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- [00:01]
Maya Shankar
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 Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans that combines behavioral science and storytelling to help us navigate the big changes in our lives. I get so choked up because I feel like your show and the conversations are what the world needs. Encouraging, empowering counter programming that acts like a lighthouse when the world feels dark. Listen to A Slight Change of Plans wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:06]
Lemonada
Lemonada.
- [01:10]
David Duchovny
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 5.99amonth 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. I don't need to read that. I'm David Duchovny. I know that without reading it and this is Fail Better a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Tim Minchin is a man of many, many talents. He's an Australian. That's not one of his talents. He's an award winning musician, comedian, actor, writer, producer and director. You might know him for being the creative force behind Matilda the Musical Fantastic and co creator of the acclaimed TV series Upright. Also Fantastic. Tim is widely recognized for his sharp wit, satirical songs and theatrical flair. His sold out tours seamlessly blend piano driven music with clever social commentary. Tim has outspoken about many topics that he cares about and I think he'd say he's pretty unapologetic about it. In short, his work is full of self awareness and emotional truth. It's refreshing and I think it's what sets him apart. Very much so. In an often curated world, we chat about our friendship a little bit not fitting into one box. And his newest book, you don't have to have a Dream. Here's our conversation. Thank you for doing this, by the way.
- [02:56]
Tim Minchin
Oh, it's a huge pleasure.
- [02:57]
David Duchovny
Thank you for having me to see you. Virtually. However. Where are you home in Sydney?
- [03:01]
Tim Minchin
Yeah, Just going down to Melbourne today to watch a friend open a musical. So I've got to get on a plane. That's the only reason. Otherwise I'd give you hours, David.
- [03:10]
David Duchovny
No, no, that's okay. I was thinking about. I've been thinking about delivery systems, Tim.
- [03:16]
Tim Minchin
Oh, yeah? Like delivery of. Of information products or humans.
- [03:22]
David Duchovny
Yeah. And I. Because I'm think about this podcast and, you know, as a delivery system. So what am I trying to deliver? You know, what am I. I think about the artistic endeavors I've had in life. What was I trying to deliver? What is the best delivery system for? What I'm trying to say is, is it. Does it make sense to try to say anything in art? This is a good question to ask you because you say a lot in your art. Yeah.
- [03:50]
Tim Minchin
Like, does it have. Firstly, does it have to have utility? And then if you try to give it utility, then do you succeed? I mean, you have to think that you. That you have to think of any piece of art as a drop in an ocean, but if no one made any, there'd be no ocean sort of thing. I mean, I guess. And then. Yeah, I'm very interested in the delivery system, especially the different. The different ways.
- [04:13]
David Duchovny
Well, I mean, I think we share that in a way, because I see you, you know, I see you giving the commencement speeches and I see you going back to making an album, and I see you writing or collecting those commencement speeches, and it's. I love seeing you do all that shit is what I'm saying. I love seeing you just stick your nose everywhere, you know, in terms of the creative endeavors, the creative systems that you have at your disposal. And it just seems to me like when I think about what I'm doing, I'm always just trying to get that thing across. I don't even know what it is until I've done it in that form, whatever that form is. I'm just trying to get that thing across and I don't know if I'm choosing the right way to do it.
- [05:01]
Tim Minchin
Well, I don't know if it matters unless you have really set goals, you know, like in all the things I've done, there are things like some of my. More When I was more comedy focused, where I have a real political agitated Goal. Yeah, but I like to think. Not always, but when I look back on those kind of activismy, you know, satire bits I did, I like to think I had a goal. And the goal was, you know, sometimes to change people's minds, but often to kind of. I don't know. I did a song about equal marriage, and my goal was to make something that went viral, and it had on the end, because in Australia, it was a postal vote, and, you know, the detail. I was worried that young voters weren't going to do postal voting properly, so I had a real. The delivery package for my. Don't forget to do your postal vote. The delivery system was viral satire. Right. And. And sometimes I have intent like that, and then there's something like Matilda, where all I wanted to do was help tell the story. And I didn't quite realize that I was putting out that I wasn't so conscious of the positive messages, which now, 15 years later, I can see, you know, and I don't think I. I guess what I. What I could ask you is like, do you. Do you feel like you need to have intention? Not every artist or every thinker or every podcaster needs to be like, my goal is this, and if I don't hit that goal, I've failed. I think there's something to be said for what. How did you put it? You're just trying to get things across.
- [06:36]
David Duchovny
Yeah, I think it's more of an irritation for me, not a political irritation. It's an itch. It's something that I'm feeling the need to embody in some way, whether it's this or a poem or a screenplay or a song or a book. So. Yeah, or a book. Yeah. I sent you the books. I don't know if you ever.
- [06:57]
Tim Minchin
I know I've got them. There they are. They are on. They're on the line. They're next in line.
- [07:02]
David Duchovny
They're holding the bathroom door open. I know that's where they belong. So for me, it's just always that sense of irritation or just, you know, I think sometimes I'm trying to say the same thing, just in a different form. I'm just trying to. And I look at your work and I see. I see there are specific issues that you get to sometimes, as you were just referencing, like, equal marriage. But at the. At the heart of those individual kind of issues, there's always. There's always the sense that. That you're thinking, that you're thinking out loud. I think what you do in a song, that's really Interesting is you kind of take us through the entire argument. And songs are kind of perfect for that form, aren't they? Because they're verse, verse, chorus, ver. You know, you can kind of change the argument, synthesis, antithesis or thesis, and I love that.
- [08:01]
Tim Minchin
And you know, not to go too digressive into songwriting, but I love the form my songs take is often a little unconventional. Often it doesn't quite go verse chorus first, but it. It still does. It returns to a musical theme. And, And I totally agree, and I haven't heard it expressed like that, that every time you get to a new verse, you are going. You get to develop the argument. You get to go, okay, so we've established that this is what this character is feeling. And now after the first chorus, we're, we're. We've got to develop that. And, and if you're a songwriter like me, you. You don't like giving up on the audience. And I think a lot of popular music, basically, you hear the verse and the chorus and you're like, okay, we know what the song's about. I really like that in the third verse, I'm a very liter. It took me years to become okay with the fact that I'm. I'm quite literal with my lyrics. Which is not to say I don't use lots of metaphorical language and stuff. But my. You don't listen to one of my songs and think, oh, I wonder what that was about. Like, I'm like, I'm like going, mate, this is what it's about. And, and you know, and something like, maybe one of my better songs is called I'll take Lonely Tonight, which sets up this. This dude who's drunk and partying with a girl he really, really wants to have sex with and stay faithful. Then, yeah, this argument in this sense that, oh my God, maybe he's gonna do it or maybe he's not and you. And his heart keeps coming back into the argument sort of thing.
- [09:29]
David Duchovny
Can you think of a song that somebody else has written that has worked that magic on you? And you're like, oh, fuck y. That took me from A to B and then I got to Z by the end. I'm putting you on the spot because I can't think of anything.
- [09:43]
Tim Minchin
Well, they tend to be. Yeah, no, I'm hopeless at thinking.
- [09:46]
David Duchovny
But even a pop song can do that. A pop song can kind of take you even without the kind of literalism that you're talking about, can take you from one place to another. And that's kind of the genius of a great pop song.
- [09:57]
Tim Minchin
Yeah. I was just letting my favorite songs come into my head like Waterloo Sunset and thinking about Terry and Julie crossing over the river and um. And yeah, you're sort of on a journey with them through the London evening and. And I really like that. And. But when the thing. The sort of things that I do with white wine in the sun where you. Sorry to self reference, but it's a. It's a particular. I guess it's my, my podcast, my.
- [10:23]
David Duchovny
70 minutes unless anybody else is there.
- [10:25]
Tim Minchin
It sort of emotionally pulls the rug out from under. You think, you know the, the size of the container in that song. You think, oh, this is a sort of slightly satirical, really loving song about family. And then there' turn where. Where I say and you my baby girl and you. And the whole shape of the container changes because you re you. You very late, 2/3 of the way through the song go, oh, he's addressing. We didn't know he was addressing it. And then he says my jet lagged infant daughter. So he's addressing to a baby. And suddenly you're crying or feeling these feelings because you're. That changes the rules. And that sort of writing, you see much more in theater and old jazz standards. You know, like those songs that you do nothing till you hear from me and the very last line is and you never will. You know, like, it's like, like cheeky. They. They work more like, like poems or something with a twist.
- [11:21]
David Duchovny
You know, I come back to when you were saying that about the writing to your jet lag infant daughter. Cats in the cradle is one. Because that takes you from, you know, a boy who can't get the attention of his father all the way to the father. That is not getting attention. Yeah.
- [11:38]
Tim Minchin
I mean that is life. Yeah, that. That's a fantastic example. And look, I guess the difference is I talk about storytelling music and, and we talk about songs as if they're a category. In the same way that I always get frustrated. People talk about musicals and they put jukebox musicals and, and these new, these new, what I call tick tock musicals where there's like piece of a song, piece of a song, piece of a song. It's basically just the death of the genre.
- [12:02]
David Duchovny
And.
- [12:03]
Tim Minchin
But it's still fine. It's still fine. It's just.
- [12:05]
David Duchovny
Sure.
- [12:05]
Tim Minchin
It's not the death of the genre because it's not my genre, you know.
- [12:08]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [12:08]
Tim Minchin
Anyway, and I think the same with songs. We talk about them all as songs, but you know, a pop song that just or like a. Most of the music I listen to has few lyrics or no lyrics. Like, I listen to mostly jazz or like. Like, if you're listening to Sly in the Family Stone or something, it's not like a love slide. You're not. It's not like you're listening for a story because the. The lyrics in a lot of jazz and funk and pop and. And even rock are really just things you're hanging the music on. Like, you're. You're. It's just things you're hanging phrases on. The phonetic outbursts that don't. They put you in a mood, but they're not asking you to follow a narrative or some sort of exploration of an idea, you know, so we need more categories.
- [12:55]
David Duchovny
There's the name of the band is the Phonetic Outbursts. That's. That's the name of the band. When you were. When you were starting out on your entertainment journey, did you look to other musical satirists as mentors? Somebody like Victor Borga or Tom Lehrer? Were these. Were these people that you were aware of?
- [13:20]
Tim Minchin
Not really. I guess so. I think I knew the Chemicals song, which I bet you knew off by heart, that Tom Lehrer, the Table of Elements song.
- [13:30]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [13:32]
Tim Minchin
Nerdy little David would have memorized that. Definitely. But the satirical part of my songwriting was sort of a compulsion. And look, I mean, my. My uncle was a songwriter and a really funny guy, and not that he. We were very close or anything. It's sort of in my jeans. And it's also culturally, the satire was an impulse.
- [13:59]
David Duchovny
There were. Where does the satiric impulse come from?
- [14:02]
Tim Minchin
Well, what do you think it is? I think it's cultural, as in. In both. This. In all the sort of convergent ways you can talk about culture. So it's family culture. Like we. I come from a family that laughs at itself and. And doesn't take itself. It punishes pomposity and sincerity a little bit, you know, in. In a way that is very common in Australian culture to. To not which. Which you might. Listeners might find ironic because I can be pretty pompous, but I come from a culture where you're meant to. What we talk about. Tall poppies.
- [14:37]
David Duchovny
Why do you. Why do you consider yourself pompous? And do you feel. Do you ever feel a certain kind of hedge against punishing sincerity at this stage in your life?
- [14:48]
Tim Minchin
This. This is my life's journey. That's the question where I can talk for 60 minutes. Because. Because the. The come. The satire came from me being aware that I was a middle Class kid from a loving family who played piano instead of guitar. It's all in the lyrics of Rock and Roll Nerd. And, and that I, I didn't feel allowed to speak sincerely about things. Not, not from the outside, no one specific, just culturally. I was like, I'll get your hand off it. You know what? You've got no pain, you've got no friction. Like, like. And so I started taking the piss out of myself. The songs that made me known as a comed, songs like Dark side and Rock and Roll Nerd were specifically saying, I got nothing to say. I'm a middle class white boy who plays piano, you know, and. And so the comedy came from a necessity to still want to speak. The delivery system had to be designed to still allow me to speak, even though I didn't feel like I had anything to say. And then, of course, I got a huge audience, a big audience. And. And then I had eyes on me. And then I started thinking about, well, what do I care about? And it turned out what I care about is critical thinking. So I made a comedy career really talking about logic and dogma and religion and critical thinking. And, and that has stayed. But through that journey, I lived enough life. I had kids, I traveled, I took some blows, I felt up and down and suddenly I had more to say. And I ended up. And then Matilda came along and let me change my delivery system to being writing exactly what I want, when I want.
- [16:35]
Sean Pyles
Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast. Money can be confusing. Should you invest in ETFs, get a travel rewards credit card, buy a house, or just build a really fancy pillow fort.
- [16:48]
Lemonada
That could work. No shame in pillow fort game. Or you could just tune in for clear research backed financial insights.
- [16:56]
Sean Pyles
I'm Sean Pyles, a certified financial planner professional.
- [16:59]
Lemonada
And I'm Elizabeth Ayola. We're the host of NerdWallet Smart Money podcast where you bring the money questions and we bring trustworthy information. Backed by NerdWallet's expert analysis, our nerds.
- [17:11]
Sean Pyles
Do the research so you don't have to. We'll help you understand your options so you can make the best decision for your situation. From optimizing your investments and maximizing credit card rewards to making big money moves with confidence. Whether you're planning for retirement, weighing a big purchase, or just want to make your money work harder for you, we've got insights that you can use in real life.
- [17:32]
Lemonada
So if you want practical, straightforward and actually useful financial knowledge, plus a little bit of Fun along the way. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app.
- [17:43]
Sean Pyles
Future you will. Thank you.
- [17:45]
Sophia Stallone
Are you waxed? No, I'm Unwaxed. Hi guys, I'm Sophia. And I'm Sistine Stallone. And this is Unwaxed. We are less judgmental than your best friend, way cheaper than a therapist, and less painful than a wax. Join us every Tuesday where we discuss dating, bettering yourself and hilarious stories. So listen to Unwaxed from Lemonade Media wherever you get your podcasts or check us out on YouTube to see the video version. And we will see you next Tuesday.
- [18:10]
David Duchovny
Bye. You speak of critical thinking and it's interesting to me that you started 20, 25 years ago with these songs that are kind of many lessons in critical thinking. Prejudice is one of my favorite of yours. And it's, it's so difficult. It's. It's such a, it's such a supremely surprising turn that you made in that I, I'd love to know. I'd love to know that moment when you went oh, oh, oh.
- [19:02]
Tim Minchin
It was actually. I mean. Yeah. And I would, I suppose I wouldn't have the balls to do it now.
- [19:07]
David Duchovny
Yeah, probably not.
- [19:09]
Tim Minchin
I mean, for the listeners who don't know it, it's a song making the joke that being a red headed white man is just like being black. I mean that's the, the basic construct of the joke. And of course it's, it's laughing at itself because. But it's, it's having its cake and eat it too. Because being a ginger.
- [19:27]
David Duchovny
Absolutely.
- [19:28]
Tim Minchin
It is a, A group that gets bullied. But of course the. There's an implied understanding that they are non equivalent. Right, right. And. And tucked into that song, the opening of the song is all about the fact that the word ginger has the same letters in it that as the most offensive word on the planet in modern times. Yeah. And that song's a good example of like if you're in my show and you understand who I am and where my heart is and you understand my love of language and my love of rubbing up against difficult ideas and you, you sit through the whole show and at the end I perfect. And everyone cries and it's expansive and it's. I'm obviously not just a sort of reactionary edgelord, blah, blah, then within the context of that show, I can get away with all sorts of stuff because I'm presenting the whole of me in that two hours, you know.
- [20:22]
David Duchovny
But you're also presenting it through this character.
- [20:26]
Tim Minchin
Through a character and through. Through. Through the. The delivery mechanism of kind of. I don't want to say virtuosity, but, like, it's good. It's like be. It's clever and fast and musical and so surprising. All sorts of things. High status, low status. There's all sorts of tools I'm using to make sure to. To earn myself the right to say some slightly outrageous things, you know?
- [20:53]
David Duchovny
And are you aware of when. When you were creating that particular show? Because I think that's just a song that's taken from an evening with you. Are you aware of. Of a kind of a journey that you're taking the audience, or is it just song by song by song?
- [21:08]
Tim Minchin
I am. I think I've always been very aware of it. And it's not so much like I'm going to write. It's not like when I write a musical, when I write Groundhog Day, of course, the whole thing is really a piece of music within which there is pieces of music, and I'm completely aware of how they work musically and thematically to add up to a whole piece of pie. Right. But when I'm writing a. One of my specials, you know, one of my live shows, it's not so much that the. It's not that complicated. It's just like, okay, if I do that one, I'm gonna need a unicorn chaser. You know, I'm gonna need something gentler after that. Or if I want to do that song later, I better have said something here earlier. So I prime them. Like my last show, the unfunny show, which I toured around America last year, is last time I saw you. Yeah, the time before I opened with a song called Understand it and a big talk about how I'm a materialist. Who. Who. I'm a. I'm a determinist. I. I believe that no one can really be blamed or. Or credited for their actions because we're all meat Computers just believe in free will. No, so I don't believe in free will. And I. I do that in a. I do that in A. That's 70 minutes. That's. That's 700 minutes. I do that in a fun. A fun way to. And I'm not saying there's no. I'm just introducing the idea. And then later on, I can't remember what the specific thing is, but I. I know I'm getting away with something because I've set up this idea of blame and attribution and blah, blah. And so it's. It's more like designing My set list, which I'm doing now for my new tour, to, to predict where they're going to be in terms of mood, their capacity to hear fast stuff. Maybe they need a breath, you know, where the interval is when they want something to s. When I want to make them cry. You know, like, I'm really thinking. I'm not going to go ballad. Ballad. Ballad, yeah. You know, fast, fast, fast. There's a lot about it that I, I'm even thinking about how those moments are going to be lit. We want to not have every song be bombastic.
- [23:12]
David Duchovny
You're a considerate lover of 5,000 people.
- [23:15]
Tim Minchin
That's right. Yeah. I like to just gently rub them.
- [23:18]
David Duchovny
On the lower back candles. Now we'll have a drink.
- [23:22]
Tim Minchin
Yeah.
- [23:22]
David Duchovny
So you don't believe in free will. That's interesting. I, I'm interested in that, but I'm very interested in your, in your. You've. You've done a lot of work around religion. And you know, I, I'm. I'm very interested in religion just because, you know, I think of you. You see my mustache. I'm about to go play Kurt Vonnegut in a movie. That's why I'm.
- [23:45]
Tim Minchin
Are you gonna play Kurt Vonnegut?
- [23:46]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [23:47]
Tim Minchin
So what are you talking about? You didn't tell me that he's like my favorite man on the planet.
- [23:50]
David Duchovny
Well, this is what I'm saying.
- [23:51]
Tim Minchin
And you're my 17th favorite.
- [23:53]
David Duchovny
I see you as kind of a Kurt Vonnegut fig of. You are men of science in a way, come from a background of science and critical thinking, as you say, but became artists, songwriters and writers, you know, and spoke to the soul, you know, in a way that science maybe doesn't. And you have said, you know, science and art need not be disconjoined.
- [24:18]
Tim Minchin
Yeah, there's a false dichotomy there.
- [24:21]
David Duchovny
Right. So. And I see you as kind of a public intellectual, which Vonnegut was as well. And there aren't. That's kind of a spot where it's not a seat that gets filled very often. And it's an interesting aspiration, and I think it's not one that maybe you were pointing out all along, but it's definitely your style is to hold intellectual debate through art. Science, almost scientific intellectual debate through art. And it often, you know, it often takes religion as its. Or institutionalized religion, let's say, as its foil, you know, and I'm very interested in that, in you, because I too have my major problems with institutionalized religion. But I also see, I also See the Bible and other works of religion as, as wisdom literature as, as art, actually. And there's a lot, a lot to recommend that wisdom within those books. And you were pointing out the hypocrisy of the institution versus the wisdom of say, some of what Jesus said and things like that. Is that correct?
- [25:33]
Tim Minchin
Yeah, I think I have stumbled more than once in my life into just bashing religion on its very foundations because. But, but my, my Aya has been saved for the horrible. Yeah. The thing I find sort of unbearable, or found unbearable as a young man is that we lived in a world where for, for centuries, which is fine, but still, which is not fine. People who believe in that there's magic in that, that Jesus was magic are given sort of some base level moral respect. As if there's a correlation between believing that, that some dude, some Jewish, Jewish rebel who didn't like the Romans and really liked peace. As if the idea that you would believe that he outlived his own death correlates somehow to you being a person who therefore has moral lessons for everyone else. I just. And then to build golden walls around this privilege of this religious privilege and then exploit those golden walls to hide a massive real estate scam and just. It deserved fury. And, but rather than fury, I did comedy songs.
- [27:06]
David Duchovny
No, there was fury underneath.
- [27:07]
Tim Minchin
There was fury in the Pope song, you know, but I think I, and I, I remember I was writing those songs within in the shadow of 9 11, in the, in deep in the new atheism movement, which now is sneered at, but it shouldn't be. The world needs throbs of atheism through it needs. We need to chip away at religion, I believe. But all that said, I think the, if the, if I could take any lessons and just give them to everyone. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Like, forgive others as you would want to be forgiven. Like, like help the Samaritan. That's not part of your tribe. I mean, and it's just the, the best stuff. And it's the best stuff because it predated the freaking Torah and the Quran and the Bible, because these are the lessons of humanity that are now held in these books. We just need to not treat them as totemic dogma and dogma and inflexibility, moral inability to have nuanced conversations about the specifics of morality because we have, in the cases of the American right, the Constitution, which cannot be amended, especially these amendments. And, and, and in the case of religion, this book and this set of shibboleths and you know.
- [28:39]
David Duchovny
Yeah, well, I, in addition to that, you also. One must realize how much education and knowledge the church suppressed for so many centuries. And art during the Middle Ages.
- [28:54]
Tim Minchin
Yeah.
- [28:55]
David Duchovny
I just read this book called the Swerve, which was basically about finding Lucretius again after hundreds of years of suppression.
- [29:04]
Tim Minchin
Yeah.
- [29:04]
David Duchovny
And it's found, you know, in the monastery. It's like hidden there. It's, it's, it's hidden there because it's, it's describing the world, you know, in a way that without, without the one God.
- [29:15]
Tim Minchin
And it's just. And the Romans just, you know, via Saul, as far as. Via Constantine, just sort of. They imposed Christianity as a new way to hold power that literally the landowners started calling themselves bishops. I mean, it's just absolutely crazy. This, this rebellious Jew, they put him to death. And then, then 80 years later or 60 years later, whenever, whenever Saul of Tarsus was just going bonkers about it because he was a nutter. They just inherited it. I mean, it.
- [29:43]
David Duchovny
Well, it's his crazy really. Paul, Paul is the author. It should be called Paulism.
- [29:50]
Tim Minchin
Not as good like I was reading this. Great. I want to read the Swerve. That's cool because it's very hard to, you know, depend. We should talk about the multiverse theory too. But, but like I, I can't get, get my head around infinite universes. But let's assume, let's assume there's even just as a hypothetical, we could run the experiment of humankind X times, you know, just as a philosopher, as a thought experiment.
- [30:17]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [30:17]
Tim Minchin
But you know, there's infinite. Where religion, the development of religion saved humanity. There's presumably, in a thought experiment way, infinite universes where religion destroyed humanity. And we might be in one of them. It just might not have caught up with us. Because of course, the place where monotheism rose is now absolutely burning hot again as it has burnt hot again and again and again through time because we cannot let go of these ancient myths. And so I'm not saying it's not geopolitical, I'm not saying it's all religion's fault, but it is no coincidence sense that back at the crucible of monotheism, we are almost at. We are at a point where there could be global war again between what we used to call the east and what we used to call the west or the Middle, you know, like, like. So maybe we're, we're in a, in a universe where religion is. Monotheism is the instrument by which we finally.
- [31:13]
David Duchovny
Stay tuned.
- [31:14]
Tim Minchin
Yeah, stay Tuned. But, but then this, this, let's say we're optimistically in, in one of the universes where religion will as it is slowly, slowly, slowly incrementally, incrementally dissipate. Monotheism will be educated out of the system. And yet what will rise up is not just a vacuum which feels like is what's happening, but some beautiful secular moral guidelines that we all agree on because we have a global council of philosophers and women and children and people who all get to bring the messages from their villages, whatever. And we will learn that sometimes one of the most important moral questions we have to answer is do we do things just because we can? And surely we are right at a point now where we are proving that we cannot not do things just because we are able. Like it's a terribly constructed sentence. But we seem incapable of suppressing damaging ideas. We, we just because they exist, we have to manifest them. That seems to be human impulse. Doesn't, does.
- [32:27]
David Duchovny
And I, I'm a big fan of this book called Sapiens that I've referenced a lot. And you know we, and you've referenced in a song how Homo sapiens out competed, you know, other very intelligent apes, Homo erectus, Homo afariensis, Homo florensis. All these wonderful kind of, of dead branches.
- [32:48]
Tim Minchin
I know. And they were probably super sexy. I bet they were sexy too. Well, apparently most of my fantasies involve Larry. I can never say that one.
- [32:58]
David Duchovny
They were sexy because they got in our genes.
- [33:01]
Tim Minchin
They got right up in our genes, baby.
- [33:03]
David Duchovny
They did 6% of them or up to 8%. Yeah, but one of the things that they, that is speculated about Neanderthals is whenever they have found settlements of Neanderthals, they've never moved beyond a horizon or a body of water. They stayed put. This may not be true, it's just the record that we're dealing with. But it's very possible, and I like to think of it this way, that Homo sapiens is the crazy animal that looks at the horizon line.
- [33:38]
Tim Minchin
So I want to go past that.
- [33:40]
David Duchovny
Yeah, let's, let's go throw some wood together and let's go out there. And that's, that is the beautiful thing about us. But it's also I think the really self destructive and crazy really. We're never content, we're not content to stay here where things are fine, but we've got to go see that unknown thing. And this, this is what we all celebrate in ourselves. Yeah, I mean the hope, the hokum way, this is the way we say, you know, we go to the moon. We do this. We. Yeah, we don't take no for an answer. We. We're not content to stay here and just play. Play with our. Whatever. But so I, I don't know because I still. When, when I grew up, what I was infused with was that story was, yeah, you go, you go, you go. Keep going. Keep pushing.
- [34:29]
Tim Minchin
Don't be satisfied. I mean, I think that's really interesting. I hadn't thought of that. That we. Why would we. We are the, the descendants of the most adventurous sapiens and the most competitive sapiens. And obviously we are all descendants of the most sexually competitive sapiens and people who want to get more and compete. And we are also the descendants of sapiens that were happy to stomp on the, The Neanderthals and, And, and erectus. And like, we are, we want. We are the descendants of the com. Competition winners.
- [35:05]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [35:05]
Tim Minchin
And that's, that's really interesting. But just to look at it from another angle, we're also the descendants of people who somehow have evolved a sense of justice and collective justice. And we are the descendants of sapiens who went, it is not okay that people die in suffering. It is not okay that we can't fix poverty. It is not okay that we. Whatever. And so we, we are problem solvers. And, and so something like AI. Yeah, we're. We're standing, we're sitting with this nascent technology that might be the thing that might be the thing that ends us. Oh, just. It just. I, I suspect it won't, but that is. Just makes the world more of a shit show. Or it might be the thing that solves some incredibly complex problems. Or it might be both. And we don't have the discipline to go incrementally with it.
- [36:09]
Hasan Minhaj
I'm Hasan Minhaj and I have been lying to you. I only pretended to be a comedian so I could trick important people into coming on my podcast. Hasan Minhaj doesn't know to ask them the tough questions that real journalists are way too afraid to ask. People like Senator Elizabeth Warren. Is America too dumb for democracy?
- [36:28]
Tim Minchin
Outrageous.
- [36:29]
Hasan Minhaj
Parenting expert Dr. Becky, how do you skip consequences without raising a psychopath?
- [36:34]
Maya Shankar
That's a good question.
- [36:35]
Hasan Minhaj
Listen to Hasan Minhaj doesn't know from Lemonada Media. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [36:59]
David Duchovny
I did not know that you had spent well, first of all, I want to talk about upright too, which I really am loving. I hadn't seen it and I've been watching it in order to talk to you, and I see, I see the evolution of your of your, of your expression. You know, I see the evolution from satire with heart, whatever it was, but I see, I see a gentler. Yeah, terrible word.
- [37:27]
Tim Minchin
I love it. But more Vonagushan character.
- [37:32]
David Duchovny
Well, yeah, I think so. You know, your, your heart is in evidence there as a performer as well. And I'm wondering how that felt as a satirist, to come out and say, well, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna write. I'm gonna create this very heartfelt. And it's not sentimental in an old fashioned way because the kid curses really well. She's really good at that. But those are Australian curses. I wasn't really. I didn't know them, so they were really landing on me. They were great. I was like, I want to curse that.
- [38:05]
Tim Minchin
That's an educational piece mostly.
- [38:07]
David Duchovny
Yeah, yeah. This is how we curse.
- [38:09]
Tim Minchin
Yeah.
- [38:11]
David Duchovny
But what. Were you aware of the shift in you of the need to go out and make a sentimental story that works on those well established paths?
- [38:30]
Tim Minchin
I just think it was always there and never a mystery. There's sort of. You can look artist out or audience in at a body of work, and if you look from the outside in, you see a story you can tell about an artist. They started like this and developed into that. But of course that, that's really just a reflection of what, what was popular when. So I, I was someone who. From my twenties, you know, in my twenties I wrote musicals for youth theater and pro am theater and, you know, at a low level in West Australia. And I played cabaret, piano and I wrote all these songs of all different types and I acted and I was in Shakespeare and I played Hamlet and I, you know, so I've always done all this stuff. And actually 2005, when suddenly I got no, I went to the Edinburgh fringe and my career took off. 2006 when I moved to England and by 2011 I was playing with orchestras in arenas through that journey. I also wrote a musical with a friend about the opening of a theater in Western Sydney. I wrote Matilda in 2009 in the middle of all that. And, and, and even during my comedy shows that by the time I reached peak comedy in inverted commas, that show had beauty as a harlot, not perfect. White Wine in the sun, the Fence, which is really a pop song. It's not like it was never. It was never one or the other. It was always everything and then. But Matilda was the thing that reminded me that I don't have to be ironic all the time, that I don't have to And Matthew Watches, who directed that musical that I, I wrote most of matilda in a six week period in 2009 and, and I did that.
- [40:19]
David Duchovny
Feel like a possession.
- [40:21]
Tim Minchin
Oh, just felt like I had to get the work done because my son was due. But I, I wrote a couple of the songs, were very self referential, a bit like, oh, this is like a Les Ms. Piss take. And Matthew went, this is all great. But you, you don't, don't do that, don't do the meta thing. Just, you're good enough to just do the thing thing. Do the, do the core thing. Not the thing, not this thing that we all do now the matter on the matter on the meta. The post, post, post modern winking. And, and, and once that landed and became the success it became, I went, oh, I'm, I'm a storyteller, I thought I was. And now I have some confidence. You know, I'm in my 30s by now and. And so when I came back to Australia after spending time in LA on a project that didn't get up and, and sort of feeling a bit broken and broken hearted, I got offered this inco, sort of embryonic idea of a show. A guy going across the desert with a piano and a, and a latchkey kid. And it was going to be like a funny, you know, odd couple comedy. And I went, I think this has huge, this can carry huge weight, this story, if we want it to. Let's tell a more human story. I was in the mood and so with my co writers we created this thing which I don't know if you're at the end of season one, but it punches you. Print punches you pretty hard in the face.
- [41:46]
David Duchovny
So the, the idea, the Journey idea was brought to you. It wasn't something that you came up with?
- [41:51]
Tim Minchin
No, not my idea. Chris Taylor's idea. Yeah. Yeah. But then I became a producer on it and, and sort of the lead writer and I was, it was a huge thing for me. And then. But, but also before that I wrote Groundhog Day, which is really, I mean the musical is very different from the movie, even though it's all the same structure. And you saw that. I mean it really, that, that says everything I want to say. It's very Vonnegut. You know, the conclusion he draws is, I'm here and I'm fine and I'm seeing you for the first time. That's the closing song of Groundhog Day is this, this folksy, cute, tiny conclusion for a guy who has learned all the wisdom in the world and it, and the reason I wrote that line is probably because I read Vonnegut saying. So it goes. The most profound things. The most profound things uttered about acceptance, you know, and. And just sort of being with a moment. And I tried to write that into Groundhog Day. So I guess what I'm saying is my capacity to take myself. I was gonna say seriously, but sincerely.
- [42:59]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [43:00]
Tim Minchin
Was all always there, always growing. As my confidence as a storyteller grew, it really. It was confidence. I'm like, I don't always have to take the piss out of myself. I'm allowed to just see it and say it. I have a way with words and. And that's been the. The long, slow, incremental story of my. Of my career.
- [43:18]
David Duchovny
I think it's. It's almost like a simplifying in a way. Simplifying.
- [43:23]
Tim Minchin
Don't you think that's what aging is a bit?
- [43:25]
David Duchovny
Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Do you think that. That your experience with Outback was that the name of the.
- [43:31]
Tim Minchin
I was called Larrikins, actually. Yeah. What would the Larrikins. Yeah.
- [43:38]
David Duchovny
That opened you up just. Just in terms of like putting four years of your life into something that doesn't have an end result or doesn't have something that you can share necessarily with people. That was. That enough of a heartbreak for you to go. I'm just going to go. Often do something small and simple.
- [43:55]
Tim Minchin
I think that's. That's a version of it. I mean, it made me really chippy.
- [43:59]
David Duchovny
It made me.
- [44:00]
Tim Minchin
It made me. It put edges on me that took a couple of years to fall off. I felt very like with.
- [44:09]
David Duchovny
Can you just. Can you just say exactly in three senses.
- [44:14]
Tim Minchin
I was co writing with my friend Harry Cripser and like Lion King, Oz, like this huge dreamworks film that was a rollicking across the country adventure. Like Upright ended up being with singing animals, kangaroo and a Bilby, which is a little hopping thing. And it was about bravery and about a boy who's too scared and ends up saving the outback. And it's an epic sort of Wagnerian, but very funny rock and roll musical. All original songs. You know, Hugh Jackman and Naomi Watts and Margot Robbie and Ben Mendelsohn and, you know, Damon Harriman. Everyone was in it. And we. Hans Zimmer was helping me with the music and we went. And then about a year in, they said, do you want to direct it? And so I moved my family to LA and co directed this film for. For four years. Three years and four years actually do.
- [45:05]
David Duchovny
The animation was being done yeah.
- [45:07]
Tim Minchin
Oh, yeah, we were. We were. We were 75% through in time.
- [45:12]
David Duchovny
75%, yeah.
- [45:13]
Tim Minchin
And probably 50% done in terms of the work, but 75% done in terms of the time it would take. And there's fully lit 3D animated sequences sitting on a hard drive somewhere. Like, it was so cool. And I really think it would have been a massive hit, but it was quite different. A little bit like, rollicking, and it just wasn't anything like what else was coming out at the time that was Frozen coming out and blah, blah. And the studio got bought and they just kind of went through all the projects and went, is that a certain hit? No, it's nothing like Frozen, you know, like, it's. I think that's. I mean, I'm sure people thought really hard about it, and I'm sure they had dark nights of the soul before they unemployed 100 people, whatever. Like, But. But they just. In the end, they wrote it off as a. As a. As a tax write off against the. The purchase of the studio and just sent me an email while I was in Budapest filming that famously successful Robin hood movie of 2016. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [46:16]
David Duchovny
Well, that's.
- [46:16]
Tim Minchin
Although there was a three punch as well, because Groundhog Day closed on Broadway that year, and that was actually the worst punch that I talk about. Less.
- [46:25]
David Duchovny
But, yeah, that was the worst.
- [46:27]
Tim Minchin
Oh, yeah, yeah. Groundhog Day not succeeding on Broadway and the politics that went around that. There's even a bit of Scott Rudin in that story. Yay. That. That was very painful.
- [46:43]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [46:44]
Tim Minchin
But, you know, you don't get to have hit, hit, hit, hit, hit. I'd had a lot of.
- [46:47]
David Duchovny
No, you don't get to. But I, you know, we nominally talk about failure on the podcast, and it's like, you know, what. What is failure in that sense? What are you supposed to learn? My lesson is like, oh, the work wasn't. Yeah.
- [47:03]
Tim Minchin
And you want to be able to take a note. You want to be able to take a note.
- [47:06]
David Duchovny
Right, right.
- [47:08]
Tim Minchin
But as an actor, you. You're like, you got to take a note. You'll feel defensive, but take the note.
- [47:13]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [47:13]
Tim Minchin
And maybe I should have. And I tried. I was like, okay, where did I go wrong? And I could speak to, you know, maybe I didn't lather up the right people or. And maybe, though the work wasn't good enough or wasn't compromising enough or.
- [47:27]
David Duchovny
Yeah, but it seems to me that from childhood you've been a person that has a sense that what you do, it has merit and it's what you do. It's not what you're getting. Although you do like collaborating. That's cool.
- [47:39]
Tim Minchin
I love collaborating and.
- [47:41]
David Duchovny
But I am. It's that unspoken sense of. And I share it, I have to say. And, and I, I always feel like it's going to sound egotistical. Like when I first started coming out to LA and auditioning, I didn't get like the first 80 things I went up for. I, I didn't like failing, but I also knew I'm doing something, somebody's going to get it, somebody's going to get it. Somebody's going to get it eventually.
- [48:05]
Tim Minchin
Yeah. Interesting.
- [48:06]
David Duchovny
And there is something. There's some spot between learning from failure and adjusting, but also not learning from failure. Could be somebody's strengths is.
- [48:17]
Tim Minchin
So. That is beautifully articulated and very hard to get right. I think the. As I've got more powerful I've been, you know, I'm usually the person that people are asking the questions of not telling. I have. One of the hardest things is who do I listen to? Even with comedy, you know, because I'm not a. Wasn't a comedy fan. I just made up my genre. It felt to me with lots of amazing influences and stuff. But I, you know. Do you listen to critics who hate your comedy? Do you listen to some director who, who. I mean, my strength and weakness is I'm very good at expressing my thoughts about things. And when I have someone who's a studio head or something and they're like, I don't like that. And I'm like, okay, use your words. Like, you're gonna have to convince me. And they're like, it's not funny. And I'm like, well, you're gonna have to do better than that. And that's not really fair because not everyone uses. Not everyone. That's not everyone's strengths. Sometimes someone's strength is just like putting their finger on a thing and having the power to assert it, you know?
- [49:23]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [49:23]
Tim Minchin
So I'm really bad at that. I'm really bad at received authority and that, that I, I really. If I don't care who you are, whether you're the janitor or the head of the studio, I'd love to hear your ideas and you've got to express them.
- [49:35]
David Duchovny
Well. It reminds me. It reminds me when I. When I've had test screenings of movies that I've written and directed and the good advice that I got was from the guy who create, you know, who does these test screenings. They have put the guys who put them together Was the audience isn't going to give you any fix. They're not going to tell you how to fix it. But. But there's going to be certain areas that a lot of people are going to want to talk about, both good and bad, and those are the areas that you should look at. Like the, like if. If there's part of the show or your work or the movie that's. That's attracting a lot of energy, that's probably where you should look. There's probably a link there that you should be looking at. That's. That's how I look at it. And they're. They're not going to give you the fix, although they try sometimes.
- [50:20]
Tim Minchin
People say, yeah, I know, but you've got to try.
- [50:21]
David Duchovny
Why don't you have them look in the mirror? You know, that's usually one.
- [50:24]
Tim Minchin
Yeah, yeah.
- [50:25]
David Duchovny
He doesn't like what he sees.
- [50:26]
Tim Minchin
Yeah, right. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. But. But look, just because I do have to catch a plane.
- [50:32]
David Duchovny
I know. Get out of here.
- [50:33]
Tim Minchin
I just want to get. I just want to give you. You know, you can delete this bit if it's too tying it up in a string. But, yeah, I was really battered by the time I moved back to Australia, and I didn't move back with my tail between my legs. We were always going to move to Australia in that year. But I came back feeling angry at how I'd been treated and, And I. And of course I have overactive metacognition. So then I'm angry at myself for being angry. I'm like, you spoiled bitch. Like, you've had everything given to you and now you've just lost a couple of things and now you're having a big old strop. And then meta. Metacognition, you know, like me just a mess of, like, not letting myself feel the feelings and. But feeling the feelings. And the only thing that. The only way you can understand failure or hitting hurdles or stumbles or grief is from a distance. Unfortunately, I don't think my learning, if I have any, is that I don't think you get to skip forward and go, oh, well, in four years I won't care so much. So what I'll do is apply that knowledge now and I won't care so much now just doesn't work like that because you can't yet see what beat in the story. It was right. So for me, Larrikins will always be sad. And I listened to the songs the other day. I'm just like, this is unbearable. This is so good. But But I now can put it in the context. I came home, I wrote upright, I poured my sense of failure and into that character. And the character says at the end what I learned, which is sometimes that your mistakes make something. Oh, and I ruined the end for you. But, like, like, like, I can hear it, please. He's trying to. He's trying to manage his. He says sometimes he's talking about the piano to this young kid, and he says, don't worry about when you make mistakes, because sometimes when you make mistakes, every now and then, it will make something beautiful, you know, And. And so I put my learning and my anger into that show. And that in turn helped me grow into something else. And now I can look back and go, well, I'm in the universe where Larrikins got shut down. And that because I live in a deterministic universe, beget a whole lot of other stuff. And I would not be talking to you now if Larrikins. Everything that has happened since is a result of that moment. That's the universe I'm living in. And I now have some perspective about how that played out in my story. And that's all I know about that.
- [53:03]
David Duchovny
And so it goes.
- [53:04]
Tim Minchin
And so the fuck it goes.
- [53:21]
David Duchovny
Hey, some post.
- [53:23]
Unknown
Tim mentioned stuff to just speak further on the, The. The conversation, you know, Tim is. Is somebody who has dive deeply into his own privilege, the sense of his own privilege, questioning his biases constantly, his a prioris, you know, his givens. And that's an active, intellectual, moral life, as far as I can see it. He's striving to see the world as clearly as he can. And to see the world clearly, you have to question the lenses that you've been given, the lenses that you take for granted.
- [54:06]
David Duchovny
And I think that's the scientific state.
- [54:08]
Unknown
Of mind that Tim brings to art, that Tim brings to his life. And I really respect that. It's rigorous. It's tough to get up every morning and go, what have I been taking for granted?
- [54:28]
David Duchovny
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 on interviews with guests like Chris Carter and Emily Deschanel. 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 Fail Better is production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zema Ariabraci and Donnie Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of weekly is Steve Nelson. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Kopinski, Brad Davidson and Jonathan Smith. 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 Duchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen. Ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership.
- [55:49]
Maya Shankar
Hi, I'm Erica Mahoney. You don't know me, but you know a version of my story. Because by now we've all felt the impact of senseless gun violence.
- [55:58]
Tim Minchin
I think a stray bullet flew past.
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David Duchovny
Me because I hear the it was.
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Tim Minchin
That horrible feeling of dread. Something's wrong.
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Maya Shankar
Four years ago, my dad was killed in a mass shooting. My podcast Senseless is about moving forward after the unthinkable Senseless from Lemonada Media, premiering June 17.