Alan Ritchson

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Guest: Alan Ritchson
Release Date: July 27, 2026
Episode Theme: Vulnerability, Mental Health, Fame, and Justice – The Story of Alan Ritchson

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Overview

In this deeply candid episode, Dax Shepard and Monica Padman welcome Alan Ritchson (actor: "Reacher," "Blue Mountain State," "Motor City") for a revealing and energetic discussion about navigating fame, family, mental health, justice, and personal growth. The conversation effortlessly weaves between Alan's vulnerable self-reflections, tales from the industry, and philosophical debates about anger, resentment, and heroism. The episode stands out for its emotional honesty, introspection, and the powerful rapport between guest and hosts.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Alan’s Upbringing and Family Life

• Alan now lives in Nashville, after years of a nomadic lifestyle with his wife and three sons (13, 12, 10). Despite loving the travel, his children craved stability and friendships ([03:24–04:34]).

  • Quote:
    “I was traveling like a circus with my wife and kids... It was heaven for me and not for them officially. I was like, this is great. Yeah, I love this. They're like, we really want friends.” – Alan Ritchson [03:42]

• Alan describes his parents as supportive, especially his father, a Chief Master Sergeant who worked extra jobs for the family. However, Alan discusses the nuanced cost of that upbringing—the high expectations, moving often, and childhood insecurities ([22:27–23:43]).

2. Mental Health, ADHD, and Rejection Sensitivity

• A major thread is Alan’s openness about his mental health journey: ADHD, bipolar, and especially rejection sensitivity dysphoria ([05:21–06:18], [09:20–10:16]).

• Alan reveals he was only recently diagnosed with cPTSD (complex PTSD) and describes the cumulative microtraumas of childhood.

  • Quote:
    “You have chronic PTSD trauma with a little T... If it’s made worse by having no secure attachments, they're almost likely to never fully recover.” – Alan Ritchson [09:54–10:16]

• He shares his experiences with EMDR therapy for trauma and the difficulty distinguishing “little T” from “big T” trauma ([10:16–11:15]).

• Dax and Alan empathize over feeling eternally “in trouble” and the habit of making others’ feelings about themselves—a learned hypervigilance ([04:34–07:14]).

  • Quote:
    “If anything happens or anyone’s mood’s a little crooked, my first thought is like, oh, fudge, I did something.” – Dax Shepard [04:50]

3. Self-Perception, Relationships, and Parenthood

• Alan reflects on damage in his closest relationships and admits the cycle of volatility can drive him to withdraw to “protect” others ([13:09–15:06]).

  • "I wouldn't wish myself on my own worst enemy...I tend to pull back and be like a real lone wolf." – Alan Ritchson [13:59]

• Monica, as the balancing force, encourages Alan to recognize also the joy and value he brings to others ([15:06–16:26]).

4. The Justice vs. Serenity Debate: Anger, Bullying, and Resentment

• The episode’s most electric segment is a passionate debate over anger, resentment, and "justice energy."

• Alan confesses that, while resentment harms him, anger fuels his drive to make meaningful change—whether in the world or in his work ([35:59–39:04]).

  • Quote:
    “I think we should hold on to some of that anger. So somebody gets Guy Ritchie and wakes up in a pool of their own teeth and blood.” – Alan Ritchson [35:59]

• Dax argues that living with resentment is toxic and recounts how his protective instincts, though well-intentioned, sometimes make loved ones feel unsafe ([41:44–43:10]).

  • Kristen (Bell) told Dax: “I feel so unsafe when I'm with you, because anything can happen...I needed to recalibrate.” [42:13]

• Monica asserts that striving for “the middle”—not operating at a 1 or a 10—is healthiest, but agrees we need warriors and peacemakers alike ([50:01–50:39]).

5. Industry Anecdotes: From Modeling to Reacher & Motor City

• Alan discusses his challenging early years—moving, being the son of a military leader, ballet, musical theater, insecurities from a facial tumor, and later, modeling ([17:00–26:15]).

  • Quote:
    “My face was growing sideways, like the Elephant Man.” – Alan Ritchson [24:14]

• Candidly addresses the predatory nature of the modeling industry and his own direct experiences with exploitation. This motivated his transition to acting ([28:15–30:52]).

  • “The whole system is set up to facilitate that kind of behavior... I almost punched an agent in the face.” – Alan Ritchson [29:03]

• Career setbacks: He missed landing "Thor" due to lack of craft, which shifted him toward taking acting seriously and rigorous classwork ([56:19–62:14]).

• On "Reacher": Discusses pressure to physically embody the role and how being micromanaged by the studio helped rather than hindered—embracing collaboration ([66:12–69:18]).

  • Quote:
    “Being under the microscope like that really taught me a lot. I can empathize with what women experience in the business.” – Alan Ritchson [66:33]

• Motor City: Alan’s silent film, its years-long journey, the challenge and artistry of wordless performance, and why the film means so much to him ([69:59–74:13]).

  • “It was a masterpiece... never felt so deeply connected to a piece of material.” – Alan Ritchson [71:35]

• On producing/writing: Alan describes shifting creative focus, writing and producing projects like "Thornton" ([75:09–76:00]).

6. Fame, Family, and Navigating Public Life

• Alan speaks to the stress and gratitude of increasing fame, especially as it impacts his wife and kids ([77:58–80:26]).

  • “My family hates it. My kids, we're interrupted a thousand times a day... they seize up because they're invisible.” – Alan Ritchson [77:58]

• He admires Schwarzenegger’s graciousness toward fans and strives to find balance in public interactions ([80:05–80:26]).

7. The Motorcycle Incident: Justice, Anger, and Aftermath

• Ritchson recounts the viral incident where he defended himself and his children from an aggressive neighbor while out riding motorcycles ([80:25–88:42]).

  • Details the context, physicality, escalations, use of bodycam footage to protect himself, and the unforeseen cost: his kids won’t ride with him now.
  • Quote:
    “My kids had to experience that. It was really hard on me. That guy doesn't know how much...he robbed me of that, man.” – Alan Ritchson [85:41]

• Dax and Monica validate Alan’s actions and discuss the messiness, public scrutiny, and gray zones of justice ([88:06–88:40]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Hyper-vigilance & Parental Guilt:
  “If anything happens or anyone's moods a little crooked, my first thought is like, oh, fudge, I did something.” – Dax Shepard [04:50]
• Mental Health Disclosure:
  “I've never talked about this before. I've talked about bipolar before. But I think I have it all... I just hired an ADHD coach.” – Alan Ritchson [05:33]
• Resentment's Double-Edged Sword:
  “I have used the resentment...and turned it into motivation. It becomes motivation and grit and drive to...make the world a better place in a real meaningful way.” – Alan Ritchson [38:11]
• The Motorcycle Altercation:
  “He’s stepping in my grill, and I push him back...And that means getting him out of the picture. So I hit the guy.” – Alan Ritchson [82:38]
• Letting Go & Living in the Gray:
  “There's just a lot of tension in being human where it's never binary. It's never as simple as...we have to live in the colorful gray in between.” – Alan Ritchson [87:47]

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Detailed Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment/Topic | Notes | |-----------|------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:24–04:34 | Family, nomadic lifestyle, settling in Nashville | Alan and Dax compare family lives | | 05:12–08:17 | ADHD, rejection sensitivity, parenting patterns | Early, deep mental health discussion | | 09:20–11:15 | cPTSD, trauma, EMDR, impact of childhood & therapy | Alan explains trauma processing | | 13:09–16:26 | Relationship volatility, guilt, and withdrawal | Alan on protecting others from himself | | 35:59–39:04 | Justice, resentment, and fighting for change | Heated debate: use of anger | | 41:44–43:10 | Dax’s protective instincts & their costs | Kristen Bell's influence on Dax | | 56:19–62:14 | Acting setbacks, “the craft,” and seriousness | The Thor audition/pivot moment | | 66:12–69:18 | Becoming Reacher, studio pressures, body scrutiny | Aligning character/physicality with expectations | | 69:59–74:13 | “Motor City” film, the power of silence in acting | Alan’s pride in project | | 80:25–88:42 | Motorcycle incident, aftermath, pain & justice | Immediate and long-term impact on Alan’s family | | 88:43–89:06 | Closing acknowledgments, Motor City plug | Dax and Alan praise each other |

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The Armchair Expert Philosophy: Themes and Tone

• Radical Vulnerability: Alan’s openness about mental health, professional setbacks, childhood trauma, and family struggles sets the emotional tone.
• Heroism & Justice: The episode highlights Dax and Alan’s shared impulse to confront bullies and defend the vulnerable—even as they debate the healthiest ways to channel that energy.
• Self-Compassion and Growth: Through Monica’s gentle challenges and Dax’s AA wisdom, the conversation pivots towards temperance, balance, and self-improvement.
• Humor and Camaraderie: Despite the heavy content, the tone is warm, funny, and often self-deprecating—a trademark of Armchair Expert.

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Final Thoughts

The episode is a tour de force of candid storytelling, male vulnerability, and moral wrestling. Alan Ritchson distinguishes himself with his humility, self-awareness, and raw honesty. The conversation is at its best when confronting the murkiness of justice, healing from trauma, and finding meaning in struggle. For fans and newcomers alike, it’s a compelling listen—not just about Alan’s journey, but about what it means to live courageously and imperfectly.

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Watch for:

• Motor City (in theaters July 24, 2026)
• Reacher Season 4 (Amazon, date TBA)
• Runner (with Owen Wilson, September 2026)
• The Man With The Bag (Christmas 2026, with Arnold Schwarzenegger)

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Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

This is an incredible opportunity for us for many reasons. A, he's a mega, megastar, but also you and I have had debates about this man. And then he got to come in and actually. Oh, that's right. We got to hear from him. People might remember Alan Ritchson was talked about heavily when I was referencing this motorcycle video that happened in his neighborhood with a, with a belligerent neighbor.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And so, yes, this is the gentleman that was involved that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, we'll talk about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Most people know him as Reacher. This gigantically successful international blockbuster. Reacher, War Machine, Blue Mountain State, Fast and Furious, Fast X. And he has a new movie out now that is so cool and so bold. Motor City. So check that out. And then coming up in September, look for runner with he and Owen Wilson. Please enjoy. Alan Ritchson. We get support from Quince.

[Monica Padman]

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[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I've been wearing them a suspicious amount. Yeah. European linen ones. They're 34 bucks, which is genuinely insane for how nice they are.

[Monica Padman]

It doesn't even make sense.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, here's the deal. They work directly with the factories, cut out all the middlemen. So you're paying for the actual quality and not some brand's marketing budget. Everything's 50 to 80% less than comparable stuff. I love it because it's all very classic and traditional and I know I'm going to be able to keep it for a very long time. And the quality's off the charts.

[Monica Padman]

That's true. The style is very consistent. Whatever you get there, you walk down the street, you're going to look good. They have these lightweight cotton sweaters which I love for when it cools down at night. It's nice. Drape around your shoulders in the summer and then throw it on when it gets a little cool. And it's not just clothes. They do home stuff. Ding ding ding. Travel stuff, everyday essentials. It's all the same model quality without the markup.

[Dax Shepard]

Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quince.comdax for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.comdax for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/dax we are supported by Autotrader. All right. If you've been putting off car shopping because it sounds like a whole thing, buying your car online on Autotrader makes It way easier, really. You can shop tons of cars online, compare prices, check financing, and trade in options, all from wherever you are. And if you want to start online and go to the dealership for a test drive, you can do that, too. Really? What I like is the flexibility. Start online, finish at the dealer, or the other way around. Your info stays with you, so you're not starting the process from scratch. Plus, you're working with local dealer listings, so you've got real people helping behind the scenes. And when you're ready, you can pick up your car or have it delivered. Really? Buy your car online on Autotrader. Really?

[Alan Ritchson]

He's an upchurcher.

[Dax Shepard]

He's an exper. Tell me what's happening. Where do you live?

[Alan Ritchson]

I live in Nashville now.

[Dax Shepard]

Me too. Well, we, too, have a house there. I was there last weekend, Mount Juliet.

[Alan Ritchson]

Oh, cool.

[Dax Shepard]

On the lake.

[Alan Ritchson]

Oh, you are one of the lucky ones, man. I want to be there. I want a lake house so bad.

[Dax Shepard]

How long have you been there, though? Because I read that you were nomadic for a minute, which fascinates me.

[Alan Ritchson]

I did not want to settle down. I was traveling like a circus with my wife and kids. My boys are 13, 12, and 10. I was having the best time. I'm working, I come home, hang out with the boys. It was heaven for me and not for them officially. I was like, this is great. Yeah, I love this. They're like, we really want friends.

[Dax Shepard]

We want to go to sleepovers.

[Alan Ritchson]

They're like, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So we were in New Zealand. We're shooting War Machine and had the most idyllic dinner we've ever had. It was magic hour. It was like, you know, the cobblestone streets and the mountains and the water. It was beautiful. It was great. And we were walking back, and it's, like, cultishly idyllic. People on slack lines and, like, picnicking and stuff. And my oldest boy, like, burst into tears. I was like, what did I do? And my wife goes, what did you do? And I don't know. And he goes, I just saw those kids over there playing, and they have friends and, like, you know, And I think it just hit us that, like, oh, we're really at it age where we got to, like, settle down.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to go back to something that really struck a chord, which is, your kid cried, and your first thought was, what did I do?

[Monica Padman]

I know. I caught that, too. That's very Dax.

[Dax Shepard]

That's so me.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then I've noticed it's so my brother. It's like a Family thing.

[Alan Ritchson]

Where does it come from for you?

[Dax Shepard]

I'm trying to figure that out. I think my mom probably picked it up from her dad. I don't know. But I've talked to my brother about it. I'm like, what's going on with us? And he goes, don't you just feel like you're always in trouble? And I'm like, yeah, I feel like I'm always in trouble. And, like, if anything happens or anyone's moods a little crooked, my first thought is like, oh, fudge, I did something.

[Alan Ritchson]

You're, like, hypervigilant.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Super.

[Alan Ritchson]

You have adhd?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I newly believe I have that.

[Alan Ritchson]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

But what is this thing where it's like, I'm in trouble. I must have done something.

[Alan Ritchson]

Hyper vigilance. Yeah. You learn to read the room real quick. The survival mechanism is like, am I responsible for this and what can I do to fix it? I suffer deeply from rejection sensitivity dysphoria.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is part of adhd, Right?

[Alan Ritchson]

Yes. I've never talked about this before. I've talked about bipolar before.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

But I think I have it all. I think I have, like, I guess what's working, but I just hired an ADHD coach. Oh, really? To kind of help me. Because I feel like pre 40, the ADHD brain is a superpower, but the fuel comes at a huge cost. Later in life. Your gas tank runs off cortisol. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And stress and, like, the. The fear of the pain of. Of rejection and criticism. And I hate it so much because it's such a visceral, violent, sickening reaction, bodily reaction that, like, I'll do anything to avoid it, you know? So, like, I'll be perfect for you. Yeah. This will be the best experience or relationship you've ever had. So you're not ever going to be mad at me? You know, that doesn't work.

[Dax Shepard]

It's exhausting for the people.

[Monica Padman]

It's not reality.

[Dax Shepard]

My kids have said it's not real. Had to ask. That's why I've been confronting it. And that's why I heard it in you. Is my kids finally said, like, I hate when you say that.

[Alan Ritchson]

They recognize that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I'll always go, oh, did I do something? Or did I upset you?

[Alan Ritchson]

That's really perceptive.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And they said in a very soft way. I don't like that. Because what it does is, like, I'm dealing with something, and then all of a sudden it's about you. And I gotta reassure you that you're not in trouble and it's Like, I'm the one who's upset. I'm like, fucking duh. Yeah. So selfish of me. I think I'm being very selfless in trying to apologize or whatever, amend whatever thing I did wrong. But in fact, it's like, yeah, it's like stealing their thing in a way.

[Alan Ritchson]

Seeing them less because you're recognizing your own.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Because, like, they're now in a position where I'm like, did I do something? They have to now go like, oh, no, no, you didn't do it. Like, they have to now comfort me right? When I should be coming in to comfort them because they're upset, but instead I've said, did I do something wrong or did I upset you? And now they got to comfort me, Right.

[Monica Padman]

They've learned to hide their emotions from you. Like, oh, well, I guess I can't be, like, upset around dad because he's

[Alan Ritchson]

gonna feel all crazy.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Alan Ritchson]

So being aware of that and recognizing that they're aware of that, which is impressive. What does that awakening do to you? You're putting more energy into managing the awareness of it or confronting it before it happens.

[Dax Shepard]

My whole life is a series of things. I've quit, right? It's just like, I don't know when I accumulated all the badness, but at some point I had to start just removing alcohol at 29 or removing this. And then now we're down to this. Like, yeah, I gotta stop that. I cannot ask you repeatedly all the time, did I do something wrong? Are you upset with me? I have to trust that they will tell me if that's the case. And then this weird AA thing starts happening, right? Which is like, they always tell you, you can act your way into thinking different. You cannot think your way into acting different. So it's like by simply stopping the repeated. Am I in trouble? Did I do something? By stopping the action, the thoughts dissipate. You know, it's like reverse hacking that just loop. I'm in.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you find any purchase in that kind of rationale?

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, it's like almost a little bit of that. Like, fake it. You can learn to love anybod and fake it to. You totally get through this chapter. It's a little bit of that theory, but yeah, I get that totally.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a. Obviously a genetic component to adhd, but I'm sure embroiled in that is some childhood stuff.

[Alan Ritchson]

I was just diagnosed. I have all the diagnosis. I feel like, you know, like, when you see people on, like, late night and they're like the most gorgeous Wonderful. Well, like everything's perfect.

[Dax Shepard]

Girl.

[Alan Ritchson]

That's like I was such an ugly duckling when I was a kid. Everyone hated me. Like, yeah, right.

[Dax Shepard]

I know.

[Alan Ritchson]

I don't buy, I don't buy it when I say it, but sometimes I feel like people, they have these like sympathy diagnoses where you're like, yeah, I'm just so messed up, you know, you look pretty put together to me. Some people maybe really mask it well or like deal with it well or whatever. But I keep finding out that like, I have these pretty sinister things under the hood that are like really corrupting relationships in my world. Yeah. On a day to day basis. And the evidence of it is everywhere. Things are not always great in the very few relationships that I have.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Alan Ritchson]

By any means. Yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

There's damage.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. And so I'm like, why are like the three relationships that are important to me not working at all? And so, you know, you start to look under the hood. I was diagnosed recently with cptsd. Cptsd? Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Which is interesting because ptsd, what I've learned and look, I don't know, I'm not an expert.

[Dax Shepard]

You might be.

[Alan Ritchson]

Let's see, PTSD from what I've learned from the psychiatrists, psychologists who are experts in the field is it's actually much easier to heal from those sort of one off traumatic events.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. Uh huh.

[Alan Ritchson]

When you have chronic PTSD trauma with a little T is how it's described repeatedly over and over and over again as a kid. Like if there's like a narcissistic adult in the home. Right. Or an abusive adult.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Food scarcity, an imprisoned parent. Addiction, sexual abuse.

[Alan Ritchson]

Right. So. And repeated. And if it's made worse by having no secure attachments, they're almost likely to like never fully recover.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right, right.

[Alan Ritchson]

And so there are now methods that I've now experienced like emdr. Electromagnetic. So you have this vibrating pulse in your hand that keeps both hemispheres online. So you don't get locked into this. When you start talking about TR Trauma.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

Talk therapy, you don't get locked into this shutdown mode. Right. You keep both hemispheres on and somehow in doing that it allows you to sort of process this stuff differently where you can move through it.

[Dax Shepard]

So we're really quick. You used little handles because my wife did eye stuff.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yes, That's a part of it too. Yeah. But you have the stimulation that is a part of the process. Right. And you work through these traumatic events, you rebuild them, you create A new narrative around it. You re experience it.

[Dax Shepard]

You're building a new neural network.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yes. Anyway, so finding out that, like, I have cptsd, I need to work through this stuff. Going through the trauma, my therapist was like, hold on. What you just said is not little T stuff. Like, what you just said is big T stuff. No, no, but I deserve that. She's like, that's why people say when they're the victim of, like, this kind of abuse, you make it all your fault. You know, when you're the victim of abuse, as a child, working through all that has just been pretty eye opening.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm already relating to you so much. Just even the way you speak, right? Yes. Because even I see people on talk shows, oh, I was a wallflower and they're 10. And you're like, right?

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And so every time I'm doing this, right, Like, I've talked about being molested on here, right? Like, it's rough. There's a voice in my head that's from fucking Detroit, and this kid's going like, oh, you fucking need so much attention. Oh, boo. Yeah. Oh, poor you. Like that fucking shadow voice that is so worried I'm being judged. Like, we're talking about the person on the talk show versus yeah, you go through some shit, it's fucking up some of your relationships. You have some wreckage from this. You just want to ignore that. I mean, you could. Or you could drink yourself to death at 60. So, like, the notion that there's anything indulgent about it as opposed to, like, no, I'm on a mission to, like, get this as right as I can before I die. Which is honorable. Yeah, but just having to fucking constantly talk to that chorus of fucking kids I grew up with, basically. Right. Do you have that, like, any action I do. I hear the fucking assholes from my neighborhood.

[Alan Ritchson]

I just feel like I'm not driving the car. Those voices are more than voices. They got to hold the wheel. And I can intellectualize in this moment. I'm like, fuck, this is rejection sensitivity syndrome. This is probably related to the fact that I was so terrified of upsetting the way the machine was working in the home as a child, tiptoeing on that broken glass. This is where all the reaction. I can see it happening in the moment, like an out of body experience and then still have zero control over it. I can't stop it. And then it does damage to the relationships. Now I'm lashing out because I feel so hurt and rejected and criticized. When the scale of that Rejection or criticism, it was just a comment to them, but it felt like a life changing gut punch. So then the relationship is out of balance, it's volatile. Too much volatility in my house. I feel bad for my kids, I feel bad for my wife. It's not great all the time. And it's like, oh, clearly it's a part of all this thing.

[Dax Shepard]

But what's funny is that you, or I could think even talking about that might invite criticism when what you're saying right now is like deeply admirable in all ways. It's like you're taking accountability for your shittiness and your struggles. You're attempting with all your might to make things better. You're failing for sure. But the huge difference is like you act like an asshole, you're not aware of any of this, you then shut down. I don't know what your pattern is. Then you and your wife finally amend some way. You never address it. And she's left to think like, well, this is as good as it's ever going to get. Because he has no awareness of it. He's not making any effort versus even if you are unable to hit the brakes in those moments, the simple fact that you know it's happening, you're committed to trying to reduce that gap. Everyone in your life, I hope you

[Alan Ritchson]

would think, but I've been with my wife for 20 years.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, you've been married for.

[Alan Ritchson]

Married for 20 years.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

Known each other forever. And a lifetime of like that kind of volatility though, where then there's just this push, pull, like it does damage though at some point people get fed up with just the coming back and realizing like I was wrong and I, I know you didn't really mean it. I overreacted. And it's exhausting and there's a cost to it. Right. And so JP Sachs, singer, songwriter, I love. He's amazing. He was at my house and I said something to him that he ended up turning into a song, a beautiful song I love. I hope he releases it someday. But I just said in convers conversation, I said I wouldn't wish myself on my own worst enemy. I feel like it's just damage waiting to happen in a relationship, which is why I tend to pull back and be like a real lone wolf. I don't have a lot of friends and relationships and that's the way that I protect people. Not by like elevating myself through those. It's more like I'm gonna give up before I mess anything, mess anything up. Right. To protect you from myself. I think that life, to me is, like, really about meaningful relationships and community and being an effective agent of love and change in community, whatever that is. Family, neighborhoods, work. How can we be like a light that just brings the best out of the world that we are blessed with to occupy, and then, you know, feeling like it's actually better if I just don't have any of that? It's like a weird place to be.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but that's not true. You would not be married for 20 years if you didn't have.

[Dax Shepard]

Unless you have Stockholm syndrome.

[Monica Padman]

No, we remember Elizabeth Smart said she doesn't believe in that. And if she doesn't believe in it, then I don't believe in it. Well, she gets to decide that. But you would not be in this type of relationship if you didn't have qualities. Great qualities. I feel like you focus a lot on the harm you're causing, but you're also bringing joy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, great point.

[Monica Padman]

But you have to also be able to tap into that and realize that's the real part of you that's really you.

[Dax Shepard]

Because I bet you're a fucking party as well. Are you a party?

[Alan Ritchson]

I would think so.

[Monica Padman]

You're fucking party.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

I know my kids like me.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

That says a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

People, they have autonomy and they can evaluate. Like. Yeah, there's some bumps, but fuck, the highs are good and I'm in, you know?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. It's maximizing the good things and minimizing the bad things. We all have a mix. We have a friend like this currently who's just very like, I'm bad.

[Dax Shepard]

Unredeemable.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And it's. As someone who loves this person, it's like, that's crazy. You are offering so much, and if you don't see it, it's sad.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. I think it's all part of the ADHD brain, though, is like. Let me get ahead of, like, the rejection issue, which is going to cause all kinds of volatility, you know, like, let me just protect everybody from that.

[Dax Shepard]

Is your father still alive?

[Alan Ritchson]

Both my parents are still alive.

[Dax Shepard]

Both are parents. My inclination is to ask if the master Sergeant.

[Alan Ritchson]

Chief. Master Sergeant.

[Dax Shepard]

Chief Master Sergeant. Ran a really tight ship. That is some of the source of this childhood anxiety. And then my inclination is that you probably are the type of dude that your dad's still alive. My dad's dead, so I'm free to talk.

[Monica Padman]

All right.

[Alan Ritchson]

It's hard to talk about the folks.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But how about let's go about school? Because I think anyone that knows you would be shocked. Even I was. Learn. Like, I don't know if you were tiny, but you were very late bloomer.

[Alan Ritchson]

Very.

[Dax Shepard]

You moved around a lot. Right. You're born in North Dakota, you go to Illinois and then you end up in. Sounds fake, but. Niceville, Florida.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

What age do you land in Niceville, Florida?

[Alan Ritchson]

I was in fifth grade. Going into fifth grade.

[Dax Shepard]

Going into fifth grade. So one year left of elementary. Yeah. Okay. And then mama's educator, she became whatever

[Alan Ritchson]

put her closest to us. So she'd like work the computer lab at a school, she'd like be a substitute teacher, whatever got her closest so she could see what we were doing all the time.

[Dax Shepard]

And you have an older brother and a younger brother.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, gap. That's right.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, what is the age gap?

[Alan Ritchson]

18 months with my older brother and 6 years with my younger brother.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, and what was your older brother like and did you think he was radical?

[Alan Ritchson]

I looked up to him because he was an overachiever. He was super, super smart. International baccalaureate in high school and really good grades. And then he went on to become a chemical engineer and get a master's. And he also paid for his school. He was one of the fastest runners in the country. Oh, really? So he was athletic and so he would do something and be like, well, I guess I have to run a four minute mile now.

[Dax Shepard]

Good luck.

[Alan Ritchson]

So he sort continue to raise the bar for me and I always really looked up to him for that.

[Dax Shepard]

Was he protective of you?

[Alan Ritchson]

Not really. I was more protective of him. I remember the first time I ever got punched, I was in fourth grade, he was in sixth grade and we were playing 500 or whatever. You just chuck the ball up in the air and a mob of kids go land on it. Right. And it got a little physical and some kid who I never seen before was in his grade. And you know, a fourth grader to a sixth grader is like gigantic. He shows my brother around. My brother's like, come on, man, let's go. And he just leaves. I was like, we don't just leave when somebody sh. So I run over to the kid and I was like, wham. And I shoved him as hard as I could to the ground. I was like, don't ever touch my brother. And I. I make the mistake where I turn around and walk away. Like a door. Like the movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I walk away and I just feel his tap on my shoulder like this. And he uppercutted me so bad. I think in real life I was probably 24, 25ft off the ground. I had the biggest, biggest goose egg on my jaw, really. I was working with Guy Richie on Ministry of Ungently Warfare. And one of my favorite things about working with him is he's an intellectual. Like, if you spend time like him.

[Dax Shepard]

No, but I'm obsessed with him and his whole work style and the barbecue thing, it's the coolest. He's like, made an art form out of living, right?

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. His work, life, balance, the overlap, the ven. Diagram, synergy, it's a circle. It's just like this perfect. He's figured out a way to, like, live and work at the same time in the funnest, coolest way. He loves to just wrestle big existential, philosophical questions. And we'll sit in his trailer just for hours, you know? Like, I remember the last day I was working. It was a night shoot. It was my last day. I was wrapped out. A guy would like to see you in his trailer real quick. I was like, oh, gosh. So he comes, he goes, right here, my boy. And I'm like, no, I gotta. It's nighttime, dude. It's like three in the morning. I wanna go to bed. He's like, no, no, we're. He just wanted to talk. Oh, yeah. He said at one point, he goes, I think everybody should wake up in a pool of their own teeth and blood at some point.

[Dax Shepard]

All of us. He really amped it up.

[Alan Ritchson]

He goes, I think it would make the world a better place if everybody. Right at the time, I. No, no, that's like such an Old Testament God kind of thing. And, like, there's a whole new way of doing love everybody. And he was like, so vehemently disagreed and since that point in time, so many things have happened in my life where I'm like, it would be so much better if everybody woke up. Sometimes that's the best way to, you know.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, we'll get to that too. Yeah, yeah. I'll be driving around LA a lot. I'll be at a light and I see the 5 foot 8 agent in a 911 screaming at a woman in a car. And I go, like, yeah, you're just not from where I'm at. Like, you just wouldn't. And I wish you had been where. Because you don't fucking act like that. Like, there are consequences for acting like a bully in the world.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, there aren't a lot of consequences these days.

[Dax Shepard]

So the ride through school, not a big dude. How was it? Also you. Another shocker. You loved musical theater.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. That made it interesting because I was in the deep South.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And I was a little bit nerdy. I mean, we're going back to this. Like, yeah, I was such a nerdy.

[Dax Shepard]

I one time had a pimple on

[Alan Ritchson]

my cheek that was so big. But, like, I was just like, oh. The most efficient way to get to school is rollerblades. Because then I could. I could roll right into chorus practice. Oh, you're a target. Right? So, yeah, so I'm, like, in chorus, in music, theater, doing drama, riding it on rollerblades. Like, I'm like. The linoleum floors are perfect for these. The dudes just hated was interesting. And so I would sort of combat that with, like, acting even goofier. Jim Carrey was my idol. I was Jim Carrey. Every year for Halloween, I would dress up as him. Every Halloween, go to school.

[Dax Shepard]

You would be doing lines.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. Excuse me. I asked you a question. Like, kids eating lunches away from me. Richton. They hated it. It was fun for me. It was a little tricky with some of the dudes that didn't understand a guy like me in that place. And I was half in and half. Like. I liked dance.

[Dax Shepard]

What kind of dance?

[Alan Ritchson]

Ballet.

[Dax Shepard]

I know you met your wife in a ballet.

[Alan Ritchson]

Ballet. I have an associate of arts degree in ballet. Just because I had enough credits when I quit college to get one, you know, they're like, you can have a ballet degree.

[Dax Shepard]

I was like, okay, that's so cool.

[Alan Ritchson]

But I was so. At that point in time, I wish I knew what I knew now and really embraced it. But, like, I was so ashamed to be there. I didn't want people to know. I was afraid to open up in class because I didn't want to be viewed a certain way and, you know, silly. So I kind of just enjoyed the arts, and I felt like I wasn't allowed to enjoy the arts.

[Dax Shepard]

Did dad. Dad like these pursuits, or would they seem a little emasculating?

[Alan Ritchson]

He supported my brothers and I in everything we ever did to a degree. He'll always be my hero for this. He was Chief Master Sergeant Richardson. 1% of the air Force achieves that rank. Of all the branches, it's the hardest to achieve.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Alan Ritchson]

Because it's so limited. He's a great leader. He was well respected by the people that worked for him. I really looked up for him, the way that he worked. He would, like, run the King hangar on Eglin Air Force Base, the largest Air Force base in the world. And when we got really busy in just trying to Discover who we were, and trying lots of extracurricular activities. We couldn't afford it. We were broke. You don't make a lot in the Air Force with a family of five that's busy. And so he took a job as a night security guard at the tiny little local airport. No way. And he did it for enough time to get us through, like, a busy season, but he would work all day and then come home and nap and then go do this thing at night. And I remember hearing about. My mom was like, you don't have to do this. Because I'd overhear them in the room, and the people that were ranked way under him would see him at the airport, like, what the hell are you doing here, David? You know, and they tease him for it. He would talk about how humiliating it was.

[Dax Shepard]

And by the way, it's, like, deeply admirable.

[Alan Ritchson]

And so I would hear these conversations. I'd cry, because then I feel bad because I'm like, he's doing this for me to be able to go to, like, a chorus event across the state in a competition. And anyway, I hugely admire him for what he's doing, but. So he supported in a big way.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, right, right, right.

[Alan Ritchson]

I had a full ride. I could have gone to any college. I wanted, like, vocal scholarships offered everywhere.

[Dax Shepard]

You were also going to high school and this community college at the exact same time.

[Alan Ritchson]

So I started college early a little bit, but, like, I just wanted to get it done with. But I Event academic scholarships, paid for school. I had vocal scholarships and that kind of thing. And I quit school. I'm like, this is not for me. I have to experience life in a different way. And I've been invited to, like, start modeling, which is really a fruitless business.

[Dax Shepard]

But before we get to modeling, tell me about the tumor and how big was it? And were you super insecure? And what was happening with that?

[Alan Ritchson]

Well, that was an interesting little hiccup,

[Dax Shepard]

A little speed bump in adolescence.

[Alan Ritchson]

My face was growing, like, sideways, like the Elephant Man.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Alan Ritchson]

And at first. At first, my mom's like, maybe the other side will just take a minute to catch up.

[Dax Shepard]

Delayed.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. And people start calling you names and, you know, like.

[Monica Padman]

Like, how old were you? High school?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

I was, like, 15. So my chin starts growing, like, way out. And we didn't get any help. I went to go get my wisdom teeth taken out, and we got an X ray for the wisdom teeth. And the orthodontist, whoever we were seeing, he comes in, he goes, I think you need to sit down. We're like, what? You have a tumor in your chin? We saw in the. You know, and so they showed us. It was a huge thing. They operated. They took the wisdom teeth out. They cut my gums from here to here. Peeled it all the way down.

[Dax Shepard]

Whoa.

[Alan Ritchson]

And they had to take the tumor out and, like, fill it in with osteoclasts or whatever and tack it down and shave, like, the stuff that had

[Dax Shepard]

grown, like, sideways on the mandible.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. So, like, this whole, like, all this was shaved down.

[Dax Shepard]

Whoa. And you still have such an impressive chin. I can only imagine how much. 10 you and a half.

[Monica Padman]

I'm shocked.

[Alan Ritchson]

What's funny is the doctor, at the time, I had no idea that it'd be, like, in the entertainment industry. Like, nobody in my family was. I didn't know it was a career, but the doctor was like, so we can do this one in two ways. Very simple. We can just cut you open here. You'll have a scar the rest of your life. I have a feeling, looking at you, probably better if you don't have a big scar like that for whatever you're gonna do in life. So it's gonna be a lot worse for you. But we'll do. They went inside.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Alan Ritchson]

I'm glad it did.

[Dax Shepard]

And was it immediately noticeable? And did your confidence go up?

[Alan Ritchson]

Oh, huge. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I would have been very insecure in high school.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. Yeah. I still remember walking down that, like, if this was a movie, like a teenage movie or whatever, cameras just floating down the hallway, and you see girls jumping out of the way and, like, grabbing onto their friend. Get away from me, Monster.

[Dax Shepard]

You had the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

I mean, I just like, like, oh,

[Dax Shepard]

and you love Jim Carrey musical theater. Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

At least I can sing.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to. I want to be your friend look out for you.

[Monica Padman]

No wonder you have rejection sensitivity.

[Alan Ritchson]

But that also really taught me I'll never, ever look down on somebody or criticize somebody or make somebody feel less than for something that they have no control over. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So, yeah, you start modeling. And what was that?

[Alan Ritchson]

That was the first time my dad would not speak to me.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Cuz it's so vain.

[Alan Ritchson]

So he made decisions in his own life that he, I think, kind of regrets. Like, he was into drug and partying, and it was unfocused. He was, like, orphaned. He's one of those guys where you hear his story and you're like, what chance did you have at any normalcy or success in your life? You've got a family he found a way to keep his marriage together. There's a lot of things that I'm like, man, he triumphed over his story, so I respect that. But he should have been in the major leagues as a baseball player.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Alan Ritchson]

He would have been playing for the Cincinnati Reds had he not been into drugs and shown up. But he went in the military because he had to. And so he saw him more for us. And we were bright and driven and gritty and accomplished.

[Dax Shepard]

And he had worked two jobs to make sure you guys had opportunities.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, exactly. And college is paid for. And I'm like, it's not for me. He recoiled from that a little bit. And then my follow up is, I'm gonna be a model. Are you an idiot?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

This makes no sense. And it didn't make sense to me either. The first time I went to a modeling agency, I'd been invited. They'd seen me somewhere, and they kept calling, you gotta be a model down in Miami. And I was like, all right. So it kind of stayed. And so for a couple months, I was like, oh, maybe, maybe. And eventually I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do that just because that's more interesting than this. And, like, I don't know where that could get me, but I'd like to see.

[Dax Shepard]

And what did Catherine say about that? Because you guys were already together at that point.

[Alan Ritchson]

We were, like, just friends. We met in high school, dated for a summer in high school, and kind of went our separate ways.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you had a little break.

[Alan Ritchson]

So she was in Gainesville, Florida. We got reacquainted at some point during the modeling time, and I was like, oh, she's great.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, okay, okay. I thought it was meat and ballet class. No.

[Alan Ritchson]

And then. Yeah, no. So we kind of had our lives for a moment.

[Dax Shepard]

This is a model, right? You are Abercrombie and French.

[Monica Padman]

Abercrombie and Fitch. He has a hard time saying it.

[Dax Shepard]

We did five episodes ago. I'm like, no, Amber Cromie and Finch, right?

[Monica Padman]

He's like, amber Crom.

[Dax Shepard]

Amber Cromb and Finch.

[Monica Padman]

Amber Crombie and Fitch. I probably saw you on Billboard, whatever they're called, you know, up in the store.

[Dax Shepard]

I love the catalog.

[Monica Padman]

The catalog.

[Dax Shepard]

He also did some underwear modeling.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. Abby for me, is like, I remember the whole me too thing started happening then to, like, Bruce Weber, who shot that kind of stuff. And the stories that were coming out and the allegations were like, yep, that happened to me. That happened to me.

[Dax Shepard]

That happened to me on the male model side. Too.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, dude. I was like, man, should I speak up? Because at that point in time, I was an actor with some visibility. I mean, definitely nothing like what I'm experiencing now. But there was a bit of a platform there. I just couldn't bring myself to, like, insert, you know, open up the can of worms in that conversation again, too.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you hearing the dudes that were like, oh, me too. You're a dude, really?

[Alan Ritchson]

Kind of, yeah. Part of it is, like, I don't want people to think I'm doing this for publicity. I don't want to bring this shit up. But it was denied and settled in all those cases that were brought up. Right. And it was like, man, I just wish people knew what was going on in that business.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And there was something being done to

[Dax Shepard]

protect people because the photographers were largely predatory.

[Alan Ritchson]

The whole system, dude, the whole system is set up to facilitate that kind of behavior. You're traded to photographers. You're traded between clients that want to, you know, have you. The agents are doing it, and they know what they're doing. I almost punched an agent in the face because I had told them to stop sending me to people who were, like, trying to molest me on these jobs. Right.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

I was like, I just need to eat, okay? That's all I'm here for. I don't want to mess around. Like, there are people in the business. Like, I worked for J.C. penney's for a long time. I was like a regular client of theirs. It fed me and it got me through. And it wasn't splashy or cool, but they were just good people that just wanted to. And then there's the rest of the industry. Right. I was like, I don't want to do that. I don't care. Well, you kind of have to if you want to get the COVID of Bogan. And I was like, no. And so anyway, I had this thing happen at this shoot. I went straight to that agency. I, like, pulled this dude out of his chair, and I was like, I'm going to fucking kill you, dude. You knew exactly. He's like, I know, I know, but I just wanted you to have.

[Dax Shepard]

Was like, no.

[Alan Ritchson]

It's like a game to these people. It's a game, man. And it's like, I remember, you know, I ran into him years later.

[Dax Shepard]

The photographer?

[Alan Ritchson]

No, the agent that sent me into that last time when I finally quit, and I was like, don't ever call me again. I'm done. That was the last thing I ever do in this business. But it was so weird seeing him years later. The universe has a funny way of doing this. The night of my Reacher premiere for season one, oh wow. I ran into this dude at the lobby. It was like, alan, Ellen. And I was like, oh my God, know that. And I turn around and it's him. And he really started my acting career out of just a pure hatred for where I was in that business. And I was looking for opportunities to, like, just do something else outside of modeling.

[Dax Shepard]

He drove me out of that business.

[Alan Ritchson]

He drove me out of it. And then there I was, about to experience the most success I'd ever had many years later, and it was like confirmation that I survived it. Well, yeah, yeah. And did the right thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. We are supported by Allstate Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking that your keys are actually in your hand before you close the car door. Have you ever stood in a parking lot full of sun, staring at your keys, sitting right there on the seat, 4 inches away and completely useless to you? It's a very specific kind of humbling. Yeah, checking first is a good idea. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. And for fast, reliable help when you need it, add an Allstate Roadside Plan Today. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary. Insurance and roadside assistance plans are subject to terms, conditions and availability. Insurance provided by Allstate North American Insurance Company, Northbrook, Illinois. Roadside assistance plans provided by Allstate Motor Club Incorporated and Allstate Affiliate. We get support from Apple Gift Card Back to school is here, and for many that means some big life transitions. Whether they are heading into a new grade or setting up a dorm for the first time, you want to give them something that actually supports their growth and success. Apple Gift Card is a versatile solution because it takes the guesswork out of gifting. It's not just about a new pair of AirPods for Focus. It's about giving them the invaluable chance to choose the digital tools and subscriptions that suit their unique journey. They can use it for productivity apps on the App Store, movie nights on Apple TV, or extra iCloud storage for all those new memories with Apple Gift Cards card. It's so empowering to give the students their freedom to allocate their own resources, celebrate their new academic chapter. Visit applegiftcard.apple.com to celebrate their milestones and gift one today. This episode is supported by Helix. All right, let's talk about something we both really care deeply about. Sleep.

[Monica Padman]

It's the most important thing. I've had my Helix mattress for years now and I genuinely think it's one of the best investments you can make for your home. Mine still feel like it did when I first got it.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's the thing. It's not one of those mattresses that caves in after six months. These things are built to last. And you know, I'm a side sleeper. I ordered a side sleeper and I get hot so I have cooling. And I can't tell you how much more comfortable it is to be in there not sweating and tossing and turning.

[Monica Padman]

Cooling is really important. I've read that you're supposed to sleep a little bit cold. So I also have cooling and they have over 20 models, so it's not a one size fits all situation. You just go take their quiz and they match you to what actually work works for your body.

[Dax Shepard]

Plus they've got cooling upgrades which heading into summer, non negotiable.

[Monica Padman]

Truly.

[Dax Shepard]

Go to helixsleep.comarmchair for 20% off. That's helixsleep.com armchair for 20% off. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helixsleep.com armchair triple shot half caf,

[Alan Ritchson]

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[Monica Padman]

That's why it's the one dentist recommended.

[Alan Ritchson]

Baking soda toothpaste. As you brush, the baking soda particles

[Monica Padman]

dissolve to help break down plaque and stains for a whiter smile.

[Alan Ritchson]

So your teeth can feel clean, look bright and make brushing a no brainer. Try Arm and Hammer toothpaste. Simple, powerful, clean.

[Dax Shepard]

Could you go all the way to letting go of the resentment?

[Alan Ritchson]

I don't know, man.

[Dax Shepard]

For the listener, Alan just furrowed his brow and dropped the

[Alan Ritchson]

no. I don't know, man. I like, I feel so much right now just thinking about that. Because it's also like up to these people to want to create change in the world. I can let go of the resentment and then what does that do for the world? It allows these predatory to like just continue. You look at the politics that we deal with right now like, like the White House is in ruins. A fucking UFC cage on the lawn. And like you just do it. You just fucking do it and nobody says anything and no consequences. It wasn't done legally. There's no plan in place now you're asking for monies to create. It's like, what are we doing? And there's no consequences. And so I'm just supposed to let go of my resentment that this fucking guy. Guy is just raping the world that he lives in for whatever gain he personally can have. And I'm supposed to let that go? And then what? It fucking still exists? So, no, I'm not gonna let him go. I fucking hate it. I hate that that shit still lives in the world unabated, unchecked, unresolved uncleans. Look at the Catholic Church and, like, the predatory behavior that is just going completely unmet with those victims that are still unheard, unseen. No forgiveness, no resolution, no cure. And what is releasing the fucking resentment gonna do for the world? Like, I think we should hold on to some of that anger. So somebody gets Guy Ritchie and wakes up in a pool of their own teeth and blood.

[Monica Padman]

Well, also just. Okay. Justice.

[Alan Ritchson]

Sorry.

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Alan Ritchson]

I swore. I swore I wasn't gonna get. No, no, no, no. Hold on, hold on.

[Dax Shepard]

We're in an awesome spot. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

This is a place for that.

[Alan Ritchson]

This is why my wife hates me, by the way. She's like, you can't get that mad about a coffee mug. I feel shit.

[Dax Shepard]

This is fucking lovely.

[Monica Padman]

You also.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm nine years older than you. I think eight years older than you.

[Alan Ritchson]

I'm 43.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm 51. And then I've had to be in AA for 22 years or 23 years. Right. So there is a saying in AA, which is, resentments are fine for other people. A lot of people can hold resentments. Addicts can't. Addicts drink over resentments. The resentments are drinking poison and hoping your enemy dies.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So if you start from just a different perspective, which is. Is like a. Am I the type of person that can hold resentments? I can't live with them. They fuck me up, and then I have to medicate. And you have, as we just talked about, a whole bevy of fun.

[Alan Ritchson]

I don't think I'm that different. You have a suite, admittedly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. You have a suite of behaviors that. My hunch is resentments don't do well in your body either.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And you currently are laying it out as if it's a binary option. It's let all the fucking sickos win or carry the fire in your stomach at all times and let it fuck with your cortisol. There's a third option, which is, like, you can confront all that. You can be vocal about all that. And you can free yourself from the toxic part, which is, like, the resolution. That man.

[Alan Ritchson]

Or there's an option D, Barrett, 50

[Dax Shepard]

cal from 1300 yards.

[Alan Ritchson]

There's an option. There's an option E, which is what I think I tend to do. Probably not. Well, obviously there's a lot that comes up. It manifests in, like, unhelpful ways. I admit that. Okay. But I have accomplished, I think, a lot of good because I have used the resentment that I probably have not let go of and turned it into motivation.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

To accomplish things that I think benefit other people. It becomes motivation and grit and drive to, like, make the world a better place in a real meaningful way. I don't want to get into politics, but, like, if I do, it's because I have so much resentment for the evils of the world that have abused the power in politics and neglected the opportunity and their obligation to help people en masse. I would go into that field. Field and beat all these fucking people at their own game and be the best politician in the world so that I can have access to helping people in a way that they should have been helped the whole time. That's going to come from a place of resentment. I hate to say it. Like, how else do you get there with that? Because otherwise you get complacent and content, and I hate that. It stops inertia. It makes you sedentary, lethargic, apathetic. I am so allergic to those things. It's not in me. I'd rather be motivated by resentment and this ugly fuel that actually gets shit done in the world.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great. First of all, I love you. You're a brother. Like, what's going on in your head is so familiar to what's going on in my head. Okay. I just want to say that secondly, you would acknowledge that you're not going into the gym for two hours with resentment as the fuel, are you? I have. You have?

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Alan Ritchson]

I have before.

[Dax Shepard]

My hunch is you're quite motivated in many any domains of your life without

[Alan Ritchson]

that being certainly, like, there's enough catalysts elsewhere.

[Dax Shepard]

Think of the effort you put in out of love for your boys. Right. Or the effort you put in for your wife. Like, effort is at your disposal. The thing I feel from you that I have so deeply is fucking bullies. The number one for me and Monica's watched this a dozen times out in the real world. It drives everyone around me me nuts. I cannot observe it. And I get involved. I'm literally powerless. If I see someone that's bigger and stronger or has more leverage victimizing. So I just got to get involved. So I just want you to know, relate.

[Monica Padman]

You guys can't hang out or we should.

[Dax Shepard]

We should take a walk.

[Alan Ritchson]

It would be an amazing time. Until the unfortunate moment that's, you know, where like, something has dropped in front of you that's like, needs to be addressed. And then you take care of it and confront it. Then you go back to having.

[Monica Padman]

But guess what? Guess what? If you two are there or one of you, there's always going to be that moment every single time.

[Alan Ritchson]

What does that say about humanity?

[Monica Padman]

Because you know, because what does that say about humanity? You're always looking for it.

[Dax Shepard]

You find what you're looking for. That part's true. I have learned that over time, if my main mission in life is to protect people from bullies, guess what I find all the time that other people aren't even seeing.

[Monica Padman]

And guess who he becomes? A bully.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, hold on. No, it's not a bully if you're bullying a bully list.

[Monica Padman]

Not necessarily true. And it's tricky. Listen, I'm such a justice freak as well, so I, like, see you and I love that you care so much, but I think you can care deeply and do all the things and not feel like, exactly. Be so enriched.

[Alan Ritchson]

I guess I just can't, you know? I want you to be right.

[Monica Padman]

I'm right about everything.

[Alan Ritchson]

I'm sure you are. I know I'm not. When I look out in the world, the people that seem to enter this state of complacency and contentment that looks like a loss of inertia in the fight for justice, and that scares me.

[Monica Padman]

I understand it being scary. I really do, because I'm the same way.

[Alan Ritchson]

That would be like, my greatest fear. There's like, well, just the world messed up. What are you going to do?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, that's the world.

[Alan Ritchson]

We need a thousand more people that are full of anger and rage and a thousand less people that are like, what are you going to do? I mean, tell me I'm wrong.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I happen to live with an example. Right. So I'm going to tell you one story. Unfortunately, the listeners already heard it 20 times, but I think you'll dig it. This happened, I don't know, maybe 10 years into being with Kristen. One of these things happened, right? Oh, I know. We were driving down Sunset Boulevard. Someone threw a huge drink at the windshield of my car. Emergency breakup. And I'm beating the shit out of the guy in front of the newsstand in front of Chateau Marmont. I'm in a suit. We're on our way to an event.

[Alan Ritchson]

Amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

So what my wife told me at some point, which broke through all of it, she said, I think you think that you protect everyone in your life that you love, and it's so sweet. And I said, yeah, that's why I'm here. I'm here to protect my mom who got her ass kicked, my little sister, my brother, anyone I love. And she said, and it's so honorable. And you just want to make me feel safe. Right? And I go, exactly. And she goes, I feel so unsafe when I'm with you, because anything can happen. And I've observed a lot of stuff happened. And that was the breakthrough for me where I was like, well, fuck me. Because my goal is to make you feel safe, and if I'm making you feel very scared, I need to recalibrate at least around her. Does that register at all? It's like I was getting the opposite reaction that I was hoping I was giving to the people I loved.

[Alan Ritchson]

That registers to me. But I'm fully capable of, like, holding onto two ideas and truths at the same time.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, same. And so, like, I wonder if that fucking whoever ever has ever chucked a cup at a car ever again.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

Doubt it's ever happened. And so not everybody is cut out for. Really. A lot of people are not the warriors. Right. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

We need some people who are different.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right. In the tribe of a hundred people, someone's got to meet the. Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

You know, and you think about the conservative party these days, there's so much toxicity there and corruption, I think. And you could sort of blanket, like, all Republicans are bad or whatever, but there's something about the genetic makeup of some of those people that become, like, soldiers and stuff that, like, we need people who are a little bit like, I'm gonna do this. Ye. You know, I understand that there's a balance to culture where we need some people, and not everybody is meant to be around that kind of. But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't also live in a world where we actually create scenarios where that guy probably has never done that to somebody else

[Dax Shepard]

again, by the way. I want. You know, I'm in the middle of you two fully. We had a big debate on here. I bet you can guess what month it was.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Where I was so happy. I don't think a video has ever made me happy. Happier than watching you beat the shit out of the guy?

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

That fucking Shoved you on your motorcycle. And Monica and I had a fucking half hour debate on this show about that. Yes.

[Alan Ritchson]

Oh, did you really? Because I loved it.

[Dax Shepard]

It was my favorite thing I saw.

[Alan Ritchson]

So funny.

[Dax Shepard]

And then even just the poetic, beautiful ending where it's like the cops were going to charge him and then you were a mention drop charge. Like the whole thing was in a bow. My ideal scenario. And I was saying to Monica, and I do believe this, and I'm with you on this, which is like, yeah, that's all fine and good for people who play by your moral code. If you're all playing the same game, that's fine. You can all operate that way. But there's gonna be a handful of people. There is Putin in Russia. There is fucking Kim Jong, you know, these people are real. They exist. They're not playing by those rules. Someone on our side has to play by their rules. So I do believe that deeply there is a time and a place, and I'm not asking to give up any of that. What I would hope is that we can do that without carrying toxic part that hurts us. That's really my only dream. For you or for me?

[Alan Ritchson]

I want to share in your dream. Did you ever read the Giver?

[Dax Shepard]

No, what's that?

[Alan Ritchson]

In, like, middle school? I think it was like required reading in our school.

[Monica Padman]

Same.

[Alan Ritchson]

Brenton Thwaites is a friend of mine. He played in the movie the Giver. It's so funny because essentially the story is, in that world, somebody has this gift to receive all, basically all the memories and pain of the rest of society, right? And so they impart. Impart that emotion to the Giver, and he's the vessel for that then for the community. And it becomes a burden that you realize, like, one person is not meant to hold all this, right?

[Monica Padman]

That's right.

[Alan Ritchson]

So he becomes a bit of a sacrificial lamb, you know, and it's a very interesting glimpse into, like, the psychology of, like, communal pain and suffering and knowledge and the zeitgeist and all that. But, like, some people are, I think, kind of meant to be the giver. For a lot of people, that's like their lot in life is like, I'm the one that's gonna have to carry for us. You know, some people say an empath is like a defense mechanism that people learn. And others say that you're a deeply sensitive human being that just feels vibrations, you know, sort of ahead of other people. And really they're the canary in the coal mine. I got a tattoo of a Canary. Because I had this conversation with my middle boy so many times about these deeply feeling, you know, experiences where, you know, realize, like, there are some people in society whose role it is unfortunately or fortunately for us to be the canary in the coal mine. When the pain and the energy body, the pain body grows to the point where it's like, somebody has to raise a hand and go, like, it's so great. I can't take it. And then I think we also have archetypes in our society that are then the people that have to go out and fight that, people that have to go out and heal, people that have to feed.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, I'm with you. I do believe that we are this wonderfully dynamic group of different character types that help us all succeed as one species.

[Monica Padman]

I want to be clear about something because I was dragged into. We had a debate about you. Okay, well, about. About the situation, as Dax said. He was like, yeah, I love it. Oh, my God, it's so great.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm like, I love this dude.

[Monica Padman]

Now.

[Alan Ritchson]

I know.

[Monica Padman]

He was like, we gotta have him on. I was like, okay, no, but I am very much for justice. In fact, sometimes we argue about this where I'm like, no, no, no. We have to say, we have to be on this show saying this like it is important. And he's like, this isn't the place for that. We don't need to do that. So I. I am very justice oriented as well, but I literally cannot. I do not have the physicality to enact justice. Well, I. I am a sheriff, but not with violence, not with physical acts, but I do it another way. And so I guess my thought is, like, there are multiple ways to be a sheriff and to be angry and to speak up and to. To help facilitate the thing that you ultimately want, which is for people to care.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You know, and so I think there's more than one way to do that. One way doesn't involve your publicist having a lot of work to do.

[Dax Shepard]

But, Monica, you're sheriffing in the way that you can with people who respond to that type of sheriffing. You're in the lane you were born into, and you're doing it to your ability, which is like, you're very smart, you're very assertive. You're not afraid of confrontation. You'll get an email battle, you'll get on the phone going to get in a verbal battle. You're doing the things that you can do and you were born to do. And also, there's dudes shoving people in Public and pulling people out of cars. So your skill set's not going to work in that situation. You can't call the dude, you're not going to send an email. And so I happen to be born this size. I had an older brother, I fought a lot. So that's now my role in that situation. I think what we're arguing for is like it's okay that that's a domain. This is a domain. I don't think anyone should be out picking fights. But I do think people should be protecting other people when they see someone, someone getting hurt.

[Monica Padman]

I do think you should protect other people.

[Alan Ritchson]

If you take anything to the extreme, you start to get a better sense of it. Right. If I reach a place of enlightenment where I've let go of all resentment and anger and contempt, which sounds fascinating, I would love that future for myself and for everybody really. You achieve a state of like Zen, almost like a monk. Imagine like me becoming like a totally empty vessel for the now. As a monk, I just don't think society can run off nothing but monks.

[Monica Padman]

I agree with you. I agree. I also don't think it's just possible, even wanting for that you can't.

[Alan Ritchson]

And so I don't know where that leaves us. But I guess that's where the conflict lies for me, where it's like that just doesn't seem like a realistic solution to society.

[Monica Padman]

But don't you think tens and we talk about this a lot with this type of personality, that

[Dax Shepard]

energy. No, it's great.

[Alan Ritchson]

It's great.

[Monica Padman]

There's so many wonderful things about it. There really, really are. I wouldn't be still sitting here if there weren't. But you guys, I do think, tend to operate at tens and ones. Ones. This is true, you know, always. Y and the tens are really fun for everyone. They're great. It's like, oh my God, this is the best. And then we're in the sand dunes. The ones are like, oh my God, untenable, you know. And so I do think the overall goal has to be to live between like a three and a seven.

[Alan Ritchson]

You know what, that's so well said. I'll agree and relent to that point. You're right.

[Monica Padman]

I think you.

[Alan Ritchson]

That makes sense. I can buy into that.

[Monica Padman]

I think you get down to seven.

[Alan Ritchson]

I love that. Look in my faith, you know, my core belief is I'm a Christian. I think what Jesus came to do was less establish a religion and more establish a way of leading with self sacrificial love. It costs you something to love like that 200 bucks, a little bit of time, my wife's effort.

[Dax Shepard]

It's no problem, right?

[Alan Ritchson]

No problem. Yeah. Like basically nothing you're keying into. Like I think the most deep sacred truth in our entire universe is which that we are made to sort of in this environment, lead with a self sacrificial love and all opportunities to do that. I think if we lived in a world where everybody's looking for opportunities to sacrifice a little bit of themselves or a lot to make other people's worlds better. That's heaven.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

You know the whole idea of like heaven and hell and you're gonna do bad and there's some transaction that takes place and you either go get this prize or you go to this bad place. Like that's not it. It's. We have the opportunity to create with our tongue, with our words, with our actions, Hell or heaven, right here, right now and experience the fullness of what is on offer.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Did you know that Alan was on American Idol?

[Monica Padman]

I didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

After three years of modeling.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

He became a contestant on American Idol. Top 86 came for Hollywood Week.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Got cut.

[Alan Ritchson]

I think he got a brutal cut. My real world experience on the show, I was full of curiosity and I was full of gratitude. I had never been to LA before and everything about it was. To me, the energy of this town was just full of passion. It was infectious. I more approached life as like a realist and an opportunist and somebody who's like, I don't really know what I want to do, but I hope it's cool and fun and I'll give it my best when I find it. But I was suddenly around people that would kill to have a record contract literally slit your throat if it would help them. It meant so much to them. And fast forwarding the day we got cut, I remember they came in. I kind of tell it was going to happen. There was three groups. I. We were the first group to go and so, you know, found out and I was like, well, that's a cool experience. And I remember the person next to me fell on her back like doing a dead cockroach screaming and wailing like into the sky. Like it was like her whole life and everybody she loved had just been taken from her. I was just observing it like, what is it like to watch something that bad, Right? Yeah. Like what is it like to want something that bad? I'd never felt that before. And then I think there's something wrong with me as an artist because. Because I'M like, I think I could figure out a way to. I don't think I. I'm not gonna cry, you know. And so then I think, maybe I'm not meant to do this. Maybe I'm not really an artist because I don't feel like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you're not gonna die if it doesn't.

[Alan Ritchson]

I'll just figure out another way. There's always another way. So it was an interesting eye opening experience for me and it made me want to move out to la. I still didn't know about acting at that point, but for music, I was like, I guess this is a bit of a musical mecca. So this would be a great place. And I wanna be around people that feel like they're gonna die if they don't get this thing. I just wanna learn about what that is.

[Dax Shepard]

How like, hey, now we're moving to Hollywood.

[Alan Ritchson]

She was always.

[Dax Shepard]

She liked it.

[Alan Ritchson]

She grew up in a little town called Diffuniac Springs on a little farm. And I grew up in Niceville. I think we were meant for bigger and better things. Nothing wrong with that place. But it was like I had to get out of there.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Also, you coming to ADHD nirvana, Hollywood, the stimuli, the energy, the fucking frenetic chaos. Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And, you know, city of opportunity. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just wanted to be around opportunity.

[Dax Shepard]

You just had a real stutter. Stutter, stardy. 15 years, 16 years.

[Alan Ritchson]

For the first few years, I coasted on instincts. The American Idol thing sort of opened some doors to where people that I would meet. Like, do you have like an agent or a manager? I'm like, no, you know, well, I can get you a meeting on this thing and just talk about how you were on American Idol. And so it like kind of got me in a couple rooms. And then my very first thing was I played Aquaman on Smallville.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. 2005 to 2010. Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

So I guest starred some on that.

[Dax Shepard]

But there was a poignant moment in all this. Right. Which is you were guest starring on that show and then they were going to do a spin off of Aquaman. Aquaman, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

That happened so right out of the gate, you know, again, coasting on instincts. Didn't know what I was doing, but it was working. I started in season five on Smallville and there was a ratings record, the episode I came in on. So pretty deep into the show, they're like suddenly a boost in ratings.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

Nobody was showing up for me, but I mean, it was like, I think they thought the idea was that this character was so exciting that it was like something.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And so I was offered my own show. And it was very strange because, like, out of nowhere, suddenly I'm getting calls from. From the studio at like 10 o' clock at night. This guy be like, ellen, I'm your guy. I'm here to keep you out of trouble. It's going to be a rocket ship. If you ever go to the club, you get a little too drunk, you get in a fight, we're going to clean your mess up. You call me first. Okay. And I was like, wow, what is happening? I was like, that's Hollywood. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

In 05.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

It's not like that now, but. And I was such a goody two shoes. I was like, well, I'm never going to call this guy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And there was a merger at the time that happened between Warner Brothers and UPN to create the cd. And the president of UPN took over at the time and looked at the slate. Like, he's a guy with no resume whatsoever. He doesn't get his own show.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And so they kind of canned it then Justin Hartley.

[Alan Ritchson]

So they came back to me, though, because they had hired somebody and he got into trouble. I guess he didn't call that dude fast enough.

[Dax Shepard]

Wonderful.

[Alan Ritchson]

And they're like, well, that's not going to work. And so they came back, we started the deal again, and I was like, oh, I am going to get my own show. And then all of a sudden, Justin came off Passions and they were like, oh, this guy just came available. They really like him for this.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And it was perfect for me starting out because I realized, oh, you got to hold real loosely to this stuff until you're like, check is in the bank, you're in front of the camera, nothing is certain.

[Monica Padman]

It's air, dude. At the premiere, it's air.

[Dax Shepard]

If people go to the premiere to see themselves in a movie, they're not in it. Like, you gotta wait till it's in theater. Know if you're.

[Alan Ritchson]

It was a good life lesson for me to, like, just be real. Just hold loose.

[Dax Shepard]

So that would be up to 2010, and then 20. 2014 is kind of pivotal as well, because you get an opportunity to audition for Thor. Yeah, yeah. And walk me through.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. So I had been on a show called Blue Mountain State, which still has a lot of cultural relevance, which is wild to me because it's just. At the time when we were making it, it just got missed, you know, Spike TV trying an original scripted show for the first time, and there was really no audience for it, but still number one in the 18 to 35 male demo. And just people that it was for found it and liked it, but it was like, I could go outside, no problem. No problem. Nobody knew who we were. And the show was canceled. Spike scrapped their scripted department. It was sold to Netflix. And at the time, I think Netflix was, like, still mailing DVDs.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, right.

[Alan Ritchson]

I'm like, who's, you know, just sold the Netflix and. And then became, like, number one comedy on their platform. And suddenly I was in South Africa working on something, and we're going up like Lion's Head on a hike with my kids, and everybody's stopping me. Oh, Thad Castle. And I was like, what's happening? I had been on the show for three seasons.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And so something happened in that moment where I was like, oh, like, I'm the guy. Yeah, here we go.

[Dax Shepard]

Here we go.

[Alan Ritchson]

You should be handed me work.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Alan Ritchson]

I had, like, this kind of arrogance towards my contributions to that show. And I saw things happening in the industry that I felt like, it's not really about talent. It's just who's hot in the moment.

[Dax Shepard]

It's also almost impossible to evaluate yourself at that age, in that moment in Hollywood on a show. It's like, one day you're like, I think I'm the best member of this cast. And then two weeks later, you're like, I don't even think I'm in this show and no one cares. It's like, so I didn't have the

[Alan Ritchson]

right attitude, and I certainly had. Never again. I'm just an opportunist tripping my way through one opportunity after another and kind of meeting it with instincts and luck and just happen to look like Aquaman enough.

[Dax Shepard]

So when Thor comes around, I felt

[Alan Ritchson]

like I booked the Aquaman thing just kind of based off looks like I look like the guy. Just book it if I look like the guy. And I had my sides in my hand. I didn't even memorize it. You know, I was like. I just wasn't, like, reading.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

It was a unique, uniquely unusual audition in the sense that it was kind of what people who aren't in the business picture when they, like. It was a theater stage, There was a spotlight, the curtains had been drawn, and there were two people in a darkened theater in chairs as a casting director and assistant. It was as kind of uncomfortable as it gets. I just kind of half assed it. And it was so bad that the casting director Called my team, and they're like, we never do this. We've seen thousands of guys. We're not going to waste our time. However, when he walked in, I turned to my assistant. I said, if he has the craft, this part as his. And he did not have the craft. He did not show up, and this was his part to lose. And I was like, ooh, yeah. And that hit me, and I. I knew I was standing at a crossroads where I had a decision to make about who I wanted to be in the business. And I. Enough success to feel like I think I'm doing what I'm supposed to do for the rest of my life.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

I need to take this seriously because I never want that feedback again. I don't even know what it means. The craft. I was like, what is the craft? It was so nebulous to me. So I kind of took a break. I started studying with this guy. Every day. I would come in for three weeks just to work on those sides, because I said, I want to know what it was supposed to look like.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

There was just one read, three weeks in, where he goes, that. Did you feel that? And I go, yeah. Now how do you do that in 24 hours? He goes, that's the craft. Craft everybody keeps talking about. I started working with Deb Aquila.

[Dax Shepard]

She's now head of casting Paramount.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, she ran a little tight little masterclass, and my agent was trying to get me in and just to spend six months or a year, like, just studying the way that I should have studied and learning from her. And she didn't want to take me. Like, I know who you are. You're the guy that yells on that stupid show. And I was like, oh, I could do so much more.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I read some quotes from her. She didn't mince words with her evaluation of you at the time.

[Alan Ritchson]

No, no, she's not. Not a fan.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And I had to fight my way in. And so I said, I go. Give me something to prove myself. So she gave me this really hard. You know, she thought it was going to be like, he's never going to do. Come back at 9am I was like, all right. And I go home, I work my ass off, and I'm like, I'm going to prove to this person that I'm g to be good at this. And I showed up the next day. I nailed it enough to where she was like, okay, you can be in the class, but if you around and you think you're here for women or whatever, like, yeah, not like, then I'll kick you out in two seconds. And so the first time I showed up to that class, nobody said a word. It was like a cult. It was silent. Everybody sits down. I'm like, I don't know anybody. Nobody looks at me. Nobody says anything. I'm not like, hey, you're the new kid. It was like probably 20 people. And in walk these two kind of girls and. And they wait up front and they're quiet. And Deb walks in and she just kind of nods her head like this. Nobody said a word.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Alan Ritchson]

And they launch into this piece and they're signing to each other. And so I'm like, oh. They're like hard of hearing and. But I was so captivated by this like 10 minute piece that they did. I was crying. It was so moving. They get done and she goes, same kind of idea. She's like, that was what we've been working to. How did you feel about that? Like, oh, that was. Yeah, I did understand. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait. They know sign language. They learn sign language for this class.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

No one's ever going to see the work they just did.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

You know, they say like, the sign of a true artist is somebody that can do their work, like paint their picture, write their song and throw it away and nobody will ever know. That's really like, when you know that that's what you're born to do is when it's not for anybody. It's definitely not for money. It's not commercial.

[Monica Padman]

It's internal.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. And like Socrates even talked about this. We have an obligation. Litigation. There's a moral and ethical need for us to create for non commercial reasons. It's so against our capitalist upbringing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing's worth doing unless you can monetize it.

[Alan Ritchson]

So my whole worldview is like sort of being corrupted in that moment where by this beautiful thing that I just witnessed that was for the 15 or 20 people in that space and no one else would ever see it. And they did all that work for that sign language. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It blew my mind.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

That moment changed my career. Career forever.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And I go, that's what I'm up against. And that's who's working in the business. And that's like what is expected. And that's how they work. And they're not even doing this for a paycheck.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

I better never complain about the work that I'm doing and I better show up.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. Now, how were you navigating? You had security on Blue Mountain.

[Alan Ritchson]

Blue Mountain State?

[Monica Padman]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

You had security your regular three seasons. How were you dealing with the gaps in security? Emotionally, mentally?

[Alan Ritchson]

Well, my wife supported us in the early stages of our career. She was a senior financial analyst at icm.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

Nice.

[Alan Ritchson]

It was pretty helpful for us because when I started to get to the point where there were contracts being negotiated, she's like, so Jennifer Aniston gets. I don't think they're gonna get it when she gets. But she knew enough for me to be like, oh, this is actually what's possible. It was helpful, you know, but we've eventually transitioned into her being a stay at home mom. So when we started having kids, she left.

[Dax Shepard]

So that's nice. You had the safety net of her, but your own value worth. I'm a failure. Were you good in those periods in between or were they hard?

[Alan Ritchson]

Funny. You know, after that Thor moment when I had decided what I was going to be, there was no stopping me. When I decide that I'm going to be the best at something, I'm going to be the best at it. And you just have to move. And I'm still that way. And I've always been that way, you know, but I just hadn't really made that decision. It hadn't galvanized in my head what I needed to do with my life or how to do it. That was a pivotal moment for me. From then on, it's like, I'm going to be the best in the business. I'm going to get everything I'm after. I'm going to win every prize, I'm going to win every contest.

[Monica Padman]

You're the American Idol girl, the copper.

[Alan Ritchson]

And I got enough feedback from life, thank God, you know, that was like, you're in the right place doing this. You know, I'd screen test for four or five things and I wouldn't get it. I'm like, I'm not just going up for a hundred dollars. Nothing happens. I was up for everything. And when I wasn't, I was like, well, then I'm definitely not right for it. I'm okay because I'm right for enough, you know. And I remember one day, I don't think I've ever told this story, but I went out for a show called Titans. I went out for the lead role. It's essentially Robin, you know, it's kind of a show about sidekicks. And I remember, remember walking out of that audition so confident that I called Cat. She go, how to Go. I go, I'm gonna go buy a car. And she goes, what? Yeah, I'm going to buy a Tesla. I just booked that show. And she goes, you booked it? Booked it. And I was like, well, no, but I'm gonna book that show. And I went and bought a car.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Alan Ritchson]

I bought the P100D at the time, that thing was so. It was the fastest production car, you know, at the time. And I'm whipping around in this Tesla and I have no idea if I really have the part or not. My instincts were right. I got a call and they were like, they'd like to offer you a different part on the show. And I was like, excuse me. Yeah, I just bought a car. Yeah, I need the lead. And they're like, no, they don't feel like you're right for the lead. I was like, I killed it. And they were like, no, they just want somebody a little young, and they actually feel you're really right for Hank. And he's like, pill popping alcoholic vigilante. He's a little edgier, and they feel like, that's you. And I was like, no. And at the time, I passed so many times.

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Alan Ritchson]

Oh, yeah. I was like, no, I'm the leader. Nothing. And at the time, Shazam. Shazam. Was happening. But I was on the way to screen testing and eventually screen tested for Shazam. And had a lot of positive feedback from the studio. And so I kept getting these calls from, like, Jeff Johns about doing Titans. I was like, no, dude, I was born to play Shazam. Like a kid. Superman.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

So I turned it down five times. And on the one hand, they just kept offering me more money. And I was like, I'm not negotiating. I really am not gonna do this.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And eventually got to the point where I remember I was in my backyard in la. Jeff Johns called again. He was like, listen, I know for a fact you're not going to get Shazam. The director really wants to work with somebody else, but I'm not going back to you for this part. You have to say right now where they're going to. I was like, so devastated. But I was like, all right, I'll do it. And so I took this other part, which I really enjoyed. But Hawk and Dove was a fun little sin, but that. Yeah. So anyway. But I had almost no days off since then. That was a pretty interesting time in my career. There was some catapulting happening to, like, newer rungs on the ladder. But until then, I mean, to answer your question, there Was like a relentless belief in myself. After I decided, like, like, I know what I'm doing.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so 2020, we start talking about Jack Reacher.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And you get that you have to put on a ton of muscle.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. It was the first time I got a call from the studio and they were like, so let's talk about your workout. And I was like, this is the first time this conversation's ever happened.

[Dax Shepard]

You've got a lot of fun calls. I've never gotten. Like, the fixer, the let's talk about working out. I've never gotten those calls.

[Alan Ritchson]

I didn't love the call about your weight. Like, you need to be bigger and stronger and fast. And I was like, oh, most people just trust that I'll show up. I've never had that call. Being under the microscope like that really taught me a lot. I can empathize with what women really experience in the business because that's like, yeah. Commonplace for women. It's hard.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

When suddenly, like, I'm in my head about my body because I'm like, everybody's looking at me. They're like, we want photos and send us weekly updates. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I wouldn't like that.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, it was hard, but I made it my mission.

[Dax Shepard]

Although on their side, if I make their argument for them, which is like, in the book, he's fucking enormous.

[Alan Ritchson]

Like, mythologically large.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Like, in fact, I only know this because I was researching you. But yeah, there was a revolt when Tom Cruise played him because people were like, what the fuck are we talking about? The guy's supposed to be six five and humongous.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So in their defense, it's like, we're going to spend a fortune on this. This is going to be the thing. It has to be perfect. The guy's got to be enormous. That's what we want. If that's not for you, great. I also believe in that, which is like, no, no, this is the thing we want.

[Alan Ritchson]

And I was really unproven. Nobody in the studio system there or at the network.

[Dax Shepard]

Network was like, slam dong.

[Alan Ritchson]

Understood. Kind of like who I was. I'm just a guy they're like taking a huge bet on.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

It was risky, right. And so they don't know who I am. They don't know my work ethic. They don't know my drive. They don't know anything about me. And they're just like, we need to manage this. They micromanaged that moment in my career. You know, Don Granger who I love. I'm a huge fan. He's been my boss on Reacher since the beginning. He's Paramount, but, like, he was Tom Cruise's partner for forever.

[Dax Shepard]

And a Skydance dude.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yes. Ran Skydance against Snow Paramount. He wrote me a five page handwritten letter about every detail of what that performance should look like and gave it to me the day before we started shooting.

[Dax Shepard]

Day before.

[Alan Ritchson]

In this scene, this is what you should do with your face, your jaw. This is when you should clench. This is how you should look relaxed. It was micromanaged, and I appreciate it. It was super helpful because I was like, all right, I'll take all this in.

[Dax Shepard]

This is good for you.

[Alan Ritchson]

Give me more, right? I was, like, ready for that. I wanted it. I realized I was a very small, small part of a big machine. And it was going to be a village that was making this character come to life. And I was just sort of the vessel, right. And so I released myself to this feeling of, like, this is mine.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm impressed. That would have triggered every insecurity I'm walking around with. Like, oh, this dude assumes I can't do any of this.

[Alan Ritchson]

Totally. I had to let that go because I knew it was bigger than myself and I wanted to succeed.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Alan Ritchson]

And so I was like, this is probably what this one is going to take to work. There were a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and nobody quite knew what Reacher was at the beginning. Beginning. And so everybody had a different take. He's more stoic, he's more mean. He's more angry. He's funny. And so I knew the part well enough. I had every script memorized completely. So now it'd be like, okay, my turn. And so another producer would walk over and can I do the version where Reacher's really funny and kind of, like, loose about it? I don't like, all right, let's do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, cool. They gave themselves all the options so they could make it anything they wanted.

[Alan Ritchson]

There's a version of Reacher for season one. That's every version you can imagine.

[Dax Shepard]

So Reacher is fucking enormous. Like, 56 million global viewers in one week of season two. I don't know if people understand how enormous that show is.

[Alan Ritchson]

It's pretty unprecedented.

[Dax Shepard]

It's fucking mega.

[Alan Ritchson]

What's crazier for me centers on this one person, this titular character. It's not like, Stranger Things, where you're part of, like, an amazing ensemble. I mean, yes, we're part of an ensemble every year, but it's an anthology and it's Mostly rotating. And for that much visibility to really be on one person is very unusual and a gift in so many ways. And. And I'm so grateful.

[Dax Shepard]

And then it's opened up the door to all these other projects. One of which I watched last night, Motor City.

[Alan Ritchson]

What do you think?

[Dax Shepard]

I loved it, as I think I told you right when you walked in. I watched it with Kristen last night and she was blown away, which I love the most because I'm like, I'm going to watch this movie with this dude, Alen. I'm sure it's going to be violent. Like, I'm going to love it.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, if you want to watch it, you're like, yeah, I got to watch it. But it's so much more than that.

[Alan Ritchson]

It's so Shakespearean. Yeah. It's so unexpected.

[Dax Shepard]

So it's a silent movie. Monica.

[Alan Ritchson]

No dialogue.

[Dax Shepard]

There's no dialogue. And it's so funny because of course, I've not seen a trailer. I've known nothing about it. We sit down, we watch it. Fucking opening scenes. Really cool. Kristen's like, oh, that was a cool kind of montage to open. Like, I feel the vibe. This is good. Waiting. Okay, now we're going to hear some talking. Once we get to, like, I think maybe 10 minutes in, Kristen's like, There's no way. They've gone 10 minutes and then they're going to hit us with dialogue at 15. Yeah. So you just kind of start realizing, like, oh, fuck, they going to do this? There's this tension of like, oh, this is great. How are they going to pull the. Are they going to pull this off? And you guys pulled it off. You made a silent movie that was riveting and awesome and visually beautiful and emotion.

[Alan Ritchson]

The filmmaker, he killed it. He really honored what was on the page. Chad St. John wrote it.

[Monica Padman]

Wrote it.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. But dialogue. It was a very thin script or, you know, so I'm like, what is this?

[Dax Shepard]

Can I just say? It was on the blacklist in 2009. So if people don't know in Hollywood,

[Alan Ritchson]

every leading man had been attached to this thing at some point.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I read the list. Every Lena man, literally. Jake Gyllenhaal, I made the list. Hugh Jackman, like Chris Evans, Gary Oldman was in it. Gerald Butler, Adrien Brody. It was greenlit. Nine times, different directors.

[Alan Ritchson]

When I read that script, I remember I sat back and I was like, oh, I just read a masterpiece. I've never felt so deeply connected to at that point in time, to a piece of material that I just read. I mean, it was so moving. I was like, this has to get made.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So for people who aren't in Hollywood, the Blacklist became this thing. I don't know what year, but basically all these scripts passed through town. Mostly assistants just read them. They kick them up to the agent. If it's good, then the agent kicks it to the actors and producers are involved. But at the end of every year, there's kind of this committee that decides what was the best scripts that didn't get made. Yeah. And it's the Blacklist, and it's a cool list of, like, you know, the 10 best scripts or however many it is. And this was one of them in 2009.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. It was the brainchild of Greg Silverman, who at the time was president of Warner Brothers. It was interesting because he called Chad and he go, I want to make. Make a movie with no dialogue so that everybody around the world can have the same shared experience without language getting in the way. And Chad's like, okay, yeah. And this is what he cooked up.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, by the way, it forces you as a writer to do the thing you're told as a writer to do, which is like, don't tell me anything you could show me. That's one of the principles of screenwriting.

[Alan Ritchson]

We rely so heavily on verbal cues. It's just one tool in our toolkit. Right. And so when you remove that, you have to make really interesting choices. Right. And so anyway, man, I'm so proud of it. I want so badly for this to do so that we can continue to make more interesting stories like this. Just continue to stretch the canvas for what's possible for storytelling in Hollywood.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's a radical, huge swing that totally worked.

[Alan Ritchson]

I'm so glad you feel that way.

[Dax Shepard]

So it's set in 1973, Detroit. Ding, ding, ding. You're an ex con. You meet a girl in an alley. She's getting roughed up by her boyfriend, or we're assuming her boyfriend. You handle that dude and his buddies. You guys start dating, dating. And then there's a frame up. And now the movie kind of takes off. Right. For me, I think this would be a really unique, fun challenge because I rely on my verbal everything. It's all I am. Like, I am a talking machine, and I'm an improv machine. And I'm not sure I can give you the face that you need emotionally, but I can give you, like, Right. I'm part of the problem. I rely on that so much to do a movie where you Took away my superpower, and I just had to convey a. Everything through action.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, it feels limiting and it feels like, is this going to be enough? And I also don't want to, like, over project because I feel like I'm, like, compensating for anything. For me, I was like, I guess I'm really just going to have to trust this.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

But pot is a genius, and you could just tell he had it under control.

[Dax Shepard]

He comes from commercials and videos. Very stylized.

[Alan Ritchson]

Right. Video. Stylish. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I haven't seen his other two movies.

[Alan Ritchson]

He made one about Billy the Kid that was such a cool, interesting, interesting take on that story. It played really well. I think Venice or Cannes. He got noticed in the right way.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. Visually, it's stunning. Shailene Woodley's in it. She's incredible.

[Alan Ritchson]

Ben Foster's amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

Ben Foster, as usual. It's just so fantastic, and it's such a cool experience. And, yeah, I'm glad to hear that Silverman was conscious of this directive because I was thinking when we were watching and not even knowing that, I think I said to Kristen, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is like Cirque du soleil. I watched 60 Minutes on Cirque du Soleil. And the reason that's the most successful show in Vegas year over year, year is because everyone visiting from Japan, from China, anywhere, the Middle east, they go to this show and they enjoy it just as much as the people. And I was like, oh, this is cool.

[Alan Ritchson]

And it's a spectacle intentionally international. Yep, yep.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's very cool. You have so much stuff going on. I'm not really sure how you made all this stuff, but Reacher comes out sometime this summer.

[Alan Ritchson]

We got Motor City, July 24th in theaters. I don't think we've announced the exact day, but we have Reacher very shortly after season four, and I think it's the best season we've made yet by far. Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And then you have Runner with Owen

[Alan Ritchson]

Wilson and we have Runner with Owen Wilson.

[Dax Shepard]

That's September. We don't know that. Yeah, I think I read that online.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

How'd you like working with him?

[Alan Ritchson]

I had a great time. He's super smart.

[Dax Shepard]

So smart.

[Alan Ritchson]

Disarmingly smart.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Alan Ritchson]

Because, you know, you have some idea, as we all do, like, you have some false relationship with characters that he's

[Dax Shepard]

played and comedians in general. They're playing buffoons in movies.

[Alan Ritchson]

Exactly. But anyway, you meet him. He's hyper, intelligent.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And very thoughtful. And I Get feedback a lot. I've really moved like heavily into producing and so developing material, setting material up at Studio Videos and then executing that. I love doing that. And part of that is because I can see the macro well. Right. I'm never just looking at my character. I develop all the characters and story. I just wrote this Vietnam story that we shot for Amazon. I co wrote that.

[Dax Shepard]

What's that called?

[Alan Ritchson]

Thornton. Incredible movie. It's in the can now. We're in post. But was a writer on that. Like, I like being a part of these ideas and mining for the best story there. But not a lot of actors. A lot of them are more myopic. Right. And so when you get into conversations with actors that you're hiring or you're working with, the conversations almost always stay in the realm of like their character. You know, I wouldn't do that. And what if my character did this? And that's sort of to be expected. And so when you show up and have a conversation and he's talking about in the 1600s, there were sailors that were going into the port city. And I started thinking for this story, it sort of reminds me he's just

[Dax Shepard]

read a weird book.

[Alan Ritchson]

Totally.

[Dax Shepard]

That he's processing everything coming in through

[Alan Ritchson]

this philosophical and existential and thoughtful and just so much more about the big picture of what we're making and why. It caught me off guard a little bit.

[Dax Shepard]

All three of those Wilson brothers are shockingly brilliant. And I think the parents were professors in Dallas or something. At least one of them was. And they just read all day long.

[Monica Padman]

But they're storytellers. They do know how to tell a whole storyteller.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

All those things he wrote with Wes, those are like the best west movies are the Owen and Wes movies.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

It was great. He's really impressive. We had a great time.

[Dax Shepard]

And then the man with the Bag is Christmas time.

[Alan Ritchson]

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Santa. He crushed it.

[Dax Shepard]

Alan.

[Alan Ritchson]

I saw the.

[Dax Shepard]

I saw the reacher. It's so good. You're doing really good. It's really good. So impressed. I'll tell you one thing. I went on a motorcycle ride. I didn't know him yet. I went on a motorcycle ride. Tom Arnold invited me. We go up to the Rock store in malibu. This is 20 years. He was the governor at the time. Motorcade taking us. I'm so excited. I can't believe it. We sit down for breakfast. I get up and go to the bathroom. And when I come back from the bathroom, I sit down and he goes, dax, I've seen the Punk. I've seen the. Without a paddle. You're hilarious. I'm so excited to see everything you're gonna do. And I'm like, I can't believe Schwarzinger knows my resume. We walk outside to get on the motorcycles, and I go to Tom Arnold and I go, fucking. What about Schwarzenegger? Like, knowing all my. And he goes, oh, buddy, as soon as you went to the bathroom, he's like, who the fuck is this guy? What is he better? What was it like working with him?

[Alan Ritchson]

It was a treat. He taught me a lot about how gratitude should manifest in the life of somebody dealing with fame. I'm transitioning into a part of my journey where I'm recognizing how present fame is and how toxic it is, how intense, intrusive. But also, like, this relationship that I have with the audience, I'm so grateful for, and I want to foster that. I want to continue to tell stories that resonate with people. And there's, like, real symbiotic relationship there, right? I appreciate it, man. I hate fame. Yeah, right. Like, who wouldn't? My family hates it. My kids, we're interrupted a thousand times a day when we go places and they seize up because they're invisible.

[Dax Shepard]

You're also in a unique situation that, like, Vince Vaughn's in, right? Which is, like, you're not hiding. There's no hiding. You. You're fucking enormous.

[Alan Ritchson]

People in my family have a different relationship with it. So, like, my wife is like, I want you to have a very binary black and white when your family's around. You do not take pictures with people. You don't allow those interruptions. And that's really hard for me because on the one hand, it's just more efficient to be like, sure, let's do this. And on the other hand, they don't know that they're the 30th person to interrupt us today. So then I'm caught in this place where I feel, like, bad that it's happening, and I don't want to disappoint them. It's just like, man, there's so much conflict happening, right? So you never know how those interactions are going to go.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Alan Ritchson]

It's scary going out of the world, you know, because you're like, I don't know what today's going to have for us or who I. I'm going to frustrate. And then I work with Arnold, who deals with this on a degree that I will probably never experience.

[Dax Shepard]

Very few people will.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, his level of fame, when you're with him is something that is like, oh, my God. It's hard to describe.

[Dax Shepard]

It's 100% of people that say.

[Alan Ritchson]

100% of people. And his energy is so felt or understood by the zeitgeist, People feel him before they see him. And you can see them like this. And then they're like, what is this feeling in this disturbance in the force? Like, oh, my God. That's what.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, there's like a meteor coming through.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. It's like, man, his pole, the gravity is huge. Right. And so he's dealt with it for decades on a degree that I can't quite understand. He stops for everybody. We would be in the middle of a scene in a diner, and people would be like, banging on the glass, you know, because our lockup wasn't tight enough. Like, oh, my God, you better take a picture with us. Oh, it'd be right there. You know, Come outside and take a picture with him.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm like, I'll be having a stogie.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, he has no problem. He makes time for everybody. And so I look. Look at that. And I'm like, cat, if this is his attitude, like, I have no excuse. And she's like, he doesn't have kids, you know, so it's just like, man. Anyway. But he showed me something really interesting in the way that he approaches life and his lot in life, and I really, deeply admire how he treats people.

[Dax Shepard]

You're not going to leave without telling me my favorite thing that I saw all year. So you're in your neighborhood.

[Alan Ritchson]

Oh, God.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you have a Ducati?

[Alan Ritchson]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

You were on a Kawasaki?

[Alan Ritchson]

I was on a Ninja at the time.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you're on a Kawasaki. And then you got your boy. Boys riding.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

How much had you been riding in the neighborhood? Do you think it was really that annoying?

[Alan Ritchson]

Okay. For context, because people have no context about what was going on.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. People just saw a video of you.

[Alan Ritchson]

I got the rights to MotoGP. I love motorcycles. They're so fun. And I want to tell stories about, you know, I want to make, like, a cool, fast and furious kind of, like, thing for motorcycles. Like, international high. Like, it's cool. I love it. It's cool.

[Dax Shepard]

You see Pitts doing a TT movie right now.

[Alan Ritchson]

Channing, you know, like, Hemsworth is doing a motorcycle thing. Like, it's cool. It's like, we like that. It's cinematic and cool. And so, you know, we just set up a film, but I'm going to be riding every bike in that thing and riding it in crazy scenarios. So I really got to know how to do every kind of stunt. So I have every kind of bike you can imagine, all levels of stunt bikes, dirt bikes, and I practice on these things all the time.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And the bike that I was riding that day, I had just received. It was custom built for me, and it's exceptionally loud, and so I never left for a skier because it's not meant to go out, it's meant to go up. So I was just kind of playing with this thing while they're putting along. We're hardly moving.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. The kids are riding slower, and it

[Alan Ritchson]

was our first time around. I've never met that guy ever in my life. Never seen him before. He lied to TMZ about us. Like I told him the day before, hey, buddy, you should really slow down. None of that was true. He wasn't even there when we went up his street. We just went up one time. So he's in the back of the neighborhood. We go around right through all the streets. We go through the back cul de sac. We do that all the time.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

Every day I'm in town, we do that kind of thing. When everybody knows who you are, you're used to getting strange looks from people, right? And everybody in the neighborhood knows who I am. They know we live there, and people that kind of, like, gawk or do a slow stare, it's normal, right? And so I think this guy's just doing what everybody does. And you can see, See, I'm like, not really slowing because I didn't think he's gonna step in front of. I thought it was like, somebody go, oh, it's gonna be hay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And then all of a sudden, he steps in front of me, and I'm like, what the hell? And that's when it got weird, you know? So I'm like, this is obviously not a normal reaction, but that bike, I wasn't going fast. And it's loud. So I can understand how somebody who doesn't know what's going on might be like, it's so loud. He's racing through the neighborhood because, you know, anyway, I get myself together. He starts coming at me pretty aggressively. I push him down.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, He's a big dude, too, right?

[Alan Ritchson]

He's huge.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. He had to be six.

[Alan Ritchson]

Same size as me.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

Six, six, three, probably six, four. And he was heated. And so he's stepping in my grill, and I push him back.

[Dax Shepard]

He' violated your.

[Alan Ritchson]

I don't do the thing where I'm like, you know, you see videos of people on YouTube fighting. And they're like, they're in their face for five minutes, about to kiss and stuff like that's not going to happen with me.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Alan Ritchson]

So as soon as he started coming, I, I push him back and I get close to him and I smell alcohol and I was like, oh, it's Sunday at like 11am, this guy's drunk. So I asked him if he didn't say anything and I was like, that's what this is. And so in my mind I'm like, all right, that's what this is. Just leave. So I go to leave and he gets in front of my bike again. And you can't really tell on the body camera, but he shoves me two handed, shoves me off the bike. Me and the bike go to the ground and I'm like, no, that's the second I tried to leave the neighborhood.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you tried to de escalate a lot.

[Alan Ritchson]

That was it. At that point, there's no more conversation. I've got to protect me and I've got to protect my kids and I've got to get us off the street safely.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And that means getting him out of the picture. So I hit the guy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

And as it's happening I'm like, I really can't hurt this. I don't want like knock him out. I don't want to break a bone.

[Dax Shepard]

You want to get him out of your life with the least amount of like aggression. You want him to go like, oh, okay, I'm out.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. But I wanted just enough to where he was like, okay, oh, I see where this is going. I don't want that.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, he didn't want that.

[Alan Ritchson]

When I watch that tape back though, I'm like, yeah, actually came back again. I wasn't even paying attention cuz I was trying to get my bike to turn back on. And when you look back at it from the neighbor's tape, which is so unhelpful to my life.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

He like was on the approach again. I didn't even notice.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, she was.

[Monica Padman]

Or other neighbor was just videoing this time.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Alan Ritchson]

There's a couple things.

[Monica Padman]

Strange.

[Alan Ritchson]

That's like only the last 10 seconds of that thing, none of the beginning. And was sold to TMZ within six hours.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Alan Ritchson]

Very strange.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And this dude went and did press. I watched this guy talk. He's so full of blah, blah, blah. I'm, I'm impressed. You. I mean, obviously I think it was the right decision to not press charges and just not Be involved with the dude in any capacity.

[Alan Ritchson]

If anything makes you go like, man, God is real. It's when you buy a chess pack a year before and you're a daily writer. And I've never once I bought it thinking, like, maybe I'll just use that. So. And I put it away. Never once have I thought, like, I need to put that thing on. And I step into the garage that day and it was like somebody talked to me. It was like, where's that thing? And I was like, where is that thing? I should put that on and just see what I get. I don't even know where it is. And I dig through my cabinets and I find it tucked away on top of a shelf. And I'm like, trying to figure out how you even put it on.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a body cam, right?

[Alan Ritchson]

It's a body cam that holds your cell phone. Wow. If I hadn't had that dude, I'd probably still be in jail.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Alan Ritchson]

Because the cops came to arrest me that day. Yeah. And they only had the tape to go off of that. Like, thank God. Yeah, thank God. It was a gift from God. I think that I had that premonition or that intuition that I put it on that I had it that I could wear, that it changed the course of my life forever.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

How did you respond? You. I mean, it took over the Internet.

[Alan Ritchson]

It was the scariest thing I've ever been through. I don't like that kind of conflict. I like to work. I don't like things that are ill gotten. I don't like bad press.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you go straight to, oh, this is the shoe dropping. This is all too good. Here comes the shoe dropping. Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

I was like, oh, this is like. People that, you know, talk about how, like when you reach success, you self sabotage because people aren't okay with having success. I was like, I've self sabotaged myself. This is me not being ready for success or whatever.

[Dax Shepard]

You start beating yourself up.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. And then my kids had to experience that. It was really hard on me. That guy doesn't know how much. My kids won't ride with me anymore. Like, he robbed me of that, man. Like that dude, fuck that. I'm. I have so much anger. I have so much resentment that I just can't quite let go of. And I have nowhere to go because there's no real resolution there. I just decided to let it go. But he still took a lot from me. My bike still doesn't work. Like, I still have people trying to fix it because things broke on it and it's custom parts and so that my kids won't ride with me.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, he is the most hated man on the Internet.

[Monica Padman]

I mean. Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean you have that going for you. It definitely sucked for you, but it made you a hero for me.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Alan Ritchson]

Well, I appreciate that.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, I loved it. You tried your hardest. I tried so hard to get out of it.

[Alan Ritchson]

I did.

[Dax Shepard]

You had your kids with you. I fully get the whole scenario. And this dude insisted on this interaction and then he paid the price. So in a box with a bow for me. You did perfectly.

[Alan Ritchson]

I appreciate that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But I also understand when the whole world now all of a sudden is talking about you, that it just amuses you. Terrifying.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. My wife was at a retreat. The Hoffman process.

[Dax Shepard]

Uhhuh.

[Alan Ritchson]

They take your phone. I had no way to contact her. I was the sole caretaker of our kids. Right. And so I had another week with her being gone where I couldn't even communicate with her.

[Dax Shepard]

Just know she's getting out of Hoffman to learn this.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah. I'm like dealing with my kids and I'm calming them down and reassuring them that it's going to be okay and are you going to get arrested? I'm not going to get arrested. I don't think the cops call me outside and you know, there's an army of cops on my porch and I'm like dealing with this and I'm trying to calm my kids down, like the whole thing. And then she's not there and I'm texting her and I'm like, so I just had to punch a guy. You like the roller coaster of text that she experienced when she got out of there was like. So I think the DA's letting me on.

[Dax Shepard]

That's why you should always read the last email first.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Because problems always solve themselves by the time.

[Alan Ritchson]

But I had no support in that moment. I had nobody to process it with. I was trying to be strong for my kids. I was terrified cuz I thought my entire career tanked. You know, I had CEOs of studios calling going, what is this tape? Are we okay? Cuz I have deals everywhere.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's stressful.

[Alan Ritchson]

Oh dude. I like I'm never gonna work again. So anyway, it was a lot for me.

[Dax Shepard]

It was very healing to see that. The asshole.

[Alan Ritchson]

And again, that's sort of why though, there's just a lot of tension in being human where it's never binary. It's never as simple as going like, you know, we have to live in the colorful gray the gray in between that says we need to stand up for ourselves. And we also need to have a heavy heart about those kind of situations because we shouldn't want for those kind of things to transpire.

[Monica Padman]

And you don't.

[Dax Shepard]

You didn't. Again. That's why you're so clean on this. You didn't want that. You tried your hardest to get out of it.

[Alan Ritchson]

Anyway, I appreciate your support.

[Dax Shepard]

Just know I was out here on your behalf singing your praise. That does blow. The thing that really just hit me is like, if my girls don't want to ride with me, I.

[Monica Padman]

It's temporary. It's temporary.

[Alan Ritchson]

That was our best bonding.

[Dax Shepard]

There's nothing funner than riding with your kids.

[Alan Ritchson]

There's nothing.

[Dax Shepard]

There's nothing fun. You're like, look at us. And you drop behind.

[Alan Ritchson]

They get done, and they're like, that's the most free I've ever felt, dad. And you're like, oh, my God, what are we building? This is amazing. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And these memories that they're going to have of us doing that, I can't convince them to do it again. And I don't blame them.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

They don't want to do. They don't want to deal with that dude.

[Dax Shepard]

Alen, I dig you so much.

[Alan Ritchson]

Thank you. You're radical.

[Dax Shepard]

I truly hope we see each other in Tennessee. Everybody check out Motor City, July 24th.

[Alan Ritchson]

Please do. I'm rooting for this thing so much.

[Dax Shepard]

I am, too. It's so cool. It's so brave. And you guys executed. You had a very small window of re entry, whether you can make it work. And you crushed it. So it's so good. I hope you'll come back. Season nine of Reacher. Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

I appreciate it.

[Dax Shepard]

Thanks, brother.

[Alan Ritchson]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

Just a quick reminder that as part of our summer break, here's a rerun of one of our favorite fact checks. Monica.

[Alan Ritchson]

Padman.

[Monica Padman]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

How you doing?

[Monica Padman]

I thought there was going to be more. It seemed like there was going to be a little more.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, of course it was. It sounded like there was a statement that was going to follow, but. There was. But I was really just thinking about the fact that we rode to the attic today, which is always a great start for my day. Just wanted to throw that out there.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, that's nice.

[Dax Shepard]

And I do worry when you live across the street. I guess I could just walk over to your house and then walk you here.

[Monica Padman]

Well, yeah, that might be a fun ritual also. We won't ever have to travel.

[Dax Shepard]

That's true. We'll live where we were.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. We can walk from your house to the attic. Three steps.

[Dax Shepard]

So exciting.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. So, I mean, we should tell the armchairs because, I mean, not to, like, bring it to down. I know they're going to be sad about this, but eventually our attic that we're in right now is going to get demolished.

[Dax Shepard]

It's going to be dust and ash.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But it's going to be a while. Do you know that part, I hope. We cannot get a permit for that thing I'm trying to build. It's just not happening.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, great.

[Dax Shepard]

So. Well, yeah. I mean, great for the mojo of this attic.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But bad for, like, I need to exercise. And that's where my exercise equipment is supposed to go. This huge garage. There's no designated place in our new house.

[Monica Padman]

What about the gym? I mean, the.

[Dax Shepard]

The basement, Right? Well, that's kind of what I've been pushing Belle for. So in our current house, we have a basement. That's where all my gear is, right?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

My get ripped gear. That's where the heavy things are that I lift up and set down.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So I said, look, hon, I know the basement of the new house is a theater room.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But it's gonna probably have to be a gym for a year. She did not like that. She was like, put it in my office. I'm like, I can't fit all that crap in your office.

[Monica Padman]

What about the gaming also then you

[Dax Shepard]

to don't have even have an office.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, she's not thinking things through.

[Dax Shepard]

No. And I'm like, I can't go a year without working. I'll commit suicide in the backyard.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. Don't say that.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. By the way, can we talk about suicide?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, sure. I mean, I.

[Dax Shepard]

No. This is gonna be a weirdly encouraging take on suicide.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, goodness. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

For real. As I get deeper into Gladwell's book, I want you to read it so bad.

[Monica Padman]

I will.

[Dax Shepard]

This motherfucker.

[Monica Padman]

I love him.

[Dax Shepard]

The things he tackles. He's so fearless. So it's talking about. Oh, the famous poet. She killed herself.

[Monica Padman]

Emily Dickinson.

[Dax Shepard]

No, but you're in the right world.

[Monica Padman]

Emily Plickinson. Oh, Plath. Sylvia Plath.

[Dax Shepard]

Sylvia Plath. So she killed herself in England. And what she did was put her head in the oven and turned on the gas. And at that time, every single house in London burned a type of fuel called town gas, not natural gas that we now use. So town gas was this kind of dirty mix of all these different gases. But you could kill yourself Quite easily with it. So when all of London had town gas, the number one killer of people was town gas, was people committing suicide with town gas because it was very easy to do. And so the traditional thinking on suicide was like, well, if you get rid of town gas, people just find another way to kill themselves. And that's what I thought going into this chapter, and that's called the displacement theory, that, okay, yeah, if you took away guns, then people would just use knives or whatever.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

But the work of a certain sociologist or psychologist started investigating and realized that there's a strong coupling aspect to suicide. So it's not just that someone's on a warpath to kill themselves, it's that they have ideations that they think about it and then the situation is.

[Monica Padman]

Right, that's right.

[Dax Shepard]

And so what happened was when they switched over to natural gas, the suicide rate did dramatically drop. It didn't just move over to another method. And then he goes into the folks who have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, which I think is like 1500 at this point. Of any structure in the world, the most people have killed themselves. And there's always been these movements to put up barriers so people couldn't do it. But then the argument was, was, well, no, they'll just jump off something else. We're going to spend all these millions on these barriers and they're just going to jump off something else. So why not put it into health care or something or some prevention, which again, I would have probably bought into that theory. Right. But what one of these people did is investigated. Of the. I want to say it was like maybe 500 people who had been interrupted in their attempt to jump off the golden gate Bridge. Over 70 years, a person went and interviewed all those people that had been interrupted, and only 25 of the 500 had end up killing themselves. Wow. Yes. Isn't that so interesting?

[Monica Padman]

Suicide is one of the hardest topics for me. I get very anxious during that kind of conversation.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You know, I used to have, when I had a really bad anxiety, I used to feel like. Like I was not suicidal, but I felt like all of a sudden I was going to. I was just going to look down and I will have done it.

[Dax Shepard]

Uhhuh.

[Monica Padman]

Like it will have happened to me.

[Alan Ritchson]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Which is not what happens, but.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

But I was. Yeah. So I had a lot of anxiety around suicide.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But I think that's really profound. And sorry, I mean, not to be political, but this.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, 20,000 people a year kill themselves with a handgun in the US Now. Look, I'm a gun owner. I just want to be dead honest about that. I own guns. I also, if there was a button on the wall I could push and there's no guns in America, I would push that button in one second. So I have a very complicated relationship with it. I don't like them enough that I would want one kid in a school getting shot over my loving of them again. I know it's much deeper than that for people and it's a constitutional right and all this stuff. So I'm not even going to get into the weeds on that. I'm only going to say the data he gave is that it would appear that it would cut at least 10,000 deaths off a year off because this coupling mechanism is so strong.

[Monica Padman]

It's amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

And that's why I'm so drawn to everything he writes. Because almost every chapter I enter with the exact mindset that most people have. And then it's like some opposite way of thinking about it that's substantiated with data. I love, I love having my opinion changed.

[Monica Padman]

It's so fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It's so rare. Not for you in general. In life, it's. It's hard for people to do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But I'm giving you a compliment.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, thank you. But I find it very euphoria inducing.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Like as I was driving home from work yesterday listening to it and I was just like all a, all a titter.

[Monica Padman]

Like a little baby, A little baby

[Dax Shepard]

boy in a, in a toilet bowl of stew. Should we tell people that we think we might be having a baby?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, sure.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to, I don't want to start the rumor mill, but I used Monica's toilet at her new house, which is a non functioning house. And I, what I did is I flushed the toilet and it flushed properly and I was like, oh, the water's still on. Great. Then I whizzed. Okay. Then I hit the flusher again. Oopsies. No water in there.

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

So then I came to you. I was like, I've peed in your commode and I gotta, I'm gonna have to bring over a five gallon bucket of water and flush this thing.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

You're like, yeah, yeah, we'll get to it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then you were there like a couple days after.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And you were gonna pee your pants.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And so you peed on top of my.

[Monica Padman]

I did. I didn't want to put pee in another toilet because that would just be multiple things we'd have to figure out. So I peed on top of your pee, and it's all still there. This is weeks ago.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, geez. I'm so embarrassed for us.

[Monica Padman]

And we think that maybe the mixture

[Dax Shepard]

of the pea a life will grow.

[Monica Padman]

We don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

We don't.

[Monica Padman]

Just don't know. Maybe Malcolm Gladwell could weigh in on how many broth babies historically, how many

[Dax Shepard]

broth babies there are. I think this would be so exciting, though, if we went over there and took. Well, we went over there with the five gallon water bucket, and then we heard, mama, dad, dad. And there is a little yellow baby down there.

[Monica Padman]

No, I would really love it. I would take care of it.

[Dax Shepard]

Of course we would. Or a little urine baby.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it would probably need to, like, live in that toilet.

[Dax Shepard]

It might need to live in that toilet.

[Monica Padman]

You're right.

[Dax Shepard]

And it would be jaundice, so.

[Monica Padman]

Well, for sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Extremely jaundice. Okay. Anywho. Okay. Claire.

[Dax Shepard]

Claire.

[Monica Padman]

So the TV movie that Kristen was.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yes, we got the name of it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I got the name of it. The TV movie that Kristen was in with Claire was called Polish Wedding, and she had braces in it. But in the still that she showed me, her mouth is closed.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think that was a racist thing where they were like, all Polish people wear braces. Everyone in this movie has to have braces.

[Monica Padman]

They have bad teeth. They spend all their money on braces. That's a stereotype.

[Dax Shepard]

So Kristin had braces in real life, or she had, like, prosthetic braces. Or Claire had braces.

[Monica Padman]

Good question. No, Claire didn't. Kristen did. She said I had braces.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

But maybe you're right. Maybe that was the character had braces because. Did Kristin have braces? Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think she did.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to say she had them from for like, a week.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, well, that just one of those people.

[Dax Shepard]

No, like, they were almost perfect. She just needed a week.

[Monica Padman]

I don't buy any of that. No, no, no, no, no.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, they went to the orthodontist, and he goes, but I can have this fixed by Sunday. I'm gonna put these braces on you. I'm gonna take them off Sunday, and you're gonna have a beautiful smile.

[Monica Padman]

I would ask Google, but instead I'm gonna ask Kristen's mom. Okay, we have a quick question. Did Kristen have braces in life?

[Dax Shepard]

And for how long?

[Monica Padman]

And if so, for how long? Was it over a week? We'll see if she responds. I think she's at work, but we

[Dax Shepard]

should Open up a orthodontia clinic. That's called One Week Orthodontia. Whether we could.

[Monica Padman]

This is a huge scam.

[Dax Shepard]

I know, I know. But think how much business we would do in that first few weeks before people got wise to it.

[Monica Padman]

You're morals. You're more. Oh, my God. Like the thing you sent me last night.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. I have the greatest idea. You think? I can't even say it.

[Monica Padman]

You have to make it very clear you're kidding.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so I'm definitely joking. I have no plans to really do this, but we're watching the morning show and you know, it's loose. I'm guessing it's loosely based on Matt Lauer.

[Monica Padman]

Maybe they haven't said that explicitly, but I would say yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so it appears to be kind of based on Matt Lauer and of all of his indiscretions, there's. There's no arguing. The guy was incredibly good at that job. Right? Yeah, yeah. And Bill O'Reilly, even though I can't. I never watched a show and my politics are opposite. Tremendous at that job. He was number one in the ratings for every year he was on that network. So anyways, I was starting about launching a network called Canceled. Canceled Network or Canceled tv. And it's just all these guys that have been canceled, and I think people in public would be like, I hate that. That person. But then at home, they would probably watch it because they would think, no one's looking at them. It was really an exploration of the difference between your public and private life.

[Monica Padman]

Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. And that's a joke.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a big. That's a big, big joke.

[Monica Padman]

But, yeah, but I do think it

[Dax Shepard]

would be very successful. No, I'm not saying I want it to be successful. I think it would be very successful.

[Monica Padman]

I really don't.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't?

[Monica Padman]

No, I don't. I mean, I think they'd have us, a percentage of people who would like it. But do I think it'd be popular? No.

[Dax Shepard]

And then you came over the top.

[Alan Ritchson]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Because I was saying LAUER and Bill O'Reilly, which I don't think either was accused ever of forcing anyone against their will, rampant abuses of power. But I don't think there's any rape allegations. Right, but then you came over the top and said you could have Weinstein do like a movie of the week, too. It'd probably be good.

[Monica Padman]

I know I said once,

[Dax Shepard]

but that one, he's a.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I had a feeling. So actually that's why I said It. I was wondering what you were gonna say. You didn't respond to me for the rest of the night.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no. But I was caught up in the show you've told me to watch, but

[Monica Padman]

I wondered what your response was gonna be because I thought maybe you were gonna say something like that. Like, that's not the same thing. But it's close to the same. It's the same thing.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right. You're right. Right. It is.

[Alan Ritchson]

It is.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right. It's the same thing. And there's a gradient.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, there is, but. And I always say. I know because I'm always saying that. And the more I'm like watching some of this. Actually, I finished the morning show last night.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And Steve Carell, God, I love your audience.

[Dax Shepard]

Were really so in a mess. That's what, that's what mom said about you last night. She said, oh, my God, Monica had to change your pants five times over how good Steve Carell was.

[Monica Padman]

Everyone's jealous of Steve Carell because I talk about him all the time.

[Dax Shepard]

He's the new Jean Cordell. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but anyways, Seafarel is so good. But I'm watching this whole thing and I'm just like, yeah, it's horrible. These, these abuses of power and the chain of power. Yeah. And it's really bad. And sure. So technically, he didn't rape anyone.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm only drawing a distinction between consensual sex and non consensual.

[Monica Padman]

I know, but I think the line is a little more blurry than people

[Dax Shepard]

have traditionally giving it credit. I think you're probably right.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm seeing this because I'm listening to Catch and Kill, Ronan's podcast, which is really good. And. And I'm reading his book as well, which is also really, really good. And yeah, when you start hearing the accounts from a lot of the people, like Rose McGowan's account, all of us, like, she's being touched out of nowhere. Right. And so it's just like you're catching up. Your brain is trying to catch up to what's on, going, going on. And then it's evaluating all the ramifications, you know, career and. Or otherwise. And so by the time you could even launch maybe a game plan, you're pretty deep into an assault.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

And so I definitely underestimate how much of what could have appeared to look like consent.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly isn't exactly exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is another great chapter of. Of Malcolm's book is the complexities of consent. He's, like, number one. One of the biggest challenges is, how can you even educate people in college about consent when there's no consensus on what consent is? Is it nodding yes? Is it removing your own club? Like, he starts polling all these people on what thing constitutes consent, and there's just no consensus around that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So it's like you don't even really know what marching orders to give everyone.

[Monica Padman]

It's true.

[Dax Shepard]

It's such a complicated topic.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, baby. Pee Baby. What are we gonna name her? Pee Baby?

[Monica Padman]

Consent.

[Dax Shepard]

I think we should name him or her Pee Baby. Are you hungry, Pee Baby.

[Monica Padman]

She might not like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, she won't know that. She'll assume every. Likely not.

[Alan Ritchson]

But. But.

[Dax Shepard]

But also, she'll just assume that everyone was born in a toilet.

[Monica Padman]

Aw, that's nice for her.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Although a pee baby, you know, could have both parts.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. Maybe.

[Monica Padman]

Which would be cute.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. A little dinger and a little doo doo. A little Dee Dee and a little doo doo.

[Alan Ritchson]

Hermaphrodite.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, hermaphrodite. I learned in anthro there's really only been, I think, one or two in history.

[Monica Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Because part of the definition is that both sex organs are. Have to function. So quite often. Like, you'll see there's all kinds of things that could happen in the womb during the development where something was interrupted, but then it came back online. So you can have women with a vagina that appears almost to have, like, a penis on top where the glutaurus is, but it's not really. But, you know, there's been some cases that were filed as hermaphrodite, but they're not. They don't have functioning sex organs.

[Alan Ritchson]

This says there's approximately 700 worldwide.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't believe that.

[Alan Ritchson]

Characterized by the presence of both ovarian and testicular tissues.

[Dax Shepard]

Tissues.

[Alan Ritchson]

Or one or both gonads.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. But. All right. So I think, at least in my anthro class, they had to be functioning, not just present.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Alan Ritchson]

They call this true hermaphroditism.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

All right.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, look at this. I just claimed I love being my mind changed, so. Thank you, Rob. It doesn't feel as fun when you do it as when Malcolm put some music underneath it. Please.

[Monica Padman]

So she said claire.

[Dax Shepard]

Now we're talking.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, back to Claire, not Pee Baby.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Back to Claire. So, SoHo, at some point, you were required to be an artist.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah. I didn't want to make her eat up her time explaining the history of that to Me, But I. I was like, I didn't know that.

[Monica Padman]

I know. I had no idea. It says the artist in residence zoning like was passed in 1971 to allow for the conversion of 200 commercial lofts to residential use on the condition that each loft contained a certified artist. Soho and Noho were essentially zoned for, quote, joint living working spaces, so that these properties would be off limits to any non certified artists. For years, the law was widely ignored as agencies like the Department of Buildings concentrated their efforts on matters more pressing than carbon out affordable spaces for artists to live.

[Dax Shepard]

How does one become certified as an artist, I wonder.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

And why aren't I certified? Should we explore this?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, we should figure out the process.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to get some dirt cheap square footage. In Manhattan.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. In Soho. Soho's awesome. Yeah, if I was living in New York, I'd probably want to live there.

[Dax Shepard]

You would? I'd live in the West Village or the West Village.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's hard to pick one or the other.

[Dax Shepard]

All the good burgers are over there. In the West Village.

[Monica Padman]

I'm hungry.

[Dax Shepard]

Corner bistro.

[Monica Padman]

No, but Emily's is in Brooklyn.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's an Emily's in the West Village. In the West Village.

[Monica Padman]

But it's not our.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not our Emily's.

[Monica Padman]

It's not.

[Dax Shepard]

It's beautiful.

[Monica Padman]

It's the same Emily's. And all the burgers are a little bit different in each location. So ours was Brooklyn.

[Dax Shepard]

We'll eat there again. Maybe we'll bring our pee baby there.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, traveling with her is gonna be hard. I will say, is Kristin gonna be

[Dax Shepard]

her grandma or her mom?

[Monica Padman]

Well, no, she won't be her mom. Cause she's not in there. I guess she'd be a stepmom.

[Dax Shepard]

That doesn't feel super complimentary though, does it?

[Monica Padman]

Well, I mean, I don't know what to say. That's just the truth of the world. I know her pee is not in there. Okay. But I'm not convinced that she won't go pee in there before our baby's made.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, if it could sing really well, will know.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Okay. So her mom. Oh, yeah, her mom had a daycare. And that just reminded me, you know, my hot grandma had a daycare. Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

God, would I have loved have been one of the dads dropping the pee pee baby off and then chatting up your grandma.

[Monica Padman]

Unfortunately, there were no pee pee babies there. But I would spend summers, you know, with them. And so I was always around all these little kids, and I was really jealous.

[Dax Shepard]

You were?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh yeah, I did. Of your grandma's attention.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And then like when my mom would come, like sometimes I'd spend the whole summer, but my mom would be there for like a week or two. And then my mom would play with some of these kids and I did not like that. No. And then my aunt would sometimes come in and also be nice, like read us both a story. And I was like, no, that's my aunt.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Do you think that's from being an only child child for eight years? Yeah, probably.

[Monica Padman]

I wanted a sibling so bad.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think you're gonna have a strong streak of jealousy in your next relationship?

[Monica Padman]

Hmm, maybe. I hope not.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe though.

[Monica Padman]

No, I mean, I'll try not to. I'll work on it. I'm serious.

[Dax Shepard]

I know. I was just curious.

[Monica Padman]

How do I know? I can't predict that.

[Dax Shepard]

No, but you have like a hug hunch maybe based on the babies playing with grandma.

[Monica Padman]

Well, okay, look, people evolve, okay. I'm not.

[Dax Shepard]

I do just think though, when you're born second, like you're just. Your whole worldview is you gotta share mom with this kid. It's just you're forced to practice sharing.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

In defining love, not including exclusivity.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly, that's true.

[Dax Shepard]

It's no one's fault if you're born. I would say my brother is much more like you just cause he too had five years without me.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's true. I mean, I guess if I feel safe by the person, I probably won't feel jealous.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

But I probably didn't feel safe with

[Dax Shepard]

my mom or your beautiful Gaga.

[Monica Padman]

I'm kidding.

[Dax Shepard]

I feel like it's off brand for your hot Gaga to have had a daycare.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Well, because I'm going to all the stereotypical Indian immigrant stuff. Oh, and I think like engineering, medical, all these different things. Dairy Queen.

[Monica Padman]

No, no.

[Dax Shepard]

I never think child care.

[Monica Padman]

Not my grandma's age. Women were not doing that. Women were housewives.

[Dax Shepard]

Right? Or housewives.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, she was a housewife, but then also ran a daycare.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. Was it profitable?

[Monica Padman]

I don't know how much she charged.

[Dax Shepard]

They made a good living though, right? They saved a bunch of money and

[Monica Padman]

oh, they were very frugal. They didn't spend any money. Like she made all my mom and sister's clothes.

[Alan Ritchson]

Uhhuh.

[Monica Padman]

But yeah, my grandfather was a perfect. So yeah, they had money.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

And they gave me all of it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Just kidding, Just kidding. Just kidding. Okay, so. Oh yes. So she was talking about the guy in my so called life, who was in a Noxema commercial. So Jared Leto, who is in the Noxzema commercial, but he was actually in the commercial you liked with Rebecca Gayheart. He was her love interest.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh my God. Yeah. I can't think of any accolade that would more prove that you are the most beautiful couple in the world than to have a Noxema campaign.

[Monica Padman]

I agree.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. The Skin of Angels.

[Monica Padman]

Oh boy. Okay. Was Titanic the biggest movie of all time? When it came out, it set the record for highest domestic grossing movie ever from its debut in December 1997 to close in October 1998, making more than $650 million dollars just domestically. Yeah. You said psychology is 150 years old. The late 19th century marked the start of psychology as a scientific enterprise. Psychology as a self conscious field of experimental study began in 1879.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. I almost nailed it to the dot.

[Monica Padman]

Do you want to do exact math?

[Dax Shepard]

It's 141 years.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Great job.

[Dax Shepard]

So it's nine years off.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Really close.

[Dax Shepard]

Hey Google, what is nine divided by 141?

[Monica Padman]

The answer is approximately 0.06383.

[Dax Shepard]

Zero point. Yes. I was less than 1% off.

[Alan Ritchson]

By the way.

[Dax Shepard]

There is nothing cuter than Google in your chair. It makes me smile so much every time I walk in. She has her own microphone, right?

[Monica Padman]

She is really cute.

[Dax Shepard]

I feel like she has a cuter

[Monica Padman]

than the pee baby.

[Dax Shepard]

Don't you think she's in love with that microphone? Because they look almost the same. Yeah, they're like the clearly of the same species.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. That's nice.

[Alan Ritchson]

Oh wow.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. The DSM history that you give. Yeah, I can't find anything on that. And then I checked with Wendy. Yeah, she said a lot of stuff about the DSM and you're right that it's like controversy. Correct. But she doesn't know anything about the thump. Although she was like, I kind of remember hearing something like that. And I said, I think you may have heard it on our show.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh no, no, no. There's a. I could bring it up on YouTube right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've watched it three or four times. English man who tricked psychologists. Let me see if it pops up. It doesn't pop up. I'm gonna move on. It didn't pop up, so let's move on.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. So you'll find it and we'll put it on the yearly fact check. No, we'll talk about it.

[Dax Shepard]

We'll revisit it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Okay. So the percentage of bipolar in the US Bipolar disorder is a neurobiological brain disorder that affects approximately 2.3 million Americans today, or almost 1% of the population. Her estimate was. Was a little higher, but she said, I don't really know for sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. Then you get. We always get into this, you and I. It's always like, is that people who have already acknowledged they are, or. It's hard to know in that figure. Is it a speculation?

[Monica Padman]

I think it's people who are diagnosed, I guess.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. There's got to be a lot. Then you go like, oh, there must be a ton of undiagnosed people.

[Monica Padman]

Sure. But there's no way to do any statistics on that. We just can't do it.

[Dax Shepard]

We. We don't have the tech, unfortunately.

[Monica Padman]

We do have a good piece of tech in here. We do, but we don't have all the tech. Hey, Google, how many pee babies exist in the world?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, great question.

[Monica Padman]

Sorry, I can't help with that yet. Well, eventually she'll get to say one. When. When ours is born. We'll get back to you, Google. Okay?

[Dax Shepard]

We'll tell you first if we have the first example of one. All right, I love you.

[Monica Padman]

Bye. Love you.