Fail Again: Sean Penn and the Squared-Away Individual

Summary

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Fail Better with David Duchovny

Episode: “Fail Again: Sean Penn and the Squared-Away Individual”
Date: January 27, 2026
Host: David Duchovny
Guest: Sean Penn

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Episode Overview

This intimate, in-person conversation between host David Duchovny and acclaimed actor/director Sean Penn centers on the deeply human themes of failure, self-definition, and the artistry of transformation. Duchovny and Penn discuss not just the mechanics of acting, but the emotional plumbing that connects failure with growth, risk, and self-acceptance. Touching on Penn’s early life, the evolution of his craft, directing, and his navigation of fame and misinterpretation, the episode is rich with insights, industry anecdotes, and reflections on living authentically in an age of exposure.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Shifting Nature of Celebrity & Privacy in Acting

• Duchovny opens with reflections on how previous eras kept actors more anonymous, which allowed audiences to more freely believe in their transformations on screen.
  • “The less you know about me, the more freedom I have to become someone else.” (David Duchovny, [01:14])
  • Both Duchovny and Penn express some nostalgia for, and continued commitment to, privacy as a professional value.
• Fear vs. Magic: Duchovny relates his own hesitation about podcasting—worries that too much openness could dilute his “magic trick” as an actor. ([02:16])

2. Roots: Early Life, Motivation, and Internal Sense of Success/Failure

• Penn describes growing up between San Fernando Valley and Malibu, and an early drive to “square away” disorder as a source of accomplishment.
  • “I could be... on my hands and knees for 10 hours, getting every stray pebble out of there and getting that dirt swept under those trees. ...They always gave me a great feeling of accomplishment when things were squared away.” (Sean Penn, [05:50])
• Career Aspirations: Wanted to be a defense attorney like F. Lee Bailey, but realized his schoolwork hadn’t set him up for law.
• Stumbling into Acting: Started making Super 8 films due to his brother’s experiments, eventually stepping in as actor by necessity.
  • The acting “clicks” after hearing Anthony Zerby speak at a career day ([09:50]), and inspired by his “actor shoes.”

3. Learning the Craft and Respect for Acting

• Initial Self-Assessment: Not intimidated by most stage performances; sensed “a place here” in acting ([12:05]–[12:42]).
• Peggy Fury’s mentorship: She pushed him beyond his natural instincts, which were limited by his own life experience.
  • “I could be... natural. And that would be somewhat restricted to my own experience, meaning it wasn't going to play for... things very far outside of my own nature.” (Sean Penn, [13:09])
• Early Rejection: Fails an audition for “Kojak” but sees another actor (Barry Miller) play the part; realizes the difference is “freedom”—the capacity to improvise and embody. ([16:08]–[16:40])
• On Jeff Goldblum’s focus: Goldblum’s specificity onstage inspires Penn to “look at things” more deeply, a habit crucial for acting.

4. Process, Failure, and Success in Performance

• The Uncertainty of Acting: Tension and thrill in not knowing if a performance is working.
  • “There's always that tension of is it coming off or isn't it? ...I could be fucking up here badly, right?” (David Duchovny, [25:06])
• Subjectivity of Final Work: Editing shapes performances—sometimes directors “miss” what the actor intended; sometimes collaboration (e.g., Jack Nicholson in "The Pledge") adds magic.
  • “I probably took 75% easy, 75% of the adjustments that he made in the cut that I had presented him.” (Sean Penn, [27:41])
• The Relative Hardness of Acting vs. Directing: Acting requires “carrying the imaginary world... all day” and submitting to choices beyond your control.

5. Anecdotes of Artistic Integrity & Authority

• “Taps” Story: Penn, at 19, fights director Harold Becker over choreography—wants realism, refuses to stand up during a gunfight scene, only relents when promised both versions will be shot. In the end, the director’s version (which Penn doubted) is used, and a moviegoer confirms Penn’s instinct by yelling, “Hit the deck!” ([31:34]–[33:07])
  • “I'll never listen to a director again, no more bargaining.” (Sean Penn, [33:07]) (said with humor)

6. Iconic Roles and Creative Observations

• Spicoli (“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”): Penn saw the character as an “observation gig,” channeling dozens of real-life friends.
  • “They were all speaking the same Greek,” he jokes of the SoCal surfer scene. ([35:30])
• Artistic Takeaway: Sometimes success is capturing a subculture truly, not inventing it wholesale.

7. Lessons from Directing and Collaboration

• First Directorial Effort: Learns humility—“We learn how to make a movie by about the day we rap” ([36:42]).
• Observation: Even Scorsese seeks input, modeling continual learning and openness.
• Dream Projects: Both “Into the Wild” (Penn) and “Bucky Dent” (Duchovny) lived in their makers' heads for years—“10 years of subconsciously shooting the movie in my head.” (Sean Penn, [41:27])
• Living with Work: Both men confess to mentally “reshooting” their films after they’re finished; a game all artists play. ([41:34]–[41:56])
• Notable Moment: Duchovny shares an intimate story: Penn (rather than tear himself away from a screening of Duchovny’s film) “peed into a bottle” so as not to miss a moment, calling it “one of the most respectful things.” ([43:33]–[43:37])

8. On Brando, Masculinity, and the Nature of Failure

• Brando as a Role Model: Both see a sense of dissatisfaction and striving for “more” beyond acting in Brando.
  • “Is failure baked into the act of acting?” (Duchovny, [45:10])
• Penn’s Reflection: Brando respected acting yet grappled with its limits—Penn relates, blending his activism, writing, and public life into his identity.
• Dealing with Criticism & Hurt: Penn adapts; the hurt arises from misunderstanding, but present-day “fame belongs to everybody”—social media exposure is universal.
  • “The answer for me is you got to keep moving. Woodwork is a big one.” (Sean Penn, [51:25])
  • “There's a point at which your healing becomes your life. And, and so it's all just a joy to me. And I don't have time to read the bad things, but because I gotta get the sawdust out of my hair at the end of the day, and by that time I gotta have a few vodka tonics and call it a day.” ([51:46])

9. Shame, Reputation, and Self-Review

• Shame’s Role: Penn experiences shame “not when it’s illegitimate... It could be in a private act... when you fail... the obligation you have to your better self.” ([54:54])
• Navigating Reputation Today: It’s less about public opinion, more about aligning with your “future self”; guidance for kids is to “put on display where you're going” ([52:48], [53:43]).
  • “Affect your reputation as much as you can control, as much as you live it, whether it's misinterpreted and criticized or not in advance of your own vision...” (Sean Penn, [52:48])

10. On “Bob Honey,” Risk, and Audience Reception

• Duchovny reads from Penn’s book, discussing its deliberate provocations—Penn emphasizes he writes for those “in on the joke,” not to win everyone over. ([56:00])
  • “Are you in on the joke therefore able to giggle through the insanity of this or do you think the joke's being played on you?... That would maybe say something about the reader.” (Sean Penn, [56:47])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Squaring Away:
  • “I want a gravestone that legitimately says Sean Penn. A squared away individual with a square headstone.” — Sean Penn ([20:31])
• On Creative Freedom:
  • “He's free. And he's doing that. And I thought, you can do that.” — Sean Penn, on seeing Barry Miller act ([16:15])
• On Brando & Criticism:
  • “I just tell myself it's all true, and then it doesn't bother me.” — Marlon Brando, related by David Duchovny ([49:23])
• On Coping with Negative Attention:
  • “You got to keep moving. Woodwork is a big one.” — Sean Penn ([51:25])
• On Shame & Self-Review:
  • “We are under constant self review.” — Sean Penn ([55:22])
• On Reception to Art:
  • “You're engaging in wordplay... purposefully... creating a performance that's going to alienate people to not look closely enough at what you're really doing.” — David Duchovny, on Penn’s novel ([56:00])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:14] – Duchovny on celebrity anonymity and magic in acting
• [03:10] – Duchovny introduces Sean Penn and premise of episode
• [05:50] – Penn’s early sense of accomplishment and “squaring away”; source of internal pride
• [09:50] – Anthony Zerby inspires Penn’s interest in acting
• [12:05] – Realization he belongs on-stage; not feeling inferior to established actors
• [13:09] – Peggy Fury busts him for relying too much on “natural” acting
• [16:15] – Watching another actor gives Penn “permission” to be free; pivotal craft insight
• [25:06] – The thrill and uncertainty of performance—could be failing at any moment
• [31:34] – Anecdote about his standoff with a director on “Taps”
• [33:24] – Duchovny on the impact of Spicoli and cultural archetypes
• [36:42] – Humility and lessons learned directing his first film
• [41:27] – Living with a movie for years, subconscious preparation
• [49:23] – Brando’s wisdom on handling public criticism
• [51:25] – Coping with hurt and misrepresentation; woodworking as therapy
• [54:54] – Shame, self-obligation, and internal review
• [56:47] – On writing provocatively and whether readers are “in on the joke”

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Final Thoughts

This episode stands out for its unhurried, thoughtful exchanges that balance industry reflection with personal vulnerability. Listeners get a rare sense of both men’s inner lives and guiding philosophies, whether on parenting, enduring public scrutiny, or the mysterious craft of acting. The “squared away” motif becomes a metaphor for Penn’s (and perhaps Duchovny’s) foundation: striving for honest order in one’s private universe, even as the outer world remains noisy, unruly, and full of risk.

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For more details or behind-the-scenes reflections, Lemonada Premium subscribers receive bonus content.

Transcript

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[Steve Burns]

Hey, it's me, Steve Burns. And I'm so glad you're here because you and I go way back, right?

[Sean Penn]

Yeah.

[Steve Burns]

And look at us now, like we're all grown up. We've got this new podcast where we talk about all this grown up stuff and there's special guests like Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Nye, but for the most part, it's about you. I mean, it's always been about you. From Lemonada, Media Alive with Steve Burns is coming September 17th. Wherever you get your podcasts or you can watch every episode on YouTube.

[Sean Penn]

Lemonada.

[David Duchovny]

The actors that I respected or loved growing up, well, not growing up, but when I started acting, you didn't know so much about them. And that was important for their acting because then they could become other people for you up there. And then we entered into this stage of history where we wanted information on everything. And then we entered into the Internet age where we have information on everyone and everything. And then we entered into the age where celebrities share freely information whether it's curated or not. We don't know about everything and anything. And I still have this kind of sense of privacy about me. That's that it's not arrogance and it's not secrecy. And I think Sean shares it because he's from the same generation as me. And it's a protectiveness of the job, of the magic trick of acting. The less you know about me, the more freedom I have to become someone else.

And that was a fear of doing.

This podcast was, you know, the more I talk about myself or the more I reveal aspects of myself which I want to do, because that's important for this back and forth that I have with people like Sean. There's a certain fear, you know, that it kind of takes away a little of my ability to do magic on the other end. I think it's important to remember that as we're listening to all these podcasts, that if there's a reticence, it's not necessarily shame about one's behavior. It's not necessarily regret about one's behavior.

It's not necessarily a failure.

But when you're talking about people that transform as a living, then you're talking about the ability to remain hidden, and that goes into all aspects of your life.

I'm David Decock, and this is Fail Better. A show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Sean Penn is a fantastic actor. He's had iconic roles in movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Dead Man Walking. And just think about the range between those two roles. He won best actor awards for mystic river and Milk. This year, he's starring in a new movie called Daddy O, written and directed by my good friend Christy Hall.

Go see it.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

He's an author.

[David Duchovny]

His Bob Honey books were not critically acclaimed. So what? But I like them.

That's more important.

He's also no stranger to controversies off the screen. We ended up talking a lot about the craft of acting, including how he studied with legendary acting coach Peggy Fury. Maybe the best part of this interview, though, no zoom. We were in person, face to face in the house, his house. We were drinking water because we were talking so much. Sean was smoking. I was happily enjoying the secondhand smoke. Here's our conversation. I kind of want to start at the beginning because it's my feeling that, like, people's sense of success and failure, their own, like, interior sense is created very early on in life, you know, and my sense of you is you have a very strong sense, interior sense of what works and what doesn't, of what succeeds and what fails. And I just wanted to go back to, like, what's it, growing, growing up in Malibu, your dad being a director, your brother being, you know, an actor and kind of getting you into it. And what were the stakes? What was the vision? What did you fall in love with?

[Sean Penn]

Well, the way I'd answer that is, so I grew up in the San Fernando Valley till I was 9, turning 10. But even 7, 8 years old at that time was a very different time than now. And, you know, my biggest memory of that time is whenever one wasn't at school, they were with their 5, 6 buddies on Schwinn bikes riding around the. All over the valley. And you'd go for hours and hours, miles from your house and your parents wouldn't worry about you. There was no cell phone to bother you with that stuff. And, and I remember, you know, like, in terms of work, when I go, because we're going to move to, like, what, how we gauge success with something.

[David Duchovny]

And yeah.

[Sean Penn]

From a very early age, I never liked too much when I had a dictated chore. But when I noticed a certain part of the yard that would feel better, more squared away, I could be, you know, on my hands and knees for 10 hours, getting every stray pebble out of there and getting that dirt swept under those trees. And this. They always gave me a great feeling of accomplishment when things were squared away. And after I. We came to Malibu, and that's where it ended. 10 to 17. Until I was 17, I never had a thought of being an actor. Right. I was on a trajectory in my own fantasy to be F. Lee Bailey. I wanted to go out and fight the good fights in criminal justice as a criminal defense attorney.

[David Duchovny]

So you're going to defend. You weren't going to prosecute?

[Sean Penn]

I was going to defend. I could defend anything in my sense of it. I could, you know, you give me a debate, you give me Charles Manson, I'll get him off. And then it was literally upon graduation that I realized I had not paid any attention to the notion that your grades would matter to get you into higher education and ultimately law school. And there was no part of my body that was ready to go voluntarily back to school after that, after graduation. But by that time, and in about the last year of high school, I started making these Super 8 sound movies with my friends. Things that were motivated by my younger brother Christopher, where he had. He had, you know, discovered the. The sound on film, you know, the Magnetic Strip. And I was watching he and his buddies make these little movies. And what were those about?

[David Duchovny]

What were those movies?

[Sean Penn]

His movies were all about the Vietnam War, I shouldn't say all. They started out doing little crime stories, you know, capers, him and Charlie Sheen running around, you know, playing cops and. But it was amazing to me because, you know, this is before anybody had a video camera or anything, and these Super 8 cameras and a little edit kit and you could start making talky movies. So I think that without knowing it, I had found interest in what my dad did, which was directing film, and it was about camera angles. It was about. That was in my head. And so I started doing that in high school.

[David Duchovny]

But before that, you hadn't had a discussion with your dad about what do you do?

[Sean Penn]

Well, I sure, I'd had my kind of go to work with dad days throughout the years from being a little kid on. But that was more about checking in on set in the morning, having a donut, being introduced to some of the actors, seeing the first couple of takes and then slipping out the door and Walking around the studio lot, finding the back lot, which was interesting, but not in a connective way of wanting to pursue that. Right. My own life, just as an observer. And then in the absence of, you know, I was. It was always the guys who didn't do homework, you know, and I was certainly one of those. We were the ones available to shoot at night during the school week. And so I found myself having to plug in as an actor into the movies that we were doing and it was okay. And then the actor Anthony Zerby came to did Career day.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

And it's when it all clicked. My senior year of high school, I said, because there was no thought that I could go ask people to entrust millions of dollars to me as a director, you know, as a 17 year old, barely high school graduate.

[David Duchovny]

That was what that was. The thought in your head at first was, I'm gonna direct, I'm gonna tell these stories. Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

And then I talked to my dad at that point.

[David Duchovny]

Wait, what was it about Zerby? Was it something that he said or just. I see it's possible you can have a life like this.

[Sean Penn]

I don't know that I ever took in that this was actually a serious minded career, that this was a serious. Even growing up with my parents, who were both actors and certainly very respectful of the craft of acting, it didn't, had not really clicked to me to consider it anything other than what shows up in the movies.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

And that there was actually something to apply yourself to here, to build characters, to help tell stories. And the way he talked about it, and then I tilt down and I see his boots and they were these, I guess, like Florsheim 1970s zipper boots.

[David Duchovny]

Talk about Zerby now.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah. And I thought, well, those look cool. And that became what I thought were actor shoes. So I went out and got me a pair and voila, I got into acting school and I got with a repertory company out in the valley called the grt. And that was a great experience because I was doing everything from selling tickets to lights and sound and building sets. And then over time it let you start to be in the shows and doing a lot of shows around different Equity waiver theaters in la. And this is where it comes to my sense of, I don't, I don't know, completing something or succeeding at something. I remembered that was going to a lot of theater at the time because I was, I had become sort of obsessed with this craft of acting. And. And I remember every, almost every time I went, I never had to worry about being great at it because I just knew I was better than most. I'd watch a performance on stage and think, that's not intimidating to me.

[David Duchovny]

Right, right. I had a similar response. I had a small part in Chaplin many, many years ago with Downey. And it was when I was just starting and I was intimidated by the names on the call sheet. And then I got there and I watched Downey and I watched Kevin Klein and I watched Dan Aykroyd and they were great. But it wasn't a different language than the one I was trying to speak. I'm not saying I was as good as them or anything, but I knew it wasn't this magic.

[Sean Penn]

You had a place here.

[David Duchovny]

Right. I thought it felt that way.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah. And same. Same for me, it was. It's as same still today. It's what it is, you know.

[David Duchovny]

Just the sense. Yeah. Being in the right place. Yeah. But at some point you found your way to Peggy Fury, right?

[Sean Penn]

Yeah. And that was.

[David Duchovny]

And it sounds like that's where you started to maybe put your own technique together. Is that right?

[Sean Penn]

Yeah. What I. What I found that I had easily. And Peggy busted me on this right away. I could be. What would you call it? Natural.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

And that would be somewhat restricted to my own experience, meaning it wasn't going to play for. Period. And it wasn't going to play for things very far outside of my own nature.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

And so how to build the blocks, to feel free in another character's nature and to exercise one's imagination to find that and that that was a formative moment because while I was not as a teenager looking to be an actor, you know, you get to your mid later teens, there's a whole lot of reason to want to find some cash to do some things you want to do. And my father was directing an episode of Kojak. And Kojak, like some of the shows today, would take a lot of their scripts from the headlines.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

And the mob was using minors to do hits. And it was a big New York Times piece at the time because they wouldn't get life in prison. And so there was this young hitman character and he said, why don't you come read for it? And, man, I stayed up all night the nights leading up to that audition. First. First audition. And again, not in pursuit of being an actor, but, you know, there was a check involved here. And, you know, I got it down and I went in and it was. I can't remember, you know, what I would call what I did, other than maybe it was Just very flat. I did not get the part. So then the actor who played that hitman.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

Was. Do you remember the actor Barry Miller? He was, he was the one that jumped off the bridge in Saturday Night Fever.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Penn]

So he had shot Saturday Night Fever. This is the period. But it hadn't come out yet. And I'm in senior year, high school, I think, and my dad said, come down and see this actor do the part you, you were doing.

[David Duchovny]

That's an amazing thing. That's an amazing thing to say to you. Can you imagine saying that to a. A young actor who might be smarting over not getting a role? And come, come watch this. I mean, it's a great thing to.

[Sean Penn]

Do, I think, maybe because there was no part of me that had a vanity attached to acting because I wasn't thinking I was going to be an actor.

[David Duchovny]

Right, right.

[Sean Penn]

So I thought, yeah. Oh, okay. You know, I'm the wrong tool for the, for the job. Let me see what the right.

[David Duchovny]

That's a very. That's a very kind of enlightened way to look at it, even at that age. Because I know that my nature goes to not. I'm not the right tool, but I'm not the right tool for anything.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah, but he can't surf. You know, this is like.

[David Duchovny]

This is. Well, see, I think you're strong. You're strong.

[Sean Penn]

So. So I go down there. This is on, I think the universal lot. And I'm watching this guy and I'm thinking to myself, I'm watching the scene I auditioned being being shot. That's like, he got that word wrong. He's supposed to walk over there then, but he's not. He's free. And he's doing that. And I thought, you can do that.

[David Duchovny]

Right, right.

[Sean Penn]

That was a big. That was a big turn on moment.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, yeah. I had that in an acting class, the first acting class I went to. Because I thought, like you, I knew nothing about it. I thought it was about saying words in a certain way at a certain time. I remember doing an audition where I was convinced that I was gonna say, refer to the car Alfa Romeo as an Alfa Romeo. And they were gonna die. They were like, they were just gonna die laughing. And it was dead. When I said that, they just assumed that I didn't know how to pronounce the word. So it was like that. And then when I went to Marcia Halfrek's class, this woman in New York, you know, it would take three hours to get through a scene. Cause she'd stop you. And she'd say, just explore the place. Say your thoughts. Say your thoughts. Say your thoughts. It wasn't about the words at all. Right. And that kind of freedom is so invaluable.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah. I had it also. I mean, it's interesting you say explore the place because isn't that a thing? I mean, I remember when I got into Piggy Fury's classes, and I would go and I would watch. Jeff Goldblum was in the class, and I'd watch him, and I think he'd be doing a scene, and I think, what's he looking at? You almost were more interested in trying to figure out what he was looking at than whatever the scene was.

[David Duchovny]

I'm still that way with him. Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

I'm always.

[David Duchovny]

I'm always looking at. What is he looking at? I don't know what he's looking at. Even when I see him on commercials, it is.

[Sean Penn]

And it's so focused and there's something so specific. You're just drawn to it. Yeah. So I started looking at things. Then I realized I'm not looking at. I still don't see what Jeff Goldblum is looking at.

[David Duchovny]

How. How did Peggy Fury put that? Like, well, what did you come away with? I remember that you have.

[Sean Penn]

To this day, I remember her letting me. I did a scene from James Leo Hurley. He all fall down, and Piggy let me come in and do the scene twice. She gave me some little notes, and then she. And this was the first scene that I did in acting class. And then she, you know, you're sitting there next to your scene partner, and you're 17.

[David Duchovny]

18.

[Sean Penn]

17. Yeah. I'm an August baby. So I got out of high school at 17. So I'm sitting there down on La Brea in this loft studio, and Peggy takes a long look at me. And the whole class is there waiting to see what Peggy thinks of what she just saw. And she said, you know, if you were washing dishes in the scene, I would have believed you. But it was like washing dishes. And she wanted me to step further.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

And you started to connect the dots of allowing your own imagination to find what? That you know the truth of something. Let's say that you started to find the choices that you could make that gave it levels and. And, you know, somewhere to go.

[David Duchovny]

Poetry.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah. I mean, at best.

[David Duchovny]

And I mean, I think back to what you initially said when we first started talking, which is that you don't like to be told what to do.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

So it's kind of like I see you finding that spot in the yard that you're gonna square away. I love that term square away that you use. Cause it's not poetic but in the doing of it is the poetry.

[Sean Penn]

I think, well this is my whole aim in life. I wanna, you know, if I could get you see what I'm doing around this house.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

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[Sean Penn]

And I know where everything I own is. And if I don't, if it's too much for me to know where it is, it's not in storage. It's gone. It's either. I don't, I don't want it. I want a gravestone that legitimately says Sean Penn. A squared away individual with a square headstone. So I'm getting a little closer every day. Yeah. Foreign.

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[David Duchovny]

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[Chelsea Clinton / Gretchen Rubin (various podcast promos)]

Find yourself scrolling through headlines, especially health headlines, and just thinking that can't be true? Well, I certainly do. 2025 brought us some ridiculous, far fetched health claims and some especially terrifying changes in public health. What's in store for us in 2026? I'm Chelsea Clinton and we're back with season two of my podcast, that Can't Be True. Follow along and catch up on season one wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Duchovny]

Just like ringing the bells on this idea of failure and success. Is there a difference to you in the making of it and in the actual seeing of it later? A performance. You know you can feel a certain way during a performance. There's always that tension of is it coming off or isn't it? You never really know. And that's the beauty of it too. It's like, fuck, this is exciting. I could be fucking up here badly, right?

[Sean Penn]

And we're also most often in the hands of a director who can either have found your best intentions and let you discover that you actually gave them to him or her and they've woven it in such a way that you're delighted that you didn't fuck the whole thing up. And the other thing can happen where somebody just doesn't get what you were doing, and they take all the wrong bits and put it all the wrong. And. And you're subject to that. And so there's a lot of deep disappointments that happen because it extends beyond your own performance and how that's taken care of. And I mean, as a director, I'm sure you, too, this, this. You're sort of the bodyguard of everybody's performance.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Absolutely.

[Sean Penn]

And so. And I. And I will always, with my principal actors, invite them in the cutting room and make, you know, say, hey, you know, in many, many cases, I'll say, okay, here's where I am with this scene. But you're gonna remember connections you were making on that day. I'm gonna go out for a few hours. You stay here with the editor and show me. And then. And you get a lot of really good stuff out of that. You know, Jack Nicholson was great that way. Like, I would. I would literally. I once brought him up in San Francisco. Huh?

[David Duchovny]

The crossing guard.

[Sean Penn]

This was on. It was. It was either on. No, this was on the pledge in particular, where he came up when I was living in Northern California and stayed for five days, and we would socialize at night. But I didn't touch the editing room for those five days. I just wanted, because I already had my cut, I could revert. But I probably took 75% easy, 75% of the adjustments that he made in the cut that I had presented him. And it was just him working with the editor. And so especially with someone very experienced and talented like that, it's a win. Win.

[David Duchovny]

Can you put into words what the angle was? Or was it just the sense of. As you mentioned earlier, you said, you know, what you were feeling on certain days of set, you know, what you were dealing with, and you were looking for those moments. Is that kind of what you thought he was doing?

[Sean Penn]

Yes, and it could also be. We go back to Jeff Goldblum. What were you looking at? Because, hey, Shawnee, maybe you want to pick up a shot on that thing. I don't even know why I did.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

But then I realized that's what he looked at. I have the shot. He's put the shot in when he's looking at it, and that's where that look is coming from. And, man, isn't that interesting on screen.

[David Duchovny]

And not in the story? Zero in the story.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Right?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

And that goes a long way with great actors. And I try to have great actors all the time. So you have a lot of people who have a lot of good input, but it's funny because the word like this, success with things. I think that making movies is hard. I mean, from. As an. To me as an actor, it's really hard. It's a lot more work as a director, but the actor is the one that has to, you know, sit there all day carrying the imaginary world in that way, doesn't know how the director is going to pace the work.

[David Duchovny]

And we've already established you're a guy who's not great with authority or being told what to do.

[Sean Penn]

There's that. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

So you're bringing that with you, which is just a protection, really. I mean, it's smart.

[Sean Penn]

Well, there's a thing. There's a director who is as much as anyone responsible for my career. Harold Becker and, and I love him. And he's. But boy, as a young actor I must have driven him crazy. And I. But here's what happened is that there's a scene in the movie Taps, which was the first movie that I did, first big movie or whatever, and where Tom Cruise opens fire on the National Guard from this building. And that's going to start a war between these cadets at this academy and the National Guard. Tim Hutton heroically runs into this room to grab him off the M60 and gets lit up by the National Guard on the way and he's taken down. And I go as written. I go after my best friend Tim's character to drag him to safety after he's been shot, he's riddled with bullets. And I come to set and they're ready to rehearse it and Tom's there. Tom looks to us at the door, he says something about it. He's great, very excited about starting this war. And he turns to his gun and as he starts to fire, Tim runs in. They go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Tim has a big fall and then. Okay. And Sean comes in and I hit the deck and I start scrambling towards Tim to get him cut. Harold Bicker says, sean there you dropped right out of our frame. And then he starts to describe all the squibs they have built into the wall behind me that you won't see if I go to the deck. And I said, well, what do you want me to. He says, you just run it. And I said like this. They're. They're shooting tons of automatic weapons into this room. There's no. This became a five hour standoff because I couldn't. And of course in the end I got, you know, the producer comes down. Everybody's around 19 now. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

So.

[Sean Penn]

And they're saying, okay, just do one like we're asking you to. And we will then take the time and re. Squib the wall and we'll do one your way. And I know my way is the one that's going to work. Cut to. Tom and I come back to California after the movie's done. And we were spending a lot of time together at that time, jogging partners. And then. And then the, you know, cut to. The months pass and the movie opens and we go to the Avco Theater.

[David Duchovny]

You haven't seen it yet.

[Sean Penn]

I saw the premiere.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

Premiere. People are polite at premieres. Yeah. We go the next day because it's our first chance to see a move, a movie. We're in with the public in. In our lives. And we wait till the lights are out, go the back seats, you know, like anybody was going to pay attention anyway. And we're sitting there and it's crowded. People. People came out. It was a reasonably successful movie, as I recall. And it gets to that scene, and there goes Tom with the gun, and there goes Tim getting shot, and there goes Sean. And I knew by now, not hitting the deck, right, Just running in like a bulletproof man and dragging Tim out of there. And the guy sitting right in front of me says, hit the death to the screen.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

As I'll never listen to a director again, no more bargaining.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. That is awesome. You mentioned. You talk about, like, success and failure, whatever, box office movies. It's all kind of exterior put on.

By some other metric.

But Spicoli, you created a type in what, seven minutes of screen time, A type that lives on to this day through, you know, like Bill and Ted, like just. Just that whole thing. It's kind of an amazing thing to think at that age, to have that small a role and to have that kind of imaginative impact.

[Sean Penn]

Well, yes. And see, for. With that, I read. When I read Cameron Crowe's book Fast Times at Ridgemont High, some people don't know it was a novel and that he'd gone and spent a year back in high school.

[David Duchovny]

It was originally a Rolling Stone magazine article or. No, it wasn't.

[Sean Penn]

No, he. He was that guy and almost famous, that kid. But even when he was not a kid, when he was now, you know, 19 or whatever, he still looked like a kid. And so he went back and did another year of high school when he was working at Rolling Stone, and I think maybe it was to do an article. And it ended up being that he wrote a book, a novel of that year. And I knew not that I was in, you know, had my own interpretation to bring. I knew that I then I knew who Cameron was talking about because this was 8 out of 10 of the guys I grew up with in the Valley. No, here, once I was here, the surfing community here. And you know, it was 25 hours a day smoking weed. Right. Which I never did. And since then I have, and it doesn't suit me very well, but I knew the behavior. There was one guy in particular who was, let's say the, the brand that gave me the biggest giggles, you know, who grew up here in the, the area. But it was. They were all speaking the same Greek.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

And so Cameron had written that. What I did. Cameron had written. Well, Sue, I'll tell you, surfing's not a sport. It's a way of life. No hobby. It's a way of looking at that wave and saying, hey bud, let's party. So it wasn't so much an invention as an observation gig, you know, and then adopting that rhythm and I found it, you know, fantastic to do because it was a public secret. If you weren't a surfer, you hadn't heard it yet. So to be the kind of messenger of, you know, there's hundreds of thousands of these guys out here right now and there's going to be a lot more get to know me.

[David Duchovny]

And it must have been fun to be in that guy's space. Oh yeah, because he, he had a good time. He did not. He did not sweat too much.

[Sean Penn]

Nah. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

You know, you talk about certain directors that you felt put you in a box or didn't listen to your intuition. But beyond that, what do we learn from these kinds of so called missed opportunities or failures in our work?

[Sean Penn]

Well, I think the same things that we learn from the things that we would call our successes creatively. So like. So, for example, after making the first movie that I directed was the Indian Runner. And you know, there's this thing of, especially for those of us who learn on the job, not going to film school and so on, I think it's, you know, fair and necessary humility to say that we learn how to make a movie by about the day we rap. So what I did is right after I wrapped and when I was having Jay Cassidy, my editor, put an assembly together and I was letting myself have a couple of weeks to get my eyes fresh. Well, the timing was such that Martin Scorsese was making Cape Fear down in Florida with Bob De Niro. And I called Bob and said when he asked him if he would ask Marty, if I could come down and watch him work. And he let me come down. And what was refreshing was that he was second. I wouldn't say second guessing himself. He was just as humble to it as I found myself being. You know, he kept. It was his first. I think it was his first anamorphic movie. And he was calling everybody, you know, makeup girl or this one over to the monitor saying, you know, am I using the frame well enough? Am I? And I thought, you know, you just. You got to keep that openness and that, you know, obviously within that this guy's command of cinemas and the grammar that he's got retained from just being a great expert on and knowledgeable about why the camera's here and there versus there and what it's saying visually. And, and to varying degrees, we're, we're all dependent on understanding that stuff. We can't just get away with just shooting willy nilly.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

We.

[Sean Penn]

We can try it, but it. It's not likely to work very well and it's not going to be very satisfying work. But it's great to have something that the magic of it is always going to be a little bit bigger than us.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And that's the area between the preparation and the letting go, for sure.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And it takes a certain amount of balls to let go after you've prepared. And it takes a certain amount of humility to not show everybody how much.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

You'Ve prepared because people love to see.

[David Duchovny]

Storyboards and shit like that.

[Sean Penn]

A lot of performative preparedness, excellence. That, that's when you're going to get a disappointment in the premiere. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

But I'd say what you're describ. I think the way I hear you telling the difference between you coming off Indian Rudder and going to see Scorsese work, it feels like into the Wild. You work that way because that's not a. That's not a narrative literal movie. That's a meditation of some kind.

[Sean Penn]

Again, how things. So I'm very proud of into the Wild. And I go back, I've watched it recently and I thought, thank God. I thought to get that shot or thank God I was open to hearing Eric Goudier's idea on this shot or how and things worked really well. But now when I go back further, this is a book I had read 10 years earlier and I had tried to get the movie rights to it and the parents were not yet ready for a movie to be made about their son. And I certainly respected that. And. But I told them if that ever changes and 10 years later, they called. For 10 years, I'd been making that movie in my head, and it was done. I read the book cover to cover, twice in one night 10 years earlier. I didn't pick it up until I had a screenplay written. I wrote the screenplay without rereading the book. And then I went back and did some polishes and I took some of Jon Krakauer's prose and put it into either dialogue because he's great, wonderful writer, and went and explored the places and all of that. But the movie, essentially, the shot for shot, was almost entirely. I had been making it for 10 years.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

So you just knew it.

[David Duchovny]

You know what's right. You just feel it when you point the camera in a certain direction and you don't have to debate it with yourself or with anybody else.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah, that was 10 years of subconsciously shooting the movie in my head.

[David Duchovny]

Here's a weird question. Did you continue to shoot the movie after you wrapped?

[Sean Penn]

Oh, yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, that's the thing. That's the fucking thing, isn't it?

[Sean Penn]

Oh, sure, you should feel that way.

[David Duchovny]

But you don't actually want to go back and shoot. You're just.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

It's just a.

[David Duchovny]

It's kind of a. Well, maybe you do, but it's a game you kind of play with. Within your head, with yourself.

[Sean Penn]

Well, what I do do. And I do, I think but for the economy of it, we would all have built into our budgets a week or two to reduce stuff in a few months after you're in post for a while.

[David Duchovny]

Well, like with, with Bucky Dent that I shared with you a couple months ago. Yeah, thank you. I had originally written that for me to play the Sun. Couldn't get it made. Couldn't get it made. Couldn't get it made. I lived with that movie, that idea for that movie for 12, 14 years, aged myself out of the sun. Had to look in the mirror and go, this is ridiculous. If you're trying to do that. Started thinking about playing the father, and that's how it came about. But I, when I, when I shot that movie, I had had it in my head from both angles, son and father for many, many years. And I just want to share something. You may or may not like me sharing this, but you were. You are such a friend to creators. And I'll just say this because we were watching that film here on this computer. We're both terrified of the computer. We finally got it to play. Neither of us wanted to pause it because we thought we couldn't get it going again. And you needed to pee really badly, so you turned away from me and you peed into a bottle while you kept your eye on the screen. And I have to say, that is one of the most respectful things that anybody has ever done to my work, is to actually pee into a bottle and not take.

[Sean Penn]

Well, I was engaged with what I was seeing, and it was just us boys, after all.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, absolutely. But it's. It says a lot about you to me that you did that. And thank you.

[Leah Greenberg]

Hey, everyone, it's Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin.

[Ezra Levin]

You might know us as two of the lead organizers of the no Kings protests. We're also the co founders of Indivisible, the grassroots movement organizing against Trump's regime.

[Leah Greenberg]

And this is what's the Plan? Your weekly guide to the state of our democracy and how we fight back. This is not canned talking points. It's a real live discussion space for the pro democracy movement. We wrestle with strategy together. We take your top voted questions in real time, and we talk about the most impactful actions we can take.

[Ezra Levin]

Right now, democracy is a participatory sport. The fascists win. When we sit on the sidelines. What's the Plan is about how we get into the game.

[Leah Greenberg]

What's the plan? Available Friday, January 23rd.

[Chelsea Clinton / Gretchen Rubin (various podcast promos)]

Wherever you get your podcast, subscribe, recruit.

[Ezra Levin]

Discuss, organize and win. That's the plan.

[David Duchovny]

I think, for you. Like, for me, Brando was the guy.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And I always got the sense of failure with Brando just in the. Just in the in. And I'm. I could be projecting this completely because.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

I don't know that.

[David Duchovny]

Didn't know the man, but there was something in him that didn't think enough of acting in the world as a man. And that there had.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

There.

[David Duchovny]

There would have to be more. Is failure baked into the act of acting? To the. To the pursuit of acting? Is there some kind of moral, masculine failure?

[Sean Penn]

What I. What I know from my time with him, he had a great respect for acting. I mean, even in the end, when you could get him talking about what childish, you know, nonsense it is and we're just lying for a living and all of that stuff. But when I was falling in love with film, and particularly my late teens, whether it was Robert De Niro or Al Pacino or Dustin, there there were actors who were doing something new and with filmmakers that were doing something really new, and it had been started, I would say, strongly by Marlon and Kazan.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

Watching Bob. Of all of them particular because there wasn't much to know about him other than what you Saw in the performances. Right. He was not doing talk shows.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

He wasn't hardly ever doing print interviews. And I admired that, and I appreciate that as a audience. When I came to fall in love with acting, it was in that idea, you know, to just be an actor.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Sean Penn]

But as life calls out to different people in different ways. Right. And. And when I started to feel that I had to build on what had become a profile, Yeah. I found that for me, I don't want to say that other things mattered more, but I certainly would have looked to people like Marlon and saw and said, well, if you do your job well enough, you can have been exposed. You can have stepped out there on something that's Sean Penn's opinion that might otherwise clutter the track for an audience watching your performance. But you take in the risk benefit. It was not a question. And I did see, you know, there were plenty of times after Marlon had been outspoken for decades on many things that it didn't impact my ability to watch him right now. Marlon is particular in that he's endlessly watchable, but I just decided to kind of take the chance with it because we are who we are, and we were called to what we're called to, and I started to blend them all. So whether I was acting or writing or directing or engaged in some kind of activism, it was all just what you did that day, along with putting your pants on.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Beautiful.

[David Duchovny]

Another thing that I. A quote of Brando's that I had read is somebody asked him, and I'm relating this to you a bit because of what you said about how you. You swirled everything together, became your life. It's not acting, directing, writing, being a force in the world. It's just. It's you, Sean. Right. And so there's. So you're open. That's what I'm saying. You're open to attack. It's not just like, oh, call me a bad actor, whatever, call me a bad director, whatever. It's like, this is me. I'm doing all these things. And somebody asked Brando, what do you do when you read these things about yourself in the papers? You know, doesn't it upset you? And Brando supposedly said, I just tell myself it's all true, and then it doesn't bother me.

[Sean Penn]

You know, there are two things we could, you know, do a whole podcast on him, but. Or. Or all podcasts could go on all the day about. But he. He was the most charming, non people pleaser I'd ever met. Yeah, he was never reluctant to. He was the guy who, if you had a little spinach stuck on the side of your mouth, he's going to tell you. He might ask you, why do you have that spinach? Or he might put spinach on the side of his mouth at a fancy dinner party just to see if anyone would say anything. Right. And they won't.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, but I, I guess I would ask you, not directly if you want to answer. And I don't want you to answer things that you don't want to answer, but where do you put the hurt for that, for the misunderstanding? Because I've, I feel, you know, you've been misunderstood from time to time. Where do you, does that hurt? Where do you put it? How do you square it?

[Sean Penn]

Well, it's, it's strange because I probably would have had a different answer only 15 years ago. Everyone knows it now because of social media. Everyone knows the hurt of, and the, and, and what we, what we take of reputation. You know, it's an interesting thing.

[David Duchovny]

So you're saying like fame is. Belongs to everybody now because the, the underside of that.

[Sean Penn]

Yes. And the attacks.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

Suffering attacks belongs to everybody now. You know, the answer for me is you got to keep moving woodwork. It's a big one.

[David Duchovny]

Hey, you were just working on a table this morning when I came in.

[Sean Penn]

There's a.

[David Duchovny]

What are you working through? What happened?

[Sean Penn]

Well, there's a point at which your, your healing becomes your life. And, and so it's all just a joy to me. And I don't have time to read the bad things, but because I gotta get the sawdust out of my hair at the end of the day, and by that time I gotta have a few vodka tonics and call it a day. But with children, what it takes, like talking to one's kids and learning as you go as a parent in general, but specifically related to the new social media stuff and the way kids get hurt and hurt each other with that stuff or just maybe overexposed, underdeveloped parts of themselves when they're young and then have to pay the price for that later. And I think, you know, talking about reputation and taking care of one's reputation is a different thing today than it was 15 years ago.

[David Duchovny]

It's more of a brand now.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah, but yes, and there was always the problem of, dad, why should I care what other people think? And God knows I get that. Right. And so I guess the reputation is with, with your future self because so many of, for most of us, we know when we're being ups. So the care Is to be taken in, write down. By that, I mean, affect your reputation as much as you can control, as much as you live it, whether it's misinterpreted and criticized or not in advance of your own vision as you possess. So you may not be ready to settle this part of your clock, but don't put it on display, because that's not where you're going, you know? Put on display where you're going.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

But that's certain kind of fuel in it.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

When they want to take you on.

[David Duchovny]

Well, it gets back to your. Your origins where, you know, you're. Somebody's telling you who you are. Don't do that. Don't do that.

[Sean Penn]

And it's even dropping into a big wave. It's kind of like, you know, that wave is what Marlon is saying, you know, it's all true. Yep. It's bigger than me, and I'm dropping into that motherfucker. Let's go. You know, and it's gonna. It's gonna take care of me or it's not.

[David Duchovny]

Right, Right.

[Sean Penn]

And that's true with this, you know, a range of attacks. I mean, the. God, there's been an awful lot of good things that have come out of the. Well, both. Both the. The legitimate attacks and the illegitimate ones. Because men, once you're able to walk through the fire, those deeply unfair or untrue things, you kind of say, well, no stab wounds.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

I'm still.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah, I'm still here. Round two. Yeah. Hit the bell.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Shame ever come into it?

[Sean Penn]

Fuck, yeah.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Sure.

[Sean Penn]

But that's not when it's illegitimate. That's when. And it's not necessarily when you're attacked. It could be in a private act that no one knows about, a private thought. Just when you. When you fail, that. That future, the. The. The obligation you have to your better self, you know, or your. Your more mature self and to the people that it affects.

[David Duchovny]

That's being a parent, being a family person.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Yes.

[Sean Penn]

It's being a friend. It's being a partner with somebody's being, you know, you, of course, you, you, you. We are under constant self review.

[David Duchovny]

Been watching. I've been watching a lot of basketball and seeing the reviews.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Read you one little bit of your writing here just to. To end, because I told you I. I really. I really enjoyed this book a lot and.

Yeah.

And you're really daring people to like it because you're.

[Sean Penn]

You're.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. You're engaging in wordplay and alliteration that, you know, can be annoying. And you're being annoying on purpose. And you're. And you're. Purposefully. If it was an acting performance, creating a performance that's going to alienate people to not look closely enough at what you're really doing look, you're going to have.

[Sean Penn]

I knew that people were going to either read this book and they were going to be with me in the many giggles out loud it gave me while writing. And that's not because, oh, it's a funny tale or. But because approaching something like this, I've already put myself in the reader's shoes. I clearly enjoyed it because I'm. By writing, you're reading.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

So it's like, are you in on the joke therefore able to giggle through the insanity of this or do you think the joke's being played on you?

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Sean Penn]

And. And that would maybe say something about the reader.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, but you know that readers are going to get pissed off by that.

[Sean Penn]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not only by that, but also, you know, by some of the things that maybe would. Maybe would be. And they did. There were some people that I think fell to attribution. So if your character thinks a certain way, that's you. And that was made personal as well.

[David Duchovny]

Well, that's, that's just the way criticism goes now. I mean, it goes with acting criticism as well. I mean that it's the laziest. And the easiest thing to do is to try to draw a direct parallel between the performance, the writing and the person, which is exactly what I was going to do right now because I'm an idiot. But I just wanted to end with this. This is the last line of the book and it has nothing to do with Sean and Bob, honey. A being unbranded, unbridled and free. I. I hope that's true.

[Sean Penn]

Feels that way.

[David Duchovny]

All right, man, thanks. Thank you.

[Sean Penn]

You bet.

[David Duchovny]

Just getting my post Sean Penn interview stuff down the next day, the day after.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

Really enjoyed the conversation with Sean. One thing that I ran out of time on missed was a discussion of Daddio, the new movie he's got coming out which was written and directed by a friend of mine named Christy hall. First time director, did a masterful job. And I wanted to talk about because.

[David Duchovny]

It was similar to what happens later.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

That I did with Meg Ryan just.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Recently where it was, it's two people.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

It's. It's me and Meg and what happens later. That's it. And there's Sean and Dakota Johnson. That's it.

[David Duchovny]

In.

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

In Daddio. And Christy hall, like Meg Ryan manages to keep. Keep the plate spinning the ball afloat. Whatever metaphor you want to use for just two people holding a screen. And in hers it's really just two people in a cab holding a screen. Megan I had a big, you know, good looking airport to play around in. Christie has limited herself beautifully to a taxi cab where Sean is driving Dakota from the airport. And not to give anything away about that movie, I think it's terrific. But it was a real, it's a real cool give and take between an older guy played by Sean, obviously, and his what you'd call patriarchal wisdom or stereotypical patriarchal wisdom and a younger woman. And I don't know, would you call it millennial wisdom, more modern kind of.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Take on the world?

[Producer/Interviewer (possibly Keegan or another Lemonada staff)]

And neither is validated completely or discounted completely. There's kind of a meeting in the middle between these, say, partial points of view. And it's definitely something that I want to get the word out there about as well. Daddy O.

[David Duchovny]

There's more Fail Better with Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like more of my behind the scenes thoughts on this episode. Subscribe now and and Apple Podcasts Fail Better is a production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zema, Aria Brachi and Donnie Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of Weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of New content is Rachel Neal. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Kripinski and Kate D. Lewis. The show is executive produced by Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowland and Sebastian Modak. Special thanks to Brad Davidson. You can find us online at Lemonada Media and you can find me at David Duchovny. Follow Philip Sell Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen. Ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership.

[Lemonada Premium Announcer]

Want to listen to your favorite Lemonada shows without the ads? Subscribe to Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts. You'll get ad free episodes and exclusive bonus content from shows like Wiser Than Me with Julia, Louis Dreyfus, Fail Better with David Duchovny, the Sarah Silverman Podcast, and so many more. It's a great way to support the work we do and treat yourself to a smoother, uninterrupted listening experience. Just head to any Lemonada show feed on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe Make Life Suck Less with Fewer Ads with Lemonada Premium.

[Chelsea Clinton / Gretchen Rubin (various podcast promos)]

Are you looking for ways to make your everyday life happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one bestselling author of the Happiness Project, bringing you fresh insights and practical solutions in the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. My co host and happiness guinea pig is my sister, Elizabeth Craft. That's me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore ideas and hacks about cultivating happiness and good habits. Check out Happier with Gretchen Rubin from Lemonada Media.