Mom's Car: Karan Soni

Summary

Armchair Expert "Mom's Car: Karan Soni" (September 2, 2025) – Detailed Episode Summary

Episode Overview

This episode of the "Mom's Car" series on Armchair Expert features Dax Shepard, his best friend Aaron, and actor/comedian Karan Soni. The trio navigates LA in a car, performing food deliveries while discussing Karan's journey from growing up in Delhi, India, to becoming a successful actor in the US. The conversation weaves through culture shock, family, identity, the pressures of Hollywood, and, notably, a deep and vulnerable exploration of addiction, sobriety, and lifelong friendship, especially between Dax and Aaron.

The tone is intimate, meandering, funny, and deeply human, consistent with the Armchair Expert tradition of honest, vulnerable storytelling.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Life in LA & Early Careers

• Dax kicks things off with a joke about LA’s unemployment and everyone chasing an acting dream.
  • "No one here is employed. Every single person is trying to become an actor." (01:03, Dax)
• Karan shares stories from his days working at a pricey, struggling restaurant in LA—highlighting the city’s absurdities and competitiveness.
  • "Our hardest sell was our steak tacos... $32 for three tacos!" (01:33, Karan)

2. How Dax & Karan First Met

• Karan recalls their early brushes—one being an audition with Dax in the room, marveling at meeting big-league actors like Terry Crews.
  • "I just remember being like, oh wow, I'm in the big leagues." (04:15, Karan)
• Dax admits he didn’t research Karan before the ride to keep the interaction spontaneous and honest.

3. Cultural Upbringing & Identity

• Karan describes growing up in Delhi, leaving at 18 to attend USC, and the resulting identity transformation.
• The show “The OC” played a huge role in shaping his American aspirations, also helping him manage his sense of self as a closeted teenager.
  • "The OC was very popular in Delhi...I had curly hair, and they were like, you're kind of like the Indian Seth Cohen." (09:06, Karan)
• Karan’s family background: “agriculture nepo baby” (his words), presumed to inherit his dad’s tractor engineering business, but instead pursuing an American dream.

4. Coming Out, Family Pressure, and Therapy

• Karan is open about the difficulty of growing up closeted in India. Being gay was akin to social death; marriage was illegal.
  • "When I was there, like a one or lower [on ease of coming out]...It's illegal still to be married." (11:42, Karan)
• His time at USC introduced him to diversity and acceptance, blowing his mind to see out couples on campus.
  • "I remember seeing a lesbian couple at USC my first day...I followed them around campus because...who's going to do the first hate crime?...No one cared." (12:00–12:21, Karan)
• Karan credits therapy for helping him break old family patterns, deal with anxiety, and become more authentic.
  • "I started therapy three years ago. It's life changing." (22:23, Karan)

5. Home, Returning, and the Regression Trap

• The trio answers a listener-submitted question about moving back to one's hometown as an adult.
• Karan feels he would regress if he returned to Delhi; Dax shares how being home with family reactivates his old roles and anxieties.
  • "My instinct is it would make me regress. I wouldn't actually not be happy there, even with money..." (19:14, Karan)
  • "Where I experience that the most is when I'm with my family...I have to play the role I had my whole childhood." (19:20, Dax)
• The conversation highlights how family and home can deeply trigger past self-identities and unhealthy patterns, requiring boundaries and self-compassion.

6. Sobriety, Addiction, and their Friendship

• The episode takes a deeply personal turn as Dax and Aaron recount Aaron’s addiction journey, near-death moments, and how Dax finally stepped in.
• Dax describes the futility of trying to “save” someone from addiction unless they're ready to change.
  • "You can have all these boundaries, but you cannot talk someone into getting sober. You've just gotta want to do it." (48:36, Dax)
• Aaron’s hitting rock bottom is poignantly detailed: isolation, substance abuse, and accepting help.
  • "I knew I was dying at that point. I was in my room with a pistol, a shit ton of Coke, bottles upon bottles of whiskey. And I just didn't leave my room." (48:08, Aaron)
• Dax’s support and the logistics (passport issues, treatment in Antigua) demonstrate the fragile window of intervention.
• Five years into sobriety, Dax and Aaron reflect on how their friendship has essentially reset to their seventh-grade selves but with joy, gratitude, and new freedom.
  • "It's kind of like we just time traveled back to seventh grade. Like, the second he was sober..." (51:55, Dax)
  • "It's seventh grade, but with money." (52:13, Aaron)

Memorable Moments/Quotes

• Dax reminiscing about his codependence: “The most stressful part was that he might quit [drinking] because he got this DUI. That’s where my head was at about someone I love more than anybody.” (39:29, Dax)
• Aaron on being supported: “He loves me so much. It’s insane.” (48:08, Aaron)

7. Breaking Into Hollywood as an Outsider

• Karan shares real, raw stories of rejection and exploitation as a brown, immigrant actor trying to break into the industry:
  • "I walked into the room and he said, you are never gonna make it. Just off the phone." (55:41, Karan)
  • "This [agent scam] to me is the meanest one because I'm 19 years old." (56:55, Karan)
• He describes the shady world of starter agents, the psychological tricks to break hopefuls, and the small victories that led him (eventually) to UCB and commercial auditions.
• Karan mentions “Slumdog Millionaire” being a weird shorthand for white agents to slot him—a subtle highlight of typecasting and othering.
  • "He was like, I love Slumdog Millionaire. And there was just a pause, and I was like, does he think I'm in it?" (58:55, Karan)
• Dax praises Karan unreservedly:
  • "I think you're one of the funniest people I've seen on screen forever." (59:27, Dax)

8. On Being Authentic and Coming Out in Hollywood

• Karan didn’t feel comfortable being himself in the industry until age 30, afraid that being brown and gay were “two strikes.”
  • "I can't have two strikes against me...I had an early audition where someone was like, don't use your hands as much...I interpreted that as be less gay." (53:06, Karan)
• Ultimately, he found his comedic voice and community through UCB and a supportive network, stepping into himself as an actor and as a person.

9. Final Reflections & Brotherhood

• The episode closes with playful banter about recurring food deliveries, Karan’s navigation of LA, and thoughts about nearly being hit by Dax’s car in a future episode.
  • "The full circle will be...I'll be walking the streets and you'll run me over with a different guest." (61:16, Karan)

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Notable Quotes by Timestamps

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|----------|-------| | 01:03 | Dax | "No one here is employed. Every single person is trying to become an actor." | | 04:15 | Karan | "I just remember being like, oh wow, I'm in the big leagues." | | 09:06 | Karan | "The OC was very popular in Delhi...I had curly hair, and they were like, you're kind of like the Indian Seth Cohen." | | 11:42 | Karan | "When I was there, like a one or lower [on ease of coming out]...It's illegal still to be married." | | 12:00 | Karan | "I remember seeing a lesbian couple at USC my first day...I followed them around campus because...who's going to do the first hate crime?...No one cared." | | 19:14 | Karan | "My instinct is it would make me regress. I wouldn't actually not be happy there, even with money..." | | 19:20 | Dax | "Where I experience that the most is when I'm with my family...I have to play the role I had my whole childhood." | | 22:23 | Karan | "I started therapy three years ago. It's life changing." | | 39:29 | Dax | "The most stressful part was that he might quit [drinking] because he got this DUI. That’s where my head was at about someone I love more than anybody." | | 48:08 | Aaron | "I knew I was dying at that point. I was in my room with a pistol, a shit ton of Coke, bottles upon bottles of whiskey. And I just didn't leave my room." | | 48:36 | Dax | "You can have all these boundaries, but you cannot talk someone into getting sober. You've just gotta want to do it." | | 51:55 | Dax | "It's kind of like we just time traveled back to seventh grade. Like, the second he was sober..." | | 52:13 | Aaron | "It's seventh grade, but with money." | | 53:06 | Karan | "I can't have two strikes against me...I had an early audition where someone was like, don't use your hands as much...I interpreted that as be less gay." | | 55:41 | Karan | "I walked into the room and he said, you are never gonna make it. Just off the phone." | | 56:55 | Karan | "This [agent scam] to me is the meanest one because I'm 19 years old." | | 58:55 | Karan | "He was like, I love Slumdog Millionaire. And there was just a pause, and I was like, does he think I'm in it?" | | 59:27 | Dax | "I think you're one of the funniest people I've seen on screen forever." | | 61:16 | Karan | "The full circle will be...I'll be walking the streets and you'll run me over with a different guest." |

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:03–02:00] LA stereotypes, restaurant anecdotes
• [04:00–05:00] Early audition memories in Hollywood
• [09:00–12:30] Coming to America, identity, coming out
• [19:10–23:30] Moving back home, family regression
• [39:00–48:00] Addiction, codependency, friendship
• [48:00–52:00] Aaron's bottom and intervention
• [53:00–55:00] Karan on industry bias and authenticity
• [55:41–58:00] Agent scams and Hollywood misconceptions
• [59:00–End] Artistic affirmation, community, closing banter

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a bittersweet and hilarious journey through the messiness of striving, belonging, and healing. Karan Soni’s open storytelling about his immigrant and queer experience, coupled with Dax and Aaron’s unvarnished account of addiction and unwavering friendship, make for an episode rich with wisdom and warmth. The ride is equal parts LA satire, therapy session, and ode to chosen family—a testament to why Armchair Expert endures.

Recommended for:

• Fans of honest discussions about addiction and recovery
• Listeners curious about the immigrant experience in Hollywood
• Anyone navigating family triggers, identity, and the importance of friendship

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Hello. You caught me drinking and driving. A little Diet Coke. Welcome to Mom's car. Today we have one of the sweetest boys in America, Karan Soni. You know him from a nice Indian boy. Deadpool, Ghostbusters. He's impossibly funny and has an incredible life story. And I hope you enjoy the ride with Koren Soni. Some people just know they could save.

[Allstate Commercial Voice]

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[Dax Shepard]

Like, you know to check your phones.

[Allstate Commercial Voice]

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[Dax Shepard]

I told Aaron I might be a little different here in LA than it is in Michigan. Cause no one here is employed. Every single person is trying to become an actor.

[Karan Soni]

Gonna say. It's actually where they're triggering me a little bit. I used to work at a restaurant. Never did this, but I'm starting to already be like, oh, God.

[Dax Shepard]

An LA restaurant.

[Karan Soni]

You know the Equinox on Sunset?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Karan Soni]

There used to be a Mexican restaurant there. And my hardest sell was our steak tacos. Can you guess the price? The ingredients were just steak and three tacos in Los Angeles in 2011. 12.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. I'm gonna have to adjust down then. I was gonna say $12.99 for that 13.99, but I guess I'm gonna go 11.99.

[Karan Soni]

So I'm saying it's Mexican fine dining. $32.

[Dax Shepard]

$32.

[Karan Soni]

We couldn't sell them, and we were getting yelled at. And it was across the street from Faquito Moss. So it's already not helping. And the chef would be like, would you go to a steakhouse and pay $32 for a steak? And we're like, yeah. And they were like, it's the same steak. I just cut it up and put it in tortillas.

[Dax Shepard]

It's all about packaging, isn't it? Makes a point about packaging even. We do get a food order.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

When we get a food order.

[Dax Shepard]

When we get a food order. We picked a great time to deliver food. It's an hour before rush hour and it's raining in la, which is always the worst time to drive a car.

[Karan Soni]

I think we will get a lot of orders because it's raining, I would think.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. People will venture out.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

There you go.

[Allstate Commercial Voice]

A lot of warm.

[Dax Shepard]

Warming up their cockles.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yeah, yeah. Michigan. Those snowstorms, the Drivers get crazy orders.

[Dax Shepard]

So. Karen, the reason I wanted to do this was because Aaron's been driving Uber.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah, he was so.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm so jealous. Cause once a week he has an insane story.

[Karan Soni]

Uber's the new 7 11.

[Dax Shepard]

Did he already tell you that's what.

[Karan Soni]

I did not say that. I did not say that to him. Just using the armchair brain to put the pieces together.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. I said to Aaron, you have figured out how to work at 7:11, but you don't ever have to reach for any sodas. Just sit and be at 7:11.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. And do you enjoy driving, Aaron? I guess that's a big part of it, too. Cause if you enjoy driving, it just.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Oh, yeah. The driving doesn't bother me.

[Karan Soni]

All set.

[Dax Shepard]

We drove professionally, Aaron and I, for 14 years.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Hundreds and hundreds of miles at a.

[Karan Soni]

Time in the same car. Separately.

[Dax Shepard]

We worked for GM and we would go to, let's say, the New York Auto Show. We'd be in New York for eight days, and we would sit in front of the Jacob Javits center and wait for guests of General Motors to get in our car. And we would drive them to their hotel or to a dinner. So we have spent years of our life sitting in a car on a curb in New York City. I didn't even know this to today. I made a conscious decision to not research you. Karen.

[Karan Soni]

Yes, please.

[Dax Shepard]

So, to bring anyone up to speed, I met you because you've done an inordinate amount of projects with Kristen.

[Karan Soni]

I have, but I've met you. Not met you, but we were in the same room once. I was remembering today, audition room for the same part. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is also Hollywood a few years ago. So I was auditioning to play a gas station attendant. Dax was not.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, let's see what the role was.

[Karan Soni]

Maybe it was the film Identity Thief. They were doing a chemistry or he was in the room. It was on Larchmont. And you were talking to Terry Crews when I walked into the room.

[Dax Shepard]

That tracks. I'm friends with him.

[Karan Soni]

Yes. And you guys were, like, really getting along. And then I just remember being like, oh, wow. I'm like, in the big leagues. I didn't get it. I don't think you got it.

[Dax Shepard]

And I don't even remember reading for it. What I like about your story is it was all positive to you. Cause I could also see you getting in there to audition, being like, fuck, there's all these guys and they all know each other already got it. Oh, we're up.

[Karan Soni]

Whoa.

[Dax Shepard]

We're up. Oh, my God.

[Karan Soni]

Our first one. Oh, my God. I gotta do a U turn.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

We're going to the best fucking hot chicken in Las Feliz.

[Karan Soni]

I know exactly where this is.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Oh, you do?

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. Yeah. I've lived in this neighborhood for almost 15 years.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you have? Have you moved around within this neighborhood or.

[Karan Soni]

Same spot, same place.

[Dax Shepard]

Really?

[Karan Soni]

I had a crazy thing where I was 24, I got my first TV show and I didn't know what to do with the money. I just panicked. Cause I was like, you can't have this much money in a bank account.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, you'll lose it.

[Karan Soni]

So I put a down pay. I've just lived in that.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. Karen, you haven't driven with me.

[Karan Soni]

No, I grew up in Delhi. Which you visited recently. Yes. So you've seen the driving there. This doesn't faze me.

[Dax Shepard]

How old were you when you left?

[Karan Soni]

18.

[Dax Shepard]

Really?

[Karan Soni]

How old for college? To go to USC?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

In your 30s now.

[Karan Soni]

I'm 36.

[Dax Shepard]

Half your life you've been here.

[Karan Soni]

I'm at the half point now. Yeah. Which is really weird.

[Dax Shepard]

I hope this doesn't sound xenophobic. I would expect you to have a much thicker accent.

[Karan Soni]

One you're going to hear it. As time goes by, as you get.

[Dax Shepard]

Scared, as the driving accelerates.

[Karan Soni]

I force myself to lose it. Somehow I did. Cause some people can't. But I listened to npr. They spoke slowly and I would repeat the way they said it, but I can't do any other accent. So this is it. Whatever this is. And my original Indian accent.

[Dax Shepard]

You couldn't play English?

[Karan Soni]

No. There's just no way.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think if you tried to do English, it would unravel everything?

[Karan Soni]

Like, literally short circuit.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you spent a lot of time in New York?

[Karan Soni]

No, I haven't. I want to. I did one month, I did the New York Film Academy.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Karan Soni]

And that was it.

[Dax Shepard]

We already have our food.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, my God. Aaron. Is there usually more of a Wait. I feel like that was really fast.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yes.

[Karan Soni]

Well, my other question. Do you ever eat the food?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Every time.

[Karan Soni]

Stop.

[Dax Shepard]

Every single time. No.

[Karan Soni]

I guess it's sealed.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

They staple the shit out of it, so people cannot do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I was asking about New York, Karm. Because what I find is in New York, you could be literally on fire and people just walk by you ways. We've tried to get attention in New York when we were younger. Everyone knows they can ignore anything.

[Karan Soni]

I saw the wildest New York thing last year. I was there you know those vertical changing tents? Almost. It's usually for one person. I've only seen it on set. There were two unhoused people having sex.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. In the vertical dam.

[Karan Soni]

And there was a lot of moaning. And Ripple didn't care. It was so shocking.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Can you see the silhouettes?

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. Because they were small. And then it was partially open.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, there you go.

[Karan Soni]

Start to breathe. I would guess it was warm. When I first came to go to college, my first weekend, I was like, I want to go to Hollywood Boulevard. I took the bus from USC with a bunch of people. And I remember it was so glamorous, but it's been the same. But my perspective, I was like, this is it. And I put my hands in the hands.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that man's Chinese.

[Karan Soni]

And now I imagine, like, how thick that is.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Karan Soni]

But I have all these photos of me smiling with my hands and that. And like, truly, all this could have been happening. I have no memory of it. It was so glamorous, and I was one of those tourists.

[Dax Shepard]

And I feel like you would be good to ask, although, who knows? Cause I've seen so dicks in my life of my friends and stuff. And the only thing I think that I would agree is actually quite consistent is hand size does seem to be related.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Definitely.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And when I went there as well and put my hands in Eastwood's hands, which are there, I was like, oh, he's got a ton of sausage. Like, no wonder he's kind of Eastwood.

[Karan Soni]

I don't know him, but I don't either. Yeah, yeah. It feels right.

[Dax Shepard]

I was like, oh, this makes so much sense. So when you applied to college at USC from Delhi, were they calling it New Delhi yet?

[Karan Soni]

Still new.

[Dax Shepard]

When did it become New Delhi?

[Karan Soni]

Old Deli, too. Did you go to Old Deli?

[Dax Shepard]

To the Spice Market and stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the funnest part of the whole trip, really, was on a rickshaw going through there, seeing the men clean each other's ears and stuff.

[Karan Soni]

How you can do that. Shave outdoors, get one of your questions ready.

[Dax Shepard]

Because what I don't know if you know, Karn, is that there will be a portion of this show where people have submitted questions, and we'll try to work through and give some kind of perspective. Okay, I'll be right back.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yes. There was about 700 submissions.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, my God.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I did read through every single one of them.

[Karan Soni]

Good for you.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Cause I'm very excited and I'm very humbled by the whole thing. I love that so many people are interested in this.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you knock? I didn't knock. Am I supposed to?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

No, no, no. I wonder if Dex is gonna not listen to the instructions.

[Dax Shepard]

I thought better of it. I wanted to, because I'm like, I hope they know it's here and it's not getting cold. But then I took a picture.

[Karan Soni]

Okay, good, good.

[Dax Shepard]

I do need to hear before we get to that.

[Karan Soni]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

How are you in India and then you know about usc?

[Karan Soni]

That's a very good question. Cause there's the first Kristen connection is in this story. Because the show, the OC was very popular in Delhi when I was there. And I was in the closet in high school, so I had no identity of who I was. And that show came out, and all the cool kids. I used to get bullied a lot. And all the cool kids loved the OC and then they were like, you're kind of like the Indian Seth Cohen, which is Adam's character, because I curly hair. And he made nerds cool. And so I became obsessed with that show and became obsessed with California. I'd never been to California, so. My dad works for John Deere. He makes no. Yeah. Tractor parts.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wonderful.

[Karan Soni]

They're made in India.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy.

[Karan Soni]

Big twist. A lot of the tractors made in India and assembled here, you might have to edit them.

[Dax Shepard]

I thought they were made in, like, Iowa or Indiana or something. Indiana. Maybe it's Indiana. You're like, was there an extra A on the Indiana?

[Karan Soni]

Yeah, a lot of it is in there. And so we. I grew up worshiping John Deere. Cause that was my dad's client. And so we had visited America. Yeah, great company. Visited America, but only been to New York. Cause you kind of land in New York. And then been to Vegas for tractor conventions.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Karan Soni]

And then that was it. So California on that show was magical. The kids, the locker rooms.

[Dax Shepard]

So is it safe to say you guys were upper middle class?

[Karan Soni]

The other thing was, I was an agriculture nepo baby. As in that was gonna be my job. Very Indian son thing of. You run the family business?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Karan Soni]

So I didn't even really need to go to college. Cause I was supposed to just go do this job with him.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

[Karan Soni]

And you learn on the job.

[Dax Shepard]

Was he a dealer?

[Karan Soni]

No, he was an engineer. And then he started a factory. And by the time I was graduating, college had 500 employees.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my.

[Karan Soni]

Expanded to Caterpillar.

[Dax Shepard]

You're rich. You're rich. I know you don't want anyone to know, but you're rich. 500 employees.

[Karan Soni]

Whoa. That's not my dad worked like, seven days a week. And I, as a kid, had laid the first brick at the factory. And everyone in the factory called me Little Boss.

[Dax Shepard]

That was so cute.

[Karan Soni]

It was this thing where I was like, I didn't even have ambition or dreams because I was like, I'm just gonna do this. I had no interest in it, but I didn't even think that was the thing. And so my dad's dream was always to study in America. And he went to college in India, but he did business with Americans. And he loved the American mindset of business and how Americans think. And he was always fascinated with all that. So he was like, I always wanted to do this. You should go do it. Get a business degree and maybe you'll bring some knowledge or something back. So I was applying to school, sort of just for the business school.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you funny as a kid?

[Karan Soni]

No. No, no, you weren't? No, no, no, no. Because I was bullied so badly that I had no personality. Because any kind of standing up would be punished.

[Dax Shepard]

If San Francisco is a 10 as far as ease of coming out, where's.

[Karan Soni]

India When I was there, like A one or lower. It's illegal still to be married. You don't see any couples or any people in a relationship.

[Dax Shepard]

I saw women together in New Delhi on our trip, which is good.

[Karan Soni]

I think they're getting much better now.

[Dax Shepard]

And I wanna say there was even a neighborhood our guide took us to that was like, this is pretty open.

[Karan Soni]

I remember seeing a lesbian couple at USC my first day, like, welcome Week. And I followed them around campus because I literally was like, who's gonna do the first hate crime?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You wanted to witness.

[Karan Soni]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't wanna miss a good show. It's not allowed.

[Karan Soni]

I'm like, where does this end? And they were very beautiful and cool and they were holding hands and no one cared.

[Dax Shepard]

They were nervous.

[Karan Soni]

My mind was just blown by that idea.

[Dax Shepard]

Even though you probably were seeing it on TV now from American shows or.

[Karan Soni]

Not really every other gay storyline, which.

[Dax Shepard]

You were on, by the way, one.

[Karan Soni]

Episode, but the gay storylines used. So, like, the OC had a storyline where, like, the jock's dad was making out with another dad. He was, like, ostracized in school because he had a gay dad.

[Dax Shepard]

It didn't look inviting or safer here.

[Karan Soni]

It was always sort of, like, around that kind of stuff. But I became obsessed with California, essentially. And then I was applying to a bunch of schools, and then USC gave me the best deal, so I ended.

[Dax Shepard]

Up going there the second you got Here were you like, I'm never going home. I gotta figure out how to stay here.

[Karan Soni]

The second I got to usc, I was like, where are the white people? Because it's in a foreign. Everything was in Spanish. This is not what you saw in Hollywood. You saw Beverly Hills. So I got to usc, and I think I was imagining what UCLA is.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that would have shocked you, too. Cause I went there. I think it was 31% Caucasoid when I was there.

[Karan Soni]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And it was 39% Asian. So you would have also been like, where are the white people here? Maybe too great.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. So we had similar experiences. That was the first time.

[Dax Shepard]

But I was a white person, so I was like, oh, yeah, bring it, Asian girls. We didn't have these in Michigan.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

We were so excited.

[Dax Shepard]

Truly. It was an educational. Where we grew up, we just were ignorant. If there was an Asian person in our school, they were Chinese. You didn't know about any other.

[Karan Soni]

You didn't say Asian, by the way, in India, same. We don't know the difference between, like, Japanese, Vietnamese, any of this. We just say Chinese. Put it in one category.

[Dax Shepard]

That's comforting a little bit. Our terrible mess.

[Karan Soni]

No, no, no, no.

[Dax Shepard]

But I got there, I was like, oh, I see. I could guess high probability that someone's Korean or Vietnamese within a semester there. I was like, oh, yeah, I get the whole thing.

[Karan Soni]

But, yeah, when I got to usc, that was. And my parents came to drive me. And the other thing was, there was a car, I distinctly remember, that had bullet holes inside. And my mom just started crying.

[Dax Shepard]

No, no. USC is downtown Los Angeles.

[Karan Soni]

It's very nice now. I don't know if you've been. Recently, it's night and day different. It's like, very gentrified. But it was still a little rough.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And you weren't like, okay, I gotta stay here.

[Karan Soni]

No. But I remember I did fall in love with it. But at that point, I became obsessed with this idea that there was a ticking clock of four years and I had to make the most of it and then go back home and then hide this part of my. Again.

[Dax Shepard]

You're Cinderella.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

And the clock was gonna strike in four years.

[Karan Soni]

Exactly, Exactly. I know. You know, I came up with a student visa, so it's like there is a literal clock where it's like, you can't stay in the country. I just remember being like, every day, felt like, I've lost another day.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, like you're panicked. You were running out of time for four years. Oh, that's Weird. Yeah. Almost like you had been given a diagnosis, you were gonna die. I did not make the most of that day. So you discovered you were funny at what age?

[Karan Soni]

Well, the first time I got laughs was because I did a play in high school, actually, but I didn't realize it was a comedy. So I played everything real and I didn't put it together and people were laughing and I just remember being like, are they laughing at me? Like I didn't understand.

[Dax Shepard]

Right at me or with me?

[Karan Soni]

And then when I was at usc, I ended up doing ucb, which was.

[Dax Shepard]

A big thing that feels like I'm very out of left field. If you've not thought of yourself as funny while you would enroll.

[Karan Soni]

Because my sophomore year, essentially my dad didn't have this job anymore. He had to sell his business. Oh, no. They moved to Augusta, Georgia. Which is weird. We're just throwing you on stitches. That's John Deere country too. And so he runs this John Deere warehouse in Augusta now. He took over that 500 person factory. Now it has 1600 employees.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh my goodness.

[Karan Soni]

In each operation.

[Dax Shepard]

And that's the home of the Masters, correct?

[Karan Soni]

Yes, yes, yes. He's big into golf now.

[Dax Shepard]

I was just watching Full Swing. I can't stand golf, but I love that reality show Full Swing.

[Karan Soni]

Is that like the drive to survive?

[Dax Shepard]

It's exactly same company, box to box.

[Karan Soni]

But it's not making you want to play the sport.

[Dax Shepard]

Not at all. But it makes me want to walk around Augusta because it's impossibly beautiful how green and perfect it is. It's like Disneyland. I wanna see it. So maybe I can stay with your dad?

[Karan Soni]

Oh yeah. They have plenty of room. My mom loves to host.

[Dax Shepard]

Do they love Georgia?

[Karan Soni]

They really love it now. But it was a big shock. Cause I mean, from me moving. But like they moved in their 50s and they left Delhi, which you've been to, which is multicultural. Every kind of food, every kind of culture, everything is happening to go there. Southern, white. Yeah, it's just a smaller world a little bit. But they really love it now because is all their friends are doctors. We were never friends with doctors in India. Cause it's so different. Cause every Indian American seems to be a doctor.

[Dax Shepard]

But like in India they're the same percentage as here.

[Karan Soni]

That's just my doctor. Like you don't think of it as an Indian doctor.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Karan Soni]

But here they're the only non doctors in the community. Everyone's a doctor. And it's like their health has gotten better and they're in this doctor world.

[Dax Shepard]

Is there a big Indian community there?

[Karan Soni]

Yeah, even back then. When they moved in 2009, I was like, where are you guys going? I've never heard of this place. It's two hours from Atlanta and Atlanta is a big medical community, I guess. And so a lot of those doctors leave and create a private practice. My parents bought their first house in Georgia for $250,000.

[Dax Shepard]

And it was 6,000 square feet.

[Karan Soni]

Six bedrooms.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, exactly.

[Karan Soni]

Forget the bedrooms. There was a bowling alley.

[Dax Shepard]

For 250 grand.

[Karan Soni]

It didn't work.

[Dax Shepard]

And meanwhile, you come and buy a fucking million dollar apartment that's 1200 square feet.

[Karan Soni]

It's like crazy. But, you know, it's those old Georgia homes that are like huge mansions steeped.

[Dax Shepard]

In a kind of a plantation. Y vibe.

[Karan Soni]

Yes, the vibe is strong. But now Augusta has changed because it's not just golf. The NSA computer is there. You know the thing that was created after 9 11, that scans our texts and emails and stuff. The government thing that was like basically to help catch terrorism stuff. The big supercomputer that's doing all that is in Augusta randomly.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, really?

[Karan Soni]

They moved it there.

[Dax Shepard]

So they're a nuke site. The good news for them is they're definitely one of the first that'll be bombed.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Tell them I said that.

[Karan Soni]

Okay, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Cause we're watching the show paradise and there's a nuclear holocaust.

[Karan Soni]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And they blow up Atlanta in the show. And I'm like, well, clearly they would blow LA up, but we built a house in Nashville. And I'm like, I think they would blow up a bunch of cities before they got to Nashville, I'd like to think. But your parents, they're done.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

They got that computer there.

[Karan Soni]

Okay, perfect. And here I was worried about them aging.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Computer's the first thing to go.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we gotta get that offline asap.

[Karan Soni]

Get that computer off.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, you wanna hit us with one of the questions?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Okay. So I named this small town. She said, would love for you to discuss any angle of the challenges faced by moving back home to your small ass hometown. I just did it. And it's so weird because nothing changes, but people get older. It's just a very unique, odd experience coming back as an adult. I know you don't live in your hometown, but just would love to hear your thoughts on that and what maybe it would be like for you and BFAW to do that to me.

[Karan Soni]

My instinct is it would make me regress. I wouldn't actually not be Happy there, even with money or whatever you're saying.

[Dax Shepard]

All this other stuff where I experience that the most is when I'm with my family, my core family. I was just with them in San Francisco and I have to play the role I had my whole childhood, which is like I'm a middle child. I'm trying to keep the peace. I'm stressed out about who's getting upset at who and I gotta make a joke. And yeah, I think moving back to the town also. So I had to leave our town in 8th grade. Cause so many dudes wanted to kick my ass. When we got out of junior high, had I gone to Milford High, where Aaron went, there was like 20 guys that were waiting to knock me out in the first place. I was like terrified to go to that high school. Not cause I was some nerd that was getting picked on, but I had dated these older girls and they fucking hated it. And I had a punk rock hairdo and they hated that. So I imagine if I went back now and I was loaded and had a gangster house, they'd want to kick my ass 10 times as bad as they wanted to.

[Karan Soni]

But they haven't left.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

We thought about doing a reunion years ago. We became best friends in seventh grade. Years ago would have been our 30 year seventh grade reunion. So we spoke about it over the phone. He had his sister look into it. Even about like, we can rent that old school. Rent it.

[Dax Shepard]

We're going to rent Muir Junior High and have a reunion.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

What it boiled down to after a couple days of talking about it was, you're going to get killed. Like.

[Dax Shepard]

Like now people are really gonna hate you. Cause you have money and you really.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Will fuck the yo.

[Dax Shepard]

They were mad I was dating 8th graders. Now I'm married to Kristen now, like slice my throat.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

It started off, first of all, Dex goes, well, Kristin for sure is not coming.

[Dax Shepard]

I will not let her near that.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I was like, well, what am I doing even going?

[Karan Soni]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Then we thought, what a terrible idea. Yeah.

[Karan Soni]

Wait, Aaron, did being his best friend ever result in these guys coming after you?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

It was the strangest thing.

[Karan Soni]

They didn't make the connection.

[Dax Shepard]

Everyone loved Aar.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

The connection was made.

[Dax Shepard]

He's much more lovable than I am.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I love Dax so much. And people hated him and people hated.

[Dax Shepard]

Him with a passion.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

But I think a lot of them backed off because they saw how much I loved him.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, that's sweet. Even the bullies could see through the love. That's when you know it's strong.

[Dax Shepard]

There were arguably a Couple kids that were tougher than Aaron and I in junior high really made me want this kid that chose. But I think the fact that certainly if you were gonna fight one of us, you were fighting both of us.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So as long as we were together, I felt so safe. And then our other best friend was say this with his permission. He was called Fat Jack. And he himself would introduce himself as Fat Jack, but he was very large and impossibly strong. He set the bench press record in high school and eighth grade. And he fought men numerous times. We saw him fight adult men when he was 14. So if we were with Jack as well, we were like, oh, we can act however we want. Yes. Even around adults. We would be around adults. And we just think, oh, no problem. Jack's here. He'll handle all right.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

He can do anything.

[Dax Shepard]

When you think of moving back to Delhi, what do you.

[Karan Soni]

I started therapy three years ago. It's life changing. But prior to that, I used to have crazy anxiety. My other anxiety was I became American citizen, so I have American passport, but I used to, when I leave the country, I hold onto the passport, like, I check it obsessively because I have this feeling like I'll get stuck or something.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Karan Soni]

It's like this unrealistic anxiety, whatever. But I used to have this very sinky feeling on the plane, like, I'll get stuck there. But I will say all these things. Come back when I go home for Thanksgiving or whatever to Augusta, where old issues, like, I'm such an annoying person around my parents and stuff. And then finally with therapy, I was like, oh, this is just old stuff that's coming back. And you can stop it. There's a thread. I don't have to pull on this thread. And I'm so much more pleasant to be around now because I've just dealt with some of that stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

And I think, what was the pattern you would get into when you were, like, UV bratty?

[Karan Soni]

My parents, I'm recently always stressed about their health. In India, exercise and stuff wasn't a big thing when I was there. You know, as they're getting older, they're not taking care of themselves as much. And I go straight to this place of like, you don't love me because you don't want me to do. You're not doing it. And then I see them eating something, and they're just enjoying life. I'm, like, judgy. And then I become like, I'm gonna eat the salad, no dressing. Like, I'm missing.

[Dax Shepard]

You're putting On a show.

[Karan Soni]

I know this is how we live in California. And I'm like, I don't Even wanna.

[Dax Shepard]

Movie 8 with your shirt off.

[Karan Soni]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And the result is this.

[Karan Soni]

Exactly. And then with my sister, there's so much history. But, like, there was this deep thing that I had not worked out before therapy, which is that because she's straight, I had always had this feeling that she had it easier because she didn't have to deal with this stuff. And then I would have this expectation on her, like, what have you done with it being easier? It's all my own stuff. I actually didn't even see who she was as a person. Like, she's 33 now. And I had just missed all of it because I was so judgmental. And I think being away from them in LA made it worse. And because I was, like, independent, doing my own thing here. Then you go back there and it's like, all of it is back. And I was just like, okay, I'm not gonna pull on the thread. Three years ago, and it was hard. And there were moments where I did break. I was so much more pleasant to be around. And then they were so much more pleasant and it just is better. And there'll be moments like when I went back, I saw them eating some stuff and I'm like, this is not good. But ultimately, I'm just gonna go ahead and go.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. When my dad got diagnosed with cancer, I would go home and mind you, he had gout also, and heart disease also, so he couldn't get out of bed the last he was alive. Basically, we know what food you should and shouldn't eat if you have gout. And I would run out to go get a prescription or whatever errand I'd run, and I'd come back and he'd be in the middle of telling, get that plate outta here. And he would have eaten a cheeseburger while I was gone. And I remember going like, dan, I'm fucking flying home. And then you're sneaking a cheeseburger after he died, I was like, that was such a waste of time. Yeah, bro, you're in bed with fucking gout. You're dying. He should have eaten a thousand cheeseburgers, and I should have just shut up. And however someone wants to handle their terrible situation.

[Karan Soni]

Interesting about it is because in la, I was making only friends that had no family. Picking the people that you enjoy with family is gonna kind of stay who they are.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right.

[Karan Soni]

You kind of just have to accept that I'm not gonna change them by my nagging.

[Dax Shepard]

No, they're not gonna change you. They're not gonna change that, you know.

[Karan Soni]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And then you have to go like. And obviously I won't.

[Karan Soni]

I don't want them where they are.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yeah, it's hard to accept that.

[Karan Soni]

It's very hard.

[Dax Shepard]

We didn't have any advice.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I think they didn't want advice.

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[Dax Shepard]

Or at least past the sixth grade.

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[Dax Shepard]

I would like to tell you one story about Aaron and I.

[Karan Soni]

Yes, please.

[Dax Shepard]

We were living together in Dearborn, Michigan, again, and Aaron bought a motorcycle for 500 bucks or something.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

It was a Suzuki GS650. Is that what it was?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

GS650. Whoa. Driveshaft. I remember it.

[Dax Shepard]

I think so. Yeah. So he got this motorcycle. It's not a nice motorcycle, and it doesn't have the big enough engine. And we decide. One afternoon, sitting in our apartment, we both had wanted to go to Austin, Texas. We heard it was really great. We had never. And we were like, let's ride that new motorcycle of yours down to Austin. We had two milk crates that we bungee corded to the back, and each person got a milk crate worth of storage. And we got on this motorcycle. And by the time we got to Indiana, which is only like maybe 100 miles or so.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yeah, it's really close.

[Dax Shepard]

We were both already so miserable, but we were not gonna admit it to each other. And then the craziest thing, which is there's nothing worse than being a passenger on a motorcycle. But this was so grue and uncomfortable that you didn't want to be driving because there was too much wind. And the rule was you had to drive until you needed gas, which worked out to about 100 miles a tank if you were driving the motorcycle, you just couldn't wait to get to the gas station and get on back. And Aaron later admitted to me he was crying. I was sobbing, oh, no.

[Karan Soni]

Is it already been 100 miles?

[Dax Shepard]

We got all the way to St. Louis. We had gone 600 miles on this motorcycle, but we had like 13 or 1400 miles to. And we got to all the way to fucking St. Louis. And I think I broke. We were at a gas station, it was my turn to drive. And I go, I don't think I can do it. Like, thank God.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

It was so really. And I'm like, how long have you hated it? And he's like, since Indiana. I'm like, me too.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I was considering suicide to get out of it.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

It was just torture. But what's crazy is, once we decided we were no longer going to Austin, we're like, oh, cool. We can get off the highway. We can stop going 80, and we'll take country roads back.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

New hat. Attitude, baby.

[Dax Shepard]

All of a sudden, it was great. And we were just, like, cruising down country roads. And we found a big field, and we found someone to buy us beer. We weren't 21, so we got a case of beer. And we're sitting in this field and we're drinking. We have nothing. We're just gonna sleep in the grass. And I swear to God, out of nowhere, there's an enormous fireball, like the biggest fireball you've ever seen. And we're like, oh my God, what's that? And we're realize we're only like 300 yards away from a drag strip. A jet dragster is on the line hitting the afterburners. So then we took our beers and we went over to the fence and we were watching drag racing. Oh, and it was the greatest night ever.

[Karan Soni]

Wait, so, Aaron, I don't know as much about your story. So you moved out to California, also from Michigan. Where did you move when you left?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Well, we came out here together when we were 18 and just lived out of a car.

[Karan Soni]

Were you already going to UCLA or did you know that?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I was never gonna go to Colle. Had no intentions of being an actor. I wanted to do standup is all I thought, but I was certainly not gonna try it in Detroit. And I had read on the Road by Kerouac, and I was just obsessed with that. And we took road trips on every break we had when we were in high school. So once, well, I graduated, Aaron didn't. Which was its own moral conundrum, like, are we allowed to leave this summer or do we wait for another semester?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Let's fucking go.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, my God, who cares?

[Dax Shepard]

Aaron was also going to a high school that you could smoke cigarettes in the classroom. It was that type of a high. We decided he wasn't missing out on a ton of education. So we left and we lived in the car for like four months. And we came out here and we met a ton of people in Santa Barbara and we spent a bunch of time there and a bunch of time in Atascadero and all these little California towns, made friends. Were in Utah for a while, worked a little bit doing the car show thing occasionally. And then we came back home and then I was there for another year and a half. Right before I turned 20, I was like, I gotta leave Detroit. I'm just gonna be drunk. It was a good trap. We were so happy. There was four of us that lived together. We all had so much fun. We only had to work like, fucking a week a month to make rent.

[Karan Soni]

Well, I gotta go.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

And I was like, what's the problem?

[Dax Shepard]

Leave paradise?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I just had this inkling. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna blink and I'm gonna be 28 and wake up in this apartment and I gotta get out of here.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

And at the same time I was, by blinking, I'm 28.

[Karan Soni]

They're like, that sounds amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

And I've done nothing.

[Karan Soni]

Was that hard then to leave and come back here.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I went to Santa Barbara the first year because we had met people there, but of course they had all either graduated or left ucsb. I really didn't know anybody there. I was so fucking lonely. And then I finally did do standup one night while living in Santa Barbara, but visiting la. And then I was like, what am I doing? I came all the way here, but I'm not. So then I moved to la on my 21st birthday, went to community college and then ultimately transferred to ucla. But Aaron, during that whole time, went to work with his dad, which we had worked for in high school.

[Karan Soni]

Roofing in Michigan.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Which is a very brutal job, I was gonna say. Yeah, it's about as brutal as it gets.

[Karan Soni]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

And then Aaron, how long did you do that?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Oh, God, 10 years. Yeah, quite a while. Right up my alley.

[Karan Soni]

I loved it.

[Dax Shepard]

Until he bought, inherited. How would you describe it?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Oh, the bar. Both bought into it with a few dollars.

[Dax Shepard]

His family owned this Irish bar right next to Tiger State his whole childhood. And then they were all done running it, basically. And Aaron's like, I wanna run it. The fact that that experience didn't kill you is almost not possible.

[Karan Soni]

Especially after 10 years of the other jobs. Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But like, in the thick of it in Detroit, running a bar that was mostly bikers were visiting and punk rock dudes.

[Karan Soni]

So you saw some stuff? Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Karan Soni]

Uber or his car driving is nothing to you. Stuff is like you've seen it all.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's a two compared to three in the morning at the loggerhouse.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Well, Dax knows I showed up at some at his doorstep in Santa Monica without warning.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a knock at my door.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, my gosh.

[Dax Shepard]

And I open it up and Aaron looks like he was just pulled up from the bottom of the Detroit River. He looks like he's dead. He looks like a zombie.

[Karan Soni]

This is during the bar job.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I don't even know how I figured out how to get myself a plane ticket at that point. I was just like, I'm dead tonight if I don't leave. So I fucking left.

[Dax Shepard]

Cause St. Patty's Day would come and he would do a ton of business. He'd have thousands of dollars of cash all of a sudden. And he liked to smoke crack. So it was on.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Right.

[Karan Soni]

I see, I see.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I see just days of debt going on.

[Dax Shepard]

I had quit drinking at this point, and every single pa, I'm like, you know, we'll see if Weekly makes it through. I mean, I know he'll be off the map for four days. He'll have $0 at the end of it.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

People working for me didn't know where I was. I just trusted that everything was running.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, my gosh.

[Dax Shepard]

Of one of my favorite weekly isms, which is he shows up and he's like, I think I was gonna die if I didn't get on a plane. So he's coming off of, like, a four day run of smoking crack in people's apartments in Detroit. I'm always trying to figure out, like, is this it? Is he joining me in sobriety? Or is he just trying to get off the pipe for a minute? Which was the case, as it turned out.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, no.

[Dax Shepard]

So I'm like, yeah, come on in. Great, you're here. And then we went out to a bar in Koreatown. I think it was karaoke. He orders a drink. I'm like, okay, he's definitely drink, sure. Who cares? And he gets a little drunk, and he comes out of the bathroom, and he comes up to me and he goes, dad, fucking Terrence Posner's in the bathroom. And I go, Terrence Posner goes, yes. Terence Pozner's in the bathroom. And I go, what are you talking about? He goes, the fucking boy wizard.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

The guy from the movie.

[Dax Shepard]

And I go, harry Potter? Yes, yes.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, Daniel Ratcliffe.

[Dax Shepard]

And it wasn't. So first it was Terrance Posner's in the bathroom. Then I figure out he's talking about Harry Potter. So I'm looking for Daniel Radcliffe as the guy in glasses.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

The movie was out at the time.

[Karan Soni]

Of course, the face was everywhere. Yeah.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

This poor dude, I trapped him in the urinal. And I go, hey, Terrence Posner?

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. Oh, my God. I know. When you were saying that, I'm like, am I supposed to know who that is? I don't know. Okay. Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

What's more or less offensive if someone thinks Harry Potter or Terrence Posner? Because if they think you're Terrence Posner, you're like, oh, he's a dude. This guy worked with. But if you think you're handsome and you get compared to a little boy, yeah, that might be a little more hurtful.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah, that's true. Was that when you came out to LA on your own and you guys were separated, Was that hard? Cause you were obviously so close, or were you sort of like, I just need to get out and it's gonna be fine.

[Dax Shepard]

I think I just always accepted what. Cause I'm an addict. I just was like, yeah, he's not gonna stop until there's no phone call I'm gonna make. And also some level of who am I to say how Aaron's life's supposed to be? I wanted him to go into show business. I wanted him to come be funny with me. That's what we were in junior high. But he didn't have those dreams or aspirations. He was visiting one time and I forced him to go to this is back when I was like reading Backstage west and just going to anything. You didn't have an agent. They were casting an MTV dating show. Or maybe it wasn't even that good of a network. It might have been that.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

No, I think it was a wb.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. It was something. I make Aaron go with me. It's in Hollywood. And you're behind a big sheet of paper, illuminated so that they can see your silhouette and they're asking you questions. I did it. And then I'm like, aaron, you should do it. You're here. And then Aaron just walked through a piece of paper in the middle.

[Karan Soni]

Let me guess. They did not love it.

[Dax Shepard]

They didn't love it either of us.

[Karan Soni]

Oh my God. Did you want Aaron to be a stand up, like, what part of entertainment were you like, he would kill.

[Dax Shepard]

I wasn't sure because I didn't even know what I was doing. I came to do standup and then I went to a groundling show and I was like, oh, this feels way more like what I could do. You're not by yourself. It's not as scary. I do characters already. Just. He and I had like 10 characters. We did all growing up. And so that was a much more appealing, less scary avenue. But yeah, I just didn't say really anything. And then when I was home, we always hung out and Aaron always figured out how to to manage his addiction while I was there. Very thoughtfully. But I would be aware of like. I know this is hard.

[Karan Soni]

You're saying it though, in such a chill way. That seems really hard to do. Cause it seems like you obviously love him very much.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I love that.

[Karan Soni]

But there's a chance he wouldn't have gotten sober. Right? That's scary.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I guess because I was one. I just know how it works.

[Karan Soni]

There's nothing you can say.

[Dax Shepard]

No. One of the things I look back on where I feel bad about, he lived in a barn for a while in Michigan.

[Karan Soni]

Sharp.

[Dax Shepard]

And we were partying in this barn.

[Karan Soni]

Uh huh. Make a mental note of that.

[Dax Shepard]

It was actually a train inside of a barn, which is Kind of. Even better. There's a single wide trailer inside of a barn.

[Karan Soni]

You have two roofs over your head.

[Dax Shepard]

Very weird. Yes. He's been pervious to rainfall. We're there, we're partying. We're riding four wheelers. It's a blast. He goes into town to get some more beer. And then eventually we get a call and he got a dui. And he's calling from jail. This is how selfish an addict is. I'm panicked. He's gonna quit drinking. That's all I can think about. I don't care that he just fucked up his life license. He calls and he's like, yeah, I'm at jail. And I was like, okay, are they gonna let you out or do we need to come get you? Whenever we're talking logistics and then there's a beat and I go, are you gonna quit drinking?

[Karan Soni]

Oh, my. I'm gonna fuck no.

[Dax Shepard]

And I was like, oh, great. I don't really care about any of this. Just the most stressful part was that he might quit. Cause he got this dui. So knowing that's where my head was at about someone I love more than anybody, I just was like, yeah, you're gonna do it until you're just so fucking, you don't wanna do it.

[Karan Soni]

And when you saw him sober before you, what was you thinking?

[Dax Shepard]

Tough question. Pussy.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you judge that at all?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

No, I thought the exact opposite.

[Dax Shepard]

People do think that.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

When I got sober, I was like, oh, God, this is real. I was like, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Everyone's like, fucking.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

It triggers fuck face.

[Dax Shepard]

They're just so. They feel betrayed. Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Betrayed everything.

[Dax Shepard]

I think they immediately think you think you're better than them. Yeah. Yeah. Like when someone leaves your pod to get sober, you're like, oh, they think we're shit.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

But I saw that from a lot of people when Dex got sober. I never felt that once.

[Karan Soni]

You did, you felt. You felt.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I felt happy for him. Yeah. The whole time.

[Dax Shepard]

I never felt that.

[Karan Soni]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I never, ever detected anything but support.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I picked his brain once in a while, but not too deep.

[Dax Shepard]

Not enough to get too interested.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Too much on him.

[Karan Soni]

Does it make it feel like attainable or easier that you know someone who used to drink like you and they were able to stop or. You don't even compare yourself.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Oh, God.

[Dax Shepard]

You probably didn't think about it much. Like, when you're in it, you're so distracted by it, you have, like, immediate goals all the time. This is the beauty of being an addict.

[Karan Soni]

And then you're just kind of doing it with them anyways.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. And the thing I miss about being an addict is it kind of. Right. Sizes your problems. It's like you care about all this other stuff on some level, but you have such a more immediate goal at all times, which is maintain how fucked up I am or figure out how to get fucked up or. Or deal with the fucking shitstorm I just caused long enough to then get back to drinking or whatever the thing is. So you're not spending a lot of time with existential concerns or shit years away. You're living in the moment, which is like, let's not sober up. That's the goal.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yeah, that was the goal for the last 10 years, probably. I couldn't stand to be sober for five minutes because I couldn't deal with reality and what maybe these questions might come to. I was like, oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Or just the two. All the wreckage that. That's piling up.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yeah, that too.

[Dax Shepard]

Over a decade. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'll say I was always still shocked. Cause I would go back to Detroit and I'd be with Aaron and everyone's drinking. Of course I want everyone to drink. I hated when people wouldn't drink around me. I was like, hmm, Aaron's gotta be doing coke. He's too straight to have had 13 drinks. And everyone else is getting sloppy. And Aaron's still a good hang. Aaron was never a bad hang, even when he was fucked up. But he was never admitting he was doing coke to me. Maybe because he knew I loved coke. And then when he finally got sober, he's like, oh, yeah, I was doing coke every single day for lunch 10 years. And I'm like, oh, my God. Then I'm thinking how stressful it was all the times he was with me. Like, I gotta go to the bathroom. Is he noticing how many times I've been to the bathroom? The only thing I ever noticed, though, is just like, Aaron's much sharper than everyone else that's been drinking. Something smells.

[Karan Soni]

But that's still really impressive. Cause you would have picked up on anything, but you didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Which I think means he was probably suffering, not going.

[Karan Soni]

There's an anxiety of, like, there's a window here.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Totally. The longer you do coke, the better you get at sneaking it. Like in the Patriot, when he's doing it inside the aa. But yeah, like, I could just be laughing. Everyone's laughing. I could turn around and just go.

[Dax Shepard]

If that's how easy I could do it.

[Karan Soni]

I've never, never done it Never done cocaine.

[Dax Shepard]

But I'll tell you, we had a little bit of a weird moment before he got sober, which was Aaron went into the hospital. Cause he had a mass in his lungs, which turned out to be an infection. But when he called me, he had like, coughed so hard driving his truck, he passed out and then hit a wall in the drain out of nowhere. Stopped drinking and then was in the hospital. That's the first full fledged cry I have had since I was 11. Oh, my God.

[Karan Soni]

Not the timing. And now you're gonna cry. Cause you gotta jump.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, shit.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Are we there?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God, we're damn near there.

[Karan Soni]

Where?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Right on the other side of the light.

[Dax Shepard]

So I really had a big. Maybe all the years of ignoring, like, Aaron's health's probably going downhill when I see him. I mean, what was happening is. And Aaron, who always looked younger than me, looked much older than me. That was always trippy, like, wow, it's so weird. Aaron looks older than me. But I went home to see him in the hospital for a few days. And I just hung with him in the hospital. And it was so wonderful. Okay, what place?

[Karan Soni]

Oh, it's right here up ahead.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you know. God, you brought the prisoner.

[Karan Soni]

I know. You see that neon sign? That's Nature Welder.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

You're gonna have to pay it every episode.

[Karan Soni]

I don't have kids, so. You know.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I almost forgot. This is an episode of something.

[Karan Soni]

All right, let's go get some food.

[Dax Shepard]

So the doctor was saying, like, we don't know if he has lung cancer, which would make total sense. He smoked three packs a day. They were like, we're waiting for the HIV test to come back. I'm starting to think like, oh, my God. Yeah. Like, wow. Fuck. Aaron only made it to 45, or I guess 44. His dad died really young. My dad died really young. And I was just like, oh, God, this is all just repeating. And it's just so sad he made it through that. And he got on a crazy regimen of antibiotics. And the master started shrinking. And then ultimately he was released. And then he decided he was gonna quit drinking. And I was so excited. And then I happened to be back in Michigan. We were doing a live tour. We planned it so we would have like three weeks in Michigan on the lake. And then Aaron came out. For most of it, he wasn't drinking. But what I didn't know is Aaron was still doing cocaine. That was a version of sober. I got one time as well. Drinking's the problem.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can handle this one.

[Dax Shepard]

Then enters a little bit tricky of a zone, which this has happened to me before, is like, people wanna quit, then they come to me to quit and they relapse. And I don't care. I'm not gonna be judgmental. Ultimately, I find out he's been drinking again. And then another, I guess, eight months goes by or something like that.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

About six months.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, six more months of drinking.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Those six months were fucking horrendous. It makes me want to cry thinking about those six months.

[Dax Shepard]

This is an important part of the story. First of all, Aaron is always very quick at texting me back, no matter if he was fucked up or not. And also, he was growing weed at the time, and he wanted to buy the house next door to his house to grow weed in the house. It was a very cheap house. And so I said, I'll buy it for you, and you can pay me nominal rent. So we go through this whole process. I buy this house, we close on it, and I call him to say, we're closed. And then he doesn't call me back. And I text him, and I text him, I text him. And like, five days goes by, and I'm like, something is wrong. He wanted this house. He's got the house. And he's not even gonna pick up the phone to talk about that. He has the house and where the keys and Stu. So he finally calls me. He's like, oh, dad, sorry I didn't call you, man. I had the worst flu.

[Karan Soni]

Sorry.

[Dax Shepard]

And I literally go, you've gotta be kidding me that you think I don't know what's going on. Like, who are you talking to? Your mom.

[Karan Soni]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

And then he just kind of dropped that facade. And I had never, ever said to him, I think you should get sober. But I said, well, so you said it. Then I said, hey, I think you. You're gonna die, and I love you. And if you want, I found a treatment center in the Caribbean. I could send you right now. And when I said that, I would have really put the odds of him saying yes at, like, 8%.

[Karan Soni]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Then he just goes, yeah, I think it's time to do that. And I was like, oh, my God, thank God. Like, I've wanted this to happen for, at that point, 16 years. And then the most dangerous part of the whole story. Tell him. Then he agree. And then he doesn't have a passport, and he knows he's going to treatment, which is a worst scenario for an addict.

[Karan Soni]

Max has gone, like, straight to Business. He's like, I took the photo. I'm done. I don't talk to anyone. I need to get back to the car.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

And we've made $8.46.

[Dax Shepard]

Now we gotta split three ways, right? So then it was like, try to rush and get a passport before Aaron dies. Cause he knows he's going to treatment and I know he's going berserk.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

For the first time in my life, I meant it.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I knew I was dying at that point.

[Dax Shepard]

You hadn't left your room in four days.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yeah, when he was calling and shit. I was in my room with a pistol, a shit ton of Coke, bottles upon bottles of whiskey. And I just didn't leave my room. I mean, friends were coming over and banging on my door. And I was just telling them to please leave. So I meant it. At that moment. It was really Dax saying that. I was like, he loves me so much. It's insane.

[Karan Soni]

All this stuff is so delicate. Because what if you hadn't said that? Because you had for years.

[Dax Shepard]

And it is a pretty hard, fast rule. That is Right. You know, I tell people who have loved ones who are struggling, all you can really do is line up consequences. You can say like, you can't live at my house and use like this. You can't drive my car. You can have all these boundaries, but you cannot talk someone into getting sober. And I've seen 22 years AA people that are forced to come there, for some reason, they don't stay. Like, you just gotta want to do it. So it's very hard to figure out when you're gonna save. But I definitely thought if he hasn't left his room for five days, this might be the time.

[Karan Soni]

The thing that's really triggering me with this story is that I hate when the universe or whatever is making it hard for someone who's ready. So this passport thing would have driven me. Oh, you know what I mean?

[Dax Shepard]

I was terrified.

[Karan Soni]

Come on. Why are you punishing this person who is at some version of a rock bottom? Like, just let them.

[Dax Shepard]

And how long does this window last where he's willing to. Does he have one fun night and that buys him another?

[Karan Soni]

Yeah.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

So I was. But then knowing I had to do this, and I had those days before I had to leave. I couldn't possibly start sobering up to be in reality. Cause I couldn't handle it. So I just kept going. And I went real hard. I went everyone I knew with coke. I fucking hit him up, you know, get you back kind of thing. And I loaded up on everything.

[Karan Soni]

Three or four days.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Three or four days?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Yeah.

[Karan Soni]

And you probably knew that was happening.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I knew for sure what was happening. I was just, we gotta get this passport yesterday, right? And then at this point, Kenny show up to a flight, being awake for three days. When he landed in Antigua, I had been calling him. I don't even know if he got on the flight. But somehow I finally get ahold of him, he's landed in Antigua. Or maybe he called me.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I was in a different world.

[Dax Shepard]

He was foreign. His voice was gone. And he goes, dude, white people aren't allowed to drive here. I don't think. And I'm like, oh, my God. This means a. He's. He's being driven by a black guy who. He's not saying white people are not allowed to drive. He's like, I don't know if they're kidnapping me. And I'm like, oh, my God. Thank God he's in the car of the treatment center. He fucking made it somehow to this car. And then the next time I talked to him was like, four days into detox. And it was like, completely back to. I was like, whoa, buddy, you should have heard yourself in those last minutes.

[Karan Soni]

And it worked. This place worked.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

It took. Man, that was over five years ago.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, there was a lot of encouragement. Like, at one point he called and said, they've recommended I stay longer and I'd like to. And I was like, yes, stay for a year. I'll sell anything to keep you at that place.

[Karan Soni]

How long did it take?

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

Couple months. I went November 19th is when I left. So I was there Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I was afraid he was gonna say, like, well, I gotta come home for Christmas. I got kids. And then I was gonna be like, you're not gonna have kids if you don't get sober.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

They kept convinced me that it's probably good to stay. That's why they were like, you're gonna.

[Karan Soni]

Have to figure out five years is not that long ago.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not that long ago, and it's an eternity to be sober. It's so unimaginable. Like, if I would have said to you, hey, you're gonna be sober for five years? Back then you'd be like, that's not even possible.

[Karan Soni]

How has your friendship changed since that time?

[Dax Shepard]

It's kind of like we just time traveled back to seventh grade. Like, the second he was sober, it was like all the things had reclaimed. Being sober, being super enthusiastic to be alive on earth. I have fun Stuff now this was the person I wanted to have fun stuff with.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

It's seventh grade, but with money.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And weirdly there's like a way I can enjoy all this through having Aaron present that I can't otherwise. Like we went to the Miami Grand Prix and I had like a speaking engagement in Orlando and we stayed at the Four Seasons and we went to Disney World with a guide. And the whole time we were just like, oh my God, I can't believe we're here. I would be there with Kristen and not have that.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah, of course.

[Dax Shepard]

Same feeling. Yeah. I'm just like so thrilled that we can eat as much food as we want at the nice restaurant. It's weirdly made me be able to enjoy the whole thing so much more. Since Aaron's been back throughout the year, we get to do like 10 things together.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

It's the best.

[Dax Shepard]

The best. The best, baby. And Aaron said, back in business.

[Karan Soni]

Back in business.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you have a best friend from childhood?

[Karan Soni]

I don't, no. Because I was not myself cause of the thing. So I don't think I came out of my shell honestly till I turned 30. Cause Hollywood kind of fucked me up also because I was coming out, I was like, I can't have two strikes against me. I can't be brown and have this. And I had like an early audition where someone was like, don't use your hands as much. It was a callback or something. And they were like, they really like you. Just one note, don't move your hands so much.

[Dax Shepard]

And you interpreted that as be less gay?

[Karan Soni]

Yes, I think they were definitely trying to say that too.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Karan Soni]

They were like less hands. And I was like, uh huh. So that really messed it up also because then I just went right back in in a certain way where I was just like, I can't date properly. You know, you go on jobs, you're meeting new people, you always hide parts of yourself. At 30, I think I just finally just let it all come.

[Dax Shepard]

You're like, it's like too much, it's too much. How quickly into UCB did you go like, oh fuck, I've got a knack for this.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. I went for business to usc. And then when I didn't have this job to go back to and my dad, they had applied for the green card and I was gonna maybe get a green card with them. Cause I was under 21, I was like, oh, I can stay here. And I had been at USC enough so there was a bunch of child actors there.

[Dax Shepard]

Anyone's I know no. Okay.

[Karan Soni]

They were like the third, fourth friend on a Nickelodeon show. And then they were like, I'm 18, I'm gonna go to college. And then they were. There's like a few other kids who were from the Simi Valley area. Always had. Had an agent. And they were like, in a McDonald's commercial, I made $50,000. And to me, at age 19, I'm like, that's all you ever need to make in life.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, of course.

[Karan Soni]

I just was like, if this is a job that can exist. And then I had done some theater and stuff in high school, and I thought it was a hobby. But then when I came to USC and I didn't do it, I missed it a lot. And I was like, I think it's more than a hobby. So I just started doing Used to Be and all this other stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

But did you know somebody or did you go to a show? That's like a niche thing to know about ucb.

[Karan Soni]

I got. Because I got my first agent, and that I did because the child actor told me in 2009 to go to Samuel French Bookshop in Studio City, which I don't think exists anymore. Buy the Agency Handbook, which used to be a physical book that had 150 addresses of every LA agent. Get a clear envelope. Because you get the manila envelope, they'll throw it out in the mail room because they know it's a headshot and get the clear one. That way they can see your face. Cause there's nothing on the resume.

[Dax Shepard]

And then they feel bad.

[Karan Soni]

Well, they're just hoping that someone sees a face and goes, huh, that face. I'm interested. Otherwise they just throw it out without even opening.

[Dax Shepard]

Hack.

[Karan Soni]

It's a hat. Child actor. So got the middle envelope. I was interning at a film production company over the summer, so I sent it out. 150 places. Got three calls. First one, this man called me to Studio city. I was 19 years old, like, pre Uber, all this stuff. I, like, rented a car to go to this meeting. Very excited. I walked in the room and he said, you are never gonna make it. Just off the phone.

[Dax Shepard]

Jeez, I am. I'm Mike Gibson. You're never gonna make it.

[Karan Soni]

I don't even.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it Karen? Karen, you're not, not gonna make it.

[Karan Soni]

Honestly, he sounded a lot like Dax.

[Dax Shepard]

And then he high fived Terry Crews and said his meetings adjourned.

[Karan Soni]

He just saw my face and he was like, you're never gonna make it. To give him understanding. He was like this poor kid. Like, let me just end this now while he's young. And I just was so in shock and I just got back in the car and like, cried. And then of course, everyone my school friends was like, you had a meeting? Cause I obviously was bragging. I have this, you know, so mature. And then I'm like, yeah, we're like, you know, I'm gonna see what's gonna happen. He had just completely eviscerated me in five minutes. And then I met husband and wife. And then they were like, please do a monologue. And I was like, whoa, this compared to that guy who didn't even see anything. So I did this monologue. They were like, amazing. They were like, go outside in the waiting room while we discuss. And I wanted it so badly. Later on I learned it's a psychological trick to keep someone waiting in another room or something. It makes you start feeling like, what are they talking about in that room? Like, what's happening? Go back in the room. So desperate for them to like, say yes. And they go like, we want to do this. Here's the start paperwork. First page was like, special skills. Second page, bank account number, routing number.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no, there's so many mean people.

[Karan Soni]

This was really mean. Actually, this to me is the meanest one because I'm 19 years old. What are you doing? I didn't know that that was shady because. But the child actor told me never pay anyone. Like no one told me in school or anything.

[Dax Shepard]

You at least knew that.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah, I was like, something is a little off. But I was like, they're so nice. Let me go back in. And I'm just gonna ask why they need this information. So I go back and ask. And I distinctly remember the wife was the more manipulative one. She was like, oh, sweetie, you're so smart. You're asking such good questions. And then she's like, here's the thing. Like, we're gonna work so hard for you. You're gonna book all the time, so it won't matter. But like one month, if you don't book something, we're gonna transfer whatever it was, $300 to our account for all the time we spent. And I was like, uh huh. And I just remember getting this horrible feeling like something is really bad. And I hate confrontation. So I slowly was like kind of walking out of the room. And then she was like, fill it out. And I'm like, I don't know my routing number. So I was like, I need to call the bank. And she's like, call them from here. In my memory, her head Is, like, twisting, like, exits or whatever. And then I was like, no, no, no. Call her from.

[Dax Shepard]

Her horns are poking out of her hair, covering her hair.

[Karan Soni]

And so I get in the car and I start driving to just leave. I just ran away from there. And she starts hammer calling me. And I let her go to voicemail, and she left me, like, 15, 16 voicemails. Started with, hey, sweetie, we're really worried. Like, where are you? We can't find you to the last one.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

She's taking you to court.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. No yelling. Being like, I've called every producer, every casting director. I was 19. I was like, she might have. Like, maybe I'd burn every bridge.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Mind you, she doesn't own a single bruiser. We know now.

[Karan Soni]

And so that was the second one. And then the third one was this guy who was legitimate in Woodland Hills, maybe it was in a strip mall. And he was like, I wanna sign you for commercials. And he told me to go to UCB because it was a big thing at the time to, like, learn improv. You can improvise in commercial auditions. But he was like, do you wanna know why I'm signing you? And I was like, yeah, sure. And Slumdog Millionaire had just come out that summer, and he was like, I love Slumdog Millionaire. And there was just a pause, and I was like, does he think I'm in it? What am I supposed to say to this?

[Dax Shepard]

Tal was his.

[Karan Soni]

And then. Yeah. And I just was like, y. I was really going in there, but I was like, maybe I need to pretend like I'm in it. I don't know. And then that was it. We just never talked about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Never came up again.

[Karan Soni]

Never came back again.

[Dax Shepard]

He was on to the next movie.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. So then my junior year, I started auditioning, and then he would send me on, like, one a week.

[Dax Shepard]

And were you booking commercials?

[Karan Soni]

No, I ended up getting them later, but I didn't in the beginning at all. It was horrible.

[Dax Shepard]

They're demoralizing.

[Karan Soni]

It's the first thing that I was able to kind of quit and be like, I don't want to go out for this anymore. And I just remember feeling, like, such relief that I didn't have to.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I want to say out loud, on the record, I think you're one of the funniest people I've seen on screen forever. I'm not kidding. You are the best part of that movie Kristen did in England. I love you in Deadpool. Every time I see you pop up, I'm like, oh, my God. I can't wait to see. You have such a weird and unique angle. That is so delightful.

[Karan Soni]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

That's so sweet. You're so good. It's crazy to think that you didn't even think about doing comedy until.

[Karan Soni]

But that Kristen thing was such a special thing because I don't know if you ever had this experience, but when you are working with something and you're like, I'm not the famous person in this movie. There's many famous people. And I'm like, we don't have that many scenes, but I wonder if we'll hang out. And you just don't know because you're just like. You know, the person has the power and if they're interested and they're living in a different hotel. I was in a different place, you know, it's totally fine. But I was like, I knew Ben going in before, so I was like, I'll have that friend there. And then who knows? And. And then Claire, the director. But then I remember distinctly core memory of sitting in my apartment I had in Kensington and I just got an unknown number and it was like, hey, it's K. Bell. I wanna get dinner. You're like, it happened. Yeah, yeah. Those little things. Like, I appreciated more after Covid this job. Sometimes we were just like, this is such a bizarre. It's like high school awareness again. Every generation the cool kid has texted me, I'm gonna go to the dinner.

[Dax Shepard]

With them or whatever.

[Karan Soni]

And you're like, I'm 30 something years old. What is happening?

[Dax Shepard]

I'm gonna say, Karen, thank you so much for Jo.

[Karan Soni]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

On our inaugural voyage. I'll be out of focus, but that's okay. And then you'll be out of focus, but some of you will be there last year.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun.

[Dax Shepard]

I want you to come on every trip.

[Aaron (Dax's best friend)]

I know. I think it should be a screen on this ride. How will we ever find the restaurants?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. We're fucking lost without getting it.

[Karan Soni]

Yeah. The full circle will be. I'll be walking the streets and you'll run me over with a different guest. With a different guest. And that'll be how my journey will end. Because it does not feel safe. I'm just going to put it out there. If you're watching and you're feeling like it's not safe, it's not.

[Dax Shepard]

What's great too is as you're about to get hit, it won't be the headlights that blinds you. It'll be this light inside of my windshield. Oh, my God.