Sharon Horgan

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Guest: Sharon Horgan

Original Release Date: October 13, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this engaging and candid episode, Dax Shepard and Monica Padman sit down with Sharon Horgan—Emmy-nominated actor, writer, director, and producer known for Bad Sisters, Catastrophe, and more. The conversation moves through Sharon’s unorthodox path to TV success, the cultural differences in British and American showbiz, the making of Bad Sisters, her thoughts on creative burnout, and juggling motherhood and creative life. The trio discuss vulnerability, family legacy, and the messy, honest parts of both making television and living a creative life. Sharon reveals some behind-the-scenes inspirations and anxieties, all with her signature wit and openness.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Post-Emmys Hangover and Sharon’s Life Philosophy

[03:26]

• Sharon and the hosts bond over exhaustion from recent Emmy festivities. She shares chaotic and comedic stories from after-parties, including falling over after attempting an ambitious walk home.
• On powering through commitments, even after rough nights:
  • “If you tell someone you’re gonna be somewhere, come hell or high water, you’re gonna be there.” – Sharon Horgan [06:45]
• Discussion about the stressful logistics of award season—including outfit changes and jet lag.

2. Family Background and Early Influences

[07:24]

• Sharon reveals she's one of five siblings and discusses her "middle child" status.
• Her parents ran pubs in London and Ireland. Her father, a “tough” Irish-Kiwi publican, became a turkey farmer, a move motivated by creating a better family environment.
  • "My dad was the kind of person who didn't give a sh*t what anyone thought of him.” – Sharon Horgan [10:00]
• Reflections on inheriting some of her dad’s quirks, now embarrassing her own children.

3. Turkey Farming, Childhood Work, and Going Vegetarian

[13:31]

• Sharon and her siblings were “the labor” on the farm, especially during turkey-processing season.
• She admits becoming a vegetarian young due to the realities of turkey farming.
• Some memorable, darkly comic details about the process—including never being the one to kill the birds.

4. Creative Beginnings and Late Bloomer Status

[16:13]

• She describes her time as a “class clown” and being on the periphery of popularity in school.
• Went to art college, realized she wasn’t the “best,” dropped out, and moved to London at 19/20.
  • "There was a lot of time wasted. But once I started doing [writing], I was super hyperfocused." – Sharon Horgan [21:35]
• Spent six years working in a Job Centre—a period she describes as “depressing.”
• Return to university for an English and American Studies degree, but admits to poor memory retention outside scripts and lines.

5. Collaboration with Dennis Kelly & First Industry Breakthroughs

[19:31]

• Met creative partner Dennis Kelly in youth theatre. Their partnership sparked her start in sketch and sitcom writing.
• The arc from obscure sketch comedy and animated shows (Monkey Dust), to the big break with Pulling.
• Sharon recounts winning the British Comedy Award for Best Female Newcomer at 37, highlighting her “late” arrival in the industry and a lack of structure in her pursuit.

6. British vs. American TV Industry: Two Worlds

[22:04]

• Comparison of UK and US TV: In Britain, very few shows continue beyond two or three seasons—even beloved hits.
• She describes the heartbreak of having Pulling canceled after a short run, even when it felt like "the dream scenario."
• In the US, pilots abound but many never get produced: “People could happily make a great living never getting anything made here.” – Sharon Horgan [26:28]
• The realities of rapid-cancellation, pilot traps, and the weird economics of TV.

7. Catastrophe, Rob Delaney, and Creative Chemistry

[27:35]

• Sharon and Dax both praise Rob Delaney’s unique comedic voice, discovered through Twitter.
• Catastrophe began as a “mutual admiration” and grew into a stellar writing and performing partnership.
  • “You play the chemistry lottery.” – Dax Shepard [29:11]
• Sharon notes the blend of nerves and pride in handing off creative control in later projects, like writing Divorce for Sarah Jessica Parker.

8. Motherhood, Guilt, and Working in TV

[36:00]

• Intimate discussion on the “push-pull” of working in TV and being a mother.
  • “When you’re at work, you feel guilty you’re not with your kids. And when you’re with your kids, you feel guilty you’re not working.” – Dax Shepard [37:02]
• The dislocating bubble of production life and the whiplash of re-acclimating to family after.

9. Making ‘Bad Sisters’

[38:36]

• Bad Sisters as Sharon’s first big American hit.
• Adapted from a Belgian series, Sharon reimagined the tone for an Irish setting, blending comedy and darkness.
  • “It’s the hardest tone to pull off in anything—when you’re bouncing back and forth.” – Dax Shepard [40:33]
• She shares how specificity in casting and building chemistry made the show’s family dynamic “buzz.”
• Casting Eve Hewson (Bono’s daughter) involved discovering her authentic, grounded comic ability.
  • “A bad influence, but takes the work seriously.” – Sharon Horgan on Eve Hewson [45:46]
• Navigating leadership vs. ensemble mindset and the bittersweetness of being both boss and peer.

10. Awards, Representation, and Industry Intention

[47:14]

• Winning a Peabody Award highlighted the show’s combination of entertainment, intention, and representation.
  • “Success with intention, I guess. It’s not just about the entertainment.” – Sharon Horgan [48:22]

11. The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox

[48:35]

• Sharon’s latest acting work in Hulu’s The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, playing Amanda’s mother.
• She met the real Amanda Knox and her family, reflecting on the emotional weight of true crime stories.
• The complexity and controversy around telling such a divisive, traumatic story.

12. Development Projects & Managing Creative Overload

[55:01]

• Sharon discusses upcoming projects, including adaptations and new series at HBO and Netflix.
• Dax warns about creative burnout, referencing the Avicii documentary as a cautionary tale about overwork.
  • Sharon acknowledges her need to “catch up” due to her “late start,” but enjoys the work-life balance she’s created now.

13. Creativity, Sex Scenes, and Female Power in Writing

[61:46]

• The vulnerability and awkwardness of writing sex scenes for oneself and others—especially as a woman.
• Discussion of industry double standards regarding gender and creative expression in sexually explicit content.

14. Sobriety, Grief, and Returning to Drinking

[63:42]

• Sharon recounts three years of sobriety, the clarity and energy that came with it, and how grief (her father’s death) drew her back to drinking—for a while.
• The cyclical nature of habits, anxiety about parental drinking, and the onslaught of social media content about alcohol’s dangers.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "My dad was the kind of person who didn't give a sh*t what anyone thought of him." – Sharon Horgan [10:00]

• "There was a lot of time wasted, but once I started doing [writing], I was super hyperfocused." – Sharon Horgan [21:35]

• "In Britain, it’s very rare for a show to go more than three seasons. Is that maddening?" – Dax Shepard [22:12]

• "You play the chemistry lottery." – Dax Shepard (on Catastrophe) [29:11]

• "When you’re at work, you feel guilty you’re not with your kids. When you’re with your kids, you feel guilty you’re not working." – Dax Shepard [37:02]

• “It’s the hardest tone to pull off in anything—when you’re bouncing back and forth.” – Dax Shepard (on Bad Sisters) [40:33]

• "Success with intention, I guess. It’s not just about the entertainment." – Sharon Horgan (on the Peabody Award) [48:22]

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Key Timestamps

• 03:26 – Emmys aftermath and Sharon’s philosophy of commitment
• 07:24 – Horgan family dynamics and pub life
• 13:31 – Turkey farming and early vegetarianism
• 16:13 – Early adulthood, art school, and self-discovery
• 19:31 – Partnership with Dennis Kelly, finding her creative path
• 22:04 – British vs. American TV industry
• 27:35 – Rob Delaney, Catastrophe, and creative chemistry
• 36:00 – Working moms and professional guilt
• 38:36 – The making and success of Bad Sisters
• 47:14 – Peabody Award and intentional storytelling
• 48:35 – The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox
• 55:01 – Upcoming projects and creative workload
• 61:46 – Writing sex scenes; power and vulnerability
• 63:42 – Sobriety, grief, and drinking patterns

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Flow & Tone

• The episode is candid, loose, and filled with self-deprecating humor.
• Sharon's warmth, insight, and comedic timing shine, making for a lively, unfiltered dive into the realities of being a creator and parent.
• Dax and Monica create a welcoming, playful environment, balancing admiration with relatable stories about insecurity and awkwardness.

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Final Takeaway

This episode presents a rich, authentic portrait of Sharon Horgan—from her blue-collar roots and circuitous journey to TV success, to the struggles and joys of motherhood, the distinct flavors of UK and US television, and the constant wrestling act between personal ambition, anxiety, and creative satisfaction. Listeners walk away with a deep sense of Sharon’s resilience, humor, artistic rigor, and her refreshingly transparent attitude about the costs and rewards of a life in storytelling.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free. Right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Horgan and I'm joined by Monica Sharon. Hello. Hello. I sure hope people are as obsessed with Sharon as I am. When I saw Bad Sisters, I was like, this person intrigues me to no end.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then only to find out she had created the show and wrote on it.

[Monica Padman]

Amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

Is incredible. Sharon Horgan is an Emmy nominated actor, writer, director and producer. Bad Sisters, Catastrophe, Motherland Together this way up. And she's in the new limited series on Hulu, the Twisted tale of Amanda Knox.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, if you listen to that episode, you will have heard about Sharon as well.

[Dax Shepard]

We've never interviewed someone who's created this many TV shows and we've interviewed some famous showrunners.

[Monica Padman]

That's true.

[Dax Shepard]

She's the most prolific.

[Monica Padman]

Shonda.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, we did have Shonda.

[Monica Padman]

All right. They're both great women. They're both great women.

[Dax Shepard]

We love women. We don't need to make them compete.

[Monica Padman]

We're not pitting a woman against a woman.

[Dax Shepard]

We don't need to body shame anyone.

[Monica Padman]

That's right. We're not doing it.

[Dax Shepard]

Please enjoy. Sharon Horgan. We are supported by Function Health. You know what's fascinating? Your body is constantly sending signals about your health, but most of us only see a tiny fraction of that data. That's why I chose Function. It's the only health platform that gives you access to over a hundred biomarkers, from hormones to heart health markers, all tracked in one secure place.

[Monica Padman]

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[Dax Shepard]

Yes, I love seeing my health data mapped out over time helps me understand exactly what's happening in my body. It's no wonder top health leaders like Dr. Mark Hyman and Andrew Huberman are behind Function Health. This platform truly empowers you to own your own health journey. Learn more and join using our Link, the first 1,000 people get $100 credit toward their membership. Visit www.functionhealth.com DAX or use code DAX100 at signup to own your health. This episode is brought to you by Anthropic. So I've been genuinely obsessed with this AI called Claude. And I have to tell you about it because it's completely different from what you' you know how Our conversations with guests always end up in fascinating and kind of raw places. Exploring why people make the choices they do, or diving into those complicated human moments that don't have easy answers. Well, I started using Claude to help me think through some of these deeper questions between episodes. And what's wild is that it doesn't rush to answers. It actually thinks through problems with you. When I'm preparing for interviews, I can upload research papers or articles, and Claude helps me explore different angles, like search the web for current perspectives, even build interactive research tools using something called artifacts to map out complex topics. Basically, it's like having this thinking partner that matches your curiosity about the complicated stuff. When I'm trying to understand a guest work or explore connections between different ideas, Claude helps me see blind spots I might miss. Try Claude for free at Claude AI Armchair Expert and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.

[Sharon Horgan]

He's an armchair expert. He's an armchair expert.

[Dax Shepard]

I was gonna ask. Cause we were all just at the Emmys.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And are you still a little exhausted from that whole thing?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

How bad?

[Sharon Horgan]

Well, went to this mental party at the end of the night. I mean, it was weird on Sunday night. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Without naming names. Tell me, what brand of mental was it?

[Sharon Horgan]

I can't completely remember, but I think it was brothers, and I think they just do it every year. Oh, okay. And so there was proper people there. I fell over. Look, you can see.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that's a sign of a good evening.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. Maybe I'll be like, that's not gonna work. Because I stupidly decided to walk home. You know, when you get very, like.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, you get ambitious.

[Sharon Horgan]

I'm fine.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

And so I walked home and then went art over tit. But, yeah, it was these brothers, and they do it every year, apparently. And he sort of remodeled his home to be like a party house.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, that was two nights ago. So we're still.

[Dax Shepard]

Still.

[Monica Padman]

I'm still struggling.

[Sharon Horgan]

Have we started?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're always starting.

[Sharon Horgan]

Does it matter that all my shit's just here?

[Dax Shepard]

We like it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah. As long as you're happy with it.

[Dax Shepard]

You dress so nice. You can now pull off anything. If you throw up at some point.

[Sharon Horgan]

In this interview, I have another engagement after your lovely podcast. Cause I didn't know whether to be casual or dress it up, but because I gotta be dressed up for this other thing. It's just the whole thing of coming over for the Emmy stuff is how many outfits You've gotta pack. Yeah, yeah. And change into. And put jewelry on and get your hair done.

[Dax Shepard]

How many days was this trip?

[Sharon Horgan]

I arrived over on Friday.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you go out Saturday night or did you know about it?

[Sharon Horgan]

I went out Friday night.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So you're just barely with us.

[Sharon Horgan]

And last night too. But last night was just eating pork chops and drinking water.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Sharon Horgan]

And maybe just one gin and tonic because I hadn't seen my friend for a long time.

[Monica Padman]

Did you go to the Dunsmore?

[Sharon Horgan]

No. Why? Are they pork chop places?

[Monica Padman]

Well, that's the only place I could think of that has pork chops.

[Sharon Horgan]

No, I went to Sunset Tower.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I love Sunset Tower.

[Sharon Horgan]

They do a really good pork chop.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Sharon Horgan]

I was so obsessed with eating last night. You know when there's like four things on the menu you want? Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yes. And there's this whole internal struggle and worry that you're gonna pick the wrong thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

But then I picked the right thing. It was the pork chops.

[Dax Shepard]

And what did your friend get?

[Sharon Horgan]

He got the filet mignon.

[Dax Shepard]

And did you sample that or are you stuck with your pork chop?

[Sharon Horgan]

I didn't, actually.

[Dax Shepard]

Did he want to try your pork chop?

[Sharon Horgan]

I felt like even that was too complicated a move.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Sharon Horgan]

You know, the splitting, just leaning over.

[Dax Shepard]

You were hanging on by a thread yesterday.

[Sharon Horgan]

It's a little tiredness. It's the jet lag. I Woke up at 4:30am and then I went back to sleep for about half an hour at about 7:30.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I did learn something about you in the story that you revealed accidentally or intentionally, which is so probably a normal person. If they had had those three days.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And they had already had on the calendar, like, I gotta meet Mike. It would've been like, mike, I love you, but I really need to stay in bed all night tonight.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

But I've learned that if you tell someone you're gonna be somewhere come hell or high water, you're gonna be there.

[Sharon Horgan]

Absolutely. He's my good pal who I've known since I was 18. And he's got three tiny children, all under 5. He doesn't get out much.

[Dax Shepard]

Exactly.

[Sharon Horgan]

So I felt like if I canceled.

[Dax Shepard]

He had scheduled it. He had probably asked his wife two weeks ahead of time.

[Sharon Horgan]

Doesn't have a wife. But, like. Yeah. Got a babysitter.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

I'm glad I did. But I warned him that I was gonna be brilliant company, but it was fine.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Actually, the pork chop prevailed.

[Sharon Horgan]

I mean, the pork chop was Great.

[Dax Shepard]

It lifted you up, didn't it?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, it really did.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so quickly, you're one of five. Two younger, two older.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm a middle child myself.

[Sharon Horgan]

Are you? I'm not middle, but I'm second eldest.

[Dax Shepard]

That's in the middle, my friend. If you're not the oldest or the youngest, you're in the middle. Right.

[Sharon Horgan]

All right. I'm one of three in the middle.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Sharon Horgan]

Three in the middle.

[Dax Shepard]

You were one of the three middle, one bottom.

[Sharon Horgan]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And then at four, you guys leave and go to Ireland.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And dad's Irish, but he's a Kiwi. How did that happen?

[Sharon Horgan]

He's a Kiwi, but he ended up in Ireland. He moved to London from New Zealand when he was really young. He left New Zealand when He was about 19 and worked on a ship to sort of travel the world and then ended up in London. I met my mum. My mum had traveled from the Styx in Ireland. And this was at a time when women didn't really leave their rural environment to go looking for adventure. And then they met in London at a Irish club because I think my dad had heard that Irish girls were.

[Dax Shepard]

A party, as we just learned.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I can't imagine you have a ton of memories living in London.

[Sharon Horgan]

I've got a few.

[Dax Shepard]

You do?

[Sharon Horgan]

Little tiny.

[Dax Shepard]

Why?

[Sharon Horgan]

Well, because my parents had a pub called the Whitethorn. And I remember it was one of those sort of East End pubs that had a piano and very sort of family feeling. But it was also an East End pub. So lots of gangsters around and dodgy kind of vibe, which is why we got the hell out. We lived upstairs above the pub.

[Monica Padman]

Uh huh.

[Sharon Horgan]

I've got a weird. A weird memory of Chinese takeaway. A cat. I've got like very sort of snapshots.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

And I don't think it's just from photographs because back in the day no one took any. I think they're genuine memories from age 3 to 4.

[Dax Shepard]

So when you go to Ireland and you go to Southern Ireland.

[Sharon Horgan]

Well, it was sort of central.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, northern Southern Ireland.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, okay. Yeah. But we were sort of in the center when we moved there first we got another pub. This one was called the Green Kiwi. We were there for a couple of years.

[Dax Shepard]

Can your dad handle his business? Like when shit would break out in there.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, he was so tough.

[Dax Shepard]

He was.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I love it.

[Sharon Horgan]

He would not mess with them.

[Dax Shepard]

Ah, yeah. Interesting. Not what you associate with the Kiwis, but what you do associate with the Irish.

[Sharon Horgan]

What the toughness the fisticuffs. I don't know about the fisticuffs. He just had a very strong presence. People admired him. Stroke occasionally feared him.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, sure. I don't think you could own a pub and be a pushover, right?

[Sharon Horgan]

But even when he moved away from the whole publican business, he had a certain way of doing business.

[Monica Padman]

Did you like that? Did you feel safe by that presence?

[Sharon Horgan]

Or does it. When you're a kid, as a kid, everything is embarrassing about your parents, right? My dad was the kind of person who didn't give a shit what anyone thought of him. In his clothes, in his manner. Like if you were boring him, he'd walk off mid sentence, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

How liberating.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh my God, it was awful when you're a kid. You know when he would take us to McDonald's for a treat and the server was being disinterested, rude, he would call them out for it. He would pick me up from school in a white van with a Rottweiler sitting in the front seat. And he walked around in his farming jeans, rubber boots, bits of blood, you know, he didn't give a shit.

[Dax Shepard]

Turkey parts.

[Sharon Horgan]

But you know what? I am that parent now. It's so funny. There's so many little things that I noticed that I have that he had.

[Dax Shepard]

It's maddening, isn't it?

[Monica Padman]

It is.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, it is. It really is.

[Dax Shepard]

I became my dad. God, first, physically. I look in the mirror, I'm like, oh, my God.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, My brother has the same. My brother has the same thing and.

[Dax Shepard]

Just all the same character defects. All the same getting into it with people, all this stuff. And I'm like, oh, my God, I hated him for this.

[Sharon Horgan]

There were things that I didn't love, but there's things that, when I think about it now, I'm like, well, it was great to have a dad that was a presence and that you felt like you couldn't mess with him. Like he would have it out with parents outside the school if he had to. He would just call people out. And so I'm quite like that with my girls now. And it's awful for them. They don't love it.

[Dax Shepard]

I know. We were at Target. You're familiar with Target?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, it's my daughter's favorite place.

[Dax Shepard]

When we come over here, it's my daughter's. She asked if she could sleep there. We realized we had never taken them to a department store because we order things online. Then it was Covid. The first time that she went into a Target, she was like seven and she was like, what's going on? They have everything for sale is here. Yeah. And she wanted to sleep there. She wanted to have a birthday party there.

[Sharon Horgan]

That's adorable.

[Dax Shepard]

I have this huge shopping cart on Saturday, and they have a little conveyor belt that'll take your cart down the stairs, so you meet it at the bottom. And a guy in front of me put his cart in and takes off. And then I put my cart in. I do it correctly, it gets about six feet, and then the whole thing shuts down. And then this guy starts yelling at me. He's like, well, you fucking broke the thing. And I'm like, I didn't fucking break. How am I gonna break this thing? What are you talking like? And I immediately get into it with this. And then my older daughter is immediately like, dad, shut up. You're not doing this. And I'm like, oh, my God. This was me and my dad. And I got to let this go. That I'm being accused of breaking a machine.

[Sharon Horgan]

It's very hard to. It's, like, in your DNA, isn't it? It's just like, deep in your bones, there's an injustice.

[Dax Shepard]

I've been accused of something I didn't do, and I'm going to defend myself, but at the expense of my daughter being like, oh, my God. My dad. Yes. Embarrassing. How did he land in the Turkey trade?

[Sharon Horgan]

He wanted to get out of the publican business.

[Dax Shepard]

I like that you call it publican. We don't have that one.

[Monica Padman]

He's saying Republican, and I'm like, what is that?

[Sharon Horgan]

Republican? That's what you mean.

[Monica Padman]

I like it.

[Dax Shepard]

That's the name. Like, a proprietor of a pub is a publican.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Wonderful.

[Sharon Horgan]

He wanted to get out of that.

[Dax Shepard]

Because it wasn't financially great.

[Sharon Horgan]

No, it was just. I'm sure some people would disagree, but it wasn't a great family environment.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Sharon Horgan]

And I think my mum.

[Dax Shepard]

Some people disagree.

[Sharon Horgan]

My mom was done cleaning out men's toilets and dad is very sociable and.

[Dax Shepard]

So possibly stayed a little late sometimes.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, yeah. So they were like, let's get out of that.

[Dax Shepard]

And Bruce, with fatherhood a little bit.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. So why turkey farming? I think by that point he had a good few kids and he was just looking for a way to get us into a more rural environment. But also, he wasn't trained in anything, you know, like, in London, he worked on the London Underground and he always was able to make money. But I guess in Ireland, he was like, what do I do here?

[Dax Shepard]

I know something about him, too. Now he doesn't do well with a boss.

[Sharon Horgan]

No, right? No, no.

[Dax Shepard]

So he owned one thing and he wanted to do another thing, but he had to be the boss of whatever thing, so that limits your options.

[Sharon Horgan]

No one could have told my dad what to do. So he found this piece of land and it had these turkey sheds on it. He wanted to build a house on this property where he found the turkey sheds, but there was nothing there. There was no electricity. So he managed to convince the local council that he was going to set up this business that was going to employ like a hundred local people. And so they invested in putting all this infrastructure in. But, you know, you didn't tell them that it would just be for like five days every Christmas.

[Dax Shepard]

My hunch is it employed six people full time. Five children. Oh, yeah, Your mom and him.

[Sharon Horgan]

That's what we did. We were taken out of school to work on the farm.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a gnarly business, though.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, it's nice. When they're little chicks. Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a very short period, not very long. And they shit a tremendous amount. Right.

[Sharon Horgan]

What, more than most farm animals?

[Dax Shepard]

I just associate.

[Sharon Horgan]

There's a lot of shit on the.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a lot of shit. Right. We have this problem in the States, which is we have all this chicken agriculture and they don't know what to do with all this shit. And then it seeps into the Hudson Bay and it fucking gets rid of all the oxygen in the water. So I just know we're having a hard time dealing with our chicken shit on an industrial scale.

[Sharon Horgan]

I don't know what we did with those chickens.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you shoveling a ton of it?

[Sharon Horgan]

No, no, I was mainly plucking and, you know.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you kill them?

[Sharon Horgan]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

You didn't have to do that.

[Sharon Horgan]

There was always just some man walking around with very loose jeans. We were all just the plebs standing around waiting to pluck them. And then this guy would just saunter over and, like, break a neck.

[Monica Padman]

That's what I was gonna ask what the mechanics were. Is it a shooting situation?

[Sharon Horgan]

No, they just, like, drowning, fire, just like, up against the wall.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you overdose them?

[Sharon Horgan]

No, I never killed a bird.

[Dax Shepard]

And did you eat a lot of turkey as a result of this?

[Sharon Horgan]

I became a vegetarian very young. Because of that? Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And you've stuck with that? No. You had a pork chop the other day.

[Sharon Horgan]

I put it for 16 years, though, and then I got back into it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So what age do you leave Ireland and go to London? Because we have a similar Trajectory, I think.

[Sharon Horgan]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And then I think we started late.

[Sharon Horgan]

I did.

[Dax Shepard]

We both graduated college in 2000, which was late.

[Sharon Horgan]

I went to uni in Dublin, but I dropped out. I didn't even finish my first year.

[Dax Shepard]

Let me ask really quick, what kind of kid were you? Were you a troublemaker? Were you a class clown? Were you a popular girl?

[Sharon Horgan]

Class clown. Got myself in trouble, but wasn't a troublemaker. Got myself in trouble. Cause I was an idiot and in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like got caught. I was always sort of second to the popular girl. I wanted to be friends with the popular girl and I would find a way in.

[Dax Shepard]

And what did you want to do? Did you always want to be in?

[Sharon Horgan]

No. Well, actually, it was sort of a mix. I ended up going to art college. I didn't know what the job would be at the end of it. All I wanted to do was go to art college.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. And actually paint and stuff.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, yeah, Paint and draw.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you any good at that?

[Sharon Horgan]

I was okay for a little while, just not good enough. So I think when I went to art college, I sort of realized my limitations and I found that really hard. I couldn't find a way to sort of stand out or be the best in any way. So I dropped out. And then I went to London when I was 19, maybe nearly 20.

[Dax Shepard]

When you were. I'm moving to London. And what was the fantasy at that time? I'll just have a big city experience or I'll do X, Y or Z? No.

[Sharon Horgan]

I was to make my fortune at that point. I'd started doing my acting classes in Dublin at the weekends and thinking, oh, I think I might like this. And I had this slightly strange encounter with an Irish director called Jim Sheridan who just came up to me in a cafe and said, I want you to audition for my film, the famous Jim Sheridan. The famous Jim Sheridan?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Wow.

[Sharon Horgan]

So I went along and auditioned for that film and really failed badly. Didn't get it. But somehow, weirdly, it made me think, I wanna not fail at that.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right.

[Sharon Horgan]

So I went to London to sort of do that because there's a great fringe theatre scene in London. And I thought, that's the way I'll do it. I'll get into fringe theatre. But I just wasn't that good at pushing myself forward. And I hadn't sort of found my confidence at that point. So I got a job in a job center and I stayed there for six years.

[Dax Shepard]

Six years?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. That was just a bit of a mistake. I Was doing other things, you know, I was like doing courses and trying to find a back route in.

[Monica Padman]

Were you depressed?

[Dax Shepard]

I was gonna say yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, it was depressing. Yeah, it was very depressing. But then I left there and that's when I went back to college and did my degree.

[Dax Shepard]

And you have a degree in English and American Studies?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And did you learn a lot about America? Do you think you know more about America than most Americans?

[Sharon Horgan]

I don't know. My brain doesn't ret.

[Dax Shepard]

It's just a pass through.

[Sharon Horgan]

It's awful. So, like, with learning lines or I can keep five shows in my head at any time. I've got great recall for that kind of thing. But anything else, it's just gone immediately.

[Dax Shepard]

It's way easier to learn your lines when you've written them. Don't you agree?

[Sharon Horgan]

It's so much easier.

[Dax Shepard]

It's so easy. I've done a few things that I wrote.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm like, oh, I know the whole script, basically. I know you have to look at it.

[Sharon Horgan]

I know everyone else's lines into.

[Dax Shepard]

Because I write lines how I think they make sense to me. They should sound like this.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, yeah. My interests have changed and expanded a bit. But at the time I was just like, I gotta get this degree because everyone else in my family had one. And I was like, I just have to do this thing. I was a good student, but I was also, I mean, ridiculously still class clowning it when I was right.

[Dax Shepard]

An older woman.

[Sharon Horgan]

Ridiculous.

[Dax Shepard]

At the college.

[Sharon Horgan]

A ridiculous woman.

[Dax Shepard]

While you were at this college that you meet Dennis Kelly, right?

[Sharon Horgan]

Well, actually, no, I met Dennis. It was just before we were doing youth theater together. Youth theater was just under 26, but it was around about the same time.

[Dax Shepard]

And you meet him and he has already declared as I'm gonna be a writer.

[Sharon Horgan]

When I met him, he was concerting to my Nina in the Seagull. So he was being an actor. But very quickly he realized that he wanted to be a writer. But we had sort of parted ways and then we met each other one night in a pub. Just like bumped into each other and he had written his first play. And so I was just sort. And that's what got me into the writing. I was like, I want to write sketch comedy. Then off the back of that, a kind of sitcom, Mainly that sketch and sitcom. That's all I wanted to write.

[Dax Shepard]

So between 2000 and 2006, you're on TV, you're in Monkey Dust, which is an animated show. And it's sketchy and funny.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And then in 06, we're now six years past graduation.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You and Dennis create pulling together based on the success of pulling. No, that's the next one. What I think is really funny is in 2007, you won the British Comedy Award for Best Female Newcomer for Annually Retentive.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, again, you were 37.

[Sharon Horgan]

Was I?

[Dax Shepard]

I think so in 2007.

[Sharon Horgan]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you feel like this is a weird, like, newcomer? Feels like something that should go to the kid who won for fucking adolescence or something the other night?

[Sharon Horgan]

No, because, I mean, I really, really was. I'd done a few shows at that point, but they were cult kind of. No one watched kind of things.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Sharon Horgan]

So actually that particular award was for Pulling and Annually Retentive. It was my first starring role kind of thing. I just remember it being really surreal because six years earlier I'd been doing.

[Dax Shepard]

Fuck all and you had done six years as like a temp or whatever.

[Sharon Horgan]

The fuck job that was. Admin assistant. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So like 12 years is a long time in the saddle before the Newcomer Award comes.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. There was no structure to what I was doing. Even though I was, like, trying to find a way into the industry. I was trying to get a job in rad or trying to get a job writing for someone else's show or any route in. I was trying. I just didn't have the right focus or the confidence or whatever it takes to sort of take the plunge and do it properly. To just all out go scary. I'm gonna do this now. There was a lot of time wasted, but once I started doing was like super hyper focused.

[Dax Shepard]

And then it kind of just doesn't stop. But we must explain this really interesting difference between American television and British television.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

In when there's a hit, we just keep making it until everyone gets too expensive, I guess at some point to keep on the show. And it's just not that way in England at all. Right. Like, it's very rare for a show to go more than three seasons or something.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, it's pretty rare.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that maddening and frustrating?

[Sharon Horgan]

I mean, a good few do. There's a lot of exceptions to that rule. But there's a lot of sort of standout shows that were just like, no. 2 and done well.

[Dax Shepard]

The Office, famously for us was like, wait, you have this incredible show and you guys are done?

[Sharon Horgan]

That's it. Or like 90 or Mighty Boosh. I wanted to do more pulling. We just didn't get recommissioned.

[Dax Shepard]

I Was gonna say, is that frustrating when you finally have a show and you're actually writing it and you're on?

[Sharon Horgan]

It's so frustrating. Yeah, it's so frustrating because it was a dream scenario.

[Dax Shepard]

Probably will never get more fun than that would be my guess. Right.

[Sharon Horgan]

Ever. It was the biggest buzz. We got our show picked up. We didn't even have to make a pilot. We wrote this one script. Next thing we are making a show. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

If you turn on the television and this thing you thought of is physically on the tv. Crazy.

[Sharon Horgan]

Such a great buzz. And I still find it very buzzy, actually. I still feel like a kid when I'm walking around a set and that whole kind of like, ah, we did this. Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Show business.

[Sharon Horgan]

But like for your first thing. But also we got to do it our way with no interference, which makes no sense because we'd never done it before. Everyone who's in it was brilliant. It was just a very joy filled experience.

[Dax Shepard]

And when you were doing that, what did you find more fun and then which one was more rewarding, the acting or the writing? I can tell you personally, I have a lot of pride in being a writer.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Because it's hard.

[Sharon Horgan]

It is.

[Dax Shepard]

And it's lonely. I don't have a lot of pride in being an actor or being funny. That's a blast. And I like doing it.

[Sharon Horgan]

I kind of agree with you. Although I think I'm different now. Like, I get much more joy out the writing. But back then, getting the opportunity to be on TV and to be the lead in something, I found it a huge buzz. And also it was my first time taking something from the page to the scre and realizing that it can be great on the page and you can make it better and you can exceed your expectations. And also it's like six weeks when we make sitcoms. It's six episodes.

[Dax Shepard]

Everyone's almost dedicated to not making any money.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

How can we not break even on this thing? Let's do six so we never amortize the beans.

[Sharon Horgan]

No one makes a bean. God, I was so green back then. I did enjoy it then. I did get a lot of pride in pulling it off, but yeah, definitely.

[Dax Shepard]

Less so now is the next big thing for you. That's obviously like a huge moment for you. That show is catastrophe. The next kind of big.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, A lot of pilots in between. A lot of failed pilots that you had written. I had written.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Sharon Horgan]

And then I made this mental UK show called Dead Boss that we only did one season of because it didn't really work. It was funny. You know, it's that thing, I think after pulling. Not that that many people saw it or that people were waiting with bated breath to see what I do next, but there was an expectation it did well.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. They would assume your next one's gonna be even better.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

That was her first thing.

[Sharon Horgan]

I made this really nutty show set in a women's prison about this woman who's accused of killing her boss. It was bonkers. Not many people liked it. There was lots of funny stuff in it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

It just didn't gel in the way. You would hope so. That and a lot of pilots over here. I was doing that for years.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So when you're there being London and you're having some success, I would be like, well, I'm gonna go over there where everyone's getting rich.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. But I had this weird thing where I was like, I'll go over there now. And my agents be like, no, it's not time for you to go over there. And I'm like, why? Are you sure?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I think I'm ready.

[Sharon Horgan]

I should be going over there. So it took a while. I don't know why. Like, I must talk to my. I've still got the same agent. Cause I'm just creature of habit.

[Dax Shepard]

And also I'm very loyal. Per the Monday night dinner.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hope so. But I must ask him. It was a real kind of, no, you're not ready. And then finally, when I did go over, I think I made about four pilots in a row, maybe five.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. Do you start getting crazy, discouraged? Like, man, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to see.

[Sharon Horgan]

No, I was kind of. You know, the weird thing that I noticed that's very different from UK is that people could happily make a great living never getting anything made here. My agents over here were setting me up with the writers, where I go, so, what are you working on at the moment? They were like, haven't had anything produced in five years. But they were. Was this sense of. It was successful if you were getting pilot scripts commissioned.

[Dax Shepard]

And.

[Sharon Horgan]

Whereas I was like, what the fuck?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I'm not making it anything.

[Dax Shepard]

I bet the amount they buy here versus make, I bet that ratio is way different than it is in London. Like, I have sold many TV shows and none of them have been produced.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I think it's changing, though. I think that's what people are starting to feel.

[Sharon Horgan]

I think so. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It's really hard for writers right now. Because I think they're not doing that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, they shut off.

[Sharon Horgan]

I mean, when you think about all those pilots that have never been, it just seems extraordinary.

[Dax Shepard]

Thousands of hours of television that no.

[Sharon Horgan]

One'S seen, that probably cost what it takes to make a UK TV series.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. A lot of people have a really good pilot quote as an actor. They'll make 150, then get by for the year, and the next year they do another pilot, and it can just be this weird little trap.

[Sharon Horgan]

But even though I met Rob on Twitter because I was coming over to make the pilots, we did end up hanging out.

[Dax Shepard]

Meaning in real life.

[Sharon Horgan]

And when I was making one of the pilots, we were sort of moonlighting on Catastrophe on the side.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So talk about meaning Rob, because I too, was just on Twitter and discovered him. And still, hands down, of all the tweeters, oh, my God, he was the number one funniest on Twitter ever.

[Sharon Horgan]

The funniest Rob Delaney, ridiculously.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Like in crying, laughing, 2018, he had some weird tweet. I don't even know what it was about. And then he just. Hashtag corny. It was like, who thinks that? Hashtag Coney 2012, six years later.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's great.

[Dax Shepard]

It was just so funny. Everything's so fucking funny. Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

He's got such an amazingly specific brain.

[Dax Shepard]

And right away you guys thought, we should try to create something together.

[Sharon Horgan]

No, it was more of a sort of mutual, like, I think you're really funny. And then he had seen pulling and not that many people had. I mean, it was on over here, but he had to do a quest.

[Dax Shepard]

You wouldn't need an AI to locate.

[Sharon Horgan]

It, but he found it. Then we ended up up doing this little sketch. It was kind of fun. And then because of his Twitter fame, he got commissioned by the BBC to write the sitcom. And then he got in touch with me and said, do you want to write it with me? So that's how it happened.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a spectacular show.

[Sharon Horgan]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Did you feel very proud of it, I hope?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, I did. It was another one of those things where we had a pretty good feeling that it was going to work at the script stage. But when we started doing it together, it was a nice feeling of relief that we bounced so well off each other as performers as well as writers. Such an unknown.

[Dax Shepard]

You play the chemistry lottery.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, that's it completely. But, I mean, I loved making that show.

[Dax Shepard]

And then post Catastrophe. Now more doors open, I'm assuming. Cause your Next thing's Divorce, which is written for someone Else is written for Sarah Jessica Parker. Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So now we're like in another realm where we might just also create shows.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Was that scary or exciting or did you feel like, I don't really want to write something I'm not going to be in?

[Sharon Horgan]

I loved the idea of writing for other people. It felt you're incredibly invested in it, but at the same time you get to sort of step back a bit and have more of a bird's eye view. I mean, to me, that felt like the best case scenario to create something that then I could just watch it do its thing, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

Did you pitch Sarah the idea or were you approached with like, Sarah wants to do this?

[Sharon Horgan]

Actually, I pitched this other show idea to hbo, which ended up being Shining Veil made for Courtney Carl. So we were about to start making that or at least developing it, and then they said Sarah Jessica's looking to make a new show and she's looking for a writer. And she had had a script that she didn't really feel was working. So we just met up, got a good notion of what it was she wanted to make.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right.

[Sharon Horgan]

And the kind of thing she wanted to talk about, that death of a long term relationship kind of thing. And I came up with this divorce sort of setting for it.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you post divorce or about to start that process? How did it parallel your life?

[Sharon Horgan]

I wasn't. I was still in my mar. But I guess maybe some of the scenes.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm sure you had a lot of fodder of things that are annoying at this point. 14 years in, I'm sure you had a lot of like.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, yeah, of course. It's like Amy Gravitz said, anyone who is married knows what it feels like to want to be divorced.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right, right, right, right.

[Sharon Horgan]

But my friend had just very recently gone through once, so through talking to her and just getting the detail from her, I could talk about relationships until the cows come home, but the actual mechanics of something. Yeah. I could write a divorce encyclopedia now, but back then, no, I just had some feelings.

[Monica Padman]

Do you think it made you get a divorce?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, like, I don't want to make too big of a stretch. Yeah. Were you like, living in this thought experiment of divorce?

[Sharon Horgan]

No, not at all. I mean, thank God for my family at that point. My ex was traveling back and forth with my kids. It was a tricky time for us as a family, but we were very much all in it together and that sort of overlapped with catastrophe. So it was just a little bit too much bad time management. I would say yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. We are supported by HBO Max. Listen, if you loved I think youk should leave. You're going to be obsessed with Tim Robinson's new series the Chair Company. Monica. I got to watch early screening and it's the same brilliant off kilter comedy that makes all of Tim's work so special. And my my ex wife Lake Bell's on it. That's a weird way to introduce her, but I guess we never got divorced or anything on the show.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, you did a show with Lake Bell in which you were husband.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right. And she's now on this, which makes me so happy for her because I couldn't be a bigger fan of I think you should leave. Yes, I think he's the funniest human.

[Monica Padman]

Working he really is.

[Dax Shepard]

Here's what I can tell you. After an embarrassing incident at work, a man finds himself investigating a far reaching conspiracy. And that's just the beginning of this wild ride from the creators of I think you should leave. This is exactly the kind of fresh, innovative comedy that HBO Max does best. The Chair Company premieres October 12th at 10pm only on HBO Max. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds on car insurance is smart. Unfortunately, not checking things first. Well, that's how you end up with some pretty embarrassing stories like not checking if your phone is actually connected to your earbuds before belting out Total Eclipse of the Heart on an airplane. Yeah, that was a fun flight. Or not checking if your gym shorts have a hole in them before doing squats in front of the wall mirror. The whole gym got a show that day. And don't even get me started about checking if your camping stove has fuel before heading into the wilderness. Nothing says roughing it quite like three days of granola bars and room temperature water. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check all state first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate Savings vary subject to terms, condition and availability. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates Northbrook, Illinois Illinois this episode is brought to you by Square Banking. You know what I love watching local businesses grow and thrive. Like in our neighborhood. Even Cara. I've rooted for Mustard Seed. I've rooted for. I just love watching people start their small businesses and succeed. That's why so many businesses trust Square Banking. It's a complete platform that puts you in control of your money and helps you fuel your next big Move. With a free Square checking account, you get instant access to your sales. Need capital Capital to expand? Square loans are based on your business's performance, and 88% of businesses with Square loans report growth. Go to square.com godax to learn more about how your business can grow with Square. That's S Q U A R E.com G O/DAX Block Inc. Is not a bank. Banking services provided by Square Financial Services Inc. Member FDIC Square Checking provided by Sutton Bank Member FDIC Loans are submitted subject to credit approval. We are supported by Lenovo. You know, as someone who's constantly juggling creative projects, I've been thinking a lot about how AI is changing the game. It's exciting, but also a little intimidating. Right? That's why I'm pretty stoked about what Lenovo's doing. Here's the thing. These aren't just computers. They're like creative partners that actually learn from you. It's wild. The more you use it, the more it adapts to your style and preferences. I'll be honest, I'm that guy who always has a million tabs open and is constantly hunting for an outlet. But these PCs get me. They manage my chaos, keep things running smoothly, and somehow don't die on me mid podcast. What I love most is that they're not trying to replace my creativity, they're amplifying it. Whether I'm brainstorming ideas for the show or editing our latest episode, they enhance my process, not take over. Lenovo AI PCs with the Intel Core Ultra processor. That's the power of intel and Samsung side. It's like having a supercharged brain working alongside your own. Learn more about Lenovo AI PCs at lenovo.com ai4u Trust me, your creative self will thank you. Was it hard for you?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

What kind of feelings did you have? Like I'm feeling?

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Family shame.

[Sharon Horgan]

All of it. Terrible. Mr. Birthday got back for the party, but missed the actual birthday. And my daughter's 21 now, and she still talks about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure. What else is she gonna talk about?

[Monica Padman]

She needs something. We all need something.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we need something. I play this game all the time. Our kids are 10 and 12, and I'm like, what's gonna be the thing I'm gonna hear about the rest of my life? Is it that target argument? Cause they have to have something.

[Sharon Horgan]

I've seen so many mothers do it now. And having done it myself, remembering that awful push pull of, I'm kind of aw from the family unit for way too long for it. To be healthy. I kind of feel like with kids it's a little bit, for the most part, apart from my daughter remembering the birthday thing, it's a little bit like water of a duck's back a little bit. Whereas I think for us, we kind of self flagellate. Yeah. And there's like still trauma there. I still think about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it fair to say most of the women, my wife included, that I know that are in this business that have kids, it's like. Like you feel guilty at work because you're not with your kids. And then when you're with your kids, you feel guilty you're not working because that's also your passion. It's like there's no real sweet spot.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, that's it. You also have that weird thing. I can only assume it's how people feel when they get out of prison. You sort of forget how to operate in normal life. You're sort of isolated from everything else and all you do is get up, someone picks you up in a car, feeds you, takes you to set to make sure, feeds you some more. All you're doing is sort of working and being cosseted and then put back in a car and then brought home. And when you get back into your family environment, you just don't know how to operate for a while.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. You can also get tricked into thinking that that job is the most important thing in the world.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. And that you are.

[Monica Padman]

And that you are. Yes.

[Sharon Horgan]

That's how you're being treated objectively.

[Dax Shepard]

You are important to that world. It's not even like an ego explosion.

[Sharon Horgan]

No, that's true.

[Dax Shepard]

The lead actors are very important to the project. The writers are very important to the project.

[Monica Padman]

To the project. But I think because it is so isolated and compartmental and it's every day and you're in a hotel and then you go. You can think that the project is the most important thing in the world.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, sure, sure. You almost have to. For it to be good.

[Monica Padman]

Right. You have to buy in a little bit. And then that's complicated when you leave it.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. And then you get taken down numerous pegs by your family and you just have to deal with it and get back on the horse.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Bad Sisters, this is. I'm imagining your first, like American hit. America's Gone Bach.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

A lot of people loved Catastrophe, but it was definitely, like, culty.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But Bad Sisters is this epic thing. I watched it, it looked interesting. I saw it.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

And then I'm probably having the Same thing other people are, where it's like, oh, yeah, I love Bad Sister. Oh, yeah. Oh, you know, the one Sister created the show. I'm like, oh, she created the show. And this is when I find out that you've created all these shows and that you're writing it. And then it's just so impressive. Very bowled over by was a Danish show, Belgian.

[Sharon Horgan]

I had seen it. It was brought to me to ad. So I watched pilot episode and really fell in love with it.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it tonally the same?

[Sharon Horgan]

No, it's completely different.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that one darker?

[Sharon Horgan]

It's really hard to explain, but it's just got that scandi kind of thing where it's much more crazy, you know, so the murders are kind of crazy, and there's Chinese mafia in it and hitmen, and people end up being murdered and then ending up in dog food canning factories.

[Monica Padman]

Right, right.

[Sharon Horgan]

It was quite extreme, but it was really amazing tonally because the sisters were really grounded.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, interesting.

[Sharon Horgan]

But it was just. There was a different approach even to the really brutal, serious stuff in it. It was just a different approach. Like Eva's rape. In the original version, she's having sex with her boyfriend. He needs to take a break. He goes downstairs to the fridge to have something to eat, to cool down. And while she's waiting for him, still on all fours.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my go.

[Sharon Horgan]

The prick comes up and gets in there. So they totally got away with it because she's brilliant, the lady who created it, Marlon. And the actors are amazing. Even in our version, there was a real line to tread in terms of when you're gonna be funny and when you're gonna destroy people.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, I'd argue it's the hardest tone to pull off in anything is when you're bouncing back and forth.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. It's scary when you're doing it. Cause you're like, they could maul us to death. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

If it goes wrong, and it'll go.

[Sharon Horgan]

Spectacularly wrong, you need to just sort of take a punt and then just try and hold fast.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. Were you shocked with how loved it was?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, of course.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you write the roles with the actors in mind, or did you write the whole thing and then cast it?

[Sharon Horgan]

I wrote the pilot and then cast it after that. Ireland's a small country, and also, it had to be very specific in terms of the ages and for us to seem like we are in the same family. I just had to pray that those girls that I asked to do were available.

[Dax Shepard]

They were it.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. And I'd worked with A lot of them before. So I kind of knew. And as soon as I started writing the series, I had their voices in my head. But when it came to, like, the second season, it was just so much easier because I'd spent all that time with them and I knew how one character would respond to another, and I knew what the dynamics were that worked within the family. And so I found the second season.

[Dax Shepard]

Easier but more challenging, story wise, probably.

[Sharon Horgan]

Although the first one had huge challenges because even though we had the template in rethinking, sort of threw all the pieces out of whack, and then it's got two timelines, and I found that really hard.

[Dax Shepard]

How do I say his name? Is it Clay's?

[Sharon Horgan]

Clay Spang? Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Holy shit. So that was the first time I'd ever seen him.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, really? Cause I'd seen the square.

[Dax Shepard]

He's so good. I mean, he's so repugnant. The way he calls her Mama Mammy. Oh, he's so gross.

[Sharon Horgan]

He's so gross. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

He's the most hateable character ever. He was terrible and he's, like, slimy. He's terrible. God bless him. He just is like, yeah, I'm gonna be as unlikable as humanly possible. Did he have any vanity? What was the process?

[Sharon Horgan]

He had to get his head around being that odious? And it was a bit of a challenge. He didn't love being hateful and hated every day. But then there was this other side to him that reveled in it. He reveled in as an actor, and he really went for it. But it is a thing where every scene you're in, you're just being an absolute piece of shit. But we had to just make sure that there were moments where you could see who he used to be, how.

[Dax Shepard]

Anyone fell in love with him in the first place.

[Sharon Horgan]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Why does his child love him?

[Sharon Horgan]

Exactly. So we needed to see him be a good dad sometimes, and we needed to see him be vulnerable or feel like a stranger in this Irish family. And it really helped that he was not an Irish.

[Dax Shepard]

How did you just come across him? You had seen Square.

[Sharon Horgan]

I had seen the Square, but no, it was Nina Gold, our casting agent was her idea. And then I rewrote it kind of for him to lean into that. We gave him a Swedish mother, and it ended up sort of affecting a lot of the scripts, but in a way that was only positive. And it's amazing when that happens, when you have something in your mind and you do something completely different, and then you go oh, no. This has given us so much.

[Dax Shepard]

What's your explanation of the mass appeal.

[Sharon Horgan]

Of it, the time it came along? I think at that time, everyone really needed the catharsis of hating an awful white man religious bigot. We were all on board for it. And also that thing of, despite the thriller of it and the caper, it is about family.

[Dax Shepard]

Nobody would ever watch that and not want to be one of the sisters.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I would argue that's like a huge element of it. It's just, again, you guys hit the chemistry lotter. There's such a familiarity and the fun and everyone's so different.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And it all works cohesively.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

We got very lucky. I love those girls. One of them is the reason why I am this hungover today.

[Dax Shepard]

Was it Eve?

[Sharon Horgan]

It was Eve, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Good guess. That was my next question. Did you know Eve before?

[Sharon Horgan]

I didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

And did you know she was Mono's daughter before you cast her?

[Sharon Horgan]

I did. That was Nina Gold. But once she mentioned her, then I remembered other work that I'd seen her in and was like, she's amazing. She'd never done any sort of. I mean, it's a drama, but there's a lot of comedy in it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

So in actual fact, she came in and did a casting, and she filmed the casting in Bono's front room of his castle. But she was so brilliant in the casting, so clearly funny in that way where you're not trying to push the comedy. She was just naturally funny.

[Dax Shepard]

I wish this were not the case, but it just truly is, which is like, if I know that's Bono's daughter, it's in the mix. I'm aware of it. Right. And I think the worst guess I would have for Bono's daughter is that she's gonna be, like, perfect in plastic and spoiled.

[Sharon Horgan]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

The contradiction of what, potentially, you're afraid could be the daughter of someone uber famous and rich. She's, in fact, quite the opposite, at least on screen.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh. And in person as well.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Just in this delightful way where you're like. It's almost even cooler. Cause she seems so fucking real.

[Sharon Horgan]

I know. She's very sweet, incredibly fun. Bad influence, like, takes the work seriously. A bad influence?

[Dax Shepard]

A bad influence.

[Sharon Horgan]

Well, we all are bad influences on each other. But no, it was just an immediate family. We just got really lucky. We were enjoying ourselves, but at the same time, we had to work as an ensemble. But they all had to be able to sort of carry their own episode, you know? Cause there would always be an episode that really focused on them. And all of them are just incredible actors, incredibly watchable and. And you just instantly care about them.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you ever at any point in it, kind of wishing. I wish I didn't have this dual role where I'm also their boss is a little bit like, I just want to be in the Riff Raff crew and kind of bitch about the production.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, my God, I'm so paranoid. I am walking around in a constant state of fear that anything. You know, I'm always worrying that people aren't happy or have an opinion about how I'm doing things. I always just. Just wanted to be with them. Hanging out and chatting instead of on my laptop. Having a nervous breakdown about reshoots or edits or whatever else goes along with it. It's a pain. You just want to play. You want to enjoy it. There's a real feeling of pride and accomplishment that comes from seeing something you wrote come to life. But you do miss out on a lot of really good gossip.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. You won a Peabody for it.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you even know what a Peabody was before you won it?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yes, I did.

[Dax Shepard]

You did? Yeah. Yeah. We covet the Peabody Award. We actively campaign to win a Peabody Award.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yes. Great.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not terribly sure what it is, but I really want that award.

[Sharon Horgan]

It means something good, doesn't it?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What does it mean?

[Monica Padman]

It's prestigious.

[Dax Shepard]

It's prestigious, but.

[Sharon Horgan]

It's prestigious.

[Dax Shepard]

But what is it? It's like it's not an acting award. It's just like a culture award.

[Sharon Horgan]

It is, actually. If you've campaigned for them, you know, you kind of have to do this.

[Dax Shepard]

Whole statement by campaign I write in my Instagram comments. Please give me one of these.

[Sharon Horgan]

Well, you have to submit your program for it, obviously. And then you kind of talk about what it is that you were wanting to achieve with the show. And I don't know, but I think for the most part there has to be an aspect to it that makes it socially important, relevant across the board, really, in the storytelling and the casting, in the diversity and the amount of female directors you use, why you chose the to tell that story representation. It's a big sort of all round and it's about how successful the storytelling was, of course, but it's a bit of a.

[Monica Padman]

This is important.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah. Success with intention, I guess. It's not just about the entertainment. I love that it's just properly entertaining, but I like the fact that it's saying something, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. The twisted tale of Amanda Knox.

[Sharon Horgan]

Uh huh.

[Dax Shepard]

We interviewed Amanda Knox.

[Sharon Horgan]

Did you?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. I found her to be so brilliant, I could barely stand.

[Sharon Horgan]

Super bright. She's a great girl. When we were talking earlier about being a mother and like a father as well sometimes, but for the most part it's harder to be a mother and leave your kids behind. But K.J. steinberg, who created the show, cause we shot it in Rome, in Budapest, in Vancouver, all over Italy. And she had to leave her kids at home and do this. I'm so glad for her. It's taken quite a big swing, isn't it? Like, stylistically, it's a terrible, tragic story, but there's also a lot of absurdity in what happened in the situation. And KJ was not scared to show that some of these things were so absurd. They were funny.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

And the stylistic approach of this sort of Amelie esque kind of filming style at the beginning and all those things are big swings, you know, it's very ambitious. Yeah. And the fact that she pulled it off, I'm just delighted for her because it was really hard for her being that far away from her family and dealing with something that wasn't easy. You know, it's a difficult story to tell for loads of reasons, you know, legally. But Amanda was around a good bit.

[Dax Shepard]

And you met her mom?

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, yeah, I met her mom, I met her kids, I met her husband, I met them all, Met her sister. Some of the days they were there for some lighter scenes, but some of the days they were there for some really heavy scenes that brought them right back to. I remember her mum saying to me, it's really hard to watch for loads of reasons, but I wish I'd been that articulate when it was happening. I wish I'd known how to deal with my emotions and I wish I'd known how to operate within that situation. And it's like, how could you?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I said to her towards the end, and now she has kids, so it's not hard to imagine, but I'm of course watching that thing. And I'm no longer putting myself in the position of her. I'm putting myself in the position of, oh my God, if this happened to one of my daughters, yes, completely. I would have milled. Would rather sit in prison than have them sit in prison. In a bizarre way, I do think it could be harder for the parent and she agreed.

[Sharon Horgan]

I did the zoom initially with the producers and kj, but then I did the second zoom with Amanda. And I don't know about you, but most of the times, if I'm offered a job. I'm kind of like, why do you want me to do it? I was a bit like, I don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

You were a little scared of this role, right?

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, completely, yeah. Yeah. But it was her talking about that it was really emotional on the zoom, you know, because when she was talking about her mother and what she went through, I sort of realized then that maybe I could play it.

[Dax Shepard]

Because you had the emotion.

[Sharon Horgan]

Exactly. And I was more sort of nervous about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Is a bit exhausting doing that, Coming in frazzled, panicked.

[Sharon Horgan]

Being frazzled all day long. It's hardcore, and it takes it out of you. But, yeah, she's a great girl.

[Dax Shepard]

So you were scared. It's a big acting challenge, and also, you didn't write it. It's not gonna be how you might like to land in that challenge.

[Sharon Horgan]

But I feel like in stuff like that, you have to just be on board for the ride. And for the most part, if you're working with normal people, they do want a bit of feedback or they do appreciate a suggestion or two. But really, at the end of the day, I like just to do it and not think about all the other stuff, because my day job is so. Thinking about everything.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

And in actual fact, it's kind of fun just to go there and be an actor. And then at the end of the day, go to your train and look at your phone. Yeah, we'll just be, like, writing more scripts. So I was nervous about it for that reason, but also because it's divisive subject area. People have opinions about her, and you would have opinions about why the show's even being made.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongest opinions. Knowing the least amount, the actual story that seems to be related.

[Sharon Horgan]

You just never know how something's gonna be received.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. How has it been? Have people reached out to you?

[Sharon Horgan]

There was a little bit of, like. There would be. Because people are.

[Monica Padman]

There's no consensus.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, Online was a little bit.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. People like to be really very upset on Meredith's behalf, as if this person's not also allowed to tell their story. Because one scenario is worse. Say we got in a car accident and you died and I got fucking paralyzed. I wouldn't be allowed to talk about being paralyzed because they would go, what about Sharon?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, there was people who were angry on her behalf, but for the most part, I would say the response has been really good.

[Monica Padman]

People.

[Sharon Horgan]

People thought they knew that story, like you were saying. And then there was so much that you didn't know.

[Dax Shepard]

And my hunch is anyone who's even complaining still hasn't seen the story.

[Sharon Horgan]

I would say not.

[Dax Shepard]

There were people in our comments sounding off and I literally wrote a few times like this couldn't be more obvious that you didn't listen to the episode. That's what I know from this comment.

[Sharon Horgan]

Is when she was on the show, she did it.

[Dax Shepard]

What about. And I'm like, what I know for sure is you did not listen this episode. Cuz there's no way you could write that comment had you listen.

[Monica Padman]

But the show and the story, the thing that happened to her is just a reflection of the world, acting very sinister and then there's a lot of defensiveness that comes out of it.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So yeah, I think a lot of people are like, no, because they are not okay. Feeling like they live in a world where we could do that to someone or that they themselves have done it.

[Dax Shepard]

Unfairly or enjoyed the opera of it while it was happening.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So to do something lighter, you've taken on Jennette McCurdy's book. I'm glad My mom died. We interviewed her when she first was promoting that book and it's for sure one of our best episodes ever.

[Sharon Horgan]

She's amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

She's incredible.

[Sharon Horgan]

She's again a giant brained person. Ridiculously talented. It's a really difficult story to tell and somehow she's managing to do it. And it's funny and entertaining and traumatic.

[Dax Shepard]

I think the defining attribute that allows you to enjoy it or not enjoy it, be it Amanda Knox or Jeanette, is if they weren't destroyed by it. It's great. And that really is Jeanette. It's like, oh no, this bitch ain't destroyed by this. She's gotten stronger. It's so inspiring.

[Sharon Horgan]

She is.

[Monica Padman]

You play the mom.

[Dax Shepard]

No, she's just.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh no, no, no.

[Dax Shepard]

Producing the project.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, producing.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, got it.

[Sharon Horgan]

I'm just delighted to be involved in anyway, just getting to see her work. And it was a book that I was obs and talking to her about it before we had it picked up, before we went out and pitched it even, I knew I wanted to be involved. She's really something.

[Dax Shepard]

Now I'm scared for you. You're writing two different projects for yourself. One at Amazon, one at hbo.

[Sharon Horgan]

I wonder what the Amazon thing is because someone else has asked me that as well.

[Dax Shepard]

We're developing something with Amazon, but not necessarily you starring.

[Sharon Horgan]

Not for me. No. I'm writing an HBO show.

[Dax Shepard]

For you?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, for me. I always still get embarrassed by that. Like really writing it for me, like.

[Dax Shepard]

No One else will be in it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I think it's braggy.

[Sharon Horgan]

Well, no, I felt it with pulling as well. Even though that was the first thing I was like. And I will cast me, you know, it just feels a bit indulgent maybe.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, but it's not.

[Dax Shepard]

Just so you know, but the workload. I'm a little worried about the workload.

[Sharon Horgan]

Are you?

[Dax Shepard]

I am. You've now created more shows than almost anyone really. You're just racking them up. It's a lot and you're fine. How many hours a day do you work?

[Sharon Horgan]

It depends. Well, at the moment we are making a show for Netflix called Vladimir and it's shooting in Toronto and it's like Mad Hours because it's a different time zone. So at the moment it's not great. Cause I finish my work in the UK and then I go and eat dinner with my girls and then I go back to work. But for the most part when you're writing, I'll do a sort of 10 til 5 kind of thing. If my girls girl's at school and she's leaving at 8 in the morning, I start at 8 and then might end a little earlier, but I don't know, I mean, I'm just sitting at a desk.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't feel like you're approaching burnout level or anything?

[Sharon Horgan]

Now you're worrying me.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you should be a little bit worried. No, here's why I watched this incredible documentary. I did not know this dj. I don't know, I just randomly watch it. Avicii. Have you ever heard that? Avicii. He was this enormous global dj, the kind that can make a million dollars a night. And now everyone wants to start working with him. So it's like this amazing artist. This amazing artist. And this documentary is heartbreaking because. And I can so relate to it. Just like you want something so bad, it takes so long to get it and when it comes, it's nearly impossible to throttle it. And this took him down. I think he died of working.

[Monica Padman]

What the hell?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he killed himself.

[Sharon Horgan]

You think I'm gonna die? No, he killed himself.

[Dax Shepard]

He killed himself. Slash, maybe fell on a broken wine bottle. Whatever. He was not in place. A good spot. Very tragic story. And I was watching it just going like. I very much relate to this. These opportunities don't come around. He had to have felt that way. And it's really hard to govern yourself when it's all things you want.

[Sharon Horgan]

That's true. And there is definitely an element of that because I did start late and so I've always felt like I'm playing catch up. But the other element of it is that. That I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I wasn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You said I'm not very good at twiddling my thumbs. I become a bit more hyperactive as I get older. I don't really know how to relax.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, I don't really know how to relax. But here's the thing, right? I was writing this episode of something that was set in Germany. And then every day over the two weeks that I was writing it, I was just, like, going to Germany, get out of my head and my house and just be in a different world. And. And I find it very relaxing.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, good.

[Sharon Horgan]

When I was doing Divorce and Catastrophe, that was hard. And I remember having. I guess they were sort of panic attacks. I didn't know what they were at the time. I was like, oh, my God, you're.

[Dax Shepard]

Drowning in the Commitments.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, but it doesn't feel like that now. I mean, I've got a company of amazing people.

[Dax Shepard]

The new show, you're playing a divorcee moving through the world.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Is there more plot than that that I'm leaving at?

[Sharon Horgan]

Well, I'm the mother of a son. It's kind of of about the sandwich generation, really. It's about that point in your life where your children are adults, but they haven't left, and you're still looking after them. And your parents are getting older, and that becomes also a responsibility. But it's this time in your life when the stakes are so raised because you suddenly become incredibly aware of your mortality. And in this particular situation, she wants to meet someone. She wants to. To fall in love before she stops being a sexual person.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

You know, so there's this clock, but the world isn't allowing her.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, here's my pitch. You're gonna have a lot of lovers in this show. You're gonna have to go on a lot of dates, and there'll be good ones and bad ones. And I'm volunteering to be one of the lovers.

[Sharon Horgan]

Thank you so much.

[Dax Shepard]

I can't commit to, like, a lot of episodes, but if it's one, something within reason, I'm letting you know, I will do that.

[Sharon Horgan]

Would you be a force for good or a force for bad?

[Dax Shepard]

Whatever you choose. That morning, you're like, I want to see him be naughty. No, I want to see the sweet.

[Sharon Horgan]

Side of him who has kids, not like a billboard.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't want to play a parking meter maid. But let's Just say I was giving you a ticket. But then somehow I charmed you and you're like, I hate you. What is this guy?

[Sharon Horgan]

Can you imagine going out with a parking meter?

[Dax Shepard]

It would be rough.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but they're just people, too.

[Sharon Horgan]

No, you're right.

[Dax Shepard]

They deserved. They deserved. No, it's okay. They're giving us tickets. You can only like them so much. They are in charge of giving us tickets.

[Sharon Horgan]

And it's not their fault. It's not their fault.

[Dax Shepard]

Once in a while, one will hang out in front of my kids. School at drop off.

[Sharon Horgan]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

I can't let it go. I can't let it go because, you know, everyone's so fucking hectic. Everyone's trying to get to work. It's a mess.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, they're like vultures.

[Dax Shepard]

And I have on a couple of occasions said, you know, an even better spot is the emergency room. You should go hang out at the emergency room where people really don't have time to park.

[Sharon Horgan]

Blank face. Or do they give it to you back? There's nothing.

[Dax Shepard]

Then I feel bad, then I regret it, and then I've done it twice.

[Monica Padman]

No one wants that job.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, listen, takes a unique person to post up in front of a elementary school to do your ticket.

[Monica Padman]

That person, I'm going to say it's a he. I don't know, probably has to have so many tickets.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, exactly. Meeting their quota. With parents that are struggling to get to work, I think we could pick on a better. Let's go in front of an agency.

[Sharon Horgan]

Is it a showbiz school? No, I mean, are there a lot of showbiz parents? Because in a way, I'd sort of go, like, it's a fair call.

[Dax Shepard]

No. And in fact, it has more kids on free lunch than probably any other school in the city, so. No, it's the opposite.

[Sharon Horgan]

Screw that.

[Dax Shepard]

These people can't afford a ticket.

[Monica Padman]

Let one of those people say it. Not you.

[Dax Shepard]

I gotta use my privilege for good. I'm trying to protect these people. Monica. I can't believe you're not supporting us.

[Monica Padman]

You're not protecting them. You're protecting them, protecting yourself.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I don't care if I get a ticket. I literally. Yeah, it's part of the charm, I guess.

[Sharon Horgan]

I've got a very weird relationship with money. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I do, too.

[Sharon Horgan]

I think I just need a bit of therapy for it.

[Dax Shepard]

So. Yeah. So if you don't cast me on your show, I could also work you through financial insecurity.

[Sharon Horgan]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

Thank you very much.

[Dax Shepard]

A few different Services I provide.

[Sharon Horgan]

You know what's weird about writing a show that does have sex in it?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

Is that then you just get embarrassed when you send it out to people.

[Dax Shepard]

That they think you're a pervert or something.

[Sharon Horgan]

I can't lose that feeling.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that the Irish Catholic?

[Sharon Horgan]

I don't know. I mean, Rob and I used to get it a bit when we would write these sex scenes, like side by side. And then all of a sudden we'd realize that we were writing for each other and we'd get really embarrassed and awkward. It feels like that when you write something and then you send it to an actor because you're saying, we're gonna do it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, yes, we're gonna do it. First you're gonna do this.

[Sharon Horgan]

It could be even more. Are you on board?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. It's like asking someone out in real life. It's vulnerable.

[Sharon Horgan]

God.

[Dax Shepard]

But I would think this is where the positive side of being a woman, that side of the coin you should embrace, which is if I write that scene and I send it to Sidney Swift Sweeney, and I'm a 50 year old dude, and I send this scene, I got this great scene I wrote for you.

[Sharon Horgan]

You shouldn't do that, though.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I shouldn't.

[Monica Padman]

Correct.

[Dax Shepard]

I agree.

[Sharon Horgan]

That's a bit. Woody.

[Dax Shepard]

I agree. Yeah, I'm with you.

[Sharon Horgan]

That's a bit Robert Duvall, Emma Watson.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. I'm in full agreement. That's why I'm using it to illustrate my point. But you can do that and it's totally fine and you should feel nothing about it. Yes. If you've earned anything, it should be that is that we know you're not a predator in general. Women are not predators, so generally free to. To do that. There are some.

[Sharon Horgan]

There's a few.

[Dax Shepard]

Thank God.

[Sharon Horgan]

I don't know any.

[Dax Shepard]

If you're a predator and you're a female, please in the comments, signal yourself out.

[Sharon Horgan]

You vaping?

[Dax Shepard]

It's a nicotine spray.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, a spray.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So it's a very healthy delivery system.

[Sharon Horgan]

I was very addicted to vaping and nicotine gum and occasional rollies. And so I did some hypnotherapy about four years.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that brings us to my very last question for you. We've arrived.

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

So you quit drinking for three years.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And you loved it, right?

[Sharon Horgan]

I did. Apparently I was annoying.

[Dax Shepard]

You loved it so much. You talked about it.

[Sharon Horgan]

I did a little bit. I wasn't like evangelical, but I was just suddenly going on walks for no reason other than to enjoy the beauty of the Walk. And prior to that, there had to have been a pub at the end of it. So what it did was sort of just give me a whole new perspective. And I kind of loved it. And I figure my brain was like on fire at the time.

[Dax Shepard]

When you go a couple years without a hangover. For me, I had hangovers every single morning for a decade. To not have hangovers. It was almost unimaginable. Like, so much of my life was dealing with a hangover and going to work and hoping it would break and, oh, I'm sweating. Okay, it's gonna break. Just that whole madness. And then when we had kids, and even we'd be on vacation with our pod. Monica's a member of. And they drink and we don't. And I'd wake up and I'm like, I can barely deal with the kids without a hangover. Yeah, I can't imagine what it's like to deal with kids with a hangover.

[Sharon Horgan]

God, I remember. It's awful.

[Dax Shepard]

So my great curiosity is like, what brought you back?

[Sharon Horgan]

Oh, my dad died.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, your dad? Yeah. It's a good reason.

[Sharon Horgan]

But it wasn't like my dad died and I had to have a drink. I just wanted to with my brothers and sisters drinking. We all needed it. But I didn't go back in, like, full bore. It was very, very occasional. And I was still on my sort of, like, smug thing. Cause I was like, I just don't drink it the same way anymore. And then, like, suddenly it just sort of creeps in again.

[Monica Padman]

It's a habit.

[Sharon Horgan]

And then the next thing. Cause I remember saying to my daughters, do you remember when I used to drink a glass of wine every night with dinner? Then sometimes I would have two glasses of wine and they couldn't remember it. And I was like, well, that's great.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

Because I thought that would be something that they'd be really aware of.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Sharon Horgan]

So I started slightly getting back into that. Now I've stopped. It was like the excitement of suddenly drinking again.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

I got a bit giddy. I was buying nice wines. It was like. I remember when I started eating meat for the first time after 16 years. I was so horny for meat. I was just like, give me meat. So it was a bit like that with the booze. And now the last few days have been nuts because of the parties. But it has adjusted things a bit. And it's not like a habit. It was a habit before where you don't even notice that you're drinking wine because you're Just always drinking wine.

[Monica Padman]

I have that. Yeah, I 100% have that. But I. I don't know. I'm back and forth on whether I care.

[Sharon Horgan]

But you know what, what happened was. And you know the way your phone sort of really gets into your head and sends you loads of videos about whatever it is you're fretting about. So while I was not drinking, it kept sending me all these videos about how terrible booze is for your brain.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Sharon Horgan]

So it fed into my smugness and I was like, this is brilliant. Everything is positive about this. And now they're continuing to come up and I'm like, no, no, no, don't look at me.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

The algorithm is really on one right now.

[Sharon Horgan]

Awful.

[Monica Padman]

No alcohol, but whatever.

[Dax Shepard]

There's some really unfortunate studies, I think.

[Monica Padman]

What about all the 100 year old people who drink every day? No one wants to talk about them anymore. They used to talk about them a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. They used to tell you, you have to drink a glass of wine, you'll be good for your heart.

[Monica Padman]

And now they're all over the map.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, well, I mean, I think red wine, it's on the cons.

[Monica Padman]

It's tasty and it's fine.

[Sharon Horgan]

Live long.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you drink Beamish?

[Sharon Horgan]

I've never loved Beamish. It's too sweetish. But not Guinness.

[Dax Shepard]

I love Guinness.

[Sharon Horgan]

I love Guinness.

[Dax Shepard]

You'll be happy to know I literally forced Monica to have a Guinness when we were in London.

[Monica Padman]

They're not for me.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah, but come here. London, London. Guinness.

[Monica Padman]

So that maybe that's.

[Sharon Horgan]

Unless you go to Devonshire. You've been to Devonshire?

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Unless it was across the street from our hotel. Unless that was the one.

[Sharon Horgan]

Where was your hotel?

[Dax Shepard]

Clerridge's.

[Monica Padman]

No, we weren't at Claridge's.

[Dax Shepard]

We were at another one of those.

[Sharon Horgan]

It's not far from there.

[Monica Padman]

It wasn't that.

[Dax Shepard]

There's no way it was this one. You're.

[Sharon Horgan]

They do quite good Guinness. And then obviously if you go to Dublin or anywhere in Ireland.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it's so good.

[Monica Padman]

So it's just very thick. Yeah, it's a little thick.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, Sharon, you're as lovely in person as you are on screen.

[Sharon Horgan]

Thank you so much.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. This has been so fun.

[Sharon Horgan]

Sorry, I was a bit. It was not even hungover because it was from two days ago.

[Dax Shepard]

But you're just exhausted.

[Sharon Horgan]

I'm just tired. Yeah. I've needed to eat for about the last 40 minutes.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, you could have told us.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Also, you can go on the couch.

[Sharon Horgan]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

All right. We adore you.

[Sharon Horgan]

Thank you everyone.

[Dax Shepard]

Watch the 96 project projects you're in. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. We are supported by Quince. With quints, you can get luxury basics at prices that make sense. Get all the good stuff. High quality fabrics, classic fits and lightweight layers for warm weather without dropping a fortune. I just was staring at a box of quints that arrived yesterday. Christmas been firing off orders. We all love everything that arrives.

[Monica Padman]

I ordered some sheets. Some really, really amazing sheets. They're also so cute. They're striped. They have this like cream stripe. It is. I love quints and I feel like it's a hack, honestly. It's like the quality is so good and it's so reasonable. If you need to get anyone a present or anything, I think Quintessential is the place.

[Dax Shepard]

Look no further. Quince has closet staples you'll want to reach for over and over. Like cozy cashmere and cotton sweaters from just $50. Breathable flow knit polos and comfortable lightweight pants that somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed up dinners. And everything you're going to order from Quince is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quint gives you luxury pieces without the markup. Keep it classic and cool with long lasting style staples from quince. Go to quince.comdax for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E.comdax to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comdax we are supported by Hill's Pet Nutrition. Something we celebrate here on Armchair Expert is that we all have juggles, struggles, faults and flaws because we're human. Those of us with pets know this all too well. We are their whole world and that can be a lot of pressure. Things are just going to go wrong sometimes and we can only plan for so much pet Parent guilt is unavoidable.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, like when you left one of your dogs when you went traveling, you probably had guilt.

[Dax Shepard]

I did. Whiskey wasn't fit to make the trip. But I was relieved that he's having such a great time with Peggy at home. But yeah, because you're only human. There's Hills. Science does does more. Find the right food@hills pet.com Dax we are supported by Better help. You know it's wild. October 10th is World Mental Health Day and it got me thinking about all the incredible therapists out there making a real difference. Better help therapists alone have helped over 5 million people worldwide. That's a lot of lives changed, one conversation at a time.

[Monica Padman]

I love my therapist so much. I saw her twice last week after my personal tragedy. She was so helpful in helping me process everything thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, finding the right therapist can feel overwhelming. But better Help makes it simple. They've spent 12 plus years perfecting their match system, connecting people with licensed professionals from their network of over 30,000 therapists. And with an average session rating of 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client reviews, they're clearly doing something right. This world Mental Health Day, we're celebrating the therapists who have helped millions of people take a step forward. If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey. Armchairs get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Dax that's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com Dax I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, well, the last time I saw you.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, ma'. Am.

[Monica Padman]

Or the last time the people saw you and me, I guess.

[Dax Shepard]

You and the people.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I am one of the people. Yeah. You were gonna go to the hospital.

[Dax Shepard]

Which I did.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. So tell everyone what transpired.

[Dax Shepard]

I went to the hospital they hooked me up to. No, I peed first. Yawn.

[Monica Padman]

You were able to yawn, sample, remind everyone what happened. You couldn't pee.

[Dax Shepard]

I couldn't pee. It was painful. I got a crazy fever. I gave blood and yawn at my gp.

[Monica Padman]

That stands for general practitioner.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Although he's not. He's an internist and he doesn't like. But at any rate. And then my family was concerned I was. Sepsis.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Again, I don't know if you say septic or he has sepsis. He's in sep. There's something weird about sepsis, but I don't know. Do you?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I think it's like. And turns out I was in sepsis.

[Dax Shepard]

He went seps. He went sepsis or did he went sepsis septic?

[Monica Padman]

No, I think septic's only about the tank.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. The septic field and the septic tank. Anyways, get there, do some samples, they hook me up to a stronger antibiotic. My vitals are good, though.

[Sharon Horgan]

Great.

[Dax Shepard]

So I'm there for some hours. I get a bag of fluid. I. Oh, yes. And then he takes an ultrasound of my bladder. Mm. And it's full. Yeah, but I just peed.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but you didn't get a lot of pee out.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So he's like, yeah, we're gonna have to do a catheter. And I was like, oh, no. Of all the things in life I hope to avoid, it was putting two feet of cable up my pee hole.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

God, I did not want to do that. So I think I've had one before, but I think I woke up post surgery with it.

[Monica Padman]

I also have had one, but it was gone by the time I woke up.

[Dax Shepard]

And then I think I. A tremendous amount of opiates in the hospital when they removed it or something. I don't know. I just have no memory of this. So I guess I'm not saying where I went or anyone's name. So this is the first order of business was the nurse was going to. And she told me, I got to put lidocaine in your urethra.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

So she has this syringe about this big, about 6 inches long. It's a fat boy. All right. There's a ton of fluid in there. And. And so she's holding my penis, and she puts it right up to the urethra. And I'm laying on my back trying to just be in another zone. Right. I'm just trying to.

[Monica Padman]

Are you worried about getting erect? Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

No, not at all.

[Monica Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

No, no, no, no. I am so not horny. Terrified about getting this procedure.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow. Okay. That's good, I guess, for. It's a positive side.

[Dax Shepard]

So she has this syringe. She has it up to the. The whole. And I don't know if it was stuck or whatever happened, but there was an audible pop. And then the whole thing went in, like, boom. The whole. And I went, oh, my God. Like, I. I yelled, which I. Oh, my God. And she goes, oh, oh, I'm so sorry. That's not supposed to happen.

[Monica Padman]

What? Oh, no, that's not what you want to hear, Obviously.

[Dax Shepard]

Slowly put all that fluid in. But again, I think it was stuck or something. Maybe she pushed you hard and then just made this loud pop. And then it fuck. Gushed 6 ounces of jam in my penis at once.

[Monica Padman]

Jam. Wait a minute. Was it.

[Dax Shepard]

And I was like, whoa, whoa. We're off to rough start.

[Monica Padman]

Was this nurse in armchair?

[Dax Shepard]

No, but I. I loved her, and I learned a ton about her. We had a very, very, like, connected, intimate conversation about, like, her. Someone in her life who passed. And, like, we had had a really great time.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. I feel like.

[Dax Shepard]

I feel Like.

[Monica Padman]

Like this nurse is an armchair Y and got, like, nervous that she was.

[Dax Shepard]

Holding the armchair expert's penis.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And like, how do you.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't think so, because we were just speaking so candidly. She would have said she liked the show. I think that's where we were at.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I don't think she was an armchair. Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I still do.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Okay. So anyways, you know, that happens, and then. And then they come back with the tube. And then they put the tube in, and I'm like. And it's just horrendous. I can't believe you don't get anything. Anything for it other than the topical lidocaine. Yeah, I guess it's just where I'm such a baby. These zones where I'm a total baby.

[Monica Padman]

I guess.

[Dax Shepard]

So. It goes in. It's insane. It's insane. And it takes so long because it's got to go through your whole penis and then up and then into your bladder, which is deep in there. And it just feels like forever. And it's the worst feeling. Then they blow up the balloon. Then they strap the bag to my blood and they. They stick the thing. Now, my one complaint was, like, big, sticky pad to pin to secure the bag and everything. And you know I have hairy thighs.

[Sharon Horgan]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

She slapped it right on there. I was like, take a sec. Let's get a razor. I'm mad. I'm mad. I didn't advocate for myself.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Because as it turns out, when I got home, she had put it up too high, so my penis was hanging down much lower than where that thing was, which was making the tube go up and pull my penis up. And I was afraid, you can pull the thing. So as soon as I got home, I had Kristen and Lincoln reattached it lower. And then we shaved my leg. But getting that thing off with all the hair. Okay, whatever. Okay, here's I'm.

[Monica Padman]

Is it, like, belted?

[Dax Shepard]

No, no. It's just. There's a hose. And then I took a photo and I sent it to Eric and Aaron. And they screamed out loud, both of them. They said, because you can tell it looks absolutely miserable. But there's a strap that. There's like. There's the sticky piece with clamps that hold the top of the. The hoses. And then you've got two elastic belts that go around two parts of your legs and then a big bag to fill with your yarn.

[Monica Padman]

Right, right.

[Dax Shepard]

You immediately look 85 years old.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, there's so many funny things that Happened over the course of the three days I had it. One was. We kept telling, you know, I kept complaining about the tube in my penis. And at one point, like day two or three, I was emptying the bag in the toilet, and Delta came into the bathroom and she goes, oh, my God, Daddy, I thought you were saying that metaphorically. Tube in my penis. She didn't know I had a literal.

[Monica Padman]

What did she think?

[Dax Shepard]

I don't know. But I loved that she knew to say metaphorically. Yeah. I was, like, so distracted by how wonderfully she said, yeah, I thought you were saying that metaphorically. Oh, my God. And I go, I know. You immediately look like you're in some serious medical. And I felt like it, you know, I felt like, what's going on?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Just a week ago, I felt indomitable, and now I have this bag, and then the bag. And maybe. Maybe other people have positive experiences with it. So I'm not bashing Kathy. Sure. I mean, again, a lot of these things I think were just chickens coming home to roost. Because you remember the calf catheter cowboy commercial?

[Monica Padman]

There's a cowboy.

[Dax Shepard]

He goes, I've been calf. I've been cowboying for 25 years. I don't like pain when I calf.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. And you've been making fun of that for years.

[Dax Shepard]

The guy was like, 75. I'm like, hold. Let me get this straight. You started cowboying at 50.

[Monica Padman]

He might have. Look, you're 50.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not ready to start cowboy. And I'm ready to start riding a soft chair. The thing about it is, mid sneeze, I was like, oh, my God. Anything abdominal? Yeah, it sucks because you have that balloon in there. And also just the balloon at the end of your bladder. What it feels like is that painful moment. You have to pee so bad you don't think you can hold it. It just felt like that for three days. And anytime I moved, it was just like the sharp pain in there. I hated. It wasn't for you. I did not enjoy it. Saturday, I woke up and I said to Chris, and I'm like, I know. I'm going in and get up. Take it out today. I cannot wait till Sunday. She's like, okay, but remember, they didn't say that arbitrary. So then she talked me off the ledge, and I. I waited till Sunday.

[Monica Padman]

That's good.

[Dax Shepard]

I was so happy to get it out. Yeah, I don't ever want one of those again.

[Monica Padman]

I understand.

[Dax Shepard]

No silver linings. Let's go through them. I slept in the guest house for three days. And I really didn't do anything because I couldn't move. Anytime I moved. It was just the worst, grody feeling of like, I'm peeing my pants. Oh, going to add. Yeah, this is too much information.

[Monica Padman]

I'm. What?

[Dax Shepard]

Going doodles was almost impossible because you're going doodles.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, pooping.

[Dax Shepard]

Because you're. You're really. I don't know about. For a girl, but for a boy, you're using the same area to push the. The doodles and to push. Yawn out. Those two things are married for a boy. When you sit down on the toilet, you just push, and everything comes out at once. But I have this tube. And so there were times when I was trying the doodles.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And. And all of a sudden, pee just started coming out of. Around the tube.

[Monica Padman]

Not in the tube.

[Dax Shepard]

No. So it's. It's somehow it's pushing around the balloon inside the bladder.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Also, you take these pills to make your yawn super dark orange. It looks like the McDonald's. The McDonald's. You remember McDonald's orange drink?

[Sharon Horgan]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. They gotta call orange drink. It wasn't orange or juice.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And I don't even know if it was orange soda. Maybe. Orange soda. It was dork as hell orange.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm just on the toilet, and I'm like, oh, fuck. In the. My penis can't be in the toilet because it's got a tube. Hank. Coming out of it. That's attached to my lower leg.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. So the bag's, like, at your ankle?

[Sharon Horgan]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, it's that far down.

[Dax Shepard]

Not at my ankle, but around my knee.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow. I imagined it supposed. I imagine it, like, high up.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm gonna. I'm gonna post the picture. No, no, I'm gonna. I'm gonna crop the photo.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

So you can at least see the placement on the leg.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

All these pictures of Eric's dad as a wizard.

[Monica Padman]

Sure. We touched on that last week.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So I've mocked out the offensive.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, hold on.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Ew.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Also. Yeah, hold on. The color. Yeah, yeah. The color of the pee is McDonald's.

[Dax Shepard]

Orange again, it's these specific pills they make you take because they want to be able to see the line in the bag really clearly. They don't want, like, see through. Yawn.

[Monica Padman]

They don't want. Wow. Okay. Because it's like.

[Dax Shepard]

It's kind of, like, humiliating. Can I have it back?

[Monica Padman]

No, I'm still looking at it.

[Dax Shepard]

Come on. I don't like this anymore. Can I have it back now?

[Monica Padman]

Okay, the belt is made of.

[Dax Shepard]

I'll send you the whole one with my penis. You can see the tube coming. Great. Fuck. So yeah, and then, so I got it out and then I, I thought, oh, that's my only problem in life is this, this catheter.

[Monica Padman]

How did it smell? The pee?

[Dax Shepard]

There was any smells, but I didn't, did I wrap up like there's nothing more disconcerting than there's like yawn coming out around the tube.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's uncommon.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm like, what's happening? Why is the, shouldn't the urine be coming through this hose? What's wrong with the hose? The hose blow. Why am I. I'm able to push you out.

[Monica Padman]

Were you worried you were gonna get it in the tube?

[Dax Shepard]

No, no. I've had some follow up questions throughout this process, but these ones are definitely the best.

[Monica Padman]

What about was it warm? The pee on your leg? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did that feel kind of good?

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, it was really hot. Hard to enjoy anything. The other thing I was living in like abject fear of is like, I hope I don't get a boner.

[Monica Padman]

That's what. Oh, you mean during it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, with this holes in. Like sometimes you're sleeping and you just, you have a erotic dream and you wake up morning wood aroused and I'm like, is it going to jerk? What part of the tube is it going to.

[Sharon Horgan]

Huh.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting. I'm sure there's some slack. So that it.

[Dax Shepard]

Kristen did not think this was a thing, but Eric and I, I thought it was a thing. I was texting with him most. He had to deal with most of my complaints.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

And I said, eric, I'm not going to masturbate. But don't you think that you told me I can't.

[Monica Padman]

Maybe you can.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh my God.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, seriously, some people have catheters in like for life. Like I'm sure they have to masturbate.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't think you can. And then also where is the semen coming from? It doesn't come from your bladder and.

[Monica Padman]

You have a two like your vast deference.

[Dax Shepard]

Your vast deference is the muscle that's like pumping, pushing the semen out. Anyways, what I said to Eric, semen.

[Monica Padman]

Would go through the catheter.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's the thing is I don't think it can because I don't think the semen goes into your bladder and then out urethra.

[Monica Padman]

Somehow it would leak out the way the.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. A man can ejaculate while you.

[Sharon Horgan]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Rob's pulled up an indwelling urinary catheter.

[Monica Padman]

He googled it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Though it requires specific consideration depending on the type of catheter, the individual's comfort level. Mine was low. And the desired sexual activity. Mine was low. While intermittent catheters used for self catheterization are removed before sex. Indwelling folly catheters can be kept in place. A subrapubic catheter which enters the bladder through the abdomen. Suprapubic preferred for sexual activity is it doesn't interfere with intercortis.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. So if you have one for a long time, they probably give you a specific kind so you can have sex and masturbate. But yours was only a couple days.

[Dax Shepard]

And I was only living in like absolute fear. Fear of that happening.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

To the degree that I was like, oh, I might give myself one because I'm so afraid of.

[Monica Padman]

That's what I was about to say when you were talking about getting it inserted. Like, this is what happens during waxes. Like, it's so uncomfortable, but they're like there's.

[Dax Shepard]

You're so nervous.

[Monica Padman]

Worry.

[Dax Shepard]

Like what if you get visibly.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And not because you're. You're into it, but just because like you're. You're convinced. You're worried.

[Dax Shepard]

You're so afraid of it, you might manifest your fear.

[Monica Padman]

Self sabotage.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

So anyways, I got it out.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, great.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, more than that, I was bold. I went out to eat on Saturday night. I was like, fuck this, I'm going out.

[Monica Padman]

You did?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. And I had to walk. I had to walk like a grampy. I could only walk like a step. Like 8 inch steps at a time.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Do you. Were you weird it was going to fall out of your pants?

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, sure. But that I knew it wouldn't happen because the balloon would catch it and it'd start pulling my bladder through my body. So I was more nervous about that. Like, am I gonna feel. You know, we had an armchair anonymous nurse talking about a patient who ripped his catheter out with the balloon inflated. I kept thinking of that the whole weekend.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God. Now when I just saw that picture.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It kind of reminded me of my water babies.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, sure, sure.

[Monica Padman]

When I grew up, you know, and I would make babies out of those grocery bags and then I filled with water and carrot and it'd be my water baby. That kind of looked like a water baby.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Oh, another interesting thing is I was. The one thing I was excited about is like oh, cool. I. I kind of have my dream. I don't have to get up to go pee in the middle of the night, so I was looking forward to that. Yeah, well, I woke up in the middle of the night, like 4am and I'm like, fuck, I have to pee so bad. What's on?

[Sharon Horgan]

Going.

[Dax Shepard]

Going on. I have this bag on.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Lift up my pant leg. It's 100% full. Oh, so it's 100% full. So I am trying to relieve it, but it's just backing up and up. So now I am feeling like I have to pee. So now I'm rushing to the bathroom not to pee, but to fucking empty my bag. Monica, this is over. I might get fired from the acting job that I got. Oh, sweet.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, wait.

[Dax Shepard]

Go ahead.

[Monica Padman]

Did it out. But was it a relief as soon as they put it in at least like, then, like. Because you were all backed up with pee?

[Dax Shepard]

No. And I, you know, my stubbornness, I maintain I probably didn't need that. I could have. It's not like. And then on my subsequent visit to get it removed and they were looking at the amount of urine that was in my bladder when I got it. She said, well, that's. So it wasn't a ton of urine. And I was like, yeah, I think it would. Anyways, who cares?

[Monica Padman]

Did they find out what happened?

[Dax Shepard]

We'll get to that.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, they don't find out what happened, but all my blood stuff comes back and I have all kinds of different things going on, but.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

I just wanted to finish by saying I had in my mind I was going to feel like a million dollars when I got this catheter out on Sunday. And then I got the catheter out and I got home and I was like, oh, I still feel like, you know, I still have a massive infection. I'm still on, like, she's on antibiotics and I'm on really heavy ones now.

[Monica Padman]

Got it.

[Dax Shepard]

That make you not feel good. So some of the results. One is E. Coli was in my uti.

[Monica Padman]

I said that you did not want to hear it, but I did say that.

[Dax Shepard]

Uti, I think prostitis.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Like in infection, your breast. E. Coli.

[Monica Padman]

Weird.

[Dax Shepard]

I was in the mix.

[Monica Padman]

But you didn't have any tummy troubles?

[Dax Shepard]

I never had haunted snow or throw up, but I had had a piece. I would tell you that part that right before I got the fever, I'd had a piece of bacon. Elk. I don't. Yeah, elk that Kristen had cooked while I was away. And I was like, that. That was in the fridge too long. I took some. A bite, and I was like, I think we should throw this away. I don't think this is good. So I had eaten.

[Monica Padman]

So you had one bite of it.

[Dax Shepard]

One. Just one bite.

[Monica Padman]

Well, then maybe. Maybe.

[Dax Shepard]

And threw it away. So I don't fucking know. Monica. Like what? I asked about my. They're not carbuncles. I call them carbons, but I don't even think I actually have carbon. But as about those, the doctor says it's completely unrelated. He looked. He's like, there's nothing.

[Monica Padman]

Did he say they're okay?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he looked and said, there's nothing. There's nothing cooking here.

[Monica Padman]

These are fine. I was like, I saw. I diagnosed you with something.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, what do you have me on mrsa, Right. You have me on mrsa. And then. And he said, now, that thing. Mrs. Very common when you cycle and wear tight clothes. So he did recommend I use a surgical soap.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

When I cycle. I am disgusting. I sound like a complete petri dish.

[Monica Padman]

You're just a person.

[Dax Shepard]

You're just saying to tag me on so I can say even more. They tell you that they found anal warts all over my face?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, wait. But MRSA is scary. Like, remember when Mercer was this huge. There was a huge thing in the hospitals and there was. They were quarantined and stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I think there's degrees of it. But, yes. All to say, I was a little sad that I didn't, like, spring back to full health. Sure. I think it's going to be a longer process than I normally. Like, I'm impatient. I want to feel good. I'm exhausted all day.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, so you're on antibiotics, you're washing with mrsa. So.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I haven't gotten that yet.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, okay.

[Dax Shepard]

But I'll. I'll get that.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. And you miss your PE bag a little bit.

[Dax Shepard]

No, no, no. But again, chicken's coming home to roost. The other thing I was thinking is, I took a Uber home from the hospital on Thursday, and there's a line in chips where Steve Agee's a cab driver and he goes to pick me up my character, and it's in front of the emergency room at the hospital, and Agee's character goes, hold on. Before you get in, you don't have any fucking leaky tubes or bags or anything, do you? Whoa. Because I made fun that might have tubes and leaky bags. I gave myself one. And then the. Making fun of the Kathleen Cowboy. Yeah. So, man, the chickens, they're home. They're roosters roosting.

[Monica Padman]

Simmy.

[Sharon Horgan]

Sim.

[Monica Padman]

Sim. Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What are your thoughts about all this?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I. I mean, I love it. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it was painful and uncomfortable and did it. So I had a catheter put in when I got my eggs frozen.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you did?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And I didn' told me after they had to do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And it hurt after to pee so bad for a while. So does it hurt still? Because it's like, sore.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

That sucks. Yeah, it's. The whole thing sucks.

[Dax Shepard]

I am insistent. I am willing.

[Sharon Horgan]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

That I am going to wake up Thursday morning somehow and I'm going to feel amazing. Million bucks. Like a million bucks.

[Monica Padman]

I think you will. But I think you need to be smart about these next few days if you want that to be true. This isn't just gonna happen like a miracle.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

You need to be careful with how you're treating your body over the next few days.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm taking my medicine.

[Monica Padman]

Take it easy.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I left out a silver lining. I was in that. I was in the guest house for three days by myself and I got to watch a lot of tv.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And guilt free. Yeah. I can really only watch so much and I start getting mad at myself.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

This was like, go for it. And I watched the entire house of Guinness.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Steven Knight, Peaky Blinders. Yes. Yeah, it's very Peaky Blinders.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, fun.

[Dax Shepard]

And it makes you want to drink Guinness so bad. So I ordered Guinness. Nas.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, fun.

[Dax Shepard]

And at night I would get in my bed with my tube hanging out of my dick and I would have my little pint glass and I let it breathe the way they said in the show.

[Monica Padman]

Did you watch your programs?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I'd sit my Guinness with my piss tube in and I really liked it.

[Monica Padman]

This is a ding, ding, ding.

[Dax Shepard]

Why?

[Monica Padman]

Because this. We talk about Guinness on Sharon.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yes, we do. We do. That's right. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

That's exciting.

[Dax Shepard]

Their na is really good.

[Monica Padman]

That's great. Not as good as Ted Seeger's.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, nothing's as good as Ted Seeger's. That's what they say. That's what they're saying. Everybody stay tuned for more Armchair Extra Expert. If you dare. This episode is brought to you by audible. Love can take many forms. Sometimes it's a chance encounter at a gas station that turns into a ten year relationship. Other times it's texting Someone you up and accidentally falling in love. Audible's collection of romance audiobooks has it all. Think relatable situationships, historical scandals, forbidden magic and yes, plunge of stories that are headphones only. Wink wink. Hear modern rom coms from authors like Leanne Slade and Emily Henry. The latest romantasy series from Sarah J. Maas and Lauren Roberts, Regency favorites like Pride and Prejudice, plus all the steamy stuff. Whether it's a duke, a billionaire or a winged lord from the Night Court. Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a 30 day trial at audible.com/dax.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Well, that is harrowing. You went through.

[Dax Shepard]

How was your weekend?

[Monica Padman]

My weekend was good because while you were going through that at the same, same day actually Taylor Swift dropped her album.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I know. I listened.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Yes, yes, yes.

[Dax Shepard]

So how does one eventize a whole day? Like for what was your whole, what was your day dedicated to? That. Right.

[Monica Padman]

Well so it dropped Thursday at I guess midnight east coast, so nine hour time. Which you know, there are, there are moments in life where I feel just so, so, so grateful to be on the west coast for the time. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

This is one Super Bowl. Super bowl is always one. I'm always very grateful. Now so I was working editing. I must have been because I didn't have time to listen that night. And I'm on a group text. Okay. With three other swifties.

[Dax Shepard]

Two are Molly.

[Monica Padman]

Huh? Molly, Jake and Audra. Okay, two. Well, one is the biggest Swifty I've in the world.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And people are gonna be so mad at me for saying that because they're like, no, I am.

[Dax Shepard]

And then that's Jake.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Jake. Molly is number two. She's very, she's, she's very high up on the Swifty scale.

[Dax Shepard]

Yep.

[Monica Padman]

Audra and I are some deviations below that.

[Dax Shepard]

Uhhuh.

[Monica Padman]

But love her so much. Obviously.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So anyway, I'm like trying to not really look at my phone. Cuz these texts are.

[Dax Shepard]

They started at nine.

[Monica Padman]

They started at nine. They are coming in, they're talking about each song. I was like, oh, like I don't know what anyone's talking about.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So I start listening Friday around 2 West coast time and, and it's fun. It's easy listening.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It comes out. It's, it's very easy to consume. It's just very. Yeah. This is Taylor Swift.

[Monica Padman]

It's, it's breezy, it's, it's poppy. Like it's, it's fun. I enjoy it a lot. Yeah.

[Sharon Horgan]

I.

[Dax Shepard]

While we're we're inching closer to something. We're like crawling. We're crawling.

[Monica Padman]

No. I love her so much.

[Dax Shepard]

We're making our way to like the edge of the cliff where the bad guys might be able to see us, but we can. We can take.

[Monica Padman]

I know. I mean. Yeah. This is one of those things you can't say anything. But I'm gonna like. I. I thought it was great. I've been listening to it a lot. It's.

[Dax Shepard]

It's fun and is it a show or a grower? Is it like the more you listen to, the more you appreciate it.

[Monica Padman]

The more I listen, the more I like the sound.

[Dax Shepard]

Uh huh. But the lyrics for you are not hitting the way some of them have.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. So the reason she's so special to me is because of her poetry, the way she writes. I do think this album isn't the best lyrically of hers.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

That's okay. Not everything has to be the best.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah yeah.

[Monica Padman]

There's one song on there, Father Figure that I think is Michaels is George Michaels. Yes. He's credited on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I think that is quintessential Taylor lyrics. I think it's so smart and good. It has this great turn and I love it.

[Dax Shepard]

I it love.

[Monica Padman]

I love it. But the rest are kind of like.

[Dax Shepard]

They're fun.

[Monica Padman]

They're just fun. And that's fine.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

There is a song I don't know if you've heard about already. All the like drama. There's drama.

[Dax Shepard]

Please tell me.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. There's a song that's about so romantic. Actually romantic.

[Dax Shepard]

Actually romantic. Yeah yeah yeah. And who is it about? Is it about KZZ Swigs?

[Monica Padman]

Charlie xcx.

[Dax Shepard]

Charlie xcx.

[Monica Padman]

You're really date you even you in the bag.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a lot pairs nicely with my. My piss bag.

[Monica Padman]

Charlie XCX is seeming. It's seemingly about her. It's not a nice song. You know it is. It is not a nice song.

[Dax Shepard]

Well okay now. Great. There's already I've heard it. That's not how I've heard the reaction.

[Monica Padman]

Really? What have you heard?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, the reaction is like what a cool way to turn it. Turn this endless. You're this. I'm that into like. I'm kind of flattered by your obsession. It's actually quite romantic that you're thinking about me.

[Monica Padman]

That much I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is. It's a little catty.

[Monica Padman]

It's so catty. So caddy look by the way, it is a bop like I and I'm Kind of. I feel very personally confused about this because I really like the sound of this. And I find myself.

[Dax Shepard]

You find yourself really grooving to it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Moving your hips and your shoulders.

[Monica Padman]

And yet I am fundamentally kind of like it's not. You're the most famous person in the world. You don't need to do it. You just don't need to do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Really quick. I think this is where you're seeing tension between the internal identity and the external. So yeah, she's the biggest pop star to ever be. This is below her.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But what to me, it's like she'll always be the mid level kid in school.

[Monica Padman]

That's who she feels.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, she will always be that in her heart. Like a mid level kid in school. And I don't know anything about Charlie xcx, but the name makes me think she feels like that she's owning her sexuality and is that. I literally haven't seen a picture. Cool, right?

[Monica Padman]

She's cool. Yes, she's cool.

[Dax Shepard]

So when your internal identity is stuck in eighth grade and someone who's cool, then you don't. You lose sight of the fact that, no, actually I won the bigger war. And this is kind of below me. This is me. This is my dissonance. When I am the boss of 100 people on a set of a movie, it is really hard for me to understand that it's. It shouldn't be, but it is.

[Monica Padman]

I, I, I, I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Like I'm against the principal at high school and the in the boss. So to be one is so confusing.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, I understand. And I, that's exact. I think actually that is a through line through this whole album. I think there's a lot, there are parts of it that to me read like all these cool kids rejected me and so I'm kind of swinging back into this other direction or just the, this like Hollywood didn't like me. So I'm choosing A Simple Life. There's a lot of interesting stuff in it that I'm. That is funny because for me I'm just like, oh, I know. That's how you, that is how you perceive what's going on. And that's your, that's your internal stuff to work on. Because that is not true. You're a billionaire because the world showed up. The world, not just middle America, the coast. Everyone voted, you know, and everyone picked you. But I also, yes, it's endearing. We all just have stuff that we have to work on. But I do think if you are at that Level, you have a bigger responsibility than most to work on it or to have someone tell you, like, hey, you're punching down. I know you don't. You can't see it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But you objectively are.

[Dax Shepard]

But can I devil's advocate that? And I don't. I don't really have an opinion on it. I don't know enough about the players, and I don't. But my devil's advocate argument would be like, no, no. Your obligation as an artist is to actually write about whatever you're going through and not try to be, like. Not try to be the person you're hoping to be in three years. And maybe in three years, she'll be what you wanted this to be. But she's clearly annoyed, and it's taking up space in her head that this girl wrote this song about her and that's the real of what she's processing. And in that way, I think that's the exact song she should write. And then maybe in a year, she'll be able to look back like, I got that venom out of my system and that was below me. I should have been above that. And that'll be a part of the process, and then hopefully she'll put that experience on the next album. But my devil's advocate would simply be like, no, I don't think you should ever write for who you should be. I think you should write for exactly what you are right now and what you're going through and. And you gotta, like, live with the. The mistakes that are inherent in it. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, I think you're right about that. I don't. I think she should write anything she wants to write.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. What you choose to put out in the world when you are.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You're saying it's not the most attractive. Look, whether it.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You support her right? To do that.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Of course.

[Monica Padman]

It's her right. She can do whatever she wants. But it's. To me, it's. It's like, own that unfairly or fairly. It's going to be a little hard for me to say unfairly when it seems like it comes with a lot of prizes.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that when this has happened, These are girls she gave a shot to.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. She feels betrayed.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So that's deep, right?

[Monica Padman]

It's very deep. And I have people I want to. I have plenty of things I want to say, and I never will.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I am not her. It's like, if I don't get to. Then you can.

[Dax Shepard]

This is.

[Sharon Horgan]

I.

[Monica Padman]

What.

[Dax Shepard]

What's great too is obviously we see in each other what we see, what we're struggling with ourselves. And, and I want. I would say you are her actually. And I don't. I don't know that you. I can. It's hard to update.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I'm not her. We have to be very. We. We just literally have to look at our Instagram following and be realistic. I'm not trying to be her.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I know. I'm just saying I think you should identify with it because I think it's hard to. On board.

[Monica Padman]

But all to say, I feel a responsibility like. And there are things I would love to say to the world that I'll never, ever, ever say to the world.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure.

[Monica Padman]

And it is because it's. It's not the right thing to do.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not going to make the world better.

[Monica Padman]

It's not. It's not going to make the world better and it's causing pain for no reason. And that's for me to deal with in my, in therapy. Not, you know, again, I'll write about it, do whatever, but to put it out is a reason. Real, real, real choice.

[Dax Shepard]

Last counter. Just thought of it. There's nothing in the history of rap that's been better for the industry than the feuds.

[Monica Padman]

Diss tracks. Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

They. They fuel everything.

[Monica Padman]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

This whole Drake and I mean I would not be surprised if we saw them having lunch in Italy somewhere.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean really.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And, and, and you now that a lot of these rappers are. Are long past that phase. You'll hear Ice Cube, like Jay Z's writing songs back in the day day for, you know, East Coast, West Coast. Jay Z's writing a Dre song, his most popular song. Like none of that. A lot of that was not real and it was great for business. Is it possible that Taylor's like, yeah, this is below me. But like, this is part of the game. This is part of the product. And so now Charli XCX gets to write a counter song to this one and that thing will pop and this thing popped and maybe it's just business.

[Monica Padman]

Look it, she is. She is.

[Dax Shepard]

She is a business genius.

[Monica Padman]

A true business genius. She's a mastermind. I would not be shocked if. Yes. Also look, this album is happy. She's happy right now. And that's amazing. I want that for her.

[Dax Shepard]

That's what I want to get to.

[Monica Padman]

She's happy and that is clear. Right. And there are songs that aren't happy. Father Figure and this. That I almost feel like she's so happy that she almost has to find, like, she has to find the fuel again.

[Dax Shepard]

Like maybe manufacture a little bit or.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Mixed with like. Oh, yeah. What is bothering me? Oh, yeah. Charlie XCX did this. Like, I don't know that that's really on her mind all the time. And I hope it's not.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. But this is so fun because normally I'm a little critical.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

So this has been her.

[Monica Padman]

And I love the album.

[Dax Shepard]

This has been a fun reversal.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And it's been a joy.

[Sharon Horgan]

Well.

[Monica Padman]

Because I can't. I'm not ever going to just be like blindly, blindly. So I've been listening nonstop.

[Dax Shepard]

So, Erica, Molly came over on Sunday and I wanted to hear her opinion again. We, as we know, she's a number one, top tier swifty.

[Sharon Horgan]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

So I was asking her what she thought of all the tracks and she was saying on this one, she loves the album. And I said, you know, there is a sad truth to art and I experience it and I'm aware of it. Which is I might have even said this. A few episodes I'm watching Hit and Run and this is so cocky to say, but it's true. I'm feeling so much pride over the script. Forget everything else and I'm just like, God, that was. That's as good as I could have done.

[Monica Padman]

You're proud of it.

[Sharon Horgan]

You should have scared.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm very proud of it. And then immediately next thought is, I don't think I could write that. I wrote that script in two weeks and I thought I just stepped on a dog. It was my backpack. I just was like, man, I don't think I could fucking write this. And it was the scariest feeling. And what I ended up coming up with is the only way I could write the sequel would be like, we start them divorced and then we're figuring out what happened. Because the most recent thing I can even remember remember is that turmoil of having children and how you both get lost. Like. But I. So I gotta go back a bunch of years. But in general, I'm so lucky. My life's pretty good. I'm not like, I'm not wrestling.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. With demons.

[Dax Shepard]

Pain. Right.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Which I do think is the fodder of art.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And so when we were in the sauna, I was saying, like, I applaud her. If she can figure out how to be. Be creative, happily married, happily financially secure, accomplish her goals. I think that's a hard place to create for her.

[Monica Padman]

It's hard.

[Dax Shepard]

And I was saying, like, if you look at her early music, if between 17 years old and 30, 70% of that audience is either looking to go out tonight to find love or they're dealing with having lost it.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like a breakup or pursuit.

[Monica Padman]

There's a lot of emotional turmoil with.

[Dax Shepard]

Relationships, with work, establishing yourself in your identity as in a career, like all the main topics that drive pop music. Unfortunately, she's just not. She's no longer embroiled in. She's not dealing with a huge breakup. She's not dealing with. She's not dealing with getting love or falling in love. She's like, stable. And it's not. Yeah. So, you know, it's a challenge.

[Monica Padman]

I think it's a challenge. But I also think you, like, even you. Everyone is wrestling with stuff. And you do have to be interested. Perspective about that, like your age or your relevance.

[Dax Shepard]

I agree. I agree. I left that part out. So I'm definitely wrestling with stuff. But it's stuff that very. A very small percent of the potential audience is wrestling with. That's what happens is your potential audience narrows and narrows. So, like mine right now is like existential work. Identity loss.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but that's. But that is not narrow. I think a good artist makes something very specific, very universal. And I think that she has the capacity to do that and does that like she's writing about John Mayer. One person. And yet that song resonates with so many people. And it's specific. It is talking about his chess game. And. And so many people are like, I have what? I know that person. I have this. I understand it. And same with these things as we get older too.

[Dax Shepard]

But I think she'll write a motherh album.

[Monica Padman]

I do too. Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And I think that'll appeal deeply to whatever percentage of young people are mothers. But again, it's not this. Like 100% of people are looking for love in their 20s.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, that's just a. I think the fact. And like, all the pop songs are about love.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And it's a con, obviously, the most common.

[Dax Shepard]

So the next thing she'll be able to do that has the broadest appeal will be to write like a really revealing and truthful album about motherhood. But again, it's just a much tinier when no one in their 20s is really.

[Monica Padman]

But again, I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't like that?

[Monica Padman]

I don't think it's true. I think it's the most obvious. It's the most obvious thing going on. But there Are deep things going on with all of us all the time? And if you choose to deep dive into those things, like eldest. There's a song on there called Eldest Daughter. And like, that is. Well, I think some people think, think that's about him, but I don't think it is at all.

[Dax Shepard]

About who.

[Monica Padman]

About Travis, like, or connecting it to Travis. But I don't, I think it's about the responsibility of, of being the eldest daughter. And it's like there are things like we're, we're just so. We're multifaceted.

[Dax Shepard]

We are. But you could, you could look at her most prolific songwriters. There's a bell curve. And then you got to ask yourself, why is there a bell curve? Does her brain deteriorate? You know, are they losing their creative? I don't think that's it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then there are some artists that stay, but also look at their lives. There are people that never leave the cycle of love addiction, and they can be writing about heartbreak and obsession into their 60s.

[Sharon Horgan]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And so, yeah, if you want to keep your life a mess, which some people did. But I think in general, if you look at people that kind of, like, they deal with all these big mercurial events in life, I do think you just, just look at the output disappear. And also, that's okay. That's probably okay. That's, that's the, that would be the hard part to get to. Like, that would be my song or my script today, which so few people would. They're not at a place in their life. They would understand. It's like, can I let all that go and still love myself and think I have value and let go of something I work so hard to get? Like, that's where I'm at in life.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

Could I make that message broadly appealing?

[Monica Padman]

That's the challenge. Yeah, that would be the challenge. Anyway.

[Dax Shepard]

Anywho.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, let's do some facts.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great. I want to say, Hogan, I'm going to be honest with you.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

I have these little hiccups with people's names sometimes, and this is one of them. I, I, in my mind, it's. It's Sharon Hogan.

[Monica Padman]

I know why. It's because there's two R's, and that's confusing. Sharon Horgan.

[Dax Shepard]

And what's Hulk Hogan's wife's name or daughter?

[Monica Padman]

Rob. I have no idea.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't know off the top of your head what the, the whole Hulkster's family.

[Monica Padman]

Candace Hogan.

[Dax Shepard]

Sky. Brooke Hogan. Sky. Linda. Jennifer. Yeah, he's got a lot of Wives. There's no reason that.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, also, he's passed. I forgot.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, we lost him.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. It's sad when people die.

[Dax Shepard]

He entertained a generation, man.

[Monica Padman]

He really did.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I love the Hulkster when I was a little boy, I really did.

[Monica Padman]

What a character.

[Dax Shepard]

He body slammed Andre the Giant as as far 500 pound, man.

[Monica Padman]

I wonder if when he did that, if Andre took a fart when he.

[Dax Shepard]

Landed, I'm almost certain he took a fart.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I think he did.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you ever see the memes about under the Giant? How many beers he drank? I know in the doc they talked about it.

[Monica Padman]

I don't remember.

[Dax Shepard]

But there's these claims that they seem to be substantiated, that he drank like 126 beers in one sitting. And I'm just like, what? No, I'm like, I understand that he's 500 pounds, but 126, that's 1012 packs in a six pack.

[Monica Padman]

And it's not like shit shots. It's like, that's oblivious.

[Dax Shepard]

I do not believe how many farts he took.

[Monica Padman]

Ew.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, man.

[Monica Padman]

This is a ding, ding, ding fart. Do turkeys poop more than other farm animals? Oh, turkeys do not necessarily poop more than other farm animals in terms of total volume, but they do poop very frequently. The larger and heavier an animal is, the more waste it generally produces. A turkey's waste output differs significantly from that of a cow or pig, both in volume and how it's caused concentrated. Like chickens, turkeys have a fast working metabolism that causes them to excrete waste often as frequently as every 20 to 30 minutes.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Yeah, you were right.

[Dax Shepard]

We're watching this nature show about dolphins, the girls and I. Uhhuh. And this very, very assertive bird lands on the boat. And the guy's just standing there doing his two camera thing, and all of a sudden this bird just lands and it comes right up to his face. Like, I'm never seen a more confident bird. Was not afraid of this human at all.

[Monica Padman]

That's nice.

[Dax Shepard]

And then it's sitting there and they kind of are getting a bang out of it. And then it just goes like, it just sprays. It sprays bird poop on the front of the boat. And then it does like four more squirts throughout the thing. And I'm like, I hate how they squirt their poop. And then it brought back PTSD of that woman in the grocery store that we saw.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my jersey. We didn't see. We saw a video we saw video. We did not see them.

[Dax Shepard]

She pulled her jersey material shorts of the. And just squirted like a goose on the floor of a.

[Monica Padman]

In the middle of a grocery store.

[Sharon Horgan]

It was.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, what so.

[Monica Padman]

And like, we have a high tolerance for poop stories. And like, we understand that sometimes you have to. Tonka. But this was so just like, go outside.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Grab. I mean, also, like, here's what I would have done if it was like that and it was that desperate. She was in the vegetable section. Grab one of the plastic bags that are everywhere around you.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

In school. Squared into that.

[Monica Padman]

She didn't care about others at all. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

She had no regard for anyone.

[Monica Padman]

I feel like if you're gonna do that, you liked it. Like, you enjoyed it. It's a kink. Although we have had some armchair anonymous stories where people do crazy stuff when they have to poop. And they're like. They're just. Like my brain wasn't working.

[Dax Shepard]

They're good people and they're good people. They're really good people.

[Monica Padman]

So I don't know, but I. It is such a disturbing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. The way this. This bird was just. It's squirting is so gross.

[Monica Padman]

They're so smug about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. The waste called hot manure is very high in nitrogen and phosphorus compared to most other livestock Manure. Cattle. The sheer size of cattle means they produce a much greater volume of manure per day than turkeys. A large dairy cow can produce more than £100. Pounds of manure daily.

[Dax Shepard]

Aun you.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

A cow shits you out every day.

[Monica Padman]

Every day compared to a turkey's fraction of a pound. So they're doing a lot, but tinies.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

When I watch nature shows, I'm just so grateful that I'm an omnivore because if you're a herbivore, you have to eat so much to get any calories out of it. There's just no calories in hay. You have to eat a bale of hay and then die dump of Monica.

[Monica Padman]

Does hey have fiber in it?

[Dax Shepard]

I seems to have. Yeah. I think it has a lot of.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. Imagine the constipation.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And then it's gotta go through their four chambered stomach because it's like impossible to.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Break down.

[Monica Padman]

Ugh. Okay. I did a little more research on this.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

While the largest individual poop comes from blue whales and elephants, animals that poop the most frequently are small, energy intensive creatures like some birds. Ding, ding, ding. 40 times a day. Oh, my rabbits 200 to 300 times a day and penguins six to eight times an hour.

[Dax Shepard]

How are their butts? Not so raw.

[Monica Padman]

I hate rabbit poop.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't hate it. I'm just so confused. Is that their food or the poop? Because their food looks identical. Identical to their turtles. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

How can they tell? They probably.

[Dax Shepard]

They don't. They can't tell.

[Monica Padman]

They probably don't.

[Dax Shepard]

E. Okay, last thing I'll say about duty.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Because I just said it getting off the commode the other morning, Saturday morning. I said. I was about to. I was flushing and I was like, it is funny how disgusting we think it is when it is food. That's all you're looking at. You're looking at food.

[Monica Padman]

But mixed with.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not like you're looking at, you know, a carcass. Like, it's just. It's just the food that you thought looks so good when you were putting it in your mouth and now it. It, you know, nothing. That's its food.

[Monica Padman]

No, but it's mixed with, like, bacteria. Bacteria and stinky bile and stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

I know.

[Sharon Horgan]

It's just.

[Dax Shepard]

It is just food.

[Monica Padman]

It's good that we're not. We. That we don't think it's just food because it is bad for. If we ate it, it would be very bad for us because of bacteria. So we don't need to get contained. Confused like the rabbits.

[Dax Shepard]

I have a hunch we have once. Once we started living in such compact societies, that's when diseases started spreading a ton. When we started living with animals. These are when, like, all these really wild pathogens. So I. I wonder if when we were hunting and gathering, if we had the same aversion to duty. Because again, no other animal does. They, like, go right up to each other while the other ones, they also.

[Monica Padman]

Though, ate differently than we eat now. So the waste we're producing is so much more complicated than they were just eating, like, bear. Now natural foods.

[Dax Shepard]

I think I'm eating kind of like they ate, which is just like a tremendous amount of meat.

[Monica Padman]

But you would put mustard on it.

[Dax Shepard]

I do, but that's the seed sauce. But it's seed.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but the one kind you eat isn't just mustard seed. It's. It's made into a paste sauce.

[Dax Shepard]

I have no idea what kind of mustard sugar.

[Monica Padman]

Actually, there's probably not added sugar, but whatever. It's not. It's not pure.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I love mustard.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It's a great condiment.

[Monica Padman]

Great for salad dressings. Okay. Oh, to the point that has she made the most shows? Aaron Spelling holds the Guinness World records for record for the most prolific TV producer having created over 4,500 hours of television programming by 2003.

[Dax Shepard]

Whoa.

[Monica Padman]

I saw this funny thing of Howard Stern talking about the summer I turned pretty. He loves it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. He loves a lot of, like, TV teen shows and stuff.

[Monica Padman]

He's Team Conrad. For people who are wondering. Okay, okay. So you said that your kids. School. I'm not gonna say what it is. Has more free lunch than any other school in the city. I couldn't.

[Dax Shepard]

They.

[Monica Padman]

There was no. It wouldn't let me find that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But that might have been an exaggeration that school. 45% of families qualify for free or reduced lunch, so that's a lot. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I feel like when I was in elementary school, you know, you knew the kids that were on welfare because they didn't have to pay for lunch. Like, they. I forget what they had, but you'd be in line and you'd see it, and I think, you know, and I didn't grow up in, like, the fancy part of Michigan.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I still think it was, like, only 1 in 15 or 20 kids was on the free lunch.

[Monica Padman]

I wonder what have. What qual. Like, is it just family income? Right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's just income.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Oh, I forgot to find an important fact, which is where we stayed in London, it started with a C, but it was not Clar.

[Dax Shepard]

Claridge. Claridge's.

[Monica Padman]

Nope. That's the same one we've been saying.

[Dax Shepard]

Connaught.

[Monica Padman]

Nope, I've stayed there. That's a great hotel.

[Dax Shepard]

Caesar Hotel.

[Monica Padman]

Maybe it doesn't start with a C. Maybe it starts with an M. An.

[Dax Shepard]

M. What's that little area we're in? It was by the theater district, West End.

[Monica Padman]

Corinthia.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. That wouldn't have even rung a bell for me.

[Monica Padman]

It was the Corinthia Hotel in London. That's where we stayed. And I don't think we went to the pub that she wanted. She was.

[Dax Shepard]

There's no way that was the pub. The pub we went into is like something that would be on the Jersey boardwalk.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It wasn't. It wasn't really authentic or nice.

[Monica Padman]

No. But it.

[Dax Shepard]

They did serve Guinness on tap. That's all you can say about it.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. Speaking of, you know, we talked about drinking and, you know, of course, yes. There are all these studies. There's lots of debate about how bad is it? How bad is it? And this Harvard article says. Yes, there are, of course, bad things, but it also says everything in moderation. So anywho, that is it for facts.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay? God bless Sharon Horgan. She is a gift to us. Yes, consume all of her stuff. She's so consistently great.

[Monica Padman]

Agree. Yeah, right.

[Dax Shepard]

All right. Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry App, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry App or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.