The Many Lives of Peter Weller

Summary

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Fail Better with David Duchovny

Episode: The Many Lives of Peter Weller
Date: December 2, 2025
Host: David Duchovny
Guest: Peter Weller

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking and candid episode, David Duchovny sits down with the multitalented Peter Weller—best known for his acting (notably “Robocop”), his work as an art historian, professor, jazz musician, and writer. Anchored by the podcast’s theme—how failure, not success, truly shapes us—they explore creativity, self-knowledge, the courage to walk away, and the wisdom gathered from accepting one’s limits. The discussion crosses art, music, acting, spirituality, and parenting, weaving a rich conversation about identity, reinvention, and what it means to “fail better.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Inseparability of Art and the Artist

• Art as Manifestation:
  • Weller quotes, “You can’t separate the art from the artist. The art is a manifestation of the artist. So there’s no such thing as art. There’s the artist.” (02:04)
  • Discussion touches on authenticity and the personal imprint in creative work, yet notes that an artist doesn’t need to “be” their subject but must “understand it and dig it.”

2. The Writing Process: Impulse vs. Editing

• Zero Draft Mentality:

  • Weller shares advice from Jane Bolker’s book on writing dissertations (04:09), advocating for small daily writing bursts and embracing “zero drafts.”
  • Both discuss the magic in respecting creative impulses. Duchovny reflects:

    “Why would I disrespect my impulses so much to rewrite myself so much?” (06:07)

• Multiplicity of Selves:

  • Duchovny muses, “A book becomes all your different selves—all the times you sat down...It’s an aggregate…written by lots of different dudes.” (07:15-07:42)

3. Jazz, Acting, and the Meaning of Failure

• The Epiphany of Limits:

  • Weller candidly recounts realizing he would never become Miles Davis, despite his skill and training.

    “I was just too analytical for jazz...I couldn’t get out of the practice mode to invent.” (13:52)

  • Duchovny draws a parallel with his own academic ambitions—and accepting limitations with peace:

    “I realized I’m not going to be Harold Bloom...Maybe I could be a good teacher. That’s different. But I’m not going to blow the horn like that guy.” (21:57-22:00)

• Walking Away & Self-Knowledge:

  • Duchovny challenges “limitless” cultural messaging:

    “The culture today is going to say to you, ‘No, Peter, just break through…You are Miles.’ But you looked inside and said, ‘I’m not going to get to that ultimate place of creativity through this horn.’” (14:41)

• Finding Your True Medium:

  • The two agree on the liberating experience of discovering an expression mode uniquely their own—acting for Weller, writing for Duchovny:

    “There could be no comparison because there is only Peter Weller and there is only me. That’s your instrument. I’m sitting across from your instrument.” (23:21)

4. Acting as Creative Freedom

• Letting the “Bird Fly”:

  • Weller movingly describes being pushed “out of the cage” when working with Diane Keaton or Diane Wiest:

    “I gotta let the real Peter Weller go here. I gotta let this bird fly out of this cage, else I’m lost.” (25:34)

  • Duchovny echoes, recalling his own epiphany opposite Juliette Lewis:

    “She was so free and so… weird. And it wasn’t fake… Just like, oh my God, that’s what it is.” (28:00-28:49)

• Chemistry & Authenticity:

  • Weller: “When you see it, ladies and gentlemen… that was fantastic. And those two people have got great chemistry. Part of that…is that facility of letting the bird fly.” (29:01-29:24)

5. Learning and Craft—Lessons from Notable Teachers

• Uta Hagen and Kazan:
  • Weller details formative lessons from Uta Hagen’s “Respect for Acting”: The critical importance of physical life and action in performance.

    “Kazan would say, ‘If the stage directions say, write a suicide note, write the damn suicide note.’” (34:12-36:46)

  • Emphasis is placed on honesty, simplicity, and giving oneself permission to truly feel and act.

6. Process, Well-being, and the Ongoing Creative Struggle

• Staying Engaged on Set:

  • Weller shares his committed, almost meditative engagement with his work:

    “I sit on the set. I never leave…I have to pray and meditate every day…I have to make friends with that big bubble of worry.” (41:57-43:45)

• Navigating Anxiety and Self-Doubt:

  • “My mind will tell me this is not a good place…there’s a ball of worry I wake up to.” (43:09-43:47)

7. Addiction and Spirituality

• Grappling with Addiction:
  • Weller speaks openly about his journey:

    “If you survive it, and I have so far, it led me back to a spiritual path…there’s a whole lot to be grateful for here.” (45:39)

  • The discussion explores how drugs and hallucinogens briefly opened spiritual doors, but ultimately, “I’m glad I picked them up, I’m glad I put them down.” (46:13-48:08)

8. The Old (and Lost) New York

• On Authenticity vs. Performance:
  • Duchovny laments how NYC has become “performative…It’s giving me a New York experience…rather than…what New York actually is.” (48:26)
  • Weller recalls the city as a “vortex of the world” (50:09): its uniqueness, its challenges, and why it called to so many.

9. Parenting: The Best and the Worst

• Navigating Fatherhood:
  • Weller shares the joys and heartbreaks of raising a 14-year-old son:

    “Having a teenage boy as a father is like standing with your legs apart asking to be kicked in balls.” (52:23)

  • Both discuss the futility and compulsion to try to protect their kids from failure—knowing failure is what builds resilience:

    “I want to protect them from all this failure when I know that failure is the best thing that could ever happen to them.” (54:10)

10. Wisdom and Closure: Miles Davis and the Wren

• Duchovny brings up a favorite quote from Miles Davis:

  “There are no wrong notes… What seems a wrong note in the moment becomes the right note, depending on your reaction.” (57:08)

• Weller and Duchovny exchange a beautiful Chinese parable about the wren—reminding us that freedom often comes from being overlooked, undervalued, and humble.

  “Only the little wren, worthless and unlovely, is free.” (56:36, Chang Hua)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Artistic Identity:

• Peter Weller: “You can’t separate the art from the artist…No, it is Caravaggio’s life up there.” (02:07)

On Writing and Multiplicity:

• David Duchovny: “A book becomes all your different selves…this book is written by lots of different dudes.” (07:34-07:42)

On Recognizing Limits and Pivoting:

• Peter Weller: “I was just too analytical for jazz…I couldn’t get out of the practice mode to invent.” (13:52)

On Letting Go in Acting:

• Peter Weller: “I gotta let the real Peter Weller go here. I gotta let this bird fly out of this cage, else I’m lost.” (25:34)

On Process and Worry:

• Peter Weller: “I have to pray and meditate every day…my mind will tell me this is not a good place.” (43:09-43:45)

On Parenting and Worry:

• David Duchovny: “I want to protect them from all this failure when I know that failure is the best thing that could ever happen to them.” (54:10)

On Freedom:

• Chang Hua via Duchovny: “Only the little wren, worthless and unlovely, is free.” (56:36)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:02-04:09]: Art, artists & authenticity
• [04:09-07:15]: Approaches to writing and creative process
• [11:40-17:27]: Discovering personal limits, leaving music for acting
• [21:54-26:48]: Parallels between jazz, writing, and life; originality and influence
• [32:17-36:46]: Method acting, Uta Hagen, and Kazan’s lessons
• [41:56-43:47]: Work ethic, anxiety, and meditation
• [45:39-48:08]: Addiction, spirituality, and survival
• [48:26-50:57]: The changing soul of New York City
• [51:14-55:19]: Fatherhood, joys and pains of parenting
• [56:36-57:08]: Parable of the wren, Miles Davis and “no wrong notes”

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Tone and Takeaways

Candid, intellectual yet grounded, flowing with humor, humility, and warmth, Duchovny and Weller’s conversation invites listeners to reconsider the culture of “never give up”—and to make peace with changing directions, letting go, and “playing your own instrument.” The freedom in failure and the courage to be yourself—these are the episode’s abiding lessons.

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Listen if:
You’re fascinated by the creative process, wrestling with limits, love personal stories of artistic and intellectual reinvention, or seek comfort in stories of self-knowledge, recovery, and the perennial dance between worry, parenting, and acceptance.

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Transcript

[Peter Weller]

It's morning in new york.

[David Duchovny]

Hey, everybody, I'm Andy Patinkin. And I'm Kathryn Grody. And we have a new podcast. It's called don't listen to Us. Many of you have asked for our advice. Tell me what is wrong with you people.

[Peter Weller]

Don't listen to us. Our take it or leave it advice.

[David Duchovny]

Show is out every Wednesday, premiering October 15th. A Lemonada Media original foreign. Hey, just a quick message before we get started. You can now listen to every episode of Fail Better ad free with Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts. You'll also get ad free access to and exclusive bonus content from shows like Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis Dreyfus, the Sarah Silverman podcast, and so many more. It's just $5.99 a month and a great way to support the work we do. Go ad free and get bonus content when you hit subscribe on this show in Apple Podcasts. Make life suck less with fewer ads with Lemonada Premium. I'm David Duchovny and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Peter Weller is a professor and art historian and an actor to boot, which is probably what you know him from. He played the titular character in the Robocop movies. He's done so much other work before and after. His biggest role, though, from performing as a jazz musician to getting his PhD, something I didn't manage to do. He's a fascinating guy and a friend, and it's easy to talk to him about countless topics. Here's our conversation. First line of the book is, I think he says there's no such thing as art, only artists.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, that's his famous deal.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, I don't know what it means, but I agree with it.

[Peter Weller]

Well, the thing is that you can't abstract people just say, oh, the painting is the. No, it is Caravaggio's life up there. I'm just saying you can't separate the art from the artist. The art is a manifestation of the artist. So there's no such thing as art. There's the artist. Now, I don't necessarily say you have to, like, Elmore Leonard never fired a gun in his life and he wrote some of the most indemnified crime tension stuff ever. So I'm not saying you necessarily have to be it, but you have to be around it. And you have to understand it and dig it.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

And grasp it, I think. Look, I want to know how you wrote this. Where'd this come from? Because this is truly an Upsetting. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful novel. And the ending of it makes me weep. I gotta tell you. I'm gonna honestly tell you.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, thank you.

[Peter Weller]

That the end. That bottle scene makes me. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm over 60. So you can think like. And I got a great wife and I'm blessed with a kid and you got a kid. And so more than you think of this stuff and putting your got two kids.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

Okay. So putting your picture in a bottle and sitting there with the person you love and watching it.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

Is that a seagull or. I don't know. I don't know. It's beautiful, beautiful stuff, man. Plus which I don't know any writer who invokes Dostoevsky and Kafka in the very first chapter. So there you are.

[David Duchovny]

I've been taking a task for that, you know, cuz I. Well, of showing off, you know.

[Peter Weller]

But for me, you got to show off. I mean.

[David Duchovny]

Sure. I mean you just said AD that is actually my life because I went to graduate school for English literature. So if you're talking about.

[Peter Weller]

And are you going to write that dissertation ever or.

[David Duchovny]

No, no, no. I don't get to be Dr. No.

[Peter Weller]

Come on, you got. You did everything, man, because I know you did all your. All your exams.

[David Duchovny]

I did everything.

[Peter Weller]

But all but David company Everybody did everything right down to the dissertation.

[David Duchovny]

Right, right. But the dissertation is the biggest step, as you know.

[Peter Weller]

I think it's not really.

[David Duchovny]

Is this not. Is this your dissertation?

[Peter Weller]

This is the dissertation. Yeah, but the dissertation is just. I was never going to do it. But I told you this before. I'm going to plug her again. There's a woman named Jane Bolker who wrote this very skinny book called writing your dissertation or anything in 15 minutes a day. And so I read this book.

[David Duchovny]

You told me about this before.

[Peter Weller]

I think we sat somewhere in London or whatever to talk about. And so I was not going to get this dissertation done, man. And there's a. It was.

[David Duchovny]

But you had to. You had. Because you grew.

[Peter Weller]

I had to. But when am I going to get the time, you know?

[David Duchovny]

Didn't you need it in order to teach or you didn't.

[Peter Weller]

No.

[David Duchovny]

You were already teaching.

[Peter Weller]

I was already given a lecture here and there.

[David Duchovny]

All right.

[Peter Weller]

And appearing at the all the hoity toy conferences and so forth. But I read this book and the first thing, and it's an interview with a hundred something writers. And they're everything from script writers, documentary people, news writers, fiction, nonfiction, whatever. And they all had. They all had. Have a couple Things in common. A, they do it the second they get up, even if they get up at 1 o' clock in the afternoon.

[David Duchovny]

I do agree with that.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, yeah. And I, and I asked my mentors, like, Gore Vidal is a big mentor. He said, yeah, well, I get up and you got to go at it.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

Second, they, they commit to a very small amount of time.

[David Duchovny]

So it's not too daunting.

[Peter Weller]

15, 15 minutes. But 15 minutes will turn into two hours, as you well know.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Peter Weller]

Coffee break and whatever. Or sometimes it's only 15 minutes. Whatever it is, it can't be that eight hour a day on Friday thing, because you're not going to get it done.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Peter Weller]

So that's the second. And the second thing is that they write a zero draft. They don't put, they don't go into their left brain edit thing. They got to write it out. And even though they go, oh, I don't know, whatever, they keep writing. And I read this, I read this and read this. I thought, okay. And then all of a sudden, ucla, there was a workshop and I took the workshop and so I finished the dissertation. I finished the dissertation in about nine months.

[David Duchovny]

That, that's fantastic. You know, in terms of rewriting what you, what you make me think of, it's very interesting because I, I was reading something recently. The idea was, why would I disrespect my impulses so much to rewrite myself so much. You know, the impulse came out, right. You, you call it left brain, right brain. Let's say it's the right. I think it's, Would it be the right brain or the left brain? I don't know.

[Peter Weller]

The right brain is the instinctive one. Right.

[David Duchovny]

The instinctive one gets up, you're half asleep. I also love to, to write. When I am writing, I love to get up immediately, have a big cup of coffee.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah. I, I sit down and do it.

[David Duchovny]

That false sense of confidence that coffee gives you for 25 minutes, it's enough.

[Peter Weller]

You got some great coffee images. And I think, yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And then I go, and then some other time, the, the other part of the brain, when I'm rewriting, will, will take over and look at sentence structure and say, oh, I repeated that word and stuff like that. That's all good. But then there's the other further, when you go to rewrite again, like you're really rewriting your impulse. And I don't know that you can do that. I'm not a, a huge rewriter myself. I mean, I have an editor.

[Peter Weller]

But you see, That's a good thing.

[David Duchovny]

Let me get into it again. In the same way. It's like, no, you can't. It's the. Can't get into that same stream again. That's a. It's a fail if you try to do that. And there is a sense in which a book becomes all your different selves. All the times you sat down there, you know?

[Peter Weller]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

It's an aggregate of, like, every time you sat down for that 15 minutes.

[Peter Weller]

Is a different dude.

[David Duchovny]

It's a different dude. So this book is written by lots of different dudes.

[Peter Weller]

I agree.

[David Duchovny]

Which is why often when I will look at stuff that I've done, I think I'm not. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. You asked me how I did that.

[Peter Weller]

I don't.

[David Duchovny]

I couldn't do that. But the multiples of me could do it.

[Peter Weller]

The multiples of you then, right? Could do it when you were doing it.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, exactly.

[Peter Weller]

There's a. It's great. It's wonderful that he won the Nobel Prize for poetry, but when they interviewed Dylan. Bob Dylan.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

I don't know whether it was when he won the ASCAP Award or whatever the heck he would, but they said, I could not write that now. I could not write.

[David Duchovny]

It was in the documentary with Scorsese.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah. Is that it?

[David Duchovny]

And he's asking him about, like, that.

[Peter Weller]

Period when Masters of War and all.

[David Duchovny]

He does, like five years, five albums of the Great American Songbook. Every song that's coming out is poetry. Yeah. And Dylan basically says. And Scorsese is like, where? Where did that come from? And he basically says, I don't know. All I know is it ain't coming like that anymore. That's right.

[Peter Weller]

That's right. Yeah. I mean, that's the times.

[David Duchovny]

It is. It is.

[Peter Weller]

So the time that you have. Let me interview you, man. The who you are when you're riding the subway. Yes. I'm looking through the book again last night, and a particular relationship is really upsetting. It's upsetting. And you can't go back to this. But I can read it and go, oh, I got 101 demons in this book. And I have to just compliment you on your style, man. You got an off the cuff, jazzer style. It's almost like Ornette Coleman, for crying out loud. But it's all connected. So there you are.

[David Duchovny]

It feels jazzy when I'm writing it. I know that sounds. Because I'm not like a jazz guy either. When I listen to music and I'D love for you to teach me about jazz at some point, but it does feel jazzy to me. And it's also the way I like to approach acting. I mean, it's all. That's kind of my soul is like, in that. In that form, in that style. You said, like Caravaggio. You got. That's my life. That's the way it feels. That's the way my soul feels when I write like that. That's why rewriting is so painful.

[Peter Weller]

Well, let me ask you this. When you have a. When you're writing, I mean, this is what I was advised. Write your zero draft. Write that thing. Don't reread chapter one and go start. Because then you'll be buried, right? You'll be buried. And you'll never get on to what you want to say about the glory of Padua, you know, so. But you got to find an editor. Yeah, the editor. She Fronia gifted at this.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

At editing this. And would send back the stuff going, hey, what do you need that for? You already said it over here.

[David Duchovny]

Right?

[Peter Weller]

And so it's what. What you were just saying against the thing about editing, you know, why do I want to mess with my instinct?

[David Duchovny]

Right?

[Peter Weller]

That guy that said this, right? Because I believe you, man. It's inspiring to hear you say that. When I write it, that's what's just coming out of me, and that's the instinct and the passion and the galvanizing thing.

[David Duchovny]

So for me, it becomes. When I start writing, I start thinking. And that's the other thing that's amazing to me in terms of the tools that we use to express ourselves. You're talking about paint. You in your life. You've had the horn. You've been an actor. You are an actor. You have these things. You have the forms that you express yourself through. We think differently. In each of those iterations of expression, we think differently. I think differently now. I don't like the way I think when I'm just speaking. It seems scattered and bullshit. But when I have a pen in my hand, I think differently. And I think like that, and I think better. And when you have a horn, you think differently. And when you. I don't know if you paint, but when you think about painting.

[Peter Weller]

I do. I draw.

[David Duchovny]

You draw. You think differently. When you act, you think differently. And I'm interested in that. In your kind of. Your conception of how you went from the horn to acting, you know, and. And all that stuff way back when where you're. You're in high school or Whatever. And you think, I'm going to be a horn player.

[Peter Weller]

That's what I wanted to be.

[David Duchovny]

You want to be a horn player, Then you realize you're not going to be Miles Davis.

[Peter Weller]

Don't hurt me with feelings. I know you're right. That's exactly right.

[David Duchovny]

But that's.

[Peter Weller]

But that's what.

[David Duchovny]

So we talk about failure here. So let's call that a failure. Even though nobody else is mild. Everybody else is a failure compared to Miles Davis. But let's say that's a failure. So why was it so important to you? Why did you have to be that good if you weren't gonna be the best? Why did you then start looking for something else? What was it in you that had to be the best at that point? Cause that's what I'm seeing. You know what I'm saying?

[Peter Weller]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

What was it?

[Peter Weller]

Well, when I was doing music and I had left music alone for a couple year and a half in college and I went back to it and applied to this amazing music school, North Texas. Texas. Where Lou Marini and Bones Malone and ton of guys, Bruce Fowler and legendary studio musicians come from. When I was accepted there and I was playing there, I was thrilled. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel going. My invention, my techniques of what you just said, the ad hoc idea of spitting it out wasn't turning me on. I had become more analytical and more like a straight ahead band guy and soloist by the numbers, by the chord changes of what. And as much as I listened to Charlie Parker, man, I could not flip those harmonics. And as much as I practiced scales, I could not blow through that stuff. And I think I was just putting a whole lot of pressure on myself. And then finally the discipline of it and the. Nowadays they help you much more. They're much more user friendly. In music school and also in academics like ucla, there's a place you can go. You always get coaching on anything that you're missing, right? In musical. In those days, you sink or swim, man. You know, there were like four lab bands and you made one and you didn't make it. Yeah, and I thank God was in a couple of them. But I said, okay, man, I'm too analytical for jazz. I'm just too analytical. I'm not. It's not that it was going to be Miles Davis. I wasn't near the ear or the invention of Miles Davis. I was still practicing stuff. Now practicing is great. I couldn't get out of the practice mode to invent. That's the thing that was frustrating for me, that's amazing. I just could not do that. And I was always acting for fun, but I never took that seriously.

[David Duchovny]

But I just in that moment, like, because we live in this world and you've got a 13 year old and we can talk about that whenever.

[Peter Weller]

Just turned 14.

[David Duchovny]

You just turned 14. You know, we now live in a culture that says you have no limits, you know, and you're just telling me the story where your young Peter is sitting there going, I don't have it. You know yourself, there's the culture today is going to say to you, no, Peter, just break through. You've got it. You are Miles. You're as good as Miles Davis. You're going to be the next. You're going to be the next Miles Davis. Just don't quit, you know, Just believe in yourself. And I'm looking at a guy who's like, oh, that's self knowledge. What you got at that young age. I don't see it. I don't see that as the wrong way to think. You really looked inside yourself and said, I'm not going to get to that ultimate place of creativity through this. Through this horn.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah. Now can I back up a second?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

Because there is a Sanskrit thing that I'd read when I was really backing up when I was 18 or 19, right. I read this thing, find out what you really want to do and do that and.

[David Duchovny]

Easier said than done.

[Peter Weller]

Easier said than done. Because what I tied to it and what a lot of people do is tie glory, fame, Machiavelli's idea of virtue, all this stuff to it. And it doesn't say anything about that.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

It's just a law of prosperity. Prosperity of what? Of the soul or your physical existence on earth? I don't know. But the thing about playing was I knew I wanted to play, right? Play. I wanted to play. I wanted to play. I wanted to play. And then the epiphany was that I was still in. And by the way, I was good enough to play on a bandstand the rest of my life, Right. I was good enough to play. Somebody put, you know, Count Basie's Cloud verse in front of me. I could play that. But I wasn't at the place whereby I was inventing. And could I play a solo based on a bunch of scales? Yeah, but I wasn't in a place where I was speaking Peter Weller's thing. I was copying. I just copying. And so.

[David Duchovny]

But you know the painters, that's how they start too of course they do.

[Peter Weller]

But at some point in time they.

[David Duchovny]

Go, yeah, but you did.

[Peter Weller]

Oh, the crack. And I said, okay, do I want to stay with this until? What? You just said until. Hey, hang with it until. Hang with it until. And the epiphany to me was, I'm not getting any buzz out of this, man. It's not turning me on. It's not what I really want to do anymore.

[David Duchovny]

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[Peter Weller]

Of that in a way. Yes, he was. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And I was at Yale. I mean, he was there.

[Peter Weller]

I'm like, yeah, he was.

[David Duchovny]

I'm like, there's no way. I don't have that mind. It's different. I'm not saying I don't have a good mind. I'm just saying that's the perfect mind for what it is I'm trying to do. And I don't have it right. That's what I'm thinking. Maybe I could be a good teacher. That's different. But I'm not going to be, I'm not going to blow the horn like that guy can blow the horn ever. And I started to think about. Because first it had been sports for me, like, and then I realized, like, I realized, oh, I'm not going to be Walt Frazier. I'm not going to be Dent. Maybe. Yeah, I'm not going to be those guys. So there's all these little heartbreaks along the way. And they are heartbreaks when it's. We don't remember them because we're, we're older now. We're adults. But I'm sure there was a heartbreak around the horn for you, where you're just like. I had staked everything on this thing. I thought this was going to be my ticket out, my ticket of expression, depression from. You know, I was going to ride this my whole life. This was going to be my partner. But, no, there's going to have to be something else. And then when I decide. When I fell in love with acting and with performance, there was no comparison. There could be no comparison because there is only Peter Weller and there is only me. So that's your instrument. I'm sitting across from your instrument. Like, there you are. That's what you blow. You blow Peter Weller.

[Peter Weller]

That's.

[David Duchovny]

That's the. That's the horn that you blow. Nobody can say, oh, I'm a better pet. Well, and Peter Weller, that's true. You're the only one who gets to play with that instrument. I'm the only one who gets to play with this one. So there's a certain kind of. You go into this area where you are the only thing. You are the only one. And it's just this dance or confrontation between you and your instrument for the rest of your days, in a way. So you get out of that kind of comparison of like, oh, I'm not Miles Davis. I'm not John Coltrane. I'm not Mickey Mantle. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. Well, I am this thing. And this is what I'm going to play with for the rest of my life.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, but part of that thing, part of the idiom of not wanting to play Peter Weller is this freedom deal that I was talking about, that. This epiphany that I look back on. I know now in jazz, that I was still constructing Peter Weller and not letting Peter Weller fly out of the cooperation. Like, I was not turning an. A flat diminished scale upside down and, you know, blowing it backwards. I didn't have the courage or the wherewithal or the talent or the discipline to do it. I was still trying to define Peter Weller rather than just letting him go. I was giving this thing.

[David Duchovny]

But there was something in acting that immediately you were like, okay, this is the Peter Weller. This is what I'm gonna do.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah. And I just wanna say, because it brings it up. Cause Diane Keaton just passed away. And I was just at the Academy introducing Naked Lunch as part of the thing. And it's on social media, but it bears repeating to you because we're buds. That Keaton, you know, there's two people I've met when I've acted that I said, okay, I've done my scales. I've been to my music school here, man. I've got the. A flat dimity scale down, and now I don't know what the hell this person is throwing at me, man. I got no clue. But you know what? My repertoire of scales and practice ain't gonna come. Ain't gonna cut it, man.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Peter Weller]

I gotta let the real Peter Weller go here. I gotta let this bird fly out of this cage, else I'm lost. And one of them was with Keaton. And the first time I said, shoot the moon. Yeah. Shoot the moon. Yeah. And I got to say this on stage, and he was Judy Davis. And I gotta say those two.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. I just watched the New Age this weekend. I want to talk to you about. Yeah, I get it. I get what you're saying about Judy Davis.

[Peter Weller]

And the other one was on stage watch. With Diane Wiest, who just had, like, violin concerto stuff throwing at me like hardballs, you know? You know, I just felt like I was like Valenzuela was throwing it, was pitching at me with it. But those three people, particularly with Diane, was transforming. I mean, truly transform. I thought, okay, this is the deal. This is why I left music. This is why I went into acting. This is why I. Look, man, I. You know, I studied three years with Utahage, and I got a great theater education. Kazan brought me in the actor studio. I'm free as a bird. No, I'm not. Because now I'm faced with somebody who's truly throwing fastballs at me, man. And, you know, I'm trying to figure out. To swing.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

You know, like. Like George Brett said, there's some days you're not figuring out nothing.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. You're just George Brett, the hitter.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah. Yeah. But he just said, you know, you can't. Your mind isn't fast enough to.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Peter Weller]

Compute, so you got to go with it. And when you let. Let it go, you know, I've never faced 101 mile fastball, but Brett said, you know, you just. You're gonna let it go and you're gonna. You're gonna swing.

[David Duchovny]

Right?

[Peter Weller]

And so that's what I felt like with Diane.

[David Duchovny]

Did you feel at that point when that happened with Diane? How do I. How do I get there without Diane?

[Peter Weller]

You know? How do I. Yeah, yeah, sure, I do.

[David Duchovny]

How do I. In the future? How do I. Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

How do I let all this guy.

[David Duchovny]

How do I do that to myself?

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, I did. I did. And you know this. The answer was, of course, you know, listen to the person who's talking to you. I can listen to you now. Right. But some of them don't have that music. Some of them are not playing Beethoven.

[David Duchovny]

I had a similar experience with an actress named Juliet Lewis. I don't know.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, sure. And gifted.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. We did this movie a long time ago. She was very young, called California with a K. And Brad Pitt was in it. There were good actors in it.

[Peter Weller]

I love that movie.

[David Duchovny]

But I. I remember the first time I. I was doing a scene with Juliet. I just remember doing, like, what you're describing. She was so free and so weird angles on things. Just weird. And it wasn't fake. It was. I did not know where it was coming from or where it was gonna go. And I just remember thinking like, you did. Just like, oh, my God. That's what it is.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

That's how you do it.

[Peter Weller]

The authenticity of that is just frightening. Sometimes. It's just somebody that often.

[David Duchovny]

Well, it's humbling.

[Peter Weller]

Humbling, sure. For sure. But it's also exciting.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, it's exciting.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah. And if those out there who are listening to this, who are not actors, but like, acting and so forth, you know, when you see it, ladies and gentlemen, you know, when you see a scene, you go, I don't know what that was, but that was fantastic. And those two people have got. Got great chemistry. Well, part of that. Half that chemistry, in my opinion, is that the facility of letting the bird fly.

[David Duchovny]

Right. Of wanting to resp. You know, it's like. I'm sure in you. You did Actors Studio, maybe, did you ever do the repetition, you know? Yeah, it's a little like that. It's like, oh, I'm gonna have to meet this person. Where they're coming from.

[Peter Weller]

Sure.

[David Duchovny]

You know, I'm gonna try to give it back to them, you know?

[Peter Weller]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And in that ways, they're. They've been my teachers, you know, Then that way, Dian teacher, you know, in that moment of, like, okay, this is a possibility. This is how it can be done.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And that's not. It doesn't have to be done like that all the time either.

[Peter Weller]

No.

[David Duchovny]

You know, it's not. That's not what it's about. But it is an amazing. I just. I can recall it just as clearly right now, just sitting in. I think it was in a car, and we're doing a scene, and just like. I just remember, like, just turning. She was A wild animal is what it was. And that's.

[Peter Weller]

That's a really good way to put it.

[David Duchovny]

What. What. What did you learn? I mean, if you could distill. You. You. So you leave school, right? You go to New York. You go to that New Yorker about. Yeah, no, no, I love it too. And that's your home. It is. It's my home. And you find your way to Utah.

[Peter Weller]

Right.

[David Duchovny]

And what were the key perceptions that she left you with in terms of, like, getting you to recognize and know your instrument as you've come to know it over the years?

[Peter Weller]

Well, first off, I get out of the American Academy. I start working right away. I work on some great stuff. I work in David Ray play that wins the Tony Award. I do two productions in a row with one of my first friends, the great Martian, Christopher Walken. I do the Scottish play and Merchant of Venice. And with Christopher Lloyd, who's another Martian, but beautiful Martians. Those guys are like the two oddest people walking planet Earth. But they're adorable. Both of them are just.

[David Duchovny]

I think I saw somebody asked Christopher Walken if there was any part that he couldn't play. And I. He said, a human being.

[Peter Weller]

You know, I told him once I'd seen his first film because I was about to go do a film with Sidney Lumet. His first film was Sidney Lumet and Sean Connery. I said, chris, I saw. I saw you in your first film. He says, was I any good, Peter? I said, you never saw. I don't watch anything.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, really?

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, you don't? He says, no, because if it's good, I'm jealous and it was bad. I'm sorry. I watched and he doesn't, man.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

So I'm working with those guys, and I'm thinking, I know. I know enough just to know I don't know anything.

[David Duchovny]

Right?

[Peter Weller]

And then Uda's book comes out, Respect for Acting, and it becomes this hit, and it's essentially a. It's not a how to book, but it's a breakdown of the method in real simple exercise, like repetition, like physical, like anticipation. What are you doing?

[David Duchovny]

What are you doing in the room?

[Peter Weller]

What are you doing in the room?

[David Duchovny]

Right?

[Peter Weller]

But that's the thing that Kazan would. Would say, what are you doing? And you're not standing there with your arms akimbo before the knock on the door. Before the knock on the door. And a guy comes in with a gun, or the girl comes in and says, I love you. What is your physical life? So it's surprising. I want to Digress to say sometimes I'm directing. And I'll have to say again and again, don't. Don't stop loading the gun. Don't stop washing the dishes.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Peter Weller]

Don't. Just not making the coffee, you know. And yeah, there's going to be one intention here where you're going to go, yeah, buzz off. And that's the only thing about it. Otherwise it's all. You know, Kazan was amazing. She used to see this. This is not a prop. This is not business. This is what you are doing. You're playing with that phone before you. And so to hear that drilled into you and then do those exercises about. About physical life. That's where I started to get it from Mudahaga. That's where it's started to get. Okay. What is the okay? The objective is here to get even with David Duchovny for stealing my coffee.

[David Duchovny]

I meant to apologize.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, I know. But what is it that I'm doing to distract him, to confront him, to whatever the action is in this thing. And that's what OUDA gave me. Real simple stuff. And it doesn't have to be intellectual, you know, to fight this intellectual idea, just to go on with this. One time at the studio when Lee Strasberg was gone, Kazan would come in and run the actors thing and they'd come out of the woodwork, you know, the old guard would come out of woodwork to watch Kazan.

[David Duchovny]

They would.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, yeah. Because he'd take a scene down in two minutes. He was not an intellectual who would go on and on and on about the theories behind this stuff. He was a do or die dude. And somebody's doing a scene from the Seagull and it's Treple right before he kills himself. Just to refresh everybody's memory, you remember Jekhov, the Seagull? There's a very famous writer who's on his way out and he sort of rips off the girlfriend of the young writer who adores the older writer. But the guy takes his girlfriend. A young guy kills himself at the end of the play. And Treble is writing a suicide note, right? And then in comes. I forget what her name is. Irina. I think I could be wrong. So all you check off people don't correct me. But so in walks the actress. This great scene the guy's like writing and he starts to discuss with her about the. About Trigorin and thing. And about four minutes into the scene, Kazan, who was in 70s at the time, just jumps up on stage and he goes, what are you writing. And he takes this, right? He takes his letter. This was stunning to me, man. I'm 27. He says, what are you writing? He says, you're writing garbage. He says, it says you're writing a suicide note. Write a fucking suicide note. He turns to us, the audience, right? He says, look, this is not touchy feely actor studio stuff. If the stage directions say, write a suicide note, write the damn suicide note. If it says, polish the pencil, polish the pencil. So write the damn suicide note. And then he's about to go sit down, we all go, like, really? Right? And then he goes, about to go sit down, he says, oh, and by the way, if anybody here is over 23 and never felt like killing themselves over love, get the fuck out. And we all just sat there and go, what if? What a permission, what an honest permission to allow yourself to admit that I've been that up over love or confused about it or whatever. And that was a mind blower to me for A, how simple it is, the physical life in a room, and B, the permit to feel and do anything.

[David Duchovny]

If you're not failing, you're not learning. And I definitely believe in lifelong learning. That's why I love Masterclass. For the people in my life who I know share that commitment, there's no better gift than the gift of knowledge. Whether that's learning a new skill or hobby or just expanding your horizons, you can find it all on Masterclass. Some of their offerings. You can apply the principles of improv to your life with Amy Poehler, strengthen your personal and professional relationships with help from renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel, or look and feel better with courses on gut health, brain health, and skin health. All of these are perfect options for anyone looking to start the new year off right. Need proof? 88% of surveyed members feel that Masterclass has made a positive impact on their lives. With Masterclass, you can learn from the best to become your best. With plans starting at $10 a month billed annually, you get unlimited access to over 200 classes taught by the world's best business leaders, writers, chefs and more. With Masterclass, you get thousands of bite sized lessons across 13 categories that can fit into even the busiest of schedules. You can learn wherever you are on your phone, laptop, or even your tv. Masterclass always has great offers during the holidays, sometimes up to as much as 50% off. Head over to masterclass.com failbetter for the current offer. That's up to 50% [e-mail] failbetter masterclass.com failbetter Are you traveling over the holidays and have large family gatherings? With all the hustle and bustle coming up, it's extra important to be proactive about your health and you can do just that with AG1. AG1 is a daily health drink that combines a multivitamin, prebiotics, probiotics, superfoods and antioxidants into one simple green scoop. It's one of the easiest things you can do to support your body every day. Who says you have to wait till the new year to start a healthy habit? The holiday season is as good a time as ever to fill nutrient gaps, support gut health and digestion, and support your immune health. The holidays have always tended to wear me down and throw me off my game. Overall, I just don't feel my best during or after. I'm sure you know what that feels like. I Wish I had AG1 in years past to give me that much needed boost. It's such a simple all in1 solution. AG1 has their best offer ever. If you head to drinkag1.comfailbetter, you'll get the welcome kit, a morning person hat, a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2, an AG1 flavor sampler, and you'll get to try their new sleep supplement AGZ for free, which has been a game changer for my nightly routine. That's drinkag1.com failbetter for $126 in free gifts for new subscribers. Are you still stressed out about what to give the special people in your life? Sometimes the simplest answer is also the best one. In this case, that means giving your loved ones a personalized gift from Aura Frames. Not only do they make the best digital picture frame out there, it couldn't be easier to set up and give. Your memories are ready to be shared and enjoyed right out of the box. Plus, Aura Frames have a luxe look and crystal clear displays. With Aura Frames you get unlimited free photos and video. Just download the Aura app and connect to WI Fi. You can preload photos before it ships so it's all ready to go, keeping it simple for parents or grandparents. And you can keep adding from anywhere anytime. You can also personalize your gift and add a message before it arrives. Speaking of, every frame comes packaged in a premium gift box with no price tag. Don't wait. Win the holidays now with Aura Frames for a limited time. Save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames named number one by Wirecutter by using promo Code Failbetter at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo. Code FAILBETTER. This deal is exclusive to listeners, and Frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. So you say you're, you're here working, right? You said, I am. Yeah. So what is your relationship now? To, to work. To the work, you know, doing acting. Yeah. I mean, are you still.

[Peter Weller]

Working? Yes.

[David Duchovny]

No. No. Not still working.

[Peter Weller]

When you're, when you're working, I sit on the set. I never leave.

[David Duchovny]

You sit on the set, never leave. Are you. You're still as engaged and as creatively challenged and excited as you ever were when you're there?

[Peter Weller]

I think so. I, I, I am. I mean, I, I, I had to do a scene the other day with a bunch of physical life and jump upstairs and.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

You know, get a couple of ginger ales and talk on the phone at the same time and so forth. Now to get that done, what are you doing in the room?

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Peter Weller]

Like any great method teacher said, you got to practice that. Some people, it's just like second nature to them. You know, great basketball players can do that. You know, I mean, like, Ohtani can swing a. But I gotta go go get the club. I get the thing. I get the. I open the ginger ales, I close the thing. I talk on the phone, put the thing down. So it takes me about 10 minutes to rehearse it. Then it's all of a sudden it's swinging.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Peter Weller]

So it's still the same process.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, yeah. And spiritually and soulfully, you're feeling, you, you feel, you still feel like, okay, this is a good place for me to be. This is, this is a nurturing place or this is a creative place.

[Peter Weller]

Well, I have to be honest with you. I have to pray and meditate every day. And that's not just because I'm sober. I have to pray and meditate every day just because my mind will tell me this is not a good place, really, no matter what it is.

[David Duchovny]

Where does that come from?

[Peter Weller]

I don't know where it comes from. There's a ball of worry that I wake up to. And a really wonderful, smart woman, she's a physicist, I think she says, peter, you know, you just make friends with that big bubble every day. It's not going to go away. That's you.

[David Duchovny]

What does it sound like?

[Peter Weller]

It sounds like you can't do that. You got to get how, you know What's David Duchemy? I know that his book is upsetting. Is he going to be up? Upsetting is just that that's the convo of the. That may be coming at me in the day. So. But after 20, 25 minutes meditation, little bit of Indian, little bit of Zen, then I'm cool. And somebody said to me the other day, a friend of mine said, you know, you are pretty high wired guy.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

For a dude who meditates. And my wife was great. And she said, well, you, you ought to see him when he doesn't. It's the distinction. It doesn't make me into. I didn't grow up with Sid Arthur as my next door neighbor.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Peter Weller]

You know, so. Or, you know, or, or my playmate.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

So I had to learn this stuff as I go along because life looked like it was threatening.

[David Duchovny]

Threatening.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

I understand that. I mean part of that is survival. In a good way. In a good way.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Like you should, you should be aware of threats. We should be aware of threats. The universe is not our friend. This is another thing like, and the law of nature is kill or be killed. It's not. Nature is not. Nature is beautiful to be out in. But you know, if we look at the laws of nature, they're not friendly. There are threats. We're weak. We're hairless and weak.

[Peter Weller]

I know, but that sounds like the woody line, you know, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean it's not going to happen.

[David Duchovny]

Well, is that. There's that too. But. But I think there was something else that when I was reading stuff that you. In conversation, you said, I thank God for my addiction. You said that.

[Peter Weller]

That's a cliche, but that's it.

[David Duchovny]

A cliche.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, I mean, you hear it a lot.

[David Duchovny]

I'd never heard it before.

[Peter Weller]

Well, if you survive it, and I have so far, it led me back to a spiritual path. It led me back to a path of wow, there's a whole lot to be grateful for here and stop complaining Weller, because there's a whole lot of people, you know, are dead or in jail.

[David Duchovny]

Do you think that's because drugs mimic a spiritual experience? That they did they take the place of spiritualism or religion or some.

[Peter Weller]

Some actually do enhance a spiritual experience. There's a wonderful friend of mine and he asked me, he passed away a couple years ago, but he said, hey, do you regret taking hallucinogens? And I go and I said, no, I'm really grateful. I'm grateful. I don't do them And I'm grateful that I'm not around them. And I don't know about microdosing and all the stuff that people are doing now, but I'm grateful for the 60s and I'm grateful that I survived the 60s, and I'm grateful that I took that stuff. And somebody out there who's never done any hallucinogens is gonna go, are you out of your mind, Weller? But what hallucinogens did is a gratitude for the fact that I survived because somebody didn't. Is opened up a whole nother world of spirituality and domain of psychology that I would never have been aware of, never would have been aware of. And yes, the great Buddha, Tibetan Buddha, said, hey, that's just a fast track to Bardo, you know, to understanding the seven bardos. Yeah, it is a fast track, but I wouldn't have not gotten there. I don't live on a mountain in Tibet. I wouldn't have done that thing. So. But I'm glad I picked them up, I'm glad I put them down. Now. There's a whole other slew of drugs that I did in the 70s and, you know, early 80s that are terrible. They're killers. They put you in psychosis, they put you in jail and they kill you. And in those days, also, society would kill you, cops would kill you. You lived in spite of the fact that some money in a fast car and going to Studio 54, you're looking over your shoulder like an outlaw because you don't know who's, like, ringing, gonna ring your bell, you know, New York, man, is like, it was a dangerous place. Beautiful. And I loved it. And, and I, I lived there for 40 years. I would never.

[David Duchovny]

Well, it wasn't the theme park that it is now, but I, I, it.

[Peter Weller]

Was not the theme park. You're right.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, I know. It was, it was itself. But what was the moment now?

[Peter Weller]

What do you mean? Can I ask you this? What do you mean by itself? Because I keep hearing this as opposed to what it was or what it is. Yeah, what do you mean itself?

[David Duchovny]

It wasn't, I mean, it's, it's like my problem with so much of culture these days, and I'm gonna sound like an old fuddy duddy, but it's performative. It's like, I go to New York now and it seems like, oh, New York is performing for New York. Yeah, it's like, oh, it's giving me a New York experience. Like, oh, have a bagel, or, you know, go, go see a Yankee game. Or all this, the, you know, the stuff that is like, New York rather than. Well, in the 70s, there were artists downtown. There wasn't money everywhere. It wasn't. It wasn't Starbucks. There was mom and Pop coffee. There was all these different things everywhere in the city. And it wasn't. It wasn't like the theme park New York. It wasn't franchise New York. And this is just the way things are now, but just this prepackaged sense of, like, what the touristy thing is. We'll go to Times Square, we'll see the Statue of Liberty. None of those things have anything to do with New York. New York was just the melting pot. It was like every single culture, color, creed, everything.

[Peter Weller]

It was a town, man. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

You know, and like, what's your favorite.

[Peter Weller]

Movie about New York? Oh, God, I could tell you. It's one of my three favorite movies. I can tell you mine.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, tell me.

[Peter Weller]

Sweet Smell of Success.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Peter Weller]

Clifford Odettes.

[David Duchovny]

Wow. Yeah, man.

[Peter Weller]

Is that New York?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. And when I was growing up in New York in the 60s and 70s, I didn't really have a sense that anybody grew up anywhere else. That's how kind of big it is in your mind. You know, it's like I didn't think, oh, I'd like to grow up in the country or I'd like to grow up abroad. It was just like, yeah, everybody must live here. This must be what it's like for everybody.

[Peter Weller]

This is the vortex of the world.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

I have this feeling about it. I was told by a couple actors, they say, you'll get used to LA and you'll sell your apartment in New York. I said, I'm never selling my apartment in New York. And so I lived in New York for 40 years. And this is only since I had a kid. This is only in the last 13 years when Sherry and I had a kid, we sold the apartment in New York and we haven't thought about it again because we're so concentrated on raising the kid. But New York was. In spite of the fact I was born in Wisconsin, raised in Texas, and part of the time in Europe. New York was from 1971 on my jam and my place. It didn't matter about the danger of the filth of the street or whatever, man. It was what you said, man. It was the center of the world.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

Everyone wanted to go to New York. You go to London. What's New York like?

[David Duchovny]

You know, you mentioned your, Your, your. Your son and. And I think I. I read where he said it's the best thing and the worst thing that's ever happened to you. What, what do you exactly mean by that?

[Peter Weller]

I, I, I, I've just never been a. Let's talk about the bad news first. He's a good kid. He's not in the stuff, self destructive stuff stuff. He's at an age now where the hormones are kicking. He had his first serious date the other night which was 14.

[David Duchovny]

He's 14. 14.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah. Which was really wonderful. We picked him up from the grove, he's out on a four hour date and went to dinner and I was just thrilled, I was thrilled, I was thrilled that he was having a fantastic conversation which I heard from the backseat.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, you did?

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, a little bit.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

And then he got out of the car, opened the car door for walked through the door, there's the dad, her dad, standing there and they stand there, talk for 10 minutes.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

And Sherry says to me, you know, we picked him up together as a couple, me and Sherry, my wife, my beautiful, who I lost without. She goes, yeah, I know. And she says don't ask him what the dad is saying to him. I said, okay. She says don't ask him anything. Oh, I said, is that the best of righteousness? Yeah, don't.

[David Duchovny]

I think that's smart.

[Peter Weller]

Don't ask about anything. Just. Did you have a nice time? Great. Leave it alone. Okay, that's that. But then there's somebody else. I don't know who said it, but having a teenage boy as a father is like standing with your legs apart asking to be kicked in balls. So yeah, yeah, give me a kick. Because there's certain times like the one handed hugs, the. I gotta go, dad. Yeah, I don't want to talk about it now. The rejection principles are saddening. I mean they, they, and maybe I'm oversensitive, but he's over a drama in five minutes. I'm not over a drama for another half a day.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Peter Weller]

At least. And so it's great to bring him up and when him asking me questions about certain things he doesn't know about and to assist him when he wants it, needs it, sports and what have you. But it's also really difficult when he's blowing me off, you know, when he's hasn't got the work done, hasn't quite finished the homework, hasn't gotten this done and he just wants me out of his life. He wants mom out of, you know. Why are you laughing? You've been through this. Is anybody. I got a, got a teenage boy who's ever been through this. Yeah, yeah. I. I asked. I talked to a guy the other day, a guy lives in Canada. He said, how's your kid? He said, and he knows Teddy Says he's great. Is he an asshole yet? I think, yeah, kinda. But.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, well, for me it was. It was. And I still.

[Peter Weller]

You had two boys? A girl.

[David Duchovny]

A girl and a boy.

[Peter Weller]

Okay.

[David Duchovny]

It's the worry too, you know, like. Well, wow, that. That's really what I have trouble managing, you know? Talk about a drug worry. Yeah. Worries. A drug.

[Peter Weller]

Well, that's what I'm saying. It doesn't go away. That's what friends said. Right, right. Physicist friends, that you gotta. You gotta hug it out with the. With the worry.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. So that's.

[Peter Weller]

How old's your daughter?

[David Duchovny]

She's 26.

[Peter Weller]

Oh, she's older than the boy.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

Okay. Which one do you have to worry about more?

[David Duchovny]

Just depends on. On who, you know. Like, I have them, you know, on my. On my phone screen from a long time ago. And then whenever that pops up. Oh, I turned it off. Whenever that pops up, I just worry both, you know? Right. But it's. It's unwarranted, you know, it's my problem. It's not their problem, you know? Yeah. And one of the things, you know, we talk on this podcast talking about failure, it's like, I want to protect them from all this failure when I know that failure is the best thing that could ever happen to them. That if they should learn resilience, that's the best thing that ever could happen to them. That they take their knocks, that's going to make them who they are. Every time that bone gets broken, it's going to set stronger, you know, like. But I still. I'm like, I want to put him in a bubble. I want to save him, which is the worst thing I could possibly do.

[Peter Weller]

I do, too. Yeah, I want to save him. It's the worst. It's absolutely the worst.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

Because he's going to go nowhere fast if I'm saving his ass. And are these mine? Do I get to keep them?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, they're all signed too. Which. Just like the other one. I love your. Your, your. The last thing you heard Miles Davis say to you was make time, right?

[Peter Weller]

Yes. Oh, man.

[David Duchovny]

It makes me think I was going to steal that for the second book of poems, because this one's about time. We call the second book Make Time.

[Peter Weller]

Sure.

[David Duchovny]

But here's what I wanted to share with you. It's a little long.

[Peter Weller]

Give it to Me.

[David Duchovny]

It's. The wren is a tiny bird. It eats only a few grains. It makes its nest on a single branch. It can fly only a few feet. It takes up little space and does no harm. Its feathers are drab. It is useless to humankind, but it, too receives the force of life. Ducks and geese can fly up to the clouds, yet they are shot down with arrows, for their flesh is plump. Kingfishers and peacocks must die because their feathers are beautiful. The falcon is fierce, but is kept on a tether. The parrot is intelligent, but it is locked in a cage where it is forced to repeat its master's words. Only the little wren, worthless and unlovely, is free.

[Peter Weller]

Who wrote that?

[David Duchovny]

Chang Hua.

[Peter Weller]

Wow. The bigger you are, the harder you fall.

[David Duchovny]

We're going to continue this off camera.

[Peter Weller]

All right.

[David Duchovny]

I think we got to get out of here.

[Peter Weller]

All right. I love you madly, as Duke Ellington.

[David Duchovny]

Would say, man, I love you, too. And it's really nice to see. I didn't know you were living here. So now I got to take advantage of that.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Thank you, Pete.

[Peter Weller]

I got my book looks. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

I thought I was going to fill your suitcase. I thought you were going back to Italy, so I feel okay now. You just have to get them home.

[Peter Weller]

They're gonna pull my car, man.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. Some thoughts about Peter Weller. We didn't talk that much about Miles Davis, but in terms of failure, you know, Miles Davis famously said, there are no wrong notes. Somebody asked him, you know, did you ever hit a wrong note? Or what is your feeling about wrong notes? Or something? And he said, there are no wrong notes, which is another way of saying there is no failure. And I like that. The more we go through this podcast, the more I begin to realize. I start to realize that failure and success are maybe the same thing and that those designations are meaningless ultimately. And I think what Miles meant was if you hit a what might be sounding like a wrong note, the next note can save it. What seems a wrong note in the moment becomes the right note, depending on the next note, depending on your reaction to the failure to the bad note. Thanks so much for listening to Fail Better. If you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now's the perfect time, because guess what? You can listen completely ad free, plus you'll unlock exclusive bonus content like the full version of my post interview thoughts that you won't hear anywhere else. That's more of my recaps of interviews with guests. Guests like Charlie Sheen, Gene Simmons, and Judd Apatow. Just tap that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or head to lemonadepremium.com to subscribe on any other app. That's lemonade premium.com don't miss out. Failbetter is 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. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Kupinsky and Brad Davidson. 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 Rowan and Sebastian Modak. You can find us online at Lemonada Media and you can find me at David Dacus. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Story Pirates is the number one podcast for kids and families in the world and the newest addition to the Lemonada Media Network. We take stories written by real kids and turn them into to sketch comedy and songs featuring professional actors, famous guests and original music. So get ready to light up your kids imaginations with a show that you'll also enjoy. The Story Pirates Podcast new season coming November 6th.