mindset, just hit the New York Times Bestseller back-to-back weeks.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I m so excited to hear from so many of you who ve bought the book, who ve read it, and have finished it already, and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you haven t got a copy yet,
0
SPEAKER_01
You ll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward.
0
SPEAKER_01
This is the book I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life.
0
SPEAKER_01
10 years ago at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life and the book I m glad I have today for myself.
0
SPEAKER_01
Make sure to get a copy at lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get your copy today.
0
SPEAKER_01
Again, lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get a copy today.
0
SPEAKER_01
Also, the book is on audible now, so you can get it on audio book as well.
0
SPEAKER_01
And don t forget to follow the show.
0
SPEAKER_01
So you never miss an episode.
0
SPEAKER_00
When you re an actor and you ve been out of work and you are living paycheck to paycheck, as we do, and you re self-employed, you ve seen the bank accounts go from, you know, zero and back down to zero and up and down.
0
SPEAKER_00
I think you always kind of feel like it s about to end.
0
SPEAKER_00
There s that, and then there s also trying to get better and trying to get another part that s even more challenging.
0
SPEAKER_01
Welcome to the School of Greatness.
0
SPEAKER_01
My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
0
SPEAKER_01
And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
0
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for spending some time with me today.
0
SPEAKER_01
Now let the class begin.
0
SPEAKER_01
Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness.
0
SPEAKER_01
I am very excited about our guest.
0
SPEAKER_01
We have the inspiring, the iconic, the legendary Kevin Bacon in the house.
0
SPEAKER_01
Good to see you, sir, and thank you so much for being here.
0
SPEAKER_00
Thanks so much for having me.
0
SPEAKER_01
I live in Los Angeles, and I ve been here for about 10 years.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I remember when the first year I moved here, maybe it s been 12 years now, the first year I moved here, I saw you.
0
SPEAKER_01
I saw you, we were eating at some restaurant in, I can t remember, West Hollywood somewhere.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I remember seeing you, and I remember thinking, this is one of the most connected men in the industry, in this city, and probably in this world.
0
SPEAKER_00
And- I was probably connected to my pasta at that moment.
0
SPEAKER_01
Exactly, you were connected.
0
SPEAKER_01
I can t remember you were you were with someone having a meeting or something and you know No one interrupted you which was nice to see but I remember saying This guy has done a lot of amazing things as a musician as an actor as an artist as a creative human being but beyond that you ve really built incredible relationships with people and for
0
SPEAKER_01
over three decades, you ve been extremely successful because, in my opinion, not only that you have this incredible talent and gift as an artist, but because you treat people well, people speak highly of you, you connect people, you have service to people.
0
SPEAKER_01
And that s one of the things that I really respect and appreciate about you.
0
SPEAKER_01
Obviously, I don t know you, but that s your reputation of being a good, kind human being, while also being an iconic superstar, I think is really hard to find.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so I m just grateful that you have led that way and led that path.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I m curious, did you always think about building relationships and connecting early on before you got into your career?
0
SPEAKER_01
Or was it more like, let me drive my talent, become the best musician I can be, become the best artist I can be, and then realize that relationships and networking and actually being kind and generous to others was gonna help me in my career?
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, I guess I would say that it s a little bit of a combination, although the being kind part
0
SPEAKER_00
is not something that I actively think about or pursue.
0
SPEAKER_00
My mother was a very kind person.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I think my father was also, while he was an intensely self-involved person, and I got that from him, he also was fundamentally a kind person and was kind and respectful to the people that he would meet.
0
SPEAKER_00
So it s not even something that I go, I wake up every day and go, hey, you know, let s try to be compassionate.
0
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, understanding of what other people s positions may be.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s not something that I
0
SPEAKER_00
I think about is just something that was kind of inherently there from my parents.
0
SPEAKER_00
And that being said, listen, I have moods, I reach my limits, I ve blown people off.
0
SPEAKER_00
In another situation, someone will say, come up to me and say,
0
SPEAKER_00
you know, I remember once, you know, in an elevator and, and, uh, you know, you, you were really nice to me and, and, you know, I think to myself, well, I m so glad that they remember that, but I m sure there s a lot of people that also remember, you know, you were a real, I mean, you know, or people have a different perception of that or whatever.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, somebody once said, this is a kind of a corny showbiz thing, but if you are famous and you run into somebody, um,
0
SPEAKER_00
you know, you won t remember this, you remember this, this interaction for 10 seconds.
0
SPEAKER_00
And those people remember for the rest of their lives, which I find happens a lot.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, a lot of people come up to me and say, you know, we were once whatever in a steam room together or something, you know, sometimes by the way, these are completely hypocritical stories.
0
SPEAKER_00
There s some guy that had a story about me.
0
SPEAKER_00
Um,
0
SPEAKER_00
like getting mad at him because I was having a haircut and he looked at me the wrong way.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s some kind of crazy stuff I don t even understand.
0
SPEAKER_00
The drive really was there from a very, very young age.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m the youngest of six and I was really lucky.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was actually literally just talking to my wife about this today.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was the youngest of six and there was a big age gap between my closest sister and me, eight years.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I m kind of a mistake.
0
SPEAKER_00
In a family of five, you don t wait eight years and then have another one.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you d have to be out of your mind.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so I had this amazing audience.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I had a group of... With your siblings, you mean?
0
SPEAKER_00
My siblings, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
And nature or nurture, I remember from my earliest days that when I walked into a room, I wanted people to look at me and I wanted to entertain them.
0
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to either make them laugh or
0
SPEAKER_00
make them listen to me or put on some kind of a show for everybody that I would interact with, starting with my siblings.
0
SPEAKER_00
But not only that, they were incredibly supportive of whatever I would do.
0
SPEAKER_00
They were like, that s so funny, that s so great.
0
SPEAKER_00
Like, right away I had an audience that really enjoyed what I was doing, and parents that were supportive of what I would do.
0
SPEAKER_00
So a lot of people, a lot of artists that reach a certain level of success, you often hear about how
0
SPEAKER_00
their artistic creation and expression came out of pain and tragedy.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I m not saying that I didn t have painful things, I do, and have had tragedies and loss and all that stuff.
0
SPEAKER_00
But I also think that it s possible, too, that in my situation, a lot of what I got to was because I had a ton of support for the thing that I was doing and wanted to do.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s something that I really feel a tremendous amount of gratitude for.
0
SPEAKER_00
Hand in hand with that was for sure a drive, a strong drive to become successful.
0
SPEAKER_00
Actors don t like to admit this.
0
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to be rich, famous, get girls, have a big house.
0
SPEAKER_00
I wanted my face on magazines, on billboards.
0
SPEAKER_00
I wanted all that stuff.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was
0
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t until I started studying and understood that there was a craft to this thing that I figured out that it was something that I had to work hard at being good at.
0
SPEAKER_00
But the thing that drove me to it was just treasure.
0
SPEAKER_01
The external, the fame, the success, the acknowledgement, the money, the opportunities that come from it.
0
SPEAKER_01
All of it.
0
SPEAKER_01
Were you more driven to be an artist then early on and to master your craft?
1
SPEAKER_00
inspire or entertain people like your you know your siblings or you know the local school or whatever might be that you re performing at or Were you more like drawn to the billboards and the magazines and the fame and you said?
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, this could be the path to getting there.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think I was more drawn to the to the magazines the billboards and the fame I didn t think so much about the past but the artistry was when I
1
SPEAKER_01
I made the decision to become an actor, and I walked into an acting class, or I picked up a guitar, and I went, both of those things are hard, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
It s not, it s, you know, yeah, I guess there s people who are quote unquote naturals, but all of this stuff takes,
1
SPEAKER_01
work.
1
SPEAKER_01
You gotta work at it.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I knew that right away.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I was blessed with a very strong work ethic.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was never looking to cut corners.
1
SPEAKER_01
I wanted all this big stuff, but I was never looking for the easy road in.
1
SPEAKER_01
I always have thought
1
SPEAKER_01
You gotta put it, this is another thing I got from my parents.
1
SPEAKER_01
They would love this podcast.
1
SPEAKER_01
If they were alive, they would love hearing this.
1
SPEAKER_01
Both of them were like, go through the steps, go through the steps, whatever it is, you know what I mean?
1
SPEAKER_01
If you get a toy that you have to build, a model airplane,
1
SPEAKER_01
You don t just try to put it together because you want to look at the picture and make it look like that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Go through the steps and learn how to do it the right way.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I realized when I walked into an acting class that, well, two things.
1
SPEAKER_01
One was that this was something that I was meant to do and something that I felt, even before I knew even what the word therapy was, I found it very therapeutic.
1
SPEAKER_00
One of the things I was hearing you say just a moment ago is about how if your parents are around, they would love this episode, this podcast, this interview.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m hearing kind of the lessons that you ve picked up from them and from your family.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m curious, what s the biggest lesson from both mom and dad that still stick with you today and that made a massive impact on you growing up?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, I think we kind of touched on it before, but I would say that my mother really taught me lessons about being a, at least attempting to be a good person and compassionate and to, you know, live your life and think about people that, you know, are not as fortunate as you are, or try to understand
1
SPEAKER_01
someone s point of view, not judge people by the way that they look or the color of their skin or what their, you know, the way they talk or where they re from or whatever these, you know, things are.
1
SPEAKER_01
She was very much like that.
1
SPEAKER_01
My mother was an interesting character because she was raised
1
SPEAKER_01
as a Park Avenue socialite.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_01
Her family was wealthy.
1
SPEAKER_01
By the time I was born, all of it was gone.
1
SPEAKER_01
Really?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think that she also
1
SPEAKER_01
somehow felt a sense of, I think, shame about the, nobody really used the word privilege, but the privilege that she had come from.
1
SPEAKER_01
So by the time she met my father, she was working with poor people in Flint, Michigan, and really devoted her life both to early childhood education,
1
SPEAKER_01
but also to the poor and people in the prison system.
1
SPEAKER_01
For instance, you went into the Philadelphia prison system and built a,
1
SPEAKER_01
a playroom that could be utilized by the children and the prisoners on a visiting day when the kids would come, there would be stuff for the prisoners to interact with their children, which is kind of like a crazy idea, but they have all kinds of games and things that they could be doing together.
1
SPEAKER_01
She started nursery schools and housing projects and all that kind of stuff, and she really
1
SPEAKER_01
completely pushed back any kind of consumer.
1
SPEAKER_01
She went the opposite direction of anybody that was in pursuit of wealth or nice clothing or private schools or good food or restaurants.
1
SPEAKER_01
She just, it horrified her, all of that.
1
SPEAKER_00
She went the opposite of that.
1
SPEAKER_01
She went the opposite of that.
1
SPEAKER_00
But that s what you wanted to go towards, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s exactly true.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s exactly true.
1
SPEAKER_00
So when you were when you were saying, hey, I want to be rich and famous and, you know, on magazines and billboards and awards, was she saying, hey, that s not the way or was she?
1
SPEAKER_01
I would never tell her that.
1
SPEAKER_01
I would never have told her that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
1
SPEAKER_01
Never.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s something that I never would have even begun to mention to her.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I can tell you that she also had very, very strong
1
SPEAKER_01
activist kind of political ideas.
1
SPEAKER_01
And she was very anti-war and very into the civil rights movement, used to take me to marches on Washington as a little boy and marches against the Vietnam War.
1
SPEAKER_01
And in about probably 1974 or so, we were just starting to kind of, I guess, get out of Cambodia.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t remember how long we stayed in Cambodia, but the Vietnam War was essentially over, but I think we were still bombing Cambodia.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I got an offer as about a 14 or 15-year-old kid to do a
1
SPEAKER_01
commercial for the ROTC or to do a recruitment, a military recruitment commercial about a kid, doesn t know what he wants to do with his life.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was just going to be used in Philadelphia where I grew up.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it was maybe like, I don t know, a couple hundred bucks or something like that for the day.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is more money than I ever dreamed of.
1
SPEAKER_00
As a 14-year-old, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I was like, this is amazing.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m doing it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I told my mother, she didn t speak to me for a week.
1
SPEAKER_01
She thought that I had crossed a moral boundary from which I would never return because I was supporting the industrial military complex and I was profiting from it.
1
SPEAKER_01
And as a 14-year-old kid,
1
SPEAKER_01
you know, it was, she was very angry with me.
1
SPEAKER_01
She really was.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it was, it s interesting, but it s also interesting in that I believe, there s a whole other discussion, but I believe that children, and certainly boys,
1
SPEAKER_01
have to have a moment where they break away from their mother.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
1
SPEAKER_01
I think it s kind of essential that it happens in some way at some point.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that was the moment for me.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_01
My father, on the other hand,
1
SPEAKER_01
was not a wealthy person like my mother, but he was very, very drawn, not to fortune, because they almost both kind of looked down on the pursuit of money as being not really worthy, but he was very into being famous.
1
SPEAKER_01
Or let s put it this way.
1
SPEAKER_01
He was kind of a big deal in Philadelphia because he was the chairman of the Philadelphia Planning Commission and a pretty well-known city planner.
1
SPEAKER_01
So as a result, he was often in the papers when they decided to
1
SPEAKER_01
whatever, you know, revitalize a neighborhood or move an expressway or, you know, whatever happened to be in terms of city planning.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he was, I could tell right from the beginning that he was totally into his own press, you know what I mean?
1
SPEAKER_01
And his own, like,
1
SPEAKER_01
notoriety, and people would stop him on the streets and say, Ed, Ed, you know, either I hate what you re doing or I like what you re doing or, you know, whatever it was, but he was
2
SPEAKER_00
kind of like a little bit of a celebrity in that pond of Philadelphia.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so from him, I think I got that drive to be well-known.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I definitely think I wanted to be more well-known than him.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, you made that happen, that s for sure.
2
SPEAKER_01
I did.
2
SPEAKER_01
When was the, I wanted to make sure I go back to what we talked about just before this.
2
SPEAKER_01
When was the moment for you when things started to transition from wanting to be well-known and modeling kind of what you saw from your father to fame and riches and success into, let me actually just focus on also mastering the craft, the artistry that you have done so beautifully over the last three plus decades.
2
SPEAKER_01
How old were you?
2
SPEAKER_01
What was that moment like?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean I was living in Philadelphia and I was in high school and I wanted to study acting so I started to find theaters where I could take acting classes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oftentimes in
2
SPEAKER_00
in situations where people were a lot older than me.
2
SPEAKER_00
They weren t even really like kid classes.
2
SPEAKER_00
They were like, you know, I was apprenticing at this theater and they were also, you know, teaching acting to people in their 20s and 30s, you know.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so I would take acting, I would take scene study and all of a sudden I went, okay, this is really about
2
SPEAKER_00
getting better at the things that I m doing.
2
SPEAKER_00
And also the content that I started to absorb entertainment-wise moved from the monkeys and, you know, I Dream of Jeannie, you know, to, you know,
2
SPEAKER_00
Brando and Montgomery Clift.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then a little bit later on the films of Scorsese and Dustin Hoffman.
2
SPEAKER_00
I remember seeing a double feature when I was, when I was young, it was like a theater and a dollar theater in my neighborhood where they would do second runs.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was a double feature or maybe they were spaced out over a week, but it was,
2
SPEAKER_00
Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate, both of which starred Dustin Hoffman.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I looked at these two performances, and when I saw Midnight Cowboy first, and I thought to myself, I looked at him and Jon Voight, and I thought, whoa, where d they get the homeless guy to be in the movie?
2
SPEAKER_00
And where d they get the cowboy to be in the movie?
2
SPEAKER_00
I didn t understand that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then when I saw The Graduate, I thought, oh my God, that s the same guy playing like a preppy kid.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I thought, wow, okay, this is what the art is about.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s the thing that I want.
2
SPEAKER_00
So by the time I moved to New York when I was 17,
2
SPEAKER_00
By the time I moved to New York, it was Mean Streets.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was Sidney Lumet.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was, you know, De Niro and Al Pacino and Meryl Streep and John Casals and Voight and Nicholson.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
2
SPEAKER_00
All the 70s edgy movies and edgy, what were kind of thought of in some ways as like the New York actors.
2
SPEAKER_00
These are the people that I aspire to and right away I was in acting school in New York and I realized that
2
SPEAKER_00
you know, this was something that was, that you could get really good at if you worked really hard.
2
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
And theater too, theater, because, you know, I didn t, when I was younger, I didn t really think that much about theater.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I, I was like, well, it s just a way to get it on TV or something like that, you know, but, but all of a sudden I was like, okay, I want movies and I want theater.
2
SPEAKER_00
I didn t want TV, I wanted nothing to do with TV.
2
SPEAKER_00
This was like the 70s, TV was different.
2
SPEAKER_00
I just want movies and I want theater.
2
SPEAKER_01
Was it as competitive then as it is now that it seems like more and more people are getting into entertainment, acting, TV, movies, there s so many different mediums and platforms to share your art now, or was it less competitive back then?
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know, more or less.
2
SPEAKER_00
It seemed competitive to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I would go to open calls.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was able to get into the stage actors union, Equity, when I was pretty young.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you could go down to the Equity office and they would have, you know, a bulletin board that would have open calls or you could get
2
SPEAKER_00
There were two newspapers, one was called Backstage and one was called, I can t remember what the other one was, and you d look in the back and there would be these open calls and, you know, I d go to it and they d say, we want a guy, you know, in his teens.
2
SPEAKER_00
and there d be, you know, whatever, lines around the block.
2
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, it definitely, it felt competitive.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know, more or less, I m not sure.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
2
SPEAKER_01
When was the moment where you felt like, oh, this thing that I ve wanted for a long time, this fame, this recognition, this, you know, everyone aware of who I am, the success, the money, when did that actually hit you where you said, oh, it s happening?
2
SPEAKER_00
It hasn t hit me yet.
2
SPEAKER_00
Really?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, you know, I don t ever think I m there.
2
SPEAKER_00
Come on, really?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, I really, and I m not just, you know, being silly.
2
SPEAKER_00
I just, there s always something else to kind of aspire to.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s places that I wanna go.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I m gonna have to start to, at some point, accept that I m,
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, the like, I m good with what I ve done.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s I kind of go back and forth on it, you know, but but I think that when you when you re an actor and
2
SPEAKER_00
You ve been out of work and you are living paycheck to paycheck as we do.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you re self-employed.
2
SPEAKER_00
You ve seen the bank accounts go from zero and back down to zero and up and down.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think you always kind of feel like it s about to end and that there s that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then there s also,
2
SPEAKER_00
you know, trying to get better and trying to get another part that s even more challenging.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, there s, you know, I mean, I guess, you know, that being said, I think that I m at a point now where I ve hung in there long enough.
2
SPEAKER_00
that people are going to cut me a little bit of a break, and they ll probably just keep me around just because I ve hung in there so long.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, they re not going to keep you around because you ve hung in.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re going to keep you around because you re talented, and you re good to people, and you re hardworking, and you show that you re a professional.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know, I do think that there is, there is something about longevity, though.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, people say, what s the secret to longevity?
2
SPEAKER_00
And I say, that is the secret, because at some point it gets to that thing where you do something that somebody likes, and then they kind of go, you know, I always liked him.
2
SPEAKER_00
Or even though up until that point, they never did, you know what I mean?
2
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of, but yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you never felt there was a moment when you were on billboards and a cover of magazines is.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, I mean, I think there s moments of,
2
SPEAKER_00
of excitement.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think that probably when I was younger, I didn t have the ability to
2
SPEAKER_00
uh, enjoy them or to even flag them or to even sort of embrace them because a couple of things about that.
2
SPEAKER_00
One is that I really don t have a rear view mirror.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m like always with my pedal to the metal looking down the road at what the next thing is going to be.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you could go back to, you know, 23, 24 and if you could give yourself a piece of advice about
2
SPEAKER_01
what s about to happen and how to manage the success, the fame, the self-sabotage that you started to do afterwards and everything in between, what would you say to your younger self?
2
SPEAKER_00
I think I would have said embrace it as much as you possibly can, because the thing that you learn after being in my business for a long time is that
2
SPEAKER_00
If you re associated with things that make money, then you get more opportunities.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of an obvious notion.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was less interested in being associated with something that made money as I was interested to be associated with something that people considered as artistic excellence.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think that if you, at least for a while, embrace the idea of something that makes money, that then within that framework, you will get more and more opportunities to show this artistic excellence.
3
SPEAKER_01
For a lot of years, I think I kind of self-sabotaged and squandered them.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, the choices that I made were not great.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the movies started bombing, like left and right and center, just one after another, after another, after another.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I started to feel myself
3
SPEAKER_01
you know, kind of slipping away both from the financial side of it, but also from the artistic side.
3
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
I also think if I could have given myself a piece of advice, and this is about a lot of stuff, it would be to take advice.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because honestly, I was a kid even before
3
SPEAKER_01
I started who just thought he knew everything.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like, I didn t want advice.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t want advice from people that knew a lot more about this business or even about life than I did.
3
SPEAKER_01
I just was somebody that thought they knew everything.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t, you know, so if there had been somebody at that point in my life saying, you know, Schmuck, don t do this, do this.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is the, this is, this is going to be a good one.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_01
And if I had put myself
3
SPEAKER_01
in the hands of someone that was willing and able to do that.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I really was like, people got the impression very much.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m talking about, first off, I didn t have a manager for a really long time, but talking about agents and
3
SPEAKER_01
And, and lawyers, you know, I just was like, no, no, no, I got this.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_01
Don t tell me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, you know, so I think that, uh, you know, I mean, that probably could have used some help, some more coaching advice and wisdom.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why do you, why do you think you, I mean, you mentioned that you were just making kind of poor choices.
3
SPEAKER_00
That was, you know, I think you use that in your work was like a bomb or flop.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was going downhill in some of these movies.
3
SPEAKER_00
Did you know like in your mind, oh, this is going to be a hit or did you feel like, oh, I m just want to go against what everyone s telling me to do because they don t know.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I m going to go after my own, you know, thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think this is cool or I think it s artistic.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think all those things, I think all those things I, um, and also, you know,
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of decisions that go into making a movie.
3
SPEAKER_01
And some people are probably, first off, choosy or choosier.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you look at the amount of movies I ve made, you probably could never accuse me of being choosy.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think that some people have
3
SPEAKER_01
the ability to kind of create a certain mystery around themselves and their career and their choices, which I was never really able to do.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I also think that, you know, my
3
SPEAKER_01
I would see things that I thought were interesting, but I really didn t, and to this day probably, don t have a real eye on the commercial.
3
SPEAKER_01
And some people have a real sense of that, and also a real sense of our industry.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m much more industry savvy, and I ve taught myself, like everything else it takes for work, but I ve taught myself and started to read and think about
3
SPEAKER_01
you know, the entertainment industry as something that is my bread and butter and something that I do.
3
SPEAKER_01
But when I was younger, for many years, I mean, probably way into my 40s, you know, I was like,
3
SPEAKER_01
I m not a businessman.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s not what I do.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m not a brand.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is the word we use now all the time.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m not a guy in a back room smoking a cigar, making a deal.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m an artist.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to think about these things.
3
SPEAKER_01
I want to just do my work.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to be associated with a product or a...
3
SPEAKER_01
try to sell something.
3
SPEAKER_01
Back in the days when I started,
3
SPEAKER_01
If you were a movie actor, you would never do a commercial.
3
SPEAKER_01
Never, never, never, never, never.
3
SPEAKER_01
You would do a commercial only in Japan or- Where no one saw it here in the industry.
3
SPEAKER_00
In Europe.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it had to be, and you could, and back in those days, if it really was there, you really wouldn t see it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You wouldn t see it because there was no, you know, YouTube, there was no internet.
3
SPEAKER_01
There was no, there was, you really wouldn t see it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, there was, and you would put that in your,
3
SPEAKER_01
in your contract, and you know, now, whatever, that s completely turned on its end.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, I was, I didn t think that way.
3
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, again, I mean, I think that if there had been somebody, you know, in my life that I, you know, really, you know, trusted, then, you know, I, it probably would have helped.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right, wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m curious about,
3
SPEAKER_00
the whole fame and success stuff, because I m going to butcher this quote, but I remember hearing Jim Carrey talk about something like he wishes everyone becomes rich and famous and realizes it s not the key to happiness.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m paraphrasing this.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not sure if you ve heard this quote from him.
3
SPEAKER_00
What do people need to know if they re chasing a goal or dream that is about money, fame, success?
3
SPEAKER_00
What do they really need to know
3
SPEAKER_00
about how to navigate still feeling happy, fulfilled, loved, and not just, oh, I m successful and famous, but I m also fulfilled.
3
SPEAKER_01
What I would say about, well, first off, I think that fame and celebrity and wealth are kind of two different things, because there s a lot of people that have a lot of money that would never,
3
SPEAKER_01
somebody would never ask for a picture in a restaurant, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
So does that money make them happy?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I mean, obviously not.
3
SPEAKER_01
People are unhappy all the time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Marriages don t work, whatever, addiction or personal misery.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t think it,
3
SPEAKER_01
hurts necessarily.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I know people who have said to me, they ve been at some point in their life where they ve had some kind of windfall and they say, yeah, I m genuinely happier because I got some money in the bank.
3
SPEAKER_01
And listen, I think
3
SPEAKER_01
It s important, the pursuit of wanting to provide or to feel comfortable is not something to be ashamed of, that was really part of, that was the biggest thing that I think I broke away from when it came to my parents.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right, because your mom had shame around that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, both of them, I think, in their own ways did, they really did, but,
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t think that money is the key to happiness.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think that you have to find something outside of your money to enjoy time.
3
SPEAKER_01
whatever that is, time with your family, obviously, is the one that I like, or with animals, or with nature, or with friends, with good friends, you know, with friends that are friends, whether the money is there or not, you know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_01
Now, when it comes to fame, nobody can really understand it until you ve actually had it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And
3
SPEAKER_01
I think there s two kinds of actors, actors who want to be famous and liars.
3
SPEAKER_01
You become an actor because you want to be famous.
3
SPEAKER_01
You want people to look at you.
3
SPEAKER_01
You want to perform to people.
3
SPEAKER_01
Otherwise, you would do something where you would just stay in your room.
3
SPEAKER_01
We got no attention.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we didn t get attention.
3
SPEAKER_01
We got no attention, right.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now, that being said, there s a lot of people that
3
SPEAKER_01
work hard, get there, and then go, whoa, I don t like this at all.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_01
What I will say about it is the thing about fame is that, is it weird?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s weird.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s every time you re going to step outside, if you re not in your room, you will be looked at, related to, you know, judged.
4
SPEAKER_01
as something of a novelty, of a, you know, it s almost like being of a freakish nature, you know, where, but the thing I will say about it is that it s 99% good.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like all day long, you talk about being loved, and I know that it s not true love, but all day long, people say, Kev, oh, I love you.
4
SPEAKER_01
It happened, you know, 20 minutes ago, we were on the road and someone s, you know, I ve stopped at a rest stop.
4
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, this woman goes, oh, I m sorry, but I just love you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, when you think about that, if that happens to you,
4
SPEAKER_01
a lot in the course of your day, it s a good feeling.
4
SPEAKER_01
People are nice to you for reasons that you don t deserve.
4
SPEAKER_01
I would never complain too much about being famous.
4
SPEAKER_01
Number one, because
4
SPEAKER_01
I have no one to blame but myself.
4
SPEAKER_01
I busted my ass my whole life so that I could be famous.
4
SPEAKER_01
And number two, because it s mostly good.
4
SPEAKER_01
People give you free shit all the time.
4
SPEAKER_00
They give you hugs, they give you high fives, they say, I love you.
4
SPEAKER_01
High five, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s probably 95, 99% amazing, and then 1% inconvenient at certain times is what it sounds like for you at least.
4
SPEAKER_00
What s the dark side of fame that you ve either experienced personally, maybe from the last three plus decades, or from what you ve experienced of friends, acquaintances, people that you ve worked with,
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think that there certainly are very, very serious risks to it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think all you have to do is...
4
SPEAKER_01
you know, look at someone who started at the same time that I did.
4
SPEAKER_01
And there s a lot of what I say, you know, the terrible word, but there s a lot of roadkill.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of people that have just gone off the rails or disappeared or gone into drug addiction or gone into, uh, uh, you know, some kind of scandals or, or, or, um, depression or, or whatever, or not even alive.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of,
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of people that have a real kind of difficult time with it.
4
SPEAKER_01
For those reasons, I think, because partly it s not... It doesn t...
4
SPEAKER_01
It s just a weird life.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you start to wonder if any of these things that people are saying to you, like, I love you, or whatever, are real.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you don t have the real stuff going as well, you can just kind of get caught up on it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think that even the world of movies, we live
4
SPEAKER_01
in this, while we re making a film, we live in this kind of fantasy world where we re trying to exactly create another
4
SPEAKER_01
world.
4
SPEAKER_01
The sets are made to feel as real as possible.
4
SPEAKER_01
The props are made to feel as real as possible.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re holding something that feels like a gun in your hand.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re kissing a beautiful woman that probably in life never would even look twice at you.
4
SPEAKER_01
you know, you re riding a horse, you know, across the desert and it s an actual desert and an actual horse.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that you can get really kind of confused about what life is when you go from one fantasy situation to another, to another, to another.
4
SPEAKER_01
You start to believe that, you know, the person that plays your best friend actually is your best friend with no idea that the movie is going to end someday.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then when that movie ends, and when that friendship ends, you start to feel like, oh, like, who am I?
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, that s kind of weird, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
That I went that far.
4
SPEAKER_01
Am I that shallow a person?
4
SPEAKER_01
But then you re on to the next movie.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then, you know, you got another world and then you got, you know, somebody else s is are playing your parents and you, you know, you feel like, you know, they feel like your parents and then you go, wait a second, my parents.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so so I think that it s very easy that and also.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think that once the fame kicks in, a lot of people start to, you imagine those inconveniences, they start to isolate themselves from everyday people.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, the gates on your house get bigger.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re no longer taking the subway.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re jumping in and out of limousines.
4
SPEAKER_01
You start to hang out with other famous people because you have a shared experience.
4
SPEAKER_01
Therefore, you feel more comfortable like being with them.
4
SPEAKER_01
You can look around the room and
4
SPEAKER_01
and hypothesize that nobody is there because they want something from you.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that as a result, you can just fall into traps and just kind of lose touch.
4
SPEAKER_01
I also think that can be very detrimental to your acting because what we
4
SPEAKER_01
are tasked to do is, at least what I am tasked to do, is so often is to play an everyman.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t get, I don t play movie stars.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, once in a while I do.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t, you know, once in a while I play somebody famous, once in a while I play somebody rich, but mostly I, you know, I play regular guys.
4
SPEAKER_01
So if I don t have any chance in my life to interact
4
SPEAKER_01
with regular people, I think you can lose touch with what that is.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s probably why I saw you at that deli one day 12 years ago, just out with the people.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is fascinating.
4
SPEAKER_00
Everything you just shared for me is really fascinating to hear your perspective.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m so glad you re opening up about this.
4
SPEAKER_00
And one of the things I heard in this
4
SPEAKER_00
was kind of around identity, because you re always shifting or morphing identities.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the more successful actor you are, you ve gotten three movies a year or whatever it is.
4
SPEAKER_00
So over the last three plus decades in all the roles you ve played, you ve had to step into a fantasy world, like you mentioned, and play
4
SPEAKER_00
a character and have a different identity than your own core identity.
4
SPEAKER_00
How do you and how have you kept your core values and your core identity even while playing other parts over the last three-plus decades and not let it
4
SPEAKER_00
diminish your light, diminish your confidence, diminish your values, diminish your connections, your family relationships, all these different things.
4
SPEAKER_01
You got to learn how to leave your work at the office for one thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I completely agree with you.
4
SPEAKER_01
That is part of the challenge.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, the one thing I will start with is that the reason that I became an actor
4
SPEAKER_01
a big part of it once I got into the kind of skill and craft piece of it was so that I could walk in another man s shoes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like I didn t want to put Kevin up there.
4
SPEAKER_01
I still don t.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t think it s, I mean, it s kind of fun like in the social media piece of it, even though it s still,
4
SPEAKER_01
at its essence is still kind of a performance, like who I am once we end this conversation is not exactly who I am even in this conversation.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s just, there is an element of being a performer that you have to, and so when it comes to characters,
4
SPEAKER_01
I always wanted to play somebody that was different than me, someone that was from a different cultural kind of background or socioeconomic upbringing, or had a different political point of view, or was in a different sort of gig than I had.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I ve played a bunch of Marines
5
SPEAKER_00
and I couldn t make it through 10 minutes of bootcamp, but the idea to be able to embody that and understand what that is and make it believable when I put on that uniform has always been the challenge, not to be me.
5
SPEAKER_00
And when it comes to my own image,
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t really think about that that much.
5
SPEAKER_00
In a perfect world, I would only let the work ever speak for itself.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a necessity to promote the things that you re in.
5
SPEAKER_00
In this case, the podcast, there s a necessity to stay, especially in this day and age,
5
SPEAKER_00
you know, to stay relevant and have people kind of be aware of who you are, but in a perfect world, I would only just play character after character after character.
5
SPEAKER_00
And when it comes to figuring out and holding on to who you are, I wish I had real specific tools, but I would say that
5
SPEAKER_00
I got extremely lucky by meeting a woman who is able, whether she tries to or not, to keep
5
SPEAKER_00
aware of that, to not believe too much of my legend, but also not beat myself up too much when things I don t feel are going my way.
5
SPEAKER_00
And to be able to connect on ways that have nothing to do with the part that I m playing, or that she s playing, or with the industry,
5
SPEAKER_00
or with whatever, to connect on things like children, or animals, or conversations over politics, or nothing, taking a walk and holding hands, cooking a meal together.
5
SPEAKER_00
We
5
SPEAKER_00
we cook together all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it was during the lockdown, we were cooking like three meals a day after a while.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, oh my God, if we have to cook another meal and clean up another meal, I think I m going to jump out of a window.
5
SPEAKER_00
But we really love to do that and to share.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we don t even
5
SPEAKER_00
you know, it doesn t even need to be cooked for somebody else.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s just for us, you know?
5
SPEAKER_00
And I don t, I m just, I just feel so grateful.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, I really think that you have to have other stuff outside of, you know, your work that,
5
SPEAKER_00
whatever it is, a good book, yoga, meditation, horseback riding, exercise, you know, just whatever, Wordle.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, watching reality TV, just, you know, whatever it happens to be, something that takes you away from what the daily thing was.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s the same thing as being an actor.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I also have to say that, you know,
5
SPEAKER_00
It does get to you.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re the parts that I play.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, if I m doing a dark, dark story, I have dark dreams.
5
SPEAKER_00
I sometimes can come home and not be able to completely shake off the day s work.
5
SPEAKER_00
I know that it s always kind of there because I know that in the morning,
5
SPEAKER_00
For instance, I ve played pedophiles, and I know that the next day I have to do that again.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that definitely will mess me up.
5
SPEAKER_00
But the one thing that I m very, very good at is when the film is wrapped,
5
SPEAKER_00
I can say goodbye to that person, that character, and they can leave my life forever, which is part of the reason why I don t really look back at the movies, because I just feel like that was that guy, that guy s gone.
5
SPEAKER_00
A lot of people keep props and costumes.
5
SPEAKER_00
You never keep anything?
5
SPEAKER_00
No.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really?
5
SPEAKER_00
I really don t.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have some, the one thing I have is like some crude t-shirts, like a t-shirt or a hat or something that somebody, I don t even have that many, but I do have a couple of those, but only because, I don t know, give them to you and you just throw them in the basement.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sure, sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
In a box.
5
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, so there s some of that lying around, but I, yeah, I want to move on.
5
SPEAKER_00
You move on.
5
SPEAKER_00
You move forward, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, move forward, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
I love this conversation about your wife.
5
SPEAKER_01
How long have you guys been together now?
5
SPEAKER_00
September 4th, it will be 35 years.
5
SPEAKER_00
Holy cow, that s incredible.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, 35 years, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
30 years?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I think we re both super grateful to have each other.
5
SPEAKER_00
What is the thing you love the most about your wife?
5
SPEAKER_00
I would say the thing that is most impressive to me that I ve tried to learn a little bit, I m someone who makes a decision and just like stays, I don t like to change the plan, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like if I make a plan, then I don t like to change it.
5
SPEAKER_00
My wife is very happy to change.
5
SPEAKER_00
She embraces change all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like she changes her clothes like eight times a day.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like she ll have on,
5
SPEAKER_00
Countless outfits.
5
SPEAKER_00
Not because she has that many clothes, but just because she s got a sleeping outfit, then the, I m gonna have the coffee outfit, then I m gonna work out outfit.
5
SPEAKER_00
The lunch outfit is definitely not the dinner outfit.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then there s this thing that her and my daughter call the grout fit, which is when you put on a gray sweats,
5
SPEAKER_00
So it s a gray outfit.
5
SPEAKER_00
So they call it a gray outfit and it s for watching television.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s not the same as a sleeping outfit.
5
SPEAKER_00
Then it s back to the sleeping outfit.
5
SPEAKER_00
So she, that s just a metaphor for change.
5
SPEAKER_00
She changes her mind.
5
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, at first I was like, wow, she changes her mind a lot.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I really think it s a good, I think it s a good quality to have.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, when you look at politicians,
5
SPEAKER_00
there are a lot of times someone goes after them because they ve had one opinion and then they have a different one.
5
SPEAKER_00
You didn t have the same opinion about this.
5
SPEAKER_00
In 2013, you said this.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think to myself, that s great.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I don t want somebody in office who s not gonna change their mind.
5
SPEAKER_00
The information is changing all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
You get new information.
5
SPEAKER_00
You change your mind.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s just lunacy to me, that that s a negative.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think that learning over the last few years, Me Too, Black Lives Matter, a lot of things that, a lot of information that has come to us
5
SPEAKER_00
is information that where you go, oh, okay, I kind of thought this, but now I have a different point of view.
5
SPEAKER_00
Now I ve kind of started to see things through somebody else s eyes.
5
SPEAKER_00
And maybe I don t feel in the same way that I would about that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe I m going to stop.
5
SPEAKER_00
you know, saying things in that way, or maybe somebody reads something and they decide to stop eating meat, or they decide to start eating meat, or, you know, whatever it is, it s like, okay, you know, change, change is good.
5
SPEAKER_00
And, and, and, you know, if you don t, if you re not changing, then you re dying, you know, that s what I think.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think that my wife is very, very, she s constantly, I mean, she s constantly working on herself.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s beautiful.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s not something that I, you know, that comes that easily to me, you know?
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I admire that a lot about her.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s beautiful.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve got two final questions for you, but before I ask them, I want to talk about some of the projects that you ve got working on right now.
5
SPEAKER_01
You ve got a, you ve got a new podcast that you re coming out with where you re going to be interviewing some other friends of yours, some other people that have done some incredible things.
6
SPEAKER_01
Can you share a little bit more about this?
6
SPEAKER_01
Sure, yes.
6
SPEAKER_02
SixDegrees.org was a foundation that I started many, many years ago based on the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
6
SPEAKER_02
It was really about connections between people.
6
SPEAKER_02
It was about trying to highlight celebrities and the good work that some of them are doing.
6
SPEAKER_02
And this podcast is something that we eventually, you know, is just a recent kind of extension of this organization that s been raising money and doing all kinds of things for all kinds of charities across the board for many, many years.
6
SPEAKER_02
And I thought that it would be interesting to sit down with people who,
6
SPEAKER_02
many of whom have worked with or have crossed paths with, but some of whom I haven t, people from acting and music and sports and all kinds of that, basically famous people who also have organizations or charities or causes that they care very, very deeply about.
6
SPEAKER_02
And to spend the first part of the podcast discussing just their lives,
6
SPEAKER_02
And the second part of the podcast, bringing in the unsung heroes that run these foundations for them and talking to them both about the thing that they re involved with, whatever it happens to be.
6
SPEAKER_02
but also talking about what inspires somebody to not pursue a life of fame and fortune, but to pursue a life of giving back.
6
SPEAKER_02
I mean, that to me is fascinating, because it s so far from what drove me into this.
6
SPEAKER_02
A life of service.
6
SPEAKER_02
A life of service, exactly, exactly.
6
SPEAKER_02
And what you find out in these things is that,
6
SPEAKER_02
You know, I think we write off celebrities often because you think, well, if they re doing anything of a charitable nature, it s just to, you know, make them look good or make their brand look good or whatever that happens to be.
6
SPEAKER_02
But that s not really true.
6
SPEAKER_02
There s a lot of people that care very deeply about a lot of the things that they re doing and are involved with.
6
SPEAKER_02
And I think that in some way, I kind of wanted to highlight that.
6
SPEAKER_02
So it s lively and it s fun, but it also has a, you know, kind of a serious piece to it.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s cool.
6
SPEAKER_01
And they can, they can listen, watch here and work.
6
SPEAKER_01
Where can they go to hear all that?
6
SPEAKER_01
It s on I heart or wherever you get your podcasts.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Six degrees.org as well.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
Six degrees with Kevin Bacon.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
That s great.
6
SPEAKER_02
And six degrees.org.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
Probably six degrees.org.
6
SPEAKER_02
We ll also have links to, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
for sure, Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon, I m excited about that.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I saw that you got Matthew McConaughey on there, and we ve had him on the show a couple of times, and I asked him about relationships, and I asked him about some of these similar questions, so I m excited to see what you guys talk about as well.
6
SPEAKER_02
He s a great interviewer, isn t he, Matthew?
6
SPEAKER_01
He s great.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, he s so much fun.
6
SPEAKER_01
You remind me a lot like him, though.
6
SPEAKER_01
You guys are very open hearted.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re very generous with your your stories, your knowledge, your wisdom.
6
SPEAKER_01
So, you know, you remind me a lot.
6
SPEAKER_02
He s got a great he s got a great turn of phrase, though.
6
SPEAKER_02
He really does.
6
SPEAKER_02
He s he s it was he was a lot of fun to talk to.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s awesome.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m excited to listen to that one.
6
SPEAKER_01
I want everyone to go check it out, subscribe, listen as well.
6
SPEAKER_01
This is a question I asked.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I got my two final questions for you.
6
SPEAKER_01
Again, I appreciate your time.
6
SPEAKER_01
This is a question I ask everyone at the end.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s called the three truths.
6
SPEAKER_01
So imagine a hypothetical scenario.
6
SPEAKER_01
You get to live as long as you want.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, the longevity experts have figured out how to extend our lives for as long as we want.
6
SPEAKER_01
But for whatever reason, it s the last day.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you get to create and experience and make anything you want to continue to make for the rest of your life.
6
SPEAKER_01
But for whatever reason, in this hypothetical scenario, you ve got to take all of your work with you.
6
SPEAKER_01
This conversation is gone.
6
SPEAKER_01
Your podcast is gone.
6
SPEAKER_01
All the movies you ve made and music and content, for whatever reason, we don t have access anymore.
6
SPEAKER_01
But you get to leave behind three lessons or what I like to call three truths from all of your experiences.
6
SPEAKER_01
And this is all we have to really be remembered of you, of this content.
6
SPEAKER_01
What would those three truths be for you?
6
SPEAKER_02
Take care of each other, take care of the planet, and floss.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know what s interesting?
6
SPEAKER_01
You re the second person who s said floss.
6
SPEAKER_01
Out of 10 years of interviews, over a thousand interviews, you re the second person that said floss to me.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m curious.
6
SPEAKER_02
Who was the other one?
6
SPEAKER_01
It was a doctor actually, and I m forgetting his name right now, but he s written a couple of New York Times bestselling books.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s going to come to me, but he said to Floss, and that was one of his three final things to leave to the world if you could not remember anything else.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m curious, why Floss for you?
6
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I don t know.
6
SPEAKER_02
Just dumb.
6
SPEAKER_02
I mean, it just, you know, they, they just say that it s, it s, it is very, very important for the health.
6
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I guess it s actually just a, it s just kind of a metaphor for taking care of your, your own self.
6
SPEAKER_02
It is.
6
SPEAKER_02
It is.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s great.
6
SPEAKER_01
Now I wish I would have flossed much younger.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think I waited until I was like in my twenties and I regretted it.
6
SPEAKER_01
And now I do it like religiously and I, I feel the difference.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I think it s smart.
6
SPEAKER_01
Kevin, I want to acknowledge you for,
6
SPEAKER_01
the incredible career you ve had, the the incredible gift you ve given to the world with 30 plus years of artistry, with your energy, your passion, your ability to connect with people, whether it s with me in this interview, whether it s on screen, on stages, you know, on social media, your your command, your charisma, your charm and your confidence.
6
SPEAKER_01
even when things aren t going your way, is inspiring to watch.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I appreciate and acknowledge you for constantly showing up with your artistry, with all the different ups and downs in your life, and giving with your talent.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I m really grateful for you and for being here.
6
SPEAKER_01
I want people to go again, check out Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon.
6
SPEAKER_01
Make sure to check that out, sixdegrees.org to learn more about that as well.
6
SPEAKER_01
And my final question is, what is your definition of greatness?
6
SPEAKER_02
I think staying true to who you are, you know.
6
SPEAKER_02
And, and, and hanging in there, you know, there s a lot to be said for just surviving, I think.
6
SPEAKER_00
I hope today s episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
6
SPEAKER_00
Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today s show with all the important links.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as add free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on apple podcast.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend.
6
SPEAKER_00
Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes.
6
SPEAKER_00
I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
6
SPEAKER_00
And now it s time to go out there and do something great.